Sunt in parte de acord cu ce spune autorul despre generalii patriei americane si critica adusa colonelului Yingling(care a fost amintit mai demult).E drept ca ignora cu generozitate butada ca ultimul grad militar e cel de colonel,mai sus fiind politicienii.Nu stiu eu exact cata scoala fac generalii si amiralii romani(sunt convins ca multa).Problema e cati o fac pe bune(aici ma gandesc in special la sef anumeSMG.Mi-a placut critica pe care face felului in care cei de la nivelele medii si inferioare vad problema relatiilor pe scara ierarhica(multe din problemele si solutiile amintite de colonelul Aumuller sunt valabile si in alte tipuri de organizatii decat cele militare)
''Defending the generals
COL. DAVID F. AUMULLER
One of the biggest dangers to anyone who criticizes senior leaders within an organization is to lose objectivity to emotion. This is the primary fault of Lt. Col. Paul Yingling in his article “A failure in generalship” in the May issue of AFJ. I believe that his genuine frustration regarding both the perceived inequity of treatment between the junior and senior ranks and the overall lack of accountability in some of the senior ranks has led to his inability to articulate a specific problem and a specific recommendation for fixing it. Instead, he chooses to blame everyone and make recommendations that are both illogical and infeasible.
I also recognize the inevitable rift that such an article creates within the military institution. I’m sure junior officers throughout the Army are cheering the author for blaming those senior officers at the top for all of their woes, while the senior officers are lamenting over being blamed by the author. This, too, is an emotional standoff, serving the institution of the military — and the current fight in Iraq — absolutely no tangible benefits. I have watched with great disappointment the proliferation of comments on blogs since the publication of this article, and the intense emotions that such an article elicits. It has opened old wounds from Vietnam and created misplaced merit for an author who could justifiably be charged with insubordination, but, more logically, denied command because his seniors will lack confidence in his loyalty to lead troops given his overt disrespect for his (and their) senior commanders.
Given this brief situation estimate, here is my attempt from the cheap seats to critique this paper, given the fact that by criticizing the author I fall into one side of the great chasm he creates.
Within any organization, there will invariably be incompetence — the real issue is how the organization deals with it. The true measure of an organization is its ability to ensure that:
• Incompetence can be tangibly measured.
• Training and promotions are used to mitigate incompetence and reward performance.
• Incompetent performers are held accountable.
The author has chosen to formulate an institution (all the generals) and, without categorization, blame them all for the undefined failings of the entire larger institution (the military). In other words, the author argues that every senior leader is both incompetent and to blame for the larger institution’s poor performance. Ironically, to blame the organizational failings on everyone at the top, implies that all of those below the level of general are absent from blame and simply following the directions from their seniors. It also implies that within the organization, no one at the top will listen to any of the concerns voiced by juniors. Therefore, if I were really trying to be objective, it would be clear that the author, his peers and his subordinate officers have been a part of an institution that does not allow for any forwarding of alternative ideas, and is composed of subordinates who blindly follow the incompetent, uncourageous and cowardly decisions of their seniors.
Our officer corps is the best educated and trained in our nation’s history, and arguably in the world. By the time an officer becomes a general, he or she has attended entry-level schools, and a year each at career- , intermediate- and top-level schools within the joint professional military education hierarchy. Virtually every level of these schools is today professionally accredited and offers opportunities for advanced degrees. These schools provide superb educational insight into the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war, in addition to studies in the art of war, the history of war, campaign studies, as well as specific service and military occupational specialty information. In other words, by the time an officer is a general (about 25-30 years in service), he or she has spent about one-fifth of that time in school. Few professions or corporations can boast such a plethora of training. We must remember that the only difference between a lieutenant colonel and a general officer in terms of education is the short capstone training that all generals go through. If this system has failed the general officers, then it has clearly failed the myriad officers who are also products of this system.
