Post Doctrine 2015 ... Here's Hoping

"There are things that we have learned that make us a more effective force on the battlefield, and I think we want to go ahead with those lessons."  -- Gen. Robert W. Cone, commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, on why the Army should increase focus on Strategic Landpower.

General Robert Cone

Well said. But you won't find much about those words in a Doctrine 2015 publication. Apparently, the guidance is that there isn't enough room to write about them, that we have to cut down on the contents in order to make the doctrine more "accessible." So, no side stories. No snippets from history. No illustrative case studies or vignettes. No quotations from effective leaders. No interviews.

Like other good ideas half-way thought out, Doctrine 2015 will pass. When it is finally realized that all these new-fangled publications--ADPs, ADRPs, ATPs, and FMs with only tactics (not) and procedures (sometimes)--really haven't made all that much of an improvement in terms of actual doctrine, there will be a new campaign with new buzz words. When it finally dawns on the brass that Soldiers are getting most of their doctrinal information from social media--because who wants to click through six, eight, or a dozen publications for something--that old standby, the field manual will make a comeback. 

And maybe, the powers that be will actually be anxious to capture those valuable lessons learned in doctrinal publications once again. It could happen!

In the Interest of Doctrine, and History

Delivering publications in spite of the need ...
for actual doctrine

As one long interested in military history, lately become a student of it, the subject of military doctrine fascinates me.  This happened quite by accident.  In 2007 barely started on a new job as a civilian training specialist, having retired from active duty only a couple years before and working as a contractor since, my former boss called me one day with an offer, should I be inclined, to leave government civil service after just a few months, to become a contractor once again, as a doctrine writer.  To make a short story longer, I accepted the offer and made the move, which took me out of the training side of the TRADOC house—where, counting my service time, I had been working for twenty-five years—and placed me in another world.

Ostensibly, the name of this other world was doctrine development, but I soon discovered that the larger universe which doctrine inhabited at the time was the realm of capability development, every bit as interesting as anything else I had experience in my quarter century’s association with the Army—all of which was in signal, I should add. My first six months in this new world was a struggle just to learn the new vocabulary and a new set of regulations associated with doctrine and capability development and integration.  Not to mention a new way of thinking.  Maybe to say six months is to give the impression that during that phase I mastered all there is to know about these areas.  That certainly was not the case.  Far from it.  Almost six years later I find myself still learning, like I’m starting from scratch sometimes—which is one of the reasons I find doctrine so fascinating.

The Squad: Foundation of the Decisive Force

This is absolutely great. It foreshadows significant capability gelling within the force at the squad level. These things are needed and there will be great payoff in terms of near-future operations. But it shows also, I think, that the Army sees itself more and more in an operational environment that dictates a wide area security approach to war as opposed to combined arms maneuver.  This could be a stroke of genious, or it could be problematic in circumstances yet unforeseen.  It's something to watch.

Capabilities are developed to fill needs. Current capability development emphasis on the squad indicates that Army resources of late have been steered to other areas and that, consequently, squad-level capabilities have suffered. That's sort of the nature of the beast. The Army must direct its appropriations to where they are most needed. We can't have everything we want whenever we want it. Finally, the guys at the 'edge' are in the spotlight.

Oh, and one fact is inescapable.  The Army these days sure makes much better promotional and informational-type videos that it used to.

The Army Continues to Transition

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Army of 2020 ...

One of the Army's Lowest Points Ever

From Geoffrey Perret's There's a War To Be Won ...

"The 11,000 men who surrendered on Corregidor were, they soon discovered, not considered prisoners of war by their captors.  Instead, they were treated like a low form of life, on a par with parasites and vermin.  [Japanese Lt. Gen. Masaharu] Homma [commander of the main Japanese invasion force in the Philippines] threatened to murder all of them unless [Army Lt. Gen. Jonathan M.] Wainwright [commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines] ordered subordinate commanders throughout the Philippines to surrender themselves and their men.

"The Japanese put Wainwright in front of a microphone at a Manila radio station.  [Army Chief of Staff, General George C.] Marshall wanted someone who knew Wainwright well to listen in and tell him if the broadcast was genuine or a Japanese hoax.  J. Lawton Collins, recently appointed commander of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, had served for three years under Wainwright and admired him unreservedly.  Collins listened to the broadcast as Marshall requested.

"There was no doubt about it.  That was Skinny Wainwright, his voice dulled by exhaustion, choking with emotion as he ordered his men to surrender.  That was Skinny Wainwright, with his limp from a bad riding accident, always leaning on a stick when not in the saddle.  That was Skinny Wainwright, humiliated, defeated, heading for captivity and possibly a cruel death.  Collins sat by his radio that balmy evening in Hawaii, his round, boyish face wet with the tears shed for his friend." 

