Relevance of the British Army
“We must also make the assumption that the British Army indeed all elements of Defence of the future must remain relevant. By relevant I mean several things. I mean that we must have capabilities that are highly likely to be needed and used in the foreseeable future. We need relevant capabilities so that we can both intervene, and contribute to stabilisation. I also mean that we must be relevant to our Allies, and bring the kind of capabilities that they need.“
To meet this challenge, a clear Land Force Model is needed to help describe the design problem in terms that soldiers and industry can understand and in a form that can be used to implement the vision of the British Army's senior leadership. This process should take a “holistic” view of a military Land Force that includes operational use cases, organisation, networks, people and systems. These elements are common to all Land Forces.
People are at the centre of this model and are the most important part of any Army. People decide when and how to engage the enemy and provide the Army with adaptability, flexibility and unpredictability on the battlefield to defeat an adversary who is working hard to foil one's plans. The Land Force becomes more effective by adequately incorporating people into organisations with communication networks and systems optimised to conduct military operations. Land Force operations include manoeuvre, intelligence, effects, logistics, surveillance, security, military assistance, stabilisation and humanitarian aid.
The Land Force Model provides a clear framework on which to define organisations, people, network and system solutions that might be used to achieve these missions. Every operation can be mapped in terms of organisation, people, networks and systems. Trades and optimisations can be made to define a modular force that can accomplish the effective mix of major combat and stabilisation operations to suit the operational environment and the manner in which the British Army prefers to operate. The future vision of the British Army can begin to take shape and define itself in terms of capabilities that can be improved or acquired. The starting point for this process could be based on how the British Army does business today rather than on some future concept that has not been battle proven.
However, visualising the Land Force Design problem in terms of the Land Force model is not enough. One has to understand the dependencies between organisations, people, networks and systems in order to provide insights into Land Force design solutions that are “fit for purpose”, optimise human decision making and interaction, apply efficient use of joint and coalition force and can be accomplished within resource constraints. General Dannatt provides the following quotes to give further guidance and insights into these issues.
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Major Combat Operations and Stabilisation Operations
“I have heard during our debate that we should think about structuring and equipping ourselves for either Major Combat Ops or for Stabilisation Ops, when of course the reality is that the line between them will be extremely imprecise. Even these definitions are too precise. There is an entire spectrum between on the one hand, traditional 'empty battlespace' warfighting and, on the other hand, terrorism, with a vast array of irregular activities in between. The problem is identifying exactly what type of conflict we face at any one moment in time. And to make it even more complex these activities may be either sequential or simultaneous.”
Nature of Expeditionary Operations
“Although we must maintain our ability to be expeditionary, the Army is moving away from the short lived doctrine that all campaigns can be short in duration. “Go First, Go Fast, Go Home” had a very short shelf life as a policy aspiration. We must have an increasing capacity to endure, which implies not only greater mass of people, but enough depth in joint enablers to allow wider concurrency together with greater endurance.”
The interactions and dependencies within the Land Force must satisfy General Dannatt's concerns and provide a flexible, adaptable and sustainable expeditionary land capability. This means that simulation and experimentation will be needed to determine how organisation, people, networks and systems come together to accomplish major combat operations with the ability to flex to the long term challenge of stabilisation operations. What are the concept of operations required? What training needs to be conducted with soldiers before they are deployed? And which mix of network and systems allow soldiers to best perform their duties? These are complex issues that can be accomplished through an infinite combination of organisational relationships, force structure, soldier skills, network capability, data architecture and equipment solutions, but which combination is “correct” for the British Army?
Due to the complexity of the Land Force Design problem, a “systems think” approach (the use of a systems approach to solve problems) is needed to identify solutions. The Land Force Design problem is considered a “wicked problem” where there are no optimal solutions, only “good”, “good enough” and “bad” ones. Wicked problems can be solved through examining the interactions and dependencies of its key elements through the use of questions and answer that attempt to drive out the critical behaviours of the problem. Therefore, examining each group of dependencies within the Land Force Model allows one to examine what “works” and what does “not work” for the British Army in its future vision of land operations.
Three key groups of dependencies can be examined in order to answer these questions. These are listed below in the following diagrams. The goal is to answer the questions as they apply to the British Army's vision. |
