Move It On Over

FRAGO, ATTACK.

Task Org: No Change (TFs Arm, Armd Cav, Armd Inf) CAC (Combined Arms Center) floats new draft “keystone” manual, FM 100-5, Operations, Jan ’99, that will control Army’s slice of the nation’s destiny, and your futures, for seven years-plus. TOE/TDA forces make vigorous formal/informal attack to enhance the review process, help create world-class, winning American Army doctrine for wars, other missions in new world’s disorder. Combined arms team attacks to secure OBJ GROUNDTRUTH, vic Leavenworth, KS, injects realism, standards, values, imagination, simplicity, common understanding in doctrine. Exploits results in derivative manuals, readiness, combat operations, operations short of war. Concept is every man/woman to be a player in an expanding torrent of straight-up AARs, USRs, and electronic idea-sharing. Coord Instr: -Axis is from present position to

GROUNDTRUTH.

-Reinvent selves to lighten up, fly, and fight right. -Get/keep NCOs involved. -Mental Ventilators ON, Submissive Silence CANCELLED, Soft Sell OFF. CS/CSS SOP. Command with TF Armor. Break squelch twice to acknowledge. Life Ain’t Easy in the Armor Force Troopers in Bosnia and Kosovo are doing a helluva job. Going or staying behind ain’t easy. Those who’ve done time in Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, and other trouble spots know that. Well done! Now there’s anew mission, review and comment on draft FM 100-5, Operations. Without you, its staffing for comment could be a pro forma drift down approval lane. We can’t afford that. There’s too much at stake in the nation’s, Army’s, and your futures. It’ll be front-loaded with fancy language that rightly paints a knotty world picture for our Army’s future operations. Then it has to cut through complex ideas and people to get operationally simple. Gotta make FM 100-5:

• Lead our senior officers and NCOs to see and fix what’s broke, then keep it fixed.

• Be the baseline of the Army’s entire value system, with a clear, firm line on standards. It must establish and sustain the toughest possible ethical standards to create the interdependence, mutual trust, and confidence we need as the foundation for fighting to win. All concepts and systems, ALL, must grow from this rootstock.

• Create stable, commonsense doctrine. Doctrine sets the tone for success in mission readiness, operations, and war. All depend on relationships between people, their outfits, and systems — combat, combat support, service support — and the joint members of the team, more than fancy concepts and processes.

• Express our doctrine clearly and simply in: -Soldierly terms that allow one-word mission taskings and don’t need New Age or scientific dictionaries to decode. -Simple pictures, that show how things work and relationships between every noun, adjective, or adverb intoned as “doctrine.” -Clear, determined orientation on the future.

• Drive reinvention of the armor, cavalry, and armored infantry to include fly anywhere, fight or make peace anywhere combined arms teams, not just heavies. The Black Canyon Lots to fix. We have to start with standards, ethics, and candor. We haven’t 14 ARMOR —

Uncle Sam Wants YOU to...

(Move Over, Old Dog, ’Cause a New Dog’s Gotta Move In)* squarely faced and bridged the huge gap between what senior leaders see, are told, seem to believe, and how well our “dok-trine,” people, and systems it creates really work down where it’s dirty. Assertions of “doctrine’s” effectiveness don’t match with: uncrewed tanks and Bradleys; busted thermals; rucks already too heavy without all their ammo; or punchless light infantry. Catastrophic losses to the OPFOR at NTC are called “great leader training.” The OPFOR commander at the NTC, who has seen units continually fail, testified before Congress that our soldiers — from platoon to brigade — including commanders, their staffs, and their line units, are displaying a decreasing level of knowledge, skill, and ability to plan, prepare, conduct, and sustain combat operations. Here’s another indicator: In June ’99, scores of tanks and Bradleys were potentially deadlined by rule, worldwide. Some were critically short crew. Others couldn’t qualify the crews they had. Not all were accurately reported. In his 27 July NY Times column, Bill Safire built a shoe that exactly fits our bureaucratic feet: “We have stumbled into...no-fault government. Blamelessness is next to godliness; nobody in authority is held responsible for blunders, no matter how costly... Only institutions may be chastised in this blame-free society...not those...who make the...mistakes.” Finally, the School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) has been tasked to draft the manual. The ’93 edition of FM 100-5 totally failed the issue. SAMS’ website “vision” statement looks up, not down, and seems biased toward tutorials on the works of the regiment’s Honorary Colonel, MG Freud von Clausewitz and the 3GS (Great German General Staff). A revealing example of the effects of the 3GS attitude appeared in the June Army Magazine. Two proponents of anew bomb-shelter career management field, CMF 59, said, “It releases [selected] officers from the needless burden of becoming tactical and operational masters en route to becoming strategists.” Being All It Can Be. Many of you’ve been, or thought you were being, more than you could be for along time. A lot of you have. Our doctrine hasn’t lived up to your high standards. It hasn’t had the qualities needed to organize, equip, train, measure readiness, deploy, and sustain your operations that future missions demand — a world-class, American product. We can’t repeat these past misfires: FM 100-5-’86. So bad it was unsigned by even a file clerk. Who was responsible/accountable (R/A) to whom? FM100-5-’93. --“The global realities of today are in a period of significant change.” (p. 1-3). Hooaah! --“... Levels of war — tactical, operational, and strategic — define the entire range of military operations...” (p. 1-5). (Which is why and how we’re in Bosnia and Kosovo today.) --“Inflicting physical damage is sometimes necessary for offensive success.” (p. 7-1). Hoo! --Unsigned by any general officer, this made it official: “(S) Milton H. Hamilton, Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army.” He’s R/A? Commandant, USMC, personally endorsed his 100-5 equivalent. ’Nuff said. Don’t We Just Need Fixes And an Update? No! Revolution’s more like it. You troopers and the logisticians have been magnificent for decades. Despite the praise we’ve gratuitously heaped on us for and since Desert Storm, the performances of combat units and their combat support have often been less than best. For twenty years or more, many outfits haven’t met reasonable, ready-to-fight expectations considering the resources in men and women, materiel, bucks, and time plowed into doing the readiness job. There were conflicts and challenges — real ones — between missions, training, deployments, families, manning, money, and time to get it all done. Some actually degraded readiness. Others may have been more perceived than real. In any case, we failed to make our case in stark terms that Congress, a President, or Sec-State could understand. Whatever the cause, the effect remains. We gotta better these unmasterful results:

