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This is it? Commander in Chief of the world's top power?
"So, you know, I think that, have we achieved everything that some might have imagined us achieving in the best of scenarios? Probably not. You know, there's a human enterprise, and you know, you fall short of the ideal, ... Did we achieve our central goal? And have we been able, I think, to shape a strong relationship with a responsible Afghan government that is willing to cooperate with us to make sure that it is not a launching pad for future attacks against the United States? We have achieved that goal. We are in the process of achieving that goal. And for that, I think we have to thank our extraordinary military, intelligence and diplomatic teams, as well as the cooperation of the Afghan government and the Afghan people.
Has he ever been briefed on the actual OPLAN for AFG? Objectives/Goals, End States, Mission?
Good googly moogly, from this horror show, it looks like he has not - or worse - he has and simply cared so little for it that he didn't let any of it soak in.
Anyway, let's read that again;
We have achieved that goal. We are in the process of achieving that goal.
Either this or that ... cannot do both.
I've known since DEC of 2009 that he had no idea what conditions based vs. calendar based planning was all about - and the history of both, but he could at least try to instill some confidence in his military in the field and show some spine as we continue our scheduled retreat.
This level of disinterest and depression just endangers all who are in the field right now. Heck, the center is broken ... now I know what the Elector of Bavaria was thinking at Blenheim.
If this is the level of commitment that the Commander in Chief has in AFG ... then we are way past any measure of morality in keeping people in harm's way.
2013's fighting season will be simply setting the conditions for 2014's retreat - a retreat right in the middle of fighting season. Might as well do it now ... but we won't/can't/probably shouldn't.
The responsible thing is to execute the CINC's orders as best as you can, but by no means take exceptional measures that put your people in harm's way. The CINC has given up on victory, no reason to do more than is strictly described. Get as many people home as possible, and to h311 AFG.
This is ALL on President Obama's head. He came in to office with a OPLAN that at least had a chance through Shape-Clear-Hold-Build and a conditions based path to some type of acceptable resolution. Now? Nothing. This eventual defeat is all of his making.
Watch the video above, you can hear it in his voice. He knows it, and perhaps even wants it.
I don't know. I can't see in to a man's heart, but I can judge him by his actions. Those speak for themselves.
As for senior leadership in uniform since DEC 09, know this. Somewhere in the near future there will be a young man or woman who will get their PhD and will write a book about your silence - about your inaction - about your willingness to stand in silence while this went on.
It will make Bright Shining Lie and Dereliction of Duty look like love letters. Be prepared for it. Be ready to defend your silence. There are some schools of thought that will make sense to explain your silence ... but don't be shocked when you are held to account by history.
You have stars for a reason.
How well do you fully understand the core of your service? Of your broad mission?
What do you do here?
In early November, 1897, the Chamber of Commerce and the people of San Francisco brought to the attention of President William McKinley, that eight whaling ships were caught by the Arctic ice in the vicinity of Point Barrow, Alaska, and their crews were in danger of starvation. The situation for the whalers was believed so critical by the President that he ordered a rescue expedition formed.
Little hope was given for the whalers, by men who had explored and experienced the Arctic region. It was believed too late in the Fall to reach the marooned whalers by ship. However, trusting in the ability and resourcefulness of the Revenue Cutter Service (now called the Coast Guard), the Secretary of the Treasury, Lyman J. Gage, directed the veteran cutter Bear to prepare for a Winter rescue of the whalers.
The Bear, under the command of Captain Francis Tuttle, had just returned from her annual cruise to Point Barrow on the Arctic coast of Alaska. Upon the receipt of the Secretary's directive, Captain Tuttle began to assemble an all volunteer relief expedition. Next, he stocked the ship with ample provisions to enable the entire crew to winter-over in this area.
An incredible story of professionalism, creativity, leadership, and most of all - just doing the right mission the right way.
Read it all.
What is the latent and potential ability of the Royal Navy vs. the Japanese Navy to function as THE critical maritime partner for the rest of this century?
The numbers are striking. The quality is close. The proximity speaks for itself.
I'm pondering that a bit over at USNIBlog. Come visit and tell me what you think.
I guess I need to bring out the obvious: "With all due respect .... but ...."
Good googly moogly; sadly this was not written by TheDuffleBlog.
