PKSOI Papers FINDING THE BALANCE: U.S. MILITARY AND FUTURE OPERATIONS William Flavin PKSOI PAPER FINDING THE BALANCE: U.S. MILITARY AND FUTURE OPERATIONS William Flavin March 2011 The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily relect the oficial policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Authors of Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) publications enjoy full academic freedom, provided they do not disclose classiied information, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresent oficial U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them to offer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest of furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited. ***** This publication is subject to Title 17, United States Code, Sections 101 and 105. 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If you are interested in receiving this journal, please subscribe on our homepage at http:// pksoi.army.mil/subscription.cfm. ISBN 978-0-9833514-0-5 ii FOREWARD Professor William Flavin provides an excellent cautionary piece about the future of the military. We are at a crossroads. Do we take the lessons learned and noted by change makers such as General Dempsey and others and move toward a military that can work in complex operations or do we default back to a more conventional structural and doctrinal position? He shows us that there is a balance between conventional and counterinsurgency approaches and that rather than walk away from hard lessons, we should maintain our capability and capacity to conduct operations such as stability operations in complex environments. As Professor Flavin notes, there is an entire generation of military oficers, from lieutenant to lieutenant colonel, whose professional lives have been formed by complex environments in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and others. They “get it” and so should we. STEPHEN T. SMITH Colonel, U.S. Army Director Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute iii ABOUT THE AUTHOR William Flavin assumed the job as the Directing Professor Doctrine, Concepts, Training and Education Division at the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, located at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in July 2007. Before this assignment, he was a senior foreign affairs analyst with Booz Allen and Hamilton on contract to assist the US Army Peacekeeping Institute for doctrine development. From 1995 to 1999, he was a Colonel in the U.S. Army serving as the Deputy Director of Special Operations for the Supreme Allied Commander Europe at the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe. William Flavin has a BA in History from VMI and an MA in History from Emory University. He was a senior fellow at CSIS for his Army War College year and then taught at the Army War College. His areas of expertise are Interagency Planning, Counterinsurgency, Irregular War, Doctrine, UN Concepts and Planning. Professor Flavin has published numerous articles, monographs, book chapters, and books. v SUMMARY This monograph examines the U.S. Military’s struggle to ind the correct balance between conventional and counterinsurgency/stability approaches. The author uses history to remind us that at the end of wars, Armies often “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and revert to a default position for organization and doctrine instead of inculcating those lessons learned in the recent wars. History shows us that we do not maintain capabilities and capacity to conduct operations in complex environments. Professor Flavin uses Frank Hoffman’s four schools of thought (counterinsurgents, traditionalists, utility inielders and division of labor) and shows where the U.S. has been and may be headed in the future. The counterinsurgents believe that the irregular adversary that we ight today is the face of conlict for the foreseeable future; therefore, the military must not repeat the mistakes of the post-Vietnam era. Instead, they believe that we must fully incorporate counterinsurgency (COIN) into doctrine and make the appropriate adjustments in education, training, force structure and resources while accepting risk in a conventional warighting focus. The traditionalists believe the most dangerous threat to the U.S. is a peer competitor that presents a conventional military threat; thus, the U.S. must retain its advantage in traditional military capabilities and focus to insure that the U.S. can “ight and win” and survive as a nation. To the traditionalists, the challenges presented by stability and COIN- type missions are lesser included cases that can be handled by a conventionally trained and structured force. The utility inielders look for a balance between the counterinsurgents and the traditionalist to cover the entire vii spectrum while managing risk. The key tenant of this school of thought is to satisfy everyone’s diverse needs with limited resources. Lastly, the divisionof -labor advocates argue that the traditionalist and counterinsurgent are such distinctly different modes of conlict that utility inielders cannot be prepared to meet these tasks and thus different forces are required. This would include ground forces, as well as Air and Maritime. He looks at the change makers in DoD, men such as Secretary Robert Gates, Generals Dempsey, Mattis, Chiarelli, Caldwell, McMaster, and Admiral Mike Mullen – all deeply affected by the complex operations the U.S. military has been engaged with in the past seventeen years. They understand that there must be a change in mind-set, an evolution of thought, to succeed in current and future conlicts. It is through their leadership that the Department of Defense has created policy, doctrine, training and education that is inluenced by the current ight but also rooted in history. Policy and doctrinal documents require that the whole of government be prepared to address full spectrum operations. Doctrinal publications such as FM 3-07, Stability Operations and JP 3-24, Counterinsurgency heralded a series of publications that assist organizations engaged in complex and challenging environments. Joint and allied doctrine has followed. Actions plans and training and education are following suit. After many years of conducting complex operations, shortfalls still exist. Part of the challenge in addressing education and training at all levels is the lack of adequate personnel in the training base to take the doctrinal concepts and convert them into guidance. Another challenge is the lack of capacity in the other government agencies to support a whole of government educational effort. viii However, though on one hand, we are moving toward joint concepts, full spectrum and whole of government, on the other hand, we may still, in part, embrace a traditionalist approach focused on defeating or ixing an enemy. Numerous scholars and military oficers have continuously called for an overhaul of military structures and procedures, but as most recent studies of the current administrations budget indicate, there is a continued lack of discipline in the budget and a continuation of legacy thought and structures. So, though we are moving toward a utility inielder school of thought – one that balances the counterinsurgents and traditionalist - we must continue to make a concerted effort to complete a transition out of Cold War structures and procedures so that we can establish a new default position that is consistent with complex environments. DoD is not an island unto itself but is very much part and parcel of a complicated and interconnected society. And as the author observed, there is an entire generation of military oficers – from lieutenant to lieutenant colonels whose professional lives have been formed by the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other complex environments such as Haiti. ix FINDING THE BALANCE: U.S. MILITARY AND FUTURE OPERATIONS INTRODUCTION In 1755, the British Army in North America, shaken by the defeat of General Edward Braddock near the banks of the Monongahela River, transformed itself. By 1758 the British Army had changed its tactics, uniform, organization, training, and equipment to deal with the challenges of the North American continent. This transformation was expensive and unsustainable after the war. The British Government - driven by ideological, iscal and political necessity - restructured its force to deal with its global responsibilities and fell back on the “default” standard of organizing and equipping its force with the understanding that it could adjust as needed to meet any new situation. But just 13 years later, the British Army was incapable of rapidly adapting to meet new challenges of conducting operations in the complex environment of North America.1 In 1966 the U.S Army, shaken by it experience in Viet Nam transformed itself. By 1972 the Army had changed its doctrine, tactics, uniforms, organization, training and equipment to deal with the challenges of the complex environment of South East Asia and Global Wars of National Liberation. Driven by ideological, iscal, and political necessity after the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Army reverted to its “default” organization and doctrine to face the Soviet threat based on the assumption that these lesser ‘low intensity’ problems 1 could be handled by a few special units and ad hoc responses. About 25 years later, the U.S. Army faced a complex environment that tested these assumptions.2 In 2010, in response to the ongoing conlict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army and the Joint Force is in the process of modifying its doctrine, tactics, uniforms, organization, training and equipment to deal with the challenges of the complex environments of the Middle East, the Balkans, Africa, and Asia. Again, driven by ideological, iscal, and political necessity, what will the US Army and Joint Force do to address its Global Responsibilities beyond the crisis in Iraq and Afghanistan? This paper examines the U.S. Military’s struggle to ind the correct balance between conventional and counterinsurgency/stability approaches. In an era of constrained resources, the arguments over the shape and substance of the US Military center around how much should be allocated to counterinsurgency/stability” and how much to maintain the edge in “conventional” military power, the standard default position. In an article for the Armed Forces Journal, Frank Hoffman, proposes that there are four schools of thought. The counterinsurgents believe that the irregular adversary that we ight today is the face of conlict for the foreseeable future; therefore, the military must not repeat the mistakes of the postVietnam era. Instead, they believe that we must fully incorporate counterinsurgency (COIN) into doctrine and make the appropriate adjustments in education, training, force structure and resources while accepting risk in a conventional warighting focus. The traditionalists believe the most dangerous threat to the U.S. is a peer competitor that presents a conventional military threat; thus, the U.S. must retain its advan- 2 tage in traditional military capabilities and focus to insure that the U.S. can “ight and win” and survive as a nation. To the traditionalists, the challenges presented by stability and COIN- type missions are lesser included cases that can be handled by a conventionally trained and structured force. The utility inielders look for a balance between the counterinsurgents and traditionalists