Surefire controversy!

Let's talk Don't Ask, Don't Tell a bit.  I have served in all-male light infantry and motorized line infantry units, co-ed training units, and co-ed staff units.  I went to the Military Academy, which is a co-ed institution with approximately 17% of the student body being female.  My experience is wide enough that I have a fairly good idea of what goes on in the Army and can therefore comment on some impacts of the policy popularly known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT).  

First, let's posit a few things.  

1. Any policy affecting or regulating the military ought to be crafted with the explicit aim of enhancing the capability of the armed forces.  I hope this is apparent.  If you disagree with me on this, then stop reading and go do something else. 

2. Military capability is a function of the total equipment, personnel, and leadership/organizational activity of the military.  It means the ability to deliver the right force to the right target in the right place at the right time.  

3. There are trade-offs inherent in every policy.  To make an analogy, a pawn may move two spaces forward, which is an advance, but the trade-off is that it loses control of the squares it has passed.  

Ok, great.  Now we are on the same page.  So let's address some points about DADT.  

The first is a pretty big one that most people seem to miss.  DADT does NOT PREVENT gays from serving in the military. 

Let me say that again because it is an important point.

DADT does NOT PREVENT gays from serving in the military. 

What it prevents is gays from OPENLY serving in the military.  What does that mean?  That means engaging openly in gay behavior.  The line is a little ambiguous, but public displays of affection such as kissing, or getting caught in flagrante are sufficient to open an investigation into the behavior.  

But nothing in the policy prevents gay servicemembers from serving, provided they do not publish their orientation to the world to see.  And that's the rub.  There could be a couple of infantrymen, gay as can be, serving in a line unit, and, for example, living in their own off-post house, doing whatever they wanted to do.  And there's nothing the Army could do about it.  All that would be required is that they not make out in the barracks in front of their soldiers.  

So, you say, the policy is still discriminatory.  Well, yes, yes it is.  But let's go back to our propositions:  Looking at #1, would repealing DADT enhance military capability?  I don't think so, and here's why. 

1) Gays are already allowed to serve in the military; those who want to can, and therefore the military is not losing a valuable source of manpower.  The best (and only, as far as I am concerned) arguments for allowing blacks, women, and etc into the army and integrated units concern the usage of the whole population of the US in military endeavors.  

Fairness, taking into account peoples' desire to serve, etc., should have nothing to do with whether they are allowed to serve.  To make the point:  If a paraplegic wants to serve in the infantry, do we let him?  If he is a superior strategic genius, then maybe he should be made a general.  However, he is incapable of doing common Infantry tasks.  Women (~50% of the population) and minorities (~30% of the population) give valuable contributions to the military, and so the integration effort was well-aimed and well-implemented, despite the negative effects that we do see in co-ed units from a high-percentage male population interacting with a low-percentage female population, especially given the framework of the rank system.  There is no such argument for repealing DADT, because gays (2-3% of the population) are already allowed in the military.  Repealing DADT would be an exercise in enhancing gay self-esteem, not military readiness.  Consequently, the negative effects that we can anticipate--to unit readiness and morale-- are NOT outweighed by the benefits.   

Because it would not be a beneficial policy, I am forced to conclude that the campaign to repeal DADT is not based so much on "gay rights" as it is on "I'm Gay, Look At Me!" In short, it is about the individual's freedom to do what you want.  Freedom is great-- I am a huge fan of it.  And I am leaving the military so I can do what I want.  There are tradeoffs (see my #3 above) to every decision.  The military demands some degree of conformity.  If you can't handle it, don't join-- you know what you're getting into when you sign up.  However, DADT-repeal proponents would rather force an institution to change for a few individuals' lifestyle preferences than recognize that what they are doing is not in the best interest of the military.  

We then have a branch.  Would DADT repeal be detrimental to the military?  I don't know for sure.  I can say that with the coming confluence of gay marriage and military benefits, I would bet a month's paycheck that with those policies in place, most of my all-male infantry platoon would have gotten "married" to be allowed to use off-post housing and get BAH.  I can't say that my platoon would be significantly degraded by this, but I think getting my soldiers in formation in the morning would be a lot more difficult, and I would see a lot more legal problems coming out of Animal-House style quarters.  I could be wrong, but that's where I would see things going.

I would also guess that living quarters for military service members in general would be dramatically reconfigured.  There would no longer be ANY justification for segregating housing by sex.

Read that again, and think about it.  It's absolutely correct.  What is the justification for segregating housing by sex now?  Privacy?  Sexual harassment cases?  When DADT goes, housing segregation by sex will (logically, but the army doesn't always follow logic) go too.  As a result, service-members will have to have each of their own rooms.  This is great for the servicemembers and I am all in favor of it generally, but not for the cause celebre of some individuals. 

