I dunno. In the abstract, I’d like to see a very worthy general or admiral given a fifth star someday - seems a shame to let the rank just lapse. I even could’ve seen giving 'em to Powell and Schwartzkopf right after Gulf War I. But the objections at the close of this article are hard to overcome - you wouldn’t want a top military officer to outrank his own boss in the chain of command, I think. Maybe wait until Petraeus retires, if he does especially well, as is suggested.
What do you think?
The first thing that comes to mind is that Petraeus has not participated in a glorious victory like the other 5 star generals. Up to this point, history won’t even regard his achievements in the same league as Patton.
Petraeus bascially just took a demotion from CENTCOM commander to commander in Afghanistan. He is several layers down the chain of command. Does not make sense. And the fifth star is not an attaboy. In WWII it was needed. We had 4 star generals in command of Armys. There were multiple Army Groups within the Army. The generals in charge of those that were in charge of these Army Groups. Especially due to the fact that some of those that raised to that level were colonels before the war started. Each of those with 5 stars then commanded more troops and divisions than exist in the military today.The Army just isn’t big enough to justify this and it would dilute the rank. The same argument came out for Powell and Schwartzkopf. It was ignored then too.
Patton was never a 5 star general.
Marshall- Chief of Staff
Eisenhower Supreme Commander Europe
MacArthur- Supreme Commander Pacific
Hap Arnold- Army Air Force Commander
Bradley- chairman joint chiefs during Korea (had 5 star MacArthur under him too, wouldn’t work well)
I don’t see the traction in these arguments. As Loach points out, it has a special meaning. If people want to see him get special recognition for his service, that’s what medals are for.
I know. That was my point.
I don’t see it either. He does not come close to the criteria the prior 5 stars did.
I do see a need to add the Admirals in:
[ul]
[li]William D. Leahy – December 15, 1944,[/li][li]Ernest J. King – December 17, 1944,[/li][li]Chester W. Nimitz – December 19, 1944,[/li][li]William F. Halsey, Jr. – December 21, 1945.[4][/li][/ul]
I think he warrants a fifth star, but can’t be given one because of the position he’s currently in. And since I don’t think Afghanistan will turn out well, I suspect his popularity will diminish over time, so that by the time he retires there will be no desire to give him the fifth star on retirement.
But consider that Petraeus saved the U.S. from utter disaster in Iraq, and has essentially been the go-to leader of the entire war effort for a period longer than the entire run of WWII. That’s got to put him up in the elite ranks of generals. Schwartzkopf and Powell did good work in Gulf War I, but that was a very short war, and they had immense advantages over the enemy and support of the world behind them. The outcome of battles between U.S. tanks with heavy air support and old Soviet tanks run by poorly trained soldiers firing blind was never in doubt. Petraeus turned around Iraq when many were predicting failure, and while fighting an insurgency war where the U.S. advantage was largely neutralized. He wrote the book on winning wars of this type, then went into the field and proved it could be done. His achievement is much larger than those of Schwartzkopf and Powell.
Has he decisively won a battle or a war? No. Schwartzkopf and Powell at least won their battles and war.
Isn’t it also a factor of the number of soldiers under his command? All of the 5-starrers above commanded millions; today’s army just isn’t that big.
From Wikipedia re 5 Star General:
I understood this to be the reason for establishing the rank in the first place. It doesn’t really apply to the current situation. The glorious victories and ranking above commanding officers seem to have been reasons not to give the extra star in cases where popular appeal was the driving force behind requested promotions for others.
There’s always the General of the Armies rank which could be used for Petraeus should he deserve some special recognition, something which I don’t really see. Are we awarding special ranks for basic competence now? Of course basic competence may be the reason Grant was given special status. If so, and if Petraeus delivers something that could be called victory, then I guess why not?
I’m against it.
Like others have said, it was both the wish to have our highest officers on the same plane rank-wise as the other Allies. Our highest rank was General/Admiral - 4 stars (3 = Lt. General/Vice Admiral, 2 = Major General/Rear Admiral, 1 = Brigadier general/Commodore), while the other Allies had Generals, then Field Marshals above them.
