The newly nominated head of Central Command, Marine Gen. James Mattis, if confirmed by the Senate, may soon get the opportunity to try out in his new area of responsibility some of the innovative initiatives he pushed while heading up Joint Forces Command.
Mattis was a big proponent of decentralization and disaggregation of authority to the lowest echelons. “High performing small units are now a national imperative, capable of operating independently at increasingly lower echelons,” Mattis said in a speech at CSIS last year.
At JFCOM he stood up an Irregular Warfare Center, working with veteran special operators to infuse lessons learned among small commando teams in Iraq and Afghanistan into regular units. He urged a radical reorganization of the Army and Marine Corps into smaller, “high performing” units, along the special forces model.
The effort he envisioned was not designed to turn regular forces into special forces, rather, it recognizes that the individual and the small unit are the key players on a decentralized battlefield. Fundamentally, quality becomes much more important than quantity.
Those small, disaggregated units is exactly what’s needed to combat al-Qaida franchise groups and insurgent networks sprouting up in the CENTCOM region, particularly in Somalia and Yemen. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has set up shop in Yemen, while another al-Qaida affiliated group, al-Shabaab, is operating in Somalia.
As the large footprint counterinsurgency approach is fast falling out of favor, eliminating scattered insurgent networkes will require small, discrete units. “Its going to be more important what individuals brings to the battlefield than their numbers,” Mattis said.
The “advise and assist” capability of ground forces will be key, requiring that regular forces achieve a “seamless” integration with special operations forces. Those small teams, he said, must partner with foreign militaries, live and work among the local people, and operate with a minimal logistics footprint.
“These wars will be fought among the people… we’re going to have to deal on human levels with human beings and not think that technology or tactics by targetry will solve war,” he said.
It will be interesting to watch what tactics and operating concepts Mattis tested and wargamed at JFCOM are brought with him to CENTCOM; if he is confirmed of course.
– Greg Grant
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Does this mean mission style orders for small unit commanders and less micromanagement from higher higher?
I like the way this man thinks, classic Marine thinking; give the man in the field more authority to do what needs to be done, at least that's I think that's what he's proposing. Give the troops in the field a longer leash so they don't have to call back to higher HQ every time they need to take a dump so to speak. Now the question is how will the brass in theater take this, I'm sure that there will be a lot of Bn. & Bgd. & higher commanders who probably won't know what to do if they aren't (micro) managing their companies in the field.
This style of organization hopefully will be effective against Hezbollah-style groups. I wonder, though, how it jives with the FCS/BCTM style of networked warfare with the brass seeing everything that is happening on the ground?
In theory, at least, modern tech enables battalion & higher commanders to allocate the resources under their control – artillery, air, reserves – without distracting small unit leaders from their 1st priority – fighting the battle.
Don't know too much about the history of the special operations but I always thought they simply trained for missions that the 'regular' army didn't perform. If these special missions are now more of the norm…train the 'regular' army as appropriate and the military should think about what capabilities the military should have that the new 'regular' army won't have and train a new special ops force.
Maybe inject a couple SF operators into each platoon for training in the field.
Not all at once but on alternating cycles.
The result will be higher casualty rates. There is a good reason why there are big units: the number one mission – force protection.
I agree -but- Gen Mattis is talking small specialized units and with a couple SF guys in w/regular army or marine units they could impart some of their specialized training for silent recon or ambush.That is what all the special training is all about for those guys.Shared knowledge couldn't hurt at all.
I've long thought that we need something like a new branch of service for this. All armchair thinking but: Is our current structure of just four (main) branches doing everything a little outdated? It seems like the US would do well to maintain the traditional "Big War" organization of the services just in case it's needed, as for the occasional taking of a city and so forth. But there's a developing need for a "Small War" section of the services as well. I think it's a disservice to both needs to just roll the small war thinking in with the big war branches.
I don't know what would be better: to create a new branch to handle the "regular" small war stuff, or just a new (big) unit within a command like SOCOM. I'm leaning toward the branch idea, since this would involve a lot more bodies than even the 75th Rangers.
Have fun pitching it to Congress, but it just seems to make more sense to use the big sticks to take ground, then use little sticks to keep it.
Afghanistan is not a small war. It's sucking up a huge part of our military's resources.
The term Small War goes back many years – before the term "counter insurgency". It does not mean that a war is small but that it is decided at the small unit level instead of by generals or even field grade officers. 1 of the reasons the term has stuck is because the Small Wars Manual, 1st published in 1940, is still in print.
The goal should be that ALL our troops should get much better training where they can demonstrate their own creativity and initiative in implementing the commander's intent. The lack of initiative shown by conventional units is really not just a function of how they're structured, but the fact that these units aren't trained for it. Or the commanders feel insufficient confidence that their troops will demonstrate the requisite skills or understanding to find a way to get the mission done.
Having said the above, I should say that commander's intent and implementing it is NOT something new. This is something the US has talked about in its manuals and doctrine for a LONG time, but the truth is the only units who CONSISTENTLY have shown themselves capable of practicing it continually are Special Forces and Special Mission Units.
Yes!! Good response.
How about teaching our children to be creative and take the initiative in everything they do right from the beginning? That way when they get into the armed forces, it is in their very nature. Same with communication and administration skills. You can't change 18 years of conditioning quickly.
And while we are at it, drop the stupid sports programs and teach the youth real warrior skills. I don't think a dribbling around a bunch of basketballs is in our nation's best interest. Why the heck do my tax dollars go to fund this stuff?
The fact is our current educational system teaches people to be the exact opposite from what workers and soldiers really need to be. We really do need a nation of special op people not just in the military, but also in business. However we will never get it unless we go back to the beginning and rethink a lot of our educational system.
Well said, sir. Agreed 100%.
