Harmonizing the Army’s Security Cooperation Doctrine
and doctrine developers work on concepts then manuals—
could countries where our SC goals include building institutional capacity in the areas the Army is focusing on not work
alongside and with these TRADOC professionals learning to
train and conduct operation X while building relationships
with U.S. counterparts, without any US person doing anything
other than his primary task?
Embracing the Joint Force
DOD exercises are not synchronized to allow multi-echelon
training and sharing of training resources. Joint Exercises (run
by either Combatant Commanders or Joint Staff J7) focus on
Joint Task Force ( JTF) Headquarters who require Army divisions or corps as subordinate units. In the current model, these
Army forces are viewed as “taskings.” Army division/corps
exercises (run by MCTP) require JTFs as higher headquarters,
and require brigades as subordinates units. Under the current
model, the Army tasks units, or pays contractors, to replicate
the same JTF HQs and subordinate brigades who are exercising
simultaneously but separately. Additionally, Army brigade exercises require a division HQ as the Higher Headquarters. Under
the current model, the Army tasks units, or pays contractors to
replicate the same Division HQ who is exercising simultaneously. The alternative is to conduct multi-echelon exercises,
where all echelons are training audiences and the overhead is
eliminated.
The Way We’ve Always Done It
In essence, with a decreasing budget, the Army should sacrifice
flexibility to be able to afford more and better resourced events.
In this example, bureaucrats wed to rigid technical and budgetary systems will argue against this suggestion. Here too, senior
leadership will need to initiate necessary reforms to make logical solutions feasible.
Conclusion
The current SC system pits Army agencies against each other.
Force providers (FORSCOM) are charged with providing
ready units to Combatant Commanders while U.S. Combatant Commanders seek units to conduct SC activities which
generally not only fail to increase U.S. unit readiness but instead
reduce readiness.
The CTCs are charged to provide a realistic training environment yet have little to no systemic access to the MN forces
necessary to allow U.S. leaders to operate as part of a coalition.
These separate responsibilities cause conflict and inefficiency.
The institutional Army, specifically TRADOC, conducts daily
activities which if leveraged by SC planners could provide partner capacity building SC opportunities without diverting any
U.S. Army personnel from their primary tasks.
Finally, the “separate” ( Joint, MCTP, “dirt” CTCs) exercise
programs are inefficient as the Army fails to share common
resources, making training more expensive than necessary.5 In
summary, the Army is pursuing countless initiatives which when
undertaken separately miss opportunities to gain efficiencies.
By failing to seize these opportunities, the Army artificially exacerbates perceived budget shortages. The Army must find ways
to pursue more efficient, broad solutions to deeper problems to
gain efficiency, increase effectiveness, all while staying within its
Defense Budget and the limits of the professional force. After
ten years of Security Sector Reform (SSR) “away games” in the
Middle East, it’s time for an important “home game” here in the
United States.
Hybrid threat – from ADP 3.0, A hybrid threat is the diverse
and dynamic combination of regular forces, irregular forces,
terrorist forces, criminal elements, or a combination of these
forces and elements all unified to achieve mutually benefitting
effects. Hybrid threats may involve nation-state adversaries that
employ protracted forms of warfare, possibly using proxy forces
to coerce and intimidate, or non-state actors using operational
concepts and high-end capabilities traditionally associated with
nation-states.
2
Constructive Training - M&S involving simulated people
operating simulated systems. Real people stimulate (provide
inputs) to such simulations, but are not involved in determining
the outcomes.
3
MCTP, while stationed at Fort Leavenworth KS, conducts its
training at the training unit’s installation(s). The other CTCs
are fixed sites where training units come to conduct training.
4
Instrumented AARs are post-training performance reviews
which are augmented by the extensive electronic collection
tools available at our CTCs and include audio recordings of
leader dialogue, images of activities which occurred, and serve
as valuable tools to help the training audience understand “what
happened” during training. Instrumentation also helps Observer/Coach/Trainers maintain situational understanding so their
feedback is better informed and more effective.
5
The Army has 4 CTCs, 3 of which include live training on
tanks, fighting vehicles and against live Opposing forces (OPFOR). These 3 CTCs, called the “dirts” because their training
venue is in the dirt/ground are located at Forts Irwin (NTC),
Polk ( JRTC), and Hohenfels GE ( JMRC). MCTP is the 4th
CTC, but “non-dirt,” as its training venue is replicated by computers, and plays out in the constructive training environment.
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