Last Friday, 16 March, 2007 saw Admiral William “Fox” Fallon take over command of CENTCOM from General John Abizaid at a change of command ceremony held at MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Fla.
These sorts of changes of command happen all the time in the military, at every level in the chain of command. What is special about this one, however, is that a Navy admiral is taking the helm over a traditionally Army or Marine-focused unified regional command.
What is really unique about this is that it is evidence that the Navy, long considered an outsider in the Joint arena, has finally “made it” — has finally “changed” (transformed?) enough from a platform-centric, open-ocean war-at-sea protect-the-sea-lanes-of-communication entity to one that is integrated with the other combat services to provide a broad spectrum of battlespace operations. This is a good thing, and Carl von Clausewitz is smiling, wherever he is.
U.S. Army photo by Spc. Patrick A Ziegler (RELEASED)
–Pinch Paisley, crossposted with more at the Instapinch
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Changing of the GuardLeave a Reply |
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That’s a pretty big bone to toss the Navy’s way! I don’t think you can say that any branch has fully adopted Rumsfeld’s vision of integration. Several other pundits stated that this change of command had more to do with potential hostilities with IRAN, not with the current combat situation in Iraq. If you will note, General P has the ear of the SecDef and the President. In all reality he is running that operation and the CentCom commander will be focusing elsewhere (again Iran, Africa and other areas of the Middle East…)
Or the Navy hasn’t changed at all, but today’s top-down obsession with making everything a “joint” operation has catapulted someone without sufficient experience or expertise into an important billet.
Which is what most people I know in the military think…
“What is really unique about this is that it is evidence that the Navy, long considered an outsider in the Joint arena, has finally “made it” — has finally “changed” (transformed?) enough from a platform-centric, open-ocean war-at-sea protect-the-sea-lanes-of-communication entity to one that is integrated with the other combat services to provide a broad spectrum of battlespace operations.“
Oh cut the crap. The Navy never changes its position or attitude, it expects everyone else to work around it. I’ve never seen a Navy position on an issue that was “joint.” Fallon was put in there so that he could threaten Iran with carrier task forces. Every statement he’s made addresses his intent to address the “strategic” issues of the region and not the military aspects of the two wars in theater.
When the PACOM top position goes to a ground commander, I’ll believe that the DOD chooses commanders based on their skillsets and not on service parochialism. Until then, don’t make this out to be something it isn’t — it’s just politics.
I appreciate that you keep your site going and allow comments. To me feedback is an interesting part of a website.