This last month saw the last F-16’s of the 147th Fighter Wing TXANG leave Ellington Field located close to the Houston Ship Channel which is not only one of the top four ports of the nation, but the home of a couple dozen petrochemical plants. Houston, not only is the world capitol of the energy industry, it is the fourth largest city in the nation. The loss of these fighter aircraft, replaced by a more expensive fighter element from out of state, and unaware of what’s worth defending.
It makes too much sense to place troops in places where something dangerous this ways come for the Pentagon to grasp such subtleties. The stationing of troops stateside to be able to react faster to threats overseas than forces already overseas is a bit of Rumsfeldian quixotry hard to match in the annals of military lunacy.
The stationing of standing troops is typically based on the location of threat(s) first, followed by the location of adequate training facilities, security, and sustainability. To that, RC units need to be based geographically near where the troops live. While a fair number of officers and noncoms travel long distances to attend drill (aka training assemblies, et al) the bulk of a unit needs to live nearby, like less than an hours commute for rapid activation and deployment in emergencies.
The 75th Division (TS) in Houston is commanded by an MG from Chicago. My former stock broker in Hoston, a Navy Commander, used to drill in New Orleans now drills close by in San Antonio. I know other Houstonians that drill in Florida and in San Diego. This testifies as to the professionalism of the troops in the Guard and Reserves. But you can’t rely on long commutes to field large units, and despite the call for funds to support such commutes by the CNGR, those funds will be diverted to pay for TDY for strap hangers to advise the lowly unit commanders on how to save training money.
More fundamentally, one takes advantage of the geographic dispersion of the talents needed to fight and win wars in stationing RC units and activities. Houston is a town full of aviators and aviation mechanics, yet the aviation assets of all services are conspicuous for their absence. This should be the first principle of stationing Guard and Reserve units, that of being close to the talents needed for both state and national needs.
Units that are boat based should be stationed where there are boats and sailors, and other boat handlers even if those boats are really big and carry airplanes. Current combat in built up areas show that urban troops survive much better than rural troops when the bullets start to fly. Historically, rural units have specialized in combat roles which needs to be enhanced by combat units in cities. One never has enough infantry and never enough cargo craft (air, land or sea).
Yet, the BRAC commission specialized in moving units far from where the troops live. This is a process started long before BRAC, which I noted when my intelligence battalion moved from Houston to be closer to the training facility in Austin originally designed to give employment to unemployed reservists in the San Antonio-Austin area. Houston could raise a brigade of linguists in six months to meet all the requirements for critical language and cultural sensitivities. So could New York City, Chicago, LA and the San Francisco Bay area. Those cities should also be home to major units based on water craft and aircraft.
The over-all stationing of units beyond the needs of the states for military units, needs to be based on an overall assessment of mobilization staffing requirements for a full out peer to peer showdown such as was planned before the Pentagon decided not to fight guerilla wars and those they did could be handled 10-30-30. This would work out as additional Guard units that fit traditional Guard proclivities and additional Reserve units to meet the need for critical masses of specialties found geographically.
Of particular note is the requirement for a Green Water and Brown Water “navy”. The US Navy is by default Blue Water and only reacts to the Green and Brown when embarrassed and when career advancement is served thereby. In short, the Coast Guard needs to regain it’s units, and naval small boat units restored (where there is both water and the need).
Of a heretical cant, there is need for water craft under state control to meet the various needs of flood, hurricane and man made disaster handling, and the best way to do this is for the National Guard to get into the Brown and Green Water game. While it is too much to expect that a Navy National Guard to have traction, those same boats and personnel could be assigned to the Army National Guard which is not far from where things are in the Army Reserve units with boats.
Let’s put the troops where the talent is, as well as where the danger is, and fund the training areas to fit.
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Showing posts with label CNGR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CNGR. Show all posts
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Regular Shredding Keeps the Terrorist Away
One of the members of the Committee on the National Guard and Reserves (CNGR) let slip that the Pentagon had no need for Guard and Reserve units, and that their needs were for combat troops. This, of course, is no news to members of the Guard and Reserves as the Pentagon and it’s predecessors have consistently felt the same and such feeling is endemic and pervasive down to their inner selves. The late Colonel Hackworth, something of an iconoclast, also believed that Regulars should command Guard and Reserve units. He was surprised to note, that that could happen in the Guard if the state Governors would allow it.
