Adapt and Overcome: Promoting Tactical Adaptation in the Post-Afghanistan Army

Abstract

Commanders in the Australian Army pride themselves on sound military decision- making based on thorough analysis of the threat, terrain and their higher commander’s intent. Yet this self-assurance is misleading. The employment of existing military planning tools should lead commanders to develop adaptable tactical solutions that account for the vulnerabilities in a given threat system. However, tactical military commanders often do not conduct a detailed appreciation of the threat system or, if they do, they fail to incorporate these vulnerabilities into the manoeuvre plan. As a result, commanders often resort to the aggressive execution of a familiar tactical template. This article aims to stimulate discussion on the training focus of the Army in a post-Afghanistan context. It examines the Army’s unique opportunity to develop training constructs to promote tactical adaptation. At the same time, it identifies the rise of an aversion to the combat lessons from Afghanistan, which may see the Army return to the predictability of exercises prior to East Timor. The article closes with the recommendation that the Army incorporate unknown threat elements into exercises to promote innovation and achieve tactical adaptation.

Introduction

‘Threat and terrain dependent’ is a phrase all commanders have heard during their careers. Often considered an instructor’s ‘throwaway’ response to a trainee inquiry about a tactical problem, the phrase actually encapsulates the totality of the Military Appreciation Process (MAP) and the requirement for professional militaries to understand tactics and remain responsive to the battlespace.¹ Put simply, tactics is ‘battlefield problem-solving’, and the MAP is the Australian Army’s military decision-making tool.² Commanders employ the MAP to assess multiple courses of action and choose the most appropriate military option for the battlefield scenario. Most of the Army’s commanders apply the MAP at a tactical level. The tactical level of war centres on the actual application of force against the adversary, and the Army trains for the tactical fight on a daily basis, from brigade manoeuvre to individual combat drills.³ While tactical military commanders generally demonstrate the capacity to apply tactics to the terrain, far too often they simply acknowledge the threat rather than adapt their tactics to exploit threat vulnerabilities. Such shortfalls should be identified and rectified during the Army’s training cycle. Indeed, apart from the conduct of actual operations, the Army’s principal responsibility is to conduct training to prepare the organisation to meet the capability requirements of the Australian government.⁴ However, the current training construct does not address what it really means for tactics to be ‘threat and terrain dependent’ nor does it assist junior commanders to apply the intellectual rigour required by the Army’s planning tools. As a professional military, building the appropriate training construct is essential for the Army to retain its utility for future combat. Following 15 years of continuous operations, the Army should be well placed to refine its approach to training in order to accommodate the lessons it has learnt from recent operations and replicate the conditions of war to prepare new soldiers for the next battle. Yet this is far from the case.

This article aims to stimulate debate on the future training focus of the Army. In particular, this discussion will address the fact that adaptation, the principal characteristic of an ‘adaptive’ army, is rarely practised at a tactical level. Tactical commanders and staff, specifically from platoon to unit level, seldom effectively incorporate the vulnerabilities of threat systems into military planning. This article will also discuss the rise of an apparent aversion to tactical lessons drawn from ‘the Afghan model’ and consider the utility of returning the Army to the ‘basics’ practised prior to East Timor.

Tactical adaptation?

When most current junior commanders define ‘adaptive’, it is often in terms of the way they fought the existing tactical model or ‘drills’ through new or changing circumstances and achieved the desired endstate. A commander advocates ‘adaptation’ as a ‘sustain’ in the After Action Review when his/her tactical model, such as a combat team left or right flanking attack, was required to change axes moments prior to H-hour or maintained momentum despite the commitment of the enemy reserve. However, the aggressive application of a known model does not constitute tactical adaptation. Adaptation is the process of undergoing change to suit new conditions or circumstances. In a military setting, an adaptive approach at the tactical level would see commanders developing new and different methods to employ their force to exploit terrain and defeat the enemy in detail.⁵ Such tactical methods may include changes to section composition, modifying the employment of platoon weapon systems, using unorthodox combat team insertion methods or undertaking bold but risky battlegroup manoeuvre. In fact, commanders would encourage subordinates to consider ‘all options on the table’ rather than resorting to strict reliance on existing tactical models.

