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Westhawk
09-22-2009, 04:38 PM
Brigadier General H.R. McMaster has sent to Small Wars Journal the latest draft of Army Capstone Concept version 2.7. McMaster leads a team at TRADOC that is charged with revising the Capstone Concept, which provides fundamental guidance to the Army’s doctrine and training efforts.

By December, McMaster and his team will complete their work on the Capstone Concept. Between now and then, he wants to hear from you. So please open this file (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/doc/Army%20Capstone%20Concept%20V%202%207.2.pdf), read it, and provide your comments, either here or at the Capstone Concept post at SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/09/the-army-wants-your-comments-o/). McMaster and his team will read these comments and use them to improve this important document.

(You will note that the Capstone Concept draft we received is marked “For Official Use Only.” I assure you that we received this document openly from the Army and for the purposes explained above. McMaster and his colleagues at TRADOC want Small Wars Journal’s readers to help them improve the Capstone Concept.)

Ken White
09-22-2009, 10:46 PM
Attached is a Word document with some initial comments / recommendations.

SWJED
09-23-2009, 12:07 AM
Greg Grant at DoD Buzz has posted a long commentary on this effort titled Army Wants Ideas on Future Wars (http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/09/22/army-wants-ideas-on-future-wars/).

zenpundit
09-23-2009, 04:54 AM
First, I will strongly second Ken's recommendation to add "Disrupt" (see his file, upthread).

Secondly, I will heartily commend the theme of "Complexity and Uncertainty" and the emphasis upon adaptive thinking.

Thirdly, my rec:

Re: IO, PSYOPS, PD, etc. in light of "uncertainty" and "complexity"

Adaptive response to uncertainty and changing conditions require that commanders have flexibility and autonomy. Generally, the amount of flexibility/autonomy they have is inverse to the amount of media attention their operations generate because media attention is a valuable currency that attracts political actors ( domestic and foreign, state and non-state).

The military has attempted to "manage" the media with limited success. The infosphere is now global, networked and viral and many major players (BBC, al Jazeera etc.) begin from a stance of critical hostility toward USG foreign policy/military objectives. The greater the degree that a US operation is the subject of media attention, the worse our strategic starting point is in terms of information. Under such conditions, trying to "spin" or court media influencers is like the Dutch boy putting fingers in the leaking dike.

The media in its varied forms but particularly major TV and print media have very finite resources. They can as a system, give one global crisis tight scrutiny but when the number of newsworthy events coincide, they quickly demonstrate the effects of exceeding "cognitive load (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_load)". The volume of information cannot be effectively juggled or processed either by the media filters ( reporters, editors) or the audience. This has immediate policy implications.

Even in the simple media era of the early Cold War, simultaneous crisises degraded the ability of superpowers to respond effectively to either. Case in point, the Suez Crisis intersecting with the Soviet invasion of Hungary resulted in Dulles and Eisenhower waffling on Hungary and delivering a sharp elbow to France and Britain. Khrushchev, by contrast, had no realistic possibility of aiding Nasser had Ike sided with the British, Israelis and French. The number of officials in any great power who make key decisions on the use of force are too few to manage multiple intersecting calamities. If the amount of "noise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise)" in the system is increased, their job becomes more difficult.

U.S. war planners need to conceive of campaigns in terms of a global "attention economy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy)". The greater the number of competing stories that exist to suck up media attention during military operations, the wider the latitude that U.S. ground commanders will have to "adapt" to circumstances. The competing stories do not have to be another geopolitical crisis either - a sex scandal or death of a celebrity figure like Princess Diana or Michael Jackson serves just as well. The crux is that the story needs to be attractive to key media decision makers from a business standpoint.

EmmetM
09-23-2009, 11:03 AM
As a civilian, and non-U.S. national, I am a tad wary of critiqueing a document that has obviously had so much care, consideration and professional effort put in to it, predominantly from people who clearly 'walk the walk'.

That said, my immediate impression is of an inconsistency between the individual parts and the whole. While the introductory section give a succinct picture of the problems associated with scientific precision and etheral war, parts of the draft (e.g. 2-2 Future Operating Environment) reiterate or reemphasise the same flawed thinking about our human environment that has led to the constant replication of mistakes and constant cycle of retranche, reanalysis, revision, and repetition. These flaws are two - our focus on change and our misunderstanding of complexity.

Change - while the intro does acknowledge continuity, sections like 2-2 over-egg the pudding with the use of language that overemphasises what will be different, and neglect to point out that a hell of a lot in human affairs will remain the same. I was recently re-reading a USAWC publication from 2000 on the decade ahead. It was full of techie jargon and concepts relating to cybernetics etc etc. The future war was all robotics, networks etc, and not the same crude encounters with home-made explosives, simple ambushcades, hostile populations that professional armies have faced for at least a couple of generations. The popularity of Galula etc in 2003+ was they were reminding us of the continuity in human affairs.

Complexity has become an ever-handy excuse for poor performance. Yes, we live in complex times, but so did Machiavelli (he talks about the complexity of his Italy in an early part of The Prince) or Caesar, or most probably in his own mind, Ugg our great cave-warrior-ancestor. The point is that human affairs have never been anything other than complex, humans just don't do simple! By constantly emphasising complexity and change, important documents like this can create the erroneous impression, among young emerging leaders especially, that because all in front is new, they have little to learn from the past, and engagement in history is only an act of homage, not tutulage.

Two cents worth from NZ. In case you haven't seen these images Stateside, follow the link for some scary environmental images from Aussie. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/image.cfm?c_id=2&gal_objectid=10599075&gallery_id=107575 Just another environmental incident to add to the debate about the changing nature of human security.

Orwell1984
09-23-2009, 10:53 PM
I'm curious to know why there isn't modularity in TRADOC. Instead of having TRADOC as a separate command; why not dissolve TRADOC and integrate it into the operational Army's G-3 and S-3 offices. Each theater in the operational Army will have a training component responsible for training soldiers for all occupations in that theater. That way, soldiers get training more specific to their assigned theater. This also allows for not only top-down management, but also bottom-up management as the units (that the soldiers eventually get assigned to) will provide feedback. input, and direction over training.

This arrangement also allows for more flexibility that allows Brigades and Divisions to adapt to change. Under the current system, TRADOC is separate from the operational Army and is unable to adapt and keep up with changes in the operational Army.

Does this idea make sense?

Comments and feedback are welcome....

William F. Owen
09-24-2009, 09:11 AM
Zen mate, not having a pop but...



Adaptive response to uncertainty and changing conditions require that commanders have flexibility and autonomy. Generally, the amount of flexibility/autonomy they have is inverse to the amount of media attention their operations generate because media attention is a valuable currency that attracts political actors ( domestic and foreign, state and non-state).
ALL WAR has ALWAYS been uncertain and complex. Adaptation has ALWAYS been required. Media attention is utterly irrelevant unless commanders are taking their orders from the BBC. You conduct operations in line with political guidance from your chain on command. You do not modify a plan because you fear the media. You modify a plan so as it best gains the political objective you Commander in chief is seeking to achieve.


The military has attempted to "manage" the media with limited success. The infosphere is now global, networked and viral and many major players (BBC, al Jazeera etc.) begin from a stance of critical hostility toward USG foreign policy/military objectives. The greater the degree that a US operation is the subject of media attention, the worse our strategic starting point is in terms of information.
You cannot "manage" anything in war. You either react to it, or force it to do your will, by what ever means (ask nicely, ask, tell, and then force )

Sorry, the idea that "The media" has changed War is evidence free. The idea that modern war is complex, is progressed by those unable to understand it.

Media is only relevant in terms of it's political effect - so Clausewitz applies. Martin Luther had no modern media, and the Nazis only had radio and print - all of which was used to "political" not Military effect.

Ken White
09-24-2009, 04:01 PM
You cannot "manage" anything in war. You either react to it, or force it to do your will, by what ever means (ask nicely, ask, tell, and then force )and I totally agree with that.
Sorry, the idea that "The media" has changed War is evidence free. The idea that modern war is complex, is progressed by those unable to understand it.On this, though in reverse order -- I agree that modern war is no more complex. In fact all things considered, it's probably slightly less complex than it was a century ago due to better communication and broader knowledge.

On the media affecting war being evidence free, I agree. However, I think it does affect some, say about 10 to 20%, warfighters. The rub and the perception that media affects war can come from where in the chain of command representatives of that small percentage are found. A senior commander with a fear of adverse publicity can do strange things. I have seen good senior commanders who totally ignored the media and others, less good, who were quite concerned with their image... :rolleyes:

Then, of course, there's the effect of media attention on Politicans. Those Squirrels tend to be quite media sensitive -- and they tend to have directive or budgetary authority... :mad:

jmm99
09-24-2009, 04:12 PM
with this:


You modify a plan so as it best gains the political objective you Commander in chief is seeking to achieve.

But, the "political objective" of the CinC is very much likely to be modified by the media, by polling and by everything else that goes into modern politics.

The question is who does PR - as to which there will be many divergent answers.

zenpundit
09-24-2009, 05:27 PM
Always good to hear from you, Wilf and glad that you helped get this discussion flowing. Your views here on the media and warfare are neat, plausible and wrong:D

The media is not "irrelevant". If commanders find themselves eschewing perfectly legal and militarily efficient options because of how they would "look" under conditions of a panopticon battlefield, then the political effect of the media is one of the variables to which modern armies must adapt. If the adaptation is a continual circumscribing of military operations over time, then I submit that they are not being particularly creative in adapting.


ALL WAR has ALWAYS been uncertain and complex. Adaptation has ALWAYS been required

Yes, but what matters here is to what degree?

Warfare has oscillated historically through periods of stability where tactics, weaponry, accepted rules of engagement and parley, treatment of prisoners went unchanged in significant ways for decades or even centuries. I agree with you that "adaption has always been required" but as institutions, militaries are often very conservative. It often takes many hard knocks for them to give up beloved but outdated practices, be they caste-based military systems, red coats, bronze cannon, horse cavalry or battleships.

This can be contrasted with periods of innovation where new ideas - for example, metal weapons, writing, the stirrup, gunpowder, close order drill, republican government, nationalism, industrial mass production, railroad timetables, atomic bombs - disrupted customary patterns of warfare. Some of these inventions amounted to game-changers for warfare.

The military that recognizes the need for adaption and executes it successfully wins a comparative advantage - for a time. The greater the number of innovations a military has to deal with at once, the more difficult that process becomes organizationally. Particularly, when the change is a societal one that is periphereal or indirect to immediate military concerns - like the information revolution.


You conduct operations in line with political guidance from your chain on command. You do not modify a plan because you fear the media. You modify a plan so as it best gains the political objective you Commander in chief is seeking to achieve.

Wilf, what democratic government with a modern military conducting operations is not going to expect its military leaders to make an effort a priori to account for the possible political effects of global media in their planning?

This concern goes beyond the traditional political-psychological-morale effects we saw at, say, at Tet after Cronkite's infamous broadcast. In a globalized world, war news impacts "hot money" flows of currency in or out of national economies. By itself, this media-driven market reaction can have a strategic, even crippling, impact on a nation's war effort in a very short time frame.


Sorry, the idea that "The media" has changed War is evidence free. The idea that modern war is complex, is progressed by those unable to understand it.

Media is only relevant in terms of it's political effect - so Clausewitz applies. Martin Luther had no modern media, and the Nazis only had radio and print - all of which was used to "political" not Military effect.

I do not see many examples of militaries these days successfully disaggregating political and military effects during combat, and a major reason for this is the ubiquity of media - professional and amateur.

Modernity is relative, not absolute. Luther had the printing press and the Bible in the vernacular. For his time, that was "modernity" and it had an explosive political impact that transformed the military dynamic of the Holy Roman Empire by giving rise to Protestant powers. While the Kaiser lost control over the Imperial German Army to Ludendorff and Hindenburg, Hitler's use of the radio ensured his ultimate command and control over the army and state until his very last days on earth before committing suicide. Radio was "modern enough" to permit the national political leadership to decisively micromanage the affairs of theater and army command.

To conclude, what I'm arguing for really, is greater military adaption to the effects of a global media in a way that preserves the greatest latitude for commanders to carry out their mission.

J Wolfsberger
09-24-2009, 07:53 PM
Media is only relevant in terms of it's political effect - so Clausewitz applies. Martin Luther had no modern media, and the Nazis only had radio and print - all of which was used to "political" not Military effect.

Precisely. And since war is the continuation of politics by other means, if one side can use media to break the political will of their opponent, they win without firing a shot. (Or at any rate firing fewer.)

As an example, in Iraq the media was using the war as a cudgel to beat on a president of whom they disapproved. The result (intended or not) was to encourage our opponents while sapping public support. Even worse, the steady drum beat caused the administration to view ALL criticism of any aspect of the war as nothing more than domestic partisanship.

Add to that the difficulty partisan media hostility created in the area of Information Operations/Psychological Operations. Several attempts by the military to release favorable information, both domestically and in theater, were outed and (successfully) discredited - without regard to the impact on strategic objectives, let alone the verity of the information.

I took one of your points to be that commanders in the field can't conduct mission planning around media impact - and I agree. However, military and political leadership at national, strategic and possibly even operational levels must.

marct
09-26-2009, 03:03 AM
I'm doing a line-by-line on it right now, but I think the point about communications really needs to be covered better. I also agree with a lot of the concerns Ken expressed over potential "misunderstandings" of words. I'm stuck in a rehearsal all day tomorrow, so I probably won't post my comments until Sunday or Monday.

Cheers

Marc

William F. Owen
09-26-2009, 06:36 AM
Always good to hear from you, Wilf and glad that you helped get this discussion flowing. Your views here on the media and warfare are neat, plausible and wrong:D
I don't fear being wrong. I fear being confused... which currently I am not... :)


The media is not "irrelevant". If commanders find themselves eschewing perfectly legal and militarily efficient options because of how they would "look" under conditions of a panopticon battlefield, then the political effect of the media is one of the variables to which modern armies must adapt. If the adaptation is a continual circumscribing of military operations over time, then I submit that they are not being particularly creative in adapting.
I never said the media is irrelevant. I said it is "utterly irrelevant unless commanders are taking their orders from the BBC." The political dimension is decided by the chain of command (civilian) - not the media. Politics is why wars occur and how they are conducted. Media influence is ENTIRELY political. The impact of the media is only relevant to the the policy being sought by force. If it is not, then commanders are asking Media permission or approval to do stuff - which is like asking an 8 years old for advice on marriage.


Warfare has oscillated historically through periods of stability where tactics, weaponry, accepted rules of engagement and parley, treatment of prisoners went unchanged in significant ways for decades or even centuries. I agree with you that "adaption has always been required" but as institutions, militaries are often very conservative. It often takes many hard knocks for them to give up beloved but outdated practices, be they caste-based military systems, red coats, bronze cannon, horse cavalry or battleships.
So show me successful armies that failed to adapt? 1914-18 and 1936-45 saw far more radical changes in Warfare than anything seen today. Why do we now think it "requires adaptation." Kind of silly to even say it, in an historical context.


This can be contrasted with periods of innovation where new ideas - for example, metal weapons, writing, the stirrup, gunpowder, close order drill, republican government, nationalism, industrial mass production, railroad timetables, atomic bombs - disrupted customary patterns of warfare. Some of these inventions amounted to game-changers for warfare.
Again, show me a successful Army or society that failed to notice this. What is more, where are new technologies used by our enemies since 2001? - I submit none.


Wilf, what democratic government with a modern military conducting operations is not going to expect its military leaders to make an effort a priori to account for the possible political effects of global media in their planning?
Whose media and effect on who? You cannot please everybody. Military forces, use violence to gain political outcomes. "The Media" is not a cohesive coherent body. What play well with Fox, will be called a "war crime" with the BBC, and no one in Texas cares what anyone in Cairo things.

German media cared very little about the alleged atrocities of German troops in Belgium in 1914, yet they became a de-facto "cause for war" for the British population.


Modernity is relative, not absolute. Luther had the printing press and the Bible in the vernacular. For his time, that was "modernity" and it had an explosive political impact that transformed the military dynamic of the Holy Roman Empire by giving rise to Protestant powers.
So why not point this out and stop panicking about complexity and media? Do we really think that the political dynamic of today is more complex than that in Europe at the time of Luther?

The critical relationship is between military force and politics. Media only bears on the latter - as CvC explained. Surely the aim here is to explain something simply and usefully, not compound the problem.

William F. Owen
09-26-2009, 06:41 AM
I took one of your points to be that commanders in the field can't conduct mission planning around media impact - and I agree. However, military and political leadership at national, strategic and possibly even operational levels must.

OK, so if we say, military and political leadership at national, strategic and possibly even operational levels must consider the overall politcal aim then I am in total agreement.

If they say "consider the impact of the media," they are totally wrong, because the "effect" depends on the action, and you cannot predict 2nd and 3rd order effects reliably or even how the media will see them. - you cannot tell the future.

slapout9
09-26-2009, 02:59 PM
If they say "consider the impact of the media," they are totally wrong, because the "effect" depends on the action, and you cannot predict 2nd and 3rd order effects reliably or even how the media will see them. - you cannot tell the future.

Wilf, if it dosen't matter then how come our enemies are so good at using the media to affect the audience to achieve a desired effect?

MikeF
09-26-2009, 03:15 PM
Wilf, if it dosen't matter then how come our enemies are so good at using the media to affect the audience to achieve a desired effect?

Slap, there is much contention amoungst AQ central over UBL's media exploits. He is accused of being a showboat, and his actions caused much division in the ranks.

Captured Email (http://ctc.usma.edu/aq/pdf/Harmony_3_Schism.pdf) from Abu Khalid al-Suri (aka Muhammad Bahayah) and Abu
Mus’ab al-Suri to Bin Ladin


The strangest thing I have heard so far is Abu Abdullah’s saying that he wouldn't listen to the Leader of the Faithful when he asked him to stop giving interviews….I think our brother [Bin Ladin] has caught the disease of screens, flashes, fans, and applause…. Abu Abdullah should go to the Leader of the Faithful with some of his brothers and tell them that … the Leader of the Faithful was right when he asked you to refrain from interviews, announcements, and media encounters, and that you will help the Taliban as much as you can in their battle, until they achieve control over Afghanistan.… You should apologize for any inconvenience or pressure you have caused … and commit to the wishes and orders of the Leader of the Faithful on matters that concern his circumstances here

v/r

Mike

William F. Owen
09-26-2009, 03:30 PM
Wilf, if it dosen't matter then how come our enemies are so good at using the media to affect the audience to achieve a desired effect?

Cos folks do stupid things? Dunno. Al Quieda thing 4GW is insightful. That they do, does not give it any credence. - in fact, as I suggested to TX Hammes, the opposite may be true.

Any AQ broadcast ever weakened US will to fight?
Can the Taliban force the US to withdraw using any operation, not related to military effect?

So called "Media" is used as part of effecting the Political dimension. As concerns "Enemy" use of media, all you see and read is essentially a "party political broadcast." Political will is far more fragile than military.
Yes, military action must not undermine the political will to use force. That is both obvious and enduring.
Given that we all understand that, how does "media operations" take any form of primacy over traditional Political-military dynamics, in any way we have not seen before?

marct
09-27-2009, 04:22 PM
Okay, here are my comments on it. There are a couple of general comments I want to make as well that I thought I'd toss out for discussion rather than leave hidden in the pdf (which I know you will all read :D).

1. Personally, I think that the perception of cyberspace in the document is paranoid and, at the same time, schizophrenic. More importantly, i think that it does not capture the current uses of cyberspace as a "realm of conflict" well at all. IMO, cyberspace needs to be treated as if it were any other type of terrain in which and through which conflict and co-operation may take place.

2. In a fair number of comments, I make some pretty disparaging remarks about the underlying epistemology and, specifically, about the implications of word choice. In many cases, I haven't bothered to make comments because I happen to agree with most of what Ken wrote in the area. There are, however, a few areas where I believe the wording is artificially restrictive at the conceptual level and, since this is a concept piece, I find that disturbing. In almost all cases, the comments and suggestions revolve around shifting the language from a static "X is" to a dynamic form.

Final comment: I am really glad to see that the ACC has been put put for discussion and comments before it is officially released. I believe that this shows a real understanding of one of the positive aspects of cyberspace which, BTW, is not listed in the ACC ;).

Cheers,

Marc

Ken White
09-27-2009, 05:01 PM
There's a joke in there somewhere about Baroque typeface but it's too early on a balmy Sunday... :D

Backwards Observer
09-27-2009, 10:53 PM
LN349-352 Currently reads: “ Consequently, the U.S. Army must develop the capability to think in terms of friendly (partners and allies), the enemy, and the people, and possess the flexibility to secure populations while simultaneously attacking or defending to defeat and destroy enemy forces and organizations.”

Suggested change: “ Consequently, the U.S. Army must develop the capability to think in terms of supportive (partners and allies), oppositional (the enemy) and neutral (the “population”, NGOs, etc.) groups, and possess the flexibility to secure populations while simultaneously attacking or defending to defeat and destroy or neutralize (convert) oppositional forces, organizations and ideologies.”

Rationale: (I) The current wording maintains current military taxonomies (“the enemy”, “the people”) that have
caused significant problems in current conflicts. A much more flexible version of this taxonomy is based on situational motivational attitudes of groups as “oppositional”, “neutral” and/or “supportive”, a taxonomy that not only allows for but, also, is conducive of thinking that would encourage groups to shift their stance in ongoing conflicts (e.g. The Anbar Councils).

(II) Simplistic taxonomies of enemy, friendly and neutral encourage thinking by US Army forces that is contrary to the lived reality of the actual populations, sometimes producing associated “perceptions” that are completely erroneous (e.g. Of the “if they are friendly, then they will do X, Y and Z. If the don't, they must be the enemy.”).

This was the first change I was gonna suggest, but didn't have the cojones. Also Marc puts it more elegantly than I could've done.

J Wolfsberger
09-28-2009, 12:11 AM
...More importantly, i think that it does not capture the current uses of cyberspace as a "realm of conflict" well at all. IMO, cyberspace needs to be treated as if it were any other type of terrain in which and through which conflict and co-operation may take place.


Absolutely, 100%, dead nuts on correct.

And adding to it, the entire media is part of the military landscape.

Schmedlap
09-28-2009, 12:21 AM
I'm a tactical level guy, so I only have some nitpicky comments about a few of the assumptions. The rest of it reads like a statute for which there is no jurisprudence on point to clarify what the words mean. Maybe that is unavoidable for such big-picture, broad stuff that is written by committee, but it seems that you could read whatever you want into this thing.

My observations, fwiw...


Line 607: Military tactical-level networks could remain shielded from an electromagnetic pulse, however, operational-level, interagency and intergovernmental networks could still be at risk. But aren’t the tactical-level networks in large part dependent upon the larger networks? Okay, so the BN TOC/JOC can all share files. So? They can communicate face-to-face, making network communication irrelevant. The value of the network is the ability of Bn staff to interact directly with BDE & higher staff.


Line 612: Improved sensors, sensor fusion, communications, and knowledge networking will allow higher levels of information sharing, enabling more effective application of combat power, decentralization, and noncontiguous operations under certain conditions Decentralization? I hope so. But my experience is that the more information that you are capable of sharing, the more higher headquarters demands it and the more confident higher headquarters becomes that it is able to make decisions that should otherwise be made at lower levels. See slide number 12 (http://www.schmedlap.com/Archive.aspx). If technological improvements are to truly change the way that we make decisions, then they need to be made in step with changes in the organizational culture.


Line 615: Improved system durability and reliability, fuel efficiency, and precision munitions will reduce sustainment demands and sustainment infrastructure, and will extend the duration of operations prior to required replenishment. Reduce sustainment demands? I’m skeptical. It seems that with every new gadget or innovation – even procedural innovations – we need another office on a giant FOB to maintain and/or oversee it. On second thought, I would just summarize my skepticism with one acronym: FOB.


Line 620: Improvements in immersive technologies will enable development of virtual training areas inside a finite training space… I hope that they’re not talking about stuff like the EST or whatever that trailer is called that has the pneumatic weapons and the giant computer screen. It’s a neat video game. It is not training – not even close. Or maybe they're talking about that computer simulator that mimics the layout of the Brads/Tanks and allows an entire platoon (or more) to engage in a simulation at one time. That has some value, but it is very limited. The value that I saw in it was just the initial orientation to crew communication and communication between vehicles. New crewmembers were able to gain a quick appreciation for information they needed to more clearly convey and to recognize the complications that arise when multiple people are monitoring multiple nets (internal, platoon, company). Drivers learn to shut up when they hear PLT or CO traffic, learn to ignore fire commands and focus on other traffic, gunners learn to do likewise when the BC is giving directions to the driver, etc. But as for any complex situational training, such as that mentioned in this document, I see absolutely no value in those systems. For brevity, I'll omit an explanation unless someone is just dying to know. For most of us, I suspect it is self-evident.


Line 630: Improvements in neuroscience will mitigate stress and improve mental, moral, and physical capacity Improve moral capacity through neuroscience? I guess I'm not clear on what moral capacity is. If it has something to do with ethical decision making, then I am a bit skeptical. I suspect that moral capacity is just about set in stone by age 6, unless there is some life-altering event such as a religious conversion (other (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/07/army-report-finds-major-coin-f/#comment-3494)than COIN (http://www.schmedlap.com/Archive/images/MartinLuther.png)) or a traumatic emotional experience.

slapout9
09-28-2009, 01:07 AM
Absolutely, 100%, dead nuts on correct.

And adding to it, the entire media is part of the military landscape.

Double no, triple dead on it. Warden was of the first people to mention that in the future whole wars could be won or lost in the Cyber-Phere as he called it.

marct
09-28-2009, 03:30 AM
Hi Schmedlap,



Line 630: Improvements in neuroscience will mitigate stress and improve mental, moral, and physical capacity

Improve moral capacity through neuroscience? I guess I'm not clear on what moral capacity is. If it has something to do with ethical decision making, then I am a bit skeptical. I suspect that moral capacity is just about set in stone by age 6, unless there is some life-altering event such as a religious conversion (other (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/07/army-report-finds-major-coin-f/#comment-3494)than COIN (http://www.schmedlap.com/Archive/images/MartinLuther.png)) or a traumatic emotional experience.

Yeah, I'm pretty sceptical about that one as well. I'm not an expert in neuroscience, but I read a fair bit in the area and, while it is possible, the current techniques we have for it are either "unacceptable" (intensive meditation anyone?) or pharmacological ("just take this nice bright, red pill, Johnny!" - shades of "Prince Valium to the Rescue!").

The actual field tested and proven techniques - and yes, meditation is one of them - require a lot of work and certainly won't be achieved in a 3 day training special. The pharmacological ones act much faster, but have some very serious side effects - remember the CIA sponsored acid tests in the 1960's and 70's?

Steve the Planner
09-28-2009, 04:50 AM
Not really sure how to engage this ponderous document, but here is my two cents as relates to my area of expertise:

“The task of the Army is to protect its friends, to reassure and protect populations, and to identify, isolate, and, when necessary, defeat the enemy. War is a three-person, not a two-person, game. In the end, the Army must develop the capabilities to gain, sustain, and exploit physical control and psychological influence over the enemy, people, land and resources.” P. 3, Lines 350-364

Although many other elements apply, one critical component of addressing the above-identified task is a breadth of operational information, systamatically collected and routinely updated, about the people, infrastructure, economic systems applicable to the latter three components---the people, land and resources.

Lord Kelvin, the father of quantitative sciences, claims that: ‘if you can count it, you can know something about it.” Without credible baseline data, established and updated in real time on a systematic regional basis (not just by battlespace), decision-makers are unable to establish effective force deployments, track likely responses and effects, and plan effective post-conflict stabilization.

Moreover, fact and data-driven information systems and regional analytical approaches, including the application of fundamental planning and analytical approaches, such as civilian GIS systems, that are the foundation of modern public administration in all moderately developed countries, provide a fact-based metric for improving the catastrophic performance in developing and implementing integrated, rapid and effective stabilization and reconstruction, less susceptible to graft, corruption and project failure, all of which significantly contribute to an opponent's position.

Collecting accurate civilian data on a systematic basis, even if by proxy sources, and frequently revised, but soundly based, estimates is even more critical in a conflict zone than a stable civilian environment.

Two critical lessons: (1.) the war was easy, the peace was the challenge; and (2.) to plan for either war or peace, especially consistent with the identified goals, decision-makers must know something substantive about the land, people and resources, and not just about the enemy.

The Army has no system for the routine and systematic collection and use of timely and accurate base line regional geography, economics, governmental structure, or infrastructure information, but cannot hope to understand or control the land people or resources in any area without them.

Additionally, as noted below, this information must be used effectively prior to initial contact, to improve decision-making and inform viable strategies to manage each stage of conflict, including post-conflict stabilization.


In Iraq, decades of economic sanctions, and the initial shock-and-awe bombing operations resulted in substantial and unnecessary damage to the people, land and resources necessary for subsequent protection of the population. This excessive and, to an extent, unconsidered destruction in the early phases of conflict (prior to Army engagement), made the later phases much more difficult, thus contributing to a lengthier, more dangerous, and expensive operation.

Decades of economic sanctions substantially eroded civilian resources and infrastructure, and created and sustained substantial black market and organized criminal activities.

While these pre-conflict sanctions may be outside military control, the reality of sanctions, and their logical effects as a likely precursor to any conflict environment demands that the Army become highly adept, on a focused basis, in responding to those effects once it arrives on the scene. Failure to adequately research, track and prepare for sanction-induced effects will substantially compound the challenges of subsequent post-conflict operations.

In the post-conflict environment in Iraq, the Army was immediately faced with two serious problems, both of which were directly attributable to the pre-conflict sanctions phase.

First, sanctions-induced limitations on critical civilian resources like refined fuel led to the establishment of organized smuggling and black market operations which, in large part, defined the post-conflict environment including by limiting restoration of civilian services, providing economic support for enemy activities, and creating an complementary secondary enemy, closely intertwined with the primary enemy, to attack the Army and undermine its activities.

Second, sanction-induced infrastructure maintenance deferral for critical systems like energy and public water and sewer resulted in substantial hurdles in re-establishing public services, extension of effective government, and limiting attacks both on itself, and the fledgling host government.

More significant, in the shock-and-awe bombing phase, much destruction was done to civilian infrastructure and capacity in a manner that substantially impeded post-conflict stability. The “Valley of Broken Bridges” at Bayji, a key oil center and crossroads point for interregional travel and commerce, stands as abundant evidence of unnecessary over-destruction that impeded subsequent stabilization. The decks of the bridge structure were neatly punctured every 150 yards with bomb craters, then, the center sections were knocked out. Thus, reconstruction of the bridge, and subsequent economic restart was seriously impeded until virtually the entire structure was rebuilt. If the goal in the initial conflict was to limit bridge accessibility, this could have been achieved with a great deal more precision, and with an eye to rapid post-conflict restart. The Army’s targeting system is extremely advanced, but needs to brought to bear, in a focused manner, prior to initiation of conflict, in a manner that allows accomplishment of goals with the minimum of unnecessary destruction that might later impede stability operations.

The same is true in the destruction of (or failure to protect) central government civilian record systems critical to rapid stabilization. The Army’s system of lethal and non-lethal targeting needs to be augmented to identify, prioritize, and more carefully scrutinize bombing strategies to prevent unnecessary destruction of critical post-conflict assets.

Most evident in an after action analysis of Iraq was how relatively weak and unstable Iraq’s economic, infrastructure and social systems actually were, and how, with much less effort, the initial conflict mission could have been accomplished with a great deal less destruction, which, in turn, would have allowed more rapid and effective stabilization.

A complete, profound, and abundantly lacking resource critical to the mission is the base line information on regional geography, governmental structure (including provincial, district, and sub-district administration, division of responsibility, the role of national versus non-national government systems), economic and trade patterns, assets, and critical resources, and accurate and timely demographic resources, including credible population estimates, sub-population components (age, familial structure, sex, etc…),and population mobility tracking (including IDPs and displacement effects).

The future battlefield, and the enemy on it, may, in many instances, be more sophisticated in its approaches, and prepared to operate in a complex and less physically bounded space, possibly with a great deal more effective knowledge management-driven strategies. This environment will be significantly less forgiving of an unprepared opponent, and more able to take advantage of routine military and civilian bureaucratic strategic, and tactical blunders such as were evidenced in Iraq and Afghanistan.

William F. Owen
09-28-2009, 06:41 AM
....but does anyone else feel uneasy about a document of this nature, never using the word "kill," and only ever mentions suppression once. - so essentially it ignores the two primary methods of applying force, or choose to describe them in other ways. Hmmmm...

William F. Owen
09-28-2009, 10:28 AM
It is not my intention to be needless rude of provocative here, but having been asked my opinion, here it is.

1. This document serves no useful purpose, as it stands. Doing what it intended should have taken no more 2,500 words and/or 5 pages. Having claimed not to be telling the reader what to think, it then sets out to be telling the reader that the enemy “will do X,” as opposed to “might do X, given Y or Z circumstance, and context, A, B or C.” - and where is the dividing line between Doctrine and Concept?
2. The document lacks clear and precise descriptions, and uses un-clear and highly convoluted language, none of which is helpful. - why use "new terms?"
3. Implicitly this document progresses a vision of conflict that the US Army wishes to fund, and not one based on history. It seems to serve a human and organisational need, rather than a foundation for teaching (Doctrine?).
4. The idea that the US was proficient as “old Warfare” and “new Warfare” is somehow “more complex” and more challenging is untrue, and evidence free.
5. The description is the 2006 Lebanon conflict is highly simplistic, inaccurate, selective and substantially un-true. It is what the US Army wants to believe instead of looking at the facts.

Given the above, the rest begins to fall apart pretty quickly.

As concerns capability you have to wonder about a document that never says “tank,” , and only says “Armor” twice. It says artillery and infantry each only once.
Yet in contrast it mentions :

the V-22?
Mentions un-manned 5 times?
Cyber and network over 30 times?

I can only assume that this is to progress a belief in new technologies and “networks” to serve a budgetary need.
There are some very odd statements such as:
• “The future force requires the support of Joint Synergy (redundancy versus interdependencies) in certain capability areas such as fires and surveillance platforms. – I have no idea what that means.
• The future force requires the capability to conduct combined arms offensive operations and to overcome complex web defenses in complex/urban terrain. – so the US Army does not have this capability? Same capability as 1918 perhaps?

I could go on for another >5 pages, but I hope the largely negative comments so far may serve some useful purpose. There is some good stuff, but that is largely obvious to all, and there is too little of it to bother. :mad:

Steve the Planner
09-28-2009, 01:39 PM
No offense, but I get my meat all pre-packaged from Safeway, and with a little absorbing pack in the bottom to keep that messy blood from dripping all over.

Why not just use lots of media blitz and internet stuff? A lot less messy than using "tanks" to "kill" people. No?

Steve

marct
09-28-2009, 01:45 PM
Hi Wilf,

You know, I think we have some of the same concerns gnawing at us :wry:.


1. This document serves no useful purpose, as it stands. Doing what it intended should have taken no more 2,500 words and/or 5 pages. Having claimed not to be telling the reader what to think, it then sets out to be telling the reader that the enemy “will do X,” as opposed to “might do X, given Y or Z circumstance, and context, A, B or C.” - and where is the dividing line between Doctrine and Concept?

As I understand it, and they do seem to be using US Army specific language here, the ACC is a model that they believe is best "rough cut" for the time period under consideration. Now, that I have no problems with, although I wish that they would use the same language as everyone else and call it a "model" or "theoretical model".

Where they start to move into the "will do X", is pretty much where I stopped commenting. If this were being produced as a model, then those would be illustrative examples of how the model would be applied to particular problems. However, I find that those sections in particular are way too prescriptive for my taste because they go against the supposed basis of the concept: uncertainty.

In a similar way, when you wonder if there is a "dividing line between Doctrine and Concept", I am wondering if they are making a dividing line between a model and the results of running the model.


2. The document lacks clear and precise descriptions, and uses un-clear and highly convoluted language, none of which is helpful. - why use "new terms?"

Sort of agreed; the terms that I believe are "new" - adaptability, complexity, uncertainty - all have precise meanings. What concerns me is that they do not appear to be using them with those meanings. And, to make matters worse, the use of prescriptive language actually goes against the exact meanings of complexity, uncertainty and adaptability.

