Undue Emphasis of the Army #Operating Concept
Undue Emphasis of the Army #Operating Concept by Krisjand Rothweiler, The Bridge
The Army Operating Concept (AOC) at the outset seeks to answer three big questions: What level of war will the concept address, what will be the operating environment and what is the problem that needs solving? The AOC then goes on to answer this in the preface and beyond with some examples that seem to miss the mark on both scope and nature of the environment as it pertains to the Army itself. After addressing many of the human aspects of conflict, the AOC starts looking at the technologies it might need in the future to wage war and build partners. While that is fine for external readers of the document, it leaves little comfort to the soldiers now serving that “big Army,” nor does it address the cost of service to the man or how to address this in order to continue the full-alert status the AOC seems to prepare for.
When discussing the environment, it would be appropriate to include the aspects impacting both friendly forces and threat. Yet from the outset, and continually through the document, the AOC seems to misunderstand the Army it addresses, particularly regarding the aspect of organizational culture. If the Army – an institution of people, not systems – is going to plan for the future of warfare, it has to understand itself today. In several instances, the AOC addresses human and intellectual attributes (creative thought and initiative, p. 5; the Army’s ability to establish a military government, p. 8; use of cognitive sciences, p. 13) that are seemingly inconsistent with the current culture of the Army (at the aggregate) and can only be truly developed with significant cultural shift…
