From the Adjutant General: Bringing the Strength of America to win now and to secure the future

By: Brig. Gen. Stephen L. Danner
Missouri National Guard


FOR: Assistant SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR MANPOWER AND RESERVE
AFFAIRS

FROM: Brigadier General Stephen L. Danner, Adjutant General, Missouri National
Guard

SUBJECT: Bringing the Strength of America to Win Now and to Secure the Future

Fundamental Need to Change

United States foreign policy and national security structures neither access nor fully harness the strategic and operational instruments of national power. The nation desperately needs to institutionalize the lessons learned from our global and homeland operations since September 11, 2001. The ad hoc assembly of current governmental mechanisms and approaches does not enable an achievable security strategy in a global, information-dominated economy.

This paper describes five axioms and makes six recommendations addressing the concerns Secretary Gates expressed in Foreign Affairs and General McKinley illuminated in his Information Memorandum, "The Role of the National Guard in 'A Balanced Strategy'''.

Axioms of this Era:

The United States' Center of Gravity is its People. Ad Hoc Approaches Based on Legacy Institutions De-Link and Expose the Center of Gravity to Attack.

The nation's center of gravity is rapidly becoming disconnected from the effort associated with persistent conflict. The connection between our nation's center of gravity and the persistent conflict hinges largely on warfighting contributions of the National Guard, its sister reserve component formations, and coverage of national security issues by our nation's profit-driven media industry. Surely we recognize "information is a personal experience." The link between the citizenry and the war is established, first and most powerfully, through firsthand accounts between citizens. In descending order, the absence of a personal, first-hand link, is filled by information provided by the media. We can ill afford to engage the citizenry in three-to-five second sound bites alone. Our Citizen-Soldiers and Airmen have inextricable links to 3,300 communities creating tangible, local ties between those communities and the national-level effort.

The Much-Touted "Civilian Surge" is not New. This effort has been underway for decades. It is more frequently being brought to bear in current overseas contingency operations, but this surge remains camouflaged, wearing the uniform of the nation's military forces. Current mobilization efforts barely tap the significant capacity of the National Guard - the citizen skills portion of the "Citizen-Soldier" equation.

Our Nation is Employing Our Uniformed "Civilian Surge" Capability in an
Ad-Hoc-Manner. The Army relies upon its woefully under-resourced and critically strained civil affairs capability. The essential, much sought after capability needed to win - Provisional Reconstruction Teams, Agri-business Development Teams, New Horizons exercise programs and the State Partnership Program - continues to be assembled as ad hoc formations. None are formally recognized force structure. All draw manpower from our fighting formations and all remain unsupported by the established Doctrine, Organization, Training, Leadership, Material, Personnel, Facilities (DOTLM-PF) process.

The National Guard is the Original Interagency Partner. The National Guard, under the command and control of the governors, regularly participates in complex civil-military operations during domestic emergencies. The National Guard expands the capability of the civilian instruments of government at the state and local level bringing organized, equipped and disciplined military capability to expand the reach of civilian authorities. This civil-military partnership visibly symbolizes a Governor's resolve and has been a core capability of the National Guard since its inception. In addition, the National Guard coordinates and executes interagency partnerships around the globe. For decades even preceding the Partnership for Peace and State Partnership Programs, the National Guard along with joint partners executed multiple, annual nation-building efforts in South and Central America.

Overreliance on Contractors Undermines the Credibility and Capacity of United States Government. The US Agency for International Development has lost key skill sets and has been reduced to budgeteers managing contracts. The significant operational role assumed by contractors ignores the persistent nature of the conflict and provides a temporary solution to a near-permanent problem. Policymakers miss opportunity after opportunity to build capacity throughout the "whole of government." This focus on contractors further weakens the link between the United States' center of gravity and the national-level priority of work.


"In War There is no Substitute for Victory."

Four Presidents and lawmakers from nine sessions of Congress have grappled with national policy since the end of the Cold War. Previous efforts have not been effective.
United States policymakers must eschew established conventional thinking and set a commonly understood, easily articulated and fundamentally supportable national strategic security and economic strategy. Not only must the United States "win" in Afghanistan - it must "win" there in a new way. The idea of Phase IV operations must become the focus of Phase I. We are not in Phase IV of Afghanistan. Rather, we are in Phase I everywhere. Policymakers must abandon certain legacy mechanisms impeding progress and establish institutional security mechanisms harnessing instruments of power across the "whole of government," the "whole of industry," the "whole of information," and the "whole of American resolve."

