The Nuts & Bolts of the Declaration of Independence.

Drafting the Declaration

Drafting the wording

The Nuts and Bolts of the Declaration of Independence

The usual attention paid to the Declaration of Independence is upon the stirring words declaring tyranny of the King and for Independence.  These, however, are the specific charges listed, and from which the Constitution was carefully written to deal with these.  It is worth the effort to trace these charges to the provisions in the Constitution that were intended to preclude the same:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

If it had all failed, perhapos....

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

QUARTERING TROOPS IN HOMES

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

LEXINGTON

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

THE CONTINENTALS

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

THE HESSIANS

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

TORIES AND HESSIANS

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

RECRUITING INDIANS

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

YORKTOWN

FAKE OFFICERS AND FUBAR IN THE PENTAGON

Fake Officers & FUBAR in the Pentagon

 There is a malignant growth in the Pentagon of several generations and many administrations that has effectively neutralized the combat power of at least the Army.  And weakened the links between it and the other services, to the point that after its most successful land operation in its history, failed to defeat a fractious but rabid irregular foe, and failed to stand up effective governance in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Something it had done successfully in Japan and Germany.  And the entire misadventure has been managed by fake officers not confirmed by the Senate as Officers of the United States.

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The Transformed by the Fake

(The President) shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The fact that these fake officers have not been confirmed by the Senate breaks the Constitutional limits and controls over the military, judiciary, and executive personnel in critical positions considered expressions of the sovereignty of these United States.  All such “Officers of the United States” include ambassadors, consuls, cabinet members, federal judges, and all military officers down to Butter Bar.  As such, each Officers’ word is law, enforceable in court as such. 

Survival Imperatives Differ - Officers vs Civil Servants

The survival imperatives of Civil Servants vs military officers differ dramatically between the Job Description vs the Efficiency Report (OER) on file.  The Personnel File, once called the 201 File, contains the list of assignments and schools together with associated OER.  One slip, and late in one’s career it can end under the Up or Out policy.   This hits usually in the Second Decade of service with odds as low as fifty percent for survival, depending upon the current SWAG.  Been there, done that. 

The Officer’s career assignments are determined on a competitive and centrally controlled process.  The end result is the selection of officers in senior grades, usually O-6 (Colonel and Navy Captain) who has the expected preparation and performance.

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The Civil Service Job Description and table of organization gives authority and territory upon which continued employment is grounded. This is dependent upon connections, favors, and a strangle hold over processes.  The assignments of Civil Servants are principally under the control of the Servant, with the selection and promotion process subject to compromise and manufacture. It is rigged, and with few external set of standards applied to selections for promotion or assignment.  Been there, done that.  

This lack of objective standards of performance or experience, taken collectively and protectively, mandates that military expertise by the military becomes a clear and present danger to civil service survival.  Complementing this banality is that the officers caught up in Civil Service traps must play the part of a puppet on a string.  This is how we lost the Middle East. 

WE KNEW THE CULTURE BEFORE

The current flap over ISIS, and of the diminished capacity of Iraq and Afghanistan to dealing with irregular and peer enemy forces, despite over fifteen years of US military effort and trillions of dollars, were preventable had the effort been fought by Officers of the United States, without the fatal influence of Fake Officers of the SES and their crony contractors.

The post mortems posted about the prewar estimates and post war operations has been laid at the door of cultural arrogance and incompetence at the level where the difference between Shia and Sunni was dismissed, in favor of a turnkey Kansas under the baleful gaze of Neo-Conservatives.  The blame has been shifted in-house to denounce stability (nation building) as a righteous military mission.

The problem with that assessment is that it ignores that the US Army had trained for decades in Rear Area Combat Operations (RACO), Civil Affairs and Military Government, and Psychological Operations all of which I had extensive exposure to during that training effort which filled the time between Vietnam and 9-11.   Likewise, the capacity to operate at Field Army level with multiple corps and divisions was destroyed. 

In order for an officer to get his or her Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) prior to 9-11 approved in CA and PSYOPS, one had to submit a PSYOP or Civil Affairs Estimate of the Situation that necessarily covered such niceties as Shia and Sunni.  Or Pashtunwali.  Where did these estimates go?

