The precise, intricate stonemasonry of Inca pyramids, fortresses, and walls commands the respect of even modern masons. Another is deploying forces to intermediate staging bases in preparation for an offensive. [xxxix] Some will argue vehemently that SOF values education, but in my experience the resources spent on education are a far cry from what is spent on equipping. Doctrine applied to the physical domains- made up of explicit knowledge- makes sense in some areas. The warfighting functions are the physical means that tactical commanders use to execute operations and accomplish missions assigned by superior tactical- and operational-level commanders. He has been published in theInternational Journal,Military Review,OODA.com, and theSmall Wars Journal, in addition to contributing to chapters in two textbooks on Design Thinking. Sustainment determines the depth and duration of Army operations. The seven warfighting functions are command and control, fires, force protection, information, intelligence, logistics, and maneuver. I'm not so sure the world is a safer or better place than it was 12 years ago. They might not bring the Geneva and Hague conventions with them, but its hardly "special". The use of "human domain" is really a simple attempt to cover up the abject failure of "understanding the environment" before they deployed. As all actions (words and deeds) undertaken by the force contribute to the coherent narrative, the IA WFF is used to coordinate the actions of the force to ensure a consistent message is portrayed. What are the movement and maneuver warfighting function tasks? For example, an integrated fires network would account for all of a commander's fires capabilities across all domains and quickly choose the best shooter for a specific target. They could learn nothing at all about what the people in a platoon outpost are likely to do by looking at small town America. That the autodefensas exist and have the capacity to organize armed resistance to TCO's does not mean that they should be helped (timely or to paraphrase an Old Prussian, everything in the human domain is simple, but in the human domain even the simplest thing is complex.. We have, possibly like the rest of America, become specialists capable of great micro efforts, but terrible at macro vision. The memoir covers the period from about 1941 to 1973. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. In a broader Operational sense our inability to align Tactical success with Strategic success might stem from the possibility we are mistaking UW for Revolution, Resistance or Secession. [ix] Sacolick, Bennet S. & Grigsby, Wayne W, Jr., Special Operations/Conventional Forces Interdependence: A Critical Role in Prevent, Shape, Win, Army Magazine, JUN 2012, 39-40. The force learns them, regurgitates them, has faith in them, and many defend them without question. If war is the pursuit of one's political objective by other means, then soldiers and statesmen -- long before the enemy -- must know, acknowledge, plan and prepare specifically as relates to this political objective. Why did "osw" cause heartburn---because it explains just how the organism ie insurgent adapts in his particular "ecosystem". Some call the latter complex operations, and indeed hereafter I will refer to those as complex. No COP, firebase, airfield, etc. Learning, or reflection,-in-action, is described (in italics) after its antithesis in the article by a quote from Donald A. Schon: Professionals become- locked into a view of themselves as technical experts, [and they] find nothing in the world of practice to occasion reflection. [xxxvi] This is because, if anything, surgical strike missions are very limited in time and scope and their objectives are clear and unambiguous. 3 The nature of war does not change, even though the Marine Corps added an additional warfighting function to our lexicon. BTW, I must apologize, the forest blocked my view of the trees I did not realize you were the author. Well done. Joint Staff Warfighting Capability Analyst. The Mission Command function allows commanders to balance their command and control duties while integrating the other Warfighting Functions. The fires warfighting function as defined by the Army includes the following tasks: Deliver fires, integrate all forms of Army, joint and multinational fires, and conduct targeting. A warfighting function is a group of tasks and systems (people, organizations, information, and processes) united by a common purpose that commanders use to accomplish missions and training objectives. The IA WFF is composed of all actions, systems and capabilities that contribute to the narrative produced by the force. The conduct of This likewise helping to explain, for example, why artestry, innovation, etc. Instead of ignoring them like a Leave It To Beaver kind of approach to one's higher's OPORD, those things have to be critically investigated. The identification of the need for this information and subsequently coordinating its collection is therefore a part of the Int WFF. As usual there are a multitude of reasons. 