Military Promotions, Up or Out

By Charles Tolleson, February 13, 2011

F.A. Hayek wrote a book, “The Road to Serfdom”. Chapter ten of Hayek’s book is titled, “Why the Worst Get on Top”. I believe the military’s policy of “up or out”, get promoted or resign, is an example of Hayek’s theory of why the worst get on top. One must go along to get along.

I worked many years with former military officers. They had short and medium careers; 5 to 10 years. Others had 20 years and were retired. I saw no difference in the performance of those who had short careers and those who had careers long enough to collect a retirement check.

I wondered why some of the men had spent only 5 years in the military as an officer when these men were such outstanding men in quality of skills and character. As I inquired I found out that many of these men simply were not the “go along” type. They did not believe in spending hours at the Officers Club drowning in booze. They advocated for efficiency instead of bureaucracy. They spoke out against unnecessary wars. They spoke out against a foolish attack on an enemy’s fortified position without first bombarding it with air strikes or heavy artillery.

These men were not likely to get promoted, thus, they were asked to resign. Those who remained never critiqued ineptness of the military nation and the unnecessary wars created by those who simply wanted to grow the military nation for promotions and other perks. Of those who got promoted to seniors ranks you will never hear them advocating to end the unnecessary wars in Afghanistan or Iraq or to close some of the hundreds of unnecessary military installations in foreign countries. You will hear them talking about how “stressed” the military is, meaning the generals need more, more, and more, even though the current U.S. Military has enough TNT equivalent power to kill each person in the world 6 times!

General Eric Ken Shinseki was fired for advocating more troops would be needed in the Iraq War. The U.S. instead hired thousands of private mercenaries. Maybe it’s time for some military officers to have tenure and cannot be fired. They could advocate their positions in private and before closed sessions of congress.

It has been a long time since I first heard about the military's "up or out" procedure. I hope it has changed to a procedure that allows junior officers to inquire, advocate, and critique missions and proposals.

Charles Tolleson, Veteran