| | At the turn of the 21st century, the U.S. armed forces were still organized, trained, and equipped to fight short, large-scale conventional wars, not the long, messy, unconventional operations that proliferated following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The same traditional orientation was true of our procurement procedures, military health care, and more. The current campaign has gone on longer, and has been more difficult, than anyone expected or prepared for at the start. And so we've had to scramble to position ourselves for success over the long haul, which I believe we are doing.
A drawdown of U.S. force levels in Iraq is inevitable over time — the debate you hear in Washington is largely about pacing. But the kind of enemy we face today -violent jihadist networks -will not allow us to remain at peace. What has been called the "Long War" is likely to be many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity. This generational challenge cannot be wished away or put on a timetable. There are no exit strategies. To paraphrase the Bolshevik Leon Trotsky, we may not be interested in the long war, but the long war is interested in us.
How America's military and civilian leadership grapples with these transcendent issues and dilemmas will determine how, where, and when you may be sent into battle in the years ahead.
In discussing Fox Conner's three axioms, I've raised questions and provided few, if any, answers. And that is the point. It is important that you think about all this, not just at the Academy, but through your military careers, and come to your own conclusions.
In order to succeed in the asymmetric battlefields of the 21st century — the dominant combat environment in the decades to come, in my view — our Army will require leaders of uncommon agility, resourcefulness, and imagination; leaders willing and able to think and act creatively and decisively in a different kind of world and a different kind of conflict than we have prepared for over the last six decades.
One thing will remain the same. We will still need men and women in uniform to call things as they see them and tell their subordinates and superiors alike what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
Here, too, Marshall in particular is a worthy role model. In late 1917, during World War I, the U.S. military staff in France was conducting a combat exercise for the American Expeditionary Force commander. General Pershing was in a foul mood. He dismissed critiques from one subordinate officer after another. and stalked off. But then-Captain Marshall took the arm of the four-star general, turned him around, and told him how the problems they were having resulted from not receiving a necessary manual from the American headquarters — Pershing's headquarters. The commander said, "You know we have our troubles." Marshall replied, "Yes, I know you do General ... But ours are immediate and every day and have to be solved before night."
After the meeting, Marshall was approached by other officers offering condolences for the fact he was almost sure to be fired and sent off to the front line. Instead, Marshall became a valued advisor to Pershing, and Pershing a valued mentor to Marshall.
Twenty years later, then-General Marshall was sitting in the White House with President Roosevelt and all of his top advisors and Cabinet secretaries. War in Europe was looming, but still a distant possibility for an isolated America. In that meeting, Roosevelt proposed that the U.S. Army — which at that time ranked in size somewhere between that of Switzerland and Portugal — should be of lowest priority for funding and industry. FDR's advisors nodded. Building an Army could wait.
Then FDR, looking for the military's imprimatur to his decision, said: "Don't you think so George?" Marshall, who did not like being called by his first name, said: "I am sorry, Mr. President, but I don't agree with that at all." The room went silent. The Treasury Secretary told Marshall afterwards: "Well, it's been nice knowing you." It was not too much later that Marshall became Army chief of staff.
There are other more recent examples of senior officers speaking frankly to their civilian leaders. Just before the ground war started against Iraq in February 1991, General Colin Powell, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with the President, the first President Bush. I was there in the Oval Office. Colin looked the President in the eye and said words to this effect: "We are about to go to war. We may suffer thousands of casualties. If we do, are you prepared to drive on to victory? Will you stay the course?" Colin wanted the President to face hard reality. The President gave the right answer.
I should note at this point, that in my 16 months as Secretary of Defense, I have changed several important decisions because of general officers disagreeing with me and persuading me of a better course of action. For example, at one point I had decided to shake up a particular command by appointing commander from a different service than had ever held the post. A senior service chief persuaded me to change my mind.
On trips to the front, I've also made it a priority to meet and hear from small groups of soldiers ranging from junior enlisted to field-grade officers. Their input has been invaluable and shaped my thinking and decisions as well. All in senior positions should listen to enlisted soldiers, NCOs, and company and field-grade officers. They are the ones on the front line, and they know the real story.
More broadly, if as an officer you don't tell blunt truths — or create an environment where candor is encouraged — then you've done yourself and the institution a disservice. This admonition goes back beyond the roots of our republic. Sir Francis Bacon was a 17th century jurist and philosopher, as well as a confidante, and senior minister of England's King James. He gave this advice to a protégé looking to follow in his steps at court: "Remember well the great trust you have undertaken; you are as a continual sentinel, always to stand upon your watch to give [the King] true intelligence. If you flatter him, you betray him."
In Marshall's case, he was able to forge a bond of trust with Roosevelt not only because his civilian boss could count on his candor, but also because once a decision was made, FDR could also count on Marshall to do his utmost to carry out a policy — even if he disagreed with it — and make it work. This is important. because the two men clashed time and time again in the years that followed — ranging from yet more matters of war production to whether the allies should defer an invasion onto mainland Europe.
Consider the situation in mid-1940. The Germans had just overrun France and the Battle of Britain was about to begin. FDR believed that rushing arms and equipment to Britain, including half of America's bomber production, should be the top priority in order to save our ally. Marshall believed rearming the United States should come first. Roosevelt overruled Marshall and others and came down with what most historians consider the correct decision — to do what was necessary to keep England alive.
The significant thing is what did not happen next: there was a powerful domestic constituency for Marshall's position among a whole host of newspapers, congressmen, and lobbies. Yet Marshall did not exploit and use them. There were no overtures to friendly committee chairmen, no leaks to sympathetic reporters, no ghostwritten editorials in newspapers, no coalition building with advocacy groups. Marshall and his colleagues made the policy work — and kept England alive.
In the ensuing decades, a large, permanent military establishment emerged as a result of the Cold War — an establishment that forged deep ties to the Congress and industry. Over the years, senior officers have, from time to time, been tempted to use these ties to do end runs around the civilian leadership, particularly during disputes over the purchase of major weapons systems. This temptation should and must be resisted.
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