re: "Dudes! Misinterpreting DoD's strategic guidance repeats mistakes, ignores emerging trends, and leads to failure"

Janine Davidson posted at Thomas E. Ricks' The Best Defense blog ("Tom Ricks' Daily Take on National Security"), read the "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21^st Century Defense and Defense Budget Priorities and Choices" documents (so you don't have to).

Money quote(s):

"The fact is, whether we call it "COIN," "stability operations," "peacekeeping," or "irregular warfare," such frustrating, complex, population-centric, and increasingly urban operations against and among savvy and networked non-state actors are simply a modern version of an age-old phenomenon. And they are here to stay."

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"(N)ot sizing the force for large-scale operations like Iraq and Afghanistan is a responsible and prudent strategic approach. As these two huge wars wind down, of course the force will be down-sized. This is what we do after every war, no matter the type. It would irresponsible, and in fact unconstitutional, to do otherwise. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States clearly indicates the power of the Congress to "raise and support Armies..." but to "provide and maintain a Navy." This language is deliberate, as the founders did not want to maintain large expensive standing ground forces in peacetime. The Congress is empowered to appropriate money to expand the force as needed to fight wars. And that is exactly what happened during the past decade. Our force planning can and should account for our ability to do this again when needed.

For operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the army grew from just over 480,000 soldiers in 2001 to a peak of 570,000 just a couple of years ago. Likewise, the marine corp grew from approximately 170,000 to 210,000. Following redeployment from these wars, the new strategy calls for downsizing back to about 490,000 soldiers and 182,000 marines by 2017, (assuming we manage to disengage in Afghanistan) which is slightly larger than the what President George W. Bush inherited eleven years ago. And still, it is nearly four to five times the size of the ground forces of any of our NATO allies."

Strategy (as outlined in the document being reviewed by Prof. Davidson) is one thing: the meat ax of sequestration is another. The downsizing she posits may be the best case scenario.

"(L)et's not confuse size with competency. Not sizing for Iraqs or Afghanistans does not, and should not, mean forgetting how to conduct such missions -- no matter the size."

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"Throughout its entire 250-year history, coin, stability operations, and nation building have been far from an "irregular" occurrence. The U.S. has conducted such missions -- on a large scale -- about every 25 years since the Mexican War in the 1840's. U.S. ground troops conducted nation-building, peace-keeping, and a series of counter-guerilla wars against American Indians on the western frontier throughout the 1800's. They conducted a bloody counterinsurgency in the Philippines (1898-1902), a number of "small wars" in the Caribbean (1930's), and occupation duty after the American Civil War and the two World Wars. Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has deployed every 18-24 months in response to complex crises of various size, with the average duration of these endeavors becoming increasingly protracted.

From the beginning, these missions have been frustrating and ill-defined, and they have always been controversial. Repeatedly, after each painful episode, the military has sought to avoid having to do them again by forgetting its doctrine and failing to plan, leaving the next generation to re-learn on the fly.

The U.S. army was so fed up with counterinsurgency after its bloody and protracted experience in the Philippines that it eagerly -- with the support of the secretary of War -- managed to turn the whole mission set over to the marines in the early 20^th century. While the army focused on "real" war, the marines were sent to the Caribbean for the "Banana Wars," where they had to re-learn all the hard-learned lessons from old U.S. army manuals that were being discarded. The marine corps did allow a small team of officers to capture this Caribbean experience in the 1940 Small Wars Manual; but the mainstream corps had little appetite for these missions and was already trying to reinvent itself as specialists in amphibious operations. Once WW II began, the marines discarded its doctrine, training, and education for small wars in order to focus intensely on amphibious operations. This left the Vietnam generation to re-invent relevant doctrine once again."

