The Importance and Role of Training in Creating/Sustaining the Best Possible Forces

[Rob Thornton]

Is the thinking that its too resource intensive to provide the quality of training available to SOF to the larger GPF/MPF force pool? Or is it the thinking the GPF/MPF formations can not achieve the same (or close to) standards of the smaller elite force populations? Or is it the idea that only SOF forces require that level of training as they are deployed on a smaller scale, in immature AORs and must be better trained to cope? I'd say with the current challenges ahead to the existing force structure if its the last on we can certainly justify the need.
Best, Rob

[selil]

In educational theory and higher education literature you can make pretty direct correlations between politics and restrictions on education. Basically any time you say training is to time/cost/physically/etc.. intensive there is some political force at work rather than good educational techniques. Basically what I get from the literature of education is there is no such thing as to intensive. The second thing is that cost is truly relative when dealing with education. Spend more now and save over the lifetime of the entities involved. The fastest way to efficiency is to train harder and faster and more realistically.

[jcustis]

I think much of the disconnect between the non-uniformed (not meaning uninformed in the least, though) out there who may postulate about the military, technologies, and strategic underpinnings, is the fact that it often takes a uniformed mind to appreciate the impact of training.

The realities of the training grind are often lost on those who would propose wholesale shifts in capabilities, mission, T/O&E, etc. Heck, it's even lost on the procurement folks who at times throw equipment at the troops when it has only been tested by Marines in their formal MOS school.

I concur wholeheartedly that main forces can do so much more (and probably have a baseline of training to do so well) than they currently have the authority for. It's that trust and confidence that's lacking. The opposite attitude rears its ugly head when SOF cannot accomplish some things (I'm currently reading Robert's Ridge) and the more conventional folks start to throw the Rambo moniker around.

When I was in Australia this summer, I had an interesting discussion with one of my counterpart umpires. He mentioned that among the Australian Army, the main forces are generally considered better prepared for COIN, humanitarian assistance, FID, and all-round small wars, while their SOF formations are better trained to execute conventional ops.

[Norfolk]

I concur wholeheartedly that main forces can do so much more (and probably have a baseline of training to do so well) than they currently have the authority for. It's that trust and confidence that's lacking. The opposite attitude rears its ugly head when SOF cannot accomplish some things (I'm currently reading Robert's Ridge) and the more conventional folks start to throw the Rambo moniker around.

When I was in Australia this summer, I had an interesting discussion with one of my counterpart umpires. He mentioned that among the Australian Army, the main forces are generally considered better prepared for COIN, humanitarian assistance, FID, and all-round small wars, while their SOF formations are better trained to execute conventional ops.

As jcustis pointed out, there is quite a difference of perspective between what Commonwealth Armies (and to a certain extent, the USMC as well) view as properly belonging to Main Forces and Special Forces, respectively, and what the US Army views in said matter. Most COIN and unconventional warfare that the Commonwealth (and for that matter, the USMC) has ever waged, has been done with Main Forces; Special Forces more often than not simply played a supporting role, and in some cases were not even present.

The US Army of course, takes a different view, and has two or three times as many Special Forces troopers as it does Rangers. While that certainly makes sense from the US Army's point of view, from a Commonwealth (and I suspect to a large extent, the USMC) point of view, it's just bizarre. Look at Commonwealth SF - even the UK has no more than a single Regular Army SF Battalion - 22 SAS, and only 2 Reserve Battalions and a Reserve Company (The HAC), plus the Royal Marines' Company-sized SBS. The only US SF of the same calibre - 1st SFOD-Delta (or whatever it's calling itself these days) and SEAL Team Six similarly amount to quite small proportions of the entire Army (or Navy's) force.

And like Commonwealth SF, they do guerrilla warfare very rarely, and only when necessary - if at all. So why all the other Army SF ("Green Berets")? The Commonwealth had its delusions of raising guerrilla armies dispelled over the course of WWII and the 15 years or so following its end; in the end, most of them tend to turn on their teachers. I would suggest that the US experience with the Montagnards/Hmong in Indochina was quite atypical and extraordinary.

So why have thousands of top-notch, highly-trained and experienced NCOs (I know the latter has changed recently) and officers separated from the rest of the Army and placed into Units that rarely get to perform their main mission, the raising of guerrilla armies - a mission with ultimately dubious consequences - and not in the regular infantry? The Commonwealth learned in the decades after WWII that the old way of giving someone 3 or 4 months of "training" (too much of it spent on nonsense and not real training) didn't cut it when you had to perform LIC and COIN in former colonies and still prepare to fight WWIII in Europe, all the while on very constrained budgets.

That's where the 6-month Infantry syllabus for Riflemen came from - necessity in the face of shrinking budgets with attendant lower manpower levels and cuts in equipment procurements. While SF became even more specialized, most of the roles previously reserved for Commando Forces were (sucessfully) taken over by Line Battalions (with vastly improved training), and the remaining Commando Forces concentrated on Mountain, Amphibious, and Airborne Operations (as the Royal Marines and the Rangers do). Fewer troops have to be able to do it all (or almost all), with less.

Rob's right; the SOF-type training that his CO was able to let him pursue in his old Unit was exactly the right thing to do. As the Marines say, a Rifleman can do anything - provided he is afforded and allowed the proper training, and sufficient of it. There certainly is a role for Special Forces - of the SAS/SBS kind, which is in line with what Lord Slim described as being the sort of unit that requires no more than a handful of men for its missions. But realistically speaking, I rather doubt there is a real justification for maintaining seven 1,200 or 1,500-man Groups of first-rate officers and NCOs for a (primary) role that has rarely panned out in practice. Much better to take Slim's advice and put these fine men into the Regular Army and to help assimilate the standards of the Main Forces much closer to that of the US Army Special Forces than those of a draftee mass-army.

