We Just Lost the Initiative.....

Battles over military force structure and how the military evolves will continue for the foreseeable future. Yet to make informed decision, military leaders need to assess what long term risks and adversaries may be and anticipate potential tactics these adversaries may engage. For the most part, the military gets hung up on the last conflict and addresses the issues that created the past operational environment. Taking a napkin assessment of potential geopolitical environment, there are potentially two conventional style warfare scenarios, consisting of a large force-on-force engagement starring conventional forces. The first scenario is armed conflict with China across maritime, territory, space, and cyber-space domains. The other possible scenario is what we now call hybrid warfare with the Russians, to include direct action on a limited scale for chunks of territory. But outside of those two scenarios,...

It is my opinion that the Department of Defense has become an over-bloated top heavy organization. As an organization the military is unable to nimbly react to new and developing threats. Instead, the default position is to set up a new office, a new command, a new organization within the hierarchical structure to deal with the specific threat. Yet, except in very rare cases like the disestablishment of Joint Forces Command, these new organizational structures continue even if they can be folded elsewhere. And in the case of Joint Forces Command, the senior officials and offices were farmed out to other organizations. We are seeing an evolution in warfare where adversaries are small, mobile forces that use a mix of conventional, unconventional, terrorist, and cyber tactics to achieve specific objectives or a stalemate in a limited operational environment. So how does the U.S. Government (USG) combat these new and developing threats? Well let's take a look at a specific example. I...

This post is a continuation of the previous military transformation post. The ideas advocated in this post, are based in the new Service Component construct: Land, Air, Naval, and Special Operations. Force restructuring descriptions defined in one Component is applicable across all Components.    The U.S. Military is us. There is no truer representation of a country than the people that it sends into the field to fight for it. The people who wear our uniform and carry our rifles into combat are our kids, and our job is to support them, because they're protecting us. - Tom Clancy Since the military is an all-volunteer force, Americans have lost sight of the sacrifices these men and women make on a daily basis. And let's be frank - a majority of Americans view the military as a necessary evil to be kept in the background until, begrudgingly, it is needed. Unless the military is re-entrenched in American society, it will end up like...

“Unless you are prepared to give up something valuable you will never be able to truly change at all, because you'll be forever in the control of things you can't give up.” - Andy Law  Transformation:  a complete or major change in someone's or something's appearance, form, etc . Transformation may be a necessary occurrence when presented with external and/or internal stimuli. But stimuli, in and of itself will not push a complacent organization to adjust to new circumstances or to "whither on the vine." It also takes a charismatic and innovative leader, who has courage and political capital, to take on an entrenched bureaucracy and navigate through the "because that is how it always has been done" mindset.  In the context of national security, an evolving geopolitical environment necessitates a re-evaluation of the threat. Force on force direct action will always be a national security concern but is limited to a coup...