Sir,
No disrespect intended, but what the hell does an Air Force officer know about what is going on in the Army at 6' AGL? Seriously?
I think the term "force" may have been confused with the warfighting principle of "mass". I'm not so sure that the surge resulted in more applied force. I could be wrong, but I'm not so sure.Actually, the reality is quite different. The lesson of Iraq is that old-fashioned force works. Add 30,000 of the world’s finest infantry to the 135,000 battle-hardened troops already there, as we have done, and the outnumbered insurgency is in serious trouble. Detain thousands more Iraqis as security threats, and the potential for violence inevitably declines. Press reports indicate that the number of Iraqis in prison doubled over the last year, to 30,000 from 15,000; and while casualty figures are sketchy, military officials told USA Today last September that the number of insurgents killed was already 25 percent higher in 2007 than in all of 2006.
C'mon for chrissakes...what are these excessive resources? Is this an example of what they call a strawman argument? Any references? Or is there a concern that the MRAP purchases are sinking funding for advance technology fighters? Based on the exact lessons of Iraq, would we be wrong to assume that IEDs are going to be employed in a Korean peninsula scenario? I read the op-ed, and it smells like just another thinly-veiled and parochial push to advance a service-slanted agenda.The problem emerges when we consider pouring excessive resources into preparing for only one kind of conflict. Doing so would put us at real risk of losing the technological superiority that has kept America’s vastly more dangerous threats at bay. Consider, for example, that our warplanes are on average more than 25 years old.
I think RTK and Cavguy will agree with my assertion that current operations are different than conventional operations to some degree, but closer to a wide range of fights that FM 3-0 or MCDP 1-X is designed to show a path for, than people sometimes see at higher levels.
I think of RTK because when I asked him if he had any schoolhouse insight on recce tactics in Iraq in the COIN context, he told me flatly that although there were certain twists, reconnaissance and security was just like the pubs laid out...reconnaissance and security.
As a case in point, I've always tried to get it into the head of my light armored recon brethren that if we were capable of conducting nothing more than zone recon, area security, and a screen, then an LAR company could accomplish just about anything it needed to perform in Iraq. IED layers are not much more (once they've reached the emplacement phase) different than the Soviet combat reconnaissance patrols of the old COE that were trying to penetrate the security screen. Interdicting the other phases of the IED cycle may require different fine motor skills, but the gross motor skills are pretty much the same. Conduct tactical movement, establish a screen, conduct surveillance under all visibility conditions, etc.
As for crystal-balling the prospect of fighting in Korea, that's smashmouth stuff, so I wouldn't be too worried about training my troops in 50-100 Korean control phrases. Is it wrong-headed to think that way and not say, "well, we were flat-footed in our Arabic skills prior to the invasion, so we should brush up on Korean..."? Perhaps, but we don't live in a world with crystal balls.
Last edited by jcustis; 01-10-2008 at 02:54 AM.
It's training not resources
Lots of UK battalions, over 30 years, used to go from Germany, where they were mech, to do a 4 month light forces tour in Northern Ireland doing ... COIN!!
MRAPs may well prove their worth in Big wars, which will almost be certainly followed by some other type of conflict. You need to be able to do both, and you can. - and some do.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
I want to make sure I understand the use of COIN as you're using it. When I think COIN, I'm thinking a kinetic and non-kinetic operations with the goal of defeating a non-uniformed paramilitary force within a certain geographic area. I do not include training urban operations as COIN, as I think they're applicable even in a "Fulda Gap" setting (especially with the majority of the Earth's people living in urbanized settings). I don't include reacting to an IED, since it's essentially the same thing as reacting to an obstacle once you substitute EOD with Combat Engineer.
I can catagorically tell you that the Army is not fully COIN. Out of an 84 day POI our students spend exactly 5 days conducting either COIN missions or COIN training. Even much of that would be applicable in a HIC environment (room clearing, building searches, Urban operations).
