Published on May 11, 2015— Available also in PDF
Lt. Col. Keith A. McKinley, U.S. Army, is currently a student at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He holds a BA from Indiana University Northwest and an MA from Central Michigan University. During his career, Lt. Col. McKinley served with the 101st Airborne Division, the United Nations Command Security Battalion – Pan Mun Jom, 2nd Infantry Division, the Joint Readiness Training Center, U.S. Army Africa, and the 10th Mountain Division. During his last assignment, he served as the Senior Corps Advisor for Train, Advise, Assist Command – Southeast (TAAC-SE) in support of the Afghan National Army 203rd Corps.
On Christmas Day 2014 at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, President Barack Obama told a gathering of troops at a mess hall that U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan will end within a month.1 However, the United States has committed a sizable troop presence in the country for the next two years to continue to train and support the Afghan government.2 Even though the United States has formally ended its 13-year combat mission, the war in Afghanistan continues. The Afghan government faces a strong insurgency that has been gaining momentum over the last year making 2014 the deadliest for Afghan security forces.3 Concurrently, the Afghan government has been struggling to demonstrate its ability to govern and protect the population: corruption, mismanagement, and cronyism are just a few of the underlying issues.4 Afghanistan's success is a concern to the United States due to the strategic significance of the region; Pakistan, Iran, and the Central Asian States are all areas of vital U.S. national interest.5
Reflecting back on the lessons of the U.S. war in Iraq, one can identify many similarities from the U.S. withdrawal in 2011 that are applicable to the conflict in Afghanistan today. The United States departed Iraq, leaving a weak central government that faced a viable insurgency that has targeted Iraqi government security forces and political leaders.6 Additionally, the withdrawal of its forces left the U.S. with reduced influence within the Iraqi government and the region.7 Last year, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated that the "failure" to maintain a U.S. presence in Iraq and to support the Iraqi government created a vacuum for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to fill within the region.8
As the United States ends its combat mission in Afghanistan, it must continue to provide strategic and operational level advisors within Afghan key ministries and operational security commands in order to ensure the survival of the Afghan central government. This long-term approach that consists of a small U.S. footprint will allow the continued development of Afghan government capability, maintain oversight on aid and material, and maintain influence within Afghanistan and the region. The United States must be willing to maintain this long-term approach to give the Afghan central government sufficient time to refine institutional systems and governing capabilities.
Maintaining U.S. advisors within Afghan government ministries and operational security commands will ensure the survival of the government by providing knowledge and expertise needed to develop Afghan government institutions. This year marked a historic milestone for the newly formed Afghan government: a peaceful transition of power through the ballot box. While not perfect, the election process worked in transferring power despite multiple reports of ballot fraud and mismanagement.9 Assisted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Dr. Ashraf Ghani and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah were able to work a compromise through a democratic process that allowed power to be shared equitably creating a coalition government.10
While advancing in democratic initiatives, the Afghan government faces many challenges ahead as the new coalition administration comes to power. Corruption and mismanagement plague the central government at all levels.11 Ministries and various agencies are often unable to account for funds that are lost through multiple layers of corrupt or poorly educated officials.12 Additionally, cronyism adds to government mismanagement by allowing those with close ties to government officials to benefit from corrupt activities.13 Often this is conducted along ethnic lines that run strong throughout the country and its governing structures having been an acceptable cultural practice for hundreds of years.14
Afghan ministries and government bureaucratic structures face several challenges going forward. Government bureaucracies are still developing and require time to allow systems and procedures to take the place of personal patronage networks in which loyalty is rewarded above performance.15 Also there is a shortage of professional, educated civil servants in which many government officials were selected due to their patronage instead of education or experience.16 The result is that many government officials lack the experience and level of education needed to run large, complex government agencies.
At the operational level, government security forces have demonstrated recent successes but still need continued effort in developing their capabilities. Operational level leaders within the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior lack the ability to conduct combined arms integration and external coordination.17 This lack of integration in turn reduces the ability of the government to effectively employ national power against insurgent forces who are not constrained by international borders. Additionally, Afghan government ministries lack professionally trained and educated operational and strategic leaders.18 Even though an emphasis on leader development has taken root within government culture, continued educational programs and professional mentorship are needed to allow professional growth. As security forces continue to develop systems and capability, they are simultaneously targeted by insurgent forces seeking to cause fractures among the various government security agencies.19
Maintaining U.S. advisors at the strategic and operational level would allow the training and development of Afghan government capability which would counter many of the above challenges.20 Through their professional backgrounds, combat experiences, and institutional knowledge, U.S. military and civilian advisors can provide valuable advice and expertise to Afghan ministries and security forces.21 Many of the Afghan government ministries and bureaucratic systems were based on U.S. government models. U.S. advisors with experience and knowledge on these systems can be instrumental in developing Afghan government leaders and bureaucratic managers. U.S. advisors can provide feedback on internal systems and recommend ways to streamline efficiencies and management practices. U.S. advisors can assist Afghan agencies to assess themselves and allow them to make changes that they feel will be more beneficial to their success as opposed to having an external party recommend changes.
By having a small number of skilled and knowledgeable advisors at the ministerial level, the United States can have a profound effect at the strategic level while maintaining a small footprint within the country.22 The minimal cost and limited resources associated with this approach will have a lasting impact on the Afghan government even as the U.S. reduces military expenditures over the next decade as a result of the 2011 Budget Control Act.
Another area in which U.S. advisors can develop Afghan capability to allow the survival of the central government is by providing it confidence in its ability to secure and govern the country. A sustained cadre of U.S. advisors within key Afghan government agencies will demonstrate U.S. commitment to Afghanistan and allow continued training and development.23 Maintaining U.S. government personnel on the ground in Kabul will have a greater effect than words alone. This effort will demonstrate to the people of Afghanistan and the world that the threat of terrorism is a global issue, not just isolated to Afghanistan. Proving U.S. commitment, the visible presence of advisors will increase the confidence of the Afghan government by providing the advice and resources it requires to grow capabilities to succeed over the long term.24
Another benefit of maintaining U.S. advisors within Afghan government ministries and operational security commands is it provides oversight on U.S. foreign aid and material programs. Over the last decade of war, the U.S. provided nearly $93 billion in assistance to the Afghan central government of which approximately $56 billion has been used to train and equip Afghan security forces.25 During fiscal year 2014 alone, the United States appropriated over $6.1 billion to Afghanistan, including $4.7 billion to train and equip its security forces.26 The majority of aid went to the security sector; however, ministries other than the Defense and Interior received funding for other programs designed to strengthen democratic platforms and stabilize the Afghan government. Even though Afghanistan's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown an average of 9 percent per year since 2001, revenues are still short of annual government budgets.27 In 2013, government revenues totaled less than $2.5 billion but the annual budget for the year was $7 billion.28As the data shows, the Afghan central government is highly dependent on the external aid it receives from the U.S. and international community which is critical to its survival.
The long term goal for the Afghan government is to reduce its reliance on foreign aid as the international community experiences a growing level of "donor fatigue".29 To achieve financial independence, U.S. officials seek greater Afghan integration into regional trade and investment partnerships as part of the "New Silk Road" economic initiative.30Afghanistan's membership into the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 2005 and acceptance into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2012 as an observer nation are positive steps forward in this area.31 Additionally, there has been much optimism for Afghanistan to draw upon its vast potential of mineral and agricultural resources.32 Much effort has been made by the international community and private investment over the last few years to extract Afghanistan's estimated wealth of natural resources.33
Even if these economic initiatives succeed, Afghanistan will be dependent on foreign aid for some time in the near future making foreign aid, the United States being the largest contributor, critical for Afghanistan's success as a nation. In order to maintain oversight and accountability of taxpayer dollars, the U.S. will need to maintain a transparency mechanism to ensure its resources are utilized in support of U.S. objectives within the country.
Despite receiving much support from the U.S. and international community, corruption and mismanagement within the Afghan central government reduces the overall effectiveness of the foreign aid it receives; Afghan officials have stated that corruption is a significant problem within their government.34 During the administration of President Hamid Karzai, many high-level officials were not prosecuted for corruption charges by law enforcement officials due to their personal connections with those in power.35 Lacking strong and stable institutions, the Afghan government is heavily influenced by personal patronage networks in which power brokers exploit government resources to protect and benefit those who demonstrate loyalty.36 Further adding to the issue of corruption, most ministries and agencies within the central government lack efficient accounting systems to allow for the transparency expected from donor nations on expenditures.37 Weak institutions that lack adequate oversight and accounting mechanisms become victim to corruption and mismanagement; it is in this area that the U.S. can significantly assist the Afghan government.
By maintaining U.S. advisors in Afghan government agencies and operational security commands, the United States can achieve two objectives. First, U.S. advisors can provide a layer of accountability that can monitor the flow of U.S. aid in Afghanistan to ensure it reaches its intended destination. Advisors can provide periodic reports to U.S. government accounting organizations such as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) that details where funding goes or more importantly, where it does not go.38 Corrupt Afghan officials and their illegal activities would be identified more quickly with the U.S. advisor presence providing a level of deterrence. Government officials would think twice about engaging in corrupt activities knowing there would be consequences as the U.S. would have a network established to identify those involved in corrupt activities. Also, the oversight ability provided by U.S. advisors is a responsible measure that will assure Congress that U.S. resources are being used as intended as it continues to approve funding.
The second objective that U.S. advisors can achieve is to assist Afghan government institutions in developing adequate accounting mechanisms. Most corruption goes unchecked due to the weak institutional structure and level of education of government bureaucrats.39 Receiving U.S. advisor mentorship and developing accounting mechanisms, Afghan institutions will have better transparency over their officials and become more capable of holding them accountable for their illegal actions. As Afghan oversight mechanisms are professionalized and strengthened by advisors, the United States can reduce its presence in this area and shift efforts elsewhere within the government.
The final benefit in maintaining U.S. advisors within Afghan government ministries and operational security commands is it will maintain U.S. influence within the Afghan government and South Asia region. Geographically, Afghanistan is situated in a "bad neighborhood" which contains many irresponsible state governments and dangerous non-state actors. Considered a viable threat to the U.S. national security, terrorist groups and other hostile non-state actors are prevalent within the region.40 These groups have demonstrated through their actions that they seek to harm the U.S. and its allies and are thus a viable threat to national security.41 At the political level, Afghanistan borders many nations that are security concerns for the U.S., specifically Iran and Pakistan.42 The actions and stability of these countries who operate within the international order have a direct impact on U.S. national security. Being geographically located in the center of several terrorist networks that seek harm against the U.S. and nation states that are vital national security interests makes Afghanistan central to U.S. strategy in the region.43
One of the main U.S. objectives in Afghanistan continues to be the destruction of terrorist networks that maintain support bases within the region.44 The Obama Administration's strategic goal is to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe-haven for international terrorism.45 The United States has been able to degrade many of these networks over the last decade of war, but these organizations have been resilient and continue to pose a threat to U.S. interests within the region.46 While degraded, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and other terrorist groups are still able to conduct attacks and maintain limited offensive operations focused on the U.S. and its regional allies.47
Another regional concern for the United States is Afghanistan's neighboring states. Bordering Afghanistan to the west, Iran has consistently challenged U.S. interests over the last three decades. Iran is a security concern to U.S. interests due to its support of terrorist networks operating in the Middle East, partnership with the Bashar al-Assad Regime in Syria, and its growing ambition to develop nuclear technology.48 Iran's immediate goal in the region is to deny the United States the use of Afghanistan as a base that could be used against Iran, and it has publicly opposed the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement.49 As part of Iran's longer term objective, Iran seeks to exert its traditional influence over western Afghanistan due to its historical ties to that part of the country.50
Another nation vital to U.S. interests that borders Afghanistan is Pakistan. A key partner in the region, Pakistan is a concern to U.S. policy due to its possession of a large nuclear arsenal, questionable relationships with terrorist networks, and rivalry with India, another nuclear-armed state.51 The stability of the Pakistani government is critical in maintaining control over its population and subduing terrorist networks but more importantly, securing its vast nuclear arsenal.52 Pakistan is crucial to Afghanistan's future, and its policies and actions toward Afghanistan are of significant concern to U.S. policymakers since it has strategic influence within the region.53
All of these various state and non-state actors with different agendas within the region are a concern to U.S. interests. The Afghan government is still young and developing its capability to govern which makes it vulnerable to external influence.54 Terrorist networks have consistently targeted Afghan government centers of gravity in order to influence the government toward insurgent objectives.55 At the state level, many surrounding countries seek to establish influence within Afghanistan in order to advance their own national security objectives.
By maintaining advisors in Afghan government agencies and operational security commands, the United States can continue to exert influence both within Afghanistan and the region which will maintain balance and stability. Advisors embedded inside government agencies will continue to advise and assist, and this will provide the United States a voice in the government each time Afghan officials meet to disc discuss policy. As seen in Iraq after the U.S. force withdrawal, not having advisors embedded within the central government will significantly reduce U.S. influence.56 The ability of U.S. advisors to monitor resource control measures and maintain close personal relationships will ensure the continuation of democracy and government reforms in line with U.S. policy. External state and non-state actors will be limited in their ability to project influence as they will see it dominated by U.S. objectives. Advisors embedded within the Afghan government will be able to reinforce U.S. policy in Afghanistan more effectively due to their physical presence within the government.
The advisor presence in Afghan ministries will also allow the United States to project influence outside the country and across the region. The presence of U.S. personnel within Afghanistan will demonstrate U.S. resolve and commitment within the region. U.S. policy is more effective and credible when U.S. personnel are on the ground to follow through on prior commitments.57 Another benefit is that the United States will have the ability to project hard power within the region as it will be able to maintain access to several bases.58 These bases can be used to synchronize intelligence capabilities and execute lethal targeting operations in line with U.S. policy in the region if required. The removal of U.S. advisors will in turn deny the U.S. continued access to these critical infrastructure nodes that will be much harder to stand up again in the future if needed.59
As the U.S. combat mission ends, it is important that the United States continues to provide strategic and operational level advisors within Afghan key ministries and operational security commands in order to ensure the survival of the Afghan central government. This effort can achieve U.S. strategic interests with minimal resources especially as government spending becomes more constrained in the future. This long-term approach which consists of a small U.S. footprint will allow the development of Afghan government capability, maintain oversight on aid and material, and maintain influence within Afghanistan and the region.
The U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan ended in 2014; however, the war will continue despite the U.S. role or level of interest in the region. In order to maintain regional stability in South Asia, it is imperative that the United States does not repeat the strategic mistakes of its hasty withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 which has caused turmoil in that region ever since its departure.
Published on April 24, 2015— Available also in PDF
Maj. T. Burroughs is currently the Deputy G3 for the 82nd Airborne Division and an incoming fellow in the Advanced Strategic Planning and Policy Program (Cohort 2015). Maj. Burroughs holds a Master of Military Art and Science (Strategy) degree from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and a Master of Business Administration (International Business) from the University of South Carolina.
Strategic art is critical to the defense of the national interests of the United States and the continued prosperity of the nation. It is a concept that is as equally difficult to define as it is to practice. Three significant assumptions underpin the concept of strategic art. First, the strategic art concept is predicated on the assumption that the national interests are clearly understood and that all parties involved in strategy formulation hold a common representation. Similarly, it is assumed that problems related to these national interests are also clearly identified in order that suitable ends may be formulated to facilitate national interest defense. The final assumption is that agents of the federal government have a common, holistic vision and work with unity of effort toward the defense of these national interests by incorporating a whole of government approach that transcends the individual agencies involved. To assist in navigating the complexity of the practice of strategic art is the methodology of design. Design as a methodology is essential to strategic art, as it not only serves as a framework to validate the aforementioned assumptions, but also aids in understanding and identifying the complex, ill-structured problems that characterize the current era.
Strategic art is defined as the skillful formulation, coordination, and application of ends, ways, and means to promote and defend the national interests . This seems to be a relatively straightforward definition with little ambiguity. However, the nature of strategic art and the environment within which it is practiced exponentially raises the difficulty of the concept and requires further explanation. Strategic art begins with understanding the contemporary environment. This understanding is facilitated by a causal analysis of the complex, ill-defined problem that characterizes the contemporary environment and a subsequent visualization of the environment and the United States’ place in it. This visualization will then lead to the formulation of desired conditions and supporting objectives to achieve those conditions, the ends. The importance of clearly defined ends and objectives cannot be overstated, as the remainder of the strategic art process is predicated on the desired end state. Subsequent understanding and examination of the current conditions in contrast to the desired conditions leads to a set of actions or activities, the ways, which will move the current conditions toward the optimal set of conditions. Internal analysis of the elements of national power, the means, and subsequent assignment of the elements of national power to the actions then provides the framework for strategic policy. To this point, the process seems to be relatively scientific. The art portion presents itself in the ability to synchronize the finite number of resources in time and space, in an ever-evolving, dynamic environment, while anticipating changes in the environment and adjusting the objectives and actions to meet those changes, in order to defend all of the national interests globally. Managing this complexity proactively is the essence of strategic art.
Further complicating the concept of strategic art is the fact that its application is based on several assumptions. The first of these is that a clear understanding of the national interests exists, as these interests are the foundation upon which strategic decisions are made. The concept of national interests is concrete and finite in theory, but abstract and ambiguous in application. The difficulty with defining the national interests is that there is no single government document that defines them. Strategic policy documents often refer to defending the national interests, but in none of these documents is there a list of these national interests. They do exist, but they exist in the public and private statements of the nation’s leaders, in the context of the myriad national policy documents, and in the actions of the various agents of the federal government. For example, the Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” There are national interests included in this sentence, but the ambiguity with which they are presented allows a variety of interpretations based on the strategist’s point of view. The Vietnam War brought this point to the forefront, where various agencies of the government identified some manner of threat to a national interest in Vietnam, the visualization and description of which was incomplete and led to not only political unrest, but also public unrest and ultimately withdrawal without objective attainment . The process of identifying national interests is itself a complex issue that is a necessary condition for the practice of strategic art.
Similar to the link between strategic art and the clear identification of national interests, strategic art is also linked inexplicably to a clear understanding of problems related to the national interests. Strategic art assumes that the right problem related to the national interest can be clearly defined. However, the complexity of the contemporary environment translates directly to the identification and understanding of problems related to the national interests. Identification of the right problem requires a complete understanding of the environment and the ability to visualize the same. Causal analysis is also critical to problem identification as it is necessary for identifying centers of gravity, and subsequently, acceptable ways of dealing with problems to reach desired end states. This was evident during Operation Iraqi Freedom when the problem of an insurgency went unidentified, leading to a course of action that did not address the right problem and led to escalation of the war, first by the insurgents and then in the form of the U.S. surge, before the right problem was addressed. Additionally, the inherent differences in points of view across the agents of the elements of national power further exacerbate the strategist’s ability to define the problem and clearly define objectives. This stratification creates a sense of parochialism during the problem identification stage that tends toward the identification of problems that identify with the strategist’s personally held belief system. Examples of this type of confirmation bias are that military strategists would tend toward military problems and military solutions while state department strategists would tend toward diplomatic problems and diplomatic solutions. Additionally, the fact that problem analysis is a continuous process is assumed, although not explicitly stated, and equally as critical to strategic art as initial problem identification. The dynamic nature of the contemporary environment requires constant reframing of the problem to insure that the right problem is being addressed. The complex, ill-defined problems that characterize the contemporary environment significantly increase the difficulty of problem identification.
True synchronization of ends, ways, and means can only be achieved if the various practitioners of the elements of national power have a common, holistic vision and work with unity of effort toward the defense of the national interests by incorporating a whole of government approach that transcends the individual agencies involved. The related assumption is that strategists operate under a system akin to Allison’s rational policy model, where all elements of national power are weighed equally, prioritized, and sequenced for action such that those executed are those with the highest payoff. Reality demonstrates that often the actual method is some type of cross between the organizational process model, where certain problems are perceived to belong to a certain agency and therefore are canalized in that direction leading to a restricted course of action along singular elements of national power, and the governmental politics model, which is basically a zero-sum political model where each agency is out for the best it can do from its own perspective. Lack of interagency coordination is a common theme throughout history, resulting in duplication of effort at its best and contradictory efforts at its worst. Security Assistance operations in Eastern Africa represent just this type of problem. Numerous initiatives have been undertaken in the region to build the capacity of those countries under the auspices of numerous independent offices and budgets in the Department of State and the Department of Defense, each attacking a unilaterally defined problem . Strategic art requires that strategists take a holistic view that incorporates all elements of national power in order to reap the synergistic effects of the combination of elements of national power.
The realization of strategic art requires that, in addition to the formulation, coordination, and application of ends, ways, and means, the assumptions upon which it is based are validated. To that end, the concept of design is as critical to strategic art as it is to the operational level of war, as it provides a framework for understanding, visualizing, and describing the contemporary environment in order to identify the right problem and subsequently developing approaches to solve the identified problem. As previously discussed, the contemporary environment presents national leaders, policymakers, and strategists with an ever-evolving set of complex, ill-defined problems. Design is a methodology for understanding these types of problems, which will work to validate the first two assumptions associated with strategic art. Thoroughly understanding the environment, both domestic and international, will inform a better understanding of the national interests and the relationships between those interests and the international community. This understanding will not only benefit the strategists in their understanding, but also the national leaders who define the national interests and the desired conditions associated with those interests. Given more clearly defined interests, strategists will then be able to better identify and frame the problem to address the threat posed to those national interests. This method of framing these complex problems will also enable strategists to better define centers of gravity and clearly defined objectives to reach the identified end states. Design also incorporates the concept of anticipating changes in the contemporary environment, resulting in the synchronization of ends, ways, and means in a more proactive manner to affect the environment rather than reacting to events as they unfold. The ability of strategists to anticipate change gives them the ability to more accurately forecast the application of ways and means under the auspices of contingency planning as opposed to crisis action planning. The ability to adjust the time and space horizon is significant given the dynamic nature of the contemporary environment.
While design may be extremely advantageous to the practice of strategic art, it is by no means a holistic answer to the practice. Design is a methodology for applying critical thinking in an effort to understand the environment and identify and solve the right problem. It is a method of taking a complex, ill-defined problem and breaking it into manageable pieces that facilitate subsequent problem identification. Design is not a checklist solution to problem solving, nor does it reduce the complexity of the contemporary environment. Success of design still hinges on clearly identifying the conditions that define the end state, thus allowing the strategist to develop well-defined objectives. These well-defined objectives are decisive points in the development of comprehensive strategies and facilitate the operationalizing of the strategic concept into tactical action. Additionally, while design sets forth the framework for anticipating change, it does not insure that the causal relationships associated with the contemporary environment will be understood or visualized in advance. Further, design does not account for the disparity in points of view and the biases inherent in the various agencies of the elements of national power, nor does it establish a framework for managing political maneuvering. The operational approach aspect of design will still have to cross the lines between the various elements of national power and synchronize them toward the attainment of those well-defined objectives in order for the methodology to achieve a measure of success. Design as a methodology must be implemented holistically as part of a whole of government effort in order to synchronize all of the elements of national power in the effort to reach the desired end state.
The designation and synchronization of ends, ways, and means in national strategy formulation, strategic art, is a complicated and complex process. It requires that strategists identify the roots of complex, ill-defined problems, prioritize them, determine how to move them towards optimal conditions, and apportion and allocate a finite amount of resources in their application. Furthermore, the concept of strategic art is based on critical assumptions that only add to the complexity of the process. Understanding the contemporary environment is critical to not only identifying the problem that needs to be solved, but also identifying the national interests that lend themselves to the creation of the problem. Additionally, applying a holistic approach that crosses bureaucratic lines to achieve synergy in the application of the elements of national power adds more complexity to the process. The elements of design provide a framework for dealing with this inherent complexity, but by no means provide a clear-cut solution. The strategist who can validate these assumptions through the use of the framework to understand the environment, clearly describe the ends, develop the ways to achieve those ends holistically across the elements of national power, and prioritize the available elements of national power to defend all of the national interests simultaneously will be the true strategic artist.
Published on April 1, 2015 — Available also in PDF
Mr. Cilluffo is an Associate Vice President at The George Washington University where he directs the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security. He previously served as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security.
Dr. Clark is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Towson University. He previously served as a Psychological Operations Sergeant in the U.S. Army.
FOREWORD: The phrase ‘cyber components and capabilities’ is used as a catch all phrase. It is imprecise. Given that the argument presented here is about the need to further develop offensive and defensive cyber operations, it was important not to truncate the concept on the basis of current (and potentially transitory) definitions. For the purposes of this essay, the phrase can be understood as including any and all computer network attacks (CNA), computer network exploits (CNE), or computer network operations (CNO), that facilitate or resist offensive or defensive land operations and tactical air support.
Shoot, move, communicate. Ground combat can be distilled to these three tasks. Regardless of any weapon’s degree of sophistication or the complexity of any scheme of maneuver — battlefield victory is a product of how well individuals, units, and armies shoot, move, and communicate. These actions underpin a military’s ability to destroy enemy formations, secure objectives, and set the conditions for peace. As cyber components and capabilities1 gain potential to affect how land forces shoot, move, and communicate, the Army — as a whole — must think through, plan for, and rehearse how cyber will affect military missions at the operational and tactical levels of war (and in turn shape strategic outcomes).
National security debates and discussions increasingly focus on the potential effects of cyber. The emphasis has been on strategic level threats or opportunities. These debates are important. Yet they often overlook a basic truth — strategic effect is a product of operational and tactical capability. It is at the operational level where cyber components and capabilities are most likely to have decisive effects. While cyber is a domain unto itself, it will be those military forces that best integrate cyber into operations carried out across the physical domains of air, land, sea, and space, which will gain significant advantage.
To ensure cyber becomes fully and properly integrated into the full spectrum of land operations, discussions about cyber’s operational and tactical level effects are needed. To maintain focus on land operations writ large and avoid becoming a parochial debate about how cyber may affect the tasks or roles of a given branch, these conversations must be Army wide. They must also include technical, academic, and policy experts from outside the service. These discussions should strive to answer three interwoven questions. First, how does (or will) cyberspace influence combat, combat support, and service support operations to project, deploy, and deliver force? Second, how does (or will) cyber components and capabilities affect the ability of US forces to conduct opposed forcible entry operations? Third, how does (or will) cyber components and capabilities affect the ability of US forces to deny or oppose the forcible entry operations of enemy forces? These are not the only important questions about the effects of cyber on land operations. But these three questions allow the Army to start evaluating the magnitude of cyber’s effect on its core missions.
In some ways, these discussions have already begun. In February, FM 3-38 Cyber Electromagnetic Activities was released. The field manual outlines the cyber (and electronic warfare) tactics and procedures commanders must consider in support of unified land operations. It provides a cyber-electromagnetic activities appendix for operations plans and orders. Last September, US Cyber Command activated the headquarters for its Cyber Mission Force. It has established joint force headquarters-cyber to support the combatant commands. Cyber Command is now in the process of building, training, and certifying one hundred and thirty-three national missions team, combat mission teams, and cyber protection teams — including those of US Army Cyber Command. Furthermore, articles addressing the utility and effects of cyber are increasingly prevalent in military journals. These events are welcome developments. Yet, they run the risk of partitioning cyber off as something distinct and separate from how the Army as a whole shoots, moves, and communicates in the twenty first century. Piecemeal consideration of how cyber components and capabilities affect targeting, operations or signals security, network-centric warfare, or even the utility of cyber components as weapons themselves are important topics. Yet, cyber requirements and capabilities cannot be relegated to a specific appendix, a specific task, or given command. Their consideration must be Army-wide and explicit. Discussions about the operational effects of cyber components and capabilities on strategic land power are needed.
What follows is offered as a thinking exercise to highlight the importance of an Army wide, operational level approach to the role of cyber. It is not gospel. It is inevitably flawed. Still, it is an important step in fueling discussions about how cyber will influence the Army’s ability to shoot, move, and communicate to ensure tactical, operational, and strategic success and superiority.
Georgian hackers felt it first. They were among the first targets of the Russian attack. Late on 07 August 2008, distributed denial of service (DDoS) and structured query language (SQL) database injection attacks were used to suppress the capabilities of pro-Georgian hackers. These attacks significantly reduced Georgia’s ability respond to or retaliate against follow-on attacks in both the cyber and physical domains. In quick succession, DDoS and SQL attacks were used to bring down fifty-four Georgian government, communications, and financial websites. The attacks slowed intra-government communication, isolated the Georgian government from its citizens, halted electronic banking services, and silenced news agencies just as Russia launched combat operations into Georgia. These cyber-attacks interwove a range of effects normally produced via electronic warfare or conceptualized as information operations. Although there is no definitive public evidence of an official command and control link between Russian forces and these cyber-attacks, the level of synchronization between cyber and conventional actions was impressive.2 It suggests a high degree of coordination. “Many of the most serious attacks began just as the tanks began to roll… the choice of targets is especially telling. Official sites in Gori, along with local news sites, were shut down by denial-of-service attacks before the Russian planes got there.”3 If the objective was to slow Georgia’s response and complicate the counter-concentration of Georgian forces — it worked. Cyber-attacks degraded the ability of Georgian forces to shoot, move, and communicate. Cyber components and capabilities provided pivotal support to the Russian ground offensive that stripped South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia.
The Georgian example represents an early and dramatic case in a growing universe of cases in which cyber components and capabilities have been employed at the operational and tactical level. That universe includes Israel’s 2007 take down of Syria’s air defenses in coordination with strikes against a suspected nuclear materials cite.4 It includes the Syrian Electronic Army’s ongoing efforts to spread pro-Assad propaganda and steal data for use in targeting anti-Assad forces.5 Most recently, it includes Russia's seizure of Crimea. As Russian forces moved to take control of airports and other objectives, Russian hackers attacked Ukrainian websites and telecommunications facilities. The attacks against Ukraine included a DDoS assault thirty-two times larger than that launched against Georgia and the use of a cyber-espionage system called “Snake.”6 Once again, Russian forces used physical and cyber-attacks — this time, to isolate Crimea from the rest of Ukraine. These cases suggest a new reality. Regardless of asymmetries in other capabilities, cyber components and capabilities are now part of how armies shoot, move, and communicate, whether carried out directly or via proxies that provides impetus for all military forces, from those of powerful nation-states to those of weak insurgent movements, to acquire cyber components and capabilities.
The acquisition of new components and capabilities does not necessarily led to the acquisition of new techniques or tactics. More importantly, new technological components and capabilities alone are not enough to produce victory. It is the employment of technology that matters. It is how the new instrument affect a military’s ability to shoot, move, and communicate that matters. Four quick illustrations make the point.
In 1415, the longbow decided the Battle of Agincourt not because of its four hundred yard range, but because of its employment. Positioned on slightly elevated sloping ground, to the left and right of King Henry’s men-at-arms, against a numerically superior enemy whose ability to maneuver was constrained by mud and wooded terrain — the new technology devastated the opposing French forces.7 If Henry’s archers had been used without consideration of terrain, or without a fixing force to slow the French, the outcome would have been different.
The same can be said of Major General John Buford’s use of breach loading carbines at Gettysburg in 1863. Their technological advantages, the ability to reload rapidly and fire without standing, only became significant because of how they were employed. Buford’s decision to have his cavalry fight dismounted and his use of terrain shaped a successful covering force battle that positioned the Army for victory at Gettysburg, and forced General Robert Lee to withdraw out of Pennsylvania back into Virginia.8 Against numerically superior Confederate force possessing much greater firepower, the technology alone would not have been decisive.
Early tank warfare provides a counter-example. Despite the emergence of subsequent myths about their effectiveness, in 1918 tanks did not play a decisive role in the battles that broke the stalemate of World War I. At Amiens, the Allies had some 414 tanks — four days later, 6 were operational. As a new technology the tank was mechanically unreliable. Yet, it was employment that undermine their effectiveness. At Amiens the tanks advanced ahead of infantry. No reserve force was kept. The machines faltered in the face of Germany’s elastic defense. As a result of poor force employment, by November 1918, there were only 37 operable tanks in the entire British army.9 The tank had no effect on how (or how well) the armies of World War I fought.
Similarly, because of poor force employment at the operational level, the first operational combat jet had no beneficial effect on how the Luftwaffe performed. Adolf Hitler’s insistence that the Me262 program be used to develop a Blitz bomber, nullified the potential effect of the aircraft’s speed. If the Me262 had been developed solely as a fighter and employed to blunt Allied bombing, it could have swarmed American and British air forces and inflicted significantly higher losses — producing tactical, operational, and perhaps even strategic effects. Hitler’s decision to overrule the force employment preferences of Hermann Göring prevented this.10
As these illustrations make clear, raw capability is not enough. Success is a function of application, integration, and execution. Whether or not, and how, a new instrument or technology matters depends on how it is employed. That is the impetus behind the need to discuss how cyber components and capabilities will affect how the Army (and its adversaries) shoot, move, and communicate.
Stephen Biddle argues that technology magnifies the effects of force employment.11 Technology makes capable forces, more capable. If integrated properly, technology enhances how military units execute or react to actions born out of the principles of war: mass, maneuver, surprise, security, simplicity, objective, offensive, economy of force, and unity of command. Technology is not a substitute for good force employment. It will not make a ‘bad’ force better. It can, however, allow commanders to concentrate the application of effort upon the most decisive elements of a given operation. Of course, the opposite is also true. The failure to effectively employ a technology mastered by an adversary leaves a force less capable. It may result in missed opportunities or expose friendly forces. This gets to the heart of why the Army as a whole must consider cyber’s effects on land operations.
In combat, cyber components are likely to affect how adversaries detect and respond to attacks — hasty and deliberate. Cyber is likely to shift the culminating point for victory. Depending on the strategic objective and the characteristics of the adversaries, cyber may affect the combatants’ center of gravity. Cyber technologies will affect force employment. Whether or not they enhance or degrade the Army’s ability to shoot, move, and communicate depends on how well officers and non-commissioned officers think through the effects of cyber components and capabilities on mission, enemy, terrain, troops, time (METT-T), and even civilians (METT-TC). Consider how cyber components and capabilities can affect intelligence, covert, and conventional mission sets.
In regard to intelligence missions, cyber offers a more effective means for collecting, processing, pooling, and analyzing information from traditional and non-traditional sources. Data from forward observers, spot reports, aircraft, country studies, and intelligence reports can be merged and accessed more quickly and efficiently than before. Cyber has the potential to simultaneously draw information emanating from neutral sources as well as those of the adversary. Battlefield relevant data from news media and social media can be quickly obtained and analyzed. Enemy systems can be hacked and monitored, allowing data to be gathered about the concentration of forces, the placement or replacement rates of material resources, ciphers, or other intelligence requirements. The ability to pool data from a host of various sources at the operational level, would provide a richer picture of the area of operations. Furthermore, the ability of cyber components to collect from various streams — to observe targets from various vantage points, including the enemy’s — would make intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance less transient, more constant, in nature.
If cyber components are fully integrated into intelligence missions at operational and tactical levels, they could allow commanders to forecast the primary, secondary, and tertiary effects of real or planned events. Sophisticated algorithms and models delivered via cloud computing could be used to carry out probabilistic analysis of enemy force concentrations, likely counter-concentrations in response to US actions, and the likely effects of battlefield damage to specific targets. The goal is not to replace the intelligence function with cyber. No one should seek to replace ‘the 2-shop’ with Arthur C. Clarke’s HAL 9000. The goal is to use the speed and access grated by cyber to enable analysts to capture a more accurate and aggregate understanding of the situation, enemy capabilities, and the behavior of the adversary. Doing so would allow for better preparation of the battlefield, target acquisition, and battle damage assessments.
Imagine the effect if at the operational and tactical level US forces were able to confirm current or accurately predict future enemy positions by constantly triangulating data from friendly force observation, social media and other neutral sources, and the enemy’s own networks. Better yet, imagine a scenario in which the same could be used to confirm current or accurately predict the location of enemy logistical elements. Such capability could give commanders the ability to operationalize General Omar Bradley’s (perhaps apocryphal) adage that “amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics.”12 Now, imagine if enemy forces were able to do this to American forces? To what degree are Army units capable of monitoring and reacting to the use of cyber components and capabilities to find and track them? To what degree are commands prepared monitor and react to the use of cyber to identify and track individual soldiers within their commands?
In regard to covert mission sets, cyber components can offer deep strike and irregular warfare capabilities to operational and tactical commanders via computer network exploits and computer network operations. Cyber techniques are proving capable of producing kinetic effects. At the operational and tactical levels, these emerging capabilities could be used to strike elements in the adversary’s rear — without exposing friendly forces or physical avenues of approach. Cyber components could be used to falsely trigger enemy sensors, diverting enemy forces and attention. This capability could be used to harass and confuse enemy units, forcing them to expend time, energy, and resources — without exposing friendly forces. On the battlefield, this could support friendly action by altering force-to-force ratios or force-to-space ratios. Depending on the situation, covert cyber could be used to slow the response of enemy forces or undermine enemy command and control before the launch of operations without the enemy even being aware it was happening. As the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia demonstrates, even if the effect is not covert, cyber-attacks can undermine command and control, slowing responses at critical moments. As before, this raises the question of the degree to which Army units are factoring such — on the part of friendly and enemy forces — into operations plans and orders.
Introducing digital mission command systems and supporting networks will continue to make the Command Post the center of a commander’s universe Unified Land Operations (ULO). Despite this current concentration of critical information in the CP, commanders should not have to decide between staying in their CP, or moving to the front lines.
It is in regard to conventional missions where cyber components are likely to have the greatest effect. At the operational level, conventional operations will often include the intelligence, if not covert missions, described above. Cyber’s effect on conventional missions, however, will extend beyond intelligence and irregular warfare. Cyber’s ability to network communications and provide for information sharing will affect the speed of combat operations. This will affect synchronization and it will affect the time attackers and defenders have to make decisions. The ability of cyber components to produce kinetic effects will allow cyber to play a suppressive fire, and eventually indirect fire, function. The ability of cyber components to fool or flood enemy sensors and systems with noise will allow cyber to play an electronic warfare function and conceal friendly forces and actions and expose those of the enemy. The ability of cyber systems to monitor friendly supply chains will aid in just in time delivery of liquids, ammunition, equipment, and casualty support. Cyber components will affect how modern forces employ the principles of war; including, mass, maneuver, surprise, security, simplicity, objective, offensive, economy of force, and unity of command.
Cyber components and capabilities have the potential to dramatically affect a force’s ability to breakthrough an adversary’s defenses and exploit the ensuing gap. It is not hard to imagine a context in which the following occurs. Cyber components and capabilities have the potential to conceal massing forces, producing favorable force-to-force and force-to-space ratios. Cyber components and capabilities can potentially expand the penetration corridor by taking down enemy sensors and helping to move civilians out of the battlespace. Cyber components and capabilities can increase friendly force mobility through their effect on communication and coordination, allowing friendly forces to more effectively exploit terrain and the location of enemy forces. Cyber components and capabilities can produce more precise targeting, ensuring that attacks have maximum effect on the objective while reducing collateral damage. After breakthrough, cyber components and capabilities could reduce the enemy’s ability to flank invading friendly forces by providing real time information about counter-concentrations to operational and tactical level commanders — allowing them to avoid or swarm enemy forces. Cyber does not stand to alter the basic premise of breakthrough and exploitation, but it stands to increase the likelihood that it can be carried out successfully and it stands to adjust the costs of such operations. One last historical reference reinforces this point.
In 1940, the spearhead Panzer units invading France were able to operate over long distances due to radio and a command organization that knew how best to exploit the new technology. The supreme commander of French forces opposing the German’s sat in a headquarters with no radio and only a single telephone line — which was unavailable during the middle of day when the operator took lunch.13 Today the question is, to what degree is the Army working through how the plans and operations necessary to understand how cyber will affect breakthrough and exploitation in the 21st century.
As with all the tasks and missions that make up modern force employment, the success of operations — and the fate of the strategic goals for which they are undertaken — are a product of the relative operational and tactical level skill of opposing forces. Cyber components and capabilities will play a role in how well the US Army conducts “combined arms maneuver to gain physical, temporal, and psychological advantages over an enemy.”14 To do so successfully, cyber cannot be left to a specific appendix or a given command. It must be integrated into how the Army shoots, moves, and communicates. The whole of the Army must integrate cyber into operational level force employment. Evidence suggests its adversaries are doing just that.
Published on March 18, 2015 — Available also in PDF
U.S. Army Lt. Col. G.F. Deimel is currently the battalion commander of the 3rd Battalion, 353rd Regiment, Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) Operations Group, Fort Polk, La. He holds a B.A. from the United States Military Academy in International and Strategic History, and an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. His past assignments include the following: Operational Advisor to the Iraqi Federal Police in 2007, Dep. Cmdr, Regional Support Command-Southwest, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, 2011-2012, and Senior Brigade Staff Observer, Coach/Trainer for the National Training Command Operations Group.
U.S. Army Maj. Duane Bailey is a Sub-Saharan Africa Foreign Area Officer, who is currently serving as Director for Regional Advise and Assist Training Teams with the 3rd Battalion, 353rd Regiment, JRTC Operations Group, Fort Polk, La. Bailey began his career as an enlisted Russian linguist in 1990. He later qualified as an Arabic linguist before being commissioned as an Armor officer in 1998. He commanded a Stryker infantry company in 2007, and later transitioned to become a Foreign Officer in 2008. Maj. Bailey holds one M.A. in National Security Affairs, and another in Strategy, Defense Planning, and Crisis Management from the University of Yaounde II, Cameroon, Africa.
U.S. Army Maj. Lloyd Warren, is currently the Operations Officer for the 3rd Battalion, 353rd Regiment, Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) Operations Group, Fort Polk, La. He holds a B.S. in Managerial Accounting with an emphasis in Computer Information Systems from Northern Arizona University. Maj. Warren’s assignments include serving as a platoon leader, assistant operations officer, company commander, Operations Officer of Washington, D.C. Criminal Investigation Division, and Section Officer in Charge for Police Advisory Trainers, 4th Battalion, 162nd Infantry Brigade.
“The Army cannot predict who it will fight, where it will fight, and with which coalition it will fight. To win in a complex world, Army forces must provide the Joint force with multiple options, integrate the efforts of multiple partners, operate across multiple domains, and present our enemies and adversaries with multiple dilemmas.”
-General David Perkins
Forward, The US Army Operating Concept: Win in a Complex World, 2020-2040
7 October 2014
Today our Army faces as much uncertainty as any point in time since the close of the Korean War. Our senior leaders are working to address a multitude of threats from Afghanistan to Africa to Eastern Europe even, it seems, as these threats transform before us. At the same time the U.S. Army faces a dwindling budget and reduced force structure which could increasingly limit the resources available to meet these threats. At the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), Fort Polk, La., we understand that one of the best ways to hedge for an uncertain future is by investing in leader development. The Army Leadership Development Strategy (ALDS) states that “developing leaders is a competitive advantage the Army possesses that cannot be replaced by technology or substituted with advanced weaponry and platforms;”1 so it follows that it is during times such as these when we most need to invest in our junior leaders at the Brigade and below.
Currently our conventional forces are distributed across the globe, executing a broad array of missions. For example, U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) alone currently has units regularly engaged in over 150 countries. You can find our soldiers committed to operations ranging from brigade-level deployments in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR) to small-team and individual deployments in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) AOR. Regardless of where you search out our formations, you will find leaders engaged with the full range of joint, inter-organizational, and multinational partners. Furthermore as budgets shrink, this trend can only increase. The new Army Operating Concept, Win in a Complex World, calls for the Army to engage regionally to shape security environments and set the theater of operations as part of its core competencies. The ALDS nests within that goal, placing regional engagement at the top of the list of “near-term” priorities for leader development. ALDS states that “leaders must understand the strategic environment, be able to think critically and creatively, visualize solutions, and describe and communicate crucial information to achieve shared understanding, collaborate, and build teams.”2 It stands to reason that as resources dwindle, leveraging the full capabilities of our partner organizations only becomes more important to the successful execution of Unified Land Operations (ULO). Leaders who can successfully engage, leverage, and synchronize partner efforts will be of great value to any formation.
With these thoughts in mind, the JRTC Operations Group has developed a training curriculum to help commanders prepare their leaders for the complexities of the present and future operating environment. The Leader’s Regional Advise and Assist Course (LRAAC) is a week-long, immersive training event designed to provide leaders at the company and battalion level the cognitive foundation for operating in a complex foreign environment. Observer, Coach/ Trainers (OC/Ts) from the 3rd Battalion, 353rd Regiment, deliver a doctrinally-grounded curriculum that provides students both a conceptual foundation to shape the lens through which they view human inter-action and hands-on scenario-based training exercises to develop and hone their inter-personal engagement skills. Taken in full, the course helps leaders better understand and engage with their inter-organizational and multi-national partners. The final result is a leader more capable of accommodating cultural differences, tolerating ambiguity, building relationships, and leveraging the strengths of others.
As presently taught, the LRAAC consists of three fundamental components. The first and the foundational component of the course consists of six “core” classes. These classes help build skills essential to the successful execution of all security cooperation missions. As the 3rd Battalion transitioned from the 162nd Infantry Brigade into the JRTC Operations Group, it aggregated and collated training and reference materials which conventional U.S. Army advising cadre, including the 162nd Infantry Brigade, had developed and maintained for nearly a decade. As such the core curriculum draws on the U.S. Army’s experience from over 13 years war as refined by a cadre of security force assistance and foreign area specialists. The curriculum is based on current Army doctrine and is the foundation for every course the 3rd Battalion teaches, whether it be LRAAC for a unit assigned to the AFRICOM AOR, the Joint Security Force Assistance (JSFAC) Course for an individual advisor heading to an Afghan ministry, or the Security Force Assistance Course (SFAC) for a brigade deploying as advisory teams to work with an Afghan Army Corps. The six courses in the core curriculum teach a basic set of engagement skills for conducting security cooperation missions anywhere in the world. See Table 1.
Building on the core curriculum, the second component of the LRAAC consists of five courses which prepare leaders for operations as part of a Regionally Aligned Force (RAF). This segment of the LRAAC focuses on the historical and cultural nuances of a specific country or region while building the student’s understanding of the US interagency, media engagement, and regional Foreign Security Forces (FSF). See Table 2 for these course descriptions.
The third and final component of the LRAAC curriculum consists of engagement lane training exercises (LTXs) that challenge students to bring together all they have learned in immersive scenarios. These exercises are built upon the same fundamental principles as any training lane designed to teach and test tactical skills. Students are evaluated by certified OC/Ts who employ video recording to deliver instrumented after action reviews (AARs) throughout the course. Based upon their own training objectives and their unit’s anticipated mission set(s), unit commanders can tailor the course by choosing which LTXs the cadre will employ from a menu of available scenarios. Common scenarios are listed in table 3.
The LRAAC is delivered as a 40-hour course. Days generally consist of classroom instruction in the morning followed by a practical exercise/scenario-based LTX in the afternoon. The chart below depicts a typical week-long LRAAC. It begins with the basic elements of the core curriculum. Each day closes with practical exercises in which the students employ the skills they have learned that day. The following morning begins with an instrumented AAR of training events conducted the previous day in order to prime students for the material ahead, and the final day consists of a series of LTXs built around the unit commander’s requirements. See Table 4.
Instruction for the LRAAC primarily comes from OC/Ts in the 3rd Battalion who are certified through the JRTC OC/T Academy, the Army Basic Instructor Course, and certification processes specific to the 3rd Battalion’s own internal training program. Many of the battalion’s cadre have lived and worked abroad and/or served as advisors on previous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Classes involving force protection and insider threat are developed and instructed by the battalion’s SERE-C qualified cadre, and many of the OC/Ts are graduates of regionally-focused courses such as those provided by the DOS Foreign Service Institute and the Asian Pacific Center for Security’s Asian Pacific Orientation Course (APOC). Finally all the development of regionally-focused curriculum is supervised by Foreign Area Officers (FAOs) resident in the JRTC Operations Group.
Taken in comparison with recent decades, the operational environment of the future promises unprecedented complexity, and our present trajectory suggests that the Army will be asked to accomplish more tasks with fewer resources. In this environment, leaders who can leverage the talents and capabilities of partner organizations and nations are much more likely find quicker, more efficient paths to mission success. At the JRTC we recognize and embrace this operational dynamic; subsequently we have developed the LRAAC as one vehicle for preparing Army leaders to overcome challenges as part of a Joint, Inter-organizational, and Multinational team. Culturally aware and adaptive leaders will never ensure mission success, but one can be certain that they are a necessary element to future solutions.
Published on February 23, 2015 — Available also in PDF
Command Sgt. Maj. Woody B. Carter is, serving as the Battalion Command Sgt. Maj. for the 52d Strategic Signal Battalion in Stuttgart, Germany. Carter holds an A.S. and B.S. from Excelsior College. His assignments include tours to Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, and multiple combat deployments in Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. Carter’s previous deployment was in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, where he served as an Afghan National Army Advisor, where he promoted the importance of having values in the military.
Trust is not possible without candor, and this involves, to a certain extent, self-policing and encouraging lower-ranking officers, and enlisted soldiers to speak truth to power (or up the chain of command).”
–Profession of Arms Seminar, 2011 1
Back when there were no “Army Values,” we had the Professional Army Ethics that were comprised of Loyalty, Duty, Selfless Service, and Integrity. These were the core values of the Army in the mid 1980’s. They all meant the same then as they do now. Along with the Professional Army Ethics, we also had individual values that were the four C’s: Commitment, Competence, Candor, and Courage. These hopefully sound somewhat familiar, because two C’s are part of today’s certifying criteria – Competence, Commitment, and Character. In 1986, then Chief of Staff of the Army, General John A. Wickham, Jr., declared the theme for the year as “Values.” He challenged all soldiers to “live our Army values and make our Army all it can be.” Also in 1986, DA Pam 600-68, “The Bedrock of Our Profession” White Paper 1986, was written. DA Pam 600-68 also stated, “We needed to develop and maintain strong individual and professional values because decisions frequently involve tough ethical choices.”2 In 1994 FM 100-1, The Army, was published. It stated that the U.S. Army is a doctrine-based organization in a values-centered profession. As the Army’s cornerstone document, FM 100-1 defined the broad and enduring purposes for which the Army was established and the qualities, values, and traditions that guide the Army in protecting and serving the nation. It was in here the first Army ethos was identified simply in one word—Duty. Duty guided beliefs, standards, and ideals that characterized and motivated the Army.3 Duty was defined as “behavior required by moral obligation, demanded by custom, or enjoined by feelings of rightness.4 Integrity and selfless service were embedded in duty. They gave it the moral foundation that the qualities of the ethos demanded from all soldiers from the rank of private to general officer. Also identified in FM 100-1 were the professional Soldier’s core qualities of commitment, competence, candor, compassion, and courage.5 These core qualities were the facets of the soldier’s character that undergird the ethos.
In the 1990’s, the Army came out with the current seven Army Values we know today: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage (LDRSHIP). By now, I believe everyone knows them easily but living them, as retired Army Gen. Wickham challenged, is another thing. Back in the 80’s, integrity was the glue that held everything together. I believe integrity was greatly assisted by one of the “C’s” that is now no longer mentioned, which is candor. Candor was defined in FM 100-1 as “unreserved, honest or sincere expression; frankness; freedom from bias, prejudice, or malice.”6 There were not very many “yes” men back then. If something was not right, they had the moral and personal courage to tell someone, rather it be a senior or peer. The Army Ethic, Public Trust, and the Profession of Arms article, written by Army Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen, Jr. with Army Capt. Nathan K. Finney, states that “candor is an important value that is not captured well enough in our current formulation of the Army Values and is important to this relationship.” 7 The two writers believe that enough evidence has surfaced in surveys and focus groups to consider the addition of an eighth Army value – candor. Candor applies inside and outside the Army, up and down the chain of command. If candor had not been faded out, it is possible Gen. Petraeus would have been confronted by one or more of his subordinates to think twice about what he was doing, as stated by Sarah Chayes about General Petraeus and his book “All In.”8 The Bedrock of Our Profession White Paper states, “If we cannot rely on each other to be honest and truthful in our dealings with one another, then we cannot get the job done. We must demand and expect honesty from all members who are in the Army or who work for the Army.”9 In ADRP-1, the Army Profession, states, “…esprit de corps is reflected in an open command climate of candor, trust, and respect.”10 Our seven Army Values are great and I believe many soldiers are living them, but possibly not as well as they could if they had the personal courage to be candid with their seniors, peers, and subordinates alike.
Col. Paul Paolozzi wrote an article for the Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College titled “Close the Candor Chasm: The Missing Element of Army Professionalism.” In it, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, 2008, has a quote “…if as an officer one does not tell blunt truths or create an environment where candor is encouraged, then they have done themselves and the institute a disservice.” Col. Paolozzi writes that “candor is a critical mark of character in communication-providing strength, purpose, boldness, and validity.”11 We, the Army, want to build “trust.” Trust between soldiers and their leaders, soldiers and their families, and trust between the Army and the American people. We cannot achieve this without effective communication between everyone. We all know that effective communication is the key to any relationship, personal or professional. Vice President Biden stated “Candor generates trust…trust is the basis on which real change – constructive change – is made.”12 Retired Army Gen. Frederick Franks, wrote, “The Army Profession must reinforce the necessity for, tolerate, and indeed encourage mutual candor, even as it allows wide discretion in command.”13 ADRP 6-22, Army Leadership,14 talks about how leaders build trust. It says that “it is important for leaders to promote a culture and climate of trust”. It goes on to discuss how to develop others, help them learn, assess their developmental needs, coach them, counsel them and mentor them. How can we do all that? Candor has eroded through the years because of neglect, chiefly in training, education, counseling, and evaluations, effectively limiting the manner in which trust is reinforced. Being candid is not easy, it does take personal courage to tell someone where they are weak or when something is wrong. It is not a free ticket to say “no that’s wrong.” We need to bring candor back to the forefront. Candor is only mentioned four times in all of ADRP 6-22, Army Leadership.
In my experience, over the past 24 years, I believed in asking the hard questions and telling it like it is. I have seen other soldiers, NCOs and officers who were candid with their peers, seniors, and subordinates; they were all respected for their honesty. I think we all know a couple of people who are not afraid to “tell someone off” or “put someone in their place.” That is what the Army needs more of, but in a professional and tactful manner. I asked how do we coach, teach, and mentor and build a culture and climate of trust; the answer is – to be candid. We need to create an environment that allows change and leaders must be willing and excepting of candor and ready for change. Retired Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker once said; “Cultural changes begins with behavior and leaders who shape it.”15 Do not be afraid to tell your soldiers where they are weak and how they need to improve. Do your due diligence in giving them open and honest feedback. Do not just say they are weak and not tell them how to improve. If it’s a senior, be professional and use tact. Most subordinates know what is really going on in the work area and have a good grasp on things. As seniors, we have to give them a chance in order to build real trust. So how do we get after this; to bring candor back to the forefront; we talk about it. When we hear or see that someone may be holding back, fearing what we might say, give them a chance and let them speak. There is a duty and obligation to build the trust between our soldiers, leaders and the American people. Exercising candor is everyone’s responsibility. The Profession of Arms Seminar that was held in January 2011, had a panel that felt strongly about candor being an essential value, and part of the attributes, though never recommended candor as an addition; rather they felt that it was encompassed under trust, and that trust would not be possible without candor.” Trust is part of the five essential characteristics of the Army Profession and is the bedrock of our profession. However, like integrity held our original values, the Professional Army Ethics” together, so does candor. It would be real easy to add to our values; just put it first and it will say what we should all see: C-LDRSHIP.
Published on January 26, 2015 — Available also in PDF
Clifton E. Green is a human resource manager for the Army’s Human Terrain System, working out of Fort Eustis, Virginia. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. Prior to joining HTS, he served as an air defense officer in the Army.
Robert P. Hart works as the Human Capital Manager for the G-2 department for the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). Hart hold an M.A. in Human Resource Management from Troy University. In the past, Hart served as a senior military analyst with TRADOC, and as a human resources manager with NASA. As a part of his current duties, Hart oversees all HR functions for civilian employees deployed with the Human Terrain System.
Civilians have historically deployed in support of operations during periods of conflict. The expereinces during the counterinsurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown a clear need for skills and expertise in human terrain that resides in the private sector. As the Strategic Landpower concept will see the need for such expertise at work during the early phases of operations, the deployment process of government civilians needs to evolve to streamline to make it more efficient and effective in supporting Strategic Landpower. The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command’s experience with the deployment of the civilians of the Human Terrain System is instructive.
Deploying government civilians to support overseas contingencies has become common and necessary. Army civilians with highly sought after skill sets, are advancing the application of Landpower across the strategic, operational and tactical levels of war. The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command’s (TRADOC) experience with the Human Terrain System (HTS) is a viable case study exposing substantial limitations in the way the Army and the Department of Defense (DOD) acquires, deploys, and sustains civilian employees in a theater of operations.
Our examination displays these limitations which prevented the Human Terrain System from effectively supporting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq during the early years of the wars, requiring significant efforts to resolve. Since making corrective measures, the HTS civilian deployment model has proven itself extremely capable. To enable better civilian support of Strategic Landpower, DOD must take advantage of these lessons learned in order to make existing civilian deployment capabilities smarter, more efficient, innovative and more agile.
One of the lessons U.S. forces learned in Afghanistan and Iraq was that cultural knowledge and understanding were crucial to successfully fighting the counterinsurgencies in both countries. FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, the U.S. military doctrine manual for fighting counterinsurgencies, discusses this need throughout the manual. The lack of such an understanding was evident in the operations prior to publication of FM 3-24. Army and Marine units conducted successful tactical operations without due regard for social and cultural factors, which led to negative operational effects and tactical backlash. Recognizing this knowledge gap, (TRADOC), in concert with the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), developed the concept of fielding Human Terrain Teams (HTTs) to provide social science experience to tactical and operational units on a large scale.
Social scientists from the academic world would provide units with a social framework for the local area and provide advice and recommendations to commanders and staffs. These HTTs would also reach back to subject matter experts in the United States. This formed the basis of the Human Terrain System and has paid dividends during the later portions of these conflicts.
Currently, DOD lacks a comprehensive civilian deployment support system. No program provides lifecycle assistance to deploy DOD civilians for overseas contingency operations. As a result, the support deploying civilians receive from their parent and receiving organizations can be uneven or non-existent. The outgrowth of this problem is that deployed civilians sometimes face human resource issues, financial support problems, and poor oversight throughout the deployment that on most occasions, uniformed service members can easily resolve. These personnel issues and lack of leadership can potentially result in reduced organizational effectiveness and negatively impact morale. TRADOC experienced all of these failures during the Human Terrain System program’s early years, and their cumulative impact was significant. HTS endured years of investigations, bad publicity, and severely degraded employee performance.
Establishing a dedicated program to recruit, train, deploy, and sustain civilians in deployed environments would resolve many of the issues. This would create a system which enables the rapid deployment of civilians in support of operations. Centralization would clearly delineate support requirements and responsibilities, resulting in more effective support, allowing receiving units to focus on their operational missions. Moreover, centralized administration of these functions would achieve efficiencies through scale and would ensure consistency of treatment for all deployed civilians.
The centralized DOD civilian deployment system would encompass the entire deployment process, from the time civilian personnel receive notification of deployment to their final redeployment home. For this to become a reality, a cultural change within the department is important. The focus on deployments should not be exclusively on uniformed personnel; more emphasis should be placed on civilians during deployment. In fact, the Department of Defense had never conducted an audit of the costs of deploying civilians until 2011.1
This scope must expand to consider the federal civilians that also accompany uniformed service members, who also work to achieve the same objectives for the nation. The lack of consideration for deployed civilians limits their ability to be effective. Those civilian with prior military service may be able to work their way through the existing deployment system, however those unfamiliar endure great cost in time and effort to navigate through the deployment cycle.
By centralizing these deployment and support functions, DOD could move toward a modular approach. Deploying civilians would simply “plug in” to this centralized civilian program which ensures civilian employees are managed across the entire deployment process, integrated with deployment centers and receiving units, accounted for and supported in theater, and enjoy a smooth redeployment home. The program would take care of deployed civilians and, at the same time, ensure that they went where needed and succeed in the job they were hired to do.
The centralized approach offsets the need for individual deployment support infrastructures, foster greater efficiency, focusing on core tasks and reducing the administrative burden. Beyond that, the program sees additional benefits. Recruiters seeking private and non-profit expertise could quickly screen and hire qualified personnel to be trained and sworn in as government civilian employees.
The option for government employees is preferable to contractor support in a number of cases, since salaries are generally lower, they fall under similar rules to the uniformed military, and they can perform inherently governmental functions. Normal government hiring is slow, but due to its large need for personnel, HTS perfected a hybrid contractor/government hiring process, which combined effective private sector hiring practices with the specific requirements of government hiring. Additionally, by using term limited appointments, these positions maintain managerial flexibility. The government is never obligated to employ an individual beyond the term end date. The centralized civilian deployment system maintains visibility of civilians on these limited-term appointments until returned to the private sector.
When cost effectiveness is a significant consideration, this approach is justification for this kind of program. Centralized functions eliminate duplication across DOD yet allow expansion during times of need. Once in place, the deployment system supports the deployment of all government service civilians, whether deployed singly or as part of a large effort. Any future programs in future conflicts would quickly and easily gain access to an infrastructure to support their deploying civilian workforce. Additionally, as responsible stewards of the government’s money, the centralized deployment program ensures better control over pay and allowances, further cutting back on waste and fraud during deployments.
The Department has the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce (CEW) program. While limited in scope, CEW primarily matches talent to deployed jobs availabilities. However, in addition to its current roles, CEW could potentially take on these additional deployment support functions, making it the “one stop shop” for deploying DOD civilian personnel.
However, regardless of where the responsibility is placed, now is the time to act. With the end of combat operations in Afghanistan, DOD stands to lose a significant amount of institutional knowledge in the near future. A 2012 Government Accountability Office report entitled “Improvements Needed to Strengthen Management of U.S. Civilian Presence” pointed out how DOD had failed to learn from civilian deployment experiences in Bosnia, which directly led to problems in Iraq and Afghanistan several years later. We should not make the same mistake again.
Improving support to civilian employees is achievable and will pay large dividends, but only if senior leaders recognize the value in doing so. Since the role for civilians in Strategic Landpower is likely to only grow larger, DOD must prepare for the future and adopt a more intelligent approach.
Published on January 5, 2015— Available also in PDF
Lt. Col. Candice Frost, U.S. Army, commands the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion, Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Frost holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy, and a Master of Military Arts and Sciences degree from the School of Advanced Military Studies. Her last assignment was at the Human Resources Command, and has multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Bosnia.
In recent years, several personnel management publications espouse that the current Army personnel management system stifles growth and discourages talented officers from remaining in the service. The flaw in this argument pits a comparison of an overburdened bureaucratic Human Resources Command (HRC) to a more efficient private sector human resources management model. Both an ignorance of the current system and an arrogance of a failure to identify individual “talents” possessed by officers lead followers to concur with the biased argument that the current system remains paralyzed in bureaucracy. Correction of the erroneous “assumptions” requires officers, as both leaders and members of the managed Army officer population, to exercise their duty to educate themselves on the current officer distribution process and develop individual officer careers.
Aptly summarized by Dr. Wayne Dyer, “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.”1 This comment accurately reflects the problems when individuals reject the entire Army personnel management system. The lack of understanding of the officer distribution system in which officers are managed leads to unfounded accusations of personnel mismanagement. Within the Army, officer management is the primary function of the Officer Personnel Management Directorate (OPMD), at the Human Resources Command, which works tirelessly to balance both the readiness of the Army and the individual career of each officer. Unit readiness consists of the aggregate strength of, and talent requirements for, each Army brigade level and above command. Officer management consists of the professional development needs for the talents possessed by each individual officer managed. The distribution falls within the function of a balanced pendulum, requiring months of analysis and input from supported units within the Army and individual officers.