George Kennan's Containment Strategy was fully institutionalized through a major reorganization of the federal government's national security apparatus. Those institutional changes eventually spun off tools originally designed to bolster the ends, ways and means of the strategy - tools such as the interstate highway system, communications systems, educational programs, exchange programs, the space race and so on.

To address today's challenges and to support the ends, ways and means of today's strategy, we need this era's "interstate highway system" strategy, mutually benefiting state and federal government and providing great residual benefit to private sector entities and the public at large. We must abandon the notion of applying temporary solutions in an ad hoc manner with a problem facing multiple generations. We need to permanently restructure national and domestic security apparatuses.

We Don't Have to Wait. We Have Untapped Capacity Now.

Recommendation: Emulate a Model That Works. Policymakers are establishing a small Civilian Reserve Corps within the State Department. The Chief of the National Guard Bureau offers a more workable solution - a civil "branch" of the National Guard similar to the Army Corps of Engineers. This structure will attract civilians across the full-spectrum of government and private enterprise to a "reserve" institution, organized and trained along the lines of the nation's most successful model, the National Guard. Reach out and embrace capability found in government at the local and state-level, the land grant universities and their extension services, and partner with trade associations such as the Farm Bureau, school board associations, etc. This force will recruit and maintain from these organizations in structure mutually benefitting the individual and the contributing agency or element.

EXECUTION: Establish a pilot program to recruit, train, mobilize, deploy and re-deploy
a civil "branch" of the National Guard as a proof-of-principle.

Recommendation: Train With Unity of Purpose Using Existing National Guard Training Institutions. Throughout the nation, the National Guard has formally established and accredited Regional Training Institutes. These organizations have the ability to meet the training needs of a National Guard civil branch. The tie-back to homeland security and disaster response is remarkably enhanced through the cooperative spirit emanating from these institutions. Begin by establishing a center of excellence in partnership between the Missouri National Guard's 140th Regiment (Regional Training Institute) and Ft. Leonard Wood's Maneuver Support Center. This center of excellence concept may be expanded along the lines of the existing Total Army Schools System's Regional Training Institutes, co-locating within states housing Army training centers for medical, civil affairs, personnel administration, logistics, transportation, finance, public affairs, chaplain services, training/education and legal services. These key elements of National Guard and Army military capability can quickly provide the core instruction to prepare civilians who hold deep expertise across the spectrum of responsive governance. Simultaneously these centers will cross prepare military forces to support and expand expeditionary civilian capability.

EXECUTION: Establish the Missouri Regional Training Institute at Ft. Leonard Wood
as the "Center of Excellence" to train civilians. As the concept is refined, the nationwide
network of National Guard Regional Training Institutes can expand to meet the
requirements as the force evolves.

Recommendation: Beat the Problem of "Security First" Becomes "Security Only." The United States must reorganize its warfighting approach to address the five common tasks of stabilization and reconstruction: Rule of Law, Safe and Secure Environment for Indigenous Populations, Sustainable Economy, Stable Governance and Social Well-Being. The framework for stability operations must provide a permanent base to derive solutions to address persistent problems. A civilian branch of the National Guard can accomplish this task. When the basics of responsive governance and its systems are restored, the capacity to "develop and mentor" will be readily available.

EXECUTION: Much like the Army and Marine Corps' 2007 emphasis on counterinsurgency doctrine, both Joint and Army stability operations doctrine must be revised to address the five common tasks of stabilization and reconstruction. The Department of Defense must recognize the necessary skill sets may not reside in uniform. Doctrine and policy must be changed to acknowledge interagency operational needs and to reach skills found only at state and local levels of government.

Recommendation: Leverage Technology, Setting a Mark, "Outside of the Now." A civilian branch of the National Guard cannot be hampered with "we don't have enough band-width" or similar DoD-centric restrictions. A successful application of civilian know-how in the current conflict, the Agri-business Development Team (ADT), was originally structured (ad hoc) in a way to draw together, at the right place and point in time, all the capabilities of the State of Missouri, channeled through the Soldiers and Airmen with agri-business skills. Reach-back has been useful, but difficult - often defeated by our own system of security. Time zone challenges were compounded by the difficulty of band-width availability and information security. Root cellar design is hardly a "classified secret" information security concern; however, communications regarding this subject have been traveling across the "secure" airwaves as surely as plans for major military offensives. Despite the tendency to surrender to the system, ADT commanders have diligently pursued engagement of their strategic partners - such as university experts so they can demonstrate to Afghan agriculture leaders the "whole of government" is (and will continue to be) dedicated to success of agriculture in the province.

