So, we get Stav and Mattis in a room ....

So, SECDEF Mattis (no, I don't get tired of saying this) put it right out there;

"We are not winning in Afghanistan right now. And we will correct this as soon as possible," Mattis said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mattis acknowledged that he believed the Taliban were "surging" at the moment, something he said he intended to address.

From last month, Jim Stavridis outlined 5 reasons we need more forces in AFG

First, it is a tactical necessity. Over the past two years, the Taliban have been steadily encroaching on Afghan government control of territory, and by some estimates they are now in a position to influence the population in 40% of the country. While Afghan Security forces number over 300,000 and have shown real mettle in many places, they are taking significant casualties and still require effective mentoring down to at least the Battalion level. That means an increase in our overall troop strength is necessary.

Second, the emergence of an Islamic State element in Afghanistan is very concerning. While they have largely been unable to galvanize either the population or create cooperation with the Taliban, they have conducted a series of disruptive terror attacks and add further chaos to an unstable system. A larger NATO force can blunt their impact.

A third key reason is to create political capital that can be very helpful when some portion of the Taliban (who are not a holistic organization to say the least) eventually come to the negotiating table. We will never “win” militarily in Afghanistan, nor can we kill our way to success. Sooner or later we will need to bargain, and a stronger NATO force on the ground will give us better leverage.

Fourth, the additional forces send a signal to the Pakistanis, who are still somewhat playing a “double game” of overtly cooperating with NATO, but in reality supporting some elements of the insurgency. This commitment will tell Pakistan we intend to continue to work for a successful outcome in Afghanistan, and will hopefully encourage them to force the Taliban into negotiations.

Which brings us to another key point: what does success look like? Afghanistan is not going to resemble Singapore anytime soon; but it can have a functioning democratic government, general control over much of its borders, the ability to minimize impact from the insurgency, armed forces with high public approval, and a reduction in both corruption and narcotics — the latter two issues posing a longer term threat to the nation than even the Taliban. Getting to that point of success will require security and thus the additional forces.

I've been writing about AFG from the start of the blog, click the AFG tag below if you're new here and want to catch up.

Both Mattis and Stavridis are spot on. Since Obama's DEC09 West Point speech, we turned over all momentum to the enemies of modernity. 

We had a good, long range plan by 2008, but that was all thrown away. There is a lot to do.

Though we are as a nation tired, and on some days I think we should just all just look for the airhead version of the Friendship Bridge and cover what we leave behind in thermite ... but that isn't how this works.

Mattis was the first General Officer to set foot in AFG as a 1-Star, and Stavridis had to do what he could with the Political Level D&G he received from Obama as SACEUR.

A smart person would defer to their recommendations, or at least give them a fair hearing.

If those two gentlemen are standing up and pointing in a certain direction, I'm lacing up my boots and forming up behind them.

$.02.

In the 1980s, we called this "Monday"

There are things we should not talk all that much about, but we should take notice of.

Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.

The issue goes beyond old worries during the Cold War that the Russians would tap into the cables — a task American intelligence agencies also mastered decades ago. The alarm today is deeper: The ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West’s governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent.

First of all, if anyone in government service in the national security arena is surprised or shocked by this, please go work somewhere else.

If those who are responsible for maintaining connectivity have not been refining our branch plans to respond to this eventuality, will someone please fire them?

I do not think the interest here is "cutting" them - but finding, fixing the most accessible locations, and ... well ... yea.

Hey, from high waisted jeans to frustrating Russians, many of the things from the '80s are back. They actually never went away, it just wasn't their time for awhile.

Well, they're back.

Just last month, the Russian spy ship Yantar, equipped with two self-propelled deep-sea submersible craft, cruised slowly off the East Coast of the United States on its way to Cuba — where one major cable lands near the American naval station at Guantánamo Bay. It was monitored constantly by American spy satellites, ships and planes. Navy officials said the Yantar and the submersible vehicles it can drop off its decks have the capability to cut cables miles down in the sea.

“The level of activity,” a senior European diplomat said, “is comparable to what we saw in the Cold War.”
...
Adm. James Stavridis, formerly NATO’s top military commander and now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said in an email last week that “this is yet another example of a highly assertive and aggressive regime seemingly reaching backwards for the tools of the Cold War, albeit with a high degree of technical improvement.”

This time we have an Information Dominance warfare pin, so I am sure all is well.

Stavridis on Putin and Understanding the Russian Mind

On Tuesday over at FP, Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret.) offered up some of the best advice I have read in awhile for those who are trying to get their head around Putin and what is going on with Russia.

As I've mentioned here and we've discussed often on Midrats, Russia is neither West nor East ... she is just Russia. To try to understand her as anything else simply will not work.

Given that ... why is Russia being ... Russia?

Want to really understand what’s going on in Russia? Get rid of that CIA report full of dusty Cold War tropes. Forget the NSA intercepts or spy satellite imagery. And drop the jargon-filled scholarly analysis from those political science journals.

Instead, get back to the richest literary gold mine in the Western world: Russian novels and poetry. Read Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, and Bulgakov. That’s where you’ll really find how Russians think.

Stavridis gives a great series of recommendations.

Begin with Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 masterpiece, Dead Souls. It is the blackest of black humor, a story in which a mysterious businessman moves through the Russian countryside “buying up souls” (i.e., taking away a tax burden from the estate owners).
...
How will Russians fight and what kind of leaders do they follow? Want to understand their patriotism? Go read the master, Leo Tolstoy. His sweeping 1869 epic, War and Peace, shows us how the Russians think about their ability to fight, and illuminates the deep patriotism that fuels today’s nationalist tendencies.
...
Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment spins a tale that captures the Russian sensibility perfectly: A deeply troubled protagonist chooses to kill, but then is haunted by guilt and — encouraged by the good people around him — eventually confesses. He is then purified and ultimately achieves redemption.
...
Think the Russians will crack under sanctions? Try reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the 1962 novel by dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His protagonist, a convict in a Siberian gulag, finds a hundred ways to scrape through the day, dealing with the petty corruption, laughing at the predicaments, occasionally reveling in the harsh conditions of his imprisonment, and powerfully exhibiting the ability to overcome adversity.
...
For something more modern, try One Soldier’s War by Arkady Babchenko. It’s a foot soldier’s memoir set in Chechnya during the height of the war there in the 1990s waged by the Russian conscript military against the rebellious population. This is counterinsurgency turned upside down — the Russians aren’t trying to win the hearts and minds; they are quite content with putting a bullet into each.
...
And finally, to understand the view of the Russian émigré, the brilliant Russian-American novelist Gary Shteyngart’s Absurdistan captures the post-Soviet space better than any book of non-fiction. Set in Moscow and a thinly disguised Azerbaijan (a former republic of the USSR, in case you forgot), it serves up a portrait of Russian “capitalism” with a huge dose of black humor. It echoes Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, a magical realist novel written in the 1930s, in its evocation of the Russians’ ability to exist quite happily in a world where everything is half a beat off the music.
...
And what of Russian leaders? Dostoyevsky said about one key character in his masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, that “Anger was buried far too early in a young heart, which perhaps contained much good.” A description of the young Putin? Perhaps.

