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Making Sausage
By Townie 76
The greatest problem, which the United States Army faces in completing and implementing transformation, is Branch Parochialism. I say this after having attended a Army Service Component Command redesign conference at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. To paraphrase Otto von Bismarck, “One should never watch units being redesign.” It is ugly, and brings out the worst of all concerned. The bottom line, is each Branch, particularly the Combat Support, Service Support, and functional areas want to be special. I have remarked in the past, they are so special they ought to ride in the little yellow school bus.
This leads me to some observations, which I have made over thirty years or so in the United States Army.
• While it might be nice to have a specialist, most jobs in the Army can be done by a generalists. The generalists may take a while to learn the job, but in the end he or she is likely to do a better job as since they are not confined by the narrow group think of a particular or functional component. I remember when I first came into the Army, the G1 of the Second Infantry Division in Korea, was a certified knuckle dragging, hairy legged, hard drinking, Infantryman. Guess what he did not accept the weak excuses of the Human Resource types and he made things happen for the good of the Division.
• What the hell does a Space Operations team do. When I asked the question all I got was a blow smoke up my fourth point of contact answer. When I get that type of answer my reaction is. . .we don’t need it.
• General Mattis said it best, Effect based operations is a pile of crap.
• There is a general perception that only personnel in your branch or functional area can rate individuals of that branch or functional area. This is of course naïve, and again reflects branch parochialism.
• We have a mistaken belief that more people mean more efficiency.
• The appetite for information is driving the growth of staffs. We need to ask ourselves what information do I really need to make decisions. I would submit that a Division Commander probably does not need or should not have access to what is happening in a rifle platoon or rifle squad.
• Do we really need officers to do everything in a Headquarters? I would submit no. . .as we are increasingly undercutting the authority and denying the Army the expertise they possess.
• The CSA has stated that Infantry, Armor, Field Artillery, and Engineers can command Brigade Combat Teams. To date only Infantry and Armor Officers have been selected, although two field artillery officers have been selected as alternates. I wonder whether it is really necessary at the BCT level to have only Infantry and Armor Officers. In fact, in my humble opinion, all BCT Commander’s positions should be recoded for Combat Arms Officers and can be filled by Infantry, Armor, Field Artillery, Combat Engineer, and Special Forces. I think there would great goodness in putting some Special Forces Officers in charge of BCTs. They would bring a dose of common sense to the Army.
• Last thought . . .does the Army have too much doctrine and does that make our job harder. Do we really need manuals to tell ASCC, CORPS, and Divisions how to fight! Do Major Generals and Lieutenant General’s really need a book to know their job. I would hope not! I would hope that their staff would not either!
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Comments
Townie,
Good points! A Space Support Team are just a specialized comms team. That's about the limit of their capabilities.
EBO isn't crap - the way it's been packaged by the massengales and USAF (and enshrined in their latest doctrine) is crap. EBO is basically doing whatever it takes to get the other side to do what you want it to do. Sun Tzu wrote on this. Napoleon's Maxims incorporate EBO. B.H. Liddell Hart is all about EBO.
I agree that the appetite for information is growing beyond the ability to spread that information. Staff Officers are becoming Dune-like Mentats when what we need competent staffers. I credit the Army culture of zero defects to the need for the most perfect, up-to-date, and blame-free information.
[The following gripe about the conference is not directed at you Townie ] So the Army is no longer joint? ASCC, Corps, and Divisions are no longer players in the game? Who the hell allowed GEN Casey to get involved? His friggin job is to wine and dine the Senate and House for $$$, NOT to make strategic, operational, tactical, or administrative decisions!
The reason for all the doctrinal manuals is because we have too many generalists floating around between the echelons and none of them really know just what they're supposed to do. Train a General Staff and keep them there is another solution.
My two cents...
As a retired Army CSS officer, I got tired of training "generalists" that came into my branch to command because their branch did not find them quite fit to command.
However, you never saw a specialist command one of their units. I mean using your logic, any good commander can lead any unit, especially at Brigade level and higher.
One of the reasons I retired 7+ years ago was because I was executing an order from my commander (an infantry officer in a logistics position) and he failed to support me when his boss questioned my actions.
Nothing like being thrown under the bus.
I guess things haven't changed much since I got out.
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It makes sense that we need less specialists, but not all aspects of operations can be done by generalists.
Ask an INF commander to coordinate a fire direction cell with a staff of generalist officers and he's going to have a tough time. Ask an FA officer to command a perimeter defensive position and then plan a river crossing assault, and it's going to get a bit wierd.
What we end up with then is NCO's who are trained specialists running things under the general overall guidance of a generalist commander.
Ooh... wait...
{I hope some lightbulbs just pop on}