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Draft of What Was Known in CA and PSYOP

Why were the capacities to fix and administer devastated and/or conquered territories for which preparations long precede D-day, H-Hour deleted?  Instead of Civil Affairs brigades and PSYOP groups prepping the battlefield, only a handful of Army Reserve Officers were given a back seat at the briefing. 

TENURED (SES) AND THE TEMPORARY (Officers)

Rumsfeld has long left the Pentagon, but the programs that he advanced had been long in the plotting, going back to, at least, Desert Storm.  It occurred to a number of my fellow veterans that the “Regular Army” was at fault proceeding with policies that guaranteed their promotions in a competitive fashion, over the necessities of actually winning in war.  Military officers’ tenure in the Pentagon, however, rarely exceed four years, and usually run three.  It is not possible for a decades long military doctrine run from inside the Pentagon be done with the connivance of commissioned officers of the United States.  They then are the hand puppets of those permanent employees (Civil Service) welded to their desks.

COMBAT SERVICE SUPORT

The glue that held Field Army and Corps operations together was the force structure in the US Army Reserve, and to a large extent the Army National Guard with counterparts in the Air Force and other services.  The glue came about due to the unglamorous role that glue, as in logistics and service support did not facilitate competitive promotions in the Active Components.  The result was the massive transfer of unglamorous activities (service support and combat service support) to the Reserve Components. 

Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait brought a sudden and traumatic shock to the Pentagon that the US Army, nor other services, could go to war without the Reserve Components. 

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ARFORGEN

http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2015/10/arforgen-death-of-army.html

Once Baghdad had been secured, however, the glue was dissolved as was the corps along with the core of logistics, combat service support, which was banished from the Army dictionary as defunct and obsolete.  Since then, large scale maneuvers became problematic at best with maneuver replaced by rotation under ARFORGEN (Army Force Generation) designed to provide equitable opportunity to participate in combat for promotion and career development purposes. 

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Likewise, while all units in the Armed Forces had been aligned to war time plans, the new “transformation” mandate under Rumsfeld, replaced any coherent defense strategy with blizzards of “snowflakes” from his imperial orifice.   Rumsfeld had taken the measure to transfer senior military officers to the field where they could be more useful, and replaced them with senior civil servants aka Senior Executive Service aka SES.  Then abolished the field commands these military officers might have been assigned to.  

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Under Transformation, the Corps was abolished and along with it the well-oiled close air support system was broken from the days when a request for an airstrike was monitored by the Air Force and silence was approval.  Too many Medals for Valor including the Medal of Honor have been awarded due to a failure of approval of immediate airstrikes due to the abolition of the Corps.

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PREPLANNED  AND IMMEDIATE AIR SUPPORT

Such was the case of the “transformation” process that proceeded to create a collection of “units of action” (instead of companies, battalions, regiments and brigades) that would be perfectly suited for future combat, the shape of which was to be determined by magic crystal ball.  Said crystal ball being ensconced in the Office of Net Assessments, which was designed to destroy the Services’ pet projects.  And “verified” by war gaming but not validated by the Schools or the Field.

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Any policy that has a life of over three years is not likely from a military staff in the Pentagon. In previous years, the Army was divided into “branches” (Armor, Artillery, Military Intelligence, etc) which branches governed doctrine and training and was active in procurement.  Branches have been abolished, and the dominance of doctrine and equipment has been sucked up into the Pentagon, and away from the Service Schools that melded field experience with national requirements.  The operative model for Transformation was to turn the Army into modular units like ships in the Navy. 

Rummy was Navy. 

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TASK ORGANIZATION TOO COMPLICATED FOR REMFS

The Senior Executive Service (SES) which operates as if it were consisting of Generals and Colonels, are not “officers of the United States”, and their directives should not be considered “orders” in the military sense as they do not convey the sovereignty of these United States.  The oath of enlistment or office for service members requires obedience to the “officers” appointed over them, which Civil Servants are not.

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TRANSFORMED INTO TABLES FROM ON HIGH

While a purge of those fake officers is not practical, the severance of the malignancy from the chain of command is easily obtained by the Senate saying that it will not consider any efficiency of fitness report by other than an Officer of the United States” in the process of confirming the promotions of military officers.  This will instantly produce a REMF stampede from the Pentagon of officers seeking real units to serve in.  These can be readily funded by the shredding of the payrolls of the SES. 

