Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
...one such work is Douglas MacGregor's "Breaking the Phalanx" of 1997...It was basically a book about a brigade-centric army reorganization (an idea that was at that time at least 50-60 years old)...Why did "Breaking the Phalanx" get so much (it seemed so to me) attention (till the next fashion, COIN)? What was so special or advanced about it?
Nothing was special about it in the in the pure sense; he just surfaced an idea that has been floating around in the US Army (and the Marines) for a good many years -- since about 1793 thanks to the US Legions (LINK) -- Not the first effective combined arms Brigades, Gustavus Adolphus did that, but Wayne improved the idea a bit. The idea was surfaced frequently over the next 200 years. Many pointed out over the last 70 years or so that almost all our actual fighting was conducted by Brigades, Regimental Combat Teams or Combat Commands (all essentially the same thing), only in North Africa 1942-3 and the 1991 Gulf War did the US really have Divisions fighting instead of loosely controlling and supporting. So many proposed Brigades before MacGregor but never got any traction for one reason:

It would do away with the Division as a command echelon and that would call for the elimination of a number of Major General slots. Noty a good idea, according to many Major Generals -- and aspiring Brigadier Generals. nor did the Personnel community look upon it with favor as it would spoil their flow charts.

So MacGregor wasn't positing anything new or advanced but he was speaking truth to power and he did it in a published book that civilians could buy. Not all that daring in some places but while not daring, it has rarely been done by serving US Armed forces persons. That was the real 'special' thing about it.
Some meant to me that hew as thinking out of the box, but I have difficulties to accept that re-labeling of existing ideas should be considered as thinking out of the box. That would be a very damning statement about his army.
He wasn't thinking out of the box, all that had been discussed in professional journals and forums here for years -- but he sure published out of the box. Possibly retired as a Colonel because of it.
I hope that dozens military theory-interested Americans in one place might be able to finally answer this old question of mine.
I hadn't seen you ask before...

BTW, asking without being sarcastic and dismissive might help you get answers. You ask good questions but the surly, know it all tone doesn't help.

COIN is indeed the current fad -- we tend to do fads here; after all we gave the world the Hula Hoop. Like you, I could do without the COIN foolishness but it seems to have attracted fans...