IW Terminology and the General Purpose Forces
All,
I am currently working on a tasker that requires I define the terms Stability Operations (SO), Security Force Assistance (SFA), Counterinsurgency (COIN), Foreign Internal Defense (FID), and Irregular Warfare (IW) in relation to the effect/scope of each term on the conventional force.
I have a lot of working material from inside the army - but would like to solicit input on how this community views the venn-diagram intersection of the above in Army doctrine and terminology (vis a vis 3-0, 3-07, etc.)
Thoughts?
It's usually simple, we just like complexity for its own sake...
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Originally Posted by
Old Eagle
Dave's comment would probably be accurate if we could a) redefine "FID" to include missions other than countering "insurgency, subversion and lawlessness" (Do we really want to develop forces for use soley against their own fellow citizens?)
That shouldn't be terribly difficult. You or I -- or better yet, the DCSOPS / G3/5/7/9/11/13/∞ can rewrite that in a day and get it circulated an approved within two to four years. ;)
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...and get big Army/USAF/USN/USMC to embrace it (the Army doesn't even have FID doctrine, only Army Special Forces do)
In reverse order, that's because of the GPF/SOF rift born of the post Viet Nam order that is, hopefully, dead and gone. Several Chiefs of Staff in the 80s and 90s did that to us. That can be easily fixed. As for embracing, not the American way. There are always doubters and malcontents who will object. Embracing is nice, doing is better...
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and b) expand security assistance to encompass broader missions than are currently authorized.
Agreed. we need to remove a number of mission constraints and not just in SA.
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SA folks (I am an SAO) have painted themselves into a little corner that is so restrictive that it is near irrelavent.
They helped but a lot of factors caused it -- not least our overall geostrategic ignorance and national narcissism -- both of which IMO can be attributed to a terribly flawed educational system. Penalty of a laissez faire democracy. :eek:
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When we went into Iraq and Afghanistan we found situations that required much more robust solutions than we had on the books. We made things up as we went along, and maybe we even managed to muddle through. The bottom line is that we need to do a better job, and we need the entire joint force to be able to do it.
I believe you have just made a long standing point of mine. Quoting Halsey again, "Regulations were meant to be intelligently disregarded." The limitations you cite and the ad-hoc 'cobble something together' -- that worked, albeit too slowly (and that slowness was due to dampening pressure from above...) -- and has been typical of all our wars. Doctrine becomes dogma. Conversely, the absence of dogma allows, even demands, innovation and the Troops will make it work. Our doctrine needs to be broad based and far less restrictive (Love the Lawyers and drive 'em nuts). Fortunately, the Troops try to do it by the woefully inappropriate book, realize that doesn't work and then adapt to reality and get things done. The speed of adaptation is directly related to the intensity of combat (acknowledging the wrong General in the wrong place can impede adaptation. See MacArthur, D; Westmoreland, W. and Sanchez, R.).
We do not need ten sets of abbreviations to discuss OOTW (no longer a valid abbreviation, is it?). All we do with that is confuse people.
I'll take the liberty of quoting a comment originally posted by Wilf:
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“Moreover, in a day of rapid technical change, when British soldiers were apt to be employed anywhere in the world under conditions that varied widely and could not be anticipated because the tactics, equipment, and transport requirements differed with the circumstances of each campaign, the British Army could not preserve one uniform pattern…About all that could be done to prepare the army to fight was to retain an elasticity in outlook, simplicity in drill, and adopt a common, simplified…training manuals. When the next war came, the British would feel their way amidst the new conditions, but at least their feet would not be chained to a rigid system of tactics long since outmoded”.(Maj Gen Sir John Maurice. The Advantages of Simple Drill 1888)
Said 120 years ago about another Army and perfectly valid for us today. We are trying to be too definitive to preclude legal problems. We simply need to train and educate properly, obey the law and discard all that excessively finite hand-tying (and hand wringing...) excess.
We need to stop trying to micromanage an Army that's entirely too big and too busy for that to do anything other than impede it. We need to stop concentrating on minutia and the correct set of precise definitions and acronyms and get serious about training and warfare -- and roles and missions.
It's the result, not the process, that is important
That's a good point and you done good
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Originally Posted by
slapout9
...I did this at a workshop recently and people were surprised how useful at problem solving it can be when brought down to this level instead of just leaving it with broad general concepts (Strategic Level). No one ever told them to do this!:eek:
and hopefully they learned the value of a thorough drill down to the basics without forgetting that you don't want to lose sight of the forest for the trees...
That, unfortunately, happens a lot, too. :(