When in doubt, no one could be accused of doing a bad thing if they picked up a book. Or, as simply put by Stavridis;

...pick up a novel and start reading.

Playing Chicken at 10-MPH

It is hard to determine if the slow-roll Russian invasion of Ukraine is a sign of weakness, or a brilliant exercise of territorial conquest on the cheap. Either way, you have to give grudging respect to the Russians - they are winning.

As with any expansionist power, they will continue to expand until stopped. Both in the public, and out in the open, there are some moves in the Diplomatic, Informational, and Economic spheres at work, but we are leaving the Military part to the Ukrainians.

The Ukrainians need help, they have a lot of challenges - one of of which is having the weapons they need. Though he is trying as much as he can to disengage from the world that is filling each vacuum we leave - President Obama has some hard decisions to make.

With Russian-backed separatists pressing their attacks in Ukraine, NATO’s military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, now supports providing defensive weapons and equipment to Kiev’s beleaguered forces, and an array of administration and military officials appear to be edging toward that position, American officials said Sunday.

President Obama has made no decisions on providing such lethal assistance. But after a series of striking reversals that Ukraine’s forces have suffered in recent weeks, the Obama administration is taking a fresh look at the question of military aid.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who plans to visit Kiev on Thursday, is open to new discussions about providing lethal assistance, as is Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, officials said. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who is leaving his post soon, backs sending defensive weapons to the Ukrainian forces.

At a different time and with different leaders, this might give the Russians pause - but I don't think it will right now. At every turn, when things got to the point of needing a tough call, the Obama Administration has backed off.

If I were the Russians, I would expect the same.

This isn't a problem with the Democrat defense intellectual base - just the Democrats that Obama has decided to populate his circle with.

Fueling the broader debate over policy is an independent report to be issued Monday by eight former senior American officials, who urge the United States to send $3 billion in defensive arms and equipment to Ukraine, including anti-armor missiles, reconnaissance drones, armored Humvees and radars that can determine the location of enemy rocket and artillery fire.

Michèle A. Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official who is a leading candidate to serve as defense secretary if Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected president, joined in preparing the report. Others include James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral who served as the top NATO military commander, and Ivo Daalder, the ambassador to NATO during Mr. Obama’s first term.

“The West needs to bolster deterrence in Ukraine by raising the risks and costs to Russia of any renewed major offensive,” the report says. “That requires providing direct military assistance — in far larger amounts than provided to date and including lethal defensive arms.”

You can get the report here.

11-months ago I made a statement on what the Ukrainians should prepare themselves for. A year later, it still applies.

The Ukrainians should prepare to lose not just Crimea, but Karkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, and Dnepropetrovsk. They should count themselves lucky if they keep Mykolaiv and Odessa. That is worse case. Most likely for the Ukrainians would be the loss of only Crimea and those parts east of the Dnieper up to the city of Dnepropetrovsk and east of the E105 to Karkiv. Best case is just the loss of Crimea, or some kind of agreement with Russia for expanded Russian bases and influence.

I don't see the Europeans as the EU doing anything. With the new Russian influence in Greece and Hungary, I don't see any significant moves by NATO to support either. The USA that wouldn't take the lead in Libya is unlikely to take the lead now on the border of an expanding Russia.

No, there is nothing to stop the Russians from inching their way to getting their Novorossiya back. The Ukrainians are plucky - but not that plucky.

No one wants a conflict in Ukraine - but the world give you what it wants, not what you want from it. It will be a great shame on the West to not even help someone to fight their own war. History shows us that in the end, someone will have to stop expansionist powers. Time is never the friend of the good in this regard. The longer you wait, the higher the butcher's bill.

CNO rethinking STEM bias?

Good news on the intellectual capital development front.

After trending in the wrong direction for years towards and unnecessarily skewed, to 85% STEM, bias in officer accessions, it looks like the CNO may reassess.

Via our pal Sam LaGrone at USNINews;

The Department of the Navy funds 4,200 NROTC midshipmen — around 3,300 Navy and about 870 Marine Corps midshipmen. For Navy options, 85 percent of the funds are devoted to STEM majors while 15 percent is left for liberal arts and language degrees.

“It is of great value to revisit this [issue],” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert at the CSIS and U.S. Naval Institute’s Maritime Security Dialogue on Tuesday in response to a question from a member of the University of George Washington NROTC battalion.
“We should do it periodically and not just sit on it and we’re doing that.”

Greenert said he had met with his strategic advisory group on Monday and the topic has emerged.

As to if the Navy will change the balance of scholarships in the future, Greenert responded with, “well, we’ll see.”

Yea ... I caught that hedge as well. I hope he wasn't just making happy talk to make the uncomfortable question go away. As always, deeds not words will tell the story - but he opened the door for other voices to address the topic.

... retired NATO Supreme Commander Adm. James G. Stavridis suggested the Navy also revisit the scholarship program mix.

Stavridis — who is also the U.S. Naval Institute’s Chair of the Board of Directors and the Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University — graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in electrical engineering and earned graduate degrees in international relations.

“In all honesty, I found the situations I encountered in the course of my career, I was more benefited by what I had studied about the world international relations and history and all of the other aspects of those disciplines than my electrical engineering background,” he said.

“I don’t know that the balance needs to be fifty-fifty, it is a technical service and that’s part of what we do.”

Spot on.

It is a topic we discussed again for a bit on Midrats yesterday, and one that will not be going away soon.

Stavridis tacks right ...

Hmmm ....

"Without question we will see our young men and women engaged in combat. I don't think they'll be given a primary, direct, combat assignment initially, but I think it's entirely possible that as events change and morph, the situation may ultimately require that," said former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Adm. James Stavridis.

"If we're going to be honest, we ought to start by saying we'll send in troops and they're going to advise, train, ,mentor, and they'll stiffen the Iraqi security forces and they'll stiffen the Peshmerga in the north, and we'll do the bombing in the west and initially no combat mission," he said.

You you can watch the full interview here.

Mr. Lind, may we focus our rage please?

