The Essential 4GW reading list: Donald Vandergriff

In the world of military theory today there are many people on the cutting edge deserving our attention. Historians like Martin van Creveld, analysts like John Robb and Chet Richards, visionaries like Thomas Barnett, some crossing these categories like William Lind … but very few developing solutions that can be implemented today. By solutions, I mean large-scale programs (not incremental improvements) requiring no substantial political or institutional changes. Not a surprise, as this is a high bar!

One of the best known on this short list is Donald E. Vandergriff. Major, US Army. Retired 2005, now a consultant to the Army. Go here for a full biography.

He identified a powerful point of leverage to change our massive military apparatus: its personnel system. For example, the army’s individual replacement system affects not just soldiers, down to the newest recruit, but the quality of units — especially cohesion . Even more critical is the process by which a service recruits, trains, and promotes its officers. Change this and the effects ripple outward through the entire organization over time, as the nature and behavior of its leaders evolve. And the Army is making changes in both these areas, responding to the ideas of Vandergriff and others. This success means that Vandergriff is on the cutting edge of America’s 4GW sword.

4GW appears to be the dominant form of war in this century. Our history since the Korean War — especially Vietnam, 9-11, and Iraq — suggest that we have not yet learned 4GW, either defensively or offensively. Doing so might be one of our critical national tasks, perhaps necessary for survival.

Vandergriff’s online sites

His blog.

His website.

Here are links to his shorter available on the internet   

Please send links for anything not listed to fabmaximus at hotmail dot com {this is the spam-protected form of the address, to fool bots}.

1. Culture Wars, a chapter in Digital War: A View from the Frontline, editor R. Bateman (1999)
2. Careers and Cohesion for Effective 21st Century Leadership (June 1999)
3. The Revolution in Human Affairs (October 2000)
4. Unit manning will benefit the many (23 July 2003)
5. The Spectre of Taylorism (2004)
6. Lessons Learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom (20 Jan 2004)
7. Army Personnel Transformation: Achieving “Parallel Evolution” (10 March 2004)
8. People, Not Weapons, Are The Key to Transformation, Defensewatch (10 April 2005)
9. Presentation of material from his book Raising the Bar (17 April 2005)
10. The Future Personel System: Evolution is always plug and play(3 June 2005) — 3.12 meg PPT
11. From Swift to Swiss: Tactical decision games and their place in military education and performance improvement, Performance Improvement (17 Aug 2006) - subscription or purchase only.
12. Old Dogs and New Tricks: Setting the Tone For Adaptability, Vandergriff and George Reed (Col, USA, rtd), ARMY (August 2007)
13. Old Dogs Teaching New Tricks: the Adaptive Leaders Course — Part I, ARMY (November 2007)
14. Old Dogs Teaching New Tricks: the Adaptive Leaders Course — Part II, ARMY (December 2007)
15. “Is Warfighting Enough?” by Vandergriff and Chet Richards (Colonel, USAF, retired), Marine Corps Gazette (February 2008) — subscription required

Archive of his articles at Military.com, from 2003 - 2005.

Books by Donald Vandergriff:

• Spirit, Blood and Treasure (Editor) (2001) — DNI Review.
• The Path to Victory: America’s Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs(2002) — DNI review.
• Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War (2006) — DNI review.
• Army of the Republic: Manning the Legions and Finding and Preparing Future Centurions — scheduled for publication in 2008.

Other posts about Vandergriff

1. Recommended reading: transforming the Army, the hard way  (15 January 2008)
2. Recommendation to read: “Is Warfighting Enough” by Richards and Vandergriff  (25 January 2008)
3. 4GW: A solution of the third kind  (24 March 2008)

Other chapters in this series:

• The Essential 4GW reading list: chapter One, Martin van Creveld
• The Essential 4GW reading list: chapter 3, David Kilcullen

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