View Full Version : Why America Isn't Winning Its Wars
Mike Vickers' POV in his testimony before Congress last week.
Richard
Why America Isn't Winning Its Wars
CSM, 12 Dec 2015
It's easy to blame presidents for a lack of strategy, but a growing number of officials are saying that the fault lies with a lack of vision in the Pentagon.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2015/1211/Why-America-isn-t-winning-its-wars
This article in the latest issue of the US Army War College's publication, reinforces many of the points made by vickers and others in your article.
Article in 'Parameters' (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/issues/Autumn_2015/6_Warren.pdf)
Thanks. I subscribe to SSI but hadn't gotten to this issue of Parameters yet; it's sitting in my InBox since it came in yesterday around noon. The Warren article is a good read to ponder.
Richard
blacksmoke
12-18-2015, 14:01
I would counter with well look what we've done with safety and DNBI (disease job battle injury) awareness, SHARP training and EO. Then again look at my avatar Lol. Thinking outside the box in the military is highly discouraged.
Hard to take you seriously with that avatar.
ProudGSMom
12-18-2015, 14:43
to think that we are still having these discussions. I guess it's better than not having them at all.
The President and this administration are certainly not the root cause - it is a sickness that has infected the Pentagon, et al for many, many moons. However, under this President, the contagion has spread and became completely resistant to all treatments...and it was already pretty pernicious.
The entire spectrum of leadership is standing in a circle pointing to the man on their right when it comes to articles like these.
Senior leaders have shitty strategic vision because they must rewrite strategy every few years. Why make a ten year plan when the entire ship will be put on a new course as soon as the next politicians orders is new drapes.
The senior leaders use this loophole as an excuse for taking a stand.
Politicians adopt diplomatic strategy based on the direction of the wind. As a result they are constantly demanding a never ending litany of military solutions that wont hurt approval ratings.
...then they blame senior military leaders for a lack of vision.
Add the fact that politicians are able to essentially bribe senior leaders with the promise of private sector retirement jobs and you have te worst case of scratched record national leadership imaginable.
In the end, there really is a lot of truth to the old cliche that we have the best government money can buy......
Trapper John
12-19-2015, 09:51
Great post Richard and it get's to the heart of the problem, IMO. When organizations, institutions, or industries grow to a certain point in size the things that made them successful are quashed.
Usually that is innovation, entrepreneurial thinking, risk taking and the like. The focus begins to shift to "process management" and becomes about sustaining the organization, institution, industry. A good indicator of this is when the human resources (HR) department is exercising significant control. It's all about managing the process. Another indicator is when the metrics for measuring success have less and less to do with the real purpose and mission.
A case in point is the use of the "body count" metric in Vietnam. Nothing could be more disconnected from the mission. Seems that the same thing is happening in A'stan and Iraq.
The cumulative effect of this is that the organization/institution becomes detached and oblivious to the changes that are occurring in its operating environment. Tsun Tzu addressed the consequence of a General that fails to understand the battle space and this applies to industry leaders as well.
I think that we have reached this critical point in our government, key institutions like the military, and key industries. Everywhere I look I see micro-managers managing processes by false metrics while their institutions are failing at their missions.
The outcomes will be either implosion or internal revolution.
GratefulCitizen
12-19-2015, 11:13
1. Numbers
2. Technology
3. Morale
4. Political will
There's not an issue with the first three.
The buck stops with the people.
Have to win the war for the hearts and minds of the American people first.
Airbornelawyer
12-19-2015, 14:16
Great post Richard and it get's to the heart of the problem, IMO. When organizations, institutions, or industries grow to a certain point in size the things that made them successful are quashed.
Usually that is innovation, entrepreneurial thinking, risk taking and the like. The focus begins to shift to "process management" and becomes about sustaining the organization, institution, industry. A good indicator of this is when the human resources (HR) department is exercising significant control. It's all about managing the process. Another indicator is when the metrics for measuring success have less and less to do with the real purpose and mission.
A case in point is the use of the "body count" metric in Vietnam. Nothing could be more disconnected from the mission. Seems that the same thing is happening in A'stan and Iraq.
The cumulative effect of this is that the organization/institution becomes detached and oblivious to the changes that are occurring in its operating environment. Tsun Tzu addressed the consequence of a General that fails to understand the battle space and this applies to industry leaders as well.
