Capturing Moscow didn’t help Napoleon, and in fact, set him on a downhill slide that ended in Paris. Capturing Paris was a fleeting victory for Hitler. Capturing Philadelphia and New York didn’t help the British either. Certainly capturing Baghdad didn’t help us, and in fact was about as useful as stomping on a Texas ant hill. Battle may be like capture the flag, but war isn’t. Battle may have it’s odds like craps, or poker, but war is more like 52 pickup with three incomplete decks of cards from different games.
While battle is often waged not only to smash something, or grab something, it is also used to make a statement. The Thirteen Days in October 1962 recognized the notion of negotiating with displays of kinetic force, like a blockade and a saber rattle. The Alamo made a statement about Texian resolve. The Doolittle Raid made a similar statement about American resolve, and in fact prodded Admiral Yamamoto into losing four aircraft carriers. Bombing Ghaddafi’s home in the desert seems to have brought him into a reversal of his support of terrorism regardless of stripe.
Sometimes, however, the other side isn’t listening. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor to induce us into negotiations, which negotiations were completed on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Hirohito listened and pulled a coup to overthrow military control of the Japanese government when faced with the real possibility of Soviet Occupation and American nuclear annihilation. Hitler didn’t listen at all, and died in his bunker. Ho Chi Minh didn’t listen either. It remains an interesting “if” if we had taken the Plain of Jars by 1968 and seen whether Ho Chi Minh would have let the Chinese come into Vietnam like the Chinese in Korea.
Occupying Richmond and defeating Robert E Lee ended the War Between the States, but only temporarily freed the slaves which slavery continued under other guises until Brown vs the Board of Education, and with Affirmative Action action. The resentment of the white Southerner to Reconstruction wrecked Reconstruction, and the resentment of the white Southerner to heavy handed Federal aka Yankee interference in local events still plays out in our elections.
It is probably useful to be able to establish some form of military doctrine about the non-kinetic effects of battle which itself has kinetic and non-kinetic means. Psychological Operations has a history of interesting effects of non-kinetic energy.
Operation Moolah in Korea was an offer of a payment of $30,000 to any Chinese or North Korean pilot that flew a Mig-15 to South Korea. While we did get a Mig, the real effects were the stripping of Communist air cover over North Korea for several weeks while the Communists grounded their planes for fear of the defection of any of their pilots. The Poles caused the Germans to lose one full day of war production by issuing a fake proclamation allegedly by Nazi headquarters giving Hitler’s birthday off for Polish war workers.
The analysis of this apparent anomaly leads us to make a serious change of how we define victory and how to get it. What separates a Hitler from a Hirohito? What separates the successful occupations of their lands from our attempts to Reconstruct the South or of Iraq? How do we know we have won?
I suggest we define victory or success in war is when the other side enforces our wishes with their own police and courts and other agencies of political, economic and social power. I suggest that victory comes when the other side sees a long term advantage in their own interests in cutting a deal.
Germany and Japan benefited from our occupation and were a non-belligerent ally in the Cold War. The South took over a century to recover from Reconstruction economically. In both those cases victory was dictated from the barrel of a gun. What would have happened if Lincoln had missed the play, and what would have happened if we had flooded Germany and Japan with Carpet Baggers and Scalawags?
The approach to a victory, then depends on the carrot and stick offered to those in the opposing side’s structure who have a dog in the game. Sometimes this isn’t the Boss, but someone willing to sell him out, or culling the Boss to cut and run. And it is often those closest to the Boss who are his weakest point. Himmler tried to pull off a coup and cut a deal with the Allies, Hitler wound up appointing Admiral Doenitz as Fuhrer, while Doenitz wasn’t hard core Nazi.
When it gets down to defeating the enemy, however defined, it is the informal structure of power, and the role of personality that counts.
Some leaders such as Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam were brilliant practitioners of the art of survival by divide and control within, but not so hot in managing combat forces. Each of these three applied the Law of Inverse Relevance by touting their military infallibility which, if a virtue, was the least of them. The confidence of nations under leadership of this nature is based on a lie.
Incurring defeatism and division in the enemy’s ranks is the most popular way to achieve non-kinetic victory. Accordingly, President Wilson took no chances with pro-German elements in America nor was he tolerant even of the slightest hint of defeatism. Wilson established the Committee of Public Information (CPI) under George Creel to operate as a de-facto ministry of Propaganda. Wilson’s Sedition Act banned “uttering … any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States government or the military” (this from Goldberg’s book ‘Liberal Fascism’). Breaking into this form of psychological control is a tough nut to crack.
The trick is to identify the segments of the other side who are willing to cut a deal and who are willing to implement our policies afterward.
These segments aren’t always the same bunch. We reduced Germany and Japan to smoking wreckage in hopes of inducing them to kick their leadership out for it was assumed that killing civilians would be a positive motivator for the civilians. That didn’t work in bringing down the regime in charge, but it certainly made a splendid motivator to keep out of the business of conquest afterward. Likewise, the Russians didn’t venture into hot wars until Afghanistan.
It is popular to demonize the demon in charge of the enemy as a snake. Cutting the head of the snake is also a popular sound bite in planning for victory, but sometimes you don’t have a snake, but a can of worms, or an ant hill … like in the Muddle East. It might have worked if Hitler had been killed on July 20, 1944. But killing Osama Bin Ladin isn’t likely to end Islamic terrorism as this movement grows heads as fast as they are cut off. Snake analogies don’t help when there is no snake.
Since Secretary of Defense Gates has taken charge, there is less of Rumsfeldian bombast, and a ripple of curtains behind which deals are being cut. In this current drama, fuss and fury are theatre. Helzbollah was suckered into dropping it’s cloak of invisibility and showed it’s hand as a meddler in Lebanese politics than a partisan of Palestinian liberation. Syria is talking to Israel about peace while calming the Iranians and Palestinians with promises not to be kept.
In short, I hope that it is the Gates paradigm that appears to be positively engaged in engaging the key players of the Muddle East with the traditional mix of jawing and warring at the same time. Call it Jaw Wars. It’s also as deeply engrained in Chinese government and politics as it is in the Muddle East, or in Chicago.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Middle Heavy Weights
The Employment section of your typical local newspaper is peppered with two kinds of placements requiring a large number of applicants to find the best of a large number of candidates for jobs with a wide range of qualifications, and those for jobs that have a narrow range with little in between. Sales and computer jocks are big users of advertising space.
