General Staff (Barrayar)
Contents
General Staff
The General Staff of the Imperial Military Service is the military staff of the Imperial Service of the Barrayaran Imperium. It is the central organ of the Service administration and oversees operational management of the forces under the High Command. The Imperial Military Service has both a General Staff and and a separate staff for each formation.
The staff is organized by functions, with each directorate and operating agency overseeing an area. Working with the staffs of each of the services, the Operations Command drafts plans for strategic operations for the High Command. When the headquarters of the High Command approves the plans, the General Staff issues them to operational commanders as High Command directives. The General Staff Academy is responsible for training officers for the General Staff. The Chief of the General Staff is appointed by the Emperor, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The current Chief of the General Staff is General Lord Nikolai Pierre Vordarian. The General Staff is always a relatively small, but elite body. Only few officers are permanently assigned to the General Staff, described in official returns as "of the General Staff" at any time; most were attached to the General Staff from their parent units, although usually for several years at a time, and are listed as "on the General Staff.
When the General Staff is required to take the field during major campaigns, it remains a small but effective body: in such occasions, the General Staff is divided between the central General Staff and the general staff reinforcements to formations staffs. The Chief of the General Staff and is also the technical superior of all general staff officers.
General Staff is located in Vorbarr Sultana on Pobeda Avenue in the Military District, at the Imperial Service Headquarters.
Chief of the General Staff
The Chief of the General Staff (CGS) is the most senior member of the Imperial Service, and performs secretary functions at the High Command meetings, having primary responsibility for command, control, and administration of the forces, as well as military strategy, plans, and requirements. The position is held by a senior active duty officer of the Imperial Service.
The Chief of the General Staff follows in rank only the Emperor as Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Military Service, who appoints the CGS and is the person from whom the CGS receives his orders.
The CGS is charged with four main priorities, each having multiple sub-priorities: the first is to conduct operations; secondly, the CGS is expected to expand the regular and reserve forces to meet requirements. The third task is to implement the national defence strategy as outlined by the Emperor. Lastly, the CGS must enhance the Service's programme delivery while optimising the use of resources.
Operations command
The Operations command (GS-OPCOM) is the General Staff branch which applies the planning the operations for the projected manoeuvring forces' provisions, services, training, and administrative functions—to allow them to commence, insert, then egress from combat. The Operations command plays a major role in the projection of military forces, planning and coordinating operations, and all things necessary to enable the formation to operate and accomplish its mission. Its major function is to be responsible in the allocating of resources and determining time requirements. It is combined with other General Staff sections to achieve its primary principles in employment of the military forces and matériels to meet specific missions.
Operations Command second main function is following and supporting live, real time military activities carrying out military missions, by real-time engaging in activities carrying out military missions.
0 The Operations Command in Vorbarr Sultana involves operations at the uppermost level of command. This involves training, inspecting and planning for the entire Barrayaran military, including the fleet as well as ground forces.
Chief of Operations of the Imperial Service
The Chief of Operations (COO) of the Imperial Service is one of the highest-ranking officers in the Imperial Service. The COO is responsible for the daily operation of the Service, and routinely reports to the Chief of the General Staff.
The primary role of the COO is routinely one of operations management: the COO is responsible for ensuring that military operations are efficient and effective and that the proper management of resources, distribution of goods and services and analysis of queue systems is conducted. At the direction of the Chief of the General Staff, the Chief of Operations marshals limited resources to the most essential uses with the aim of creating maximum efficiency, develops and cascades the planned strategy to the lower-ranking staff and implements appropriate recognition and corrective practices to align personnel with decided goals.
The Chief of Operations of the Imperial Service is the head of the Operations Command, and is assisted by the standard high-officers staff. The COO is always a full General or an Admiral.
Strategic Operational Command
The Strategic Operational Command (GS-OPCOM-SOC) is the Operations Command branch through which the Imperial Service prepares plans and directs the operations as well as exercises and related activities. The command develops methodologies for the simulation of strategic and operational scenarios, analyses the activities drawing from teachings and develops corrective measures. The Command contributes to the overall planning military operational doctrine develops, maintains and manages the operational planning joint operations and exercises.
The SOC is headed by a Lieutenant General or a Vice Admiral, includes a Deputy Commander and is articulated on a staff, headed by a Major General or a Rear Admiral, and on three Departments each headed by a Brigadier General or Commodore.
