Some random thoughts and observations as January comes to a close.

- Mr. Obama sure has his priorities in order.  He blows off the largest gathering of world leaders in Paris to honor those killed during the Charlie Hebdo attacks, yet makes a beeline for Saudi Arabia to honor there new king.  At first, this seemed like some more Obama Administration miscalculations until I went to the gas pump on Sunday and filled up at $1.85.  I'm unconvinced Saudi Arabia is an active partner in combatting terrorism in the way that say the UK or even France are but by keeping their oil production up and prices low, they are helping to keep the Obama war machine turning.

-  Mr.  Obama then makes another speedy to trip to recognize the new PM of India.  Unlike events in Saudi Arabia, this actually does represent a paradigm shift for the US which has been at odds with New Delhi since the Cold War (and professing our continued support of Pakistan).  Alas it seems too little, too late as Russia has been involved with India since the days of the Soviet Union.  India has benefitted from Russian nuclear technology and now is on the cusp of receiving cheap Russian oil to help fuel an ever growing Indian economy.

- The challenge with deconstructing a given conspiracy theory is there is almost always a little truth to them.  Case in point, the conspiracy theorists have been labeling the Charlie Hebdo attacks as a "false flag" attack, meaning it was set deliberately to justify actions by other states usually leading towards war.  In this case, France had committed to sell two warships to Russia and was reducing their military which would mean fewer French troops and equipment would be available to support US led actions.  Now France is rethinking its drawdown.

- Speaking of the Charlie Hebdo attack, a renewed debate on guns has erupted on cyberspace.  The pro-gun side believes a well armed civilian populace would have prevented the massacre in Paris.  The gun-control side believes just the opposite that access to guns increases the likelihood for an even higher body county.  Now Interpol, the police agency consisting of countries with some of the most restrictive gun-control policies, has come out with a Hobson's choice; you either arm your citizens or impose martial law.  "Societies have to think about how they’re going to approach the problem. One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves are so secure that in order to get into the soft target you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security,” stated Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble.

- The US may need to figure which side of the argument it is on soon.  Our friends at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have in another demonstration of short-term thinking are shutting down 20 percent of the US coal-burning power plants.  Hooray!  Clean-air and less carbon emissions for all!  Except with coal accounting for 40 percent of US power production, and no new EPA approved plants coming on-line, this means our power grid is being constrained even more.  It won't take make much for either a physical or cyber attack on our power grids to put us down for the count.  But we will have cleaner air.

- The US poster-child for waging asymmetrical warfare (read, killing terrorists) is the aerial unmanned vehicle or simply drone.  These remotely piloted aircraft allow for the hunting and killing of terrorists in real-time.  They also present the illusion of conducting air warfare for less than using manned aircraft and without risking the lives of American pilots.  But time marches on and what was true just 10 years ago has greatly changed.  According to Gen. Mike Hostage, chief of the air service’s Air Combat Command, "Predators and Reapers are useless in a contested environment."  Whoops, isn't that exactly the kind of environment we DON'T want our pilots to fly in?  He goes on, "Today … I couldn’t put [a Predator or Reaper] into the Strait of Hormuz without having to put airplanes there to protect it."  Wait, you need to protect you unmanned aircraft with an manned aircraft?  Why yes, according to Gen Welsh who revealed that an F-22 — the planet’s most sophisticated stealth fighter — intercepted Iranian F-4 Phantom jets that were closing in on a U.S. Predator drone over the strait last March. In November 2012, Iranian Su-25 ground attack jets fired on, and missed, an American Predator over the strait. (Source:  Foreign Policy)

- Mr. Obama has instituted several changes to the US military during his tenure; allowing women in combat, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly, and an increased focus on reducing sexual assault.  Any one of these would have be a major cultural shift for the US military, implementing all three while the US is still deploying troops to hostile areas has led to the lowest morale of the US military since Vietnam.  This is not to argue the merits of any of the decisions but to point out that in chasing the political side of the issue, the morale of the troops has suffered.  None of these issues are easy to implement, one need only look back on the history of race in the military.  To ask the military to sort through three major issues, while facing continued deployments as well as troop reductions, is just foolhardy.  If you are serious about these issues, then give the troops the time and support to change the culture.  Otherwise this is just politics and not about the troops.

- January is the month that US President's give their State of the Union address.  Mr. Obama said the U.S. was upholding 'the principle that bigger nations can't bully the small' by opposing what he called Russian president Vladimir Putin's aggression and supporting democracy in Ukraine (Source: Daily Mail).  Strong words from a president who has a military that  has been at war for 13 years, facing a drawdown, is going through major cultural changes, and flat out doesn't like their Commander-In-Chief (CINC). But now, according to the Daily Mail,  the Russians have claimed the speech showed how the United States believes it is 'number one' and is unable to be an equal.  The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Levrov reacted by saying, "Yesterday's speech by the president shows that at the centre of the U.S. philosophy is only one thing: "We are number one and everybody else has to respect that."

- The warmongering former POW and Senator, John McCain, now is pressuring Obama to increase troop presence, "American boots on the ground are necessary to defeat [the group] in Iraq and Syria." (Defense News).  Even McCain admits there is no coherent strategy for dealing with Daesh but he wants to add more troops?  A especially egregious recommendation from a Vietnam veteran, a war the defined the ridiculousness of quantifying military victory.

- The whole GOP/North Korea/Sony Pictures attack seems to have been forgotten.  However, now that the US is ramping up for the 2016 Presidential election, Iran is back on the front burner.  Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman (Calif.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is expressing support for legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran if talks fail to reach a deal curbing its nuclear program (The Hill).  More troops for McCain plus more sanctions for Sherman seems to equal a future conflict with Iran?

- Finally, who will next lead the US through this chaos as the 45th President?  We've already heard enough about Hillary and Jeb, now we get other retreads such as Romeny, Biden, Christie and Rubio.  Elizabeth Warren is staying pat so far and as such, no other big name Democrats (other than Biden) are really coming out.  It is the Republicans to lose, I say that due to the sense of many people have had enough of Hillary.  She is tired and not nimble on her feet like her husband.  A prolonged campaign will invite too many opportunities for her to stumble and fall.  But if the Republicans front Jeb, the country may just turn off their electronic devices for the next election.

Absentee Leadership

In the past month, we have experienced the run-up to the midterm elections, Halloween, and the Democrats lose the mid-term elections and finally Veterans Day.  I've struggled with analyzing the impact of the elections beyond the partisan lines that we have been inundated with for nearly the last two weeks.  This is going to be a long essay as I try to broach elections, national security and what is going on in the USAF (sorry, I haven't figure out how to include Halloween in this entry) so bear with me.

My conclusion in short is that the United States has produced the greatest crop of mediocre leaders that has ever held office, Democrats and Republicans alike.  One nearly needs to know that most likely candidates to run for President in 2016 have the last names of Clinton and (perhaps) Bush to realize we have no hope for change in the future.  Anyone who has not been battered about in the media by political pundits has zero chance of getting nominated, much less elected.  The modern vetting process has the secondary effect of making any candidate so middle of the road as to be completely uninteresting and mediocre.  Hence when a new candidate that does manage to surface, there is a buzz and excitement that he/she will do something.  This was the phenomenon that helped get Obama elected (a mediocre Senator from Illinois) and explains the landslide Republican victories in this year's election.  Americans are tired of mediocrity but we don't know what to do about it.

You can analyze this further but what happens is the closer you look, the greater the tendency to start forming theories along partisan lines, regardless of your political affiliation.  Democrats see that elections as a failure to mobilize their base (really?  How many incumbents fought tooth & nail but still lost?), Republicans see it as a repudiation of the Democrat agenda (whatever in the hell that means).  They are both right and both wrong.  Americans are quite frankly looking for leaders and they aren't finding any in either party (no Republicans, you haven't proven yourselves yet).  If the newly elected Republicans don't produce leaders, the 2016 elections will see Democrats winning in a wild hope that they are secretly the leaders the Republicans didn't turn out to be.

The mediocrity of American leadership, and I'm not just speaking now of elected officials, has been in the making for quite a while.  My compass on this epiphany is my alma mater, the United States Air Force.  The military has always been a microcosm of what is happening on a larger scale in the rest of American society because that's where the troops come from.  Two recent articles reinforced my opinion of this theory and it explains the state of affairs in the military as well as to why the Democrats lost the election (and in-turn what that means for our national security).  More on those articles in a moment but first a little background as to why those articles resounded with me.

