Division Chief Lessons Learned

“Pressure is something you feel when you don’t know what you’re doing.”

– Chuck Noll, Former Head Coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers

From June of 2022 through June of 2024, I served as the Chief of the Strategy Development Division. Among our division accomplishments was the publication of the 2022 National Military Strategy, the Unified Command Plan, multiple Chairman Risk Assessments, the Joint Risk Analysis Methodology (JRAM), and the Joint Strategic Planning System (JSPS). These were the big rocks, and certainly not the only accomplishments nor the only products the team produced. However, with these accomplishments in mind, I offer the following lessons I learned as a Division Chief on the Joint Staff.

1. We all pay taxes.

Like any headquarters, the Joint Staff is full fo duty positions not specifically authorized on a JDAL or other manning type document. Front office positions such as speechwriter, director or chairman’s actions groups (DAG/CAG) will come at the expense of actions officers from various directorates and divisions. Other temporary jobs such as cross functional teams, transitions teams, Chairman’s Crisis Management Teams (CMTs) all come at the cost of personnel. New division chiefs must understand this manning dynamic, support the filling of these positions while simultaneously communicating to deputy directors the cost. The paying of manpower taxes emphasizes the importance of setting priorities within a division and communicating those priorities up and down the chain.

Furloughs continually hang above a division chief’s head like the Sword of Damocles. The tendency is that civilians working at the division level and below will not normally be designated as essential personnel during government shutdowns (unless filling an external billet/tax such as CMT). Indeed, one quickly finds that front office’s will be fully manned during these times. Again, the onus is on Division Chiefs to communicate the risk to their portfolio during government shutdowns, and then to properly prioritize the division’s efforts.

There are creative ways to mitigate personnel shortages. Advocating for a Reservist or National Guardsman on active duty orders to work in the division is one way. Looking for civilians on their way to become an SES as part of a service executive development program is another. Division chiefs can find help in some places, but nothing is guaranteed.

2. Morale is dependent upon senior leader interest.

There is little that is more demoralizing than senior leaders not caring about or having interest in a portfolio. At times there are other more pressing priorities, and other times it can be clear that the senior leader does not understand the portfolio. Both aspects will contribute to lower morale in an office.

Division chiefs must overcome the obstacle of senior leader disinterest by serving as a champion of the team’s efforts. Scheduling time with directors, deputy directors, and vice directors must be a continual effort. Indeed, providing junior actions officers the opportunities to brief senior leaders on their efforts will not only raise their morale, but also serve to develop up and coming leaders.  

3. Read the Weekly

Shared understanding is a key to success in the military, be it for tactical units or for branches, divisions, and directorates on the Joint Staff. The five paragraph Operations Order includes the status of other friendly forces as a way to help understand the bigger picture. Indeed, knowing what is happening on the left, on the right, up and down, and across echelons provides perspective for all within an organization. Weekly reports serve as situational reports (SITREP) for the Joint Staff. Division Chiefs must not only provide input, but also read higher compilation of weekly reports and share that compilation with their team.

4. Know the Rules of the Game

Filling the ranks of the Joint Staff are officers and enlisted from each service, multiple components, civilians, and contractors. It is incumbent upon Division Chiefs to learn the rules that govern individuals from these various ranks.

Each service, component, and employer have different rules regarding evaluations, awards, counseling, and reporting of attendance (timecards for example). Indeed, what the Air Force values in an evaluation report can differ from what the Army values in an OER. Further, each branch in the Army has different preferences for evaluations. Recommending a strategist (FA-59) for battalion/brigade command might not be the preferred senior rater comment as it would for an infantry officer.

More than rules, it becomes apparent that civilians and contractors often have different preferences for recognition of performance. Incentives can vary from time off and monetary awards to the presentation of civilian medals (like military commendation and achievement medals). Division chiefs must learn the rules, regulations, norms, and desires of every person in every category of service.

5. Recognize your people.

Napoleon once remarked “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.” Recognition comes in many forms including medals, coins, certificates, and can also include verbal and written recognition of accomplishments and efforts.

With medals, generally action officers will depart the Joint Staff with a PCS award of the Defense Meritorious Service Medal (DMSM). Understanding that a 2-year tour on the Joint Staff may be the only joint tour for many, division chiefs can try to find ways to award a joint service achievement medal (JSAM) for a specific accomplishment that will not fall under their normal duties. Indeed, as any officer can recommend anyone for an award, don’t limit award recommendations to only those in your division. Should an officer support your division’s efforts (in a Cross Functional Team or Working Group for example), take the time to recommend them for a JSAM or other form of recognition.

In line with knowing the rules of the game, when it comes to contractors, sending a note to their supervisors commenting on excellent performance takes little time and costs nothing. Ditto on writing up nominations for action officer of the quarter, which both civilians and military officers qualify. Coordinate with other divisions within a deputy directorate on nominations for AO and Civilian of the Quarter (fratricide = bad), and time them to coincide with the completion of major projects.  

6. Develop your people.

There is no formal professional development program on the Joint Staff. Developing individuals within a division is on the division chief to find time, space, and resources to develop officers and civilians alike. This may include engagements or attendance at various think tank events (RAND, CSIS, CNAS) or attending senior leader or congressional engagements as a +1. Fortunately there is no shortage of guest speaker and author events in the Pentagon and National Capital Region.

Developing people often means empowering them. Other professional development opportunities come naturally with the job on the joint staff. Opportunities to brief a 3-Star director, the Director of the Joint Staff, the Vice Chairman, and the Chairman do arise, and generally division chiefs should position their action officers for success with these engagements. However, put your people in front of senior leaders at the right time, when they know their portfolio enough to speak confidently and answer any questions related to their products. Indeed, the great comedian Dana Gould once remarked that “bears roam the earth thinking all humans have shit in their pants…because everyone they have been up close to has shit their pants.” When sample sizes are small, first impressions matter, don’t send an unprepared action officer into the fire.

Developing people also means creating risk to manning within a division. If you do it right, contractors and civilians will develop and likely look for promotion and other career advancement opportunities such as attendance at a War College. Contractors may look to find a place in the GS system. Furthermore, there are officers who look for developmental opportunities within the staff such as serving as a speechwriter, as a member of a CAG, or as an executive assistant to a senior leader. Develop your people and support them in their careers, even if this means your division may suffer in the near-term.

Developing people becomes more important on higher echelon staffs, as division chiefs cannot make the assumption that officers arriving are trained in the specific work of the staff. Officers at Combatant Commands and the Joint Staff for example are not always JPME-II educated. Although smart and hard working, it may take time to teach officers how to roll through the joint planning process, or to properly present a mission analysis, COA development, and COA comparison. Division chiefs must take the time and have the patience to guide their AOs and branch chiefs though these processes to set them up for success when briefing senior leaders.

When a division chief develops his or her people right, the branch chiefs and action officers become experts within their portfolios. Division chiefs should constantly ask for and listen to the opinions and advice of said experts. However, know and understand when to diverge from action officer advice, and to provide your own expert and informed opinions to senior leaders.

7. The 24-month Wrecking Ball.

Since the passing of the 2017 NDAA, officers earn their joint credit with 24 months of joint time, 12 months shorter than when the standard was 36 months. The impact of this change often means every division will lose half their officers every summer, where in the past the personnel turnover was a more manageable third. Add in TDYs for pre-quals and pre-command training for air force officers, or pre-command course for army officers, and that 24 months gets even shorter. I have long held that reducing joint qualification time from 36 to 24 months was an unforced error in the Department, and unfortunately I don’t see the current standard changing anytime soon.

8. Manage your taskings

ETMS2, or what is commonly known as TMT (Task Management Tool) can quickly overwhelm a division or a branch if not managed properly. As a division chief I largely delegated the management of TMTs to my deputy, but kept an understanding of those taskings that mattered more than others. For example, opportunities to review and comment on documents within the Joint Strategic Planning System (JSPS) tended to rise higher in importance than others. I further provided guidance to my branch chiefs to ensure to review and comment on products that represented the strategy, or other items within our division portfolio (the UCP and the CRA for example).

2024 JSPS

Another aspect of managing TMTs included the informal discussions at the AO and O6 level to ensure early awareness of any major disagreements. Immediate coordination with AOs and O6s in other JDIRs to raise awareness of potential disagreements that would rise to the GOFO level is paramount to ensure disagreements remain friendly disagreements when there are irreconcilable differences on a specific topic.

