ISSUE 152 : Jan/Feb - 2002 - Australian Defence Force Journal

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56AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE JOURNAL NO. 152 JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2002applicable, relevant and useful. An appropriatemix of auditable and defendable qualitative,and repeatable quantitative results (such asthose derived through OTE) must be providedto enable decisions to be made with anacceptable level of risk.Military experimentation should becharacterised by the co-evolution oforganisation, doctrine, equipment andleadership and the related changes inpersonnel, support and training. The conceptsshould be developed both top-down andbottom-up, this promotes innovation whileretaining relevant invariant principles. Thestakeholders should be prepared to accepttolerance for surprise and “failure” ofconcepts in the experimental setting; the goalmust be to explore concepts not demonstratethem. 3The process of exploration should beiterative, continuous and non-linear; asthings are discovered they must feed backinto the original concept, modifying it, thenFigure 3. The Iterative Nature of Military Experimentation Processesallowing the concept to be re-tested. Theprocess should make extensive use of anadversary force that is free to develop tacticsto defeat the concepts. This is known as “Red-Teaming” and is simply achieved inwargames of all types. The “players” inseminars or wargames must be fullyimmersed in the environment, to the pointthat pre-conceived ideas are challenged withcredibility. The same environment must bepersuasive to the stakeholders.An analysis of these attributes leads to anumber of essential requirements forexperimentation. First, it is essential tochallenge the established paradigm. It isespecially important to challenge doctrine, andin particular combat related doctrine as combatis where the primary defeat mechanisms areexercised and is the basis of the bulk of ourmilitary capability. Secondly it is essential toensure there is innovation. This means a widevariety of concepts and capabilities should beassessed, tempered by the observation that it isConceptRefinementCapabilityDevelopmentSolutionDevelopment
likely that only a limited set of concepts may bereasonably tested in any one activity. It istherefore likely that a progressively morerigorous analytical process will be used, andperhaps more than one cycle, will be requiredto ensure all innovative solutions are tested tosome degree, Figure 3. An observation commonto contemporary military experimentationprograms is that one of the potential pitfalls ofexperimentation is for the sponsor to becomean advocate for the solution instead of for theprocess. High level advocacy for a solution hasthe capacity to stifle innovation within theprogram. Advocacy, combined with thepersuasive nature of wargames, simulations andsimulators, can cripple a program ofexperimentation because the scenario and taskselection will be biased, and theexperimentation is at risk of devolving todemonstration of the sponsor’s advocatedsolution.A21/RTA/AEF as an ExampleThe Army has adopted the “ArmyExperimental Framework” (AEF, Army 1999)to guide the intellectual evolution of the ArmyAfter Next through concept-led, capabilitybasedforce development; this process mapsonto the force development model in Figure 1.This framework was developed as a result ofthe analytical framework developed for theRTA Phase 1 Trials (Bowley and Lovaszy1999). Central to this framework was the“Battlelab” Process, 4 a term and concept thatoriginated in the Land 125 work in 1995 inpart to draw on the then emerging US Armybattlelabs. The Battlelab Process became theexperimental engine for RTA Phase 1, andwhile evolving, retains this place in the AEF(itself a management tool for the process).The Restructuring of the Army (RTA)program provided for the progressive transitionof the current force to the force envisioned inthe A21 Review. A fundamental aspect of thisrestructuring was the conduct of trials andevaluations to confirm the force structures. TheINNOVATION AND EXPLORATION 57trials were designed to identify, in ameasurable way, the strengths and weaknessesof the A21 Task Force organisation in a jointenvironment, with particular emphasis on theADF command and logistics arrangements.While the process was called a trial for lack ofa better term within defence at the time, withhindsight we can identify the end result asexperimentation due to the nature andmagnitude of the changes investigated and theuncertainty in the initial A21 Study. Theprocess has much in common with theapproach taken by the USMC during theirHunter and Urban Warrior programs and theprinciples can be clearly seen in the JointAdvanced Warfighting Program (JAWP) of theInstitute of Defense Analysis (IDA) and the USJoint Forces Command (JFCOM).The complexity of military operationalsystems and processes means that it isimpossible to analyse all issues and a normalreductionist approach would not analyse theinteractions and emergent properties of thesystems of systems [Curtis and Bowley 1997].Therefore the method is specifically designedfor focusing on those elements or tasks thatprovide a clear indication of the performanceof the overall system. OTE uses the normalreductionist approach of dividing the probleminto a number of critical issues and then seeksto design tests to gather data addressing thoseissues. When the primary scientific purpose isexploration we need to begin the investigationat a higher level; at that higher level we seekthe critical tasks and the vulnerabilities of theconcepts to focus subsequent evaluation. Thatis discovering the fundamentals of whatwarfighters will be doing rather thanspecifically measuring how well they are doingthem; 5 recognising the unexpected notmeasuring the expected. 6Initially, a problem definition phase isconducted to understand the whole problemand to explore answers to the “right”questions. The problem definition constrainsthe problem space, establishes the context and
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