ARFORGEN - DEATH OF AN ARMY

ARFORGEN – DEATH OF AN ARMY

Gordon S Fowkes, KCTJ

October 16, 2015

For a decade now, the US Army has been training and deploying forces absent an effective collective spinal cord, nervous system and battle mind.  That this combination has failed is evident in the collapse of all that was put in place in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places oft classified.  The root causes of the deterioration of the collective combat capacities goes to rotational training and deployment of units (ARFORGEN) of an Army in which the General Officer Corps was excluded, or marginalized.

A root cause of transformational rotation goes to the concept of a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which has been driven off the battlefield by the counter revolutions in warfare from insurgency to full spectrum environments.  Like ISIS and the Russians.   The concept of a fixed revolution or form of warfare readily predictable in fantasy or crystal ball, is sadly, the norm and normally wrong to the extent of national extinction. 

The ARFORGEN model had a multi-year rotational cycle starting with individual training, ending with collective training in a minor fraction available for collective training, and that according to fixed scenarios instead of the come what may.  This produced a steady stream of well-trained troops with inexperienced leaders, inexperienced in the hurly burly of wartime operations. In short, the quality of collective combat operations showed a serious degradation from that quality found routine in the Army from 1942 until Baghdad. 

Training cycles are inherently defective while continuous collective and concurrent operations is the norm on the battlefield, and hence the model for training.  Rotation of units breaks the collective competence of the forces committed, which does not translate to successive generations in the fashion of commands in continuous combat, oft for years.  Those commands matured and evolved while the rotated withered.

 The exclusion of General Officers from the Chain of Command was the product of “Transformation”, a process which broke up the Army Corps (XXX, LTG Commanding), the Army division base (XX, MG Commanding), and the disappearance of the Separate Brigade (X, BG Commanding).  That disassembly broke up the logistics and fire support commands (Corps and DIVARTY; COSCOM, DISCOM) and parceled up suboptimal elements to modular brigades (COL Commanding). The modular brigades default had two maneuver battalions and an artillery battalion of two batteries.

 The dilution of field artillery lead quickly to the degradation of effective fire support of committed units from the old war standard from interlocking fragmentation and flame to that of intermittent if at all. Too many medals for valor have been awarded because the artillery was not there, or was ineffective.  

The fire request radio nets tied the forward observer or grunt directly to the Corps air-ground support center.  All echelons in between monitored and the rule was that “silence was approval”.  This removed the delays in fire support from getting to where it was needed.  Two minutes from call to “shot out” was the minimum to preclude unnecessary casualties.

The Army’s distrust in the capacity of General Officers in command extended to the colonels, full and light by task organizing their forces by table of organization (MTOE) instead of in accordance with the Principles of War and the Estimates of the Situation regarding mission, enemy, terrain, troops (technology), time and culture.  

The “combined arms battalions” were intended to be committed without regard to the situation on the ground by denial of the options to the commander. Fortunately, those in charge over there did what they needed to do without regard and in spite of lunacy to the contrary.  Headquarters units were busted up to provide enough boots on the battlefield. 

This normal process of developing doctrine traditionally begins in the field or combat in which the experience of those at the cutting edge as it is passed on to successive replacements and carried back to the Service School Systems for post basic training for officers and noncoms.  Thus the interface between experience and doctrine is tied to the ground instead of fantasy.

 

What has changed from before when we used to win battles, is the introduction of transformation and rotational warfare, which was not developed in the field and refined in the service schools. It has been dictated from a Pentagon in which the uniforms of the uniformed services were marginalized and ticket punched.

ARFORGEN - A PACK OF LIES

LINK TO

http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2014/08/rewriting-military-history-to-fit.html

The ARFORGEN concept limits the size of the force deployed to that fraction of the ARFORGEN cycle designated as such.  The size of this force compared to all available forces ranges from a fourth to an eighth of the total forces on hand.  The concept of fractional commitment inherent in ARFORGEN would have reduced the effective combat strength in combat in WW 2 of 98 of 100 combat divisions to 33 divisions.  Or equivalent.  In Vietnam from ten to three divisions.  

The concept that a combat experienced unit is suddenly fully dumbed down to require a repeat cycle wastes the experience, the time, and the mission.  That the most experienced now become the dumbest is a seriously crazy notion.  And given the duration of the dumb down cycle, the rotation of personnel out of the collective environment does in fact dumb the force until whomever gets the command starts to learn his/her job. 

Despite heroic efforts of TRADOC to bring the essence of the battle to the training base, does not include the full spectrum of forces tied to the battle, as is the case in concurrent and collective operations.  Everyone tied to the battle must be tied to the training, for real or replication. Any link left out, breaks the chain.  It is only in large scale collective and concurrent training that the small unit understands the larger context that is the default in combat.

The concept of a hierarchical evolution of skills in any field presumes that the human mind is a file cabinet similarly structured.  This is a logical conclusion except that the mind-body is not a filing cabinet nor does it rely on logic. The mind-body is primarily analogic, by comparison of analogues to what seems to be the case. This includes arithmetic.

And it is concurrent and collectively a full sensory experience, with the oldest of senses is smell.  A major part of the combat related skills are already coded into the DNA which only requires certain triggering events, normally called play.  This is proven conclusively by the fact that recess and lunch room are the most valuable of activities.   Games such as hide and seek, keep away, sports and extra-curricular are fundamental combat skills to survive in an earlier world when that was combat survival vs being lunch.  This is where combat training should start.

At any point of time and place, a tactical milieu consisting of a rapidly shifting array of tactical imperatives creates a change in means, modes, tactic, technique, and procedures:

http://templarmilitaris.blogspot.com/search?q=tactical+imperative

Recommendations:

1.     1.  All units must have one or more real world missions (as opposed to DARPA fantasies). All training must be related to these missions including all units related laterally as well as vertically to the mission. What is not there must be replicated.  That means artillery and resupply.

2.      2.  All training must replicate combat missions as spelled out in action, condition, and standards dictated by the mission.  Subject matter orientation must be replaced by concurrent and collective training

3.     3.   Only “officers of the United States” whose commission or position has been confirmed by the US Senate shall command and/or rate.  This means putting the Generals and other officers in the chain of command and coordination.