• In Desert Storm, the Army’s “ready” forces took six barge-months to deploy and get ready to fight, a job their last home station USR reported they were ready to do.

• CENTCOM’s recommended course of action was to punch mass/firepower up the gut against Saddam’s mass/firepower like two sumos bumping bellies. Took the Chairman of JCS, SecDef, and President turning tacticians to get an envelopment.

• “Maneuver” by history’s most mobile, lethal corps was more suited to riot control or parades than freedom of action and fast decisions by classic armor operators and operations. Saddam’s really bad guys mostly got away.

• We’re doctrining “peace,” “stability,” and “support” as we go.

• And at the NTC, the BLUFOR, with greatly upgraded systems, lost to the aging OPFOR again, and again, and again..... Ouch! The cheerleader-historians of D Storm were self-serving in praising its “success” instead of doing hard analyses, perhaps reaching unpleasant, realistic conclusions. Lack of a commonly understood, Armywide operational theme, some pedestrian concepts, verbose OPORDs/FRAGOs, and obscenely long “intent,” from platoon to Army, were symptoms. Churchill remarked that we and the British were “two peoples separated by a common language.” It’s worse. Our joint and combined arms teams were and are severed from each other by yuppie-speak, divergent concepts, divorces from reality, unfamiliar missions, branch and service parochialism, and post-grad lingo. We manufacture “fog of war” with OPORDs seemingly valued like the King of Egypt once earned his pay — body weight. The Gelding: Sophistry, Blinders, and Rationalization in “War” Nearly twenty years ago, the Army established SAMS and the National Training Center (NTC), more or less at the same time. Besides instructing students, SAMS was tasked to develop and spread “correct” doctrine throughout the Army. ’Til then, delusional readiness had limited itself mostly to “commander’s subjective upgrades” in Unit Status Reports (USR). Bad enough! But when the OPFOR was fielded at Ft. Irwin to produce the Army’s future leaders, the “doktrine,” our forces, and a well-trained OPFOR began to collide at our newest measure of readiness, the NTC. Bad results got worse fast. Without simplicity and a coherent flow or pattern of concepts and terms, commanders couldn’t understand the stuff or mentor it, and troopers couldn’t do it. In man’s toughest profession, the NTC is a ’60s-like gradeless college of doctrine and leader professionalism. None of

ARMOR — 15 you would send your sons or daughters to a school where everything and everyone passes. The Army’s unwillingness to grip, admit, and fix weaknesses about its losses there casts a haze of “How come?” questions over, around, and through the force. The winner’s circle at Ft. Irwin’s a lonely place. Not so in Loserland, where legions of brothers-in-losing, authors of failed doctrine, and some pet rock projects live happily and tiptoe up the Stairway to the Stars together, unaffected by their “combat” performances. We’re fooling ourselves and failing the troops. So, having been there, done that, with the then-bottom division on the Army’s Master Priority List, I say again: Given adequate manning, materiel, and training resources, losers at the NTC don’t have a doctrine that works, haven’t professionally prepared themselves for their leader/ mentor duties, haven’t done them, or lack personal combat skills. Why We Fail at the NTC...and Fail, and Fail In familiar maintenance terms, at the NTC we inspect, detect, but don’t correct. Here’s a simple, systemic method for analyzing NTC results (see below). INPUTs go through a PROCESS to produce an OUTPUT. If OUTPUT’s bad, INPUT, PROCESS, or both are screwed up. Let’s look, in reverse order. OUTPUTS. Scratch ’em. They’re the symptom(s), not the disease. PROCESS. Mostly a fair game. “Their ground’s” a cop out! Anywhere U. S. forces are sent is some other guy’s ground. The OPFOR were born to lose! Make ’em! INPUT. Manning’s a wash if OPFOR’s scaled to BLU strength. Cohesion only favors OPFOR if BLU isn’t smart enough to create it by regimentalizing. BLU has enjoyed a huge systems/logistics advantage for a decade — the world’s best gear by battle test. OPTEMPO has doubtless affected some outcomes since Bosnia, now Kosovo. Despite those caveats, the long-term inputs that have produced bum performance are bad: doctrine; leadership; mentoring; and training. Deficiencies in leadership, mentoring, and training are measures of the effectiveness of doctrine, its effect on leadership, and how well leaders can understand and use it. Translation: The doctrine’s bad, is misunderstood by leaders, isn’t trained or mentored well. OUR DOCTRINE NEEDS

FIXING!

