Since the end of Desert Storm, the mobilization of Reserve and Guard units has been done with “derivative UICs” which are cherry picked lists of unit members called up under a partial unit derivation and when mobilized combined with other cherry picked units to make a provisional unit. The reasons advanced include the rationale that not all unit members were MOS or physically qualified. Well enough to drill but not to fight.
Since MOS (military occupational specialties) are skill sets presumed to have some relevance to unit mission and personal reassignment and career development, the skill sets that went to war were not the skill sets needed for this war. Artillery and Armor units re-equipped, trained, and deployed as “constabulary” units destined for patrolling the roads and alleys of Iraq.
Does this invalidate the foundation for personnel management or the foundation for the existence of units? The evidence suggests that the Personnel Managers, their Super Grades, decided that the existence of trained Reserve and Guard units is valid only as fillers and as “non-union” temporary warriors for non-union seasonal work … like war.
QDR 2006 spells it out in bold terms, but without clearing with Congress that their consistent insistence that Reserve and Guard units have a clear wartime mission is being ignored utterly.
And, worse yet, the QDR 2006 is the quintessential example of the deliberate adoption of the 6P principle (PPPPPP – “Prior Preparation Prevents P*$$ Poor Performance) which is the opposite of the Six Sigma principle of Deming enthusiasts. And it might be said that, despite the best trained, motivated, lead, and equipped, the performance of the progress in Iraq is definitely PP.
QDR 2006 dichotomous shifting includes “From under resourced , standby forces (hollow units) – to fully equipped and fully manned forces (combat ready units)” which means that that the Pentagon views Guard and Reserve units are inherently hollow.
The entire Capstone program mandated by Congress aligning units with combat mission is classic contingency planning. QDR 2006 tosses the entire concept of contingency planning in favor of “proactive” prevention based not on threats, but on capabilities. The QDR 2006 dichotomous shifting requires some innovative thinking, as follows:
“From threat-based planning – to capabilities based planning”, “From peacetime planning – to rapid adaptive planning”, and from “from forces that need to deconflict – to integrated, interdependent forces” which all means that no planning based on Mission, Enemy, Weather and Terrain is required, Modular Stabilized one-size-fits-nothing Brigades can rest in Festung Kansas and pounce with speed, agility, and precision on any and all contingency … without planning.
This no planning modus operandi is officially disclaimed elsewhere in QDR 2006 which calls for a dichotomous shift “from crisis response – to shaping the future” and from “reactive” to “proactive”. I have a hard time envisioning being proactive without threat based peacetime planning. PPPPPP.
While the Democrats are spending useless energy in trying to conduct military operations in Iraq, which they have zero Constitutional authority, they, and the disaffected other Congress members should focus on what is their specified Constitutional authority to do which is to provide for the regulation (doctrine) of the military. It is clear that the Puzzle Palace on the Potomac can’t do it.
Showing posts with label surge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surge. Show all posts
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Victory Transformed into Defeat
If Transformation had not mangled the Army’s force structure AND that force structure had been mobilized and deployed in accordance with the Army’s then existing doctrine for Stability and Counterinsurgency, we would be back home already with the Iraqi’s having a functioning government. That previous force structure had first been formalized by George C Marshall who created the first true modularized army, the modules being two kinds of battalions: divisional and non-divisional. Group, Brigade, Regiment, Division, Corps, Field Army and Theatre Army headquarters had no force structure except as the conditions of Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops and Time and Technology available (METT-TT). Over time, there was a tendency to create fixed tables for these higher levels of command, largely to enhance the grade of the CO.
Marshall’s structure worked from Pearl Harbor through Desert Storm through desert tank warfare, jungle counter insurgency, mountain warfare, urban and just about everything else. As we stood down from previous wars, the size of the Active Army was reduced, sometime very painfully, and many functions were transferred to the Guard and Reserves, The Reserve Forces Act of 1957 established a mobilizable force of 35 divisions organized into Corps and Divisions. After Vietnam, there was a functional division between the Guard which favored the kinds of forces states need, combat, MP, artillery, and engineers while the Reserves took on functions requiring a wider base of talents, and of the combat service support functions.
