7 blunders that will always haunt India

No 1: The Kashmir Mess 

Major General Mrinal Suman

History is most unforgiving. As historical mistakes cannot be undone, they have complex cascading effect on a nation's future. Here are seven historical blunders that have changed the course of independent India's history and cast a dark shadow over its future. These costly mistakes will continue to haunt India for generations. They have been recounted here in a chronological order with a view to highlight the inadequacies of India's decision-making apparatus and the leadership's incompetence to act with vision.

There can be no better example of shooting one's own foot than India's clumsy handling of the Kashmir issue. It is a saga of naivety, blinkered vision and inept leadership. 

Hari Singh was the reigning monarch of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947. He was vacillating when tribal marauders invaded Kashmir in October 1947, duly backed by the Pakistan army. Unable to counter them, Hari Singh appealed to India for assistance and agreed to accede to India. Indian forces blunted the invasion and re-conquered vast areas.

First, India erred by not insisting on unequivocal accession of the state to the Dominion of India and granted special status to it through Article 380 of the Constitution. Secondly, when on the verge of evicting all invaders and recapturing the complete state, India halted operations on 1 January 1949 and appealed to the Security Council. It is the only case in known history wherein a country, when on the threshold of complete victory, has voluntarily forsaken it in the misplaced hope of winning admiration of the world community. Thirdly and most shockingly, the Indian leadership made a highly unconstitutional offer of plebiscite in the UN.

Forty percent area of the state continues to be under Pakistan's control, providing it a strategic land route to China through the Karakoram ranges. As a fall out of the unresolved dispute, India and Pakistan have fought numerous wars and skirmishes with no solution in sight. Worse, the local politicians are holding India to ransom by playing the Pak card. Kashmir issue is a self-created cancerous furuncle that defies all medications and continues to bleed the country.

 

No 2: Ignoring Chinese Threats and Neglecting the Military

Memories of the year 1962 will always trouble the Indian psyche. A nation of India's size had lulled itself into believing that its protestations and platitudes of peaceful co-existence would be reciprocated by the world. It was often stated that a peace-loving nation like India did not need military at all. The armed forces were neglected. The political leadership took pride in denigrating the military leadership and meddled in internal affairs of the services to promote sycophancy. Foreign policy was in shambles. The intelligence apparatus was rusty.

Even though signs of China's aggressive intentions were clearly discernible for years in advance, the Indian leadership decided to keep its eyes shut in the fond hope that the problem would resolve itself. When China struck, the country was caught totally unprepared. Troops were rushed to snowbound areas with summer clothing and outdated rifles. Despite numerous sagas of gallantry, the country suffered terrible embarrassment. India was on its knees. With the national morale and pride in tatters, India was forced to appeal to all nations for military aid. Inept and incompetent leadership had forced a proud nation to find solace in Lata Mangeshkar'sAe Mere Watan Ke Logo.

 

No 3: The Tashkent Agreement and Return of Haji Pir Pass

Following the cease-fire after the Indo-Pak War of 1965, a Russian-sponsored agreement was signed between India and Pakistan in Tashkent on 10 January 1966. Under the agreement, India agreed to return the strategic Haji Pir pass to Pakistan which it had captured in August 1965 against heavy odds and at a huge human cost. The pass connects Poonch and Uri sectors in Jammu and Kashmir and reduces the distance between the two sectors to 15 km whereas the alternate route entails a travel of over 200 km. India got nothing in return except an undertaking by Pakistan to abjure war, an undertaking which meant little as Pakistan never had any intention of honouring it.

Return of the vital Haji Pir pass was a mistake of monumental proportions for which India is suffering to date. In addition to denying a direct link between Poonch and Uri sectors, the pass is being effectively used by Pakistan to sponsor infiltration of terrorists into India. Inability to resist Russian pressure was a manifestation of the spineless Indian foreign policy and shortsighted leadership.

 

No 4: The Simla Agreement

With the fall of Dhaka on 16 December 1971, India had scored a decisive victory over Pakistan. Over 96,000 Pak soldiers were taken Prisoners of War (PoWs). Later, an agreement was signed between the two countries on 2 July 1972 at Shimla. Both countries agreed to exchange all PoWs, respect the line of control (LOC) in Jammu and Kashmir and refrain from the use of threat or force. Additionally, Bhutto gave a solemn verbal undertaking to accept LOC as the de facto border.

India released all Pak PoWs in good faith. Pakistan, on the other hand, released only 617 Indian PoWs while holding back 54 PoWs who are still languishing in Pakistani jails. The Indian Government has admitted this fact a number of times but has failed to secure their release. India failed to use the leverage of 96,000 Pak PoWs to discipline Pakistan. A rare opportunity was thus wasted. Forget establishing permanent peace in the sub-continent, India failed to ensure release of all Indian PoWs - a criminal omission by all accounts.

The naivety of the Indian delegation can be seen from the fact that it allowed Pakistan to bluff its way through at Shimla. The Indian leadership was fooled into believing Pakistan's sincerity. Unquestionably, Pakistan never intended to abide by its promises, both written and verbal. Fruits of a hard-fought victory in the battlefield were frittered away on the negotiating table by the bungling leadership.