to cover the entire spectrum while managing risk. The key tenant of this school of thought is to satisfy everyone’s diverse needs with limited resources. Lastly, the division of labor advocates argue that the traditionalist and counterinsurgent are such distinctly different modes of conlict that utility inielders cannot be prepared to meet these tasks and thus different forces are required. This would include ground forces, as well as Air and Maritime.3 Utility Inielders Counterinsurgents Traditionalists Division of Labor Irregular Adversaries are the future Peer competitor as conventional military threat Balance between the Counterinsurgents and Traditionalists Counter-Insurgents and traditionalists are distinctly different modes of conlict Incorporate COIN into doctrine, education, training, force structure, resources U.S. must retain its advantage in traditional military capabilities and focus to “ight and win” Create forces agile enough to cover entire spectrum but still manage risk Specialize forces to cover different missions to enhance readiness Accept risk in a conventional Warighting focus Stability and COIN can be handled by conventional force Different forces are required in ground forces, air, maritime Adapted from Frank Hoffman’s “Striking a Balance”, Armed Forces Journal (July 2009) online at www.armedforcesjournal. com/2009/07/4099782/ Table 1: Schools of Thought 3 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has talked and written about striking a balance among all of the capabilities of the defense establishment to address the full spectrum of requirements, similar to the utility inielder school of thought. He believes it is prudent for the U.S. to accept the risk, as there will be no peer competitor in the immediate future that will face off against the U.S. in a conventional combat. As he wrote: “It is true that the United States would be hard pressed to ight a major conventional ground war elsewhere on short notice, but where on earth would we do that.”4 He is conident the U.S. military can deal with the requirements of counterinsurgency, stability and peace operations and retain its core competencies to shoot, move and communicate. He believes the proposed dichotomy between conventional and COIN/Stability is false and is an outdated model that needs to be changed. Additionally, current and future problems require a Whole of U.S. Government (WoG) approach and Mr. Gates has supported and facilitated initiatives to advance that concept. But, to what extent has Mr. Gates’ views been accepted and incorporated into the institution of the military? Is Mr. Gates a bellwether?5 To what extent institutions change depends on how the following questions are answered: Who are the change makers and do they have access and inluence? How does the institution see itself in the future? Are there policies and doctrines in place that precipitate change? Are there training and education strategies that promulgate that change? Is the structural form following the change in function? Lastly, is there the will to sustain that change? 4 CHANGE MAKERS The U.S. military has been engaged in complex operations in a signiicant way for seventeen years. This means that an entire generation of military oficers -from lieutenant through lieutenant colonel - has had their professional lives formed by the experiences of the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and other complex environments such as Haiti. For these oficers, being able to balance many tasks while retaining core competencies is a way of life and they will change the institutions as they advance in their careers. Unlike the oficers in previous times, there is no U.S.S.R. looming or another ‘near peer competitor’ to divert focus. The military has a current set of senior leaders whose experiences have led them to question the ‘revolution in military affairs’ and are advocating changes along the lines of Mr. Gates. As the commander of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, General Martin Dempsey6 stewards the change in Army Doctrine and Concepts to embrace the full spectrum of operations and follows in the footsteps of his predecessor General Wallace. In 2004 he had a deining moment as the commander of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad He said in an interview: April 2004 in Iraq is when the light bulb really went off for me. Here we were, an Army that prided itself on being on the absolute edge of technology, of being able to see irst, understand irst and if necessary shoot irst; and suddenly we were facing these simultaneous uprisings that none of us saw coming! We all had the moment like, ‘Wow, I just didn’t see that coming!’ That did not mean we should abandon our constant search for new technology to enable us, but it did sug- 5 gest that relying too heavily on technology in this era was dangerous. In April 2004 in Iraq, technology was less important that understanding anthropology and sociology and what was on the minds of the Iraqis on the street.7 General David Petraeus, the current CENTCOM Commander, has studied and experienced these types of operations from his academic time to his service in OPERATION PROVIDE COMFORT in Haiti in 1994, as well as in Bosnia and Iraq. As a professor at West Point he studied and wrote about the Viet Nam War and immersed himself in studies of the French experience with counter insurgency and the U.S. experience in Latin America. Along with General James N. Mattis, he spearheaded the development of the FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency in 2006, the irst intensive look at this doctrine since the Vietnam War. He continues to be an agent of change in the military from his current position. James N. Mattis was General Petraeus’ counterpart in the USMC in publishing the counterinsurgency manual and making it a multi-service publication. He was the Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) and then moved to Central Command. He played a key role in the April 2004 battle of Fallujah - Operation VIGILANT RESOLVE - by negotiating with the insurgent command inside of the city, as well as playing an important part in the November 2004 battle of Fallujah known as Operation PHANTOM FURY. General Peter Chiarelli, currently the Vice Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army, also has had experience in full spectrum operations. This experience includes his assignment as the executive assistant and executive 6 oficer for the Supreme Allied Commander Europe during operations in the Balkans, to leading the 1st Cavalry Division during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) and later as the commanding general, MultiNational Corps–Iraq. He has written several articles that have inluenced doctrine development. In one of these articles he wrote, “Perhaps the most important thing we need to do to prepare for a dangerous future is change the cultures of our national security organizations and increase our efforts to educate the U.S. public. Americans have traditionally viewed warfare as a struggle between friend and enemy, with both sides clearly identiied and engaged on a delimited battleield where outcomes result in veriiable winners and losers … To maximize our ability to succeed in current and future conlicts, we must change this mind-set. Warfare has evolved, and both the Nation and the military must adjust accordingly.”8 Admiral “Mike” Mullen, the 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since 2007 and previously the Chief of Naval Operations, has provided clear guidance as articulated in the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations and several other speeches and initiatives on support for a change. He believes that the American method of war must change to support the needs of the nation. As an active advocate for change he stated, “Longer-lasting, more sustainable effects will most assuredly demand a whole-of-government, if not a whole-of-nation effort. Defense and diplomacy are simply no longer discrete choices, one to be applied when the other one fails, but must, in fact, complement one another throughout the messy process of international relations.” 7 Lieutenant General William Caldwell, current Commander of the NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan, as well as, Commanding General, Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan was previously the Commanding General of the Combined Arms Center where he spearheaded the drive to publish FM 3-07, a new look at stability operations that identiied it as the key component of all operations across the spectrum of conlict. Brigadier General H.R. McMaster, formerly the director of the U.S. Army Capabilities Integration Center’s Concepts Development and Experimentation Directorate of TRADOC, has studied successful operations in complex environments. He earned a doctorate in history and wrote the acclaimed book on Vietnam, Dereliction of Duty. In 2004, as commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (3rd ACR), he conducted Operation RESTORING RIGHTS and secured the Iraqi city of Tal Afar by defeating the insurgent strongholds. He has challenged the Army in the new Capstone Concept to consider the reality he has experienced and project that into the future. He stated: In mistakenly thinking that technology had changed the nature, rather than just the character, of war we neglected some continuities of conlict such as the human dimension; that fact that war is an extension of politics, and we still needed to achieve political outcomes; and the reality that, over time, thinking enemies will always respond to your actions and develop countermeasures to your strengths. 9 Secretary Robert Gates; Generals Martin Dempsey, David Petraeus, James Mattis, Peter Chiarelli, William Caldwell, H.R. McMaster; and Admiral Mike Mul- 8 len are thought leaders in places of inluence who are working to ensure the U.S. military can cope with the emerging security environment.10 FIGURE 1: The Changemakers FUTURE THOUGHT Future concepts establish the azimuths that point toward a possible construct that can guide doctrine, investments, and research. The new Joint and Army Concepts portrays a future signiicantly inluenced by the current ight but also rooted in history. 9 Joint Concepts: Published in January 2009, the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (CCJO) describes a military force in support to the whole of government. It is not a ‘warighting’ concept but a discussion on how to use military power. It says: In a broader sense, the joint force is one of several instruments of national policy maintained to help shape the international political environment in support of U.S. interests. The preeminent requirement of all joint operations, therefore, is that they help to create or maintain the conditions sought by that policy, whether through coercion or persuasion, and whether in response to an unexpected crisis or opportunity or as part of a deliberate and proactive plan. Since, even in war, this requirement may extend well beyond defeating enemy forces in battle, to be an effective policy instrument; joint forces must provide political leaders a much wider range of competencies than just dominance in combat. Military force is only one element of national power, moreover, and in the complex environment of the future, it rarely will succeed alone. Instead, joint forces typically will operate in conjunction with other agencies of the U.S. and partner governments, and the success of the endeavor will depend on the success of that partnership. Depending on circumstances, the joint force may lead the national or multinational effort or may support other agencies, usually by creating the security conditions that allow nonmilitary agencies to operate.11 The concept lays out four categories of activities that need to be considered to achieve the objectives outline above. These are combat, security, engagement, and relief and reconstruction. 