9. Educate the Force

Strategy and doctrine are similar in that if they are not read and understood, they are worthless. Over my time as a division chief I was relentless in ensuring that my AOs, branch chiefs, and I would take the time to present our products to the Joint Force. We conducted engagements within the Joint Staff, in the building to service staffs, at Combatant Commands, throughout service and joint PME, and even to interagency and international audiences. Further, I had our team develop briefings that we could send to PME institutions to ensure our work got into the curriculum. We didn’t produce strategy for the sake of producing strategy or for meeting Title-10 demands, rather we produced strategy for the Joint Force to execute. Further, the consistent engagement to educate the force helped to build and maintain relationships across the broader strategy and plans community.

10. Know your history.

History matters, and while knowledge of military history can help, knowing and understanding the history of various strategic documents in a portfolio is a key to success. Knowing why a document exists, why it has the classification it does, and why various statements, timelines, or tasks within a document are present is critical. Did the tasks come directly from the Chairman, Vice Chairman, or Director? Was there a change directed in an NDAA? Division Chiefs should keep in contact with their predecessors to help provide context for senior leaders as to why documents are the way they are when it comes time to review and rewrite them.

Scouts Out: A Dual Book Review

“Talent is where you find it” –Tony Lucadello

              Perhaps one of the best historical examples of an American military leader identifying future talent is General Fox Conner. Throughout his time as a senior leader Conner sought out and mentored individuals he identified as the next generation of strategic leaders. Indeed, Conner identified and mentored the likes of Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, Leslie McNair and George Marshall, a virtual military murderer’s row.[i] Conner’s influence ensured the long-term success of the U.S. Army following its achievements in the First World War. While Conner could not predict when the next war would occur, he could predict who should be in positions of strategic leadership.

Leaders throughout the joint force serve as scouts for their respective service. From the moment an individual pins on the stripes of a non-commissioned officer or the gold bars of a second lieutenant, they continually observe and evaluate subordinates on performance and potential to advance in rank and position. Despite the enormous responsibility placed on young men and women, there is a dearth of training and education on what it takes to properly observe and evaluate talent.

This review will examine two books on the topic of scouting, the ideas within the books, and their implications for the joint force.

              Perhaps the premier book on scouting is Gare Joyce’s Future Greats and Heart Breaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of the NHL Scouts. In this book the author spends a year shadowing the professional scouts of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets. Similar to Joyce’s observations on scouting is Mark Winegardner’s Prophet of the Sandlots: Journeys with a Major League Scout.  Winegardner who is known for The Godfather Returns and The Godfather’s Revenge spends a year following Tony Lucadello, a baseball scout for the Philadelphia Phillies who became a legend for finding and signing hall of famer Mike Schmidt.

              The insights Winegardner culls from Lucadello, and Joyce’s observations while scouting translate easily into the realm of the military. For example, both authors highlight how the successes and failures of Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League depend on scouts identifying talent. As Joyce states, “the league is only as good as the scouts, if there are bad coaches or bad general managers, there are bad teams. If the scouts are bad, you’ll end up with a bad league and a bad game.”[ii] If leaders throughout the military consistently inflate evaluations or fail to properly rate the best performers then there is significant risk of a bad military.  

Each book conveys unique insights into the world of scouting. Some of the similar categories each author highlights include the time and detail dedicated to each individual prospect, understanding the difference between performance and potential, and risk management.

Looking at “What’s Inside”

              Written evaluations are the military’s scouting reports, but evaluations are a snapshot in time and not always indicative of long term potential. In Winegardner’s discussions with Lucadello, the author pulls out the gem that a scout must see what’s inside of a player, not just physical and performance metrics.[iii] Often these observations come from taking the time to talk to the player, the player’s family, and the player’s friend.  In a similar way, Joyce writes in his book on the failure of NHL scouts to observe or talk to athletes outside of the rink or outside formal interview sessions.[iv] Seeing what’s inside of a subordinate leader is an investment of time and effort. Senior leaders who write evaluations require time those they rate (or senior rate) to fully appreciate their potential to lead at higher levels.

              While shadowing the scouts for the Columbus Blue Jackets, Gare Joyce writes of the time he spend observing interviews between the professional NHL scouts and prospective draft picks. Joyce observes that scouts had limited time to talk to dozens of players and thus the interviews barely scratched the surface of each player’s true personality. Joyce was able to follow up the formal interviews with informal discussions over meals, or while playing ping-pong at a hotel. What Joyce tells us is that the informal atmosphere and unguarded dialog revealed more about a player’s character than what is generally seen as theater of formal sit-down interviews.[v]  Leaders writing evaluations for other to make judgements on a person’s worth to an organization must have a semblance of a relationship with their subordinates. Leaders should know who they lead.

              These snapshots in time that decision makers get for athletes is mirrored in military selection boards. The decision to recommend someone for command of 5,000 soldiers, or command of a destroyer, submarine, or air wing is an enormous responsibility of board members who have little to zero firsthand knowledge of the people they are evaluating. The words and stratification on each evaluation report are all the board will see. With little awareness into the character of each officer, the job of the military leader as the scout for the selection boards gains more significance.

Risk

The art of selecting athletes in a draft or military leaders for assignments, promotion and command is a form of risk management. In both circumstances organizations are investing limited time and money to develop and compensate each individual for their effort and future performance. While there is no such thing as perfect knowledge or perfect information when it comes to predicting future performance, selecting people who will have enormous responsibility for other people’s lives or economic success requires substantial investment. 

Professional sports teams assume enormous financial risk with every rookie selected in a draft. The nation takes risk in appointing men and women into positions of power where their decisions will impact the lives of those they lead. While Joyce observed the risk of limited interaction with prospects, Winegardner witnessed the power of a scout who took time to observe, understand and know the players who he recommended as likely to succeed in the big leagues. Indeed, the author writes how Lucadello would gain and maintain contact with a prospect over multiple seasons, often taking the time to know their family, their friends, and the baggage each player carried with them onto the baseball diamond. By mitigating risk in selection, we mitigate the results on the diamond, on the rink, and on the battlefield.

              The best scouts don’t sit in the stands, they sit in the locker room. Joyce observes in his book that often the best scouts talk to a player’s peers, as there is nothing to observe that other players don’t already know.[vi]  Recently, the Army adopted the Battalion Commander Assessment Program (BCAP) and the Colonel’s Command Assessment Program (CCAP) to better evaluate and better select and assign battalion and brigade commanders. According to the Army, these programs are already having a successful impact, and are certainly a welcome improvement over the rapid look at previous evaluations to determine who will command at senior levels.  These assessments include formal interviews, but also consider 270 degree feedback (from peers and superiors from previous assignments), physical fitness evaluations, and general informal observations.  According to the Army, these programs fill the gap providing current strategic leaders with better ways of predicting the next set of strategic leaders.

              More than understanding the risk in selecting personnel, both authors discuss how major league scouts are held accountable should they consistently fail to find talent. Scouts are often on short-term contracts and must continually prove their worth to their organization. Failures to find talent, or continual signing of athletes who don’t fulfill potential often results in a non-renewal of the scout’s contract. This is a marked departure from the military which does little to hold to account those who elevate toxic leaders. While leaders are often held to account for administrative issues such as submitting late evaluations, heaping praise and recommending someone for promotion who later fails tactically, strategically, or ethically has no impact to one’s career.

Performance and Potential

              A poignant observation from Lucadello is that every player he observes, no matter how talented, is a long-shot to make into the major leagues.[vii] Most of the high school and college stars never get signed. Indeed, every new recruit that raises his or her right hand at an initial enlistment or commissioning is a long-shot to eventually serve at the highest ranks and echelons of the joint force. Translating this into military practice, leaders should seek to raise those they evaluate not in anticipation of serving as the next Chairman or Sergeant Major of the Army, but rather with the understanding of finding high performers who will serve 20-30 years in relative senior positions.

What baseball, hockey, and football scouts have in common is the necessity to understand the difference between performance and potential. Scouts who spend countless hours observing athletes must have an understanding of the competition each athlete faces when evaluating performance against potential. High school seniors hitting homeruns against freshman pitchers says little on their ability to hit a major league curveball. A 20-year old hockey player skating around a 16-year old third line defenseman.[viii] Observing stronger players against weak competition can skew evaluations and selection for promotion.

