Pentagon Labyrinth

The doctrine of both the Army and Marine Corps are based on a foundation of mission command, a leadership philosophy where commanders tell subordinates what they want done but allow the subordinate leaders to figure out how to do it. For such a leadership philosophy to work, the entire organizational culture must be optimized for that, to include the personnel system. Don Vandergriff, a retired soldier and author, has dedicated his career to pushing these ideas. Here he talks about what steps can be taken to ensure we have the most effective and ethical military possible.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis once wrote, “Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.” He wrote this to impart the importance for military professionals to study history. In this episode, Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson, a historian at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, VA talks about why the study of history is important and how an earlier reform effort has shaped military reform in the United States.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mark Thompson has a 4 decade-long perspective covering the Pentagon. He brings this experience to the Center for Defense Information and POGO with his new column, the Military Industrial Circus.

DOT&E Releases Analysis and It Isn’t Pretty President Trump called the F-35 “fantastic.” It appears he didn’t read the latest brutally honest report from the Pentagon’s testing office. POGO wades through the complicated language of the report to show there are still many unresolved problems with the program. The F-35 still has a long way to go before it will be ready for combat. That was the parting message of Dr. Michael Gilmore, the now-retired Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, in his last annual report. The Joint Strike Fighter Program has already consumed more than $100 billion and nearly 25 years. Just to finish the basic development phase will require at least an extra $1 billion and two more years. Even with this massive investment of time and money, Dr. Gilmore told Congress, the Pentagon, and the public, “the operational suitability of all variants continues to be less than desired by the Services." What will it take to fix the numerous problems identified by Dr. Gilmore, and how do we b

Dr. Tim Kane speaks to CDI’s Dan Grazier about his recommendations to modernize the Pentagon’s antiquated personnel system. No other issue has the potential to fundamentally reform the military than optimizing the way the Pentagon manages the men and women in uniform. Yet little has been done to update a system which has roots deeply set in early industrial age concepts of management science from more than a century ago. Military personnel today are treated by the Pentagon’s bureaucracy as little more than interchangeable cogs in the machine. Dr. Tim Kane, an economist with the Hoover Institution, has written and spoken widely on the need to modernize the Pentagon’s personnel practices. He has recently published a report detailing his recommendations and the necessary steps to ensure the military has the most effective force possible.

When the Marine Corps needed a new capstone document to capture its emerging warfighting philosophy in the 1980s, the person chosen to draft it was not a general, but a junior officer, then-captain John Schmitt. He explains how he came to write one of the most widely read military documents in the world today on the latest episode of Pentagon Labyrinth. Pentagon Labyrinth is hosted by Dan Grazier. Music: "Without Limits" by Ross Bugden

Military pilots aren’t flying as much as they used to. Rising operational costs and poor choices in the past to purchase aircraft that are too expensive to practically operate mean that many fly less than 10 hours a month. This is contributing to a shortage of skilled military pilots, which threatens our national security. Lt. Col. Carl Forsling USMC, a retired pilot who flew both the CH-46 helicopter and MV-22 tilt rotor recently wrote an article for Task & Purpose arguing pilots need a minimum of 30 hours a month in the air to develop their skills beyond the basics to gain a true mastery of tactics.

Winslow Wheeler, a veteran Capitol Hill staffer, shares his insights about what proper Congressional oversight is and provides tips for today’s young staffers on how they can be most effective in their roles providing national security oversight.