The Army Commander in 2019 referred to the "missing middle" with regards to our Sgt to Maj level of leadership. I just came from an operational garrison, and we had rifle companies commanded by Lieutenants with a single Lieutenant as the 2IC as the rest of the leadership was tasked out to capacity building operations and missions with a heavy draw on leadership. My Garrison support unit was also critically short of Sgts to Majs. You can't just snap your fingers and draw 300 MCpl to Maj PYs out of Ottawa and have leaders who would go on those missions.
I guess that's my own fault for saying "Ottawa" when I should have said "headquarters". IMHO we do not need four static divisional headquarters nor ten static brigade headquarters and I'm wondering if even CMTC is still a necessary thing or becoming an unaffordable luxury. What use is there for these entities if the deployable field force becomes tiny and non deployable as well?
If capacity building is so important (and I actually agree with you that we should have an entity that is specifically oriented towards that and tasked with it) then the manning for it has to come out of somewhere. If not the headquarters then the field units are the only solution.
Where you and I diverge in this discussion is that I do believe that one can just "snap your fingers" and reduce the size of the headquarters. The problem is no one will commit to snapping their fingers. Instead they sit around in committees and let every HQ department justify their existence and the need to keep their departments filled while operational companies are run by lieutenants. One only needs to look at the limited outcome that came out of Leslie's report and his statistics of what expanded disproportionately during the Afghan period to see where all the PYs have gone.
The issue is that when you are short of folks, which the Army appears to be, then you need to take an appetite suppressant somewhere. Real defence outputs are not measured by how many people we employ simply administering the bureaucracy of defence. We need to protect the field force's organizational integrity (even if we change its structure) so that it does not lose additional PYs to administrative functions or niche roles.
Regarding SSE, if this discussion is to be more than cloud shoveling then it needs a framework grounded in our tasks and not our wishes. Now, since this is not a decision-making body I suppose it doesn't make much of a difference in the end.
Like I said, the argument that this discussion should come out of the SSE is something I believe in as well (albeit that I have some issues with SSE). The problem with that approach is that for even a reasonable discussion those who see the NATO mission see justification for their approach, while peacekeepers and capacity builders see theirs and defence of the homeland ones see theirs. The question is where do you put the emphasis? On this issue people in this forum and elsewhere will differ.
I've said for some time that the multiplicity of our missions isn't the problem, the problem is that as a symmetric and general purpose Army, we toss taskings around like candy at a kid's birthday party while our managed readiness system guarantees that a large portion of our force is "not ready". By reorganizing the force into two divisions - one with one Reg F brigade and designated reserve units to concentrate on a heavy force for deterrence with NATO and one with two Reg F brigades (one light and one mech) and designated reserve units to concentrate on rapid reaction scenarios, capacity building and peacekeeping - would reduce both staff and training time in preparing for missions; would facilitate the ability to more fully integrate the Res F into their Reg F counterparts role; and facilitate equipping, maintaining and sustaining the separate parts.
One option that should be on the table, if capacity building missions are going to be the norm, should be converting some of our units into such organizations. When not engaged on such missions they could run training for both components.
And yes, I would give capacity building as one of the tasks of the light brigade and probably reconfigure the brigade in such a way that all of the requisite components of a proper capacity building unit - including a rotational system - were part and parcel to its establishment. To me, the best structure for a capacity building force is one based on a battle group structure with a core of leaders and instructors for all the key elements (inf, armour/recce, arty, engr, sigs, CSS) which would not only be able, in its day-to-day role, to provide the capacity building function but could also, in an emergency with planned augmentation from the reserves expand into a full light battle group or more.
It strikes me that the light brigade would have less day-to-day out of country missions if the heavy brigade concentrates on northern Europe and the medium brigade on peacekeeping rotations and thus look more to internal issues such as capacity building the reserves and northern and coastal operations.
While I totally agree that there must be an integrated training system for both components that has the capacity to shrink or expand with the fluctuating demands for training output, I see some issues in having a unit that is designed to do both capacity building and own force training. When it comes to own force training one of the most critical elements, especially for the Res F is regularity and dependability that courses will go as planned. It's hard enough just integrating Reg F and Res F training because of the summer training v summer leave/APS cycles of the two forces. Adding a foreign component in, especially if it requires delivering that training in the foreign country creates a complexity that will almost ensure something will have to give - my bet is it would be the Res F training element. We definitely need to fix the training system of both our Reg F and Res F components and it needs to be one that is focused heavily towards training the Res F during the prime school vacation periods when both the students and the Reg F equipment is available and, as much as possible, by distributing that training as far down to the local level as is practical.
So, that in broad strokes, is my solution. I'm interested in hearing yours.