I think that we have reached this critical point in our government, key institutions like the military, and key industries. Everywhere I look I see micro-managers managing processes by false metrics while their institutions are failing at their missions.
The outcomes will be either implosion or internal revolution.
Say what you will about body counts, but at least it was a metric which hoped to measure the effectiveness of the organization in accomplishing its core mission, even if it was a bad proxy for that purpose. I can think of plenty of metrics more disconnected from the mission of winning wars, such as the racial or gender balance in the organization, for example.
I think your analysis does hit the nail on the head, but the scary thought is that the Pentagon leadership is not being misguided from its core mission by these false metrics, but that through bureaucratic inertia, indoctrination, etc., they no longer believe war-winning is the core mission.
Trapper John
12-19-2015, 21:14
Say what you will about body counts, but at least it was a metric which hoped to measure the effectiveness of the organization in accomplishing its core mission, even if it was a bad proxy for that purpose. ............
.............. but the scary thought is that the Pentagon leadership is not being misguided from its core mission by these false metrics, but that through bureaucratic inertia, indoctrination, etc., they no longer believe war-winning is the core mission.
The generation of false metrics are not causative, they are, however, a symptom of process management providing "evidence" that the process is correct and is being managed effectively. Very self-serving and a truly circular logic proposition.
My comment about body counts stems from the story relayed to me by Rufus Phillips from Lansdale's meeting with McNamara. McNamara outlined his metrics for determining our success in prosecuting his strategy for the VN war. When McNamara had concluded his briefing and asked for Lansdale's comment - his reply was "But where is it measured how the Vietnamese feel." McNamara was completely flustered.
Lansdale was a truly innovative thinker and had a very good sense of the human domain and therefore the true mission for US involvement in VN. McNamara's strategy was very conventional and fatally flawed. His metrics for managing the process were false and as we subsequently learned, were manipulated to tell the "correct" story the Administration wanted. Sound familiar? Reliance on these metrics served only to delude ourselves to think the strategy was working. This served to insure failure.
I think we are experiencing exactly the same thing once again. It's deja vu all over again! :D
bailaviborita
12-19-2015, 21:41
Great post Richard and it get's to the heart of the problem, IMO. When organizations, institutions, or industries grow to a certain point in size the things that made them successful are quashed.
Usually that is innovation, entrepreneurial thinking, risk taking and the like. The focus begins to shift to "process management" and becomes about sustaining the organization, institution, industry. A good indicator of this is when the human resources (HR) department is exercising significant control. It's all about managing the process. Another indicator is when the metrics for measuring success have less and less to do with the real purpose and mission.
A case in point is the use of the "body count" metric in Vietnam. Nothing could be more disconnected from the mission. Seems that the same thing is happening in A'stan and Iraq.
The cumulative effect of this is that the organization/institution becomes detached and oblivious to the changes that are occurring in its operating environment. Tsun Tzu addressed the consequence of a General that fails to understand the battle space and this applies to industry leaders as well.
I think that we have reached this critical point in our government, key institutions like the military, and key industries. Everywhere I look I see micro-managers managing processes by false metrics while their institutions are failing at their missions.
The outcomes will be either implosion or internal revolution.
Spot-on, as usual.
Unfortunately this condition has emerged and isn't likely to change without either a serious existential loss (perceived or otherwise) or political motivation (yeah, right...).
We currently lack the ability to learn IMO- organizationally, institutionally. THere are HUGE disincentives to being honest- internally or to the politicians. This doesn't mean that the politicians are off the hook- there is definitely no leadership there... but- internally we could work on trying to make us a learning organization- but there are just no incentives to do so. Honesty is the first requirement- and we can't be honest. Double loop learning is the second- and we are more interested in getting money than we are in questioning our methods. Shared purpose- well, our country is split fundamentally right now and both sides consider each other evil- so probably no shared purpose possible at this point (which brings up a great question- what are we fighting for today...??).
I could go on- but suffice it to say our organization- DoD- has emerged to be little more than a jobs program, union, and interest group all rolled into one... Great for contractors, lazy GS's, and careerists- not so much for warriors...
bailaviborita
12-19-2015, 21:56
Say what you will about body counts, but at least it was a metric which hoped to measure the effectiveness of the organization in accomplishing its core mission, even if it was a bad proxy for that purpose. I can think of plenty of metrics more disconnected from the mission of winning wars, such as the racial or gender balance in the organization, for example.