You will notice that I haven't addressed the morale., etc,. of the people in the units.  That is intentional.  My platoons could probably be assessed as homophobic, but I am not sure how much of that was peer-pressure induced and how much of it was genuinely being bothered by gays.  I don't think integrating gays into the units themselves would be a problem unless you had gay romances going on.  That is a problem in male-female integrated units as well, and can have a significant detrimental effect on unit readiness.  It goes to a lot of fraternization issues.  If those could be avoided (which I don't think is entirely realistic) then there wouldn't be a big problem. 

However, let me make a point here:  forcing people to change their beliefs for the sake of forcing them to change is egotistical and wrong.  If there is an injustice going on, fine.  But to label a group of people ("the military") as being mentally deficient and requiring them to adjust to accommodate a relative few individuals is not the best use of the military's already poorly-managed time and energy.  There are already copious opportunities (mandates) for quarterly and yearly training on suicide, sexual harassment, equal opportunity, and so forth.  I got more time in EO classes in my training at Fort Riley than I did training on IVs or calling MEDEVAC.  Just sayin'.

Although to be fair I suppose I am at more risk of an EO complaint here on staff than I am of getting blown up.  But if I'd gone to Afghanistan, then I'd have a real point.  

Are we willing to accept the upheaval that repealing DADT will cause?  I personally don't think there's a point to it.  We should go with my marriage policy, and DADT in place.

Feedback is welcome, as are additional facts or commentary.  

Organizational Ownership Phenomenon

I attended a hail-and-farewell today.  For those of you who haven't attended one, it's one of a long list of Army functions that purport to be tradition and morale-building but actually serves to suck up between one and 3 hours of potentially productive time.  Last night, for instance, over the course of an hour-and-a-half, we learned exactly who of the incoming and outgoing personnel in the 3 shop were married, and some of what they were going to do once re-deployed.  A Colonel sang Irish songs in honor of St. Patrick's Day.  Though all this is no doubt crucial to individual self-esteem and a well-deserved recognition after a year of service in Iraq, I can't remember a single person except the specialist who was publicly mocked by the Sergeant Major for being fat and interested in fantasy role-playing games.  It was a near-total waste of time, except that I got some chicken wings and was able to assess the male/female ratio on the J3 staff to be approximately 20:1.

However, one productive thing did come out of this event.  I came up with yet another reason that the Army is possessed of strong organizational inertia--that is to say, why it doesn't change.  The fact that everybody in this Force-level staff changed out in the period of about a month clued me into this:  Since the typical tour of duty in the Army is between one and three years, no officer has any incentive to take actions to improve his organization past his individual time-frame. 


Hypothesis:  Organizational ownership increases with the anticipated tenure of the individual in the organization.  Ray Kroc and Sam Walton had tremendous senses of organizational ownership because their lives were tied up in growing their businesses.  The typical wal-mart clerk is probably not as enthusiastic.  Likewise, Army officers who constantly change units have no incentive to view their role in the Army in light of the long-term good of their immediate organization because they are moving around so much.


Individual officers do not have the capability or incentives to work on anything that will outlast them.  Therefore, they focus on short-cycle projects that will produce immediate tangible results.  This is where the current deployment-refit-train- cycle (I think it's called something like "Life Cycle Units, or Rotational Readiness program or etc) is very beneficial to the commander.  He works through the cycle, declares victory, and goes on to his next assignment.  He has no staying power or ability to influence anything in his organization past his RIP/TOA date.

This phenomenon is not strictly limited to officers, but it seems to hit them harder.  Within 2 months of my last deployment ending, I'd estimate that 90% of officer-positions changed hands.

So what's the problem?  Well, let me make an analogy: Publicly traded businesses are often derided for taking courses of action that benefit their share prices in the short-term without regard for moral hazard or long-term consequences.  Just think about the recent banking collapse if you need an example.  They are pressured by the public clamor to keep share prices up.  This prevents them from taking actions that might be beneficial to the long-term health of the company (i.e. shedding lines of business, layoffs, etc) but are unpopular.

Apply this to the Army.  A unit commander (or other officer, but I will say "commander" here to keep it simple) has a short-term goal, just like keeping share prices high: Career advancement, i.e. his OER.  After his  2 or 3 years, he moves on to another position in another organization, or a different shop within the same organization-- but more commonly the former.  So his incentive is to do whatever he can do NOW, because he is a) rated on his short term performance, and b) he will not be around long enough to see any long-term projects to completion--hence, anything that has a less-than-sexy performance in the immediate term will hurt him.  Thus, problems have a tendency to be ignored or put off until the rotation happens, to let the next guy deal with it.

So because officers are moved around so much, they have no incentives to take on long-term unit improvements.  They focus on the immediate train-deploy cycle.  They focus on their immediate tour and not on how to build the battalion over years.

