Cool.
"What were your criticisms of Rumsfeld that you were telling me before, and are they the same things the generals are saying about him, or are the generals just fighting to keep the status quo?"
Here's his reply:
Haven't really made a nice list, but your question is a good starting point. Off the top of my head, Rumsfeld is a firm believer in pushing technology over “conventional” military doctrine, and in this, he has been spectacularly wrong. Technological upgrades are definitely beneficial, but they are not transformational to warfighting capabilites on foreign soil. It is impossible for a UAV or airpower to quell an insurgency or populace, and Iraq has proved the point. Meanwhile, Rumsfeld has been:- breaking up the unit cohesiveness of existing Army divisions. The brigade action team concept works fine if the problem is an uprising at a prison. You need DIVISIONS to fight and win against Armies. Rumsfeld cannot change thousands of years of fighting history by sheer force of will. We need more numbers in country to pacify a populace, not less, with less experience working together as a composite team.
- not creating more necessary Army divisions (with over-reliance on long deployments from reservists). Between Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and Venezuela, we have the possibility of needing ground troops equivalent to 20 active Army divisions and 8 active Marine divisions. We presently have 11 and 4, and none have been added since 9/11. We cashed in a peace dividend after the Cold War, and have not re-invested now that we are in a hot war.
- reducing the Army’s capabilities to conduct sustained occupation and pacification missions. Rumsfeld’s removal of heavy tanks and artillery from the battlefield in favor of RPG-vulnerable LAVs and the IED, deathtraps HMMVs, and sometimes-there-sometimes-not airpower hurts both capabilities of fielded Army divisions in combat and the morale of those fighting. Lighter, faster, simpler, and leaner works fine for state-side bureaucracies. It fucking sucks for troops on the ground in a combat zone fighting against an irregular force.
- forcing the Marines to act like the Army.
- trying to force the four services to look and act and fight like one instead of letting each play their best hand in a fight. We had a winning approach before he was SecDef, that might have needed tweaks, not a transformation. The result is that the Army cannot sustain pacification operations in Iraq, and the Marines are deployed like the Army. The Air Force has become artillery, and the navy has been pressed into land combat ops in Afghanistan to disastrous consequences.
- trying to force the four services to conduct operations the way he wants them to fight. In this regard, the Navy pilot has hit Peter’s Principle. The SecDef should give direction, not instructions, to his Generals. Cheney had this exactly right when he was SecDef and Powell was CJCS. Rumsfeld micro manages waaaaaaay too much.
- too wrapped up in politics to get a military job done. He subjugates force structures to political considerations, and it has clearly cost us lives and treasure.
- He is personally abusive -- the environment around him is repressive if your world view does not match his. This stifles important material discussions about facts when American lives are on the line. And if you stand up to him, you get fired. That is no way to inspire respect from the folks who work for you. So, you lose good men who disagree with you and surround yourself with sycophants. That is a recipe for disaster in any endeavor. It costs servicemen's lives if you are the SecDef.