Doctrine’s About People The Army’s prioritized, mission-oriented doctrine must be as much or more about people than abstract theories or machines of war. Doctrine enables our soldiers of all ranks to do their jobs. It must create the knowledges, comprehension, relationships, self-discipline, and tools for people to perform under inhuman stress. Its purpose is for our Army to WIN, enabling our country to impose its will on an enemy or accomplish other missions as needed. Doctrine must serve our open society. Our citizens deserve their birthright from us — truthful information, served up as fast and straight as we can consistent with the mission and welfare of our soldiers. Public knowledge and understanding are the stuff of national goals, will, and support of our people in a fight. It’ll get distorted by press, prejudices, and the immediacy of modern commo. Comes with the territory. Expect and respect it for what it is. Be ready for it; don’t fear it. Finally, ethics must consciously permeate the structure of our doctrinal readiness and operational concepts. There’s no room for less than perpetual, brutal honesty if we are to retain the trust of soldiers, the Congress, the public — AND

WIN!

Doctrine’san Anthem for Winners The doctrine for winning now, in the near future, and over a more distant horizon should be no less vibrant than the nation it serves. FM 100-5 must inform, guide, and inspire the American Army, not merely instruct it with precise, fune-

ARMOR — A Systemic Method for NTC Performance Analysis

Manpower Materiel Logistics Doctrine Leadership Training Mentoring Force on Force

Scenario Live Fire Instrumentation Winning Losing Closed-loop Feedback (AARs) Take-Homes real enthusiasm. It must convey the tone and tint of America’s free-wheeling, optimistic outlook toward challenges and the urgency of an impatient, fast-moving young nation. It should reflect our country’s distinctive personality and character — going for the carotid artery and winning economically with integrity, confidence, speed, economy, panache, and concern for the human aspects of the outcome. Doctrine, Move It On Over FM 100-5’s development has got to be right, even historic, in the completeness and integrity of its method and results. We have to move its intent and content, if not title, over from mere “Operations” to “Winning Operations.” It must become America’s doctrine for America’s Army, reflect our national experience — and WIN. No exceptions, no exemptions! Its millenial edition needs to reach for the highest attainable goals to correct existing deficiencies and positively drive the future. It must reflect the best minds of the past, present, and estimated future, as well as our own historic best performances. To do so, we must exploit the individual and collective strengths of our people, strengthen weaknesses, and use individual and group characteristics to educate and train soldiers on how to think, organize, decide, and operate — FAST. Special emphasis is needed on the unique nature of our soldiery and the socio-economic system from which they come. To get doctrine we all understand and that works, we need to make Candor Street an unjammable two-way, not one-way thoroughfare, and sign up for our responsibility and accountability up front. It’s critical that the authors and CAC listen to the men and women in the field, not just the top of our pyramid. In draft and final form, FM 100-5 will form the molds for the Army’s entire suite of manuals, from platoon to corps — combat, combat support, and service support. It’ll also set the tone for our future in schools, centers, personnel, training, intelligence, operations, equipment, and logistics. Its authors will try to blend their understandings of theory, history, and threat estimates into a single foundation for everything the Army does. Others at each echelon will interpret what they think 100-5 means and add their parallel, often obfuscating pile. Above and beyond all other standards, the doctrine must be clear and simple! CAC’s Plan for FM 100-5 The Army’s doctrine for an unstable world is a national challenge, not a parochial one. It mandates participation by the best and the brightest of the country, in and out of service. CAC’s plan modestly revises past hierarchal methods, but won’t yank our doctrine into Century 21. Its planned paper and electronic debate is new. Battalions through/above corps and active duty men, women, and DA civilians from schools/centers, combat training centers will be included. There will apparently also be unnamed, invited participants, including some general officers. The rest of the interested universe seem uninvited, leaving the process narrow and concealed from really tough review. A Doctrinal Methodology We’ve already said that doctrine largely determines the effectiveness of leadership, training, and mentoring and is the major uncritiqued, unrepaired variable in the NTC equation. Let’s compare CAC’s plan for FM 100-5 with a method for doctrinal development using the same general scheme we did to analyze NTC outcomes (see below). Input: Get the Best People They say that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client. The country’s entered anew strategic and operational world with missions of greater diversity, sensitivity, danger, simultaneity, and force-wide exhausting stress than it’s ever seen. As the major ground force component of national military power, it’sour job to win anywhere, any time, with both the operational concepts and tools of our profession. Doctrine for 2000 and beyond isn’t just an “insider” issue. We need the depth and

National Estimate Philosophy History, in context American Experience Best People Users Measured Fighting Results Futures Seminars (Boards) Authoring Distributive Reviewing Simulations Deciding Differences Final Copy Missions FM 100-5-2001 Winning Operations Doctrine Sub-unit FMs Organizing, Equipping, Manning, Training Futures A Systemic Method for Developing FM 100-5