Under MacNamara, Guard and Reserve units specified organizations went through a crazy quilt of branch and functional changes. A MANG tank battalion I served in had been a regimental tank company converted to a TC personnel carrier battalion and thence back to tanks. The Congress ended the confusion by requiring all reserve and Guard units to have a specified mission tied to a specific contingency. This was called the Capstone alignment and it revolutionized the training of the entire army.
As an MI battalion commander, I supported the 49th Armored Division TXARNG, which supported III Corps in a counterattack mission in NORTHAG in northern Germany. Later, as a MobDes officer, I served as Chief of Intelligence, US Army Japan which itself was split into two components USARJ and XIth Corps, the remainder of the Corps headquarters was HIARNG. Everyone knew where they were intended to go, but that was less important than the training which everyone learned what the expectations were at each level of command. The fact that Saudi Arabia was a relatively minor change as it affected the terrain more than any other factor. Saddam obliged by fighting in a desert with a Soviet manner with Soviet Equipment.
The whole structure was trained to fight under the AirLand Battle concept which was the result of the Command and General Staff College’s effort to rescue the field army from Mathemetactics, a Think Tank abortion. Some mathematician found out that in a typical nine battalion division, only four battalions would be on line with two in brigade reserve and three in division reserve. Such a waste, they thought and the school system was obliged to teach all officers the mathematical formulae to win battles on simplified maps that assumed the Russians were idiots. Fortunately, large scale command post exercises revealed the inevitable collapse of any such formation without a reserve.
Since ThinkTanks are Pentagon auxiliaries, and since the Army’s educational system and font of any serious thinking threatens the sense of control the Pentagon has over the fate of the world, Transformation was invented to wrest control from those who have fought the battle, lived to talk about it, to the ranks of the Civil Service SuperGrades who run the place and keep the brass and the appointees rotating in and out too fast to fix anything.
Additionally, as the major war games showed, the Guard and Reserves were showing a remarkable grasp of the fine points of higher level operations, which was a lot higher than the levels the personnel management people in the Pentagon were aware of, as personnel management ends at the grade of O6 where the General Officer system takes over. The initial deployments to the Balkans and other contingencies began to shock the Regular Establishment to the point that I heard many a Regular (Army, Navy, Air Force) complain that they(the Regulars) couldn’t do anything without a G****m Reservist! Their command post exercises tended to rely on the Log Fairies Four to keep tactical play going with a click of the heels! These are the Gas Fairly, the Ammo Fairy, the Truck Fairy, and the Fix It Fairy …. All in the Army Reserves.
This was an unacceptable allocation of machismo, and during Desert Storm, four ARNG brigades were kept back in the states because they weren’t ”ready”…unlike the hospitals, engineer bridge units, fighter squadrons, etc. There were just too many field and general officer graded non-union heroes about. That had to stop.
From the Korean War on, senior Army commanders have admired the cohesion of Guard and Reserve units in a time when cohesion itself is considered a virtue. Thus was created the concept of rotational unit warfare with big stateside bases to stabilize the rotation of troops. Logically this would apply to the already stable Guard and Reserve units ….but it didn’t with units dismembered with derivative UIC’s and combined into Ad Hoc units. Which, due to the previous training in Capstone alignments actually was made to work.
Rather than call up full transportation groups (which would entail an O-6), this function has been contracted out to unarmed, overpaid (and overweight) civilian truckers. Rather than call up Guard and Reserve Movement Control Centers, Material Control Centers, Rear Area Operations Centers with Guard Lt Brigades and MP Brigades to protect them we ran unescorted convoys on unguarded roads into IED’s and ambushes.
Rather than call up the PYSOP and Civil Affairs Brigades and Groups (too many O-6’), the Pentagon relied on the statements of refugees and political exiles, a source that any MI interrogator would tell you is unreliable, and both Bremer and Sanchez rejected the advice of the few mobilized CA reservists.
Transformation focused solely on combat brigades and has given only a sidelong glance at what the echelons of command about brigade look like. Fortunately for Capstone and the Army’s Educational System, there are enough people to cobble together a working command and control system. Transformation envisioned that the Modular Brigades would be employed in the fixed task organization designed in the Pentagon. Fortunately, no one in the field is that stupid.
