Domains of the profession
This Profession of Arms campaign will focus largely on 4 domains: military-technical, human development, moral-ethical, and political-cultural. It is important that the Army ensure strength in each domain.
I'm curious as to what domain people think needs to be studied the most.
The Airborne guys I knew used to say it was the Profession of Legs that brought the Army low.
What does it mean to be a profession of arms?
After 23 years of Army service, I find this question of what it means to be a profession of arms particularly interesting, since it seems to define the cultural fabric of my passion to serve my country while also subordinating that professional culture to our national ideals and civilian leadership. To defend our Nation with the ethical application of force of arms, our profession must maintain a clear sense of who and what we are by honestly studying our history to gain a more complete and nuanced understanding of our successes and our failures. War is such dangerous activity that people have developed the profession of arms, a dedicated group of certified, trained, equipped, organized, and led professional Soldiers, to execute warfare, but in the United States, as in many other countries, the profession remains subordinate to the political leadership who ultimately determine the scope of war.
This subordination of the profession to the political is key to understanding who is a member of the profession of arms and who is not. For example, Soldiers are clearly members, but are retired Soldiers members or newly hired Soldiers who have not completed basic training? Are DoD civilians part of the profession; they are certainly professionals doing military work, but are they working in the profession of arms. Are civilian contractors part of the profession? What about the civilian leadership, the President, or the Secretary of Defense or the Army?
Anchoring it's members in in a unified view of itself is a requirement of any profession and especially important to the profession of arms.
Execellent points, Bill. I envision that what we discover and describe will be something of an apprenticeship model--people are initially admitted to the profession through the declaration (oath) of values and loyalty, but new members must view themselves as operating in a limited capacity with much to learn.This subordination of the profession to the political is key to understanding who is a member of the profession of arms and who is not. For example, Soldiers are clearly members, but are retired Soldiers members or newly hired Soldiers who have not completed basic training? Are DoD civilians part of the profession; they are certainly professionals doing military work, but are they working in the profession of arms. Are civilian contractors part of the profession? What about the civilian leadership, the President, or the Secretary of Defense or the Army?
Anchoring it's members in in a unified view of itself is a requirement of any profession and especially important to the profession of arms.
One important issue to consider is the roll of experience versus expertise/training. While we have young soldiers with a lot of specific warfighting experience, "credentialling" them without a greater understanding of the profession would be unwise.
Ultimately, professionals are those who have a proper framework for making sense of their experiences, and turn those experiences into useful tacit knowledge. Without that framework, lessons learned in Afghanistan or Iraq won't meaningfully inform these soldiers if they're deployed to a refugee situation, natural disaster, or different combat scenario in the future.
Professionals not only capitalize on experience, but do so in a meaningful way.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-05-2010 at 11:05 PM. Reason: Fix quote
Perhaps part of our current problem are our efforts to overly expand the "profession" of arms to all who bear arms in the defense of their country. Certainly this is not the historic approach in the U.S.
European "professionals" rightfully looked down upon American armies made up of armature citizen soldiers as lacking the doctrinal uniformity of training, dress, mannerisms and tactics found in their professional forces. We wore the fact of our military being made up of such armatures as a badge of honor, and similarly mocked them for their stilted, predictable, "professional" ways.
Too much of a good thing, however is a bad thing, so we created the military academies so as to always have a core of professionals to build our citizen armies around whenever the need for such a force drove its formation.
The current professional force, like the strategies of containment it was formed to implement, is as obsolete as the smooth bore musket. The challenge is to get senior leaders to embrace such thinking after the current model being "what right looks like" for three generations.
Americans like their army being a little rough around the edges, and they like it being something that good citizens form in times of need, and that melts back down to its professional core once that need is over. The irony is, that the "profession of arms" that prevents the formation of such a citizenry, is perhaps the group that grieves their fading from the American fabric the most.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
Bob,Originally Posted by Bob's World
I don't mean to take anything from your excellent points but I would like to refocus them a bit. You maintain "Americans like their army being a little rough around the edges", however, I suggest Americans like their army to successfully defend the country no matter how rough or refined.
I agree with your view of the historical evolution of the American military is important and we need to keep the public interest in mind. But since we do not know what challenges we may face in the future and how much time we will have to respond, we cannot afford to build an army just in time of need "something that good citizens form in times of need".
If we have a quality professional force prepared to respond to the next challenge rapidly and at the earliest sign of trouble, by actively seeking out the weak signals, we are more likely to address the problem when it is small and less costly in resources of blood and treasure, to nip the problem in the bud so to speak. If we follow your advice, our forces would not be ready to react quickly and we would have to wait while we train the "good citizens" before we could act thus making us far less proactive and more likely to ignore small problems until they become overwhelming consuming far more blood and treasure.
