Training the Operational Staff

[William F. Owen]

Couple of points occur to me reading this thread.

a.) Staffs exist to enable Command. That's it. That is all they do. No Commander, no Staff. You don't need staff to support any activity you do not directly command.

b.) Yes staffs are too big. They have been since about the 1950's. Most of what staffs do is utterly irrelevant, to the exercise of command.

c.) Why should a staff for a so-called COIN operation be any different from one concerned with Combat Operations? Command is Command. All the military functions are the same.

...yes I know there are lots of human, social and plain ego stuff that gets in the way, but progress comes from realising it.

[Fuchs]

I wonder whether the basic mistake was to send a staff for a three-star instead of sending a staff for an undersecretary of state who happened to have a three-star at his disposal.
The latter would have looked like six uniforms and about two dozen white collars, of course.

[Eden]

a.) Staffs exist to enable Command. That's it. That is all they do. No Commander, no Staff. You don't need staff to support any activity you do not directly command.

b.) Yes staffs are too big. They have been since about the 1950's. Most of what staffs do is utterly irrelevant, to the exercise of command.

c.) Why should a staff for a so-called COIN operation be any different from one concerned with Combat Operations? Command is Command. All the military functions are the same.

Hmmmm...I wish you were right. In the perfect world maybe, but in the real world, here is what staffs have become:

a. Staffs used to enable command by gathering information; now they enable command by filtering it. This means that staffs increasingly do things that used to be strictly in the realm of the commander - a trend partly set off by the multiplication of assistand and deputy commanders you find in many headquarters. Moreover, in Afghanistan, anyway, you have staffs routinely supporting activities they do not directly command. We don't own the territory like we would in a conventional slugfest. Instead, we have to coordinate lots of different players, military and civilian, international and host country, who don't have the personnel or expertise to do their own staffwork. This is the cost of unity of effort vice unity of command.

b. Right on.

c. All I can say is that every staff I have seen overseeing unconventional operations looks considerably different from its normal conventional template. Is that because we have lost the bubble? Maybe, but my sense is that the staff functions vary considerably, if only in emphasis. The air defense staff is zeroed out, as are most of the field artillery staff. Long range planning cells wither away, while PA, CA, MP, and others balloon. Info ops cells, however they are structured, gain in influence and size. Liaison cells metastasize and include a whole new range of skill sets, and odd creatures appear like political advisers, red teams, and the like. And don't even get me started on lawyers. This is because, no matter how much we chant 'war is war', the tasks that staffs have to perform in the clash of modern armies are different than the tasks they have to perform in trying to secure an area from insurgents. So, the staff will inevitably mutate, because not only are the military tasks different, but there are a slew of non-military tasks added to the workload.

And, as I have said, after a decade, we still do not prepare our staffs well to enter that environment.

[Blackjack]

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[Blackjack]

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The reason I am showing this list of the III Corps staff is to point out just what we are talking about when we speak of Corps level staff in the U.S. Army. This is a huge monster that makes my head hurt just looking at it. You can tell that a lot of it's function is to filter and at tiems isolate a Commanding General. Not only that, it is a fine example fo staff bloat. Look at the list! We have assistants to assistant assistants in it. Some of it seems more appropriate for garrison staff than Corps staff, yet it is in there. Maybe it is just my dumb inner NCO speaking here but these staffs seem highly bloated and barely managable, let alone trainable.

When I used to think of staff I thought more along the lines of the Battalion level, which is fairly big, but still managable. I think in such a large staff even the field grade officers get lost in the staff soup and it possibly leads to a mild form on staff neglect across the board at the corps level.



COA STATEMENT: ALL INFORMATION POSTED IS UNCLASSIFIED

[Tom Odom]

Wait until they are augmented for deployment

Tom

[William F. Owen]

Sorry I am tardy in reply. Lost the thread....

Hmmmm...I wish you were right. In the perfect world maybe, but in the real world, here is what staffs have become:

I accept that. This is not to say that someone should not try and sort it out. Staffs now essentially resemble soldiers carrying traffic cones, instead of rifles, because they are cheaper and are less dangerous in training.

a. Staffs used to enable command by gathering information; now they enable command by filtering it. This means that staffs increasingly do things that used to be strictly in the realm of the commander - a trend partly set off by the multiplication of assistand and deputy commanders you find in many headquarters.

OK, but there why is it such a stretch to provide the commander with the information he needs to make effective decisions?

c. All I can say is that every staff I have seen overseeing unconventional operations looks considerably different from its normal conventional template. Is that because we have lost the bubble?

I suggest the bubble has been lost. There are some excellent articles in the British Army review based on a year long study of command and staffs, that essentially shows that modern staff are substantially self feeding processes, that "do stuff cos they do stuff."

[jcustis]

There are some excellent articles in the British Army review based on a year long study of command and staffs, that essentially shows that modern staff are substantially self feeding processes, that "do stuff cos they do stuff."

