And so he Embarrassed The Boss, which is never a good thing for your career. Unless, of course, The Boss isn't really all that embarrassed, or your career isn't necessarily the most important thing at stake. Somebody just sent somebody else a message.
Ahhh... the old CLM.
I think the issue is not that Capt. Fanell’s evaluation of the intelligence information ran counter to the accepted interpretation of that information by the Intelligence community. As an officer you owe your superiors you professional opinion on these types of issues. They will either accept them or reject them. You are free to argue up to a certain point. Once that point is reached, your responsibility to carry out the policy as stated by your superiors. Fanell’s problem is that once that point was reached, he went public with his opinion. That is generally a career killer in any military organization in the world.
It was an issue like this that almost got Field Marshal Montgomery sacked by Ike during WWII. Monty disagreed with Ike on the strategy for the conquest of Germany. Disagreement with Ike wasn’t the problem. Monty took the issue public. Ike was going to sack Monty, buy Montgomery
went to Ike with his hat in hand, apologized profusely and promised to say nothing more and carry out Ike’s plans. Fanell’s assessment of PLA intentions may be correct, but
that was an inhouse issue that should have remained way.