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"Today we face a global environment characterized by transnational criminals, terrorists, insurgents, and myriad illicit and violent bandits and traffickers. Some of these "bad guys" are aligned with nation states, but most operate in the gray space between what we consider crime and war. Importantly, our future enemies have been paying attention to our struggles against low-tech, high-impact fighters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere and have been sharing their own "lessons learned" across global social networks. One lesson is clear: Go asymmetric and "irregular" against the U.S. military, because taking it on head to head conventionally would be just plain stupid. " (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

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"Demographic trends such as urbanization, the youth bulge, resource scarcity, and radicalization ensure that future conflicts requiring ground forces will occur in cities and slums and among populations, where differentiating friend from foe, and victim from "combatant," much less just trying to navigate through the crowded urban "battle space" will continue to plague traditionally-minded and conventionally trained ground forces."

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"The military should continue to develop special operations and civil affairs capabilities as key components for security force assistance, conflict prevention, and crisis response. Army modularity, which allows ground units to be scaled and tailored for various operations should continue to be developed, and competencies in foreign languages, interagency coordination, and human intelligence collection and analysis should be sustained and enhanced." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

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"So how then, do we size this new more enlightened and capable force to ensure success in future coin or stability operations missions? With 490,000 soldiers and 182,000 marines on active duty, plus the forces in the selected ready reserve (560,000 in the army and 39,000 in the marine corps), America's ground forces will arguably be large enough for stability operations of significant size even without needing to add to the force once a crisis hits. Still, there is no crystal ball to predict the exact scenario our military might face. Moreover, despite much debate, there is still no consensus over the question of how many ground troops are required to bring stability to a country of a given population. Clearly neither sizing the peacetime force for the largest imaginable stability operation, nor down-sizing and hoping we won't face another large-scale mission of this sort, is no way to plan. Because we have the demonstrated ability to grow the force and adapt once a war begins, the trick is to find the right size that allows us to conduct smaller and medium scale operations and to initiate an operation while scaling up for something larger if and when needed."

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"(W)e need to be confident that we can access the capable and ready forces we need, when we need them. Being able to grow the force for large-scale missions if required means having a reserve component that is ready for mobilization and an active duty-training cadre that can deliver the expertise on demand. The DoD's plan to, "... leverage the operational experience and institute a progressive readiness model in the National Guard and Reserves in order to sustain increased readiness prior to mobilization," is aiming in the right direction. On the active duty side, the army and marine corps are both planning to retain a greater percentage of mid-grade NCO's and officers even as they downsize, reflecting their understanding that a slightly more senior force is not only required in the conduct of these complex missions, but is also the seed corn needed to train and grow a force if required."

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Janine Davidson is assistant professor at George Mason University's Graduate School of Pubic Policy. From 2009-2012, she served as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Plans, where she oversaw the development of guidance for military campaign and contingency plans and the review and assessment of plans. Before all that she was a pilot in the air force.

7/27

re: "To fix PME, decide whether you are training or educating officers -- and do it!"

LTC Jason Dempsey, USA guest-posted at The Best Defense ("Tom Rick's Daily Take on National Security") about how to improve professional military education.

Money quote(s):

"The Scales and Kuehn discussion on PME has piqued a long-running interest of mine in the failures of professional military education (PME). While obviously I am more with Scales in my overall assessment of the system, I think Kuehn's piece helps frame the debate because it highlights some of the confusion over the purpose of PME. Specifically, it seems our colleges cannot decide whether they are in the business of training or educating. This confusion has led to a muddied curriculum and a faculty that is required to cover both educating and training, and which as a result fails to do either one very well."

The semi-public debate to which Col. Dempsey* alludes is, somewhat, inside baseball. But serious students of national security would do well to pay attention. What gets decided will have very real consequences for decades to come.

Training and education are executed quite similarly, have extensive areas of overlap, and serve parallel purposes. But they aren't (quite) the same thing.

It's perfectly fine if the military wishes to combine the two purposes into single curriculae at the various service schools and colleges, but it should be quite clear and transparent, to both faculty and staff, as to which courses belong to which categories.

"(L)et's look at the faculty. These are typically officers on the verge of retirement who have been out of the operational force for several years and are interested in academia, but have not yet completed advanced degrees or had any classroom experience outside of the military system. This places them on the fringes of both the operational force and academia. Yet we ask them to cover both the 'core curriculum' and electives, essentially guaranteeing mediocrity in both areas."

