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Critical Corrosion of American Military, Pt. 1
We are hollowing out our military again, placing Americans in danger, both those in uniform and the civilian population. In the 1970s, the military was wracked by equipment, training, and personnel problems. After two decades of not-so-small wars, the American military again faces equipment, training and personnel problems, with a new twist. The latest United States Service Academy (West Point) cheating scandal is one manifestation of a 21st Century personnel problem, created by senior leaders embracing critical race theory, a leftist assault on our Constitution and institutions. This leftist assault, embraced by elites, civilian and military, weakens the foundations of integrity and trust in our military at every level.
From January 2021 onward, the American military has shown very troubling signs of accelerated politicization, with attendant concerns about weakness in the face of a resurgent threat environment. This is more than a single post, so I will start with the “so what,” with why it really matters if our military becomes like a socialist military, with political commissars enforcing party doctrine as national interest. I will then briefly outline how training and practice of the military-styled “Equal Opportunity” changed over the decades. Finally, we will take a look at the case of critical corrosion at West Point, the United States Military Academy.
POLITICAL MILITARIES UNDERPERFORM
What we now face is the prospect of a force that is rendered dishonest, distrustful, and deficient in tactical, operational, and strategic competence. We may still brandish a handful of exquisitely crafted and extraordinarily expensive ships, planes, and mechanized arms. We may field the very best AI, networks, and drones. And. We will be disastrously over-matched if we allow a leftist revolution in military personnel affairs to unilaterally disarm our greatest weapons: our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.
To illustrate the problem America now faces, consider two vignettes, one from West Germany in the late 1980s and the other from South Korea in 1991. In both cases, we see U.S. Army forces at the peak of their competency, thanks to a training and fighting doctrine that channeled and rewarded risk-taking in the pursuit of victory. At the same time, we see allied forces with the most modern equipment, wealthy, educated societies, and decades of observing the way we train and fight. Yet, in both cases, there were severe mismatches in tactical performance.
As NATO partners, US and West German forces periodically trained together, from observing each others’ gunnery exercises to map board exercises of war plans. Fellow officers came back from inside a very large simulated campaign with disturbing reports. Our doctrine, training, and equipment assumed that we would overcome vastly superior enemy numbers with a kind of nimble maneuver that allows a smaller force to concentrate at particular times and places to overmatch the enemy then and there. Yet, as the game played out and the West German forces needed to give up German soil to set up conditions for counterattack, our counter-parts suddenly became upset and insisted that the game must be stopped.
Why? Because, they asserted, the West German Army plans beyond that point were classified above a level that they could share with us. The not-so-secret big secret, we surmised, was that the Germans would seek a negotiated surrender rather than expose their population to modern ground combat. To put it plainly, the Germans were determined that they defend every inch of West German soil to the last American GI. Die in place defending the first few kilometers and win or…. Our German peers could not bring themselves to play out the possibilities, even as an intellectual exercise.
In 1991, as CNN offered a massive video game war, with color commentary, from the Kuwaiti desert, US and South Korean (ROK) forces headed into their big annual maneuver exercise, tanks and infantry formations doing the elaborate dance they did every year. Referees made rulings at each meeting point as to which force must retreat or advance, with casualties assessed. This was the Korean’s home soil, on which their Army officers had trained their entire adult lives. And yet, we were overwhelming them with our ability, at the lowest level, to grab opportunities to advance. Then it got ugly.
Reports came in to headquarters of our tank crews’ eyes being dazzled by ROK tank crews firing their range-finding lasers into our vision blocks, armored periscopes that let crews inside “buttoned-up” tanks see where they are going. Their leaders were insisting that the game was supposed to be on a schedule and that we were playing ahead of the script. Yet, they had decades of officers attending our doctrinal schools and our maneuvers, they should have been able to recognize how we would fight and plan accordingly. The ROK leadership, top to bottom, were focused on not losing face before their public and the Korean political leadership. Domestic politics and face mattered most.
Both of these vignettes occurred at the absolute peaks of military preparedness. The West German and ROK armies were being the best they could be, and yet were hamstrung by domestic politics and culture. So, how do you think U.S. forces will do if domestic politics and cultural imperatives outweigh a system of training to fight focused on mutual trust and risk-taking underwritten by leaders?
PERSONNEL POLICY FROM HOLLOW FORCE TO PEERLESS POWER (AND BACK?)
In the 1970s, after we withdrew from Vietnam, and again in the 1990s, when our elected leaders rushed to spend more on domestic programs in the name of cashing the [Cold War] “peace dividend,” our military was said to be a “hollow force.”
