The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[Rob Thornton]

Hey Marc,

Good comment, and you are right, I did mean artificial as man made - more specifically - not necessarily required for the system to operate, and possibly contrary to the system to operate at its best (more/most effective).

Constraints could be to the benefit (looking for a specific tolerance) or the detriment of the desired outcome (wrong tolerance and/or out of tolerance relative to the needs). The ability to affect these constraints (policies, biases, etc.) could be within a service's or organization's ability while others (in this case particularly those that are legislated and politically sensitive) may be beyond its ability to affect. They could also be hard to root out, but I think begins with developing an understanding of how the system really operates relative to how we desire it to operate, and what the effects are of our constraints. Then leadership can take better steps in modifying the system - hopefully adding some kind of measure to see if its now producing within the desired tolerances, and if in fact the new tolerance fits the actual requirement.

I'm sure that sounds mechanistic, but it is a "production system", and the bigger the system (be it PME, recruiting and assessment, universities, training programs,etc.), the more the output is going to look like a "product". The smaller the system (e.g. down at a company or BN level), the more control you have over the output, and the more it can be tailored to specific conditions - even to do as a mentor of mine recommends "putting round pegs in round holes".

The question is how good do you want that product to be relative to the requirement? - again, in this case I think that means defining the tasks you want your people to be capable of executing to reasonable standard at a specific time (position and/or grade) - the product in this case is individual leader capability. If you cannot name and define the tasks then the output (capability) probably does not vary much from where you were - and you are probably limited on your ability to affect the constraints and provide rationale for change.

I also needed to make a clarification on what I meant by identify and mitigate risk - I was referring to the ability to see the broader range of implications or outcomes associated with an action and then consider if it is the right or best possible action, and if it is, then to prepare to deal with the outcome. I bring this up because I have seen "mitigation" used to mean "avoid" which is not what I had in mind, and often results in greater risk to mission and those conducting it.

Best, Rob

[marct]

Hi Rob,

Constraints could be to the benefit (looking for a specific tolerance) or the detriment of the desired outcome (wrong tolerance and/or out of tolerance relative to the needs). The ability to affect these constraints (policies, biases, etc.) could be within a service's or organization's ability while others (in this case particularly those that are legislated and politically sensitive) may be beyond its ability to affect. They could also be hard to root out, but I think begins with developing an understanding of how the system really operates relative to how we desire it to operate, and what the effects are of our constraints. Then leadership can take better steps in modifying the system - hopefully adding some kind of measure to see if its now producing within the desired tolerances, and if in fact the new tolerance fits the actual requirement.

I'm sure that sounds mechanistic, but it is a "production system", and the bigger the system (be it PME, recruiting and assessment, universities, training programs,etc.), the more the output is going to look like a "product".

For a while now, I've been fascinated by how we, as a species, reify (aka "turn into as 'thing'") our interpersonal interactions and ascribe characteristics to that reification. What truly fascinates me is not that we do this but, rather, that as part of the process of doing it, we have to forget that we have done it. I would really love to see an MRI-based study on the neurological effects of becoming part of an organizational culture, since I suspect that there are actually reflections of that process in brain re-wiring.

That, BTW, is not a tangent - it is directly related to your comment about this sounding 'mechanistic". What I am getting at with it, is that whatever socio-technical systems (STSs) we create, they will have physical (and neurological) effects on the people who are part of them that will condition the probabilities of those systems being able to "produce" people capable of performing certain types of tasks. In effect, these STSs act as additional boundary criteria for natural selection.

The smaller the system (e.g. down at a company or BN level), the more control you have over the output, and the more it can be tailored to specific conditions - even to do as a mentor of mine recommends "putting round pegs in round holes".

Yup, and one of the reasons is actually tied in to the "span of control" problem, which is a sub-set of communications restrictions. Think about it this way: if I know the men under my command from having lived and worked with them, I have a much more nuanced understanding of them that if I only have their service records.

