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America's military can win wars. We've done it in the
past, and I have
absolute confidence that we'll continue to do it in
the future. We've
won fights in which we possessed overwhelming
technological superiority
(Desert Storm), as well as conflicts in which we were
the technical
underdogs (the American Revolution). We've crossed
swords with
numerically superior foes, and with militaries a
fraction of the size of
our own. We've battled on our own soil, and on the
soil of foreign
lands -- on the sea, under the sea, and in the skies.
We've even
engaged in a bit of cyber-combat, way out there on the
electronic
frontier. At one time or another, we've done battle
under just about
every circumstance imaginable, armed with everything
from muskets to
cruise missiles. And, somehow, we've managed to do it
all with the
wrong Army.
That's right, America has the wrong Army. I don't
know how it
happened, but it did. We have the wrong Army. It's
too small; it's not
deployed properly; it's inadequately trained, and it
doesn't have the
right sort of logistical support. It's a shambles. I
have no idea how
those guys even manage to fight.
Now, before my brothers and sisters of the OD green
persuasion get
their fur up, I have another revelation for you. We
also have the wrong
Navy. And if you want to get down to brass tacks,
we've got the wrong
Air Force, the wrong Marine Corps, and the wrong Coast
Guard.
Don't believe me? Pick up a newspaper or turn on your
television. In
the past week, I've watched or read at least a dozen
commentaries on the
strength, size, and deployment of our military forces.
All of our
uniform services get called on the carpet for
different reasons, but our
critics unanimously agree that we're doing pretty much
everything
wrong.
I think it's sort of a game. The critics won't tell
you what the game
is called, so I've taken the liberty of naming it
myself. I call it the
'No Right Answer' game. It's easy to play, and it
must be a lot of fun
because politicos and journalists can't stop playing
it.
I'll teach you the rules. Here's Rule #1: No matter
how the U.S.
military is organized, it's the wrong force.
Actually, that's the only
rule in this game. We don't really need any other
rules, because that
one applies in all possible situations. Allow me to
demonstrate...
If the Air Force's fighter jets are showing their age,
critics will
tell us that Air Force leaders are mismanaging their
assets, and
endangering the safety of their personnel. If the Air
Force attempts to
procure new fighter jets, they are shopping for toys
and that money
could be spent better elsewhere. Are you getting the
hang of the game
yet? It's easy; keeping old planes is the wrong
answer, but getting new
planes is also the wrong answer. There is no right
answer, not ever.
Isn't that fun?
It works everywhere. When the Army is small, it's TOO
small. Then we
start to hear phrases like 'over-extended' or 'spread
too thin,' and the
integrity of our national defense is called into
question. When the
Army is large, it's TOO large, and it's an unnecessary
drain on our
economy. Terms like 'dead weight,' and 'dead wood'
get thrown around.
I know what you're thinking. We could build a
medium-sized Army, and
everyone would be happy. Think again. A medium-sized
Army is too small
to deal with large scale conflicts, and too large to
keep military
spending properly muzzled. The naysayers will attack
any middle of the
road solution anyway, on the grounds that it lacks a
coherent strategy.
So small is wrong, large is wrong, and medium-sized is
also wrong. Now
you're starting to understand the game. Is this fun,
or what?
No branch of the military is exempt. When the Navy
builds aircraft
carriers, we are told that we really need small, fast
multipurpose
ships. When the Navy builds small, fast multi-mission
ships (aka the
Arleigh Burke class), we're told that blue water ships
are poorly suited
for littoral combat, and we really need brown water
combat ships. The
Navy's answer, the Littoral Combat, isn't even off the
drawing boards
yet, and the critics are already calling it pork
barrel politics and
questioning the need for such technology. Now I've
gone nose-to-nose
with hostiles in the littoral waters of the Persian
Gulf, and I can't
recall that pork or politics ever entered into the
conversation. In
fact, I'd have to say that the people trying to kill
me and my shipmates
were positively disinterested in the internal
wranglings of our military
procurement process. But, had they been aware of our
organizational
folly, they could have hurled a few well-timed
criticisms our way, to go
along with the mines we were trying to dodge.
The fun never stops when we play the 'No Right Answer'
game. If we
centralize our military infrastructure, the experts
tell us that we are
vulnerable to attack. We're inviting another Pearl
Harbor. If we
decentralize our infrastructure, we're sloppy and
overbuilt, and the
BRAC experts break out the calculators and start
dismantling what they
call our 'excess physical capacity.' If we leave our
infrastructure
unchanged, we are accused of becoming stagnant in a
dynamic world
environment.
Even the lessons of history are not sacrosanct. When
we learn from the
mistakes we made in past wars, we are accused of
failing to adapt to
emerging realities. When we shift our eyes toward the
future, the
critics quickly tell us that we've forgotten our
history and we are
therefore doomed to repeat it. If we somehow manage
to assimilate both
past lessons and emerging threats, we're informed that
we lack focus.
Where does it come from: This default assumption that
we are doing the
wrong thing, no matter what we happen to be doing?
How did our military
wind up in a zero-sum game? We can prevail on the
field of battle, but
we can't win a war of words where the overriding
assumption is that we
are always in the wrong.
I can't think of a single point in history where our
forces were of the
correct size, the correct composition, correctly
deployed, and
appropriately trained all at the same time. Pick a
war, any war. (For
that matter, pick any period of peace.) Then dig up as
many official and
unofficial historical documents, reports,
reconstructions, and
commentaries as you can. For every unbiased account
you uncover, you'll
find three commentaries by revisionist historians who
cannot wait to
tell you how badly the U.S. military bungled things.
To hear the
naysayers tell it, we could take lessons in
organization and leadership
from the Keystone Cops.
We really only have one defense against this sort of
mudslinging.
Success. When we fight, we win, and that's got to
count for something.
When asked to comment on Operation Desert Storm, the
U.S. Army's
Lieutenant General Tom Kelly reportedly said, "Iraq
went from the
fourth-largest army in the world, to the
second-largest army in Iraq in
100 hours." In my opinion, it's hard to argue with
that kind of success,
but critics weren't phased by it. Because no matter
how well we fought,
we did it with the wrong Army.
I'd like to close with an invitation to those
journalists, analysts,
experts, and politicians who sit up at night dreaming
up new ways to
criticize our armed forces. The next time you see a
man or woman in
uniform, stop for ten seconds and reflect upon how
much you owe that
person, and his or her fellow Sailors, Marines,
Soldiers, and Airmen.
Then say, "Thank you." I'm betting you won't even have
to explain the
reason. Our Service members are not blind or stupid.
They know what
they're risking. They know what they're sacrificing.
They've weighed
their wants, their needs, and their personal safety
against the needs of
their nation, and made the decision to serve. They
know that they
deserve our gratitude, even if they rarely receive it.
Two words -- that's all I ask. "Thank you." If that's
too hard, if you
can't bring yourself to acknowledge the dedication,
sincerity and
sacrifice of your defenders, then I have a backup plan
for you. Put on
a uniform and show us how to do it right.
