Strategy, Tactics, and Lessons US Military Leaders Can Learn From Business

[jcd11235 0]

I've been reading The Toyota Way, by Jeffrey K. Liker. Throughout the book, he explicitly and implicitly refers to the problem of managers and executives of other companies being unable to distinguish between the tools and tactics used by Toyota and the strategy for which those tools and tactics are used to implement. Thus, despite adequate information and sufficient training, their attempts at implementing lean production (known as the Toyota Production System within Toyota), invented by Toyota, generally result in failure. He offers several examples of how utilizing tactics without the strategy has little benefit.

While Liker focuses on Toyota and related businesses, his insights go beyond business and are applicable to other areas, including military.

An excerpt from the book (reproduced here under Fair Use doctrine):

I have visited hundreds of organizations that claim to be advanced practitioners of lean methods. They proudly show off their lean project. And, they have done good work, no doubt. But, having studied Toyota for twenty years, it is clear to me that, in comparison, they are rank amateurs. It took Toyota decades of creating a lean culture to get where they are, and they still believe that they are just learning to understand "the Toyota Way." What percent of companies outside of Toyota and their close knit group of suppliers get an A or even a B+ on lean? I cannot say precisely, but it is far less than 1%.

The problem is that companies have mistaken a particular set of lean tools for deep "lean thinking." Lean thinking based on the Toyota Way involves a far deeper and more pervasive cultural transformation than most companies can begin to imagine. Starting with a project or two to generate some enthusiasm is the right thing to do. …

Here is one example of what I find disturbing in the lean movement in the U.S. The Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC) was established by Toyota in the U.S. to work with U.S. companies to teach them TPS. Its leader, Mr. Hajime Ohba, (a disciple of Taiichi Ohno who founded TPS) fashioned the center after a similar Toyota consulting organization in Japan. They have worked with many U.S. companies in different industries, in each case transforming one production line of a company using TPS tools and methods– typically in a 6-9 month period. Usually companies come to TSSC and apply for these services; however, in 1996 TSSC took the unusual step of approaching an industrial sensor manufacturing company that I will call "Lean Company X." It was strange that Toyota would offer to help this company because Lean Company X was already widely regarded as a best practice example of lean manufacturing. It had become a common tour site for companies wishing to see world-class manufacturing in the U.S. Lean Company X even won the Shingo Prize for Manufacturing, an American based award in honor of Shiego Shingo, who contributed to the creation of the Toyota Production System. At the time they agreed to work with TSSC, the plant's world class manufacturing work included:

• Established production cells
• Problem-solving groups of workers
• Company work time and incentives for worker problem solving
• A learning resource center for employees

The Shingo Prize at the time was based largely on showing manufacturing improvements in key measures of productivity and quality. The reason TSSC wanted to work with Lean Company X was for mutual learning, because it was known as a best practice example. TSSC agreed to take one product line in this "world-class" plant and use the methods of TPS to transform it. At the end of the nine-month project, the production line was barely recognizable compared with its original "world-class" state and had attained a level of "leanness" the plant could not have thought possible. This production line had leapfrogged the rest of the plant on all key performance measures, including:

• 93% reduction in lead time to produce the product (from 12 days to 6.5 hours)
• 83% reduction in work in progress inventory (from 9 to 1.5 hours)
• 91% reduction in finished goods inventory (from 30,500 to 2890 units)
• 50% reduction in overtime (from 10 to 5 hours/person-week)
• 83% improvement in productivity (from 2.4 to 4.5 pieces/labor hour)

When I lecture at companies on the Toyota Way, I describe this case and ask, "What does this tell you?" The answer is always the same: "There is always room for improvement." "But, were these improvements small, incremental continuous improvements?" I ask. No. These were radical improvements. If you look at the original state of the production line at the beginning of the nine-month project, it is clear from the results that the company was in fact far from being world-class– 12 days of lead time to make a sensor, 9 hours of work-in-progress, 10 hours of overtime per person-week. The implications of this case (and cases I've seen even in 2003 [The book is ©2004 –jcd11235]) are clear and disturbing:

• This "lean plant" was not even close to being lean based on Toyota's standards, despite being nationally recognized as a lean facility.
• The actual changes implemented by the company before TSSC showed up barely scratched the surface.
• Visitors were coming to the plant convinced that they were seeing world-class manufacturing– suggesting they did not have a clue what world-class manufacturing is.
• The award examiners who chose to honor this plant in the name of Shiego Shingo did not understand any more than the visitors what the Toyota Production System really is. (They have improved a great deal since then.)
• Companies are hopelessly behind Toyota in their understanding of TPS and lean.

