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The Russia-Ukraine war revealed something more intrinsic about a military: the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO).
www.defenseone.com
Look at the structure this way: The Commander is the thinker or the owner of the 'big picture' view, but it is the NCO who is the executor of the mission. Or rather, it SHOULD BE the NCO who ensure capabilities and readiness.
The problem is progress. Specifically, TECHNOLOGICAL progress. As wars gets more technologically sophisticated, inevitably, sophistication in tactics will match. One person, or one command position, cannot do everything. Delegation of authority is necessary. But in order for the unit to work with the delegation of authority, trust must be the foundation and with MOST of the world's militaries, that trust foundation either does not exist or exist in minimum quantity and quality. The problem is progress, but the root cause is trust, or lack thereof.
So which comes first? The trust or the corps? Do we extend the trust and hope that a body of soldiers will step up and become the professionals we need? Or do we create that corps THEN extend the trust? We need subject matter experts (SME) at the lowest possible levels and the commander cannot be expected to be everywhere and everything the unit need.
An example of that trust is the elevation of the NCO corps and its leaders. The US military has:
Sergeant Major of the Army
Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps
Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
These positions answers directly to the services' generals. Each chief is responsible for the general welfare of all the enlisted of their respective branch. Technically and legally, lieutenants can give any of them orders but practically, no one below the rank of colonels dares to do so. Each chief carries the authority of the general commanding officer of that branch, and if necessary, the NCO chief can even give orders to colonels and below. Not necessarily explicit orders but that of hint of what the general want when it comes to the welfare of the enlisted. The colonel can refuse the order but then soon enough the colonel would have to answer to someone wearing multiple stars.
It is difficult, if not outright impossible, for a force that uses conscription as a major source of manpower to have a highly entrusted NCO corps. Again, the root cause is trust. Conscripts have little motivation to show they can be trusted with authority and expert knowledge when they were forced into service in the first place.
In the end, it is in actual combat that the need for a professional NCO corps is most evident, and analyses of this Russia-Ukraine war will further reinforce that need.
NCOs: America Has Them, China Wants Them, Russia is Struggling Without Them
NCOs: America Has Them, China Wants Them, Russia is Struggling Without Them
Non-commissioned officers, long the “backbone” of the U.S. military, are proving even more crucial on modern battlefields.
www.defenseone.com
One reason the Russian military has struggled to win territory in Ukraine is its lack of a strong corps of non-commissioned officers, or NCOs, which are more crucial than ever to success on the modern battlefield, U.S. military officials and experts say.
In the American military, NCOs—enlisted servicemembers at or above the rank of Army and Marine corporal, Air Force staff sergeant, and Navy petty officer—are trusted experts who execute officers’ battlefield directions and take care of the troops. But while China is working to develop a corps of enlisted leaders, Russia seems stuck in an older model.
Look at the structure this way: The Commander is the thinker or the owner of the 'big picture' view, but it is the NCO who is the executor of the mission. Or rather, it SHOULD BE the NCO who ensure capabilities and readiness.
But others note that the Russian military has historically done reasonably well without a NCO corps. Michael Kofman, research program director at CNA’s Russian Studies Program, said that Russia and the Soviet Union have won wars in the past. In Ukraine, he said, the lack of an NCO corps is not the problem, but the top-down decision-making structure.
"That's why the Russian military is officer top-heavy. The officer corps handles all those issues that NCOs might,"
The problem is progress. Specifically, TECHNOLOGICAL progress. As wars gets more technologically sophisticated, inevitably, sophistication in tactics will match. One person, or one command position, cannot do everything. Delegation of authority is necessary. But in order for the unit to work with the delegation of authority, trust must be the foundation and with MOST of the world's militaries, that trust foundation either does not exist or exist in minimum quantity and quality. The problem is progress, but the root cause is trust, or lack thereof.
U.S. military services, by comparison, entrust leadership to NCOs. Mission command is pushed to the lowest possible rank, meaning that officers give objectives—for example, to seize a hill— and NCOs work out how to accomplish it, said Army Sgt. Maj. Jeremy Crisp, a spokesman at III Armored Corps at Fort Hood Texas.
So which comes first? The trust or the corps? Do we extend the trust and hope that a body of soldiers will step up and become the professionals we need? Or do we create that corps THEN extend the trust? We need subject matter experts (SME) at the lowest possible levels and the commander cannot be expected to be everywhere and everything the unit need.
An example of that trust is the elevation of the NCO corps and its leaders. The US military has:
Sergeant Major of the Army
Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps
Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
These positions answers directly to the services' generals. Each chief is responsible for the general welfare of all the enlisted of their respective branch. Technically and legally, lieutenants can give any of them orders but practically, no one below the rank of colonels dares to do so. Each chief carries the authority of the general commanding officer of that branch, and if necessary, the NCO chief can even give orders to colonels and below. Not necessarily explicit orders but that of hint of what the general want when it comes to the welfare of the enlisted. The colonel can refuse the order but then soon enough the colonel would have to answer to someone wearing multiple stars.
In the late 1990s, China established its first program to develop a professional NCO corps, but it has not been working out as well as they had hoped, according to Finkelstein. In 2013, China’s Communist Party decided they needed to “perfect the non-commissioned officer system,” he said. “So they understand that they've got some issues.”
The PLA is a mixed force of conscripts and volunteers, Finkelstein said. A conscript may elect to join the regular army and go to a school to become an NCO.
“But it’s not exactly clear how the system is working for them,” Finkelstein said. “But they're very attuned to the fact that they've got to do better, because as they aspire to fight the type of high-tech, multidomain campaigns that they envision, they know that they have got to push authorities down to the lowest level… And pushing authority down to the lowest possible tactical level is really anathema to the PLA culture, where they have a very vertical and stove-piped command-and-control system.”
It is difficult, if not outright impossible, for a force that uses conscription as a major source of manpower to have a highly entrusted NCO corps. Again, the root cause is trust. Conscripts have little motivation to show they can be trusted with authority and expert knowledge when they were forced into service in the first place.
In the end, it is in actual combat that the need for a professional NCO corps is most evident, and analyses of this Russia-Ukraine war will further reinforce that need.
