Why is "military intelligence" considered an oxymoron?

Is it? By whom? Or are you being flip?

Many civilians think that you have to be dumber than a box of rocks to want to join the military. About the only place I ever heard it used extensively was on campus when I was making use of my GI Bill.

@gailcalled Military intelligence

It isn’t, really. It’s sometimes said in a joking way, but I doubt anyone actually considers it an oxymoron.

Reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons where the army recruiters fail to recruit the school delinquents and they’re like “even the dumbest students at the worst school district in the country know better than the join the army”. :P

I also agree that it’s largely an exaggeration/joke; “government intelligence” is another one that I hear as an oxymoron. Is that one permissible to say just because the government doesn’t give their lives? Meh.

It’s a joke. It has to do with the chain of command and the built-in bureaucracy of the military system.

I think I remember that as being an old George Carlin joke. My dad loved George Carlin.

I spent some time in the military, and I am probably still alive because lots of those men and women were intelligent. Anybody who thinks the joke is funny has never been shot at (unless of course you were shot at by your own guys, in which case it still isn’t funny, but it happens)

Because it is considered a contradiction in terms. Military and intelligence in the same phrase is an oxymoron because there is no intelligence in the military. Supposedly.

Read Catch-22.

I consider it a joke, with some truth to it, that was applicable prior to the draft that ended in 1973. The military institution created policies and procedures, that were incomprehensible to the civilian populace, in order to manage large volumes of male bodies in an orderly fashion. For the most part, the military trained men so they would follow orders in combat, without analysis or doubt. Particularly in the infantry, commanding officers needed warm bodies to do as they were told, when they were told, without thinking. Enlisted soldiers were nothing more than robotic pawns.

During the same era, the military was a catch-all for the misfits and less fortunate in the civilian world. Judges would give men convicted of various misdemeanors the option to choose between going to jail or enlisting in the military. The military was viewed as an opportunity to ‘straighten out’ men who had strayed down the wrong path in life as teenagers. For young men with little or no education or job skills, the military was seen as an opportunity for ‘3 hots and a cot’.

When the military became all-volunteer in ‘73, they were able to install enlistment standards and educational requirements. It was a difficult transition for the military. But with the rapid changes in technology and the massive upheaval to the methods in which wars were fought, they had no choice.

Today, a lot of the low skill support functions, like running dining facilities, are farmed out to civilian contractors. Enlisted military personnel are being highly trained and learning skills in new technologies that are directly transferable to the civilian world. Intelligence and critical thinking skills are becoming a necessity in the 21st century military.

The use of ‘military intelligence’ as the epitome of oxymorons is no longer reasonable. However, it would still fit into the general category of ‘institutional intelligence’ as an oxymoron, just like many large organizations.

I thought it was “military justice” that is an oxymoron.

Military justice is to justice as military music is to music.:)