building on beersheba: the future army · building on beersheba: the future army ... the army...

Building on Beersheba: The future Army

Discussion paper one: A revolution in Officer development

Strategic Plans Branch Army Headquarters 2014


In 2000, the Army released its Project OPERA report into the professional development and career management of its officer corps. The review sought to develop an officer professional effectiveness model that would meet the requirements of the Army over the following twenty-five years.1 However, with the commencement of operations in East Timor in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 and then Iraq in 2003, the implementation of Project OPERA was placed in abeyance and the many potential improvements in officer development did not eventuate.

While Army is arguably the most experienced it has been since Vietnam, this experiential learning does not equate to an underlying understanding of the nature of warfare and the ability to think and act across the spectrum of events at a generic level. As the Australian participation in conflicts gradually decreases over the next twelve months, there is an opportunity to examine officer development and assess if Army is indeed at the forefront of world’s best practice in the development of its officers for tactical command, strategic planning and leadership appointments.

While the Army as an institution recognises the many continuities in warfare2 and how armies generate capability, much has changed systemically since the turn of the century. Principally, these changes fall into four areas. First, the strategic environment has changed. Second, technology has changed. Third, our knowledge of brain science and how humans learn has changed. Finally, our institution has changed based on 15 years on continuous operational commitments. These four factors drive a requirement to review how our officer development continuum has performed since 2000, and ascertain whether further evolution – or even revolution – is required to build the effectiveness of the officer corps through to the middle of the 21st century.


This paper aims to stimulate debate through an initial review of the four key changes in the environment over the past 15 years and how they impact on the development of an effective knowledge-age officer corps. It also aims to present a simple lexicon of ‘battle cunning’, ‘strategic nous’ to proceed with future development of officers in the Australian Army. This development will most probably need to be a whole-of-career continuum that incorporates residential and non-residential educational courses, at regular intervals, as well as directed in unit and self-study programs. To start the debate and establish that ‘line in the sand’ for the lexicon, it is worth reviewing Army’s last attempt to reform the development of the Army officer corps – Project OPERA.

Project OPERA – reviewing a review

The review of officer development, known at Project OPERA, was established in 1998 by the then Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Frank Hickling as part of the Officer Professional Effectiveness Review. The review had three aims:

1. examine the professional effectiveness of officers and establish the factors constraining their performance and influencing their motivation to remain serving;

2. develop an understanding of what sort of officers the Army would need to lead into the future; and

3. develop a strategy for developing Army officers of the future.

A framework called the Officer Professional Effectiveness Strategy was the result of the review. The component elements of this were endorsed by CASAG in April 2000. Project OPERA distributed a copy of the strategy to every army officer and concluded in late 2000. In simple terms, the elements of the strategy were: career streaming, career review, transitional professional military education, a senior leadership development program and revised performance appraisal.

This was a ground breaking report, and at the time, there was an institutional expectation that it would set the scene for the medium and long-term development of the officer corps within the Army. However, the events of September 1999 and then September 2001 intruded. While no deliberate decision was taken not to implement OPERA, strategic events and Australia’s response to them essentially saw longer-term officer development placed in abeyance in order for the institution to respond to more compelling short-term operational needs. These short-term operational needs continue to shape Army but also provide the context for change.


The rationale and drivers for change

The strategic environment

Australia’s strategic environment has changed considerably since 1999. In an era when Australia, and its security guarantor the United States, focused on operations half a world away in the Middle East, nations across the Indo-Pacific region have seen economic growth rates of unparalleled magnitude. Asian countries in particular grew faster than the rest of the world for four key reasons: they had substantial potential for catching up (since they entered the 1960s with relatively low incomes and relatively well-educated workers), their geographical and structural characteristics were by-and-large favourable, demographic changes following World War II worked in favour of more rapid growth, and their economic policies and strategy were conducive to sustained growth.3

This has resulted in a relative shift in global economic power from West to East. Underpinned by the massive growth in the Chinese economy over the past two decades – for example China is urbanising at 100 times the rate of Britain during its 18th century industrial revolution – this global shift has allowed regional nations to also develop their educational and technical capacities.4 This has translated into military, as well as economic and diplomatic, power and has fundamentally altered relationships and the security environment across the region from India to Japan. This has also impacted on the relative weight of Australia’s major ally, the United States.

