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posted by janrinok on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility dept.

The main reason why the U.S. military can promote global peace is because of the aura of invincibility it gained in World War II, because of the end of the Cold War, and because of its overwhelming military spending and technological advantage. But an aura of invincibility is a dangerous thing. And unfortunately, there are signs of rot.

Today, the U.S. military has fallen under the Bureaucracy Rule. The U.S. has no great power rivals, and thank God for that. Iraq and Afghanistan have not caused an identity crisis for the U.S. military because many senior commanders view these as "freakshow" wars — counterinsurgency wars, not the kind of "real" wars that militaries fight.

What are the signs that an organization has become a bureaucracy?

The first is excessive PowerPoint. Every organization should ban PowerPoint ( http://theweek.com/audio/442552/ban-powerpoint ). But it has become particularly endemic in the military ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html?_r=0 ).

The fact that the new Defense secretary has banned PowerPoint from some senior briefings is a step in the right direction ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2015/02/23/the-war-on-powerpoint-in-the-military-continues/ ).

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:58PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:58PM (#151038) Journal

    Dumb TFA: first half of it is made by the author's opinions.
    Second half of it lists two vulnerabilities: PowerPoint and red tape; both of them use FA-s in other newspapers as facts.

    Not a word about overrun budgets and underdelivered projects (hello, F-35), sloppy nuclear arsenal personnel [news.com.au], use of military for assassinations based on dubious intelligence (we kill people based on metadata [nybooks.com]).

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:02PM (#151089)

      The biggest problem out of all of that is the deficit (stay with me).

      It means they get whatever money they want. With no constraints. Constraints create good problem solving abilities. Just throw money at it and problems do not go away (both the Rs and Ds are doing this but to different pet projects). They tend to get much bigger plus a big pile of debt to go with it. The debt is the #1 problem with our gov. They spend like there is no tomorrow. With no regard for how to pay it back. One side wants no new taxes and spending to goto only their pet projects. The other side wants more taxes and even more spending on top of what there is. We need more taxes and less spending across the board (not for just select people, groups, and companies). At which point we can have LESS taxes and everyone comes out ahead. Our gov has become regulatory captured by the big boys with big money. Who want the gov to funnel more and more taxes to them with little return on investment (looking at you Verizon and AT&T I am still waiting on my FIOS install). Remember shovel ready? Oh that was just a straight up pay off unfortunately with a nice buzzword. The prev pres threw out all the other contractors and made one the primary one. The one before that threw out the last of glass stegal to promote loans (and boy did we get it). It is sick.

      All of the things you describe are sick symptoms of people with no regard for where the money comes from or even who it goes to. All they care about is they get their powerpoint point and can stand in front of a group and look good and get their promotion for 'doing something'.

      Endless powerpoint meetings are a symptom. Not the problem. It is a bunch of people getting together and creating issues in giant blamestorming meetings using powerpoint. Then when done they show how 'good' they did and should be allowed to do even more 'good' using powerpoint.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @03:28AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @03:28AM (#151397)

        The biggest problem out of all of that is the deficit (stay with me).

        It means they get whatever money they want. With no constraints. Constraints create good problem solving abilities. Just throw money at it and problems do not go away (both the Rs and Ds are doing this but to different pet projects).

        I work as a civilian employee of the DoD and I can tell you that your take on this is bullshit. While deficits are not good, the real problem is lack of a budget. Every year the President and Congress are supposed to come up with a budget for the federal government. I came into the DoD full-time in 2009. I have yet to see our working group have a budget that we could count on to make long-term decisions. We have been constantly bombarded with politically motivated fiscal crises (sequestration, continuing resolution authority budget extensions, threats of government shut down, etc.) which hamper our ability to work effectively. We do not get whatever money we want. There are constraints aplenty on our spending. All too often the reality is that a political crisis creates uncertainty in our funding which makes long-term decisions difficult or impossible. When the money is finally released after months of delay, we are required to spend it all in a few weeks time or risk losing it. While I have sat through my share of awful PP presentations, the real crisis is political gridlock in Washington. But solving that would mean politicians having to make hard decisions on which programs in the Pentagon's portfolio need to be killed. Just my view from the trenches.