The term “hollow force” was initially used in the late 1970s and subsequently in the 1990s to characterize military forces that appeared mission-ready but upon examination, suffered from shortages of personnel, equipment, and maintenance or from deficiencies in training.
1970s
In the 1970s, the American military transitioned from a draft force to the All Volunteer Force. The Army, naturally faced the largest challenges to readiness on the manning and training sides, as it has the most manpower relative to expensive equipment. Vietnam War-era policy had career officers punching their tickets in Vietnam, while sergeants, the backbone of the force, were chewed up in repeated tours. This meant that the soldiers who entered under the new professional volunteer system lacked the firm, experienced guidance of a solid non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps. It took over a decade to fix this, to regrow the backbone of the Army.
I will write separately about the reforms in strategy, driving new training, and new equipment. The human element, the people expected to operate together, compounded the issues of worn, short, or outdated equipment, as well as the ability to effectively train. At the same time, an army mostly in garrison starts degenerating into a force focused on inspections and risk adverse behavior. Add to this the poison of racial tension.
Senior leadership had only grudgingly responded to that mere National Guard artillery captain, that accidental president, Harry Truman, when he ordered desegregation of the military. As a result, when the civil rights movement shifted from peaceful to militant and violent protest, in the wake of Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination, the military was still struggling through treating black service members as peers of their white counterparts. With the end of the draft, the force was going to have to create an environment in which people of every ethnicity could work and live together.
The first attempt went poorly, with Race Relations training that degenerated into blame and racial group reinforcement. This was due to the design of the Defense Race Relations Institute framework, focused on a “critique of whiteness as a nexus of racialized power.” Combine this with a hollowed-out middle, from first-line supervisors through senior enlisted advisers, and you had a recipe for readiness disaster.
The DRRI based large sections of its curriculum around the teachings of White “anti-racist” educator Robert Terry. Terry, whose 1970 book “For Whites Only” was assigned by the DRRI, taught militant Black separatist ideas to White audiences.
[ . . . ]
Terry’s philosophy of “New White Consciousness,” explicitly advocated by DRRI, included the notion that “None of us [White people] escapes being racist in American society.” To Terry and his intellectual followers, all White people were racist by this idiosyncratic definition and the best a White person could be was an “anti-racist racist.”
1980s
The addition of women to the regular force, no longer segregated in all-female units or severely limited in assignments, created the need to rethink Equal Opportunity and the opportunity to eliminate the separate Race Relations program. Lessons learned from the mistakes of the Defense Race Relations Institute were incorporated in a better Defense Equal Opportunity system, intended to get away from divisive training sessions and blame assignment by focusing on behavior rather than attitudes. This new program, across all services, was promulgated by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, starting in the 1980s.
The DEOMI model focused on outward behavior, rather than what you might be thinking or what you were raised to believe. Instead of assigning villain and victim status, or assigning guilt, the new program purported to improve people’s ability to function together with people from many different backgrounds. No, this did not fundamentally transform military members, but that was not the goal. Every commander at the brigade level and above was required to have a DEOMI school trained Equal Opportunity Advisor to advise leaders on “command climate,” to track the commander’s EO program, and to properly support informal and formal EO complaint investigations.
2004
In 2003, we engaged in a massive mobilization of forces to invade and remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. As the Battle for Baghdad ended and forces started settling into bases and outposts, provost martial (law enforcement) military police showed up. Why? As the MP lieutenant colonel brief our group commander “10,000 is a small town, and small towns have crime.” A certain percentage of any population is going to be inclined to criminal behavior. Increase your population enough and you guarantee criminal conduct will at least be attempted. So, we should hardly be surprised, with over 100,000 troops in a region for a year and more, there would be those inclined to rape. If rape outside “the wire” was too scary a proposition, the targets would shift from civilians to other military members.
So, there was a real level of sexual assault, as well as piggish behavior (sexual harassment). AND. After September 11, 2001 there was almost immediate leftist political opposition to a Republican president and the United States military being treated as good and noble. Think of Hollywood’s immediate response, generating anti-American military screeds rather than rallying around the troops. So, how better to take Bush, the brass, and the troops down a notch than to brand them enablers of the rape of noble servicewomen who were the victims of servicemen.
