Expanding Staff Responsibilities for Nonlethal Targeting

by First Lieutenant Micah Hall Commanders appoint capable junior officers to their staffs to increase battlefield understanding and facilitate decisionmaking. Traditional staff functions have developed well-defined, common roles throughout the military that meet the needs of a commander during a kinetic fight. However, as units transition to nonlethal targeting and reconstruction operations, so must their staffs. This article describes the modifications our unit made to respond to the additional planning and information-gathering needs in the nonlethal operating environment. It also demonstrates how this reorganization assisted our cavalrymen in mission planning and execution in the contemporary operating environment. U. S. Army Field Manual (FM) 6-0, Mission Command: Command and Control of Army Forces, defines the staff’s general role as, “Staffs continuously provide relevant information (RI) to their respective commanders on the progress of operations. The RI helps commanders achieve situational understanding. One piece of information alone may not be significant; however, when combined with other information from the common operational picture (COP), it may allow the commander to formulate an accurate commander’s visualization and make an appropriate decision.”1 Squadrons focused on a lethal fight have a staff model that has been tested and proven through engagements over time. Commanders have coordinating staff officers in the fields of personnel management, intelligence, operations, logistics, and communications to facilitate managing units at war. These experts, augmented with a few personal staff members, offer enough assistance to the squadron commander that he can decide the next appropriate action to take on the enemy. This system works well for fighting a traditional kinetic fight; it provides the commander with the means of determining what the enemy is doing, how to defeat the enemy with fire and maneuver, and sustain his force throughout the process. While civil-military needs are acknowledged in FM 6-0, they are mainly addressed as activities necessary to enable commanders to proceed with kinetic action. The first two civil-military operation (CMO) responsibilities listed are “advising the commander on the effect of civilian populations on military operations,” and “minimizing civilian interference with operations. This includes dislocated civilian operations, curfews, and movement restrictions.”2 It is not until the fifteenth delineated responsibility that they state the civil-military officer “Provide(s) instruction to units, officials (friendly, HN [host nation] civil, or HN military), and the population on identifying, planning, and implementing programs to support civilian populations and strengthen HN internal defense and development.”3 This demonstrates that the doctrinal focus of CMO is to minimize the effects of civilians on kinetic military operations. The contemporary operating environment within our area of responsibility demanded a different approach to CMO. The advent of the Sons of Iraq program, in conjunction with the clearance of al Qaeda in Iraq, largely pacified our operating environment. Rather than seeking to minimize the effect of civilians on military operations, we focused the majority of our squadron’s efforts on establishing governance and essential services, and reducing dependence on coalition support. To accomplish these nontraditional military tasks, our squadron, along with its parent brigade, underwent significant staff reorganization to facilitate nonkinetic missions. From the brigade level down, a substantial amount of combat power was dedicated to understanding and developing the nonlethal environment in our operating environment. The brigade had a robust pool of officers and experts to accomplish this end. For starters, the brigade had an embedded provincial reconstruction team (ePRT), which consisted of the State Department, Department of Agriculture, bilingual-bicultural advisors (BBAs), and U. S. Army officers. As shown in Figure 1, the ePRT was further augmented with staff officers from the brigade troops battalion who were assigned additional duties as subject-matter experts (SME). Barring few exceptions, the brigade successfully distributed the responsibility for sub- m tar of go re po m its sta ic F tia ca th in bu pli an tea De bil U 1, sta tal i “Our operating environment was divided between the two teams, and in turn they divided up the battlespace, which accomplished a secondary SME effect whereby certain civil affairs personnel were dedicated to studying and understanding the CMO environment of a given town. This expertise was used to gain a better understanding of the operating environment and execute the projects as we took on CMO missions.” ePRT Governance ePRT Economics/Fuel Scrap Metal NBC Recon PL Electricity ePRT Vet Clinics/Trash/ Sewer

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Rule of Law BTB Commander Deputy Commander ePRT State Department Team Leader ePRT/BCT Lines of Operations ePRT Schools/Clinics/ Women’s Affairs

