The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[William F. Owen]

Our doctrine is changing to meet the complexity and competitive nature of the environment in which we now must operate.

....but that is simply not true.
a.) It could be that the doctrine was always very poor and badly written. No one seems to want to ask that one.
b.) Warfare simply cannot get more complex and competitive than it was 600-1,000 years ago! - however the US Army can be less-skilled than it was in understanding the application of force for political purpose.

The vast majority of what is getting written is simply addressing imagined problems. I have yet to see a "So what" document that manages to get past that.

For example, battle command, the art of maneuvering forces and managing violence shifts toward mission command, to reflect the reality that the instrument of military power is also largely a national tool for doing many things traditionally outside the military’s purview.

So essentially you are saying people do not understand the application of military power? - Regular and Irregular Warfare are not mysteries. We know exactly what works and what does not. The only place confusion exists seems to be in Western Armies concepts and doctrine.

FM 3.0, describes full spectrum operations (FSO) as Offense, Defense, and Stability Operations, which means leaders must be grounded not only in the tactics, techniques and procedures of force on force, but also in integrating capabilities with others in a battlespace that’s increasingly crowded and transparent.

What capabilities and who is the crowd? How is the battlefield more transparent than it was in 1970?

Bill, not giving you a hard time for fun. I really struggle with this stuff as I see smart men telling me things that make no sense once I hear it, or see it written down.

[Infanteer]

Why does doctrine progressively get more complicated and misty - the estimate process is turning into a doctrinal thesis. I'm waiting for the Doctrine guy who chucks most of the manuals and is able to issue doctrinal pamphlets that can be carried by, issued to, read and understood by all leaders at all levels. When I show this stuff to my Sergeants, they laugh and say "whatever". Pretty bad when doctrine is spit out and not read by 95% of the target audience.

[Fuchs]

Armed services are bureaucracies. This explains a lot.
It explains prejudices, limited perception, the piling up of problems, red tape, slow reaction, rigidity - few problems really surprise you once you understand that armed services are bureaucracies.


There's a kind of solution.

Have an army. Observe how it turns into an inefficient bureacracy.
Take a selection of 100 high potential people, educate them and let them found a Marine Corps.
Let the Marine Corps take over the army's mission step by step.
Downsize the army to zero within 25 years. Don't transfer more than one selected per cent of army personnel to the MC.
Observe how it (the MC) turns into an inefficient bureacracy.
Take a selection of 100 high potential people, educate them and let them found an army.
(...)

[wm]

Why does doctrine progressively get more complicated and misty - the estimate process is turning into a doctrinal thesis. I'm waiting for the Doctrine guy who chucks most of the manuals and is able to issue doctrinal pamphlets that can be carried by, issued to, read and understood by all leaders at all levels. When I show this stuff to my Sergeants, they laugh and say "whatever". Pretty bad when doctrine is spit out and not read by 95% of the target audience.

Could it be that this advance on complexity is part of a self-fulfilling prophecy? We are being told that conducting COIN is the graduate level of military operations. If one accepts that premise, then the doctrine needed to execute "graduate-level" warfare must also be on the order of some Ph.D. dissertation in an area of arcane wisdom.

After slogging through the opening chapters of the FM, I concluded that its authors could have summed up design with the sentence, "Submit the environment to circumspection ere traveling some feet of space via muscular projection."
I also suspect that most folks on the ground who are performing successfully and not just reacting to what happens around them could express that one sentence summary much more succinctly: "Look before you leap."

[marct]

Still slogging through it, but I am getting increasingly frustrated by the way "uncertainty" is being used in such an uncritical, one might almost say "superstitious", manner.

[Infanteer]

Ahh...good ole uncertainty. I'm pretty sure Tuthmose III was uncertain as his chariots rumbled into Megiddo. Isn't uncertainty just a by-product of human (thus, not always rational or predictable) interaction. How is uncertainty new?

