thedrifter
10-17-03, 06:10 AM
10-14-2003
Rumsfeld Must Change to Still Succeed
By Raymond Perry
The feeding frenzy to force the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has begun. But setting sights now on Rumsfeld is premature, because with a moderate change in his leadership stance he can succeed as the Pentagon chief.
In my observation, the Secretary is performing like the very successful businessman he is. However, this is not sufficient to be a successful Secretary of Defense. I believe that if Rumsfeld intends to succeed in his ambitious plan to remake the U.S. military, he must make significant changes in the way he deals with Congress, the military services and the Fourth Estate.
Much as captains of ships and generals of armies are expected to have demonstrated success as lower-ranking officers during their careers, for a defense secretary, understanding how large organizations function and money managed is vitally important. But it is just not sufficient to continue to be that same fantastically successful businessman.
A businessman is capable of controlling much about his firm, but a statesman recognizes that he cannot control everything himself. Thus, his focus needs to be on putting in place an organization that will enable his subordinates to control those many things with the result that he does hold a firm grip on the whole organization.
Unlike the business world, where you can go it alone so long as the balance sheet is good, a statesman must make the case to the people and the Congress, again and again and again. This is a necessary transition for a statesman. We are pledging our youth to the cause and we must be convinced that it is right for the nation.
In the emerging guerilla war in Iraq, efficient employment of forces will not make a dime’s difference. It is going to take “down and dirty” soldiering to root out the Ba’athist fighters and foreign terrorists who are attacking American troops and Iraqis who have decided to help in rebuilding their country. The necessary strong-arm tactics will cater neither to the likes of the marginal analysis efficiency experts nor the media’s talking heads.
Ask the Marines about the Banana Wars of the thirty years preceding World War II. Just as then, we will not be able to tell when final victory is sure because we will not recognize the defining event in real time. History is clear: these things take time and perseverance.
Three weeks ago, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman told NBC moderator Tim Russert that during a trip to Iraq, he had observed a clear sense of what it will take to win. Unlike our campaign to take Baghdad, Friedman said, in post-combat Iraq the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line. He added that our young soldiers over there get it, but the nation as yet does not.
Friedman went on to note that people in the Middle East are watching to see if we have staying power, if we are willing to see our young kids dying in our attempt to transmit our freedoms to them. Only then will those freedoms be seen as worthy.
As with our experience in Vietnam a generation ago, what is critical here at home is whether our leaders – particularly those in Congress – get the message. Delivering that message is a primary job for the Secretary of Defense.
A second key area where the businessman’s perspective is doomed to fail concerns Rumsfeld’s reported plan to impose a major reorganization of the Defense Department and military services.
Here, the problem isn’t the chance of failure, but the possibility of success.
Rumsfeld’s “transformation,” on paper, will certainly lead the military to function more efficiently. But I believe such reorganization is not what the nation needs. Making a flawed process more efficient only makes the eventual product more efficiently flawed.
This transformation debate ignores the fact that each service even today hews to a different set of priorities based on the kind of war they are structured to fight. Rumsfeld’s business mindset presumes that high-powered analysis can find just the perfect combination of forces for a given mission. But the short answer is: No. All the Jointness in the world will not fix that.
It is worth noting what each service means when “joint” is used:
* When an Air Force officer hears another officer speak “jointly,” he thinks that this officer understands the revealed wisdom that air power is supreme.
* When an Army officer talks “joint,” he means that he wants Close Air or Fire Support on target and on time.
* When a Navy officer uses the word, “joint,” he means, “You tell us what you want taken out and when, but don’t tell us how to do it.”
* When a Marine speaks joint he is thinking, “If you are really going to let us fight, then don’t get in our way.”
* And when a Coast Guardsman speaks of jointess, he wants people to remember that his service does a lot of downright dirty work that the Department of Defense is prevented from doing (or would rather not do) by the Posse Comitatus Act.
Every officer, who operates so effectively and with great camaraderie in a joint operation with lives at stake, knows that in a budget fight with your service’s programs at stake, the enemy is everyone else with money.
In particular, Rumsfeld’s proposal to reorganize the reserves and National Guard is so right that it is wrong. While it will do is create a more efficient force and will enable a more rapid response at lower cost, but it will also lead to an unintended consequence that could be dangerous.
This is a democracy. A key principal of our Founding Fathers was that government ought to be difficult. They clearly saw the efficiency of European monarchies as a weakness precisely because there was no check and balance on dumb things that seemed like the right thing to do when conceived.
Rumsfeld’s proposal for streamlining combat power within the active-duty force is high risk because it has the unfortunate effect of enabling adventurism by its very efficiency.
In my opinion, it is of greater significance that the United States be able to clearly and decisively respond to terrorism with finality. Time is not of the essence. The organization Rumsfeld will ultimately leave behind must convince our foes that they will be found and taken down. Only an unstoppable organization will do that.
To be unstoppable requires unity of action with the State Department. Doors must open when needed but reaching inside another sovereign nation must be done decently and in order. This requires statesmanship of the finest order.
Rumsfeld’s unique perspective is of great value to the nation, but at this juncture he must make a few changes. I believe Rumsfeld must choose to leave behind the power of the balance sheet for the seeming powerlessness of repeatedly facing the Congress and the people. In my experience, the American people make pretty good decisions when they have all the facts and their statesmen lay out the issues with clarity.
