If you can’t beat them, join them. This is what I hear when someone suggests we leave Russia or Saudi Arabia as they are. A veteran of the Cold War, the Gulf War, and the effort to prevent Russian and Saudi born extremists from destabilizing the Black Sea region and Middle East, respectively, I’m still shocked when I hear it. It’s not a left/right issue for me, it’s an American one.
I think of these things all the time because they were important to the enlisted and officer ranks I knew as a Marine. When I earned the right to commission, by impressing upon those I served under that I understood it was important to keep these powers in check, I was told I’d inherit the responsibility to defend this understanding from those who sought to undermine it. The officers who then mentored me realized that they were losing that battle in Washington and asked that I push back, though that too was becoming a thing of the past.
As I sought to assume one of the few Electronic Warfare Officer billets the Marine Corps had, I learned he Naval War College was losing the influence it had gained by demonstrating its effectiveness through two world wars, the Cold War, and the containment period that followed. Or, should I say, “through the beginning of the containment period that followed,” because not long after it began Washington saw an influx of organizations challenge the influence of it and institutions like it. At the heart of this movement was the failure to recognize that a radical restructuring of either the Black Sea region or Middle East would undo everything we hoped to achieve.
Through the containment period we meant to build on the successes of the Cold War. It had ensured the Second World War did not break out into a third by policing those regions ravaged by it. This wasn’t done after the First World War allowing movements spawned in those regions ravaged by it to press for war again. As similar movements swept Japan following its defeat in China it too was policed. The problem we faced in replicating this success was many political movements then told Americans the Second World War had brought peace, not the containment effort that followed, as they sought war in the Middle East.
I know these things because I reached the officer ranks through a method that is dying. It made officers of those enlisted leaders who demonstrated a superior understanding of the role officers played in deciding the course Washington took. In the beginning, nearly every Marine Officer was selected in this manner. The President also appointed a few. Before the Naval Academy and Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) were established, Naval Commanders decided who would become a Marine Officer. Naval Commanders then served as diplomat and military commander when overseas. They needed Marine Officers they could trust. Relying on Washington to provide them just didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t.
While the Naval Academy is a decent alternative, as it exposes cadets to the institution for a solid four years before they’re commissioned, the NROTC is a poor one. So too are the Officer Candidate Schools that accept college graduates with even less knowledge of the organization. These paths were adopted when it was necessary to rapidly expand the force. They weren’t meant to take over but did, so today very few officers begin service with a solid understanding of the mission, leaving the susceptible to political influence.
Now it’s possible to provide meritorious enlisted leaders an education superior to that provided NROTC students. We have educational institutions within the Department of Defense that do a much better job of it than this adhoc system. All we need do is see them accredited so they can provide the degree now necessary to commission. We can remedy that, but will we?
This is a question the Marine and Naval Officers who prepared me for commission through the Naval Officer Training Command and Naval War College Marine Detachment (now Marine Intelligence School Newport) asked me to ponder as I went off to university to acquire the degree they could not provide. They had before them proven leaders ready for service and were unhappy they had to send us to university. They knew this was ridiculous, that they had produced better leaders than the NROTC could. In fact, the NROTC used us to help them train cadets.
We need reliable military leaders. We don’t get them by relying on Reserve Officer Training Corps. What we get from them are leaders who are susceptible to political influence. Over time they have changed the community itself, producing leaders who no longer realize their so much better positioned to make decisions affecting the national security than our political leaders they offer little resistance. Today’s officers are more willing to endorse the ideas political movements inspire than the strategies developed by the Department of Defense because they simply don’t to appreciate what it has to offer until they reach an institution like the Naval War College late in their career.
I think you should be thinking about this this 4th of July. I know you’ve been told political leaders are a stabilizing force, but I think if you consider what I have to say carefully you’ll realize they are responsible for the uncertainty you live with. They didn’t stabilize the Middle East, they destabilized it. They didn’t reinforce the relations that ensured we’d have a continuous supply of inexpensive fuel, they jeopardized them by empowering leaders who would cut production to increase profit at great expense to us and our economy. And when they threw everything they had at it, they left the Black Sea region undefended, allowing forces inside Russia to begin destabilizing it and those those who ensured Europe could rely on a continuous flow of inexpensive fuel from the region. Again, resulting in a situation that has had a devastating economic impact here and there.
Jamie Beaulieu
Farmington, Maine
Opinion pieces reflect the views of the individual author, and do not reflect the views of the Daily Bulldog, Mt. Blue TV, or Central Maine Media Alliance. Publication of an opinion piece does not equate to endorsement of the content of the piece.
