thedrifter
08-15-03, 05:57 AM
08-12-2003
Iraq a Laboratory for Army Transformation
By Ben Works
“I have been focusing very hard, on attempting to find ways to get the Congress to allow us to change; find ways to get this institution, the contractor community, functioning in a way that reflects the 21st century instead of the 20th century.”
--Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker stepped out of retirement and was sworn in as the Army’s 35th Chief of Staff on Friday, Aug. 1, 2003. He will be tasked with the Herculean job of smartening up an ossified Army establishment, as it reluctantly goes about the business of transforming itself for expeditionary warfare and “fourth generation” warfare against non-state terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda.
It is a daunting task and though there are many hands willing to assist in this work of transformation, few of us expect it will be entirely successful: we remain cautiously pessimistic.
Strategists often talk of four “generations” of warfare: the 1st Generation included the limited “Lace Wars” of European Monarchs seeking to “adjust” the then-balance of power and map of Europe.
The French Revolution introduced the “Armee en Masse” and 2nd Generation “Total War” of conscription and the Industrial Age.
3rd Generation warfare is characterized by maneuver, as opposed to wide-front slugfests, and was practiced with great success by Gens. George Washington and William T. Sherman in their earlier campaigns.
Now guerrilla warfare and “Low Intensity Conflict” (LIC) have been elements in North American warfighting since the 1st Generation French and Indian Wars. Today's war on Terrorism, “4th Generation warfare” is guerrilla warfare and terrorism, with our latest technology and communications added to the mix and with non-state groups practicing terrorism to advance esoteric ideological goals or, as with Al Qaeda, a malign misanthropy cloaked in theological trappings.
Increasingly, ideological, ethnic and religious terrorist groups ally themselves with transnational Mafia elements to ensure funding and logistical support. This is true in Colombia, where the FARC and ELN guerillas have co-opted a hefty chunk of the cocaine trade, and in Albania, where Al Qaeda has established complex relationships with the Albanian gangs behind the KLA and Kosovo Heroin Mafia, and their Chechen allies, as well.
The American campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan was almost entirely 4th generation special operations, and 3rd generation maneuver including the Northern Alliance warlord “armies” and the insertion of a Marine expeditionary force into the vicinity of Kandahar. In the Iraq campaign, the United States used a combination of 3rd generation maneuver warfare to take Baghdad, and 4th generation special operations in the North, to freeze large elements of the Iraqi Army facing Turkey and the Kurds. In the post-war reconstruction phase, the U.S. military finds itself using a combination of conventional and unconventional forces to defeat a sputtering 4th generation resistance that resorts to ambush, sabotage and, most recently, a terrorist car bomb attack outside the Jordanian Embassy.
The point of transformation is to package lethal combat forces capable of defeating 3rd generation and 4th generation opponents on a rotating schedule of readiness so that you always have a third of your force ready to deploy on no notice, while another third trains up for deployment and another third completes its deployment.
Of the four uniformed services in the Department of Defense (the Coast Guard falling within Homeland Security), the Army has done the least to transform itself for future roles and missions, and has the greatest inclination towards a moribund status quo of preparing for 2nd generation attritional warfare -full frontal war, if you will. By contrast, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Al Gray, based on intellectual work by civilian analyst Bill Lind and a host of younger officers, including Mike Wyly and Gary (GI) Wilson, transformed the Marine Corps towards 3rd Generation maneuver warfare and 4th generation counter-insurgency warfare, in time for Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
Under Gray, the Marines transformed from being “the knuckle-draggers” of the armed forces, into the most intellectual branch. Meanwhile, the Navy has practiced a rotational readiness program for its expeditionary Carrier task forces since the Cold War, while the Air Force effected a transformation to expeditionary warfare in the aftermath of Desert Storm.
We'll be hearing a lot more about transformation in the months and years ahead, so what does it mean?
The overarching concept encompasses an across-the-board array of initiatives. First and foremost, it requires a new mind-set; the willingness to explore acting creatively, at every level of strategy, logistics, procurement and administration. And to succeed, transformation requires that the process include substantial changes in how Congress handles defense budgeting. Again, most importantly, transformation depends on the mindset of those tasked to execute; and we have a fine example in General Schoomaker, a veteran of the Iran Hostage rescue debacle at “Desert One,” in 1980, who spent most of his subsequent career helping to build our special operations capabilities.
