Around 2008, while a staff historian for a 4-star U.S. Army command, I watched an Army lieutenant-colonel setting up chairs for an event. This was an epiphany for me, for I realized that when I was a young E-5 Buck Sergeant, I had more responsibility and authority as a tank commander. I also then realized that we had far too many officers.
With that in mind, my office embarked on a research project to examine the ratio of general officers to other ranks in the U.S. Army. We have all heard the stories about how today’s U.S. Navy has more admirals than ships. But what about a comparative analysis for the Army?
The results I found were astonishing. In June of 1945, with an army of 8.5 million personnel, there was one general officer for just over 4,500 other ranks. In 2010, the ratio had dramatically changed, with one general officer for every 970 other ranks.[1] I saw a similar inflation for full colonels and lieutenant-colonels.
The origin of this grade inflation was in the aftermath of World War II. The U.S. military decided that the nation needed to keep more officers on hand in case the Army had to quickly expand. At the time the increase was modest, being about 104% above the postwar ratio of officers to enlisted men. Today, the ratio increase is five-fold.
In 2018, America’s leaders decided to create Futures Command, and made it a 4-star billet. This command took over a critical function involving research and development from the 4-star Army Materiel Command (AMC). Suddenly, there was panic. With the loss of such an important function, AMC might need to be reduced to a 3-star billet. But never fear! Senior Army officers are adept at watching out for themselves, and it was decided to move the 3-star Installation Management Command (IMCOM), at that time under the Chief of Staff of the Army, to being subordinate to AMC, shuttling IMCOM down the chain of command but not reducing its grade. A 4-star billet saved!
It is argued by some that the excess officers are needed because of the increasing technical complexity of military systems. This is patent nonsense. Enlisted personnel over the last few decades are far more educated than many officers were during World War II, and even today some are better educated. After all, one need only look at the poor quality of the papers produced by officers at the Army War College.[2] Moreover, most officers today are not so much technical experts, but resource managers. They have become process mangers, putting round pegs in round holes.
We staffed the draft of the report to our Command Group, what we call the “Head-shed.” Needless to say, it was not well received, and we were “encouraged” to withdraw it.
Excess generals, and indeed excess officers overall, create havoc within the Army ranks.[3] In the follow-up articles, I will briefly explore what problems are created by this bloat of useless officers, and offer a radical… but very serious… solution.
Russ Rodgers has several books published on Amazon.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
Substack: American Free News Network Substack
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA
[1] I have rounded these numbers slightly down for the sake of simplicity. The source for the statistics is from official U.S. Army reports on manpower.
[2] See my previous article “Our Leaders Don’t Read on Their Own.” I am astonished how bad their papers are, and how little they actually think.
[3] For an excellent, though dated, analysis of this problem, see Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army, Richard A. Gabriel and Paul L. Savage. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. It is worth noting that, while I found this book in an Army bookstore at Ft. Knox, I never met an officer who was familiar with it. A more recent book on this subject is Pussycats: Why the Rest Keeps Beating the West and What Can be Done About it, Martin Van Creveld. Mevasseret Zion, Israel: DLVC Enterprises, 2016.