Importantly, existing tactical models are only best practice against the enemy they were designed to defeat. As a basic example, the left or right flanking attack may be completely ineffective against an enemy that always maintains strong flank security. Consequently, a thorough knowledge of the enemy is essential for commanders to adapt their tactics to exploit threat weaknesses. The Army has a tool that can support this process.

The Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace (IPB) is the tool Army intelligence staff use to assess the battlespace and threat in an area of operations. The IPB provides recommendations to the commander based on analysis of the threat and terrain, while the resulting assessment of the threat’s ‘critical vulnerabilities’ assists in shaping the manoeuvre plan.⁶ As the IPB contributes to the MAP, planning staff then account for the terrain and adopt the best tactical approach to defeat the enemy’s plan. Fundamentally, this is the basis of manoeuvre warfare.⁷ Staff must be prepared to depart from existing tactical models to adopt approaches that will best defeat the threat — a decision that is likely to incur increased risk.⁸ While this process sounds simple, tactical commanders often conduct consideration rather than appreciation of threat and terrain. The Army’s own reporting suggests that many commanders and staff arguably do not understand the Army’s military planning tools.⁹ Military decision-making becomes a process of ‘box-filling’ to the extent that most junior commanders have pre-set answers to fill MAP workbooks.

Importantly, trainees are not taught differently, nor are they exposed to training scenarios that encourage such processes to be practised effectively. When it comes to the fight, these same commanders apply existing drills and tactical models in an aggressive manner while hoping that the threat is not somehow different to that which the model was originally formulated to defeat. Such an approach is achievable in training scenarios with a predictable opponent, but is more difficult when military forces undertake combat in the real world.

Experienced soldiers from Australia’s previous conflicts recognised how to defeat the threats they confronted — from Monash’s use of combined arms on the Western Front to section/platoon-level ambush success in the jungles of Vietnam.¹⁰ Yet even these successful tactical models only retain their utility against the threat and terrain they were designed to defeat — platoon jungle tactics from counterinsurgency operations are not best practice in an unlimited conventional war in the muddy trenches of the Western Front. Unfortunately, the continued professionalisation of the Army has perhaps reinforced a perception that it possesses a repertoire of decisive manoeuvres that will always result in tactical victory.¹¹ Doctrine and Standard Operating Procedures are read, understood and employed, but rarely challenged.¹² Provocative former Army officer James Brown accurately identifies that ‘armies do not innovate unless they have systems expressly designed to stimulate new ideas’.¹³ Arguably, such systems are not present within the Australian Army.¹⁴ Innovation across the Army has been stifled and the strict reliance on existing tactical models is probably a result of the ‘conform-to-pass’ environment created by the Army’s training institutions and exercises.¹⁵ The Army’s training framework, the Force Generation Cycle, is principally designed to certify units for deployment on operations and to satisfy the ‘ready’ criteria.¹⁶ This begs the question: ‘ready’ for what? The assumption is that the Army is ‘ready’ to undertake combat against Australia’s future threat elements. Yet the Army cannot predict what form that battle will take. To respond to this uncertainty, it espouses a concept of adaptability, as articulated in Adaptive Campaigning – Future Land Operating Concept (AC-FLOC).

The Adaptive (tactical?) Army

AC-FLOC presents a realistic summary of the unpredictable characteristics of future threat elements.¹⁷ While it is true that the future operating environment will be influenced by the rise of new great powers, non-state actors and resource limitations, the identity of the Army’s future adversary remains uncertain.¹⁸ However, regardless of the geopolitical situation, it is safe to assume that the commander of its next adversary will attempt to expose weaknesses in the Army’s tactical models, potentially through irregular combat ratios, legal status ambiguity or weapon systems, particularly in the chemical or electronic/cyber realm.¹⁹ Yet, if the Army’s future enemy is unknown, how can it be ‘ready’ for the next battle?

