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I read this article with a lot of interest, not
only because i'm former military, but I have
watched this dilemma for a long time with great
interest as a student.
Army's Combat Leaders Prepare for New War
This article is full of memetic information and
several VERY important points for postmodern
leadership:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/09/11/armys-combat-leaders-prepare-for-new-war.html
McChrystal spoke of his five years in Joint
Special Operations Command.
"When I joined this organization - an elite
collection of forces -- I thought I was joining an
unbeatable team," he said.
In 2004, JSOC was extremely well resourced and
highly efficient, McChrystal said. "What we did,
we could do better than anyone had ever done it
before," he said. "When we went on operations, we
had good results, but we were losing the war."
Al Qaeda, on the other hand, focused on being
adaptable, McChrystal said.
"Al Qaeda in Iraq became a very resilient,
flexible organization, and they were adaptable …
and when you pitted adaptable against efficient,
surprisingly to us, adaptability won." [my
emphasis]
As JSOC did, McChrystal stressed that leaders must
make adaptability their goal.
The second point is taken from two quotes in the
article and I did not do further research to see
if the author correctly quoted anyone, so I'm
taking this at face value to make the point:
The United States will lead a broad coalition to
"downgrade and destroy" ISIL in what will be a
comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism
strategy, Obama announced Wednesday night.
Contrasted with:
Flynn said he wasn't sure how to answer but said:
"We have to come to grips with what it is that we
are facing. Can we go in and do the kinds of
things we know we need to do to take away the will
of our enemy?
"It's not about weapon systems. It's not about
killing; we are masters at that.
This is about removing confidence and removing the
will power of an enemy to do what they think they
need to do, and I think that is part of the
conversation we need to have."
Helpful Hint: What you have
illustrated (IMHO) is a misalignment between
leadership capability and (postmodern)
requirements:
1) Its clear that our leadership doesn't
understand "jihad" - where there is
honor/requirements for dying in the cause!
2) Apparently our leadership doesn't communicate
with the leaders who have actually been on the
ground there.
3) It's clear--at least to me--that our leadership
has failed to learn from history, ISIS is not an
overnight phenomena, even though the media like
you to think it's so--It's another phase of an
epic 1400 year old battle. (War of the Worlds!)
4) Whenever you "threaten" people you better be
prepared to carry it through, or you make the
entire work the next time exponentially harder, we
have not, nor will we ever "destroy" IS...this is
a "infinite battle of history, in 100 years, there
will still be Islam, we will have destroyed
nothing, and again we come across like "naïve
participants" in a world that WE have created
(imagined and conjured) and doesn't really exist.
5) this "out of touch" set of conditions doesn't
bode well for our leadership, shows the
inexperience, and the lack of maturity, as well as
the juxtaposition of values that the leadership
said they stood for...what happened to
negotiation, what happened to diplomacy? WAG THE
DOG is occurring and it's dramatic, and it's an
indirect failure that will come back to haunt
us--history shows that ISIS is in fact coming back
to haunt us from earlier "mistakes."
6) we are using the wrong values, even in a hybrid
form to deal with the overall set of
circumstances...we are feeding our "enemy" now
with all the propaganda they need to "effectively"
recruit to the "cause" and like "good" steel which
is beaten and tempered...we are in fact the
crucible for this "virus" to become even more
"virulent!"
7) everyone loves an underdog, everyone hates a
bully--right or wrong...we just displaced the
bully with our own bullyship, therefore
psychologically creating sub-conscious affinity
for the "enemy." When are we going to "speak
softly and carry a big stick" instead of puffing
out our chests and calling the Air Force:( Haven't
we learned from history that bombing doesn't
work!! OMG, does anyone remember Vietnam!
8) when FS-GREEN fights, they lose, fighting is
not there cup of tea, they don't have the will,
they are not "ruthless" enough, and partially
doing the job with a virus, makes the virus
stronger as the virus adapts...and can't anyone in
our government see this and pull this guy aside
and say look..."you are taking a dumb approach to
this..." and "it's going to come back to haunt
you/us"...
9) this kind of force is the WRONG MOVE NOW...but
"he has no options" because he eliminated his
options when he chose a course of behavior that
eliminated his options now, and because HE HAS NO
OPTIONS, he is committing resources inefficiently
and creating more problems than he will solve, as
did killing Bin Laden did, making him a martyr
which all "people of that faith" aspire...as dying
in the pursuit of the ultimate cause...instead of
capturing him and allowing him to sit in a cell
for the rest of his life, which would have
prevented his "ascension...."
10) doesn't anyone else see these things...or am I
making this up;)?
Action Step: Don't model the
problem! If adaptability wins over efficiency,
then don't rely on efficiency as a strategy,
because adaptability wins in the end!
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