David Brooks thinks so.
Five years ago, the United States Army was one sort of organization, with a certain mentality. Today, it is a different organization, with a different mentality. It has been transformed in the virtual flash of an eye, and the story of that transformation is fascinating for anybody interested in the flow of ideas.
Brooks is writing about the emergence of counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, godfathered by General David Petraeus. I agree this is an important development, even that it should be celebrated, but I have some questions...
More at The Christian Science Monitor.
Comments
I suppose it depends on what you are looking at. As far as uniforms, clearly we are innovative....far too much so.
But innovative as an organization executing its primary mission, no & yes. Even though we hate to hear it from others, until 11 Sep 2001 we were guilty of the "that's the way we've always done it" syndrome. Despite the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of viable non-state threats/ actors throughout the 80s and 90s, we persisted in training as we had always done at our CTCs.....whether it was the Cortinians, Parumphians, AGMB, Reg Recon, etc, etc, we "fought" as we had always done so.
Then again, the development of the Stryker vehicles, the discussion during the 90s about tailored brigades....plug-n-play units.....and the relatively quick innovations the Army made during the course of our current conflict (plug-n-play divisions, MTTs, BCTs) indicate that we can innovate if pushed, and even if we don't do so on a large scale, many influential types keep such discussions alive which I think lends itself to quick application during times of "crises".
How's that for a non-answer?
Not to be a jerk, but the title of this thread made me laugh out loud. No, the army isn't innovative. It punishes innovation. I had a boss tell me straight-out to stop forwarding the "Powerpoint is the Enemy" articles because I was pissing people off.
More to the point of the article, Kane is correct...COIN was not an innovation, and the COINistas have not brought tablets down from Mount Sinai...it's more like they've rediscovered a long-forgotten Greek steam engine. While it's great we've re-looked the concept, it isn't new. (And it certainly isn't the "graduate level of warfare.")
Another great point he makes: our most brilliant, innovative minds are indeed leaving the service. They are leaving because their bosses are not protecting them (anybody reminded of Gen Mattis' quote about protecting free thinkers, from the Slate article?) from the bureaucrats. They are also leaving because they're forced from rewarding positions thanks to the "Up or Out" policy.