The crisis in the U.S. military is caused by a 19th century "shut up and do what you are told" military culture based on NOT thinking (it was useful when men had to be shoulder-to-shoulder to make musket fire effective), that is unable to adapt to the pressures of the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable battlefield/world environment. Relieving the pressures by increased pay, benefits and what not, fails to address the CENTRAL problem which is that the U.S. military doesn't build THINKING professionals who are INTERNALLY self-actualized by CONVICTION from DAY 1 when they as citizens become Soldiers. Instead we treat our Soldiers like dumb, "cannon-fodder" draftees in a re-living of the glory days of WWII mobilization when we had to field 100 Divisions in a hurry to defeat the Axis powers. After WWII, to prepare for WWIII, we set up our personnel system so officers are shuffled from assignment to assignment to become good "generalist" colonels in order to stand up a 100-Division force. The Cold War plan to be able to rapidly mobilize the entire nation is no longer practical or needed. What we need is a PROFESSIONAL, thinking standing military that is VERY GOOD focused on Captain (Company-level) technotactical EXCELLENCE, 120 men at a time that would be the "building blocks" for very good Battalions and Brigades for 10-20, very good, very elite Divisions, not 100. A force that can fight and maneuver on the ground in a dominant way without heavy casualties using the best 2-D and 3-D means;
www.geocities.com/air_mech_strike
Today's wars you have to be ready from the first battles---we cannot afford a "Pearl Harbor" type "learning curve" since this would mean losing the war---we do not have the TIME or the manpower to learn what we did wrong and draft, train and form multiple Divisions. We have to have a PROFESSIONAL military that is ready, alert NOW because its MINDS are FULLY ENGAGED into their profession. This is not happening because we are still pre-occupied with "rites of passage" and whether the "new kids on the block" have "paid their dues" and other feel-good S&M games to "weed out" and throw away ala the WWII draft instead of taking the people we have, which is all we are going to get (no draft), gaining their complete trust/confidence and mental engagement in the PROFESSION OF ARMS and THEN throwing down a challenge to train/test/build them. Instead we throw them right into the "in your face" Drill Sergeant and teach them by rote memorization the specifics of the tools they are to use without ANY explanation of what the modern battlefield is, why what we do is necessary and why they need to have their "head in the game:". In fact, we don't want them to think, we want them to be obedient robots and follow orders blindly to their deaths. This may have worked ok in WWII when we had 100 Divisions to feed into the weapons fire meat grinders, but its NOT an option today. We have to fight smart, and that means SMART Soldiers, not dumb Soldiers.
Nevertheless, the reasons for continuing the blatant keep-the-men-stupid manipulation are even more dubious; its easier to manipulate/control people in the dark than to have them knowing and pressing leaders to make sound and timely decisions and challenge them with increasing levels of technotactical proficiency. Better to have comfortable mediocrity that struggles to maintain basic training levels/standards with resultant article 15s and Soldiers getting drunk to escape their dehumanization than to yield power and admit lower ranking Soldiers have good ideas, too and to work together with cooperation/humility to gain a higher TEAM result. The root of this are people in the military to be egotists, thinking their rank or badges (or whatever) makes them "superior" when they should be selfless WARRIORS there to defend America not advance their self-image. With a WWII style rank/file that is clueless about warfare, the leaders can then stay in their own-self created "comfort zone" of appearing to be superior with all the perks of ordering people around abusing battlefield instant obedience for peacetime pettiness but are in actuality professionally mediocre because they are disconnected from a professional awareness of the modern battlefield through self-study. Instead their views are based on their narrow series of training/experiences given to them by the military itself which are looked upon as the "holy grail" and fount of all military knowledge. That other militaries have been successful and in some cases MORE successful than the U.S Military using approaches other than creating masses of men and material and throwing them at the enemy until he is annihilated never seems to enter their consciousness.
This means EVERY Soldier and especially leaders will have to know how to use the www to stay informed about the modern battlefield AND how to hand HTML code web pages to communicate their own "lessons learned" to raise their professional understanding through self-actualization not waiting for the military to do it for them like a welfare recipient;
www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/digitizethesoldier.htm
The solution is drastic and vital to the survival of our Republic: institution of a PROFESSIONAL military culture, that THINKS, that from Day 1 explains the modern battlefield to EVERY SOLDIER who is forced to READ professional military books, watch/comment/discuss military films/videos, wargames and GETS INTO WHAT WE ARE DOING.
www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/probooks.htm
It means having a "white hat" Combat/Survival Instructor" who wears a beret not an asshole "smokey hat" who trains/teaches alongside the recruits/officer candidates and challenges them to a higher level of military proficiency than terror-induced compliance.
www.geocities.com/pentagon/5265/recruit.htm
Mediocrity by filling a place in the ranks will not be tolerated. Doing PT and getting drunk/rowdy at the bars and having spit shines and short haircut DOES NOT by themselves constitute being a warrior.
www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/falsewarriors.htm
Smart uniforms and berets are SYMBOLS of what a warrior should look like but these must be backed by INWARD REALITY or else we will continue with "amateur hour" in our military, where at all levels in all ranks there is an increasing mental lobotomy as rank/position increases and the grip on the details of reality gets looser and looser until its lost. The lobotomy process is a direct result of juniors not willing to be "shot" if they are the "messengers" of bad news. In a zero-defects military where any bad mark results in you forced out of the military, this cannot be allowed to happen, so seniors are fed sugar-coated versions of what's going on until they reach General rank, setting the policy decisions for the entire organization. They see nothing wrong with the organization, it made THEM a General, right?
