by yoshi » Mon Apr 16, 2012 7:22 pm
Sum1 -
1) Fist, I don't believe cost savings are a defineable benefit where competence and acumen are involved. You get what you pay for. Why do we have specialized doctors and engineers when it would be cheaper to merge them into larger, more general groups? Second, where is the duplicate effort and redundant expertise in these communities? I know I don't know jack crap about how to be a METOC officer, IP, or Intel. Maybe I'm just not that good. I don't see any redundancy between these communities, excpet for perhaps at some staff commands. 2) What makes the IDC community special (if we are competing for promotion and billet opportunities, we are one community, not four). What would the IDC make its focus and purpose? Whatever the answer, in order to incorporate all aspects of IDC into one community, the result would necessarily be broader and less specific than it is now. You can't dive deeper if you have less oxygen (time available) and more places to see (billets).
Finally, I believe the "initial ambiguity" you describe below is more accurately captured as "don't have a freaking clue". Frankly, there is no track model for officers to follow. There never was, and the move to IDC as one community pretty much ensures all ideas of certain career tracks inside of each individual community as they exist now are finished. That would be way too narrow a focus to be of benefit to the larger IDC, and it would be against the idea of bringing well-rounded experience to the leadeship of the IDC.
Wolfpack -
I agree - the IDC should notionally be a potential benefit to the careers of many quality. However, in order for all of the IDC's mainstay efforts to be represented and properly maintained, IDC leadership must have a solid understanding and broad experience level. So, at some point, the jobs people hold becomes as important as their level of quality. Also, can anyone tell me how we measure our quality people? It isn't FITREPs, we all know that. Again, it should be good for the savvy IW officer and for those who have a clue. Its interesting to see the way you feel about FY12-13 versus 13-14. I actually believe they should do it as soon as possible. I mean, if we are going to do it, let's get it on. If it takes us two years to figure the how and why, we obviously don't have a clue how we should proceed. The question which then presents itself to all sage people is then: why did we decide to do this without a defined way forward? The answer isn't very flattering.
Supported versus supporting-
You're right, an IDC person (or a Human Resources peron, or anyone, really) could theoretically be a supported warfare commander, except that as long as you are restricted line, you won't be. That's the way it is. To my knowledge, no one has officially made the case to the URL community defining why we need that authority to execute our assigned mission. Our fleet mission is to provide I&W and answer the Commander's PIRs. So, who is supporting who is abundantly clear. Personally, before we levy 20 JOs to figure out how to make the case for being supported, I would prefer we tackle the tougher issues of figuring out why our SSES divos can't get their kids to the F schools, why the CRCs and staffs don't hammer them in message traffic about, why CID isn't fixed to accomodate the needed throughput, and why we can't seem to figure out the roles and responsibilities for our organizations. It kind of pisses me off that we put off fixing problems such these in favor of chasing some URL pipe dream. I got no problem being URL, but for Christ sake's, be realistic. I've had this conversation with a few folks before, and it seems pretty much divided between C10f folks and folks with multiple sea tours. If we are on a platform that is ordered to move somewhere in order to accomodate what we do, we believe we are being supported. The URL reality is that what we would do in such a situation is their mission, and they are charged with executing it with their personnel (us). Anyone who has written a BMR can tell you what name goes in the From line. Its not the IW Officer's organization. Why does information dominance need to further mature into a "warfare area"? We, as the IW community, don't even have our own NTAs - we have to borrow Intel's and cram anything new under EW. Let's get ourselves figured out and the basics fixed; then we can worry about what beastly warfighters we are.
I am under the assumption IDC will be one comunity, particuarly as we will be competing in one category and for the same billets. Not sure how else it could be defined. If others are of a different opinion regarding a loss of techincal competence, this is a non-starter and not really worth discussing. Maybe a few pointed questions about SIGINT/CYBER to the next Army officer you meet (other than those at the mothership) would change some opinions.