Advise the President re changing Officer Corps promotions

Elsewhere on this forum, there have already been side discussions of how backwards the Air Force's Officers behave versus the real-world requirements. I believe that the same can be said of all the Armed Forces to differing degrees and details.

Here's one example from the Navy:
[*]http://taskandpurpose.com/4-reasons-i-am-resigning-my-commission-as-a-naval-officer/

Here are two for the Army:
[*]http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/why-our-best-officers-are-leaving/308346/
[*]http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/an-officer-corps-that-cant-score/

One good book, this one on the Generals:
[*]“The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today” by Thomas E. Ricks
http://www.amazon.com/Generals-American ... 2+to+today


The problem with most of the above links, and other sources, is that they detail what is wrong with the officer corps, but they don't spell out how to CHANGE the officer corps, at least not in enough detail.
i.e.: What would you tweak, do away with or revamp and how, in order to get better performance out of our military in general, and its system of promotions in particular?

One of my pet dreams is to require that any Air Force officer who wants a promotion higher than the rank of Lieutenant (or more likely Lt. Commander), must have shown at least SOME interest in the Close Air Support role for the Air Force. [But that's MY pet peeve, not necessarily yours, or the best one.]

Find a plausible plan, or make one up of your own, as to how you would change the promotions with the various Officer Corps in the U.S. Military.


I once heard a comment that went something like...
Nothing creates change like an external attack combined with an internal threat. Or put another way, One gets real creative when you're between a rock and a hard place. So long as the Generals/Admirals have a place to squirm to, I don't see any real change happening with how promotions are done. As I see it, getting a potentially hostile chief in charge of each Armed Forces could be the threat from the inside. The President himself, along with his various JAG Corps could be the external attack. Given the order from on high that the officer's promotion system change, maybe such a multi-pronged attack could get their attention (...or maybe not).


One of my pet dreams starts this way...
Assuming the relevant laws do not prohibit it (i.e.: IGNORE the Key West, Pace-Finletter and/or Johnson-McConnell Agreements),
as a first step the President eventually replaces the heads of all the armed forces with similar ranked officers from the OTHER uniformed armed forces.
Note that I AM including the National Guard, Coast Guard, the “United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps” and the “NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps”.
[Yes, you heard me right, in such a scenario, the Nerd in charge of naming the Hurricanes COULD be the next Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff, and an Army General could be in charge of the Air Force.]
FFI, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed ... d_services




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So...
Given this scenario:

You are a White House West Wing Advisor to President Obama.
He wants you to do some research for a change to the Pentagon in general, and how the officer corps in particular get promoted, and behave.


If possible, do not “re-invent the wheel”; Somewhere, somebody must have already but some thought into this topic and published a paper on it.

Your job is to:
[*]collect together that relevant reading material and/or so-called experts who can advise him on the matter, and
[*]select one (or more) such already developed plan, or
[*]...if one can't be found, create your own first draft of one such plan that could actually work.






p.s.: Sorry if I seem to ramble a bit, I'm on time crunch, and gotta just click "Submit" then go!
.

Not sure what you are looking for. To start with make 100% of all Service Acadamy cadets serve a minimum of 4 to 6 years as enlisted. Make selection to the various US military academies merit based on proven enlisted service ability. If possible proven combat veterans only.

Next I would try to reduce the Brass Bloat. Too many officers. Not enough enlisted. The Air Force is particularly bad at this. Return to late WW2 officer levels. Add on several higher levels of enlisted ratings maybe to E12.

Increase the maximum retirement age to 70. Perhaps even 75. If they can pass the physical, then they can stay on. Particularly with higher enlisted personal. Raise salaries and retirement. Greatly raise the VA benefits.

Stop the ticket punching. Create an environment where promotion is based solly on merit and ability. Clean out all the non combat support services. Reduce the number of people. The Navy needs more smaller cheap ships.

Lean on new technology only slowly where needed. Drones come to mind. Always remember the bottom line is that men must get into the mud, blood and guts to win and hold ground. Do not get too technological. Keep it simple.

