Current Flag Officers

[Underway]

My concern (borne out by experience) is that our military is too small to produce that number of generals. 

Don't you have that backwards.  The number of generals is to big for the military.  Thus we need to grown the military not reduce the number of generals.

That being said the number of higher rank staff has more to do with their responsibilities in the modern gov't than the combat control of troops, pay levels etc...

@OGBD are you missing the number of Commodore positions on each coast in your list?  Or are they not considered "flag" rank.

 

[Lightguns]

Not sure comparing fighting units size and number of is accurate.  If you have a four ship navy on two coasts, you will still need two fleet comds, two shore comds, and a naval comd.  Would it not be better to look at the size of the Admirals' staff in relation to the workload of the staff rather than the Admiral's rank?  Nothing wrong with 20 admirals, if staff is small and efficient, but 20 admirals with huge under employed staff is poor service to the fighting units.  The real monetary cost is not the admiral but the staff bling that goes with the position. 

 

[Lumber]

I'll dispose of Lumber's first argument (posts and milpoints): That is irrelevant - a cook with 100,000 posts and a million milpoints all related to recipes would still not be qualified to comment on operational structure of the Air Force. 

You wound me good Sir. My first argument (posts and milpoints) was sarcasm and a jab at Puck Chaser (for which I have put the pitch forks away...).

In any event, if you want to debate the number of Generals, Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels in DND, then we'd need to discuss the functions that take place in every other Government Department vis a vis the largest Department, the complexity, effect, span of control, and risk of each one, and discuss how long it takes to create a Contingent Commander or a Div Comd or an L1 Comptroller etc, why we need to swap them out every few years, what we're supposed to do with them in the meantime and afterwards, how comparable industries are set up, why our allies' Generals don't want to talk to people 2 ranks lower than them, etc ad nauseum. Yes, we can all cough up examples of General Officers we think are doing flopper jobs, but that proves nothing at all, other than that we think Col Blimp is in a flopper job.

How do you eliminate these functions once they've started? Is it even possible? My job, for example, has three general areas of responsibility (I'm the Navy equivalent of Adjutant btw): 1. Keep the day-to-day operation of the unit (specifically the OR) running smoothly, 2. Do whatever the hell the CO/DCO need of me, and 3. Take care of whatever projects I get tasted with by NDHQ/NSHQ/NAVRESHQ.

Of those 3, the last one probably takes up the majority of my time. We have a ton of official inspections and audits followed up by even more unofficial "here, fill out this spread sheet and send it back to me," reports. Every week there seems to be a new "appreciation" day or week, whether it be for a minority group, in remembrance of some important event, or other charitable campaign. There's coordinating sending dozens of my sailors to dozens of speaking events for Veterans Week, half a dozen CAF appreciation sporting and "Support Our Troops" events , etc etc...

I'm not saying these aren't all good things, but none of these have anything to do with doing the business of our business. How much red-tape and man-hours are we making for ourselves?

 

[MJP]

Of those 3, the last one probably takes up the majority of my time. We have a ton of official inspections and audits followed up by even more unofficial "here, fill out this spread sheet and send it back to me," reports. Every week there seems to be a new "appreciation" day or week, whether it be for a minority group, in remembrance of some important event, or other charitable campaign. There's coordinating sending dozens of my sailors to dozens of speaking events for Veterans Week, half a dozen CAF appreciation sporting and "Support Our Troops" events , etc etc...

I'm not saying these aren't all good things, but none of these have anything to do with doing the business of our business. How much red-tape and man-hours are we making for ourselves?

Lots and as long as commanders allow their staffs to push useless junk down we will continue to waste time filling out spreadsheets. 

 

[tomahawk6]

To be fair to staff it has been my experience that staff is usually responding to requests from higher HQ. :camo:

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

The real problem, which LogOffr has pointed out, is the CAF has adopted the same C2 structure that the civil service uses.  Is it appropriate?  Probably not but we're stuck with it and I don't see a way to change it.  It's what you get from nearly 60 years of peace time bloat with some small skirmishes in the 90's and a brushfire war in the 2000's, in the grand scheme of things, nothing of any real consequence that would force the department to change its bad habits.

