Flawed Doctrine or Flawed Strategy?
Flawed Doctrine or Flawed Strategy?
Ok, having read this I am not going to suggest that the author has not got a legitimate beef with things that are wrong on the ground, but to say that is the result of various debates going back in the US stretches credibility to the extreme.
Now, I have no dog in this fight. What the US Army does is of little interest to me, except, I see US Army ideas filter out of the US Army and break other good armies, so I figure I might as well get in at the source.
Firstly debate is entirely necessary and healthy. If folks know what they are doing, debate about doctrine, should not impact on practise. Only when the doctrine is taught should the effects be seen. So those questioning COIN doctrine cannot be held responsible for its flawed or otherwise application unless some in the food chain are catastrophically stupid.
Now I can’t speak for Gian, but I can articulate my concerns.
Doctrine and Strategy are vastly different. Strategy is political. Doctrine is what is taught. You cannot confuse the two. What the US Army currently has an approach that sees something they call “COIN” as some distinct form of activity, that is (to quote FM3-24):
“COIN is an extremely complex form of warfare. At its core, COIN is a struggle for the population’s support. The protection, welfare, and support of the people are vital to success.” Now that statement my be incorrect, but it's not the problem.
COIN is a form of Warfare, and not a distinct one either. You cannot have separate armies with separate doctrines to fight different kinds of warfare. The British Army fought against major domestic insurgency for 23 years while maintaining the ability to fight the Soviet Army, the Argentines, the Guatemalans, and the Iraqis.
Clausewitz tells us that every war is different. Because insurgents are different, each insurgency will be different. What lessons of the WW2 were germane to War in Korea? The US Army nearly lost Korea, because of the rapid erosion of the skills needed to fight a Regular Army. Big Wars you can loose in weeks. You don’t have the luxury of taking 3 ˝ years to write FM3-24, for example. NO one is arguing that the USA should not be skilled at fighting insurgents, but that should not create an unnecessary degradation of other capabilities. What capabilities are needed is a different debate, but the debate has to happen, and it is entirely healthy.
Creating an Army optimised to fight in Iraq, will not create success in Afghanistan, and vice vera. It will also not guarantee success when you intervene in the next Lebanese, or Jordanian civil war, and it will help none when you are fighting your way into North Korea, (the cease fire is over, is it not), or even Iran – and no one can say “we’ll never do that.” You've done some strange things before.
I think you made my long standing point...
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Originally Posted by
Tom Odom
On the flattening of the intelligence architecture to allow for smaller units, I would agree and it was an 8 year struggle to get us where we are now with CoISTs. The intel system has all the issues you cite and is in my opinion very unlikely to change as stovepipes are a form of system ricebowls.
However, this came first. I agree with everything you wrote there -- and would only add those rice bowls have needed breaking since before the Korean War. That Stove piping kills own troops all too often...
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On the training issue, agree somewhat at the shooter level--but with the caveat we got where we are now via heavy use of STX lanes at the CTCs to meet the needs of small units. Where the changes really occurred were in the mindset at battalion and brigade and those changes really did not start having noticeable effects until late 2005 and into 2006.
Three points if I may:
- If we trained new accessions decently, the STX lanes would be, as they should be, practice and not initial exposure. I know that's being worked on but it's long overdue and I fear more shortcuts or band aids. The US Army has pathetic fire discipline and the Marines are little better -- both for the most part, some units work at it but it's spotty. Joe has to think and he has to KNOW what to do because the myth that his Leaders will tell him what to do is not always possible. It is never desirable.
- Changing the mindset of 30 year old Officer OR NCOs is difficult; they're too set in their ways and will resist change consciously and unconsciously, overtly and subtly. We have to train new Privates and new Lieutenants properly (and we do not now do that) or the 'system' will not change (and those rice bowls above won't get broken -- and if we are to survive in near our current state, they'd better be...).
- Remark above applies to Bn and Bde Cdrs. Most are good guys and good leaders and commanders. Almost all of them are smart folks. Their Staffs are far too large but that's the fault of the General's who cannot resist micromanaging and want answers to unnecessary questions. At those rarified air level, change is resisted; after all the system worked for them...
We do not educate our NCOs well nor IMO do we do a great job with the Officers. I'm firmly convinced that the many great Officers and the great NCOs I've known have managed to be great in spite of the system. That's not right; the system should make good people better. Point is that it should not take seven years of war to adapt. If we get thrown into a major combat operation an excessive number of Americans will die due to that lack of flexibility. Said lack is due to a marginal training system that has been in business for the last 34 years and has been slowly stultifying the Army for that time. Fortunately, great people have overcome that to get us as good as we are. Unfortunately, the effort they had to expend to do that taught micromanagement and the time thus wasted precluded them from developing better tactical, operational and strategic perspectives. They had to concentrate on things they should have been able to trust subordinates to do...