 

No. 5: The Nuclear Muddle

Subsequent to the Chinese Nuclear Test at Lop Nor in 1964, India showed rare courage in carrying out its first nuclear test on 18 May 1974 at Pokharan. Outside the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, India was the only nation to prove its nuclear capability. The whole country was ecstatic and every Indian felt proud of its scientific prowess. But Indians had not contended with their Government's penchant for converting opportunity into adversity and squandering hard-earned gains.

Instead of asserting India's newly acquired status of a nuclear power and demanding recognition, India turned apologetic and tried to convince the world that it had no nuclear ambitions. Strangely, it termed the Pokharan test as a 'peaceful nuclear explosion' - a term unheard of till then. The Defence Minister went to the extent of claiming that the Indian nuclear experiment was 'only for mining, oil and gas prospecting, for finding underground sources of water, for diverting rivers, for scientific and technological knowledge.' It was a self-deprecating stance. Displaying acute inferiority complex, India did not want to be counted as a member of the exclusive nuclear club.

Criticism and sanctions were expected and must have been factored in before opting for the nuclear test. Whereas a few more assertive follow-on tests would have forced the world to accept India as a member of the nuclear club, India went into an overdrive to placate the world through a self-imposed moratorium on further testing. It lost out on all the advantages provided to it by its scientists. It suffered sanctions and yet failed to gain recognition as a nuclear power. The country missed golden opportunities due to the timidity and spinelessness of its leaders.

 

No 6: The Kandahar hijacking

The hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar by Pakistani terrorists in December 1999 will continue to rile India's self-respect for long. According to the Hindustan Times, India lost face and got reduced to begging for co-operation from the very regimes that were actively undermining its internal security. The hijacking revealed how ill-prepared India was to face up to the challenges of international terrorism.

The eight-day long ordeal ended only after India's National Security Adviser brazenly announced that an agreement had been reached for the release of all the hostages in exchange for three Kashmiri militants including Maulana Masood Azhar. Sadly, the Prime Minister claimed credit for forcing the hijackers to climb down on their demands. The worst was yet to follow. India's Foreign Minister decided to accompany the released militants to Kandahar, as if seeing off honoured guests.

The government's poor crisis-management skills and extreme complacency in security matters allowed the hijackers to take off from Amritsar airport after 39 minutes halt for refueling, thereby letting the problem get out of control. India's much-vaunted decision-making apparatus collapsed and was completely paralysed by the audacity of a bunch of motivated fanatics. It was a comprehensive failure of monumental proportions. India's slack and amateurish functioning made the country earn the tag of a soft nation which it will find very difficult to shed.

 

No 7: Illegal Immigration and Passage of IMDT Act

It is a standard practice all over the world that the burden of proving one's status as a bonafide citizen of a country falls on the accused. It is so for India as well under Foreigners Act, 1946. Political expediency forced the Government to make an exception for Assam. In one of the most short-sighted and anti-national moves, India passed the Illegal Migrants - Determination by Tribunals (IMDT) Act of 1984 for Assam. It shifted the onus of proving the illegal status of a suspected immigrant on to the accuser, which was a tall and virtually impossible order. Detection and deportation of illegal immigrants became impossible.

Whenever demands were raised for repealing the Act, the Congress, the Left Front and the United Minorities Front resisted strongly. Illegal immigrants had become the most loyal vote bank of the Congress. Worse, every protest against the Act was dubbed as 'anti-minority', thereby imparting communal colour to an issue of national security. The government's 'pardon' of all Bangladeshis who had come in before 1985 was another unconstitutional act that aggravated the problem.

The Act was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on July 13, 2005, more than 20 years after its enactment. The Apex Court was of the view that the influx of Bangladeshi nationals into Assam posed a threat to the integrity and security of northeastern region. Unfortunately, immense damage had already been done to the demography of Assam and the local people of Assam had been reduced to minority status in certain districts. Illegal immigrants have come to have a stranglehold over electioneering to the extent that no party can hope to come to power without their support. Nearly 30 Islamic groups are thriving in the area to further their Islamist and Pan-Bangladesh agenda. It is incomprehensible that a nation's leadership can stoop so low and endanger even national security for garnering votes.

 

Are we any wiser today?

Two features are common to all the above mentioned blunders. 

First, all decisions were taken by the political leadership and the bureaucracy. The military leadership was neither taken into confidence nor consulted. As a matter of fact, it was deliberately kept out of the decision-making loop. Although the military is entrusted with the main role in maintaining India's nuclear prowess, it was not considered necessary to take it it into confidence while taking decisions of strategic proportions.

Both Tashkent and Shimla Agreements were preceded by bitterly-fought wars. They entailed negotiating the extent, scope and modalities of withdrawal from occupied areas. Even then, no need was felt to seek military advice and no service officer was included in the Indian delegations. Political leaders and the bureaucracy abrogated the right to negotiate military matters in the egoistic belief that they were more qualified for the task. The results were disastrous, as mentioned above.

