Sort of my suspicion; I meant to include MW with 4GW in my question but I wasn't clear and I suspect that changes the answer very little if at all.That summarizes a part of my concern. If the purpose is to get us all on one sheet, neither concept is working very well. Yet each has its devotees and even acolytes who will brook no heresy...Has it changed planning and warfighting? Jury is out on that. We see the problem now. We just don't know what to do about it, how we fit in, how we are relevant. We're all over the map on that.
Not a good situation to my mind.I'm opposed to prescriptions, I think they inhibit flexibility of thinking and my experience with a number of mantras (or fads...) that have popped up over the last 60 plus years has not enamored me of the latest batch.The above illustrates primarily a 4GW problem--and I'm not talking about the Hammes definition, but the Lind/Schmitt/Wilson/Nightengale one. This is a problem I don't think we've got a real answer for. One that my friends in the State Department would say we can't possibly be expected to have an answer for. Ouch. Marines like General Tony Zinni well understand it and articulate it.
Bottom line: 4GW "theory" in the USMC provides a usable diagnosis...but unlike 3GW/MW, there is no prescription!
I understand that US Armed forces Senior Leaders are all too often cautious, risk averse and put the sanctity of the institutions they run ahead of many things (including, to their credit, themselves in many cases). Thus, doctrinal change has been instigated by young Field Grades and Commanders and that goes back to pre-WW II, then to HMX-1 and the use of hoptiflopters in Amphibious Landings which occurred back in my young 0231 (then, not todays, it's 0321 now, I think) days, proceeds forward through MW, Air Land Battle to today. We have developed a working model to produce change but I submit it's not very efficient. Better than nothing, I grant...
My dream is of a set of services that have innovative leaders who aren't excessively risk averse to drive this stuff top down. All we have to do to achieve that is select the right folks. To do that, we simply need to change the personnel systems to the supporting effort they should be instead of the supported element they are, get rid of DOPMA and its insistence that all are equal and keep Congress out of the personnel business.
I realized that 50 years ago; still haven't figured out how to bring it about...
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