10 Together, these four categories of activity embrace virtually every mission the joint force could be called upon to accomplish. Assisting a friendly state to defeat an insurgency, for example, might require combat against organized insurgent forces, security to protect the population from intimidation, relief and reconstruction to restore or expand civil services, and engagement to train host-nation security forces. Even a more conventional conlict typically would require joint forces to conduct, in addition to combat, security activities to control secured areas, relief and reconstruction to facilitate continued combat, and engagement to ensure effective cooperation with multinational partners. Homeland defense could involve engagement to deprive non-state enemies of sanctuary overseas; security to detect and prevent attack by monitoring land, sea, air, and cyberspace access; combat to defeat an actual attack; and in the worst event, relief and reconstruction to mitigate the effects of a successful attack.12 Over the next year, each of these four categories will be explored in detail through the development of joint operating concepts and experiments. These categories relect experience and signal a change in focus from the 2005 Capstone Concept. In 2005, the concept approached the future with more of a warighters’ vision that outlined the need to dominate an adversary and control any situation. It discussed conceptual and physical battle space, terms that are not in the current CCJO. The subordinate joint operating concepts in 2005 were Major Combat Operations, Shaping Operations (later called Military Contributions to Cooperative Security), Stability Operations (later called SSTR), and Strategic Deterrence. The new categories relect a shift away from the policy direction of former administrations and toward one of wider engagement in the world.13 11 Army Concept: The Army’s Capstone Concept published in December 2009 relects much of the joint concept. The aim of Army operations is to set conditions that achieve or facilitate the achievement of policy goals and objectives. Future enemies will constantly adapt and seek ways to overcome Army strengths and capitalize on what they perceive as our vulnerabilities. We operate where our enemies, indigenous populations, culture, politics, and religion intersect and where the fog and friction of war persists. The U.S. Army must maintain its core competency of conducting effective combined arms operations in close combat to employ defeat and stability mechanisms against a variety of threats. The U.S. Army must also hone its ability to integrate joint and interagency assets, develop the situation through action, and adjust rapidly to changing situations to achieve what this concept deines as operational adaptability.14 The Army approaches the future from the perspective of Full Spectrum Operations. This is relected in the operational concept of developing the situation through action, conducting combined arms operations, employing a combination of defeat and stability mechanisms, integrating joint capabilities, cooperating with partners that includes multi-national as well as multi-agency, and exerting a psychological and technical inluence. This is an evolution - not a revolution - from the 2005 Capstone Concept. The new concept is less prescriptive but calls upon the force to adapt. It requires the Army leaders to develop a mindset “based on lexibility of thought” that is “comfortable with collaborative planning and decentralized execution, has a tolerance for ambiguity, and possess the ability and willingness to make rapid adjustments according to the situation.” 15 12 However, the Army’s Operating Concept, published in August 2010 to describe how the Army will execute its capstone concept described above, seems to embrace a more traditionalist approach, unlike the CCJO. Although it reafirms full spectrum operations and the need for the Army to assist in the establishment of political and economic stability, its tone and focus indicates a shift toward traditionalists, with a focus on defeating or ixing an enemy. The central idea outlined in this document is to use a combination of “combined arms maneuver and wide area security” to “seize, retain, and exploit the initiative.” Wide area security is deined as:”the protection of forces, populations, infrastructures, and activities...to deny the enemy the ability to gain physical, temporal, or psychological advantages.” Wide area security also “controls hostile populations and compels them to act in a manner consistent with U.S. objectives.” The example offered in the publication for wide area security is countering improvised explosive devices (IED). It goes on to say that wide area security could [my emphasis] “enable economic and political reconstruction, promote governance and the rule of law, and set the conditions for transfer of security responsibilities to host nation forces.” It does not consider the people of the area as part of the solution but as another thing that just needs protection from the “enemy.” This concept could tend to focus the military on the “security” aspects of stabilization rather than the balanced approach advocated by the current doctrine. The tension would be between short term solution to obtain immediate security pushed by the military verses long term development advocated by other agencies. It remains to be seen if this is the beginning of a retrenchment. 16 13 POLICY Starting in 1997 with the publication of the irst Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the Department of Defense began a process to address the post Soviet world. The DOD’s ability to deal with the size, shape and character of the new world was limited by legacy thought, processes and structures. The 1997 QDR focused on sizing the force based upon ighting two major theater conventional wars and concurrently engaging in a smaller-scale contingency operation. It was war focused but contained themes that would develop over time into the current 2010 QDR. The Military was to focus on deterring and defeating adversaries in cooperation with international partners through full spectrum engagement. It stated: The number and variety of military challenges the United States will likely face in the next 15 to 20 years require a military of suficient size and capability to defeat large enemy conventional forces, deter aggression and coercion, and conduct the full range of smaller-scale contingencies and shaping activities, all in the face of asymmetric challenges.” 17 Joint Vision 2010 written in 1997 by the Joint Staff was again a war-centered document that spoke to new technology to control the battlespace through dominate maneuver, precision engagement, fulldimensional protection and focused logistics. The joint force was expected to “dominate the full range of military operations from humanitarian assistance, through peace operations, up to and into the highest intensity conlict.”18 The joint vision did not discuss the variety of challenges, asymmetric or otherwise. 14 It assumed that preparing for the highest intensity of conlict would be applicable throughout the full range of possible options. It was not until 2005, after OEF and OIF were underway and the U.S. was engaged in a global struggle, that the QDR addressed the concept of engaging in a long complex war. The Department of Defense had to shift its portfolio of capabilities to address irregular, catastrophic and disruptive challenges while sustaining capabilities to address traditional ones. It conirmed the force sizing planning construct of the 2001 QDR as a valid one which resembled the 1997 QDR - both a variant of the two-war requirement although the latter stated that the force should be sized in accordance with full spectrum engagement. The 2006 QDR contains the following: In the post-September 11 world, irregular warfare has emerged as the dominant form of warfare confronting the United States, its allies and its partners; accordingly, guidance must account for distributed, long-duration operations, including unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and stabilization and reconstruction operations. For the foreseeable future, steady-state operations, including operations as part of a long war against terrorist networks, and associated rotation base and sustainment requirements, will be the main determinant for sizing U.S. forces consistent with the QDR’s emphasis on prevention. Finally, operational end-states deined in terms of “swiftly defeating” or “winning decisively” against adversaries may be less useful for some types of operations U.S. forces may be directed to conduct, such as supporting civil authorities to manage the consequences of catastrophic, mass casualty events at home, or conducting a long-duration, ir15 regular warfare campaign against enemies employing asymmetric tactics.19 The military was engaged in OEF and OIF and they emphasized its requirements and structure instead of the two-war requirement in the QDR. Secretary Gates has made the current reality of ighting around the globe the center piece of the 2010 QDR. The document recognizes that the outcome of the current conlict will shape the global environment and needs of the force. The 2010 QDR identiies four priority objectives: prevail in current wars; prevent and deter conlict; prepare to defeat adversaries and succeed in a wide range of contingencies; and preserve and enhance the All-Volunteer Force. The QDR also highlighted six key missions: 1) Defend the United States and support civil authorities at home; 2) Succeed in counterinsurgency, stability, and counterterrorism operations; 3) Build the security capacity of partner states; 4) Deter and defeat aggression in anti-access environments; 5) Prevent proliferation and counter weapons of mass destruction; and 6) Operate effectively in cyberspace. In support of these missions, this QDR extended the debate about irregular war found in the 2006 document, although the term was deconstructed into counterinsurgency, stability, and counterterrorism operations. The authors of the document want to insure that what has been learned will not be shoved aside as a complex environment will persist for the foreseeable future: 16 The wars we are ighting today and assessments of the future security environment together demand that the United States retain and enhance a wholeof-government capability to succeed in large-scale counterinsurgency (COIN), stability, and counterterrorism (CT) operations in environments ranging from densely populated urban areas and mega-cities, to remote mountains, deserts, jungles, and littoral regions. In some cases, it may be in the U.S. interest to help strengthen weak states, including those facing homegrown insurgencies and transnational terrorist and criminal networks or those that have been weakened by humanitarian disasters. Moreover, there are few cases in which the U.S. Armed Forces would engage in sustained large-scale combat operations without the associated need to assist in the transition to just and stable governance. Accordingly, the