The second common feature is that no political leader or bureaucrat was ever held accountable for monumental blunders made by them. On the contrary, every single bureaucrat made it to the higher grades and was even given lucrative post-retirement appointments. 

It is an obnoxious sight to see the men guilty of the above blunders masquerading as foreign policy experts on TV shows and unabashedly offering their pearls of wisdom.

The above mentioned seven indefensible blunders have had an enormous impact on the security, standing and history of India. 

Future generations will rue the fact that the Indian leadership failed the nation at critical junctures due to their incompetence, ineptitude and selfish interests. Their proclivity for perpetuating personal power made them shortsighted and egocentric. But for the historical blunders, the current Indian geo-political scenario would have been totally different.

Has India learnt any lesson?

Unfortunately, none whatsoever. 

Even now, the military leadership is consciously and willfully kept out of all decision-making processes. 

Even issues that affect security of the nation are decided by the bureaucrats who do not possess even elementary knowledge of military matters. 

It is only in India that well-connected, retired bureaucrats are offered membership of the National Security Council (NSC) as a rehabilitation measure. Merit and expertise are of little consequence. 

Further, India is perhaps the only country in the world wherein NSC does not have a single military member. Bureaucrats and ex-police officers have made NSC their exclusive domain, thereby depriving the nation of expert military advice.

Such recurring blunders will continue to cost the country dear.

 

Major General Mrinal Suman, AVSM, VSM, PhD, commanded an Engineer Regiment on the Siachen Glacier, the most hostile battlefield in the world. A highly qualified officer (B Tech, MA (Public Administration), MSc (Defence Studies) and a Doctorate in Public Administration) he was also the Task Force Commander at Pokhran and was responsible for designing and sinking shafts for the nuclear tests of May 1998.

Listen with Care

A teacher teaching Maths to five-year-old student asked him, "If I give you one apple and one apple and one apple, how many apples will you have? "Within a few seconds the student replied confidently, "Four!"

 

The dismayed teacher was expecting an effortless correct answer (three). She was disappointed. "Maybe the child did not listen properly," she thought. She repeated, "My boy, listen carefully. If I give you one apple and one apple and one apple, how many apples will you have?"

 

The student had seen the disappointment on his teacher's face. He calculated again on his fingers. But within him he was also searching for the answer that will make the teacher happy. His search for the answer was not for the correct one, but the one that will make his teacher happy. This time hesitatingly he replied, "Four…"

 

The disappointment stayed on the teacher's face. She remembered that this student liked strawberries. She thought maybe he doesn't like apples and that is making him loose focus. This time with an exaggerated excitement and twinkling in her eyes she asked, "If I give you one strawberry and one strawberry and one strawberry, then how many you will have?"

 

Seeing the teacher happy, the boy calculated on his fingers again. There was no pressure on him, but a little on the teacher. She wanted her new approach to succeed. With a hesitating smile the student enquired, "Three?"

 

The teacher now had a victorious smile. Her approach had succeeded. She wanted to congratulate herself. But one last thing remained. Once again she asked him, "Now if I give you one apple and one apple and one more apple how many will you have?"

 

Promptly the student answered, "Four!"

 

The teacher was aghast. "How my boy, how?" she demanded in a little stern and irritated voice. In a voice that was low and hesitating young student replied, "Because I already have one apple in my bag."

 

 

Moral of the Story:

 

When someone gives you an answer that is different from what you expect, don't think they are wrong. There maybe an angle that you have not understood at all. You will have to listen and understand, but never listen with a predetermined notion

God and Science

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty. He asks one of his new students to stand and..... Prof: So you believe in God? Student: Absolutely, sir. Prof : Is God good? Student: Sure. Prof: Is God all-powerful? Student : Yes. Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then? Hmm? (Student is silent.) Prof: You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?

Student:

Yes.

Prof:

Is Satan good?

Student

: No.

Prof:
Where does Satan come from?

Student:

From...God...

Prof:
That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student:

Yes.

Prof:
Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?

Student:

Yes.

Prof:

So who created evil?

(Student does not answer.)

Prof:
Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?

Student:

Yes, sir.

Prof:

So, who created them?

(Student has no answer.)

Prof:
Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you.
Tell me, son...Have you ever

seen God?

Student:

No, sir.

Prof:
Tell us if you have ever heard your God?

Student:

No, sir.

Prof:
Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?

Student:
No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.

Prof:
Yet you still believe in Him?

Student:

Yes.

Prof:
According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your GOD doesn't exist.
What do you say to that, son?

Student:
Nothing. I only have my faith.

Prof:
Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.

Student:
Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Prof:

Yes.

Student:
And is there such a thing as cold?

Prof:

Yes.

Student:
No sir. There isn't.
(The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student
: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat.
But we don't have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go

any further after that.
There is no such thing as cold . Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of

heat
. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy . Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it .
(There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre..)

Student:
What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Prof:
Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?

