Junior Leaders in Age of Experimentation

Junior Leaders in Age of Experimentation by MAJ Adam Nodin Why should anyone outside of Army Futures Command bother thinking about the future of innovation and technology? Battalions and compa nies hardly have enough time to squeeze in a good training event, they can barely keep up with new equipment being fielded, and they can’t get rid of the old stuff fast enough. The property books are a mess, and junior leaders struggle to find time to train their troops. Anyone who has ever been fielded the new Enhanced Night Vision Gog gle-Binocular (ENVG-B) or a PUMA unmanned aircraft system can attest to their utility on the battlefield, but those technologies did not arrive by accident. Their concepts were metic ulously researched, designed by teams of scientists and soldiers, and went through rigorous testing before landing on any company command er’s property books. As the character of war evolves at the pace of techno logical advancement, and without a raging war to spur technological ad vancement, the Army is investing in the Army Futures Command’s Project Convergence. Experimentation will be key to the Army’s ability to evolve with new concepts and technologies, to adapt to those changes, and to in tegrate devices and systems to win on the next battlefield. The fundamentals of fire and maneu ver and the force’s ability to adapt to a changing landscape will always be important, still everyone must re member that technological advance ments are not unique to the United States – its adversaries are adopting their own experimentation programs to aggressively compete on a global scale. Therefore, the United States’ lead as the world superpower is be ing contested. All said, the fundamentals of soldier ing will likely stay un-touched. Very few envision a terminator-like land scape with clashing drones, while the humans remain hidden from sight. Wars will be fought, and won, with people, and those people need to be trained to close with and destroy their enemy. Training this force will be increasingly complex, and leaders need to not only understand their role in training lethality to fight to night, but also embrace the require ments to be relevant tomorrow. Imagine the maneuver company commanders of 2040. For the most part, they look like the company commanders of today: physically fit, Ranger qualified and trained to jump out of an airplane. They wear body armor adorned with fighting tools, are bogged down by an array of wires, batteries, and antennas, and carry a rifle that is likely still the 6.8mm Next Generation Squad Weapon that is presently being field ed. The main difference is their ac cess to information. They’ll probably carry an advanced version of Inte grated Tactical Network (ITN) that gives them portable data and voice communications transport to both over-the-horizon nodes and shorter-range networks. A device that resem bles a cell phone on their chest will give them access to sensors, shoot ers, and command and control cen ters in their network. With the sup port of artificial intelligence (AI) soft ware, they’ll be able to communicate their company’s situation more effi ciently and contribute to the genera tion of offensive and defensive ac tions. The company’s structure will look much the same as today except for a larger headquarters platoon to manage a small fleet of drones and offensive cyber and communications specialists. Consider the stature of the Army in which those company commanders serve, possibly as much as 20 years removed from counterinsurgency and full-scale combat operations. Years of successful competition and deterrence could keep threats to the United States and its allies in check. Thanks to the degradation of Russia in Ukraine, the shrinking of a Chinese work force, and economic and do mestic pressure on North Korea and Iran, the typical big four adversaries might not cross the threshold of armed conflict. Heavy investment in strengthening partnerships and alli ances, and a nimble counter-terror ism force might keep threats on the homeland manageable. Despite oc casional Immediate Response Force deployments for noncombatant evac uation operations in unstable states across the Baltics and Africa, the low demand on the U.S. Army’s divisions would allow its experimentation cul ture to accelerate. Since technology tends to advance most rapidly during combat operations, the absence of armed conflict will necessitate the focus on rigorous, deliberate military development. The challenges of managing an effective training plan would be complicated by the consis tent introduction of new equipment or experiments to refine the under standing of the battlefield of 2060. If war breaks out in 2040, those com pany commanders’ roles will look much like todays, though the charac ter of war will look different. Their primary mission will still be to close with and destroy the enemy in close combat. A multi-dimension battle field will be second nature to those companies. They’ll be well-versed in signals collection and disruption, likely have the means to launch limit ed cyber-attacks on local objectives, and they will be able to deploy ground and air unmanned systems. Their enemy will have the same ca pabilities. Should these company commanders find themselves being the objective of an enemy attack, their advanced communications, drones, and cyber weapons could be disabled or dis rupted, meaning their ability to fight in an analog environment will be im portant for survival. The training and attention they put into the funda mental fighting skills that are cher ished today will still be the root of their success on a future battlefield. 38 Fall 2023

