The Pentagon's controversial plan to hire military leaders off the street

This is It’s a key piece of Carter’s "Force of the Future" personnel reform. Unveiled on June 9, it aims to help be a way for the military Pentagon to bring in more top talent, especially for high-tech career fields focused on dealing with cyber warfare and space. Advocates say it will help the military fill important manpower shortfalls with highly skilled professionals and, more broadly, create greater "permeability" between the active-duty military and the civilian sector. 

At the same time, But it also suggests eroding the military’s tradition of growing its own leaders and cultivating a force with a distinct culture and tight social fabric, which many believe to be is at the heart of the military’s effectiveness. Critics worry it will create a new subcaste of military service members who are fundamentally disconnected from the traditional career force. 

"They will enter a culture they don’t know, understand or potentially appreciate," said Dakota Wood, a retired Marine officer and military expert at the Heritage Foundation. "The Marines around them will likely be challenged to appreciate them as they would a fellow Marine." Wood said.

If approved by Congress, the individual military services would be authorized — but not required — to expand lateral entry up to the O-6 paygrade, or the rank of colonel, or in the case of the Navy a captain. It's part of a broader reform effort that may also include new rules for bringing enlisted troops in at the noncommissioned officer ranks, which does not require any approval from Congress.

Yet the proposed change new accessions policy raises many cultural concerns and could result in a host of second-order effects. The services would have to tackle a range of questions. For instance, what kind of initial training will those officers undergo? Will lateral entry officers be eligible for promotion? Will junior officer retention be affected impacted by the prospect of potentially leaving and returning years later at a higher rank?

The Navy is the most enthusiastic about Carter's proposal it. The Army and Air Force say they will consider high-level lateral entries if the change is it’s approved. And the Marine Corps appears to be the most skeptical of the change.

Carter acknowledged some concerns, saying and said it’s unlikely that lateral entry would affect impact the operational career fields that have little if any civilian counterpart, like the infantry, surface warfare or combat aviation. "Now, I have to say we can’t do this for every career field — far from it. It will probably never apply to line officers, as they’ll always need to begin their military careers as second lieutenants and ensigns," he Carter said. "But allowing the military services to commission a wider segment of specialized outside talent … will make us more effective." Carter said.

The individual military services would hammer out the details for themselves, which would involve more than just identifying the high-demand career fields and high-skilled recruits. They services would have to consider how candidates for lateral entry will adapt to service-specific military life.

"There are some cultural issues," said Brad Carson, the Pentagon’s former personnel chief who helped draw up the ambitious slate of personnel reforms. "People who come in won’t just have to have the skills. They’ll have to have a military bearing and understand the military ethic. You don’t just get that by walking in off the street." Carson said.

But what if Mark Zuckerberg, the inventor and CEO of Facebook, wanted to join the military? Carson Cater cites this hypothetical to illustrate the rigidity of today’s personnel system.

Even the suggestion of directly commissioning civilians as into full-bird colonels or Navy captains — a rank many career officers never attain — make  -- reflects the degree of high-level concern surrounding about the efforts underway to build out CYBERCOM. Created in 2010, the command is trying to stand up a cyber-mission force of 6,200 active-duty specialists organized in 133 teams.

But progress has been slower than hoped, however. The target date for standing up those teams was the end of 2016, but that deadline has been pushed out to 2018. So far, about half of those teams, 68, have reached what the military calls "initial operational capability," and as many as 100 teams are currently conducting missions to meet the demand for offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, defense officials say.

Some military officials fear that the demand for cyber operations is such that soaring and there’s not enough time for the services to "grow their own" cyber force from the ground up. Under the military's traditional personnel system, it might take more than a decade to cultivate the cyber capability that the Pentagon needs, some military officials say. 

Currently, by Under current laws, the Pentagon is options for lateral entry are mostly limited to use lateral entry for chaplains, lawyers, doctors and dentists, and even for those career specialties, lateral entry is capped at the O-4 paygrade, or the rank of major and, in the case of the Navy, lieutenant commander. 

A Senate’s proposal would give the defense secretary authority to expand lateral entry to any career field and raise the rank cap up to the O-6 paygrade. Current law limits lateral entry commissions to doctors, dentists and lawyers and caps their entry point at O-4, a major or in the case of the Navy a lieutenant commander. The law already For enlisted troops, current law allows the services to grant lateral entry to enlisted troops, and some in the Pentagon want officials are considering changing policies to expand that authority.  

Critics question the need for high-level lateral entry and suggest civilians or contractors could fill gaps in skills for those high-tech fields. But Pentagon officials say there are key reasons why pinning a full bird the collar of a lifelong civilian is a good idea.

Another concern is the actual level of interest among civilians. Many successful midcareer professionals have families and earning potential beyond what the military could offer. 

"I really question who is going to do it," said Richard Bejtlich, a 44-year-old Air Force Academy graduate who separated when he was a junior officer and is now a cyber-security expert with FireEye and the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington. "I don’t see a lot of people I know of saying, ‘Hey, I want to go abandon my current position and go be in the military.' " Bejtlich said. 

