Strategy and change over time
I wanted to break these out of their respective threads because I think in the broader context we are talking about why and how change occurs, the advantages and disadvantages to change, and resistance to change. I saw both of these responses today and started thinking about their relationship:
Ken White said in post #33 in the Flawed Doctrine or Flawed Strategy thread
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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.
Bayonet Bryant said in Post #8 on the Changing the Army for Future Wars Thread
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The first hurdle you need to make sure that you can clear is a justification of why the Army should be involved in nation-building in the first place. I'm not saying they should/shouldn't, just that you need to be very clear in your justification of why they should be. If you can't do that, then rest of it is a bit of a mental exercise, but little more.
In my mind Ken’s quote from a thread that looks hard at establishing a cause and effect relationship, but the really interesting part of this I think is the last sentence “Conversely, our strategy must not be constrained by current doctrine. “ which gets to the first step of determining the objective or the policy end(s). I’m more of mind that History is contingent, and major shifts (aside from the geological type) don’t usually just occur regardless of how they wind up boiled and scripted in a linear historical narrative. They tend to be shaped by events, not all of which are rational, but in fact often appear to be based off of a torrent of information some of which is poorly informed, misinformed, partially informed, maybe even subject to being disinformed – its usually a combination of the good, the bad and the poor. I think getting the objective right is the critical piece because failing to get the objective right probably means starting off in the wrong direction.
Where I think Bayonet Bryant’s post ties in is wrt shaping the ways and means to pursue the objective. In this case the doctrine which would shape the rest of the DOTMLPF-P should follow articulated strategic guidance that in this case should signal a broad and enduring requirement(s), not a flash in the pan, brief episode, but one that recognizes an objective(s) which advances your sustained, long term security. You could argue that losing a war you have invested heavily in has long term effects on your security, or that given broader changes in your interests, or means and will to secure them; your objectives require a different approach. You could also argue the opposite, and in fact we have here on SWJ quite often. Much of this would seem to be subject to how you view the world, e.g. as an idealist or a realist, but even those terms are subject to politics and perspective.
On September 11th 2001 I was still in the field at Fort Lewis, WA. It was the last day of a training exercise for 1/25th Infantry and my BN 1-24th IN had just finished being the BDE’s OPFOR for the rest of the BDE (1-5 IN and 1-33 AR) as the they prepared for a JRTC rotation. During the week long FTX there was virtually no COBs (what was then referred to as civilians on the battlefield) and it was exclusively force on force. I was the BN Asst 3 and had been up all night; I was bagged out down the hill from the TOC. One of the RTOs came screaming down the hill telling me the CDR wanted me to get to the BN HQs as quickly as possible as there had been a radio call that we’d been attacked. What seemed impossible in that moment now looks much different. With a prognosis for “persistent conflict", long wars, etc and going on 8 years its hard to imagine otherwise. How does this affect our strategic outlook? Makes you empathize a bit with the decisions made by the Athenians and Spartans - but we've got a few decades to go to catch them I guess.
Looking forward I just can’t help but wonder about our desire to see things from a single perspective, and to try and make what by nature is uncontrolled into something that we can bend to our will, and build an objective to which it will seemingly self conform. Ken, no age reference inferred, but your comment would have found a good home in CvC’s work. It seems fairly straight forward and at first read, but is packed with complexity. I don’t know if you’ve read any William Carlos Williams, but he did one called “the Red Wheel Barrow” I think which is like that.
Best, Rob
No question about what you say, WM
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Originally Posted by
wm
...may well put the notion of doctrine as pre-eminent, especially if we happen to identify doctrine as, "a prudent idea or set of ideas for employing the M in DIME (the instruments of national power)."
However, I will note that that the 'M' is only 25% of that equation... ;)
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I suspect that doctrine often drives strategy...
No question. There is also no question that doctrine drives equipment puchases which in turn contemporarily impose limits on strategy.
My belief is that doctrine has too often driven US strategy to the exclusion of the other parameters and, further, that doctrine is -- but should not be -- seen as so very important that it becomes an inflexible driver of means.
I also believe that the inflexibility thus induced permeates the defense establishment and effectively -- nowadays -- constrains strategic thought. We have become risk averse and use 'doctrine' as an excuse. A major US advantage in previous wars has been our ability to innovate and improvise. By paying excessive heed to 'doctrine' we have partly eliminated that significant advantage, constrained imaginative and resourceful leaders and encouraged mediocrity.
Anyone concerned about why Captains and Majors (not to mention SGTs and young SSG) are departing in large numbers -- and have been for many years, before 9/11, should take a hard look at that issue
The Logic is Biconditional: Strategy If and Only If Doctrine
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Originally Posted by
Ken White
My belief is that doctrine has too often driven US strategy to the exclusion of the other parameters and, further, that doctrine is -- but should not be -- seen as so very important that it becomes an inflexible driver of means.