Many of you have by now have at least heard of, if not read, William S. Lind’s latest, “An Officer Corps That Can’t Score.” If not, give it a read and come back. A lot of people are taking a swing at it – and now what everyone is back from Easter doings, time for me to give it a shot as well.

Off the bat, Lind made a statement that needs immediate rebuttal;

The most curious thing about our four defeats in Fourth Generation War—Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan—is the utter silence in the American officer corps.

Well, I’m not sure where or who he is listening to – but there is not silence on any of these issues … and there is the problem I think. I’ll get to that in a second. First things first:
1. Lebanon? I assume he is referring to our ’82-84 Lebanon incursions. That was an aborted peace enforcement operation that was a fool’s errand to begin with. Good thing we left when we did. Mistake? Yes. Poor concept and design? Yes. Military defeat? No. Strategic bumble – absolutely.
2. Somalia a decade later? See above. This whole exercise in CNN-effect meets UN-fuzzy warfare was a political error from beginning to end. The military did what it could given the constraints and restraints that were put on it. This was a failure of the civilians in leadership of the military. Full stop. I’ll repeat. Mistake? Yes. Poor concept and design? Yes. Military defeat? No. Strategic bumble – absolutely.
3. Iraq? After fits and starts, like you always see in complicated wars – I’m sorry - we got this about right in the end. We walked away with something we could call a victory here. Good people can argue if we should have left a small counter-terrorism force behind, but on balance we can walk away – due to President Bush’s determination to see this through BTW – with something we can accept. Of course, it is up to the Iraqi’s to make the best of the opportunity we gave them – and that is fine. You can try to make the argument that it was a defeat, but good luck with that, as no one has made that a convincing argument yet.
4. Afghanistan? The jury is still out, but when I was there, we were still on the path to winning with Shape, Clear, Hold, Build district by district. Six months after I left is where things started getting iffy following the President’s December 2009 West Point speech. That naive nightmare will make the odds of something acceptable like we had in Iraq a lot less likely. But again … the civilians make the calls. Win or loss? TBD.

Let’s review Operational Planning 101 for a moment, shall we? I’ll do a 2-week seminar in just a couple of paragraphs or so.

The military does nothing without political direction and guidance. Depending on your Operational Planning confession, POL/MIL guidance informs the Strategic level plan. That prescribes the Operational level plan. That in turn gives the outlines for the Tactical level plan.

Besides their drudge work on Staffs, O-6 and below do not make anything happen above the Tactical level. For that matter, neither do 1-2 Star General Officers/Flag Officers (GOFO). Further up the chain, the Operational level belongs to the 3-4 Star GOFO. The Strategic level belongs to the 4-Star senior leadership and their civilian masters. 

For those who know how Afghanistan works from the NATO side of the house: Tactical:ISAF, Operational:JFC Brunssum, Strategic:SHAPE. (NB: is actually isn’t that clean because there is also national levels, and the tactical is blurred by the Regional Commands and the occasional reference of ISAF as the bastardized “In-theatre Operational” – just an ugly C2 diagram).

Above the Strategic, again this depends on your Operational Planning confession, there is the Political/Military, AKA POL/MIL. That is your senior civilian and military leadership … with the civilians running the show. Mark that.

This is where I think Lind is referencing when he says “military officers” – as much of his critique is not the fault of anyone below O-6.

Substantively, at the moral level—Colonel Boyd’s highest and most powerful level—our officers live in a bubble. Even junior officers inhabit a world where they hear only endless, hyperbolic praise of “the world’s greatest military ever.” They feed this swill to each other and expect it from everyone else. If they don’t get it, they become angry. Senior officers’ bubbles, created by vast, sycophantic staffs, rival Xerxes’s court. Woe betide the ignorant courtier who tells the god-king something he doesn’t want to hear. (I know—I’ve done it, often.)

Notice that? Yep’r, a little too much Boyd on the brain. 1,024 words, four of which are “Boyd.” Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Boyd … but too much is too much. Moving on.

A few things above. In my experience, in private few of your best Junior Officers buy any of the rah, rah BS. The best are just the opposite; they are critical and questioning. I say “in private” – as only a select few will say anything but the official line in public. That is a byproduct of a very real issue that he only touches on briefly – command climate about contrary opinion. That has been and always will be a part of military life even before Mahan was told, "It is not the business of naval officers to write books." – the question is how heavy a presence is it? Is it Soviet level or Dutch level?

The vast majority of our officers read no serious military history or theory. A friend who teaches at a Marine Corps school told me the most he can now get majors to read is two pages. Another friend, teaching at an Army school, says, “We are back to drawing on the cave wall.”

This is not too far from one of my major critiques of our wardrooms, but here Lind is missing the source of the problem – how we access our officers. He is only yelling at the symptoms.

For an example, the CNO, a nuke submariner, natch, is pushing the Navy towards 85% STEM major requirement for officers. By their nature and education, science, technology, engineering and math majors do not know their history that well, nor will they make the effort to educate themselves on it. In practice, technicians infrequently are intellectually curious about the other side of their brain. There are exceptions of course, but you get out of one end of the machine the results of the raw material you put in it.

The officers in company and field grade are also rational beings; they are responding to the risk/reward factors in their career, and the demand signal from the system in general. As the sayings go, you get what you inspect, and you get what you reward. Until you have a system that rewards intellectual effort, critical thinking and creative friction, you will only have those things at the margins – especially in the GOFO ranks.

There are plenty of officers who are interested in history and theory – but – you have to look for them. You also will have a lot of trouble finding them in the GOFO ranks. There is Lind’s problem – he doesn’t have an issue with the officer corps – he has an issue with the POL/MIL level – that is the senior civilian leadership and the Generals and Admirals in the seats next to them.

Besides Admirals Stavridis and Harvey in the naval service – both of whom are now retired – there has been little intellectual give and take where GOFO will happily paint outside the lines on various topics. Off the record I have seen more, but they will only do so on background or on a personal basis. Why? Simple; command climate. GOFO have them too. Where does that come from? Senior civilian and military leadership.

The first half of Lind’s article is a hot mess, but the second half has some very valid and Salamanderesque observations;

… an officer corps vastly too large for its organization … Command tours are too short … the “up or out” promotion system and “all or nothing” vesting for retirement at 20 years. … It is not difficult to see how these two structural failings in the officer corps morally emasculate our officers and all too often turn them, as they rise in rank and near the magic 20 years, into ass-kissing conformists.

I had to read the last bit a few times. The “too often” is perhaps accurate depending on how you define percentages. He doesn’t say, “all.”

Congress could quickly fix all of them. Why don’t they? Because they only look at the defense budget, and these are not directly budgetary issues.

