The 'Force of the Future' and the Fate of the United States Military - The Atlantic

8/20/2019 The 'Force of the Future' and the Fate of the United States Military - The Atlantic

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When Defense Secretary Ash Carter took the reins of the Pentagon in

February, he inherited a Pentagon coming out of two prolonged land wars

P O L I T I C S

Can the U.S. Military Halt Its Brain Drain?The Pentagon worries its rigid personnel system is driving away the

officers it will need for the conflicts of the 21st century.

D A V I D B A R N O A N D N O R A B E N S A H E L

N O V 5 , 2 0 1 5

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in Iraq and Afghanistan, navigating a budgetary drawdown threatened by

sequestration, and wrestling with how to remain the dominant military in

a fast-changing world. As one of his predecessors Robert Gates noted,

since Vietnam, “our record has been perfect” about predicting future

wars: “We have never once gotten it right.”

His first speech was expected to signal his new priorities as secretary of

defense. Some expected a talk in Silicon Valley, or at one of the service

academies to showcase his message. Yet for his inaugural speech, Carter

chose to return his alma mater, Abingdon Senior High School in

Philadelphia, to speak to teenage students. Billed as a talk about the

“Force of the Future,” many expected it to be about new technology, thePentagon’s “Third Offset Strategy,” or the importance of cyber warfare.

R E L A T E D S T O R Y

The Tragedy of the American Military

Surprisingly, it was all about people—how to find, get, and keep the best

military and civilian talent in the Department of Defense.

Despite his strong background in the world of technology and defense

policy, Carter unequivocally emphasized that his top priority would be to

recruit and retain talented young Americans into the Defense

Department. In his Abingdon speech, he clearly stated, “I will drive

change to build what I call the force of the future: the military and the

broader Defense Department that we need to serve and defend our

country in the years to come.”

His surprising logic is that winning the unpredictable next war will be less

about advanced war machines and silicon chips than about out-thinking

the enemy, and having a force chock-full of bright, adaptive leaders who

can quickly navigate complex problems under the intense time pressures

http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/606658

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/

http://archive.defense.gov/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=1539





of modern combat. To Carter, winning the next war is all about talent.

* * *

Tyler Jost had wanted to be in the military ever since his kindergarten

teacher read a children’s book about the Gettysburg Address to her youngclass. Although not from a military family, Jost attended a military high

school in a Chicago suburb where he was an exceptional student. When it

came time to choose a college, he applied to both the Naval Academy and

West Point, and happily enrolled at West Point after receiving his

acceptance letter.

Jost arrived at West Point during the summer of 2004, nearly three years

after the 9/11 attacks. The nation and the Army were at war in Iraq and

Afghanistan. But Jost took Chinese language classes to fulfill his single

year of required language at the academy, and a summer program in

China cemented his love of the Chinese language and culture. According

to Jost, he gave up his vacation time nearly every summer to study in

China, and graduated with a double major in Chinese and InternationalRelations.

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Jost excelled in his studies. He was academically ranked seventh out of

972 cadets in his graduating class, and was commissioned as a military

intelligence officer. He won a Rotary scholarship for a graduate degree atthe School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He

became proficient in Mandarin, and earned a master’s degree in Chinese

studies after a year of intense study. Now it was time to join the Army and

use his education.

It would be the last time Jost used his Chinese until leaving the service five

years later.

Losing Talent

The military services today are losing talent. Bright, capable young men

and women—almost all combat veterans—are leaving the services in

sizable numbers, shifting their lives from khaki and camouflage to chinosand corporate attire. They are entirely of the Millennial generation, those

Americans born after 1980, and since 2001 they have only known a

military at war. While the ebb and flow of young people into and out of the

military is always a steady tide, the ongoing drain of experienced and

bright young officers departing service today after five to 15 years in

uniform is a concern. A 2010 survey of Army officers found that only 6

percent of those asked agreed with the statement, “The current military

personnel system does a good job retaining the best leaders.” The military

must always shed leaders since there is only so much room to move up.

But it is essential to shed the right people—and not to lose too many of

those with the brightest prospects or the most innovative minds. The

military needs to know just who is going out the door, and why.

No one expects the U.S. military to redesign itself for its Millennials—to

become a camouflaged version of Google or Facebook, or adopt a Silicon

West Point cadets line up at their graduation ceremony in Michie Stadium. (Mike Groll / AP)

http://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-Talent-Military-Mismanages-Revolution/dp/0230391273/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445261801&sr=8-1&keywords=bleeding+talent

http://www.army.mil/article/9556/972_Graduate_from_U_S_Military_Academy_at_West_Point





Valley start-up culture where Pentagon staff officers ride scooters down

the hallways clad in shorts and T-shirts. The U.S. armed forces are

instruments of conflict prevention in peacetime, and controlled violence

in war. Their culture must reflect the unique demands this places on their

members. Few businesses call on their employees to give up their lives if

required to get the job done. Partly as a result, military service is often

viewed as a calling, not simply as a job or even a career. Only a select few

can be expected to answer that call for a career or a lifetime.

But they need to be the right few.

Only 6 percent of Army officers agreed that “thecurrent military personnel system does a good jobretaining the best leaders.”

The U.S. military is in a competition for talent. The best and brightest

graduates from American universities are in high demand. According to

the Department of Defense, only a half of 1 percent of officers entering

the military last year hailed from the top 20 U.S. colleges and universities

—a percentage that is half that of just 20 years ago. Moreover, a recent

study determined that 40 percent of today’s Marine officers would fail to

meet the standards for Marine officer selection in World War II.