Like jcustis said above and I beleive I've communicated to you as well; Teaching the basics and fundamentals through the context of HIC is much easier to understand. When it's tank on tank, it's fairly black and white. Using this as a baseline, then I can branch off and talk specifically about operations in urban environments. From there I can delve into COIN and experiences I had in both OIF I and OIF III and how dynamically different they were, not only due to differing geographic areas, but also because of changing TTPs for both Bluefor and insurgent, changing policies, changing ROEs, and changing threats.
At the end of the day an attack is an attack is an attack. Reconnaissance fundamentals remain the same regardless of setting, as do security fundamentals. The law of land warfare is the same. The tourniquet goes on the same way. My boresight culminator works the same. My track wears off and needs to get replaced. Training management stays the same. My Soldiers need to get counselled once a month. They still get paid on the 1st and 15th. The 5988 is filled out the same way.
I guess what I'm really saying is that you can train for both and be proficient in both. There's a hell of a lot of crossover. Nowadays with the way the world is, you'd better be good at both (Edit to add - I was typing this when William posted and I couldn't agree more). I think the Marine Corps has caught onto this faster than we have in a lot of respects. That, to me, is a leadership issue at the small unit level.
One last thing: I don't know of a single S3 who will use anything but FM 3-0 or FM 5-0 when organizing for MDMP. FM 3-24 might get pulled out for some eaches and owns depending on the mission set, but it doesn't tell me a damned thing about MDMP or how my OPORD and Annexes will be written. I have yet to meet the officer who thinks differently.
I understand your frustration, Sir, but I can tell you, at least from my hatch, the sky is not falling.
Last edited by RTK; 01-10-2008 at 01:31 AM.
Example is better than precept.
As you may recall from the "Eating soup with a spoon,"
thread, I agreed with you that it would be a bad mistake to go over to a total COIN mode. I also posited that to go to a total MCO mode would be equally bad -- as we have learned...
I ended by saying:
"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."Well, if it were up to me, I'd really train initial entry folks; enlisted and officer, on the basics. We have undertrained at the level since time immemorial, certainly for my entire lifetime -- and that includes WW II (Not, as RTK and UBoat would have some believe, WW I). Every after action report I've seen from both Afghanistan and Iraq, the CALL Bulletins, the news reports, even the TV and still pics point out that most units -- not all -- and most people -- again not all -- do not have a good handle on the basics. We rarely do...Originally Posted by Gian P Gentile
I'd make sure they had the basics down pat and then pay lip service to my DMETL.If you were a battalion commander today and you knew you had to deploy your battalion to iraq in 10 months what would be your focus?I'd make sure they had the basics down pat and then would pay lip service to my DMETL....To complicate matters a bit and to build on this hypothetical, what if you could look into a crystal ball and you knew that 6 months after you returned from Iraq your battalion would be deployed to Korea to fight against a north korean invasion of the south? How would you structure your training in these hypotheticals?
I am not being flip, really, you asked and that is what I would do. I have watched too many people get hurt or killed because they could not perform basic combat tasks. I've fought in MCO (as a Tanker and a Scout) and in COIN ops (As an ODA member, a Scout and an infantryman) and I've switched between the two -- along with an entire Division that was in process of recovering from 32% casualties in three weeks and, really, it just isn't that hard to move between the roles.
I submit the problem is not the time or cost, it is the way we train -- or, more accurately, fail to train. We train to task; well and good -- but the 'condition' varies extremely widely in combat and our stultifying training process cannot cope with that.
If I was going to combat as a Battalion Commander, I hope I'd do what was best and hope I'd be willing to take the flak for doing so -- which I know would come and I also know is not easy. Which brings me to our far too competitive promotion system but I guess that's for another thread another time.While I disagree with Dunlap on many levels (and on most occasions when he writes his parochial screeds) I do not dispute that the Army has become a COIN only force. I submit that's to be expected; the current war for a relatively small army is a COIN war. I don't think it's realistic to expect it to be anything else. The issues thus are can that Army switch rapidly enough to do conventional if necessary. I think yes, you apparently disagree. A second issue and I submit a more important one is when the disengagement from that COIN war comes -- and it will come -- will the Army once again reject all to do with COIN as it did from 1975 until 2004 or so? I would hope not because the Generals way back when hung their hat on the utterly fallacious Weinberger and Powell Doctrines. Those were not doctrines but wishful thinking on the part of the Army leadership who wished to pick their wars.The point that Dunlap makes that many still dont want to accept is that the American Army has become a counterinsurgency only force; so to use your words its not an academic argument over either a coin force or an MCO force; instead it is an ACTUAL problem that the American army is now ONLY Coin. That is a reality and a problem that we must face squarely and accept and was the point of the Dunlap oped.
