Why There Might Not Be a 'Brain Drain'

January 7, 2016

By Brian E. Wish

The military personnel system (particularly officer promotions, assignments, and evaluations) is widely thought to be broken. Dysfunction in the system causes the military to “Bleed Talent” as Dr. Tim Kane, a 1990 graduate of the Air Force Academy, described in The Atlantic, and followed in a 2012 book. General David Barno agreed, noting that many senior officers do not recognize a problem. Barno and Nora Bensahel continued this theme in a more recent Atlantic story. Other substantive voices from the Secretary of Defense to the Chief of Navy Personnel echo these concerns. Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, seems convinced.

Few voices challenge the intuitively satisfying thesis. Anyone spending time in the military witnesses arbitrary and capricious assignment actions or sees friends who are fantastic officers fail promotion because they were too focused on their mission or their family to complete a required school or get a master’s degree in the prescribed time. A recent series of articles by Tim Matthews pointed out contradictions in the ‘Brain Drain’ theme, but momentum seems to be building. Before making wholesale changes, however, policy-makers should re-consider the validity of the underlying argument.

How We Measure “Best”

As Matthews noted, there is no proof that the best officers are leaving. Opinion surveys, by definition, measure what people believe to be true; Kane’s survey of West Point graduates and similar research he cites in his book validate that most officers believe that the personnel system serves the nation poorly. In the 1970’s, 100% of doctors surveyed would likely have said that a woman could not have a safe vaginal birth after having a caesarian section, a widespread belief that proved untrue. Vast ramparts of belief have crumbled when exposed to scientific confirmation; the Earth is not flat, and it revolves around the sun.

Opinion surveys are not meaningless, but surveys only prove what the respondents believe about the underlying concept, not the underlying facts themselves. To prove that the cream of the officers leave service, one would need to 1) define what ‘best’ is, 2) measure current and departed officers against that standard, and 3) compare and analyze while controlling for all other relevant variables, which could include demographics, specialty and assignment history.

Even the semantics are daunting. How should one measure entrepreneurial spirit, why is it considered good, and how much should an officer have? Developing and advocating new and better ways to execute tactical, operational, and strategic missions is good; but failing to respect organization norms and values may be counterproductive. Aversion to risk is considered bad, but minimizing and mitigating risk are standard business practices.

A recent analysis of Air Force officers by John Swisher attempted to quantify talent using attendance at a US News and World Report Top 10 university as a measure and found that cumulative attrition rates were 20-35 percentage points higher for these elite students. However, these students only represent a fraction of the 3-4K commissioned in the Air Force each year, and the majority of the difference happens at the 4-5 year point. This pattern may speak more to the initial career intentions of those joining from Harvard or Yale, similar to Air Force Academy graduates having lower attrition. If the narrative of brilliant but weary officers finally giving up on the institution contained broad truth, one would expect to see a steadily widening gap, especially during the mid-level captain years.

An Alternative Model

Reduced to its rudest form, the brain drain thesis implies that those who leave are the most entrepreneurial, the most brilliant, and by implication those left behind are relative dullards who can’t thrive on the outside. If the “Best” are leaving, then tolerance for military life is necessarily inversely related to entrepreneurial spirit, talent and intelligence. Men and women, sometimes brilliant and talented ones, leave the military because it no longer conforms to their needs; drivers can indeed include frustration with assignments, job satisfaction, and educational opportunity. On the other hand, sometimes officers simply feel that they have done their time honorably and want to go do something else, or have read the tea leaves and determined that her or she will not be competitive for promotion. A career is not for everyone.

An alternative hypothesis might be found by looking at the system from the Institutional/Occupational (I/O) paradigm expounded upon in Charles Moskos and Frank Wood’s book “The Military: More than Just a Job.” The I/O dialectic was originally used to describe how the military sought to recruit and motivate in the wake of the introduction of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF), but is also used to describe the troops attracted to different incentives. The motivations of armed forces personnel are divided between institutional, to include patriotism, a sense of purpose, or personal growth; and occupational, including salary, benefits, bonuses, and similar pecuniary interests. Public Service Motivation (PSM) theory, presented by James Perry and Lois Wise in “The Motivational Bases of Public Service,” a 1990 Public Administration Review article, applies a conceptually similar framework to the public sector, positing an underlying urge to serve in addition to normal economic considerations. In both cases, institutionally or public service oriented individuals are thought to perform better and have greater job satisfaction and retention than their counterparts.

Perhaps the more institutionally motivated are more likely endure to the lack of control that comes with military life, and are more likely to have the patience to work for change within the system; occupationally oriented individuals may be more likely to leave. Neither orientation presupposes a greater amount of intelligence, passion, energy, creativity or other category of talent. Too much emphasis on occupational incentives could even turn off and crowd out talented institutional and service oriented individuals, to the long term detriment of the organization.

In reality, the vast majority of military officers are talented, and will be successful in civilian life whether after 5 or 20 or 30 years of service. For the class of 2017 admitted to the Air Force Academy (numbers are similar at the other service academies), 11% were Valedictorian/Salutatorian of their high school class, 14% were Eagle Scouts, 17% were had been class presidents or vice presidents, and 82% were varsity athletes. Of the 1200 cadets entering this highly competitive cauldron, roughly 20% will then be eliminated for not meeting academic or military standards or by deciding on their own that they are not a good fit for military life. ROTC programs, while possibly not as competitive to get into, suffer from a far higher attrition rate, weeding out those without necessary tenacity and self-discipline. Officer training programs for enlisted members require that not only exemplary duty performance and a spotless disciplinary record to get recommended, but require that the member have earned a bachelor’s degree, usually done part time as military duties permit.

Before using the ‘Brain Drain’ thesis to justify massive changes to the officer promotion system, the assignment system, and the evaluation systems, we should make sure that it really exists. There may be good and satisfying reasons for personnel system reform, and reforms might lead to a more satisfied officer force, but there is no reason to think that that force will somehow become even more talented. 

Dr. Brian E. Wish served 7 years on active duty with the United States Air Force, where he has continued to serve as a reservist for 17 years and holds the rank of Colonel. He is a 1991 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy where he majored in Political Science. He also holds a Master's in Administrative Management from Bowie State University and a PhD in Public and Urban Administration from the University of Texas at Arlington. The opinions expressed here are his own.