The problem remains that Congress is inclined to meddle too much in military affairs, the source of much pork spread around their districts. Further, in Congress’ ability to launch investigations and to approve or derail promotions of general officers, they inject a fear factor that encourages risk avoidance and inertia. Since the Vietnam War, this fear factor has smothered the armed services and built a culture where officers too often practice “force protection” and cover-your-ass procedures out of fear for their careers, rather than out of a genuine respect and love for the troops they command.
Donald Rumsfeld, no stranger to a tough wrestle, has begun to address the transformation of relations with Congress, and we wish him every success in that.
For now, the Army will wrestle with smoothing out a rotation of forces into Iraq as a means of moving towards transformation: in doing this, it will be developing tailored combined-arms force packages, exposing a badly designed armored car to live-fire service and rotating two beefed-up National Guard brigades for a twelve-month tour of duty.
The most interesting development is the battle group being formed at Fort Bragg, N.C., to take over from the 3rd Infantry Division next month. It comprises a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division augmented by the following: a battalion of Green Berets, a battalion of MPs, a Civil Affairs Battalion, engineers and a small task force of M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley armored infantry vehicles. This is a hunter-killer as well as a constabulary and security team.
Its troops will have the ability to continue the hunt for Saddam Hussein and his guerrilla minions. What’s good about this task force, is that its members can build cohesion at Fort Bragg even before they deploy, and “wargame” how these disparate components can operate smoothly as a team in the field. Ossified as the conventional Army became in the years since Desert Storm, our forces are comfortable with this sort of task force building and will have the chance to practice it further.
Ben Works is a Vietnam veteran and is director of the nonprofit Strategic Issues Research Institute (SIRIUS) in Alexandria, Va., publisher of the internet-based newsletter, “Strategic Issues Today.” He can be reached at benworks@aol.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=167&rnd=90.45330013795316
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
Iraq a Laboratory for Army Transformation
By Ben Works
“I have been focusing very hard, on attempting to find ways to get the Congress to allow us to change; find ways to get this institution, the contractor community, functioning in a way that reflects the 21st century instead of the 20th century.”
--Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker stepped out of retirement and was sworn in as the Army’s 35th Chief of Staff on Friday, Aug. 1, 2003. He will be tasked with the Herculean job of smartening up an ossified Army establishment, as it reluctantly goes about the business of transforming itself for expeditionary warfare and “fourth generation” warfare against non-state terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda.
It is a daunting task and though there are many hands willing to assist in this work of transformation, few of us expect it will be entirely successful: we remain cautiously pessimistic.
Strategists often talk of four “generations” of warfare: the 1st Generation included the limited “Lace Wars” of European Monarchs seeking to “adjust” the then-balance of power and map of Europe.
The French Revolution introduced the “Armee en Masse” and 2nd Generation “Total War” of conscription and the Industrial Age.
3rd Generation warfare is characterized by maneuver, as opposed to wide-front slugfests, and was practiced with great success by Gens. George Washington and William T. Sherman in their earlier campaigns.
Now guerrilla warfare and “Low Intensity Conflict” (LIC) have been elements in North American warfighting since the 1st Generation French and Indian Wars. Today's war on Terrorism, “4th Generation warfare” is guerrilla warfare and terrorism, with our latest technology and communications added to the mix and with non-state groups practicing terrorism to advance esoteric ideological goals or, as with Al Qaeda, a malign misanthropy cloaked in theological trappings.
Increasingly, ideological, ethnic and religious terrorist groups ally themselves with transnational Mafia elements to ensure funding and logistical support. This is true in Colombia, where the FARC and ELN guerillas have co-opted a hefty chunk of the cocaine trade, and in Albania, where Al Qaeda has established complex relationships with the Albanian gangs behind the KLA and Kosovo Heroin Mafia, and their Chechen allies, as well.
