Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife

[Distiller]

I tend to try to learn from history and view those lessons as they apply today. Many are in agreement that current force structure/force taskings are misutilizing todays forces. Many think various branchs should grow, the military should grow, and the debate goes on. My number one questions is why do we even do rotations/tours? It is my personal belief that when the order was given we should have gone with everything we own. Not half our force and relay later on units rotating out. If we would have brought the full brunt of our military from the beginning would we be in the situation we are? We would have enough SF to conduct FID/COIN operations, conventional forces to #1. Secure all borders (we can't do that here) nothing in nothing out, 2# Man damn never every city, town, village. We could lock the entire country down. Unfortunately our politicians and society has deemed war a game to be played fairly, humanely, and without true force. How many times did units rotate out of WWII? I remember reading a few years back about guys who were gone for 7 years straight. I look at it like this, we do it the right way over a period of five years straight or do we play this game for 10-15 years.

Don't remember who posted about the SF growth and subsequent postings. Problem is the Army's inate ability to manage personnel. They knew for years close to 50% of SF would be retirement eligable over a 5 year period, guess what they did just that retired and went elsewhere. So the Army says hey 20 years ago we brought guys off the streets straight into SF it worked then why not now. Problem is that huge 50% of retirees. 20 years ago a few sprinkled inexperienced guys could be trained, mentored, and developed by seniors without a ripple effect throughout the force. Not mention these college educated, 4 years SF experience with multiple tours are ripe for every other agency and private sector jobs out there, how many are stick around? If I'm not mistaken the average age in SF has gone from 32 years to 27years...huge experience and maturity gap.

What all this does is tie into the fact that everyone wants to do everyone elses job. Conventional forces want to do what SF does, guys in SF want to do what Infantry guys do and so on and so on. If everyone stayed within their capabilities and scope of things they would stay busier than ever and we would be leaps and bounds ahead of where we are currently. Yes there are many great individuals throughout the force and many different entities actually conduct joint operations as it should be. Unfortunately for everyone of those there is more not doing this.

Sorry I kinda rambled have a million more thoughts but will spare you those and save them for later.

That's foremost a societal thing. Even in a volunteer service - who is willing to spend his life in the bogs, some desert or jungle, when others of his age have a familiy life, are much more comfortable and prosperous?

Excessive rotations and ratios of 6 or 7 to 1 are certainly undesireable. 4 to 1 I guess should be the goal. But the current armed forces still have a structure that is designed for a full-scale blow-up in case of mobilisation with a very top heavy structure. Also don't forget all the perks and promotions that come with deployments - everybody wants a piece!

And it's also a question of mentality. The warrior spirit, or whatever you might call it. Not doing it as a job, or as duty for the fatherland, but out of a mentality (not necessarily one compatible with civil society). It would also need a vastly different social structure of the forces, a different definition of duty, discipline, ranks. Strategic compression in the extreme, and almost like a religious order. Takes a certain desperado mentality. People who are fed up with society, those who are running away from something - you end with something like the Légion Etrangère. No way to build larger forces on that.

A more realistic way might be foreigners. Promise them U.S. citizenship and an education for X years in the bogs. No need to rotate them. The Byzantine way.

[Rob Thornton]

What is the "normal" command relationship in this situation?

Hi John, I think Tom has got the most important piece of it:

It is very much a function of AO and commanders. And it is a balancing act--without a command relationship, the MiTTs suffer on support. With a tight command relationship they risk becoming an extension of the BCT and that affects their role with their host nation forces.

The role of the BCT CDR cannot be underestimated. Depending upon who he is and what the conditions are - such as: is there an existing TT structure in his AOR?; what is the enemy situation?; how big is the AOR?; what types of HN security forces and how many are there in his AOR?; how mature are they, and do they work together?; what do the CDR's other LOEs (Lines of Effort) look like? and a host of other questions shape the situation.

Add into it the way those conditions shape the other players and the challenges of the CDR to retain balance grow.

Over the last two weeks we've interviewed three different BCTs who operated in Iraq at the same time, but in different locations. All inherited different conditions and as such approached the problem different from one another. It had to be that way, a cookie cutter solution would have resulted in problems, and tied their hands in a number of ways. That is one of the strengths I think in the way we develop leaders, and we should exploit that strength at all levels. They employed different organizational solutions, different TTPs, different emphases, and different levels of trust based on the conditions and personalities in their AOR.

What I think needs to be emphasized is the CMD vision that begins in this case with MNF-I, comes down through MNC-I and MNSTC-I to the various GO level commands such as MND-N or MND-B, or IAG (at least at my time) and makes its way out to all subordinate commands, so that regardless of the conditions, the desired endstate and key components of that vision are understood - so that even as the tactical and operational level leaders adapt to the conditions in their AOR(s), they are still guided by overarching themes.

Unity of command may not always be required (or desired if the personalities don't support it (of course if its a personality issue, the personality in question may need to be addressed)), but unity of effort is critical! Whatever supports Unity of Effort should be the rule, if things are tracking because the right personalities are in place and the current command relationship works and works well, then it may not be a requirement, but if the current command relationship is broke - either because somebody in the chain is recalcitrant, does not get it, or is just so removed in time, space, and understanding as to be ineffective and incapable of good consistent judgment, then the command relationship needs to be adjusted as to support unity of effort.

