By MARK MOYAR
Published: December 19, 2009
Quantico, Va.
Leadership Survey Responses AS President Obama and his advisers planned their new approach to the Afghan war, the quality of Afghanistan’s security forces received unprecedented scrutiny, and rightly so. Far less attention, however, has been paid to the quality of American troops there. Of course, American forces don’t demand bribes from civilians at gunpoint or go absent for days, as Afghans have often done. But they face serious issues of their own, demanding prompt action.
The American corporals and privates who traverse the Afghan countryside today are not at issue. They risk life and limb every day, with little self-pity. Despite the strains of successive combat deployments, they keep re-enlisting at high rates.
The problems lie, rather, in the leadership ranks. Although many Army and Marine officers in Afghanistan are performing well, a significant portion are not demonstrating the vital leadership attributes of creativity, flexibility and initiative. In 2008, to better pinpoint these deficits, I surveyed 131 Army and Marine officers who had served in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan or both, asking them each 42 questions about leadership in their services.
The results were striking. Many respondents said that field commanders relied too much on methods that worked in another place at another time but often did not work well now. Officers at higher levels are stifling the initiative of junior officers through micromanagement and policies to reduce risk. Onerous requirements for armored vehicles on patrols, for instance, are preventing the quick action needed for effective counterinsurgency. Of the Army veterans I surveyed, only 28 percent said that their service encouraged them to take risks, while a shocking 41 percent said that the Army discouraged it.
The climate of risk aversion begins in American society at large, which puts a higher premium on minimizing casualties than on defeating the enemy. It continues with American politicians and other elites who focus on the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Haditha in Iraq, but rarely point out the far more numerous instances of American valor.
It doesn’t need to be this way in the Army. After all, the Marine Corps has succeeded in inducing its officers to operate independently. More than twice as many Marine survey respondents as Army respondents — 58 percent — said that their service encouraged risk-taking. Marine culture is different because the career Marine officers who shape it are, on average, less risk-averse than career Army officers.
Researchers have found that the leadership ranks of big organizations are dominated by either “sensing-judging” or “intuitive thinking” personality types. Those in the former category rely primarily on the five senses to tell them about the world; they prefer structure and standardization, doing things by the book and maintaining tight control.
In the late 20th century, the Army gravitated toward standardization, as peacetime militaries often do, and consequently rewarded the sensing-judging officers who are now the Army’s generals and colonels. But this personality type functions less well in activities that change frequently or demand regular risk-taking, like technological development or counterinsurgency. Organizations that thrive under such conditions are most often led by people with intuitive-thinking personalities. These people are quick to identify the need for change and to solve problems by venturing outside the box.
Today, the Army has more intuitive-thinking people among its lieutenants and captains than at the upper levels. Too many of these junior officers continue to leave the service out of disillusionment with its rigidity and risk aversion. To their credit, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, have been trying to fix this problem, directing promotion boards to value creativity and initiative. But more drastic treatment is required.
The military should incorporate personality test results into military personnel files, and promotion boards should be required to select higher percentages of those who fall into the intuitive-thinking group. Many highly successful businesses factor personality testing into promotion decisions; the military, with far more at stake, should be no less savvy.
More immediately, our generals should repeatedly visit the colonels who command brigades and battalions to see if they are encouraging subordinates to innovate and take risks. Commanders who refuse to stop micromanaging should be relieved. The change may be disruptive and painful, but in the long run it will save lives and shorten wars.
Mark Moyar is a professor of national security affairs at Marine Corps University and the author of “A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency From the Civil War to Iraq.”
25 August 2010
Article: Gates encourages unconventional thinking
BY DONNA MILES
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates challenged military officers to become forward thinkers with the courage to advance new approaches needed to confront current and emerging threats, April 21. "An unconventional era of warfare requires unconventional thinkers," Gates told Air War College students at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.
He challenged the officers to think outside the box to help the military adapt to a constantly changing strategic environment characterized by persistent conflict.
While addressing an Air Force audience, Gates' challenge applies military wide.
"For the kinds of challenges America will face, the armed forces will need principled, creative, reform-minded leaders," he said.
