"After nearly a decade of war, our Army is emerging as a leaner, more decisive force with unique expeditionary and campaign capabilities shaped through a historic period of persistent conflict. At the same time, the effects of globalization and emerging economic and political powers are fundamentally reshaping the global order against a backdrop of mounting competition for shrinking natural resources amid accelerating population growth and climate change."
"This rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive strategic security environment has given rise to the manifestation of hybrid threats—combinations of decentralized and syndicated irregular, terrorist and criminal groups that possess capabilities once considered the sole purview of nation-states. As these threats become progressively indistinguishable from one another, our understanding of, and ability to master, full spectrum operations will become the central foundational element to our future success."
Comments
LTG Caslen posted a Frontier 6 blog today on this topic today -- http://usacacblogs.army.mil/reflectionsfromfrontier6/2011/07/131/
For those of you who want to raise some of these issues directly with him, here's your opportunity. The good news is that there are a lot of key leaders reading and listening today -- a good sign that we have some maneuver room to get this "right" before we move forward.
And for the record, you should all be concerned that Carl Prine carries a basket.
Steve
<b>Mike Garrison:</b><blockquote>"Criminal records, obesity and lack of education are already thinning our pool of recruits. The addition of stability and civil support operations requires a higher level of thought and concern. With the need for cultural awareness, perseverance and restraint, our current standard for recruits is simply not high enough."</blockquote>Criminal records today versus fifty years ago are two very different things; many of today's disqualifiers are best described as petty. Obesity is a modern plague of sorts but efficient diets and effective exercise and training can ease that, albeit at the cost of more work for the chain of command. Is "lack of education" a pure performance concern or a bit of that plus an artificial construct to determine who's placid enough to suffer through without being a 'disciplinary' problem?
Many of today's standards are designed to make life easier for the chain of command (and in their eyes, more importantly, the Personnel system...). What one should consider is the type of new recruit -- and the sheer number of them -- that a major war will introduce. There will be little to no selectivity, one will not be able to surround ones self with known entities and the pipeline will not cater to ease of administration. The good news is that large, diverse gaggle will bring as many gems as it does lumps of coal.
The Army of fifty or sixty years ago failed to even near today's standard on any of those parameters yet it was quite capable of shifting from CAM / MCO to FID and StabOps and doing neither great but both reasonably well. It is simply not that hard -- unless one chooses to make it so. I found out the hard way that if you treat people as if they are marginally competent, they will fulfill all your prophecies. Conversely, if you treat them as though you believe they are all walkers upon the waters, they'll often surprise you with their speed and skill in river crossing...
That said, I can make a very valid case for toughening standards considerably -- but that means toughening training, paying for what one gets and major personnel policy changes. Sadly, I'm not sure the US, its Congress or its Army are ready for any of those things...
On a more positive note, I submit today's Army is easily capable of doing far more than its leaders will allow. While that is a terrible example of risk avoidance as a default position and arguably is an abrogation of responsibility, the good news is that the potential is there....
Jimbo:
Nor was I, I was simply using the historical example of the ARVN to show that an Army that focuses on was has a more difficult time transtioning to cam than the other way around.
The Israelis also offer a good example of this.
Although some would disagree, one can also argue that it was a cam american army that went into iraq in 2003 and because its core competency was cam it was able to quickly and effectively transition to an area security mission in the years that followed. Don Wright's book, "On Point II" makes this argument of quick and effective transition.
gian
As the Army embraces the concept of full spectrum operations, we might need to take a step back and determine if our Nation is even capable of fielding an Army to meet these demands. The recruiting standards of today are not terribly difficult yet most Americans arent even eligible to enlist. Criminal records, obesity and lack of education are already thinning our pool of recruits. The addition of stability and civil support operations requires a higher level of thought and concern. With the need for cultural awareness, perseverance and restraint, our current standard for recruits is simply not high enough. Can we field an Army with the intellectual capacity to handle stability and civil support operations?
The successful integration of stability operations will require a smaller, more educated, highly trained and better paid team. The interagency model of provincial reconstruction teams might be one idea. Leave the conventional fight to conventional forces and allow them to pave the way for stability operations. As we continue to ask more of our conventional forces, we risk the loss of basic skill sets that will most certainly be required in the future.
