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<TITLE>Admiral Leighton W. Smith...Muddy Boots Planning for Crisis
Management</TITLE>
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<CENTER><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+4">Muddy Boots Planning for
Crisis Management</FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+3">Admiral Leighton W. Smith</FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><I><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+2">Commander-in-Chief
Allied Forces Southern Europe</FONT></FONT></I></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">THE PROBLEMS OF
CRISIS-MANAGEMENT PLANNING TODAY</FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">Since I have been asked to
discuss Muddy Boots planning for crisis management, I will first observe
that nothing is easy about crisis-management planning today. In the past,
you could start with an existing plan, and then update it. Force
structures were committed, you could count on consensus at the political
level, and the locations of the battles were known. Now, you start in
effect with a blank sheet of paper and must develop an operation plan of
no less than 1,500 pages, 9 supporting plans, 24 annexes, and about 5
quick-reaction options.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">In order to do this--and in all
probability without adequate political guidance--you must first determine
for yourself the desired political end-state in order to craft a mission
statement. For Muddy Boots, the model I will discuss, it is not even
absolutely clear that the only end-state is withdrawal, although that was
the plan. You must develop a list of things that you assume will happen in
conjunction with the plan, and the conditions under which you assume you
will operate. You must articulate a commander's intent. Then, you have to
develop that base plan and all the supporting documents, annexes, and
fragmentary orders. You must put together a command-and-control
arrangement the likes of which no reader has ever seen and hopefully will
never have to work with.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">Now, when you move a battle
staff forward into a military operation, you must not forget that the
store has to remain open back at the home base. As the Commander-in-Chief
Allied Forces Southern Europe, I can never abandon the headquarters in
Naples or forget about what goes on in Southern Europe; I must continue
that operation, which is absolutely essential in supporting the forward
operation. So I need two staffs: a deployable battle staff, if you will,
and a staff that remains home to do everything that must be done there.
This is an assumed command structure. Yet for Muddy Boots, this structure
has not been agreed to, either by the people I will be dealing with at the
U.N. or at the political level within NATO; so this too is a problem.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">As you develop command
arrangements, you must try to give the best military advice you can and
then go forward with what you have. After making your assumptions and
putting together your command-and-control arrangements, you must prepare a
flow plan. A flow plan is probably our biggest problem, because it
contains a system of matrices (indicating where and how forces will be
dispersed) that would cover the entire front wall of a very large room.
You cannot suddenly beam forces and the infrastructure to support them
into an out of area location where no infrastructure has ever been
developed for NATO operations. The infrastructure must be put in place
first. This is a very, very important concept, one that I believe has been
lost in many cases with respect to NATO planning.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">Also, if we are going to operate
out of area, planning must include the very carefully sequenced placement
of an infrastructure that will support troops not only logistically but
with robust communication assets and engineers. Unfortunately, our model
for placing forces out of area is sometimes referred to as the Southwest
Asia model. In Southwest Asia, we had very large port facilities, very
large runways, and excellent road systems. If we go into the former
Yugoslavia, on the other hand, we will have two ports, one airport, and
two roads--not exactly what I would call a robust system.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">Another problem in out of area
planning comes from the learning process. Anyone who learned how to
develop plans has a fairly clear idea of how plans should be developed.
First, there must be clear political guidance up-front to explain the
mission. Then, the mission becomes militarized through an operations
order. Finally, the headquarters in charge acts to do what is required to
implement the operations order. Yet, in the real world, things do not
happen that way. In the past, the member-states were bound by a single
political objective: we had a common threat, and the availability of
forces and resources was generally not a problem. Today, our forces are
diminishing (and if they diminish much further, we will be in real
trouble); consensus is never a given--you must fight for it; there are no
standing plans, and in virtually everything you do regarding
crisis-management planning, you are plowing new ground. Every situation is
different and must be treated as such. In our model, and probably in many
crisis situations in the future, we are dealing with at least two
political bodies, neither of which is bound by the decisions of the
others. That is a real problem for those in charge of writing the plan,
because each of those political bodies has a different view of how the
operation should be run, who should pay for it, and who should be in
charge.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">THE NEED FOR INCREASED
STAFF AND TRAINING</FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">As SACEUR General Joulwan
mentioned, we have a diminishing number of people on our staff. I called
upon my colleagues, CINCENT and CINCAFNW, to give me some help, and they
did when we put this plan together. Today, our staff is 25% smaller than
it was during the Cold War, but we are doing 300% more work. And it is not
going to get any easier. Because crisis planning is done in addition to
all our other tasks, our staffs will have to be augmented.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">A key issue in any kind of
crisis management concerns up-front training. Although we have had some
training, we have not trained to determine whether the operation is
viable. We have only been able to train at the key-leader level. This
training included a three-day seminar in January during which the key
leaders of this plan got together with me and established ownership of the
plan. They heard my concerns, I heard theirs, and we were able to
integrate our thoughts and come out with a much better plan. What followed
next was staff training for battle, something that we have not done in the
past. After working on the plan, we decided to hold an exercise to see if
the plan worked. The intent of battle-staff training is not to put stress
on the plan but to put stress on your staff.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">Finally, I would add that crisis
management is a whole new ball game because of what I call the CNN factor.
One would be surprised at what becomes important in crisis management
these days. During a big war, for example, the taking of one or two
hostages or one or two aircraft flying across a border would not be
significant. Today such events are a very, very big deal.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">CONCLUDING REMARKS</FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">If I could leave you with one
message, it would be that Muddy Boots planning for crisis management is a
very new process that we have not yet perfected, despite the fact that we
are all working at it through exercises and training. This process will be
new every single time we engage in it. It is also an educating process,
not only for those of us who are conducting the planning but also for our
staffs who are going through it. Finally, it is a process of sending plans
forward for approval at the political level, and we are in the midst of
that right now.</FONT></FONT> </P>
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