Historical Parallels?

[Steve Blair]

For the price of a B-2 I'm sure you could at least spin up part of a program...

But I think the real question we should be asking ourselves isn't "can we afford it?", but rather "can we afford NOT to do it?" Small wars/4GW/insert your favorite LIC-type term here are not going to go away. Unit stability, cultural awareness, and the ability to provide precise firepower when needed are all vital factors.

[Strickland]

I would agree that most tasks cannot be accomplished from the closed hatch of a tank or IFV; however the Army thinks differently. Speaking as a Marine who has daily contact with Army Officers, they too are embarrassed at the Army's continued philosophy of "death before dismount," however, no one seems to want to do anything about it. Thus, I have to conclude that they think that this is a good idea.

I believe that hand over units already exist in the Marine Corps, and that they are called Infantry Battalions. Many battalions have utilized an officer such as the Weapons Company XO to lead a combination of weapons company and weapons platoon Marines in this task. These Marines are regularly tasked with presenting periods of instruction to other Marines on complicated weapons systems, thus are comfortable in the role of mentor and instructor.

What we cannot continue to do is throw together ad hoc units of personnel from the IRR, SMCR, and NG, give them 30 days of training, and then send them off to do God's work. If you send in the B team, you get B results.

While the "just beyond the Peace Corps crowd" may not be appropriate, the idea is sound. The French Gendermarie (sp?) units are excellent at this type of work.

[Martin]

How about standing up something similar to a foreign legion?

Require service for naturalization (i.e. to acquire citizenship), allow non Legal Permanent Residents to serve? If they serve in this force, they could receive LPR status and either live with that or join the regular Armed Forces. Those who are anything other than honorably discharged are barred from future entry into the USA.

That way you might also be able to aid with the cultural adaption process, in both directions.

Martin

[zenpundit]

Around the time when some in Congress were raising the specter of the draft, I wrote an article for HNN that suggested among a number of other possibilities, a " foreign legion" recruitment option. My focus at the time was having the U.S. pick up highly trained SOF vets from NATO and other allied armies with various inducements to expand our SOCOM forces rapidly without diluting quality nearly so much.

If CI is the primary goal, the inducements could be more modest. The Indian and Israeli Armies alone could provide us with far greater linguistic resources. So for that matter, could the French with their operational experience in the Mahgreb

[Hansmeister]

Around the time when some in Congress were raising the specter of the draft, I wrote an article for HNN that suggested among a number of other possibilities, a " foreign legion" recruitment option. My focus at the time was having the U.S. pick up highly trained SOF vets from NATO and other allied armies with various inducements to expand our SOCOM forces rapidly without diluting quality nearly so much.

If CI is the primary goal, the inducements could be more modest. The Indian and Israeli Armies alone could provide us with far greater linguistic resources. So for that matter, could the French with their operational experience in the Mahgreb

I was thinking that we should create our own Ghurka Regiments. These troops would be solely trained as peacekeepers and stationed only abroad. We would use them for long-term stabilization and would operate with a much smaller logistical tail and personnel cost. The could be stationed for long periods of time under more spartan conditions than we would be willing to subject our troops to, and casualties would not have the same political impact as US casualties would have.

The last time the Brits were recruiting for a few hundred slots over 20,000 Ghurkas volunteered, so there is a great pool of willing volunteers. The Ghurkas also have a reputation as disciplined and fierce warriors.

Potential hotspots for those Ghurkas for long-term deployment beyond the obvious Afghanistan and Iraq would be Kosovo, Bosnia, Djibouti, Liberia, and Haiti. Countires that we either have long-term committments to, or had to repeatedly intervene in the recent past, only for the situation to collapse once we left.

[zenpundit]

Currently total 30,000 from 100 countries.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...tary_services/

Like the Ghurka idea - though Nepal currently needs them a lot more than we do.

[Bill Moore]

While I agree a number of interesting ideas have been surfaced regarding the formation of peace enforcement type units, I'll argue they're not good ideas for the following reasons:

1. Our military is already time stressed as it is to simply meet our combat training needs which always must be a first priority. Not only is it a moral imperative, can you can imagine the political fall out if any of our units come up on the short end of an engagement with the enemy?

2. We're struggling to meet our manning requirements for the combat forces, so exactly where is this Army of SOSO/Peace Enforcement experts going to come from? While we may be able to form one BDE of these specialists, whatever the speciality is exactly, we won't be able to deploy them indefinitely, so who backfills them?

While the death before dismount mentality is alive and well in a few Army units, I would argue that many Army units have adapted (learned) to the current situation quite well, so I don't see a requirement for speciality SOSO units that we can't sustain. I do see a need for the new ideas to spread and for the dinasours to step aside, but that doesn't mean throwing the baby out with the bath water.

