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Subject: Army suffers from 'toxic leadership'
gf0012-aust    7/1/2009 4:39:31 AM
*Army suffers from 'toxic leadership', warns major* * Press Association * The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian), Wednesday 1 July 2009 The army has failed to learn the lessons of fighting counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iraq) and Afghanistan (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/afghanistan), a former officer said today. In a critical article, Major Patrick Little, who left last year after 16 years service, said the army was guilty of "hubris" believing it had little to learn from the experience of other countries' forces. Writing in the journal of the Royal United Services Institute, he said while "dysfunctional" senior commanders were able to carry on with their careers regardless, talented junior and middle-ranking officers were leaving disillusioned because their views and concerns were ignored. He highlighted the problem of "toxic leadership" in which "destructive" styles of command were tolerated because they produced immediate results, despite the long term harm they caused. "Almost every officer serving or retired has examples of seriously 'toxic' commanders, who have bred deeply dysfunctional command climates, and yet have seen their careers sail on undisturbed," he said. "Any serving middle ranking officer will know of commanders at sub-unit level and below who have been relieved of command, or 'sort toured'. But few will have evidence of the same process applying at senior officer level today. "Toxicity in command structures, brought about by commanders ill-suited for their roles, is something the army can no longer afford." At the same time, Little, said that there was an "intolerance of dissent" and an unwillingness to accept criticism of established orthodoxy. He contrasted the UK's experience with the US which, he said, had undergone a "remarkable transformation" since 2005 as the result of a "no holds barred" appraisal of its performance in Iraq. He said the army needed to turn a "critical mirror" on itself in order to "begin the journey, through a recognition of the UK military (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/military)'s hubris over the last 10 years, to recover the ground lost with other professional armies". He said, the US army had seen real change as a result of its willingness to accept and respond to criticism from within the ranks of its own officer corps. In Britian Little said that talented officers were simply leaving the service for civilian life.
 
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Parmenion    Bloody Etonians   7/1/2009 1:58:15 PM
 
Trouble is- in the US if you're young, bright with enthusiasm and want to be part of something bigger than just earning money than the military is a real option- a really honourable one. In the UK, even though we're more comfortable with our forces than the bunch of hippies on the continent- the Army isn't something you tend to do if you're intellectual.
 
So you end up with some of the most important jobs being done by a bunch of bloody hoorays from Eton who were to thick to be able to get into Oxbridge. I think the army is trying to fix it by getting bright working and middle class kids in- if you have a degree you go straight into Sandhurst etc. , which what a really nice bloke I know called Nick is doing-  and he's quite bright. So hopefully it will change.
 
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JFKY    The Links....   7/1/2009 2:33:33 PM
they do nothing.
 
"Harrrrumph.  We defeated the Fuzzy-Wuzzies, the little yellow fellows in Malay-zeeyah, saw off the darkies in Kenya, even the Bog-Runners in Ireland eventually packed it in....look it man, we're wearing soft hats in Basra.  We MUST be winning, I tell you.  Now be a good fellow and hand over the Brandy will you?"
 
Britain's problems aren't NECESSARILY its senior officers...or not in the way this fellow writes.  I think they think TOO MUCH, constantly going on about "political solutions" in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Sure war is politics, and fought for political ends, and assuredly COIN/LIC is the MOST political kind of war around, requiring a combined political/economic/military strategy...but you have to KILL the bad guys!  Generally speaking in rather large numbers, before the Insurgency will end. And Britain's officers, senior ones it seems, keep thinking they can make some kind of deal with the JAM or the Taliban which will avoid the necessity of FIGHTING.  It seems they have the cart before the horse to me....
 
OTOH, Britain's problems aren't it's officers, so much as its POLITICIANS....Blair and company seem willing to fight, but only on the cheap.  The result, to an American, seems to have been small increments, not well supplied, and an unwillingness to commit anything like the resources necessary to "win."  Most likely because the NHS is FAR more popular than the war(s) overseas and the politicians seem intent on adding ever more to the NHS or the Welfare State, but not very much to Defense.  Leaving your military to "make do".
 
And given that, no wonder your general's keep looking and talking about "political solutions" because you can't shoot your way out of what Blair and Brown have dropped you into....
 
And finally, let's be honest, Brit's have been most smug about their "army" since the 1970's (Best Army Pound-for-Pound in NATO)....Max Hastings and the lot from the early days of OIF were just the latest group puffing themselves up over their American Cousin's "Ineptitude."
 
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Herald12345    Story found here.   7/1/2009 2:41:30 PM
 
I am not going to comment since I don't know.
 
Herald 
 
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prometheus       7/2/2009 5:49:48 AM

they do nothing.