Add to that, the fact that each level of flag rank typically commands a specific size unit (I’ll list Army ones, because I know them):
Brigadier General: Brigade/Division
Major General: Division/Corps
Lt General: Corps/Army
General: Army/Army Group.
We needed higher ranking officers to command theaters- in Europe, we had something like 3 US Army groups in Europe.
At the most, I believe we had a Corps in Iraq, and less than that in Afghanistan. Even with the combined-operations that we engage in now, Petraeus’ total command is probably somewhat below what someone of his grade would have had in WWII.
A 5th star would be kind of bizarre while he’s on active duty. I’m all for “General of the Armies” once he retires, or something along those lines though.
There’s no operational need for him to be given a special rank, and given the relatively minor significance of the conflicts he’s presided over, I see no reason to pile on the honors.
Let’s be realistic here. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are minor, regional conflicts. While American interests are certainly at stake, neither is a response to an existential or global threat. Does anybody seriously want to argue that the recent wars are as historically important as the Revolutionary War? Or the Civil War? Or World War I or II?
Winning battles has never been a requirement for a 5th star. It’s all about the ability to command a large army and/or be a strategic thinker.
Eisenhower rose to be supreme Allied Commander primarily through the bureaucracy. He never saw combat in WWI, and he went on to serve in various executive functions of increasing responsibility, from being an aide to MacArthur to becoming Chief of Staff to General Kreuger, and eventually a brigadier general - at which point he had never commanded a single person in battle that I know of.
He then worked his way up the general officer’s ranks through the war planning department in Washington. From there, he was appointed directly as commanding general of the European Theater of operations, having still never even fought in a battle, let alone having won one. And his role as a four star and five-star general was really one of the planning and logistical challenges of D-Day. He was more like the CEO of a company than a battle-tested general.
MacArthur is an even more interesting case. He had retired from the Army in 1937, and was recalled in 1941 to serve as the commander of the far-east command. He had served with distinction in WWI, but was a paper shuffler after that until his recall in 1941.
After he was recalled, he presided over a series of military defeats in the Philippines and Bataan, then escaping from Corregidor and fleeing to Australia - where he was made supreme commander of the entire Southwest Pacific.
I think you can make a case that the 5th star should be retired so long as the military is so much smaller and the conflicts smaller. But if you’re going to keep it around, I don’t know who would qualify for it if Petraeus doesn’t. He’s been the most dominant and influential U.S. general in decades. But maybe he doesnt - the last 5-star rank was given to Omar Bradley in 1950. If William Westmoreland didn’t get one, then maybe Petraeus doesn’t either.
No, he simply does not. A fifth star is not a decoration. It is a rank. He is not commanding a force that merits the rank.
Rank bloat can become a real problem for militaries. Officers generate great pressure to be promoted, and that can result in the creation of positions at higher rank to meet that need than is strictly necessary. Good old Cpt Smith “deserves” to be a major, so we’ll make him one. Then the next person to do Smith’s job insists, with some justification, on being made a major too. Incrementally, these apparently harmless one-off decisions result in armies with more generals than privates (not literally, but you know what I mean). South American dictatorships are very prone to it. It is for this reason that there are congressional limits on the number of general officers there can be at any one time.
For that reason, promotions as a reward for service can only really occur at lower ranks where there is a position for the promoted person to fill. In the absence of a strict need for a 5-star officer (and it is highly doubtful that there will ever be a need for a 5-star officer ever again) then there should be no promotion to that rank. Even the British have suspended the creation of Field Marshalls (the existence of which rank was the reason for the creation of 5-star rank) at least in peace-time. They haven’t created one since 1994.
Eisenhower won his major campaigns in Africa and Europe. Marshall coordinated both theaters. King and Leahy did nothing special. Halsey horribly botched Leyte Gulf.
Petraeus did come up with the genius stroke of bribing the opposition in Iraq, saving lives and money. But he hasn’t won any big battle or campaign.
COIN doctrine is a lot more than that. He wrote the book then he implemented it.