Army Generals Are Not Prepared for the Future

[rangerrebew]

 
Army Generals Are Not Prepared for the Future
Service leaders love to tout innovation, but can they make the changes necessary to succeed?
By Anthony Tingle
May 22, 2021
 

The Army continues to build general officers who are not adequately prepared to succeed as technology advances. The Army has always done a terrible job at developing and deploying new technology, and though there may be many reasons for the Army's endless failures in innovation, the final responsibility lies with the generals. While it is popular to compare military generals with corporate Chief Executive Officers, these analogies lack empirical analysis. Compared to the top CEOs, Army generals are sorely undereducated in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.

Innovation Leadership and STEM

High performing CEOs increasingly have STEM degrees. In 2018, Harvard Business Review noted that more of the top 100 CEOs have engineering degrees than MBAs. According to Boston Consulting Group's 2020 list, of the top 20 most innovative companies roughly 65 percent have STEM undergraduate degrees, and 30 percent have STEM graduate degrees. There are many reasons companies may seek STEM-educated CEOs, including better data-driven decision-making skills, better understanding of complex systems, and a generally different approach to problem solving, but the correlation with STEM and private-sector innovation is strong.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/05/army-generals-are-not-prepared-future/174130/

[rangerrebew]

It depends.  If the future is a PC military club, they are extremely well prepared.  For war, not so mucih.

[AARguy]

Interesting... West Point's "Mission Statement" talked about producing SOLDIERS and Military Leaders and the curriculum was intensively engineering when I graduated in 1975. Somewhere between then and now, engineering subjects have shrunk in content and importance and the mission statement is about making good citizens... not WARRIORS.

You make an important point.

[The_Reader_David]

Is this news?  With the exception of military geniuses, generals of every army in the world are prepared to fight the last war, not the next.  It has always been that way.