Let me take up this issue of "clear and precise descriptions" for a bit, because it is a crucial one. When you are building a model, you need to define (at the minimum) states, flows and boundaries. That's for a simple, one-level, 2 dimensional model. When you look at a 3D model, you also have to define "levels", emergence conditions and level boundaries. When you move into a 4D model of socio-cultural action space, then you also have to add in definitions of "resonance functions" and chaotic boundaries (Believe me, you don't want me going into these two 'cause they make an absolute hash out of everything you think you know about space and time!).

What we have in this model is a fairly simplistic, 2D model that is trying to incorporate some of the concepts (used in the technical, not the Army, sense of the term) from 3D and 4D models. Let me take a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean, and some of the common problems with doing this.

First, the cyberspace issue that you and I "disagree" on. How cyberspace is conceptualized in the current ACC is a very good example of the two 4D concepts I was talking about: resonance functions and chaotic boundaries. Let me start with the latter. "Cyberspace", as a "terrain" (a 2D model), is only accessible via technological extension and mediation, and yet it can (and does) have direct, real world effects on people who are not and cannot access it. The simplest effects are in the Just In Time civilian economy that has developed around it, but there are a whole slew of other areas.

Now, how cyberspace is used and understood by people, is a resonance function: the language used to "describe" and "understand" the "terrain" resonates with other cultural (and biological) perception states (think of them as components of a narrative). I believe that the current version of "understanding" shown in this document is resonating with the "understandings" of "air" as a terrain circa 1914-1920 or so. You can see the similarities in the extremely "paranoid" perceptions displayed by language use (think Hobbes' Leviathan as the basis of perception for the "nature" of the terrain); a "kill or be killed", "hack or be hacked" type of understanding with no hope of "peace" except through absolute control and domination. For the analog, go back to the fiction from the 1920's to, say, early 1940's on the devastation of airpower (or, later, on nuclear weapons).

The second example comes with narratives, which are all based around different resonance functions, few of which appear to be understood and described cleanly in this document (an exception, BTW, is the "do what you say, say what you do" meme). The model clearly has no understanding of how resonance functions operate in "narrative space". There is a vague, almost intuitive, understanding that what happens in the real world resonates back into narrative space and vice versa, but no description of the mechanisms or other resonance functions. Put extremely simplistically, you can't fight in a terrain - narrative space - unless you understand the "natural laws" operating there, and that is what a model is supposed to do; give approximations of those natural laws.


3. Implicitly this document progresses a vision of conflict that the US Army wishes to fund, and not one based on history. It seems to serve a human and organisational need, rather than a foundation for teaching (Doctrine?).
4. The idea that the US was proficient as “old Warfare” and “new Warfare” is somehow “more complex” and more challenging is untrue, and evidence free.

Agreed on the first point, although I suspect that that is an artifact from its committee nature. We could get into quibbles on the second. I think it is more "complex" based solely on what I perceive to be the solid addition of a "new" terrain which now has more real world effects than ever before. I think the argument could go either way depending on how we use the term "complex".


5. The description is the 2006 Lebanon conflict is highly simplistic, inaccurate, selective and substantially un-true. It is what the US Army wants to believe instead of looking at the facts.

Honestly, Wilf, I'll defer to your expertise on that; I don't know enough to critique it. I will say, however, that I was struck by how Hezbollah used a very simple organizational narrative that, in many ways, was very similar to what GEN Van Ripper used in Millennium Challenge.

Cheers,

Marc

marct
09-28-2009, 01:47 PM
No offense, but I get my meat all pre-packaged from Safeway, and with a little absorbing pack in the bottom to keep that messy blood from dripping all over.

Why not just use lots of media blitz and internet stuff? A lot less messy than using "tanks" to "kill" people. No?

LOL - true, that, but, given their current understandings of narrative space, about as effective as saturation bombing of the Pripet marshes :D!

Schmedlap
09-28-2009, 02:09 PM
I wrote:

... The rest of it reads like a statute for which there is no jurisprudence on point to clarify what the words mean. Maybe that is unavoidable for such big-picture, broad stuff that is written by committee, but it seems that you could read whatever you want into this thing.
But Wilf's comment might have put it into terms that the strategic thinkers can better understand.

2. The document lacks clear and precise descriptions, and uses un-clear and highly convoluted language, none of which is helpful. - why use "new terms?"
Either way, I think this document suffers from too much committee action. It reads like it was written by too many authors who have been away from the field and in the classrooms and briefing rooms for way too long. It is a bit unsettling to think that "the way ahead" might be heavily guided by a 50+ page document of buzzwords. Also concur with Wilf's other statements, particularly Israel-Hezbollah 2006.

William F. Owen
09-28-2009, 02:31 PM
You know, I think we have some of the same concerns gnawing at us :wry:.
To quote Rabbi Ken White "Funny dat."


In a similar way, when you wonder if there is a "dividing line between Doctrine and Concept", I am wondering if they are making a dividing line between a model and the results of running the model.
...and that in and of itself is alarming for all the obvious reasons. It has implications for the intended purpose of the document.




Let me take up this issue of "clear and precise descriptions" for a bit, because it is a crucial one. When you are building a model, you need to define (at the minimum) states, flows and boundaries......

What we have in this model is a fairly simplistic, 2D model that is trying to incorporate some of the concepts (used in the technical, not the Army, sense of the term) from 3D and 4D models. Let me take a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean, and some of the common problems with doing this.

"Cyberspace", as a "terrain" (a 2D model), is only accessible via technological extension and mediation, and yet it can (and does) have direct, real world effects on people who are not and cannot access it.


Yet read the military discussions of late 19th Century and you see how military men have got their heads around steam power, new weapons, railways, telegraph and most of everything else. They are applying what they know for certain and not attempting to hypothesise or guess at what they do not. What wrong foots everyone in 1914 is not the technology, but the vast scale of the endeavour both in numbers and duration - none of which could have been reasonably predicted.

Point being, what is it that we do no get or have evidence for? Why extrapolate beyond what we are certain of? "Just stop it!"


Honestly, Wilf, I'll defer to your expertise on that; I don't know enough to critique it. I will say, however, that I was struck by how Hezbollah used a very simple organizational narrative that, in many ways, was very similar to what GEN Van Ripper used in Millennium Challenge.
I would urge no deferring on any ones part. All the evidence is there, if you look for it. One of the key lessons of the Lebanon War - and one ALWAYS ignored - is how was it possible for the IDF to have such an extensive knowledge of Hezbollah - which they did - and not be able to employ that knowledge in a way that allowed effective preparation (lack of money/Leadership?) or for consistently successful operations once the fighting started. (EBO/SOD?)

Ken White
09-28-2009, 02:48 PM
I saw all the flaws mentioned above but ignored them. Is that conditioning or what... :D

It is, broadly, a waste of time and the taxpayer's dollar -- but it is the way we do business. :(

It is, as someone mentioned, as much a pre-budgetary guide as it is a pre-doctrinal guide. It isn't a schedule and certainly isn't a map, it is an Echelons Above Reality encapsulation of syllabus. Maybe not even that, maybe a prospectus.

Having worked for a few years at that level, I can thus ignore the flaws and realize that it is to lay the groundwork for doctrinal revamp that is aimed probably far more at the civilian side of government than it is at working Soldiers. Considering the raw ignorance among many in and working for Congress. Particularly dangerous are those with five years or so of service who think they know the system but really do not and are now staffers and exercise baleful influence on the many more with no service...

It is also designed for the proliferation of Think Tanks filled with academics with little or no experience. It will give them things to mull and prate about. Then there's the clueless media who need elementary guides... :wry:

The Army used to be able to write tight, clear and very concise documents and publications. It ceased doing that in the late 70s when masses of civilian Educators were hired into all the TRADOC schools and that unintentionally adverse influence became just that only because they caught the post-Viet Nam Army in a state of flux and angst and flapping about. They meant well, were some smart and hard working folks but they sold the Army an extremely poor industrial training system that is totally inappopriate for a professional force and they created a syndrome that believed volume was a substitute for quality of content in writing.

So look at it as a sales brochure for the layperson. ;)

Steve Blair
09-28-2009, 03:00 PM
The Army used to be able to write tight, clear and very concise documents and publications. It ceased doing that in the late 70s when masses of civilian Educators were hired into all the TRADOC schools and that unintentionally adverse influence became just that only because they caught the post-Viet Nam Army in a state of flux and angst and flapping about. They meant well, were some smart and hard working folks but they sold the Army an extremely poor industrial training system that is totally inappopriate for a professional force and they created a syndrome that believed volume was a substitute for quality of content in writing.

So look at it as a sales brochure for the layperson. ;)

Personally I think it goes back further than that, and has roots in both the much-maligned civilian educators and the military's own mania for "management education" in the aftermath of World War II...but I digress.

Perhaps instead of simply fault-finding we should try to see what we can get right with this effort and suggest some changes that would make the document more useful for practitioners and others who may need to reference the document. I'm about halfway through it myself, and for one am happy that the loop was actually opened up to get some outside input. Especially given the mania of late for flinging every document in the known universe behind one of the many digital portals out there (regardless of the document's classification or, most worryingly, lack thereof). More to the point, if something sucks, identify it and suggest a replacement or workable alternative. Just saying it sucks because you don't agree with it and leaving it at that doesn't accomplish much and may actually work against this sort of thing happening again...which would negate one of the benefits of cyberspace that Marc mentioned earlier.

William F. Owen
09-28-2009, 03:36 PM
I saw all the flaws mentioned above but ignored them. Is that conditioning or what... :D

It is, broadly, a waste of time and the taxpayer's dollar -- but it is the way we do business. :(


Actually I think you are being unduly hard on yourself. I think you correctly recognised the art of possible and what you might usefully do to progress improvement.

While I truly believe in what I wrote, I am very aware that it will probably have no impact beyond being the advice those seeking advice do not actually want. :(

Ken White
09-28-2009, 04:12 PM
...both the much-maligned civilian educators and the military's own mania for "management education" in the aftermath of World War II...but I digress.I would suggest in fact that former are merely doing the job they were paid to do while the latter phenomenon is responsible for most all the flaws that accrued and for any errors on the part of the former. If an employee doesn't do what's needed, the employer is generally at fault. Add that misplaced and misapplied fetish with 'management' to the post VN blahs and you had a recipe for a screwup... :(
...we should try to see what we can get right with this effort and suggest some changes that would make the document more useful for practitioners and others who may need to reference the document...Just saying it sucks because you don't agree with it and leaving it at that doesn't accomplish much and may actually work against this sort of thing happening again...which would negate one of the benefits of cyberspace that Marc mentioned earlier.True. I did just that the very day the Blog entry was first posted. ;)

However, not to pick at you but merely for thought, I'd also suggest that pointing out that a process has been skewed for various reasons, most of which folks can understand even if they don't agree, has a merit all its own in a hopeful attempt to ask, simply; "What are we doing?" or "Is this really the best way?"

Accepting flawed or questionable concepts without question generally perpetuates or even exacerbates the flaw. It's also been my observation that an item which raises any generic pejorative comments often merits at least some of them and that items whose benefit or utility is obvious rarely raise such comments. :wry:

I also think comments are sort of like publicity -- all of them are better than none of them and even bad ones are of some benefit.

marct
09-28-2009, 04:33 PM
Hi Wilf,


Yet read the military discussions of late 19th Century and you see how military men have got their heads around steam power, new weapons, railways, telegraph and most of everything else. They are applying what they know for certain and not attempting to hypothesise or guess at what they do not. What wrong foots everyone in 1914 is not the technology, but the vast scale of the endeavour both in numbers and duration - none of which could have been reasonably predicted.

Bein' in a somewhat picky mood since the seminar I came up to the university for got cancelled with no notice, I do want to make a couple of observations.... Sorry, Wilf, it's just me taking out frustrations

Steam power - 1687 in England with the Newcomen Engine, 177r with the Watts;
"new" weapons - breechloaders, simple design first produced in 1774 (I think or thereabouts) and mass deployed by the Prussians in the 1860's.

Railways - 1827 in the UK

Telegraph - 1847 (I think; this is off the top of my head) with the first oceanic cable in 1857

If they bloody well didn't have it down by the end of the 19th century, they should have all been taken out and shot as hopeless incompetents!


Point being, what is it that we do no get or have evidence for? Why extrapolate beyond what we are certain of? "Just stop it!"

We have to extrapolate beyond "certainty" because the only thing certain is that we don't have it perfect - isn't that an old military saying :wry:?

I choose airpower as the analog, but I could have also pointed to the armour debates on the 1920's as well, or the debates over crossbows and longbows back in the 14th century. The point I was trying to make with that analog was that it is at the start of the familiarity curve.


I would urge no deferring on any ones part. All the evidence is there, if you look for it. One of the key lessons of the Lebanon War - and one ALWAYS ignored - is how was it possible for the IDF to have such an extensive knowledge of Hezbollah - which they did - and not be able to employ that knowledge in a way that allowed effective preparation (lack of money/Leadership?) or for consistently successful operations once the fighting started. (EBO/SOD?)

So, knowledge without understanding? I think there is a really good warning lesson there ;).

PhilR
09-28-2009, 04:51 PM
In looking at this as a document which is supposed to help the Army frame/prioritize what stuff to buy and how to educate and train soldiers, I found it less than useful. Knowing how the Pentagon works, there is a line in here for everyone. That, unfortunately, is how it will be used: as a source for quotes to support this or that program or initiative.

The only way to prevent that is for this document to become inculcated in the senior leadership. They must read, understand and support. The first paragraph of Gen Dempsey’s introduction states that “ideas matter”—yes they do, but not because they are written, but because they are believed and because they lead to action. Action in these terms is a prioritization of effort and resources. For me, the document didn’t give a clear sense of priority—while stating all the many things that the Army would be capable of, I didn’t get a sense of what was being left out, or left behind.

While I think that I understand the intent and emerging environment, etc., it really bothered me that a guiding document for the future of the US Army would place defeating enemies at the end of every list of key actions and capabilities. If that order is a defacto prioritization, I’m not sure if we are moving in the correct direction.

While I laud the focus on uncertainty and complexity, I was somewhat troubled by the phrasing, once again in Gen Dempsey’s cover, that spoke of “imposing order on chaos.” I’d recommend focusing that we take actions to achieve the mission or to impose our will on the enemy. However, chaos and uncertainly are just a natural part of the environment. Rather than focus on how we can’t change this, we must emphasize how we are going to use it to our advantage—leveraging chaos.

Within Chapter three—the meat of how the Army will design itself, I was confused about the differences between “supporting ideas” and “core operational actions.” Are they differentiated in some way by type, by priority? When it comes to racking and stacking, will a supporting idea get funded while a core action may not be? There needs to be more clarity on how these concepts relate to one another.

Following the same vein of my criticism, the Appendix of required capabilities seems pretty extensive. What I do not get a sense of is how much? This goes to the global operating environment. I can imagine building an Army that can do all of the things listed, but there are only four brigades when the cost is added up. The “how much” factor directly affects the what and capability factor.

All in all, I’d recommend a shorter and simpler document. If the fear is that by not mentioning something in this document, it will not be funded or pursued, then you will always end up with a document of lists. As its is, I still don’t have a clear picture of what the Army contained in this document will look like, or what real choices are being made.

Phil Ridderhof USMC

William F. Owen
09-28-2009, 04:54 PM
If they bloody well didn't have it down by the end of the 19th century, they should have all been taken out and shot as hopeless incompetents!

So given let us say 10-15 years from 1865 (US Civil War) to 1870 (Franco Prussian War) what is it we are still confused about RE: Cyber or the Internet, or Media - all of which we have some 20 years experience of? - and given quite a lot more conflict!

I submit that Steam and Telegraph has at least as substantial social and cultural effect, as the Internet, Computers and so-called modern media.


We have to extrapolate beyond "certainty" because the only thing certain is that we don't have it perfect - isn't that an old military saying :wry:?
Yet no threat we see today was unknown or unknowable in 1991 - 18 years ago? More over, should a Capstone Concept aim at telling the future in the way this one tries? Why seek to predict things more than 5 years away?
Would a Capstone Concept of May 2001, been relevant in October 2001?

I don't think I am knit picking. The scope and aim of the document may be part of the problem.


So, knowledge without understanding? I think there is a really good warning lesson there ;).
Precisely. The threat was clearly known and understood, but people failed to use that to their advantage!

marct
09-28-2009, 05:10 PM
Hi Wilf,


So given let us say 10-15 years from 1865 (US Civil War) to 1870 (Franco Prussian War) what is it we are still confused about RE: Cyber or the Internet, or Media - all of which we have some 20 years experience of?

I would say the the current version of the ACC is confused about the basic analog to use for cyberspace and, from that, all other problems flow.


I submit that Steam and Telegraph has at least as substantial social and cultural effect, as the Internet, Computers and so-called modern media - and given quite a lot more conflict!

Don't disagree with you on this at all :D! Actually, what I use when I'm analyzing resonance functions is how we, as a species, "adapt" to new technologies, especially communicative ones. Steam power, both in its transport and productive modes, had an insanely huge effect on both society and culture, especially after the deployment of the Watt Engine. Projecting the analog forward, steam would be the rough analog of the transistor chip; it's that fundamental.

At the same time, it's actually harder for people to see the changes being wrought. It's pretty simple to see shifts with the introduction of a steam engine in, say, a cotton factory in Manchester. It's harder to see the changes, and get a gut feel for the interconnections, when we look at chips being embedded in appliances.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to finish that damn essay off......


Yet no threat we see today was unknown or unknowable in 1991 - 18 years ago? More over, should a Capstone Concept aim at telling the future in the way this one tries? Why seek to predict things more than 5 years away?

Hmmm, you're quite right that it was "knowable". as for predicting 5+ years into the future, that's also a valid thing to do IFF the freakin' model contains QC feedback loops (which, BTW, this one doesn't appear to). But what is actually being predicted isn't the "unknowable" in the future, it is the growth vector of what we can currently perceive. The QC loops should be in place to cover the possibility (probability) of completely new things happening.

Cheers,

Marc

William F. Owen
09-28-2009, 05:17 PM
And adding to it, the entire media is part of the military landscape.

So we need to think about "Media" like Logistics, and Intelligence? :confused:
If military operations are being conducted in line with legal guidance, why consider the media?

Where does media have it's greatest effect? On the political dimension or the military dimension?
Military action sets forth policy. I submit that media is part of the political landscape. - more over, how is media different from "public opinion?"

It would be a very great mistake to assume all our "enemies" are "Skilled media operators" or that it matters as much as some think, because the Russian and Chinese have very different ideas.

zenpundit
09-28-2009, 07:53 PM
Hi Wilf,

Will try to respond in reverse order, more or less, since my last comment:


If military operations are being conducted in line with legal guidance, why consider the media?

Good and fair question. Because if you do not deign to consider the media's impact of how they are likely to be framing military operations, by embracing an artificial mental compartmentalization between military and political domains, the civilian policy makers over time are going to have the lawyers find technical reasons to increasingly circumscribe how you carry out military operations beyond what is required by the laws of war ( in the very long run, this creates agitation to change the laws of war themselves by diplomatic means to the further disadvantage of conventional militaries facing insurgents). Some of their media driven ROE that they will want for political reasons are not going to make much sense or enhance the likelihood that an operation will be successful.

There's reasons that the political ratchet has gone in only one direction -greater restrictions on the use of military force - since WWII. Not wanting to be bothered with contemplating the implications of the "political landscape" is in itself, not a winning strategy for militaries retaining their legal ability to carry out their core function effectively.


I submit that media is part of the political landscape. - more over, how is media different from "public opinion?"

Having sat, in my time, at editorial meetings, it's the difference from being the playwright or the director and sitting in the audience watching the play unfold on stage. Any idea that the media reports rather than intentionally shapes is completely daft.


I submit that Steam and Telegraph has at least as substantial social and cultural effect, as the Internet, Computers and so-called modern media.

I agree. Not everyone adapted immediately or neatly though. It's a couple of generations between the experience of the Union using railroads and telegraphs in the Civil War or von Roon's mobilization reforms and the elaborate, universal scale seen in 1914. Moreover, von Roon faced heavy opposition from that pesky political landscape. :)


Yet read the military discussions of late 19th Century and you see how military men have got their heads around steam power, new weapons, railways, telegraph and most of everything else. They are applying what they know for certain and not attempting to hypothesise or guess at what they do not.

Across what Wilf, sixty years?

The flaw here is you are looking at the discussions of the military figures over a long stretch of time who understood the implications of change and got things right. Everyone knows who George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower were. No one recalls the name of the superior officer who told them to stop writing articles about tanks if they wanted to stay in the Army. DeGaulle was not the voice of the French officer corps on tanks either, for that matter.

Speculation and hypothesis are not bad things. Provided they lead to something empirical, they're a gateway to progress.


If they say "consider the impact of the media," they are totally wrong, because the "effect" depends on the action, and you cannot predict 2nd and 3rd order effects reliably or even how the media will see them. - you cannot tell the future.

True, you cannot predict second or third order effects in a social environment in a mathematical or precise sense but you can forecast. We intuitively game out probabilities whenever we make decisions in situations where there are many variables in play - and when a decision is important we tend to give the more critical and likely variables greater consideration before deciding on a course of action.


So why not point this out and stop panicking about complexity and media? Do we really think that the political dynamic of today is more complex than that in Europe at the time of Luther?

The critical relationship is between military force and politics. Media only bears on the latter - as CvC explained. Surely the aim here is to explain something simply and usefully, not compound the problem

Who is panicking? The simple explanation is that in combat situations where the political dynamic retains supremacy over military necessity or "best practice", the media is likely to have a lot of influence over the outcome by eroding the political will you mentioned. Ignoring that reality and proceeding full steam ahead will contribute to that erosion.


Whose media and effect on who? You cannot please everybody. Military forces, use violence to gain political outcomes. "The Media" is not a cohesive coherent body. What play well with Fox, will be called a "war crime" with the BBC, and no one in Texas cares what anyone in Cairo things.

There are always multiple audiences to consider and choices to be made among them. There always was but today they are more likely to view events in something closer to real time, with greater simultaneous reactions. Or at least less lag.


So show me successful armies that failed to adapt? 1914-18 and 1936-45 saw far more radical changes in Warfare than anything seen today. Why do we now think it "requires adaptation." Kind of silly to even say it, in an historical context.

It's the unsuccessful who failed to adapt. by definition, the successful eventually came around.


Media influence is ENTIRELY political. The impact of the media is only relevant to the the policy being sought by force. If it is not, then commanders are asking Media permission or approval to do stuff - which is like asking an 8 years old for advice on marriage.

I share your low opinion of the media - but in this instance, the media is more like an 8 year old who exerts a degree of control over the adults in the house. Ignoring media influence or calling it political doesn't help change the fact that it influences events or reactions of political leaders.

William F. Owen
09-28-2009, 08:40 PM
Some of their media driven ROE that they will want for political reasons are not going to make much sense or enhance the likelihood that an operation will be successful.
So are the ROE driven by Politics/Policy or media?


There's reasons that the political ratchet has gone in only one direction -greater restrictions on the use of military force - since WWII. Not wanting to be bothered with contemplating the implications of the "political landscape" is in itself, not a winning strategy for militaries retaining their legal ability to carry out their core function effectively.

I am all for the military gaining "political goals" via force or threat of force. What leave me confused is the inability of many to understand military force as an instrument of policy. Media speaks to an effect on Policy, - and only then in "policy" an ameliorating agent to violence. The military should only listen to Politicians, not Editors.

Any idea that the media reports rather than intentionally shapes is completely daft.
Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean. Some media are actors in the conflict and do manufacture or adapt messages to suit a policy agenda.

The flaw here is you are looking at the discussions of the military figures over a long stretch of time who understood the implications of change and got things right. Everyone knows who George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower were. No one recalls the name of the superior officer who told them to stop writing articles about tanks if they wanted to stay in the Army. DeGaulle was not the voice of the French officer corps on tanks either, for that matter.
Tanks or Mechanisation in general? Point being, a lot said about Tanks, in the 1920's turned out to be dead wrong. - and yet the UK and US both went to war with no horse drawn equipment, unlike the Germans. The general trend since the 19th century is for armies to over-hype technology, not the opposite.

Who is panicking? The simple explanation is that in combat situations where the political dynamic retains supremacy over military necessity or "best practice", the media is likely to have a lot of influence over the outcome by eroding the political will you mentioned. Ignoring that reality and proceeding full steam ahead will contribute to that erosion.
Panic may be too stronger word. Needless waffling perhaps? The reality of the "media" eroding political will has been a major factor in war since Ancient Rome, and before. Media passes information to the Public and the "people" are part of the "trinity." This stuff is not new. My point being precisely that. How Lincoln and Grant viewed the "newspapers" is directly relevant to today.

The infinitely possible and unknowable effects of things we cannot predict, are pointless to consider. For example: NATO kills civilians in Afghanistan = "Sadly unavoidable." The IDF kill civilians in Gaza = "War Crime!"

The primary purpose of modern media is to make money by providing "News entertainment." Personally I do not think Military Operations should be effected by such drivers.

Dr. C
09-28-2009, 08:56 PM
In lines 427 through 436, the authors present three components to the framework analysis they used, which make up the military “problem” to be solved.

In lines 454 through 482 “Iraq from 2003-2009” is used to illustrate a hybrid threat, one of the challenges guiding the framework analysis toward solutions. This section focuses more on what the insurgency “got right” then what the U.S. forces got right. It seems a valuable exercise to look at how the insurgency was successful. On the other hand, it’s even more valuable to look at examples of what the U.S. forces did right and how to appreciate in value the efforts that worked well. Where are the positive examples of what the Army did right, which we want to see more of in the future, to appreciate in value that which worked well?


The authors present the “solutions” to the military “problem,” and I’d like to read more of how they arrived at these solutions based on what worked well in the past, instead of just based on the identification of problems from the past and the probability of future challenges.


I’ve been reading, studying, practicing, and learning more about the Appreciative Inquiry method of organizational development. Instead of framing concepts as problems and solutions by looking backward at what went wrong or what didn’t work and trying to “fix it,” the idea of Appreciative Inquiry is to discover and move towards what is going right. The idea is to encourage and embrace what works.


“In problem solving it is assumed that something is broken, fragmented, not whole, and that it needs to be fixed. Thus the function of problem solving is to integrate, stabilize, and help raise to its full potential the workings of the status quo. By definition, a problem implies that one already has knowledge of what "should be"; thus one's research is guided by an instrumental purpose tied to what is already known. In this sense, problem solving tends to be inherently conservative; as a form of research it tends to produce and reproduce a universe of knowledge that remains sealed” (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987, http://www.stipes.com/aichap3.htm (http://www.stipes.com/aichap3.htm)).

I don’t mean to take issue with the whole problem-solution framework of the capstone. It’s probably not something that can really be changed at this point. I just wanted to point out that possibly adding to the document more positive examples of what worked well in the past could guide the future concepts and provide more support for the “solutions” presented (this is my main idea, so I put in boldface type).

jmm99
09-29-2009, 03:23 AM
by COL Ridderhof (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=83398&postcount=38) - you should post more. Especially this:


While I laud the focus on uncertainty and complexity, I was somewhat troubled by the phrasing, once again in Gen Dempsey’s cover, that spoke of “imposing order on chaos.” I’d recommend focusing that we take actions to achieve the mission or to impose our will on the enemy. However, chaos and uncertainly are just a natural part of the environment. Rather than focus on how we can’t change this, we must emphasize how we are going to use it to our advantage—leveraging chaos.

Perhaps our own version of Naji's "The Management of Savagery" ? :)

Since the Capstone Concept does not deal with law, it lies outside of my expertise. My general impression of the document is that it presents more of a plan for a large part of the US Government. I realize that it has its ancestry in DOD Directive 3000.05; but I guess I am enough of a dinosaur to find more comfort in capstones such as MCDP 1 Warfighting.

And, a PS to Dr C - positive examples are good. An extension of that is that we should pay a bit more attention to the writings of those who won, as well as to those who lost.

And another one - Michele, little font size is hell on old eyes - seriously.

William F. Owen
09-29-2009, 06:10 AM
I don’t mean to take issue with the whole problem-solution framework of the capstone. It’s probably not something that can really be changed at this point. I just wanted to point out that possibly adding to the document more positive examples of what worked well in the past could guide the future concepts and provide more support for the “solutions” presented (this is my main idea, so I put in boldface type).

...but that's the whole problem! - Most Armies do not use "examples of what worked well in the past could guide the future concepts and provide more support for the “solutions” presented." because they are generally oblivious of what worked well in the past or even how it worked.

Using military history to find out what worked and what did is extremely problematic - It's what I do - and the current "COIN debate" is writ large with folks ignoring uncomfortable historical facts.

Additionally folks make fraudulent use of "positive examples" to prove what they want to prove. The Manoeuvre Warfare crowd tried to cite the German Spring 1918 Offensive as an example of Manoeuvre Warfare. In fact MW was built on an entirely fraudulent set of examples.

Finally the Army Capstone Concept, is expressly attempting to guide folks to do the one thing we know that does not work, and that is to predict the future! = "The Enemy will X and Y"

slapout9
09-29-2009, 12:14 PM
by COL Ridderhof (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=83398&postcount=38)

Since the Capstone Concept does not deal with law, it lies outside of my expertise.

And in my opinion it's greatest flaw. The difference between good and bad, civilized or uncivilized is the law. Since we are supposed to be about supporting the rule of law it would only make since to start there, even if you choose to ignore it in some circumstances, the beginning should be the law. The concept of law is what makes us different from all other living entities on the planet.

marct
09-29-2009, 01:21 PM
Hi Wilf,


...but that's the whole problem! - Most Armies do not use "examples of what worked well in the past could guide the future concepts and provide more support for the “solutions” presented." because they are generally oblivious of what worked well in the past or even how it worked.

Serious question here, do you think it is because they don't know what worked or because they don't know why it worked (or something else)? I am asking, because I have a gut feeling that institutions that expect to win treat things that "worked" (regardless of who did them) as a reflection on their own ideologies / doctrine - a reinforcement of its correctness if you will - while things that don't work, are either used to reinforce why they don't do it that way, or why they need to adapt. Afterall, if something that has worked before doesn't anymore, it must be "new", right? :cool::wry:


Additionally folks make fraudulent use of "positive examples" to prove what they want to prove. The Manoeuvre Warfare crowd tried to cite the German Spring 1918 Offensive as an example of Manoeuvre Warfare. In fact MW was built on an entirely fraudulent set of examples.

That, along with other examples from similar debates, always reinforced the impression in my mind that the people doing the analysis just didn't understand what they were analyzing. "Maneuver Warfare" (a doctrine / ideology) vs. "mobility" (a concept).


Finally the Army Capstone Concept, is expressly attempting to guide folks to do the one thing we know that does not work, and that is to predict the future! = "The Enemy will X and Y"

I really have no problem with the idea of attempting to predict the future. Where I have a serious problem is in the application of the incorrect form of logic to such predictions. Stating that "The Enemy" (who we don't know currently) "Will do X and Y" is, IMO, ridiculous - it is based on the application of deductive logic to the problem of prediction, where that application is totally out of line; there are too many unknown factors to apply a deductive model. If they had stated it as "The Enemy will probably attempt to X and Y", then I would have less problems with it. That's a probabilistic statement. It still has flaws (e.g. assuming a constant and uniform "Enemy"), but at least it is moving towards inductive logic which is one of the two forms that should be used (i.e. use inductive logic for fairly well understood trends and classes of opponents when you have some data about their intentions, perceptions and performance). For opponents who you don't have much data on, they should be using abductive logic.

Then again, if this is merely a PR effort designed to provide a public rationale for getting new toys, I have to wonder three things.

First, why did they bother to ask us to comment on it? Are we being used as a focus group to aid in their predicting where they will run into sales difficulty?

Second, are their PR people stupid? As a piece of public rhetoric, and a rationale for securing budgets (amongst other things), this document is pretty poor. I would recommend that their PR people read Joel Best's great little article Rhetoric in Claims-Making: Constructing the Missing Children Problem (http://www.jstor.org/pss/800710), Social Problems, Vol. 34, No. 2, (Apr., 1987), pp. 101-121.

Third, if this is a serious request for information / comments and critique, as I fully expect it is on BG McMaster's part, then I have to wonder how much of what we write here will be incorporated?

Personally, I'm all in favour of the idea of sending a draft out to us (SWC) for comments and critiques; don't get me wrong about that :D! I also think that a lot of the TRADOC senior leaders really do know that this is one of the "opportunities" inherent in cyberspace. Maybe I am just being cynical, but a lot of what I read in the current version of the ACC appeared to have been written by bureaucrats (in the Byzantine sense) rather than by warfighters, strategists, or scholars.

Fuchs
09-29-2009, 05:00 PM
My first irritation came with the title.


Operating under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict

That's pretty much a sum of blabla because uncertainty is normal, complexity is normal - and "Persistent Conflict" is a nice wording for "conflicts we're stuck in because we don't know how to solve them and are unwilling/unable to back out".


...we can either attempt to increase our information-processing capacity—to 69 create a network-centric approach and operate with more information; or we can design the 70 entire organization, and indeed structure our conceptualization of warfare itself, in such a way as 71 to maximize our ability to operate on the basis of less than perfect information. Dealing with this 72 dilemma...
Dilemma? Why? I see no dilemma.
You can improve your exploitation of available info and at the same time prepare to do your job with little useful info.


The ACC describes the broad capabilities the Army will require in 2016-2028 to apply 75 finite resources to overcome a combination of hybrid threats, adaptive adversaries, and 76 enemies in complex operating environments.
Error 405: Buzzword overload

I didn't read the full text yet, but my quick look at it made me think that

* it's no full capstone concept as I understood the meaning of the word - it's rather an add-on to existing doctrine.

* it's very extrovert in nature. It doesn't focus on soldiers in order to prepare for challenges, but on methods to deal with xyz

* it's limited by fashions (mission descriptions, buzzwords) and policy (much of it would have looked different if regime change was still a priority)

* "joint" and "combined" is rather low on the priority ranking

* it's a quite practical document, not some piece of ground-breaking theory. The theoretical elements are tidbits taken from others.

* there's some lip-service to political efforts in conflict, but no understanding that army ops are subordinate to them.

Instead, the draft sees military and diplomatic efforts as being on one level:

In the future, U.S. forces will still need such skills to defeat future 984 enemies. Yet this series of actions must be subordinate to strategic plans that integrate political, 985 military, diplomatic, economic, and informational efforts.

I'm not motivated to work thoroughly through 55 pages of something that I'll likely read in a few months in the final version. That may have degraded the quality of my comments, of course.

Xenophon
09-29-2009, 05:52 PM
I'll cover Fires since all the big picture stuff has been well covered above by those well qualified to cover it.

In the Combined Arms Section of Chapter 3....:

Implication
Combined Arms Operations: Because future enemies will attempt to counter U.S. significant advantages in communications, surveillance, long-range precision fires, armor protection, and mobility, the Army must provide the Joint Force Commander with combined arms forces capable of operating in a decentralized mode, conducting area security operations over large areas, and capitalizing on joint capabilities at all echelons.

...the need to decentralize fires is mentioned. But, in Appendix B, Lines 1664-1672....

Fires.
Required Capabilities from the 2005 Army Capstone Concept
The future force requires the capability to conduct long-range precision surface-to-surface fires and aviation strikes in the context of a joint operating environment in order to complement joint counter-precision and counter-anti-access capabilities.
Additional Required Capabilities
The future force requires the capability of improved integrated joint fire control networks that provide more effective application of all source fires and effects, from theater to tactical levels to include precision fires and suppressive fires.

...decentralization is not mentioned at all. What IS mentioned is the need for joint fire control networks. Ok, roger, computer systems are shiny and sometimes speed up mission processing and they can do cool stuff and let you watch pirated movies in the TOC. Good. Great. Grand. Wonderful. But in order to achieve the kind of responsiveness and decentralization needed, the approval process needs to be decentralized as well. You can distribute guns and personnel and comm gear easily, but the ability and authority to approve fire missions CANNOT be decentralized without better training of the junior leaders that will need to approve the mission so that their senior leaders are comfortable ceding that authority to them. Computers can provide faster and easier "application of all source fires and effects", but speed is only one factor in "more effective".

