Full Spectrum is dead. Long live Full Spectrum?

I work in a place where I straddle the line between importance and impotence daily. Why, you ask? Because I get emails that say this:

“Unified land operations replaces full spectrum operations as the Army’s operating concept.  Decisive action replaces full spectrum operations as the collective term for simultaneous offense, defense, stability and defense support of civil authorities as an enabler for unified land operations.  Full spectrum operations is obsolete and should be stricken from use. Whether authors use unified land operations or decisive action will depend on context and meaning.”

Really? What does that mean anyway? *facepalm*

Usually we would just release a bunch of changes to published manuals and move on because it will change anyway. Need I remind you of the infamous command-and-control-is-verbotten-and-is-now- called-battle-command-is-now-also-verbotten-and-is-now-called-mission-command change last year. I know.

Only one problem with the plan to simply publish a change to the all the manuals and be done with it: Full Spectrum Combat Aviation Brigade.

*facepalm encore*

Happy-ish Holidays

Between the pressed turkey breast slices and salty stuffing washed down with sparkling grape juice, war tries to be like being home for the holidays, but it falls short. There is little that contends with the blessing of being with friends and family during the Christmas season. Then again, when life gives you lemons, take ‘em. Because, well… free lemons. A friend of mine once told me that the next best thing to being with family for any holiday is being with the family that Uncle Sugar blessed you with.  Inevitably, just as you think you can chill out for a moment and enjoy your simulated mashed potatoes and gravy, the enemy gets a vote, and you have to go back to work.

Which is why, in light of crummy living conditions and being away from family, making the best of craptacular situation is uniquely military, which is why this rocks:

To all friends enjoying the holiday season (again) away from loved ones, The Doctrinatrix wishes you the merriest and happiest of holiday seasons as you can get while you’re stuck smelling burning poop.

The Pitfalls of Civilian Clothes Day

We’ve been annoying the Penthouse chain of command for months to let us do a Civilian Clothes Friday Fundraiser. Our directorate's Sergeant Major is less than enthused and always changes the topic of discussion to something else, like the looming APFT that no one really wants to take. In all honesty, there are times when letting Soldiers choose the civilian clothing option is a treasure trove of wardrobe faux pas that can potentially leave you wishing you’d just given them the alternative to pay just to leave work early. At least then you can get paperwork done without wondering what the subliminal statement your soldiers were trying to impart with their attire.  Then again, there really isn’t that big of a threat with the Penthouse crew. The lowest ranking individual on the floor is a SSG, who by all accounts really runs the place. The biggest hazard to attire selection for our crowd is the potential overabundance of Sans-a-belt pants and Nike golf shirts. That, and the fact that Aircraft Shootdown Team will all show up looking like they staggered out of a Scott convention. We wouldn’t know though because they spend their whole time in the office hiding behind a locked door and avoiding people, worshiping their SIPR network and their general awesomeness like a Scottish-appareled Gollum.

Having been a company commander, I admit that I fell prey to the lure of Civilian Clothes Fridays. It was a good way to fill the company’s cup-and-flower fund without having to resort to cooking meth in the motorpool or auctioning PVS-7Bs on eBay. My soldiers were pretty much the upper echelon of the intelligence spectrum in the Army. I’m not kidding. I’m not saying this to be mean or be all superior, but it’s a fact. The highest Army GT and ASVAB scores are held for air traffic controllers. This means that I didn’t have menial concerns. If they got in trouble it was going to be for something epic and monumental. Thus, civilian clothes day was never an issue for me.

I cannot say the same for some of my peers. I’m sorry. Luck can be sh*tty like that.

There are four potential landmines that can appear during civilian clothes day:

1. I didn’t know my solider was a prostitute.

Okay, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone. There is a chance that you may discover one of male gendered soldiers can pull off glittery jeans and a halter top better than Shakira. I’ll admit that you’ll have to deal with that issue when it comes to your desk and/or stands on your red carpet. The concern I’m addressing is your female Minion that just walked out of the training office looking like she’s been doing a little moonlighting at the Cat West Bar on Campbell Blvd. You’re not totally sure how she got “all that a** inside them jeans,” but you fear her sitting down because she might cause the seams to blow out, fully exposing the Fredrick’s of Hollywood thong that has been playing peekaboo in her a**crack, between her Juicy Couture jeans and her lace babydoll t-shirt.