If Pre-Tranformational doctrine had been used, there would have been a Theater of War established with a Field Army and perhaps two or three Corps headquarters. The structure of the Combat Support, Combat Service Support and order of battle would have been task organized as needed, with as many Civil Affairs groups and brigades as combat.
The existing doctrine on the books back them is included in the new FM3-24.
Marshall’s structure worked from Pearl Harbor through Desert Storm through desert tank warfare, jungle counter insurgency, mountain warfare, urban and just about everything else. As we stood down from previous wars, the size of the Active Army was reduced, sometime very painfully, and many functions were transferred to the Guard and Reserves, The Reserve Forces Act of 1957 established a mobilizable force of 35 divisions organized into Corps and Divisions. After Vietnam, there was a functional division between the Guard which favored the kinds of forces states need, combat, MP, artillery, and engineers while the Reserves took on functions requiring a wider base of talents, and of the combat service support functions.
Under MacNamara, Guard and Reserve units specified organizations went through a crazy quilt of branch and functional changes. A MANG tank battalion I served in had been a regimental tank company converted to a TC personnel carrier battalion and thence back to tanks. The Congress ended the confusion by requiring all reserve and Guard units to have a specified mission tied to a specific contingency. This was called the Capstone alignment and it revolutionized the training of the entire army.
As an MI battalion commander, I supported the 49th Armored Division TXARNG, which supported III Corps in a counterattack mission in NORTHAG in northern Germany. Later, as a MobDes officer, I served as Chief of Intelligence, US Army Japan which itself was split into two components USARJ and XIth Corps, the remainder of the Corps headquarters was HIARNG. Everyone knew where they were intended to go, but that was less important than the training which everyone learned what the expectations were at each level of command. The fact that Saudi Arabia was a relatively minor change as it affected the terrain more than any other factor. Saddam obliged by fighting in a desert with a Soviet manner with Soviet Equipment.
The whole structure was trained to fight under the AirLand Battle concept which was the result of the Command and General Staff College’s effort to rescue the field army from Mathemetactics, a Think Tank abortion. Some mathematician found out that in a typical nine battalion division, only four battalions would be on line with two in brigade reserve and three in division reserve. Such a waste, they thought and the school system was obliged to teach all officers the mathematical formulae to win battles on simplified maps that assumed the Russians were idiots. Fortunately, large scale command post exercises revealed the inevitable collapse of any such formation without a reserve.
Since ThinkTanks are Pentagon auxiliaries, and since the Army’s educational system and font of any serious thinking threatens the sense of control the Pentagon has over the fate of the world, Transformation was invented to wrest control from those who have fought the battle, lived to talk about it, to the ranks of the Civil Service SuperGrades who run the place and keep the brass and the appointees rotating in and out too fast to fix anything.
Additionally, as the major war games showed, the Guard and Reserves were showing a remarkable grasp of the fine points of higher level operations, which was a lot higher than the levels the personnel management people in the Pentagon were aware of, as personnel management ends at the grade of O6 where the General Officer system takes over. The initial deployments to the Balkans and other contingencies began to shock the Regular Establishment to the point that I heard many a Regular (Army, Navy, Air Force) complain that they(the Regulars) couldn’t do anything without a G****m Reservist! Their command post exercises tended to rely on the Log Fairies Four to keep tactical play going with a click of the heels! These are the Gas Fairly, the Ammo Fairy, the Truck Fairy, and the Fix It Fairy …. All in the Army Reserves.
This was an unacceptable allocation of machismo, and during Desert Storm, four ARNG brigades were kept back in the states because they weren’t ”ready”…unlike the hospitals, engineer bridge units, fighter squadrons, etc. There were just too many field and general officer graded non-union heroes about. That had to stop.
From the Korean War on, senior Army commanders have admired the cohesion of Guard and Reserve units in a time when cohesion itself is considered a virtue. Thus was created the concept of rotational unit warfare with big stateside bases to stabilize the rotation of troops. Logically this would apply to the already stable Guard and Reserve units ….but it didn’t with units dismembered with derivative UIC’s and combined into Ad Hoc units. Which, due to the previous training in Capstone alignments actually was made to work.
