the British army struggles to foster effective debate within a hierarchical command chain
A German general, Uhle-Wettler (one of the few notable German military theory authors since the 60's) has recounted meetings at SHAPE in one of his books.

He depicted German officers as openly disagreeing and ready to criticize superior's opinions. meanwhile, British officers displayed themselves a a solid bloc.

H also pointed out that the British officers knew exactly how many and which personnel slots for generals exist in the UK's army, while German officers weren't even aware of the quantity in the Heer.


Maybe such organisation culture differences may be important to such issues.


There is a simple fix: Some roleplaying games and wargames are being done without uniforms and ranks, with all participants in civilian clothes. This removes hierarchies if the people don't know (recognize) each other.

Why not simply establish a forum with anonymised accounts (and moderators who ban or rename members which gave away too much info about their rank) to discuss such internal affairs?
The elder officers are often less tech-savvy and would probably be underrepresented, which would reduce the role of conservatism and inertia in the discussion.