Warfare is a highly complex business, and the side that intends to prevailmust bring every advantage into what could become an existential fight.

Brainpower and talent matter. Which citizens the military attracts, what

cognitive and leadership qualities they possess, and how many of them

stay for a career are issues of strategic importance to the nation’s security.

But the man who heads the Defense Department’s personnel and

readiness office has described the military personnel system as “a Polaroid

in the age of digital cameras, once the cutting edge, but now superseded.”

We have both spent our careers working on U.S. national-security issues.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/2015/06/24/brad-carson-personnel-systems-reform-outdated-ash-carter-attrition-retirement-human-resources/29208959/

http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Issues/Summer_2015/Parameters_Sum2015v45n2.pdf

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/07/20-military-officer-quality/military-officer-quality-in-the-all-volunteer-force.pdf





One of us is a retired Army officer with over 30 years of experience,

including overall command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan; the other is a

scholar who has spent her career at various Washington think tanks,

working with and writing about the military. Our current projects examine

how to best prepare the U.S. military for the many challenges of an

uncertain future. Our research and our own experiences have left us both

gravely concerned that the military is losing too much talent—that the

rigid and anachronistic personnel system is driving too many bright,

innovative, and creative officers out of the military. That could have

disastrous long-term effects on the nation’s ability to fight and win future

wars—or craft strategies to prevent them from erupting.

* * *

No one in Katelyn van Dam’s family had ever graduated from college,

though many had served as policemen and firemen. But in fourth grade,

van Dam discovered a coffee table book on the Naval Academy in a

doctor’s office, and decided, “I want to go there some day.” When she was

in high school, finding out that Navy had a Division I women’s volleyball

team sealed the deal.

Van Dam excelled in all-things military at Annapolis, and held her own

academically, majoring in political science at a school dedicated to

engineering. She has said that she was most animated by the intense

military and athletic programs in which every midshipmen participated,and was deeply impressed by the U.S. Marines on the staff and faculty—

models to her of military precision and unwavering professionalism. She

knew she wanted to be a Marine.





Most women entering the Marine Corps as officers—women comprise only

4 percent of its officer corps—gravitate toward intelligence, logistics, or

communications. Van Dam wanted to be a Marine infantry officer—but

the military’s rules excluding women from ground-combat positions

precluded that choice. Instead she won a slot to flight school, and studied

hard enough to get her dream billet as an attack-helicopter pilot flying AH-

1W Super Cobras. She became one of only a handful of women flying

attack helicopters in the Corps. Her call sign was “Talent.”

For van Dam, flying Cobras in support of ground troops in Afghanistanwas the best way she could contribute to the fight, since many Marine

specialties were then closed to women (and many remain so today). Flying

Courtesy of Katelyn van Dam





combat missions from her Cobra in support of those Marines slugging it

out on the ground was the closest she could come to direct combat. Rolling

in with rockets and cannon fire to relieve a Marine unit pinned down under

enemy fire became the ultimate high. She quickly became a highly

respected combat flier, sought after to lead missions, and occasionally

bailed out peers in trouble during combat. After two operational tours, she

was selected to train male and female Marines in the Corps’s intense

junior officer course, The Basic School. Married to a Marine recon

commander, she was experiencing the best jobs the Corps had to offer a

promising young officer.

Today, neither van Dam nor her husband are active-duty Marines. She isattending graduate school while he works as a civilian for the Department

of the Army.

Today’s Military Personnel System

The current military personnel system was designed decades ago in large

measure to provide interchangeable human parts to fit the diverse

requirements of each service. This flexibility was an important virtue in

growing the force from several-hundred thousand to 16 million in World

War II. That war also provided the impetus for today’s “up or out”

promotion system, after hundreds of aging officers had to be quickly

removed at the war’s beginning to bring in energetic younger

replacements who could meet the challenges of a global war.

Despite a world that has vastly changed since 1945, many elements of

that wartime system remain in place today. The most significant prior

reform occurred in 1980, when the Defense Officer Personnel

Management Act (DOPMA) was signed into law. But even then, large

elements of the previous system remained. According to a 1993 RAND

report, the 1980 Act “…replaced an existing patchwork of rules and

regulations governing the management of military officers… While

http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R4246.html





breaking new ground (permanent grade tables, single promotion system,

augmentation of reserve officers into regular status), DOPMA was

basically evolutionary, extending the existing paradigm (grade controls,

promotion opportunity and timing objectives, up-or-out, and uniformity

across the services) that was established after World War II.”

This legacy system is woefully archaic in the 21st century—and far

removed from the best talent-management practices of the private sector.

It may well be the last untransformed segment of an otherwise modern,

flexible, and adaptable U.S. military. Yet the personnel system touches

every single person in the military every single day of their career—and

determines how much they are paid, where they live, what kind of jobsthey perform, and how often they move or get promoted. Neither officers

nor enlisted troops have any substantial input in how they fit into this

system—nor how to maximize their talents for the greater good.

The U.S. military is largely a closed-loop system for talent. Lateral entry is

nearly nonexistent outside of unique specialties such as medicine. The

four-star generals and admirals who will be the chairman and members of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in 2035 are serving in uniform today as

majors or lieutenant commanders with somewhere between 10 and 16

years of service. Even the members of the JCS in 2045 are already serving

in uniform, just starting out as ensigns and lieutenants, most with fewer

than four years of service. Losing talented, experienced, and innovative

leaders in the first 10 years of their military careers means that those

leaders will not be available to serve in ever-more senior military

leadership positions during the next the 20 or 30 years. This problem

deserves rapt attention because getting the quality of the force wrong—

unknowingly keeping in less capable leaders while losing the best and

brightest talent—could have debilitating effects on fighting and winning

the complex wars of the future.





