http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in/2009/02/20/the-difference/
This is so very true.
I have 7 topics at the top of my head that I would like to see a defence officer to talk on for at least 5 to 10 minutes. These 7 topics are all the latest. I don't want a solution; all I seek is the officer to tell me why did the problem start, how does it manifest and what are the possible ramifications. And the officer should be able to answer questions that may arise.
Here comes the list
- Global recession - what is recession, what is depression, what is stagflation, why does it happen
- Sub prime crisis - what are CDOs, what are credit default swaps, what is sub prime mortgage, how are they all related
- India and its economic clout in the world - what is India's GDP, what are its exports, who are its customers, what do they buy, what is world export market, what is India's share in it, how will India be affected by the global recession
- Compare India, China, US economically, militarily, culturally
- Carbon credits - what are they, what is TCO for carbon credit, why is it important, what is carbon footprint
- Bio genetic engineering - what are the ethical issues
- Bailouts - is it socialism or capitalism?
As a CO you can decide what your officers discuss during parties, get to gethers. Be wary of the Web 2.0 generation. In my tenure of 11 years, never did I see an leader organizing a discussion around a topic. And I used to find myself severly handicapped when I used to talk to my civilian counterparts while I was in service.
What stops you from lighting the candle that banishes ignorance.
2 comments:
dear sheth,
while i do agree in that the organisation of ours need to adopt and adapt to groow and that most of us cannot spk for 5 mins on the topics given by you, i have a difference in opinion about the alleged intellectual hollowness of 'PEOPLE LIKE US'. The new school intellectuala have a distinctive techno-economic bias, and are conspicuous by absence of emotional quotient...the absolute lack of ability to what i call fluctuate between pedastals of intellect...any way i would like to go more with Camus that the greatest revolution is a metaphysical one... tomorrow will be the era of intangibles....worth a thought?????
I gave a lot of thought to the comment you made over the past 3 days.
I think there are various levels at which an army officer functions. At the rank of Colonel and below, awareness of the world affairs does not really matter. And when I have talked to retired Generals they too were clueless to an extent. So guess they felt that it did not matter at level too. I dont think that is a pretty picture if all our thinking at even a General's level is just operational thinking and never strategic thinking.
What matters at CO level is how to manage the troops and the unit. But given this pre-requisite, an officer would still end up hollow if he were to be asked to give an elevator pitch on
1. Equipment management
2. Physical fitness management
3. Discipline management
4. Administration
5. Improving morale of troops
I could go on, but just to illustrate the point, let us consider Equipment Management.
We still resort to the same concepts of equipment repairs when the equipment starts failing. I have never seen predictive failure analysis carried out. Do we need it absolutely? The cost of repair to a vehicle is not only the downtime associated, but also the price of the mechanic working on it, the need to carry and stock spares so that the vehicle is repaired immediately, the amount of paper work and time wasted to monitor the repair at all levels. We never bother about it because we never bear the burden of the downtime directly. But the cost is there, hidden to us, but in the budget of the defence services.
Or let me consider the colossal amount of time wasted in rifle cleaning. Either the troops are lying or you are not ensuring the correct procedure if you say that the weapon underwent hot water drill for 7 days after every firing. This time could be used much more productively.
Let me ask an officer as to what weapon management techniques would help to save time - does batch processing make sense, should weapon cleaning be organized around cells concepts, would JIT concept help for weapon cleaning. I guess the officer would still be at a loss of words.
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