I have visited hundreds of companies and taught employees from over one thousand companies. I have compared notes with many of those I have taught. I have also visited a number of companies that were fortunate to have received assistance from TSSC, which has consistently helped companies achieve a level of improvement like "Lean Company X." Unfortunately, I see a persistent trend in the inability of these companies to implement TPS and lean. Over time, the lean production line TSSC sets up degrades rather than improves. Little of what Toyota has taught ultimately is spread to other, less efficient production lines and other parts of the plant. There is a "lean production cell" here and a pull system there and the time it takes to changeover a press to a new product has been reduced, but that is where the resemblance to an actual Toyota lean model ends. What is going on?

The U.S. has been exposed to TPS for at least two decades. The basic concepts and tools are not new. (TPS has been operating in some form in Toyota for well over 40 years.) The problem, I believe, is that U.S. companies have embraced lean tools, but do not understand what makes them work together in a system. Typically, management adopts a few of the technical tools and even struggles to go beyond the amateurish application of them to create a technical system. But, they do not understand the power behind true TPS: the continuous improvement culture needed to sustain the principles of the Toyota Way. [Because they focus on the process and ignore the other aspects of TPS], they will do little more than dabble because the improvements they make will not have the heart and intelligence behind them to make them sustainable throughout the company. Their performance will continue to lag behind those companies that adopt a true culture of continuous improvement.

Put another way, the U.S. companies tend to be unable to look beyond the tools tactics to see the underlying strategy. In many cases, companies tried to reproduce the tools they saw Toyota using instead of utilizing tools appropriate for their own situation. The problem appears to be so pervasive that even "experts" are affected.

Furthermore, the problem appears to not be limited to business. The confusion between tactics and strategy are evident among our military and some analysts. This is especially evident in the current war in Afghanistan. The same strategy used by the mujahideen against the USSR during the 70's and 80's is now being used against the US by al Qaeda. Yet, some military analysts and leaders dismiss the comparison as an over-simplification because the USSR utilized conventional military tactics and because the current balance of power internationally is vastly different, i.e., there is no more USSR.

Casual dismissal of a comparison of a previous war fought using a very similar strategy simply because tactics are different robs our troops of important information and insight. It robs them of a valuable opportunity to learn from other troops' previous successes and failures when they fought a similar war on the same terrain among the same local population and culture. Such a dismissal is indicative of the same lack of understanding of the difference between tactics and strategy which Liker highlights in his book.

While tactics are often useful for only a very narrow range of time and applications, strategies can be broadly applied. The same strategy implemented on a battlefield can be implemented in a business application (or vice versa), if appropriate to the situation, albeit with different tools and tactics. Competitors can be analogous to enemies and customers can be analogous to local populations. Such is the versatility offered by sound strategy.

We need only to examine our military win/loss record since WWII to see that there is a major problem (perhaps more than one) in the DoD. Our military has sufficient funding. Our troops generally do well the job asked of them. Yet, despite sufficient funding and well trained troops, our military has struggled time after time, from Korea to Afghanistan. (Desert Storm, in which a blitzkrieg strategy was successfully implemented against a much weaker enemy, is a notable exception.)

Our war in Afghanistan has become the longest war in our nation's history (the years of the Korean War under a cease-fire agreement notwithstanding). There is no excuse for that. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, prolonged war does not benefit the country. If it was not possible to militarily accomplish the mission in Afghanistan in a timely manner, then our military leaders should have never deployed troops to that combat theater. If the mission was achievable using military force, then the war should have been won several years ago. Over eight years without victory indicates that military leaders have been unable to accurately analyze the enemy and the situation, resulting in an inability to successfully develop and implement a coherent strategy suitable to the conflict and the mission.

One of the problems I see with the military is a dependence on technology, and with it, tactics specific to their high tech tools. In the same way as the "experts" in Liker's Lean Company X example, our military leaders and experts appear to focus on tactics without understanding the underlying strategy and its critical importance. The tools and tactics exist to implement strategy; they are not, themselves, strategy.

How can the problem be fixed? How do we keep it from being further perpetuated by tomorrow's general officers working under and learning from today's general officers, who have the aforementioned deficiency? Does the DoD need to be reinvented, a top down overhaul? If so, how can we, as a country, go about doing that?

edit: to correct link and fix formatting

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[d16842 0]

Interesting application of lean on military.

