Is Washington So Bad at Strategy?

The always readable and insightful Robert Haddick has a post up at Foreign Policy's website that keeps the fires burning on the perennially interesting questions of strategy, policy and civil military relations.  His post cites a nicely crafted piece by Mac Owens in the Spring 2012 Naval War College Review that should also be read in its entirety. 

I've thought long and hard about the subjects raised by these gentlemen, but not long and hard enough to frame the issues as effectively as they.  I do have some less informed thoughts, questions, and observations.

1. Against what is modern strategy-making being measured?  Is there a system active elsewhere in the world that provides a better example of a civil-military relations lash-up that would also be consistent with our Constitution and our modern political milieu?  Has there been a time in our history in which civil-military relations were better handled, and more importantly, could that framework logically be applied to the country the US is today? 
2. What is the evidence that modern strategy-making is so bad?  Are we confusing the sturm und drang of American democracy and all of its warts and wonders with a broken system poorly serving it?  Would we be better off with a military that simply was legally forbidden from interacting with the legislative branch in any way shape or form?  
3. Do we view "failures" of strategy/policy alignment through the lens of perfection offered by the distance of time?  Is our 20/20 hindsight fair and reasonable, especially given the detached manner in which it is applied?
4. Has the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff become a creature of the White House rather than the military?  Is this officer an Administration figure, or a serving military officer?  Could one of the "problems" Haddick and Owens cite be most properly framed as an unhealthy "blending" of strategy and policy, rather than the failure of one to reflect the other?  Can it be otherwise with the titular "head" of the uniformed military--since Goldwater Nichols something far more than "first among equals"--serving as essentially a political appointee in Presidential Administrations?  Is there some alternative worth exploring that more clearly draws the line between strategy and policy?  

To most of these questions, I have little more than suspicions and opinions.  I do believe that Jointness has driven some decline in the quality of strategic thought--something I've written about here,  here, here, here, here, and  here.  I would like to see the services strengthened at the expense of the Joint constituency, though my preference would be to see that strengthening reflected in the authority of the Service Secretaries rather than in that of the Service Chiefs.  But I do think we tend to get "the big things right", and the recent "Defense Strategic Framework" represents that.  Don't get me wrong--the budget-driven drill that it was (emanating from a $487B conspiracy acceded to by the President and the Congress as step 1 of a sequestration suicide pact) never should have happened, as the failure to address the real drivers of our insolvency were shelved in favor of the easy targets. But once the political branches provided their will to DOD, the suits and the uniforms worked together well to craft an approach narrative consistent with their diminished resources, one whose words make strategic sense to me...if you are ordered to cut half a trillion dollars.  That the budgets which came forward in PB13 were so detached from the narrative (shipbuilding cut by 28% across the POM, retiring CG's early, drawing out the UCLASS timeline, etc) represents a bureaucratic failure and disconnect--one perhaps attributable to the ills that Haddick and Owens bring to our attention.  Lots here on which to chew...

Bryan McGrath