4.      4.  The Congress has the specified power to “provide for the regulation” of the forces, and as such require and authorize direct communication with Service School Systems.  Command interference with doctrine is performed by the determination of the assigned missions as determined by the President.   In short, the President commands the force the Congress give him/her.

5.     5.   Only uniformed personnel should be authorized to command, lead and/or rate uniformed personnel. This may mean the creation of new uniformed services, but under the UCMJ.

6.       Further use of deceit, fabrication and misrepresentation in the uniformed services to members of the services and/or the Congress and President result in criminal charges pursuant to provisions of law, custom and the UCMJ.

Early indicators suggest that many of the problems noted above are in the process of correction, albeit without the bullshit. 

FEAR OF FOG FREEZES

Fear of Fog, Freezes Minds and Fosters

Indecision in the Face of the Fog of War

 Indecision, hesitation, and disagreement at command and staff levels ar endemic and if allowed to run unchecked leaves the battle to the bold.  The Fog of War is the default status of information of who is doing what, where, when and with what. That includes all involved, regardless of whom.  Grant and Sherman at Vicksburg, and Lee and Jackson at Chancellorsville demonstrated that rare ability described in French as coup d'oeil,  the ability to see at a glance the big picture under all the fog, smoke, and fire of battle.  All had the knack of a grasp of the whole when many of the parts were missing and some were wrong.  Of those four commanders, only one (Robert E Lee) would have been selected for higher command or the War College

Union Plan to flank Lee and march to Richmond A

Grant and Sherman were old and close friends with Grant helping Sherman recover from deep depression and despair.  Both had left the Army before the war and both had experienced failure as civilians.  Jackson was mediocre as an instructor at VMI, and not the career centric courtier that thrive with the Golden Cockroaches that infest the walls of power.  Lee was also rare, particularly today, as the perfect example of the Tidewater aristocracy that included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

It requires a deep understanding of the relationship between what the Soviets called the Correlation of Forces (COF), which is a broader concept than balance of power. It includes understanding the quirks of dirt, fire and maneuver and impact of the fog of war on the minds of opposing players.  The impact of the fog of war is an understanding of how a leader or manager deals with fog (missing, lost, false, and errant pieces of information.  The fog of war is also found in any decision making body absent the firepower.

Lee splits his army to hold his right and a punch to the nose with his left

The principal problem of some in positions of power is that some can't make a decision until all the pieces are accounted for, confirmed, and lead to certainty.  One British writer, Norman Dixon wrote "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence" about forty years ago, and promptly forgotten and dismissed ... until now when copies of his book is expensive.  His thesis asserts that Assholes  (closest clinical term) lose battles.  More specifically, the Anal Retentive whose sense of security is secured by no shit, no messes, no confusion, orderly, clean and in accordance with regulations. 

Uncertainty in combat intelligence and operational information triggers a rigid hesitation to make decisions absent extra and comforting information that fits the templates. The correlation of shit to shot requires balls, the balls to shoot without all the shit being cleaned up. 

Lee hits Hooker with a wide left hook, while staring a force three times his size in the face

While the Anal Retentive are hesitant in uncertainty, they can be otherwise fearless, inventive, creative and inspiring leaders.  Hooker, Burnside, Fremont, and others were fearless in the face of certainty.  Grant and Sherman having lived in uncertainty and survived, knew that of ten courses of action one end certain victory and the other certain defeat, taking the first one in the middle that comes to mind and go balls to the wall wins.

Some students of the military art and the role that Assholes play in it are coming around to see the correlation in the US military between an obsession over appearance and hesitation to act, and an ever expanding need for visions of certainty: more troops, more supplies,  more intelligence, anything that provides a camouflaged pacifier.   In Afghanistan, after SOF had run the Taliban out of town, some flag rank got furious over SOF troops wearing beards, an essential status symbol in Afghanistan. 

.Indecision to the point of rash decision of the type typified by the Charge of the Light Brigade results when the indecisive mind freezes on the flight of fancy or self delusion.

Patton is an example of one who knew which shit was important and demanded a high standard of appearance and high risk when the odds favored action. It stems, so Dr Dixon says, from excessive excitement over a child's toilet training, which in the British military he traces back to excessive shit over shit in the English boarding school system.   That the diagnosis fits many cultures, the trace back to potty training doesn't hold where in both Japanese and German child raising lets the rug rats run loose, but the leash is tightened by peer pressure later.

Maps by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com

Failure to let the Generals Command the Commands at War.

The Generals Were Cut Out of the Action 

Gordon S Fowkes, LTC USA (RET)

Failure, by Thomas A Ricks an alleged expert on military affairs in his recent book and article in Atlantic magazine places the blame for failure in OIF and OEF squarely on the shoulders of the General (Flag rank) Officers.  By so doing, he demonstrates an abysmal awareness of what the military business and the profession at arms is all about   

In short, the generals have for well over a decade been cut out of the chain of command and key staff lines of coordination from the A-Ring to Afghanistan.  The default command and control of US military forces is depicted in Article I Section 8, clauses  10-17 of the specified powers of the Congress (raise, equip, and provide for doctrine).  Article I, Section 10,  Clauses 1 and 3 deny the States from having full time “standing troops” or ships of war in time of peace, allowing them in times of invasion or insurrection.  The Second Amendment guarantees the States right to maintain a militia subject to the doctrine provided pursuant to Congressional Guidance.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

The President in Article II, Section 2, clauses 1 and two is Commander in Chief of the armed services of the US including state forces under federal control (National Guard). He has the sole right to appoint with the advice and consent of the Senate, all commissioned “officers of the united states” which includes cabinet members, judges, and all military officers.  Officers make law within their jurisdiction that enforceable in US courts, which includes failure to pick up all cigarette butts if ordered to do so. Officers as such carry the authority of the sovereignty of all the states through Senate confirmation, which the same as for treaties.

