Of the many topics discussed by General Cartwright on Day 1 at USNI/AFCEA Joint Warfighter Conference 2012, it was his discussion of the nexus between electronic warfare and cyberwarfare where the General grabbed my attention. This Sydney Freedberg article at AOL Defense captured the discussion briefly in the last paragraph.
“There is a nexus coming between electronic warfare and cyber,” between traditional electronic jamming and countermeasures and new-fangled hacking, Cartwright concluded. “One knocks the door down and the other goes in and does the dirty work.” The current turf wars between the electronic warfare and cybersecurity communities miss the vital point, he said. In the cyber realm, “we’ve been thinking 90 percent defense, 10 percent offense. That’s bass-ackwards for us,” he said: We need to stand ready to seize the electromagnetic offensive.
There are several questions I have been asking myself since General Cartwright spoke yesterday afternoon, chief among them being what exactly does 90% offensive cyber and 10% defensive cyber look like? Does this mean firewalls need to be reconfigured as smart honeypots, ready to go offensive as soon as an intrusion attempt is made from an unknown or unidentified system? How does this work, and is the existing security model for networked systems fundamentally wrong? General Cartwright actually used the example of protecting a computer with anti-virus software as an example of the defense first mentality in cyber, but I am not convinced that’s a good model for his ideas.
First, let me highlight that I truly appreciate General Cartwright challenging assumptions and projecting alternative futures for how cyber will impact the technologically driven military of the United States; indeed in many ways it’s refreshing to hear. With that said I am not certain that everything is as cut and dry as General Cartwright suggests, and one mans defense may be another mans offense when it comes to the cyber domain.
For example, using the same anti-virus software example, is it accurate to say anti-virus is a purely defensive model of cyber activity, or would it be more accurately to highlight the offensive capabilities triggered in response to threats. As a virus exploits a networked system, anti-virus systems are often configured to counterattack the virus immediately, preventing the execution of rogue code and isolating the rogue code towards preventing further damage to a system. The physical world analogy is to run down the bad guy and throw them in jail – which is difficult to describe as a defensive action. This raises the question, why exactly is 90% defensive and 10% offensive the wrong approach? Use of offensive military power is subject to a variety of factors regardless of domain, and given the way the US spends money on nuclear deterrence, self-defense technologies for people and platforms, and other defense capabilities applied in multiple domains (which can be anything from the investments in stealth in a submarine to jamming technologies of various kinds) – it isn’t as if the posture of US military forces is somehow divided by formulas for offensive and defensive capabilities. With that said, there is no question several nations have taken a 90% offensive and 10% defensive posture against the United States (China being one such nation), and perhaps if we were more offensive in cyber ourselves we would likely influence that balance of action for those attacking us.
Where Cartwright starts really making sense on the issue is specific to aperture exposures that will almost certainly be exploited in some way in the future. Again, from AOL Defense:
“We built the F-35 with absolutely no protection for it from a cyber standpoint,” he said. Just as historical aircraft used to have an “EMCON switch” — short for “emissions control” — that could turn off all electronic transmissions from the aircraft when it needed to avoid detection, Cartwright said, today’s aircraft need a switch that shuts off all the electronic apertures through which they can potentially receive transmissions, lest electronically savvy enemies hack into them. “As a guy who spends his life on the offensive side of cyber, every aperture out there is a target,” Cartwright said.
OK, the General is discussing deep cyber theory to a general audience, so this means something different depending upon how much your understanding is on the details. Basically what Cartwright is suggesting is that any radar is an aperture because similar to the way false signals can be fed into radar signals. The theory is an encoded signal can be sent through the data stream to a radar to exploit the integrated system. The problem is the processing isn’t there to do that yet, so there really isn’t any way to defend against it because the capability doesn’t actually exist. The General is rightly applying Moore’s Law here, but is also combining a conclusion that eventually the ability to exploit every aperture will be possible and that is what allows his theory to be promoted – and on Cyber issues the General is certainly credible enough on the issue to be taken seriously.