Just saying.
Bill Jakola
Chris as you know, technology constantly evolves and how we decide to adapt or employ it enhances (or detracts) from our ability to do our job, but it doesn't define our purpose and we're clearly not about technology. The same can be said about human development.This Profession of Arms campaign will focus largely on 4 domains: military-technical, human development, moral-ethical, and political-cultural. It is important that the Army ensure strength in each domain.
Our moral-ethical and political-cultural (not sure how you separate these two) IMO are clearly what defines are profession.
On a side note I agree with Bob's W that we risk losing something (and already have, again IMO) by over professionalizing the Army (which is frequently practiced as standardization, you will enter the borg and become incapable of independent thinking). Even SF has a lost a lot of the individualism (controlled by a common purpose) when it went to the Regt system.
Definitely important topics for our Army and our nation.
There are two things we tend to do that I find worrisome:
1. Intel-driven operations that look for a threat to defeat as the root of every problem.
2. "Means"-driven operations that look for "Ways" to employ the Means we posses to defeat the threat derived by the Intel guys.
Question: Was Iraq the best "Ways" to defend America, or was it merely the best Ways to employ the heavy conventional Means that we possessed to engage the threat identified by the Intel guys???
There was no feasible way to employ those means in Afghanistan at that time, so they sat idle as senior leaders fretted over the threats painted by the Intel community. Where else could we possibly employ them, Iran?? (Probably lends some insight into why that bogeyman keeps getting tossed onto the table as well).
Imagine if when VP Cheney said "Sir, we need to go finish the job your father started with Saddam, besides the intel guys were just telling me that they've long suspected he possesses weapons of mass destruction" (ok, truth in lending, I have no idea what the VP recommended to the President); the Chairman would have spoken up that such an operation would take 90% of the current active force, or require at least 18 months to mobilize, train, and deploy an enhanced force made up of National Guard units; coupled with a "small draft" to ensure we had adequate troops in the pipeline.
Do we still go to Iraq? I doubt it. It was never essential, it was just the convenient Ways that fit our Means. The requirement to build a war fighting force in order to wage war provides the time to gain a broader perspective of the situation than the one provided in a morning intel brief in the Oval Office with a handful of senior leaders. In the Cold War we did not have that luxury, we had to have a larger than normal standing army to help deter that first push. We have different deterrence requirements today, and should shape our force to meet them.
No, in today's environment the US can be defended quite well by a much smaller force that the one we fund today. Trimming off the NATO mission and allowing the Europeans to resource their own national security would be a good step toward right-sizing, as would trimming off a half-dozen equally obsolete Cold War positions in Asia and the delusions of nation building as an answer to insurgency.
It is time for a return to strategy-driven operations; perhaps then we'll stop searching for round holes (Intel-driven) to pound our square peg (Means-driven) through.
Just a thought.
Last edited by Bob's World; 11-05-2010 at 05:04 PM.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
Preventive war?
According to international law, this is illegal. It also violates the moral reasoning that underpins international law (Just War Theory). That being said, it does not follow that we won't do it anyway. My guess is that it isn't because anyone in the military necessarily wants to intentionally violate these laws and norms, it is that they have no idea what they are or how to apply them. The profession's interest in its moral-ethical knowledge usually ends with a notion of "leadership=ethics" (internal jurisdiction) and "following orders=ethics" (external).
OK......
The profession of arms? Arms are for violence. Killing and breaking stuff or maintaining authority by threat of harm. How about studying the application of violence in the service of policy? - the ONLY job armed forces have.I'm curious as to what domain people think needs to be studied the most.
Military-technical, human development, moral-ethical, and political-cultural are all little or nothing to do with that. For example, your policy is ALWAYS ethical. Morals are entirely personal.
What exactly is it that the persons wanting to study all this are so confused about? What is it they feel they are lacking?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Where to begin?
If it's with Chris Barnes' question, then I would have to say the moral-ethical, and political-cultural domains (as much as I loath the domain-speak) are most important. For, if we exist as profession to do this (BTW I think we do):
Then it is curious why we should, as a profession, ignore the context in which we apply force. What if a given application of force will actually undermine the current policy goal? How would we know?
Is this the solution? To assume that
seems to me to be self-defeating. At the very least, we should agree that policies that would lead to defeat, less security etc aren't ethical. Also, if I take your "ALWAYS" to mean in all possible cases, then we might have another problem. Certainly there is at least one case, or even a small set of cases in which the policy in question will not be ethical.