              Assignments of officers and NCOs can lead to disproportionate evaluations of talent. Average officers and NCOs serving with a multitude of below average leaders of the same rank can lead to a high stratification (#1 of 50) while above average leaders serving in selective units can suffer in their respective stratification. Board members who get a 1-2 minute glimpse at a packet don’t have the context of the evaluated leader’s competition. And just as success in minor league baseball or minor league hockey doesn’t always translate to success in the big leagues, tactical acumen doesn’t always translate to strategic thought. As the scouts of the joint force, officers responsible for writing evaluations must understand this context and communicate in the written evaluation.

A Military Scouting Report

Conclusion

              Large complex organizations, from professional sports teams to military organizations rely on a multitude of factors for long term success. In writing about the New England Patriots Dynasty, Jeff Benedict observed that winning is more than tactics and Xs and Os. Winning relies upon personnel decisions, player development, support staff, and scouts.[ix]

Every leader who writes an evaluation is a scout for the joint force. Understanding what professional scouts look for in identifying potential talent can improve how these leaders understand, rate and stratify the talent that surrounds them. As such, Prophet of the Sandlots and Future Greats and Heart Breaks not only work as entertaining reading, but as a source of insights and enhanced professional knowledge that can lead to a level of self-reflection. They are a welcome addition to any leader’s bookshelf.    

[i] Edward Cox, Grey Eminence: Fox Conner and the Art of Mentorship. (New Forums Press. Stillwater, OK, 2011). Kindle, loc 154.

[ii] Gare Joyce, Futre Greats and Heartbreaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts. (Doubleday Press, Canada 2007), 6.

[iii] Mike Winegardner, , Prophet of the Sandlots: Journeys With a Major League Scout. (Prentice Hall Press. New York, NY, 1990).47.

[iv] Joyce, 87.

[v] Joyce, 120-121.

[vi] Joyce, 168.

[vii] Winegardner, 57

[viii] Joyce, 220-224.

[ix] Jeff Benedict, The Dynasty (Avid Reader Press, New York, NY, 2020), 87.

Success and Failure

What follows are the remarks from my promotion ceremony on 29 April, 2022. For context, the ceremony took place at the Museum of the American Revolution in Yorktown, Virginia. Hence the references to the Battle of Yorktown.

Good afternoon, and thank you all for coming here.

First let me say thank you to Derrick for officiating this promotion, and for all the kind words. One of the nice aspects of promoting to colonel is you get to do it the way you want, and i could not think of a better option than having a peer and a friend do this. We don’t succeed by ourselves, we succeed with the help of family and friends in our lives.

Second, thank you to everyone who made it out here today. Some of you live close by, others came from far away, by plane, by train, and by automobile, and somewhere there is a comedy sketch waiting to be written on that dynamic.

Before I thank some others, I wanted to talk about success and failure. It’s been 22 years since I commissioned at Norwich as a second lieutenant, and 27 years and couple months since i raised my right hand and took an oath of enlistment at the Fort Hamilton MEPS. I like to think I have had a successful career, and some things in life have gotten me thinking about that topic.

We are here at Yorktown which serves as a metaphor in so many ways. And if I were to give credit to one aspect that led to victory it would be this, the Americans fighting on the battlefield about a mile from here knew what they were fighting for, and they loved what they knew. I’ll return to that.

But first let me talk about failure. When you fail, you fail alone. You fail when you make decisions without anyone else’s input. You fail when you try to solve problems without asking for help.

Second, as the author and professor Mark Edmundson once wrote, failure tends to happen all at once. The brakes in the car give out, the stroller slips out of your hands and rolls down the stairs, the other team scores five goals, you lose a set 6-0. Careers are lost with a DUI after a one night bender, relationships are destroyed with a moment of infidelity. A fortune is lost in one hand at the blackjack table.

Compare failure to success, and it is not just a different result, it’s a different journey. Success is a team sport. Editors make writing tighter; friends make ideas better, family is there at every step. At the Battle of Yorktown the British fought alone, without allies and without friends. Compare the British experience with the Americans who fought alongside French soldiers and sailors, fought with Dutch weapons, and fought at the expense of Spanish silver. To paraphrase the great philosophers 50-Cent and John Lennon; you should love more than you hate, and you get by with a little help from your friends.

And while failure happens all at once, success is incremental. You cannot just show up and expect to win a hockey game, or a tennis match, you put in the hours of hard work and practice getting better in small increments. You find at the end of a hockey or tennis season, or at the end of a three-year assignment you are a different person than than you were at the start. When America effectively ended the military contest against Britain at Yorktown in 1781, the battlefield success didn’t just happen. Proceeding the final victory at Yorktown was a series of battles and campaigns throughout the continent with wins and losses. From Saratoga to Charlestown, and from Trenton to Monmouth to Cowpens. Slow incremental success.

Successful marriages do not happen with a diamond ring, and success as a parent isn’t the a on the exam or the high sat score. Success in these endeavors is the continues and persistent investment, including the ups and downs in these relationships. 

In many ways life is not about the game, its about the practice. Again, we stand here at Yorktown, often credited as the battle that won the revolution. But that’s not entirely true. Winning this battle started on the fields of Valley Forge under the watchful eyes of Baron Von Steuben and what followed was a slow grind over five years. Training, fighting…slow incremental success.

Hard work and progress is what gets you from losing your first hockey game by 10 goals to outplaying and defeating the same team at the end of a season.

Hard work and progress leads you from swinging and missing at the red tennis ball to a shelf full of tennis tournament medals and trophies.

Hard work and progress moves you from one Les Mills class early on a Saturday morning to running your own personal training business with people knocking down your door to hire you.

What we are doing and celebrating here is not about what happens today, or what happened when the promotion list came out. Our celebration today is about all the small incremental steps that everyone here has been a part of for the last 27 years.

Success is being there everyday.

To mom and dad, thank you for supporting me in all my endeavors.

Sabrina and Brendan, thank you for always putting life in perspective.

Jill, thank you for riding this crazy train, and for being the rock of this family.

I love you all so very much.

I’m very lucky. Few people on this earth get to become what they always wanted to be.

I am a father, I am a husband, I am a soldier. I know what I am, and I love what I know.

Let’s eat some cake.

A family photo following the promotion.

Thucydides, Clausewitz, and Cobra Kai

              We have all heard the sayings, “everything old is new,” and “there is nothing new under the sun.” We read history to understand the present. Filled with nostalgia, season 3 of Cobra Kai, like the previous seasons before is some of the best entertainment on television. Even though the series is fiction, it has echoes of real life. As an army strategist, what strikes me about the series is the parallels between Jon Horowitz’s Cobra Kai and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Further, the wit and wisdom of Carl von Clausewitz is evident in each episode. Every important lesson of warfare and statecraft recorded by Thucydides, and multiple teaching of Clausewitz appear in a modern from in Cobra Kai.

SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!

Thucydides

Fear, Honor, Interest

              According to Thucydides, nations go to war for three reasons: fear, honor, and interest.

               With respect to fear, the Spartans declared war because “they feared the growth of the power of the Athenians. Thus, aspect of one nation or hegemon fearing the rise of a rival, thus leading to war is known as a Thucydides trap. When it comes to contemporary geopolitics, the idea of an inevitable conflict or war between the United States and China is often attributed to this theory.

              In the Valley, the war between Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, or between Miyagi Dojo and Cobra Kai was a product of fear. Johnny Lawrence had an interest in bringing back Cobra Kai due to his own life and financial situations. When Daniel saw the advertisements for Cobra Kai, he feared their rise and began his own dojo, reigniting the thirty-year conflict. John Kreese returned out of his own misguided sense of honor, and a need to redeem himself following his humiliating defeats at the hands of Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi.

              Honor was important to the Spartans, as the Spartan King asked his people for declare war on Athens “for the honor which Sparta demands.” This judgement came from the belief that Athens violated the thirty-year peace treaty. In a similar manner, both Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso felt that the 30-year peace between them was violated by their adversary. Honor always demands the last word, or in this case, the last victory in battle. This continued search for a final victory leads to escalation, and to a never-ending conflict.

When we look back at the global war on terror (GWOT), and more specifically on our collective decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, the full spectrum of fear, honor, and interest come to the forefront. Immediately after 9/11, there was an initial feeling of fear along with the sense that we as Americans our honor demanded strikes against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Finally, to justify our action came the interests, or at least the selling of interests such as the need to eliminate weapons of mass destruction that never existed. There is an emotional component the precedes the logical and often “interest” is the logical justification for fear and honor.