The bipartisan response of Congress, following sexual assault hearings in 2004 was to demand an annual accounting of the conduct of the Department of Defense on preventing and prosecuting sexual assault. The military leadership saluted smartly, following the Constitutional requirement to comply with Congress’s directions on the training and regulation of the military. Their answer was, unsurprisingly, a formal program: Sexual Harassment/Assault Response Program (SHARP). This program generated its own data, its own training and staffing requirements, and so carved out a piece of the EO human relations pie.
2010-
With fewer deployments, and no immediate existential military threat, the Army falls back into garrison mode, with “zero defect” attitudes and risk avoidance. This time, the left finally made real inroads on the last institutions that were supposedly resistant and sources of opposition in our society. Formerly faithful Christian churches fell to the spirit of the age, and senior military leaders supported the same agenda as the big business and cultural elites, cramming this down on a force disproportionately made up of “deplorable” “bitter clingers,” men and women of every ethnicity. AND they had the excuse of needing to recruit and retain Millennial and Gen Y troops, just like the corporate suits were claiming.
Long before, in the 1990s, a serious scholar of military culture rebuked her feminist academic colleagues as uninformed, when they wrote about changing the military and then society through infiltration. She asserted that military culture both resisted change and efficiently converted those who joined and wished to advance through the ranks. At the same time, likely unknown to her, there were already senior general officers warring on the “bitter clingers,” the strong cadre of observant Christian service members. They sought to marginalize and eliminate the influence of the Chaplain corps.
I personally witnessed one such battle at a major post with a corps headquarters. The Chief of Chaplains had to sent a bureaucratic warrior chaplain to defend the chaplaincy and gradually defeat the corps commander’s attacks. This happened under a Republican Commander in Chief. This was a sign of a senior leader getting a bit too far out on the edge of the business and cultural elite, but we saw the fight between the Chamber of Commerce wing of the GOP and the “Religious Right” all the way back to the 1970s. Rush Limbaugh, in the George W. Bush era, was telling his audience about business leaders sidling up to him on the golf course and complaining “we need to get rid of those religious nuts.”
In the context of changing American elite attitudes and beliefs, American military elites could be expected to incorporate those attitudes and beliefs in personnel policy and practice. If our military is actually subordinate to civilian leadership, under the Constitution, then we should expect ideas supported by Congress to be embraced by the military. After all, Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution provides that:
Congress shall have the power . . . To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
At the same time, the President has constitutional leadership over the military services. The president exercises discretion within law and the Constitution, especially as laws are loosely written, purporting to grant discretion to agencies. So, when the Department of Justice, with its civil rights division, pursues policies shaped by critical theory, senior civilians and uniformed senior personnel are going to shift their personnel policies as well.
In addition, US military leaders all come up through the American education system, and realize they are going to need the real approval of the Senate if they want to rise to flag rank (general and admiral ranks). So, we should hardly be surprised to find senior military leaders lining up and mouthing all the politically correct lines. Indeed, we should be shocked if generals and admirals claimed to stand apart from American society. Yes, there are great divisions in American society, but how do you imagine a federal military leadership would not track attitudes and beliefs of their larger institutional environment?
EO training took on a critical theory flavor. Through the Obama administration, you would think there was an epidemic of sexual assault in the military, from the way it was emphasized in the media, Congress, and the military hierarchy. The Supreme Court’s declaration of same-sex marriage provided pretext for direct assault on any chaplain and service member who did not acknowledge Caesar as Lord. Diversity training shifted back into focus on fragmented identities. The false narratives of a campus rape epidemic was fed into the military community.
Critical race theory became so accepted in senior leadership that the top non-commissioned officer in the Air Force felt perfectly safe in June of 2020, when he used his Facebook page to spew a BLM screed, complete with accepted lies about false martyrs of supposed racist killer cops.
This top airman not only acted, but then was not corrected by the top uniformed leader, let alone the two layers of supposed civilian leadership between him and President Trump. The incoming Chief of the Air Force, the first black officer to hold that office, offered a more measured response, yet he supported creating a double standard, a more lenient set of disciplinary rules for black airmen. This more lenient set of rules, cloaked in talk of fairness and cultural understanding, puts every leader in jeopardy if they dare apply the Uniform Code of Military Justice as written, as approved by Congress. In short, justice and so the entirety of “integrity,” is perverted on orders from the top Department of Defense ranks. See “Our Unreliable Senior Military Leaders.”
