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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/10/army-general-presents-his-vision-for-future-warriors-100211/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
General presents his vision for future warriors
Virtual battles energize training mission for the 21st century
By Lance M. Bacon - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Oct 2, 2011 8:32:05 EDT
FORT BENNING, Ga. — Collective training that challenges soldiers and embraces technology is coming to your post. Commanders, it will be your job to see that it is done right.
That is the message of Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of Training and Doctrine Command, as he lays out the vision for 21st-century training.
“The world as we have known it for 10 years … will change on New Year’s Eve,” Cone told a packed house attending the Maneuver Conference outside Fort Benning in mid-September. The New Year brings with it a transition out of Iraq and a sweeping return to training for unified operations in the full spectrum, specifically offensive, defensive and stability operations. Expect a lot of training in leadership principles, the profession of arms, autonomous squad operations, combined arms maneuver and wide-area security.
But a successful switch is not simply a matter of flying to the National Training Center instead of Iraq. The Army is facing a new era of warfare, and that requires a new approach to training.
Cone’s formula for success:
Start with stimulation
Combat is challenging. It forces soldiers to adapt and overcome. It brings out their best.
Training is often dull. It can seem scripted and choreographed. Sure, it is a vital necessity, but challenging the combat vet to excel in old training patterns is akin to trading your “Call of Duty” on Xbox for “Tank” on Atari. Enthusiasm will probably wane.
“If we do not capture the imagination and energy of this generation of leaders and get them invigorated at the concept of training … we are going to have some significant degradation to our force,” Cone said.
What is needed are training programs that amplify the complexity and sophistication of combat, he said. Cone pointed to his time as the “head lessons-learned dude” early in the Iraq war. He described how soldiers arrived trained for major combat operations, but didn’t get a lot of help from doctrine when the mission transitioned to counterinsurgency. Soldiers on the ground responded by forming their own solutions.
“We learned things like ops-intel fusion, targeting networks and the value of culture,” Cone said. “We cannot lose that. We can never go back.”
Going back to training the basics is a “bogus argument,” he said. As the hybrid threat evolves, so must the soldier and unit. The challenge is to ensure the same evolution that takes place on the battlefield — birthed by necessity in the most demanding of circumstances — continues in training.
“I don’t think this generation is up for chasing Babylonians,” Cone said. In the theater of operations, “it took us a long time to understand who the tribes were, who the networks were, etc. One way that we can maintain that into the future is regional assignment of units. The idea would be that if you’re in the [contingency expeditionary force] pool, you’re assigned early on and then we drive a real-world intel stream” so soldiers can train to that mission and get smart on those locations.
“Training would be a lot more significant if soldiers had to memorize the names of the people they are likely to deal with.”
TRADOC regulation doesn’t allow this, but Cone is not deterred.
“We’re going to have to work around that,” he said. “We have all of these security clearances for a reason. And the fact of the matter is to make relevant, to continue that flow of information in the non-kinetic realm to make it real, we’re going to have to take some aggressive steps to make that happen.”
Add lots of simulation
As operations wind down, Cone looks to double the amount of training soldiers receive. He admits this is going to be a challenge and will require the Army find new ways to train.
Simulators and virtual training are at the top of the list.
Soldiers in coming years will see a staggering increase in virtual, scenario-based training that will “place” soldiers in real-world events and environments. TRADOC’s “Training Brain” is the prime example of this technology. It takes all intelligence on a designated area and recasts it into the training boxes at combat training centers. Then, individuals or units can hone their skills by facing multiple scenarios in each session.
This immersion will also include “blended training.” For example, your assault of a Military Operations on Urban Terrain facility will be presented at the command post alongside actual airstrikes conducted at other locations and a simulated artillery barrage. The architecture for these integrated training environments will be implemented from 2012 to 2016, starting at Fort Bliss, Texas, officials said. They will provide 24/7 connectivity with training support systems, meaning you won’t have to wait days or weeks for your turn in a simulator or on a range. And when you get there, you better strap yourself in.
