Hannibal or Marius?

It seems like every six months or so, another blog post or article is published decrying the US military’s broken personnel system. Here’s one. Here’s another. The most recent, and one of the most powerful, appeared this week over at Carl Prine’s Line of Departure. While all of these articles focus on the Army, personnel policies are not drastically different across the Department of Defense. We should be paying attention too. Take it way, Carl:

They told me that they also wanted to keep soldiers like Andrew but that he was locked into his year group and blah blah institutional bulls*** blah blah nothing they could do about it blah blah blah just the way it is blah blah blah tell him to stick it out and suck it up and blah blah blah.Well, here’s the deal, Big Army.  You’re dooming yourself to decades of mediocrity and increasingly brainless, risk-averse and incompetent commanders because you’re losing your best captains and you have your own poisonous policies to blame for your slow, institutional seppuku.The Army today is a rank-obsessed throwback to Industrial Age practices. Your promotions aren’t competitive and some of your gifted captains are stuck on bloated staffs doing busywork that mocks their intelligence and drive, punishing them with PowerPoint purgatory when they should be out fighting wars your generals apparently aren’t smart enough or creative enough to win.

 Harsh. Although criticisms of our current personnel management system are plentiful, there is not a single defense of it. The closest thing to a defense of the status quo is the statement that the system cannot be changed. Other than that, seemingly every servicemember, defense analyst, DoD civilian employee, and business consultant agrees that the current system is not good enough. And yet, it never changes. There are not even signs that change is in the future. I’m not going to pretend that I know exactly how a modernized, improved personnel management system would look like and operate and there are plenty of suggestions out there. Some things I do know, though. The idea that the system cannot change is, of course, false. Any belief that the US military does not need to improve its policies is also false as there is always room for improvement. The question is: What needs to happen for the system to change? For an answer to that question, I’m going to go waaaaay back and look at two precedents.

In 210 BC, (yes, that far back) the ambitious city of Rome was on the ropes. The Republic had, in living memory, secured their first military success outside of Italy by defeating the Carthaginians in the First Punic War. Now, however, things were bleak. A Carthaginian General named Hannibal had led an invasion of Italy from Spain and left defeated Roman legion after defeated Roman legion after defeated Roman legion in his wake. Hannibal not only won every battle, he made it look easy. One problem that the Romans had was their personnel management system. There were no long-service, professional generals. The legions were led by two annually elected consuls or a dictator, elected in times of stress, who would rotate command every other day. Basically, they let the two most popular rich guys for any particular year command an army. When this system did end up producing a competent commander who understood how to beat Hannibal, a Roman by the name of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrocosus Cunctator (try fitting that name on a nametape), the system replaced him with a man who told Rome what it wanted to hear rather than what it needed to hear. That man, Gaius Terentius Varro, led between somewhere between fifty and seventy thousand Roman soldiers to their deaths at Cannae.

Then the Romans got lucky. They appointed a 25-year old quaestor named Publius Cornelius Scipio to lead the Roman war effort. Long story short, Scipio kicked the Carthaginians out of Spain, then Italy, then took the fight to Carthaginian home territory in North Africa without losing a single battle. This is the first way to fix a poor personnel system: Wait until all the bad leaders get killed until only the good ones are left alive.

The second precedent happened a little bit later in 107 BC when Rome was bogged down in a messy little conflict called the Jugurthine War. Roman leadership had become corrupt and they were stymied by the innovative tactics of the Numidians. Turns out, the legions were poorly organized and equipped to fight a desert war against irregular enemies. (Hmmm.) The continuing conflict prompted one Roman consul, Gaius Marius, to completely overhaul the Roman “force generation” system. It’s not necessary to detail the Marian Reforms here, but suffice it to say that not only did the reforms lead to victory in the Jugurthine War, but the reformed legions would allow Rome to dominate the Western world for centuries afterwards.

This is option number two: a comprehensive, top-down reformation. For a bureaucracy as large, hierarchical, and ossified as the Department of Defense, there is no other way to accomplish meaningful, leap-ahead change.

So is the Marius option feasible? It’s possible, of course. Fortunately our system of government does not concentrate as much power in any one man as the Romans did with Marius. A modern equivalent will most likely need to start with a Joint Chiefs of Staff effort to analyze the current system and make recommendations to the SECDEF and the President. Then, they would need to put their weight behind the reforms to gain Congressional buy-in.

Improbable, yes. But not impossible. The bottom line is that senior leadership, responsible as they are for the manning of the military services, should begin the process of collecting, analyzing, and presenting options to improve the personnel system DoD-wide. It cannot be done piecemeal. It will take a comprehensive, joint effort.

I’m not wholly convinced that the personnel management system is completely broken. But, I am convinced that it can be improved. It is undeniably old and worn. Improving it will pay far more dividends in future wars than any weapon system we could buy. When it comes to how this system can be changed, following Marius’ example is much preferable to playing Carthaginian Roulette. We like to say that the enemy gets a vote. If we allow the status quo to stagnate into a cesspool of legacy practices and good-enough-for-government procedures, the enemy won’t be voting. He will dictate. 

