More is being written today about the fecklessness of the United States military than ever before. Unfortunately, much of this does not connect with the average American because a relatively small percentage of Americans have any association with the military, let alone understand it.[1] To many, the notion of “military intelligence” is an oxymoron. If history were taught properly, the public would understand that intelligence, not bullets, wins wars. More to the point, intelligent leadership wins wars. The complex operations leading up to D-Day in WWII are just one example. The popularity of Sun Tzu’s Art of War in corporate America solidifies this point.
There is a point to be made that our military resources are outdated and being depleted, but even with adequate resources, our current military leaders are not ready to address a future crisis, let alone an international war. They do not think strategically. They are reactive and shallow in their reasoning.
Consider the reaction to January 6th by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. His personal disdain for President Trump did not justify his actions under any circumstances. Constitutionally and according to the UCMJ, he was bound to take orders from civilian leadership providing those orders were lawful. He was given no unlawful orders, and he compromised national security by exceeding his authority to disclose information to our main adversary, China.[2] His reactive, shallow thinking was political and symptomatic of current senior military leadership.
As an Air Force Academy graduate, I am familiar with two further examples of reactive, shallow leadership on the part of superintendents of my alma mater – knee-jerk reactions to diversity, equity and inclusion issues.
Lt Gen Jay Silveria’s (USAFA ’85) recording reaming out the Cadet Wing from the staff tower of Mitchell Hall went viral. He was angry that someone had written racial slurs on a white board at the Prep School. First, the incident had nothing to do with the Cadet Wing. The Prep School is literally miles away from the cadet area, and the prep schoolers are not bound by the same standards as zoomies. Second, it didn’t take much investigating to figure out that the person who revealed the slur was the one who wrote it. In short, it was a hoax. But instead of waiting for the truth to come out, the Superintendent reacted in the worst way possible, demeaning the Wing to the nation when not one cadet was even remotely guilty. This kind of reactive, shallow leadership is guaranteed to cost lives in a war.
Lt Gen Richard Clark (USAFA ’86) played football at the Academy. During a discussion, a former officer who had assisted in coaching Clark stated that he did not support Black Lives Matter. Clark’s reaction was, “Then you’re a racist.” That’s quite a deduction that not supporting an openly Marxist organization makes one a racist. Like me, the accused was a Cold War warrior. We know that Marxism is the enemy of freedom—so by extension—the enemy of everything the United States stands for. In particular, Marxism is the enemy of the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution. Set aside for a minute that Lt Gen Clark exposed that he doesn’t honor his oath to support and defend the Constitution. Apparently, he also jumped to the conclusion that an individual who does respect his oath is not doing so because of integrity and commitment. Instead, he tritely concluded that the accused hates blacks, although he probably had years of evidence to the contrary. This is not just reactive, shallow reasoning. This is emotional decision-making that is guaranteed to lose wars because facts get ignored.
It’s not just Air Force or Army leadership that is infected with this kind of reactive, shoddy thinking. There has been a plethora of naval accidents that clearly point to bad leadership being at the root of the problem in all branches of the military. But no event highlights the leadership problem more than the catastrophe that was the Afghanistan withdrawal.
What we are seeing is a generational turn of leaders who have been inculcated into bad priorities and superficial thinking. This is the hallmark of indoctrination. A cognitive trap is a blind spot that keep us from perceiving reality as it is. Bad perceptions lead to bad decisions. Shallow thinking leads to falling into one cognitive trap after another. A fair amount of Cold War military training was centered around recognizing and avoiding these traps.
I don’t let my own generation off the hook because we trained these folks. Further, many in my generation have been seduced into related cognitive traps.
In the aerospace industry, we seek out the root cause of any problems we encounter, and it takes discipline and patience to “go deep” to find them. Our military did not suddenly develop bad leadership. The degradation has been nonlinear over time and is partly the result of what I labeled “improper laws” in Stability, Justice, and Clarity. The old saying that the “road to hell is paved with good intentions” is true.
A law may be unconstitutional but necessary to nudge society where it wants to be. Civil Rights laws come under this heading. If these laws have their intended effect, generation turns obviate their need. Consequently, such laws need to sunset or be repealed to avoid the nonlinear reactions that are characteristic of any complex system. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. We have passed a sequence of Civil Rights laws that have escalated the affinity for quotas with each generation. In 1973, Nathan Glazer stated clearly in The Harvard Crimson that quotas were unnecessary for overcoming discrimination.[3] He went even further to warn about creating division:
Why aren’t quotas a good way of overcoming the effects of past discrimination? The main reason is that it would divide the American people-
By 1990, quotas were added to the ever-expanding Civil Rights legislation.[4] The result has been the increases in social division and injustice against individuals predicted in The Harvard Crimson article. Even worse, current military leadership has been inculcated into believing that overcoming any perceived injustice is more important than being able to win a war. Sound military standards have been abandoned for a social experiment.
The good news is that half of the battle against cognitive traps is recognizing them. I have every confidence in the intelligence, good intentions, and underlying training of our military that we can turn this problem around quickly. It just takes removing the mask of neo-Marxism.
[1] “The Military-Civilian Gap: Fewer Family Connections.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, November 23, 2011. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/11/23/the-military-civilian-gap-fewer-family-connections/.
[2] Lonas, Lexi. “Joint Chiefs Spokesperson Confirms Milley Calls with China, Defends Them as Routine.” The Hill, September 15, 2021. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/572407-joint-chiefs-spokesperson-confirms-milley-calls-with-china-defends-them-as/.
[3] “Affirmative Action vs. Quotas: Opinion: The Harvard Crimson.” Opinion | The Harvard Crimson. Accessed July 29, 2023. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1973/3/20/affirmative-action-vs-quotas-pbabffirmative-action/.
[4] Browne, Kingsley R. The Civil Rights Act of 1991: A “quota bill,” a codification of Griggs … Accessed July 29, 2023. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=lawfrp.
