thedrifter
09-30-04, 05:10 AM
09-27-2004
The Leadership of ‘Mosool Kabeer’
By Raymond Perry
In an article published in The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 22, 2004, reporter Greg Jaffe told the story of Army Capt. Nicholas Ayers leading his company in the heart of the Sunni Triangle in Iraq. This is exactly the kind of story the majority of hotel-bound talking heads don’t get from the safety of their hotel rooms and thus don’t report to the American people.
It takes daily walking and talking. It takes observation of our youth in action over an extended period to begin to comprehend the innovation and freedom of action they are employing. They will likely win this war despite the morass of our domestic political process weighing them down today.
Jaffe reported one incident where insurgents attacked two Humvees and some locals looted from the vehicles, including several machine guns and high tech gun sights. The captain’s response, contrary to Army doctrine, was to seek out the local sheik and give him the opportunity to return the gear before the captain would use the heavy hand of force. This worked.
In doing so, the young officer demonstrated his respect for the people and their social structure. The locals came to call him “Mosool Kabeer,” or “Big Chief.”
This is a critical element of winning this war. Capt. Ayers is not the only junior officer doing the innovating. The internet enables lieutenants, captains and even sergeants to trade ideas on what works and what doesn’t in the volatile environment of Iraq.
Realizing that insurgents were laying roadside bombs in broad daylight, and among crowds of local people, the captain established methods of observing the roads to reduce that opportunity for attacking his troops. It worked. The roadside bombs stopped.
This hotbed of thinking about what works and what does not simply was not available in Vietnam. This real-time ability for the troops to swap ideas, without their bosses filtering these ideas, is a true force-multiplier today. And it comes in sharp contrast with our experiences in Vietnam.
I sat in far too many wardrooms in the Navy where JOs were laughed at for “dumb ideas” that did not square with doctrine. Some of these later came to be seen as great ideas when viewed without the filter of the rank of the speaker. But the “good ships” across my career were led by commanders who encouraged their officers to listen to all ideas.
One key concept is that doctrine is written in blood. It is there because it solved a problem of warfare. Our JOs know doctrine cold, the whys, wherefores and how-to’s of all of it. One cannot innovate like the captain without knowing doctrine and its limits. But recognizing when doctrine does not apply is as important as being able to employ it flawlessly.
With the Cold War specter of having to ultimately fight a vast continental campaign gone, the Army is now free to rethink itself. Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, a rip-roaring cowboy from Wyoming, may just be doing that.
The success of Capt. Ayers and his troops is measured in more that those machine guns that they peacefully recovered. It is measured in his work with the local police chief, his ability to navigate, and perhaps begin to reduce, the endemic corruption to the benefit of the local people. In the long term, success will be measured in the willingness of Iraqis to continue to join their newly organized police and army.
Ayers said it best in the Journal article: “Every day [the] Iraqi Police Station is standing is a victory. It is a small bastion of [Iraqi] government control.”
For General Schoomaker I have a couple of observations:
* You need to be focused on getting the chain of command in Iraq out of the way of your platoon and company commanders. Don’t focus on specifics, go find out what slows them down. They will figure out how to win this war.
* You need to kick your PAOs in the butt. Instead of playing up to the talking heads they should be out there telling the stories of the halt in roadside bombings in Capt. Ayer’s sector. They should be focused on short-circuiting the bad view of the war from the talking heads who do not pound the dirt your soldiers do and they should not feed info to someone sitting in a hotel room.
* Recall the old leadership lesson: If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t trying. Let these young people run. In my career I found that the youngsters always outran what I thought I could ask of them.
These junior officers will win this war – if we let them.
Lt. Raymond Perry USN (Ret.) is a DefenseWatch Contributing Editor. He can be reached at cos1stlt@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=647&rnd=538.3193250073554
Ellie
The Leadership of ‘Mosool Kabeer’
By Raymond Perry
In an article published in The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 22, 2004, reporter Greg Jaffe told the story of Army Capt. Nicholas Ayers leading his company in the heart of the Sunni Triangle in Iraq. This is exactly the kind of story the majority of hotel-bound talking heads don’t get from the safety of their hotel rooms and thus don’t report to the American people.
It takes daily walking and talking. It takes observation of our youth in action over an extended period to begin to comprehend the innovation and freedom of action they are employing. They will likely win this war despite the morass of our domestic political process weighing them down today.
Jaffe reported one incident where insurgents attacked two Humvees and some locals looted from the vehicles, including several machine guns and high tech gun sights. The captain’s response, contrary to Army doctrine, was to seek out the local sheik and give him the opportunity to return the gear before the captain would use the heavy hand of force. This worked.
In doing so, the young officer demonstrated his respect for the people and their social structure. The locals came to call him “Mosool Kabeer,” or “Big Chief.”
This is a critical element of winning this war. Capt. Ayers is not the only junior officer doing the innovating. The internet enables lieutenants, captains and even sergeants to trade ideas on what works and what doesn’t in the volatile environment of Iraq.
Realizing that insurgents were laying roadside bombs in broad daylight, and among crowds of local people, the captain established methods of observing the roads to reduce that opportunity for attacking his troops. It worked. The roadside bombs stopped.
This hotbed of thinking about what works and what does not simply was not available in Vietnam. This real-time ability for the troops to swap ideas, without their bosses filtering these ideas, is a true force-multiplier today. And it comes in sharp contrast with our experiences in Vietnam.
I sat in far too many wardrooms in the Navy where JOs were laughed at for “dumb ideas” that did not square with doctrine. Some of these later came to be seen as great ideas when viewed without the filter of the rank of the speaker. But the “good ships” across my career were led by commanders who encouraged their officers to listen to all ideas.
One key concept is that doctrine is written in blood. It is there because it solved a problem of warfare. Our JOs know doctrine cold, the whys, wherefores and how-to’s of all of it. One cannot innovate like the captain without knowing doctrine and its limits. But recognizing when doctrine does not apply is as important as being able to employ it flawlessly.
With the Cold War specter of having to ultimately fight a vast continental campaign gone, the Army is now free to rethink itself. Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, a rip-roaring cowboy from Wyoming, may just be doing that.
The success of Capt. Ayers and his troops is measured in more that those machine guns that they peacefully recovered. It is measured in his work with the local police chief, his ability to navigate, and perhaps begin to reduce, the endemic corruption to the benefit of the local people. In the long term, success will be measured in the willingness of Iraqis to continue to join their newly organized police and army.
Ayers said it best in the Journal article: “Every day [the] Iraqi Police Station is standing is a victory. It is a small bastion of [Iraqi] government control.”
For General Schoomaker I have a couple of observations:
* You need to be focused on getting the chain of command in Iraq out of the way of your platoon and company commanders. Don’t focus on specifics, go find out what slows them down. They will figure out how to win this war.
* You need to kick your PAOs in the butt. Instead of playing up to the talking heads they should be out there telling the stories of the halt in roadside bombings in Capt. Ayer’s sector. They should be focused on short-circuiting the bad view of the war from the talking heads who do not pound the dirt your soldiers do and they should not feed info to someone sitting in a hotel room.
* Recall the old leadership lesson: If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t trying. Let these young people run. In my career I found that the youngsters always outran what I thought I could ask of them.
These junior officers will win this war – if we let them.
Lt. Raymond Perry USN (Ret.) is a DefenseWatch Contributing Editor. He can be reached at cos1stlt@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=647&rnd=538.3193250073554
Ellie