We call those self-licking ice cream cones in the Marines, and they somehow seem to excel at the self-licking part, but not before dripping all over everyone else and making a major mess.

[Red Rat]

Interesting thread. My perspective is as a senior staff (big fish) in a one star HQ (small pond) starting the long run up to deployment.

As a HQ we constantly fight the friction of just being - and there is a lot of friction. Resources are very tight and we spend a lot of time trying to get resources and plan training in a very turbulent arena. When not doing this we are trying to:

Understand what to do with all our new staff. The HQ has grown considerably in the last 2 - 4 years, but processes and procedures have not necessarily changed. Configuration in-theatre is very different to that out, we are now trying to mirror in theatre set-ups and TTPs as much as we can.

Intellectually equip ourselves for the challenges ahead - lots of reading and study.

Try and organise training for ourselves and our units that is appropriate to our next deployment, understanding that:

We cannot create Afghanistan in NW Europe
Our exercises are short
The kit we have now is different from the kit we deploy with
We will be considerably augmented when we deploy

I think that our three biggest challenges as an HQ are:

To understand COIN and the environment we will be operating in.
To identify and develop best staff practice; working smart with the extra staff we have, not just adding extra staff process...
To incorporate external agencies into our training as much as possible.

We do this knowing that the staff we have now will not be the staff we deploy with and the situation will undoubtedly have changed again by the time we get there.

It is however a big step forward for us. We are now trying to do the same stuff (produce military effect), the same way (same terminology, same TTPs, same staff processes) in a different context (training not ops). Previously we prepped for ops, deployed, came back, learnt (but did not necessarily apply) lessons and then went back to fighting 3rd Shock Army for another 24 months until we had to start again

[Red Rat]

And I do think that in most HQs there are now too many staff, badly organised and poorly focused with the net result that HQs 'staff' but do not :
effectively support units
or
enable commanders to command.

Rant over!

[William F. Owen]

I

To understand COIN and the environment we will be operating in.
To identify and develop best staff practice; working smart with the extra staff we have, not just adding extra staff process...
To incorporate external agencies into our training as much as possible.

Rat mate. Don't want to chuck a thundie in the mess, but could I sum up the above as, "trying to work out how a staff supports the commander in counter-insurgency operations?"

Am I over simplifying the problem?

[Kiwigrunt]

Here's an interesting little read on organisations and staffs. Also touches on 'self licking ice-cream cone' syndrome.

[Red Rat]

Rat mate. Don't want to chuck a thundie in the mess, but could I sum up the above as, "trying to work out how a staff supports the commander in counter-insurgency operations?"

Am I over simplifying the problem?

I think that sums me up!

Our Boss is quite clear on what he wants, however there is a lot of clutter. Just because we can communicate from the front line to No 10 Downing St it appears to be a growing trend to say that we should; in particular the ability of decision makers to make decisions at a lower level is increasingly erroded. We do not necessarily fight against this as hard as we should because we (the military) are a conservative organisation, like conformity and seem to have an increasing intolerance to risk. Therefore more staffing process shares the burden of military decision making, lessens risk and increases the number of staff required. More staff = more jobs = more prestige... Oh what a glorious war!
Additionally because we (UK military) have a strong anti-intellectual bias and are not yet comfortable with COIN our officers tend to be more comfortable with process, so we end up with lots of process, this instead of going to first principles and developing a process that is fit for purpose - "supporting the commander in counter-insurgency operations".

[Eden]

Rat mate. Don't want to chuck a thundie in the mess, but could I sum up the above as, "trying to work out how a staff supports the commander in counter-insurgency operations?"

Now that raises the question: What is the role of the commander in COIN? My observation of an American two-star and a British three-star in Afghanistan was that they had very different conceptions of their roles.

Both did battlefield circulation, and both considered themselves the 'decision makers' for the command. The differences were:

1. The American felt very comfortable making decisions for his subordinate commanders, routinely requiring that company-level operations be approved by him. The Brit did not.
2. The Brit described himself as a 'precision guided munition' and routinely made himself available for interaction with locals, international actors, NGOs, etc., if it contributed to mission accomplishment. He did however, require meticulous preparation for such engagements, which proved to be a heavy staff burden. The American hated doing such things and routinely left those types of engagements to his subordinates.
3. The American wanted routine, twice-daily, detailed briefings on - well, everything. The Brit only wanted to be briefed by exception - when things changed, when things were going off the rail, when certain milestones were reached.
4. The Brit's Chief of Staff was a decision maker, more important than the various deputy commanders. The American's Chief was an office manager whose role was to assist the deputy commanders in making decisions.

This is related to the thread because the different command styles inevitably impacted the size, shape, and focus of the staff - both staffs were, by the way, simultaneously bloated, undermanned, and undermined by the need to continuously rotate in augmentees.