The Army doesn’t know of course what the worldwide environment will appear to be around 2030, but it’s likely going to should conduct operations then when called upon to take action.
To prepare for that point, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command conducted a Unified Quest Deep Futures Wargame at Carlisle Barracks, Pa., Sept. 16-20, 2013.
The wargame takes predictions in regards to the future strategic environment, from insights that come from the National Intelligence Council 2030 study and other sources, including the Army’s own studies, and uses that environment because the foundation for 2 teams to independently wargame the similar fictional futures scenario.
While the longer term strategic environment is something nobody could be one hundred pc sure of, the Army’s wargame works on a futures model predicted by means of 40 geostrategic, military, science, and technology trends.
Included in futures predictions are the results of expanding nation states, non-state actors that come with groups like Hezbollah and al Qaeda, non-government agencies or even large global corporations. Also included in futures predictions are the results of climate change, shifting demographics, urbanization, information, and technological trends, said Maj. Gen. Bill Hicks, deputy director, Army Capabilities Integration Center.
“What you notice with regards to the surroundings — for that reason interconnection, that’s also reflected within the globalized nature of our society and the increasing technological dependence of world society — [are] events unfolding more quickly,” Hicks said. “You see the second one- and third-order effects of these events impacting on a much wider scale with regards to having a world impact. That drives us to think about how can we influence those events at speed — arrest their acceleration, control those events and take a look at to revive to a point of stability a place that has gone ’tilt,’ in the event you will.”
One team all for the wargame was equipped as today’s Army, because it is programmed to be in 2030. The alternative team is supplied with “things which are possible but not yet programmed into the military,” Hicks said.
“One of the results of the more technologically enabled force is they can respond within the game more rapidly,” Hicks said. “They can cut the time in half, or perhaps two-thirds. It allows the political leadership to reply very rapidly to something that’s happening in no time. If the development can also be responded to over an extended time period, what we’re really doing is giving the president, the secretary and others more political space to move.”
While both teams worked in the course of the challenges of a theoretical conflict greater than 17 years sooner or later, and every used a distinct capability set, they were capable of develop insights into how today’s Army can better prepare for an uncertain future.
This wargame, Hicks said, specializes in two operational issues; a type of is the “imperative of speed.” Key findings of the emerging operating environment is the “momentum of human interaction.” Hicks said featuring the data that may be amassed, and the tips that may be shared by people by utilizing technology, in addition to the flexibility to arrange and take action.
“That momentum is something we see accelerating into the longer term, if you want to compress the verdict space of our political leadership, and could drive the imperative for Army forces with a view to reply to it and influence events on the speed at which they occur,” Hicks said. “This creates options both militarily, and, potentially, we must always be ready to provide more decision space back to our political leadership.”
New operational approaches also are a focal point within the wargame, he said, apart from “revisiting” old ones.
“Non-linear operations, corresponding to what we saw after we conducted Just Cause in Panama, is something we’re gazing,” he said. “How can we try this on a more routine basis against various different challenges?”
The outcome of a wargame similar to the only conducted at Carlisle Barracks is the power to aid Army senior leadership of today chart a neater course for the military of tomorrow. Right away, Hicks said, the military is spinning down from being an operational Army to at least one that’s preparing, or making ready for the following fight. He said being prepared means being ready for a higher fight, and it also means laying the groundwork today so one can help a military sooner or later be able to fight.
“There are a few things we are able to impact today that we’ll see the consequences of in 2030 and 2040,” Hicks said. “The senior leaders of the military in 2030-2040 are inside the Army today. So we have to study what are the consequences and the things that we have to start doing today with the officers and non-commissioned officers that we’ve got, to begin educating them through the years, so that they are prepared to accommodate that environment.”
Hicks also said the military can start thinking now about what sorts of Soldiers it’ll need to fight in a future environment; what forms of Soldiers it’ll need to recruit today and within the near future, with a purpose to have a capable Army in 2030.
In addition to personnel issues, the military should also lay the groundwork today to make sure the long run Army has the tools and technology it’ll need. Hicks said that doesn’t necessarily mean buying new equipment today, or spelling out exactly what sorts of weapons are going to be needed. Instead, it means ensuring the military remains committed to robust science and technology development.
“[It’s] not predicting the systems the long run force will need, but seeking to ensure we’re focusing our science and technology investments today in order that within the mid-2020s, those leaders have more options to attract from as they reshape the force for that decade,” Hicks said.
While a “deep futures” wargame can’t truly predict what the strategic environment will seem like, Hicks said already the military knows some things it should talk about to be more prepared for the uncertainty it really is going to come back.
“It is to our advantage to be more desirous about the international environment, working mil-to-mil relationships, enabling diplomatic, economic and data activities around the globe, attracting partners, reassuring allies, creating deterrent structures to preserve some extent of balance strategically, after which through all those activities being postured to reply when that strategic balance is upset,” he said.
The goal of the Unified Quest Deep Futures Wargame, Hicks said, is to “inform decisions today that allows you to create options for tomorrow.”
The wargame will generate some “insights,” he said, that may be delivered to Chief of Staff of the military Gen. Ray Odierno, to higher inform him on decisions he’s going to make now to be certain the military is also successful sooner or later.
“What we will do is bring him some insights and help him concentrate on the results of this deep future, which really isn’t that far-off; to notify his thinking on where he must invest,” Hicks said.
Those investments one day mean the best technology and the proper sorts of people, Hicks said.
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