[wm]

Ahh...good ole uncertainty. I'm pretty sure Tuthmose III was uncertain as his chariots rumbled into Megiddo. Isn't uncertainty just a by-product of human (thus, not always rational or predictable) interaction. How is uncertainty new?

Uncertainty is most definitely not new. But the following may be worth pondering.

The more uncertainty one has, the more risk to which one is exposed. One way to reduce risk is to reduce uncertainty. I suspect that in an organizational milieu characterized by a low tolerance for risk (the organization is very risk averse), the reduction of uncertainty tends to assume a large role in the thinking of that organization's members.

On the move to Megiddo, Thutmose III may well have faced uncertainty about which road through the mountains was best to take, but the fact that he chose the narrow middle route seems to demonstrate that he was not risk averse.

[Red Leg]

While uncertainty is war is definitely not new, the things about which we are uncertain are: What are out national goals in Iraq and Afghanistan? When will the remaining components of national power start contributing? What is the military's endstate? Does the Global War on Terrorism have an end in sight, or will the military be deployed indefinitely? How long can our economy support the current spending in Iraq and Afghanistan? What will our nation's stance be if Iraq's elections go south or Maliki loses but refuses to give up power?

[Bill Jakola]

....but that is simply not true.
a.) It could be that the doctrine was always very poor and badly written. No one seems to want to ask that one.

William,

Your suggestion that our doctrine was not well written may have merit; let’s explore this. Measuring how well or poorly we developed doctrine requires us to understand the context. Thus for example, the 1993 FM 100-5 Operations captures the essence of this context question:

“Never static, always dynamic, the Army’s doctrine is firmly rooted in the realities of current capabilities. At the same time, it reaches out with a measure of confidence to the future. Doctrine captures the lessons of past wars, reflects the nature of war and conflict in its own time, and anticipates the intellectual and technological developments that will bring victory now and in the future.”

Now, just because the writers here intended to base their thinking on the past, current and future realities, does not mean they succeeded; and in retrospect, the validity of their doctrine (any doctrine) depends more on assumptions than intentions. Thus, we need to evaluate the validity of their assumptions.

....b.) Warfare simply cannot get more complex and competitive than it was 600-1,000 years ago! - however the US Army can be less-skilled than it was in understanding the application of force for political purpose.

This is where earlier doctrine writers may have come up short; for example, assuming certainty as the ability of technology to deliver us knowledge dominance -- the quality of firsts (see first, understand first, act first, and win decisively) – is not valid. But even here complexity is not new to our doctrine, as the following quote shows.

Chapter 1, page 1-1 of the 1993 FM 100-5; “Unlike the Cold War era when threats were measurable and, to some degree, predictable Army forces today are likely to encounter conditions of greater ambiguity and uncertainty. Doctrine must be able to accommodate this wider variety of threats.”

FM 5.0 seems to have assumptions of complexity, uncertainty, and continuous change. But let’s be clear; this appears as an acknowledgement of the nature of war and not a new aspect of war. War is war. Thus to say the operational environment is complex is not to say that war is more complex, it is just using the inherent complexity as an assumption to build doctrine.

Whereas, the increase may be in the competitive and transparent nature of the environment. Here we have some justification, as during the Cold War, we thought in terms of a bipolar world competition. Even though this was not completely accurate it did inform doctrine at least well enough to prevail in that conflict. But today our competition includes a number of near peers and other organizations below the nation-state like al Qaeda or a drug cartel. The transparency comes in the form of the 24 hour news cycle and the explosion of information available to almost anyone on the internet.

....So essentially you are saying people do not understand the application of military power? - Regular and Irregular Warfare are not mysteries. We know exactly what works and what does not. The only place confusion exists seems to be in Western Armies concepts and doctrine.

Perhaps you can draw this conclusion; and I do not deny it. But your conclusion is further than I am willing to go; because like I said, doctrine development depends on the context of the times. So instead of looking back to how well we did doctrine in the past I am purely focused on the validity of this current doctrine.