ARMOR — 17 breadth of every knowledgeable person in the Army’s discourse on FM 100-5. That’s where and why we need you — and many others! All of the best of the universe of minds in either the Army or the nation have not been invited to the doctrine party. They must be, over the year scheduled for review! Convergent and divergent views and outright challenges are needed to make the new doctrine the “best” way to win decisively at least cost to our nation in your blood and its other resources. Every element in the academic community and echelon in the force should be plumbed for its contribution, vertically and horizontally linked into teleconfer-enced boards and seminars. The electronic media provide an unparalleled opportunity to expand the process in both dimensions. The doctrine must be free of careerism, ego contamination, and detached academic righteousness. Authors and participants must reach out for simple solutions to probable future challenges with the humility that dealing with the lives of American men and women deserves. Input: Mind Your Own Business Winning’s everybody’s business! You mortals must have freedom to contribute with proven, compelling recommendations. The new FM 100-5 will be our Army’s “keystone,” nearly Gospel. You and your soldiers will win, lose, live, die, or accomplish other missions by it. With layers of filters from battalion through corps, CAC’s work has to be a disciplined landmark of clear, clean concepts that evolve easily through multiple layers into doctrine every trooper of every branch in the Army understands at their level. After Army-wide staffing and approval, it’s locked for seven years. That you doers understand the doctrine is critical. It’s time for the flagpole to salute you, not your time to salute the flagpole again, or be politically correct. Stars to chevrons and back up, Armor soldiers need to make FM 100-5 and all derivative manuals clear, simple sets of combined arms operational concepts that accomplish missions fast, with freedom of action down to the lowest competent level — the “Strategic” Sergeant or 2LT. Remember that what doctrine says and how it’s understood is what puts yours and your troopers’ buns on its bottom line. The fact that FM 100-5 is high-level stuff must not keep folks from taking part or sinking simplicity in a sea of “not your business — above your grade level.” Input: Move Over, Old Dogs Our doctrine’s content and tone needs dramatic change. Its stilted language and stiff context increase risks of continued failures in comprehension and communications. Our roots lie in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, but we’re treating ourselves as a colony, not a dynamic nation-state. Adopting and exploiting the good ideas of others is smart. Over time, we’ve adopted: Frederick’s drills and disciplines; English law and language; Napoleon’s organizational concepts; Clausewitz’s principles; and French staff organization, among others. We’ve tended toward Clausewitz’s massed firepower and troops as the determinants of battles and war. Since Vietnam, we’ve added baggage — carryover paranoia from public criticism; German terms; and Soviet small unit organizations. In the early ’80s, our doctrine emerged as distinctly Euro-continental, in language that had the stilted properties of translations. The effort failed completely to create common understanding, simplicity, freedom of action, initiative, and execution that are essential to successful American operations. Let’shit the turret blower and ventilate the Army’s “clauset.” The indexes of a shelf-full of books by some pretty good guys reinforce the remarks of historians Rothfels and Paret about Clausewitz. His name is not referenced as an influence on the operational concepts, decisions, or conduct of operations in memoirs by Guderian, Rommel, Patton, Manstein, von Mellinthin, MacArthur, Churchill, Stilwell, Bradley, Eisenhower, or Zhukov. Hitler, yes. Message? You bet! Clausewitz isn’t bad, we are! Army-wide, he has Nostradamus-quality interpreters. Today’s doctrinal team must have the historical, experiential, and attitudinal base and authority to challenge the “old masters” dogma, update or modify it in our language — or, unapologetically trash it if right to do so. We must challenge old assertions by hard-nosed academic, intellectual, and practical examinations (simulations, field, NTC, combat, other experiences). Writers must put their thoughts in the framework of American life and soldiery, especially the psycho-socioeconomic parts of the equation. There should be no assumptions of the “rightness” of anything. The product must be uniquely American, built to last, yet flexible enough to lead change before it’s forced on us by the successors of Mao, Castro, Ho, and the former Soviet Union. It should underwrite dash, flair, and carefully reasoned risk. Input: Lost American Transitions The fast-paced evolution of today’sand likely future geopolitics and threats demand high readiness, sound concepts, and fast, measured but decisive, farsighted actions by all of our armed forces. We’ve lost our own heading in the maze of fighting a war our soldiers didn’t lose, orienting on the Warsaw Pact, resurrecting 18th century European history, bloodying (but not beating) Saddam, and making peace between ancient enemies. Many military scholars and theorists have downplayed the contribution of Americans to military art and civic action. The tendency has been magnified to damaging proportions by recent revisionism. Writers are often unhappy, even contemptuous, because they find few profound American writings as quotable “authority” crutches for their often-lame ideas. Many dismiss the notion that Americans have contributed significantly to the body of professional thought because they’d have to work to find where we’ve been, and ought to be going. Articles, books, and our FMs seldom get beyond convenient quotes from the Roots of Strategy volumes, or Pattonisms. We’ve abjectly failed to capture the dynamics of American political, industrial, and military heritage and imbed them in our doctrine. We must! It needs afresh effort — and time. Nations expend their intellectual capital on what’s important to them. In the lifetimes of some of the “greats,” unsophisticated land, sea, and political power were the military universe — hence the narrow context of their studies, analyses, and philosophizing. And they had time and patronage by monarchs and rich guys. We’ve been graced as a developing nation by being “protected” by two oceans and unthreatening neighbors. But WWII forced us to think globally; sea power, air power, and thermonuclear weapons became our dominant concerns. We focused minds on what counted — use of new strategic tools to extend national power beyond our boundaries in the interests of our own and international security.

