The U.S. Army Grapples With a Basic Question: What is Our Operating Concept?
The U.S. Army Grapples With a Basic Question: What is Our Operating Concept? By Thomas E. Ricks, Foreign Policy
That's a good question, and one that the Army is trying hard to answer.
Overall, the new document, released in its final form on Tuesday, is very good, especially if you read it as an aspirational statement of what the Army should become, rather than a prescription for how it is going to become that. It is much clearer than most bureaucratic prose, and that is good to see. It is a document produced by thinkers, not bureaucratic munchkins.
As I picked it up, I was eager to see what it had to say about innovative and adaptive leaders, because I hear the Army say that it needs such people, but I don't see much action backing up the rhetoric. I kept on wondering as I began reading the first pages. I started to worry when on page 10 I saw that, "Understanding the technological, geographic, political, and military challenges of the urban environment will require innovative, adaptive leaders and cohesive teams who thrive in complex and uncertain environments." That's a good head nod. But the next sentence pivots off to "Operating in urban environments will require decentralized combined arms and joint capabilities." Which left me wondering, great, but how to get such leaders? …