Air University Review, September-October 1985
LIKE individuals, institutions ossify with age. Goals and objectives become part of the warp and woof of corporate personality, enforcing conformity and demanding unity of purpose from those who are part of the institution. When service to institutionalized goals becomes an objective unto itself, a bureaucratic rigidity develops that stifles initiative and, ultimately, causes atrophy and impotence. That is when the invigoration of reform is needed.
Only the strongest establishments can reform themselves. Those that seek to foster change from within must, in most instances, be prepared for the lot of martyrs. On the other hand, reform from without can be unduly abrasive, destroying rather than improving. The successful reformation usually results when insiders work with interested outside parties to bring about constructive change.
The Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation provide good examples of successful reorientation and reconstitution. In 1520, the Papal Bull Exsurge demanded that the monk Martin Luther either recant his position on reforming the Church or be branded a heretic. Luther became an unenthusiastic revolutionary.
Martin Luther loved the Church. He did not seek to destroy it, but he was a determined advocate for redirection and reform, particularly in the area of finances. When Luther criticized the sale of indulgences, he did more than probe at a lucrative practice that was vital to financing Europe's most lavish court: he ultimately raised questions about doctrines basic to the Church's existence, including that of papal infallibility. However limited Luther's impulse for reform was initially, the consequences were dramatic.
The Air Force, like the medieval church, is subject to the vicissitudes of institutional life. As the Air Force matured, particularly after it attained its independent status in 1947, goals and objectives were incorporated, and air doctrine was defined and developed. Such processes are proper and common for any military service. However, if doctrine has become dogma, reformation may be needed. Like Martin Luther, today's military reformer seeks to correct rather than to destroy. In Luther's day, it was the Infidel Turk that actually sought to destroy Christendom. Today, it is the Soviets who wish to obliviate the American way of life, with all of our institutions. Military reformers are neither infidel to our military ideals nor Communist, and it would behoove us not to use the terms heretic or adversary too freely.
Even the most facile study of history teaches that the impulse for reform is virtually irresistible to all but the very entrenched. If accommodated, reform can improve the institution, strengthening it through evolutionary rather than revolutionary development. The United States government is an example of an institution in a continuous state of reformation. Imperial Russia's tsarist autocracy, on the other hand, could not accommodate much needed reforms advocated by socialists, democrats, and Mensheviks. The resulting Bolshevik revolution swept away autocrat and democrat alike. The Roman Catholic Church, in contrast, though shaken by Luther and subsequent reformers, undertook its own reformation to survive today as the largest and single most powerful religious institution in Christendom.
Martin Luther's impulse for reform was, at its essence, a personal thing. It began with his own passionate commitment to understanding what he was all about as a Christian and a cleric. His road to reform began with a search of the Scriptures as he sought to better understand his own relationships with God and with the Church of his time. For Luther, the Reformation began with himself.
Whether we consider ourselves reformers or defenders of the faith, we would do well to reexamine our own commitment. Officership, involving service and sometimes self-sacrifice for the good of the greater society and the lot of humanity, may be as much priesthood as profession. Just as the clergy faces the awesome responsibility of dealing in questions relevant to temporal values and eternal existence, so too military officers must master their own set of awe-inspiring imperatives, dealing as they do, ultimately, with life, death, and defense of the nation. That kind of charge demands the stuff of total dedication that transcends institutionalized interests. If self-preservation and promotion within the institution have become our goals, reform might best begin with a rigid examination of what we ourselves are all about. A rereading of both our commissions and the oath of office might be helpful. We could find ourselves paraphrasing Shakespeare's Cassius in the play Julius Caesar, "the fault ... is not in our stars but in ourselves as underlings."
E.H.T.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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