The U.S. Army Security Assistance Training Management Organization - Via the U.S. Army's STAND-TO! "The U.S. Army Security Assistance Training Management Organization (USASATMO) is a brigade-equivalent command, headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C., employing more than 260 Soldiers, Department of Army civilians and contractors who are deployed to more than 20 countries throughout the year to meet the requirements of the foreign nations requesting training assistance." More at the link.
November and December 2010 Issue of the CTC Sentinel - The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point contributes relevant scholarly perspectives through education, research and policy analysis to combat terrorist threats to the United States. Read the latest issue of the CTC Sentinel at the link.
The Foreign Fighter Problem: Recent Trends and Case Studies - Audio and video files of the proceedings of a 27 and 28 September 2010 conference sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Reserve Officers Association. The conference brought together recognized academic and analytical expertise to examine recent trends in the foreign fighter phenomenon and explore the particular cases of Somalia, the Maghreb, Yemen, and Afghanistan/Pakistan. The conference report can be found at the link.
World Almanac of Islamism - The American Foreign Policy Council's World Almanac of Islamism is a comprehensive resource designed to track the rise or decline of radical Islam on a national, regional and global level. This database focuses on the nature of the contemporary Islamist threat around the world, and on the current activities of radical Islamist movements worldwide. Browse the Almanac at the link.
A Community Based Approach to Countering Radicalization: A Partnership for America - Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi with Mehreen Farooq of the World Organization for Resource Development and Education. WORDE is a nonprofit, educational organization whose mission is to enhance communication and understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim communities and to strengthen Muslim institutions that will mitigate social and political conflict. Read their report at the link.
Marines' Instant Gunship Blasts Taliban, Pentagon Bureaucracy - David Axe, Wired's Danger Room. The first Harvest Hawk-modified C-130 arrived in southern Afghanistan in October, just 18 months after the Marines first announced the program. Much more at the link.
22nd Annual SO/LIC Symposium & Exhibition - NDIA event with theme "Defense, Diplomacy, and Development: Translating Policy into Operational Capability". 8 and 9 February 2011 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Much more at the link to include agenda and registration.
Afghanistan and the Culture of Military Leadership - Dr. Lawrence Sellin at Human Events. Opinion piece that argues that while the U.S. military spends billions of dollars on service academies, war colleges, graduate programs and other forms of education in order to train people to think, it then places them inside a bureaucracy that prevents them from doing so. Go to the link for more.
Comments
<b>Robert C. Jones:</b>
Thanks, Bob. I agree with you on all that with one quibble: While I acknowledge the NCO ER system is markedly better than the OER process, it does not provide markedly better results.
The current NCO promotion process rewards mediocrity -- the guy who makes no major errors will most likely eventually get promoted. OTOH, an aggressive go-getter is highly likely to make errors and / or to annoy people. AR 600-200 used to say that if a NCO was selected by the Board and had adequate points, he would be promoted <i>unless</i> his Commander wrote a letter to pull him for cause.
That's exactly backward, Commanders will not take the time to write letters on marginal people. That's the reason the regulation should have been changed long ago to read that the individual would be promoted <i>only</i> when his or her Commander wrote a letter saying promotion was merited.
Yes, that will require Commanders to make decisions with almost immediate impact in their little world...
When the CSMs above Battalion are more concerned with uniforms and the like than they are with tactical and professional competence, an Army -- or at least an NCO Corps -- has lost its way...
The Army is in dire need of a cultural reset. An improved compensation system so people can be rewarded without being promoted in rank allowing the Peter Principle to operate would be nice but isn't critical. Critical are significantly improved training and a totally revamped personnel system.
The marginal training leads to an inability of Commanders to trust subordinates, the systemic flaws in the personnel arena lead to the myth that all persons of equal rank and roughly similar background can do all jobs of that rank. Far from true, never has been and never will be. One size does not fit all.
Those two changes should be implemented simultaneously. Both efforts will take a number of years and several Chiefs of Staff to implement and will be gut wrenching. However, anything less will just be tinkering around the edges as we have been doing since 1919 and will simply continue the bureaucratic march to less than total relevance.
Ken,
Concur. I have served with Larry in recent years, was in the same War College class, and was in Afghanistan during the period he discusses. His comments are fair; but guys like Larry are seen as some sort of goofy outsider who "just doesn't get it" by his Regular Army peers and superiors. More driven by mission than by concerns over what meets the misson within the constraints of what one also thinks will also make the boss happy; Possessing a diverse background of professional civilian and military experiences to draw from; and frankly simply caring more about how he feels about his approach to his job than how some OER ultimately assesses that same performance.
In Afghanistan there is definitely a bubble of "reality" that each staff lives in, that bubble is defined by what they believe their boss believes and desires. Contrarian voices, no matter how reasonable, are marginalized one way or another. These symptoms are easy to identify, just as the symptoms of insurgency are easy to identify. Getting after root causes is another matter all together.
For the military? I'd suggest focus long and hard on the subjective senior rater profile that drives officer promotions in a classic "win-lose" system and consider why the more objective "win-win" construct we use for our NCOs should not apply across the board.
For Afghanistan, I'll continue to beat the same drum: The Core of the Problem is the Government of Afghanistan. The current insurgency grew in parallel to Karzai's emergence as one who manipulates popular votes to sieze a false legitimacy; and his production of a constitution that vests all power and authority in him personally under teh guise of "central government". Our troubles are because we enabled this to happen, and now protect it from the natural popular consequences.
It's not too late on either count to change both our perspectives and our behavior, but I'm not holding my breath. Inertia is a powerful thing. More so when one believes inertia makes the boss happy and ones personal success depends upon that condition.
Most of those are of interest but are transitory. The last article is enduring and is, literally, a killer...
"<b>Afghanistan and the Culture of Military Leadership</b>" is fair, accurate and yet another wake up call to a culture in need of reset. To say it should be required reading by the senior leadership of DoD and the services solves nothing and is trite, not least because most are very aware of the cited issues.
What should be required is that they cease the lip service and actually do something about the problems.