The American campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan was almost entirely 4th generation special operations, and 3rd generation maneuver including the Northern Alliance warlord “armies” and the insertion of a Marine expeditionary force into the vicinity of Kandahar. In the Iraq campaign, the United States used a combination of 3rd generation maneuver warfare to take Baghdad, and 4th generation special operations in the North, to freeze large elements of the Iraqi Army facing Turkey and the Kurds. In the post-war reconstruction phase, the U.S. military finds itself using a combination of conventional and unconventional forces to defeat a sputtering 4th generation resistance that resorts to ambush, sabotage and, most recently, a terrorist car bomb attack outside the Jordanian Embassy.
The point of transformation is to package lethal combat forces capable of defeating 3rd generation and 4th generation opponents on a rotating schedule of readiness so that you always have a third of your force ready to deploy on no notice, while another third trains up for deployment and another third completes its deployment.
Of the four uniformed services in the Department of Defense (the Coast Guard falling within Homeland Security), the Army has done the least to transform itself for future roles and missions, and has the greatest inclination towards a moribund status quo of preparing for 2nd generation attritional warfare -full frontal war, if you will. By contrast, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Al Gray, based on intellectual work by civilian analyst Bill Lind and a host of younger officers, including Mike Wyly and Gary (GI) Wilson, transformed the Marine Corps towards 3rd Generation maneuver warfare and 4th generation counter-insurgency warfare, in time for Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
Under Gray, the Marines transformed from being “the knuckle-draggers” of the armed forces, into the most intellectual branch. Meanwhile, the Navy has practiced a rotational readiness program for its expeditionary Carrier task forces since the Cold War, while the Air Force effected a transformation to expeditionary warfare in the aftermath of Desert Storm.
We'll be hearing a lot more about transformation in the months and years ahead, so what does it mean?
The overarching concept encompasses an across-the-board array of initiatives. First and foremost, it requires a new mind-set; the willingness to explore acting creatively, at every level of strategy, logistics, procurement and administration. And to succeed, transformation requires that the process include substantial changes in how Congress handles defense budgeting. Again, most importantly, transformation depends on the mindset of those tasked to execute; and we have a fine example in General Schoomaker, a veteran of the Iran Hostage rescue debacle at “Desert One,” in 1980, who spent most of his subsequent career helping to build our special operations capabilities.
The problem remains that Congress is inclined to meddle too much in military affairs, the source of much pork spread around their districts. Further, in Congress’ ability to launch investigations and to approve or derail promotions of general officers, they inject a fear factor that encourages risk avoidance and inertia. Since the Vietnam War, this fear factor has smothered the armed services and built a culture where officers too often practice “force protection” and cover-your-ass procedures out of fear for their careers, rather than out of a genuine respect and love for the troops they command.
Donald Rumsfeld, no stranger to a tough wrestle, has begun to address the transformation of relations with Congress, and we wish him every success in that.
For now, the Army will wrestle with smoothing out a rotation of forces into Iraq as a means of moving towards transformation: in doing this, it will be developing tailored combined-arms force packages, exposing a badly designed armored car to live-fire service and rotating two beefed-up National Guard brigades for a twelve-month tour of duty.
The most interesting development is the battle group being formed at Fort Bragg, N.C., to take over from the 3rd Infantry Division next month. It comprises a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division augmented by the following: a battalion of Green Berets, a battalion of MPs, a Civil Affairs Battalion, engineers and a small task force of M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley armored infantry vehicles. This is a hunter-killer as well as a constabulary and security team.
Its troops will have the ability to continue the hunt for Saddam Hussein and his guerrilla minions. What’s good about this task force, is that its members can build cohesion at Fort Bragg even before they deploy, and “wargame” how these disparate components can operate smoothly as a team in the field. Ossified as the conventional Army became in the years since Desert Storm, our forces are comfortable with this sort of task force building and will have the chance to practice it further.
Ben Works is a Vietnam veteran and is director of the nonprofit Strategic Issues Research Institute (SIRIUS) in Alexandria, Va., publisher of the internet-based newsletter, “Strategic Issues Today.” He can be reached at benworks@aol.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=167&rnd=90.45330013795316
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: