Interesting take on the situation inside SOF community. Instead we should inculcate in all our personnel (focusing on improving battalion and higher HQs) some of the same things they use naturally at the team level: a healthy disdain for micromanagement, a skepticism about higher HQs understanding of things, a resistance to the conventional wisdom and any institutionally-preferred way of thinking, and an innovative passion that helps team members strive to come up with creative ways of approaching situations. Any armed group of men funded by anyone can do the ally part. Movement is primarily concerned with positioning forces in an advantageous place and time from which to have an effect to achieve the mission. The information warfighting function provides the Army with a method to integrate these critical capabilities and help drive a change in the self-limiting centralization of IRCs when able. Atahualpa offered a ransom for himself that consisted of a roomful of gold. Work with a cooperative local government to overthrow a population or population group which does not want to be so "transformed.". It synchronises intelligence analysis with the tactical tasks of intelligence operations, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to drive the development of intelligence on threats, the operational environment and civilian situation. It discusses the role of the Marine Corps component commander and staff, their functions, and their relationships to the joint force commander and the other Service components. This that any different than the Sunni Awakening movement--I personally do not think so. Though weathered or overgrown, the relics stand as permanent markers of the ingenuity and art of the pre-Columbian civilizations. Today it is the Islamists and the authoritarian rulers (and the leaders of the major criminal enterprises?) [xxxviii] USDA, Special Operations, ADP 3-05, 2012, 8. The Maya, who developed an astrological calendar that allowed them to grow crops in poor soil, were originally thought to be a peaceful people, but archaeologists have since determined that intertribal warfare brought about their decline. We have to take a look at the paradox of the human domain before we can offer a way out of this conceptual mess weve made for ourselves. b. IMO the failure to understand the simple basics of the fighting culture or fighting motive-sets of our opponents undermines every aspect of our effort in Afghanistan. The commander and staff leverage the intelligence enterprise, coach and train the intelligence core competencies, implement the operations and intelligence processes, and direct the intelligence effort through the intelligence capabilities. The European Union (EU) Army fires systems deliver fires in support of offensive and defensive tasks to create specific lethal and nonlethal effects on a target. Small Wars Journal is published by Small Wars Foundation - a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. It is very difficult to do: one must sacrifice ease of communication and planning as well as take on some threat to ones career. Also see his book: Wrong Turn: America's Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency. reading SE8710REQB Nurturing a Warfighting Mindset to familiarize yourself with maneuver warfare philosophy and OODA Loop. What could be more logical, I think, than looking at human emotion and motivations, as tricky as it is to understand such things, perhaps even impossible and too mysterious? I also don't see how managing humans, be you occupying them or sharing some skills, is a uniquely UW/SW activity. I think is what Robert has been saying in a number of comments. Just how many deploying BCT personnel fully understood the fighting tactics being used by the various Sunni, Shia, and AQI personnel ---did the Army via PME every have classes on this topic? His story was we had been hitting you on every patrol and on this particular day a gun truck patrol came by and I detonated--but nothing happened which was strange as they had always worked---kept trying and then when the last truck went by it detonated. Like Bill M stated if the enemy acquired ATGMs, beam riding weapons and secure Comms we would be looking a much more lethal conflict ecosystem - to put it mildly. [x] U.S. Army, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-0, The U.S. Army Capstone Concept, 19 DEC 2012, 15-16. The system is duplicatable and is used from the smallest of units up to large battalions and brigades. Trusting and empowering subordinates to act, within the commanders intent, is a force multiplier. Eventually they actually do get attacked and the outcome is likely less than pretty without those external air attack and fires technical resources that some describe as micromanagement while others under fire appreciate as essential and lifesaving. [xxi] I would assume Jean Baudrillard, from his Simulacra and Simulation (1981), would have a field day with how we have conducted Afghanistan. I assume. Well, enough with my psychobabble for now. while surfing the internet and posting on such open and visible places as Facebook. The fires warfighting function is the related tasks and systems that provide collective and coordinated use of Army indirect fires, AMD, and joint fires through the targeting process. At the same time, an integrated sustainment network would link . To add to those types of missions I would include any military operation in which either the objectives are very unclear and abstract or the operation is structured in such a way as to have a high likelihood of being unbounded in scope and time. Perhaps most importantly, however, it calls for the sublime in order to harness what is natural to most SOF service members when they first enter the force, that is- critical and creative thinking, which, when added to a multi-frame approach and learning and reflecting-in-action allows greater effectiveness within the social realm of the human domain. What are the 7 warfighting functions? They KNOW what our political objective is and, therefore, they KNOW who is their friend and their enemy and they KNOW what kind of war they are embarked upon. b. What I find interesting is that Kilcullen was correct in using it---and then say John Robb fleshed it out with his standing orders and his use of the term "open source warfare" which really caused some heartburn in the various agencies. Archaeologists and treasure hunters scour newly discovered burial platforms and caves in search of knowledge that might contribute to the modern understanding of the lost cultures, and also, undoubtedly, to find relics made of that one material valued by both the ancient and modern worlds: gold. Indeed, one could make the argument that in todays uber-professional and regimented American military, the only levels in which critical and creative thinking routinely happen are at the tactical level.[xxvi]. After the eventual surrender, Cortez burned the city and destroyed the greatest monuments of Aztec culture. In order to be effective when dealing with things like social influence,[xxxii] the requirements are literally something that SOF has been getting further away from being able to do since at least 1987, but especially since 2003. [i] Ana Purna gives a good description of critical realism on ehow.com (http://www.ehow.com/info_8770255_critical-realism.html): The major themes are these: A reality exists independent of human conception and perception. -- as produced by the enemy -- seems to be a step ahead of our own? MS 301: Training Management and the Warfighting Functions Revision Date: 31 March 2022 Lesson 20,23,26,29,32: Branch Orientation Briefings Student Handout 1 Information Briefing Sheet Cadets will prepare and present an information briefing concerning an assigned branch. I suggest we too may benefit by inserting a MIE multiplier into our MDMP. Inca architecture still dots the Andean mountains and highlands as the timeless endeavors of a lost people. The people who want to join the Civilian Defense movement are within their rights. Commanders, assisted by their staffs, integrate numerous processes and activities within their headquarters and across the force through the command and control functions. During that time the Beards would have recognized the way the conflict ecosystem changes when a man stepped on a mine, an IED flipped a vehicle and a helicopter was shot down. These tasks are interactive and often occur simultaneously. Right now it has yet to be named, although some of the early candidates have included Influence, Engagement, and Shape. Intelligence is the process of understanding the enemy using all information on the enemy, civilians nearby, and the terrain and weather conditions. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Our adversaries are using . It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. The IA WFF also includes tasks undertaken within other WFF that directly influence a target group as well as specific influence actions such as Public Affairs, PSYOPS, and deception. SW forces would be engaged in social influence and, if savvy enough, they would be engaged in internalization efforts through participatory observation (encompassing action, observation, learning, and influencing- influencing both the observed and the observers). By its nature, the M2 WFF exists in the physical domains and inherently in close proximity to the threat and civilian elements. RantCorp---lack of observation skills by the Force is also another problem-especially from our side--there are a number of basic infantry skill sets that have largely disappeared that no one seems to recognize. c. And know the kind of war that one is embarked upon. It cannot, however, lead to certainty about future outcomes.. Any Medical Service Corps (MSC) officer worth his or her salt can quickly recite the 10 medical functions: medical mission command, medical treatment, hospitalization, medical evacuation, dental. [xxiii] UW is defined by US SOF as support to resistance (insurgent) forces to overthrow or disrupt a government or governing entity. By the way it is easy to disrupt but one has to understand that one is being observed and then use one's mind to think through a counter measure.. Doctrine applied to the physical domains- made up of explicit knowledge- makes sense in some areas. If two things dont alert us to the possibility that there could be something fundamentally wrong, then possibly nothing will. It is the activity involved in the change of location of equipment, personnel or stocks as part of a military operation1 to or within a potentially hostile environment. I am so tired of the on going six year debate about the "surge" being successful or what used to be called "human terrain system" and now "human domain". [xvii] One example of formulaic metaphor found within military doctrine is the formula for combat power. Thus we are left with two choices: either accept that the same conceptual tools and doctrinal concepts that we use for the physical domains can be applied with some minor tweaking to the human domain or approach with at least skepticism the idea that the physical and human domains can be understood using the same paradigms. It could be extremely beneficial if we allowed our people to openly look for information that our enemies are posting openly, yet we need to restrict or control exactly how and what our own people are posting when they are in theater. 