"Does the Army Need a Full-Spectrum Force or Specialized Units?

[Skullbiscuit]

Once again, the Army comes up to a problem representing an external threat which does not play to its preferred COA of force on force attrition,

• goes through a lot of pain in coming to grips with the fact that it does not like to do small wars and working non-kinetic solutions

• says its got to get smart on training for COIN and training will be the solution to all the inadequacies of the current force

• says learning about other cultures is an important part of COIN and we need to do it

And finally forgets that it too has a culture and a system which fosters that culture, and that culture with its underlying system lead it in great part, to the situation it finds itself in when kinetic operations cease and then it is "now what?".

But no worries, we'll train ourselves out of this problem. We'll forget about Force Management, OPMS, Branches, the Senior Rater driven OER with its total subjectivity, career "tracks". In a word we will forget about OPMS politics and through training alone we will overturn (permanently) deeply entrenched institutional biases and their underlying often unspoken cultural prejudices.


I have a bridge....it is in Brooklyn

SB

[Ken White]

No worries, nothing will change...

...
And finally forgets that it too has a culture and a system which fosters that culture, and that culture with its underlying system lead it in great part, to the situation it finds itself in when kinetic operations cease and then it is "now what?".

Exactly. Now what? Isn't that about where we were five years or so ago?

But no worries, we'll train ourselves out of this problem....

Good luck with that. I don't think you can train yourself out of any problem. What you can do is train better so that you have less problems.

... We'll forget about Force Management...

That would be a good start; we survived without it for almost 200 years and through more complex times than today.

...OPMS...

That would really help as DOPMA is a big part of the problem. Only real difficulty there is Congress who forced it on the Army -- and I'll easily acknowledge that's the hardest impediment to better capability to remove from your list.

... Branches...

Great plan -- they and their parochialism are an impediment. The Marines get by without them (and at the rate the USMC is going, they'll be bigger than the Army in fifty years... ). As do other world armed forces (at least to the extent of clout we give them). Look at the bright side, the Navy's Bureaus were even more parochial and powerful than our branches, yet, the Navy finally got rid of them (They now have 'communities' ). Maybe if we did that, the M8 wouldn't disappear as a quid pro quo for Armor support of Infantry's Bradley. Maybe the troops could have a better rifle due to less Building 4 lobbying for the status quo...

...the Senior Rater driven OER with its total subjectivity...

Absolutely no way to get rid of subjectivity in personnel performance rating or evaluation. You can clarify it by adding Peer and Subordinate rating (Horrors!!!). you can also rig the OER so that no raters names show on the front page the board sees (Just joking, the Generals will never buy that).

... career "tracks"...

your quotation marks say it all, don't they? They are a big part of the problem; DOPMA again...

In a word we will forget about OPMS politics and through training alone we will overturn (permanently) deeply entrenched institutional biases and their underlying often unspoken cultural prejudices.

Well, that would be a start -- of course, if you think they're beneficial, by all means hang on to them. You'll have a lot of allies, many in high places.

I have a bridge....it is in Brooklyn SB

Really I thought that was a Tree grows in Brooklyn. The Bridge connects Manhattan and Brooklyn so it's in both. Well actually, it's over the East River, so... Oh, never mind...

Nobody said changing a monolithic organization chock full of its own long standing culture and tons of biases and skewed systems would be easy. Nor did anybody say anything about tearing up all the norms and forms. Branches don't need to disappear; they do need to lose some of their clout. DOPMA will be hard to amend; hard is not impossible. The issue is, simply -- are some changes needed? If so what? What's achievable?

Better training IS achievable and as those better trained Privates become 1SGs and those LTs become COLs over time, they will change the culture...

Of course, not giving new entrants the best possible training can always be justified by citing the cost. Has nothing to do with not wanting smarter folks. surely...

A WW II Intel Officer, David Ogilvy said:

"If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”

Makes sense to me.

As always for those not so inclined in any study of courses of action doing nothing is always an option.

[Skullbiscuit]

A WW II Intel Officer, David Ogilvy said:Makes sense to me.

