Battle Ready

play on. The Cold War was ever-present, and it was great for justifying programs, systems, and force structure — but, deep down inside, no one seriously believed that it would actually happen.

Still, it necessarily drove things. It drove the way we thought; it drove the way we organized and equipped; and it drove the way we developed our concepts of fighting. It totally shaped us. It totally defined who we were. And when it was all over, we achieved our aim. The war didn’t happen. This was not a dog that didn’t bark. The readiness we worked so hard to achieve for so many years was apparent to the Soviets and their surrogates. They could see the level of our commitment. They didn’t want to take us on. Our readiness and commitment acted as a deterrent — exactly what we wanted them to do.

That taught us one other vital lesson: How to contain and how to deter — the use of the military to prevent wars. This was the first time in history, to my knowledge, that a great power has taken that course. It’s a course we will have to take again and again in the twenty-first century.

Then suddenly, at the end of the 1980s, the Berlin Wall came down, the Evil Empire collapsed, and we found ourselves in the New World Order. It would require a major adjustment. We didn’t do that right.

The next influential event was Desert Storm, which, as far as I am concerned, was an aberration. Though it seemed to work out okay for us — indeed proved beyond doubt how enormously powerful our Cold War military really was — it was the final salute of the Cold War military. It left the impression that the terrible mess that awaits us abroad can somehow be overcome by good, clean soldiering, just like in World War Two. In reality, the only reason Desert Storm worked was because we managed to go up against the only jerk on the planet who was stupid enough to challenge us to refight World War Two — with less of everything that counted, including the moral right to do what he did to Kuwait. In the top-level war colleges, we still fight this type of adversary, so we always can win. I rebelled at this notion, thinking there would be nobody out there so stupid to fight us that way. But then along came Saddam Hussein, and “good soldiering” was vindicated once again.

Worse yet, the end of any conflict often brings into professional circles the heartfelt belief that “Now that the war is over, we can get back to real soldiering.” So we merrily backtrack in that direction. Scary, isn’t it? Still trying to fight our kind of war — be it World War Two, Desert Storm, or Operation Iraqi Freedom — we ignore the real war-fighting requirements of today. We want to fight the services’ conventional doctrines. We want to find a real adversarial demon — a composite of Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini — so we can drive on to his capital city and crush him there. Unconditional surrender. Then we’ll put in place a Marshall Plan, embrace the long-suffering vanquished, and help them regain entry into the community of nations. Everybody wants to do that. But it ain’t gonna happen.

Today, we are stuck with the likes of a wiser Kim Jong Il and a still-elusive Osama bin Laden — just a couple of those charmers out there who will no longer take us on in a symmetric force matchup. And we’re going to be doing things like humanitarian operations, consequence management, peacekeeping, and peace enforcement. Somewhere along the line, we’ll have to respond to some kind of environmental disaster. And somewhere else along the line we may get stuck with putting a U.S. battalion in place on some demarcation line between two adversaries, embedded in a weird, screwed-up chain of command. And do you know what? We’re going to bitch and moan about it. We’re going to dust off the Weinberger Doctrine and the Powell Doctrine and throw them in the face of our civilian leadership.

The truth is that military conflict has changed and we have been reluctant to recognize it. Defeating nation- state forces in conventional battle is not the task for the twenty-first century. Odd missions to defeat transnational threats or rebuild nations are the order of the day, but we haven’t as yet adapted. We all know it, but we won’t acknowledge it.

THE OBLIGATION TO SPEAK THE TRUTH

In April of 2003, I was invited by the U.S. Naval Academy to address the midshipmen in a lecture hosted by their Center for the Study of Military Ethics. I chose as my topic “The Obligation to Speak the Truth.” I told these future leaders that speaking the truth could be painful and costly, but it was a duty. Often those who need to hear it won’t like it and may even punish you for it; but you owed the truth to your country, your leaders, and your troops.

I have been amazed that men who bravely faced death on the battlefield are later, as senior officers, cowed and unwilling to stand up for what is right or to point out what is wrong. There are many reasons for this, from careerism and the hope of personal gain, to political expediency, to a false sense of obedience, to a kind of “Charge of the Light Brigade” mentality: As long as guys are dying out there, it is morally reprehensible to criticize the flawed policies and tactics that put them in that predicament. Bullshit.

I vowed long ago to a wounded young lance corporal in Vietnam that I would never shrink from speaking out. If it required an end to my career, so be it. Later, I was blessed to serve under great leaders who allowed me to speak and welcomed and encouraged my input, even when it was contrary to their views. These men taught me more about courage than I learned on any battlefield — people like Hugh Shelton, who, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, required all of us four-star commanders (CINCs and service chiefs) to read a book by H. R. McMaster, then a bright young Army major and a celebrated armor officer in Desert Storm (as a captain he commanded Eagle Troop of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment during the Battle of 73 Easting, the biggest tank clash since 1973 in the Sinai). The book, Dereliction of Duty, details the failures of the Joint Chiefs to speak out during the Vietnam War; they knew they were building a military campaign on lies, but they pressed forward anyway into the Valley of Death. At a breakfast meeting on January 29, 1998, which was led by Major McMaster, the chairman’s message was clear: He expected us to speak out. I experienced the same sort of encouragement under exceptional commanders like Generals Al Gray, Bob Barrow, Jack Galvin, Mick Trainor, Fred Haynes, Jim McCarthy, Joe Hoar, Binnie Peay, Bob Johnston, and Admiral Snuffy Smith. We need more leaders such as these.

Moral courage is often more difficult than physical courage. There are times when you disagree and you have to suck it in and say, “Yes, sir,” and go do what you’re told. There are also times when you disagree and you have to speak out, even at the cost of your career. If you’re a general, you might have to throw your stars on the table, as they say, and resign for the sake of some principle or truth from which you can’t back away.

Careerism is corrosive to the principle of truth telling. So is political expediency. In both cases, the hope of personal gain outweighs personal integrity and honor. “Don’t rock the boat” leads to moral blindness about threats to the mission or the lives and welfare of the troops and of their families. The troops are interested in more from their leaders back home than statements such as, “We back them one hundred percent.” That’s the mentality of the chateau generals in World War One who sent hundreds of thousands of fine young men to useless deaths. If you make a political mistake, the troops have to pay for it with their blood. Our political and military leaders must be held accountable for their mistakes. Somebody has to tell them that the measures of success they’re selling are not what is really happening on the ground.

The troops want leaders who understand them, fight for them, and appreciate what they’re going through. Credibility is lost in their eyes if their leaders are silent when things are not right. To them that silence is either incompetence or careerism. It is not a demonstration of support.

I have often been called “outspoken.” I am. Too many of our senior commanders have been “Stepford Generals and Stepford Admirals.” They fail in their obligation to speak the truth. And when they do, they’re vilified. Recently, the Army chief of staff testified that we would need 300,000 troops to pacify Iraq. Everybody in the military knew he was right. But the party line down from the Pentagon decreed that the number was half that, and he was pilloried.

Incidents like that are not lost on our subordinates. Many are disgusted and disillusioned, and leave the service of their country. Others learn that following the party line is the course to high rank.

In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility; at worst, lying, incompetence, and corruption. False rationales presented as a justification; a flawed strategy; lack of planning; the unnecessary alienation of our allies; the underestimation of the task; the unnecessary distraction from real threats; and the unbearable strain dumped on our overstretched military, all of these caused me to speak out. I did it before the war as a caution, and as an attempt to voice concern over situations I knew would be dangers, where the outcomes would likely mean real harm to our nation’s interests. I