Embedded within this argument is that our general officers require more social science and humanities training. I am unaware of any study, or any historical evidence, that would suggest this to be true. The converse of this argument, that if they had more diverse training we wouldn’t be where we are today, is simply untenable. Do we really mean that for a general officer to be effective, he must forego critical operational and tactical experience, as well as exposure to the operational and strategic level staffs, to pursue a humanities degree or a doctorate? In concept, it might sound good, but do we really think that the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division would have been more successful in the invasion of Iraq if he had a Ph.D. in philosophy?
I recently was privileged to hear a retired general officer discuss the challenges he faced when, as a senior commander, he had to confront civilian leadership over operational decisions. In each case, there was a professional dialogue and his opinions were solicited. These instances are rarely reported, and even more poorly documented, but I believe it wholly inaccurate to think that general officers are not questioning difficult issues many times every day. I’ve worked for a great number of general officers and they never failed to ask the hard questions. I always knew their rationale for such dialogue: They clearly understood the immense responsibilities they held and the ultimate impacts of their decisions. Moral courage means much more than Iraq. Our general officers require moral courage every day in a plethora of issues. Think of the challenges associated with acquisition decisions, promotion boards, re-enlistments, discharge characterizations, selection for command. Included are the agonizing line-of-duty/misconduct determinations, or deciding whether to retain a service member as a part of administrative separation proceedings. Moral courage goes well beyond the strategy for Iraq, and I do not concur that our senior leaders lack this trait. If they do, this would translate into the author serving nearly 20 years in an institution in which his senior officers were incompetent cowards who were incapable of providing the necessary direction and policy for their subordinate commands to accomplish their mission.
I, like the author, was enthralled by the magnificent work in “Dereliction of Duty” by H.R. McMaster, but I also understand that, like anything else, it isn’t always that simple. We all know that there is never just one side to any story. The Five Silent Men chapter of the book is an example — one extreme of what really happened during this period. I would urge the reading of “Honorable Warrior” by Lewis Sorley, which details the contemptuous relationship that existed among the Joint Staff, the defense secretary and the president during the Vietnam War. Repeated examples show that the staff and many other officials tried to explain a counterpoint to the administration and were personally attacked and ridiculed by senior civilian officials. As detailed by Sorley, they did try to reiterate their concerns, but their civilian bosses believed that they lacked credibility and viability in their perception of how to succeed in Vietnam. Although there is clearly merit in the McMaster argument, there’s plenty of blame to be shared across the uniformed and civilian policy makers. One thing is clear: The climate for open dialogue did not exist. I think Yingling, like many career officers, has been in this environment before. Arguably, if taken literally, the author and his peers comprise the same “silent” men he criticizes, having worked an entire career for a corrupt organization.
Then there’s The Nagl Factor — or “if only we had a counterinsurgency Army.” Lt. Col. John Nagl’s book “Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife” requires a comprehensive review, simply because it ignores strategic reality. First, it must be understood that the Army’s resistance to President Kennedy’s focus on counterinsurgency had as much to do with resources and standing requirements as it did on the perceptions detailed by the author. This is just as true today. Our modern military is a compromise of many things. We do not have forces focused for any one mission, but tasked instead to be prepared to deploy and subsequently employ in support of a wide range of missions, from humanitarian assistance to major theater war. We do not have the resources to tailor forces to each mission within the spectrum, so we accept risk by asking units to plan for and be prepared for multiple missions. Over time, what has been learned is that there are certain mission sets that overlap. For example, logistics units that can support major combat units in large-scale operations require little adjustment for humanitarian-type operations. Most conventional combat forces are more than adept at providing small-unit training across the globe. Detailed analysis of shortfalls in the present structure for supporting Iraq, without providing too much risk to our capacity to support the myriad other missions in the spectrum, is happening daily. Each service is going through enormous efforts to validate structure and capabilities in active and reserve component structures. If the entire Defense Department forces were transitioned to a pure COIN structure, the risk to support of standing contingencies across the globe would be enormous.
Commanders, at any level, are expected to balance their emotions with the need to rapidly and succinctly present a problem and solution to their seniors. The ability to do this is the hallmark of a mature officer. Here is a sampling of Yingling’s statements:
• “America’s general officer corps refused to prepare the Army to ...”
• “America’s generals failed to prepare their forces ...”