Closer. That is civilian leadership. Again, Lind misses this critical point about our system. He double downs at the end;

Only our officers themselves can fix these deficiencies. Will they? The problem is circular: not until they leave their bubble.

If American military officers want to know, or even care, why we keep losing, they need only look in the mirror. They seem to do that most of the time anyway, admiring their now-tattered plumage. Behind them in the glass, figures in turbans dance and laugh.

OK, there is some internal house cleaning that needs to be done – but it isn’t going to happen until there is a SECDEF or Service Secretary who makes it happen – or enables the right 4-star to make it happen.

Some ideas:
- Remove STEM degree requirements completely, or to no more than 50%.
- Benchmark some of the British officer accession and retention policies – specifically related to up-and-out and specialization of career paths.
- Repeal and update Goldwater-Nichols starting with JPME requirements. Move war college attendance until after selection to O5 (CDR/LtCol). Replace with opportunity for fellowships or advanced education 24/36-month opportunity windows. Only fund resident programs at civilian institutions. Emphasize in precepts to selection boards.
- Expand foreign exchange tours. Emphasize in precepts to selection boards.
- Forget BRAC, empower a broad Staff consolidation and restructuring of manning documents. Force pain ashore.
- Freeze all officer and senior enlisted on-base housing and begin to decommission sub-standard housing without replacing units. Force leadership to live in the communities they serve.

That’s a start.

Finally, I would offer to Mr. Lind that he needs to power down, reset circuit breakers, restart, and then recalibrate. He has some valid points … it is just that his targeting is off.

If you don’t like what happened in Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq & Afghanistan – don’t expend all your rounds on military officers – especially those 2-star and below – they are not your problem. Look at the selection process for the 3-4 star levels on the uniformed side of the house – then more importantly look at the sources of those in civilian outfits that came in to power via political parties, think-tanks, & preferred PhD issuing institutions that created the intellectual raw material that informs decision makers.

It won’t make you as popular as bashing a bunch of Colonels/Captains and junior – but it will get you closer to the problem that vexes you so.

---

Now for Part II and III on Mr. Lind's article.

I'm an early-cohort Gen-X type who left active duty in '09. Perhaps my view is generational? Let's compare and contrast.

Exercising a rare bit of self-control on my part, two friends of the blog published over the weekend their responses to Lind; the late-cohort Gen-X LCDR BJ Armstrong, USN and the Gen-Y LT Matthew Hipple, USN. I didn't read either until I wrote the above.

Both these gentlemen are well known to members of the front porch. We can't seem to get the Millennials feet off my lawn and faces out of their smart phones - so we'll go with what we've got. I'm going to quote generously, but read them all in full. We have some overlap - as we are seeing things from a slightly different angles.

Let's look at BJ's first, Gardening in a "Barren" Officer Corps.

Lind errs on the side of being insulting to some of the dedicated men and women in uniform, but that does not really worry me. They have thick skin. More seriously, he leads his civilian readers astray, leaving them with an inaccurate depiction of a military completely unused to debate.

Exactly. It isn't the military readers that should be our concern, but the impression the civilian readers take away.

This past Wednesday, the U.S. Naval Institute held their annual meeting in Washington D.C. In an auditorium full of junior officers, mid-grades, and admirals, as well as civilians, academics, analysts and retirees, the past year’s writing in the institute’s flagship journal Proceedings was recognized. An award went to Rear Admiral Robert Wray, who advocated an unpopular position: a tiered readiness and forward deployment system for our naval forces that would fundamentally change much about our Navy. The institute also recognized Lieutenant Ryan Hilger, who wrote a prize winning article on reform of the NATO alliance and adjustments to the relationships between the United States and our overseas partners. These are just two recent examples, but they are not outliers. And they run counter to Lind’s claim that “not a military voice is heard calling for thoughtful, substantive change.”

Just an example of the top-shelf discussion that is going on. Not rough-n-tumble, but important creative friction. You need all levels - and if you are looking you can find it.

There BJ parts with the first half of Lind's article and gets close to the same place I did with the second half;

However, we also shouldn’t entirely dismiss Lind’s critiques. The structural issues Mr. Lind raises are important and worth considering, from staff bloat to using an industrial age promotion system in the 21st century. He also raises the specter of careerism and the classical lament of military conservatism. The reality is there are plenty of officers who are too comfortable with the status quo. The majority avoids the difficult and messy work of reform, or even innovative thinking. The same was true in the days of Lind’s friends Boyd, Wyly and Wass de Czege, officers who struggled with this reality as they tried to reform their services in the 1970′s and 1980′s. The fact that these men are best remembered as colonels, and not as service leading general officers, helps illustrate the point. These are weighty issues. Yes, they are the kind of things that a number of officers are writing and thinking about. But is that enough?

BJ also sees that there is a cultural thing that we need to get right.

The list of today’s creative thinkers and reformers tends toward the more junior ranks, at least in public. It is still a legitimate question to ask, “Are the flags and general officers listening?” Is there any sign that these efforts are valued institutionally? I’ve never seen anything that would appear to support critical thinking, innovation, reform or any other similar topics in the precepts of a promotion or selection board.

You get what you select. Full stop.

BJ ends with a good roll-up;

William Lind is 100 percent correct when he points out that there is much about our military, which is desperately calling out for reform. He is also 100 percent wrong when he categorically states, “only our officers themselves can fix these deficiencies.” It takes reform-minded men and women in uniform, advocates and supporters in our nation’s political leadership, and an interested and informed American populace. We should take his article as an opportunity to demonstrate that have many been working hard to develop and advocate the reforms we need. We also must continue that work and expand our debates and solutions to include an ever-wider audience.

Verily. Now to Gen-Y. Over to Matt and his take, Our Debating Military: Here if You're Looking.

Those who lurk in "discussion boards" best viewed in DOS 3.0 and read email chains full of AOL email addresses, will nod their heads at the following. There is a lot of discussion, at the company and field grade levels at least, if you are willing to get outside your comfort zone to look for it;

Rather than our officer corps living in a bubble, perhaps some of those discussing the internal debate of the military writ-large need to reach out of their bubble to see the rich discussion happening -right now-.
...
opinions will be heated and varied. The Center for International Maritime Security has featured an entire week debating the merits of the Navy’s,“Air Sea Battle,” concept. The United States Naval Institute archives decades of articles relating to the debate over carriers. Small Wars Journal is a running testament to the continued debate over insurgency and irregular ground conflicts. There are also sometimes-anonymous outlets, like the Sailor Bob forum, Information Dissemination, or the wild wonderful world of Commander Salamander’s blog; they are quite popular in -light- of the often unique and critical perspective taken by writers.

