2:53PM
No, it's not the SysAdmin yet, but...
Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 2:53PM Tom got an email from RP linking a transcript of a chat session with Thomas Ricks, author of the new book FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. RP quoted Ricks:
One senior officer in Iraq told me earlier this year that about one-third of his subordinate officers "get it," one- third are trying but not really getting it, and one-third just want to kick a little butt. That means your force is probably less than half effective, and part of it is counterproductive.Tom's comment:
The percentages strike me as very accurate and somewhat inescapable, given the current force.But made sufficiently coalitional, the SysAdmin force can be easily built out an American "coalition of the willing/made able."
Reader Comments (11)
I am an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran and I have to say that I agree with this assessment. I read PNM and I am about half through BFA. As a Marine the sysadmin role is far more familiar now that I am in the Army National Guard there is more reluctance to accept the new world. Some of my fellow soldiers and Marines would accept the idea of this new military role others still want to charge into battle and fight to glorious victory (most of us have these vision of a bygone era). The Navy and the Air Force on the other hand just want to fight China.
Concour with the above. The good news, though, is that this seems to me to be largely generational. The cadets I teach history to have little problem with a SysAdmin concept, and some have openly thrown Core-Gap imagery back at me during class sessions.
As Dr. Barnett says repeatedly, time is on our side.
"The Navy and the Air Force on the other hand just want to fight China."
So true, and such a throwback to my days in the Navy. At that time it was all about getting more $$$$$s for your service. If you didn't have someone to fight you weren't going to get the $$$$$s.
The Sys Admin idea certainly does conflict with the idea that the military's job is to break things up. It will take time and probably some false starts before it will begin to be accepted.
More Barnett, less Nostradamus.
When I got in-theatre, my desert cammies still all stiff, the Captain's in-brief could be summed up with a nigh-poetic phrase: "war is about killin' assholes and breakin' their shit." (his words as near as I recall them, down to the upstate Missouri accent)
He went on to explain that we are now in a transition period between war and peace, and if we are ever going to see peace, mostly during the transition we have to avoid killin' assholes, and avoid assholes killin' us and breakin' our shit.
As a mid-grade enlisted guy, I am comforted not only by a company-grade officer who is comfortable with saying "shit" in front of enlisted men, but also is able to boil down complex political-military calculations to basic considerations that a guy with an M-16 and a high school education can use to guide his actions, if some other guy with an AK and grade school decides it's time to do some killin' and breakin'.
Best comments on a post I've ever seen.
Thanks for the education.
Dr B:
I'm one of the dim ones who still doesn't really understand the SysAdmin concept.
Is it fair to ask you to amplify how such a force would act in the Lebanon scenario, as a specific example?
It would seem that to get the Air Force and the Navy on board the Sysadmin concept would mean providing them with weapons of sufficient specificity that they would have a realistic role to play in the new style of warfare and a commensurate budget. It's either that or roll their service into something larger that's getting fed sufficiently.
Until all the budget pigs get fed, there's going to be fighting at the trough.
I am former infantry NCO from the active duty Army preparing to re-enter the National Guard as a finance officer. I just recently discovered Dr. Barnett's writings and was ecstatic! He has articulated everything I've believed to be true about our current global conflict in a way I never could. It's good to know that someone with his background and influence is helping to direct the strategic policy that will likely dictate the rest of my career as an officer in the United States military. I look forward to reading more of his insightful work and putting that information to use in the years to come.
Dr.B - I'm a high school World Hist. teacher who saw your presentation on CSPAN...and immediately bought your latest book. Thank you so very much! I've been so very distressed and depressed over the world situation....now I have hope.
In fact, I have a lot of hope..... if only the "right" people will read and study your work....Please keep it up!
I agree with the above assessements.
I'm an OIF and OEF veteran. One reconnaissance captain I worked closely with during my tour in IZ eppitomizes the guy who "doesn't get it." We were workin in a mid-size town in the Euphrates River Valley and having trouble getting the locals out from the insurgent's thumb (as usual, they were oppressing by means of fear, targetted killings, and intimidation.) This poor captain platoon commander's idea was to put the town in a psychological vice between the insurgents and us, and make the town fear us more. He's in the 1/3rd that doesn't get it.
I know of several company grade officers that do, though. Ironically, it was primarely the fires/effects guys who are out of a job (not many arty tubes to man in a COIN fight), who are doing MP, security, information ops, etc., that seem to get it the most. I imagine it's quite a transformation for those guys to go from worrying about the Call For Fire to the Call to Prayer. Good work, redleggers.
I think the Marines are on the right track, but there is still some work to be done. My experience with the army is spotty--some units are very good. Some quite bad. But I think they're generally on the right road in the short term. Long term I think their outlook is quite bleak. The Future Combat System is too oriented to killing Chinese and not to putting civilian populations in our OODA loop. Furthermore, the Army's Brigade Combat Team concept has too few infantrymen to be an effective COIN force (only 2 maneuver Bns). So there's lots of work organizationally to be done with my army brethren.
So, on the whole, we have lots of work to do before we're "there.", but we're on the right track.
Semper Fidelis.