Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

William S. Lind • 109ME: In effect, you have created a market-driven outcome.LORD DORN: Yes, exactly. Socialism in uniform doesn’t work better than any otherform of socialism.ME: Your National Support Forces are something different from what we see in othermilitaries. Could you explain the thinking behind them?LORD DORN: The Islandian Marine Corps is a servant of the nation and the people,not just the Defense Ministry. Like all nations, we have periodic disasters and emergencies.The Marine Corps always helped in such situations, but combat forces do notalways have the optimal skills. And frankly, if they are involved in such affairs toooften, it can take the edge off their combat skills. So we grouped the types of forcesmost useful in such cases and designated them National Support Forces. Of course,in wartime their first priority is serving our combat units.ME: Would your NSF also be optimized for disaster relief, peacekeeping and nationbuildingin other countries?LORD DORN: Yes, I suppose they would, although Islandia does not engage in suchmissions. Our foreign policy is what your ruling establishment would call “isolationist.”We have no interest in other nations’ internal affairs. We do not believe monarchycan be imposed on other countries by force.ME: I noticed something curious about your NSF, in that they include your penalbattalions. Why is that the case?LORD DORN: Well, first, we have penal battalions because we don’t think Marinesshould be able to get out of their enlistment by misbehaving. Misbehavior only getsthem assignment to a penal battalion.Traditionally, penal battalions are assigned the dirtiest and most dangerous missions,and in wartime, that is what ours get. But we found that it is in performanceof precisely those missions that many of the men in a penal battalion redeemedthemselves. They had, often for the first time in their lives, a chance to do somethingdifficult, dangerous, and also important, something where they could make a realdifference in other people’s lives. That turned them around.In peacetime, that kind of mission occurs most often in disaster relief. So we useour penal battalions in such cases. The work is often dangerous – pulling people outof flood waters, battling forest fires, working through burning towns shattered by anearthquake – and the combination of real danger and real achievement makes a dif-