From NRO’s Corner:
There is almost no NCO development going on today, not because MNSTC-I isn’t trying, but because Iraq’s general officers are terrified to give flexibility to even officers below them, much less NCOs. They remember when the enlisted men were mostly conscripts, and they still treat them as such. Even most NCOs function as little more than personal servants to the officers above them.
This is a cultural mentality that must be broken, and changed. But it’s not going to be easy. If only we could truly start over with truly tabula rasa recruits, we’d have a much easier time. But we can’t do that; we have to fight the military culture of the Middle East that does not reward independent thinking.
So, in order to even begin to think about winning, all the US military has to do is change a military culture that has pervaded a region for thousands of years. And it’s not as if the Middle East hasn’t seen plenty of conflict in that time, so it’s not as if simply exposing them to combat is going to bring about that change.
It’s amazing how similar the goals of the US military here are to those of the old Soviets and Western feminists. Their objectives always so simple and attainable, all they require is to completely change something that hasn’t changed in millenia. There are few things more lethal than a sincere Utopian.