Team XO Economics BBA Project Management

Governance BBA ePRT State Department

Women’s Affairs

Transition/Rule Of Law Squadron Lines of Operations Economics BBA

PAO/Communication Data Consolidation

Roads/Canals/Fresh Water/Electricity jects across its assets in such away that each individual was responsible for only one topic. These SME then used their expertise to drive the targeting and intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) process at the brigade level. When compared to brigade, our squadron was at a significant personnel disadvantage. Where brigade had flexibility to singularly task individuals to become experts on particular subjects, the squadron was required to double-task modified table of organization and equipment (MTOE) positions and expand responsibilities to facilitate the IPB and targeting process. While this occasionally strained our staff members by forcing them to juggle both SME and MTOE job-related work, this multitasking was crucial to accomplishing our mission. Our squadron had direct contact with the lowest level battlespace owners and the ability to gain the best understanding of ground truth in the operating environment. A complete depiction of the demarcation of responsibilities is shown in Figure 2. Assigned areas of expertise included, but were not limited to, governance, medical, agriculture, irrigation, and women’s affairs. As soon as staff officers were assigned as SMEs, they were charged with rapidly developing an understanding of their areas of interest, which were established from information gathered by our squadron civil affairs teams and respective brigade counterparts, who had been working in our operating environment for more than 6 months prior to our assuming responsibility for the battlespace. Information gathered from this process was augmented by information gathered from our troops, as they had owned their battle space for 3 months prior to the reorganization. Once compiled, we took the raw data and produced a database that allowed each SME and the commander to understand the squadron’s position on each nonlethal area of interest. This database not only confirmed the squadron’s current status, but also mapped out the way ahead by assigning tasks for the coming week, identifying intermediate goals, and establishing desired endstates for each subject. The demarcation of tasks established in our reorganization was accomplished along several lines; some were a result of identifying underused assets and others were natural extensions of existing jobs. For example, our squadron medical officer served as the medical subject-matter expert — he was trained to manage medical personnel and had immediate access to medical professionals, which allowed him to assist in understanding and developing the medical systems in our operating environment. His experience and expertise yielded many positive results within Figure 2 “Rather than seeking to minimize the effect of civilians on military operations, we focused the majority of our squadron’s efforts on establishing governance and essential services, and reducing dependence on coalition support. To accomplish these nontraditional military tasks, our squadron, along with its parent brigade, underwent significant staff reorganization to facilitate nonkinetic missions.” g b e m re sp fr e o th p can lo m ro th b sq a bin d si ta w e o a si a “Rather than seeking to minimize the effect of civilians on military operations we focused the majority of our squadron’s efforts on estab — 37 his particular subject area; his involvement ranged from assigning medical reconnaissance objectives during our targeting process to spearheading the squadron’s effort to host both coalition and Iraqi-led combined medical exercises. Reorganizing at the squadron staff level was a function of supporting our troops. Throughout their careers, our cavalry troopers’ training focused on a kinetic fight with traditional cavalry reconnaissance objectives. Although we augmented our pre-deployment preparation with critical tasks, such as language skills, tactical-site exploitation, and negotiation skills, the long-term objectives of restoring essential services and establishing independence are well beyond the limitations of our training. Thus, our squadron staff was charged with repackaging tasks from brigade and developing squadron tasks in the terms of a cavalryman. Our research, assessments, and assigned reconnaissance objectives were simply the evolution of IPB focused on infrastructure and civil capacity building. In addition to reorganizing the responsibilities of our staff, our squadron was allocated eight civil affairs soldiers. Seven of these soldiers were organized into two teams that worked closely with the troops and frequently accompanied them on patrol, and an eighth soldier served as the squadron’s project purchasing officer (PPO) for the commander’s emergency response program (CERP) projects. Our operating environment was divided between the two teams, and in turn they divided up the battlespace, which accomplished a secondary SME effect whereby certain civil affairs personnel were dedicated to studying and understanding the CMO environment of a given town. This expertise was used to gain a better understanding of the operating environment and execute the projects as we took on CMO missions. The magnitude of the gap between familiar reconnaissance objectives and those specific to a nonlethal operating environment varied greatly between and within different subject areas. Some objectives had a strong correlation to traditional tasks; for example, a major focus of our squadron was to fix the irrigation system in our largely agrarian operating environment. After staff analysis was conducted to identify suspected blockages, cavalry troops were assigned terrain-based reconnaissance objectives to confirm or deny the presence of blockages at discrete grids. In this typical example, the staff took a nonlethal mission and reframed it as a traditional reconnaissance mission with a named area of interest (NAI) and a specific order or request (SOR) for our scouts. One significant change that resulted from this organization was that staff officers served as information collectors as they developed their own squadron-level spheres of influence. For example, our women’s affairs representative regularly attended women’s events, our medical officer inspected the local clinics, and the S9 attended many of the local council meetings. Again, using the canal blockage example, our squadron engineer regularly met with the local government representatives responsible for irrigation management to try to leverage them to clean the canals. This face-to-face interaction and firsthand experience greatly increased the SMEs’ level of understanding, allowing them to paint a clearer picture to the commander and troops. This also drove future operations and reconnaissance objectives in the physical or nonphysical domains. The staff model we created to respond to nonlethal targeting and mission planning was in keeping with the principles that staffs exist to support the commander’s decisionmaking and squadron staffs exist to support troops. The database constructed by our SMEs provided the squadron commander with a concise snapshot of where we stood, where we wanted to be, and how we intended to get there. Also, framing our tasks as traditional cavalry missions enabled our troopers to achieve success. Once our operating environment was currently secure, we understood that it could quickly change and that our troopers needed to maintain the ability to transition lethal engagements without hesitation. Bottom line: preparatory staff work supports the troops by engendering a mentality of soldiers deployed to war while simultaneously facilitating mission accomplishment. Notes 1Headquarters, Department of the Army, U. S. Army Field Manual (FM 6-0), Mission Command: Command and Control of Army Forces, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., August 2003, p. D-2. 2Ibid, p. D-20. 3Ibid, p. D-21. First Lieutenant Micah Hall is currently serving as S7/S9, 6th Squadron, 8th (6-8) Cavalry, Baghdad, Iraq. He received a B. A. from Princeton University. His military education includes Maneuver Officer Basic Course, Scout Leaders Course, Airborne School, and Ranger School. He has served in various command and staff positions, to include XO, A Troop, 6-8 Cavalry, 4th Brigade, 3d (4-3) Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT), Baghdad, Iraq, and Fort Stewart, GA; and scout platoon leader, B Troop, 6-8 Cavalry, 4-3 HBCT, Fort Stewart. O cu co er sit tio su m wh ac No 1H Ma of A ton 2I 3I Fir as Ba ton Ma Co He po 4th T “One significant change that resulted from this organization was that staff officers served as information collectors as they developed their own squadron-level spheres of influence. For example, our women’s affairs representative regularly attended women’s events, our medical officer inspected the local clinics, and the S9 attended many of the local council meetings.” 38 —