Technology

Technological developments are continuing to drive change in the character of war, and as a flow on, how the Army prepares its officer to plan and lead in war. An information-led revolution in military affairs is well under way. It has increased the flow of information into, within and outside military operations, adding a layer of complexity for commanders at all levels.

One of the key technological changes over the past decade has been the profound changes in human networking facilitated by social networking. When Project OPERA was released in 1999, the networking site Facebook was still five years away.5 Twitter was seven years6 in the future, and Youtube six years away.7 A new generation of online and networked educational tools such as Khan Academy8, Edmodo9, Moodle, Skype10 and others have been built on the foundation of social networking and an explosion in internet penetration since 2002 which has seen access grow from 40 million in 1995 to 2.7 billion people in 2013. The momentum that social networking


can gather is staggering and evident in the non-military response to natural disaster in Haiti. It also has a darker side as evidenced in the social media response to the identification of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

Concurrently, the capacity to undertake training and education through synthetic means – in simulators particularly – has been revolutionised through developments in the gaming industry, as well as improvements in the fields of 3D graphics and immersive holographic technology. Consequently, over the past 15 years while the Army has been preoccupied with foreign operations, there has been a transformation in how training and education is conducted and distributed through technological developments. It is also important to look at the empirical evidence that support the uptake of some technologies over others. This understanding of why people use certain technologies over others help to balance technical aspirations against realistic usage and learning rates.

Human sciences

Another incredibly diverse and prolific area of development over the past 15 years has been in the area of human sciences. This areas has seen the rise of neuroscience as a burgeoning area of research, but in combination with other disciplines and areas of research such as decision making, learning and development and job performance. Understanding how the brain works, and the gains from exploring neuroplasticity has helped in recent years to provide treatment options for people with strokes and autism as well as from a military perspective, soldiers suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury11. Understanding how the brain works also provides the basis for understanding intelligence and genetic predisposition to certain behavioural and physical traits, while at a practical level improving brain function.

The area of human sciences has also been focused on the concepts of resilience and understanding how not only people but also organisations ‘bounce back’. Organisations (particularly militaries) are providing programs to develop resilience and in some cases encouraging failure to help people learn and develop. There is also an acknowledgment of emerging leadership styles like that of ‘Mindful’ leadership. Human Sciences are also grappling with the impact of technology on culture and the individual. While some would argue that technology has enabled mankind to be more efficient, scholars in this field are questioning the ethics and cultural and social impacts of some technological advancements such as human augmentation and artificial intelligence on individuals and societies.


The Army has changed

The Army of 1999, pre-East Timor, was a 24 000 person organisation that had seen a decade of cuts in personnel and funding. It was equipped with a range of aging and obsolescent ideas and equipment. While it had some experience in peace keeping operations in Somalia, Namibia, Cambodia and the Sahara, these were generally small scale tactical commitments. The period 1999 through to 2014 saw a significant commitment of land forces for operations in the region as well as in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Over that time, the tactical prowess of the Army – its battle cunning - has improved through the broad range of operational experiences that the individuals and units of the Army gained on deployments.

A key function over the past 15 years, which was almost entirely absent in the 1980s and 1990s, has been the requirement for senior Army officers – at the 06-08 levels – to command, or plan operations for, combined joint task forces. This was particularly the case for operations in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, where Australian officers led combined and Joint task forces focussed on the conduct of land operations. Senior Australian officers also held senior staff appointments in Multi-National Forces – Iraq, in the International Security Force Afghanistan. The Army’s preparation of these officers was often restricted to the normal Army training and educational continuum. There is not identified Army or Defence requirement to formally train or certify senior leaders for combined joint task forces. As the new norm in the conduct of operations, this is a significant gap in our training and educational continuum that should be addressed.

While the experience level of the Army has changed, its human composition has also changed. A new generation of soldiers has assumed a greater mass within the institution with the balance of the Army shifting from baby boomers to Generation Y12 soldiers (currently 54% of Army’s strength). Much has been written on the broad impact of the shift in generations in Australian society, and authors such as Maulday (2006) and Davies (2007) have discussed the impact the shift of a technology-savy, Gen-Y dominated Army is likely to have.13 Generation Y don’t seek a job as much as they seek an opportunity. They have multiple expectations of an organisation – especially about variety, fun, training, management style, and work flexibility. While contrary to recent mythology of Generation Y being self-centred and entirely uninspired by traditional values, they do demand a clear reason to join an organisation. This is an important shift that Army must continue to manage carefully, especially in the development of its officers.