I also believe that the inflexibility thus induced permeates the defense establishment and effectively -- nowadays -- constrains strategic thought. We have become risk averse and use 'doctrine' as an excuse. A major US advantage in previous wars has been our ability to innovate and improvise. By paying excessive heed to 'doctrine' we have partly eliminated that significant advantage, constrained imaginative and resourceful leaders and encouraged mediocrity.
Anyone concerned about why Captains and Majors (not to mention SGTs and young SSG) are departing in large numbers -- and have been for many years, before 9/11, should take a hard look at that issue
I concur wholeheartedly that some seem to view the linkage between doctrine and strategy as a one-way, linear relationship, and one that tends to have a "materiel" step in-betweeen the two (part of my point in mentioning Doughty--the French 75 was poorly suited to the counterfire mission that would be imposed by a static war situation but it was not replaced as it was great for close support and quick displacement in a war of maximum offensive maneuver.)
My position is that doctrine and strategy are interrelated and ought to create a dynamoic that causes a continuous reassessment and revision of on based on what is (or isn't working) in the other. Wilf's last post indicates to me that he will disagree for he holds yet a third position on the definition of strategy
As to doctrine being used as an excuse for risk aversion, I submit that we have a doctrine which has risk aversion at its center rather than the other way around. Working with a doctrine that uses technology to reduce the risk of casualties has been with the US military for a long time--off the top of my head, I'd say since at least the end of the Civil War. (Please don't beat me up on this last point for I have nothing other than gut feel to support it right now.)
During the Cold War, we used to say that besides our technolgical edge, the thing that would allow us to win WWIII was the innovativenss of our junior officers and NCOs, that we, unlike our Soviet counterparts, were not hamstrung by an unthinking attachment to doctrine. I used to fear that this was not the case and think that Ken has similar fears based on his closing lines in the above quotation.
I agree on the matriel but have reservations on the material...
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Originally Posted by
wm
My position is that doctrine and strategy are interrelated and ought to create a dynamoic that causes a continuous reassessment and revision of on based on what is (or isn't working) in the other.
I agree. My belief however is that such is not now the case...:mad:
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Wilf's last post indicates to me that he will disagree for he holds yet a third position on the definition of strategy.
I'm not sure that's a third position (with respect to this thread, thus far, though I'm not sure where John T. and Rob might fall...). I agree with Wilf, strategy, to me is political (and is very much based on domestic politics) and that has been true since the Republic was founded. Winfield Scott succeeded as well and as quickly as he did only because he was at the end of a long message chain. Every US Commander since then has more closely followed the dictates of the Administration in power -- as they're supposed to.
That needs a caveat -- the national government determines the strategy and the services execute their portion of that. In the process, they may develop subsidiary and implementing strategies of their own but their task is essentially -- or should be -- purely military and most such 'strategies' are merely aggrandized operational plans. I realize that today for many reasons, the services are involved in other than purely military tasks and that undesirable condition will not soon disappear but their effort is still operational and strategic implementation rather than the development of strategy.
I also realize the services must have input to the strategic process, the 'M' in DIME and I think DIME about hits it -- the service input is or should be about 25% of the total.
Further, your contention on materiel is, as I agreed earlier, spot on -- and doctrine does drive that procurement ergo doctrine does affect strategy. That's okay, it should. What doctrine should not do is effect strategy beyond that parameter -- and even that should be modified if needed.
Let me give an example. I believe 'Strategic' Raids are feasible and for the impatient US, desirable. They are not really part of our doctrine -- indeed the doctrine writers have been told not to go there -- thus we have no 'requirement' for totally covert insertion and egress capability for medium sized combat elements. Therefor, that option is denied strategic planners. I could also have fun with Kosovo but that's another thread... :D
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As to doctrine being used as an excuse for risk aversion, I submit that we have a doctrine which has risk aversion at its center rather than the other way around. Working with a doctrine that uses technology to reduce the risk of casualties has been with the US military for a long time--off the top of my head, I'd say since at least the end of the Civil War. (Please don't beat me up on this last point for I have nothing other than gut feel to support it right now.)
Yes and no, I think. No question that your statement is correct in application -- but IMO, that was over the years simply the desire of good Commanders; to make the other SOB die for his country. In my observation, the stronger emphasis on force protection and minimizing casualties as 'doctrine' (written or not...) occurred only after Viet Nam (and Mogadishu) when many people misread -- and are still misreading IMO -- many things. The American people, broadly are more accepting of casualties (provided some payback is obvious) than are Politicians.