Unless we fix our very dysfunctional personnel systems and processes and significantly improve initial entry training, Officer and Enlisted, we're going to remain little better than mediocre and thus only slightly better than most of our opponents. When we ran across the occasional opponent who was better (and we have done that several times) we usually outnumbered or out produced them.
All that's been good enough in the past -- I'm not at all sure it will be in the future.
All on a tactical level where training most matters * :
Germans in WW II (not in WW I), Japanese in WW II (in both cases, early on, we got better as years went by ** -- we may not always have that time...), Chinese in Korea (not North Koreans), VC Main Force in Viet Nam 1962-68 (not PAVN / NVA).
While there's no question we were better trained than the opponents in Grenada, Panama or Iraq, we had some embarrassing and, more importantly, deadly induced problems in all three. Same is true of Somalia -- where a raggedy Militia 'Colonel' said of our operations after the very bad day in Mogadishu; "They did the same thing over and over. Tactically you never do the same thing twice" (or words to that effect). :mad:
* There were strategic failures by us in most as well but that's not a training or even a military issue, it's a political issue.
** The recurring complaint of WW II combat arms folks was that their stateside training was inadequate
You're welcome Carl -- and to also address Selil,
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Originally Posted by
carl
That's four out of four of our last really big fights. :(
do note that though we started out behind in all four we got to at least draw status in fairly short order, usually about two to three years..
While I agree with Sam -- and Gladwell -- that about 10,000 hours is needed for 'expertise' and that seven to ten years produce quite expert soldiers or marines, I will point out three things.
- Most Soldiers do not have to be expert; they just should be better than the competition. Good journeymen will work fine. Leaders should be bordering on Expert status -- today, many are there or close to it; a few are quite expert.
- Around six to eight months of good training versus our current 16-18 week norm is needed for the enlisted entrant; about a year for new officers. That will make them good enough if it's done right --and any combat adds impetus and reinforcement to all things learned and accelerates the attainment of skill. Thus it take seven to ten years in peacetime to develop 'expertise' but in wartime that can be halved in light combat as now or accelerated even more in heavy combat. It took about 18-24 months in WW II to turn marginally trained folks into pretty competent soldiers. The naturals, about 10%, can do it in weeks in sustained combat.
- Other Nations who might be problematic for us have improved their training in the last few years mostly as a reaction to our obvious basic competence and the fact that we have the most combat experienced Soldiers and Marines in the world. We have also improved our training -- but we can and should still do much better to preclude some nasty surprises down the road.
As an aside, Malcolm Gladwell in doing the research for that book also discovered that identifying potential experts at early stages was quite difficult. A great deal of specificity was needed in even trying. He pointed out that the college to pro football selection process for linemen was pretty straightforward and usually worked as predicted. Quarterbacks, OTOH, due to the vast differences in the job in college ball as opposed to pro ball, had a poor success rate on ideal selects.
The point there is that we can train the linemen better and get a an adequate product. The quarterbacks take longer -- and not everyone can do it...
Too many truths in all that...
Selil:
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Four hours training in how to use a blade screw driver is better than an hour on a phillips, an hour on a torx an hour on a blade, and finally an hour on an allen key screwdriver. They all work pretty much the same.
Not to pick on you and I know that's a hypothetical but I couldn't help thinking -- that's military instruction, cramming a 20 minute class into four hours... :rolleyes:
While there's too much truth in that as there is in what you say about being pretty much the same, another part of the problem is that in teaching the flat tip screwdriver, we don't teach the kid the mechanics of screws (because that's not a task...) so he understands the principle and we often fail to point out clockwise in unless it's a pre-war British item -- and we do not take the ten minutes involved to have him take out a few screws while blindfolded to embed the process in muscle memory (because he has to go to Rape Prevention class next...).
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Doctrine should be generational rather than turmoil. That way as members of the military are educated the systemic forces will create cohesion that strengthens capabilities rather than eroding under parasitic tensions of counter doctrinal actions.
Heresy! If we do that, then each new Commandant of a TRADOC School cannot invent something on his watch in order to get an enhanced OER. :D
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. The key goal was process improvement of an already defined skill, or the capture of that skill so the company could not be held "knowledge hostage".
