Army Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, while discussing the need for a BRAC for general officers, argues that

the balance of power between the military and the civilians appointed over the military [after the Civil War] seems to have shifted slightly. The easy referent authority Lincoln enjoyed no longer could be taken for granted. Generals were now something different. They were seen by the public as the products of long and sustained experience, and specialized education in the art of war.

One of the deepest philosophical differences between Clausewitz and Jomini was their view of the role of politics in warfare. Clausewitz famously argued that the two are inexorably interwoven and fundamentally unseparable. Jomini, on the other hand, attempted to define a sphere of military expertise distinct from political interference. Jomini’s attempts to distil fundamental truths of warfare assumed the existance of a sphere of military expertise within which civilians must not tread.

Jomini inclined far more towards the scientific application of military force than Clausewitz ever did. Thus, while the US military pays significant omage to Clausewitz at the strategic level, its operational and tactical organization is more in line with Jomini (as argued here). I would further argue that, while on subjects like civilian control the US military quotes Clausewitz, current doctrine displays Jominian assumptions. The elavation of the scientifically precise targeting drill to strategic doctrine owes more to Jomini than Clausewitz.

I think this has profound implications for currrent civil-military relations. Part of the reluctance of civilian leaders to exercise the sort of clear control exercised by Lincoln stems from their (likely unrealized) acceptance of the Jominian perspective that they must have specialized knowledge to intrude into the mysterious realm of military science. Clausewitz’s more complicated view of the unavoidable tangle between politics and the conduct of war doesn’t provide neat answers yet it better describes the character of warfare. When political leaders abdicate the responsibility to define goals, one experiences what Lt. Col. Bateman describes as “interminable hand-wringing over metrics - which the U.S. military has engaged in since at least 1966″ ultimately creating a process in which “technically, nobody ever actually fails.”

(H/T for original prompt to Dave Axe)

A WSJ article on OEF gives a great description of what SysAdmin missions involve:

To win [in Afghanistan], soldiers — especially commanders — need skills that go well beyond good tactics and good aim; they must also blend the street smarts of a beat cop with the sensitivity of a social worker, the cultural awareness of an anthropologist and the deal-making abilities of a big-city mayor.

In other words, you need skills that largely reside in the civilian population.

Technology can assist in these missions:

The Army also offers the troops an online reference source, Wiki-Afghan. It looks just like Wikipedia, except it’s all about Afghanistan and much of it is classified. There are upwards of 10,000 articles, and any authorized soldier can click on an entry and add new information.

The payoff if you do this right:

In late June, insurgents prepared coordinated attacks on several U.S. outposts in the Hindu Kush mountains. Locals warned U.S. soldiers of the impending offensive. American troops hit most of the insurgents with artillery or airstrikes before they were in position to attack the outposts, according to Lt. Col. Kolenda.

“It takes a long time to build that level of trust with the people,” he says. “They’ve got 2,000 years of negative baggage with foreign armies.”

A front page story in today’s WaPo discusses an Air Force program to build luxury capsules for ferrying military and civilian VIPs aboard military aircraft. This is not, decidedly, what the Air Force wants to be talking about, especially after its all too public tensions with Secretary Gates over its role in current operations.

Air Force officials say the program dates from a 2006 decision by Air Force Gen. Duncan J. McNabb that existing seats on transport planes, including some that match those on commercial airliners, may be fine for airmen and troops but inadequate for the top brass. McNabb was then the Air Mobility commander; he is now the Air Force’s vice chief of staff, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates nominated him in June to become head of the military’s Transportation Command…

The Air Force already has two trailers, known as Silver Bullets, that can be loaded aboard large transports for use by top military and civilian officers, plus a fleet of about 100 planes specifically meant for VIP travel. But McMahon, who is now the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for logistics, installations and mission support, said the new program was started because the service ferried more “senior travelers” to distant regions after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and identified a “gap” in its capability.

Is that really a gap with consequences for the capabilities of our military, or was it a nice-to-have addition that became possible to fund with the glut of money flowing into DoD after the terrorist attacks?

The program has been delayed by modifications to the color of the leather on the seats, as well as the color of the seatbelts, leading to this absurd result:

[General] McMahon said he does not recall intervening on the leather color change, but said he was sure it was unrelated to the Air Force’s color. He said that it was probably because blue would not show dirt as much as tan or brown would.