Mass Insanity: Latest Trend in Army Doctrine

[Bob's World]

I saw some incredibly irrelevant U.S: field manuals. There's for example on about Distributed Operations (USMC). I wanted to read it because I was interested in learning about DO and there was absolutely nothing of interest in it. Page after page irrelevant bureaucratic stuff, it sounded like a "make up work for the hierarchy and staffs" paper, not like a paper about dispersed small team actions. -.-

Well, that's what I remember about it, maybe I'm unfair.

You are probably being kind.

Here's an example:

In "On War" a guy named Carl von Clausewitz briefly discusses a broad concept to help commanders focus on what is most important in a battle or campaign. He calls it a "center of gravity" (or whatever the German for that is, I defer to you on that)

In Army doctrine we adopt this concept and write a half a page or so to describe it. Then guys like Dr. Strange at the USMC university started to do some really fascinating work on various ways to dissect and analyze the concept. Soon the doctrine evolved to be nearly an entire chapter prescribing a rigid set of bins one must fill in a set order, etc. Any thinking on COG from that point forward was either "doctrinal" (followed the prescription) or "non-doctrinal" (dares to actually apply a little creativity and color outside the lines a bit). CvC would roll over in his grave.

I never did well in Kindergarten art class. I just couldn't color inside the lines very well.

[Fuchs]

You don't seem to understand the extent of the stupidity surrounding the CoG stuff in the USMC...

http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot....f-gravity.html

[J Wolfsberger]

In Army doctrine we adopt this concept and write a half a page or so to describe it. Then guys like Dr. Strange at the USMC university started to do some really fascinating work on various ways to dissect and analyze the concept. Soon the doctrine evolved to be nearly an entire chapter prescribing a rigid set of bins one must fill in a set order, etc. Any thinking on COG from that point forward was either "doctrinal" (followed the prescription) or "non-doctrinal" (dares to actually apply a little creativity and color outside the lines a bit). CvC would roll over in his grave.

What you are describing is representative of our current cultural mania for "process." It has a great appeal to bureaucrats in that you can measure how well you're filling up bins and checking boxes without ever being held accountable for achieving a goal.

Which is where the great problem with "metrics" comes from. Think about how often you've seen organization or activity measured against achieving a goal, versus the number of times you've seen them measured by all the little stepping stones associated with the goal. e.g. 'We dug x wells, handed out y blankets, and distributed z MREs, culturally suitable," but not 'The region has been pacified.' The former is, of course, trivially simple to measure, while the latter - which is the real goal or why the hell are we there - is notoriously difficult, which is, equally of course, the reason bureaucrats prefer the former.

[Bob's World]

It's not just doctrine that is becoming overly prescriptive and overly influenced by what we believe the "lessons learned" of the past 10 years to be; we have an equally dangerous situation developing in the area of plans and planning.

Plans are managed by geographic combatant commanders in large part. Regional perspectives on regional issues. But what, in today's emerging environment, is truly "regional"?

Increasingly, regional problems demand global perspectives and solutions; equally, regional actions can have global implications. GCCs and GCC-driven planning do not serve this emerging reality very well. Similarly, a "plan" tends to lock one into a certain perspective and sequence of events. Particularly when those doctrine-loving Army boys break out their sequentially numbered phases and start filling in the blanks.

How then, do we evolve in how we think about and write doctrine and plans?? This is a question we need to put some serious energy into. If we are to evolve to be as effective as we need to be, and equally as quick, flexible and agile as we need to be, we must first address how we think about the things we do or believe we might do; and how we balance the need for detailed preparation with the need for flexible execution.

[Fuchs]

I never thought of doctrine as something for the very high levels, such as theatre command.

Doctrine or 'similar lines of thinking' are good for company to corps command, where there are great benefits to be found in having trust and reduced frictions because officers know that other officers think alike (just imagine Guderian working with a chief of staff or subordinate division commander who's of the French artillery school!).
(Another example, from small wars: Think of one battalion CO following a rough cordon + search + demolish + arrest approach while the next CO in the rotation follows a hearts + minds + indigenous militia approach. It won't work, it wouldn't work even if both approaches were correct!)


You better get your doctrine right and be ready for quick adjustments if much of your officer corps thinks along its lines, of course.