Adapt Or Die

[Rob Thornton]

Let me toss that back at you with a counter question. Do you think that this polarized US society with its sound bite attention span will accept long term campaigns of 5-10 years?

Well, a good question. I guess the things that come to mind is that you don't always know what you've stepped in until you've tracked it home. I suppose a serious terror event in the homeland could inflame public passion to the point where they called for retribution on a large scale. Or, it could start much differently. The more something costs in terms of treasure and time, and the longer it takes to succeed, the more the public will sour on it, and the more divided the house.....

I also think there is a difference in terms of how concentrated or diffuse it may seem. If we had a great deal of people engaged over a long term, and over a large geographical area (global) it does not seem to have near the media appeal - without the guarantee of a graphic depiction, the media just doesn't cover it well, without media coverage, its not as much of a public or political issue.

I could see the media covering the flash & awe of an "air piece" or something that sells, but they might not have the patience for long term UW on the front or back ends. It seems to easy for them to go find a natural disaster or celebrity with personal problems.

I think that is the political appeal of a COA that was heavy UW and light on a conventional footprint. It concerns me when COAs are picked more for political economies then overall chance of success - however, that does not mean it won't happen.

Well, those are the concerns, but they may describe a worst case vs. likely employment. I think the GPs picking up large scale FID requirements and the combat advisory mission are the more useful (in a broad sense) and would hopefully negate allot of the potential large scale campaigns by building HN security capacity on both a bi-lateral and regional scale. If a need did arise, the GP knowledge across the force by having done those two functions would be very handy in augmenting SOF UW capability in areas requiring less specialization, but SOF like capabilities just the same - just because we must surge capacity in a region or country doesn't negate the other important missions across the globe.

Lastly, full scale war where all that plus a lot of Armor is needed. My gut feel is that the percentage ratio of SOF : Light : Medium : Heavy employment over the next 10-20 years will be on the order of 60 : 30 : 10 with full acknowledgment that the world situation can change rapidly due to unforeseen events. Still, I think a major restructure of the AC and RC are necessary with potentially a smaller more lethal AC and a larger RC. The allocation of GP maneuver combat Brigade sized elements should be about [ AC / RC] 20 / 8 Light + 8 / 0 Pcht; 8 / 4 Medium;

12 / 24 Heavy

. My bet is we'll have adequate warning of a need for a lot of Heavy Brigades.

Time is always an element but it shouldn't take more than two years to get a role and mission sort out and promulgate a long term plan; say another two to reorient doctrine and training and two to three to get that training embedded, get the equipment in place. So, say seven years plus a fudge factor due to the slowness of our overlarge bureaucracy, the operations that may intrude and the parochial food fights that will have to be quelled; say 10 years in total. Long in some senses, in others, not long at all -- takes far longer than that to develop and field major hardware

A ARNG buddy told me the ARNG has a big (and growing) appetite for the ME (Maneuver Enhancement) modular BDEs given their utility in support of enabling civil authority/HN/Nat Disaster type missions. This is probably a good thing. The 60/30/10 employment figure seems like a good place to start, but the distro would argue for a good deal more capacity on the SOF/SOF like end.

Thanks for your thoughts, Rob