Blending into the mindset of the Human Terrain

[William F. Owen]

Hey, William and Tom .... your reality still is a reflection of your own shadows.
Well, at least the two of you agree ...

Nice approach you all show, if you don't get ... slaughter it ...

Well that may indeed be true, but please show us some evidence. So far you have just presented a set of opinions, that are by no means clear.

This forum tends to subject ideas to rigour. If you can't explain it clearly, then no progress will be made.

For example, what does

Through interaction more sub effects and indicators will be derived from the Lines of Operation.

actually mean?

What is a "sub-effect"? The result of a "sub-action" or a second order effect? Ball is in your court.

[Coined]

What is a "sub-effect"? The result of a "sub-action" or a second order effect? Ball is in your court.

If it is all old news, why then do we still follow the "old school", because it is part of our comfortzone??

By the way, the ball is in OUR court!!

[Cavguy]

Coined,

Why is the new better? Tom, Wilf, Steve, and Van have articulated reasonable responses. Between them is a huge amount of military and combat experience in high and low intensity conflict.

While there are new aspects to the current environment, the fundamental nature, and how to counter it, is thousands of years old.

Rather than reinventing terms, we need to read our history. Guerrilla war is not a new concept. Most of our failures result from a lack of understanding of the basic concept of it, not a lack of new systems.

A smart man named Robert Asprey wrote a two volume series entitled "War in the Shadows" , which is a chronology of insurgency over the past 3000 years. His point was to demonstrate to people that insurgency was not a new concept.

I went back searching for your personal or professional expertise on COIN, or executing it. Please inform us of how you are so certain your proposals would work, in practice.

Finally, I know you are communicating in a second language, so I appreciate how difficult it is to express things accurately.

[Ken White]

I did not comment on your initial post in this thread because in my opinion it said nothing. Others have commented and, essentially, expressed the thought that you really said nothing new -- and your response to that is to provide short, snippy comments that essentially do not seem communicate your thoughts at all well. I suggest that if six people -- and I make seven -- have said that your point is not well understood, then perhaps you should look at what you are trying to accomplish and rephrase significantly some of your more pithy comments.

For example

If it is all old news, why then do we still follow the "old school", because it is part of our comfortzone??

Because Armies, Nations and People (as a group) all change slowly. New ideas get adopted as they appear and if they seem to make sense. People frequently will learn new things and use them but succeeding generations discard those things as irrelevant -- then a new crisis appears and things get 'rediscovered' and eventually get embedded as standard practice.

The world has been operating in that fashion for thousands of years and that is unlikely to change. So, yes, the comfort zone aspect is part of it, National psyches and penchants are part of it, the dynamics of situations are part of it -- and human fallibility is involved in all those . Also involved are group dynamics

Only the young who have no use for history don't know all that -- or pretend as if they do not.

By the way, the ball is in OUR court!!

What does this mean. Specifically:

Of what Ball are you speaking, that is what specifically do you think should be done?

Follow on questions:

Is anyone doing or trying to do what you think should be done? If yes, who and how successfully? If not, who and why not?

[MikeF]

For the link to Asprey's book. At least I got something out of this thread besides a headache

Coined, welcome. Please don't upset the old men...They tend to get grumpy. I think you have some excellent points to make, but I would ask you not to attack the members of this group. We merely implement policy.

Just say what you mean and mean what you say.

Ken, have you seen my baseball?

v/r

Mike

[Ken White]

Ken, have you seen my baseball?

It is in my Court. However it's gonna cost you if you want it back -- due to that "grumpy' crack. Harummphhh...



On Asprey, good job by him and by Niel for mentioning it. The abridged version does as well as the original IMO...

[Coined]

For the link to Asprey's book. At least I got something out of this thread besides a headache

Coined, welcome. Please don't upset the old men...They tend to get grumpy. I think you have some excellent points to make, but I would ask you not to attack the members of this group. We merely implement policy.

Just say what you mean and mean what you say.

Ken, have you seen my baseball?

v/r

Mike

Right, point taken, thanks.

Let's get back to the starting point of this thread.

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As we operate in urbanized “human” terrain we have to train in such terrain. Let’s say an initial entry in a semi-permissive environment at an airfield nearby a town (not with huge warfighting, we know how to fight but do we also know Why, How and with Whom to interact)?

Military have to make contact with logistical elements at that airfield and in the town to facilitate FoF, or they act as FoF themselves, it depends on the scenario. All civilian participants in the training are informed and civilian role play is instructed.

PsyOps teams (Train as you Operate) have made an assessment of the town population (real town, real people, real assessment), make contact with local media to inform the population about the coming exercise, explain to them the Why and How, and ask them (in one of the town parts) to participate in let’s say a roadblock.

Recce elements can perform their obs/surv task assisted by colleagues of the Home guard (a recce element makes an obs post in a room of a Home guard member opposite a bar, the bar is frequented by some MVI’s or HVI’s role play, they have to create a pattern of life, information will go up the chain and a lift ops can be executed at some training area as we don’t like to show our MO).
Lift operations and the more violent ops can be trained at a training area IVO a town.