During WW2 when the explosive growth of US armed forces demanded a rapid field promotion system and the authority to promote officers to flag rank (General) was delegated to the Theatre Commanders (Bradley. Ike, Mac,  Nimitz and Vandenberg)  Thus if a four star screwed up, the Theatre Commander could relieve him, two stars fell like snow. Today, all appointments to command positions for generals and admirals have to be approved by the Senate and the promotion authority for officers’ rests in the hands of service level promotion boards, and not in the field. During Vietnam, promotions to Captain were delegated to field army level.

Civil Servants and Contractors are not commissioned officers, military, diplomatic, judicial or of any  other kind.  Their future lies in the hands of contracting officials not responsible for battlefield success as are commissioned Officers.

Ricks is clearly not aware that the law that applied in WW2 is a distant memory.  The best a higher commander can do is to relieve for cause which is something not taken lightly.  Murphy’s Law is the First Law of Warfare, so screw ups and disasters go with the territory.  Real civilians can hire, fire or promote based on ankle and elbow test results.  Civil Servants work and get paid during “duty hours” forty per week plus or minus leave time.  All military personnel are on duty 24/7 with specified leaves or passes and still subject to military authority. 

There has been a movement most intense for the last twenty years to remove flag and field grade officers from the staff and command of the chain of command, and replace them with civil servants and contractors neither of whom have the carefully designed authority of  a military chain of command and staff.  US officers and non commissioned officers spend ten to twenty percent of their full time active service in residential service training an education over a twenty plus year time in service.

Contractors, Civil Service and  even the Pentagon Permanent Party (Senior Executive Service) have but a tiny fraction of the formal education of those in uniform.  In order to enhance job retention and security, the Pentagon Permanent Party, now in control of acquisitions and personnel, ensure that the uniformed passing through Pentagon do so quickly and without impact.

SecDef MacNamara was particularly incensed at the surfeit of uniforms in key command and staff positions and decided that what had worked for almost 200 years needed fixing and the Guard and Reserves were not called, and advanced mathematical models invented to humiliate those whose experience was more earthy.  Field Marshal von Rumsfeld continued the purging of flag and field ranks who had the temerity to use combat proven and tested doctrine, and invented the current system of task organization (Expeditionary Transformational Rotational Modularity).   

This tore the combat support, combat service support, and service support organizations out of the walls, floors and ceilings, outlawed the use of the names, and reallocated the functions to favorite contractors and civilian organizations, leaving the experienced flag and field ranks scurrying around to find anything that would allow them to add their professionalism to the fight. Combat commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq reported that there was little or no military sense in the allocation and management of logistics. Where it not for the fact that the Army, Navy, and Air Force Guard and Reserve units were not deployed as trained allowed enough of them to take jobs in the Contractor Mob and make good money. 

As the traditional task organization of squad, platoon, company, battalion, brigade (group, regiment) division, corps, field army, army group was flushed toilet wise, and the CS, CSS. SS logistics structure pulled off the chains of command the necessary and well-rehearsed operational competence was shredded.  It is fortunate that these procedures had been ingrained in the services under the Congressionally mandated mobilization alignment in the Capstone Program to real contingency plans, the screw up factor would have made Bladensburg look like a blitzkrieg.

In short, the generals have been yanked out of effective control of line and staff, and what was left of that was put up for bid.

In order to address the sense of duty denied, there are those in the political election business who are trying to subvert those of uniform to participate or appear to participate in posing as players in partisan national politics.  

There is a substantive legal difference between service members in general and officers in particular and civil servants doing the same job, and further with contractors, even those former military personnel.  The military can be ordered into considerably more dangerous situations than civilians, and cab be tried for life for refusal or failure.  A civilian is fired for failure to perform, not imprisoned. 

The "blame" for failure of operations in OIF/OEF I do place on the contractors per se, but on the Pentagon from stripping the flag and field officers in command of maneuver troops effective command and control of their logistics.  The contractors are bound by the terms of their contracts, which were drawn up by a centralized "procurement" organization.  As such, these logistics elements cannot be prioritized or moved around by the same echelon of command that used be able to for mission requirements. 

 A Rand Study published in 2000 traces the evolution of the Army Division of the XXth Century and cautions against busting up the divisional structure before it was done on the Capture of Baghdad/

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2007/MR1211.pdf

That which was sliced off the divisional Discom to form the modular support battalions of the modular brigade was done by dividing the assets equally between modular brigades, not driven by priority of fires and maneuvers. The new modular brigade (except Stryker) had two maneuver battalions instead of two to five as needed.  Two maneuver battalion is not flexible enough, and the commanders in the field had to cannibalize units and resort the assets to form additional maneuver teams.  Many field artillery battalions (fires) were re-tasked as infantry as were headquarters companies.  As of now (a decade later) the third battalion is being restored.

The original intent of the modular two-maneuver battalion modular brigade was to restore the number of O-6 (Colonel) command positions formerly in the Pentomic Infantry division of the Fifties which had five O-6 command positions for each of five "Battle Groups" which each had five rifle companies plus two for weapons, support and command.  Since there was no battalion in the mix, there was no O-5 command slot, and the only place a competent infantry Lt Col could get command time was in an Armored Division.  The Armored division did not have the Pentagonal curse. Thus Armored officers and a few lucky armored infantry officers had the requisite command time for promotion to colonel.

The Pentomic Division was replaced with the same organization as the Armored division which went on until Transformation surfaced.  The post-Vietnam task organization of combat divisions for missions removed one of the three divisional brigade command slots to put a National Guard Separate Brigade under divisional control on mobilization in place of one of the divisional brigades.  The cost the Regular Army one each O-6 command slot for each affected division.

This had to stop. The Capstone Program assigning Guard units a combat mission for existing contingencies was a clear and present danger to promotion opportunity and timing of the O-6 regular officer.  This was an integral part of planning for future missions before 9-11.

The Pentagon set about a deception plan on how they were going to restore the three lost O-6 command slots, and quietly re-tooled the Battle Group to have additional field grade staff and command slots (O-4 and O-5) by slicing up divisional combat support and combat service support assets to support the new modular brigades.  By reallocating the existing maneuver (IN/AR) battalions in pairs created five Modular Brigades restoring the three O6^ command positions.  And it reallocated combat support and combat service support staff and command positions to favor combat support officers.  This was a tactical force design intended for promotions.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/63-3/Ch9.htm

The end result of slicing up the DISCOM, COSCOM, TAACOM and other TOE logistics and support organization and replacing them with ad hoc contract aggregates also removed the justification for Flag Rank command positions of those and related TOE organizations.  There were no more Area Support Groups, Transportation Groups, MP brigades, Petroleum Groups et al which made up the support structure. 