Ultimately, the force that can survive in a contested environment, protect its advanced capabilities, and mass all its power in a narrow window of opportunity will win the day. What is experimentation? Experimentation is ubiquitous in most Army formations, and it allows leaders to learn what they don’t al ready know. What exactly is experi mentation? This might sound like an easy answer. Many took high school chemistry and remembered the reac tion when baking soda was mixed with vinegar. But many might not re member what made that event an experiment. After all, the reaction of the mixture is well-known and unsur prising. Most likely, the teacher had the students write a hypothesis – I believe that adding vinegar to baking soda will create a fizz in the solution. A controlled environment was likely prepared for the experiment that in cluded a clean classroom, a graduat ed cylinder, or a scale for measuring the variables, and a sterile glass cyl inder to mix everything together. The students repeat the experiment us ing different amounts of the vari ables or by adding additional vari ables like water or food coloring. Stu dents probably recorded the size of the initial reaction as the control, then measured the size of the reac tion when different amounts of the variables were added. Finally, over time, the experimenters not only an swered their hypothesis, but also learned the exact ratios of vinegar and baking soda required to make the biggest reaction, the speed that they must be added, and how non reactive ingredients like water affect the reaction. The Department of Defense (DoD) defines experimentation as “testing a hypothesis, under measured condi tions, to explore unknown effects of manipulating proposed warfighting concepts, technologies or condi tions.” It is not an end, but a tool to explore unknown relationships and outcomes that result from new dis ruptive technologies and concepts, new applications of existing capabili ties or emerging threats.1 Experimen tation is more about learning what isn’t known or understood rather than proving what already exists. In recent years, an evolution in indi vidual soldier technology landed in the hands of some of the most junior combat arms troops. Some examples include ITN, a brick-style radio that utilizes both FM and cellular net works to transport voice and data through a relay-style mesh network; ENVG-B, the dual-tube, thermal-en abled night vision devices that incor porate picture in picture views of the user’s geo-position and weapon op tic and can be linked to the ITN; and the Infantry Squad Vehicle, a vehicle that can rapidly transport a nine-per son squad without the cumbersome weight of armor and large-caliber weapons. These enhancements are a result of experimentation, prototyp ing, and assessment. They went through years of development, with stood the durability tests of the De fense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and were tested by Soldiers at numerous stages called Soldier touch points before fielding. Through the research and development cycle, these products tangentially informed the capabilities of the future force. Innovation breeds more innovation, and that is the power of experimen tation. Army Futures Command Conceptualizing the future battle field through the lens of today’s technology. Army Futures Command is already researching the challenges, capability gaps, and requirements that must be overcome to achieve the future operating concept. It is a multi-domain effort, and artificial in telligence and machine learning are at the forefront to accelerate prob lem-solving. A key objective is to build networks from powerful pro cessors that can digest data from sensors of any service, provide ac tionable information to a designated command node, distribute an effects solution to available systems, and in form a logistical action for resupply or maintenance. Multinational partners and the joint services make up a portion of the so lution since the United States will rely heavily on others for things like penetration, mobilization and basing in any conflict. It might sound like the problem is not necessarily revolutionary, and many might be surprised the U.S. military doesn’t already have such a system. Unfortunately, the U.S. mili tary’s focus for the last 20 years has been based on defeating a shape-shifting adversary – the ideological foot soldiers of various terrorist net works in the Middle East who used their ability to vanish within the local population as their primary means of survival. From the 1980s through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. mili tary focused on platforms to give it the competitive and lethal edge on the battlefield.2 Some of the plat forms that gave U.S. troops a tactical advantage in the Middle East includ ed the Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Pro tectant vehicles, the 155mm M777 Howitzer, the Javelin anti-armor mis sile, the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), and the AH-64 Apache Helicopter. Key defen sive platforms include the C-RAM (Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mor tar) and the Patriot missile system. All these platforms brought much-needed technological leaps to the battlefield, but none revolutionized the character of war. These platforms often showcased a major enhancement of an old prob lem, but lacked an improvement to the Decide, Detect, Deliver, Assess (D3A)3 targeting process, sometimes referred to as the kill chain or kill web.4 The M777 or HIMARS brought longer-range precision fires and the Apache brought advanced targeting, but a human was still required for much of the targeting process. Hu mans are required to determine if a target observed through an Apache’s Forward-Looking Infrared is friend or foe, to decide the best munition to attack the target, and consider whether that target could be passed to a different platform (such as a howitzer), so the Apache could pre serve its ammunition for deeper tar gets. Should this tactical scenario play out on a current battlefield, a cumbersome process of verbal com munications would fill the radio net 39 Fall 2023 to precisely describe the problem. Then, the information