JK: On July 9, 2004, Robin Burk published a must-read article on the transformations underway in America's military and intelligence communities. It was good enough to make our all-time Best Of... category, and the outstanding discussions that Robin led made it even better. Helicopter pilot and Air Force Special Operations Command planning officer John Lance was invited to stitch some of his comment posts into a Guest Blog article.
My Thoughts On Military Transformation, Done Right
by John Lance
As an Air Force special operations guy since 1995, I might be able to shed some light on this whole 'transformation of the military' thing. 'Transformation' has turned into one of those buzzwords that comes along every couple of years, becomes the trendy new 'in' thing, then fades away to be replaced by a new one. 15 years ago, it was 'Quality', we were going to use TQM concepts to improve the military and use the 'peace dividend' wisely. 10 years ago, it was RMA, 'Revolution in Military Affairs. 5 years ago, it was 'Jointness'. Now, it's 'Transformation' and everybody is jumping on the bandwagon.
I definitely think tech has a big role on the battlefield (hell, I'm a SOF helo pilot, I love having Blue Force Tracker, IDAS/MATT, DIRCM and all the other alphabet-soup toys on my Pave Low helicopter). I think the 'conventional' military would do well to emulate the way SOF does business. The problem that I see is one of prioritization. All of the money that should be used to 'transform' the most important piece of tech on the battlefield, communications, is being wasted on high-priced major weapons programs with huge cost overruns.
People always say you should criticize something if you don't have a plan. Well, here's my idea of what the military needs to concentrate on in order to 'transform' in the middle of a shooting war:
[1] Comms is super-important. Every trigger-puller in Afghanistan and Iraq and anywhere else should have, as a minimum, a user-friendly version of Blue Force Tracker and a secure radio that can talk on squad, platoon and company nets. The Army is working on something called Transformational Communication System. Project originally started out at 6 billion, now it's up to 18 billion and no tangible results in the field. This is criminal, we need to fix tactical comms NOW! See Obelus' comment for his "Hummvees & cell phones" story from Iraq.
[2] UAVs. I think Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are great for certain types of defined missions (I would never use them for Close Air Support, for instance, but think they work great for recon and scouting). More and better UAVs, just don't let them turn into the overrun pork festivals that the F/A-22 and F-35 are at the present.
[3] Defensive systems for aircraft. Remember all the helicopters shot down back in the winter? The U.S. Army is scrambling to put Special Operations-level defensive systems on all it's helos. Same goes for the C-130s/C-17s/C-5s used by the US Air force. Having air superiority doesn't mean shit to scattered insurgents using shoulder-fired IR missiles.
[4] Logistics. In this age of computers, I still can't figure out how Americans deployed to a combat theater can be missing things like body armor, ammo, food, gun lube, hell, even water. Something is broken in the logistics system and needs to be addressed quickly. Also, the services apparently didn't realize that things wear out faster in combat ops than in peace-time (duh) and is now scrambling to fix the vehicles and equipment that is being worn to the nub in Iraq and Afghanistan. Again, stuff that should be caught if we're using this computer-centric new model for warfighting.
[5] The Basics. We can't concentrate on turning our soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines into computer-savvy networkers, but let their 'basic skills' slide (ie. discipline, fitness, marksmanship, land navigation, etc). The services should immediately start copying the good things from Marine Corps Recruit Depot training. Segregate the sexes during Basic. More unarmed combat, Close Quarters Battle training and Immediate Action drills. Tougher Physical Training standards. More language/cultural training. And for the love of God, higher standards when it comes to discipline and responsibility. Is it too much to ask that people in the military actually look and act like professional war-fighters? If you hate running and resent people telling you what to do, maybe you need to find another line of work.
You might notice there isn't much here for the Air Force or the Navy. Those two services actually have the luxury of looking ahead to the next crisis and planning accordingly. The biggest danger to the USAF and USN is blowing their money on [stuff] they don't need. The Army and US Marine Corps have a lot of areas they need to fix or modify and they have to do it while fighting the Global War On Terror. Again, I'm all for Tranformation, but it has to be done with an eye to not dropping the ball on your non-tech, basic skills type issues.