Extended Wars

              Cobra Kai begins nearly thirty years after the original Karate Kid. The series brings back all the main characters to include Daniel LaRusso, Johnny Lawrence, Sensei Jon Kreese, and a host of other characters from the Karate Kid trilogy. What is apparent from the beginning is that the conflict between Daniel, Johnny, and Kreese is still ongoing, despite a three-decade respite.

              Just as Daniel and Johnny, or Miyagi Dojo and Cobra Kai engaged in a continual conflict, so did the city states of Athens and Sparta. The Peloponnesian Wars lasted close to thirty years. This war had periods of major battles and periods of relative peace which included a formal Peace of Nicias that held for six years.

              Both Thucydides and Cobra Kai lead us to question the concept of wars having an end. A pure dichotomy of peace and war tends to be a Western construct, while the Eastern view looks at war as just another form of statecraft. Today, the strategic guidance of the Department of Defense stresses the return of “Great Power Competition” where adversaries such as Russia and China operate below the threshold of conflict. This is to say that our adversaries often use tactical actions to achieve strategic effects. China’s salami slicing of one island at a time in the South China Sea is an example of this doctrine.

Often war is born of political differences, runs its course, and then returns to political discourse.  In this series we see it happen again and again as there is argument, physical conflict, stasis, and then argument again.  The point is the conflict never truly ends it is transformed; sometimes into something for the worst, sometimes into something for the better.

Might Makes Right

              The Melian Dialogue occurred when Athens approached the city state of Melos and gave them an ultimatum to join the Delian League. The Athenians reminded the leaders of Melos that morals have no place in statecraft by stating, “the strong do as they will, the weak do as they must.” This was a hard truth, and when Melos refused the Athenian offer, the city was destroyed, and its citizens killed or made slaves of Athens.

              Honor is a luxury of the strong and hope is the enemy of rationalism. At the end of episode 2 of season 3, Sensei Kreese teaches his students a hard lesson in life. Standing in front of the class he tells them “there is no right or wrong, there is only strong and weak.” Although this advice may not be appropriate to a group of teenagers, it represents a realist perspective on statecraft.

              Realism tends to look at hard power as the key to international relations and advancing national interests. Further, realism takes the perspective that success of one party will come at the expense of another. Certainly, both Daniel LaRusso and his Cobra Kai opponents saw the power struggle in the Valley as a zero-sum game. Every student that joined the Miyagi Dojo came at the expense of the Cobra Kai Dojo. Even in the intrapersonal relationships between the students, they could only choose to be friends with Miyagi kids or Cobra Kai kids, there is no middle ground.

Different Strategy

              War can sometimes be an opposition of absolutes while statecraft is the art of compromise. Throughout the Cobra Kai series, the competing dojos develop opposing strategies towards each other. Cobra Kai under the moniker “Strike Hard, Strike Fast, No Mercy” adapt the offensive strategy Sparta employed in the Peloponnesian War. The Spartan strategy developed by Archimadius was one of compellance, or coercion through punishment with the objective of reducing Athenian power.

              On the other hand, the students in the Miyagi Dojo employed a strategy that more closely resembled that of Pericles. This was a strategy of denial, and one of rejecting decisive battle. This strategy assumed the Spartans would act rationally, and eventually see the costs of war as too expensive. Just as Pericles had his citizens abandon the fields and retreat behind the city walls, Daniel LaRusso had his students strictly learn Karate as a form of defense, and to only engage Cobra Kai on the mats at the All-Valley Under-18 Karate Tournament.

              However, just as Pericles failed to account for the passions of the Athenian people, and their desire to inflict pain on the invading Spartans, Daniel LaRusso failed to account for the passions of his students and their desire for revenge every time a member of Cobra Kai attacked them. This failed calculation is one of the core reasons for the breakout of the fight at the end of season 2.

Expanding War Aims

              A lesson anyone can glean through the study of the past 5,000 years of war is that once a conflict begins, the aims of each party tend to change during the conflict. Often, this can lead to disaster should one party to a conflict chase ends that are beyond their ways and means. The further one side diverges from their original objectives there is an increase in the chance for strategic failure.

              A clear example of expanding war aims in Thucydides is the Sicilian Expedition. This foray was a foolish choice by the Athenians and led to a disastrous military defeat. Indeed, the unnecessary invasion of Sicily overextended the Athenian empire to a point where they could not sustain or reinforce their military when the Sicilians began a series of revolts.

              When thinking about conflict termination it is better to pursue peace when in a position of relative advantage or strength over an adversary. In season 3, we see Sensei Kreese expand his war aims in his approach to Robby, Johnny Lawrence’s son. Had Kreese chosen to consolidate his gains and focus squarely on the dojo, he could have enjoyed his success. Rather, Kreese continued to push his luck, a consequence of not thinking through his strategic objectives from the beginning. John Kreese may have learned how to fight in Special Forces, but he did not learn strategy development.

The Value of Coalitions

              In seeking to gain a military advantage, both Sparta and Athens tried to expand their influence with other city states in the Mediterranean. Athens did so by establishing an empire system and Sparta did so through a system of alliances. For Sparta, their alliance system provided a maritime capability that they did not have at the outset of the war. It was this maritime capability combined with their own strength of land forces that would prove decisive in their victory over Athens.

              Once Sensei Kreese took over the Cobra Kai Dojo, his momentum and rising power seemed unstoppable. Cobra Kai was running over the Miyagi and newly formed Eagle Fang dojos. What halted the aggressive actions of Cobra Kai and Sensei Kreese was the combing of forces against him. The result of this will play out in the much anticipated season four.

              It is often said that the only thing worse than fighting with coalition allies and partners is fighting without them. For the United States, maintaining a global system of alliances is critical to power projection as well as maintaining legitimacy in military operations. Indeed, fighting with allies and partners was an essential element in gaining our nation’s independence. And since World War I, the United States has not fought a war on a unilateral basis.

Clausewitz

              The great Prussian Carl von Clausewitz is the most often quoted but least read and understood military theorist. The good news is that Cobra Kai vs Miyagi Dojo War serves as a teaching point for many of Clausewitz’s theories. It is important to keep in mind that Clausewitz does not teach us how to fight a war, nor does he provide us with a checklist to follow to secure victory. Rather, reading Clausewitz is useful to think about war.

War is an extension of politics / policy and the Law of Reciprocal Action

              There is a nuance between politics and policy that I will skip for the purposes of this post. But, wars don’t just happen. Nations, and in the modern era non-state actors don’t go to war for the purposes of fighting. Rather, they go to war with a goal or objective in mind. Moreover, the use of the military instrument of national power is just one item in the statecraft toolbox. The economic, diplomatic, and information instruments of national power come into play before, during, and after the military conflict.

              One of the many flaws in the strategies of LaRusso, Lawrence, and Kreese is the lack of an objective. Each individual and dojo seems intent on a continual conflict until the other side gives up. Neither side anticipates a reaction from the other. Indeed, it is almost as if in every action none of the participants in the Cobra Kai – Miyagi War think that their adversary will react to their moves, and at time simultaneously. This is even more surprising as continual action / reaction is exactly how a karate match plays out. Never ending conflict without a clear endstate is often the result of going to war over honor disguised as interest.

              Clausewitz compared war to a wrestling contest where two opponents grappled and maneuvered to get the other to submit. Had he grown up in the Valley, and not a 19th Century Prussia, Clausewitz would have probably made a karate analogy in lieu of wrestling. The analogy works as in war, one does not plan or fight against an inanimate object. Rather, one plans and fights against a living and thinking adversary. Clausewitz termed this reciprocal action. Both military leaders and football players must constantly adapt to conditions on the battlefield and football field respectively. The team, or the military that learns the fastest holds a decisive advantage over their adversary.   

War is Uncertain. War is Violent

              Clausewitz teaches us that war is filled with fog, friction, and chance.  Fog is the uncertainty in war, friction is the countless minor incidents that make the simple very difficult, and chance is the unpredictable circumstances that consistently occur in war. Understanding these three concepts is crucial to understanding that war by its very nature is violent. And despite the best of intentions to contain the violence in war to a minimum or acceptable level, it almost never happens.