ARMOR —

As an Army today, we perform within a distinctly American-created concept. For general war, our concept employs a strategic troika of land, sea, and air power and a triad of thermonuclear weapons. Navy implementation of selected Mahan theories gives us the freedom to deploy safely (although damned slowly) by sea anywhere in the world. The USAF, Bernard Brodie, Herman Kahn, the young Henry Kissinger, et al., and a coterie from think tanks, academia, and foreign affairs extended Mitchell’sand Seversky’s thoughts into what is now an air-thermonuclear team. It created concepts which used the Army’s ground containment of the Pact, Navy’s control of the seas, and our dominance of tactical and strategic aerospace power, to win WWIII bloodlessly. “Winning” the Cold War deserves our huge tribute to all of these American military theorists. While we Army-ites focused on the “big war,” we failed to project our probable future — lesser wars and “peace.” A sound-thinking, committed minority of vocal “lighten up” critics of our strategic deployability and tactics were wrongly categorized as pests and ignored. The longer term has proved them right, and the majority strategically wrong! When we needed futuristic projection, then creation of an integrated body of new thought, we got studies of the obvious, splendidly isolated from reality, with events interpreted to fit someone’s comforting preconceptions. Copy-catting aging theorists and fast-fading heavy armor doctrine were non-starters. We’re left with a gross deficiency in well thought-out, deployable, strategically and operationally sustainable ground force capabilities and concepts. Input. The Dogfaced American Soldier Quotient Rightly led, equipped, trained, fought, or otherwise employed, Americans are unmatched as professional or conscripted soldiers. You are the products of a politico-socioeconomic system unforeseen by man four centuries ago. Flawed as many of our structures and systems may be, no other citizen or immigrant of a modern industrial society has the rights, freedoms, benefits, and economic advantages shared by you and your countrymen. Our new soldier is, on average, the most well-paid, informed, educated, independent, media-blitzed, technically hip, self-reliant trooper on the globe. These soldiers properly demand an answer to their birthright’s incessant question: “Why?” They are absent some skills that were once national strengths. Oddly, they remain as false underlying assumptions in some training — stress resistance, hazard exposure, and land, mechanical, and shooting skills. Motivation may also differ from assumptions, with an increased “job vs. career” psychology needing modified leadership approaches. By nature, our soldier is inquisitive, initiative-taking, independent, skeptical, but not naturally obedient or patient. Our doctrinal, educational, and training guidance must be conceived and written to identify and sustain strengths and shore up weaknesses while ruthlessly rooting out self-defeating methods or content that limit the soldiers’ native initiative, independence, and self-reliance. Doctrine must not be fixed on a single personnel acquisition strategy or training model. Politics, economics, and strategy will govern the composition of the Army. Doctrine must recognize that different considerations apply to volunteer and mixed volunteer/conscript armies. Each demands a tailored leadership style and training approach. The only generality that applies is that America’s men and women are best led by persuasion and example. Our Army has no place for authoritarianism or personal philosophies imposed on groups larger than one. Mobilization concepts, still a post-WWII/ Korea hangover in training, schools, and centers, don’t fit our general needs. Tailored training does — shaped to the individual or group, and using peers extensively to jump-start leader development. Input. Americanizing the FrancoAmerikanischerGuardsArmee American operations have historically exhibited many characteristics other than “attrition warfare” that are essential to a vibrant, winning, future Army. Some were written and unwritten hallmarks that got lost in our fascination with “big shows,” or lost in the files, and deserve rediscovery and codification as part of doctrine. While often of small scale, hence of little interest to “grand scale” theorists, many past American battles and campaigns deserve more serious study and to be embedded in our “way of war.” They often demonstrate patterns of behavior and performance that should be extrapolated to higher levels to capture inherent abilities of our people and our technology and to demonstrate how, not what, to think while countering weaknesses. Problem is you have to dig ’em out, plant them in memory, never forget what’s right. Here are a few examples of lessons we never should have forgotten, and that have us struggling today: Strategic Mobility. Past lessons and the future were and are clear. Doctrine’s ignored both, seldom considering capabilities/limitations of air/sealift as a realistic part of our core organizational and systems design criterion. The Army’s the “differently mobiled” child of global Joint strategy. We fit almost nothing but low/slow, except with airborne. Airframes and ship design will always reflect commercial needs. We need to design us toward that reality, not the wish lists of inflexible tankers, artillerymen, and logisticians. Weapons systems, fuel, and munitions need huge reductions from technology. Operational Mobility. Our virtual birthright is grossly neglected. From the great Khan to Napoleon to native Americans to the cavalry that won the West, to Vietnam and beyond, speed and mobility have often proven decisive factors in war. Fuel and ammunition have become our sea anchors. Doctrine must grasp their importance to present day operations, drive for solutions. When mobility, firepower, fuel, and convenience conflict, mobility should normally govern. Combined Arms. The need for protected, highly mobile combined arms teams is profusely recorded, should need no repetition. We must blow fresh air through our collective mental catacombs, lighten up, and fly to and fight in right places — like anywhere. From the top down, we need understanding and candor among and between all branches (combined arms) and a crusader’s will to do the right things. Cavalry. Cavalry, in its classic roles, is KBN (Killed by Neglect), dead! Our potentially most flexible arm have forgotten their historic missions, the kinds of forces needed to do those critical jobs. The legacies of American cavalry, from the Revolution through WWII and Vietnam, need revival, as do those of the British Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), Soviet and German recon. Assumption of some classic cavalry missions by Special Operations Forces in D Storm is a travesty born of deserted or forgotten history.