Finally, get women out of all combat roles. They do serve a purpose. A very limited one. They do fine in support services, but only in a limited capacity. Make military service less personal agrandment and more honor based.

Rambling for sure. Right now our military is heading in the wrong direction. It is almost like the powers that be want us to lose the next big shooting war. Cyberwar will change everything. We need to abapt to this. If we dont't some third world hacker will bring it all down. Just me. Respectfully.

Thank you.
Good start.
I'm not sure I agree on some points, but that's why these are called discussion forums.

Anyone else?

HB of CJ wrote:
Finally, get women out of all combat roles. They do serve a purpose. A very limited one. They do fine in support services, but only in a limited capacity. Make military service less personal agrandment and more honor based.

Just ridiculous, frankly. Exactly for what womens aren't fit?

Lean on new technology only slowly where needed

And lose the future war instantly. The ONLY way of winning the really significant war is to mantain the technological and industrial superiority.

Women do not belong in physical combat roles. Why is this so hard to understand? All females are not Wonder Woman. All men are not Super Man. But ... evolution pretty much has determined the roles of the various genders.

To even think that women can be as good in physical hand to hand fighting as men is silly. Break through it. The average male combat soldier will defeat the average female combat soldier. That is mother nature. Duhh!

I am thinking the grunts of the grunts here. US Marine Corps. Rifleman. Woman do great as support personal and we could use many more qualified females. But not in combat. Hello? Not in combat. Do we understand?

HB of CJ wrote:Women do not belong in physical combat roles. Why is this so hard to understand? All females are not Wonder Woman. All men are not Super Man. But ... evolution pretty much has determined the roles of the various genders.

To even think that women can be as good in physical hand to hand fighting as mean is silly. Break through it. The average male combat soldier will defeat the average female combat soldier. That is mother nature. Duhh!

I am thinking the grunts of the grunts here. US Marine Corps. Rifleman. Woman do great as support personal and we could use many more qualified females. But not in combat. Hello? Not in combat. Do we understand?

And how often does modern combat get to hand to hand? I would say that the standards for both genders should be the same (or very close at least), but if someone can meet those standards, they should be able to be in combat roles.

Then you are completely agreeing with me that women have no place in real physical combat roles. Thank you. Debate ended. You lost. Nobody won.

HB of CJ wrote:Then you are completely agreeing with me that women have no place in real physical combat roles. Thank you. Debate ended. You lost. Nobody won.

Actually, I wasn't. I was saying that anyone who meets the appropriate physical standards (which don't include "being male"), regardless of gender has a place in combat roles.

From what I remember, earlier this year, the first two women made it through US Army Ranger training. If they can do that, they should be just fine for regular combat duty.

HB of CJ wrote:To even think that women can be as good in physical hand to hand fighting as mean is silly. Break through it. The average male combat soldier will defeat the average female combat soldier.

Oh yeah, the hand-to-hand combat is so-o-o often, yeah. Don't forget to mention that womens also unfitted to galley oarsmen roles, and thus incapable of serving in the Navy.

It migh be a fachinating discovery for you, but modern warfare actually aren't centered around hand-to-hand combat. Actually, the role of hand-to-hand combat in modern warfare is less than 1% of casualites (possibly less than 0,001%). The artillery and firearms was the main casuality-delivereres for two centuries! And the modern firearms did not reuqre excessive muscle power to operat efficiently.

But not in combat. Hello? Not in combat. Do we understand?

We understand that you completely did not understand the modern warfare. Are you really thinking that the modern combat is centered on infantry, fighting in close combat? Sorry to disapinty you, but on modern battlefield the majority of casualites is delivered by indirect methods - artillery, misisles, aviation, armored vechicles - and only a small part by infantry themselves.

Starsaber wrote:Actually, I wasn't. I was saying that anyone who meets the appropriate physical standards (which don't include "being male"), regardless of gender has a place in combat roles.

And i agree with that completely. The physical test for the frontline troops should be unified, but if the female capable of meets the standards - it's just logical to use her.