I've been heard to say that the role of the Reserve Component is to fight and win our nation's wars; and the role of the Active Component is to keep the lights on at the military bases inbetween said wars and to write doctrine about the last war.

Then go to our sad history of "first battles"; where that doctrine based on the last war meets the next war head to head...

Doctrine is an understanding of what right looks like based on the last case study, and it shapes how we will employ the miltary to implement strategy on the next case study. Historically our saving grace has been that those reserve component/draftee war fighters never got around to reading said doctirne, so they just fought the war they were in once they were mobilized and deployed, as opposed to trying to fight the last war.

The army really is a service of "doctrine nazis" though. I don't know how we break that. Look at the who's who of senior army leaders in WWII and you find a list of guys who received Marshall's stamp of approval at the infantry school as being the best doctrine guys. Little has changed. Our CTCs rewarded the conservative commander who could implement doctrine the most accurately and rigidly. Apply MDMP precisely and lose a battle, that's ok. Shortcut MDMP and win a battle and you got lucky.

When it comes to doctrine, the Army really just needs to take pill and relax a little.