Educating Special Forces Junior Leaders for a Complex Security Environment
JSOU, Jul 09: Educating Special Forces Junior Leaders for a Complex Security Environment
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...the operational environment all SOF officers will face in the coming decades will include much more than irregular warfare, which greatly complicates the training and education requirements for the entire officer corps, but particularly for Special Forces officers.
This study contains six parts:
a. List of assumptions that will impact Special Forces officer education and training.
b. Best guess at what the “future international security environment” will look like.
c. Recommendations—based on the assumptions and the “future operational environment”—of several knowledge-based education competencies—some familiar, some not.
d. Survey of graduate programs teaching these competencies.
e. Statistical analysis and discussion of the “gap” in graduate education between Army Special Forces and non-Special Forces
f. Suggestions for providing Special Forces officers with a viable, tailored, and quality master’s degree that will enhance their operational performance, accelerate their capability for senior-level and joint staff billets, and increase their opportunity for successful command in increasingly difficult command situations.
Thanks and more sputtering about outside the box
Tom, thanks for focusing a partial answer to my stumbling inquiry.
I was and am aware of the Naval College program (missed a chance to do it when a reservist with HQ USSOCOM) as I was committed to another continuing education task at that time...time conflict, near end of my active, then only reserve career.
Wishing no harm to the Navy school, I am still curious how any exisiting military ed program can "really" get us to think and then operate "outside the box"...in a manner necessary to show results sooner vs. later.
SECDEF Rumsfield seems to me to have tried, and failed, to use the Special Ops approach in Afghanistan, where it worked initially, then things within a year or two started falling down...perhaps, who the heck am I to know it all...perhaps due to in attention to two things:
1. (my penchant) for psyops/Voice of American radio and TV 24/7 in the appropriate dialects, to constantly put down the lies in the media all over the theater of operations region...including in the Pak press and TV/radio media.
2. Our inability to quickly stand up a stable Afghan Army and national police, for whatever reasons you better educated, younger, on the scene guys and gals know best.
Point well taken, Tom, about the Navy School. but I am a stubbord old coot and perhaps a whole sea change of mind set is yet not either allowed or is already, goofily in my personal opinion, "boxed in" by political constraints from on high.
Best muttering I can do short of self-explosion.
Good weekend to all, we are off the Gulf Coast beaches late in the weekend for a week of beer, beef, sun, and grown children still feeding from the proverbial "family" wallet as our "guests."
Schmedlap, the current wars are not
the SF operating norm. SF has been with us for 57 years. During mostof those years it has been operating a long way from any other US troops. In 1967 an SF team led by Major Pappy Shelton trained the Bolivian Ranger battalion that hunted and chased down Che Guevara. The only other US force in the country was a two man SF training team consisting of CPT John Waghelstein and an NCO training the Bolivian Airborne. They made a decision independently to try to hunt down and capture the remnants of Che's band. 20 years later, I visited with then CPT Charlie Cleveland in the Chapare in Bolivia where his ODA was alone and supporting the Bolivian Rural Police in their operations against coca trafficking. (Last I heard of him BG Clevland was commanding SOCSOUTH). BTW, they had to coordinate with DEA, USAID, US immigration and customs, all of which were working in the area. While Charlie and his team were directly subordinate to the US MILGP, COL George Alport, the commander, had little contact with them (which was a reason for the visit). The COL wanted to see what they were doing and if he could provide any support. To get out there we flew from La Paz to Cochabamba and picked up a vehicle and drove 8 hours down a mountain road that was a cross between a roller coaster and a deathtrap.:eek: Point is, this is the norm for SF operations. Even El Salvador (where Waghelstein commanded the MILGP) was something of an anomaly with SF operating in two man operations and training teams with other advisors to make up the famous 55. The SF guys were out at the ESAF brigades; the others in San Salvador except for the Marine team with the ESAF Marines and one SF CPT assigned to work with USAID.
Cheers
JohnT
Where's My Pound of Flesh
- that as John Q Taxpayer, said men get the Masters then don't jump ship in 4 years? What's the commitment time post-training? We assume said men become career men but they are not fully indentured to Uncle Sam. We got base pay going out and high-end tuition/books etc. that's alot of cash and personally I am just playing the devil's advocate here.
I like the idea of USAID exposure Red Rat, but isn't that just more exposure to another structure of an organization while said participants have no power to do anything while there? The ideal would be 6 months in the Peace Corps but a tough nut to crack and implement. I would opt for a year of Grad work in Culture/Sociology/language with a directive they be accepted into the PC with a provision that after 6 months they resign then shift over to either 3rd world missionary work or inner city homeless shelter work for 6 months - you want frustration, communication problems, break down of protocols, laison difficulty, ongoing crisis', cultural alienation, lack of funding, lack of resources, its all to be had in the latter environment, great preperation for 3rd world hot spots that have to be managed somehow. Just my .02 worth.
When I was in the PC in Africa, the only ones accomplishing anything were the small, holistic missions at the village level and a paltry few PC Volunteers. I failed with my agricultural mission because I followed PC protocol of minimal hands on, though I did teach some English and did a hell of a lot of 1st Aid - bend to the breaking point protocol and you win.
Yet neither even blinks at the thought of sending troops to combat.
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Originally Posted by
oblong
...I would imagine the reaction from Congress and the media would be pretty intense the first time one of these individuals is seriously injured (or killed) or injures someone in self defense if he gets mugged or assaulted during one of these exercises.
Where far worse is guaranteed -- to far more people.
Oh, you're probably correct but you should not be -- that says something about priorities of a lot of folks. Not anything good...
Marc, can't speak of the other boxes for SF
alone - my sample is too small. But I know soldiers who are sculptors, painters, actors, singers, and fiction writers. Now for baroque singers... and bronc riders...
Cheers
JohnT
Know three Bronc Riders, one Marine, two Sojers...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John T. Fishel
alone - my sample is too small. But I know soldiers who are sculptors, painters, actors, singers, and fiction writers. Now for baroque singers... and bronc riders...
I do have to admit to knowing only one Baroque Singer -- and that only virtually... ;)
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I think I'm going to leave it here and see what people think.
Much there to think about. Seriously. Especially the "Transdisciplinarity is a threat to the 'box of boxes' " issue...
On a less serious note (slightly), stand-up comedy and improvisational acting have merit as cross disciplines; leadership they say is half showmanship -- and the benefits of both alternatives to the military briefer go without saying... :D
Just ordered the Abbott book. Thanks...
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Originally Posted by
marct
Someday, we'll fix that "virtually" part over bourbon and beers :D.
Good plan!
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As for the leader motivation aspect you bring up Ken, I totally agree, although i might put it a touch higher ;).
I try to be charitable on alternate Thursdays... ;)