Princeton Class of '42-part II: Maybe things are looking up
Below is a link to an entry in Tom Rick's blog that addresses something discussed here lately. I would very much like my earlier contention to be proven wrong.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/17/from_ivy_league_to_olive_drab
posted by Carl at 12:15 PM
18 Comments:
While I agree that it is a good thing to have highly educated and smart people joining the officer corps, I agree with this commentor's words (after the article) regarding those that don't join up. Not wanting to join the military doesn't imply that an individual doesn't want to serve or better his or her country.
"I generally agree, but I think many more people want to serve in non-military ways. 9/11 occurred during my senior year of high school. I seriously considered signing up. Since then, disillusionment with the GWOT has made me very glad I didn't.
I've learned that the best regular and/or irregular warfare military in the world is still bound to lose without sound civilian strategic leadership. Most people I know that feel compelled to serve their country want to contribute to growing America's softpower since we've seen just how impotent hardpower is in the 21st century.
There are several ways "to actually have a role in the future of the nation.""
As a general rule, it seems that the method of education in higher institutions, but especially in the elite institutions, is highly individualistic. Students are taught to be competitive rather than cooperative. Thus, I think this transcends the ivy gates to become many students' outlook both nationally and globally. Kids care about "what is best for me", rather than adopting a more humanistic outlook.
That said, I don't think that producing egocentric individuals is the fault of the schools themselves- students surely are not alienated from each other. Perhaps it's just a symptom of conditioning oneself for capitalist success.
But I think that Tom Rick left out a very important consideration here, which is the economic climate. These students would have been looking for jobs around the exact time that the downturn began, and the fields that many of them would have been seeking a career in were some of those that were most jeopardized.
as RD1 alluded to, the comments are very interesting and one of them mentioned effect of the current economy.
RD2: maybe an ideal would be grads of elite schools doing some post-grad work in one of the services, institutions that enshrine putting the group ahead of the individual, or at least are supposed to.
Please pass the Kool Aid. I feel left out.
Sure let's require high achieving individuals to be indoctrinated into your fantasy by calling it post graduate public service. They used to call that the draft, but I like your spin better
Mr. Ricks post was typically hawkish as was the comments section. Why is it that no one ever interviews the dead guys when preaching the virtues of military service and war?
that name is too long to be handy. i'm going to call you...CDAS.
i don't know quite how to handle a loyal reader who seems to contemn me but i'll take 'em where i can get them.
Now who’s holding a grudge? I have no contempt or disdain for you at all. I simply believe that you perspective on this subject is overly narrow and your tolerance of alternate points of view is almost nonexistent.
My belief is that the truly fertile ground for progress on any subject lies between the poles. If you stray too far right, I go left. If you go left (HA!), I will go right. If you stick to facts, I will offer facts, and then you will delete me, which ultimately proves your intolerance.
I thought that we lived in the USA and that your jaunts abroad were somehow related to protecting and preserving the fundamental tenants upon which the republic was founded.
I have asked you many times in the past, what exactly do you believe?
And here is a link to an alternate point of view on military enrolment:
Army More Selective as Economy Lags
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 19, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/18/AR2009041801992.html?hpid=topnews?xid=rss-page
CDAS: i believe that i serve as an admirable foil for you.
Saw this online recently and thought of your discussion. It's an interesting perspective that will never occur, but interesting none-the-less. -- Wes.
Why We Should Get Rid of West Point
By Thomas E. Ricks
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Washington Post Outlook
Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time? Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of
the savings to expand ROTC scholarships.
After covering the U.S. military for nearly two decades, I've concluded that graduates of the service academies don't stand out compared to other officers. Yet producing them is more than twice as expensive as taking in
graduates of civilian schools ($300,000 per West Point product vs. $130,000 for ROTC student). On top of the economic advantage, I've been told by some
commanders that they prefer officers who come out of ROTC programs, because they tend to be better educated and less cynical about the military.
This is no knock on the academies' graduates. They are crackerjack smart and dedicated to national service. They remind me of the best of the Ivy League, but too often they're getting community-college educations. Although West Point's history and social science departments provided much intellectual
firepower in rethinking the U.S. approach to Iraq, most of West Point's faculty lacks doctorates. Why not send young people to more rigorous institutions on full scholarships, and then, upon graduation, give them a
military education at a short-term military school? Not only do ROTC
graduates make fine officers -- three of the last six chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reached the military that way -- they also would be educated alongside future doctors, judges, teachers, executives, mayors and members of
Congress. That would be good for both the military and the society it protects.
