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Some Thoughts on Force Structure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Georgia
By Charlie
Austin Bay writes that a “Peacekeeping Brigade” or “PKB” is the ideal force package to respond to a Georgia-like crisis. According to COL Bay, a PKB would be comprised of “at least two engineer battalions with attached military police, medical, Civil Affairs, signal units and lots of media connectivity. Add Special Forces with their linguistic talents and a light infantry battalion for local security. Embed non-governmental organizations with the guts to participate and promise support to NGOs who choose to operate on their own but would accept clean water and blankets”
The structure of Army brigade combat teams has been a topic of conversation among Army strategists (or those that imagine themselves strategists) since its inception. Many officers simply believe that the idea of a BCT is simply a re-hash of the regimental combat team system in WWII. Other Infantry types disparage the current BCT construct because it only contains 2 –instead of 3 –infantry battalions. BCTs claim to be “modular,” which indicates that there is a “plug and play” relationship between units. In reality, this could prove to be very difficult to anyone attempting to structure a mission-tailored force.
That being said, a “PKB” to respond to a Russian invasion of a satellite country, or a re-structured BCT to deal with a theatre-specific challenge may complicate matters, because it deprives another deploying BCT assets it needs for its mission. Re-thinking the BCT concept to allow for more modularity and force-tailoring may be necessary for the changing missions that Army will face in the future. As the Iraq combat mission draws down, force levels may remain constant, but “BCTs” may be replaced with “MTTs” or some other evolution of the “transition team” construct. This could include training teams with security, support, intel, engineer and CA elements that are included. The point is that these evolving force requirements do not match the current BCT construct –but they need to.
A new look at force structure concepts may be necessary as we move past our initial “transformation” hurdles that the military faced in 2004, but are much less relevant in 2008.
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Comments
MTT = Military Training Team.
Hot-swappable, adapative "force pacakges" of civil engineers, military police and limited MI (military intelligence) elements that help developing nation's police and armed services reach operationg capability.
75% of the focus in Iraq now is supporting, funding and equipping the MTT's...and they, in turn, funding and training the Iraqi Police and army.
The Navy and Air Force have similar but different concepts they've applied for years in Philippines, South America, Africa, and - yup - Georgia, among other places.
Placing any kind of BCT in Tbilisi right now would go a long ways toward bolstering our global personae and our image as a defender of our allies.
Sometimes the U.S. loses, but people still remember Bastogne. You just never really know how particular U.S. military unit is going to react in the face of agression, and the first thing they generally do not do is to run away.
It's not force structure that's the problem, although it could always use some tweaking.
The problem is in the mind-set of our leadership and how we develop and utilize our junior leaders.
If you're talking about conventional operations, then yes, you can break out a 7-8 and fight by the book.
Peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, SASO, MOOTW (whatever your flavor) requires a flexibility and "out of the box" thinking that simply doesn't exist in our Army.
Until that changes, we'll still do only a half-ass job in these arenas.
Joel, Is it "thinking outside the box" that we need, or is it being allowed to appropriately "act outside the box"?
What was it the Germans said about us in WWII? Something about they could never guess what we would do because we wouldn't follow our our doctrine? or something to that effect.
Follow up Iraq. As long as we follow our OOTW doctrine (or whatever they call it now) the terrorists are one step ahead. But we pull of a "surge" (change in tactics/doctrine) and suddenly we're back in the driver's seat.
I think it's both thinking and acting. One of the many impressions I took away from my deployment to Iraq was that we simply reacted to what the insurgents did, never the other way around.
Take that IED threat. The Army's solution was merely reactive... more armor... ECM... so-called "force protection measures". Never examining how IED's were planted and then disrupting that process.
Granted, this was back in 2006... and things appear (from the safety of my home here in Virginia) to be going much better in Iraq.
But, just as I scoff at the left trumpeting our casualties as a symptom of failure, so do I also scoff at the notion that we're somehow succeeding because our casualties are so much lower.
Any thoughts from the experts around here on the quality of the Russia equipment that rolled into Georgia? To me, a lifelong civilian, the stuff I saw coming off that bridge/causeway just south of the tunnel on the first day of media coverage looked pretty old and crappy. On the other hand, I saw a picture of some new-looking mobile artillery that look impressive -- lined up track to track, even in numerical order: 133, 132, and probably 131 but the last was obscured by branches.
Any thoughts from the experts around here on the quality of the Russia equipment that rolled into Georgia? To me, a lifelong civilian, the stuff I saw coming off that bridge/causeway just south of the tunnel on the first day of media coverage looked pretty old and crappy. On the other hand, I saw a picture of some new-looking mobile artillery that look impressive -- lined up track to track, even in numerical order: 133, 132, and probably 131 but the last was obscured by branches.
There's already something like a peacekeeping brigade in place with the current force structure realignment, the Maneuver Enhancement Brigade (MEB). Supposedly supposed to be heavy with engineers, MPs, etc. The elements that are suited to holding ground after a BCT has taken it.
Unfortunately, I only know of one MEB in existence, and that one only is the headquarters element. It kind of sounds like one of those ideas that is good on paper but the necessary steps needed to actually form one are just not happening.
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What are MTTs?