Looking for the Big Guns, too?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fuchs
The language barrier must be terribly powerful.
Every time I ask in English-language forums for expert names, I get minimum 90% US/UK/CAN/Israel replies as if there was no innovation in other languages.
Come on, we're in an alliance. There should be lots of innovators in other countries as well. Doesn't NATO have some institution to distribute new ideas?
Merci! Great question and point! We Yanks remain quite indebted, of course, to the work and writings of Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben. It can't have been all downhill from there, could it?
I notice the thread is trending toward identifying sources for "lessons" vs. your original question of who might be out there capturing/generating infantry theory. While I'm sure these are interlocking fields of fire, I got the feeling you were originally looking for sources who might one day gun for the title of "21st century infantry intellectual grand-daddy," someone along the lines of Heinz Guderian ("Achtung-Panzer!") for armor, or Billy Mitchell ("Winged Defense") for air power. Am I wrong?
How about Major E. James Land?
As far as influencing TTPs for small wars, COIN, LIC, etc. goes.....
Major E. James Land: I believe the standard of sniper training today in both the USMC and the Army is due to Maj. Land's efforts to establish a permanent Scout/Sniper instructor school at Quantico after Vietnam.
Colonel James N. Rowe: What Maj. Land did for sniping Col. Rowe did for SERE.
David Scott-Donelan: The importance of combat tracking (and likely some other lessons from the Rhodesian bush wars) is starting to make it's way into certain segments of the US Military through the efforts of David Scott-Donelan.
And least we forget.....The US Army's Ranger Department and 75th Ranger Regiment has raised the standard of light infantry throughout the US Army.
Arguments? Rebuttals?
Expeditionary law enforcement as possible research direction
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fuchs
I'm curious about who is being considered being one of let's say 20 top infantry tactics experts/theoreticians in the open domain (=some chance to find articles or books to read his/her ideas).
I am specifically interested in the kinetic aspects when I wrote infantry, else I'd have written "PsyOps" or "MP expert".
Any suggestions?
My earlier musings as to whether the civilian tactical law enforcement community might have anything to offer in this area--despite your stipulations against "MP experts"--was based on two assumptions/suspicions. The first was that tactical LE TTP might have some (limited) application for infantry-work within a population, particularly if that population was limited in scale, such as a building, a complex, a block, etc. ... Can't say that line of inquiry or thought worked out, but it was an idea.
The second was that there might be some gendarme/peacekeeper theorists out there, which would blend infantry and police (small "p") thought and practice. An SWJ article on "expeditionary law enforcement" this morning captures the spirit of latter possible research direction, in my opinion. I offer it here for your consideration.