Indeed this is probably some legitimate fortune telling regarding challenges in 2025 and beyond, and as delays occur with JSF perhaps that is the right platform to highlight as vulnerable. But it’s also futurist and while the discussion is important (particularly in conferences like Joint Warfighter) – it’s theory and difficult to reconcile as a vulnerability that can be planned for at this time. Another real issue with Joint Strike Fighter is that all of that code will make it difficult – thus very expensive – to adapt a defensive posture against such threats in the future. Again, in a military of advanced systems with lots of code in advanced software – this is going to continuously be a challenge until the development cycle of complicated systems can be shortened significantly.
Cartwright is exactly right to forewarn on these issues, because in a sense he is exactly right – apertures are of every kind are issues that must be dealt with in the evolving cyber challenge – and the ability to turn off apertures as receivers is a defensive tripwire that may need to be integrated into future systems. When the US is heading down a networked way of war, turning off apertures is going to make that whole ‘network’ aspect of future war very difficult. A lot to think about, hopefully the video is online soon for others to watch and discuss.
Posted by galrahn in Uncategorized | read comments (1)Of course I knew of GEN Cartwright before I heard his keynote yesterday. However, what I knew of him was news stories, blog posts, and a few videos of his previous speeches. However when the General spoke yesterday, I was surprised by the candor and subtle bluntness of his words.
In listening to the General speak, I was made to wonder why we cannot get such sentiments from active duty flags. Surely I appreciate the sensitive positions such men hold, and the fact that they occupy positions where their words reflect on those personnel and programs in their charge. But, there must be something we communication professionals are not doing for them that prevents remarks like this being often more regularly, or at all while in uniform.
It is not about ‘tough talk’ as much as it is the presence GEN Cartwright had on stage. It borders on being zen-like how he effortlessly moved from topic-to-topic with out the use of a prompter, notes or PowerPoint. Seeing such mastery of diverse and indepth is in every respect refreshing. It reassures me that those who make the decision to send me into harms way are that good.
GEN Cartwright’s full speech
First, from the NYTimes, European Forces Strike Pirate Base in Somalia:European Union forces on Tuesday attacked a Somali pirate base for the first time, using a combat helicopter to strafe several of the signature fiberglass skiffs that the pirates use to hijack ships.
***
Lt. Cmdr. Jacqueline Sherriff, a spokeswoman for the European Unions anti-piracy force, said that the European forces destroyed at least five skiffs that were still on land with small arms fire and that the attack lasted a couple of minutes. This is a fantastic opportunity,’’ she said. “What we want to do is make life more difficult for these guys.’’
No “boots on the ground” – but a necessary move to slow down the pirates.
Now, pirate whining as reported by the AP at Somali pirate: EU airstrike destroyed equipment:
A burning pirate skiff from a previous counter-piracy event A Somali pirate says an airstrike by the European Union naval force patrolling the Indian Ocean has destroyed speed boats, fuel deports and an arms store.
Bile Hussein, a pirate commander, said Tuesday the attack on Handulle village in the Mudug region will cause a setback to pirate operations. The village lies about 18 kilometers (11 miles) north of Haradheere town, a key pirate lair. There were no reports of deaths in the attack, Hussein said.
Oh, no! Not a “setback!”
Meanwhile, out at sea, Turkish forces took on an apparent pirate “mother ship” – as reported here:
Turkish commandos have arrested 14 pirates thought to be from Somalia off the coast of Oman and freed seven Yemeni sailors they were holding hostage, the army said on May 13. A helicopter of the frigate Giresun, which operates with NATO forces in the region, spotted the boat on May 11 around 190 nautical miles from the Omani coast, the army said in a statement on its website. Commandos stormed the boat and seized nine assault weapons, a rocket launcher and other materials, said the statement, which was accompanied by photographs showing the suspects with their arms in the air as the raid began.