• “Having failed to visualize accurately the conditions of combat in Vietnam, America’s generals prosecuted the war in conventional terms.”
• “ ... also remained largely silent while the strategy developed by civilian politicians led to defeat ...”
• “Having participated in the deception of the American people during the war ...”
• “To improve the intelligence of our generals ...”
Taken collectively, they sound more a part of an emotional, unprofessional rant rather than a cogent argument that addresses a specific problem and provides specific solutions. I believe the author meant to say that:
• Accountability needs to be enforced. Any time the junior enlisted personnel are getting more attention than their bosses, there’s trouble. The trouble with Iraq is that as a result of the rapid rotations and constantly changing mission, it is difficult to measure a commander’s success. Simply commanding in Iraq is not the key to promotion and success. Greater care must be taken in performance evaluations of commanders, and for all services, a return to combat readiness evaluations by an independent inspector general might not be a bad way to re-instill accountability at the operational and strategic levels.
• Force allocations need to be re-examined. The current process of assuming whatever is “left” outside of Iraq is available for outside contingency tasking may be flawed. Although we lack the resources to really fence any forces outside of Iraq, we also must understand the skills that atrophy and the skills that are accentuated in deploying to Iraq. From that analysis, we need to better formulate what forces are available to other combatant commanders for contingency planning.
• Joint professional military education requires further examination. Despite our enormous efforts to emphasize the art of warfare and the need to link the strategic, operational and tactical levels of war, we are still not achieving the levels of staff effectiveness we should be seeing from the investment. An independent analysis of all-service and joint schools should be done to see why our operational staffs are so challenged to play by the book when conducting operational level (campaign) planning.
• Our bureaucracy and its rewards must be eliminated. Our present military size, and its bureaucratic tail (to include civil service and contractual support), must be re-evaluated. I have seen an assortment of statistics, but suffice it to say, our present-day Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, service and combatant command staffs are not proportionate to our military structure. A mandatory cut of some specified percentage (25 percent? 50 percent?) applied to all such staffs might be the right signal to begin reversing the staff explosion that has happened in the past 10 to 15 years.
These are but a few specific examples of how the author could channel his emotion into a more productive dialogue and policy for improving the effectiveness of the military. They are all deserving of individual discussion and dialogue, but in the end, it is incomprehensible to throw the baby out with the bath water instead of providing a comprehensive dialogue among all ranks as to how best to improve the force.
A fellow officer forwarded to me an applicable citation from Anton Myrer’s “Once an Eagle,” a book provided to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. During a conversation between Sam Damon and his father-in-law — an Army general — the old man advises Sam: “Self-righteousness is the occupational disease of the soldier. Guard against it, for it breeds arrogance and indifference.”
deocamdata armia noastra - si poate voi revolta pe multi cu o astfel de afirmatie - isi merita soarta cu virf si indesat... de cind cu taierea salariilor un singur lucru se aude pe toate coridoarele institutiilor militare: "sa zicem mersi ca mai avem un loc de munca...." asta e tot ce a mai ramas din demnitatea si onoarea militarului, fie ca e robotel de birou, fie ca e cal de bataie la trupa... am auzit zilele astea un politruc pensionar militar latrind la televizor despre cum a fost lovita armata in acesti 20 de ani...nu ne-a spus insa cam ce facea el pe vremea cind armata o lua in freza... ca el mai sint citiva d-astia care flutura poezii din fotoliul de pensionar militar, dar n-am auzit pina acum nici macar o singura voce de militar activ care sa protesteze (poate nu la televizor, fiindca si SOV are interesele lui bine conturate), dar pe net, in strada, oriunde... n-am vazut un militar activ sa-si dea mina cu alt militar activ si sa dea statul in judecata... nici nu se va intimpla acest lucru fiindca, nu-i asa?, ratele la banci, nevasta suparata, copiii ametiti de moda si soacra pisaloaga nu-l lasa pe bietul militar sa uite ca trebuie sa faca orice fel de compromis pentru a ramine in sistem... asta-i realitatea si oricit vor incerca unii sa mai lanseze mesaje de unitate, de demnitate si onoare, tot salariul va fi cel care va dicta cite grade incovoiere are militarul roman....