“SOCIAL JUSTICE” UNDERMINES INTEGRITY
So, it should be no surprise that West Point sank deeper into the swamp after the 2020 election. They were already in the muck, if you consider the 2013 assault on the opponents of the Obama regime in “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right.”* West Point leaders were back at it in 2019, reinforcing the Democrats and RepubliCan’t lies about President Trump and Ukraine in “The Nexus Between Far-Right Extremists in the United States and Ukraine.” There is not one publication from West Point that tells the truth: that the left is the center of violence in this country, as it was in the 1960s-1970s. Here is how they pretend objectivity in “Terrorism and Counterterrorism Challenges for the Biden Administration:”
Fifty years ago, at a similarly profoundly unsettled time in U.S. history, the country was indeed worse. Throughout 1970, for instance, politically motivated bombings, arson, and other attacks were in fact a daily occurrence. Moreover, in contrast to the mostly disorganized and uncoordinated violence that has occurred over the past months in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, and other cities, the 1970s variant was planned and premeditated—orchestrated by a bewildering array of actual, identifiable domestic terrorist organizations. The nearly 500 terrorist incidents collected by the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database for 1970 alone were perpetrated primarily by left-wing terrorists in groups like the Weather Underground, the Jonathan Jackson Brigade, and the Revolutionary Armed Task Force; militant black nationalists in organizations like the Black Liberation Army and Black Panthers; Latinx extremists belonging to the Chicano Liberation Front; anti-Castro Cuban exiles such as Cuban Action; Puerto Rican Independistas in groups like the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacíon Nacional; and longstanding white supremacist movements such as the Ku Klux Klan.65 With the exception of the Cuban groups and Ku Klux Klan, however, radical, left-wing revolutionary terrorism predominated. Today, the situation is reversed with violent, far-right extremism posing the greatest terrorist threat in the United States.
This is not to imply that there have not been highly disturbing incidents of violence committed by persons associated or affiliated with or claiming allegiance to a variety of causes that have been championed by self-described antifa members or anarchists or Black Lives Matter activists. The torching of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct building in May 2020 is one especially disquieting example. As were the fires set in downtown Washington, D.C., near the White House, at the AFL-CIO headquarters and in the basement of the historic St John’s Episcopal Church that same month.66 But, to date, incidents that might be defined as bona fide acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by far-left extremists have been few. Most notably, there was the murder of a pro-Trump demonstrator in Portland by a gunman claiming self-defense, but whom then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr described as an “admitted antifa member” (who was then killed by law enforcement officers while trying to arrest him).67
The evidence of any kind of coordinated, much less concerted, campaign of domestic terrorism from antifa, anarchists, or Black Lives Matter, either in this case or indeed others, however, are scant.
It may be even worse. It appears that the West Point Command Sergeant Major, the senior enlisted advisor, used Twitter and possibly Facebook to attack two sitting members of Congress and the Commander in Chief, President Trump, before the Biden-Harris inauguration. He will most certainly not face any negative consequences, assuming it was his account. It is also worth noting that this is an infantryman who made it to the top politically and with the assignments you have been led to believe signify conservatism. Command Sergeant Major Coffey’s biography reads in part:
His previous assignments include the 75th Ranger Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, and 4th Brigade, 101st Airborne Division.
His most recent assignments include CSM 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, CSM 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, CSM Operations Group, National Training Center and CSM 3rd Infantry Division.
CSM Coffey has deployments in support of Operation Uphold Democracy, Operation Safe Haven, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.
[. . .]
His awards and decorations include the . . . Bronze Star Medal . . . Armed Forces Expeditionary Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Iraqi Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal . . . .
When the leaders at the U.S. Military Academy are shading the truth what would you expect of the students, the cadets?
West Point code falls to “social justice:”
Aspire, The West Point Admission Blog, has a page laying out the Cadet Honor Code and its purpose. So, it is no surprise for cadets and parents.
The Cadet Honor Code states, “A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” Abiding by the Honor Code develops Cadets’ character by focusing their attention on the ethical aspects of every situation. This attuned focus equips Cadets to recognize and then to “choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong” whenever faced with a difficult decision.
Most people are honest most of the time. The Honor Code helps Cadets develop into people who are honest all of the time. Over their years at West Point, Cadets’ daily adherence to the Honor Code—on decisions big and small—forges strong habits of trustworthy character.
[ . . . ]
The Cadet Honor Code has been a part of West Point for centuries. It emerged in the 1800’s from grass-roots efforts by Cadets to establish and enforce a code of honesty in their ranks. It was formalized in the 1920’s with the creation of the Cadet Honor Committee.