The generals who led the war in Iraq in 2003 cannot be measured against their missing alter egos whomight have left the service as majors in 1975.

Unlike its private-industry counterparts, the U.S. military does not track

the levels of quality among those who are leaving the force, nor does it

have any insight on why they are choosing to leave. There are no exit

interviews for departing leaders, no accumulation of data on who is

staying or going, no statistical rundowns provided the service chiefs on the

percent of each performance quintile by rank (or IQ, or any other measure)

who are choosing to leave or stay. The military does not even gather such

information.

Yet few senior military leaders acknowledge there is a problem today.

They often argue they have always had plenty of great people, and that the

current personnel system has served the United States well. Of course,

these same leaders are products of the system that they are convinced is

highly effective. It is rare to hear them admit that they could be anything

less than the very best and the brightest—or that the military was at all hurt

by the loss of many of their young contemporaries during the previous

years and decades. The generals who led the war in Iraq in 2003 cannot be

measured against their missing alter egos who might have left the service

as majors in 1975.

There are no objective metrics by which to determine whether the military

leadership is succeeding—or failing, needing replacement. In the U.S.

military, there are no quarterly earning statements, no public stock prices,

no annual profit and loss numbers. However the military performs, it

seems simply good enough. During the darkest days of the war in Iraq,

from 2004 to 2006, there was little thought given to replacing militaryleaders, even when the combat effort was clearly failing. Even losing a war

—or nearly doing so—seems to be an insufficient impetus to objectively

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/02/13/military-brain-drain/

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/27/army-strong/





assess military performance and hold leaders accountable. It only

becomes worse in peacetime where little can seemingly be measured as

related to what the nation wants from its military during a war. The abject

lack of metrics on the performance and skills of those departing the force

compared to those remaining reflects a culture that insists the current

system works well.

* * *

Tyler Jost found his two tours in the tumultuous combat zone of

Afghanistan his most rewarding time in uniform. “On my first day, my

battalion commander came up to me. He shook my hand and said,

‘Welcome to a combat zone.’” Jost was 24 years old. “That was an

awakening. It may sound dramatic, but combat operations were much

different than I anticipated. I don’t think I fully appreciated what the Army

was about until I arrived in Afghanistan.”

During his first year-long deployment, he served as a young lieutenant in

eastern Afghanistan with duties as an assistant intelligence officer in adeployed battalion. “I felt part of the fight—part of something larger than

myself,” he said. “From your first day in theater, you assume tremendous

responsibilities—to help protect the lives of your teammates, to play a

small but direct role in national security. You feel as though you are part of

something meaningful, important, and significant early in your career.”

Jost worked up to 18 hours a day, slept in a wooden “B-Hut,” and workedmost of the time in a windowless command center—and loved his job.

Serving in Afghanistan was everything he had hoped for about being in the

Army. Time flew by.

He was ambivalent about returning to stateside duty after his tour in a

combat zone. But after 12 months deployed, Jost rotated home with his

unit to Fort Campbell, Kentucky—a place he had only spent a few weeks

before shipping out a year earlier. Lacking the daily rewards of supporting

troops in combat, he was immediately bored. Army garrison routines and





home-station bureaucracy of rules and regulations only made it worse.

Within weeks, he was ready to go back to Afghanistan—or anywhere else

overseas with a real-world mission. Waiving his guaranteed “dwell

time”—the typical one-year period at home before being eligible to deploy

again—Jost volunteered to return to Afghanistan as the aide to a Navy

admiral working strategic-level policy issues.

A staff job in Kabul was a far cry from his first job as a tactical-intelligence

officer, but he quickly secured the position, and returned to Afghanistan

less than four months after coming back from his first deployment. The

new job at the senior NATO headquarters in Kabul exposed him to the

world of strategy and policy. It would become one of the most eye-opening

and broadening opportunities of his career.

But Jost said that he also realized that many of the State Department

Tyler Jost receives a Bronze Star for service in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of Tyler Jost)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-armys-next-enemy-peace/2014/07/10/f02b5180-f0dc-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html





civilians working alongside him in this area were his age or only slightly

older—and that if he stayed in the military, he wouldn’t be able to do what

they were doing for at least another 10 years, or more. Over time, the rigid

boundaries of the military rank and seniority system felt more and more

restrictive. Jost loved his job, loved being deployed, but could see the

writing on the wall. His future path as an intelligence officer was clearly

laid out for him, and largely out of his control.

He began to think about getting out.

Millennials in the Military and Beyond

The young men and women coming into the military today share two

characteristics in common—all have joined since the attacks of 9/11, and

know they are signing on for a military at war, even if at diminished levels.

Astonishingly, almost three-quarters of Americans from age 17 to 25 are

disqualified from serving in uniform due to obesity, education, criminal

records, or medical reasons. But all who do are part of the Millennial

generation, those men and women born between 1980 and 2000. Ten

years from now, 98 percent of the military will be comprised of

Millennials. By definition, the remaining 2 percent will be the senior-most

enlisted and officers by age and rank—and these leaders of the force will

come from Generation X or even the tail end of the Baby Boomers.

Today’s military personnel system may alienate the very segment of the population from which themilitary must draw upon to fill its ranks.