The concept of full spectrum operations is a bold initiative perfectly suited for our current conflicts. However, I dont believe that integrating this concept into our conventional forces is realistic. As several incidents in Afghanistan and Iraq have already demonstrated, it only takes one culturally insensitive act to undermine the effort and dedication of many. The more forces you apply to this task the more you risk losing legitimacy of effort and ultimately the initiative. When stability operations are ready to occur, keep the civilian population interaction with conventional forces to a minimum.
Mike Garrison
MAJ, US Army
Fort Lee ILE
Jimbo:
the picture i painted of the ARVN during that period is reasonably accurate and not a strawman. Whatever though, you can throw out those kind of cheap shots all you want.
I agree completely with you that the army may have to do future missions involving area security, but the core competency that will let us do that kind of mission is combined arms maneuver; if we can do that then we can do was or whatver else. This is all that i am saying, but you seem to see in my arguments the ghost of what you perceived was going on in the army in the 80s.
I agree with Bill M's point that was does not just mean coin, although in some of the army's documents that have come out lately using was, there does seem to be a strong link between was and coin, especially with language like protecting civilian populations, living "amongst" them, etc.
gian
As I see it the Army has two primary tasks:
1. Help to deter wars in time of peace by being a credible war fighting force; and
2. Serve as the primary land component to Fight and winning wars in time of war.
One writer made the comment that things are different now than at the turn of the 21st Century. True. Things are arguably much more like the turn of the 20th Century (except with the accelerant of modern communications applied). What kind of force did we have and what kind did we need in 1911? Answering the second half of that question is a good start point.
The US has grossly over-militarized our response to the attacks of 9/11, and the Army has borne the brunt of that effort in terms of optempo, and more significantly, deviation away from core competencies. Hopefully everyone comes to fully appreciate this prior to going into the next QDR, which may well shape the force for a generation to come, and will certainly shape how a massive reduction of the military budget will be aportioned among the services.
One writer posited that we'll need a force prepared for MCO such as in Desert Storm or OIF I. I wish. Likely we will face far more balanced and far deadlier opponents in the next 20 years. We've enjoyed an era of overwhelming US Hegemony of military power. It would be a dangerous assumption to project that too far into the future.
So I think the active force probably gets smaller, but more dedicated to MCO. Perhaps a single BCT (+/-) per GCC either dedicated and CONUS or deployed forward (ideally with a regimental stability and tailored for the unique aspects of the theater, with soldiers spending the majority of a career in the same regiment) and another heavy Corps CONUS of highly trained CAM foucsed units. Make sure those regional troops have enough organic LOG to do day to day engagements and go back to leaving the RC alone in times of peace. The bulk of our warfighting capacity needs to go back into the Guard to keep the peacetime force small.
Yes, the Marines will deploy more in time of peace. That is what Marines are for. We are, after all, a maritime nation. Power projection and expeditionary interventions as needed. Also prepared to supplement the Army in case of war.
The Navy too needs pulled off of some obsolete Cold War missions and half-baked IW concepts and reoriented to they type of power projection and maintaining of sea lanes that keeps our nation secure and our economy running.
SOF needs to pull back from the heavy CT focus, maintaining those skills in select units, but with a clear weighting toward FID and UW skills and activities that help keep a finger on the pulse of security situations in a wide range of areas where a persistent effort by a handful of senior professionals is far superior to the sporadic impact of a BN or BDE showing up for an SFA or IW depolyment.
The Airforce? That's a hard one. We've never had an Airforce outside of the Cold War or this subequent era of hegemony. Getting that right is where the major debate should focus, the rest should be obvious. I realize that nothing is obvious and that service rivalries will advocate for all kinds of well intended craziness that sadly places the wants of the services above the needs of the nation IMO. We'll need a strong hand at the top to keep the Generals and Admirals (and Congress) in line.
Matt E.,
The Army mission statement may say "to fight and win the nation's wars," but America's mission for the Army has never been so simplistic. The Army is an execution arm for American foreign and domestic policy--much more than just fighting and winning wars. If that were the Army's mission, the Army would never mobilize for CONUS crisis response, execute humanitarian missions, conduct NEOs, or any of the other myriad missions it is called upon to conduct in support of American policy.
