The success of Oppenheimer at the Oscars has had me thinking: Could the Defense Department do this today?
I don’t mean could we build the 21st century equivalent of the atomic bomb. I mean could we identify a visionary scientist, bring them into the DOD, and empower them to create a weapon that ended a war. As it stands with the way we treat our defense workforce, there is no way.
Dr. Oppenheimer would update his LinkedIn to “Director of the Manhattan Project” and be on his way to a private sector advisory gig in less than 18 months.
If you doubt me, consider that the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act empowered the DOD to directly commission up to the rank of colonel Americans who could make extraordinary contributions. It wasn’t until this year, however, that the Army intelligence corps made its first direct commission and it’s not clear the step has made a difference.
And this is just the tip of the talent iceberg threatening the DOD.
Solving the Hidden Perils of HR Tech
The next big acquisition push in defense tech can and should be toward creating an HR unicorn to fix the larger danger: Human resources systems, processes, and year-based promotion structures that create every incentive for the most talented officers and non-commissioned officers to leave.
Anyone who has served has been told at some point to “embrace the suck,” which is a bonding mechanism that creates a strong fighting force for tough times. We need that.
It doesn’t build toughness, though, when a talented corporal or lieutenant has to wait years to advance while less capable peers who’ve been around longer get promoted—it pushes them to plan their exit. If they do leave, we shouldn’t blame them for a lack of toughness or patriotism, we should blame the HR systems.
These management and systems issues may seem small but they are pervasive and insidious and prevent an otherwise amazing population from performing at their best. These issues arise because for one reason or another the department has decided it is easier to create new systems on top of old ones than to sunset bad systems.
On the low end, we can look for example at the Army’s annual training programs. Just to “remain green,” or operational, requires more than 10 trainings at different sites (Joint Knowledge Online, Army Learning Management System etc.) that are often managed by multiple unconnected spreadsheets corroborated by manually submitted paper certificates and verified by an overburdened NCO.
And this is no secret. At one point the Chief of Staff of the Army famously seemed to recommend soldiers just not comply with the overwhelming amount of online training, but even that did not stop the onslaught.
It seems bureaucracy outranks even the most senior general.
On the high end, HR systems that track benefits, payment, and next of kin must be submitted every year, regardless whether any changes have occurred. These annual updates in fact often create issues when the manually entered data inevitably conflicts.
It would be beyond the limit of this article to enumerate the servicemembers who were, for example, overpaid in one pay period then must live hand-to-mouth during another when the Army takes their money back. Or the reservists who face literal financial ruin and a threat of dishonorable discharge because their units can’t coordinate drill paperwork.
Even well-intentioned military staff are at a loss. There are entire social media sites—not managed by the DOD—dedicated to servicemembers helping one other navigate the system, which does little to inspire trust.
Anyone you know who has served keeps multiple copies of every piece of paper they are issued from the military long into retirement in the expectation that they will inevitably have to do battle on their own behalf against the very organization they swore to fight alongside.This is unacceptable, and I do not believe that the solution will come from within.
‘Wrecking Ball’ Solution
The DOD is a massive organization with complex HR needs, but so are Amazon and Walmart. The private sector has solved this complexity but, because acquisitions incentives don’t align with operational need, the DOD is stuck with tape drives and COBOL-based solutions.
We don’t need a fix, we need a wrecking ball.
Even if someone was willing to build it, DOD hasn’t made it a priority. When I searched for HR product and services, I only found $380 million in spending for 2023. And while that may seem like a lot, the DOD’s total budget is about $800 billion. So HR systems are less than half a percent—and even if I’m off by a large factor, it still doesn’t look great.
Yet in the face of looming global threats we are massively under-strength and actively losing talented personnel to alternatives that should make the defense infrastructure look more inwardly than it has. Wars are fought and won by human beings and, in the conversations about where we should invest for the next conflict, the actual day-to-day management of our human beings in uniform are painfully often left out. The patriots who are serving deserve better.
Our current recruiting and retention crises do not come from the fear those in uniform won’t be able to fight for the United States, but from a dissuaded group of patriots exhausted by the pain of jumping through hoops to do so effectively.
The solution is out there in the private sector and the military should look with alacrity to bring in the managerial infrastructure of top civilian institutions to give our servicemen and -women what they deserve.
Let this be the Manhattan Project of our day—the future of our force depends on it.