A retired chief master sergeant that I worked with and still am good friends with likes to point to how the USAF started down the path of mediocrity when it went ape-shit over total quality management (TQM) back in the early 90s.  I was still in the active duty back then and remember how we were told TQM would help give the lowly airmen in a back shop the means to let the commander know why the aircraft weren't operating at peak efficiency.  Sounds awesome except even after we went full-blown down the TQM road, aircraft still were late or didn't take off the same way the did as before the implementation of TQM.  We may have been better able at identifying problems but we weren't any better at solving them.  By adopting TQM (and later many other quality improvement techniques), the USAF was admitting without realizing it that their leaders didn't know what was going on.

The USAF tends to function much more like a corporation at times rather than as a branch of the military.  Perhaps this should not be too surprising given that number of commissioned officers that are engineers (at one time this number was over 90 percent).  We have a tendency in the USAF to believe process improvement will overcome anything (including poor leadership).  Engineers are taught from their first classes in college to dismiss anything that does not lead to an improvement in efficiency.

The effect is compounded by the commanding officers who are also pilots of single seat aircraft.  These officers spend their formative years learning to fly ever more efficiently to defeat the enemy.  Compare that to how junior officers in the Army or Marines spend their time learning how to lead their troops into battle.  Rated officers in the USAF may not directly supervise troops until they become a squadron commander (usually a major so that's around 8 years commissioned time assuming the officer has not been passed over).

The culture of efficiency then is hard-wired into many USAF officers and when faced with a leadership problem, the tendency is to look for a way to improve efficiency rather than lead.  What this means in overly simplistic terms is the best way to improve efficiency is to look for components (people) that are not performing at optimal levels.  To efficiency experts (management consultants fall into this category as well), leadership can be quantified into how the individual components are performing.  To these experts, a poor performing component must be the problem thus improving the perforce of said component (or removing it) means increased efficiency.  Simple, none confrontational and easy to package and sell.

So what has a quarter century of process improvement vetted against the longest war in modern history produced?  On Nov 7, Col Donald Grannan (88th Communications Group Commander) wrote an essay on the Wright-Patteron Base webpage entitled "How did we lose this young Airmen?".  If you haven't already read this piece, take the time now and read it.  I applaud Col Grannan for taking the very bold step of not only recognizing what is wrong with the USAF leadership culture and having the courage to write about it.  I guarantee he isn't be popular with senior leaders but from the comments you can see how many airmen agree with his assessment.

The article has gone viral amongst USAF airmen and anyone with an interest in military leadership.  John Q. Public, a extremely well written blog on the USAF, also analyzed Col Grannan's essay on "Boiling Point: Colonel's Commentary Exposes Deep Frustration Amongst Airmen".  It is an extremely insightful piece that mirror much of my own experiences and observations about the Air Force.  His conclusion, "It (Col Grannan's essay) casts a light on a profoundly broken service culture more concerned with identifying and punishing imperfection than championing excellence, training and developing people, or building teams to fight and win wars," is extremely alarming but is the result of a service that wants to hide behind management techniques rather than fostering real leaders.

The essay takes points raised by Col Grannan further by pointing out the issues caused by the constant deployments faced by airmen.  It creates absentee leaders yet deployments have become one of the core missions of the USAF (basic training now has airmen going through a simulated deployment as part of their training).  The pursuit of efficiency (the USAF would say excellence but the preponderance of evidence is to the contrary) is why the Air Force adopted the concept of the "air expeditionary force" in the first place.  To better understand this, a little history is in order first.

Back when I was serving in the 39th Special Operations Wing (39 SOW) in the early 90s, it was the only special ops wing in the region (Europe and Africa) so we often were tasked with both air rescue missions as well as special ops missions.  At this time however, the first President Bush had decided to draw down the Cold War legacy infrastructure in Europe to save money (overseas bases don't have elected officials who will bitch if you try to close them).  Granted, there were a surplus of facilities but the Bush drawdown started while US forces were still fighting in Desert Storm!  Soldiers rotated back to their European bases to find them closed and their families moved back stateside.

