Maj. Burgess also takes issue with the ‘more of the same’ approach with which the Army is expanding the force (though it should be said that the recent decision to convert to two HBCTs to SBCTs is a step in the right direction). Nonetheless, he says: “The Army’s answer to current brigade shortages in its Iraq and Afghanistan rotational pool is to increase the supply of available brigade combat teams. Instead, more effective brigades should be the goal.” He then goes on to provide some ideas on how this could be done.

The article, which you can find here, is an excellent and much-needed contribution to the debate on how to reform force structure for today’s operating environment. I suspect Maj. Burgess’ 175-page Masters thesis, “Organizing for Irregular Warfare: Implications for the Brigade Combat Team” (which I have yet to read) provides more details than possible in the MR article.

I was really taken by this paper on Operation Arrowhead Ripper in Iraq, in which Colonel Fred Johnson talks about his 15-month tour as the Deputy Commander of 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) and comments on its configuration, as stands, for operations across the spectrum.

Certainly from the lay-out of its structure, and from anecdotal evidence, I was convinced that the SBCT was not that well configured for  stability operations, so it was interesting to hear Col Johnson explain how through the inspired command of Colonel Steve Townsend and through the effective task organising of his brigade, his Stryker BCT was apparently able to become a highly successful stability operations unit.

I am all for building a ‘full-spectrum’ force, but I also have trouble imagining ways of hard-wiring the required adaptability and broad base of expertise within one unit. Based on his operational experience, Colonel Johnson suggests that “the Army does not require unique skills beyond those needed for conventional operations to perform stability operations”. To me, that sounds dangerously like making stability operations a ‘lesser-included’ eventuality again, like saying that any soldier trained for war can manage those pesky insurgents and guerrillas as well.

Is it also possible that Colonel Townsend’s leadership made the difference? Certainly all comparative success-stories from Iraq and Afghanistan involved conventionally-structured units, task-organised for the challenge at hand? So is building a full-spectrum force more a matter of leadership than of structural change to the Army’s units? That would probably be the contention of Mark Moyar, whose book A Question of Command, I am currently reading.

That raises the question of how to train and educate the force to produce good leaders. In that regard, this quotation from ‘Arrowhead Ripper’ is very intriguing:

“an embedded reporter asked me what special training I had to prepare me for leading the reconstruction effort. After thinking about it, it occurred to me that my military training really did not teach me anything about how our CMO team conducted operations in Baqubah. Some extremely talented people, who pointed me in the right direction, surrounded me, but any success I personally enjoyed in Baqubah was a result of what I learned in my dad’s bar in Southern Illinois and as a point guard on my college basketball team. Being a good listener and reading Baqubah like a playing court was more important in directing the reconstruction effort than anything I learned at the Command and General Staff College.”