More from Saturn5 over at his blog, Bosphorus Naval News (more photos at his site and here):
The S-70B Seahawk helicopter attached to TCG Giresun spotted the dhow at 14:50, 190 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen. The dhow acting as a mother ship was stopped by the helicopter and TCG Giresunarrived at the dhow and the naval special forces team boarded the dhow at 17:00. 14 Somali pirates were arrested and 7 Yemeni fisherman, the original crew of the dhow were freed by naval commandos.
Taking the fight to the pirates!
Well done to all involved!
(cross-post from EagleSpeak)
To do a complete stoplight review of China’s Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic levers/influencers of national power is much more than one post on a blog, but you can broad-brush a few things.
In the last couple of decades, China’s “Diplomatic” and “Military” areas are a solid green with up-arrows. Though I would give “Information” a yellow with an up arrow, I will give a nod to those who would give the Communists a green.
Economic? That is a lot trickier than people think. I lean towards the demographic-wonk mantra, “China will get old before they get rich,” – but if you want a good look at another view on China’s “Economic” that you won’t get from Thomas Friedman, a nice primmer would be Reihan Salam’s latest at NR.
Without a sound economy … the dragon may not be as large or as scary, as some think – but it may be more dangerous for other reasons.
… across a wide range of economic, technological, and military indicators, the United States is actually, in the words of political scientist Michael Beckley, “wealthier, more innovative, and more militarily powerful compared to China than it was in 1991.” As Beckley explains in a recent article in International Security, China’s growth in per capita income, value added in high technology, and military spending is impressive primarily because China is starting from such a low base. That the United States has continued to grow across all of these dimensions is making it exceedingly difficult for China to catch up. Beckley thus concludes that China is “rising in place.” That is, while China is improving its economic and military position in absolute terms, it is stagnating relative to America, even in an era of sluggish U.S. growth.
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While we can expect China at some point to have an economy somewhat larger than that of the United States — after all, China has four times our population — the country is plagued by pervasive corruption and bad debts that are already undermining its growth prospects.
…
China’s population is aging rapidly, and soon the country will have to carry the weight of tens and eventually hundreds of millions of retirees. … China’s growth is already slowing as a result. Since 2001, China has grown at an annual rate of 10.1 percent. This year, however, Chinese GDP is expected to grow at 7.5 percent. Further, the official statistics almost certainly conceal the extent of the decline.
…
The real threat from China is not that it will grow so economically strong that it will bestride the world like a colossus. Rather, it is that it will become so weak and vulnerable as to collapse, or to lash out at its neighbors.
When you build the next military – do you ponder how to deal with a near competitor in 25-years, or how to handle the violent collapse of a nation 4-times your size in 25-years? How would they look different, and how do you hedge one outcome vs the other?
Letter from Congressman Randy Forbes and Congressman Todd Akin to Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus dated May 1, 2012.
Dear Secretary Mabus:
In 1981, then-Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, issued a Memorandum on “Ship Counting Methodology” for counting Battle Force ships. Noting the political nature associated with how ships are counted, Lehman believed the Carter Administration “overstated the overall size of the Navy” and that a methodology for ship counting was therefore required to count “those ships which actually contribute to the Navy’s wartime mission of combat and support.”
We revisit this history because we are concerned the Department of the Navy may again choose to alter the rules by which it has abided for the last three decades when counting the total Battle Force size in an effort to exhibit to the public a larger fleet than actually exists. In your February 2012 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee you stated that:
The new FSA (Force Structure Analysis) will consider the types of ships included in the final ship-count based on changes in mission, requirements, deployment status, and capabilities. For example, classes of ships previously not part of the Battle Force such as AFSBs developed to support SOF/non-traditional missions, Patrol Combatant craft forward deployed to areas requiring that capability, and COMFORT Class Hospital Ships deployed to provide humanitarian assistance, an expanded core Navy mission, may be counted as primary mission platforms. Any changes in ship counting Rules will be reported and publicized.
To our knowledge, the Congress has not received notification of a change in the rules. And on April 18, 2012, Undersecretary of the Navy, Robert O. Work, reaffirmed this fact when he said “The 300 ships that we [will] have in 2019 are ships that we count right now.” However, in an interview with Defense News from April 30, 2012, Undersecretary Work also stated that the Navy is “looking at updating (its) counting rules.”