I'm not really following you here- you first say it was a metric that "hoped to measure effectiveness" but "was a bad proxy." By definition- MoEs are not proxies...
And that is the main problem with the MoE/MoP paradigm. It is great for explicit objectives and bounded in scope and time efforts. They are, by definition, terrible for more open-ended efforts and non-explicit objectives.
Example: Mission: Get all Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. MoE: All IQ troops are out of Kuwait. MoPs: Iraqi troops dead, Iraqi tanks destroyed, land occupied, American units in Iraq, American troops in Kuwait, amount of American equipment delivered to front-line units, amount of American troops in theater.
Bad example: Mission: Stabilize Iraq and Syria. MoE: Iraq and Syria stabilized. MoPs: # of ISIS dead last month, # of anti-ISIS troops trained, # of coalition partners on board, # of sorties flown, # of ISIS vehicles destroyed.
Although- I do agree with you last statement above- I don't think the problem, however, is that they are wrong metrics, but that we have to collect metrics in the first place. Metrics- collection and reporting- have negative unintended consequences for any organization- that has been researched and demonstrated many times over. This is even more so for those involved in war. War is essentially a human endeavor- not a physics experiment. It isn't conducive to collecting metrics on in terms of understanding or assessing. And this is even more true when dealing with Operations Other than Conventional War--- Irregular Warfare or whatever you want to call it. For those situations wherein you don't have an explicit objective and the mission is open-ended, metrics will fail you.
We have to be able to get beyond metrics in SOF when we conduct Irregular Warfare, we have to get beyond the scientific management of SOF and other forces when they conduct IW, and we have to break away from the "Taylor-istic" style of processes we use in SOF when conducting these steady state operations which lead to micromanagement, metrics collection, and pseudo science...
Old Dog New Trick
12-19-2015, 23:52
I don't know if this will make sense but here is my opinion.
We used to wage war for territory and control. That was usually easy to gauge our success, failure or the willingness to continue. Conquering the west, the Spanish American War, the Civil War...etc... All were fought for and won by one side and they established the borders and who controlled what. Most wars have always been fought for territory and control. Just ask the French and English Empires.
Later in WWI and again in WWII we fought with our allies to regain and return territory to before the war started borders of control and influence. Sure we fought against tyranny and beliefs that challenged our own views but that was an aside to returning the status quo of who owned what before someone took it away.
Since then and after WWII, came Korea (Communist aggression) and then Vietnam (before us were the French fighting desperately to keep something they'd taken) again against Communist aggression. Only problem was we never went to take back or take more. We fought bloody battles and then retreated and gave up both the territory and control. We won nearly every engagement and then handed it back. In the case of Korea that war is still being fought it's just been at a standstill.
Fast forward to our Middle East policy if you can call it one. It's always been a policy of containment and isolation. Only problem has been someone who had control (think his name was Marshall) drew lines (borders) the way westerners do. Along geographical boundaries not ideological ones. They split thousand year old religious tribes and their migration and trade routes into a dysfunctional array of confusion and hatred. But hey, we didn't care it was all desert.
Winning the war in the Middle East/North Africa without redrawing the borders is impossible. And since certain places are wealthy with oil and water and other places a barren desert, we are not and cannot fight to restore the status quo because it's broken. Containment and isolation in a global world no longer works.
When we went into Afghanistan post 9-11 we had a simple mission: defeat al Qaeda and chase the Taliban out of Kabul. Render the terrorist camps closed and kill or capture the leaders of both for trial. That ended at Tora Bora and the war was over. We over stayed and started something without a plan or an end state. Still there without a plan or an end state.
A short time later we occupied and fought a war in Iraq without a plan and without an end state.
We never went into those two countries to take or hold territory or rule (control) over them. We fought for real estate village by village and like Vietnam gave it back. If Afghanistan is to be Taliban free, then someone will have to build and protect a border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The same can be said for each of the warring countries in that region.
You can't "win" something or defeat an enemy and then let them maintain both the territory and the control.
Enter ISIS...U.S. Policy: no plan, no vision, no commitment and yes they (ISIS/ISIL) are redrawing those borders and they are not done. Sunni against Shia and the smaller religions and non-Muslims will be forced to keep from being left in the barren desert or rock strewn mountains.
There really is nothing to fight over except fairness and humanity in the region.