Can't do that as both Clinton and Bush 43 have proven -- and as I suspect, the next President or two will have to do. Wars are not started by the Generals; they are started by circumstances and politicians and the generals cannot control either of those and attempts such as the 1975-2004 efforts to do so are doomed to fail.
The Army had an obligation to have a multi spectrum force available for the Nation during that period. They answered several calls in that time frame that worked out, the one they answered in the Spring of '03 did not. We should not try to reinvent that wheel.
As long as there are those who totally reject anything to do with COIN, there will be a tendency for the Army to over compensate and adopt that "no COIN" posture because it is easier for everyone. It may be easier but it won't be right...
We've got to be a full spectrum force and we are capable of doing that. A start is to worry less about the doctrine and the parochial battles over spectrum and fix our gigantic training problem. If we do that, we can do full spectrum easily.
For what it's worth, RTK has convinced me that he's right.
It is, admittedly, rather easier to have a unit capable of switching between the various levels of warfare if they don't have to spend much of their Unit training time having to make up for deficiencies in individual basic skills and sub-unit tactical skills that BT and AIT don't have the time to cover in real depth, or in some cases may not be taught at all due to time constraints. Between that, and the relatively frequent individual rotation of personnel through units, there just may not be as much time available as there otherwise could be to cover a wide and comprehensive range of tasks, and to do so properly and thoroughly in each one. It remains a persistent wonder to other English-speaking Armies why the US Army persists in refusing to put its Combat Arms troops through six solid months of individual training before going to their Units, and three solid months of NCO training for small unit leaders (excluding the Ranger course, of course).
The US Army, even with its present financial constraints, enjoys a relative lavishness of resources (note that I say in general) other Armies can only dream of. It seems a small price to pay then for long individual training courses and a Regimental-type system, or even something like COHORT (in some ways even better). That way, so much of the individual and sub-unit training that is required for a Unit to perform in everything from COIN to General War is already mostly taken care of and just has to be maintained (easier to do than to gain in the first place), leaving a good deal more time and resources available for the rest. And a revival of COHORT or the introduction of a Regimental system means much less personnel turnover to sabotage your unit training efforts.
As Wilf was in effect pointing out, COIN training is comparatively easier to acquire and maintain than the General War stuff, simply by ensuring that the same basic individual and small unit skills that are needed for fighting WWIII are thoroughly inculcated in basic training ; it has worked for the Brits decades until just recently, and the other Commonwealth Armies do it from time to time. Once the basic individual and small-unit skills are trained to a high standard in basic training, the majority of the training that a unit needs for COIN and other Low-Intensity stuff is already done, and just has to be maintained. Aside from some minor- and major-unit-level COIN training, most of the unit training cycle can be devoted to the higher-intensity matter that can't be skimped on. If Formations and even Units are spending an inordinate amount of time on COIN training as opposed to spending the great majority of their time on Conventional Warfare training, something is quite wrong.
All that said, if a unit is given only 6 months to prepare to switch from one role to another, that's a problem in anyone's Army. 12 months isn't really enough in peacetime, and a lot of people would give their eye-teeth for an 18-month unit training cycle. None of which is even remotely possible for the US Army right now.
Last edited by Norfolk; 01-10-2008 at 05:03 AM.
Between a rock and a hard place while sitting on a time bomb!
It's not realistic, but unfortunately necessary. The AF needs new aircraft. The more advanced aircraft have short lifespans. The AF made a big mistake "skipping" a generation of fighter after the F15 in order to jump ahead to the F22. Advanced avionics and composite structures are only dependable to 20 years. (Look at all the grounded F15's) We are stuck replacing them every 20-?30? years from here on out. Whether we replace them with a newer version of the same aircraft or develop a new aircraft is a big question.