U.S. Armed Forces will continue to require capabilities to create a secure environment in fragile states in support of local authorities and, if necessary, to support civil authorities in providing essential government services, restoring emergency infrastructure, and supplying humanitarian relief.20 The above statement is in line with previous policy statements that have been issued since 2005. The 2005 DODD 3000.05, reissued in 2009 as DODI 3000.05, made stability operations a core military function and provided policy guidance to the joint forces and services to increase their capability and capacity to conduct such operations. DODD 3000.07 in 2008 provided policy to develop the capabilities to address irregular challenges.21 According to the QDR, U.S. forces will need to maintain a high level of competency in this mission area for decades to come. The QDR analyses conclude that U.S. forces should be lexible and adaptable so 17 they can confront the full range of challenges that may emerge from a complex and dynamic security environment as well as the need to perform their current missions more effectively. This goes beyond the need to design the force to ight and win two major regional conlicts against state adversaries employing conventional forces to a need to consider a wider range of threats and requirements. This QDR does not abandon the two MRC templates. Rather, it extends and attempts to create the ultimate utility inielder. The Air and Maritime forces are developing a “Joint Air-Sea Battle Concept” to increase their long range strike capability to counter any growing challenges to the U.S. The Land Forces will look toward counterinsurgency, counterterrorism and stability operations. The force sizing construct will build a force that can address all of the challenges that the DOD is facing today. This is a shift from previous QDRs that did not focus as much on the immediate challenges. Ideally, if the DOD can ix the current capacity and capability short falls, the force that is left will be well positioned to deal with emerging challenges. Currently, DOD is faced with a signiicant set of challenges that includes: two major contingencies, OEF and OIF; a lesser contingency in Kosovo; a humanitarian transitioning to a long term development mission in Haiti; foreign internal defense mission in Philippines; counterinsurgency support in the Horn of Africa; support to civil authority in the U.S. in general and along the Southern Border in speciic; global counter terrorism actions; sea control; counter ballistic missiles; the peacekeeping mission in the Sinai; counter drug operations; and other humanitarian missions such as the recent one in Pakistan. 18 The QDR embraces the whole of U.S. Government as well as the comprehensive approach with allies and host nations as key and essential to success and something that DoD needs to support. The QDR includes an entire chapter on strengthening relationships to include interagency partnership. This is following the lessons from OIF and OEF and the policy leads from the rest of the U.S. Government. In 2005, the National Security Presidential Directive 44 (NSPD 44) designated the Secretary of State to coordinate and lead integrated USG efforts to prepare, plan, conduct, and assess reconstruction and stabilization activities in coordination with international, other governmental and nongovernmental partners. Congress further authorized and deined this responsibility and role in Section XVI of the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act. The DOD was instrumental in aiding and supporting this whole of governmental through monetary as well as staff assistance. The following statement from the QDR illustrates the DOD position: As our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown, sustainable outcomes require civilian development and governance experts who can help build local civilian capacity. Although the U.S. military can and should have the expertise and capacity to conduct these activities, civilian leadership of humanitarian assistance, development, and governance is essential. The Department will retain capabilities designed to support civilian authorities as needed22. Additionally this QDR supports other whole of government policy initiatives in security sector assistance. In January 2008, the Departments of State and Defense and USAID issued a policy paper on security sector reform referred to as the 3D paper that provided guidance on how best to design, develop, 19 and deliver foreign assistance such that it promotes effective, legitimate, transparent, and accountable security sector development in partner states. It also outlines the roles and responsibilities of each of the departments. 23 The QDR makes a strong statement to continued support for integrated approaches. Many of our authorities and structures assume a neat divide between defense, diplomacy, and development that simply does not exist. For example, well-trained security forces are of limited utility, or indeed can even be counterproductive, without the institutional systems and processes to sustain them or the governance and regulatory frameworks to hold them accountable to civilian oversight and the rule of law. We have gained a new appreciation of the security sector—which includes the defense and criminal justice sectors, government management and oversight bodies, and civil society—as a system of systems that demands interagency partnerships. Developing the security sector requires comprehensive, whole-of-government programs and activities, but the current patchwork of authorities incentivizes piecemeal, stovepipe approaches. Solving this problem will require the recognition within our government that security is a shared responsibility and that our programs and processes must relect that reality.24 Policy direction is in place and represents a continuation and development of themes that have been previously identiied. Policy tells what should be done - doctrine describes how it should be done. DOCTRINE Is the doctrine in place to support the policy? Starting in December 1995, U.S. Army operations in support of NATO in the Balkans challenged the in20 stitution to address those complex peace operations. The result of this was the publication in 2003 of FM 3-07, Stability and Support Operations, a manual that incorporated the experiences of Haiti, Somalia, and the Balkans. While the Balkans awakened the U.S. Army and the Joint Force to the nature of peace operations, post-conlict Iraq required the Army and the U.S. Government to address the need for peace building and counter insurgency. Previously, the U.S. had de-emphasized these operations in doctrine and training, even while it was conducting those tasks in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. However, the scope and dificulty of the operation in Iraq served as a catalyst - not only for the U.S. Military but also the whole of U.S. government - to reconsider its doctrinal neglect of peace building and counterinsurgency. General David Petreaeus, when he was the commander of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, provided the force and foresight behind the development of the 2006 FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency. It was a manual unlike other Army doctrinal publications because it was developed through interactions with a wide range of experts from academia, government, international, and non-governmental sectors. It captured the essence of counterinsurgency, an essence that had been allowed to lie fallow by the general purpose forces since the closing days of Vietnam and only kept alive on the margins by the Special Operations Community who employed these techniques successfully in El Salvador. This manual was possible because of the needs that Iraq and Afghanistan were demonstrating daily. Soon Joint - and then Whole of Government - publications followed so that by 2009 the doctrinal thought on counterinsurgency was maturing. 21 FM 3-24 heralded the beginning of a series of publications by the Army and later by the Joint Force and other parts of the U.S. Government to provide a way ahead to assist their institutions to face a complex and challenging environment. FM 3-0, Operations, the Army’s capstone operations manual, was developed by General Wallace, the Commanding General TRADOC, and published in 2008. It embraced the full spectrum approach to all operations and emphasized the role that stability played in each operation. It stated the commander should plan for the defeat of the enemy and also concurrently for the stabilization of the area. The new operational approach for the U.S. Army would be to frame the problem comprehensively and to simultaneously consider the appropriate combinations of defeat and stabilization mechanisms to achieve the U.S. national objective. Later that year, a new rewrite of FM 3-07, Stability Operations, was undertaken by Lieutenant General William Caldwell, the commander of the Combined Arms Center, who borrowed a leaf from the process that built FM 3-24 and opened the document for whole of government collaboration. The rewrite was facilitated by Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) and the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) and Lieutenant Colonel Steve Leonard - the author at Combined Arms Center - spent months collaborating with related institutions as well as subject matter experts to produce this manual. These collaborative processes served to increase mutual understanding across the whole of government. Joint and allied doctrine has followed. With the Army as the lead, JP 3-24, Counterinsurgency Operations appeared in October 2009. In 2011, the Joint Force is expected to produce a joint doctrinal publica- 22 tion on stability using a similar process. The United Kingdom, France and NATO have followed suit. In 2008 the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations published the irst “capstone” doctrine manual on the principles and guidelines for peace operations that presents many of the same themes; thus, there is a growing international continuity. One of the tenants of this doctrine and the 2010 QDR is the centrality of the whole of government and comprehensive approach. The 2010 QDR states that the “U.S. military is not the most appropriate institution to lead capacity-building efforts to enhance civilian institutions overseas.” 