We should also consider closing the services' war colleges, where colonels supposedly learn strategic thinking. These institutions strike me as
second-rate. If we want to open the minds of rising officers and prepare them for top command, we should send them to civilian schools where their assumptions will be challenged, and where they will interact with diplomats
and executives, not to a service institution where they can reinforce their biases while getting in afternoon golf games. Just ask David Petraeus, a
Princeton PhD.
Thomas E. Ricks is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and author of "The Gamble," about the Iraq war from 2006 to 2008.
it was an interesting article. mr. ricks wanted to start a discussion and boy did he. the comments are flying at swj and all the other sites.
you're right. nothing will change. too many movies about the long grey line and too many army-navy games for change to happen.
i'm curious though. what kind of opinions are expressed at your place?
I can't really think of a good place to ask this, but I was wondering what your thoughts on this whole waterboarding issue are, Carl.
Carl-Over here, there actually haven't been a lot of comments. However, the ones that came up first and most often was: While the author mentions David Petraeus as having a PhD, etc, he fails to note that he graduated from West Point, and then continued his education. (As we all should from a self-development standpoint.) The other comment that stuck me was that several police departments, most notably the ones in California recovering after numerous problems, went to West Point to to restructure their leadership programs.
I can't say a whole lot, since I never went to the academy, but apart from the fraternity aspect of the academy, the graduates that I've met have not stuck me as being any better or worse than ROTC grads. A lot I've met have been rather dull and fixated on the "Spirit of the Bayonet" sort of thing, as well as arrogant without reason.... but then again, I can say the same thing about a guy I served with from Princeton.
I think it comes down to the person.. smart, dedicated folks are going to naturally rise to the top.. regardless of where they originate from. The best, most thoughtful officer I have met was a direct commission. She showed up one day without even knowing how to lace up her boots properly. I'd place her against any graduate from the academy.
That being said, there is to much tradition for the academies ever to go away. It would be like taking away budgetary control from the services... just won't occur.
--Wes
Wes: i never knew that about the California PDs doing that. i'll have to look that up. do you have a reference or a place to start?
i talked to a retired SGT MAJ who worked for us for a while and he said it was harder to get the academy grads to listen. but that was a grand total of one guy i talked to so the statistical base may be suspect.
there were lots of direct commissions in WWII also. i don't how they do it but i would guess you only direct commission people who have a track record. they have already demonstrated they can accomplish. another practice of old that they wouldn't do now is what Ted Roosevelt Jr. did. combat service in WWI. years in the civilian world then back in in WWII at a high rank. but another example of taking a person with demonstrated ability.
i read long ago what the Germans did in WWII for junior officers. a man served in the ranks and was evaluated as officer material. if he served well and was judged the have what it took, then he went to officer school. and they never lowered their standards in order to fill out the numbers. i have often wondered why we can't set up the same type of thing. the Germans had very good junior officers in WWII.
you're right though. the academies are there forever.
Anon: on oct 29 2007 i posted a long article about water boarding, torture, written by Malcolm Nance. it is about the only long article i ever put in this thing because i thought it so important and he wrote so eloquently. i would be pleased if you could read it. the article prompted dozens and dozens of comments at small wars journal.
these things horribly dishonored our country and a truth commission type of proceeding would be a good thing. but they are starting to talk about criminal proceedings and i think there is great danger in that.
the good thing about a truth commission is that it shines the light on bad things and enforces with shame and public humiliation. that is a very powerful thing. but people are more inclined to fight dirty and justify what they did if crime and jail are mentioned.
i read they want to go after a white house counsel for and opinion. the devil may have guided his hand when he wrote that opinion but it was still an opinion. can you criminalize an opinion?
they say they want to go after the guys who gave the orders but not the guys who carried out the orders. if the order was illegal you can't give it, granted, but my understanding is you are not required to obey an illegal order and may have a duty not to obey it. you want to give the guys who actually did it a pass?