In discussing future conflict at the tactical level, AC-FLOC condenses the challenge of fighting threat groups by declaring that ‘Complex War is a competitive learning environment.’²⁰ To win the land battle in a learning environment, the Army requires a learning model — a system that promotes innovation.²¹ However, instead of providing practical solutions to promote a learning model, AC-FLOC simply endorses the ‘act, sense, decide, adapt’ cycle and reinforces the concept of ‘mission command’ to remedy the tactical uncertainty of the Army’s next battle. Following the release of AC-FLOC in September 2009, many military commentators confirmed the requirement for the Army to be ‘adaptive’ and, unsurprisingly, Australia has proven to be one of many militaries to recognise that preparing for ‘a war’ requires a focus on adaptation.²² Yet, concepts such as AC-FLOC have chiefly concentrated on promoting operational adaptation and avoided providing practical methods for achieving adaptation at a tactical level.

Five years on from the release of AC-FLOC, the Army has arguably yet to develop a training model that adequately addresses the challenge of future combat.²³ As the Australian Defence Force withdraws from operational commitments in Afghanistan, the Army is in a unique position to reconsider its training focus and how it accounts for the uncertain nature of future threat elements. In particular, the Army has some 15 years’ experience of ‘fighting wars’ to establish training environments that promote tactical adaptation. However, a fierce aversion to experiences from Afghanistan has emerged in the modern Army and the organisation is in danger of losing some valuable lessons in the employment of military forces on operations. Ultimately, the Army could lose its best chance of establishing a training construct that entrenches a learning model.

The Afghan model — a (slow) learning model?²⁴

The ‘Afghan model’ is a term that military commentators use to describe the framework of operations in Afghanistan. In the Australian context, the ‘Afghan model’ can best be described in terms of three elements: sub-unit (-) partnered patrols with overwhelming fire support against section (-) dismounted threat forces; the strict employment of force protection and countermeasures to safeguard against improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and suicide bombers; and independent tactical activities by Special Forces against high pay-off targets.²⁵ Such actions have been adopted against a variety of threat forces, including the Taliban, the Haqqani network and local criminals and powerbrokers.

Importantly, the threat elements in Afghanistan are not constrained by doctrinal templates. In fact, like most participants in combat, they are driven by a single desire to win the fight. The Taliban has not conformed to predictable models and has actively sought to identify and exploit weaknesses in Australian tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs).²⁶ Ultimately, this has provided the Army with a very important experience that has not been adequately replicated in its training continuum — a real and competitive threat. The adaptive threat in Afghanistan highlighted the essence of AC-FLOC’s ‘competitive learning environment’ and illustrated why the blind but aggressive application of existing tactical models is insufficient for actual combat operations.

Timely and accurate intelligence was central to defeating threat elements in Afghanistan.²⁷ Importantly, an increased understanding of the role of intelligence in identifying and comprehending the threat and terrain was critical in developing new and effective responses to counter threat strengths and improve force protection for Australian soldiers. In fact, the IPB and MAP proved their worth when applied correctly.²⁸ Despite this, some lessons were never fully refined at a tactical level and the operation was clouded by political sensitivities, casualty aversion and the complexities of an unclear mission and endstate.²⁹ Nevertheless, the Army fought a real enemy and is now well placed to use those experiences to understand AC-FLOC’s ‘competitive learning environment’ and refine training methods for the next fight — this is the utility of the Afghan model. All commanders should strive to understand how to use those experiences to train and fight a combat brigade in the Beersheba construct. How does the Army learn from Afghanistan and remain tactically adaptable to respond to the future land combat requirements of the Australian government? Bizarrely, some commanders appear to be trying to achieve exactly the opposite.