Considering your testimony from February and Undersecretary Work’s statements, we write today to inquire if your office has plans to revisit the methodology it has used for counting the Battle Force since the release of the Febtuary 2006 Navy plan for 313-ships? More specifically, is the Navy still considering counting Patrol Coastal Ships (PC) or Hospital Ships (T-AH) as part of the Battle Force? Given that the Congress is tasked by the Constitution to “provide and maintain a Navy,” we trust that any changes to how the Battle Force is counted will be executed in full consultation with the Legislative Branch so that a mutually agreeable outcome can be achieved.
As always, thank you for your service to the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and the Nation.
This letter is posted online in PDF format as part of this AOL Defense article. The May 29, 1981 memo by Secretary Lehman was previously classified, but has since been declassified and is available at this link. If you haven’t seen the memo I encourage you to take a look, because Lehman was specific that the wartime mission of the Navy drove decisions for counting. It is noteworthy that the memo didn’t need much explanation either – in other words the guiding methodology for what was and was not a battle force ship was short, simple, and to the point.
The potential classification of Patrol Coastal Ships (PC) or Hospital Ships (T-AH) as battle force ships is largely seen as a political issue at a time when the Navy is currently having trouble reaching a goal of 300 ships.
For example, what exactly is the point of counting the current Patrol Coastal Ships (PC) as battle force ships? The Navy has never given much thought about the PCs, indeed has never demonstrated until very recently they actually wanted the ships – which is why the US Coast Guard operated several of them for years, and now once the PCs approach end of life the Navy suddenly not only upgrades their weapon capabilities but wants to count PCs as battle force ships? All of the PCs are already between 12-19 years old and their life is only considered to be about 25 years at best – meaning all current PCs are likely to be retired between 2020-2025 anyway. The shipbuilding plan doesn’t include a PC replacement, so other than being able to count ships as part of the battle force for the short term, what exactly is to be gained? Is this only a political issue?
Here is another question… what if the Navy decides to put in a PC replacement? Does counting PCs as battle force ships benefit in any way should a potential PC replacement program pop up?
The Hospital Ships (T-AH) are a different issue entirely. At first my thought was, why not… after all the hospital ships today can serve in a support role for wartime operations, and are used for soft power operations today which are missions that have also been conducted by amphibious ships counted by the rules.
However, the reason I think the Hospital Ships (T-AH) are more problematic is that the hospital ships are specifically used as part of a diplomatic role for the United States, and their missions are executed under concepts rooted in Strategic Communications. Does it undermine the strategic communications aspect of medical diplomacy if the Navy starts counting the hospital ships as part of the “battle force?” All it takes is for one US hating foreign reporter to write a front page article how the Hospital Ships are “battle force ships” according to the US Navy and the STRATCOM of Medical Diplomacy with hospital ships becomes an uphill political climb. If the missions the hospital ships are deployed on have any function in strategic communications on behalf of the United States, it does appear claiming those ships as “battle force ships” would in fact be counter to the purpose of the ships missions in the 21st century, and be counterproductive without any obvious benefit.
I am not sure if the Navy gains by listing the hospital ships as part of the battle force. My sense is there is some loss in strategic communications, but how big or small that loss is depends a lot on how important the Navy considers the strategic communications of the hospital ship missions to be on these medical diplomacy deployments. It may not be a big deal though?
Last week an interview by Chris Cavas of Undersecretary Bob Work that discussed this topic was posted to Navy Times here. It covers the PCs and Hospital Ships, as well as JHSVs and other ships including special mission ships under consideration related to counting rules. Is this simply politics, or is there more to it than politics?
Time will tell.
…is still very likely my enemy. The Associated Press, via WAPO, tells us that US intelligence sources think it likely that Al Qaeda is now in Syria, taking advantage of the strife. This little surmise should surprise nobody, and serve as yet another data point for the assertion that Al Qaeda is subsuming the “Arab Spring” and bringing rise to Islamists and Islamist-dominated governments across the Middle East and northern Africa.