Bottom Line: Recommend adding to the Fires Additional Required Capabilities section these two items:

1. The future force will require surface-to-surface fires units that are capable of decentralization of individual fire support systems, command and control systems, and personnel.

2. The future force will require improved and redesigned training, education, and development of junior leaders* in order to produce personnel capable of providing accurate, responsive, and appropriate** application of fire support capabilities.


*- By junior leaders I mean NCOs and junior officers
**- By appropriate I mean both the right munition for the intended target (kinda covered by the training establishment) and how to mitigate risk to civilians, when the risk is too great and fires cannot be used, and when the risk should be ignored i.e. almost never (this is not covered at all in the training establishment, beyond lame, shallow powerpoint presentations about ROEs).

My bureaucracy-ese has yet to be developed, but I'm sure the Army has the capability to wordsmith those into something more confusing and stale.

Rob Thornton
09-29-2009, 06:27 PM
Orignally posted by Marc in reply to Wilf:


Serious question here, do you think it is because they don't know what worked or because they don't know why it worked (or something else)?

Marc, I'd say both.

Wrt to both - I think to have a better shot at it you have to:

first do the hard work of determining what conditions you are actually trying to change as they relate to the problem (assuming you know the problem)

second determine which tasks will change those conditions and assign MOEs to each specific task to help you know if you are indeed doing the right things

third assign MOPs to that task to help you know if you are doing the right things well enough

I've attached a variation of an image we are using in the new SFA Planner's Guide we will probably release next week on FSF Force Development

In this variation the logic is aimed at both the operating force and the generating force.

However, if you don't have the logic going in, then you are forced to accept the additional bias that goes with looking over your shoulder and trying to recreate conditions as they were vs. just how you remembeer them, or how you wish they were. Even armed with it going in, you still need to have sufficent indicators to tell you when you are off track.

If you never do this, then you are free to chalk it all up to art, and interpretation.

Best, Rob

jmm99
09-29-2009, 06:53 PM
I agree with this as general governmental capstone policy:


from Slap
And in my opinion it's greatest flaw. The difference between good and bad, civilized or uncivilized is the law. Since we are supposed to be about supporting the rule of law it would only make since to start there, even if you choose to ignore it in some circumstances, the beginning should be the law. The concept of law is what makes us different from all other living entities on the planet.

but I think there might be some resistence here to leading off with the Rule of Law - not to the concept of law, but to the concept of lawyers running the show. :eek:

However, ignoring the basic concepts of law that should be known to all generals does lead to some odd expressions when considered in a legal light. An example is this one (p.3 of Capstone Concept):


Future leaders and their organizations must have the capability to think in terms of friendly (partners and allies), the enemy, and the people, and possess the flexibility to secure populations while simultaneously attacking or defending to defeat enemy organizations.

which appears in other places as well. The triangle - friendly, enemy & people - is pretty much standard COIN terminology; but it is too simplistic in addressing the present and future security environments.

My thoughts are tentative and arise from looking at the Bagram habeas cases, presently on appeal to the DC Circut; but more particularly at the opinion of Bob Jackson in Johnson v. Eisentrager (http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:Bpv--tLuGw4J:supreme.justia.com/us/339/763/+%22Johnson+v.+Eisentrager,+339+U.S.+763%22+justia&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us), 339 U.S. 763 (1950) (Google cache - justia's website seems down at present).


1. A nonresident enemy alien has no access to our courts in wartime. Pp. 339 U. S. 768-777.

(a) Our law does not abolish inherent distinctions recognized throughout the civilized world between citizens and aliens, nor between aliens of friendly and enemy allegiance, nor between resident enemy aliens who have submitted themselves to our laws and nonresident enemy aliens who at all times have remained with, and adhered to, enemy governments. P. 339 U. S. 769.

(b) In extending certain constitutional protections to resident aliens, this Court has been careful to point out that it was the aliens' presence within its territorial jurisdiction that gave the Judiciary power to act. P. 339 U. S. 771.

(c) Executive power over enemy aliens, undelayed and unhampered by litigation, has been deemed, throughout our history, essential to wartime security. P. 339 U. S. 774.

(d) A resident enemy alien is constitutionally subject to summary arrest, internment, and deportation whenever a "declared war" exists. Courts will entertain his plea for freedom from executive custody only to ascertain the existence of a state of war and Page 339 U. S. 764 whether he is an alien enemy. Once these jurisdictional facts have been determined, courts will not inquire into any other issue as to his internment. P. 339 U. S. 775.

(e) A nonresident enemy alien, especially one who has remained in the service of the enemy, does not have even this qualified access to our courts.

If habeas rights are allowed at Bagram, the Johnson case will have to overruled by SCOTUS (it is difficult to see how it can be factually distinguished).

The Johnson case hinged on Justice Jackson's analysis of habeas corpus in terms of the status of the person (e.g., US citizen - habeas always available if the citizen is in US custody anywhere, unless the writ is constitutionally suspended). The issue in Johnson dealt with non-citizens (aliens who were nationals of another country, detained in another country - specifically, Germans who fought on with the Japanese in China, were tried by military commissions and then transferred to a German prison leased by the US).

In considering that particular case, Justice Jackson had to consider both the status of nations and the status of people in wartime situations. As to nations, we had allies, neutrals and enemies. In the simpler times of WWII, the status of a person followed the status of that person's nation vice the US as a belligerent in the war.

So, in the case of an alleged alien of an enemy nation in US custody, the issues on habeas (if it were allowed at all) boiled down to (1) was war declared (today a state of armed conflict pursuant to an AUMF would suffice); and (2) was the person an enemy alien. The latter issue could be somewhat complicated by the person claiming to be a US citizen, an allied national, a neutral national or a "stateless person". However, such questions can be usually answered by introducing fairly simple proofs. If the person were found to be an enemy alien, that person (whether civilian or military) could be detained for the duration of the conflict based on that status alone.

What does all this have to do with the military ? What Justice Jackson was doing in Johnson was defining the enemy (both the nation and its nationals), and distinguishing them from the non-enemy. From those basics (the principles of definition and distinction) flow their applications in ROEs, RUFs, EOFs, etc.

As we move from WWII to the present, we find that the basics (the principles of definition and distinction) have to be applied not only to nations and their nationals; but also to groups and organizations to which an AUMF applies. That leads to a more complicated analysis, both legally and militarily.

Let us take Astan as an example, taking into account the fact that we are not presently at war (including armed conflicts under an AUMF) with any nation; but that we are at war (an armed conflict under an AUMF) with an organization - AQ. So, what is the status of a person, a member of AQ, who resides in Astan and is being hunted by US forces - kill or capture.

1. As an Astan national, that person's national status follows the status of his nation vice the US. Whether Astan is considered an ally or partner, it is a "friendly" nation. So, under that test, our AQ Astan national is a "friendly" who can be captured and detained (for security reasons), but cannot be killed. More broadly, all Astan nationals are "friendlies" applying the test based on their nation's status vice the US. We know that all Astan nationals are not "friendlies".

2. As a member of AQ (subject to an AUMF), our AQ Astan national has in effect the same status (vice the US) as an enemy alien in WWII. As to enemy aliens, there are two basic classifications: combatant (to whom, kill or capture applies) and non-combatant (to whom, capture and detain for the duration applies). A reasonably bright line exists between combatant and non-combatant where a state of war exists between two or more nation states. A similar bright line does not exist between combatants and non-combatants who are members of an organization such as AQ.

3. Where violent non-state actors are involved, the line becomes even fuzzier as we get into support personnel - financial backers, information "warriors", the "political infrastructure" who may never pick up an AK, etc. In fact, a good practical question is to what extent should the military effort apply to those "civilian" types.

4. The analysis gets even more muddy as we proceed into multi-national partnerships. Many (if not all) of our ISAF partners do not really accept the concept that an armed conflict (AUMF) can exist with an organization such as AQ. Those that have accepted the GC Additional Protocal I accept the concept of a "transitory combatant" - an "enemy" when holding the AK; a "friendly" when he has hidden it.

5. An additional source of friction is who has responsibilty for non-combatants in a combat environment. E.g., under traditional Hague, the defenders of a built-up area (say, a ville or hamlet) have responsibility to protect non-combatants and get them out of the combat zone. Under the more liberal interpretations of GC AP I, that responsibility is shifted to the attackers, despite the fact that they have no control over the ville or hamlet.

All of these considerations have surfaced in threads concerned with them from a military, and sometime a legal, standpoint. The present and future environments are more complicated than positing a monolithic "people", some "friendlies" (allies and partners, limited to nation states ?) and the "enemy".

Regards to all

Mike

---------------------------

Justice Robert Jackson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Jackson) knew more of War Crimes and the Laws of War in his little finger than most any group of lawyers know collectively. Best known as a prosecutor, his best known piece of legal advice was ""any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to the police under any circumstances." That one for you, Slap. :)

William F. Owen
09-29-2009, 06:58 PM
Serious question here, do you think it is because they don't know what worked or because they don't know why it worked (or something else)?
It's a combination of both, but the emphasis on WHY. Spencer Fitz-Gibbon once told me, that in his estimation, the instructors at the Infantry School in 1982 could tell you how to take an enemy position, but had no idea of what really worked and what did not. This leads to "what sounds good," filling in the blanks. There are countless other examples.

That, along with other examples from similar debates, always reinforced the impression in my mind that the people doing the analysis just didn't understand what they were analyzing. "Maneuver Warfare" (a doctrine / ideology) vs. "mobility" (a concept).
Concur. I have a number of ideas as to why this is, and it's mainly because they are never held to rigour by an informed community. Kingdoms of Blind and having one eye, etc.

I really have no problem with the idea of attempting to predict the future.
Nor do I with the proviso that you substitute the word "No" with "a massive" and add "because it's bloody silly!" to the end of the sentence. We can however make sensible estimates based on enduring and proven trends. EG:- Computers will get more powerful. Population will increase etc etc.
Now we cannot predict who we will fight, or where we will fight or for what reason. It is also dangerous to make any assumption on that part.
However, we can with reasonable accuracy predict, how they will fight and using what, or given a particular capability, how they will use it.
Why are we being asked? Dunno. If we are wrong, maybe we can take the blame. IF we are right, no one will care and some Consultant will take the credit.

MikeF
09-29-2009, 08:30 PM
Serious question here, do you think it is because they don't know what worked or because they don't know why it worked (or something else)? I am asking, because I have a gut feeling that institutions that expect to win treat things that "worked" (regardless of who did them) as a reflection on their own ideologies / doctrine - a reinforcement of its correctness if you will - while things that don't work, are either used to reinforce why they don't do it that way, or why they need to adapt. Afterall, if something that has worked before doesn't anymore, it must be "new", right? :cool::wry:

MarcT,

Serious indirect answer here. When I got to Bragg, first required stop was to visit the Airborne Museum on post and the Airborne and Special Operations Museum off-post. Prior to command, I participated in a Prop-Blast (a "team building" exercise for new paratroopers). Throughout all three exercises, I learned of the famed legend of LTG James M. Gavin- how he constructed the Airborne Army, how he lead LGOP's (Little Groups of Paratroopers) across Italy, Normandy, and Market Garden, and how he defined the 82nd Airborne Division. That's where the history stopped. We were not taught how he rebelled against policy in Vietnam and of his own thoughts/observations in small wars. I didn't learn about that history until I went to graduate school.

We choose to remember things how we want to see them.

v/r

Mike

marct
09-29-2009, 08:49 PM
for the answers. Part of the reason I was asking the question about what worked vs. why something worked gets to the heart of a bunch of talks Rob and I have had (along with others ;)) about training vs. education. I'm really glad Rob tossed that graphic up, but I would be a touch happier if I saw a QC feedback loop built right into it :wry:.

I'm still mulling stuff over in all of this, but I must say that i am really glad to see all of the debate coming out :D!

Cheers,

Marc

slapout9
09-29-2009, 09:07 PM
""any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to the police under any circumstances." That one for you, Slap. :)

Sounds like good advice:D

Ken White
09-29-2009, 10:15 PM
We choose to remember things how we want to see them.I have been telling people for over 50 years: "Fulfill that airborne myth to the best of your ability -- but don't believe a word of it; that BS'll get you killed..." :D

That, in essence means I agree with Marc's answer to his own question which Mike further expanded -- and I'd posit two more factors. One is Ego. The cultural belief that guys fix things takes hold and people will try to fix things that do not need fixing. Conversely, they will waste little to no effort on an item that they do not believe (or believe their Boss believes) needs fixing...

It's a whole lot easier to worry about Eward Heebley's haircut, vehicle registration or his wife's erratic behavior than it is to train a Platoon to cross open ground (n.b. Pics still show Troops in Afghanistan way too close together in most situations) and it's also easier to let SGT Phugabosky tell the Troops that 50m between individuals is BS, 5 is enough than it is to challenge him on his logic -- or laziness. The 5 makes it easier for him to control things, no more. The 50 might avoid a Purple Heart or two. If he trained his troops well, he wouldn't have to worry about control. So ego drives us to do the things that are easy and prone to get attention. It also drives doctrine and AAR writers to leave out important things because, as they don't understand the need, it must not be necessary. Dealing with it causes good leaders not to do things they think they should because a hassle with an ego is usually fruitless...

The second factor is self confidence. A leader with an adequate amount will study the writings of a five year old if he thinks they have merit. He'll steal ideas from anyone. One with a lack of self confidence will insist he needs no help, he knows it all...

Those are two gross oversimplifications and the actuality is far more nuanced but ego and inadequate self confidence pair together in strange ways to affect actions and reactions -- and those with an excess of the first and a shortfall in the latter are amazingly prevalent in the US Armed Forces and most eschew research, history and the ideas of others lest they appear 'weak.' The actuality, of course, is that they're fooling no one but themselves. They're also a detriment to better training and performance. Those two factors lead to an attitude that believes "I am in charge. I must never appear weak. I will not accept advice from others for I will seen as unsure or hesitant and my senior rater will not like that..." Hyperbole but there's much truth there. :(

Those factors are why we do not have eight years of experience in Afghanistan. Averaging tour lengths across the services and for the period, we have about 10 to 14 short tours there. It is perhaps noteworthy that the Asymmetric Warfare Group noted in both Iraq and Afghanistan that loss of continuity between rotations was a major problem. Schmedlap has here outlined errors in the process he saw. My son's three tours, in each case, the new unit wanted NO help or advice. FWIW I saw the same thing in the Marines in Korea and in the Army several places sround the world in the 56- 79 period. It's a human factors thing and we should correct for it which we could easily do but then what would that say about some of our icons... :wry:

Egos; can't bruise the old self confidence. :rolleyes:

Rob Thornton
09-30-2009, 12:20 AM
Hi Marc,


I would be a touch happier if I saw a QC feedback loop built right into it .

Marc, this is just the basic graphic - designed to either talk to, or for those who require things to be served up as such. I think when you see what really goes into making the logic work, you'll be satisfied that indeed there are QC loops. Plenty from our discussions has made it into the PG.

Best, Rob

marct
09-30-2009, 02:06 AM
Marc, this is just the basic graphic - designed to either talk to, or for those who require things to be served up as such. I think when you see what really goes into making the logic work, you'll be satisfied that indeed there are QC loops. Plenty from our discussions has made it into the PG.

Cool :D! I'm a QC loop junky.....

William F. Owen
09-30-2009, 06:39 AM
Those are two gross oversimplifications and the actuality is far more nuanced but ego and inadequate self confidence pair together in strange ways to affect actions and reactions -- and those with an excess of the first and a shortfall in the latter are amazingly prevalent in the US Armed Forces and most eschew research, history and the ideas of others lest they appear 'weak.' The actuality, of course, is that they're fooling no one but themselves.

I see no gross oversimplification. Maybe useful reductionism?
Does this speak to an inability to be able to write short, clear and concise Concepts and Doctrine notes? - in that long, turgid, complex document are perceived to be more insightful that 3 page of clearly expressed ideas?

Does describing your future enemies as "hybrid," make you seem more accepting of challenge, and thus able to ask for more money?

marct
09-30-2009, 12:08 PM
Hi Wilf,


I see no gross oversimplification. Maybe useful reductionism?

That's an interesting, and probably very useful, distinction IFF the difference were spelled out in the document :wry:. For example, the "term "adaption" (and its variants "adaptive", "adaptability", etc.) are used fairly often in the ACC, but there is no specific definition for what that is supposed to mean. Now, I happen to use both the term and concept fairly often ('sides that, I spend a fair bit of time drinking with biologists and occasionally lecture in Biotechnology classes), so I know what the term means in biology as well as in sociology / anthropology.

While the term isn't defined, the "meaning" that can be ascribed to it based on both immediate and total context is closer to a Spencerian idea of the concept (he's the dude who coined the phrase "Survival of the Fittest" with all of the Eugenicist implications). However, as the term is used by people who have been in the field, the implied meaning is much closer to that of Darwin's concept, i.e. the ability to sort through multiple options quickly and select one that should work and, if that fails, to create one on the spot.

In Spencer's version of the concept, there is an implied teleology of "this is the best", while in Darwin's concept, it's closer to "it works and didn't cause a catastrophic failure" (no implied teleology).

So, what does this have to do with "gross oversimplification" vs "useful reductionism"? Well, a gross oversimplification leaves implied meaning wide open to interpretation, while a useful reductionism restricts interpretation of key characteristics (NB: usually by pointing towards an expansion of them in other documents). In the case of "adaption" in the ACC, we have a case of gross oversimplification, since the teleological implications of the two main interpretations have radically different implications for training and organization.


Does this speak to an inability to be able to write short, clear and concise Concepts and Doctrine notes? - in that long, turgid, complex document are perceived to be more insightful that 3 page of clearly expressed ideas?

I'm not sure that it is an "inability" in the classic sense of "they don't know how to do it", so much as "they are structurally unable to do it" because of the functional requirements for the document. From what I can gather, the ACC is not only supposed to be a model of how the US Army currently views future warfare, it is also a PR piece in budget negotiations, a guideline for future training / mobilization requirements, and a venue for politically powerful factions to argue for their pet projects. In short, it is written by a committee that does not have either a single goal or a single vision.

Personally, I think they are making a critical error in the way it is written. I would argue that they could still achieve their PR (and budgetary) goals while writing a concise, if not short, document. I think we can certainly see that some of the people are trying to do just that, while others are obfuscating parts of the document and still others are attaching "earmarks" to it.


Does describing your future enemies as "hybrid," make you seem more accepting of challenge, and thus able to ask for more money?

As far as I can see, the term is a mere buzz word to increase the fear reaction in political readers and with the public. Analytically, it is silly since I can't think of a fight in the past millennium (at least!) that didn't involve "hybrid" factors (including Frederick the Great).

Dr. C
09-30-2009, 03:46 PM
...but that's the whole problem! - Most Armies do not use "examples of what worked well in the past could guide the future concepts and provide more support for the “solutions” presented." because they are generally oblivious of what worked well in the past or even how it worked.

Using military history to find out what worked and what did is extremely problematic - It's what I do - and the current "COIN debate" is writ large with folks ignoring uncomfortable historical facts.

Additionally folks make fraudulent use of "positive examples" to prove what they want to prove.

In the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) mode, I would get a core group representative of the Army community from all ranks, and have them interview each other with questions like:

"What makes us successful when we are at our best working with other agencies?"

"Imagine the Army fifteen years from now as the best organization. What does it look like? What are we doing more of? What are we doing less of? What are we doing that is completely new?"

"If you could develop or transform the Army in any way to advance fully the Army's objectives (as stated in the capstone), what three wishes in order of priority, would you make to contribute to its excellence?"

From there, the core group can also explore the Army's "peak performance" from the past, and identify the ways of doing things that are valued so strongly they should be sustained.

Again, I'm not sure if the capstone was meant to be a visionary document, so maybe that's why the authors took a problem-solution approach. There are other approaches available, like AI. Our default is usually from a deficit-base, looking at the Army as a machine that can be broken apart, analyzed, fixed, and put back together, with the final ideal product already in mind. Instead of the machine metaphor, to me a flowing river metaphor may be more useful.

William F. Owen
09-30-2009, 04:23 PM
In the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) mode, I would get a core group representative of the Army community from all ranks, and have them interview each other with questions like:


"What makes us successful when we are at our best working with other agencies?"

"Imagine the Army fifteen years from now as the best organization. What does it look like? What are we doing more of? What are we doing less of? What are we doing that is completely new?"

"If you could develop or transform the Army in any way to advance fully the Army's objectives (as stated in the capstone), what three wishes in order of priority, would you make to contribute to its excellence?"



None of those questions forces anyone to examine what best practice looks like. What you'll get is data free opinion, which is the primary source of most of the problem.
Moreover your questions supposes that most soldiers/officers actually know what best practice looks like. I submit history shows us that this is extremely unlikely.


From there, the core group can also explore the Army's "peak performance" from the past, and identify the ways of doing things that are valued so strongly they should be sustained.
Again this assumes they know and that what the value is actually important. A British Officer might tell you that it is all to do with Foot Drill and Marching Bands - which has always been counter-productive, yet the UK persists with it for purely emotional reasons.

Ken White
09-30-2009, 05:21 PM
will be picked in any Armed force at the direction of a senior person -- that person is highly likely to have some biases that will be introduced into the selection process in some way. Even with a totally unbiased group, their recollections will be situationally dependent; i.e. what worked for them at one time in one place in certain circumstances. Introduce a different locale, different players on both sides -- even different weather or time of day -- and the likelihood of a similar result is reduced; the more variables, the greater the probability of a totally different result.

There are three potential solutions. The first is to cull AARs in exhaustive detail and compile a list of best practices (I emphasize own AND others, including opponents). The second is to conduct tests and experiments. The third is to select proven competent practitioners and have them train future performers. Most Armed Forces, including those in the US, use an amalgam of all three of those, some with locally added fillips and that's about as good as you can get...

It is far from perfect but it is adequate most of the time. Soldiering is one trade where one truly learns by doing; thus the more training and the more realistic that training is, the better will be performance. There are simply too many variables in combat (all the factors of METT-TC routinely vary, that's why the acronym exists) for that not to be true.

Malcolm Gladwell's work has many flaws but his 10,000 hours for expertise in most fields where physical action is entailed is essentially accurate and is derived from the research of others. Figuring twelve hour combat days, that equates to about two and a third years -- IMO, that's about right at the current wars level of intensity; other, more intense wars went to 24 hour days and thus down to about a years experience. Even more intensity can accelerate the learning curve.

The rub comes from the fact that would be true for A job. Get promoted, move up to another level and the learning curve starts all over. Thus if you accept, say five echelons from individual Tanker, Scout, Rifleman or Gunner to Battalion (the real maneuver and combat focusing level -- Regiment / Brigade and above are semi superfluous to ground combat in many senses) then at two years plus per echelon, it would take about 10 years of combat to produce a truly competent Battalion Commander. Not adequate, truly competent in all aspects with an acknowledgment that a small percentage of persons are naturals and can do it in far less time. Note the small before 'percentage' -- and that applies at all levels.

I'm aware that we start Officers at the third echelon up and that most do that fairly well. That compresses the first three echelons for them which may not be doing them or the echelons below a favor -- but that's the way we do it. What that does is add to their learning curve time at each of the higher echelons so even though there's a head start at the third level, it balances out over the five echelons. That is in part engendered by the fact that we have too many Officers and thus, many are put in jobs that do not add value to their combat skills so about half or more of their service time is wasted in that respect.

I'm also aware that adequate performers can be trained in less time. I'd only suggest that 'adequate' may be necessary in some wars, particularly existential ones but it is not at all desirable in a professional Army that is required to perform in the full spectrum of combat. You get what you pay for...

Substitute good training on a ratio of 1.5 or 2:1 and that would be two to three peacetime years for a good rifleman or tanker and fifteen to 20 years for the Bn Cdr -- which about tracks with reality. IF your training is good. Ours is not that good. Then consider that we drag Officers and even NCOs (to a lesser extent) away from learning environment for much of their service...
A British Officer might tell you that it is all to do with Foot Drill and Marching Bands - which has always been counter-productive, yet the UK persists with it for purely emotional reasons.Sadly, the British Army is not alone in this stupidity. I've heard senior people in the US and other Armies also tout the 'benefit' of close order drill and even of bands. Asinine -- and then we wonder why people get killed unnecessarily...

marct
09-30-2009, 05:31 PM
A British Officer might tell you that it is all to do with Foot Drill and Marching Bands - which has always been counter-productive, yet the UK persists with it for purely emotional reasons.
Sadly, the British Army is not alone in this stupidity. I've heard senior people in the US and other Armies also tout the 'benefit' of close order drill and even of bands. Asinine -- and then we wonder why people get killed unnecessarily...

While i will certainly agree that close order drill is pretty useless at present (it actually was useful in the 16th-early 19th centuries), I totally disagree on bands! (Okay, bias time here - my father played in the CF band in Korea).

First, they are actually pretty good for morale and, let's face, why contract out what you can have internally :wry:?

Second, a really, REALLY good band means pipers.... lots and LOTS of pipers... a WMD (Weapon of Mass Deafness) that has never been outlawed by the Geneva Conventions and can (and has) been put to use with great effect in a number of both riot and battlefield conditions.

J Wolfsberger
09-30-2009, 05:39 PM
Second, a really, REALLY good band means pipers.... lots and LOTS of pipers... a WMD (Weapon of Mass Deafness) that has never been outlawed by the Geneva Conventions and can (and has) been put to use with great effect in a number of both riot and battlefield conditions.

I agree. Emphatically and completely. :D

slapout9
09-30-2009, 06:20 PM
It doesn't matter they are after our precious bodily fluids:eek:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4XhhTF7vRM&feature=related

Ken White
09-30-2009, 07:50 PM
(it actually was useful in the 16th-early 19th centuries), As were the Elephants some time before... :D

It's probably noteworthy that your forebears and mind pioneered (pun intended) the lack of necessity for close order drill in the early and mid 18th Century as wrestling to determine your southern border took place.

Who said armies were slow to adapt?
I totally disagree on bands! (Okay, bias time here - my father played in the CF band in Korea)...Second, a really, REALLY good band means pipers.... lots and LOTS of pipers... a WMD (Weapon of Mass Deafness) that has never been outlawed by the Geneva Conventions and can (and has) been put to use with great effect in a number of both riot and battlefield conditions.I may have heard him play. Seriously. Joint Dominion Day / 4th of July (1952) soireee near Chorwon on a Wedensday, either the 2d or 3d as I recall (something about a war on , i think...)...

Ah, I said Bands, NOT Pipes and Drums. ;)

[ How's that for a weasel out...:wry: It's probably fair to note that some form of drill is necessary but that performing it to develop discipline and response to orders is (a) a myth; and (b) not desirable. Joe is too conformist already without trying to force him to be more so. It's equally fair to note that I have arrayed in front of me about 14 CDs -- all Pipes (some with accompaniment by a Band :o ). Hyperbole is my middle name... ]

Dr. C
09-30-2009, 08:57 PM
None of those questions forces anyone to examine what best practice looks like. What you'll get is data free opinion, which is the primary source of most of the problem.
Moreover your questions supposes that most soldiers/officers actually know what best practice looks like. I submit history shows us that this is extremely unlikely.

The purpose of the inquiry to a core group isn't to discover "best practices" but to articulate ideas about the future. Collison and Parcell (2004) in their knowledge management book, Learning to Fly, regard best practices as commonly "not transferable and slavishly adopting that practice could, and has lead to, worse results" (p. 99).

The purpose of an Appreciative Inquiry approach is to appreciate and value the best of what is instead of identifying a problem. This is done through interviews and developing a protocol of questions, like the ones I listed. The approach involves envisioning what might be, instead of analyzing causes of the problems. It includes dialogue about what could be, instead of an analysis of possible solutions. It means innovating what will be, instead of just action planning. Those are some of the differences between AI and problem solving.

I can only speak to the written framework approach of the capstone. The rest of you are more subject matter experts on the content. I wouldn't attempt to provide feedback on the content.

I'm not sure what is meant by "data free opinion," since data also comes in the form of stories, which may include opinion.

Schmedlap
09-30-2009, 09:59 PM
Collison and Parcell (2004) in their knowledge management book, Learning to Fly, regard best practices as commonly "not transferable and slavishly adopting that practice could, and has lead to, worse results" (p. 99).
I haven't read the book, so maybe I'm way off here, but I'm guessing that the reason that most "best practices" do not transfer well is because the people attempting to apply them do not understand the rationale behind them. A best practice generally works when the people applying it have the professional knowledge and skill to apply it to other situations.

Example: In 2005, in Iraq, one of my Soldiers asked me why we were doing "stand-to" at 0400. I responded, tongue-in-cheek "because that is when the French and Indians attack." Indeed, that is where the practice originates - at least in the US Army. My Soldier wisely pointed out two things: 1) we were not fighting the French or the Indians (so far as we know) and 2) the people whom we were fighting tended to attack at around 0600 or 0700, perhaps reflecting the Arab cultural aversion to punctuality. I had the same complaint, for the same reasons. Eventually, the chain of command went ahead and moved the stand-to time to 0600. It worked like a charm when the largest complex attack on our patrol base of the entire deployment occurred at around 0630 one day. By 0700 of that morning, our patrol base was littered with debris from VBIEDs, body parts of expended mujahideen, and brass casings, and there were no friendly casualties. Stand to - a best practice - worked. It transferred well because we knew how to apply it. Had we continued to apply it improperly, at 0400, then it would have done nothing for us.

slapout9
09-30-2009, 10:08 PM
The purpose of an Appreciative Inquiry approach is to appreciate and value the best of what is instead of identifying a problem. This is done through interviews and developing a protocol of questions, like the ones I listed. The approach involves envisioning what might be, instead of analyzing causes of the problems. It includes dialogue about what could be, instead of an analysis of possible solutions. It means innovating what will be, instead of just action planning. Those are some of the differences between AI and problem solving.



Dr. C, some Strategic thinking going on here.....good job. Some times it is best to not solve problems but vigorously pursue opportunities and just starve the problem to death.

William F. Owen
10-01-2009, 05:30 AM
The purpose of the inquiry to a core group isn't to discover "best practices" but to articulate ideas about the future. Collison and Parcell (2004) in their knowledge management book, Learning to Fly, regard best practices as commonly "not transferable and slavishly adopting that practice could, and has lead to, worse results" (p. 99).
Well my take on "best practice," is "stuff known to work". Vauban gathered and wrote down "best practice" in Siege Warfare. Given circumstances we can give specific advice. Given general conditions we can also give general advice as to successful approaches. Most/Some Armies seem to have emotional and cultural needs that prevent them capturing that. If the AI approach can identify the reasons why folks cannot solve the problem, I'm all for it.

I'm not sure what is meant by "data free opinion," since data also comes in the form of stories, which may include opinion.
Well if stories and opinions counts as data, that maybe part of the problem! :D . Does evidence free sound better?
Example: "Foot Drill creates discipline and teamwork" is often stated as fact, in the face of very little actual evidence.

slapout9
10-01-2009, 06:00 AM
Well my take on "best practice," is "stuff known to work". Vauban gathered and wrote down "best practice" in Siege Warfare. Given circumstances we can give specific advice. Given general conditions we can also give general advice as to successful approaches. Most/Some Armies seem to have emotional and cultural needs that prevent them capturing that. If the AI approach can identify the reasons why folks cannot solve the problem, I'm all for it.




Because it is known is why it has little Strategic value. What were the best practices to build the Atom bomb? What were the best practices to build the first ICBM? What were the best practices for the Internet? There weren't any, they were invented first.....In short we seized the initiative and didn't worry about solving problems.

jmm99
10-01-2009, 06:32 AM
there was a lot of problem solving in making the Atom Bomb, both in nuclear engineering and in machine shop techniques. So, initiative + problem solving was the general key to success.

Wilf's example intrigues some thoughts:


Example: "Foot Drill creates discipline and teamwork" is often stated as fact, in the face of very little actual evidence.

The sentence would be more true if one said "Foot Drill creates discipline and teamwork in Foot Drill" - or more generally, "A Drill creates discipline and teamwork in that Drill". But, what of "A Drill creates discipline and teamwork which is transferrable to a very similar drill." Probably true, but you'd have do some experimenting, with trial and error, to know why that is true. Similar to the first Atom Bomb.

I suppose the scientific and engineering process is useful in preparation for war, but will the "Drill" work in combat ? The first Atom Bomb could have been a fizzle rather than a mushroom.

slapout9
10-01-2009, 06:45 AM
there was a lot of problem solving in making the Atom Bomb, both in nuclear engineering and in machine shop techniques. So, initiative + problem solving was the general key to success.



jmm, I disagree they were not solving problems with best practices they were inventing solutions.......they were creating/inventing knowlege.

William F. Owen
10-01-2009, 07:44 AM
Because it is known is why it has little Strategic value. What were the best practices to build the Atom bomb? What were the best practices to build the first ICBM? What were the best practices for the Internet? There weren't any, they were invented first.....In short we seized the initiative and didn't worry about solving problems.
Err... not sure what you mean. Best practice is highly context specific. It merely refers to the use of ways and means to gain ends. That is an enduring phenomenon in Warfare. That has nothing/little to do with technological innovation. Actually, most technology does build on existing knowledge of how to do things, even if that existing knowledge comes from experimentation.



The sentence would be more true if one said "Foot Drill creates discipline and teamwork in Foot Drill" - or more generally, "A Drill creates discipline and teamwork in that Drill". But, what of "A Drill creates discipline and teamwork which is transferrable to a very similar drill."
Heresy! Heresy! Foot drill is sacred and we must maketh up much sayings and twaddle to support it!! Doth thou want to just create orderly movement of men in it's place? Heresy I say!

....and in 1917, German recruit instruction specified that only as much foot drill as was necessary to march from "the rail head to the support trench," was to be taught.

Fuchs
10-01-2009, 08:24 AM
....and in 1917, German recruit instruction specified that only as much foot drill as was necessary to march from "the rail head to the support trench," was to be taught.

Orderly lock step marches had the purpose of improving road capacity for foot marches. That was an obsolete function in Europe by 1944 (automotive transport and aerial threat against tightly packed march columns).

Tom Odom
10-01-2009, 08:36 AM
Err... not sure what you mean. Best practice is highly context specific. It merely refers to the use of ways and means to gain ends. That is an enduring phenomenon in Warfare. That has nothing/little to do with technological innovation. Actually, most technology does build on existing knowledge of how to do things, even if that existing knowledge comes from experimentation.

Agree somewhat as a historian and a lessons learned guy. The which comes first, doctrine or technology, question is a favorite for orals at CGSC. It is deliberately a chicken or egg question, the real point of which is that one without the other is an incomplete solution.


Heresy! Heresy! Foot drill is sacred and we must maketh up much sayings and twaddle to support it!! Doth thou want to just create orderly movement of men in it's place? Heresy I say!

Agreed but add that foot drill as we know it and you as a Brit refer to it was originally a battle drill, rendered tactically obsolete by advances in technology and accompanying doctrine.


....and in 1917, German recruit instruction specified that only as much foot drill as was necessary to march from "the rail head to the support trench," was to be taught.

Yes because at that stage, the habits ingrained in standard drill were guaranteed to get you killed.

The US Army in WWII went in with an infantry doctrine that stilll in its roots adhered to linear battle drills. The infantry paid a heavy price. An excellent analysis of all of this is on CSI's web page at

Secret of Future Victories, (http://carl.army.mil/resources/csi/gorman/gorman.asp) Paul F. Gorman, General, U.S. Army, Retired.

We have by no means cured ourselves of this phenomenon; it is rather like tactical kudzoo, choking thought with ever-tightening sinews. I have seen it when units go into a "stack" and then move down a street at a the CTC. You also see it downrange as whatever gets by in training gets imprinted like a baby duck following a dog it sees as its Momma.

My comment on this capstone document is but one:

I don't really care about the buzzwords, fuziness, or even the art of predicting the future. As long as the center-piece of the doctrine is thinking adaptation, the soldiers and the leaders will get it right when the time comes. As soon as someone says doctrine requires rigid application, the soldier and the leader alike get screwed.

Best
Tom

William F. Owen
10-01-2009, 09:11 AM
Hey Tom,



I don't really care about the buzzwords, fuziness, or even the art of predicting the future. As long as the center-piece of the doctrine is thinking adaptation, the soldiers and the leaders will get it right when the time comes. As soon as someone says doctrine requires rigid application, the soldier and the leader alike get screwed.