That's it! I figured that somebody would have come up with it before I did. But my version of the OER and OPMS works like this:

1. Left to their own devices and without any checks on them (and you cannot say there are any substantive checks on SR profiles save keep it within the 49/51 distro mandated by OPMS XXI) people will pick people like themselves.

2. If they can't pick someone like themselves they'll pick someone who is less then themselves (no threat --- the dwarves)

3. The last thing people will do is pick people who are not like themselves and represent a threat. There be Giants!

So to bring it home. Change is a threat. Change is hard. By definition change and its tool --- innovation are challenges to the status quo --- either organizationally or on a day to day basis individually, man on man, Senior Rater vs rated officer, one world view vs another world view. The OER and OPMS tends over time to default downward by weeding out risks (threats) other people like Ridgeway or Boyd would call them mavericks. For those who lived through the draw down of the mid 90's this is all old news and was covered ad naseum in professional journals etc widely under the title of "zero defects" and officer culture. HRC's solution to the symptom (you could not survive in a tightening manpower pool with a COM report on your profile) was to make sure most everyone got a COM and thus entered the ultimate head fake --- the 49/51 profile distribution.

The dodge was the "expanded rating pool" Where now in order to avoid the hard choices forced upon you (the Senior Rater) by the 49/51 distro, you now brought in everybody within a given grade to rate. So CDR's were rated in the same pool as tier 3 functional staff officers. So no worries. No change. So I'll skip a lot of the between (there are many other aspects of "gaming" that have come about as a consequence of this 49/51 profile distribution) to get to where this comes home for organizational change --- it doesn't happen.

The old rules "never work outside of your branch" and "promote your own" and "avoid eating your own" are in effect now as they were then. So any attempt at bringing in new ideas or new functions which do not have a patron(s) in high places and which then in turn must try to survive within this system which is largely unchanged in my 22+ years of active duty is well ---- a delusion. And even if you have patrons and a new idea takes root and gets traction (the air-land battle mafia of the early 80's comes to mind). How long before today's heretics and their new idea becomes tomorrow's rigid and unyielding dogma?

If the Army want's to really change then all conversation should begin and end with a discussion of OPMS and DOPMA. Otherwise we are just merely rearranging the furniture.

Oh...and the Army did trial a 360 OER a couple of years ago. They pulled it from HRC's website without comment to the field. A potentially ground shaking event within OPMS was buried without a discussion from all stakeholders....not just a few GO's.

Ken, I hear you and I'm not saying that training can't fix things....given enough time.....but that is the rub.....time. Cultures cannot be created quickly. And the culture of head down political risk aversion which is fostered by the OER is not one to be overturned by training. Historically when the Army could not reorganize itself internally in order to cope with a new threat, it either decided to, or more often had someone outside decide for them on the creation of a new function within the Army in order to deal with the problem. Special Forces is one such example. Thus their current position of being able to do this in house without functional specialization defies their history and also ignores the parochialism the branches and respective communities (heavy, light, and SOF) have exerted over time.
SB

[Ken White]

Everything you say is true.

"1. Left to their own devices and without any checks on them (and you cannot say there are any substantive checks on SR profiles save keep it within the 49/51 distro mandated by OPMS XXI) people will pick people like themselves.

2. If they can't pick someone like themselves they'll pick someone who is less then themselves (no threat --- the dwarves)

3. The last thing people will do is pick people who are not like themselves and represent a threat. There be Giants!

You started off with the crux of it; which is great -- a lot of folks don't recognize how significant a problem those points are. In fact, I agree they are the most significant problem; that and jobs at HRC, a driver of more import than many know. Shy Meyer tried to kill the HRC Mafia and they trooped up on the Hill and they won; they outlasted Meyer and went right back to business as usual.

One of the better Generals I ever knew was on a roll one day and told me that the basic problem was that we'd made the system too competitive. He Said. "All Generals are mediocre -- I'm mediocre. If you aren't mediocre your contemporaries or their godfathers will kill you on the way up..." He'd had to tell his just entering OBC son to be good but not too good. That bothered him.

He and another guy fought the 49/51 block at the time of issue but to no avail (though I thought it had been lifted for CPT and below? I hung up my tree suit in '77 and retired from my DAC job 12 years ago, I'm beyond outa touch ). The other guy had as a COL been the Dir of OPD in the early 70s and he and the then XO came up with an OER that had all the rating chain names and signatures on the reverse and which the Board would not see -- it got rave reviews as it circulated in the building until it hit the first GO reviewer. Where it died...