Not only were the chain of staff and command structures torn asunder, but the experience of how to do that disappears from doctrine.  All of the workings of a Corps Support Command (COSCOM) etc had been undergoing command post exercises of entire corps which included forces from all services and components but those of allied forces as well. 

All of the tables of organization, tables for allocation of resources were contained in field manuals that have been used as updated by technology, circumstance that any officer, noncom or service person could slip into any organization, and know what to do.  Now it's company policy and contract provisions.

In ten years, the experience base will start to erode to the point that years will be needed to restore. 

The stated intent of Transformation was for light, fast and agile forces, what they got was a force with maneuver limited to an extent not seen in the field since the Spanish American War. Transformation was intended to make life simple for the Pentagon to move around, but which required an extraordinary force of troops to make work.

For that reason, I stand in awe of the professional competence of our troops that made an impossible task seem simple.  The forces I served with in Germany, Japan and Vietnam would have been stopped cold with the kind of Mickey Mouse Transformation served up by Pentagon.

This is what General Dempsey knows he has to fix, but the quagmire in the Pentagon is full of mines and obstacles placed to preserve and protect lifetime employment of the Permanent Party.

Impromptu Force Generaton

Those of us familiar with career management within the military likely know of the step stone ladder of promotion showing a progression of assignments and schooling leading up through company and field promotions. Career managers and personnel gurus delight in pointing out to the assembled postulates the predictability of challenges leading to the A-Ring, and the prospects of competition for flag rank. This ladder typically shows where the postulant commands a company, serves on battalion staff, goes to professional schools, and if lucky commands a battalion and serves on high level staff.


Likely the career progression indicates the requirement to go to sea, serve overseas, or even have a tour in combat, or service in some godforsaken clot of dirt on the ramparts of freedom. And we take for granted, this programmed climb to fame and fortune.

The natural extension of this concept is an underlying factor in Transformation, that of providing a predictable platform for progression upon which the postulant includes service on the ramparts and, at the same time, provide this predictability for family life. The All Volunteer military is a married force, and the rotation of assignments now is linked to the progression of units in harms way.

Thus we now are familiar with the terms “dwell time”, “rotation”, and “reset” in the process of force generation. The Army calls it ARFORGEN, the Army Force Generation model. And to make it work, Army tactical organizations have modularized into chunks that are intended to optimize personnel progression of assignments, schooling, promotions, and deployment. Likewise the Navy and Air Force clump units into “expeditionary” task organizations to attempt the same.

The underlying assumption is that threats to national purpose will also be made to mesh with the needs of promotion, stateside assignment, and command tours in field conditions. In order to make things fit, the enemy must be programmable and predictable to serve the needs of promotion timing and opportunity.

It must be extremely annoying to personnel planners that the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and others of the same bloody ilk, do not mesh their terror campaigns with the needs of career progression. And we hear today much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the services being stretched, and of the paucity of Captains in the Army, a condition which precluded 9-11.

Ordained theoreticians of the Order of the A-Ring call this concept, “capabilities based” planning to replace the old, outmoded, Cold War paradigm of “threat based” planning, that is, planning force development in terms of Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops Available, Time and Civilian considerations (METT-TC).

The tension between capabilities and threat based planning in the War on Terror has some interesting trade-offs: the creation of a well trained, combat hardened, and experienced force at the expense of a decisive victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. The positive side effect of rotational capabilities based operations has been to build a generation of superbly qualified junior and mid rank officers and noncoms with the know how to know how to fight an extremely complex form of military operations, that of counterinsurgency and stability operations.

It is of considerable interest that the revolution in military doctrine has come from the training and education establishment, which in the Army is the Combined Arms Center at Ft Leavenworth. Therein lies the roots of tragedy. Ft Leavenworth is not the Pentagon, and the various factions within the Pentagon which formulated capabilities based planning are still there, and likely are either frustrated or fuming over the loss of control over the future mind set of the Army and likely the Marine Corps to forces beyond the E-Ring.

The failed attempt by the Pentagon to move General Petraeus from Iraq to Germany is an example of the sense of desperation within the Pentagon. The ascension of Secretary of Defense Gates to the central sanctum of the Puzzle Palace is a clear indication that the President has lost faith in the capabilities based paradigm which has gutted his efforts in the Middle East, and which has generated a groundswell of discontent and loss of confidence in the American electorate in national leadership not seen since the Sixties.

Unlike the Sixties, and as a result of the Abrams doctrine that one should never go to war without the Guard and ReServes which brought the hearts and minds of the American electorate in support of our troops. This is in sharp contrast with the contempt that was expressed against the veterans of the Lifer-Draftee Army of Vietnam. It is fortunate that the combat effectiveness of the Citizen-Warrior is now accepted by the Fair Haired and /Full Time warrior.

Perhaps it is time to implement a force generation model that is matches capabilities to threats, instead of the other way around.

Some basic principles:

Murphy’s Law is the first law of war. Traditional task organization for ground warfare calls for “two up, one back”. That refers to the default assumption that one third of one’s ground power be held back for contingencies, the kind at which Murphy excels in. The composition of forces forward is based on the best guess at what will needed up front. The underlying assumption for this task organization is that the one thing that is predictable is change.

Force development at the strategic level must also plan for Murphy’s Law, for uncertainty and change. This is at the root of the “Full Spectrum” doctrine emerging now and in play in combat. A Full Spectrum force development and personnel strategy calls for a dynamic and eclectic mechanism for keeping reserves in depth for skill sets and units that focuses on full time forces keyed to full time threats, and reserve forces stepped in order of the best estimates of Muphy’s antics.

Full time force planning must include provision of forces of a type and number not anticipated by the best of planning. The extraordinary ability of the our training base and of our troops to change radically to match the needs of fighting in the Middle East is remarkable, and shows that such changes should be made an expectation of all forces in times of relative peace. This isn’t all that new an idea. We took cavalry off of horses and into tanks, and infantry into planes and gliders in two years between the initial mobilization of the Armed Forces in 1940 and their deployment in 1942.