Agreed, and my point would be that Doctrine has to have the central tenet to teach "Why" and not "how". To some extent, "How" does have to be set up as the Thesis, but it must be held to rigour with WHY.

How something is done, rapidly becomes THE WAY to do things - and that is important IF the context of it being done is very well understood. Context usually provides a very good insight into WHY.

I know I sound like stuck record on this, but WHY is mostly missing in this stuff. - WHY have a Capstone Concept?

marct
10-01-2009, 01:25 PM
Hi Wilf,


Well if stories and opinions counts as data, that maybe part of the problem! :D . Does evidence free sound better?
Example: "Foot Drill creates discipline and teamwork" is often stated as fact, in the face of very little actual evidence.

LOL - one of the things that most people forget, if they ever knew ;), is that the word "fact" comes from the Latin factum - "made" or "created". "Facts" are constructs; abstracted sensory data where "meaning" is latter applied based on interpretation via some type of model (theory, culture, etc.).

Both stories and opinions count as fact. On the latter, that is a large part of what constructs the entire area of market research. As to the former, that's folklore, mythology, organizational symbolism, etc.... aka, my field. The "problem" isn't that they count as facts, the problem is that they are mistaken for "Truth" (in a transcendent sense) because an inappropriate model is used to interpret them.

Let's take your foot drill example....

We know where it comes from (tactical necessities from ~1585 to, roughly 1865 or so. In order to communicate it to new members of the military as a survival trait, it was hammered in as "Truth". Those same people, however, lasted long after foot drill was rendered pretty much useless, and it survived as a meme (saying, cultural "truth") long after.

So, how to interpret it? Well, it gives us some insights into how "rigid" an organizational culture is. Also, exactly how it is talked about gives us some insights into the organizational meaning structures that will be applied elsewhere. For example, if "foot drill" is used to describe "building teamwork" by a lot of people in the organization (it's a frequency distribution sort of thing), then the organization will tend to conceive of "teamwork" in a fairly rigid form that is based on predictability of actions. It will also tend to privilege "the Book" over the actual effect. as such, we could predict, with a lesser degree of accuracy, that the field movements of members of that organization are predictable and, hence, their own manuals can be used for targeting information and setting up ambushes.

Notice how I am using that meme of "Foot Drill creates discipline and teamwork". I am not accepting the actual statement as "True", I am accepting it as indicative of an organizational cultural attitude.

William F. Owen
10-01-2009, 01:58 PM
Both stories and opinions count as fact. On the latter, that is a large part of what constructs the entire area of market research. As to the former, that's folklore, mythology, organizational symbolism, etc.... aka, my field. The "problem" isn't that they count as facts, the problem is that they are mistaken for "Truth" (in a transcendent sense) because an inappropriate model is used to interpret them.

Well then we at least we need to recognise that large portions of current military thought and doctrine are not held to rigour, in terms of passing several simple tests of evidence. In "fact", the less evidence the better! :D

The more I think about it, the heart of all my complaints are about evidence and rigour.


I am accepting it as indicative of an organizational cultural attitude.
My experience is that "cultural attitudes" are the biggest roach in the schwarma. The Manoeuvre Warfare diddly is a product of culture, as is the deification of snipers.

How did "a mobile field gun clad in armour" - as JFC Fuller described the tank - become an icon of Land Warfare power and the inheritor of the myths of Cavalry and the Armoured Knight? - instead of fire support platform to create freedom of action for the infantry.

marct
10-01-2009, 02:19 PM
Hi Wilf,


Well then we at least we need to recognise that large portions of current military thought and doctrine are not held to rigour, in terms of passing several simple tests of evidence. In "fact", the less evidence the better! :D

The more I think about it, the heart of all my complaints are about evidence and rigour.

Most of mine are, too :wry:. My real problem is with the selection of interpretive schemas, and I see the wrong (in the sense of poor predictive validity from the specific problem at hand) schema being chosen time and time again. Since schemas define what is and is not considered as "data" ("facts"), that inevitably leads to all sorts of mess ups even, or especially, when they are applied with rigour.


My experience is that "cultural attitudes" are the biggest roach in the schwarma. The Manoeuvre Warfare diddly is a product of culture, as is the deification of snipers.

How did "a mobile field gun clad in armour" - as JFC Fuller described the tank - become an icon of Land Warfare power and the inheritor of the myths of Cavalry and the Armoured Knight? - instead of fire support platform to create freedom of action for the infantry.

'cause it "worked" at the time :D. Personally, I always wanted to see a joust between a couple of Centurion VII's :p!!!!!

slapout9
10-01-2009, 02:46 PM
Err... not sure what you mean. Best practice is highly context specific. It merely refers to the use of ways and means to gain ends. That is an enduring phenomenon in Warfare. That has nothing/little to do with technological innovation. Actually, most technology does build on existing knowledge of how to do things, even if that existing knowledge comes from experimentation.


So I will start over. I think the main concept should be this.

Instead of solving our own problems I think we should be concentrating on creating problems........ for the enemy.


Tom's thinking adaption might do it?

William F. Owen
10-01-2009, 02:53 PM
I always wanted to see a joust between a couple of Centurion VII's :p!!!!!

Ahhh... Centurions VIIs! Well I'd go for the L7 variants mysefl, but you are a class act Sir! The most beautiful tank ever made. Just looking at one makes me want to say "woof" in an extremely loud voice! - how's that for an expression of culture!

marct
10-01-2009, 03:05 PM
Ahhh... Centurions VIIs! Well I'd go for the L7 variants mysefl, but you are a class act Sir! The most beautiful tank ever made. Just looking at one makes me want to say "woof" in an extremely loud voice! - how's that for an expression of culture!

LOL - works for me :D! I'm just glad that none of the pictures from my summer camp survived; we used to have jousts using canoes :eek:!

Hmm, sort of like this (but I'm not in THAT picture ;))

http://www.sportsartifacts.com/phcanoejoust.JPG

Steve the Planner
10-01-2009, 03:52 PM
Great summer camp photos.

My tank dreams revolve around my first command---an M60A2. Beautiful, humongous concept (a 62 ton Sheridan), but with technology not fit for any battlefield we have since been concerned about.

Nonetheless, I found it to be an excellent Autobahn cruiser during the fall colors season (Reforger). Who needs airbags?

On a more serious note, this thread started with the heading that the Army needs our input. Did they get it? Have they moved on to re-write stage?

Steve

marct
10-01-2009, 04:33 PM
Hi Steve,


On a more serious note, this thread started with the heading that the Army needs our input. Did they get it? Have they moved on to re-write stage?

No idea. It would help (significantly!) if some of the people monitoring this thread would give us all a bit of feedback.

One of the things that has been percolating through my mind is that we really do not have a clear statement of what the ACC should achieve. We have some ideas, but some of those interpretations seem to be contra-indicated based on parts of the document itself. I suspect that one of the reasons we are devolving to "summer camp" and "what I did with my first tank" stories (and you know I'm jealous ;)!) is because we aren't getting any feedback.

Cheers,

Marc

slapout9
10-01-2009, 04:59 PM
Hi Steve,



No idea. It would help (significantly!) if some of the people monitoring this thread would give us all a bit of feedback.

One of the things that has been percolating through my mind is that we really do not have a clear statement of what the ACC should achieve. We have some ideas, but some of those interpretations seem to be contra-indicated based on parts of the document itself. I suspect that one of the reasons we are devolving to "summer camp" and "what I did with my first tank" stories (and you know I'm jealous ;)!) is because we aren't getting any feedback.

Cheers,

Marc

Yep, they talk about systems thinking but they sure don't practice it;)

Dr. C
10-01-2009, 05:27 PM
Instead of asking in the capstone, "What problems do we have, what problems are we likely to encounter in the future, and what are the solutions?" we can ask,

"What is working around here, and how can we encourage more of it?"

If the focus of the capstone is problems, and the language we use and the focus of our attention becomes our reality, then why not focus more on what works?

I would choose to focus on a metaphor (other than the Army as machine)for a future vision and then develop a framework toward appreciating in value what works, moving away from the problem-solution approach. Others might recognize the process as best practices or benchmarking.

wm
10-01-2009, 05:56 PM
One of the things that has been percolating through my mind is that we really do not have a clear statement of what the ACC should achieve. We have some ideas, but some of those interpretations seem to be contra-indicated based on parts of the document itself.

Marc,
I suspect the ACC is not really supposed to achieve anything other than to establish a frame of reference. Its purpose is to establish a conceptual framework against which the Army can justify what it wants to buy and how it wants to organize itself. If you will, it cashes out the presuppositions upon which the Army proposes to establish what it considers to be ground truth. In other words it tries to specifiy the ground rules and assumptions that will undergird Army problem solving activity at the highest levels

It might be worthwhile to compare the ACC to the next level up in this effort--the CCJO, available here (http://www.dtic.mil/futurejointwarfare/concepts/approved_ccjov3.pdf)


Instead of asking in the capstone, "What problems do we have, what problems are we likely to encounter in the future, and what are the solutions?" we can ask,

"What is working around here, and how can we encourage more of it?" To focus on what works today is to be stagnant, to put ourselves in the position of fighting the last war when the next war comes along. At least that, I submit, is what makes things like the ACC and the CCJO have the "predicting the future" flavor that they have. Gen Dempsey had the right focus in the point about ideas mattering, particularly when they are new ideas. What he didn't identify was how to get folks to generate new ideas, produce the "AHA!" moment of discovery.

If you look at the scenarios in the ACC, they are all things that we currently plan for based on what has already happened in the past. There are no new scenarios.
What happens to the Army if it is faced with something its never seen before? For example: a "coalition of the willing" decides it no longer wants a world that lets the US to play the role of global defender; or the US is just left out of the conversation so to speak --nations choose not to trade with us anymore, for example. Suppose Saudi Arabia stopped selling oil to the US and Canada stopped piping in natural gas, both selling the former US share to China instead.

slapout9
10-01-2009, 06:54 PM
To focus on what works today is to be stagnant, to put ourselves in the position of fighting the last war when the next war comes along. At least that, I submit, is what makes things like the ACC and the CCJO have the "predicting the future" flavor that they have. Gen Dempsey had the right focus in the point about ideas mattering, particularly when they are new ideas. What he didn't identify was how to get folks to generate new ideas, produce the "AHA!" moment of discovery.

If you look at the scenarios in the ACC, they are all things that we currently plan for based on what has already happened in the past. There are no new scenarios.
What happens to the Army if it is faced with something its never seen before? For example: a "coalition of the willing" decides it no longer wants a world that lets the US to play the role of global defender; or the US is just left out of the conversation so to speak --nations choose not to trade with us anymore, for example. Suppose Saudi Arabia stopped selling oil to the US and Canada stopped piping in natural gas, both selling the former US share to China instead.

Some good stuff here.

Hacksaw
10-01-2009, 07:11 PM
Of course its good stuff... He's Vizzini!!!

To assume otherwise would be inconceivable:D

jmm99
10-01-2009, 08:04 PM
The 2009 CCJO (http://www.dtic.mil/futurejointwarfare/concepts/approved_ccjov3.pdf) at least identifies the problem which concerns me (fn 5 at p.46 - reformatted for clarity):


[5] Several terms are used to refer to the type of warfare generally waged between standing state militaries.

Conventional warfare, perhaps the most commonly used term, suggests warfare according to established conventions, which is generally accurate. Conventional warfare is not defined in doctrine, however, although conventional forces are:


“conventional forces—1. Those forces capable of conducting operations using nonnuclear weapons. 2. Those forces other than designated special operations forces.”

DOD Dictionary of Military Terms, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/ [accessed 8 October 2008]. Based on this definition, conventional warfare thus would include irregular warfare not conducted by special operations forces.

Joint Publication 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, uses the term traditional war, which


“is characterized as a confrontation between nation-states or coalitions/alliances of nation-states. This confrontation typically involves small-scale to largescale, force-on-force military operations in which adversaries employ a variety of conventional military capabilities against each other in the air, land, maritime, and space physical domains and the information environment. The objective is to defeat an adversary’s armed forces, destroy an adversary’s war-making capacity, or seize or retain territory in order to force a change in an adversary’s government or policies.”

(Washington: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 14 May 2007), p. I-6.

Traditional warfare, however, implies military methods based on time-honored cultural history, which routinely has included irregular warfare and which may have little in common with future warfare between regular military forces.

The logical alternative to irregular warfare is regular warfare, which suggests warfare between regular, uniformed state militaries -- although one would be hard-pressed to find an historical example of a completely regular war.


“Regular” is defined as “of, relating to, or constituting the permanent standing military force of a state <the regular army> <regular soldiers>.”

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com [accessed 8Oct08].

Compare all these to:


“irregular forces -- Armed individuals or groups who are not members of the regular armed forces, police, or other internal security forces.”

[DOD Dictionary, accessed 8Oct08.]

And:


“irregular warfare -- A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s). Irregular warfare favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capacities, in order to erode an adversary's power, influence, and will. Also called IW.”

[DOD Dictionary, accessed 2 October 2008].

All of which points to the ultimate futility of trying to describe warfare in terms of definitive categories.

While one can well agree with the bolded last sentence as a generalization; in any particular situation, one has to:

1. Define the enemy, which includes not only identification but also a determination of status because different rules apply depending on status; and

2. Distinction between the enemy (e.g., enemy combatants and enemy non-combatants) and non-enemy personnel (primarily civilians).

No cookbook recipe exists for application of the principles of definition and distinction that is a "one size fits all" solution.

The CCJO recognizes this complex environment, which if not actually chaotic is likely to provide uncertainties:


pp.11 & 12

Of the conditions that are changing, perhaps the most significant is what one observer has described as “The Rise of the Rest” [2] -- the increasing ability of other states to challenge the United States for influence, if not globally, then certainly regionally. The economic and military predominance that has underwritten U.S. foreign and defense policy for the past two decades can no longer be assumed. These emerging, advanced military competitors will be able to pose significant regional military challenges in the event of conflict.

In addition, a variety of nonstate actors -- often motivated by extremist religious or ethnic ideologies -- are emerging with some of the power of states, but lacking the political discipline imposed by national sovereignty and accountability. Many of these entities already have or soon could have the capability and capacity to pursue their interests by armed force. Many operate across state or even regional boundaries. They rarely adopt the centralized structure of states, which would expose them to greater external pressure, but instead take the form of popular movements or distributed networks, usually empowered by the connectivity of the Internet.

[2] Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of the Rest,” Newsweek, 12 May 2008.
.....
The foreseeable future promises to be an era of persistent conflict -- a period of protracted confrontation among states, nonstate entities, and individual actors increasingly willing to use violence to achieve their political ends.[3] ... Such protracted struggles will not lend themselves to decisive military victory, but often at best will be amenable to being managed continuously over time. Many of these conflicts may cut across national, regional, cultural, and combatant command boundaries, complicating the responses to them.

[3] Field Manual 3-0, Operations (Washington: Headquarters, Department of the Army, Feb08), foreword.

and that the mix of various forces may require re-definition or supplemention of terms we are normally used to using - having both military and legal consequences:


p.16

Warfare against the regular forces of a sovereign state using orthodox means and methods can be called conventional or regular warfare, while warfare against predominantly irregular forces can be called irregular warfare.[5] The latter tends to be protracted, favors working through partners, and revolves around the support of the population rather than solely the defeat of enemy fighting forces. These clean distinctions will rarely exist in reality; however, as often in the past, future conflicts will appear as hybrids comprising diverse, dynamic, and simultaneous combinations of organizations, technologies, and techniques that defy categorization.[6] Likely adversaries can be expected to pursue and adopt any methods and means that confer an advantage relative to U.S. military power -- including methods that violate widely accepted laws and conventions of war.[7] Even an advanced military power can be expected to adopt some methods considered “irregular” by Western standards, while nonstate actors increasingly are acquiring and employing “regular” military capabilities. Rather than attempting to defeat U.S. forces in decisive battle, even militarily significant states are likely to exploit increasingly inexpensive but lethal weapons in an erosion strategy aimed at weakening U.S. political resolve by inflicting mounting casualties over time.[8]

[5] quoted in full at start of post.

[6] Frank G. Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars (Arlington, VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, December 2007). “Hybrid threats incorporate a full range of different modes of warfare including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder. Hybrid Wars can be conducted by both states and a variety of non-state actors.” [p. 8.]

[7] Including the popular term asymmetric warfare, defined as “armed conflict between belligerents having different strengths and weaknesses.” Wiktionary, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/asymmetric_warfare [accessed 8 October 2008].

[8] In classical military theory, the term is strategy of attrition, which is contrasted with strategy of annihilation. See Hans Delbrück, History of the Art of War Within the Framework of Political History, trans. by Walter J. Renfroe, Jr. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), vol. 4, chap. IV.

Having said all that, CCJO comes back to the gold standard as to its understanding of war, as opposed to the different forms and complexity of warfare (the conduct of war):


p.16

Despite this wide variation, all wars share the same fundamental nature. In any form or context, war is organized, reciprocal violence for political purposes. War is essentially a violent struggle between hostile and independent wills, each trying to impose itself by force directly upon the other or upon some contested population. This struggle combines physical, mental, and moral aspects. It is simultaneously a clash of material means -- weapons, equipment, and supplies; of intellect, as manifested in opposing strategies, operations, and tactics; and of resolve and morale. War is therefore not action against an inanimate object, but is “always the collision of two living forces.”[9]

[9] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 77.

Dr. C
10-02-2009, 12:04 PM
To focus on what works today is to be stagnant, to put ourselves in the position of fighting the last war when the next war comes along. At least that, I submit, is what makes things like the ACC and the CCJO have the "predicting the future" flavor that they have. Gen Dempsey had the right focus in the point about ideas mattering, particularly when they are new ideas. What he didn't identify was how to get folks to generate new ideas, produce the "AHA!" moment of discovery.

A focus on what works today isn't to be stagnant. It's to ground the future propositions in examples of what has worked. The future propositions should innovate. The process involves envisioning what might be, and writing affirmative statements that describe the idealized future, applying "what if."

I've been studying Appreciative Inquiry, which is different from problem-solving, and I like the approach much better. It's challenging on a personal level to avoid using words like "problems" and trying to focus on positive examples of what is working, instead of what is not working. Imagine getting an entire organization like the Army to move away from a traditional deficit-base, problem-solution framework and move towards Appreciative Inquiry. The capstone would have been a nice place to start since it is about generating ideas for the future.

Here is an example of a leadership summit from the Navy, when an Appreciative Inquiry approach was used.



"During the Leadership Summit, participants used Appreciative Inquiry questions to tap into their own past high-point experiences in the Navy. The diverse group present discovered many commonalties and hopes for the future. The participants then learned how to leverage these past strengths and shared visions to create action plans for positive change. Specific outcomes included over 30 pilot projects."

http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/practice/ppNavy.cfm


Thanks for letting me participate in your discussion, since I'm "new" to the SWJ! I can tell you're being very thoughtful and patient in your responses to my postings. :) Appreciative Inquiry, compared to problem-solving, isn't that easy to grasp. I've spent a lot of time in the last year reading about it, and participating in and faciliting workshops using this approach.

Infanteer
10-02-2009, 01:35 PM
Not to sound curt, but this whole document sounds like something "full of sound and fury, in the end, signifying nothing."

Maybe I'm just dense, but I read the draft document twice and have kept up with this thread and I'm still drawing a big "so what?" A lot of high-tech buzzwords (which have been picked apart by astute observers) and now we're looking into a fancy form of analysis that is, admittedly, "hard to grasp".

I think it was agreed upon that this document was simply too complicated to be of real use. I would hope I could put something considered "capstone" infront of a Rifle Platoon and that they could read it and easily relate it to their job.

Dr. C
10-02-2009, 01:52 PM
Not to sound curt, but this whole document sounds like something "full of sound and fury, in the end, signifying nothing."

Maybe I'm just dense, but I read the draft document twice and have kept up with this thread and I'm still drawing a big "so what?" A lot of high-tech buzzwords (which have been picked apart by astute observers) and now we're looking into a fancy form of analysis that is, admittedly, "hard to grasp".

I think it was agreed upon that this document was simply too complicated to be of real use. I would hope I could put something considered "capstone" infront of a Rifle Platoon and that they could read it and easily relate it to their job.

The reason Appreciative Inquiry is hard to grasp is that most of us are used to taking a problem-solution approach to thinking about the future. It's not really that complicated, and I agree the capstone shouldn't really be that complicated of a document. A Rifle Platoon should be able to read it and "get it." Good point. That's why I suggested getting a core group representative of the Army from all ranks, and then asking them questions about when and how they are at their best doing their jobs, then grounding the future propositions in those examples. It's not "fancy." :)

wm
10-02-2009, 02:08 PM
A focus on what works today isn't to be stagnant. It's to ground the future propositions in examples of what has worked. The future propositions should innovate. The process involves envisioning what might be, and writing affirmative statements that describe the idealized future, applying "what if."

I've been studying Appreciative Inquiry, which is different from problem-solving, and I like the approach much better. It's challenging on a personal level to avoid using words like "problems" and trying to focus on positive examples of what is working, instead of what is not working. Imagine getting an entire organization like the Army to move away from a traditional deficit-base, problem-solution framework and move towards Appreciative Inquiry. The capstone would have been a nice place to start since it is about generating ideas for the future.

Looks like I need to be a little clearer. Merely to describe what is working at present is to be stagnant. That we can describe, for example, that a heavy armored force is able to conduct a forced entry operation (like the run into Baghdad) successfully, makes little difference. However, if one is working to understand/explain why what works today is working, then one has a basis for getting ahead. To continue the forced entry example, an explanation that tells us why the heavy armored force is able to be successful and why it may (or may not) be better/more successful than using a light infantry force for the same kind of operation would be valuable for informing/planning/evaluating what might be a way ahead (Of course we also need to be able to explain/describe/appreciate what it means to be successful and to justify making the normative judgements that one approach will be more or less successful, i.e.,a better or worse, than another.) If endeavoring to explain why something is working is the sense of "appreciative" that is operative in appreciative inquiry, then I think it has merit as an approach.

wm
10-02-2009, 02:14 PM
Of course its good stuff... He's Vizzini!!!

To assume otherwise would be inconceivable:D

Hey Hack,

Finish him off your way--"man to man, as God intended."

Paul Roege
10-03-2009, 06:16 PM
That said, my immediate impression is of an inconsistency between the individual parts and the whole. While the introductory section give a succinct picture of the problems associated with scientific precision and etheral war, parts of the draft (e.g. 2-2 Future Operating Environment) reiterate or reemphasise the same flawed thinking about our human environment that has led to the constant replication of mistakes and constant cycle of retranche, reanalysis, revision, and repetition. These flaws are two - our focus on change and our misunderstanding of complexity.

This capstone document is refreshing in its break from the decades of US Military doctrine which have focused almost exclusively on high intensity conflict. Many of us had experienced personal frustration with this mindset while planning and executing “other than combat” operations in Iraq (2003). Since then, it has been remarkable to observe just how slowly the institution adapts in response to visible and current evidence that war is more about dealing with a whole range of actors to influence decisions, as opposed to killing every last enemy combatant. I find it refreshing and encouraging, for example, to see substantial discussion about partnerships, including NGOs and private sector.

In his foreward, General Dempsey does an outstanding job, laying out the concept and vision, including key concepts of decentralization, adaptability and the interacting elements of physical and psychological control. There are a few weaknesses, however, in the ensuing discussion, which is intended to develop those concepts.

Wm makes an important point that we need to look ahead and not expect to fight the last war.

If you look at the scenarios in the ACC, they are all things that we currently plan for based on what has already happened in the past. There are no new scenarios.
What happens to the Army if it is faced with something its never seen before? For example: a "coalition of the willing" decides it no longer wants a world that lets the US to play the role of global defender; or the US is just left out of the conversation so to speak --nations choose not to trade with us anymore, for example. Suppose Saudi Arabia stopped selling oil to the US and Canada stopped piping in natural gas, both selling the former US share to China instead.
I also agree with Dr C. that you need to have a foot in the present and be thoughtful in projecting the future.

A focus on what works today isn't to be stagnant. It's to ground the future propositions in examples of what has worked. The future propositions should innovate. The process involves envisioning what might be, and writing affirmative statements that describe the idealized future, applying "what if."

What worked in the last war? Adaptive people working in established teams. In Iraq, small units conducting operations outside their core mission set on a daily basis: artillery soldiers providing convoy security or negotiating with tribal leaders. Sadaam was captured by some engineer solders who clearly were not busy building anything or clearing minefields at the time. These Americans succeeded to the degree that they could adapt and work together under urgent conditions.

How will future trends affect the operating environment? One glaring omission from the Capstone paper is effective consideration of globalization and concurrent shifts in political and economic power (e.g., Section 2-3). China is producing more engineers than we have people; they are building an unprecedented high tech (even green!) industrial capacity and are aggressively establishing strategic, international partnerships. World petroleum reserves, which carry with them economic and political power, are increasingly in the hands of less stable nations, or those with little or no alignment with US security agendas. Clearly, we will operate with significantly less autonomy or freedom of maneuver (not just geographic, but in the human/political dimensions). The authors should shorten discussions of historical events such as Iraq and Lebanon in favor of some recognition of significant and relevant world trends.

These emerging shifts sharpen the importance of another historic American weakness, our ingrained narcissism. Even as we recognize that we now must consider “the people” (in addition to “us” and “them”), the Capstone document does not really capture the point that Steve the Planner and others have made in this discussion – that “the people” are not just some benign set of neutral bystanders. Section 1-6b, for example, treats “others” as sort of minor complications – mentioning, for example, the seemingly simple need for “. . . flexibility to secure populations and organizations.”

In fact, “the people” are a diverse set of actors with different agendas (independent of our own), but with whom we must form a full range of relationships. This is a critical concept to understand constructs such as narco-terrorism, where the various actors work together with complementary but very different agendas. Afghani contractors who sell us pipe or dig wells need not to be American patriots. Iraqi communities work with us to rebuild schools because we share a value of education – not because they want their town to be occupied by US forces.

In order to succeed in the future operating environment, information is perhaps the most critical tool. We rarely win wars by decimating the enemy – today, we probably would not stop al Qaeda or the Muslim extremist movement by killing Osama. Section 3-2c is woefully inadequate in conveying this concept. The bottom line is not that “Russians and Chinese believe that information warfare is a way of resolving conflict in their favor.” It is that we win wars through decisions, which are based substantially upon information. While cyber warfare is important, it does not warrant dominating the discussion space allocated to Information Warfare; this again reflects the American fascination with technology.

Finally, we still struggle to think beyond geographical boundaries and established government structures. The Capstone document is littered with evidence that we are stuck in the paradigm that operations equal combat in an area defined by geographic (3-D) space. Section 2-2 includes several references to conflict being constrained to space (incorrectly, by the way, suggesting terrorists and criminals operate primarily in lawless spaces – like New York, Chicago, Miami, London and Bogata?). Section 3-4a. misses an opportunity to set the stage for discussion of the “Military Solution” through a more expansive description of “operational area” to clearly include human and information dimensions.

Military operations are all about soldiers on the ground. However, we need to expand our thinking in terms of what those soldiers do.

Dr. C
10-03-2009, 08:03 PM
I just read an article in the September-October 2009 of Military Review by LTC (RET) Tim Challans, Ph.D., "Tipping Sacred Cows: Moral Potential Through Operational Art."

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20091031_art006.pdf



"Sacred cows make the best hamburgers. The Aristotelian box includes the uncritically accepted article of faith -- which we take for granted -- that revolves around reasoning about means and ends. The logic of this type of reasoning has burgeoned over the centuries (at an accelerating rate recently) in the form of "problem-solving" enshrined as a sacred principle. . . . Strategy is not about problem-solving" (p. 21).


The author discusses Systemic Operational Design (SOD), and I pointed this article out because of his perspective on problem-solving as a framework.

I think the capstone document would be stronger if a framework other than "problem-solution" was used. I've probably reached my word limit for how many times I can write that in one discussion thread. :cool:

I doubt if I'm the only person who will read the capstone and take issue with the framework and how the authors arrived at their solutions. I'm trying to be helpful and suggest how to build a stronger position.

Steve the Planner
10-03-2009, 09:25 PM
Michelle:

Agree that we are probably reaching a word (and concept) limit without further input.

By now, I suspect we are debating an early draft that has already cleaned up a lot.

I'm actually looking to understand more about how it deals with the future.

Unspoken in a lot of the discussion is, in fact, how much we are seeking to adapt past solutions to current and future problems. It is both a human and organizational foundation.

My best guess is that when we are in a place with a confused mission, we are always vulnerable. No matter how big or how many resources are committed.

The one question which I feel confident about as a future scenario is neither winning nor losing in long-term festering problems that we, as a nation, will not commit so abundantly to as to pursue a definitive end, but for which we have some minimum objectives that do not fully encompass controlling the people, land and resources, psychologically or physically.

Is that a realistic scenario for the future, and how does the Army prepare for that?

Steve

slapout9
10-03-2009, 10:03 PM
I just read an article in the September-October 2009 of Military Review by LTC (RET) Tim Challans, Ph.D., "Tipping Sacred Cows: Moral Potential Through Operational Art."

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20091031_art006.pdf



The author discusses Systemic Operational Design (SOD), and I pointed this article out because of his perspective on problem-solving as a framework.

I think the capstone document would be stronger if a framework other than "problem-solution" was used. I've probably reached my word limit for how many times I can write that in one discussion thread. :cool:

I doubt if I'm the only person who will read the capstone and take issue with the framework and how the authors arrived at their solutions. I'm trying to be helpful and suggest how to build a stronger position.

I posted that article when it first came out because of his discussion of action theory although he says the theory is not well known any Cop will tell you the motive comes first....even crazy people have a motive. He discusses some of the drawbacks of thinking of Strategy as Ends,Ways and Means. Really Good Stuff in there.

William F. Owen
10-04-2009, 09:31 AM
I just read an article in the September-October 2009 of Military Review by LTC (RET) Tim Challans, Ph.D., "Tipping Sacred Cows: Moral Potential Through Operational Art."

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20091031_art006.pdf


There are so many things wrong with that article, I hardly know where to begin. Prominent among the errors is the assertion that the Luftwaffe bombed London to force a capitulation. - Completely untrue.

The author also says,

We can avoid the logical error of instrumentalism (that which may work in practice, but not in theory) only by disclosing our paper trail of reasoning.
WHAT? If he seriously believes that, then how does he define the purpose of Strategy? Surely Strategy is INSTRUMENTAL! - It is used to get something done!
If the secret of SOD is merely holding reasoning and assumption to rigour, then why not say that. Theory you cannot put into effective practice or use to inform practice is utterly useless.
The role of "theory" in military thought is to check the relationships between intentions, practices and actions. The primary source of useful military theory is history. - which SOD seems mostly to ignore.

1.) There is no evidence that SOD is any better or more valid an idea than Manoeuvre Warfare or EBO - there is simply no reason (body of evidence) to believe this.

2.) I hate to rain on the author's parade, but there is substantial evidence that the flow down effects of SOD were very much responsible for problems in the Lebanon. He talks of "Israeli SOD Theorists" - I know of only one, and his standing is not high, except in the US SOD commercial consultant world.

3.) There are no "ethics" in military theory. The ethical dimension is merely how well or poorly a course of action sets forth the policy! Killing civilians generally undermines political objectives. - More over this is a bizarrely "White Christian" view of the world. Many many folks in the world consider killing civilians to be the heart of their strategy.

So yes, the article is nice convoluted wordy romp through various philosophy and theory, but so what?

Null Hypothesis
10-15-2009, 06:43 PM
From page 16: "Consistent Messages and Actions. Because future operation will occur in and among the people, under the unblinking eye of the media, and against threats savvy enough to present competing narratives, Army actions and messages must be congruent with and consistent with policy and objectives."

Redundant because the Army should be acting within policy and objectives in the first place (commander's intent?).

Confusing because it addresses the obvious with an air of presenting a unique solution.

When was the last time the Army presented a congruent and consistent message in a timeframe useful to the maneuver commander that didn't take thousands of staff hours to produce, let alone in an environment where there is an enemy actively trying to kill them?

Recommend fixing the title to something less wordy. Perhaps, "War."

nh

SJPONeill
10-28-2009, 03:57 AM
I just finished working my way through the draft. I hope that it is as has been said previously an early draft that has been polished up since. It definitely reads like a document that has a number of drafters who have worked in isolation and then complied the document. While I believe that the intent for this capstone publication is admirable, from it's current form it still has a long way to go.

If there is one single recommendation, I would make, it is that it needs to be placed in the hands of someone who really knows how to write. Its written structure is horrible with massive sentences and paragraphs that mix ideas and concepts in a most unuser-friendly manner. There is some great content in it but extracting it is just too hard - as it is I doubt you could get too many troops reading a publication that should be as well-thumbed by junior leaders as by senior ones.

My notes file is too big to upload here so will forward it back via our TRADOC LNO.

Bill Jakola
12-02-2009, 07:23 PM
In furthering the Army's emphasis on developing leaders to succeed in the complexities of the operational environment, now and in the future, TRADOC produced a strategy that DA officially released, on 25 November. I wanted to ensure you all received this Leader Development Strategy. Additionally, we will publish an annex to this strategy for each cohort—NCO, warrant officer, and officer—in a portfolio of initiatives that will provide specific implementation detail. What do you all think about this strategy?

RTK
12-08-2009, 06:00 AM
In furthering the Army's emphasis on developing leaders to succeed in the complexities of the operational environment, now and in the future, TRADOC produced a strategy that DA officially released, on 25 November. I wanted to ensure you all received this Leader Development Strategy. Additionally, we will publish an annex to this strategy for each cohort—NCO, warrant officer, and officer—in a portfolio of initiatives that will provide specific implementation detail. What do you all think about this strategy?

Where is this officially posted? Thanks.

Bill Jakola
12-08-2009, 11:46 AM
The Army website should have it up, but I did not see it there yet. I will track it down and get back to you. Also, the TRADOC website should have a News Story and link up as well.

Rob Thornton
12-08-2009, 05:09 PM
Such an environment demands that we develop leaders who understand the context of the factors influencing the military situation, act within that understanding, continually assess and adapt those actions based on the interactions and circumstances of the enemy and environment, consolidate tactical and operational opportunities into strategic aims, and be able to effectively transition from one form of operations to another. We seek to develop leaders who will thrive in this environment.


It has been my observation that when the next echelon of leaders understand the mission in terms of the task and purpose, and by understand I mean they really understand all the supporting collective, leader and individual tasks that go into it, it is then that they feel free to allow greater subordinate decision making and initiative. That is how they weigh and assume risk, and develop their own risk mitigation measures (bigger reserve, alternative COAs, etc.)

To support this shift in the next higher leader echelon during training and operations which supports our leader development goals, the defining of the tasks (and their supporting tasks) in conditions where the standard tactical tasks are inadequate is needed. At the experiments, AARs (of all types), and theater collection efforts I’ve participated in, reviewed or seen, I’ve not seen more than a skin deep attempt to document or create the list of tasks individuals and units have done (or would be required to do in the case of experimentation).

Part of this may be where we catch people in theater or upon their return, part of it also may be the way we collect – I’m not completely sure. Those interviewed may not have deemed it critical for one reason or another, they may have assumed it was something that someone else should have done but could not, or it could just be that because we caught them at the end of their tour, the tasks that stood out were those that were strongly rooted in emotion.

With respect to experimentation it may just be due to resources, and the way seminar war games, and other forms of experimentation are structured. It would take a great deal more time, and detailed information about the environment that really replicates the frictions that impose the types of unanticipated tasks on us that actual operations do. It would also require an increase in analytic capacity I think to be present in the experiment so more than just the big rocks are captured.

I think until we can identify the range of tasks that we expect individuals and units may have to do (either because it is part of the identified mission, or because the other folks we’d prefer to be doing those tasks are not present or able) in the COE, then we won’t be able to really look at what individual or unit capabilities are required, and we will not be able to look at how training, education, assignments and other leader development opportunities, etc. need to be tweaked to support it. We will not be able to tell ourselves what we want leaders at each level to be capable of doing, and we won’t be able to allow them to stretch their authorities and initiatives to develop them. After all, just because the right, or identified person, unit or agency is unavailable to do a task does not mean the requirement goes away. However, I do think not understanding the tasks, and not knowing which capabilities are required to do those tasks conflicts with our leader development goals as stated in the paper.