The role of women in Army has changed in the past 15 years. The participation rate of women has improved significantly, from 10% in 1999 to nearly 15% in 2014.14 With this change in composition, comes a change to expectation which is both societal and generational. This on the whole has had a positive impact on Army from the perspective of physical diversity, but may not be as positive in other areas.

While the composition of the Army changed over the period 1999 to 2014, so did its educational wherewithal. There has been a significant change in the level of educational qualifications of the officer corps. In 2012, less than half of the officers in the Army possessed a tertiary degree qualification. By comparison, over 82% of US military officers possess the minimum of a bachelors degree, with 39% of those also having a Master’s degree or higher.15 The differential with our principal ally is stark. Army over this period has also reduced the variety of training opportunities to inherently foster intellectual diversity within the officer corps. Coupled with the indifference to educational qualifications, this lack of opportunity has further reduced the intellectual ‘horse power’ available to Army.

Finally, the structure of the Army has changed significantly over this period. In 1999, the Army still retained the 1973 Hassett Review structure. As the Army’s overseas commitments increased, it became increasingly obvious that this construct was not able to generate and sustain deployed land forces for contemporary operations. Consequently, the Adaptive Army and follow-on Plan Beersheba initiatives transformed Army into an institution that was better able to sustain over a long term the generation of land forces, and do so in a larger Defence organisation that had become more closely coupled in the provision of strategic logistic and administrative functions, and joint in focus.

However, the growth in the Army since 1999 (increase from 24201 to 28955) was accompanied by a trend in ‘over commanding’ through growth in headquarters and senior officers and star ranks. Over a period when the Army grew in strength by just under 20%, the number of one star and above officers grew by 66% and senior officer numbers grew by 46%.16 The result has been a trend towards up-ranking responsibilities that in a previous era would have been the preserve of m ore junior officers, as well as a weakening in the application of mission command. This has changed the officer corps and must be addressed in any measures that improve the development of officers.


A revolution in Officer development

The changes in the strategic environment, technology, human sciences and within the Army itself since 1999 have resulted in a fundamentally changed context for the ongoing development of the officer corps. However, the draw down in operational commitments now provides an opportunity to reinvigorate the Army’s development of its officer corps to ensure it is fit to plan and lead the Army over the course of the next three decades.

The Australian Army has, since its formation, been principally a highly pragmatic organisation with a principally tactical orientation. This was the result of a deliberate approach where British dominions fitted within a large approach to empire defence. The British provided the strategic and operational architecture including logistics, while Dominion forces provided tactical combat forces up to the level of division and corps. In Australia’s case, this was a driver in the types of military organisations deployed to Europe and the Middle East in both world wars.

However, when the war in the Pacific approached Australia, it largely transitioned its reliance on Britain for strategy and operational architecture to the United States. Late in the Second World War, there was a shift where the Army disestablished combat forces so that it might provide its own Corps and Army level support organisations. But after the world wars, Australia largely reverted to historical type in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. With the brief exception of East Timor, Australia committed tactical forces to a larger coalition force and relied on the coalition leader – the United States – for the provision of strategy, campaign planning and operational support in the form of logistics, intelligence and firepower.

The outcome of this is a tactical culture in the Army. The most recent edition of Land Warfare Doctrine 1: The Fundamentals of Land Power, examines the culture of the Australian Army and finds that this tactical culture has been a pervasive element of the Army for the duration of its history. It notes that the 1985 edition of Army’s capstone doctrine noted, the essence of soldiering is excellence at the execution of the tactical level of warfare.17 This has dominated the Army’s approach to war. This has led to an officer development continuum where officer training – and the development of battle cunning – was prized. Broader education – and the development of the strategic acuity and nous of the Australian Army officer corps – was of much less importance and generally occurred serendipitously rather than deliberately.


