Quote:
Originally Posted by glyn
Well my service days were so long ago I do not feel qualified to pass more than generalisations. In the services you never stop learning. I re-iterate my post, Soldiering and Leadership abilities come first. There is nothing to stop people from reading the manuals and discussing them with their peers and instructors. I don't like the ratio of 1:200 at all. Is this a typo?
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Glyn,
I agree that you never stop learning. However, you cannot follow a lockstep process in the US Army developmental path where you cannot look at higher level topics because you haven't reached proficiency at some basic tasks. The ROTC or USMA experience is designed to produce officers with rudimentary soldiering skills (the basic courses prior to going to a unit will get them to the necessary skill level here) and with exposure to an environment where they get to practice following and leading. However, the primary purpose is to produce someone with a broad education and problem solving skills developed through their academic discipline. I think that some of our philosophical differences here resonate through the differences of Sandhurst vs. USMA/ROTC development models.
As far as COIN goes, the incentives are not aligned for studying COIN right now, and there is an inherent gap in our institutional training for COIN. If it doesn't go onto the training schedule, then it doesn't get covered to the extent it should, and then you are left with varying degrees of coverage. Given that it is our primary mission right now, it deserves more attention that it currently receives. So, while officers theoretically have the tools from their undergraduate education to be able to handle COIN, the problem is that the schoolhouse doesn't do a good job and in units, you don't have the time to spend on it to get at more than just the very basics.
As far as the 1:200 ratio, that is not a typo. Field exercises are done and evaluated at the platoon level and below, but nearly all classroom training is done in the big auditorium. The US Army doesn't place emphasis on education, whether it is graduate schooling or the actual military schools. Thus, it is resourced such that you need to have a lot of 1:200 briefings for the basic courses (this ratio improves to 1:15-20 for the captains' courses and beyond). Additionally, the quality of the instructors varies greatly. You don't get the cream of the crop for the basic courses, because there is no career incentive for being an instructor there. It is considered by many to be a "sham" job because you aren't with a "real" unit, and so while you'll get some high quality instructors (although their skillset will vary - e.g. they may be an expert on platoon ops in a conventional environment, but their experience and upbringing on COIN may be lacking), you are typically looking at the center of mass type officer.