Thus if we, as you say, did not shy away from explaining exactly what this generations' mission was (summed up as offense rather than defense), then might we see the greater innovation, artestry, etc., that we are looking for? I think on a certain level that is true. The Maya existed in a network of city-states, with each ruling its immediate territory. The protection warfighting function is the related tasks and systems that preserve the force so the commander can apply maximum combat power to accomplish the mission (ADP 3-0). The stereotype that comes to mind is: an infantry E6 is damn good at the workings and mechanics of infantry skills, but that does not mean he can judge when to apply those skills or why, just how. What matters is what organized military forces do in their country, not what the people who comprise those forces do in their spare time or what they do at home. It is this fundamental characteristic that defines land force operations. Maya civilization, often considered to be the most exalted and mysterious of the three, inhabited the Yucatan Peninsula of Eastern Mexico as long ago as 2,6002,6002,600 B.C. This is most likely well and good when SOF is engaged in doing the so-called surgical strike missions of which our nation (and our government to a large extent- to include USSOCOM) is enamored with as of late. This handbook borrowed much of its concepts from the Armys Design Methodology (ADM). 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. Most of the current inhabitants have only known ruin and violence and thus are understandably incapable of informing themselves as to what they want, let alone articulate such an abstract sentiment to a foreign infidel HT team. Maneuver is the employment of forces in the operational area through movement in combination with fires to achieve a position of advantage in respect to the enemy in order to accomplish the mission. The first historically recognized terrorists, the Jewish Zealots, targeted the temple priests and wealthy elites, the people who held the power. In other words, it's special tactics in a very conventional, multi-party, though not industrial scale, war. I would argue that we had all the understanding concerning the human factor by 2006 in literally hundreds of intelligence reports and interrogation reports---the abject failure was not on the SF side as the JSOC targeting against FF and AQI gave the CF a chance to focus their attention on the actual Sunni/Shia insurgent groups---the abject failure was the simple fact that up to even 2010 no deploying BCT fully "understood" what they were "seeing" as no one took the time inside CF to process the sheer amount of data available into a coherent training program. Your email address will not be published. The system is duplicatable and is used from the smallest of units up to large battalions and brigades. Just using the comment below sets the stage for a massive exercise in critical thinking and team discussions that do not fit the standard Powerpoint MDMP presentation. Flip it over and consider how much time ALQ/Taliban spend studying small town USA in an effort to understand how to best engage the US Army and USMC? 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]. This practitioner further learns while doing, always able to revisit assumptions due to an intellectual humbleness with respect to the world. Learning, or reflection,-in-action, is described (in italics) after its antithesis in the article by a quote from Donald A. Schon: Professionals become- locked into a view of themselves as technical experts, [and they] find nothing in the world of practice to occasion reflection. 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. The identification of the need for this information and subsequently coordinating its collection is therefore a part of the Int WFF. 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. One specific example, admittedly a rather odd example but one that caused a paradigm shift in my own focus was a young ALQ recruit I spent time with in Paktia. Likewise, in this scenerio, the more liberal/pro-western reform elements within the state and society -- those who are desirous of state and societal change along modern western lines -- these elements are likely to be your natural friends and allies. 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. I had mentioned to Robert in a previous comment that with the Civilian Defense groups could/would the Mexican government tolerate them---in some aspects the CD groups or "AutoDenfensa" groups are pushing back against both the government and the TCOs. We cannot rest on the assumption that the tools developed for the physical domains, that were geared for the Industrial Age timeframe and grounded in an Enlightenment Era philosophy will serve us the best. The protection warfighting function enables the commander to maintain the forces integrity and combat power. They do not need to go to small town America to watch us they have us in their country to watch. For example, on the one hand the methodology implores professionals to critically think, but it then defines the specific ways in which one must think about war, a wholly uncritical approach. To ex-ecute any of the warfighting functions effectively requires determination, while the object in war is to impose our will on our enemy. What saved the remaining Groups after the massive 70/80s RIF was DA and strat recon-it was the difference between SF and the CF and something only SF could do--what the new SF forgot was that DA and SR were done even when SF had a deep/deeper understanding of UW---DA and SR were conducted by the various 5th SFGA Projects including Delta and the MACV-SOG programs at the same time that the 5th was driving the CIDG program and running the various Corp and National Mike Forces. While that may be correct, I did not list it here because I believe Special Operations itself, uses the six above, which would make it a unit using the system. 2- that this influence undermined the very foundation of our DoD system of systems- which relies on nested purposes and logic from the most tactical all the way up to the President's national security strategy. 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. "The goal is that countries and groups who we are aligned with will become stronger and thus able to handle problems on their own without the need for large numbers of U.S. troops, which arguably get in the way of long-term progress anyway.". I think as well that the difference between the 60s and now is the length of rotations---we had a year to gain experience---AND the replacement process was individual replacements not team replacements--this allowed a sizeable amount of institutional knowledge to remain inside the team all the time---now whole teams come and go thus the institutional knowledge disappears if not passed on extremely well during RIP/TOA. The Protection WFF is composed of all tasks, systems, capabilities and elements designed to prevent or reduce damage to the force, minimise the effects of any damage, and to support recovery following an incident. But, this is a great example of where using CF terminology and philosophical constructs is hurting SOF: CF submits that tactical goes up to brigade level and even possibly division. But destroying the physical tools of war does not eliminate the reasons people fight. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Do we really believe that metrics, process, the scientific method, and formulae can be the primary guide for us in the human domain- even at the tactical level- and in any domain at the above-tactical levels? I am again going to shy away from your basic argument even though I agree with you. Protection includes the physical aspects of force personnel (combatants and non-combatants), equipment, and infrastructure. Administrative movement is related to the Sustaining WFF. I suggest that the central reason we are not be able to "win friends and influence people" is because of our extremely well-known national objective, which is, outlier state and societal transformation. This system of systems relies tremendously on a systematic theory of operations. What does it mean to have a warfighting culture? and ask: a. Command Deck . Regardless, they are a formulaic-like approach linked linearly to the Armys concept of how it intends to fight and/or influence and win the nations wars or keep wars from happening. Others, more inclined toward and adept at reflection-in-action, nevertheless feel profoundly uneasy because they cannot say what they know how to do, cannot justify its quality or rigor.. 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. would be safe from effective enemy fire 24/7, versus the random attacks with dumb weapons that are normally way off the mark. 3 The nature of war does not change, even though the Marine Corps added an additional warfighting function to our lexicon. Identifies strength and weaknesses, Encompasses all activities required to sustain (beans, bullets, band aids), measures taken to protect friendly forces, management and integration of info, deliberate integration with warfighting functions. And, thereby. [ix] Sacolick, Bennet S. & Grigsby, Wayne W, Jr., Special Operations/Conventional Forces Interdependence: A Critical Role in Prevent, Shape, Win, Army Magazine, JUN 2012, 39-40. The insurgent does not have to observe small America in order to understand our fielded units as we tended to in Iraq and AFG export our life styles into the enemies own territory making it easy for them to "know" and "understand" us. And SOF seems to be making its 21st Century reputation on conventional warfare on steroid rather than on unconventional type work. The function includes tasks associated with force projection related to gaining a positional advantage over an enemy. Thank you for stopping in today and please share this post with others. All warfighting functions possess scalable capabilities to mass lethal and nonlethal effects. Technical rationality (TR) is closely linked to positivist philosophy and is the antithesis of critical realism: TR assumes the social world can be treated the same as the physical world in terms of philosophical approaches and using the scientific method can gain knowledge about it that can be exploited in action in the future. Today, in modern times, characterized by a maximum concentration of mega-monopolies represented by some 500 corporations, the political class, regardless of its color or ideology, now plays at capital's side. "Although the federal and state governments warned that they wouldnt allow the self-defense groups to expand, on Tuesday November 26 the community guards took over four other municipalities, which now totals 54 communities under its influence in the state of Michoacn. Integrate all forms of Army, joint and multinational fires. 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? Because we did not "understand he enemy" we exported what we thought were successes to AFG only to have them basically fail. 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. In the paragraphs below, I will list each of the 6 Army Warfighting Functions and share some additional insights. I have even gone so far as to suggest that in knowing oneself (specifically one's political objective) one can: b. 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? A particular IED group had been literally giving us fits meaning statistically seen a gun truck would be hit once in every three trips out the wire---this particular group had gotten extremely good with RC IEDs. Command & Control 2. I'm not so sure the world is a safer or better place than it was 12 years ago. Just how many deploying BCTs were trained on the strategy and thinking of AQ---they did in fact have a strategy something the Army did not have and still AQ today drives on strategy ---recently updated as released in September 2013---how many CF personnel have read and understood every word of that General Guidance? Let me expand on this somewhat by providing a broader context: The goal is to transform the lesser and remaining outlier states and societies along modern western lines; this, so that they might better benefit from and better provide for the global economy. [xxxvi] This is because, if anything, surgical strike missions are very limited in time and scope and their objectives are clear and unambiguous. It prioritizes education and training over platforms and technology as well as persistent engagement over drone strikes, direct action raids, and Hollywood movies. The difference is that equipment is easy to count, education is not. One example is moving forces to execute a large-scale air or airborne assault. Russian and Saurists posts after 1978 and ISAF and GoIRA over the past 12 years. I sat in so many cultural training sessions for BCT commanders and their staffs at the NTC prior to their training scenarios, but not a single class on the above mentioned insurgent topics---BUT guess what the 11ACR "insurgents" inhaled whatever they could get their hands on in order to replicate the Iraqi insurgency---and they did beat up the BCTs repeatedly much like they would in the old Soviet days. "The goal is not more money, more missions, or more personnel. [xx] Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, Free Press, 1968. Again a team meeting and he asks them if they had see or heard anything about the addition to the trucks---the youngest who was computer smart went then to the local internet shop that had tea and spent all day surfing. The conduct of Final questions: Does the "enemy" have a better understanding than we do as to our offensive strategy and our goals and objectives? 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