Reshaping The Expeditionary Army To Win Decisively The Case For Greater Stabilization Capacity In The Modular Force

Today, the U.S. Army is decisively engaged in both fighting an unfamiliar type of war and transforming itself to meet the challenges of future warfare. But what are those challenges? What capabilities does U.S. strategy demand of its military instrument? Where are the major capability gaps, and how should they inform Army Transformation to ensure the future expeditionary Army has the right campaign qualities? This paper argues that the major capability gap in today's force - and vital for future campaigns - is the ability to conduct stabilization. It begins with exploring the changes in U.S. strategy that are the impetus behind the need for greater capacity to conduct post conflict stabilization and reconstruction. Then, it analyzes the emerging role of the Army in post-conflict operations in the context of modern combat to more fully understand the specific requirements of stabilization. The paper then develops an operational concept - progressive stabilization - that complements the Army's concept of rapid decisive operations while improving its ability to contribute to long-term conflict resolution. It outlines three key force attributes an expeditionary force structure must have to provide the requisite mix of combat and stabilization capabilities. Finally, this paper builds on those attributes to suggest three areas where Army leaders must make near-term adjustments in the Modular Force to ensure the nation has a truly expeditionary force with the campaign capacity for both rapid decisive operations and stabilization.

Today the U.S. Army is decisively engaged in both fighting an unfamiliar type of war and transforming itself to meet the challenges of future warfare. But what are those challenges? What capabilities does U.S. strategy demand of its military instrument? Where are the major capability gaps and how should they inform Army Transformation to ensure the future expeditionary Army has the right campaign qualities? This paper argues that the major capability gap in today's force - and vital for future campaigns - is the ability to conduct stabilization. It begins with exploring the changes in U.S. strategy that are the impetus behind the need for greater capacity to conduct post conflict stabilization and reconstruction. Then it analyzes the emerging role of the Army in post-conflict operations in the context of modern combat to more fully understand the specific requirements of stabilization. The paper then develops an operational concept - progressive stabilization - that complements the Army's concept of rapid decisive operations while improving its ability to contribute to long-term conflict resolution. Finally this paper outlines three key force attributes that must guide Army Transformation if it is to generate an expeditionary force with the campaign capacity for both rapid decisive operations and progressive stabilization.

In stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations like the U.S. mission in Iraq, negotiation is a common activity. The success or failure of the thousands of negotiations taking place daily between U.S. military officers and local civilian and military leaders in Iraq affects tactical and operational results and the U.S. military's ability to achieve American strategic objectives. By training its leaders, especially junior ones, to negotiate effectively, the U.S. military will be better prepared to succeed in the increasingly complex operations it is conducting--in Iraq as well as the ones it will face in the new strategic environment of the 21st century. This monograph analyzes the U.S. Army's current predeployment negotiation training and compares it with the negotiating experience of U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers deployed to Iraq. The author argues that successfully adapting to the nature of the contemporary operating environment requires changes that include increased training in negotiation. Based on interviews with U.S. officers, the author identifies three key elements of negotiation in SSTR operations and offers recommendations for U.S. soldiers to consider when negotiating with local Iraqi leaders; for U.S. military trainers to consider when reviewing their predeployment negotiation training curriculum; and for the Army and Marine Corps training and doctrine commands to consider when planning and structuring predeployment training.

During the early years of the Iraq War, the US Army was unable to translate initial combat success into strategic and political victory. Iraq plunged into a complex insurgency, and defeating this insurgency required beating highly adaptive foes. A competition between the hierarchical and vertically integrated army and networked and horizontally integrated insurgents ensued. The latter could quickly adapt and conduct networked operations in a decentralized fashion; the former was predisposed to fighting via prescriptive plans under a centralized command and control. To achieve success, the US Army went through a monumental process of organizational adaptation—a process driven by soldiers and leaders that spread throughout the institution and led to revolutionary changes in how the army supported and conducted its operations in Iraq. How the army adapted and the implications of this adaptation are the subject of this indispensable study. Intended for policymakers, defense and military professionals, military historians, and academics, this book offers a solid critique of the army’s current capacity to adapt to likely future adversary strategies and provides policy recommendations for retaining lessons learned in Iraq.

Organizations increasingly use temporary designs. Many temporary organizations are assembled by "mixing and matching" building blocks from static, bureaucratic, parent organizations into a temporary configuration. At the same time, such "mixed and matched" temporary organizations often operate under difficult and dangerous circumstances. During operations, these temporary organizations can experience numerous internal problems: ranging from friendly fire in a military context to budget and time issues in construction projects and problematic coordination in a crisis management context. This book develops insight into the relationship between a "mixing and matching" temporary design strategy and operational problems. To so do, military and crisis management contexts are systematically studied from a sociotechnical design perspective that emphasizes self-organization to develop organizational controllability. Operating Under High-Risk Conditions in Temporary Organizations demonstrates that a "mixing and matching" design strategy can be related to system failure. Furthermore, it is shown that a process of self-design emerged in which operators attempted to create ad-hoc networks for meaningful, safe and controllable operations. The analyses result in a model that shows mechanisms between characteristics of organizational design and controllability of operations. Not only does this model have relevance to the military and crisis management contexts, relevance is also demonstrated for a broader family of temporary organizations and application of sociotechnical network design theory.