I have been reading a lot, especially from the Democratic outlets, about shifting the mission in Iraq to more support, and less combat. My question, which I will answer in part as I see it, is this. Will the commanders on the ground actually willingly, and quickly, shift mission if the order comes?

I think not. This is born of my own personal experience, which is naturally limited, but it is supported by a logical thread as well. We all know that soldiers are supposed to salute and move out when orders come, but most people would admit that, as with any bureaucracy, the degree to which that mission is fulfilled depends on the person following the order, and how they interpret it. This is why everyone, from General to private, must be supervised to some degree to make sure that the mission is accomplished. I believe that there are several impediments to shifting from combat to support.

1) Training. I cannot imagine an outcome where force protection is not allowed. That being said it is not in the training or doctrine of any branch of the American military to be passively force protective. As long as there are convoys rolling on the Lines of Communication, the natural instinct of pretty much every commander will be to patrol the areas around those LOC's, and precipitating combat operations. From there it could be a slippery slope to massive operations.

2) Inertia. People keep on doing what they are doing, and people have been fighting the war the way they have been fighting it for nigh on five years now. People are going back for as much as their fifth deployment, and changing those habits will be hard.

3) Culture. Commanders want to have the statistics. If the previous commander had twenty named operations, it is in military culture that you should have twenty five, or thirty. We measure everything, and every measure should improve if you are good commander. Moreover, it is not culturally 'cool' to tell a war story that begins "When I was a battalion commander, we had this one meeting..."

(I am not saying that commanders are worried about their OER's as some people might cynically suggest. Instead, what I am pointing out is in American culture, and the military especially, everything should always improve. Therefore the metrics we use have direct bearing on the results we get. We use kinetic action as a major metric, and the culture of the military makes changing from kinetic to non-kinetic metrics difficult.)

None of this is to say that transitioning from direct action to supporting roles in Iraq is impossible. I merely believe that simply pronouncing that there will be a change from kinetic to support roles does not mean that it will necessarily happen. I think that needs to be taken into account when planning. The solution may be as simple as more direct oversight by higher ranking or civilian authorities, or it may be as complex as a complete overhaul of the system within which we operate.

I am asking here to see if my suspicions are correct. A discussion of the implications would most likely be better served in a more strategically oriented forum.