So I hear you and know this is the truth:

"If the Army want's to really change then all conversation should begin and end with a discussion of OPMS and DOPMA. Otherwise we are just merely rearranging the furniture.If the Army want's to really change then all conversation should begin and end with a discussion of OPMS and DOPMA. Otherwise we are just merely rearranging the furniture."

Sad but accurate. As I acknowledged earlier that's the ol' big pole. Still, we both know frontal assaults are a bad idea. Flanking is in order. That or trap some Beavers and put 'em to work on that pole...

"Ken, I hear you and I'm not saying that training can't fix things....given enough time.....but that is the rub.....time. Cultures cannot be created quickly..."

Totally true this one has been building for over 200 years and in its current form, since the end of WW II. It will be exceedingly difficult to turn around. It will also take time. I mentioned the LTs to COLs -- it'll, I think, take two iterations of that to achieve marginal success in changing the culture (unless we have a big war and someone finds another Saint George -- difficult in this age).

"... And the culture of head down political risk aversion which is fostered by the OER is not one to be overturned by training..."

I agree, in my view it'll take a minor internal revolt; a mass exodus; or an exceptionally strong CofS,A pulled up a couple of stars. The latter is an admittedly unlikely prospect, the other two are, unfortunately, more likely.

Much of this as you know is thanks to Congress which is a BIG part of the problem and which fostered DOPMA to preclude the Armed Forces from being 'unfair' to anyone and give everyone an 'equal' shot at the gold ring. They did what legislators are too prone to do, they tried to guarantee equality of outcome when what was needed was equality of opportunity

"...Historically when the Army could not reorganize itself internally in order to cope with a new threat, it either decided to, or more often had someone outside decide for them on the creation of a new function within the Army in order to deal with the problem. Special Forces is one such example. Thus their current position of being able to do this in house without functional specialization defies their history and also ignores the parochialism the branches and respective communities (heavy, light, and SOF) have exerted over time."

Having been on SB Hill in another lifetime shortly after the birth and before there was a Beanie, I hear that. The same mission argument was around then. With a serving son, I get random unclas updates from time to time. Not all that much change. Like you said, the culture is old and deeply embedded.

The problem is that the "new threat" seen by the pachyderms is rarely the evul enema -- it is any threat to the institution; they will put aside branch and personal squabbles to repel boarders in a heartbeat. Still, most of 'em I've met, though constrained by the system they grew up in, generally mean well. They will select those in their own image and conformity is the guiding mantra as you say. What remains to be seen is whether they will act on the realization that I suspect most have deep in their minds -- all today is not well in the institution and some changes will HAVE to be made. Many will try to keep those changes to an absolute minimum, no question. You may be right and the minimalists will win -- but I'm a hopeless optimist; there's gotta be a Pony in there somewhere...

[Skullbiscuit]

.......that and jobs at HRC, a driver of more import than many know. Shy Meyer tried to kill the HRC Mafia and they trooped up on the Hill and they won; they outlasted Meyer and went right back to business as usual.

Yes HRC and the assignment officer, the latter I liken to a Vegas card dealer who plays you with a stacked deck. Only he knows what cards are in the deck, if he has all 52 he won't show them to you, unless you're a personal friend, or your a "hitter", or potential patron.

One thing most officers in the Army today don't realize is that their file at HRC has a classification on it; "A", "B", or "C". And that classification determines what quality of assignment the desk officer offers (he slides the card across the table) the officer.

The assignment game becomes like momentum stock speculating in the stock market; fundamentals (who you are today) matter far less than what investors (senior raters) have thought about you in the past. Thus the possibility of a breakout or a turn-around from a bad report (only mediocre report is needed to hurt you in an inflation prone profile scheme) becomes almost impossible.

Again it is HRC as broker --- essentially the "decider" of where you go and what you do. A black hole of politics without any transparency. No excuse for this. Especially in an era of real time online information. All assignments could be online and available for all to see 24/7; and even more heretical --- allow you to apply for them directly and go through an interview process with an impartial 3rd party --- cut the branch assignment officer and branch or functional area politics and strength management out. I could go on. But it is because of these and other practices from HRC that about ten years ago I started to refer to them as the true "Great Satan".

