Military Review English Edition January-February 2014

DO WE TRAIN TO FAIL? approach with several potentially dangerous limitations. If we maintain a mirrored approach where those who input the virtual scenario use the exact methodologies, doctrine, and concepts as our Army, we will continue to ﬁght copies of ourselves both in virtual and actual simulacra. Conclusions: Systemic Change Versus Systematic Adjustments We do not need to start over. All of our existing training centers, resources, and many of our training products are ﬂexible and require systemic adjustment. By “systemic,” I mean that the overarching Army training philosophy must transform to reject training simulacra and embrace simulation where plausible.40 By changing the overarching philosophy, this generates systemic transformation across the entire training environment. This is the opposite of a systematic approach, in which individual branches or sections make localized changes while the overarching logic that governs system behavior remains unchanged.41 Currently, our military professional education and training institution relies on systematic change, which cannot cure us of our simulacra. Thus, individual adjustments in doctrine, modiﬁcations in one school, or adjustments by one training center will not affect the overarching simulacra of our current training approach. We will continue to ﬁght copies of ourselves conducting actions that are divorced from actual rival motives, behaviors, and methodologies. Systemic transformation requires the dismantlement of many deeply cherished structures, tenets, and concepts that maintain an illusion of identity and relevance for the U.S. Army.42 Upsetting so many apple carts means that unless senior Army leadership implement systemic change starting with our training philosophy, the mob of angry apple vendors will overwhelm any localized or individual systematic attempts to reduce simulacra.43 I expect some contention over this article’s thesis if one misconstrues the relationship between effects and motives. As stressed throughout this piece, our trainers, opposing forces, and support personnel perform an outstanding job, although at the expense of our ﬂawed training philosophy. For instance, an enemy suicide bomber within any training center today demonstrates accepted symbolic signatures when they attack our Army units. They dress in MILITARY REVIEW January-February 2014 appropriate costumes, use realistic props, and inﬂict replicated casualties upon the Army unit. This is not the point—the distinction between training simulacra and training simulation lies in the motives behind the opposing force suicide bomber, why he produced the effect in training, and how the Army unit might inﬂuence transforming the environment. I directed countless opposing force suicide attacks in training environments where my soldiers successfully created the physical effect of a suicide bomber attack. However, if the Army unit attempted to investigate the attack or perform predictive analysis to attempt to mitigate future attacks, they encountered simulacra. Bombers conducted attacks based on opposing force plans tied to rigid training objectives, and reﬂect none of the true motives behind actual suicide bombers or the complex nuances within the conﬂict environment. Even if an Army unit gains understanding of the phenomenon driving suicidal attacks, they cannot ever actually inﬂuence the training environment without the training center web of command and control artiﬁcially directing the opposing forces to stop or reduce attacks.44 Until the scenario is over, the opposing force will insert suicide bombers at a rate directed by the training center headquarters instead of reﬂecting the linkages within a conﬂict environment that motivates such behavior. These training actors become puppets tied to strings and are simulacra of actual adaptive, innovative rival actors in conﬂict. Opposing force soldiers do not halt their actions due to successful actions of the Army unit, nor does the centralized control of how we train allow any system adaptation. In other words, the Army unit cannot sway my opposing force soldier to join the legitimate government because that soldier follows my orders to ﬁght as a “bad guy.” If he surrenders, he does so only on the orders of a superior in the opposing forces. He acts regardless of whether the Army unit successfully creates the conditions for enemy to surrender or not, although training observers may artiﬁcially drive this process by coordinating with the enemy unit. All actions remain centralized within the Western decision-making models and hierarchical control where both the suicide bomber and the individual Army unit soldier are identical and follow orders within mirror organizations. Their only difference is 23

Military Review English Edition January-February 2014 | Page 25