Reflecting on the Maneuver Captain Career Course

While attending the Maneuver Captain Career Course (MCCC) at Fort Knox, I had a Ugandan classmate who very effectively summed up the Army’s current strategic dilemma with a Swahili proverb: “The Army gets the job it doesn’t want.”1 This concise statement encapsulates the U. S. Army’s institutional desire to focus on conflicts only distantly related to the reality of the post 9/11 world. Secretary Gates recently wrote in Foreign Affairs that “the Department of Defense (DoD), as a whole, is still too concerned with the theoretical conflicts of the future rather than counterinsurgency fights of the present, a phenomenon he calls ‘next-war-itis.’”2 To put this challenge in the terms of the military decisionmaking process, DoD is preparing for the enemy’s most dangerous course of action, as opposed to its most probable. From my admittedly limited perspective, the MCCC is still facing the same obstacles as the remainder of DoD in overcoming this institutional challenge. First and foremost, the MCCC is a wonderful professional experience; the course is extremely well taught by officers who are concerned with preparing students for the future. The classroom experience provides a unique opportunity for networking with joint and combined partners, as well as the opportunity to continue the integration of junior officers into the Army as a profession. The pace of instruction gives redeployed young officers the chance to recharge and reconnect with their families. In short, the MCCC does precisely what it is designed to do: train maneuver officers who are skilled at high-intensity conflict and are basically familiar with stability and counterinsurgency operations. However, this design fails to reach the reality — fighting small wars in complicated places — its graduates will face the day they leave Fort Knox. The MCCC remains focused on preparing captains for future wars that we may fight tomorrow at the expense of training for conflicts that the Army is fighting today. Graduates of the MCCC are much like Lieutenant Backsight Forethought, the fictional subaltern of The Defense of Duffer’s Drift, whose misadventures educated generations of British and American first-year cadets, who learned more about “Waterloo, Sedan, or Bull Run” than the life and death situation of modern combat in the Boer War.3 Graduates of the MCCC will most likely leave with more knowledge of hypothetical combined arms breaches at the National Training Center (NTC), divisional defenses at Korea’s DMZ, and other hypothetical situations, than they do about conducting the real-life business of counterinsurgency. Unfortunately, unlike our friend Backsight Forethought, commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan do not have six chances to get it right — their mistakes are permanent and deadly. This article outlines four key recommendations for improving the MCCC so it will better align with the realities of current operations. Refocus Operations Orders Most importantly, instructors should refocus a higher percentage of graded operations orders that require planning for tasks students are likely to face in combat. Our class spent a week studying how to defend high ground from a Soviet bloc division, but we never discussed how to properly occupy a combat outpost in an urban area. We practiced planning for a combined arms breach at the NTC, but neglected to train for a dismounted patrol in Afghanistan. We wrote an order for a company air assault against a mechanized infantry platoon, but never got around to a company raid on a five-man insurgent cell. We were tested on route reconnaissance, but not on route clearing. A recently redeployed company commander, who was invited to speak to our class, provided insight into a possible solution to this dilemma. When asked how he prepared his company for the ever-changing operational demands in Iraq, he explained that because techniques and requirements change so fast overseas, it is better to focus on doctrinal fundamentals than on certain techniques that will be outdated before the unit actually gets in country. Based on his experiences, he explained, it is impossible to know how to conduct a flash traffic control point (TCP) without being briefed on the most up-to-date rules of engagement and escalation of force measures; therefore, units in garrison should train the traditional task of “hasty defense” because a flash TCP is simply a form of hasty defense. This commander’s logic was sound and I certainly agree with his thinking; however, I have a different philosophy. If what this successful and experienced company commander states is true, then the reverse should also be considered sound — training for a flash TCP should make a unit prepared for the doctrinal task of hasty defense. By training conduct of a flash TCP, soldiers will be prepared for current operations and still have a basic understanding of the framework and doctrine related to the high-intensity conflict task of hasty defense. I recommend this same logic be applied to selecting exercises that student evaluations are based on at the MCCC. This is the area where we could most easily adjust the course to make it more relevant to today’s fight without sacrificing too much knowledge of high-intensity conflict. For instance, a block of instruction on the principles and basic techniques of the defense should culminate with an exercise requiring students to plan how to occupy and improve a combat outpost in an urban area, rather than how to defend a battalion flank from an invading Soviet-equipped division. In such an exercise, the doctrinal principles of the defense, engagement area development, where to kill the enemy, where to place key weapons systems, and so on, are being taught; however, instead of practicing these principles for the free-for-all hypothetical high-intensity conflict that may never come, captains would instead be thinking through problem sets of the constrained environment in which our soldiers are fighting at this moment. Consider the breach as another example of this logic. Students at the MCCC can learn and apply the principles of the breach, such as suppress, obscure, secure, reduce, and assault (SOS RA), the importance of reconnaissance, or the incorporation of various engineer assets no matter where that breach is applied. So then why are our exercises taking place in a fictional country instead of a realistic counterinsurgency scenario? For example, in Ba qu bah, our unit conducted a multiday breaching operation to clear routes that had become impassable due to the level of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and house-borne IEDs (HBIEDs) along the roads. This operation used the entire range of engineer breaching assets, to include mine-clearing line charges (MIC LICs), armored combat earthmovers (ACEs), and armored vehicle launch bridges (AVLBs), and required the application of all of the fundamentals and tenets of breaching. An MCCC exercise that planned for a similar operation would require students to apply all the principles of the breach they learn, but allow them to think through the application of these principles in scenarios that resemble those they could face after graduation. Teach Students to Command in Combat The MCCC should provide additional instruction and practical exercises on platforms that students are most likely to command in combat. The course devotes considerable time to discussing the organization and capabilities of every type of brigade combat team, to include armored and mechanized forces still configured doctrinally for high-intensity conflicts. However, the course fails to devote time to the proper use of equipment, such as HMMWVs and mine-resistant, armor-protected (MRAP) vehicles, that many, if not most, MCCC graduates will command in combat. Perhaps the platforms currently being used in combat should receive the lion’s share of attention when discussing relative capabilities and weaknesses of various formations in our Army. Also, additional attention should be placed on how to plan and lead the kind of long-range dismounted patrols that are increasingly becoming the norm in Afghanistan. Reevaluate Necessity for Staff Rides While the lessons of leadership and terrain analysis are certainly always of val- — 39 “First and foremost, the MCCC is a wonderful professional experience; the course is extremely well taught by officers who are concerned with preparing students for the future. The classroom experience provides a unique opportunity for networking with joint and combined partners, as well as the opportunity to continue the integration of junior officers into the Army as a profession. The pace of instruction gives redeployed young officers the chance to recharge and reconnect with their families.”

