Flawed Doctrine or Flawed Strategy?
Flawed Doctrine or Flawed Strategy?
Ok, having read this I am not going to suggest that the author has not got a legitimate beef with things that are wrong on the ground, but to say that is the result of various debates going back in the US stretches credibility to the extreme.
Now, I have no dog in this fight. What the US Army does is of little interest to me, except, I see US Army ideas filter out of the US Army and break other good armies, so I figure I might as well get in at the source.
Firstly debate is entirely necessary and healthy. If folks know what they are doing, debate about doctrine, should not impact on practise. Only when the doctrine is taught should the effects be seen. So those questioning COIN doctrine cannot be held responsible for its flawed or otherwise application unless some in the food chain are catastrophically stupid.
Now I can’t speak for Gian, but I can articulate my concerns.
Doctrine and Strategy are vastly different. Strategy is political. Doctrine is what is taught. You cannot confuse the two. What the US Army currently has an approach that sees something they call “COIN” as some distinct form of activity, that is (to quote FM3-24):
“COIN is an extremely complex form of warfare. At its core, COIN is a struggle for the population’s support. The protection, welfare, and support of the people are vital to success.” Now that statement my be incorrect, but it's not the problem.
COIN is a form of Warfare, and not a distinct one either. You cannot have separate armies with separate doctrines to fight different kinds of warfare. The British Army fought against major domestic insurgency for 23 years while maintaining the ability to fight the Soviet Army, the Argentines, the Guatemalans, and the Iraqis.
Clausewitz tells us that every war is different. Because insurgents are different, each insurgency will be different. What lessons of the WW2 were germane to War in Korea? The US Army nearly lost Korea, because of the rapid erosion of the skills needed to fight a Regular Army. Big Wars you can loose in weeks. You don’t have the luxury of taking 3 ˝ years to write FM3-24, for example. NO one is arguing that the USA should not be skilled at fighting insurgents, but that should not create an unnecessary degradation of other capabilities. What capabilities are needed is a different debate, but the debate has to happen, and it is entirely healthy.
Creating an Army optimised to fight in Iraq, will not create success in Afghanistan, and vice vera. It will also not guarantee success when you intervene in the next Lebanese, or Jordanian civil war, and it will help none when you are fighting your way into North Korea, (the cease fire is over, is it not), or even Iran – and no one can say “we’ll never do that.” You've done some strange things before.
I think you made my long standing point...
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Originally Posted by
Tom Odom
On the flattening of the intelligence architecture to allow for smaller units, I would agree and it was an 8 year struggle to get us where we are now with CoISTs. The intel system has all the issues you cite and is in my opinion very unlikely to change as stovepipes are a form of system ricebowls.
However, this came first. I agree with everything you wrote there -- and would only add those rice bowls have needed breaking since before the Korean War. That Stove piping kills own troops all too often...
Quote:
On the training issue, agree somewhat at the shooter level--but with the caveat we got where we are now via heavy use of STX lanes at the CTCs to meet the needs of small units. Where the changes really occurred were in the mindset at battalion and brigade and those changes really did not start having noticeable effects until late 2005 and into 2006.
Three points if I may:
- If we trained new accessions decently, the STX lanes would be, as they should be, practice and not initial exposure. I know that's being worked on but it's long overdue and I fear more shortcuts or band aids. The US Army has pathetic fire discipline and the Marines are little better -- both for the most part, some units work at it but it's spotty. Joe has to think and he has to KNOW what to do because the myth that his Leaders will tell him what to do is not always possible. It is never desirable.
- Changing the mindset of 30 year old Officer OR NCOs is difficult; they're too set in their ways and will resist change consciously and unconsciously, overtly and subtly. We have to train new Privates and new Lieutenants properly (and we do not now do that) or the 'system' will not change (and those rice bowls above won't get broken -- and if we are to survive in near our current state, they'd better be...).