The 1st US Volunteer Cavalry AKA “the Rough Riders” was made up of cowboys and polo players by Teddy Roosevelt to adapt the capabilities he knew to the war at hand. Likewise, individuals in the Civil War raised units of unique qualities, given the charter to do so. The existence of private military companies like Blackwater shows that exotic and highly qualified units and troops can be stomped out of the populace at hand without the need for elaborate career stepping stones.



The capability of impromptu force generation can be made into law by the Congress, and should be brought to the attention of the new Congress and new Adminstration.

From an Operational Reserve to a Personnel Reserve

The Committee on the National Guard and Reserves report (aka CNGR) is an illustration of the folly of placing Reserve Affairs under the Secretariat for Personnel and Reserve Affairs (M&RA). The CNGR recommendations to disarm the National Guard and reduce the Reserves to that of a Repple Depple (Replacement Depot) for individuals and units no larger than a company are consistent with the actions of those secretariats even before the Bush 43 Administration. The CNGR report continues to beat a drum that is broken and already halfway into the dust bin of military history.

The grouping Reserve Affairs under M&RA transformed an Operational Reserve into a Personnel Reserve. The concept of contingency planning expressed in Operation Plans (OPLAN) is not that of the Personnel World of rotating assignments for career management and of replacing losses. In short, Transformation which is billed as an Operational concept is in fact more personnel driven. The National Guard and Reserves were an Operational Reserve and the effort has been to convert them into a Personnel Reserve.

The Laws of Inverse Attribution dictate that the new Personnel Reserve be labeled an Operational Reserve and the old operational reserve be labeled a Strategic Reserve as if such concept actually existed before (which didn’t). The Laws of Inverse Attribution call for emphasis on the worst of one’s virtues, and project the strongest of one’s vices on one’s opponent. Rewriting the Past is also a very old gimmick used to redirect the future.

In the days when BDU’s were new, I was a USAR tactical MI Battalion Commander with a Capstone alignment with the 49th Armored Division TXARNG which was aligned to III Corps at Ft Hood which had a contingency mission with NORTHAG in northern Germany. We trained to that mission. As a member of the 75th Division (then called the 75th MAC) I participated in dozens of exercises in which Guard, Reserve, and Regular units of all services and a few foreign forces worked together to test and refine doctrine, operating procedures, and tactical prowess.

These exercises ranged from Brigade and Group to that of Corps and Theater Army and exposed flaws in assumptions and trained several generations of officers and troops in what was expected in case of war. It is this expertise that sustains our combat operations overseas and, had there not been these exercises, our forces could not have done what they have done particularly given the ad hoc nature of the War on Terror. The announcement that these “Big” exercises were a thing of the past back a few years ago were a harbinger of the conversion of a highly competent operational reserve into one used for personnel.

It is obvious that the first thing the next Administration and Congress do to restore a real operational reserve is to break the link between Personnel and Reserve Affairs except for those issues dealing with personnel. Operations and Training of all components should be under the same staff supervision.

That leaves the question of Reserve Advocacy up for grabs, but it has been a disaster of major consequence to lump it with Personnel.

ARFORGEN - not the dumbest idea, but close

ARFORGEN, the Army’s force generation model, isn’t the dumbest thing ever to come out of the Pentagon; it is one of the most unrealistic ever devised. ARFORGEN adopts the failed strategy of a training cycle in which skills of an already trained unit repeat on a cycle from individual skills to collective skills in ascending order of organization. The training cycle approach has the capability of dumbing down a sterling combat experienced Army to one incapable of effective collective action focused on eye wash and administrivia in about five years as was done by the Army to itself after WW2 and after Korea. This approach was wisely abandoned after Vietnam.

Unique amongst training cycle approaches, ARFORGEN is predicated on fixing the personnel turmoil continuum by fixing it in place in year one of three for the Regulars, and year one of five in the Reserve Components (RC). This assumes that no one gets promoted within the cycle, no one goes off to school, no one is transferred to another unit, no one is rotated out of key positions for career advancement purposes, and everyone reenlists. If such stasis is not achieved, the concept of a multi-year training cycle never gets skill competence at any and all levels.

Reserve units with a longer five year cycle face the likelihood that the company commander changes due to command tour limitations at least twice, and at least once for Regular units. To the normal turmoil found in all components must be added the turmoil of the Citizen Soldier’s civilian job, or lack of it. ARFORGEN assumes that all civilian careers can be synchronized with the needs of the service. No one gets a new job out of town, no one’s spouse gets transferred likewise, no one graduates from college who doesn’t get a job in the same town and that all career requirements are met with the current assignment.

At the bottom four grade level, enlisted folks cease to be bottom four grades in the five year cycle and a large number in the three year cycle. The bottom four grades are also the least stable in both components, with a high turnover rate in the Reserve Components due to job changes, and loss of interest and commitment.

The dumbest idea I personally am aware of actually didn’t come out of the Pentagon but out of FORSCOM for training Reserve MI units. It was a cycle of seven years in which companies were built from the bottom up, leaving out the company commander until a following year. Even the idiots at the 90th ARCOM, then in San Antonio were smart enough to arouse the two star level and scratch it. This idea was called the “living TO&E”. It died.

The Living TO&E was, however, based on a Pentagon idea that intelligence skills were “perishable” alone amongst skills, attitudes, and knowledge than in any other field of endeavor including flying and brain surgery. This was welcomed by the MI community as it garnered additional funds for training and allowed the MI units to opt out of many of the nonsensical “mandatory training requirements” invented by strap hangers at higher level to serve as the basis for their OER and end of tour chest lettuce.

The core discipline of intelligence, the intelligence cycle is known in academic circles as “critical thinking”. The best proof that critical thinking is perishable is widespread as demonstrated in the current election cycle, and in the very idea that critical thinking is perishable is self proving. That it is unique amongst skill sets in a fine example of academic arrogance so prevalent on the Viet Cong base campuses. While such nonsense is appealing for the internal PSYOP, it isn’t verified by scientific evidence, be such science be intelligent design or evolutionary.