What I think is lacking in our Army is precisely the understanding we need to turn tactical action into effective strategic responses to the hybrid threats we face. For my money, this is because the Army has, for too long, assumed that all policy is, ipso facto (had to use my own latin), ethical and worth killing and dying in service to it.
Regards,
Bob
Read Clausewitz! If the application of force is not effectively setting forth the policy then it should not applied. - and you should either change the policy or apply the force in a way that serves it.
...and Policy is way above your pay grade. Keep out of it. The profession of arms serves policy. Understand the limits. Do not probe the boundaries!
Name me a politician or leader who has ever set forth a policy he states to be "un-ethical?" Policy comes from politics. Politics is power over people. Power is always ethical in the eyes of those holding it.At the very least, we should agree that policies that would lead to defeat, less security etc aren't ethical.
Well then the problem is a lack of education in basic professional military thinking. The very basics of linking Policy to tactics via strategy are missing. This is not because the world got more complicated. It is because the Army gave up reading books and educating people.What I think is lacking in our Army is precisely the understanding we need to turn tactical action into effective strategic responses to the hybrid threats we face. For my money, this is because the Army has, for too long, assumed that all policy is, ipso facto (had to use my own latin), ethical and worth killing and dying in service to it.
Again, what is it you are confused about?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Unfortunately, policy has historically been not so well insulated from military service. Amazingly junior officers have set policy in the past, because they were "Johnny on the Spot".
I seem to remember reading about a fairly Junior Brit Naval Officer who started and ended a war with Denmark in one fell swoop and a Reserve Captain by the name of Fertig in the Phillipines who also set policy despite not having guidance from higher.
Correct! Which means you have to understand the policy in place and how your actions serve it. Many on this board confuse, Party Politics with Policy. Considering the US Government cannot tell the difference between Strategy and Policy, this is not surprising.
Right. Do you think they engaged in needless navel-gazing about the "Profession of Arms." No. They understood the Ends required and made it happen. If you understand (not invent or try to change) the policy in place, then the action you should take becomes a pretty simple choice.I seem to remember reading about a fairly Junior Brit Naval Officer who started and ended a war with Denmark in one fell swoop and a Reserve Captain by the name of Fertig in the Phillipines who also set policy despite not having guidance from higher.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Education?
I have read Clausewitz ... one of the reasons I hold my views. So, now what? Also, here you are making a normative or moral claim about policy - "should not". No government has taken up action intending to lead to their own ruin. However, simply because they thought it was smart doesn't make it so. (cf. below).
I'm not especially worried about the eyes of those holding power. Simply because somebody has the power to do something does not make it right for them to do it. (Read Plato, or Clausewitz, or Fuller, or Fahrenbach et al.)
On this we are agreed, however, I think we have widely divergent views on what the products of that education should be. But how can we understand policy and our place in it unless we understand the categories of its making? There is certainly more than simple power protecting power here.
Regards,
Bob
OK. So what are you saying we should do to remedy this?
Not well read in Plato. Adhere to and study Clausewitz. Fuller was a clown and needs to be ignored. Only read one book by Fahrenbach - This Kind of War - excellent!Read Plato, or Clausewitz, or Fuller, or Fahrenbach et al.
[/QUOTE]
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Chuck G., what does CAPE stand for?
The first claim seems descriptively false and based on some aspirational notion members of the "profession of arms" hold about themselves. The "profession of arms" helps create policy. Not only that, but it is through the actions of the military that we come to know what policy is doing in order to create more new policy. See Afghanistan for illustrations of this and how the military "can-do" attitude creates policy. Denying this reality seems odd after the earlier invocation to Clausewitz.
For example, take Afghanistan: Is the military preparing to get out of Afghanistan in 2011 like the President said we were going to do when he formulated his policy? Have they been preparing for it, or have they been trying to convince him to stay the course? Does anyway in the military believe we will leave? If not why? Is it because the President lied about his intentions to leave to begin with, that the military convinced him to do otherwise, or something else?
The second claim seems either trivial or a repudiation of much of western thought. What are we to take away from this? Is it that whoever is in power decides what is ethical because they are powerful and therefore we ought not question it? Or does this only apply to people who are members of the power apparatus, in this case members of the "profession of arms?" Are their thoughts on ethics supposed to reduce to might equals right? If so, what does the American "profession of arms" think it can achieve in a counterinsurgency fight in Afghanistan and Iraq? Might equals right conjoined with COIN seems to lead to interesting outcomes and actually might be the result of "anthropolgizing" war. That being the case, Americans ought not be surprised when they are accused of being imperialists by those subject to this use of power.