Bucking convention isn't easy, Gates conceded. "Virtually every institution is organized in a way to stifle out-of-the-box thinking," he said.
Ideas that break with the status quo aren't always met with open arms, he added.
Gates noted the example set by the late Air Force Col. John Boyd, a maverick reformer who turned traditional approaches to air-to-air conflict and principles of maneuver warfare on their head. To do so, Boyd had to overcome "a large measure of bureaucratic resistance and institutional hostility," Gates said.
The way Boyd saw it, everyone faces a fork in the road in his military career. People choose to "be somebody," Gates said, making compromises and turning their backs on their friends to get ahead. Or they choose to "do something" - sticking their neck out for their country, their military and themselves -while recognizing that it's not likely to garner them favor or career advantage.
Pressing security challenges require people in the armed forces who "want to do something, not be somebody," Gates said.
New challenges, realities and requirements have meant "a wrenching set of changes for our military establishment that, until recently, was almost completely oriented toward winning the big battles in the big wars," Gates said.
He cited vast transformations within the military and the need for more. The Army is taking lessons learned and capabilities built from the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns and institutionalizing them into its core doctrine, funding priorities and personnel policies.
Similarly, the Air Force has adopted recent lessons, setting the stage for the expeditionary culture and mindset to take root, Gates said. It has accepted new, nontraditional combat missions, new ways of doing things and new battlefield responses, including small-diameter munitions that can strike enemies with less chance of collateral damage.
Gates urged the officers to come up with more ways the Air Force can evolve to meet asymmetric threats.
"I would ask you to think through how we can build the kinds of air capabilities most likely to be needed while continuing to offer a strategic hedge against rising powers," he said.
Gates also challenged to officers to:
* Come up with better ways to address the air, space and cyberspace roles in counterinsurgency operations;
* Enhance partners' airpower capabilities;
* Conduct civil-military or humanitarian missions with interagency, nongovernmental organizations and other partners;
* Rethink the way the service is organized, manned and equipped;
* Determine what new priorities should drive issues ranging from promotions to procurement; and
* Come up with ways to accomplish future missions ranging from strike to surveillance in the most affordable, sensible way.
"I have raised difficult questions with perhaps difficult answers," Gates said. "I am asking you to be part of the solution and part of the future."
The secretary urged the officers to be willing to think beyond the status quo when they approach Boyd's proverbial fork in the road. He also emphasized the need for senior leaders to recognize the value of out-of-the-box thinking and to support the people who do it.
"For the good of the Air Force, for the good of the armed services, and for the good of our country, I urge you to reject convention and careerism and to make decisions that will carry you closer toward - rather than farther from - the officer you want to be and the thinker who advances air-power strategy in meeting the complex challenges to our national security," he said.
13 August 2010
Cooking with Cagey: "The Boarding Pass"
All your daily nutritional requirements in one beverage.
- Mug, coffee (South America/Africa)
- 1/2 Shot, Bailey's (Ireland)
- Shot, cognac (France)
- Vial, liquid ginseng (East Asia)
- multi-vitamin (North America)
- Mug, coffee (South America/Africa)
- 1/2 Shot, Bailey's (Ireland)
- Shot, cognac (France)
- Vial, liquid ginseng (East Asia)
- multi-vitamin (North America)
12 August 2010
11 August 2010
Article: Personality set for life by 1st grade, study suggests
From livescience.com (Link)
Excerpt: "Using data from a 1960s study of approximately 2,400 ethnically diverse schoolchildren (grades 1 - 6) in Hawaii, researchers compared teacher personality ratings of the students with videotaped interviews of 144 of those individuals 40 years later."
"They examined four personality attributes - talkativeness (called verbal fluency), adaptability (cope well with new situations), impulsiveness and self-minimizing behavior (essentially being humble to the point of minimizing one's importance)."
Can people change? I wonder why these criteria were highlighted and selected - are these the new prominent features of personality in psych circles? Some of this information has me evaluating how I see myself. Are there scales for each? For example, I could see the detriment of being too self-minimizing. I may reflect some of this. However, what of being 'too adaptable'? Could there be such a thing? For instance, one who is too adaptable might be a milquetoast or left blowing in the wind - i.e. a lack of resiliency? Some good comments in the bottom of the article:
"Look for a fish in the ocean and you'll probably find it."
