The Slaps that Shape the Face of War

The successful use of the Warrior’s Guide to the Other Guy’s Culture is matter of culling from the information about a culture that reveals it’s Face. Face issues include duty, honor, country, family, be they individual or collective. Battles are fought to grab something, smash something and/or brag about it. It is the bragging and the humiliation that shapes the face of a war.

George Washington’s Christmas Eve attack on the Prussians at Trenton was intended to slap the British Face, to humiliate them and to announce to the Colonies that he intended to fight and win. The positive spin on this definitive Slap in the British Face induced thousands of militia in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to join the rekindled Revolution. A few months before, the British seemed to have the rebellion under hand. After all, Washington had lost ninety percent of his forces after the battles on Long Island.

The Hessian troops under British control were excellent troops, but in the European tradition in which they had been trained and accustomed to, rape, pillage and plunder were not only for service support but as job benefits. This was a Slap in the Face of those in New Jersey that over came their immediate drift to settle up with King George. George Washington’s Slap came as a welcome comeuppance.


Pearl Harbor was not only destructive, but it’s biggest impact on America was it was a huge Slap in the Face by Asians, who by the logic of the day, were inferior. In order to fit this attack into a culturally correct framework was to call the attack a “dastardly and unprovoked” sneak attack. To this day, the term “sneak attack” is ingrained in American culture. But, a Warrior knows that to attack without surprise, an “un-sneaky” attack would the attacker suffering some dastardly results.

FDR knew that this Slap had to be returned. The Doolittle attack was expected to do little in real military or industrial terms. It’s effect as a Slap was a real Face Saver for America, and the insult to Japan resulted in the failed attempt to take Midway.



Likewise did Churchill take the accidental bombing of the London docks by a stray Luftwaffe bomber into an opportunity to bomb Berlin. That Slap in Hitler’s Face shifted the bombing of RAF bases and factories to the bombing of London, the Blitz. This stiffened the resolve of the British, attracted American support, and gave the RAF precious time to rebuild.


Humiliation of an beaten enemy may make the humiliator feel warm and fuzzy, but the cold fury that it engenders has a nasty habit of blow back. The humiliation by Imperial Germany on France at Versailles in 1871 came back in spades at Versailles in 1919. That humiliation was returned in 1941 at the same railway car that saw the surrender of German forces in 1918. In propaganda one portrays the Villain (Bastard, Bitch and/or Brat) to provide fodder for the Hero and Heroine to protect the Helpless. And return the favors in kind.

Face issues are the first of the four “F’s” of Family (collective) decision values, the others are Fate, Fortune, and Fame. Taken together with the Temporal aspects of culture,
Time and Space, the Warrior learns when to slap, when to turn the other cheek, and when to kick back.

Gordon S Fowkes
Lt Col, US Army (Ret)

Triumph of the Will

Catchy title.

About some German grunt who survived on the Western Front for the whole war having his regiment shot to smithereens several times. Had an uncanny ability to be somewhere else when incoming artillery hit where he had been. Earned an Iron Cross, he did. Name of Hitler, Adolf. He wrote a book about his battle. Mein Kampf.

Later elevated himself to Chancellor of Germany, then took the title of Fuhrer. His own military tried to kill him over forty times. His battle sense saved him far too many times as he took his beloved country into a defeat so devastating to rival the fall of Carthage. And at the end, he blamed Germany for having failed him as he killed himself, his wife, and his dog.

Despite clear evidence that Hitler would never negotiate, the Allies built strategies around unfounded assumptions that by destroying key industrial and military facilities and capabilities, Hitler would negotiate. His generals would have, and let the Allies know that they would. The Allies never took that seriously and suffered the division of Europe between the Soviet Union and an American led West. Hitler’s sense of his Fate was that death was preferable than a loss of Face.

Later Khruschev blinked in the Cuban Crisis and the world was led away from a nuclear holocaust. This time it appeared that despite long preparations for nuclear war between the US and the USSR, cooler minds prevailed. In this case, there was more to lose than gain by fighting. It was a clear instance where the Fate was too great to bear to save Face.

Then there war Vietnam, in which the loss of Face to the North Vietnamese by battle losses was of no concern so long as they stuck to their perceived Fate as the winners in their conquest of Vietnam. In the end, it was the Americans who lost Face, and Hanoi’s victory was a huge Face saver.

