JFQ - Point - Counterpoint - SWJ Early Exclusive

Colonel David Gurney (USMC Ret.), Editor of Joint Force Quarterly and Director of National Defense University Press, has been closely following the debate between John Nagl and Gian Gentile and our guest commentators here on Small Wars Journal. For SWJ newcomers or the uninitiated - this debate has centered on the kinds of threats the U.S. will face in the period ahead and how U.S. ground forces should prepare for those threats.

Colonel Gurney has kindly – and we greatly appreciate this – granted SWJ permission to post a Nagl-Gentile “point-counterpoint” that will appear in the December issue of JFQ.

Without further ado here it is:

POINT: Let’s Win the Wars We’re In by John Nagl

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A stunning if predictable development in the military community over the past 2 years has been the backlash against the promulgation of counterinsurgency learning in the midst of the ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars have spurred long-overdue changes in the way the U.S. military prepares for and prioritizes irregular warfare. These changes are hard-won: they have been achieved only after years of wartime trials and tribulations that have cost the United States dearly in money, materiel, and the lives of its courageous Service-members.

Yet despite the relatively tentative nature of such changes, there are already those who predict grim strategic outcomes for America if its military, particularly the Army, continues the process of adaptation. Gian Gentile, the vocal Army critic of counterinsurgency adaptation, has written that a “hyper-emphasis on counterinsurgency puts the American Army in a perilous condition. Its ability to fight wars consisting of head-on battles using tanks and mechanized infantry is in danger of atrophy.” He is not alone in his views. Three brigade commanders in the Iraq War wrote a white paper warning about the degradation of seldom used field artillery, declaring that the Army is “mortgaging [its] ability to fight the next war” by neglecting the requirements for combined arms operations. The Army Secretary, Pete Geren, and Chief of Staff, General George Casey, both assert that the Army is “out of balance” in part because of “a focus on training for counterinsurgency operations to the exclusion of other capabilities.” Prominent civilian thinkers in the academic community have presented similar arguments. With such dire warnings, one might forget that there’s a war on right now...

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Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl, USA (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

COUNTERPOINT: Let’s Build an Army to Win All Wars by Gian Gentile

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The U.S. Army officer corps has not seriously debated the content of the many doctrinal field manuals (FM) published over the past 2 years (for example, FM 3–24, Counterinsurgency, FM 3–0, Operations, and FM 3–07, Stability Operations and Support Operations). Though these manuals have been successfully pushed through the bureaucratic lines of the Army’s senior leadership, few other officers raised questions about the wisdom of employing American military power to build nations where none exist or where an American military presence is not wanted. Instead, the Army has been steamrolled by a process that proposes its use as an instrument of nationbuilding in the most unstable parts of the world. Nationbuilding, rather than fighting, has become the core function of the U.S. Army.

The Army under the Petraeus Doctrine “is entering into an era in which armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous - with the application of force becoming a lesser part of the soldier’s repertoire.” The implication of this doctrine is that the Army should be transformed into a light infantry-based constabulary force designed to police the world’s endless numbers of unstable areas. The concept rests on the assumption that the much- touted “surge” in Iraq was a successful feat of arms, an assertion that despite the claims of punditry supporters in the press has yet to be proven. The war in Iraq is not yet over...

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Colonel Gian P. Gentile, USA, is Director of the Military History Program at the United States Military Academy.

I have a lot of respect for both these officers, at least their well thought out positions; however, I have yet to have seen an intelligent response to COL Gentile's challenge:

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The Army under the Petraeus Doctrine “is entering into an era in which armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous—with the application of force becoming a lesser part of the soldier’s repertoire.” The concept rests on the assumption that the much touted “surge” in Iraq was a successful feat of arms, an assertion that despite the claims of punditry supporters in the press has yet to be proven. The war in Iraq is not yet over.

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I share COL Gentile's concern that we are re-designing our Army to engage in endless irregular conflicts around the globe to accomplish what exactly? We have very few cases where our nation building efforts have been successful (unless it was after the conflict like Germany and Japan), I can't recall any where we successfully built a nation while fighting. I think much of the doctrine is based on loosely supported assumptions, rather than historical precedent. That doesn't mean it's incorrect, but it should at least prompt a caution light before we drive through this intersection. The so called new doctrine should support policy and its subsequent strategy to achieve that policy, and it should take into consideration that policy and strategy are shaped by our political culture and the international opinion. Going where we're not wanted to engage in a protracted, ambiguous and continuous conflict generally not well tolerated by our citizens. It can be terribly expensive on many levels (financially, politically, and a major drain on the military). The strategy can be right in a miltary sense, but if it isn't politically supportable, then it isn't feasible. In my opinion at least part of the debate should discuss the costs versus the "potential" gains? We should be able to clearly state why it is in our national interest to get engaged in these conflicts and to transform the Army to fight them (and assume the risk regarding our ability to fight other types of wars).

Irregular warfare has always been the most common form of warfare, what is may be new is our desire to intervene in it. It is almost like a desire to solve world hunger. A very noble pursuit, but is it realistic? If we have a choice, and the part of the question is "if", do we want get involved in these conflicts? If we do, what can the military realistically accomplish? These questions still haven't been answered. I have seen a lot of discussion on the way it should work, the whole of government, etc., but very little discussion on the limits of reality.

I disagree with COL Gentile's comment below:

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The concept rests on the assumption that the much touted “surge” in Iraq was a successful feat of arms, an assertion that despite the claims of punditry supporters in the press has yet to be proven. The war in Iraq is not yet over.

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GEN Petraeus's strategy did work, and it was the appropriate response to the problem at hand; however, the military can only succeed at providing a degree of security, which can present a window of opportunity to achieve some degree of political success, which in turn will allow us to remove the security blanket without the situation falling apart. If Iraq fails it won't be due to GEN Petraeus's strategy, without his strategy it would have failed already. This does get back to his original argument though, do we want to get involved in protracted and ambiguous conflicts? If there isn't a clear, achievable political objective in sight, then why try to build a nation?

I'm sitting on the fence on this debate, I see the merit of both arguments and think there must be an acceptable balance. I also think it would be foolish to assume that the OIF's and Afghanistan's are going to be the new norm. If they are, then maybe we're learning the wrong lessons from these conflicts.

The one primary lesson everyone military or not hopefully gets is that no matter what kind of war we're in, We Dont want to have to do it and should spend a large amount of intellectual effort in how to keep from having to.

In regards to the concerns that both Nagl and Gentile express it really seems to be an exercise in futility to argue the value's of one form of warfare over the other if for no other reason than the discussions always end up with comparison's between pieces like cost, resources, personnel, etc. Not that these aren't valid but rather that they perhaps tend to detract from the larger discussion that Bill addressed above.

Should or shouldn't we, and why, and what requires that we do or don't go to war. How should we percieve what happens elsewhere in regards to our Nat Sec in both human and fiscal terms. That particular discussion would seem to be more likely to result in a common and at least more acceptable WOG approach to future military use.

I wholeheartedly agree with the statement that the "SURGE" was carried out in what was probably as good a way possible and for all intensive purposes did serve to bring forth the opportunity for Iraqi's to get it right. As to what right will look like for them and whether or not we(WESTERNERS) percieve it as such is as yet to be seen. I do think though that when the Govt of Iraq really starts acting in what it sees as its countries best interests, there will be a plethura of those throughout the international community who feel the need to complain, point fingures, say "I told you so" etc, and it should be no surprise that many enemies will use this in order to put forth their own agendas.

As to the specific statement by Col Gentile:

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The Army under the Petraeus Doctrine “is entering into an era in which armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous—with the application of force becoming a lesser part of the soldier’s repertoire.” The concept rests on the assumption that the much touted “surge” in Iraq was a successful feat of arms, an assertion that despite the claims of punditry supporters in the press has yet to be proven. The war in Iraq is not yet over.

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Yes it would seem to be common sense that if you learn to cook rather than joust than you may end up being a great chef for your new masters after the heavy attack. I'm not sure though that I have really heard from many of those who have been over there that they don't know how nor that they don't want to kick some &^%. There are frustrations with differing missions and this does need to be addressed but in training not strategy. If you limit your planning to only those areas with which you are comfortable than of course when the enemy decides to play to the areas where you are uncomfortable things will probably not be pretty.

Long and Short-

Do we need to get back to the basics in training some of the more heavy fighting skillsets, sure. Not sure that I've seen anyone disagree with that.

Should we focus on COIN soley of course not, and I know I've not seen anyone expect that

Do we choose not to work dilligently at being the best we can at COIN,NB, etc simply because we fear that it will end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
No , we do however figure out how to do both HIC and LIC be good as possible at both and work hard as hell to avoid either.

IT's not a competition between the two whether we like it or not it requires both, and in the end we only get so much say on which or when it happens.

The Enemy has a vote too:(

I see the merits in both arguments. COIN is here to stay, and it will do the Army no good whatsoever to ignore its existence yet again. However, the purely kinetic fight is the best use of the military. DoD needs to get out of the business of being our primary instrument of foreign affairs.

What we need is to amp up and rebuild (build?) our non-military elements of national power, and if it becomes necessary to intervene globally, to do so using those elements first, and reserving the military for the actual and appropriate violence as an end to policy and to bail our butts out when we inevitably screw up.

Like 120mm, I see merits in both arguments, though I tend to be more of a "Gentilist" than a "Naglite."

One thing I don't often see discussed is the question of scale. While I agree to a certain extent with the Nagl view that a lot of future conflict is likely to be irregular, where I differ is in terms of scale - how much manpower and resources such conflicts are likely to take. In my particular crystal ball, I see our interventions, nation-building efforts and stability operations as more limited affairs once our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down. My judgment on the mood of the American people indicates to me they are not likely to send us to any more Iraq's or Afghanistans anytime soon. Still, predicting the nature, scope and opponent(s) in future conflicts is usually a humbling enterprise, so that's why I personally support a full-spectrum force as a hedge against uncertainty. In this regard, though, I personally think Nagl swings the pendulum too far from a balanced force in favor of an irregular capability.

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

I share COL Gentile's concern that we are re-designing our Army to engage in endless irregular conflicts around the globe .

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I am curious to this assertion. At the institutional (not operational) level, what whave we redesigned for IW? What permanant changes have we made?

I am hard pressed to find anything that isn't related to every BCT being committed to Iraq or A-Stan.

That has been my issue. Yes, the OPERATIONAL force has gone 100% COIN/IW, because EVERY BCT we have is needed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The INSTITUTION has not significantly changed.

Last week here at CAC there was a conference regarding how future maneuver rotations at the CTC's would be executed. Hardly a re-design of the army for IW.

Niel

As I understand it:

One side says "We will will be involved in FID and COIN and must be prepared at the same time to have some major war capabiility."

Other side says "We must be prepared for major wars but do need some FID and COIN capability."

I think that is broadly correct. Thus, it seems to me they effectively cancel each other out and both are in agreement that the United States does need full combat spectrum capability.

Is that about right?

Then I agree. So why argue? Let's just point that way and move out.

Huh? Oh, the SYSTEM has not made up its mind. I see, So this argument is an attempt to influence the senior leadership to go with one priority or the other, perhaps. Makes sense. Sort of...

I see one problem. The senior leadership of Armed Forces are unlikely to be on the cutting edge of anything. That is not a slam as it appears, it is a simple statement of fact; the system will not allow people to do that ordinarily. Perhaps it shouldn't be that way but it is. Further, that system defaults to warfighting -- and that includes both ends of the spectrum as we have recently been reminded -- so seems to me that both sides will get their wish and we will have some semblance of balance between the poles. That ought to be okay.

It seems to me that the new crowd coming in will have some say and effect and that Congress will have significant impact through their power of purse and that both those two batches of folks would be more likely to listen to a unified voice rather than two opposing camps. But maybe not...

On balance, I'm in agreement with Cav Guy and 120mm and Ron and Bill --and I strongly suspect, the vast majority of serving people. I think that that comes close to being one a them consensual things. er, consensus... ;)

Nagl and Gentile are Both Right
So What Do We Do Now?
by Robert Haddick, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

Nagl and Gentile are Both Right (Full PDF Article)

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Small Wars Journal readers are no doubt familiar with the debate between John Nagl and Gian Gentile about the kinds of threats the U.S. will face in the period ahead and how U.S. ground forces should prepare for those threats. (See Shawn Brimley’s excellent summary of the argument for a refresher.)

I have concluded that both men are right; their arguments are not mutually exclusive. But if both men are right, how should the U.S. organize, train, and employ its ground forces?

The purpose of this paper is to explain how to succeed against irregular adversaries, while restoring a more credible deterrence against conventional high-intensity threats.

Main Points

1. The Long War, characterized by persistent tribal and ethnic conflicts, is a reality. Some of these conflicts will threaten U.S. interests. John Nagl is correct when he argues that the U.S. needs military forces that are specially adapted for success in persistent irregular warfare.

2. But Gian Gentile is also right – the U.S. has an interest in maintaining its military resource commitment low and its strategic flexibility high. The U.S. should not drain away its limited endurance, prestige, and resources on open-ended medium-intensity engagements in the Islamic world or anywhere else.

3. The answer is to create Nagl’s Combat Advisor Corps and use it to for Phase 0 and 1 operations – prevention, shaping, and deterrence. The more attention the U.S. gives to Phase 0-1 operations, the fewer Phase 2-4 operations America’s general purpose forces will have to fight.

4. Making a greater commitment to Phase 0-1 operations will allow the U.S. to seize the initiative in the irregular warfare domain, control US operational tempo, and regulate U.S. military resource usage.

5. Advisor Corps Phase 0-1 operations are an economy-of-force mission. When successful, they will allow the rest of the U.S. military, including the large majority of U.S. ground combat power, to prepare for major combat contingencies, thus enhancing strategic deterrence.

6. A professional and well-trained Advisor Corps will also have the mission of establishing relationships with sub-national ethnic and tribal groupings. These relationships will provide U.S. decision-makers with greater flexibility when dealing with future irregular conflicts...

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Mr. Haddick says:

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"I have concluded that both men are right; their arguments are not mutually exclusive..."

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and I totally agree with that portion of his conclusion. He further says:

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But if both men are right, how should the U.S. organize, train, and employ its ground forces?"

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I strongly disagree with his answer to that, specifically:

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"The answer is to create Nagl’s Combat Advisor Corps and use it to for Phase 0 and 1 operations – prevention, shaping, and deterrence. The more attention the U.S. gives to Phase 0-1 operations, the fewer Phase 2-4 operations America’s general purpose forces will have to fight."

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I disagree on practical grounds -- the Army and Marines flat cannot afford it, Dollar wise or personnel spaces wise and, as I've pointed out before, John Nagl's Advisor Corps may take four Brigades worth of people -- but the grade and specialty structure will be totally unlike a Brigade and it will take six Brigades worth of people to feed that four...

I also disagree on strategic grounds. Why does everyone assume we must be involved in FID and / or COIN. I do not question that we may be and should be prepared to do so but I strongly disagree that we should seek that mission -- and I assure you based on 45 years of doing and 15 more watching this stuff if you create an Advisor Corps it will get used.

My point is that there are better ways to handle many situations than to go barging in to 'fix' it -- our track record at that is not stellar and mayhap we should just stop digging and pursue alternative strategies.

I disagree on Operational grounds; commitment to another nation for FID or a COIN effort effectively constitute the operational level of war -- thus by default, DoD will take over the effort and we'll get to again do something that neither out national psyche nor our form and model of government is prepared to sustain.

I disagree on tactical grounds. I have been a unit adviser, in peace and in war. I have served with many others doing that job. My observation is that the ability to truly influence the HN forces is limited at best; thus we are confronted with taking a lot of experienced and presumed competent combat power and putting it in positions of marginal effectiveness. That is not to say that Adviser will not be needed in the future -- if we're smart, they will not be but we aren't always smart so they may well be needed. We certainly should be prepared for it. The effort can be ad hoc and work adequately well; the Mission does not require exemplary performance so to waste effort preparing many people for it in best practice terms seems questionable at best.

Mr. Haddick further says, in his Conclusion:

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"John Nagl’s description of a chaotic world rife with irregular wars is accurate. He is correct that the U.S. needs to develop a new tool, an Advisor Corps, to operate successfully in this world.

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It may be accurate, it may not. Regardless, there is no reason to assume the US HAS to go into the FID mode in large scale.

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But Gian Gentile is also correct when he warns against squandering U.S. prestige and military resources on numerous open-ended, medium-intensity conflicts. He is also correct when he warns against reshaping most of America’s ground forces into solely irregular warfighters at the sacrifice of conventional high-intensity capabilities. Although seemingly a remote probability, an American defeat in a future high-stakes, high-intensity conflict could be a crushing blow to America’s prestige, strategic position, and economy.

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I agree -- and a 'crushing blow' ferociously outweighs 'numerous open-ended, medium-intensity conflicts.'

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America’s potential adversaries have been watching and calculating. Will one of these adversaries conclude, correctly or incorrectly, that the U.S. has run down its options to respond to either irregular or conventional contingencies?

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We have not even explored the possibility of other ways of responding to such provocations.

We received over 50 probes from the ME from 1979 until 2001. That's 22 years under five administrations from both parties and who knows how many batches of senior leaders, in uniform and not at DoD and ALL the services that never even gave it a thought. Our reaction to the Iranian Hostage debacle showed a pressing need for several things; we instituted a small portion and promptly forgot about the rest. We need to asssess what we are doing and, far more importantly, what we can and should do.

Forming an Advisor Corps will assure that we do not make such an assessment, will detract from combat capability, will adversely affect the personnel structure and will effectively insure that we do in fact get involved in:

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"...Phase 0-1 missions will accelerate the buildup of friendly indigenous military capacities. The Advisor Corps will also establish relationships with mutually beneficial allies.

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in other words, it will insure that we do get involved in what was initially said that we should avoid:

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...The U.S. should not drain away its limited endurance, prestige, and resources on open-ended medium-intensity engagements in the Islamic world or anywhere else.

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Ken wrote,

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My point is that there are better ways to handle many situations than to go barging in to 'fix' it -- our track record at that is not stellar and mayhap we should just stop digging and pursue alternative strategies.

I disagree on Operational grounds; commitment to another nation for FID or a COIN effort effectively constitute the operational level of war -- thus by default, DoD will take over the effort and we'll get to again do something that neither out national psyche nor our form and model of government is prepared to sustain.

My observation is that the ability to truly influence the HN forces is limited at best; thus we are confronted with taking a lot of experienced and presumed competent combat power and putting it in positions of marginal effectiveness.

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While open to persuasion, I tend to agree with Ken's position. I think we're grossly over reacting to the situation in Iraq, which is a situation of our own making due to poor planning and faulty assumptions. That sure as heck doesn't mean it is the future of warfare, unless we're incapable of learning.

The fix in this case isn't more combat advisors, but an appropriate strategy. I can think of very few situations where U.S. advisors were decisive (nor should they be), and the most effective U.S. advisors in true COIN scenarios (not armed nation building like we're doing Iraq and Afghanistan) have normally been very, very few in number (Lansdale in the Philippines, a hand full of advisors in Greece, etc.). A Bde size element of advisors implies we're looking at doing more than advising, it almost appears that we'll be doing the job for them. (O.K. homeboys you stand down now and we'll assume all responsibility because we're the experts, just do what I say).

Not only is that dangerously arrogant, the general trend is the more folks you put on the ground the harder it is to extract yourself from the problem because those you're advising are now dependent upon you. At that point you extended your role past that of an advisor.

As Bob's World implied in the discussion titled "how to win", if the Host Nation government cannot win over their own population, then there is very little chance that they'll win the conflict with or without our help. Sending a few advisors to attempt to help the host nation gives us the option to withdraw honorably if that government is not willing to do what is necessary to defeat the threat and mobilize its populace to its side. That isn't an American loss, it was lost because the host nation wouldn't step up to the plate and do the right things. At that point, depending on our national interests we either take over the fight (not sure we ever won one doing this) or we quietly leave and cut our losses. We didn't win them all during the Cold War, but we still won the Cold War.

Ken makes a good point about the limits of our national pscyhe and the inability to endure in a conflict for extended periods of time due to our political system and processes. We don't have to like it, we just need to recognize that is part of our reality and ensure we address it in our decision making process. We can commit money and a handful of advisors for a long, long time, because it isn't very sexy and while it may be transparent, it is below the interest level of the media. News about Paris Hilton is more important than our operations in the Trans Sahel, and in many ways that is a good thing.

Furthermore, if we're honest with ourselves we'll admit that Ken is absolutely right. Most advisors don't have limited impact on the behavior of those they're advising, because it is difficult to overcome their cultural norms and their ingrained decision making processes (and their filters on how they perceive the problem). We still have influence, but let's not overstate the situation.

I would propose considering revisiting our past (with some modifications) to address the challenges we face today. Some considerations:

- Get Special Forces back in the advisory role. For tactial level training and advisory support to host nation security forces, there is no better force. They already exist, they're already trained, and they have the command structure to support these operations on the cheap (relatively speaking). Is there really a requirement for conventional forces to create a Bde's worth of advisors, which equates to robbing the Army of a Bde's worth of experienced NCOs and Officers, which will have long term second order effects on the overall force?

- Conventional Forces will still have to provide numerous specialists and experienced combat arms leaders. We don't need an unit of advisors to support this, rather we need a mechanism to prepare the many good NCOs and Officers we have in the conventional ranks for this duty. They already know their job, and they know how to train, they just need to learn the many nuances of training foreigners and combat advising. Not that many years ago the Institute of Military Assistance (IMA) at Ft Bragg filled this role. Individuals should be carefully screened, then adequately prepared (at the new IMA), and sent upon their way (and once deployed they should have a reach back system to allow them to tap into a wide range of experts and mentors to help them surmount any obstacels they run into).

- For larger scale missions like Afghanistan, the same courses of action as above would exist, but obviously the problem is beyond the scale of our current structure. It is also beyond the scale of Bde's worth of advisors. However, many of the problems we face today are the result of poor training and inadequate eduation in the full spectrum of war. As my previous commander was fond of saying, winning the force on force fight only gets you to the 50 yard line, you still have to win the phase IV and V fight to get a touchdown, so as Ken stated both Nagel and Gentile are right (what are we debating?). A somewhat simple fix is to extend our professional development process and ensure the study of COIN and stability operations is mandatory in all officer and NCO professional develop courses. We need an Army that knows how to run touchdowns, not just get the ball to the 50 yard line.

It can be argued that many units didn't have a clue in 2002-2004 on how to conduct COIN and stability operations, thus many of the problems we're facing today are not due to a lack of advisors, but rather a lack of understanding on where we were going and how to get there. If leaders understand COIN and Stability Operations from the Platoon level up, then it is unlikely we'll allow ourselves to let the situation deteriorate to the point we did in Afghanistan and Iraq.

- Don't forget contract trainers and advisors (MPRI did amazing work throughout Africa and the Balkans during the 1990s), partner nations and the UN. I know we're using all these in the current fight, but think about the capacity needed post Iraq. Again due we need a Bde of advisors?

I'm not proposing anything new, just suggesting that we collectively take a deep breath before we decide to form a Bde's worth of advisors. Is there really a need for it?

Shame on us for dropping COIN training from our schools to begin with, and I for one applaud the efforts of the Army and Marines to update the old doctrine and get into our education system. That in itself will go a long, long way to helping us deal with the future.

Perhaps a larger issue than that of if the active force is designed to conduct IW activities vs MTO activities, is how we aportion those respective capabilities between the active and the reserve force. The truth of what we should do here causes claxons to sound in the halls of the Pentagon, as the Army and Air staffs scramble to defend their Cold War positions.

Prior to the Cold War, America had always been a nation that believed in a small standing military to handle the misc. peacetime tasks; to man small outposts at home and abroad, to write doctrine, to form a nucleous of a mobilized warfighting force, and to keep the lights on at the Academy. The Soviet threat in Europe forced us to abandon that model, as there would be no time to mobilize our traditional warfighting force of Citizen Soldiers to counter that threat. OK, we all know this, but we also all grew up in the current model of a large, standing military that sees itself as the nations primary warfighting force. Hell, the Air Force NEVER existed in the previous model at all.

I would argue that it is time to go back to the future. The real debate should not be if we train, organize and equip to deal with IW or MTO, it should be what portion of our warfighting capability do we shift back into the reserve component, and how do we train, organize and equip the active component to deal with IW (ie, the new, enduring messy peace of this post-Cold War world).

This means that the bulk of the latest warfighting kit needs to go to the RC (Deliver those F-22s to the Air Guard, please), and that when the Army sits down to design what active duty Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) will look like, they do so knowing that their primary purpose is to conduct IW. Likewise, when they design RC BCTs they need to do so with the recognition that their primary purpose is to mobilize for MTO, not to use as supplements to ease peacetime enagement OPTEMPO.

There are more and more senior voices coming on line to take the position that we are not at war, that the environment we are facing is not irregular; that in fact we are simply dealing with the new, and enduring "normal," i.e., Peace.

This is not unlike the era following the American Civil War. The nation was comfortably at peace, while the drastically reduced military was running reconstruction in the South, securing nation-building activities in the West, while also waging COIN (taking over and running the Indian reservation system) and CT (capture/Kill operations against those bands that refused to adapt to the white, American system of governance being mandated to them).

We will destroy the RC if we continue to use them as a primary part of the peacetime engagement rotation; and we will not be able to meet our peacetime engagement requirements effectively if we do not force the Services to conform to meet that mission.

So, for my 2 cents, let us refocus the debate. Clearly the military must be able to wage both IW and MTO. The real emotional issue is what portion of that goes back into the RC, and what goes into the AC. The friction is that the AC will want to remain the warfighter, and that is just not their primary job any more (and once again).

Excellent comments, Ken and Bill.

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

The fix in this case isn't more combat advisors, but an appropriate strategy. I can think of very few situations where U.S. advisors were decisive (nor should they be), and the most effective U.S. advisors in true COIN scenarios (not armed nation building like we're doing Iraq and Afghanistan) have normally been very, very few in number (Lansdale in the Philippines, a hand full of advisors in Greece, etc.). I would propose considering revisiting our past (with some modifications) to address the challenges we face today. Some considerations:

- Get Special Forces back in the advisory role. For tactial level training and advisory support to host nation security forces, there is no better force. They already exist, they're already trained, and they have the command structure to support these operations on the cheap (relatively speaking). Is there really a requirement for conventional forces to create a Bde's worth of advisors, which equates to robbing the Army of a Bde's worth of experienced NCOs and Officers, which will have long term second order effects on the overall force?

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Key points in the above quote. This was an issue brought up at Colonel Warden"s SMART Wars workshop I went to last year.

A few follow-ons. Bill said:

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"the most effective U.S. advisors in true COIN scenarios (not armed nation building like we're doing Iraq and Afghanistan) have normally been very, very few in number (Lansdale in the Philippines, a hand full of advisors in Greece, etc.)."

"Most advisors don't have limited impact on the behavior of those they're advising, because it is difficult to overcome their cultural norms and their ingrained decision making processes (and their filters on how they perceive the problem). We still have influence, but let's not overstate the situation."

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Both true.

One problem I've noted in the Advising business is the impact of our tour system on the Advisees. Guys in the advice business who rotate out after seven months or a year -- or even two -- are not going to be nearly as effective as those who stay longer. The American approach to things and life is quite different than is that of most nations; we're short term operators...

Bob's World said:

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"The real debate should not be if we train, organize and equip to deal with IW or MTO, it should be what portion of our warfighting capability do we shift back into the reserve component, and how do we train, organize and equip the active component to deal with IW (ie, the new, enduring messy peace of this post-Cold War world)."

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I strongly disagree. He has a point and we need to do what he suggests but the REAL debate is over how, not where, to prepare for the future. For example, he says

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"...when the Army sits down to design what active duty Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) will look like, they do so knowing that their primary purpose is to conduct IW."

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Who says? WHY should their primary purpose be to conduct IW -- what if they gave an IW and no one came? What if they gave a surprise MCO and no one was ready...

The Armed Forces of the US must be prepared for the total spectrum of warfare. I have said on this board several times that the bulk of the Heavy Divisions / Brigades should be in the RC (mostly but not all ARNG) and that the RC should be larger than the AC; the USAR needs to have some combat units and several other things. So Bob and I are in agreement partly. I strongly disagree with him that the AC converts to an IW force.

We need to be total spectrum, that includes the AC and the RC but the AC alone must be able to deploy to any theater reasonably rapidly and conduct the type of operations required. No one can predict with any degree of certainty what that requirement will be.

"Probably" isn't good enough.The US Armed forces from 1975 until 2003 effectively thought they probably would not do IW. How did that work out?

Probably isn't nearly good enough...

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"So, for my 2 cents, let us refocus the debate. Clearly the military must be able to wage both IW and MTO..."

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Agree.

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"...The real emotional issue is what portion of that goes back into the RC, and what goes into the AC."

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It is or will be emotional and that needs to occur -- but the REAL issue is how to recruit, equip and train the total force for full spectrum combat.

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"...The friction is that the AC will want to remain the warfighter, and that is just not their primary job any more (and once again)."

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Wrong. "Back to the future" was a movie. Fiction. Illusion. Bad fiction at that...

You cannot write doctrine for warfighting and assist in training the RC for that mission unless you know how to fight a war. Warfighting is a cognitive and intuitive skill, it CANNOT be learned from a book or from most training activities; you have to actually do it...

Like I said, this is an emotional issue. It is a political issue too. Throw into the mix a economy that is in the tank. DoD will take budget cuts. With the auto industry on the ropes, Congress will be unlikely to want to cut spending for big ticket defense items. So with an overall smaller budget, but with next generation warfighting kit still coming on line, how do we find a balance that allows us to meet the mission before us as well as being able to fight and win our nation's wars?

The first war not fought with reservists and draftees was Desert Storm. Today's military laydown is the anomoly, not the norm. The BIG question that everyone is churning on is what the new norm needs to look like. I simply suggest that it probably looks a lot more like the pre-Cold War model than the current. During the last drawdown the AC tried to put all of the support into the RC and keep all of the warfighting in the AC. That plan was crushed by the political might of the National Guard, resulting in the Army Reserve becoming pure support and warfighting being split between the RA and the NG. It was a short-sighted plan, and we have been suffering the consequences of it throughout the high-optempo that began with the Bosnia campaign and has not let up.

Some sacred cows are going to get gored on all sides.

For what it is worth, my boss sees any IW capabilities as being [I]additive[I] to what we need for warfighting. To make things more complex, ask someone what he needs to buy to wage IW, and you get a shrug. It just does not drive big ticket industrial programs.

So, I stand on my original point: We must rebalance the mission and the capabilities between RC and AC, and the RC must be weighted toward warfighting and not required for every little deployment the AC does; while the AC must be weighted to contend with the day to day missions of a peacetime force (the new messy peace of today and the projected future), while sustaining the ability to repspond quickly and decisively to wage traditional combat as well.

Throughout GWOT the services called every item they wanted "GWOT" to get it funded; Today they are calling everything "IW" for the same purposes. They treat it like it was a big game and competition between the services to see who can get their pet rocks funded. This isn't a game, and it would be nice to see "self-less Services" who are a little more focused on the big picture. F-22's are no more IW then SSGNs were GWOT, yet both the Air Force and the Navy made those arguments with a straight face. This is the ugly underbelly of Defense.

Is that I've seen it and heard it all before... :D

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Like I said, this is an emotional issue. It is a political issue too. Throw into the mix a economy that is in the tank. DoD will take budget cuts. With the auto industry on the ropes, Congress will be unlikely to want to cut spending for big ticket defense items. So with an overall smaller budget, but with next generation warfighting kit still coming on line, how do we find a balance that allows us to meet the mission before us as well as being able to fight and win our nation's wars?

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Nothing new in any of that; we've been there after every war, WW II, Korea, Viet Nam (DS/DS doesn't count; that wasn't a war, it was an FTX with live ammo) :rolleyes:

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...Today's military laydown is the anomoly, not the norm.

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Nah.

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...The BIG question that everyone is churning on is what the new norm needs to look like.

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True but a tremendous amount of that is pure parochiality -- and your ugly underbelly coming into play.

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I simply suggest that it probably looks a lot more like the pre-Cold War model than the current.

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True with the caveat as modified by current conditions, domestically and internationally which are quite different from 1946.

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During the last drawdown the AC tried to put all of the support into the RC and keep all of the warfighting in the AC. That plan was crushed by the political might of the National Guard, resulting in the Army Reserve becoming pure support and warfighting being split between the RA and the NG. It was a short-sighted plan, and we have been suffering the consequences of it throughout the high-optempo that began with the Bosnia campaign and has not let up.

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If you mean the post Viet Nam drawdown and Abrams plan and a volunteer force, you're wrong; if you mean the Post DS/DS 'peace dividend' mini-drawdown initiated by Carl Vuono and Binny Peay, you're correct. That's from the same crowd that brought you the post-1975 "we do the nations big wars" stupidity. They were wrong.

BTW, having been peripherally involved in that as a DAC at the time, I think the 'political might' of that Guard is massive overstatement and obscurational. The thing that killed it was that it was dumb and the Army was arrogant and clumsy about it. It deserved it's death. the lesson in that for today is the Army needs to get its act together and be smart. In that vein respect to all the then mantra of all MCO,

Now is not the time to err in the other direction.

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For what it is worth, my boss sees any IW capabilities as being [I]additive[I] to what we need for warfighting. To make things more complex, ask someone what he needs to buy to wage IW, and you get a shrug. It just does not drive big ticket industrial programs.

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I think your Boss is correct and the question "What do you need to buy for IW?" is not a smart question at all -- because the answer is 'no hardware of note, simply better training,' which the Army can do without Congressional tinkering (well, sorta...). The downside is that training is expensive and it does not put jobs in multiple districts like the big ticket items do but that's not an insoluble problem. The Army can get pretty much what it wants and needs IF it gets its act together, speaks with one voice and gets realistic about its needs. FCS anyone? Lotta money there. ARH? Whoops... :mad:

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So, I stand on my original point: We must rebalance the mission and the capabilities between RC and AC, and the RC must be weighted toward warfighting and not required for every little deployment the AC does...

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I can agree with that.

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...while the AC must be weighted to contend with the day to day missions of a peacetime force (the new messy peace of today and the projected future), while sustaining the ability to respond quickly and decisively to wage traditional combat as well.

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That seems like an adjustment from your initial statement ;) Regardless as you now State it, I can agree.

The AC must be a small well trained full spectrum force which can execute most probable missions world wide and requiring a large strategic reserve for a major war.

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Throughout GWOT the services called every item they wanted "GWOT" to get it funded; Today they are calling everything "IW" for the same purposes.

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Nothing new in that, in the 50s the catchword was "Nuclear." In the 60s it was "Counterinsurgency." in the 70s it was "MCO." Who was it that said there is nothing new under the sun?

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They treat it like it was a big game and competition between the services to see who can get their pet rocks funded. This isn't a game, and it would be nice to see "self-less Services" who are a little more focused on the big picture. F-22's are no more IW then SSGNs were GWOT, yet both the Air Force and the Navy made those arguments with a straight face. This is the ugly underbelly of Defense.

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Again, there's nothing new; revolt of the Admirals, uncertain trumpets and all that -- and it's not really all that ugly though it is not at all smart. It is however, reality.

I'd also posit that the F-22 and the SSGN are sensible and valuable acquisitions regardless of any posturing. I think you're criticizing a symptom and not the problem -- which is Congress...

Been watching it for 50 plus years; it's amazing that things work as well as they do. I put it down to good people, doing what they can to keep it together. Heck of a way to run a Country -- but it's better than any alternative I've seen.

Bill wrote:

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I think we're grossly over reacting to the situation in Iraq, which is a situation of our own making due to poor planning and faulty assumptions. That sure as heck doesn't mean it is the future of warfare, unless we're incapable of learning.

The fix in this case isn't more combat advisors, but an appropriate strategy. I can think of very few situations where U.S. advisors were decisive (nor should they be), and the most effective U.S. advisors in true COIN scenarios (not armed nation building like we're doing Iraq and Afghanistan) [emph. added] have normally been very, very few in number (Lansdale in the Philippines, a hand full of advisors in Greece, etc.).

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120mm wrote:

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I see the merits in both arguments. COIN is here to stay, and it will do the Army no good whatsoever to ignore its existence yet again. However, the purely kinetic fight is the best use of the military. DoD needs to get out of the business of being our primary instrument of foreign affairs.

What we need is to amp up and rebuild (build?) our non-military elements of national power, and if it becomes necessary to intervene globally, to do so using those elements first, and reserving the military for the actual and appropriate violence as an end to policy and to bail our butts out when we inevitably screw up.

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Ken wrote:

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I also disagree on strategic grounds. Why does everyone assume we must be involved in FID and / or COIN. I do not question that we may be and should be prepared to do so but I strongly disagree that we should seek that mission -- and I assure you based on 45 years of doing and 15 more watching this stuff if you create an Advisor Corps it will get used.

My point is that there are better ways to handle many situations than to go barging in to 'fix' it -- our track record at that is not stellar and mayhap we should just stop digging and pursue alternative strategies.

I disagree on Operational grounds; commitment to another nation for FID or a COIN effort effectively constitute the operational level of war -- thus by default, DoD will take over the effort and we'll get to again do something that neither out national psyche nor our form and model of government is prepared to sustain.

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This is a really brilliant thread. I doubt I can add much to the excellent conversation above, but there is one thing that I'd like to draw to your attention and see if it makes sense to you. My reading of this debate leads me to wonder whether the difference between the two sides really comes down to how they see the Long War playing out in the near to medium future.

If the Bush administration was right to argue that the main threats to US security will come from "failed" and "failing states", then I believe it makes sense to allocate risk accordingly and reduce investment in the procurement of advanced platforms to pay for increasing the number of troops. (I referred here particularly to the money issue as I believe that's the big issue where there WILL have to be tradeoffs; in areas like education and training, I agree with the others who argued for a flexible training program that would create a force more capable of operating across the full spectrum, and I don't believe there is as much a zero-sum game as in allocating fiscal resources). So, IF fixing (or at least improving, or preventing from collapse) weak states in important strategic places will become a common mission, then I think the military will continue to be assigned these tasks because no one else in the government has the resources to do it at least in the short-to-medium term.

I think most people on the other side of the debate doubt most of the assertions from the previous paragraph. Maybe, as Andy Bacevich wrote, they really disagree with the whole strategic framework in which the administration put the "war on terror", or maybe the just disagree with the realism of the proposed responses offered by the administration. However, I don't agree with his implication that this is really a strategy debate that ultimately belongs to the civilian leaders. If strategic planning is about matching means with ends, it follows that both civilian and military leaders ought to have input on both ends of planning. Hopefully the next administration will understand this better than the current one did during Rumsfeld.

I think it's hard to disagree that the US military needs to conduct Full Spectrum Operations. Having said that, it often seems to me that the "spectrum" of some people is way bigger than that of others. Bill makes an interesting distinction above between traditional COIN and "armed nation building". Their requirements may be an order of magnitude different, depending mainly I would imagine on the level of capacity if the local government. I'm also tempted to believe that the latter would describe more accurately what members of the administration think it may be needed in order to deny safe haven to al-Qaeda types in places like Afghanistan.

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Originally Posted by ipopescu

...My reading of this debate leads me to wonder whether the difference between the two sides really comes down to how they see the Long War playing out in the near to medium future.

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That's part of it, it is also internally a bit parochial -- what hardware items get priority; which Branches will grow or shrink; where does money get spent and so forth.

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If the Bush administration was right to argue that the main threats to US security will come from "failed" and "failing states", then I believe it makes sense to allocate risk accordingly and reduce investment in the procurement of advanced platforms to pay for increasing the number of troops...

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Not just the Bush Admin, a lot of folks make that argument, even people like T.P.M. Barnett who disagree with the Bush Admin on many things. My personal belief is that presumption is not proven and, more importantly even if true the question that must be asked is "Is there a a better way? No one wants to ask that -- or very few do - because it would obviate a lot of semi-sacred cows... :D Thus:

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...So, IF fixing (or at least improving, or preventing from collapse) weak states in important strategic places will become a common mission, then I think the military will continue to be assigned these tasks because no one else in the government has the resources to do it at least in the short-to-medium term.

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is a true statement BUT you wisely emphasized your IF. I suggest that 'if' should also apply to 'is it necessary' as well as to 'to send the armed forces.'

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Maybe, as Andy Bacevich wrote, they really disagree with the whole strategic framework in which the administration put the "war on terror", or maybe the just disagree with the realism of the proposed responses offered by the administration.

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I'm not a Bacevich fan and disagree with him about many things but he is correct to question the 'strategic framework.' I do also (although on practical and realistic and not ideological grounds :rolleyes: ). What I said earlier and you copied bears repeating one more time: "" Why does everyone assume we must be involved in FID and / or COIN. I do not question that we may be and should be prepared to do so but I strongly disagree that we should seek that mission."" The problem as I see it is no one wants to look at alternatives because it's (a) different and we've never done that before; and (b)affects those Sacred Cows and their rice bowls.

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However, I don't agree with his implication that this is really a strategy debate that ultimately belongs to the civilian leaders. If strategic planning is about matching means with ends, it follows that both civilian and military leaders ought to have input on both ends of planning. Hopefully the next administration will understand this better than the current one did during Rumsfeld.

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Rumsfeld was not the problem; well, not all of it anyway, nor even most of it. No Administration in my fairly long lifetime has truly consulted the military except for Reagan's -- and they only did that fairly well. However, you're correct, it has to be a mutual undertaking. Sometimes difficult when the civilian master thinks everyone with short hair is a dummy.

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...I'm also tempted to believe that the latter would describe more accurately what members of the administration think it may be needed in order to deny safe haven to al-Qaeda types in places like Afghanistan.

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Which Administration? ;)

That's the problem; "...deny safe haven to al-Qaeda types in places like Afghanistan." That really sounds simple here and now, easy to say or write -- but doing that is impossible. Not difficult, impossible. The Dutch ruled what is now Indonesia for 300 years with the whip and the gun -- and they were surprised when they got tossed out. How long do you want to stay in Afghanistan? Think about it for a bit.

As I said, no Bacevich fan -- but we do need to strongly curb our arrogance. Or egos. Probably the latter. Thus my "which Administration."

We live in interesting times. :D

This is in response to the OPED entry on the SWJ Blog:
"Nagl and Gentile are Both Right
So What Do We Do Now?"
by Robert Haddick, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

Thought I would drag this over to this thread for some more discussion:

Rob Thornton said on the SWJ Blog in response to the entry:

Quote: "You have to consider not only what it takes in term of time and effort to get them to that point, but the experience sets that got them there e.g. if you are going to advise on how to paint, you need to be a pretty good painter yourself. Getting those skills and keeping them current must be considered, or what you get is people who have very basic skills, learned to paint exclusively by watching someone else paint, or stayed a t a Holiday Inn Express."

This is exactly why we should not develop a separate, stand alone adviser corps. First, the combat skills that you need to be advising a friend, partner, or ally on will atrophy and while you might have a great cultural understanding you might not possess the tactical skills needed to be able to advise on. And this applies from the tactical to the so called "enterprise" or ministerial level advisers (those who are helping to establish the government institutions such as the ministry of defense, interior, etc).

Second, to be a credible adviser you must have the bona fides that establishes credibility with the "advisee". If you have no recent and relevant experience in combat units (or combat support or combat service support depending on the skill set required for the advisory mission) then you are at a disadvantage when dealing with counterparts because they want a "proven" adviser - an expert Soldier, Sailor, Airmen or Marine - vice an expert adviser.

With all due repsect to our great FAOs out there one of the drawbacks (to the Army program) is the single tracking of FAOs from Captain onward. While this is great for personnel management, career development, and education, the loss of "operational" FAOs (those who rotate between operational and FAO assignments) means we are going to have future attaches and security assistance officers who know the FAO and Security Assistance business inside and out (read foreign military sales, etc) but who have no real credibility with their military host nation partners because they have not been in an operational assignment (combat or not) since they were Captains. Our "adviser corps" will be the same way.

And of course I have yet to see any critical analysis of requirements for a 20,000 man "adviser corps" for requirements beyond Afghanistan and Iraq. Yes we have have to succeed in those countries (note I say succeed vice win - because we can only help the Iraqis and Afghans win - we cannot win ourselves). We will end up with 4 X BCTs of senior level personnel who are looking for work, whose promotions will be stagnated, and when the decision is finally made to disband the adviser corps" for lack or work, we will have a huge morale problem within our force.

The way expertise is gained for tactical to enterprise level advising is by being a member of units and organizations that actually execute the tasks and missions that an adviser will be advising and assisting on. If we put 20,000 personnel in a separate stand alone "adviser corps" we will have 20,000 personnel with no credibility with host nation forces and no relevant expertise to share with counterparts (but they will wear the coveted "advisor" tab!!!)

What we need to be able to do is properly task organize to meet mission requirements. We need to conduct the proper and thorough mission assessment (which includes most importantly the requirements of the host nation) and then apply the right force (or combination of forces to accomplish the mission) Unfortunately this means being able to find the right people with the right skill sets and that could mean talking people from exist modular organizations.

What should be considered when determining the force is the right combination of GPF and SOF. If we could break the rice bowls and understand what is required for the mission then we could properly task organize to accomplish the mission. We need a combination a great GPF and SOF and not one or the other. And as we look to the future I think we need to strongly consider that we will face the Hybrid Threats that Frank Hoffman has articulated so well. And to defend against those threats we will need a highly capable, agile and flexible combat force combined with the ability drawn from that force to advise and assist friends, partners, and allies against, subversion, terrorism, insurgency, lawlessness as well as external threats to a nation's sovereignty.
V/R
Dave

Never object to a stealing or copying a good idea! This comment with minor grammatical corrections is also added here from a previous post on the Blog.

Dave is on target again. BZ.

The Advisor Corps is a very bad idea.

He mentioned one item that triggered several recollections:

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...to be a credible adviser you must have the bona fides that establishes credibility with the "advisee". If you have no recent and relevant experience in combat units (or combat support or combat service support depending on the skill set required for the advisory mission) then you are at a disadvantage when dealing with counterparts because they want a "proven" adviser - an expert Soldier, Sailor, Airmen or Marine - vice an expert adviser.

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I can recall numerous occasions while advising two separate and quite different host nations seeing their Officers seek the advice of those Advisers with recent experience regardless of rank while merely politely listening to those with cultural credibility and affinity, strong language skills and equal or greater rank and no recent combat, command or leadership experience. They very much preferred to socialize with the latter -- but they listened to the former...

agree fully with Dave M's and Ken's comments on Rob T's excellent post that has been copied to this thread.

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Posted by max161, What we need to be able to do is properly task organize to meet mission requirements. We need to conduct the proper and thorough mission assessment (which includes most importantly the requirements of the host nation) and then apply the right force (or combination of forces to accomplish the mission) Unfortunately this means being able to find the right people with the right skill sets and that could mean talking people from exist modular organizations.

What should be considered when determining the force is the right combination of GPF and SOF. If we could break the rice bowls and understand what is required for the mission then we could properly task organize to accomplish the mission. We need a combination a great GPF and SOF and not one or the other. And as we look to the future I think we need to strongly consider that we will face the Hybrid Threats that Frank Hoffman has articulated so well. And to defend against those threats we will need a highly capable, agile and flexible combat force combined with the ability drawn from that force to advise and assist friends, partners, and allies against, subversion, terrorism, insurgency, lawlessness as well as external threats to a nation's sovereignty.

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I think max161's post was excellent and appropriate to this discussion. When you add comments to this discussion comments from the on going discussions on "how to win" focused on Bob Jone's article on "Population Focused Engagement" and discussions on how to address the problems in Afghanistan, I think we have developed a considerable amount of information, knowledge and ideas that can serve as a basis to seriously mature our initial ideas on how to improve our capacity to equip, train, advise, and assist partner nation security forces.

One concern I have, and obviously it won't be addressed to any great length on the SWJ council, but where are the policy objectives, strategy, and campaign plans? If we simply (I know it isn't simple) develop a capacity to increase and improve our ability to build partner nation capacity, then we'll have a tool everyone wants to use because they'll think it is "the answer" to the problems we face, but we know the problems are much more complex than a lack of security forces capacity. As long as we keep in mind that our ability to develop better host nation security forces is inadequate to achieve "victory" (achieve policy objectives) without realistic policy objectives, strategies and campaign plans, then we're on track. If we think we can fix the "problem" by simply improving our capacity to equip, train, and advise friendly partner nation security forces, then I think we're far from solving the bigger problems at hand.

Ken will scold me, but this is a Whole of Government problem, and it is a multinational problem/challenge. Department of Defense will get out in front of everyone else because we're a proactive organization that is less bureaucratic than the other government agencies (scary thought). In my opinion designating and manning a Combat Advisor Bde is re-designging the Army, and that is a major step, one that should not be taken until we determine (to the degree possible) our requirements based on policy. I stand by my argument that what we need in the short term is to resurrect something along the lines of the Institute of Military Assistance (IMA) to prepare hand selected officers and NCOs who been selected to serve as advisors for their duties. That is needed now, we already have a large pool of talented Officers and NCOs, they just need a top notch advisor school (center) where they can learn about where they're going, how the culture and other factors will impact their mission, suggestions on how to deal with it, etc. This Advisor center (can be joint, or one established for each service) can be manned by a combination of Active Duty and DoD civilians to serve as instructors and mentors and to provide a reach back facility to help those advisors forward. Imagine the goodness that could come from an official community of interest (WOG, international, academia, etc.) that an advisor could tap into for help. We would actually catch up to the information age. While the SWJ serves as a great model, I think we would have to narrow the participation down to trusted agents (in most cases).

There are other ways to address this problem beyond building an Advisory Bde. In the long run, if we still think we need to go that way, we can readdress it.

It is emphatically a whole government problem and in my opinion a long term strategic view that both parties in Congress essentially sign on to is needed. We effectively did this, by trial and error for the old Cold War. We should do something along the same line again -- except this time, please, let's avoid the idealistic thrust the Kennedy crowd cynically used to sell it. That foolishness kept us off track for years -- still does. It does not work. Pragmatic and achievable is good.

Particularly achievable...

An IMA is a good idea and I even know where it ought to be located -- though the shooters would probably get upset. :D

Bill wrote:

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One concern I have, and obviously it won't be addressed to any great length on the SWJ council, but where are the policy objectives, strategy, and campaign plans? If we simply (I know it isn't simple) develop a capacity to increase and improve our ability to build partner nation capacity, then we'll have a tool everyone wants to use because they'll think it is "the answer" to the problems we face, but we know the problems are much more complex than a lack of security forces capacity. As long as we keep in mind that our ability to develop better host nation security forces is inadequate to achieve "victory" (achieve policy objectives) without realistic policy objectives, strategies and campaign plans, then we're on track. If we think we can fix the "problem" by simply improving our capacity to equip, train, and advise friendly partner nation security forces, then I think we're far from solving the bigger problems at hand.

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Bill,
These are the issues I was trying to get at in my earlier post on this thread.
As far as I can tell, many current top officials involved in strategic planning reached the conclusion that the best way to fight al-Qaeda and other similar groups is to build up local allies capable to govern their territory decently and hunt down the bad guys, with American assistance when needed. This is the end-goal, or the "political objective" if you will, of the Long War. Or at least this is as close to a definition of "victory" as you can get. This is how this administration sees things, IMO. The Obama team may reach a different conclusion, we'll have to wait and see. Therefore, I see the development of better advising capabilities as being closely linked to this strategy. You are surely right that the problems weak states face are much larger than the lack of capable security forces, but as Ken wrote in his reply to me, sometimes a little bit of humility and realism about what may be possible is in order. The US won't be able to help them solve all their problems, but from the point of view of our national interests helping them in the security arena may be the most efficient investment.
Best,
Ionut

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Originally Posted by Ken White

Never object to a stealing or copying a good idea! This comment with minor grammatical corrections is also added here from a previous post on the Blog.

Dave is on target again. BZ.

The Advisor Corps is a very bad idea.

He mentioned one item that triggered several recollections:I can recall numerous occasions while advising two separate and quite different host nations seeing their Officers seek the advice of those Advisers with recent experience regardless of rank while merely politely listening to those with cultural credibility and affinity, strong language skills and equal or greater rank and no recent combat, command or leadership experience. They very much preferred to socialize with the latter -- but they listened to the former...

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Isn't Nagl's concept of an advisor corps *NOT* a career field/functional area, but a BCT advisory group assignment for 2-3 years at some point in the mix?

Would be like O/C duty, AC/RC, etc, not an advisor corps where one goes into and never comes out.

Most people tend to be arguing against the career field approach. That's not what Nagl wrote in his proposal.

I argue the worst thing he did to his argument is call it a "Corps", like acquisition or such. It is really an advisor unit, where people are assigned for limited duration.

Posted by Ionut,

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As far as I can tell, many current top officials involved in strategic planning reached the conclusion that the best way to fight al-Qaeda and other similar groups is to build up local allies capable to govern their territory decently and hunt down the bad guys, with American assistance when needed. This is the end-goal, or the "political objective" if you will, of the Long War.

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From where I sit, I agree, this seems to be sum of the grand plan.

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Ken wrote in his reply to me, sometimes a little bit of humility and realism about what may be possible is in order. The US won't be able to help them solve all their problems, but from the point of view of our national interests helping them in the security arena may be the most efficient investment.

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Is it doable? Certainly, but this entire plan is based on the assumption that the local allies will act in our interest. Without mentioning specific countries and instances, there are a few (if not several) cases where the ally won't act, because they believe acting will make the situation worse for them. In some situations they are probably correct, any host nation security force activity against their own people that can be spun to be in the interests of the U.S. by our foes could easily inflame local passions in a way that is not desirable to our or the region's best interests. It is also based on the assumption that better security forces will solve the problem, but I made my case on that already.

My argument is not against building partnership capacity, by all means we should pursue this, but it shouldn't be a cookie cutter approach based on the Cold War or Iraq/Afghanistan model. What type of capacity does the host nation need to address the threats it is dealing with? Let's assume we helped the host nation develop elite commando and infantry units, but their laws prevented these forces from operating within their borders unless their was a national emergency? Let's also assume the threat is an underground organization, a shadowy organization forcused on propaganda, subversion, terrorism, fund raising (legal and illegal), etc. Unless we allow them to get to the point of a war of movement, which means we're going to wait until the nation collapses or is near collapse, then an argument could be made that there will be very little work for a Bde's worth of combat advisors after OIF and OEF-A. Instead the host nation will probably need more assistance with their MOI security forces (police and intelligence organizations) from a security perspective. However, they may also need assistance with legal reform, economic development, information operations, and other areas to enable them to extend good governance to their people. However, back to the military. I recall individuals from the Air Force complaining about their lack of participation in the process, yet tactical air lift, intelligence support, and in some limited cases fire power support is critical to the host nation, so field your advisors to fill this gap. The same can be said for the Navy regarding littoral and brown water areas.

If we think every conflict is going to look like Vietnam, El Salvador, Afghanistan, and Iraq, then a large combat arms advisory capacity will be needed. If we hope to get in front of the problem, before it gets to the point that host nation armie will be involved in combat in their country, then we probably want to focus on their MOI versus their MOD, with the caveat that every situation will be different, and we shouldn't do anything without conducting a detailed assessment of the problem first. Then as max161 proposed, determine what military forces are needed and I would add what interagency, contractor, and partner nation personnel are needed. To put the icing on the cake, appoint one person in charge of all it and...., O.K., I know that is a bridge too far. Disunity of command and effort is apparently a new principle of war.

Posted by Cavguy,

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Isn't Nagl's concept of an advisor corps *NOT* a career field/functional area, but a BCT advisory group assignment for 2-3 years at some point in the mix?

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I think you're right, but based on how quickly officers are promoted now, what does a three year assignment mean to their career cycle? What key developmental job(s) will they miss? What I haven't seen to date is the advantages of forming a BCT's worth of advisors, what do you think they are?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cavguy

I argue the worst thing he did to his (NAGL) argument is call it a "Corps", like acquisition or such. It is really an advisor unit, where people are assigned for limited duration.

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Concur. The problem I have with the Advisor Corps is that it is a Hammer to crack a very small nut. Force Generation is not rocket science, and I would figure that about 650 of the right men, could probably do the whole "Advisor" thing world wide.

I might also be wrong to assume that the "Advisor" model from Iraq and Afghanistan is the one that is going to work, next time around.

Quote:

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With all due repsect to our great FAOs out there one of the drawbacks (to the Army program) is the single tracking of FAOs from Captain onward. While this is great for personnel management, career development, and education, the loss of "operational" FAOs (those who rotate between operational and FAO assignments) means we are going to have future attaches and security assistance officers who know the FAO and Security Assistance business inside and out (read foreign military sales, etc) but who have no real credibility with their military host nation partners because they have not been in an operational assignment (combat or not) since they were Captains. Our "adviser corps" will be the same way.

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With all respect Dave, you may be right on advisors but you are dead wrong on this one. Most "operational FAOs" who worked 3rd world were paper FAOs and lacked any indepth understanding of their regions. You don't get credibility as a FAO because you were an S3 in a line battalion; you get it because you develop the rapport necessary to do the job. I met any number of those "operational FAOs" and either had to help them learn or sent them packing. As for operational jobs as a FAO, if you look for them you can develop a different type of credibility, one based on real world operational experience. That is one of the reasons I went to Lebanon. Point of fact, some of the best FAOs I worked with over the years were AG officers who wanted to break out of the mold that the personnel system has trapped them in. For the most part they did quite well.

I have heard your argument going back well before we went to the current system. I saw an memo sent from FAO Proponent Office to the then DCSOPs LTG Reimer and CSA GEN Vuono. Reimer wrote on it--"this is a great memo". It was but it was pure Kool Aid because it assumed most FAOs were combat arms and would be given an opportunity to compete more or less on an even footing. The reality was that at least for the 3rd world programs, FAOs who like me got started early got sucked in early and regardless of dual track memos ended up single track. I was somewhat unique because I earned two ASIs. I was also one of the two FAOS that GEN Sullivan cited in his memo in late 94-early 95 when he ordered DCSOPS to fix the program because too many FAOs were dropping like flies through promotion boards.

Finally note that in my counter-argument I have used 3rd world FAOs; I believe that the the European and the Soviet progarms were very much like you espouse and worked quite well, at least up until the Balkans begain to unravel and the Wall came down. Old Eagle ws was a Euro guy and got to command. What I would leave you with is the suggestion that there are varying degrees of truth. Advisors maybe a bad idea as a pemanent entity. That depends on how you define advisor just as how you define FAO. What we do not have right now as best I can tell is a selection process beyond having a pulse.

Regards,

Tom

One thing that I've learned is each problem set is different. The conditions which give rise to the policy OBJ that generates military objectives are different (as is the question who should be in the lead and when). The competing objectives by the interested parties, stakeholders and participants (to include what else we have going on in the world) are different, and will continue to change over time as interaction occurs. Some of this guides initial time lines and commitment of means and ways to secure an end.

The desires I've seen expressed by the institutions can be summed up by, "tell me "how much" of this and that “how much” applies to the requirement writ large, and we'll generate it for you (or at least consider it)." The desire for a "hard" identification of "steady state demand signal" is the wrong question to be asking with regard to the capability to build capacity because it is at odds with reality, and because I don't think we need to paint ourselves into a corner. Some of these are collective capabilities, but many are individual capabilities – the key is to understand when you need which one and how much. Somebody raised the issue of what is "the new steady state" on a thread – I think it depends on the policy objective and our attraction to it. When the call is out for 30K worth of advisors to somewhere - that becomes the new addition to steady state, and when that drops off, so does the steady state number (related is the question of what support is required for the new increase?). Steady State then is subjective to conditions, and conditions change.

As such you have a going in position that is based on what you'd like to do; what you can afford and support; what you can offload to other partners and not put your objective at too much risk; and what the environment (HN Govt, HN population, other partners and participants) will tolerate. This position gets renegotiated continuously (and/or reassessed), but is affected by what occurs on the ground, as well as new objectives in existing or new places. Its worth pointing out the loop here of how what is possible on the ground is also subject to the capabilities generated to support it.

It is one of the reasons that looking at a particular problem in isolation of the other problems you have leads you to assign a specific quality and quantity value and then try and apply it across the board. My luck (if you want to call it that:rolleyes:) has placed me in considering similar problems in different places at the same time. It is hard for me to consider any one of them in isolation. Once you do the math, and realize that everybody assumes they get everything they are asking for, you quickly run into a physics problem.

We assume that the best capable, and best suited capability to an objective and set of conditions will be available for our problem. This could be SF, a type of BDE, a type of aircraft, ship, a civilian or multinational capability etc. and because we only see our problem we assume we get what we ask for. The reality is that the problem does not go away, but the "more suitable" capability may be engaged elsewhere, and a substitute must be found, or risk accepted at some or all levels. While it is useful to look at some problems in isolation to focus our attention and to explore the quality of discreet capabilities, its hard to use it consider where our gaps really are because it creates a bias in assuming we always have what our mental exercises tell us we did.

What I've started doing when advising on these various efforts is look at the objectives and conditions and outline the functional requirements. This is based on; our desire and attraction and the numbers associated with the environment (e.g. the number the HN security sector must produce and sustain across it scope to meet the objective). This produces a guideline for establishing a ratio - i.e. a BDE level organization can provide this much support to this many sub units such as ODAs, BNS or individually augmented teams of a composition and disposition based on operational conditions, and for this many number of BDEs under these conditions, X amount of CS and CSS will be required. It could also go the other way - and a collective organization such as a SC MAGTF or ODA becomes the complete answer, or only requires minimal support. It is objective and condition driven, and one size does not fit all as such. You are just looking for the best range of solutions.

Again what Clausewitz outlined as the first and most important duty of the statesman is also applicable to the CDR and his staff as they should be informing that decision. If you decide you really want to do something, and you really want or need to do it faster rather then slower there are requirements to do so -the first being to decide if the costs (commitment of your resources, unintended consequences, etc.) you have outlined are worth the effort either now or later.

Even this cannot be seen in isolation, but must be considered against the other functions outlined in the broader USG and MNP campaign required to address those conditions which introduced military forces in the first place and move it back to a point where "more" normal means and ways can be resumed or applied. Doing this allows you to mentally build your footprint and consider supporting requirements in the HQs, and in other LOEs (Army) /LLOOS (Joint) required to achieve some measure of unity of effort against the back drop of what is tolerable -and then assess risk. I think this is better than a journey of self discovery which has historically led us to a "wall of band-aids" approach sprinkled with a "how did we forget to add 1 of those" mentality, followed by a "quick, get me 5 of them !".

This is 60-70% theoretical design approach (at best) because it cannot capture what will occur once you begin operations - this is why Clausewitz drew a line between the value of theory and battlefield. You can however use real life to provide feedback on your theory (something both CACD and ODP encourage) and continually reassess the competing interests to re-frame your problem, and your requirements.

What you wind up with is a set of functions you can start to assign values to based on what you know is available, and/or what you believe is/will be available over time. I think this will help us look at the generation of capabilities differently - particularly with high end capabilities requiring advanced experience, education, training and perhaps rank such as the ministerial and institutional levels. If for example the optimal capability is engaged elsewhere in something that only they can do (or that we are unwilling to accept risk in), then the most suitable substitute must be found to address that function.

Once you get all the functional requirements laid out, you can start considering what are the support requirements to operationalize and sustain it, or where you must take risks because you (and none of your partners) simply cannot fill all those requirements. What you may (at least I have) outline for your requirements is a mixture of capabilities some of which come in a collective package, and some of which must be "made to order", or cobbled together in ad-hoc fashion - or if you prefer task organized at the individual level based on their individual qualities.

One key to making this work is that you have to be able to identify what your requirements really are to make your objectives more feasible, and you have to be able to reach through your entire inventory of people to identify who best matches the requirements associated with that function. This is why (OE chime in anytime) the "P" in DOTMLPF is so critical - if you do not find better ways of assessing, tracking and retaining these skills you are constraining yourself to a "see a hole - fill a hole" approach which leaves it up to luck to get more right than wrong.

A second key is developing the organizational and strategic flexibility to make explicit what we implicitly already know, and that is that based on conditions what works in one place may require adaptation or something all together new in another. This is a cultural problem and while it can be addressed some in our DOTMLPF framework, it requires that unequal dialogue with civilian leadership and the courage to continuously make hard choices and risk acceptance.

The third key is a holistic DOTMLPF approach. All of these DOTMLPF wheels are interconnected. You turn one and you knowingly or unknowingly turn another. I've already mentioned the "P", but the others are also important - but I'd make a case that in this case the "M", "F" and the "O" will shake out after we get the "P", "T", the "L" with its silent "E" (something we should emphasize here), and the "D" more right. These are the things that will help us better realize our objectives in interactive, complex environments (which in truth they all are;) but which are emphasized to those who see them differently), will reduce risk, and will facilitate achieving unity of effort with our range of partners.

Well it is Sunday, and I have to help get our brood of 5 ready for church:D

Best, Rob

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cavguy

Isn't Nagl's concept of an advisor corps *NOT* a career field/functional area, but a BCT advisory group assignment for 2-3 years at some point in the mix?

Would be like O/C duty, AC/RC, etc, not an advisor corps where one goes into and never comes out.

Most people tend to be arguing against the career field approach. That's not what Nagl wrote in his proposal.

I argue the worst thing he did to his argument is call it a "Corps", like acquisition or such. It is really an advisor unit, where people are assigned for limited duration.

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on all counts. He didn't mean a career field and I didn't assume that.

With respect to the cycling (and due to specialty and rank mismatches), that's why I said it would take six BCTs worth of people to support four BCTs tabbed as Advisers -- and that is probably a conservative estimate on my part. I also believe that the ability to fill those advisory units with 'recently experienced' guys and gals on a HRC rotational plan will be questionable.

Of course, I think anything HRC is associated with is questionable... :D

My biggest concerns with the whole idea have always been:

It's not affordable.

There is no proven need (this is the critical issue; there is an assumed need -- not the same thing at all).

Advising is not that difficult but not all can do it well (round pegs in square holes again);an ad-hoc system is more than adequate -- we've proved that in three wars.

It will be a distraction form the Army's business -- which is warfighting. FID must be a national, whole government effort and forcing the Army to do the 'adviser' bit is to give the rest of government an out to supporting such effort; will give the Army a flaky justification for funds and other things that will need to be used to continue the justification -- thus, their existence will support a 'strategy' that may be not only unnecessary but undesirable, it will in fact force such a 'strategy' choice. That is putting the cart before the Billy goat...

I have been reading/watching this debate the past couple months (crusaders vs conservatives) and problem with the original piece was that it made both sides all or nothing. COL Gentile wants a force that trains for HIC but is cabable of shifting to LIC. LTC Nagl predicts LIC as likely in the near future, so he wants the Army to build an "Advisor Corps" to focus on preventing/assisting in future fights, while the rest of the Army trains as needed.

The current ad hoc system for advisor mission largely takes pre-command CPTs, pre-KD MAJs, and senior NCO's with dwell time, gives them check the block training, and sends them off to "advise." As stated above, the 3 year rotation takes them out if the loop for 3 yrs, but this current system takes them away for 1.5 years, and other than experience and lessons learned, puts them behind their peers waiting for command, KD, or PLT SGT/1SG. At least the corps could focus training and resources, and allow broader training/expertise to develop.

As for colonels debating over which force structure Army we should have, isn't this a lot like 2 LTs arguing over what the BDE MRX should entail. Its an important debate and good/realistic ideas come up, but Higher is still going to issue a plan and say "execute" regardless of voices from below. Our senior civilian and generals need to decide kind of Army/military they want, what they want it to do, and what structure it needs.

Once they make that decision, though; the Army should do the opposite because that will probably be closer to reality.

Bill Moore said:

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"If we think every conflict is going to look like Vietnam, El Salvador, Afghanistan, and Iraq, then a large combat arms advisory capacity will be needed."

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Maybe we should consider the fact that in El Salvador, there was no large combat arms advisory presence and that in Iraq, we literally (and unnecessarily IMO) created the need for one...

Wilf said:

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"I(t) might also be wrong to assume that the "Advisor" model from Iraq and Afghanistan is the one that is going to work, next time around."

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True and I'd add; Beware of self-fulfilling prophecies, it's wrong to assume too much as you then tend to work or try to make the assumption come true...

Tom Odom said:

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"With all respect Dave, you may be right on advisors but you are dead wrong on this one. Most "operational FAOs" who worked 3rd world were paper FAOs and lacked any indepth understanding of their regions. You don't get credibility as a FAO because you were an S3 in a line battalion; you get it because you develop the rapport necessary to do the job."

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My observation in several of those nations is that Tom's correct. Many seem to presume that the best advisers would be FAOs. I don't think that's right, the two jobs have quite different requirements and goals. A good adviser does need some language and cultural knowledge and skill; he does not need the in-depth knowledge and FAO should possess.

An adviser in the military sense provides advice on TTP, Admin-Log, operations and such to foreign forces. The FAO OTOH is an adviser to the USG (who, unfortunately, rarely listen to the people they've spent millions training and educating :mad: ). Two very different jobs requiring different skill sets.

Rob Thornton said:

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"My luck (if you want to call it that :rolleyes:) has placed me in considering similar problems in different places at the same time. It is hard for me to consider any one of them in isolation. Once you do the math, and realize that everybody assumes they get everything they are asking for, you quickly run into a physics problem.

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Ain't that the truth! It is, however, the American way. Self confidence is good; self esteem -- which we seem to be fixed on nowadays -- is not the same thing and it can lead you into traps. To wit; assuming you can do anything and everything and that all that needs to be accomplished. I suggest all three assumptions can lead you astray -- and that's where we, as a nation, are.

The Armed Forces can and should be an example to the society from which they come. They can aid in restoring a little appreciation for common sense and reality into our national psyche. I'm not sure they can do that if they're going to succumb to the "we can and should do it all and everything needs to be done" meme themselves.

With particular emphasis on 'everything needs to be done [by us]...' :rolleyes:

General Casey in the upcoming JFQ issue: (sorry no link yet)

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Originally Posted by General Casey

We also asked ourselves if we really
think we’re going to build another country’s
army and police forces and ministries from
the ground up any time soon. And the answer
was, probably not. We’ve got several chal-
lenges: we’ve got to set ourselves up to do Iraq
and Afghanistan for the long haul, and then
figure out how we augment Special Forces
to do the other engagement that we need.
That’s kind of the direction we’re going. In
the interim, we have a training center for
transition teams that we’re going to continue
to run, it’s going to move down to Fort Polk,
out of Fort Riley, and we’re going to have a
brigade dedicated to doing nothing but train-
ing transition teams. So we’ll continue to do
that for a while.

I just came back from Afghanistan, and
more and more I’m hearing Soldiers on the
ground say that the partnerships—matching
an Afghani battalion up with a coalition
battalion or a coalition company—is having
a greater impact on the indigenous forces
than the transition teams. We may not need
as many transition teams; just aligning them
with the coalition forces may be a better way
to go. In Iraq we had both; we had transition
teams and partnership, and that seemed to
work. So I think you may see how transi-
tion teams are evolving a little bit in Iraq
and Afghanistan, and we’re working with
the theater to see what the best way to go is.
But at least in Iraq, and to some extent in
Afghanistan, the proficiency of indigenous
forces is getting to where they don’t need to
have somebody with them every day; they
can operate side by side. So I think it’s going
to evolve a little bit, but I’m not exactly sure
how it’s going to go

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Interesting excerpt of a larger section highlighting his views (elsewhere he states SF is his advisor corps and that they might can be augmented by GPF in certain situations).

I actually agree that embedding US units inside of host nation BN's is probably more effective than just TT's - it certainly helped in my AO, where my company lived with an IA battalion. You still need the TT's for the staff mentorship, but the combat part is better done by a combat unit.

and patmc said:

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... puts them behind their peers waiting for command, KD, or PLT SGT/1SG. At least the corps could focus training and resources, and allow broader training/expertise to develop.

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Aren't you attacking the symptom rather than the problem with that approach? That situation is caused by a totally dysfunctional Personnel system which most everyone (except the senior 41s and 42s) know needs to be radically changed. The most common complaint I here from serving folks of all ranks today is that system which the Army seems to exist to support rather than the opposite which should be the case. :mad:

Also suggest that the corps focus would be a resource competitor which would either (a) be inadequately resourced and thus lead to ineffectiveness; or (b) become a resource hog and eat up funds better spent elsewhere. Which it would be is as much dependent upon the volume and persuasiveness of its proponents as it would on actual or even perceived need. I think you're also advocating 'broader training/expertise' which isn't required.

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As for colonels debating over which force structure Army we should have, isn't this a lot like 2 LTs arguing over what the BDE MRX should entail. Its an important debate and good/realistic ideas come up, but Higher is still going to issue a plan and say "execute" regardless of voices from below. Our senior civilian and generals need to decide kind of Army/military they want, what they want it to do, and what structure it needs.

Once they make that decision, though; the Army should do the opposite because that will probably be closer to reality.

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Which is why all those Colonels and the rest of us lowlife peons are 'debating' future force structure; we all know your last paragraph is probably true... :eek: :eek: ;)

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Originally Posted by Cavguy

Interesting excerpt of a larger section highlighting his views (elsewhere he states SF is his advisor corps and that they might can be augmented by GPF in certain situations).

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Entirely too sensible. Disapproved. ;)

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I actually agree that embedding US units inside of host nation BN's is probably more effective than just TT's - it certainly helped in my AO, where my company lived with an IA battalion. You still need the TT's for the staff mentorship, but the combat part is better done by a combat unit.

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Yes!!! :cool:

Kudos to the CofS and thank you for the post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ken White

and patmc said:Aren't you attacking the symptom rather than the problem with that approach? That situation is caused by a totally dysfunctional Personnel system which most everyone (except the senior 41s and 42s) know needs to be radically changed. The most common complaint I here from serving folks of all ranks today is that system which the Army seems to exist to support rather than the opposite which should be the case.

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Agree, but this goes beyond HRC and is a cultural thing. CPTs are expected to command. MAJs are expected to be S3's and XOs. SFCs are expected to be PLT SGT and 1SG as needed. CSA approved KD for MAJs on Transition Teams, but caveated it with, if they still want S3/XO time (aka real jobs), they will still get the opportunity (implying they still need these jobs, TT was basically a "broadening" experience). My old BN CDR, who I loved working for and deeply respected, commented on a recent CPT we received off a MiTT team. He said that the MiTT experience was great and a real challenge, but for real leadership experience, you still need to command. This mindset won't/can't be broken. The overwhelming majority of officers and NCOs are NOT volunteering for advisor missions. "If I wanted to, I would have gone to selection." is the common comment. Selfless service only drives so far, sadly. We don't want to be Courtney Massengales, but being "Sad" Sam Damon leaves us as tragic heroes. The Army is basically accepting risk that people are unhappy with these missions, and moving on. 5000 CPTs and MAJs short is not an alarm bell apparently.

All that said, us peons will continue debating and saluting, because that is what we gladly do.

an embedded, desirable or required thing. The 'system' -- the personnel system, to be specific requires it thus it has become embedded and is seen as a norm. It is not.

The OPA of 1947 drives the train; what made (a little) sense in 1947 was obsolete by 1967 and was glaringly out of touch by 1977 when work started on DOPMA which was enacted in 1981. Congress does not help with its insistence that everyone is equal, of same merit and that ALL 'deserve' promotion -- and thus they've forced DoD and the services into a crap shoot effort that encourages excessive, even cut throat, competition.

DOPMA needs to go. The Personnel system needs radical surgery. We have a WW II and Draftee Army based personnel system for a 21st Century volunteer and quite professional force (well, okay -- but it could be...).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by patmc

Agree, but this goes beyond HRC and is a cultural thing. . . My old BN CDR, who I loved working for and deeply respected, commented on a recent CPT we received off a MiTT team. He said that the MiTT experience was great and a real challenge, but for real leadership experience, you still need to command. This mindset won't/can't be broken.

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Yes it can. However, to an extent, you're correct -- SOME people will always believe that. It was not that way fifty years ago; the majority then knew -- correctly -- and for the most part accepted that not all were good commanders and that some people shouldn't do that job. Many accepted that and did not aspire to command, they just wanted to do their job as well as they could. It is, as I said, an acquired habit. I'd also submit it is not at all helpful...

Quote:

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The overwhelming majority of officers and NCOs are NOT volunteering for advisor missions. "If I wanted to, I would have gone to selection." is the common comment. Selfless service only drives so far, sadly. We don't want to be Courtney Massengales, but being "Sad" Sam Damon leaves us as tragic heroes. The Army is basically accepting risk that people are unhappy with these missions, and moving on.

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Not that simple on either end, I think. First, many people will not be un-PC and tell you but they simply do not want to work with other nation's forces (one can only eat so much lamb *); that has as much or more to do with not seeking the job as worry about the future. The 'system' is a handy thing for blame one would rather not take... ;)

* ME / SA Lamb beats NA / SEA Dog, trust me... :D

No knock intended but FWIW, "Once an Eagle" was and is fiction. Good book but still fiction. I discovered the hard way that carrying and cherishing fictional ideals was not very beneficial to me or to things that needed to be done. There are plenty of real life examples for most things that carry far more weight -- and likelihood of occurring.

Secondly, the Army has no choice but to send people to do -- nor is it terribly concerned about people being unhappy with -- those missions. The job is correctly seen as necessary; people are required to do the jobs; the Army knows no matter what it does, some people will always be made unhappy -- so the Army does the only logical thing and tells people to go forth and do great things. Little caring about about personal unhappiness. Remember that, it's sort of important.

Back in the day I used to tell all the Lieutenants I met "The Army will use you until you're a spent bullet and then it'll throw you away like an old shoe. If you don't like that thought, you probably ought to look at other career options." That was an exaggeration but only slightly; it's broadly true and if one is not prepared to accept that; one will be disappointed.

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5000 CPTs and MAJs short is not an alarm bell apparently.

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Nah, it isn't.

Most people leave the Army because it's not the challenge they expected; they're disappointed. The next biggest batch leave due to love, friend, family or other pressures to lead a 'normal' life. The Army really needs to fix both those problems and keep the good folks. Next, there are several reasons, one of which is those that leave due to upset at an impending tour or being dissed or stiffed by a senior -- and the Army's probably better off without them.

The Army is vastly over officered partly to allow for just that shortage you cite. We've been there several times before and they learned. I knock HRC (with cause) but in fairness, they are severely constrained by the senior leadership of the Army who do not like change and even more so by the Congress and some really dumb laws. The DoD Dep and Under Secs on the ferris wheel of job rotations do not help. The folks at HRC aren't dumb. They're constained and, I think, a little selfish but they aren't dumb...

Quote:

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All that said, us peons will continue debating and saluting, because that is what we gladly do.

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Of course. We expect no less; we give no less... ;)

"Once more, into the breach...Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood." :cool:

however lets play just a bit of devil's advocate to the piece you pasted from JFQ (understanding that there may be more context of course)

Quote:

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We also asked ourselves if we really think we’re going to build another country’s army and police forces and ministries from the ground up any time soon. And the answer was, probably not.

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There are some interesting qualifiers in there, among them are the phrases

Quote:

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from the ground up

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and

Quote:

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anytime soon

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That leaves allot of room for policy (and politics) to create requirements that could tax our preferred "go to" bucket of capacity fairly quick. I'd also note that in the event we did find ourselves in a similar situation because we failed to anticipate there were alligators in the pool that we we were only dipping our toes in, you can still get eaten. That is less of a service decision, and more a course of idealistic policy, but the consequences are still real. As long as our policies provide the chance, and our strategic culture says we'll try to leave it better than we found it - my estimate is that it is as likely as unlikely we'll find ourselves in need of more capability and capcity then we'd assumed. While the uniformed side is pragmatic, our democracy is more subject to emotion (Dadgum Prussian sneak in there again) as it relates to fear, honor/prestige and interest (there, got the Greek guy too).

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We’ve got several challenges: we’ve got to set ourselves up to do Iraq and Afghanistan for the long haul, and then figure out how we augment Special Forces to do the other engagement that we need.

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I think wherever possible this is the way to go. But I am also convinced it is not always possible, and our exceptions tend to be really big ones that last for years not months - when we go big, we go really big:D. That means that if you are unprepared to go big and the conditions require it, you are now starting slower then you could have, and possibly creating additional risk to the policy objective. I think you can mitigate this risk some without reaching for the "O", and thus address the other risks that COL Gentile articulates well. We only have to do this smarter to do it better. We also have to account for the other things we would like Army SF to do for us. A SF soldier is a true investment, and the time and resources required to select, assess, train, educate and advance are commensurate. Like any high end capability, it is probably unwise to assume they will be available in the capacity required for every contingent need, or that given their range of specialization they can cover every need. However, for most needs this approach which also minimizes the footprint and burden is probably the best suited - we just need to understand when conditions require something different, and be able to generate those capabilities in a manner that makes a difference.

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That’s kind of the direction we’re going. In the interim, we have a training center for transition teams that we’re going to continue to run, it’s going to move down to Fort Polk, out of Fort Riley, and we’re going to have a brigade dedicated to doing nothing but training transition teams. So we’ll continue to do that for a while.

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Seem sensible and pragmatic to me, as well as a step up in resources. For the production of the bulk of advisory teams we say we currently need this is probably good enough, and does not overly jeopardize us in other areas. There are also some other initiatives out there that are helping collective units that are advising and partnering to better prepare.

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I just came back from Afghanistan, and more and more I’m hearing Soldiers on the ground say that the partnerships—matching an Afghani battalion up with a coalition battalion or a coalition company—is having a greater impact on the indigenous forces than the transition teams.

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I agree, the combination of advisor teams and "partner" units provides the most flexibility in meeting the development requirements in a way that not only builds better FSF CDRs and Staffs, but reaches down to the lowest soldier and shows them how they can make a difference. For our part, the IA BN we were with really took flight under this arrangement, and we started seeing the IA model themselves on our professionalism. However, I'm not sure its a blanket statement that they are having a greater impact - that in my mind is a subjective call based on METT-TC conditions and past efforts. Its also worth considering that a 1:1 ratio where we go may be both a logistics burden we can't overcome, and also intolerable to the HN, the population or both. Conditions matter, and no two are the same. While there are some things that can be extrapolated out of OEF and OIF experience, not all will be applicable to future requirements - one worth considering is the authority we have gotten used to in Iraq and Afghanistan would be very different in a set of conditions where there was an existing HN or regional authority that required our assistance on a large scale.

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We may not need as many transition teams; just aligning them with the coalition forces may be a better way to go. In Iraq we had both; we had transition teams and partnership, and that seemed to work.

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We should always be looking for better ways to do business, and if that provides something successful then we should consider it. However, we also have to consider the quality of the relationship. A 1:1 relationship provides a lot of quality time, a 1:3 less so, and a 1:10 far less. However, if your BN relationship is with 10 FSF BNs that are really competent, committed, capable and confident, and are as such low maintenance, hen you have less of a problem. Conditions as context matter. As a friend of mine said, if they are at a point where the training wheels need to come off or your are holding them back, then get out of their way - the trick is knowing when they are ready and when they are likely to drive off a cliff - here having an embedded team provides some real insights. When they are ready, take off the wheels and focus on another BN or security service in your neighborhood.

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So I think you may see how transition teams are evolving a little bit in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we’re working with the theater to see what the best way to go is. But at least in Iraq, and to some extent in
Afghanistan, the proficiency of indigenous forces is getting to where they don’t need to have somebody with them every day; they can operate side by side. So I think it’s going to evolve a little bit, but I’m not exactly sure
how it’s going to go

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I think the conditions the Chief describes is what we want to see. I'd note that in both OIF and OEF our challenges extend beyond the military component of their security sectors. Our transition is therefore not limited to "us to them", but also includes us helping develop capacity in other areas, or facillitate that development in other areas if the objective and conditions require it.

There is a great deal of interest in this not only in the services, but in DoD and the other agencies as we consider the question how do we do this better if we get told to again. Again the piece Niel pasted may have a greater context, but I'm not sure how much the 2008 NDS is going to change in substance. I'm looking at the GEF and and the GDF, seeing some of the thinking going on in the TCPs and they seem consistent with the 2008 NDS.

Its worth finishing with the idea its always good to match the best capabilities at your disposal to the requirements at hand, but its also good to understand that best is a relative qualification in light of conditions and circumstance.

Best, Rob

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Originally Posted by Rob Thornton

We also have to account for the other things we would like Army SF to do for us. A SF soldier is a true investment, and the time and resources required to select, assess, train, educate and advance are commensurate. Like any high end capability, it is probably unwise to assume they will be available in the capacity required for every contingent need, or that given their range of specialization they can cover every need.

Best, Rob

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Rob,

I am curious what are the other things we would like Army SF to do for us? Army SF is optimized to work, "through, by and with" indigenous forces either conducting Unconventional Warfare or Foreign Internal Defense (which of course includes COIN). What besides those two missions do we think we need Army SF to do.

I do certainly wholeheartedly agree with the second part of your statement that SF will never have the capacity for every contingent need and in any case SF is not the right force for every contingent need. It is only one element of our great military and in the end the onus is on military commanders and staff to understand the operational environment, the strategic objectives to be accomplished, the capabilities of ALL its forces, and then design the campaign and employ the right combination of forces and resources to accomplish the mission.

I know you did not at all mean this in your post, Rob, but I would like to say that all these discussions end up implying a "we-they" attitude and an apparent attempt to say one force is superior to another. Nothing could be further from the truth. We all have a job to do and we need to get on with business. Okay, one rant for today.

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Originally Posted by Ken White

Secondly, the Army has no choice but to send people to do -- nor is it terribly concerned about people being unhappy with -- those missions. The job is correctly seen as necessary; people are required to do the jobs; the Army knows no matter what it does, some people will always be made unhappy -- so the Army does the only logical thing and tells people to go forth and do great things. Little caring about about personal unhappiness. Remember that, it's sort of important.

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Understood and know its not personal, though that does not always make it a less bitter pill. It is a volunteer force, and a big one at that. We do the missions we get.

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No knock intended but FWIW, "Once an Eagle" was and is fiction. Good book but still fiction. I discovered the hard way that carrying and cherishing fictional ideals was not very beneficial to me or to things that needed to be done. There are plenty of real life examples for most things that carry far more weight -- and likelihood of occurring.

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As a cadet, I remember finding a General's list of advice for LTs. One of the items was "Be Sam Damon." Its nice to have heroes and ideals, but you do need to be realistic (and remember that even Sam did not always do the right thing). That said, I think being more Sam than Courtney doesn't hurt. Also, I know some people who would take your statement as a glove slap, but I'm not one of them though. (There is no Santa Clause!)

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Back in the day I used to tell all the Lieutenants I met "The Army will use you until you're a spent bullet and then it'll throw you away like an old shoe. If you don't like that thought, you probably ought to look at other career options." That was an exaggeration but only slightly; it's broadly true and if one is not prepared to accept that; one will be disappointed.Nah, it isn't.

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That was almost our XO's word for word guidance to the staff last year when he took over. He worked us long and hard, and it wasn't always fun, but we completed our missions and the unit ran well. One would hope that it is an exaggeration, but again, only a slight one. There is more concern for performance over satisfaction, because right now demands performance. We wear the same uniform because we are all replaceable. A good unit won't fall apart if one Soldier leaves. Again, its what comes with the job. Hopefully recruiters are not telling people otherwise, though I suspect they may.

Hi Sir,

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I am curious what are the other things we would like Army SF to do for us? Army SF is optimized to work, "through, by and with" indigenous forces either conducting Unconventional Warfare or Foreign Internal Defense (which of course includes COIN). What besides those two missions do we think we need Army SF to do.

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I think the missions sets they have been assigned are the right ones, but the conditions drive the prioritization of missions and their availability to do other things. I guess then the question needs to be considered against the things we have them doing now, and in what proportion. This is dependent on a number of things and raises the question of which model we are looking at - the model that works in the conditions of OEF-P may not be the one that works best in OIF or OEF-A. The solution set for any of those may not be 1:1 applicable to a future requirements in another place given its requirements or the concomitant requirements elsewhere.

Quick Anecdote:

When I went to the ODA up on MAREZ and asked for some assistance in training some high end skills for the IA (CTR), they could not assist. They truly desired to, but there schedule was not their own - in fact even the BCT CDR had limited input - mostly coordination and benefit from the information they'd obtained and their assessment of their operations. The ODA did provide advice to us on how to do it, which was a great start, but their unique skill sets were being used in other areas.

So while a force may have a range of skills, the conditions may require those skills and numbers to be concentrated on specific things that are critical to achieve an operational objective.

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I know you did not at all mean this in your post, Rob, but I would like to say that all these discussions end up implying a "we-they" attitude and an apparent attempt to say one force is superior to another. Nothing could be further from the truth. We all have a job to do and we need to get on with business. Okay, one rant for today.

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You are absolutely correct - I did not mean to imply a we/they relationship, and would go further to say that we cannot afford one. What I am trying to say is that its not so much about having a special or general capability, its really about having the right capability in theright capacity when you need it ("right" being a substitute for good enough to achieve your objective(s)). I would say that in many cases the resources we put into force development are based on a solid understanding of the requirements, and that wherever possible we must maximize that wisdom - the problem occurs when we omit the possibility or probability that the better choice will not be available, and when we don't completely understand the requirements. This has proven to be a problem no matter if we are talking about civilian capability and capacity, or military. The answer I think is in a full spectrum approach that increases our flexibility and our options until we can either change the conditions some, or free up more specialized capability. We should not look at it as we/they, but as we/us.