How do you measure that? Who wins and what was the prize?
frostfire
12-20-2015, 01:06
We have to be able to get beyond metrics in SOF when we conduct Irregular Warfare, we have to get beyond the scientific management of SOF and other forces when they conduct IW, and we have to break away from the "Taylor-istic" style of processes we use in SOF when conducting these steady state operations which lead to micromanagement, metrics collection, and pseudo science...
I am convinced there is lack of consensus within SOF for that. After all, it's result-driven and metrics are there to gauge success. I recall a late night discussion with a SGM of a SMU. He critized SF IW and FID for the lack of measurable metrics. He then points to his unit's raid-centric missions and how they deliver a solid kill/capture metrics in the entire deployment
There really is nothing to fight over except fairness and humanity in the region.
How do you measure that? Who wins and what was the prize?
Enter the State Dept. mission :confused:
Success probably measured by how many McDonalds open at downtown Kabul
Tree Potato
12-20-2015, 01:08
If the military is directed not to win, but rather to contain, how can we win?
If the majority of the republic doesn't consider ISIS a significant or existential threat, will the military ever be resourced enough to win, or simply to maintain staus quo?
Can we win with nothing more than military power, or will it also require diplomatic, informational, and economic warfare? Are the DIME expectations on the M too high, and too low on D, I, and E?
If the majority of the Pentagon is explicitly labeled as force providers (Sevices...organize, train,equip) rather than responsible for strategy and force execution (Joint Staff), is it realistic to expect anything more from them? There are a lot of good people in the Pentagon working their asses off with little time to spare, but they're tasked with managing outdated processes and forced to achieve the utmost efficiency in running a deployment machine. If they're task saturated with ensuring the status quo continues, is it realistic to expect much critical or original thinking?
How many people in the Pentagon have actually been asked "how do we win this thing?" Unless you're on one of the annointed planning staffs, not only are you not expected to provide ideas, but the organization as a whole works against anyone stepping outside their lane to provide ideas.
Yes, I'm a conventional Air Force type, and this ISIS threat falls outside the major convention thinking of force on force between the US and near peer competitors (re: the disconnect on the A-10 and F-35 argument/debacle). Thus it really would be refreshing to hear thoughts from QPs vs. the echo chambers some of us are surrounded with, on how to restructure to better combat non-conventional enemies. It's frustrating to see strike footage from friends putting warheads on foreheads daily while realizing the bad grass may be growing faster than we're mowing it down. It's infuritating that we're putting aviator's lives at risk (and certainly our ground forces as well) without having a good plan to actually win.
Old Dog thank you for your post. The title of this thread is Why America is not winning it's wars and I think that is a bit misleading. What wars have the American fighting man lost? The Middle East is not all that different from S. Vietnam a country that we left on our own terms and turned back over to the S. Vietnamese. American successes in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were lost by the inhabitants of those countries, not America. If we do not plan on continually policing these countries by our constant presence we can never expect stability. " Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Old Dog New Trick
12-20-2015, 11:49
I respectfully submit there is a difference between the levels of a skirmish, limited engagement, battle, front, cordon, or operation and a war or campaign.
We can and are very capable of winning every battle and still lose the war. That is we lost the purpose for which we fought. Whether that be stability, long term peace, or the rightful control of property and people. We crushed our enemies to the point where fighting was no longer viable. And then provided generations of security to maintain that hard fought victory.
We exercised a lot of control over Germany and Japan after their surrender. A monumental task no doubt but it was necessary to restore a lasting peace. We've not been so good at that since then. To much of a hurry or not enough critical thinking to commit to what's right and what will work.
Our form of "Democracy" is not for all and to impose it as a condition of success is a sure sign of failure.
bailaviborita
12-21-2015, 18:58
If the military is directed not to win, but rather to contain, how can we win?
There're two definitions here of "win": 1) we meet performance objectives--- those being that we 1) train a certain amount of allies, 2) we take back land from ISIS and halt them from growing, and, 3) we make it less likely that people will come from that area or be motivated by that area to attack our people within our country; and, the second definition: 2) we help the politicians meet political objectives--- and right now I can't tell you what the political objectives are, so I'm pretty sure we can't "win" in terms that we are familiar with. Unfortunately, for the first performance objectives- we could make progress with those all day and it might mean nothing. And the 3rd performance objectives are not just military-only tasks--- they are much more complex and require a lot on the political side.