Return to the myth of pre-East Timor perfection

Unit and sub-unit commanders guide the tactical training focus of the Army on a daily basis. In a post-Afghanistan context, many of these commanders espouse a return to being ‘brilliant at the basics’.³⁰ The ‘basics’ comprise defined drills or tactical models that are rehearsed to perfection and generate enthusiasm for tactical military success among soldiers. Undoubtedly, commanders at all levels should implement robust training programs to improve soldier skills. But who defines what comprises the ‘basics’? A soldier in the Napoleonic era possessed a different understanding of the drills and skills required to achieve tactical victory to that of a soldier from the second Australian Imperial Force.³¹ Most importantly, the ‘basics’ are not universal — nor are they necessarily enduring.³² The conflict in Afghanistan has already taught the Army much about the fluid nature of combat operations — the obvious question is why some commanders are so eager to forget this.

In recent years, a distinct loathing of experiences from Afghanistan has emerged within the Army. Many commentators have attempted to be the first to identify shortfalls in Australian TTPs employed in Afghanistan.³³ However, aversion to the ‘Afghan model’ is often not the result of critical analysis, but rather a drive to condemn the military framework of their predecessors for the sake of it — a process most suitably labelled ‘potent post-revisionism’. It is often among unit and sub-unit commanders that potent post-revisionism is most profound.³⁴

Potent post-revisionism has strongly influenced the approach of some commanders at the rank of O4–O6 (major to colonel). Their oft-argued perspective on how the Army ‘should be’ can be best summarised in one quotation: ‘the Army was at its best prior to East Timor’.³⁵ When unit commanders combine this pre-East Timor mindset with their desire to be ‘brilliant at the basics’, the direction of the Army’s future training becomes questionable. In their return to a pre-East Timor training construct, the ‘basics’ advocated by these mid-level leaders comprise defined drills or tactical models that were designed to defeat a pre-East Timor enemy — they cannot be universally applied as decisive manoeuvre. Most critically, the myth of achieving pre-East Timor ‘perfection’ relies on building training scenarios that reinforce the concept that the Army will face a predictable adversary — something its combat experience has proven to be simply far-fetched.³⁶

The intelligence function is particularly vulnerable to potent post-revisionism. Mid-level commanders have the propensity to devalue the significance of the intelligence function because exercising drills against a predictable enemy requires little to no analysis of the threat.³⁷ Exercising and certifying the ‘pre-East Timor basics’ threatens the Army’s capacity to produce a practiced intelligence framework and, as such, threatens its capacity to respond to the ‘competitive learning environment’ identified in AC-FLOC. Instead of providing advice to the manoeuvre commander on threat and terrain based on sound analysis, a return to ‘the pre-East Timor model’ may see intelligence cells supplemented by injured soldiers for the purpose of making maps, constructing mud models and writing threat scenarios to suit a commander’s predetermined course of action.

Fundamentally, this approach lacks intellectual rigour. Concentrating on pre-East Timor tactical models is superficially attractive — rigid and predictable drills with volumes of existing doctrine will always appear efficient.³⁸ This ‘pre-East Timor model’ is centred on an assumption that the content of pre-East Timor doctrine was (and remains) correct. Blindly applying and reinforcing this doctrine without critical evaluation is cause for concern. In fact, the over-emphasis on any specific tactical process, including lessons from Afghanistan, must be avoided, while tactical adaptation should be encouraged.³⁹ Defining some drills as the ‘basics’ is dangerous as it implies that these drills are absolute and discourages innovation. Developing suitable training that focuses on defeating a threat is a responsibility of command from platoon to unit — and it is a decision that should be based on sound analysis. Most important of all, simply reverting to old models for the sake of it should not be tolerated. The Army has the opportunity to change the existing training continuum and avoid the perilous trend to predictable exercises, but it appears that potent post-revisionism is already beginning to take hold.

The current training environment

When responding to the Army’s cries for training scenarios to exercise ‘a war’ rather than ‘the war’, current training models employ fixed/acceptable force ratios of predictable Musorian enemy elements. To add ‘complexity’, scriptwriters introduce IEDs to disrupt conventional military manoeuvre.⁴⁰ However, the inclusion of IEDs in foundation warfighting does not make war inherently complex; the unknown attributes of Australia’s future adversary are what makes war challenging. Unless a reinforced Musorian battalion has conducted an amphibious lodgement in Shoalwater Bay, the Army’s next battle will always be different to the exercises it has conducted. The truth of preparing for ‘a war’ rather than ‘the war’ is that the Army can never be fully prepared — and this is a reality with which the Army must become comfortable.

