Praxis: More from The Trainer on 4GW.

After I posted "Fourth Generation Warfare (NOT for Dummies)" below, The Trainer sent me this:

Along those lines, to help our group get more in line with 4GW & MW concepts & principles, I've excerpted some highlights from the Marine's FMFM-1 (Draft) 9/2008 on Light Infantry Training & Ops. These guide us as we develop and conduct our training.

Highlights from USMC FMFM-1 (Draft) 9 Sep 08

As applied to __________ Training


Concepts:

• The light infantryman characterizes himself by his mental resourcefulness and physical toughness.

• Hard physical training convinces members that they are able to overcome the most difficult situations that combat could present.

• LI do not feel defeated when surrounded, isolated or confronted by superior forces. They are able to perform their duties for long periods of time without any type of comfort or logistical support, obtaining what they need from the land or the enemy.

• LI are neither physically nor psychologically tied to the rear (supply trains or ‘secure areas’) by the necessity to maintain open lines of communication. This attitude of self-confidence provides LI a great psychological advantage over its enemies.

• LI employs a decentralized command philosophy and at a high tempo. An unpredictable ambush mentality and reluctance to follow a specified method is the essence of LI. This ambush mentality generates other secondary, but distinctive, characteristics. Among them are the ability and speed with which LI adapts to the terrain in which it operates.

• LI exploits adverse environmental conditions by turning terrain roughness to its advantage, using the terrain as a shield, a weapon and a source of supplies at the same time. As a result, LI has an incomparable superiority in those terrains that restrict Regular or Line Infantry operations (especially mechanized and armored forces), usually allowing it to face and defeat larger and better equipped enemy forces.

• This gives LI a distinctive operational versatility, being able to operate alone in restricted terrain or in a symbiotic relationship with line units. Light infantry easily adapts itself to all types of operations, and faces the natural evolution of war with no need to modify substantially the way it operates. This characteristic determines that LI is the only type of force able successfully to counter the challenge imposed by the current transition toward the Fourth Generation of War.

Command & Control (C2):

• LI operations require both commanders and subordinates to perform their duties in a highly decentralized environment.

• Command requires the wide use of mission-type orders, in which the commander’s intent provides guidance that enables subordinates to exercise initiative and make decisions in the absence of detailed orders.

• LI Command & Control relies on top-down vision, low-level planning, and decentralized decision-making allowing timely and effective response to the changing and chaotic situations that are usually faced in combat, enabling them to maintain a faster tempo than the enemy and get inside his OODA loop.

• Light infantry’s decentralized C2 is not feasible without quality leaders at all levels, especially at the lower levels.

• Leaders share the same shortages and hardships with their men and lead their teams from the front.

Training:

• Goal: Build teams able to operate in small, often separated, groups in a decentralized environment and under unfavorable conditions of terrain, weather and friendly and/or enemy situations for long periods of time.

• To achieve the goal, all personnel, regardless of age, rank, or time in service, must undergo the same training.

• Top Priority: Develop a LI mindset. To do this, training must be heavily oriented toward free-play field exercises, performed in the most austere conditions possible; with the balance set between a good learning environment and strict absence of any kind of comfort for the troops.

• Training must also include a rigorous professional reading program to develop the intellectual side of the LI. A good program will focus on enhancing critical and integrative thinking capabilities, encouraging initiative, and developing the required professional judgment to support LI leaders’ decentralized decision-making.

• The ability to conduct long, fast, demanding foot marches between engagements is a trademark of LI. If mindset is LI’s main weapon, its legs are real combat multipliers. However, also integrate other skills that light infantrymen must show in the field, such as land navigation, combat first aid, close combat, etc.

• Development in mastery in arms throughout all members. All LI must be able to employ and maintain all of their units’ weapons effectively; training should also ensure proficiency in enemy weapons’ handling and the ability to drive all kind of vehicles.

• Training will include the development of superb fieldcraft and camouflage, the ability to construct and breach simple obstacles, and survive in all type of restrictive terrain.