Army requirements impact the officer assignment system years before an officer fills the position. The functions of doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy (DOTmLPF-P) greatly influence the force design model.2 Based upon the approved structure and identification of a vacant position, units establish their preferences of fills prioritized by position. The unit then provides its tiered inputs of vacant positions to Account Managers within HRC who work with Assignment Officers to fill the Army’s requirements within a six month period. This cycle occurs after forecasting unit strengths while balancing the needs of individual officers and their professional requirements. This process reassigns over 39,000 officers per year-and spans newly accessed officers, permanent changes of station, moves in-and-out of schools, to retirement.
The Chief of Staff of the Army and other Army leadership provide the Army’s Manning Guidance (AMG), which is “the” critical input for each cycle. This guidance prioritizes the Army’s mission requirements and unit needs. A focus on deploying units, readiness of the Army, and critical missions lead the order of precedence of the Army’s Personnel Manning Authorization Document (PMAD) positions. Personnel Management “science” balances vacant positions, unit priorities and available officers to maximize units meeting AMG metrics. The analysis of matching positions to the skill and grade of an officer occurs through a logical algorithm looking at positions by skill, either one grade up or one grade down.3 The assignment officer then identifies critical vacancies that the model did not validate and identifies the best fit for each position based on available officers.
Some have argued for expedited promotions or lateral entry as a method to transform the current system. They use the ability of officers to serve one to two grades higher as a basis for their argument. This may benefit officers as they expand their knowledge and experience gained. The second suggestion, that someone could laterally move into the military from another government agency and excel in the military position of leadership, is possible. The risk in this scenario is not to the shareholders’ wallets but to the readiness of the Army and the taxpayers’ sons and daughters. The stakes of lateral entry are higher and the “corporate mission” differs greatly when comparing the military to a company like Zappos.
Tim Kane’s “Bleeding Talent” highlights the argument that the military squanders its talent. His thesis, suggesting that the military personnel system fails to accurately select, position, reward, and promote officers based on merit, is deeply flawed. Kane’s research is one dimensional, analyzes a specific data set, and reeks of educational elitism failing to quantitatively account for aspects critical to the military. Qualities the Officer Corps desires are moral courage, emotional intelligence, and innate devotion to duty. An officer’s educational credentials alone do not necessarily predict success within the Profession of Arms. While education is important, successful officers must simultaneously serve as specialists and generalists, exhibiting multicultural understanding and adaptability across multiple skill sets. In an attempt to retain quality officers, the Army offers a variety of systemic and periodic retention incentives. However, the rewards and incentives offered to officers do not necessarily retain the most talented officers.
Undoubtedly, there are thousands of officers who possess extremely unique skills and highly individualistic talents. Unfortunately, some officers display a level of arrogance that suggests they believe their talents warrant special treatment. Furthermore, these officers believe they can and should be allowed to bypass key developmental building block positions in favor of more personally desired positions. The blatant dismissal of key developmental assignments, as outlined in DA PAM 600-3, fosters an Army culture where it is acceptable for officers to put their personal needs ahead of the needs of the Army, the military overall, and ultimately the country they have sworn to serve. This attitude harms the military through the focus on the individual over the collective. Additionally, most branches develop their officer corps through successive leadership assignments that are enhanced through broadening opportunities. Dismissing the collective obligation of the volunteers who join the Army weakens the service of officers who continue to develop and broaden their expertise.
The term “talent management” has multiple definitions. The Army defines talent as “the unique intersection of skills, knowledge, and behaviors in every position.” Talent represents far more than training, education, and experiences provided by the Army. With a focus solely on knowledge, as suggested by Kane, the individual fails to develop the full set of skills and behaviors required for success as a leader. Nonetheless, some military leaders still define “talented” simply as the possession of a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree. However, as the Army’s definition of talent suggests, there are many opportunities for officers who possess different talents. Some officers possess the talent to instruct and excel in the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) environment, others recruiting, and others within Forces Command (FORSCOM). Acknowledging the fact that all Soldiers require good leaders should focus those concerned with only the top five percent that the rest of the Army misses out when only particular units are filled with the “best.”
The current system meets the military readiness needs - sometimes at the cost of the officers’ personal desires - and provides ample opportunities to broaden and build a solid foundation of experience through time. The importance of individual officer maturity cannot be discounted in evaluating the current system. Maturity and a sense of selflessness can inoculate a population against the temptation to abuse power and authority that can flow from an excessive focus on individual advancement. Recent examples of fraud or misuse of authority exemplify the danger of valuing personal gain over selflessness. Following a career path because it “feels right” rather than one that meets the collective Army needs is contrary to the Army value of selfless service.
Rewards and incentives do not always retain the most skilled professionals. For officer year groups 1999-2003 the Army offered a critical skills-retention bonus (CSRB) of $35,000 for more than 16,000 regular Army captains who remained on active duty beyond their initial active duty service obligation.5 The Army accessed a greater number of new second lieutenants through the incentives of graduate school, first duty station, or branch of choice.6 The retention of officers at this rank was necessary during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Did the captains who chose to remain after their initial obligation equate to retention of the best talent? Of the expected 80% retention, only 68% signed up.7 Officer Separation Board (OSB) and Enhanced Selective Early Retirement Board (ESERB) targets the officers in the year groups when incentives were offered. The separations from these boards may suggest that the incentives did not always go to the best candidates but instead to many who sought to reap the greatest personal gain.
As noted after the drawdown of the 1990’s, the Army lost some of its most talented officers when it offered buyouts to officers. Lieutenant General Howard B. Bromberg, the Department of the Army G-1, stated that the current drawdown works at “resizing and reshaping the Army. This requires and understanding of the operational needs of the future.”8 Therefore, reducing those officers who fail to meet the moral or ethical standards required for Officership are focused on for reduction. Second, officers who do not remain competitive are reduced due to an overage at particular ranks of the Army. David Martino, director of the Officer Personnel Management Directorate at Human Resources Command stated the drawdown of the Army impacts, “even fully qualified officers to maintain readiness and reduce turbulence to the officer corps.”9 Overall, the diligence to which the Army works to draw down is conducted with empathy and compassion allowing for retirement benefits, for those who qualify, and temporary early retirement authorization benefits for others. This display of compassion dramatically differs from the market system which the public sector human resources models are compared to by those wishing to change the system.
A comprehensive understanding of the personnel management system requires overcoming both ignorance and arrogance. Both are achieved by a better understanding of the current process, as well as individual ownership of the officer’s own career. A commitment to the Army values of selfless service, sacrifice, and duty are more than buzz words to professional officers. When one compares the Army’s officer assignment system to a “business-like” model, there remains a failure to acknowledge that the military profession is not reflective of its civilian counterparts. Simply put, when an officer states that the personnel management system is antiquated, broken, or bureaucratic they fail to acknowledge their participation in the Army’s unique profession.
Working in the civilian sector and military service are extremely different. While the market system drives promotion forward through economic models, the military promotion is compelled forward through a meritocracy process driven by a budget approved by Congress. For instance, there are no rules limiting the number of gains or layoffs by Google, but within the military there are strict adherences to accession allowances and the rate of drawdown numbers through both the ESERB and OSB. The discrepancies and differences between the two systems lends credence to the argument that recruiting and retaining a professional and dedicated pool of Army officers requires more than financial or educational benefits.
Natural attrition of officers results in the loss of extremely bright and skilled individuals. Talented individuals leave by choice and the hope is that they extend their lifetime of service by continuing to serve America in other organizations. Outside of the military, Fortune 500 companies choose to hire military officers because of their leadership and commitment to a cause. For a great number of officers their experience is extremely marketable to civilian companies. Recruiting companies such as Bradley-Morris and Cameron Brooks inform employers that departing military members continue to offer leadership as their greatest asset.10 Encouraging those who have served to continue to support the military, which honed their skills, should likewise be encouraged during transition from the military.
Encouraging officers to maintain and grow their unique skills remains an Armed Forces imperative. Officers desiring to grow professionally within the Army can educate themselves by reading AR 614-100 for assignment policies, performance, deployment equity, individual preference, and how the programs such as married Army couples program impact assignments.11 They must also understand that while every effort is made to meet individual officer expectations, the needs of the Army and the officer’s professional development needs are paramount. There are hundreds of unique reasons why individuals serve, and the Army, as a collective, benefits from their professional service. In the end, those most likely to continue their service are neither ignorant nor arrogant with respect to understanding the personnel management system and their own career. To such people, the extrinsic value of money does not match the intrinsic drive, motivation, and value to continue contributing to a cause greater than themselves.
Published on December 16, 2014 — Available also in PDF
James (JD) Dowdy, Lt. Col., U.S. Army (Retired), is an independent contractor for the Mission Command Battle Lab-Leavenworth (MCBL-L). He has experience in analyzing, identifying and developing Command and Control capability requirements and information technology solutions. He holds a M.A. in Public Administration from Webster University and a B.S. from The Citadel.
Calvin Johnson, Col., U.S. Army (Retired), is Deputy Director for the Mission Command Battle Lab (MCBL) and a graduate of the U.S. Army War College. He is a retired Colonel with experience in domestic, joint, interagency, inter-governmental, multinational and overseas operations.
Brett Burland retired from the Army in 2005. Since that time he has been a military analyst at the Mission Command Battle Lab – Leavenworth where he has led several concept development and technical development experiments. In 2012-2013 he and his team lea an AR5-5 study that surveyed sixteen active duty brigade commanders on their thoughts about current information systems and thoughts for a commander focused future mission command information system.
Commanders have unique information and visualization requirements that create challenges for executing Mission Command. Using the guidelines prescribed in Army Regulation 5-5 (the regulation that prescribes policy, guidance, performance and evaluation for the Army Study Program), The Mission Command Battle Lab at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., conducted a study focused on the information needs of brigade commanders. This study included several months of interviews of current and former brigade commanders to capture their thoughts on information and capabilities brigade commanders need.
A premise of the battle lab study was that brigade commanders have access to the right types of information to maintain Situational Awareness (SA) while in the command post (CP). However, this limits the commander’s ability to provide Mission Command from the front in complex environments. The battle lab study confirmed this premise and identified a need to provide commanders a capability that provides access to information while leading from the front.
The introduction of digital mission command systems and supporting networks has made the CP the center of a commander’s universe in Unified Land Operations. Due to this concentration of critical information, many commanders find themselves feeling the need to stay in their CP just a little longer to maintain a higher level of SA. The findings from a current Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment found that 13 out of 13 missions during the exercise mentioned that the Exercise Force commander remained tethered to technologies in his vehicle or his base defense operation center, rather than moving to the front lines.
Do information systems in today’s command posts perpetuate the need for commanders to stay in the CP to maintain situational awareness? During World War I, the generals that led from the CP were called the “Chateau Generals.” During Vietnam, they were sometimes referred to as “The Perfume Princes.” Are the digital mission command systems and supporting networks creating our next generation of “Chateau Generals or Perfume Princes”? Will our modern day commanders stay tied to their CP because they have access to all the information and answers at their fingertips and the ability to command assets with the move of an icon on a virtual map screen with a single click? Will our modern day commanders be termed the “Great Wizards”?
Much work has been done on the development of Mission Command systems and understanding the critical information needed to ensure mission success from both materiel-driven and human-centered perspectives. However, there remains little understanding of how to tailor this information to facilitate unit performance from the commander’s perspective.
Currently there are several ongoing projects for Mission Command platforms within the Army. A good example is “Mission Command on the Move.” This project allows the commander and selected members of his or her staff to maintain SA by placing them at the most critical points on the battlefield, while still leveraging all of the same mission command capabilities left behind at their CP. However, sooner or later, the commander will have to move from their new CP to the front lines. What happens to the commanders’ SA once they walk away? How does the commander keep SA throughout the battle?
Developing a commander’s-only system would enhance and maintain the commander’s situational awareness while providing capabilities that support their ability to lead in complex environments. A commander’s only system would address the Army Campaign Plan objective to “equip the Army for 21st century operations” with emphasis on the “leader development” research priority and could be critical to the Army’s future success.
Many commanders expressed the need to make decisions in a timely manner. These decisions require certain critical pieces of information, often spread across systems, and are not available at the critical time or format needed. This creates an additional burden on the commander in terms of information search, retrieval, organization, visualization and analysis, and may slow down the decision cycle.
The analysis of the interview data provided a set of findings organized around five commander-centric themes.
Commanders identified 25 systems they relied on to provide operational information for mission command. These systems are principally operated by their staff in executing the operations process. The following systems were the most frequently mentioned:
Many commanders expressed frustration with the variety and complexity of systems fielded and the lack of horizontal and vertical integration across fielded systems.
Commanders rely on these systems to provide critical information necessary to make decisions in a timely manner. The lack of data integration and knowledge management in today’s mission command systems results in a cognitive burden on the commander and their staff while searching and retrieving information, slowing down the Military Decision Making Process. Commanders emphasized that they and their staff are often bombarded with data and feel overloaded at times. They realized that systems can provide a lot of information that can draw attention away from what is most important. They also stated that system updates and patches were difficult to perform and often caused interoperability problems. The lack of integration across systems is likely one of the most significant factors in increasing the commanders’ cognitive burden.
Commanders expressed a need to visualize friendly and enemy pictures. These pictures included detailed information of positions and strength down to the individual soldier, an indicator of information age or latency, summaries of friendly logistical/sustainment capabilities, degree of network latency, and detailed enemy information such as artillery capabilities and the projected enemy awareness of the friendly force. Availability of Unmanned Aerial Sensors, and other Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) system information was also mentioned.
The majority of commanders stated they were “visual learners,” and preferred graphical information. Some commanders expressed a desire for digital 2D and 3D maps that could be easily scaled with standard military map symbology, labels, and overlays that scale with the map. Commanders also desired the ability to annotate and create layers on maps. 3D maps were highlighted as key for mission planning and visualization of the impacts of terrain features on the operation.
Most commanders leaned towards the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) supported by the Decision Support Matrix in their planning. One commander used systems theory, recognition primed decision making and center of gravity analysis to support different situations and different needs of subordinate commanders and staff. He expressed the desire for a decision support system that was flexible enough to employ all of these decision-making frameworks. Another commander felt that some of his decisions could be automated and that technology could enable development and dissemination of commander’s intent and guidance.
Most commanders stated they needed to command their forces from anywhere on the battlefield. They must be untethered from the command post while maintaining connectivity with key leaders and unified action partners. Some commanders identified a critical need to use mobile devices to allow them to receive and push information in real time from any location to the CP. Information is currently distributed through written messages, voice messages, and photographs. These capabilities are required at all times to allow the commander to provide direction and execute mission command from the point of decision. Mobile device and network security issues must be overcome in order to deliver this desired capability, essentially providing the commander with access to CP resources in a set of mobile apps.
Commanders also discussed the training benefits that mobile devices offer. Soldiers can read articles, technical manuals, or course materials in their free time by accessing them with their mobile devices no matter where they are. A field artillery officer talked about a training application for tablet computers that helped his soldiers maintain proficiency in maintenance tasks because they could practice the task simulator on a tablet using touch inputs.
Many commanders expressed a strong preference for face-to-face interactions with their staff and subordinate commanders when possible. This type of engagement is key for building trust and developing a shared contextual understanding of the situation and mission. Commanders described the need to read nonverbal behaviors and cues from face-to-face meetings that were not available in voice communications, emails or text chats. A key point that several commanders expressed is a desire to have a video chat functionality in situations where face-to-face meetings were not possible in order to better read non-verbal cues. In contrast, some commanders observed that younger soldiers are more comfortable with text and email communications and may prefer to interact in that manner.
There was a desire for tools that are intuitive and easy to use - systems and applications they can “just pick up and use” without extensive training. The majority of commanders mentioned Apple and Google products as exemplars and told stories of their children who are able to use these devices without instruction. Commanders desired systems that are easy to learn and that are more consistent with their day-to-day experiences. Designers should assume that commanders and their staff will have minimal experience using their systems when first deployed and the pool of “expert” users will be limited.
The ability to write and edit in a digital medium to better convey their intent and ideas was highly desired by commanders. This included the ability to share annotations and sketches with others, drag and drop elements on a display, and auto-populate entries when filling out forms.
Several commanders stressed the need to reduce the amount of equipment and gear that he or she has to carry. Each piece of equipment adds complexity and creates a segregated command environment.
The capabilities described by the commanders in the themes above have been provided by mission command systems in one way or another since the 1980s. However, what is revolutionary about their information and system requirements is the break from monolithic mission command systems to provide a synthesized set of capabilities in a mobile device that enables the commander to be on the move while maintaining situational awareness away from their command post.
Current Mission Command systems are used by the staff in the command post to execute the operations process, integrate growing amounts of information, and support decisions in Unified Land Operations. The forward presence of the commander on the battlefield remains critical for ensuring mutual trust between commanders and their troops in executing mission command. While digital technologies today enable commanders to attain unprecedented levels of SA, nothing substitutes for the physical and moral presence of the commander on the battlefield.
For effective 21st century operations, available information and collaboration capabilities must be harnessed to equip commanders with the right tools to enable effective situation awareness, and support their requirements to communicate with subordinate commanders.
Introducing digital mission command systems and supporting networks will continue to make the Command Post the center of a commander’s universe Unified Land Operations (ULO). Despite this current concentration of critical information in the CP, commanders should not have to decide between staying in their CP, or moving to the front lines.
Developing a commander’s-only system would enhance and maintain the commander’s SA while providing capabilities that support their ability to lead in complex environments.
So instead of becoming the next generation of “Chateau Generals or Perfume Princes,” could it be possible that our modern day commanders possessing a commander’s-only system could always be found where they belong: on the front lines with their soldiers, while still possessing SA powers capable of having all needed information and answers at their fingertips!
Published on December 5, 2014 — Available also in PDF
Major Tim Meadors is a 2001 graduate of the United States Military Academy. Following his commissioning as an Infantry officer, Meadors was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division in Fort Hood, Texas. Over the course of his career, Maj. Meadors deployed four times for a total of 42 months in support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. Meadors also served as an Army Congressional Fellow; as part of the Army Congressional Fellowship Program, Meadors earned a graduate degree in Legislative Affairs from the George Washington University.
The military’s rapid approach to the post-2014 mission in Afghanistan, provides a unique opportunity to reflect on Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). These reflections will significantly contribute to the development of a stronger and more adaptable force. Tactical, operational, and strategic experiences over the duration of both operations will undoubtedly contribute to the country’s future employment of the military. Training, educational requirements, and standards for military formations will potentially morph as the OEF and OIF reflections are consolidated, published, and incorporated into doctrine. Infusion of the OEF and OIF lessons with previously established norms, will usher in both incremental and drastic changes to ensure the United States possesses a military solution to potential scenarios across the spectrum. Tomorrow will require a force composed of leaders with tactical prowess, broadened experiences, and diplomatic dexterity that successfully execute campaigns generated using design methodology while leading highly adaptable formations in hostile, non-hostile, nuclear, and devastated environments around the globe.
Building tomorrow’s force following the longest era of persistent conflict is a monumental task. The uncertainty of resources and manning levels, the political budget battles, and instability around the globe is an unprecedented landscape for senior defense officials. The Honorable Bob Gates, former Secretary of Defense, best outlined the future when addressing cadets at the United States Military Academy for the last time on February 25, 2011. In his comments he noted:
"We can’t know with absolute certainty what the future of warfare will hold, but we do know it will be exceedingly complex, unpredictable, and – as they say in the staff colleges – “unstructured.” Just think about the range of security challenges we face right now beyond Iraq and Afghanistan: terrorism and terrorists in search of weapons of mass destruction, Iran, North Korea, military modernization programs in Russia and China, failed and failing states, revolution in the Middle East, cyber, piracy, proliferation, natural and man-made disasters, and more."1
The Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense published in January 2012 by the Honorable Leon Panetta, Secretary Gates’ successor, provided some clarity on the future. The document lists the U.S. Armed Forces’ 10 primary missions. Each mission is complex, diverse, and relevant in the current and future context. Potentially, each of the 10 missions could exist as a single operation or as a hybrid requiring the military to execute a function of each of the ten simultaneously. The listed missions are:
Both Secretary Gates and Secretary Panetta contributed considerably to a description of the environment the nation and the military will face in the future. Collectively, they defined a future requiring an adaptable force able to succeed in vastly different settings. OEF and OIF reinforce their predictions with structured caveats of versatile forces dominating in an array of different environs. Defense officials must accept Gates and Panetta’s predictions, and align them with a diligent study of past military transitions. Such an endeavor adequately generates the framework to transition today’s military force into an adaptable and decisive force ready for the “next” mission.
Analyzing the “now” in preparation for the “later” must include historic vignettes and a comprehensive review of the post-9/11 military operations. Throughout the 20th Century, change followed each use of the U.S. military in a combat role. The U.S. Army’s transition following World War I epitomized change that equipped the military to succeed in the “next war.” Gen. George S. Patton served as one of the key catalysts for change following World War I. In The Patton Papers, Martin Blumenson chronicles Gen. Patton’s campaign to build an armored force following the lessons he learned in World War I. His ascension to military prominence was founded on his willingness to embrace a fledgling concept. As a division and corps commander, Patton built a formation based on his persona, validated his theories during training, and deployed the division and eventually led an Army through the North African and European Theaters of Operation during World War II.
Patton relied heavily on his experiences as a company and field grade officer in combat while developing new tactics for employing tanks. The mentorship he received from leaders like Gen. John Pershing and others, broadened his perspective and helped balance the tenacity, sound tactics, and decisiveness he demonstrated in combat. Patton theorized that a dominant armored force channeled against the enemies’ vulnerabilities and destroying their rear elements was the primary requirement for the nation’s next military engagement. However, his victories and reputation were not built overnight. Patton’s success was the result of a deliberate investment to learn from World War I; incorporate experiences from his youth, the Olympics, and his mentors; and build a force structured to dominate in World War II.
Reflections from World War I, mentors, and potential future conflicts were the building blocks for Gen. Patton’s campaign to validate the need for an armored force. The completion of OIF and the pending transition of OEF provided me an opportunity to reflect on my experiences and theorize about the future. My basis for analysis includes three deployments to Iraq (April 2003-March 2004, November 2005-September 2006, and September 2007-November 2008) and a six month Security Force Assistance (SFA) deployment to Afghanistan (June –December 2013). Primarily I will use experiences from my most recent deployment to Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan my battalion “trained, advised, and assisted” the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). The enduring value of the SFA deployment was the complexity of the environment, the unfamiliar task organization requirements, and the reliance on our partners for their success.Leaders’ previous experiences, identifying the correct problem and designing a germane operational approach, and adaptable formations that were tactically sound emerged as the catalysts for my unit’s success. The ANSF increased capacities to independently secure their province and their increased capabilities to generate, operationalize, and sustain the warfighting functions following our departure were the key components for success. The scope of our mission evolved into validating their capacities to fight and win today while building their capabilities to sustain momentum and win tomorrow. Understanding the importance of the catalyst and components of my experience, provides a theoretical foundation to begin the process of introducing changes to meet tomorrow’s requirements.
The catalyst for our success began with diverse leaders. Although a light infantry brigade, those who primarily participated in the SFA mission did not follow traditional Infantry pathways. Like Patton, the nucleus for the advisor mission, was composed of proven warriors, and included the brigade commander and brigade operations officer along with the commander, executive officer, and operations officer from my SFA battalion. Each deployed several times to both Iraq and Afghanistan in leadership and key staff roles from platoon leader through battalion commander. Collectively, their untraditional resumes included doctrinal studies in international relations, service in the Ranger regiment, a stint as a professor at the United States Military Academy, completion of the Naval War College and the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and completion of the Army’s Congressional Fellowship Program. Four of the five obtained graduate degrees.
The diverse backgrounds and graduate level academic experiences broadened the leadership’s perspective and enabled them to introduce an unique mentality to the ill-structured “train, advise, and assist” problem. Design methodology provided a process to maximize the varied backgrounds and address the ill-structured problem. The leaders with experiences from Capitol Hill to Iraq to West Point could easily digest the complex mission and comfortably operate within the design process. The process depended on relevant contributions from those involved to define the environment, higher headquarters’ guidance to shape facts and assumptions, and a thorough description of the desired end state to propose feasible outcomes. These “inputs” generated a comprehensive problem statement to assist with the development of a relevant operational approach. Our design defined the environment, produced the right problem statement, and generated a campaign that solved the problem.
The complexity of our environment presented monumental challenges at the tactical level. Primarily, the relationships within the Afghan security community were contentious. The contentious relationship in the security apparatus reflected the tension that existed between the people and the government. The three pillars of society were at an irreparable state. The Afghan Army, Afghan National Police, and the National Directorate of Security represented security but their interaction was hostile and ineffective. External influences like the pending Bilateral Security Agreement, the 2014 Afghan presidential elections, international aid, Pakistan, and sequestration influenced our Afghan security partners and their willingness to accept our help. Internal influences such as the perceived corruption in the government and localized insurgent activities plagued our efforts. Although not insurmountable, we recognized the environment had a number of de-stabilizing influences.
The command commissioned the staff to use design to identify the correct problem and generate a campaign plan to address the issues in the complex environment. By assessing the requirements to transition the current environment, we identified that equipping the security forces solved only the equipping problems within our province not the instability caused by the lack of governance. Mending relationships to reunite the people, the government, and the security forces would solve the central problem and present a united front to stabilize the province.
The campaign plan incorporated sub-objectives to infuse governance into tactical missions to demonstrate the ability of the government to join with the security forces in support of the people. The union of two of the three pillars introduced a previously unseen cooperative relationship to the people.
The unit continued to advise our counterparts and assist in their execution of tactical missions throughout the province. Tactical successes provided opportunities and momentum to insert a governmental function. Partnered air assaults to detain enemy elements included members of one or more of the ministerial representatives to offer government assistance once security forces neutralized Taliban presence. The infusion forced the development of relationships between security forces and the government in an effort to address the needs of the populace. Ultimately, the collaboration provided the security needed for the government to offer the people consistent governance.
Higher headquarters dictated the transformation of our infantry battalion into an SFA battalion consisting of seven Security Force Assistance Teams (SFATs). The transformed formation now included advisors aligned against each of the warfighting function. Insider threats generated the need for the assignment of a security force to each team of advisors. The security force was an organic infantry platoon manned with the leadership and two to three infantry squads. The change resulted in about one-third of the battalion deploying in an advisor or security function.
The adaptability of the formation proved the third of three catalysts for success. Higher headquarters dictated the composition of the deployed force, design identified objectives to employ the force. The security forces secured the advisors and partnered with Afghan forces during missions while the advisors focused on increasing the ANSF’s capacities and capabilities. The command pursued endeavors to combine the effect of the security forces and the advisors to mend the broken relationships in the society. The infantry platoons had to quickly adapt from a security role to planning kinetic missions with Afghan forces throughout the province. Advisors demonstrated adaptability by leading their counterparts through planning and resourcing in addition to accompanying them during missions.
Mission command often provided command and control while also orchestrating the government’s involvement. Each described catalyst was critical to setting the conditions for success. Broadened leaders relied on design to generate a campaign. Design introduced a comprehensive approach that addressed fractured relationships, not solely building ANSF’s capacities. The campaign required forces to adapt to create opportunities to bolster the people’s confidence in the government.
Similar to Gen. Patton’s entrance into the post-World War I era, the Defense Department must recognize the complexities of the future environment to structure a force limited by resources, budgets, and personnel.
The SFA case study presents several elements of a potential future conflict along with a template to succeed when faced with an ill-structured and wicked problem. During my experience executing the SFA mission, my unit was placed in a multi-national environment. We partnered with an indigenous security force, provincial and local government elements, and an apathetic populace; influenced by a neighbor with nuclear weapons; and impacted by international events. The 10 prioritized missions for the U.S. Armed Forces will force the military to operate in environments with similar factors but potentially increased uncertainty.
The template my unit developed to operate in the SFA environment should serve as a template for the future force. The Defense Department must invest heavily in broadened leaders as the norm and not the exception; build design methodology as a base staff requirement, and structure formations to operate in several environments executing multiple missions simultaneously.
As the Defense Department invests in producing broadened leaders, the emphasis must be placed on senior non-commissioned officers (E-7 thru E-9), senior company grade officers, and junior field grade officers that are proven warriors. The Army’s Chief of Staff, Gen. Raymond Odierno, is leading an aggressive effort to broaden the Army’s officer corps. In the 2013 Army Strategic Planning Guidance and his October 2013 Strategic Priorities , he emphasized the need for broadened and adaptive leaders for a complex world. The formative years of the broadened population must include tactical experiences that display the tenacity, decisiveness, and valor Gen. Patton displayed during World War I. Proven warriors must then undergo a process to broaden, not replace, the fierceness and creativity needed to operate outside of their core competencies. Broadening experiences must be defined as experiences at a strategic defense level, a national level of the U.S. Government, a foreign location with an international partner, an academic institution as a student or instructor, or an industrial or corporate headquarters. Broadening partners receive essentially free labor by a high-quality member of the Department of Defense along with the associated work ethic, moral compass, and integrity.
Design Methodology is primarily introduced to the military at the field grade level as a more cerebral approach to problem-solving. Understanding design should be a prerequisite to a broadening opportunity and evolve into a standard thought process and problem-solving methodology.
Future endeavors require military leaders and planners to initiate problem-solving not with courses of action but instead with a deliberate attempt to understand the environment. Understanding the obvious, hidden, and nuanced factors of the environment produces a valid understanding of the problem prior to attempting to resolve.
Finally, formations must maintain the lethality required to decisively fight and win while also growing the ability to function in a non-lethal or ill-defined environment. Formations must prepare to operate as maneuver forces, peacekeepers, partners, and security for fixed sites or advisors in hostile, non-hostile, nuclear, or devastated environments that include indigenous security forces, local governments, and international partners.
Gen. George Patton’s will remain an indelible fixture in U.S. military history because of his understanding of the environment and his vision. Patton combined his initiative and commitment with his mentors’ advice to field a force that exceeded expectations. The 21st Century presents an era of unrest requiring an enhanced understanding of the environment and a vision to meet tomorrow’s challenges. The Defense Department must determine the pathway that leads to an equipped, trained, and educated force that can dominate regardless of the conditions. The force requires broadened leaders with proven warrior credentials who can successfully generate campaign plans through design methodology while leading, training, and validating adaptive formations.
Published on November 21, 2014 — Available also in PDF
Randall Munch works in the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Training Brain Operations Center (TBOC). A retired U.S. Army officer (Infantry/Foreign Assignments Officer) with service in the 82nd Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division, Joint Special Operations Command, Defense Intelligence Agency, Joint Staff J2, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Deployments include Iraq and Mogadishu, Somalia. After retirement in 2005, Munch worked as a Defense contractor in the Joint Counter-IED Defeat Organization, TRADOC G2, and the Training Brain Operations Center.
Chris Worret works in the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Training Brain Operations Center (TBOC). A retired U.S. Navy officer (SEAL/Intelligence) with service in SEAL Team Five, Naval Special Warfare Center, Joint Special Operations Command, JTF-Horn of Africa, JIATF East, Naval Expeditionary Combat Command. Deployments include Saudi Arabia in 1990/1991, Iraq in 2003, 2006 and 2007, Djibouti and Uganda in 2009/2010. Following retirement in 2010, worked as a Defense Contractor in Joint and Coalition Warfighting and the Training Brain Operations Center.
"The U.S. must never enter a conflict with a strategic plan limited to engaging and destroying an enemy’s forces. Lasting strategic success is not a function of enemy units eliminated or targets destroyed. A successful strategic outcome rests…on the ability of soldiers, Marines and special operations forces to defeat an enemy force and seize and hold territory by direct physical interaction with local populations…in order to create the conditions of a lasting peace."
