is the title of an important piece in Washington Monthly, subtitled "Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving". Written by Andrew Tilghman, it provides the statistics that let us understand that the leadership of the Army is effectively broken, now and for the future.
Consider the following: of the West Point Class of 2002, 58% left the Army upon completion of their minimum 5 year commitment. Or on a larger scale, consider this:
In the last four years, the exodus of junior officers from the Army has accelerated. In 2003, around 8 percent of junior officers with between four and nine years of experience left for other careers. Last year, the attrition rate leapt to 13 percent. "A five percent change could potentially be a serious problem," said James Hosek, an expert in military retention at the RAND Corporation. Over the long term, this rate of attrition would halve the number of officers who reach their tenth year in uniform and intend to take senior leadership roles.
(more)
Congress used to require that only 70-80% of eligible officers be promoted. It used to be that the rank of major was the key cutoff point: by that time the bottom quarter of officers had been weeded out. But that is no longer the case.
What I will quote next is scary. Let me offer it, and then point out the implication. It comes immediately after Tilghman points out the legal requirement focused on the rank of major.
On September 14, 2001, President Bush suspended that requirement. Today, more than 98 percent of eligible captains are promoted to major. "If you breathe, you make lieutenant colonel these days," one retired colonel grumbled to me.
First note that date: September 14, 2001. To me this screams out for a serious investigation. I read that and my mind explodes. It means that the senior leadership of the Administration, at least at the level of SecDef Rumsfeld, as of 3 days after the attacks in this country, knew they were doing much more than merely going after Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. That suspension of the law was a long-term commitment to extensive use of military force.
Further, noe the 98% promotion rate. That surely means officers who are not considered superior or perhaps even competent by their peers and their superiors are being increasingly promoted to more senior levels of authority.
It is not that the Army does not know what is happening. Consider:
The dismay of senior leaders at this situation pierces through even the dry, bureaucratic language of Army memoranda. In an internal document distributed among senior commanders earlier this year, Colonel George Lockwood, the director of officer personnel management for the Army's Human Resources Command, wrote, "The Army is facing significant challenges in officer manning, now and in the immediate future." Lockwood was referring to an anticipated shortfall of about 3,000 captains and majors until at least 2013; he estimated that the Army already has only about half the senior captains that it needs. "Read the last line again, please," Lockwood wrote. "Our inventory of senior captains is only 51 percent of requirement." In response to this deficit, the Army is taking in twenty-two-year-olds as fast as it can. However, these recruits can't be expected to perform the jobs of officers who have six to eight years of experience. "New 2nd Lieutenants," Lockwood observed, "are no substitute for senior captains."
new 2nd lieutenants are being commissioned at a rate higher than any year since 1989 when the Army was 50% larger than its current size. Some of this is due to the emphasis on smaller units. But the traditional sources - West Point and ROTC - have NOT been expanded to increase the supply. Instead the number being commissioned through Officer Candidate School has gone from 400/year to more than 1,500/year. Many of these are people who enlisted right out of high school and have risen through the ranks. And that creates another problem:
These soldiers may turn out to be good commissioned officers. But they are also needed in the noncommissioned officer (NCO) corps, the parallel structure of senior-level sergeants who form the Army's backbone, responsible for ensuring that orders are effectively carried out, rather than making policy or strategic decisions. Yet the Army is already several thousand sergeants short and has been reducing NCO promotion times in order to fill the gaps. Sending more soldiers who are NCOs, or NCO material, to Officer Candidate School is merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Clearly our Iraqi endeavor is a major part of the lower retention of officer. The divorce rate among Army officers has tripled since 2003, and the number who cite family separation as a reason for leaving service has doubled since 2002, to 30%. And note this:
As officers prepare for a third or even fourth deployment, a new wave of discontent is expected to wash over junior leaders. Studies show that one deployment actually improves retention, as soldiers draw satisfaction from using their skills in the real world. Second deployments often have no effect on retention. It's the third deployment that begins to burn out soldiers. And a fourth? There's no large-scale historical precedent for military planners to examine-yet.
This is an extensive article, with much more than statistics. There are stories of individual officers, and additional analyses of the impact of our current military policies upon younger officers. For example,
The consequences of shedding thousands of bright, battle-tested young officers are likely to be grim. In the short term, experts worry that military units in Iraq and Afghanistan-which have performed impressively despite staggeringly bad senior leadership-will degrade in effectiveness.
There are concerns about the changing role the military will have to play, a role for which the military is not necessarily preparing its future leaders. There are examples of innovative officers who despite their success are passed over for promotion, and others who give up when their suggestions for alternative ways of doing things are rejected by those up the chain of command.
But the greatest concern is how the exodus of the best and brightest will affect the Army's long-term capacity to win wars, counter threats, and keep the peace. Today's lieutenants and captains are the pool from which three- and four-star generals will be chosen twenty years from now. If the sharpest minds aren't in that pool, we could wind up-to put it bluntly-with a senior leadership of dimwits.