Student :
You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright
light, flashing light....But if
you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? In
reality, darkness isn't. If it were you would be able to make
darkness darker, wouldn't you?

Prof:
So what is the point you are making, young man?

Student:
Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Prof:
Flawed? Can you explain how?

Student:
Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one.To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it..
Now tell me, Professor.Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Prof:
If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student:
Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument is going.)

Student:
Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher? (The class is in uproar.)

Student:
Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?
(The class breaks out into laughter.)

Student
: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain,sir.
With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Prof:
I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.

Student:
That is it sir... The link between man & god is FAITH . That is all that keeps things moving & alive.

Railroad tracks

The  US  standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the  US  railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in  England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial  Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including  England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

Since the chariots were made for Imperial  Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/ procedure/ process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?' , you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)

Now, the twist to the story:

 

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in  Utah

 

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.. . and CURRENT Horses Asses in Washington and New Delhi are controlling everything else

The Chain of Commandy

 

-

THE CHAIN OF "COMMAND" THE following was written some years before the war (I found the article on Page 248 of The Naval Review, Vol 2, 1941), and was intended to illustrate a dangerous tendency which the writer thought he detected in the Service at that time. It is obviously not applicable to-day. (Possibly in our case it still is!):   SCENE I Able Seaman: "I don't much care for the marmalade which is served out to us, Sir. If I put in a complaint, do you think that we could have a different sort of marmalade sometimes?" Divisional Officer: “Some of you men are never satisfied. I have never heard such a frivolous complaint. The marmalade you are getting is excellent and I don't see why you should want anything different. I will mention the matter to the commander, but I have no doubt that he will chew your head off. That will be the end of the matter." SCENE II Divisional Officer: "Able Seaman Jones in No. 5 mess, Sir, does not like the marmalade that is issued and wishes to put in a complaint about it." Commander: “Tell Able Seaman Jones to go to the devil! When first I came to sea there was no such thing as marmalade, and he is very lucky to have any at all. I suppose I had better tell the Captain about it as he is very anxious to have all complaints properly ventilated; but it certainly won't go any further." SCENE III Commander: “There is an able seaman in No. 5 mess, Sir, who wishes to put in a complaint about the marmalade. He thinks that what is issued is unsatisfactory and that there ought to be more variety." Captain: “I will not have these frivolous complaints, Commander. They are an indication of an undisciplined ship. This able seaman should be severely dealt with. However, as I do not like to neglect the smallest thing which can add to the comfort of the men under my command I will report the matter to the Commander-in-Chief; but I am certain it will stop there." SCENE IV Commander-in-Chief: "Ah, Captain, about that matter of the marmalade, concerning which you wrote to me, of course my private opinion is that it is all nonsense. The marmalade, as supplied, is excellent, and as good as that which I have on my own table. You must really prevent your men putting forward such childish complaints. However, as I am always anxious to do anything in my power for the benefit of the ships' companies serving under my flag, I have forwarded your letter to the Admiralty, but I have no doubt that it will have short shift when it gets there." SCENE V A Sea Lord, studying an Admiralty docket on which three departments have minuted "No objection” and two others have added unhelpful platitudes, telephones to the Commander-in-Chief:- "About the able seaman in the Non Such who wants better marmalade; of course, privately, I think the whole thing is absurd and the complaint should have been squashed at an early stage. However, just to oblige you, we will forward it to the Treasury to see what they think about it; but I am afraid there is not a hope." SCENE VI The Sea Lord's telephone rings and a voice speaks: - "This is Mr A from the Treasury speaking. With reference to the Admiralty's request for an improved brand of marmalade to be included in the ration for naval ratings; we should have been delighted to have agreed; but most unfortunately the cost has proved to be quite prohibitive. It has been calculated that the increase to the naval estimates will be of the order of £123 4s 5d in the current financial year and £678 9s 10d in an average financial year. We are very sorry, but we are certain that Parliament would never consent to this and there might even be questions in the House about it." The Sea Lord: "Thank goodness, someone has the guts to say 'No!' "

 