would get translated into an Advanced Field Ar tillery Data System to determine if the target is in range before sending a message to the gun line to prose cute. A well-trained team might take minutes before a commander would be able to approve the plan. Iterated dozens of times per day, the conse quence translates to fuel burn and exposure for the Apache, mental fa tigue for the staff, and potential tem porary reduction in situational awareness for the commander. The Army Futures Command’s Proj ect Convergence is focused on con ceptualizing the design of the future force through an experimentation plan to pursue and integrate the technology and capabilities needed to dominate a future conflict. Every two years, the Army Futures Com mand holds its Capstone event (for merly called Project Convergence). Industry partners such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir join Army research and development teams and active Army units to test the force’s ability to fight on a con ceptualized future battlefield. Special operations troops, naval fleets, fight er aircraft, Marines, Space and Mis sile Defense, and Army troops along with international partners such as the United Kingdom and Australia at tempt to link their sensors, shooters, and command and control nodes to reduce the time of the D3A process in complex scenarios. Drone swarms, ballistic missile bar rages, unmanned vehicles, and cy ber-attacks are typical problems that complicate the network during this experiment. A difficult balance of imagination, probability, and tech nology takes place in a six-week con ceptualization of the future company commander’s battlefield to identify shortcomings and gaps that must be addressed. At a very high level, the Army Fu tures Command, the Army service component commands (ASCC), and even the Army corps are hosting ex periments with consequential re sults. Aside from Capstone, the Fu tures and Concepts Center, a three-star directorate within Army Futures Command, designs experiments within annual training events held by U.S. Army Pacific and U.S. Army Eu rope and Africa. Not only are these experiments tailored to a particular region, but they also harness the thoughts and knowledge of Soldiers who live outside the continental United States, actively participate in partner force operations, and are fo cused on deterring and defeating a specific adversary. The data taken from these experiments inevitably feeds future experiments, including Capstone, as well as smaller-scale ex periments hosted by the Army’s warfighting functions. A solution to link the existing and new platforms to cut down on the D3A process to speed target prosecu tion in narrow opportunity windows will be the means to dominate the next battlefield. Advances in process ing power, software, and algorithms are leading to computation solutions to improve a leader’s ability to make decisions based on impossible vol umes of data. In turn, computer-as sisted command and control means decisions can be made faster, orders can be distributed and synchronized more rapidly, and precision effects can be delivered to multiple targets at a much higher rate. Those future company commanders will be in the throes of this high-in tensity and fast-moving kill chain. Their companies will collect data through their sensors, refine unclear data, or act on data collected by oth er sensors. The information they transmit or act on will lead to deci sions that will be computed in milli seconds, and the pace of their battle field will move far faster than today. Unlike many other military innova tions, these advances are occurring off the battlefield in digital labs and in experiments like Capstone. How innovations intersect with junior Soldiers The junior leaders of today will have to embrace technological develop ments to be relevant on the battle field of tomorrow. Without question, the higher-level focus on experimen tation is important to the Army as a force, but it does not overhaul what tactical-level leaders need to think about day-to-day. Army Futures Com mand is experimenting with solving problems at the three-star, joint task force level. Ballistic missiles, deep sensing, drone swarms, and multidomain operations are common themes at that level. At the tactical edge, Soldiers still need to be com petent at their core skills of fire and maneuver. Leaders should embrace opportunities to participate in exper iments, be mindful of ways to inno vate within their own formations, and to become experts with, and provide feedback for, newly fielded equipment. Company leaders today have an im portant responsibility in bridging the counterinsurgency force with the multi-domain force. The future bat tlefield will have drones, hypersonic missiles, a mind-blowing network ar chitecture, and Soldiers. With a 10 to 20-year time horizon for implemen tation, the transition will take root slowly. In that time, Soldiers and leaders will be subjected to testing and training with new equipment. Technology will continue to advance in and out of the DoD sphere, and there will be several force design up dates. Soldiers from across the force are often requested to take part in these experiments where they are mixed with industry leaders, scien tists, and innovators to test proto types and inform concepts. Their participation and feedback provide steering guidance for those shaping the force’s understanding of the character of warfare. Soldiers are natural innovators and experimenters, and formations should, when practical, take oppor tunities to learn from each other. There isn’t an Infantry or Armor Sol dier who isn’t the beneficiary of a good tactic, technique, or procedure (TTP) that will never be found in any Army publication. Often these TTPs are honed by an individual or group striving to make their lives a little better. Finding the best position for a maga zine pouch for shooting from the prone position or the best antenna setup to use