However, you intermix policy making, a role of our elected leadership, with the subservient role of military leadership.

A great example is a recent news article describing how German soldiers must now carry a humanitarian rules of engagement card with them at all times, and that they are not permitted to engage enemy forces unless the enemy attacks first. They literally had a known bad guy leader in their gun sights, but could do nothing as the bad guys didn't initiate contact that day. They withdrew after watching them just walk away.

Vietnam was the poster boy of this. Start and stop offensives, and giving the enemy time to rebuild and restore were the story of the war, along with taking ground at great cost, then departing. Many of the vital targets the military wanted to deal with were off limits until the very end, when Nixon's patience was exhausted by their leaving the peace talks. Among them were airfields, where Russian advisors might possibly be, and we choose not to offend them at great cost.

When the gloves finally came off, we fairly quickly achieved air superiority over North Vietnam, their major harbors were mined, and most of their major bridges to China were down. This could have been done almost a decade earlier at so much less cost.

I don't know if it would have changed the eventual outcome, but certainly would have reduced our loses, and our time there. Compare that to Desert Storm, or the more recent wars, where major infrastructure was immediately hit, and hit hard, quite effectively.

Our failures are more about political will constraints, than how our military projects force. On the down side, I have recently read several articles making it clear that the Brits were much better than us at productively engaging the local populations, pre-surge. Hearts and minds are always important in wars with no fronts.

Tom B

[jcd11235 0]

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Interesting application of lean on military.

It wasn't really an application of lean on military (although that might be interesting to explore) as much as an observation about the ability to differentiate strategy and tactics.

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However, you intermix policy making, a role of our elected leadership, with the subservient role of military leadership.

When developing a strategy, all of those must be considered together. We cannot look at them as separate things. They occur concurrently and must be considered that way.

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Compare that to Desert Storm, or the more recent wars, where major infrastructure was immediately hit, and hit hard, quite effectively.

Just because we have the ability to destroy major infrastructure quickly and effectively does not make it a good idea. In fact, more often than not, it is a bad idea to do so. Consider the war in Iraq. it was not when Saddam was removed from power, but when he was captured, that the nation rapidly fell into turmoil, into civil war. Sometimes, doing less allows more to be accomplished.

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Our failures are more about political will constraints, than how our military projects force.

Undoubtedly, political constraints can make things tougher. So can those pesky rules from Geneva Conventions. However, we cannot blame the failures of our military leaders on such things, as they should be known and/or anticipated prior to deploying troops.

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[d16842 0]

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However, you intermix policy making, a role of our elected leadership, with the subservient role of military leadership.

When developing a strategy, all of those must be considered together. We cannot look at them as separate things. They occur concurrently and must be considered that way.

They should indeed. Just remember that just one side of that equation, the President, sets the policy, and all the others must follow it, wise or not. That the policy in Vietnam was such a disaster, yet still followed, demonstrates that the military does respect that constitutional line.

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Just because we have the ability to destroy major infrastructure quickly and effectively does not make it a good idea. In fact, more often than not, it is a bad idea to do so.

Should it be selective? Yes. But we are probably speaking of different infrastructure. The targets of highest interest are communications, command and control of the enemy military, and some physical assets that let them move forces where we don't want them to be. In Iraq, a lot that people think we destroyed, in reality hadn't worked in years, and wasn't touched by our military.

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Consider the war in Iraq. it was not when Saddam was removed from power, but when he was captured, that the nation rapidly fell into turmoil, into civil war.

There is a huge difference in correlation and causation. I believe that was largely an incident of timing. The insurgency was already building by then. And what alternative was there in any case?

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Our failures are more about political will constraints, than how our military projects force.

Undoubtedly, political constraints can make things tougher. So can those pesky rules from Geneva Conventions. However, we cannot blame the failures of our military leaders on such things, as they should be known and/or anticipated prior to deploying troops.

Failures of our military leaders? Military leaders wear uniforms. Iraq went to hell the day the civilian czar, Paul Bremer arrived, and started imposing rules that made no sense militarily, and more importantly, for the civilian recovery of the nation. Much of the insurgency rose from his decisions, including disbanding the Iraqi military, when there was no other force there that could have served in a police role. We sent them home, to no jobs, no food, and no control. And many of them later used their training against us. Mac Author used Japanese military to maintain order. And to keep them busy.

