First, there was no navigation brief, a major violation of Navy protocol. When any Navy ship gets underway, even for something as minor as shirting berths from one pier to another, it is standard for a Navy crew to conduct a navigation brief discussing issues such as hazards to navigation or, in this case, an Iranian base near the planned course.
Second, the chain of command was not well defined on the two boats. While a young lieutenant was the highest-ranking individual on either of the two 50-foot boats, when the order was given to evade the Iranian forces, the helmsman refused the order.
Third, defense officials tell Fox News the Navy had become too complacent with the its treatment by Iranian forces in the months leading up to the January capture.
“The story here is these guys had gotten so used to Iranians doing stupid s—, having weapons pointed at them all the time, they didn’t know they were being captured until the Iranians boarded their boats,” one defense official said describing the lack of situational awareness by the Navy crew. “They messed up pretty bad.”
I guess I should be happy that at least people were relieved of their commands. But it makes you wonder how they got them in the first place.
I had beer in Seattle with a career Air Force colonel who’s about to retire. He said that, in his thirty years, he’s never seen morale in the military so low.
One of the first things Obama did was fire a bunch of generals then I read they are hiring from outside the chain of command (they say for cyber skills but I suspect it’s more for the ideological transformation.)
It’s worrisome.
They can’t do everything they want without first getting their people in the key positions in the chain of command. Otherwise they get to certain orders and risk officers taking their oath seriously, as they are revealed as enemies.
Well no military likes being ordered to do impossible tasks. Iraq is a quagmire pretty much as I expected it to be. Eventually it leads to a lot of frustration and lack of enthusiasm among the troops.
Still what you are describing shouldn’t have happened. We have heard plenty of reports of slacking in the US Navy (and elsewhere) recently.
Those sailors probably expected that because of the “detente” with Iran that they wouldn’t capture the vessel. I guess what happened to that B-29 bomber crew that landed in the Soviet Union in WW2 should be required reading for the US Armed Forces (the Soviet Union returned the crew to the US and kept the plane to reverse engineer it; producing the Tu-4).
Well no military likes being ordered to do impossible tasks.
What makes those tasks impossible isn’t the task itself but a civilian leadership who prevents the military from doing what is necessary to get the job done.
Indeed, rules of engagement that require micromanagement from above before engaging the enemy aren’t how you win a war. Hitting the enemy hard, including the logistics and their supply chain, is how you win a war. Back in WWII we deliberately destroyed such targets as ball bearing plants, hydroelectric dams, and industrial centers, all despite massive civilian casualties, because those targets contributed materially to the Nazi war machine. ISIS is financed by selling oil, we need to cripple their finances by damaging their ability to deliver oil to the confederates who buy it.
Iraq has a pretty large border. With some pretty US hostile neighbors. It was never going to work.
At least in Afghanistan the mission was better defined. It was about killing Bin-Laden. Once that happened you can just pack and go away. Even if it falls to pieces afterwards. As for the “regime change” it doesn’t mean much. Sure it changed. But not necessarily for the overall good.
I recently read that they are considering hiring civilians into high ranking military positions and instantly giving them officer ranks. Seems like a recipe for disaster as it would erode the chain of command. There certain to be a lot of grudges held by those who joined, went to boot camp, and worked their way up the chain to get the positions they strived for to then suddenly have to take orders from some Joe or Jane off the street. Though I suppose if you have a presidential administration working to reduce America’s standing in the World and diminish it’s military capability then that is precisely the desired outcome.
That’s not new. In WW II and Korea, if you were drafted with a useful college degree (e.g., MD), you were generally automatically commissioned.
C’mon, Rand. There is a big difference between drafting the fictional surgeon “Hawkeye” Pierce and assigning him the rank of Army Captain so operating room staff up through Lieutenant take direction from this Dr. Pierce the same way as in civilian medical practice and “salting” high-ranking policy-making military posts with instant Majors and Colonels.
This assigning high officer ranks to civilian policy analysts would be like taking military officers and calling them medical doctors on the basis of graduate degrees without them having gone through medical school, residency, and other aspects of doctor formation.
I didn’t know we were talking about “high” officer ranks.
I’d like to read more about this, Paul. Can you give me any links or suggest search terms? My searches so far have come up blank.
Ask Josh — he brought this up, to which Rand replied they were drafting doctors and giving them officer rank, to which I replied that drafting doctors (or chaplains) and making them instant officers was no big deal compared to what Josh was describing.
I do know that they drafted doctors to treat military wounded personnel and other patients, and this is in real life and not from watching M.A.S.H. I don’t know if they still do this, but “back in the day”, the Navy was advertising posts for engineering graduates to serve as instructors, and those instructors held an officer rank after a “quickie” indoctrination on Navy protocol.