In the military, the same principle applies to strategic personnel planning for combat operations. Armies are always short good infantry, in no small part due to the high casualty rates, but even without high casualties, combat needs boots and rifles on the ground. On the other end of the spectrum are the technicians for which time is required to train and gain experience. Top of the lists of these are doctors and pilots.
The Germans and Japanese ran out of good pilots to man the planes they produced. They keep their best pilots in action which ran up some impressive scores, but the quality of the pilots that followed couldn’t match the pilots the US produced. The US produced so many pilots that some were transferred to fight as infantry.
The Army Reserve was originally formed to build a pool of medical personnel right after WW 1. Army and Navy Reserve pilots called to active duty in WW 2 included Jimmie Doolittle. The same occurred in Korea where recalled pilots flew against the Chinese and North Koreans.
The experiences of WW 1, WW 2, Korea and the current unpleasantness show that the depth of the strategic personnel reserve wasn’t big enough for big wars or long ones. Fillers beyond the initial commitment of Capstone aligned Guard and Reserve units were to be drawn from a draft or from a massive recruitment program to fill from the bottom.
In Vietnam and in operations today, the middle ranks got stretched with the grade of O-3 nearly invisible it’s so thin. In 1970, the time in service for an Army Captain was less than 24 months. It is dropping fast today because of the length of combat and voluntary nature of a voluntary force. In Vietnam the stretch came early as the twentieth anniversary of WW 2 years came and went at the same time the Army expanded for the war.
The same thing happened in Vietnam for the NCO ranks. Sergeants used to being squad and platoon leaders were thrust into First Sergeant jobs, while privates with extra training were fielded with E-5 stripes. Needless to say, there were weaknesses in the cohesion and expertise of small units. It’s a good thing that much of the shortage of expertise was addressed with NCO formal education that grew out of the “Shake and Bake” Instant NCO program.
A strategic personnel program then should focus on in depth backup for skills and grades that take time to produce. That means middle grade officers and NCOs, technicians, pilots, medical personnel and a host of others familiar to the needs of the service. Tables of organization should make room for more in the middle and expert ranks as well as other programs to maintain this experience. The Reserve forces (Federal) should be middle heavy and exercised in leadership positions under operational conditions.
The immediate impact of a program to build, preserve and maintain combat essential skill sets is that the career programs for Reserve forces should not mirror the career patterns traditionally associated with the Active forces. The aggregate skill sets for mobilization, full or partial should match those contingencies requiring rapid and/or sustained fill.
And, we need pools of qualified infantry.
This means a paid and trained IRR. It means drill pay for individuals and a system to provide opportunities to train with units of any component.
In the military, the same principle applies to strategic personnel planning for combat operations. Armies are always short good infantry, in no small part due to the high casualty rates, but even without high casualties, combat needs boots and rifles on the ground. On the other end of the spectrum are the technicians for which time is required to train and gain experience. Top of the lists of these are doctors and pilots.
The Germans and Japanese ran out of good pilots to man the planes they produced. They keep their best pilots in action which ran up some impressive scores, but the quality of the pilots that followed couldn’t match the pilots the US produced. The US produced so many pilots that some were transferred to fight as infantry.
The Army Reserve was originally formed to build a pool of medical personnel right after WW 1. Army and Navy Reserve pilots called to active duty in WW 2 included Jimmie Doolittle. The same occurred in Korea where recalled pilots flew against the Chinese and North Koreans.
The experiences of WW 1, WW 2, Korea and the current unpleasantness show that the depth of the strategic personnel reserve wasn’t big enough for big wars or long ones. Fillers beyond the initial commitment of Capstone aligned Guard and Reserve units were to be drawn from a draft or from a massive recruitment program to fill from the bottom.
In Vietnam and in operations today, the middle ranks got stretched with the grade of O-3 nearly invisible it’s so thin. In 1970, the time in service for an Army Captain was less than 24 months. It is dropping fast today because of the length of combat and voluntary nature of a voluntary force. In Vietnam the stretch came early as the twentieth anniversary of WW 2 years came and went at the same time the Army expanded for the war.
The same thing happened in Vietnam for the NCO ranks. Sergeants used to being squad and platoon leaders were thrust into First Sergeant jobs, while privates with extra training were fielded with E-5 stripes. Needless to say, there were weaknesses in the cohesion and expertise of small units. It’s a good thing that much of the shortage of expertise was addressed with NCO formal education that grew out of the “Shake and Bake” Instant NCO program.
A strategic personnel program then should focus on in depth backup for skills and grades that take time to produce. That means middle grade officers and NCOs, technicians, pilots, medical personnel and a host of others familiar to the needs of the service. Tables of organization should make room for more in the middle and expert ranks as well as other programs to maintain this experience. The Reserve forces (Federal) should be middle heavy and exercised in leadership positions under operational conditions.
The immediate impact of a program to build, preserve and maintain combat essential skill sets is that the career programs for Reserve forces should not mirror the career patterns traditionally associated with the Active forces. The aggregate skill sets for mobilization, full or partial should match those contingencies requiring rapid and/or sustained fill.
And, we need pools of qualified infantry.
This means a paid and trained IRR. It means drill pay for individuals and a system to provide opportunities to train with units of any component.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Magic v Murphy
Our military is often criticized for always preparing to fight the last war. That criticism might have worked in the Nineteenth Century, but by the end of the Twentieth, the dominant form of preparation has been focused on the kind of war wanted to fight based on extrapolations of what might be the war of the future. A corollary of this has been to prepare to not fight wars that the military didn’t want to fight.
After Vietnam, the US decided not to prepare for Counterinsurgency, turned its back and focused on the defense of West Germany with the expectation that an invasion could occur on short order. During this period, US ground forces trained to fight a Soviet model army at Fr Irwin in the desert. It must be considered that Desert Storm where a Soviet modeled army was fought in the desert is a freak of nature, and it is very rare in US military history that our enemies will fight us in the manner that we like to fight. We are still dealing with fact that this time the Arabs are fighting us on their terms and not ours.
We entered WW1 with tactics originally perfected in the Napoleonic Wars, by attacking in successive waves of infantry in close order, despite the lessons of colonial wars which had already showed the effectiveness of barbed wire, machine gun, and exploding shells. The resulting carnage is legendary. But it wasn’t until late in the War that a new tactical system was developed by German general Oskar Hutier using fire and maneuver at the lowest tactical levels as we know it today. He successfully seized Riga in September 1917, and his tactics were used successfully to defeat the Italians in October at Caporetto. General Hutier was transferred to the Western Front and these tactics were used in March 1918 at Amiens.
By the end of WW1, US Armed forces had developed combined arms tactics and organizations complete with close and strategic air power. Crude as they were, we had tanks, armored personnel carriers, armored recovery vehicles, and logistics of the type later reinvented to fight WW2. Doctrine, however, reverted to what had been developed in mid war, which was dominated by trench warfare, massive bombardments, and mass assaults in waves. My father was criticized for training his 105mm battery for meeting engagements, which meeting engagement he won in Mindanao against a Japanese battery going south on the road he was going north on.
Fortunately for us, the lessons of early WW2 based on the operations in Poland, France, and Russia were not lost on General Marshall and our doctrine was more up to snuff than it might have been had we gone to war before. His organization of the Army was based on two types of battalions, divisional and non divisional, with headquarters over division allocated non divisional battalions as needed. This structure remained viable until Transformation focused on brigades to the exclusion of everything else.
Marshall’s organization was used successfully in every form of mission, enemy, terrain, technology, time and civilian impact from his time through Desert Storm. Like the Roman Legion, it had a structure designed to be task organized at multiple levels.
Despite having an Army designed to fight an imaginary war, the troops in the field have been able to perform pure magic in adapting to the needs of counterinsurgency, and an incisive view of the principles of a shifting kaleidoscope of mission, enemy, terrain, troops available, time, and civilian considerations. As it lacks a name, for the moment, it should be called Magical Warfare as it defies conventional constraints and uses the genius of our troops to adapt.
There is something very magical about the way the forces have adapted. We hear of artillery battalions converted to a population control and stability operations capability, of Navy officers conducting electronic warfare while attached to Army units, of infantry and tank platoons deploying with civil affairs, PSYOP, intelligence and often medical attachments. It’s never been done on that scale and complexity before while some precedents exist in our occupations of Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and in CORDS and the Marines in Vietnam.
Today the concept of “Full Spectrum Warfare” is a reminder that Counterinsurgency won’t be the only kind of war we may have to fight. The rise of India and China as major powers with a capability of providing the “near peer” scale of warfare, is raising it’s unwelcome face to face. Given that counterinsurgency/stability operations aren’t going to go away any time soon, the kaleidoscope of METT-TC will continue to expand.
The challenge is how to prepare for a much wider array of responses effectively given the resources at hand. Our strong point as a nation is the ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances, that is the substance of the magical level of war being fought now. We have to be able to take a force experienced in counter insurgency and wage another kind of war. This calls for training a force to change though application of task organization and training to multiple and changing conditions of METT-TC, and with shifting METL (mission essential task lists).
Contingency based training provides not only a reduced time to deploy, but the experience in planning for contingencies for it is the planning that counts more than the plan. Commanders at all levels should be accustomed to major changes in contingencies based on realistic assessments of risk as a Mission Essential Task.
Contingencies should be developed by each major Command (Centcom, Northcom, etc) and used to prepare training and future operations with an eye to making sure that the major variants in METT-TC are covered by some command somewhere.
While this may seem wild, so is war. All predictions of future combat will be wrong in some significant way. We should train with that as a central theme in our planning. Murphy’s Law is the first law of war.
After Vietnam, the US decided not to prepare for Counterinsurgency, turned its back and focused on the defense of West Germany with the expectation that an invasion could occur on short order. During this period, US ground forces trained to fight a Soviet model army at Fr Irwin in the desert. It must be considered that Desert Storm where a Soviet modeled army was fought in the desert is a freak of nature, and it is very rare in US military history that our enemies will fight us in the manner that we like to fight. We are still dealing with fact that this time the Arabs are fighting us on their terms and not ours.
We entered WW1 with tactics originally perfected in the Napoleonic Wars, by attacking in successive waves of infantry in close order, despite the lessons of colonial wars which had already showed the effectiveness of barbed wire, machine gun, and exploding shells. The resulting carnage is legendary. But it wasn’t until late in the War that a new tactical system was developed by German general Oskar Hutier using fire and maneuver at the lowest tactical levels as we know it today. He successfully seized Riga in September 1917, and his tactics were used successfully to defeat the Italians in October at Caporetto. General Hutier was transferred to the Western Front and these tactics were used in March 1918 at Amiens.
By the end of WW1, US Armed forces had developed combined arms tactics and organizations complete with close and strategic air power. Crude as they were, we had tanks, armored personnel carriers, armored recovery vehicles, and logistics of the type later reinvented to fight WW2. Doctrine, however, reverted to what had been developed in mid war, which was dominated by trench warfare, massive bombardments, and mass assaults in waves. My father was criticized for training his 105mm battery for meeting engagements, which meeting engagement he won in Mindanao against a Japanese battery going south on the road he was going north on.
Fortunately for us, the lessons of early WW2 based on the operations in Poland, France, and Russia were not lost on General Marshall and our doctrine was more up to snuff than it might have been had we gone to war before. His organization of the Army was based on two types of battalions, divisional and non divisional, with headquarters over division allocated non divisional battalions as needed. This structure remained viable until Transformation focused on brigades to the exclusion of everything else.
Marshall’s organization was used successfully in every form of mission, enemy, terrain, technology, time and civilian impact from his time through Desert Storm. Like the Roman Legion, it had a structure designed to be task organized at multiple levels.
Despite having an Army designed to fight an imaginary war, the troops in the field have been able to perform pure magic in adapting to the needs of counterinsurgency, and an incisive view of the principles of a shifting kaleidoscope of mission, enemy, terrain, troops available, time, and civilian considerations. As it lacks a name, for the moment, it should be called Magical Warfare as it defies conventional constraints and uses the genius of our troops to adapt.
There is something very magical about the way the forces have adapted. We hear of artillery battalions converted to a population control and stability operations capability, of Navy officers conducting electronic warfare while attached to Army units, of infantry and tank platoons deploying with civil affairs, PSYOP, intelligence and often medical attachments. It’s never been done on that scale and complexity before while some precedents exist in our occupations of Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and in CORDS and the Marines in Vietnam.
Today the concept of “Full Spectrum Warfare” is a reminder that Counterinsurgency won’t be the only kind of war we may have to fight. The rise of India and China as major powers with a capability of providing the “near peer” scale of warfare, is raising it’s unwelcome face to face. Given that counterinsurgency/stability operations aren’t going to go away any time soon, the kaleidoscope of METT-TC will continue to expand.
The challenge is how to prepare for a much wider array of responses effectively given the resources at hand. Our strong point as a nation is the ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances, that is the substance of the magical level of war being fought now. We have to be able to take a force experienced in counter insurgency and wage another kind of war. This calls for training a force to change though application of task organization and training to multiple and changing conditions of METT-TC, and with shifting METL (mission essential task lists).
Contingency based training provides not only a reduced time to deploy, but the experience in planning for contingencies for it is the planning that counts more than the plan. Commanders at all levels should be accustomed to major changes in contingencies based on realistic assessments of risk as a Mission Essential Task.
Contingencies should be developed by each major Command (Centcom, Northcom, etc) and used to prepare training and future operations with an eye to making sure that the major variants in METT-TC are covered by some command somewhere.
While this may seem wild, so is war. All predictions of future combat will be wrong in some significant way. We should train with that as a central theme in our planning. Murphy’s Law is the first law of war.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Letter to LTG McCarthy on an Adequate National Defense
Dear Sir,
I am in the process of distilling my previous articles into a short compilation of recommendations for the Adequate Defense of the Nation as you requested. Most of the ideas below have been treated in greater detail on my blog.
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/
The main issues are not entirely limited to the Reserves, but include all components.
1. The size of the Reserve Components should be a multiple of the Active Components with a floor of the combined percentage of forces deployable in a short time (say, six months) be tied to the size of the population at large such as the one to ten percent figures mentioned on my blog and which have been emailed to you earlier.
2. Adjustments of the size and readiness of the forces above the floor level combined should be threat based as opposed to capabilities based and in accordance with contingency and operational plans prepared in accordance with a National METL based on the analysis of METT-TC in accordance with current doctrine.
3. The forces of the Reserve Components should be, by law, divided into units and individuals ready to deploy in short notice. History historically shows that it is the individuals that go first, and that absent a viable IRR, means cannibalization of existing units. I suggest a statutory requirement for the sum of units and individuals in this category be equal in the aggregate of all components and services. The exact composition to be determined in the budget process by the Congrss.
4. Training of the forces is a balance of the location of the military population base, the availability of training facilities, and the location of threats. Active components normally position themselves with regard to the last two, but the Guard and Reserve should be positioned first with regard to where they live. Not only should the flags be moved to the troops, so should the training.
Using virtual reality in metropolitan bases eases many of the requirements for large maneuver areas, as is command post exercises which can span continents and seas./
This means a focus on metropolitan areas.
a. Every major airline hub should be a Reserve and/or Guard base.
b. Every major port should have a major presence of sea services.
5. The experience of troops in operational environments is the most precious asset for current and future operations. Experience in TOE units should be rated higher than in TDA non academic staff positions. Of this experience and expertise, the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) and basic small unit collective activities (survival, movement, etc) are the most critical. While some technical fields (aviation,medical, etc) require specific technical skills that take time, the majority of skill sets can be learned in short order by a competent group of experienced troops as evidenced historically and currently in GWOT.
a. The Up or Out system should be abolished in order to preserve a mobilization base of experience by keeping talent in grade instead of forcing folks out of their areas of competence and expertise.
b. There should be a mechanism, under law, to call into military service personnel whose civilian experience is the primary operational need, such as medical and mechanical.
6. The imbalance between the Pentagon and the Congress, between Federal and State, due to the elephantine effect of Parkinson's Laws needs to be corrected.
a. The QDR should be approved by law, appropriation or resolution by the Congress in keeping with their specified powers in this regard.
b. The distance between the highest military position (Joint Chiefs) and the President and Congress should be reduced to no more than one civilian. All civilians, be they civil service or appointed must, by law, be qualified educationally for a comparable military ranks.
c. The size of the Pentagon staff should be fixed with relation to the size of combat forces. This to avoid the common absurdity in the UK of it's Colonial Officer and Admiralty becoming larger as the size of the empire declined in numbers of colonials and ships.
7. National Defense planning.
a. The state, by the Constitution, is the lead "first responder" to disasters natural or man made through the provision of well regulated militias and of the police power of the state. While military power can be shifted to Federal level, the shifting of Federal power should be done in accordance with the National Incident Management System (NIMS).
b. Mobilization planning must be multi-departmental including planned regulation of human and natural resources. DoD lacks the authority and interest in running an entire nation as did the German General Staff in WW 1.
More to follow
I am in the process of distilling my previous articles into a short compilation of recommendations for the Adequate Defense of the Nation as you requested. Most of the ideas below have been treated in greater detail on my blog.
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/
The main issues are not entirely limited to the Reserves, but include all components.
1. The size of the Reserve Components should be a multiple of the Active Components with a floor of the combined percentage of forces deployable in a short time (say, six months) be tied to the size of the population at large such as the one to ten percent figures mentioned on my blog and which have been emailed to you earlier.
2. Adjustments of the size and readiness of the forces above the floor level combined should be threat based as opposed to capabilities based and in accordance with contingency and operational plans prepared in accordance with a National METL based on the analysis of METT-TC in accordance with current doctrine.
3. The forces of the Reserve Components should be, by law, divided into units and individuals ready to deploy in short notice. History historically shows that it is the individuals that go first, and that absent a viable IRR, means cannibalization of existing units. I suggest a statutory requirement for the sum of units and individuals in this category be equal in the aggregate of all components and services. The exact composition to be determined in the budget process by the Congrss.
4. Training of the forces is a balance of the location of the military population base, the availability of training facilities, and the location of threats. Active components normally position themselves with regard to the last two, but the Guard and Reserve should be positioned first with regard to where they live. Not only should the flags be moved to the troops, so should the training.