[ . . . ]
Cadets who are found to have violated their Honor Code may be separated from the Academy, may have their graduation postponed for up to a year, or may be permitted to graduate on time with their classmates, depending on the circumstances of their action. The Cadets who are retained are enrolled in a special leader development program that helps them identify and correct their character shortcoming.
Despite its demands, living under the Cadet Honor Code is very rewarding for Cadets. Others take Cadets at their word, and they enjoy a trustworthy barracks environment, an honorable reputation, and the internal satisfaction of living with integrity.
An academic paper by a cadet captain explored all the service academies’ honor codes, focusing on the non-tolerance clause. He concluded with the larger stakes, stakes which the senior leaders who are fully retirement eligible, who have stars on their shoulders already, should not have such a hard time fully internalizing:
If individual cadets and midshipman leave their academies without a commitment to the principle of professional responsibility, then they are leaving unprepared to assume their commission and responsibilities for military service. Maintaining, promoting and enforcing ethical standards is one of the key components that makes our service a profession. The American people expect a military to defend the nation according to the democratic principles of our founding. They expect the profession of arms to regulate itself. To train an officer corps committed to professional responsibility, service academies must develop an Honor System that inculcates the value of non-toleration.
Every USMA cadet learns the United States Military Academy mission statement, as every leader in the Army is expected to know and understand the unit mission
“The mission of the United States Military Academy is to produce leaders of character. The Cadet Honor Code provides the foundation for character development at West Point. The ideals affirmed in the Honor Code attract to West Point young men and women who aspire “to live above the common level of life.” The unyielding requirements of the Code instruct, motivate, and ultimately shape Cadets during their years at the Academy. Most importantly, effects of the Code continue to guide and inspire graduates during their years of military service and beyond. More than any other aspect of West Point, the Honor Code unites the “Long Gray Line” of Cadets and graduates by expressing their shared commitments to personal integrity and professional responsibility.” (Paragraph 1-1 in USCC PAM 15-1)
Cheating will happen. West Point expelled or accepted the resignations of 90 cadets, including 30 members of the football team in 1951. In 1976, 153 cadets at West Point resigned or were expelled following massive cheating on a tough engineering test. So, there is a history of occasional large-scale cheating and of large-scale expulsion. This places the 2020 West Point cheating scandal in an institutional context. Football players were again involved. Seventy cadets were implicated this time.
AND. This time the Academy and Army leadership, barely concealing their contempt for the Commander in Chief and his voters, brought critical race theory to West Point, asserting that the existing rules and procedures were having a disproportionate impact on certain cadets, carefully unspecified, apparently among the 24 West Point football players caught cheating.
Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, the superintendent, in an Oct. 23 memo, wrote to the faculty that the policy “has resulted in an inequitable application of consequences and developmental opportunities for select groups of cadets.” USA TODAY obtained a copy of the memo.
Under the suspended policy, most of the cadets would not have been eligible to play after Nov. 30, the date they were found in violation of the honor code, Ophardt said. The academy is not naming the cadets. Their punishment will be finalized in January.
So, despite the Superintendent’s later letter about the cheating scandal, these cheaters were treated quite differently than in the past, to the advantage of the football team’s playoff plans and in accordance with a very different sense of “honor.” The lesson taught and approved by the beribboned constellation of Army stars above these officers in training, all the way up to the Secretary of Defense, is that integrity is secondary to equity. Bluntly, if you are a white football player or soccer player, make sure you have a black teammate as your cheating buddy. Further, expectation of integrity is situational:
The global pandemic disrupted our developmental process. In an instant, our tried and tested leadership model was interrupted and for a short time the Corps was dispersed to 4400 locations around the world. In this environment our Cadets were void of those critical developmental engagements in the barracks, in the classrooms, and on the athletic fields that help them understand themselves and increase their commitment to the West Point and Army values. Our plebes are the most vulnerable to the effects of losing the inspiration and accountability of an in person cohesive team.
Think back to the cadet captain’s explanation of why zero tolerance for honor code violations matters in the real world of military service. These calculus cheaters are going to have daily, weekly, monthly, and annual opportunities to shade the truth or outright lie in their own favor. Sometimes they will be almost entirely unobserved, perhaps at a keyboard entering official readiness data. The pressure will be to look good for their boss and to not report bad news.
What has the entire Army just been taught, as this scandal played out nationally? Trust depends on honor and integrity. The American military’s ability to prevail even when outnumbered requires trustworthy initiative exercised at every level of the force.
More later on the critical corrosion, military elite attitudes, and past successful reform in the Army.