—Lt. Gen. Keith C. Walker, while serving as Training and Doctrine Command Deputy Commanding General of Futures and Director, Army Capabilities Integration Center, February 2013.1
Lt. Gen. Walker’s comments above imply that influence within the human domain is a critical element in achieving strategic success and lasting peace. Soldiers engage in “direct physical interaction with local populations” in order to exert influence. His comments reinforce one of the key lessons learned during the past decade of war. The military needs to better understand the operational environment (OE) in order to more effectively engage the human domain. The Joint Staff J7 Decade of War (DOW) study identifies this as one of 11 major lessons learned, stated as follows, “A failure to recognize, acknowledge, and accurately define the operational environment led to a mismatch between forces, capabilities, missions, and goals.”2
U.S. forces have failed to fully understand the OE not only during the past decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also during numerous previous conflicts. This problem is recognized at the highest levels within the Department of Defense. The Chief of Staff of the Army, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Commanding General of U.S. Special Operations Command endorsed a May 2013 paper, “Strategic Landpower: Winning the Clash of Wills,” which stated, “Time and again, the U.S. has undertaken to engage in conflict without fully considering the physical, cultural, and social environments that comprise what some have called the “human domain”.3
Past failures to adequately understand the OE are serious, and the reasons behind these gaps in knowledge should be addressed now so that they are not repeated during future conflicts. Inadequate understanding of the OE has repeatedly caused the U.S. to spend months or years pursuing incorrect, or at a minimum, incomplete strategies that were not based on a “nuanced understanding of the environment”.4 The major root cause behind lack of understanding the OE is the failure to understand the cultural and social environments that comprise the human domain. Failure to understand the human domain is a common link between the lesson learned in the DOW study that applies to failure to understand the OE and the repeated shortfall of not fully considering the human domain, as identified in the Strategic Landpower paper.
TRADOC’s answer to this need for better understanding of the human domain, and thus, better understanding of the OE, is the “The U.S. Army Concept for Engagement”, dated 24 February 2014, also known as the Engagement Warfighting Function (WfF). The Engagement WfF “concept institutionalizes lessons learned from the past decade of conflict and outlines how future Army forces will conduct operations.”5
In the forward to this document, Lt. Gen. Walker describes in more detail, what the Engagement WfF will achieve:
The Engagement WfF aligns with lessons learned during the past decade of war. Both the Engagement WfF and the DOW study point to a fundamental requirement for forces to be able to influence the behavior of various groups of people in order to shape the OE for successful unified action. Shaping the OE by influencing human behavior requires in-depth understanding of the human domain.
Before discussing how Attack the Network (AtN) will provide the “how to” for the Engagement WfF, it’s important to look more deeply into the thinking behind the concept. The “U.S. Army Capstone Concept” (ACC) publication, released in December 2012, describes the gap in Army doctrine:
How is the doctrinal gap that is described in the ACC related to the OE lesson learned described in the DOW study? The ACC describes the need to “affect the behavior of human groups in the operational environment toward a defined objective”. The “human groups” are also known as “the human domain”, and the ability to “affect”, or shape, the human domain is often critical to achieving mission success. In fact, the “defined objective” toward which the human domain should be shaped is mission success.
The Engagement Warfighting Function further matures the ACC concept. It states, “To assess, shape, deter, and influence the behavior of a people, foreign security forces, and governments, commanders must understand the operational environment.” Clearly then, the ACC, the DOW study, and the Engagement Warfighting Function are addressing the same root issue; commanders must understand and successfully engage the human domain in order to achieve mission success. That’s exactly what Attack the Network training was intended to achieve.
Attack the Network (AtN) methodology aligns closely with the Engagement WfF. AtN emerged as a training methodology to better enable units deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan to defeat threat IED networks. It became one of three major lines of operation within the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) soon after its establishment in 2006. Elements of JIEDDO began to train AtN as early as 2008.
AtN was best articulated as a methodology by the Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) in a series of products titled, “AWG Attack the Network Methodology”, published in four parts during March 2009 through August 2010. AWG’s AtN methodology describes a means of analyzing, modeling, and developing a network in order to make sound recommendations for collection against and targeting of networks. AWG’s AtN Methodology also describes a means of synchronizing lethal and non-lethal targeting, enabling Army forces to not only neutralize threat networks, but to simultaneously support friendly networks and influence neutral networks. By including friendly and neutral networks, the AWG AtN methodology plays a significant role in supporting the emerging Engagement WfF with a clear methodology for understanding and comprehensively engaging all major elements of the human domain.
Another key contributor to the concept of AtN is U.S. Army Col. David M. Hodne. In then Lt. Col. Hodne’s October 2010 article titled, “After the Surge”, he described his task force’s phased network-centric strategy:
During operations in Iraq, Col. Hodne’s phased network-centric approach succeeded. His article continues to serve as a guide in the ongoing development of AtN training and doctrine.
Beginning in 2010, members of the Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCoE) and the Training Brain Operations Center (TBOC) melded the concepts described by JIEDDO, AWG, Col. Hodne, and others into a comprehensive AtN methodology and began a training program to implement it. The MCoE/TBOC AtN training is unique in that it adopts Col. Hodne’s approach and articulates the concept of AtN in terms of three lines of effort; support friendly, influence neutral, and neutralize threat networks.
All of these AtN training initiatives preceded doctrinal development. AtN first appeared as a doctrinal concept in Joint Publication 3-15.1, Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Operations, dated 9 January 2012.
AtN is defined in JP 3-15.1 as:
The joint doctrinal definition of AtN above, however, is focused solely on enemy forces. It does not address the need to understand and engage friendly and neutral elements of the human domain, and these friendly and neutral elements comprise the majority of the human domain. The Army and Marine Corps recognize this gap, however, and are developing new doctrine that expands the AtN concept beyond the joint definition of AtN shown above. Both services agree AtN must be part of a broader effort to engage the human domain comprehensively, including all three lines of effort.10 The Marine Corps recently drafted a doctrinal publication on AtN that includes the expanded concept of engaging the human domain, and the Army Combined Arms Center established a doctrine working group in July 2013 that is taking a similar approach. The concept that aligns these Army and Marine Corps doctrine writing initiatives is represented by Figure 1, top-right, which is labeled “Network Engagement Lines of Effort”. The Army doctrine working group favors re-naming “Attack the Network” to a more inclusive term such as “network engagement” in order to better align the term with the concept of a comprehensive approach to engaging human networks. Within the broader focus, the term “attack the network” would become a sub-component of network engagement that refers only to one of three lines of effort - neutralize threat networks.11
Although the Army has not made a decision on terminology as of this writing, the term “network engagement” (NE) will be used in this article. As described above, NE combines the AtN line of effort (LOE), neutralize threat networks, with lines of effort to support friendly networks and influence neutral networks.
The work of the Army doctrine working group recently produced the initial author’s draft of a future Army Techniques Publication (ATP) on NE, which aligns closely with the Engagement WfF description above of the capabilities and desired outcomes of comprehensively engaging the human domain. Per the initial draft ATP on Network Engagement:
The excerpt below was carried forward from the ACC into the Engagement WfF. It clearly demonstrates that both documents advocate the need to conduct lethal and non-lethal operations that effectively engage all major element of the human domain – threat, friendly, and neutral:
Both the Engagement WfF and the draft ATP on NE specify certain people groups within the host nation that should be engaged. The Engagement WfF describes them in terms similar to the Clausewitzian trinity of people, army, and government, using the phrase that describes it as a people, its security forces, and its government. Although the words are not identical to the people groups identified in the draft ATP, the concepts align. The Engagement WfF phrase “a people” aligns with the NE phrase, “neutral networks”, and the Engagement WfF phrase, “its security forces and its government” aligns with the NE phrase, “friendly networks”. Because the Engagement WfF discusses the need to engage the various people groups in order to shape, deter, and influence their behavior, it also aligns closely with the NE ATP’s main concept of supporting friendly networks, influencing neutral networks, and neutralizing threat networks. The significance in the high degree of alignment of concepts articulated in the Engagement WfF and the draft NE Army Techniques Publication is that increasing coordination between the groups developing these two efforts will benefit both. By merging and further clarifying these overlapping concepts, both efforts will be strengthened. For example, the Engagement WfF concept could be strengthened by integrating elements of the NE concept of engaging the human domain continuously and simultaneously at all levels (tactical, operational, and strategic) in order to increase host nation capability to achieve sustainable political outcomes that are consistent with U.S. vital interests.
The Decade of War (DOW) study includes the following lesson learned: “A nuanced understanding of the environment was often hindered by a focus on traditional adversaries and a neglect of information concerning the host-nation population.”15 This lesson learned implies that effective, simultaneous engagements of all three networks – friendly, neutral, and threat – cannot occur unless operations and intelligence synchronize efforts to develop understanding of the OE and the human domain within it. Future doctrine and training on network engagement should enable U.S. forces to avoid the lesson learned that is described in the DOW study.
Understanding the human domain represents understanding the most complex element of the OE. The human domain is often the key terrain within the OE, as implied within the Engagement Warfighting Function. This concept is reinforced by the Strategic Landpower White Paper, which states:
The emerging concepts of the Engagement Warfighting Function and Network Engagement should be developed in coordination because many of their concepts are closely linked. The Engagement Warfighting Function describes conceptually why influencing the human domain overcomes a critical lesson learned from the past decade of war, and the Network Engagement/Attack the Network methodology provides a framework for implementing the concepts of the Engagement Warfighting Function. Developing the Engagement Warfighting Function and Network Engagement doctrine and methodology in coordination will facilitate the blending of concepts, doctrine, and training development as they relate to engaging the human domain comprehensively and effectively during future conflicts. Coordinated development of the Engagement Warfighting Function and Network Engagement concepts will more likely result in doctrine and training that fill the gap described in the Decade of War study, resulting in future U.S. strategies that are more likely to be based on nuanced understanding of the operational environment. Such strategies would better enable commanders and staffs at all levels to achieve enduring outcomes that include not only the desired short-term effects but, ultimately, the intended long-term strategic effects.
Published on October 30, 2014 — Available also in PDF
Col. Mike Pappal, U.S. Army, is a student at the Naval War College, Newport, R.I. He holds a Master’s of Science degree from Central Michigan State University, and a Master of Military Art and Science degree from the School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Col. Pappal has led, commanded, trained and taught multiple units from tank platoon through armor brigade. His assignments tours within the U.S., Korea and Europe, along with multiple deployments in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn.
“People who are terrible to their subordinates may be perfectly civil and respectful up the chain of command. For a more senior person to identify a toxic person in the chain of command actually is a little harder than it may appear on the surface.”
–Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates1
An article published in the Army Times on Dec. 28, 2013, announced a plan by the Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. Odierno, requiring battalion and brigade commanders across the Army to undergo the newest 360-degree assessment program, the Commander 360, starting at the beginning of fiscal year 2015.2 This announcement comes at a time when national news inundates us daily with the details of the latest instance of individuals exhibiting bad leadership traits. Reliefs, removals, and quiet retirements are the norm following the discovery of ethical lapses and toxic work environments. However, these characteristics did not develop in these individuals overnight, nor did they result from a promotion. These behaviors existed in these people either before they entered service or they learned them early through emulation of poor examples. Why do we find it so difficult to eliminate these characteristics before we select the people with them for critical leadership assignments and promotion to the senior ranks?
The Army’s most important asset is its Soldiers who collectively accomplish all of the tasks needed to achieve mission success. The sons and daughters of Americans deserve the absolute best leaders that the Army can provide. Too often, we find that this is not the case. Too many times, soldiers get a bad or worse, a toxic, leader that does not inspire or foster their respect. These leaders utilize inappropriate strategies to obtain immediate results and mindless adherence to orders without concern for others or the long-term health of the Army. Their tactics include bullying others, mercilessly berating subordinates, or making unlawful, immoral, and unethical decisions to get their way. They selfishly ignore others ideas, micromanage events, hoard information, undermine peers, and work to look good to superiors. A bad leader may exhibit a few of these characteristics. Extreme and consistent use of these undesirable behaviors defines the toxic leader.3 A toxic leader is all about self. He destroys morale, inhibits initiative, and causes good people to resign. He can have high unit performance in the short term, but he does not build strong, resilient, and cohesive units nor does he work to develop the next generation of Army leaders. Developing future leaders is one of the most important legacies for a leader at any level of any organization.
In a survey of 22,000 Army leaders, more than 80 percent indicated that they observed a toxic leader and about 20 percent reported directly working for one. Approximately 50 percent of those believed that the toxic, abusive leader would be promoted to higher levels of leadership.4 I have personally experienced more than my fair share of toxic and abusive leaders and watched, as most of them were promoted to the senior ranks. I have also watched many good people leave the Army because of those toxic bosses. The numbers found in the study should be higher because the sample does not include those that quit the Army. If 50 percent of our people do not trust the system to choose the best leaders for promotion and command, then the system must be broken.
The Multi Source Assessment and Feedback (MSAF) tool is the first 360-degree assessment tool developed and adopted for widespread use across the Army. When a leader decides to conduct an MSAF, he picks a set of subordinates, peers, and superiors to assess him, meeting an established minimum sampling to meet statistical requirements. The information returned by those selected is tabulated and a report produced for the person. If too few people answer the assessment, it is not statistically relevant. The assessed leader has the option to request a ‘coach’ to guide him through the report. He helps in determining positive and negative leadership behaviors while providing mentoring on how to overcome traits that are not conducive to good leadership.
The MSAF’s intent is to assist in developing leadership ability by providing constructive criticism. However, the only people who develop from the MSAF are those that are receptive to feedback and willing to seek improvement. It is rare that a leader does not have some shortcoming within his or her leadership traits. A good leader recognizes this and seeks to identify the weaknesses to improve or at least mitigate them. Self-awareness and the ability to grow from that knowledge are positive leadership characteristics that the bad, toxic leader does not usually possess. In this system, there are serious flaws, causing it to fail when applied to all Army leaders. First, the individual picks the assessors, which can lead to a skewed report based on a propensity to pick people that are liked and respected, who are more likely to give a positive review. Second, there is no effective enforcement that the individual completes an MSAF. The Army requires officers to conduct an MSAF every three years, which gets annotated on their officer evaluation reports (OER). However, data shows that since 2008, less than 50 percent of the Army’s lieutenant colonels and colonels actually completed an MSAF.5 These leaders should be setting the example for their subordinates, yet they are failing miserably. Third, although a coach is useful, there is no one to help the person and guide them over an extended time. 360-degree evaluation use in the civilian sector shows that they do improve an organization as long as leaders enforce standards in administering and following-up the assessment.6 Although the MSAF is a start at developing better leaders, it falls short of solving the systemic problem of bad leaders entering the senior ranks.
The Commander 360 is an evolutionary step from the current MSAF that is specifically formulated for lieutenant colonels and colonels in command positions. It is designed to facilitate a commander’s growth and efficacy, increase self-awareness, and to further engage the commander’s supervisor in the officer’s development process. The Commander 360 initiative mitigates the three previously mentioned flaws of the MSAF. The commander’s rater chooses who will do the assessing. The rater also receives the assessment results and he must council the commander on them. He can then continue to mentor the commander on the assessment results throughout their time together. Since the Commander 360 is a developmental tool, the rater is prohibited from using the information garnered from it in the commander’s OER nor is he allowed to share any data with the assessed commander’s senior rater.7 That is why the implementation of the Commander 360 is only a half step toward ensuring that only the best leaders are promoted into the senior ranks.
Since it is just another, though improved, development tool, the Commander 360 evaluation will have little impact on solving the Army’s problem of senior leader ethical, character, and leadership failures. The Army has already identified that there is a systemic problem of toxic leaders. The Commander 360 could allow the Army to better identify who they are. However, this does not fix the problem. Under a Commander 360, the only attempt to fix the problem is for the rater to provide counseling and tutelage. There is no mechanism that applies consequences, because the senior rater is forbidden to know the results.
ADP 6-22: Army Leadership lists six requirements for a successful leader. Three are attributes: character, presence, and intellect. Three are competencies: leads, develops, and achieves.8 A good leader has an effective balance of these leadership requirements. Bad and toxic leaders are out of balance. Unfortunately, military culture traditionally skews toward the mission accomplishment and personal presence requirements of leaders. This plays to the strengths of the toxic leader. Performance, the most objective trait to evaluate, becomes the predominant factor in determining a leader’s future potential particularly if the senior rater is not knowledgeable of how the leader achieves his successes. A Commander 360 for evaluation would assist to counterbalance these discrepancies.
Our current promotion system regards successful command at the battalion and brigade levels as the signatory assignment determining who will enter strategic leadership. As long as this remains true, the senior raters of these leaders must have the most inclusive information available about them. It is the senior rater assessment of the individual’s potential as it relates to their present peer group that counts the most for promotion. We require our commanders to analyze operational information and then make sound life and death decisions, particularly over the past twelve years in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why do we not trust their judgment when using information derived from subordinates when evaluating leaders? The logic exemplified by “I will trust you with my life but not my career,” is inherently rotten and is indicative of the ethical problems in the force. One argument consistently heard against a 360 evaluation is that a single disgruntled subordinate can purposely provide answers with malice to produce poor results. The resulting false report could unjustly end a good leader’s career. A single evaluation with significant divergence from the average should be thrown out, and depending on the circumstances, investigated further. Additionally, it is incumbent on the rater (or senior rater) to use the results as a data point, not a final grade, concerning command climate. Poor results should be followed-up with some “battlefield circulation” by the supervisors to confirm or question the evaluation data.
Another common argument is that commanders will make decisions for the express purpose of having his subordinates like him. Subordinates can easily identify a commander who exercises “liker-ship” and will not respect him because of it, particularly the non-commissioned officers and warrant officers. Respect and trust, the root of command, can lead to being liked. Being liked however, does not necessarily lead to respect and trust. An incessant need to be liked is a negative trait. This can be determined by asking straight forward, yes/no, questions. For example: Do I respect this leader? Would I trust this leader to make best decisions in dangerous situations that could lead to my death? Does this leader care more about his image than he does about the unit? Ultimately, the only people that should fear a 360 review are bad and toxic leaders.
Our Army’s strategic leaders give a consistent message every time a case of toxic leadership or failure of personal ethics plays in the media. For example, in a March 2013 interview, Gen. Odierno stated that it is a necessity that Army officers are held to a higher standard of conduct and be accountable for their conduct. He also said that 360-degree evaluations have to be utilized, as one of many tools, to root out toxic leaders.9 However, general perceptions are that the Army’s overt actions do not match the message. The tools we are implementing will not achieve the messaged effect. It is possible that Gen. Odierno purposely decided to take incremental steps. Small changes introduced over time are more likely to achieve sustained cultural change. Big changes, particularly if the organization believes they impinge upon their cultural identity, require more personal effort from the leader to impose the change. The resulting disruption and pushback that could result would divert attention away from other priority issues such as the current budget. An example of this is the institutional outrage that occurred following Gen. Shinseki’s decision in 2001 to change the Army headgear from soft cap to beret. This was eventually repealed in 2011.
Change is needed to better improve Army leaders and the Army’s leadership in the long term. To achieve this, the Army should maintain the MSAF in its current form for junior leaders both officer and enlisted. Mid-career leaders should use a modified MSAF procedure that adopts the rater and counseling requirements from the Commander 360. The Commander 360 allows subordinate assessments from officers, enlisted, and civilians. However, it should also require certain minimum participation from each group, appropriate to unit composition, to get the best results. Most importantly, turn the Commander 360 into a developmental and evaluation tool by giving the senior rater access to the results for his use in evaluating promotion potential and then hold senior leaders accountable for their ratings of officers that lead to the promotion of toxic leaders. This will improve the selection of Army commander and senior leaders. It will also lead to personal self-correction or mitigation of bad behaviors before they become destructive due to the real possibility of consequences for exhibiting those unwanted traits. These recommended changes, with the addition of the newly implemented general officer 360 assessment, would build a much more cohesive and comprehensive methodology for improving Army leadership at all levels.
The Commander 360 is a good tool. I participated in the initial pilot program and found it to be an improvement over the MSAF. Adjustments resulting from the second pilot should make it even better. The required interaction between the commander and his rater is a necessary component for leadership development. That is the half step. We need to take the full step with the program. Senior raters must have the information to evaluate their subordinates effectively so that they can do a better job at selecting our senior leaders. This will also help deter poor behavior while increasing individual leadership development. The sooner we get started in an open and transparent manner, the sooner we will see results.
Published on October 7, 2014 — Available also in PDF
Mr. Gerald F. Sewell is an Assistant Professor of Military Leadership at the Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He works in the Department of Command and Leadership and is involved in the effort to integrate emotional intelligence into the leadership curriculum. He is the author and lead instructor for the Electives course-Emotional Intelligence for Leaders, in the Command and General Staff Officer course. Sewell holds a B.A. from Bowie State University, and an M.A. from George Washington University.
“The Army will produce professional leaders that practice the mission command philosophy whether conducting unified land operations or Army generating force functions. These leaders possess emotional intelligence and achieve credibility with external JIIM partners, allies, internal agencies, and stakeholders.”
–The Army Leader Development Strategy 2013, p.6
So, what is emotional intelligence and why does the Army need it? Dr. Daniel Goleman, science reporter, psychologist, and author writes, in his 1998 bookWorking with Emotional Intelligence, “Emotional intelligence is the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and our relationships."1He further clarifies that for leaders in his 2002 book,Primal Leadership,“Emotional intelligence is how leaders handle themselves and their relationships.”2The “capacity” Dr. Goleman is speaking of are the very skills that make leaders successful. What the Army has long referred to as interpersonal tact and interpersonal skills are in fact the skills and competencies of emotional intelligence; the critical skills that are the key to being successful Army leaders.
Emotional intelligence and the lack thereof are at the root of the current crisis in Military leadership - the level of toxicity in too many of its leaders. This article examines the importance of Emotional intelligence in general for army leaders and focuses on its value to reducing if not eliminating toxic leadership.
The Army’s Leader Development Strategy 2013 (ALDS 2013) is correct in identifying the need for Army leaders to be emotionally intelligent. Emotional intelligence should be an integral part of the Army’s leader development program. Embracing the attributes and skills of emotional intelligence are critical to all aspects of a leader’s development, particularly in the leadership domains of self-awareness, social understanding, and applying influence. Emotional intelligence increases the probability of leader effectiveness and successful organizations. Leaders who understand the value of emotional intelligence and possess higher levels of this trait, are more effective leaders. Emotional intelligence enables the understanding of the social skills necessary to discern and apply the appropriate influence techniques in the variety of situations and contexts leaders must face. Emotional intelligence also facilitates the ability to establish mutually beneficial relationships. Dan Goleman writes in a 2004 edition of the Harvard Business review, “I have found, however, that the most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way: They all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but mainly as “threshold capabilities”; that is, they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions. But my research, along with other recent studies, clearly shows that emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership. Without it, a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but he still won’t make a great leader.”3 This also holds true for the U.S. military leaders. We place great value in the military threshold capabilities; the technical and tactical proficiency of our military leaders, and reward them accordingly with promotions and positions of increased responsibility and prestige, but we pay little attention to what really makes them successful - their ability to understand and apply the intangible skills of leadership that are represented by emotional intelligence.
As the U.S. Army continues to adjust its leader development strategy in the years ahead, if the ALDS 2013 quote is any indication, emotional intelligence will quickly become an integral part of developing Army Leaders. This article provides answers to one critical area where Army leader development can benefit from emotional intelligence. This area is illustrated in the following vignette.
The battalion live fire exercise (LFX) had not gone as well as desired. The leadership was anxious as they prepared to brief the new brigade commander on the details of the validation training exercise. The core of the battalion’s NCO and officer leadership was comprised of solid and experienced combat veterans who were finally coming together after a tumultuous and frenetic reset phase. In his guidance prior to the exercise, the legendary Col. M.D. “Mad Dog” Brooks, the new Brigade Combat Team (BCT) Commander, had been very direct and precise about the live-fire exercise tasks, conditions and standards he expected. He left little latitude for initiative and no margin for error. His intent was to get the unit back to the “highest level of proficiency as quickly as possible,” and everyone in the battalion understood that he was not satisfied with their current performance.
Administrative and maintenance problems plagued the exercise from the beginning, and many of them contributed to the failure to achieve the exacting training timeline established by the BCT staff. Unreliable range targets, crew-served and individual weapons malfunctions, vehicle operational readiness, and delays in the ammunition draw all combined to keep the unit off-schedule from the start. Through the sheer force of the battalion’s leaders, every company completed all of the training tasks. The Observer Controllers (OC) rated their gunnery skills and fire discipline as exceptional. Although the battalion’s Soldiers and junior leaders had some significant gaps in their tactical skills, they had just proven that they could still shoot, move and communicate like real warriors.
As anticipated, the after action review (AAR) began badly. After the fourth slide, Col. Brooks’ visible agitation transitioned to anger and he erupted. He retrieved a stack of index cards from his breast pocket, and summarily listed all the things the battalion had done wrong. He berated the battalion and company commanders as failures in front of everyone present. In concluding, he said, “Your leadership incompetence is exceeded only by your collective inability to meet training timelines, maintain your equipment and weapons to standards, and conduct basic range administrative procedures!” When the senior OC attempted to interject with the positive aspects of their highly successful gunnery results, Brooks immediately cut him off by stating, “Major, when I want you’re your opinion I will ask for it. Until then, keep your mouth shut!”
Not allowing the briefing to continue, Col. Brooks ordered the battalion to remain in the field until its problems were fixed. He abruptly left the briefing area, not bothering to talk further with the battalion commander or even the BCT S-3 (operations officer).4
Col. Brooks, the brigade commander in our vignette, exhibits the characteristics of the classic military toxic leader. The good news is that the military, particularly, the U. S. Army has taken some serious steps to address “toxicity” in its leaders. The Army defines toxic leadership to a large degree the way retired Army Col. George Reed defined it in his article published in 2004 by Military Review. Reed believes toxic leaders all possess a combination of three key elements.5 These are:
The problem with toxic leaders is not that they have toxic personalities, but it is the impact on others that it produces; and this is usually manifest by way of negative emotions. Dan Goleman writes in Primal Leadership, “Negative emotions – especially chronic anger, anxiety, or a sense of futility – powerfully disrupt work, hijacking attention from the task at hand.”7 These negative emotions often cause distraction, and the negative moods that deter individuals from applying their best effort as fear of incurring the wrath of the toxic leader. The negative moods that accompany a toxic environment prohibit individuals from doing their best work. Constant negative pressures and attitudes cause excessive distress, which further deteriorates the performance in the work place. Studies show that U.S. industry loses millions of working days and billions of dollars each year from employee absenteeism due to stress.8 How does this translate in the military environment in which military personnel are not likely to experience this high absenteeism? It becomes more a case of mental and emotional absenteeism as opposed to being physically missing from the work place. Toxic leadership acts as a strong toxin and has the potential to, as pointed out in Primal Leadership, poison the emotional climate of the organization.9 The climate that toxic leadership creates is one that is totally detrimental to effective functioning, builds negative stress and causes individuals to “check out.”
The U.S. Army leadership definition calls for leaders to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.10 A critical part of improving the organization is developing soldiers and leaders. Toxic leaders, though often adept at accomplishing the mission, due to their deficits in emotional intelligence, fail epically at the personnel development tasks.
Toxic leadership as defined by Col. Reed as a product of a lack of individual self-awareness and self-management, as well as the lack of or inattention to social awareness and relationship management skills. These four characteristics and skills represent the four domains of emotional intelligence as defined by Dr. Goleman. Goleman’s domains, as summarized from Primal Leadership,11 are described below with the application to colonel Reed's three characteristics of the toxic leader.
Goleman’s domains are: Self-awareness, described in short definition as the ability to read one’s emotion and recognize the impact while using “gut sense” to guide decisions. Self-awareness includes the competencies of emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment, and self-confidence. Toxic Leaders lack the ability to conduct self-assessments required by self-awareness, which feeds an unbalanced ego and also, according to Col. Reed’s characteristics, fosters “the apparent lack of concern for the well being of subordinates.” Self-management is the second domain. It involves the controlling of one’s emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances. Self-management includes the competencies of emotional self-control, transparency, adaptability, achievement, initiative, and optimism. Toxic leaders often exhibit a deficit in emotional self-control as they employ, according to Col. Reed, “a personality or interpersonal technique that negatively affects organizational climate.”Social awareness the third domain is the ability to sense, understand, and react to others emotions while comprehending social networks. Social awareness includes the competencies of empathy, organizational awareness, and service. Toxic leaders are lacking in all of the competencies and behaviors of this domain. This is displayed by the toxic leader as in their self-absorption he or she is not concerned with the emotions or well being of others. The fourth and final domain is relationship management. This is the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict. Relationship management includes the competencies of inspirational leadership, influence, developing others, being a catalyst for change, conflict management, and teamwork/collaboration. Relationship management skills are necessary to reverse each of the toxic leader characteristics.
The first step in any personal development program is self-awareness. Leader’s have to identify their developmental gaps, accept them and then design the necessary steps to growth. The Army’s 360-assessment program is a great tool to help toxic leaders recognize the dangers of their toxicity and in some cases the fact that they are toxic or is perceived so by their subordinates, peers and/or superiors. Once leaders embrace this understanding, they can then begin to address the needs. The next step must be an honest assessment of a leader’s emotional intelligence skills. There are a number of emotional intelligence assessments and self-evaluation tools available to help leaders identify and measure the emotional intelligence skills they may need to develop. The ultimate goal for all leaders must be to develop or enhance their emotional intelligence skills. To this end most of the assessment tools currently available also provide a process to assist the individual in developing their emotional intelligence skills, with or without a coach/trainer.
The Army has recognized the importance of emotional intelligence in its leaders and at several levels has instituted training and awareness in emotional intelligence. The Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC) runs a two-hour seminar on emotional intelligence at its School for Command Preparation (SCP) for command designees at the battalion level. CGSC’s Command and General Staff Officer’s Course (The Majors’ course) includes reference to emotional intelligence throughout its leadership curriculum, and provides a 24-hour elective course, entitled emotional intelligence for leaders. In this course, field-grade leaders discuss the application of emotional intelligence to various aspects of leadership and have the opportunity to perform an individual emotional intelligence skills assessment followed by guided interpretation of results with development and execution of developmental action plans to enhance their emotional intelligence skills.
Emotional intelligence is no magic formula, but the understanding and practice of EI by Army leaders will go a long way in promoting self-awareness and social awareness in those leaders at all levels and all Army cohorts. This will subsequently decrease the levels of toxicity in Army formations and lead to more effective leaders and more efficient organizations. The Army leadership has it right; Army leaders must possess emotional intelligence in order to lead effectively our soldiers of the future.
Published on August 27, 2014 — Available also in PDF
LTC Thomas M. Feltey, U.S. Army, has commanded the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Joint Base Lewis-McChord since August 2011. He holds a B.S. from Rutgers University, a M.A. from the Naval War College and is a graduate of the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School. His assignments include tours with Armored Cavalry formations at Fort Hood and Germany, and with the NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps in the United Kingdom. He has four deployments in support of OIF and OEF.
U.S. Army Capt. John F. Madden, is an M.S. student in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, pending an assignment to teach ethics and Just War Theory at the United States Military Academy. Madden holds a B.S. in International Relations from the United States Military Academy. Madden’s assignments include two company commands with 2nd Battalion, 23 Infantry Regiment, and two deployments in support of Operations, Iraqi and Enduring Freedom.
“Eisenhower, the [war] department is filled with able men who analyze their problems well but feel compelled always to bring them to me for final solution. I must have assistants who will solve their own problems and tell me later what they have done.”