Maneuver elements will “social patrol” a part of the town, introducing themselves to the population asking them some questions. Bottom line, Go to the people, introduce yourself, start a conversation and gain desired information/intelligence.

You can imagine the participation of all other elements (PRT and so on) that make part of the Modular unit.

Per level of training and of the Modular unit size the desired effects we like to achieve with the exercise can be developed. Of course this all depends of an integral, coordinated and synchronized approach.

Role play can be performed by:

Civilians from a theatre company to train the Modular unit in a permissive environment
Home guard in civvies to train the Modular unit in a semi-permissive environment.
Home guard or other military in "uniform" to train the Modular unit in a non-permissive environment.

Ofcourse these elements are integrated, also when the non-permissive part is manifest, the othter two elements are stiil existent as the "human terrain" will always play an important, even decisive part in our operations.

Training with modular units needs an extensive preparation, is highly related to "the way we operate" and will learn each participant that they all are key to achieve a desired end state.

An additional value of such training is the PR/Marketing of our efforts to the population who are able to get acquainted with the how and why of our activities and approaches.

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Rather to eleborate on this than to go grumpy.

[Van]

To be a little more even-handed;

This reads like a "best practices" approach to Small Wars (COIN, low intensity conflict, SASO, pick your buzzword). You are trying to assemble the concepts that have worked in Latin America in the 1930s, Malaysia in the 1950s, Viet Nam in the 1960s-70s, the hords of Middle Eastern expats that are employed by the U.S. Army National Training Centers right now, etc? If so, you've put together a good framework.

As previously stated, I agree with what you're saying here, and only disagree with a single element of what you said earlier.

To elaborate; U.S. engineers generally seek 'perfect' solutions (however, there are a large minority that don't, but that deserves a seperate thread). A 'perfect tool' is a pain in the rear end because you need a lot of them, because perfection has only one purpose and is hard or impossible to adapt to other applications. A good tool isn't 'perfect' but is adaptable enough to use in other situations. Look at the C-130; not perfect for any one job, too small as a cargo plane, too slow with its props rather than turbines, too much radar signature, not agile, etc. But incredibly adaptable; gun ship, SAR, ELINT, aircraft carrier landings, cargo, artic mods, etc. A good knife can be used for opening mail, food preparation, wood carving, and self-defense. An ideal knife for any of these applications isn't very good at the others.

So a military needs to be a good tool of statecraft rather than a perfect tool of statecraft. The U.S. military was forged into a perfect tool in the mid- to late- 1980s, and after the first Gulf War, felt vindicated (see Steven Metz "Iraq & the Evolution of American Strategy" for an excellent discussion of this). Now we find that all the fieldcraft and subtle arts of Small Wars are equally (or more) important than the romantic vision of mechanized brigades rolling through the hills of Germany.

My concern with your vision is that, like the U.S. forces at the American entry into World War I, the soldier thus trained may have a steep and fatal learning curve to enter conventional conflict. Alternately, the price tag for a well rounded professional education that includes the full spectrum of conflict and imposition of national will, will not be considered acceptable by our civilian masters.

playin' stickball with my cane, knock the ball back to someone's court

[Tom Odom]

Actually it reads like the training construct for mission rehearsal exercises at the JRTC as they have been for years.

Tom

[Coined]

To be a little more even-handed;

This reads like a "best practices" approach to Small Wars (COIN, low intensity conflict, SASO, pick your buzzword). You are trying to assemble the concepts that have worked in Latin America in the 1930s, Malaysia in the 1950s, Viet Nam in the 1960s-70s, the hords of Middle Eastern expats that are employed by the U.S. Army National Training Centers right now, etc? If so, you've put together a good framework.

Now we find that all the fieldcraft and subtle arts of Small Wars are equally (or more) important than the romantic vision of mechanized brigades rolling through the hills of Germany.

playin' stickball with my cane, knock the ball back to someone's court

We still have to be ready for full scale combat. It wouldn't be wise to get rid of the hardware. That is not what I meant. Full scale wars like WO1 or WO2 are not likely anymore. Our weaponry and the way the information flows will hamper any possible succes in the latent phase. The approach should be a complementary one in which every soldier is trained in an 3BW environment.
Although we might think that we train for such operations I think we do not.
We stil train at training areas at which we built training villages. In such a TA we train against civilians which are dressed up soldiers, so still we train with our military mindset against role-play with, also, a military mindset.
I don't want to "stove pipe" our training just expanding it.
If you have a look at my fist contribution you will notice that I see (and seek) possibilities to train as we operate. In the midst of townpopulation who's mindset "has been shaped" by, for instance, PsyOps elements. Although other operations which have more battle (non-permissive) characteristics can be trained at the TA's, it is still ONE operation.

If we brainstorm about this, supporting eachother to be creative, we will be able to set the conditions for an organisation that will be equiped for 3Block ops. Not stove piped elements, which will be organised in a modular way just before we deploy, but a permenant modular organisation in which all kinetic and non-kinitec elements and actors "experience" eachother. Such an approach will bring a broad perpective on the environment for all participants in a conflict.
I prefer "environment" above "battlespace" because battlespace refers to a specified area. Environment combines aspects like culture, economy, politics, opponents ... This is something for the Bn, Brigade level to be aware of.