But, you ask, isn't that a good thing because of cumulative improvement to the unit?  Surely new commanders, all full of piss and vinegar, reinvigorate organizations and keep them wired tight.

You'd think so, but then account for the fact that all the expertise and teamwork built up during that time frame is constantly decimated by OTHER officers moving around.  The WHOLE ORGANIZATION can change in a period of a couple of months.  Because officers are the ones that set the training and operational agenda, every time a command position changes hands, there is a reorientation of priorities throughout the unit.  Everyone has to adjust to the new boss.  This can happen en-masse--like when the battalion commander and company commanders all change at roughly the same time-- or it can happen piecemeal, with platoon leader rotations, company commander changes, etc.  But every time there is a change, the ship has to adjust course.  In fact, a time-honored tradition in the Army is assuming authority and declaring that the last guy was all messed up and the situation needs to be fixed.  Maybe our current CoC knows something about military culture after all.

The required re-org and re-orientation following personnel turnover simply further reduces the ability of everybody else to make long-term change or adjustments that would improve the organization.  Everybody has to drop what they're doing and learn what the new boss wants.

What kind of long-term organizational improvements are we talking about?  

How about winning wars?  If postings to combat zones were permanent, would we win faster?  How about equipment and accountability problems?  If officers couldn't kick the can down the road as easily, then they might be able and motivated to take action to fix problems.

By the way, this post nicely supports my idea for a free-market HR department, in which units and individuals work at common interests to find good organizational fits, and then retain the leaders that are worth a damn.

Projection

All right.  Let's play a game.  Suppose, for instance, that you are a consultant.

Then suppose, contrary to all of your previous knowledge about how consulting is supposed to work, you pay your client for the privilege of advising him, instead of him paying you for your expertise.

Now suppose that your client only occasionally wants to take your advice, and only puts up with you being around to advise him because you are paying him.

This is what is going on in Iraq right now.  It is of course a gross oversimplification of the whole situation, but several essential elements remain:

1) We are training and equipping Iraq's government.  This is not limited to just training the army, but encompasses advising on all aspects of the functioning government.
2) The Government of Iraq doesn't have to do anything that we tell them to.  Since the July 30, 2009 security agreement, the Iraqis have been running their own country.  Certainly, there are bumps along the way, but they are doing it.
3) The US has a purely advisory role.  Every operation we do is partnered; most aspects of interaction with the GoI are focused on increasing capacity and streamlining systems.

There's a saying that's frequently bandied about on the US side of the house-- "An Iraqi [or Arab] solution for an Iraqi [again, or Arab] problem", coming from some saying from TE Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia.  It's meant to be a reminder that the US cannot expect that US solutions to Iraqi problems will work.  There are too many competing local tribal, sectarian, and political issues in the mix for the US to impose solutions to many of what we perceive as problems.

Unfortunately, Iraq has become a staging ground for a whole host of commands, each bent on "doing something!" to look good, expand individual fiefdoms, or otherwise get promoted.  The practical effect of this is that whenever the GoI is not handling something like the US thinks it should, there's a whole flurry of activity--research, briefings, more briefings, and some meetings--to conclude what this junior SM could have told you up front-- that the Iraqis will do what they damn well please, when they want it, and unless they want to do it, then USF ain't doin' squat.  But unless those briefings happen, then higher-ups can't pretend to make decisions that mainly involve playing at diplomat and doing KLEs (that's Key Leader Engagement, for the uninitiated) in the hope of getting a recalcitrant partner to do something we want him to do.

And yet we continue to spin our wheels and panic when the Iraqis don't do what we want.  At the same time, USF frequently completely disregard the Iraqis' motivations or wants.  In a recent meeting, Your Intrepid Blogger noted a particular instance about training priorities:

Person A:  Are these American Training priorities, or have the Iraqis had input into this?

*cricket*

Let the record show that the training priority had something to do with MILES., which is an American training system and is about the second-to-last thing that Iraq needs right now, right before snowplows for Basrah.  But it's not just about equipment or training.  This projection extends to everything the US does-- we desperately want to influence or push the Iraqis to do things, but can't stand to see them taking care of business on their own and at their own pace.

It's a shame.  We want the US solution to the Iraqi problem.  An Iraqi solution might work, but it wouldn't look as good on an OER, that's for sure.  I can't help but get the feeling (and admittedly, I am removed from a lot of the action, being on staff and all) that we are simply cannon fodder for officers to pad their joint billet time in an only mildly threatening theater where there is minimal risk of failure.  I am sure the Iraqis love having Americans over to tell them what to do.  At this point, we're just a checkbook, and they'll pass on the partnership, thanks very much.

