DImE, PmESII and now MIDLIFE

[GatorLHA2]

At a SO/LIC conference sponsored by NDIA in DC last Winter, a SOCOM brief introduced a new acronym MIDLIFE as an expanded version of DImE to illustrate the instruments of national power that SOCOM considered using against terrorism and insurgencies.

The additional letters L, I, and F stand for Law Enforcement, Information Warfare and Financial actions.

This makes sense. You need Law Enforcement to take down cells and support structure in nations where military force is inappropriate. Information Warfare is certainly valid. And actions in, with, and by Financial institutions are necessary to detect, track and act against the enemy's finances.

[Jedburgh]

I can't believe its been nearly a month and noone has taken the bait to make a joke about a MIDLIFE Crisis...

The acronym is is included in FM 3-07.22 Counterinsurgency Ops, dated Oct 04.

Counterinsurgency is those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency (JP 1-02). It is an offensive approach involving all elements of national power; it can take place across the range of operations and spectrum of conflict. It supports and influences an HN’s IDAD program. It includes strategic and operational planning; intelligence development and analysis; training; materiel, technical, and organizational assistance; advice; infrastructure development; tactical-level operations; and many elements of PSYOP. Generally, the preferred methods of support are through assistance and development programs. Leaders must consider the roles of military, intelligence, diplomatic, law enforcement, information, finance, and economic elements (MIDLIFE) in counterinsurgency.

Yes, it makes sense. But what is its practical value? There is no real discussion of its use as an analysis or planning tool. Lots of vague generalizations, but little to no guidance as to a useful methodology for fusing all those aspects together in strategic ops. We can come up with new acronyms and models all day long - in the end, all that matters is their practical application in analysis, planning and/or execution.

As a side-note, Appendix F in the manual, Intel Analysis Tools and Indicators, is so incredibly base-line and vague as to be virtually useless.

Compare FM 3-07.22 to the British Army Manual on Counterinsurgency Ops - Strategic and Operational Guidelines (the one I have is dated Jul 01), and it really comes off as the poor cousin.

[DDilegge]

Efing no. There are many DoD organizations and defense related contractors that are running a "cottage industry" based on solving problems by renaming, reinventing or otherwise throwing out the baby with the bathwater simply because "old" must be "bad".

Much of it is smoke and mirrors. Current doctrine, if one should actually read it, covers all the issues many of the new acronyms, concepts and transformation efforts are hyping. Effects Based Operations based on Operational Net Assessment is but one example. Effects based? Of course, that is what warfare is all about and we have been doing it since day one. Operational Net Assessment? A pipe dream beyond all pipe dreams. When we will realize we will never have the 100% solution (intelligence) and acknowledge the fog of war?

I would much rather see our resources applied to the here and now in solving operational and tactical issues confronting our troopers fighting a global war against a relatively low-tech and adaptive enemy.

To my friends and associates working transformational issues I enjoin you to pick up the morning news rag – read it – and then defend some of our ill-conceived DoD efforts. I am sure there are some good efforts there (JIACG is one) – but many are self-licking ice cream cones that only benefit those with a ‘vested’ interest…

On Edit - the JIACG stands for the Joint Interagency Coordination Group...

[Jedburgh]

Much of it is smoke and mirrors. Current doctrine, if one should actually read it, covers all the issues many of the new acronyms, concepts and transformation efforts are hyping. Effects Based Operations based on Operational Net Assessment is but one example. Effects based? Of course, that is what warfare is all about and we have been doing it since day one. Operational Net Assessment? A pipe dream beyond all pipe dreams. When we will realize we will never have the 100% solution (intelligence) and acknowledge the fog of war?

Here's another point of view on EBO:

Counterinsurgency Effects-Based Ops in Dense Urban Terrain

Major General Pete Chiarelli, Commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas, deployed America’s First Team to serve as part of the MND-B in Baghdad for OIF II from March 2004 until March 2005.

“Task Force Baghdad” conducted full-spectrum effects-based operations (EBO) in a city of 200 square miles packed with six to seven million people. Its mission was to “conduct full-spectrum operations focused on stability and support operations and to secure key terrain in and around Baghdad, supported by focused and fully integrated information [IO] and civil-military operations, in order to enable the progressive transfer of authority to the Iraqi people, their institutions and a legitimate Iraqi national government.”

At its largest (just before the January 2005 Iraqi national elections), TF Baghdad had 12 US brigade-sized elements, 62 US battalions, 322 US companies, 3 Iraqi brigades, 7 Iraqi battalions and 58 Iraqi companies, totaling more than 40,000 Coalition Soldiers.