Military Leadership A Slim View

MILITARY LEADERSHIP( Courtesy Brig R Kukreja) 1.  In all my professional readings on Military Leadership I have not come across a better piece than Field Marshal Sir William "Bill" Slim's address to officers at Fort Knox USA on Leadership during a visit to that country . 2.  I am reproducing it below. Courage, willpower, initiative, knowledge and  ------ self sacrifice. 3.  now we know why the Team Most Fine is special. Read On. LEADERSHIP By Field Marshal Sir William Slim, GBE, KCB, DSO, MC     (Taken  from  an  address delivered to  Officers  at  Fort  Knox, U.S.A., during a visit to that country)   I  have chosen to speak to you on leadership but I am a  little diffident for two reasons. The first is, that if anybody who  has had  any command, talks about leadership, he is awfully   inclined to talk about himself and that gets horribly boring. I shall  try not  to,  but I probably shall. The second thing is that  I  have very  often sat  where you are now sitting, and to get up at  this time  in  the  morning to come and listen to  a  foreign  General talking  about  something that lot of people have  talked  to  me about already is not really my idea of a happy morning.   Now  you are all officers, and the be-all and end-all  of an officer is to be a leader. You have your men in your own  hands, under  your  own eyes, and that is the basis  of  leadership-your handling of men. I have been very lucky in my service. In getting on for forty years of service, I have commanded everything from a section  of  six men to an army group of a million and  a  quarter, and,  believe  me,  while it gets sometimes  more  difficult  and sometimes  easier,  the bigger your command,  the  essentials  of command  and  leadership are always the same. It  does not  matter whether you command ten men or ten million men. If you ask me  to define  what leadership is, I should say it is the projection  of your own personality so that you get men to do what you want them to   do  even  if they aren't very keen on  doing  it  themselves. Leadership  is the most intensely personal thing there is in  the world, because leadership is just plain you. I have told you that leadership  is the projection of your personality, so it  is  not much  good  starting  off  to be a leader  unless  you  have  got personality,   and  you  have  got to  have  a  certain  kind  of personality. In that personality, you must have certain qualities. The first of these is courage, the next is will power, the  third is  initiative  and the fourth is  knowledge-courage,  willpower, initiative  and  knowledge. If you do not have those,  you  will not  make  a leader, and I would like, if you will allow me,  to  talk for a moment or two about these qualities.               First of all, courage......An officer requires something more than mere physical courage. He must have that. You must take  the lead  when  it  is most dangerous. The officer  must  accept  the greatest  hazards,  but,  in addition to  the  ordinary  physical courage,  an officer is required to have   courage of two  kinds, much  more  than the men he leads. Now the first  thing  that  an officer must have is the courage that goes on. A British  soldier is  no  braver  than a German, or an Italian, or an  Arab,  or  a Persian,  or  anybody  else, but he is, thank God,  brave  for  a little  bit  longer,  and that is the kind of  bravery  that  the officer has to have. You have to go on being brave. Any body  can be brave for five minutes, but it takes something to go on  being brave for five weeks. That is what the officer has to do, that  is what his men look for that when things are bad, they look to  the officer. We can all get along all right when we are winning.  I am a  hell  of  a general when I am winning,  but  I  have not  always been winning. If you have been a British general at the beginning of  a war, you will know what I mean.  There  always comes  a  time  when  things go   wrong -when your airplays are shot out of the sky; when  your guns run out of ammunition; when it is cold  and  it's wet  and  your men  are hungry,  and  when a chap’s  heart   sinks  down into  his  empty  belly. When that  happens,  it  doesn't  matter whether   you  are the general commanding an army  or  the  officer commanding  a platoon or a section, you will find-a lot  of  you have found it-you will find there comes a pause and your men just look  at you. They want to know what to do, and they look to  you to  tell them, to lead them. That is the test of an officer-  the test of leadership, and you won't pass that test unless you  have thought  of if and practised it. Sometimes is it very  difficult , it  has  happened to me-men have looked at me to see what  I  was going to say and I have not known what the hell to say.               I  stepped  out  of a tank once which was the  only  means  of communication  I had, and standing outside that tank  there  were three  of my subordinate commanders, a couple of  staff  officers, and  one or two other chaps. The situation was bad. We had  a division  cut off and nothing to get it out with. It didn't  look as  if  we should last very long, and, as I stepped  out,  I  saw those  fellows waiting. They didn't do anything-they just  looked at  me.  I  didn't know what the hell to say, but I  had  to  say something to cheer them up, so I said "Well, Gentlemen, it   might be  worse,"  and one those fellows said "how?" The only  thing  I could think of answering was "Well, it might be raining", and  by golly in an hour it was. Well, I don't hold that up to you as  an example  of  leadership, but it is the sort of  thing  that  does occur, the sort of thing you have to steel yourself  against-that moment when the courage and morale of the men you lead  falters, and you, the officer, it doesn't matter whether you have one  bar on  your shoulder or a couple of eagles- you are the man who  has got to put that courage and that morale back into them. For that, you need a long-term courage. The other kind of courage that  you have to show as on officer is moral courage. Moral  courage, believe  me,  is a much rarer thing than physical  courage,  much rarer,  All men I have know who have had moral courage  have  had physical courage as well. I can give you a very small example  of moral  courage in your everyday life. A junior officer passes  an enlisted man that doesn't salute him. The officer has seen it;  he knows  the  man ought to have saluted him, but  he  doesn't  say anything, doesn't say anything because, first of all, perhaps  he is  a  bit shy and he doesn't say anything because he  is  afraid that if he stops this big husky doughboy, he may get a bit of lip from  him,  and  then there is trouble. The real  reason  why  he doesn't do what he knows he ought to do, is that he is frightened that   he doesn’t have the moral courage to do it. You  want  to start  young and practice it, because unless you have  moral courage,  you  won't  be much good as  an  officer.    The  second quality  I talked about was willpower. Your job as an officer  is to  make  decisions, to tell people what to do. Well, it  is  not very  difficult  sometimes  to  know what you  want  to  do;  the difficulty is to get an order or make plans that you want carried through, you will find there are an awful lot of things that will turn  up  to oppose it. First, there is the  enemy.  