Just when I think we are making progress towards a more just, color blind military - we had a Flag Officer come out with a gobsmackingly retrograde racialist article that beggars the imagination. Did he actually author this in a clear conscience?
You hope beyond hope that he didn't; that it was just something ghost written for him by a member of the Diversity Industry's nomenclature that infest the Navy's branch of the Grievance Industry's commissariat. He either didn't read it critically, or he had to put it out to keep the wolves at bay.
Out of respect for his self respect, you hope that like the photos, letters, and confessions by our POWs held in Asian communist rat-holes, that this is all being done under duress.
Well, that is what I hope. Heck, some of the things I was forced to do to protect and support my boss in the face or roaming gangs of the (D)iversity SA breaking shop windows, I am not proud of either.
Heck, who knows - but I do know this - the below will not stand without a thorough quasi-Fisking. It begs for it; it demands it.
Out of respect for the author, one must.
BEHOLD!
Official racialism in action - red in tooth and claw.
Let's go.
The following blog written by VADM Kevin McCoy, Commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, talks about diversity and the role it plays in the Navy.
I still say that authorship is subject to debate, but I'm an optimist.
Every leader understands the importance of diversity and having a diverse workforce.
Yes, we all have that block on our FITREP. Nice standard issue article opening gentuflection ... almost too much, I almost see the finger. Almost.
But what is diversity and how do you achieve that vision? The Navy
definition of diversity is “all the different characteristics and
attributes of individual Sailors and civilians that enhance the mission
readiness of the Navy.” As the NAVSEA commander, I lead a workforce of
more than 58,000 talented civilians in career fields ranging from
engineers, scientists, acquisition professionals, financial managers to
shipyard workers. In order for us to meet our mission requirements of
developing, delivering and maintaining America’s Navy, we need a to
attract, develop, and retain a high-quality, diverse workforce that
values a culture of inclusiveness, and harnesses the teamwork and
experience of our workforce to produce ideas and products to
keep America’s Navy #1 in the world.
Please note the official definition of (D)iversity. Very clever to put that there when in just a very short amount of reading time the operational definition of (D)iversity is given, putting the lie to the official "different view, opinions, and points of view" whitewash that comes out now and then.
When I became the NAVSEA Commander in 2008, one of my key people
goals was for NAVSEA to become the Federal Employer of Choice. Part of
that goal was to ensure that we fostered a welcoming environment and
that assignments and promotions were transparent and merit-based.
Workplace diversity needed to simply be part of the way we do business
every day.
Yawn. Really? Cut-n-paste from some random Flag Officer speech generator ... but hey, as writers, some times you have to meet the minimum word count some how. Background noise, don't like it.
To achieve this goal, I conducted a top-down review of the
organizational demographics and the path to hiring and promoting
personnel into key leadership positions. The results showed that while
the command understood and embraced diversity, that in practice we were
missing the mark with respect to recruiting women and minorities and
advancing them to leadership positions.
Of course. As Dear Leader Gary taught us, get the specific race and gender self-reported numbers, hire ADSW USNR O6s to produce XLS and PPT so you can count your beans and put them in to little piles. Once you do that, show where you need to move the beans you have based simply on the type of bean they are - throwing away and moving aside the beans you don't like. Actively discriminate by direct action based on race, creed, color, and if needed, national origin. After all ... that is what we mean by "practice."
Hey, did you see what we just did in the above quote? That is right, we just defined what we actually mean. You get what you inspect, and what are we inspecting?
... missing the mark with respect to recruiting women and minorities ...
... and how are we going to actively discriminate against those races and genders we don't like(in the zero sum game, that is what you are doing when you don't promote on the basis of merit). (again, like high school physics's "mass-less friction-less pulley," let us just ignore racial self-identification fraud for a moment)?
... recruiting women and minorities and
advancing them to leadership positions.
At least we are being honest about what we are doing. Out and in the open - active discrimination.
That is all they are really talking about?
Diversity of opinion, background, experience, education? Child please!