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. RantCorp--now you understand the reason why we lost Iraq and AFG. If one thinks about it, the 7th WfF and the human domain, defined as the totality of the physical, cultural and social environments that influence human behavior to the extent that success of any military operation or campaign depends on the application of unique capabilities that are designed to fight and win population-centric conflicts, [xi] border on tautologies. Just how many deploying BCT personnel fully understood the fighting tactics being used by the various Sunni, Shia, and AQI personnel ---did the Army via PME every have classes on this topic? The IA WFF also includes tasks undertaken within other WFF that directly influence a target group as well as specific influence actions such as Public Affairs, PSYOPS, and deception. [xxxix] To engage most effectively within the human domain- our SW forces should be supported with an education and training institution second to none. Your email address will not be published. Final questions: Does the "enemy" have a better understanding than we do as to our offensive strategy and our goals and objectives? Those always struck me as SF-light. I would hazard a guess that in a zone 50 km west of the Durrand Line there is not a single BCT HQ, FOB or COP that has not been under a guerrilla Mark One Eyeball (M1E) for less than 30 years. It was designed to break the will of the population and force the Churchill to sue for peace. Warfighting Functions: The seven mutually supporting military activities integrated in the conduct of all military operations. We must also firmly ground and continuously educate them in critical and creative thinking. This is juxtaposed with an operation like Desert Storm in which the objectives were clear and limited in both scope and time, even if they were limited somewhat artificially and ignoring the obvious connection to Operation Iraqi Freedom. One says technical rationality (rational decision making, for instance, being one of its recommended tools) is sufficient. Participatory Observation is the (social anthropological) way, not governance, development, and security, and critical realism is the philosophy, not technical rationality and relying on operational methodologies.". 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". Its antithesis is post-positivism, or, as many prefer to call it- especially within the military- critical realism. I am again going to shy away from your basic argument even though I agree with you. These kinds of things defy logical analysis.. [xiii] Freeburg, Sydney, J., After 10 Years Of Abject Failure, Army, SOCOM, Marine Leaders Focus On Strategic Landpower, Breakingdefense.com, 10 AUG 2013. Risk cannot be taken in education and training if one is to prioritize SW. Of course it is very difficult to measure the impact of education and training on national objectives and it is near impossible to articulate the requirements for doing so, but I would argue this is more the result of our bureaucracys requirements than it is our ability to articulate. Going on offense (engagement and enlargement) re: the "different" lesser and remaining states and societies. That's funny. "This was true for the SF of the 60/70s---the ability to "understand the mission, understand your enemy and understand yourself" before one is dropped in with no support from the outside world.. This publication. To illustrate how the MIE multiplier might augment the guerrillas effectiveness lets take a senior Haqqani Network (HN) commander who has designs on attacking a position in or near Khost, Paktia AF. Combat Power is, in and of itself, an abstraction, but the military has given this abstraction a formula to make it more real and quantitative, theoretically taking the ambiguity out of assembling functions together for the making of war and allowing a more checklist-like approach. The guerrillas M1E is the one piece of equipment that is just as sophisticated and capable as our own. All warfighting functions possess scalable capabilities to mass lethal and nonlethal effects. He stumbled across a Facebook entry from a soldier somewhere in Iraq who was in front of his gun truck boosting about the Duke---then he Googled more about jamming and then reported back to the team. When I was able to get a BCT to change their behavior every single day ---then we started getting a changed battlefield as we were forcing the insurgent to delay or stop planned attacks until they figured out why we suddenly changed---plain old fashioned UW that has not changed much in the last 100 years. 