By Ann Roosevelt
To provide the best soldiers no matter what the Army involvement in an era of persistent “commitment,” the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command not only has to adapt to changing conditions and needs but to innovate, according to its commander.
“We have adapted tactically, but we have to adapt as an institution,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, TRADOC commander, said in a Feb. 26 speech at the Association of the United States Army’s Winter Symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
“It seems to me that adaptation is to determine how the environment in which you are operating has changed and then you adapt to it,” Dempsey told Defense Daily in an interview. “You alter training methodologies, you alter leader development, and you alter organization in some cases. You change the materiel expression of your strategy. In the most general terms, and this is the English major in me, the balance between adaptation and innovation.”
TRADOC is now in an adapting mode.
“Where I’d like to get, to be honest, is to the point where we are innovative,” he said. The definition of that seems to me you’re actually the one driving the change. But I think it’s something we’re going to have to take on linearly–meaning I think we need to adapt and then as we adapt, we’ll innovate.”
It’s basically a type of present-future construct, he said. “Another way to think of it is we’re adapting in present, let’s say, and we need to be innovating it seems to me in the future.”
Dempsey took command at TRADOC Dec. 8 after serving as acting commander of U.S. Central Command.
Part of Dempsey’s effort to be adaptive and innovative at TRADOC is to stay aligned to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ emphasis on “balance,” to avoid over emphasizing type of conflict to the detriment of the others.
“I think we’re very much in line with the secretary’s vision for the future military capabilities,” Dempsey said. “I don’t think the secretary is driving us to focus exclusively on irregular warfare. I really don’t. I think what he’s driving us to do is not focus exclusively on the other end of it. I really believe that we are consistent with his vision for the military writ large, Army in particular for us. I think we’re consistent with his desire to find a way to be more balanced and to train, educate and procure systems that will have utility and versatility across the spectrum, not simply at one end of it.”
The tank is a good example, he said. Tanks are the heavy traditional weapon system, but have utility in irregular urban warfare.
“As I learned first hand in April of 2004 when the 1st Armor Division was sent into southern Iraq to put down the Sadr Militia. We didn’t lead with our face. We led with our tanks and it proved to be the right tactic.”
To ensure that TRADOC, as an institution, is as innovative and adaptive as the tactical soldiers, Dempsey is taking a hard look at the command’s campaign plan.
“We are revising the TRADOC campaign plan to do a couple of things,” he said. One is I want the organization to be more commander-centric. There have been some responsibilities that migrated to staffs and so we’re realigning responsibilities so that I can, for example, give the responsibility, the authority, and hold accountable, commanders that work for me.”
Secondly, Dempsey wants the campaign plan to inform his priorities as commander.
“In other words if I give [Lt. Gen.] Bill Caldwell at [Combined Arms Center] CAC responsibility for training support, leader development and a doctrinal development and a couple of other things–I want him to come back to me as part of this commander’s dialogue and I want him to tell me OK, here’s what I think the priorities ought to be for me to achieve your giving me responsibility for leader development–here’s what I think the priorities ought to be. I talk with him about that. Then we figure out how much in resources we have–the most scarce of which is always time–and then I with him decide what we’re going to focus on. Here’s what we’re going to be good at.”
The other reason to revamp the campaign plan is that Dempsey wants TRADOC to be more effective and efficient. With a lot of input three star officers at the command can then try to remove redundancies and flatten the organization.
Dempsey’s priority is to support the Army Force Generation Model and provide the best trained Army it can to the Army Chief of Staff and Combatant Commanders with the resources TRADOC has, which includes roughly 29,000 military and 11,000 civilians.
“That’s what the campaign plan is going to help me see,” Dempsey said. “It’s really more about understanding and gaining a common understanding of what we should be doing across TRADOC that I’m seeking in the campaign plan. Then once we understand ourselves, it seems to me, we can organize ourselves to provide that best possible trained and led Army.”
The more complex the problem, he said, the more you need to harness the collective wisdom and experience of those around you.
TDOC is enormously complex–at least as complex as Central Command, he said. “But in both places, faced with enormously complex problems I think you have to allow, you explain what you want to know about the organization and the way it operates, take the input you can get from as many as you can get it, and then collaboratively decide on the way ahead.
“Once I decide, then we will ruthlessly execute,” Dempsey said. “But I want to know what they know before I start to determine how ruthless to be.”