Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

[IKE]

.There was wisdom in requiring someone to be removed from military service for at least 10 years to hold the position.

I can agree with this. While I admittedly have never stepped into The Building, I have trouble imagining Mattis as either incapable of adapting to his CIV role or as a slave to metrics divorced from proper goals or realistic measures; I feel like he'd have been on board with GRGB.

 

[Brett327]

It was Mattis who drove the strike fighter mission capable issue that led to NSS-A, which kind revolutionized how the NAE looked at maintaining/sustaining the fleet.

 

[Hotdogs]

In Trump's mind, he'd rather have an incompetent lap dog than the obligatory stubborn 60-something year old who has spent 40 years in DC who will try to talk him out of his policy objectives, which is who he'd have to appoint to replace Hegseth.

Mattis never left active duty in mentality or spirit. Before he resigned over differences of opinion with Trump on deploying ground troops to Syria (with Mattis being strongly on the side of committing forces), he had instituted such policy initiatives as 'thou shalt have 80% readiness, no exceptions' (which magically made stoplight charts green) and randomized carrier deployments.

We need our Secretary of Defense to act like a civilian leader and sometimes accept bad news. It helps if they understand that ships and planes need maintenance cycles.

There was wisdom in requiring someone to be removed from military service for at least 10 years to hold the position.

These two statements contradict each other. Advising and providing POTUS with options and risk assessments in conjunction with the COCOMs is basically one of the top descriptors of that role. Amongst a litany of other things that require large enterprise experience. Political ideology aside, Most Fortune 500 CEOs would be better fit for the job than Hegseth.

Mattis quit because Cheeto Jesus makes foreign policy decisions like a fucking drunk toddler without assessing the strategic implications of his decisions. (I.e. Syria withdrawal). Ironically how we ended up in the current shit-show with Iran.

 

[Spekkio]

These two statements contradict each other. Advising and providing POTUS with options and risk assessments in conjunction with the COCOMs is basically one of the top descriptors of that role. Amongst a litany of other things that require large enterprise experience. Political ideology aside, Most Fortune 500 CEOs would be better fit for the job than Hegseth.

Mattis quit because Cheeto Jesus makes foreign policy decisions like a fucking drunk toddler without assessing the strategic implications of his decisions. (I.e. Syria withdrawal). Ironically how we ended up in the current shit-show with Iran.

I don't know why you keep going on as if I am a fan of Hegseth or Trump. Please re-read my previous post.

As for talking the President out of policy objectives - I think Obama would like a mulligan on the surge everyone talked him into after he ran a campaign on getting out of Iraq... which also led to turnover in his administration. It's one thing to give advice within the confines of 'commander's intent' and it's another to fight tooth and nail with the boss's underlying policy objectives. You generally want cabinet members aligned with your vision.

Just to use an example other than 'Cheeto Jesus.'

The very first President of the U.S. ended up largely ignoring his own secretary of state because he wasn't aligned with the President's vision. Over time we realized that we shouldn't do things like have people from opposing political parties serve as VP or cabinet secretaries.