At the operational level we are sorely handicapped. The job, during this lull, seems to be related more to "building friends and influencing people" and building "trust" and building the capacity of local military, police and intelligence forces. Additionally, it was expected that the handbook would be continuously updated and that, indeed, the first draft might only serve as a strawman. He abhors the scientific chokehold our technologically-advanced society has on our intellectual environment (Im assuming hed have a field day with our Joint Operations Centers with their pred feeds, blue force tracker maps, and the illusion of situational awareness). I recently read a quote from COL Boyd of Boyd's OODA Loop fame: "The Pentagon has a strategy, and that strategy is maintain the flow of money" (or something to that effect). Interesting if one goes back and re-reads the recent SWJ article by Dave Maxwell concerning UW and strategy. 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? QUOTE: The scope of engagement may include Other Government Agencies (OGA), Non-Government Organisation (NGO), Host Nation (HN) Government, and key elements within the civil community in general. Eventually they actually do get attacked and the outcome is likely less than pretty without those external air attack and fires technical resources that some describe as micromanagement while others under fire appreciate as essential and lifesaving. IMO the failure to understand the simple basics of the fighting culture or fighting motive-sets of our opponents undermines every aspect of our effort in Afghanistan. But, I would submit ones level- if seeing things that way helps- should be based on the context as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach. Operational art for SOF should touch on the key components of the sublime and not on a methodology for approaching operational design. Both tactical and operational maneuver require logistic support. Linear logic and metrics are required to justify and validate requirements; narrative and anecdote are abhorred by the bureaucracy. If two things dont alert us to the possibility that there could be something fundamentally wrong, then possibly nothing will. Regarding my comment immediately below, this from ADM McRaven may be helpful: "You have the maritime, the ground, and the air domains, and then theres a human domain you have to operate in, and thats the totality of the physical and the cultural environment. Or to use the language of the military, your own assumptions. 2023 KEA - Knowledge Enabled Army. The rationale being the MIE multiplier might provide more of an insight into the dynamics of the conflict ecosystem than the digitally driven lens we are currently enslaved to. This brings us to the paradox of the human domain. As for warfighting potential, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) asserts a rather broad utility for offensive cyber operations. Entire tribes vanished as smallpox, scarlet fever, and influenza decimated the native population of the Americas. 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. In addition to having the most advanced medical and surgical techniques of the ancient Americas, the Inca constructed more than 12,00012,00012,000 miles of roadway and aqueducts to supply taxpaying and labor-contributing tribes throughout the empire. [xii] See Carl Builders book, Masks of War, Johns Hopkins University Press, FEB, 1989, for a description of why the services act the way they do. The other article about the Montagnards illustrates that no matter how well intentioned and capable the SF community and USAID is, they simply lack the numbers and self-security to make a large impact over large areas. Joint Staff Warfighting Capability Analyst. No COP, firebase, airfield, etc. This human domain/participatory observation concept looks like it is to be accomplished in times of peace (today and the immediate future?) This conundrum was fixed by the Army at Fort Leavenworth by forcing the concepts of design, an anti-methodological approach, into a methodology! (Thus as one might, in my day, have been required to explain one's ideas and proposals within the context of containing communism, likewise today might one benefit from explaining one's concepts and proposals within the context of promoting the Western way of life and governance?). He ups his surveillance of the FOB which was always in place in order to understand us and our movements and notices that something had been added to the gun trucks. You build that trustyou cant surge trust. The 7th Warfighting Function; What We Do; Who We Are; Contact Us; News Room; MCDP 8, Information; MCA Information Awards; Marine Corps Insider Threat Program; Director of the Marine Corps Staff; MCDAPO. ), PhD The Sociology of Military Science, Bloomsbury Academic, 8 NOV 2012. When 9-11 happened and you moved quickly into Afghanistan, this mood, this background, this context, these connections, this forgotten yet still present military institutional emotional history, alive even if buried deep within, surfaced only at the time of the OBL raid. In the natural world, this underlying mechanism refers to the natural laws that have visible effects -- for example, gravity or aging. [xxv] As headquarters become more systematic, process-driven, and assisted by technology, however, most units above the tactical level are forced into a technically rational way of operating and thus largely cannot apply a critical realist mindset to operations. Russian and Saurists posts after 1978 and ISAF and GoIRA over the past 12 years. If any kind of mission was conducive to a technically rational approach, it would be surgical strike missions.