A curious comment from SECDEF Leon Panetta:
“Frankly we need to continue to do everything we can to determine what kind of influence they’re trying to exert there,” Panetta said.
We do? After eleven years of war, and AQ migration to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia, we need to determine what kind of influence they’re trying to assert? Seems we have a pretty good idea already. (Before the shrieks that MB is not AQ, those two organizations are tightly linked both philosophically and physically. The success of one is the success of the other.)
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney informs:
“We do not believe this kind of attack that you saw in Damascus is representative of the opposition,” Carney said. “There are clearly extremist elements in Syria, as we have said all along, who are trying to take advantage of the chaos in that country — chaos brought about by Assad’s brutal assault on his own people.”
CJCS General Dempsey echoes Carney, in a Fox News piece:
“We do know that there have been extremist elements that are trying to make inroads in Syria,” he said. “That is to be distinct from the opposition. I’m not tying those together.”
But, as the Fox article asserts, sometimes the line between them is unclear. It will get increasingly blurred. The Al Nusrah Front is an Al Qaeda affiliate, merging with AQ similarly to how Al Shabaab in Somalia has done.
Perhaps at this juncture such attacks as the bombings in Damascus are not representative, but soon they will be. Al Qaeda will increase its influence and quickly push genuine opposition to Assad’s regime aside, and pave the way yet again for hard-line Islamists to firmly grip the levers of power. As they have done successfully in Egypt, and in Libya, and Tunisia, and are attempting in Yemen and Morocco.
Kudos to the Obama Administration for not rushing willy-nilly to provide weapons and support for the Syrian opposition. Even if they had started out as a viable counter to a repressive anti-Western dictatorship, the interjection (welcome or not, see: Al Shabaab) of Al Qaeda and the Islamic extremists into the vacuum of instability would quickly make such support an exceedingly ill-advised policy. +1
However, the President’s recent declaration of the demise of Al Qaeda and the end of the War on Terror (whatever one thinks of the name) is equally ill-advised, and does not reflect a realistic understanding of our enemies and their continued relevance in the Muslim world. At the very least, someone should have included a resilient, networked, and elusive enemy on the distribution list of the memo ending the GWOT. -1
In addition, there is the Administration’s abject refusal to name our enemies for what they are, Islamic Extremists, bent on the destruction of Israel and subjugation of the West. Recent publicity surrounding what was reported to be an anti-Islamic course of study by the Joint Forces Staff College will cause further reluctance to publicly identify our enemies, adding to the loss of focus and dissipation of the efforts to defeat an enemy that has vowed a multi-generational struggle against us. -2
Reading through my first two posts and the comments, I realized that I made things tougher and more confusing for everyone. Many ideas and thoughts came flooding out in no particular order in those first two blog entries, resulting in some 3000+ words for readers to work through and think about.
As a result, the comments and my responses were all over the page. Many readers brought up legitimate points that deserve attention. It’s a disservice to brush over these, and I have barely even started scratching the surface. So I’m going to simplify things. This will (hopefully) be a long-running blog, so I’ll try to stick to addressing one issue per post, posting only every week or so, as time allows.
First issue: is this just about my choices, or is it bigger than that?
For the first few years after my oldest was born, I was on AD, and the scarcity of other female pilots (and absolute lack of pilots who were also single mothers) meant all of my decisions were made in a vacuum with little outside guidance/support. When faced with the reality of what I was trying and failing to do, I looked at my options and chose the only one that made sense given what was available. I got out. Switched over to the Reserves.
I assumed I was alone or one of only a handful in my situation. Accepted in, didn’t like it, but figured that was it and I would find other ways to contribute. But as a Reservist, I kept running into other Reservists, male and female (all male at first because of my MOS), with similar stories. So about two years ago, I started looking into what the policies were across the services, and what many seniors and peers—again, of both genders—had decided and done. Kept coming back to the same stories, the same decision points.
