Lex just now has a post up-noting that DOD has started to trim the ranks of its flag officers. The article he cites points out that DOD is making about a 10% cut in the number of Flag Officers it has. He bemoans the fact they are not being given the same treatment as the underlings beneath them:
The first round of cuts will save around $4 million per year, and so of course is enthusiastically supported by members of a notoriously tightfisted Congress. Even so, some Pentagon critics say the services are slow-rolling the initiative. To that criticism, one senior flag officer replied:
(The) armed services have up to two years to phase out a job targeted for elimination. “You need time to work this,” he added. “You can’t just give people their pink slips.”
Not flag and general officers, certainly, who will retire with generous pension and medical benefits, and have ready access to lucrative business development positions with major defense contractors. The “pink slip” treatment is reserved for mid-grade officers and enlisted personnel, who will be kicked to the curb with The Gratitude of a Thankful Nation, and some counseling on how to write a resume.
No retirement checks, of course. No benefits.
No doubt, as Admiral Lord Nelson was wont to say, their love of country will keep them warm.
While technically correct-and the righteous indignation just drips from the words as he probably wrote them-it does not tell the entire story, nor does it take into account the subtext of how we got here. I too, bemoan the fact that the services have too many flag officers, about 50% too many. But the simple fact of the matter is that the services themselves-not their appointed civilian masters created this situation. As too, the services created the overpopulation of many skill sets that now are finding themselves downsized-just like their civilian counterparts. We-the participants of the “service management” created this bed-and now we have to lie in it. We should not be surprised that just like civilian management who ran their companies into the ground-our “CEO’s” are also leaving with Golden Parachutes.
I noted this problem months ago-and got castigated by one of the services “preferred customers” for rightfully pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes.
Let’s look at exactly what transpired in the last ten years within the services, and then ask yourself: “Is anyone surprised?” I’ll take my own beloved Navy as an example, although any of the services have been guilty of the same bad behavior.
In the last ten years-the Navy has created two new fleets, created a whole new shore infrastructure command-taking away from the type commanders what was a rightful part of their mission set. In executing the seemingly never ending wars the nation has chosen to fight, it created a whole host of “Joint Task Forces”. Even among organizations that have been long standing-the number of flag officers have grown.
Then there were the re-alignments. Several I got to witness personally; where lies were told and re-told, to get “parity” with other commanders. Even though our P-3 brethren were completely undeserving of the restructuring (And you folks know who you are.)-they accomplished anyway. Staff numbers grew as a result. Good people got screwed-and in the end we were no better than we were before.
You can’t make the kinds of changes that are needed without some radical restructuring-I’ve pointed this out before. In today’s military you have one stars doing the jobs that were done by O-6’s twenty years before. Its systemic all the way up and down the line-O-6’s are doing O-5 jobs, O-5’s are doing jobs O-4’s could do ; etc etc etc. Does a Navy on the way to 240 ships really need “lead/ follow” Type Commanders? I think not.
This particular cut is simply window dressing that ignores the real problem. Too many staffs-not enough folks on the line. And I submit that is not going to change appreciably until our civilan masters do three things:
1) Repeal or revamp Goldwater Nichols. Jointness as a holy grail never made any real sense. And now there are too many JSO’s and not enough folks focused on warfighting.
2) Drastically restructure and revamp the Global Command Plan-with an eye towards reducing the number of COCOMS to just four: PACOM, CENTCOM, EUCOM, and NORTHCOM. Southcom and Africom are ripe for the picking.
3) Commit to delegating authority and walking away from “command by VTC”. ( This last item is a pipe dream I know-but one can still hope).
The services themselves could start the ball rolling on this-if they chose to.
But they won’t. And Lex knows it.
I think you are misreading Lex. My take was that he was criticizing the Brass for whining about the cuts when the JOs and enlisted folks who get sent home do not have the 'check a month' and benefits that the Brass will receive for the rest of their lives. Jumping to work for a contractor is hardly a privation and they will be amply rewarded for the taxpayer money that they steered towards their new employers while they wore the Navy blue.
Having been a survivor of the A-12 fiasco and the other ways that Naval Air has shot itself in the foot (and the chest), we need a fundamental reform of the Acquisition system more than any other major issue facing the military today. When I compare the current and future ships, subs, and planes inventory to the 600-ship Navy, it brings a tear to my eye.
As long as I am on my soapbox, we need a serious discussion about roles and missions for the future. Not that I agreed with his ideas, but Rumsfeld had the correct notion when he started in office to fundamentally revise the DOD. Is anyone really discussing transformation, or are we simply talking about the easiest way to reduce the pie size while not pissing off the special interest groups?
But there are some distinct differences between the downsizings. On the one hand-and I am not defending it-but the flags that are going home are probably being managed through retirements anyway. In other words they would have retired -they just are not being replaced. Are you saying they did not earnt their retirement? Some of the folks at Lex's place will be the first ones to whine about PO2'S being able to retire-and the advocating stricter HYT rules. They also will be the first to whine about not strict enough BF and PRT standards. You cannot have it both ways.
I would not cry too hard for the RIF folks. They still have the ability to go into the reserves if they choose-and if history is any guide some of them will end up back on active duty through that route.
This is the simplest solution, but it may not go far enough in addressing the very real problem of cyberbullying.