While some work has been done in task analysis, from what I have seen it has largely been limited to work groups which convene for a 2-3 day period somewhere, and because of self imposed constraints have been somewhat limited to looking at how existing identified tasks might fit somewhere else vs. looking at the a problem or objective and describing the over arching task(s), and then doing the difficult and time consuming work of task decomposition that produces the type of supporting collective, leader and individual tasks that we have in our list of “tactical tasks” and which we have spent years developing training strategies and resources around.


Ken's recent comments (ref. Niel's article) raised another related question: what artificial constraints do we impose into the environment that either facilitate this, or hinder it?


Best Rob

marct
12-08-2009, 05:43 PM
Ken's recent comments (ref. Niel's article) raised another related question: what artificial constraints do we impose into the environment that either facilitate this, or hinder it?

Some great comments, Rob. Since I'm tied up with other stuff, I just want to address your last question which, IMHO, is really a crucial one.

As far as "artificial constraints" are concerned, for the purposes of this answer, I want to define "artificial" as "systems constructed by humans", just to avoid the possible understanding of it as that+ an emotional connotation of wasted resources :wry:.

Okay, probably the most important and easily observable system is the HR / personelle system. This is intimately tied in with leader development and pretty much every aspect of training and operations. This system controls both the day-to-day lived reality of most people in terms of extra paperwork, boxes that have to checked for promotion, etc., etc., ad nauseum. It is also crucial in defining the status system the Army is operating under or, to be more accurate, the formal status system. It does absolutely no good, and quite a bit of long term harm, to develop, say, an excel;lent junior leader program and then not have that impact their career paths positively both formally (e.g maybe a merit pay raise for excellent performance) or phenomenologically (i.e. they still see useless twits commanding them).

A second system is really cultural at the policy level. Leadership, as with most things, is a composite of a skill set that can be taught and a talent that is inborn. If you've got a really good talent, the training should bring that out and enhance it. having said that, the model I assume exists (and there is a lot to support it), says that any one-size-fits-all policy model will encourage the pursuit of mediocrity. This basically means that recognized and supported career paths have to include what might be called "excellence in place"; this avoids the Peter Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle). It also means that you have to have parallel career paths defined by talent groups.

At any rate, that's where my thinking is running at the moment.

Cheers,

Marc

Bill Jakola
12-08-2009, 10:00 PM
Okay, the Combined Arms Center will post the ALDS on their website, on 10 December. Here is a link to the CAC website.

http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/

Also, the TRADOC website should have a story out soon.

http://www.army.mil/info/organization/unitsandcommands/commandstructure/tradoc/

Rob Thornton
12-09-2009, 12:27 AM
Hey Marc,

Good comment, and you are right, I did mean artificial as man made - more specifically - not necessarily required for the system to operate, and possibly contrary to the system to operate at its best (more/most effective).

Constraints could be to the benefit (looking for a specific tolerance) or the detriment of the desired outcome (wrong tolerance and/or out of tolerance relative to the needs). The ability to affect these constraints (policies, biases, etc.) could be within a service's or organization's ability while others (in this case particularly those that are legislated and politically sensitive) may be beyond its ability to affect. They could also be hard to root out, but I think begins with developing an understanding of how the system really operates relative to how we desire it to operate, and what the effects are of our constraints. Then leadership can take better steps in modifying the system - hopefully adding some kind of measure to see if its now producing within the desired tolerances, and if in fact the new tolerance fits the actual requirement.

I'm sure that sounds mechanistic, but it is a "production system", and the bigger the system (be it PME, recruiting and assessment, universities, training programs,etc.), the more the output is going to look like a "product". The smaller the system (e.g. down at a company or BN level), the more control you have over the output, and the more it can be tailored to specific conditions - even to do as a mentor of mine recommends "putting round pegs in round holes".

The question is how good do you want that product to be relative to the requirement? - again, in this case I think that means defining the tasks you want your people to be capable of executing to reasonable standard at a specific time (position and/or grade) - the product in this case is individual leader capability. If you cannot name and define the tasks then the output (capability) probably does not vary much from where you were - and you are probably limited on your ability to affect the constraints and provide rationale for change.

I also needed to make a clarification on what I meant by identify and mitigate risk - I was referring to the ability to see the broader range of implications or outcomes associated with an action and then consider if it is the right or best possible action, and if it is, then to prepare to deal with the outcome. I bring this up because I have seen "mitigation" used to mean "avoid" which is not what I had in mind, and often results in greater risk to mission and those conducting it.

Best, Rob

marct
12-09-2009, 01:51 PM
Hi Rob,


Constraints could be to the benefit (looking for a specific tolerance) or the detriment of the desired outcome (wrong tolerance and/or out of tolerance relative to the needs). The ability to affect these constraints (policies, biases, etc.) could be within a service's or organization's ability while others (in this case particularly those that are legislated and politically sensitive) may be beyond its ability to affect. They could also be hard to root out, but I think begins with developing an understanding of how the system really operates relative to how we desire it to operate, and what the effects are of our constraints. Then leadership can take better steps in modifying the system - hopefully adding some kind of measure to see if its now producing within the desired tolerances, and if in fact the new tolerance fits the actual requirement.

I'm sure that sounds mechanistic, but it is a "production system", and the bigger the system (be it PME, recruiting and assessment, universities, training programs,etc.), the more the output is going to look like a "product".

For a while now, I've been fascinated by how we, as a species, reify (aka "turn into as 'thing'") our interpersonal interactions and ascribe characteristics to that reification. What truly fascinates me is not that we do this but, rather, that as part of the process of doing it, we have to forget that we have done it. I would really love to see an MRI-based study on the neurological effects of becoming part of an organizational culture, since I suspect that there are actually reflections of that process in brain re-wiring.

That, BTW, is not a tangent - it is directly related to your comment about this sounding 'mechanistic". What I am getting at with it, is that whatever socio-technical systems (STSs) we create, they will have physical (and neurological) effects on the people who are part of them that will condition the probabilities of those systems being able to "produce" people capable of performing certain types of tasks. In effect, these STSs act as additional boundary criteria for natural selection.


The smaller the system (e.g. down at a company or BN level), the more control you have over the output, and the more it can be tailored to specific conditions - even to do as a mentor of mine recommends "putting round pegs in round holes".

Yup, and one of the reasons is actually tied in to the "span of control" problem, which is a sub-set of communications restrictions. Think about it this way: if I know the men under my command from having lived and worked with them, I have a much more nuanced understanding of them that if I only have their service records.

But, in any organization over a certain size (~1-2k), I have to use an exceedingly sparse and formalized system (service records) in order top "know" them. This "knowledge storage/transmission system", in turn, is designed to highlight minimum factors that, earlier in its life cycle, were deemed to be "important" (there's always a time lag, sometimes decades or even centuries long in this). Now this type of system is designed to abstract perceived "core information" about a person and use a standardized form to do so; it is a "mechanistic" system in the sense of interchangeable parts, and it really cannot guarantee "production" of anything more than satisficing behaviour (i.e. minimal standards; they haven't failed - yet).

But if we are talking about producing highly adaptive perceptions in people and rapid problem solving in messy problem space, that is not amenable to a system designed to produce satisficing behaviour in a "clean" problem space. If we want to do this, then we have to use a system that is differently designed, and that is where I was tagging into the strategies discussion of using "mentors". Now, a mentorship model is based on an apprenticeship system that derives out of para-kinship systems. It is much more flexible, generally has much higher minimal standards and, at the same time, tends to be much more labour intensive simply because a lot of time has to be spent working with an individual rather than an amorphous group. BTW, this ties back in to that span of control and communications problem thingy.


The question is how good do you want that product to be relative to the requirement? - again, in this case I think that means defining the tasks you want your people to be capable of executing to reasonable standard at a specific time (position and/or grade) - the product in this case is individual leader capability. If you cannot name and define the tasks then the output (capability) probably does not vary much from where you were - and you are probably limited on your ability to affect the constraints and provide rationale for change.

I'd have to say yes and no. Defining tasks and desired standards is a crucial capability, but that defines what is considered to be satisficing behaviour. In that sense, yes it is crucial, since it is defining the minimum acceptable level of accomplishment in a standardized form. Okay, that works well enough, but it can only capture the predictable, and about half of what the strategy implies it wants to develop is reactions to the unpredictable. See the problem :wry:?

Now there certainly are ways of defining tasks, broadly construed, to capture the, hmmm, let's call it the "predictable unexpected"; that, after all, is one of the reasons for having wargames. But how do we "train" people for this? Standardized training only works with standardized problem spaces so, ideally, we use a melding of standardized training and highly individual education / experience. From some of the stuff I have done, I would estimate that about 80% of the required changes lie in the individual student's head; their perceptions and knowledge of themselves - sort of a "know thyself" on steroids.

In the strategy document, "mentoring" is used as a rhetorical silver bullet to get around this problem, which is why i can only comment in general terms on the document until I start to see some operational details.

Cheers,

Marc

William F. Owen
12-09-2009, 06:11 PM
So many things are wrong with this it's hard to know where to begin


....and on our assessment that the future operational environment will be even more uncertain, complex, and competitive as hybrid threats challenge us across the full spectrum of operations.
More uncertain? More complex? Where's the evidence and so what? This is drivel and it gets worse:

Our enemies – regular and irregular – will be well armed, well trained, well equipped, and often ideologically inspired. We must overmatch their training with our training and with the development of our leaders. We must counter their ideologies with our history and with a sustained commitment to our values.
When was not being well trained an option, and ideology IS POLITICS!!! History is not one the problems.

All this paper had to do was say why good leadership HAS ALWAYS BEEN CRITICAL in ALL WARFARE and how the US was going to fix the problem. Instead it decided to invent a set of reasons as to why the problem didn't need fixing before, but now... SUDDENLY... it does!

Basically it starts bad and gets worse. I could go on, but I see little point. :mad:

Steve the Planner
12-09-2009, 06:35 PM
Wilf:

Sure does set the bar low on the intel and expectations side.

Assume we go into each future complex problem set without a clue or goal, and that our opponent (who sometimes didn't graduate an equivalent of high school and controls no satellites or PhD farms) knows everything.

Where is the challenge to get ahead of background understandings, to develop responses, including non-military ones, before the problem, whether military or not, is dumped in DoD's lap as the agency of last resort for actions beyond US borders?

If I agreed with the above, I would, as an organization, start thinking about defining my enemy as internal, and beginning to understand how to out-game them before they game me.

At that point, none of it is about anything within a reasonable scope of a Department of Defense.

Steve

William F. Owen
12-10-2009, 05:16 AM
Wilf:

Sure does set the bar low on the intel and expectations side.
If you cannot get the high bar then set the bar low

Assume we go into each future complex problem set without a clue or goal, and that our opponent (who sometimes didn't graduate an equivalent of high school and controls no satellites or PhD farms) knows everything.
Complex problems? I think you mean conflicts or wars, don't you? What does history show you? How did the US Army fail in Vietnam, Korea, and Mogadishu? Those alone are reasons for upping the bar... and it never was. So why now?


Where is the challenge to get ahead of background understandings, to develop responses, including non-military ones, before the problem, whether military or not, is dumped in DoD's lap as the agency of last resort for actions beyond US borders?
The challenge is the job. Nothing is more difficult than warfare. Non-military responses should not be something done by the military.

Seriously, the paper is predicated on a series of mythical problems. I know why it is doing this, but its a bad thing to do. Why invent a whole range of imagined complexities when the evidence shows the normal everyday conflict is in fact the problem most are finding very hard to imagine and this cannot prepare for.

Steve the Planner
12-10-2009, 05:37 AM
Wilf:

Right. I just got finished jotting a response to one of Tom Ricks' Iraq the Unravellings re: a briefing at USIP by MG Caslen who just returned from MND-North en route to Tradoc.

No sense from him that he was confused or overwhelmed by any complex problems. I was very comfortable that he knows what he is looking at, and how to approach/learn/respond to what comes along.

Here's my post:

"Today, MG Caslen, who just left command of my old stomping grounds, MND-North (Northern Iraq), gave a very good account of things.

He explained that at first he was highly reluctant to back out of Ninewa, seeking a SOFA Waiver. Odierno convinced him to try, and he was very pleased with the result---Iraqi Army did step up, proud to take responsibility for their country.

Is it perfect? No. And it wasn't before June 30. In fact, last week, Salah ad Din's lead anti-terrorist investigator was blown up in Tikrit with his deputies.

But, according to MG Caslen, the provincial election made a big difference in the effectiveness of governance in the North. The post-2005 provincial governments were weak and ineffective (the Sunni Boycott impact), but, according to the American guy most likely to know, the new officials are more focused, engaged, and respected; side-benefits? Violence down.

Diyala has been a substantially unstable place since.... the days of the Silk Road. Many confluences that persistently result, over time and history, in periods of substantial instability. Iran border. A gateway in the Qom to Mecca religious path. Mixed populations: Sunni, Shia, Feehly Kurds, Kurds, Turkomen.MEK.

The KRG issue remains unresolved as it has since the 1920's when the idea of a Kurdish State emerged in advance of the organization and resources to establish/maintain it. Times always change, but historical opportunities only come and go.

Beyond Iraq, the influence of neighbors can be a curse and a blessing, but Turkish/KRG relations are strengthening, according to the General, with good results.

Tom's pictures from Diyala hit anyone in the gut, and they are, in most instances, intended to have that effect. But, behind the radicals, there are 28 million moms, dads and kids who just want to get on with life. Maybe their odds will improve AFTER the next elections...

Not perfect, but my enjoyment of Iraqis I met, and respect for their challenges, leads me to continue to cross my fingers for them (and sometimes hold my breath)."

Steve

Steve the Planner
12-10-2009, 06:09 AM
One of the first things I discovered in December 2007 was that the provincial boundary maps were all screwed up, and the brigades were aligned to battlespace, and not provincial boundaries.

Might be fine for war, but a real problem for peace-building. Salah ad Din, for example was split among four different brigades---and each was getting into civ/mil stuff like provincial budget execution. Needed valet parking for all the mil leaders who wanted to get into the provincial governance building.

I spent six months figuring out the actual boundaries, and, by the time MG Caslen came in in Oct 2008, the brigades were redeployed by province.

So I sat at his brief looking at the slide that showed the Ninewa Brigade including Mahkmur, which the US thought for a long time was actually and formally a part of Irbil.

All I could think was that if you fight long enough for something, and it makes sense, the Army will do it, even if only in the last year. And a little quiet pride in my small contribution.

How does the saying go? Try everything until, at last, trying the right thing.

Steve

William F. Owen
12-10-2009, 10:11 AM
Steve the Planner

Mate, all fascinating, but with respect, so what? Seriously, what is the big problem? Seriously, the agenda here from the "WOW-COIN" generation is to try and say that today A'Stan and Iraq are more "complex" than was Vietnam, the Lebanon and/or even Mogadishu.

Really? Does anyone really believe that?

PhilR
12-10-2009, 01:40 PM
Steve the Planner

Mate, all fascinating, but with respect, so what? Seriously, what is the big problem? Seriously, the agenda here from the "WOW-COIN" generation is to try and say that today A'Stan and Iraq are more "complex" than was Vietnam, the Lebanon and/or even Mogadishu.

Really? Does anyone really believe that?

I would extend it to say that we have a generation that think WWII and Korea, etc. was also "simple." I don't think our histories, or how we teach them, necessarily do those conflicts justice. We have created a strawman of "conventional operations" which makes a convenient foil for Irregular/COIN, etc.
I really reject complexity arguments of scale--"more complex", etc. Each conflict is different and each has its own characteristics and distinct complexities.

marct
12-10-2009, 01:46 PM
Hi Wilf,


Mate, all fascinating, but with respect, so what? Seriously, what is the big problem? Seriously, the agenda here from the "WOW-COIN" generation is to try and say that today A'Stan and Iraq are more "complex" than was Vietnam, the Lebanon and/or even Mogadishu.

Really? Does anyone really believe that?

A gut guess would be that they do believe it (whoever "they" may be ;)) for two reasons. The first is that the nice little mental state of "We Understand War" has been blown up because "they" didn't understand these wars. So calling the current setting increasingly "complex" is a reaction to having nice conventional perceptual models destroyed. The second reason, IMHO, has to do with changes in budgets over the past couple of years (i.e. inter- and intra- organizational squabbling over the budgetary pie).

What I'm going to write next might sound like an indictment of TRADOC, but it is not meant that way - I am using them, and this document, as an example of how large organizations operate, so please bear that in mind :wry:.

All large, hierarchical organizations rely on standardized knowledge "bytes", i.e. the ability to construct a representational model of their claimed area of responsibility that is a) internally consistent, b) makes "sense", and c) allows for parsing out sub-tasks to specific offices (not individuals; for any interested academics, this is drawing of of Weber's concept of rational-legal authority, Mary Douglas' How Institutions Think (http://www.amazon.com/Institutions-Think-Frank-Abrams-Lectures/dp/0815602065/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260450908&sr=1-1), and Abbotts The System of the Professions (http://www.amazon.com/System-Professions-Essay-Division-Expert/dp/0226000699/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260450866&sr=8-1)). These "knowledge bytes" (Abbot calls them Tasks), are assigned to locations in the organizational status system (offices, ranks, branches, MOS, etc.), and are assumed to operate at a minimal level that meets the requirements perceived when they were created (the time element is crucial here).

Now, these organizations compete with other organizations for both resources and, also, for the social "right" to "own" a task-space. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of "professional" organizations is that they exercise, with varying degrees of success, a monopoly over the social right to conduct these tasks and, at the same time, over access to their knowledge systems.

Now, these knowledge systems are all about the containment of socially perceived risk. If a society views a risk as "low", then the resources associated with it tend to be lower, while the obverse is true - high perceived risk leads (generally) to higher resource allocations. Now, playing Darwinian here an applying some natural selection models, how do you think that these organizations will act in the public sphere? Are they going to say that "Things are getting easier"? Nope, things will always be getting "harder", the risk area must always be getting more "complex", simply so that the organization can keep getting a share of the social resources.

But it is also a balancing act; organizations cannot, under any circumstances, allow the decision makers who parse out resources to believe that they are incapable of somehow handling the risk; that would be an admission that their entire knowledge system, and organization, etc., is fatally flawed and would, inevitably, lead to the de-professionalization of the knowledge area or, at least, to a loss of the monopolistic hold of one organization over that area or parts of it (BTW, the history of organized religion over the past 1000 years or so in the West is a good case example of this process).

Now part of this "balancing act" is the construction of a social perception amongst decision makers that the "professionals" know what they are doing. Part of the process of constructing this impression is constructing rhetorical arguments that have enough symbols in them that mesh with the decision makers prejudices (think of it as an IO campaign by the profession aimed at the decision makers). When we look at this document, several of these symbols just jump out: "adaptive", "complex", "unique", etc. They are not used in a semantically rigorous manner; they are used for their emotional impact on the minds of decision makers.

The goal of documents like this is to lay out an emotionally satisfying vision statement that reinforces the perception amongst decision makers that the professional group a) knows what it needs to do, b) is capable of doing it, and c) "understands" their (the decision makers) concerns. At the same time, the document also has to serve as a semantic map for changes made by the professional organization, so the same symbols that are used for their emotional resonance amongst external decision makers also must be capable of being interpreted by members of the profession, i.e. those who have access to the knowledge set, as being "reasonable" and desirable. In order to convey this "double message" as it were, the document must be vague and mildly alarmist without alienating either the decision makers or the members of the profession (BTW, a similar type of document is the recent AAA report on the HTS).

So, back to your question Wilf. I think you have identified the agenda incorrectly; it's not "to try and say that today A'Stan and Iraq are more "complex" than was Vietnam, the Lebanon and/or even Mogadishu" so much as to say "there is a risk and we know how to handle it". The document uses a rhetorical proof set aimed at non-professional decision makers rather than an intra-profession argument and really should be read, at least to my mind, with that in mind. The intra-professional argument will be showing up over the next few months with the production of documents relating to actual changes and their rationales.

Ken White
12-10-2009, 02:52 PM
...The first is that the nice little mental state of "We Understand War" has been blown up because "they" didn't understand these wars. So calling the current setting increasingly "complex" is a reaction to having nice conventional perceptual models destroyed. The second reason, IMHO, has to do with changes in budgets over the past couple of years (i.e. inter- and intra- organizational squabbling over the budgetary pie).As I said back in September:

""It is, broadly, a waste of time and the taxpayer's dollar -- but it is the way we do business. (emphasis added / kw)

It is, as someone mentioned, as much a pre-budgetary guide as it is a pre-doctrinal guide. It isn't a schedule and certainly isn't a map, it is an Echelons Above Reality encapsulation of syllabus. Maybe not even that, maybe a prospectus.""

As you say so well:
...Nope, things will always be getting "harder", the risk area must always be getting more "complex", simply so that the organization can keep getting a share of the social resources.

...The document uses a rhetorical proof set aimed at non-professional decision makers rather than an intra-profession argument and really should be read, at least to my mind, with that in mind...

Hacksaw
12-10-2009, 03:06 PM
The goal of documents like this is to lay out an emotionally satisfying vision statement that reinforces the perception amongst decision makers that the professional group a) knows what it needs to do, b) is capable of doing it, and c) "understands" their (the decision makers) concerns. At the same time, the document also has to serve as a semantic map for changes made by the professional organization, so the same symbols that are used for their emotional resonance amongst external decision makers also must be capable of being interpreted by members of the profession, i.e. those who have access to the knowledge set, as being "reasonable" and desirable. In order to convey this "double message" as it were, the document must be vague and mildly alarmist without alienating either the decision makers or the members of the profession (BTW, a similar type of document is the recent AAA report on the HTS).
So, back to your question Wilf. I think you have identified the agenda incorrectly; it's not "to try and say that today A'Stan and Iraq are more "complex" than was Vietnam, the Lebanon and/or even Mogadishu" so much as to say "there is a risk and we know how to handle it". The document uses a rhetorical proof set aimed at non-professional decision makers rather than an intra-profession argument and really should be read, at least to my mind, with that in mind. The intra-professional argument will be showing up over the next few months with the production of documents relating to actual changes and their rationales.


MARCT,
A disclaimer first... I have seen the the TRADOC enemy and he is I... In one way or another I have worked with/for TRADOC or a subordinate command for the last six years... The entire portion I deleted... I think was spot on... it PERFECTLY described how the bureacracy of TRADOC "works"...

The only real issue I take with your assessment is that the concept is an explicit attempt by TRADOC to sway resource decision makers in the manner you describe... Rather, I think TRADOC presumes it's monopoly/legitimacy to address these issues...However, I do agree that the document (at least explicitly) is intended to only drive the internal mechanisms you describe...

What I won't hazard to debate (because I stood/stand to close to the TRADOC hearth) is whether the messaging to resource managers is the de facto self licking ice cream cone portion of TRADOC's relationship with that audience... very real possibility of that - I just have seen no evidence that anyone from Gen Dempsey down to the lowest GS employee views the Capstone Concept in that manner...

Live well and row

marct
12-10-2009, 03:50 PM
Hi Hacksaw,


The only real issue I take with your assessment is that the concept is an explicit attempt by TRADOC to sway resource decision makers in the manner you describe... Rather, I think TRADOC presumes it's monopoly/legitimacy to address these issues...However, I do agree that the document (at least explicitly) is intended to only drive the internal mechanisms you describe...

I think you are quite right that "TRADOC presumes its monopoly / legitimacy to address these issue" and I certainly haven't seen anything that would indicate otherwise. Let me just take issue with the "explicit attempt" interpretation of what I wrote.

Part of the problem with how organizations and organizational cultures operate is that they frequently obscure the rationale for why something is done in a certain manner; it becomes "tradition" or "just the ways it's done". Let me give you an amusing example....

Have you heard of "Honourary Colonels"? A couple of years back, Canadian comedian Rick Mercer was appointed one (see here (http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/174660)). Now, originally, the institution was designed as a way of bridging between a defanged aristocracy and a professional military such that the always cash strapped army regiments could get some needed resources without tapping into the Crown's purse. A nice trade-off whereby an aristocrat could gain social status and a regiment could gain a patron at court and needed resources. Well, nowadays, it's unlikely that people like Mercer will provide much in the way of operationally relevant resources (like, say uniforms which used to be a fairly common one), but it still acts as a moral booster. We just don't see questions about "Why do we do this?", we just do it - it is a tradition.

For 200+ years now, TRADOC and their precursors have been dealing with Congress in a similar manner in documents like this - it's a "tradition" - that doesn't require an explicit attempt; it just "is".


What I won't hazard to debate (because I stood/stand to close to the TRADOC hearth) is whether the messaging to resource managers is the de facto self licking ice cream cone portion of TRADOC's relationship with that audience... very real possibility of that - I just have seen no evidence that anyone from Gen Dempsey down to the lowest GS employee views the Capstone Concept in that manner...

Ah, should have clarified - I wasn't talking about the ACC, I was talking about the ALDS.

Cheers,

Marc

William F. Owen
12-10-2009, 03:56 PM
A gut guess would be that they do believe it (whoever "they" may be ;)) for two reasons. The first is that the nice little mental state of "We Understand War" has been blown up because "they" didn't understand these wars. So calling the current setting increasingly "complex" is a reaction to having nice conventional perceptual models destroyed.

MarcT mate,

I do, to a limited extent, understand the human, emotional and organisational behaviour I am witnessing, but I don't want to let it slide. The system is constantly defended by virtue of being "the system." It's the "hate the game, not the player" argument - and that is the source of all the sophistry and evidence free assertions that permeate this thing passing for debate.

Until someone hits the re-set button the error is likely to compound.

marct
12-10-2009, 04:17 PM
Hi Wilf,


I do, to a limited extent, understand the human, emotional and organisational behaviour I am witnessing, but I don't want to let it slide. The system is constantly defended by virtue of being "the system." It's the "hate the game, not the player" argument - and that is the source of all the sophistry and evidence free assertions that permeate this thing passing for debate.

Until someone hits the re-set button the error is likely to compound.

The scary part is that I don't disagree with you - then again, as Stan keeps saying, I'm a hopeless romantic :wry:.

Personally, I'm just assuming that the ALDS is (roughly) what I outlined and I'm waiting for the real meat to come out - the operationalization of it.

In many ways, TRADOC is in a very "interesting" situation. They have a window of opportunity to get at least part of a "re-set" going and, from what I have seen, read and heard, they are actually trying to do that. The truly unfortunate thing is that they just don't have control over the "system", so they can't do a system "re-set".

I've been trying to work out (to my own satisfaction) what they would need to do and, quite frankly, the list of modifications is somewhat scary. I mentioned some of the HR issues in an earlier post responding to Rob, but some of the other things include actually developing technologies and techniques to identify talents for situated leadership potential and then figuring out techniques for nurturing the right balance of those talents.

Another part of what they need to do is to figure out what we might call an optimal "talent balance" - too many talented "war fighters" and too few logistics types will also lead to failure, but too much of a cultural split between them will lead to intra-organizational faction fights - the collapse of the Byzantine Empire is a classic example of that one - while the cultural knowledge vs "conventional" split is nicely exemplified in the dangers of the Barracks Emperors period (~3rd century ce Rome). In some ways, the optimal model is along the lines of an "ecclesiam", but that requires a lot of balancing.

Sometimes, I suspect it's all just my brain running away with analogs :D

Cheers,

Marc

Hacksaw
12-10-2009, 04:24 PM
Ah, should have clarified - I wasn't talking about the ACC, I was talking about the ALDS.


Ewww....

OK that is an explicit dialogue with the resource decision makers... so we are in complete/total/unequivocal agreement...

and WILF...

you are right as well, but then again...

I think all this rhetoric, really covers up the issue that we in the US Army presumed was not an issue...

Our education systems were not rigorous enough... we had fallen into a paradigm in which the real hard "teaching" occurred at the CTCs... we said we were teaching how and not what to think, but in fact we were only in rare cases teaching exactly what to think...

In other words we bought our own bill of goods....

I think this document uses those terms and coaching the issues the way it does to both address that we need to be far better in teaching Soldiers how to deal with wicked problems... without explicitly acknowledging that we ought to have been doing better

Live well and row

Bill Jakola
12-11-2009, 12:15 PM
http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/12/09/31552-new-army-leader-development-strategy-released/

Okay, here is the link to the TRADOC News Stroy and ALDS document.

I enjoy the discussion you all are having over the ALDS; and, it is important to think of the ALDS as a strategic document. In doing so, we need to place the ideas contained within the ALDS in a strategic context, because context is critical to most things and especially important in war. Thus, answering your questions of how the ALDS impacts the budgetary process or helps reset TRADOC or the Army at large will help our understanding of where this leader development strategy fits in the larger concept for organizational change.

Here is our thinking from my foxhole. Over the last year, General Dempsey and the team here at TRADOC have thought deeply about organizational change and as we transition into year two, of his command, we are focusing on implementing many of the changes we identified in year one. Therefore , for those paying attention, we can expect to see more detail and context; and that will help our understanding of the our doctrinal changes, e.g., ALDS and the Army CapStone Concept, as well as, the new FM 5.0 with its chapter on design.

William F. Owen
12-11-2009, 12:51 PM
Therefore , for those paying attention, we can expect to see more detail and context; and that will help our understanding of the our doctrinal changes, e.g., ALDS and the Army CapStone Concept, as well as, the new FM 5.0 with its chapter on design.

I can't save you from the sophistry of "Design," but what context and detail gets invented and made up, I guess I can at least challenge. :(

marct
12-11-2009, 02:37 PM
Hi Bill,


I enjoy the discussion you all are having over the ALDS; and, it is important to think of the ALDS as a strategic document. In doing so, we need to place the ideas contained within the ALDS in a strategic context, because context is critical to most things and especially important in war. Thus, answering your questions of how the ALDS impacts the budgetary process or helps reset TRADOC or the Army at large will help our understanding of where this leader development strategy fits in the larger concept for organizational change.

I'm going to play semantician for a minute, here. I think that one of the crucial problems many of us have had with this document and similar ones surrounds the use of the word "strategy". I certainly can't speak for the other people here (they'd shoot me if I did :D), but I suspect that many of us have been using a specific rather than general understanding of the term.

Does TRADOC use the term "strategy", as applied to documents such as this, as a way of defining a visioned end state within an environment composed of "peer competitors"? If it does, how are you currently seeing these "peer competitors" (nation states? other services? other departments? other providers of overlapping current tasks? current/future opponents?).

I'm asking for this because I think it will have a major impact in several areas, including recommendations for specific operationalizations.


Here is our thinking from my foxhole. Over the last year, General Dempsey and the team here at TRADOC have thought deeply about organizational change and as we transition into year two, of his command, we are focusing on implementing many of the changes we identified in year one. Therefore , for those paying attention, we can expect to see more detail and context; and that will help our understanding of the our doctrinal changes, e.g., ALDS and the Army CapStone Concept, as well as, the new FM 5.0 with its chapter on design.

One of the things I learned a while back after being involved in and studying major organizational re-engineering is that it takes quite a while to make changes at the level of "informal organizational culture". So, not doctrine, not "Concepts", and not "strategies" but, rather, the automatic, assumed reactions to stimuli; the organizational narratives if you will. "Official (or Formal) culture", the documents, vision statements, etc. are crucial but, in the long run, they are pretty useless unless there is a solid grounding in lived experience (the "informal culture"), so when we see successful organizational re-engineering, it has a tendency to focus on the lived reality part as the primary focus.

Seeing "more detail and context" as you put it, will be crucial, but putting that detail and context into action as a day-to-day, lived reality for people will be the key to actually changing the informal culture. This, BTW, was part of the reason why I was mentioning HR issues in an earlier post, and why I have talked a bit about the use of "mentoring".

Bill, if I haven't said it before, then let me say "Thanks" for posting these documents and getting these discussions going here :D!

Cheers,

Marc

Ken White
12-11-2009, 04:32 PM
http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/12/09/31552-new-army-leader-development-strategy-released/

Okay, here is the link to the TRADOC News Stroy and ALDS document.is engendered by 1919 Personnel and Force Structure system that impacts everything you do. You can tweak the training but that will never adequately correct for the major systemic flaws that have built up over years of resistance to change (including on the part of the Congress...).

For example, aside from a Personnel system lost in a time warp, we have structure and grade problems that it creates and that are exacerbated by dysfunctional force design.

Company commanders should be Majors, and each should have two CPTs, a supporter and a trainer of the LTs who are PLs (period) as well as a 1SG who's the trainer of the enlisted swine AND an Admin Spt NCO (7 or 8) as well as 6 or 7 Operations and Training NCO (peacetime) / Intel NCO (wartime).
Companies are undermanned; Bn and Bde Staffs are way overmanned.

Thus you are trying to train an organization that is really not well organized and one that has to adapt on an ad-hoc basis for every war. Fortunately, we have in the past done ad-hoc well. I'm not all sure we can reliably do that in the future...

I'm sure General Dempsey is very much aware that he effectively wears two hats, director of training for the US Army -- and the proponent for the DOCTRINE that drives both the personnel system and force structure. Or should. I do not question that it should. I question that it does in fact do so.

Improving leader training is important -- improving the force they lead is equally important. Good, well trained leaders can overcome dysfunctional organization and doctrine but they can perform so much better if those impediments are removed.

As you said:
Thus, answering your questions of how the ALDS impacts the budgetary process or helps reset TRADOC or the Army at large will help our understanding of where this leader development strategy fits in the larger concept for organizational change.(emphasis added /kw)

Steve the Planner
12-11-2009, 04:42 PM
Ken:

In grad school many, many years ago, my prof needed an article on national-level Industrial Policy, so I researched and researched....

Lot's of articles, books, quotes. Distilled to: "Knowledge is transferable but wisdom is not."

Yours is, perhaps, a more precise and focused version:

"Improving leader training is important -- improving the force they lead is equally important. Good, well trained leaders can overcome dysfunctional organization and doctrine but they can perform so much better if those impediments are removed."

Steve

Bill Jakola
12-14-2009, 01:58 AM
Does TRADOC use the term "strategy", as applied to documents such as this, as a way of defining a visioned end state within an environment composed of "peer competitors"? If it does, how are you currently seeing these "peer competitors" (nation states? other services? other departments? other providers of overlapping current tasks? current/future opponents?).



Marc,

Again, this is my view: This concept of an end state is worth exploring because it is a key to understanding how I view the changes at TRADOC. The term "end state" does not accurately convey the nature of warfare in general, or the current conflicts and environments we face. The idea of moving to a specific set of conditions where we reach an end is misleading because warfare is a subset of politics, and political relations flow over a wide range human interactions—including diplomatic discourse and armed conflict—that never really come to an end; although there are important and achievable intermediate goals or ends that people work toward. Since, we know political/military interaction is a continuous or ongoing process we should prepare our forces for the reality of this understanding.

In addition, our view of the complexity in warfare is different than it was during the Cold War. Then, our understanding allowed us to prepare our forces with a high degree of tactical proficiency in certain specific skills that dealt primarily with the application of mass fire power and battlefield maneuver of large mobile units. I am not saying we did not have to fight other types of battles; however, conventional logic of the time said that, if we prepare for the most dangerous situation we would be prepared for lesser threats. Thus, if the cold bipolar superpower struggle between the U.S. and the Soviets ever went hot, the West prepared to achieve a specific end state i.e., the destruction of the “the enemy”. This end state view meant a complete domination of one side over the other.

Moreover, this type of warfare was no more or less complex than any other type of warfare, but because of how we planned to fight the Cold War—that is by synchronizing large mobile units and massive firepower—and the threat we faced—massive mechanized and armor formations—meant that only a relatively few senior commanders of a centralized hierarchy needed to fully understand these complexities, while the subordinate units all executed in close coordination from the top. In other words, we built a large hierarchical organization that required the vast majority of leaders to execute set tasks and battle drills (e.g., mission essential task list (METL)) with little consideration of the complex nuance we now require of all leaders. Now after the end of the Cold War and especially after more than eight years of war since 11 Sep 01, we understand that most, if not all, of our junior field grade and company leaders need to fully comprehend the complexities that have always existed in warfare.

Thus, I see the leader development strategy as an effort to arm leaders at every level with the mental agility and resilience required to conduct complex problem solving. Since, many things we need to accomplish are not in our control and, we have to rely on the assistance of others, like local political bosses, religious heads, and tribal chiefs, to achieve results; our leaders need the people skills to influence others. This requires more than just issuing orders at rifle point; it means team building, and all the other interpersonal skills to convince people to behave the way we desire.