What is most distressing is the support for the ARFORGEN fantasy is that well trained and experienced officers to accept it at face value. Unlike the enlisted evaluation system in which the rating system of superiors has minor impact, that of the officers is more dependent on pleasing one’s superiors (rating and reviewing officer) than is found in civilian life and with near permanent effect. The net result of such requisite sycophancy is analogous to that described in the “Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen. But with a potential impact far more serious than a naked emperor prancing about in the streets.

The Ghost of Failures Past - ARFORGEN

One of the programs cited by the CNGR report as an example to be emulated is the Army’s program for generating troops units which program is called ARFORGEN. This program is a throw back to training theology that failed to provide adequately trained forces for combat in Korea and Vietnam, and was dropped as Army doctrine after Vietnam.

The training cycle approach assumes that there is a hierarchy of skill sets that build on each other in a logical fashion with individual skills upwards. I experienced this model when I was stationed with the 3rd Armored Division (Spearhead) posted on the Hessian Corridor opposite the Fulda Gap. My sectors as a platoon leader on the FEBA (what we used to call the “front line”) was about two kilometers long overlooking Bad Hersfeld and one just north of Fulda itself. Hardly a speed bump for the swarms of Soviet tanks.

Our training cycle started in the Spring with NBC and marksmanship, upgrading to squad training and platoon training before we went to our “summer camp” at Hohenfels or Grafenwohr. By the time we were training companies, our skills at squad and individual levels were already deteriorating. When the ground froze, the time for battalion, brigade and division level training had arrived and we spent increasing amounts of time being deployed in a more realistic set of Conditions (as in Action, Condition, Standard) that provided the proper mix for the effective training at lower levels.

Our perception of maneuver for a training model for squad, platoon, and company done at those levels was the same scheme: lay down a base of fire and maneuver on the flanks. We didn’t know it then that Soviet defensive doctrine was designed to create fire pockets on the flanks of their squads, platoon, and companies. ARVN was trained with this model only to be shot to pieces after our retreat from Vietnam when they had to go up against a peer force of NVA in places like the Iron Triangle and Michelin. Our favored maneuver plan worked only with isolated pockets.

All training in successive levels for the attack were based on hill tops fit for whatever unit level was being trained. There were squad sized hills, platoon sized hills, etc. The problem was that squad training was rarely done in the context of a platoon formation, but alone.

The favored plan of maneuver at battalion to division level was the “mobile” defense with a presumed penetration in the center of the sector to be followed by a smashing counter attack by the reserve which accounted for at least half of the deployed units combat power. I never saw this plan ever successfully used.

The environment for platoon training improved as the size of the exercise increased as the tactical environment became more eclectic with lots of rapid movements determined on the fly. Unlike Ft Benning’s concept of troop leading steps, I rarely saw my company commander more than once or twice a day except in a laager in between movements. We typically would put fifty miles a day on our odometers switching from one part of the battle to the other.

My platoon rarely sat still for more than four hours. All training was focused on battle drills from which only a verbal frago was needed to modify a standard maneuver. It was only in the context of a platoon maneuver that the squad’s tactical environment started to evolve. The only meaningful training that still sticks in my mind, was that done in the context of the division level exercises. I used this experience in the Third Herd to train my MI Battalion in it’s role as a division tactical intelligence battalion some twenty years later.

After Vietnam, the Army dropped the training cycle approach, and adopted what became known as BTMS (Battalion Training Management System) which gave the battalion commander the primary authority to determine the training requirements of his/her command. Unfortunately this cut out the control freaks on higher level staffs, and ARFORGEN has returned mini-micromanagement back from it’s Pentomic grave.

As an instructor at USAICS (the intelligence school) at Ft Hootchy Kootchy on the Mexican Border, the concept of “systems engineered performance oriented training” was stolen from SAC and applied in the Service Schools, later morphing into BTMS. In this approach, all jobs for soldiers and unit were broken out spread sheet wise, and lumped into skills, knowledge, and attitudes, further parsed into whether these were appropriate to school or unit training.

The fusion of these approaches also gave primacy of training to the leader at the level being trained. It put squad leaders in charge of training their troops and required all leaders to have “hip pocket” lists of tasks to train for when the optempo allowed it. Every time my battalion paused in the conduct of training operations (fully deployed in the field) the lower unit commanders and leaders were expected and did train those skills on the spot.

As a trainer in the 75th Division in the early eighties, this program was working in all of the components Army wide. I watched as Guard units reach heights of excellence above that which I experienced in either Germany or Vietnam with Regular Army units. This approach is responsible for creating the best trained Army this nation has ever fielded.

ARFORGEN, by returning to the failed policies of the past threatens the sustainment of the “band of excellence” necessary for forces to retain to meet the historically persistent need to drop what you are doing and go to war “as you are”.

Put the Troop Units where the Troops Live

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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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.

Towards A Mission Oriented Force

Today’s military organization, staffing, training and equipment is force oriented, or more accurately, career oriented. Hitler once said that a nation needed to be “blooded” every generation to remind the nation of the sacrifices and of the skills needed to defend the state. Unlike Hitler’s dogma, which was victory oriented, ours isn’t oriented on victory but fighting without regard to any notion of victory. Or, of what sort of mission our nation must be prepared to do in order to preserve the nation and it’s goals, however defined.



And that is the first step. What are the missions needed for what purpose. Each new administration will have their own concepts and an enduring effort to stay ahead of the great game, the military must be engaged in a continuing process of mission analysis followed by contingency planning through the Military Decision Making Process.



It is clear that a wide variety of missions will evolve from said continuum of analyses, knowing that whatever contingency is planned for will require revision before implementation. That is the nature of military planning and execution, from Fire Team to Field Army or Fleet.



Mission analysis, like intelligence analysis, uncover repeated eventualities, requirement and course of action that once isolated can be lumped into groups of missions, actions, events, and course of action. The planning for the defense of the Fulda Gap transferred quite well to the Gulf, for it is the planning that matters more than the plan.