Civilian studies have found that the Millennials share a number of

characteristics in common. And although military members may reflect

some very different attributes given that they are self-selected from less

than 1 percent of society, they inevitably will have some traits in common

http://time.com/2938158/youth-fail-to-qualify-military-service/





with their civilian generational peers. Millennials value personal life and

family above paychecks. They value diverse work experiences and the

ability to change jobs often. They want a bigger say in their career paths

and their future, and value higher education. They see themselves as likely

to leave jobs, companies, and career fields at a much higher rate than their

predecessors. They believe in merit-driven upward mobility, and are

convinced they should be able to compete for any job in their reach. They

dislike hierarchy, bureaucracy, and inflexibility in the workplace and

private life. But they are also far more interested in public service, in all its

forms, than many generations that came before them.

While all of these are broad characterizations of an entire generation, theystrongly suggest that much about today’s military personnel system may

alienate the very segment of the population from which the military must

draw upon to fill its ranks. In particular, military officers have many

options outside of the military, since their service and leadership

experience is often prized in the private sector. Getting the best of this

group of junior officers to decide to remain in uniform for a career thusposes significant challenges—and few current uniformed military leaders

seem to be paying attention to those challenges.

* * *

For many months, Katey van Dam chafed at the prospect her squadron

was missing the war. Even though she had previously done a “pump”—asix-month cruise aboard Navy amphibious ships—supporting counter-

piracy missions in the Arabian Sea, combat had eluded her unit. Van Dam

volunteered for a Marine Female Engagement Team, women Marines

who operated on the ground with the infantry, interacting with Afghan

women in ways men could not. Her squadron XO, the second-in-

command, turned her down. According to van Dam, he told her, “Slow

your roll,” perhaps knowing the squadron was about to get orders for

Afghanistan.





Van Dam’s squadron finally got the word: They would deploy for seven

months to southern Afghanistan, supporting Marines fighting in some of

the toughest Taliban strongholds. She may not have been allowed to fight

on the ground because she was a woman, but by flying a Super Cobra

attack helicopter, she could lash the enemy with rockets and cannon from

less than 50 feet altitude. She was in the fight—and loved it. Van Dam

racked up over 330 flying hours in her Cobra gunship during her

deployment. It was the most rewarding assignment she ever had.

After returning home, van Dam began to negotiate her next job with her

assignment managers. Her husband David had returned from his

deployment a few months earlier, and was now stationed on the EastCoast—3,000 miles from van Dam, who was now stationed in southern

California. She wanted her next Marine job to be on the East Coast, and to

involve working closely with troops.

A job at Quantico teaching young men and women who were “boot”

Marine lieutenants in The Basic School (TBS) seemed like a good fit. After

A U.S. Marine Corps Super Cobra helicopter fires a missile during a training exercise in Arizona. (Rick

Scuteri / Reuters)





a year of classroom teaching, she was selected to be a Platoon

Commander in TBS. She was finally allowed to go to the field and live in

the dirt for days on end—as close to infantry conditions as she would ever

reach under today’s rules.

As she was near her husband for the first time in many months, the idea of

starting a family became more and more part of their conversations. Van

Dam also yearned to be back in an academic environment—her job at TBS

was highly rewarding, but a long way from her goal of eventually getting

an advanced degree. But she soon discovered that Marine officers cannot

even compete for slots to attend graduate school until after completing

battalion-level command, probably at age 40 or older—meaning that shewould have to wait nearly 10 more years. And David, now promoted to

major, was now getting closer to making his own decision about leaving

the Marines.

Challenges With the Current System

Military career paths are governed by a set of highly structured processes

that rarely allow any deviations. Promotions, for example, are governed by

DOPMA’s immutable statutory rules: There are no 35-year-old generals

or admirals, no military options to mirror Silicon Valley’s penchant for

bright young CEOs. Navy destroyers, Marine-helicopter squadrons, Army-

infantry battalions, and F-16 fighter squadrons are all commanded by

officers with about 16 to 18 years of service. There are no exceptions for

the bright light with only six years in; you must wait for 16 to 18 years

regardless to even have a chance to compete for command at that level.

And if you don’t command at that level, your prospects for further

advancement are highly constrained. Generals and admirals, with few

exceptions, come out of the “command track.” There are virtually no

three- or four-star admirals or generals who have not commanded ships orsquadrons, battalions or brigades—and then gone on to command again at

senior levels of the organization. Specialists—cyber gurus, foreign-area





experts, human-resources types—who do not command often have far

fewer promotion opportunities, especially to wear stars.

The military promotion system is also based on the principle of “up or

out.” Unlike the vast majority of workers in the private sector, military

personnel are not permitted to stay in the same job or rank year after year

—even if the position may be one for which they are perfectly suited, by

skill or disposition. They must continually compete for promotion, and be

selected for advancement in order to stay in the military. The military’s

best F-16 pilot cannot stay in the cockpit her whole career. After

approximately eight to 10 years of flying, she must go to broadening

schools, be promoted to major and then lieutenant colonel, and serve onstaffs and maybe even in the Pentagon. If she fails to do so, she will fail to

be promoted—and multiple failures to be promoted almost always results

in a pink slip forcing separation from the military.

The combination of “everyone must command” with “up or out” creates a

military of incessant turbulence, with moves between jobs and bases a

constant feature of uniformed service. On average, military families move

10 times as often their civilian counterparts. Officers typically change jobs

every one to two years, and often move from base to base every two or

three years, although the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have somewhat

slowed that pace (since families often stayed while their service members

deployed). This fast-moving treadmill of jobs and locations sacrifices

much hard-won expertise among officers in order to ensure as many

officers as possible get through all the “gates” needed to be eligible for

command or promotion to the next rank. Multiple jobs and a diversity of

locations (rather than “homesteading,” or staying in one spot year after

year) continue to be valued by promotion boards as evidence of a well-

rounded officer.