–General of the Army George C. Marshall in General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman
As the United States Army wraps up its longest war on record in Afghanistan, we are already preparing for future combat. The lessons of the last decade have taught Army leaders the importance of being adaptive and innovative in order to ensure success. In pursuit of innovation, the Army has turned to the concept of Mission Command, which is defined by United States Army Doctrine as both a warfighting function, and a philosophy of command. Army Doctrinal Publication (ADP) 6-0 Mission Command states that all commanders should use the mission command methodology in the “exercise of authority and direction by the commander using mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent to empower agile and adaptive leaders in the conduct of unified land operations.” 1 The purpose of this type of command style is to enable subordinates to “adapt to rapidly changing situations and exploit fleeting opportunities.” 2
Although the benefits of adaptive leadership are one of the lessons-learned from recent wars, the concept is not new to the American Army. In “The Evolution of Mission Command in U.S. Army Doctrine, 1905 to the Present,” Col. Clinton Ancker traces mission command philosophy back to Gen. Grant’s guidance to Gen. Sherman in 1864.3 He shows that Mission Command first entered U.S. Army Doctrine in Field Service Regulations in 1905.4 The Mission Command concept is also not unique to the American military. Jörg Muth describes an almost identical concept of command in Command Culture from the German side. The German version of the mission command concept, called Aufstragtaktik or “mission tactics”, goes a step further beyond past mission command’s disciplined initiative to allow a subordinate commander to refuse an order if it stands in the way of achieving the mission.5 Muth concludes the command culture in the German Army leading up to World War II was more tempered towards aggressiveness and innovation than that of the U.S. Army, but that it failed at the highest ranks when the command climate became politicized as part of Nazi Germany.6 The institutional trend against Mission Command continues today, as there remain strong challenges to the universal adoption of Mission Command philosophy. Though these challenges are many; the most prominent ones fall into three interrelated categories—trust, senior-commander hubris, and risk aversion.
Lack of trust in subordinate commanders is the most corrosive of the challenges to Mission Command and is the foundation for the other two challenges. In order to allow a subordinate the freedom to use disciplined initiative, his superiors must place trust in his judgment.7 Without this trust, senior commanders are inclined to practice a detailed command philosophy in which they limit their subordinate commanders’ actions through control measures. The second category of challenges stems from the belief by senior commanders and staffs that they have better knowledge, understanding, and judgment than their subordinates. This belief springs from the confidence of the senior commander in his own abilities. This confidence is often justified as the higher commander often does have better knowledge, understanding, and judgment. It fails, however, in situations on the ground when the relative position of commanders places a junior leader in a situation where he has the unique situational awareness needed to make the better decision. The third major challenge occurs in environments where lower level commands and even individual soldiers are perceived as responsible for risks that potentially have strategic impact. Many commanders believe that these risks so far outweigh the potential rewards that they justify strict control. They will not trust subordinate commanders to make judgments based on the commander’s intent and their understanding of the operational environment. These challenges are significant and, if not addressed, will tend to undermine the mission command philosophy. The theory of mission command must be examined fully in light of these challenges.
In addition to the authority of doctrine, it is useful to consider the theoretical validity of Mission Command, which simply, is the most efficient means of command. If we consider that each decision takes time for analysis and thought, then it is more efficient to distribute decision-making evenly throughout the multiple levels of command. If we consider an example of a brigade that withholds approximately half of its decisions from company and battalion levels, we see very quickly the lack of practicality in this result. Decisions take time to proceed through multiple staffs and get approval. The result is an organization that is ponderous, slow, and often held up by its own policy and staff limitations. If the company and battalion commanders in our hypothetical brigade were empowered however, they would make decisions more rapidly and efficiently. Thus, even when we take out the concept of adaptability, mission command is still the most efficient structure for command since it allows multiple decision cycles within the command to be actively working towards a unified goal.
In wartime, we face an adaptive enemy and, usually, a changing environment. The latter is especially true during offensive operations. This causes units at all levels to encounter new conditions on a regular basis. Under these conditions, we would expect that units that adapted more rapidly to the changing conditions would perform more highly than others. Adaptation occurs successfully when a beneficial innovation is accepted and established in the unit. When a new problem arises, an innovative solution to it is proposed, tested, and proven successful. Unit leaders share the successful tactic, technique, or procedure with other leaders and it is incorporated into training and rehearsals. A unit is well adapted when it is prepared for current combat conditions. However, a unit, which was well adapted, may no longer be as conditions change.
Efficient adaptation follows the same flow as an efficient decision making process. Expansion of the innovative process to all levels allows more minds to attempt to solve problems at once. Sharing success stories allows the most effective innovations to spread, increasing the adaptive nature of the organization. When controls are implemented on operations, however, this limits the ability of innovators to attempt new ideas as new circumstances arise. Although this may seem to limit risk, it does so at the cost of limiting the number of potential innovators. This cost is too high in the long term. For mitigating risk, mission command offers the use of a commander’s intent instead of specific control measures or approval processes.
The use of a well-written commander’s intent with a clear, concise and compelling vision within a well-communicated operational context will instead allow the subordinate leaders to make sound decisions, even if these decisions are not identical to what a higher-level commander would have done in that situation. As positive results are gained, trust is increased and buy-in is established. Superiors learn to trust their subordinates, who feel empowered by their superior. For this reason, a senior flag officer states in “Mission Command and Cross-Domain Synergy” that “one of the myths of Mission Command is that it equals less or little control…” I would offer that universal understanding of Commander’s Intent is a very powerful method of control.” 8 Because Mission Command philosophy can be used as a powerful method of control while allowing more aggressive, innovative decision-making and initiative at the lower levels, it is preferable to detailed command whenever applied properly. This results in an adaptive, flexible formation that would be very difficult to defeat.
Mission command’s greatest challenge, underlying all others, is overcoming a lack of trust between senior and subordinate commanders. ADP 6-0 states, “The exercise of Mission Command is based on mutual trust, shared understanding, and purpose.” 9 What doctrine does not address is how to apply this philosophy during situations when trust has not already developed. Yet this seems a serious oversight to the commander who has deployed only to find he or she is task-organized under a higher-level headquarters with whom he or she has never worked in the past. In the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is normal for a brigade to be under a division headquarters that they have never worked with before, and it is not uncommon for battalions and companies to be task-organized outside of their parent unit. Although training allows more opportunities for communication between commanders, few opportunities exist to judge how they will perform under combat conditions, creating justification for risk-adversity even in parent units.
In these circumstances, creating opportunities to build mutual trust under high-risk situations seem like large risks themselves. If the stakes dictate some level of risk-adversity, control mechanisms such as detailed orders, approval requirements, and detailed reporting may seem more justified. Mistakes by a subordinate commander may seem much less understandable. Implementing control mechanisms will undermine the initiative of subordinate commanders and inhibit the development of trust. Trust simply cannot develop without testing how the subordinate commanders would act without the control mechanisms. The control mechanisms become organizationally entrenched into all levels of staff and are thereafter seen as the standard. Trust never develops and initiative remains dormant.
Having a single decision maker employing a “father-knows-best” attitude will greatly decrease the population and originality of ideas. Commanders who become rigid about what has worked in the past will balk at any proposal that he would not have readily tried himself. This lack of originality has the side effects of stifling innovation and leading to a high degree of unit predictability. This same attitude may also cause the senior commander to give instructions, either directly or through his staff, on how he wants the subordinate commander to achieve his mission.
It would be impractical to assume that future conflicts will allow units to deploy without employing task organization adjustments that place units away from their parent headquarters. These situations help to create one of the most significant challenges to the mission command philosophy since the mutual trust created during training is lost with the changing headquarters. In order to apply the mission command philosophy effectively in these situations, commanders and their staff must begin by trusting rather than requiring trust to be earned. Although this appears to be a great risk, like all risks it can be managed effectively.
Commander’s intent and open, two-way communication channels are the tools of Mission Command as a warfighting function. Direct communication of the operational context and the commander’s intent two levels down is essential to success. Battlefield circulation is important to supervise subordinate headquarters, establish open communications, and engage in two-way discourse to understand the operational context and reach a shared approach to future operations. Wherever possible, training events should be established to allow soldiers on the ground or preparing to deploy to conduct realistic training, replicating conditions from the operational context in order to ensure that the commander’s intent is understood and that they know how to manage high-level risks all the way down to the lowest level.
An opponent to the mission command philosophy sometimes emerges in large staffs with organizationally entrenched procedures. As retired Army Gen. Gary Luck points out in his article, “staffs may not understand or be comfortable in operating within a Mission Command construct of trust, shared understanding, intent, and empowerment.” 10 If left without clear guidelines and without an understanding of the Mission Command philosophy, “staffs may be inclined to over rely on the ‘science of control’ relative to the art of command.” 11 For Mission Command to be successful, commanders will have to place clear limitations on the power of their staffs to institute bureaucratic controls and approval procedures. Staffs should exist to empower their commander and his subordinate commanders, not as bureaucratic decision-making authorities or control mechanisms. Commanders will have to place stress on establishing clear command-support relationships and establishing unity of command at all levels to prevent from having to constantly intervene as the approval authority for all missions, ultimately hampering decision-making and decreasing initiative.
The existence of what is perceived as a strategic risk at the tactical level, could be argued to nullify part of the Mission Command philosophy—risks just appear too important to leave in the hands of subordinate commanders without strict guidance. Potential risks range from civilian casualties to law of war violations. The “strategic private” is often considered to be a new concept; however, most of these possible risks are not especially modern. War crimes, civilian casualties, and treatment of prisoners in particular have been a cause of international contention for over a century.12 Nevertheless, strong emphasis on these issues by civilian authorities and the highest-ranking general officers may appear to justify strong control by high-level commanders.
Yet this is not a problem that can be solved by any particular method of command. No number of regulations and staff procedures can solve the problem that senior leaders are simply not on the ground when these problems occur. In fact, prevention of strategically adverse actions at low levels is most compatible with organizations with strong junior leaders. The open communication structure of Mission Command is the best structured to address these issues. It is the command structure that most emphasizes strong, empowered junior leaders.
In a world of a complex operational context, it is not unusual for a higher-level commander or members of his staff to believe that they understand the operational environment, the mission, and how to employ soldiers better than the subordinate units. In most cases, this seems justified—the commander probably has already successfully led men at his subordinate commander’s level. In peacetime, he is responsible for the training of his subordinates. When a high-risk situation, such as combat, arrives, it seems only natural that he would be highly involved in ensuring the success of his subordinates. In modern warfare, a large part of the belief that the higher-level headquarters can effectively manage tactical matters on the ground stems from the development of Information Age technology that gives unprecedented knowledge of the battlefield. Gen. Luck notes that this information environment can lead to incidents of information overload, as “commanders attempt to process all information before making decisions.” 12 As reliance at all levels on technology increases, commanders and their staffs alike may begin to believe they have a strong enough picture of operations to allow them to control tactical operations as they see fit. Such centralized control becomes easy to justify within the headquarters when it is built on an already existing belief in their superior abilities. Tools such as video feeds from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, icons on the Blue Force Tracker, and volumes of detailed intelligence give personnel in the headquarters unprecedented information of operations on the ground. The desire to use these tools may easily cause the headquarters in a static Tactical Operations Center, particularly during low-intensity operations, to try to give orders to personnel on the ground based on their information. As this technology improves and expands, it is likely that this challenge will only grow in the future.
This, however, leads to a coordination problem. Although the senior commander may indeed be able to make a better decision on any single problem than any one of his subordinate commanders, he cannot make better decisions than all of them all at once. This paradox stems from two problems—specialized knowledge and time constraints. Although the senior commander may have better overall situational awareness, the subordinate commander has a better situational awareness of his unique position. No video feed can cover the level of sensual immersion one receives on the ground. A commander who tries to manipulate another force on the ground must therefore receive reports, make a decision, and communicate the decision to the unit. This leads to issues. First, it would be false to assume that the communication could be perfect; even a small percentage of imperfect communications could lead to misunderstood information and defective actions on the ground. Second, this process would be highly inefficient. Simply too many opportunities would be lost because of the time lag necessary for the communication and decision making process. The decision, once received, may no longer even be relevant if the situation has changed. Finally, even if we were able to use an ideal technology that is able to overcome any information deficiency, a commander would still only be able to control of one unit at a time. This leaves him with a choice—to focus on commanding a subordinate commander’s unit or his own.
As the United States Army nears the end of its longest war and begins to determine how it will train and develop leaders for future wars, we must structure training and leader development methodology to establish good mission command techniques. Wars in the 21st century are likely to continue to be complex. ADP 3-0 Unified Land Operations states: “Operational environments are not static. Within an operational environment, an Army leader may conduct major combat, military engagement and humanitarian assistance simultaneously.” 13The flexibility of a formation to move quickly from combined arms maneuver to wide area security or to conduct them simultaneously can only be achieved through an adaptive, flexible force. Training this force must emphasize building the trust required to allow mission command philosophy to flourish.
There is no doubt that Mission Command is the “book answer” to the question of how leaders should command. As this article has demonstrated, there is good reason for this: it is not only the most efficient and effective means of command, but it is also the style of command that creates the kind of flexibility and innovation, which will help the United States to prevail in future conflicts. Nevertheless, mission command is not the status quo command philosophy of the United States Army. In spite of our doctrine, the Army continues to combine detailed command with bureaucratic systems, allowing only some of the mission command methodology to filter through.
The challenges to Mission Command are severe, and we must develop all commanders so they can stare these challenges in the face and implement mission command in spite of them. This requires an institutional and career-long norm of continuous leader development. Commanders who are more comfortable as managers will inevitably fall back on the “science of control” and use bureaucratic management techniques that limit the risks that their subordinates are allowed to take. In his book On Becoming a Leader, Warren Bennis tell us that “the manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.” 14 Mission command philosophy demands that commanders be leaders and not managers. This does not mean that they will never perform management tasks, but that they go beyond management and lead their unit. Commanders have to be satisfied with the lack of conformity which mission command allows as people find different solutions to the same age-old problems.
In the average command in the United States Army, staffs forge the way towards the routine, instituting training meetings, briefings, approvals processes, and other methods of control. Control does not have to be relinquished, but it must be reformed into commander’s intent. Commanders must be willing to trust their subordinates even when doing so appears to be accepting a great risk. A risk-adverse formation may have fewer incidents during peacetime, but they will lack the aggressive leaders and flexible, adaptive soldiers needed during war. We must decide what kind of formation we truly want: one that is ready for peace or one that is ready for war.
Published on July 31, 2014 — Available also in PDF
Dr. Daniel R. Green served in Uruzgan Province with the U.S. Department of State at the Tarin Kowt Provincial Reconstruction Team in 2005-2006 and returned to Uruzgan in 2012 for an eight month tour with the U.S. Navy as a Tribal and Political Engagement Officer. He is the author of the book "The Valley’s Edge: A Year with the Pashtuns in the Heartland of the Taliban" and a Defense Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Department of Defense.
Every military unit that goes to war reaches a point in its deployment where it takes stock of how it is doing, how its lethal and non-lethal operations are going, and whether its achievements further the goals of the broader military campaign. While this type of assessment is likely ongoing, there are times where it becomes more acute. It is at these moments, such as after an operation, when an after action report is drafted, or when the performance of a unit or individual is evaluated, that the true measure of success is determined. It is quite common during these evaluations to use some metric of inputs and outputs to judge success or failure. For many infantry units for example, one common measure is how many enemy forces were killed during its tour. Other metrics often used are the number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) found, the number of completed patrols, and the amount of enemy munitions captured and destroyed. This way of thinking has also expanded to include non-kinetic missions in the furtherance of other counterinsurgency goals such as good governance, development, and reconstruction such as the number of key leader engagements (KLEs) held, the amount of development money spent, and the number of projects completed. While many of these measurements are valuable to know when understanding how a unit or individual has performed, especially when it comes to conventional warfare, they are not as helpful when determining success against insurgencies. Success against insurgency includes many aspects of traditional measures of performance but also several, which are unique to it and are completely dissimilar from conventional warfare.
Additionally, establishing and actually using criteria to measure how one unit or one leader compares with another in terms of achieving the goals of the military campaign is also challenging, since too frequently the personnel systems of the U.S. military are focused on career progression centered on conventional warfare metrics. Thus, while a Special Operations Forces (SOF) team, for example, may have killed substantial numbers of the enemy, how this compares with another SOF team which has fewer enemy killed, but more locals joining local protective forces is more challenging for leaders to judge. How, for example, do you properly weigh the real risks the first unit took in fighting the enemy compared to the second which might have taken fewer risks but whose actions are more fundamentally sound in defeating an insurgency? How then do we move beyond a mismeasure of success and embrace one that is fundamental to victory against an insurgency?
At their core, insurgencies are about political power struggles where the center of gravity is not the enemy’s forces per se but the population1 where “the exercise of political power depends on the tacit or explicit agreement of the population or, at worst, on its submissiveness.”2 Largely for this reason, while input and output metrics are useful, they are not the fundamental measurement that determines how effective a unit’s actions are, or how enduring its results will be in the long-term. Instead of focusing on what is done to a community, (e.g. number of raids, shuras held), it is more important to focus on what comes from it(e.g. the community joining local protective forces, the enemy re-integrating, villagers identifying the insurgents). Outcomes are the product of inputs and outputs, and it is through understanding the totality of a unit’s actions and how they affect the population that the progress a unit makes against the insurgency can be measured. Seen from this perspective, a unit’s actions are judged successful if its efforts (e.g. clearing operations, raids, key leader engagements, and development projects) prompt the community to enlist in its own defense, seize the initiative on governance, and undertake development activities. In this respect, the community is no longer a bystander to its own security, stuck between insurgent and counterinsurgent forces, but is actively resisting the insurgency. It is when a community reacts positively to a unit’s actions that true progress can be measured. The central challenge for many military units fighting insurgencies, is determining what is important to measure, rather than what is easy to measure, and recognizing that what the community does is more significant than what the unit does. What is required is a new metric of success, focused on insurgencies, that measures the things that matter rather than the things we think are significant.
Faced with a military force it is unable to defeat directly, insurgents seek to weaken the will of the counterinsurgent through targeted operations that maximize the insurgent’s small numbers while raising the costs for government forces. By blending in with the population and striking at security forces at times and locations of its choosing, the insurgent force is able to persist beyond the point that the costs in blood and treasure are supportable for the government. The armed element of the insurgency is simply, as author Bernard Fall described it, “a tactical appendage of a far vaster political contest and that, no matter how expertly it is fought by competent and dedicated professionals, it cannot possibly make up for the absence of a political rationale.” Any counterinsurgency strategy that seeks to defeat simultaneously the armed element and the political arm of the insurgency by both military actions and a holistic political strategy, must enlist the population in its plans if it hopes to succeed. Since insurgents realize the population is the true prize in this type of warfare, its behavior focuses on the outcomes of its actions on the population. It principally centers on how it influences and maneuvers the population away from the government and towards the insurgency, with the goal of frustrating the counterinsurgent to the point of giving up. It does this through persuasion and coercion while maximizing its influence through a tactical political strategy that attempts to enlist the population in insurgent efforts. If the population is unwilling or unable to join the government, this raises the costs for the counterinsurgent since they will have to continually clear and secure insurgent areas. Lacking local allies to hold the newly cleared area, subsequent operations will have to be undertaken, which have the potential to alienate the population because of the accidental killing or injury of civilians. If these operations are continuously carried out, the population may become supportive of the insurgency if only to prevent the damage and death that comes from being repeatedly “liberated” through military operations.
Unlike conventional warfare where “military action … is generally the principal way to achieve the goal” and “[p]olitics as an instrument of war tends to take a back seat”, in unconventional warfare, “politics becomes an active instrument of operation” and “every military move has to be weighed with regard to its political effects, and vice versa.”3 This is why the assassination of a local government official, though militarily relatively insignificant, has drastic effects on a population since it demonstrates that the insurgents can strike at any person regardless of his status and that the government is unable to protect its own members. Additionally, when villagers do not attend government-facilitated shuras, it is as much a function of the threat the insurgents pose to the population as much as it is a judgment call on the part of the locals that the government does not serve their interests. Similarly, when the local population seeks out the insurgency for dispute resolution this demonstrates that the “soft power” of the insurgency (its political strategy) addresses the interests of the people more directly than the government. In light of these aspects of insurgent strategy, how then have military units typically addressed the insurgent threat as well as evaluated the success of its operations?
One of the central challenges U.S. military forces initially faced when confronted by the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq was adapting their approach to warfighting, which was focused on conventional warfare, to the unique demands of counterinsurgency. Many of the habits, mental models, weapons systems, and means of evaluating success had to be completely rethought. Some units adapted, others did not. Even today, some continue to view the insurgent challenge through the prism of a conventional mindset. Most of the aspects of the approaches military units used at the outset of the wars were rooted in an attrition-based strategy of war against conventional forces where inputs and outputs were relatively straightforward, such as number of enemy killed, miles of territory seized, number of detainees captured, etc. Political tasks were the responsibility of the U.S. Department of State and this relatively clean division of responsibility, military and political, allowed the outcome of total military defeat of the enemy to be relatively uncomplicated. Over time, this simplistic understanding broke down as the insurgency grew. Since insurgencies conflate military and political strategies relatively seamlessly because the nature of the conflict is population-based, traditional measures of inputs and outputs had to be rethought. The problem, however, is that many of these conventional methods of evaluating success were still relevant when it came to fighting an insurgency. It is still important, for example, to remove the enemy insurgent from the battlefield and to retain control of key geographical features. Instead of having the output (enemy killed) as the outcome, it should be subsumed within a mix of inputs and outputs, all of which create an outcome focused on community reaction to the insurgency. What this perspective suggests is that while, for example, removing a high value target degrades the insurgency, its true impact is in how the community reacts. Do villagers begin to attend government-facilitated shuras, do they begin to report on the insurgency, do they enlist with local protective forces to prevent insurgent intimidation? So while the removal of insurgent commanders is still important, a unit’s success is not judged by the number of enemy killed in action but by how these actions affect the community and its response to the insurgency. A concrete example may be useful to illustrate this concept.
In one province in Afghanistan which U.S. forces have had a presence since 2001, approximately 35 units have rotated through the area. Every unit likely claimed that it significantly degraded insurgent forces and greatly improved security in the province. If these reports are accurate, and they likely are from an input/output perspective, then why does the insurgency persist? It persists because the population was a bystander in the struggle between insurgent and counterinsurgent forces, and was not provided an opportunity to enlist in its own defense. Although enemy forces were consistently degraded, they were never defeated. Even though factors such as insurgent safe havens in Pakistan contributed greatly to this challenge, there were no realistic opportunities for a villager to join a community-based program of local defense. For a long time, U.S. forces lacked the language, the mental models, the experience, and the wisdom to undertake this type of initiative.
Similarly, conventional development strategies sidelined Afghans with respect to prompting them to fund their own projects in a sustainable manner. Additionally, because the emphasis was on development versus stabilization, villagers tended to be on the receiving end of assistance but never culpable for it. They were equally bystanders to their own development. These tendencies were exacerbated by the expansion of NATO within Afghanistan, which had greater amounts of conventional military intellectual and peacekeeping baggage and bureaucratic tendencies to overcome, to see the Taliban insurgency as it was rather than how they wished it.
While measuring inputs and outputs will still be required when evaluating how a military unit has performed, a more constructive approach should be focused on outcomes, which are outgrowths of these two variables. What we need to measure is not what is done to a local community but what comes from it. When a local villager joins with government forces, such as becoming a part of a local protective force, appeals to his district officials for justice, or informs on insurgent forces, it is a conscious choice on his part to reject the insurgency both because he wants to and he can. This crucial choice is not made easily and is a calculated weighing on his part of the risks to himself, his family, and his property from the insurgency. His choice has consequences, which he knows all too well, and he does not take it lightly. Therefore, when he does decide which side of the struggle to support, it is significant and profound for it indicates which side is stronger, which side is winning, and which side best serves his interests. Outcomes are the result of a number of inputs and outputs, which are traditionally measured, but not always linked to an outcome-based perspective. However, what are the crucial outcomes we must be worried about, that we must track and measure that are also realistic to capture for units in the field? Which outcomes capture a villager’s siding with the government and the conscious choice of a community to enlist with the government? Any measure of progress against an insurgency needs to be relatively easy to collect, accurately capture the community’s actions, and demonstrate a pro-active willingness on the part of the village to turn against the insurgency. Many of these types of variables will shift over time as a local population increasingly asserts itself against insurgent fighters. Thus, initial clearing operations may be accomplished exclusively through the outside counterinsurgent force but as conditions improve, villagers may begin to provide information on insurgent movements to the government, and, as security persists, start to join local protective forces to fight the insurgency. At this point, security operations are typically conducted in a joint manner with local and government security forces operating together. When local forces reach a level of maturity where they can operate on their own, the counterinsurgent has achieved a substantial security outcome, which truly accounts for the community’s willingness to fight the insurgency and join with the government. The following are a series of indicators along the security, governance, and development lines of operations, which a unit might use to measure its progress against an insurgency. Additionally, fictitious situation reports are included to demonstrate how outcome-based results may manifest themselves on the ground and in military reporting.
Security – (1) number of local protective force members increase, (2) number of insurgent forces that re-integrate increases, (3) villagers identify and inform on members of the insurgency or fight them, (4) number of night letters decreases or is eliminated, (5) government security officials reside in the village/district.
Security Situation Report
Since clearing operations were completed a month ago in Char Chena Valley, the number of local protective force recruits in the area continues to climb. Following the construction of five checkpoints, initially manned by local police forces, approximately forty military age males have been vetted by the local shura for inclusion within the local protective force program. Village elders approached Forward Operating Base Kaufman within a week of the conclusion of security operations expressing their support for the government and their willingness to volunteer their sons for the protective forces. In private discussions, elders also volunteered information on insurgent movements in the area as well as bed-down locations.
The number of night letters has decreased precipitously since security operations were concluded, and key leader engagements with village mullahs have also been positive. Local sources indicate that at least two mullahs have expressed support at their Friday prayers for construction of the checkpoints. Other atmospherics suggest an improvement in security in the area. Two villagers stopped by checkpoint number three with information on improvised explosive devices in the road and another villager brought bomb components, which he said, had been buried in his field.
Governance – (1) villagers petition the government with complaints, requests for projects, and official attention, (2) village religious leaders regularly express support for the government, (3) local tax revenues/economic activity increases, (4) local assemblies meet regularly and are representative, (5) government officials reside in the village/district.
Governance Situation Report
Village elders from Char Chena Valley traveled to the District Center today to meet with the District Chief of Police and to discuss a long-standing land dispute between the villagers of Anarjoy and Segech. The elders represent two sub-tribes of the Ghilzai Tribal Confederation and appealed to the Police Chief to address the ownership of several hectares of land that until recently had been covered by floodwaters. The Police Chief welcomed the elders to the District Center, requested the attendance of the District Governor, who sat down with the elders, and commenced a shura, which lasted for several hours. While the meeting did not resolve the land dispute, it did clarify many aspects of the issue and the elders agreed to visit the District Center next week to continue discussions. The land in question was owned by villagers from Anarjoy but had been rented to villagers from Segech. Due to recent flooding in the region, approximately thirty percent of the land had been washed away and villagers from Anarjoy want compensation from the villagers of Segech for the loss. The visit of these elders is notable since their villages are approximately eight kilometers from the District Center and, until recently, were under insurgent control. Recent clearing operations in the area as well as the construction of several checkpoints have noticeably improved not only the security situation in the area but also freedom of movement for local villagers.
Development – (1) increase of delivery trucks and/or road traffic, (2) cost of processed/manufactured goods (e.g. cooking oil, lumber, cooking implements, salt) and perishables (e.g. tomatoes, wheat seed, almonds, sheep) decreases (inelastic vs. elastic pricing, (3) cell phone towers are built and radio station(s) established (e.g. third-party validation), (4) increase in number of marriages, (5) number of non-governmental organizations or their activity increases.
Development Situation Report
Security improvements in Char Chena Valley have demonstrably improved local economic conditions. With the construction of five checkpoints in the area and villagers joining local protective forces, bazaar shops are opening earlier and staying open later. During a foot patrol last week, three jingle trucks were found to have traveled from the provincial capital to the bazaar – a bazaar that had not seen any traffic from the capital in two years. Villagers also presented a petition from local elders to the District Governor, who shared it with Coalition Forces, requesting a retaining wall be built in the area as well as have the main road in the area paved. Additional economic atmospherics suggest the opening of the road to the District Center has caused local cooking oil and tomato prices to decrease. Several shops are also stocking goods only available in the provincial capital and scattered reports indicate that a small boom in local marriages is also occurring suggesting that economic conditions are improving.
The challenge of overcoming a military unit’s natural tendencies toward conventional warfare and directing them instead to the key tasks of counterinsurgency is profound. Arrayed against a leader inclined toward an outcome-based approach are the preferences of the unit’s members, many of whom had joined the military and then the unit with the express purpose of achieving its usual mission. Shifting this mentality requires not just education but continual and persistent attention by the leaders of the unit, opportunities for back-and-forth discussions about the upcoming deployment, and an effort to truly understand the primary motivations of the enemy and the population. This process must begin months before a unit deploys, it must permeate all of its training, and reinforced at all levels of the organization. It will require as much bottom-up feedback as top-down direction. The second stage of adapting a unit to the insurgency challenge takes place upon arrival of the unit in country. When the stresses of the war become a lived reality versus an abstract discussion, the true test of a unit’s leadership and its strategy takes place. This stage in a unit’s tour will require continual leadership support. However, if an outcome-based strategy is pursued which enlists a community in its own governance, development, and security efforts, a unit’s usual proclivities toward a conventional approach will naturally adjust along with the problem it faces; an enemy hiding in the population, is defeated with this new approach. While opportunities for conventional approaches will persist, such as when an area is being cleared, this will shift dramatically once an outcome-based approach is utilized and the insurgency’s military and political arm are being defeated simultaneously. The third stage in a unit’s deployment is communicating the successes and challenges of its tour to not only the broader military community within which it serves but also to the unit that is replacing it. In addition to the substance of what was accomplished comes the perceived sense of what was achieved which is why communicating the tour’s successes is very important as well. Much like an insurgent, a good information operations campaign must be enlisted to communicate within a conventionally oriented organization the record of a unit’s actions focused on an outcome-based approach to fighting insurgency. If a war-fighting organization seeks to fight the insurgency as it is and not as they would like it to be, it must constantly adapt to the unique challenges of the conflict it finds itself in and do what is required and not what feels most comfortable. If these efforts are not institutionalized by follow-on units, the insurgency will continue to persist.
The most fundamental question a military unit fighting an insurgency must answer is whether its actions are degrading the insurgency or defeating it? While traditional measurements of a unit’s actions such as inputs and outputs provide a useful metric of the unit’s achievements, it is an incomplete method of measuring progress against an insurgency. The central goal of a counterinsurgency strategy must be how the community responds to both the counterinsurgent’s actions and the insurgent’s. In this respect, the behavior of an indigenous community indicates how truly effective your operations are, for they accurately reflect the outcome of your actions. When a villager takes the pro-active decision to enlist in his own defense as well as participate in governance and development activities, it is a conscious choice on his part to reject the insurgency both because he wants to and because he can. Determining this tipping point of when a villager or community makes this decision to join the government and reject the insurgency and the right mix of inputs and outputs to achieve this outcome is the greatest challenge a unit confronts when it comes to measuring success against an insurgency. Unless the community participates in its own security, governance, and development, all actions by the counterinsurgent force, no matter how aggressive, will be ephemeral and the military campaign will be no closer to victory.
Published on July 30, 2014 — Available also in PDF
Colonel Robert M. Mundell is a faculty instructor in the Department of Command Leadership and Management, United States Army War College, and has served in this capacity for three years. He is a 2009 graduate of the Army War College, and has three combat tours in Afghanistan, most recently as Commander, Regional Support Command North, NATO training Mission Afghanistan. His many assignments as an Infantry officer include Deputy Brigade Combat Team Commander, and Battalion Commander.
The culture that we are embedded in inevitably influences our views about leadership. —Hofstede, 19931
The Army’s emphasis on diversity and inclusion is important in maintaining a future competitive advantage in today’s global security environment; understanding differences is central to the effective employment of landpower (soldiers and equipment) in and amongst different cultures. However, individual assimilation to cultural norms and embedded leader prototypes undermine the promise of diversity by suppressing individual identity. This paper examines this premise by analyzing the value and challenge of diversity, assessing the influence of leader prototypes and assimilation on individual identity, and by analyzing current educational approaches towards diversity and culture education. The paper concludes with recommendations for senior Army leaders to consider as they seek to fulfill the promise of diversity.
