Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

94 • Maneuver Forces: The Army and Marine Corps After Iraqin reality, the generals and admirals treat them as liaison officers to Congress withthe mission to secure from lawmakers whatever the service chiefs deem essential.The idea that a civilian appointee would exercise any real authority over the armedforces is actually repugnant to the service chiefs. 36 Even worse, despite the democraticdemand for accountability from generals in wartime, in the absence of an existentialthreat to the United States and its military establishment, the demand has usuallybeen frustrated by the generals as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.This is why change is not a mission for the generals and admirals who lead thedefense bureaucracies. It’s a mission for the civilians who are elected and appointedto command the nation’s military establishments. Only resolute civilian leadershipcan break through the service-dominated decision-making processes and replace theold World War II/Cold War paradigm with a new paradigm that results in decisionsthat rationalize force design and acquisition. 37America needs a new operational military command structure to replace the jointstaff and the JCS. Critical acquisition decisions must also be evaluated on a nationallevel based on determined national needs by a unified general staff populated withcompetent officers who owe their allegiance to the national military system, not tothe services. This system will have to be far more modern in outlook than the Prussiangeneral staff system.The national general staff system America needs must take control of officers’careers at the 0-5/lieutenant colonel/commander level and manage them to flag rankand beyond. Such a system must involve rigorous testing and evaluation to ensure theofficer’s grasp of technology, history, geography and culture, things of no consequencein the system of cronyism that currently dominates promotions. Military educationmust grow teeth, failing officers who do not perform, something that does not happentoday. The system must also ignore service identity for flag rank selection inside anintegrated, joint command structure making it harder for any one service to dominatelarge-scale operations and commands.This kind of rational change will have an uphill climb against the generals’ and theadmirals’ conventional wisdom. Senior military leaders who are easily threatened bynew ideas frequently view new strategies, tactics and technologies that promise resultsand fewer casualties with suspicion and discomfort. Even after two years of bloodyfighting in the trenches of World War I, Gen. Sir Douglas Haig, commander in chief ofBritish Expeditionary Forces in France, thought the machine gun “a much over-ratedweapon.” 38 The truth is the nation’s armed forces cannot reform themselves.The real question is whether the next group of civilians who lead the Departmentof Defense will be unafraid to challenge the bureaucrats in uniform who lead theservices? It is no understatement to suggest that the nation’s security and prosperitydepend on it.