Tom Ricks posted a letter from four senior officers in response to my January Atlantic article. I was eager to read what Tom billed as a "well-argued defense of the status quo." But if this is the best they got, we should be even more worried.
To be fair, this is a complex issue. I've tried to do my part in engaging in the issue by (1) not just criticizing, but offering an alternative vision, (2) noting the personnel crisis is not new, but decades old (yet still unresolved), (3) the problem is not merely the slow promotion of great leaders, but the forced "up or out" and "zero defect" cultures that punish specialization, and (4) the loss of too many good officers does not imply that the remaning officers are sub-standard. Many does not equal all. I thought using Nagl and Petraeus as career officers would blunt that kind of logical error. Let me highlight one issue I have in this open letter:
Dear COL James Miller, US Army, CAPT Anthony Calandra, US Navy, Lt Col Gabriel Vann Green, US Air Force, and LtCol R. G. Bracknell, US Marine Corps -
Thank you for your service to the nation. I was happy to see that Tom Ricks posted your response to my Atlantic essay published in January of this year, but have to say I was disappointed by the lack of depth you offer. I want to challenge you to be more specific in your defense of the status quo. To be blunt, I found the repeated assertion that my research was flawed to be a paper tiger because you simply do not offer any counter evidence.
Let me explain. I observe "A" to be true, and conducted research to support that position. Rather than make the case that "B" is true with supprotive evidence, you start your attack on "A" in your second sentence: "his incomplete methodology netted inconclusive findings as to the existence of a problem and available remedies." Here are some other claims/statements you make (and I highlight these are without substantiation):
- a narrow sample of West Point alumni captains, majors and lieutenant colonels
- The author relies on a survey of West Point graduates from a handful of years ranging back a little more than two decades, as though opinions of a small sample of officers, gleaned from a single, unique commissioning source is reflective of attitudes throughout the force. If the author were interested in achieving a representative picture of attitudes, he would have relied on a more thorough cross-section of officers, including Army ROTC and OCS graduates
- Moreover, one wonders why the author did not look at any other service; maybe the Army has a junior officer problem, but the other three services are doing just fine -- or maybe not. We would never know based on Kane's artificially narrow survey.
- Access to information germane to the performance of retained and separating officers is not an insurmountable obstacle, and would have constituted real "data" and would have improved the reliability of his findings immeasurably.
- For Kane, that 93 percent of his small, unique sample set of a narrow cross-section of the officer community in only one service is sufficient to establish that a problem exists across the military.
- Finally, Kane proposes a labor market for the military in which the invisible hand of the market would match available candidates with open positions. ... Kane's model would cluster talent in a few of the most popular units and duty locations - the competition for assignment to bases in Southern California and Europe has the potential to choke out the labor markets in less desirable locations such as Korea, Bahrain, and Alaska, risking mission failure.
Could any of you point me to the study, narrow or otherwise, Army or otherwise, active duty USMA commissioned or otherwise, that supports your opinion? No? I respect your opinion, as this is a complex issue. But I am not at peace with repeated beat-the-dead-horse innuendo that my research (let alone SSI's research) is flawed when you offer no counter evidence. And I wouldn't take this so seriously but that this is a serious issue. Lives are at stake. National security is at stake.
To be clear, a sample of 250 is not small, or narrow. I explained in the actual study that I selected West Pointers because I was able to access that group in an unbiased way. I have not been able to crack how to survey OCS and ROTC officers in a neutral way, but I have every reason to believe that my survey sample is representative of officer opinions across commissioning sources. Perhaps you have some evidence to the contrary -- that West Pointers are substantially different or less patriotic? That's a pretty flimsy position. The ROTC/OCS officers I have heard from were quite pleased with the article and found it agreeable, and I heard more frequently those sentiments from ROTC friends when I was in uniform.
Back to the point, I will hold that my survey is highly representative of officer opinion. Show us the counterevidence if you think otherwise. Show some wild margin of error or bias in my questions. In fact, the survey found something very damning that distrubed the nation and the officer corps.
I've talked to vets from WW2 and Korea and Vietnam and all express similar sentiments that the socialistic anti-meritocracy has constantly harmed the U.S. military. My survey focused on officers with experience in the modern Army precisely to avoid criticisms that the findings were based on old perceptions. I'm sure if I had done otherwise, some would have tried that attack as well.
On the last bullet, you discount the efficiency of a labor market to clear. Let me recommend you read an economics textbook on this matter. Markets clear. That's what they do. They sort things (including labor) out incredibly efficiently. Some might say that Diego Garcia or South Korea are less desirable locales, yet civilians still work there, no? Americans work in all sorts of dangerous, nasty places. Who wouldn't like that Hollywood acting role, yet we wake up every day and work the jobs we can get. But not the military. Rather than let the harsh reality of a labor market weed out the poorest leaders, the military conducts "force shaping" -- a euphemism for paying bonuses to good, entrepreneurial officers who leave! Lest it be too embarassing, such early-retirement and early-out RIFs are restricted from year groups recently eligible for promotion, so as not too reveal that a high percentage of BTZs want out. This is moral cowardice.
To be honest, I am worried. I know, as you must know, that SecDef Gates recently spoke at West Point and expressed his view that the personnel system must be reformed. I was gratified by that. But I've also heard in the months since my article first appeared too many voices making noise to hide the signal. The nation we have sworn to protect deserves better.
Sincerely,
Tim Kane