The government was able to get through Afghanistan by simply throwing money at the problem, the institution carried on as if it was business as usual.  It's going to take something real big to make this zebra change its stripes.

 

[Old Sweat]

The real problem, which LogOffr has pointed out, is the CAF has adopted the same C2 structure that the civil service uses.  Is it appropriate?  Probably not but we're stuck with it and I don't see a way to change it.  It's what you get from nearly 60 years of peace time bloat with some small skirmishes in the 90's and a brushfire war in the 2000's, in the grand scheme of things, nothing of any real consequence that would force the department to change its bad habits.

The government was able to get through Afghanistan by simply throwing money at the problem, the institution carried on as if it was business as usual.  It's going to take something real big to make this zebra change its stripes.

Back in 1990-1991 Gulf 1 and Oka had a fairly significant effect on a portion of NDHQ. What had been a fairly "leisurely" approach to operations suddenly became much more business-like for the portion of the staff from all the disciplines charged with the conduct of operations, logistics et al at home and abroad in support of both operations. In J3 the plans directorate actually did no operational planning before the event, but this changed very dramatically as the operational planning function moved from within the NDOC to J3 Plans under the pressure of events.

However, for most of NDHQ it was business as usual except for enhanced security at the entrances of 101 Colonel By Drive and the odd bomb scare.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Back in 1990-1991 Gulf 1 and Oka had a fairly significant effect on a portion of NDHQ. What had been a fairly "leisurely" approach to operations suddenly became much more business-like for the portion of the staff from all the disciplines charged with the conduct of operations, logistics et al at home and abroad in support of both operations. In J3 the plans directorate actually did no operational planning before the event, but this changed very dramatically as the operational planning function moved from within the NDOC to J3 Plans under the pressure of events.

However, for most of NDHQ it was business as usual except for enhanced security at the entrances of 101 Colonel By Drive and the odd bomb scare.

This is my point, at the CAF level, i.e. CJOC and below, everyone is fairly operationally focused; however, this doesn't transcend to the different ADM's and other Level 0's within DND.  Even in the CAF though, you've got this weird mix of operations and staff.  The only true Commanders in the military are CDS, CJOC Comd, CANSOFCOM Comd, CFINTGp Comd (I guess ) and following that you've got Brigade Commanders, Wing Commanders, Fleet Commanders.  Everyone else is just staff, even though they call themselves Commanders

The Army is the worst of the offenders with the Air Force not far behind.  From what I've seen, the Navy does it best.  It's too bad they've been allowed to rust out, otherwise though, their structure makes the most sense out of any of the services.  SOFCOM ain't too shabby either and we should consider them their own service. 

 

[Lumber]

The government was able to get through Afghanistan by simply throwing money at the problem, the institution carried on as if it was business as usual.  It's going to take something real big to make this zebra change its stripes.

Market corrections help to remove some of the froth and speculation, but they are still unpleasant to experience. The longer between corrections, and the large the amount of froth, the more painful he correction will be.

Now, this analogy might not actually work with the military, but I can't imagine what we would actually need in order to instigate a "market correction" in the bloat of DND. I don't think a major war would do it; that might even make it worse  once the war was over. Perhaps a massive budget slash? Didn't LGen (ret) Leslie try and do just this?

 

[Infanteer]

Does anyone know how many Flag Officers the RCN has active at this time?

I'll answer your question.  8 (7 Reg and 1 PRes).

Comd RCN (VAdm).  DComd RCN (RAdm).  Comd MARFORLANT (RAdm).  Comd MARFORPAC (RAdm).  Comd CANFLTLANT (Cmdre).  Comd CANFLTPAC (Cmdre).  DG Naval Strat Readiness (Cmdre).  DG Naval Force Development (Cmdre).  Comd NAVRES (Cmdre).