Desert Storm was a limited objective war, in which Saddam had an opportunity to postpone his ultimate Fate, and in part save Face by crushing the Shi’a after the cease fire with the Coalition. And keep his Fame and Fortune for a decade more.

In Operation Iraqi Freedom, Saddam was willing to negotiate, but we would have none of it. We assumed that removing Saddam would cause the Iraqi people to adopt American Neo-Conservatism as the salvation from the errors and shortcomings of Iraqi culture…all five thousand years of it, going back before the Bronze Age. Let alone the glory days of the Caliphate, once the pinnacle of human civilization rivaled only in China (maybe). That, despite good intentions, was a slap in the Face.

Despite Neo-Conservative confusion between secular Arabs like Saddam and religious zealots such as Al Qaeda, a modernized version of the Crusade era Hashashashin (deep cover Assassins) which had also operated from bases in the mountains. Like the Hasashashin, Al Qaeda soldiers (aka terrorists) would sacrifice their lives to take out a target.

Now it takes a real genius to assume that Suicide Bombers would be intimidated by Shock and Awe. There’s a case where the enemy’s Face (and that of relatives and compatriots) is enhanced by accepting death as his Fate. It is very hard to terrify a suicidal terrorist.

In order to defuse the bomber, it is necessary to prove that saving Face can be done with a less explosive Fate. Discounting those who have made the ultimate sacrifice is counter-productive. Likewise it is counter-productive for infidels to call the faithful, Islamo-Fascists. Besides being a mushy mouthful, it’s about as accurate as calling a Texan a “damnyankee”.

Before fusing the ordnance, one should find where the “line” is that pulls the trigger, what really pisses them off and where the buttons are that open doors and discussions. It is a matter of a Fate which saves Face, with a touch of Fame and Fortune.

Gordon S Fowkes

The Purity and Essence of Precious Gene Pools – La famiglia.

The First “F” in F4F is the family as it is the root and branch of human organization and decision making, the key concern of a warrior in dealing with another culture. Even one’s own. Families may be traceable in the DNA, and be based on fornication of the literal kind, or they may be based on fornication in figurative kind. Regardless, the central organizing principle is the defense of the favored few. From this we get the concepts of bloodlines, both good and bad.



The nuclear family of mother, father and child is focused on the survival of the family by producing, on average, 2.1 children. Should this number drop, the gene pool, starts to dry up as in the case of North Europe, Japan, and of non-immigrant Americans.

The survival of the original threesome of mother, father and child assumes the child to be helpless and innocent and requires the protective role of the father against external threats and the nurturing role of the mother. There is considerable overlap in these roles between different cultures (and species), Add trauma and/or alcohol to these three essential roles and you get two major and dysfunctional variants, the heroic and the villainous. The villainous include the bastard, bitch, and brat, while their counter parts are the hero, heroine, and the infant.

Since the family unit does not meet reproducing status until 2.1 children are born as replacements, other children must be produced with special attention to those who illustrate survival traits. And therein begins the rub, sibling rivalry. This extends past just the original parental pair, and the competition extends unto multiple generations, which includes extended families, tribes, communities, ethnics, and races. Sibling rivalry is readily extended into a constant state of war within the branches of a blood line, or between them.
Families, extended or not, may also and are often not based on a gene pool or blood line. But they operate in much the same way in terms of the protection of the favored few, and rivalry between families of the tribe. Instead of a direct reliance on blood alone, other qualifications based on merit, wealth, or other qualifications. Thus an infantry company is no less a family than one based on blood.

The analogy of family is carried into criminal activity, and even the names associated with a blood family are grafted on to the organization such as God Father of the Corleone Family. Membership in the SS was partly based on genetic considerations, and their activities were clearly those of eliminating others whose crime was having the wrong blood lines.
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The extension of the family model into other activities such as religion create opportunities for the mother, father, child trilogy as well as the two dysfunctional roles heroes and villains. Many African Bantu tribes. prior to Western occupation, had an immediate civil war on the death of a great chief between the surviving sons. The great migrations of the Bantu in East Africa in large part was due to the maneuvering of the tribal factions.

The same model exists in the US military establishment at the conclusion of a major conflict which required granting commissions to officers who were not of the chosen few chosen before hostilities. The creation of an All Volunteer (aka Regulars only) in the mid Seventies was occasioned by a purge of Reserve and Guard officers of extended active and combat duty, and without regard to their qualifications.