These training events are not orchestrated. They are meant to replicate the unexpected twists and turns encountered amid the fog of war. They will take the next step of adding elements such as human and signal intelligence into the mix. The idea is that repetition leads to confidence, and confidence leads to mastery. This home station training also allows everyone from the squad leader to the brigade commander to learn how fellow troops will think and respond in a variety of situations. It is thus designed to build trust and teamwork.
Commanders, gear up
Commanders, don’t think the effective training of your unit rests on Cone’s soldiers.
It’s on yours.
“Somewhere along the line in the last 10 years, commanders got out of the business of being involved in training,” Cone said. “Commanders think that they go to a restaurant and order up a [Mobile Training Team] from here, order up a [Combat Training Center] rotation. ... It’s a fundamental failure in how we do business.”
Cone didn’t mince words as he addressed the thousands of officers and senior enlisted leaders in attendance. He told them it was their moral obligation to train soldiers. TRADOC is there to aid, he said, but “at the end of the day, assessing training and designing training and executing training, you’re the one who is responsible for that.”
“We have lost our ability for training management,” he said.
The loss happened when higher headquarters took control of the calendars to make the surge work. But now is the time for commanders to become the architects of their units’ training. And that is not an easy thing to do, he said. Leaders must be cognizant of requirements and be willing to make hard choices, and accept responsibility for risk when given too many things to do. The answer is not to wait until there is more white space on the calendar, Cone said, because “there has never been white space on the calendar since George Washington.”
Such an approach to training is not only a matter of responsibility, but one of necessity. TRADOC sent 6,000 members to the operating force, which severely cut its capacity. Simultaneously, the command has seen its student workload increase by about 185,000, roughly one-third, since 2005. That has resulted in higher student-to-teacher ratios and greater use of civilian instructors. Doctrine and training developers have been pulled to serve as instructors, which has led to a backlog of 436 man-years in doctrine development, according to a Sept. 21 Government Accountability Office report. Only 37 percent of the 447 doctrinal publications are current.
Similarly, the 232 curricula that are supposed to be updated every three years have a backlog of 204 man-years. These curricula are “considered critical to train soldiers on the necessary skills needed to perform their duties,” the report said. “If curricula are not kept current, students could potentially not be trained on the most recent information, and this information is not being institutionalized for future instruction.”
TRADOC is conducting in-depth reviews of these issues and formulating plans to erase the deficit. A key aspect of this endeavor, the Army Learning Concept 2015, is expected to be completed next summer. Cone’s Doctrine 2015 strategy will also enable the doctrine development process to be faster and accessible to the force.
Best will learn, teach
Cone said he is “truly disturbed” by the divide between the operational and intellectual tradition.
“Our Army has been successful because of the rich tradition of intellectualism in our operational culture,” he said. “They are deeply entwined.”
Cone cited soldiers from Civil War Maj. Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to Gens. David Petraeus, Martin Dempsey and Ray Odierno as ones who had “pretty strong academic credentials and have fared very well in the schoolhouse.”
Academic assignments, both as student and teacher, have helped make them who they are, Cone said. And he is determined to say the same for tomorrow’s leaders.
The Army “appropriately” went to the sound of the guns and kept everyone in that pattern when it faced “the reality of perhaps losing a war in 2006, 2007 and 2008,” Cone said. Now it is time that training and education return in force.
Cone said he understands the warrior ethos that drives a soldier to wave off the schoolhouse to remain with his unit on the next deployment. But the general isn’t going to give you a choice. School seats and broadening assignments are in your future. And he is not going to allow commands to throw a saddle on NCOs and keep riding them.
“We are going to bring the right people back to the schoolhouse,” Cone said. “We need to bring [intermediate-level education] back to 50 or 60 percent, whatever we can afford.”
A centerpiece is the captains’ career course overhaul. It will give you four months at your initial station followed by a module, then several years of career-long learning. Cone also said he thinks captains need more qualifying “box checks” to bring an end to the unprecedented high promotion rates that have come to be known as “no major left behind.”