[xxxvii]. C. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) This fundamental characteristic of the social world, characterized by tacit knowledge, is both the key to moving forward in the human domain as well as ironically the death knell of the term, the human domain. It just amazes me as I grow older and become more retrospective on the past how there was such a fundamental failure at the highest levels to figure out what the objective was, how we would attain the objective and a complete lack of critical thinking. If you have watched the borderland beat site for over the last few years---we in the watching the failing of a major "democratic" country directly on our immediate border with TCOs driven their trade deeper into the major cities using violence much like AQ in Iraq. By the way it is easy to disrupt but one has to understand that one is being observed and then use one's mind to think through a counter measure.. for an hour or two almost like you were back in a hotel in the states. These tasks are; The purpose of the Int WFF is to know what is happening. Participatory Observation is the (social anthropological) way, not governance, development, and security, and critical realism is the philosophy, not technical rationality and relying on operational methodologies.". It is often seen as the opposite of Foreign Internal Defense (FID), an umbrella term encompassing COIN. 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.
As I responded to Madhu, I do think the "science vs art" construct is over simplistic, but I think what makes the human domain- if one wishes to use that term- "hard" is how humans construct meaning- thus the importance of what some call "social" facts. The seven warfighting functions are command and control, fires, force protection, information, intelligence, logistics, and maneuver. The seven warfighting functions are command and control, fires, force protection, information, intelligence, logistics, and maneuver. My empiricism is not the empiricism that you sometimes criticize, is it? In plain English, the 7 th WfF is all of the tasks and systems that military units would need to do or have to influence people, taking into account the "socio-economic, cognitive, and physical aspects of human activity". That is, they encompass so much that they are rendered almost useless. Last but by no means least the BCT can access the entire conventional arsenal of the US Armed Forces. Please leave your comments and input in the comment section below. Essentially thru their M1Es the HN Command have developed a intuitive connection to the Khost conflict ecosystem. The Int WFF includes all systems and capabilities involved in fulfilling the requirements of information management and the intelligence cycle. WFF are the physical means that tactical commanders use to execute operations and accomplish missions assigned by a superior commander. The Marine Corps defines the fires warfighting function as "Fires harass, suppress, neutralize, or destroy in order to accomplish the targeting objective, which may be to disrupt, delay, limit, persuade, or influence. where there is no, as yet, defined and identifiable enemy. The other side to this coin is that we have failed to be diligent in our own COMSEC by the very fact we have allowed our warfighters to stay connected with such internet tools as Facebook while operating in theater. The fires warfighting function is the related tasks and systems that provide collective and coordinated use of Army indirect fires, AMD, and joint fires through the targeting process. Students at the SWCS routinely repeat higher's intent- to establish a "legitimate" government in Pineland, for instance, and they never once question the implicit factors that are driving our use of force in the scenario. The second is related to the first. [xiii] Freeburg, Sydney, J., After 10 Years Of Abject Failure, Army, SOCOM, Marine Leaders Focus On Strategic Landpower, Breakingdefense.com, 10 AUG 2013. In a broader Operational sense our inability to align Tactical success with Strategic success might stem from the possibility we are mistaking UW for Revolution, Resistance or Secession. I think to a certain extent things are still not too bad at the team level. how much does a company pay for h1b visa. 