The Army after This

Joe,

Throwing this back into your court Old Pop. What are your thoughts on the issues you raised?

What would you cut, what would you add, how would you implement the cuts or additions, and why would you?

Not to be a smart-ass, seriously, but I have observed those most critical of some op-ed-like pieces typically have some thoughts on the issues they are critical about. And if not, they should.

Vito

Another "eat less, exercise more" and "buy low, sell high" think piece. I am getting a bit tired of this sort of thing. I would much prefer some specifics, some details on what should be cut, what should be added, how, and why.

Excellent essay. However, in addition to the Generals who want to spend money on weapons that break things and kill people, one can cite Congress for being willing to -- insisting on -- spending money on things that provide jobs in multiple State and Districts rather than funding training which generally benefits only a district or so. Congress is also at fault for insisting on personnel selection and promotion policies that may be politically and socially correct but are militarily nonsensical in too many cases...

Your proposals are one way to do it and most are sensible and achievable. I suggest however that those will all be for nought if:

- The personnel system is not radically overhauled. The current system is excessively centralized and has traded effective personnel support for 'efficiency.' It is too busy being self lubricating and does not support the Army in the field.

- The Training and Education processes do not add adequate time to properly train new entrants, Officer and Enlisted, in the basics of their art.

- All do not realize it IS an art, not a science and that everyone is not a great Artist; they are rarely produced, they have to be born and identified. Attempts to render all capable of being Great Captains will continue to fail.

- We do not emulate Hans Von Seeckt to educate and train the professional -- not a mass, draftee - Army we have so it can operate <b>without</b> voluminous documentation in the form of 300 page 'Field' Manuals and massive multi-annexed Orders and Plans that must be created to fill the gap induced by marginal training.

- Power to do many things is not devolved to lower Commanders. Trust is a vital combat multiplier; it is sorely lacking in today's Army and that does not bode well at all

Unless those things are done, your idea of rotating people between the three mission oriented force types will do more harm than good as all the rotatees will become jacks of all trades and masters of none; they won't spend enough time in a job to learn it, a problem that we have now without adding such rotations. Your 1930s Marine example is well taken -- but those guys spent four to six years in each bailiwick -- that idea today would drive HRC round the bend.

Fix the 'little' things and the big ones take care of themselves; fix the big ones while not fixing the little ones and you'll change nothing. Change is needed, no question but the underlying processes require far more change than does force structure.

If he's been out that long, why the pseudonym? Why not take ownership? It also smells like a lot of the 4GW crowd group-think. Some pretty general and ad hominem attacks on a number of targets, strawmen attacked, and the propensity of who is quoted in the footnotes.

That said, I actually believe a bifurcated force is the way to go, but not for the reasons he articulates.

I would suggest that too much of the Army as fielded is not what the Army wants but what the TRADOC infused in the acquisition pipeline long ago. This rigidly held yet archipelago like command has been described to me as either "broken and unfix-able" by a senior acquisition SES or as a field grade officer observed a "place where the old or retired go to rot". It may have become for the Army what the curia is to the Pope - an isolated citadel where old doctrines are held not to tampered by current realities.