- Remark above applies to Bn and Bde Cdrs. Most are good guys and good leaders and commanders. Almost all of them are smart folks. Their Staffs are far too large but that's the fault of the General's who cannot resist micromanaging and want answers to unnecessary questions. At those rarified air level, change is resisted; after all the system worked for them...
We do not educate our NCOs well nor IMO do we do a great job with the Officers. I'm firmly convinced that the many great Officers and the great NCOs I've known have managed to be great in spite of the system. That's not right; the system should make good people better. Point is that it should not take seven years of war to adapt. If we get thrown into a major combat operation an excessive number of Americans will die due to that lack of flexibility. Said lack is due to a marginal training system that has been in business for the last 34 years and has been slowly stultifying the Army for that time. Fortunately, great people have overcome that to get us as good as we are. Unfortunately, the effort they had to expend to do that taught micromanagement and the time thus wasted precluded them from developing better tactical, operational and strategic perspectives. They had to concentrate on things they should have been able to trust subordinates to do...
Unless we fix our very dysfunctional personnel systems and processes and significantly improve initial entry training, Officer and Enlisted, we're going to remain little better than mediocre and thus only slightly better than most of our opponents. When we ran across the occasional opponent who was better (and we have done that several times) we usually outnumbered or out produced them.
All that's been good enough in the past -- I'm not at all sure it will be in the future.
All on a tactical level where training most matters * :
Germans in WW II (not in WW I), Japanese in WW II (in both cases, early on, we got better as years went by ** -- we may not always have that time...), Chinese in Korea (not North Koreans), VC Main Force in Viet Nam 1962-68 (not PAVN / NVA).
While there's no question we were better trained than the opponents in Grenada, Panama or Iraq, we had some embarrassing and, more importantly, deadly induced problems in all three. Same is true of Somalia -- where a raggedy Militia 'Colonel' said of our operations after the very bad day in Mogadishu; "They did the same thing over and over. Tactically you never do the same thing twice" (or words to that effect). :mad:
* There were strategic failures by us in most as well but that's not a training or even a military issue, it's a political issue.
** The recurring complaint of WW II combat arms folks was that their stateside training was inadequate
You're welcome Carl -- and to also address Selil,
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Originally Posted by
carl
That's four out of four of our last really big fights. :(
do note that though we started out behind in all four we got to at least draw status in fairly short order, usually about two to three years..
While I agree with Sam -- and Gladwell -- that about 10,000 hours is needed for 'expertise' and that seven to ten years produce quite expert soldiers or marines, I will point out three things.
- Most Soldiers do not have to be expert; they just should be better than the competition. Good journeymen will work fine. Leaders should be bordering on Expert status -- today, many are there or close to it; a few are quite expert.
- Around six to eight months of good training versus our current 16-18 week norm is needed for the enlisted entrant; about a year for new officers. That will make them good enough if it's done right --and any combat adds impetus and reinforcement to all things learned and accelerates the attainment of skill. Thus it take seven to ten years in peacetime to develop 'expertise' but in wartime that can be halved in light combat as now or accelerated even more in heavy combat. It took about 18-24 months in WW II to turn marginally trained folks into pretty competent soldiers. The naturals, about 10%, can do it in weeks in sustained combat.
- Other Nations who might be problematic for us have improved their training in the last few years mostly as a reaction to our obvious basic competence and the fact that we have the most combat experienced Soldiers and Marines in the world. We have also improved our training -- but we can and should still do much better to preclude some nasty surprises down the road.
As an aside, Malcolm Gladwell in doing the research for that book also discovered that identifying potential experts at early stages was quite difficult. A great deal of specificity was needed in even trying. He pointed out that the college to pro football selection process for linemen was pretty straightforward and usually worked as predicted. Quarterbacks, OTOH, due to the vast differences in the job in college ball as opposed to pro ball, had a poor success rate on ideal selects.
The point there is that we can train the linemen better and get a an adequate product. The quarterbacks take longer -- and not everyone can do it...