Revised FM 3-24 to Hit the Street Soon

Military to unveil new counterinsurgency field manual

by, Stars and Stripes

The part that has always intrigued me ...

"A large number of experts, including academics and active-duty and retired veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, provided input for the rewrite ..."

That's just totally outside my own frame of reference.  I wish it weren't.

 

Marshall, McNair, and Army doctrine

George C. Marshall became the Army Chief of Staff on 1 September 1939. Incidentally, this was the same day that the Germans overran Poland in a sign of things to come. The United States was not at war yet, but those who could discern the times knew that we soon would be. 

One of the first things General Marshal did—and he did a lot—was to completely, totally, from top to bottom—revamp Army doctrine. That’s right, one of his first concerns was the fundamental principles that would guide the Army in its pending war. He had to raise an Army practically from scratch, equip it, and then train it to fight a world war against a well established enemy. So he set about very early on to remake the Army’s intellectual base. 

He was in a hurry about it, too. 

"He shut down the War College and the Command and General Staff School at Leavenworth,” writes historian Geoffrey Perret. “Marshall wanted their instructors and students to get to work writing more than 150 new field manuals that would incorporate the most modern military doctrine. He hoped to get this task done in three months.” Three months! “'Impossible,’ said the general he asked to supervise it. Marshall retired him next day and turned to the commandant at Leavenworth, Brig. Gen. Leslie J. McNair."[1]

And I would bet my last dollar that Marshall’s fundamental concern was not the accessibility of those manuals, it was their content.


PS:  It took McNair four months instead of three.

---

[1] Geoffrey Perret, There's a War to be Won (New York, Ballentine Books, 1991), 24.

Contractors and the Army

CONTRACTORS

This is not the guy
who posts this stuff

A-9. Contractors are not members of the Army profession; however, they provide valuable support and augmentation to the capabilities of the Profession of Arms and the Army Civilian Corps, both stateside and overseas. Hired under contractual terms for specific tasks of a specified duration, they provide essential skills and perform technical and administrative tasks that allow Army professionals to focus on their primary missions. Contractors are an important part of any current or future Army effort.[1]

Just in case you were wondering.  And I think I'm going to get myself one of those yellow hard hats, too.

---

[1] ADP 1, The Army (Headquarters, Department of the Army, September 2012), A-4.

Doctrine is About the Future

General Robert Cone, Former Commanding General of
the Army's Training and Doctrine Command

A common myth about Army doctrine is that it is necessarily oriented around current as opposed to future operations. Doctrine, say those who think this way, is about what the Army is doing today, with today’s capabilities, not about what we intend to do tomorrow with capabilities we don’t yet have. The basis for this way of thinking, essentially, is that anything dealing with future operations is conceptual, and "concepts," states the regulation that governs Army doctrine, "are not doctrine." (emphasis mine).

It is unfortunate that TRADOC Regulation 25-36, seems to underpin this way of thinking, that doctrine is about today and concepts are about tomorrow. To add an air of authority to its dogmatic assertion that "concepts are not doctrine," and that "after a concept is validated, it may become a basis for doctrine and force planning” (emphasis mine) the regulation cites a joint staff publication (CJCSI 3010.02), which is the Joint Operations Concepts Development Process, and TRADOC Regulation 71-20, Concept Development, Capabilities Determination, and Capabilities Integration. Interestingly, however, neither of these cited publications say anything about concepts not being doctrine.[1]

The Latest from Rick Atkinson

The Guns at Last Light, Rick Atkinson's new book covering the last year of the European war, from Normandy to Berlin, will be published in May 2013.  

The Guns Last at Last Light will be the third in Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy.  The first two volumes were ...

An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943

The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944,

Rick Atkinson

Atkinson is also the author of several other books on military history ...     

     In the Company of Soldiers

     The Long Gray Line

     Crusade

Communications in War

“Logistics and communications,” writes historian, Carlo D’Este, “are the vital supporting cast of waging successful war; to lack for either is to court failure.”  This quote is taken from D’Este’s telling of the story of the Allied forces’ stall at the tail end of the Normandy Campaign in World War II.  Contributing to the sputtering advance of the four Allied armies was General Eisenhower’s (and others’) neglect of his logistics and his communications.[1]

“Eisenhower’s hands were tied by both. His logisticians determined how far his armies could advance, and his signals officers, who controlled the flow of communications into and out of SHAEF, determined how well and how fast he could communicate with his subordinates.”[2]  Pretty straightforward stuff.