As a preface to this paper, it is important to define the term prototype and to distinguish diversity management from diversity leadership. In its purest form, a prototype is an original model on which something is patterned; an individual that exhibits essential features, or a standard or typical example.2 Prototypes are decisive in forming organizational and individual identities. They enhance the salience of a group and make it appear to be a distinct and well-structured entity with clear boundaries, and with members that share a common fate.3
Diversity leadership and management are closely related. The difference is, diversity management refers to the development of policies and plans designed to drive and or affect the impact of diversity on key outcomes, while diversity leadership involves direct leadership practices that allow leaders to influence how people and groups relate to differences.4 Management practices are central in regulating behavior, but leadership influences behavior.
The promise of diversity does not infer entitlement; instead, it is an idealistic concept that when realized, enables greater innovation and creativity in diverse and inclusive organizations. This is in comparison to cognitively homogeneous organizations that are constrained by similarity and habitual thought patterns pertaining to individuals and ideas that are valued. This idealistic concept results in all members feeling valued and allows them to demonstrate greater commitment to organizational outcomes. Well led and well managed diverse organizations increase the variety of perspectives brought to a problem, because individual diversity in organizations creates relationships between people with different life experiences, thereby enabling greater access to an array of information sources and perspectives. Diversity can also create conflict, lead to strained communication between people that are different, intensify social divisions, and result in an overall lack of trust.5 The common thread between these two viewpoints is individual identity because identity dictates how individuals respond, either favorably or unfavorably, to differences. Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 6-22 explains the relationship between identity and leadership by noting that identity influences how leaders behave and learn, and how others perceive them, and notes that effective leadership begins with developing and maintaining a leader identity. 6
Several leader attributes and competencies espoused in doctrine and enacted in leader practices characterize prototypical Army leaders. ADRP 6-22 provides a comprehensive framework that articulates what the Army desires in leaders by describing the types of attributes a leader must possess to apply competencies that allow them to lead and develop individuals and organizations and achieve results. The publication emphasizes an adherence to Army values, being empathetic, disciplined, physically fit, mentally agile, and possessing expertise as important attributes that enable leaders to apply competencies such as building trust, fostering esprit de corps, and creating effective unit climates.7 Army doctrine provides a foundational base for leadership, but enacted leader behavior is paramount in conveying desirable prototypes.
Organizationally endorsed credentialing and certification, and institutional feedback assist in influencing perceptions of the ideal and prototypical leader. These factors imbue desirable qualities on an individual and mark them with enhanced ability, distort perceptions, and affect predictions of performance and potential. This circumstance is consistent with the concept of embedding mechanisms outlined by Edgar Schein in his research on organizational culture. Schein notes that organizational culture formation begins with leaders imposing assumptions and expectation on followers, which in turn influences beliefs pertaining to prototypes.8 Prototypes create a self-perpetuating cycle, particularly as junior leaders use them to construct their own leader identity. These prototypes constitute a social reality grounded in consensual views and are continuously reinforced.9
In salient organizations, leader prototypes bestow greater influence on the most prototypical leaders.10 The appearance of the legitimacy of the prototype becomes a reality through a depersonalization process that compels followers to comply with norms that are valued.11 This cognitive process results in individual members suppressing their uniqueness and transforming their identity in three ways. First, they place value judgments on themselves based on defining characteristics of the group prototype. Next, they cognitively and behaviorally assimilate with these characteristics by developing normative perceptions and attitudes. Finally, they view others through the lens of features that characterize organizationally sanctioned prototypes.12
Depersonalization is influenced by similarity attraction and self-categorization. Similarity attraction suggests that similarities in characteristics and attitudes facilitate positive relationships. Individuals that perceive others as similar are more likely to assess those individuals as being intelligent, and well adjusted.13 Conversely, individuals perceived as different are trusted less, difficult to communicate with, and less adjusted.14 Similarity attraction shapes perceptions of what a leader is, and must do, and can influence evaluation and promotion selection processes because it creates an unconscious bias in senior leaders. This bias results in discrimination against organizational members that are different.15 This is natural in meritocratic-based organization, because meritocracies promote and award members based on achievement and potential consistent with organizational norms and prototypes.
Similarity attraction may have some influence on the current profile of Army General Officers. Of the 15 current General Officers, 12 are West Point graduates, and only three are not Maneuver, Fires and Effects (MFE) officers.16 Highlighting this fact does not devalue the worth of these senior leaders rather it questions the prototype. Are the common qualifications of these senior leaders central to success at the highest levels of senior leadership, or are there other characteristics and different career experiences that make others just as capable? The profile of Army Generals represents a belief system in the Army that is influenced by legitimized prototypes.
Being different from others impedes career advancement, and similarities between subordinates and superiors are positive factors in selection decisions.17 Similarity attraction leads to raters developing self-based schemas pertaining to performance and potential that reinforce their own favorable image, and positively bias their evaluation of subordinates perceived as similar.18 The consequence of similarity attraction in the context of promotion and advancement is consistent with Schein’s fifth embedding mechanism, how leaders recruit, select, and promote members.
Self-categorization is a process by which individuals define themselves in terms of membership in a given group, and causes individuals to develop self-concepts and provoke behaviors consistent with group membership.19 Two effects of self-concept stem from self-categorization. Individuals begin to view their membership in a certain group as a significant dimension of their self-identity, and the perceived and actual interests of the larger group take precedence over their views. These effects strongly influence the development of in and out-groups, and further stimulate depersonalization.
Similarity attraction and self-categorization are consistent with the leader member exchange (LMX) theory, which centers on the concept of senior Army leaders establishing a special exchange relationship with subordinates that share perceived or actual similarities, and results in the formation of in-groups and out-groups.20 Out-group members are less likely to commit to an organization or share minority viewpoints because they believe their perspective will not be valued. Conversely, in-group members are given favorable tasks, and the senior leader will often influence assignment processes in an effort to enhance the careers of these favored subordinates. LMX influences the suppression of individual identity and compels members to assimilate into group norms.
Assimilation is a process whereby individuals gradually adopt the practices of a dominant group, while simultaneously struggling to retain their unique individual identity. However, in the Army there is little incentive for members to retain portions of their individual identity that are not consistent with organizational norms. As a result, the Army is less likely to embrace differences deeply embedded in individual identity. Conversely, conformity emerges as an important and idealistic goal, and a reward and punishment system is codified that is initially transactional in nature. Individuals that assimilate well benefit from rewards in exchange for compliance to norms, and those that struggle to do so are marginalized. This socialization process is aligned with Schein’s fourth embedding mechanism—the allocation of rewards and status.
Overcoming the effects of leader prototypes and assimilation requires leaders to effectively lead and manage diversity to create unit climates, and an organizational culture that allow the Army to transition from simply tolerating diversity to realizing the promise of diversity. Tolerating diversity is not a sufficient approach for the Army because by definition tolerance simply means “the willingness to accept feelings, habits, or beliefs that are different from your own.”21
Dr. Milton J. Bennett in his article titled Becoming Interculturally Competent suggests that individuals experience a major change in their interaction with different individuals by moving from a state of ethnocentrism to ethno-relativism. Ethno relative world views enable individuals to seek differences by accepting and adapting their own perspectives and then integrating differences to create a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of reality.22 This mindset change begins when senior Army leaders view their own perspective, and similar perspectives, as simply one among a number of complex world views. Creating a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of reality creates tremendous opportunities for individual and organizational growth, and will require senior Army leaders to strike a balance between adhering to long standing organizational norms, and integrating divergent perspectives to foster innovation and creativity. Achieving this elusive degree of equilibrium requires leaders to alter their mental models of exacting prototypes, enhance the influence of the minority perspective, and place greater emphasis on diversity and culture education. By focusing on these factors as catalyst for change, senior Army leaders will become “entrepreneurs of prototypicality,” and alter institutional views of what is normative.23
Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions and generalizations that influence how individuals respond to differences.24 Senior Army leaders must broaden their mental models of prototypical leaders, adjust self-based schemas of effective subordinates, and challenge their notion of the ideal leader. This is important in establishing mutual trust, and building cohesive organizations. For many senior Army leaders this will cause discomfort and uncertainty, because the Army is heavily reliant on bureaucratic policies and regulations designed to avoid uncertainty. An aversion to uncertainty can result in a degree of cognitive dissonance for an organization that espouses the importance of adaptable leaders. However, discomfort and uncertainty often serve as necessary and effective means of change. An important idea to consider, is the Army is adopting more inclusive personnel assignment policies that enable female Soldiers to serve in combat specialty branches. However, it is important to ensure the integration of females in these branches serves a functional purpose as opposed to providing females with greater opportunities to align with existing prototypes associated with the institution’s most senior leaders.
In further adjusting mental models, the Army must alter some organizational protocols associated with key selection board processes. Doing so will serve as a reinforcing mechanism and aid in changing organizational culture.25 The Army should sterilize board records during key selection processes by removing all unit identification, commissioning sources, names of raters and senior raters, and official photographs. These specific means of identification engender biases, stereotypical beliefs, and stigmas that influence board members.
Adjusting senior Army leader beliefs and behavior will also require leaders to enhance the influence of minority and divergent perspectives, which are dismissed often in organizations heavily dependent on assimilation and conformity. Creative and innovative thoughts often emerge from ideas and concepts not aligned with prevailing norms or majority influenced ideas. The reluctance to embrace counter-insurgency doctrine early on during Operation Iraqi Freedom serves as a salient example.26 Therefore, one of the most important roles a leader has, given the command and leader centric nature of the Army, is establishing a unit climate that embraces and fosters divergent thought. On the surface, this idea may seem blatantly obvious, but in practice, it is quite challenging because leaders often become overly wedded to their own beliefs and are influenced by confirmation bias. This thought highlights the importance of educating current and emerging junior leaders early on in their developmental process on the importance of critical and creative thinking skills, and the continued emphasis on these cognitive skills at the intermediate and senior service college level.
The Army Leader Development Strategy (ALDS) highlights education as one of the three pillars of leader development and is a testament to the Army’s commitment to and reliance on education. The strategy’s emphasis on critical and innovative thinking skills, emotional intelligence, and broadening experiences highlight its relevance, however, the ALDS does not place enough emphasis on the importance of diversity and culture education. These two words appear once in the entire document but not in the context of education.27 Placing greater emphasis on diversity and culture education will greatly improve existing leader development strategies; therefore, the Army should consider the following recommendations.
The Army must integrate diversity education at all levels of leader development. At the junior leader level, diversity education should include education on the different types of diversity, the benefits and challenges of diversity in organizations, and provide basic knowledge on identity formation. At the intermediate and senior service college level, diversity education should emphasize the difference between diversity leadership and management, the value of embracing minority and divergent perspectives, and emphasize how LMX, self-categorization, similarity attraction, and social representation influence behavior and decision making. Furthermore, diversity education at these levels should include instruction on leader prototypes, and unconscious and confirmation bias. Finally, culture education should emphasize how culture influences behavior, beliefs and decision making, educate leaders on cultural frameworks that assist in understanding how cultures are organized and function, and identify the types of skills and attributes required to operate and lead effectively in multi-cultural environments.
Conformity to organizationally sanctioned norms and behaviors is not simply a matter of superficial compliance; rather it represents internal cognitive change, and the legitimacy of a prototype in a salient organization like the Army becomes crystallized and embodied in personal belief and value systems. Therefore, senior Army leaders, as entrepreneurs of prototypicality, must model the type of behavior that values individuality, enables trust and the development of cohesive teams, and ultimately allows the Army to realize the promise of diversity. By implementing the recommendations outlined in this paper, senior Army leaders will demonstrate astute diversity leadership and management practices and exemplify the type of leader current and emerging junior leaders must emulate. Ultimately, this will allow the Army to “develop adaptive leaders for a complex world, remain globally responsive and regionally engaged, facilitate commitment to the Army profession, and remain the world’s premier volunteer Army.”28
Published on May 28, 2014 — Available also in PDF
CPT Michael A. Robinson is a company commander in the 319th Military Intelligence BTN at Fort Bragg, NC. He holds a B.S. in International Relations from the United States Military academy at West Point. He served a Brigade Chief of Plans for Multi-National Battle Group – East, Kosovo Forces -17. His assignments include tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans.
As the Army enters into a time of self-reflection, doctrinal re-assessment, and fiscal re-prioritization, the most pressing existential questions that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have created, are the implications of long-term military operations and their relationship with the political goals articulated by civilian leadership. There is no need to explain that a disparity between these two envisioned end-states, the military and the civilian, can force catastrophic deviations from the original mission. To this end, the Army and its civilian leadership have long sought to avoid mission creep (a term popularized during the 1990s as an operational scarecrow for policy-makers to evade long-term entanglements in the domestic issues of other nations).1 While the political dimension of fourth-generation warfare has been a predominant field of study in light of the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, this seemingly novel fear of uncontrolled mission development predates these operations significantly.
In this regard, as one of the few remaining large-scale contingency operations whose origins are in the pre-9/11 world, the continued US presence in the Kosovo Forces (KFOR) mission affords a unique case study in the effects of ‘mission creep’. When analyzed carefully, the KFOR mission is an operational time capsule. Kosovo is a mission that exists in our Army’s pre-9/11 past, its uncertain present, and likely in its future, the conservative politico-military concerns of the 1990s fossilized into very roots of the mission. As our Army moves inexorably towards a reduced force structure similar to that of the Army of 1999 when the mission first began, the ramifications of political and military incongruity in Kosovo provide a timely collection of lessons learned that we could apply to the future of Army operations.
This work will first lay out the idea of mission creep as a political and military landmine to successful operations, whether largely combative or peacekeeping in nature. Next, it will provide a concise overview of KFOR’s operational trajectory, marking its steady failure to synchronize political realities with military tasks. Last, it will focus on the specific missteps made by both military and civilian leadership and the contributions of those mistakes towards mission creep in Kosovo.
In order to understand the descent of the KFOR mission into deviated mission creep, it is first necessary to establish a suitable framework wherein to characterize this prolific, yet highly misunderstood idea. In a prophetic July 1998 study from the Center for Naval Analyses, Adam Siegel attempted to provide a specific articulation of the parameters of actual mission creep, feeling that the term was a hollow platitude utilized only to stymie the use of military force in operations that military leadership deemed inappropriate. While the military and its civilian leadership at the time were already highly conservative about the employment of American forces abroad, the recent and generally negative experiences of the Army in achieving political goals in Haiti and Somalia simply compounded the fear that mission creep would entangle American forces in yet more developing-world quagmires.
However, the term did not have a formal definition in the Department of Defense and was, as Ambassador Richard Holbrooke stated, “[…] never clearly defined, only invoked, and always in a negative sense, used only to kill someone else’s proposal.” 2 The term was captured in FM 3-16 The Army in Multinational Operations as “tangential efforts to assist in areas of concern unrelated to assigned duties that cripple efficient mission accomplishment.” However, it does not specifically prescribe the root causes of this idea, nor does it define the basis by which tasks are considered ‘unrelated’.3 Thus, Siegel’s attempt to define the term when the military itself offered no definition is a highly useful conceptualization of uncontrolled mission evolution.
Siegel argued because the military was asked to perform tasks for which it had not originally planned and trained for, or considered nation building in nature, this did not constitute mission creep per se, in the derogatory sense it was being used.4 Instead, flexibility among military commanders to adapt to changing situations was a trait to be expected by civilian leadership. The tasks required to accomplish the mission as originally formulated, will evolve over time. Siegel reframed the idea of mission change over time into four categories: task accretion, mission shift, mission transition, and mission leap. While these terms collectively captured the relatively narrow definition that remained of mission creep, each carried with it specific applicability to the idea of incongruent mission understanding by political and military elements over time. Most succinctly, Siegel argued that true harmony and avoidance of unwanted deviation in mission focus comes from the ability to “tie policy goals, policy guidance, force planning, and tasks together.”5 When military action becomes detached from the political mandate for that action, policy goals concurrently cease to correspond with the nature of military operations.
Mission leap encompassed the idea that the very nature of the mission changed beyond the point of recognition to the original objective and that the military role in that new mission’s completion brought with it new tasks. Similarly, task accretion captured those changes pursuant to accomplishing the mission, as originally planned without a change in the end-state as initially formulated. Collectively, Siegel argued that task accretion and mission leap were “conscious decisions made either on the scene or at higher headquarters to modify or drastically change the mission’s parameters.”6 Because of the intentional nature of these types of changes in the mission, they could not be accurately described as mission creep. Instead, Siegel argued the greatest risk came from mission shift and mission transition, wherein forces adopt new tasks that expand the mission itself or when the mission, explicitly or otherwise, moves to a new set of goals. Collectively labeled as “mission split”, he argued, these two ideas accurately captured what the policymakers and military leadership ultimately feared: a fundamental divergence between stated political objectives and military action.7 It is through this lens that we will evaluate the KFOR mission as a case study in civil-military incongruence.
The events leading to the creation of the KFOR mission reached their boiling point in early 1999, following the sustained NATO bombing to end the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s (FRY) forces campaign against ethnic Albanians from the semi-autonomous Serbian province of Kosovo. Hostility between Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbian forces and the ethnic Albanian paramilitary organization known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), had reached their peak. Western political leaders were unable to force concessions from Belgrade to “resolve the grave humanitarian situation” in the breakaway province.8 The 77-day bombing campaign was soon followed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, calling for the intervention of an international security presence to provide a stable environment and safe return for the massive Albanian refugee population that fled. Its mandate, according to the resolution, was the disarmament of the KLA, in addition to decidedly broader tasks such as preventing further aggression in Kosovo, and to support, secure and provide freedom of movement for the international civil presence. The NATO-led security force, known as KFOR, would provide the necessary umbrella of security while the international civil presence tended to the development of human rights enforcement, local law and order, Kosovar self-government, and infrastructure development.
NATO’s own political guidance came out of this tense time, with the establishment of the Military Technical Agreement (MTA) between KFOR and Serbia in June 1999, articulating the means by which KFOR was able to enforce its mandate under UNSCR 1244. In addition to ordering the rapid withdrawal of FRY forces from Kosovo, the agreement granted the KFOR commander the ability to utilize force, if necessary, to provide a secure environment for the international civil presence that would follow. Curiously, the agreement designated the commander of KFOR as the “final authority regarding interpretation” of the MTA.9 The mission now had two shaping forces: UNSCR 1244, the overarching set of political objectives governed by the United Nations, and the MTA, a military agreement overseen by the KFOR commander. From the outset, military and political tasks and guidelines were catalogued in separate documents under different authorities.
Despite violent outbreaks between ethnic Albanian and Serbian enclaves within Kosovo during the initial years of the operation, KFOR witnessed a steady decline of active threats to the stability of their operational environment. With the refugee crisis resolved, the KLA effectively disarmed, and the international civil presence assuming the lion’s share of substantive tasks pursuant to development of Kosovar institutions, seemingly little specific directives remained from UNSCR 1244 and the MTA. By 2007, the political discourse in Serbia and across Europe trended inexorably towards an independent Kosovo, leaving the military arm of the operation clinging desperately to its vague guideline to provide a ‘safe and secure environment’. After eight years of presence, violence reached record lows. The Kosovo Police which was non-existent in 1999, had reached over 7,000 personnel, both Albanians and Serbs.10 The international civil presence was heavily reinforced with the creation of the European Union Rule of Law force (EULEX). Its mandate in support of the United Nations mission was to develop the legal institutions of Kosovo.11 KFOR, on the other hand, saw a steady decrease in troop force and minor geographical re-alignment with little assessment of their role in this drastically different Kosovo, continuing low-intensity presence patrols and passively monitoring the environment.
The Kosovo Republic declared its independence from the Serbian state in 2008. This act demanded a re-assessment of the on-the-ground reality, versus the originally-stated mission for the presence of the still thousands-strong military force.12 Instead of synchronizing the evolving political situation with a strongly diminished military role, KFOR instead assumed a variety of tasks it deemed necessary to continue operations in support of a ‘safe and secure environment’. The most prominent of these expanded tasks, was KFOR’s role in the establishment of the Kosovo Security Forces (KSF). The KSF was aimed at providing the government in Pristina a mechanism to achieve its own control of the environment.13 KFOR would spend the next five years developing the KSF as the security situation, with minor exceptions, maintained its stable and nearly quiet status.
Finally, in 2013, the political earth shifted again under KFOR’s feet as the Brussels Agreement was signed between Serbia and the Kosovar authorities. In exchange for future EU accession talks, Serbia agreed to remove the relics of its Belgrade-sponsored political and security institutions from the northern (and largely Serbian) provinces in Kosovo.14
The motivation for Serbian compliance in its normalization of relations with Kosovo, had effectively shifted from its fear of military reprisal by NATO, in hopes of membership in the European Union. Shortly after the agreement, the now 2,500-strong Kosovo Security Forces were declared ‘fully operational and capable’ to support civil authorities in disaster relief and civil emergencies.15 Domestic capability to ensure a “safe and secure environment,” seemed primed for a long-overdue shift from KFOR to these new institutions; the Kosovo Police along with the EULEX mission in Kosovo.
Over the course of its operation, KFOR has seen a steady decline in ethnic violence and a drastic increase in the international civil presence and Kosovo security institutions; put simply, the NATO-led force’s primary justification for existence has eroded without proper assessment of how its daily tasks support a clearly-articulated political end-state. As Siegel’s mission evolution framework posits, the most dangerous examples of unfocused mission conceptualization come from the cases of mission shift and mission transition, specifically where policy goals and force structure become increasingly divergent. To this end, there are two primary opportunities wherein KFOR, its civilian leadership in NATO, and the UN failed to re-assess the nature of the military operation in light of drastic political changes.
The first opportunity for KFOR to re-assess its role in accordance with both political objectives and the reality of the security situation, arose with the declaration of independence by the Kosovo Republic and the establishment of the EULEX mission, both in 2008. KFOR’s mandate as the international security presence, according to UNSCR 1244 and the MTA, was to facilitate both the return of refugees and the withdrawal of FRY forces from Kosovo, not to establish military or paramilitary elements representative of a Kosovar state. The UNSCR 1244 and the MTA were the political keystones of KFOR’s mission. These foundational documents upheld the ‘territorial integrity’ of Serbia. They only supported Kosovar institutional development as they existed ‘within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’, now Serbia.16 With a Kosovar declaration of independence largely recognized by most of Europe, KFOR and its civilian leaders in NATO and the UN missed a critical opportunity to re-assess the purpose of the military force, or the opportunity to terminate the mission. With the establishment of the EULEX mission in support of the international civil presence, the military’s role in the country should have seemed even more in need of re-assessment. Instead, the NATO-led force was content to create tasks to justify its presence, rather than assess the purpose of its continued presence in light of the changing situation.
Utilizing Siegel’s framework of mission divergence, KFOR’s decision to accept additional tasks in the form of the development of the KSF constitutes a dangerous form of mission shift, and drastic deviation from its political objectives articulated by 1244 and the MTA. Even using FM 3-16’s narrowly-defined articulation of mission creep, this effort was by all accounts ‘tangential’ to the original effort of establishing a safe environment for the civilian presence in Kosovo, and prevent renewed hostilities.17 This action cannot be accurately described as task accretion. The end-state was no longer envisioned as it had been in 1999, with Kosovar statehood entering into the agenda. If policy goals and force structure being synchronized is essential to avoiding mission creep, the inability of NATO forces and its respective political leadership to scale down the military’s role in light of increased civilian presence and a normalized security environment was a regrettable failure. Even if the overarching political goals regarding Kosovo had changed from a modest humanitarian mission to one of dedicated ‘nation-building’, the civilian documents providing the military its mission focus should have been assessed and revised. The lack of end-state articulation “discouraged long-term solutions” and would leave KFOR a merely reactive force.18 In either instance, both the military and civilian arms of the mission failed to avoid stumbling into mission shift and adopting new tasks not envisioned in the original end-state.
Even if the political situation was not ripe for re-assessment of the KFOR mission in 2008 following these drastic developments, it was certainly so in early 2013 with the Brussels Agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, followed shortly after by the declaration of Kosovo Security Forces as being ‘fully-operational and capable’. For the second time in five years, the political environment, the security situation, and the Kosovar government’s capabilities had shifted so drastically since the initial intervention in 1999 that KFOR, NATO, and the UN mission were no longer operating on solid ground about providing clear mission focus. Without an equally clear re-assessment of its overarching political objectives, KFOR and the civilian leadership of the UN mission were now largely divorced from each other’s understanding of the environment. Brussels had essentially removed NATO as the bulwark against Serbian aggression and replaced military reprisal with economic incentive as a condition for Serbian compliance. There had been, as Siegel articulates in his definition of mission transition, an “unstated transition to a new set of objectives.” 19 For Kosovo to declare its independence, establish domestic police and security forces, oversee the removal of old Serbian structures in the north, and enjoy the lowest levels of violence since the intervention were astounding changes. Even more astounding was to accomplish all of these tasks without updating, revising, or terminating NATO’s continued military presence.
With the collective focus of the international civilian presence effectively shifting towards the support and development of Kosovar political and security institutions, the guiding hand of NATO’s operations had similarly shifted to a newly envisioned but unspoken end-state. Seigel’s definition of mission transition is particularly useful in this context, charting the further descent of KFOR into ‘mission creep’ through its movement towards a revised set of political objectives without revising the relevancy of military tasks that were allegedly in support of them. As a result, the lack of a modified political end-state in accordance with the new reality of Kosovo left KFOR without clearly defined objectives, bound only to respond as events narrowly permitted.
With our increased study of politico-military affairs and the idea of the ‘whole-of-government’ approach to future military operations, no case study can prove too insignificant to extract at least some useful lessons about the importance of clarity and achieving a unified understanding of the mission and its end-state. Many if not most of our formation would be surprised to know that we still have forces stationed in Kosovo, performing a mission set whose shifting priorities and ill-defined end-states have left American forces precariously trapped in a seemingly-stable area of operations. As the Army and its civilian leaders move inescapably towards the smaller military, fiscal restraint, and political wariness over troop commitments that punctuated the pre-9/11 era, a 1990s formulation of ‘mission creep’ proves especially interesting when combined with the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. Just as those operations were frequently the victim of an unclear political end-state and a correspondingly unfocused set of military tasks, KFOR was also stymied by a similar incongruity.
From the outset, the KFOR mission’s political and military tasks were devised separately and catalogued in documents managed by different elements. Although KFOR, as the military mission, was able to achieve its initially stated objectives; uncertain political objectives led it to developing additional tasks in order to justify its continued presence. The failure of the KFOR mission to achieve a common understanding of its military tasks in support of a political end-state is merely one more example of the danger that unfocused operations and mission creep can wreak upon achieving national priorities. By understanding when the political situation that governs military operations has changed dramatically, commanders can re-assess their own role in the greater scheme of these operations, and prevent such ‘creep’ from hijacking both civil and military control of the environment.
Published on May 7, 2014 — Available also in PDF
Col. Thomas Zubik is currently a branch chief with the 75th Training Command. Zubik has deployed to Kosovo, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. He holds a B.A. from Eastern Illinois Univ., a Master of Social Work from the Univ. of Illinois and a Masters in Strategic Studies, Air War College. Zubik is also a Forensic Social Worker with the State of Illinois.
Ms. Samantha Hack is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Veterans Affairs Capitol Health Care Network (VISN 5) Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center. Hack received her Ph.D. from the School of Social Work at the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Ms. Leah Cleeland is a doctoral student at the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s School of Social Work with a focus on military families and veteran’s issues. Cleeland holds a B.S.W. from Valparaiso Univ. and an M.S.W. from the Univ. of Denver with a concentration in Children, Youth and Family Services. Cleeland has over 15 years of experience as a therapist, direct practitioner, and researcher.
Col. Paul Hastings retired from the Illinois Army National Guard in 2013 with his capstone assignment as Commander of the 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team. Hastings’ 30-year career included deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Hastings holds a B.A. from Texas A&M Univ., and is a Senior Large Financial Institution Specialist for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Chicago, Illinois.
Political debate continues over how the United States can maintain military readiness and win its next war, in light of sequestration, declining budgets, and personnel cutbacks. The National Guard (NG) and the Army Reserve (AR) as part of the total force must also adapt to the realities of fiscal constraint while bearing the weight of being an operational force. The standard of being an operational force for the NG/AR was difficult to achieve before sequestration. It is much tougher now, for there is no money to buy readiness.
Given this strategic backdrop, the NG/AR has a complex problem on their hands. How does the NG/AR retain their soldiers with combat experience to maintain readiness given the demands of being an operational reserve? The 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (33rd IBCT), like all NG brigades, is confronting this problem. In 2012, the 33rd IBCT lost 556 soldiers for a number of reasons, but primarily expired term of service (ETS). The brigade’s experienced soldiers had completed their initial term of service and decided to opt out of the NG. See Figure 1.
The 33rd IBCT was losing the retention battle, and by extension, critical combat readiness. Commanders have always struggled with retention; today the problem is much more significant because it is not easy to replace experienced soldiers. The necessary skills needed in new recruits go well beyond basic rifle marksmanship, including aptitudes for information technology, linguistics, and so forth. The time needed to qualify a soldier can be upwards of one year depending on the military occupational specialties. However, even with this advanced training, they do not have combat experience. Furthermore, there are fewer combat experienced soldiers repopulating the ranks of the NG/AR due to the fewer deployments. Therefore, retaining soldiers who served in OEF/OIF operations is a significant readiness concern.
In response, the 33rd IBCT command team took an unusual tack by drilling down into this wicked problem by creating their own survey; a data driven and soldier focused analysis to explore the reasons why it was losing soldiers. Instead of speculating on what our soldiers wanted, the brigade surveyed almost 2,000 soldiers about readiness, retention and their lives.
The soldiers of the 33rd IBCT completed a one-page survey consisting of seven demographic items, seven Likert scale questions, and one open-ended written response. In the demographic section soldiers, were asked to provide their military occupational skill (MOS), years of service, unit, rank by range, employment status, and if they were married or had children.
In the survey body, soldiers were asked to rate their response to the following seven questions on a scale of one to five with one being the most significant negative impact, 3 being no impact/ neutral and five being the most significant positive impact. The questions are as follows:
1. Will your experience at annual training 2012 at Camp Ripley (xCTC) have an impact on your decision to re-enlist or remain in the National Guard?
2. Do the requirements for mandatory online classes, additional training, and other National Guard events affect your decision to re-enlist or remain in the National Guard?
3. Does the current command climate of your unit effect your decision to re-enlist?
4. Will the availability of medical coverage (TriCare), dental coverage, family assistance agencies, legal counsel, and bonuses effect your decision to re-enlist or remain in the National Guard?
5. Do extended IDT periods (MUTA 6, 7, or 8) affect your decision to re-enlist or remain in the National Guard?
6. Will the possibility of mobilization and deployment effect your decision to re-enlist or remain in the National Guard?
7. Does your family support your reenlistment or remaining in the National Guard?
Finally, the soldiers were asked one qualitative question, “If you could tell the brigade commander one thing, good or bad, in regard to the effect the National Guard has on your life, what would it be?”
Initially 1,938 surveys were returned for analysis. Surveys where respondents left at least one of the seven survey body questions blank were removed leaving 1,922 responses. While soldiers were clearly generally comfortable answering the survey questions, they were more likely to avoid providing demographic information. Soldiers who did not provide their years of service, rank, employment status, marital status, or parenting status were also removed from the sample resulting in 1,747 completed surveys. A description of the sample is provided in Table 1.
