A Balancing Act: Optimizing the Army for Irregular and Conventional Wars - Paul Scharre, Armed Forces Journal.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that "the defining principle of the Pentagon's new National Defense Strategy is balance" - between winning today's wars and preparing for future ones and between investing in new, irregular capabilities while retaining conventional ones.
With the sense that the post-9/11 years of budget increases are over and leaner years are ahead, a debate has exploded between those who believe that the military is overinvested in capabilities for one form of conflict or the other. On one end are the counterinsurgency (COIN) advocates who believe the services, particularly the Army and Marine Corps, must continue their shift toward preparing for protracted, irregular wars - the most likely threat on the horizon. Opposing them are the "traditionalists" who believe the military should remain focused on nation-states and that irregular wars against insurgents or terrorists should be avoided or can be adequately managed by a conventional force. The Army's official position is that it is currently overly focused on COIN and must be rebalanced to a "full-spectrum" force in the future, which presumably would entail shifting resources back toward conventional capabilities. Before one can assess whether the force is out of balance, however, one must have a sense of what a balanced force looks like. Rather than endlessly debate whether the future will hold conventional, irregular or hybrid adversaries, this article proposes a force-planning construct for ground forces that balances irregular and conventional capabilities based on a holistic view of land warfare...
More at Armed Forces Journal.
Unblinking Eyes: Managing the Strategic Consequences of Persistent Surveillance - Timothy J. Junio and Jonathan Protz, Armed Forces Journal.
The tactical use of a new set of intelligence collection systems known as persistent surveillance (PS) is well-known. Sometimes colloquially referred to an "unblinking eye," a PS system is designed to maintain a constant watch over a target of interest. The primary beneficiaries of PS systems have been U.S. armed forces waging counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, where long-duration tracking of individuals has enabled many capture/kill operations.
Few, however, have sought to analyze the strategic implications of PS technologies. Yet new surveillance systems that combine PS with large-scale data retention and advanced algorithms have strong potential for social disruption. Recent technological trends indicate that, within the next five to 10 years, states will begin to field capabilities to monitor their citizens - and the citizens of other states - with sufficient detail to empower new forms of coercion. The potential created by these new technologies will lead states to compete over a redefined notion of influence in international politics. The U.S. military could gain significant first-mover advantages by hastening development of these technologies while simultaneously working to defend the populations of the U.S. and its allies from the information-gathering efforts of other, authoritarian, states...
More at Armed Forces Journal.
Improving Capstone: Change Course Focus to Challenge Participants - Brigadier General Paula G. Thornhill, Armed Forces Journal.
... The six-week Capstone course is mandatory for all line officers promoted to brigadier general or rear admiral (lower half) to help prepare them for service in the most senior military ranks. During the course, the newly minted one-stars attend myriad briefings on topics including national military strategy, joint operations and intelligence. They also travel extensively to meet with senior officials in the U.S. and overseas.
But Capstone lacks some key components found in civilian executive education. There is no mandatory reading, little quality control of external speakers and no peer discussion opportunities. In short, the course gives new general officers impressive professional exposure, but it lacks intellectual content. Moreover, in every meeting, whether in the U.S. or overseas, at least one retired four-star officer sits in as a "senior fellow." These fellows have no responsibility other than to comment as they see appropriate. While all of these retired four-stars have served with distinction, their presence leads to two unintended - and unfortunate - consequences...
More at Armed Forces Journal.
Comments
I have so long decried the insti-tactical character of intel that this article on strategic intel through prolonged examination was most refreshing. Now soldiers have got to learn to be undercover cops. Bravo! SFs with weapons for defense instead of offense are more likely to bring back the beacon instead of snafu cover-ups. Again, Bravo!