This sort of purge is not peculiar to the American military but to other nations with a similar tribal view. In order to retain the appearance of a superior “bloodline” it is essential to deny their reserve components sufficient funding, fuel, ammunition and equipment so that their failure in combat can be attributed to their inferior heritage.

F4F is triggered when the competition for blood, glory, gold, and career enhancing assignments reaches certain thresh holds or provides opportunities. In Desert Storm, the threat of four National Guard maneuver brigades being deployed to the desert was seen as a slap in the Face of Regular units, and those brigades were deemed not deployable as unqualified unlike the fighter squadrons, medical units, and field artillery units of the tribe of the Weekend Warrior. They were deemed not to share the fame, fortune, and fate of “real” warriors.

Such was the case in the creation of the Modular Army as those in the combat arms considered their “blood lines” aka career paths, worthy of the Order of the Green Tab (command) and increased the available field grade command and staff positions by fifty percent to increase the brass to boot ratio. Troublesome combat service support personnel was rendered irrelevant by hiring contractors who hired Guard, Reserve, and retired military personnel. The separation of Regular and Reserve commissions prevented pollution of the pure Regular blood, so that heroism, and competence would not contaminate the true bloods.

After all, even when a regular transfers to the Guard and Reserve, his blood turns to Muggle Blood, and rarely does the Half Blood Prince get a real chance. Such was the case in Stalin’s purges and those of Pol Pot in Cambodia. In the latter, a pair of glasses or soft hands got you dead quick

These examples are taken from real life and in terms that the Warrior can readily analyze the opposing, adjacent, and collocated tribal elements with a better chance to see which decisions they are likely to make and how they are different from outs.

Decision Values (F4F) and Sun Tzu

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. –Sun Tzu

F4F is an acronym to recall the four Decision Values of Face, Fate, Fame and Fortune used by a given primary group or Family in the allocation of resources to workload, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Knowing these Decision Values (F4F) is at the heart of Cultural Competence and Cultural Awareness.

Our operations in Iraq were hamstrung by an overweening arrogance typical of QDR 2006 that ignored the impact of Islamic, Arab, and Iraqi Decision Values placed in the decisions of both our friends and foes. Placing an airborne boot on the neck of the head of an Iraqi family pushed the Face of the family into the dirt, which required American blood to expiate, a Fate required of the codes of conduct of the Iraqi family.

A slap in the face doesn’t have to be by a hand or in the face to efface the honor of the Family. Face is the sense of shame, blame, guilt or gloat coming from a myriad of factors including time, distance, posture, attitude that defines turf. Turf wars are examples of Face which Fate requires a response.

Turf wars can be so destructive that the very existence of the Family is forfeit. The Russian GRU recently exploited turf wars within Chechnya to bring that battle torn republic into some sense of order and should be noted as a major upgrade in Russian military capabilities reminiscent of Catherine and Ivan.

Bombing Pearl Harbor was a serious slap in the face which American notions of duty, honor, country and/or ego so devastating that popular opinion in American switched from over eighty percent against war to eight percent for. Japan, by not knowing our Decision Values lost the war on the first bomb dropped on Battleship Row.

The Afghan sense of honor, of Face and Fate can require a sacrifice of life and property, but their sense of Fortune can out rank resulting in the pay off of tribal leaders. In our Decision Values, that would be seen as a sell out, but not in the Middle East as the primary task of a tribal leader is to provide for his tribe, and that means material gain.

There are deep rooted Face issues, deep resentments, in the United States dating back to the Civil War in the South by both former masters and former slaves. The former for having their slaves, property and honor taken away at gun point, and the latter by being repressed before and after the emancipation. The Stars and Bars is a symbol of that deep fault line in our body politic.

F4F Decision Values are complex requiring detailed cultural anthropological information. The Warrior need not be an anthropologist any more than she needs to be a climatologist or geologist to determine trafficability of a proposed avenue of approach. But a Warrior needs to know what questions to ask. Just as a Warrior should ask what the Density Altitude is, he should what are the sensitive events, that trigger positive or negative Face reactions, she should also ask what Fate demands of the others, and what susceptibility to Fame or Fortune may affect military operations be they Offense, Defense, and/or Stability.