              War tends to go into places neither side expects. Vertical and horizontal escalation builds as parties to a conflict refuse to back down. Various third parties enter and leave the conflict based on respective interests, and the element of chance hangs over every move. When Daniel and Johnny reignited their conflict, neither expected teenagers to wind up in the hospital nearly paralyzed, neither expected their business and finances to be at risk, and neither expected that their kids would be thrown out of school or end up in juvenile detention. War and conflict will always have unintended consequences, some of which may be out of our control.  When two or more sides engage in armed conflict (or large-scale high-school group fights) the must expect that they themselves will be changed.  In some ways, not for the best.  

               As entertaining as Cobra Kai is, viewing the series from the perspective of history’s great strategic theorists adds layers to the enjoyment and analysis.

The World Turned Upside Down

COVID-19 has turned the world on its head. From the perspective of a military officer, there are fundamental changes that each of the services and joint force must be ready to accept. While the immediate reactions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 will produce a plethora of lessons learned on how to react and respond to a regional or global pandemic. However, our strategic leaders have the responsibility to lead change, and to create the future.

As of mid-March, the reaction and execution to the global pandemic should reside in current operations. Lessons learned and long-term change at the operational, strategic, and institutional levels of war need to begin now, lest the only lesson the joint force learns is to wash our hands and bump elbows instead of shaking hands.

With the understanding that there should be fundamental change, here are my thoughts on various issues, with suggestions along the DOTMLPF-P paradigm.

Issue: 2+3 Paradigm and Great Power Competition

Discussion: It is time to discard the 2+3 (what used to be 4+1) construct. COVID-19 should be the nail in the coffin for 2+3, and we should take the coffin and bury six feet in the ground. In a similar manner, COVID-19 exposed the fallacies behind the idea of great power competition. Competing in a Hobbesian world where every nation is out for themselves doesn’t lend itself to solving global problems such as a microscopic virus that doesn’t give a damn about international borders, the nature of a government, or the type of economic system a state operates on.

This should have been evident following 9/11, where the most effective counter-terror operations were a result of cooperation and coordination between allies and partners. Syria is an example of a confluence of nations and tribes all out for their own interests. Nothing gets solved.

As of this writing, hurricanes and floods have destroyed more F-22s than the combined air forces of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Worldwide, COVID-19 will kill more people than ISIS has since their emergence. Year after year, the U.S. military deploys forces in response to the damage wrought by hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters.

DOTMLPF-P Recommendations

                Policy: Update national level strategies that include pandemics and climate change as threats to the Homeland and American Citizens, and place these threats on the level with enemies and adversaries within the 2+3 construct.

Policy: Recognize the end of the era of great power competition, and look to a new era of great power cooperation.

                Policy: Ensure Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA) is recognized as a mission of the United States Military throughout all strategic documents from the National Security Strategy trough the National Defense and Military Strategies, and throughout all documents in the Joint Strategic Planning System.

The Joint Strategic Planning System (Figure from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3100.01D, Joint Strategic Planning System, 20 July 2018)

                Training: Consider development of DSCA response scenarios and training events at the combat training centers (CTCs) such as JRTC and NTC. Develop options on how combat support and combat service support units in the Active, Reserve, and National Guard components can participate in these training scenarios.

Issue: PIID branch plans for every numbered CONPLAN

Discussion: Each major combat operation contingency plan should develop a PIID branch plan. Should the United States find itself engaged in a major war on the Korean Peninsula, in Eastern Europe, or in the Middle East, the joint force should be prepared to respond to global pandemic. A pandemic in the midst of major combat operations could force the redeployment of critical capabilities required in the homeland. Indeed, an operational pause due to the loss of medical personnel and units, engineers, and other capabilities could be a decision point for strategic leaders. 

Further, each service must look at the development of their own contingency plans and requisite COAs on how the institutional force can adapt to a pandemic.  

DOTMLPF-P Recommendations:

                Policy: Mandate PIID branches to every Contingency Plan

                Policy: Mandate each service to build institutional contingency plans to respond to PIID. Plans should account for many of the contingency actions and decision points occurring today. For example, Stop Movements, Delaying PME and training schools for officers and NCOs.

                Training: Develop the capability for every PME school to conduct training and education online. Each in resident PME course should have a portion of in residence courses delivered online (via Blackboard or Canvas for example). This would build the expertise in PME faculty, and ensure a smoother transition should the PIID contingency plan come into execution.

                Organization: Consider more medical capabilities in the active force, as reliance on medical personnel in the reserve and National Guard reduces medical capabilities in communities in the homeland.

 Issue: Social Distancing

Discussion: The joint force rapidly adjusted to the workforce operating from their residence. Most of the changes work for senior level staffs working in the Pentagon, or other higher headquarters type complex. However, the daily work schedule of an infantry squad, platoon, or company doesn’t necessarily lend itself to virtual training. 

DOTMLPF-P Recommendations:

                Policy: Commanders of operational and strategic level staffs should consider a remote work schedule, and develop a method to exercise the remote schedule.

                Policy: Commanders and leaders across DoD should consider distributing work hours across the force. Service members and the civilian workforce should alternate hours in the same manner that unit staffs operate a battle rhythm in an operations center (e.g. a TOC or JOC).

                Material: Each service should look at the feasibility of providing every service member and civilian employee the capability required to work from his or her residence. This ranges from laptops, smart phones, webcams, and software that enables group discussions (e.g. Blackboard or Canvas).  

                Facilities: The joint force requires a substantial upgrade in all facilities. This ranges from initial entry training barracks to the open bays service members often reside in while training.  

Issue: Force Structure  

Discussion: Elevating PIID and natural disasters to a threat on par with enemy and adversary nation states may require changing the way we think about what capabilities reside in the National Guard, Reserve, and Active Duty forces. Should USNORTHCOM require capabilities that are resident in the National Guard, it takes time to mobilize, and to change funding from Title 32 to Title 10.

One example is if the United States needs to surge doctors, military police, or other first responders to assist civil authorities, it may be better to have more of those capabilities in the active component. This may require a trade off with the result being more combat forces in a Title 32 role.

DOTMLPF-P Recommendations:

                Organization: Consider a deep study into possible changes in what capabilities should reside in each component.

22 MARCH 2020 UPDATE

Some thoughts from a friend who is currently in command of a recruiting battalion.

Issue: Sustainment

Discussion: The joint force needs to consider branch plans in response to a crisis where the global supply of critical items are necessary for both the military and the global population. Examples include personal protective equipment (PPE), cleaning supplies, and of course, medical equipment and supplies.

The military has been operating on a “just in time” logistics system for a long time in its broader attempt to eliminate the Iron Mountain of Logistics, and to reduce the “tooth to tail ratio” of combat forces. The COVID-19 crisis is putting on the display the shortfalls of just in time.

DOTMLPF-P Recommendations:

Doctrine: Examine ways to find a balance between the Iron Mountain and Just in Time concepts of sustainment. An iron hill with a built in rationing cycle may be an option worth exploring.

 Issue: Missions of Units

Discussion: During the COVID-19 crisis, multiple units in both the operational and institutional force are conducting missions not normally associated with their day-to-day or combat operations. 

DOTMLPF-P Recommendations:

Doctrine/Training/Policy: Designate secondary DSCA missions to all units in all components.

 Issue: Risk

Discussion: Early in the crisis, commanders at all levels were forced to make decisions on whether to accept risk to the mission, or risk to the force. As the severity of the COVID-19 crisis hit home, it became clear the protecting the force should be at the forefront. Moreover, commanders of geographically dispersed units (Recruiting for example) had to make this decision with the best available information.  

DOTMLPF-P Recommendations:

Doctrine: Emphasize in doctrine the necessity to protect the force in global pandemics and other natural disasters. Preserving the men and women of the armed forces at the onset of a crisis is critical for the nation to respond to a long term crisis.

Conclusion

                The COVID-19 pandemic can serve as a wake-up call to fundamental change across DoD, or it will be looked at as a one-off, with no real changes to how the department runs.

                On a personal note, what scares the shit out of me, is the possibility that the next pandemic will flip the script on the most vulnerable. In the current atmosphere, the elderly, and those with already weak immune systems are finding themselves as victims. I cannot imagine the panic and chaos should the next pandemic strike upon the younger population, specifically children. Our nation, and the world is not prepared for that scenario.

The views in this article represent the author’s views, and not necessarily the views of the U.S. Army or Department of Defense.

