1.) not everyone gets a chance to make desicions in combat (not that there is a requisit box to be checked for that

2.) popularity among your troops and having "people" skills isn't something tangible you can hold up and say you acheived (although should be reflected in fitness reports)

3.) if someone sets the standard at a PhD, then that's what will have to be reached. Going back to number 2, having the admiration of your troops/fellow officers, dosen't help when the people sitting on your promotion board are looking at paper and have no idea who you are from Adam.

Not saying I don't agree with you, but the system/standards are what they are.

 

Its all about what isn't written in those fitness reports...

 

I think performing the mission should be secondary to attending sexual assault and safety briefings. Additionally, the Information Awareness Course ZZ1354746546..... needs to be administered MONTHLY instead of annually. PT tests should be bi-weekly as well.

 

Don't forget the glow-belts.

 

You must have made 0-6 already. You know all the secrets....

 

Apparently they don't have the intellectual "throw weight" to understand Afghanistan in the light of world history:

It didn't work for the Brits in America.
It didn't work for the Brits in Afghanistan.
It didn't work for us in Vietnam.
It didn't work for the Russians in Afghanistan.
It isn't working for us in Afghanistan.

One valid definition of insanity is repeating the same action expecting a different outcome.

 

Nah, we'll just throw our own warriors in jail for killing the enemy....***!

DEFEND MICHAEL

 

That's our current model, and works pretty well for conventional maneuver warfare. But there are a few issues...

- It is possible to be an tactical idiot-savant...good at tactical leadership and kicking ass to make things happen but oblivious to the Big Picture. And you can go far that way, simply by sticking to doctrine formula in evaluated exercises.

- World-class strategists are grown, not born, and they have to like to do a lot of reading. We were fortunate in OIF-I and Gulf War that the right people happened to be in or or near the right jobs. Those invasions could have been a lot harder.

- Going forward, we cannot (despite popular opinion in the clueless quarters) disregard conventional warfare to focus solely on CT/LIC/Nation Building but we definitely need to place a lot of emphasis on the latter three for the foreseeable future. That will require some well-read, creative thinking leadership to grasp all of the dimensions involved... and we are kidding ourselves if we think the DOS is going to do the job Why did Petreaus have to make a lateral move to afghanistsan? Cuz there ain't too many other guys in the inventory who could do that job.

But I fully agree that combat commanders at all levels need to be hard-hitting people-oriented leaders. Perhaps what would be in order would be a parallel career track for strategists/cultural experts. They would be assigned to to HQ staff on equal footing with the executive officer/COS and would need to formally sign off on the CO's battle plans (with comments added). You could have provisions for the truly talented to switch tracks or do a few strategy tours to round out their potential.

Bottom line, I think it's too easy for doctrinal cookie-cutters to bully their way to stars by way of aggressive, efficient tactical performance. Of course we still need that too, but it does not automatically prepare you for what we now need at the next level.