Huh? So Policy only comes into being when the "profession of arms" starts acting?
Policy has to exist in order to frame the actions needed to set it forth. Yes, policy is "modified" by actions. So what?See Afghanistan for illustrations of this and how the military "can-do" attitude creates policy.
Show me any text of Clausewitz discussing "ethics."Denying this reality seems odd after the earlier invocation to Clausewitz.
What has any of this do to with my assertion that "all policy" is ethical and the military has duty to set forth policy - NOT make ethical judgements.The second claim seems either trivial or a repudiation of much of western thought. What are we to take away from this? Is it that whoever is in power decides what is ethical because they are powerful and therefore we ought not question it? Or does this only apply to people who are members of the power apparatus, in this case members of the "profession of arms?" Are their thoughts on ethics supposed to reduce to might equals right? If so, what does the American "profession of arms" think it can achieve in a counterinsurgency fight in Afghanistan and Iraq? Might equals right conjoined with COIN seems to lead to interesting outcomes and actually might be the result of "anthropolgizing" war. That being the case, Americans ought not be surprised when they are accused of being imperialists by those subject to this use of power.
IF an action undermines policy - then it is probably "un-ethical." - thus what is "ethical" flows from the Policy.
Soldiers need to understand the relationship of their actions to policy, because they serve policy makers.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
No. I thought the context of the discussion would make it clear that here I only mean to discuss policies of using military force to achieve goals. I apologize if you somehow thought that my comment meant that I think that other government policies (education, Social Security, Medicare, etc.) somehow could not be created or enacted without military actions.
Now that it is clear that I am referring to policies regarding the use of military force, my claim is that it is political policy and that military professionals do have a part in creating it and advocating for or against it. This is just to deny your earlier claim that the "profession of arms" merely serves policy. That claims is just not true. For example, GEN Powell proactively took the use of force off the table for other policy makers by going to the press with his doctrine on when the US should resort to force. He was so popular and influential that this guided political policy. GEN Abrams tried to do the same thing with his reforms after Vietnam and GEN Petraeus influenced policy prior to the surge based on his influence and popularity as well. If you think strategic military leaders do not create, but only carry out policy, fine. I just don't see the evidence that this is true.
First, I did not claim that Clausewitz discussed "ethics," this is related to the previous point about the relationship of military professionals to policy creation. War is an extension of politics according to Clausewitz and military professionals do create policy. This point is merely to say that I find it odd that you posted this:
and
followed by this:
For Clausewitz war is policy and politics. My claim, based on actual actions from military professionals, is that they don't just serve policy, they create it as well. That is all. You can disagree, but I don't see evidence that strategic military leaders only serve policy. If your claim is that for soldiers at lower levels this is different, fine. But I think the blanket claim about "the profession of arms" is false.
None of the above has anything to do with this. This is from a different post. That post was an effort to begin questioning your assertions in regards to the the difference between something being legal, ethical or moral. You said:
I think the second and third sentences are false. TRADOC may try to do pseudo-science (I don't know), but the "classical" teachings (if you mean in western civilization) challenge your claim in the second sentence. I take the "classical teachings" to be precisely about trying to teach what you claim can't be taught. I take them to be attempts to reflect on what we think is right in order to reconcile what is legal with what is right--in other words, creating a civil order in which we can be good people while also being good citizens. Or, maybe I just don't know how to read Plato, Aristotle, etc., or they are not "classical teachings," or maybe all the "classical teachings" worth reading are just about the law and why we should just follow it without reflecting on its correctness because it is based on what the powerful want and there is nothing we can do about it.
Further, if this discussion is disturbing to you I would refer you to what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil." I am guessing that you mean something different in your use of the term "ethical" than I do. I am sure Eichmann and those at Nuremberg would have loved it if the juries decided that doing what is ethical just reduced to whatever the law and policy happened to say. Or are these just examples of "victor's justice?" Is it that might equals right, the ethical reduces to the legal and the only thing Eichmann and his compatriots did wrong was to lose--is that the simple lesson of history?
This is all just to say that the law may be influenced by what we take to be ethical at any point in time, but to say that the ethical is reduced to law is not a view I find appealing. You are obviously free to disagree and think that I am missing the simple lessons of classic teachings and history. I think it is an interesting discussion and not disturbing at all.
Regard,
Chris
Last edited by Chris Case; 11-11-2010 at 02:56 PM.
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