Well, that is all right; you expect them to be like that. I remember  a long  time ago in the First World War in 1915, when they kept  on asking us for reports. We were up in a front line trench and they sent us up a big form to fill in. One of the questions was, “ What is  the attitude of the enemy?" One of the young officers  in  my regiment     filled  that  in  as 'hostile'.  The   form   was   sent back  to him  with  a reprimand, and he was told to fill it is  again.  He sent  it  back  altered  to   'still  hostile'.    You    expect  opposition   from  the enemy, but you will get  it  from  all sorts of other places as well. You will get opposition  from your own side; you will get opposition from people who  want to  do it in another way; you will get opposition from  your own  staff,  especially your  administrative  or  logistical staff, who, in my experience, jolly good chaps as they  are, always  tell  you  that anything you want to  do  is  quite impossible.  Of  course, too, you will get  opposition  from your  allies.  When  you fight in the  next  war,  you  will probably  fight with allies, and some of them will be  worse than  the  British. Allies are frightful people.  They  are narrow-minded.  They  can’t see the big picture.  They have extraordinary ways of doing things,, really they don’t appreciate how broad-minded, how sound, and how big-hearted you are.  When you begin to feel like that-and you will-I used to sometimes when I was discussing things with Joe Stilwell-when,  you feel like that just remind yourself  that you  are an ally too. All you have to do is to  walk  around and  sit  on the other side of the table and you  will  look just like that to the fellow sitting opposite you. When  you have  realised  that start again, and you will  get  on  all right.  As a commander, you will have all  this  opposition, opposition of every kind, and you have to have the  strength and  will  to  break it down and force  your  plan  through. Without strength of will, a commander is no use at all.  However, there is a trap in it. I have seen some very  good  fellows fall down on it. You have to distinguish between what is just  plump obstinacy and strength of will. You must keep  a flexibility of mind so that you can change your mind when it is necessary. That is one of the trickiest things to do, and when  you  solve the problems of keeping a  balance  between strength of will and determination and flexibility of  mind, you  are  well  on the way to being quite a  big  chap.  However, willpower is an essential of any commander.               The  next  thing I said you need is initiative, which is  very simple.  It  simply  means that you don’t sit down, do nothing, and wait for something to happen, because, if you do that  in war, it will happen all right, and it will be  most  unpleasant.  The way an officer shows initiative really depends on how, much he thinks ahead. Your job is  to be several jumps ahead of your men. If you are a platoon or a section   commander, you probably think only half  an  hour ahead. If you are a company commander, it may be a matter of hours; a battalion commander, perhaps a day; and if you  are an  army commander, you are probably thinking  three  months ahead.  The higher you go, the further ahead you must  think, but  whatever you are; whatever your rank, you have  got  to think  ahead  of  your men. That is the  way  you  will  get initiative; that is the only way you will make things happen instead of just have them happen to you. So think ahead, and keep  the initiative. The fourth quality is  knowledge.  Now you and I set us up to be officers. You have bars and  leaves and stars on your shoulders, and I have a  thing on  mine you have never seen before, but it all means  that we are officers . We have no business to set ourselves up as officers  at all unless we know more about the job than  the men we are leading. If you are a junior officer  commanding a small sub unit, you ought to be able to do everything  that you  ask any man to do better than he can do it himself.  If you can't, just go out behind the hut and practice until you can...       You  will see here in this school of yours all sorts  of things  which will make you more efficient killers and  more efficient soldiers, but the whole lot isn't worth  two-pence if  the men who handle it aren't right, and if the  men  who handle  it are not properly led. The first bit of  knowledge you have got to get, if you set yourself up as a leader,  is how to deal with men. Get to know your men; learn which  man is the sort of fellow that needs a little  encouraging;  which responds  when  you go around your posts at night,  and  put your  hands on his shoulder and talk to him about  his  home town;  which man wants barking at and which is  occasionally the  sort  of fellow who wants a good kick up  behind.  Know your men! The basis of all leadership is knowledge of men.               If you have these qualities that I have given you –these qualities of courage, willpower, initiative, and  knowledge-you  will be a leader. People will follow you, but there  is something else that you have got to have-something that will make men follow you when things go wrong. If you have  these four qualities you will be a leader, but you won't be a good leader  and you won't be a leader for good or for long.  You have  to  have  one more quality,  and  that  is  self-sacrifice. If you have the quality of self -sacrifice,  your men  will follow you not only in good times, that  is  easy, but in hard  bad times.               I  remember  after  a bit of a battle-one  of  the  many battles  I lost-I was told that a particular battalion  had not done well, and so I went along to see why. I found  this battalion  just behind the battle line, where they had  been brought out. The men were sitting about . They were very, very tired,  very  dirty, a lot of them were wounded.  They  were hungry and miserable. I looked around, walking amongst those men, I could not see an officer anywhere, and I thought, as sometimes happened, all the officers had been killed.  I went around a corner and I found a little bunch of officers. They were siting there having a meal, and they were having a meal  before their men had fed. Then I knew why that  was  a bad battalion. You, as officers, you will put the honour  of your  country and of your unit first; you will put the  well being  the  comfort and safety of your men second  and  your will put your own comfort, your own well  being last and last all of the time.   If  ever  you  have that kind  of  leadership  with  that ingredient  of  self-sacrifice  in it, then  your  men  will follow  you  anywhere. The sorts of men you  lead  are  worth that. Now I have talked long though, I will end by saying one thing, as a rather old officer to a lot of younger officers, and that is this. In the Army......there  are  no good  regiments  and there are no bad regiments,  there  are only  good  and  bad  officers. See to  it  that  you are  good officers.       - This article was originally published in the July 1951 issue of the Infantry (India).