for a dismounted radio or a smart way to quickly establish 40 Fall 2023 voice communications after a com bat equipment static line jump are all examples of these experiments that resulted in a useful TTP. Often the proprietor of these TTPs isn’t sure if they’re going to like a particular con figuration, but they experiment in a training environment and decide if it works for them. Often a squad leader or team leader will make his or her team follow the same TTPs, begin ning a micro-propagation of an ex periment that will inevitably be re fined by those who use it. The more our leaders can nurture this culture, the better our formations will be at applying critical reasoning when test ing and evaluating new equipment. In pursuit of furthering its under standing of the next battlefield, training exercises would add another flavor of conceptualized warfare that underscore the value of adaptive leaders. For echelons above brigade at the combat training centers, in warfighter exercises, and in regional ly aligned ASCC exercises, experi ments will be integrated into training events. They will incorporate con cepts and prototypes of yet-to-be fielded technologies and capabilities, and Soldiers across the force will be subject to far-fetched ideas that, seemingly, have no chance of becom ing reality. Those company com manders will likely find themselves navigating the complexities of tech nology dependency, adapting their formations to new technology, and training their companies to fight aus tere – without battery power and ra dio waves. Collectively, the force’s ability to rapidly assimilate new ca pabilities into its arsenal and scale their usage at the exact right mo ments might become a critical com petency. Leaders in brigades do not need to make a hard pivot toward innovation, especially given the challenges al ready on their plate, but they do need to be prepared to adopt and as similate new innovations within their ranks. For starters, individual skill competency should be the highest priority at the lowest level. Amateurs train to get the task right; professionals train until they can’t get the task wrong.5 New technology and equipment will not replace the requirement for Soldiers to be ex perts at their craft. With technology comes new burdens, such as a heavy dependency on batteries and more devices that transmit and receive communication signals. Adversaries will have capabilities to detect signal communications, and batteries will almost always be a commodity. Chi na, for instance, is the world’s largest manufacturer of battery-grade Lithi um,6 meaning digital technology can not replace fighting with analog sys tems. Soldiers will always need to live, and be expected to succeed, in analog environments. Innovation does not reduce the importance of field craft and core competencies, and forma tions will have to learn to be effec tive in all conditions. Putting it all together The Army is deliberately planning for a fast-paced, integrated, a tech nologically assisted future battle field. Therefore, today’s junior lead ers will be the catalysts of that high ly sophisticated Army. Predicting the future is almost impossible, especial ly when it comes to uncertainty in geopolitical tensions, economics, and the strength of a nation’s fighting force. Trends and patterns provide indications and clues to what the fu ture might look like, but nothing is for certain. Despite these challenges, Army Futures Command is making a well-educated estimate of the threats the Army will face in the next two to three decades. As such, Proj ect Convergence is the professional, scientific, and war-focused process to continuously refine understanding of the future, while simultaneously learning through experimentation. Soldiers from across the Army will be in increased demand to support such experiments, and their participation should be embraced as on opportu nity to inform development rather than as a hinderance to training. More importantly, today’s leaders are in the best position to train the generation of leaders ahead of them since tech-enabled decision making will already be part of the Army they join. With a new reliance on digital warfare, tactical leaders’ greatest challenge will be keeping their troops focused on individual warfighting skills to fight, and survive, until they reach a window of opportunity to strike. MAJ Adam Nordin works in the Exper imentation, Synchronization and Re sourcing Division (G35); Future Con cepts and Capabilities Directorate; U.S. Army Futures Command, Fort Eustis, VA. His previous assignments include brigade S-3; 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division; company com mander, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Reg iment. MAJ Nordin military schools in clude Ranger School and Jumpmaster School. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY; and a master’s of arts de gree in defense strategic Studies from U.S. Naval War College. Notes 1 Department of Defense. 2021. Experi mentation Guidebook, Version 2.0. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. 2 Brose, Christian. 2020. The Kill Chain. Hachette Books. 3 Department of the Army. ATP 3-60, Tar geting, 2015, Washington, D.C. 4 Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-09, Joint Fire Support, Suffolk, VA, 2019, Joint Force Development, J7. 5 No citation, but it is known to circulate many of the combat arms communities within the Joint Special Operations Com mand. 6 Chang, Agnes, and Keith Bradsher. “Can the World Make an Electric Car Battery Without China?” New York Times, May 16, 2023. Acronym Quick-Scan AI – artificial intelligence ASCC – Army service component commands D3A – Decide, Detect, Deliver, Assess DoD – Department of Defense ENVG-B – Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular HIMARS – High Mobility Artillery Rocket System ITN – Integrated Tactical Network TTP – tactics, techniques, and procedures 41 Fall 2023