However, the uncertainty of the next war does not condemn the Army to be eternally ‘unprepared’, but rather reinforces the necessity to develop training opportunities that promote adaptation rather than the perfection of drills or existing tactical models.⁴¹ To achieve such training environments, the Army’s commanders must be confronted with a particular cause for concern. To fully test its ability to adapt, the Army needs a realistic and considered adversary that challenges, adapts, recognises and accepts risk and, most of all, fights to win the land battle.⁴² An adversary of this calibre presents the Army with an uncomfortable risk — the prospect of defeat.⁴³ Institutionally, the Army is afraid of failure, fearful that all ‘traffic lights’ may not be green. Yet, training and exercises should be centred on learning and improvement, identifying weaknesses and developing solutions, not purely on certification or military success.⁴⁴

The Army will not learn valuable lessons through training scenarios that continue to place the Blue Force in favourable circumstances. Most militaries learn quickly when under threat and rate of adaptation is an essential element of thriving in a competitive learning environment.⁴⁵ The Army should be consistently challenged, and training scenarios should encourage adaptation at all tactical levels of command to allow the organisation to quickly and effectively adapt to defeat an adversary — whatever form that adversary may take. Ultimately, a focus on adaptation rather than the strict application of drills against a consistent near peer enemy will mean that the Army will not be as efficient in the annual Hamel scenario (in fact the Australian commander may even lose), but it will be better placed to respond to the unknown threat when it deploys on the next operation.

An alternative path — recommendations to promote tactical adaptation

Currently, the Army is rightfully concentrating on mid-intensity conventional warfare as no military can risk ignoring the threat of unlimited state-centric conventional war.⁴⁶ Yet a conventional training focus does not preclude the Army from introducing scenarios that promote tactical adaptation in its junior commanders. The blind application of small team tactics that grew out of conflict in the twentieth century will not be sufficient to counter the next unpredictable threat.⁴⁷ In fact, testing tactical adaptation will not be easy. However, some achievable recommendations include:

All exercises in a Force Generation Cycle should be connected, just as real conflict has peaks and troughs. Time between exercises should be used by staff to consolidate and evolve tactics for subsequent operations.

• Commanders should concentrate on improving tactics against a conventional threat force in mid-intensity warfighting.
   
• Exercise adversaries, both state and non-state, should be fully developed and introduce unknown tactics or equipment during the exercise cycle with increased effectiveness against Australian elements. Such unpredictability may include small-team, swarm, airborne or subterranean tactics, or flame, electronic, cyber, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear warfare.⁴⁸
• Australian intelligence staff should identify changes and vulnerabilities in the exercise adversary’s threat model.
   
• Commanders should promote innovation in their subordinates to develop and practise tactics between exercises to defeat such a threat.
   
• All units should employ newly developed tactics to defeat threat systems in detail, or recognise changes in the threat system to further refine subsequent tactical actions.
   
• Following major exercises, units and formations should review their ability to be tactically adaptable and preserve lessons of innovation and creativity in the face of an unknown threat.
   
• Commanders should be held to account if tactical adaptation is not achieved.
   
• Units should be proud of and rewarded for their capacity to be tactically adaptable.

Some commentators will suggest that introducing unpredictability of this nature into the Force Generation Cycle is unfeasible and would conflict with the already rigorous certification requirements to reach training levels and standards. They may also argue that exercises are already too limited by resources and that core skills at the lower tactical level must still be reinforced. These arguments are certainly valid. However, the gradual introduction of unknown elements into the training continuum represents an attempt to both develop core skills and promote tactical adaptation within the existing constraints of the training construct. The reality of not promoting tactical adaptation is that Australian TTPs will only evolve when confronted with the catalyst of casualties on operations, as was the case in Afghanistan.⁴⁹

More importantly, the Army’s ability to quickly adapt to a new threat will be hindered. A ‘game-day player’ attitude will be insufficient if such unpredictability occurs in a state-based conventional force where the tempo of conflict could produce crippling casualties before the Army realises that the enemy is not a Musorian battalion.