To understand and develop a path to change this trend, Executive Director Brian Persons and I implemented annual Diversity Accountability Reviews patterned after those conducted by the CNO
with his enterprise leads. In the first assessment, I asked my field
activity commanders for an honest appraisal of the state of diversity in
their organizations. They looked at:
Identifying key leadership positions and grade levels;
Identifying the “pathway” an employee would take to get those positions;
Defining how the organization makes employees aware of these career pathways; and
Identifying any systemic barriers or cultural norms that prevented
the command from integrating diversity into their organization.
Ah, yes. The Diversity Accountability Review show trials. Rarely in the last hundred years has our Navy been involved in a more disgusting activity. No unity, no Sailor ... but breaking things down in to the most base and meaningless definition of a person; their race and ethnicity (and gender). Promoting already rampant racial self-identification fraud, and forcing multi-racial or post-racial people us regress back to a Jim Crow world view.
Look at the bullet points above. Get beyond the incredibly patronizing 2nd and 3rd bullets and look at the 4th. If there is a barrier or cultural norm that is throwing up a wall due to ethnicity or race ... where is the NJP? Where is the Courts Martial? Oh, wait ... we are building systemic barriers and creating new cultural norms. We haven't had race and ethnic barriers and cultural issues in decades ... I guess going beyond that endangers the (D)iveristy Industry jobs; then we must build new ones. Afterall, we all know that to oppose racism in to be a racist; at least that is what the race-trolls say in their emails to me.
These initial assessments allowed NAVSEA/PEO Headquarters and Field Activities
to self identify barriers to improving the diversity of the workforce
and to lay out a set of actions to work. The results of these reviews
revealed, that despite command rhetoric about practicing diversity, we
were not moving the needle in hiring and promoting diverse
personnel largely because our eligible pool of candidates lacked
diversity. We discovered that senior leadership was not directly
involved in the recruiting and hiring processes; managers lacked
an understanding of the importance of hiring a diverse workforce; and
hiring officials were hiring and promoting people who looked just like
themselves.
Stop right there. That is an incredible accusation of discrimination and racism. Where are the names? Who has been fired ... what is your proof? If that really happened and no one has been fired, then why are those people still working for you?
We aren't just making those statements on 1-dementional numbers, i.e. piles of beans, are we? Please tell me someone is doing regression analysis before they make such statement.
But, wait --- let's read that closer. Are we asking senior leadership in interject themselves to make hiring decision to "make the needle move" strictly on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender? Again, if so, thank you. You just outed yourself and your organization ... again ... as an organization that engages or desires to engage in a discriminatory basis with regard to race, creed, color, or national origin. OK. Thank you again for proving my point.
Additionally, we uncovered instances where diverse personnel
were migrating off of traditional technical leadership paths and self
selecting other career paths (e.g., business and finance) for better
promotion opportunities. This was a result of perceived reduced
promotion opportunity in their technical career path. The next step was
to determine the factors that led to this situation and implement
measures to change the culture within our organization.
Wow again. Could not be more patronizing. Great White Father knows best? I thought we left that racial theory behind over half a century ago too.
The factors hindering NAVSEA in increasing minorities and women in key leadership positions fell into these areas.
Minorities and women were not in gateway positions that would lead them to be considered for key leadership positions.
Women had migrated out of a technical career path to business operations positions, thereby eliminating them from consideration.
Women and minorities had limited access to high visibility assignments in order to continue to progress in their careers.
There was a general lack of succession planning to identify
positions that would lead to senior/executive level positions and an
absence of cross-cultural mentoring in order to discover talent and
bring it along the career track.
Senior level vacancies were advertised within the local activity
only with no expanded search for persons outside of the activity.
In our shipyard blue collar positions, we found that females were
being selected for the apprenticeship programs at significantly lower
rates than males; and
Recruiting and promotion processes (interviews, exams, selection
board makeup) had not been vigorously reviewed and influenced by senior
leadership to ensure that no demographic was disadvantaged. In essence,
we were hiring and promoting personnel the way we always had, despite
the fact that our diversity metrics were not reflective of the broader
population surrounding our activities and were not improving.
Thank you again for reiterating the operational definition of "Diversity" in the Navy. You want senior leaders to actively discriminate. You imply that something is taking place, with no "proof" that will survive a Sophomore level statistics student's analysis. I'll just reference that quote next time another Flag Writer cut-n-pastes this from our (D)iversity Bullies' homepage;
Diversity is all the different characteristics and attributes of individual Sailors and civilians that enhance the mission readiness of the Navy.