But, bottom line: we can't "win" in the traditional sense unless we get a political objective- and there are huge obstacles right now to getting a political objective for that area (the Middle East). We can't even agree in this country on little things- much less what we should be aiming for in the ME... (the heterogeneity in the American public right now is killing us- kind of hard to have a vision and strategy if you can't agree on fundamental norms and values...).
How many people in the Pentagon have actually been asked "how do we win this thing?"
I think it is even worse than that. Not only are uniformed military not trusted and not talked to today--- the only thing most of them have to offer if they were asked is "more of the same." We have really two options to give to the politicians: drones and SOF or nation building. Our military today has such a lack of innovative thought that if I were a politician I wouldn't trust us either. Now, having said that, in the past when the military brass was f'd up the politicians stepped in with leadership and made things happen- today we've got Susan Rice and Samantha Power running our foreign policy... not the most pragmatic or sharp folks in the drawer if you know what I mean- both ideologues of the highest peacenik order...
And that's how this admin has operated from the beginning. They fail to respect Mark Clark's admonition that we have long attempted to bring about peace by showing weakness... "and that has utterly failed us." The world doesn't operate on milk and cookies...
Thus it really would be refreshing to hear thoughts from QPs vs. the echo chambers some of us are surrounded with, on how to restructure to better combat non-conventional enemies.
I think #1 we have to change our doctrine from one that advocates nation building and instead advocates pragmatism. Developing governance, equality, elections, economies, etc.- should not be in our doctrine. Instead, we should argue for supporting the group that most feasibly can win against whatever enemy we are fighting- and we can't worry about if they might not usher in Nirvana or not. Bottom line: our "partners" have to have their own purpose- we can't manufacture it for them... #2 we have to be able to learn as an institution and within our organizations. Currently a commander only has to fake the funk and stay out of trouble and he is successful. The worst battlefield performers have in many cases gone on to high rank- that means that each of our units- our organizations- aren't "learning." And our institution engages in the opposite of learning- we are driving for more resources - not for learning. #3 we need SOF to separate itself from the conventional folks. SOCOM is not willing to do that because they see more potential in losing resources if they aren't tied to DoD. I'm mainly talking personnel systems- the US Army personnel system is killing SF--- but SOCOM doesn't really care about SF... and cares more about resources than it does about ensuring quality people... #4 we need to change the way we do campaign planning. Currently it is tied to the Army model of campaign planning- which is what the joint world uses- and that construct is very conducive to conventional operations- not so much irregular operations.
I think our structural changes would follow from cutting sling from the conventional folks- currently we have to organize in such a way as to make us look attractive during the promotion boards- that are controlled and run by the conventional folks. So- if you don't have a brigade like entity and a division like entity in the fight- then you don't compete well at the boards with the conventional colonels and 2 stars...
So- if we cut ties with the conventional folks, then we could get away from trying to copy their structures- and instead structure ourselves to the context of whatever operation we are on...
Trapper John
12-21-2015, 19:06
In previous posts in this and other threads, I have drawn parallels to the issues in healthcare with those we are discussing here. I just received the materials for a course I am taking at Harvard Business School led by Michael J. Porter. Porter's work has influenced me strongly over the past 15 years and I quote from 2 of the pieces of required reading.
"The zero-sum competition of the 1990s and the early 2000s in the US health care system has clearly failed. It did not produce widespread improvements in the quality and cost of delivering care........Participants in the system have been pitted against each other to no one's benefit."
"Health care competition must be transformed to a value-based competition on results.......The experience in other industries tells us that transformation is possible. It also tells us that there can be stunning progress when the right kind of competition is unleashed."
"The problems with the U.S. health care system are not the result of inattention......However, reform efforts have failed because the diagnosis of the problem was wrong....The fundamental problem is that competition in health care operates at the wrong level and focuses on the wrong things.....With the wrong diagnosis, the attempts to treat the system have addressed the wrong issues or offered piecemeal, ultimately ineffective solutions aimed at symptoms rather than causes."
This is exactly the problem in the U.S. Military and the methods Porter is advocating for health care reform are directly applicable to the U.S. Military.
Old Dog New Trick
12-21-2015, 23:50
bailaviborita - your post
👍👍
We have really two options to give to the politicians: drones and SOF or nation building. Our military today has such a lack of innovative thought......
That about sums it up.
Note.
McNamara was a visionary manager, not a visionary leader.
Who, what, where, when, why and how. Lately when America goes to war, America often forgets several of the basic WWWWW&H questions when doing so.
Great thread, great thoughts.
YMMV