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The Vulnerability of the U.S. Military

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

AnonTechie writes with an interesting story :

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/ ).

• Yes Yes (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.

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• Re:Yes (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 01 2015, @09:01PM

  by HiThere (866) 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.

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