We should be so lucky to actually follow the little lies we tell each other. Sad.
Bottom Line: Our rhetoric concerning fairness to all in hiring and
promotions was at odds with our behavior. At face value, these items all
seem fairly straightforward and easy to change. We found that it really
was not!
What behavior? Again, if there are bigots in the workplace, where are the firings? If there are no bigots, then what are you asking for? From the outside, it is clear - you are asking for people to discriminate in order to "move the needle."
Someone get me the JAG.
During our second year assessment, we met with the leaders of all
NAVSEA/PEO Headquarters and Field Activities 12-18 months after the
first assessments to determine progress and the effectiveness of their
actions. Several of these reviews did not go well and, in fact,
some activities were directed to stop hiring or stop promoting personnel
until they took actions to increase their pool of qualified candidates.
What was at stake was cultural change and without direct senior leader
involvement, the status quo would not change. This resulted in
two problems: the pool of qualified candidates for hiring and promotion
was restricted which resulted in a real loss of opportunity to bring
better talent to the team and we were not improving the diversity makeup
of our workforce to better reflect that of the surrounding communities.
We have Sailors being blown up and burned to death by the enemy in AFG. We have Sailors who are deploying 11-months straight. We have ships whose material condition is well below standards. ... and NAVSEA stops hiring support staff meant to support the Fleet because ... your PPT numbers did not meet a racialist world view PPT?
The major action we took as a result of our assessments was to
develop a talent-focused perspective to managing civilian careers, where
we identified and eliminated barriers that impeded hiring and career
progression in mid-, senior- and executive-level positions; laid
out clear career paths and positions leading to senior/executive
positions; created opportunities for career enhancement; increased
wounded warrior/individuals with targeted disabilities hiring; and
launched a enterprise-wide retention initiative. We discovered that the
key is that diversity isn’t about quotas, but rather it is about
fostering a welcoming environment and having a process where assignments
and promotions are transparent and merit-based and built into the
culture.
You cannot do that and also do everything else you are talking about. You cannot have a merit based system when you are inspecting, rewarding, and punishing based on race, ethnicity, and gender.
As a team, we are now in our third year of Diversity Accountability
Review process – where we require Headquarters and Field Activities to
conduct an annual self assessment of their diversity improvement
actions. It is a frank discussion about what is working and what is not
and the activities unique challenges in terms of talent required and
local demographics. Long term, the NAVSEA Diversity reviews are about
sustaining our progress; changing our culture about how we view
diversity; and how we attract, develop, and mentor talent. This is a
continuous journey and NAVSEA fully recognizes that sustained focus and
energy must be maintained to continue our progress and that we must view
diversity as a “marathon vice a sprint” with everyone on the same
starting line.
Where did that dog's breakfast of a last line come from? It makes no sense.
1. In theory, every marathon has the same starting line. Not everyone can stand on that starting line, that is impossible in the time-space construct of our universe.
2. If someone demands that you run a marathon where everyone is standing on the starting line, then you can never run a marathon, as that is impossible. You either have to lie, or limit the marathon to just a few people so once everyone who can stand on that line are there - no one else will be able to run.
Maybe that is the point .... or maybe like so much else in this article, it does not fall in alignment with the real world.
Many times over the years we have been doing this on Thursday, I have said one of the tragic things about the our Navy joining the socio-political movement that is the modern (D)iversity industry, is that it forces otherwise logical, honorable, hard working, patriotic, and refined professionals say the most illogical, integrity distorting, and at times bizarre things.
But, authoritarian socio-political philosophies throughout history have had that effect on good people. Sadly, it is true here as well.
Authoritarians who can only exist in a web of lies wrapped around hate, as the (D)iveristy Industry is rife with, all respond in similar manners to truth.
We've discussed the stultifying environment that comes from the Millington Diktat that, immune to even a decade of war, continues to warp our officer corps with all the resulting abnormalities we see.
It isn't just the Navy though; in his book, Bleeding Talent
, The Hudson Institute's Tim Kane nails it;
The military is perhaps as selfless an institution as our society has produced. But in its current form, Mr. Kane says, it stifles the aspirations of the best who seek to serve it and pushes them out. “In terms of attracting and training innovative leaders, the U.S. military is unparalleled,” he writes. “In terms of managing talent, the U.S. military is doing everything wrong.”