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If need be, those whose services are essential can be presented to the Senate for approval and concurrence.  In that manner, the Senate regains control over a Pentagon run wild. In addition, lateral entry of personnel and units as has been the wartime custom since before George Washington, can be set up.  

A UNIFORMED GENERAL STAFF CORPS!

And, finally, the Army needs a General Staff Corps trained to run things from the top, to provide the linkage between brass and field.  After WW 1, the concept of a General Staff was denounced as too Germanic.

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In addition, and foremost, the present efforts of the Army to reconstitute itself must be supported in defiance of those whose payroll depends upon its demise. Corps and divisions are being reassembled along with the necessary combat service support (logistics).  

Gordon S Fowkes, LTC USA RET, KCTJ

Winning the Peace

The Shogan and the Emperor

The Ideal Warfigher is one who fights when necessary to advance the cause of his polity (nation, tribe, family) in ways that support the process of survival.  This is fundamentally, the feeding and breeding of same in ways the nurture and protects the future, children who can cope as in sustained survival of children at puberty at a ratio of 2.1 per couple.  Failure to do so means the polity dies or dies out.

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The Psychological Roles needed for Survival for players pro and con

The operative term is protection as in against those who would destroy the ability of the polity to survive.   This is the psychological aspect of nurturing and protecting against threats, often called villains. The process of protection has defensive and offensive sides one of which is directed at the villains own ability to survive. Hence one man’s hero is another’s villain.

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Victory in any such conflict occurs when both hero and villain benefit from the arrangements post combat.  And believe it so.  The current imbroglio in the Muddled East is largely due to the inability for the combatants to get to a mutually satisfactory post combat arrangement. 

All the firepower, maneuver, and destruction of war that ignores this is a pure waste and a threat to the survival of all combatants to the party.

If you know your enemy and you know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.

 If you know yourself but not the enemy for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself you will succumb in every battle.

Sun Tzu’s advice applies to all walks of life.  Especially in divorce court.

Family Values

Knowing enemies, friendlies or those on the fence depends upon the array of psychological roles and attendant sociological rules that make up the substance of cultural or marker awareness. 

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The Sociological Rules that support the Psychological Roles

For the professional warmonger, T.E. Lawrence’s 27 Articles is a brilliant case study sadly ignored in the late unpleasantness.  Rules such as these change with each culture. 

1. Go easy for the first few weeks
2. .Get to know their families, clans and tribes, friends and enemies, wells, hills and roads
3.   In matters of business deal only with the commander…. of the army.   Never give orders to anyone at all. 
4.    Win and keep the confidence of your leader

5.       Remain in touch with your leader as constantly and unobtrusively as you can
6.       Be shy of too close relations with the subordinates of the expedition
7.       Treat the sub-chiefs of your force quite easily and lightly
8.       Your ideal position is when you are present and not noticed
9.       Magnify and develop the growing conception of the Sherifs as the natural aristocracy…

10.   Call your Sherif 'Sidi' in public and in private

11.   The foreigner and Christian is not a popular person in Arabia

12.   Cling tight to your sense of humour. You will need it every day.

13.   Never lay hands on an Arab; you degrade yourself.

14.   While very difficult to drive, the Bedu are easy to lead.

15.    Do not try to do too much with your own hands.

16.   A well-placed gift is often most effective in winning over a suspicious sheikh. Never receive a present without giving a liberal return,

17.   Wear an Arab head cloth when with a tribe. Bedu have a malignant prejudice against the hat,

18.    Complete success, which is when the Arabs forget your strangeness and speak naturally before you, counting you as one of themselves,

19.   If you wear Arab things, wear the best

20.   If you wear Arab things at all, go the whole way.

21.   Religious discussions will be frequent. Say what you like about your own side, and avoid criticism of theirs, unless you know that the point is external.

