You cannot believe how many times I tried to explain that to MNF-I in countless HUMINT reports.. This function provides Army leadership the means to use a targeting process in relation to indirect fires, missile defense, and joint fires in a way that keeps United States troops safe while delivering fires in support of offensive or defensive operations. c. If the conservative/anti-western reform elements are in power, then you are probably embarked upon war to convince, coerce, compel or overthrow this unfriendly/uncooperative government -- who is resisting western change -- and to replace this government with one that will pursue our political objective (outlined above). Meanwhile, are we flailing about without a coherent way to attack and destroy the terrorists power base because weve neglected to correctly identify what their power base is and how best to go about attacking it? When I think of the human domain I think of Unconventional Warfare (UW)[xxiii], Counterinsurgency (COIN), Counter UW, insurgency, and the like. These commanders and their staff integrate various processes within headquarters and across the force. (Thus as one might, in my day, have been required to explain one's ideas and proposals within the context of containing communism, likewise today might one benefit from explaining one's concepts and proposals within the context of promoting the Western way of life and governance?). If youd like to learn more about this subject, check out the book you see below on Amazon. The commander and staff leverage the intelligence enterprise, coach and train the intelligence core competencies, implement the operations and intelligence processes, and direct the intelligence effort through the intelligence capabilities. RantCorp--now you understand the reason why we lost Iraq and AFG. Your writings are great to read especially coming from the lonely voice on SWJ that once wrote about the need to shift to VSO. Upon promulgation of Marine Corps Great points, as always Bill. 7 . b. What was it we missed in our estimates of the enemy meaning long term they were finished (was not the surge success an indicator that they were finished) ---even though we got the indigenous side IE Iraqi security forces human domain right or at least we thought right. This forces SOFs into such missions as Village Stability Operations which, in effect, are designed to help separate a population from its present or traditional way of life and way of governance and to attach the population to a way of life and way of governance which is more in line with our way of thinking, our way of life and our way of governance. This next comment sums it up; This practitioner further learns while doing, always able to revisit assumptions due to an intellectual humbleness with respect to the world. b. [vii] When combined with the other functions- movement and maneuver, fires, intelligence, protection, sustainment, mission command- and welded together through leadership, the Seventh is supposed to enable decisive effects and ultimately success on the battlefield. Officers are power point deep on their MDMP- it is fill-in-the-blank thinking- if you can call that "thinking"- since much of it is copied/pasted from higher's OPORDs. Maya descendants still inhabit the Yucatan, but the technology, religion, and practices of the ancient civilization must now be slowly exhumed and catalogued by archaeologists-a difficult task considering the Maya had no central ruling capital. [xxii] Doctrine applied to the world of tacit knowledge makes little sense and I would argue makes things more confusing. Ah, now I see where we are talking past one another. Force Protection Intro To Classified Material Intel Community Directives Intro To Intelligence The seven warfighting functions are command and control, fires, force protection, information, intelligence, logistics, and maneuver. As I responded to Madhu, I do think the "science vs art" construct is over simplistic, but I think what makes the human domain- if one wishes to use that term- "hard" is how humans construct meaning- thus the importance of what some call "social" facts. What is the Seventh WfF? [viii] My pick would be The Sublime, but, since that might not have enough of a military sound to it, would offer social action instead in order to emphasize the social aspect as well as the requirement for action. Risk can be taken in IT platforms, vehicles, C2 systems, and airframes. You build that trustyou cant surge trust. ), PhD The Sociology of Military Science, Bloomsbury Academic, 8 NOV 2012. The trends within SOF, however, seem to be a growing reliance on process, bureaucracy, and metrics, all obstacles to breaking away from any institutionally-approved ways of thinking. mation as a joint function is but the first step toward enhancing joint warfighting and developing a future joint force able to dominate in the conflicts of tomorrow. For all the efforts at "understanding the culture" of the environments we are working it failed and I mean totally failed because we did not "understand the culture of the enemy". I would agree that we (the U.S. Military types) don't know what to do with all this stuff we currently can't measure. The problem is that we are attempting to put tacit knowledge- that which is hard or impossible to explain- into the same form (doctrine) as explicit knowledge- that which can be categorized, detailed, and made into a list. The purpose of WFF is to provide an intellectual organisation for common critical capabilities available to commanders and staffs at all echelons and levels of warfare. We select, train, and equip our forces specially- and we can see the difference at our lowest levels: the team level, but then we plan, promote, organize, and educate them at higher levels largely in the same manner as the conventional forces do. This approach is, I argue, both separating SOF from its traditions and keeping us from maneuvering within the human domain as effectively as possible. Seems like the Autodefensas are a pretty conventional light infantry paramilitary organization (a local Auxiliary, in Roman parlance). we turn to our warfighting philosophy found in MCDP 1, Warfighting. Administrative movement (generally movement via strategic transport) is included in the Sustainment WFF. In this manner, it is believed, we can continue to work to "transform" others, even in these times of austerity and achieve "staying power" through the training up and use of surrogates. 