Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 18

Army Operating Concept First Principles for Technological Development The Army works with joint partners, industry, allies, and other key stakeholders to develop future force capabilities with the following technological first principles in mind. ●● Emphasize integration of technology with soldiers and teams ●● Simplify systems and integrate soldier training into design ●● Maximize reliability and reduce life cycle costs ●● Design redundant systems that improve effectiveness under conditions of uncertainty ●● Develop systems that degrade gracefully ●● Maintain foundational knowledge to reduce the opportunity for surprise ●● Reduce logistical demands ●● Anticipate enemy countermeasures ●● Ensure interoperability ●● Consider scale and organizational implications Threats, Enemies, and Adversaries Diverse enemies will employ traditional, unconventional, and hybrid strategies to threaten U.S. security and vital interests. —The U.S. Army Operating Concept23 It is clear that Army leaders and units must be prepared to fight and win against state and nonstate actors. Due to what some have called the democratization of destructive power, nonstate actors, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Hezbollah possess capabilities previously associated only with the fielded forces of nation-states. For example, nonstate organizations have unprecedented financial resources and access to sophisticated weapons. Moreover, nation-states such as Russia and Iran employ unconventional proxy forces, often in combination with their own special operations or conventional forces. As the historian Conrad Crane has observed, there are two ways to fight the U.S. military—asymmetrically and stupid.24 Future enemies will not be passive; they will make every effort to avoid U.S. strengths, emulate advanced U.S. capabilities, and disrupt U.S. advantages. They will expand operations to other battlegrounds such as those of perception, political subversion, and criminality. 16 The AOC acknowledges the continuous interaction with enemies in war and the interaction with adversaries between wars. That interaction requires the Army to be a learning organization. When engaged with determined enemies, Army leaders “think ahead in time to gain and maintain positions of relative advantage over the enemy.” To defeat elusive and capable enemies, Army forces develop situational understanding through action in close contact with the enemy and civilian populations. In contrast to “rapid decisive operations,” Army forces are capable of sustaining high-tempo operations while consolidating gains to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative and achieve “lasting outcomes in the shortest time span.”25 Future Army forces extend the “concept of combined arms from two or more arms or elements of one service to include the application of joint, interorganizational, and multinational capabilities in the conduct of joint combined arms operations.”26 Technology The U.S. Army’s differential advantage over enemies derives, in part, from the integration of advanced technologies with skilled soldiers and well-trained teams. —The U.S. Army Operating Concept27 March-April 2015  MILITARY REVIEW