In 1992, I remember having to rotate 3 times down range in support of Operation Provide Comfort (the cease fire of Desert Storm).  Upon returning from my 3rd rotation, I found out our unit was not only tasked with continuing to support Provide Comfort, but also the Olympic Games in Spain (the IOC in its infinite wisdom decided to house the athletes on ships.  A more perfect hostage scenario could not have been imagined), and a new contingency in a little place called Somalia.  Oh and it was the 39th SOW who would be flying US citizens out of places like Liberia whenever their governments decided to implode. At the same time, the Bush drawdowns also introduced "reduction in force" (RIF) or involuntary separations.  Officers who were commissioned between 1980-85 stood a 90% chance of being involuntarily separated (except for pilots, although rotary wing pilots were not exempt).  Guess where I fell?  Class of 1985 thank you very much!  In frustration, I asked my boss how we were supposed to meet all of these requirements with fewer people and that's when I heard the words that caused me to leave the active duty, "We will have to do more with less".

I didn't realize how prescient his words would turn out to be.  Most military scholars would say the legacy of Desert Storm was to prove the supremacy of airpower.  The dirty little secret though was Desert Storm was done in a bass-akwards way.  Troops and equipment were assembled piecemeal from stateside and European units and sent forward as deployed elements (contrary to all of the doctrine).  Part of this was out of fear that if whole units were sent, then the Soviet Union (which had not yet fallen) might try to attack a vulnerable Europe.  A more cynical view is this was a way for the Bush Administration to circumnavigate the War Powers Resolution (often erroneously called the"War Powers Act").  Desert Storm also gave more momentum towards the "more with less" mentality as the USAF would have to maintain two no-fly zones over Iraq with fewer aircraft and troops than in the months during the war.

It gave birth to the "air expeditionary force" or AEF concept which is still used today.  From an efficiency model, it is lovely as you only deploy what you need in the quantities need (sort of a just-in-time production model for airpower).  Combat ready troops and equipment are sent into the area of operations and when their time is up or they break (people as well as planes), they are rotated back to home station for maintenance and repair.  Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the originator of the systems approach to warfare, could scarcely have imagined the state of things in the 21st Century USAF!  Airmen no longer fight alongside the people they train with day in and day out, instead they are sent forward to an AEW (air expeditionary wing) as part of a package to become an amalgamation of their home units.  Compound this with the need to draw extensively from Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units and it becomes no wonder that Col Grannan's airmen felt like she wasn't part of anything.  

But the AEF also adversely effects leaders since your performance evaluations are not based on your deployed unit but on your home-station unit's performance. The efficiency experts will say how successful the AEF is by spouting the mantra "Total Force!" but only now, 13 years into the war on terror, are people beginning to see the fallacy.  Commanders are bounced back and forth just as much as their airmen but these are supposed to be the leaders.  When do the leaders actually have time to lead the units and people they are responsible for leading?

John Q. Public makes reference to absentee leaders and how that creates a situation where airmen feel their commanders aren't invested in them.  You may only work your real commander a fraction of your assignment, most often airmen are working for an acting commander.  Likewise when you deploy, your AEW commander is not the one who is going to recommend you for promotion or your next assignment.  The USAF quest for efficiency and quantifiable data has led them down this primrose path and only now are some beginning to see it.  Imagine airpower leaders such as Maj Gen Billy Mitchell, Gen Curtis LeMay or Gen Jimmy Doolittle of mistaking process improvement for leadership.  They could never have achieved their accomplishments in today's Air Force.

Or take for example Brig Gen Robin Olds.  He was a "Triple Ace" scoring 16 aerial kills during WWII and Vietnam.  By all accounts, he was a charismatic leader who lead the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing "Wolf Pack" during the Vietnam War (including flying 100 missions himself) to achieve air superiority in face of the superior MiG fighters and relentless barrage of North Vietnamese .  He was a brilliant pilot who know how to teach other pilots who to thrive in combat.  Yet Brig Gen Olds would never have made it in today's USAF due to his drinking, womanizing and his flagrant disregard for senior leaders.  His case demonstrates an inherent problem with the Air Force, its greatest heroes were also flawed yet they continue to expect today's airmen not to have any flaws.  The Air Force believes by abandoning human relations and focusing on the mission and efficiency, inspirational leaders like Olds will be born minus the human frailty. The quest for efficiency has produce a zero-tolerance mentality for anything that might adversely effect mission readiness.  