Lt. Raymond Perry USN (Ret.) is a DefenseWatch Contributing Editor. He can be reached at cos1stlt@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Defensewatch%20Special.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=1&rnd=172.7850369289692
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
Rumsfeld Must Change to Still Succeed
By Raymond Perry
The feeding frenzy to force the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has begun. But setting sights now on Rumsfeld is premature, because with a moderate change in his leadership stance he can succeed as the Pentagon chief.
In my observation, the Secretary is performing like the very successful businessman he is. However, this is not sufficient to be a successful Secretary of Defense. I believe that if Rumsfeld intends to succeed in his ambitious plan to remake the U.S. military, he must make significant changes in the way he deals with Congress, the military services and the Fourth Estate.
Much as captains of ships and generals of armies are expected to have demonstrated success as lower-ranking officers during their careers, for a defense secretary, understanding how large organizations function and money managed is vitally important. But it is just not sufficient to continue to be that same fantastically successful businessman.
A businessman is capable of controlling much about his firm, but a statesman recognizes that he cannot control everything himself. Thus, his focus needs to be on putting in place an organization that will enable his subordinates to control those many things with the result that he does hold a firm grip on the whole organization.
Unlike the business world, where you can go it alone so long as the balance sheet is good, a statesman must make the case to the people and the Congress, again and again and again. This is a necessary transition for a statesman. We are pledging our youth to the cause and we must be convinced that it is right for the nation.
In the emerging guerilla war in Iraq, efficient employment of forces will not make a dime’s difference. It is going to take “down and dirty” soldiering to root out the Ba’athist fighters and foreign terrorists who are attacking American troops and Iraqis who have decided to help in rebuilding their country. The necessary strong-arm tactics will cater neither to the likes of the marginal analysis efficiency experts nor the media’s talking heads.
Ask the Marines about the Banana Wars of the thirty years preceding World War II. Just as then, we will not be able to tell when final victory is sure because we will not recognize the defining event in real time. History is clear: these things take time and perseverance.
Three weeks ago, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman told NBC moderator Tim Russert that during a trip to Iraq, he had observed a clear sense of what it will take to win. Unlike our campaign to take Baghdad, Friedman said, in post-combat Iraq the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line. He added that our young soldiers over there get it, but the nation as yet does not.
Friedman went on to note that people in the Middle East are watching to see if we have staying power, if we are willing to see our young kids dying in our attempt to transmit our freedoms to them. Only then will those freedoms be seen as worthy.
As with our experience in Vietnam a generation ago, what is critical here at home is whether our leaders – particularly those in Congress – get the message. Delivering that message is a primary job for the Secretary of Defense.
A second key area where the businessman’s perspective is doomed to fail concerns Rumsfeld’s reported plan to impose a major reorganization of the Defense Department and military services.
Here, the problem isn’t the chance of failure, but the possibility of success.
Rumsfeld’s “transformation,” on paper, will certainly lead the military to function more efficiently. But I believe such reorganization is not what the nation needs. Making a flawed process more efficient only makes the eventual product more efficiently flawed.
This transformation debate ignores the fact that each service even today hews to a different set of priorities based on the kind of war they are structured to fight. Rumsfeld’s business mindset presumes that high-powered analysis can find just the perfect combination of forces for a given mission. But the short answer is: No. All the Jointness in the world will not fix that.
It is worth noting what each service means when “joint” is used:
* When an Air Force officer hears another officer speak “jointly,” he thinks that this officer understands the revealed wisdom that air power is supreme.
* When an Army officer talks “joint,” he means that he wants Close Air or Fire Support on target and on time.
* When a Navy officer uses the word, “joint,” he means, “You tell us what you want taken out and when, but don’t tell us how to do it.”
* When a Marine speaks joint he is thinking, “If you are really going to let us fight, then don’t get in our way.”
* And when a Coast Guardsman speaks of jointess, he wants people to remember that his service does a lot of downright dirty work that the Department of Defense is prevented from doing (or would rather not do) by the Posse Comitatus Act.
Every officer, who operates so effectively and with great camaraderie in a joint operation with lives at stake, knows that in a budget fight with your service’s programs at stake, the enemy is everyone else with money.
In particular, Rumsfeld’s proposal to reorganize the reserves and National Guard is so right that it is wrong. While it will do is create a more efficient force and will enable a more rapid response at lower cost, but it will also lead to an unintended consequence that could be dangerous.
This is a democracy. A key principal of our Founding Fathers was that government ought to be difficult. They clearly saw the efficiency of European monarchies as a weakness precisely because there was no check and balance on dumb things that seemed like the right thing to do when conceived.
Rumsfeld’s proposal for streamlining combat power within the active-duty force is high risk because it has the unfortunate effect of enabling adventurism by its very efficiency.
In my opinion, it is of greater significance that the United States be able to clearly and decisively respond to terrorism with finality. Time is not of the essence. The organization Rumsfeld will ultimately leave behind must convince our foes that they will be found and taken down. Only an unstoppable organization will do that.
To be unstoppable requires unity of action with the State Department. Doors must open when needed but reaching inside another sovereign nation must be done decently and in order. This requires statesmanship of the finest order.
Rumsfeld’s unique perspective is of great value to the nation, but at this juncture he must make a few changes. I believe Rumsfeld must choose to leave behind the power of the balance sheet for the seeming powerlessness of repeatedly facing the Congress and the people. In my experience, the American people make pretty good decisions when they have all the facts and their statesmen lay out the issues with clarity.
Lt. Raymond Perry USN (Ret.) is a DefenseWatch Contributing Editor. He can be reached at cos1stlt@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Defensewatch%20Special.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=1&rnd=172.7850369289692
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: