LTC NAgl's "A Battalion's Worth of Good Ideas"
I have been closely following the MTT debate the past 2 years because it has been having a major impact on company grade officers, and will likely continue to do so.
The two main debates I pick out are: 1. Should we be advising? and 2. Who should be the advisers?
1. The first debate seems to have been resolved, and the Army has accepted that we will need to train and advise foreign nations so their security forces can take over and we can leave.
2. The second issue is much more heated and still unfolding. LTC Nagl calls for an Advisor Corps, which permanently trains and advises foreign nations. Some argue that BCTs can do it as part of their full-spectrum capabilities. Others argue that SF should do it. I think the realistic answer is that a combination of all 3 of these will continue.
First, Advisor Corps. This would be a great idea, but I don't know if it is realistic due to manpower, skills required, and personnel issues. Currently, MTT's are officer and senior NCO heavy. An Advisor Corps of 20,000 officers and senior NCO's would drain the conventional force. Finding 20,000 that are qualified and have the motivation to do it would be a further challenge. Right now, MTT's are ad hoc and largely based on dwell time. Thousands of officers and sgts are not volunteering for these assignments. One friend told me, "If I wanted to advise Iraqis, I would have submitted a packet (SF packet)." One branch was offering choice of duty AND grad school, but could not fill slots. Now because those follow-on assignments are filled, branch will try to get you a top 5 choice. Further, on the officer side, Captains want to command. The MTT is not a command track assignment, and an Adviser Corps with 2-3 year duty, delays the captain's chance to command. As the Major boards are coming earlier and earlier, this will create two tiers, those who commanded right away, and those not as lucky. We all know that despite what the Army says, command is more important than any other job. Maybe not right, but reality.
BCTs. To build internal MTTs, the BCT could task each BN with one team, or could pull up the manpower for centralized Brigade Level control and training. The manpower crunch of CPTs, MAJ, SFC's, and MSG's would definitely hurt the BNs and Brigade. To train these teams, the BCT would need to pull external resources, or send their pax to a centralized school. Standards and doctrine need to be published to allow units to train the MTT mission if it is to become a METL task. The only upside to this is cohesion, as there is increased chance these pax have worked together before, though this is not guaranteed.
SF. I am not an expert in this realm, but I know that training local forces is a SF mission. The problem in Iraq and Afghanistan is the sheer number of forces that need training and advising. The benefits of SF units are obvious; there are just not enough of them.
Where does this leave the Army? Not in a good spot. Right now, we're using a combination of these 3 methods. A centralized Advisor Corps would probably be the best solution, but I do not think it is realistic with the force we have today. It is probably the hard right, but I do not think it will happen.
This was the result of mulling over the article during PT run this morning, hopefully it makes some sense.
It's Not Either Or; It's Both
Just to echo John T.
Sometimes even the Pros from Dover don't get it. My greatest headache in establishing a demining program in Rwanda was cultural ineptitude on the part of two successive field grade SF officers. I --using the Ambassador's charter to do so--denied one country clearance to come back into the country. The other was relieved by his chain of command at the request of USSOCEUR and yours truly, again with Ambassadorial concurrence.
I heard for way too long in my career as a FAO that basic skills counted more than intercultural skills. That is simply a dumb argument to make because you have to have both. The locals must respect you for what you know and like you for the way that you relate to them. I have known "FAOs" who might have technical skills but did not like the locals and showed it. I have also known FAOs who were fine in relating to the locals but who were tactucally clueless.
Selection of advisors has to bridge both qualities. If we go through the effort to train advisors and send then down range, we have to screen, retain, and reward those who can do the job.
Tom
An alternative point of view
Maybe we ought to consider this from a different angle--rather than bring the Mountain (aka MTT) to Mohammed (AKA host country military), maybe we should bring Mohammed (AKA those to be trained) to the Mountain (AKA the trainers).
Once upon a time I remember doing mission planning to bring a couple of battalions worth of troops from another country here to the good old USofA and training them here. (We did not get the mission; I do not know whether it ever actually came to pass.)
Anyone have any thoughts on using that avenue as a means of getting the job done. We could develop a training cadre for another country's armed forces--sure would seem to be as cost effective as us sending a bunch of our folks down range for extended deployments. Sort of like Patrice Lumumba University on a larger, more conventionally focussed scale.
As an adjunct to this, we might try a variant on the old AC/RC partnership program--we could partner some of our units with those of the target nation's armed forces, do a training needs assessment , and let the two units work out a way forward to meet solve the training needs.
Nothing new under the sun...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
wm
Sure sounds like "train the trainers" to me, Ken. With the added point that we do an especially good job at selecting that initial cadre. Maybe we could use some of our SF brethern as that cadre to train our "conventional" folks as a break from their deployments.
Whoops -- already used that line once today...;)
All true. Get SF off the fun of door kicking and back to their less fun and hard work primary job and that's easily achievable. Been done before, works well.
Interesting aside on the selection of the initial cadre. The Infantry School back in the '70s tried an experiment with IOBC. They decided to go to a Cadre process and selected a really sharp CPT, LT, 1SG and four SFCs. Ran the Class. It did great -- exceeded all the norms and broke records on everything. All observers agreed it was a highly beneficial effort and di great things. Then they tried to replicate that Cadre throughout the IOBC Bn. Pipeline couldn't support the quality required.
So said all involved. My take was that the pipeline wouldn't support the quality involved, a different thing...
Rob, I think you've got this one right on the money.
What interests me is the command relationship between the BCT cdr and the MiTTs in his AO. If he has them OPCON he should have no problem at all. If they are TACON then he should be able to give them a new mission. But, it it is any other relationship he has a problem - greater or smaller but a problem (or should I say challenge:rolleyes:). Of course, if he is a culturally insenstive jerk then I, for one, don't want him to have OPCON or TACON of the MiTT.
What is the "normal" command relationship in this situation?
Cheers
JohnT