Angels Over Afghanistan

Blogger Michael Yon has posted an interesting article on Navy F-18 support of ground troops in Afghanistan.  Most interesting to me is that the naming of aircraft is back.  Does the Corps follow a similar protocol?

Read the entire blog entry here.

Single Naval Battle

Co-blogger Richard Hicks recently alerted me to this document: The Report of the recently formed Amphibious Capabilities Working Group entitled Naval Amphibious Capability in the 21^st Century: Strategic Opportunity and a Vision for Change. The entire document, in my opinion, is well-researched and well-written and should serve as an appropriate vector for both our return to our amphibious roots and the evolution of those capabilities. The heart of the document is a proposed concept: Single Naval Battle. Despite the Pentagonese title, it is a simple concept.

Single naval battle is an approach to the integration of all elements of sea control and naval power projection into a cohesive whole, removing artificial seams in the application of naval power.

A single naval battle approach views the maritime domain as an indivisible whole, allowing us to express the actions and forces within it as inherently integrated in effect. It provides a unifying perspective for naval operations and bridges the seams between air, land, and sea. It allows the commander to effectively focus the efforts of all elements of the naval force in the greater context of the Joint operation.

In short, a real world operation is not an AirLand Battle, or an AirSea Battle, or an AirSeaLandMaritimeDiplomaticInformationEconomicCulturalSpaceCyberNarnia Battle. It’s just warfare as it has always been, a conflict in which all contributing forces and actions are inherently interactive and must be integrated. This is not a new concept. At least, it shouldn’t be a new concept. Alexander the Great ran roughshod over the ancient Greek city-states because he was the first to effectively match the phalanx with effective cavalry and missile forces and properly integrate them on the battlefield. It’s the same concept that gives the MAGTF its potency. It’s Combined Arms writ large.

Truthfully, this is what AirSea Battle is attempting to hit, but it is only grazing the target so far. ASB attempts to better integrate air and naval forces to overcome A2/AD systems. That’s a good thing, but it does not include every aspect of power projection that needs to be integrated. Focusing solely on only two domains that need better integration ignores other important domains that they must support and interact with.

Miscommunication

In this recent article on AOL Defense, Frank Hoffman discusses hybrid warfare and AirSea Battle. In the course of the article, he seems to say that the major defect in the US military is a lack of communications connectivity or a “network.”

"Warfare's all about asymmetries, trying to find a competitive advantage, hopefully enduring," said Hoffman. For the US, that edge may be the ability to link its own forces together in an all-service network of systems – especially unmanned ones, not just in the air but on the water and the ground – while attacking the enemy's less-sophisticated network with both new cyber-weapons and traditional electronic warfare tools like jamming.
Today, "it's definitely networks and linkages that are missing," said Hoffman, especially between the services and between such traditionally unconnected combat arms as aircraft and submarines. In the future, "we're going to probably have fewer platforms" – ships, planes, tanks – "but they're going to be better networked, better integrated," Hoffman said. "That's where the greatest investment should probably go."

I’m skeptical that the lack of a network, in the physical, communications infrastructure sense is that big of an advantage or disadvantage for the US military. We’ve had communication infrastructure in place for decades, and I personally have never had a technological problem with communicating with other branches. There are other problems though. Time for a story.

In 2008 in Diyala, I was involved in the planning and post-operation AAR of a small scale helo assault operation. The operation involved Army rotary wing assets, Army infantry forces, Iraqi Army infantry forces with Marine advisors, and Air Force rotary assets. The helo assault went smoothly and the objective was reached. Subsequently, seven “squirters” left the objective, a small village, and hunkered down outside it. The Army ground forces were sent to investigate the seven men and were talked on to their position by an Air Force helo pilot who had eyes on their position. The soldiers approached the seven men in a column formation. When the Army squad reached the seven men, they pulled small arms from underneath their bodies and ambushed them, causing two KIA and pinning down the squad. The Army squad alerted the Iraqi forces through the Marine advisors, and the IA forces maneuvered on the rear of the enemy ambush, killing some and causing the rest to flee. Subsequent viewing of the aerial footage revealed that the seven enemy were arrayed along a road in a classic linear ambush formation. Any of the ground forces involved, if they had seen the footage, would have instantly recognized it as such. The Air Force pilot, unfortunately, did not and walked the infantry squad right into the kill zone of the ambush.

Remembering Our Fallen; Memorial Day 2012

There is no such thing as a casualty-free war; and fortunately for the America, there are a select few who accept the most austere conditions in believing our country is worth defending. Today's the day we remember those who died for their beliefs.

Writing for Leatherneck and Gazette I’ve been fortunate to meet hundreds Marines in Helmand and Anbar; motivated and determined young men and women, and I’m honored to record the efforts of Marines and Navy Corpsmen who volunteer to go into harm’s way. It's all OOH-RAH and exciting-until that final firefight.