By taking these into consideration at the end of WW2, our most ferocious enemies, the Japanese and the Germans, have stood by us for over half century. We rubbed that Nazi’s Face in the dirt, not that of Germany or the Germans. It’s paid off.

Flipping Culture - MICE v F4F

Why should a warrior give a flip about flipping culture? Just blow the flipper’s flipping head off, and his hearts and minds will follow, right? Well, it’s because the flipper’s got more than one flipping head, and they don’t think flipping logical! And, because that’s the flipping way it goes, the first flip you gotta give is what kind of flippers they are. And that’s a fact, Jack.

The cloak and dagger types got an acronym (who doesn’t) they use to flip some flipper around to the other side. It’s called MICE. Not the flipping squeakers rattling around in the walls, but M for Money, I for Ideology, C for Compromise, and E for Ego. In Gordon’s War, MICE is the flip side of a new and improved acronym F4F which isn’t the flipping fighter plane.

The Family in question is also known as (AKA) the primary group which usually maxes out at 150 people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number) . Primary groups are company sized groups. In modern times, an individual can belong to more than one primary group. The more primitive and rural, the customs, mores, behaviors, beliefs, and opinions are more cohesive and inclusive.

F4F includes the four factors of Family: Fate, Face, Fame and Fortune that favor cohesion of the family from flipping to the other side. Like MICE.

M for Money is the same a Fortune in F4F and that is the default motivator for most. Money represents food, shelter, health, and that which keeps the body, and sometimes the soul together.

Any one whose motives are not directed towards the niceties and necessities of life, have motives outside the norm, the middle two thirds of us. One out of six calls the shots for the rest and who cleans up the mess after the other one sixth left creates.

The middle two thirds is flipping arithmetic for one standard deviation plus and minus from the mean … that’s for a two tailed distribution. Pareto’s law says that eighty percent of the shtuff comes from twenty percent of the shtuffers. Either way you flip it, you deal with the minority, not the majority the majority of the time. The flipping few who run things are overly endowed with a concern for their flipping fame, and associated fate and face underlying the fame (and/or fortune).

A warrior’s concern is to know whether the other guy’s family (primary group) is going to fight, flee, or flake out. Once M for Money has been ruled out … or failed, the other guy won’t flip if his sense of Face requires to face us off. This is facilitated by his sense of who or what is his F for Fate is.

The Fate of a leader depends a lot on how his face (reputation, bravery, cowardice, etc) is seen by himself and by his Family. The Fate of a follower is likewise tied to the leader, and the Follower’s sense of his own fate under the leader. Saving Face is a really big face saver, even to the point of an unfortunate Fate.

The Warrior must not assume that the other guy’s F4F is the same is her own. Different strokes, you know. We assumed that Hitler could be dumped by his people if enough cities were blow to shtuff. He killed himself with Germany in ruins about him, and condemning the German people for failing him. Hitler’s face was in his mirror.

We assumed that Shock and Awe and precision munitions would depose Saddam. He died well, unshakable in his personal Fate and Face as President of Iraq. Nasty fellow, though. And many a nasty is about whose sense of Fate, Face, and Fame is on a plane of existence not familiar to many Americans.

It is wrong for a warrior to favor insulting an enemy’s face and the cohesion of his hosts of warriors and sycophants, when enhancing it may serve better. That is the stuff of deception, of ambush, of bait and switch, and the pursuit to ambush so loved by the crafty warrior. A good insult, or a flipping of whatever passes for the bird, taunts, and obscene gestures has insulted many a ferocious warrior to rush to his doom, and those of his or her people.

Prior to battle, part of knowing one’s enemies (and allies) is to know what makes up his/her sense of Fate, Fame, Fortune and Face is prudence, if not absolutely essential. Assumption are the Mother of All F*ups.

















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A Warrior’s Guide to the Other Guy’s Culture

A Warrior’s quest for conquest, control, influence, and support of foreign folks is frustrated by the fact that foreigners don’t think or act the same way. Take map reading, for example, a light infantryman’s focus on hundreds of meters conflict with the thousands that either the artilleryman or tanker thinks in, while a four digit coordinate is useful to a tanker on the move, the artilleryman wants eight digits to shoot. Different frames of reference and different values.

