Amateur Hour at the Pentagon

here is something to be said for being decisive, but the execution of this….

First, let me make it clear that the US military is, by far, the most professional armed force in the world for three reasons:

1. It is an all-volunteer organization.  Yes, everyone in the US military serves because they choose to.
2. The approach to management and specialist skills reflects the best in education, continual process improvement, and innovation.  Personnel are rewarded based on performance related to effectiveness and resource management.
3. The relationship between the military and the supporting industrial complex ensures that industry is pursuing what the warriors need and provides for the fastest effective adoption of new technologies.

So, if the US military is so great, why ‘Amateur Hour at the Pentagon?’  Yes, why?  The world awaits the revelations.  It will almost certainly boil down to a failure of leadership at the highest level.  The key questions will likely be:

• Was the President accurately briefed on how the evacuation would unfold?  If so, then the blame is on him.  If not, then look to the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs, and, to a lesser extent, the intelligence community.
• If the President was not accurately briefed, why not?  Was it because the Secretary of Defense didn’t understand the facts?  If so, then the implication is that the Joint Chiefs did not know.  Why did they not know?
• Irrespective of having accurate knowledge, the speed at which the Taliban advanced should have prompted a Plan B to regain control over the evacuation timetable.  Ideally, there would have already been a contingency plan for this.  But even without the contingency plan, the event should have driven the creation of the plan no later than several weeks ago.
• Assuming a contingency plan was created, why was it not implemented instead of allowing for the chaotic event which has put many people needlessly at risk and will certainly lead to revelations of more and more sensitive equipment and information being carelessly abandoned to the Taliban.
• My experience with the US intelligence community is that they almost always have a very clear understanding of things like this well ahead of time, but ultimately policy decisions are made based on other issues.  However, even if the intelligence community failed to accurately forecast the speed of collapse, there still should have been a better contingency plan available and executed under advice from the Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs.