by Owen West
Every so often an article declares that the military is suffering an avoidable exodus of its best junior officers. This argument has reappeared a dozen times since I joined the Marines in 1991. It’s misleading. Most officers who in their third billets demonstrate the stuff to convert into top-tier seniors remain in uniform.
Brain Drain articles focus on officers. Enlisted men and women are *seen* to have faster, flexible promotion opportunities. I don’t know if this is true – or if the argument is repeatedly tabled by departing officers writing only what they know.
Military promotions are systematic. On the one hand, this is frustrating because you move lock-step with your peers through several jobs before meaningful differentiation kicks in. On the other hand, because the stakes are so high, the military ensures its officers have experienced several diverse roles before commanding a 5,000-troop brigade or a ship. The result is lower performance variance. Lower than an engineer suddenly running a product division, or a profitable Wall Street trader too hastily promoted to run an integrated global business.
I’ve seen no data supporting the position that in Years 6-8, the majority of our top ~25%-ranked officers leave. I believe it’s the opposite. In the 28 years since first leaving active duty, I’ve seen my superior classmates become colonels and generals, and witnessed firsthand the turnover in high-performing civilian businesses.
The Brain Drain argument is a) largely anecdotal, discounting normal turnover; and b) often focused on the wrong window.
a) Every business has talent turnover. I worked on the Goldman Sachs trading floor for twenty years. Every year we had departures that stung. They were all replaced by top performers, as I was when I left in 2017.
b) Why use Years 6-8? In the first few jobs, junior officer rankings are affected by narrow functional performance and a lot of luck. In the 1990s Marine Infantry, for example, if you were the top fitness nut in the battalion and inherited a platoon with terrific NCOs, you were rated in the Top 10%. It takes three billets to begin to judge “the best” junior officers.
Would more flexible bonus payments and duty assignments help retention? Sure. Talent management can always be improved. The military’s fixation on paying the rank instead of the production is very frustrating. But the best soldiers are not in it for the money, and they are more immune to “needs of the service” than most of us. Their dedication to the military profession is higher.
Stepping back, the U.S. military has four basic groups with a lot of Venn overlap: 1) job seekers; 2) adventurers; 3) service-oriented patriots; 4) military professionals. I loved the adventure and wanted to serve. The military professionals hold the whole thing together.
On balance, junior officers and NCOs with the most potential to convert into super seniors remain in uniform. They risk their personal careers competing again and again for command. Their family units make an enormous sacrifice so thousands of Americans can be led by the best.
Mr. Owen West is a Marine and the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD-SOLIC). Previously, Mr. West worked for Goldman Sachs as an energy trader. His published books include Sharkman Six and The Snake Eaters. Mr. West is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