When Ike moved his forward headquarters in early September 1944 from “Shellburst,” just inland of the Normandy beaches, to Granville, at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, he was, for a crucial time, cut off from the forces under his command.  “In effect,” explains D’Este, “he was incommunicado, a serious problem for any commander but a potentially fatal flaw for the one exercising supreme command.”[3]

At the end of his story D’Este makes the doctrinal application, “A headquarters that is uninformed and unable to communicate cannot exercise command and control over operations, and is essentially useless.”[4]

This is exactly the kind of historical anecdote that, if applied to, say, an emerging doctrinal publication on signal support to operations, would make it more readable, understandable, and militarily useful.  Some would resist merely on account that the story is from World War II, and is almost 70 years old.  But a fundamental principle is a fundamental principle, is it not? And an illustration of a fundamental principle teaches like nothing else can.

I mean, for what other reason do we write doctrine?

---

[1] Carlo D'Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002), 592.

[2] Ibid., 593.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

Army Writing

I discovered a handbook once published by the Army's Training and Doctrine Command called the "Action Officer's Guide: Staff Writing." It's actually a very useful little pamphlet. It's purpose was to help action officers avoid bad writing. In it, the author, a gentleman by the name of John Beckno, counsels against what is described in a politically correct manner as "bureaucratic writing." "While some bureaucratic writing is good," he says, "much of it is turgid, passive, and confusing."

He might also have added that it is 'bromidic,' 'inane,' 'boring,' 'dull,' 'stilted,' 'affected,' 'stuffy,' 'ponderous,' 'unclear,' 'leaden,' 'dismal,' 'uninteresting,' tedious,' 'monotonous,' 'dry,' 'unexciting,' 'mind-numbing,' and 'lifeless.' But then, that would have been bad staff writing.

For all we know, Mr. Beckno could have been describing a random doctrine publication; but he was, in fact, addressing all types of writing which may fall within the purview of a typical action officer.

"In spite of efforts to eradicate it," writes the expert, "poor writing still survives."

But how can this be so?

Beckno lists five reasons ...

• "It's embedded in the bureaucracy." Embedded is the right word. It's a deep problem, part of the culture. As new people enter the service they conform to this horrible way of writing just as though they thought it mandatory, like the bad haircuts.

What is a Field Manual?

TRADOC Regulation 25-36

"A field manual is a Department of the Army publication that contains principles, tactics, procedures, and other doctrinal information. It describes how the Army and its organizations conduct operations and train for those operations. FMs describe how the Army executes operations described in the ADPs. They fully integrate and comply with the fundamental principles in the ADPs and the tactics and principles discussed in the ADRPs."  [Emphasis added.]

To say that, under Doctrine 2015, a field manual describes "what" and an Army Techniques Publication describes "how" is to put an entirely artificial construction upon doctrine.  It is also inconsistent with the regulation that governs doctrine.

Some helpful definitions.

Doctrine 2015's Effect on the Army Field Manual

The Doctrine 2015 framework is having an effect. That point is practically beyond dispute.  What is disputable is what, exactly that effect is.  The first thing to understand about Doctrine 2015 is that it is not about producing better doctrine. Instead, it's about revolutionizing the doctrinal publication development and dissemination paradigm.  Under Doctrine 2015, it's the process--not the product--that matters.

Mostly.

Evidence that the product is suffering may be found in talk that is common these days when the subject of the Doctrine 2015 hierarchy of publications comes up.  It is often said that field manuals are about "what" the Army does and ATPs (Army Techniques Publications) are about "how" the Army does what it does.

Which is nonsense.

Writing Signal Doctrine

Signal is a combat support function. But don’t take my word for it. Look it up in Field Manual 3-90 Tactics, published in 2001 but still valid. The intellectual center of the Army, however, has decreed that we may no longer use the term “combat support,” but that doesn’t change the idea that signal exists to support combat. If you are doctrine writer, even though you may be prevented by the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate at Leavenworth from describing signal as a combat support capability, you nevertheless must communicate to your target audience that signal’s entire thrust and meaning is to support the combat commander. 

As to specifically what this means, consider the following guidance from General Barry McCaffrey (U.S. Army Retired) to an infantry lieutenant about to deploy into a combat zone to lead an infantry platoon. 

