Professional Case for Force Management

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There is an unglamorous side of the ... which requires your personal attention--that of managing the Army. --Secretary of the Frank Pace, 1952 Officers arrive at the Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) with years of great operational experience in the tactical Army. Due to the command- and tactical-driven nature of professional development, many students are concerned about how to succeed as a battalion executive officer, as an operations officer, or in a similar key developmental position, rather than focusing on skills to be successful in nonoperational assignments. Because of this mind-set, many officers miss the point that CGSOC is designed to provide them with basic knowledge in all pertinent subjects, enabling them to succeed during the remainder of their field grade careers--careers that will be mostly be spent supporting senior leaders in making important decisions that have considerable consequences for the future of the Army. Unfortunately, these officers fail to realize the importance of nonoperational topics and show little interest in the one subject they will use most in their future:force management. These officers are very smart individuals, but they generally only see the from their company-grade tactical experiences, and they have little exposure to force management in their early careers. This is because much of force management is executed at the operational and strategic levels. Additionally, there has been little recent effort to include force management in unit-level professional development because of higher priorities caused by operational rotations. The force-management process is the primary means of ensuring that the secretary of the and the staff meet the requirements set forth by Congress. Title 10 of the U.S. Code states that the secretary of the is responsible for carrying out the functions of the Department of the so as to fulfill the current and future operational requirements of the unified and specified combatant (1) It also states that the responsibility of the staff is to prepare for such employment of the and for such, recruiting, organizing, supplying, equipping, training, servicing, mobilizing/demobilizing, and maintaining of the Army (2) Department of Defense-assigned missions and combatant commander requirements to meet wartime needs are the two factors that drive the to develop a sufficient force to satisfy both within the context of the operational environment and utilizing available resources. Arguably, the vast majority of the effort of the staff and major commands is directly related to force management--the business side of the Army. management, in simplest terms, is the process of providing the most capable within available resources by generating forces and providing operational units to combatant commanders in support of national objectives. (3) The has changed significantly throughout its history while meeting the Nation's needs, but the requirement for effective force management has remained a constant. From muskets to M4 rifles, horses to tanks, and balloons to unmanned aerial vehicles, leadership has developed and managed the through these changes. Majors today have lived the effects of force-management decisions such as the Grow the Force initiative, modularity, and nearly constant equipment fielding and distribution, but most do not know or understand the processes that affect change in the Army. (4) And, the future portends even more change. Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee in 2014, then Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno outlined impacts on the force based on maintaining the balance between readiness, personnel, and modernization. (5) Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 6-22, Leadership, states, Competent leadership implies managing change, adapting, and making it work for the entire team. …