Ultimately, those People with prior military experience might ultimately be the best candidates for lateral entry because they are familiar with military culture, and would acclimate and find acceptance far more quickly.

"Can you imagine someone coming in as an O-5 or O-6 and not knowing who salutes who? Or how to wear a uniform?" Bejtlich said. "The traditional military’s worst nightmare is to bring in some long-haired hippie and make him a colonel." Bajtlich said. The way I think you could make it palatable to the rank and file is, you would limit it to bringing in former military."

The Navy, has pushed for expanded lateral entry more aggressively than any of the other services, has pushed aggressively to expand lateral entry. Navy officials say it will help fill critical needs in existing career fields — but also to build new capability quickly fast in the event of a full-scale war.

"Right now the one we’re focused on is the cyber [community] because that’s the immediate need," said Vice Adm. Robert Burke, the chief of naval personnel. "But we want this authority in place ... because we want to be responsive when the need comes — we don’t want to start writing policy the minute we discover we need it." Burke said. 

The Navy has no detailed plans for lateral entry at the moment. Should Congress give its their nod of approval, — sources tell Military Navy Times that the service — they could implement new rules and begin commissioning civilians into the upper ranks sometime in fiscal 2017, which begins in October.

The Navy is also considering more lateral entry for the enlisted force. Legally, that’s easy and, unlike for officers, requires no congressional approval. But culturally, the Navy could may struggle to integrate newly minted chief petty officers brought in at the E-7 paygrade.

Shortly after then Rear Adm. Burke broached the subject publicly told a panel at the annual Sea-Air and Space Symposium in mid-May, at the annual Sea-Air Space Symposium in Washington. Feedback from the fleet was about plans to expand lateral commissions, Navy Times got an immediate. One and swift reaction from some chief petty officers, including a chief aviation electronics technician stationed at North Island in California, called the suggestion "ridiculous who asked not to be identified by name."

"For Rear Adm. Burke to suggest creating push button CPOs is ridiculous," the sailor wrote. "He states that he is ‘seeking the authority to bring somebody in at the E-7 level,’ " the sailor said, asking for anonymity to speak freely. "I find the choice of words interesting. Notice he doesn't say they want to bring someone in at the CPO level. There's only one entity that selects, tests and accepts chief petty officers. That's the United States Navy Chief Petty Officers Mess. Anything else is an E-7."

The Army already uses the current lateral entry authorizations to bring in medical personnel, chaplains and, to some degree, lawyers. Most come in as captains or majors. Officials The Army will opt for a limited use of any new lateral entry authorities. "It won’t be a blanket approach, and it shouldn’t be," the Army official said. "Some of this doesn’t apply to all branches and specialties."

The Army tapped its existing lateral entry authority used during the height of the Iraq war to help meet the soaring demand for trauma surgeons, the Army official said.

Lateral entry will allow the Army to respond more quickly to emerging demands, said Retired Lt. Gen. Guy Swan, a retired three-star general who is the vice president for education at the Association of the United States Army. "You may have readiness needs that are needed today," he said. "And certainly the Army could grow its own people, but it may not have the time."

Swan likened these lateral-entry recruits to warrant officers, which raises a question: Should these lateral entry soldiers be brought on as warrants, officers or noncommissioned officers? This is what the service needs to determine, Swan said, adding that they could also be brought in as civilian federal employees.

Besides hackers or other cyber experts, the Air Force could benefit from bringing in midcareer people to serve as enlisted airborne cryptologic language analysts, said Terry Stevens, a retired Air Force colonel and personnel expert. Those language analysts are regularly on the Air Force’s list of the most stressed specialties, and to retain airmen in that field, the Air Force offers selective re-enlistment bonuses that can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. The latest list offered hefty re-up bonuses to specialists who speak Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Persian, Hebrew or Pashto.

The Air Force has regularly sounded the alarm about undermanning in career fields such as cyber, intelligence and maintenance, and adopted a slate of recruitment and retention incentives and strategies to bolster those positions. But officials the Air Force would need to be careful how they bring on these new airmen, Stevens said. He said the service shouldn’t bring anyone into a rank higher than major, to avoid putting anyone in a leadership position who doesn’t have experience with the military, its culture and its processes.

Hiring a top-notch "cyber-warrior" at an elevated pay grade and having them give or take orders from a Marine with years of time in service would create a culture clash quite different from than what you’d see at a Silicon Valley start-up, said Wood, the retired Marine officer at the Heritage Foundation. It’s that prospect of tension that concerns leaders at the Marine Corps' highest levels.

The feasibility of direct accessions for the Marine Corps may also depend on the environment in which any lateral-entry personnel operate. Working in a stateside garrison environment may not be very different than from having contractors fill these critical positions, but it would be a completely different thing in a combat environment, Wood said.