Specifics: What is Wrong Today?

This will be a continual series to answer a list of great questions to "A Detailed Road Map to Assist Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's Massive Undertaking of Reforming US DoD"

In the Department of Defense (DoD) Personnel Management Systems today (similar across the services despite sub-cultural differences), a tension exists between those who support a “mobilization-based system”, and those who want to institute Mission Command to support the culture of Maneuver Warfare (supported by a “cadre based mobilization system” as defined in previous articles). Instead, the personnel systems of each service within the U.S. military should align with its wartime mission as well as its own cultures, i.e., what works great for the Navy may not work as well for the Army.

Fortunately, this has been acknowledged over and over again in mountains of books, articles and studies by think tanks and academic institutions. Unfortunately, nothing has happened? Why?

The answer has been “it is too hard!” Also, there has not been an outright battlefield disaster to justify reform (as occurred to the Prussians in the aftermath of the October 1806 twin battles of Jena-Auerstadt). Finally, it is all about egos and selfish vs selfless service. Those who have benefitted the most from today’s outdated personnel management system do not want to change it. To acknowledge as much would be self-critical of their own success in learning how to manipulate a very complex system.

Under a mobilization-based system, the U.S. military manages individuals by moving them from place to place in accordance with a defined need for trained individuals and to support the jobs desired of a “successful” career. In some cases this Industrial age military has witnessed brief changes (field grades able to stay longer in key Military Occupational Specialties (MOS), brief stabilization of units creating unit cohesion during deployments (by freezing transfers in and out)). There is not enough evidence to determine if changes in personnel management systems have adequately addressed the tensions of managing individuals and units. There are a number of concerns with the existing Industrial age methodology and the value of retaining this approach while promoting adaptability, encouraging innovation and preparing Servicemen for the ever-changing nature of protracted conflict.

DoD is unable to resolve this core conflict because there are a number of out-of-date assumptions from the Industrial age that drive DoD personnel policies, practices and measures. Below are two of the long-perpetrated assumptions. The first assumption is that individuals must be managed by a centralized personnel system. This assumption was built into the then War Department personnel management system in the early l900s when the War Department modeled its personnel management system on that of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was strengthened during World War I and World War II when the size of the military increased dramatically and centralized control seemed essential for success.

The move to centralization was further reinforced in the l950s when American corporations espoused the virtues of centralized control. This trend continued into the l970s and 1980s with the centralization of promotions of all officers and NCOs and of command and critical school selections. This also supported political agendas with the infusion of women and minorities into the officer corps to meet quotas. This trend was highlighted even more under Presidents Obama and Biden in ensuring meeting their promises to special interests groups in making key selections to the senior and middle grades of the officer corps. This is what we now call Diversity, Equality and Inclusion or DEI.

The second assumption is that the personnel system must provide a surplus of qualified military officers in the middle grades to support a future total mobilization similar to that experienced in World War II. At the end of World War , the DoD, having participated in total mobilization for World War I and World War II, concluded that it was necessary to maintain a surplus of qualified officers to support a a rapid growth that would create entirely new units to meet the needs of a future, multiyear war with the Soviet Union. Accordingly, the DoD designed a personnel management system that would provide a surplus of qualified middle-level officers. Over time this system became engrained into the culture as more than just for mobilization. It became accepted as the only way to do things. Thus, the officer corps continued to grow, accompanied by more and more headquarters.

In a study I conducted for the U.S. Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) Forward in 2010 it was found that the most successful armies throughout history had the least officer bloat. More so, it was ran at the top by far less senior officers than by armies that had officer bloat. In today’s U.S. military we have the largest percentage of officers to enlisted in our history at 1 per five. Even worse, we have one field grade officer for every junior officer. Our general and admiral officer corps has the highest ratio in our history as well. This bloat makes our military less effective as the simplest decisions are usually forced upward to justify the large amount of officers, and the accompanying force structures in many unnecessary and large headquarters. This study is at https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/officer-manning-armies-of-the-past/151191083

Key to maintaining this surplus was an up-or-out requirement and a 20-year retirement that would create a large number of middle-level officers but would get them out of the Army before they became too old. These assumptions have been “hard wired” into the current system, and most officers— and even most personnel experts—do not fully know what the assumptions are based on. For example the DoD has mountains of studies pointing to the superiority of unit manning or unit cohesion over the individual replacement system (IRS), yet we cling to the IRS.

