I try to mostly stay out of the comments section of SWJ articles now that I'm editor, but I couldn't help jumping into the epic fray over Ben Kohlmann's piece. I jumped in because I am passionate about this issue and because many of the comments demonstrated - in my mind - exactly the malaise Kohlmann aims to address. In think pieces like this, people love to snipe the suggestions, extrapolate suggestions far beyond their scope to make a strawman that can be knocked down, and condescend about how a junior cannot possibly understand what they are talking about. All were found in the debate.
First, I implore all of those who have strong opinions on this article and the issues that surround it to submit their essays to SWJ. Even if I violently disagree with you, I will publish all submissions on the topic that are lucid and written well enough to merit our readers time. Clearly, our readers are interested in this topic. While many of the comments picked at the essay, the massive amount of pageviews and the large number of Facebook likes tell me that it resonated with many. Which is a symptom of my next point.
The U.S. military is in crisis. There is a large segment of the force that is disgusted with the bureaucracy and its failures. There are bright young minds who have been given tremendous responsibility in combat and have been far more earnest about learning at a young age because their lives seemed to depend on it. Thrust them into a stodgy, conservative bureaucracy and they are going crazy against its illogic. Some of this may be generational, but some is a combination of the continuing ossification of the organization and its culture just as a cohort with unparalleled combat experience in recent memory rises to levels where they must tread through its morass. Combine the pending withdrawl from Afghanistan, the drawdowns, and a system that doesn't let these "young Turks" (as LtGen Neller termed us, perhaps incorrectly) exert influence to their potential, and you have a recipe for a train wreck. This is only one of numerous salvos that have been fired on this issue recently, but too often they are dismissed, poo-pooed, condescended, or attacked. In the end, the institution seems to be content to ignore them.
I'd like to address a few more issues that came up in the comments. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the military should adopt business practices wholesale or to send every officer to business school. And certainly, entrepreneurs and the business world have their share of failures, as well. But as I look at some of the comments here and on Facebook, the level of hostility toward the business world and the level of arrogance that the military is so far superior to the business world that there's nothing we could deign to learn from them is a symptom of the self-lionization and the isolation from society that we have created in the past decade and more. Not every HBS grad was a Wall Street investment banker precipitating the recession. Many are running the industries that keep the nation and the military going. They and other business people are the ones that keep our economy going, without which there is nothing to defend or to defend it with. Military members increasingly think we are the be all, end all of American society. This is sick and ultimately dangerous thinking and it needs to stop.
Sure, business has had its disasters, but are you telling me that the people who brought you Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghainstan, plus a host of other debacles, constant acquisition nightmares, and the complaint that spending more than the next 19 nations combined on defense isn't enough cannot learn anything from the business world? Are you telling me that since medicine and science have had fraud and failures, we should not seek to learn from them either? Yes, the military is not a business. Everyone gets that. But we should seek to learn from every field we can.
Pete-
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. Professionals professionalize themselves and their organizations. They do this by looking at everybody else, seeing what they are missing/lacking/needing to improve and doing so accordingly, otherwise they get left behind. The military bureaucracy doesn't seem to be able to adapt to these practices and adopt them to make it more efficient, and frankly, it's disgusting. Sure, the civilian business world has it's problems/scandal, but considering the depth and breadth of that area, there are probably very few problems comparatively. Entire industries in the private sector would fold and go under in a way that would make solyndra/enron/etc look like childs play if they did acquisition and r&d the way the military does. They can't afford to. And sure the military has streamlined some processes, but not enough, and not big enough, to truly have made a change. These "streamlines" are really just exceptions to the bureacratic rule.
But, at the same time, how do you implement "stockholders" into the government system so that it has an effect? I would argue that the voters and public are the stockholders, but they don't have any ability to have an effect on their "business" as it applies to government.
I don't claim to have the answers, and I can only affect my little corner cubicle of the world, but dammit, it's gotta start somewhere.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteThe defense bureaucracy is so inbred as to be beyond reform short of a war. I enjoyed Kohlman's piece until he veered into politics at the end. The over-arching influence of political correctness, coupled with the mind-numbing complexity of our defense infrastructure make the curious and creative exceptions instead of the rule.
Put simply, the senior leaders in defense harp explicitly about embracing innovative thinking, while implicitly punishing those who do. A tectonic shift of leadership will be required---and a good dose of real thinking---not party-line that passes for thinking at the top.
Good post.
One last thing: the graduate education at places other than the service grad schools---instead of focusing on business, perhaps our service members would be better served in graduate level courses in history, philosophy, or literature? Just a thought. Charles Hill, who wrote Grand Strategies, Literature, Statecraft, and World Ordered believes (and I agree) the paucity of familiarity with the basics of literature and philosophy has contributed to our lack of strategic perspective/insight.