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @03:47AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @03:47AM (#151402)

          I work as a civilian employee of the DoD and I can tell you that your take on this is bullshit. While deficits are not good, the real problem is lack of a budget.

          Ah but it does prove my point. You have enough budget to hire a bunch of contractors. That cant do anything because they can not finish what they started. You get plenty of budget for people. But no real proper budget to finish. There is NO finish.

          Your job is not to finish a product. But to make sure money is moved into your contracts firm. That is done by billable hours and process change. Notice how they do not outright hire anyone? Yet you work with other contractors?

          But solving that would mean politicians having to make hard decisions on which programs in the Pentagon's portfolio need to be killed.
          Neither party would dare do that to their own projects. Yet are quite willing to put up someone elses project to be killed. So you end up with thousands of zombie projects like what you work on. Because the 'budget is not big enough... see we can not finish'...

          You do not end up with trillions of debt in one day. You end up there with poor decision after poor decision. Those decisions are designed to help political buddies.

          My point is the deficit is the biggest threat to national security. Exactly for reasons you pointed out as well. Nothing is getting done yet trillions are spent.

          the real crisis is political gridlock in Washington
          Yet another symptom not the problem. The problem is straight up corruption and graft. You are not probably directly involved. But you are a pawn to help pull it off. Your job is to make it look like there is not enough people to finish...

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @09:07AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @09:07AM (#151472)

            Ah but it does prove my point.

            Again, you speak out of your ass.

            You have enough budget to hire a bunch of contractors.

            Actually, no. One of our big problems right now is hiring new people. The last two civilian employees of the government working for our group each took well over a year to work through the hiring process. In each case, we nearly lost them because the process moves on geological time scales. And we could really use several more new people. Forget about hiring contractors through creation of a new contract. That takes even longer and is a paperwork nightmare. No one in our group has anything good to say about our local contracting department.

            That cant do anything because they can not finish what they started. You get plenty of budget for people. But no real proper budget to finish. There is NO finish.

            Actually, this is one of the things that does work. We do know how to keep contractors accountable to complete their contracts. Hint: when the government program manager has the power to cut the funding to a contract on a moment's notice, this makes contractors super attentive to their wishes.

            So you end up with thousands of zombie projects like what you work on.

            Stop pretending that you know the status of the projects I work on. You don't. This just makes you look presumptuous.

            Because the 'budget is not big enough... see we can not finish'...

            In many cases, it is not because the budget isn't big enough. We do know how to come up with realistic budgets. More often than not, it is a matter of execution of the budget in a timely manner because of manufactured fiscal crises. For the last several years we actually have not had a budget. Instead we have been operating under CRA almost from the time I was first hired, which makes long-term planning all but impossible.

            My point is the deficit is the biggest threat to national security.

            Look, I realize that this is a favourite talking point on Fox News, but it misses the point. The deficit issue is a solvable problem, but it requires that politicians grow a backbone. The real issue is corruption and cowardice among our political leaders. The result is that no one wants to make the hard choices which will actually balance the budget. The money is there; it just needs to be spent wisely.

            Exactly for reasons you pointed out as well. Nothing is getting done yet trillions are spent.

            Well, I'm not sure I would say nothing is getting done. The process is horribly inefficient right now and too often this is due to politically manufactured crises. Too often decisions are being made, not because of national security interests, but because of what votes and campaign dollars will be generated by a decision. The problems can be solved but it will take political courage from our leaders in Washington. They need to start acting like statesmen looking out for the good of the nation rather than politicians looking out to win their next election.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Aighearach on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:41PM

      by Aighearach (2621) on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:41PM (#151200)

      He heard of WWII but not the Korean War, Vietnam, or Iraq II, that's why he thought the US Military was invincible.