cind l-a creat pe mos Teaca, Bacalbasa a precizat ca el nu e neaparat militar, ci "poate fi cu aceeasi usurinta prefect, profesor de universitate, medic, comisar comunal, arhimandrit, gardist, avocat, senator, orice"... nu putem decupa militarul din societatea in care toti cetatenii sint supusi acelorasi presiuni, batai de joc, umilinte si cascade de scuipat politic... intr-o majoritate trista si vizibila cu ochiul liber, militarii sint la fel de slugarnici si la fel de agresivi precum oricare alt cetatean roman... sentimentul de casta a disparut aproape de tot din inima militarilor, de aceea au putut si guvernantii sa faca ceea ce au facut... si vor mai face...
... iar daca cineva isi imagineaza ca intr-o buna zi militarii isi vor uni supararile si protestele intr-o miscare suficient de puternica pentru a genera schimbare, atunci fie e naiv, fie visator, fie nu lucreaza in sistem sau toate la un loc... Romania si-a pierdut Armata in 1989 sau poate cu 20 de ani inainte de '89... si cita vreme militarul va avea rate si copiii si nevasta si soacra, va indura orice umilinta... militarul de rind va continua sa pupe nadragii superiorilor corupti, nesimtiti si cretini, numiti politic, iar militarii din conducere vor continua sa pupe, pentru bani si functii, nadragii politicienilor si oamenilor de afaceri care n-ar fi ajuns sa aiba putere si bani daca n-ar fi fost suficient de corupti, de nesimtiti si de cretini...
Problema pe care o am eu cu realitatea ce o descrii e ca o armata ca asta nu e armata.Oi traii eu cu idei retrograde cum ca disciplina nu e slugarnicie sau ca meseria armelor e cea mai nobila meserie(desi nu am purtat uniforma).Aristocratii nu sunt sclavi.
Suntem de kkt!!! O zic si o sustin de cate ori vreti. Oriunde mergem, suntem cei mai prapaditi. Da, ne meritam soarta, toti de la primul general pana la ultimul soldat. Ne meritam soarta pt ca bagam capul in pamant in loc sa dam dovada de demnitatea si mandria cu care ne laudam. De de fapt de unde dracu sa reprezentam noi cu mandrie tara cand drapelul de pe mana e cumparat din banii nostri? Care tara sa o reprezentam? Pe cei ce ne injura si huiduie cand ne taram pe strazi cu taburile ferfenite? Nu suntem in stare sa ne reprezentam nici pe noi. Ne tiganim si ne "ardem" intre noi ca ultimii tigani desi suntem toti militari ai aceleasi tari, si dupa aia ne miram ca ne fac altii tigani. Domnilor si doamnelor suntem vai de capul nostru de la capela la bocanc. Mi-e rusine si mi-e rusine si mai mult ca ma complac si eu in situatia asta. Astept ziua cand voi lucra gratis dar voi continua sa dau bani pentru perdele, embleme, var, ciment, glet, chefuri la comisii, bocanci, cine stie poate o sa bag eu motorina din banii mei, imi voi lua o pusca nou si o vesta antiglont.
Locotenente,eu nu va huidui,chiar daca TAB-urile sunt de pe vremea lui Pazvante iar steagul e luat din solda(-25%). Ce nu poti spune tu,pt ca esti in uniforma,dar eu pot pt. ca ma doare-n cot de cine citeste, e ca in momentul in care vei face toate achizitiile alea din banii tai Romania devine proprietatea ta.Pentru ca ne vom intoarce in secolul 13 dpdv al organizarii sociale(adica feudalism-un regim in care casta militara era la putere si in mare cinste).Ce nu trebuie uitat nici chiar atunci e ca trebuie sa fii bun la ce faci-impus vointa cu forta.
Da,Mihais,ai si tu dreptate. Dar când o sa fie asa,duduia EBA o sa îsi poata cumpara portavionul ei personal cash,iar domnul locotenent de mai sus îsi va lua o pusca în rate,pe 25 de ani. Daca i-o aproba vreo banca creditul... . Asa ca revenirea aceea la secolul 13,chiar de mâine de s-ar produce,o sa fie demna de Cartoon Network.
