Interesting take on current officer corps

[Spekkio]

It's pretty obvious to anyone with even a cursory understanding of how our promotions and retention work that there are some pretty perverse incentives at work that can create less-than-ideal outcomes, especially in the O-4/O-5 ranks. But what the article completely misses and you seem to ignore is that we accomplish nearly every tactical mission that is handed down to us. However, winning wars is not just about winning battles--a large part of winning wars is actually having a concrete, realistically achievable objective when you go to war. This was not the case in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

This.

We have 'lost' a handful of wars while inflicting casualties at more a 3:1 - 9:1 rate (depending on what estimate you use and which war you are discussing). The speed at which the U.S. invaded Iraq and toppled the government was nothing short of remarkable and we can only hope that these lessons are not being taught to foreign militaries. From a core competency standpoint, you'd be very hard pressed to make an intelligent argument that the U.S. military and its officer corps are not proficient at fighting the enemy. The poor outcomes are due to nebulous political objectives that simply cannot be realized by killing lots of people.

 

[Spekkio]

And for the love of God, all of you who want to translate this article, and my endorsement of it as some sort of personal attack on YOU, the individual, i've got news for you, this aticle isn't about YOU, its about the officer corps in general. Stop using your personal anecdotes and contrasts from the generatlities purported in order to discredit something of which you have zero premises. It was written in the third person for a reason, try and keep it there.

I am an officer, so when a retired Col who seems to have an axe to grind says that there isn't a single officer with moral integrity, yea, I take offense to that. The 'officer corps in general' is composed of people, most of whom have done an exceptional job with the bag of shit handed to them and a grueling optempo the past decade or so. Oh, and the VCNO thinks we're over-paid for it.

 

[Fallonflyr]

I am an officer, so when a retired Col who seems to have an axe to grind says that there isn't a single officer with moral integrity, yea, I take offense to that. The 'officer corps in general' is composed of people, most of whom have done an exceptional job with the bag of shit handed to them and a grueling optempo the past decade or so. Oh, and the VCNO thinks we're over-paid for it.

Bill Lind has never served in the military, he is purely an academic. I would say that the fact that today's senior leadership doesn't "bask" in his brilliance has left his nose out of joint.