"I don't even recognize me from highschool, let alone the 1st grade. All it takes it the slightest breeze to change a person."
Excerpt: "Using data from a 1960s study of approximately 2,400 ethnically diverse schoolchildren (grades 1 - 6) in Hawaii, researchers compared teacher personality ratings of the students with videotaped interviews of 144 of those individuals 40 years later."
"They examined four personality attributes - talkativeness (called verbal fluency), adaptability (cope well with new situations), impulsiveness and self-minimizing behavior (essentially being humble to the point of minimizing one's importance)."
Can people change? I wonder why these criteria were highlighted and selected - are these the new prominent features of personality in psych circles? Some of this information has me evaluating how I see myself. Are there scales for each? For example, I could see the detriment of being too self-minimizing. I may reflect some of this. However, what of being 'too adaptable'? Could there be such a thing? For instance, one who is too adaptable might be a milquetoast or left blowing in the wind - i.e. a lack of resiliency? Some good comments in the bottom of the article:
"Look for a fish in the ocean and you'll probably find it."
"I don't even recognize me from highschool, let alone the 1st grade. All it takes it the slightest breeze to change a person."
QOTD
by Fouad Ajami, The Wall Street Journal (Link)
It was canonical to this administration and its functionaries that they were handed a broken nation, that it was theirs to repair, that it was theirs to tax and reshape to their preferences. Yet there was, in 1980, after another landmark election, a leader who had stepped forth in a time of "malaise" at home and weakness abroad: Ronald Reagan. His program was different from Mr. Obama's. His faith in the country was boundless. What he sought was to restore the nation's faith in itself, in its political and economic vitality.
Big as Reagan's mandate was, in two elections, the man was never bigger than his country. There was never narcissism or a bloated sense of personal destiny in him. He gloried in the country, and drew sustenance from its heroic deeds and its capacity for recovery. No political class rode with him to power anxious to lay its hands on the nation's treasure, eager to supplant the forces of the market with its own economic preferences.
It was canonical to this administration and its functionaries that they were handed a broken nation, that it was theirs to repair, that it was theirs to tax and reshape to their preferences. Yet there was, in 1980, after another landmark election, a leader who had stepped forth in a time of "malaise" at home and weakness abroad: Ronald Reagan. His program was different from Mr. Obama's. His faith in the country was boundless. What he sought was to restore the nation's faith in itself, in its political and economic vitality.
Big as Reagan's mandate was, in two elections, the man was never bigger than his country. There was never narcissism or a bloated sense of personal destiny in him. He gloried in the country, and drew sustenance from its heroic deeds and its capacity for recovery. No political class rode with him to power anxious to lay its hands on the nation's treasure, eager to supplant the forces of the market with its own economic preferences.
10 August 2010
QOTD
Village Boy 2
We're ashamed to live here. Our
fathers are cowards.
Bernardo O'Reilly
Don't you ever say that again about
your fathers, because they are not
cowards. You think I am brave
because I carry a gun; well, your
fathers are much braver because
they carry responsibility, for you,
your brothers, your sisters, and your
mothers. And this responsibility is
like a big rock that weighs a ton. It
bends and it twists them until finally
it buries them under the ground.
And there's nobody says they have
to do this. They do it because they
love you, and because they want to.
I have never had this kind of
courage. Running a farm, working
like a mule every day with no
guarantee anything will ever come
of it. This is bravery.
- Charles Bronson in 'The Magnificent Seven' - 1960
quoted from 'Ain't it Cool News'
We're ashamed to live here. Our
fathers are cowards.
Bernardo O'Reilly
Don't you ever say that again about
your fathers, because they are not
cowards. You think I am brave
because I carry a gun; well, your
fathers are much braver because
they carry responsibility, for you,
your brothers, your sisters, and your
mothers. And this responsibility is
like a big rock that weighs a ton. It
bends and it twists them until finally
it buries them under the ground.
And there's nobody says they have
to do this. They do it because they
love you, and because they want to.
I have never had this kind of
courage. Running a farm, working
like a mule every day with no
guarantee anything will ever come
of it. This is bravery.