The combination of “everyone must command” with “up or out” creates a military of incessant

http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/27/pf/military-families/





turbulence.

This constant job shifting also creates a military where every officer is

expected to perform across multiple, often unrelated skill sets—even

though the skills of an effective Pentagon staff officer have next to nothingin common with those of an Apache attack-helicopter pilot or an infantry-

battalion commander. Officers don’t get to find their niche and stay in it;

they are constantly on the move. This facet of military careers can be

immensely frustrating to officers who know what they love to do—and who

recognize no matter what it is, the military will eventually force them to do

something very different, often at a time and place not of their choosing.

Perhaps the most damaging effect of this incessant turbulence is a

continuous loss of continuity and expertise in key jobs. Even at the most

senior ranks of general and admirals, jobs are often held for two years or

less. It is viewed simply as the cost of doing business in a military still

wedded to a Cold War personnel system of interchangeable parts. Spouses

of military personnel, especially officers, now often have careers of theirown, and the military’s moving turbulence often makes such normal two

career pursuits utterly unsustainable. Uncounted numbers of junior

officers leave the military because they simply see a career pipeline that

will force them down a path where they do not want to go—or force their

spouse to give up a valued job or even a career in order to move. Even

those who want to command and move to the top of the force areconfronted with the unalterable long climb through years of unrelated

assignments with little prospect for accelerated promotions, no matter

how talented.

Lack of access to advanced civilian education also causes many young

officers to leave the military. Masters and Ph.D. programs throughout the

nation’s top schools are chock full of former military officers who were

simply unable to find any venue to pursue civilian graduate education

inside the military—and who, thanks to the generous benefits of the post-





9/11 GI Bill, can afford to attend these programs if they leave the military.

In the Army alone, the annual number of fully funded civilian graduate-

school slots for officers dropped from as many as 7,000 in the 1980s to

approximately 600 to 700 today.

Many of the best and brightest know this, and they want the challenge of

going to a top-rated graduate school with others who have survived the

rigorous admissions processes. Once they are admitted, they often find

that the military personnel system will not accommodate their desire to

attend, even though, in many cases, the military wouldn’t have to pay for

it. But the “up or out” system, combined with the need for most to

command in order to advance, means that the service’s personnel officesdo not support this. As a result, many of the best and brightest must leave

the military in order to receive the best graduate education that this

country has to offer.

Decisions surrounding starting a family also play a major role in military-

career choices, especially for women. This choice is a difficult one for

individuals or couples in any setting, but starting a family in the military is

fraught with even greater challenges than most civilians face. Timing

pregnancy and childbirth around operational deployments, the

accessibility of both parents, who may be geographically separated for

child-rearing, and life-and-death risks in training and in combat all factor

into the equation. Both men and women in uniform have increasingly

sought means of scheduling pregnancies around the demands of their

careers. Egg and sperm freezing are not yet commonplace, but

increasingly in demand even though not covered by military health

benefits. The exigencies of wartime, including fertility risks of debilitating

or fatal injuries, have placed an even sharper point on this option.

Having a family while one or both parents are in themilitary—especially mothers—is a Rubik’s Cube of complex orchestration.

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/Parameters/Issues/Summer_2015/10_Spain.pdf

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1188





Dual-career military couples face the most complex minuet of planning

and juggling deployments, other separations, fertility cycles, and the often

highly physical demands of military jobs for both parents. Combine the

occupational uncertainties of military life with the often unpredictable

prospects of conceiving on a set schedule, and having a family while one or

both parents are in the military—especially mothers—is a Rubik’s Cube of

complex orchestration, sometimes with disappointing results. And the

military’s policies on leave and return to duty after childbirth for both

mothers and fathers are less than generous—after six to eight weeks,

mothers are expected to be back at work and doing physical training with

their units.

In sum, the military faces a growing cohort of young men and women

within its ranks who have much different expectations from their Baby

Boomer seniors who now run the services. Cosmetic changes to the

current system—a few pilot programs for sabbaticals, or a handful more

funded graduate programs—are unlikely to meet the lifetime goals thatmany of these young leaders share with their civilian peers. They expect

their lives to have a modicum of stability, protected from constant moves

and job changes. Many of them seek broader opportunities for advanced

civil schooling, and nearly all want to be able to both serve in uniform and

raise a family in a reasonable American lifestyle. They hope to have far

greater input to tailor their career paths more closely to their skills and

interests.

Yet when asked, these same people are fully willing to risk their lives in

combat or dangerous peacetime training—again and again. They fully

understand the unlimited-liability contract under which they serve. They

“get it,” as much as any generation in uniform that has come before them

—and many of them have deployed and fought time and time again. Theysimply want some degree of control over their life and career when not

fighting the nation’s wars overseas—not an unreasonable outlook.

http://www.cnas.org/battlefields-and-boardrooms#.Vh0SdBNViko





* * *

Jost returned from his second tour in Afghanistan and ran directly into the

unbending demands of the Army’s officer personnel system. During his

tour in Kabul, he sought career advice from both his Navy admiral and an

Army general on the NATO staff. He said that they were thoughtful,

candid, and willing to help him assess options in and out of uniform. But

his assignment manager back home gave him only one option, insisting

that he must go to his captain’s career course and return to being a staff-

intelligence officer in a garrison in order to continue to serve. Jost

mentioned that he was considering leaving the military after his next

assignment, when his service obligation would be complete. Heremembers being told in essence, “If you’re getting out [of the Army],

you’re getting the bottom of the barrel picks for your next assignment. You

need to think seriously about this.”