Of significant import to the Warriors on the way or waiting, culture isn’t some exotic high order discipline concerning obscure tribal terrorists, or helpless refugees. It’s all around us, and we use cross cultural analysis just to get through the day. Try explaining that to a person of the opposite sex.

Unlike the academic, the Warrior has to make decisions regarding the allocation of resources on his feet, or in her hatch based on an hip pocket short list of factors like METT-TC. Whatever guide to action when one has to shoot and move has to be no more complicated than what can be written on the back of an envelope (letter size). Whatever acronyms should not have more than four different characters, five or more get forgotten. Other guides to recall need easy to recall.

The Family

To that end, the most important aspect that the Warrior has to deal with is the other guy’s inclination to adopt or decline a set of courses of action, and that depends on the other guy’s sense of self as the member of a Family. These can be real extended families or tribes, or the fact that the family or primary group is broken. And that sense of self comes out in Acronym F: Family – Fate, Face, Fame, and Fortune.

In our military one’s fate is sealed by the cohesion and competence of the unit, it’s training and leadership. Absent a sense of confidence, the unit falls apart. That which enforces the perception of Fate, is hard wired into the sense of Face, that of not letting one’s buddies, family, nation or tribe … down.

Fame and Fortune are not always linked, but usually are. If one’s unit succeeds, your paycheck continues, and your fame is recorded in the appropriate OER, EER, of Fitness Report.

That’s the way we look at it, but other cultures with me might fight, or support have different senses of Fate, Face, Fame, and Fortune. The concept of Family in Africa is far more comprehensive and compelling than anything a native American has experienced. In Africa and in most of the non-Western world, the cohesion of the family and it’s extensions as tribes is at the core of survival. One’s fate is decided by the status and success of the family, and the needs of the family over ride those of the individual. An that includes the cohesion of the family or tribal political processes that govern place to the members of the tribe.

We consider the practice of employing relatives to be nepotism, but in most of the world, nepotism is a necessity and an obligation. We see that in our own country where immigrants, both legal and not, send money home to their families. Remittances of this are major sources of income for many countries including Mexico, Philippines, Pakistan, et al.

From whatever source the four F’s of family, it affects the choices to take a course of action relative to that which the Warrior is embarked on. If a local loses face before a Warrior, his culture may require that his fate is revenge. Such was the case with the American practice of putting one foot on the neck of the head of a family, an insult so dreadful that only American blood could wash away.


The Temporal


Close after and underlying the Family are the perceptions of time, place, sight, sound, distance, and smell included in the sense of values of the Family.

Time is at the top of the list. Northern Europe, the US and Japan are time sensitive and expect time of things to be precise with an underlying assumption that time is a progression of events. In most of the rest of the world, time is repetitive. It is 1-2-3-4-5 in the US, Japan, and Germany, while in Africa and the Middle East it is more like 1-2-1-2-1.

In Germany or Japan, when a meeting is to be held at 1500, it doesn’t mean 1501. One’s watch can be set to the minute by the arrival of trains at the local train station. In warmer climes, a party to start and 2200 hrs means that the guest start getting dressed at 2200. In Kenya, it means the time one leaves for the party.

Sight and Sound are aspects that differ in importance. The US, China and Japan are big on visuals. The wrapping on a gift is at least as important as the gift in Japan. In both China and Japan, the signage on buildings is overwhelming, enough to drive American area beautification politicians bonkers.

In the Middle East and in Africa, sound is more important. An American housewife will use the appearance of a melon as a guide, or perhaps a squeeze. The African would thump the melon and judge the sound. We have billboards announcing church services, in Islamic countries it is the call to prayer. The chanting of lessons in Muslim schools is part of the aural aspect of culture.

It’s not what the other sees that matters, it is what he hears.

As for distance, there is nothing more disconcerting for an American tourist in Japan than to ride on crowded subways during rush hour. There isn’t a word in the English language to describe crowding on a Japanese subway. Sardines have more elbow room.

The Body

Each culture has it’s manual of arms for the use and maintenance of the human body. There are drills regarding how one sits, stand, walks, talks, eats and shts. The code extends to the use of the various parts of the body including hands, feet, eyes, nose, mouth, nose and stern tubes.

