The U. S. Army Future Concept for the Human Dimension

10-2. Conclusion

The thread that links all the components of the human dimension together is competent, caring leadership that understands how to develop a unit climate in which cohesive, effective units can grow. “The key to climate is leadership and senior leadership in particular.”¹⁹⁸

Whereas the moral component remains preeminent within the human dimension, effective leadership is the decisive factor that brings all aspects of the human dimension together. Leadership, climate, unit effectiveness, Soldier satisfaction and morale, and psychological resilience are closely interrelated. The leader’s behavior has the greatest impact on unit climate and effectiveness. Trust in leaders is essential to units, especially in combat and requires a special spirit and bond among members that leads to belief in the unit’s purpose, their value to the team, and their role in achieving success.

We must develop the confidence to grant authority to those we send to conduct these complex operations with the responsibilities laid on their shoulders. . . . This confidence will only come with selection and training the right people.

General Rupert Smith

The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World

2007
Aligning leadership practice with principle is essential to developing confident leaders capable of operating in complex and unpredictable environments in future full spectrum operations. It is also an important factor in leader retention. Junior leaders must be able to make independent judgments and take risk knowing they have their commander’s support. Confidence and competence develops through practice reinforced by solid developmental feedback.

The Army understands effective leadership is the key to understanding the human dimension. Trusting, respecting, building bonds of mutual affection among unit members, taking care of Soldiers and developing subordinates has been a part of Army leadership doctrine since its founding. Exploiting this understanding and experience will be the deciding factor in preparing the Army for future full spectrum operations during the 2015-2024 timeframe. The Army of the future must remain a values-based organization manned and equipped with the best possible Soldiers and units our Nation can provide. This pamphlet opens the door to the changes the Army must consider to meet the challenges of the future. Written with purpose, it encourages discussion and instigates further research into all the domains that make up the human dimension—centered on the most critical element, the American Soldier.

Vignette

Pekanbaru, Sumatra, Indonesia
Associated Press News. Reports cleared by the Information Office of the Pacific Command in Hawaii indicate that coalition forces had surrounded the capitol where Mr. Ibn Ander is reportedly holding up. General Faradad Dumai, Ander’s Army Chief of Staff, turned himself in to American forces at around 3:00 a.m., according to coalition spokeswomen, Andrea Shilling. The general reported that he had issued orders to all Anderean forces to cease military operations and return to their garrison locations.