Instead of giving officers and NCOs the chance to fail (and learn from their mistakes), these failures are seen as "areas for improvement" to be summarily dealt with.  The result has been to produce leaders who don't rock the boat.  For officers, it has always been a case of "up or out"but now it is the details that will end your career.  How many PT failure did your squadron have has quickly replaced ORI and UCI scores to evaluate your effectiveness as a future leader and potential for career advancement.

As both Col Grannan and John Q. Public point out, the USAF has found a quick-fix in emphasizing PT scores to the point of absurdity.  In addition to losing a quality airmen, the USAF is its quest for efficiency just lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in training that it will have to spend again in training a replacement.  Madness!

Now as the Air Force and the rest of the US military deal with the enviable post-conflict drawdown, the likelihood of this pattern continuing increases.  The drawdowns are to save money that we no longer need to spend since we are "no longer conducting operations"...except of course in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.  This means more, not less, rotations for airmen which will compound the issues Col Grannan and John Q. Public articulated.

Taking the points articulated by John Q. Public and Col Grannan one step further absentee, mediocre leadership is exactly why we have seen a increase in sexual assaults in the Air Force.  Let's go back to Col Brannan's airmen for a moment and her car crash.  No one saw themselves as "owning" responsibility for insuring the airmen saw justice.  Everyone involved thought (or worse, hoped) someone else would deal with it accordingly.  No one bothered to check up on her situation to insure she was getting the help she deserved.  They didn't because few in today's Air Force truly see themselves as "airmen" who are responsible for the well being of every other "airmen".  The whole wingman concept sounds great in theory but is not really being practiced for if it were, the loss of Col Grannan's airmen should have been a loss to be grieved and her colleagues (superiors as well as peers) called to account for why they had failed her and the USAF.  Reversing this sense of ownership is the only way the USAF will ever produce real leaders.  I consider myself a real leader and have had my butt chewed more than once whenever I took on a cause of defending someone that I thought was not being treated fairly, I don't hold my breath for this to happen.  Damn regulations and policies, sometimes we lose sight of the forest because of the tree!  Losing airmen because she did feel like anyone cared means there are scores of others that feel exactly the same way.

Apparently, the USAF isn't the only branch suffering from absentee leadership.  Voltaire Net, which is a Russian website published an article, "What frightened the USS Donald Cook so much in the Black Sea?"  It alleges that a Russian Su-24 was able to shut-down all of the systems on board the USS Donald Cook, an Aegis class destroyer.  If true, it would seem to explain the US reluctance to confront Russian forces engaged in Ukraine in a head-on manner.  It would also mean that like airmen, the expertise of the Navy NCOs and Petty Officers have been ignored.  Should the allegations of the Voltaire piece prove even be half-true, it means Navy senior leaders bought off on a high tech solution that the Russians figured out how to beat with a low tech weapon (most likely, lots of high-power energy to overwhelm all of the Aegis systems simultaneously).

Any salty sailor who has manned a radar or maintenance tech could have told the higher ups that their precious, high value system was vulnerable to a good old-fashioned virtual, high-powered sledge hammer.  I've actually seen this happen.  When I was in Ground TACS (mobile radar), we were in a large-scale exercise.  We went up against an EF-111 (Raven) that tried to jam us.  We used all of countermeasures to make the back-seater earn his paycheck but he got of tired of playing with us and showed us what a pissed off Raven could really do.  He turned up the power and shut-us completely, and I do mean completely, down.  I'm inclined to believe the Su-24 did not make the USS Donald Cook sailors life any easier.

During the Cold War days, the US became increasingly concerned about reducing the amount of collateral damage and looked to create ever more accurate weapons (which in part gave birth to GPS).  In contrast, the Soviets didn't worry about accuracy.  If they wanted to take out a bunker they multiplied the tonnage of a given warhead by a factor of "p" for plenty!  They would build multiple copies of this system so that even if some went astray, eventually one would find its target.  It appears the modern day Russians have not forgotten this brute force approach to defeating US high tech.  Where are the Navy leaders who should have said, "But our adversaries don't fight like us!  What if they simply put more electrons down our pipe than it can handle?  Will our systems handle it or will it create a complete shut-down of all systems?"