25 Other parts of the U.S. Government have been considering the need for doctrine or guidelines. The U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide was published in 2009 by the Department of State as a whole of government approach. Other documents dealing with governance and economics were published by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to inform actors trying to assist a country under combat conditions. In 2009, USIP collaborated with PKSOI and published the Guidelines for Stabilization and Reconstruction, a distillation of the wisdom of all the practitioners in the ield- foreign and domestic, governmental and private. Additionally there have been numerous interagency working groups spawned by NSPD-44 that are working on doctrine to describe the interagency planning and coordination processes necessary for success. S/ CRS has developed frameworks and planning guides for stability and reconstruction. The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) was published at the end of 2010 and is a sweeping assessment of how the Department of State and the United States Agency for International 23 Development (USAID) can become more eficient, accountable, and effective in a world in which rising powers, growing instability, and technological transformation create new threats, but also new opportunities. The doctrine and policies do a good job in describing the parts of the problem but do not provide much guidance on how leaders are to bring all of these parts together at the strategic and operational level to achieve national goals. The USIP “Guidelines” provides some help in discussing risks and tradeoffs that leaders must consider and the emerging guidance for UN mission leadership team may help but more work needs to be done. The doctrine and policies seem to be preparing to precipitate change, but now the issue seems to be, if it is written, will anyone read it? They are, after all, only words. The words can only be brought to life by training and educating the force, structuring the force and resourcing the force. The next section will look at how far this has come and what shortfalls remain. ACTION PLANS In August 2007 the Army realized that it needed an action plan to institutionalize the policy and doctrinal guidance. The Action Plan for Stability Operations was published to improve Army capabilities and capacities to execute stability operations, as well as to implement DoD Directive 3000.05. This plan is the keystone document that aims to integrate stability operations policy, initiatives, and activities across the Army to include doctrine, organizations, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities and planning. The Department of the Army (DA) and the Combined Arms Center, Ft. Leavenworth have responsibilities to 24 monitor, integrate, coordinate and manage. This is a process that is underway and all the mechanisms to bring this to fruition have yet to be fully implemented. Similarly, the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has published - with Joint Forces Command in support - DoD Directive 3000.07 Irregular Warfare, a Joint Operating concept that conducts annual reviews of IW issues, prepares a series of joint integrating concepts, and conducts a series of workshops that address the education, training, organizational and resourcing issues of IW across the total force. The staff section on the SOCOM staff with assistance from the IW Center at Joint Forces Command and a community of interest that meets via periodic Video Teleconferences oversees this process. In March 2009 when he was the Commanding General of Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), General Mattis, issued his vision regarding irregular warfare (IW). In it, he identiied and prioritized the efforts necessary to achieve the objectives and guidance laid down by DOD Directive 3000.07. General Mattis stated that JFCOM is determined to lead the way in achieving a balanced joint force where IW is a core competency. USJFCOM will partner with interagency, multinational, Ofice of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, combatant commands, services and intelligence community partners in order to achieve this vision. The vision outlines a timeline and expectations for directorates and subordinate commands. Over the next six to twelve months, the command will focus its IW efforts on concept development and experimentation, capability development/joint integration and interoperability, training and education, joint provision/global force management and external engagement. The Irregular Warfare Center of JFCOM will coordinate the efforts. 26 25 TRAINING AND EDUCATION Plans are in place and coordination is occurring. However, after almost 17 years of conducting these operations, training and educational shortfalls still exist. The institutionalization of the doctrinal concepts by both the military and civilian community has been spotty and incomplete.27 This is not unusual, given that the formal operational level doctrine for the Army was completed only a year ago, as of March 2010 the joint doctrine is only in draft, and the USIP Guidelines for Stabilization and Reconstruction was published in October 2009. RAND researchers indicate that it takes several years for concepts to move from operational level doctrine manuals into the force. The gaps in the education and training stem from a lack of “internalizing” the framework described in the new doctrinal manuals and translating that framework into understanding at the institutional, unit and individual educational and training levels. The most recent description of these shortfalls was identiied by Major General (MG) Michael Flynn, the Chief, CJ2, International Security Assistance Force and CJ2, US Forces – Afghanistan, in his paper titled Fixing Intel: Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to our overall strategy. Having focused the overwhelming majority of our collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, our vast intelligence apparatus still inds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which we operate and the people we are trying to persuade. Ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the 26 powerbrokers are and how we might inluence them, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and the levels of cooperation of villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to ind answers—whether aid workers or Afghan soldiers—U.S. intelligence oficers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis, and information they need to wage a successful counterinsurgency28 Part of the problem is the lack of training, education and understanding of the recent doctrine. The following was quoted in General Flynn’s paper: A frank after-action report by XVIII Airborne Corps underscores how far military intelligence training still must go to make analysts relevant in a counterinsurgency. The following is an excerpt from their report: “Intelligence analytical support to COIN operations requires a higher level of thinking, reasoning, and writing than conventional operations. In general, neither enlisted nor oficer personnel were adequately trained to be effective analysts in a COIN environment…. In an overall intelligence staff of 250, CJ2 leadership assessed four or ive personnel were capable analysts with an aptitude to put pieces together to form a conclusion.” From: Center for Army Lessons Learned, “06-27 XVIII Airborne Corps/Multi-National CORPSIraq.” 29 As MG Flynn suggests in his paper, this will require education and training to look at the environment differently. It will also mean taking a different approach to traditional disciplines such as information operations or what the UK calls “inluence operations” in their new doctrinal publications. Traditionally the force has spent little time on understanding that operations in the new environment should be 27 constructed by considering inluence irst, rather than constructing an operation and then added the information operations annex afterward. Various ad-hoc solutions have been put in place to make up for the deicits in institutional education and training. The QDR states that all operations will be conducted in a whole of government, comprehensive approach, but the institutional military training and education have not been able to successfully incorporate the whole of government approach into their preparation. This is partly caused by the lack of capacity in the other agencies of government to provide the people and time. Several units from the 82nd Airborne to the 10th Mountain Division have launched their own initiatives to try to ill this institutional gap.30 In 2006, U. S. Army Combined Arms Center Commander, LTG David Petraeus, and U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development Center (MCCDC) Commander Lt. Gen. James Mattis established the Counter Insurgency (COIN) Center in response to a need to better educate and train all U.S. ground forces on the principles and practices of counterinsurgency and to better integrate COIN efforts among the services. Subsequently, COIN centers were established in both Iraq and Afghanistan to make up for the institutional training gaps to insure that the military personnel have the appropriate COIN mindset. These organizations have been checking and assisting at various training venues such as the Army’s major training centers that have converted from force-on-force battles to replicate the COIN/stability operational environment. Indications from these centers are that they have made progress but more work needs to be done to ensure that the operational concepts have been institutionalized. Neil Smith, formerly of the COIN center, recently described 28 the situation in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceeding as such; Despite ighting counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq for the better part of the past decade, counterinsurgency, or COIN, remains a tense subject for the U.S. Army, and it has not embraced the topic in its educational institutions. There is no single cause for this shortfall. Culprits include institutional bias toward conventional warighting, an Army training and doctrine command stripped of active-duty talent to ill more critical warighting skills, a lethargic education bureaucracy staffed largely by retirees and contractors, and confusion over the nature of counterinsurgency. Despite sporadic and halting efforts to incorporate the subject as a core competency, such instruction remains uneven in both quality and quality throughout the Army, to the detriment of operational performance. 31 Leader education is key and essential to insuring that these concepts are internalized. The Center for New American Security’s February 2010 report, Keeping the Edge: Revitalizing America’s Military Oficer Corps, concludes that the education for oficers is inadequate to address the current and emerging security concerns and an overhaul of the education programs is essential.32 There is substantial tension in oficer training programs between cultivating excellence in tactical and technical competencies and developing the qualities needed for operating in complex environments in concert with multiple partners. A more holistic oficer development program is required to counteract a disproportionate focus on tactical training over strategic education. Strategy and warighting are integrative tasks, requiring not only the ability to operate specialized equipment or to command a tactical unit, but also 29 an understanding of how different pieces it together to ensure the achievement of national objectives.33 There are other calls for action along with several recent articles to institutionalize proper education at all levels of military oficers that address full spectrum operations. The Winter 2009-2010 issue of Parameters, the journal of the U.S. Army War College, devoted a major section toward developing the strategic leader. The articles have identiied the challenge in the past in institutionalizing such subjects as cross-cultural understanding, that is critical for full spectrum operations, and recommend solutions. Additionally, the House of Representatives Report on Professional Military Education examined to what extent the U.S. military is incorporating irregular warfare and stability into their curriculum. It concluded that although there has been some progress, it is not enough. It stated that the “Oficer Professional Military Education Policy (OPMEP) has no distinct Learning Area for stability operations, despite those operations being recognized as a core military mission comparable to combat operations since 1995 by Departmental policy, which directed that stability operations be ‘explicitly addressed and integrated across all DOD activities,’ including those involved in education”. 