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SPRING 2020 who possesses the ability to step back and watch a garden grow before making a decision .
Human resourcing is not an exact science and there is no such thing as a perfectly standardized staff . Exercises are testing grounds to identify gaps and refine raw human resources into what they should be and how they should operate . It takes time and patience to build a proficient team . In fact , in November 2019 during exercise Trident Jupiter 19-1 , Lieutenant General Laurent Kolodziej compared this process to the Samurai who sometimes took ten years to forge the sword that he needed .
As there is no such thing as an omniscient leader , exercises are venues to confront various points of view and discover new ones with a shared sense of purpose . According to General McChrystal , “ the team is better off with the cohesive ability to improvise as a unit , relying on both specialization and overlapping responsibilities where each can do some of the other ’ s jobs in a pinch , as well as such familiarity with one another ’ s habits and responses that they can anticipate instinctively one anothers responses .” 2 This contributes to the building of a team of teams before having to fight for real .
Future of Exercise Design : Training Tomorrow ’ s Leaders
The future is in a constant forward motion , always moving ahead and changing while we solve the future challenges that have become our present . Because of this , development of potential events and threats are sometimes difficult to grasp and model . Exercises are experiment grounds that enable the training of leaders using scenarios of a potential future . Though they are anchored in the present , they also are an occasion to use new planning options and concepts designed to tackle future problems and check their relevance , thus enabling their refinement where necessary . These battle staff trainings and exercises are the opportunities that put a military leader in a position to influence their own future and that of the staff .
development of a new generation of tools and weapons . Future exercises will integrate solutions that enable leaders with more efficient assets that multiply the range of possibilities . Technological innovation in the fields of information technology has already led military leaders to adopt network centric warfare and take into account the disruption caused by cyber combat in modern warfare . Though the network is comprised primarily of people connected by technology , one of the burgeoning shapers of innovation is not human . It is artificial intelligence ( AI ). Future exercises will be influenced by AI related solutions and challenges , and training military leaders in an environment where AI will be part of both friendly and enemy force assets will be commonplace . Paradoxically , the military leaders who might gain the greatest benefit by including AI in their leadership models are probably the trainers themselves . Nowadays , AI can model cities and their environment , and mimic behaviors of both individuals and entire groups of people . In NATO , the multiplication of exercises and training audiences , the number of different scenarios encompassing all sectors of the 360 degree approach , the building up of exercises , and adapting scenarios and manning response cells will become more and more challenging . The more tailored the exercise , the bigger the added value . For those responsible for providing NATO with adapted exercises , AI may become a solution , and it may be here sooner than we think .
Conclusion
Through its 2019-2023 Campaign Plan , Leading Change – Fit for Purpose , LANDCOM contributes to the training of NATO military leaders . In fact , the naming of exercises in the 2020 LANDCOM Commander ’ s Intent confirms that exercises are key to the training of military leaders in the land domain at all levels of the chain of command . LC
The future of warfare is not limited to purely military dilemmas . It is also related to everything comprising our various surroundings that we consider our contemporary , yet changing environments . Future exercises must reflect the growing complexity of warfare in these changing environments . The recent return of potential large scale conflict in both Europe and Asia , coupled with the exponential growth and rapid flow of information and its impact on crisis development , challenges military leaders who must be able to face multiple types of situations with agile decision making capability . This is an important factor in modern exercises . They test the resilience of their training audiences , placing them in dilemmas reflecting the complexity of , for instance , combat operations in populated areas or nearby industrial facilities that introduce the high probability of massive civilian casualties or environmental disaster .
Photo credit : Spanish Army
Eventually , future warfare will depend on the
( 2 ) Stanley McChrystal , Tantum Collins , David Silverman and Chris Fussel , Team of Teams , New rules of engagement for a complex world . Penguin Books , 2015 .
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