2013. WFF are the physical means that tactical commanders use to execute operations and accomplish missions assigned by a superior commander. The intelligence warfighting function tasks facilitate the commanders visualization and understanding of the threat and other relevant aspects of the operational environment. I think there needs to be some re-evaluation about these issues. The HTS was a massively costly program for both the US Army and the taxpayer ---was a total waste of money---ie the Awakening was generated by AQI forking the Sunni insurgency not by anything Gen. P or Nagel did or what HTS provided in many badly written reports. The systematic theory is highly suspect, as the Soviet centralized system should have taught us. The open-ended nature of part two however, puts you in a big 'ol pickle. Destroy the enemys physical ability to fight and they must surrender. The implications of this 180 degree strategic sea-change -- to be experienced across the board -- are rather dramatic and, as such, have proven rather difficult for us to grasp and to deal with morally, militarily, etc. Compliant change is change that is forced onto others, they comply. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. [xxxiii] If we are to be more effective within the human domain, we must at the least question whether the Armys physical domain approach is applicable to the human domain. Mr. White might be horrified to see his term associated with the military, as he is decidedly anti-militarism. This approach would by definition require the philosophy behind Mission Command, it would prioritize education and training over equipment and process, it would be comfortable with a more context-focused approach to complex operations (and thus maximize flexibility while sacrificing ease of communication, funding, and planning), and it would take advantage of SOFs traditional strengths: its amazing capability at the tactical level. Its certainly a sticky issue and Im not sure what the right mix of security and positive public affairs efforts are. Or, 2. The goal is not more money, more missions, or more personnel. The NZ Army utilises US Army warfighting as described in ADP 3-0 Operations, July 2019. Desert Storm was largely a result of our impressive logistical system. Our culture, however (largely influenced by the same hierarchy the early advocates found fault with), refused to entertain the notion that a technically rational approach is the wrong one for complexity. [xix] The idea that one can tell at a glance what needs to be done and, although usually applied to looking at terrain, some, including Clausewitz, have used it to describe something beyond just terrain. One note on the mission scenario your notional SOF team receives.it is not so much a mission as a policy statement. Sydney J. Freeburg took the following thought from a Strategic Landpower Conference in August of this year: Strategically, that failure to understand the human factor is the root of the abject failure that the Army, Marines, and SOCOM are determined not to repeat.[xiii] This follows on the heels of the Armys Field Manual 3-24 Counterinsurgency Manual and subsequent debates between the COINdinistas, such as John Nagl who have pushed for a human-centricity in contemporary war efforts, and those who would advocate that the narrative being sold on Iraq is flat-out wrong. The purpose of the Protection WFF is to preserve combat power, the ability of the force to operate in the threat environment. D. The World Trade Organization (WTO). Since instituting the Army Warfighting Functions, the U.S. military has worked in better partnership on joint military operations. You build that trustyou cant surge trust. The purpose of the Fires WFF is to engage threat elements with lethal and less-lethal joint fires and effects, usually in coordination with manoeuvring ground forces (M2 WFF). Millions of tourists now visit Mexico and Peru to see the remnants of the Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations. The purpose of CIMIC is to coordinate with and support the various non-military elements of the operating environment. This process is ongoing and commanders use tasks in: to obtain this intelligence. Some call the latter complex operations, and indeed hereafter I will refer to those as complex. There are no platoon outposts there. The difficulty now in returning to UW or what you call SW is that there is a distinct lack of SF training personnel deeply grounded experience wise in UW---so much of what is being transferred is just from the recent wars. When all came back in I was chastised for not running to the bunkers---my response was they were over 500 meters away and walking away from the initial impact point---a lot of dumb looks and a few questions as to what I meant by "walking" rounds and walking away from the impact point and how did I know it was 500 meters---this was 2005/2006 and I am betting it has not improved much since then. Your writings are great to read especially coming from the lonely voice on SWJ that once wrote about the need to shift to VSO. The Chief of Staff of the Army, General Odierno, allegedly said recently, That is what I was missing in Iraq! In Evaluating Immunities before a Special Tribunal