Although the evidence would indicate awareness that individual replacement is a bad approach, the U.S. Military continues to do work-arounds, promoting temporary rather than permanent fixes to a complex problem. For example, recent Army and Marine personnel policies calls for some officers to become specialists, in contrast to its longstanding emphasis on producing “generalists.” This new policy can be seen as a way of finding equitable solutions for excess officers and has the added benefit of reducing the number of more senior officers, all generalists, who must become “command qualified.”

These changes can be seen as an implicit effort to mitigate the impact of the mobilization assumption. The generalist assumption, which arises out of the previous two assumptions, has been a part of American military culture since the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the United States rejected Emory Upton’s efforts to create a professional Army and general staff whose officers were rigidly selected and trained in technical areas.

The generalist concept was enhanced at the end of World War II with the reforms instituted by the Officer Personnel Act of l947 (OPA 47). OPA 47 enshrined this thinking; it was institutionalized during the Cold War with the passing of the Defense Officer Personnel Act (DOPMA) of 1980, which arose out of the need to support mobilization. Both these acts revolve around using the “up or out” promotion system that must have a bloated officer system to work.

The personnel management systems designed during the Industrial age and still enforced today are designed to promote, assign and educate personnel for initial and continued service. Follow on articles offer details of how the personnel system currently works for officers, enlisted and civil servants. The accessions system lays out the standards, based on systematic and tangible criteria, to become an enlisted Soldier or commissioned officer. This system has been likened to “mass produced” or “assembly-line” personnel systems employing corporate terms like “making mission”.

The dominant criterion for initial enlisted entry is a high school diploma; for an officer, it is a college degree, and in many cases recently lowered even further to make recruiting goals (the outcome is not effectiveness but numbers). The promotion system clearly defines the rank structure and describes the responsibilities attending each rank. The promotion hierarchy can be traced, alongside equal force structures to the Napoleonic Wars with 9 levels of command accompanied by an equal rank.

The criteria for promotion are explicit, detailed and well-known among members competing for promotion. n the lower ranks, the use of explicit criteria that depend on objectively measured elements—such as written and hands-on tests of skill and knowledge, physical fitness, marksmanship, successful completion of training, awards and decorations and additional education—help to promote openness and fairness. The assignment system for enlisted personnel operates centrally and matches available, qualified personnel to position openings (“faces to spaces”).

Servicemen are all managed by personnel in the same MoSs that have been picked as “personnel managers”/“monitors” that have been highly successful in their field. Success rests solely on horribly inflated evaluation reports, where the slightest less than perfect checkmark or comment could mean failure (“zero defects” is alive and well in 2025).

In the Information age, this is highly out of date. In a Mission Command culture, most personnel decisions should be made by the individuals as long as they maximize the end state of DoD which is combat effectiveness and mission accomplishment. In a Mission Command culture, aberrations in ones career where a less than perfect report (as long as it is not due to a moral or ethical issue) is seen as a necessary proof of the display of moral courage. Perfect careers should be seen with suspicion.

Although at times Servicemen are allowed to choose the location of their next assignment as a retention incentive, assignments typically occur independently of individual preferences and therefore offer no significant opportunity for individuals to influence their own professional development. Officer assignments are also made centrally, but recommendations from senior officers are often taken into account. Such recommendations also impact senior assignments.

Where to start to reform how we choose, develop, sustain, select and enable (personnel management systems) leaders to understand and practice Mission Command?