ReplyDeleteThe last exchange I had with a young military officer had to do with an informational video a ranking commander now retired had posted on YouTube. Like 99% of such informational videos the production quality was terrible and one could easily watch the whole thing and forget every word. I commented on this in jest and the younger officer shot back that I "don't even have the right to say the commander's name". In fact, as a vIdeo editor I could have helped this man make a far superior video. But who wants to work with jackasses who carry around 13th century ideas on caste and privilege in their heads and unload them on the first civilian who utters a word edgewise?
ReplyDeleteMr Munson,
ReplyDeleteI think you and others may find the paper found at this link (http://cogprints.org/6161/) helpful in framing the issues we face while discussing the state of organizational learning in the DoD.
Best Regards
As I noted in my first comment in response to that piece on SWJ, I didn't read all the (many) comments. But my initial impression was: Wow, this is good for SWJ - a lot of people expressing opinions at length. And as I noted in my second comment, the author of the original piece certainly acted professionally and politely in acknowledging and addressing the relevant commentary. Third, I saw you Tweeted to Carl Prine that the commentary was approaching Line of Departure dimensions, which I interpreted as a compliment. So I'm a bit intrigued by your having what seems like it may be a different take. If you care to expand, I'd be very interested in reading what you have to write.
ReplyDeleteThis also did cause me to wonder (seriously): have you considered what your third book will address? or, stated somewhat differently in the alternative: what topics have you already considered addressing in your third book?
Best
ADTS
My comments here, which were also posted at SWJ as a blog entry, reflect my disappointment that a lot of people defend the status quo and seem to think we can't learn anything from business. A lot of people were also offended at his "tone" and found the idea of disruptive thinking dangerous. I would have preferred a more encouraging and constructive criticism and dialogue, but overall I was very happy that the piece drew so much attention and commentary. I'd like to keep the dialogue going with others putting some rigor behind their criticisms and suggestions and furthering the discussion. Unfortunately, I think I've only got one taker so far.
ReplyDeleteMy third book... Well, I've got a lot of stuff to work out with my career plans in the next year and a few months. Right now, I've got about half of a novel roughed out, which I may shop out soon. Depending on what the next year brings and what options my decisions give me, I'd like to do a non-fiction book on civil-military relations as they stand and the crisis that the military faces in my opinion, from the self-lionization of the military, the growing isolation from society, and other issues I've discussed about the culture here, to the political-military interface and the national security decision-making process. To do the research behind that, get high-level perspectives, and to be able to comment freely on those issues, I think I'd have to wait until I was no longer in uniform to do that.
First, thanks for the prompt and thorough reply responding to my comment.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I'm not sure if you care to have this stated here, on SWJ, or at all, but to reiterate and expand a bit upon what I wrote on SWJ, I think what I perhaps found most jarring about the piece (although it is hard to state with certainty) was the idea that business schools are incubators for innovators. To overstate the case a bit, my perception of business schools is that they are machines for producing the 2012 version of men (and women) in grey flannel suits - yes, since the original dot-com bubble, many people express in interest in entrepreneurship and dream of getting rick quick, but on the whole, my impression is one of tremendous conformity on any number of levels. And entrepreneurs are often, in my experience, chronic malcontents who have serious problems with authority and have proven incapable of succeeding in any other way (e.g., by ascending a hierarchy in a typical fashion). I think, moreover (perhaps like Move Forward?), I was a bit taken aback by an attitude toward capitalism that was a bit too rah-rah. Does Steve Jobs really deserve adulation because of the iPod, iPad, iTunes, etc.? (And quite frankly, given my experience with my Apple product suite of late, even after a visit to the "Genius" Bar* at the local Apple store, I think Jobs/Apple are overvalued** and overrated - but I'll spare my long-winded tales of woe.) Maybe my visions of the military are similarly distorted, but I admire the values I - admittedly possibly inaccurately - think it possesses and maintains.
*The parallel between the "Genius" Bar and the typical swipes at "military intelligence" being an oxymoron are simply too easy.
**Yes, I actually checked the P/E.
Third, please keep me - and everyone else - abreast of your plans, both authorial and career-wise, as you deem appropriate and fit. I'm very curious. The friend's ex-husband (retired O-5) I noted is very smart (not an FAO proper but an Olmsted Scholar, and, once more as noted, holds multiple advanced degrees), and I've enjoyed obtaining his perspective on issues military and political-military writ large.
Thanks again.
Best
ADTS