SWJ Mag Vol 8 - Building Indigenous Security Forces That Reflect the Realities of MET

[SWCAdmin]

Building Indigenous Security Forces That Reflect the Realities of METT-TC
co-published with Center for Army Lessons Learned
by MAJ Rob Thornton


Open thread....

[TROUFION]

MAJ Thornton does an excellent job discussing, from his own experience, the difficulties that US Forces have building Iraqi security forces. From cultural dissimilarities and technology shortfalls to the problems of building a force under fire. His suggestions for the command and control structure deal head on with the differences between US and Iraqi forces. His conclusion that the structure of local forces must be based off the local needs is right on and seems obvious enough, of course that is until you try to do it. A good discussion for anyone heading into this environment.

[Rob Thornton]

I'd be happy to provide anyone headed into this arena with what I learned. We can do it by PMs or open forum. As Troufion mentioned, its got its challenges.
Regards, Rob

[RTK]

I'd be happy to provide anyone headed into this arena with what I learned. We can do it by PMs or open forum. As Troufion mentioned, its got its challenges.
Regards, Rob

Rob, I have a question....

Why are there two naked Greek dudes on your Avatar? From my vantage point it appears to be the hucklebuck....

[slapout9]

RTK, glad you asked that question so I didn't have to....

[Rob Thornton]

Well in the search for an Avatar I finally found something that made sense to some things I'd tried to express - here goes.

"C" described war as a duel, but later on I read another theorist (Beyerchen on non-linearity) who was discussing that a better way to describe what Clausewitz meant (since the big C described in the context of as actions upon an animate object) might be two wreslters trying to gain a better position from which to compel the other - the idea here is that the only way to achieve certain of the positions a wrestler finds himself in is with the counterforce provided by his opponent - hence - the enemy gets a vote - This whole idea of human interaction, chaos, complexity and friction is useful to look through as a lens -To me this expresses allot about the way big things result in little returns and small things sometimes in big ones (could be friendly or enemy / positives or negatives). It also helped me apply what Clausewitz was saying to my own experiences and hopefully to larger problems.

We've all been expsoed to Clausewitz at some point, but I've never had it explained to me, just quoted.

I'm a little out there, but you guys already know that. Anyway, on the PME side - as tied to a couple of other threads, the BSAP course has offered a great first week, serious, provocative military thought (and application of thought) is alive and well at Carlisle. Anyway you could go with that one, or you could argue I want to bring back the Spartan Agoge and enlist a reasonable percentage of our population for the tasks ahead.