Geneva Convention rules? If we followed them strictly, we could just shoot thousands for carrying arms in a conflict area without uniform, id, etc. We don't. And before you go there, the aggressive interrogation techniques were designed by ??? and approved by the AG office, for better or worse.

But political rules of engagement are quite different. They are why the world now views UN Peacekeepers as a joke. No military, anywhere, could be effective under the rules imposed by some European nations on their soldiers in Afghanistan. I believe them to have been purposefully imposed, precisely to see that their troops are not employed. Thus they meet their political troop quota, with less risk that their soldiers will be fully used. Some of the finest soldiers in the world come from these nations. They must choke at the restrictions.

Tom B

[jcd11235 0]

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Just remember that just one side of that equation, the President, sets the policy, and all the others must follow it, wise or not.

I include the CinC when I refer to military leadership.

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I believe that was largely an incident of timing.

I think that would would be a HUGE coincidence. We'll have to agree to disagree.

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And what alternative was there in any case?

Exactly. We removed an effective leader from power without having any alternative ready to fill the power vacuum. Our actions set the nation up for failure. Capturing Saddam put the final nail in the coffin.

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Failures of our military leaders? Military leaders wear uniforms.

When I was a soldier, my official chain of command includednon-uniformed civilians. Military leaders can be both uniformed and civilian, e.g. SecDef.

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Geneva Convention rules? If we followed them strictly, we could just shoot thousands for carrying arms in a conflict area without uniform, id, etc. We don't. And before you go there, the aggressive interrogation techniques were designed by ??? and approved by the AG office, for better or worse.

I think you missed the point I was trying to make. Military leaders, both uniformed and civilian, understand that there are rules by which they must abide. They have a responsibility to keep those rules in mind when determining the feasibility of an invasion/occupation and as they develop their strategy. Blaming failure on those rules is a cop out and only serves to shift the attention away from the ineffectiveness of leadership.

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[d16842 0]

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Just remember that just one side of that equation, the President, sets the policy, and all the others must follow it, wise or not.

I include the CinC when I refer to military leadership.

I grant that he is the CinC obviously, but most think of generals when someone says military leadership, Primarily I think, because that is the way Presidents themselves describe things. They don't refer to SecDef as military leadership, but more Sec Def AND military leadership, drawing a distinction between the two. It does clear things up in your earlier comments though, and I agree with them in that context. Thanks.

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I believe that was largely an incident of timing.

I think that would would be a HUGE coincidence. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Since you are one of the rational ones here, I am curious of your thinking on that one. Please expand.

Mine is that the violence escalation was coming regardless. The Shi' were beginning to get organized, that took some time, and flexing their muscles, greatly angering the Baathists/Suni. Bremmer's policies were slowly stripping the latter of any rights to that which they still held. I believe the Suni reaction was coming regardless of if Saddam was captured or not. But the numbers of US casualties (wounded and dead) don't reflect a great spike coinciding with Saddam's December 2003 capture. Pure hell didn't break loose till April. These are the numbers I found.

Nov 337
Dec 261
Jan 188
Feb 150
Mar 233
Apr 1,214

They generally stay above 500 per month for the following year.

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Exactly. We removed an effective leader from power without having any alternative ready to fill the power vacuum. Our actions set the nation up for failure.

I certainly and fully agree that our policy failed, although I object to Saddam being an characterized as an effective leader. Maybe brutally effective at subjugating a population.

I don't believe pure democracy is likely work in Iraq over time, and sure as hell think it has no chance in Afghanistan. Some places need a Tito. Yugoslavia certainly did, and went to hell in a hurry when he died. Bremmer's sending the Iraq military home, and firing so many of the mostly Baathist police force, with our having less than 150K men in country was a disaster. Again, MacAuthor's model, using the Japanese military to maintain civilian order, distribute food, etc. would have worked better I think.

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I think you missed the point I was trying to make. Military leaders, both uniformed and civilian, understand that there are rules by which they must abide. They have a responsibility to keep those rules in mind when determining the feasibility of an invasion/occupation and as they develop their strategy. Blaming failure on those rules is a cop out and only serves to shift the attention away from the ineffectiveness of leadership.

Again, the prime confusion was the term military leadership. But I didn't and don't see rules as the problem, either in restricting operations, or being a cop-out. Instead there was a distinct lack of common sense, and denial of reality. In fact the only rules problems I know of didn't restrict us, but instead were the ones we ourselves implemented.

