Strategy and change over time

[William F. Owen]

Wilf, normally the only place that DOS gets involved in military doctrine is if someone asks their opinion. It happened in the lead up to 3-24 but that is the only case I know of.

...so that would pretty much support my assertion that Doctrine and Strategy are not related in any way we can learn from.

On another note: There is a classic Military Review article from about 1980 entitled "Doctrine, Not Dogma" which sums up what ought to be. Finally, in this regard, let me summarize a comment from my first post on this topic - I call it Fishel's Law: Doctrine is written by slugs like us.

A link would be good if you find it.
... and you need to pretty smart to write good doctrine, but having said that there are not many examples. The British Army's Field Service Regulations, 1937 was for the most part, excellent - and no one ever read it!!

[Bob's World]

I've been heard to say that the role of the Reserve Component is to fight and win our nation's wars; and the role of the Active Component is to keep the lights on at the military bases inbetween said wars and to write doctrine about the last war.

Then go to our sad history of "first battles"; where that doctrine based on the last war meets the next war head to head...

Doctrine is an understanding of what right looks like based on the last case study, and it shapes how we will employ the miltary to implement strategy on the next case study. Historically our saving grace has been that those reserve component/draftee war fighters never got around to reading said doctirne, so they just fought the war they were in once they were mobilized and deployed, as opposed to trying to fight the last war.

The army really is a service of "doctrine nazis" though. I don't know how we break that. Look at the who's who of senior army leaders in WWII and you find a list of guys who received Marshall's stamp of approval at the infantry school as being the best doctrine guys. Little has changed. Our CTCs rewarded the conservative commander who could implement doctrine the most accurately and rigidly. Apply MDMP precisely and lose a battle, that's ok. Shortcut MDMP and win a battle and you got lucky.

When it comes to doctrine, the Army really just needs to take pill and relax a little.

[Ken White]

When it comes to doctrine, the Army really just needs to take pill and relax a little.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Er, well, maybe a drink and relax a little...

[Entropy]

Bob's World,

Good comment on the Reserve/Guard. I wonder though, how things will be different now that the Guard and especially Reserve is increasingly considered an operational reserve force.

[Bob's World]

Bob's World,

Good comment on the Reserve/Guard. I wonder though, how things will be different now that the Guard and especially Reserve is increasingly considered an operational reserve force.

Excellent point. As has been oft debated on this forum and others, how does the Army in particular and the services in general respond to this concept of "Irregular Warfare."

While there is talk of changing structures, changing training, etc, there is very little talk of taking a major top down review of what capability needs to be trained and ready on short notice for day to day use in the active force(arguably should be weighted toward IW mission set), and where we can assume some degree of risk and create other capabilities for important periodic events within the reserves (arguably more heavily weighted toward major theater conflicts with near peer competitors).

To me the answer is pretty clear. The active force we have is not the active force we need, and we are abusing the hell out of the reserve force today because of it. Often Big Army gets shot down in flames by the most powerful lobby in America (National Guard Association of the United States) when it trys to selfishly pad itself at the expense of the Guard, so really bad deals usually fall to the USAR. In this case, however, I don't believe that the Guard would push back on a plan that gave them more warfighter capability and lowered their mobilization OPTEMPO. West Pointers just don't see the road to glory being at the head of a LOGPAC convoy, I guess.

I've spent a good deal of time and have commanded on both sides of this debate...I watch with intererst to see how it all plays out.