Conclusion

The Army is in a unique position to effectively shape its training focus to prepare land force elements for future operations. It possesses the tools, through the IPB and MAP, to accurately derive and exploit the vulnerabilities in a threat system. The Army’s recent combat experience verified the importance of revising TTPs when faced with a threat that does not conform to a known model. However, a surge of aversion to ‘the Afghan model’ and an emphasis on the ‘perfection’ of the pre-East Timor days threatens the loss of the Army’s only recent experience of adapting tactics. Without robust discussion between military professionals and revision of the current training model, the Army will be poorly placed to account for the threat and terrain in the next battle. The Army must reconsider the lessons of Afghanistan, promote a learning model of tactical adaptation and introduce unpredictability into training scenarios to prepare soldiers for the volatility of the next threat. Only through reform will the Army finally be postured to adapt and overcome Australia’s future adversaries.

Endnotes

1    Australian Army, Land Warfare Doctrine, 5-1-4 The Military Appreciation Process, Land Warfare Development Centre, Puckapunyal, 1999.
2    J.B. Brown, The Decisive Point: Identifying Points of Leverage in Tactical Combat Operations, United States Army Command and General Staff College, Leavenworth, 1996.
3    R. Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World, Penguin Books, London, 2005, pp. 14–16.
4    Directorate of Plans – Army, The Australian Army: an Aide-Memoire, Defence Publishing Service, Canberra, 2014, p. 5.
5    W. Murray, Military Adaptation in War, Institute for Defense Analyses, Alexandria, US, 2009.
6    LWD 5-1-4 The Military Appreciation Process.
7    Brown, The Decisive Point, p. 8.
8    R. Barrett, ‘Boldness be my friend: Why the high risk plan is often the safest (and the most successful)’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. VII, No. 3, Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2010,
pp. 9–18.
9    S. Holmes, ‘Decision-Making at the Tactical Level’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. IX, No. 3, Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2012, pp. 89–106.
10    A notable analysis of tactical adaptation in conventional warfare is that of T.A. Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War, United States Army Command and General Staff College, Leavenworth, 1981. Other relevant publications include the analysis of Australian tactics in Vietnam in B. Hall and
A. Ross, “‘Landmark’ Battles and the Myths of Vietnam” in C. Stockings (ed.), Anzac’s Dirty Dozen, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2012, pp. 186–209; D. Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2010, pp. 19–20.
11    Murray, Military Adaptation in War, pp. 2–4.
12    For a good example of a junior officer challenging existing manoeuvre doctrine see M. Tink, ‘Non-Linear Manoeuvre: A Paradigm Shift for the Dismounted Combat Platoon’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. X, No. 1, Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2013, pp. 83–93.
13    J. Brown, ‘The Challenge of Innovation in the Australian Army’, Security Challenges, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2011, pp. 13–18.
14    The Army has attempted to create electronic forums for lessons learnt and education programs to encourage academic writing in its officers. Unfortunately, such avenues do not appeal to contemporary commanders, nor are they tactically focused.
15    H. Bondy, ‘Personality Type and Military Culture in the Anglo-West’, Australian Defence Force Journal, No. 169, 2005, pp. 4–14; J. Brown, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey: Officer Culture in the Australian Army’, Australian Army Journal, Culture Edition, Vol. X, No. 3, 2013, pp. 250–52.
16    Australian Army, Changes to Army’s Force Structure Under Plan Beersheba, CA Directive 29/11.
17    Head Modernisation and Strategic Planning – Army, Adaptive Campaigning – Future Land Operating Concept, Canberra, 2009, pp. 1–18.
18    Department of Defence, Defence White Paper 2013.
19    D. Ball, ‘China’s Cyber Warfare Capabilities’, Security Challenges, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2011, pp. 81–103.
20    Adaptive Campaigning – Future Land Operating Concept, pp. 31–32.