Tom B

[Gawain 0]

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Our war in Afghanistan has become the longest war in our nation's history (the years of the Korean War under a cease-fire agreement notwithstanding). There is no excuse for that. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, prolonged war does not benefit the country. If it was not possible to militarily accomplish the mission in Afghanistan in a timely manner, then our military leaders should have never deployed troops to that combat theater. If the mission was achievable using military force, then the war should have been won several years ago. Over eight years without victory indicates that military leaders have been unable to accurately analyze the enemy and the situation, resulting in an inability to successfully develop and implement a coherent strategy suitable to the conflict and the mission.

One of the problems I see with the military is a dependence on technology, and with it, tactics specific to their high tech tools. In the same way as the "experts" in Liker's Lean Company X example, our military leaders and experts appear to focus on tactics without understanding the underlying strategy and its critical importance. The tools and tactics exist to implement strategy; they are not, themselves, strategy.

How can the problem be fixed? How do we keep it from being further perpetuated by tomorrow's general officers working under and learning from today's general officers, who have the aforementioned deficiency? Does the DoD need to be reinvented, a top down overhaul? If so, how can we, as a country, go about doing that?

edit: to correct link and fix formatting

As much as we banter, I really do enjoy your posts. Your first paragraph here I find myself in broad agreement with. I think that the military apparatus, had it had a free hand, would have adopted a different strategy than the doctrine of then SedDef Rumsfeld. From a foreign policy matter, I would have also twisted NATO a bit more.

For the technology, I think some of this is correct also, but in different ways. My unit was in the mix quite a bit, and the most advanced piece of technology we had at a company level was a UAV of our own. The rest of the eyes-ears-boots outside the wire and bullets and radios. What hindered me the most, wasn't the radios, of the night vision gear, it was half my weight in body-armor and ammo. I would have gladly given up some armor in exchange for easier, faster mobility.

Where in the broader scheme, I think we've relied too much on technology from the standpoint of intelligence gathering. But from a military application standpoint, some of that technology saved American lives on a scale of which I have trouble quantifying here.

To your last point, for the officer corps especially, they need to tap the veterans before them, while we still have them here. The Company Commanders need to find their counterparts from Vietnam and listen and learn. The officers need to stop plucking good field officers out of the field just because it's there time to do "staff" work. The officers that are literally stuck inside the Pentagon (and yes, they do get stuck there, many times, not by choice) need to be broken free, retrained to command, and take command. Lastly, dusty, jaded, tough Senior NCOs that have no compunction about getting in an O-5's face and setting him/her straight, need to be injected by the hundreds to crack a whip on the officer corps when it comes to a practical solution and application for getting things done.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[d16842 0]

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Our war in Afghanistan has become the longest war in our nation's history (the years of the Korean War under a cease-fire agreement notwithstanding). There is no excuse for that. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, prolonged war does not benefit the country. If it was not possible to militarily accomplish the mission in Afghanistan in a timely manner, then our military leaders should have never deployed troops to that combat theater.

One of the problems with democracy, is that the citizens often demand the impossible from our government. Cheap and immediate health care for everyone, without limits, comes immediately to mind. Any politician who attempted to block entry into Afghanistan was very likely soon to be out of a job. The original military mission of removing the Taliban from power, and ousting Al Qaeda was far easier than anyone expected. No we didn't kill Bin Laden, but he is no longer effective. And worldwide, Al Qaeda operations are down, apparently due to their expending so much effort in Iraq beginning in 2004. But stomping out every element of the Taliban just isn't in the cards. When we let up, they return.

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If the mission was achievable using military force, then the war should have been won several years ago. Over eight years without victory indicates that military leaders have been unable to accurately analyze the enemy and the situation, resulting in an inability to successfully develop and implement a coherent strategy suitable to the conflict and the mission.

Mission two, nation building, taking a largely uneducated, poor tribal civilization possessing few natural resources, and expecting it to be transformed in short order is simply impossible. If Afghanistan is to have a bright future, it is generations in the future. Our expectation that the government there not have corruption is insane. The only way Afghanistan will have a positive outcome is for someone like Tito to take power there, and for us to let him. And that is not going to happen either.

But many will question if Afghanistan goes back to the Taliban, what happens to Pakistan, and most importantly, its nukes?

Tom B

[jcd11235 0]

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Since you are one of the rational ones here, I am curious of your thinking on that one. Please expand.

One of the things I am basing my assertion on is conversations I've had with troops who were there at the time. According to them, the situation changed significantly when Saddam was captured. I will concede that they may not know what their observations could be incorrect and that they don't really know what they are talking about.