... problemele Armatei sunt prea serioase (si banoase) ca sa fie lasate pe mana militarilor ! ... parca am mai auzit undeva ceva asemanator, da' nu mai stiu unde, (is cam bosorogit, de!) poate ma ajutati ...
“ ... also remained largely silent while the strategy developed by civilian politicians led to defeat ...”
Exista niste vinovati - generalii.Ei nu trebuiau sa accepte un astfel de tratament...Nu mai vreau sa am onoarea sa va salut domnilor generali si amirali... niciodata.Ne-ati vadut pe toti nici macar pentru un pumn de arginti ci pentru niste stelute ce va hranesc ego-ul ca altceva...nimic.
Domnilor, trebuie sa fac un mic adendum. Imi cer scuze daca de undeva s-a inteles ca as fi locotenent. Nu este adevarat. Sunt un mic si mandru pe alocuri sgv, care a avut aspiratii de ofiter pana i s-a taiat craca in ziua de 19.12.2009.
Am trăit şi mai trăiesc şi acum cu impresia că armata unui stat adună în rândurile ei cei mai buni oameni ai naţiei. Adică o armata este sau ar trebui să reprezinte pentru un popor o elită. Şi în cazul nostru este adevărat. Însă Armata Română păstrează aceleaşi defecte pezente şi la întreg poporul român, răbdarea prostească şi umilinţa. Mi-aş dori să pot vedea o Armată Română precum Armata Turcă modernă, considerată singurul garant al laicităţii statului turc. Dacă politicienii turci o iau razna cu ideile proaste - si s-a întâmplat asta de multe ori - intervine Marele Stat Major care le aduce aminte că într-o singură zi îi poate arunca pe toţi de la Putere. Imediat se liniştesc toţi si o iau de la cap cuminţi. Asta e particularitate. În Europa Occidentală, este adevărat Armata nu are un rol politic, dar statutul militarului este intangibil, indiferent de partidul care se perindă la putere. Nu am amănunte despre tăieri de pensii sau solde militare in Occident. Dar ce se întâmplă acum în România este o bătaie de joc şi o răutate programată. Dincolo de disciplină, nu militarul simplu ar trebui să protesteze ci Marele Stat Major. Acesta, ca cel mai înalt for decizional al Armatei trebuia , măcar să trimită o scrisoare protest, dezaprobare ori dezamăgire către ministrul Apărării, Guvernului şi Preşedinţiei. Se putea evita această situaţie - consider eu - dacă "graşii" ăia din MST care nu-şi datorau postul unor politicieni, făceau presiuni asupra guvernanţilor să o lase mai moale cu recalculări de pensii sau reduceri de solde. Dar , educaţia păguboasă primită şi-a făcut simţite efectele "Lasă domle, că o să treacă şi asta şi poate scapăm. De ce să ieşim noi primii în faţă?! Cică nu ne permite legea". Dar legea permite revoluţiile , loviturile de stat, loviturile militare de stat, revoltele populare spontane, căderile de guvern?! Cică nu, dar totuşi ele se petrec şi pornesc un alt început care interzice următoarele revoluţii sau schimbări şi tot aşa
Domnilor, trebuie sa fac un mic adendum. Imi cer scuze daca de undeva s-a inteles ca as fi locotenent. Nu este adevarat. Sunt un mic si mandru pe alocuri sgv, care a avut aspiratii de ofiter pana i s-a taiat craca in ziua de 19.12.2009.
Small unit dominance The strategic importance of tactical reform BY MAJ. GEN. ROBERT H. SCALES (RET.)
Slightly more than 40 years ago my unit was butchered by elements from the North Vietnamese 29th Regiment at a mountaintop firebase overlooking the A Shau Valley. Nineteen of my 55 soldiers were killed or wounded severely enough to warrant evacuation. The loss was mainly my fault. I wasn’t new at the job. This was my fourth command so I thought I knew what I was doing. A much smarter and better trained and equipped enemy taught me that I did not.
