The “strategic corporal” seems to me an unlikely concept for a large force, such as the US Army, to achieve in practice. Nice dream, though.

The following excerpt is from my review of the FMFM 1-A at
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/thoughts_on_fmfm_1-a.htm


“Fourth Generation war demands not only the strategic corporal, but the moral corporal as well, enlisted Marines who think about every action they take in terms of its moral effects.”
William Lind, et al, "FMFM 1-A" page 8
http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_1_25_05.htm

This seems implausible given the age, experience, and training of the average US Marine corporal, now or in any likely future. The courts martial of NCOs for mistreatment of Iraq prisoners suggest that we need more hands-on lieutenants and less freedom of action for corporals.

We’ll be lucky to get an adequate number of First Lieutenants with such cross-cultural knowledge, capable of acting with such sophisticated strategic and moral reasoning.

This illustrates a difficulty of recommendations given in FMFM 1-A. All wargame scenarios have easy solutions if one can conjure up sufficient resources. FMFM 1-A aspires to a US Marine Corps with the training and attributes of our elite Special Ops units.

With an army of such men we could pacify Iraq. Equally so, with the Battlestar Galactica or Starship Enterprise the Germans could have won WWII.

It’s not enough to dream of ways we can win. How can we evolve our current military apparatus to get there from here?