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I certainly and fully agree that our policy failed, although I object to Saddam being an characterized as an effective leader.

He kept members of three opposing ethnic groups within his culture from killing one another. That is something we were unable to do. His government was largely a secular one, a government that allowed women to hold high positions. Granted, he may have ruled with an iron fist, but he was an effective leader.

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I don't believe pure democracy is likely work in Iraq over time, and sure as hell think it has no chance in Afghanistan. Some places need a Tito. Yugoslavia certainly did, and went to hell in a hurry when he died. Bremmer's sending the Iraq military home, and firing so many of the mostly Baathist police force, with our having less than 150K men in country was a disaster. Again, MacAuthor's model, using the Japanese military to maintain civilian order, distribute food, etc. would have worked better I think.

It isn't that I disagree. My point is that all of these things should have been well considered long before the first Air Force sortie or the first ground troops were deployed. Many of our earliest actions, such as destroying infrastructure, were counterproductive to reconstruction and winning support of the local population.

SSTR (Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction) cannot be thought of as a linear process if we want to be successful. Strategy is implemented with tactics, but a collection of well executed tactics does not imply a good or successful strategy. All of the various considerations of war cannot be compartmentalized; they must be considered coherently. (I posted more on that topic here.

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[Belgian_Draft 0]

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He kept members of three opposing ethnic groups within his culture from killing one another.

So did Hitler and Stalin although all three were guilty of ethnic cleansing themselves.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[jcd11235 0]

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The original military mission of removing the Taliban from power, and ousting Al Qaeda was far easier than anyone expected.

Not really. The conditions that allowed the Taliban in power and al Qaeda to exist in Afghanistan wasn't changed. As a result, Taliban currently has a shadow government and al Qaeda is still in the country (or there again, depending on how you look at it).

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When we let up, they return.

Right. Forceful removal provides only temporary relief. We have to eliminate the conditions that allow them to be relevant. In order for a counter-insurgeny mission to be successful, that is what has to happen, the insurgents must be made irrelevant.

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Mission two, nation building, …

Again, we cannot think of SSTR as a linear process. Thinking of it as such (e.g., nation building being mission 2) is part of the problem.

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[d16842 0]

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Right. Forceful removal provides only temporary relief. We have to eliminate the conditions that allow them to be relevant. In order for a counter-insurgeny mission to be successful, that is what has to happen, the insurgents must be made irrelevant.

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Mission two, nation building, …

Again, we cannot think of SSTR as a linear process. Thinking of it as such (e.g., nation building being mission 2) is part of the problem.

What I view as mission one took place during a three month period from Oct 7th to January, during which the Taliban was forcibly removed from nearly all of Afghanistan, and an an interim government was established in Kabul under Hamid Karzai. In mind that ends stage one.

I am not sure what more could have been done in that three month period to win hearts and minds and prevent reemergence of the Taliban than we did, given the physical constraints, the limited force we had in the nation, and literally, the time it takes to move significant resources to such a remote region. If you were there and know of more that could have been done in that period, please expand.

We crossed the world, defeated a large force, threw one government out, and implemented a new one, all in just three months. I don't think that three month period of less than perfect parallel process is the problem faced today.

If that had taken a prolonged period, I agree the steps would have to have been taken in parallel. But should we have delayed combat operations to wait for the resources for the second aspect?

Tom B

[jcd11235 0]

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What I view as mission one took place during a three month period from Oct 7th to January, during which the Taliban was forcibly removed from nearly all of Afghanistan, and an an interim government was established in Kabul under Hamid Karzai. In mind that ends stage one.

My point is that thinking of the process as stage one, stage two, etc., is part of the problem and much of the reason that success eludes us. I'm not the only one with such concerns (Unfortunately, the link in this post is no longer active).

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We crossed the world, defeated a large force, threw one government out, and implemented a new one, all in just three months.

The Taliban now exists as an effective shadow government, al Qaeda is still there, and the government we implemented is ripe with corruption. I'm not sure how one can consider such results as indicative of success.

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But should we have delayed combat operations to wait for the resources for the second aspect?

Absolutely, yes, we should have waited until we had a viable, coherent strategy to accomplish the entire mission, not just one artificially compartmentalized aspect of it.

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[d16842 0]

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We crossed the world, defeated a large force, threw one government out, and implemented a new one, all in just three months.

The Taliban now exists as an effective shadow government, al Qaeda is still there, and the government we implemented is ripe with corruption. I'm not sure how one can consider such results as indicative of success.