      I say as punishment he should be required to watch *M*A*S*H* reruns, every episode, in order.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:00PM (#151039)

    Do we really want to go back to the world before PowerPoint?

    Do we want to watch as somebody scribbles illegibly on an overhead slide, or on a blackboard, or on a big pad of paper on an easel?

    Do we really want to listen as somebody stands there reading a prepared speech, with no visuals at all?

    Do we really want to get stacks of handouts even for minor meetings?

    Do we? Do we really want to return to this world?

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:18PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:18PM (#151048) Journal
      Yes. FORTRAN and Cobol ruled, no H1B visas, no hipsters and no brogrammers. Special note: no war on concepts.
      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:27PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:27PM (#151051)

        H1B visas, hipsters and brogrammers have been great for my career. Nobody fucks up as badly as they do. They create epic disasters that I get paid very well to fix up.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:35PM (#151112)

        That sounds more like a midlife crisis when you are waxing poetic about Cobol. It wasn't all rosy in the past.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:57PM

      by Arik (4543) on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:57PM (#151085) Journal
      When an overhead projector was an extra expense, and inconvenient to mess with, people were less apt to rely on it as a crutch. A prepared speech, with no visuals, is perfect if the fine gentleman has something worthwhile to say. If he does not, no amount of visuals will improve the situation. If the text is important enough that you want me to read and refer to it, then yes, give it to me on a handout. Don't flash a powerpoint for a few seconds and expect me to memorize it or copy it down by hand.
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 01 2015, @09:01PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 01 2015, @09:01PM (#151634) Journal

        Sorry, but you are overreacting. Just try to teach geometry with only a prepared speech.

        That said, I think that blackboards/whiteboards are probably sufficient unless you are describing something that intrinsically requires animation. But you might want to couple them with projectors so that everyone can see what you're doing while you're standing in front of it.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by rleigh on Saturday February 28 2015, @07:56PM

      by rleigh (4887) on Saturday February 28 2015, @07:56PM (#151177) Homepage

      YES!

      Powerpoint presentations have ruined every field they are used in. Good speakers do not need the crutch of many tens of slides, all of which fly past so rapidly the audience has little opportunity to digest or remember the content, and often are recited word for word by the speaker--a totally pointless waste of time. From that point of view a handout summarising the important facts or providing complex diagrams is worth much more. I'd rather the speaker threw powerpoint in the bin, properly considered and prepared what they needed to convey to their audience, and then used a small number of overheads/blackboard/whiteboard/easel to provide additional visual information.

      It's not that powerpoint itself is the problem, it's just a tool. The problem is that it's misused by everyone who touches it. The older ways of presenting constrain the quantity and speed information can be delivered at, and gives the audience time to really absorb it. 60+ powerpoint slides in an hour is not better than a good speaker using a blackboard, or half a dozen acetates with an overhead projector. I sincerely believe that these limitations make for better speakers.

      Consider what the listener gets out of a presentation. I can go to a powerpoint presentation and just zone out while the slides wash over me. I can leave unable to clearly retain much of what was delivered, because I'm not directly engaged with the speaker--they are just spewing a firehose of information without any consideration of the audience's ability to keep up the pace. This doesn't occur if I'm physically taking notes, and it's not like that's a big deal--I'm in the talk for the duration and putting in some effort doing that means I get far more out of it, and keeps me mentally engaged with what the speaker is delivering, which is the entire reason I'm there in the first place. Bad powerpoint presentations can turn the audience into vegetables; I'm not at all surprised it's being banned--I can only imagine how much time is cumulatively wasted through such ineffective and impractical communication.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:09PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:09PM (#151043)

    promote global peace

    Yet, oddly, I somehow doubt Buddha, Jesus, or Gandhi would be overly impressed with "airstrike totally random brown people who have leaders that aren't subservient uncle toms" as synonym for "global peace"

    Dying days of the empire, sure, maybe.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:47PM (#151081)

      Isn't it interesting how all this peace stuff requires so many assassin squads?
      Delta Force, SEALs, CIA.
      Pretty sure I missed several.