The event made me promise that I would never go to war again No. 2 in a two-sided contest. It also burned into the depths of my soul several questions that have lingered and festered ever since. I asked why the most technologically advanced country on the planet was unable to make better weapons and equipment than the enemy. I asked why my soldiers were so poorly prepared physically, intellectually and emotionally for this fight. I asked why my experience as a combat leader could be gained only by spilling their blood.
BETTER BUT NOT DOMINANT
We are better now. Today, we have the best-trained soldiers and Marines in the world. Since 9/11, the ground services have made enormous strides in pushing the latest gear to soldiers in the field using the Rapid Fielding Initiative. We know that investments made recently to better equip soldiers are saving lives. In World War II and Vietnam, an individual infantryman cost about $1,900 to equip. The “ratio” of killed to wounded in small-unit action in both those wars was about 1 to 3.4. Investments in Iraq and Afghanistan have increased to $17,000 per infantryman. The killed-to-wounded ratio is now about 1 to 9, and the casualty rate has decreased from 3 percent to less than a third of 1 percent within close-combat small units.
Investments have been sufficient to make small units better. But occasional incidents in places such as Fallujah and Sadr City in Iraq and Forward Operating Base Keating and Wanat in Afghanistan make it evident that the American military hasn’t come as far as it should in its ability to dominate in the tactical fight. Failure to dominate at the tactical level to the degree we are capable is all the more incongruous because success in today’s “hybrid” wars is achieved by the patient and often dangerous application of force by thousands of mostly Army and Marine squads, platoons and teams. These small units patrol and operate principally from isolated outposts and forward operating bases, along primitive roads and trails, and among the people within villages and towns.
This incongruity is amplified with the realization that our tactical failures are nothing new. In World War II, infantry was the third most deadly job behind submarine and bomber crews. In a half century of wars fought after World War II (a period often termed “the American Era of War”), submarine and bomber crew combat deaths have dropped to virtually nil. Yet as a proportion of total combat deaths, infantry has increased from 71 percent in World War II to 81 percent in wars fought since. Thus four out of five combat deaths have been suffered by a force that makes up less than 4 percent of uniformed manpower within the Defense Department. Half of those deaths occurred while simply trying to find the enemy and almost all occurred within less than a mile of contact. In Afghanistan, 89 percent of all deaths occur in small units and more than 90 percent occur within 400 meters of a road.
The final incongruity comes with the realization that soldiers and Marines — those most likely to die — are, when compared with their colleagues from other services, often the very ones still least well-equipped and trained for their very dangerous calling. Since World War II, our air and sea forces have dominated in their respective domains; ground forces have not. Put aside the humanitarian aspect for a moment and consider the national strategic consequences of this cosmic incongruity. Our enemies from Lin Piao to Ho Chi Minh to Osama bin Laden all recognize that our vulnerable strategic center of gravity is dead Americans. Thus it comes as no surprise that the common thread among all of our enemies over the past half-century has been the imperative to kill Americans not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. So why don’t we do better at lessening our strategic vulnerabilities by doing a better job of preserving the lives of those most likely to die? The answers are many and complex.
A GENERATIONAL PROBLEM
While politicians and policymakers recognize the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, they tend to turn a blind eye toward the harsh realities of close combat. Familiar Beltway concerns such as winning against big-ticket adversaries, fighting in space, defending cyberspace, controlling the global commons and the challenges of a “whole of government” approach to strategy inevitably trump the more bloody and uncomfortable aspects of “intimate killing” at the small-unit level. The lingering dissonance between the Beltway and the tactical battle has been pervasive for decades and spans every political party and administration from Truman’s to Obama’s.
Too often those who don’t know war accept the industrial age view that soldiering is inherently more dangerous than other forms of combat. Likewise, policymakers tend to slight the tactical dimension by assuming that the American people will not allow another unpopular ground war. The assumption misses the point that in today’s wars the enemy chooses the time, place, duration, intensity and the dimension in which future conflicts are to be fought.