So I thought, maybe we should start talking about it. Many of y’all have asked if this is a selfish thing on my part, and perhaps I should just accept the options available and get over it, or if it’s really for the good of the services. It’s a valid question, for sure.
My experience has shown me that it’s not just me, not by far. As more women enter the service, dual military marriages increase, and men take on greater responsibilities at home because of shifting gender roles, increasing loss of mid-grade enlisted and officer members absolutely will affect readiness and numbers. Many of the responses back this up.
The Reserves are one choice, made by many. But the inefficiencies of the Reserves bother me, the severe limitations of the Reserve contributions. Within my own job I’ve tried to manage that and somewhat improve it, but why stop there? Innovation is not the enemy. There are certainly holes in some of the ideas I will propose in future blogs. But that’s where informed, open-minded readers come in.
There are shortages in the force, even with manpower drawdowns. There are members—of both genders, again—that want to stay but cannot with existing policies. Is it possible to be on the tip of a spear, or to make flag rank, pursuing alternate career paths like those I’ve suggested and will suggest? Likely not. But most of us would happy to retire at 20 or 30 at any rank as long as we feel we were able to make a difference and continue to serve.
And again, these are ideas that do—and should—affect both genders.
So I’m trying to think outside of the proverbial box. Which is not a bad thing. Looking forward to future input…just don’t expect my posts to be as frequent or as long. Thanks for reading.
I wanted to write this blog because I feel that there is a major perspective missing from most professional discussions on military matters. While I do not like becoming anyone’s punching bag, I’m offering my experience, my opinion, and my story out here with my full name (Jeannette Gaudry Haynie) and rank (Major USMCR) because I believe in the truth and importance of what I write. You may not agree with what I have to say or with the conclusions I draw, but these are my experiences, and I stand by my posts.
Counting the four years at USNA, I’ve been in the Navy/Marine Corps for about 18 years now. Most of my fleet experiences were as the lone female pilot in a squadron, and eventually one of two. While I haven’t been in the military since the Stone Age, I’m no spring chicken, either. My professional record can speak for itself.
Many of these arguments and questions posted in earlier comments and mentioned when topics like these are broached are practical, common sense questions with valid points to them, ones worth debating. And others are not. I hope to address the former and briefly touch on the latter.
I’m basing this blog on what I learned early on in the fleet when I ran into friction from others because of my gender. People say and think some dumb stuff based on biases, preconceived ideas, and rumors, and I saw a fair amount of this over the years. The best way to answer that was to just do my job as best I could and eventually everyone forgot about the whole “girl” thing and I was just another pilot plugging away. This only failed me once, which means only one dude out of about, I don’t know, 5,000, couldn’t get past my gender.
Same for this blog. If I write about my experiences, which are like those many men and women face midway through their careers, maybe we can explore some other options. And maybe when my kids grow up they won’t have to choose either-or for family and ambition. Because I’m a woman, and because of my particular experiences, this means we’ll go through the women-in-the-military questions as well. Which is fine.
Please read the entire post before haranguing me for a sentence or paragraph here or there. And it may take a few minutes, because—as I’ve said before—I am prolific.
So here goes.
A couple basic points:
–I mentioned sabbaticals and greater-than-reserve contributions as some options in my last comment. But I do not want to limit this discussion to those alone. Let’s assume that there is nothing in existing policy that prohibits or discourages dual active-duty families. If this is the case, I contend that we are not doing a good enough job holistically looking at all avenues to facilitate the success of these servicemembers. This is not specifically about my responsibilities, it’s about the responsibilities of a family and a service. If my husband and I have a child while both are on active duty, we are both impacted. Active duty families are more commonplace, and will continue to be so.
–I do not feel that the military “owes” anything. I do, however, believe that the military will face a growing problem with retention of educated, loyal members OF BOTH GENDERS if it does not seek out some alternatives to the all-or-nothing ones currently in place (see above paragraph). This is the backbone of my argument.
–While women tend to bear the brunt of the family work (we can have a deeper discussion about this later), both men and women are affected when starting a family. Everything I am suggesting should be applicable to both genders. Both civilian and military members have increasingly begun to ask why things aren’t different, and why we haven’t worked out some more options. This will not abate anytime soon. And I think that is a good thing.