[DDilegge]

Here's another point of view on EBO:

Counterinsurgency Effects-Based Ops in Dense Urban Terrain

I read this interview and an article the general authored. I also listened to his speech to NDIA. What 1st CAV did right was identify five lines of operations and utilized IO in support of achieving the desired effects along those five lines. Hardly a revolutionary new breakthrough in fighting COIN or conducting SASO.

I maintain the EBO crowd is taking the whole matter way too far - many are betting the farm in an attempt to create an Operational Net Assessment that provides perfect data on effects at any given time. This includes the enemy and non-combatants and links social and physical infrastructure. Setting up an effects cell within a command is one thing, attempting to build an automated ONA that replaces commander's intuition is another. Reliance on such an ONA will result in a slowing of the decision-making process while a commander and his staff await the ONA output. This can hardly replace a decisive decision based on a commander's knowledge and experience.

1st CAV's intelligence was HUMINT heavy (no surprises there) and they worked through the fog of war. They also used some newer collaboration tools (Command Post of the Future for one), but CPOF is what it is advertised as - a collaboration tool, not an automated ONA.

I would invest resources in training and education before taking the EBO based on ONA concept any further.

[Bill Moore]

I despise self-licking ice-cream cones as much as any of us, but if you look at EBO as an approach to solving complex problems it definitely has its utility. I agree with your comments on the ONA and the complex software systems that they’re developing to support EBO, because as you stated this makes EBO a canned response, not a dynamic response.

Some of the lamer comments I heard from EBO trained personnel:

1. During a planning effort I ask the EBO guru what nodes he identified to date, and his response was they were still waiting on the software to be developed! I just about fell out of my chair, I couldn’t believe we were suffering operational paralysis waiting on some techno geek contractor, who knew nothing about what we’re dealing with, to come up a binary answer system to the problems we were dealing with on a daily basis.

2. We can’t make progress, because the ONA isn’t complete yet. (once again we're on hold waiting on contractors, instead of using the knowledge and inuition we already have)

3. These are the objectives and effects that SOCOM are using, so they must be right! Yep, we can use generic objectives and effects, and a computer that identifies the nodes, and this will work everywhere regardless of the local variables. This is great, no thinking required.

There are several more examples that are equally funny or disappointing depending on your point of view.

Now I’ll rush to the defense of what EBO could be without the computers and software. First, I disagree that this methodology has been widely used in the past, I saw no sign of it in my readings of history from WW1 through the Vietnam War. We didn’t use it when we invaded Iraq, and we probably would have been much better off if we did. Instead we used MDMP (military decision making process) and focused our efforts on the alleged center of gravity, which was Saddam’s Regime. The regime collapsed, then we entered the decisive phase (transition to peace) and didn’t have a plan. If we used EBO, and realized one of our objectives was a democratic government installed, we would have built a plan to support the effects to achieve that objective, but we didn’t, and we’re still picking up the pieces.

I think the philosophy behind EBO is sound at the strategic and operational level, and it is “supposed” to integrate interagency efforts, not just military lines of operations, so this is where the DIME+ gets operationalized.

I agree we have to get a handle on all these contracting thieves that only rob our soldiers of war fighting money. Just as bad they impede our efforts in other ways by establishing a bureaucracy that kills common sense, because they're tools and theories are about protecting their jobs, i.e. the self licking ice-cream cone. I'm important because I say I am, and by the way I have powerful friends in the Senate. I bet Clausewitz didn't address this in his writtings :-).

[Hacksaw]

As for this assumption:

"Instead we used MDMP (military decision making process) and focused our efforts on the alleged center of gravity, which was Saddam’s Regime. The regime collapsed, then we entered the decisive phase (transition to peace) and didn’t have a plan. If we used EBO, and realized one of our objectives was a democratic government installed, we would have built a plan to support the effects to achieve that objective, but we didn’t, and we’re still picking up the pieces."

It is just flat out wrong... there is a whole litany of reasons for why the post combat phase of OIF I went poorly... However, not identifying Phase IV as a critical phase is not included in that list... there was no shortage of planners questioning "where's the beef" regarding Phase IV... just as there is no shortage of planners who argue passionately that very detailed plans for Phase IV were developed, but either ignored or not promulgated based on command decisions... I can state definitively that by May 03, the 101st AASLT had published and were implementing the Long-term Strategy for stabilization of Northern Iraq, and before that had implemented stability lines of operations in Mar 03 that were subsequently formalized by the May 03 Plan.

