Quote Originally Posted by Hacksaw View Post
Ken and wm … While the linked article highlights the larger philosophical debate regarding the Army's appropriate aim point on the spectrum of conflict. The impetus for the article was a white paper authored by three former BCT commanders that laments/warns of the crisis in the FA Branch in particular and several others in general. The gist of the white paper (sent to CSA, VCSA, and HQDA G3) was that the FA branch is broke from the perspective fire support competency. Also important to note that this was not a stone throwing event, rather that the cause of the problem is that FA units have spent so much time providing invaluable contributions to the current fight in anything but an FA role. War is NOT war in the sense that there is a very real difference in how you organize, train, and equip a force. As current events support, a good force balance for COIN does not equal a good force balance for HIC. A blinding flash of the obvious I know. I also acknowledge that the intensity of conflict at the individual/tactical level is directly proportional to your proximity to the fire fight. In that sense, war is war…. However, with respect to Title X type responsibilities – war is anything but war, and that is the level at which Gian has been beating his drum.

My lament regarding Gian is that he gets so much attention as the wild-eyed prophet screaming in the desert about a COIN-centric force, rather than his more important message… OK in some sense – certainly as it pertains to FA, the focus on COIN-specific training is very detrimental. Not so much that they are training in a COIN contect, but that they are training no traditional skills as opposed to the core competency as field artillerymen. However, the larger point that Gian raises routinely, but that I have seen no senior leader echo is that we, as a Nation, have lost complete balance between strategic objectives and resources. This is where we have become most discombobulated.
Hacksaw,
I suspect we were actually trying to make the same point. I only let one shoe drop in my post, expecting that folks would understand that we have training failures/shortfalls that need to be remedied. (I really hate teaching folks to suck eggs.) FA operations is not the only place where that happens to be the case; I believe that non-combatant control, among others (like air defense ops and probably combat engineering), is another sucking training chest wound.

You are correct about the inbalance between objectives and resources. The other drum. one that Ken beats routinely, that is being ignored is the need to resource training accounts (and that includes the personnel in training account) to reflect what really needs to happen to have a force trained and ready for the spectrum of missions it may be called upon to execute in at least the next 20-40 years. I use that time frame as one that covers a career and provides an overlap for the next two "generations" of military career holders.