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On Warfighting: The Warrior Spirit
- Thread starter Renegade One
- Start date
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
Do they have a choice? This is not a rhetorical question... as a DIVO, my knowledge of "the system" is that the civvies in Washington approve a budget, part of that budget is designated toward parts, Flag Officers decide how to devide up that money between squadrons, and that there never seems to be enough money for any one individual unit.
If Congress and the President approve X, and operational units need Y, and Y is > X, then the upper eschelons of military leadership pretty much have their hands tied in the supply arena. The same can be said for manning quotas.
Is there something else I'm missing that allows major commanders to create funding where it doesn't exist?
You pretty much covered the gist of it- what you just wrote is actually pretty good.
Yes, there is something you're missing, but it is just one thing: they can say, "No."
"No," as in, "we can no longer accomplish Z if we don't have Y but have only X instead."
It's not exactly that simple, although it kinda seems that way...
Sure it is.
It
There is a choice, and Jim outlined it - saying "we can't do this" to stuff like 2.0 presence in the gulf, etc. etc.
Right now we are eating readiness in order to keep optempos up, and there will come a time when a major mission is missed because of lack of materiel/assets to carry it out - you can only push systems so hard before they balk.
Right now we are eating readiness in order to keep optempos up, and there will come a time when a major mission is missed because of lack of materiel/assets to carry it out - you can only push systems so hard before they balk.
To go a bit beyond Jim's response (and what does he know, he's been sucking down Blue Moons at Flounders for too long...I keed!), the manning has been horribly managed (ironically on both the Reserve side and the Regular side). When you have 4.01 (repeating, of course) sailors getting booted due to PTS, it's probably not clearing out the right bodies. Don't get me wrong, there was some accurate "removing of garbage," but there was a lot of lost talent for not a great reason, as well. From what I've seen, that seems to be the biggest complaint. Not that we are culling the herd, but that the culling is taking out the dominant members of the herd.
WRT the manning issue, I think what we've seen through the last 10-12 years is a series of band-aid measures designed to get us by (albeit limping by). I acknowledge that system-wide reform would be a huge undertaking, but I don't imagine that things are going to magically get any better in the years ahead. The first step would be a frank assessment of where we our manning ought to be, then writing a manning document that reflects those requirements that isn't subject to the kinds of tinkering and 11th hour shell games that we've all seen.
One solution might be to build some mandatory "time on board" requirements into the manning portion of SORTS reporting, or to move toward NEC-based reporting vice rate-based. We all understand that an AT1 with a (insert TMS) NEC =/= an AT1 without that NEC (or one who has spent their entire career at I level). SORTS and the manning documents make no distinction between those two kinds of people, and that's a problem.
I don't have all the answers, but those might be some good places to start.
One solution might be to build some mandatory "time on board" requirements into the manning portion of SORTS reporting, or to move toward NEC-based reporting vice rate-based. We all understand that an AT1 with a (insert TMS) NEC =/= an AT1 without that NEC (or one who has spent their entire career at I level). SORTS and the manning documents make no distinction between those two kinds of people, and that's a problem.
I don't have all the answers, but those might be some good places to start.
Admiral Harvey's farewell message - written for SWOs, but applicable to all - has some good stuff in there. It's unfortunate that he wrote it as an farewell message rather than a greeting message. A good bit of the content from his message is derived from the Balisle Report, another SWO-centric document.
was it a farewell or a mea culpa?
Weird coming from a frakin' NFO...don't know Harvey...but from everything I ever read or heard him say from a podium, he seemed to be a pretty straight shooter who tried pretty hard to do good across communities. I just never knew him or worked for/with him personally. Wish I had...
Balisle...on the other hand...was a fucking AWESOME dude (at the CSG Commander level)...worked with him a lot in a variety of roles and always thought he was one of the best. Listened...soaked it up...country wisdom...liked aviators...listened...soaked it up...(but I repeat myself...). Don't dismiss anything he says as "SWO-centric". Another good guy sent home before his time leading you should have been over. There are some out there like him today, I suppose...
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
It's easy to armchair qb as JO that Flag and General Officers should say "we can't." But maybe they did and the Commander in Chief said "you will." At that point there are two options: make it work to the best of your ability or get replaced by someone who will (see: Gen McChrystal).
Like I said...
The mission will always get accomplished. It's the way we're screened/bred/trained. However, I'm not convinced that we (in general) do as good a job as we could/should in articulating the second- and third-order effects of the options we present to whomever we're supporting.*
*Edit: I know, I know - it's easy to armchair qb as JO that "higher" isn't articulating the second- and third-order effects...yadda yadda yadda...all is well in Whoville...it's all Choker Whites and Dinings Out...
I think any leader worth his salt articulates the anticipated/expected "first/second/third-order effects" while the discussion is taking place...which most of us are not privy to. Once a decision is made (e.g.: the whole "Yes, you will...), then s/he sets off and tries to figure out how to best do what is required within the existing constraints.
PLEEZE get off the whole "Golden Career Path" thing (unless, of course, you think you're on one...)...but also get off the notion that everyone ought to turn in their wings and/or their shoulder boards when presented with less than optimum situations. That is PRECISELY what "managers" would do...but is NOT what "leaders" do.