Technology & Transformation
The whole discussion on technology reminded me of a quote from Gulf War I (can't remember who said).
"We (the coalition and Iraqis) could have traded equipment and the outcome would have been the same, it just would have taken a little longer."
I think that's the proper attitude to take on military technology. I can't tell you how many times I've lost a SATCOM radio right at the precise time I really, really needed it to work. Same goes for GPS or INS navigation systems, mission computers, defensive systems, terrain-following radars, you name it. Personally, I would rather have a slightly obsolete piece of equipment that works 99.9% of the time than a cutting edge piece of high-tech that works 75% of the time (example: M-16 vs AK-47 during Vietnam War). Reliability will always be a big factor in military equipment and the anecdotes from the field tend to bear that out.
Technolgy is great stuff and saves lives (both ours and theirs) but you can't forget that technology, especially the brand-new high-speed stuff, has a habit of letting you down when you really need it and that's when you have to depend on superior leadership and training.
Same goes for intelligence. Does anyone these days really question the greater need for Human Intelligence (HUMINT)? Increased language skills? Better coordination between the myriad intel agencies? The U.S. has spent the last 25 years emphasizing the 'high-tech' part of intelligence gathering(satellites, signals intercepting stations, super-computers, etc...) Despite all that, 9/11 still happened. Now, leaders are starting to realize that there is no technological replacement for good old-fashioned spycraft. Unlike the Cold War, fighting groups like Al Qaida and Hezbollah is almost impossible without good HUMINT. Whether we can regrow ours in time remains to be seen.
Conclusion
In summary, tranformation is coming and it has great promise for the U.S. military. We just have to be careful and not let our enthusiam for advanced technology blind us to the non-technical qualities that are critical to a military force.
So if Rumsfeld wants to 'transform' the military, fine, great, sounds cool. He can start by 'transforming' his boot into some of the military leader's asses and straighten out the lack of basic military competence that is starting to trip up operations overseas. Does anyone really think the military today is ready to 'transform' when you still have all of these entry-level problems? Computers are great, but computers don't fight wars. People fight wars. Fix the basics and the human element, and that will be enough of a 'transformation' for me.
Final Note: Thanks for giving me the opportunity to post these views here, and thanks again to all who participated in the great discussion here on Winds of Change.NET. If you haven't read what some of my fellow commenters had to say on these subjects, I'd encourage you to do so.
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The opinions in this article reflect only John Lance's personal understanding and beliefs. They are not intended to reflect or represent the official views of Special Operations Command, The U.S. Army, or any other official agency of the U.S. government.
UPDATE: Slab has some thoughts about the intelligence side of transformation and the coming 9/11 report.
Mr. Lance,
You're right about the Navy - former swabbie that I am, the Navy is the apple of my eye, but lets face the fact that militaries don't tend to really improve until they have to...until a naval force comes along like the Russians did in the 1980's to give the USN a bit of competition, there's just no incentive to really move forward and rework Naval policy (especially the archaic concept that ships must be over-manned...this made sense a while back ago when half your crew might die of scurvy before the cruise was done, but it really hasn't been operational for a bit...).
The Marines have always done it best - but is the rather small USMC really translatable into the larger Army? Some say we don't really need more than a few hundred thousand actual Army combat troops and thus it should be adaptable; I'm not sold on that concept. Superior firepower is great, but if we ever faced an enemy numbering in the millions, we might find that we need a big Army and we'd better know how to get 5 million soldiers 80% as good as Marines man for man right quick. Meanwhile, the Army has improved remarkably over the past 18 months as its become battle-tested.
Generally, I give the military high marks for its work since the war began - agreeing with you that there's probably a lot of dead wood with stars on its shoulders, and probably more than one weapons system which could probably use cancelling.