Rather than call up full transportation groups (which would entail an O-6), this function has been contracted out to unarmed, overpaid (and overweight) civilian truckers. Rather than call up Guard and Reserve Movement Control Centers, Material Control Centers, Rear Area Operations Centers with Guard Lt Brigades and MP Brigades to protect them we ran unescorted convoys on unguarded roads into IED’s and ambushes.
Rather than call up the PYSOP and Civil Affairs Brigades and Groups (too many O-6’), the Pentagon relied on the statements of refugees and political exiles, a source that any MI interrogator would tell you is unreliable, and both Bremer and Sanchez rejected the advice of the few mobilized CA reservists.
Transformation focused solely on combat brigades and has given only a sidelong glance at what the echelons of command about brigade look like. Fortunately for Capstone and the Army’s Educational System, there are enough people to cobble together a working command and control system. Transformation envisioned that the Modular Brigades would be employed in the fixed task organization designed in the Pentagon. Fortunately, no one in the field is that stupid.
If Pre-Tranformational doctrine had been used, there would have been a Theater of War established with a Field Army and perhaps two or three Corps headquarters. The structure of the Combat Support, Combat Service Support and order of battle would have been task organized as needed, with as many Civil Affairs groups and brigades as combat.
The existing doctrine on the books back them is included in the new FM3-24.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Escalation -The Return of the Peoples Park
My hopes that the new Democratic regime change would include a few grown ups were dashed when Pelosi of San Francisco trotted out that hoary old Buzzword “Escalation” from the halcyon days of Hate Asbury, Herpes, LSD, tie dyed, dropped out, tripped in Viet Cong activism of the Sixties and Seventies. Escalation means that any alteration in order of battle, tactics, strategy, or techniques by the US to face escalation of the same type by the enemy, the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese.
It’s classic Buzziology and true to the principles elicited by George Orwell in his books, 1984, Animal Farm, and Homage to Catalonia. Real escalation, such as the current Jihadi offensive in and around Baghdad is not escalation; it is evidence of US interference in native affairs. Any attempt to deal with Jihadi escalation (good) is American escalation (bad),
For those who followed the course of the War in Vietnam, each time the NVA/VC launched a major offensive, the people at the Peoples Park took another toke. When allied forces counter attacked or dared to launch a pre-emptive attack, the Minions of Gozer poured out of their communes and classrooms by the hundreds of thousands across the planet with identical chants, signs, slogans, porta-potties, and buses to swarm the streets of three continents, all done spontaneously on order like immediate air strikes.
The Adult ego state in a healthy head, would simply ask, “why is the US adding troops any different from the other side adding troops?” The simplest answer is that the other side gone on the offensive, such as the Germans did at the Bulge, and we must deal with it.
The are a few grown ups in the Democratic party including John Edwards who knows that the current “Surge” is not just to defeat an Jihadi/Insurgent Surge, but as part of the new strategic plan that the Democrats and some Quitters in the GOP say doesn’t exist. The tragedy of this comedy is that after four years of war, the President finally read the manual. Remember the old adage, after everything else has failed, read the instructions. And the instructions, upgraded from the old manual, are in FM 3-24 Counter Insurgency available for download:
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/Repository/Materials/USA-USMCCOINNewsRelease.pdf
http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/CAC-COINFILES/COINREADER_WEB.pdf
The only Surge that counts in all this is the deployment of LTG Petraeus and whomever he brings with him to Iraq. LTG Petraeus learned quickly that dealing with Stability Operations, Peace Keeping and Counter Insurgency with military forces requires an integrated unified coordinated effort to include economic development, effective governance, essential services (police and fire, water, electricity, schools, transportation, medical and sanitation) are just as much a military concern as fire and maneuver. Based on the successes and failures in the last fifty years, all these efforts must be coordinated under one umbrella which may include a variety of command relations such as inviting NGO’s to work “with” governmental elements. This is nothing more than the “incident management system” has been evolving to deal with tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and fires everywhere.
