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| Spring 2009 CommentsTarnished Brass: Is the U.S. Military Profession in Decline?Nearly twenty years after the end of the Cold War, the American military, financed by more money than the entire rest of the world spends on its armed forces, failed to defeat insurgencies or fully suppress sectarian civil wars in two crucial countries, each with less than a tenth of the U.S. population, after overthrowing those nations’ governments in a matter of weeks. Evidence of overuse and understrength in the military abounds: the longest individual overseas deployments since World War II and repeated rotations into those deployments; the common and near-desperate use of bonuses to keep officers and enlisted soldiers from leaving. Nor is it only the ground forces that are experiencing the pinch. The U.S. Air Force has had to cut tens of thousands of people to buy the airplanes it believes it needs. The U.S. Navy faces such declining numbers of ships that it needs allies to accomplish the varied demands of power projection, sea control, and the protection of world commerce. Full text articleThis article reflects the values the promotes: non-partisan patriotism, practicality, honor. I hope the military is listening, but I fear the corrupting influence of big-bucks industry. We would all do well to study the collapse of the Russian army (and state) in 1914: a politicized officer corps, insistence on obsolete technology, corruption, and a disregard for the lives and well-being of the enlisted ranks by the officer corps. Government and military service have evolved and even dedicated career military officers are now tempted by lucrative defense contractor opportunities. . . Why not, most ex Congressmen and staff move seamlessly to "K" street! . . . Obama's top financial advisers were Wall Streeters and they will return there in a few years. . . Wall Street "owns" the Congress and the Military Industrial complex "owns" military procurement. I would just like to make you aware of Project Global Officers, a DoD initiative administered by the Institute of International Education. Our goal is to increase in the ROTC population the study of foreign languages and cultures. Hopefully, our efforts will produce smart, adaptive leaders who can operate effectively across cultures and regions. Excellent essay, well don! I would simply add, "people do what you reward them for doing" and the military is no different. When the services begin to seriously look at rewards and how those rewards are tied to strategic objectives, they may see improvement. Officer's in particular are not rewarded for taking risk. When a Captain turns right and goes in a circle to avoid contacts out of fear, something is grossly wrong. Agreeing with Richard H.Kohn, I would like to say that since the end of the Cold War there is much food for thought for the US's youth to understand the fact that most of the US military interventions in the different regions of the world are merely based on propaganda and concoction-the fact that without having a justified casus belli- the US administration has been prone to inviting the war ( the US invasion of Iraq has been a glaring case in point) and the fact being that the US ongoing war on terror has also badly influenced the white heat of enthusiasm to join the military profession since many Americans are not fully satisfied/convinced with the philosophy of waging wars in the name of defending America. I find it interesting that the "greatest military machine in history" has been fought to a standstill by a rag tag group of insurgents..this country has made a fetish of supporting our troops by putting them in battles they cannot win..americans are not great soldiers even ww2, the "good war"was fought with an army of mostly draftees..we used to have a healthy skepticism about warand the military...now every problem needs a bomb or a bullet to solve it..we cannot and should not win our current conflicts because our cause is not just!!!!! |  Submit Your Comment |
Posted by Bob Weimann USMC Ret | May 8, 2009 10:39:28 AM EDT