Back to the Future: A Company Commander’s Perspective on Transformation

Back to the Future: A Company Commander’s Perspective on Transformation by Captain Raed D. Gyekis Over the course of the past three years, the U.S. Army has engaged in large-scale combat operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq, while simultaneously negotiating the brave new path of transformation. During the course of the discussion and ongoing application of these organizational changes, the Army has modified transformation initiatives. Operations and experiences in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom represent a valuable opportunity to apply combat experience to the theories that underlie the transformation effort. Iraq and Afghanistan are the most recent combat laboratories that disprove the theory of total information dominance, which assumes linear and predictable enemy reactions and does not allow for the high degree of uncertainty and friction that is certain to remain the dominant char acteristic of future war. This “systems” approach to warfare, which views the enemy as adaptive but predictable, represents wishful thinking and is dangerous in its implications. If the U.S. Army is to succeed on the complex battlefields of today and tomorrow, it must acknowledge the enduring uncertainty of war, leverage the power of the combined arms team, remain flexible in thought and action, encourage decisive action at the lowest levels, remain capable of absorbing a punch, and continue to have the ability and the survivability to fight for information. Drawing the Wrong Lessons Actual events on the battlefield have traditionally exercised the principal reality check on the understandings and assumptions of any institutional military culture, this despite ample evidence that military institutions sometimes prove as-tonishingly resistant to learning from their experiences.1 — Williamson Murray Many of transformation’s practical aspects have only recently begun trickling down to the company/troop level. Lessons learned during combat allow us to give this effort an honest real-time assessment of current strengths and weaknesses and apply corrective measures based on the reality and frictions of a very complex war. Much has been made of the United States’ overwhelming technological superiority, and how it is leading to a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) that will soon overwhelm and outdate some of our most basic concepts concerning warfare (some would claim this has already happened). Proponents of this “revolution” seek to affirm that with the United States’ increasingly dominant military/technological advantage, what Clausewitz refers to as the “fog of war,” will be lifted, and the inherent friction of warfare will be reduced to a non-factor. Total information dominance, the theories proclaim, will enable us to collect real-time intelligence on those who threaten us, identify targets from beyond standoff range of the enemy’s weapons, engage those targets with long-range precision munitions, and cause collateral damage and its political implications to become a thing of the past. This assumption of complete and all-knowing intelligence and analysis allows the follow-on assumption that future engagements will be shaped and decided by long-range weapons systems. Based on these theories, there is little need for Army units that close with and destroy the enemy. This means that strategic mobility takes priority over survivability and lethality, deliberate/centralized analysis triumphs over decisive action at the tactical level, and cost efficiency prevails over effectiveness as a virtue in the design and training of these future units. What proponents of these knowledge-centric theories fail to consider adequately is the human dimension of war. As we have seen during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, the enemy has a vote and has proven anything but predictable. As On Point recently concluded, “In OIF, accounting for why the enemy did some of the things they did proved difficult, if not impossible.”2While our current enemy may not be as technologically advanced as us, he is not unin-telligent and will employ many effective low-tech countermeasures to our systems. The past 15 years (let alone a half-century of warfare) are rife with successful examples of countermeasures to our technological advantage: dispersion; intermingling with civilians; spies; and deception measures, to include camouflage and decoy targets, as well as simple electronic misdirection with mobile phones. Iraq’s complete success at hiding, disguising, and moving scud launchers during Desert Storm, despite the mammoth intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance efforts expended by coalition forces, is now a matter of record.3 Our similarly fruitless initial targeting efforts during the 78-day air war in Kosovo, paint a similar picture of Yugoslavian countermeasures, unforgiving terrain and weather, and political restraints significantly blunting the effects of a protracted and massive air campaign. “With no significant ground opposition and a NATO land force intervention ruled out, they (Yugoslavian military) parked their tanks and heavy vehicles, using concealment and decoys to excellent effect. They simply continued their operations on a different level than the RMA air war going on some 15,000 feet overhead.”4 Even more recently, the successful exfiltration of Taliban leaders from the Tora Bora region in December 2001, despite an intensive surveillance and bombing campaign, which was not coupled with an effective screening ground force, highlights the fallacy of these assumptions. A strategy that relies simply on stand-off reconnaissance and targeting, without a broader strategy incorporating the complementary capabilities of a lethal and sur vivable ground component, is a one-legged stool. This is not to say that we should not continue to pursue, refine, and harden our amazing intelligence collection and long-range strike capabilities. However, we must acknowledge that they are a part of our