Pentagon Prepares for Cut and Run

The recent announcement that General Petraeus, senior commander in Iraq, is being considered for assignment as top NATO commander is clear proof of the proposition that COIN is antithetical to Transformation, and his success in battle threatens billions of acquisition dollars being spent on the wrong stuff. He is slated to be kicked upstairs, and out of the way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/washington/21military.html?th&emc=th

http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2007/10/coin-threat-to-transformation.html

At first blush, it appeared to me that “Full Spectrum Operations” was a return to some form of sanity within the Pentagon. While I have the greatest respect for Defense Secretary Gates, the Dark Forces Within the Pentagon’s bowels (certainly no higher) conduct Psychological Preparation of the (Political) Battlefield to support a “Cut and Run” from Iraq, and abandon the Iraqi people to the same fate we let the Vietnamese face.

http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2007/12/gates-paradigm-full-spectrum-warfare.html


They are preparing for an incoming administration dedicated to the same “Anti-War” posture that led to the Killing Fields. And, at the same time, preserve Modular Madness, Rotational Warfare, and the Fantasy Combat System – all Neo-Con dream states.

http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2007/12/armys-fantasy-combat-system-fcs.html

http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2007/10/knives-in-gun-fights-not-good-idea.html

http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2006/12/quadrennial-defense-rubbish.html

http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2006/12/square-triangular-and-modular-madness.html

The billions being spent on Army Transformation are focused on an imaginary battlefield originally designed in the Fifties for a so-called “Nuclear Battlefield” while USAF airplanes fall out of the sky, and the Navy creates an imaginary “Thousand Ship Fleet” based on the presumption that our allies will rally to our cause when the Chinese decide to seize their designated defense perimeters which include the Philippines and Japan.

It is hard for me to imagine a national military command structure so inept that it’s abolition seems to be the only rational course left. This is to say that the law that created the Department of Defense be repealed, and start over. While we have won more battles that before WW2, it is likely that the increased size and operations of the services accounts for that. Despite more victorious troops, our record for winning wars has gone into the toilet. Which is where DoD needs to go.

Or, maybe there are some serious Philbys in there.

The Operational Artless

The shift in using the Guard and Reserves from a strategic reserve to an operational reserve suggests that the Guard and Reserves (RC) will operate without a strategy. It begs the question as to what exactly are meanings of strategy and operations mean, at least to the Pentagon.

In the halcyon days of wars between nations, where politics and warfare were considered to follow one after the other, there was an implied hierarchy between tactics and strategy with something called the “operational level” of warfare. This latter was made popular during the era of “AirLand Battle” which emphasized the movement of large units on a grand scale. It raised the view of battle from taking the next hill to doing what comes after. Jackson’s Valley campaign, the 1940 invasion of France, Patton’s breakout from Normandy and the maneuvers of Napoleon were classic examples of bold maneuver and the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 is the best example of the operational art.

Understood in this paradigm is the notion that strategy dictates the operational art which, in turn, dictates the tactics and techniques use at the cutting edge of the force. In this paradigm, the guns move first in tactics, while trucks (ammo and fuel) move first in the operational art as in the “Hail Mary” of Desert Storm. As used, the operational art was centered on the movement of divisions within a corps, and on corps operations itself. Under the Abrams Doctrine, the bulk of the “trucks” and a good slice of the big guns were in the RC, and as an unintended consequence, the expertise of the operational art shifted to the RC, leaving the Active Army the run of the tactical level, and little sense of how and where the ammo, gas, repairs, and trucks were coming from.

This begs the question of the meaning of a shift from strategic to operational levels as the strategy for war included both operational and tactical operations and organization. As Transformation has sunk it’s claws into the military, operations have, until FM 3-24 was published consisted of rotations of units from Festung Kansas to the Eastern Front, and back without regard to any scheme of maneuver as any decent example of the operational art or strategy would have.

The establishment of modular support brigades for the Army Reserve fits the overall notion of “plug and play” but this concept that logistics isn’t modular, but systems and functionally organized and vertically oriented such as the flow of gas, ammo, repairs, and transportation. Putting a support brigade in a divisional task force doesn’t deal with anything until linked to a chain going all the way back to depots, arsenals and factories.

Under Army doctrine from WW2 until now, ammo was delivered from containers stateside to a Corps Ammunition Supply Point (ASP) where it was loaded on trucks (or trailers) for delivery to the guns. It was called throughput. The default rate of delivery was ten tons of ammo per gun per day.

Trucks hauling ammo require fuel and repairs enroute. The roads they need, need to be built and maintained, and traffic control exercised. Movement Control Centers (MCC) and Material Management Centers (MMC) coordinated the effort from rear to front. Rear Operations Centers (RAOC) managed the security of the routes along with Military Police Brigades. Early reports from Iraq suggested that little management or movement or materials were in effect as contractors unfamiliar with the totality of combat service support replaced the trained RC structure.

It might be useful to note that, hierarchically speaking, strategy dictates the operational level of war which in turn dictates the tactical level. Shifting the RC from “strategic” to “operational” has meant operating without a strategy.

There is a powerful and long standing offensive being waged from within the Pentagon to complete the process of modularization, so long standing that it has been several complete rotations of senior military officers and of political appointees through the Pentagon. This suggests that the force behind Transformation is civil service and/or industry oriented.

The Air Force and Navy is being subjected to policies focused on personnel that are consistent with the Army’s. The effects appear to be the same on the support structures of those services. The operational art without the art.





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A Cadre Defense

Against that day when the big balloon goes up, where the forward deployed forces have been shredded as have the grand plans from inside the magical Beltway, a backup military establishment with industry to match would be nice to have. The principal principle against that day is to follow Bedford Forrest’s dictum – “get thar fustest with the mostest!” – in short be able to muster the talent on hand, that which takes the longest lead time to develop, up and running rapidly.

The long lead time items include the larger capital ships like heavy cruisers, carriers, and Fancy Dan fighters. It includes investing in R&D, more pure than applied. And, most of all it means preserving the combat experience and military training of those who have served. Our current personnel policies are wasteful and wanting in this regard, tossing the trained to the wolves with disdainful regard, then when the fit hits the shan, searching the bottom of the barrel.

