Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 105

FORCE AGILITY

can improve its agility when conflicts arise. Future
conflicts will demand rapid and effective creation of
plans and tactics that allow fast, effective operations
using all available data for even faster execution. The
technology that could help the Army achieve rapid

tactical agility is already available through crowdsourcing, big data, and mobile gaming. The Army
needs to embrace it to fight successfully in a complex
world.22 Agility, not prediction, is the prescription for
success in future conflict.

Biography
Lt. Col. Chad Storlie, U.S. Army, retired, is a midlevel marketing executive at Union Pacific Railroad and an adjunct
lecturer at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska. He holds a BA from Northwestern University and an MBA
from Georgetown University. He served over twenty years in active and Army Reserve units in Iraq, Bosnia, Korea,
and throughout the United States. He is the author of two books and has published articles in over eighty print and
online publications.

Notes
1. The mission, the task force, and the commander represented in
this vignette are fictitious; they are used for illustration purposes only.
2. Field Manual (FM) 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization
and Operations (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office
[GPO], 5 May 2014), 9-3.
3. For an example of a small staff group developing courses of
action, see Matt Matthews, “Interview with LTC Peter A. Newell,”
Operational Leadership Experiences in the Global War on Terrorism
(Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Operational Leadership Experiences Project, 23 March 2006), 5, accessed 22 March
2016, http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/
p4013coll13/id/120/rec/128.
4. Harold L Chappell, “Fixed Permanent Fortifications at the
Operational Level of War” (monograph, School of Advanced Military
Studies, 10 May 1991), 14–17, accessed 22 March 2016, http://www.
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a240407.pdf.
5. Ibid.
6. Andrew Smith, Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq, 2003-09: A
Case of Operational Surprise and Institutional Response (Carlisle, PA:
Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, April 2011), 12; Anthony Cordesman, Charles Loi, and Vivek Kocharlakota, IED Metrics for
Iraq: June 2003–September 2010 (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic
and International Studies, 11 November 2010), 3–6; Michael O’Hanlon
and Jason Campbell, Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction &
Security in Post-Saddam Iraq (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 25
June 2009), 15. IED fatalities and IED event rates were calculated by the
author using data from the sources cited in this note.
7. David H. Petraeus, “How We Won in Iraq: And Why all the
Hard-Won Gains of the Surge are in Grave Danger of Being Lost
Today,” Foreign Policy website, 29 October 2013, accessed 22 March
2016, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/10/29/how-we-won-in-iraq/.
8. “Army Mission Statement,” Organization page of the U.S. Army
homepage, accessed 22 March 2016, http://www.army.mil/info/
organization/.
9. Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 3-90, Offense
and Defense (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 31 August 2012), 1–6.

MILITARY REVIEW  May-June 2016

10. Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary online, s.v.
“crowdsourcing.”
11. “Netflix Prize,” Netflix, Inc., 2009, accessed 22 March 2016,
http://www.netflixprize.com/.
12. “The Netflix Prize Rules,” Netflix, Inc., 2006, accessed 22
March 2016, http://www.netflixprize.com/rules.
13. “Netflix Prize: Leaderboard,” Netflix, Inc., 2009, accessed
22 March 2016, http://www.netflixprize.com/leaderboard?showtest=t&limit=1000. Note: According to Mike Masnick, “Why Netflix
Never Implemented the Algorithm that Won the Netflix $1 Million
Challenge,” Innovation (blog), www.techdirt.com, 13 April 2012, Netflix did not implement the winning solution for several reasons, but it
did modify and adopt algorithms developed by one team.
14. “Big Data: What It Is and Why it Matters,” SAS Institute Inc.,
accessed 22 March 2016, http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/big-data/what-is-big-data.html.
15. Steven Rosenbush and Laura Stevens, “At UPS, the Algorithm Is the Driver,” Wall Street Journal online, 16 February
2015, accessed 18 March 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/
at-ups-the-algorithm-is-the-driver-1424136536.
16. Newzoo, “Global Games Market Will Reach $102.9 Billion in
2017,” Newzoo.com, accessed 22 March 2016, http://www.newzoo.
com/insights/global-games-market-will-reach-102-9-billion-2017-2/.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Kate Everson, “Allstate Is in Gamification’s Hands,” Chief
Learning Officer online magazine, July 2014, accessed 23 March
2016, http://cedma-europe.org/newsletter%20articles/Clomedia/
Allstate%20is%20in%20Gamifications%20Hands%20%28Jul%20
14%29.pdf.
20. FM 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization and Operations,
9-3.
21. Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 5-0, The Operations Process
(Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 17 May 2012), 1.
22. Donald Kingston, “Hurtling Toward Failure: Complexity in
Army Operations,” Military Review 94(4) ( July–August 2014), 28–32.

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