If I may indulge myself a bit here; I would add the wee talk show I host with EagleOne of EagleSpeak once a week, Midrats, to the mix if you like your talk a bit nicer.

Hipple does a solid job helping expand the net a bit;

Perhaps Mr.Lind is disappointed in our lack of engagement with Mahan, in which case I would direct him to LCDR Benjamin Armstrong’s book, “21st Century Mahan.” Perhaps Clausewitz is our flaw? The Army and Air Force officers writing at “The Bridge” would likely demolish THAT center of gravity, if the snarky Doctrine Man doesn’t get there first.

Like BJ, a strong roll-up;

The military is by no means perfect, but such imperfection is what drives the debate that both officers and enlisted are engaging in on a daily basis. Mr.Lind suggests interesting structural reform to better cultivate leadership in our officers. However he cites the need for such reforms based on a decrepit caricature of an officer corps the US Military is not saddled with. If one hasn’t, as a USNI author once told me, “done one’s homework,” ideas fall flat. There IS a debate happening in America’s Officer Corps, an educational and engaging one. We’re not too hard to find if you look.

CIMSEC Ask the Right Question

The answer is a bit more complicated than 42. Asks Jason;

... where is the sailorbob or cdrsalamader ‘site on the high side? Given the requirement to keep much of our tactical discussion away from prying eyes, how easy has the Navy made it for the average watchstander to find high-side sites where tactics are routinely and robustly discussed?

Reminds me of the Great Loss of '92 when the PC police took away the Esoteric Book of Gouge. You know, the green-cloth covered watch-book written in the blood of years of upgraders/non-quals - boiling down piles of hard to get information in pubs with lessons learned and the most tricky oral board issues to one easily accessible package - where you could revise and improve the gouge as needed.

The PQS sadists always hated it - but the Gods of JOPA always protected it ... until ... some hinge of a fun-sponge post-Tailhook also realized that it had some of the better liberty gossip and "observations" about certain unevaluated "qualifications" and "specialties" some people had and how they could be procured. So, one day the XO took it and that was that.

Well ... that was about the only written TS forum I can think of that was close to what CIMSEC is asking for ... and it was on deadtree. The question is; does the Navy have the culture, infrastructure and hours in the day for their to be something new mediaish on the high side? I don't think so, for a variety of reasons.

I think a SB or CDRS in RED or ORANGE networks would, unless given proper the top cover, quickly die once the wrong person got butthurt because LTJG Upstart put out a scathing POSTEX about VADM Insecure's favorite program/theory that he just published that LT Nevergetscredit ghost wrote for him, and VADM Insecure called RDML Paranoid - the ISIC of CDR Needtofeedfivekids - the CO of USS COLDIRON - who was informed in no uncertain terms that the COLDIRON's wardroom needed to shut up and cover ... and then ... "Delete that post, ban that user, get me the number of the administrator's boss ... etc ... etc."

We talked about just that problem on the last Midrats with a Naval War College professor. That issue is very real.

While a lot of people know who SB-actual is, and a smaller number who CDRS-actual is - they are separate from DoN and their personalities are somewhat prickly and hard to eradicate. SB has a degree of separation from some of the ideas on his forum, and when on active duty - only two people knew who CDRS-actual was - so no real direct threats.  Govt. owned, govt hosted, and subject to all that means? A bit hard to duplicate.

Perhaps that isn't fair. Perhaps it is. Perhaps that is why the anon side of the web works - people can share with some protection if they trust the venue. SB has its own culture (stab, stab, twist, stab ..... just kidding, I kid because I love) and my little front porch has its own too. People know that their identity and confidentiality is safe with me. I only post 10% of the things that are sent my way. So many things are sent, "on background" or just, "don't even hint at this, but I wanted you to know..." or "Look at this, but don't publish the pic as its source would be easy to track back ..." because since 2004, people have learned that CDRS is a "safe place." Will people trust DoN RED and ORANGE SB and CDRS like that? Not for long methinks.

Though CDRS is a one-man-show, if someone is itching to tell story, I let guest posts once a quarter or so - or as is often the case, people will hand me a story and say, "Publish as your own if you wish in whole or part ... but keep me out of it." And of course, comments is a free-fire zone, where unless you are excessively personally rude or make psycho-sexual threats, you are as free to advertise your ignorance as the host is. You can't be that free wheeling in RED and ORANGE.

Both SB and CDRS serve a certain part of the information ecosystem - but they are what they are because Sailor Bob and 'ole Sal run their ships they way they do, service the same cause - just in slightly different flavors - and it works because of that. But ... as the folks at CIMSEC point out - it has a huge limitation; UNCLAS.

I exchanged emails with a friend of the blog who knows me IRL too, and we were talking around a few things that we used to do operationally back in the day - topics that we simply cannot dig in to via any UNCLAS means ... so we talk around it. The two specific topics just beg for the open forum of SB and CDRS - if there were such a thing TS-SCI. That is where the cynicism of the above paragraphs is pushed back against what is a real need for an open forum on the high side. Just and example.

X & Y is put out in industry publications claiming Z ... but we have known for WW years that what is put out by industry is a lie. A lie that a lot of national security assumptions are based. Lies that are fudged in wargames, simulators, and yes - open source publications. You cannot directly push back though because to do so breaks well past UNCLAS.

Behind the cypher door, I am quite sure people are still saying, "This won't kill sh1t outside very specific _____ and _____ if you happen to _____. Do they know that there are only ______ of ______ that will support_____ of _____ anyway?" ... just like we did about the same systems 10, 15, and even 20 years ago.

And no one outside that small circle hears that. A dozen people read what has been written before behind the cipher door - but for most up the chain the Best Case is briefed as the Most Likely, the Most Likely is briefed as the Worst Case, and the Worst Case is put in backup slides. The filter performs its function - and the programs continue unchanged.

It would be good to have such a Navy wide forum online in RED and ORANGE ... but I don't think right now we have the culture to support it. Heck, I remember a specific topic that came out of a RIMPAC that was cut out of the TS brief simply because it was too negative an estimation of a new system's performance in the real world vice simulation. Not inaccurate ... just different than what the Flags were briefed about what its performance would be. We didn't say it was great, we didn't say what it actually did, we just said it was tried.

From what I hear in the Fleet, not much has changed in the last few years. Put another way;

The more insidious factor being a silencing of innovation in warfighting thought because of the perception that sharing of views outside of one’s own chain of command is seen in a negative light. Jeff Gilmore’s excellent post titled “Where is Lt Zuckerburg“ illustrates the challenges the military has placed upon its own innovators, from the lack of a coherent social media policy to the impediments placed upon junior thinkers by senior staffs. When coupled with the perception of ideas flowing into a doctrinal “black hole” once they leave the unit (due to the length of the vetting process, or due to failing to find advocacy outside the lifelines), what motivation do junior leaders have to share their ideas?