Responses to the seven Likert scale survey questions were analyzed and compared across several demographic variables: rank, employment/school time commitment, marital status, and parental status. Results are presented in Table 2. Higher scores indicate a more positive impact on soldiers’ self-evaluation of likelihood to re-enlist or remain in the NG. For each variable comparison group the highest and lowest ranked responses are marked in boldit. Asterisks next to the question name indicate statistically significant differences between comparison group responses. Regardless of the demographic variable being examined, all soldiers reported that benefits such as TriCare, dental coverage and bonuses had the most positive impact on their decision to re-enlist or remain in the NG. Similarly, extended Inactive Duty Training (IDT) periods of Multiple Unit Training Assembly (MUTA) 6, 7, or 8 and additional training and classes were consistently ranked most negatively by all respondent subgroups.
The roles of employee, student, spouse, and parent are all commitments that exist in parallel to respondents’ commitment to the NG. It appears when the military/work/life balance shifts due to increased training demands on the part of the NG, soldiers with more outside military commitments react more negatively to the perceived intrusion. For example, respondents who had full-time work or school roles rated extended IDTs and additional training requirements more negatively than respondents who were unemployed or worked part-time. Soldiers with spouses and children were more likely than soldiers without to view extended IDTs and deployment negatively.
In our survey we also included an open-ended question, “If you could tell the brigade commander one thing, good or bad, in regards to the effect the National Guard has had on your life, what would it be?. “ This question was answered by 41.5 percent (803) of the total sample. For this analysis 364 surveys, the entire number submitted from the officer ranks of 2nd lieutenant-to-lieutenant colonel, and the enlisted ranks of sergeant to first/master sergeant were analyzed. These particular ranks were chosen, for they were the ones more likely to have deployed and they also bear a more burdensome time commitment.
To increase validity of the qualitative responses three University of Illinois coders were used to identify themes and define codes and two soldiers from the National Guard were consulted on the appropriateness of the codes. Attention was paid to the initial rationale for the survey - reenlistment and retention, and its relationship to high operation tempo (OPTEMPO) training as defined as extended weekend training assemblies (known as MUTA 6, 7, or 8s), and three week Annual Training (AT) periods. The impact of the prolonged high OPTEMPO was seen in several ways.
An overarching theme to the open-ended question related to the increase in the time commitment that was required by the new heightened operational tempo. This theme revealed itself in a variety of ways: change in the demands over the years, the impact on outside life, especially work and family, and the continued high OPTEMPO despite a scaling down in deployments.
“This job has changed drastically over the years. The commitment of our soldiers and leaders is overwhelming. These citizen soldiers are citizens about 28 days a month. …Some do not have the time or resources to complete many of the tasks we ask them to do. Then we ask them to not only do one weekend a month but take off work multiple months in a row on Thursday and Fridays as well.”
Another soldier talked about the difficulty maintaining balance and the impact this has on reenlistment:
“It has been difficult to balance professional and civilian life with the obligations of the Guard. This has a major effect on my decision to reenlist. It’s a full time job without the full time pay or benefits.”
Especially problematic is additional training that does not receive compensation:
“One negative aspect regarding the National Guard in the past few years is the current additional demands placed on the individual soldier. Between the online training, for which the soldier does not receive any compensation, and the extended drill weekend, the National Guard is no longer “One weekend a month, two weeks a year.”
The responses showed an impact on the personal lives of the Guardsmen in two primary ways: Family and Employment or Career. One soldier discussed in detail the difficulty with increased MUTA drills:
“Many soldiers already lose time from work due to a normal MUTA 4 drill, extending multiple drills to MUTA 6 and 8 pushes that percentage of soldiers adversely affected to almost 100 percent. Is the trade off, of what is accomplished by having a MUTA 6 or 8 drill worth those adverse financial and family effects? I would strongly suggest that without very strong justification no MUTA 8 drills be approved and that MUTA 6 drills be severely limited.”
Additionally, another Guardsman questioned if the heightened level can be maintained:
“Many families have sacrificed time away from kids, spouses, and significant others for deployments, schools, and extended IDT weekends. A runner cannot sustain a spring pace forever. At some point, he/she will realize the cost/benefit ratio and just walk away. …we are losing our greatest assets. Those sergeants and staff sergeants with 10-14 years of service that are walking away.”
One Soldier discussed the tension between their dual commitment to the Guard and family:
“Soldiers love to serve and love the National Guard. But what they love more are their families. Their families will always win over the Guard. In our time of dwindling numbers, we should take this more into consideration.”
Since many National Guardsmen also have civilian careers, the higher level of training directly affects their ability to hold and maintain these jobs. There are indications that employers’ initial levels of support and tolerance for time away for training time are waning:
“Deployments or AT are not an issue. Anything beyond a MUTA 4 seriously inhibits my ability to find and hold a full-time job... Extending beyond a two-week period of AT also negatively impacts my employability. As the war stretches on, my potential employers become less tolerant of time away.”
Some soldiers stated the additional time for education and training inhibits their civilian career:
“Longer training affects my personal life as well as my employment in many ways. School is a big part of it and because of these longer stretches of training, I have had to put it on hold for a while. Also, my work suffers because of having to be away sometimes when I have important things going on and are time sensitive.”
One of the most frequently mentioned mitigating factors is the perception that troops are no longer training for deployments:
“The extended drill weekends without a deployment on the way are bad for retention. When you think about the fact that most people have to take off work for three longer weekends without any pay from work. In addition, their guard pay is not equal to the lost wages. It is a tolerable sacrifice if you going to deploy but not when you are no longer deploying.”
Another soldier states the motivation changed once they learned of their canceled deployment.
“What is our goal? My fellow soldiers and I were highly motivated for the upcoming deployment that ended up getting canceled but the high speed training tempo hasn’t slowed, (e.g. long drill days and 5,6,7,8 MUTAs). It seems like we are training for the road to war but now we aren’t going anywhere.”
Regardless of the impact of the heightened operational tempo, it would be inaccurate to state that the responses entirely negative. Many responses were positive and several expressed the dichotomy of the challenges of an increased level of training with a pride and dedication to the National Guard.
One Guardsman succinctly stated:
“Proud to SERVE, getting TIRED!”
Furthermore, one officer showed the complexity of both the positive and negative impact the Guard has made on their life and the lives of their troops, especially as the heightened level continues:
“While the National Guard has been one of the best decisions of my life and I have benefited from it in some any ways, as of late, I feel that it requires too much from us… I genuinely feel that this has a great negative impact on retention for those who are employed outside of the military. As a company commander, this is a huge reason in my opinion why many good soldiers do not stay in. At a minimum, I hope the OPTEMPO at least slows down for the lower enlisted.”
Also, several soldiers responded that their families were supportive, but were unsure how long that support could continue:
“I have enjoyed my time in the guard. I do not do it for money or fame. I have been a squad leader and it has been the best job I have had. My family and friends understand the sacrifices made, and are willing to continue to sacrifice any time and resources to support me. However after 11 years of continuous support the stress is beginning to take a toll.”
Several themes rose to the surface with this survey: 1) Soldiers are extremely proud of their service and will suffer hardship to serve their country, 2) Soldiers in the NG like their life compartmentalized; intrusions into the normal work week are not seen as beneficial, except when they are preparing for a deployment, and 3) Benefits matter to a great extent, but they may not overcome a burdensome OPTEMPO effecting one’s civilian career and family.
Furthermore, several suggestions and solutions were repeated or inferred multiple times. First, at the unit level, unless the unit is going to deploy, limit high OPTEMPO training. Second, upgrade soldier technology capability by ensuring ready computer access at the Armories. Thirdly, have a “one-portal access” for all online training, then an automatic accumulation of retirement points on completion of annual computer-based training. Finally, the last suggestion was not specifically articulated in the survey, but rather an analysis of all the results; careful examination and caution should be given to any reduction in NG/Reserve benefits. Reducing benefits will likely lead to a lower retention rate.
Commanders face risk and the Army’s method to manage risk is Composite Risk Management (CRM). From the Army’s 2009 Posture Statement “The primary premise of CRM is that it does not matter where or how the loss of a Soldier or Civilian occurs. The result is the same—decreased combat power or mission effectiveness.” What this paper suggests is that the same kind of thinking should be used when it comes to implementing high OPTEMPO training; for a soldier who opts out of the NG/AR because of high OPTEMPO training is a decrease of combat power. This survey indicates high OPTEMPO training is an independent variable which given different circumstances, a future deployment or not, may lead to different dependent variable, a high or low retention rate. Commanders must be deliberate and judicious when implementing high OPTEMPO training and it should coincide with a pending deployment or the unit’s position within the ARFORGEN cycle. Therefore, commanders should use the principles of CRM when designing their training plan to balance high OPTEMPO training, the year the unit is in the ARFORGEN cycle, and the potential for deployment with retention.
Some postulate that a unit should take every opportunity to engage in high OPTEMPO training, because soldiers like training “hard.” However, that line of reasoning is not supported by this survey and when taken to the extreme, it would potentially lead to everyone wearing body armor all the time. Likewise, the survey does not indicate that soldiers want low OPTEMPO training that is not meaningful, for many of the quotes by the Soldier indicate willingness to sacrifice their and time with their families to support the nation. Therefore, there is a medium between these two ideas and depending on if the unit will be deployed or not.
As noted in the findings, collecting responses for the main survey questions was not an issue but soldiers were more likely to decline to provide demographic data. This is an understandable issue when viewed in regards to concerns about confidentiality and anonymity. The higher a participant’s rank or the more unique their MOS, the more identifiable they would have been to the command structure reviewing the surveys. In addition, while those individual details might not have been sufficient to identify a participant, there may have been justifiable concern that the combination of demographics would make identity apparent.
Future survey research with military populations should consider three issues when designing demographic sections: What data is actually needed? What level of data detail is needed, and what combination of data is being collected? For this research, it was necessary to collect information about rank. However, it might have been more desirable to only ask if soldiers were enlisted or officers, or, since identification among high-ranking officers is easier and the large majority of the sample was enlisted, to only collect ranges of ranks among enlisted soldiers. Similarly, soldiers might not have been concerned about providing their MOS or Unit, but requesting the information together may have made them less comfortable.
Although the partnership between the 33rd IBCT and the UIUC was viewed by both parties as a complete success, it was more by sincere effort by both entities, than a well thought out plan. Unit and other researchers in this area are also encouraged these helpful hints:
For the NG/AR, retaining combat experienced soldiers and leaders is critical to maintaining the hard-earned designation of an operational force. We must train to deploy, but likewise we must ensure how we train does not induce our most critical assets away from our organizations. This survey indicates that being mindfully of three-week AT periods, extended drill weekends and making it easier to accomplish additional training outside of a MUTA status actually preserves our combat power, not decreases it. The leadership of the National Guard and the Reserves has strong allies in the endeavor to sustain our “War Dividend.” Soldiers and their families fully support their service to their country and are willing to sacrifice their time for a deployment. Keeping these ideas in planning our training will help the NG/Reserves be fully prepared and combat ready.MR
Published on April 18, 2014 — Available also in PDF
LTG Thomas Spoehr, U.S. Army is the Director, Business Transformation, Headquarters Department of the Army, responsible for recommending ways for the Army to be more efficient in its business practices. Prior assignments include: Director Program Analysis and Evaluation, HQDA; Deputy Commanding General U.S. Forces Iraq (Support); and Director Force Development, HQDA. He holds an M.A. in Public Administration from Webster University and a B.S. from the College of William and Mary.
“The Army must change; this is a strategic and fiscal reality.” —Secretary of the Army Top Priorities, 15 Oct 2013
The Army has entered a financial crisis, no less severe than the major recession that engulfed the United States from 2007-2010. Sequestration, as imposed by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, and modified by the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2013 is anticipated to dramatically reduce our fiscal year (FY)14 expected funding down to $122 billion, down $7 billion dollars from our projections of only 18 months ago. While this may look like a modest drop, when you consider how much of the Army’s budget is truly discretionary, (i.e. not part of military and civilian pay, utilities, and mandatory programs such as unemployment compensation), this 6 percent loss is much more significant. The future looks far bleaker, with projected reductions of up to $15 billion in FY16 and out from earlier projections. These cuts are amplified and exacerbated by the dramatic reduction in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding, shrinking from $67 billion in FY12 to $47.5 billion in FY14, and likely to very low levels in FY15 and beyond. Although much of OCO funding goes directly to the war effort, the Army received considerable collateral benefits from this funding. But let’s be clear, even without sequestration and the loss of OCO, the Army was already on a downward fiscal slope, being squeezed by the rising costs of compensation, health care, and procurement. Fiscal predictions are risky, but the prospect of any of this significantly changing is unlikely. It is becoming increasingly clear that if we are to continue to field a ready and strong Army, change must come from within. We can reduce our spending through some targeted or even across-the-board cuts, but we cannot completely “cut our way out of this situation…” we must instead fundamentally change the way we operate, following the words of the Secretary of the Army: “…the broad outlines of the next few years are clear: we must adapt.”1
The U.S. private sector found themselves in a similar situation in the 2007-2010 when faced with the deepest recession since World War II. Plummeting revenue pushed many corporations to the brink of, and in some cases into insolvency. Automobile production was cut nearly in half: GM/Ford/Chrysler laid off 144,600 workers from 2006-2009.
Housing starts dropped 73% in new construction from 2005-2009. The top three banks took a total “write down” or credit loss of $61.5 billion from 2007-2009. 10 of the 15 largest bankruptcies in history have taken place since 2001. Most of the companies that went through this experience were forced to change or they went under. These corporations reacted by ruthlessly cutting overhead costs, de-layering their headquarters, consolidating like functions, spinning off separate business units, and by paying great attention to cost-based performance metrics. The companies that took tough steps tended to survive, those that did not, have since gone by the wayside. The Department of Defense, and in particular the Army, was shielded from the effects of the recession because it was engaged in two wars, but those are now ending. While some of what takes place in the corporate world doesn’t easily translate to the Army, there are lessons and best practices nonetheless that we must quickly draw from the commercial world in order to ensure our Army remains the preeminent army in the world and builds and maintains readiness at best value.
Many would argue that the Army is not a business, that we do not focus on profit or bottom line, and that we cannot go “bankrupt.” And viewed from a narrow perspective they would be right; the Army’s ultimate success is not measured in profit or loss, but rather in its forces’ ability to dominate opponents in armed conflict on land. But no one can argue that in order to deliver the necessary ready land forces to combatant commanders inside a fixed or diminishing budget, the Army must employ sound business practices. The Army is a $122 billion per year operation, and would rank 14th on the Fortune 500 list if that funding was revenue. The overwhelming predominance of these resources are spent in accomplishing the eleven key Army business functions specified in Title 10 U.S. Code including: recruiting, organizing, training, mobilizing and supplying. For these key functions, the Army must ensure we get the best value and effectiveness from the dollars we are provided. Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel once said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is, it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” This opportunity is now upon us. To be sure, there are pockets of the Army, including elements in the Army Materiel Command, Medical Treatment Facilities in the Army Medical Command, and construction activities in the Corps of Engineers, whose operations are based largely on business-like models and by necessity, have adapted and become more efficient and in tune with their costs and performance, but the challenge is that the majority of the Army has not.
In embarking on this effort, the Army possesses some inherent advantages over private industry. These include a core of well-trained and dedicated civilian and military leaders; an ingrained ethos of integrity and honesty; and an attitude that values the surmounting of all obstacles. But with these advantages, the Army faces some serious disadvantages as well. Some of these disadvantages are the fact that we lack full control of our destiny. We are constrained by a myriad of laws and policies which have only thickened over time, and we receive our money in a “line-item” budget from Congress which severely restricts flexibility. With our 238 years of proud history, we have developed a great institutional set of ethics but also a healthy institutional resistance to organizational change. Finally, because we are such a large and complex organization, we lack agility and change is hard. But we can’t allow ourselves to be deterred by these challenges—the stakes are too high. If we are unable to change the way we operate, then we fundamentally risk our soldiers lives by sending them to conflict unprepared due to a lack of basic resources to properly train and equip them.
To successfully adapt we must create and employ a new operating framework…a framework that will succeed only with the sustained and complete support of our leaders. First, we must deliberately change our Army culture, which undervalues the management of resources. Second, we must better understand our processes and the associated costs—how and where do we spend the money we are provided, and fix responsibility for the efficient operation of all Title 10 operations. Once these costs and processes are defined, we must set clear goals in our strategic plans and establish financially-based performance objectives that pull us to our goals and relentlessly and honestly measure ourselves against them. Finally we must continuously adjust our organizational structures to ensure we are optimized and weighting our main efforts.
First and foremost, among the changes needed is within our culture. It has been stated that culture is the hardest thing to change, but change it must. In the Army we have a culture that doesn’t place great value on wisely managing resources. The function is often treated as beneath the attention and dignity of our leaders… a job best left to resource managers, or “bean counters” as we often disdainfully refer to them. Imagine if a senior Army leader disembarked from his aircraft at Fort Bragg, went to shake the XVIII Airborne Corps Commander’s hand, and one of his first questions was “Hey, I sent you $140 million last year to train your Corps, but unfortunately this year is shaping up to be much worse. What have you done and what can you do to be more efficient, and train the same number of units with less?” That this would be a surprising exchange, hints at the cultural problem we have. Money, and how we spend it, is perhaps the key enabler of how many squads and platoons we can make ready, but we normally don’t consider money “commander’s business.” Army leaders often advise their subordinates “let me worry about getting you the resources, you just focus on training your brigade/battalion/ company/platoon.” On its surface, this may seem supportive guidance, but when issued, that guidance disenfranchises our brightest and best positioned leaders from the imperative to help the Army become more efficient. Can you imagine a (successful) corporation taking the junior and middle managers out of the mix to find ways to conserve resources? In their acclaimed “Kaizen process,” Toyota passionately embraces the need for all employees to participate in devising new ways to become more efficient. Similarly we need Army leaders at all levels to be thinking about how to make the best use of resources and finding savings, and our culture must vigorously embrace this mindset. This function is just too important to leave solely in our resource manager’s hands. And when our junior leaders and soldiers find new ways to save money, our culture must quickly and dynamically reward their work. To change our culture will take time and be difficult, but by constantly demonstrating the importance of managing resources, and by recognizing those that do it well, over time, it will happen. How do we get started? Perhaps the first target should be the “use it or use it” mentality. Pressured by the knowledge that our operating funds are only useable for one year, around the midyear point every year, the mantra begins that commanders and units “must spend your budget.” The pressure increases with every passing week, until the start of September, when higher headquarters wants daily status reports, and that pressure is communicated downward to the lowest levels. Junior leaders who to that point in the year had been good stewards of funds, are now pressured to spend, often on items that fall into the “nice to have” category. This phenomena has a tremendous effect on our culture, and our junior NCOs and officers are watching how our actions don’t match our words. Senior leaders must capitalize on every opportunity to reward those who do a good job of saving the Army resources and extol the importance of stewardship. Is there a danger that the pendulum will swing too far and we will sacrifice effectiveness in favor of efficiency? Absolutely, and we must guard against that trend.
Next, we must better define and cost our key processes. With some exceptions, we don’t completely understand our own processes nor our fully burdened costs. For example, the U.S. Army Recruiting Command knows how much money they are given each year. But the Department of the Army does not routinely track the total burdened cost to recruit a soldier into the Army, including such items as the pay for the military recruiters, or the rent and utilities for the recruiting stations, or the Army-level incentive packages. In industry, companies strive to completely understand their “core process” and the associated costs. It could be the design and production of the Apple iPhone 5s, or the assembly of the Five Guys Hamburger, but everyone in successful companies aligns towards their base product and understands the processes that deliver them. In the Army, most would agree that our core process is the preparation of combat-ready units. Yet as an Army, we are hard-pressed to describe the complete process involved in producing readiness, nor able to express the total burdened cost. This is particularly topical as our leaders attempt to secure additional funding in order to increase readiness. Over 10 years ago, Mutual Benefit Life Insurance, a major life insurance carrier reengineered its insurance application process. Their previous typical processing time was 5-25 days, with most of the time spent transmitting information from department to department. The president demanded a 60 percent increase in productivity and by carefully analyzing their internal processes and using IT wisely; they were able to reduce the application time to four hours.2 Similarly, Army Medical Command has applied this process to the system of the Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES), the process that seeks to evaluate and appropriately handle Soldier disability and has made great progress in understanding where the bottlenecks occur and in accelerating the overall process. This success can be seen at Irwin Army Community Hospital at Fort Riley, KS. The hospital was not meeting the DoD timeliness standards (100 days for active forces and 140 days for the Army National Guard and Army Reserve) to complete Medical Evaluation Boards and transmit it to the Physical Evaluation Board. Utilizing process improvements techniques the hospital reduced the process cycle time by at least 10% and increased the percentage of cases meeting timeliness standards from 2 percent to 30 percent which supports increased efficiency and readiness. Once the process is understood, leaders can use a variety of techniques, the Army’s accepted solution being Lean Six Sigma, in order to optimize it. In many cases, responsibility for the complete operation for a process is spread across commands. Readiness for example is a shared responsibility among many. But for each of our processes, there must be a single empowered advocate who understands the entirety of the function and can see and influence all the associated costs. Only once we have that responsibility affixed, can we drive efficiencies.
We have all heard the saying “units do those things well that the commander checks.” Unfortunately we generally do a poor job on measuring our performance in relation to our desired outcomes and the money we are provided. Measuring performance starts with a good strategy, which describes where the organization wants to go, in tangible, executable terms. Often Army strategies seem to direct the perpetuation of the status quo or opt instead to discuss the global strategic situation, and omit any discussion of how the Army will improve its ability to execute its core process such as providing ready units and hence are not useful in driving institutional change. Once developed, should be strategies are translated into supporting objectives and metrics. Successful corporations establish performance management systems to measure progress towards their objectives.
However in the Army, when we do measure performance, it is often in the form of outputs, with often little or no discernible link to our major objectives—examples of outputs being soldiers graduated from training, CTC rotations completed, soldiers recruited or retained, security clearances completed. But, there is a huge difference between an output which in many cases, is just a piece count, and an outcome, which conveys whether or not you are making progress towards your strategic goals. The Nature Conservancy, a major charity, for the longest time measured themselves on how many of acres of land they acquired for preservation purposes. And by this measure they were very successful. Unfortunately, their strategic goal was not the acquisition of land; it was the preservation of biodiversity, which by that measure they were failing. Species were disappearing at an unchecked rate. Because their objectives and metrics were wrong, they had no way of knowing.3 An Army example of an output would be a count of how many brigades passed through our training centers. A much more informative outcome however, would be the cost per brigade to bring them through a force generation cycle and to a “fully ready” status. Now something important is being measured that can give us insight into how to become more efficient. Successful companies place paramount emphasis on performance assessments that include measurements of expected outcomes based on money. Ford Motor Company, the only large automobile manufacturer that did not take a government bailout, gathers their top executives every two weeks to review metrics, forms task forces to spin off and explore problem areas that come out of those reviews, and share information across the company on things they are trying to solve. Ford will tell you that using these metrics drove them to take tough actions and make many decisions related to downsizing helping them avoid going bankrupt.
Make no mistake; there are some strong performance assessment systems in parts of the Army today. In the Army, the Installation Management Command (IMCOM) Atlantic Region conducts periodic in-depth Performance Management Reviews (PMRs) which compare funding provided to levels of service delivered and ask tough questions when they do not favorably relate. The Army Medical Command compares medical care outcomes to the resources provided to each Medical Treatment Facility and holds commanders accountable when they are lagging. These are best practices, which must be propagated across the Army. As an Army, we must improve the design and use of our metrics—when appropriate linking them to our money and then ensuring they contribute to informed decision-making. The Army’s four powerful new Enterprise Resourcing Programs or ERPs: General Fund Enterprise Business System (GFEBS), Global Combat Support System – Army (GCSS-A), Logistics Management Program (LMP), and the Integrated Personnel and Pay System- Army (IPPS-A) will give Army leaders an unprecedented capability to have situational awareness on the expenditure of our resources, of which we must take full advantage. Finally, the results of this performance data must be presented in an easily digestible format to our senior leaders in sessions where they can receive a comprehensive assessment of progress towards our objectives and that allows them the opportunity to make timely decisions. In some instances we have allowed performance information to be conveyed one statistic, one trend per meeting, and when this occurs we sub-optimize our leader’s time. In addition, when we do not achieve our desired performance, just like in industry or especially in professional sports, we must hold our leaders accountable, and similarly reward those who get great results.
We also must change the way we view our organizations and continuously take action to re-shape them into high performing structures. This can be called “organizational acuity.” Over time, we often become blind to our own organizations. Organizations exist solely to produce outcomes. We cannot consider our organizations as preordained, destined to live on in perpetuity. Newly assigned Army leaders, with all the best of intentions, quickly fall into the trap of protecting organization’s status quo. In the commercial sector, organizational change is the norm; stability is the exception. Product lines come and go, opportunities arise or innovations fail, and organizations adjust accordingly. Corporations, when confronted with tough fiscal situations, consider downsizing and reducing management. The Army has rigorous processes for analyzing the design of engineer or signal battalions, but no similar process exists for the institutional army. Over time, many of our institutional Army organizations, especially our headquarters, have become excessively layered, i.e. too many levels in the hierarchy, with branches, divisions, deputies, directorates, all contributing crushing oversight and adding time to our processes. Simultaneously, spans of control have shrunk, with senior leaders routinely only supervising three to four people, while the current corporate experience suggests managers can capably supervise eight or more high performing direct reports.4 Recent analysis of the Department of the Army headquarters staff reveals that the average span of control is four. Past DoD downsizing efforts have usually focused on lower grade personnel which contribute to a rank heavy organization. When information technology allowed cuts of clerks and accountants at the Defense Finance and Accounting System (DFAS) the lower grade personnel were cut, leaving excessive numbers of leaders to supervise an ever decreasing number of workers. Admittedly, government personnel rules constrain—but they do not stop—the reshaping of organizations and those systems which we cannot change, we must work within, in order to do what is necessary.
Part of this “acuity” is considering whether a function in the Army can be outsourced to another organization so that we can more narrowly focus on our core competencies. The Army currently operates railroads, prisons, entertainment shows, museums, recreation centers at resort destinations, major data centers, water purification plants and sports teams, to name just a few of our in-house operations. As money comes down, should we maintain all these functions? Lest you think the Army is incapable of hard change, recently the Army Financial Management community developed a concept for a complete re-organization of the Financial Management enterprise, which is envisioned to save over $400 million a year and significantly alter current organization structures and processes; it can be done.
Private industry practices are not the panacea for all the Army’s challenges. A single-minded focus on efficiency and costs will not produce the proud, trained, and resilient forces that our Nation needs. But, there are some techniques we can borrow and there are changes we can make that will allow us to better accomplish our critical missions.
One possible manifesto for those necessary changes includes:
We have the best Army in the world, but continued success is not assured. We must transform the way we operate in order to remain Army Strong.MR
Published on April 4, 2014 — Available also in PDF
LTC Jason Roncoroni, U.S. Army, is the commander of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Brigade. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical engineering from West Point, an M.S. in Organizational Psychology from Capella, and is currently an MBA student at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina MBA@UNC program. His assignments include tours at Fort Bragg, Fort Drum, Fort Campbell, and the Pentagon, and he has served on three combat deployments to Afghanistan.
Across the Army, resources are shrinking, but strategic responsibilities are not. The last thirteen years of reset, train/ready, and deploy groomed our junior and mid-grade officers to become effective tactical leaders and managers for combat. Unfortunately, many of these learned qualities and behaviors will not help the Army adapt to a cost-centric culture of increased monetary accountability and process efficiency. Given the reality of diminishing resources, this article sets the framework for the strategic challenge our junior leaders face. Furthermore, this discussion illustrates how our current processes for budget management and readiness inhibit our ability to find creative ways to stretch our resources. Future readiness will increasingly rely on process innovations from junior leaders to optimize funding and resources. A smaller, post-war force will require the Army to routinely apply the best practices from business management to control expenditures and improve process efficiency. By modifying institutional education programs, building partnerships, offering business management internships, or encouraging civilian education opportunities, we can arm our junior leaders with the knowledge and capability to apply best practices in business management. Today’s leaders must be as adaptive in business operations as they are lethal in combat operations to maintain readiness in the future.
Over the past decade, our military validated our reputation with enemies and allies alike through responsive, adaptive, and superior operational performance. Unlike the conclusion of previous wars, the imminent threat underpinning the current conflict remains pervasive globally, and the geopolitical, strategic environment grows increasingly uncertain. As our nation and our allies seek to curb all aspects of spending, the world grows ever more reliant upon the capabilities of our armed forces. Our security depends on sustaining proven levels of performance and readiness. Therefore, if the financial resources sustaining those levels of readiness must necessarily contract, then we must become increasingly more efficient to optimize those resources.
At the highest levels within our defense establishment, senior leaders are reshaping the business environment to gain greater efficiency. Secretary of the Army, the Honorable John M. McHugh, stated: “Though our financial resources are declining, we must continue to provide a highly capable force that can preserve the President’s strategic options.”1 Dr. Mary Matiella, the Financial Manager and Comptroller for the Army, wants to advance a culture of accountability in business operations by “implementing efficient and adaptive processes . . . [to make] the Army a more agile and cost-effective organization.”2 Department of the Army leadership recognizes that we need to improve our business operations to meet our strategic requirements, but at the brigade level and below, what does that mean? We are unmatched in our ability to prepare leaders for tactical decision-making and strategic planning, but we must add business management to our program of leader development if we want to build a cost-efficient culture consistent with the intent of senior leaders.
Our new culture will require a holistic review of how we manage our business systems - those activities that impact cost, efficiency, and utilization. We must examine how we measure success and provide incentives to motivate behaviors for increased accountability. Unfortunately, our systems and processes currently discourage the frugality the Department of the Army needs. For example, leaders can make daily decisions to reduce costs locally, but on a quarterly basis, the Army may place pressure on these same units to “spend or lose” funds. Furthermore, on an annual basis, commanders strive to execute their entire budget lest the Army reallocate Operations and Maintenance (O&M) funds from their unit in the current year or program fewer dollars for them in the following year. This bipolar approach to budget management creates inconsistencies in decision-making (save, save, save … now spend! spend! spend!) and promotes both inefficiencies and higher expenditures when aggregated across all units in the Army.
Because we have operated in an environment of seemingly unconstrained resources, commanders focus on operational readiness rates and less on spending. We have reinforced these behaviors and this mindset over the past thirteen years. Understandably, higher levels of readiness come at a higher cost for parts and support. Typically, units forward deployed include a robust contingent of expensive engineers, contract maintenance support teams, and an extensive inventory of parts on hand to sustain combat readiness. If the experience of our leaders correlates readiness with high cost, how do we expect these officers to adapt and succeed in an environment defined by sequestration and aggressive budget controls? One of our greatest challenges in the coming decade will be how we encourage leaders to find new, innovative ways to sustain readiness at substantially lower costs.
To further illustrate our challenge, consider a common situation of a commander faced with a choice to replace a high value component in about three days versus the option to evacuate that component and repair the part over three weeks. In absolute dollars, replacing the part has a much higher impact to the budget than repairing the part – sometimes on magnitude of 10 to 20 times greater cost, but replacing the component immediately improves status reporting. The incentive of positive reporting suggests leaders will buy the part. In fact, he or she may even explore options to buy spares to cut down on the time lost for order processing and delivery! Arguably, some situations require the equipment immediately, and the cost might be unavoidable. However, if the three weeks doesn’t substantially increase risk to mission accomplishment, can we change our mindset and repair the part while exploring opportunities to improve our process efficiency? This could help motivate leaders to look at new ways of improving maintenance responsiveness through better business management - capacity utilization, improved supply chain management, or creative preventative maintenance procedures.
Better business management practices could help align decision-making behavior with the overall objectives of better fiscal responsibility and accountability across Army. Unfortunately, our small-unit leaders typically lack the knowledge to build and apply those efficiencies sought by our senior leadership. Furthermore, the organizational climate groomed them to operate with little or no constraints. Therefore, we need education and training to build the knowledge necessary to infuse a bottom-up culture of accountability and cost-efficiency. To capitalize on proven efficiencies of decentralized budget management and improve fiscal accountability at the brigade level and below, the Army needs a program to educate leaders on best practices in business management. The challenges of the future fiscal environment require combat warriors to become the most agile, lethal business leaders in the world.