22.   Do not try to trade on what you know of fighting. The Hejaz confounds ordinary tactics

23.   Allusion is more effective than logical exposition: they dislike concise expression

24.   Do not mix Bedu and Syrians, or trained men and tribesmen

25.   Avoid too free talk about women. It is as difficult a subject as religion, and their standards are so unlike our own

26.   Be as careful of your servants as of yourself

27.   Bury yourself in Arab circles, have no interests and no ideas except the work in hand,

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Lawrence at Aqaba

Psychological Operations.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Sun Tzu

In short, winning wars that stay won requires knowing the right motivation for the right people in the right place with the right kind of power.   In Cold War terms, these are key communicators, as those who had links to people we could not talk to.  A two-step process.  And who were open to selected themes and symbols.  Of special note, these key communicators are those who may or may not hate out guts.

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The Polish Underground in WW2 stopped war production for the Germans for one whole day by issuing a single official looking flyer announcing that all workers could take Hitler’s Birthday, off.  Better than a thousand bomber raid.

All Politics is Local and run by the Construction and Entertainment businesses.

As earth bound creatures, who goes where to do what is implicit in breeding and feeding.  Whether this be a fishing boat, a crib, or in one’s MacMansion in the ‘burbs is the domain of the General Contractor, Building Inspector, Hooker and Pharaoh.   As it is inferred in the Old Testament, Moses was a Building Inspector for the Pharaoh who crossed the General Contractor who got Moses tossed in the mud to make below code bricks (as in without straw). 

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Making Brick with Straw ... Code Compliant

Terrain and trafficability analysis by Moses left the pursuing Pharaoh’s panzers swimming with the fishes. 

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Moses Parts the Sea

All politics is local, and all local politics is about use and not use of the land.   Getting to local brings the best fruit.  All politicians above the local level succor the support of the construction and entertainment industries.  Therein lies the Achilles’ Heels. 

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The Governator

Entertainment. Should one doubt the depth of sincerity herein depicted, it should be noted that Sun Yat Sen’s base of power in China were the Triads, Tongs, and other previously pro-Ming Anti-Machu gambling, prostitution and protection rackets.  Chiang Kai Check’s power base in Shanghai was the Green Gang.

Real Estate. The plantation owners of the Virginia Tidelands dominated US politics until they went South.  When Oil replaced Wool and Cotton, who drilled where and when runs deep in the political bedrock.  A necessary precursor to oil is the steel industry.   The present conflicts in the Ukraine are over the Soviet built Don Bass Iron and Coal triangle.  We call this industrial real estate. 

Highways and Byways, Rivers and Ridges

Commerce and war move along those routes where the going is easiest which normally includes rivers, high ground, and low ground approaches and restricted where high ground intersects such as passes, and cross corridors.  Generally speaking, towns will grow on the opposite side of a barrier, such as a mountain pass, river and big thickets.  This can be represented by a pair of hands:

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Movement is best with the grain, opposed across

Whether by commerce, piracy, governance or war, the control of key pieces of ground by one or another goes to three levels of significance: Strategic, Operational, and/or Tactical.  This applies to marketing grapefruit as well as firepower:

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Forking, the Indirect Approach.

Liddell Hart, in reaction to the carnage of WW 2, advocated the Indirect Approach, in which the enemy was placed on the horns of a dilemma, trying to cover more courses of action than could be handled:

From Liddell Hart. "In Strategy the longest way around is often the shortest way there. A direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, where as an indirect approach loosens the defender's hold by upsetting his balance".^[1]

From Sun Tzu: "In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory. In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack – the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers. The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in turn. It is like moving in a circle – you never come to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination?"^[2]

The Force

There are two kinds of warriors: Farmers and Hunters.  No combat ready force passes an inspection, and many inspection ready forces are doomed.  Farmers need directions, hunters need an incentive.

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German Dead in Russia

The Chain of Command is no stronger than its weakest links.  Nor can it stand alone on the bottom link. Nor can it be separated from the whole of the endeavor. Train from the top down, not the bottom up. The smallest parts only work in the sense of the larger whole; the squad works in the context of battles by four levels up, no less.

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Peace on Earth

All living creatures carry battle drill in the genes, often first shown as play.  Hide and Seek is an evasion drill as are hiding in dark or high places. “ Keep Away” is about being the dinner or the diner.  “Ring around the rosey” is about the Black Death.