Using virtual reality in metropolitan bases eases many of the requirements for large maneuver areas, as is command post exercises which can span continents and seas./
This means a focus on metropolitan areas.
a. Every major airline hub should be a Reserve and/or Guard base.
b. Every major port should have a major presence of sea services.
5. The experience of troops in operational environments is the most precious asset for current and future operations. Experience in TOE units should be rated higher than in TDA non academic staff positions. Of this experience and expertise, the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) and basic small unit collective activities (survival, movement, etc) are the most critical. While some technical fields (aviation,medical, etc) require specific technical skills that take time, the majority of skill sets can be learned in short order by a competent group of experienced troops as evidenced historically and currently in GWOT.
a. The Up or Out system should be abolished in order to preserve a mobilization base of experience by keeping talent in grade instead of forcing folks out of their areas of competence and expertise.
b. There should be a mechanism, under law, to call into military service personnel whose civilian experience is the primary operational need, such as medical and mechanical.
6. The imbalance between the Pentagon and the Congress, between Federal and State, due to the elephantine effect of Parkinson's Laws needs to be corrected.
a. The QDR should be approved by law, appropriation or resolution by the Congress in keeping with their specified powers in this regard.
b. The distance between the highest military position (Joint Chiefs) and the President and Congress should be reduced to no more than one civilian. All civilians, be they civil service or appointed must, by law, be qualified educationally for a comparable military ranks.
c. The size of the Pentagon staff should be fixed with relation to the size of combat forces. This to avoid the common absurdity in the UK of it's Colonial Officer and Admiralty becoming larger as the size of the empire declined in numbers of colonials and ships.
7. National Defense planning.
a. The state, by the Constitution, is the lead "first responder" to disasters natural or man made through the provision of well regulated militias and of the police power of the state. While military power can be shifted to Federal level, the shifting of Federal power should be done in accordance with the National Incident Management System (NIMS).
b. Mobilization planning must be multi-departmental including planned regulation of human and natural resources. DoD lacks the authority and interest in running an entire nation as did the German General Staff in WW 1.
More to follow
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Parkinson's Laws and the Pentagon
The Founders of our country had a clear and near experience with the abuses and uses of power and were keen on the idea that a balance of power was needed in the affairs of our nation state. We are keenly aware of the balance of power between the branches of our national government: legislative, executive, and judicial. Likewise a balance exists between state and federal powers as the former has the ability to abolish the other, so long as the right to alter the Constitution rests in a three quarter majority of state legislatures to ratify. When Congress created the Defense Department of the three major services, however, the balance tipped, and is beyond the tipping point.
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2006/12/quadrennial-defense-rubbish.html
While amongst conspiracy theorists, this imbalance is proof of a vast evil conspiracy bent on sinister purpose. The truce, however, is considerably more mundane. C. Northecote Parkinson, noted political theorist and wag, postulated that organizations grow, regardless of purpose or workload. He cited that the British Admiralty and Colonial Office grew in inverse proportion to the number of capital ships and colonies of the British Commonwealth. He also stated that work expands to fit the time available
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law
The driving mechanism of the expansion of bureaucracy is described by William J Haga in his book “Haga's Law: Why Nothing Works and No One Can Fix It and the More You Try to Fix It the Worse It Gets” because of the basic principle that “anxiety begets organization, and organization begets anxiety”. To relief anxiety, managers hire assistants to spread the work load, but fearing rivalry hire two more to manipulate.
http://www.amazon.com/Hagas-Law-Nothing-Works-Worse/dp/0688004679
When Haga’s anxiety strikes, Parkinson’s Laws are invoked to the point where an organization of thirty five (according to Parkinson) can be fully engaged with internal processes and produce nothing of value. As a retired City of Houston civil servant, I have seen it done with as few as a dozen. My studies of the budget and acquisition process in local government show that more money is spent in acquiring, accounting and paying for the goods and services that government uses than the total value of the contracts for the goods and services themselves. The military doesn’t have the locks on this nonsense, it’s everywhere.
The phenomenon of full time military establishments working to undermine part time militaries is not restricted to the land of the free and home of the brave, but endemic and persistent making the dire prediction that reserve forces are poorly equipped, trained, and led, a self fulfilling prophecy based more on job security than national security.
An article today (March 27, 2008) from the Associated Press cites that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have informed the President:
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Behind the Pentagon's closed doors, U.S. military leaders told President Bush March 26 they are worried about the Iraq war's mounting strain on troops and their families. But they indicated they'd go along with a brief halt in pulling out troops this summer.
The “mounting strain” is often blamed on the (small) size of the Regular services, and the leading candidates for President’s staffs candidly report favoring a larger Regular service, The truth, however obvious, evades observation. The Reserves and Guard weren’t large enough to face a Big War or a Long one.
Two large steps are required for those committed to an “Adequate National Defense”. First, make the relationship between the Congress and the Pentagon much closer, and to increase the distance between the troops and the Pentagon. And second, make the Guard and Reserve forces a multiple of the strength of the Active forces by law, tying the sum of them all to a percentage of the population at large.
The Constitution’s balance of powers extends to military power, with a balance between state and federal enshrined in the Second Amendment to the effect that the security of a free state in ensured by a “well regulated militia”. Knowing that a state, left to it’s own devices would raise standing armies or allow it’s militia to become unregulated (meaning trained in accordance with doctrine), the Founders prohibited the states from having ships of war, and standing troops in time of peace, and dictated that the Congress provide for the regulation (know today as doctrine) for the states. The Founders also split the providing forces and the command thereof between the Congress and the President, largely based on dreadful experiences in the English Civil Wars and the confusion of command in our Revolutionary War.
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2006/12/modest-proposal-for-resetting-force.html
At present, the Congress perceives its mandate regarding the military as one solely concerned with the budget. Reading the Constitution’s allocation of specified powers to the Congress, it is far more comprehensive. The Pentagon is, according to the required reading for the Industrial College of the Armed Services (little blue books), contemptuous of Congressional process and only critical of Pentagon process while the errors of both are in accordance with both Parkinson and Haga. The distance across the Potomac needs to be closer, at Congressional dictate in order to ensure that doctrine, organization, and equipment are in the interests of the national defense.