That is a panel discussion I would like to see led by Admiral Stavridis with a bunch of uppity-LTs.

We can overcome the lack of organizational inertia that bureaucracy forces upon warfighting; but doing so requires us to train our young leaders to use a healthy dose of critical thinking, some self-righteous zeal, and a bulldozer when necessary.

Critical thinking, self-righteous zeal, and a bulldozer personality ...  a pain in the tail at times - but isn't that what you want in the balance of your warfighting JOs to be?

This is a tough line of work - we should encourage a wide ranging and intellectually challenging exchange of ideas - it is better to do it in peace, than to wish you had in war.

Another great man passes

It has been a bad week for writers who influenced your humble blogg'r in his young adulthood.

As most of you know, Václav Havel has passed. First Hitch, then Václav; both died as a byproduct of a love of cigarettes, BTW.

What a giant - and a perfect example of the mindlessness of the Communist mindset in the face of human nature. Afraid of a guy who wrote plays.

Well, in the end he won; in spades.

The great thing about Havel was the same thing that drove me to him - a focus on freedom. Shortly after it was published back in 1991, I picked up Open Letters: Selected Writings; there it is in the upper-right corner pulled out from its place in my library this morning.

A well worn book that I took on deployment in '92. It could use a good translation - but for anyone who wanted to look in to the mind of a free man living in an intellectual prison, this should be on your short list.

Anyway - thank you Václav.Jindřich Šídlo I think outlines him very well.

.... Vaclav Havel was neither an angel, nor God, and he knew that the nation would not change.

For all that, he always did exactly what he thought was the right thing. He talked constantly about things that were not exactly easy to listen to after years of hearing about them over and over again – morality, conscience, responsibility, but also of racism and corruption, whose dangers he was very quick to recognise in the early 90s.

And he did all that knowing full well the risk that people would measure his words against their own experience and against what he would do himself. A confrontation between moral authority and politics in the real world cannot, it seems, end up without some disenchantment all round.

Truth and love have not won over lies and hatred, but there can be no doubt that everything Vaclav Havel did or said arose from his deepest conviction that precisely that way leads the path. And no matter what the majority may think about it at any moment.

As a side note - it looks like Admiral Stavridis and I are on the same page here.

From Ganjgal to Befehlstaktik

There are broader issues in the background story of the Battle of Ganjgal where SGT Dakota Meyer earned his Medal of Honor. What went on in the TOC, CPT Swenson and more. The details of that will come out over time, but there are a larger things at play here worth considering.

Mistakes will always take place in war even when you have the right people with the right orders conducting the right mission, and we always have to be careful to not do two things; don't twist the 3,000-mile screwdriver (if you have one), or in hindsight pick every action apart as if you would have unquestionably done something different if you were there.

Well, you weren't. You may have, you may have not. What can seem wrong in hindsight can, at the moment, seem very right. That is a simple fact.

Things bad will happen in war, bad mistakes of commission or omission will take place, but there are things you can do to mitigate it. That is what I find interesting, trying to identify those eternal things in the background, store them away, and hope that you might prosper from that knowlege in the future if you find yourself in a similar situation.

First - let's set the stage. The Battle of Ganjgal too place on 08 SEP 09. General Stan McChrystal just took over command of ISAF/US Forces Afghanistan earlier that summer and had released his report just a few weeks prior. Two weeks before that - he released his Direction & Guidance for Counterinsurgency to the forces in the field.

From the UNCLAS version of his D&G, here are some excerpts just so you know what was floating around in the ether.

Protecting the people is the mission. ... We will not win simply by killing insurgents. … we must change the way that we think, act, and operate … how we interact with people, how we drive or fly, how we patrol, how we use force … Security will not come from overwhelming firepower…A military force, culturally programmed to respond conventionally (and predictably) to insurgent attacks is akin to the bull that continually charges that matador's cape … an insurgency cannot be defeated by attrition; … The intricate familial, clan, and tribal connections of Afghan society turns "attrition math" on its head. From a conventional standpoint, the killing of two insurgents in a group of ten leaves eight remaining: 10-2=8. From the insurgent standpoint, those two killed were likely related to many others who will want vengeance. If civilian casualties occurred, that number will be much higher. Therefore, the death of two creates more willing recruits: 10 minus 2 equals 20 (or more) rather than 8. This is part of the reason why eight years of individually successful kinetic actions have resulted in more violence. The math works against an attrition mind-set. This is not to say that we should avoid a fight, but to win we need to do much more than simply kill or capture militants.

Second, conventional culinary action against insurgents consumes considerable resources with little real return and is likely to alienate the people we are trying to secure. Large scale operations to kill or capture militants carry a significant risk of causing civilian casualties and collateral damage. If civilians die in a firefight, it does not matter who shot them - we still failed to protect them from harm. Destroying a home or property jeopardizes the livelihood of an entire family - and creates more insurgents. We sow the seeds of our own demise.

... and so it goes for seven pages. Official investigations point in other directions than the above or the JUL09 Tactical Directive, but having been there eight months earlier under the previous tactical directive - at least my experience is that it is sewn in to everything you do - especially from the Staff level. I do not discount its impact at all.

As ISAF is/was a NATO operation - there was a constant background noise that American forces were killing too much; too quick to use indirect fire; too disruptive. The surge we started in late 08 was just getting heft and moving forward - and the US still had not fully taken back the keys from NATO.

At the exact time Ganjgal took place, the entire ISAF leadership was soaking in the reaction to the Kunduz airstrike and all the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes that went with it.

Remember the context of the time.

New Commander. New focus. The new Commander put out his guidance - a slight modification of General McKiernan's "Shape Clear Hold Build" - and the forces in the field were in the process of digesting them. Read the D&G in full as linked to above, then read the various reports of the Battle of Ganjgal - and the disconnect is clear on what the theory was - and what the reality of the facts on the ground were.

The coalition forces were taking increasing fire and could observe women and children shuttling fresh ammunition to Taliban fighting positions.

When broad theories meet narrow facts - that is where cracks develop and gaps are created where lives fall in to.

The path from think-tank to General's Desk to Staff back to General's Desk to the field is one well worn. When it results in D&G/ROE you can rough out a general matrix to tell you what is going to happen at the element and unit level.

Many problems can be minimized in the profession of arms by following the basics of Vince Lombardi Leadership 101 - keep it simple, keep it short. If your D&G sounds like the executive summary to a PhD dissertation, you're doing it wrong. If you are writing for the parlors of Georgetown and the salons of Europe but are delivering to the Strategic Corporal, you're doing it wrong.

