It's Really an Old Question

I don't think Multi-Domain Operations could affect the Army National Guard as much as the Guard could be affected by a re-think on what is needed in the short term to fight a war. That has long been a point of debate.

A lot of what is in the Guard (and Army Reserve) is part of the "tail" with more of the "tooth" in the active component. The idea was that the country would have to debate the war the Army was being sent to fight because the reserves would need to be mobilized for any significant threat. Unless my memory is faulted, this was a reaction to the Vietnam War and sometimes called the "Abrams Doctrine."

Also, for people who didn't understand things, having a higher active duty "tooth-to-tail" ratio looked better.

Apparently, either the Army doesn't care about the national debate aspect or thinks it will happen in the modern age regardless of the ability of the Army to be moved overseas to fight a war, and so enabling the Army to move faster with what it has on duty is the way to go.

Also, at least the Army understands that the other services will not be able to deploy the Army at will. The Army should face the reality that it has to plan on staging units when needed because the Navy and Air Force are a choke point in getting Army units mobilized in the United States to a battlefield around the world.

And yes, I fully worry that the Army is too gripped by micromanagement (the way the French army was in 1940) taking precedence over "mission command," which in theory enables lower level initiative. We haven't faced a stronger conventional opponent in combat (since 1950, I'd say) that could break apart the micromanagement approach. Iraq's army in 1991 or 2003 simply wasn't strong enough to defeat the Army even if it was micromanaged.

A "zero mistakes" mentality on career advancement hinders development of initiative, I fear. You'd think advances in computer simulations would give ample opportunities for officers to just play around with odd solutions--either to find a gem or disabuse them of bad ideas--without harming careers even if the Army can't learn to embrace effing up in the chaos of properly understood exercises.

Anyway, the proper balance of active and reserve component units is a proper topic of debate. But I don't think Multi-Domain Operations is really having any effect on that debate.

Okay, this really isn't terribly focused. But it raises issues of reserve components, public support for war, officer leadership, and transportation shortfalls that worry me. But I can just vent here. So I did.