Likewise, the Congress needs to distance itself from the conduct of foreign relations (save trade) and the conduct of military operations which are the specified prerogative of the President.
The size of the Pentagon, due to the influence of natural laws, has become too large and needs to be trimmed, cut, sliced and/or diced to reach sub-critical pre-tipping point balance. It doesn’t matter parts are affected, only that the dominance revert to the Constitutional balance. Perhaps separating the services, the components, or command vs. administration might do the trick.
The natural tendency of the Pentagon to distance itself from the Congress is complemented by the equally natural tendency to micro-manage the troops. This micromanagement of the minutia of military endeavors is cited as the number one reason for Captains (O-3) to have left the service even before the war on terror creating a huge shortage that now strains and stretches the forces as reported. Congress should limit the size of the Pentagon as a minor fraction of the forces available for deployment. There should be fewer admirals in the British fleet than capital ships.
In as much as the natural tendency to secure job security overrides national security vis a vis the Reserve Components, the Congress should enact laws specifying the relative size of the components and services in accordance with the size of the active force with floors established and relative to the size of the population of the nation as modified by the perception or reality of threats to the national security.
As an example, the size of all forces available for deployment in six months should be not less than one percent of the national population as determined in the last census. This would mean that today’s military establishment of all services and all components that ready to move out should be not less than three million.
Deployability, however, must be something more akin to wartime needs which often are unpredictable in detail. The essence of deployability is the competence of the forces in the military decision making process and basic collective battle skills regardless of table of organization. Our forces have demonstrated in Iraq the ability to convert artillery and armor units to security forces involved in stability operations in short order due to competence in basic military skills. In short, individual and collective deployability means that one is warm, can take orders, shoot, dig holes, drive, and survive and Uncle Sam owns the contract.
Within that one percent (or larger percent determined by the Congress), the size of the reserve components at such readiness shall be not less than twice that of the active services in with one half of that Reserve/Guard allocation be for the purposes of individual or small unit rapid mobilization and the other half be in trained units. The balance between Guard forces and (Federal) Reserve forces in king favor the location of a trained and deployable “personnel reserve” in the (Federal) reserve forces with the traditional focus of units extant in the Guard remain so with (Federal) reserve units be focused on the needs of the deployed forces of all components mobilized.
Forces beyond the six month deployability window may also be in “drill status” but be beyond the one percent window.
An example of a force at current national population calling for three million deployable in six months may require a small regular force, and by such law, the size of the Guard/Reserve deployable force would be increased directly not less than one for one. A three million deployable force might have one half million on active duty with two and a half million in reserve., but if more than a million were required on active service, the size of the deployable reserve would have to be increased proportionally.
The balance between capabilities and components under such laws would be determined in budget considerations.
Forces needed beyond the six month window, for both individuals and units must also address raising forces from scratch so as to have a prepared mobilization schema to reach the Big War contingency such as a war calling for something akin to a World War in which the forces on active duty were over ten percent of the population and another forty percent in war production industries.
These proposals set in terms of percentages are set as an example only, but close to today’s needs. Any such law and subsequent budgetary constraints would be negotiated n terms of ratios and percentages.
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2006/12/quadrennial-defense-rubbish.html
While amongst conspiracy theorists, this imbalance is proof of a vast evil conspiracy bent on sinister purpose. The truce, however, is considerably more mundane. C. Northecote Parkinson, noted political theorist and wag, postulated that organizations grow, regardless of purpose or workload. He cited that the British Admiralty and Colonial Office grew in inverse proportion to the number of capital ships and colonies of the British Commonwealth. He also stated that work expands to fit the time available
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law
The driving mechanism of the expansion of bureaucracy is described by William J Haga in his book “Haga's Law: Why Nothing Works and No One Can Fix It and the More You Try to Fix It the Worse It Gets” because of the basic principle that “anxiety begets organization, and organization begets anxiety”. To relief anxiety, managers hire assistants to spread the work load, but fearing rivalry hire two more to manipulate.
http://www.amazon.com/Hagas-Law-Nothing-Works-Worse/dp/0688004679
When Haga’s anxiety strikes, Parkinson’s Laws are invoked to the point where an organization of thirty five (according to Parkinson) can be fully engaged with internal processes and produce nothing of value. As a retired City of Houston civil servant, I have seen it done with as few as a dozen. My studies of the budget and acquisition process in local government show that more money is spent in acquiring, accounting and paying for the goods and services that government uses than the total value of the contracts for the goods and services themselves. The military doesn’t have the locks on this nonsense, it’s everywhere.
The phenomenon of full time military establishments working to undermine part time militaries is not restricted to the land of the free and home of the brave, but endemic and persistent making the dire prediction that reserve forces are poorly equipped, trained, and led, a self fulfilling prophecy based more on job security than national security.
An article today (March 27, 2008) from the Associated Press cites that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have informed the President:
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Behind the Pentagon's closed doors, U.S. military leaders told President Bush March 26 they are worried about the Iraq war's mounting strain on troops and their families. But they indicated they'd go along with a brief halt in pulling out troops this summer.
The “mounting strain” is often blamed on the (small) size of the Regular services, and the leading candidates for President’s staffs candidly report favoring a larger Regular service, The truth, however obvious, evades observation. The Reserves and Guard weren’t large enough to face a Big War or a Long one.
Two large steps are required for those committed to an “Adequate National Defense”. First, make the relationship between the Congress and the Pentagon much closer, and to increase the distance between the troops and the Pentagon. And second, make the Guard and Reserve forces a multiple of the strength of the Active forces by law, tying the sum of them all to a percentage of the population at large.
The Constitution’s balance of powers extends to military power, with a balance between state and federal enshrined in the Second Amendment to the effect that the security of a free state in ensured by a “well regulated militia”. Knowing that a state, left to it’s own devices would raise standing armies or allow it’s militia to become unregulated (meaning trained in accordance with doctrine), the Founders prohibited the states from having ships of war, and standing troops in time of peace, and dictated that the Congress provide for the regulation (know today as doctrine) for the states. The Founders also split the providing forces and the command thereof between the Congress and the President, largely based on dreadful experiences in the English Civil Wars and the confusion of command in our Revolutionary War.
