You mistake what's going on. This is merely a top-level, visible sign of something that's been pervading military, especially Army, doctrine for a long time. The important thing isn't the conclusions -- they are there merely as a vehicle for the critique.

This is an Army in which everybody, including the lowest-ranking private, is required to turn in an After Action Report describing what went right and what went wrong, and is taught to make that as dispassionate as possible. If such a report says the General screwed up, the General will take it seriously (though not as Gospel) -- and somebody will be by either to tell the private he was right, or to explain to him how to make a better judgement next time.

And if the private is the one who fouled up, that error will be treated as an error, and he will be counseled as to how to do better the next time a similar situation comes up rather than "called on the carpet" and chewed out.

The result is incredible flexibility and the ability to respond to new situations with unbelievable speed. There's no guarantee they can keep the system honest, but as long as they do it's the best weapon in the arsenal.

Regards,
Ric

After fighting the Americans in North Africa, Rommel said that he'd never seen an Army so badly trained, or one that learned so fast.

You mistake something that has always been true of the armies of the republic for an innovation.

We're the Athenians and thus awesome in a completely different way than the Spartans.

Oj's right, the U.S. is much better off with a small standing army/navy and then just build the state of the art whenever we need it.

It ain't the nineteenth century any more. It ain't just guts and a minie-ball. It takes a little bit more than six months to learn to fly an F/A 18 or to learn to work in concert properly when all heck is flying past your ears.

We are out in the world, big time, and that takes a lot of training and a lot of thought.

See William Eaton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Eaton

Pilots are a mistake.