      ...and let's not forget what was formerly called the School of the Americas where torture and assassination is still taught to the USA Govt's totalitarian buddies.

      Want to end war?
      DON'T START ANY NEW FIGHTS.
      Make the Defense Department live up to its name.

      -- gewg_

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by pnkwarhall on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:35PM

        by pnkwarhall (4558) on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:35PM (#151195)

        But the Defense Department **is** living up to its name in the context of the propaganda of "terrorism". I don't think we need to change the government--but we do need to figure out how to effectively respond to the terrorism propaganda that's become rampant. Quoting statistics about someone's likelihood to be harmed by a random act of ideological violence doesn't meet most people where they're at -- a place of fear. How do we help move people away from fear of "the boogeyman" into productive conversations about our world-wide problems?

        --
        Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
        • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday March 01 2015, @02:43AM

          by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Sunday March 01 2015, @02:43AM (#151382)

          Hush! That sort of talk will draw attention to yourself!

          • (Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Sunday March 01 2015, @05:22PM

            by pnkwarhall (4558) on Sunday March 01 2015, @05:22PM (#151571)

            Hmm... thank you for the warning. Usually I would take it in the context of the "old folks" on this site's paranoia, which I would probably be wise to learn from. However, it was more personally relevant to me today after a conversation I had this morning that showed me that certain POVs are much more controversial/offending than others, and could make me enemies despite my best intentions. (--Much less draw the attention of my true enemies.)

            --
            Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:17PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:17PM (#151103)

      I somehow doubt Buddha, Jesus, or Gandhi would be overly impressed with "airstrike totally random brown people who have leaders that aren't subservient uncle toms" as synonym for "global peace"

      "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:11PM (#151045)

    The "rot" affects more than just government organizations (like the military). It affects all of Western society these days. And it's mainly due to the Baby Boomers. They've managed to ruin everything they've ever touched. They've been calling the shots for the last 40 or so years, and this corresponds exactly to the period of time when everything started to go to hell. They've mismanaged the government. They've mismanaged the military. They've mismanaged the nation's immigration policies. They've mismanaged education. They've mismanaged healthcare. They've mismanaged business. They've mismanaged infrastructure maintenance and development. They've mismanaged the economy. They've mismanaged everything they've been involved with! We're getting to the point where a man can merely just claim that he "feels that his gender is that of a woman", and according to this the Baby Boomers think he should have every right to use women's washrooms! Baby Boomers promote mismanagement and deviancy wherever they go. If there's a problem that exists today, there's a very good chance that Baby Boomers are directly responsible for it, or they're responsible for creating the environment that allows the problem to exist.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:01PM (#151088)

      I don't know that I'd call it "mismanaged", everything was managed that way on purpose in order to get themselves and their buddies rich.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:13PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:13PM (#151097)

        Nepotism is a form of mismanagement, even if those involved do benefit from it.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @09:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @09:12PM (#151213)

      And it's mainly due to the Baby Boomers. They've managed to ruin everything they've ever touched./quote>

      Dad! I asked you not to follow me to Soylent News! Yes, I know you were the "Greatest Generation", but that is no reason to keep dissing everything us Baby Boom youngsters do! And besides, most of the problems we have to deal with are the result of your screwups! So, back off, or we'll have to send you back to the Home.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:58PM (#151065)

    Are you fucking kidding?

    They clearly promote their trillion dollars worth of revenue from weapons sales per year.

    Rot?
    You can't rot what has already been utterly consumed.

    • (Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:37PM

      by pnkwarhall (4558) on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:37PM (#151197)

      I agree--but this (clear) irony is not apparent to everyone....