overall strategy, not a strategy unto themselves. Even if we possessed the perfect sensor system, one that could accurately plot every enemy position with 10-digit accuracy, we still would not understand the psychological part of the equation. As good as our sensor systems are, they cannot penetrate the enemy’s mind to reveal his intentions, resolve, power and cultural status, tribe/clan associations, nor predict the reactions of his supporters and allies. The U.S. Army must retain a capability to force the enemy to reveal those intentions, to fight for that information when it is not so easily handed to us. The enemy thinks and reacts. Every action has a reaction, and very seldom can we even come close to eliminating the fog of war. The initial Kosovo air campaign, Operation Allied Force, provided us a real lesson in the effectiveness of standoff targeting when not coupled with an effective ground campaign. What was planned to be a five-day aerial bombardment, stretched into months. It was not successfully resolved until the Kosovo Liberation Army gained traction on the ground, the political pressure was ratch-eted up, and the real threat of a ground offensive worked in conjunction with the still-ongoing air campaign to force the Yugoslavian leadership to the table.5 Our “The Stryker brigade combat team (SBCT) and the Objective Force are both tailored to harness information dominance, to operate with a high-degree of certainty, and therefore are designed for efficiency instead of effectiveness. They do not have the ability to fight and survive under less-than-optimal conditions.” May-June 2005 — 21 current struggle in Fallujah presents us with near-real-time lessons in the fallacy of the total information dominance theory. The effectiveness of our vast sensor fleet, coupled with precision stand-off weap ons systems, but without the complementary capability/will to dominate the fight on the ground, has led to the term “no-go areas” being introduced into our national lexicon concerning Iraq. The past three years (let alone the past

15) have presented us with more examples and lessons learned than necessary to drive this point home. When you introduce killing and death into the dirty laboratory of combat, mix in a very complex urban and mountainous terrain, and blend in social, political, cultural, and psychological aspects, our awesome technological advantages, the result of every operation still lacks predictability. We must be prepared for the unexpected, and for intelligent enemies who seek to exploit our vulnerabilities. We must train and equip our soldiers and leaders to win decisively under uncertain conditions. View From the Foxhole This reality is obvious to anyone who has served amid the ever-shifting reality of Iraq. Neighborhoods and city blocks are constantly changing environments. The current situation is the result of inputs from coalition forces, pro-coalition civilians, those apathetic to our efforts, and civilians and militants vehemently opposed to our presence. The dynamic includes soldiers, sheiks, religious leaders, business owners, families, criminals, foreign insurgents, and influences from an amazing array of past grievances, grudg-es, and blood feuds that may or may not have involved the United States in their origin, but certainly have an impact on our current relationship with Iraqi citizens. War is much more than just targeting objects. For soldiers who spent one day fighting in the streets of Al Qa’im, Husaybah, or Fallujah, and the next day delivering humanitarian or reconstruction aid along the same streets, this simplistic assumption seems blatantly foolish. These are not situations that lend themselves to be easily categorized, patterned, analyzed, predicted, and targeted. One of the very best daily intelligence assets we have is the scout, a living human sensor who can observe, analyze, assess, and decide (many times within seconds) the best course of action. The scout can rarely wait for the 95-percent solution to be researched and presented for discussion. On some deliberate missions, he will have time to wait for real-near-real time imagery and/or signals intelligence, but in the vast majority of missions, the scout will not have time to wait. He may have the luxury of time and the approval from several echelons higher to use centralized remote fires with such amazing stand-off capabilities; however, it is much more realistic to think he will not. During Operation Anaconda, despite two weeks of intensive national, strategic, and tactical intelligence-gathering, focused on the specific area and enemy positions in the Shah-e-Kot Valley, U.S. soldiers were “In short, the Army already has a great template to start building this new capability. It needs to look no further into the future, but back to units, such as the 3d Squadron, 7th U.S. Cavalry on its march up the Euphrates, the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment during its economy-of-force operations that straddled a third of Iraq’s landmass, or the critical lines of communications security function the 2d Light Cavalry Regiment provided for its extended tour in Operation Iraqi Freedom I.” 22 — May-June 2005 very surprised to learn that they had to fight a completely unidentified formation of Taliban, emerging from camouflaged positions nearly directly below the wheels of the helicopters that dropped them off. “U.S. intelligence photos, listening devices, and spying had turned up no sign of al-Qaeda presence in the high ground. Analysts also believed the mountain hide-outs would be too cold for the enemy, given that even local shepherds waited out the winter in the villages below.”6 The geography and lessons learned by an intelligent and determined enemy from previous engagements offset many of our technological intelligence advantages. The scout will not have perfect intelligence and will not possess a certainty of the precise outcome. He will have lessons learned from training and education, as well as the assets with which he works and with which he has developed a habitual relationship over the course of