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2006/12/modest-proposal-for-resetting-force.html
At present, the Congress perceives its mandate regarding the military as one solely concerned with the budget. Reading the Constitution’s allocation of specified powers to the Congress, it is far more comprehensive. The Pentagon is, according to the required reading for the Industrial College of the Armed Services (little blue books), contemptuous of Congressional process and only critical of Pentagon process while the errors of both are in accordance with both Parkinson and Haga. The distance across the Potomac needs to be closer, at Congressional dictate in order to ensure that doctrine, organization, and equipment are in the interests of the national defense.
Likewise, the Congress needs to distance itself from the conduct of foreign relations (save trade) and the conduct of military operations which are the specified prerogative of the President.
The size of the Pentagon, due to the influence of natural laws, has become too large and needs to be trimmed, cut, sliced and/or diced to reach sub-critical pre-tipping point balance. It doesn’t matter parts are affected, only that the dominance revert to the Constitutional balance. Perhaps separating the services, the components, or command vs. administration might do the trick.
The natural tendency of the Pentagon to distance itself from the Congress is complemented by the equally natural tendency to micro-manage the troops. This micromanagement of the minutia of military endeavors is cited as the number one reason for Captains (O-3) to have left the service even before the war on terror creating a huge shortage that now strains and stretches the forces as reported. Congress should limit the size of the Pentagon as a minor fraction of the forces available for deployment. There should be fewer admirals in the British fleet than capital ships.
In as much as the natural tendency to secure job security overrides national security vis a vis the Reserve Components, the Congress should enact laws specifying the relative size of the components and services in accordance with the size of the active force with floors established and relative to the size of the population of the nation as modified by the perception or reality of threats to the national security.
As an example, the size of all forces available for deployment in six months should be not less than one percent of the national population as determined in the last census. This would mean that today’s military establishment of all services and all components that ready to move out should be not less than three million.
Deployability, however, must be something more akin to wartime needs which often are unpredictable in detail. The essence of deployability is the competence of the forces in the military decision making process and basic collective battle skills regardless of table of organization. Our forces have demonstrated in Iraq the ability to convert artillery and armor units to security forces involved in stability operations in short order due to competence in basic military skills. In short, individual and collective deployability means that one is warm, can take orders, shoot, dig holes, drive, and survive and Uncle Sam owns the contract.
Within that one percent (or larger percent determined by the Congress), the size of the reserve components at such readiness shall be not less than twice that of the active services in with one half of that Reserve/Guard allocation be for the purposes of individual or small unit rapid mobilization and the other half be in trained units. The balance between Guard forces and (Federal) Reserve forces in king favor the location of a trained and deployable “personnel reserve” in the (Federal) reserve forces with the traditional focus of units extant in the Guard remain so with (Federal) reserve units be focused on the needs of the deployed forces of all components mobilized.
Forces beyond the six month deployability window may also be in “drill status” but be beyond the one percent window.
An example of a force at current national population calling for three million deployable in six months may require a small regular force, and by such law, the size of the Guard/Reserve deployable force would be increased directly not less than one for one. A three million deployable force might have one half million on active duty with two and a half million in reserve., but if more than a million were required on active service, the size of the deployable reserve would have to be increased proportionally.
The balance between capabilities and components under such laws would be determined in budget considerations.
Forces needed beyond the six month window, for both individuals and units must also address raising forces from scratch so as to have a prepared mobilization schema to reach the Big War contingency such as a war calling for something akin to a World War in which the forces on active duty were over ten percent of the population and another forty percent in war production industries.
These proposals set in terms of percentages are set as an example only, but close to today’s needs. Any such law and subsequent budgetary constraints would be negotiated n terms of ratios and percentages.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The Real Incredibles - Our Troops
GWOT in perspective – Five years later
The War in Iraq and Afghanistan, triggered by 9/11 hasn’t been won, but neither has it been lost, the final verdict may take years to assess, and even then there will be arguments over the verdict. Saddam has been removed from power, but the Baathists and the Republican Guard haven’t given up yet despite the proudly display “blue finger” of those who voted. The Taliban is like St Augustine grass in the flower bed.
But that is more the rule than the exception in war, there being a tangential connection between what caused a war, what were the objectives (if any save survival), and the results:
The American South seceded over slavery, when staying with the Union would have preserved slavery in the South as the South had enough states to stop the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
The British opposition to Imperial Germany was triggered by a German threat to Britain’s naval superiority defined as equal or greater than any two opposing fleets, yet gave up this notion of superiority to parity in the Washington Naval Treaty on 1922.
Japan went to war over it’s desire to get their “fair share” of China, then divvied up between the English, French, Italians, Germans and Americans in extra-territorial “concessions”. FDR and the China Lobby on the Hill sent supplies and the Flying Tigers to “save” China for US commercial and Christian interests. The Communists won, everyone else lost. But after forty years of Communism in China, China has reverted in fact to more open markets than were the object of their enmity.
The victory of the North Vietnamese over the French, the Republic of Vietnam and the US failed to establish communism in Vietnam shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed and the Chinese went capitalist.
The United States Congress was unwilling to declare war on Germany on the December 8, 1941 despite Japan’s attack. Hitler solved that problem for us. There were serious objections within the US over the wisdom of the war on Germany until the Holocaust was uncovered in the Spring of ’45. WW2 is now justified on evidence found at the end of the war. The political results were determined at Casablanca, Tehran, and Potsdam, while the course of combat had it’s own logic of fire and maneuver.
The contemporary babble over whether there was or was not a connection between Saddam and Bin Ladin, and over whether there were or were not weapons of mass destruction (WMD) sounds like a domestic squabble over who did what to whom first. It isn’t useful in determining what has actually transpired, what effects there have been, or what needs to be done in the future. As usual, intent and effect are marginally connected. This is also known as the Law of Unintended Effects.
The effects of the war have had substantial impact on military doctrine, theory, and practice. Of the most significant are the role of women in combat, the recognition of the military and political value of the Guard and Reserve, the evolution (resurrection) of a new paradigm of military doctrine called Full Spectrum Warfare, and the evolution of a new paradigm in the sophistication of military operations in and beyond battle.