Bill Jakola

P. S. The March/April 2010 edition of Military Review has been posted online.

This issue includes the article "Field Manual 5-0: Exercising Command and Control in an Era of Persistent Conflict" by Colonel Clinton J. Ancker, III, U.S. Army, Retired, and Lieutenant Colonel Michael Flynn, U.S. Army, Retired. This article highlights the debut of the new manual.

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/Military...430_art005.pdf

[marct]

Hi Bill,

FM 5.0 seems to have assumptions of complexity, uncertainty, and continuous change. But let’s be clear; this appears as an acknowledgement of the nature of war and not a new aspect of war. War is war. Thus to say the operational environment is complex is not to say that war is more complex, it is just using the inherent complexity as an assumption to build doctrine.

That might have to been the intention of the authors, however that intention is not clearly expressed or presented by using a progressive tense in their verbs - e.g. "is becoming more complex", etc.

With the exception of Wilf who, as we all know is in deep and intimate contact with the Platonic aeon of Ideal Forms (), most of us are unable to make pronouncements about the "nature" of anything. we can talk about "our experience" (individual, institutional, national) of war, but when we start talking about the "nature of war", all we are able to do is map our boundaries characteristics (if we can even do that!). Even if we could a) access the Ideal Form of "war" and were b) able to communicate, then we would still have to say "This is where the current thing we call 'war' differs from the Ideal".

Far better, IMHO, to forget about trying to talk about an Ideal Type and, instead, use doctrine as a way of defining "our" perceptions of the important characteristics of what we a) are doing and b) think we will have to do in the future. Saying that war have become increasingly complex is, in this case, rather silly; far better to say that "we" have to handle more considerations (i.e X, Y and Z) than we did in the past.

Cheers,

Marc

ps. This is in light of a general caveat - I'm reading a piece right now that is so conceptually flawed and poorly written that I'm not even sure if it is written in English. By contrast, FM 5.0 is an absolutely brilliant work.

pps. No, Rob, it's not the piece you sent me

[Bill Jakola]

Hi Bill,



That might have to been the intention of the authors, however that intention is not clearly expressed or presented by using a progressive tense in their verbs - e.g. "is becoming more complex", etc.

Marc,

I did not find that quote in FM 5.0.

Bill Jakola

[marct]

Hi Bill,

The point being illustrated can also be made using the phrase "growing uncertainty", which is in the Foreward.

[Bill Jakola]

Hi Bill,

The point being illustrated can also be made using the phrase "growing uncertainty", which is in the Foreward.

Marc,

I don't mean to be pedantic but, uncertainty and complexity are different.

The use of growing uncertainty in the foreward seems to reflect the failure of our earlier assumptions like, if we build a force that can prevail in major combat operations then we will inherently have a force that can prevail in other types of operations; or that our technology will negate the fog of war.

Bill Jakola

[marct]

Hi Bill,

I don't mean to be pedantic but, uncertainty and complexity are different.

No worries . Yes, I know that they are different, but that wasn't my point. I probably should have spelled it out better, but what I was trying to say was that a change in focus, such as that put forward here and in other documents (such as the ACC etc.) which argues that factors X, Y and Z are changing (increasing, decreasing) is different from saying that those factors are part of the "nature" of something.

The use of growing uncertainty in the foreward seems to reflect the failure of our earlier assumptions like, if we build a force that can prevail in major combat operations then we will inherently have a force that can prevail in other types of operations; or that our technology will negate the fog of war.

I'm still working through how many different meanings I can find for how "uncertainty" is used in FM 5.0 (3 different meanings so far ). Still and all, reflecting the "failure" of earlier assumptions certainly is one of the meanings I've seen in it. But were they "failures" at the time they were made, and is "uncertainty" now being used as a catch phrase for "drat, don't know what will happen ?".

