Ostensibly, Field Manual 6-02 is about signal operations. But what does that mean? The question is not as simple as it appears. In the recently circulated author’s draft, there was a lot of describing of organizations—long stretches of descriptive content on theater signal commands, expeditionary signal battalions, network operations and security centers, G-6/S-6 staff sections, and so forth. Alongside this was considerable descriptive content on capabilities—the network, for example, communications security, information assurance, network transport, network services, network management, electromagnetic spectrum management, the list goes on. Sort of a waste of ink, not mention the reader’s time. For, if you picked up FM 6-02 in order to get a clearer idea on what signal operations are all about, you would have found about 200 pages of pedantic obfuscation. If you were looking for “fundamental principles by which the military forces or elements thereof guide their actions in support of national objectives,”
[1] you wouldn’t have found any. In short, you would have been disappointed. Indeed, many reviewers were.
I realize that a draft is a draft--and that you circulate a draft in order to solicit feedback and to gauge whether or not you're hitting the target. And I realize that writing effective doctrine is a difficult endeavor. That is why I offer this critique.
The central shortcomings, then, of the recently staffed author’s draft of FM 6-02 are two. The first is the implication that, by its very title, the manual is all about signal operations, when at length one discovers that it is not. Second, and probably more aggravating, is that the manual purports to present doctrine. On both counts, the draft is a whiff. It misses the mark entirely. It leaves one with the impression (and you shake your head that at the U.S. Army Signal Center of Excellence this is even possible) that its authors (a) don’t understand what doctrine is, and (b) don’t know what signal operations are either.
So, how to fix it.
