It’s the Army, not a Business
In the 1960s and at the height of the Viet Nam War, the US Secretary of Defense was Robert McNamara. Originally put in place by President Kennedy, Secretary McNamara held that post or a very long time, longer than anyone else, resigning in 1967 and eventually leaving the Pentagon in 1968 to become the President of the World Bank.
Robert Strange McNamara was one of the original “Whiz Kids” at Ford Motor Company. The “Whiz Kids” were a group of WWII veterans hired by Henry Ford II to focus on data analysis and metrics for business decisions. McNamara eventually rose to become President of FMC before President Kennedy offered him the SECDEF position. He never lost his love for data analysis when he left Ford.
McNamara left behind a lot of different legacies from his time in the “big office” at the Pentagon, including his love for data and metrics. He was big into counterinsurgency and slow escalation of force. He was all about efficiencies within the Department of Defense, often spanning across branches. He had a reputation as a micromanager and a snob, often looking down on politicians as if they were “beneath” him. One thing he never was very much known for… running the department of defense as if it was a business.
Newsflash: It’s not a business.
The DoD, and the military branches are bureaucratic. They are large. They are cumbersome. The have a lot of functions common with large corporations including personnel management, funding, research and development, equipment fielding, problem solving, and logistics. They are NOT businesses.
You can analyze efficiencies. You can set metrics. You can put goals in place. You can control spending. But they are still not businesses. McNamara never came to terms with that. You can look up some of his bigger failings in the application of business practices in the Pentagon. It’s all there in the history books.
When I retired from the Army, I realized very quickly why businesses and the military cannot be run the same. First, the military has no “bottom line” or a viable Profit and Loss statement to gauge success or failure. There is no “income” to validate the money being spent. No one actually manages a “budget” in the military. They manage a spending plan. It is all loss and no profit. Second, mission success is the focus but that cannot always be measured. In fact, the military has tried over and over to put measurable metrics in place to validate mission success or failure. More often than not, those metrics are misguided and cannot achieve the clarity leaders desire.
Lastly, in the military, people are the BIGGEST investment. It isn’t processes. It isn’t equipment. It is the people. The investment is time and money and effort. The military has no single asset more valuable than the people within. A lot of businesses may claim that, and they may even believe it, but none of them invest in people the way the military does. Clothing. Equipment. Housing. Education. Food. Wages. Find me any corporation that invests ALL of that in their people like the military does. It isn’t out there.
You would think, sixty odd years later, DoD leadership would finally understand how misguided McNamara was and how you cannot run the Department or any of the branches like a business. Yet, here we are.
The current Secretary of the Army is doing exactly that.
Secretary Dan Driscoll, like McNamara, is a veteran. He served for a few years as a very junior officer including a 9-month tour in Iraq. Once he got out, he went to Yale Law School and become a lawyer, adding the JD to a bachelor’s in business administration. Did I mention he was classmates with former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Vice President Vance at Yale? Coincidental, I’m sure. After law school, he became a politician. Then President Trump made him SECARMY. In an unprecedented move, he also handed him the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
Yes, he is SECARMY and the Director of the ATF. At the same time.
Since assuming the office in the Army hallway at the Pentagon, Secretary Driscoll has been following in the footsteps of Robert McNamara, finding all the economic and procedural “inefficiencies” he can and either dismantling or canceling them.
I know he is following the example set by Elon Musk and DOGE, as directed by President Trump. I know he is following the example and guidance of SECDEF Hegseth. I know “cost cutting” is high on everyone’s to-do list.
But this isn’t a business and the effort to make the Army look and act and function like a major corporation is destined to do significant damage that may take decades to undo. Don’t get me wrong, I spent over twenty-five years in the Army, and I know very well how much time, effort, energy, and money is wasted down at the lowest levels. I understand it is exacerbated at the highest levels. I get it, believe me.
What I don’t get are the decisions like bringing in business and tech leaders to advise on running the Army. I don’t understand cutting professional education for non-commissioned officers in a “slash and burn” method. I don’t get disbanding the entirety of the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army program. I don’t get cutting projects focused on future combat system development like the Fast Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft while cutting the turbine engine improvement project for current helicopters at the same time. I don’t get cutting the Stryker, Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, and Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle while we have NO replacements for them. And simultaneously continuing the purchase of the new service rifle, pistol, and light machine gun while there is evidence they all have significant performance issues.
None of it makes sense. And it makes EVEN LESS sense when the messaging from the SECARMY office is focused on the Army Transformation Initiative that is built “to reduce redundancies and inefficiencies”.
Reduce redundancies and efficiencies. Sounds familiar. Maybe like McNamara in the 1960s. Running DoD like a business. And failing.
I have great fear for the future of our Army. I fear for the people who serve. I fear we have not learned the lessons of years past. I fear our Army will look like the one from 1974. That Army is the one where every bad decision made by McNamara had come to fruition. I fear that is where we are headed with this SECARMY.
Someone, for the love of God, please tell him It’s the Army, not a Business.