ue, most of what students take away from a one-day staff ride they have already inculcated at the pre-commissioning level. Instead, the MCCC should take advantage of rare opportunities present in surrounding communities of Fort Knox, and meet with civic leaders and public officials to observe government in action. Although most students at the MCCC have enough experience to appreciate the importance of developing government capacity as a key component of counterinsurgency, few (myself included) have any real understanding of what “right looks like” when it comes to local governments. I understand that Radcliff, Kentucky, runs city council meetings differently from those in Iraq and Afghanistan, but if MCCC graduates want to move past just drinking chai with host-nation leaders and do real counterinsurgency work, they should have better frames of references than those currently provided. Teach Critical Thinking The course should devote additional education on how to solve tactical problems not covered by the traditional orders process. For instance, the challenge of managing a combat outpost is something we never discussed during the course. While many students attending MCCC have extensive experience in operating as platoon leaders and executive officers from combat outposts, there are numerous problem sets that are likely beyond this level of experience. For instance, how do you manage a patrol schedule to meet the requirements of guard, rest, and patrol? How do you manage property accountability when the entire company is never in one place? We were taught that a change of command layout must be conducted with all like items out at the same time; how do you make this happen when your company is located in multiple time zones? Though aimed at platoon-level leaders, I urge leaders to look into the excellent and illuminating work of Captain Michael L. Burgoyne and Captain Albert

J. Markwardt, The Defense of Jisr al-Dorea, an update of the classic Defense of Duffer’s Drift, which serves as an excellent example of critical thinking. I am obviously not recommending that the MCCC completely abandon its instruction on high-intensity conflict or that it violate the Army’s maxim of “educate broadly, train narrowly” — to do so would be folly. However, I do advocate the ratios of instruction be reversed; instead of spending 75 to 85 percent of the course discussing high-intensity conflict and 25 to 15 percent on counterinsurgency and stability and support (a liberal estimation of the amount of time devoted to these operations), at least 50 percent, or perhaps even 75 percent, of the course should be spent preparing graduates for current and near-future operations. These recommended improvements would require only minimal effort and resources. Because the fundamental principles currently taught at Fort Knox will not change, there is no need to write or approve new classes (just additional lessons that focus on using current systems such as unmanned aerial and MRAP vehicles). The only modifications required would be the way these principles are practiced and evaluated; on the other hand, the time devoted to designing new exercises would pay significant dividends for future graduates of the MCCC. Tomorrow, a company commander will order his lieutenants to conduct patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan using MRAPs; in contrast, I would bet the sum of my captain’s retention bonus that tomorrow’s sun will set and there will be no American forces engaging Russian-built tanks or breaching any trench lines. Even in the unlikely event this did occur (say in places such as North Korea), it would not prevent a large percentage of the Army from continuing its counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As my Ugandan classmate pointed out, sometimes the Army is given the job it doesn’t want, which doesn’t mean we should focus our professional officer education on the job we want instead of the job we have. Notes 1Throughout this article, I refer to the MCCC; however, I can only speak from experiences at the Fort Knox MCCC. While the MCCC at Fort Knox and Fort Benning are intended to have common curricula, I understand that there are unavoidable differences between how each course is taught. Ultimately, my observations can only be based on the experiences of a single, small group during one MCCC class at Fort Knox, rather than an exhaustive analysis of the MCCC. 2Robert M. Gates, “Remarks to the Heritage Foundation,” 13 May 2009, available at http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/ speech.aspx?speechid=1240, accessed 18 June 2009; and Robert M. Gates, “A Balanced Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, January-February 2009, available online at http://www.foreignaffairs. com/articles/63717/robert-m-gates/a-balanced-strategy, accessed 18 June 2009. 3Ernest Dunlop Swinton, The Defense of Duffer’s Drift, April 1905, available at http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/ Swinton/Swinton.asp, accessed 16 July 2009. Captain Sean P. Walsh is currently attending the Civil Affairs Qualification Course, 3d Student Training Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Group, Fort Bragg, NC. He received a B. S. from the United States Military Academy and is currently pursuing an M. A. from Virginia Tech University. His military education includes Maneuver Captain Career Course, Infantry Officer Basic Course, Airborne School, and Ranger School. He has served in various command and staff positions, to include civil military plans officer, 2d Squadron, 2d Stryker Cavalry Regiment (2SCR), Baghdad, Iraq; Stryker rifle platoon leader, 2d Squadron, 2SCR, Baghdad; and adjutant, 2d Squadron, 2SCR, Vilseck, Germany. “While the lessons of leadership and terrain analysis are certainly always of value, most of what students take away from a one-day staff ride they have already inculcated at the pre-commissioning level. Instead, the MCCC should take advantage of rare opportunities present in surrounding communities of Fort Knox, and meet with civic leaders and public officials to observe government in action.” 40 —