 

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The Young Officer and Staff Duties

By Michael M. O'Leary, Captain, The RCR

Time, time, and the saving of it, should be the soul of every order and instruction, of every report and of every message. - J.F.C. Fuller, 1943

The line officer despises the lowly "staff officer," and rues the day he might become one himself. But every officer, regardless of rank, position, or responsibilities requires the fundamental skills on which the capable staff officer depends. These skills are best acquired when opportunity presents at the most junior levels, for they are much more difficult to master (or fake) if early years of commissioned rank are spent avoiding putting pen to paper, for this, when dealing with the bureaucracy on behalf of one's troops, is where the rubber meets the road.

Even the most enthusiastic platoon commander, between assaulting enemy objectives and leading troops to hell and back, must be ready to write a brief, comprehensive and clear memorandum ensuring one of those troops for which he is responsible receives an entitled benefit or is identified for an opportunity. Whether writing Performance Evaluation Reports, letters of recommendation, Summary Investigations, or requests for adventure training funds, young officers are never far from occasions requiring the development of their personal military writing skills. As painful as it may seem at the time, each time a Company 2IC, OC or Adjutant, bleeds red ink over a carefully crafted memo it should be seen not as a condemnation of effort, but as a chance to refine one's abilities. No less important than indications of MPI and individual hits on a rifle range are to an infantry rifleman.

Officers who write well spend less time fighting the bureaucracy and more time training with resources they managed to convince the staff to provide them. Those who see staff duties as a dead or unneeded art spend a lot of time running in circles and finding things unobtainable when the good old boy net fails them. Easy to set the blame on those others when one's own staffwork is non-existent, even if it means you've set aside one's own commitment to doing the best for the troops.

In this age of e-mail and instantaneous passage of information and queries, it is hard to develop a concrete understanding that good staff duties are as important as ever. Let me set forth one example:

In the days of hand-written drafts, and clerk-typed correspondence, a staff officer might take a day or two to mull over the perfect wording for a set of four or five questions to another unit or headquarters. Passing this to a clerk, it might be a day or two before the typed version of the draft was returned. By then, the staff officer had time to consider the issue, and then to view the content, structure and tone of the letter with fresh eyes. Amendments might be in order, to either remove or insert points, or even to completely alter the tone or format of the letter. Extra work for the clerk perhaps, but it did ensure that the final product was as good as the staff officer could produce - in this case the staff officer's contribution was the intellectual effort to create and revise the document, the clerk's was to prepare it in the requested format.

With external correspondence, most units had a very limited number of appointments who could sign letters leaving the unit lines. And this limitation in itself ensured due focus on the preparation of correspondence because senior eyes would see the product before it was signed and dispatched.

Contrast this to today's methods. The staff officer sitting at his desk, able to immediately dispatch a question by e-mail to any other staff or line officer with instantaneous delivery. Now the officer, on conjuring his first (of the four or so) questions, sends an e-mail to his lateral counterpart. Perhaps he adds an info addressee or two to ensure they are aware of the request. Later he derives his second question, and another e-mail follows in the wake of the first. Shortly, there's another. The next day, sober second thought wants to revise or combine questions already sent, perhaps already answered or rejected for the very reason an amendment is desired. Responses may have their own alternate info addressees. It's not hard to imagine the information morass that can quickly be created by a too hasty approach in using available technology with what is literally a lower degree of applied intellectual effort than the pace of the predecessor staff process allowed.That letter was then sealed in an envelope and mailed. A week, or so, in transit, time for the recipient to absorb its content, a week or so to staff a response. Perhaps a month might go by before the sender bothered to call looking for confirmation that a response was on its way (excepting of course emergency requests or imposed deadlines).

The point here is not so much the imbalance between effective execution and advancing technology, but in the loss of focus on the importance of credible staff processes and good staff work. Imagine the difficulty in sorting out the ensuing problems if this contrived information morass is dealing with a pay or leave problem for one of your soldiers, or an exercise ration plan. Use the technology to streamline delivery and development processes, don't permit it's sense of immediacy to overrule common sense deliberation in the creation of staff work.

