A thought provoking article.

• LAND, STRATEGY & POLICY

’10 Years Of Abject Failure’: Army, SOCOM, Marine Leaders Focus On ‘Strategic Landpower’

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. on August 27, 2013 at 11:04 AM

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/08/27/10-years-of-abject-failure-army-socom-marine-leaders-focus-on-strategic-landpower/

FORT BELVOIR: Under the shadow of sequestration and a Navy/Air Force-dominated “Pacific Pivot,” representatives of the Army, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command met to discuss the future of what they’re calling “strategic landpower.”

Before I sat in on the first session of the conference, I’d thought “strategic landpower” boiled down to the conventional “Big Army” trying to yoke the politically more popular Special Operations Command and Marine Corps into a common argument for the continued relevance of ground forces, even in a post-Afghanistan era many see as dominated by high-tech air, sea, space, and cyber power. I was half-right.

I was right about the Marine Corps: There were remarkably few Marines in the meeting room at the Fort Belvoir Officers’ Club, and they were on the whole remarkably silent. If you’re familiar with mid-grade Marine officers, who tend to be outspoken warrior-humanists, the idea of them not leaping feet-first into a discussion of the military art is unsettling.

But while Marine leaders want to do right by the Army, with whom they’ve fought shoulder-to-shoulder for the last 12 years, at least some Marines are uneasy that embracing “strategic landpower” may hobble their longed-for return to seaborne operations. They are also uneasy that “strategic landpower” is often seen as an counterargument to “Air-Sea Battle,” the favorite concept of their parent service, the Navy. (“This had nothing to do with Air-Sea Battle, just to be clear,” said one Army officer wearily after I raised the subject. “Air-Sea Battle is a good idea.”) So everything I saw today reinforced my sense that the Marine Corps, collectively, is conflicted about Gen. Odierno’s effort.

Not so SOCOM. Officers from the Army slice of Special Operations Command were a numerous and outspoken lot on Monday afternoon — so outspoken, in fact, that when conference administrators warned there was a reporter in the room (me) and reminded everyone that all comments were not for attribution, the ranking special operator spoke up at once:

“I don’t believe in non-attribution,” said Maj. Gen. Bennet Sacolick, the director of force management and development at SOCOM and a co-host of the conference. “Anything I say I stand behind,” he said. “You can quote me.”

The veteran special operator was well worth quoting. For example, when one participant said the strategic landpower effort was created in large part to institutionalize a decade of improvements since 9/11, such as better interservice cooperation and new skills in working with local populations, Sacolick — who was present at the creation of the concept — bluntly said, that’s wrong.

“It wasn’t built on 10 years of kumbayah on the battlefield; it was built on 10 years of frustration [and] not working together properly,” Sacolick said. “It wasn’t 10 years of wonderful success. It was 10 years of abject failure that we don’t want to repeat.”

“There is too much self-congratulatory talk,” agreed RAND scholar Linda Robinson, who also gave me permission to quote her by name. “Looking at everything that has happened over the last decade until now, we are not good enough at ‘shape and influence’” — the military terms for getting people, groups, and governments to do what we wantwithout having to shoot at them first.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, said Sacolick, “most of our successes on both those fronts came not from shooting people but from talking to them…. living with people and talking to them in their native language.” That said, he added bluntly, soft-speaking won’t be taken seriously unless you have the proverbial big stick to back it up. “What makes my guys effective in Afghanistan is not their diplomatic skills, quite frankly,” he said. “It’s the threat of force.”

Historically, the conventional “big Army” has been all about the big stick, while the Special Forces were about speaking softly in the local language (and still shooting people when they had to). Having become deeply interdependent in Afghanistan and Iraq, the special and conventional soldiers are now converging on a concept called, tentatively, “the human domain.”

It’s the idea that long-term strategic success comes, not from blowing stuff up until the enemy surrenders, but from figuring out how other people think so we can influence their actions. The means of influence range from building schools to giving bribes to, yes, blowing things up — but only carefully chosen things.

“We went into Iraq with a target list and an order of battle [and] zero appreciation for the complexities of the human domain, the environment, that we were about to step into,” said one Army participant. “Others did, and it was dismissed.” The conventional military was wildly successful at destroying its list of targets and routing Iraqi units, he went on, but that turned out not to be enough. As a result, he said, the story of 2003 was “statue falls, high five, we’re done — oh, not so much.”

“We didn’t understand,” he repeated.