www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/goodmen1.htm
The result is today, where the U.S. military, without a sound classical military education/context that is innovative, self-actualizing and forward-thinking is prone to accept what outsiders who are not shackled to military conformity have to offer even though these are often "snake oil" solutions for an organizational "vision" based on military ignorance or "beginner's luck". Currently the U.S. military is in love with Tofflerian hubris which thinks it doesn't need mechanical advantage because we have computers to speed up our MENTAL processes; they think that man is on a "conveyor belt" of progress and the "new" mentalism supercedes the "old" physicalism. In the Tofflerian view, information dominance via computers can give us precision targeting so we can hit targets with high explosives from a safe stand-off so our physical presence is increasingly not necessary, such that America can continue with its current defense policy of geopolitical posturing. In contrast, if our military culture was imbued with a proper understanding f the profession of arms, it would not fall into a state of being limited to posturing, but realize that there is more to military force than killing and destroying, and insure that PHYSICAL mechanical advantage is improved on and developed as we still are physical beings living in a physical world, and not marginalized by being chronologically dated along a false human progress hubris time schedule. Certainly, man learned how to live agrarian life, then became industrial, harnessing the powers of nature, then created computers, but the time of these initial discoveries has nothing to do with their importance. We still need food grown or we would all starve and die. To castigate means because they were initially created years ago is arrogance that what we are doing now is better and a penchant for always needing something "new" to stimulate that comes from a lack of self-actualizing imagination to further older lines of development. That the Tofflerian bluff has been "called" should be self-evident after Beirut in 1983, Somalia in 1993, the East African embassy bombings in 1999 and the USS Cole bombing in 2000. Anyone who knows military history knows about car/truck bombs, mobs used as human shields, and laying explosive charges next to ships at anchor (Bushnell's Turtle in 1776, CSS Hunley in 1864, WWII frogmen) and TAKEN PHYSICAL PREVENTATIVE measures. That we are not is because the military's ranks are filled with politically correct or incorrect egotist "lifers" and "bennie boomer" government job workers in it for a subsidized materialistic lifestyle with travel and not enough people molded to be THINKING, dedicated WARRIORS in the military by personal CONVICTION. When people join our military we have one shot when they are most impressionable and idealistic, we must not blow it and teach them to be anything but THINKING professionals.
www.geocities.com/paratroop2000/war1.htm
Personal turbulence in the enlisted ranks can be stopped by instituting a COHORT system where new recruits stay together (4-man fireteams) for their entire first enlistment in the Army, basic, AIT, first unit assigned to end of service or re-enlistment. That enlistment can be for 20 years if the Soldier chooses. The emphasis is on the COHORT TEAM success that results in each Soldier as an individual succeeding. Others go even further and propose a REGIMENTAL system where entire Brigades of Soldiers stay together for their entire careers, which is a great idea but would require more drastic changes. The British do this and get great results because people are not leaving and losing lessons learned to be re-learned by their successors. Couple this with an awareness of the modern battlefield and hand HTML coding, and you'll have some very good technotactically BRILLIANT units. This means INNOVATION, ALERTNESS and ENTHUSIASM need to be bed-rock Army values;
www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/realarmyvalues.htm
High level Army officers would not be leaving if they knew that their commands would be challenging via 3-D warfighting capabilities we propose as "Air-Mech-Strike" in our book and web site. By insuring the vehicles used in the new Brigade Combat Teams are more space/weight efficient TRACKED (not road-bound wheeled suitable only for peacekeeping) that are capable of cross-country travel, resistant to enemy fire and transportable by Army helicopters in addition to USAF fixed-wing aircraft, we create a WARFIGHTING Army where all Commanders/units are challenged. The siren's song of the wheeled armored car is again, a result of a weak technotactical understanding of our profession that is susceptible to the questionable proposals of those who have not fully analyzed the FACTS of the situation or can sense how to fully exploit the opportunities available.
www.ddn.com/reports/wheelsvtracks.htm
With a return to warfighting via Air-Mech-Strike and a Warfighting Inspector General staff not connected to the command reporting objectively on readiness, the pressure to distort readiness ratings from higher ranks squeezing the middle rank Captains who have to face reality in the ranks would be eliminated. This would stop the flight of Captains leaving our Army. The Warfighting IG would be composed of the BEST, most creative officers/NCOs in the Army, some of whom are RETIRED, who on the first visit of the unit, would see it unannounced as it really is, and be there to instruct, give leaders ideas, resources to fix what's wrong. Then, a year later they re-visit the unit and inspect. There are thousands of things the Army can do to improve warfighting that costs nearly nothing; we have an entire web site dedicated to this:
www.geocities.com/equipmentshop
Remember an organization that admits its problems and takes action to solve them is humble and will be healed...proud, arrogant ones hide their problems and get blown up:
marines: 241 dead, blown up in Beirut from lax security
At least the reflective U.S. Army hasn't been blown up from lax security despite 2 decades of being in harm's way more than any other service. At least the U.S. Army has the COURAGE to be REAL about itself, and with this its efforts to heal by transformation will be more likely to succeed than the dying who think they are well off.
www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/bberets.htm
www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/teb.htm
www.geocities.com/wheeledbooboo.htm
AF: 12 killed, blown up at Khobar Towers from lax security
Navy: 17 killed on USS Cole from lax security