Facile and not particularly helpful list
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Originally Posted by
Eden
It's hard to disagree that we should train for the next war, not the last, but I have very little faith that we (and by that I mean TRADOC) will be able to divine just where and when we will fight the next war...
That's the point -- we cannot, therefor we have to be prepared to operate in all spectrums. If there is excessive concentrarion on the last, then something will generally be omitted that is applicable to the next one as I'll show below.
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...Maybe I just traveled in the wrong crowd, but I don't remember anybody in 2000 suggesting it was time to start training for counterinsurgency in Iraq...
The issue is not what was done in 2000. The issue is that the Army deliberately downplayed and tried to ignore COIN and nationbuilding after Viet Nam because they concentrated on THAT war and did not want to do that again.
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In fact, do a little thought experiment. Starting in 1900, imagine how likely it was that we would properly envision the next war, or set of wars, as we planned out the next two decades of training for the Army.
Your list in italics
1900 - Next US War after the recent unpleasentness in the Philippines will be a major conventional war on the continent of Europe.
Exactly. And the Army which had for years been training at distributed operations and had only one division levle exercise took excessive casualties in France due to that lack of focus on mass.
1920 - Next US War will be a virtual repeat of the recent major conventional war, with the Pacific thrown in for good measure. Oh, and the Army will need to become expert at amphibious operations.
Actually, it was the Marine Corps who foresaw the phib problem and the Army's concentration on WW I tactics and techniques caused a lot of excess casualties in Norht Africa and in Sicily. an Army that had trained for the static warfare of WW I found itslef fighting a mobile, fasst paced war and it did not do that well. Armies who don't do things well always suffer excessive casualties.
1940 - OK, this one is an exception - or is it? Who would have forseen after WWII that our next war would be a limited one on the Asian continent?
No one and that again is the point...
1960 - 500,000 men need to be trained on semi-conventional counterinsurgent warfare.
Yet an Army trained for your previous item as well as the next item went to SE Asia and tried to fight a land war in Europe while stuck in Rice paddies...
1980 - Our next opponents will be the Sov...oh, several insignificant Latin American countries.
Yes on the Soviets but being in the Army then, I recall absolutely no concern with Latin America other than for a few SF types.
1990 - Coming up, we get a chance to employ all those wonderful tanks after all!
Yes, we did -- and got lulled into thinking the next one would be similar. It was not...
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"Prepare for the next war, not the last" is one of those true but useless aphorisms. Unless our prognostication skills radically improve, preparing for the last war will be just as useful as preparing for what we imagine the next might look like.
Partly correct -- the real requirement is to prepare to fight a war; that's what Armies get paid for. Preparing for the next war is rarely possible because one rarely knows where and what it will be. Being fully prepared to fight the next war, whatever and where ever it is, is an entirely different thing -- and is always going to be more promising than preparing to fight a repeat of the last.
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By the way, I have "major conventional war in Europe" in the office pool.
If that's a pool on the next, I expect you'll lose... :wry:
Violent agreement...almost
Ken,
I think we both agree that the institutional army, for the past one hundred years at least, has been pretty abysmal at predicting the nature, demands, and location of our next war. While there have always been voices in the wilderness, with few exceptions our forces have rarely matched the mission when the balloon went up. Even the Gulf War, where we had the right type of Army, was more serendipity than strategic foresight.
Where we disagree is on what to do about it. You say - I think - that we have to be fully prepared to fight across the spectrum of conflict, so that whatever contingency arises, we will be ready. I say that is impossible.
My own thinking on the subject is that:
1. The reason why we have the luxury of fighting small wars is that no one can challenge us in a big one. The foundation stone of our security is not success in Small Wars but unrivaled capacity for Big Wars.
2. The stakes in the present crop of and future potential Small Wars are low. I'm sorry, I know a lot of the avid readers of this blog don't want to hear it, but defeat in, say, Iraq, while discomfiting and humiliating, would not have a huge effect on our national security.
3. Preparing an army to fight both major conventional battles and to fight wars requiring distributed, small unit operations, is not possible, no matter how much money you throw at it. There simply isn't enough time. This stuff is hard, on both ends of the spectrum.
4. Since losing Big Wars is much more dangerous, and since a larger percentage of skills learned in preparing for conventional wars are transferrable to Small Wars than vice versa, focusing on conventional warfare seems to have the biggest payoff.
So, the objective should be to maintain your conventional warfighting skills and keep your powder dry. Human nature and bureaucracies being what they are, this usually means your training program looks like the last war. But this is usually a closer match with the future than our prognostications have ever been.
Your suggestion is essentially what was done back in
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Originally Posted by
Norfolk
... Given this example, if the Army did go such a route in the future, how capable of fighting a major or even a general war might it really be?
the late 50s. The XVII Abn Corps was training on about an 80 / 20 ratio of LIC / HIC. The III Corps was purely heavy (and reinforcing for V and VII) a couple of loose Infantry Divs were not assigned to either stateside corps and had a swing role.
The training regimen for XVIII Corps included cultural and language training (101st f/Asia, backup to Korea) and the 82d for South America and Africa (backup to Europe).
Fast forward to 2000. There was little real difference other than fewer Divisions (and the ones that were gone were from Europe) and the 101st was Airmobile and not parachute. It trained pretty much full spectrum with an emphasis on HIC. The 10th Mtn guys did the same as did the 82d who also did airfield seizure as a backup to the Ranger Regt who then had that mission as primary. The LIC mission for XVIII Corps was, shortsightedly, gone.
Without going into an overlong dissertation, the answer to your question IMO is it would not adversely impact the HIC capability at all; that's nowadays a heavy div chore (unless we get into a war in urban Europe which is an interesting if unlikely scenario for many reasons).
As I've said before, I spent 45 years training for or helping train for a land war in Europe. Never been to Europe but I sure have eaten a lot rice... :D
Uh, not what's being said, I don't think...
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Originally Posted by
Eden
Guys,
When you say that it is possible for units to be trained for full-spectrum operations, you are saying that you can produce units trained to do all things and do all things well. In my experience that is not possible.
I generally agree with that but suggest that these kids today are capable of doing a lot more than they're asked to do by an anachronistic training regimen (which is admittedly improving). I'd also suggest they are, generally, several orders of magnitude ahead of my day and a couple ahead of the early to mid 90s. A lot of the post Viet Nam deadwood departed in the 1999-2002 period.
However, I've been very careful to emphasize we need a full spectrum Army, not full spectrum units (though there will be very few units that have to do that -- and can; they've done it before).
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The higher you go the worse the problems. Brigades and above need to train together to be proficient; they don't do that when preparing for Small Wars. Oh, they may all go to the JRTC at the same time, but they are not practicing operating together, just operating in the same general area.
Agreed. :cool:
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Now, you can have an army where half of the units are trained and equipped for the low end of the spectrum, and half are trained and equipped for the high end. This has its own problem set, but I will admit it is possible and may even be desirable - I remain an agnostic on that issue.
Cool. However, I think you'll find that we're headed for a low end, a high end and a swing center. I also think you'll find that it works... ;)