US Army Full Spectrum Operations Field Manual FM 3-0

The New York Times editorial today rejoices in the new US Army Field manual, whicih would be the new version of FM 3-0 Ground Operations.    A key to Army field manuals follows below.

While I agree with the Times that there was, indeed, a catastrophic planning failure, I think it is worth while backing up further upstream and asking how on earth that could have happened.

The real issue here isn't whether the Army knew what to do, but what the Army should do when it tries to do what it should and the civilian leadership refuses to listen to the discussion and doesn't want to listen to inconvenient facts.

This gets into the subject of High Reliability Organizations,  Safety Cultures, and the
US Army Leadership Field Manual FM 22-100, previously discussed here.

Here's a glimpse into the articles and source documents.  I was unable to find a copy of the new, revised, draft FM 3-0 online for the general public at this time.

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The New York Times, Op Ed

Learning From Iraq

Nov 26, 2006

While politicians from both parties spin out their versions of Iraqs that should have been, could have been and just maybe still might be, the Army has taken on a far more useful project: figuring out why the Bush administration’s military plans worked out so badly and drawing lessons for future conflicts.

...Two hopeful examples are the latest draft of a new Army field manual ...Last week, The Los Angeles Times published details of some of the major changes being incorporated into the new field manual, while The Washington Post reported on some of the lessons learned in the Iraqi training programs.

The field manual, the Army’s basic guidebook for war, peacekeeping and counterinsurgency, quietly jettisons the single most disastrous innovation of the Rumsfeld era. That is the misconceived notion that the size and composition of an American intervention force should be based only on what is needed to defeat the organized armed forces of an enemy government, instead of also taking into account the needs of providing security and stability for the civilian population for which the United States will then be responsible.

Almost every post-invasion problem in Iraq can be directly traced to this one catastrophic planning failure, which left too few troops in Iraq to prevent rampant looting, restore basic services and move decisively against the insurgency before it took root and spread.

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What are Army Field Manuals? (From Slate Nov 16, 2006)

FMs—for just about everything a member of the Army might need to do,from handling nuclear material to cooking dinner. As of a few yearsago, there were over 650 different manuals. Some cover broad topics(for instance, FM 1 "The Army," and FM 3-0 "Operations") while others focus on more specific issues—like FM 8-50,"Prevention and Medical Management of Laser Injuries." The standardfield manual is written at a sixth-grade level and broken intochapters, and adorned with charts, tables, and hand-drawnillustrations. Some of the books come with appendices of examples orreal-life vignettes. Many—but not all—of them are available to thepublic on Web sites like this one.

Commentary

Commentary on field manuals

Officer of Engineers

02-09-2004, 02:29 AM

...
FM 3.0 - OPERATIONS (...)- By far, this is the most important document in the USArmy. It detailsthe strategic intent. Without this document as a reference, the rest of thearticles would be of little use.

LA Times article Nov 20, 2006

FT. LEAVENWORTH, KAN. — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld may be leaving under a cloud of criticism over his handling of the Iraq war, but his invasion plan — emphasizing speed over massive troop numbers — has consistently been held up as a resounding success.

Yet with Iraq near chaos 3 1/2 years later, a key Army manual now is being rewritten in a way that rejects the Rumsfeld doctrine and counsels against using it again.The draft version of the Army's Full Spectrum Operations field manual argues that in addition to defeating the enemy, military units must focus on providing security for the population — even during major combat.

TRADOC- Army Training and Doctrine Command

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (TRADOC News Service, August 25, 2006) -- In future conflicts, the United States will continue to face adversaries who use asymmetric approaches to warfare.

Col. Bob Johnson, chief of the Future Warfare Division Concept Development and Experimentation Directorate at Fort Monroe, Va., made this point at the Training and Doctrine Command Doctrine and Concept Conference II Aug. 16-17 at Fort Leavenworth.

The purpose of the conference was to discuss outstanding issues in Army Field Manual 3-0 Operations: Full Spectrum Operations, which is being revised, and to look at future operational and tactical maneuver operating concepts, said Lt. Col. Jeff La Face, division chief for the Operational Level Doctrine, Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, here.

Full spectrum operations refer to simultaneous offensive, defensive, stability operations and civil support. FM 3-0 covers the fundamentals and principles that the Army uses in today's military operations, said La Face, whose CADD team is revising the manual

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