That lack of opportunity for creative thought is a self inflicted wound.
Cessation of micromanagement by the incumbents, removal of the 'up or out' fallacy, ceasing to use personnel policies residual from WW I only suitable for mass Armies and more reasoned competition for promotion would provide more than ample opportunity for thought -- and for creative thought as well. All that is easily within the grasp of said incumbent senior US Officers.
Dumbing down training after Viet Nam had a terrible cost...:mad:
An Armed Force has to operate on trust. Deliberately undertrain and undereducate subordinates to keep them ignorant and compliant while 'saving money' and one will not be able to trust them out of one's sight. That will have predictable consequences on where one must place one's priorities and will cost more in the long term. :rolleyes:
Not very well in either case...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ski
The Army trains people very well, it does not educate people very well, nor does it really foster a spirit of intellectualism except in very select groups. This must change if Mattis' goal is ever to be reached (and I believe it's a worthy vision).
Only 'acceptably well' IMO -- and marginally acceptably at that. The fact that most in the Army are better trained than system design is a compliment to good leaders who transcend that system.
Aside from historical fact, I can look at a picture of action in Afghanistan or elsewhere today and see poor training evidenced. See the attached example of bunching, firing without aiming, firing on full auto for no reason (both those by an apparent Leader...), carrying MG ammo loose allowing belts to pick up debris and misalign cartridges in the links. No one take pictures of Command or Staff errors indicative of poor training but they abound also and few who return that I've talked to fail to have some sad -- and some hilarious -- stories illustrating that shortfall...
Other than that, I agree with your excellent post.
Mobilization and Collaboration
Quote:
Originally Posted by
selil
You know if the Army or Marines would pay. I'd follow a cadre out of bootcamp through their first deployments and chronicle in an anthropological educational system the process and systemic issues. My co-pi Dr. Tyrell and I would travel and train as internal observers using our own gray beard coterie to evaluate our concerns.
IMO, this type of involvement/interaction is one thing that we've missed out on since the country was not mobilized after 9/11. I'm not talking about Vietnam-era draft, but rather WWII style mobilization. As I studied psychological operations during WWII, the military had access to advertisement executives, circus managers, and Hollywood types that intuitively understood propaganda and deception. Furthermore, the university system worked hand-in-hand with the military to work through various problem sets.
Today, this involvement is limited to a handful of departments at NPS, the academies, and some ad-hoc organizations/people. Imagine if that changed, and all a MarcT or Selil had to do was submit a short letter of intent defining scope, cost, and purpose to use their expertise to help us.
I had the opportunity to participate in a couple of working groups at NPS (TRAC-Monterey and CORE Lab). Most of the projects we worked on are secret or classified, but y'all got to see some results like the Salinas gang project. I really think an expansion of these type of research teams and analysis groups into civilian universities would be mutually beneficial. In some cases, SF teams outsourced/tasked master's students to work problems for them. They could travel on-site, communicate via secure email, or talk in person once a week using a webcam. Throughout the course of a year, the master's student had his thesis and the SF team had answers.
I'd like this type of problem solving pushed down to the Marines and Army company commanders in patrol bases. We have the technology. They can use an Ipod phone application (currently being created by some Marines at NPS) to gather the survey data, push it back home station to a Selil or MarcT, and get immediate feedback via a Webcam. Most importantly, the subject matter experts can advise them on the questions and considerations that the commander simply doesn't know to ask or think about.
This is one collaboration solution harnessing the power of the internet. Another is far simpler. It just involves a commander taking the time to pass down his Operational Summaries DOWN the chain to his NCOs/PLs and asking them, "What do you think about this?"
v/r
Mike