New Rules for New Enemies

[selil]

.....with a concern for examining the new strategies and tactics of the Information Age.

"information age", or "hyper-media age"....

ubiquity often seems to be the issue rather than information

[marct]

"information age", or "hyper-media age"....

ubiquity often seems to be the issue rather than information

I could go with either one, although I have a partiality for "information age" - it is just so illiterative vs. the industrial age .

In a lot of ways, I have adopted the Canadian Communications Theory tradition (Innis, Grant, McLuhan, etc.) way of analyzing material: oral cultures, written cultures and chip cultures. I find it to be a useful heristic, albeit somewhat limited,

One of the characteristics of the "information age" is super-saturation of information - to the point where information no longer informs the individual. This certainly seems appropriate when we consider current events...

Marc

[Rob Thornton]

I guess overall what I'm concerned with is that the list of skill sets needed by almost every level of leader/soldier to face new enemies on new battlefields points to a significant increase education to help them become the experts we need them to be. These will compete with the many other things we need them to do which cover the gamut of individual, leader and collective tasks. However, the quality of recruit (officer or enlisted) is roughly the same as 6 years ago, he is drawn from basically the same segment of society for whatever reasons he traditionally has been. While POIs/Curricula have been changed to account for changes in the operating environment, and while threats have been prioritized at different levels – from training for a deployment 1 year out to the likelihood of threats outlined in the US National Security Strategy – there is still the issue of time to train/time to prepare in an OPTEMPO that creates rigorous demands on Force Providers.

Much has been said and written about the attributes we need in this era of enemies who seem to come and go as they please in alien cultures, hostile populations who have agendas and desires we can often not comprehend, and operating in environments where subtle hints can save your life and the lives of your men (or women). These skills are not cheap. You either pay to develop them during the deployment, you develop them beforehand, or better yet you have a culture where these skills are inculcated from inception and grown throughout. Somewhere in there you have to apply resources. It is easier if you start with the best talent. It is also easier if you have talent spread throughout the organization allowing for a kind of osmosis effect. Barring that, you have to dedicate the resources to build your own. The buzz phrase is “everyone a Pentathlete”. How many pentathletes do most of us know or have even met? I have personally known some guys that awed me in almost every regard that could either be classified pentathlete, or mutant. I can count them on two hands – they were all either senior E-8s (one was a fantastic E-7) on the enlisted side, or remarkable O5s and above on the officer side. Why is that? What does it take to build an Army of pentathletes? Figure out first what it takes to build one.

I want us to succeed in efforts to realize our vision of the type of leaders & soldiers we need, but I believe the expectations do not match the resources being applied to get us there. My own experience with education is that it does not really become tacit knowledge until I can apply it to future challenges and until I’ve had a chance to pullback and review it while not engaged in some other absorbing tasks with the added responsibilities brought on by leadership. That may be just me, but I think that the reason we’ve had such success with the military’s OES and NCOES is that at different times officers and NCOs would attend their schools, be with peers where they could share experiences that helped them negotiate a POI that prepared them for the next set of responsibilities they would take on with higher rank. Since we are general purpose force that covers the possibilities of HIC to COIN to disaster relief, the POI itself is diffused by virtue of the self imposed requirements to expose leaders to the challenges they will face. Yes we concentrate on providing the context which focuses on building leadership, but you can’t part completely with the specific technical requirements either – how long does it take to learn a language, gain an understanding of local economics, an understanding of agriculture, of local government, of the equipping and training of a foreign security force which mirrors their specific enemy, of dealing with inter-agency types that may not share your goals or drive to name a few? Pentahlete may be an inadequate descritpion.

[Tom Odom]

Rob,

First of all it is great to see you posting, keep it up.

Second I agree with your thoughts and it is very much a reality: resources must match demands or the demands will not be fulfilled.

At the risk of being shot or branded a heretic, I believe that we have to make a fundamental shift in our approach to manning and training and that shift is not one that the military can do within itself.

It's called a draft. If we are fighting new enemies and we need a new approach, we must approach it in a long war model. We are not dong that. We are approaching it in a constant crisis management model; we hire contractors to provide inherently needed services in any war. We are cycling units faster than we can reset those units. And we are doing this in an atmosphere of magnetic ribbon patriotism that portrays trips to the mall as fighting terrorism.

We need a national service draft that does not necessarily draw forces strictly for military use. We need border security. We need our own reconstruction services for disasters. We need a system to draw young people into a sense of middle ground that leaves them with a viewpoint that goes beyond their own needs (seen now as rights versus right to pursue those needs).

For the military we need Soldiers that we can train, equip, and field without constraint for 2 years, meaning the draft needs to be for 3 years. It must be a draft that does not offer deferment or escape to those who qualify physically and mentally. I also believe that we should restructure officer accession so that all officers--whether ROTC, Academy, or OCS--should have that 3 years as an initial qualification, whether by draft or by volunteering.

