Army War College Publication

[Graham]

Interesting new SSI publication from the War College. It's worth the read: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=991

Even if the title doesn't spark your interest, this is good reading for enlisted men serving in the field, and for all pre Gen X officers who think they understand how things, and people, work in the business of warfighting.

 

[Switchblade]

Re: Army War College Publication

Looks good from the initial perusal of contents

 

[cavscout1983]

Re: Army War College Publication

2 of 10 factors addressed by USG...yet all 10 effect and rely on each other to remain. Startling and almost liberal point of view on that one... I'll have to read the entire thing now.

damn it.

 

[Graham]

Re: Army War College Publication

The author puts HUMINT at the center of strategy. He proposes a new way to collect and manage intelligence. And he does it by challenging the paradigm of a military limited to the role of combat and by rejecting the role of the infantryman as solely a Rifleman.

He says that that the ability to manage natural disaters like Katrina, and man-made disasters like the BP oil spill, are necessary to warfighting because such events are legitimate national security concerns.

And he concludes that warfighting is not about force on force, or even man on man, but about mind on mind.

 

[cavscout1983]

Re: Army War College Publication

Graham, roger. I understand the publication is much deeper than the first pages. This sentence just happened to jump at me in the initial skim through. <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The USG ignores 8 of the 10 threats to humanity:
(1) poverty, (2) infectious disease, (3) environmental
degradation, (4) interstate conflict, (5) civil war, (6)
genocide, (7) other atrocities, (8) proliferation, (9) ter-
rorism, and (10) transnational crime.10</div></div>

I will definitely give this a thorough read though.

 

[Graham]

Re: Army War College Publication

Bob Steele is a retired Marine infanty officer and a former Intelligence Officer. He has four years active duty and ten years experience as a clandestine case officer for the CIA. Besides that, he happens to know his stuff.

But he's also been in civilian life since the mid 90's. So, unlike Bob Baer who wrote about what is wrong with the system and why he left; or Gary Berntsen, who wrote about the few still around in 2001 who knew what they were doing, Bob Steele writes about how to fix things:

"I say, Put enough minds to work, and no threat, no policy, no challenge will withstand the collective intelligence of We.

From a HUMINT perspective, there are at least three priceless (hence, unaffordable by any one government)citizen-based contributions to national intelligence: as a source of personnel; as a source of overt observation; and as a source of clandestine and counterintelligence help. The USG has failed over time to be effective across all three of these vital domains. This is one reason I believe in universal service (and the right to bear arms) as the foundation for liberty within a republic with a sovereign people.

The near-term importance of the citizen-observer is not well-understood by leaders in government or corporations or even most nonprofit organizations in part because those leaders are 10-20 years behind in their understanding of what modern technology makes possible."

Hmmmmmm............

 

[ZLBubba]

Re: Army War College Publication

I have been reading through the SSI study and agree with many of its conclusions. The glaring problem is that the study will fall on deaf ears, both with the military community and with the intelligence community. Here's why:

1. Steele's system promotes the diffusion of authority and the empowering of the masses, an idea that starkly contrasts with the power structure entrenched in the military. In an era when you have NCOs that are often as educated as their officers, the military hierarchy will balk at allowing the further erosion of their control over troops, despite that approach's likely effectiveness in the field. This idea is already codified within FM 3-24 under the concept of the "tactical corporal", and most people patently ignore it.

2. Many within the military didn't join because they wanted to think. Most joined to serve, to fight, and to receive valuable technical skills, and there's nothing wrong with that. But Steele argues that we need to re-program the military so that "every Soldier will be a collector, consumer, producer, and provider of information and intelligence." To reach this heightened state of soldiering, we would have to recruit vastly different skill sets, and incentivize military service much more heavily to the cerebral side of our society. While I agree with Steele that a soldier's most effective weapon system is his mind, that is not a principle that will gain widespread adoption any time soon.

3. As Steele points out, the intelligence community focuses far too much on the secret, classified side of HUMINT. It's a great point, but our society glamorizes the spy or the black ops soldier so much that everyone wants to do that work, even when it's the unclassified atmospherics and human terrain that is far more important in modern warfare. If population-centric warfare is the goal, then population-centric data should be the focal point of our military and intelligence communities. It is not, as BG Flynn wrote in his study of Afghanistan in January (http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/AfghanIntel_Flynn_Jan2010_code507_voices.pdf). In short, people focus more on the chicks-dig-it factor than they do on effective information gathering. This grossly undermines our nation's ability to fight wars effectively.

Sadly, nothing is going to change. The monolithic nature of the intelligence and military communities means that any sort of change will be glacial. I've seen Steele's ideas implemented successfully downrange, but it's a rare occurrence. The real benefit of Steele's SSI paper is to the soldier or Marine serving in the field, recognizing the expansive possibilities he has to effect change in his AO. When battling insurgencies, the discerning mind is a far more effective weapon than the M4 will ever be, but only if the soldier is given the opportunity and purview to use it.

 

[Graham]

Re: Army War College Publication

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ZLBubba</div><div class="ubbcode-body">...Sadly, nothing is going to change... The real benefit of Steele's SSI paper is to the soldier or Marine serving in the field, recognizing the expansive possibilities he has to effect change in his AO.</div></div>That's it. Exactly.

No one expects that the military brass will see the light and change overnight. 'Problem is, once an idea is out there at the working level you can't call it back.

Read the SSI paper not so much as an optimist's call for change, but as an explanation of what will happen before victory is achieved.

This has happened before: General Foch was an optimist. As a leader he had charisma, but he wasn't a very good listener. "A battle won", he taught in 1897 to his students at the staff college, "is a battle in which one does not admit one is beaten".

On the eve of the German attack at Verdun information reached the War Ministry that, if attacked, the allied system of defenses at the Front would quickly fail. This information came in the form of anonymous tips from officers at the front that their commander, Joffre, wasn't listening to them about a lack of artillery. The Minister made an inquiry to his General and Joffre took action: he demanded the names of the insubordinate officers and fired them all.

The Germans attacked. The defenses quickly crumbled and one of the bloodiest battles of WWI ensued.

For four years the allies barely hung-on by throwing bodies at the problem. The war wasn't won until its leaders found a political language with which to express the obvious: that the key to victory didn't lie in equipment, or in leadership by the staff officer, it depended on officially recognizing what the average infantryman already knew.

 

[ZLBubba]

Re: Army War College Publication

I've been blessed with good officers on deployment who let me do my job. Without their trust and confidence, my team could never had pulled off some of the shit we did. Nonetheless, it's still a rare case where mutual trust exists between the FOB leaders and the field leaders. It seems like when you have officers willing to give their Joes a longer leash, someone screws up the mission and brings down hellfire on the command. Conversely, when you have really smart, capable Joes who are having success in the field, you often get micromanaged by an officer trying to etch a few more bullets on his OER. It's a rare case to find the military machine working smoothly and efficiently, but it does happen.