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. The offense cannot sustain itself indefinitely. Certainly a Bronx jihadi was unusual but most inhabitants of Afghan villages consider Taliban fighters with their Pakistani accented Pushto the mark of a foreigner for sure not a reason for immediate dislike such as an Arabic accent or a NY accent perhaps - but nonetheless in their minds eye they have little in common and even less respect for the landless refugees of Pakistan-born Afghans. They have become too skillful at techniques of selective inattention, junk categories, and situational control techniques, which they use to preserve constancy of their knowledge-in-practice. In the old days of SF UW when the mission was given to us during isolation the first thing a team did was to kick back and go into what one would call the "what if" mode---regardless of how crazy some of the comments or ideas where we went completely through until that was nothing left that could have surprised us ---then the true conversations started and all ideas reviewed and tossed until we were comfortable with the remaining one or two. Observation/surveillance is the only tool that allows for any UW cell to survive. It accomplishes this by acquiring, processing and providing information and intelligence on the current and future situation in order to support effective decision making. Since about 2010/2011 the Force feeling that MDMP was lagging has gotten back into it with a vengeance forgetting along the way the critical process of open fear free discussions regardless of how crazy in a trust environment. and are likewise both required to understand it. 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And, I'd add that this was the conclusion of a large group of international officers who were intent on seeking explanation and meaning- and not seeking blame. 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. 2013. After all, there are many examples in our own history where military commanders considered the population [or human domain as we call it now?] With this understanding of (1) our national goal and objective and (2) the problems and responsibilites related thereto, and with an acknowledgement that the resources we have to accomplish these missions and to deal with these problems and responsibilities have been greatly diminished, now let us consider thoughts on the "human domain" generally and the ideas presented by LTC Martin specifically (re: participatory observation, critical realism, less rather than more troops, etc.) Commanders, assisted by their staffs, integrate numerous processes and activities within their headquarters and across the force through the command and control functions. How the ambient light, wind, noise, smell and soil composition telegraphs movement of a single man, a squad, company or a battalion; at dawn, midday, dusk and the middle of the night. Indeed, advise/assist can be done by conventional forces. This will ensure freedom of action, extend operational reach, and prolong endurance in support of . Your comments on the VSO program reflect this human domain mistake currently being made in AFG --in the CIDG there were major differences between almost and I mean almost all camps---one did what one had to do in one's particular AO not what one was doing say in I Corp when you were in III or IV Corp in VN. In spite of the achievements and predominance of the two civilizations intact after Columbus arrived in the New World, they found themselves at the mercy of the Spaniards during the sixteenth century.or to paraphrase an Old Prussian, everything in the human domain is simple, but in the human domain even the simplest thing is complex.. I have read and heard many who claim that the Army Warfighting Functions just create more red-tape and are not needed. Instead it would encourage critical and creative thinking, demand a multi-framed approach at the most fundamental of levels, and require learning-in-action or reflective practice. Sydney J. Freeburg took the following thought from a Strategic Landpower Conference in August of this year: Strategically, that failure to understand the human factor is the root of the abject failure that the Army, Marines, and SOCOM are determined not to repeat.[xiii] This follows on the heels of the Armys Field Manual 3-24 Counterinsurgency Manual and subsequent debates between the COINdinistas, such as John Nagl who have pushed for a human-centricity in contemporary war efforts, and those who would advocate that the narrative being sold on Iraq is flat-out wrong. Hed joined up Coz the brothers from the Mosque promised to teach me Kung Fu.. 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. What are the command and control warfighting function tasks? [x] Of course, that does not leave too much left. The memoir covers the period from about 1941 to 1973. And as successful as SF efforts may be locally, they appear to make no headway toward achieving the larger goal of strategic influence of major centers of gravity. What the population of a nearby town thinks about the battle, however, and, more importantly, what they will do that could affect ones objectives, fall more into the social realm. Despite vicious religious practices, the Aztec demonstrated ingenuity by inventing an innovative farming technique to grow crops among the 30 canals of Tenochtitlan. The art of Special Warfare is a creative use of special groups of professionals who are educated and trained to see things from multiple perspectives, to critically think about ones institutions flawed view of the world, create something new that is highly context-dependent across the resource spectrum, and learns while doing. It accomplishes this through the collective and coordinated use of kinetic and non-kinetic joint fires and effects in support of a manoeuvre plan, employing these means to delay, disrupt, or destroy enemy forces (adapted from RNZA Duties in Action). And, therefore, the point of our spear came to point in their direction. 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