But, in any organization over a certain size (~1-2k), I have to use an exceedingly sparse and formalized system (service records) in order top "know" them. This "knowledge storage/transmission system", in turn, is designed to highlight minimum factors that, earlier in its life cycle, were deemed to be "important" (there's always a time lag, sometimes decades or even centuries long in this). Now this type of system is designed to abstract perceived "core information" about a person and use a standardized form to do so; it is a "mechanistic" system in the sense of interchangeable parts, and it really cannot guarantee "production" of anything more than satisficing behaviour (i.e. minimal standards; they haven't failed - yet).

But if we are talking about producing highly adaptive perceptions in people and rapid problem solving in messy problem space, that is not amenable to a system designed to produce satisficing behaviour in a "clean" problem space. If we want to do this, then we have to use a system that is differently designed, and that is where I was tagging into the strategies discussion of using "mentors". Now, a mentorship model is based on an apprenticeship system that derives out of para-kinship systems. It is much more flexible, generally has much higher minimal standards and, at the same time, tends to be much more labour intensive simply because a lot of time has to be spent working with an individual rather than an amorphous group. BTW, this ties back in to that span of control and communications problem thingy.

The question is how good do you want that product to be relative to the requirement? - again, in this case I think that means defining the tasks you want your people to be capable of executing to reasonable standard at a specific time (position and/or grade) - the product in this case is individual leader capability. If you cannot name and define the tasks then the output (capability) probably does not vary much from where you were - and you are probably limited on your ability to affect the constraints and provide rationale for change.

I'd have to say yes and no. Defining tasks and desired standards is a crucial capability, but that defines what is considered to be satisficing behaviour. In that sense, yes it is crucial, since it is defining the minimum acceptable level of accomplishment in a standardized form. Okay, that works well enough, but it can only capture the predictable, and about half of what the strategy implies it wants to develop is reactions to the unpredictable. See the problem ?

Now there certainly are ways of defining tasks, broadly construed, to capture the, hmmm, let's call it the "predictable unexpected"; that, after all, is one of the reasons for having wargames. But how do we "train" people for this? Standardized training only works with standardized problem spaces so, ideally, we use a melding of standardized training and highly individual education / experience. From some of the stuff I have done, I would estimate that about 80% of the required changes lie in the individual student's head; their perceptions and knowledge of themselves - sort of a "know thyself" on steroids.

In the strategy document, "mentoring" is used as a rhetorical silver bullet to get around this problem, which is why i can only comment in general terms on the document until I start to see some operational details.

Cheers,

Marc

[William F. Owen]

So many things are wrong with this it's hard to know where to begin

....and on our assessment that the future operational environment will be even more uncertain, complex, and competitive as hybrid threats challenge us across the full spectrum of operations.

More uncertain? More complex? Where's the evidence and so what? This is drivel and it gets worse:

Our enemies – regular and irregular – will be well armed, well trained, well equipped, and often ideologically inspired. We must overmatch their training with our training and with the development of our leaders. We must counter their ideologies with our history and with a sustained commitment to our values.

When was not being well trained an option, and ideology IS POLITICS!!! History is not one the problems.

All this paper had to do was say why good leadership HAS ALWAYS BEEN CRITICAL in ALL WARFARE and how the US was going to fix the problem. Instead it decided to invent a set of reasons as to why the problem didn't need fixing before, but now... SUDDENLY... it does!

Basically it starts bad and gets worse. I could go on, but I see little point.

[Steve the Planner]

Wilf:

Sure does set the bar low on the intel and expectations side.

Assume we go into each future complex problem set without a clue or goal, and that our opponent (who sometimes didn't graduate an equivalent of high school and controls no satellites or PhD farms) knows everything.

Where is the challenge to get ahead of background understandings, to develop responses, including non-military ones, before the problem, whether military or not, is dumped in DoD's lap as the agency of last resort for actions beyond US borders?

If I agreed with the above, I would, as an organization, start thinking about defining my enemy as internal, and beginning to understand how to out-game them before they game me.

At that point, none of it is about anything within a reasonable scope of a Department of Defense.

