TRADOC obviously lifted a lot of material from my 2003 book, Transformation under Fire. It’s similar to what previous Chiefs of Staff did with my book Breaking the Phalanx: Lift the language, create the appearance, but substantively it’s another Potemkin Village. The critical ISR, STRIKE, MANEUVER, SUSTAINMENT functionality that is essential to Joint integrative operations is missing.
However, the Army dramatically overstates the impact and capability of cyber and SOF, treats the enemy as static and unthinking, assumes that IADS can be easily defeated with just artillery and seemingly ignores the requirement for armed reconnaissance. The notion that air assault infantry can maneuver in this battlespace presumes the absence of widespread tactical air defense systems. Although the Army acknowledges ASM the Army later ignores it when the marines show up. The Marines are even lighter and less survivable than the current Army. The CONOPS assumes mobility and the Army’s ability to stand toe to toe in a fight. I don’t see how this is possible with the current Army Force structure. Logistics including the short-legged armored force with its red hot tank engines detectable from LEO satellites is not addressed.
Features of the 2003 book were borrowed, but without the Joint Force Commands that must exist to integrate capabilities across service lines and without the battlegroups organized around ISR, STRIKE, MANEUVER and SUSTAINMENT that contain enough mobility, firepower, protection, striking power and logistics to be operationally independent in a dispersed battle space. Thus, MDB falls short in both conceptual depth and execution.
Doug Macgregor
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