 

"Harrrrumph.  We defeated the Fuzzy-Wuzzies, the little yellow fellows in Malay-zeeyah, saw off the darkies in Kenya, even the Bog-Runners in Ireland eventually packed it in....look it man, we're wearing soft hats in Basra.  We MUST be winning, I tell you.  Now be a good fellow and hand over the Brandy will you?"

 

Britain's problems aren't NECESSARILY its senior officers...or not in the way this fellow writes.  I think they think TOO MUCH, constantly going on about "political solutions" in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Sure war is politics, and fought for political ends, and assuredly COIN/LIC is the MOST political kind of war around, requiring a combined political/economic/military strategy...but you have to KILL the bad guys!  Generally speaking in rather large numbers, before the Insurgency will end. And Britain's officers, senior ones it seems, keep thinking they can make some kind of deal with the JAM or the Taliban which will avoid the necessity of FIGHTING.  It seems they have the cart before the horse to me....

 

OTOH, Britain's problems aren't it's officers, so much as its POLITICIANS....Blair and company seem willing to fight, but only on the cheap.  The result, to an American, seems to have been small increments, not well supplied, and an unwillingness to commit anything like the resources necessary to "win."  Most likely because the NHS is FAR more popular than the war(s) overseas and the politicians seem intent on adding ever more to the NHS or the Welfare State, but not very much to Defense.  Leaving your military to "make do".

 

And given that, no wonder your general's keep looking and talking about "political solutions" because you can't shoot your way out of what Blair and Brown have dropped you into....

 

And finally, let's be honest, Brit's have been most smug about their "army" since the 1970's (Best Army Pound-for-Pound in NATO)....Max Hastings and the lot from the early days of OIF were just the latest group puffing themselves up over their American Cousin's "Ineptitude."


They possibly talk about political solutions becuase despite contant contacts and killing a lot of insurgents, it still never ends. Insurgencies can only really be quelled as long as popular opinion is on your side. In afghanistan the situation is obviously a lot more complex than a simple them vs us attitude, there really is no unified afghan population, but rather a bunch of disparate tribes, all with their own objectives, outlooks, prejudices and affiliations.
 
Smothering the country in troops will bring a relative peace to the situation but it will never bring any conclusion either. Eventually it ahs to be left to the native population to decide what they want, the best you can do is show them the advantages of your solution and hope they go for it, otherwise your on a hiding to nothing. It's unfair to characterise the British army in afghansitan as not trying to kill the bad guys... but they would certainly believe that the only way out of afghanistan is with the afghans taking repsonsibility for what they want, until then all the US and NATO can do is hold the ring.
 
if there was an unwillingness to adapt, it's certainly being challenged by the incumbent CGS and his successor, I would contend that Britain is doing as good a job as it can with the troops on the ground that it has.Having more US troops in theatre has helped of course. It's a shame that the US had to bare the brunt of the reinforcements as it should have been other NATO countries that picked up the slack. However, we have an army of 100,000 men, we can only maintain a certain sized force at the end of that supply line having just fought another campaign elsewhere, public funding priorities will always centre on health and education, why shouldn't they? You can understand Brown's reluctance to put more British troops in, there is at the moment, a glaring lack of strategy, what are they doing? what are the victory conditions and what is the exit strategy. Afghanistan could easily end up as a quagmire form which ther eis no escape.
 
You seem to wish to paint the British commanders preference for an afghan political solution as defeatist, or at the very least, the wrong way around. I would contend that in actual fact the absence of framewo
 
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JFKY    Well Parmenion   7/2/2009 2:12:11 PM
As someone said, "Counter-insurgency is the graduate school of war, but it is STILL WAR."
 
And that means kill'n folk....the populace needs economic and political stability, BUT to provide it you need to KILL the bad guys, who have every incentive to disrupt life so as to maintain if not further the revolution/jihad...
 
When you talk first and shoot second, you are giving the jihadis/revolutionaries the time and space they need to act...the British in Basra and Helmand certainly show this....the space, the ceasefire, the truce, whatever you want to call it...merely gave JAM and other militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Helmand the time and opportunity to exert control and deepen it and in the end simply led to MORE fighting not less.
 
An amnesty works when the bad guys figure if they don't take it they'll die...otherwise they just say "Thanks Suckah!"
 
Again it's war, an ACT OF VIOLENCE designed to compel the enemy to our will....it's not a political campaign, with guns.  Iraq shows that if you want to end the insurgency you need to provide the literal space a civil society needs to establish itself.  And the establishment of that space requires shooting bad guys until they leave the desired space....Hence I said the British generals have the cart before the horse...dead JAM AND votes and sewer lines equal peace, not truce with the JAM, because with that route gets the JAM taking credit for the sewers and the JAM winning the election, which only furthers and strengthens the insurgency.
 
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JFKY    I'm sorry Prometheus   7/2/2009 2:13:10 PM
I said parmenion, but I ought to have written it to "Prometheus."
 
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Parmenion       7/2/2009 3:08:43 PM

I said parmenion, but I ought to have written it to "Prometheus."

