Beyond the Battlefield: Institutional Army Transformation Following Victory in Iraq

Abstract : The Army goes to great lengths to capture lessons learned and preserve these lessons for current practitioners and future generations. Though the Army is one of the most self-critical organizations found in American society, it has earned a well-deserved reputation for failing to inculcate those lessons by transforming the institutional Army. Change is achieved through a continuous cycle of adaptive innovation, experimentation, and experience. In Iraq, out of necessity while in contact with a dynamic enemy, the Army transformed on the battlefield with radical changes in doctrine, organization, training, and materiel, which significantly enabled battlefield success. As troops withdraw from Iraq at the end of 2011, this paper analyzes the success of the Army's counterinsurgency strategy and nation-building efforts there, examines the future of combat for the Army and recommends a suitable force posture, and makes recommendations for future competencies and capabilities utilizing the problem-solving construct of DOTMLPF. The paper first assesses the probability that the Army will face a counterinsurgency and requirement for nation-building again in the future and, based on this assessment, discusses the four prevalent schools of thought on the appropriate force posture for the Army. Second, the paper highlights the shift to counterinsurgency strategy and the primary conclusions to be garnered from these successes, with particular emphasis on the importance of applying all of the instruments of national power to attack the root causes of the insurgency and bolster government legitimacy. Finally, accepting that one cannot rule out stability operations as a probable and difficult form of conflict in the future, the paper makes recommendations for taking the next step to institutionalize lessons learned from the Iraqi experience by transforming the institutional Army along the problem-solving construct of DOTMLPF.