Sure eight years later. It didn't for a long while. And there is no objective evidence that we would have succeeded even if your path had been attempted.

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But should we have delayed combat operations to wait for the resources for the second aspect?

Absolutely, yes, we should have waited until we had a viable, coherent strategy to accomplish the entire mission, not just one artificially compartmentalized aspect of it.

And what evidence supports that leaders of the Northern Alliance, and the subjegated forces they relieved would have accepted our plan even if we had? At that point, there was no solid way to even know who the national leader would be.

From Wikipedia "Following Tora Bora, U.S. forces and their Afghan allies consolidated their position in the country. Following a Loya jirga or grand council of major Afghan factions, tribal leaders, and former exiles, an interim Afghan government was established in Kabul under Hamid Karzai."

Only AFTER that could a joint plan be put in place, at least one they would support. It is fallacy to presume that could have been done earlier, and again, the 90 days made no real difference after years under the Taliban.

Tom B

[kallend 1,672]

I hope the military doesn't learn this lesson from business:

William Dooley, the asshole responsible for overseeing AIG's financial-services division -- the very division whose irresponsibility pushed AIG into the arms of the taxpayer, is now whining about his compensation package being cut. Dooley apparently feels entitled to a large bundle of taxpayers' cash. Bill Dooley works for the U.S. taxpayers -- we own 80% of his current employer in part on account of his own mismanagement.

What a jerk!

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[jcd11235 0]

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Sure eight years later. It didn't for a long while. And there is no objective evidence that we would have succeeded even if your path had been attempted.

We have proof that the linear approach did not work. Here we are, only eight years later, and the Taliban has reformed their government, albeit in shadow form, and the government we put in place has severe corruption issues. Linear planning failed.

One only needs to look as far as the Taliban's shadow government to find objective evidence that shows it is possible for an alternative government, seen as credible by many of the local population, to be put into place without first overthrowing the existing government.

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[jcd11235 0]

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I hope the military doesn't learn this lesson from business:

William Dooley, the asshole responsible for overseeing AIG's financial-services division -- the very division whose irresponsibility pushed AIG into the arms of the taxpayer, is now whining about his compensation package being cut. Dooley apparently feels entitled to a large bundle of taxpayers' cash. Bill Dooley works for the U.S. taxpayers -- we own 80% of his current employer in part on account of his own mismanagement.

What a jerk!

Agreed! I certainly don't mean to imply that business does everything right. In fact, my original post was about the military learning from the mistakes of US businesses.

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[d16842 0]

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We have proof that the linear approach did not work.

No we don't. We have proof that the combined total of what we did over an eight year period, planning and execution, hasn't yet worked. Say we had planned it your way. Can you guarantee that you can plan an entire action and recovery before you even start or know who the nation's new leaders will be, that people will perfectly follow your plan and no execution failures will prevent success?

Can you gurantee that even if the President gets distracted with another war and takes your assets, that you you will succeed? Using your logic, if you fail for any reason whatsoever, the failure is proof your initial pre-war planning process was bad.

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Here we are, only eight years later, and the Taliban has reformed their government, albeit in shadow form, and the government we put in place has severe corruption issues. Linear planning failed.

Corruption in tribal Afghanistan. Now there is a huge surprise. It appears to be part of the culture. Again, the only thing we know is that our combined actions of eight years have so far failed. Not why. Yours is theory, not fact or proof.

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One only needs to look as far as the Taliban's shadow government to find objective evidence that shows it is possible for an alternative government, seen as credible by many of the local population, to be put into place without first overthrowing the existing government.

We know it is possible for the Taliban, although they are far from governmental. But that comes no where close to demonstrating it is possible for us. We can't duplicate the religious factor for one thing, and that is huge.

Then there is the fear factor. They are willing to use extreme methods that we as a nation are not. They are willing to blow up markets, behead tribal leaders, and far worse to create and use it. Are we? If not, how do we counter it? The Phoenix Program assinated 25K people, yet still never created the fear in the population that the Viet Cong did.

We indicted Navy seals just for punching an Al Qaeda terrorist leader, the guy that killed four Americans and hung them from a bridge. Do you think from the shadows, we can match or overcome the fear that Taliban can create? And even if we could, after the indictments, and the AG's war on the CIA today, where are you going to find people willing to do it?

I don't even know if we can do what you suggest with all the boots on the ground we have today. And you think we can do it from shadows?

Tom B

[jcd11235 0]

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We have proof that the linear approach did not work.

