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What is the mode of operation you are suggesting to be used instead? On the top of that, what flaws are you talking about in specific?

js8 7y ago
Same flaws mentioned in the article - lack of accountability in the upper layers of hierarchy, which resulted in loss of human life. Possible solution is more democratic control (by the people down in the hierarchy) over the people who are in charge, for example an independently elected accountability board with a power to penalize and recall the leaders.
- ip26 7y ago
  So, some kind of democratically elected commander in chief who is the supreme commander of the US military?
  - js8 7y ago
    Yes, but you need a shorter feedback loop too. The U.S. president doesn't make the decisions that would be required to fix the problems that the article is talking about. I am not sure if it's practiced in the U.S., but in Europe lot of universities were historically actually run democratically, the management was elected by academics and students. So something like that.
    - ip26 7y ago
      So instead of the public electing the President who appoints generals etc, the military elects its own leaders? Not to be difficult, but I think history teaches us that's how you get a military coup.
      - js8 7y ago
        No, military could elect its own leaders regarding matters that concern the military. Citizens would still elect normal government, to which the military would be subjected.
        ip26 7y ago
        The point is when the military picks all its own leaders, it winds up with the sort of leaders & develops the sort of culture that leads to the military conducting a coup against the normal government which it was supposed to be subject to.
        js8 7y ago
        I don't see why it should be the case at all, and I would like to see the evidence that it is more likely. It sure is a possibility, but realistically you have to compare it with the possibility of a military coup with traditional autocratic military. The only plausible explanation for that phenomenon is that democratic group (military in this case) is more efficient/willing at asserting its own status as a group than an autocratic (hierarchical) one. And that is, in fact, internally contradictory. If intent of the military as a democratically-controlled social group was to overthrow the democracy in the state as a social group, then it would be acting against the very existence of ts own democratic process.

js8 7y ago

Same flaws mentioned in the article - lack of accountability in the upper layers of hierarchy, which resulted in loss of human life. Possible solution is more democratic control (by the people down in the hierarchy) over the people who are in charge, for example an independently elected accountability board with a power to penalize and recall the leaders.

ip26 7y ago
So, some kind of democratically elected commander in chief who is the supreme commander of the US military?
- js8 7y ago
  Yes, but you need a shorter feedback loop too. The U.S. president doesn't make the decisions that would be required to fix the problems that the article is talking about. I am not sure if it's practiced in the U.S., but in Europe lot of universities were historically actually run democratically, the management was elected by academics and students. So something like that.
  - ip26 7y ago
    So instead of the public electing the President who appoints generals etc, the military elects its own leaders? Not to be difficult, but I think history teaches us that's how you get a military coup.
    - js8 7y ago
      No, military could elect its own leaders regarding matters that concern the military. Citizens would still elect normal government, to which the military would be subjected.
      - ip26 7y ago
        The point is when the military picks all its own leaders, it winds up with the sort of leaders & develops the sort of culture that leads to the military conducting a coup against the normal government which it was supposed to be subject to.
        js8 7y ago
        I don't see why it should be the case at all, and I would like to see the evidence that it is more likely. It sure is a possibility, but realistically you have to compare it with the possibility of a military coup with traditional autocratic military. The only plausible explanation for that phenomenon is that democratic group (military in this case) is more efficient/willing at asserting its own status as a group than an autocratic (hierarchical) one. And that is, in fact, internally contradictory. If intent of the military as a democratically-controlled social group was to overthrow the democracy in the state as a social group, then it would be acting against the very existence of ts own democratic process.