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. A warfighting function (WFF) is a group of tasks and systems united by a common purpose that commanders use to accomplish missions and training objectives. Integrate all forms of Army, joint and multinational fires. This is due in no small part to two incompatible philosophies that our institution is attempting to force together. [iii] Although I understand the argument that the domains are not separate and indeed overlap greatly as well, in addition to other arguments for or against the concept, in order to make a point I will use them in their doctrinal form. Why Protect Mass Graves? Ancient pyramids inscribed with weathered glyphs and characters from the most advanced ancient alphabet in the western hemisphere now sit abandoned, obscured by centuries of jungle growth. Before falling to the Spanish in 152115211521, the Aztecs left several permanent contributions to history and to the explorers of the New World: chocolate, derived from indigenous cacao beans; tomatoes, potatoes, and numerous other vegetables that have long become staples to the rest of the world; and, as testament to the artisans among the Aztecs, an accurate, 242424-ton limestone calendar that took more than fifty years to construct. The second is related to the first. Thus they are able to remain mission-focused and results-oriented. In order for SOF to best contribute to operations within the human domain I assert that we have to do two things: 1) ensure our doctrine and concepts support a more nuanced and dynamic approach to operations at the conceptual level and, 2) mimic at the operational and strategic levels the same kinds of things that make us special at the tactical level. the applies not only to AQ but to most of the worldwide Sunni insurgent groups. What is then the difference in the use of human terrain teams say from the term human domain recently used by the ACoS? With this understanding of (1) our national goal and objective and (2) the problems and responsibilites related thereto, and with an acknowledgement that the resources we have to accomplish these missions and to deal with these problems and responsibilities have been greatly diminished, now let us consider thoughts on the "human domain" generally and the ideas presented by LTC Martin specifically (re: participatory observation, critical realism, less rather than more troops, etc.) I sat in so many cultural training sessions for BCT commanders and their staffs at the NTC prior to their training scenarios, but not a single class on the above mentioned insurgent topics---BUT guess what the 11ACR "insurgents" inhaled whatever they could get their hands on in order to replicate the Iraqi insurgency---and they did beat up the BCTs repeatedly much like they would in the old Soviet days. 19 What are the 7 Army warfighting functions? This will ensure freedom of action, extend operational reach, and prolong endurance in support of . I am so tired of the on going six year debate about the "surge" being successful or what used to be called "human terrain system" and now "human domain". MS 301: Training Management and the Warfighting Functions Revision Date: 31 March 2022 Lesson 20,23,26,29,32: Branch Orientation Briefings Student Handout 1 Information Briefing Sheet Cadets will prepare and present an information briefing concerning an assigned branch. A warfighting function is a group of tasks and systems (people, organizations, information, and processes) united by a common purpose that commanders use to accomplish missions and training objectives. One note on the mission scenario your notional SOF team receives.it is not so much a mission as a policy statement. and are likewise both required to understand it. We must continue to plan, synchronize, and deliver sustainment warfighting function capabilities. Risk can be taken in IT platforms, vehicles, C2 systems, and airframes. These movements may be partial or complete. The Spaniards were forced to retreat from the city, but they soon regrouped and besieged the Aztec capital. Effective maneuver requires close coordination with fires. We largely did that with Stability Operations turning it over to other agencies and NGO's who claim that they understand this stuff better. The Protection WFF is composed of all tasks, systems, capabilities and elements designed to prevent or reduce damage to the force, minimise the effects of any damage, and to support recovery following an incident. Democracy is a bottom-up political ideology. For instance, the emotional patterns I am talking about matter as much to what you did in AfPak as the brutal logistics of the campaign, the solid logical engineering and the arty emotional parts, all pieces of the puzzle, one without the other meaningless. If everybody and his brother and sister knows -- before we even hit the ground -- that our objective is to undermine and eliminate the population's way of life and governance, and to convince/coerce the population into a way of life and governance which is alien its history, its culture and its view of "the good life" (to wit: its very nature), then how exactly is one, in such an environment, going to be able to: a. Your writings are great to read especially coming from the lonely voice on SWJ that once wrote about the need to shift to VSO. I think there needs to be some re-evaluation about these issues. The CIMIC aspect of the WFF is a command led