* West Point on “Right Wing Extremism”
Published in Military
Thank you Clifford. I was an enlistee in 1978 and saw the last of the VN era bad actors ride off into the sunset. By the time I was commissioned in 1982 everything had indeed changed and would continue to do so. I wonder how much of an effect losing the cadre of leaders that witnessed the disasters of the VN era has had on current leadership. There is no valid reason to repeat the failures of the past but it sure looks like that’s where we are headed.
This is, another strong argument that the Republic is in its last days. The Military cannot be trusted to guard liberty and freedom anymore than the People’s Republican Army in China.
Thanks for the great post, Clifford. I enlisted in 1986 and thankfully knew nothing of the DRRI or Robert Terry. Appears we have been down this road before, then. One of the more depressing developments lately has been the increasing willingness of retired senior flag officers to publicly weigh in on political issues.
And they all lean one way.
Yeah. Joined the AF Reserve in 1978. Went Active duty in 1983.
Went from Vietnam era, “managers” to “leaders and warriors”.
By the time I left in 1990 the AF was ready to fight anyone, anywhere, and win.
When I was in AFROTC we spent a great deal of time reading Kissinger policy essays. If you think listening to Kissinger can induce MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) try reading his essays. They were laying the groundwork for junior officers to give in-depth interviews to the media.
The best interview I have ever seen was one given by an officer in the Marine Corp that was getting ready to lead his unit to clean out Fallujah. A CNN reporter asked what options the Iraqi insurgents had. He said they can surrender, or they can die. A short reply that was simple yet elegant.
I remember an in-service training seminar when I was a police officer on hostile work environments. Woke seminars have been infiltrating every aspect of life in America for decades. I told the consultant when roll call ends, and I leave the precinct garage my work environment becomes hostile. She didn’t laugh, she didn’t appreciate my sense of humor.
Great post Colonel; even though it’s a bit depressing.
As a 19 year old in Vietnam, I suppose I was too young (and stupid) to fully comprehend all that was going on at the time. However, from my time at Corps G2/3 and limited field duty, I could see that things just didn’t add up. (I didn’t fully understand until years later after I had completed undergrad and grad studies.) We had a large segment of our Army fighting a guerilla war in Asia while the bulk of our forces were sitting in the Fulda Gap and just off the 38th parallel in Korea ready to fight a conventional war. “The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time and with the wrong enemy”. As I noted in my post of last year, Omar Bradley may have been talking about Korea but that phrase could just as easily applied to Vietnam. The war did, indeed, chew up a generation of NCOs. Officers would rotate out of the line after 6 months but the NCOs would be there for the entire 12. We did lose several battalion commanders when I was there; including Terry Allen Jr, son of the famed WWII general.
That story about the Germans really rang true. Each time my unit deployed there for an exercise, I had to prearrange the HF frequencies I would be communicating on. The Germans would give us a grand total of two frequencies we could use. If they were no good for the period I needed them we were just out of luck. Fortunately, I was never on an exercise with Germans, when they showed up with wooden rifles.
The political situation now, both at the academies and the active duty force, is untenable. As you pointed out so well, it has infected both the officer and enlisted cadre. It may very well be that the only event that would shake up the situation is a war with heavy casualties. However, it is highly possible that a war of this nature would leave us nothing to fight with.
@cliffordbrown. Another great post, but let me offer a style suggestion. Simply start the post: “We’re screwed! (Details follow)”
Wow Colonel Brown, nicely done. I was present from the 80s onward but was clearly sheltered due to my assignment in SF. That is a lot to think about. We always think it’s new but as the Bible states “nothing new under the sun.”
Even then, though, the AF was hemorrhaging pilots and then after Desert Storm stupidly ran off even more of them. The post 9/11 legacy airline troubles prevented another surge in resignations but here we are again, short of pilots and leadership acting like they don’t know how it happened.
And, you don’t even want to know what their solutions will be.
https://www.airforcemag.com/wills-quality-will-bring-acceptance-of-new-method-pilot-graduates/
Very thorough and enlightening. Thanks, Clifford.
” To put it plainly, the Germans were determined that they defend every inch of West German soil to the last American GI. Die in place defending the first few kilometers and win or…. Our German peers could not bring themselves to play out the possibilities, even as an intellectual exercise.” This comment in your post caught my eye – so what you are saying is that Germany is dependent on US to defend, and in war games, their soldiers are willing to show the white flag if there are no US military left? That is a strong and startling statement – what year is this conclusion from?
