Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 52

allowing
subordinates
Active
Open
Criminal
political
to exercise
borders with
Corruption
elements
propaganda
Russia
disciplined
initiative.
Vicinity of
the enemy
The PATT’s
state
Low
Turning
battalion
Puppet
salaries
civilians into
Provocations
pro-Russian
commander
rate
“zombies” by
president
propaganda
comple(2010–2014)
and threats
mented the
Historically
staff ’s efforts
formed
Low living
differences in
by coaching
standards
mentality
Majority of
his counterPumping
locals are
part on the
resources out of
representative
region/stealing
of working
role of the
class
Developed
Post-Soviet
commander
criminal
syndrome
in the operaactivity
Do not
tions process.
consider the
new president
Coaching
as legitimate
stressed the
command(Graphic by authors)
er’s role,
Figure 3. Ukrainian Learning Group
including
Cluster
Map Identifying Causes of Conflict
“understand, visualize, describe, and direct,” and the principles of
integrate them sufficiently. This was apparent during
12
mission command.
the counterattack practical exercise. The staff develA critical component was helping the Ukrainian
oped a plan that employed obscuration fires to conceal
commander and staff understand the conceptual difthe battalion’s movement to the objective, and then
ference between tasks and purposes. This was accomthey established attack-by-fire positions encircling the
plished through interactive discussions and tactical
enemy defense. However, the plan lacked fire-control
decision games using examples relevant to the antiter- measures and risked fratricide. The plan also failed to
rorism operations. The commander and staff gradumass combat power at the decisive place and time, and
ally began to understand that junior leaders must be
it lacked control measures for integrating indirect fires,
empowered to make decisions in order to accomplish
engineer assets, and maneuver forces on the objective.
the assigned purpose and meet the commander’s
By using action-learning techniques such as inquiry
intent. They began to understand the importance of
and reflection, the Ukrainian staff identified the probdisciplined initiative in an environment where conlems in their course of action and revised the plan prior
ditions change rapidly. By the second iteration of the
to the decision brief. Action learning was the vehicle for
MDMP, the Ukrainian battalion commander verthe coaches to stimulate the change in planning.
balized clear planning guidance and intent while the
By the time the Ukrainian staff reached the collecstaff began to see how the MDMP process develops
tive integration module, they displayed a full undereffective mission orders.
standing of how to integrate warfighting functions
The learning coaches also focused on the integration during the operations process. The staff integrated fires
of warfighting functions during the practical appliwith maneuver in both classroom practical exercises
cation module. The Ukrainian staff addressed all the
and live-fire exercises. They began to employ forward
warfighting functions from the start, but they failed to
observers to synchronize fires using technical and
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November-December 2016  MILITARY REVIEW