The resources you cite should come from shifting from the model of drawing recruits through benefits to training and sustaining the NCO corps and the Officer corps under the philosophy of you retain Leaders through recognition, benefits, and opportunities to serve.

And even as I bother sayong all of this, I go back to my original point: this is not a shift the military can make on its own.

Best
Tom

[Steve Blair]

When dealing with officer accessions, I also think some attention needs to be paid to how ROTC targets its people. Dealing with a student environment, and given some of the very diverse students (including MANY non-traditional students who bring valuable experience to the force), ROTC has the chance to get at a target audience other avenues may miss. But they hurt themselves by remaining heavily focused on engineers and technical majors to the exclusion of much else. It may also help the services to loosen up some of the programs that allow promising enlisted personnel to get out and go through ROTC with a wider variety of academic majors (currently ALL of our prior enlisted types at my detachment are engineering majors).

I tend to side with the views expressed by Douglas MacGregor regarding force structure and Donald Vandergriff about the personnel system and structure within the forces. A draft of the sort Tom mentions can help, but there must also be some fundamental changes in the way the military deals with the careers of its people. Up or out is a failure, and has been for years. The same goes for many of the individual replacement systems that have been tried. It's been my feeling for some time that we need to make changes at this most basic level before we should start spending tons of time and money on the tech stuff that tends to grab headlines and look good at trade shows.

[slapout9]

Tom Odom, you response about a national service draft is an excellent idea, for the reasons mentioned that the US needs all types of skills for the War Without End. Not just military. I was getting worried about you for awhile, you go off and shoot at Bambi with a bow and arrow, then you have dreams about chatty Kathy dolls and then you found your pet rock???? Remember 3.2 beer machines they had in the barracks for awhile.

[Tom Odom]

I was getting worried about you for awhile, you go off and shoot at Bambi with a bow and arrow, then you have dreams about chatty Kathy dolls and then you found your pet rock???? Remember 3.2 beer machines they had in the barracks for awhile.

You made me laugh with that one. Although I gave up the beer years ago, it may be the long term effects of mefloquine taken in Africa well beyond the 90-day recommendation. We use to call the day once a week we took our mefloquine, "dream days." We learned to consume those pills on a staggered schedule, let we all be flying through the night. Cerebral malaria was the very real alternative so I took my pills.

Actually I am a long term Hienlein fan since I read "Starship Troopers" as kid during the Vietnam War and the raging debates over service, draft, and war. I was sorely disappointed by the movie. Many consider him a neanderthal but he was on to something.

Best
Tom

PS Bambi survived but I am going again next week

[Rob Thornton]

Tom,
Here is one my boss and I were bantering back and forth. Is the concept of "Inter-Agency" cooperation soley a military buy in, or does it go both ways? He sent me an article out of the Foreign Affairs Journal that caused me to look hard at this question. In that "90 & 180 day objectives" document I sent you I brought up that regardless of how good ISF gets, without some reconstruction funds to get projects going, the Iraqi public will not establish faith in local government; no faith in local government = en environment in which insurgents can support.

We've heard about the PRTs (Proincial Reconstruction Teams), what we need are CRTs (City Reconstruction teams). Teams that like you had mentioned could be drawn from American Society to function within the role of their acknowledged profession. Doctors, lawyers, Small Buisness gurus, telecommunications specialists, power plant engineers, agricultural engineers, city planners, family planners, firemen, hazordous waste guys,etc. - all the skills that cities have come to rely on to keep a city functioning. Everybody has heard about the National Guard guys who are often more valuable fulfilling their civilian role here then their MOS (they do a good job at both), so why have we not asked the question why?

We need practical experience in these roles, not just well educated OGA (Other Govt. Agency) types. Their would have to be unity of command, and with that would come the provision of personal security. But lets say that at a certain watermark in the transition of security, host nation security forces took up the role securing their AOR (which of course is the plan), and the auxillary role CF (Coalition Forces) took on was the facillitation of reconstruction?

I'll stay away from formng a concrete oppinion about a military draft question because I don't have a resonable comparrison (my PEBD was 85), but I do recall the horror stories of armed FODs going into the barracks, but that may have been more the result of a social/cultural problem associated with the times. However an offer to forego paying back massive student loans and some incentives along the lines of a GI Bill, or other like ideas might get us the kind of professionals we would need for Reconstruction Teams - maybe even offer their kids a free state school 4 year scholarship and offer them & their families Active duty Healthcare benefits, PX, Commissary priviliedges while serving - oh and pay them at the same professional rate you'd pay military doctors, lawyers, etc.

In staying with the theme of the thread, its a new era in warfare with new enemies, and we need to adapt faster then the enemy
Best Regards, Rob

[marct]

Rob,

First of all it is great to see you posting, keep it up.

Let me definately second that sentiment .

Second, I agree with your thoughts and it is very much a reality: resources must match demands or the demands will not be fulfilled.

At the risk of being shot or branded a heretic, I believe that we have to make a fundamental shift in our approach to manning and training and that shift is not one that the military can do within itself.

