I'm glad to see a concerned senior Army officer respond to my recent piece on the risks of brain drain inside the U.S. military. Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges undoubtedly speaks for many senior leaders in each service who feel exactly the same way about this looming challenge: "Hey, we don't even have a problem!"
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Maybe, maybe not. Frankly, I remain worried. The issue is not that the best and brightest in the military have already left. My concern is that the worst effects of the ongoing drawdown are still to come -- and may well be years away. The people who must ultimately judge whether Hodges's defense is sound are the junior officers and sergeants wrestling with tough individual decisions about staying in or leaving the service. But for the Army, now is the time to look for leading indicators and craft proactive strategies to avert what could easily become one of the worst unintended consequences of shrinking the force.
Each service will have unique challenges keeping top-drawer talent as numbers drop, budgets tighten, and opportunities to serve in combat dwindle. But the Army most of all faces a perfect storm of vexing issues. It is gradually coming down from a wartime high of nearly 570,000 troops, planning to hit 490,000 by 2017. Most Army leaders and defense analysts expect that number will decline farther -- perhaps to 400,000 soldiers or less. Officer and NCO reductions -- voluntary and otherwise -- under that scenario could number in the tens of thousands.
At the same time it gets smaller, the Army is leaving a decade of combat that has energized the force with an unparalleled focus and sense of mission. The next Army will largely be a garrison force based almost entirely in the United States, with limited opportunities to serve abroad. Even its planned exercise program to rotate units regularly overseas is jeopardized by lack of funding. Convincing experienced combat leaders that this force will be an empowering, exciting place to serve is the ultimate challenge. The bare bones remedies Hodges outlines are not nearly adequate to the task. Fundamental change is needed. Here are a few ways to do it:
Reform the Army personnel system. Hodges notes that 22 of his 25 assignments resulted from superiors intervening in the process. That's the definition of a non-functioning personnel system. Three years ago, the Army developed an innovative new personnel system dubbed "Army Green Pages." This prototype created a market system for talent within the Army, allowing both unit commanders and individual officers to "bid" on leaders to fill open jobs. Despite enthusiastic support by then-service chief (and now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Marty Dempsey, it has since languished, blocked by Army bureaucrats. Adopting this system would completely revolutionize Army personnel management, and move it overnight from a wholesale Cold War system to a 21st century retail version. Individual goals would be matched with the needs of the service in ways the current system rarely manages.
Empower young leaders. The Army's recently developed concept of Mission Command formally endorses the need for junior leaders to take independent action in combat -- even in the absence of orders. This idea fully captures the spirit of empowered leadership. But it flies in the face of how the Army operates in garrison when it's not at war. For example, today's peacetime-focused system of Army regulations could fill a small town library. Eliminating 10 percent of those regulations a year for five years could clear out a lot of the constrictive underbrush and put teeth into the idea of granting more authority to leaders. Even better would be to task the Army's inspector general to gather suggestions from young leaders in the field for divesting old rules still creating a bureaucratic morass.
Decentralize training. The Army of the 1980s that Hodges grew up in was built upon a highly structured, formalized training model. Junior leaders had little "white space" on the annual training calendar; the vast majority of training time was taken by higher levels of command for top-down ritualized training events, often driven by economies of scale and cost efficiencies. The pull to return to this proven system will be great. But the Army's junior leaders have spent the last 10 years fighting a war at the small-unit level -- the ultimate test of a leader. Finding creative ways to replicate those combat-proven levels of small-unit authority and autonomy in peacetime should be the focus of the Army's next training model. Hundred-page written orders stipulating how the battalion will conduct its tank gunnery qualifications won't cut it with this crowd.
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