We must relearn the fine art of CAM, but we must not be so myopic as to return to the days were we convinced ourselves that CAM was all that mattered.
@MF, some good points, but the problem we will (and are currently) running into is there is a shrinking pool of planners who are familiar with training and executing effective CAM. Those capable of planning outstanding WAS training abound, but how many out there understand how to run a Brigade Recon Team concept (even among the RSTA Sqdns), how to coordinate a brigade breach, or even how to let intelligence drive operations?
The problem really isn't our equipment, though "getting it there" certainly is, as you've said. The problem is ensuring our people are trained to use all of the different pieces together to truly effect the combined arms part of CAM. I think that the current generation is good at doing isolated CAM as part of WAS, but can we do CAM as a constant? Can our infantry platoons, companies and battalions operate without FOBs, outlook and powerpoint? Will a major armored/mechanized force ever mass again? Probably not, but unless we buy the spin that we effectively reduced Serb armor in the Kosovo campaign, we can see how a major armored force can remain effective and unmassed, and unaffected by our toys.
This is why we have to define this problem so succinctly, and why we have to define what a hybrid threat is, and why we have to define what the mission of the Army is. If the mission of the Army remains "to fight and win the nation's wars", then we have to be prepared first for the worst case scenario - all out MCO, and then for everything that comes with it or in leiu of it. Part of the effectiveness of the US military is that potential strategic and regional threats perceive their inability to meet and defeat US forces in an MCO/CAM fight. If at any point that perception cracks or is lost, then we may quickly find ourselves fighting openly with one of those threats. Secondly, we cannot allow ourselves to accept a steep learning curve in a CAM environment. The consequences of not being able to quickly and decisively win on the CAM battlefield greatly outweigh those of not winning the WAS fight.
Gian, nice strawman with the ARVN. No one is even remotely suggesting pure WAS. I would counter than an Army with a firm foundation in both CAM and WAS has greater flexibility and adaptability than either a CAM-centric or WAS-centric Army.
If units cannot be adept in both without unacceptable degradation in skills, then maybe we need to be dusting off the concepts of a bifurcated force as suggested in the past. Something akin to Bennett's Leviathan and Sysadmin structure. Though that is a heresy too far.
Gian, I agree with your last post with some caveats.
First, WAS is not limited to COIN, but addresses stability operations, occupation operations, peace operations, foreign humanitarian assistance, and other potential contingencies where there may be a need for WAS.
Second, in my opinion CAM is the first priority, it is the tougher mission, the harderst to train for, the most expensive to resource, and requires a phased approach starting from the squad working up to Bn and beyond maneuver.
Third, a good portion of WAS will be academic training that gives future tactical, operational and strategic leaders a solid grounding in what is required to plan and conduct successful WAS. The actual TTPs of using COPs, check points, presence patrols, etc. are relatively easy to train CAM soldiers on. Furthermore the specific TTPs will be largely mission specific based on the political, cultural and terrain constraints. Using the analogy someone posted above, we will some time to get the chess game right, but we need to ensure we can the fight in the octagon first.
Fourth, instead of a constabulary force we already have SF and CA soldiers that can serve in that role to some extent, and they will be more effective if they have big brother CAM forces in the area if needed.
WAS is a real mission in my opinion, so we have to be prepared to do it. We won't always go home after the CAM role is complete, and in many situations there won't be a CAM role.
It is not that cam can do it all; I dont look at it that way.
Instead an army that has combined arms competency is an army more able to adapt and adjust to other forms of war and conflict. It just simply doesnt work that way in reverse.
A good historical example is the ARVN between 73 and 75 which became by and large an area security force doing counterinsurgency via static, fixed outposts since it had to do its best to control the rurual population through dispersed points. When the NVA attacked they were simply outfought by a superior army operating on exterior lines that had become better at combined arms maneuver than the ARVN.
gian
Combined arms maneuver as currently defined is nothing new and not very broke from a lethality and survivability standpoint. There simply are few foes that can withstand even our "rusty" units/equipment and their incredible combat experience.
The U.S. Army remains able to move, shoot, and communicate effectively enough for the foes likely to be faced. They will survive and rapidly deal with MCO at capabilities similar to OIF/OEF 1 and Desert Storm...ONCE THEY ARRIVE IF THE THREAT WAITS UNTIL WE GET THERE. The ability to arrive at an allied adjacent nation with sufficient speed to deter and protect our build-up will be critical. Recent history shows the major killer of our best occurs in inescapeable Phase IV as we practice wide area security to cement gains won during MCO.
There are no surprise foes waiting in the wings to attack us or allies with massed armor. The threat defense budgets and tanks aren't there. We know the threats for the next 20 years at least based on those defense budgets and existing forces.
Whether fighting additional insurgents who otherwise could be plotting massed effect attacks on the homeland, deterring the DPRK/Iran/Venezuela, securing Ukraine, or air-reinforcing Taiwan at early indications of invasion, small-but-lethal Army elements lifted by C-17 and followed by sea-deployed forces would find:
* M1A2s still able to outrange, outsee, outpenetrate, and outsurvive any adversary in CAM and support light forces in WAS during Phase I deterrence and Phase IV Stability Ops.
* Apaches still assuring standoff and top-attack Longbow lethality coupled with manned/unmanned teaming against armor by underflying radar air defenses in CAM, while providing aerial QRF and CCA to multiple locations in WAS using sensors to detect small arms/RPG fires and countermeasures against other air defenses. Future systems with counter-rotating rotors would approach 250 knots to mimic any light turbo-prop while basing at far more locations and still hovering in high/hot conditions.
* Bradley's solely constrained by inability to carry 9 troops...and realistc foes will have have little mobile tracked armor for infantry in CAM. However, GCV or armored-pod-augmented Bradley firepower and telescoping sensors could be dispersed as with Abrams to provide Phase I deterrence and airhead/port security and Phase IV stability clean-up. Infantry should be capable of digging fighting positions without exclusive hand-labor, powering equipment without excessive fuel-consuming generators, and securing locally with local sensors and small UAS/UGV.
* Mission command will be supported by networked dissemination of relevant fused information and video/voice/text personal presence. Self-synchronized maneuver will be simplified by real-time position-location of friends and threats to find gaps and cross phase lines in synch by consulting the COP rather than constant position-reporting.
* Artillery is unlikely to mass fires frequently as in CAM days of old because foes aren't likely to openly mass and risk annihilation. Instead they will hug civilians or hide/disperse making massed air attacks and artillery less necessary/effective. Dispersed indirect fires and aerial Direct Support maneuver and QRF CCA will be more critical. In WAS this dispersion of assets coupled with precision fires and smaller effects will ensure limited collateral damage and ease of employment close to friendly and civil elements.
*JTACs and Joint Fires Observers will have closely aligned capabilities with CAS-control requirements eased as both have access to Reaper/MQ-1C UAS and F/A-18E/F/F-35/A-10C/B-1B imagery
* Engineer capabilities such as line charge, mine/IED detection/disruption, and barrier protection will grow in importance. Bridging capabilities for CAM can also support WAS. Concertina and smart barriers, and engineer-emplaced concrete used for CAM can also be positioned to deter/dissuade insurgents during WAS.
* Capabilities of detecting massed enemies with sensors, leading (as with artillery) to enemies hiding and hugging in urban areas and no-go terrain for our tanks and Bradleys. But light infantry, Apaches, or armed manned and unmanned aerial scouts will be undeterred. During WAS, our UAS will assist mounted and dismounted patrols that have superb night vision and counter-IED capabilities, and abilities to reach out to hit insurgents attempting to fire from stand-off. Capabilities to fuse information about threat lethal and population daily patterns will be present from lowest to highest echelons.
* Army air defenses will need to be capable of dealing with TBM, enemy precision indirect fires, and enemy UAS...letting joint air arms deal with the minor in numbers/capability high performance air threat
* Our MPs will be able to secure convoys and dispersed infrastructure while simultaneously training host nation elements to do the same. They will have sensor capabilities for local security that can be dispersed to multiple COPs/FOBs for WAS through wide-area dispersion
Wide area security (not area security the mission) will apply in both major combat operations and stability operations.