Looking over Col. Dempsey's bio blurb (see below), he appears to have personal experience in the PME swamp up to the Command & General Staff College (CGSC) level. Plus whatever research he did as a Ph.D. student and/or researching his book.

Not to knock or discredit him personally, but CAA's experience with PME faculty appears to have been considerably more positive.

Yes, in the course of CAA's military and diplomatic careers, CAA attended at least one service college. Frankly, CAA was stunned at the bright lights that were hidden under that particular bush. And if we're being credentialist, even the serving military members had advanced (graduate or higher) degrees from civilian universities.

(One secret about the stars in the PME constellation: vanishingly few of them are accredited by anyone other than the Department of Defense itself. So while the diplomas look nice in a frame, good luck getting much credit for them at civilian-accredited institutions.)

"The 'core curriculum' at our service colleges should be restructured with a singular focus on training officers for the command and/or staff responsibilities they are about to assume. This is largely the case now, but the focus should be similar to what occurs at the pre-command courses, where senior leaders rotate in to provide insights, mentorship, and current operational perspectives. At CGSC this would mean that commanders and their staffs at the brigade and battalion levels would be the ones rotating in to instruct and to facilitate scenario-driven staff exercises. This would ensure that students received the most relevant training available while reinforcing to the officer corps the importance of taking the time and effort to properly train the next generation."

The point about bringing in operational commanders and staffs as instructors is an interesting one, particularly if training is the objective.

As for scenario-driven exercises, CAA used to live-and-breath them, and is a huge(if closeted) believer there in.

"As for the elective portion of PME, at least at CGSC, the list of offerings should be considered an outright embarrassment. Again, because of not understanding the difference between training and education, valuable time -- that could be spent broadening -- is instead spent on 'courses' that are mere recitations of doctrinal manuals or job descriptions and are about as far as you can get from anything broadening or academically rigorous ('Logistics for the Battalion XO', etc.). This is not to say that there are not great instructors and courses out there (the history departments are indeed strong, and I'd be remiss not to tip my hat to Don Connelly for carrying the torch for the study of civil-military relations). But, as Kuehn notes, these few good courses are drowned out in a curriculum that could only charitably be described as vo-tech for field grades. So long as we aren't kidding ourselves that this is a broadening experience or equivalent to education, fine, but if we are serious about the need to get officers to think critically and out of their comfort zone than it is this portion of PME that needs the most restructuring."

Frankly, CAA always thought that C&GSC was all about "vo-tech for field grades" in the first place, although my recent reading of World War I history gave me a somewhat different understanding of how and where American general staff training originated.

But for much of its history, C&GSC has been more than the sum of its parts that way, going beyond "vo-tech" into actual and broadening (professional military) education.

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* "Lt. Col. Jason Dempsey is a career infantry officer and a graduate of a couple levels of PME, including the infantry officers basic course, the amphibious warfare school at Quantico, and CGSC. He also holds a PhD from Columbia University and is the author of Our Army: Soldiers, Politics and American Civil-Military Relations."

6/4

re: "Need budget cuts? We probably can start by shutting the Air War College"

Thomas E. Ricks at The Best Defense ("Tom Rick's Daily Take on National Security") reviews some criticism of the Air War College.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he place is an expensive joke. Funny except that the taxpayer picks up the tab."

Happily, this does not jibe at all with my experiences regarding DoD's higher learning institutions, such as the other various war colleges and universities. Some of the issues raised by Hughes are certainly potential pitfalls for any institution of this type; the sponsoring organization has to value the institution (or, more importantly, its product) enough to send its best and brightest to be students and its very best and brightest to teach there. The way organizations send the message that an institution is important is by promoting those who excel there.

"Tom's bottom line: Hughes says it costs at least $300,000 a year to send an officer to the AWC. So this looks like a good place to begin budget cuts, Secretary Gates. Close the place and send the students out into the world of civilian academia, where they will be challenged intellectually and might learn something."

Pretty big black eye for the Air Force if it muffs running its own war college. Professional military education is an investment in a service's future top leaders, not a block to be checked off, particularly if that education is known by the other service's top leaders to be a joke.