The core problem, he argues, is that while the military may be “all volunteer” on the first day, it is thoroughly coercive every day thereafter. In particular, it dictates the jobs, promotions and careers of the millions in its ranks through a centralized, top-down, one-size-fits-almost-all system that drives many talented officers to resign in frustration. They leave, he says, because they believe that “the military personnel system — every aspect of it — is nearly blind to merit.”
...
He looks at today’s military and sees suppressed entrepreneurs among officers and enlisted ranks alike. “America’s armed forces are a leadership factory,” he writes, saying that former military officers are three times as likely to become corporate C.E.O.’s as their raw numbers would suggest.
In surveying recent West Point graduates, he found that only 7 percent believed that most of the best officers remained in the military. It is not the combat, the low pay or the pull of family life that is the top reason they quit in surprising numbers, Mr. Kane writes, but rather the “frustration with military bureaucracy.” One study found that young officers left because they wanted a sense of control over their careers. In short, they wanted what the rest of us want.
...
ACCORDING to Mr. Kane, “the root of all evil in this ecosystem” is the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act, enacted by Congress in 1980 to standardize military personnel policies. But the system has defied efforts by successive defense secretaries to bring about change.
That act binds the military into a system that honors seniority over individual merit. It judges officers, hundreds at a time, in an up-or-out promotion process that relies on evaluations that have been almost laughably eroded by grade inflation. A zero-defect mentality punishes errors severely. The system discourages specialization — you can’t expect to stay a fighter jock or a cybersecurity expert — and pushes the career-minded up a tried-and-true ladder that, not surprisingly, produces lookalikes.
Exactly.
Along with Goldwater Nichols, we have reached the point where the military serves the system, as opposed to having a system that serves the the needs of the military.
I've got to read that book.
Chief.
Chief's Mess.
Sigh.
When I was just a clueless 4/C MIDN, I knew that the senior enlisted who wore officer's uniform were a special lot.
As I progressed, I knew that some were more special than others, and that there was a difference between a Chief and an E7 - but I also grew to admire what our Navy had created with their Senior NCOs.
"Chief, just make it happen." Never were there more powerful words, and never did that fail me in my decades in the Navy.
"The Chiefs' Mess will take care of this." That was exceptionally true ... but started to weaken in the mid-late 1990s some; but still was and is true.
I guess the change coming now is not shocking. Because a few idiots went too far, in the finest traditions of self-loathing, we are again going for the mindless anti-intellectualism of group punishment couched in therapeutic phrases and SOC101speak. There is more to it than that.
There is a larger culture war that is pushing against any type of meritocracy. The "everyone gets a trophy" attitude has met the mindset of "softly, softly, softly." Not hurting anyone's feelings, judging "hurt" by the lowest common denominator, is the most important. Things martial are aggressive, are too male ... so are bad. It must go, and as we are wiser than others - our new dialectic construct must take its place.
This is not taking place in isolation. We can see additional shadows of this mindset in our selection boards. A decade of war, and our boards are run like it is SEP 10, 2001. IAs and combat deployments do not matter as much as the right staff job and the right gate jumping. They just don't. Even a decade of war has not brought a change in our Millington-DC diktat. Heck, the argument could be made that some of those at the highest levels of the officer and enlisted side of the house do not reflect the reality of a decade of war - or at least rewarding it. Check the bios yourself.
Back to the Chief's Mess.
Bullies haze. Hazing is bad. If you make me feel like I am not entitled to be just as good as you at all times, you are a bully. I am hazed. You are a bully. You are bad.
Yes, there were some over the top things in the past - but as part of a larger effort, over the top has been defined down to almost nothing.
There has been a concerted effort to degrade the mystique of the Chief's Mess, why I still do not know. The socio-political philosophy behind this effort, and others like it, are deeply rooted in Marxist and deconstructionist theory - but that is what you get when you polute your staffs with those with that academic training. More GS and SES than operators.
We saw the move in the slap to the face that was the "black and tan" uniform for E-6 and below. It made in one sweep, "putting on khaki" when you made Chief just that less unique and special.