Americans seek to solve battlefield problems with technology. Technology is a vital ingredient in achieving success at the tactical level. But dominance on the tactical battlefield is achieved more by leveraging the human, social, cultural, behavioral and cognitive sciences as well as the physical sciences. The weapons acquisition community is still optimized to develop technologically sophisticated big-ticket systems using a process that often takes decades. The innovation cycle is much shorter at the tactical level, where our enemies intend to win and, all too often, are able to adapt to changes on the tactical battlefield faster than our centrally controlled acquisition system can respond.
Defense Department scientific communities have never made small combat units a priority for research and development at the national level. There has never been an attempt to achieve a “leap-ahead” advantage on the ground such as we achieved with stealth or precision in the air. Part of this neglect is due to the fact that small combat units do not employ capital-intensive material. For the most part, their effectiveness is amplified using small-scale devices, systems and weapons that are “hung” on soldiers and their leaders. This “Christmas tree” effect too often results in a one-off, incremental approach to developing leap-ahead technologies for equipping small units.
We still view the preparation of small units for combat as an industrial age process of mass production, even though we live in an era of boutique approaches to the training, selection, bonding and acculturation of very specialized fighting forces. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars on instrumented training devices and simulators for aerial systems, yet too often small-unit leaders still must gain proficiency the old-fashioned way — in combat by shedding the blood of their soldiers.
Small-unit leaders are required to make life-and-death decisions in the heat of battle, a level of responsibility formerly reserved for officers several times their grade and experience. Yet our training and educational establishments have not been able to provide junior leaders with the intuitive, “in extremis” decision-making skills they need to prepare them for such responsibility. Our intelligence, surveillance and communications communities too often try to solve tactical problems using strategic systems and approaches. This cultural proclivity serves to inform and connect generals to their subordinates rather than provide soldiers and their leaders with the ability to maintain intimate “touch” with one another in the heat of battle and to provide them with information critical to their survival.
Senior leaders frequently excuse inadequacies at the small-unit level by proclaiming that they “give the field what it asks for.” But soldiers engaged in the day-to-day business of fighting are not always the best bellwether for determining what they need. Leaving future requirements to individual services and field commanders often results in a game of catch-up that follows rather than leads the initiatives of the enemy.
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE
Experience in today’s wars has taught the lesson that the actions of small combat units have national strategic consequences. Therefore we must focus attention on how we fight at the tactical level of war as a national, not a service-specific, task. To that end, we should begin by asking the defense secretary to recognize and proclaim publicly that dominance on the tactical battlefield is an objective of importance to the nation — and to pledge the human and fiscal resources necessary to make our military as dominant on the ground as it is today in the air, in space and on the sea. The Defense Department leadership must develop the means to add a tactical perspective to strategic policymaking such that the needs of small units are exposed and addressed by DoD budgeting and policy-making staffs.
We must challenge the research-and-development communities to focus on the task of small-unit dominance by creating a national effort to that end. Such a program would seek to meld the physical and human sciences into a holistic effort. The administration should consider creating a single DoD-level small-unit senior executive steering group charged with the development of a multiservice program of small-unit training, doctrine and materiel development. This body would be led by representatives from the Army, Marine Corps and Special Operations Command as well as representatives from combatant commands and DoD research-and-development laboratories. A national effort to achieve small-unit dominance should be expanded well beyond the Defense Department to embrace a nationwide small-unit “community of practice” that brings together the best and brightest from academia, industry, the civilian law enforcement sector as well as public and private research-and-development institutions.
During the Vietnam War, the air services learned painfully the value of simulations as a means for “steepening the learning curve” in exercises like Top Gun and Red Flag. Yet after nine years of war, no effective simulation is available to perform the same life-saving function for small units. As a first priority, the Pentagon should immediately create a national-level small combat unit simulation and gaming effort managed by the ground services but funded by a separate (and fenced) line within the Defense Department. To assure that such an effort would survive internecine budgetary battles, legislation should be enacted that would set aside a percentage of all DoD simulations funding (say 20 percent) for small units and small-unit leader simulations.