Can the Army be Efficient? Pt 2: The system

The last entry summarized a concept for changing the way the Army does its human-resources management. In short, I proposed moving from the central-planning concept currently in use to a market-based approach in order to increase efficiency, mission capability, and retention or job satisfaction of soldiers. This entry will outline a bit more of how the process could work. Some readers will have ideas that could improve the system or other considerations I didn’t think of; please include those in the comments section.

First, a quick refresher on some of the key tenets of the free-market system: A free-market is composed of individual actors motivated by profit competing for scarce resources which are allocated by price (that's my lay-definition). This is in contrast to a central-planning system in which resources are rationed by planners in accordance with a top-driven master-plan. The free-market system is more efficient than the centrally-planned system because individual actors have more local knowledge of their needs than does the central planner. To use Thomas Sowell’s example: A gas station owner on a street corner has more knowledge about what the locals will pay, when traffic is highest, what refreshments are selling, and etc., than does a corporate strategic planner a thousand miles away. If the strategic planner tries to dictate everything that the gas-station owner does in running his store, the result will be a less-efficient–though undeniably more uniform– and less profitable gas station. The Army has a centrally-planned human resources division. The premise of this series of posts is that there is a more efficient alternative, based on free-market theory.

So. The basis of the system is a personnel-marketplace, similar to what exists throughout America today. In this case, however, the system would be Army-internal, and the pool of potential candidates would come from either existing service-members, commissioning sources, recruits, or draftees, and the information clearing-house would be HRC.

Here’s how it would work: Units would have a budget determined by a number of factors. Individual service members would have records– essentially a resume package consisting of the ORB/ERB and past evaluations–at HRC. Units would post job openings, similar to what happens on monster.com or similar job opening sites. Individuals could contact the units or vice versa about job openings; mutually interested parties (units and service-members) would come up with and sign contracts assigning the individual to a job or range of jobs with a given unit for the contract-specified amount of time and pay. The individual would serve the terms of the contract, and at the end of the contract, the individual could re-negotiate or seek another opening in the Army. The Army could specify a minimum time in service for the individual and mission set for the unit as a general framework.

It’s that simple.

There are some additional refinements for the system, or rather, other considerations.

The only units involved in the bidding/hiring process would be divisions or equivalents. This would be done to keep the administrative competition at lower levels to a minimum, and enable them to fight wars. At the same time, it would give enough flexibility to tactical-level organizations that they could properly employ their local knowledge to compete for personnel. Corps is too high; Brigade is too low. Division looks just right. The current system allows units to request personnel based on their MTOE (Modified Table of Organization and Equipment); however, the actual allocation is up to, again, HRC, to come through and slice out personnel based on Army requirements. With a division- level manning program, soldiers would have visibility on the organization they were entering, stability, and be ensured that they were getting into a small enough organization that they wouldn’t be totally lost.

The budgetary and salary issues become a prominent issue in this discussion. Army personnel are paid on a fixed salary, with fixed benefits depending on their dependents and physical location. Retirement consists of a fixed percentage of the average of the 3 highest years of salary, as shown here, which starts at 50% for 20 years of service and moves up gradually with more years in uniform. This is quite the incentive to stay in the service. How would the free-market system deal with the retirement benefits package? This might be a case where the Department of the Army (DA) supplies funds for the benefits package, or alternatively, the package becomes fixed to rank and years in service regardless of the High 3 earning average. No doubt this would cause outcry from career officers, but it would be an excellent way to put to the test any claims of being in the service for the service and not the money. It would also be equitable from the paying units’ point of view– multiple units wouldn’t have to argue over who paid for retirement of the Colonel or Sergeant Major.

As a practical matter, this would have to be implemented in a phased manner, with units coming on-line in the system in a gradual manner, and individuals prior to the end of their first term-of-service being put under the new system. Current “lifers” have already legally committed to a system, and changing the terms of their current contracts would likely be illegal. This would also remove an institutional barrier against change–namely, the “I’m going to protect my piece of the pie” mentality of people in an organization. Newcomers would have eyes-open to what was going on and would be able to leave or to commit to more time in service.
This also raises the important question of having a draft vs. volunteer force. I believe a draft is a good idea for many reasons, but (and I say this without quantitative studies to back me up) I believe that either system would work equally well in the meritocratic Army-market.

Units would still receive a given mission-set requirement from Big Army and would have to meet evaluation and performance standards to earn a budget. The unit could man itself any way it liked, as long as it could fulfill the mission requirements of its various staff and operational functions. Budgeting would be a combination of evaluated performance from scheduled on-post exercises, Training Center rotations, and surprise/short-advance notice evaluations and exercises. Impending combat tours could be factored into budgeting to allow units to come up to strength– to compete with other units for personnel.

Now we have a system where units are free to work to meet their mission needs, balanced against a reasonable measure of performance, mixed with a price-based allocation system that meets service-members’ needs and avoids the surplus/shortage symptoms of a centrally managed economy. Let’s move on to some effects of the system.