Steve

[William F. Owen]

Wilf:

Sure does set the bar low on the intel and expectations side.

If you cannot get the high bar then set the bar low

Assume we go into each future complex problem set without a clue or goal, and that our opponent (who sometimes didn't graduate an equivalent of high school and controls no satellites or PhD farms) knows everything.

Complex problems? I think you mean conflicts or wars, don't you? What does history show you? How did the US Army fail in Vietnam, Korea, and Mogadishu? Those alone are reasons for upping the bar... and it never was. So why now?

Where is the challenge to get ahead of background understandings, to develop responses, including non-military ones, before the problem, whether military or not, is dumped in DoD's lap as the agency of last resort for actions beyond US borders?

The challenge is the job. Nothing is more difficult than warfare. Non-military responses should not be something done by the military.

Seriously, the paper is predicated on a series of mythical problems. I know why it is doing this, but its a bad thing to do. Why invent a whole range of imagined complexities when the evidence shows the normal everyday conflict is in fact the problem most are finding very hard to imagine and this cannot prepare for.

[Steve the Planner]

Wilf:

Right. I just got finished jotting a response to one of Tom Ricks' Iraq the Unravellings re: a briefing at USIP by MG Caslen who just returned from MND-North en route to Tradoc.

No sense from him that he was confused or overwhelmed by any complex problems. I was very comfortable that he knows what he is looking at, and how to approach/learn/respond to what comes along.

Here's my post:

"Today, MG Caslen, who just left command of my old stomping grounds, MND-North (Northern Iraq), gave a very good account of things.

He explained that at first he was highly reluctant to back out of Ninewa, seeking a SOFA Waiver. Odierno convinced him to try, and he was very pleased with the result---Iraqi Army did step up, proud to take responsibility for their country.

Is it perfect? No. And it wasn't before June 30. In fact, last week, Salah ad Din's lead anti-terrorist investigator was blown up in Tikrit with his deputies.

But, according to MG Caslen, the provincial election made a big difference in the effectiveness of governance in the North. The post-2005 provincial governments were weak and ineffective (the Sunni Boycott impact), but, according to the American guy most likely to know, the new officials are more focused, engaged, and respected; side-benefits? Violence down.

Diyala has been a substantially unstable place since.... the days of the Silk Road. Many confluences that persistently result, over time and history, in periods of substantial instability. Iran border. A gateway in the Qom to Mecca religious path. Mixed populations: Sunni, Shia, Feehly Kurds, Kurds, Turkomen.MEK.

The KRG issue remains unresolved as it has since the 1920's when the idea of a Kurdish State emerged in advance of the organization and resources to establish/maintain it. Times always change, but historical opportunities only come and go.

Beyond Iraq, the influence of neighbors can be a curse and a blessing, but Turkish/KRG relations are strengthening, according to the General, with good results.

Tom's pictures from Diyala hit anyone in the gut, and they are, in most instances, intended to have that effect. But, behind the radicals, there are 28 million moms, dads and kids who just want to get on with life. Maybe their odds will improve AFTER the next elections...

Not perfect, but my enjoyment of Iraqis I met, and respect for their challenges, leads me to continue to cross my fingers for them (and sometimes hold my breath)."

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

One of the first things I discovered in December 2007 was that the provincial boundary maps were all screwed up, and the brigades were aligned to battlespace, and not provincial boundaries.

Might be fine for war, but a real problem for peace-building. Salah ad Din, for example was split among four different brigades---and each was getting into civ/mil stuff like provincial budget execution. Needed valet parking for all the mil leaders who wanted to get into the provincial governance building.

I spent six months figuring out the actual boundaries, and, by the time MG Caslen came in in Oct 2008, the brigades were redeployed by province.

So I sat at his brief looking at the slide that showed the Ninewa Brigade including Mahkmur, which the US thought for a long time was actually and formally a part of Irbil.

All I could think was that if you fight long enough for something, and it makes sense, the Army will do it, even if only in the last year. And a little quiet pride in my small contribution.

How does the saying go? Try everything until, at last, trying the right thing.

Steve