(Continued at the link below)

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/08/27/10-years-of-abject-failure-army-socom-marine-leaders-focus-on-strategic-landpower/

Defense Reorganization Under Sequestration: A Speech by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on December 1, 2016

Fascinating read.  I will file this away to re-read again on December 1, 2016.

Regarding this excerpt on SOF – we could probably go from 68.000 to 55,000 without cutting the numbers of the operational force of Special Forces, SEALs, SWCCs, Rangers, Marine Special Operations Teams, Air Commandos, CCT, PJ's, STTs etc. And I especially like the focus on education. But regarding the 68,000 number we really should be talking about the size of the operational force because the vast majority of that 68,000 number are not "operators" but the more it is repeated the more the public thinks there are 68,000 special operators running around the world which of course is not at all accurate.

Special Operations Command.  The special operations community has grown in value and size over the last decade.  The valor and value of our Special Operators is unquestionable.  But we must be cognizant that it is not always the right tool to fix all problems. To keep its special status, especially as the size of the conventional force shrinks, and where it gets its soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines from, we propose a decrease in its size from 68,000 to 55,000.   However, key modernization programs for aviation and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) assets will be increased.  We also tasked the National Defense University with sourcing a world-class education system for our experts in the Human Domain.

V/R

Dave

Defense Reorganization Under Sequestration: A Speech by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on December 1, 2016

https://www.fpri.org/print/1719

Frank G. Hoffman is a Washington-based national security analyst and a member of FPRI’s Board of Advisors.

Michael P. Noonan is Director of FPRI’s national security program.

Related program(s)

Program on National Security [5]

Frank G. Hoffman [3], Michael P. Noonan [4]

July 2013

This “speech” by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff addressing the National Press Club in Washington DC on December 1, 2016 is, obviously, a work of fiction. With that having been said, the recommendations made here may very well be necessary in order to align U.S. military means to budgetary ends under the realities of sequestration and the Budget Control Act. The suggested force structure recommendations are solely those of the authors and do not represent the views of any organizations they may represent.

Guests, members of the press and media, and most importantly, my fellow Americans…….

Now that the election is over, and we’re in the interregnum between the outgoing and incoming Administrations, the time has come for me to address a profound challenge facing our nation: the serious decline in the readiness of our Armed Forces.  Our national security strategy, issued last year by the outgoing Administration, remains a comprehensive and accurate list of the key strategic objectives for our Nation. However, it is not rationally tied to any priorities nor to the means that the Nation is willing to tax itself to pay for. Its aspirations are beyond reach, and poorly linked to our security appropriations. Thus, a growing gap has been created between the missions that we in the Armed Forces of the United States are assigned, and those that we can actually execute.  This yawning gap places our security at peril, and I am duty bound to report this simple fact to our Nation’s leaders in both the Executive Branch and Congress. 

As I say this, let me stress that I am also duty bound by custom and the professional ethos of our country’s military to offer a possible solution to this serious and growing problem.

After coming to this assignment upon the sudden resignation of my predecessor, I have gained a steadily greater insight to why he chose to take the position of principle that he did. The Chiefs and I collectively have come to feel that the time has come for both the Executive Branch and Congress to acknowledge the harm that the inability to conclude any effective legislative agreements over the last four years has had on our Nation’s defense, and to take responsibility for the steady demise of our ability to meet our strategic objectives.

We have watched with growing alarm the significant damage that sequestration is doing to the force, as recruiting declines, retention of our experienced and capable junior leaders past their basic obligation sinks toward zero, maintenance backlogs spike, and our combat readiness is degraded. Half the Air Force’s flying squadrons are not combat ready, our Fleet size is now projected to be 215 ships, and the Army has cancelled all combat exercises at the National Training Center, our premier training evolution. The Marine Corps has grounded its MV-22 fleet for lack of parts and massive readiness concerns, and the last three Marine Expeditionary Units deployed on 2 instead of 3 ships due to a collapse of naval maintenance in our amphibious fleet.  None of those units were Special Operations Certified despite dire requests from the regional commanders for such training qualifications. To be completely direct: three years of political deadlock and legislative paralysis has undermined our ability to preserve our position in the world, and badly damaged our influence and our ability to defend ourselves.  Frozen pay and sharply reduced benefits, cuts to force levels, reduced training and wholesale cuts in procurement and research accounts have left us poorly prepared to execute any national security strategy. 

