McMaster on war (merged thread)

[reed11b]

However, that is going to require Congress to change their ways to an extent and I'm not sure that can be done.

What the Army -- all of DoD -- can do is take your thought and apply it internally at all levels. I'd submit that in addition to a revolution in professional development, we need and can have a revolution in initial entry training, officer and enlisted.

We also need and can have a significant loosening of the systemically imposed stifling and initiative killing cultural norms to achieve real loosening of the de facto, over-cautious restraints on leaders so they not only permitted but actually encouraged to be dynamic leaders and push out beyond the culturally defined rules/limitations, and let the bureaucracy catch up with reality.

That is 'do-able,' Congress really can't stop it and those serving and most Americans will applaud it. Do wonders for the retention of Captains...

I would second that having "unit" personel policies, instead of individual ones, would also be extremly important for any signifigant change in the DOD.

[Sabre]

"Conventional "legacy" Army organizations, designed to fight
under uncertain conditions, proved critical in Operation
Anaconda in Afghanistan in March 2002 and in the attack into
Baghdad a year later. But some of those organizations have
since been eliminated or redesigned, based in part on the
assumption that future tactical and operational environments
would be marked by a high degree of certainty. Although the
divisional cavalry squadron of the Third Infantry Division,
a unit designed to fight for information, protect against
surprise, and ease the forward movement of follow-on forces,
was invaluable during the attack toward Baghdad, that
formation and all others like it have since been eliminated
in favor of small, lightly armed reconnaissance squadrons
designed to use mainly aerial and ground sensors to develop
situational awareness out of contact."

It was with sadness that I read the whole article, since I happen to agree with it, and I don't see it, or anything else, changing the mindset of those in position to effect change - they will instead continue to happily eat PowerPoint slide decks. But as in the above quote from McMaster's paper the DivCav squadrons could serve as the "poster child" example of how the latest grand reorganization went wrong (amoung some things that it admittedly got right), and more generally, how any belief in the chimera of RMA has led to some very bad conclusions...

Whatever war is or becomes, it will always end up as a gun fight, and you'd better'd make sure units have enough weapons in the hands of people who realize that it is their job to employ them and know how to do so.
Throwing more personnel and money into, say, military intelligence, certainly doesn't guarantee better intelligence (far from it, from what I have seen). But a grunt, scout, or a sapper with a rifle? I can think of all sorts of things that he can usefully do, even if I end up in a situation totally different from the original mission.

(Heh, and "Deployablity", how far down THAT road have we gone, for no return on investment?)

[Bullmoose Bailey]

Very enlightening post from one of our most treasured General Officers.

True that the RMA mentality repesents a deficit in critical thinking coupled with myopic obsession on a style of warfighting that is the exception not the norm, even if we attept to normalise it.