Bill

slapout9
12-14-2009, 03:57 AM
One of the things I learned a while back after being involved in and studying major organizational re-engineering is that it takes quite a while to make changes at the level of "informal organizational culture". So, not doctrine, not "Concepts", and not "strategies" but, rather, the automatic, assumed reactions to stimuli; the organizational narratives if you will. "Official (or Formal) culture", the documents, vision statements, etc. are crucial but, in the long run, they are pretty useless unless there is a solid grounding in lived experience (the "informal culture"), so when we see successful organizational re-engineering, it has a tendency to focus on the lived reality part as the primary focus.


Marc

MarcT,Bill Jakola, thought you guys might be interested in this adaption of Warden's rings relative to Marct's post here.

http://customerinnovations.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/centers-of-gravity-levers-for-shifting-the-customer-experience/

Bill Jakola
12-14-2009, 11:12 AM
Slapout9,

Okay, I see how Systems Thinking may be of use in business; and, this Wordpress blog post uses a five ring model, similar to Warden's, to argue that leadership is key to organizational change. This seems like a no brainer conclusion; and is totally in agreement with what I was saying earlier about the our focus on leader development as critical to making the Army more adaptive to the environment that we must operate within and threats we must counter.

However, the blog seems to infer that it is only necessary to focus on the center leadership ring and only on the most senior level of leadership to make these organizational changes. Specifically, Mr. Capek says "I will make the case that focusing on front-line employees is generally NOT the most important place to start if your goal is to significantly improve the customers’ experience." But as I attempted to explain in my last post, front line leaders now need the skills that these senior leader have always needed. We are not talking about changing the senior leaders as much as providing all leaders with the skills that the seniors already possess.

Bill Jakola

slapout9
12-14-2009, 02:34 PM
Slapout9,

Okay, I see how Systems Thinking may be of use in business; and, this Wordpress blog post uses a five ring model, similar to Warden's, to argue that leadership is key to organizational change. This seems like a no brainer conclusion; and is totally in agreement with what I was saying earlier about the our focus on leader development as critical to making the Army more adaptive to the environment that we must operate within and threats we must counter.

However, the blog seems to infer that it is only necessary to focus on the center leadership ring and only on the most senior level of leadership to make these organizational changes. Specifically, Mr. Capek says "I will make the case that focusing on front-line employees is generally NOT the most important place to start if your goal is to significantly improve the customers’ experience." But as I attempted to explain in my last post, front line leaders now need the skills that these senior leader have always needed. We are not talking about changing the senior leaders as much as providing all leaders with the skills that the seniors already possess.

Bill Jakola


Hi Bill, I think he is agreeing with you because he goes on to state the following. Particularly the 3 major rings of leadership,unwritten rules,and IT systems to support the change.

Copied from the website:
Most systems are surprisingly resistant to change. Unless these three components that are close to the Center of Gravity are addressed in a coordinated and holistic way, I would expect that efforts to train, motivate, and engage front-line employees will lead to marginal results.


Relative to the Military I would substitute front line employees for Jr. Officers.

marct
12-14-2009, 03:10 PM
Hi Guys,


However, the blog seems to infer that it is only necessary to focus on the center leadership ring and only on the most senior level of leadership to make these organizational changes.


Relative to the Military I would substitute front line employees for Jr. Officers.

If you are looking for a private industry example of organizational change that makes more sense, take a look at the case of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in the late 1970's; it is a very close analog. In that case, by ~1975, KLM had dropped about 6-7 points in market share, down into the low teens, and brought in a new CEO.

His first couple of months was spent looking at complaints from customers about frustrating experiences with front line employees. Figuring that this was the key driver behind market share loss, he started working as a ticketing agent (can't remember which airport), and realized that the organizational regulations totally hemmed in the front line workers to the point that they could not make any responsive decisions but had to pass it back up the line (in military terms, an insane ROE combined with totally inappropriate METL). In order to solve this, he required that all senior executives had to spend 2-3 weeks out of every quarter working in a frontline position (think about a 2 star General running a squad). Within the space of a year, the rules and regulations had been cut by a third (from ~60,000! down to ~40,000), and most of the rest had been harmonized so that the frontline workers had a wide range of allowable options to solve immediate problems.

Where the senior leaders come in in this form of organizational re-engineering is in the area of "lived experience" as well as "push". The truly crucial "A ha!" experience came from those same leaders realizing that what looks good on paper interacts with everything else to turn a good idea into an operational nightmare. The forced experience of working in a frontline position meant that they had an immediate, in their gut, feel for any new regulations that were proposed.

William F. Owen
12-14-2009, 03:28 PM
Thus, I see the leader development strategy as an effort to arm leaders at every level with the mental agility and resilience required to conduct complex problem solving. Since, many things we need to accomplish are not in our control and, we have to rely on the assistance of others, like local political bosses, religious heads, and tribal chiefs, to achieve results; our leaders need the people skills to influence others. This requires more than just issuing orders at rifle point; it means team building, and all the other interpersonal skills to convince people to behave the way we desire.


If I may boil that down to:

"Well educated officers who can implement US National Policy by using a variety of means to get others, using force if required, to do their will."

If I have got this correct, when was this not the case? I understand the intent, but I can't see the novelty, unless the previous training was always inadequate. Is that what TRADOC does not want to admit?

slapout9
12-14-2009, 03:29 PM
Where the senior leaders come in in this form of organizational re-engineering is in the area of "lived experience" as well as "push". The truly crucial "A ha!" experience came from those same leaders realizing that what looks good on paper interacts with everything else to turn a good idea into an operational nightmare. The forced experience of working in a frontline position meant that they had an immediate, in their gut, feel for any new regulations that were proposed.

That's why I say the best generals were the ones that started out as Privates:eek:

marct
12-14-2009, 03:42 PM
That's why I say the best generals were the ones that started out as Privates:eek:

No disagreement there, Slap :D! However, if the KLM model were actually implemented, it would be a case of each general has to become a sergeant for a tour :eek:!

slapout9
12-14-2009, 03:55 PM
No disagreement there, Slap :D! However, if the KLM model were actually implemented, it would be a case of each general has to become a sergeant for a tour :eek:!


Absolutely! NYPD did something similar in the 80's by requiring senior commanders to work different shifts and different days of the week as part of their schedule.

Bill Jakola
12-15-2009, 03:37 AM
is engendered by 1919 Personnel and Force Structure system.

Thus you are trying to train an organization that is really not well organized and one that has to adapt on an ad-hoc basis for every war.

Ken,

Spot on with your observation of our Army encumbered with an out of date and unresponsive Personnel and Force Structure system; which is exactly why we are focusing on leader development. As Marc pointed out organizatinal change is difficult to bring about in the short run; however, leadership is within our grasp; and, well developed leaders can overcome systemic short commings.

We may never maximze the promotional or organizational designs, but there is no reason we can't maximize the way we train leaders. To do this requires a strategy, similar to the ALDS, that esablishes a framwork within which we can begin to understand what types of leaders we will require and then agressively build them.


Personally, I'm just assuming that the ALDS is (roughly) what I outlined and I'm waiting for the real meat to come out - the operationalization of it.

Marc also forshadowed our next step to release operationalization annexes that will provide the answer to how we plan to implement the ALDS.

Bill Jakola

"Keep your powder dry!"

SJPONeill
12-15-2009, 04:23 AM
however, leadership is within our grasp; and, well developed leaders can overcome systemic short commings.

Bill, isn't that shortcutting the system? Yes, good leaders will essentially circumvent a system that is not working properly but at their risk, not the organisation's and in fact have done so for decades. Surely if TRADOC recognises that there are things that desperately need fixing, then it should be looking to fix them and not be slapping on a band-aid?

I've only just downloaded the ALDS document and had a quick read through it. My first reaction is that this has come from the side of TRADOC that specialises in buzzword bingo and not simple soldier speak - that same folks who brought us the draft ACC and Pam 525-5-500 to name a couple - great ideas in them but they have to be sifted out of wordy and cumbersome prose.

It's been my experience that leadership is not something you develop in a classroom - it is something that is developed and nutured but getting out and doing. This includes, as has already been mentioned, senior staff getting out and doing as well - possibly at the expense of their doctoral studies. There are some good points on this raised in the PME thread. There is a danger than in trying to learn and adapt we are leaning way to far towards corporate structures that might be all very nice in peacetime, save bucks, and look great in doctoral theses but which actually do little to develop and maintain capabilities.

Twenty years ago, we had an Army where the soldiers did not have many tranferable skills, qualifications or certifications (all the stuff that looks good on a CV) but they had an incredibly high level of practical soldier skills. Pretty well every soldier was not just trained but also able to think on their feet, make decisions and assume responsibility if Plan A went a bit awry on their watch. They didn't get this way by sitting in a classroom, or painting rocks - they got that way because they trained, trained and trained, normally under the junior leaders.

In the wave of AARs after the end of the warfighting phase of OIF, I remember reading an extract from a colonel's debrief - of course, Murphy's Law says I could never find it again but it went something like:

“…never again will we do admin moves from our home base to training locations. From now on, when we roll out the gate at home, we will be gunned up, no one sitting back reading their book or focussed on their Walkman or Gameboy, and moving tactically all the way. When we get to a overpass or chokepoint, we’ll dismount, go forward and clear it just as we’ve learned to do here [Iraq]. Sure, it might takes a day or two to make the move, and we’ll have to do a lot of coord with the towns we move through, local police, Highway Patrol, etc but that’s what we need to do anyway. And, every once in a while there’ll be an incident along the way that we’ll have to do deal with – it might not be an attack or an IED, it might be a pregnant lady on the side of the road…”

I think the message was something like training as you fight...if you want to introduce complexity and incertaintly into training, rather than an artifical training environment, as much as possible take the raining out to 'the people' - that'll introduce enough complexity and uncertainty to lay a firm foundation for doing that training that has to be done in a close environment. Get your people out into other environments, the more varied and uncomfortable/challenging the better...

As an outsider looking in, I think that perhaps the US Army has cracked this one more than it realises yet, maybe there is a lag between new doctrine coming onlien and its implementation but the new FM 7-0, -15 and -1 (when it comes out) are great, more so when combined with the frameworks in the SMCT series. Why? Because they focus on the essentials, they are easy to read and they make sense....

Bill Jakola
12-15-2009, 12:33 PM
I like your idea of training complexity by training in the real world; the idea has merit and such real world training would be difficult to replicate in a classroom or other artifical training area, like the Army's combat training centers. However there are things that are difficult or impossible to train in public areas, like things that involve lethal force or unique cultural differences. So a combination of these types of trainiing seems right.

Also, as far as short cutting the system; well developed leaders, I believe, would not only circumvent the systems shortfalls, but also improve these systemic weak areas. That 's what good leaders do.

Bill Jakola

Keep your powder dry!

Elric
12-15-2009, 06:28 PM
Also, as far as short cutting the system; well developed leaders, I believe, would not only circumvent the systems shortfalls, but also improve these systemic weak areas. That 's what good leaders do.

Bill, I have to love your attitude. Unfortunately, hope is not an approved Army planning method (but it seems to be extensively used). How long must we circumvent the shortfalls? I don't have the "luxury" of the 200+ training days available to the active component. Until the big guns clean the Augean stables, many Guard and Reserve units struggle with the growing list of mandatory training, soldier readiness, and, oh, almost forgot, missions...

IMHO, the Army has changed to self service, where the individual soldier is expected to monitor their records, medical status, DTS, and oh, don't forget your professional reading! Except we are not trained in records or medical or finance. The system IMHO, requires too much immersion by every soldier in non-mission tasks. Need to get ready for a mission? Quick, everyone run to a system and bang out your DTS voucher! The DD 1351-2 got me paid in less than a month, fax or scan it in. No computer needed. Plus, I didn't need a government CC, and I could control my credit rating (if DTS does not pay your CC, you will be counseled!)..

Computer access is a sore point. The centralized "support" system seems to be better at denying access to soldiers with a valid CAC card than Chinese hackers. Without access, a soldier is unable to access all these self help things for the weekend. (my record is three months). The S6 shop has had it's ability to actually help drastically reduced.

Take care of the ordinary things while fixing the big things...

Rob Thornton
12-15-2009, 10:04 PM
Bill,
Are there going to be any specific qualifications of functions the Army wants its leaders of a given rank or position to be capable of doing? Are we going to see for example what the Army wants out of a DIV CDR or MG? Will we be able to walk that back through one or more developmental paths and look at what possible assignments or experiences might produce that leader?

An example question might be what prepares someone to take on being a COCOM CDR or a service chief? If we can't qualify what it is we expect that leader to be capable of at a given level, I'm not sure we can really get to how we develop them to do so.

Best, Rob

Bill Jakola
12-16-2009, 02:48 AM
the Army has changed to self service, where the individual soldier is expected to monitor their records, medical status, DTS, and oh, don't forget your professional reading!

Great point! Yes, self serve is a big part of it. Also, I too have reserve experience and can empathize with the extra challenges Citizen-Soldiers face. And don't even get me started on the difficulties of DTS; you are preaching to the choir there.

However, back to self serve; the Army has always required Soldiers to monitor their records, medical status, travel, and conduct professional reading. Although Soldiers rely on bureaucratic systems to assist in these areas, those who aggressively manage their own are more prepared and tend to be ready when called to duty. More importantly, the skills required to overcome poorly made systems, like DTS, are the type needed for complex problem solving. I am not saying that it we should provide Soldiers with a broken system just to train them on working within a suboptimal bureaucracy; but that fixing the system will not remove the requirement for developing those skills. Success in the operational environment requires adaptive, resilient, Soldiers who are constantly looking for innovative way to solve problems and know how to ask the right questions.

Bill Jakola

Keep your powder dry!

Bill Jakola
12-16-2009, 02:58 AM
Bill,
Are there going to be any specific qualifications of functions the Army wants its leaders of a given rank or position to be capable of doing? Are we going to see for example what the Army wants out of a DIV CDR or MG? Will we be able to walk that back through one or more developmental paths and look at what possible assignments or experiences might produce that leader?

Best, Rob

I do not claim to be all things TRADOC and do not know the answers to your many excellent questions. What I say here is only the view from my foxhole. But, I can tell you that the ALDS is a base document that will have annexes that should help answer at least some of your questions.

Also, you and others in this discussion may benefit from reading the "Global Achievement Gap" book by Tony Wagner--and no I don't get a commission. This educator dissects learning and some of the shortcommings in our education system. Many of Mr. Wagner's observations can apply to leader development and the methods we use.

Bill Jakola

Keep your powder dry!

marct
12-16-2009, 12:25 PM
Hi Rob,


Are there going to be any specific qualifications of functions the Army wants its leaders of a given rank or position to be capable of doing? Are we going to see for example what the Army wants out of a DIV CDR or MG? Will we be able to walk that back through one or more developmental paths and look at what possible assignments or experiences might produce that leader?


I do not claim to be all things TRADOC and do not know the answers to your many excellent questions. What I say here is only the view from my foxhole. But, I can tell you that the ALDS is a base document that will have annexes that should help answer at least some of your questions.

This is, of course, one of the most crucial things. I've already emailed Bill with a suggested POC from the CF who has done that for us (shoot me an email if you want same ;)).

The ALDS is, from what I can see, a political document - a strategy for competing in the bureaucratic battlespace. The appendices - and why is TRADOC using the French Annexes (?!) - should contain the actualities of it. Personally, I would hope that they have a good theoretical model of leader development, but I doubt they do which, BTW, is not a slam at TRADOC. The best ones I've seen, coming out of both the CF and the management literature, are still pretty sparse in terms of really thinking through implications and connections and they are, IMO, based on demonstrably false metaphysical and ontological models.

My musings at this point in time lean towards the idea that what TRADOC should seriously consider doing is to develop such a theoretical model using a variant of red teaming with an extremely interdisciplinary crowd of people before they produce cast in stone operational outlines. The analogy I like to use is that you would want to plan out a campaign until you had a map of the battlespace, so why are you doing so in this instance?

What bugs me is that there actually are a decent collection of methodological techniques for developing such a model, but they don't appear to be used. Building a map of the campaign territory isn't that hard, but it is complex and requires some very odd ways of looking at things (e.g. imagine trying to design mapping conventions for a terrain that is constantly changing; you know how much fun that is ;)).

Bill Jakola
03-01-2010, 08:21 PM
ALCON: the TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference (TSLC) is next week 9-11 March 2010 at Williamsburg, VA. This is an important venue for continuing the discussion from the last TSLC in August.

The conference will bring together many of the Army’s senior professionals to discuss ways to improve the training and education of America’s Soldiers under the theme, “Our Army’s Campaign of Learning.” The recently published Army Capstone Concept (ACC) describes the broad capabilities the Army will require to fight in the future, and provides the common language and conceptual foundation for an ongoing campaign of learning and analysis. The prioritized capabilities that emerge from the ACC and the other, more detailed Warfighter Function (WfF) and Operating concepts will guide changes across DOTMLPF.

The Army of the future will learn differently, build leaders differently, train differently and redesign itself more quickly. And the capstone concept serves as our “line of departure” for building that Army.

During Day 1 of the conference, our Centers of Excellence will have their first opportunity to backbrief the implications of the ACC to their WfFs and the associated 1st Order Required Capabilities.

During Day 2, we will focus on developing some tangible solutions to assist in developing a new learning concept for our Army. We recognize we live in an increasingly competitive world. The important corollary of this is that we live in a competitive learning environment. In this environment, the nation and its military that learn the fastest, and the best, are going to prevail. To that end, we are developing a new learning concept to provide the basis for building an Army education system adapted to the learning styles and information needs of its learners, while ensuring we still deliver the high-quality content our Soldiers need and deserve.

Also at TSLC, we will have military bloggers as well as traditional media covering this conference so you can all be part of the ongoing conversation.

Bill Jakola

marct
03-01-2010, 08:33 PM
Hi Bill,

I'm certainly glad to hear that the conversation will be continuing ;). Do you have a list of the bloggers, yet, who will be there?

Cheers,

Marc

Bill Jakola
03-01-2010, 08:37 PM
The new FM 5.0 is out; here is the link and forward: http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/FM50/
"The environment in which we conduct operations is characterized by four clear trends: growing uncertainty, rapid change, increased competitiveness, and greater decentralization. Given these trends, our leaders must expect and be prepared to confront a variety of complex problems, most of which will include myriad interdependent variables and all of which will include a human dimension.

With the publication of FM 5-0, The Operations Process, and the introduction of design into our doctrine, we highlight the importance of understanding complex problems more fully before we seek to solve them through our traditional planning processes.

Design is neither a process nor a checklist. It is a critical and creative thinking methodology to help commanders understand the environment, analyze problems, and consider potential approaches so they can exploit opportunities, identify vulnerabilities, and anticipate transitions during a campaign.

Commanders apply design to understand before entering the visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess cycle. Einstein once said, “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.” Combining design with the military decision making process provides Army leaders with a more comprehensive approach to problem solving under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. The mission narrative produced through design enables leaders to articulate the context in which they operate to both subordinates and superiors alike.

In addition to the introduction of design, this revision of FM 5-0 builds on and expands the body of doctrine associated with full spectrum operations described in the 2008 edition of FM 3-0, Operations. Moving beyond planning and orders production, this manual holistically addresses planning, preparation, execution, and assessment in the continuous learning cycle of the operations process. It reinforces the central role of commanders in the operations process through battle command—applying the art and science of understanding, visualizing, describing, directing, leading, and assessing operations—in exercising effective command and control. The intent of FM 5-0 is to encourage greater flexibility through critical thought, action, and initiative. Army leaders must not only develop effective plans, they must be able to convert those plans into timely action while maintaining the capability to reframe and adapt as the situation changes in an increasingly dynamic operational environment. "

Bill Jakola

Bill Jakola
03-01-2010, 08:39 PM
Hi Bill,

I'm certainly glad to hear that the conversation will be continuing ;). Do you have a list of the bloggers, yet, who will be there?

Cheers,

Marc

Bouhammer and Jimbo are confirmed.

marct
03-01-2010, 08:47 PM
Hi Bill,


Bouhammer and Jimbo are confirmed.

Sounds good. Toss up the URLs just before they start up as a way of reminding people here that we call all get some input.

Cheers,

Marc

Bill Jakola
03-01-2010, 08:54 PM
Hi Bill,



Sounds good. Toss up the URLs just before they start up as a way of reminding people here that we call all get some input.

Cheers,

Marc

Will do Marc; thanks for the guidance. As you know, we do pay attention to the blogs, as they provide an invaluable source of independent viewpoints.

Bill Jakola

selil
03-01-2010, 09:42 PM
Bouhammer and Jimbo are confirmed.

Any academics with education theory backgrounds going to be attending?

Bill Jakola
03-01-2010, 10:48 PM
Any academics with education theory backgrounds going to be attending?

Yes, we plan to have Tony Wagner, an educator who wrote "The Global Achievement Gap". Also, we will have many educators from within the Army; and although they may not have specific backgrounds in education theory, they will have much practical experience.

Bill Jakola

PhilR
03-02-2010, 05:40 PM
The new FM 5.0 is out; here is the link and forward: http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/FM50/

Commanders apply design to understand before entering the visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess cycle. Einstein once said, “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.” Combining design with the military decision making process provides Army leaders with a more comprehensive approach to problem solving under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. The mission narrative produced through design enables leaders to articulate the context in which they operate to both subordinates and superiors alike.

Bill Jakola

The more I think about Design, and its implications as it moves into broader use at multiple levels in the chain of command, I'm struck by the potential effects of having each level conducting Design. As you work your way down from a theater level to a battalion, let's say, guidance to subordinates will need to be clear enough to ensure that the subordinates Design is fully nested and supportive of the higher's purpose/intent. While on the face, this is no different from the current thinking behind mission orders, etc. Design strikes me as emphasizing higher guidance as merely a basis to start from and being less concretely directive as it has previously been interpreted.

Each level tends to seek to maximize success at its level. This is a general good. However, there are many instances where supporting or subordinate efforts cannot be allowed to "maximize" because it will hurt the overall mission. Here is where a subordinates Design must fully account for his mission in the perspective of his boss's mission. Once again, none of this is new, but the local emphasis of COIN tends to support solutions that may work locally, but cause problems in knitting together a larger solution (favoring one tribe in an area because they can provide security, but that creates larger political divisions in the province, etc.).
s/f
Phil Ridderhof
USMC

William F. Owen
03-02-2010, 07:03 PM
Sorry Bill, I've really tried to understand this, but I cannot.


Design is neither a process nor a checklist. It is a critical and creative thinking methodology to help commanders understand the environment, analyze problems, and consider potential approaches so they can exploit opportunities, identify vulnerabilities, and anticipate transitions during a campaign.
How is that different from planning done by skilled people?

The mission narrative produced through design enables leaders to articulate the context in which they operate to both subordinates and superiors alike. Mission narrative? Commanders need to state the mission as clearly and simply as possible. That's it. What else is there?

How is a mission statement prepared by "design" different from one prepared done by skilled and competent folk.

Any chance someone without an AKO can get hold of this?

Hacksaw
03-02-2010, 09:02 PM
Can a man get an Amen from the congregation...

I've read the draft doctrine...

I've heard the rationales and anecdotes...

It has been made clear to me that if I don't see the difference between competent planning and design, then perhaps I'm just too dense...

I don't think I'm that thick...

(Edit to include) Snake Oil...


Live well and row

Bill Jakola
03-02-2010, 11:33 PM
Sorry Bill, I've really tried to understand this, but I cannot.

How is that different from planning done by skilled people?
Mission narrative? Commanders need to state the mission as clearly and simply as possible. That's it. What else is there?

How is a mission statement prepared by "design" different from one prepared done by skilled and competent folk.

Any chance someone without an AKO can get hold of this?

William,

I am not the 5.0 expert and although it seems to make sense to me; I have forwarded your questions to the doctrine people to help find answers to your qustions. Also, I asked about getting access without ako.

Bill

wm
03-03-2010, 12:14 AM
Can a man get an Amen from the congregation...

I've read the draft doctrine...

I've heard the rationales and anecdotes...

It has been made clear to me that if I don't see the difference between competent planning and design, then perhaps I'm just too dense...

I don't think I'm that thick...

(Edit to include) Snake Oil...


Or, Injun Joe's Slo-Motion Potion--good for trifles, snifles, and carbine rifles, zits, fits, and sagging ####.

Only 15 bucks a bottle through this special offer. But wait! There's more if you act now. We'll also throw in a free copy of FM5.01(R), COIN by Design. When you order , don't forget to include that R (for ridiculous)

selil
03-03-2010, 01:34 AM
William,

I am not the 5.0 expert and although it seems to make sense to me; I have forwarded your questions to the doctrine people to help find answers to your qustions. Also, I asked about getting access without ako.

Bill

Bill I don't have AKO access. I do however teach Design. In fact I teach architectural design and analysis of networks. Though information technology is woefully far afield of waging war (though some would say they are the same).

There are a host of design methodologies and decision making techniques. From the ubiquitous and flawed waterfall model (stuff roles down hill), to the Boehm (and others) spiral models of iterative processes (also used by ISO/ANSI and others).

Planning on the other hand can use the same techniques, and other strategies such as structured analysis. I will say if you really want to screw up design and analysis you will have to ask the Air Force for their expertise. In my view design is an umbrella for planning but we're likely just making word salad anyways.

Not that I expect this to happen.

If TRADOC wants to officially ask me to review the document (FM for Design), release the document to me, and acknowledge that release. I will provide a synopsis of my findings. <- Why that? Stupid people making threats about professors getting FOUO info when they disagreed with the findings. And, heck I won't even charge them $15K that they pay others

marct
03-03-2010, 01:48 AM
In my view design is an umbrella for planning but we're likely just making word salad anyways.

"Design" is more of a power word than "plan"; it conveys more of a "God like" height :wry:.

More seriously, I think it reflects the extreme engineering orientation of a lot of military doctrine. Not that that is bad per se, but it can have certain, hmmm, let's say "epistemological limitations" when it comes to dealing with lived reality.

Selil, you mentioned ISO. Did you ever look at the old ISO 9004? It's an intriguing example of how fuzzy "design" has to get once you add nasty people into it (like the "enemy") who insist on doing things their own way.


If TRADOC wants to officially ask me to review the document (FM for Design), release the document to me, and acknowledge that release. I will provide a synopsis of my findings. <- Why that? Stupid people making threats about professors getting FOUO info when they disagreed with the findings. And, heck I won't even charge them $15K that they pay others

15k?!?!?! Drat!

selil
03-03-2010, 03:17 AM
More seriously, I think it reflects the extreme engineering orientation of a lot of military doctrine. Not that that is bad per se, but it can have certain, hmmm, let's say "epistemological limitations" when it comes to dealing with lived reality.

The engineering bend to education and waging war I think is an effect of attempting to put everything in quantifiable terms. The push of the quants relies on the engineers to make it happen. Though the word design is definitely part of the qual side of the house. "Good" design can have horrible metrics.


Selil, you mentioned ISO. Did you ever look at the old ISO 9004? It's an intriguing example of how fuzzy "design" has to get once you add nasty people into it (like the "enemy") who insist on doing things their own way.

I'm currently a SME on the ISO/TC WG for "Societal Security". I was appointed by the US ANSI chair to help with the technical questions they had. Not much for me now but it was interesting for awhile. So, I've also worked with 900X, 2700X and a few other ISO standards.



15k?!?!?! Drat!

I know I'm cheap but I am a gray beard. I just never was a general.

William F. Owen
03-03-2010, 06:18 AM
I have to say, I'm really intrigued by this "Design" stuff because it's proto-form "Systemic Operational Design" failed under fire in real operations, in terms of being unable to produce clear and concise orders.
The classic being the one that told an Infantry Brigade Commander to "Render the enemy incoherent within the operational area."

Moreover, what I read about "Design" makes no sense. I've come to the conclusion that planning is the product of skilled people, based on experience. "Understanding the problem" cannot be held to be a separate or discrete process, as in military operations you have to plan for not having understood the problems correctly, because the enemy is trying to make a mess of your plan - and often you have to compensate for your guys making a mess of your plan!!!

MikeF
03-03-2010, 01:55 PM
I have to say, I'm really intrigued by this "Design" stuff because it's proto-form "Systemic Operational Design" failed under fire in real operations, in terms of being unable to produce clear and concise orders.
The classic being the one that told an Infantry Brigade Commander to "Render the enemy incoherent within the operational area."

Moreover, what I read about "Design" makes no sense. I've come to the conclusion that planning is the product of skilled people, based on experience. "Understanding the problem" cannot be held to be a separate or discrete process, as in military operations you have to plan for not having understood the problems correctly, because the enemy is trying to make a mess of your plan - and often you have to compensate for your guys making a mess of your plan!!!

Hi Wilf,

I agree. Much of the late 1990's systems based problem solving techniques were useless in the field. Even down on the battalion level, I've received orders that said we were focused on security, governance, economics, and no social reforms. I'd say, "No Sh*t, but what do you want me to DO?" I rarely got a response.

Design, as I understand it is a means to take a complex situation, sort through it, and finish with a simple order. In terms of MDMP, it's a way to really wrestle and determine your facts and assumptions before jumping into IPB and COA development.

Here's a brief outline of how I did it on the company level for y'all's critique.

Phase One: Shaping the Environment

1. Understanding the Environment
- Conflict Ecosystem- fill in the bubbles of Dr. K's chart.
- Cultural Immersion- develop empathy and understanding of the internal stakeholders' grievances and vulnerabilities
- Prepare a General Area Survey. How did/do the previous and current stakeholder's define the problem?
- Develop a Hypothesis on the Situation

2. Testing the Environment
- Conduct reconnaissance and surveillance to gather intelligence to confirm/deny hypothesis.
- Conduct leader engagements to gather intelligence to confirm/deny hypothesis

3. Defining the Environment
- Full out planning process. Facts and Assumptions are determined based off initial efforts and decisions are made. Commander determines how the world is and how he wants to influence it. Simple OPORD is endstate.

4. Influecing the Environment
- Develop the Message
- Conduct Psychwarfare to get the truth out
- Conduct Deception operations as needed to assist in your initial penetration during clearance.
- Disruption Operations. Targeted raids, ambushes to prepare the environment by disrupt the enemy's infracstructure, maneuver, and morale.

marct
03-03-2010, 06:13 PM
Hi Folks,

Bill Jakola has sent me a copy of the final approved draft of FM 5.0 for posting here. You can download it from here (NB: this is the updated location (http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/fm5-0-draft-20100225.pdf))
Cheers,

Marc

wm
03-03-2010, 06:52 PM
The following extracts from FM 5.0 point out what I find to be a fatal flaw in the "Design" construct.

3.26 Commanders use design to ensure they are solving the right problem. When commanders use design, they closely examine the symptoms, the underlying tensions, and the root causes of conflict in the operational environment. From this perspective, they can identify the fundamental problem with greater clarity and consider more accurately how to solve it. Design is essential to ensuring commanders identify the right problem to solve.

3-36. Three distinct elements collectively produce a design concept as depicted in figure 3-1. Together, they constitute an organizational learning methodology that corresponds to three basic questions that must be answered to produce an actionable design concept to guide detailed planning:

Framing the operational environment—what is the context in which design will be applied?


Framing the problem—what problem is the design intended to solve?


Considering operational approaches—what broad, general approach will solve the problem?

The first paragraph (3.26) says that design helps one figure out what problem one is supposed to solve. That is, the design frames the problem. But the second paragraph (3-36) says that the problem frames the design. Unless "design" is being equivocally in these two paragraphs, this seems to say that design aids one to understand the problem by understanding the problem.
Or, maybe I'm just as dense as Hacksaw (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=94365&postcount=160). :rolleyes:

Ron Humphrey
03-03-2010, 06:58 PM
The following extracts from FM 5.0 point oput what I find to be the fatal flaw in the "Design" construct.

The first paragraph (3.26) says that design helps one figure out what problem one is supposed to solve. That is, the design frames the problem. But the second paragraph (3-36) says that the problem frames the design. Unless "design" is being equivocally in these two paragraphs, this seems to say that design aids one to understand the problem by understanding the problem.
Or, maybe I'm just as dense as Hacksaw (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=94365&postcount=160). :rolleyes:

Without trying to either defend or attack said statement
Riddle me this


Plan to build a house

< make it a steel house
-no nevermind make it out of bamboo
< and build it in a jungle next to a waterfall

Seems to me sometimes a problem can very well define direct the design-

Ready for incoming;)

wm
03-03-2010, 07:39 PM
Plan to build a house

< make it a steel house
-no nevermind make it out of bamboo
< and build it in a jungle next to a waterfall

Seems to me sometimes a problem can very well define direct the design- I agree completely. But I'd say you are using plan and design where the FM is using design and design (or design concept). Consider Figure 3.1 in the FM that portrays the three frames that make up/ (constrain?) the design: environmental frame, problem frame, and operational frame. I tried a similar thought experiment to yours, but since it is snowing where I am, my problem was set in a different environmental niche:

Context: I was left behind by the TRADOC team on a distant range while visiting the Arctic Region Test Center in Alaska (probably due to my snide comments about FM 5.0).

Environment Frame: I'm in a frozen, snow covered wasteland.
Problem Frame: I need to provide myself shelter
Operational Frame: I only have natively available material to use to build the shelter.

What is it about these three parameters that will drive me to see that a good solution (aka design concept) is to build an igloo?

By the way, for those familiar with how the Army assesses training, do the three frames remind anyone besides me of task, condition, and standard?
(I'll be charitable and accept that maybe my way of trying to understand what is really meant by the environmental, problem, and operational frames is colored by my experiences and does not demonstrate the creative thinking that, along with critical thinking, is a necessary precursor to successfully design according to paragraph 3-1 of the FM.)

marct
03-03-2010, 08:27 PM
Hi WM,


Context: I was left behind by the TRADOC team on a distant range while visiting the Arctic Region Test Center in Alaska (probably due to my snide comments about FM 5.0).

Environment Frame: I'm in a frozen, snow covered wasteland.
Problem Frame: I need to provide myself shelter
Operational Frame: I only have natively available material to use to build the shelter.

What is it about these three parameters that will drive me to see that a good solution (aka design concept) is to build an igloo?

Of course, FM 1C-E hasn't been released yet, so what you will obviously need to do is to hire a doctrinal consultant (at 15k Selil says) to study the problem. Personally, I think that this is really a failure of strategic vision ("Alaska? Ar you crazy! I'm going to the DR!"), but we could debate that endlessly. I will note, however, that if you had an embedded HTT they might, assuming they actually had an area specialist, note that asking the natives for their suggestion would be a good idea ;).


I'll be charitable and accept that maybe my way of trying to understand what is really meant by the environmental, problem, and operational frames is colored by my experiences and does not demonstrate the creative thinking that, along with critical thinking, is a necessary precursor to successfully design according to paragraph 3-1 of the FM.

Right. Obviously, you need to put your immediate situation in a global, strategic context in the same manner as a congressman: immediately call for a full investigation to take place in the DR :eek::D.

Hacksaw
03-03-2010, 08:55 PM
Without trying to either defend or attack said statement
Riddle me this


Plan to build a house

< make it a steel house
-no nevermind make it out of bamboo
< and build it in a jungle next to a waterfall

Seems to me sometimes a problem can very well define direct the design-

Ready for incoming;)


Does this qualify as a dog pile... even so it was instigated by SWC version of "bring it on"...

Ron, I don't think anyone would argue that it is best to determine where and what type of house one wants to build prior to laying a foundation ;)

What most of us would argue is that a good plan kind of strives to understand the problem well enough to answer those questions... if not the plans staff is an abysmal collection of dope smokers (not beyond the realm of the possible - I've been accused of just that in the past)...:p

However, I will accept that Design might (MIGHT) be a useful construct at the strategic level in response to a question by the president that says, "CDR, USSOUTHCOM I really want to help the people of Haiti who have been so tragically impacted by the misfortune of geography, what can we do"

At that point I'd like his planners to assist their brothers in USAID in thinking through what should vs. what can be done in support and why... and offer those thoughts back to the CinC for his contemplative thought prior to sending 1st AD on RORO to provide security (note we could do this, but probably don't want to)...