Being a good staff officer, either as a primary function (like the Adjutant), or in support of a line job (like a platoon commander submitting training requests), doesn't have to mean you have to like it. Effective staff officers seldom have to do things twice, or spend time sorting out their own paperwork messes. They get to spend more time with their troops, or working on other staff projects that benefit their units, because the routine administration was done right the first time. Clear staff writing that achieves a desired effect or response is as important to the fighting efficiency of a unit as skill at arms. It ensures beans and bullets are where they need to be in the right quantities, that troops have minimal lost training time for administrative reasons and that intentions and goals are well defined in support of the training requirement.

The education of officers has never been more highly proclaimed as an essential requirement for commanders. This requirement, however, to be useful, must also be expressed in ways that support and forward the intellectual development of the army as a whole. It is one thing for an officer to continue his own intellectual development through personal study, but the effects of this are limited if he is unable to concisely express the synthesis of original thought in military matters to his peers, subordinates, and the Army as a whole. The mechanism by which this must be done is the written word. Expansion of the body of knowledge particular to the direction of doctrine, process and technology in use by our Army can only be achieved by personnel who are able to express these new ideas in a form readily digestible by others. Despite their modern appeal as methods to communicate with the masses, sound bites, vertiginous PowerPoint presentations or single screen web pages with dancing penguins are no way to further the sharing of knowledge. The officer who effectively develops his staff skills will also be able to craft credible position papers on any matter of technology or process within his expertise.

There's no such thing as a "natural" staff officer. The skills to write well must be learned, though some may pick it up sooner than others, there is no substitute for practice, even when this requires subjecting one's work to the editing depredations of a cranky old Adjutant. Like many painful training experiences, this is best experienced while young; unlike others, the scars are usually invisible and do not support good Happy Hour "war stories."

 

How Military Values hold Meaning for the Corporate World

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

How Military Values hold Meaning for the Corporate World

 

Navinder Narang

Economic Times, an Indian National Daily, recently covered a news item on the rising popularity of recruiting military officers for leadership roles in the corporate sector. It is easy to understand how someone whose leadership skills were honed in combat would be more qualified for leadership than the candidate whose only leadership test could have been winning the school summer camp obstacle race.

The correlation between military service and leadership ability is well documented. Studies show that companies with military leaders outperform their peers.Many of our nation's most respected companies have discovered a source for talent that traditional recruiting methods often overlook - the men and women of our Armed Services. The leadership skills, core values, integrity, and work ethic of our military transition members provide a bridge to span the leadership gap in our current workforce.

 There are seven core values associated with the military: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honour, Integrity and  Personal Courage. Let us examine each military value for its usefulnes to the corporate world.

Loyalty - Bear true faith and allegiance to the Nation, the Army, and other soldiers.

 This means showing your faith in your organisation, your leaders and your colleagues. People want to know they can trust you. And you want the same reassurances from others.

 

Duty - Fulfill your obligations. Accept responsibility for your actions and those entrusted to your care. Find opportunities to improve oneself for the good of the unit. 

You've got a job to do and people depend on you to get it done. If someone needs help, give it to them. If you need help, seek it from your peers. Be consistent in action and deed.

 

Respect - Treat people as they should be treated. 

How we consider others reflects upon each of us, both personally and as a professional organization. Act courteously toward customers, colleagues and seniors. If you disagree with an opinion or point of view, challenge the position, but avoid the personal attack. Remember that your actions speak volumes about yourself and your business or organization.

 

Selfless Service - Put the welfare of the nation, the Army, and your subordinates before your own. 

Selfless service leads to organizational teamwork and encompasses discipline, self-control and faith in the system.Take care of your co-workers. Go the 'extra mile' for your customers and clients, even if gains you nothing more than some personal satisfaction. Volunteer to take on the tough job, or the mundane job that others avoid.

 

Honour - Live up to all the Army values. 

Live up to the values of your business. Act accordingly, and others will recognize you as an individual of principled character. Don't fall into the trap of, "but I just did what others did before me". Given the choice, take the 'high road'. Distinguish yourself from those who would be satisfied to do less.

Integrity - Do what is right, legally and morally. 

Ask yourself, "Is this the right thing to do? How does it reflect on who I am?" If your inner voice is sounding the alarm, it's doing so for a good reason. Avoid shortcuts, cheats, or otherwise doing less than what is expected. Don't compromise yourself, your friends, family or business for some short-term satisfaction. Integrity offers long-term rewards that can't be acquired any other way.

Personal Courage - Face fear, danger, or adversity with physical and moral courage.

Is a boss asking you to do something questionable? Been in a group that disparages a certain race or ethnicity? It may be safer to go along with the crowd, or do nothing at all. It takes inner strength to stand up to peer pressure and moral dilemmas. It's easy to be a follower - anyone can do that. True leadership requires all of one's audacity, nerve and 'guts' to negotiate the difficult roads that lie before us.

 

Yes, these men and women who wish to launch their second careers have battle proven leadership ability. But even more importantly they have honour. And the courage to do what is right, even if there is risk of casualties. They are worthy of respect and worthy of trust. They are ready to lead, with integrity. 

And they are looking to leading their way to the corner office instead of capturing the hill.