Inasmuch as the process of the destruction of Guard and Reserve units has been the policy and practice of the Bush Administration since Field Marshall von Rumsfeld took office, and in defiance of Federal Law and of the Constitution (Second Amendment), illustrates the ancient dictum that standing armies are a standing threat to civil authority, regardless of the nature of the civil authority. This goes back to tribal days when the elected War Chief overthrows the authority of the tribal council of elders. The history of ancient civilizations also is describable in terms of the struggle of the war chief versus the priest hood (aka intelligentsia) over who would dominate the town council, the latter reduced to that of privy council of cronies.
The justification of a take over by the war chief is often found in the inability of the tribal council to defend the tribe against sustained threats. This, however, doesn’t apply to the USofA, as since the creation of the Department of Defense, the war winning record has been abysmal despite being more ready than before DoD. The Pre-DoD record was full of battles lost and wars won, now replaced with battles won and wars lost or called off.
The history of American war since before the United States has been that there are never enough infantry and never enough trucks (be those trucks float, fly or drive). This too the Pentagon missed in their preparation for the Long War, but realized that replacements will be needed to flesh out the 10-30-30 “Whack-A-Mole” rotational war so favored by those in the Wolves Lair by the Potomac. This gave them the opportunity to shred the Guard and Reserves.
Despite the fact that Guard and Reserve units and personnel have demonstrated stellar performance, the CNGR proceeded blindly in their Rumsfeldian quest. We all recall that the first stage of the shredding was the cherry picking and packaging of RC units under flags of convenience particularly leaving out field and flag rank command slots in deploying units. It occurred to no one in the Puzzle Palace that the traditional way to call up RC and militia units was to send Regulars in as fillers and replacements thus preserving the usual stellar cohesion that RC units excel in. Italian units “stiffened” with German officers and NCO’s often performed admirably in North Afrika.
There is, however, a valid defense requirement in what the CNGR member let slip, and that is the need for individual and small team replacements to fill short falls and unanticipated needs in the forces on active service regardless of component. The only components capable of maintaining such a pool are the Reserves as contrasted with the Guard which is unit based, and the Active Components by their year end staffing requirements. The Guard and AC must cannibalize units to provide fillers. And the Army and Air Force Reserves have failed to maintain an adequate system of trained fillers. The IRR system failed, in part for lack of money, and in part due to fear that non-unit affiliation would threaten a major source of income, and make for a less competitive career. Just providing more money didn’t work.
One of the major lunacies of the Rumsfeldian unit shredding schema is that the most valuable RC individual replacements, however contrived, is for experienced and trained troops well past entry level. These troops, for the most part, got their entry level experience on active service and are like Napoleon’s Old Guard, are older. In addition to technical skills, the leadership skills of the mid level manager, officer or enlisted, require practice, a practice gained only in units. Consequently, the need for trained non-coms and officers is best met from persons in units. That’s exactly where the Pentagon got them, but by cannibalizing RC units.
It seems obvious that the best solution to meet the replacement problem is to provide units for individuals to train with, by authorized over-strength (a notion already under way) and the creation of units formed for the purpose of collective training for the individuals. These would be units in training configured along tactical lines but lacking the full complement of hardware necessary for deployment. These units would form command cells to participate in a “war” created by war-game, virtual reality, and/or command post exercise in which individuals would join in a war in progress, a very realistic mode.
Other activities of a unit in training would be ad hoc aggregates to under go selected skills training such as NBC, weapons qualification, patrolling, or the usual array of required training so favored by under-employed higher staffs.
Imagine the UmptyUmpth Fighter Squadron consisting of flight and fight simulators, or the Last/UmptyUmpth combat brigade engaged in a virtual reality enactment of the Battle of Tora Bora in progress. An RC Sergeant in town for business could hop by the local RC center, and participate in an exercise available and for which a training need exists. The record of his/her participation would go into his on-line training folder.
In several years of exercises with the 75th Division, I found that such exercises can be hard to distinguish from the command post environments I found in Vietnam and in the Fulda Gap.
In short, unit shredding is counter-productive to the needs of the Active Components as well as the needs of the RC components. Using the proven effectiveness of modern training technology can present realistic training for RC units be they deployable or not.
The fact that Guard units are experienced in working with civilian authorities makes them, as units, better suited for the Long War than AC units, gives rise to the notion that AC units should be shredded to fill Guard units.