Trump tried to prod the Europeans to get some backbone, pay up for support and strengthen their own resources. I think they did. Now we’re back to Obama’s third term. What is your interest in West Point specifically? I visited there as a guest one weekend. It was an amazing place – hallowed ground – it’s history. My neighbor’s son is a recent graduate. I feel your and others deep concern for the politically correct, twisted culture infiltrating our armed forces – those that go to the front lines while the rest of the country squawks about the latest grievance on Twitter. I am especially concerned about the Biden administration’s stand down orders while they “screen” our soldiers on their personal, social and political views – it is beyond believable. Then there’s the situation in DC……..
Things are not right at all – and our Founders – George Washington for starters would be appalled. Who, Clifford, is controlling this scenario? I think it’s beyond our borders.
Yes. I can’t comment at length. I have to let my inchoate rage boil down to calm and cool commentary. Right now, I’m about foaming at the mouth.
We know how to win wars. We know how to build a band of brothers that will succeed in accomplishing the mission, whatever the odds.
This isn’t that.
Ah c’mon, Boss. I’m sure the Transgender Brigade will be topnotch.
And there’s the Obama Sexual Orientation Regime. Trust the guy in the next bunk? Nah, he is convinced he’s a lady.
I specified “West Germany in the late 1980’s.” That was when West Germany had over 3,000 main battle tanks that were at least the equals, on that terrain, of our M-1A1 (mechanical and electrical system reliability really matters). We were still bouncing around in Vietnam era infantry vehicles whilst they had entirely fielded a fleet of infantry fighting vehicles with lower profiles than the Bradleys we were fielding.
The post Cold War picture is a whole different discussion, as there is no Warsaw Pact with massive tank armies and aerial armadas poised just on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
Do we? We win battles. We don’t really win wars and haven’t since WWII.
The greatest weakness for the US military is domestic support for a war. When the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started, the American people were enthusiastic supporters. It was only after we demonstrated that we didn’t want to fight to win that support waned. Once our people lose interest or faith in our government’s and our military’s commitment to victory, the war is lost, as we have seen in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Our military is obsessed with precision weapons, fancy drones and whatever else that limit damage to civilians. This is wrong-headed and does much more harm than good in the long run. Why did we have so much trouble getting the Iraqi people to support us? Easy, because the terrorists would kill anyone opposing them, and we would pay anyone we hurt and let the rest do whatever they wanted.
Americans have a long history with total war. Total war is the only moral war. If we have to act so strongly as to mobilize and attack another country then we should have the obligation to fight tooth and nail to win as quickly and as thoroughly as possible or Americans will think it’s a sham and stop their support.
When the American people saw that Gen. Mattis was ordered to pull back from Fallujah they knew the jig was up. We weren’t in it to win. The American people will tolerate almost any number of killed, almost any setbacks to a war, SO LONG AS they believe we are fighting to win.
Instead, we put those wars on a bureaucratic schedule. Units work up, they deploy, they return, they work up, they deploy, they return. There is no impetus to win, and it doesn’t take long for the pattern to get entrenched and become a habit. What risks are worth taking if you’re on that conveyor belt?
We won’t win wars again until we go all in. Units and their personnel must stay engaged until the war is over. The enemy population must be made to pay for allowing the enemy regime to rule them. What other incentive do the Iraqis have to resist Saddam and his wrath if they know we will never hurt them? Pain is a great inspiration, both to spur our generals and senior officers to conduct operations designed to be decisive, and for the enemy population to support us.
Until we return to our tradition of total war, we will never have the domestic support to win again.
Yes, @kozak and @tex929rr, there was a common wave of real reform that took hold about a decade after the end of the Vietnam War. The early 1990s “Peace Dividend” hit every service hard. The senior leaders were out of touch with the young GenX officers and NCOs, and just could not imagine that the best would take the money and run, confident they would soon be leaders in the private sector.
They paid me $40,000 to get out in 1993. It was way too hard to pass up.
AND. This is a bit more complex. We went through the deeply dishonest “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, where the Pentagon frustrated President Clinton and his voters by thwarting his campaign promise to authorize service for homosexuals. Congress passed, and Clinton signed, the Defense Authorization Act of 1994 with Section 571 “Policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces.” Section 571 relaxed the previous prohibition by removing the requirement to ask questions on entry and on clearance investigations, while prohibiting open conduct. DADT said “come in but stay in the closet.” The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010, was passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama in December 2010.
