Compass Points - Week in Review
Keith Holcomb offers a better perspective.
Compass Points - Week in Review
Keith Holcomb offers a better perspective.
March 17, 2024
.
Happy Sunday!
.
Sunday is a good day to look back at the week. Before we take a moment to look at what we discussed this week, it is worth pausing to consider how we discuss. Even in the heat of discussion, everyone who cares about the Marine Corps all want the same thing: a Marine Corps that is strong today and stronger tomorrow. Yes, there are disagreements -- strong disagreements -- but fundamentally everyone advocating for a stronger Marine Corps is on the same team -- even when we disagree.
.
For decades Keith Holcomb has been a thought leader, consultant, and advisor on issues related to national defense. Keith Holcomb is a retired USMC Brigadier General whose commands included the 8th Marines and 2nd Light Armored Infantry Battalion. His last active-duty assignment was at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command as the Director of Training and Education.
.
At the conclusion of today’s “Week in Review” Keith Holcomb steps back and offers a broader perspective on how to achieve worthwhile change in any organization. In an essay written exclusively for Compass Points, he says, “If both the Nation and its Marine Corps are to survive, then we all need to work together (Gung Ho) to frame and solve the challenging problems facing us.”
Compass Points thanks Keith Holcomb for taking time to offer a new and better perspective.
.
Week in Review:
We started on Monday with a report on the French focus on combined arms. Tuesday began a discussion of the new Gaza pier. Then, articles about West Point, Marine missiles, and accountability, along with reader comments, completed the week. In all, it was a week of particularly good discussion.
.
Monday 11 Mar – Vive La France!
If the French, who once put their faith in the static defense of the Maginot Line, can change their thinking and instead focus on a combined arms force, perhaps the US Marine Corps can put away their focus on a static, neo-Maginot Line in the Pacific and refocus on the famous Marine crisis response MAGTF. Will the Army supply tanks to the Marine Corps? Keith Holcomb warns the situation is worse than it appears.
.
Tuesday 12 Mar – Perilous Pier
It is easy to say, "no boots on the ground" but the soldiers putting together the JLOTS will be in danger. The drivers driving the trucks on the causeway will be in danger. The UN workers trying to maintain order and distribute food will be in danger. Who is providing security? Where is the world-famous US Marine crisis response force?
.
Wednesday 13 Mar – Duty, Honor, Country
Weapon systems come and go. Tactical plans come and go. Even brilliant strategic plans do not last forever. While change is constant and change can be good, no change should be allowed to damage or destroy the things of deepest importance. No new changes to the Marine Corps can be allowed to risk the heart and soul of the Corps. No new changes can be allowed to risk, Semper Fidelis.
.
Thursday 14 Mar – Missile Muddle
A new article published today by Real Clear Defense raises again the issue of the Marine Corps and missiles. How many missiles does the Marine Corps need? What kinds of missiles? For what missions? The article by James Conway & Jerry McAbee, "Duplication and Obsolescence: The Marine Corps’ Missile Dilemma" reviews what the Marine Corps has asked for.
.
Friday 15 Mar – Accountability
Down through its heroic history, one of the pillars of the Marine Corps has been accountability. Marines are Semper Fidelis. They are always faithful in their duties. Marines are held accountable. Leaders of Marines are held accountable.
.
Saturday 16 Mar – Shrewd Comments
Compass Points readers have responded online and off with a treasure load of comments, insights, and analysis. Only a few of the comments are included below. To share in all the comments, readers need to go the Compass Points site and join in the full discussion.
.
===========
.
Compass Points appreciates all the great discussion this week and thanks all our readers who served as seminar leaders this week by providing topics, articles, and comments. Many thanks!
.
=============
.
We All Need to Work Together
By Keith Holcomb
.
The issue at hand: How to change an organization’s ethos/culture? Partial list follows:
1. Leadership: Key leaders provide living examples (words/deeds) of the institution’s values, standards, ethics and operational excellence.
2. Education/Information Campaigns: Concepts, ideas, vocabularies emphasize/highlight “preferred” thought and speech.
3. Training. Certain specific behaviors are developed and conforming actions inculcated.
4. Personnel Management: Certain individuals are promoted, assigned to key positions (command, promotion boards, personnel assignments), and rewarded (awards).
5. Institution’s organization/mission set/tool box of capabilities. Those within organization are given certain tools to accomplish certain missions (spectrum from narrow/specialized to broad/general purpose).
The above is an effort to step back and look at what has happened/is happening to American institutions, whether they be academic, e.g., Harvard; political, e.g. national parties; or military, e.g., Marine Corps. Note the aforementioned actions can all lead to cultural change that is for the better … or for the worse.
Many institutions are in the throes of significant change, turbulence, angst, and conflict.
The age-old tension between self and service (others) is driving both emotions and conflict.
Reasoned discourse of missions, concepts, cultures, standards of conduct and performance and so on are being supplanted by simplistic (and often vicious) labeling, categorizing, and attacking of others who might hold other views.
Regrettably, complex issues, to include people (!) are being reduced to simplistic narratives, which do great disservice to both the immense complexity and interconnectedness of modern systems and to the wonderful, frequently amazing, complexity of people.