(Continued at the link below)

https://www.fpri.org/print/1719

McRaven: Success in Human Domain Fundamental to Special Ops

Excerpt:

The three great military theorists of the past 200 years -- Carl von Clausewitz, Alfred Thayer Mahan and Giulio Douhet -- made powerful arguments for the land, sea and air domains of warfare, Navy Adm. William H. McRaven told the audience at an Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis-Tufts University Fletcher School conference.

I would just add that all three theorists recognized the importance of the "human domain," especially Clausewitz and the human domain is a big part of their theories especially the trinity: 

War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to the given case. As a total phenomenon its dominant tendencies always make war a paradoxical trinity--composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and of its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone. 

The first of these three aspects mainly concerns the people; the second the commander and his army; the third the government. The passions that are to be kindled in war must already be inherent in the people; the scope which the play of courage and talent will enjoy in the realm of probability and chance depends on the particular character of the commander and the army; but the political aims are the business of government alone.

If that is not a (or THE)  description of the human domain than I do not know what is.

V/R

Dave

McRaven: Success in Human Domain Fundamental to Special Ops By Claudette Roulo American Forces Press Service http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=120219 WASHINGTON, June 5, 2013 – While there's no shortage of doctrine on how the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps provide value to the nation, special operations forces aren’t restricted to any of the traditional doctrines, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command said here today. The three great military theorists of the past 200 years -- Carl von Clausewitz, Alfred Thayer Mahan and Giulio Douhet -- made powerful arguments for the land, sea and air domains of warfare, Navy Adm. William H. McRaven told the audience at an Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis-Tufts University Fletcher School conference. “But where does SOF fit into all of this?” he asked. While special operations forces are comfortable in the realms of traditional warfare, the human domain is perhaps more important -- both to the troops and to policy makers, McRaven said. The human domain encompasses the totality of the physical, cultural, and social environments that influence human behavior, he explained. Success in this domain won't be achieved by traditional ground, naval or air forces, he added. “Instead, success in the human domain will depend upon understanding the human terrain and establishing trust with those humans who occupy that space,” the admiral said. Building understanding and trust takes time, but once it’s built, “we can apply unique capabilities that are designed to assess, analyze, operate and prevail in population-centric strategies or struggles,” he said. While operating in the human domain is not the sole purview of special operations forces, it is one of their core competencies, McRaven said. “It is where our language training, our cultural skills and small footprint all lend themselves to developing the military-to-military trust necessary for success,” he explained. Any discussion of the global special operations forces network is incomplete without including the human domain, the admiral added. When that network is laid on top of the human domain, its full potential begins to be revealed, McRaven said. This potential, he added, is what he was trying to capture when he developed the Special Operations Command 2020 vision. Borrowing ideas from Defense Department experts on network-centric operations, the concept is more about networking than the network, McRaven said. “We cannot simply apply new technologies to the current doctrine, platforms and organizations. Organizations, doctrine and technology must co-evolve,” the admiral said. “The power of the network is derived from linking knowledgeable entities that are geographically dispersed,” he said. Today, Socom has more than 11,000 men and women operating in more than 80 countries around the world, he noted. Done right, networking enables special operations forces to share information, to collaborate with partners, to develop shared awareness and to achieve a degree of self-synchronization, McRaven said. Self-synchronization is an understanding of what the other person in the node brings and how to tap into that, McRaven explained. The idea complements the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s mission command philosophy for the joint force, he added. Networking has enormous potential for improving speed of command and force responsiveness, the admiral said, but most importantly, it will improve the understanding of the human domain. This, he said, will improve special operations’ ability to illuminate problems and help policy makers understand the threats and opportunities that are out there. Building understanding of the human domain requires boots on the ground, feeding information into the network, McRaven said. “Every single person on the ground is important,” he said. “Metcalfe's Law, which was developed to understand hard-wired communications systems, states that as the number of nodes in a network increases linearly, the potential value, or effectiveness of the network, increases exponentially.” Humans are more important than hardware, , and “while the law may not be directly suitable to the human network, experience tells me that every additional node in the human network does, in fact, add an exponential understanding of the problem area,” McRaven said. The admiral noted that this exponential increase is achieved with the signature small footprint of special operations forces. “So, it's not about a large footprint, it's about what SOF brings in 80-plus countries around the world, sometimes with only a couple of operators at remote locations, working face-to-face with our partners,” he said. “This is how the network becomes connected, and this is how we can create an operating picture that can effectively inform the Pentagon and the geographic combatant commanders,” McRaven added.

Biographies: Navy Adm. William H. McRaven  U.S Special Operations Command