"Pentagon Adviser: Dump Big War Training, Learn New Languages Instead"
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/0...enerals-h.html
I have been a proponent of language skills like 2,000 words each in English + French + Russian + Arabic + Spanish.
I don't see a need to give up HIC training, though.
5x 2,000 words in like eight years (for some countries in the alliance it's only 4x 2,000 or even 3x 2,000 !) is not very much, but enough for basic communication and a good base for rapid improvement.
It's like five new words per day (assuming no learning on holidays and sick days).
I better don't start about the usefulness of assuming that past trends continue for long...
Sometimes a great notion...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gian P Gentile
...He should go read the latest Dennis Steele article in Army Magazine that describes a common rotation for a combat brigade through NTC; nothing but and only Coin.
Doesn't that make sense considering the fact that BCT will almost certainly deploy to one theater or another before their Captains make Major?
Quote:
However comments from K like this do not help the cause.
Actually, I thought it was fairly balanced with only a slight tilt to the COIN God.
Quote:
...we would have had more infantrymen and scouts trained to speak vietnamese and knowing of Vietnamese culture dispersed into thousands of cap-like outposts starting in 1965
That would've helped. Wouldn't have been a win, it was never going to be that. Could've been but we're not mean enough to do what would've been required. Nor should we be.
Quote:
...That and of course the usual suspect that the US Army until 68 and Abrams was trying to fight Normandy all over again in the central highlands.
Well, actually, it was Harkins and Westmoreland who tried to fight the run across Germany in 1945, not Normandy -- and Abrams is the guy who at the first briefing after he assumed command when
Quote:
"...The briefer stated that the mission was to ‘seek out and destroy the enemy’, the mission of MACV [Military Assistance Command Viet Nam] under General Westmoreland forthe past four years. Abrams stopped the briefing and wrote out on an easel ‘The mission is not to seek out and destroy the enemy. The mission is to provide protection for the
people of Viet Nam’.
John Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup With A Knife, Chicago UP, 2002, p 175.
However, that was then, this is now and Krepinevich's Viet Nam experience is about as relevant as mine -- means we can both get a cup of coffee at the Waffle House for a buck. Different time, different Army. we're better trained and have better people now so we can do more...
Quote:
If anybody read the recent excellent article by General (ret) Wass de Czege posted on SWJ they should realize the bankruptcy of continuing to envision the future security environment as one defined by "irregular war."
I read that. I thought he was pretty well balanced also, slight lean to HIC.
So we have one retired dude who says emphasize COIN a bit more, another who says emphasize HIC a bit more. Rank immaterial, it sounds like a wash to this retired Dude. What all us retired folks think is immaterial -- what you guys wearing funny suits do is what's important. I will, however, suggest that all three of us retired Dudes effectively suggest you not go off into the deep water at either end of the pool...
Quote:
...the Iranian army would (and here is the power of the coin matrix in our thinking) realize our conventional prowess and instead of fighting us head-on would melt away and into the population, become insurgents like the Iraqis did, and then we would do Surge version 3 in Iran. Me, I dont see it that way. I would envision the Iranians doing actually the opposite and would fight us in a decentralized fashion but still with conventional capabilities organized along the lines that Hiz fought the IDF in summer 2006.
Having served there as an Advisor to that Army for a couple of years a while ago, I think he's slightly more correct than are you. They would try to do what you say but only a few units will be able to pull it off then they'd go to the hills and cities -- they would not be a walkover.
Quote:
...And really, what does the combat "strategic corporal" do on the ground in Iraq or Astan. He shoots, he stands a post, he secures, he moves, he does what his sergeant tells him to do. Does the stragegic corporal talk to the sheik or imam?
All that depends on how much one trusts and uses to their capability ones troops. I'm sure that what you say is correct for many, perhaps even most units but I know it does not apply to all -- and I know that to use ones troops like that is to waste a lot of talent.
Quote:
Serious defense analysts should stop trying to prove academic points and consider the effects of the recommendations that they are making.
I can agree with that... ;)
Understood. Not pickijng on you or the Bn, learning
is a constant process and all of us make errors, particularly when confronted with something we haven't done before -- the key is to not make the same mistake twice
My broader points were that, as we all know, people will do what they're trained to do; that the leaders have to be trained in order to train their people correctly -- and thus, that an oversight in what is is to be trained and how it is to be trained can have really significant effects downstream. Training too often gets lip service and falls in priority to other 'important' but really slightly less so programs.
What the troops do and how well they're employed is one of my pet rocks. The US Army does, IMO, a very poor job of learning from the mistakes of others (a separate thread...) and in productively and sensibly employing its largest batch of human capital. Joe is generally capable of doing a whole lot more than the Army will allow him to do. There are exceptions, of course but most troops try to do the right thing most of the time and most are capable of doing a whole lot more than the zero defects, fear of failure, fear of having the troops show up their nominal betters (that last being far more significant than many realize) average chain of command will let them do. It is, again IMO, a borderline disgrace and a sad commentary on many leaders that this syndrome is not only allowed but tacitly encouraged.
Yet another residual of WW II and a draftee Army. Sad.
These kids are sharp; the current high reenlistment rate indicates what every leader in the Armed forces should know -- let people do their jobs, encourage and challenge them to do more and avoid mind numbing make-work and dumbing things down and people will stay in. The kind of guy or gal we want will respond to challenges; treat 'em like cannon fodder and not terribly bright pawns and they'll leave -- as they should.
I mention the troops but that applies to all ranks and I'd suggest that overlarge and thus underemployed (or make work comfort level reinforcing overemployed...) Staffs have a deleterious effect on Officer retention (also another thread... :D).
Heh. This too will pass...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rex Brynen
I had always heard the Iraq war justified in terms of WMDs, or maybe transforming the Middle East. Now I find out it was all about those evil enemas... :eek:
You're supposed to know better than to listen to what Politicians say... :cool:
It was indeed really about them, the evil ones. One could even say the issue was the product and not the tools employed... ;)