The services today are more politically focused than at any time in my life; though they have been understandably attuned to the political for all my life. Low casualties are a politically desirable as well as militarily desirable thing -- it used to be that the effort to preclude casualties was almost totally militarily driven. I'm not at all sure that is the case today. My sensing is that it is not.
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During the Cold War, we used to say that besides our technolgical edge, the thing that would allow us to win WWIII was the innovativenss of our junior officers and NCOs, that we, unlike our Soviet counterparts, were not hamstrung by an unthinking attachment to doctrine. I used to fear that this was not the case and think that Ken has similar fears based on his closing lines in the above quotation.
On attachment to doctrine we have indeed become overly attached and will be hamstrung by that attachment if we do not change. Pogo was right; we have met the enemy and he is us...
I do not have fears, I watched the destruction of innovation and intitiative, inadvertent to be sure but none the less very damaging, take place from 1949 through 1962 in very slight increments as the Army got into the peacetime swing after WW II with only a hiccup for Korea. In the early 60s, McNamara induced stupidity rapidly accelerated that trend, the one year tour in Viet Nam cemented it into place as a way of life and a deeply flawed training regimen has exacerbated the problem since 1975. Recall that the nation and the Army -- the Pentagon -- have not really been at war since 1945; they've sent people off to fight wars to be sure but the peacetime mentality has not been banished. We've simply done what all Armies do in peacetime, allowed ourselves to be buried in minutia...
Uniform changes are a great example of peacetime mentalities in Armies. Did I ever tell you that White Shirts are for Waiters...:D
Thus from 1949 until 1995 I watched an organization eat its young and move into the shade. It wasn't a pleasant thing to see and I retired several years before I wanted to simply because I didn't want to continue to be a part of the destruction. Fortunately, I've now totally retired and I'd really like to see a reversal of all that before I head south...
Afghanistan and Iraq have helped lift some -- not enough but some -- of the stifling. We'll see where that goes...
Doctrine is what is taught - yes
Doctrine drives strategy - yes, but strategy also drives doctrine.
"All politics is local." Tip O'Neil, Speaker of the US House. - yes and necessarily so.
Stuff drives doctrine which drives stategy which drives doctrine whch drives stuff - which came first, the chicken or the egg? - yes
Staff UW is HOW "we" can influence strategic development. Writ large, it is the story of the surge (see Woodward's The War Within, Robinson's Tell Me How This Ends, and Ricks' The Gamble).
Back to politics and strategy and for a different definition, see Steve Metz' Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy. This also raises the question of Grand Strategy, National Strategy, Theater Strategy...
On innovation, we go back and forth. But, in the end, my perception (nod to Marct) is that the military does tend to reward it more often than we suspect. I have been amazed at the number of our newly selected general officers who don't fit the expected mold/career pattern.
Cheers
JohnT
Dogma, Doctrine and Strategy
Very interesting thread.
The older I get the more I think that doctrine, as an end product, is much less important that the process of creating new doctrine and challenging existing doctrine. While I agree with Wilf that doctrine is "what is taught," I think it goes beyond that and can become a mindset with a lot of negative effects.
WM mentioned WWII France, which I think is a good example. Doctrine for them became a mindset that prevented the French military, as an institution, from perceiving changes and adapting to them in time. The "Powell doctrine" was similar in that it took a few wars for the institutional military to change. Dogmatic doctrine can suppress the innovation at lower levels that is always required in wartime.
When doctrine is allowed to become dogma, then there's a problem. ISTM that Col. Gentile and others worry that our new FM-24-based COIN doctrine is heading down that road.
On strategy-doctrine, I don't think doctrine "drives" strategy, but it influences what is perceived as possible and desirable - this is particularly true with "dogmatic" doctrine, which becomes, I believe, an unstated and sometimes unperceived assumption for decisionmaking. In WWII France, for example, ISTM that the static-defense oriented French doctrine probably influenced policymaker decisions, narrowed their view, and prevented them from properly assessing and meeting the German threat.
Wilf quoted Askenazi: "Don't ask my opinion. Tell me what you want and I will tell you if it is possible." Dogmatic doctrine will limit what one perceives is possible IMO. In that regard, I see doctrine as something more likely to limit strategic options than expand them. Therefore, I think doctrine (especially, official, published doctrine) should be be more wide-and-shallow than narrow-and-deep.
Us Slugs may write it but who *approves* it is the problem...
Slapout, as usual, gets to the correct point:
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...That is what makes it all so hard and when something goes wrong there is a tendency to blame one part instead of looking at the whole linkage of different processes.
I think that very valid point is the crux of this discussion in some respects -- nobody wants to be wrong; thus if we circle around, the 'strategists' can blame the doctrine folks; the doctrine writers can complain "I can't do this without a decent strategy..." So minor chaos at worst or an incomprehensible melange at best results. No body's at fault...Bob's World said:
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Ken worries that I am beating my head on a rock.