The Navy definitely needs new ships (or to retrofit current ships which would cost just as much if not more.) Although I am skeptical of many of the ships under development (and the overall direction of it), I must admit that it's necessary.
The Army does need more men (and a lot of equipment.) I'm not as sure about the Marine Corp, but that stems from the debate of exactly where they fit into everything these days (something that seems to be an ongoing and popular debate on this site.)
The problem is I don't think there is much we can do without there. This country could afford all of this (recruiting is a different issue) if we were more economically responsible and practical. A big defense budget (a responsible one) is good for America and the economy. People need to start understanding this.
(Sorry about this rant. Especially since it's a little late.)
Adam L
Jcustis; no disrespect taken in the least; blogs are raw and democratic by nature.
My point with the hypothetical was to conceive of the fundamental problem at hand here; how do you construct and army to satisfy policy and strategic interests? Answering such questions does involve choices which is why i posed the hypothetical question. I do agree with Wilf and Norfolk (and also I think what Ken White was getting at on training) on previous threads and postings that if you have to cheat in a direction toward training and preparation it should be toward hic because of the mortal danger of loosing one of those fights. I have never said that our army should just do one or the other; my point has always been that we need both capabilities but that now, actually, we can only do one. I hear what RTK says about how we train lts in his obc course which is great. But from the big picture and overall the reality is that now as an operatioanal army we can essentially onle do one thing; and that is coin. I appreciate the argument that practically perhaps this is how it should be because of the current fight that we are in but it does nevertheless still lead to the conclusion that we are a coin only force which brings me back again to the essential point that Dunlap made.
gian
I have longed for this ever since I read an article in Leatherneck Magazine that detailed the comprehensive training required to grow a British Royal Marine. I was stunned considering what they cover across the months. This ties into the ability for a small unit to be able to remain somewhat combat effective even after sustaining leader casualties - a lot of the solid foundational training is already in the individual who has to step up. You would think theat during the garrison years pre-9/11 that professional military education schools would have been brimming with eager students, but IIRC the opposite was true for whatever reason, with routine holes and under-strength class sizes. Now that units are awash with GWOT funds, there is so much specialized training going on for 1-3 week lengths that it is hard to keep up. That's for another thread I suppose.It remains a persistent wonder to other English-speaking Armies why the US Army persists in refusing to put its Combat Arms troops through six solid months of individual training before going to their Units, and three solid months of NCO training for small unit leaders (excluding the Ranger course, of course).
The US Army, even with its present financial constraints, enjoys a relative lavishness of resources (note that I say in general) other Armies can only dream of. It seems a small price to pay then for long individual training courses and a Regimental-type system, or even something like COHORT (in some ways even better). That way, so much of the individual and sub-unit training that is required for a Unit to perform in everything from COIN to General War is already mostly taken care of and just has to be maintained (easier to do than to gain in the first place), leaving a good deal more time and resources available for the rest.
I guess I'm unable to grasp what the Army is unprepared to do at the Operational Level of war. Is it a matter of artillery regiments not being able to train together, or armor elements not being able to conduct larger exercises, or is it the waning proficiency in (for the Corps) amphibious operations because it's spent a lot more time feet dry? If that's what you're alluding to, then I would agree to an extent. I wouldn't say that the land forces have become COIN only though, because it requires a lot of non-COIN skills to pull of something like Fallujah vers 2.0, and from watching the goings on from the peninsula, we did pretty good considering the opponent and assymetric threats.But from the big picture and overall the reality is that now as an operatioanal army we can essentially onle do one thing; and that is coin.
The resident expertise remains resident in the officers and SNCOs who are at the tip of the spear. Even for those still slated to grind through grade-relevant PME, the aspect of COIN often comes either at the end of the main package, or it is woven through the periods of instruction which still focus on waging HIC (at least for my viewpoint in the Corps). The fact that we haven't shut down our formal schools despite manning shortfalls within the operating forces is another choice that I would argue is testament to the fact that the land components have not made a massive resource or mindset shift toward just COIN.