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Despite superb performance, 73 Easting was never where or how a cavalry troop, squadron, or regiment should have been, except in an economy of force role. Light Infantry. American battlefields from Manassas to Vietnam have been strewn with gear senior officers thought essential, the infantryman, excess. Rommel complained of inhuman loads that reduced the mobility of infantrymen in Infanterie Greift An, his experiences in WWI. The load he complained about was 85 lbs. Today’s is 85 lbs. In 70 years, we’ve solved little with technology, left infantry overburdened, hence under-mobile, badly under-weaponed. Artillery. History’s clear. The pattern for employment of artillery was/is/should remain highly mobile units, whether in area or precision fire missions. Artillerymen allowed NBC and firebases to turn them into what they never should have been, stationary precision systems. Taylor’s Washington’s Artillery in Mexico, Pelham in the Civil War, traveling guns of WWII armored units, 5 Mech’s “Sturmartillerie” at NTC, arty performance in D Storm are right. A trend toward “firebasitis” in the linkage of “certain knowledge” platforms with “precision” munitions is already visible. Resourcefulness. Conversion of the M113 to ACAV in Vietnam, and its employment, was a superb example of resourcefulness and courage in the face of a deficiency in operational capability that shouldn’t have existed. Long a strength of our soldiers. HUMINT. People intelligence (HUMINT) remains a huge weakness. Critical to both war and peacekeeping, it’s submerged in a sea of gadgetry and special interests. Army doctrine, in particular, must drop the technical hype, demand both technical performance and restoration of national and service HUMINT capabilities at low levels. Intel (as distinguished from data) must get to divisions/regiments/brigades FAST! Contemporary Civil Sector. Industry’s recently relearned the lesson we need to: PRODUCT, not PROCESS, determines your bottom line. Brutal downsizing can improve efficiency, productivity, and results. We need to take that lesson to heart, including slashing the heads off the hydra-headed headquarters monsters our doctrine/organizations/ training created. Other Examples -Advanced Guard 1675-6. Benj. Church, leading colonial and Indian forces, used the advanced guard formation to counter Indian ambushes in King Philip’s War. Its organization was by name and function virtually the same as today’s. -FOCUS, deception, maneuver. Grant was complex at Vicksburg. His diversion with Grierson and turn of the fortification were masterpieces. Related operations exemplified FOCUS. -Mobility, Flexibility, Initiative, Deception, Security, Speed, Objective, EnInfo. Grierson’s Raid embodies more American characteristics in a single operation than perhaps any but Jackson’s Valley, Crook vs the Apaches, Nez Perce/Looking Glass against us. Popularized by J. Wayne’s “Horse Soldiers,” it was an extraordinary piece of work by any standard. Fact that Grierson was a militarily untrained musician by trade should send human factors/sociological people scrambling to research intuitive leaders, including Native Americans. Rommel copied Crazy Horse as a master deceiver. -The Sioux, Apaches, Utes, and Nez Perce knew terrain, ambush, winning outnumbered. Question. Must we relearn old worldwide lessons the hard way? We’ve been through all of this before. Output Draft and final FM 100-5, Winning Doctrine’s process and content must do the things below. Some are self-explanatory, others detailed here, some others in “Destiny” (Mar-Apr 1999 ARMOR). Elegant simplicity, candor, integrity, plain talk, and Jointness are the “dome” (cover) for everything. Include a straight-up, apolitical forwarding letter co-signed by CSA/SMA saying what’s right/wrong and how this doctrine will sustain the good, fix the bad. Include in final pub. State the foreseeable, realistic, probabilistic strategic environment, threat, and missions. Summarize up front the current American attitude toward war. No one capsu-lized it better than R. E. Lee/Ike (“It is well that war is so terrible...”/“No one hates war more than the soldier...”.) State up front (Chap. 1) strengths and weaknesses of U. S. forces that affect their readiness and use in pursuit of national objectives in the stated strategic environment. Describe the atmosphere and relationships (culture?) needed to do the job. Make competence, mutual trust, initiative, confidence, ruthless honesty, absolute reliability, decisiveness, integrity, etc. structural, not adjectival or adverbial cosmetics. Include human factors: Strengths and weaknesses of the American soldier; systemic integrity; “digitization” impact on human interactions; how this doctrine will exploit strengths, compensate for weaknesses. Give American military history and thought their places in our doctrinal sun as patterns or suites of things Americans do well, not as mere italicized “historical examples.” There’s a corresponding set of things we don’t do well, like anything needing patience at any level. Get ’em in the open. Reconfirm old dogs, move ’em out or modernize them. Get straight/candid about acquisition/ information systems’ operational weaknesses. Include as a minimum: Operational fragility; probability; human factors, including invasiveness; horizontal interference; second-guessing; immediacy shock (panic). Imbed systemic integrity so that no soldier of any grade will have to choose between “telling like it is” and looking good. Doing the former IS the latter. Emphasize corrective actions in readiness-related systems and operational control measures. Create a flowing context for principles of operations and their offensive, defensive, other uses. Push trust, initiative, freedom of action and decision-making down to the lowest competent level. We’ve had plenty of “Strategic” Sergeants (Philbrick) and “LT James’.” Empower them! Prescribe competencies, minimized operational control measures, and systems that will create and sustain combat-essential relationships. Regimentaliza-tion’s overdue. Do it! Prescribe “administrate in peace as we do in war” rules to be changed only with approval of the VCSA or a MACOM. Give flowing, clear descriptions of how to fight and win with what we have now.

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Clarify FM 100-5-93’s distortion of Battlefield Operating Systems. We emphatically didn’t design them for use in decision checklists/matrices/lines! Embrace jointness at every level. Kill failed and nonmilitary terms: “synchronization,” “synergy,” “real time,” and “end state.” Describe what’s needed to fight/win in the probable foreseeable future. Define drivers that will push R&D and operational experimentation into producing the tools of future victory. Focus on threats. The Capitol Staircase Besides being winning stuff for soldiers and outfits, our new doctrine has a special need to enable the Army to sing hit songs to DoD, JCS, Congress, the President, and the American people on manning and budgets. We’re on an obvious collision course for our most difficult funding decade in a half century. There are discomfit-ing parallels with the ’50s, when the Strategic Air Command, the nuclear Navy, think tanks, and congressmen had us on the ropes in manpower, budget, and R&D. We nearly surrendered the ring with dumb decisions on organizations, tactics, and nuclear weapons. Our recovery owes more thanks to a cranky Warsaw Pact than our own initiatives. Now we’re again in a fight-for-life with the USAF, USN, and USMC for battle and budget parity. To start winning, America’s ground forces doctrine must:

• Fix deficiencies in mission performance with what we have now — national/ joint training centers, and strategic deployability inclusive — and prove it in the halls of the mighty.

• Get everyone involved, including critics and dissenters. Create a harmonious team in and out of uniform, without a knee-jerk compliance mentality.