“Some thoughts: 

• Hard work saves lives. Dig, camouflage, rehearse SOPs, study, plan, train between missions. 
• Never be surprised. ... OP/LPs ... 3-man point team ... OPSEC ... do aerial recon ... be quiet on the battlefield. 
• Safety, safety, safety ... getting soldiers killed or maimed by accident is very painful. 
• In contact either shoot, flank and attack, or shoot and withdraw. Always shoot ... get volume fire quickly on the enemy. Practice actions on contact before every mission. 
• The most important weapon on the battlefield is arty/mortars ... be prepared to put HE and smoke on possible enemy locations within three minutes. We rarely know where the fire is actually coming from ... arty will let you move without casualties on the battlefield.”[1]

As a signal doctrine writer, you’ve got to understand that McCaffrey’s words apply to the signal officer just as much as they do to the young infantry lieutenant. For the signal officer, at whatever tactical echelon, must configure his communications assets in such a way that all lieutenants can execute in accordance with the general’s guidance. General McCaffrey is directing an infantry combat leader. The signal officer is enabling that same combat leader. If the field manual doesn’t capture that dynamic, it fails as a doctrinal publication. 

Or, take this example. You are writing about signal support to operations at brigade level. You might chose a Stryker brigade combat team to illustrate this. A Stryker brigade has “more than 3500 Soldiers ... and almost 2000 vehicles, including more than 300 Strykers.”[2] In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker)—also known as the “Arrowhead Brigade,” was comprised of … 

“the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry; 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry; 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry; 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry; 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery; 296th Brigade Support Battalion; 334th Signal Company; 209th Military Intelligence Company; 13th Engineer Company; and Company C, 52nd Infantry (Antitank). Attached to it for the Iraq deployment are the 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), flying OH-58D Kiowa Warrior and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, and the 1092nd Combat Engineer Company from the West Virginia Army National Guard."[3]

Obviously, the Stryker brigade is supported by its own organic signal company, in the Arrowhead’s case by the 334th Signal Company. As the doctrine writer, you have to realize that just to say that an SBCT draws its signal support from an organic signal company is insufficient. In fact, it’s practically a waste of time because everybody already knows that. The point you have to get across to your target audience is that that signal company, with support from higher echelons where necessary, is supporting combat operations. The signal officer of a Stryker brigade supports infantry, armored cavalry, field artillery, logistical support, intelligence, engineers, and aircraft. You have to be aware that a unit like this particular SBCT may be augmented with Reserve or National Guard forces that may not be equipped, communications-wise, like their Regular Army brethren—but who still have to be supported. 

And think of signal support to large units like the 3rd Infantry Division which, during the “shock and awe phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, sprinted “720 kilometers in twenty-one days” while firing 610 direct support, ninety counter-fire, and twenty-six reinforcing artillery missions—13,923 155mm rounds and 794 multiple-launch rocket system missiles.[4] Think of how often the division's command posts moved.  Think of the factors of METT-TC.  Sure, it’s a true statement to say that divisions have an organic signal support capability, normally in the form a division signal company. But if that’s all you can say about signal support to division operations, you haven’t learned yet what doctrine is all about. 

Doctrine is “the blueprint for forces in combat.”[5] It is the “fundamental principles by which the military forces, or elements thereof, guide their actions in support of national objectives. It is authoritative but requires judgment in application.”[6]

Signal Soldiers are not just installing, operating, maintaining, and defending the Army’s portion of the network, they are supporting military operations—chief among them, combat. 

_________________________________

[1] Barry R. McCaffrey, “Lessons in Leadership: E-mail Exchange Between The Bradley Professor and an Infantry Lieutenant,” Army Magazine, June 2005, 16. 

[2] Dennis Steele, “The Stryker: Going Up North,” Army Magazine, March 2004, 44-54. 

[3] Ibid. 

[4] Thomas G. Torrence, “The Division Artillery of the 3rd Infantry Division,” Army Magazine, April 2004, 57-60. 

[5] Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993), 253 

[6] Joint Publication 1-02.

Before Your Next Doctrine 2015 Briefing ...

10-page ADPs, 100-page ADRPs,
200-page FMs, ATPs with no size
limits, and Apps and Wikis.

                                     


          Imagine trying to explain this  >>>  

From left, Generals Bradley,
Eisenhower, and Patton

<<<  to these guys.

Dempsey vs. DePuy: The Impact of Two Generals on Army Doctrine

General DePuy

In the late 1970s, General William DePuy, as TRADOC commander (the first, incidentally), considered how he could improve Army doctrine. The Vietnam War had been recently concluded and the Army was wrestling with its lessons. From 1977 to 1981 there was "vigorous debate and rethinking of fundamental Army doctrine."[1] The outcome of all that thinking and debate—under General DePuy’s leadership—was the AirLand Battle Doctrine. 

