Eventually, the American public is going to realize that, in too many cases, its armed forces are being led by senior officers who are either moral cripples or uniformed incompetents. Worse, very few have been held accountable for their deficiencies. That is not true in all cases, but many of our four-star leaders have proved unequal to the tasks assigned them. This is a damning assessment, but I am not alone in that judgment.
Writing in RealClearDefense, an active duty officer writing under the pseudonym of An Army Officer gave a scathing assessment of current U.S. Army leaders:
They stand at polished lecterns and deliver “assessments” that have been scrubbed of blood and doubt. They testify under oath and under lights, and while they speak of “hard truths,” every sentence has been rehearsed, weighed against headlines and future book deals. They cultivate a public persona: the warrior‑scholar, the reformer, the straight‑shooter who “tells it like it is” while always stopping one inch short of saying the thing that would actually shatter their career.
Although An Army Officer doesn’t go into specific details, this could be describing the current senior leaders of any branch. I will give some concrete examples.
For two full decades, the revolving door of flag officers who commanded in Afghanistan continued to try to build an Afghan army in the U.S. image. The fact that they were failing miserably got papered over time and again. They declared entire provinces to be fit to turn over to the Afghan security forces when they knew full well that the Afghans as currently configured were not — and never would be — ready. If they had reservations, they hid them under “cover your butt” memos or private conversations with their civilian masters.
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