      --
      Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:04PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:04PM (#151092) Journal

    I was a defense contractor for a few years. Bureaucracy is not the biggest problem they have. Fear is. It is fear that drives America's military spending. Despite the tough guys attitude, they're afraid of everything. They know there are enemies all over the world who'd love to make them look bad, inflict a few casualties, do some damage. They're also hobbled by a military culture of obedience to orders, using force to get what they want, bullying, and punishment for failure.

    The military guys demand that contractors deliver them the moon, Mars, and the whole sky too. How else can they be safe? Your job is to deliver. Failure is not an option. They want unbreakable security with backdoors for themselves only. Try to explain that that is impossible, that the mere existence of backdoors makes the security very breakable indeed, and they start threatening you! How dare you shove disagreeable reality in their faces. Don't tell them what's impossible. You"re lazy, or wimpy, and you could do it if you really wanted to because you're a genius. Why won't you? Is it because you're a Communist or Muslim sympathizer? Are you disloyal to your country? You're a liberal, that's the problem!

    Then some lying sales weasel among the contractors tells them what they want to hear. He's trying to drum up more business for his contracting company, and is all too willing to play along with their paranoid fantasy world as long as he can. They like what they hear, they want to believe, but they're suspicious. Still, they use an offer like that to pressure you more. They turn back to you and demand answer why can't you do the same, this guy over here says he can. Are you incompetent?

    Something else they're very much concerned about is being sold a bill of goods, the old $600 toilet seats, and becoming the butt of the next report on wasteful Pentagon spending. So they also want a bargain price, and try to beat you down. Then they demand stuff that drives expenses through the roof, like lots of paperwork, to cover themselves.

    The only enemies they tend to see are ones that can be vanquished with bullets. If the enemy is Global Warming, whom do they shoot?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:16PM (#151101)

      You're a liberal, that's the problem!

      There's your problem, you're dealing with delusional people. The obvious solution is to not deal with conservatives, eg deal with almost any MOS branch except infantry.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by pnkwarhall on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:42PM

      by pnkwarhall (4558) on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:42PM (#151201)

      If the only/major enemies left are ones that **can't** be vanquished with bullets, then where does that leave the military personnel/beauracracy/worldview? No one wants to admit they are irrelevant, or worse, realize that actively working against what they espouse to support--to themselves least of all.

      ~peace

      --
      Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
    • (Score: 2) by redneckmother on Saturday February 28 2015, @11:08PM

      by redneckmother (3597) on Saturday February 28 2015, @11:08PM (#151270)

      If the enemy is Global Warming, whom do they shoot?

      Too easy - EVERYONE (including themselves).

      --
      Mas cerveza por favor.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:38PM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:38PM (#151198)

    But this is the military - they've always been drowning in paperwork. It's not something new. Before Power Point, it was the typewriter. And do you know how much paperwork armies produced during the American Civil War? I don't see how the military ever does anything but paperwork.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Sunday March 01 2015, @12:16AM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Sunday March 01 2015, @12:16AM (#151301)

    TFS seems to imply that bureaucracy is something that we agree is objectively bad.

    Why?

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 2) by TheLink on Sunday March 01 2015, @04:40PM

    by TheLink (332) on Sunday March 01 2015, @04:40PM (#151559) Journal

    WW II didn't make the US look invincible, just stronger (while they had the atom bomb advantage). And the Vietnam War and wars after didn't either.

    US trashing far weaker countries=BFD.

    And if you think powerpoint is a major factor and banning it will help things, you're an idiot who is part of the problem and not the solution. Excessive use of powerpoint may be a symptom of the problem, but it's not the problem.

    Now if you want to discuss the vulnerability of the US Military this article is probably a better starting point:
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/06/usa.iraq [theguardian.com]

    See also: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-map-show-the-f-35-fiasco-2015-1/ [businessinsider.com]

    The US Military seems populated/controlled by people who are more interested in extracting $$$$ than winning wars.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @02:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @02:15AM (#151702)

      The US Military seems populated/controlled by people who are more interested in extracting $$$$ than winning wars.

      I think you misspelled "Congress". Otherwise your comments were pretty much spot on.