This might come in handy ;-)
http://jtrs.army.mil/index.htm
Joint Tactical Radio System
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (October 15, 2001) - Rockwell Collins has validated the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Step 2B Software Communications Architecture (SCA) version 1.0 by demonstrating the Link 16 waveform functionality. The company also exceeded all Step 2B contractual requirements, finishing ahead of schedule and under cost. As a result, the U.S. Joint Program Office recently awarded Rockwell Collins a follow-on Engineering Change Proposal to demonstrate Link-16 functionality with the new JTRS SCA version 2.0 configuration, thus further maturing the implementation of the Link 16 waveform.
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I have considered posting on the project, but right now I am up to my neck getting as the author put it
"slightly obsolete piece(s) of equipment that works 99.9% of the time" back into the field."
Mark
You're comments about the branches of our military forces are well taken. I do take issue with and I may be wrong here in your idea of incorporating the Marines into the Army. Yes I’m biased and my handle certainly gives it away.
To understand the issues at hand one has to look at the command structure, TMR (table of manpower requirements) and management techniques employed.
The USN / Army / USAF are more of micro-management atmosphere where as the USMC is more macro-management letting commanders use their assets as required.
First and foremost the primary job of any Marine is what people commonly refer to as a grunt. He's a ground pounder and leading force in hand to hand and artillery movements. Secondly a Marine is assigned what I refer to as his secondary duty which may be cook, data processing, intel, support, etc.. Regardless of secondary skill a Marine is always required to fulfill his primary mission and all training is based on primary first secondary latter. Last but not least the commanders of Marines are given the leeway to assign their personnel as they see fit based on the units requirements. In other words I don’t care if you’re intel, support, cook, what ever. If I need an infantry man and you’re available tag you’re it. This is not the case with other branches of service.
Thank you John Lance for posting this. I enjoyed reading it so much! :)
I have a bit of an issue with the point about logistics. Logistics is one of the most complicated and difficult problems any Army faces. I know the author is out at the tip of the spear, so saying something as simple as "fix logistics" might seem reasonable to him. As a transportation officer in the Army, I can't tell you how difficult it is to "fix logistics" There are never enough assets, never enough soldiers, and coordination with supported units is often haphazard. Combat units are notoriously bad at planning for their logistical needs and then screaming and yelling for support at the last minute. Of course the Combat Service Support guys are going to break their necks to get the killers everything they need, but some simple logistical training at company level of combat arms units would help immensly.
FinallyI will say that in the late 90's the Army tried to use the corporate model for logistics, things like just in time delivery and supply chain management were all the rage. The problem I see with that is that most fortune 500 organizations aren't having their equipment shot out from under them. It makes it a little bit harder. Plus business is concerned with profitability. When it comes to logistics, the importance of cost should be second to keeping soldiers alive and well supplied.
USMC,
I don't think John wants to put the Marines under the Army. I think he wants to have the U.S. Army copy some of the things the Marines do, including the idea that everyone is a rifleman.
This awareness is in fact beginning to sink in, and the Army has begun to move in this direction.
The U.S. Army are also taking steps these days along the lines of Marine doctrine for the "expeditionary force". Especially after the galling (to the Army) episode where a Marine Amphibious Unit was the first major combat force sent into Afghanistan. A place that's rather a long way from the sea, last time I checked...
Nobody ever said Pave Low drivers weren't opinionated ;-)
Though his points are well taken. Comm is essential. A Pave has more than 8 radio sets, if one doesn't work, you can usually find another that will (there was a time I called the UK by going HF radio to Thule, Greenland and getting a phone patch back to the UK... from eastern europe. Because our cool-guy Sat-com wouldn't link correctly ;-)
OTOH, I'd through the AF right into the mix as an organization that doesn't take it's ground fighting skills seriously. Even Pave crews (probably the most heavily armed aircrew out there) didn't take weapons training seriously till well after 9/11. I've heard otherwise experienced and knowledgable Pave pilots say "If your tactics are strong, you won't end up on the ground needing to shoot that rifle, so what do we need ground skills for?"
To which I responded "Somalia"
Exactly our kinda mish, exactly our kinda mistake... And that "golden RPG" can still tag you at night...
