The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[marct]

Hi Hacksaw,

The only real issue I take with your assessment is that the concept is an explicit attempt by TRADOC to sway resource decision makers in the manner you describe... Rather, I think TRADOC presumes it's monopoly/legitimacy to address these issues...However, I do agree that the document (at least explicitly) is intended to only drive the internal mechanisms you describe...

I think you are quite right that "TRADOC presumes its monopoly / legitimacy to address these issue" and I certainly haven't seen anything that would indicate otherwise. Let me just take issue with the "explicit attempt" interpretation of what I wrote.

Part of the problem with how organizations and organizational cultures operate is that they frequently obscure the rationale for why something is done in a certain manner; it becomes "tradition" or "just the ways it's done". Let me give you an amusing example....

Have you heard of "Honourary Colonels"? A couple of years back, Canadian comedian Rick Mercer was appointed one (see here). Now, originally, the institution was designed as a way of bridging between a defanged aristocracy and a professional military such that the always cash strapped army regiments could get some needed resources without tapping into the Crown's purse. A nice trade-off whereby an aristocrat could gain social status and a regiment could gain a patron at court and needed resources. Well, nowadays, it's unlikely that people like Mercer will provide much in the way of operationally relevant resources (like, say uniforms which used to be a fairly common one), but it still acts as a moral booster. We just don't see questions about "Why do we do this?", we just do it - it is a tradition.

For 200+ years now, TRADOC and their precursors have been dealing with Congress in a similar manner in documents like this - it's a "tradition" - that doesn't require an explicit attempt; it just "is".

What I won't hazard to debate (because I stood/stand to close to the TRADOC hearth) is whether the messaging to resource managers is the de facto self licking ice cream cone portion of TRADOC's relationship with that audience... very real possibility of that - I just have seen no evidence that anyone from Gen Dempsey down to the lowest GS employee views the Capstone Concept in that manner...

Ah, should have clarified - I wasn't talking about the ACC, I was talking about the ALDS.

Cheers,

Marc