Inasmuch as the process of the destruction of Guard and Reserve units has been the policy and practice of the Bush Administration since Field Marshall von Rumsfeld took office, and in defiance of Federal Law and of the Constitution (Second Amendment), illustrates the ancient dictum that standing armies are a standing threat to civil authority, regardless of the nature of the civil authority. This goes back to tribal days when the elected War Chief overthrows the authority of the tribal council of elders. The history of ancient civilizations also is describable in terms of the struggle of the war chief versus the priest hood (aka intelligentsia) over who would dominate the town council, the latter reduced to that of privy council of cronies.
The justification of a take over by the war chief is often found in the inability of the tribal council to defend the tribe against sustained threats. This, however, doesn’t apply to the USofA, as since the creation of the Department of Defense, the war winning record has been abysmal despite being more ready than before DoD. The Pre-DoD record was full of battles lost and wars won, now replaced with battles won and wars lost or called off.
The history of American war since before the United States has been that there are never enough infantry and never enough trucks (be those trucks float, fly or drive). This too the Pentagon missed in their preparation for the Long War, but realized that replacements will be needed to flesh out the 10-30-30 “Whack-A-Mole” rotational war so favored by those in the Wolves Lair by the Potomac. This gave them the opportunity to shred the Guard and Reserves.
Despite the fact that Guard and Reserve units and personnel have demonstrated stellar performance, the CNGR proceeded blindly in their Rumsfeldian quest. We all recall that the first stage of the shredding was the cherry picking and packaging of RC units under flags of convenience particularly leaving out field and flag rank command slots in deploying units. It occurred to no one in the Puzzle Palace that the traditional way to call up RC and militia units was to send Regulars in as fillers and replacements thus preserving the usual stellar cohesion that RC units excel in. Italian units “stiffened” with German officers and NCO’s often performed admirably in North Afrika.
There is, however, a valid defense requirement in what the CNGR member let slip, and that is the need for individual and small team replacements to fill short falls and unanticipated needs in the forces on active service regardless of component. The only components capable of maintaining such a pool are the Reserves as contrasted with the Guard which is unit based, and the Active Components by their year end staffing requirements. The Guard and AC must cannibalize units to provide fillers. And the Army and Air Force Reserves have failed to maintain an adequate system of trained fillers. The IRR system failed, in part for lack of money, and in part due to fear that non-unit affiliation would threaten a major source of income, and make for a less competitive career. Just providing more money didn’t work.
One of the major lunacies of the Rumsfeldian unit shredding schema is that the most valuable RC individual replacements, however contrived, is for experienced and trained troops well past entry level. These troops, for the most part, got their entry level experience on active service and are like Napoleon’s Old Guard, are older. In addition to technical skills, the leadership skills of the mid level manager, officer or enlisted, require practice, a practice gained only in units. Consequently, the need for trained non-coms and officers is best met from persons in units. That’s exactly where the Pentagon got them, but by cannibalizing RC units.
It seems obvious that the best solution to meet the replacement problem is to provide units for individuals to train with, by authorized over-strength (a notion already under way) and the creation of units formed for the purpose of collective training for the individuals. These would be units in training configured along tactical lines but lacking the full complement of hardware necessary for deployment. These units would form command cells to participate in a “war” created by war-game, virtual reality, and/or command post exercise in which individuals would join in a war in progress, a very realistic mode.
Other activities of a unit in training would be ad hoc aggregates to under go selected skills training such as NBC, weapons qualification, patrolling, or the usual array of required training so favored by under-employed higher staffs.
Imagine the UmptyUmpth Fighter Squadron consisting of flight and fight simulators, or the Last/UmptyUmpth combat brigade engaged in a virtual reality enactment of the Battle of Tora Bora in progress. An RC Sergeant in town for business could hop by the local RC center, and participate in an exercise available and for which a training need exists. The record of his/her participation would go into his on-line training folder.
In several years of exercises with the 75th Division, I found that such exercises can be hard to distinguish from the command post environments I found in Vietnam and in the Fulda Gap.
In short, unit shredding is counter-productive to the needs of the Active Components as well as the needs of the RC components. Using the proven effectiveness of modern training technology can present realistic training for RC units be they deployable or not.
The fact that Guard units are experienced in working with civilian authorities makes them, as units, better suited for the Long War than AC units, gives rise to the notion that AC units should be shredded to fill Guard units.
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