Everyone needs work, unfortunately, it takes REAL combat and REAL death to clear the chaff (and this one won't last long enough... the REMFs camoflage themselves well and get promoted... line dogs rarely do)
OK, rant off, sorry ...
v/r
Geoff
Here's my take on transformation from about a year ago. Key paragraphs:
But what the Army folks are missing is that transformation has already made massive changes to the way the Air Force and Navy operate. The Air Force for a long time was accused of not wanting to do ground support because it wasn't as "sexy" as flying the cool supersonic jets. But all of the cool supersonic jets now fly ground support missions - F15's and F16's, and even B1 and B2 bombers. Even the old B52 is available to the grunt on the ground. Not to mention their acceptance of not only unmanned aircraft but armed unmanned aircraft. The Navy, too, puts Top Gun F14's and F18's in ground support roles, and fast attack submarines no longer hunt Russian subs but launch cruise missiles at tactical targets.
This is a huge philosophical change for those services. The Army has yet to internalize that same level of change. It took months and months to change a hat - "transformation" will take years and years. The Army cannot keep dragging its feet. That is the message that Rumsfeld is sending.
Another point - one that pilot Lance overlooked, but which may ring true to some of the audience - is lack of cross-training for spotters. E.g. a special ops team needs to have someone trained to call down AF airstrikes, someone trained to call down naval missile strikes, and someone trained to call forth artillery bombardment, in order to ensure that it can draw on whatever platform happens to be available when it lays eyes on the target. That's okay, barely, because SOF get so much training anyway, adding a couple months for training as a tactical air controller is no big deal. Similarly, if a brigade needs to call down strikes, it can afford to have a bunch of trained personnel over at HQ, or wherever the target intel is being channeled.
But today, the need to be able to control firepower platforms is at the platoon level. And the platoon just doesn't have the resources to get four or five different people trained (nor would the relevant schools have the capacity to train that many people).
Solution? Standardize protocols. So, as a simplistic example, the AF pilot learns to use grid coords like the artillerist (with his cockpit drawing on relevant soft-copy orthophotos to show him what the target area ought to look like, based on the coords).
That way, you need to train only one person per platoon, or perhaps one extra for redundancy. Still a lot of strain on the various schools, but not insurmountable - and now, every platoon that sees an enemy can call down strikes from the entire panoply of fire platforms that permeates the battlefield, from helicopters to armed UAVs to fixed-wing aircraft to SP guns to sub-launched missiles to heavy naval artillery.
Also, to alleviate the burden of training, there are doubtless ways to use technology to simplify the job of the spotter, thus reducing the necessary training time.
(Additional issues include training the forces of allied militaries so that they, too, can draw on US firepower - and vice versa.)
John,
Too many years ago, now, I had the distinct pleasure to work in an organization that may have started the whole transformation concept, at least in a capability sense.
It was called JTIDS (also MIDS,also Link 16, even 'once upon a time' SEEK BUS). Although early JTIDS equipment was HUGE and EXPENSIVE, the fundamental architecture was one that allowed the people on the tip of the spear to work together. Now it should be possible to build a JTIDS box the size of a shoebox for somewhere around a hundred thou or less, even for the government.
The trouble was, then nobody except a few true believers understood how important it was and what you could do with it. Now, the ideas that are being talked about as part of 'transformation' are beginning to be developed into the doctrine that things like JTIDS make possible.
Without getting involved in too much tech stuff, JTIDS was a secure, jam resistant, low probability of intercept data link. It had enough capacity to tie together most of the players within line of sight. The basic information that JTIDS handled was: "Where are the good guys, and what's their status? Where are the bad guys, and what do you know about them? and finally, Who's assigned to what target/objective?" It could also provide 4kbps digital voice, although that cut into capacity.
Although JTIDS could use external position data, like GPS, it could also determine position on it's own, providing it was in contact with other users that knew where they were.
So, what it does is: (1)tell you where you are; (2)tell you where other friendlies are; (3) tell you where any bad guys are (that any user knows about); (4)let you know who is working on what bad guy. Not very complicated from an information standpoint, but extremely useful to have in essentially real time.
