Command Climate, Ethics, and Hillary's E-mails.

When I was a  young officer, my battery commander and our staff were preparing for a couple of weeks training out in the field.  In the Army, one of our axioms is "train as you fight".  The more realistic training, the better.  Yet our commander took this rule and tried to argue that we should use signals and radio channels the way we would really fight.  The problem is that those channels are restricted use in peace time, and really not something we should be using.  I remember watching as he refused to accept 'no' for an answer and insisted that there had to be a way.  (I didn't envy the young soldier who had to tell him it couldn't be done.)

The thing is, our commander was doing what our entire culture says a leader should do.  He was driven.  A hard charger.  No excuses.  Take no prisoners. (And it was utterly stupid.  Of all things to be driven over, this?!?)

I brought this up because we, as leaders, are responsible for creating the work environment.  We put pressure on our subordinates to get things done, or find a way, or make it happen.  Which is all well and good, in that it can push people out of their ruts and lead to some truly amazing and creative things.  The dark side of this, however, is that if you're not careful you will pressure people to do things that are illegal, immoral, unethical...or just plain shortsighted because in pursuing your stated goal they may make choices that undermine your ultimate vision.

My company recently did it's annual ethics training, and I kind of liked a couple of the scenarios.  In one the boss set a goal (meet a sales target) and said find a way.  The boss refused to accept no for an answer and put considerable pressure on the employees to make it happen.  In order to do so, the employees started considering some pretty shady things.  Like calling up customers to ask them to purchase enough material to make their sales goal, with the understanding that they would return it.  This distorts the true picture of how that product is selling, all to meet an (often arbitrary) goal.

I brought this all up because I felt I needed to explain a few more things from my previous post.  I don't know what the FBI investigation will find, but I don't honestly expect them to say that Hillary knowingly released classified information.  What I expect is that they'll find some staffer who got told to give her information (which happened to be classified, and had to be sent to her private e-mail on her private server so she could access it on her blackberry), who knew it was classified, and got told to find a way.  Given the training we all go through when handling classified material, I expect that staffer should have known better.  And I expect they felt stuck between what their class said to do and what their boss wanted.  So they made it happen.

This is part of the concern I have when I say she, and the Establishment, lives in a bubble.  When you don't know what you are asking of your people, when you accept no excuses and refuse to hear people out in an attempt to drive them further, when you don't set limits or necessarily even try to understand what they will do when you say find a way, you create an environment that is rife with the potential for illegal, immoral, and unethical behavior.

The Presidential Race Part II - Clinton

The Democratic primaries concern me a bit more than Trump, mostly because Trump probably doesn't have enough support to actually win.  (Seems crazy how, over and over again, the political parties seem to be doing their best to lose the election.  Poll after poll shows Hillary is viewed unfavorably by many people.  Not just 'not liked', but actively disliked.  She could have been easy to beat, if the Republicans had put out a decent candidate.  Instead we get Trump?!?)


Again, full disclosure. I have never been a Hillary fan.  I hadn't rabidly disliked her the way some Republicans do.  It's funny, but when she first ran for President part of me disliked the idea of her candidacy simply because I didn't want to deal with that level of drama again.  She has so many enemies that any action will probably get drowned out in 'scandals'.  I know it's not fair to hold it against her, but if she stays in the political limelight Republicans will continue to look for issues (like Benghazi, or Whitewater, or whatever).  I find it somewhat ironic that I say this, because I find the classified e-mails on her server a real problem.  You can see my previous post if you want more detail. 


So.  I studied political science in college, and one of my classes explored psychology in politics.  The professor felt the easiest way to identify whether personality made a difference was to look at presidential candidates.  When I assess a political candidate, I try to consider the whole person.  It's not enough to know what issues they stand for, I want to know how they make decisions in general.  What their likely reactions are.  After all, politicians regularly deal with the unexpected.  How they will handle a Cuban Missile Crisis matters as much as whether or not they support free trade.  (Besides, the President can't create legislation all on their own.  Whatever agenda they have has to get through Congress first, so in a sense the character and personality of the President matters even more than their political agenda).


So, for example, back in 2000 I vaguely recall reading an article about Gore.  It basically said he was obsessed with reading all the details of every report.  Which sounds kind of impressive, except I imagine the President is so busy that he wouldn't have time for that...I want someone who knows how to build a great team and delegate, not someone who will get bogged down trying to understand everything first. 


George W. Bush had a team.  I don't really want to call it 'great', though I suppose it's very typical of elite opinion.  Probably not enough diversity of thought, and not enough safeguards against groupthink. 


So anyways.  Since I used to have a security clearance and worked in a SCIF I've been following the Hillary e-mail scandal pretty closely.  And part of what disturbs me is a sense that her staff really does feel they are above it all.  The NSA rejected a request for a secure smartphone, so she and her staff just decided to find a way around it to get what they want. 


I feel like she lives in a bubble, her staff supports her in that bubble, and it means that she's probably not in touch enough to make good decisions.  She's got some sort of feedback loop encouraging her to do whatever she wants, and nobody who can put a brake on it and say 'wait a minute, should we really be doing that?" 


I also have the ironic feeling that she really does represent the establishment.  Ironic because (as per my undergraduate political science classes) I remember that Bill Clinton campaigned as a political outsider.  I even remember someone suggesting that this hurt him, in that he probably should have had a little more experience before getting elected President.  Not in the sense of 'he needed more familiarity with legislation'...but in the sense that Washington DC, from what I can tell, runs off relationships.  And an outsider doesn't have those relationships, doesn't know who to talk to in order to get things done.  So Bill, as an outsider, was a little less effective because he didn't know who was who.  (That's what I remember from class, at least.)


Hillary's gone to the extreme other end.  She probably knows who is who for everything.  This is one of their campaign points, basically saying that she'll be able to get things done.  Yet in the process I feel she's lost any objectivity she might have had.  She's an über establishment candidate.  Which wouldn't be so bad if I didn't feel like the establishment had a serious case of groupthink.


They (and Hillary) live in a bubble of their own making, and don't even know it.

The Presidential Race Part I - Trump

I can't even begin to describe how disappointed I am in America.  I actually want to focus more on the Democratic primaries, but I figured I (like so many others) have to talk about Trump first.




Full disclosure - I've never been a fan of him.  Even when he was 'just' a wealthy celebrity, he seemed overblown and kind of ridiculous.  I also don't consider someone with four bankruptcies an example of good business acumen.  But whatever, clearly there are others who think differently.




As a celebrity, I was quite content to ignore his existence as much as possible. As a potential future president?!?  Not so much. There's one issue that captures in a nutshell why I'm concerned.




Let's start with a few facts.  The Berlin Wall was around 96 miles long and divided Berlin for 28 years.  In that time about 5,000 people successfully crossed the border despite the wall.  They crossed by "digging long tunnels under the Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights and, in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of defection, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints. The sewer system predated the Wall, and some people escaped through the sewers, in a number of cases with assistance from the Unternehmen Reisebüro."(see Wikipedia article)



The Israeli West Bank barrier will be more than 272 miles long.  Israel also struggles to identify and prevent people from sneaking across the border.  Again, determined people will find a way - over, under or through.  There's a rather healthy debate about how effective this is, you can read up on it if you're interested.  Note as well, though, that the Israeli wall involves much more than just a wall.  You also have to have people patrolling along the wall in order to catch the various attempts to cross it.




Now, let's look at our own borders.  Note that I said "borders", plural.  I've lived near the Mexican border, and I heard from the border patrol there that they also get a number of illegal immigrants crossing through the Canadian border.  A wall only built on the Mexican side will probably just mean more people try crossing on the Canadian side.  If you truly believe a wall is necessary then you need to build it across both borders (and most likely you'll need to beef up the coast guard, as well).




So anyways.  Our border with Mexico is around 1,989 miles long.  That's over 20 times the size of the Berlin wall.  If and when the Israeli wall is complete, our Mexican border is still 7 times as long as that!




And Canada is far longer - 5,525 miles long!  That's twenty times as long as the Israeli/Palestinian wall, and 57 times the size of the Berlin wall.




So what does that mean?  Well, obviously if it's costing the Israelis over $2 billion to build a wall, it will cost us at least $14 billion to build the Mexican wall in a similar fashion (a lot depends on how much you're willing to spend to make it secure.  If you don't have enough security to prevent people from crossing over than you're wasting your money in the first place.) 


$14 billion, minimum, just for the Mexican side alone.  Add in the Canadian side and we're talking $54 billion.  Assuming similar costs, which is a big assumption as the terrain varies greatly.


I've driven somewhat close to the border, btw.  From Sierra Vista, AZ to San Diego, CA.  Or El Paso, TX.  And on one memorable occasion I've driven from Sierra Vista to Houston.  I can tell you from personal experience that it's a lot of empty desert.  A whole lot of nothing.


Which means that you also have to budget for regular stations, ones close enough to provide some sort of quick reaction force.  It will do you absolutely no good to have a sensor go off telling you that someone just tunneled under the wall or went over the wall or what-have-you if it takes two hours before someone checks it out.


Israel is small enough and well populated enough that it's probably not too hard to do so there...but how many people are you willing to pay to live along the 700+ miles between El Paso and Houston? 


The reason I bring this up is that I think ANY politician claiming they will build a wall between the US and Mexico to be disingenuous.  A wall on the border of Mexico, all by itself, will not stop illegal immigration.  It's almost a joke to say that it will, and if it's not going to be effective if it's a waste of money.  If you're serious about being effective, it would be a very expensive, resource intensive endeavor that will require more money than you'd think. 


Arguments to build a wall sound more like a way to make people feel like we're doing something.  Even if that something isn't particularly effective.  I think anyone arguing for such a wall is either feeding people what they want to hear or really doesn't know what they're talking about.