Lt. Col. Paul Yingling on why we're losing. Must. Read.

A failure in generalship
Armed Forces Journal
May, 2007
By Lt. Col. Paul Yingling

"You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict."
- Frederick the Great

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.
<snip>
Congress should also modify the officer promotion system in ways that reward intellectual achievement. The Senate should examine the education and professional writing of nominees for three- and four-star billets as part of the confirmation process. The Senate would never confirm to the Supreme Court a nominee who had neither been to law school nor written legal opinions. However, it routinely confirms four-star generals who possess neither graduate education in the social sciences or humanities nor the capability to speak a foreign language. Senior general officers must have a vision of what future conflicts will look like and what capabilities the U.S. requires to prevail in those conflicts. They must possess the capability to understand and interact with foreign cultures. A solid record of intellectual achievement and fluency in foreign languages are effective indicators of an officer's potential for senior leadership.

The rest here:
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

mmm...Yeungling...sorry.

This is a different generation than Vietnam was, it's 30 years, that is a generation and a half.

just saying.

ARMY LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Operation Desert Storm. He has taught at West Point, and holds a master's degree in political science from the University of Chicago.

His article seems downright rovian. Blame the military and its leaders for EVERYTHING that has gone wrong; while unintentionally (or not) give a total pass to civilian leadership. And when does an O-5 trash O-10's publicly and in print? And congress should change the way Generals are selected? Why? Because he should be one? I have a hard time thinking that the judgement of one O-5 is far better and his knowledge and expertise far outstrips those way above him in the chain of command. One displays those requisites, otherwise they aren't promoted.

I guess I'm just a little jaundiced and look at such things with my evil jaundiced eyes.

:thumbsup:

"I have a hard time thinking that the judgment of one O-5 is far better and his knowledge and expertise far outstrips those way above him in the chain of command."

When you stop and look at the mess that is now Iraq, do you really think that those who out rank this man actually have any kind of expertise or knowledge, names like Sanchez, Miller, Abizaid, and Casey.

They all outranked this lowly Lt Col, and we've seen what a great job they've done with all of their expertise and knowledge, haven't we?

I don't think that this has anything to do with his own promotion potential, besides after writing this his chances of getting an eagle, much less a star are slim to none. Remember, to get promoted
he has to have his name on a list, he just pissed in the wheaties of everyone who would be responsible for putting his name up for Colonel.

I believe that what he is trying to say is that the military should run the combat operations, and while the civilian government plays the part of overseer, it shouldn't use a war to advance it's political party agendas.

Just saying.

has misled and let our military leaders down and the LCOL is giving that part of leadership a pass. Per bush and PNAC, it would be a piece of cake, we'd be greeted as liberators, Iraq would pay for everything, then the shit hit the fan and PNAC slowly and painfully tried to undo their fingerprints; leaving the military to deal with the spiderweb they were trapped in. If LCOL has great ideas then I think he should first attempt speaking truth to power (maybe he already has.) During my time in the canoe club, the guys with the stars insisted input from their subordinates. I agree with you last paragraph and that is what bush has been saying but he has only been talking, he hasn't been walking. He and cheney don't want to oversee they want to run things the way they see fit. I'd appreciate the LCOL dedicating a chapter or two on how Military Leaders in time of conflict deal with meddling and incompetent civilian leadership. With a little research he may learn a thing or two himself.

The military is governed by civilian leadership....which is a good thing since we (except for 29% of us) don't want to be a Fascist state. BUT, it seems obvious to me that the military leaders have either 1)told the Bushies only what they want to hear, or 2)told the Bushies the Truth, the Bushies disagreed (gotta protect * legacy in the history books) and ordered the military to do their bidding, in spite of the fact that military judgment predicted probable failure of the White House initiatives (politicians micromanaging the war from 6000 miles away..bad idea, to quote one who should know but doesn't seem to care).

It would appear that, if you want to continue your career in the military, you must agree with the Bushies, and not rat them out to the Fourth Estate. General Shinseki got fired for offering an opinion contrary to the Bush plan. Tommy Franks--who constantly re-tailored his war plans to suit the political opinions of the Bushies and the need to do a war on-the-cheap--is one of the people responsible for the Iraq fiasco, according to Thomas Ricks in "Fiasco", and Franks got the Medal of Freedom and retired with all the perks of his generalship. Life is not fair or equitable in Bushworld (thanks to Maureen Dowd for the term)--the have's get all the filthy lucre and the little people who got them there get crushed and discarded.

After all, any general that expressed anything approaching common sense about Iraq has been shit-canned.

I gotta go with the "blame GWB and the neo-cons" on this one. It's our political leaders that need to go to school.

Remember, General Shinseki (sp) saying that we'd need like 400,000 - 500,000 troops to secure Iraq? He got fired in humiliating fashion for saying that.

I'm not saying there are not improvements that can be made in our military (if Shinseki got fired - a bunch of other generals should have resigned in protest) - but, his main point was debunked by little old me.

SPring 2003, I was listening to KPFA -a very far left leaning radio station totally against the war in Iraq

A short time after the Shock and Awe campaign and after the fall of Saddam they had one of their reporters in Iraqq give a report.

The people of Baghdad would not let him walk down the street without stopping him to thank him for his country toppling Saddam.

Yes, they had sustained casualties to the civilian populace.

But they kept telling him - as long as there are enough American service people on the ground, Iraq will change and become a true democracy.

I was amazed to hear a report like this from KPFA. but I knew already that we didn't ahve the numbers of soldiers needed.

Seems like a lot of bullshit to me.

I don't see ONE WORD in this pompous diatribe about juding whether or not you have a war that is even *worth* fighting in the first place. About the inapprorpriateness of using the military to solve a diplomatic problem. Iraq, clearly wasn't worth fighting, but he's skipped to "we just didn't do our job of predicting the outcome."

Yeah, you took up thousands of pixels to say that? No shit, Sherlock.

First of all, it is not, and never has been, the military's job to make policy, declare war, nor mount invasions unless instructed to by the civilian government.

They can advise at best as they are able on the likely outcome of various courses of action (or inaction), or even lobby for or against certain proposals, but it is the government who says "Go here and do this."

It is then their job to accomplish the given mission, whether they agree with it or not. Of course if they strongly disagree, they can resign. If they have sufficient time in grade to do so. Unhappily, the 'resign' option isn't open to newly volunteered grunts. More's the pity.

IMHO Lt. Col. Yingling has taken a very brave step. Some would say foolhardy. In 'normal' times this would be a certain career ender. But these are far from normal times. It will be interesting to see what happens to him.

Some generals DID advise as truthfully as they were able what would be needed to do the job they were facing. Notably Gen. Shinseki. They were 'retired'. And that was a great lesson to those who followed to take their places.
'Go along to get along.'

If you take the time to read the entire article, you may find yourself agreeing with much of what he has to say.

Then read this interview he gave a year ago to see what does work and what we should be doing if we are bound to stay in Iraq.
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/p4013coll13&CISOPTR=273&filename=274.pdf

Notice that in neither article does Lt. Col. Yingling address the question of whether or not we should be in Iraq. That was never his decision to make.

we're not cut out to be the policemen of the world.

:kick:

and tired of reading why we have not succeeded..we should not be there, damn it!

end of story..we were taken to war based on f'ing lies..lies lies lies..

we are losing because it was all a damn lie to start with, by a bunch of lying sob's who never saw a war in their lives!

no real soldier will tell you winning a war is easy..and no real soldier would lie anyone into a f'ing war!

that is why we are losing ..because it was all a damn lie! by a bunch of murdering mtf'ing liars, cowards and liars!

fly