It's called a draft. If we are fighting new enemies and we need a new approach, we must approach it in a long war model. We are not dong that. We are approaching it in a constant crisis management model; we hire contractors to provide inherently needed services in any war. We are cycling units faster than we can reset those units. And we are doing this in an atmosphere of magnetic ribbon patriotism that portrays trips to the mall as fighting terrorism.

Tom, while I agree with your reasoning in laying out the needs, I really do have to disagree with you about the proposed "solution". Let me lay out some of the reasoning behind my disagreement.

1. The "draft" is politically divisive. When the rumours of President Bush thinking about a draft started circulating a while back, there was a lot of political fighting going on in reaction to them. Drafts are seen, quite rightly in my view, as forced labour. Historicallly, and by that I mean let's go back to the 1960's, the draft was full of holes - deferments, escape over the border to Canada (and why do WE have to deal with YOUR social reactionaries? ), etc. Even if the legislation was enacted with no deferments, you would still have a leaking sieve over your northern border, and the people flowing over it would be the people who could afford to come and resettle. That will, IMHO, inevitably lead to increasing racial and ethnic tensions which, in turn, just makes the general US society more vulnerable and more cut off from your allies who either don't have a draft (e.g. Canada) or who have a long history of "national service" and view the US as acting out of desperation (i.e. most of the EU).
2. The draft will increase internal social conflict. Regardless of any legislation, the racial and ethnic tensions are already fairly high in the US over both the GWOT and the issue of "illegal aliens" (Damn those pesky Martians anyway, comin' here and stealing our jobs!).
3. The draft is insecure. Okay, supose you do get the legislation through. What is the psycho-social profile of most of the al-Qaida cell members? First or 2nd generation immigrants rediscovering their Islamic identities and living in Western countries. Great! So we now have a situation with heightened tensions and forced labour of young muslims in the US. Tell me you don't think that al-Qaida will see this as a fantastic opportunity to infiltrate! I know that if I was a planner on their side, it is one of the first things I would look at doing.

There is a final point I want to make about this that doesn't go well in a list (or PowerPoint <wry grin>).

Given the symbolic meaning of "The Draft" in the US, the current political concerns about the relationship between the various branches of government, and persistant whisperings about a re-establishment of an "Imperial Presidency", I suspect that the basic nature of US society would shift towards that of a "total society". The US doesn't really have that model as something that is defined as "Good", unlike Britain, Canada and most of Europe. It is, in fact, totally opposed to the spirit the led to the original rebellion of the 13 colonies. It is also the core area of conflict that led to your own civil war (the rights of the individual states vs. the rights of the central government) and has led to the creation of many of the militias today.

Most importantly, I think this would lead inevitably to questioning "why" people are fighting with most of the drafted troops coming to the conclusion that they are doing it because the have to or their own government will hunt them down. Didn't we see enough of that in Vietnam?

Now, I may be being unduly pessimistic about these projections, but I don't think so.

We need a national service draft that does not necessarily draw forces strictly for military use. We need border security. We need our own reconstruction services for disasters. We need a system to draw young people into a sense of middle ground that leaves them with a viewpoint that goes beyond their own needs (seen now as rights versus right to pursue those needs).

Again, I really don't disagree with your needs assessment, just your proposal to re-implement the draft. Let me toss out an alternative solution.

First of all, the military has traditionally been a way for kids to get out of poor backgrounds, get some education, learn some discipline and get some bucks together. Service with the Forces has a great number of "pull factors". What if, in place of a draft, you extend these pull factors? What if you were to create a program called "National Service" or some such, that encompassed all of the areas you are talking about in different streams? And, most importantly, where any service with combat forces may happen this is purely voluntary. Structure it so that there is a "basic training" which concentrates on physical fitness, basic educational skills (including history, Steve!) and basic teamwork followed by stream centered "basics".

Now, free education and experience can certainly help people get a job and will also make it more likely for employers to hire them, so that is one pull factor. Let's add in another one - "money". We have already heard a fair bit about school vouchers in the secondary school system, what if that was expanded into the post-secondary system using the same model as WWII? For each year of "national service" up to, say, a maximimum of four years, give the partcipants a voucher for one year of tuition and then require that that voucher be accepted. The universities would scream, but let them - they can still cherry pick based on SATs and other forms of entrance exams. Expand on this idea somewhat and modify it so that someone who doesn't want to go to university would get a government guarenteed loan to start up a small business, maybe at 10k/year, along with a program to help them start it up.

I suspect that some type of a program based on pull factors like this would be much more successful than the draft. It would also go a long way towards re-inforceing certain core values of American culture, as opposed to re-inforceing ones that are against American culture (e.g. hyper-centralization).

One final point and I'll leave it along. "Conscientious objectors" won't have a leg to stand on and a pull program will do a lot to make national service popular in the long run once people start graduating out of it, going to universities and running their own businesses. And besides that, it would mean that we in Canada don't have to deal with all those pesky American draft dodgers stealing our jobs <grin>.

Marc