Leadership for Military Professions: A Real Strategic Means for America
Abstract
The Telegram is a publication of the Hertog Program in Grand Strategy, jointly sponsored by Temple University s Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy and the Foreign Policy Research Institute and made possible by a grant from the Hertog Foundation. INTRODUCTION. As a participant this year in the Consortium on Grand Strategy, a collaboration between Temple University's Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy and the Foreign Policy Research Institute, I noticed that our discussions usually assumed that one of the principal strategic means in which the United States held a comparative advantage was in our human resources, the men and women serving in our armed forces. In this Telegram, I suggest that while I do not disagree with that contention as often expressed in our discussions, I offer a cautionary note particularly about our ground forces which by all accounts are now, after a decade of war, utterly exhausted. Thus, it is not so clear to me that the human fabric from which we have woven our professional forces into units of effective land power will be able to hold their professional edge amidst the near-term reductions in funding and forces structure now envisioned for the Department of Defense. THE CHALLENGE: Reductions in force and funding that dull the military s professional edge Stated another way, there are ample historic examples indicating that our armed forces, and from here on I will narrow the consideration to the US Army -- my own object of research -- have not always gone through post-war build-downs and emerged as a professional force. Recall the performance of Task Force Smith in Korea after the WWII reductions, the hollow army of the 1970s after Vietnam, and in the 1990s the US Army in Somalia after the post-Cold War reductions. In each case the edge in combat effectiveness was reduced by both the size and manner in which the reductions were made, particularly in human resources.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA570414
Entities
People
- Don M. Snider