What we do need is better leader and soldier education/training preparing them to handle the current and anticipated operating environments. We definitely need better joint and interagency doctrine that is "enforced". There is a bigger onus on the Dept of State (and other agencies/departments/bureaus, etc.) to transform, than the military. The Dept of State is a non-functional bureacracy that is undermanned and underfunded, yet they have perhaps the most critical role in GWOT. And we need to figure out exactly where the contractor fits in on the battlefield/operating space. We have several Young Turks coming up through the ranks with some great ideas, so I hope they don't get disillusioned by the bureaucracy and traditionalists residing at the mid level Army management.

[NDD]

I would agree that most tasks cannot be accomplished from the closed hatch of a tank or IFV; however the Army thinks differently. Speaking as a Marine who has daily contact with Army Officers, they too are embarrassed at the Army's continued philosophy of "death before dismount," however, no one seems to want to do anything about it. Thus, I have to conclude that they think that this is a good idea.

I believe that hand over units already exist in the Marine Corps, and that they are called Infantry Battalions. Many battalions have utilized an officer such as the Weapons Company XO to lead a combination of weapons company and weapons platoon Marines in this task. These Marines are regularly tasked with presenting periods of instruction to other Marines on complicated weapons systems, thus are comfortable in the role of mentor and instructor.

What we cannot continue to do is throw together ad hoc units of personnel from the IRR, SMCR, and NG, give them 30 days of training, and then send them off to do God's work. If you send in the B team, you get B results.

While the "just beyond the Peace Corps crowd" may not be appropriate, the idea is sound. The French Gendermarie (sp?) units are excellent at this type of work.

I agree. Are the Marines assigned these tasks getting sufficient training?

I tend to favor the reserve solution because you get a wider skill set from the civilian side. There are no doubt small town mayors and city councilmen serving. It does however, bring its own set of issues to deal with.

I am not in favor of a foreign legion-type setup for this (I may be missing the point with it) for one very basic reason - we are trying to influence the target audience to come more into line with US founding values. I don't think we will get that letting a 3rd party speak on our behalf.

Very interesting discussion, thanks for taking the time all.

[Martin]

I am not in favor of a foreign legion-type setup for this (I may be missing the point with it) for one very basic reason - we are trying to influence the target audience to come more into line with US founding values. I don't think we will get that letting a 3rd party speak on our behalf.

NDD, I was thinking that they could work in a joint fashion and would adapt to the US manners at the same time, blending. Also, I think that since they are seeking service to become accepted in the USA, they might tend to be receptive to the ideas and American ways, while offering a little different approach to the indigenous people. I respect your experience more than my theories, however.

Martin

[Steve Blair]

There are already some foreign nationals in the US military working towards citizenship.

But to go back to the foreign legion concept, these forces have a tendency to be viewed historically as both expeditionary and imperial police forces. There's also the perception that such legions are mercenary formations and could thus be used in ways that might not be considered acceptable for 'home grown' troops.

Just some things to consider.

[Steve Blair]

I don't think anyone's talking about ad hoc units (at least I know I'm not), but more a systematic approach to something that may have been fobbed off on infantry battalions. That isn't fair to them, and it's also not fair to the mission itself (which is growing in importance and has always been more important than the heavy unit army may want to recognize).

[NDD]

I don't think anyone's talking about ad hoc units (at least I know I'm not), but more a systematic approach to something that may have been fobbed off on infantry battalions. That isn't fair to them, and it's also not fair to the mission itself (which is growing in importance and has always been more important than the heavy unit army may want to recognize).

Exactly. Ad hoc is part of the problem now. I am advocating dedicated units with the same level of training as the Strike/Hold units.

[Hansmeister]

I would agree that most tasks cannot be accomplished from the closed hatch of a tank or IFV; however the Army thinks differently. Speaking as a Marine who has daily contact with Army Officers, they too are embarrassed at the Army's continued philosophy of "death before dismount," however, no one seems to want to do anything about it. Thus, I have to conclude that they think that this is a good idea.

I believe that hand over units already exist in the Marine Corps, and that they are called Infantry Battalions. Many battalions have utilized an officer such as the Weapons Company XO to lead a combination of weapons company and weapons platoon Marines in this task. These Marines are regularly tasked with presenting periods of instruction to other Marines on complicated weapons systems, thus are comfortable in the role of mentor and instructor.

What we cannot continue to do is throw together ad hoc units of personnel from the IRR, SMCR, and NG, give them 30 days of training, and then send them off to do God's work. If you send in the B team, you get B results.

While the "just beyond the Peace Corps crowd" may not be appropriate, the idea is sound. The French Gendermarie (sp?) units are excellent at this type of work.

Well, it looks like the Pentagon is already doing something in that direction as far as creating an active duty emergency relief force which I mention on my blog.

I've also written about our experience in Iraq and suggestions for reorganizing here.

Comments are appreciated.