The transgender/ sexual identity move was not by legislation, but rather by Obama’s pen and phone. Nor did McConnell and Lyin’ Ryan use their clear constitutional powers to meet their clear constitutional responsibilities and drive Defense Appropriation legislation with language stopping Obama’s subversion of military deployment medical readiness.
My favorite video from public affairs training for senior staff and commanders is this Australian bit:
The last forty years have seen the huge asset draining operations, at unconceivable levels, occur routinely in the USA.
First we had unwinnable, endless wars, peddled to the public as necessary operations to beat the Commies in Vietnam, and then as a way to protect first Kuwait from Saddam Hussein, and then to protect the Iraqi people from him. (Never mind that back in the 1960’s, our own CIA had installed this dictator to rule over the Iraqi people.)
During this time period, from a financial perspective, the military and defense contractors were among the top two industries, being surpassed only by Big Energy.
Simultaneous with our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2008 economic collapse took place. Some 23 to 32 trillions of dollars were leaked via bailouts, tax write offs and other Wall Street/governmental deals, transferring Main Street’s holdings over to Wall Street.
Now we have transferred our economy from mom and pop businesses, and from major hospitality and restaurant ventures over to an economy based on the needs of the Plandemic. The loss of those business ventures that have failed as well as the losses of those put out of work total some 12 Trillion dollars. (And we are right now only one year in to what Bill Gates so cheerfully dubbed “the decade of vaccines.”) But all is not bleak, at least not for those investing in masks, air sanitizers, and vaccines.
As this COVID 19 situation arose, it was clear that Big Pharma was on the ascendant, replacing even Big Energy in terms of profits and financial realm shares of money, influence and power.
With the Dems holding the House and the Oval Office, the War on the Climate Crisis is about to come into play. It too will be extremely expensive, and like all wars we have fought since August of 1945 (except of course the war we fought against the huge island nation of Grenada – which held us off for a full 3 days) there will most likely not be any winning strategies, just expensive ones.
The Biden/Harris Administration appears to be run by the Chinese for the Chinese. So is the emphasis placed by our military on such goals as diversity above qualifications, and uniforms for pregnant women simply the ultimate distraction away from the Red Chinese conquering our nation from within?
I like that word!
The Military answers to the people that pay its salary which is the government. This has been recently proven in that the military installed Biden with the force of 30,000 troops that seem to be permanently stationed in DC to keep him there. I suspect that DC will eventually become its own state with its own military that will install and guard the Democrat President. Eventually they will get around to redefining guns so anything more than a black powder musket will have to be removed from society. Initially law enforcement will do this but eventually the military will do so.
That is exactly what I am talking about.
Sad but true. I can already see that I’m going to run afoul of the “Gods of the 500” so I’ll comment below:
@skyler, I agree with your remarks on “total war” but is domestic support a relic of the past?
The plumes of smoke were still rising from the wreckage of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon but, already appearing in the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, were ominous warnings that we had to avoid rushing into “another Vietnam” and that we needed to “consult with our allies” before making any decisions about conflict. Along with all this were the usual lamentations asking, “Why do they hate us so?”
Maybe I’m misreading the American Public but I’m wondering if we, as a nation, are so divided; so badly wanting to be “citizens of the world”, that we will never have the domestic support necessary to bring a total war to a successful conclusion.
In addition, it’s not helping that we have a military that is more attuned to politics than it is to making war.
Hopefully, I’m wrong. However, the signs around us are extremely troubling.
Yeah, we’ve come a long way from officers such as General George C. Marshall who sought to avoid politics: “I have never voted, my father was a Democrat, my mother was a Republican, and I am an Episcoplian.”
Hard to imagine that kind of officer in today’s military.
In the original post, I saw a couple of references to senior enlisted advisors making controversial public statements.
Recently my ears perked up when a Marine Corps Gunnary Master Sergeant, the top enlisted advisor of a interservice four star command (U.S. Space Command) not only criticized a civilian television personality by name, but also mentioned his lack of military service, crossing a line by attacking him personally, instead of limiting himself to what was said.
The above post shows how common this is starting to come.
During my modest military career in the 1980’s (enlisted) I really had a mild contempt for most senior enlisted advisors who worked for a CO with stars on their collar. They are too out of touch with the enlisted members they’re supposed to be serving and, practically speaking cannot have day-to-day face time with junior enlisted members under their purview.
At that level, their only practical function is to be a mouthpiece for the commanding officer.
Those positions are fairly new, maybe 60-70 years old. It’s an “experiment” that should end.