34 TRADOC has identiied several institutional obstacles in the way of educating and assigning leaders. Current Army practices and policies are over 30 years out of date and produce leaders that are equipped to meet yesterday’s problems. These policies undervalue education and non-traditional experience with other agencies and organizations and instead regard combat experience as paramount in assignments and promotions. Army leadership emphasizes the need to 30 broaden the experiences of the military oficers outside of the Army and to look critically at the skills and attributes needed by the Army’s leaders. However, the task is challenging. Institutionally, the Army is still a one-size-its-all system with a stereotype of the type of leader produced by boards and rewarded in eficiency reports. In 2004 the Commanding General TRADOC, General Kevin P. Byrnes, tasked the U.S. Army War College to study the post initial-entry Oficer Education System (OES). The Agile Leader Study’s charter was to assess OES curricula to determine how well-suited they were for developing leaders to operate effectively in the contemporary operational environment. This study identiied the institutional obstacles and proposed a way ahead. Many of those obstacles still exist and were addressed at UNIFIED QUEST 2010 the Annual U.S. Army’s annual futures study. Institutions change slowly. 35 The Department of the Army and Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) has identiied the need to translate the operational level doctrine into supporting documents that can cause a change in the institutional training. This means Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP), a Universal Task List (UTL), Mission Essential Task List (METL), a Combined Arms Training Strategy (CATS), standard training scenarios, supporting training materials and reference handbooks need to be produced. Many of these pieces and parts have been in various stages of development over the past years but they all need to be brought together to provide coherent guidance to the force. In December 2009 the Army published its new Mission Essential Task List. The METL outlines the minimal fundamental doctrinal tasks that a unit is designed to perform in any operational environment. Work is now underway 31 to examine all of the Army Universal Tasks (AUTL) to determine if they support the operational- level doctrine discussed above and to reine the METL. This AUTL is a standard set of collective tasks below the Corps level that the Army is expected to perform. It takes the operational- level doctrine and translates it into discrete tasks, provides explanation and reference and performance objectives. The Army uses these tasks and designs training programs. This review is expected to be completed by 2011. Likewise, the Joint Warighting Center at JFCOM is doing a similar thing with the Universal Task List and Joint Training Standards to provide guidance to the joint force and measure the readiness and training proiciency of individuals and units. 36 Part of the challenge in addressing education and training at all levels is the lack of adequate personnel in the training base to take the doctrinal concepts and convert them into the guidance outline above. Another challenge is the lack of capacity in the other government agencies to support a whole of government educational effort. The force, out of necessity and capacity, is focused on the current conlict. General Martin Dempsey identiied this short fall in his memorandum to the Chief of Staff of the Army on 16 February 2010 titled Erosion of TRADOC’s Core Competencies and Functions.37 He estimates that TRADOC is over 900 product work years behind, thus preventing the Army from designing an institution to address the future. 38 Has the military become too engaged in the current ight to sit back, read the new doctrine, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate to gain understanding about how the institution should adapt? Robert Scales offers interesting insights from British history prior to WWI where action rather than intellectual prepara- 32 tion was rewarded. He warns of the dangers of this happening now and recommends immediate action from either the services or Congress.39 Policy and doctrinal documents require that the whole of government be prepared to address full spectrum operations. Interagency planners within the Civilian Response Corps must possess suficient knowledge, skills, and experience to lead the process of developing whole-of-government and comprehensive reconstruction and stabilization plans at the strategic, regional and country levels that integrate the diplomatic, defense, and development considerations/actions required to create a secure, stable, and sustainably peaceful environment in a given country or region. Progress has been made in this area over the past several years. The National Security Council (NSC) has formed interagency working groups to focus on exercises, education and training. Several courses, open to all of the agencies of the U.S. government have been launched and others are under development. Currently the whole of US government offers a “Foundations Course” to introduce the basic functions and concepts of the U.S. Government and a “Level I Planner’s Course” to develop the knowledge and skills necessary for the graduates to assist in the whole of government planning process. These higher level courses are in addition to the other multi-agency training initiatives to prepare individuals deploying to Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in Iraq and Afghanistan, preparing the DOD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce, and the multiagency training initiatives at the various U.S. Army Combat Training Centers. New initiatives are underway to assess the effectiveness of this training and propose a way ahead. 33 Institutions are slowly inculcating the policy and doctrine into the thoughts and actions. However, lack of capability is hampering these efforts. Secretary Gate’s vision will not come to fruition until the institution has internalized it. This can only happen through a concerted, focused and coordinated effort that is well resourced. Otherwise, the words in the policy and doctrine documents will remain just words. STRUCTURE Secretary Gates recognizes that there is a problem in his vision. He is concerned that there are signiicant “institutional shortcomings to overcome … [that there is] no strong deeply rooted constituency inside the Pentagon or elsewhere for institutionalizing our capability to wage asymmetric or irregular conlict.” 40 His concerns are valid in that the force structure, procedures and policies for housekeeping in the military still relect the Cold War and the draw downs post Vietnam and the fall of the Soviet Union. The history of force structure since the fall of the Berlin Wall has been one of reduction of the force and not a restructuring.41 Force structure and procedures are the hardest to change because they represent the vested interests of powerful stakeholders, including the industrial base. Numerous scholars and military oficers have continuously called for an overhaul of military structures and procedures, but as most recent studies of the current administrations budget indicate, there is a continued lack of discipline in the budget and a continuation of legacy thought and structures.42 The consequences of retaining legacy structures and inadequate broad- based capacity are the current ad-hoc arrangements that may or may not have 34 institutional staying power. Key examples of ad-hoc responses are the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), Military and Police Training and Advisory Teams, Agribusiness Development Teams from the National Guard, Human Terrain Teams (HTTs), Base Camp Headquarters, Atmospherics Teams, CounterIED Teams, Afghan liaison oficers, Female Engagement Teams, and the use of Artillery oficers and NCOs in civil affairs (CA) missions. In 2005, the Marines gave its four Artillery Regiments the secondary mission to serve as Civil Affairs. The existence of institutions such as the Irregular Warfare Centers in the USMC and JFCOM, the Joint US Army and USMC COIN Center at Fort Leavenworth, the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) at the U.S. Army War College, and other such centers in other Services is an indication that these concepts are not mainstreamed. There are no centers for offensive or defensive operations. The PRT is one example on an ad-hoc structure. It was created in 2002 to help improve stability in Afghanistan and Iraq by increasing the host nation’s capacity to govern; enhancing economic viability; and strengthening local governments’ ability to deliver public services, such as security and health care. PRTs are a means of coordinating interagency diplomatic, economic, reconstruction, and counterinsurgency efforts among various U.S. agencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. PRTs are intended to be interim structures; after a PRT has achieved its goal of improving stability, it may be dismantled to allow traditional development efforts to occur.43 Rand Cooperation studied this problem and observed the following: 35 PRTs were an ad hoc solution to the recognition of a capability gap in Afghanistan, namely, insuficient U.S. Army Civil Affairs force structure and a lack of public institution–building skills. There is a great deal of expertise in the U.S. government that is relevant to SSTR operations. However, the U.S. government lacked an organization with all the required skills. In other words, the capability gap that emerged was that the U.S. government was not organized in a manner that allowed it to assist easily a host nation’s effort to build public institutions. PRTs were supposed to ill that gap by harnessing and organizing existing U.S. government capabilities into a new tool to address the problems and drivers of instability at the local level. Lacking an operational concept to clarify the goal, capabilities, mission, tasks, and skill sets required, PRTs have relected the challenges facing future interagency teams.44 This type of organization has been used in various forms for years, discussed in civil affairs courses but has not fully crossed into doctrine. It is not a part of either the Civil Military Doctrine or the Civil Affairs (CA) doctrine. Because it remains an ad-hoc structure, it has not been subjected to the force design and force development regime. Therefore, its operational concept remains luid, its structure varies; it places no demand on institutional human resources nor on the training base. There are no demands on the system to provide a trained stream of personnel to ill the slots because those slots are temporary. Additionally, given the multi-agency nature of the PRT, the problems are compounded. There is signiicant institutional resistance toward embracing this concept, yet it is seen as a key element in both OEF and OIF. In another example, the structure of CA has remained under-resourced even though the requirement has always outstripped the capability at least 36 since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989.45 The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps has assigned artillery oficers to do CA missions, signaling a structural imbalance in the force. The push to reform, relook and restructure, CA has been going on for many years with little success with 98 percent of the CA capability in the reserve component. It took Congressional action to move the force. Congress realized that there was inadequate CA force structure and directed that OSD prepare a report on the requirements and roles of CA throughout the spectrum of operations. OSD released its report on 29 April 09. The QDR 2010 supports increasing the capacity of the CA, and by 2015 a new Active and Reserve Brigade will join the force. Similar initiatives to expand CA capacity exist in the USMC, Navy and the Air Force. This structure comes with enhancements in training as well. However, the CA will suffer structurally by being divided between the Special Operations Community and the General Purpose force community. For example, the new active CA brigade of some 1,400 spaces, primarily designed to provide a direct support CA Company to each BCT, will be assigned to FORSCOM, not SOCCOM. The internal design of these organizations does not relect any of the other whole of government initiatives with the Civilian Reserve Corps nor the DOD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce that is developing functional area deployable expertise. The CA functional area expertise that has been most critical in the ield since Panama in 1989 is predominately located in the Army Reserve. It has been these areas that the CA have been challenged to recruit, train and retain. 