6. An Examination of the Importance of Mosques, El Salvador Deploys Security Forces to Contain Criminal Groups, Honduras declares war against gangs and for control of popular narrative, Complexities and conveniences in the international drug trade: the involvement of Mexican criminal actors in the EU drug market, Mexico: Declassification of the Three Armed Conflicts Involving Drug Cartels on RULAC - The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Technology, Data, & The Future of Warfare: A Review Essay by James Torrence, Rinaldo Nazzaro, Leader of the Neo-Nazi Terrorist GroupThe Base: Probable Linkages to the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), A Social Network Analysis of Mexicos Dark Network Alliance Structure, Disentangling The Digital Battlefield: How the Internet Has Changed War, "Hybrid Warriors" GROUND TRUTH ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF WAR IN UKRAINE, DEFENSE SUPPORT TO STABILIZATION (DSS) A GUIDE FOR STABILIZATION PRACTITIONERS, Byte, With, and Through: How Special Operations and Cyber Command Can Support Each Other, Ukraines drone raid on Russian naval base was tactically innovative but not revolutionary, Improvised Anti-Vehicle Land Mines (IAVMs) in Mexico: Cartel Emergent Weaponry Use, Countering Chinese Overseas Police Influence Operations, Israel Rolls Out Legion-X Drone Swarm For The Urban Battlefield, The Great Equalizer: Irregular Warfare in the City. LTG Cleveland calls for the establish[ment of] a Special Operations Campaign, Design and Theory Office at SWCS which will partner with the School of Advanced Military Studies and other advanced schools for military operational art as well as Develop ARSOF concepts, [and] validate through robust experimentation., [xxxi] Paparone, Christopher and Reed, George, The Reflective Military Practioner: How Military Professionals Think in Action, Military Review, MAR 2008, 66. Well done. New York: The New Press. Dont have the answer, just believe we have been approaching the problem from a myopic viewpoint. If any kind of mission was conducive to a technically rational approach, it would be surgical strike missions.[xxxvii]. That Special Operations is just now getting around in my opinion to being in the same boat is a reflection of two occurrences: the 1987 establishment of Special Operations as a 4-star command and the large growth in Special Operations since 9/11. Information Briefing Format II. The human domain![vi] This conversation happened, supposedly, in the context of a discussion about the Armys Seventh Warfighting Function (WfF), which as a concept is still being worked, but would add a function to the Armys list of those six things it must now do to theoretically maximize combat power. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. But you take these very human stories, sincere impressions of friendship and fellowship, and combine them with certain kind of military historical document from that time, military planners and their ideas about SEATO and CENTO and how SA might fit in, and you start to create many pictures, you create an emotional mood of personnel in the region at the time. It is this fundamental characteristic that defines land force operations. Originally a nomadic society inhabiting the central basin of antediluvian Mexico, the various tribes who identified 252525 themselves as Aztec settled in the marshy region near Lake Texcoco and, in 132513251325, founded the city of Tenochtitlan at the present site of Mexico City. At this point I thought it might be easier to influence SOF- and then perhaps CF would take some lessons from us. [xx] Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, Free Press, 1968. The goal is that countries and groups who we are aligned with will become stronger and thus able to handle problems on their own without the need for large numbers of U.S. troops, which arguably get in the way of long-term progress anyway. The use of this scenario in order to drive critical thinking by ODAs who are planning an UW/SW deployment is a given---it offers a massive amount of free play on the planning side as well as not being able to tie it to COIN as one cannot actually get into a clear hold and expand concept. This handout contains the following: I. Indeed, in any stability op or war scenario beyond covert support/sabotage of an indigenous government it is the CF that will lead the main effort and take the majority of the blame for screwing it up (rightfully so). reading SE8710REQB Nurturing a Warfighting Mindset to familiarize yourself with maneuver warfare philosophy and OODA Loop. One could argue that General Lee based his operations in the North during the Civil War as a way to influence the Northern population to put pressure on President Lincoln and the US government to end the war; did he not? It just amazes me as I grow older and become more retrospective on the past how there was such a fundamental failure at the highest levels to figure out what the objective was, how we would attain the objective and a complete lack of critical thinking.