What I believe, and it's only a tentative hypothesis, happened was that the US military "got" "conventional" warfare down so well that everyone else said "nuts to this, we ain't playin' that game". The "failure of earlier assumptions" was, IMHO, a conflation of our old conceptualization of conventional warfare as "Warfare" (the Ideal Type). When our opponents said "nuts, we ain't playin' that game" and started to play another one instead, we were so locked into our mindset of "convention warfare" = "Warfare" (a logical error of confusing the specific with the general), that we started to look for convenient ways to say "Drat, we don't know what they are playing!" and glomed onto "complexity" and "uncertainty" because they are cool, hip and happening terms out of science (and they will sell to the politicians). As an indictaor of the plausibility of this, I would point to how GEN Van ripper was treated during Millennium Challenge.

I just did a search through FM 5.0, and do you realize that there is not a single reference to one of the most important concepts stemming from complexity science - emergence? as far as "uncertainty" is concerned, it is defined (1-7) as

Uncertainty is what is not known about a given situation or a lack of understanding of how a situation may evolve. Effective leaders accept that they conduct military operations in operational environments that are inherently uncertain.

Umm, that is way too limited and based solely on the perception of individuals. For example, an individual may be certain that X is Y and they may be totally wrong in that assumption. A truly effective leader also recognizes that they may well be mistaken in their assumptions about what is "true" - a point raised later on, but not included in the definition. The current definition places a "lack of understanding" only in the future....

Look, I'm getting exceedingly picky about implications of language and definitions, implications, etc. Probably over picky if truth be told . I know that one of the reasons I'm doing this is because I am dealing with a truly horrid piece of work right now (see my previous posts' pps), but another reason is that I "feel" (thumos or "gut knowledge") that this FM is setting people up to fail by trying to linearize a process that is inherently not linear. I need some time to figure out and be able to communicate where that "feeling" is coming from. Unfortunately, I am running ragged with other things (organizing a symposium, multiple concerts, writing, supervising theses, etc.) and I just haven't had the time to put that feeling into a coherent argument.

Cheers,

Marc

[William F. Owen]

With the exception of Wilf who, as we all know is in deep and intimate contact with the Platonic aeon of Ideal Forms (), most of us are unable to make pronouncements about the "nature" of anything.

Mate, more Aeon Flux than Platonic Ideal Forms!

Let me be clear. My thesis on THE NATURE of war and warfare, is that cannot become more complex, because they always were the almost always MOST COMPLEX things that human beings ever did.

....additionally I would suggest that the belief in complexity has created an erroneous understanding of the problem which continues to compound itself.

So let's provide doctrine with achievable aims, using simple and clear language, based strongly in evidence and very little in belief.

[William F. Owen]

Bill, thanks for that, and while not wishing to nit-pick,

“Unlike the Cold War era when threats were measurable and, to some degree, predictable Army forces today are likely to encounter conditions of greater ambiguity and uncertainty. Doctrine must be able to accommodate this wider variety of threats.”

But Vietnam had clearly shown this to be a faulty assumption at the height of the Cold-War.

FM 5.0 seems to have assumptions of complexity, uncertainty, and continuous change. But let’s be clear; this appears as an acknowledgement of the nature of war and not a new aspect of war. War is war. Thus to say the operational environment is complex is not to say that war is more complex, it is just using the inherent complexity as an assumption to build doctrine.

Warfare is about the complex thing humans can do. That is my point. It always has been. It cannot become more complex. It always was.

But today our competition includes a number of near peers and other organizations below the nation-state like al Qaeda or a drug cartel. The transparency comes in the form of the 24 hour news cycle and the explosion of information available to almost anyone on the internet.

When was this not the case - as concerns non-nation threats?
24 hour news cycles merely effect the rate and frequency of reporting. NOT IT's NATURE!!
The sheer proliferation of differing messages makes them less relevant. The power of the information age is the faith based belief in it, by some and not something grounded in evidence.