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| Have America's Generals dropped in Quality? |
| 2012-10-31 |
| "American generals were managed very differently in World War Two than they were in subsequent wars," writes Thomas E. Ricks, the former Pentagon correspondent of the Washington Post. "During World War Two, senior American commanders were given a few months in which to succeed, be killed or wounded, or be replaced." Mr. Ricks rightly puts this policy down to Gen. George C. Marshall, U.S. Army chief of staff from 1939 to 1945 and one of the chief architects of the defeat of the Axis. During World War II, 16 generals were relieved of their command out of the 155 who commanded divisions, as well as no fewer than five corps commanders. By contrast, the most senior soldier to be relieved during the eight years that the United States fought in Iraq after 2003 was a colonel, Joe Dowdy. "As matters stand now," Mr. Ricks quotes another colonel saying, "a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses his part in a war." |
| Posted by:Frozen Al |
| #8 Right. Our Generals are probably better than they ever have been. Still, just as in 1862, you could fire 90% of them and be no worse off. |
| Posted by: rammer 2012-10-31 21:51 |
| #7 American forces have been hobbled by political constraints since WWII. The commanders are better, but the inability to fight wars as all-out affairs where civilian casualties are an afterthought has led to a lot of inconclusive engagements, leaving the enemy with the resources to rebuild his forces. The rank incompetence of WWII commanders was eye-opening, ranging from Mark Clark's disastrous river crossing to Doug MacArthur allowing his air units to be destroyed on the ground *after* receiving news of the Pearl Harbor attack. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-10-31 21:48 |
| #6 I believe it was Wesley. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-10-31 21:36 |
| #5 Mark Clark vs. Smiling Albert... has there ever been a bigger mis-match? Sad, stupid and expensive. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2012-10-31 18:45 |
| #4 ..if you ask people from Texas, the former. They've never forgotten the Rapido River. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-10-31 18:19 |
| #3 Mark or Wesley? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2012-10-31 16:35 |
| #2 Ask the British about General Clark. Most of them know the story better than the Americans. Can't believe that tool is still running around being a foreign policy advisor. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-10-31 14:46 |
| #1 Yes, lots and lots of McClellans. It's what happens when the peacetime system of promotion and selection trumps any attempt to introduce a wartime system of promotion and selection. Wartime performance, for which the organization exists in the first place, should override all else. There is no fairness in war. There is no box checking in war. There is only skill and leadership on the battlefield which is all that should matter. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-10-31 14:27 |