Worth thinking about
Hey Terry (Good to see your thoughts!)
(bold added by me)You also note that the Army’s ‘organizational self-image as ‘the citizen army that fights wars of survival.’, but the hard question is whether the Army is truly a ‘citizen’ army now that that is an all volunteer force?
I'll have to chew on that one today - it has allot of potential implications. It might be worth developing what a change in self image could actually mean. "Historically", I don't guess we're that far removed from our former self (being "not" and all volunteer Army). We still have people with great influence (both positive & negative) whose experiences incorporate both. Some are mentors, some are educators, some are politicians, some are civilian leaders working in the departments. I point that out because it gets to the nature of change over time, the bureaucratic process (the super-tanker analogy), and the golden mean.
We're comparably comfortable about talking about where we want to be with regards to capabilities (maybe what we project outwards?), but I don't know that we've had a serious internal discussion about rationale for inward change of the type or scale you posit - or more importantly, what are the potential implications for charting that course. There is risk for inaction, and risk for action - identifying specific risks at a level of depth that uncovers risk in areas we were not intending to jeopardize is tough work, and I think takes time (I don't know how much time).
(bold and underlined added by me)Maybe, but as even you only suggest that this is a ‘subtle’ implication, the changes really required are with respect to the core, fundamental characteristics of the Army’s (or AF, USMC, Navy) organizational culture, or self identity. With such major, hard to make changes, the subtle implications, which are likely third, fourth or farther out ramifications, may well shift to bring them in line with the major cultural changes successfully undertaken. So if the Army were to accept and internalize that fighting the nations wars included COIN as a core mission (and not as lesser included cases), then the rest likely would follow.
We should not see this in a vacuum from civilian policy, and how that policy enables risk in terms of pursuing change. We should also not be afraid to push back some, and identify for civilian leaders the risks - consider the road to "smaller, lighter, more efficient" land forces as an example of what happens when we focus on the way we'd like the operational environment to be without accounting for the way the operational environment is, and how its interactive nature produces friction and chance.
Some pieces of our "inner" self image are things like - "be relevant and ready", ""expeditionary capabilities with campaign qualities", "dominate land power", "agile, adaptive, and innovative leaders". This is a tall order of characteristics to live up to, but reflects the range of conditions in which the Army may be employed, and illustrates the challenges with meeting both mass based and technical based (I mean the broad meaning of technical such as skill sets and education) requirements.
I'm not sure that until (or if) the United States Government brings existing, (or new) capabilities up to a level that they can in practice fill those roles the military has been asked to, or has by default taken on as a policy instrument, that we can (or should?) shed the necessary dichotomy of having somewhat dual personalities. It may be that the nature of "warfare" (the means available and the ways in which they are used) has changed to such a degree it is now a condition, and as such, those forces generated, trained, equipped and maintained must reflect those conditions in order to achieve the political objective. For the immediate future, we must be full spectrum in body, spirit and mind. A tall order for sure.
Best, Rob
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