Two years ago I was in Afghanistan, flying from Camp Leatherneck to Kandahar. It was a cargo flight that had been suddenly designated a “Dignified Transfer Flight,” which is Pentagon-ese for bringing home the body of one of our young men killed in action.

The plane was virtually empty; two passengers and me, the small Air Force crew, and covered by an American flag, the body of a serviceman killed that morning by an IED in Helmand Province. The military’s goal is to bring our dead back home within 48 hours, and this was the first leg of such a journey.

I didn’t know him personally, but after 14 embeds, I’ve met hundreds of young men like him; under 25, proud of his unit, usually a couple of tattoo’s, enthusiastic, friendly, will share his last bottle of water, and wants me to tell the American public that ‘we’re doing some good things here.”

Usually flights into Kandahar are lively as the troops are listening to their IPods or trying to talk. But not that day; the only sound was that of the plane’s engines as most of our group had their heads down and I watched one of the Air Force crew adjust the flag draping the young man.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the flag. Unlike 99% of those who cover the war, I’m not a disinterested observer; my son is an active-duty Marine with multiple combat deployments to his credit. I know too many in this age group not to be affected by this young man’s sad trip home and I imagined my son or one of his friends coming home the same way. How would I react I wondered (as do many of us parents of deployed sons and daughters) if they came and knocked on my front door?

After we landed, our plane came to a halt in a corner of the airfield, away from the usual bustle of troops, contractors, and cargo, and the rear of the plane opened to reveal a small honor guard assembled to ready him for his final flight home. As we prepared to walk off the plane through the forward hatch, a Marine Chief Warrant Officer and I lagged behind to pay our respects; the Gunner removing his Kevlar and bowing his head, and me, a non-practicing Roman Catholic, offering a sign of the cross before the crew gently pushed us to depart.

I wanted to stay and watch the ceremony, but with one of the crew shaking his head, I grabbed my bag and hurried to catch up to our group. Walking to the terminal all I could think about was how fiercely proud I hope his family is of him. Oh young man, you’ll be missed.

Many will be missed, and that’s what Memorial Day is all about.

Unlike the young man above, I knew HN3 Chris “Doc” Anderson: I met Doc in Ramadi in October 2006. We were out in OP VA and Doc was amazed that someone ‘even older than his dad’ as he gently put it, would be accompanying him and the Marines on daily patrols. He and I got to be good friends; after the debriefs he’d talk about his dad who ran a commercial real estate business, and while he liked medicine and being a corpsman, maybe he’d go back and work with his dad? Great conversations; he was full of life and enthusiasm.

In December I learned that he’d been killed; while treating one wounded Marine, another mortar round hit close by, killing Doc who had thrown himself over the Marine in order to protect him.

Then a few weeks later, maybe midnight, my phone rang; Hi, I’m Jim; Doc’s dad" the voice said, “I found your card in my son’s personal effects, and was hoping you could tell me about your time with him?"

I asked if I could call him back; I needed to think about what I was going to say.

It was a long call. I told him of his son’s pride in him, and how he was undecided over a career of medicine or real estate. I told him how he looked after the Marines both while on patrol and back at the PB, as well as how he’d made me his special project. While nothing I could ever say would relieve the pain of his oldest son’s death, I tried to reassure him that Doc’s last weeks were as productive and fulfilling as ever in his life.

That’s the spirit of Memorial Day; it’s the remembrance of those who didn’t come back alive, and a celebration of the esprit-de-corps and how they lived their lives.

God bless the United States and thank you for those who stand watch over us tonight.

Yemen the Model

                                         A Marine trains a Ugandan soldier. (U.S. Mission Uganda photo.)

“Any future defense secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should “have his head examined” as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”- Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

“Compounding the stress on the force is the reality that the demand for SOF [Special Operations Forces] continues to exceed supply.” - ADM William McRaven

The above quotes are illustrations of two trends that should act as left and right lateral limit markers for Marines as we plan for our future missions. The first illustrates the sense that, after long, expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, future U.S. leaders will be reluctant to commit to taking and hold ground from rogue governments. The second shows that, due to the proliferation and increasing capabilities of irregular threats around the globe since the end of the cold war, special operations forces will be engaged beyond their capabilities. As conventional ground forces draw down from Afghanistan by 2014, SOF forces will be in even higher demand. These trends will converge at a point where SOF forces will have to be augmented by other military assets. The best option to augment SOF forces in the persistent, low level conflicts that the U.S. will face is, of course, to send in the Marines. Fortunately, this is not a complete departure from how we operate as a Marine Corps. As Dan Trombly has pointed out, shifts in U.S. strategy are in actuality a return to the “small wars” era of Marine and Navy history.

So how will these modern day “small wars” look? Well, they’ll look an awful lot like what we’re doing in Yemen.  Jeremy Scahill, national security correspondent for the Nation, recently described U.S. efforts in Yemen in an interview on NPR.