With that set, here is the rough cocktail-napkin matrix of the interplay between Operational D&G, Tactical Leadership in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center), and Unit Level Leadership in contact with the enemy.

Solid D&G : Right Tactical Leadership:
--- Unit Level Leaders have room to make decisions based on their judgement and the facts at hand. Short OODA loop as the unanticipated happens (as it always does).
--- Judgement is well demonstrated and reflected in execution.
--- Few questions coming up from down the chain, lots of information coming up from down the chain.
--- Core Principals reinforce decisions. Things happen as reasonably expected.

Solid D&G : Wrong Tactical Leadership:
--- Orders seem to need constant repeating. OODA Loop is just an Oooooooo.
--- Unit Level Leaders seem to want to be told what to do or ask questions that are easily answered with a quick reading of the D&G.
--- More questions coming up from down the chain, less information coming up from down the chain. Initiative discouraged; approval seeking encouraged.
--- Core Principals seem to be missing. Things happen that make so sense related to the orders given.

Difficult D&G : Right Tactical Leadership:
--- Potential problems at the unit level are identified and planned responses are prepared to mitigate impact. OODA Loop extended, but functioning.
--- Unit Level Leaders understand the "white space" gaps and are confident of their support by Tactical Leadership if in extremis.
--- Challenges made and requests for modifications/clarifications come up from down the chain; Tactical Leadership responds based on Core Principals. Communication between levels short, decisive.
--- Conflicting requirements are resolved quickly based on Core Principals, judgement, and character of leadership. Deviations are reported as needed after decisions are made.

Difficult D&G : Wrong Tactical Leadership:
--- Orders are seen from a bureaucratic vice military point of view. OODA loop is too long or non-existent. Making no decision is seen as decision making. "Observe" is replaced by "Comply."
--- Unit Level Leaders do not understand the "white space" gaps as they do not know they exist as Tactical Leadership has never thought out or wargamed the implications of higher D&G.
--- Tactical Leadership is self-focused, judgement is supplanted by reverence to specific words in D&G. A palatable sense of detachment, distance, leavened with complacency felt between different levels of leadership.
--- Core Principals are undefined. Judgement is out-sourced. Trust between Unit and Tactical Leadership is missing.

What are the "Core Principals?" Well, that is the question - isn't it? It can depend on the person and their position - but it really shouldn't. Another way to look at Core Principals is to look at what the default Decision Point should be? When all else is confusing - is there one question you keep in your back pocket for guidance that provides a "yes or no" answer that can guide you out of the fog? There should be. One would hope that in every leader's default Decision Point question there is one one shared by all:

- Do I trust my subordinate leaders in the field? If yes, give him what he needs.

That is not an easy question - but it is one that has to be founded in a mindset and a level of trust between leaders - with both commissioned and non-commissioned officers. Knowledge that we trust their judgement based on the fact we know they understand our mission, our commander's D&G, and the specific needs for those under their charge. They have the training and facilities to make the right call. That is the mindset - the result of selecting, training, promoting, and developing leaders that have earned the trust that enables a mindset build on that trust - it is self-reinforcing.

When that doesn't exist, you develop a bureaucratic, dare I say Soviet, mindset. You have no trust in others - only the orders you have from higher. You don't believe in judgement, only the judgement of those who wrote your orders. If there is "white space" then that needs to be filled from - you guessed it - from higher up the chain. You don't lead - you manage the orders given to you by others. You don't look for gaps, you ignore them. It is a mindset of fear.

Do we want officers or automatons? Our nation's history is full of officers who found themselves in situations where they could not "just follow orders" and had to use their training, education, and judgement ... and if that failed ... then their commanders would rely on their subordinates' .... character.

A commander who has trust and confidence in his leadership and subordinates' leadership intentionally writes D&G that has "white space" to give his leaders in the field running room. He knows that he has officers who, on balance, have the judgement, character, and understanding of the profession of arms to carry out what needs to be done for the mission at hand. Likewise, you must have officers on the receiving end that meet that expectation.

Even in the best of circumstances, that doesn't work out sometimes. When things do not work out the way they should in that chain of events from the Operational Level through the Tactical down to the Unit - you need to ask broader questions once you get past the, "He asked for X and they did not give it to him because of Y, and as a result Z happened." You have to ask if we have a system that promotes and encourages the right officers with the right mindset. A military gets the officers it recruits, trains, and promotes.

What are our criteria? What are our priorities? What do we reward? What do we punish? Remember, it is almost never the superficial characteristics of the individuals in the ranks, but the quality of their leadership that makes the difference.

Along those lines, let's pivot slightly to Tom Rick's post over at FP. In it he brings back someone we haven't visited with since 2007, Col. Paul Yingling, USA. You need to read it all - but here is the parts that are germane to our discussion.

Scipio's centurions didn't have 3.5 years of brigade staff time to learn their trade before fighting Hannibal. Sherman's cavalry troops were not made audacious by rigorous PME. Guderian's race to the English Channel was not preceded by a year of stability in ARFORGEN. Patton's tank companies were not the product of enlightened personnel policies. These officers succeed because they had the intelligence to see the battlefield clearly, and the courage to act on their convictions...

Claims that today's wars are somehow more complex than previous conflicts will draw belly laughs from historians. Is sectarian conflict in Iraq somehow more politically complex than Rome's civil wars? Does the rate of technological change in the last ten years in Afghanistan exceed that of the last two years of World War I? Even if we accept the dubious proposition that today's wars are unparalleled in complexity, successful brigade commanders have demonstrated that mission command works. Colonel Sean McFarland helped turn the tide in Anbar Province thanks in large part to the autonomy he granted to Captain Travis Patriquin. Colonel H.R. McMaster's success in Tall Afar was attributable to a command climate in which thinking was required and PowerPoint was not. Have new and unparalleled complexities transformed warfare since 2006?

... Thick orders and elaborate SOPs haven't eliminated costly, stupid mistakes. Consider two of the most heavily regulated activities on the modern battlefield -- air strikes and detainee operations. Air strikes have killed civilians and ground troops have abused detainees, even when the SOPs regulating these activities ran to several hundred pages. ... Leaders prone to crimes and blunders are not dissuaded by elaborate checklists or sternly worded prose.

Yet the production of highly prescriptive orders and SOPs, what Germans call Befehlstaktik, continues unabated; why? The primary purpose of detailed orders is not battlefield success, but rather the protection of field-grade and flag officer careers. In ten years of war, no Army general has relieved a fellow flag officer for battlefield failure. Why so many failures and so little accountability? When a small unit gets in trouble, senior commanders find cover in SOPs thick enough to stop an OER bullet. (I told the troops not to beat detainees; it's right here on page 11.) Rather than preventing battlefield failure, detailed planning often enables it. Senior officers can survive almost any debacle so long as there's a FRAGO and a captain between them and the problem.

