Training the Operational Staff

[Red Rat]

UK and US mil probably (on paper) see the role of the commander in the same way. I have attached a diagram of how the UK sees the command/staff relationship and divide.

I am not aware how much thought has been given to the role of a commander in COIN. Command and Command style is such a parochial subject with each commander jealously guarding the right to be 'his own man' in matters of style and substance that no guidance per se appears to have been laid down - certainly not on a broadly disseminated basis. My last commander saw his role (in a COIN campaign) clearly as threefold: supervise the supervisors, add substance to main effort, decide where to carry risk.

What Eden descibes matches up very well what I have seen of UK commanders in various theatres. We (as staff) see his job as that of making the key decisions and, in a COIN campaign, a key influence tool where he can go in and engage with select individuals and groups, make promises and keep them. That does impose a heavy staff burden Staff also get out far too rarely. On my last tour I would see the brigade commander at my outpost every 10 days or so. I saw bde staff once in 6 months... I fail to see (and thought then) how staff could plan effectively in such a nuanced environment without getting out on a regular basis. As a staff weenie in AFG I was out probably more often then required!!

More of the staff burden (certainly in UK HQs) appears to be self-imposed with staff getting wrapped in process and generating output in order to increase their importance and career profile, or merely to justify their existance (I have yet to hear of a staff branch downsizing themselves voluntarily). An increase in output does not necessarily link to an increase in effect...

My personal feeling is that while the role of the HQ is to support the commander and enable subordinate units (right people, right kit, right place, right time and having shaped the battlespace) in fact HQs have lost sight of this and HQs do staff process for the sake of it, but also (and as pertinent) to feed the insatiable demand of the next higher HQ for product.

That aside I like the UK command approach overall, but have a gut feeling that US commanders tend to get out more then their UK counterparts on a rank by rank basis.