Ms. Shilling, speaking to reporters from Java, indicated that Pekanbaru had fallen in less than 2 hours. As U.S. Marine forces entered from the north Army TF Green penetrated the city from the east and west, having secured the international airport in a dazzling parachute assault that started just after dark on Tuesday. Immediate reports of this simultaneous landing and near bloodless seizure of the crowded airport came from numerous cell voice and text messages and live video from hundreds of people in the airport.
“It was a nightmare!” British citizen Clary Iden texted his wife Ruby who was waiting for his flight in Darwin, Australia. Mrs. Iden shared his messages and the pictures her husband sent with Australian security personnel as soon as she realized her husband’s peril.
“Clary’s a cool head normally,” she told Associated Press reporters. “For him to panic like that it had to be bad, really bad. I’m just glad it’s over and that he’s safe.”
Iden was part of a UN observation team wrapping up a 4 day fact-finding tour of the Anderian Sumatra Caliphate. Apparently, word of the impending coalition attack turned the crowded terminal into a heaving mass of humanity trying to escape the building. The number of injured or dead is not known at this time.
TF Green Command Post, Pekanbaru International Airport
Colonel Odermann stood before the screen detailing the status of TF Green and other coalition forces in and around Pekanbaru.
“Sir,” the Division Chief of Staff began, “you’ve seen this unfold according to the plan so I won’t ask the staff to give you their updates. Major King has the battle digits from all our units and is ready to play it back for you. It’s short, sir, filtered to major actions and muscle movements just like the AARs at the training center.”
“Okay, King, let me see your masterpiece,” Major General Tasker said smiling. “But, Jim, one question first.”
“Millsaps, sir?”
“Reading my mind again, chief?”
“No sir, but I know he’s the only officer we haven’t accounted for.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Major King interrupted.
Odermann flashed the staff officer a look that would have stopped a lesser being in his tracks.
“What is it King?” Tasker asked, noting the chief’s flaming eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve got something you haven’t told Colonel Odermann.”
“It just came in, sir. Millsaps was picked up by 3^rd Brigade about twenty minutes ago. He was making his way on a bike to the airport. He’d lost his helmet and most of his gear landing in the river. Brigade says he’s fit to be tied that he missed the action. Not a scratch on the guy.”
When King finished his short report on Millsaps the dozen staffers broke into applause and even Odermann smiled, clapping enthusiastically. TF Green had suffered 10 killed in action from the Condor that exploded in AO Foxden, apparently a helicopter mine victim. Otherwise Operation Thunderstorm had only claimed about 40 injured or wounded, mostly from the RSTA Company that had picked its way through the heavily booby trapped jungle east of AO Foxden.
Tasker watched the video, marveling at how smoothly everything had gone. The “show,” as they’d come to call the post operation video, looked like a cross between an action movie and a PlayStation 10 war game. Specialists assembled data from all division systems, classed them electronically, prioritized those that would go in the final edit, and then ran the resulting digital stream through the DEMON system to produce the studio quality video they were now looking at.¹⁹⁹
They watched the Ranger insertion and aborted mission. The scene next switched to an overhead view of the Padang operation showing the coalition feint and the Anderian swarming boats falling for the decoy and getting blown to bits by their own mines and coalition standoff fires. The actual landings north and south of Padang drew the defenders away from their prepared positions. British and Australian forces attacked them from the high ground behind the defenders whose leaders had planned on dispersing into the foothills after a fight on the beaches. Instead, faced with annihilation, the vaunted Anderean brigades surrendered.
The video displayed the airborne operations using icons on a moving map zooming in on actual buildings, the runway, and the terminal to show the details. Platoon and company symbols dissolved into actual Soldier icons as the airport seizure unfolded. It almost looked like a choreographed and scripted play, which, in many ways it was. Not a single aircraft, civilian or military was damaged. Anderean air defenses never got to respond, having been neutralized by the Airborne Laser and other nonlethal directed energy systems. Red icons in and around the airport blinked off one after the other as the operation proceeded, and in less than 7 minutes of the video stream the airport was secure. General Tasker knew that the whole airborne operation had in fact lasted 6 long hours. It was the phase of Thunderstorm that he worried about the most.
The screen flashed with the flares and explosions in AO Foxden and showed the RSTA Company’s laborious efforts to clear routes through the jungle for the BCT. In addition to the FSV-R destroyed in the Condor, four others didn’t make it out of Foxden. Tasker wondered if AO Aerie was as heavily mined, but thanked God that the Andereans hadn’t defended their mines and booby traps. It could have been a mess that would have slowed the assault on the capital, and speed was what made the difference in this fight.
Ibn Ander just couldn’t react to all the reports of coalition operations from Padang to Dumai to Rengat to all around his capital. Striking at night in multiple undefended places and jumping over the heavily defended ports and airfields, the coalition had overwhelmed the Caliphate’s forces.
In TF Green’s Forward Command Post, the video continued. The 1^st Marine Expeditionary Brigade, reinforced with the 2^nd Stryker BCT from TF Green seemed to appear on the periphery of Pekanbaru’s northern suburbs. Marines and Soldiers swept into the city overcoming resistance with an array of standoff strike systems that either eliminated Anderian weapons or neutralized the defenders. The 1^st Brigade took some time coming out of Foxden, but they didn’t have as far to go as 1^st Marine Expeditionary Brigade so they were able to begin their penetration of the capital in conjunction with the Marines. By the time General Dumai called for a ceasefire the Government House was surrounded. At dawn special operations teams emerged with Ibn Ander on a stretcher—drugged, apparently in a suicide attempt.
When the last shots played over the big screen Odermann half expected to see the credits roll. TF Green and the entire coalition was far from done, but GOI forces were already en route to replace them. With any luck the coalition would pull most of its combat forces out of Sumatra in less than a week.
Major General Tasker slapped his knees and stood up at the end of the video. Looking around the portable inflatable shelter that housed his command post, he said, “Warriors all! You’ve done your jobs incredibly well. Operation Thunderstorm will be one for the history books, my friends. It showcased our arsenal and expeditionary prowess, no question about that. More importantly, and I know you men and women are tired of me saying it, this operation proved our Soldiers and our warrior spirit are second to none! I’m so proud of all of them and you…,” he tapered off his eyes wet with tears and his voice growing hoarse.
Major King flinched and touched his Bluetooth earpiece, getting a serious look on his face. No one seemed to notice in the hubbub until King’s voice rose above the clamor, amplified by the flat screen speakers.
“Sir,” King began, looking a bit ashen. “There’s been an earthquake! Tsunami alert, sir, for the northeast shore. Pacific Command wants us to be ready to assist….”
Boots on the ground is a somewhat overused term, but its meaning is timeless. From Fehrenbach’s quote to Patton’s admonition that humans win wars, this concept concentrates on this theme and its prime executors Soldiers and Marines. War is never pleasant nor is it a casual activity played occasionally. War is serious business that requires dedicated well-trained and educated professionals to execute. This concept on the human dimension makes that point in all the domains described in the foregoing chapters.
The events described in each of the vignettes serve to emphasize selected points in its respective chapters. As such, they are not chronological, nor are they completely consistent with the exercise battle fought in the 2004 Sea Viking Experiment. The apparent ease with which the coalition overcomes Ibn Ander does not suggest that future combat operations will be easy. The Anderian forces may seem inept in these accounts, but the coalition success derives from not engaging Anderian strengths, from utilizing deception, and from entering the Caliphate in unexpected ways.
The Battle of Pekanbaru and the taking of the Sumatra Anderian Caliphate should never have to happen, but if the present is any predictor of the future, the U.S. Army needs to prepare for a world of persistent conflict. The Army must begin today to build the future TF Green and the magnificent leaders depicted in this fictional account. To do less would be a major disservice to our country.

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