21    K. Gillespie, ‘The Adaptive Army Initiative’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. VI, No. 3, Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2009, p. 15.
22    See Australian Army Journal, Vol. VI, No. 3, Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2009; Directorate of Land Concepts and Designs, Designing Canada’s Army of Tomorrow – A Land Operations 2021 Publication, Ontario, 2011; J.C. Crowley et al., Adapting the Army’s Training and Leader Development Programs for Future Challenges, Santa Monica, 2013.
23    Holmes, ‘Decision-Making at the Tactical Level’.
24    While the following discussion does not relate specifically to the conflict in Afghanistan and may include aspects relevant to recent operations in Iraq and East Timor, ‘the Afghan model’ is most widely known in the context of the modern Australian Army.
25    G. Rice, ‘Lessons Learned: What did we learn from the war in Afghanistan?’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. XI, No. 1, 2014, pp. 12–16.
26    QR. Johnson, The Afghan way of war: how and why they fight, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012, pp. 249–98.
27    S. Gills, ‘Remaining timely and relevant: key challenges for Army’s intelligence capability post- Afghanistan’, The Bridges Review, Issue 1, 2013, pp. 13–26.
28    M. Bassingthwaite, ‘Taking Tactics from the Taliban, Tactical Principles for Commanders’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. VI, No. 1, Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2009, pp. 25–36; Australian Army, Land Warfare Doctrine 3-0-1 Counterinsurgency.
29    J. Brown, ‘What did we learn from the War in Afghanistan?’, The Age, 30 October 2013.
30    S. Kilma, ‘Combat Focus: a commander’s responsibility in the formation, development and training of today’s combat team’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. X, No. 2, Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2011, p. 105.
31    J. Black, The Battle of Waterloo: A New History, Icon Books, London, 2010, pp. 3–21.
32    It is useful to compare tactical innovation prior to the First World War. See Murray, Military Adaptation in War, pp. 98–106.
33    Brown, ‘What did we learn from the War in Afghanistan?’
34    J. Hammett, ‘We were soldiers once… the decline of the Royal Australian Infantry Corps’,
Australian Army Journal, Vol. V, No. 1, Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2008, pp. 39–50.
35    A verbatim quote from a current mid-level commander.
36    J. Blaxland, The Australian Army from Whitlam to Howard, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, 2014, pp. 121–27.
37    Lieutenant Colonel S., ‘The Collective Preparation of Army Intelligence Professionals for Deployment’, The Bridges Review, 2013, pp. 9–11.
38    Murray, Military Adaptation in War, pp. 20–26.
39    G.P. Gentile, ‘A Strategy of Tactics: Population-centric COIN and the Army’, Parameters, United States Army War College, Pennsylvania, 2009, pp. 12–15.
40    Exercise HAMEL 2014 was a good example of scriptwriters unrealistically adding exercise ‘complexity’. To disrupt a conventional military force in depth and distract the Blue Force commander, an unconventional enemy with no previous history of employing IEDs developed a diverse, sophisticated and accelerated IED capability commensurate with the final years of operations in Iraq — in seven days.
41    C. Clausewitz, On War (1832), Oxford University Press, New York, 2007, pp. 68–69.
42    M. Barbee, ‘The CTC Program: Leading the March into the Future’, Military Review, July–August 2013, pp. 16–22.
43    Murray, Military Adaptation in War, pp. 20–26.
44    Gillespie, ‘The Adaptive Army Initiative’, p. 15.
45    S. Winter, ‘“Fixed, Determined, Inviolable” Military Organisational Culture and Adaptation’,
Australian Army Journal, Vol. VI, No. 3, Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2009, pp. 63–64.
46    J. Blaxland, ‘Refocusing the Australian Army’, Security Challenges, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2011,
pp. 47–54.
47    Head Modernisation and Strategic Planning – Army, Adaptive Campaigning – Future Land Operating Concept, pp. 31–32.
48    Exercise adversaries should be driven by the Future Land Warfare Report produced by Modernisation and Strategic Planning Division – Australian Army Headquarters.
49    Rice, ‘Lessons Learned: What did we learn from the war in Afghanistan?’, p. 14.