Unfortunately, this leadership problem is not just endemic to the US military.  It is a reflection of what is happening in the private sector as well.  Many of our current politicians boast advanced degrees from the same Ivy League institutions that produce the latest theories on performance improvement.  Worse, we now view failure as a detriment.  If you had to file for bankruptcy or lost a business, you are more noted for that than any successes you may have had.  The one-failure mentality in the private sector is little different from the "up or out" mentality of the USAF.  You are supposed to be born with the wisdom to lead, we don't recognize the value of someone who has tried and failed.

Obama is just the latest, most obvious example that was taught all manner of management theory and then given the reigns to the country without having had to vet his theoretical knowledge against the harshness of reality.  He never had to try and fail at anything before and was elected because this vacuum was not held against, in fact it was why the US public voted for his "hope and change" promise.  The US in desperation has now elected a whole new crop of unproven officials in the hopes that they may still be able to lead us somewhere despite a lack of evidence that they are any better than the people the have replaced.

Ruminations

Same thing, different service

The Air Force needed to do something about the C-130E models that were falling apart in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The solution was to develop BRAC criteria that would take the C-130H/2 and C-130H/3 out of ANG units and repurpose them into the active duty.  The active duty Army is now doing the same thing to the Army Guard with aviation units.  "Battle Brewing Over Future of Army Aviation Programs"

The Army wants to maintain its fleet at the expense of the Army Guard.  In exchange, the Army Guard receives bupkis.  The article exposes the criticisms of this idea but misses the biggest point.  Force leveling is NOT equal.  The active duty Army has 13 combat aviation brigades (CABs) and the Army National Guard has 8 CABs.  Taking aviation assets from the Guard does nothing to right size the forces.

Evangelicals

The other day, another blogger (thanks Quimbob!) sent me a link to the very interesting article "Old Testament Armed Forces".  It is written by a conservative and former CIA officer.

As a young cadet, I remember discovering that some of the cadets and one of our training officers had formed a Christian Fellowship study group.  What I found strange was not that they were men of faith but that they conducted their study group in the cadet area and while in uniform.  Thus began my awareness of the impact of evangelical Christianity on the military (especially in the officer ranks).

Some may be surprised to learn that most troops are very religious and of those, many are evangelical Christians.  In part this is why many Muslims do not see the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as wars on terrorism but rather wars on Islam.  It is also why gays serving in the military is still such a hot-button issue for many troops, despite the acceptance of gays by mainstream society.

Many conservatives will point to the military as merely a reflection of the Judeo-Christian values that the founding fathers based this country upon.  Perhaps but the military is about the management of violence, not religious idelas.  The military mission is to kill the enemy and destroy their ability to wage war against us.  Those missions are hardly consistent with the teachings of Christ.

Phillip Giraldi makes two points towards then end of his article that are quite profound.  The first is, "That the United States military appears to be increasingly a professional force that has few links to the general population is by itself disturbing."  While I was still in, it was a source of pride that we were an "all-volunteer force" meaning both that every one who was in wanted to be in and that somehow made us all the more professional.  But now being retired for over 7 years, my experience is that "all-volunteer force"may not be in keeping with what the founding fathers had in mind.

There is a gap between how the average citizen views the world and the average troop.  The military is predominantly conservative and thus making decisions amongst like minded people invites the errors of groupthink.

His second point is "That it also might be developing a warrior class ethos that includes a certain kind of evangelical religiosity as a key element only serves to increase the distance between soldiers and most civilians, apart from the constitutional issues that it raises."  This is why Congressman Charlie Rangel was so in support of reinstating the draft.  A veteran of the Korean War, Congressman Rangel saw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan being waged having an impact only on a small sector of America.  Only under those circumstances could you have a war that has gone on for over 10 years.

While many will disagree with his statement that this raises constitutional issues, consider an all-volunteer military of primarily evangelical Christians.  Would that not close the distance between organized religion and the nation state?  The Templar Knights painted red crosses on their shields.  As Mr. Giraldi points out, we have snipers putting biblical passages on their scopes.

Drawdowns

The Marine Corps will drawdown 4,000 positions between now and 2017.  Total end-strength for the USMC is 202,100 and the proposed cuts will take it down to 182,100.  The drawdowns could not come at a worst time.

As the article points out, part of the failure in Benghazi was the lack of an Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) on-station.  The ARGs were deployed elsewhere and there are too few Marines to create more ARGs.