Platoon-sized artillery and precision mortars (and something replacing NLOS-LS) will disperse to support dispersed smaller elements. The Army will disprove the penny-packet theory by proving the value of penny-packeting precision indirect fires and unmanned air maneuver.
Tanks and GCS (or pod-augmented Bradley) will team with double V-hull Strykers and other light infantry to handle hybrid threats. Dispersed armor will be more critical than massed armor. Dispersed armor must be sufficiently fuel-efficient so that replenishment is less of a burden.
If massed effects are required against massed armor, F-35s, MLRS/HIMARS, and Army aviation will augment the direct fires of fewer local Abrams and Bradley/GCV/Stryker.
Abrams should be part of Stryker units and light infantry units when deployed. All three types of BCTs should be part of each division and trained/deployed together in mixed task forces.
These task forces could vary in composition from lots of heavy/Stryker/Apache/Paladin/MLRS/Engineers supported by little light infantry in M-ATV/JLTV during major combat operations. But for initial deployment/deterrence/entry security, they would be Stryker and light infantry heavy with limited Abrams/GCV support, M-777/HIMARS, and UH-60M coupled with armed manned/unmanned aerial and ground scouts.
Whether fighting CAM or WAS, the footprint for fuel consumption must be small enough to safeguard our supply lines and the logisticians moving the supplies. Never again should:
* anyone be able to claim that the cost of boots on the ground is a million $ per Soldier.
* those boots not be able to train host nation forces while simulaneously providing WAS.
* the Army bear the primary deployment and casualty burden in life and limb because we failed to adequately resource/plan sorties for contingency-capable non-forward-deployed CAM or its unavoidable WAS during initial deployment and stability operations.
Matt E., If I believed the Army would write a CAM primacy doctrine than incorporated the lessons of OIF so that we never went unprepared I would drop all objections to the issue. However, based on historic Army behavior that would not be the case. Left to its own devices, the Army goes back to--in the words of the Assistant G3 for the 82d--"what we're good at."
The more folks like COL Gentile kick and scream that CAM can do it all, the more I feel confident in my distrust of Army leadership to get things right.
I'd think the greater losses one can potentially suffer from during CAM versus the relative light losses one seems to suffer during WAS would make most commanders concentrate on CAM regardless of what we're more likely to do. Combine that with the questionable success WAS has had for us lately and the obvious success CAM has had for us historically, and it would seem a no-brainer to me if you were a BDE or BN Commander- which to prepare your troops for.
I think this also could involve the discussion about wrong strategy combined with the right tactics. Our experience in doing WAS seems to me to be usually characterized by a weak link to clear national interests, whereas when conducting CAM the link seems to be clearer (i usually see weak strategy to be tied to weak national interest linkage).
One might argue that being good at WAS Measures of Performance (I'm not sure we really have any good MOEs for WAS) could provide our politicians with a false sense of confidence in conducting WAS- and thus cause us to be more likely deployed into situations with weak links to national security/interests. Maybe limiting ourselves to preparing for CAM- a better understood military activity by the populace in a democracy- would help deter future "foreign interventions" of questionable national interest...?
@Jimbo, I agree, we didn't go into OIF prepared, however I think that our current experience will allow us to write and form our base doctrine so that we never go in unprepared again.
Overall, though, I agree with Gian, in that so long as we have CAM perfected, we will be able to do the WAS jobs.
I hope, though, that we are not falling into the WAS = COIN thought pattern. COIN may be a possible aspect of WAS, but I don't think COIN is a necessary subset of WAS, or at least that it's only one possible subset. I think that given the current hybrid threat envisioned as our new OPFOR, that WAS could range anywhere from a form of defense in depth against a nation state/syndicate actor to humanitarian aid ala Haiti/Katrina. COIN could fall into there, but there are scenarios where poorly executed WAS could lead to a COIN fight.
Though, as has been said before here, who knows what the future will bring, and we may find ourselves next year fighting a CAM fight against an organized, possibly uniformed force in a WAS environment. Perhaps we should start looking to Russian Federation doctrine/operations or from the two Chechen wars for just one example of how to do the truly hybrid threat. Is there already an example out there in the world to look to?