There are more flag officers out there in other L1s, but those are the ones in the RCN.

 

[QM]

Very few are in leadership roles. Most Flags are doing institutional functions that need to be done regardless of the size of the force, or that Government requires of its Departments in one way or another. And, depth in the gene pool.

 

[gwp]

Very few are in leadership roles. Most Flags are doing institutional functions that need to be done regardless of the size of the force, or that Government requires of its Departments in one way or another. And, depth in the gene pool.

Some of those "institutional functions" are diplomatic such as Canadian Defence Liaison in Washington DC and at SHAPE.  These officers need to be of similar rank as allied appointees. 

 

[dapaterson]

Ah yes. All the other kids are doing it - a justification that we'd never let our kids get away with, but is perfectly rational when the CAF says the same thing.

Perhaps if we want to sit at the grownup table we should be willing to pay our own way; build more sustainable capability instead of more HQs.  We have more LCols today than 25 years ago - despite having 20000 fewer Reg F members.

 

[gwp]

Perhaps if we want to sit at the grownup table we should be willing to pay our own way; build more sustainable capability instead of more HQs.  We have more LCols today than 25 years ago - despite having 20000 fewer Reg F members.

In addition to being "at the table" they are runnng the show as is the case with the CAF General at NORAD.  It was an RCN Capt that led the watch on 9/11 and cleared the skies over North America. 

 

[Journeyman]

In addition to being "at the table" they are runnng the show as is the case with the CAF General at NORAD. 

I sure hope that USAF Gen. ('4-star') Robinson -- Commander, NORAD -- gets the memo, along with the American LGen and MGen in NORAD HQ, that the Canadian '3-star' is actually "running the show."

 

[gwp]

I sure hope that USAF Gen. ('4-star') Robinson -- Commander, NORAD -- gets the memo, along with the American LGen and MGen in NORAD HQ, that the Canadian '3-star' is actually "running the show."

He was on 9/11

https://www.archives.gov/declassification/iscap/pdf/2012-042-doc27.pdf

NORAD is a partnership.  The chain of command recognized the equality and capability of all team members.

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/vancouver-island-man-played-key-role-at-norad-defence-centre-amid-sept-11-turmoil-1.619894

It was a fluke that a Canadian was the command director on duty that morning. Four out of five shifts that week were manned by Americans. Jellinek was about a year into his three-year term at Norad after retiring from the navy.

“We were just doing our jobs,” said Jellinek, 63. In 2003, Jellinek was awarded the meritorious service medal by the governor general for his work initiating the response to the attacks.

He arrived early for a 5:30 a.m. briefing on the day’s events: Russian bomber training in the Arctic and a fully manned Norad exercise — which came in handy later.

Then the command centre got a call, alerting them the U.S. national transport agency was tracking a hijacked plane.

“Before 9/11, the old-fashioned procedure was to get on an aircraft’s tail and watch it, then see what the hijackers wanted,” Jellinek said. The military became involved by request.

Command centre crew were watching CNN live video of smoke coming from the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York, wondering what was happening. Then they saw the second plane hit, he said.

In a very short time, four planes had been hijacked, one crashed into the Pentagon and another was in the air.

In the frantic hours that followed, Canadians and Americans worked together swiftly. Jellinek played a key role in two major decisions: all U.S. air traffic was shut down within the hour, and international flights were quickly diverted to Canadian towns and cities.

- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/vancouver-island-man-played-key-role-at-norad-defence-centre-amid-sept-11-turmoil-1.619894#sthash.MludjOGg.dpuf

 

[devil39]

I sure hope that USAF Gen. ('4-star') Robinson -- Commander, NORAD -- gets the memo, along with the American LGen and MGen in NORAD HQ, that the Canadian '3-star' is actually "running the show."

She is seriously unimpressive having sat through many VTCs with her on ARDENT SENTRY 16......among the least impressive 3 or 4 star Generals i have observed..... and i'm not being a misogynist....just being honest