2. I didn’t know my soldier was Lil’ Wayne.

I can’t offer any advice in this case, but try to resist the urge to pull their pants up for them.

3. I didn’t know my soldier was Pig Pen.

They rolled out of bed and made sure to jump on the wrinkle grenade before heading to the office. They sort of match, if “match” is defined as being dressed by a colorblind leper. You stand there wondering how your soldier makes it from Friday date night to Monday morning PT in an adequately clothed state. Does someone, like the barracks NCO, dress them before they leave for the evening? Did they manage to sneak out before a buddy could fix them today? Is that an actual bird nesting in their hair? You’re pretty sure that this soldier is totally squared away and clean shaven in uniform any other day of the week, but he looks like one of those Occupy Wall Street kids now... and not one of those hipster-smartly-attired-with-requisit-scarf-and-skinny-jeans-while-hoisting-a-Starbucks-and-an-iPhone4 hipsters either. He looks like the naked guy you saw on the news last night who was being prison showered off with a fire hose by the police after he beshat himself in their cruiser.

4. I didn’t know my soldier was part of the Gucci/Prada/Versace/Dior empire. 

Yes, you're awesome, and I look like
a hot mess. Please take your
 Diorness out to the motorpool now.

Sadly enough, I do know how this feels. I had a soldier who was always smartly dressed no matter what the function was. Hail and Farewell for the Battalion? Shows up looking like a full-page ad in last month’s Vogue or Vanity Fair or GQ.  Civilian Clothes Friday? Arrives looking like they came directly from NYC Fashion Week. I love clothes and shoes. Really love them. I couldn’t even complete with this soldier. Even my battalion CSM commented to me one day that my soldier was always sharply dressed and looked professional, at any time of day. I hung my head because I was wearing old jeans and a t-shirt that announced to everyone “Wisconsin Cheddar Rocks my Socks.” Can you blame me? I was at the commissary on a Saturday afternoon. The soldier in question: my 1SG.

Inevitably, as a commander, your highly professional NCOs, warrant officers, and junior branch officers will probably address these issues long before first formation, saving you the humiliation of actually having to tackle this matter yourself. Except for that last one. Because let me tell you… there is nothing quite like the judgmental look of smartly dressed 1SG Judgey McJudgerson when you’re sportin’ a worn-out, paper-thin t-shirt that proudly declares your love for the Daleville Diner’s huge breakfast burrito. Aces.

Counterinsurgency, you heartless b*tch!

Bill Ardolino, of Long War Journal fame, said it best. “COIN is dead. Long live COIN?”

Oh, COIN, you heartless b*tch!

Oh, sweet Counterinsurgency, why have you been ruffling so many feathers in the milblogosphere? Is it because it’s a buzz phrase, with your COINtras and COINdinistas, that captures our imagination with ideas skimpy offensive operations that can successfully convert a world at “small war” into a world at “large peace,” unlike the overly muscled and massive strategies we saw during the Cold War? Is it because we always knew the drawdown would come, looming on the horizon, waiting to slam our fingers in the proverbial cookie jar of GWOT-funding? Is it GEN Petraeus and GEN McChrystal, with their sexy celeb-general atmosphere who toss that word out like it’s a 4-star challenge coin wrapped in a free yellow reflective safety belt?

Oh, my darling Counterinsurgency, you might just be a tease in a cheap cocktail dress hoisting a field manual program directive at us conventional force-types about the impending rewrite of FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, and trying to get us to buy into your sexy prose and controversial topics, that only the very cultured of the Army masses can discuss without looking like complete idiots. Thank you very much for reminding me that I am not Crispin Burke, who's pretty damn smart for a Whackhawk pilot.

But wait! I’m an aviator, dearest Counterinsurgency, you can’t phase me with your barroom tricks and flashy lexicon. I was raised in the old Fort Rucker Dawn Patrol Lounge on cheap beer, stale cigarette smoke, and stories about Vietnam from old DACs who routinely tried to find new ways to pinch the butts of the waitresses shouldering plates of dry chicken wings and soggy fries.

With the program directive out on the streets for review of what may become the new FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, where does Army Aviation stand in this picture? Do we even have a spot in the picture at all? Are we still a Movement and Maneuver warfighting function, rolling up under the patronage of branches like Infantry and Armor? Do we consider ourselves worthy enough to be in the targeting development process that lends to tactics development?