Matt E, interesting analogy, but I'd say we need to be good at both. We transitioned from the octagon not ready for checkers, let alone chess. Focusing on CAM ignores that lesson. Additionally, many times since WWI the Army never got to play in the octagon, going straight into a chess tournament. Putting CAM and WAS on equal footing acknowledges we must be good enough at WAS from the onset so we don't end up in another decade of trying to learn chess on the fly.
On a side note, being good at WAS and understanding the resource requirements and time to conduct WAS correctly might factor in to strategic decisions about whether to enter the octagon in the first place.
If we agree that CAM ought to be the primary focus of the Army (since shooting things & breaking stuff are what armies normally do) but WAS is something that our Army needs to prepare for as well, then could a case be made for the permanent establishment of constabulary units, similar to what we had in Germany after WW2....units who were assigned to work with host-nation forces & protect the population using the minimum amount of force possible but well prepared & equipped to bring down some serious scunion if necessary...?
The jist of many of the comments on here seem to point toward the need to create distinct units...one for CAM, the other for WAS, both complimenting and reinforcing the efforts of the other while not diluting their respective "core competencies".
I believe there is some discussion on identifying specific BCTs and BNs within BCTs to do SFA/ COIN though I'm not sure where that is headed. Could all of this lead to the creation of units (like a constabulary group/ BDE) whose primary mission is WAS/ COIN/ SFA? Does this need to happen?
One of the better analogies (it's not perfect) I've heard to illustrate where this argument seems to be goign is to look at CAM as an MMA fight, and WAS and all it likely entails as a chess match. A world class fighter may not be the best at the chess matches, but he can figure it out. A world-class chess master probably won't last long in the octagon. In the end, which of the two will have the greatest impact when lost? The US Military has to be able to win the fight in the ocatagon first, and then any transition between the chess match and the octagon will be much less painful. Indeed, taking time and effort to train to hold one's own in the chess match as a secondary effort to maintaining primacy in the octagon will make an even better fighter.
Giving CAM priority over all will indeed cause a singular focus during training, but part of that is due to a growing inability to effectively plan training, thanks in part to FORSCOM training regimens and minimal training time between deployments.
Gian said "Since time and resources are limited our focus must be on regaining our combined arms maneuver skills. If we can do that, we can easily do area security."
If we can also teach not only our Brigade and Battalion staffs, but our company commanders and First Sergeants to effectively plan training toward a clearly communicated goal, we can use our increasingly limited resources and time and train to major in CAM, while minoring in WAS.
I think we can argue that in the past decade, we've institutionalized the skills represented in WAS, but at the expense of those required for CAM. I disagree completely that our focus on "the big fight" caused us to overlook the Phase IV, post-conflict realities of war; that failure had more to do with intellectual rigor (mortis) than anything else.
When we began to look more deeply at the old "Tennessee Chart" in the 2008 edition of FM 3-0, it became clear what a lack of focus brings. Even though we thought we had the ideas right, the fact our attention could be split over so many points on the spectrum of conflict presented more problems than solutions. CAM offers an opportunity to regain that focus, but nuanced with the experience of a decade of COIN and stability.
On the other hand, I agree that what's needed -- especially in WAS -- is a roles and missions review across the interagency community. Even today, an emasculated USAID doesn't bring much to the fight, and we need them desperately so our uniformed forces can get back to their core mission. The "militarization of foreign aid" is a euphemism for "doing windows" because the window washers aren't taking ownership of role.
One final note . . . WAS should really be looked at through the lens of continuity. It is more reflective of how we consolidate gains and spread out to conduct more of a security mission. In other words, it facilitates our ability to conduct COIN or stability, but should not be confused with such a mission.
I went back and read a couple of comments I missed, and although Jimbo touched on this I want to add supporting fires.