Anxious to avoid a garrison assignment, Jost attempted to waive his dwell

time again and volunteered to deploy with a special-operations unit

looking for an intelligence officer. He flew to Georgia for the job interview,

and was accepted. But the lieutenant colonel in charge of personnel for his

branch killed that option. He was going to the career course, or else.

Resigned, Jost spent six months at the Army’s Intelligence School in

Arizona, and began to negotiate for his next job. Since he had already

served as a staff intelligence officer while deployed, he requestedassignment as a company commander. But his assignments officer was

reluctant to accept even such a minor deviation from the approved career

path. Frustrated by the system, Jost sought help from a network of alumni

from the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. After an in-person

intervention by his future boss, he finally landed a job commanding a

cyber-warfare unit at Fort Meade, Maryland, where the military’s top

cyber warriors are located. Although far from his areas of previous

expertise and deployed experience, Jost enjoyed the opportunity.





But he knew he was nearing the time to make a major life decision: stay in

the military and continue the uphill battle of obtaining permission from

personnel officers at every career juncture, or find a different path.

Building the Force of the Future

In late April, work on Carter’s initiative to find, get, and keep the best

talent in the military, the Force of the Future, began in earnest. At its helm

was Brad Carson, who became the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for

Personnel and Readiness just three days after Carter’s speech. A

softspoken Rhodes scholar and lawyer from Oklahoma in his late 40s who

wears cowboy boots with his suits, Carson honed his political skills as amember of Congress from 2001 to 2005. He later served as the chief

executive officer of Cherokee Nation Businesses, and as a professor of

business law at the University of Tulsa. He also served on active duty in

Iraq for most of 2009, in an extremely unusual position for a U.S. Navy

intelligence officer—embedded with a U.S. Army explosive ordnance unit,

responsible for identifying and dismantling the homemade bombs thatwere killing so many U.S. military personnel and Iraqi civilians.

Carson returned to Washington in 2012, serving as the Army’s top lawyer

and then as the Undersecretary of the Army before assuming his current

office. He is the ninth person to hold his job in the past six and a half years,

a rate of turnover that has diminished its effectiveness. But unlike any of

his predecessors, Carson possessed a clear mandate for change from the

defense secretary himself.

http://www.defenseone.com/management/2015/04/pentagon-says-man-can-fix-its-personnel-system/110218/

http://www.defense.gov/About-DoD/Biographies/Article/602688





He soon turned full-time to the all-consuming initiative. His small staff

worked around the clock from a cramped office space on the Pentagon’s E-Ring. By early summer, inflatable air mattresses started appearing under

many of their desks.

From the earliest stages, Carson tried to build consensus. He recognized

that every service would ultimately have to buy into the final proposal—or

at least not violently object. Otherwise, any prospects of its eventual

implementation, even if signed out by the defense secretary, would be

grim. A thick report gathering dust on the shelves of bored Pentagon staff

officers would be the definition of mission failure—an outcome he wanted

to avoid.

Carson reached out far beyond the service staffs and their personnel

specialists. He met repeatedly with the uniformed-service chiefs and their

principal deputies, journeyed to Capitol Hill to meet with staff and

members, and made the rounds of think tanks across Washington.

Carson’s team examined best practices from the private sector on

everything from family leave to incentives, and from flexible workplace

environments to advanced education and professional development. His

speeches on the subject emphasized the need for change—and the cost of

doing nothing. He convened senior-level working groups with

representatives of all the services to look at options and propose new ideas,

Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaks at a Pentagon news conference in May 2015. (Yuri Gripas /

Reuters)





unconstrained by conventional thinking. At Carter’s direction, Carson’s

team examined the civilian personnel system within the Department of

Defense as well as the military personnel system. Scores of meetings

unfolded over the following months.

Although the final recommendations have not been made public yet, an

earlier draft of the report was obtained by several media outlets.

According to press reports, the report is likely to include the following

reforms:

Replacing “up or out” with performance criteria. Officers would

no longer be held to rigid promotion timelines and forced to compete

with other officers who happened to join the military the same year

that they did. Instead, they would compete for promotion after

meeting established performance standards. Not only would this

enable officers far more flexibility in managing their careers, but it

would also restore the original purpose of the rank system—to

provide capable individuals with the authority necessary to execute

their responsibilities.

Increasing “permeability.” Policy changes here would make it far

easier for military personnel to shift between the active and reserve

components of each service, or to choose to work as a DOD civilian.

Officers would also be able to step out of DOD entirely—into the

private sector or other parts of the government—while retaining an

option to return to the military at a later time. Such moves in and out

of uniform would be considered normal and seen as a routine career-

development step. This would not only help retain some people that

would otherwise leave, but DOD and the services would also benefit

from having more officers with a broader set of skills and experiences

as they face an increasingly diverse and interconnected world.

Establishing a technical, or enterprise, career track. Requiring allofficers to command at ever-higher levels in order to remain

competitive for promotion wastes a great deal of human talent—

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/careers/2015/08/28/force-future-report-ash-carter-review/32476549/

http://www.stripes.com/news/us/force-of-future-to-reward-talent-diversity-motherhood-1.362717





especially since most generals and admirals serve in institutional and

staff leadership positions rather than in operational-command

positions. Officers would be separated into two parallel career tracks:

a command track, whose milestones and performance criteria would

remain similar to the current system, and an enterprise track that

would enable officers to develop continuity and expertise in

specialized areas throughout their careers. Officers choosing the

enterprise track might forfeit the opportunity to command troops, but

in exchange they would have viable promotion paths up to the most

senior levels in their areas of expertise. Of equal value, many of these

officers could stay on for much longer duration in positions of senior

institutional management for which they have been expressly

prepared.