The old argument that women have no place in battle loudly proclaimed five years ago is silent today. Women, it has been found, can be more deadly than the male. Many volunteered for the gunner’s position on HUMMV’s and due to their lower center of gravity, holistic view of the world, and maturity have caused the early transfer of many a terrorist to Paradise.
At the beginning of expanded military operations in the Balkans and early on in Iraqi Freedom, Guard and Reserve (RC) personnel were deployed as a personnel reserve for the Active military. It has been found, however, that often RC personnel have more combat experience than their full time counter parts and additional talents from civilian life immediately useful in the protracted war of insurgency. Defense against cell phone detonated IED’s was crafted by a Reservist who worked with the cell phone industry as a civilian.
Military doctrine in place at the beginning of the war was focused on Expeditionary war which called for a quick solution for small conflagrations deemed the dominant for of battle after the Fall of the Wall. It took four years for the US military establishment, mainly it’s school system, to realize that “Protracted War” of Mao and Giap had returned with a turban and AK47.
Protracted war is multi dimensional and multi leveled including military, economic, political and social operations. This was the dominant form of war in the religious wars between Catholic and Protestant, and of the Communists until Pestroika. The new Army Field Manuals FM 3-24 on Counterinsurgency and FM 3-0 on Full Spectrum operations stress a multi handed approach in which economic stability, essential services (water, sewer, roads) , effective governance are just as important (often more) than combat operations.
LTG William Caldwell, Commander of the Combined Army Center where Army doctrine is developed appeared in the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on March 10, 2008 and described both the eclectic nature of counterinsurgency protracted war as requiring our troops in any one given area (town, village, province) to be, at the same time surveying for a water well, having tea with a tribal sheik, fixing up a market place and engage with a hostile foe with firepower.
That’s the doctrine, and that’s the new paradigm. Never in American military history have troops been required and been able to function on so wide an array of missions and skills. In short, the real “Incredibles” are our troops.
The War in Iraq and Afghanistan, triggered by 9/11 hasn’t been won, but neither has it been lost, the final verdict may take years to assess, and even then there will be arguments over the verdict. Saddam has been removed from power, but the Baathists and the Republican Guard haven’t given up yet despite the proudly display “blue finger” of those who voted. The Taliban is like St Augustine grass in the flower bed.
But that is more the rule than the exception in war, there being a tangential connection between what caused a war, what were the objectives (if any save survival), and the results:
The American South seceded over slavery, when staying with the Union would have preserved slavery in the South as the South had enough states to stop the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
The British opposition to Imperial Germany was triggered by a German threat to Britain’s naval superiority defined as equal or greater than any two opposing fleets, yet gave up this notion of superiority to parity in the Washington Naval Treaty on 1922.
Japan went to war over it’s desire to get their “fair share” of China, then divvied up between the English, French, Italians, Germans and Americans in extra-territorial “concessions”. FDR and the China Lobby on the Hill sent supplies and the Flying Tigers to “save” China for US commercial and Christian interests. The Communists won, everyone else lost. But after forty years of Communism in China, China has reverted in fact to more open markets than were the object of their enmity.
The victory of the North Vietnamese over the French, the Republic of Vietnam and the US failed to establish communism in Vietnam shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed and the Chinese went capitalist.
The United States Congress was unwilling to declare war on Germany on the December 8, 1941 despite Japan’s attack. Hitler solved that problem for us. There were serious objections within the US over the wisdom of the war on Germany until the Holocaust was uncovered in the Spring of ’45. WW2 is now justified on evidence found at the end of the war. The political results were determined at Casablanca, Tehran, and Potsdam, while the course of combat had it’s own logic of fire and maneuver.
The contemporary babble over whether there was or was not a connection between Saddam and Bin Ladin, and over whether there were or were not weapons of mass destruction (WMD) sounds like a domestic squabble over who did what to whom first. It isn’t useful in determining what has actually transpired, what effects there have been, or what needs to be done in the future. As usual, intent and effect are marginally connected. This is also known as the Law of Unintended Effects.
The effects of the war have had substantial impact on military doctrine, theory, and practice. Of the most significant are the role of women in combat, the recognition of the military and political value of the Guard and Reserve, the evolution (resurrection) of a new paradigm of military doctrine called Full Spectrum Warfare, and the evolution of a new paradigm in the sophistication of military operations in and beyond battle.
The old argument that women have no place in battle loudly proclaimed five years ago is silent today. Women, it has been found, can be more deadly than the male. Many volunteered for the gunner’s position on HUMMV’s and due to their lower center of gravity, holistic view of the world, and maturity have caused the early transfer of many a terrorist to Paradise.
At the beginning of expanded military operations in the Balkans and early on in Iraqi Freedom, Guard and Reserve (RC) personnel were deployed as a personnel reserve for the Active military. It has been found, however, that often RC personnel have more combat experience than their full time counter parts and additional talents from civilian life immediately useful in the protracted war of insurgency. Defense against cell phone detonated IED’s was crafted by a Reservist who worked with the cell phone industry as a civilian.
Military doctrine in place at the beginning of the war was focused on Expeditionary war which called for a quick solution for small conflagrations deemed the dominant for of battle after the Fall of the Wall. It took four years for the US military establishment, mainly it’s school system, to realize that “Protracted War” of Mao and Giap had returned with a turban and AK47.
Protracted war is multi dimensional and multi leveled including military, economic, political and social operations. This was the dominant form of war in the religious wars between Catholic and Protestant, and of the Communists until Pestroika. The new Army Field Manuals FM 3-24 on Counterinsurgency and FM 3-0 on Full Spectrum operations stress a multi handed approach in which economic stability, essential services (water, sewer, roads) , effective governance are just as important (often more) than combat operations.
LTG William Caldwell, Commander of the Combined Army Center where Army doctrine is developed appeared in the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on March 10, 2008 and described both the eclectic nature of counterinsurgency protracted war as requiring our troops in any one given area (town, village, province) to be, at the same time surveying for a water well, having tea with a tribal sheik, fixing up a market place and engage with a hostile foe with firepower.
That’s the doctrine, and that’s the new paradigm. Never in American military history have troops been required and been able to function on so wide an array of missions and skills. In short, the real “Incredibles” are our troops.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
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.
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.
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