If tactical units get orders/tasks that are so froggy that a young officer (see MikeF response) must use design to figure it out... shame on the issuing staff's CDR, CoS, G3 and staff... that is problem of professionalism and not a gap in doctrine:mad:

Ron Humphrey
03-03-2010, 09:01 PM
I would have taken one step further back in the process


I agree completely. But I'd say you are using plan and design where the FM is using design and design (or design concept). Consider Figure 3.1 in the FM that portrays the three frames that make up/ (constrain?) the design: environmental frame, problem frame, and operational frame. I tried a similar thought experiment to yours, but since it is snowing where I am, my problem was set in a different environmental niche:

Context: I was left behind by the TRADOC team on a distant range while visiting the Arctic Region Test Center in Alaska (probably due to my snide comments about FM 5.0).

1- Call them on your trusty lil sat phone(which I'm sure you have on you) and say your sorry for your slight over exuberance.



Environment Frame: I'm in a frozen, snow covered wasteland.
Problem Frame: I need to provide myself shelter
Operational Frame: I only have natively available material to use to build the shelter.

Use the time waiting for a ride to dig a hole in the snow to get out of the wind(something which may very likely lead you to consider adding a roof to the mix)

Use the snow from the hole to build a beacon snowman so they can easily locate you(might help if its a monument to TRADOC's greatness:D)



What is it about these three parameters that will drive me to see that a good solution (aka design concept) is to build an igloo?

Think Marc addressed this one well (asking locals)



By the way, for those familiar with how the Army assesses training, do the three frames remind anyone besides me of task, condition, and standard?
(I'll be charitable and accept that maybe my way of trying to understand what is really meant by the environmental, problem, and operational frames is colored by my experiences and does not demonstrate the creative thinking that, along with critical thinking, is a necessary precursor to successfully design according to paragraph 3-1 of the FM.)


Although I get that they might seem similar it might be of note That the former do tend to lead to ones expectation of a (how to ) to be found in the document.

Hasn't that been one of our biggest complaints about Doctrine in the past

Ill leave it to the pro's to defend the approaches and/or written word, Just figured I'd share why at least so far from what I've read it makes sense to me.

Course I'm really not the target audience:D

Ron Humphrey
03-03-2010, 09:18 PM
Does this qualify as a dog pile... even so it was instigated by SWC version of "bring it on"...

Ron, I don't think anyone would argue that it is best to determine where and what type of house one wants to build prior to laying a foundation ;)

What most of us would argue is that a good plan kind of strives to understand the problem well enough to answer those questions... if not the plans staff is an abysmal collection of dope smokers (not beyond the realm of the possible - I've been accused of just that in the past)...:p

Of course good planning attempts to account for variables and possible branches from the original guidances. Perhaps a more relevant question; is that really what lies at the heart of this issue.

Or is it more likely that when one goes about the task of providing effective guidance part of the well thought out planning should include the fact that even given perfect orders those like Mike will still more often then not have to do some of what he stated do to the proximity to the actual application of said plan.



However, I will accept that Design might (MIGHT) be a useful construct at the strategic level in response to a question by the president that says, "CDR, USSOUTHCOM I really want to help the people of Haiti who have been so tragically impacted by the misfortune of geography, what can we do"

At that point I'd like his planners to assist their brothers in USAID in thinking through what should vs. what can be done in support and why... and offer those thoughts back to the CinC for his contemplative thought prior to sending 1st AD on RORO to provide security (note we could do this, but probably don't want to)...

If tactical units get orders/tasks that are so froggy that a young officer (see MikeF response) must use design to figure it out... shame on the issuing staff's CDR, CoS, G3 and staff... that is problem of professionalism and not a gap in doctrine:mad:

So do you mean you'd want them to design various approaches to provide the administration with viable options?
:wry:

marct
03-03-2010, 09:30 PM
I think one of the key phrases is in 3.26 "Commanders use design to ensure they are solving the right problem. [ emphasis added ]". Now, part of the problem with this comes right afterwards:


When commanders use design, they closely examine the symptoms, the underlying tensions, and the root causes of conflict in the operational environment.

Who defines what are the "root causes"? There is an underlying assumption that the commanders will be able to identify them which, IMO, is all sorts of hubris.


From this perspective, they can identify the fundamental problem with greater clarity and consider more accurately how to solve it. Design is essential to ensuring commanders identify the right problem to solve.

In theory, this sounds wonderful, but what if the underlying problem is some ID10t error of a politician or a trans-national corporation with lots of "friends" in DC? Should this be understood as a doctrinal rationale for the assassination of home grown (i.e. US politicians)?

Okay, I'll admit that may appear to be a touch on the reductio ad absurdam side but, given the beliefs of many in the world, I don't think it is too far out. There is what I can only describe as a very dangerous lack of limits placed on the way this concept is expounded.

Ron Humphrey
03-03-2010, 09:43 PM
Who defines what are the "root causes"? There is an underlying assumption that the commanders will be able to identify them which, IMO, is all sorts of hubris.

Interestingly enough the underlying assumption for me here would be if they couldn't they'd be taking the time to find someone who could.



In theory, this sounds wonderful, but what if the underlying problem is some ID10t error of a politician or a trans-national corporation with lots of "friends" in DC? Should this be understood as a doctrinal rationale for the assassination of home grown (i.e. US politicians)?

Okay, I'll admit that may appear to be a touch on the reductio ad absurdam side but, given the beliefs of many in the world, I don't think it is too far out. There is what I can only describe as a very dangerous lack of limits placed on the way this concept is expounded.

In regards to the first you fight the battles your given not the one's you choose(sorta) wasn't there this old saying about spilled milk

As for limitations, have you seen anywhere yet that the final products already well institutionalized are going away?

Bill Jakola
03-03-2010, 09:43 PM
If tactical units get orders/tasks that are so froggy that a young officer (see MikeF response) must use design to figure it out... shame on the issuing staff's CDR, CoS, G3 and staff... that is problem of professionalism and not a gap in doctrine:mad:

Hacksaw,

Well, like I said before, I’m no experts on FM 5.0 or design but here is a view as I see it.

Our doctrine is changing to meet the complexity and competitive nature of the environment in which we now must operate. For example, battle command, the art of maneuvering forces and managing violence shifts toward mission command, to reflect the reality that the instrument of military power is also largely a national tool for doing many things traditionally outside the military’s purview.

FM 3.0, describes full spectrum operations (FSO) as Offense, Defense, and Stability Operations, which means leaders must be grounded not only in the tactics, techniques and procedures of force on force, but also in integrating capabilities with others in a battlespace that’s increasingly crowded and transparent.

Therefore, if we decentralize capability and authority to lower tactical levels, to empower the edge, then leaders at these levels need mission command type orders that are broad and not so prescriptive that they can’t develop the situation on their own.

I see design as the means that empowers these junior leaders to do just that—develop the situation.

Bill Jakola

William F. Owen
03-04-2010, 06:13 AM
Our doctrine is changing to meet the complexity and competitive nature of the environment in which we now must operate.
....but that is simply not true.
a.) It could be that the doctrine was always very poor and badly written. No one seems to want to ask that one.
b.) Warfare simply cannot get more complex and competitive than it was 600-1,000 years ago! - however the US Army can be less-skilled than it was in understanding the application of force for political purpose.

The vast majority of what is getting written is simply addressing imagined problems. I have yet to see a "So what" document that manages to get past that.


For example, battle command, the art of maneuvering forces and managing violence shifts toward mission command, to reflect the reality that the instrument of military power is also largely a national tool for doing many things traditionally outside the military’s purview.
So essentially you are saying people do not understand the application of military power? - Regular and Irregular Warfare are not mysteries. We know exactly what works and what does not. The only place confusion exists seems to be in Western Armies concepts and doctrine.


FM 3.0, describes full spectrum operations (FSO) as Offense, Defense, and Stability Operations, which means leaders must be grounded not only in the tactics, techniques and procedures of force on force, but also in integrating capabilities with others in a battlespace that’s increasingly crowded and transparent.
What capabilities and who is the crowd? How is the battlefield more transparent than it was in 1970?

Bill, not giving you a hard time for fun. I really struggle with this stuff as I see smart men telling me things that make no sense once I hear it, or see it written down.

Infanteer
03-04-2010, 11:15 AM
Why does doctrine progressively get more complicated and misty - the estimate process is turning into a doctrinal thesis. I'm waiting for the Doctrine guy who chucks most of the manuals and is able to issue doctrinal pamphlets that can be carried by, issued to, read and understood by all leaders at all levels. When I show this stuff to my Sergeants, they laugh and say "whatever". Pretty bad when doctrine is spit out and not read by 95% of the target audience.

Fuchs
03-04-2010, 11:51 AM
Armed services are bureaucracies. This explains a lot.
It explains prejudices, limited perception, the piling up of problems, red tape, slow reaction, rigidity - few problems really surprise you once you understand that armed services are bureaucracies.


There's a kind of solution.

Have an army. Observe how it turns into an inefficient bureacracy.
Take a selection of 100 high potential people, educate them and let them found a Marine Corps.
Let the Marine Corps take over the army's mission step by step.
Downsize the army to zero within 25 years. Don't transfer more than one selected per cent of army personnel to the MC.
Observe how it (the MC) turns into an inefficient bureacracy.
Take a selection of 100 high potential people, educate them and let them found an army.
(...)

wm
03-04-2010, 12:18 PM
Why does doctrine progressively get more complicated and misty - the estimate process is turning into a doctrinal thesis. I'm waiting for the Doctrine guy who chucks most of the manuals and is able to issue doctrinal pamphlets that can be carried by, issued to, read and understood by all leaders at all levels. When I show this stuff to my Sergeants, they laugh and say "whatever". Pretty bad when doctrine is spit out and not read by 95% of the target audience.

Could it be that this advance on complexity is part of a self-fulfilling prophecy? We are being told that conducting COIN is the graduate level of military operations. If one accepts that premise, then the doctrine needed to execute "graduate-level" warfare must also be on the order of some Ph.D. dissertation in an area of arcane wisdom. :rolleyes:

After slogging through the opening chapters of the FM, I concluded that its authors could have summed up design with the sentence, "Submit the environment to circumspection ere traveling some feet of space via muscular projection."
I also suspect that most folks on the ground who are performing successfully and not just reacting to what happens around them could express that one sentence summary much more succinctly: "Look before you leap."

Hacksaw
03-04-2010, 02:45 PM
Hacksaw,

Well, like I said before, I’m no experts on FM 5.0 or design but here is a view as I see it.

Our doctrine is changing to meet the complexity and competitive nature of the environment in which we now must operate. For example, battle command, the art of maneuvering forces and managing violence shifts toward mission command, to reflect the reality that the instrument of military power is also largely a national tool for doing many things traditionally outside the military’s purview.

FM 3.0, describes full spectrum operations (FSO) as Offense, Defense, and Stability Operations, which means leaders must be grounded not only in the tactics, techniques and procedures of force on force, but also in integrating capabilities with others in a battlespace that’s increasingly crowded and transparent.

Therefore, if we decentralize capability and authority to lower tactical levels, to empower the edge, then leaders at these levels need mission command type orders that are broad and not so prescriptive that they can’t develop the situation on their own.

I see design as the means that empowers these junior leaders to do just that—develop the situation.

Bill Jakola

Like Wilf... this isn't being an internet troll for the sake of being obtuse... and I know you aren't the author... and what you are doing is in fact an element of IO (that isn't a bad thing), but the problem is that the message has to be credible... Sorry, but the last two paragraphs don't cut the mustard... I am intimately aware of the trust and responsibility that we put in junior leaders... however, they have an MTOE and METL... we have a reasonable expectation that if given a tactical task, that they can develop the implied tasks necessary to achieve the desired endstate in their AO... If the Army's envisioned actions of a Junior Leader is that he parses the higher headquarters order... and says well I know what it says but I don't agree with the problem to be solved and moves ahead on that assessment... well we need to dispense with BN, DIV, Corps HQs...

If a BN can't give clear enough orders to a CO-Grade LDR so that he understands his environment, adjacent and high missions, and tasks... no amount of Design rub is going to solve that fundamental problem...

I would argue that if BCT & below are conducting Design as most recently described in Doctrine... it is a failure of senior leadership and the SAMS program. Must a tactical unit continually develop their understanding of the battlespace? Ah yea... Should a tactical unit, as a matter of routine, have to question what the hell they ought to do??? ah no....

Now I would characterize Gian (my friend) issues with the Army as the "COIN-ification" of the force... that FM 3-24 has become our operational doctrine and that this is bad.... I'm not sure I agree, I think he over-estimates the effect but I understand the concern....

This Design nonsense is I think far more worrisome... It essentially proposes that our doctrine didn't tell us that we had to think critically about our environment during the mission analysis/running estimate process... that of course is not the case - its just that (the corporate) we didn't do it... we didn't demand it of ourselves... we became great at inserting google earth screen captures and GPS, but lost the ability to look at contour lines and envision what the hell they really meant, see an overhead picture of urban sprawl and forgot who populated those structures that weren't on our maps... Strategic planners forgot what they learned as tactical and operational planners... namely that you have to understand the task org and its capabilities, you have to give a task that makes SENSE, and you have to give a piece of terrain to the subordinate leaders that, in terms of both geography and logical boundaries, allows the subordinate to achieve the mission... and you have to organize that activity in relation to the other military activities in the battlespace...

I really don't like to rant, and lack the patience to go back through this and take out the invective, but in the immortal words of Lewis Black... "well I can't help it, this sh!t pisses me off"

Live well and row

marct
03-04-2010, 02:46 PM
Still slogging through it, but I am getting increasingly frustrated by the way "uncertainty" is being used in such an uncritical, one might almost say "superstitious", manner.

Infanteer
03-04-2010, 05:05 PM
Ahh...good ole uncertainty. I'm pretty sure Tuthmose III was uncertain as his chariots rumbled into Megiddo. Isn't uncertainty just a by-product of human (thus, not always rational or predictable) interaction. How is uncertainty new?

wm
03-04-2010, 06:23 PM
Ahh...good ole uncertainty. I'm pretty sure Tuthmose III was uncertain as his chariots rumbled into Megiddo. Isn't uncertainty just a by-product of human (thus, not always rational or predictable) interaction. How is uncertainty new?

Uncertainty is most definitely not new. But the following may be worth pondering.

The more uncertainty one has, the more risk to which one is exposed. One way to reduce risk is to reduce uncertainty. I suspect that in an organizational milieu characterized by a low tolerance for risk (the organization is very risk averse), the reduction of uncertainty tends to assume a large role in the thinking of that organization's members.

On the move to Megiddo, Thutmose III may well have faced uncertainty about which road through the mountains was best to take, but the fact that he chose the narrow middle route seems to demonstrate that he was not risk averse.

Red Leg
03-04-2010, 08:41 PM
While uncertainty is war is definitely not new, the things about which we are uncertain are: What are out national goals in Iraq and Afghanistan? When will the remaining components of national power start contributing? What is the military's endstate? Does the Global War on Terrorism have an end in sight, or will the military be deployed indefinitely? How long can our economy support the current spending in Iraq and Afghanistan? What will our nation's stance be if Iraq's elections go south or Maliki loses but refuses to give up power?

Infanteer
03-05-2010, 05:19 AM
I'm sure Roman consuls asked the same questions, just with different names and places.

Bob's World
03-05-2010, 09:48 AM
Ok, I am going to take a serious look at this, but must confess, I couldn't get past the title.

Operating under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict

Or, said another way:

Employment of Military Power to Force Compliance with an Obsolete Foregin Policy in a Era of Strategic Uncertainty and Social Change

We can keep trying to build the perfect hammer at Defense, or we can draft a better blueprint at State. I look forward to reading this, and hope it strongly suggests the importance of the latter.

William F. Owen
03-05-2010, 10:06 AM
We can keep trying to build the perfect hammer at Defense, or we can draft a better blueprint at State. I look forward to reading this, and hope it strongly suggests the importance of the latter.

OK, but Armed force serves policy. The Army has to provide what the Policy maker requires - NOT provide what would work if the policy was easier to fulfil by military means. Armies are contractors, not clients.

Bob's World
03-05-2010, 12:35 PM
OK, but Armed force serves policy. The Army has to provide what the Policy maker requires - NOT provide what would work if the policy was easier to fulfil by military means. Armies are contractors, not clients.

Take the following quote from a General following his command tour in Afghanistan for example:

"We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best thing to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself. It may not be very flattering to our amour propres, but I feel sure I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us the less they will dislike us. Should Russia in future years attempt to conquer Afghanistan, or invade India through it, we shold have a better chance of attaching the Afghans to our interest if we avoid all interference with them in the meantime.


When General Frederick Roberts published that statement upon his return to Britain from the 1879 campaign it was because British policy toward Afhganistan was a matter of tremendous debate, and I suspect that as the recent commander on the ground there he felt he had some worthy insights for the policy types to take into account.


It is a bit chilling at how easy we could replace "Russia" with "AQ" and this insight would remain quite valid today.

marct
03-05-2010, 02:27 PM
While uncertainty is war is definitely not new, the things about which we are uncertain are: What are out national goals in Iraq and Afghanistan? When will the remaining components of national power start contributing? What is the military's endstate? Does the Global War on Terrorism have an end in sight, or will the military be deployed indefinitely? How long can our economy support the current spending in Iraq and Afghanistan? What will our nation's stance be if Iraq's elections go south or Maliki loses but refuses to give up power?

Have you noticed that all of these areas / sources of uncertainty are political and not the purview of the military (with the possible exception of #3)? I'll also note that the uncertainty contained in these points is derived from uncertainty about the actions of US politicians....

Red Leg
03-05-2010, 02:56 PM
Have you noticed that all of these areas / sources of uncertainty are political and not the purview of the military (with the possible exception of #3)? I'll also note that the uncertainty contained in these points is derived from uncertainty about the actions of US politicians....

While these areas are political, they are very much the purview of the military in the operational environment in Iraq and Afghanistan (whether they should be or not is another topic - see ADM Mullen's comments to KSU http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/us/04mullen.html?ref=world). US military commanders oversee the Gov of Iraq up through the Provincial level, and the MNF-I commander has considerable influence and responsibilty at the Iraqi national level (though he does have an Ambassador beside him).

Ken White
03-05-2010, 03:19 PM
While these areas are political, they are very much the purview of the military in the operational environment in Iraq and Afghanistan (whether they should be or not is another topic...)...That it is another topic. If one accepts that as true and the default position, perhaps. OTOH if one accepts that much of that 'default position' is due to budget and turf battles in DC as opposed to what makes sense in the wider world or even in Afghanistan and Iraq -- which I do -- then one might come to the conclusion that the priorities AND the developmental and implementing authorities are skewed.

While you're correct that the US Armed Forces are directly involved in making political policy (domestically and internationally), I think the question ought to be "should they be doing that?" Many would say that's an immaterial question, they are.

However, I ask why they seem to want to continue to make policy in a realm that is not and should not be theirs. I don't like the answer I keep coming back to... :eek:

marct
03-05-2010, 03:35 PM
However, I ask why they seem to want to continue to make policy in a realm that is not and should not be theirs. I don't like the answer I keep coming back to... :eek:

Neither do I Ken, which is why I raised the point. Just what does the concept of the military being subordinant to civilian control mean when the military is exercising powers, for whatever reason, which are clearly the responsibility of civilian groups without the umbrella of something such as "military occupation"?

At the conceptual level, and that's really where a lot of this discussion is at, should political decisions of this type be part of the military's decision making process with the assumption that they are (potentially) under military control? Wouldn't it make sense to categorize uncertainties by source where the "source" is the group that (supposedly) have "control" (whatever that means! :wry:) over the decision?

Red Leg
03-05-2010, 03:43 PM
While you're correct that the US Armed Forces are directly involved in making political policy (domestically and internationally), I think the question ought to be "should they be doing that?" Many would say that's an immaterial question, they are.

However, I ask why they seem to want to continue to make policy in a realm that is not and should not be theirs. I don't like the answer I keep coming back to... :eek:

The military commanders with whom I have had contact (up through division) never seemed like they wanted to make policy, foreign or domestic. I cannot not speak to commanders at corps and above (far above my paygrade). Not sure which answer you come back to Ken, but the answer I keep coming up with is: because nobody else will.

Wilf is correct

OK, but Armed force serves policy. The Army has to provide what the Policy maker requires - NOT provide what would work if the policy was easier to fulfil by military means. Armies are contractors, not clients.
though our contract is fairly open-ended. The issue comes back to "what do the policy makers require?"

wm
03-05-2010, 05:13 PM
http://www.meander.ca/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/harris-01.jpg

This cartoon pretty much sums up what I see as design and my issue with FM 5.0. And, by the way, the cartoon also shows what it will take for the folks who should be making national foreign policy decisons to actually make them and then express the requirements in a way that will enable the the "contractors" in DoD to fufill them.

Ken White
03-05-2010, 08:05 PM
The military commanders with whom I have had contact (up through division) never seemed like they wanted to make policy, foreign or domestic.I generally agree with that - but as you get to the Army MaComs and DA -- not to mention the CoComs and DoD proper -- they are quite concerned with policy and politics. Excessively so, some say.
Not sure which answer you come back to Ken, but the answer I keep coming up with is: because nobody else will.There's a bit of nobody else will -- or wants to -- but there's also a lot more of nobody else has the reach and the capability. That goes back to my recurring answer "OTOH if one accepts that much of that 'default position' is due to budget and turf battles in DC as opposed to what makes sense in the wider world or even in Afghanistan and Iraq -- which I do..."

Thus my belief that the priorities AND the developmental and implementing authorities are skewed...:(
Wilf is correct...though our contract is fairly open-ended. The issue comes back to "what do the policy makers require?"The answer is that they too often require things that DoD purposely has elected to not give them, therefor they must use ad-hoc solutions that are at least nominally within the capability that DoD can and will provide. We've seen since 1950 how that's worked out for us -- my take is not at all well...

Bill Jakola
03-05-2010, 08:47 PM
....but that is simply not true.
a.) It could be that the doctrine was always very poor and badly written. No one seems to want to ask that one.

William,

Your suggestion that our doctrine was not well written may have merit; let’s explore this. Measuring how well or poorly we developed doctrine requires us to understand the context. Thus for example, the 1993 FM 100-5 Operations captures the essence of this context question:

“Never static, always dynamic, the Army’s doctrine is firmly rooted in the realities of current capabilities. At the same time, it reaches out with a measure of confidence to the future. Doctrine captures the lessons of past wars, reflects the nature of war and conflict in its own time, and anticipates the intellectual and technological developments that will bring victory now and in the future.”

Now, just because the writers here intended to base their thinking on the past, current and future realities, does not mean they succeeded; and in retrospect, the validity of their doctrine (any doctrine) depends more on assumptions than intentions. Thus, we need to evaluate the validity of their assumptions.


....b.) Warfare simply cannot get more complex and competitive than it was 600-1,000 years ago! - however the US Army can be less-skilled than it was in understanding the application of force for political purpose.

This is where earlier doctrine writers may have come up short; for example, assuming certainty as the ability of technology to deliver us knowledge dominance -- the quality of firsts (see first, understand first, act first, and win decisively) – is not valid. But even here complexity is not new to our doctrine, as the following quote shows.

Chapter 1, page 1-1 of the 1993 FM 100-5; “Unlike the Cold War era when threats were measurable and, to some degree, predictable Army forces today are likely to encounter conditions of greater ambiguity and uncertainty. Doctrine must be able to accommodate this wider variety of threats.”

FM 5.0 seems to have assumptions of complexity, uncertainty, and continuous change. But let’s be clear; this appears as an acknowledgement of the nature of war and not a new aspect of war. War is war. Thus to say the operational environment is complex is not to say that war is more complex, it is just using the inherent complexity as an assumption to build doctrine.

Whereas, the increase may be in the competitive and transparent nature of the environment. Here we have some justification, as during the Cold War, we thought in terms of a bipolar world competition. Even though this was not completely accurate it did inform doctrine at least well enough to prevail in that conflict. But today our competition includes a number of near peers and other organizations below the nation-state like al Qaeda or a drug cartel. The transparency comes in the form of the 24 hour news cycle and the explosion of information available to almost anyone on the internet.


....So essentially you are saying people do not understand the application of military power? - Regular and Irregular Warfare are not mysteries. We know exactly what works and what does not. The only place confusion exists seems to be in Western Armies concepts and doctrine.

Perhaps you can draw this conclusion; and I do not deny it. But your conclusion is further than I am willing to go; because like I said, doctrine development depends on the context of the times. So instead of looking back to how well we did doctrine in the past I am purely focused on the validity of this current doctrine.

Bill Jakola

P. S. The March/April 2010 edition of Military Review has been posted online.

This issue includes the article "Field Manual 5-0: Exercising Command and Control in an Era of Persistent Conflict" by Colonel Clinton J. Ancker, III, U.S. Army, Retired, and Lieutenant Colonel Michael Flynn, U.S. Army, Retired. This article highlights the debut of the new manual.

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20100430_art005.pdf

Seerov
03-05-2010, 08:58 PM
Zen mate, not having a pop but...


ALL WAR has ALWAYS been uncertain and complex. Adaptation has ALWAYS been required. Media attention is utterly irrelevant unless commanders are taking their orders from the BBC. You conduct operations in line with political guidance from your chain on command. You do not modify a plan because you fear the media. You modify a plan so as it best gains the political objective you Commander in chief is seeking to achieve.


You cannot "manage" anything in war. You either react to it, or force it to do your will, by what ever means (ask nicely, ask, tell, and then force )

Sorry, the idea that "The media" has changed War is evidence free. The idea that modern war is complex, is progressed by those unable to understand it.



Media: I'm not sure the bombing of Dresden or Hamburg would possible today due to media influence. The Allies killed 200,000 people in 3 days (mostly all civilians). There's no way we could do that today. Do you think we could get away with bombing Tehran like we did Dresden or Tokyo?

marct
03-05-2010, 09:04 PM
Hi Bill,


FM 5.0 seems to have assumptions of complexity, uncertainty, and continuous change. But let’s be clear; this appears as an acknowledgement of the nature of war and not a new aspect of war. War is war. Thus to say the operational environment is complex is not to say that war is more complex, it is just using the inherent complexity as an assumption to build doctrine.

That might have to been the intention of the authors, however that intention is not clearly expressed or presented by using a progressive tense in their verbs - e.g. "is becoming more complex", etc.

With the exception of Wilf who, as we all know is in deep and intimate contact with the Platonic aeon of Ideal Forms (;)), most of us are unable to make pronouncements about the "nature" of anything. we can talk about "our experience" (individual, institutional, national) of war, but when we start talking about the "nature of war", all we are able to do is map our boundaries characteristics (if we can even do that!). Even if we could a) access the Ideal Form of "war" and were b) able to communicate, then we would still have to say "This is where the current thing we call 'war' differs from the Ideal".

Far better, IMHO, to forget about trying to talk about an Ideal Type and, instead, use doctrine as a way of defining "our" perceptions of the important characteristics of what we a) are doing and b) think we will have to do in the future. Saying that war have become increasingly complex is, in this case, rather silly; far better to say that "we" have to handle more considerations (i.e X, Y and Z) than we did in the past.

Cheers,

Marc

ps. This is in light of a general caveat - I'm reading a piece right now that is so conceptually flawed and poorly written that I'm not even sure if it is written in English. By contrast, FM 5.0 is an absolutely brilliant work.

pps. No, Rob, it's not the piece you sent me :D

marct
03-05-2010, 09:08 PM
Media: I'm not sure the bombing of Dresden or Hamburg would possible today due to media influence. The Allies killed 200,000 people in 3 days (mostly all civilians). There's no way we could do that today. Do you think we could get away with bombing Tehran like we did Dresden or Tokyo?

Sure you could if you had a significant justification for it. Posit a scenario where Iran puts a nuclear device on a ship and blows it up in New york harbour.

Red Leg
03-05-2010, 09:29 PM
Sure you could if you had a significant justification for it. Posit a scenario where Iran puts a nuclear device on a ship and blows it up in New york harbour.

but it is far more likely that they would claim some separate radical group was responsible. We would likely respond with a "measured and proportional" strike using precision guided munitions on "media acceptable" targets. On the other hand, if they detonated a nuclear weapon against Israel, I wouldn’t bet against Tehran ceasing to exist.

Bill Jakola
03-05-2010, 09:30 PM
Hi Bill,



That might have to been the intention of the authors, however that intention is not clearly expressed or presented by using a progressive tense in their verbs - e.g. "is becoming more complex", etc.

Marc,

I did not find that quote in FM 5.0.

Bill Jakola

marct
03-05-2010, 09:43 PM
Hi Bill,

The point being illustrated can also be made using the phrase "growing uncertainty", which is in the Foreward.

Bill Jakola
03-05-2010, 09:56 PM
Hi Bill,

The point being illustrated can also be made using the phrase "growing uncertainty", which is in the Foreward.

Marc,

I don't mean to be pedantic but, uncertainty and complexity are different.

The use of growing uncertainty in the foreward seems to reflect the failure of our earlier assumptions like, if we build a force that can prevail in major combat operations then we will inherently have a force that can prevail in other types of operations; or that our technology will negate the fog of war.

Bill Jakola

marct
03-05-2010, 10:27 PM
Hi Bill,


I don't mean to be pedantic but, uncertainty and complexity are different.

No worries ;). Yes, I know that they are different, but that wasn't my point. I probably should have spelled it out better, but what I was trying to say was that a change in focus, such as that put forward here and in other documents (such as the ACC etc.) which argues that factors X, Y and Z are changing (increasing, decreasing) is different from saying that those factors are part of the "nature" of something.


The use of growing uncertainty in the foreward seems to reflect the failure of our earlier assumptions like, if we build a force that can prevail in major combat operations then we will inherently have a force that can prevail in other types of operations; or that our technology will negate the fog of war.

I'm still working through how many different meanings I can find for how "uncertainty" is used in FM 5.0 (3 different meanings so far ;)). Still and all, reflecting the "failure" of earlier assumptions certainly is one of the meanings I've seen in it. But were they "failures" at the time they were made, and is "uncertainty" now being used as a catch phrase for "drat, don't know what will happen :confused:?".

What I believe, and it's only a tentative hypothesis, happened was that the US military "got" "conventional" warfare down so well that everyone else said "nuts to this, we ain't playin' that game". The "failure of earlier assumptions" was, IMHO, a conflation of our old conceptualization of conventional warfare as "Warfare" (the Ideal Type). When our opponents said "nuts, we ain't playin' that game" and started to play another one instead, we were so locked into our mindset of "convention warfare" = "Warfare" (a logical error of confusing the specific with the general), that we started to look for convenient ways to say "Drat, we don't know what they are playing!" and glomed onto "complexity" and "uncertainty" because they are cool, hip and happening terms out of science (and they will sell to the politicians). As an indictaor of the plausibility of this, I would point to how GEN Van ripper was treated during Millennium Challenge.

I just did a search through FM 5.0, and do you realize that there is not a single reference to one of the most important concepts stemming from complexity science - emergence? as far as "uncertainty" is concerned, it is defined (1-7) as


Uncertainty is what is not known about a given situation or a lack of understanding of how a situation may evolve. Effective leaders accept that they conduct military operations in operational environments that are inherently uncertain.

Umm, that is way too limited and based solely on the perception of individuals. For example, an individual may be certain that X is Y and they may be totally wrong in that assumption. A truly effective leader also recognizes that they may well be mistaken in their assumptions about what is "true" - a point raised later on, but not included in the definition. The current definition places a "lack of understanding" only in the future....

Look, I'm getting exceedingly picky about implications of language and definitions, implications, etc. Probably over picky if truth be told :wry:. I know that one of the reasons I'm doing this is because I am dealing with a truly horrid piece of work right now (see my previous posts' pps), but another reason is that I "feel" (thumos or "gut knowledge") that this FM is setting people up to fail by trying to linearize a process that is inherently not linear. I need some time to figure out and be able to communicate where that "feeling" is coming from. Unfortunately, I am running ragged with other things (organizing a symposium, multiple concerts, writing, supervising theses, etc.) and I just haven't had the time to put that feeling into a coherent argument.

Cheers,

Marc

Bill Jakola
03-05-2010, 10:51 PM
Hi Bill,
No worries ;).

Marc,

I agree, no worries; an office mate just suggested our admission of uncertainty reflects an understanding that we will never have a completely accurate view of our environemnt and should proceed on the basis where we constantly question our assumptions, and look to the potential point of failure.

I suggest it is like driving a car where we are quite confident of reaching our destination without incident; but, we remain vigilent and prepared to react in case something goes awry. It is more than just being reactive to the environment; it requires us to constantly envision what could go wrong and then prepare to prevent or overcome potential problems should they materialize.

Bill Jakola

P. S. My less than P.C. office mate just asked me to ask you if you knew the Olympic medal count totals. ;) no worries.

marct
03-05-2010, 10:55 PM
Hi Bill,


I agree, no worries; an office mate just suggested our admission of uncertainty reflects an understanding that we will never have a completely accurate view of our environemnt and should proceed on the basis where we constantly question our assumptions, and look to the potential point of failure.

I think that a really good description, and I like the driving analogy.


P. S. My less than P.C. office mate just asked me to ask you if you knew the Olympic medal count totals. ;) no worries.

Top 10 Medal Winners (http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/)
Country G S B Total
UNITED STATES 9 15 13 37
GERMANY 10 13 7 30
CANADA 14 7 5 26
NORWAY 9 8 6 23
AUSTRIA 4 6 6 16
RUSSIA 3 5 7 15
SOUTH KOREA 6 6 2 14
CHINA 5 2 4 11
SWEDEN 5 2 4 11
FRANCE 2 3 6 11

Bill Jakola
03-05-2010, 11:24 PM
Hi Bill,



Top 10 Medal Winners (http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/)
Country G S B Total
UNITED STATES 9 15 13 37
GERMANY 10 13 7 30
CANADA 14 7 5 26


Marc,

You are too kind; I thought for sure you would mention hockey.

Bill Jakola

Seerov
03-06-2010, 03:39 AM
Sure you could if you had a significant justification for it. Posit a scenario where Iran puts a nuclear device on a ship and blows it up in New york harbour.

How come we didn't bomb Hanoi to the ground as we did Dresden or Tokyo?

marct
03-06-2010, 03:56 AM
You are too kind; I thought for sure you would mention hockey.

Hey Bill, all part of the evil Canadian plot to make everyone think we are polite :D.

marct
03-06-2010, 04:06 AM
How come we didn't bomb Hanoi to the ground as we did Dresden or Tokyo?

Because the NVA (or their allies) hadn't hit a part of the US? Because the Soviets said "Do it and we'll hit back"? Honestly, I don't know the exact reasons why.

Both Dresden and Tokyo (and Hiroshima and Nagasaki) took place during an "existential" war. Or, to phrase that slightly differently, a war that actually hit civilian areas of the US. Given that most of the wars the US (and Canada - let's be fair about this) have been involved in have had really minimal, if any, damage to our homelands, actual strikes tend to bring out the, hmmm, possibly "vindictive" is the best word, in us.

I suspect that when we actually get hit, it being such an exception to our normal lives, we get truly PO'd to the point where we are willing to do things that we like to believe we wouldn't do under other circumstances. I'll note that, in democracies (or republics ;)), it is much easier to "sell" a massive strike when emotions are running high.

Bob's World
03-06-2010, 04:45 AM
How come we didn't bomb Hanoi to the ground as we did Dresden or Tokyo?

Fear of Nuclear Retaliation. (And a heating up from Cold to Hot in Europe)

The U.S. has one policy for how we engage states that either have Nukes or are protected by states that have nukes; and a very different policy for how we engage those who don't.

William F. Owen
03-06-2010, 07:31 AM
Bill, thanks for that, and while not wishing to nit-pick,


“Unlike the Cold War era when threats were measurable and, to some degree, predictable Army forces today are likely to encounter conditions of greater ambiguity and uncertainty. Doctrine must be able to accommodate this wider variety of threats.”
But Vietnam had clearly shown this to be a faulty assumption at the height of the Cold-War.

FM 5.0 seems to have assumptions of complexity, uncertainty, and continuous change. But let’s be clear; this appears as an acknowledgement of the nature of war and not a new aspect of war. War is war. Thus to say the operational environment is complex is not to say that war is more complex, it is just using the inherent complexity as an assumption to build doctrine.
Warfare is about the complex thing humans can do. That is my point. It always has been. It cannot become more complex. It always was.

