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Reality check: learning the art of war in an age of diverse threats
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| 11 October 2006 |
Reality check: learning the art of war in an age of diverse threats
By Rupert Pengelley
In pursuit of improved combined joint operations capabilities, further synergies are being sought in harnessing the live, virtual and constructive simulation system domains to one another to create still more complex and realistic scenarios.
The perennial question remains: exactly what type of war should today's troops be preparing for? What the US Army's Training and Doctrine Command calls the contemporary operating environment or COE ("the operational environment that exists in the world today and is expected to exist in the clearly foreseeable future") is inevitably dominated by the types of asymmetric and undeniably 'hot' counter-insurgency and peace-support operations seen in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon.
Military analysts and contingency planners have resumed flagging up 'massed armed forces' as an estimable future threat for the first time since the Cold War, Jane's has noted. They have also started to draw attention to the potential instabilities arising from the expiry of the SALT II nuclear arms limitation treaty in the coming decade. The range of potential threats is diverse. Politicians can have as many military options as they want - but only in so far as they are prepared to pay for them. Suffice it to say, there is always a risk of critical underlying military skills being mortgaged to meet today's crises.
The US Army is continuing to operate three CTCs (or 'dirt centres' in the current US vernacular, to distinguish them from classroom simulation centres also used for tactical training), including the National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin; the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk; and the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC, ex-CMTC) at Hohenfels in Germany.
But since 2003 these have progressively abdicated from providing training in warfighting as it was previously understood, all hands having in effect been dispatched to the pumps to ensure there are enough troops trained to operate in Afghanistan and Iraq as opposed to facing down latent or long-term threats, or perfecting new developments in the art of war.
Changing times
The British Army has also been taking another look at its collective training needs and is hoping it has hit upon the right compromise. According to Colonel Tim Allen, commander of the Land Warfare Collective Training Group (UK) at Warminster, "some could say that what we do today is still a bit sterile and Cold War, and that we have not moved far enough" in recognising the progression from non-populated to populated battlefields, situated largely in urban areas and involving diverse, asymmetric threats.
"This paradigm shift has not really borne down on our training, so we have now got to make bold corrections," he said. "In so doing we are having to consider how to preserve our warfighting core (Block 1 of the so-called 'Three-block War', comprising warfighting, stability operations, and humanitarian actions), which involves a high degree of integration, joint effects etcetera and is very complex.
"It is not about preserving the old ways of doing things, because today there is no question you are still required to do Block 1 operations. Joint operations are happening now - fire and manoeuvre at the lowest level, integration of indirect fire, air and aviation - this is happening on a daily basis."
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© 2006 Jane's Information Group
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