for Aggression Against Ukraine, the Type of Tribunal Matters, Chinas Ferry Tale Taiwan Invasion Plan Is A Legal Nightmare, China Maritime Report No. It is normally associated with initiative. I first noticed this in Afghanistan where a few of us sat down and attempted to make sense of the disconnect between our official pronouncements and doctrine and the reality of what commanders were doing and saying privately. Fire's 4. It teaches people the danger when they fail to observe their physical environment (under their ergonomic desk chair) and drives home the point that real pain (having your pants blown out of the roof of the shit-house) and pain on a TV screen have nothing in common. All systems used to coordinate the delivery of these effects are included in the Fires WFF, and are therefore inherently linked to the Targeting and ISTAR IPA discussed later. We must continue to plan, synchronize, and deliver sustainment warfighting function capabilities. Last but by no means least the BCT can access the entire conventional arsenal of the US Armed Forces. The Theory of War (Continued) Offense Contributes striking power. If you have watched the borderland beat site for over the last few years---we in the watching the failing of a major "democratic" country directly on our immediate border with TCOs driven their trade deeper into the major cities using violence much like AQ in Iraq. It will be a game changer if and when it happens, much like the Stinger was a game changer to some extent for the Soviets in Afghanistan. Social learning-in-action would emphasize the requirement to learn while we are acting, although social entanglement (merging quantum entanglement with social efforts) might be more descriptive of the reality. The precise, intricate stonemasonry of Inca pyramids, fortresses, and walls commands the respect of even modern masons. To many, Operational Design has come to represent what is fundamentally wrong with recent U.S. Army concepts. Shortly after noon and simultaneously, the community police of Tanctaro, Buena Vista, Aguililla, Tepalcatepec and La Ruana liberated the municipalities of El Zapote, El Corrijo and Rancho Grande, where 18 villages coexist with about 500 inhabitants, just like Acahuato, in the municipality of Apatzingn. We must also firmly ground and continuously educate them in critical and creative thinking. for an hour or two almost like you were back in a hotel in the states. It is also the means of focusing So, as you said, I think this dividing of knowledge is strange , it's all pieces of the puzzle to me, the math and engineering and social facts, as you say. This greater and more exact knowledge of our goals and objectives helping to explain why artistry, innovation and mission command -- as produced by the enemy -- can seem so natural for them and, therefore, seem to be a step ahead of our own. The effect of having a generic UW capability throughout SFin the 60/70s was that when one left VN and returned to other Groups ie the 10th or Det A in Berlin one was right back into UW and FID without missing a beat or having to retrain. Mentioned as inspiration for The Matrix films, one might compare the militarys paradigm to the Matrix: we are locked into it, but unaware of its existence. Identified change is that which results from others identifying with those wanting the change. Because we did not "understand he enemy" we exported what we thought were successes to AFG only to have them basically fail. It is akin to saying "go be an ally to X against Z, but make sure X isn't the only power/influence game in town when you leave". The Bronx accent and studied gangsta saunter, desperation for a Big Mac and the bewilderment that ..everywhere is dirt bro.. didnt fit the Shalwar Kameez, parroted Arabic dogma, clapped out PKM and a Rambo belt of filthy decades old 7.62x54 in the middle of some godforsaken desert. Thus, given this mission (outlier state and societal transformation) and this problem (the "enemy" can see us coming, so to speak, even before we get on the aircraft), how then might the art and understanding of the sublime help us to overcome these difficulties? Certainly an insight into the latter three can be gained from understanding the local culture. b. For the . We must introduce at least our SOF soldiers to the concepts of the critical realist[i] philosophy and to the practice of forming multi-paradigmatic views. What does it mean to have a warfighting culture? That's funny. This type of change is more likely to last and is what we are talking about when we talk about the Human Domain and its related Warfighting Function (WfF): the 7th WfF. The CF and SOF officers both operate in "human domains" (can we retire this term, as it seems specious at best?) Ancient pyramids inscribed with weathered glyphs and characters from the most advanced ancient alphabet in the western hemisphere now sit abandoned, obscured by centuries of jungle growth. It is also a mistake to apply it equally in all situations. The human domain![vi] This conversation happened, supposedly, in the context of a discussion about the Armys Seventh Warfighting Function (WfF),". [xxiv] Just to head off any protests, I realize this dual-natured description is disingenuous, however I am constraining myself to the two choices our society presents us with and their respective approaches. If any kind of mission was conducive to a technically rational approach, it would be surgical strike missions.