This tactical culture has also manifested in an officer corps that – in certain parts of the Army – has specialised in a narrow range of appointments. A large percentage of combat arms officers in particular have sought, and been permitted by Army, to return multiple times to the same posting location and unit. This has bred a narrow professional focus, eschewed variety as a professional development tool and resulted in officers who are less employable in joint and strategic appointments as they gain seniority. This is also perpetuated by a view that command should be the pinnacle of all careers which is now less accessible given the change to tenure. This mindset negates those officers who excel in certain technical specialisations not based on location or unit. Variety truly is the spice of life, and of a true professional officer’s development. While recent initiatives such as the 2014 Officer Career Pathway Strategy18 are likely to see some improvements in this situation, it will require deep institutional reform to change the mindsets of our officers to embrace variety in their professional development.

While this tactical culture has resulted in a very operationally effective land force, it has also resulted in a bias away from the development of a strategic acuity in officers and the institution as a whole. Very few Army officers are able to comfortably operate in the environment of higher level, strategic headquarters where a longer term mindset, strategic financial literacy and capacity to network with other Services and civilian decision makers is the essential foundation. It is time to rebalance this equation and ensure a greater bias towards the strategic education and development of the officer corps. To do so, it is proposed that the battle cunning-strategic nous developmental continuum be employed in any review of the officer development continuum.

One might view the terms battle cunning and strategic nous as overly simplistic. That might be the case in an academic setting, but, this simple lexicon is at the heart of officer development. If Army is to adopt an approach which officers can both appreciate the logic of, and support its implementation, technical jargon is likely to provide a significant obstacle. As such, this outcomes-focussed approach to the development needs of the Army’s officer corps is an accurate summation of what Army expects from its officers.

Battle cunning covers that period of an officers’ career that encompasses recruitment, initial officer training and the employment of the officer through to command of a unit sized organisation. Strategic nous, broadly encompasses the post-unit command career of an officer and included senior command and leadership appointments within Army, joint appointments and ultimately should


result in an officer that is able to command the Army or the ADF. Obviously, this is not a black and white delineation; well before an officer assumes senior appointments post-unit command there is a need to identify talent and anticipate the educational and developmental requirements required later in a career. However, the entirety of an officers’ career can be as a continuum requiring the initial characteristic of battle cunning and eventually weighting towards the need for strategic nous.

In the battle cunning – strategic nous continuum, there are six essential attributes for an Army officer that must be fostered, developed and adapted across the span on an individuals’ career. These six attributes are leadership, professional learning, networking, corporate mindset, excellent communication skills and competence in strategic resource management. While these attributes remain constant over time, the context in which they are affected changes as evidence in the discussion earlier in this paper. Army should review how these attributes are developed – in both formal and informal settings – as part of a broader approach to enhancing the development of its officers.

Changing the balance

How might Army commence a rebalance its conduct of officer development to ensure it provides an appropriate level of training education and experiential learning, and achieve this battle cunning-strategic nous approach? The first step to this rebalance is providing context to those six listed attributes. Army must engage in a professional conversation about each of the attributes, which includes understanding implicitly what each of the attributes are in context (and not just verbatim motherhood statements) and the interrelatedness of each. This will require Army to establish mechanisms to allow all officers to take ownership of the attributes and to contribute to the debate. There are multiple forums that might be used to encourage debate including the Army Journal, officer training sessions, and blogs.

It may also require an increase in educational interventions for officers. The Army should review not just the content of extant courses, but the number of professional educational interventions through the life of an officer’s career. For example, the ten years between 04 at CSC and 06 at CDSS is a long period of time without any formal educational experience. Army might consider shorter interventions, at shorter intervals (i.e. 6 months or shorter at each rank).


These should be intensive and be focused on skills and creative thinking. Finally, these can be aligned with external attachments – these are a great opportunity to expose our officers to very different ideas.

The Army should also consider its approach to professional military education and avoid pure professional academic credentialism. While we need intellectually and academically rigorous courses, we must remember we are educating military professionals. As such, we must prepare them to lead and plan for contemporary and future military operations in the operational and strategic domains.

Finally, our professional military education must be a CA directed continuum. The Army requires connective tissue between residential educational interventions. This could be formal in-unit and self-study programs for officers that commences after Duntroon and progresses throughout their career. Non residential must be a balance of directed in-unit and self study. It can’t be one size fits all - different ranks levels and corps may have different needs - and must allow for the exceptional to gain additional Masters and PhD level qualifications - and recognise them for it. This entire continuum must be the responsibility of a single person (CA), supported by an advisory board of military and civilian intellectuals.

