TOPIC: LEADER DEVELOPMENT
DISCUSSION. "Some of them...have a lack of both technical and tactical knowledge to do all the things that we ask of them out here...."
"If you are asking me whether the school system provides the requisite amount of knowledge in the commander prior to his taking of command, I'd probably say not. I'm not sure the school system can ever answer all the questions associated with all the different situations that are presented to a commander.... The experience is one part of it. The other part I will tell you, which is disturbing, but not surprising, is that I continue to see commanders, who in their thought process, both in terms of course-of-action development, commander's guidance, and execution on the battlefield, tend to think sequentially rather than simultaneously.... I am not sure how you teach that unless you kind of smell it, feel it, see it, and have seen it over and over again. I am not sure you gain that through simulation."
"I am still looking for the brigade or task force commander who walks into the TOC, gets a briefing from the S2 on the enemy laydown, what his IPB impressions are, stands up and says here's my mission statement, here's my intent, here is the course of action I want to execute."
"The fact is that we are developing a breed of commanders who are less and less experienced at doing their thing than they ever were before. If you look back five years ago, the guy who was a battalion commander was probably a battalion S3, a battalion XO, a company commander for two years, maybe he had a second company and maybe he spent some time on the battalion staff before he ever got his company. He had a pretty fair amount of unit-level experience before he was ever fortunate enough to be selected. We are now growing a generation of commanders who won't have that opportunity. They will have a year in command as a company commander and probably won't get any kind of battalion staff time or, if he does, it will be prior to his company command instead of after it. He'll get a year as an XO or an S3, but not both. He may or may not have any brigade staff time before he becomes a battalion commander. Taking it to an absolute extreme, you may have a battalion commander who has had two years of experience at the tactical level and no more than that before he ever becomes a battalion commander."
"To my mind, the art of battle command is only gained through experience. The less experience you have, the more problems you are going to have with teaching and understanding the art of battle command. Therein lies the problem the Army has to come to grips with."
"I do have concern that five years from now if we steer away from these folks who are muddy boots just because of what we have to do with our majors and we end up with lieutenant colonels who don't have the benefit of CTC rotations."
"I see a much greater future obstacle in the level of experience of guys in battalion, brigade, and division commanders of the future.... They would spend 18 months in company command, or maybe two years, and then they would depart the organization. Then they would come back as a major and spend one year at the battalion level. So that means a guy is going to take battalion or brigade command with that very shoddy background after the advance course, where he hasn't been able to develop the intuitive sense that comes from experiences. I think that's going to mean that our training confidence at the level that I look at, is going to go down.... I think that's going to be a big obstacle to readiness in the future."
"The shortfall we have is that most of them, or all of them, are going in (CTC training) for the first time. They don't know what they don't know in their jobs.... Leaders must be grown--few are natural."
"Commanders have a tough time visualizing the battle and understanding how they plan to fight the battle.... The commander does not articulate what his intent is. Therefore, there is no common vision down through the chain of command of how the battle is going to take place."
CURRENT ASSESSMENT. On the battlefields of our CTCs today, only a select few of our battalion and brigade commanders possess the full complement of skills and abilities required to effectively synchronize and employ all elements of the combined arms team and accomplish their missions. Moreover, our existing training methods and professional development policies, instituted to develop superb battalion and brigade commanders, are not producing combined arms commanders who have mastered the art of battle command prior to their selection. All things considered, this is the most serious training deficiency in the force and remains the root of the disappointing performance patterns we see today.
Only one conclusion can be drawn. Our current officer professional development patterns, educational system, and assignment policies are simply not producing the quality of combined arms commanders that we need now, much less for the Army of the 21st century. Even more concerning, the experience base of our battalion and brigade commanders is steadily eroding. The continuing effects of personnel turbulence, Congressional mandates, an infrastructure which requires more officers than current authorizations can satisfy, and branch qualification policies are taking their toll. Officers are simply unable to serve in key assignments long enough to develop the knowledge, skills and cognitive abilities required to train and effectively employ the combined arms team in combat.
FUTURE IMPLICATIONS. The tactical and technical proficiency of battalion and brigade combined arms commanders will continue to decrease given current turbulence, professional development patterns, and assignment policies. Accordingly, we can expect the readiness and warfighting ability of units to deteriorate as well, unless the Army's senior leadership intervenes. Bad as it may be today, without intervention we should not be surprised to see an ineffective level of combined arms commandership by 2006-08 and a corresponding decrease in the quality of training and readiness.
Unfortunately, this deterioration will occur at the same time the world of a combined arms commander grows even more complicated, complex, and uncertain. In the next 15-20 years, dozens of new systems and capabilities will be added to the combined arms team at battalion and brigade levels, not to mention a corresponding increase in the tempo and lethality of battle. Commanding is getting tougher.
We need to intervene, and we need to do it quickly. We need superb combined arms commanders in the force projection Army of the 21st century, who have demonstrated a mastery of battle command before we entrust them with the lives of our soldiers. Some ways and means to achieve this end are outlined below.
- Use every means available to reduce the turbulence of the officer corps. Bring authorizations in line with requirements within the next two years. Seek relief from Congressional Reserve Component mandates. Strive to re-establish three-year tour stability for majors and below. Increase length of command tours at company level to 18-24 months. Increase length of battalion and brigade staff assignments to 18-24 months. Once year group levels are balanced, eliminate the up or out policy. Let good officers continue to contribute and increase their compensation based on longevity.
- Preserve our CTCs. They are our best means of providing combat experience in peacetime. Furthermore, they will be our primary means of intervening to reduce the effects of current and future performance trends. Resource and sustain 12 rotations per year at each CTC, even if we drop below 10 divisions. Keep the conditions tough and the standards high. Make the Army measure up.
- Immediately initiate a training development process to identify the tactical skills and competencies a combined arms commander requires to effectively perform his warfighting responsibilities. Next, determine the tasks which must be performed and the standards of performance required to achieve these skills and competencies under the battlefield conditions we expect. Given these tasks, design a structured training program which will develop the quality of combined arms commanders we will require in the 21st century.
- Implement a professional development plan--a combined arms command track--which selects officers with exceptional command ability early in their careers. Train them to be superb combined arms commanders through sequential, repetitive assignments as commanders and battalion/brigade staff officers. Equally important, develop programs of instruction, in branch and combined arms schools within TRADOC, which teach future combined arms commanders how to artfully synchronize and employ the combined arms team. And finally, evaluate an officer's technical and tactical mastery of battle command before command selection. Make the standards as tough as a Master Gunner course. Make it performance-oriented and require officers to achieve the standards. Make it a gate for command consideration. Eliminate the two-week Tactical Commander's Development Course at Ft. Leavenworth--an unsuccessful attempt to intervene and alleviate this long-standing problem.
- In conjunction with the TRADOC initiative above, develop a common training methodology and require trainers (O/Cs) at our CTCs to intervene and teach the art of battle command during Leader Training Programs and training rotations. Embed the training in the formal After-Action Review process. Relate the outcome of battles to the proficiency of commanders.
- Design and develop a self-study course for potential combined arms commanders which teaches and develops the knowledge, skills, and competencies required to master the tactical and technical requirements of combined arms command. Use interactive CD-ROM as the primary medium.
The future implications are ominous if we fail to intervene.
by LTC JOHN D. ROSENBERGER, AR
Main
Table of Contents
Topic:
Training to Standard
Topic:
FSB Logistics Training at the CTC and Home Station
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