Yes, our sister services do not make that big of a distinction as we do - but who cares. I always thought that it was right and good the special way we treated our E7-9.
But again, I guess perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps we do need to let that go. Perhaps it should just be more E-7 and less Chief. Perhaps I am wrong. I am willing to accept that; but I am not wrong.
We will still have a Chief's Mess. Chiefs will still be Chiefs - but visuals and mystique matter in a martial organization.
When you move the Chief closer to the E6 and further from the CWO/LDO, you weaken the brand. You degrade their authority ... and heck, you are just plain weakening one of your best cornerstones to your culture.
If there are no-kidding, real, harmful abusive things that take/took place at CPO Induction - then hold those people responsible, but don't throw it away.
In a way, this sounds like what they are trying to do, but not really. This is intentional, this is "transformational" - and it is what it is.
Oh, well. So much for my ideas.
Chiefs, this is your culture, this is your Mess. This is your Navy. Silence is approval. You lost the khaki, now you have lost Induction (nee Initiation). What is next? Does it really matter? Is this better?
I think good people can argue both sides of this, but here it is.
Your battle, but don't complain that we get to a point down the road that no one respects "The Chief" quite the way they used to; an E7 is just one block up from E6, right?
Not only that, Stevens has eliminated all use of “chief petty officer induction,” the term used to describe the lead-up to promotion.
“‘Induction’ is hereby officially and respectfully sundowned,” Stevens said in the message.
In its place, Stevens said, is the yearlong CPO 365 professional program introduced by his predecessor, MCPON (SS/SW) Rick West. The goal of CPO 365 is to prepare first classes to assume the role of the chief on the deck plates. It’s not about initiations or anything that could approach hazing.
Like many long-standing traditions, it’s gotten an even closer look in recent years as the culture of the Navy and the nation have gradually changed.
That churn and scrutiny were often spurred by negative events, such as the 1991 Tailhook convention, where bawdy behavior and hazinglike events ended the careers of many.
...
Stevens stressed that his changes were “natural and evolutionary,” and were not an indictment that all sailors were misbehaving.
“I knew two years ago that this was the direction we were heading,” Stevens said. “It just so happens that on my watch [as MCPON], the next step in this evolutionary process needed to take place.”
Each of the last four MCPONs, Stevens said, gradually changed the philosophy and intent of the process from a largely fraternal event to a professionally focused one..
If for no other reason than the graphic - this bit from The Economist is required reading. Read to the end for the hook;
FOR the past three years America’s leaders have looked on Europe’s management of the euro crisis with barely disguised contempt. In the White House and on Capitol Hill there has been incredulity that Europe’s politicians could be so incompetent at handling an economic problem; so addicted to last-minute, short-term fixes; and so incapable of agreeing on a long-term strategy for the single currency.
Those criticisms were all valid, but now those who made them should take the planks from their own eyes. America’s economy may not be in as bad a state as Europe’s, but the failures of its politicians—epitomised by this week’s 11th-hour deal to avoid the calamity of the “fiscal cliff”—suggest that Washington’s pattern of dysfunction is disturbingly similar to the euro zone’s in three depressing ways.
...
Optimists will point out that America is unlikely to face a European-style debt crisis in the near future, but the slow-burning fuse is itself a problem. One positive side-effect of Europe’s crisis is that it has forced euro-zone countries to raise their retirement ages and rationalise pensions and health-care promises. America, which has the biggest structural budget deficit in the rich world bar Japan, will become an outlier in its failure to deal with the fiscal consequences of an ageing population. Its ageing is slower than Europe’s but, as its debt piles up and business and consumer confidence is dampened, the eventual crunch will be more painful.
The saddest thing about this week’s deal is how unaware Messrs Obama and Boehner seem to be of the wider damage their petty partisanship is doing to their country. National security is not just about the number of tanks or rockets you have. As it has failed to deal with the single currency, Europe’s standing has crumbled in the world. Why should developing countries trust American leadership, when it seems incapable of solving anything at home? And while the West’s foremost democracy stays paralysed, China is making decisions and forging ahead.
This week Mr Obama boasted that he had fulfilled his mandate by raising taxes on the rich. In fact, by failing once again to clear up America’s fundamental fiscal trouble, he and Republican leaders are building Brussels on the Potomac.
Hat tip VdR.