I'll put up a summary of the last couple of weeks over the next few days that captures the different approaches and some of why those approaches were chosen - maybe on the SWJ blog - I just need to catch my breath and sit down and do it.

The three big take aways - BCT CDRs have a key role in SFA in Iraq, there should not be a "cookie cutter" approach to how this is done, and there absolutely must be unity of effort.

Best, Rob

[ODB]

"Excessive rotations and ratios of 6 or 7 to 1 are certainly undesireable. 4 to 1 I guess should be the goal. But the current armed forces still have a structure that is designed for a full-scale blow-up in case of mobilisation with a very top heavy structure. Also don't forget all the perks and promotions that come with deployments - everybody wants a piece!"

One of the issues with constantly rotating units is the lack of stability in regions. One unit does things one way the next unit reinvents the wheel and this cycle keeps repeating itself. I'll play my own devil's advocate in that I know this can also be beneficial in the fact that different approachs and views can solve problems as well. Unfortunately about the time you build a good working, trusting relationship with the local population your tours done and the relationship building starts again. Additionally with unit rotations this could be minimized by rotating the same units in the same areas, many of the local population will remember many of the units personnel thereby building the relationship quicker. This also needs to happen here at home between the SOF community and conventional forces. There is no reason why SOF units and conventional forces cannot link up and train together prior to deployment, this alone would prevent a lot infighting and help establish each others roles within BCT AORs. When BCT commanders have a good feel for the forces within their AOR, a solid working relationship built prior to deployment, and their capabilities and assets they bring to the table these CDRs are much more likely to utilize them properly.

want to expand SF (or the entire force) precipitously. My focus was pretty long term. IMHO SF should never reduce quality - I am skeptical of direct accession. Would much rather see SF accessing real sergeants than ones who just came on board.

A realistic approach to this would be direct accession of mid level NCOs. Bring them into the SF Groups for a 90-120 day assessment period. After that time of assessment you would either make them 18 series or they would return to their normal capacity. This would mainly work within MOS that are compatible ie 11B = 18B, wouldn't be able to this for medics but many of these guys could go to the school house later to receive medical training. This additionally would help fill the void with seasoned NCOs without taking them out of the fight for 12-24 months for formal training. There use to be a policy in place to be able to do this don't know if they still exist or not but would be a great way to boost the force, down side is many conventional forces would be losing quality NCOs that otherwise might not have made the switch.

[William F. Owen]

Sorry, I may be over simplifying this but, isn't the raison d'etre of every officer and NCO to be able to able to train and lead troops?

So if said officers and NCO's can speak a second language, they can lead and train troops using that language, (assuming no cultural impedimenta versus the target audience).

So you have the ability to train and a second language. What more is needed? Form specialist training cadres as and when required. That's how the UK does it. All you need is a good language training programme.

[Hacksaw]

Wilf,
You ask what is the difference... Essentially I would tell you the difference is scope. The US has a good language training program as well, but it, like everything else, is stretched at the seams. LTC Nagl's proposal for a 20k MTOE unit pulls at those seems as well. If I understand Gian correctly, we primarily have a policy crisis. To use an analogy, it appears we (US and closest allies) have behaved similarly to a character in "Caddy Shack". As Spalding approaches the snack shop he starts listing all the things he "wants". In a sense, we have done the same thing... and created a lot of indigestion.

Live well and row

[Rob Thornton]

Hi Wilf,

So you have the ability to train and a second language. What more is needed? Form specialist training cadres as and when required. That's how the UK does it. All you need is a good language training programme.

It is also worth noting that "trainer" and "Advisor" are not synonymous. Neither do the qualities that make a good commander of “his” or “her” unit directly transfer to the role an advisor plays – part of which is to build confidence by having his or her counterpart assess the situation independently and make decisions.

You can train someone in rote style fashion to run a range, to qualify on a system, to conduct a battle drill, even to conduct planning. Lots of science available in training. Advising however is also a great deal of art – it means assessing the situation as your counterpart sees it, and helping him to reach the right conclusions while at the same time judging when to pick up the ball if the consequences of the wrong decision are such that they cannot be recovered from. Certainly being technically, and tactically competent in the area you are advising is critical – nobody wants an advisor who lacks a skill set, however, the ability to influence – bending without breaking is important to the long term success. As such personality matters – and attributes and traits play a role in how successful the mission is. These people exist in all of our formations, and yes I think the leaders who we often identify as folks we’d follow anywhere or would wish to work for again posses, or often possess them in spades. However, we still advance people we would not wish to follow anywhere, or would not wish to work for again, sometimes its out of necessity, some times its an oversight – but it is what it is. Sometimes we would do one, but not the other – i.e. we would welcome the hard, authoritarian character of a professional who was competent under the toughest conditions, but we would not want to work for them otherwise. Sometimes we’d be willing to work for a guy in other conditions, but might not want them leading troops into combat. The best advisors I’ve seen embodied both – they could give advice without actually running the HN force for themselves – micro management breeds apathy, and we have to be very careful there.

Best, Rob

P.S. Tom, I think you had a good idea on the need for a spinoff thread.