Great stuff here as always Ken.


Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
and I'm carnivorous. Not to mention you can eat it with a knife or a spoon, whichever's easier and works best (METT-T for MRE's?)...

Van has it right, I think.

Seems to me that LTCs Gentile and Kilcullen are having a techniques disagreement. That's good for everyone. I think FM 3-24 is basically okay, if a tad touchy-feely and I also agree with much of what LTC Gentile says. Thus there's some merit to both sides, IMO -- I suspect, as usual , the average commander will fall in between, most will do it right and ol' METT-T will be the determinant as it always is...

While LTC Gentile alludes to the paradoxes as potentially introducing a mindset it seems to me that he accords it more power than any other document I''ve seen the Army or the Marine Corps publish. I'm afraid our mindset is too deep for one pub to change.

I do disagree with him on one point -- in his comment above he says that the Army has done pretty well in Iraq with the strategic and political cards it was dealt. I agree broadly but would submit the errors in the first eighteen months due to the lack of doctrinal effort and training emphasis on occupation, nation building and counterinsurgency throughout the Army from 1975 until I retired in 1977 and continuing until I retired as a DAC in 1995 were responsible for many those errors. There were a number of people pointing out the likely future and they were diligently ignored. Sort of understandable in the 1975-1990 period; bad ju-ju post 1990, the proverbial handwriting was on the wall...

Which gets to my point (and Van's) -- we have got to be a full spectrum Army.

Along that line, there's another article in the AFJ, Culture Battle by Colonel Henry Foresman Jr. That I think speaks to both 3-24 proponents and believers in LTC Gentile's approach. The culture is the problem. He says several things that I think are pertinent:



He agrees with me; smart guy...

However, he also makes a very valid point that it seems to me that both 3-24 and LTC Gentile barely touch upon:



I believe that is a critical point and the last phrase is the reason. I don't care how good we are. Goesh pointed out that Mr. & Mrs. America are basically cool with body bags but they want results. My sensing is he's absolutely correct and if the perception of Mr. & Mrs America is that we aren't doing well; they'll pull th plug. Techniques then become irrelevant.



My perception also. Good article and bears reading.

Like Steve, I take issue with some of LTC Gian's premises and essentially for the same reason. However, I do not agree that we haven't transcended the Cold war mindset -- I suggest, as does COL Foresman, we haven't transcended the WW II mindset. We are still structured essentially as we are in 1946. For those who say "Brigade Combat Teams," my response is RCT -- with which we fought most of WW II outside the North African Desert. Not to mention Korea then back to Brigades for Viet Nam. Lest I be misunderstood, Brigades are good, Divisions are bad (even if we did err in the structure ot the light infantry Battalions). Notice that we did not do away with the Division...

I think we did not to avoid the two star spaces loss; we may need them to mobilize -- just as we will need the 3K plus Colonels and 3K plus SGM/CSM even though those are the same numbers we had in 1960 with an Army almost twice the size of todays. Mobilization backup is what that's all about but 'mobilization' is (unfortunately and stupidly) a nasty word in Congress. Thus we dissemble to keep the ability to expand tremendously. Prudent; we should. I just think there are better ways to do that.

Creighton Abrams structured the Total Army to force the government to call up the RC to go to war. The tear down of that started in DS/DS because the then CofSA and then DCSOPS hated the idea and fought Congress demands to send ArNG Brigades to Kuwait. Post DS/DS, they continued to do that in various little ways, some effective and some not. What they did not do was prepare for the present (then or now...).

It's mostly about protecting the institution. To fight WW II.

We need to be able to do that but we could be a whole lot smarter in how we go about it and still be prepared to cope with the more likely threats in the next decade or so..