If you could offer some cases in point of what you mean sir, it may be easier for some of us to grasp where you are coming from on this matter.
I liken the military's fixation on COIN to ESPN's focus on College Basketball and College Football throughout the year.
Right now it's COIN season for the military. In March ESPN doesn't talk too much about the BCS because it's March Madness. In August they don't talk about college basketball because the football season is beginning. We're engaged in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Phillipines, and any number of other countries conducting COIN. That doesn't mean we're not training our other core competencies. I say we are.
How many BN Cdrs hav jumped up and down on the BDE commander's desk beacuse they haven't shot a gunnery in the last 6 months? How many units integrate HIC and COIN into their NTC rotations? If they don't, they're not providing their Soldiers with what they need to be successful.
Example is better than precept.
Heavy & agile: Nine steps to a more effective force
Link: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2008/01/3208280
I think this take on the situation captures it well.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
me too which is why i posted and recommended it on another thread. Major Daniels does warn against getting so fixated on the current fight (coin) that it causes us to conclude that the future will just look just like today and then build a force structure around that misconception.
gg
I agree with everything MAJ Davis wrote here. What if FCS is built upon a flawed premise? I don't like the capabiliites I lose as a recon guy with the FCS at all.
I don't disagree with LTC Gentile on this area of the subject. I just respectfully disagree that we've become an exclusively COIN Army.
Example is better than precept.
Having read a lot of the input, it seems that I'm hearing that our training has been dominated by COIN. Understandable, because that's the war we're in. I had a different perspective, knowing the effort going into material development to support full spectrum ops. I've come around to LTC Gentile's point of view, but I'm not sure it's really a problem that will bite us in the alpha.
Last edited by J Wolfsberger; 01-11-2008 at 09:34 PM. Reason: Correct spelling
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
Sorry about the repost. I used the search function thinking it would already be here, but it didn't show up.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
Steps? "Step away from the cookie jar..."
RTK said:I agree with that. Both thoughts. I'd also suggest that the current emphasis on COIN is, as many say, totally understandable -- that's what we're doing now.I don't disagree with LTC Gentile on this area of the subject. I just respectfully disagree that we've become an exclusively COIN Army.
Thus it may appear that we're over emphasizing it but that perception is heightened by the fact that our determination from 1975 until 2005 to concentrate solely on MCO and thus to deny that the COIN function existed, much less was an Army mission, led to a capability gap that was -- or should have been -- an embarrassment to the Army and many who 'grew up' in that era prefer the relative clarity and ease of focus a single mission type provides and though they prove daily they can adapt to the COIN arena, they don't like it (who would? Totally understandable) and want to move away from it.
The world today is chaotic, is not itself simple enough to allow that and it has been repeatedly proven that politics and not Army desires are the determinant on where, when and to do what the US Army will be deployed in future -- and no one can predict that where, when or what...
I'm less afraid of excessive emphasis on COIN than I am of an overcompensation led by both the heavy and FCS communities over the next few years to again relegate COIN to oblivion because of the threat to equipment purchases or for other reasons. That would be a mistake, one we've made before and do not need to repeat.
We can do all the missions; MCO and COIN and things that lay between the two. We may have to do them all. The emphasis and effort should be on how to get there -- not to exclude a spectrum for cost savings and simplicity. The troops can handle it.
Can the system?
Ken:
I agree with most of what you say especially the first couple of sentences where you point out that the army, wrongly, turned its head away from any kind of irregular training and emphasis when history and a careful prediction of future operations should have demanded at least some attention to it.
I also accept the practical reasons for the army's complete (operational and not necessarily institutional training) focus now on counterinsurgency operations. Because of the size of the Army we have no slack and really have no choice but to focus almost completely on Coin. RTK disagrees from his persepective as a trainer of junior officers from the institutional training base; of course i acknowledge the weight that his training places on mco. But when those combat lts go out to the field army they do only coin; either actual coin in iraq and afghanistan or in trainups for the next deployment. That is the reality of the operational army today.