his training and de ployment. What the scout must have prior to mission execution is a foundation of realistic train ing, an expectation that the unex pected can and will occur and he must be prepared for it. This training and his education must be based on the fundamentals of flexibility and mobility; proficiency at executing fragmentary orders (FRAGOs) on the fly; a capability to leverage every element of the combined arms team to reach the common objective; a survivability that allows that unit to take the hardest punch the enemy can deliver and remain standing; and a lethality sufficient to deliver a counter-punch that will ensure we impose our will on the enemy. Back to the Future: Fighting for Information Emerging technology will play a vital role in improving our intelligence-gathering and communications capabilities. However, the belief that this technology can eliminate battlefield friction and lead to a near-certainty on future battlefields is an intellectual crutch, which endangers our soldiers in the close fight and weakens our national capabilities to wage war successfully on our own terms. It casts our enemy as a static, one-dimensional and predictable foe, whose actions will conform to our strengths. This underlying assumption overshadows many of the more constructive portions of transformation. Transformation is a necessary and ongoing process that incorporates many positive features. Its stated goals of a decentralized combined arms structure, improving mobility while shortening the logistics ‘tail,’ and improved command and control (C2) pushed down to the lowest levels are all very positive. But there are also many areas for improvement that our most recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan reveal. The Stryker brigade combat team (SBCT) and the Objective Force are both tailored to harness information dominance, to operate with a high-degree of certainty, and therefore are designed for efficiency instead of effectiveness. They do not have the ability to fight and survive under less-than-optimal conditions. Assuming we can achieve information superiority, avoid surprise, rely on precision weapons systems to shape the outcome of the fight, and control the time and place of the fight, ignores the complexity of war and the lessons of Mogadishu, Tora Bora, and Fallujah. A strategically mobile force, lacking in firepower and survivability and dependent on near-perfect intelligence to execute a mission, will fail to capitalize on potential benefits of improved C2; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); and joint warfare capabilities. The post-transformation Army must have survivable combined arms units that can fight for information and force the enemy to reveal his intentions, integrate intelligence and fires, and rapidly transition from combat operations to peacekeeping and vice versa. It must be flexible, decentralized, and trained to execute rapid mission changes. The unit must leverage the mobility/countermobility and survivability skills of engineers with the vital psychological/human skills of civil affairs (CA) and psychological operations (PSYOPS). It must have organic indirect fires capability and a robust intelligence gathering/analysis function. And contrary to current unit of action plans, it must incorporate the awesome flexibility, speed, and observation of scout and attack aviation that veteran cavalry commanders take for granted. This transformation unit has to combine the surviv- “Witnessing rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) bounce off M1 Abrams and Bradleys enveloped by exploding IEDs in mushroom clouds of dust and shrapnel, and seeing both not only survive the punch, but respond with devastating firepower, makes believers out of most. The aftermath of an RPG that penetrated the thin skin of an M113 armored personnel carrier should be a sobering and convincing argument as well, and a warning to be heeded when protection and firepower are sacrificed for pure mobility.” May-June 2005 — 23 ability, mobility, and lethality of an armored force and have the flexibility and capability to put infantry (scouts) into the fight rapidly and effectively. The organization must be linked early in training, forging the bonds of habitual relationships that allow disparate elements of the unit to operate effectively based on the commanders intent and concept of the operation. In short, the Army already has a great template to start building this new capability. It needs to look no further into the future, but back to units, such as the 3d Squadron, 7th U.S. Cavalry on its march up the Euphrates, the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment during its economy-of-force operations that straddled a third of Iraq’s landmass, or the critical lines of communications security function the 2d Light Cavalry Regiment provided for its extended tour in Operation Iraqi Freedom I. The cavalry already incorporates many of these features and matches up with transformation goals to decentralize combined arms assets while improving C2 abilities. But the Objective Force and the SBCT, founded on the various theories of RMA and information dominance, relies on an under-equipped reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) battalion to conduct reconnaissance and security operations. As we apply lessons learned from recent and past experiences, the Army is fortunate to already have an organization that has proven its ability to fight through uncertainty, force the enemy to reveal intentions, and survive and excel in combat in complex terrain under less-than-optimal circumstances — divisional and regimental cavalry. Difficult as it may be to move an M1A2 or a Bradley into some theaters of operation, the reality is that once they are on the ground, their survivability, lethality, and versatility does not constrain the commander in the ways that Stryker-pure formations will. Witnessing rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) bounce off M1 Abrams and Bradleys enveloped by exploding IEDs in mushroom clouds of dust and shrapnel, and seeing