The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[Tom Odom]

Err... not sure what you mean. Best practice is highly context specific. It merely refers to the use of ways and means to gain ends. That is an enduring phenomenon in Warfare. That has nothing/little to do with technological innovation. Actually, most technology does build on existing knowledge of how to do things, even if that existing knowledge comes from experimentation.

Agree somewhat as a historian and a lessons learned guy. The which comes first, doctrine or technology, question is a favorite for orals at CGSC. It is deliberately a chicken or egg question, the real point of which is that one without the other is an incomplete solution.

Heresy! Heresy! Foot drill is sacred and we must maketh up much sayings and twaddle to support it!! Doth thou want to just create orderly movement of men in it's place? Heresy I say!

Agreed but add that foot drill as we know it and you as a Brit refer to it was originally a battle drill, rendered tactically obsolete by advances in technology and accompanying doctrine.

....and in 1917, German recruit instruction specified that only as much foot drill as was necessary to march from "the rail head to the support trench," was to be taught.

Yes because at that stage, the habits ingrained in standard drill were guaranteed to get you killed.

The US Army in WWII went in with an infantry doctrine that stilll in its roots adhered to linear battle drills. The infantry paid a heavy price. An excellent analysis of all of this is on CSI's web page at

Secret of Future Victories, Paul F. Gorman, General, U.S. Army, Retired.

We have by no means cured ourselves of this phenomenon; it is rather like tactical kudzoo, choking thought with ever-tightening sinews. I have seen it when units go into a "stack" and then move down a street at a the CTC. You also see it downrange as whatever gets by in training gets imprinted like a baby duck following a dog it sees as its Momma.

My comment on this capstone document is but one:

I don't really care about the buzzwords, fuziness, or even the art of predicting the future. As long as the center-piece of the doctrine is thinking adaptation, the soldiers and the leaders will get it right when the time comes. As soon as someone says doctrine requires rigid application, the soldier and the leader alike get screwed.

Best
Tom