Five Challenges for Future Infantry: Thinking about ... - Australian Army

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Concepts • Colonel Chris Field While the role of Infantry is enduring, constantly changing operating environments suggest the time has come for Future Infantry to re-examine how it operates in order to inform Army’s modernisation requirements. The purpose of this article is to highlight five challenges for Future Infantry in order to stimulate thinking about Future Infantry’s requirement to adapt and change. These challenges are: 1. Incorporating continuous learning 2. Operating across the fives lines of operation in accordance with Adaptive Campaigning – Future Land Operating Concept 3. Balancing the fighting force 4. Employing LAND 400 – Combined Arms Fighting System 5. Employing JOINT PROJECT 2048 – Enhanced Amphibious Capability. While this article is focused on the Infantry, the challenges outlined will resonate with many people in the wider Army, and are of likely interest to people from joint, whole-of-government, coalition, contractor and non-government organisations who expect to operate with Army in the future. Future Infantry Challenge 1: Incorporating Continuous Learning Successful organisations are able to adapt to changes in their environments in a timely manner—this requires effective learning. For most people, effective learning is continuous and involves a dynamic combination of education, training and the understanding of lessons. For Future Infantry to become an effective, adaptive and learning organisation, the following attributes may be useful: accept honest mistakes, support the free flow of knowledge between people at all levels, mentor subordinates, and reward people who foster learning and cultural change. To ensure success in increasingly complex battlespaces, Future Infantry must seek to frame problems, understand learning gaps and develop methods and tools to retain, develop and share knowledge in changing For most people, effective learning is continuous and involves a dynamic combination of education, training and the understanding of lessons. circumstances. Examples of resource and knowledge sharing systems available to the Future Infantry, which may assist adaptation and change, include: enhancing leader and instructor skills; formal and informal after action reviews; timely, agile and relevant doctrine; and forums, blogs and/or wikis. page 34 • Volume VII, Number 1 • Australian Army Journal
Five Challenges for Future Infantry Future Infantry Challenge 2: Operating across the Fives Lines of Operation Adaptive Campaigning – Future Land Operating Concept, released by the Chief of Army on 16 September 2009, is centred on the formation of the Land Force components of which might include, as well as ADF services, government and nongovernment agencies and Australian Civilian Corps. 2 The document …defines the actions taken by the Land Force as part of the military contribution to a Joint and Whole of Government approach to resolving conflicts and advancing Australia’s national interests. 3 Fundamental to Adaptive Campaigning are five interdependent and mutually reinforcing lines of operation: Joint Land Combat, Population Protection, Information Actions, Population Support, and Indigenous Capacity Building. In accordance with Infantry’s role, Joint Land Combat is the primary responsibility of Future Infantry. For the last decade, in Australia, our region and beyond, the Infantry have also employed Population Protection to protect people from immediate danger, and Population Support to establish an environment that allows people to carry out their normal lives with family, work and education. For the last decade and throughout the Infantry’s history, the Infantry have relied upon smart, empowered soldiers and leaders, supported by robust training and professional mastery, to support the Land Force’s Information Actions, often while in contact with adaptive, agile and lethal enemies. Well orchestrated Information Actions ensure that the Land Force’s message, or dominant narrative, is effectively portrayed and understood by all people within Land Force’s battlespace. Experienced Infantry personnel know that the Land Force’s message must be honest and consistent. While the Land Force can tailor messages for different people and different audiences, Future Future Infantry’s need to adapt and change will be conducted in direct competition with equally adaptive, agile and lethal enemies. Infantry must understand that it is difficult to send any messages that will be understood in the same way by the many audiences that may hear it. 4 For example, the message for the enemy differs from the message for coalition partners, and may be different again for the people who actually live in Future Infantry’s battlespace. Unless these messages are honest and consistent, the Land Force risks causing effects in the information environment that impede the conduct of friendly operations, or adversely affect friendly forces; this is colourfully dubbed ‘information fratricide’ Australian Army Journal • Volume VII, Number 1 • page 35
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