U.S. Army needs to learn to adapt to changing tactics in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- The foundation of successful counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq includes the ability to get inside the enemy's decision cycle, that is, to act decisively before he does or respond to new enemy tactics with unique and timely countermeasures.

Prior to its deployment to Iraq, the 25th Infantry Division, supported by the Center for Army Lessons Learned located at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., launched the Rapid Adaptation Initiative, which is designed to capture critical information and reduce the time needed to disseminate it. It is bottom-up situational awareness shared horizontally across unit boundaries.

Individual and team insights and observations, derived from daily operations, are vital to the ability to defeat the enemy and establish rule of law, thereby permitting the creation of effective governmental institutions and economic development.

The Rapid Adaptation Initiative fosters a culture of collaboration and cooperation in which key information is pushed and pulled, leveraging the appropriate technology. It creates an environment in which good ideas are valued, regardless of the source, and where they are accessible without technological or traditional organizational barriers.

In this way, every soldier has the opportunity to become an innovator, and traditional military stovepipes inhibiting information-sharing are broken down.

The starting point for battlefield innovation is the generating, sharing and implementing of good ideas, first and foremost at those echelons close to where the fight is being conducted.

One of the best examples of battlefield innovation was the World War II "Rhino" tank, developed in the weeks following the Normandy invasion. The hedgerows of the Norman countryside presented a considerable tactical obstacle for American tanks. When the tank attempted to transit the thick hedgerow vegetation, it rode up and exposed its lightly armored underside to German anti-tank weapons or it simply became entangled and immobilized.

Explosives and other techniques were proposed and tested, all failing to breach the hedgerows effectively. It was Sgt. Curtis G. Culin of the 2nd Armored Division's 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron who implemented his unit's idea of attaching hedgerow cutter blades to the tank. This tank with tusks easily sliced through the hedgerows and contributed significantly to the breakout at Saint-Lo and the subsequent liberation of Paris.

The Rapid Adaptation Initiative is already generating new ideas from soldiers currently in the fight. Without a Sgt. Culin, however, those good ideas will never be implemented. The U.S. Army does not have a battlefield innovation program or, at best, it has an ad hoc and lengthy one.

If there is administrative rigidity or intellectual laziness at any point in the process from idea to deployment, that great idea will never see the light of day. All too often the military replaces serious thinking with the recycling of conventional wisdom and has a pervasive inability to distinguish between motion and progress. In the absence of an innovative mindset, nothing new will ever be developed.

The process of battlefield innovation is relatively simple: Generate lots of ideas, select the best, create a project team to design or plan, seek expert advice, test in a battlefield "lab," test in combat, and, if successful, deploy it. The standard operating procedure of sending the idea up through channels and back to the Pentagon bureaucracy for action is not unlike throwing it into quicksand.

Innovation, whether on the battlefield or off, is most dependent upon sustaining a steady stream of good ideas. Killers of idea-generation include ignoring or downplaying the importance of good ideas, not rewarding good ideas or not implementing good ideas in a timely manner.

Unfortunately, the military is often exceedingly effective at all of those.

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(Lawrence C. Sellin, Ph.D., is a U.S. Army reservist, an Afghanistan veteran and is currently serving in Iraq.)

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