[xxxvii]. Integrate all forms of Army, joint and multinational fires. The Spaniards were forced to retreat from the city, but they soon regrouped and besieged the Aztec capital. I would suggest even if you studied community dynamics in the Bronx, Marseilles, Cairo, Mogadishu, Khartoum, Jeddah or wherever these people came from it would do little to help you deal with the wayward inhabitant when he reached Afghanistan. The first is the more political aspects of military operations. And what I have been saying for years around here, using "South Asia" as one intellectual "foil", is that YOU (meaning the US military and agencies with which it works) are a part of the human domain and you cannot divorce yourselves from any of it. The alternative, and the militarys current preferred philosophy, is the technically rational approach. This, so as to be able to determine whether any of the ideas/options offered actually (a) address and meet our needs and, if so, (b) whether any one such idea or option might do this better than another. While I'm at it, let me show you the type of thing I like to consider (my favorite topic, Americans and their reactions to "South Asia"): There is a book called, The Life and Loves of a United States Naval Aviator by Harry Carter which describes in a few passages his time (along with his wife) in Pakistan working with the Navy. The human domain![vi] This conversation happened, supposedly, in the context of a discussion about the Armys Seventh Warfighting Function (WfF), which as a concept is still being worked, but would add a function to the Armys list of those six things it must now do to theoretically maximize combat power. As one would expect, the challenge that one faces in these such endeavors are states and societies being, in the interim period, in a significant state of turmoil, as they attempt to work their way through these difficult transitions. I think great strategic thinkers have always understood the importance of the human element. No COP, firebase, airfield, etc. Reading your comments combined with RantCorp and Carl I believe in many ways you all are saying the same thing but maybe at a different level. [vii] When combined with the other functions- movement and maneuver, fires, intelligence, protection, sustainment, mission command- and welded together through leadership, the Seventh is supposed to enable decisive effects and ultimately success on the battlefield. The But we try. For me, everything is worth considering but I'm flexible. If not, if we believe that in the human domain (as well as the levels beyond tactical in all domains) things are highly dependent upon context, fraught with tacit knowledge, and fall more into the art side than the science side,[xxiv] then the preferred philosophy should be the critical realist philosophy. In other words, the mission has only one solution: make local/paramilitary forces more lethal and reform local governance to distribute the political and economic power so that X does not consolidate power in the resulting imbalance that our support would createi.e. [x] Of course, that does not leave too much left. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Obviously I would give the M1E multiplier a greater weight than most but I dare suggest that seeing, smelling, hearing and even touching, talking and drinking tea with personnel within the target perimeter will boost your chances each and every day. Coupled with a chain of command that exploits their multi-generational familial ties, tribal ties and 30 years of shared camaraderie the HN practice a tactical and operational methodology they call Jihad and we call Mission Command. There are so many different flowing themes coming out of Mexico that tangate UW and go to the heart of the discussion being pushed by Robert Bunker on the El Centro site as to the question---just what do we do with Mexico---and really the entire Central American region as the TCOs stretch that far and are destabilizing the entire region--one could actually speak of a war zone rivaling anything we have seen in the last ten years in either Iraq and or AFG. As I said in my comment above, Kilcullen's ecosystems seems to me to be another way of saying "this is the world as I understand it," which isn't really a new concept. [xli] If SOF is to be successful at the operational and higher tactical levels, absent a personnel system that allows for flexibility and mission focus, we must incorporate at the very least a rigorous testing and experimentation program to assist us in finding the right tools and philosophical approach for operating in the human domain. is one of education- great point. Let the Rangers have the gadgets and the direct action stuff. The when and why comes from the officer charged with employing the infantryman's skills in conjunction with other skill sets to a purpose that he is charged with by the delegation of executive authority to his level by Article 2 of our Constitution). We select, train, and equip our forces specially- and we can see the difference at our lowest levels: the team level, but then we plan, promote, organize, and educate them at higher levels largely in the same manner as the conventional forces do. For purposes of the definition, the term enemy includes the entire range of threats and the term terrain includes weather. I dont ever remember reading anything where General Lee thought he could defeat and outright destroy the Army of the Potomac so his chosen course of action was one based on influencing the power base, the northern citizenry correct? | Disclaimer | Copyright Notice | Privacy Policy. Controlling indirect and direct fires is ultra important.