Expanding civilian schooling. Although the number of officers with

advanced degrees continues to grow, the vast majority of those

degrees are now being granted by military institutions. Those

programs are often less rigorous than their civilian counterparts, and

do not provide the broadening intellectual experience that comes

from sitting in a classroom with students from truly diverse

backgrounds. (This also deprives civilian students from having a

military perspective in their classrooms, which only exacerbates the

increasing civil-military divide.) DOD could change this balance by

requiring that degrees from civilian institutions constitute a set

percentage of all advanced degrees earned by personnel within eachservice.

Improving parental leave and other family policies. In July,

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced that maternity leave for

women in the Navy and the Marine Corps would triple, from six to 18

weeks—a number deliberately chosen to match what Google offers.

The report will probably recommend making that the new standardacross all of the services, and may also increase the amount of leave

available to other new parents (regardless of gender). It could also

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/08/06/maternity-leave-navy-sailors/31211055/

http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/2015/07/02/navy-secretary-ray-mabus-maternity-leave-18-weeks/29625963/

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=87987

http://warontherocks.com/2015/07/when-the-yellow-ribbons-fade-reconnecting-our-soldiers-and-citizens/





address some of the other challenges facing military parents, such as

the fact that many military day-care centers are closed during the

early morning and later evening hours when some service members

are required to work.

Turning the Force of the Future Into Reality

The Force of the Future initiative faces a long uphill battle to adoption and

implementation, even though Carter has made this issue one of his highest

priorities. Many recommendations have already encountered some stiff

bureaucratic and cultural resistance as they work their way through the

Pentagon. Some of the most important reform ideas will requirecongressional action (such as revising the “up or out” promotion system

enshrined in DOPMA). But these are also some of the most controversial,

which means that parts of this battle will play out in the public square.

Other actions fall within Carter’s purview, and require changes he can

make unilaterally to policy or regulations. His personnel and readiness

office, led by Carson, could be charged to enact and follow up on a sizable

number of the initiatives that it drafted. The military services also hold

great authority to enact sweeping personnel changes. The service

secretaries, in concert with their uniformed service chiefs, can readily

adjust personnel practices unique to the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and

Air Force populations.

Yet perhaps the greatest challenge facing the Force of the Future is that its

proposals will fundamentally confront a deep-rooted culture where “one

size fits all”—an approach that the bureaucratic guardians of the half-

century-old military personnel system have long seen as adequate to any

demand. Many of these entrenched personnel bureaucrats have served for

decades, combining time in uniform with subsequent careers as civilian

officials in the services’ Pentagon personnel offices. They have great pride

of ownership in today’s structure: For years, they have adjusted the

http://www.cnas.org/battlefields-and-boardrooms#.ViE8GhCrSfQ





current system with literally tens of thousands of ad hoc modifications.

And to be fair, the current system has survived the greatest test to date of

the all-volunteer-force: nearly 15 years fighting two sizable, prolonged

wars overseas.

These civilian skeptics are quietly joined by some in the senior ranks of

each service who are very comfortable with the system that groomed and

selected them for positions of high rank. Implicitly, they are satisfied with

the quality of the officer corps because they are that quality. Lesser men

and women fell by the wayside. Those that left the military either didn’t

have the “right stuff” to gut out the hard years and stay for the long haul,

or the system deliberately and effectively eliminated them. The military,in this line of reasoning, has always had enough great people, and no

exodus of this generation’s bright young men and women will change that.

Overcoming the bureaucratic resistance from thoseunable to imagine the military of tomorrow

remains Carter’s toughest fight.

Many people in the Pentagon and beyond are skeptical about the Force of

the Future.

They note that the current system has been tested in war and

peace, and delivered a professional and dedicated military leadership that

remains the envy of militaries around the globe. The system put in place

after World War II and subsequently modified, has largely kept the officercorps young and vibrant, and weeded out those staying beyond their

ability to perform. “Up or out” has done just that—removed those

incapable of performing at the next level while promoting those who can

excel. Critics also argue that the military ultimately only needs to select a

few hundred generals and admirals from among a very competitive bench

of thousands of strong performers who have proven themselves overdecades of experience. Nothing in the current system, in their view,

suggests that this process is failing.





The skeptics also correctly argue that an effective military can never be

overly focused on meeting the needs of the individual in a world where the

performance of the organization—the team—matters most. The military

personnel system must be designed first and foremost to meet the needs of

the service, not those of the individual member. “Selfless service” is a

value widely revered throughout the military. Those concerned about the

proposed changes to the current system are also wary of upending decades

of predictability in promotions, pay, and the well-known “gates” that must

be met in order to advance through a well-defined process. They argue

that disrupting these proven incentives could have entirely unforeseen

second-order effects on performance, retention, and quality of leaders

navigating a largely new and unproven system.

Yet simply surviving the challenges of yesterday or even those of today

with the current system is no longer enough. In a world of exponential

change, leap-ahead technologies, and a generation entering the military

comfortable with both, a World War II-based personnel system at some

point will simply be unable to provide a military force that is prepared todeal with the challenges of the future. But overcoming the bureaucratic

resistance from those unable to imagine the military of tomorrow remains

Carter and Carson’s toughest fight. Military leaders are famously

conservative, rightfully protective of the values, history, and traditions of

the services they manage. But the current and future security

environments demand flexibility and agility in attracting and retaining

top-notch people just as much as they do in conducting effective military

operations.

* * *

Tyler Jost couldn’t make it work. He was going to get out of the Army.