EXECUTION: Use a combination of the National Guard's existing non-secure voice and data links throughout 3,300 communities in the United States and commercial off-the-shelf technology for deployed civilians to create an efficient, robust, affordable system to facilitate real-time reach back capability. Implement a strategy driving the demand for technological enhancements for accessible communications between our communities and the operational area abroad.

Recommendation: Develop State Partners Province by Province. Connect the institutions of America's center of gravity to the successful establishment of responsive governance at the provincial government and the local, tribal governments of Afghanistan. Long-term, lasting relationships at the basic, execution levels of government can speed stabilization and development. State-to-province, county-to district, city-to-city relationships shaped according to our similarities and common understandings are key. From Main Street to Wall Street, challenges and opportunities matching America's know-how embraces support to responsive governance. The right skill at the right level is available right now.

EXECUTION: Establish a formal, State Partnership Program-like series of relationships between provinces in Afghanistan and National Guard states/territories. As a proof of principle, the Missouri National Guard has deployed three successful, nationally recognized Agri-Business Development Teams to Nangarhar Province. The Governor of Missouri has visited Nangarhar and the Nangarhar Minister of Agriculture and Livestock made an official visit to Missouri.


Recommendation: Look Beyond Afghanistan. Our competitors are taking the high ground across the globe. We must prioritize our resources and build a capability to reach out and to engage now. Any capability developed by a new strategy must be exercised to be effective. Exercising this capability in regions of interest is a smart, proven method to engage in a cost-effective and efficient manner. Many areas marked by marginal or fragile governance, yet with more permissive security environments than Afghanistan, should be effectively engaged through training exercises supporting theater security cooperation programs directed by Combatant Commanders. The US Southern Command "New Horizons" exercise model is adaptable and expandable to other regions of the world and will pay significant dividends with little additional investment. The lure of overseas deployment to exercise skills retains military members, fits neatly into training objectives, maintains Soldier fitness, and engages local populations in a positive manner (information is a personal experience). Pulling the civil branch of the National Guard into the program would be a simple, effective extension of capability.

EXECUTION: Resource and conduct expanded "New Horizons"-like exercises in support of theater engagement strategies in US Pacific Command, US European Command and US Africa Command. Develop mechanisms to deploy and exercise the National Guard civil branch in support of these operations. Doing so enhances capabilities to handle more difficult scenarios.

Bringing the Strength of America to Win Now and to Secure the Future

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall crumbled. The falling concrete and iron marked the symbolic end, fully crushing the daunting threat of a poisonous ideology. This end came as a direct result of an enduring strategy - Containment. The ways and means of that strategy, institutionalized with the National Defense Act of 1947 and the supporting refinement of doctrine and policy afterwards, set the conditions for freedom, economic growth and prosperity - the likes of which the world has never before known. We find ourselves facing a similar threshold in American history. President Truman and advisors including George Marshall, Clark Clifford and George Kennan stood on this ground.

As leaders we have come to learn from and to be governed by several key doctrines shaping our victory over communism. Beyond victory, our nation benefited from each in ways we could not then envision. Today is the day for a new "containment" strategy", a National Security Act for the 21st Century, a second Abrams Doctrine, a refinement of the Powell Doctrine and an interagency version of the Goldwater-Nichols Act. The institutions of state and local government must join federal interagency mechanisms to drive and focus American power. We must join in the "space race" of our era. Securing the global commons begins with securing the "mass terrain of the human condition".

America's National Guard is a proven, powerful maxim serving the "ends" of operational and strategic needs through periods of great challenge in our history. Its constitutionally-unique organization, roles and missions come with cost-effective, community-based combinations of military and civilian capabilities. The National Guard successfully brings the energy of 3,300 communities to complement national-level efforts -- an overwhelming combination of strength, skill and resolve.


References:
a. Information Memorandum, CNGB, subject: The Role of the National Guard in "A-Balanced-Strategy."

b. Gates, R.. "A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New
Age. " Foreign Affairs 88.1 (2009): 28-40.