• Articulate future operational needs to cure performance, deployability, mission and other shortfalls. Doctrine must support our operating and R&D budget cases at the JCS and Congress compellingly. Fixing What We Can: Where Do You Fit? There are plenty of tasks. Of them, making candor the common bond, getting the basics into a context of “how to fight,” Americanizing the doctrine, and making all of you players in distributive reviewing are the tough nuts. Rationalizing the principles and other guides was much of what “Destiny,” in the March-April ARMOR was about. It’s omitted here. Here are things members of the force can and should do: Get ready to take part in the process — know where it’s been, is, is going, is coming from. Try your chain of command first. Ideally, each Bde and TF commander in the Army will form doctrinal teams that include company and platoon officers and NCOs, as well members of the battalion “slice” of CS/CSS. Identify and establish email commo with proponent authors at schools/centers at the counterpart level. Set up networks with your buddies in other branches. Use the networks to gain some unity in what LTs, CPTs and NCOs are putting into battalion/TF forums — free exchange. Make the Army’s noncommissioned officers a central part of the process. Two avenues for them; co-authorship with commanders at each echelon; use of the NCO/NCOES channels, including students. Put it all, even high-level stuff, in common language and relationship diagrams that captains and sergeants can understand. Don’t approach participation with an “over to you” or “I told ’em so” attitude. Offer to help with authorship if sharing the workload will help get the job done. Fixing What We Can It’s time to use the Internet to give voice and power to the combined arms team. That means that commanders and their noncommissioned counterparts of all branches and echelons, up, down and across the Army, need to get together electronically to sock a little “horizontal integration” to the vertical hierarchy — Armor to Infantry to Artillery to Engineers to service supporters as well as each other — you get the picture. If done right, the internet gives men of Armor and Cavalry an unprecedented chance to take part in controlling their own futures and those of other members of the combined arms team. As each echelon of manual development takes place, from CAC’s FM down through platoon manuals, from crew/squad/section up through regiment, corps, and army, sergeants can and must be contributors to future doctrine. Doing so will mean a high degree of organization, preparation, and some sacrifice of personal time, but it’s a must-do job. Try these: TRADOC: Publish the doctrinal network (or review) schedule, websites, and POCs at each school/center from corps down through platoon-level, Army-wide. MACOMs: Supportive overwatch. Corps/Divisions: Establish doctrinal teams at MSC, TF levels, and empower each to communicate with corresponding websites direct. TFs/Bns: Establish/sustain doctrinal Officer/NCO TF, Tm, Plt officer/NCO teams. Submit inputs to branch material POCs designated by TRADOC. All: Establish lateral counterpart chat lines on official/personal PCs as required/desired. Stick to issues, not gripes. Demand fixes for the present, definition of a clear future. Editors, professional journals gear magazine issues to the field manual network (review) schedule at each echelon, soliciting reader input, furnishing results to TRADOC POCs. Encourage out-ofthe-box ideas. Pending publication of an aggressive, HARMONIZED, systemic review organization and process for the “new” doctrine, the force as a whole might suggest hiring Messrs. Ambrose and Clancy to do the job fast.

GOOD HUNTING!

Notes * With apologies to H. Williams

BG John Kirk says he spent 24 of 27 years “happily undiversified” in command, operations, and training. Seven consecutive years of “grime time” as 1AD G3, brigade commander, and chief of staff and 5th Mech ADC (M) preceded terminal posting as Director of Training, ODCSOPS, DA before his retirement in 1983. He is the author of “Controlling Armor’s Destiny,” which appeared in the March-April 1999 ARMOR. His email address is: jmkirk@wolfenet.com

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Director of the School of Advanced Military Studies Responds to “Move It On Over”

The 2000 edition of Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, establishes the Army’s keystone doctrine for full-spectrum operations. Full-spectrum operations are the range of operations Army forces conduct as part of joint, multinational, and interagency organizations in war and military operations other than war (MOOTW). Within full-spectrum operations, FM 100-5 recognizes warfighting as the primary focus and most dangerous undertaking of Army forces. FM 100-5 expresses the Army’s understanding of the contemporary operations environment. It addresses warfighting and the range of operations, both violent and nonviolent, that Army forces will execute in the foreseeable future. It confirms that the nation will continue to call on Army forces to conduct a wide range of operations simultaneously with or beyond the scope of major theater war. It establishes a comprehensive doctrine to be carried out by today’s soldiers and leaders with the equipment that is currently or will soon be present in Army units. It reflects the lessons of post-Cold War experience, assessments of technological advancements, validated concepts of Army experimentation, and an appreciation for proven fundamentals and principles. The manual embraces a wide audience — active and reserve components. From battalion through corps to echelons above corps, officers and senior noncommissioned officers must internalize the doctrine and measure it against their own experiences. They must take it apart, figure out what makes it work, and use it. If this doctrine is to be useful, it must be second nature. Full-spectrum operations — especially war — are a tough, complicated business. They demand thought, boldness, creativity, and initiative. They demand discipline and iron will. They require educated judgment and professional competence. Developing these traits begins with each of us being part of the manual development process. It continues as we work to master the fundamental doctrine found within FM 100-5. Within TRADOC, the School of Advanced Military Studies is the Combined Arms Center (CAC) Commanding General’s proponent for the manual. Because of the significance that FM 100-5 holds for the Army, do not think for one minute that SAMS and CAC are the content and final approval authorities of the manual. Rule Number 1 in the doctrine writing business is that to be doctrine, a manual has to be universally understood, accepted, and applied. Rules 2 through … read “see Rule Number 1.” The Army’s chain of command will not permit the manual to see the light of day unless it fulfills Rule 1 and provides the necessary direction to enable Army forces to dominate any enemy, any situation, anywhere. In the preceding article, General Kirk described a systemic method for developing FM 100-5. It is comprehensive with far-ranging inputs and focused outputs. The model is very similar to, if not exactly like, the model currently in use within the Army to develop this edition of the manual. (See figure below.) The process of writing the next edition began in late-1995 and, to date, has produced an initial draft and a coordinating draft. Inputs include the analysis of Army operational experiences in full-spectrum operations, the impacts of ever-increasing 22 ARMOR — information, C2, and weapons technologies on the conduct of operations, the definition of multi-dimensional threats, the contemporary National Military Strategy, and the authoritative direction of a constantly expanding body of joint doctrine. Both drafts received wide audiences within and external to the Army. As a result of comments received from the field on the June 1998 coordinating draft, we developed, and the CG TRADOC approved, a writing strategy that continued the writing effort with the preparation and debate of a series of concept papers. The concept papers tackled several tough issues that surfaced as friction points during review of the manual drafts and several seminars. The field made their voices heard, and we got to work setting the stage for Army-wide discussion and debate on several tough questions. Concept paper topics included the need for a comprehensive, full-spectrum doctrine, the integration of Army and Joint doctrinal concepts, the operational framework, and the relationships between Army operations, training, and leadership doctrines. We distributed the concept papers hardcopy to an audience of over 170 recipients, including every one of our operational and tactical headquarters to division level. In some, if not all, divisions, the papers were distributed to the brigades and battalions. Distribution also included the proponent schools and centers, the Army Staff, many joint headquarters and doctrine centers, and select defense industries. In addition, we placed the papers on a FM 100-5 website for access by any interested party within DoD. Debate of the concept papers has been comprehensive and insightful. It reflects abroad range of Army experience — Korea, Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Kuwait, Kosovo and others, and fulfills several purposes:

• It seeks inputs from the entire Army and leverages the total of Army experiences to inform the writing effort.

• It clarifies doctrinal concepts and provides data points to decide final direction.

• It works to gain consensus on manual content — remember Rule Number 1.

• It enables consistency with joint doctrine and facilitates parallel development of supporting Army doctrine.

• It keeps the writing effort honest by demanding clear and concise expression. Armed with many inputs and viewpoints, we are currently drafting the chapters for the final draft. As we draft each chapter, we conduct an internal review within the Command and General Staff College, particularly with the Corps and Division Doctrine Directorate. Once satisfied with content, we then post the chapters on the Internet for virtual collaboration with a circle of subject matter experts within TRADOC, including the Armor Center. When we complete these steps, CAC will then host seminars with broad representation to dissect every word, every concept, and every thread of continuity chapter by chapter. By the time you read this, you may be able to view the first several chapters on the FM 100-5 website. If not, it is only because we have yet to post them. After your review, enter the debate — the writing team is only a DSN phone call or email note away. When the debate is finished and the manual is published — read it, digest it, and implement it. Yes, we limit access to the website. We do so because we did not want the likes of NorthKorea.com or Hussein@iraq. despot to have immediate access to emerging Army doctrine. Currently, you can read and comment on the concept papers (manual chapters shortly). Call the writing team at DSN 585-3452, and we will provide you a password. One caution — if you read the papers, do not expect to read draft doctrine. You will be reading an essay designed to provoke informed discussion. Read the content, understand the context, draw your conclusions, and state you views. Several final points on FM 100-5:

• Focuses on warfighting with emphasis on offensive action to gain the initiative, maintain momentum, and exploit success.

• Reinforces the warrior ethos of the American soldier. At its core, the warrior ethos grounds itself on the refusal to accept failure. It is about selflessly persevering under the worst of conditions, to fight through those conditions to victory in any environment no matter how long it takes, no matter how much effort is required.

• Is proactive, not passive. It recognizes that the simultaneous actions of Army forces throughout the area of operations coupled with the interdependent capabilities of joint, multinational, and interagency organizations produce complementary and reinforcing effects that decisively break an enemy’s will to resist.

• Is full spectrum — offense, defense, stability, and support. It recognizes that the ability of Army forces to dominate stability and support operations rests with their ability and credibility to take the fight to the enemy and dominate anyone, anywhere.

• Is fully integrated with joint doctrine.

• Retains time-tested and accepted constructs. This is the first time in recent FM 100-5 history that the manual will be published with several very close companions that detail the “how to” of Army operations. These manuals include: FM 100-7, Decisive Force: The Army in Theater Operations; FM 100-10, Combat Service Support; FM 100-20, Stability and Support Operations; and FM 100-40, Tactics. At the company, battalion, and brigade levels, FMs 71-1, 71-2, and 71-3 will be nested with FMs 100-5, 100-20, and 100-

40. All of these manuals deserve your attention and require your participation in development. Our soldiers require and deserve the best doctrine of any force in the world. The ongoing FM 100-5 process within the Army has this requirement as its singular, focused aim. Everyone involved brings his or her unique insights, talents, and experiences to bear. We want and need all of you to take part in this important task — not only as it relates to FM 100-5 but to the many complementary doctrinal manuals as well. If you remain in the stands and not in the game, you are missing a great opportunity. The FM 100-5 Writing Team stands ready to receive your comments and help. Send written and electronic correspondence to the following addresses: Regular Mail: Commandant

Gibbon Avenue Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027 Email: fm1005@leav-emh1.army.mil Phone:

Colonel Robin Swan is the Director of the School of Advanced Military Studies. He is a graduate of CGSOC and SAMS, and was an Army Fellow at the JFK School of Government, Harvard University. He has served in a variety of command and staff positions in both the United States and Germany including 24ID, 2AD (FWD), 2AD, 5ID, 3ID, and 1ID. He commanded TF 1-26 in Bosnia as part of IFOR and SFOR.

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