both not only survive the punch, but respond with devastating firepower, makes believers out of most. The aftermath of an RPG that penetrated the thin skin of an M113 armored personnel carrier should be a sobering and convincing argument as well, and a warning to be heeded when protection and firepower are sacrificed for pure mobility. As the RSTA battalion takes shape around the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capability, ground commanders, who came to rely on the ubiquitous Kiowa Warrior, will miss the responsiveness and reliability of the OH-58D and aeroscouts. The capabilities and vulnerabilities of Strykers, UAVs, and HMMWV-mounted scouts would be complemented with the addition of these “legacy” formations, and provide commanders a true com bined arms force, capable of fighting through uncertainty. Ironically, while it may be feasible to move the current SBCT and units of action more rapidly into the theater of operation, once they are there, it will not be practical to use them unless conditions are nearly perfect. There is certainly room for improving the cavalry’s current capabilities by adding organic engineers to both the divisional and regimental cavalry, incorporating a robust CA/PSYOPS team, incorporating organic infantry, bolstering scout/attack aviation assets within the cavalry organization, and pushing relevant elements of the national and strategic intelligence picture down to the brigade/regiment and battalion/squadron commander levels. But the basic cavalry template is sound, as we have seen, and continue to see during less-than-perfect conditions in the Euphrates Valley, along the Syrian border, and along the ingress and egress routes of Baghdad. It is tempting to think what might have occurred had the Taliban run into a well-placed cavalry formation during their successful escape from Tora Bora. What if an armored cavalry regiment had maneuvered to blocking positions outside southwestern Baghdad when Saddam’s government collapsed and the remnants of the republican guard and Baathist regime slipped away to their sanctuaries in Fallujah and the Sunni Triangle? Exploiting these organization’s versatility, survivability, and mobility could have led to very different outcomes in both situations. We still have several organizations that can do many of these things very well and, until very recently, we had more. We cannot be dazzled by the illusory promises of information superiority and the unrealistic expectation that our “dominant knowledge” alone will result in rapid, decisive, and painless victory on future battlefields. The lessons of the past 15 years hammer this home. War in the information age is still war — unpredictable, complex, ambiguous, and uncertain. War remains irrational, nonlinear, and unpredictable. Because war involves killing and death, its human and psychological dimension makes it impossible to quantify or predict the enemy’s response. Information complements but does not replace protection and firepower; at some point we will engage in the knife fight with the enemy, and the battle will be resolved by the skills our soldiers possess in reacting to the unexpected and imposing our will on the enemy in a hard and confusing fight under less-than-optimal conditions. We must continue to leverage all of our impressive technological capabilities and capitalize on every opportunity to increase our advantage through the application of even-better intelligence systems. We must also realize that there are several factors that preserve uncertainty in warfare and that the enemy will exploit our weaknesses, using an array of countermeasures to blunt our technological superiority. The enemy will seek to fight battles on terms of their choosing, not ours. Wishing it away will not work. Uncertainty and the inevitable fog of war require us to field a reconnaissance force that can fight for information and force the enemy to reveal his true intentions. The Army must undertake immediate modifications of the current transformation plan to incorporate a flexible, mobile, survivable, and lethal combined arms team. The transformation effort should embrace uncertainty, and train and equip our soldiers and units to fight through uncertain conditions. The cavalry, with some modifications, provides us with a formidable and combat-proven combined-arms blueprint for future success in the fight for information. Notes 1Williamson Murray, “Clausewitz Out, Computer In: Military Culture and Technological Hubris,” The National Interest, Summer 1997. 2Center for Army Lessons Learned, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, “Implications: The Way Ahead for Considering Implications,” Chapter 7, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, KS, online at http://call.army.mil. 3Federation of American Scientists, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Chapter VI— The Air Campaign: Operational Considerations: The Counter Scud Effort; and Results: Scud Production and Storage Facilities, online at http://fas.org. 4Earl H. Tilford, Jr., “Operation Allied Force and the Role of Air Power,” Parameters, Winter 1999, pp. 24-38. 5Ibid. 6Ann Scott Tyson, “Anaconda: A War Story,” The Christian Science Monitor, 1 August 2002. CPT Raed D. Gyekis is currently the G3 Aviation, 7th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, CO. He received a B.S. from the University of Washington. His military education includes the Combined Arms and Services Staff School; Military Intelligence Captains Career Course; Air-Ground Operations School; Aviation Officers Basic Course; OH-58D Advanced Aircraft Transition Course; and Initial Entry Rotary Wing Aircraft Course. He has served in various command and staff positions, to include commander, Nomad Troop, 4th Squadron, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR), Fort Carson; adjutant, 4th Squadron, 3d ACR, Fort Carson; S3 Air, 1st Squadron, 4th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division (ID), Germany; and platoon leader, E Troop, 1st Squadron, 4th U.S. Cavalry, 1st ID, Germany and Kosovo. 24 — May-June 2005