In 2010, the TRADOC commander at the time, General Martin Dempsey (now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), considered how he might improve Army doctrine. Wars of long duration in Afghanistan and Iraq were drawing to a close and the Army was wrestling with more lessons learned. Similar to that earlier era, the closing years of this century’s first decade and the opening couple years of the next one have witnessed a vigorous debate and continuous rethinking of fundamental Army doctrine. The outcome of all that thinking—with General Dempsey’s guidance—is “Doctrine 2015.” 

General DePuy’s contribution was a fundamental shift in the Army’s blueprint for war fighting. In his day, the Army’s capstone war fighting doctrine was FM 11-5 Operations. That field manual no longer exists. 

General Dempsey

General Dempsey’s contribution to doctrine, so far, has been nearly half a decade of striving about words to no profit—full spectrum operations—combined arms maneuver and wide area security—co-creation of context—unified land operations—and a cosmetic reorganization of TRADOC’s doctrine library. Today, the Army’s capstone war fighting manual is Army Doctrine Publication 3-0 Unified Land Operations. The basic difference between what is essentially Dempsey’s FM 110-5 and DePuy’s version is that in today’s Army a capstone really isn’t a capstone. For ADP 3-0 cannot stand on its own; it requires the support of another document, Army Doctrine Reference Publication 3-0 Unified Land Operations. 

There are other differences. FM 100-5 was developed with a definite potential enemy and probable area of operations in mind. ADP 3-0 (and its sister, ADRP 3-0) envisions a “complex operational environment.” AirLand Battle was about fighting. Unified Land Operations is about relationships. The former contained real doctrine, fundamental principles meant to guide Army forces or elements thereof in pursuit of the nation’s warfighting objectives. The latter is an annotated dictionary of operational terms and definitions with a fancy digital photo on its cover. 

From Washington to Grant to Pershing to DePuy to Dempsey, everyone in the Army has always understood what a field manual was. Today, despite two years of aggressive selling, it’s hard to find a Soldier who has a handle on what Doctrine 2015 is all about. 

On the subject of Army doctrine, the comparison between Generals DePuy and Dempsey boils down to this.  One general's overriding  concern was about what the manuals said. The other's is essentially about what they look like. 

________________________

[1] John J. Romjue, American Army Doctrine for the Post-Cold War (Fort Monroe, Virginia: United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, Military History Office, 1996), 16.

Some Thoughts on Doctrine 2015

Doctrine 2015 is about reorganizing the doctrinal publications process. It is not about producing better doctrine. 

During his tenure as the TRADOC commander, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey had the Army’s School for Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas study what could be done to improve Army doctrine. There was indeed considerable room for improvement. As the commander of TRADOC, the Army’s architect of the ‘Army of the future,’ General Dempsey served as the lead doctrine developer for the Army. He asked the smart folks at SAMS to come up with some recommendations on basically how to do two things—

• Make doctrine more accessible to Soldiers. 

• Get products to the field faster. 

Doctrine 2015 Update

The 'Doctrine 2015' hierarchy

Recently, I was asked to review an author's draft of an emerging publication ... Army Techniques Publication 4-16 Movement Control.  The U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) is the preparing activity responsible for this publication.  It's an update and republication of Field Manual (FM) 4-01.30 Movement Control as an ATP.  Under the guidance of the Army's Doctrine 2015 concept, there will only be 50 FMs.  Those that didn't make the cut, if the material in them is still relevant, are to be converted to ATPs.  That's what CASCOM is doing with FM 4-01.30, converting it to ATP 4-16, updating a thing or two in its content in the process.

Although I judged it a reasonably well written draft, and that it contained no language inconsistent with emerging signal doctrine, I had to submit a critical comment on it, because of the timing of this draft's staffing to an Army-wide audience.  We are a good year now into the concept of Doctrine 2015, the SAMS-developed, CSA-approved, doctrine refinement concept the purpose of which is to streamline the Army's inventory of doctrinal publications and put more relevant doctrine into the hands of Soldiers faster.  Still, there are a lot of people who don't understand the transformation.  I've used this blog to write about Doctrine 2015 before.  I still get questions, like "What's an ADP?"  Which is higher, and FM or an ADRP?  "Do we still have ATTPs? or just ATPs?"   

Congressman Allen West, R-Florida

Congressman West

Congressman Allen West (R-Florida) had something to say about the Left's attitude toward the military and the D-Day anniversary that's just passed.

His remarks were aimed at liberal talk show host, Bill Press, who has a problem with our National Anthem, specifically the phrase "Home of the Brave."

West represents Florida's 22nd District, which includes the Palm Beach area and where gas now costs $3.56 per gallon--it cost just $1.84 in January 2009 when President Obama was inaugurated.

West is a retired Army officer.