Not really, I just know you won't succeed because the method you correctly cite:
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We identifiy critical nodes, networks and individuals within the policy strategy community and engage them directly and indirectly, creating trust and rapport...We then use our staff UW network to peddle these concepts, not because of some formal authority to do so, but because the fact is, the people who do craft strategy and policy are for the most part good people, who want to do the right thing, and often simply don't have the background in the specific problem set they are tasked to address; and when approached properly they listen.
has been used for years with some small successes. It has also had some failures. The problem occurs when anyone or any command thinks they have all the answers and are outsmarting everyone else. That is almost never true...
I would in fact suggest that such an approach, common in the community contributes a great deal to the lack of trust others have in the armed forces and of SOF in particular.WMsaid:
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I think we must end up giving the nod to doctrine as driving strategy. This follows from claims that our language shapes our reality (or at least how we communication our perceptions of our reality) and that our language is taught to us--unlike the way Athena was born from Zeus, language does not spring from our heads fully-formed. Since it is taught to us, it is a form of doctrine. Thus, doctrine forces how we undertake our strategic approaches since it constrains what we can speak about and how we can say/express it to others.
I agree that what you say is all too common today -- but I am firmly convinced that is true because that lack of innovative thinking and ultra-conservastive group think rules the Army today. The real issue is, I think:
Is that the best way to do it? Should doctrine drive strategy or merely contribute to it?
Operation Overlord is but one excellent example of Strategy driving doctrine; that is, the strategy forced the doctrine (and materiel) to be developed to support it -- as should be the case yet, the basic premise was firmly based on doctrine developed by the Marines in the 30s -- It's a circle, both doctrine and strategy are necessary but neither should drive the other to the exclusion of adaptation and improvement.
On the Strategoi, from your link:
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The Athenian people kept a close eye on their strategoi. ...Pericles himself in 430 was removed from office as strategos and fined, and in 406 the eight strategoi who commanded the fleet at Arginusae were removed all from office and condemned to death.
To my mind, that's a perfectly fair penalty for stifling flexibility and innovation. Or being strategically inept due to rigid adherence to doctrine. Or doctrinally incompetent due to a rigid adherence to a strategy... ;)
I think Entropy has it right:
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The older I get the more I think that doctrine, as an end product, is much less important that the process of creating new doctrine and challenging existing doctrine. While I agree with Wilf that doctrine is "what is taught," I think it goes beyond that and can become a mindset with a lot of negative effects.
I believe that's where we are now -- though we have not always been there -- and I think that is not good. Very USSR-like...
All in all, as Wilf said:
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Well there is the crux of the matter. Most folk here do not challenge the messages they gain from, and stay clear of those who will challenge them.
I have to reluctantly agree. Conformity is in the US Armed Force rated far more highly than innovative ability and acceptance of what is written is mandatory -- even though, as John T. said, it is written by some varied types who may not know all they think they do but who are masters at cutting and pasting. :D
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It's extremely interesting that most of the well known names who post on Journal, stay clear of the discussions on the board.
I'd noticed that as well; just presumed they were entirely too busy with great things... :wry:
Why you old unconventional warrior you...
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When it comes to doctrine, the Army really just needs to take pill and relax a little.
Couldn't have said it better myself... ;)
Er, well, maybe a drink and relax a little...
This is the $64,000 question that is NOT mentioned in QDR
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Originally Posted by
Entropy
Bob's World,
Good comment on the Reserve/Guard. I wonder though, how things will be different now that the Guard and especially Reserve is increasingly considered an operational reserve force.
Excellent point. As has been oft debated on this forum and others, how does the Army in particular and the services in general respond to this concept of "Irregular Warfare."
While there is talk of changing structures, changing training, etc, there is very little talk of taking a major top down review of what capability needs to be trained and ready on short notice for day to day use in the active force(arguably should be weighted toward IW mission set), and where we can assume some degree of risk and create other capabilities for important periodic events within the reserves (arguably more heavily weighted toward major theater conflicts with near peer competitors).
To me the answer is pretty clear. The active force we have is not the active force we need, and we are abusing the hell out of the reserve force today because of it. Often Big Army gets shot down in flames by the most powerful lobby in America (National Guard Association of the United States) when it trys to selfishly pad itself at the expense of the Guard, so really bad deals usually fall to the USAR. In this case, however, I don't believe that the Guard would push back on a plan that gave them more warfighter capability and lowered their mobilization OPTEMPO. West Pointers just don't see the road to glory being at the head of a LOGPAC convoy, I guess.
I've spent a good deal of time and have commanded on both sides of this debate...I watch with intererst to see how it all plays out.