A woman’s hair in Islam is seen as a source of sexuality that is so powerful that it must be covered. To do otherwise is brazen hussyville and an offense to God. So powerful is the female body seen in many Islamic cultures, it must be covered up to preserve the sanctity of women and hence of the family. The crux of much of the opposition to Western influence in the Middle East is the perception that Women's freedom is an attack on the sanctity of women and therefore of the Family.

We are familiar with the importance of not showing the soles of one’s feet to a Muslim or Middle Easterner as it is the height of insult. And that goes to interesting and decidedly uncomfortable sitting when a chair is not available. Only Americans cross their legs while sitting in a chair. A fair number of US personnel escaping and evading in WW 2 failed for this error.

Staring at another person can get you killed in some cultures, while the lack of eye contact is insulting in others (like ours). The manual of the eyeball needs to be included in one’s notes.


Table manners, including seating arrangements are another key area. In Japan, the most important person in the group is last to enter, and whomever is speaking for the firm is not the boss. One does not eat with the left hand in Muslim countries. The fork in Europe is always held in the left hand, and the knife right hand is used to pile the food on the fork, Only Americans do the fork-knife shuffle.

The Family Feud.

The survival of a family, tribe, or village depends upon the success of the replacement system, as in reproduction. The replacement unit, a human child, takes a dozen years to develop to a stage where the reproduction unit (female) is capable of bearing the next generation. As this time is the longest time of all Gods creatures, the division of roles in between male and female to protect the infant calls for a protective role for the father, and a nurturing role for the mother so that the child grows. These are not mutually exclusive.


Thus the three essential duties of protection, nurturing and growing are the driving factors in family dynamics. Absent protection, the child becomes lunch. Absent nurturing, the child withers. The legends, the voyage of the hero, and fables of the family maintain the importance of a proper balance so that the child can grow up.

So much power is involved in the interface of duties, that some folks get wrapped up in the power and glory of a game of role switches and of exaggeration for its own sake. This is core of the psychological discipline of Transactional Analysis which is an awfully handy system of decoding BS.

For each of the key valid roles of Protector, Nurturer, and (Growing) Child there are a pair of dysfunctional counterparts. In short, the goody two shoes or Bright Side variety include: The Hero, the Heroine, and the Helpless Child. Everyone wants to be portrayed in Bright Side colors.

On the other hand, Heroes need to rescue a victim and prosecute a villain. Victimhood demands villains of whom there are three, the Dark Side of the Trilogy: The Bastard, the Bitch, and the Brat. The domain of the Bitch is manipulation, that of the Bastard is battery, and that of the Brat is fury.

The Hero must create a Villain without whom there are no heroics. Saddam Hussein was a bastard who cheated and retreated, and was crazy to boot. Hitler created the Jew as a sneaky underhanded (Bitchtype 2) inferior (brat type 3) race that was taking up too many of the jobs that took talent and brains.

The truly dangerous play role switches, acting as if from the Bright Side to justify operating from the Dark Side. The examples of this vicious game system are too numerous to mention. Consider the massacres in Ruanda, Sudan, and the periodic outburst on the Sub Continent.

Understanding the dynamic of the Game System are essential for the Warrior to anticipate the decisions of the players and gamesters in the current operating environment.

Hunters and Farmers

Recent work in the treatment of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) has revealed the concept that ADD is not a “disorder” but an older dynamic that kept hunters from being lunch in the wild, and that the norm is what evolved from farmers whose survival was in plowing furrows in straight lines, and following orders from the glitterati and intelligentsia (Princes and Priests).


In India, ADD is called the “old mind” tuned to the hunt in which the individual had to be constantly on the alert for danger and for dinner. Once dinner was cited, the chase was on, depending on who was the dinner or the diner. Placed in the world of the farmer, a world of order and precision, the hunter doesn’t do well. The majority of criminals in our jails have ADD as they just can’t sit still in ordered society.

We know of really great warriors in the field who languish in garrison. Same thing. In dealing with more rural areas, it helps to determine the balance between hunters and farmers. It doesn’t take a genius or anthropologist to see that the Afghans are hunters and trying to make them farmers runs contrary to the hard wiring in their psyche.

Geography

The Warrior in the field in his analysis of METT-TC does the usual terrain analysis of avenues of approach, key terrain, obstacles, observation, and fields of fire, all of which are affected by the works of man, works that may be peculiar to the culture at hand.

