Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
I cannot see how skills forms any part of doctrine, other than to define the reason as to why certain meaures of performance should be used. EG - The reason why weapons qualification is done at XXX meters.
Skills drive capability. If you do not build a particular skill you have no known measure of knowledge that a capability or skill exists. If you need soldier x to meet a mission objective that objective will have inherent skills required (for example walking, breathing, eating, sleeping, as simplistic answers), and it will have specific skills (orienteering, fire support, marksmanship, target selection). We all know there are different levels of skills too. A infantry rifleman would not be expected to meet or surpass the "sniper" skills for marksmanship. These set up expectations of doctrine and mission capability.

Though I will honestly admit I may be butchering the jargon and lexical definitions of the military (I'm only an old slow fat former Marine corporal who spent to many years in school after a brief tour of duty). I would suggest that you have a continuum of knowledge diffusion that starts with doctrine as a vision or capabilities and abilities catalog. That doctrine is what drives your training and metrics for success as objectives. Those objectives drive your learning methods and models. Well that is how I would do it if anybody ever asked.