The Army is Changing... Back: QMN044

Martial Mental Models: The Quartermaster, Tuesday, 25 June

(Today’s report is a 6 minute read)

BLUF: Critics of today’s social-political environment in the US say there’s a widening gap between America’s military and her civilians - and they’re not wrong. One thing we can do to take responsibility for this and help fill the gap is to let civilians know what your military is concerned with and why. To this end we’ve asked Kevin Todd - a veteran of nearly 20 years of continuous conflict, a career artillery officer and longtime friend - to explain one of the areas that our military is currently focused on. Control, influence, power and technology are shifting along a number of fault lines around the world, and one of the ways the US is adjusting is by reviving a seemingly older way of war. Believe it or not it’s affecting global markets, innovation and investment, and diplomacy. And there’s more in your future.

Kevin here. In the summer of 2014 in Southern Ukraine the world got to see the future of warfare. Russians, spotting with drones and separatist paramilitaries, wiped out a significant number of Ukrainian tanks and soldiers in just a few minutes using long range artillery and a variety of specialized munitions. Having spent the previous decade and a half in low-intensity conflicts where adversaries like Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State lacked both reconnaissance and firepower sophistication, the US and its allies have realized they’ve fallen behind in technological and strategic development - and that countries like Russia, China and North Korea have developed capabilities that put the US at a disadvantage. Since that time the US has been engaged in re-thinking and re-organizing to be better prepared for that future.

The insurgencies that the US military faced in both Afghanistan and Iraq were the catalyst for many rapid and dramatic changes in how the Army trained, manned and equipped itself to address an agile and adaptive set of transnational terrorist organizations. One of the most significant changes was how the Army would deploy and fight. It modularized, manned and equipped Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) with the ability to fight and win autonomously - meaning that relatively self-sufficient groups of 4,500 were the right size force to fight Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State. This took Divisions, large formations of approximately 25,000 soldiers that were the bread and butter of Cold War-era doctrine and before, out of the business of warfighting by making that layer of command and staff merely an enabler that allocated resources. 

A quick review of past high-intensity land conflicts (First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, or the First Gulf War) would show that the United States Army is most successful when it deploys and fights as a Division. Divided into generally three separate formations known as Brigades, the Army has allocated the Division with the necessary tools needed to plan, sustain and fight in a protracted high-intensity combat environment - not unlike the ones we’re seeing in Eastern Europe today. This battlefield is more dynamic, more lethal, and more sophisticated than ever and victory against a ‘near-peer threat’ isn’t a guarantee. Success begins with Divisions reassuming their capability to destroy or neutralize enemy formations. They can no longer be a headquarters that simply parcels out their ability to affect the battlefield. Rather, they must regain their ability to render the adversary ineffective at land warfare.

So how does the US do this? The first thing is to locate where the Division’s fight must take place. Unlike the battlefield of recent conflicts - which was noncontiguous and saw unit boundaries overlap - the future battlefield will be more linear and defined. In order to shape the fight for its Brigades, the Division’s fight needs to happen before the enemy enters the Brigade’s main battle zone. Current Army methodology divides any battlefield into thirds: as the deep, close, and rear fight (see illustration below).

This graphic helps me visualize the battlespace as an operational system with defined processes and responsibilities for both Division and Brigade level formations. As the enemy enters this system at a combat capability of 95% it’s then the responsibility of the Division, in the deep fight, to disrupt and reduce the enemy’s capability within the main battle zone to about 50-60% - before it gets to impact the Brigades. Divisions do this by massing fire support either from the air (via close air support from aircraft) or ground (via indirect fires from artillery) on targets that present themselves in the deep area. This sets the conditions for the Brigades to be successful when the enemy enters the close fight. None of our Brigades as they exist today, no matter how well trained and equipped, can defeat a near-peer adversary of similar size and capability.

It is the goal of the senior leaders of the US military to ensure that we always have the advantage on the battlefield. Giving the Divisions battlespace and the combat capability to affect that battlespace is how we achieve this advantage. Today’s operational environment will not allow Divisions to simply sit back and be a headquarters without teeth. They can still enable the Brigades but now they’ll do it by retaining and massing their ability to destroy and neutralize the enemy as it enters the disruption zone within the deep fight. (KST)

SPEAKING OF FUTURE BATTLEFIELDS... : U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid (9 min) “But the action inside the Russian electric grid appears to have been conducted under little-noticed new legal authorities, slipped into the military authorization bill passed by Congress last summer. The measure approved the routine conduct of “clandestine military activity” in cyberspace, to “deter, safeguard or defend against attacks or malicious cyber activities against the United States.” Under the law, those actions can now be authorized by the defense secretary without special presidential approval. “It has gotten far, far more aggressive over the past year,” one senior intelligence official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity but declining to discuss any specific classified programs. “We are doing things at a scale that we never contemplated a few years ago.” (BJM)

SOMETHING’S NOT WORKING: More Millennials Are Dying 'Deaths of Despair,' as Overdose and Suicide Rates Climb (6 min) “Drug, alcohol and suicide deaths have risen in nearly every age group over the last decade, but the increase has been especially pronounced for younger Americans. Between 2007 and 2017, drug-related deaths increased by 108% among adults ages 18 to 34, while alcohol-related deaths increased by 69% and suicides increased by 35%, according to the report, which drew on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. All together, about 36,000 millennials died “deaths of despair” in 2017, with fatal drug overdoses being the biggest driver.” (BJM)

THE FIRST AFTER ACTION REVIEW: Thrive in Business and Life With Daily Contemplation (4 min) “The first step is to dedicate daily calendar space to conducting an “After Action Review.” When your day is ended, you have to commit to setting aside time to reflect on the events of your day; it’s impossible to improve if you don’t even know how far you’ve come or what direction you’re heading. In the military, we called it making an azimuth check: You have to periodically stop and check that you’re still on the right course.” (KSA)

Remarks Complete. Nothing Follows.

KS Anthony (KSA) & Brady Moore (BJM)