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Keep Away

Battles are won or lost in context of the whole sensory environment; sights, sounds, smells, taste and touch.  Of these, smell is the oldest and bypasses all others to the brain. 

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Full Sensory Context of Battle

While once not too many centuries ago, technological change was slow, often centuries in the making. Now it is in the blink of an eye.  Knowing the range of shifting options of the Tactical Imperatives is critical in lasting until lunch.  These are extensions of the parts of the body in four modes which ricochet to create a kaleidoscope of options.

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Faster than the blink of an eye

Despite the best efforts of your best, it is best to get the best deal for the standing. 

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Home Again, Home Again

Hic finitur Lectio

Reconstitution of the US Army

Reconstitution of the US Army

Once upon a time when the Third Reich was young, an enterprising journalist published the complete Order of Battle and mobilization plans for the Wehrmacht.  Himmler had him kidnapped and interrogated as to leads and sources.  His answer was open source, from local papers citing who was being assigned where.  He was warned and let loose

The same use of open sources (OSINT) is available on LinkedIn.  The individual profiles of the members who have a direct or indirect connection with the Services, particularly the US Army show that the Army is in the process of reconstituting its forces to face a new revised and more dangerous array of threats.  Far from the rotational mini-brigade expeditionary model, the new models is restoring the Theater, Corps and full divisions to full capacity.

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Projected penetration of Soviet Forces as a model of high speed mechanized warfare

In addition, references in discussions show that the field artillery and air support are being reunited, and the logistics reconstituted under the command of the commander’s intent rather than an acquisition manager’s contract.  The sources are links to a new family of DOD doctrinal publications.

Assignment Algorithms

Some of that which points to this reconstitution is indicated by the assignment of officers to “targeting” and logistics assignments at corps and higher.  This restores what was once called the Air Ground Operations Center at the old Corps and suggests that a restoration of COSCOM and DISCOM may be under way.  There are many references of officers and enlisted to I, III, and XVIII Corps when up until now did not exist, even called defunct, on Wikipedia.  The repeated reference to Theater suggests that the _COM (CENTCOM, etc.) may be replaced by the new Theaters (XXXXX). 

The type of war fighting done right

That a major reconstitution program, normal at any military level after a battle, is not being accompanied by marching bands, cheer leaders, and sonorous intonations from the pompous and egregious is significant.  The most likely outcome is that these new Theaters will be aligned to a specific piece of the world.  That raises the questions of how will the order of battle for these new corps and theaters be constituted.

The Capstone Mission

That which tied unit cohesion to combat mission prior to Transformation was the link between units of all components of the Services and Components into what were called “Capstone Missions” and “Capstone alignments” that brought myself as a battalion commander in contact with the Canadians on my left flank in NORTHAG near where two Roman legions were slaughtered….the Teutoberger Wald. The Capstone program was the result of a Congressional mandate that insisted that each and every unit must have real world mission in order to be funded.  I was at the Congressional House Senate Conference Committee when it was agreed upon.

The Capstone program tying battalions like mine to places in Germany was sabotaged, and a new order of nonsense was sent in harm’s way.  This is what is being fixed.

Un-dropped Shoes (organization and training)

As such several un-dropped shoes remain.  The reality of major commands expected to move or stay in one piece calls for a deletion or elimination of rotational assignments and training. The cost in the degradation of mid and senior level tactical competence in the most recent unpleasantness due to the repression of the chain of command from three stars to three stripes under Transformation and ARFORGEN must be addressed.

The biggest shift in staffing a large force from existing subordinate elements excludes rotations of units, and reinstitutes more individual replacements along with a system to do so.  The individual rotation programs of all wars up to and including Vietnam was costly in terms of the FNG getting killed too quickly which increased the need for more FNG’s (Funny New Guy).  The existing members of the FNG’s unit do not like to befriend one who is about to die, until he has not. Thus the skills of the Good Old Boys are not passed on to the FNG which increased the mortality rate.

