TRADOC Losing Its Edge?

[Rob Thornton]

From Lt. Gen. David Barno quoted in today's Best Defense blog by Tom Ricks:

Quote:
I recently heard a senior Army leader describe assignments in the institutional Army as 'taking a knee' -- an astonishing put down reflective of this troubling shift in the Army culture. Remember -- this is the part of the Army that has responsibility for the doctrine, education, training and leader development upon which the successes of recent years were built. Many talented officers now avoid these key jobs, and civilian contractors are often taking their place -- to include a number of instructors at the Army's command and staff college, for example.

For the rest, click on:

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts...ot_the_villain

I can't say for sure they are avoiding the assignments, some of it is due to operating force demands. However a hole is a hole, and I suspect there will be more of them and one sourcing solution will be contractors, another DA civilians.

I'm also not totally convinced of the quality issues associated with the use of civilians to teach ILE. From my perspective, the folks that taught my ILE class were very good, they were not outmoded or outdated, and they were very curious about our uniformed experiences and encouraged and facilitated working them into the course. At the top of the schools there is a uniformed leader who charts the course of what will be taught.

What concerns me is not the quality of the instruction, or the ability of the instructors to deliver the material (or take advantage of the students' experiences), rather its the question of determining if the things that are taught are in line with what we say we desire and require out of leaders. Until we answer the question of what we want our leaders to be capable of at each grade or position it will be hard to determine if what they are being taught is right or wrong, or can be improved upon. I think we could say the same for the other generating force responsibilities as well.

Best, Rob

[Fuchs]

What's "taking a knee" in this context? To rest?

[Steve Blair]

What's "taking a knee" in this context? To rest?

Giving up or surrendering, more or less.

[Rob Thornton]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuchs
What's "taking a knee" in this context? To rest?

Giving up or surrendering, more or less.

Steve, I think in this case the context did imply taking a break from operational assignments, or MTO&E units - or in today's terms deployments.

However, I have not seen that to be the case, Niel Smith is an example of a guy who prior to attending ILE was in a generating force assignment to help Army integrate COIN lessons into big Army. Niel not only benefitted Army by this assignment (and through his efforts many others), but also got some insights into how other parts of the Army work which I think benefitted him and may provide him with insights as he moves on to increasing positions of responsibility and authority.

There was a discussion on another thread about guys working in post BQ (branch qualifying) assignments as part of TRADOC and how they are selected - this not only includes time at Leavenworth, or the various branch school instructor positions, but also assignments in the NCR (National Capital Region), ACS (Advanced Civil Schooling), service academies, CTCs (Combat Training Centers) etc. Add to that a growing requirment for Army to augment MTO&E units and staff in theater to meet requirments for advisors, contracting officers, and a host of other functions and pretty soon Army is running the marathon at sprint speed. Indeed there are holes all over, so I'm not sure anybody is really taking a knee - but I do know that there are an awful lot of balls in the air, and I'm not sure we know which ones are glass, or why they are glass - hell, they may all be glass.

Best, Rob

[Rob Thornton]

OK - I fianlly got the link to work. I think its a combination and depends upon a point of view. I think it is also indicative of the stresses on the force. Its a good interview with LTG Barno, and he brings up some very important points.

Best, Rob

[Pete]

Today's installment in the Tom Ricks series is not about TRADOC--rather, it's an essay by a captain on what he thinks the future Army should be like. He wants one force for conducting COIN and stability operations and another for conventional fighting. Some guys were saying that before 9/11 and it didn't happen then; due to financial constraints I doubt that it ever will. Click on the link below to view the article.

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts...m_the_pentagon

[Pete]

It might be worth asking our friends in the British Army how they grew accustomed to training for vastly different operational scenarios from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s. During that period it had battalions conducting counterterrorist operations in Northern Ireland as well as having forces prepared for conventional warfare in Germany. Although counterterrorism isn't the same thing as counterinsurgency, the Bloody Sunday episode taught the COIN lesson of not gratuitously offending a major part of the local population. The British experience appears to have some similarity to what the U.S. is facing today.

[davidbfpo]

It might be worth asking our friends in the British Army how they grew accustomed to training for vastly different operational scenarios from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s....The British experience appears to have some similarity to what the U.S. is facing today.

Pete,

Some of your points are covered in other threads such: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=3576 and http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...read.php?t=897 Try the RFI thread ans search there.

The British Army presence eventually took a fixed shape, with garrison units serving an accompanied tour (3yrs plus), rotations for short tours (IIRC called roulement invariably from Germany), specialists and a large locally recruited Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). There were training facilities in the UK, Germany and elsewhere. It took time to get this machine "well oiled", not only over tactics, evidence-gathering. surveillance and dealing with the media.

The first thread links to a reflective paper on "lessons learned": http://www.patfinucanecentre.org/misc/opbanner.pdf (ignore the link title it is a British Army paper that is in the public domain). Hopefully that will help.

[William F. Owen]

It might be worth asking our friends in the British Army how they grew accustomed to training for vastly different operational scenarios from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s. During that period it had battalions conducting counterterrorist operations in Northern Ireland as well as having forces prepared for conventional warfare in Germany.

Exactly. - and it shows the lie to the hoary old "COIN is Special" punt that the WOW-COIN generation bye into.

Although counterterrorism isn't the same thing as counterinsurgency, the Bloody Sunday episode taught the COIN lesson of not gratuitously offending a major part of the local population. The British experience appears to have some similarity to what the U.S. is facing today.

a.) Why differentiate between so-called COIN and CT? Why make a problem out of something that does not exist. The Brits never saw a difference, nor did the Rhodesians.

b.) Bloody Sunday taught no lessons at all to the British Army, except that you should follow the training and the ROE = Don't do stupid things. - and that isn't a lesson. The British Army was far better prepared for Operations in Ulster than the US was for Iraq. We had two generations of soldiers who had fought irregular warfare, and serving officers who wrote on the subject - and it still took us 7-8 years to get it right, because warfare is generally pretty context specific.

[Pete]

What Gen. Barno is saying is reminiscent of what Chief of Staff Gen. "Shy" Meyer was saying about the "Hollow Army" after the Vietnam War. Granted, today's problems are different, but the operational tempo is wearing the institution out.