Tom (and Mark) on the generals who are speaking out
Tom got this email:
To Mr. Barnett,
Read your weblog, love your books, just checking - what do you make of the recent hoopla over the Retired Generals Speak Out Scandal ( ReGSOS ). How much of it is structural, i.e. getting our forces in Iraq heading in the right direction ( whatever the right direction maybe ), cultural, transformational - we have the wrong structure, processes, culture and want to change to better meet future threats.
In my mind these stresses seem to be analogous to Jabba the Hut. The military is like Jabba the Hut - Big Bloated Bureacracy, trying to swat a mosquito ( anti-globalized forces )( note not a fly - mosquitos suck blood, give you malaria ).
What would be a good diet plan to get the military back into shape to meet the challenges of humanity ahead?
Vinit Joshi
p.s. Seems the armed forces is facing the same type of structural and cultural problems that Microsoft is currently facing and that corporations like IBM and AT&T faced in the past - getting too big for their own good or maybe too big in the wrong areas.
Tom's reply:
Part post-presidency/2008 election beginning, but more anger over lack of shift to ground forces in QDR.
Plus some fear of rerun of Iraq sales job on Iran.
Finally, acculmulated slights from tough SECDEF.
In sum, me no like. "Grey beards" afforded plenty of venues inside community to voice concerns. This is breaking ranks and custom.
Still, free country. But Newbold, for example, hinting that he speaks on behalf of serving flags, is just plain wrong. Civilian rule or get out of the military.
Our system says that military decides how but that civilians decide why. Clearly, those lines blurred in Iraq, and therein lies the rub.
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