Based on our recent experiences there seems to be a tendency to associate WAS with COIN; however, as Jimbo pointed out throughout our history the Army has conducted more WAS than CAM missions. Aside from our current occupation/COIN hybrid mission in Afghanistan (and recent mission in Iraq), WAS operations included the occupation of Germany and Japan (initial years), occupation and mop duties for a number of countries we pushed through during WWII, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Grenada (post invasion), Kuwait, etc. that were not COIN, then if you had COIN you can add other missions. I don't buy the argument presented by some that Small Wars (especially COIN) "will" be the missions we conduct most in the next decade. The bottom line is we don't know what tomorrow holds, so as stated in the article we need a wide range of capabilities that enable to respond effectively, and with the exception of punative raids, most missions will require some degree of WAS whether small or large wars.
I assume the challenge of addressing WAS is to determine how we organize, equip and train for this broad mission, and just as importantly how do we define the military's role in WAS and deconflict it with State, USAID, UN, etc. What are the desired supported/supporting relationships? Should WAS be looked at from the larger DOD or interagency perspective first before we dive down and define what it means to the Army?
Jason, "I wouldn't suggest the Army focus solely on CAM at all..." If the Army places primacy on CAM, then units will focus solely on it. That's the nature of prioritizing the finite time of the training calendar. Placing WAS on the same plane as CAM will force units to actually train to the WAS tasks rather than pencil whip them in passing.
Neither CAM or WAS are new, nor are the traits of initiative, risk and opportunity. The Army has always executed CAM and WAS, and while new technologies, policies, etc. may change how we conduct these operations the missions are not new.
There may be push back against WAS by those who desire to narrow the mission set to clearer missions like CAM, but the political reality is WAS will remain a mission we must be prepared to execute. I can understand Jimbo's argument that it is too broad to be a core compentency, so what are the basket of core compentencies that enable the Army to do WAS?
Jimbo,
I wouldn't suggest the Army focus *solely* on CAM at all. But it's hard to elevate WAS to a primary core competency if we don't know what all it entails. Right now it seems to be a catchall of everything else the Army does - in spite of the fact that maybe the Army shouldn't be doing some or many of those things. In a future reset, which the Army will be facing shortly, time and thought need to be given to delineating WAS responsibilities through the Joint and interagency players (forget international - that's a bridge too far).
All of the things the Army has learned to do over the past few years needs to be maintained, but it's hard to say "here's your other primary mission, even though we don't really know what it is." In the meantime, all of those not-breaking tasks should probably stay on the Army METL. I hope the NTC (I don't know about CMTC or JRTC) keeps training all four phases of conflict for rotating units.
Jimbo:
Nope, disagree. The fact that the American Army prior to 2003 had focused almost completely on cam and not on coin had nothing to do with the way Iraq turned out from 2003 to 2006. There have been numerous histories that have shown that from very early on the Army learned and adapted to its duties of occupation and counterinsurgency. Don Wright's "On Point II" and Jim Russell's "Innovation, Transformation, and War" come to mind.
It is the tired old argument that the Army lost in Vietnam because it didnt prepare for and get Coin. Then, this flawed notion sunk in with a bevy of army officers and defense analysts in the 80s and 90s, and then it got supercharged once the war in Iraq started.
Until we break out of this flawed understanding we will be trapped by the chimera that it is better for an army to prepare for wars of counterinsurgency than cam. If you can do the latter you can fairly easily with some adaptation do the former; but this principle does not work well in reverse. Just ask the Israeli Army.
Since time and resources are limited our focus must be on regaining our combined arms maneuver skills. If we can do that, we can easily do area security.
Sadly though one can see the debate in the army heading already in this direction. It is 80s redux all over again.
gian
As y'all congratulate each other on recognizing the Army's failure to focus solely on CAM, I have to raise a dissenting view. Saving the market-basket of tasks under WAS for later is what got us into the problem with Phase IV in the first place. Had those tasks been inculcated into the mind of the Army as kinda important, we might have bothered with a plan for Phase IV. We might have had leaders who'd recognize looting as being something that should be stopped.
Furthermore, fixating on CAM might sit well with those in the Army who want to believe that is the only way the Army should be used; however, this ideology ignores how the Army has been used historically. Going back to WWI, the modern era shows the Army has conducted far more WAS type missions than CAM. Are humanitarian missions like Haiti CAM or WAS? Is FID CAM or WAS? Are the CONUS response missions CAM or WAS?
