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Winning the Peace - Army Leadership Training
Abstract
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the protracted conflict in Southwest Asia, today serves at the center stage of the fight against a global insurgency. OIF merely reaffirms other historical examples of key leadership capabilities required of U.S. land forces, and the United States Army in particular, for these types of prolonged conflicts. In addition, OIF reflects the changed nature of the world, providing insight to new and modified capabilities required of leaders. Some of these leadership capabilities the Army brought to the fight, others were learned along the way, and still others require development and distribution throughout the force. These capabilities exist both separately and simultaneously at the tactical to the operational levels. This paper describes the leadership capabilities required within the Army to win the peace in the 21st Century operational and tactical environment. In doing so, this paper will identify the state of those capabilities in the current force, and how to train and equip leaders with critical capabilities now and in the future.
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We can discern best practices common to successful counterinsurgencies by studying the past century's insurgent wars. Historical analysis helps us understand the nature and continuities of insurgencies over time and in various cultural, political, and geographic settings. While this does not produce a template solution to civil wars and insurrections, the sum of these experiences, judiciously and appropriately applied, might help Iraq defeat its insurgency. Nations on every continent have experienced or intervened in insurgencies. Not counting military coups and territorially defined civil wars, there are 17 insurgencies we can study closely and 36 others that include aspects we can consider. Assessment reveals which counterinsurgency practices were successful and which failed. A strategic victory does not validate all the victor's operational and tactical methods or make them universally applicable, as America's defeat in Vietnam and its success in El Salvador demonstrate. In both cases, learning more from one's mistakes than one's achievements is a valid axiom. If we were to combine all the successful operational practices from a century of counterinsurgent warfare, the summary would suggest a campaign outline to combat the insurgency in present-day Iraq.
We are working on producing leaders for change, not just leaders who are doctrinally capable and competent leaders for warfighting, but leaders also for all kinds of missions that we are asked to be able to do today across the full spectrum." The Honorable Louis Caldera Former Secretary of the Army Leader development and tactical and digital training can no longer remain exclusive and separate concepts or ini-tiatives. Embedded in all aspects of the combat arms profession is decisive action — decisionmaking. Leadership does not come from a book, but from experience, circumstance, and opportu-nity. Given the greater focus on con-structive and virtual simulations in the unit resulting from increased constraints on live tactical training at home station, leader development schools must posi-tion themselves as premier training cen-ters. Just as combat training centers (CTC) are critical to the unit, TRADOC schoolhouses must emerge as premier "battle schools" for leader develop-ment. The Impetus for Change Resulting from emerging concepts and lessons learned during the Army Train-ing and Leader Development Panel (ATLDP), numerous Army Warfight-ing Experiments (AWE), and the Digi-tal Capstone Exercises (DCX) I and II, TRADOC is focusing more emphasis on transforming leader development in-to battle schools equipped with embed-ded digital command and control (C2) systems. Most military theorists agree that the principles of warfare in the 21st century require continued scrutiny for relevance and applicability. However, adaptive, self-confident leaders remain basic elements of tactical victory, now and in the future. Additionally, the revolutionary changes in information management and distribution realized through the application of automated command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) sys-tems require leaders to make decisions more rapidly than ever before. To en-sure that the Army continues to develop capable leaders throughout Army Trans-formation, the Army Officer Education System (OES) and TRADOC is trans-forming its methods and means of training 21st-century leaders.
Recent experience in Haiti, the Balkans, East Timor, Afghanistan, and elsewhere has demonstrated that winning the peace is often harder than fighting the war. The United States and the United Nations should take 10 steps now to prepare for any postconflict challenges in Iraq.
The Army is heavily involved in the global war on terrorism while also undergoing transformation to handle future challenges. Changes are occurring across the spectrum of doctrine, organization, training, material, personnel, and facilities. These changes will require leaders who are not only tactically and technically proficient, but who also possess the character and leadership competencies to lead effectively. The development of future strategic leaders requires an increased emphasis from senior leaders on subordinate leader development, combined with a method to enhance developmental feedback to these subordinate leaders. What steps will assist in facilitating the development of these new leaders? It will require senior leaders to emphasize that leaders are the values champions, reinforce the importance of an ethical organizational climate, and use the tools that are required to assist in leader development. The author introduces a 360-degree feedback system for aiding in leader development. The multi-rater feedback tool can help leaders achieve a higher level of self-awareness, which will lead to increased effectiveness. He then provides a course of action for implementing the 360-degree feedback system for assisting with the leader development of Army officers. The implementation of this multi-rater feedback tool will result in more self-aware and effective leaders for an Army in transformation.