While in company command at Fort Meade, Jost had applied and been

accepted to Harvard’s Ph.D. program in government, where he could

return to his studies of China and foreign policy that he had started at





West Point. He was unconvinced that the Army would be willing or able to

support his long-term goals—to use his language skills, interests, and

experience—while remaining competitive for promotion.

His nascent military career was over. After company command in a cyber

unit, a graduate degree from London’s School of Advanced Oriental

Studies, two tours in Afghanistan, and more than a passing fluency in

Mandarin, Jost was getting out. To help design his own career. To find a

way contribute in some unique ways—and in ways that many civilians his

age were already doing.

Jost is keen to dispel the notion that he is somehow special, or that the

Army owed him or his peers some special considerations. He sees himself

as no more talented or skilled than a wide range of his peers. And he

knows that the Army has many positions to fill—some desirable and others

less so. But he remains unsettled by the indifference that both he and

Tyler Jost at a change-of-command ceremony in 2014 (Courtesy of Tyler Jost)





many of his friends now out of the Army encountered in dealing with a

personnel system that lacks sufficient focus on individuals. He said that

among those who have already left the Army, “I know perhaps 10 to 15

peers I felt would have made tremendous general officers. I don’t want to

speak for them, but across the board there was deep-seated frustration

with the bureaucracy of the assignments process, the way the Army

mismanages talent.”

* * *

Katey van Dam did not want to leave the Marine Corps.

Many of her mentors tried to talk her out of it. Van Dam said that her

commanding officer at The Basic School, a leader she respected deeply,

“sat me down on more than one occasion and said, ‘Don’t leave the

Marine Corps.’ To have somebody that I respect so much say that, it

certainly made me think twice about it—probably more than twice.”

But there was simply no way for her to grow further, have diverse job

experiences, and advance her education at the same time if she didn’t

leave. The Marine career path for aviators was far too rigid; she would

have to get back into the cockpit soon, or not be competitive for

promotion.

Grad school was a distant and far from assured prospect many years down

the road—and even then not until after command as a lieutenant colonel if she made it through all the wickets to get to that pinnacle. And her clock to

start a family with her husband David—now a civilian—was also ticking.

By now, van Dam could see the direction her future was headed. She said,

“Since I first decided I wanted to be a Marine, I wanted to be on the

ground and it was limited by my sex.” She was barred from Marine ground

combat positions, even as a forward air controller (FAC) supporting the

infantry—a job she thought would be “the coolest thing in the world.” But

her options were flying jobs alternating with staff assignments,





indefinitely. “I just saw my experiences repeating themselves over the

next 10, 15, 20 years. But there are lots of opportunities as a civilian to do

something high speed. I wasn’t going to be able to do that in the Marine

Corps. I want to do everything and couldn’t do that being a pilot.”

If the best military in the world doesn’t care whether it will be led by the best people in the world, something is fundamentally wrong.

After months of agonizing, van Dam decided to leave the active-duty

Marine Corps and pursue graduate school and seek other more flexiblecareer options. She remains in the Marine Corps reserve—ironically, now

as a civil-affairs officer rather than a pilot. It was a very tough decision.

She worried about disappointing her many mentors and bosses—all men—

and she knew she would no longer be a role model for younger female

Marines. She said, “That’s a huge weight I have to carry getting out of the

Marine Corps. That I won’t be that for somebody.” But a career as aMarine Corps pilot with so many continuing constraints was just too

limiting.

Stanching the Bleeding

Unfortunately, proving a counter-factual is impossible. There is no way to

prove that the loss of the Tyler Josts and Katey van Dams of the world, oreven hundreds of officers like them, will have measurable effects that may

harm the military of the future. The military does not even attempt to

measure the “quality”—by any definition—of those that are leaving, or

have already gone. That alone should be deeply unsettling to American

taxpayers who are spending substantial tax dollars to produce what is

advertised rightly as “the best military in the world.” If the best military inthe world doesn’t care whether it will be led by the best people in the

world, something is fundamentally wrong.





For the first time in nearly five decades, the U.S. military may

fundamentally alter the way it recruits, trains, and retains its talent.

Getting this right may be the most important legacy not just for Carter, but

for every service chief embarking on his four-year tenure. Leadership and

people are the real advantages that the U.S. military will bring to the future

battlefield—superior technology can be stolen or neutralized, brilliant

operating concepts outflanked, and unexpected surprises at hand around

every corner of the next conflict. The margin of victory for the United

States will often be decided by whether it has the smartest, most capable,

most dedicated people the nation has to offer on the battlefield.

The stakes here are enormous: They involve nothing less than the abilityof the military to prevail in future conflicts. The military has long

acknowledged that people are its most valuable resource, far more than

weapons and technology. And the unpredictable and complex nature of

future warfare make that truer than ever.

The stories of Jost and van Dam represent a dangerous trend for the U.S.

military. It cannot afford to continue bleeding promising talent like theirs

without putting its future in jeopardy.

Related Video

http://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-Talent-Military-Mismanages-Revolution/dp/0230391273/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441726964&sr=8-1&keywords=bleeding+talent




The F-35 fighter jet was supposed to do everything. Instead, it can barely do anything..

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S

DAVID BARNO is a retired lieutenant general of the United States Army, a distinguished

practitioner in residence at American University's School of International Service, and a

nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

NORA BENSAHEL is a distinguished scholar in residence at American University's School of

International Service and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

http://www.theatlantic.com/author/nora-bensahel/

http://www.theatlantic.com/author/david-barno/

Documents

The 'Force of the Future' and the Fate of the United States Military - The Atlantic