Quote Originally Posted by Cliff View Post
It seems to me that this is comparing apples and oranges. I think somewhere between McMasters and Dunlap is the right place...
though McMaster,an Army guy, is,as RTK says, inveighing against the purchase of the FCS while Dunlap is fighting for more birds...
You need to have a spectrum of capabilities...
Of course you do.
...The effects or capabilities based doctrine is supposed to mean that you don't use a jackhammer when a chisel is required or vice-versa - IE, you look at the strategic objectives (ends), determine the effects required to achieve them (ways), then determine what forces can best achieve those effects (means). I am sure most people here agree with that...
I suspect you're correct, most not only agree with it but they know it. However, That's not the issue McMaster is surfacing.
...You can't predict what future war will be like, so you must organize/train/equip a spectrum of capabilities as a hedge against your vision of future war being wrong.
That's in essence what McMaster is saying, he's just pointing out two big truths; first, he said:
"Proponents of what became known as military transformation
argued for a ‘capabilities based’ method of thinking about future war. In
practice, however, capabilities-based analysis focused narrowly on how the
United States would like to fight and then assumed that the preference was relevant...(emphasis in original / kw)
Self-delusion about the character of future conflict weakened US efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq as war plans and decisions based on flawed visions of war confronted reality. This self-delusion has not been limited to the United States..."(emphasis added / kw)
He's merely stating the obvious but he's correct in saying we were planning for the war we wanted to fight -- not those we might have to. I suggest Dunlap is still in that mode, looking for the war he wants to fight. He's a smart guy, probably a good lawyer. He ought to stick to that....

Secondly he makes the same point you make here:
...I don't see OIF as a renunciation of the effects based doctrine. I see it as an example of the wrong effects being used due to not understanding the actual effects required to achieve our objectives...
Precisely and that was due to two factors; poor national level intel but, even more so, trying to fight the war we wanted to instead of the war we went to. None of the services were ready to do that because all had concentrated for almost 30 years on fighting the "big war." Even after Viet Nam when it was quite obvious that such smaller wars would be foisted upon us in the future. In 1986, the Army acknowledged that fact -- but still kept its head in the sand and prepared to fight across the north German plain; the Navy insisted it was 'blue water' and the USAF was prepared to take on Migs once again.

By 1990 it was glaringly obvious that the USSR was not going to be threat for a long time if ever again -- and all the Services did nothing to adapt (or, very little to do so...). Preparations to fight the most likely kinds of war were ignored pretty much by all the services.

We got caught up short and had better admit that -- or we're likely to repeat the failure to adapt.
...The following ops were just the opposite - we didn't understand the effects required.
Worse than that -- we didn't know how to apply the effect once we figured out we'd been suckered by Saddam.
It should not be a zero sum game... IE, having the ability to dominate at the high end with "transformational forces" should not exclude having the capability to do a manpower-intensive lower end COIN war... we need to maintain a spectrum of capabilities.
We can agree on that, we need a full spectrum capbility in all services -- which means the USAF needs to boost up AFSOC.
...If the nation can't afford both, then maybe we should avoid COIN ops/nation building-if you're not willing to do it right/spend the money to do it right, then you shouldn't do it at all...
I think we can afford it but Congress does like the big ticket items; jobs for the boys in multiple districts (also a part of the pre 9/22 stupidity and still a problem). The real question is will the voters put up with the sustained effort required for COIN efforts -- because they're long dirty slogs and that isn't going to change.
...Clearly we must be able to protect our survival and vital interests, which typically won't involve COIN but more high intensity conflict.
As has been said here by many and often; we can afford to lose a COIN effort, we cannot afford to lose a major war. No question about that in my mind. The question that needs to be asked though is how many COIN efforts can we afford to lose?
...So if we are funds limited, you have to make choices, and maybe the low end, nice to have capabilities fall out.
That low end isn't nice to have it's a part of being full spectrum -- and that "nice to have" is repeating the same flawed logic that got us stuck in Iraq.
I personally think that we can afford to maintain a reasonable high end force (380 F-22s, new bombers, B-2 replacement for the AF, 300 ships for the Navy, FCS for Army) and still afford the low end (COIN aircraft, increase size of SOF forces, maintain robust light infantry forces).
So do I but I'm not voting for a whole lot of money for the FCS -- and you left out the F35 which I think is every bit as valuable as the F22. Not to mention that we have half dozen International Agreements about the little bird.
...It seems that rejecting the RMA is just as invalid as thinking that the RMA's transformational charachteristics will apply to all wars.
I don't know anyone who's rejecting it. I do know a lot of us with scars are skeptical that anyone has all the answers...
If we failed in Iraq by thinking that it would follow the OEF model, won't we potentially fail in the next war by thinking that it will follow the 2005-2008 OIF model?
Nor is anyone suggesting that -- full spectrum; that's what you said and with that, most agree. Full spectrum means that if you hit an OIF like situation you at least know what to do -- ALL the Armed forces of the United States hit OIF and took 18 months to figure out what to do and another 18 months to turn the massive bureaucracy around and start doing things right -- we may not have that that luxury next time.
I agree wholeheartedly for the need to reform the interagency process. I'll be very curious to see if the next president does this... a new Goldwater Nichols for the interagency?
I hope not; G-N needs to die IMO. Nor will it be totally up to the Prez; Congress, the senior civilians and the AFGE will have a big say in that Interagency bit.
Not having been there I can't be certain, but folks who were involved in Anaconda at both the strategic/operational level (in the CAOC) as well as the tactical level (some of the first A-10s on scene) all have said that the Army and AF were NOT well coordinated prior to Anaconda. While Col McMasters' statements about UAV surveillance may be true, I don't think the AF was ready at all for Anaconda. It seems that both services are at fault- the Army for not making sure the AF was ready to support/wanting the support, and the AF for not making sure they knew what the Army had planned and lining up the proper support. Not our joint forces finest hour...
Anaconda was an equal opportunity screwup; most everyone participating in that fiasco erred. In fairness to all of them, almost everybody was doing stuff they'd never done for real before.

More importantly, they were doing stuff they hadn't even trained for -- or thought about. A repetition of that is what McMaster is trying to preclude.