The Army program for professional military education for officers focuses on topics such as tactical decision-making, leadership, military strategy, and joint operations. Given the primacy of cost reduction and improved efficiency, military education should expand to include business management. Several approaches for business education might include:
1. Institutional Program: Include business management as part of the program of field grade officer instruction at the Command and General Staff College during Intermediate Level Education (ILE). Many reputable, nationally ranked universities offer exportable training packages for graduate and executive training that could be tailored into the curriculum of ILE. This option educates organizational leaders at the mid-point in their careers with knowledge necessary to make more efficient business decisions at the brigade level and below.
2. Partnership Program: Increase partnership relationships with business in a shared business-consulting role. Through these partnerships, the military can provide some valuable leadership coaching and development, and businesses can reciprocate with mentorship in business process innovation and cost center management. This mentorship allows units to leverage proven lessons in business management in their organizations and solve practical problems.
3. Internship Program: Create internship opportunities similar to political and strategy planning congressional and Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) internships that partner post company-command leaders with corporations after attaining a Masters in Business Administration. After a yearlong internship, these leaders return to the active force equipped with both knowledge and experience to transform and improve business systems at the tactical levels in our organization.
4. Self-Learning Program: Encourage leaders to attend MBA programs at civilian institutions while serving in tactical units. Top business programs currently offer challenging distance and online programs for working students. These new and emerging opportunities reduce on-campus requirements without compromising the quality of the education. One example, the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina offers a top-20 MBA through their online, distance program known as MBA@UNC.3 The combination of a world-class education with the professional interaction between students provides an invaluable learning experience for our Army.
To determine the value of any of these options, consider first the opportunity costs in creating a culture of accountability and cost efficiency in small-unit organizations that is consistent with the objectives of senior Army officials at the strategic level. In other words, what is the next best alternative to our strategic posture and readiness given the current model of budget control, shrinking resources, and less than optimal processes for efficiency? If we require the Army to evolve with the changing dynamics of cost efficiency and budget control, we need to better prepare our junior and mid-grade officers to lead in this environment.
By nature, bureaucracies lack the flexibility to evolve at the pace of their environment. Unfortunately, the uncertainty of our strategic environment coupled with the pervasive threat of another terrorist attack requires innovative solutions to sustain the proven capabilities upon which our nation relies. There is no second place, no other alternative for our military but to succeed and win across any environment – regardless of our resource constraints financial or otherwise. We must stretch every training dollar, encourage cost-efficient decisions, and celebrate creative solutions that optimize our operational and readiness budgets at the tactical level. A combination of institutional development, partnership programs, internships, and/or self-learning will improve business processes and operations at brigade levels and below to build the culture of cost efficiency.
Considering the primacy of mission command and leader development, we need junior and mid-grade leaders with MBA level knowledge to transform our Army into an organization more resilient to resource constraints. As these leaders mature, we inundate the Army with organizational leaders who are capable of implementing best business practices to stretch our operational dollars across the breadth of the Army – not just at the most senior levels. In conclusion, our future force requires leaders as tenacious in business operations as they are lethal in military operations if we are to achieve a culture of fiscal accountability and improved efficiency. To accomplish this, we need to better align our education programs and leader development to build warrior business executives in the Army.MR
Published on March 7, 2014 — Available also in PDF
MAJ Matthew Graham is a U.S. Army Strategist (FA59). He has served as an Interagency Fellow within the US Marshals Service’s Training Division and has completed tours of duty to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He holds a BS from the USAF Academy and a MPA from The George Washington University.
Each year, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) arrests a stunning number of fugitives. With just under 4,000 deputies, the entire nationwide agency is approximately the size of a typical U.S. Army Brigade Combat Team (BCT).1 Yet despite this manpower limitation, the USMS located and arrested over 120,000 fugitives in fiscal year 2012, clearing over 153,000 warrants.2 To put this statistic in context, an Army BCT which detained one percent of that volume of terrorists in a yearlong deployment could declare this achievement a major success. At the tactical level, the USMS sustains an operations tempo (including planning, pre-combat checks, mission execution, recovery, detainee processing, and after action reviews) that results in 337 fugitive arrests a day. The fact that apprehending fugitives is not the only (or even primary) mission of the USMS underscores the impressiveness of this accomplishment. How is this feat managed? What can the Department of Defense (DOD) learn from the USMS to become more effective in its missions? The answers lie in the way the USMS conducts interagency cooperation. By emphasizing this cooperation, the USMS capitalizes on the strengths of its partners and maximizes efficiency in executing its fugitive mission. Three activities characterize the USMS system of interagency cooperation: establishing persistent task forces, building task force capacity, and strengthening relationships through mutual respect. The DOD might obtain similar success by emulating the practices of the USMS.
The USMS built a persistent system of task forces, involving all players with a stake in the mission, which enables it to excel in fugitive apprehension. The USMS manages seven congressionally funded regional fugitive task forces, incorporating the efforts of federal, state, and local law enforcement. Furthermore, the USMS participates in 60 additional task forces with the same fugitive hunting mission.3 These task forces serve as a focal point for information sharing and coordination, and the persistent nature of these task forces maximizes their potential. By routinely meeting and collaborating, all the law enforcement agencies in a region familiarize themselves with each other’s personalities, strengths, and limitations. This familiarization occurs before a crisis arises (e.g. a large jail break or a particularly violent fugitive), expediting action when time is crucial. As the agency with federal funding and broad authority, the USMS often takes the lead in establishing these task forces.
Coincidentally, the DOD has already begun to mirror the USMS task force construct described above. In recent years, many large DOD commands established Joint Interagency Task Forces (JIATFs). A good example of this is the Joint Task Force-North (JTF-North) set up by U.S. Northern Command’s (USNORTHCOM). The fact that JTF-North was not hastily constructed during a crisis reflects the forward thinking of its founding commanders. Specifically, JTF-North supports law enforcement agencies and interagency efforts to protect the U.S. homeland from transnational threats.4 This cooperation enables USNORTHCOM and its partners to synergistically attack their common transnational problems, reducing unnecessary duplication of effort and capitalizing on the strengths of each partner. By creating more of these task forces, DOD can leverage the full capabilities of other agencies.
The current JIATFs must also evolve and grow to involve all stakeholders, not just other agencies of the U.S. government. Industry, academia, and state/local governments also bring useful capabilities, perspectives, and authorities. International partners also hold a stake in our success and should contribute their talents and efforts to common missions as well. When foreign partners are included, JIATFs evolve into ‘combined’ organizations, or CJIATFs. In a room of state and local police, the USMS represents the better-funded federal government and consequently provides much of the material support. Similarly, the DOD, which typically brings more resources to the fight, will likely fund much of the cooperative effort. This burden should not be avoided; whether a DOD member of the task force or a non-DOD member of the task force accomplishes the mission, the mission is accomplished. The DOD’s mission is therefore accomplished.
The USMS increases the capacity and the coherence of their task forces by building the capacity of their partners. Rarely will the USMS hire a Deputy U.S. Marshal (DUSM) without several years of previous experience in either the military, law enforcement or both. As such, even junior DUSMs represent a highly trained and experienced category of law enforcement official. However, the USMS realizes it cannot accomplish its mission being the only expert in the task force. In 2012-2013, during phase one of a major training initiative to improve fugitive operations, the USMS trained over 1,100 DUSMs on high-risk fugitive apprehension. In exit surveys, DUSM attendees championed the need for similar training for non-USMS task force members. Appropriately, phase two of that training expands the program to include those members. The acknowledgment of the need to train task force members is not isolated to the individual DUSM level. The agency recognizes this need at the organizational level and established streamlined systems to facilitate non-USMS personnel training. For example, with only three one-page forms, a non-USMS employee might travel to training and submit a travel voucher to be paid by the USMS. The attitudes of its DUSMs and the hassle-free training offered to task force members builds the overall capacity of the task force, and facilitates accord among members.
In streamlining its procedures for cooperation, DOD might achieve the same result. The DOD maintains a tremendous training apparatus through the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command, and others. These organizations produce the most capable warriors in the world, and our partners strive to achieve comparable levels of human capital within their ranks. However, similar training is often unavailable to many of our partners in other agencies and foreign militaries. By including interagency and international partners in more training – specifically those tailored to CJIATF missions – the DOD will enhance their partners’ capacity and the utility of the training. Furthermore, the value of the training will encourage interagency/international task force participation and entice high-quality members of partnered organizations to pursue assignments to CJIATFs. Similar to the USMS task forces, DOD should build expertise within the ranks of our partners and thereby raise the competence level of the entire team.
One of the salient characteristics of USMS task forces is the mutual respect afforded by the USMS to smaller agencies, both at the individual and the organizational levels. This mutual respect is difficult to quantify, but has significant impact on the levels of cohesiveness within a multi-faceted organization. At the individual level, there is a distinct lack of arrogance within the USMS. Secure in their own quality, DUSMs do not perceive other task force members’ plans as a threat to their ego. Despite their nationwide jurisdiction, DUSMs are coached to avoid haughty or arrogant behavior in working with smaller agencies. Considering all solutions without stifling non-USMS generated ones, task forces leverage the expertise of all members. Additionally, the USMS mind-set of acceptance avoids marginalizing task force members from smaller agencies and builds the task force’s internal harmony. At the organizational level, USMS policy supports this “mission over ego” mind-set. For example, it is agency policy for the emergency lights on USMS vehicles to conform to local jurisdictional guidelines. If police in one county use blue and white lights on their vehicles, so do the DUSMs in that county. If troopers in another state use red and blue lights, USMS vehicles will comply. Though anecdotal, this policy represents a mind-set of atypical amenability from a federal agency and is indicative of the emphasis the USMS places on developing relationships with its state and local partners. These relationships yield the incredible number of fugitives netted each year.
The DOD is the largest, best funded, and most powerful military force in history. Its members are aware of this fact, as are its partners. For this reason alone, DOD members must strive to suppress the tendency to dominate a collective effort or risk marginalizing the other participants and their contributions. It is not enough to build task force capacity; the DOD must incorporate that capacity into all aspects of the task force effort. This challenge is particularly difficult when considering the manpower imbalance between the DOD and its partners. Often times, the DOD can dedicate multiple planners or action officers to a project that other agencies must assign as a collateral duty to a single agency representative. Well-meaning DOD planners will develop a multitude of products and plans, but inadvertently stifle other agencies’ participation in planning. This happens when partners are included in the execution stage only after DOD has drafted the plans; this demeans the partners’ effort. Such practices will result in decreased enthusiasm and disenchantment with the cooperative ideals of the CJIATF. Partners must be included and their input considered during every phase of planning and operation: from receipt of mission through the after action review. Additionally, when DOD planners represent the majority of manpower in an effort, meeting dynamics tend to lean heavily toward the military. The lead DOD officer should limit U.S. military attendance at collaborative meetings to guard against fostering DOD group think which overpowers partner agencies’ participants. In doing so, the DOD will leverage its partners’ newly built expertise and strengthen the relationships upon which the CJIATF is built.
By establishing, building, and strengthening fugitive task forces, the USMS achieves terrific results which the DOD might emulate with similar success. Understanding the truism that “nothing can replace a habitual relationship,” the USMS establishes persistent task forces to pool the resources, expertise, and efforts of law enforcement. The USMS builds the capabilities of those task forces by delivering and funding training for non-USMS task force members. Finally, the agency capitalizes on the capability it helped assemble and build by humbly accepting and considering all task force participants’ contributions. The DOD should develop its interagency efforts using similar principles.
Recommendation 1: Establish persistent CJIATFs in pre-crisis areas where high risk threats fail to conform to a single agency’s expertise. It is too late to begin cooperating after a crisis occurs. During a crisis, there is little time for planning and executing. Consequently, there is no time for learning the capabilities and shortcomings of partners during crises; that familiarization must be accomplished beforehand. Several areas of the world might be considered in pre-crisis stages. For example, a terrorist hunting task force might be well-placed in Yemen or a cartel reduction task force might be welcomed by the Mexican government.
Recommendation 2: Build partner capability. Partners do not have the DOD budget and cannot devote their limited resources to training. To secure quality partners, the DOD will have to help build them. DOD procedures for sending partners (specifically those already assigned to a CJIATF) to training should be streamlined and expanded. Beyond raising their capabilities and exposing them to DOD procedures, establishing a reputation for training allies will attract the desired organizational and individual partners.
Recommendation 3: Make a conscious effort against dominating the CJIATF. With the most people and funding, it is far easier for the DOD to deliver a complete plan to its partners for execution than to consider the myriad viewpoints of the collective CJIATF members. However, those diverse viewpoints represent the strength of the CJIATF and may yield a more elegant, efficient solution than DOD planners could devise independently. Discounting their viewpoints insults DOD partners, discourages their participation, and will result in attrition.
At first glance, the domestically-focused USMS and the internationally-focused DOD might not appear to share common missions. However, when considering the fugitive apprehension mission of the USMS and the terrorist hunting aspect of counterinsurgency warfare, the areas for cooperation become clear, particularly as terrorists flaunt international and jurisdictional boundaries. Certainly, the tactical tasks of entering, clearing, and searching buildings represent a nexus for cooperation between the USMS and the DOD; as does the investigative steps of locating elusive persons. More significantly, the ability of the USMS to capitalize on interagency cooperation represents one of the more important lessons the DOD should acquire from the USMS.MR
“About US Northern Command.” U.S. Northern Command. Accessed May 20, 2013. http://www.northcom.mil/About/index.html#JTFN.
“Fact Sheet: Facts and Figures.” US Marshals Service Office of Public Affairs. Last modified January 10, 2013. http://www.usmarshals.gov/duties/factsheets/facts-2013.pdf.
“Fact Sheet: Fugitive Operations.” US Marshals Service Office of Public Affairs. Last modified May 15, 2013. http://www.usmarshals.gov/duties/factsheets/fugitive_ops-2013.pdf.
Published on February 12, 2014 — Available also in PDF
1st Lt. Iain Cruickshank is currently deployed to Afghanistan as an Adviser for 1-506th Infantry Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. He holds a B.S. from the United States Military Academy and an MSc in Operational Research from the University of Edinburgh, obtained as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.
Since the first major combat operations in Afghanistan, the question of how and when the war will end has loomed in the minds of conscientious Americans. Now, as the conflict begins its end stages, the moment has arrived. How will coalition forces transfer the security of Afghanistan to its own security forces as effectively as possible? A critical shift is occurring from responsibility for Afghan security being an International Security Assistance Force mission, to a national Afghan mission. Security Force Advisers become a crucial component for the movement from partnered operations with Afghan defense forces to Afghans running their own operations. While U.S. forces generally understand, advising as a key part of the transition in Afghanistan, the implementation of advising in theater still has difficulties to overcome.
As an infantry first lieutenant currently serving as an intelligence adviser to an Afghan National Army (ANA) Infantry Kandak (Battalion) in Regional Command-East, I had the opportunity to develop some observations on the current implementation of Security Force Advise and Assist Teams (SFAATs) that I will share in this paper.
Prior to this deployment, I attended the SFAAT Academy at Fort Polk, working as an Operations Adviser for an Afghan Uniformed Police (AUP) district. Following the SFAAT Academy, I stayed at Fort Polk and did a rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center, and took charge of a team for an AUP district. Based on these experiences and my observations while deployed to Afghanistan, I learned both general and specific lessons concerning the advising policy in Afghanistan. These insights, summarized in six broad areas, are: selecting qualified people, selecting amiable people, proper preparation, understanding context while deployed, providing the right environment to improve, and keeping the big picture at the forefront.
Qualified people: The concept of advising requires an experienced individual mentoring a less experienced or knowledgeable mentee toward competence, expertise, or even wisdom. The goal is to have the mentee near the same level of skill and knowledge as the mentor, which requires a wise advisor. Wisdom is not simply rote memorization of doctrine or a high degree of competence in a particular task or field. The security advisers on SFAATs must have a thorough understanding of and experience with our respective war fighting functions. They must also understand their role in the bigger picture, as they cannot help their counterparts to think systemically if they themselves do not. The adviser must be more than knowledgeable, but also talented, intelligent and thoughtful.1 The ability to communicate knowledge well and patiently is more essential than subject matter expertise. The ideal adviser is culturally attuned, and able to explain what he knows to different kinds of people with different thought processes or values. This presents challenges.
Commanders are likely to see a personnel conflict preparing for a deployment when they need to keep their most talented leaders and soldiers in their direct combat power. Adviser teams formed for a brigade deployment must include individuals from that brigade. A commander may feel this requires giving away his finest and most experienced soldiers. This perceived conflict often leads to assigning less senior, less experienced, or less “essential” individuals to adviser teams leading to teams composed of junior officers and non-commissioned officers, who now must advise at levels potentially far above their current skill and experience. SFAATs may be composed of selected individuals considered non-essential rather than for traits that would guarantee success. In a worst case, malcontents or those considered incompetent are placed on teams to marginalize them. Ultimately, the determination of team composition is likely to prioritize preservation of combat power over an individual's particular talents or capacity to be an effective adviser.
When this personnel issue presents a conflict, the consequences have a detrimental and counterproductive effect on our relationships with Afghan advisees, and harm their confidence in us. This is especially true in Afghan culture where rank and status are extremely important. Having to listen to lower ranking and sometimes far younger advisers from another nation is a cultural affront difficult for some of our counterparts to overcome. In my own advising experience, my SFAAT faced great difficulty advising one of the ANA company commanders for this very reason. The ANA commander was a Major in the Afghan Army, and had been a major for the better part of 22 years. Therefore, he considered it an insult to have to listen to first lieutenant or captain advisers who had barely been alive as long as he had been a major. Trying to advise such an officer with a great deal of experience is difficult for even a senior officer; imagine the challenge for junior officers, who could potentially make up a large proportion of SFAATs for reasons mentioned above.
When a team diverts resources away from combat power, or is composed of expendable figures, that team is more likely to be marginalized in theater. An SFAAT that is marginalized by their battalion and brigade (Battle Space Integrators or BSI), will find it very difficult to work effectively because we by design, rely on a parent unit. Until battalion and brigade commanders fully 'buy into' the advisory role and the concept of security forces advising, the SFAAT mission will continue to operate ineffectively in Afghanistan. However, much of this tension can be diffused when commanders differentiate expertise from a talent and passion for teaching. Needs are met all around if they assign candidates who may not be the most expert, but are highly competent and very effective communicators and mentors. Therefore, a commander can still preserve many of his top people as part of his direct combat power, if he properly understands the advising mission and what types of people are best suited for the role.
Personal qualifications: One of the key components of advising, highlighted during Fort Polk's Adviser Academy, is to build rapport with your counterparts. Rapport is critical. It increases the likelihood advisees will take guidance. It also assists advisers in understanding where they can be most effective. A solid, respectful working relationship also helps reduce resentment that leads to certain types of green-on-blue incidents (term used for insider attacks when members of the Afghan security forces turn on coalition forces). Army doctrine publications on advising, such as FM 3-07.10, state that an adviser should be agreeable, reflective, and empathetic. These traits all serve the purpose of building rapport, and are not taught in a short time, but often inherent in a person's nature. Certain traits are not trained, take years to develop, and should be considered when assigning personnel to adviser teams. The adviser to look for is easygoing but disciplined, assertive but not aggressive or condescending, respected by his peers, and respectful even when stressed or frustrated. The ideal adviser is also open minded, welcomes discussion, and works collaboratively rather than autocratically.
As mentioned previously, rapport is arguably the single most important resource an adviser team has. Two critical aspects of rapport are cultural sensitivity and professional courtesy. Effective advisers understand their advisees' culture, language, and values. An adviser who does not see advisees as professionals and show them respect as such, will accomplish very little, it anything at all. An adviser needs to be an exceptional people person in his home unit if he expects to build trust with people from another culture that is inherently distrustful of outsiders. A difficult, insensitive, or pushy individual breeds contempt toward himself and his fellow advisers, which increases the risk of incidents. An example of this occurred when an ANA kandak was pressured, repeatedly and sternly, into supporting an operation that was not in line with their stated objectives and interfered with their planned missions. The resentment developed during this encounter made it difficult for weeks following the mission to get the ANA to meet with, listen to, or even return phone calls from their advisers. For this reason alone, selection of advisors with character and people skills is paramount. Understanding why people skills are such a high priority may increase adherence to this guidance for assembling adviser teams. Failure to do so will also lead to lapses in the professional respect necessary for successful advising.
Training priorities: Imparting the right job-specific knowledge and skills to advisers is essential to mission success. This seems obvious, but there are serious consequences when training does not keep pace with the reality of the SFAAT mission, which can be a cause for concern. While schools like the Adviser Academy offer good preliminary training for this unconventional assignment, only so much can be accomplished within a time-restricted classroom setting. From my experience, the limited time could be better prioritized. The advise and assist role has been rapidly evolving since its implementation2 and the academy is a very powerful tool if it keeps pace with the evolution.
The Adviser Academy would be significantly more effective if instructors were constantly fine-tuning their curriculum based on feedback from their currently deployed classes. It would maximize the limited training time to use recent real life scenarios that current advisers consider essential, or most importantly, wish we had been taught. For example, the ANSF units that I interacted with were all familiar with U.S. doctrine and processes such as the Military Decision Making Process. However, many of these same ANSF units struggle with organizational problems, such as insistence on commanders not issuing guidance to subordinates. This requires changes in organizational culture to fix. Drawing from suggestions by recent classes, a trend might appear that places less value on ability to teach American processes in detail and more emphasis on organizational attitudes. It would be more beneficial to learn the basics of changing an unhealthy organizational ethos or positively influencing the culture of an organization.
Many of the essential skills for advisers are not allocated adequate time nor have they been properly identified for training. The essential skill of rapport building is difficult to teach and takes practice to master. There is simply not enough time during the course of the Adviser Academy to hone rapport building. Time limitations are also a concern at JRTC, as the only extended interaction time between SFAATs and their counterparts is during the force-on-force exercise. This valuable role-playing experience lasts only 8-10 days. Additionally, unlike the Special Forces teams the SFAATs are loosely modeled on, we are not organic and self-sustaining; most teams receive support and security from their parent unit. Therefore, additional time for more pressing priorities could be made by reducing time spent on training like team convoy standards or team react to contact drills. Close-quarters reactionary shooting, Guardian angel plans, or simple conversation practice in Dari, which are all things uniquely important to the SFAATs, would be far more beneficial.
Instruction on American doctrine is another potential area for time optimization. While learning the finer points of our doctrine enables us to explore the underlying principles of why we do what we do, it is only marginally useful for advising as such. Much of American doctrine, especially counter-insurgency doctrine, has only been codified recently and is still undergoing major changes.3 More importantly, Afghans do not possess the full array of personnel, training, and technology that our doctrine relies upon for successful implementation. A focus on learning the why of our doctrine empowers advisers to teach our counterparts how to think for themselves. Our goal cannot be to teach them to mimic or replicate our systems, without understanding why (or more critically if) they work in a given context.
Afghans seem good at figuring out a how, as long as they understand the why. For example, the unit my SFAAT advised had no organic bomb disposal capability but found that it could remove command wire detonated improvised explosive devices by hooking the command wires to a truck battery. While this is not the safest approach to reducing the threat, it is an effective means of removing it with the resources they do have, and helps them to accomplish the goal of securing a route. Additionally, advisers would benefit greatly from more time learning Afghan doctrine (which can differ significantly from our own) and further training on the hardware and weapons systems Afghans use that we do not. Understanding how they think and why they do what they do enables us to engage them on a deeper level. We can then either persuasively overcome resistance to our guidance or collaborate to combine the best of both American and Afghan doctrine in a sustainable way.
Context is key: After over a decade, this war has been the daily reality year in and year out for most units and individuals in the ANA, the AUP, and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, while American forces rotate through. They have seen multiple American units—and even more advisers. They are more accustomed to advisement than we are to advising, and generally understand our systems and the assistance we provide. We must remember that a newly arriving SFAAT is not starting with a blank slate. In most instances, it is no longer the mission to build a staff from the ground up, but to refine or fix processes that Afghans worked on over the course of years with advisers. The core of our work is contributing fresh insights and challenging organizational dysfunction, while respecting the work they have done. An example is getting the operations staff of the Kandak to draw information from the intelligence staff for planning purposes. The kandak showed a preference for direct reports from informants rather than relying on their own intelligence staff. Because of this, their operations sometimes missed the larger picture or failed to anticipate the enemy's likely reaction properly. The intelligence staff was actually quite adept at collecting and processing intelligence, but there was an organizational bias against using them properly. The solution to the problem did not come in the form of teaching the intelligence section proper intelligence processing or simply telling operational planners to get intelligence from the intelligence section, but a nuanced and time intensive process of building trust between the two sections. In fact, this entrenched problem was not addressed by better intelligence or operational processes, or teaching U.S. doctrine, but by understanding the organizational dynamics and learning the kandak's recent history. This led to insight which could be shared, and when integrated, improved the kandak's abilities.
Earlier on, advising often meant hovering over the shoulder of uneducated individuals learning to perform staff functions. That is still what pre-deployment training emphasizes. While this may happen some places down range, it has certainly not been characteristic of this my experience or of any other team within my area of operations. Because scenarios at the Adviser Academy and JRTC have not kept pace with the evolving SFAAT mission, advisers may become discouraged when their advisees do not benefit immensely from quick fixes. At this point in the conflict, most of the easy, overnight changes to the ANSF are complete. The target now is marginal changes that raise them above mere competency to sustainability and excellence. This requires significant effort and produces less dramatic results. Furthermore, the problems of ANSF units advised for many years are rooted in deep cultural norms or serious chronic issues, like corruption or lack of education. There are no easy fixes to these problems and they will require exhausting, delicate, and innovative solutions. Training at JRTC and the Adviser Academy must reflect both the more advanced abilities of advisees and the more nuanced challenges of advising competent counterparts to improve above sufficiency to mastery.
The Army must adapt and update conventional measures of success for the advise and assist mission, because it is doubtful even exceptional mentorship will have a dramatic impact. At this point, it is highly unlikely the number of missions conducted or targets neutralized will greatly increase. Even the standard ANSF evaluations are metrics-heavy and presume quick, easy fixes. The metrics used no longer accurately evaluate progress with Afghan units that are in advanced stages of development. These benchmarks cannot accurately measure the amount of important work finished and its value to the advised unit. The perception of failure is demoralizing for advisers despite their consistent hard work. Failure only appears so because the increments of success are out of touch with the evolving mission. Therefore, like many other elements of the advising mission, metrics of success must continue to evolve. Developing metrics designed to measure accurately the kinds of success SFAATs are currently working toward is possible, reasonable, and important to the future of the ISAF mission.
Learning to pick yourself back up: The advising mission is responsible for developing the capacity in Afghan forces to move from partnered operations to Afghan only operations. As part of this process, coalition forces' enablers, soldiers, and other direct support will continue to decrease until the Afghans themselves run everything. Unfortunately, as part of this process of removing support, the ANSF will, at points, stumble. This is a painful, but inevitable part of diminishing support. It is invaluable, though, because failures and setbacks confront the ANSF with hard lessons they must learn and changes they must make.
Afghan forces will best learn how to conduct operations and support themselves, by dealing with the positive and negative consequences without involvement from us. For example, if every time an ANA unit gets into a firefight with enemy forces, the U.S. unit in the area sends air support; the ANA will rely on that air support and not learn to call higher or parallel ANSF units for support. Consequently, while the air support does prevent casualties in the near term, it is not sustainable. That ANA unit—which learned to operate dependent on a temporary condition of American air support—will undoubtedly suffer greater casualties and setbacks than were prevented by our intervention. While an adviser team can strive to instill in our Afghan counterparts the need to do things without Coalition Forces' support, they must gain real-life experience operating independently or they will not be adequately prepared.
Imagine for a moment, removing a new bicycle rider's training wheels after a period of supervised practice sessions, then sending them out alone onto the street. This is obviously unsafe, and potentially disastrous. The reasonable thing to do is remove the training wheels while guidance and some support is still being offered, so they can practice without the training wheels before going it truly alone. It is equally unsafe to withdraw support from the Afghans too early in their development, which can also cause irreparable damage. Our job as advisers is to help coordinate a graduated transition of American support backing off as Afghan capabilities increase. At times, it is also necessary, despite the risks, to push them beyond their current abilities to promote continued growth.
Advisers and BSI units must accept stumbling and setbacks as a necessary part of growth so we can walk the fine line of providing support without artificially propping up Afghan forces. To provide appropriate levels of support, advisers and BSI's need to be attuned to the capabilities of our Afghan counterparts, yet gently pushing them to use fewer and fewer coalition forces and enablers. Since advisers are most in touch with their counterparts' capabilities, it is also key for BSI commanders to trust their SFAAT's recommendations.
Afghan sustainability: The overarching ISAF mission is to transfer control to a stable and effective government and security forces, which are capable of sustaining themselves against insurgents and subversive elements. While American systems and tactics are optimal in many ways, if they are not sustainable or intuitive for our Afghan counterparts, they will fail. The only way to create a sustainable, stable, safe society that does not require outside assistance is to encourage Afghans to take the best of our knowledge, apply it within their own cultural context, and understand their own unique needs and limitations. Too often Adviser and American units lose sight of the big picture by judging Afghan systems only by the standards used to judge American systems. Especially as success is currently measured, advisers can get bogged down in implementing the finer details of American systems. Instead, the focus must be helping the Afghans design their own systems that accomplish our joint goals in ways that make sense with their capabilities, needs, and limitations. While some Afghan systems may not work as well as a fully-operational American system, if the American way is impractical, unsustainable, or culturally incongruent for them, it will crumble when we withdraw. That, ultimately, is a waste of our efforts and resources, because it does not accomplish the mission objectives in the big picture. 'Afghan-sustainable' is not an excuse for laziness, compromising adviser goals, or lowering appropriate standards. Advisers acknowledge that Afghans will require their own unique solutions, which may not necessarily conform to U.S. doctrine.
The means are truly as important as the ends. We must advise our Afghan counterparts so they thoroughly understand the process and rationale, so they do not focus solely on achieving desired ends. We must make space for them to develop their own mutually agreed upon ends. We must also not let our desire to avoid certain ends (such as battle losses by ANSF) to interfere with their learning the proper means. It is a delicate balance, but one we must achieve to complete this mission.
The SFAAT concept has been pivotal, and to optimize success, the processes of selecting and training advisers, and understanding the nature of this mission demands reevaluation as the mission evolves. Individuals with experience, competence, and wisdom must also have teaching skills and relate well to others. To function optimally we need 1) additional training in rapport-building and organizational psychology, 2) awareness of Afghan culture, doctrine, equipment, and 3) practice dealing with the most prevalent kind of security risk we face, namely, insiders. We need to arrive with realistic expectations about our counterparts and the systems already in place. We need measures of success that accurately reflect the unconventional nature of the mission's objectives. Finally, we need to focus on the key objective which is sustainability, rather than getting lost in the minutia of exactly replicating American systems.
Advising fulfills that critical step in transitioning from combat missions to completed reconstruction and the host nation resuming complete responsibility for security. Success at this step is essential for the future security of the U.S. and the world. While there are problems in training for and executing the advising mission, there are many young officers dedicated to mission success who are learning lessons and trying to fix the problems within their sphere. However, until we recognize this at the operational and tactical levels, the advising mission will continue to suffer setbacks, and the U.S. and ISAF goal of Afghan self-sufficiency will continue to be delayed. Key improvements are within reach and must be implemented as soon as possible.MR
1. Nicholas J. Armstrong, “Afghanistan 2014-2024: Advising for Sustainability,” Small Wars Journal (May 4, 2012), http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/afghanistan-2014-2024-advising-for-sustainability (accessed October 8, 2013).
2. Wesley Moerbe, “Early Mistakes with Security Forces Advisory Teams in Afghanistan,” Military Review Journal (May-June, 2013): 24.
3. Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-24.2: Tactics in Counterinsurgency (Washington DC, April 21, 2009), Introduction.