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Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army Paperback July 1, 1979
Crisis in Command, written in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, details the mismanagement of the US Army's leadership.Former soldiers Richard A. Gabriel and Paul L. Savage provide documented evidence that the military forces of the United States are ill-prepared for war, having been weakened by officer-corps members who have abandoned honor and integrity to further their individual careers.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 13, 2019
Crisis in Command advances a singular and bold thesis, that the Vietnam War was lost because the American military prior to the war abandoned the moral principles of combat leadership, but then shies away from the full force of the accusation, and loses itself in a mass of generalities about war and morality that fail to link the two.
The basic thesis is that small-unit cohesion is vital for winning battles. And while logistics and strategy may win wars, it is also hard to win a war while losing all the battles. Small-unit cohesion is maintained by skilled leaders at the company and platoon level, who share the risks of the men and inspire them to risk their lives in pursuit of victory. This requires a commitment to what is somewhat confusingly referred to in the book as 'corporate values', a commitment to a common cause even at great risk to the self. The opposite moral framework are 'entrepreneurial values', a businessman's ethic of efficiently allocating resources. Entrepreneurial values are well and good, but no one is expected to die for General Motors. To summarize the book in an epigram, soldiers are either lead to victory, or managed to death.
Entrepreneurialism took over the Army during the Second World War, starting with General Marshall's industrial total war, escalating through the whizbang techno-centrism of the early Cold War, and reaching it's apogee with Defense Secretary McNamara, who literally came from Ford Motors. These values were represented by careerism and hypocrisy, the fraudulent inflation of body counts and awards for valor, and the use of troops as means to the end of ensure the promotion of the Colonel to General, rather than moral actors in their own right. Troops resisted by desertion, drug use, mutiny, and fragging their officers. And if there was a war to be won, it'd have to be done mostly by airpower and artillery.
It's an interesting thesis, and the authors back it up by showing that as the number of officers inflated during Vietnam, their proportion of casualties declined. Removing helicopter crashes as a combat cause of death (and a helicopter is 10,000 parts flying in close formation around an oil leak, which lusts to end its existence by killing all aboard), and the numbers get even worse. The higher in rank you are, the more you're protected from death. Officers did not share the burden of combat fairly, and worse, career officers and NCOs could manipulate the personnel system so that they got safe rear echelon jobs. The actual fighting was done by draftees lead by amateurs.
Over 40 years on, the American Army has rebuilt itself as a formidable all-volunteer fighting force. Whatever went wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was not a lack of lethality and commitment to aggressive action on the part of the infantry. But some recommendations, like a moral code to replace a Korean War era holdover, an empowered Investigator General, and a more morally aware Army, seem to have gone nowhere. The authors continually discuss how Britain, Israel, France, and Nazi Germany created effective armies from cultural heritages broadly comparable to 20th century America, but lack specific details.
And ultimately, war is about killing people. Morally, it should be a crime, but because it's done in uniform by nations, it's alright. There's a single distinct word for the syndrome identified in Crisis in Command, and that word is "COWARDICE". Not of men, but of organizations. This book might have been cutting edge in 1978, but at the present I highly recommend Achilles in Vietnam and Dereliction of Duty for the actual details of how the men in charge of the American Army during the Vietnam War managed it into disintegration.
The basic thesis is that small-unit cohesion is vital for winning battles. And while logistics and strategy may win wars, it is also hard to win a war while losing all the battles. Small-unit cohesion is maintained by skilled leaders at the company and platoon level, who share the risks of the men and inspire them to risk their lives in pursuit of victory. This requires a commitment to what is somewhat confusingly referred to in the book as 'corporate values', a commitment to a common cause even at great risk to the self. The opposite moral framework are 'entrepreneurial values', a businessman's ethic of efficiently allocating resources. Entrepreneurial values are well and good, but no one is expected to die for General Motors. To summarize the book in an epigram, soldiers are either lead to victory, or managed to death.
Entrepreneurialism took over the Army during the Second World War, starting with General Marshall's industrial total war, escalating through the whizbang techno-centrism of the early Cold War, and reaching it's apogee with Defense Secretary McNamara, who literally came from Ford Motors. These values were represented by careerism and hypocrisy, the fraudulent inflation of body counts and awards for valor, and the use of troops as means to the end of ensure the promotion of the Colonel to General, rather than moral actors in their own right. Troops resisted by desertion, drug use, mutiny, and fragging their officers. And if there was a war to be won, it'd have to be done mostly by airpower and artillery.
It's an interesting thesis, and the authors back it up by showing that as the number of officers inflated during Vietnam, their proportion of casualties declined. Removing helicopter crashes as a combat cause of death (and a helicopter is 10,000 parts flying in close formation around an oil leak, which lusts to end its existence by killing all aboard), and the numbers get even worse. The higher in rank you are, the more you're protected from death. Officers did not share the burden of combat fairly, and worse, career officers and NCOs could manipulate the personnel system so that they got safe rear echelon jobs. The actual fighting was done by draftees lead by amateurs.
Over 40 years on, the American Army has rebuilt itself as a formidable all-volunteer fighting force. Whatever went wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was not a lack of lethality and commitment to aggressive action on the part of the infantry. But some recommendations, like a moral code to replace a Korean War era holdover, an empowered Investigator General, and a more morally aware Army, seem to have gone nowhere. The authors continually discuss how Britain, Israel, France, and Nazi Germany created effective armies from cultural heritages broadly comparable to 20th century America, but lack specific details.
And ultimately, war is about killing people. Morally, it should be a crime, but because it's done in uniform by nations, it's alright. There's a single distinct word for the syndrome identified in Crisis in Command, and that word is "COWARDICE". Not of men, but of organizations. This book might have been cutting edge in 1978, but at the present I highly recommend Achilles in Vietnam and Dereliction of Duty for the actual details of how the men in charge of the American Army during the Vietnam War managed it into disintegration.
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April 25, 2011Authors argue that the Army (at the time) adopted a corporate culture and lost their way.
September 25, 2022
Superb read. Covers malice that set in US Army during Vietnam War. Applies equally to armies world over. Very engaging read.
August 14, 2010
Read as part of Squadron Officers School - an excellet comparison of how the military valued management skills over leadership. Both are essential to success, but in the Viet Nam conflict ea, leadership was lacking at all levels. Certainly lessons to be kep in mind.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews