“There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, ‘Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,’ and an optimist who says, ‘Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.’ Either way, nothing happens.
– Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia
In a recent MWI article, ML Cavanaugh, defending remarks by Gen. John Nicholson, argued that America needs optimistic generals. Ryan Leach and David Danford promptly responded that, on the contrary, America needs cynical generals. I argue that what America really needs are generals who occupy a realist middle ground firmly rooted in facts. Our generals must have the confidence to see themselves through difficulties and inspire their subordinates, while at the same time not let that confidence cloud their judgment as to what is realistically possible.
Cavanaugh’s argument that generals must be optimistic hints at but doesn’t quite find a key leadership truth. Rather than optimistic, generals should be confident. While this may at first appear to be semantic gymnastics, the distinction is nonetheless essential. Optimism denotes a hopefulness about the future and a positive or cheerful attitude. The problem is that hope and cheerfulness aren’t necessarily connected to facts. As Gen. Gordon Sullivan said, “Hope is not a method.” Confidence, on the other hand, is a belief in something created by a trust in the truth of it. A commander’s confidence that the unit can accomplish the mission comes from a belief that the facts of the situation will lead to that end. The outward appearance of a confident attitude flows from inward conviction. In other words, confidence is linked to reality whereas optimism is not.
Leach and Danford’s appeal for cynical generals, however, is not the antidote to optimism. While cynicism is the opposite of optimism, it nonetheless suffers from the same shortcoming; it is based on attitude rather than reality. The optimist hopes things will turn out well, while the cynic doubts it is so. Leach and Danford rightly point out that an optimistic general may offer tainted military advice to civilian authorities. But cynicism risks the same error. While the optimist may provide unrealistic options, the pessimist may take legitimate options off the table. Both are violations of a general officer’s professional obligation to provide civilian authorities their best advice.
Both articles provide historical examples to support their respective positions, but there is little that differentiates these examples besides who won and who lost. Had the D-Day invasion been a colossal failure and Eisenhower resigned, his name easily could have been used by Leach and Danford to support their argument. Instead, D-Day was a success, and Eisenhower appears in Cavanaugh’s piece. One case worth examining, however, is that of Gen. Eric Shinseki. Leach and Danford cite Shinseki’s disagreement with Paul Wolfowitz on the number of troops needed for the invasion of Iraq as an example of pessimism. In fact, this was realism at its best. Shinseki did not doubt the mission could be accomplished. Rather, he provided a realistic assessment of what it would take to accomplish it. Leach and Danford are not wrong to hold up Shinseki as a model worth emulating, but characterizing his military advice as pessimism is inaccurate.
America needs realistic generals whose confidence in themselves, the mission, and their subordinates stems from a grounded assessment of the facts of the situation. It is a difficult position to maintain. One imagines it might be at times very tough to keep the darkness of reality from depressing one’s confidence, or alternatively, to keep one’s confidence from biasing the interpretation of important facts. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, called this the Stockdale Paradox. The name comes from his interview with Vice Adm. James Stockdale, a prisoner for seven years in the Hanoi Hilton, who said, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
Whether the optimism of Gen. Nicholson or other generals played a prominent role in the success or failure of strategy or policy is a matter of debate. There is considerably more to decision-making and winning than attitude. What is clear, however, is that generals who maintain a confidence grounded in reality are in the best position to offer the unvarnished advice civilian leaders need.
Image credit: R. D. Ward, DoD
Immanuel Kant said "From the crooked timber that is humanity no truly straight thing can be made". Generals are and have always been flawed, it is nearly as much the "luck of the draw" as it is skill in selection. By necessity the military has to consider the applicants available as opposed to searching for the best candidate. As much as we would like to have the "very best" General Officers, it's never going to happen…because we have the "crooked timbers" deciding the process.
This is a good response to Ryan's and my piece, but I think it misses one point: cynicism and realism are not mutually exclusive. We find that to be a realist is to be a cynic according to its proper definition: "an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest; skepticism." (from google, but most major dictionaries define cynic as something similar). Huntington's description of the military ethic is a description of its realism. I will admit we were a little hyperbolic toward the darker side of cynicism in our piece to counterbalance what we saw as the silliness of optimism, but we also based our piece on realism. War is in fact terrible. Men really are driven by self-interest. Politicians are prone to foolishness in their pursuit of war. The cynicism we meant to portray was not merely an attitude but a realistic understanding of both war, politics, and people. And we intentionally avoided saying it was the same thing as hopelessness or the attitude that things are doomed to fail. Insofar as this piece portrays our argument as that, it attacks a straw man. In short, our argument is that military leaders ought actually to be cynics in that they act as if men ARE unable to be anything but self-interested (properly understood–it is not the same thing as merely selfish or unable to sacrifice for the common good).
I agree, the semantics of things creates a tendency for people to line up cynicism, realism and optimism on the same spectrum, as if one cannot be more cynical and more realistic or less so simultaneously.
Being a General Officer represents the 1% who have demonstrated a capacity to operate in that space of being confident, yet realistic. Complimenting the points of the author, there is no guarantee a General will have these qualities but there is high confidence that when they are presented with a situation where they must maintain this balance, they will be able to do so.
I think writers such as this should make clear the distinction between the two definitions of “cynic” as well as acquaint themselves with the definition of “sceptic”. People seem to confuse sceptic with cynic overbroadly.
Pessimism/Realism has a place in every leader's planning cycle but, once the orders are given, pessimism can be fatal to men and missions.
Ric was in a quasi/wholly political role in the OIF run-up. Our republic's history is full of the dynamic, often public, tension between generals and the civilians that give the orders. Not for the first time did a general dispute the factors that civilian officials used to devise strategy and aims and vice-versa. I would say "pessimism" is the right term to use when looking at a difficult order for that theater. I can hear Ric say, "Gents, we've been handed a crap sandwich.
Let's figure out how best to eat it." for the purpose of protecting the force/accomplishing the mission. That is when the "realism" takes over. Balance, as Dain stated above.
Mick was/is a combat theater leader where "pessimism", expressed by him, could have a hugely corrosive effect on the leaders, and down though layers of "commander's intent", down to troops in potential conflict each day.
As an aside, I consider it an honor and privilege to have served under Ric in my first cavalry post, and I graduated from Ranger School with Mick, our class Honor Grad. No one more deserving. 2 highly capable and honorable men.