General Mark Milley got his job as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff only because then Secretary of Defense Mattis was against his appointment, and President Trump, foolishly, decided to appoint Milley as a thumb in the eye to Mattis. In Milley we see the ultimate Army careerist, a none too bright buffoon, but able to play the bureaucratic advancement game with skill and willing to mouth the proper political platitudes of the powers that be in order to advance the fortunes of Mark Milley, the only cause he truly believes in. In 2020 he guessed that the Democrats would get back into the White House and he tailored his actions accordingly. In choosing Milley out of spite, Trump inflicted a wound upon himself and the country, Trump never having a clue as to which of his appointments were gold and which fool’s gold.
Historically when a military is ineffective at doing its primary task of winning foreign wars, the men at the top of the military often begin to meddle in domestic politics. Milley is a prime example of this. It is much easier to act woke than to come up with a war winning strategy against China. Of course this is the same military that in two decades could not come up with a war winning strategy against the Taliban. Milley is merely the culmination of a long process during which the US military has grown used to having a large technological advantage over their adversaries and little attention has been paid to war fighting strategy, grand or otherwise. Our military over the past two decades has been generally used with all the brilliance and finesse of the Post Office. Instead, the attention of our Generals and Admirals, at least those above one star rank, with some honorable exceptions, has been riveted on gaining the next promotion by kissing up to the dominant political faction in DC. In China we face an enemy with huge resources and a technology close in parity to our own. Yes, much easier to play political games in DC than facing that daunting prospect in our war planning. Victories in war are earned and so are defeats. If the US is defeated by China in the likely coming Sino-American war, that defeat will be earned by the careers of completely useless, and actively detrimental, officers like General Mark Milley.
To be fair, we knew the winning war strategy for Afghanistan, but we refused to employ it because we are hobbled by trying to be a nice country. Not to be confused with being a good country, we have become self-crippling. Even post-WW2 Japan had it’s share of not nice things (even ignoring the “not nice” part about dropping a nuke on them to end the war), that were actually good for the country and the world.
China has no such limitations, and has shown they will do whatever it takes to remain in power and defeat us. It remains to be seen whether those actions will result in the downfall of the US, or the downfall of China, first.
We also know how to defeat China, but again are hobbled by our leaders (military and political) wanting to be seen as “nice”.
Trump I think prospered to a degree because he was thinking outside the box and had good instincts about policy. The personnel operation of the administration kept failing. However, I’m going to guess that some part of his personnel trouble was derived from having more critical distance from his subordinates than did his predecessors and being able to rapidly identify flaws in their thinking and behavior. Some part. Everything he does is…messy. I’m not sure any of his appointments in high politics worked out well other than Grennell. The most salient appointments in the Department of Justice also proved inadequate.
The quotations attributed to Milley are so damning you’d think he’d deny it immediately. I don’t think Milley is at all unintelligent, but he has the attitudes of a faculty bubble-dweller. Faculty say the damndest things, because everyone around them thinks the same way and no one they care about calls bulls!it.
Comment of the week Art! Take ‘er away Sam!
Kurt Schlicter, who has an informed opinion, has suggested the next Republican president retire en bloc the entire corps of flag rank officers, inviting just a few to return. Something has badly damaged the quality of the officer corps at the top. If you recall, the decay at West Point could be dated to sometime around 2004. Milley was promoted to the flag ranks in 2005. Gen Petraeus, who contrived an effective strategy to contain the violence in Iraq, attended West Point ca. 1972. Milley was a ROTC at Princeton a half-dozen years later. He was also given leave by the Army to pick up graduate degrees.
I watched some of this series:
Which puts a lot of work into proving that China is a paper tiger. Not that they couldn’t still do some damage to us if a conflict happened, but given they are both communist and have turned their backs on God (with both faith and the one-child policy) I believe they are much closer to self-destructing than we realize.
Not that they couldn’t still do some damage to us if a conflict happened, but given they are both communist and have turned their backs on God (with both faith and the one-child policy) I believe they are much closer to self-destructing than we realize.
Stalin slaughtered his people in the thirties by the millions and his officer corps by the tens of thousands. That did not prevent the Soviet Union from doing the lion’s share of defeating the Third Reich a few years later. China has substantial problems, but we underestimate their military power at out peril.
Fair point, Don, but Russia had only undergone the revolution a few decades ago before getting into the fight with the 3rd Reich, correct?
My general theory is that societies and cultures have inertia too. The reason socialism seems to work at first is when it takes over, there tends to be an abundance of resources (comparatively with what’s about to come) and momentum from the society’s historical traditions. Then as years past and generations pass as well, the wages of this societal sin begin to take their toll and it starts rotting away.
China’s been at this much longer than Stalin was. I believe their sins are catching up to them and if we win any conflict with them, it won’t be because of our righteousness, but because of their depravity. (If that makes any sense.)
China would be a tough foe, but itself cannot fight a long, bloody conflict. The one child policy has left the country with a lot of only sons. A critical mass of their deaths/debilitating injuries would cause considerable social dislocation.
China knows this, and plans for knockout blows. Which is fine when it works. But the Germans planned for the same in 1914, and it didn’t quite work. I think we can agree that much dislocation followed.
The military’s complaisant reliance on technology leads to a revised aphorism, “To the fool with a hammer, all the world’s a thumb.”
As a veteran of five years active service and twenty-five years civilian service in a Defense Department branch, I can state that the author’s evaluation of the officer corps at flag level is spot on. There are a few combat commanders of demonstrated competence but most got their cards “punched” with advanced degrees and a lot of mathematically defined theory. One exception was General Stanley McChrystal of Central Command. He was clearly not a nice guy but was a very competent fighter who did not fit with the political policy in Afghanistan. His retirement was accepted and welcomed by the political types. We are now leaving the area to the Taliban and our mistakes will be buried in like manner of Vietnam, Korea, etc., Reagan showed the way in Granada and Panama. Do the job quickly and then get out. Like the Bourbons, we have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
Reagan showed the way in Granada and Panama. Do the job quickly and then get out. Like the Bourbons, we have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
Reagan was not in office during the Panama operation and those were different jobs than the one in Afghanistan.
The brass [ass] hats are only a puss-filled boil on the arse of the real problem.
The real ‘issue’ is entire elite [outside Trump-style independents, employed Dems and a few GOP] has sold out to the CCP, most egregiously the addled, crook and his CCP handlers in the White House.