Those cultures on flat land with water get big on canals for drainage and irrigation that will interfere or facilitate movement of troops and vehicles. Likewise, the terracing of hills for agriculture in China and it’s neighbors.

Buildings in some cultures are fortress capable, others as firewood. Roads, paths and the like are long recognized terrain features peculiar to a given culture. The Warrior needs to gather information of the effects of the culture on the land. Instead of relying on just the map symbols.

The reverse side of that is the effect the land has one the people. And that goes to Fortune, the making of a living, There are cultures based on trade routes on the land, and those based on water … as in piracy and robbery, a fundamental source of income in all too many parts of the world.

An ancient game, thousands of years old, between piracy and commerce is being played out in the waters off Somalia. This in an old culture that is not likely to be put out of action by the rattling of sabers … or for that matter military force until and honorable way for the pirates of old to earn money in a less dysfunctional manner. In Afghanistan, it is in the blood.

We have heard that all politics is local, and now you should know that all local politics has to do with who gets to do what on what land.

The Wrap Up

The Family – Fate, Fame, Fame and Fortune
Temporal – Time, Sound, Sight, Distance
The Body - Sit, stand, shake hands, or bow
The Family Feud – Heroes, Heroines, and the Helpless vs the Bastard, Bitch, and Brat.
The Hunter in a Farmers World - To lunch or be lunch vs the plow and the pitchfork
The Ground – All local politics is where to dig or not to dig.

This is a Work in Progress, a WIP, if you please.

FM 7-0 Half Fish Half Fowl

The latest Field Manual on Army training, FM 7-0, is just out and represents a decisively equivocal stance between the Rumsfeldian Modular Rotational Expeditionary quick fix style of war and training versus a training system based on traditional factors of mission planning (METT-TC), concurrent multi-echelon training for a period of persistent conflict.

The good news is that the naming conventions of Transformational units (Unit of Action, etc) are scrubbed in favor of the traditional which has evolved under the pressures of wildly changing technological and operational environments for several centuries. Battalions, brigades, divisions and corps stay on.

Likewise, the good news is that training for Full Spectrum operations now requires training for stability operations as well as for defense and offense. The balance between the three depends on the situation for each unit.

More good news is that the company commander and the non commissioned officers are placed firmly in control of the training of their troops with a clear statement that the latter train the troops and officers train the unit as a whole. The Cold War paradigm had officers override and bypass the non commissioned officer corps.

The bad news is the retention of the force structure of rotational, modular, expeditionary force based in the States to be able to react quicker to foreign contingencies from Kansas than could be done from Germany or other forward bases. Likewise, brigades are seen as inherently more flexible than forces generated by task organization with a wider choice of units as has been done since before 1776.

More bad news is that ARFORGEN (Army Force Generation) based on the building block approach to training that failed to match the high order of training produced by the Battalion Training Management System (BTMS). BTMS gave the battalion commander the decisive and final say on training, a stance that was, however logical, was unwise as it cut out the rating and endorsing officers.

The building block approach of ARFORGEN not only cuts the battalion commander but the company commander from direct management of the training of their own troops. ARFORGEN also is based on a precise prediction of the conditions of METT-TC of a contingency several years in advance. This is also a direct conflict with the directives of the manual itself. The front end of the manual requires that the chain of command drive training, while ARFORGEN does not.

So far, I know of no study that proves or even illustrates the assertion that Modular Brigades are inherently more flexible or effective than a modernized traditional structure. Nor do I know of a study that explains how rotating whole brigades in a stability operation achieve the necessary unity of effort to overcome conditions and enemies that don’t rotate any further than the local mountain or forest hiding places.

Each brigade rotation gave our enemies a new lease on life during the time it took the new guys to get up to speed. This was particularly true for the first three years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It took almost four years to get with the program, four years longer than WW2 but just as long as it took in Vietnam.

Rotations make sense for personnel reasons. Unit rotation preserves the cohesion of the primary group (the company or section) upon which combat survival depends. In no other war has the morale of our troops been tested for so long. The tricky part is figuring out how to maintain unity of effort on the battlefield over time and space. It won’t be easy.

Career management during Vietnam included the three “C” for young officers: Combat, Career Course, and Command. The current policies of the Pentagon is the match this same type of individual rotation in concert with unit rotations to match a kaleidoscope of missions, enemies, terrain, time, troops available, and civil considerations. Nice trick if your crystal ball works.