You’re damn skippy we do. The rest of the Army and Marine Corps feel the same way. Appendix A, Airpower in Counterinsurgency, will become our stamp upon the services. It will be our chance to speak out about how and why COIN is still relevant, even in Army Aviation, and more than just tricked-out verbal chicanery. Right now, if you read that Airpower in COIN appendix, you’ll know who wrote it right away. Yeah, that’s right… sneaky zoomies… that’s who.

So, now what? What has our relationship come to, sweet Counterinsurgency?

Insurgency as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict. Counterinsurgency is military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency (JP 1-02). When viewed from the prospective of our cockpit, these are two sides to the same coin, patterned under the broad spectrum of irregular warfare. As a movement and maneuver asset to the ground force commander, the conditions that lead to insurgency within a populace can become moot to us as pilots. This is not because we are not interested or flat-out don’t care about the ground force’s mission, but because the modular structure of today’s deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have made it difficult to continue that all important process of Air Ground Integration (wow, you must be sick of hearing me harp about that). Manipulation of a weak populace, regime failures, genocidal tendencies within a group, and external interference from some of the more nefarious neighbors and actors within the state can contribute the success or failure of an insurgent force. The interaction between United States’ ground forces and the populace trying to improve their situation can waffle between good and bad depending on fragile bonds and trusts that we don’t see from the vantage of our cockpits. Can you blame Army Aviation though? We’re trying as hard as we can, but there is not enough aviation to go around, or pilots to get down at boot level and talk with the ground force commander about the subtle nuances of their area of operations.

Before COIN even starts, regardless of where on the map the fight may be taking place, we’re already at a disadvantage. We’re screwed before we’ve even started. Aces. Insurgent forces have seized and retained initiative as part of their own version of combined arms maneuver. To make matters vastly worse, they have key terrain scoped out as well. This puts aviation at a disadvantage. Vulnerability to small arms fire and cheaply attainable and portable MANPADS becomes more evident when the key terrain hasn’t been secured by friendly ground forces yet. Insurgent forces versed in the creation of a secure operating environment for themselves blend quickly and efficiently with the local populace, making identification of irregular enemy forces nearly impossible from terrain flight altitudes. Even engaging targets that have met the established rules of engagement and gone through the escalation of force process is not enough to defeat an insurgency. In fact, that can run the gambit from beneficial to the host nation populace and friendly ground force commander to down-right detrimental to the mission in the event of CIVCAS, civilian causalities. One bad rocket, one poorly aimed Hellfire, or one accidental bullet from a window-mounted M240B can unhinge months of delicate and calculating efforts for US ground forces.  

So, how can Army Aviation help counterinsurgency to establish military ascendancy and enable stability operations to expand across the area of operations? Victory can only be achieved when the populace consents to the government’s legitimacy and stops actively, or even passively, supporting the insurgency. Is this even possible for pilots to effect?

Prior to deployment, we sit in creaky auditorium chairs and listen to professors and State Department personnel drone about the local populace, the history of the nation, the society’s leadership system, tribal communication, ideologies, the nuances of the conflict, the strengths and weakness in the moral fibers of the insurgency and the host nation. To aircrews, which will rarely interact at ground level with the host nation’s population, this may seem moot. Why would a UH-60M crew chief need to know about the narratives that may resonate within a local tribe or ethnic group? In a training schedule packed with pre-deployment considerations that are vital to the combat aviation brigade (another round of gunnery tables or peeling off a Battalion task force to support a BCT’s JRTC rotation) what is the relevance to the aircrew in knowing the history of the tension between a stable agricultural based tribe and a migrating tribe of herdsmen? Given the fact that most of my brethren within the attack reconnaissance community only claim to need a grid, frequency and call sign to get the job done, that’s a tough question to answer sometimes.  

Think of it this way though: “Without good intelligence, counterinsurgents are like blind boxers wasting energy flailing at unseen opponents and perhaps causing unintended harm. With good intelligence, counterinsurgents are like surgeons cutting out cancerous tissue while keeping other vital organs intact.” That is straight from the current edition of the FM 3-24. Effective operations are shaped by timely, specific, and reliable intelligence, shared at the level most likely to be in contact with the insurgency and local populace daily. Aren’t we, the aviation force, every bit as likely to be direct contact with the insurgency on a daily basis?