No we don't.

Yes, we do. The linear approach has not worked in Afghanistan, and it has not worked in Iraq. General officers, e.g., Gen. Anthony Zinni (USMC Ret.), have acknowledged it's ineffectiveness. I wrote about a an example of a concurrent approach to SSTR being effective in the War on Terror in this post.

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Can you guarantee that you can plan an entire action and recovery before you even start or know who the nation's new leaders will be, that people will perfectly follow your plan and no execution failures will prevent success?

There are no guarantees in war. What we know for certain is that the linear approach is not working.

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Corruption in tribal Afghanistan. Now there is a huge surprise. It appears to be part of the culture. Again, the only thing we know is that our combined actions of eight years have so far failed. Not why. Yours is theory, not fact or proof.

Mine is a hypothesis with supporting evidence.

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We know it is possible for the Taliban, although they are far from governmental.

That it is possible for Taliban is proof that it is possible. Furthermore, are you sure they are far from governmental? This video gives a different impression of the Taliban shadow government.

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But that comes no where close to demonstrating it is possible for us.

Are you saying that the Taliban is better able to develop and successfully implement strategy than we are?

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[d16842 0]

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We have proof that the linear approach did not work.

No we don't.

Yes, we do. The linear approach has not worked in Afghanistan, and it has not worked in Iraq. General officers, e.g., Gen. Anthony Zinni (USMC Ret.), have acknowledged it's ineffectiveness. I wrote about a an example of a concurrent approach to SSTR being effective in the War on Terror in this post.

If you want to have a discussion, and more importantly, be taken seriously, then don't snip other's comments so that they are completely distorted. What I wrote was: No we don't. We have proof that the combined total of what we did over an eight year period, planning and execution, hasn't yet worked." That is far from no we don't.

I am not saying you are wrong, only that the proof is far from there.

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Can you guarantee that you can plan an entire action and recovery before you even start or know who the nation's new leaders will be, that people will perfectly follow your plan and no execution failures will prevent success?

There are no guarantees in war.

Finally. So your proof can't be proven. I get it.

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Corruption in tribal Afghanistan. Now there is a huge surprise. It appears to be part of the culture. Again, the only thing we know is that our combined actions of eight years have so far failed. Not why. Yours is theory, not fact or proof.

Mine is a hypothesis with supporting evidence.

Then why do you insist on calling it proof?

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We know it is possible for the Taliban, although they are far from governmental.

That it is possible for Taliban is proof that it is possible. Furthermore, are you sure they are far from governmental? This video gives a different impression of the Taliban shadow government.

Back to proof again. Yes, the same thugs who made people go to the soccer stadium to watch their friends, neighbors, and family members be executed for the slightest infraction of their view of law. That kind of governmental? My vision and definition of government doesn't stretch that far. That is brutal tyranny.

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But that comes no where close to demonstrating it is possible for us.

Are you saying that the Taliban is better able to develop and successfully implement strategy than we are?

[jcd11235 0]

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I am not saying you are wrong, only that the proof is far from there.
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Then why do you insist on calling it proof?

I said we have proof that it can be done, because it has been done. I never claimed that we have done it, so you can relinquish that strawman argument. In fact, one of my criticisms is that we haven't done it.

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Back to proof again. Yes, the same thugs who made people go to the soccer stadium to watch their friends, neighbors, and family members be executed for the slightest infraction of their view of law. That kind of governmental? My vision and definition of government doesn't stretch that far. That is brutal tyranny.

Clearly, you either didn't watch or paid no attention to the video.

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I am saying that their message and approach, tied to their zeal with implementing it, as opposed to our moralistic approach with such strict self imposed limits, makes our attempting a battle of hearts and minds from the shadows, a gross miss-match we can't win.

Please, tell us how many Afghan civilians have died as a result of our bombings, invasion, and occupation. There is nothing "moralistic" about our approach.

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And you expect us to be able to chase the Taliban out and make them stay out with just a different approach?

No, I expect our military leaders to understand the only way to "win" is to use a different approach so that the Taliban is made irrelevant, so that it is unnecessary to kill them or chase them out. We know the current approach is failing. Why are you so resistant to a different approach?

Some say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting a different result.

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The Taliban's harsh fundamentalist rule has dismantled all civil institutions, and closed all women Institutions.

It's a shame that we supported the mujahideen to rebel against Afghanistan's secular government under the Carter, Reagan, and GHW Bush administrations, making conditions ripe for the Taliban to rise to power.

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