Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
I think that a military officer has to have an ego to begin with. I mean, to be a Platoon Leader you have to start with the idea that you can lead better than any of your 30 or so troopers. The trick is how do you restrain this. But that is another conversation on professionalism.
Agree on all counts -- the problem is that all platoon leaders are not better leaders than all their troops; the key is to realize and accept that and still get the job tune. Egos just need tuning. So does ambition. another thread, another time...

After a good nights sleep I have to agree it can be done. I have spoken to a couple of Infantry Officers who have done it in both Bosnia and Iraq. Thier complaint was that the rest of the infrastructure to run a legal system was not there, so in essence, they ran a "catch and release" program. I think to make it effective you need to have a "court-in-a-can" capability that deploys with the lead element. Here is where the "trained" MPs and SJA come into play.
Good point in this day and age with mass communication; not a significant requirement in my pre-history time.

One other point that you may or may not agree with. Whether we like it or not, we need to act as the soveign for between 12-36 months (or longer) until the rest of the structure is there. Then we turn it over. The FIDD and MITT missions need to be complete, not in-progress.
I agree with the thought, adding the caveat that we may or may not achieve that sovereign state or retain it for a set period. In all our post WW II experience, we have not truly had that 'sovereign' status. I'd also add that the MITT msn may -- usually will -- last longer then 36 months.
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I think the Marines have done this type of work in the past. Us Army types are used to having a big footprint. The Marines are used to doing more with less. I think we could learn a lot from them if we took the time.
Strongly agree. Egos again...

That may be true, but that is only an excuse for OIF 1 and 2. We never tried to transition over to MP type operations until recently in the Surge. Prior to that we relied on kenetic or lethal type operations to solve a problem better suited for the MPs who would get out and engage the population. For many this was a matter of risk adversion. I could go on about this but I think I will start a seperate string when I have my thoughts in order.
I didn't offer it as an excuse, merely pointed it out as a contributing factor to the onset of the insurgency. Your point on early operational techniques is totally true and was a result of almost 30 years of head in the sand ignoring COIN hoping it would go away. That and putting the wrong guy in the job as Commander -- he'd already erred sadly and badly in Kosovo thus his actions were predictable...

I disagree. If you look a little into where the IEDs are going off they are in the uncontroled seems between AOs. The non-contiguous battelfield is only a reality as long as we posture ourselves for the "NTC war": the quick battle that takes thirty days or less and then we go home. Again, I think we are relearning lessons from the past. If the battlefield is large enough that the BCT cannot control it, then we need to give the BCTs some help with thier Corps rear. I don't think that is as hard as it sounds and could be done with a minimal force if that force is trained and equiped poperly.
We can disagree on that. Hard is not the issue, end strength and worst case tactical reality are the drivers.

One other point I would like to add. In the old days we (the Army) used to be force-on-force oriented. We were going to fight a big battle against a near-peer nation-state. Today, because of GWOT, we are looking at operations in failed states or even ungoverned territories. Our doctrine really does not cover this. COIN is a start, but it is a response to a specific situation we are dealing with today. As was pointed out earlier, we need to be careful not to spend too much time designing a military that can ONLY do COIN.
Agree.

Your later comment:
Just had a quick conversation with MY FA buddy. He reinforced his position that FA cannot be dual trained as MPs. His primary argument is that MPs are too diverse and complicated to be trained as a secondary MOS. In addition, the FA proficiency requires too much training time. They could be secondary as Infantry, but not MPs.

He also emphasized that as the equipment becomes more technically capable the personnel requirements to man the equipment drops. This means that you really don't have as many soldiers in a FA BN as you would in an MP BN. There is not parity in capabilties if you simply "switch" the FA BN in a BCT to an MP role.
Nor do you have as many soldiers in a FA Bn as you have in an Infantry Bn (which, last time I checked, was bigger than an MP Bn). It is noteworthy that a lot of re-roleing of FA to Inf has occurred in both Afhanistan and iraq. Seems to work okay in the latter but not so well in the former. METT-T.

On the training aspect, I disagree with him. The basic problem is we do not provide adequate full spectrum initial entry training; we send poorly trained kids to units and then they really get trained on the job. That shortfall is due to a number of impactors but I'm sure the biggest is cost -- and I'd bet that if you life cycled those costs, it would pay to double our IET training time. It takes about three years in peacetime to develop a fully trained Infantryman, still takes almost a year in combat (and even then there are gaps). That, too is for another thread...

And to address some other comments:

Rex Brynen said:
I think Jim and Selil have highlighted an important point here, that I hope we don't lose in the discussion: it may not be all that easy retooling into MPs, and especially not for the broad range of tasks that MPs may be called upon to perform in COIN and stability operations (checkpoints, escorts, detention, law enforcement, training assistance to local police forces, liaison, broader contributions to rule-of-law efforts, etc, etc.). As we saw at Abu Ghraib, poorly or inappropriately trained MPs may do far more harm than good.
Totally true -- thus a selective set of tasks and missions is a necessity. That's why we have a Deployment mission task list. As we also saw at Abu Gharaib, the wrong folks doing the wrong mission with no supervision can be problematic...
Moreover, just as armour or artillery may have trained and equipped for a very different kind of (force-on-force) war, it seems to me that the same has probably also been true (until recently) among MPs. Does anyone know how much evolution has taken place in doctrine and training in recent years?
My understanding is that in the last two-three years, considerable adaptation has occurred but I'm sure someone who's far more current than I am can address that.

Tom Odom said:
...The real need has been all along not enough MP units to do MP tasks. And that has led to using a variety of units to perform MP tasks.
Agreed -- and my understanding is that is being rectified.

Selil said:
Don't you know police work doesn't require any training. I mean it's just like artillery or tanks. You just point here, push that, and things are obliterated. Law enforcement operations with military personnel are a piece of cake. Anybody can be a cop.
With two sons who are cops with about 35 years service between them, yeah, I understand the scope of the problem. I'm also easy, we can re-role the FA as Infantry -- after all that's a low skill job...

Jim Rodgers said:
I'll start by pointing out that many of you think of MPs as, apparently, an "easy", but still relevant MOS. As an Armor guy, in the process of converting to MPs, I don't think that's the case. When I moved over, I was shocked by how much was going on in an MP unit that I hadn't realized. Of course, if what you really want is gun trucks and dismounts, that's not that hard. That, alone, doesn't make an MP. If what you really want is troopers with an outstanding grasp of EOF criteria, intelligence integrated by doctrine, experience and assigned ASIs, trained prison guards, Army Law Enforcement personnel, etc etc, then you can't just slap a badge on some redlegs and expect them to perform the same way.
I give up, curmudgeon said:
One, we look at expanding training for artillery, armor, ADA, and any other pure combat force so that they can perform MP, not infantry, missions to allow them to be relevant in stability operations...
I agreed and still think that's a good idea. However, I'll bow to the consensus and to Norfolk and the FA can be re-roled as Constabulary.