COIN v. Conventional Capability Debate

[Ken White]

"As I’m sure you could tell, I get a little heated when I hear 'war is war'. A broad generalization that at some levels works – e.g. reacting to an ambush is reacting to an ambush, firing an artillery mission is likewise – but the approach is unhelpful when it bumps up against reality at the Title X/Generating Base level."

With some experience in the force generation business, I understand your point but do not fully agree. The issue is to deliver competent forces to the battle area. My contention is that we have failed at that in the past to one extent or another (to include both current theaters) but we recover well.

One can and should make the point that we should not have to recover -- I agree but reality intrudes. My seeming digression into the training regimen, the discombobulation of the cost those serving pay for the life style we have and the Army's penchant for wrongful focus on occasion were all based on the fact that such failures are a fact of life and that we have (purposely, inadvertantly or by default is immaterial) elected to operate that way. It could possibly be changed to preclude that in the future but I'm doubtful of the true possibility and dubious that will occur.

Thus, IMO, to say the Title X responsibilities dictate that 'war is not war' is not stating an immutable fact, rather its a euphemistic phrase for 'it's really difficult to be ready for everything.' With that, I totally agree. I'd also submit that to do less than be prepared for everything to the extent possible in spite of the difficulties is a disservice to the nation, to the Army as an institution and to the troops. But that's just me...

WRT:

I suppose the question is what level of competency and whether you buy into the argument that we are in an era of persistent conflict, and that we will continue to conduct these types of operations (although admittedly to varying degrees of scope). As well as what that means wrt the aimpoint/weighting of training effort and said resources with regard to time, personnel and training resources.

I think "buy into the argument" evades the point which to me is to be prepared for that to be the case. As Casey Stengel said, it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future. I have no clue whether such will be the case but I think it would be terribly remiss not to prepare for that at some level just as it would be terribly remiss not to prepare for a big war. It is not hard for me to say we have an obligation to be prepared for whatever the future brings; it is very hard for the Army to do that and I'm quite cognizant of that fact. Where I think we differ is that I'm pretty sure it can be done -- but that means breaking some Rice bowls and that is never easy (though I'm a long standing proponent of just such crockery smashing).

"As you surmised I think COAs 1 & 3 are more or less throw-aways but for different reasons (unacceptable/unfeasible respectively). However, I think it is unwise to assume we can continue on our current path COA 2. When viewed through a strategic lens, the US has passed its culmination point (specifically wrt to ground capability, but it appears the same is true wrt to maritme and air operations)."

We can disagree on that. I agree with those other bright people

We will never be able to account for all contingencies; no democratic nation will -- and that's okay. What we have to do is be prepared, as best we can, for the likely contingencies. I submit our current capability to do that has been lessened but it's a long way from being in the tank. The doctrinal culminating point and many prophets of doom fail to account for the human dimension, the young guys can adapt. The issue is; will the old guys adapt?

[Ron Humphrey]

Macgregor says. "if there is no legitimate government to begin with, your intervention is doomed to inevitable failure."

To me this is the key point. We're using tactics designed for use against a single anti government insurgency, but we're fighting multiple factions, many of whom are part of the government.

Rank,
I may be wrong but I think that statement is probably more specifically in regard to the necessity for planning to govern until good governance is established than don't go cause it's broke. And in that context I would think most everyone would agree with him.

Furthermore, we must consider the scale of conflict. We need a COIN capability obviously, but how much do we need? Enough for another large Iraq-style operation or something smaller? Those kind of questions are what underpin the capability requirements in QDR's which determines where the money goes, etc. Personally, I see "small wars" being more the norm in the future, but I think it will be a generation or more before we do something like Iraq again which is a "small war" in name only.

The one question that comes to mind in this regard is
If current ops are viewed in a world context has the precedent been set now that we may be required through no intentions of our own to attend to other areas in a similar fashion whether we like it or not.

We will never be able to account for all contingencies; no democratic nation will -- and that's okay. What we have to do is be prepared, as best we can, for the likely contingencies. I submit our current capability to do that has been lessened but it's a long way from being in the tank. The doctrinal culminating point and many prophets of doom fail to account for the human dimension, the young guys can adapt. The issue is; will the old guys adapt?

As usual I think your dead on but I do have a question for all regarding training/preparation now vs then.

(WARNING: Big time run on sentence coming)
In the last two years I have seen what seems like immense changes in how and what we train. I'm quite certain they would be reflected in how we train what we train as well and as such is there a possibility that much of the training which would traditionally be expected to require X amount of time may actually take less time and or personnel to accomplish?

[Ken White]

The one question that comes to mind in this regard is If current ops are viewed in a world context has the precedent been set now that we may be required through no intentions of our own to attend to other areas in a similar fashion whether we like it or not.

Extremely good and quite important point, that...

In the last two years I have seen what seems like immense changes in how and what we train. I'm quite certain they would be reflected in how we train what we train as well and as such is there a possibility that much of the training which would traditionally be expected to require X amount of time may actually take less time and or personnel to accomplish?

My perception is the you're very perceptive. I think that's the case.

Warning, diatribe approaching. We erred mightily in the 70s by listening to a lot of new hire Education (NOT Training, Education...) Specialists who had advanced degrees in Education. Nice guys but they didn't know much; they convinced the Army to do two really dumb things. Bear with me through the boring bit because these are important.

First they sold the Task, condition and standard training regimen -- bad deal, it worked for industry but if Eastinghouse screws up a run on widgets, they sell 'em at a discounted price, get a tax write off and keep on making widgets. We screw up and someone gets killed. Totally different milieus -- and rules. The principal problem with that approach is that the Task bit worked okay but the process could not and would not account for variables in condition. My pet example was, coincidentally, "Clear a building" Not difficult in many cases, very much so in others. Do you want me to clear the Chrysler building, the US Capitol, a medium sized mansion, a five bedroom ranch or a mud hut in SEA? The variance in conditions is humungous. It was and is an extremely poor training process and needs to be totally discarded.

I'll also pound one of my pet rocks here; one of the reasons it was admired and adopted was because it simplified things immeasurably for poor instructors (see ODB above; he's right on that...), a second reason was that it provided 'firm metrics' and 'removed the subjectivity from training.' Horse hockey, you absolutely cannot -- and should not -- remove subjectivity from training. My opinion of most metrics is well documented here so I needn't repeat that.

The second thing they did was run a slew of surveys which discovered that the average enlistee had a fifth grade reading level -- so they insisted on tailoring all training material at that level. Dumber than a box of stove bolts. fortunately, that got rectified fairly rapidly but it did some damage and it still persists in some quarters.

In short, we hired the very people who had produced a generation that read at a Fifth Grade level to fix a problem they had created in an environment they did not at all understand. I'm sure a lot of 'em are still in TRADOC. hopefully, they've gotten smarter.

Which gets to your question, as I said, I think you're correct; we are training better -- not great but better, I'll even go for a lot better -- and we have realized these kids today take to it like a duck to good bourbon. As I said above, the kids can and will adapt; I'll give the system beaucoup credit for trying to do so, now if we can just get the Pachyderms to follow and adapt instead of trying to return to business as usual...