–Women, unlike men, can’t have children later in life. So is it right that my choice, since I was born female, should be to have or forgo children right at the time in my military career that it matters most? It’s not like I can put it off till I’m 42, despite what women in Hollywood do. Women, too, have ambitions and want to serve their country in unique and challenging ways. Yes, some families make it work, with the help of other family members or special circumstances. The majority do not, despite plenty of trying.
–As a few readers pointed out, the civilian workforce is trending toward more family-friendly policies and options. Telework, flex days, sabbaticals, while not possible in all jobs, are more commonplace now than 10 years ago. The military is not a normal civilian entity (let me say that before someone else does), but that doesn’t mean it can’t take lessons from the civilian workforce.
–Concern over the impact sabbaticals or part-time work would have on the force: I can’t remember off the top of my head which posters asked about this, but the gist of the comments were that we can’t waste billets/boat spaces on part-time people and have an effective force. One word for you here, though: RESERVES. We already do it. People drill 2 days a month and 2 weeks in the summer, and then they go deploy and are actually effective. But as a current, drilling Reservist, I can attest to the inefficiency of some of the ways Reservists are used. We can and should use taxpayer dollars and Reservists’ experience more efficiently. If someone can drill 38 days a year and then go competently into a deployment, why would it be worse if they drilled 76 days a year? Or 114? The point is, we already exercise a similar type of program, and have for years. But that program fails to take advantage of some of the best qualities of its members, and does not attract enough outgoing active duty folks. We can improve on it.
–I’m not advocating a constant sabbatical, nor am I asserting that I can stay in part-time and still be on the cutting edge or tip of the spear constantly. But all-or-nothing is no solution, either. The military loses a wealth of experience in the loss of mid-grade enlisted and officer members (again: of both genders), and will continue to do so, at an increasing rate. Do we “have” to do any of the things I suggest, or think about them at all? Of course not, but we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot. We have an opportunity to make it better, why not use it?
I’m going to use a few quotes from the comments section on my first post and directly respond here.
“I don’t want to get into the discussion on here, but do you really want your kids in child care long enough for you to be a full-time Marine and a mom?” Of course not, but neither do any parents, mothers OR fathers. The idea that my priorities should be different because of my gender is not valid. My whole point is that it makes sense to have better options available to servicemembers both with—and without—families. Those without often realize 5-10 years in that a family might be a good idea, but for females in this position, waiting until retirement is not an option. Neither is it for many men.
“You are basically saying that since they opened the door to you and allowed this disruption to occur, we should make more allowances and disruptions in service to further make life easier for women to be in the military and have families.” I’m going to address the first half of this statement further below, so moving on to the second half: anyone who has been in the fleet knows that men cause their share of problems. I served with both male and female enlisted Marines, and proportionally the men caused more problems than women did. Are DUIs not disruptive, especially when they come on the eve of a deployment? What about domestic abuse, alcoholism, and the 22-year-old who got arrested making donuts on somebody’s front lawn in Oceanside while drinking beer? The month before a deployment?
Pregnancy, which, by the way, is an amazing thing, not something to be cursed at or wished away, is way down there on the list of things that can disrupt a unit about to deploy. What about the SSgt who pops positive two months before a deployment? Or the Marine who steals a car in Okinawa and gets arrested by the Japanese police? The senior officer and department head who gets a DUI? The Marine whose mother gets terminally ill? The conscientious objector that appears right before a deployment? Of all of the incidents and disruptions a unit faces prior to and during a deployment, pregnancy can certainly be considered one, but it’s by no means even among the worst or hardest to get past.
So let’s get past pregnancy as an awful thing that should somehow ban women from the armed forces, or as something that women should avoid at all costs or be ashamed of, heaven forbid.
Yes, there will always be those who abuse the system, just as with any system. But we don’t ban single 21-year-old men from the military, even though they tend to get in trouble easily. The abusers, while legendary in many people’s minds, are actually fewer and further between than one might expect from the discussion.