Once a common contextual understanding exists, it is only then possible to look at gaps and deficiencies in Army’s current methods and philosophies of officer development. This may even link to refining the officer review system as well. It will require an approach as rigorous and broad as the Project Opera study, but will also require the Army to possess the institutional disciple to follow through on the full implementation of the outcomes of such a review. The Army has not always been good at demonstrating such discipline.

Conclusion

The Australian Army has changed over the past 15 years. While an immensely more experienced institution, its demographic composition and its access to world class training and education information and enablers has also been transformed. A clever, learning institution – which the Army prides itself on being – must recognise these changes in the environment, and then exploit the most suitable tools to improve the development of its officers. This must include, but not be exclusive to training and education. It must embrace all aspects of development including officer assessment, informal learning opportunities and mentoring, and the broader culture of officership in the Army.


The time is right, as the Army transitions into a lower operational tempo, to conduct a full structural review of the development of its officer corps. The Army now has the time to do this. Employing this time productively will push officer development to new heights of excellence. Such a project however cannot be linked to a posting cycle or individual – it must be the responsibility of all individual officers to participate in the review and the implementation of its findings. It is a cause in which the Army cannot fail if it seeks to develop a truly digital Army that possesses the officers that are fit to prepare for, and lead, the conflicts of the 21st century.


Endnotes1 See Project Opera Terms of Reference, signed 26 Aug 98.

2 See Australian Army, LWD1: The Fundamentals of Land Power, 2014 for more on this.

3 See Radelet, S., and others, Economic Growth in Asia, Harvard Institute for International Development, 1997. Source:, http://www.cid.harvard.edu/archive/hiid/papers/ecgasia.pdf.

4 See Global Trends 2030, Source: http://gt2030.com/2012/07/17/mapping-the-worlds-shifting-economic-center-of-gravity-toward-asia/.

5 Facebook was founded on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook.

6 Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass and by July 2006, the site was launched. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter.

7 YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005 and owned by Google since late 2006. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube.

8 Khan Academy is a non-profit[3] educational website created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan to provide “a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.”

9 Founded in 2008.

10 Founded in 2003.

11 See the The Brain that Changes itself by Norman Doidge, MD, for an introduction to work occurring in the discipline of Neuroscience particularly in neuroplasticity.

12 Gen Y is anyone born from 1980 onwards.

13 See Maulday, E., “Generational evolution in the Australian Army”, Australian Army Journal, Winter 2006. source: http://www.army.gov.au/Our-future/Publications/Australian-Army-Journal/Past-editions/~/media/Files/Our%20future/LWSC%20Publications/AAJ/2006Winter/18-GenerationalEvolutionIn.pdf; and, Davies, K., “The Challenge of Generation Y” Australian Army journal, Autumn 2007. Source: http://www.army.gov.au/Our-future/Publications/Australian-Army-Journal/Past-editions/~/media/Files/Our%20future/LWSC%20Publications/AAJ/2007Autumn/13-TheChallengeOfGeneratio.pdf.

14 Sources for these statistics on female participation in the ADF from 1999 to 2012 are as follows: http://www.defence.gov.au/women/ and http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/archive/womenarmed#Women_in_the_ADF.

15 See US Department of Defense, 2012 Demographics: Profile of the Military Community, p. 42. Source: http://www.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2012_Demographics_Report.pdf.

16 These statistics are drawn from the official Department of Defence statistics contained in the annual Defence Portfolio Budget Statements from 1999 and 2013. Sources: 1999 - http://www.defence.gov.au/budget/99-00/pbs/99-00S5.PDF and 2013 - http://www.defence.gov.au/Budget/13-14/pbs/2013-2014_Defence_PBS_03_Defence.pdf.

17 See Australian Army, Manual of Land Warfare, Vol. 1, Pamphlet 1, The Fundamentals of Land Force Operations,1985, Chap 2, p.7.

18 See CASAC Submission 05/2014, Review of the Army Officer Career Pathway Strategy, 11 April 2014.

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