The Army has set out its Campaign of Learning for 2013, and calls it America’s Next First Battles, which involves developing a land force for 2020 and examining what preparation is needed for the far future of 2030-2040.
The campaign references America’s First Battles, 1776-1965, a book that looks at the first battles of war and how they might have shaped the rest of the conflict from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam. The next first battle idea is to explore the influences on that very first battle and then to ensure the service is prepared for what comes next.
Army Training and Doctrine Command will lead the Campaign of Learning work, led by its Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC). The command will use a variety of seminars and wargames, studies, experiments and examining science and technology.
“At the next first battle we’ve got to get it right, we can’t afford to get it too wrong,” said Col. Kevin Felix, chief, Future Warfare Division, ARCIC.
“In the past, where transitions have not been good and we got it wrong, it cost us in lives,” Felix said in an interview. Examples would be the World War II Army battle at the Kasserine Pass in North Africa, and the LZ X-Ray battle in Vietnam’s Ia Drang Valley.
These were costly first battles, so the Army in this transition period has the responsibility to understand the experiences of the past and mistakes that were made and to learn from them, he said.
As another example, Felix pointed to Air-Land Battle, an ideas and doctrine of the past, which helped the Army focus on the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Now, Felix said, there’s not just one thing to focus on, it is many things.
Throughout 2013, the campaign will explore ideas, develop concepts, and welcome ideas from sister services, interagency and joint partners, and the community of practice in the Army.
“We want to make sure we have all the right voices in the room to get formations, doctrine, leader development, all the DOTMIL implications addressed,” he said. “We can’t afford to lose.”
Looking into the deep future, at the first battle after next around 2030 and beyond, Felix said they would take a look at where the world is going, examining strategic and geopolitical trends and technology–thinking unconstrained by budgets
The transition and future force must be operationally adaptable, he said.
The ability to adapt is vital for moving from the conflict focused force of today to the capable 2020 Army dealing with complex operating environment.
The increasing pace of change means adaptation is critical, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed in speaking of the joint force on Sept. 20.
“We’ve got to be quicker on our feet, and we’ve got to be more willing to make changes,” Dempsey said at the first Gen. Bernard W. Rogers Strategic Issues Forum here, sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army.
As the Campaign of Learning progresses, it will use Unified Quest, the Army chief of staff’s annual Title 10 future study plan.
Last year’s Campaign of Learning and Unified Quest focused on what the Army must do and how the Army fights, to challenge the ideas, concepts and required capabilities within the Army Capstone Concept and the Army Operating Concept. The results and insights helped inform Army leadership decisions in preparation for the Army for 2020 and beyond.
The 2013 Army Campaign of Learning 2013 will build upon the insights from 2012.
Unified Quest 2013 will focus on two efforts: one to help develop the Army of 2020 the other to explore the deep future of 2030-2040 through the ideas and concepts of America’s Next First Battles and, for 2030-2040, First Battles after Next.
Two seminar wargames will explore how well the central ideas of operational adaptability and integrated distributed operations enable the Army to accomplish its missions and tasks in the future operational environment.
In addition, experiments will move Army 2020 initiatives to the operating force for further examination in a corps warfighter exercise.
During his speech Dempsey said about 80 of the capabilities of Joint Force 2020 already exist. “It’s that other 20 percent that I want to focus our attention on,” he said. “In so doing, if we can get that 20 percent to be dramatically different and allow that to wash back over the other 80 percent, then the whole force becomes better.”
The Army must not only focus its efforts toward the current national security strategy, incorporate the hard lessons of more than a decade at war, but also look to the future. The Campaign of Learning allows the Army to do this.