That's called stovepiping in the services and we're terrible about it. Hostages everywhere. There's also another factor that impacts training. Aside from thinking the troops aren't smart enough to get 'advanced' concepts, the services have to face the double whammy of 'we can't spend too much money to teach the kid who may not stick around too long' and 'we can't train super soldiers rapidly not because we aren't able but because '...it takes time to make sure they won't misuse it.' Those can be managed but it's easier just to do it that way.
The counterpart double whammy is that kids are bored out of their skull by poor and excessively lengthy but too elementary training (kids of all ranks...) and good Captains leave because they do not wish to face a staff or instructor job and contribute to the first part or doing a lot of make-work.
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or bent processes like back ups in such a way that the company could not function without that specific entity.
The military counterpart is to keep knowledge to yourself and thereby becoming indispensable. I've met people who wouldn't and couldn't take a leave for fear their secret treasure trove of knowledge might be needed -- or found out.
Schmedlap:
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a focus on breaking down professional knowledge into just a list of skills is a bad idea.
Actually, breaking them down has merit -- but if the industry (or Army) involved doesn't take the next step of putting them back together to accomplish complex missions consisting of many individual and unit sub-tasks, then people will be stuck at the basic or task level. There is a difference between a METL and a Mission Training Program
Consider a simple thing like map use -- every school teaches virtually the same tasks to persons of all grades and skill levels. Rarely do they break those tasks down into basic, intermediate and advanced groups. Today, everyone can can get terrain mask data from the GIS software -- but Company, Battery and Troop Commanders should have been taught to do that for years with a plain old marginally accurate topo map. Actually, squad and section leaders should have been taught that. Still should. Today. So they can do it when the GIS is not available...
That's what happens when you teach tasks instead of how to achieve outcomes; people have to learn how to produce outcomes on their own. some can, some can't or won'. Your tale of precommission training showed you did -- but I bet you know several contemporaries who didn't... :eek:
Doctrine cannot drive Strategy.
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Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
That sentiment is useful and correct, but I would emphasise that there is no relationship between Doctrine and Strategy, except that Doctrine must provide a useable description of Strategy.
Saw this yesterday and mulled it a bit. If you mean that Doctrine must provide usable description of how to enable a Strategy to succeed, then I agree with what you say. However, I'd also posit that frequently, there is a reversal and Doctrine begins to drive Strategy -- a very bad outcome IMO. Selil in effect said that:
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Your doctrine is how you want to see stuff come out in the end, the strategy is a series of goals to meet that overall vision, and your tactics are the discrete elements, tools, methods, or things you do to implement the goals (would be strategy). Not completely aligned but the security paradigm I work within is completely flipped anyways.
Taking his statements in reverse order, I believe all security paradigms are eminently flippable. That is, in the realm of 'security' to have a fixed view is likely to lead to a more flexible opportunists breaching your security simply because you elected a dogmatic, complacent or egoistic approach -- or a 'Doctrinal' approach...
I think that goals are discrete aiming points. Those goals are determined by national policies. Those goals are achieved by developing a strategy or strategies to attain them. Doctrine is the hopefully coherent methodology and BROAD guidance you use to develop the operational and tactical methods to implement various strategies. Doctrine must not only allow but must encourage maximum flexibility in the selection of appropriate operational methods and TTP to implement strategies.
The alternative is to allow your doctrine to become dogma and drive your methodology and thus constrain your strategy. That requires less hard thinking and is the easier route. It also allows others to predict your probable responses with ease...
Should one decide to use one's doctrine to develop strategy, it seems one would be constrained to doing only what one firmly decided in advance to do -- a very problematic approach -- instead of determining what was needed and how best to achieve that.
I submit that problematic approach has been the US operating methodology for a number of years -- and that hasn't worked too well...
You are messing with a geriatric mind here...
Let me play with what you said:
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Doctrine should say "Strategy is X,Y and Z," ...
Does that mean that Doctrine says "this aspect of doctrine supports a Strategy of X. If you wish to do Y, then that aspect of doctrine supports that. OTOH if you want to do Z, this other aspect of doctrine shows how that can be accomplished." If so, I agree.
I'm concerned with ability to do X, Y and Z but not being able to rapidly cope with AA or AC (much less some antiquarian who drags out D, G or M... :D). I'm also concerned that Doctrine can be constraining in the sense that if it is allowed to drive strategy, means inappropriate to the task at hand may be selected simple because those means are the doctrine.
I do agree with this:
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so that the doctrine has some defined purpose. "We do this because....".
and would only suggest that doctrine should be minimal and not overly prescriptive. If it become to finite, it becomes the de facto 'book' and deviation is punished. That is not good. As you said initially, Strategy and Doctrine are different things:
Doctrine drives what we do and how we do it.