Yeah I've been mistaken for him before too.
 
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gf0012-aust       7/2/2009 6:23:57 PM

As someone said, "Counter-insurgency is the graduate school of war, but it is STILL WAR."

And that means kill'n folk....the populace needs economic and political stability, BUT to provide it you need to KILL the bad guys, who have every incentive to disrupt life so as to maintain if not further the revolution/jihad...

When you talk first and shoot second, you are giving the jihadis/revolutionaries the time and space they need to act...the British in Basra and Helmand certainly show this....the space, the ceasefire, the truce, whatever you want to call it...merely gave JAM and other militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Helmand the time and opportunity to exert control and deepen it and in the end simply led to MORE fighting not less.

An amnesty works when the bad guys figure if they don't take it they'll die...otherwise they just say "Thanks Suckah!"

Again it's war, an ACT OF VIOLENCE designed to compel the enemy to our will....it's not a political campaign, with guns.  Iraq shows that if you want to end the insurgency you need to provide the literal space a civil society needs to establish itself.  And the establishment of that space requires shooting bad guys until they leave the desired space....Hence I said the British generals have the cart before the horse...dead JAM AND votes and sewer lines equal peace, not truce with the JAM, because with that route gets the JAM taking credit for the sewers and the JAM winning the election, which only furthers and strengthens the insurgency.

I don't see that the Brit/Australian approach toto this isn't viable,  in fact I know that it is.  The issue is context and theatre of activity.

eg, SASR (Aust SAS) operations in Afghanistan are a variation of the Claret ops we used to run in Malaysia, and certainly an outgrowth of the AATTV operations spawned by Peterson in Vietnam.  These are concurrent and sympathetic ops with "force majeur" activities such as what US/UK regular forces bring to bear with large force "kinetic" actions.

It's a variation of the combined arms concept at the absolute ground level, ie, "hearts and minds", Claret type ops, and large scale regular force activities.  They're sympathetic to each other.  Certainly the "hearts and minds" and modified Claret ops are working for Aust in afghanistan (they do have a very very good ratio of capture in "kill or capture" actions against senior Taliban.  Discretionary "capture" is just as significant (and just as important) as large force manouvre designed to bring the enemy to bear so as initiate catastrophic destruction on that enemy.

At the end of the day, force policy is an outcome of civilian authority, and any if not all militaries ability to enagege the enemy in "nn" manner is determined by the length and type of political leash of their govt of the day.

Hence, I think that the friction that can get promoted on the internet about the relative superiroity of one countries visible doctrine  against anothers needs to be tempered a little.

eg the Germans have garnered a little stick in these forums over apparent indolence and unwillingness to sally forth and initiate violent engagement - the reality unfortunately is that this open source view emphasised by public media is a little is far from the truth. "Capping" a countries military performance based on public media commentary can be a dangerous exercise in absolutely trusting the source.  Thats not to say that I disagree witn the tenet and spirit of Major Littles comments.  In australia we have an unfortunate animosity amongst some regular senior ranks against specwarries.  Unfort ego is eclipsing logic and reality of what we can currently field with confidence in the area of our responsibility. (eg our total regular army is less than half the size of the total number of drivers in the New York Yellow Can taxi company - and regular army includes cooks, recruitment officers, as well as shooters)

 
 
 
 
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Herald12345    General comment.   7/2/2009 6:36:56 PM
Prom, and I discussed this problem with regards to American policy elsewhere.(We know of each other, small world isn't it?). In general I agree with GF's assessment. Its best to withhold comment about a military, unless you have good working knowledge of that military. The British Army I don't know, but the US Army I do, (Got that Darth? Didn't know I used to work with the US Army  for a while? Of course NOT. What would I be doing at someplace like Fort Monroe, Fort Knox, Fort Stewart, or Fort Hood?) Different strokes therefore for different folks  I see no reason to be British bashing without some better first hand knowledge of British problems and methods.


Herald
 
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Heorot       7/2/2009 7:06:18 PM

Prom, and I discussed this problem with regards to American policy elsewhere.(We know of each other, small world isn't it?). In general I agree with GF's assessment. Its best to withhold comment about a military, unless you have good working knowledge of that military. The British Army I don't know, but the US Army I do, (Got that Darth? Didn't know I used to work with the US Army  for a while? Of course NOT. What would I be doing at someplace like Fort Monroe, Fort Knox, Fort Stewart, or Fort Hood?) Different strokes therefore for different folks  I see no reason to be British bashing without some better first hand knowledge of British problems and methods.







Herald

What job was that then? Grocery deliveries?
 
We are still waiting for you to tell us all EXACTLY what your so-called professional qualifications are.
Until I see a convincing answer, I will consider you as a superb Googler. And that's all. You have acquired zero credibility with me as a result of recent discussions on this site.
 
 
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