"Train like you fight" - an old army saying

"There's an old saying in the Army that you should 'train the way you fight.' For the most part, the Army ignores it.  That's why regular Army units almost always get their asses kicked in their initial battles, unless they have a long train-up period before their first taste of combat.  Under those conditions, units will develop training programs that actually prepare men for combat.  But for some strange reason, the generals and other senior officers see to it that peacetime training has little resemblance to reality." - CSM (Ret.) Eric Haney, Inside Delta Force

I saw a news story a few days ago that caught my attention, about how SECDEF Mattis wants the military to cut away some of the non-combat related training requirements.  Here's a decent summary from the Air Force Times: "Notably, Mattis has ordered a review of the 'requirements for mandatory force training that does not directly support core tasks' – the many hours soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines spend prior to deployment meeting the Pentagon-required tasks that sometimes have little to do with the role they will actually fulfill when deployed."

I have a couple different takes on this development. . .

Here's why I support what Mattis is doing: I served a four-year hitch in the Army.  I suffered through my share of unnecessary, useless training, and naturally I complained about it.  Loudly and often.  My position hasn't changed in the years since I separated from the military.  I once heard someone say that the military's purpose is to "break things and kill people." That's stark, but it's absolutely right.  The military needs to spend more time training for war and less time waxing floors, marching in parades, and parking Humvees in a perfectly aligned formation.  Support troops should go to the range more than once every 2 - 3 months.  Riflemen should go to the range at least once a week.  Intelligence analysts should be reading up on every intelligence report related to their unit's future Area of Interest months in advance, not just weeks - all the analysts, not just the officers and senior NCOs.  And because of the nature of the current conflicts the US is waging, there needs to be thorough training on the area's culture and history, and some level of language proficiency.  That's not touchie-feeley nonsense: asymmetric warfare requires a lot of direct interaction with locals, so the troops need to understand them to keep from alienating them.  It helps them do their jobs better, and ultimately keeps them alive.  If Mattis wants to move the armed forces closer to that objective, I could support it - with a few caveats.  Read on. . .

Here's why I'm wary about this new policy: the US military already has 800-something bases in various foreign countries.  Not all of these are full-blown military posts like the ones in the United States, of course, but 800 installations is a lot.  The United States already takes a lot of criticism for its interventionist military posture: besides the overseas bases, it conducts a lot of counter-terrorist missions (mostly drone strikes and SOF raids) and espionage operations in other countries.  It's not farfetched to think that a more highly-trained military force would lead to more interventions, and I don't think that's a good thing.  Military interventions anger the locals, encourage retaliation, and increase the odds of a terrorist attack on US soil.  To paraphrase George Washington, the military would seek out bigger and meaner foreign dragons to slay.

Here's why I think Mattis will have an uphill battle: Mattis is up against a lot of entrenched interests, including defense contracting companies, Congress, and the military itself to some degree.  Not to mention the bureaucratic realities of budget and material constraints.  I say defense contractors and Congress because the military is like a house that looks like a mansion on the outside but a tenement on the inside.  It has plenty of sexy-looking hardware such as tanks, fighter jets, and aircraft carriers; but is sorely under-equipped when it comes to day-to-day items: cleaning supplies, office supplies, computers & printers, training materials, tools, spare parts, and so on.  There's definitely not enough money for the intensive training I'd like to see happen, probably not even for the modest increases in training Mattis envisions.  To implement the kind of training that could really be helpful, Mattis would have to spike some of that costly hardware; and neither the contracting companies nor Congress will allow that to happen.  Congress controls the purse strings, and defense contractors bring jobs to Congressional districts.  Do the math on that one.

Ultimately, I think Mattis will be lucky to accomplish a few incremental changes.  A tiny bit of improvement here and there, at the fringes.  But a decent-sized overhaul is unrealistic.  And I'm kind of glad.  I think the inadequate training helps put the brakes on overseas military operations, or at least from expanding further.  If the military retrenched and only worried about the continental US + Alaska and Hawaii, then I'd be a huge cheerleader in Mattis' corner.  But seeing as how we haven't had a military like that since about before World War I, I can't really get enthusiastic about it.