As I watch the unfolding debacle in Afghanistan it strikes me just how the United States abandoned its own fighting men in Vietnam. The scramble to end the war and get out with whatever dignity remained was all that mattered to the politicians and those wearing 4 stars even if it meant that they knew that they were leaving their own men behind. The final words of so many of the 'leadership' of that war reek of failure and breaking the faith with the men who followed orders or were simply drafted and sent off to wage war throughout Indo-China. I suspect that all those men knew that the leaders in Korea and World War II did the same thing and knowingly left men behind either in the hands of the enemy or simply in the hands of the Russians which amounted to the same thing for about 45 years.
It's hard to read the memoirs of those men who knew they were prosecuting an indifferent war with no hope or chance of victory since none of them from beginning to end was tasked with the goal of achieving victory and beating the enemy to death as we did Germany and Japan. If the purpose of the military is to fight and win the nation's wars then our leadership, training, doctrine, military strategy, shipbuilding and weapons acquisitions need to make drastic changes because losing a war to 7th century tribesmen after spending 20 years imposing all of our doctrine, training, strategy, tactics, weapons and warfighting spirit failed in every single particular in Afghanistan and it take s special kind of idiot to fail to see the damage this inflicts on the other reason for the United States military, which is to act as a deterrant to our adversaries. It's not much of a deterrant when the tribesmen demonstrate how utterly useless all of that is in the face of a determined enemy.
The Secretaries of Defense and State need to resign. They are useless and worse than useless. If it's true they knew this would happen if they followed the Biden plan than their failure is double because they were to useless to convince a brain dead loser who has been wrong on every single foreign policy decision since 1975, to reconsider and do the smart thing. For all of me, he can fill both positions with Dr. Jill. At least she gives the illusion that he is smart and gets away with it because the brain dead moron does everything she tells him to.
We also need to have the resignations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For starters they're incompetent paper-shuffling politicians with only the loosest attachment to reality. They make this clear every day in every way as they continue to stand by and support and defend the insane stupidity of the weapons acquisitions and strategy of their predecessors. All of them need to be replaced. This is another time when we're going to have to dig deep to replace them. We don't need the second service bananas in each service to simply step up to the plate. We need officers with integrity and intelligence and a lot of experience in both battle and acquisition. It is still possible.
In the days of yore, any excellent officer did duty with troops and commanded a battalion. After that came specialization or further duty with troops but at the end of the day we had officers in the Pentagon who knew war up through the battalion and regimental level and then became the officers who brought about HELLFIRE and other hugely successful weapons programs. Their peers went on to command regiments, brigades, divisions and installations. We need to look at the one and two star guys now to lead the services and get rid of all the political appointees we have running our systems commands, fleets, armies, and air forces.
5 comments:
Unfortunately, I do not think the 1 stars have it in them to be competent at their jobs. It’s a rare O-6 who isn’t a politician first, IMO. The higher you go, the more likely that’s the case. I saw it first hand from the Clinton years on. People who were good at their jobs were not “promote ahead of peers”. Now, base anti-smoking officer, that’s the kind of thing that got you promoted. That and ring knocker, commander’s aide, congressman’s child. Now you can add diverse, woke, devote loyalty oather, and informant to that list.
Are their any warriors left, after the culling by Clinton and Obama?
You can make 06 without a political bent or showering. Competence rules. As you say though, making 07 requires playing the game. OTOH, I’ve personally known dozens of RADM and BGEN who are brilliant, natural leaders and ooze integrity. It’s the step to 3 star that has proved to elude officers of integrity. The last 2 I knew were Tom Fargo and Barry Costello. Their Atlantic fleet counterparts, not so much, and any NATO flag is almost by definition, lost to integrity.
I’m glad your experience was better than mine! Perhaps USAF vs USN, or just bad luck on my part.
GOOD question, Badger..
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