are idealists, mostly. Regrettably the world is not an ideal place. Yet most of us develop our views of what's right and tend to try to do that and barring the proverbial epiphany we'll keep right on doing that. Some have had an epiphany, some have not, some think they might have...
Quote Originally Posted by Brandon Friedman View Post
.. is “armed social work” and where you do “need to respect the culture or protect noncombatants to win," despite what Mr. Owen argues.
That's true and one sometimes has to do that; what concerns many is that the attitude to do that sort of thing can remove a combat edge and such removal is not good when you may be confronted with more -- and especially, more intense -- combat.

There's also the fact that Wilf comes from the British tradition where the civilian side of the FID effort used to be very much in charge and that system worked well for them. Thus he wants the Army to do Army things. CPT Foley is an SF Officer ergo he's into FID; different backgrounds lead to different approaches. Our system has always reversed the Briotish process and the Armed forces have always had the lead. I think current British practice shows they've lost their civilian edge to an extent -- and that our history shows that our system is not particularly effective -- or desirable. My solution to that problem is develop the civilian structure and get the military out of the lead for such efforts Even better, diligently avoid such efforts unless there is a really good reason to get involved.

That, of course, means educating politicians -- and good luck with that...

As to full spectrum; fortunately, I'm old and have watched several good units make the switch between armed social work, a little casual door kicking, a few fairly stiff fire fights over a few days and the losses of weeks on end of continuous grinding combat. The switch isn't as hard as some believe; most people -- not all -- can do it fairly well.I've seen units switch back and forth and do so readily and easily.
So my main question, I guess, is why doesn’t the military think it can train its troops for all three? Do we not think troops are able to adapt? We had never been trained in the differences, yet when placed in those environments, my company—through fits and starts and mistakes—was able to adapt. Why is there this conflict between people like William F. Owen and CPT Foley? The ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. There's a time and a place for both mentalities.
In order of your questions and comments:

Because we adopted a pathetically bad training process in the 1970s that tries to drill down to basic tasks and thus imputes that the troops being trained (ALL ranks) are incapable of absorbing more complexity. This in the face of an Army that did it all in WW II and Korea (less well educated and largely draftees as opposed to today's well educated professional force) and one that managed to train for full spectrum warfare all through the early 1960s. Quite simply, the Army lost its way in the aftermath of Viet Nam.

There are some today who do not think the troops can adapt -- they're terribly wrong -- and there are others that see the greater degree of work and effort required to do it right -- they also are terribly wrong (in a different sense). There are still others who say 'we cannot afford that.' That's just untrue and is IMO, a cover for the other two rationales or lack thereof...

The Troops will always adapt and pull the senior leaders fat out of the fire -- that's a pretty poor way to habitually operate but that has been the 'system' since the mid-60s. The big problem is, as you know, that having to learn by doing is time and effort consuming, subject to much error and can create other problems. Not too smart when there are massive bodies of work explaining all the things needed for every step on the spectrum of conflict. We owe the Troops and the Nation a better way of doing business.

The conflicts you cite are between those who do not really disagree on the desired end result; just on the route to arrive at that nirvana. The issue is really not tactics and techniques but what, philosophically, your force should do. There are those who think Armies break things; there are those who think Armies should fix things (to pick two polar views and, as you know, there are thousands of other views between those two). The problem, as a cursory reading of history shows, is that Armies have to be able to do both so the philosophies are something to argue about but reality -- and Politicians -- dictate what Armies actually do and the answer is "all of the above." As you note. As I noted, people are mostly idealists; they want what they think should be the focus to be that focus. Reality again is that systems make focal decisions and the idealist in us doesn't like that...

Yep, time and place for both -- and you never know which will be required. Or where...

Awful wordy but discussion boards aren't the best comm medium and I'd rather put too much in and let you discard what you don't need (or want, probably don't need any of it) than leave out something that might, barely, make sense...

We need to be full spectrum and globally capable. Period.