Sep 2010 TRADOC Senior Leader's Conference

[Jason Thomas]

Bill and I will be heading out to TSLC. As I said before, we will provide information as important discussion topics fall out. If anyone has a question about what is currently going on at the TSLC send us the question(s) and we will try to run it to ground for you.
Jason

[Bill Jakola]

Bill and I will be heading out to TSLC. Jason

We made it to Kansas City and will begin the conversation tomorrow with the leaders who keep the Training and Doctrine Command in the fight. The backdrop setting the context for our discussion is the National World War One museum. Check it out at: http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new...id=1&pgid=1097

From an intellectual perspective this TSLC is an awesome leader development opportunity. I am certain we will advance, focus, and sharpen the most critical ideas driving our Army into the future.

Also, our mobile immersive trainer "the Cave" is here and running well (a beta test); it is a spectacular tool that represents a capability that greatly expands our ability to learn at the point of need. If you are interested in the Cave just ask me about it; or if you are in DC at the end of October come see it at the AUSA meeting.

Much more to follow.


Bill Jakola

[Jason Thomas]

We are now at TSLC. Bill and I will post the emerging points of the discussions. We hope to provide you all with some interesting insights. We will most likely post the initial outcomes on Tuesday morning. More to follow.
v/r
Jason

[Bill Moore]

AOC now provides further expansion of FSO with the addition of two roles--Wide Area Security (WAS) and Combined Arms Maneuver (CAM). WAS is providing security, over wide areas so as a progenitor or condition setter of other missions e.g., COIN, Foreign Internal Defense, Counter Terror, or Humanitarian Operations. CAM is familiar to most as the archetypical Fulda Gap Army the U.S. possessed in the 1980s; but we may need to update this view in light of both technological and organization changes we have made specifically the interconnectivity, transparency, and speed of information and all the tools we now possess to collect, manage, and employ data, and the development of the modular Brigade force.

Bill, I like the addition of WAS and CAM, but was perplexed by your statement that we need to move beyond the Fulda Gap scenario when we discuss CAM? Clearly the Stryker Bdes were not designed to deploy to the Fulda Gap and battle the USSR; they were a post Cold War concept that I think was implemented to provide the Army with more flexibility to respond to quickly world wide to any number of "potential" scenarios that required credible Army combat power. Threats projected ranged from militant groups like those in Sierra Leone to a developing nation's military forces that may be threatening an ally. While not as likely there is a still a requirement to be able to fight large scale, high intensity combat operations in places like Korea and others we where don't see the threat coming just yet.

We need the ability to move forces to the fight globally, do forced entries if required, the ability to sustain forces in remote areas of the world where we don't have mature logistics, and we always need to dominate in combat with irregulars or regulars. You're probably right, we need an updated Air-Land-Information Operations 2.0 doctrine that incorporates all the new technologies and other capabilities we have now, and at the same time recoginizes the enemy may have similiar technologies (often bought off the shelf). I don't think doctrine has got up with reality up (maybe it has, I just haven't read it yet). Looking forward to your future posts.

[Bill Jakola]

Bill, I like the addition of WAS and CAM, but was perplexed by your statement that we need to move beyond the Fulda Gap scenario when we discuss CAM? Looking forward to your future posts.

Sorry, for taking so long to respond; this conference has kept us pretty busy. We have had some particularly interesting discussions between and among TRADOC senior leaders.

Just to clarify what I was driving at in my reference to moving beyond a particular scenario, I did not mean to abandon the Fulda Gap capability but rather to expand it and more particularly to define how we might use it in other was to help resolve future conflicts.

Just as we should not have walked away from our Wide Area Security experience and capabilities we had developed during the Vietnam War, we should retain the Fulda Gap CAM experience and capability but reframe it for the next conflict. The problem with any such preparation is we do not have a crystal ball and do not know what that future conflict will look like or even who will oppose us. Therefore, I as others, seek to expand the way we think about using the capabilities we already have.

For example, can we use the current modular brigade force to conduct the type of major combat we envisioned in the Fulda Gap during the 1980s, or have our forces changed so much that such a scenario is not easily achievable; but might we use the current force in a different way to stop, or deter a comparable threat.

We need to challenge our assumptions and constantly look for the weak signal that might indicate a future challenge and figure out ways to prepare the force to respond in a timely manner to keep small problems small.

Bill Jakola