Learning from a rascal

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Rumsfeld's Rules: Seriously?
By Jhn Baldoni, May 21, 2013

There is little in Donald Rumsfeld newest book, Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War and Life, that anyone in leadership would dispute.

The book is an outgrowth of management and leadership aphorisms that Rumsfeld wrote and put on 3×5 notecards. Now gathered in book form, Rumsfeld’s Rules explores how to serve an organization and how to lead it. There is sound wisdom in these pages.

The problem arises from the fact that Rumsfeld the author is not Rumsfeld the executive, who served as Secretary of Defense in the George W. Bush administration.

When Rumsfeld was addressing troops in Kuwait in 2004 who raised concerns about lack of armor on Humvees, Rumsfeld replied, “As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” Certainly that was true in 1941 when America was surprised attacked by Japanese Imperial forces at Pearl Harbor. It was not true in 2003 when America invaded Iraq pre-emptively and as such controlled resources, manpower and timing.

Thomas Ricks, long-time military observer and author of many best-sellers on military affairs, writes in The Generals that “As defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld  did a poor job at many things, including enforcing accountability. He was wont to loudly criticize and abuse subordinates, but he rarely fired them.” By contrast, as Ricks writes, his successor Robert Gates who replaced Rumsfeld after President Bush fired him, “did an admirable job of restoring accountability.”

The question that students of leadership may raise when reading Rumsfeld Rules is his: is it okay to listen to some who writes well but does not hold himself to the same standards? My response is yes. When it comes to leadership you can learn as much from rascals, maybe even more so, than from saints. The challenge for readers is to read what he writes through the lens of history.

Well-intentioned people will disagree with my assessment of Mr. Rumseld. After all, he served as a Navy aviator in the fifties and was a U.S. Congressman, and secretary of defense in the Gerald R. Ford administration. Patriot to be certain but when push came to shove when his leadership acumen mattered most he blundered.

Robert D. Kaplan, a military observer and best-selling author, notes in his 2008 piece for The Atlantic, Rumsfeld’s attempt to streamline the U.S. military in order to make it lighter, swifter and smarter was a good idea but out of step with the realities of America’s two wars. Kaplan quotes Richard H. Shultz Jr., the director of international security studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, as saying “Rumsfeld got war and transformation only half-right. He was right that the lethality and speed of a military advance could be transformational, but he didn’t realize that the enemy might have an answer to that in the form of a war after the war.” Kaplan, who does believe Rumsfeld was correct on some issues, concludes his article by summarizing Shultz’s belief that Rumsfeld “being half-wrong on operational strategy for too many years cost too many Iraqis, Afghans and Americans untold suffering.”

In his introduction to Rumseld as a guest on Meet the Press, host David Gregory noted that Rumsfeld is about to become a great-grandfather. That is good news for the Rumsfeld family, but for my part I cannot forget the many hundreds of thousands of U.S. military troops that Rumsfeld as Secretary of State sent to a hot and dusty corner of the world. Four thousand of them never returned, never to experience what he as a great-grandfather will enjoy.

It is something that anyone who reads Rumsfeld’s Rules will do well to remember.
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