the above would lead to a never ending dispute about who gave what order, was it really an order, he said that but didn't really mean it etc.
the people who are pushing for criminalization will be surprised at who all was in the know. once they find out they will have to start lying to cover their buddies. wonderful.
the mushy souls who did things will primarily defend themselves with the argument "it worked." they will trot out their evidence and challenge people to prove otherwise; to prove a negative. that is inevitable in a criminal proceeding. it pushes to one side the more important moral argument, it's wrong. a truth commission would concentrate on the moral argument.
a few random thoughts on this.
what a small thing, the suits in the gov executive suites telling each other "let's put a bug in with him, that'll work."
torture does work if you want somebody to say anything and you get off on hurting people. clever way to legally sanction sadism. otherwise why don't they routinely say "let's offer him half interest in a tropical whorehouse. that'll break him." they don't say that because it wouldn't involve hurting somebody.
the final irony is, these things have made the bad guys sympathetic figures. how could it have been otherwise? who roots for the inquisition?
i feel kind of strong about this.
A truth commission is like putting a "Johns" name in the paper for soliciting a hooker. It embarrasses him, costs him his job and destroys his family but you save the inconvenience of a trial with no real legal consequence?
If I recall, Japanese solders in WWII were executed by the US for using similar tactics on American soldiers, but that was ok because they were the bad guys?
As the moral beacon for humanity, should we not hold ourselves to an equally stringent standard?
DCAS: the power of shame and destroyed careers is not to be underestimated as a deterrent. a properly run truth commission would ruin everybody associated with these episodes and announce to all that in the future the country does not look favorably upon this.
a truth commission would also be much less likely to make unjustified martyrs out of the perpetrators. they would be seen as people who went beyond the pale, not as people unjustly accused.
some Japanese soldiers were tried and some executed; a miniscule number given the enormity of Japanese crimes (read Prisoners of the Japanese and The Rape of Nanking). and there was at least one case that is considered by many to be a notable miscarriage of justice, the Yamashita case. the prosecutions served the need for vengeance but did it really bring home to the Japanese people what their army did? maybe not. the knock on the Japanese for the last 65 years is they haven't really admitted to having done anything wrong. maybe a truth commission would have been better.
Sec. Gates has said low ranking people who did these things should be protected from prosecution because they acted under the belief that their actions were valid. what he is in effect saying is they were just following orders. that is always the defense of war criminals and it hasn't washed in the past.
now imagine if we criminalize this whole thing. you could have the interesting spectacle of one part of the US gov prosecuting members of the US gov for doing illegal things and the defendants being defended by another part of the US gov, the defense being they were just following orders.
not much moral clarity in that. there would be huge moral confusion. with a truth commission there would be moral clarity. that is the important thing if it is not to be repeated in the future.
but it is a judgement call. my call is the potential for very serious legal problems and moral confusion outweighs the need for some scalps.
You are splitting hairs.
Either we are a nation of laws or we are not. If we choose to ignore international law or worse yet only follow it when we feel like it, why would any other nation or culture chose to respect or trust or partner with us?
Several young uneducated, enlisted personnel have already gone to jail for the "unsanctioned" incidentts at Abu Graib so you are only proposing to "ruin" people who will simply reinvent themselves, write a book and become consultants until a new admnistration emboldens them to strike again.
Hearts and minds is a bit more complex than providing a generator to charge cell phones in the jungle.
CDAS: oh you read that post about the cell phones. i thought that was very clever of those guys. they were unarmed a long way from any backup. quite brave they were.
i advocate the course i do because i think it will achieve the greatest good given the political realities of the situation. in an ideal world, better could be done. but is isn't an ideal world and you have to do the best you can.
Rwanda is going along a similar route. they can't try all the killers, so they try the leading devils and re-integrate the others. no one blames them for doing only what can be done. South Africa has gone the same route too.
i think you underestimate the capability of the rest of the world to recognized practical limits. besides, who really cares what the rest of the world thinks? i don't. i care about following the most effective path for us.
regardless of what they said, the Abu G people were a bunch of perverts playing around because they could.
are you interested in guerilla wars? The Village is the best single book i ever read on the subject. have you read it?
I'd settle for trying the leading devils in this instance. And I agree with you, I think most of the world would accept the practical limits of that solution.
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