Executive orders - Tom Clancy [187]
I agree with that, too. Bretano took a bite of his sandwich. The President's given me a free hand to clean this department out, do things my way. I have two weeks to put the new force requirements together.
Two weeks, sir? If Jackson were able to go pale, that would have done it to him.
Jackson, how long you been in uniform? the SecDef asked.
Counting time at the Trade School? Call it thirty years.
If you can't do it by tomorrow, you're the wrong guy. But I'll give you ten days, Bretano said generously.
Mr. Secretary, I'm Operations, not Manpower, and-
Exactly. In my way of looking at things, Manpower fills the needs that Operations defines. Decisions in a place like this are supposed to be made by the shooters, not the accountants. That's what was wrong at TRW when I moved in. Accountants were telling engineers what they could have to be engineers. No. Bretano shook his head. That didn't work. If you build things, your engineers decide how the company runs. For a place like this, the shooters decide what they need, and the accountants figure out how to shoehorn it into the budget. There's always a struggle, but the product end of the business makes the decisions.
Well, damn. Jackson managed not to smile. Parameters?
Figure the largest credible threat, the most serious crisis that's likely, not possible, and design me a force structure that can handle it. Even that wasn't good enough, and both men knew it. In the old days there had been the guideline of two and a half wars, that America could deploy to fight two major conflicts, plus a little brush fire somewhere else. Few had ever admitted that this rule had always been a fantasy, all the way back to the Eisenhower presidency. Today, as Jackson had just admitted, America lacked the wherewithal to conduct a single major military deployment. The fleet was down to half of what it had been ten years earlier. The Army was down further. The Air Force, ever sheltering behind its high-tech, was formidable, but had still retired nearly half its total strength. The Marines were still tough and ready, but the Marine Corps was an expeditionary force, able to deploy in the expectation that reinforcements would arrive behind them, and dangerously light in its weapons. The cupboard wasn't exactly bare, but the enforced diet hadn't really done anyone much good.
Ten days?
You've got what I need sitting in a desk drawer right now, don't you? Planning officers always did, Bretano knew.
Give me a couple days to polish it up, sir, but, yes, we do.
Jackson?
Yes, Mr. Secretary?
I kept track of our operations in the Pacific. One of my people at TRW, Skip Tyler, used to be pretty good at this stuff, and we looked over maps and things every day. The operations you put together, they were impressive. War isn't just physical. It's psychological, too, like all life is. You win because you have the best people. Guns and planes count, but brains count more. I'm a good manager, and one hell of a good engineer. I'm not a fighter. I'll listen to what you say, 'cause you and your colleagues know how to fight. I'll stand up for you wherever and whenever I have to. In return for that, I want what you really need, not what you'd like to have. We can't afford that. We can cut bureaucracy. That's Manpower's job, civilian and uniform. I'll lean this place out. At TRW I got rid of a lot of useless bodies. That's an engineering company, and now it's run by engineers. This is a company that does operations, and it ought to be run by operators, people with notches cut in their gun grips. Lean. Mean. Tough. Smart. You get what I'm saying?
I think so, sir.
Ten days. Less