That plan, even before it was finalized, was used by the Div CDR as a forcing mechanism with every high ranking officer/civilian who ventured into the Mosul Palace... each took a copy of the plan with them as seed to spur others to write their own (my own conjecture as to his intent)...

IMHO... the problem wasn't a failure to identify the importance of Phase IV... rather an unwillingness on the part of SECDEF and those closes to him (up and down) to acknowledge the possibility that the locals might not all be joyous-joyous to greet the conquering heroes of the Coalition...

We are probably all still too close to have a full-picture, but I can state without any reservation and with complete confidence that EBO wasn't the solution to a poorly coordinated phase IV

Live well and row

[Bill Moore]

We don't need the unnecessarily bureaucratic EBO process to develop objectives. Military planners have always developed objectives, and subordinates have synchronized their operations to accomplish those objectives.

I don't recall the start of phase IV in OIF the same way as Hacksaw, but as he stated we were probably too close to the problem to see things clearly. Hard to believe, but that was six years ago now.

After our unit secured our objective in early APR 03, we briefed retired BG Gardner (sp?) who was in charge of the reconstruction effort (phase IV) before Bremmer came in. In response to our questions requesting guidance and money to stand up government services, the response was that they were working on it. So while a shell of a plan may have existed, it apparently was coordinated with the interagency nor resourced. Cdrs at the local level took the initiative and did what they "thought" was right in lieu of guidance and common objectives to work towards.

In the fog of war we empower leaders at the lowest levels to make decisions as we should, but they would have prefered to make decisions that supported known and approved objectives from higher instead of wagging it on our own. Of course, after a few weeks guidance came (maybe more than we wanted), and we adjusted. Not the best way to run a war, but it seems to be the historical norm.

[Hacksaw]

We don't need the unnecessarily bureaucratic EBO process to develop objectives. Military planners have always developed objectives, and subordinates have synchronized their operations to accomplish those objectives.

I don't recall the start of phase IV in OIF the same way as Hacksaw, but as he stated we were probably too close to the problem to see things clearly. Hard to believe, but that was six years ago now.

After our unit secured our objective in early APR 03, we briefed retired BG Gardner (sp?) who was in charge of the reconstruction effort (phase IV) before Bremmer came in. In response to our questions requesting guidance and money to stand up government services, the response was that they were working on it. So while a shell of a plan may have existed, it apparently was coordinated with the interagency nor resourced. Cdrs at the local level took the initiative and did what they "thought" was right in lieu of guidance and common objectives to work towards.

In the fog of war we empower leaders at the lowest levels to make decisions as we should, but they would have prefered to make decisions that supported known and approved objectives from higher instead of wagging it on our own. Of course, after a few weeks guidance came (maybe more than we wanted), and we adjusted. Not the best way to run a war, but it seems to be the historical norm.

Bill,
I couldn't agree more and I'm not sure how we differ in our rememberences... We got a similar shrug of the shoulders from Garner then went to work... Since I have been assured by those who were planners at ARCENT that in fact a detailed plan did exist... I just knew that at the Div level we had zero visibility of a plan, were never directed to write a supporting plan, hence we did what good units do (and like you said)... figured it out as best we could and got on with it -- and every bubba who left our HQ took a copy...

I can remember the email I wrote to CENTCOM planners that I had worked with regarding AFG the previous year...
"What the hell do you guys want us to do here? The stores are open, food is on the shelf, the police are corrupt, and their is sporadic gun play in the evenings... in other words -- Tampa. When are you going to start pulling people out 'cuse this will turn south quick"

When those same, very logical and sensible people only 8 mths prior, came back with gobbeligock - I sensed things were not going to go nearly as smoothly from that point onward...

Even the blind squirrel finds the occassional nut!

Live well and row

[Klugzilla]

I just wanted to mention two minor things. First, FMI 3-07.22 is no longer doctrine. While a good book that filled a tactical doctrine gap (it hit the street in late 2004), it expired in 2006 (the expiration date was one of the key differences for FMIs, although we will not have any more FMIs). Second, MIDLIFE should appear in the new JP 3-22, which is the new FID joint pub. I don't much like it personally, as everything there can fit into DIME pretty comfortably, but the SOCOM folks like it and it is supplementary to DIME. Thus, a commander can use it when appropriate and just use DIME when appropriate.

[Jedburgh]

.....differences for FMIs, although we will not have any more FMIs). Second, MIDLIFE should appear in the new JP 3-22, which is the new FID joint pub....

For those with CAC/.mil access the draft JP 3-22 Foreign Internal Defense, dated 26 Jun 09, is available here.