Reviewing Forging the Sword

Book Review

Forging the Sword; Doctrinal Change in the U.S. Army

By Benjamin M. Jensen

Military innovation is not limited to new technologies or other material developments. A key aspect of maintaining overmatch against America’s enemies and adversaries is the development of new methods of force employment, or the doctrine by which men and women fight the nation’s wars. In Forging the Sword, by Benjamin M. Jensen, the author reviews the changes in the U.S. Army’s fighting doctrine since 1976.  Jensen’s conducts a deep dive into the origins of the U.S. Army’s Active Defense, AirLand Battle, Full-Dimensional Operations, and Full-Spectrum Operations doctrines between 1973 and 2008.

Jensen’s tale of continued change in the U.S. Army’s core fighting doctrine paints a picture of an organization dedicated to innovation. Jensen breaks the myth of the U.S. Army as a behemoth resistant to change. Indeed, the author provides detail of how key strategic level leaders such as Generals DePuy, Starry, Sullivan, and Wallace used their positions to enable innovation. Further, Forging the Sword describes the continual necessity for doctrinal innovation at each stage, informing the reader that the military does not change for the sake of change.

More than a review of doctrine change, Jensen provides lessons to the reader on the conditions required to drive service and joint force innovation. His observations include incubators, or informal organizations outside an organization’s hierarchy. Further, Jensen describes how innovation often comes from informal networks where participants can express new thoughts and ideas without fear of retribution or retaliation. These insights come from the premise that large glacial moving organizations can stifle innovative voices. Within a bureaucracy as large as the Department of Defense, processes, including acquisition law, DOD regulations, and service parochialism, hinder the responsive development and fielding of new capabilities.

The current paradigm of change in the joint force is the writing of joint and service concepts that precede capabilities development. These capabilities range from new combat platforms to changes in force design and changes in doctrine. Jensen provides a history on how formal concepts came into being in the early 1990s with the publication of the U.S. Army’s 525-5 pamphlet series. Today, concepts such as the Chairman’s Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (CCJO) serve as a foundation and a vision for the future force.  

When innovations are approved, Jensen describes the necessity of advocacy to inform broader audiences of the new ideas. This translates to a strategic communication or rollout campaign. For example, following the publication of the Army’s counter insurgency manual (FM 3-24) in late 2006 leaders spoke about and advocated the document in a variety of forums ranging from the service’s war colleges to an appearance by one of the lead authors on The Daily Show. Other senior leaders published essays in professional journals describing the doctrine and how it would change the way the military was conducting its counterinsurgency campaigns.

The ability for new and creative ideas requires military organizations to develop and implement methods to receive new ideas from the lowest to highest level. A second aspect of advocacy Jensen examines is the use of professional publications. Jensen successfully argues that innovators can inform professional audiences of their ideas by writing and publishing their thoughts. Further, the process of professional writing and publishing allows new ideas to mature, as other innovators challenge and improve upon concepts floated in various publications.

Jensen concludes his book with recommendations on how the military can continue to embrace innovation. These recommendations include providing incentives for leaders to write and publish in professional military journals, preserving small organizations dedicated to research in times of tight budgets, and maintaining robust training and education institutions. Jensen stresses that unlike major combat platforms such as fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and tanks, the militaries education institutions do not rank high in priority when budgets shrink. Moreover, military education rarely has a constituency represented in legislative bodies.

The only shortcoming of the book is Jensen does not examine roadblocks or factors that can prevent innovation. Indeed, scholarship on innovation has teased out some elements such as attachments to flawed ideas, or leaders simply demanding innovation from their subordinates. Creating an innovation division on a staff doesn’t necessarily lead to more or greater innovation within a command.

Forging the Sword is not a history book of U.S. Army doctrine. Rather, the book is a foundational text on what is takes to innovate and change military organizations. It is important not just for soldiers, but for leaders across the joint force to recognize the continual need to develop, test, and implement new ideas of fighting if the U.S. is to maintain  competitive advantage in combat. For military professionals working in joint and service institutional assignments with the responsibility for concept and doctrine development, Forging the Sword will serve as an effective primer for those looking to lead change at any level.

The Five Generations in the Military

At any given moment, there are five generations that either serve in uniform or direct and influence military policy, strategy, operations, and tactics. These generations range from seventeen-year-old privates fresh out of high school, to seventy and eighty year-old elected and appointed officials. Leaders in the military should have a basic understanding of this aspect of our military. With that understanding, leaders should formulate ways to ensure communication, understanding, and empathy.

Each generation has defining moments, pop culture references,

Baby Boomers: Some younger generations try to ignore this group with a dismissive “OK Boomer” on their social media feed. However, to illustrate the wide variety of generations, consider that the current (as of 2019) Commander In Chief is from the baby boomer generation, born in 1946, as is was the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dunford, who was born in 1955 (the year of the infamous lighting strike on the clock tower in Hill Valley). The recently appinted Chairman, General Milley’s birth year is 1958. Don’t expect the baby boomer generation to disappear anytime soon, and the political landscape in Congress and potential 2020 presidential candidates hail from this cohort.

For the baby boomers, there are a multitude of defining moments. Their first "“where I was” memory may be the Kennedy or Martin Luther King assassination, or perhaps Apollo 11 and the first Moon landings.

Generation X began with those born in 1964. Most of today’s crops of general officers below the service chief level come from the early parts of this generation. Moreover, this generation includes most senior field grade officers, to include colonels and lieutenant colonels. On the enlisted side, generation X accounts for the current Sergeant Major of the Army, SMA Daily, born in the year of the first moon landing. Generation X is the group that grew up with rotary phones, Atari and 8-bit Nintendo only to transition to smart phones and Wii in adulthood. Further, this may have been the last generation to break up romantic relationships in college because long distance calls were just too expensive.  

Most members of generation X have searing memories of the first Gulf War, the chase of OJ’s white ford Bronco, and subsequent criminal trial. This generation grew up without the internet or smart phones and transitioned to a life where we can’t live without them. Generation X is comfortable with getting information from a newspaper delivered to the front step or by logging onto Twitter in the morning. Generation X can relate to Seinfeld, and have run through collections of cassettes and CDs, and now use iTunes. In their youth, drinking a six pack of Zima before hitting the club on a Saturday night was perfectly normal behavior.

Millennials: It may come as a surprise, but many field grade officers and senior non-commissioned officers come from the millennial generation. With birth years beginning in the early 80s, coming of age at the turn of the millennium, and often disparaged by older generations, the millennial generation of service members has been serving a nation at war for their entire adult lives. This is the generation that has been fighting at the tactical level in Iraq and Afghanistan year in and year out with seemingly no end in sight.

The most striking memory of this generation is the attacks ans subsequent events of September 11th, 2001.

Generation Z has begun to infiltrate the ranks of the military and contains the crop of our youngest service members. Just as millennials have been at war for their entire adulthood, many of generation Z has been part of a nation at war for their entire lives. Young men and women serving from this generation are deploying to Afghanistan with no personal memory of the events of September 11th, 2001. Moreover, it is likely that a significant number of service members from this generation will deploy to the same locations their parents of a previous generation have gone.

The Greatest Generation: A part of the military often ignored is the large number of civil servants such as Department of Defense and service civilian employees. Much like the military, there are multiple generations serving their nation in this field, but unlike the military include outliers such as the late Andy Marshall, who hailed from the greatest generation. Mr. Marshall walked the halls of the Pentagon well into his 9th decade.

Each generation has grows up with different experiences and worldviews. This may range from internal values to an understanding and dependence on modern technology. Baby boomers may insist on the necessity of map reading, while millennials invent maps that read to them. Generation X and generation Z have widely different pop-culture references in their language, something to consider when dropping a line during a briefing. Quoting a line from Airplane or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in a command and staff meeting may get a chuckle from a battalion commander, but would miss the mark with a junior NCO or lieutenant.   

Different generations tend to have different takes on the use of technology. Elder generations tend to value verbal communications such as phone calls, while younger generations tend to rely on texting, and direct messaging on social media. Hopefully, fossils such as phone trees have disappeared in favor of group texting apps.

This generational gap vis a vis technology is not a new development. Patton and Eisenhower were criticized for advocating the tank in future warfare. Their elders such as General Herr insisted on the use of horse cavalry well into the lead-up of World War II.

When it comes to values, leaders should understand that what is acceptable and what is offensive changes and evolves over the course of time. For example, in the world of comedy, what was considered offensive years ago were cuss words and other foul language. This language is more acceptable today, however racial and homophobic language is strictly verboten.