This has been done in some form or another for decades and really is nothing new at all. Yes during the cold war it was the golden age for these types of tatics since we couldn't use large forces that the media would latch on to. It is a very good move in my opinion one that will work very well and will be the mark for America to win were so many in the past have failed. But! even with this shift to better tactics we will still have to maintain the larger group movements for a korean conflict ect…
It's about time for the "cult of the general" to end in the Army. There are so many generals who micromanage and stifle creativity that's now endemic and crushing the Army. War is too complex to allow generals to restrict all decision making to themselves — lower commanders must be allowed the ability to make decisions and operate (and I don't mean to allow them to merely follow a pre-described TTP). My howls of joy when I retired a few years ago were, in large part, because I had escaped that "there is only one decider, and that's me" mindset (fortunately, my last commander allowed great — but informed — leeway).
so now the SF weenies are now the shooters while the knuckle draggers are the COIN forces and they want to take a lot of kids who really don't have the life experience and ownership and empower them.
COIN/small team tactics take people who can think on their feet and process information with intelligence and experience. The ratio of SF/Ranger capable soldiers to the bulk of the Army is several hundred to one for a reason. We have to keep that in mind.That is a tall order no matter how good our military is.
The up side is that we are empowering our next generation of cadre by doing so. I just hope the kids are up to the task.
One other idea is to establish a constabulary corps, but then Congress will have to decide America's role as the world's policemen. This was what George Bush swore he wouldn't do all the way up to 9-10-01.
3 Ranger battalions & 15 SF battalions going on 20 in an Army of 550K people – ARSOC is a bigger part of the Army now than it was in the days of "a hundred men will train today". The idea of a separate force for COIN sticks around even though it's impractical. It would cost too much to recruit, train & maintain this hypothetical force. If you want to attract & keep quality people, you have to pay them enough.
One doesn't need to have a completely separate force for COIN to diversify the Army skill set a little.
For example, it wouldn't be that hard to have a force in which most enlisted men are assigned to learn conversational and basic reading skills in a foreign language, and to have a portfolio of perhaps a hundred languages in which the U.S. military has soldiers trained with some basic language skills, a few hundred soldiers in less common languages, a few thousand soldiers in more common languages. This would greatly reduce the time needed to get decent integration with whatever local allies we might have anywhere in the world.
Similarly, is it so much to ask that we have cadres of soldiers with special training for different environments. Why not have ten thousand soldiers with special training in Asian jungles, another ten thousand with special training in Latin American jungles, another ten thousand trained for African jungles, ten thousand trained for deserts, ten thousand trained for mountains, ten thousand trained for tundra, fifty thousand trained for developed world cities and fifty thousand trained for third world cities.
Does this mean that only soldiers trained for an environment or a language would be sent to places where it is relevant? No. It does mean that we would have a cadre of people with specialized linguistic and area conditions training for anyplace that we might go, who could lead their non-specialist peers in getting up to speed ASAP when the call of duty arrives, who would not have to spend weeks trying to understand their context and how to operate in it when we need to deploy forces to fight in low intensity warfare somewhere.
Similarly, one doesn't have to go to an all special forces model to recognize that the balance between heavy and medium weight and light forces needs to be adjusted, or that we may need to train soldiers to allocate authority differently in a major forces battle and in a COIN situation. For example, in the Iraq War, one kind of operational approach was necessary in the first month, and another was necessary, almost immediately afterward and remains the dominant one now. Soldiers need to be able to function in both kinds of settings and it doesn't strain credulity to think that non-COIN operating methods are overemphasized now with non-special forces.
So much for the rumors that Mattis was being forced into early retirement for being against phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell. CENTCOM has been the top job since 2003.
"The “advise and assist” capability of ground forces will be key, requiring that regular forces achieve a “seamless” integration with special operations forces. Those small teams, he said, must partner with foreign militaries, live and work among the local people, and operate with a minimal logistics footprint.
“These wars will be fought among the people… we’re going to have to deal on human levels with human beings and not think that technology or tactics by targetry will solve war,” he said."
If this is the job that the military wants its soldiers to be doing, it may want to rethink how it runs its recruitment marketing. The pitch that is being made to prospective soldiers is very big on getting to use big time technology, with a heavy footprint, and doesn't offer so much as a whisper of the notion that communication with anyone but your fellow soldier is of any importance other than via putting other people on the receiving end of ordinance.
I have no problem with the military advertising for guys who drive tanks at top speed over hills is they want soldiers who will be doing that. But, if they want culturally sensitive problem solvers who sometimes cut the Gordian knot with small arms, then maybe they should say so.
The Navy did that advertisement for the Seals for a while- where there were footprints on the beach and then a wave came in and the footprints were gone.No idea how successful that was though.
All forces should be trained to the level of SF with Spec Ops training included. Now tell me where's the budget?
The problem with mass SF training is not that it is so much more expensive. It costs more, but nothing compared to the expense of major procurement programs that would provide less benefit.
The problem with mass adoption of the SF training model is that it relies heavily on flunking those who don't meet very high standards, and on training in a way that risks long term injury to troops who would have otherwise been SF material in the training process, in order to get a very elite final product. Selecting the cream of the crop with acid tests is at least as important as actual additional knowledge and ability imparted to graduates.
To use that approach for all forces, you'd have to either recruit far more people, or shrink the size of the force dramatically. And, the truth of the matter is that the military has plenty of jobs where special forces skills are wasted or even counterproductive. Steven Segal movies notwithstanding, you do not want cooks on navy ships to have to go through special forces training. Nor do you want that is fighter mechanics, or radar systems operators, or military lawyers in JAG.
The reality of modern technology is that an optimal military has lots of people who aren't war fighters in a face to face combat sense, even though they are critical to fighting a war.