This study focuses on the development of the Army's strategic leaders, taking advantage of recent experiences within four Army Divisions that just returned from 12-15 months of service in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The research attempts to contribute to future operational readiness and institutional strength of the Army by providing insights and recommendations regarding leadership at Division level. A compilation of survey and interview data led to the formulation of a list of critical behaviors ("The Big 12") for Division Commanders (and other leaders) that would best assure creation of "A Command climate that supports operational excellence and also motivates competent people to continue their military service". The study found that, while the vast majority of Army officers demonstrate admirable leadership in OIF and elsewhere, Army leader development programs have not yet ensured that all field grade and general officers possess the interpersonal skills required to apply optimally their strong tactical and technical skills. Recommendations aimed at improving existing leader development systems are discussed.
There is increasing discussion and concern over the quality of Army leadership. The fact that there is growing disenchantment indicates a problem under the premise that perception is reality. The Army can neither confirm nor deny it has a leadership problem or even claim that good, sound leadership is practiced. This is because the Army does not comprehensively or officially measure the process of leadership or organizational effectiveness. Instead, it concentrates solely on evaluating mission accomplishment. Because the Army chooses to ignore organizational effectiveness and leader development programs, the most predictive outcome of its leadership philosophy training process, and evaluation emphasis is a leadership and trust crisis. This paper compares Army leadership to a leadership competency model and demonstrates that the current leadership crisis was inevitable. It then focuses on possible solutions that build on previous successful Army programs as well as lessons learned from effective, smaller scale military and commercial programs. Without correcting the problem across the entire Army and at every level change will be excruciating slow, if possible at all. The price may very well be the loss of at least one generation of future, effective leaders and possibly a slide back toward a hollow army... again.
This article suggests that the War on Terrorism is actually a campaign against a globalized Islamist 1 insurgency. Therefore, counterinsurgency approaches are more relevant to the present conflict than traditional terrorism theory. Indeed, a counterinsurgency approach would generate subtly, but substantially different, policy choices in prosecuting the war against Al Qaeda. Based on this analysis, the article proposes a strategy of ‘disaggregation’ that seeks to dismantle, or break, the links in the global jihad.2 Like containment in the Cold War, disaggregation would provide a unifying strategic conception for the war – a conception that has been somewhat lacking to date.
The end of the Cold War is just one of several changes in the operational environment facing young officers entering the military at the dawn of the twenty-first century. There is no longer a single, clearly identified threat to the United States to serve as a focal point for preparation. Societal changes in values have altered the makeup of the forces which lieutenants must lead. Increased dispersion has increased the likelihood that small unit leaders will be forced to make difficult decisions in the absence of detailed guidance from senior officers. Finally, trends toward multinational operations, increased numbers of civilians on the battlefield, and near real-time media coverage, combine to create a situation where tactical decisions can have unintended strategic consequences. This monograph addresses the issue of how well the United States Army prepares lieutenants to operate in this environment. The Army's leader development doctrine emphasizes three aspects in its leader development program: institutional education and training, operational assignments, and self-development. Each of these ""pillars of leader development"" are examined to determine the developmental value of each as it pertains to preparing new lieutenants for their first assignments. The outcomes of the Army's leader development program are compared to the leader attributes necessitated by the environment of future conflict described in the first part of the paper. The monograph concludes that the Army leader development program does not adequately prepare new lieutenants for success prior to arrival at their first unit. Three primary conclusions describe where the program falls short. First, there is too much emphasis placed on the self-development and operational assignment pillars rather than on institutional training. Second, the instruction that is given emphasizes tangible skills, such as technical and tactical competence, rather than teaching the leadership skills necessary for the current environment. Finally, there is not enough emphasis placed on the development of cognitive characteristics, such as systems thinking, which may help lieutenants make up for their lack of experience in complex or ambiguous situations. Several recommendations for the leader development program are discussed.