I would start with education and training, known as Professional Military Education or PME. If done correctly through emerging advanced learning (encompassing training and education as one) methodologies such as Outcomes Based Learning or OBL (endorsed by the Joint Services in April 2000) should help “round out” the human capital. Yet there is very little evidence that OBL is being taught, with exceptions, anywhere in the DoD PME programs across the services, or at the service academies. As they say, old Dogs are hard to teach! The mantra, “this is how we have always done it, and it is good enough for me, why change” comes to mind.

Done correctly, OBL helps the individual build an identity within the organization while increasing unit cohesion and an understanding of the command and control system and the importance of how Mission Command within Maneuver Warfare works. If done correctly, it would begin at the very entrance of DoD people into recruit training or officer accessions systems. It would always focus on the development of the strength of character. More advanced development and military professional education would continue to focus on more complex problems. It also contributes to the development of leadership and communication skills and provide a thorough understanding of the roles, missions, equipment, tactics and decisions required by those in positions of authority.

[Note: Future articles will go into more specifics dealing with officer, enlisted and Civil Servant ranks and how they are managed as well as more details of how OBL works]

Notes:

1. Martin Samuels, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888–1918 (London: Frank Cass, 1995), pp. 131–132.

2. Kent W. Park, “Assembly Line to Custom Design: Reforming the Officer Development System,” The Land Warfare Papers, o. 81, October 2010, The Institute of Land Warfare, Association of the United States Army, p. 2, http://www.ausa.org/publications/ilw/Documents/LWP_81_web.pdf.

3. Emory Upton (1839–1881), a U.S. Army general and military reformist, is known for his role in successfully leading infantry to attack entrenched positions at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House during the Civil War, but he also excelled at artillery and cavalry assignments. is work The Military Policy of the United States analyzed American military policies and practices and presented the first systematic examination of the nation’s military history; it had a tremendous effect on the U.S. Army when it was published, posthumously, in 1904. Brevet Major General Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the United States, War Department Document 290 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904), http://www.archive.org/details/militarypolicyu00uptogoog.

4. Indebted to Colonel (et.) Rickey Smith, Director of Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) Forward, Lieutenant Colonel (et.) James Beirwirth and Major (ret.) James “Brad” Baldwin for their input to this section. Rickey Smith, now retired from Civil Service exemplified how to run an organization based on Mission Command, as well as moral courage.

5. The Review of Education, Training and Assignments for Leaders (L), Civilian team report, ay 2006, http://www.cpol.army.mil/library/train/docs/RETAL-Report.pdf.

6. Thanks for the input and work of the Human Dimension Task Force of Brigadier General (et.) Volney J. Warner and Lieutenant Colonel (now Colonel retired US Army) Scott Hatler May 2011. I was a member for a year, and this combined with the ARCIC Forward Officer Bloat Study, was briefed to the Secretary of the Army, but with no changes taken forward.

7. Based on the work of Colonel Casey Haskins, who has made substantial progress in the past four years in reforming the way the United States Army Military Academy (USMA) develops adaptability and problem solving in its cadets.

8. Donald E. Vandergriff, “US Army Officer Bloat Study,” (Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) Forward, June 2010). This study remains relevant even today. Actually the officer bloat is even worse than it was 14 years ago. This study does validate Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s statement at his 14 January Senate Armed Forces Committee (SASC) hearing for confirmation. In this hearing Mr. Hegseth stated the ratio of 4-star generals to World War II, when we had just an Army if 8.5 million was 7, where as today with 3.1 million total active, reserve, National Guard and civil servants, we have 44 four star generals and admirals.

   The study can be seen here, https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/officer-manning-armies-of-the-past/151191083

9. Donald E. Vandergriff, “The Learning Insurgency: It’s an evolution, not a revolution,” Marine Corps Gazette, August 2022.

10. New update to article 18 FEB 25 from Dj Taylor, “One minor note: the current Officer movement system AIM2 is a little closer to being hired for a job than the old centralized system. An officer can see all possible jobs in their field and at least interview during a movement cycle.

    It doesn't shift the main point of the article, and doesn't change the idea (I think you propose) of testing being the advancement to the next rank criteria rather than up or out.”