“So, now the military has already given up spots to women to be trained in most aspects of military life.” This line of thinking has been around for awhile. Given up spots to women? I was ranked first in my winging class, which was how I earned my chance to fly Cobras in the Marine Corps. And I am not unique. Just like men do, women work incredibly hard to get where they want to go. My spot belonged to me because I busted my butt for it.
I jumped around a bit in this post, but the gist of it is that women are not going away, and the changes I’m proposing and problems I mention are not really unique to women, either. Since I’m on page 3 here, I’m going to quit for now. Here’s this last bit in closing:
The vast majority of the comments have been professional, and that is appreciated…and also expected. In reading the comments, I ran across a link to a blog written by Sol, one of the commenters. If you want to read it yourself, click on his name on the comments section and it’ll take you right there. You’ll read some pretty derogatory comments, a personal attack on my sex life and choices. You may need to skip to page 3 or 4 by now, because he made these comments back on the day I made my first post. Here’s one of his thoughts:
“She was pregnant at the time. PATHETIC! Personal opinion but few things disgust me more than to see women walking around pregnant in Cammies.”
This is not conducive to any kind of educated, informed discussion. Rather, it’s a hostile personal attack. But why? Hostility usually hides ignorance, fear, and/or general intimidation. If the above statement reflects the average opinion of single, 21-year-old male Marines (pretty sure it doesn’t), give me one married Marine (of either gender) over 10 of ones who think like that. Maturity, responsibility, and patience tend to increase with parenthood. Let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot. It’s not political correctness, it’s common sense.
Join us 5pm Eastern U. S. for our Episode 122 Spring Free For All 05/06 by Midrats on Blog Talk Radio:No guests on this week’s show – just open phone and open topic. Join Sal from the blog “CDR Salamander” and EagleOne from “Eagle Speak” for the full hour as they discuss the full range of maritime and national security issues. Shipbuilding, procurement programs, maritime strategy, piracy, and larger national security trends – we’ll cover it all. This is also the listener’s chance to ask Sal and EagleOne about the topics and issues they would like addressed, or to amplify topics from other shows. Here’s your chance …..
Go here to join in (or to download the show later) or, if you can’t play today, listen to the show at iTunes and find out who asked what . . .
Maybe it won’t be a great day for you–be careful what you wish for… In recognition of the success that Kony2012 had in rasing money for a niche geopolitical cause, students at MIT created a faux webpage “Kick Starter” pretending to raise money for things on the opposite side of use of force continuum – a mobile black site for intensive interrogations, among other things.
The reason for doing this was to demonstrate the ability to crowsource funding for initiatives that are championed by ideologies that are on the hard-power end of foreign policy.
As the last blog I posted demonstrates, the ability for motivated individuals to become active in a conflict exists and is very real. What amounts to DIY intervention can have an impact upon the course of World events (similar to the warning given to us service members from the SECDEF). To me, what this says is that citizens no longer only vote for a foreign policy with their ballots, but they can also–directly–do so with their wallets, time and skill-sets.
The conditions are right, and the historical precedent is now set for the ‘memetic stew’ to bring forth a Non-Governmental Organization as a third option that takes elements from Kony2012, private security firms, and Kiva for those who wish to see some sort of change in the World.
What strikes me as ironic, is that the words typically espoused towards supporting World peace, are now the intellectual foundation under which we may see a new method for hard power applied in the World. This is not to say that the end goals of those who see the utility of hard power is all that different from those who see greater utility in soft power.
Rather, in the long term, I am interested to see if the potential I’ve outlined here coalesces to incorporate both hard and soft power elements. Such a coalescing would amount to a private sector analog to a nation’s foreign policy. Which would, arguably, be the tipping point for the replacement of the Westphalian era, where an organizational paradigm like a government is no longer required to bring together the ends, ways and means to execute foreign policy.
Posted by YN2(SW) H. Lucien Gauthier III in Hard Power, History, Soft Power, Uncategorized | read comments (4)Recent Posts
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