Doctrine. The Army rightfully views itself as “doctrine-based.” In the 1970s and 1980s, doctrine was the engine that transformed the post-Vietnam Army into the victor of our post-Cold War engagements. That doctrine, however, reflected the strategic environment dominated by a singular adversary, and an opposing army in symmetric contrast to our own. Although the challenge of developing doctrine for a joint and expeditionary environment is different, it is no less essential.

In any era, doctrine links theory, history, experimentation, and practice. It encapsulates a much larger body of knowledge and experience, providing an authoritative statement about how military forces do business and a common lexicon with which to describe it. As it has evolved since the Cold War, Army doctrine portrays military operations as a seamless and dynamic combination of offense, defense, stability, and support. Now we must extend it to address enemies who deliberately eschew predictable operating patterns.

To deal with such asymmetric opponents, doctrine must reflect the associated uncertainties. Uncertainty is in some measure inseparable from the nature of warfare. Asymmetry merely increases it. Doctrine cannot predict the precise nature and form of asymmetric engagements, but it can forecast the kinds of knowledge and organizational qualities necessary to cope with them.

Such a doctrine, however, cannot simply prescribe solutions. Rather, it must furnish the intellectual tools with which to diagnose unexpected requirements, and a menu of practical options founded in experience from which leaders can create their own solutions quickly and effectively. Its objective must be to foster initiative and creative thinking. Such a doctrine is more playbook than textbook, and like any playbook, it is merely a gateway to decision, not a roadmap.

The U.S. military enjoys an immense array of capabilities that are useless if we overlook their prerequisites and limitations. Doctrine can help frame those capabilities in context, while not prescribing their rigid application in any given case. A doctrine intended for our emerging strategic context must underwrite flexible thought and action, and thereby assure the most creative exploitation of our own asymmetric advantages. It must also account for the inherently joint character of all Army operations.

Most important in today’s environment, doctrine must acknowledge the adaptive nature of a thinking, willful opponent and avoid both prediction and prescription. It is not the role of doctrine to predict how an adversary will behave. Rather, its function is to enable us to recognize that behavior, understand its vulnerabilities and our own, and suggest ways of exploiting the former and diminishing the latter. It will be useful only to the extent that experience confirms it, and its continuous review and timely amendment therefore is essential.

Materiel. Materiel development is a special challenge for an army at war, because we must not only anticipate and address future needs, we must meet pressing current demands. There is, however, a constant first priority: equipping the individual Soldier. In the past, the Army reserved the best individual equipment for units most likely to fight; in an expeditionary army, one cannot forecast such units. Every deployed Soldier needs the best individual equipment available. In an expeditionary environment, moreover, we can no longer continue to treat equipment as permanently owned by the units to which it is assigned. In a rotation-based force, equipment ownership will be the exception. We will increasingly separate Soldiers from their carriers and equipment, tailoring the materiel mix for the mission at hand.

Being most amenable to adaptability, speed, and flexibility, aviation assets will be key to an expeditionary force. The lessons learned after two-and-a-half years of war have provided our Army the opportunity to reassess near-term aviation requirements. We will fundamentally restructure our aviation program to ensure the entire Army aviation fleet remains a key tool of maneuver, with better command-and-control connectivity, manned-unmanned teaming, extended operational reach, and all-weather capability.

Equally vital is the continued development of more rapidly deployable fighting platforms. The Future Combat System (FCS) remains the materiel centerpiece of the Army’s commitment to become more expeditionary, and will go far to reconciling deployability with sustainable combat power. We will remain a hybrid force for the foreseeable future, and we will seek ways to improve the deployability of the platforms we already own.

Meanwhile, neither current platforms nor the FCS will satisfy expeditionary requirements without significant improvement in the ability to develop actionable intelligence and increase communications bandwidth at corps level and below. The Army, together with the joint community, must relentlessly address the architectures, protocols, and systems of a redundant, nonterrestrial network capable of providing the focused bandwidth necessary to support mobile Battle Command and joint Blue Force tracking. Lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom continue to highlight the successes and potential of network-enabled operations. The operational advantages of shared situational awareness, enhanced speed of command, and the ability of forces to self-synchronize are powerful. In this light, we must change the paradigm in which we talk and think about the network; we must fight rather than manage the network, and operators must see themselves as engaged at all times, ensuring the health and operation of this critical weapons system.

Logistics. The Cold War Army designed its logistical structure for operations in developed theaters with access to an extensive host-nation infrastructure. Expeditionary operations promise neither. Simultaneity and complexity compound the eternal constraints of decreased time, vast distances, and limited resources, creating a pressing demand for a logistics system that capitalizes on service interdependencies. We must operationally link logistics support to maneuver in order to produce desired operational outcomes. We will only realize such “effects-based logistics capability” when all services fully embrace joint logistics, eliminate gaps in logistics functions, and reduce overlapping support. We require a distribution-based sustainment system that provides end-to-end visibility of and control over force-support operations; one that incorporates by design the versatility to shift logistical support smoothly among multiple lines of operation and rapidly changing support requirements.

At the tactical level, that means eliminating today’s layered support structure, instead bridging the distance from theater or regional support commands to brigade combat teams with modular, distribution-based capabilities packages. We intend to use the resources from current-day corps and division support commands (COSCOMs and DISCOMs) to create joint-capable Army Deployment and Sustainment Commands (ADSCs). These ADSCs will be capable of serving as the foundation for a joint logistics command and control element at the Joint Task Force (JTF), and capable also of simultaneously executing the full range of complex operations—from theater port opening to employment and sustainment—required in the emerging operational environment.

Finally, it is clear that the physical security traditionally associated with the rearward location of logistical facilities no longer can be assumed. On today’s battlefields and tomorrow’s, we must make explicit provision for the protection of logistical installations and the lines of communication joining them to combat formations. And the Soldiers conducting sustainment operations must be armed, trained, and psychologically prepared to fight as well as support.

Installations. Installations are an integral part of the deployed force from home station to the foxhole. Operational deployments and rotational assignments across the globe mean installation capabilities will transcend more traditional expeditionary support requirements associated with mobilizing, deploying, and sustaining the force. More than a jump point for projecting forces, installations serve a fundamental role in minimizing their footprint through robust connectivity and capacity to fully support reach-back operations.

Installation facilities must readily adapt to changing mission support needs, spiraling technology, and rapid equipment fielding. Installation connectivity must also support en route mission planning and situational awareness. Education and family support will use the same installation mission support connectivity to sustain the morale and emotional needs of our Soldiers and their families. next>>>