- Charles Bronson in 'The Magnificent Seven' - 1960
quoted from 'Ain't it Cool News'
Ain't That America
Ooh yeah
Ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America hey somethin' to see baby
Ain't that America oh home of the free
Ooh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Little pink houses babe for you and me
Ooh yeah, ooh yeah
This week in 'infotainment'
"County Law"
The Terminator
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3085415/Cops-hunt-bus-Terminator.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
Ted Nugent on political correctness and Arizona:
"American politics is simply 'We the People' demanding logic and accountability from our elected officials."
http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/music/articles/2010/07/28/20100728ted-nugent-sb-1070-phoenix.html
Nile Gardener on an executive out of touch with the people:
"..who is committed to transforming the United States from the world’s most successful large-scale free enterprise economy, to a highly interventionist society with a massive role for centralized government.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100050002/the-obama-presidency-increasingly-resembles-a-modern-day-ancien-regime-extravagant-and-out-of-touch-with-ordinary-people/
05 August 2010
03 August 2010
Editing in progress
I've been looking through some recent posts lately. What I recognized was: Even though my field of view is mainly du jour, I don't want that to be reflected in heavy-handed or crass content. Every day, my inbox fills to the brim with socio-/political news from one bitter outlet after another, but as the great philosophers rendered in their works, "Balance in all things," is key. I don't bring up politics at the dinner table nor usually with friends, but I have been here, frequently.
I have been trying to get away from politics to focus on spontaneous thoughts and interests, which means a more careful tone and neutral ground. Politics in this country are increasingly hostile; the media tends to fall to partisan sway, even though this is not at the core of the ideals of non-editorial journalism. It would be interesting to identify points on the 20th Century timeline to observe its changes. (E.g. pre- and post- Fairness Doctrine, etc.) Often times, politics here are on the full conservative tilt and after a second or third read, I come away even alienating myself. I'm a pretty fair and neutral listener; and I want politics here to be expressed in the same way. (And concisely.) As the social scientist & inventor Roger Von Oech once conveyed, a good source of motivation is the desire not to sign your name to crud. I don't get paid to scrub my posts carefully, but I owe it to readers to at least be more careful in my tone and redacting.
Even though my yin side finds so much appeal in subtext and subtlety, mastering mutual communication is one of the unspoken themes here and I've been only been going halfway; the super-ego has been out of the building and I haven't been double-checking to see if I've been at least non-offensive, for that matter.
Please accept my regrets if I've come off brashly lately.
I have been trying to get away from politics to focus on spontaneous thoughts and interests, which means a more careful tone and neutral ground. Politics in this country are increasingly hostile; the media tends to fall to partisan sway, even though this is not at the core of the ideals of non-editorial journalism. It would be interesting to identify points on the 20th Century timeline to observe its changes. (E.g. pre- and post- Fairness Doctrine, etc.) Often times, politics here are on the full conservative tilt and after a second or third read, I come away even alienating myself. I'm a pretty fair and neutral listener; and I want politics here to be expressed in the same way. (And concisely.) As the social scientist & inventor Roger Von Oech once conveyed, a good source of motivation is the desire not to sign your name to crud. I don't get paid to scrub my posts carefully, but I owe it to readers to at least be more careful in my tone and redacting.
Even though my yin side finds so much appeal in subtext and subtlety, mastering mutual communication is one of the unspoken themes here and I've been only been going halfway; the super-ego has been out of the building and I haven't been double-checking to see if I've been at least non-offensive, for that matter.
Please accept my regrets if I've come off brashly lately.
'The Planet and the Radio Dish'
This photo, by Alex Cherney, can be seen here: (link).
Hopefully, you're familiar with The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Having read this as a youngster, and without cheating, I recall the reader encountering an aviator stranded in the desert. (Inspired by stories of the French Foreign Legion?) Eventually, a curious man who travelled around on a tiny planet and the desert wanderer revealed their "strange" perspectives to one another, and a great parable within.
That the Little Prince could circle his lonely, small planet in a few hops, the book's essence was dreamlike and ethereal. I now long to revisit the message in the book (without looking it up in two clicks).
02 August 2010
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