This is the real surge and that is what scares the Old Left, still stuck in the great ”World Revolution” of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao and Ho, all True Communists. Today’s Anti-American Left spouting Marxism is, interestingly, not True Communism, but Neo-Communism. The True Communist was concern with restoring lost labor value stolen by Capitalism to the Working Class, the Proletariat.
The Neo-Communist has been rejected by the Working Class who now prefers to be called Middle Class, and as long as they get their six-pack, pickup, three bedrooms and a bath, union pension and health benefits, don’t give a rat’s ass about the Revolution. This rejection has been taken to heart by the Neo-Commie to now champions the unworking class, and the inanimate like the Environment to replace the games system that restores the balance of the Great Game of Buzziology, the role switching game of Victim, Rescuer, and Prosecutor.
Pendulums swing, and it can be expected that we will see politics swing from banning same sex marriage to requiring it. From establishing the Christian church as the National Church to affirmative action in churching is inevitable.
Or, perhaps the dedicated few could read the manual.
It’s classic Buzziology and true to the principles elicited by George Orwell in his books, 1984, Animal Farm, and Homage to Catalonia. Real escalation, such as the current Jihadi offensive in and around Baghdad is not escalation; it is evidence of US interference in native affairs. Any attempt to deal with Jihadi escalation (good) is American escalation (bad),
For those who followed the course of the War in Vietnam, each time the NVA/VC launched a major offensive, the people at the Peoples Park took another toke. When allied forces counter attacked or dared to launch a pre-emptive attack, the Minions of Gozer poured out of their communes and classrooms by the hundreds of thousands across the planet with identical chants, signs, slogans, porta-potties, and buses to swarm the streets of three continents, all done spontaneously on order like immediate air strikes.
The Adult ego state in a healthy head, would simply ask, “why is the US adding troops any different from the other side adding troops?” The simplest answer is that the other side gone on the offensive, such as the Germans did at the Bulge, and we must deal with it.
The are a few grown ups in the Democratic party including John Edwards who knows that the current “Surge” is not just to defeat an Jihadi/Insurgent Surge, but as part of the new strategic plan that the Democrats and some Quitters in the GOP say doesn’t exist. The tragedy of this comedy is that after four years of war, the President finally read the manual. Remember the old adage, after everything else has failed, read the instructions. And the instructions, upgraded from the old manual, are in FM 3-24 Counter Insurgency available for download:
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/Repository/Materials/USA-USMCCOINNewsRelease.pdf
http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/CAC-COINFILES/COINREADER_WEB.pdf
The only Surge that counts in all this is the deployment of LTG Petraeus and whomever he brings with him to Iraq. LTG Petraeus learned quickly that dealing with Stability Operations, Peace Keeping and Counter Insurgency with military forces requires an integrated unified coordinated effort to include economic development, effective governance, essential services (police and fire, water, electricity, schools, transportation, medical and sanitation) are just as much a military concern as fire and maneuver. Based on the successes and failures in the last fifty years, all these efforts must be coordinated under one umbrella which may include a variety of command relations such as inviting NGO’s to work “with” governmental elements. This is nothing more than the “incident management system” has been evolving to deal with tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and fires everywhere.
This is the real surge and that is what scares the Old Left, still stuck in the great ”World Revolution” of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao and Ho, all True Communists. Today’s Anti-American Left spouting Marxism is, interestingly, not True Communism, but Neo-Communism. The True Communist was concern with restoring lost labor value stolen by Capitalism to the Working Class, the Proletariat.
The Neo-Communist has been rejected by the Working Class who now prefers to be called Middle Class, and as long as they get their six-pack, pickup, three bedrooms and a bath, union pension and health benefits, don’t give a rat’s ass about the Revolution. This rejection has been taken to heart by the Neo-Commie to now champions the unworking class, and the inanimate like the Environment to replace the games system that restores the balance of the Great Game of Buzziology, the role switching game of Victim, Rescuer, and Prosecutor.
Pendulums swing, and it can be expected that we will see politics swing from banning same sex marriage to requiring it. From establishing the Christian church as the National Church to affirmative action in churching is inevitable.
Or, perhaps the dedicated few could read the manual.
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