-How can leaders bridge generational gaps?

-What can subordinates and leaders do to enable understanding of generational values?

-How can leaders develop an ability to relate to service members two or three generations younger?

-Should the military develop ways to have younger service members train older generations on uses of new technologies? New language? Popular Culture?

A rough guide to each generation; this perspective adds a layer between Generation X and Generation Y

Three Things That Don't Exist

Growing up I believed in three things. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. Every Christmas morning I would wake up and run into the living room and rush to tear open the wrapping paper on my presents. On Easter, I followed a similar ritual, when I came upon my Easter Basket. And as I began to lose my teeth, I would place them under my pillow before bed time expecting the Tooth Fairy to come take it away for the price of one dollar. Today, my kids follow a similar ritual, and despite inflation, the price of a tooth in my family remains one dollar. Supply and demand in the free market.

In my early years as a military officer, I was taught to believe in three things. First, a common operating picture, also known as a COP. Second, a “whole of government approach” to solving international problems. Third, I was taught to be on guard for the strategic corporal. As a field grade officer approaching twenty years of active service, I no longer believe in any of them. Let me explain.

The COP

Joint Publication 1-02 defines a COP as “is a single identical display of relevant (operational) information (e.g. position of own troops and enemy troops, position and status of important infrastructure such as bridges, roads, etc.) shared by more than one Command. A COP facilitates collaborative planning and combined execution and assists all echelons to achieve situational awareness.”

A common operational picture is every commander’s dream. Yet to date, none exists. By definition, a COP would be all inclusive, and contain all the information commander’s need to gain an understanding of the battlefield. Further, some commands have developed various forms of a COP. these include a “Sustainment COP,” a “Cyber COP,” and an “Intelligence COP” to name just a few. If you have to qualify what type of COP it is, chances are it’s not a COP.

The all elusive COP is a figment of our imagination.

A Whole of Government Approach

The second ideal that doesn’t exist is a whole of government approach. Students at the staff and war colleges receive lectures and briefs on how the military is one aspect of the elements of national power, and should look to other agencies to assist and lead with our national problem sets. While some agencies have certainly performed their missions well with DoD in support (FEMA in DSCA, State in NEOs, and USAID in FHA), the whole of government approach remains out of reach. Military planners continue to include other government agencies as lines of effort in operational approaches. Other sightings of a whole of government approach appear in staff and war college student papers or in on line discussions that delve into the need for a new Goldwater Nichols Act that brings all agencies together for planning.

Commanders, staff officers, leaders, and soldiers should approach any plan that relies on a whole of government approach with a healthy dose of skepticism. Indeed, one can emulate Mark Baum in The Big Short, and insist that there is a zero percent chance of a whole of government approach and solution to a problem.

Moreover, while planning should certainly include and consider other agencies (especially when they are the lead agency for an operation), we should ensure that the military aspect of a plan is well thought out, complete, feasible, and all the other minimum criteria our doctrine demands.

The Strategic Corporal

Like many a young officer I was raised as a lieutenant and captain listening to the myths and legends of the strategic corporal. I once worked for a brigade commander who would walk into the TOC just before night shift to tell us stories about strategic corporals. Like the COP and whole of government approach, I no longer believe in this mythical entity.

The term strategic corporal was originally used by German Generals in the Second World War when describing Hitler behind his back. The reference to the time in the First World War where Hitler served as a corporal in the German Army. The phrase returned in 1999 when General Krulak published "The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War" in Marines Magazine.

Today, the term strategic corporal is most often used when a junior enlisted soldier makes national or international news. More often than not, said news is bad news. Incidents such as Abu Ghraib where junior soldiers tortured and abused detainees serves as an example. While these incidents certainly have strategic effects, the strategic failure is the system that created and put these corporals (and junior soldiers) in a position to do what they did.

Abu Ghraib is not the story of corporals gone wild; it is the story of failed leadership and failed command and control. It is the failure of an institution that failed to properly plan and train for long term detention operations in a combat zone. Other stories of junior enlisted personnel having a strategic effect such as then PFC Manning do not focus on the core of the issue. Manning, Bales, PFC Green and the like should have never been in the positions they were in. Institutions took risk looking for short term gains in an ill conceived method of increasing numbers., And just like sub-prime mortgages, moral waivers backfired. While their actions were morally and legally reprehensible, the strategic failure is with the institution that placed them there.

Conclusion

Any sightings of a strategic corporal are on par with sightings of Big Foot, the Lockness Monster, or aliens featured on old episodes of Unsolved Mysteries. Approach any plan or briefing that uses these phrases or concepts with a healthy dose of skepticism.

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The Opinions in this Essay are mine and mine alone. They do not reflect the view or opinion of the United States Army, or the Department of Defense.

Expanding Our Reading Lists

Nobody will ever claim a dearth of reading lists for military officers and leaders. Indeed, every combatant commander maintains one specific to his or her theater. Service chiefs continually refine and publish their own on an annual basis. Every major school that is a part of professional military education such as the Command and Staff Colleges, War Colleges, National Defense University and the Joint Forces Staff College produce reading lists of their own. Further, commanders and staff officers at all levels publish their own as a part of internal leader development programs.

The common thread among these lists is the centrality of military centric subjects. The normal gang of Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and Thucydides is always present. Books on leadership by retired flag officers are often present. The more extensive lists include books on the future of war and its related technologies. Even the famous fast food philosopher Malcolm Gladwell makes his appearances. One category that many of these lists lack is sports. Sports books span the range of related subjects to include leadership, critical thinking, and innovation. I offer the following to expand the thinking and reading lists of military leaders:

Leadership

The Captain Class by Sam Walker

Best Quote: “the most crucial ingredient in a team that achieves and sustains historic greatness is the character of the player who leads it”

This is an examination of 16 dynasties of various sports (chosen by the author) with a detailed look at the captains of each team. What the author finds is that the team captain was not always the best or most talented player, nor was it always the player with the alpha type personality. Indeed, talent and leadership are distinct and separate skills. The book provides a nice recognition of quiet leaders who choose to lead by example.

Behind the Bench by Craig Custance

Best Quote: “You never know where you’re getting your best idea. It could be from your rookie player, it could be from your power skating instructor, it could be from the guy who cooks breakfast. You have to be open-minded.”

Behind the Bench is a look at the minds and methods of eleven of the best hockey coaches in the game today. More than a discussion of Xs and Os, Custance takes a unique perspective, and turns a hockey book into a leadership book, similar to what one would find in the business section of the local Barnes and Noble. Custance leadership themes that run throughout the book include the ability to manage talent, the role of luck, and the role of self-reflection, enabling leaders to engage as lifelong students of their profession.

The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh

Best Quote: “Great organization is the trademark of a great organization.”

Bill Walsh, former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers offers his thought on leadership. Each chapter or section of the book is no longer than two or three pages. Each is an insight into how he ran his organization. Walsh delivers his lessons learned on leading people, and transforming an organization from a rock bottom loser to a championship dynasty.

In terms of leadership, Walsh discusses how he would demand excellence from everyone in his organization. From the star quarterback to maintenance crews, Walsh wanted perfection from everyone. Further, Walsh identifies that the best leaders know when to put feelings aside, and to make decisions that are best for the organization. These types of decisions come often in military leaders careers when handling men and women who don’t perform to expected standards. Leaders must always balance what is best for an individual against what is best for an organization. Ideally, they align, but often enough they do not.

Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Winning Championships and Building Dynasties in the NFL by Michael Lombardi

Best Quote: “although practice doesn’t make perfect, it gets you closer to perfection each time you do”

In what is more of an organizational leadership book, Mike Lombardi leverages his experience with and knowledge of Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots to provide the reader lessons in building winning teams and organizations. Some of Lombardi’s observations include caution in how to judge and acquire talent. Indeed, Lombardi uses anecdotes of former track stars who tried and failed to translate their talent to the gridiron. These failures highlight that individuals should be evaluated on multiple factors, and by multiple people.   

Innovation

The Genius of Desperation by Doug Farrar

Best Quote: “great coaches don’t stick with their trademarks on a no-matter-what basis; they constantly go back to the drawing board, finding new ways to set up their personnel for optimal success”

Doug Farrar’s book is a detailed discussion on how football evolved over the decades. His book begins in the early years of the NFL in the 1920s, and takes the reader on a tour of the major innovations through the modern era. Farrar details how specific individuals from Vince Lombardi to Sid Gillman through Bill Walsh and Bill Belichick.

