Comments
<b>Vitesse et Puissance:</b><blockquote>"...Otherwise, you end up with a different Army in each theater plus the Marine Corps. 'Nuff sed."</blockquote>You mean as was true -- and necessary -- in WW II? Or even true and only mildly problematic with respect to the habits of senior people during the Korean and Viet Nam efforts?
I'd also submit there is a very effective replacement for 'standards' (which are after all derived through consensus...) -- it's called innovation.
One of the things I think you are seeing is the very reasonable demand from commanders in the field to make the acquisition system more responsive. This IS a problem in wartime, both on the combat development (writing the requirements) and material development (fulfilling the requirements) side of the house. Clearly - the likes of TRADOC and AMC should be hungry for feedback from the field. Systems like CALL and JLLIS exist to elicit and systematically process feedback from the field. If you devolve the combat and acquisition functions to the combat commanders, that doesn't fix the system - it breaks it even more. The weird thing about the readiness reporting system as it stands today is that it allows field commanders to essentially write their own threshold values into their JMETL, as they convert generic UJTL tasks into JMETL tasks. One interesting thing though, apparently somewhere along the line, the command in Afghanistan decided to roll their own front end analysis. Now, perhaps this is a necessary evil - there have been in-theater schools in both war and piece, during WWII and all throughout the Cold War. If there is a deep enough break between the insitutional force and the needs of the field, you pull Captain Sobel out of company command and send him off the command the 101st Division jump school...courses like PNOC have been outsourced for years to limit redeployments and TDY costs. That said, there is no substitute for standards. One-off activities cannot be standardized and should not be standardized. Conditions will vary by the situation, and a well-formed front end analysis will handle this in the right way. Otherwise, you end up with a different Army in each theater plus the Marine Corps. 'Nuff sed.
The article starts off by saying that, "James Cartwright has commissioned a broad independent review to help the Pentagon more rapidly develop and buy urgently needed military equipment." This approach as well as the JCIDs system itself shows its flaws. JCID by its nature is an acquisition process that is top down driven that is nested with current strategic policy and planning. This commissioned board is focusing on more rapidly fielding equipment, but neither of these talk about relevant equipment requested by the user. A bottom up refinement from the Soldiers who will be using this equipment needs to be addressed as well. The MRAP vehicles for example were and are a great force protector, but when they were first fielded they had several user issues that could have been addressed with some incorporation of the user in the design process. Just as the Army empowers the lowest level leaders in a COIN environment we also need to get bottom up refinement and input on our acquisition process to make sure we are not just fielding equipment quickly but relevant equipment that can be used.
CPT Matthew Shown
Student, Command and General Staff School
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Fort Belvoir, Virginia
"The views in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government."
I'd be interested in hearing what folks have to say about the Universal Joint Task List. Where is it going, does anyone actually use it to define capabilities or to drive out DOTMLPF priorities ? If you want metrics, well UJTL has more metrics than you can possibly imagine...but does the Department actually have a viable and resourceable strategy to collect the data that UJTL implies needs to be collected and assessed. The darn thing is just a massive Work Breakdown Structure for DoD, with all the program management and systems engineering baggage that implies. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that such a thing exists. What I doubt, based on the many things that have happened in recent years and the very public statements made by the current SecDef as well as this piece on Cartwright and JCIDS, and the holes that still exist where one would expect UJTL to drive activity, is whether Department leadership on either the civilian or the military side is really committed to make the process work. Rumsfeld put all this in place, and I actually think the guy knew what he was doing when he did it. And no, if you understand DOTMLPF for what is and you're not just a cowboy, shooting from the hip everywhere you go, then it is NOT just about technology or requirements for material development programs. How do you make this thing modular and well-formed enough so it actually does provide value to help answer questions and not just raise (more of) them ? Those of remember how Max Thurman operated as the Army's Vice Chief of Staff will resonate with this point - there is no limit to the amount of work the building is capable of generating to satisfy a senior leader who is determined to make field grade officers work overtime.
There ought to be a kind of "physician, heal thyself" dimension to this discussion. Having ridden the Goldwater-Nicholas train this far, whereby the CINCs are driving the process, and the Joint Staff's focus is as near-sighted as it can possibly be, do we really expect these same organizational actors - the ones who are pulling the bones of JFCOM into their "transformed" organizational structure - to "fix" the problem after all these years ? Since when does the Joint Staff have the organizational memory or the foresight to accomplish this worthy objective ? Well, best of luck to General Dempsey on this one of the many tasks facing him.