Strategy drives what must be done.
The two are melded into operational parameters or guidance and execution of operations to achieve the goals of the strategy. Our doctrine must support the elected strategy and if it does not, then new or altered doctrine should be developed to do that. Conversely, our strategy must not be constrained by current doctrine.
Thank you so much for that
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
I was at Bragg going over draft strategy with the Doctrine guys at SWCS this week and several times sparked the comment "that's not doctrine." To which my reply was essentially, "noted."
We cannot write a strategy for the future constrained by a doctirne based on an understanding of the past. Once we craft a new strategy, it will inform a review of existing doctrine and lead to a writing and publishing of the next generation of doctrine.
Once one becomes locked in place by their doctrine, they are doomed to an ultimate irrelevance.
I've always been confused by the fact that from a low guy on the totem pole perspective I kinda understood Doctrine to be like directions on how to
get somewhere
Strategy seemed like a where you want to go thing.
In that context it becomes an exercise in organized confusion when your looking for directions yet your not sure exactly where your going:confused:
Looks like you all are doing a good job of clearing that up for us. :)
Strategy for the future is a plan to achive goals, no more.
It is very broad, is devised and promulgated, hopefully with full knowledge that events and actions of others WILL cause changes. Thus strategy constantly evolves. Well, smart strategy does... :rolleyes:
Doctrine should also be broad. It could / would say you can, in the execution of a strategy, be required to do cordon and search operations.
Training involve using TTP which are fairly specific. They should still allow for individual approaches and differences standardizing only things so required to preclude self damage. TTP and Training tell you HOW to do a cordon and search; both must be frequently adjusted based on equipment and other parameters -- notably quality of personnel* -- as necessary.
Three different things with doctrine being the most static -- and therefor the one that need the closest scrutiny lest it constrain either your strategy or your TTP.
The problem in the US is that we have attempted to make 'doctrine' all inclusive to cover all eventualities (an obvious impossibility) and almost regulatory in its impact. IOW, in typical US fashion we have overdone it and thus confused doctrine with training and TTP (even with strategery... :D).
* Which the US Army has not bothered to do.
Knowledge management is the name of the game...
This month's Technology Review has a Cloud Computing briefing and one of the associated articles Conjuring Clouds may be of interest:
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Much of the popularity of cloud computing is owed to a technology known as virtualization. A host computer runs an application known as a hypervisor; this creates one or more virtual machines, which simulate real computers so faithfully that the simulations can run any software, from operating systems to end-user applications. The software "thinks" it has access to a processor, network, and disk drive, just as if it had a real computer all to itself. The hypervisor retains ultimate control, however, and can pause, erase, or create new virtual machines at any time. Virtualization means that e-mail, Web, or file servers (or anything else) can be conjured up as soon as they're needed; when the need is gone, they can be wiped from existence, freeing the host computer to run a different virtual machine for another user. Coupled with management software and vast data centers, this technology allows cloud providers to reap massive economies of scale. And it gives cloud users access to as much computing power as they want, whenever they want it.
The dream of on-demand computing--a "utility" that can bring processing power into homes as readily as electricity or water--arose as soon as computers became capable of multitasking between different users
MBA school introduced me to some interesting textbooks and provided some valuable insights into why the Army has been so slow in upgrading our knowledge management tools in this war. As a result of these insights into the costs and associated timelines for cultural changes I try and temper my impatience with the understanding that many of the resource allocators have not been on the front line and are not of the 'internet generation' (skills based definition).
It has been a while since the festivities kicked off in 2001 however.
And so I ask myself how many municipalities, cities, US States, and nations are using standardized COTS Geographic Information Systems? For the frontline troop is it helpful to have inaccessible classified info buried somewhere on some arcane software program when the villagers he or she are working with already know where the weir dam is, where the irrigation ditches are, where the mill is, and who the ag folks are? Perhaps this knowledge could be used in having more villagers spend time on agricultural pursuits then on kinetic pursuits?
Standard Disclaimers (and more) apply but I found this to be a very interesting post nonetheless on the blog Free Range International: A Trip to Gardez and a Visit with the Marines
Wiki sites for TTP's, BCKS, and AKO are huge strides forward but we need more: wiki-style mapping (GIS/Google Earth) and information sharing break information stovepipes and get folks out gathering, sharing, discussing, and vetting knowledge among the participants. We do it in science and engineering and we gain valuable insights from the multidisciplinary interactions...we can do the same in the military.