The English-speaking Armies are only going to get smaller for the most part, and on even tighter budgets. There's only so many (or rather, so few) troops to go around, and funds to kit them out. One of the main antidotes to this problem is going down the road that Rob proposes: SOF-type training for all Infantry.

[Uboat509]

With all due respect, Norfolk, you clearly don't know what SF does. If "building guerilla armies" was all that we did then we might have ceased to exist a long time ago. We perform a whole series missions, many of which are not for public consumption. We do not simply duplicate what the big Army is already doing. On the contrary, we avoid certain missions because other units are already doing those missions and it would be a pointless duplication of effort and a waste of resources. Much of what we do, we do because no one else is trained or equiped to do it.

I fail to see how MAJ Thornton's training, awesome as it was, could be considered SOF training. SOF training is training for SOF missions it is not simply regular infantry training with more resources. Contrary to popular belief we do not have unlimited budget and resources either. Could regular forces be brought to a higher standard, given suficient budget and resources? Of course, but can they do do the same missions that SOF does as well as SOF? If they could then the conventional Army would have gotten rid of us long ago.

SFC W

[Norfolk]

Uboat, I am well aware that the US Army SF perform a very wide range of roles, from Strategic Reconnaissance to Mobile Training Teams to Humanitarian Assistance, et al. But their raison d'etre to begin with was guerrilla warfare, and they would not have been formed in the first place had that not been defined as their primary mission at the time; much of the rest has followed in subsequent years as guerrilla warfare receded into the background for being increasingly unlikely.

And if you had undergone a Commonwealth 6-month infantry syllabus followed by service in a Battalion, you might have found much of it to be suprisingly familiar, and strenuous - and not like what you would have experienced (or expected) in many a regular US Army battalion. One of my old Battalion's (a Reserve Bn) US Army training partners was a NG SF Bn - 3rd Bn, 20th SFG. Perhaps much of Rob's Unit's training was not SOF-type per se, but a lot of it was honing the basics to a much higher level of proficiency, which is essential for handling tasks that in the US Army are typically reserved to SOF. In the Commonwealth, things are mighty different. Get yourself attached to an RCR Battalion or a Royal Marine Commando for a year or two; it's not like the US Army.

[Surferbeetle]

Rob,

Good thread, as we all know education/training is the keystone of success in both the military and civilian world.

I have been lucky enough to serve in the AUS, ARNG, USAR, & civil service (Army & Navy) as well as having worked a few years in the private sector prior to joining the USG. This experience has shown me that trained individuals (completing training is a mark of the individuals motivation and suitability for the task) who are adequately resourced (and understand the difference between need and want) and who have good leadership are in general more successful at accomplishing the work mission than those who lack these things. Gear is good, but good people are better than good gear.

The US Military, in my opinion, does a good job of balancing societal needs and the requirements of necessary expertise to accomplish its mission of defending the Nation. Teams/Nations benefit from having members/inhabitants with shared experiences and shared education/training. One of the missions of the US military is to provide this training/education to our citizens. On the flip-side of training/educating all-comers our organization still needs experts who can guide the organization to success. To use the bell curve analogy the bulk of a population will always end up in the middle and those at the upper and lower ends of the bell curve are small in number. Adequately educating a population for a required task is a function of limited time and resources and always will be.

Conventional Forces need to accept that full-spectrum operations are the required skill set and ensure that their teams/units are continually and heavily trained. Since the bulk of the Conventional Force will not stay for more than 4 years training time and thus skill developing time is limited. Good NCOs, many CTC rotations, extensive military schooling which teaches full-spectrum operations, and of course operational experience are the keys to training success. The bulk of the US Military can accomplish this. Conventional Forces are more generalists than specialists and need to be assigned missions with this in mind.

SOF needs to accept that the population of participants is limited and true joint operations allow us to maximize our effectiveness. SOF work requires specialized professional civilian skills, advanced infantry skills, language capabilities, and extensive in-country experiences in order to accomplish specialized missions. To acquire these skills requires more time and resources in order to vet and educate appropriate people who are suited to the task. Limited time and resources mean that only a small population will be able to get this type of training and experience. SOF are more specialists than generalists and need to be assigned missions with this in mind.

'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' and 'Diplomacy is the art of gaining strategic advantage through negotiation' are two truisms that always apply and ones that we as a Nation need to revisit regularly. DOS/USAID/Peace Corps needs to be beefed up and placed upon an equal to or better resource footing than the US Military.

DOS/USAID/Peace Corps, SOF, and Conventional Forces all need to refocus and redouble their efforts on training the team/squad, since teams/squads are the building blocks of successful organizations. This means that team/squads must have extensive shared educational and 'real-world' experiences so that they can gel and excel. Both generalists and specialists are necessary to the Nations success. Bottom line? All of us need more training to excel and this requires steady resource streams, extensive planning, and most importantly good people.

[Uboat509]

Norfolk, I don't think that you are fully aware of what we do given that a good deal of what we do is classified. You seem to be assuming that SF are just extremely well trained infantry but that is simply not correct. Big Army does not, as a rule, like elite formations and would not tolarate any such organiztion that simply duplicates what conventional units already do. We are not simply an elite infantry formation, in fact, many SF soldiers have never served a day in their lives in the infantry. SF is drawn from all branches of the Army. The majority are former combat arms but that is not a prerequisite.

As for the likelihood of needing guerilla warfare skills, 5th Group's actions in the initial stages of Afghanistan are textbook UW. Since then, we have made great use of those skillsets (albeit on a smaller scale) in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

SFC W