function in order to ensure coordination with the mission objectives, and that the military efforts of the force are coordinated as part of the comprehensive approach. Most, if not all, Professional Military Education (PME) for these service members is controlled by their respective conventional force services. This process is ongoing and commanders use tasks in: to obtain this intelligence. Did we have PME classes using insurgent battle videos released via the internet to give deploying personnel the necessary understanding of the ideology driving the various insurgent groups---no not really because we declared them propaganda and refused to engage. The centrally-managed personnel system, the system of intellectual communication (doctrine-based), the acquisition and resources system (JCIDS), and the hierarchical nature of the military have combined to produce a largely tail wagging the dog sort of institution. Sustainment provides the support necessary to maintain operations until mission accomplishment. I would put forward the idea that once a society adopts agriculture, at no time in its history henceforth does it exist without an economic elite and "the rest". Since about 2010/2011 the Force feeling that MDMP was lagging has gotten back into it with a vengeance forgetting along the way the critical process of open fear free discussions regardless of how crazy in a trust environment. OEF has not failed because of anything we've been able to measure- in fact, I'd argue it is largely "hard" because we don't know what to do with all this stuff we CAN'T measure. This that any different than the Sunni Awakening movement--I personally do not think so. These tasks are interactive and often occur simultaneously. Preferably we should take our cues from critical realism and multi-paradigmatic framing and reject the notion that the social realm should be approached using mainly the scientific method and linear logical tools and processes. Obviously I would give the M1E multiplier a greater weight than most but I dare suggest that seeing, smelling, hearing and even touching, talking and drinking tea with personnel within the target perimeter will boost your chances each and every day. When Sun Tzu noted that Armies move like water he was noting that it is human nature to take the path of least resistance to move along open routes and advance downhill is easier than to move uphill. IMHO in UW unless we champion the critically of the M1E and recognize the limitations of digitization in our planning process we dont have a prayer. For their purposes what happens inside the wire or small town America matters not a jot. Trusting and empowering subordinates to act, within the commanders intent, is a force multiplier. Neither did 202020 the Maya have a single emperor, though its kings were venerated as godlike, as in the Inca and Aztec cultures. We saw in the last days the killing of a really major Hezbollah Commander by an AQ affiliate who is rumored to be supported by the Saudi's. As in Michoacn, the human, urban and rural communities are realizing that existing institutions, overwhelmed by all kinds of problems, are non-functional and that organized citizens must take in their hand the management of resources, key decisions, justice, food production, education, prevention and so on. Multi-framing would be so ingrained as to be almost unconscious: a result of intimate familiarity with how humans make sense of their world through socially-constructed metaphors. Intelligence is the process of understanding the enemy using all information on the enemy, civilians nearby, and the terrain and weather conditions. Although this is a simplification and perhaps disingenuous, one way of thinking about the two types of domains is to imagine an armored division battle as being one largely within the land domain. 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. And, thereby. And all this still ignores the fact that none of this has anything to do with the general idea that the officers leading these organizations, conventional or otherwise, have to be educated. War is a contest of wills. "Understanding" and "seeing" that particular world is what we have not done well as a Force. Another important function . I say for the most part because the education and personnel systems these individuals fall under are all less than desired, largely beholden to the conventional forces systems and with respect to education- are a lower priority within USSOCOM. Those who survived were forced to abandon their customs and live beneath Spanish rule for the next three centuries. At the operational level and high tactical levels,[xl] however, senior NCOs and field-grade officers are increasingly institutionalized and are thus progressively more intertwined within the bureaucracy in terms of how the organization thinks, plans, communicates, and acts. Regardless of the constructs philosophical issues, why are Special Operations Forces (SOF) pushing for a new Army warfighting function and why is the Army supporting SOF in doing so?