I think one of the first things that would have to be addressed is the issue of resourcing. You either pay for the type of people you want up front (incentives or appeal), or you develop them (time, money, investment). To paraphrase a recent article by retired General Scales – this is a people business, and without good people you will not have a good military. This resourcing issue is exacerbated by competing requirements – we have both a mass based set of requirements in the Army, as well as an increasingly technical set of requirements (the range of attributes covers all of the leadership traits).

We are competing for the same types of leaders (in terms of realized or unrealized potential) as the profit based organizations which can afford to offer these people what they desire within the context of an 18-25 year old’s sense of what is important. Certainly we have an appeal, but when you add up incentives, which option do we think comes out ahead? Further, we often cannot afford, or choose not to afford providing the incentives at critical points in these leader’s lives where they make choices about staying or leaving (could be a branch, a service, an organization or the military). We all know Business covets the military leadership experience brings to the table, just look at the ranks of the contractors right now in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. We need to consider what made the difference in that Soldier/Airman/Marine’s decision to go, or stay; then we need to adjust to compensate.

If you look at the erosion of benefits that active duty service offers, it most often targets people. Consider who and when the erosion of benefits like family medical and dental care, DODs schools, Housing, and social services targets. It impacts the family of a soldier at a time when his loyalties are divided between taking care of his family (this is of course compounded when deployed) and serving his country. The family weight in his decision making process should not be under valued. Consider the skill set this man or woman has in the context of COIN – he is by virtue of having a family, somewhat more emotionally stable – he is probably slightly older and his cumulative experience is worthy. He is a combat multiplier in his unit by his ability to provide calm and wisdom – having a family builds patience and exposes you to problem sets outside the normal military experience, and by such infect/influence many others with the same qualities. Consider the value of this man or woman when considering the use of lethal force. This is just one example of how we either undervalue people skills in favor of hardware.

Resourcing the types of educational investment to build the leaders we want is critical to realizing the goal. While Knowledge Networks, Communities of Practice, and Distance Learning offer opportunities in experience transferal and education on the cheap, the context upon which they draw is limited to the personal ability to internalize it an apply it, therefore it should not be a substitute for small group instruction, but a supplement. So how do we resource pulling out leaders at all level and giving them the right tools to succeed? Granted a bigger pool to rotate is attractive and provides more flexibility, but it also means more resources required for education, recruiting, and retention. Given the people we want often have families that must be entered into the equation; this has a large price tag.

I realize that culturally we are much more comfortable with a MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) equation vs. the subjective human one, but if we do not resource the kind of people we know we need we will have to lower our expectations in reference to our capabilities. We have to balance our appetite for hardware with requirements for quality people we can recruit, train and retain. I’ve been on the Army’s cutting edge for technology for about 6 years (Stryker, FCS) and for the last 8 months I’ve been doing the advisory job here in Iraq. I can tell you, sophisticated equipment only bears good results when there are good people using it. Do we need to modernize, yes; but do we need everything on the buffet table right now? I see some great vehicles here in Mosul that would be perfect for COIN, it’d be great to replace every 1114/1116/LVL II 998 with the RGR Engineer vehicle. COTs is not necessarily a bad thing and relooking our hardware acquisition strategy to match our personnel one may not be a bad idea. Reevaluation of our genesis for hardware in the context of new alternatives and requirements for the 5-25 year mark seems militarily prudent in light of the strategic, operational and tactical consequences of not doing so.

Our strategy needs to be people centric with the goal to equip them with the best technology that meets their needs. Conversely, if we show a long term trend of taking care of people at the DOD level ( I mention it because I’m not sure it happens for most above the BN & BDE levels), then our reputation for doing so will spread. People want to belong to good organizations that they can both believe in and which believe in them. One of the things you learn early on is that it is not so much what you are doing that makes you happy, it’s the climate of the organization, and purpose or esprit de corps which accompanies it.