Giving CAM primacy sets the stage for the return to an Army ill prepared to do anything other than breaking things. Limiting its utility as a tool of US foreign policy.
Gian/Jason,
Part of the challenge with this is that we, as an institution, have moved forward conceptually without doing some of the blue collar intellectual work necessary to develop a shared understanding of those concepts. The AOC provided some semblance of a framework, but the ideas weren't fleshed out to the level of detail I think was required for broad understanding. As a result, when we began to put the article together, we had more questions than answers. Not so surprising, I think.
I have been a proponent of using CAM as the cornerstone of an "AirLand Battle 2015" operational concept, then building "competencies" like WAS into the structure. A single point of focus would serve us well, and we have a model for success. As written, though, WAS does not come out as a lesser included element, but a co-equal. That's the inevitable challenge, and the main reason why this dialog is so important.
This subject will get plenty of attention at the AUSA CAM Symposium (July 26-28 in KC), and I think we'll see the right people arguing some of the same points. This is something that requires a few more voices to be heard above the din.
Steve
Steve,
Excellent article and food for thought. I share some of Gian's concerns on wide-area security, though (understanding it's a lesser, included). As defined here, it seems to be a catchall that has little to do with maneuver and instead encompasses stab ops, COIN, SSR, governance building, etc. A lot of these are not Army competencies nor will or should be. I agree with Gian that we need to be able to do CAM first and foremost so we can get to Ph IV and do the WAS. And we need to be able to do that well.
As this evolves into doctrine, is the Army going to examine what it's willing to do based on its capabilities and what it needs other organizations to do in this area? The use of the Army to do traditionally civilian functions in Iraq and Afghanistan has been an adequate band-aid, but hardly a competency. (I'm especially eager to see the Army want to get out of the police training business - but the all-encompassing term "security forces" suggests that is not going to happen soon).
Thanks and well done.
Jason
Steve:
agree completely and thanks for the response.
But as I read the capstone document and army operating concept, and with your current and excellent Army article, it does not come across as a lesser, included mission but co-equal with cam, and that i think is a mistake and should warrant perhaps revision or refinement to be clear that the most important thing we do is cam. If we cant do combined arms maneuver well then we can forget about doing area security. The latter flows from the former, but it doesnt work the other way around.
thanks again to you and LTG C for writing this piece and spurring discussion and debate.
gian
The intent with the article is to get the dialog on this topic out into open space. I agree with you and have made the point that CAM offers that single point of focus -- a la AirLand Battle -- that can be used to drive DOTMLPF. WAS remains a lesser included element or application of CAM. But we need to spur this discussion to flesh out the ideas, IMHO, and the best way to do that is to put the ideas out for people to digest.
As far as rewarding those key traits, that ought to be a matter of concern for us all. I, for one, worry that as we begin to draw forces back and then down in numbers, we could take a step back and embrace the zero-defect, risk averse culture that once pervaded our ranks.
Steve
Why is "wide area security" a core competency? It is a type of mission like a raid, or reconnaissance in force, or hasty defense. Why therefore has it been elevated to a core competency? We should have just one core competency, and that is combined arms maneuver, or as Doug Macgregor calls it "all arms" which means not just combining army arms but those of the joint forces as well.
Having wide area security as a core competency will not give our army the kind of focus it needs to rebuild ourselves after the last 10 years of nation-building warfare. Instead it will dilute our focus, and keep the force trapped by the idea that wars of the future will be fought "amongst the people" and for their allegiance.
If we can do all arms maneuver as an army at all organizational levels then we can do nearly anything else, but if we continue to try to walk a line between a fighting force and a global constabulary (which the latter is embedded in the mission of "wide area security")then we will never give back to the army the focus on fighting skills that it needs.
gian
I read the short article and don't disagree with any of it, but just wonder what the purpose of it was?
If the purpose is engrain that "initiative, risk and opportunity" are the traits officers and NCOs should demonstrate and be rewarded for, then that is a good thing. On the other hand, if we don't reward these traits now, it could very well explain one of the reasons we are having so much trouble with the current conflicts.