Best, Rob

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Originally Posted by patmc

Understood and know its not personal, though that does not always make it a less bitter pill...

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True. Sometimes it even makes it worse...

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...That said, I think being more Sam than Courtney doesn't hurt. Also, I know some people who would take your statement as a glove slap, but I'm not one of them though. (There is no Santa Clause!)

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True on the first. Excessive sensitivity on the part of those who would do so; wasn't meant that way as you determined. ;) Good for you and thank you for not taking it as it wasn't meant.

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...Hopefully recruiters are not telling people otherwise, though I suspect they may.

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Agree with the first portion of that paragraph. On that clause I left; me too. I suspect the good ones are not while the Courtney-like recruiters are doing so. The Courtneys are with us always...

Like I said, it was good fiction... :wry:

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Originally Posted by Rob Thornton

Quick Anecdote:

When I went to the ODA up on MAREZ and asked for some assistance in training some high end skills for the IA (CTR), they could not assist. They truly desired to, but there schedule was not their own - in fact even the BCT CDR had limited input - mostly coordination and benefit from the information they'd obtained and their assessment of their operations. The ODA did provide advice to us on how to do it, which was a great start, but their unique skill sets were being used in other areas.

So while a force may have a range of skills, the conditions may require those skills and numbers to be concentrated on specific things that are critical to achieve an operational objective.

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Rob,

I understand you anecdote but I think you also know that is a snap shot in time. Let me run a few things by you. Right now we have 270 active fully mission capable ODAs in the force, another 18 just entered the force at IOC this summer and we will get another 18 every year through 2013.

As we speak there are some 105 ODAs deployed around the world supporting 6 named operations including of course OIF and OEF. They are advising and assisting some 97 battalion size units (either combat infantry, special operations/commando or national level counter-terrorist forces) on a 24/7 basis These ODAs are doing 7 months in the box (in all 6 named operations) and pretty much 5 months out. In addition in FY 08 SF ODAs conducted 115 additional advise and assist missions anywhere from 6 to 16 weeks in duration around the world that were outside the named operations in more than 50 different countries. That doubles the number of battalion size units to some 200 units on an annual basis that are being advised and assisted. I would ask anyone to try to project a requirement greater than 200 battalions in a post Iraq and Afghanistan situation.

I mention this because when people talk about "other missions" they usually confuse SF with other SOF elements. We have SEALs and Special Boat units, Special Operations Marines, Civil Affairs, PSYOP, Rangers, Air Commandos/Special Tactics/Combat Controllers, and of course special mission units. Like SF they all have unique and important missions and need to be employed within their capabilities for the right mission. Like GPF, there is no one size fits all and all units do not perform the same missions and it requires good mission analysis and thorough assessments to determine the right force for the mission. But SF's niche is "through, by, and with" indigenous forces, again whether in a UW role of a FID role and obviously the majority of missions are FID (whether we are fighting the GWOT or assisting a force in a direct action mission against a terrorist target, or advising a force in a counter-insurgency operation it is all FID - indirect, direct, or combat FID)

Of course as we have discussed, SF cannot do it all nor does it have the skills needed to advise and assist in every area. This is why we need to apply the right force for the mission. Our friends, partners, and allies will also desire and need "full spectrum" assistance and we will need to apply personnel from across the force to advise and assist in a myriad of areas whether it is armor and artillery to intelligence and communications to logistics. And then there are the "enterprise" level advisers that may be required. The experts we need to conduct these missions will have to come from our units because that is where they ply their trade and gain their expertise.

I just offer this as food for thought.

V/R

Dave

This was just posted on SWJ and is from the January Joint Forces Quarterly.

Hate to beat a dead horse but here is what the CSA has to say on the subject of advisers.

Quote from GEN Casey:

Now, there are some folks who say
we need an advisor corps. I’d say we have
an advisor corps; it’s called Special Forces.
The question is how large of an effort do
we need for training foreign armies. I got
together with Jim Mattis [General James N.
Mattis, USMC, commander, U.S. Joint Forces
Command], Jim Conway [General James T.
Conway, commandant, U.S. Marine Corps],
and Eric Olson [Admiral Eric T. Olson,
USN, commander, U.S. Special Operations
Command]. We all sat down and said, “Okay,
what do we really need here?” First, we all
thought we needed to set ourselves up in Iraq
and Afghanistan for the long haul because
we’re going to be training the militaries and
the police forces in Iraq and Afghanistan
for a while. Then we thought that we could
probably do the rest of the engagement with
other militaries with Special Forces, and
we’re growing a battalion each year over the
next 5 years. There may be times when we
need to have Special Forces teams augmented
with conventional forces. For example, we
can send a 10-man team out of a brigade
headquarters, lash them up with an A-team,
and they can assist in training with foreign
brigades. But more and more, the people who
need our help are not going to be in a position
where they can be openly seen with American
Soldiers running around the country. So
we’re looking more toward the majority of
this work being done by Special Forces, augmented,
when they need to be, by regionally
oriented conventional forces, which is something
else the ARFORGEN model allows us
to do.
We also asked ourselves if we really
think we’re going to build another country’s
army and police forces and ministries from
the ground up any time soon. And the answer
was, probably not. We’ve got several challenges:
we’ve got to set ourselves up to do Iraq
and Afghanistan for the long haul, and then
figure out how we augment Special Forces
to do the other engagement that we need.
That’s kind of the direction we’re going. In
the interim, we have a training center for
transition teams that we’re going to continue
to run, it’s going to move down to Fort Polk,
out of Fort Riley, and we’re going to have a
brigade dedicated to doing nothing but training
transition teams. So we’ll continue to do
that for a while.

the intrusion of DA msns for ODAs to the exclusion of the advise and train msn. Kicking in doors is more fun but most in the Groups know what their job is and are more than willing to do it. As you point out, they do not select their missions...

Many in the Army do not understand that partial focus on DA is driven more by conventional force or major conventional headquarters shortfalls and misalignment / misassignments than by SOCOM or SF predilection. The recent diversion of an entire well trained and capable Abn BCT from one mission to another -- convoy guard on the MSR :mad: -- in Iraq literally as they deployed is an example and almost certainly meant a few Teams had to be retained for a necessary mission.

We can all get perturbed by this or that imbalance or miscue but we also need to remember most everyone is doing their best with the hands dealt. :cool:

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There may be times when we need to have Special Forces teams augmented with conventional forces. For example, we can send a 10-man team out of a brigade headquarters, lash them up with an A-team, and they can assist in training with foreign brigades.

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Maybe I'm misreading this, but it sounds like the GEN is recommending that we send a BCT to support the mission of an ODA/AOB. I'm not questioning the professionalism of any O-6, but the thought of a BDE Commander taking his lead from an O-3 or O-4 just doesn't sound like it's going to work. And even if an SF unit were attached to support the BCT (rather than vice versa), I think there is a significant failure to recognize just how differently the SF community goes about their intel collection and how important this is to their operations. Even if we are just talking about farming out an ODA to a BCT for them to strictly be advisors - this seems like it is going to result in the team being split among numerous locations; like it will just be a bunch of individuals or buddy teams who happen to have long tabs velcroed to their shoulders, but bringing with them none of the capabilities that would normally accompany them. That sounds like a significant dedication of assets for a comparatively small value added.

out of a Bde Hq is just that, 10 bods -- rank not specified but probably including a couple of Troopies for dirty work and -- some staff trainers, NCOs and Ossifers under maybe a MAJ at most. That crew trains the staffs at Bn and Bde while the ODA concentrates on the troop level skills for the units in that HN Bde. Makes sense to me and that's been done long ago in a galaxy far away...

(and my view is that the Bde HHC and staff are now more than big enough to spare that few folks with no significant impact on own ops)

Can I please say A-Team insteada ODA; I'm old, okay...:o

Hey Sir,

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As we speak there are some 105 ODAs deployed around the world supporting 6 named operations including of course OIF and OEF. They are advising and assisting some 97 battalion size units (either combat infantry, special operations/commando or national level counter-terrorist forces) on a 24/7 basis These ODAs are doing 7 months in the box (in all 6 named operations) and pretty much 5 months out. In addition in FY 08 SF ODAs conducted 115 additional advise and assist missions anywhere from 6 to 16 weeks in duration around the world that were outside the named operations in more than 50 different countries. That doubles the number of battalion size units to some 200 units on an annual basis that are being advised and assisted. I would ask anyone to try to project a requirement greater than 200 battalions in a post Iraq and Afghanistan situation.

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The numbers are a big help to some of the efforts we've been asked to consider. Some of these are only 3-5 years out so current commitments have to be considered against the likely balance available. Still, the projected net increase in those 3-5 years being 54-90 A-Teams (for Ken) at about a 6 month rotation (27-45) is a big help in making their desired end-state and time lines feasible . While there may be some places where a larger footprint is possible, there are also places where it is far harder to do, and less tolerable, even if the policy objective has decided its worth it. These numbers have the additional benefit of allowing focus on some areas and accepting risk in some of the peripheral areas we know we have to account for, but lack the capacity to do at that moment to do all things equally in the same manner.

Looks like flexibility to me, and a reduction of risk across the board when employed smartly.

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Of course as we have discussed, SF cannot do it all nor does it have the skills needed to advise and assist in every area. This is why we need to apply the right force for the mission. Our friends, partners, and allies will also desire and need "full spectrum" assistance and we will need to apply personnel from across the force to advise and assist in a myriad of areas whether it is armor and artillery to intelligence and communications to logistics. And then there are the "enterprise" level advisers that may be required. The experts we need to conduct these missions will have to come from our units because that is where they ply their trade and gain their expertise.

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This second part is still a challenge and indicates the need for more consideration than just looking at our numbers. Let me qualify this upfront by saying nowhere in the CSA's interview did I hear him say that our problems are over, but that I did hear him say we have the means to restore balance and accept risk - which should be our goal. Having said that, broader DoD as it applies to the quote above needs to decide what, if any, DOTMLPF measures it needs to address in order to better support, or in some cases lead these efforts. This is not confined to the area of FID, or SFA, or COIN, but is also present in the discussion on BPC, and in the discussion on Stability and Reconstruction operations which have been assigned to State as the lead agency.

I think DoD realizes this, as most everybody from the GCCs, the Functional Commands, the services and OSD are asking the questions and exploring the range of problem sets and potential answers. The process is helping us understand that there are no stock answers, but there are imperatives from which we can better consider the range of possible answers and perhaps get it more right in light of the conditions and accept risk smartly.

Schmedlap's observation is worth discussing. I would not rule out that a BCT (or BCTs) could be put in support of an operation under a JSOTF. This is different than the point you raised about a BCT working for an ODA (or vice-cersa), but we continue to see increased understanding and appreciation between folks as the requirements generate overlap. That is not to say we will not have some personality issues, we always have - but having the right higher HQs given the conditions as an arbiter can usually fix that.

In addition to being a force provider for certain skill sets, the BCT/BDE could also be doing a number of other things that a BCT (or like organization) does very well, and other types of units are not trained, manned or equipped to do.

Best, Rob

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Originally Posted by Rob Thornton

I would not rule out that a BCT (or BCTs) could be put in support of an operation under a JSOTF. This is different than the point you raised about a BCT working for an ODA (or vice-cersa), but we continue to see increased understanding and appreciation between folks as the requirements generate overlap.

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Something that I have not seen, but that I would like to see tried, is to have a couple infantry companies (perhaps two L/ABN/AASLT, one mech) OPCON to a JSOTF commander for him to use to augment large operations (such as an ODA advising a Bn of newly minted tribal security forces), use as a QRF, or otherwise C2 as he sees fit.

What I have seen in the interaction between a JSOTF and a Division and Brigade is that the JSOTF is reluctant to share intelligence for a myriad of reasons - basically, it is half organizational dysfunctionality* and half OPSEC. Taking it a step further and subordinating a Div or Bde to a JSOTF just isn't going to go over well. And, in my opinion, matching up a JSOTF to a BDE is too high of a ratio of SF to CF. It will create too many idle infantrymen or too many cases of the two forces interfering with one another and certainly way too much duplication of effort among staffers who, for various reasons, may not be able to and, in some cases, should not be able to collaborate on everything. I see no way to completely integrate their operations due to the nature of some the activities of the JSOTF that need to be close hold - but if anyone has reason to disagree then please say so (no explanation needed).

On the other hand, it seems very reasonable, to me, to have a few company commanders with TS clearances in on the JSOTF's daily commander's briefs and have a few infantry companies OPCON to the JSOTF CO in case he needs to hammer someone. Temporary TACON relationships already occur on a regular basis, but there is no habitual relationship so the close working relationship and trust doesn't form. And, with the temp. TACON relationships, there is also the constraint of not knowing whether you're even going to get that infantry platoon/company that would be "nice to have" for a mission 3 days from now.

* - Not sure if that is a word, but my understanding is that you're allowed to make up words in discussions about military affairs.