Directorate of Military Administration
The Directorate of Military Administration ensures funding entities employees, through the availability of funds credited to, and the day of reckoning and related performs the functions of legal and administrative nature in relation to the plan of the Imperial Service. The Directorate is also responsible for the administrative control of action against employees of entities, either through inspections, both in the review of acts of management. In addition, it performs operations for the closing balance of the special accounts, in respect of each financial year.
Special Operations Bureau
The Special Operations Bureau is the Operations Command subdivision charged with overseeing the various Special Forces. The Special Operations Bureau conducts several covert and clandestine missions, such as direct action, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, foreign internal defence, unconventional warfare, psychological warfare and civil affairs operations.
SOB main branch is the Analysis Section, which is charged to study special operations requirements and techniques to ensure interoperability and equipment standardization, plan and conduct special operations exercises and training, and develop tactics.
From an organizational point of view, the command of Bureau is a second-level general/flag officer post, but it is often entrusted to a Lieutenant General or to a Vice Admiral.
Internal organization
The General Staff is organized in order to support primarily the Chief of General Staff in its coordinating duty. Formally all major command staffs are sections of General Staff, although they ordinarily enjoy a full operational autonomy.
- Chief of General Staff Office
- Operations Command Liaison Office at Chief of General Staff Office
- Imperial Security Liaison Office at Chief of General Staff Office
- General Affairs
- Legal Affairs
- 1st Directorate (Armaments): Liaison with defence industry/military-industrial complex
- 2nd Directorate (Motor Vehicles): Supervision of maintenance and modernization of non-combat vehicles
- 3rd Directorate (Armour): supervision of maintenance and modernization of combat vehicles
- 4th Directorate (Artillery): supervision of maintenance and modernization of weapons
- 5th Directorate (Billeting and Maintenance): Maintenance and operation of military facilities and barracks; supervision of funding and resources for new military construction
- 6th Directorate (Personnel): Management of careers and regulations.
- Cadres: Management of careers of professional military officers and warrant officers
- Personnel Division: Management of enlisted personnel
- 7th Directorate (Construction Industry): Supervision of classified construction projects.
- 8th Directorate (Education): Education and training of cadres and specialists
- 9th Directorate (Foreign Relations): Direction of military aid programs and military attachés
- 10th Directorate (Foreign Trade): Foreign military sales and acquisitions
- 11th Directorate (Military Counter-intelligence): Directorate of Military Intelligence Service
- Information security: protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction.
- Service Command
- Intelligence Operations Centre
- Service Command
- Defence Counter intelligence and HUMINT Directorate
- Directorate for Information Management
- Directorate for MASINT and Technical Collection
- Directorate of Analysis
- Directorate for Intelligence, General Staff
- Training Centre
- 12th Directorate - Operations: Development and dissemination of mobilization plans for national emergencies and war
- 13th Directorate: Nuclear weapons
- 14th Directorate: Biological weapons
Staffs and Operations offices
In most units, the operations office is the largest of the staff sections and considered the most important. All aspects of sustaining the unit's operations, planning future operations, and additionally planning and executing all unit training, fall under the responsibility of operations. The operations office is also tasked with keeping track of the weekly training schedules. In military units the operations officer, carries the same rank as the executive officer (XO), but would obviously rank third in the unit's chain of command.
The chief of staff of a formation in the field has the right to disagree, in writing, with the plans or orders of the commander of the formation, and appeal to the commander of the next highest formation, which might ultimately be the Emperor, who is guided by the Chief of the General Staff. This serves as a check on incompetence and also serves for the objecting officer to officially disassociate himself with a flawed plan. Only the most stubborn commanders do not give way after this warning. Often the commander of a large formation is himself a member of the General Staff.
Social and political implications
From a broader point of view, the General Staff it is the bastion of Barrayaran militarism and its officers form a unique military fraternity: their exhaustive training was designed not only to weed out the less motivated or less able candidates, but also to produce a body of professional military experts with common methods and outlook, and an almost monastic dedication to their profession. General Staff–qualified officers alternate between line and staff duties but would remain lifelong members of the central organization. The General Staff itself had a powerful effect on Barrayaran politics.