46 In 2006, General David Petraeus, as the commander of the Combined Arms Center, directed a relook at 37 the U.S. Army structural design below division level. Organizational design below division has been in development since the implementation of Modularity and ielding of Brigade Combat Teams starting in 2004. However, the redesign of the structures of Division and above had not progressed as fast. Although the Army had launched on a path of transformation, much of the innovative thinking about theater military advisor and assistance groups, integration with whole of government concepts, and echelons above division has proven dificult. The understanding and integration of such functions as engineers and military police, and new units such as Maneuver Enhancement Brigades, is still under consideration - not to mention the impact on other components such as the National Guard.47 Several state National Guard units have put together ad hoc teams such as Agribusiness Development Teams to support stability operations. National Guard units from agricultural states are sending in small teams of specialists to help Afghan farmers improve the way they cultivate crops. Guard members with agriculture and civil engineering degrees, or with practical skills such as welding and animal husbandry are setting up demonstration farms, and helping Afghans go from subsistence farming to where they can earn extra money for their crops. These teams are pulled from the pool of available guardsmen and do not relect change of mission, structure, or orientation. But again, if these requirements will exist in the future then a whole of government review of needs and structure needs to be conducted. 48 The structural and procedural problems extend to many other areas in the U.S. Military and the U.S. Government. Years ago, the U.S. military and the 38 U.S. Government possessed signiicant capabilities to conduct key stability operations tasks. But after the Vietnam War, the robust support structures of the U.S. Military and the other parts of the U.S. government such as USAID were reduced. “Over the past 20 years, State and USAID have lost much capacity, with State’s budget cut by nearly half and USAID’s staff down-sized by about 50 percent”49 During the Korean War, the Army deployed not only 30-odd combat engineer battalions, but also 15 engineer construction battalions, together with countless bridge-building, topographic, water-puriication, explosive ordnance disposal, pipeline, heavy equipment maintenance and even dump truck companies—altogether, enough manpower, materiel, and technical skills to repair and even rebuild entire municipalities, a task they accomplished more than once during both World War II and the Korean conlict.. Ditto for security. In Korea, for example, the Army ielded eight military police battalions and more than 30 separate MP companies and detachments.50 This reduction has left both the military and the USAID and other parts of the government with contracting and/or diverting forces from other functions to cover these much needed areas. This has lead to some severe problems and at times signiicant waste of resources. The Special Inspector General for Iraq (SIGIR) has recorded this problem. During the 1990s, the Army reduced its acquisition workforce by 25 percent, while, during the same period, its contracting actions increased sevenfold. This left the Army with a shortage of warranted contracting oficers just when the largest overseas contracting program in U.S. history was beginning in 2003. The Army has taken steps to remedy its contracting problems, thanks in part to the Gansler Commission Re39 port, which documented signiicant contracting weaknesses.51 The lack of vision is evident in the Army’s Modernization Strategy. The 2010 Army’s Modernization Strategy states that it directly supports the 2010 QDR yet it is silent on civil military teaming. It talks about building a networked service but it deines that as one with other services and allies. Yet the key to success in stability operations is networking with the whole of government, international organizations, NGOs and ultimately, the host nation. Previous studies of the current operational environment all point to the inadequacy of nesting military operations into the larger comprehensive approach - yet the Army’s Modernization Strategy is focused on a military solution to what looks like a military problem. It is embracing a return to a default position. 52 WILL Is there the will to sustain this slow institutional change? Both the Pew and Gallup research indicate that America’s enthusiasm for global engagement especially in Iraq and Afghanistan - is declining. It is not surprising, given the recent economic situations and the extended nature of international military engagements. However, the public is still supportive of some level of global engagement and sees the U.S. as playing a major role in international affairs. It is not clear how much appetite there will be to support an increase in Defense spending or increase in Defense capabilities. Rather, there are strong indications of defense budget cuts and the elimination of special appropriations. This was the harbinger of a return to 40 the comfortable default position. As the post-Vietnam era demonstrated, some level of public support is necessary for continued transformation of not only the military but also the rest of the government. The path is not yet clear for continued transformation. A great deal will depend on the results of the Iraq and Afghanistan engagements and how that is perceived by the American Public. 53 CONCLUSION The U.S. Military is moving toward the Utility Inielder school of thought. For the Army, this would be a general purpose force of Brigade Combat Teams and enabling brigades that can balance the diverse requirements of the immediate future and accept risk concerning the rise of a peer competitor that would want to face the U.S. in a conventional ‘force-on-force’ scenario. While this does not require either the bifurcated Army or large numbers of specialized stability operations units advocated by some, this may necessitate the creation of a modest set of units with a standard, approved organizational design primarily intended to perform missions during stability operations or for security force assistance. The Combined Arms Center, as the Army’s proponent for Stability Operations and security force assistance, could use this opportunity to capture the Army’s valuable recent experience to establish these organizations and units, such as PRTs, HTTs, security coordination detachments, Agricultural teams, Interorganizational Advisory Teams, etc. to replace previous ad hoc units to the maximum extent possible. These units, once approved by TRADOC, would then be available to be sourced in the active or reserve components. As such, they could also be 41 used in Army analytical processes as place holders to identify stability operations requirements, or to be requested by joint force commanders for current operations or apportionment to OPLANs.54 Although the transformation has begun, progress is not yet assured. The transformation of institutions takes time, resources, and a nurturing environment. The areas of training education, organizational structure and institutional ‘housekeeping’ are lagging behind. Without those areas transitioning, it is doubtful that a meaningful shift toward Secretary Gates’ vision will occur. ► Demand for U.S. leadership increases ► DoD must provide full-spectrum approach to complex situations ► Comprehensive Whole of Government (WoG), international response working with host nation(s) ► DoD unlikely to face a peer competitor in the near future willing to engage in traditional warfare ► Resources available to DoD and USG will be constrained Adapted from Nathan Freier, Known Unknowns: Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development (2009) Table 2: Immediate Truths 42 Nate Freier55 (2009, p.88) observed several immutable defense truths and suggests that the following need to be addressed: 56 • The demand for U.S. leadership in the world will increase. • The Department of Defense will be called upon again to provide a full spectrum approach to a complex situation, some would call hybrid that will require its full capability kinetic and nonkinetic. It will have to “Defeat and Stabilize.” • The response will require a comprehensive approach with Department of Defense in support of the whole of U.S. Government and the international community with the host nation as the focus. • The other agencies of the U.S. Government will continue to struggle to provide the appropriate capacity, requiring the Department of Defense to continue to use ad-hoc solutions to ill the gaps. • The Department of Defense will most likely not be facing an enemy Armed Force from a near peer competitor in the immediate future who will be willing to engage in traditional warfare. The type of challenge may well be one of the strategic shocks that have been discussed and will stretch the DoD and government to respond. 57 • The resources available to the DoD and the U.S. Government as a whole will continue to be constrained; more with have to be done with what is there. 