Comment by fishmicrowaver
4 days ago
Reminds me of the military. Senior leaders often have no real idea of what is happening on the ground because the information funneled upward doesn't fit into painting a rosy report. The middle officer ranks don't want to know the truth because it impacts their careers. How can executives even hope to lead their organizations this way?
By not relying on direct reports for all their information.
Well the US has lost every military conflict it's entered for the past 70 years. Since there's been no internal pressure to change methodology, maybe the US military doesn't view winning as necessary.
Those past 70 years weren't about winning. It was about making sure the enemies lost more out of it. The US is large and relatively stable and hasn't had to face extended war on its soil since the Civil War 170 years ago. There's no true skin in the game for those who start these wars.
Which is a good strategy, but do you think the afghans lost more than 2 trillion dollars?
"The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina"
170 years ago is 1855.
> Well the US has lost every military conflict it's entered for the past 70 years.
Operation Just Cause? Desert Storm?
And, depending on how you look at it, the US won the war in Afghanistan and Irak, but lost the peace afterwards.
Those might be the only ones? Desert Storm being the one that I'd probably call out, Just Cause was just so small.
One minor win, every major operation being a loss doesn't change the conclusion though imo.
I think it's also instructive to look at each of these operations and note that the two that were won were small, had clear objectives, and were executed quickly to meet those objectives and had no scope creep.
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