TRADOC Commander Drops a Little Doctrine Factoid

In a recent Army Times article, General Robert Cone, commanding general of the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), told his audience what to expect in the near future as the Army begins to transform again.  "Expect a lot of training," he said, "in leadership principles, the profession of arms, autonomous squad operations, combined arms maneuver, and wide-area security."  Elaborating a bit, the general explained--

"What is needed are training programs that amplify the complexity and sophistication of combat, he said. Cone pointed to his time as the “head lessons-learned dude” early in the Iraq war. He described how soldiers arrived trained for major combat operations, but didn’t get a lot of help from doctrine when the mission transitioned to counterinsurgency. Soldiers on the ground responded by forming their own solutions .... The challenge is to ensure the same evolution that takes place on the battlefield — birthed by necessity in the most demanding of circumstances — continues in training."

But what really caught my eye was a comment General Cone made concerning doctrine.  He cited "a backlog of 436 man-years in doctrine development, according to a Sept. 21 Government Accountability Office report."  That includes assessment, research, writing, editing, and publication.  A 436 may-year chasm!  Stating the issue slightly differently, the general said that "only 37 percent of the [Army's] 447 doctrinal publications are current.

In terms of signal doctrine, my estimate is that doctrinal publication currency is running about half of the Army-wide percentage.


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