43 The Way Ahead The U.S. Military should make a concerted effort to complete its transition out of the Cold War structures and procedures so that the new default position is established. This should be done to capitalize on the current nurturing environment while it lasts. This transformation must be accomplished in concert with all of the other agencies of the U.S. Government and in collaboration with other nations. The U.S. Government needs to fully embrace an education and training regime for a Defense professional, building on the initiatives that have started. The U.S. Government needs to capitalize on the vision of NSPD 44 to create a coherent governmental response to pre, during, and post crisis. Indeed the perceptions of what has been or should have been accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan will affect the outcome of this new transformation. With the announcement that JFCOM will be going away, it remains to be seen what the future holds for these initiatives. A Caution The following is a quotation from a former PRT commander in Iraq who had previous service in the Balkans: I fear that our institutions will forget the painful lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, that they will forget the cost of not being prepared to deal with civilians, police forces, sewer systems, water pipes, electrical plants, road projects, unemployment, housing shortages, looted hospitals, empty schools, and refugees. I have this dreadful image in my head. Its twenty years in the future and I’m on a panel in a symposium along 44 with a tottering geyser from Vietnam, a veteran of the CORDs program. American troops are struggling in a war-torn country with looters, a broken infrastructure, a humanitarian catastrophe, and a terribly disorganized international response. The fact that a new generation of interagency players wants to learn everything they can about Civ-Mil Teams, because they are about to face the ire, is little consolation for the fact that we weren’t prepared, again.58 ENDNOTES 1. Fred Anderson, Crucible of War (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), pp. 410, 411. 2. Andrew Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1942-1976 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2006), p. 477. 3. Frank G. Hoffman, “Striking a Balance,” Armed Forces Journal (July 2009), accessed online at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2009/07/4099782/. 4. Robert M. Gates, “The National Defense Strategy, Striking the Right Balance,” Armed Forces Journal (Issue 52, 1st Quarter 2009) 4; Robert M Gates, “Keynote Address, AUSA Annual Meeting DoD and the U.S. Army” Army (December 2009), p. 35. 5. Ibid., p. 35. 6. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has recommended General Dempsey as the next Army Chief of Staff. 7. James Kitield, “The Counter-Revolution in Military Affairs,” National Journal (4 December, 2009) accessed 1 Feb 2010 from Proquest http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=19154894 91&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=20167&RQT=309&VName=PQD. 8. Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli, U.S. Army, with Major Stephen M. Smith, U.S. Army, “Learning from our Modern Wars: The Imperatives of Preparing for a Dangerous Future,” Military Review (September-October 2007), pp. 2-5. 45 9. Ibid., pp. 2-5. 10. David Cloud and Greg Jaffe, The Fourth Star (New York: Crown Publishers, 2009), pp. 99,108,199,259. Used as background for Petraeus, Chiarelli, and McMaster. 11. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Capstone Concept for Joint Operations Version 3.0 (Washington, D.C.: 15 January 2009), p. 1. 12. Ibid., p. 20. 13. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Capstone Concept for Joint Operations Version 2.0 (Washington, D.C.: August 2005), p. 1. 14. TRADOC, The Army Capstone Concept: Operational Adaptability, Operating under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Ear of Persistent Conlict 2016-2028, TRADOC PAM 525-3-0 (Ft Monroe VA: 21 December 2009), pp. 11, 14, 26. 15. Ibid., pp. 11, 14, 26. 16. TRADOC, The United States Army Operating Concept: 20162018, TRADOC PAM 525-3-1 (Ft Monroe VA: 10 August 2010), pp. 11, 14, 26. 17. Ofice of Secretary of Defense, The Quadrennial Defense Review May 1997 (Washington D.C.: May 1997) access 2 Feb 2010 http://www.fas.org/man/docs/qdr/sec3.html 18. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Vision 2010 (Washington D.C.: 1997, p. 23. 19. Ofice of Secretary of Defense, The Quadrennial Defense Review Report February 6 2006 (Washington D.C.: 2006), p. 36. 20. Ofice of Secretary of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report 2010 (Washington D.C.: 2010), p. 20. 21. Ofice of the Secretary of Defense, DoD Directive 3000.05, “Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations,” (Washington D.C.: November 28, 46 2005) 1. Ofice of the Secretary of Defense, DoD Directive 3000.07, “Irregular Warfare (IW),” (Washington D.C.: December 1, 2008), p. 1. 22. 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), p. 69. 23. U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of State, and U.S. Agencies for Intersector Reform (Washington D.C.: January 2008). 24. 2010 QDR, p. 74. 25. Ibid., p 70. 26. Joint Forces Command Web page: accessed 25 Feb 2010 http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2009/pa032509. html 27. The COIN Centers in Afghanistan and Iraq have identiied this issue to PKSOI and the COIN Center at Ft Leavenworth over the last year in periodic VTCs. Neil Smith, “Education the Army in its Own COIN,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings, (Annapolis: Feb 2010) 42. Neil was the operational oficer COIN center and describes why the U.S. Army has not embraced COIN in their educational institutions. 28. Major General Michael Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul Batchelor, Fixing Intelligence: A Blue Print for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan, (Afghanistan; ISAF, 10 Jan 2010), p. 1. 29. Ibid., p. 22. 30. “Special Skills Initiative.” 10th Mountain Division slide presentation 19 Feb 2010. 31. Neil Smith, “Education the Army in its Own COIN,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings, (Annapolis: Feb 2010), p. 42. 32. Dr. John A. Nagl and Brian M. Burton ed. Keeping The Edge: Revitalizing America’s Military Oficer Corps (Washington D.C.: Center for a New American Security, Feb 2010). 47 33. Ibid., p. 6. 34. Allison Abbe and Stanley M. Halpin “The Cultural Imperative for Professional Military Education and Leader Development,” Parameters 39 (4) (Winter 2009-2010), p. 29. U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Another Crossroads? Professional Military Education Two Decades after the Goldwater-Nichols (Washington DC: April 2010), p. 73. 35. General Martin E. Dempsey, “A Campaign of Learning avoiding the Failure of Imagination,” RUSI Journal, 155, no 3 (June/July 2010), p. 8-9. Christopher Gehler, Agile Leadership, Agile Institutions: Educating Adaptive and Innovative Leaders for Today and Tomorrow. (Carlisle PA: Army War College Strategic Studies Institute 2005). http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/ pubs/display.cfm?pubID=618. HQ TRADOC, Leader Development Seminar: Professional Military Education II Panel (Booz Allen Hamilton 4 Mar 2010), p. 3. 36. Col Tim Loney PKSOI E mail “GPF IW-Relevant Joint Training Tasks and Standards Workshop Announcement” February 25, 2010. 37. General Martin Dempsey, “Erosion of TRADOC’s Core Competencies and Functions,” memorandum for General George W. Casey, Chief of Staff U.S. Army, Fort Monroe, VA, February 16, 2010. 38. Nancy A Youssef, “General Sounds Alarm on U.S. Army Training,” McClatchy Newspapers (March 3, 2010) http://www. mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/03/89799/general-sounds-alarm-onus-army.html accessed 10 March 2010. 39. Robert Scales, “Too Busy To Learn,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings, 136, Issue 2 (February 2010), pp. 30-36. 40. Robert Gates, “The National Defense Strategy: Striking the Right Balance,” Joint Forces Quarterly (52 1st Qtr 2009), p. 6 41. Richard Lacquement Jr. Shaping American Military Capabilities After the Cold War. (Westport: Connecticut; Praeger, 2003) 139-142 outlines the issue in great detail. 48 42. Carl Conetta, An Undisciplined Defense Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in US Defense Spending (Cambridge: Mass: Project on Defense Alternatives, 18 January 2010), pp 39, 49, 52. 43. Government Accountability Ofice, Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan and Iraq, (Washington D.C.: October 1, 2008), p. 1. 44. Thomas S. Szayna, Derek Eaton, James E. Barnett II, Brooke Stearns Lawson, Terrence K. Kelly, Zachary Haldeman, Integrating Civilian Agencies in Stability Operations (Santa Monica: RAND 2009), p. 82. 45. William Flavin authors studies as a policy advisor in the Low Intensity Conlict Directorate of ASD (SOLIC) from 1989 to 1991. Bruce Pirnie and Corazon Francisco, Assessing Requirements For Peacekeeping, Humanitarian Assistance, And Disaster Relief (Santa Monica: RAND 1998) lays out the argument to adjust the military force structure. 46. Col Bryan Groves, “The Future of Civil Affairs,” PKSOI Point Paper (Carlisle, PA: 22 Dec 2009). 47. Colonel Scott Wuestner, “Building Partner Capacity/ Security Force Assistance: A New Structural Paradigm, “ Letort Papers (Carlisle, SSI 2008) describes the need to structurally address security force assistant globally, a need that has not been addressed by the U.S. Army. 48. Stew Magnuson, “National Guard Sends Agricultural Teams to Afghanistan,” National Defense December 2009. http:// www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2009/December/ Pages/NationalGuardSendsAgricultureTeamstoAfghanistan. aspx (accessed 03/11/2010) 49. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Applying Iraq’s Hard Lessons to the Reform of Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations (Washington D.C.: February 2010). 50. Richard Hart Sinnreich, “Haiti Reminds Us How the U.S. Military Has Changed,” Army (March 2010), p. 22. 49 51. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Applying Iraq’s Hard Lessons to the Reform of Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations (Washington D.C.: February 2010), p. 1. 52. Department of the Army, 2010 Army Modernization Strategy (Washington D.C.: 23 April 2010) 7; William Flavin, Civil Military Operations Afghanistan; Observations on Civil Military Operations During the First Year of Operation Enduring Freedom (Carlisle PA: U.S. Army War College, 24 March 2004), p. 47. 53. Andrew Kohut, “But What Do the Polls Show?” The Politics of News: The News of Politics, in Pew Research Center http:// pewresearch.org/pubs/1379/polling-history-influence-policymaking-politics (assessed 12/28/2009), Pew Research Center, “At Year’s End, Nation Remains Divided” (December 16, 2009), http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1442/obama-year-endapproval-rating-afghanistan-health-care . (Assessed 03/10/2010) Gallup, “Military and National Defense,” Gallup Poll 2009, http://www.gallup.com/poll/166/Military-National-Defense. aspx?version=print (Accessed 12/28/2009). Jodie Allen, “Polling Wars: Hawks vs. Doves,” Pew Research Center, November 23, 2009, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1420/american-opinion-ofwar-iraq-afghanistan-vietna. (assessed 12/28/2009). 54. Detailed information provided by Professor John Bonin, U.S. Army War College January 11, 2011. 55. Nathan Freier, “The Defense Identify Crisis: It’s a Hybrid World,” Parameters, (Autumn 2009), pp. 81-94. 56. Ibid. pp. 81-94. 57. Nathan Freier, Known Unknowns: Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development. (Carlisle: PA, PKSOI Papers November 2008). 58. AAR, ePRT3 Baghdad Mission. 50 U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE Major General Gregg F. Martin Commandant ***** PEACEKEEPING & STABILITY OPERATIONS INSTITUTE Director Colonel Stephen T. Smith Deputy Director Colonel John E. Bessler Author William Flavin Chief, Research and Publications Ms. Karen Finkenbinder Publications Coordinator Mr. R. Christopher Browne ***** Composition Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil ISBN: 978-0-9833514-0-5