Transforming How We Fight: A Conceptual Approach

Abstract

This essay questions the wisdom of the current, almost exclusive focus on technology in discussions of transformation, arguing that it risks dooming US Armed Forces to expensive irrelevance and inconsequential lethality. We must explore intellectual and cultural components in determining how we will fight in the future, rather than merely concentrating on the tools we will use to fight. This essay will approach some cultural and intellectual components by proposing at set of warfighting tenets (decentralization, complexity, resilience, and tempo) that synthesize the enduring nature of war with contemporary technological realities. The key aspects of the enduring nature of war the essay addresses are: information is "essentially dispersed, war is Chaotic, combatants in war are complex adaptive systems, war is a nonlinear phenomenon, and war is uncertain True transformation, the essay concludes, will be measured not by the speed of our microchips, but by the effectiveness of our soldiers, leaders, and organizations in the next war.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 16, 2002
Accession Number
ADA406698

Entities

People

  • Christopher D. Kolenda

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Adaptive Systems
  • Air Power
  • Combat Areas
  • Command And Control
  • Complex Adaptive Systems
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Education
  • Human Behavior
  • Information Systems
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Nonlinear Dynamics
  • Organizational Structure
  • Psychology
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.