I am less sanguine, however, than Ken White is with the future. He worries about the Army regressing into an 80s mindset where we again disregard coin and irregular war for mco and hic. I have an opposite worry; that since we are so focussed on coin today it causes us to see a future of a security environment described by people like TX Hammes that is predominated by irregular warfare. That conception of the future then drives ideas like lightening the American army and basically turning it into a nation-building, light infantry force (there was an article in another thread a few months ago titled something like "rage against the machines" that made this argument). Nagl's recommendation for a permanent advisory corps is a step in this direction.
gian
Thanks for the response. If WM is correct and you
hail from the Bay area originally, let it be known that (a) San Francisco is till my favorite US city and (b) I'm concerned that you've lost that sunny optimism...
Not so much worried as concerned about the fact that I already see community battles as opposed to a focus on what the ARMY needs to do.I am less sanguine, however, than Ken White is with the future. He worries about the Army regressing into an 80s mindset where we again disregard coin and irregular war for mco and hic...A valid concern -- as I've always agreed. As as an aside, my 18 years of service Son met Hammes and heard him speak. He wasn't at all impressed or convinced nor do I expect the Army is (with all due apologies to my Marine brethren). Really.I have an opposite worry; that since we are so focussed on coin today it causes us to see a future of a security environment described by people like TX Hammes that is predominated by irregular warfare...
Yes, there's a great deal of that COIN to the fore babble going around but I suspect part of my willingness to not get unduly perturbed about it is the fact that also occurred just as loudly from 1962-70 and as soon as that COIN op headed for the boneyard, so did the excessive emphasis on COIN then prevalent because it meant money in the coffers.
That time it got replaced by burying COIN; I hope we're smarter than that this time -- and I also would hope we do not yet again succumb to Branch warfare. That happens, it becomes a crap shoot and squeaking wheels get oiled then by default, Congress makes decisions because the Army can't get its act together...I suspect that the plus up will be mostly light infantry as that is the cheapest set of stuff to buy. No other reason. We need the heavy stuff and the leadership knows it, it is not going away. As that same Son (an Airborne infantry type) told me when he was in Baghdad in '04 "The M1 and Iraq mean all this foolishness about the demise of the Tank will go away, the Tank is here for another fifty years at least."...That conception of the future then drives ideas like lightening the American army and basically turning it into a nation-building, light infantry force (there was an article in another thread a few months ago titled something like "rage against the machines" that made this argument)...
The heavy divisions will stay and the FCS guys will fight to bring that to life; light infantry will get a plus up because its cheap (and easy to cut when the budget gets sliced) and needed in Afghanistan where I suspect we will be operating after Iraq chills and we draw down to overwatch mode (that I expect within a year).Yes it is -- couple of months ago I wrote a SWJ Blog Article saying that was a really bad idea -- I expected a lot of 4GW lovers to attack, got very few responses. None, IIRC. Surprised me. Regardless, I'll bet big bucks that ain't gonna happen and it should not unless it's an RC element less than half the size he sought -- and I doubt that'll occur unless the RC sees it as a space generator....Nagl's recommendation for a permanent advisory corps is a step in this direction.
Awful long way of saying I agree with your concern and I hope mine is misplaced and we end up with a balanced, multi spectral force.
I also hope we fix our initial entry training, officer and Enlisted to enable that to occur with less effort.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Rummy canceled this big gun long before he used the term "dead enders." Can you lay all the blame on COIN or must transformation take its fair share too?
Last edited by Rank amateur; 01-12-2008 at 03:14 AM.
Ken:....If WM is correct and you...hail from the Bay area originally, let it be known that (a) San Francisco is till my favorite US city and (b) I'm concerned that you've lost that sunny optimism...
Of course me too; I actually grew up in the East Bay but as a kid we often went into the City. I am still an optimist at heart but with some SanFran fog-like sadness hanging over me by the silence of the families of the soldiers who I left behind.
Thanks for your thoughtful response; we are in general agreement on things. If I disagree with you it is always with much trepidation.
gg
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