Revise the OER, open up assignments to a more competitive and dynamic pool of human capital outside of HRC's control; and to paraphrase Brando's Kurtz "our problems here would soon be over"

I retired last summer. I miss soldiering. I have nothing but contempt for OPMS. I could have stayed on but understanding how the personnel mgt system works, and knowing that the only thing meaningful to them at the end of the day is "do we have the bodies?". The only meaningful gesture for me was to deny the system my labor. The only time I have ever seen the beast wince and try to change is when it did not have the bodies it needed. And that "change" was wholly cosmetic and temporary --- the beast painted itself a new color and shouted "Look at us! ....we're kinder gentler now!" So short of a military catastrophe that threatens the nation OR the inability of the system to recruit and retain the numbers it needs ---- I am not as optimistic as you.....I see no pony in there.....only the same ole Army jack_ss

We "succeed" today because of our technological over match, wealth, training and institutional support is "good enough" to avert the recognizable spectacular headline grabbing defeat, and that those on the fence and not actively opposing us are willing to concede we mean well even though the giant bumbles and stumbles in the china shop. Had we a threat with deeper pocket books, better technology, and without the constraints of our personnel mgt system to systematically suffocate innovators and mavericks....things could be different.

And

......it is any threat to the institution; they will put aside branch and personal squabbles to repel boarders in a heartbeat. Still, most of 'em I've met, though constrained by the system they grew up in, generally mean well.

Yes but the road to Hades was paved with such intentions. An officer I knew back in the 90's put it to me succinctly when we were discussing the crisis in the Army at the time (on the Army Times a prominent O6 BDE CDR was profiled as leaving the Army because of the Army's identity crisis --- this was circa 98-99). This officer said to me not to expect the GO Corps to do anything substantive to change the Army. He said they are all "made men". I asked him why is it that these men allow their nuts to be chopped off in order to take the stars? He said; "you don't understand....they give them their nuts willingly"

[Ken White]

I've long told every Officer I meet, "When you get to be Chief of Staff, nuke the Hoffman Building."

The only thing that keeps me optimistic is the kids -- the LTCs and below make it work in spite of the impediments in the system. The technology and the massive amounts of money help keep us from looking like bumbling idiots -- but the kids do their part and more as well and that in spite of the way they're trained (or not) and treated.

All you say is true, two things you say are particularly important, I think:

"...Revise the OER, open up assignments to a more competitive and dynamic pool of human capital outside of HRC's control; and to paraphrase Brando's Kurtz "our problems here would soon be over."
. . .
Had we a threat with deeper pocket books, better technology, and without the constraints of our personnel mgt system to systematically suffocate innovators and mavericks....things could be different."

True dat...

Keep the faith.

[Skullbiscuit]

I've long told every Officer I meet, "When you get to be Chief of Staff, nuke the Hoffman Building."

The only thing that keeps me optimistic is the kids -- the LTCs and below make it work in spite of the impediments in the system.

Ha! That is what I told my O6 senior rater (I was an O5 then and retired as one last year) in Iraq in 2005. I told him; "Sir, I've been in the Army for 20 years in spite of OPMS, not because of it. And the reason that I've been in the Army as long as I have is because there is only ONE ARMY. Because if there was a second Army in this country I would have taken my labor to it a long time ago if for no other reason then to show my disapproval with this Army's officer personnel management practices"

So we bumble forward because there are only two meaningful choices for someone thinking about the profession of arms in this country:

1. Choice #1: Army, Navy, Airforce, or Marines
2. Choice #2: Once inside one of them, do I stay or do I go?

Because as you pointed out the system fosters systemic risk aversion and mediocrity, it survives because of the valor and sense of duty (and no other place to exercise those qaulities within a profession of arms framework --- in a word the government both enjoys and suffers from its monopoly status as a sole source employer for those seeking the profession of arms) of the jr. and field grade officers which have to make things work on the ground.


A helluva a way to run an organization within a country which has become what it is through the workings of good laws, free enterprise, and free labor markets.