But today our competition includes a number of near peers and other organizations below the nation-state like al Qaeda or a drug cartel. The transparency comes in the form of the 24 hour news cycle and the explosion of information available to almost anyone on the internet.
When was this not the case - as concerns non-nation threats?
24 hour news cycles merely effect the rate and frequency of reporting. NOT IT's NATURE!!
The sheer proliferation of differing messages makes them less relevant. The power of the information age is the faith based belief in it, by some and not something grounded in evidence.

William F. Owen
03-06-2010, 07:37 AM
With the exception of Wilf who, as we all know is in deep and intimate contact with the Platonic aeon of Ideal Forms (;)), most of us are unable to make pronouncements about the "nature" of anything.
Mate, more Aeon Flux than Platonic Ideal Forms!

Let me be clear. My thesis on THE NATURE of war and warfare, is that cannot become more complex, because they always were the almost always MOST COMPLEX things that human beings ever did.

....additionally I would suggest that the belief in complexity has created an erroneous understanding of the problem which continues to compound itself.

So let's provide doctrine with achievable aims, using simple and clear language, based strongly in evidence and very little in belief.

Pete
03-06-2010, 10:27 AM
"Design" is more of a power word than "plan"; it conveys more of a "God like" height :wry:.
1. In the beginning there was chaos and the chaos was the infantry, for the infantry was alone.

2. And fear was with the infantry and they cried unto the Lord saying, "Lord, save us for we are afraid."

3. And the Lord heard their grunts and set some of the infantry on beasts of burden and these he called cavalry, and the cavalry became armor.

4. And when the Lord had seen what he had done, he laughed saying, "Well, you can't win them all."

5. The infantry and the armor again cried out to the Lord saying, "Lord, save us for we are afraid." And the Lord heard their cries and decided to end their weepings.

6. And the Lord said unto them, "Lo and behold, I send you a race of men noble in heart and spirit," and the Lord created the Gunners.

William F. Owen
03-06-2010, 12:26 PM
1. And when Moses returned to his people he found them all reading "FM-3" and "FM-5", and he was mightly displeased.

2. And Moses spoke to his people saying "You have to f**king kidding me, with this ####"

3. But the people cried, "We were lost and so sought comfort in the words of false profits. Verily we did know it was words of no meaning, and empty of content. Save us from this sophistry and confusion for it angers us, so are without purpose."

4. So Moses spoke to his people and said, "Go now, and get your Packs of Alice, and Framed Bergens, and fill them with the rocks you see around, then assemble back here within the passing of two minutes, for it will be a long night, with much pain and gnashing of teeth."

Amen.

marct
03-06-2010, 12:56 PM
Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnum misericordiam tuam

If you prefer the prettied up, doctrinal version, it's here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZm9emKmKy0&feature=related)
and here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_mOeycoLpg&NR=1)

Rob Thornton
03-06-2010, 01:55 PM
Hi Marc,

I think the discussion on the differences between uncertainty and complexity merits more discussion. What is the real basis for our claim? If complexity is the the quality of being intricate and compounded how does that really apply to us?

I think comparatively, perhaps to how we trained for many years in our relatively simple CTCs and other exercises, experiments, etc., war has provided an opportunity (to ground forces, or those serving on the ground) to see that it is complex by nature. The more the objectives and conditions include other actors - be they populations, combatants, governments, competitors, etc. the more "complex" it becomes.

However, I'm not sure, as you say, that this discovery is entirely useful at this point. What would be more useful is do detail out the possible contributors to what we believe may make it more complex, and how their interaction frustrates or impedes the realization of the objective(s) as part of the conditions. Then perhaps we can figure out how to address those aspects better through the various DOTMLPF processes.

Uncertainty is another matter though. What I think about uncertainty that is important to us is whether or not we will have to do something. That something is in relation to how we have defined the environment and those aspects or contributions that make it more complex and impede our achieving the objective. There is a political aspect to this I think, as some of those uncertain things are tasks which may have to be done, but may be things which military forces are not prepared to do, or in some cases perhaps should not do (or even cannot do). We need to address this by determining exactly what we think those tasks are and when we think they will have to be done, and then have a good discussion on whether or not we have the capability (ability to do them), the authority to do them, - and if they are things we cannot do ourselves - e.g. the objective is contingent upon someone else doing the tasks, we need to discuss how to mitigate it.

If we are going to default to the use of complexity and uncertainty that may be OK, but we need to narrow it down some and place it in context up front (the more the better) as it applies to military forces employed to achieve a political purpose. We need to be specific about what factors make this complex, and we need to name our poison with respect to uncertainty.

Best, Rob

wm
03-06-2010, 02:03 PM
I suggest it is like driving a car where we are quite confident of reaching our destination without incident; but, we remain vigilent and prepared to react in case something goes awry. It is more than just being reactive to the environment; it requires us to constantly envision what could go wrong and then prepare to prevent or overcome potential problems should they materialize.
If this what exemplifies design, then my earlier comment about old wine seems dead on.

I would hope that a relook of our process would yield is something much more radical than this:
"We have to get from point A to point B. Let's load up the Strykers and drive to B. But be ready folks. We may encounter native raidng parties so let's prepare for actions on contact. And get our ISR assets out so we don't get ambushed. The bridge may be washed out so we'll have to bring an AVLB--or a Wolverine if we can beg one from higher--and be ready to take some alternative routes. Remember to ask for a continuous FMV feed from Cortps assets so we can decide what other routes might be availalble.
"Questions?
"WTF, we can't get Corps coverage?--then '2' you better make sure you figure out how we get FMV fed to us."

What in the "Design is like driving" example describes what needs to be done to ensure that the correct problem (getting from A to B) has been selected? What in the example demonstrates that the solution set most probable of success(drive there) has been chosen?

William F. Owen
03-06-2010, 02:40 PM
From FM 5-0 Final Draft


3-40. In understanding the operational environment, the commander and staff focus on defining, analyzing, and synthesizing the characteristics of the operational variables. They do so in the context of the dynamic interactions and relationships among and between relevant operational variables and actors in the operational environment. Often, learning about the nature of the situation helps them to understand the groupings, relationships, or interactions among relevant actors and operational variables. This learning typically involves analysis of the operational variables while examining the dynamic interaction and relationships among the myriad other factors in the operational environment.

Please can anyone tell me how to translate this? This is just one example of many many paragraphs that are essentially incomprehensible. The part where it says "learning helps them understand" beggars belief. Does this paragraph just say the studying something helps you understand it? :mad:

Have I missed the point?

Bob's World
03-06-2010, 05:35 PM
From FM 5-0 Final Draft



Please can anyone tell me how to translate this? This is just one example of many many paragraphs that are essentially incomprehensible. The part where it says "learning helps them understand" beggars belief. Does this paragraph just say the studying something helps you understand it? :mad:

Have I missed the point?

"Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

Global Scout
03-06-2010, 05:55 PM
3-40. In understanding the operational environment, the commander and staff focus on defining, analyzing, and synthesizing the characteristics of the operational variables. They do so in the context of the dynamic interactions and relationships among and between relevant operational variables and actors in the operational environment. Often, learning about the nature of the situation helps them to understand the groupings, relationships, or interactions among relevant actors and operational variables. This learning typically involves analysis of the operational variables while examining the dynamic interaction and relationships among the myriad other factors in the operational environment.

It would be useful to see an unclassified example. I have seen classified examples that were very helpful, and I suspect we can take a historical event (maybe the Vietnam conflict) to show how this framework could have helped decision makers understand the situation (the conflict, actors, and variables that are suspected to be related to the problem set).

The key is to facilitate constant learning, versus our typical approach of creating clear objectives to get to imaginary end states, which seldom works in the real world (I anticipate hoots and howls over this remark, bring it on). We get to transition states, then we should adjust based on our goals and understanding of the environment. I tend to side with the State Department's perception of DoD planning, which is that parts of it are essential, while other parts are largely a waste of time. DoS prefers to focus on the process of diplomacy to create desired change over time, while the military wants clear achievable objectives (artifical approach to eliminate ambiguity). Our two recent military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are perfect examples where numerous variables have influenced the decision maker (not just enemy forces in the field), and the character of both wars changed over time, and we were slow to transition our approach (conventional, CT, counterinsurgency, peace enforcement, etc.) as the environment and objectives shifted.

Design can be useful, so I'm a supporter of the idea/theory; however, the our staffs are not organized to support this effort, so it is largely unachievable with our current structure. It gets back to the expression, "that nothing is too hard for the man who doesn't have to do it".

Wilf I suspect you'll make an argument that we have always done this, and perhaps to some degree you're correct, but something happened to the military starting in the late 80s and running through the 90s (the Vietnam reformist impact), where our doctrine largely dismissed the lessons of the past and attempting to "clearly" define military problems, and while giving lip service to whole of government, didn't really practice it.

More to follow, just wanted to throw out some lose thoughts.

selil
03-06-2010, 06:17 PM
Complexity in any system (regardless of that fecund garbage the military espouses) is when the tools and techniques of a system are attempted to be integrated. Regardless of requirements as more and more elements are added the ability to control variables within the system becomes nearly impossible. Complexity is different from chaos in the fact that inputs and "desired" outputs are known but the ability to control for the results desired in chaos are unknown.

Uncertainty is a trait of both chaos and complexity. Uncertainty is found in the lack of knowledge inherent in any system or set of relationships created by unknown variables. Whereas complexity is "created" in the system "uncertainty" is inherent in the fear, uncertainty, doubt, and trust of the system responses. Since any system that is complex will have unknown or transient responses uncertainty will be inherent. The more complex the system the more uncertainty inherent in the system.

Design is an attempt to mitigate complexity and find simple structures or patterns to control for uncertainty. Design can follow formulaic patterns or rule sets entering "planning" (also called engineering) or it can follow natural less than empirical strategies that may allow for "art" to be exposed. Another point is that design can exist outside of planning but be inclusive of planning. As an example an architect designs a building, but an engineer creates the plant-plans, and a manager the project plan. The design process is intent of the creator/originator and the plan is the execution on that intent.

Unfortunately this simplistic discussion does not give glimpses into how the words are often misused. In engineering the models or design are often about the intent/goals, and the planning process is but one of the elements in that process. However the words get used interchangeable to effect the levels of effort or control the inputs into each other.

William F. Owen
03-06-2010, 07:02 PM
Wilf I suspect you'll make an argument that we have always done this, and perhaps to some degree you're correct, but something happened to the military starting in the late 80s and running through the 90s (the Vietnam reformist impact), where our doctrine largely dismissed the lessons of the past and attempting to "clearly" define military problems, and while giving lip service to whole of government, didn't really practice it.

Well actually I'm just asking myself how complicated inane language helps any of this? If I cannot be said clearly and simply, it has no military utility!

Pete
03-06-2010, 07:51 PM
Wilf has a good point about the parlous state of Army-speak. It seems as though people have gotten so used to seeing PowerPoint slides with needlessly complex process diagrams that they influence they way guys think and express themselves.

The full version of "The Gesesis of the Field Artillery" can be read by clicking here (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/artillery-genesis.htm). The author is unknown, it appears to date from the 1960s, and it is in the public domain.

Fuchs
03-06-2010, 07:59 PM
Well actually I'm just asking myself how complicated inane language helps any of this? If I cannot be said clearly and simply, it has no military utility!

I've become used to ignore such parts and to only care about interesting parts of texts.

Few authors use a very dense style where every line is really important. Those who do usually write in a style that's rather difficult for the reader.


I have actually a hypothesis about all this blather in FMs. It may be a psychological trick, meant to address the subconsciousness.
Propaganda lies become powerful by repetition - maybe professional blather becomes effective by the sheer repetition of keywords?

Cole
03-06-2010, 10:32 PM
From FM 5-0 Final Draft:

3-40. In understanding the operational environment, the commander and staff focus on defining, analyzing, and synthesizing the characteristics of the operational variables. They do so in the context of the dynamic interactions and relationships among and between relevant operational variables and actors in the operational environment. Often, learning about the nature of the situation helps them to understand the groupings, relationships, or interactions among relevant actors and operational variables. This learning typically involves analysis of the operational variables while examining the dynamic interaction and relationships among the myriad other factors in the operational environment.

Please can anyone tell me how to translate this? This is just one example of many many paragraphs that are essentially incomprehensible. The part where it says "learning helps them understand" beggars belief. Does this paragraph just say the studying something helps you understand it? :mad:

Have I missed the point?

Wilf, line by line:


"Operational environment" is the Army's new term for battlespace
"Operational variables" are PMESII-PT. They are analyzed at the operational/strategic level just as tactical level leaders/staff analyze the "mission variables": METT-TC. Many PMESII-PT variables are related to the ASCOPE acronym used with Civil Considerations in METT-TC:

http://usacac.army.mil/blog/blogs/coin/archive/2009/04/20/rescinding-ascopes-for-pmesii-pt-at-the-tactical-level-possibly-good-in-theory-but-what-about-in-application.aspx

"Actors in the operational environment" are the friendlies, enemies, neutral and not-so neutral civilians, civil-military, NGOs, etc.
But you probably are correct that the final three sentences all relate to the same conceptual thought, which could be combined into a simpler:

"PMESII-PT analysis must involve learning about the personnel involved with each operational variable and how those variables and people relate to each other."

I actually like almost everything about the rewrite...except "design" which I don't understand.

Cole
03-06-2010, 11:29 PM
Complexity in any system (regardless of that fecund garbage the military espouses) is when the tools and techniques of a system are attempted to be integrated. Regardless of requirements as more and more elements are added the ability to control variables within the system becomes nearly impossible. Complexity is different from chaos in the fact that inputs and "desired" outputs are known but the ability to control for the results desired in chaos are unknown.

Uncertainty is a trait of both chaos and complexity. Uncertainty is found in the lack of knowledge inherent in any system or set of relationships created by unknown variables. Whereas complexity is "created" in the system "uncertainty" is inherent in the fear, uncertainty, doubt, and trust of the system responses. Since any system that is complex will have unknown or transient responses uncertainty will be inherent. The more complex the system the more uncertainty inherent in the system.

I have great difficulty taking seriously anyone who criticizes military jargon and use of language...while simultaneously using words like "fecund.";)

Believe some are reading too much into the relationship between uncertainty and complexity. Believe "uncertainty" came about as the partly correct answer of anti-FCS leaders who correctly identified that sensors will never find all the enemy or his intentions. It is analogous to chess or football where both sides see all players on the board, yet one of two equal sides will lose, or a weaker side won't necessarily play by "established" rules. The unsuspected player on the sidelines will stick his foot out and trip the guy running for a touchdown...with no flag applicable.

But there is a major difference between not finding hunter-killer dismounts on complex terrain versus finding and dealing with massed armored forces in the year 2010. The anti-FCS leaders want to discount sensors, long-range fires, and air attack. Claims of uncertainly support the need for more close combat and more armor protecting against anti-armor weapons...despite the fact that those dying are being killed by IEDs, small arms, and RPGs used as massed artillery.

"Uncertainty" became the rallying cry used to reject the FCS idea that tactical/MI sensors and scouts are adequate to achieve perfect SU. It correctly identifies that even if possible, seeing the enemy isn't enough, especially if he hugs non-combatants, and does not play by the rules of "chess or football." Uncertainty correctly rejects Effects Based Operations where long range fires and air attack are sufficient...if the enemy stays massed and out in the open...and if we are willing to spend/rebuild under fire afterwards to repair EBO damage.

However what is forgotten in the Capstone Concept is that "uncertainty" applies equally to the logistician trying to deliver extra fuel supplies to an overly armored gas-guzzling force. Transportation and sustainment forces end up being ambushed en route...due to uncertainty. Uncertainty applies to the inter and intratheater sealift/airlift force that must get both the vehicles and supplies to theater and the ultimate user over the highly uncertain last operational and tactical miles. While we accept all kinds of anti-access unlikelihoods, we never seem to acknowledge that sealift may never arrive due to enemy intervention of scarce RO/ROs/Fast Sealift.

Fortunately, the expansion and up-armoring (double V-hull coming) of Stryker, remaining FCS spin outs, and continued testing of Stryker etc. networking advantages will salvage some of the "baby" of the rejected FCS bathwater...so all is not lost. Heavy BCTs will arrive eventually, and hopefully we will never find ourselves running out of fuel with "superior" armor as the Germans did in WWII, losing to lesser armored Americans/allies.


Design is an attempt to mitigate complexity and find simple structures or patterns to control for uncertainty. Design can follow formulaic patterns or rule sets entering "planning" (also called engineering) or it can follow natural less than empirical strategies that may allow for "art" to be exposed. Another point is that design can exist outside of planning but be inclusive of planning. As an example an architect designs a building, but an engineer creates the plant-plans, and a manager the project plan. The design process is intent of the creator/originator and the plan is the execution on that intent.

I hear you on the architectual versus engineering design. Architectual and military design may involve visualizing and describing space in a building or on the ground. But ability to do that does not guarantee ability to engineer/plan and more importantly execute the design. Aren't the days of the Howard Roark/Frank Lloyd Wright one-man-does-it-all design/engineering not feasible anymore than one staff member and commander doing it all in design or planning? Isn't it kind of egotistical to try to design it all alone, or rule with an iron my-way (plan)-or-highway authority in the CP?


Unfortunately this simplistic discussion does not give glimpses into how the words are often misused. In engineering the models or design are often about the intent/goals, and the planning process is but one of the elements in that process. However the words get used interchangeable to effect the levels of effort or control the inputs into each other.

Isn't it comparable to the automotive designer who draws and sculpts clay to look a certain way...then reality on the ground (engineering/enemy vote)distorts it to look much different in execution.

selil
03-06-2010, 11:53 PM
Isn't it comparable to the automotive designer who draws and sculpts clay to look a certain way...then reality on the ground (engineering/enemy vote)distorts it to look much different in execution.

Simply yes.

The abandonment of simplicity (Frank Lloyd Wright buildings) for complexity (Toyota Camry drive by wire throttle) has led to disasters of implementation regardless of design. I know I'm mixing the two areas of consideration but the analogy should stick.

The issue IMHO is still that complexity begets uncertainty. Wilf has a good point on the inherent problems of making things more difficult than they should be... He almost is channelling Einstein in "things should be as simple as possible but no simpler".

Bob's World
03-07-2010, 01:58 AM
The author's main problem was that he tried to say "employ operational design" and describe at the same time what operational design is.

As to examples, the major headquarters that has been employing this the longest is USSOCOM, and all of those products are quite intentionally unclassified.

The purpose of design is to promote understanding; but perfect understanding that is then locked up in a vault is not of much value. They don't lend themselves to publication very well though, as the design diagrams require a guide to lead one through them; and if a picture tells a 1000 words, a design diagram often tells 1000 stories.

I can't speak for others, but ours work best in small groups with 2-3 of the designers providing a short tag-team brief, followed by a much longer tag-team Q&A.

To simply hang the picture on the web, or to write up an explanation leaves most thinking "what's the big deal," or "I disagree." But most walk out of the tag-team presentations with fresh ideas and perspectives and a deeper understanding of the problem they face, and that is the point of the process.

Global Scout
03-07-2010, 03:27 AM
The useful design produts that SOCOM designed are classified for good reason. What your talking about that is unclassified is SOCOM's visual version of the JOE inappropriately labeled design. it shows the convergence of trends and does trigger some interesting questions. The actual design prodcts facilitate a deeper understanding of a specific problem in depth and how it interacts with other systems and actors globally. It has nothing to do with Seliel or Cole's interpretation. Selil is focused on design from an engineer perspective, and Cole from a tactical perspective. Wilf agee the definition provided was useless. The real design products are manpower intensive, involve the interagency and a large commitment of the intell community, plus academia. Once developed a tactical unit can provide input based on their view of ground truth, but the initial product is not produced by 3 staff officers. It can be useful for some problem sets, but the wat it was presented clearly led to confusion which isn't useful.

William F. Owen
03-07-2010, 06:36 AM
3-9. A commander‘s experience, knowledge, judgment, and intuition assume a crucial role in understanding complex, ill-structured problems. Together, they enhance the cognitive components of design, enhancing commanders‘ intuition while further enabling commanders to identify threats or opportunities long before others might.
...and here we go again.
The first sentence is essentially says that being smart helps you solve problems. The second sentence then extrapolates that and that smart people will use "Design" better than dumb people?

I really am trying hard not to be a pedant, but this FM is one of the most badly written documents I have ever seen. The definition of Design takes 6 paragraphs, most of which spout rubbish. If anyone wants to leap in defend this, then let's hear it.

William F. Owen
03-07-2010, 07:24 AM
2-1. Planning is the process by which commanders (and the staff, if available) translate the commander‘s visualization into a specific course of action for preparation and execution, focusing on the expected results (FM 3-0).
OK, so primarily a way of translating a "visualisation," into action. So it's NOT a way of producing orders!
So :

2-4. A product of planning is a plan or order—a directive for future action. Commanders issue plans and orders to subordinates to communicate their understanding of the situation and their visualization of an operation.
Planning IS about producing orders. Really? Apparently the Plans and Orders "communicate their understanding of the situation and their visualization of an operation."
So we now have

"The measure of a good plan is not whether execution transpires as planned, but whether the plan facilitates effective action in the face of unforeseen events. Good plans and orders foster initiative.
GARBAGE! The measure of a good plan is if it works so achieving the desired end state via the plan! The execution does matter! That is why you do planning! Good plans tell you what to do and when to do it. Initiative is for when no plan exists, or the plan is inadequate or failing!

Bob's World
03-07-2010, 07:55 AM
The useful design produts that SOCOM designed are classified for good reason. What your talking about that is unclassified is SOCOM's visual version of the JOE inappropriately labeled design. it shows the convergence of trends and does trigger some interesting questions. The actual design prodcts facilitate a deeper understanding of a specific problem in depth and how it interacts with other systems and actors globally. It has nothing to do with Seliel or Cole's interpretation. Selil is focused on design from an engineer perspective, and Cole from a tactical perspective. Wilf agee the definition provided was useless. The real design products are manpower intensive, involve the interagency and a large commitment of the intell community, plus academia. Once developed a tactical unit can provide input based on their view of ground truth, but the initial product is not produced by 3 staff officers. It can be useful for some problem sets, but the wat it was presented clearly led to confusion which isn't useful.


But that's all news to me. Come see me in my office at the J56 Strategy Division when I get back from Afghanistan and we can discuss.

Infanteer
03-07-2010, 09:36 AM
:D

I just read some of the excerpts from this manual to my NCOs and the one comment was "I think it was better when we had officers from the nobility who just treated us like peons instead of educated officers who try to make us look like peons...."

What ever happened to clarity and brevity in Staff Duties? I see mission statements that are whole paragraphs....

Ken White
03-07-2010, 03:02 PM
..."I think it was better when we had officers from the nobility who just treated us like peons instead of educated officers who try to make us look like peons...."

What ever happened to clarity and brevity in Staff Duties? I see mission statements that are whole paragraphs....The first is the well phrased sensing of many NCOs...

Those few -- but still too many -- today who are guilty of such efforts really ought to consider how their actions reflect on themselves. Condescension is not a military virtue.

Today's troops are capable of doing far more than many are willing to permit them to do. Among other things, that failing drives good people out (while fostering not so good people staying in) and is extremely wasteful.

On the brevity comment, spot on. Even more accurate on the clarity aspect. The production of any manual of over 100 pages should be immediately outlawed -- simply because the larger ones lose so much in translation...:rolleyes:

IntelTrooper
03-07-2010, 05:59 PM
On the brevity comment, spot on. Even more accurate on the clarity aspect. The production of any manual of over 100 pages should be immediately outlawed -- simply because the larger ones lose so much in translation...:rolleyes:

B-- But Ken, are you saying that military service members aren't reading hundreds of pages of manuals every time they get a new position, are trained on a new piece of equipment, or have to carry out some task? That they just want to most important details, and don't need paragraphs of over-complicated gibberish? That said information should be easy to find?

Why, if what you're saying is true, then there's thousands and thousands of pages of manuals gathering dust that no one reads! That's patently absurd, sir!

Heretic! Furcifer! (Okay, that one was a little too far.)

Cole
03-07-2010, 07:47 PM
The useful design produts that SOCOM designed are classified for good reason. What your talking about that is unclassified is SOCOM's visual version of the JOE inappropriately labeled design. it shows the convergence of trends and does trigger some interesting questions. The actual design prodcts facilitate a deeper understanding of a specific problem in depth and how it interacts with other systems and actors globally. It has nothing to do with Seliel or Cole's interpretation. Selil is focused on design from an engineer perspective, and Cole from a tactical perspective. Wilf agee the definition provided was useless. The real design products are manpower intensive, involve the interagency and a large commitment of the intell community, plus academia. Once developed a tactical unit can provide input based on their view of ground truth, but the initial product is not produced by 3 staff officers. It can be useful for some problem sets, but the wat it was presented clearly led to confusion which isn't useful.

The way you have seen it is used in practice may differ from the way the TRADOC Operational Concept and now doctrine describe it, but Commander's Appreciation and Campaign Design indicates that Selil's description is pretty accurate...at least if you are going to use the term "design" when some other term might be more appropriate:

http://www.tradoc.army.mil/tpubs/pams/p525-5-500.pdf

The first chapter helped me understand design much better. Particularly liked this quote:

(3) Every ill-structured problem is essentially unique and novel. Historical analogies may provide useful insights—particularly on individual aspects of a larger problem—but the differences between even similar situations are profound and significant. The political goals at stake, stakeholders involved, cultural milieu, histories, and other dynamics will all be novel and unique to a particular situation.

Believe some miss the point that not every Soldier must read/study doctrine. But instructors/trainers at institutional level must study it to create lesson plans that are doctrinally-founded. Combat training centers O/Cs and other evaluators need some evaluation source based on more than opinion of how they did it in their particular unit under a unique commander/leader/staff officer, in a particular theater and year in theater, and a unique village, valley and ethnic/tribal mix when public opinion and the threat may have differed substantially.

In my solely academic perspective, the lesson plans we create are based on collective tasks which in turn are based on doctrine, task lists, and researched lessons learned. In our particular case, we used the FM 5-0 (and FM 3-0, & previous 5-0.1) "plan, prepare, execute, and assess continuously" as the outline for many lessons on multiple subjects...because it works and helps you not to forget something. That "operations process" and troop-leading procedures are probably most of what your typical NCO must understand where FM 5-0 is concerned.

I'm still not sure from the TRADOC Concept what planning products result from "Design." Suspect they exist in multiple formats and differ based on the nature of the ill-structured problem and command-designated courses of action that may change based on subject matter experts briefings. But as "Global Scout" indicates, many may be classified, many are probably unique to particular commanders, and most "Design" probably involves operational/strategic commanders and tactical units like SOF that have strategic influence.

Also believe many critical of the writing don't comprehend that it is often a team effort with multiple reviewers altering content to leave a hodgepodge of styles and substance by the time it is approved. It may not be pretty, but if it isn't done, you are left relying on opinions of how to do things based on historical experiences/perspectives of particular units/individuals that no longer apply.

IntelTrooper
03-07-2010, 08:05 PM
Also believe many critical of the writing don't comprehend that it is often a team effort with multiple reviewers altering content to leave a hodgepodge of styles and substance by the time it is approved. It may not be pretty, but if it isn't done, you are left relying on opinions of how to do things based on historical experiences/perspectives of particular units/individuals that no longer apply.

Hi Cole,

I hope the following isn't offensive, it's just my own biased observation of most military publications:

Option 1: Not writing a paragraph, or manual, and allowing for some ad-lib on the part of the target audience.

Option 2: Include confusingly worded, "hodgepodge of styles and substance" in publication.

Net Effect(Option 2) minus Net Effect(Option 1) = x thousands of dollars used for creating, publishing, and maintaining Option 2.

Ken White
03-07-2010, 10:23 PM
...Believe some miss the point that not every Soldier must read/study doctrine. But instructors/trainers at institutional level must study it to create lesson plans that are doctrinally-founded.True -- but those instructors also appreciate a little clarity and concise thought.
Combat training centers O/Cs and other evaluators need some evaluation source based on more than opinion... and the threat may have differed substantially.That was equally true back in the days when clarity and brevity were not goals but requirements. People fighting wars with high tempo operations do not have time to sort out the chaff.
Also believe many critical of the writing don't comprehend that it is often a team effort with multiple reviewers altering content to leave a hodgepodge of styles and substance by the time it is approved. It may not be pretty, but if it isn't done, you are left relying on opinions of how to do things based on historical experiences/perspectives of particular units/individuals that no longer apply.Nothing wrong with all that -- BUT someone, not a committee, needs to be responsible and make some hard editorial decisions. These are military doctrinal publications, not high school textbooks; fluff and 'gee whiz' stuff is unnecessary and can be inimical to the doctrine promulgated.

Ken White
03-07-2010, 10:30 PM
...Furcifer! (Okay, that one was a little too far.)was 51E. I had four MOS's, 11B5P, 11F5S, 11G5P, 19D5P -- all got rolled up into 11Z5P so they told me I had to pick another. I figured I'd done enough 51E stuff to qualify. So I picked the 51E and thus I guess that being furciferous isn't all that far out... :D

marct
03-08-2010, 03:11 AM
I just read some of the excerpts from this manual to my NCOs and the one comment was "I think it was better when we had officers from the nobility who just treated us like peons instead of educated officers who try to make us look like peons...."

LOLOL - And at least the "nobility", and since you're from Canada, that means the colonial aristocracy crowd (ah, for the good old days...:rolleyes:), had the good sense to know when they should freakin' well shut up and let the troops get on with it :D.

Honestly, nothing PO's competent people as much as some pissant spewing buzzword diarrhea (if one wishes to be academically prissy about this, I would recommend the term "logorrhea"; it means the same thing ;)).


What ever happened to clarity and brevity in Staff Duties? I see mission statements that are whole paragraphs....

Hunh, I'm reading a "document" right now that makes FM 5.0 look like a model of clarity, brevity, insight and nigh-on God touched brilliance. the term logorrhea is much on my mind of late..... :mad:

IntelTrooper
03-08-2010, 03:21 AM
was 51E. I had four MOS's, 11B5P, 11F5S, 11G5P, 19D5P -- all got rolled up into 11Z5P so they told me I had to pick another. I figured I'd done enough 51E stuff to qualify. So I picked the 51E and thus I guess that being furciferous isn't all that far out... :D

Wow, lucky hit! I take it back then -- Furcifer! :D

MichaelJayy
03-03-2011, 10:10 PM
Hi Cole,

I hope the following isn't offensive, it's just my own biased observation of most military publications:

Option 1: Not writing a paragraph, or manual, and allowing for some ad-lib on the part of the target audience.

Option 2: Include confusingly worded, "hodgepodge of styles and substance" in publication.

Net Effect(Option 2) minus Net Effect(Option 1) = x thousands of dollars used for creating, publishing, and maintaining Option 2.
I totally agree with IntelTrooper

SWJED
03-03-2011, 10:28 PM
MichaelJayy your two post so far resemble those who add one-liners of no substance in order to establish a "post count" to be followed by spam PM to our members or spamming the threads. You have 24 hours to explain why you should not be banned from SWC.

Vitesse et Puissance
03-19-2011, 12:00 AM
Believe some are reading too much into the relationship between uncertainty and complexity. Believe "uncertainty" came about as the partly correct answer of anti-FCS leaders who correctly identified that sensors will never find all the enemy or his intentions....But there is a major difference between not finding hunter-killer dismounts on complex terrain versus finding and dealing with massed armored forces in the year 2010. The anti-FCS leaders want to discount sensors, long-range fires, and air attack. Claims of uncertainly support the need for more close combat and more armor protecting against anti-armor weapons...despite the fact that those dying are being killed by IEDs, small arms, and RPGs used as massed artillery... "Uncertainty" became the rallying cry used to reject the FCS idea that tactical/MI sensors and scouts are adequate to achieve perfect SU. It correctly identifies that even if possible, seeing the enemy isn't enough, especially if he hugs non-combatants, and does not play by the rules of "chess or football." Uncertainty correctly rejects Effects Based Operations where long range fires and air attack are sufficient...if the enemy stays massed and out in the open...and if we are willing to spend/rebuild under fire afterwards to repair EBO damage.

Fortunately, the expansion and up-armoring (double V-hull coming) of Stryker, remaining FCS spin outs, and continued testing of Stryker etc. networking advantages will salvage some of the "baby" of the rejected FCS bathwater...so all is not lost. Heavy BCTs will arrive eventually, and hopefully we will never find ourselves running out of fuel with "superior" armor as the Germans did in WWII, losing to lesser armored Americans/allies.

I hear you on the architectual versus engineering design. Architectual and military design may involve visualizing and describing space in a building or on the ground. But ability to do that does not guarantee ability to engineer/plan and more importantly execute the design. Aren't the days of the Howard Roark/Frank Lloyd Wright one-man-does-it-all design/engineering not feasible anymore than one staff member and commander doing it all in design or planning? Isn't it kind of egotistical to try to design it all alone, or rule with an iron my-way (plan)-or-highway authority in the CP?

Isn't it comparable to the automotive designer who draws and sculpts clay to look a certain way...then reality on the ground (engineering/enemy vote)distorts it to look much different in execution.

Several unsolicited comments here.

1. I think that the argument against FCS - that it could not totally eliminate fog of war or friction - was a fallacious misinterpretation of what the TRADOC Battle Lab experiments were trying to do. BECAUSE they could not simulate network degradation and the fog of war well enough, the experimenters limited their scope to human factors questions. ASSUMING perfect intelligence (obviously false, but not invalid for the purpose of analysis), they examined issues like information overload and screen clutter. But no one with a clue would ever claim that perfect intelligence was achievable, irrespective of the depth of clutter, and all the physical impediments to sensor performance. The more much interesting question should have been - and to some extent was - how does one employ these additional sensing capabilities best to improve situational awareness and to tighten the OODA loop ? There was no need to ignore what we already knew about battle command. The ghost of White, Yale, and Manteuffel's 1970 book, Alternative to Armaggedon and its vignettes of Charlie Dare and Tex Goodspeed in the Automated TOC still ring true...but the young 'uns don't read old books.

2. Stand-off engagement has been a kind of debated non-debate within the Armor and Cavalry community for a long time. Another history lesson - the "lessons of the 1973 war" maintained the maximum range engagement was the way to go, while CALL and NTC - based on training battles - maintained just the opposite. For battalion and brigade commanders, the idea of fighting out past the 4000-5000 max limit of direct fire weapons was attractive - and the sensor technology made it possible to look out that far. Cometh Excaliber and the concept of Beyond Line of Sight Fires (we'll leave ghost of NLOS-LS aside out of respect for the dead) - and you now have weapons capable of participating in this battle. But the problem was that people both in and out of uniform did not understand that "deep battle" means using the ENTIRE depth of the battlespace - acronymism admitted - write in "entire depth of the operational environment" it it makes sense to you. The wrong assumption of the FCS BCT in defense was that there would be and could be no victory in a close fight. Why should anyone have accepted that myth ? But they did - on the same logic as we were debatting the proper positioning of break points at or around battlesight range in the active defense, loosely speaking. Same fallacy, same error in reasoning.

3. Personally, I cannot see either the promise or the outrage over the use of the term "effects based operations". Since EBO was supposed to have had a psychological as well as a physical component, I would presuppose that successful prosecution of psychological effects would be unpredictable, hard to achieve but also hard to measure. When you read Ralph Peters these days, it is all about breaking the enemy's will to fight before losing your own will to win. Can we accept that this element of Clausewitz's theory has yet to be revoked ?

4. Last point and I'm done. There was a time in the US Army when we were not afraid of structured concepts. Remember the "Architecture for the Future Army" ? Like so many other catchy slogans, that one had the normal 4-8 year shelf life - but the fact that we could even use words like that back then typifies an existential confidence that appears to have been lost - and the Army needs to get it back. We cannot prevent our military theorists from thinking pragmatically and teaching on the lines of pragmatic philosophy - we and they are all too American to do otherwise. But here is a quote from a real philosopher whose work reminds us of the danger of confusing the reductive methods of pragmatism with the actual order of being (you get that debate whenever anyone, normally a Myers-Briggs INTP type, hauls out the "O-word", trying to superimpose their logic on the Other).

http://voegelinview.com/ontological-reductionism-and-pragmatic-speech.html