Key point: All simplistic representations of systems or people are false representations of reality. As such, they immediately engender other simplistic (and false) representations.
Regrettably, in today’s environment such simplistic representations give way to dueling narratives (both incomplete and false) … which in turn give rise to verbal conflict and even violence.
Dueling narratives ultimately mean that the key step of synthesis is no longer a part of the age-old thesis, antithesis, and synthesis model. Reasoned discourse to frame and solve complex issues devolves to power struggles between two simplistic, badly flawed views of reality.
National politics and academic culture wars are but two examples of this phenomena. Tragically, because the American military draws its people from politicized and academic environments, its leaders are engaging in these behaviors and changing the professionalism of the Services.
Those striving to rise above these behaviors and to engage in reasoned discourse can all too easily succumb to the culture’s prevalent behaviors. They, too, can be drawn into attacking proponents of an opposing view. They, too, can resort to attempts to shame, scold, categorize, and demean others in order to force compliance to their world view.
As one of those involved in the development of Compass Points, I had hoped that a persistent, positive, professional and open discussion would engage others in discursive problem solving to build a stronger Marine Corps. One of my early papers, “How Marines Can Fight the Stifling of Independent Thought,” sought to open discussion on this vital issue:
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-marines-can-fight-stifling-independent-thought-205154.
Our national culture and its various media outlets are focused on power and money. Conflict promotes clicks … and disunity.
If both the Nation and its Marine Corps are to survive, then we all need to work together (Gung Ho) to frame and solve the challenging problems facing us.
As any number of cognitive scientists and complexity scientists have established, narrow, simplistic problem framing always breaks the complex system. Always. This finding has significant implications for both FD2030 and those who would simplistically roll back the clock to an earlier era.
We need to help each other resist the easy temptation to engage in dueling narratives and/or personal attacks based on a simplistic characterization of other people; it only leads to doubling down and hatred. We all know there is already too much of that … a house divided can not survive.
In summary, I urge that Compass Points strive to resist ad hominem attacks while at the same time thoroughly and aggressively analyze and red team concepts, ideas, force designs, strategies, training, education, assignments, and so on … all with the intent of building a strong, credible, useful Marine Corps … that we truly might be most ready when the Nation is least ready.
-- Keith Holcomb
.
=============
.
General Holcomb’s observations and comments are those of an Officer and a Gentleman. The desire for a positive discourse is sought by most of us who dedicated our adult lives to the defense of our nation in uniform and beyond and especially in the Band of Brothers of the Marine Corps. The conversation from the first day was civil and measured by those who were surprised by most aspects of FD-2030. It was most certainly not reciprocated and the insults followed quickly. The litmus tests imposed on active duty officers were unprecedented in an institution known for candor. Disagreement is not disloyalty or disobedience. That has made further discussion to this very day strained.
I personally sought the professional high ground until I realized I was not in a conversation with principled officers. It was no longer an honorable boxing match between athletes who respected each other and were governed by rules and the professional ethos of pugilists. It was a back alley knife fight for the survival of the Corps. I was amazed, shocked and saddened by the development so common in politics and business. I quickly noted the positions taken by the Marine Corps Gazette and the USNI. They did not surprise me as their descent into politically correct mouth pieces had long been noted. My peers and I had long noted the positions of the Pravda on the Chesapeake Bay and the USNI.
I would welcome the outstretched hand but seriously doubt it will be offered. No professional Marine would deny that the Marine Corps of 2018 needed to evolve, expand in some regards, contract in others and adapt to the subtle changes of the modern battlefield. Sadly, that is not what happened. Divest to invest crashed on a rocky shore of the fiscal reality of how appropriations happen. Divest occurred. Invest deteriorated into chaos with no clarity in sight. Some aspects of “ invest” are highly suspect and stretch well into the 2040’s. In the meantime Marine operating forces have become irrelevant to the Combatant Commanders. One Marine Corps was destroyed well before a new one was created. There is no guarantee a new one with battlefield prowess will be birthed. In the course of these actions the intangibles that make an elite fighting force have eroded rapidly. “Fighting Spirit”, “Esprit de Corps” , “Unit Synergy”, “ Band of Brothers”, “ First to Fight” all ring hollow to the outsider and statistician but are the spirit that hold Spartans together. Organization, weaponry, numbers, tactics and firepower can be calculated. The fighting soul is another matter. History proves it time and again.
I have seen institutions destroyed when the members are unable to stand fast in the turbulence of the times. When change for change’s sake becomes the mantra, the outcome can be catastrophic. The right change advances an organization and the wrong change can destroy it. I would suggest that the Boys Scouts of America, the Catholic Church, the FBI, innumerable large businesses, Universities and the entertainment industry embraced change with a limited understanding of the unintended but totally predictable consequences. Those consequences spell the death knell which is eventually reflected in membership, credibility, sales, public confidence or success on the battlefield. The ultimate outcome is extinction. There is no guarantee that anything of value will sprout from the ashes.
I am open to any forum where the professional discussion can flourish among those who respect the opinions of the others. As I have seen no evidence of that I will remain frank and direct. I know when I am in a knife fight and will stab and slash accordingly.
BGen Holcomb’s views are music to the ear. His thoughts herein may be the first first step in our rebuilding process, and has my buy-in. Semper Fi!