Controlled-Aggression Techniques for Total Force Readiness
by First Lieutenant Nick Stewart
Fit (and Ready) to Fight Revisited (Full PDF Article)
Three years ago, Air and Space Power Journal published my vortices regarding the lack of physical and personnel security training provided by our nation's Air Force. As a newly-commissioned officer, I informally interviewed another newly-commissioned lieutenant who had deployed to combat-stricken Afghanistan during his enlisted service and to a senior colonel with 100+ flying hours as a combat navigator on the B-52 Stratofortress. Both combat veterans were trained in defense mechanisms and small arms weaponry just prior to their respective deployments.
However, these officers readily stated that in a situation where all ammunition is expended and with enemy soldiers or insurgents / terrorists remaining active and present, their respective capacity for survival in a hand-to-hand combat environment was non-existent. Today, my concern is solidified; Airmen are woefully unprepared to defend themselves. Training in close-quarters combatives and the utilization of weapons of opportunity is an urgent requirement for our Air Force.
Comments
I think it's great whenever a young leader gets the urge to improve training and acts upon that urge. But I think the author mistakes his own motivation for a genuine need for urgency: <I>"Training in close-quarters combatives and the utilization of weapons of opportunity is an urgent requirement for our Air Force."</I>
I read the article expecting to see a justification for this assertion. The closest thing that I saw was an observation that if x and if y then possibly, maybe, z.
There is a great op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123267054604308313.html">by Eliot Cohen</a> about writing commentary that influences policy makers and decision makers. If a proposal is intended to influence someone who has the influence to make the proposal a reality, then it needs to appeal to a more realistic and likely scenario than an airman expending all of his ammo and then engaging in hand-to-hand combat... but not knowing how. It's a disturbing image, to be sure, but seems so far-fetched on its face as to arouse no sense of urgency in all but the most highly motivated among us.
There are lots of resources that are spread thin. Time is one of them. This proposal is very time consuming. Perhaps a better way to sell it would be as a means of changing the organizational culture within the Air Force. To that end, it could be part of the Air Force's newfound emphasis upon physical training. Rather than being sold as a survival skill for a highly unlikely scenario, it could be sold as a fundamentally transformational influence upon the force that will instill a warrior mindset upon the servicemembers that will translate into harder-working, more determined, and more effective personnel that will significantly impact the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall force.
I am not criticizing the substance of the proposal. I just think it could be sold far more effectively.