As close as one can get without being thre

The one stellar thing attributable to the rotational modular brigade was and is extraordinary unit morale, which after a decade of rotations, is still high.  A balance between the casualty rates, low in this war, must be developed to retain unit identity to enhance cohesion.  The draftee conscript army only works on home turf or next door, otherwise cohesion suffers.  The US Army at the end of the Vietnam War was one step away from mutiny.  The classic work on the Disintegration and Cohesion of the Wehrmacht showed that as long as the primary group is intact, and a sense of identity with the homeland was maintained, no amount of inducement by propaganda worked.

 

The Eastern Front

The German Army in WW 2 used replacements from the same part of Germany to units also raised from there.  Thus the FNG factor was reduced.  Similar efforts have been done in the British Army through their regimental system which the regiment is the base from where units and personnel were deployed and to where they returned.

One way to restore cohesion is to base replacements through training establishments aligned with specific units and specific areas, like regional or states. The application of All Source Training which includes a training establishment that uses the Chain of Command in each and all training exercises.  Those units and activities can be geographically close to the unit base, or be able to move to the unit.

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The one on the left, then, was when I took the picture in Vietnam

That which is not physically present in the task organization up two and down two and sideways, must be represented or replicated.   That includes units on the flanks, sides and in support.  

The hardest part of training army tactical units is the absence of things that go boom anytime of the day or night, as in field artillery and air support, and in the open.  And done off post as well as on.  Perhaps some form of noisy drone system could provide the audio visual once “shot out” is shouted out.  

An All Source Training establishment would rely on visual reality in a major way. It could establish local training centers where a wandering reserve or Guard officer, could plug into an ongoing “war” as a “replacement”. 

An All Source training establishment would focus on the echelon of command (Corps, Division, Brigade, etc) not the branch or specialty (as is planned today).  Individual and collective training must be done in context of all the other players or participants being there.

The 75^th Training Command Model

The model for echelon of command level focused training is based on the model used for decades at the 75^th Maneuver Area Command (now the 75^th Training Command) based on my experience there in the golden days of yesteryear (1979-1983) when command post exercises were the domain of “battle boards” of acetate, green tape and grease pencil. Communications was by wire.  This process was automated about the time I moved on with Battle and from their website:

“The 75th Training Command prepares large military units for deployments and other missions, by conducting live and virtual scenario-based training, while mentoring senior leaders on effective organizational decision-making….the Training Command now offers virtual and gaming formats. Whether stateside or deployed to a combat zone, military commanders do not lead their units in a vacuum.

 Each commander carefully selects, mentors and oversees a team of supporting staff that manages critical areas including personnel, logistics and operations.

 A commander's ability to keep the troops safe and accomplish the mission is directly related to the professionalism, competence, and teamwork of those staff leaders.

 And while the 75th has predominantly supported Army units in the past, the command now provides similar high quality training to other military branches, non-military agencies, and partner nation military forces.”

Those in the 75^th have historically been savvier about higher echelon operations than the Combined Arms Center at Ft Leavenworth and logistics than Ft Lee. This is due simply to the extended and repeated use of “All Source” inputs and outputs in the form, format, and content of information from outside the unit.  Those giving the exercises gain more than the exercised.  This also was an excellent resource for the development of real world mission awareness.

http://www.usar.army.mil/Commands/Training/75thTNGCMD/AboutUs.aspx

The fly in the soup is the old concept of micromanagement from on high of the details of individual and small unit training including what is called Military Occupation Specialty (MOS) which is used to build empires on high ground and sap the purity and essence of unit combat readiness.  If MOS training is that important to Personnel on High, it should be separately funded from unit readiness. 

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Taken in 1924

The Tactical Shape Shifters

These are transitional times in which the old and the new intermix. There is nothing new under the sun, but a lot of weird stuff keeps cropping up. The factors of METT-TC with a minor adjustment (adding technology to one of the “t” and replacing the C with Culture), remain constant over time, except technology and its effects on the rest.  The largest change in the tactical milieu in the last 4,000 years is the effect of the bullet and fragment storm that broke first in the Crimean War and came to fruition in Flanders in WW 1.

http://templarmilitaris.blogspot.com/2012/05/principles-of-close-order-combat-before.html

The same alternatives exist historically when technology affects the means of mayhem, hence the Tactical Imperative and the Tactical Milieu that are the shape shifters.