Long lead people are the noncoms, specialists, and officers with experience, of two to five or more years. It is in the initial four or five years of service that is the investment, the grounding and framework of the experienced fighter. In peacetime service, the majority of souls serve without being in the fleet or in the field, but in jobs tangentially related to core tasks, after their core service.

Since the most numerous of trooper is at the bottom, and the time to train up to entry level service is short range, a defense establishment prepared for the long haul, should focus on the skills, knowledge, and attitudes of the mid level enlisted and officer. One old training policy of days gone by, and also adopted by the German Army of between Great Wars was a skinny chain of command with lateral expansion of the command on paper, and with those serving at one level trained to operate at two levels higher. In this manner, the German Army could expand from a force of 100,000 to several millions of well led troops in short order.

The Germans and Soviets also instituted training in military skills in their youth groups like the Hitler Youth, Komsomol, and the Young Pioneers who trained the youth in political action, and, some military training, and skills needed for military operations. The Boy Scout movement was started by Lord Baden-Powell to maintain a skill base capable of skilled military use. The term “scout” is a military role requiring more than the average level of outdoorsy skills. Our CAP and Sea Cadets follow in this role, without the political clap trap.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden-Powell)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneers), (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsomol)

The merit badge approach of short courses for veterans who wish only to keep their skills up to snuff, could be crafted to include marksmanship, paint ball competitions, military communications exercises, and a whole host of “fun” things to do to maintain a skill base, and to keep tabs on those we may need.

The military structure of forces not on active service should include, as today, units ready to rock and roll on the drop of the hat. This was the intent of the Capstone program which facilitated the fantastic rise in military competence of American Arms in peacetime ever. It had the down side of presenting the Congress with a fully capable military establishment at one third to one sixth the cost of an equivalent Active force.

Recent experience has proven that despite Pentagon assurances (and Federal Law) the Pentagon never really intended to call up trained units as such. From the start, given Defense Officers Management Act, the Pentagon as a replacement depot and to be kept in a separate pile from the Active service to facilitate post conflict reductions in force without resorting to RIF or the UP/Out promotion system. That provision of Law that required units to be called as such seems to have disappeared in a reshuffle of the law for administrative reasons, and needs to be reissued by the Congress.

It, however, must be recognized that under existing laws and plans, there is no systemic method of providing trained mid career personnel to replace losses and start new units except by cannibalization of existing units of all components. It is in the regard that a new division of labor between the components be drawn. Active forces must be geared to the most exigent of circumstances, particularly from foreign sources. The National Guard has a dual mission, of state and federal requirements. The Guard is the default national defense force for war, courtesy of the Second Amendment. And it has been the back bone of our national wars up through WW2.

The Reserves (USAR, USNR, USAFR, etc) were initially Federal Forces raised for the duration of a war. As such they were known as “US Volunteers” which included the famed “Rough Riders” After WW1, Reserve forces were developed to preserve certain skills and provide a pool of qualified individuals for service. After WW2, the Reserves were organized into field units such as Corps and Divisions, but after Vietnam, the structure was integrated into specific war scenarios called contingencies.

But these structures did not provide for replacements for extant units of any component. In this regard, the Reserves as opposed to the Guard have the capabilities to maintain replacements for any component. The only program in existence that met the criterion were non-pay mobilization units of those interested in keeping a hand in but generally consisted of lectures by individual members. The IRR, once considered a ready pool of replacements, proved to provide a third of those listed. Clearly, the need for small detachment and individual replacements for all components be made ready with such incentives in pay and challenge to keep those not in units.

The technology of the computer supported CPX can allow units without equipment to train in realistic environments with the clear expectation that they could be called as individuals or as the nexus of a whole new unit. A battalion consisting of a staff and part of a chain of command could be filled with entry level personnel and replacement from any component and made ready to deploy in short order.

What takes time in the development of a deployment ready unit is it’s chain of command, and not in the lowest level who consist of those who can be raised and trained in less than a year. It is time to re-institute cadre units.

Full Mobilization - A Meritorious Approach

Once or twice a century, a nation has to fight for its life, where old men and boys are pressed into service to fight an invading force. Often the borders of the nation have been pierced and much of the homeland is occupied by the enemy. This is the scenario where at least ten percent of the total population is under arms and three or four times as many are in war industries. It is against this possibility that the base for this expansion must be laid in peacetime.

That which is more precious than gold, is the combat experience of previous wars as well as those with extensive training in the military arts. Traditional reserve structures have tried to maintain lists of those needed for the direst of emergencies, but in modern more mobile populations, the list becomes useless. Nevertheless those with experience exist. It is this population that mobilization planners must provide for with law and military order to gather the trained and experienced into the forces whether the individuals want to or not.

For the willing, traditional mobilization designee and unit training exist, but often many times the numbers so employed have no slots or choose the focus on their civilian careers. To encourage those without slots to fill, a new type of participation not dependent on slots but upon individual and collective training available without regard to career, but to preserve the skill base should be developed. Call it the “merit badge” approach, where sets of skills and a badge, or certificate is granted in recognition of completion. Such could be built around marksmanship, land navigation, telecommunications, command post duty, etc. Pay could be applied or not.

To provide for the mobilization of anyone who knows one end of a rifle from the other, the enlistment contract should be amended to provide for a life time commitment. Officers and retirees already have this stipulation. The government owns you until buried.

Mobilization planners should also develop mechanisms for the mobilization of segments of industry and commerce which have military applicability with minor military training needed. This is what happened in WW2 where hospitals and construction firms were brought into military service.

With a few exceptions, those organizations providing support for our troops overseas should be militarized and brought under the UCMJ. The form of their militarization would not necessarily be the career intensive model for the current military components, active or reserve, but designed for the duration. Raising these organizations could be under the initial administration of a state governor, or of a corporation, or the federal government itself. Once certified, the organization would be mustered into the services. The pay could be direct from the US government or through the original establishing organization as determined by the government.

This approach is not any different that which we used prior to WW1. Since the Pentagon has chosen to abandon the last one hundred years of military development, it is appropriate to take what worked before and up date it. It is also unlikely that the Pentagon could develop anything so threatening to their cookie jar, that it would be incumbent on the Congress to do so, as that is their specified power given in the Constitution. And that brings it back to whoever is reading this tome.