Creating very high performing small units is as much a human challenge as a technological challenge. Thus this effort would seek to prepare small units for combat in a manner analogous to the way professional sports teams are recruited, selected, trained, acculturated, bonded and remunerated. Likewise, the medical and mental health communities must be challenged to develop a strategic scheme for selecting and inoculating small-unit individuals and leaders from the stresses of close combat.
Today, the services measure and report readiness by divisions and brigades. Experience in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that such measurements are too coarse. The services must be compelled to develop a single objective standard for assessing and measuring the performance of small units and small-unit leaders with the objective of verifying that no small unit is sent into combat unprepared.
In July, I watched the Afghanistan war documentary “Restrepo” play out on the screen and compared it to my experience decades ago: same type of unit (airborne light infantry), same lousy rifle (M16/M4), same helicopter (CH-47), same machine gun (M2), same young men trying to deal with the fear of violent death. Seared in my brain is the image of a young soldier at Fire Base Restrepo hacking away at hard clay and granite trying frantically to dig a fighting position. The U.S. is spending more than $300 billion on a new fighter plane. We haven’t lost a fighter pilot to enemy action since 1972. Why after nine years of war can’t we give a close-combat soldier a better way to dig a hole? For that matter, why do soldiers exiting fire bases not have some means of looking over the next hill? Why doesn’t every soldier have his own means to talk to his comrades by radio? Why can’t soldiers on a remote fire base detect an approaching enemy using sensors? Why can’t soldiers rely on robots to carry heavy loads and accomplish particularly dangerous tasks? I could go on, but you get the point.
These challenges can be met only by demanding that our national-level policy and planning staffs look at war from the ground up rather than the top down. What’s missing is not a lack of empathy or concern but the crushing imperative for our leaders to bridge the enormous cultural gap that has existed for two generations between the political and government elite and the soldiers they send to do the dirty task of intimate killing. Closing this cultural gap will take time to be sure. But if we are involved, as the Quadrennial Defense Review says, in a long period of persistent conflict, then we have an obligation to start now to change the culture. The Army and Marine leadership have done just about all they can within the narrow confines of their budgeting and weapons-buying authorities. It’s time for the country to pay attention and act. Our close-combat soldiers and leaders deserve nothing less.''
GAndire de infanterist.Si de om care nu se culca pe lauri.O batalie care acum cateva decenii nu ar fi aparut in jurnalul de lupta al brigazii(Wanat) ii pune pe ganditorii militari sa cugete cum sa nu se mai intample .''Our close-combat soldiers and leaders deserve nothing less'' zice domn general(fost comandant USAWC).Domnilor generali si colonei romani,dupa dvs. cat ar fi ''nothing less'' pt. militarii romani?Pe cuvant ca daca as vedea un infanterist roman iesit ca din cutie nu as mai zice nimic de rau de gandirea sefilor nostri,macar o luna. E greu sa gandesti ca responsabil de logistica la o vesta care sa nu intre in gat cand purtatorul se apleaca.Care sa mai permita omului sa care pe el cata munitie are nevoie.O fi asa greu sa pui un instrument optic pe Kalash(pssst,secret-in razboiul asta vrajmasul e la distanta mai mare de 200m).Si mai pun pariu ca infanteristul nu ar folosi radioul montat in casca precum folosesc altii telefonul mobil primit de la serviciu,umpland eterul cu conversatii despre fotbal.Fiind postul Craciunului nu voi vorbi despre carnea de porc,ci despre ceva la fel de greu:matematica- 20000 USD x 2000 infanteristi=40 milioane USD,o suma pe care cred ca ne puteam permite sa o cheltuim de cand tot facem poteca spre Afganistan.Din alea 20000/om puteti lua si o spaga 4-5000 USD. Despre senzori,UAV-uri pt. tot comandantul de companie,proiectile de mortier inteligente si alte SF-uri mai vorbim cand militarul roman va putea sa puna un cadou sub brad.HAi liberare.
20.000 $ solda,sau costul unui militar ? Daca e vorba de solda,20.000$ nu prea are nici naiba... . Ex: colonel francez în A-stan,14.000 euro.Dupa care se întoarce în metropola,si trebuie sa plateasca impozit(e).
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