The lessons I take from this book are the similarities in the evolution of warfare and evolution of professional sports. While the nature of both war and football remain constant, the character, or how they are fought and played continually change. This may be from advancements in technology, changes to the rules, or the rise of an individual who thinks on a higher plane. Further, as a nation or team gains a competitive advantage, other nations and teams soon catch up, which leads to further evolution and innovation.

Secondly, The Genius of Desperation chronicles the innovators of football. In this respect, the evolution of the game was dependent upon men who saw the game differently. Again, I see similarities to evolution in military thought. Military history is often traced back through various individuals who saw the world in a different light than everyone else. Evolution in warfare is more than new technologies. It includes new thoughts on how to fight wars. From Alexander the Great, to Fabian, through Napoleon, Jomeni, and Clausewitz to Grant and Sherman, to the modern day thinkers such as Boyd and Warden.

The Games that Changed the Game by Ron Jaworski

Best Quote: “Games aren’t always won by the more talented team; they are won by the team that recognizes favorable match-ups and exploits them”

In this book, the former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback takes a deep dive into seven football games that introduced new offensive and defensive concepts to the league. Examples of these concepts include the vertical passing game of Don Coryell and his San Diego Chargers to the defensive ideas of the Bears 46 defense and those implemented by Bill Belichick to defeat some of the greatest offensive teams ever built. The author provides a background of what led to the development of each concept, and how the coaches in each game he highlights came up with their innovations.

The Perfect Pass by American Genius and the Reinvention of Football by S.C. Gwynne

Best Quote: “It was as though, in that split second, when the ball had landed in Rockne's outstretched hands, the men on the field were suddenly playing a completely different game, one that involved speed and deception and movement through open space instead of the usual bloody grind.”

The Perfect Pass chronicles the rise of Coach Mike Leach and Hal Mumme and their innovative design of the Air Raid Offense. What makes this a worthwhile addition to the bookshelf is the details of how smaller, and on paper less talented teams can overcome the odds and defeat larger, better resourced teams. In a way, using brains and innovative concepts to defeat larger powers is how insurgents from the American Colonies to Vietnam to Afghanistan, and Iraq have fought the world’s superpowers.

The Game by Ken Dryden

Best Quote: “it is the players without the puck who determine where the puck is going, by going there themselves”

This book chronicles the 1978-1979 season of the Montreal Canadians. There is one chapter in particular where the author details how the Soviets came to dominate international hockey. By starting with a clean slate in the 1950s, the Soviets were not tied to the history and traditions of North American (Canadian) hockey. The Soviets developed a game plan that emphasized puck control, creativity, and movement. Moreover, the Soviets trained for the sport year round, as opposed to professional athletes in North America who used the pre-season as method to “get back in shape.” This new style of play shocked the hockey world,evidenced by the Soviet performance in the Super Series.

Ken Dryden

Human Performance

Faster, Higher, Stronger by Mark McClusky

Best Quote: “The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”

Faster, Higher, Stronger is about the science of sports. The author examines ways in which athletes are using science and technology to increase their performance at the highest levels. At the top, a mere 1 or 2 percent advantage can separate the world champion from the middle of the pack. More than examine current trends, the author looks at previous fads that are now obsolete. Other interesting points the author makes is that sometime (and we hate to hear it), genes do matter. If you are over 6’ feet tall, you won’t be a world class gymnast no matter how much effort and practice you put in. Conversely, genes alone won’t do, effort and hard work are the trademarks of those who do make it. Finally, the author offers advice to the weekend and amateur athletes in all of us.

Other Cultures and Global Perspectives

How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer

Best Quote: “Soccer isn't the same as Bach or Buddhism. But it is often more deeply felt than religion, and just as much a part of the community's fabric, a repository of traditions.”

 While baseball and football are certainly America’s games, soccer is truly the world’s sport. Foer takes the reader on a tour of various soccer clubs around the world to help explain culture and conflict. His tour includes teams such as the Glasgow Rangers , FC Barcelona, and the Iranian and American national teams. Others include Serbia, Scotland, Brazil, England, Jewish teams, and Ukraine. Foer points out the unique traditions and rivalries of each club to explain aspects of globalization and nationalism.

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This list represents a fraction of available books centered on sports that can change our perspectives. My bias towards football and hockey, and more broadly men’s sports clearly come out with these recommendations.

We should never underestimate the role of sports, and its impact on our lives. Within our culture, professional, college, and amateur sports is a multi-billion if not a trillion dollar business. At the individual level, what we learn through sports is applicable in our military profession, and in our broader lives. It provides a way to test resilience and grit. Team and individual sports provide a stage that shows the value of hard work and training often proving that natural talent will only go so far. Recent super bowls have provided the example that the intellectual is just as paramount as the physical. Game planning and innovative concepts can provide an asymmetric advantage to teams and individuals with lesser talent. The field of play often provides us lessons that life is not always fair, and that sometime luck, or the lack thereof can determine winners and losers (Fog, Friction, and Chance if you will).

Adapting to Social Media

Recent conversations and dialogue in which I participated on Twitter includes how leaders, both junior and senior should leverage social media in their military organizations and in their leadership style. This followed a review of LikeWar I wrote for Army Magazine. I offer the following thoughts

1. Military leaders should move away from the broad term “social media.” Social media includes sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. These sites are distinct and unique in their own ways. They differ in purpose, message delivery, and audiences to name a few. When addressing social media policies or in general conversation, leaders should be specific to the site they are referencing.

2. Commanders should address specific platforms within their command policies. This means more than a single and broad policy memorandum on the subject of social media. Rather, existing command policies should weave in various social media sites. For example, commander’s open door policies should address when or if the commander deems instant messaging on Facebook or Twitter as a part of the policy.

                2.a. This leads into the aspect that Twitter has broken down some of the more formal communication aspects between leaders and subordinates. Junior soldiers can communicate directly with 4-Star commanders without the moving through layers of the chain of command. Conversely, senior leaders can communicate their messages directly to junior soldiers. This leads to questions on what is appropriate, such as

                -Is it appropriate to publically disagree with senior leaders on Twitter?

                -Should senior commanders insert themselves into conversations and threads between more junior leaders and junior soldiers?

                -Should military leaders respond to anonymous accounts? 

                -It is appropriate to retweet overtly political content? Is there a different standard for officers and enlisted in this respect?

                -Does following junior soldiers on Twitter, Facebook, etc…form an accurate perspective on what is happening inside of their respective formations? Is it a skewed perspective? Perhaps it’s just one aspect of understanding morale.

3. Higher level commanders should look at providing guidance on subordinate leaders methods on social media. This could include deciding on the appropriateness of official pages of a unit in contrast to individual personal accounts.

4. The army should explore ways that tactical commanders can use social media to mass effects. This means using the philosophy of mission command to allow platoon, company, and battalion commanders the ability to communicate with friendly and enemy forces, and the local population through social media forums.

-To compliment this, each service should start weaving in social media into its tactical and operational level doctrine. This would mean more than inserting it into public affairs manuals.

5. Senior leaders who have an established reputation should publish their best practices on each social media site. This would help subordinate leaders who are uncomfortable with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites.

6. Presence: One of the sections on the army OER support form is presence. The army should consider expanding the traits of presence from strictly physical to a broader definition that includes virtual presence. Indeed, a leader may influence other soldiers beyond their own formations. This aspect becomes complicated, as a leader who leverages social media sites may work for other leaders who have zero presence.

7. The services should examine how to include use and risk of various social media sites to their professional military education programs.

8. The army should look at social media skills as a basic soldier skill. This goes above and beyond basic OPSEC annual training, but a more detailed skill set on leveraging various social media sites to an individual and unit advantage (and mitigating adversary use of the same platforms).

The issue the military faces now is inconsistency. Some leaders are proficient in their use, others use social media sites for unethical behavior, while others are ignorant or consider use too much of a risk to their professional careers.

Further, it is clear that national level civilian leadership now views sites such as Twitter as a legitimate place to publish their policy guidance. Our current Commander In Chief may be the first to announce policy decision on social media, he won’t be the last. Leaders who express bewilderment on current policy guidance by dismissing tweets are behind the curve. While previous leadership would announce policy in public speeches, current and future leaders will certainly leverage social media to deliver their message.