Detailed planning can be useful in understanding problems, anticipating opportunities and risks and synchronizing activities. Prescriptive orders and SOPs have their place in performing routine mechanical tasks. However, these techniques are often counterproductive in the fog and friction of combat. Modern combat requires junior leaders capable of exercising judgment and initiative, and senior officers capable of fostering these qualities. It requires junior leaders capable of acting on commander's intent, and senior officers capable of clearly expressing their intent. It requires junior leaders capable of taking prudent risks, and senior officers willing to underwrite and reward risk-taking.

Sorry Tom and Paul for taking such a long pull-quote - but that is so full of win, I can't help myself.

After a decade of war - the Army still has a lot of work to do in order to refine its culture. That should give Navy a pause - we have not had anything close to the trial by fire experienced by the Marines and Army. We are thick with toxic cultural problems, unpurged by the unfudgeable truth of combat. I don't think we need to go through the list again. We haven't even started to clean house - and I would offer with the latest promotions at the highest levels, we aren't going to begin soon.

No institution, much less a military one, is perfect. With continual critical review though, it can get better - evolve - adapt. When critical review is squashed, diminished, mau-mau'd or aggressively punished, then over time a military will degrade, become ineffective, and then put the nation it serves at Strategic Risk.

The Army in the last decade has brought out some great critical thinkers; Nagl, McMaster, Yingling and others; some on active duty, some retired, some have just gone home. Through their efforts, the Army has improved - all that from an institution still seen by many as hide-bound.

Where is our Navy's Nagl, McMaster, Yingling and others? I can think of a few - some we hear from more than others - some we have featured here and on Midrats. Some of the best I know who are still on active duty only communicate via email or FB where they once had a much higher profile. Why? Simple - our Command Climate is worse than the Army's when it comes to dissent. We have had our exceptions when it comes to leaders willing to listen to criticism - Admirals Stavridis and Harvey come to mind .... but where are those coming behind them? Out front? No. Toiling away behind the scenes? Yes.

Why behind the scenes? Simple as described to me by them; fear. Well founded fear; but fear. Every time they stick their head out, they get professionally mau-mau'd to the point they pull their head back inside their shell. After all, they do have a family to feed and hope for future positions of influence; and honestly that is OK. I haven't been the greatest example of intellectual courage either - for the same reason.

Is it really the best path to improving our Navy, pushing our best thinkers in to the shadows? Classifying our INSURVs to hide only our shame from public view? Rewarding the parrots while punishing the eagles and Capitoline Geese?

While Nagl pulled a Salamander and punched out near the first exit - McMaster and Yingling are still on active duty. McMaster received much deserved top-cover to make BG and it is nice to see Yingling in a great O6 job in Garmisch-Paremkirchen.

They are still out front - giving as well as they can to make the service they love better - and by doing so - providing great service to their nation. Creative friction - the heat and sparks of future victory. BZ to them.

What does all this have to do with Ganjgal? Everything. It has to do with how we select, train, and reward leaders - and how those leaders then carry out their responsibilities. It is a larger story than Ganjgal and needs to be reviewed by leaders in all services, because we can all learn from it.

By study, perhaps in the future we will see more CDR Evans, and less Ganjgal TOC.

Admiral Stavridis, don't confuse the issue

Ungh. I wish otherwise smart people would have left this quasi-intellectual tic of Climate Change (nee Global Warming, nee The Coming Ice Age, nee The Population Bomb, nee Bad Air Causes Plague, nee Volcanoes Need Virgins) at the gates of East Anglia University - but alas - a critically important subject is being tied around a bad-science cult.

Admiral James Stavridis, Nato's supreme allied commander in Europe, in a foreword to a recent Whitehall Ppaper published by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London, argued: "For now, the disputes in the north have been dealt with peacefully, but climate change could alter the equilibrium over the coming years in the race of temptation for exploitation of more readily accessible natural resources."

Stavridis believes military assets, such as coastguards, have an important role to play with international co-ordination in the area – but mainly for specialist assistance around commercial and other interests.

He added: "The cascading interests and broad implications stemming from the effects of climate change should cause today's global leaders to take stock, and unify their efforts to ensure the Arctic remains a zone of co-operation – rather than proceed down the icy slope towards a zone of competition, or worse a zone of conflict."

Admiral Stavridis, let me help.

Let me see, my little red pen is ... oh, here we go. Try this,

Admiral James Stavridis, Nato's supreme allied commander in Europe, in a foreword to a recent Whitehall Ppaper (sic) published by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London, argued: "For now, the disputes in the north have been dealt with peacefully, but economic forces could alter the equilibrium over the coming years in the race of temptation for exploitation of more readily accessible natural resources."

Stavridis believes military assets, such as coastguards, have an important role to play with international co-ordination in the area – but mainly for specialist assistance around commercial and other interests.

He added: "The cascading interests and broad implications stemming from the effects of evolving economic and security needs should cause today's global leaders to take stock, and unify their efforts to ensure the Arctic remains a zone of co-operation – rather than proceed down the icy slope towards a zone of competition, or worse a zone of conflict."

There - same concern - but founded on real and proven reasons. We don't have to go through the "Climate Change" genuflect to make the point. Smells too much of the Soviet Era use of "Comrade" - just used to show deference to the "correct" people with the "correct" ideas. Unseemly.

Admiral Stavridis has touched on the High North/Arctic issue before, as is good and right for NATO to do.

As resource access, economics, and changing global security systems evolve, access and ownership of the poles will continue to make this a critical area - especially as China tries to find an excuse to play. This requires the clearest, most direct intellectual discussion in order to make sure we get this right.

Throwing the questionable science and clearly political goals of the Global Warming/Climate Change cult will only discredit the very real and very dangerous national security challenge.

When the Arctic ice grows - as it will, and always has - will the Arctic be less important this century? Of course not. Say it was all climate change related will call the importance into question.

As a side-note - I can't find it, but if anyone has a link to the Whitehall Paper, please send it my way so I can see the context of his comments in full. If topic of the Paper was about "Climate Change" then ungh, Admiral Stavridis should have demurred and let someone else do it.

You know me - I am a fan of Admiral Stavridis - but people can disagree. I'm also a 80% man - so I'll just put this in the 20% pile and still smile and move on. Hmmmm .....

Instead of cursing the darkness, perhaps I should light a candle. I bet he hasn't read Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colors yet.