Tilghman and some he talked with, including people like Andrew Bacevich, see a good news - bad news situation. The good news it that some in the top civilian leadership recognize the nature of the problem, including apparently SecDef Gates. In this category the illustration provided was the involvement of General Petraeus in the recent board that oversaw promotion to general. I realize that some here will view the involvement of Petraeus as an example of political meddling, and others thing that Petraeus has a record of self-promotion. I would be interested in comments on this - and the rest of the article - from people like Brandon Friedman who are far more qualified to examine those aspects than is this former low-ranking Marine enlisted man. Still, Petraeus had seriously studied counterterrorism and had a record of more success than other commanders in Iraq when he was elevated to his current position (although I note that the administration had sought more senior leadership in Iraq but was rejected at least by General Jones of the Marine Corps because of the approach he wanted to take; it is possible that Petraeus got his promotion, as Ray Odierno got his, because no one more senior was willing to take charge under the restrictions imposed on how they would operate).
If that's the good news, consider the bad:
The bad news is that an all-volunteer military has few tools at its disposal to staunch the loss of high-grade junior officers-especially if the war in Iraq continues much longer. The Army has set an aggressive goal of retaining 95 percent of company-grade officers (typically those in their first ten years of service). That would be a higher retention rate than the Army has managed since the cold war ended, and experts describe this target as completely unrealistic.And in the attempt to achieve that target, we find the same approach as is being used to retain enlisted men with skills, and to recruit people - offering ever increasing amounts of money in the form of bonuses, paid tuition, and the like.
Army doctrine calls for 2 years home for each year of deployment. We currently operate on the basis not of 2:1, but rather of .8/1: 12 months home before a 15 month deployment. And even some of our Democratic presidential contenders and ranking figures in Congress seem willing to tolerate an extended period of 80-100,000 troops in Iraq. Looking at the lay of the land, many younger officers read the tea leaves and are opting out.
I am not a militarist. As a Quaker it would be hard for me to have such an attitude. I do have respect for the military. And we do need to have a competent military suitable for the tasks that might confront this nation. Absent that we will be unable to deter those actors, state and non-state, that might otherwise threaten either this nation or stability and peace around the world. If we are destroying the food chain for senior leadership, how will we be able to maintain a military that can prevent our having to go to war?
Others have been writing about the problem of officer retention. Some in Congress, notably people like Jim Webb, are aware of the situation. And we have to hope that this issue will be properly addressed, even as we address insufficient equipping, insufficient dwell time (time at home before redeployment), long-term strategy, etc.
I want one more thing. I want a serious investigation of that decision on September 14, 2001. It seems of a piece with the tales we have heard of Bush and Rumsfeld looking for reasons to justify an attack on Iraq. And if in seeking those reasons they knew the implication upon our military leadership, as the decision waive the requirement of screening out the lower level of military officers, that implies that this nation was committed to a long-term plan of active military involvement with no discussion by the Congress, no informing of the American people. That is the equivalent of a coup, a permanent militarization of our government. And that, dear friends, is to me an impeachable offense.
I wish I had something more peaceful about which to write on this first day of the New Year, when I had no intention of posting. When I read the article, I felt that I should attempt to make it more visible.
Read Tilghman. I cannot completely give the richness of the picture he paints. The details of the individuals about whom he writes to illustrate the situation are important. And the issue is important.
Let me end by repeating myself.
I want one more thing. I want a serious investigation of that decision on September 14, 2001. It seems of a piece with the tales we have heard of Bush and Rumsfeld looking for reasons to justify an attack on Iraq. And if in seeking those reasons they knew the implication upon our military leadership, as the decision waive the requirement of screening out the lower level of military officers, that implies that this nation was committed to a long-term plan of active military involvement with no discussion by the Congress, no informing of the American people. That is the equivalent of a coup, a permanent militarization of our government. And that, dear friends, is to me an impeachable offense.
Peace.
On impeachment, there is a year left of his presidency. And what is impeachment worth if you can't get a conviction and removal? Republicans won't let a conviction happen. So, why bother? And even if they could get Bush removed, there is still Cheney. There is such a remote chance of one removal let alone two happening. Impeachment is off the table unless you can convince Republicans to join in. Good luck!
ANd with threat of impeachment over heads might actually force some Republicans to abandon the administration on votes on policy matters and let Senate begin to function again. And if they refused, see their party pay a price at the polls in November.
But the major reason is the uncovering of the truth, and if the Democrats were serious enough to begin an impeachment inquiry the media has little choice but to cover it.
I think the best place to bring these things out is through Congress's oversight powers. They can order the IGs or the GAO to perform full investigations; they can subpoena anyone they want. They can hold press conferences or utilize the base to spread the message. They have so much power in the majority and chairing these committees that it is really not necessary to bring Republicans along in this fight. You don't need to threaten impeachment to accomplish those things. These are powers that Democrats already have that Republicans can't do squat about.
And Democrats can make the Senate work again. They only need to eliminate arcane parliamentary procedures. They only need a simple majority to change the rules of the body.
My father, a World War II-Korea veteran always said to me that the great glory of the American system was the absolute subordination of the military to the elected political leadership (as evidenced by Truman's firing of MacArthur, for example). Thanks to Bush and the religious right I fear we are heading toward a time when the military will begin to insert itself into politics... just as the legions began to do so in classical Rome, when it was the military who selected the next Emperor. Don't laugh, I am serious. It will all be done as a matter of national security, of course.
Wrong. The concept of the citizen-soldier has been the philosphical bedrock of the armed forces since the Revolution. E.g., George Washington. Tilghman's piece doesn't take that into account. Ok, retention problems exist. But it is a GOOD thing for the country overall when these officers hang up their uniforms and assume productive roles in civilian society. We don't want or need a professional military caste that views itself as separate from civilian society.
Einstein argued that if just 2% would refuse to cooperate in an unjust war, that was all it took to create needed change.