The other branches are also being drawing down so the responsibilities can't be shifted to the Army.  To accelerate the process, the USMC is looking to offer early outs.  Having gone through this myself back in 1992, I can tell you what isn't clearly addresses is the effect on combat readiness.  Most of those eligible for early are your more senior people who have the combat experience younger troops may not.

The Army drawdown means Marines may be forced to be used in roles that they are not by doctrine equipped to execute.  For example, Marines are an expeditionary force designed to be rapidly deployed any where in the world.  They also tend to fight from ships.  All of this means Marine units tend to be "lighter" than Army units (less armor and artillery support).  Marine units are intended to work further in-country than 60 kilometers from the shore (although that was pretty much ignored in the early days of Iraqi Freedom).

In fact, the Army drawdown is so massive that for the first time full-qualified soldiers may be denied re-enlistment!  (Source: Army Times).  The long range implications for recruiting and retention is staggering.  Imagine a soldier who has score high on his/her AFPT, deployed, and received excellent performance appraisals being denied enlistment.

Place all of these morale destroying moves with increased tensions in Mali, Algeria, Syria, Iran and now even North Korea and you wonder how the United States will remain engaged on so many fronts.  At home, we will see massive numbers of seasoned combat troops re-entering the civilian world.  How truly ready is the United States to absorb these troops into the workforce?

Unfit for Combat

Pentagon to cut spending by $78 billion, reduce troop strength

President Obama increased troop strength by 30,000 in 2009 making current levels over 90,000. According to iCasualties.org, US casualties were 155 in 2008, 317 in 2009 (the year of the increase), and 499 in 2010. Given these numbers, Secretary Gates comment that "what had been a culture of endless money . . . will become a culture of savings and restraint" is especially offensive. The "endless money" is for the conduct of the war in which American service men and women are dying.

On top of that, China has unveiled a stealth fighter prototype and a anti-ship missile capable of knocking out a carrier battle group. The US military has been at war since 2001 (something that escapes many people thanks to both the Bush and now Obama administrations reluctance to ask Americans to make sacrifices). The OPSTEMPO has cause the lifecycle of many weapon systems to shrink geometrically in relationship to OPERATION IRAQI and OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM. Now President Obama and Secretary Gates want to cut the budget to prove a point? If they truly want to save money, why not truly bring the troops home (something the President promised during his campaign) and save the taxpayers billions of dollars.

Link Here

Fort Hood reports record number of suicides

These are the reports we are hearing about regarding those soldiers still on active duty. What would be really revealing is how many reservists and former soldiers have committed suicide. I believe this is an issue that has been underreported. Asking military members to deploy multiple times first to Iraq and now Afghanistan is going to create unimaginable neurosis and or psychosis. Wake-up people, these are your loved ones that are having to deal with demons far more real than anything Stephen King has invented.

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White House threatening Sen. Nelson with military base closures

The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process is supposed to save the Department of Defense money by closing older or under-utilized facilities. The BRAC is supposed to be an objective look but often turns into a very political process. As politics overcomes other considerations, closures rarely accomplish the intended goal of trimming excess capacity and instead becomes affirmation of political clout. The question no one is asking, where are the savings from the BRAC 2005 recommendations? For those not familiar with the last round of closures, many Air National Guard units were identified for closure or re-missioning. Had the recommendations been followed to the letter, the original recommendations would have left some states without any ANG flying units. The ANG can operate their units for less money than active duty units as the ratio of full-time personnel in the ANG is much smaller. However, BRAC criteria was created to show ANG bases as being seized too small to handle new missions. Interesting as ANG bases were by law required to occupy no more space than necessary to operate their respective mission. The real reason for the BRAC? The military, and the USAF in particular, had maintained such a high operational rate that aircraft were being flown into the boneyard. The solution? Use the BRAC to cull newer airframes from the ANG and Reserves and bring those tails into the active inventory. Not true? Look at where the former tails numbers of ANG F-16 and C-130 aircraft went.

The history lesson was to show how even more outrageous this story of Rahm Emmanuel threatening a Nebraska senator with closing Offutt Air Force base. The last BRAC was supposed to have eliminated excess capacity, why do we need another round of closures when we still have forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan with the very real possibility of Iran becoming more aggressive in the future? We need bases to train and stage our military, closing any more bases at this time is more about the politics and not saving money.

Source: White House threatening Sen. Nelson with military base closures in Neb. | Washington Examiner

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