United states military academy learning from Lightning
Download 174.98 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- American Personnel Management 156
- VII: Policy Implications
- Doctrinal Lessons of 1940
Iraqi FreedomIn both its pacing and the aggressiveness of execution, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was leaps and bounds ahead of the ponderous campaign of 12 years earlier.153 In the span of three weeks, a force less than half the size of the one employed in Desert Storm toppled the Saddam regime and achieved the destruction of the Iraqi Army as a coherent fighting force.. In the rapid advance towards Baghdad that disregarded open flanks and emphasized speed, the echoes of blitzkrieg are clear. However, in the initial requests made by Army generals for additional ground forces, and original estimates that the ground conflict one the way to Baghdad would last three months, the echoes of the overly cautious conduct of Desert Storm are also apparent. 154 While Baghdad was seized much faster than the original estimates had predicted, the very fact that these estimates had been drawn up is a sign of incredible timidity. In 2003, the fighting capabilities of the Iraqi Army were a known quantity and their readiness had been degraded by years sanctions and periodic Allied bombing155 American Personnel Management156Given the centrality of institutions to this study, a few brief remarks on the nature of current U.S. Army personnel management practices. Recruits for the Army are placed into a single national pool and assigned to units without regard for the recruits region of origin. After taking a basic aptitude test the recruit is assigned an operational specialty by Human Resources Command rather than any commander. Once assigned to a unit, the typical soldier or officer can expect to change divisions and posts every few years. VII: Policy Implications“I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.” Winston Churchill157 The U.S. Army faces a crossroads. As already discussed, geostrategic trends promise to present the Army with a broad array of complex security dilemmas well into the future.158 Even as these challenges present themselves, the current political and budgetary environment promise to reduce the resources available to meet these challenges.159 Despite diminished resources, the nation will not expect less of its armed forces. It is therefore incumbent upon the Army to learn the lessons of 1940 and achieve success with less as the Wehrmacht did in France. The potential lessons of this study are of no small consequence to the Army as a profession. At a very fundamental level, this research requires the Army to at least address, if not adopt, a conceptualization of warfare that differs in subtle but highly significant ways from its current form. If this occasions the Army to redefine war a being dominated by a contest of independent wills, as opposed to the application of principles to varied situations in which the enemy is simply a factor to be accounted for, the implications are profound. In short, the engineering approach to warfare would give way to a Clausewitzian conception of conflict that embraces uncertainty and the need for decision in ambiguous conditions. Within such a framework, the individual and the small unit naturally rise to a place of prominence in doctrine. But what might this mean in practical terms? The potential policy implications fall into several broad categories. The potential ramifications for Army practices can be divided into those that effect doctrine, those that affect the institutional army, and those that affect acquisitions and research. Each of these will be treated in turn. Doctrinal Lessons of 1940Like On War, much of what is found in Truppenführung and Achtung-Panzer! serve as historical period pieces. But, just as many of the words of Clausewitz have proven to be timeless, so are there many lessons to be found amongst the principles that guided the Wehrmacht to victory in France in 1940. An examination of current Army doctrine reveals that many of the lessons to be gained from the German experience in 1940 have been acknowledged and put to paper. Many passages from FM 3-0, especially those concerning command and the nature of war, have their direct counterparts in the pages of Truppenführung.160 The echoes of Blitzkrieg are clear. What is also clear however was that some of the lessons of 1940 did not make the leap from the printed page into practice. The halting of American armored units in hot pursuit of Iraqi Republican guard divisions along the eastings in 1991 serves as a case in point. It seems to suggest that the principles of Auftragstaktik, and the relentless pursuit of initiative, were not properly emphasized within the American high command. Additionally, division and corps commanders often oversaw operations from command posts far removed from the scene of the fighting. This is a clear violation of command principles stressing leadership from the front. The decisions to remove commanders from the front lines is made all the more puzzling in light of the fact that modern technology allows a commander to maintain a realistic operating picture of the battlefield from nearly anywhere. Why not at the front? A reading of FM 3-0, the U.S. Army’s capstone manual, however reveals that nearly all of the principles key to German success in 1940 have been incorporated into U.S. Army doctrine.161 This observation suggests that the principle issue lies elsewhere. In truth the issues rests with the mindset of the Army as an institution162 An overly formalistic and mechanical conception of leadership, rooted in America’s corporate culture, prevents the adoption and practice of the command principles embodied in the Wehrmacht and articulated in “Battle Command”163 The recommendations to be made with regard to official doctrine are therefore rather limited. In light of the limitations it is still possible to make the following policy recommendations as they relate to doctrine. First the United States Army should review its doctrine in order to ensure that it places proper emphasis on the command principles of decentralized authority, faithfulness to the spirit, not the letter of mission, and leading from the front. All of the critical command principles mentioned as foundations of Auftragstaktik can be in FM 3-0, the U.S. Army’s capstone manual, but placing a clearer emphasis on them would serve to better ensure their transmission into the force. Second, the doctrine should be revised in order to be less prescriptive. Paragraph 4 in Truppenführung states that, “Lesson in the conduct of war cannot be exhaustively complied in the form of regulations.” 164 While this concept also finds its way into FM 3-0, a side by side comparison of analogous sections of FM 3-0 and Truppenführung reveals serious differences. FM 3,0 goes into much more detail and spends significantly more space attempting to foresee possible situations than does Truppenführung. Again, this belies an engineering like approach to doctrine, seeking to mitigate risk by foreseeing various eventualities.165 The result of this difference of doctrinal focus is that, when faced with a task, a German officer is apt to ask “what is the core of the problem?” as where an American officer is more inclined to inquire “what are the problem’s component parts?”166 Third, while FM 3-0 goes into considerable length discussing the contemporary operating environment, there is not a corresponding discussion about the nature of warfare itself until the appendices.167 Consequently, the important discussion of the uncertain, violent, and creative nature of warfare that would serve to ground the command and operational concepts espoused earlier in the manual is left to the very end. This ordering of things fails to give the highly abstract, but crucially important concepts of the nature of war their due. In order to restore proper emphasis to these principles, their discussion should be moved to the fore of the manual, preceding any discussion of transitory operational dynamics.
Directory: dmi -> siteassets -> sitepages sitepages -> West Point, New York 10996-5000 15 December 2004 Effective 9 March 2005 dmi -> A brief Social History of Game Play dmi -> Who plays, how much, and why? A behavioral player census of a virtual world dmi -> Root motion, function, scale-degree sitepages -> Registering your vehicle in the State of New York… Download 174.98 Kb. Share with your friends:
|