For most vehicle mounted systems there are only a couple of things that need to be put into the system at startup, the code(s) of the day and the time slot assignments. Done right, all you would need to do is insert a chip or flash card, push a button, and go on to the next platform. Most vehicle mounted systems could be wired in to make status information input automatic.
For a grunt, he'd need to fill in some blanks on a software form, like number of effectives, food and fuel, remaining ammo, etc. The terminal would keep track of where he is and report it automatically on a regular basis. He could input data on a bad guy, assuming he had a way to define the bad guy's position in system terms. For example, if he could get a compass bearing and a laser rangefinder measurement, he could input the data in an offset from his own position. Even an estimate could work, if the estimator is pretty good.
Now, if we could only get people to understand and use it!
Hey guys, thanks for the inputs. No one's called me a complete fool yet, so that's something in my favor so far :) There are a few things I can talk a little more about.
1) USMC vs Army vs SOF. I think trying to mold the regular Army into a larger version of the Marine Corps or SOCOM is the wrong way to go. Emulation would only bring half-assed changes that don't mean anything (cough,"black berets", cough) or mass confusion from bolting small unit tactics onto large formations. You have to figure out those concepts that seem to work well (ie. every marine a rifleman, the SOF ideas of speed and flexibility) and apply them in a common-sense manner. And the really important changes have to be made at the bedrock level (Basic Training and Officer Commissioning Training).
2) What about the USAF and USN? Blowing off the importance of Air or Sea Power would be a huge mistake. For a country like the US, dependant on airlift and sealift, you can't just let your ships, subs and aircraft stagnate. Having said that, you can't just throw money at the problem and cross your fingers. Sometime in the last 30 years, the US lost the ability to design and field new airplanes and ships without making a soup sandwich of the whole process. Yes, we need a replacement for the F-15s and F-16s that are getting long in the tooth. Should it be taking this long or costing this much? Of course not. The whole episode of the F-22 or F/A-22 or FB-22 or whatever the designator is this week is embarassing to any Air Force officer with pride in their service. We can't even replace the KC-135s with 767s without it turning into a huge political furball. Seriously, WTF?
3) Comms. You love 'em when they work, you curse them when they don't. When Link 16/JTIDS/BFT and the other alphabet soups of radio systems finally mature and come into their full potential, it will be stunning. Until then, though, there is still a massive amount of confusion in modern warfare. If the public only knew how many near blue-on-blue events almost happened in OEF/OIF, they would be incredulous. One of the problems (IMHO, of course, though I'm not very humble, as my fellow Pave crewdog pointed out) is the sheer amount of useless information and data that gets passed over modern comm systems. Believe me, if the command and control guys can saturate all 8 of your radios with useless transmissions, they will. Adding two or three more secure, jam-resistant radios probably won't fix this problem. One of the things that SOF teaches pretty well is the whole idea of keeping unnecessary radio transmissions to a minimum (this is a for a lot of common-sense reasons, which I can elaborate later). Non-SOF units, again IMHO, tend to be Chatty Kathys when they have a radio and know how to use it. Just one of those things that can be fixed with realistic training and rehearsals.
I'll write more when I can, so keep the comments coming and I'll post more later on.
Blaster, you apparently don't understand the Army's close air support requirement. The Army never liked fast-movers doing close air because 1)they were moving too fast to see what they were doing 2)they lacked the endurance to hang around for any length of time, and 3)they're too vulnerable to ground fire. The primary evidence that the USAF doesn't get this at all were the attempts to retire the A-10 in the 1980s. The Army loves the A-10, it's the perfect aircraft for the job. In fact, during one of the USAF's attempts to retire them, the Army offered to operate them ourselves, which threw the USAF into a major tizzy - grunts with fixed wing jets? Perish the thought. The only saving grace today for the F-16 CAS is the availability of precision munitions. That takes care of item 1) above, but not items 2) and 3). Good, but not good enough.