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.

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

Vince Flynn

“[He] saw communism for the sham that it was--a bunch of brutes who seized power in the name of the people, only to repress the very people they claimed to champion.”
― Vince Flynn, American Assassin

From Goodreads.

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.

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[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]

Patton on the Presidential Election of 1932

" ... I am completely disgusted with both political parties.  I cannot imagine two more spineless candidates, and at a time when the country needs backbone for more than brains.  I am glad I don’t vote as I certainly would not dishonor myself by casting one for either of the straw men we have to choose from.”[1]

Practically fits 2012 to a 'T.'

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[1] George S. Patton, quoted in Stanley P. Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 206.

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?

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

[2] Ibid., 593.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.