To COIN is to be doing it for the long haul (I know, that’s what she said…)

I know what you’re thinking. Why can’t we just leave? We’re aviation. Hell, CH-47s self-deploy to the field all the time with coolers and camp chairs and grills all the time!  

COIN is not for the faint of heart or the fickle of countenance. In other words, if you have ever been blamed of having “commitment issues” by a member of the opposite sex (like most Cavalry guys I know, or have loved and left) you may not be ideally suited for aiding the counterinsurgent fight. Insurgencies by their very nature are protracted ordeals that demand all your emotional energy, spare time and money. Even if the local populace prefers the host nation government to the insurgents, they may not actively support a government unless they are convinced that the counterinsurgents have the means, ability, stamina, and will to win. Sounds oddly like Iraq. And Afghanistan. And Vietnam. And every other insurgency we’ve ever dealt with. The insurgents’ primary beef is usually against their host nation government, not the coalition… at least, not to start with. Never the less, once we are involved and committing support, we are in the relationship for the long haul and that can be crucial to building public faith in that government’s viability. It’s critical that the populace have confidence in the staying power of both the counterinsurgents and their government. That’s why we can’t just dump them once we start getting tired of the relationship, or when a younger, sexier insurgency comes along.

Using the Appropriate Level of Force… or none at all.

Any use of force generates a series of reactions, good or bad. Sometimes a massive effort is needed to destroy or intimidate an opponent and reassure the populace. It’s like beating up the neighborhood bully. Everyone leaves happy, and the other bullies get the idea that maybe they should move it along to someplace else. Extremist insurgent combatants often have to be killed. As my pop is fond of saying, “he was bad; he needed killing.” In any case, counterinsurgents should carefully calculate the type and amount of force to be applied and who does it for any operation. Just because you have a Hellfire available doesn’t mean that you need to use it. 

Consider it this way: An operation that kills five insurgents is counterproductive if collateral damage leads to the recruitment of fifty more insurgents. If a guy is straddling the fence between “Rock on with yer badself, America” and “Death to the Infidels,” killing his nephew by accident on the back of a moped because he was carrying a rusty AK-47 may cause the uncle (and his whole extended family that remembers the joyous days when the Russians were trollin’ in Againistan) to lean on the lesser jihad side of the fight.

Learn and Adapt

Every unit needs to be able to make observations, draw and apply lessons, and assess results. Duh. This is like telling someone that they need to learn from their successes and mistakes. And the mistakes of the other guys who were there last year. And the guys here two years before that. And the last conquering heroes from like eleventythousand regimes ago. If you don’t know this by now in your military career, you should probably save yourself the trouble, and leave the Army. You’ll be perfect for Congress though.

Empowering the Lowest Levels—and, BEHOLD, another case for good Air Ground Integration

We all know that “mission command results from subordinate leaders at all echelons exercising disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent to accomplish missions.” Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3-0 told us so. Mission command is ideally suited to COIN operations because it empowers the lowest level of tactical leadership to solve problems with a disciplined and well-educated hand. Remember how I said that a good Battle Captain knows their surroundings just as well as a good ground force commander does? Well, no one has a better grasp of their situation than a junior ground leader. Most good Battle Captains can only hope to get as good as their counterparts in the ground units. Perhaps now would be the ideal time to seek them out and bend their ear about how aviation can help (or at least keep from hindering) their fragile missions during COIN?! Under mission command, they are given access to, or even control of, the resources needed to produce timely intelligence and conduct effective tactical operations. So, if everything is at their disposal, why aren’t we? We are their maneuver asset, or at least that’s what we keep claiming to be. Effective COIN operations are decentralized, and higher commanders push as many capabilities as possible down to their level, which includes Army Aviation.

So what about the Air Mission Commanders and the Pilots in Command with our formations?

Young leaders often make decisions at the tactical level that have strategic consequences. Fox News is very fond of telling us that over and over and over and over. Senior leaders can affect that through comprehensive training and clear guidance, even in the COIN fight. When they know that their clear guidance is being followed by their well-trained aircrews, they trust their subordinates to do the right thing. We’ve come full circle, haven’t we? Preparation for tactical-level leaders requires more than just mastering vague and slightly stuffy doctrine. They must also be trained and educated to adapt to their local surroundings, understand the legal and ethical implications of their actions, and exercise initiative and sound judgment in accordance with their senior commanders’ intent. Ahh, we talked about that earlier… guess we should start paying attention during those ridiculous pre-deployment classes, huh?