Recently, the assassination incident in Kandahar Province has attracted widespread attention, and US Army General Miller has performed well in this incident, which has attracted people's admiration. He was a ground commander in Operation Black Hawk Down and was awarded the Bronze Heart for his performance in the operation. It is understood that it took Miller only 25 years to be promoted from captain to four-star general, is this speed fast?The US military has a total of 257838 officers, of which 886 are generals, while only 40 are four-star generals, accounting for only 1.5 per 10,000 of the entire officer group. So, how hard is it to become a four-star admiral?
The U.S. military follows the Officers Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) promulgated in 1980, which stipulates that only after 10 years of military service and 3 years of service as a captain can be promoted to major;After 16 years of military service and at least three years as a major, he can be promoted to lieutenant colonel;After 22 years in the military and 3 years as a lieutenant colonel, he can be promoted to colonel. Miller graduated from West Point in 1983 and was awarded the rank of second lieutenant that same year. By the time he commanded Operation Black Hawk Down in 1993, he had been in the military for exactly 10 years and had only been a captain for two years, so he would not be promoted to major until at least 1994.
After that, even if the journey was smooth, it would take him 12 years (that is, in 2006) to be promoted to colonel. When he was promoted to brigadier general, the biggest bottleneck in his military career appeared. Unlike promotion to colonel, promotion to brigadier general requires too many subjective factors to consider. The Promotion Board is a body that leads the promotion of officers and is made up of senior generals. They vet people who are waiting for promotion based on a certain criterion, which is called "subjective acceptance". As a result of this methodology, only five out of every 100 colonels were eventually promoted to brigadier general. When McMaster, the current US security adviser, was promoted to brigadier general, he caused a storm in the United States.
During the 2003 Iraq War, McMaster served as a colonel of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, and he proposed an innovative set of tactics: "protect the local people, improve relations with the tribes, and rely on the locals to act as the eyes of the American army", also known as "the American version of the people's war". This method eliminated the local anti-American forces at a very small cost, so that the contradictions in his jurisdiction were the most relaxed, the American army was the smallest, and the relationship with the local people was the best. This method was highly praised and borrowed by the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, Petraeus, and was called "Petraeusianism". This made McMaster more famous as a colonel than many generals.
However, in 2006 and 2007, he failed to pass the review of two promotions to brigadier general, triggering a wave of criticism in American society and within the military. Many have accused promotion committee members of focusing too much on "mainstream values" and preferring "conventional" generals over innovative generals like McMaster. Miller, meanwhile, met the criteria of the promotion committee, and he rose from brigadier general to four-star general in 12 years, a speed that was not impressive, but very rapid. These "rule-by" generals may also become members of the promotion committee in the future, and then elect the next generation of "rule-by" generals.
For us, generals like McMaster are even more rare and precious because they are able to employ unusual tactics and achieve unexpected victories. In the U.S. military, it is almost impossible for someone like Li Yunlong to become a general.