Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!amdcad!military From: baldwin@cad.usna.mil (J.D. Baldwin) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Future of the Military Message-ID: <27500@amdcad.AMD.COM> Date: 26 Sep 89 08:21:44 GMT Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM Lines: 66 Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com From: "J.D. Baldwin"Recently there have been a few postings regarding "The Future of the Military," sparked by some of Adm. William Crowe's (chairman of JCS, until Friday) comments after visiting the USSR. The original poster seemed somewhat disturbed by Adm. Crowe's apparent credulity in accepting glasnostroika as a justification for relaxation of our national security posture--a perfectly reasonable apprehension, given the nature of some of the quotes attributed to him immediately after his visit. The Admiral's recent statements have been more sober, however. In a recent MacNeil-Lehrer interview, Adm. Crowe derided as naive the idea that the West should base its security policies on the directions that glasnostroika will take the USSR, when in fact the USSR has no idea in what direction it is headed! Expansions on *that* theme are kindly invited to talk.politics.soviet (which I unfortunately do not receive). I would be the last person to try to introduce politics into a discussion here, but I do feel that the ramifi- cations of the modern military man-as-politician are germane to the topic "The Future of the Military". (If I am wrong, I am sure our moderator will correct me.) I refer all interested readers to the excellent article by Bob Woodward (and I am no fan of Mr. Woodward's), "The Admiral of Washington," in today's Washington Post magazine. Just a few quotes from and about this extraordinary man about the topic at hand: Crowe [on qualifications for Chief of Naval Operations]: "We shouldn't get a guy out of the Navy chain and make him CNO. We should go to New York City and get the best lawyer we can get because what he has to do is go around the tank [where the Joint Chiefs meet] and persuade people and go over to Congress and persuade people . . ." [when another senior officer objected: "Not a naval officer?!"] "We'll put a hat on the guy and give him a coat with a lot of stripes on it." A general officer who worked closely with Adm. Crowe, on his approach to the use of US armed force: "Crowe always asks the objective. What do you want to do? Is it destroy a building? A show of force? Punish the terrorist? The chiefs want to know if the American people are behind it. They want to know how we will know when it is over. When there are answers, he will explain the risk in terms of the objective." Not germane to the subject, but irresistible to me as a USNA alumnus and faculty member--I had to include this one: [on his days at Annapolis] "I was not a happy midshipman. I did not take well to discipline. [Yet I] never considered quitting, because I was enough of a conformist and found a great thrill in thrashing or beating the system and trying to work around it. I accumulated an alarming number of demerits and came away with a built-in suspicion of arbitrary rules." Adm. Crowe will be relieved Friday (here at USNA) by General Colin Powell, USA. The succession of one politico-military master by another as astute as Gen. Powell gives hope that the Lessons of Vietnam (tm) have been learned: namely that the Art of War now includes the Art of Politics--international *and* domestic. And that the haphazard use of military force without a clear objective and mission will surely result in disaster by military and political standards. -- >From the catapult of: |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I _, J. D. Baldwin, Comp Sci Dept |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to __||____..}-> US Naval Academy |+| retract it, but also to deny under \ / baldwin@cad.usna.navy.mil |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer