Army Learning Concept 2015: These are not the droids you are looking for

Thanks to Anon for the response. My reply is as follows:

1) As mentioned I don't think we're talking about the same types of simulations. In a prior life I worked on aircraft and I was in simulators to practice emergency procedures. They work well for that. No argument there. Now, simulating live fire for ground fire - simulations are awful in that regard. The equipment fails to function, the equipment does not range as far as the weapons, and when you deal with indoor simulators it's just not anywhere close enough to provide adequate training at this time - go to CCTT and you'll see. Should it be abandoned, not at all. But it's not a substitute and is hardly a tool for sharpening those with experience. Furthermore, look at systems like EST2000 and I think those are awful. The EST has never assisted me at the range, it has never provided good feedback. Shoot / Don't Shoot exercises just the same - don't work. Lastly, using MILES and other shoot 'em up simulation items have brought about horrible anticipations on the part of Soldiers. Anyone at any time that is shot during these simulations is declared "dead". We know from combat studies that people continue to fight after being shot in many instances. But we don't train to that mentality. Overall, as a ground force person I'd say our simulations are pretty poor.
2) I had to laugh a bit when you cited our asymmetric advantage. For ten years now we've studied and trained for all the asymmetric tactics and advantages our enemies have used against us. We've enjoyed our "asymmetric advantage" the entire time and even before. Doesn't look like it helped very much. Our profound financial asymmetry still meant that it took ten years to find Bin Laden. Not a lot of bang for the buck. Our enemies are using 2x4s, metal sheets, and $20 microwaves to defeat our million dollar technology - and none of our simulations advantages have done anything to counter that.
3) We learn when there is purpose and meaning to what we're doing. At this time I'm not ready to conceded that a 'high score' or getting a green light on your simulator is purposeful and meaningful when compared to real missions and real people. Going back to MILES and similar modalities for ground combat simulation, you never get shot when you're hiding behind a bush and your enemy is using MILES. But you'll be dead in combat by doing that. Simulations very often lead us down a road where we think we've "won" when in fact we have not. Additionally, simulations for ground forces too often lead to "rangisms" that destroy the fidelity of the training and lead to the destruction of purpose and meaning. That's when you see people drive a vehicle out into the open so they can get shot and killed by the OC. That means they can take a break for the remainder of the simulation. You can call that a Soldier-Leader issue, but it's human nature. People will not invest themselves in stupidity or fantasy.
4) All of the tools you mention are practiced in training within a motorpool environment and during training maneuver FTXs and so forth. We do not need a multi-million dollar classroom and software compilation to exercise our skills on mIRC. Go set up your TOC, CPOF, OE254s etc and have at it - huge waste of time and money to even try to do otherwise. To do otherwise is simple fraud, waste and abuse of funds. When it comes to communications, simulations are the least productive modality for training I can imagine.
5) Completely disagree - unless you are speaking solely of technical skills and rare examples such as fixing battle damaged equipment. You train skills for shooting by PMI (with good NCOs) and going to the range. You train land nav by getting out a compass and map and protractor and stomping the brush. When my PSGs trained their platoons for gunnery, not once was simulation used, because it wasn't available. Yet they produced the best M2A3 and M1A2 gunnery platoons within the BDE.
6) Very limited application of what you're talking about here and I would say it's mainly confined to air and air defense ops.
7) Hmm, after participating and viewing "networked simulation" such as what occurs in many TOCEXs, I'd say the opposite is true. Networked simulation sounds really sexy, but anything networked and anything simulated using canned scenarios is assured to have virtually no crossover effect to real application. I think one thing you're assuming is that all of our training takes place in TRADOC and in a classroom. The majority of training and the best training takes place in FORSCOM at the unit level. Take your CO or BN out to the field and run through FTXs, set up your commo, deal with real supply issues, and so forth - then tell me how some networked simulation compares. There is no comparison. You cannot simulate the establishment of a LRP with class V bulk resupply.

Finally I'll say this: the best simulation I've ever been involved in was MOUT training at Zussman. The costs to build and run that place make it a virtual one of a kind. Still it was not wholly adequate in preparing for urban combat. However, it is the best thing I've seen in my military career insofar as simulated training environments. If we think we can build one of those for each Army post or each Division or possibly down to the BCT level (since that's how we deploy) then we will not be able to pay for that. Perhaps one day it'll change, but the time and money needed to develop adequate simulation is a bridge too far, when it comes to ground combat. Aviation is further along but still, I don't see it as a panacea.
4)

I guess I'll chime in here for a bit.

From my position I'll say I'm not too enamored with ALC2015.

1) I think many of the things it endorses are items that good instructors have been doing on their own for quite some time. Looking to "doctrinalize" these ideas will only serve to stifle them.
2) I'm currently an instructor and I've mentioned the point about cost, uniqueness and true effects produced by ALC2015 methods. However, I have completely failed to capture in words like the following, which are seminal in this tech-based cult that Army instruction has thrust itself into: "What makes any resource a strategic and importantly a "sustained" competitive advantage is not ubiquitous access but rather its "scarcity." The US Army will gain and maintain an advantage over rivals by having something that others do not. Outpacing adversaries is certain to fail and will cost millions, perhaps billions of dollars, if we rely predominantly on a technological approach to learning as advocated in ALC 2015."
I completely agree.
3) To take this a bit further, I myself am dead-set against bringing games into the classroom. The last thing I want is for people that will be charged with making decisions leading to mission success v. mission failure and dead Soldiers v. live Soldiers, is the inconsequential gaming mentality that comes with anything that only requires one to hit the reset button in the wake of bad decisions. Bad decisions should illustrate real consequences and hopefully bring about some pain in those that make them - real life vignettes, can capture that, games cannot. Games do nothing to develop empathy. Footage from Wanat, or stories as told by the Muj against the Soviets can do that. Limited, yes. But much better than games.
4) One thing I take issue with is that notion that our Army is the best leadership factory on the planet. Right now I think that leadership is hurting in the Army. And, this is where we need to focus. Our technology will get us nowhere fast if it's not accompanied by leadership. Smartphones, Apps, simulations, and games do nothing to further leadership. We still live and fight in environments that require leaders to speak face to face with their subordinates and often times their enemies. They do not "interface".
5) "Second, the stated purpose of the ALC 2015 focuses on individual Soldier learning. This focus on individual learning does not mention the key to success in creating a learning environment - leadership found in the command team." This statement is why I so heavily believe in #4 above.
6) I commend that author for taking a look at the references in the document. Additionally, looking at the references you'll see that a few key declarations are made and referenced to statements or paragraphs within books. That does not even come close to passing the sniff test for properly vetted material. Like it or not, the Army is publishing such documents that are on par with literature reviews that are to be published in peer reviewed journals. The standards for research and references must be better. The recent white paper on the profession of arms is actually worse than ALC2015. This lack of rigor and specificity in the establishment of principles and declarations of their utility does not bode well for the future of Army policy and doctrine.
7) I do appreciate the sentiment expressed in ALC2015 to replace the sage on the stage with the guide on the side. That's great and I am happy to see that - albeit a corny description. That's good stuff. Good instructors have been doing this forever. I've seen some damn good NCOs conduct "Sergeants Time" in this manner - it works.
8) The biggest logistical hurdle I see in ALC2015 is going to be in our initial level training. We are going to have to backtrack on the new found aversion to rote memorization. Learning the rank structure, learning weapons capabilities, clearing procedures, operational terms, and so forth is going to require some memorization. We cannot go with ALC2015 as a one-stop document and call it a day. Flexibility will have to be built into the system.
9) Finally I'll highlight this comment by the author: "The principles of adult learning are much more relevant to the Army learning strategy than the dozens of references to millennial generation learning through digital and technological means." Amen, amen, amen. This brings me to the last of my comments, otherwise I'll keep writing on this for quite a bit longer. The Army must take note of the author's comment - and the Army must transform its learning model to capture the effects that adult learning can produce. The millennial generation literature is crap: I see nothing in it that stands the test of in-classroom experience. The Army needs to get off that soap box. Focus on adult learning. Now, for the point that I know will never get a foothold...if the Army is to capture the benefits that adult learning (as described by the author) can provide, it must, MUST, expand the duration of training or get rid of the inane, mindless, terminally annoying crap that TRADOC does. An afternoon spent problem solving is immensely better than an afternoon spent listening to some twit rattle on about cultural awareness that he/she really doesn't understand. TRADOC is one of the worst organizations on the planet and it stifles all that adult learning looks to capture. The training requirements, minutiae, AR 350-1 nonsense, lesson plan dogma, and the perpetual focus on everything but the mission is a force inhibitor of the highest magnitude. Teaching comes secondary to vehicle inspections and other clutter. If the Army refuses to embrace this true adult learning model, it will continue to falter in the education of its Soldiers.

The author should be congratulated for putting into words, eloquently, many of the ills of the current version of ALC2015. Because it's a TRADOC thing, I don't anticipate his words of wisdom and common sense will be integrated. But, I am hoping they are noticed by someone with the ability to make some changes.

Mike,

I think this just shows how relatively meaningless such strategies are...while at least the uniform debate has "substance"(literally).

In my view the Army produces so many strategies, white papers, and futures concepts that the whole idea of being "strategic" is diluted to a buzz word and widespread cynicism. This problem is not just with the Army--I have examined the almost countless federal agency strategies out there -- again there are so many it dilutes the idea to a kind of "cottage industry" for think tanks and war colleges. I wish some of our senior leaders who love to make strategies would read Mintzberg's treatise (Rise and Fall), for example.

I suggest our "learning problem" is probably better stated as a self-help issue (particularly with our more senior officers who may not read routinely, interdisciplinary, and a lot). It's hard to influence such passion for reading, for example, in someone else. Much of that comes from intrinsics ...

Soldiers can and will learn on their own - and on their own time - but generally speaking, they will spend that time reinforcing skill and knowledge in which they are already strong, rather than addressing weaknesses. In many cases, this learning behavior long predated their military service. Ask yourself this question: Do you shoot in your spare time ? Would you, do you, spend your own money to do so ? This is no different than the guy who spends all his spare time playing Call of Duty. Some of us like history, and consume hours on end reading the many offerings in the military history section of Borders.

Some of this discussion is really about how the United States Army and other services manage their people. If one assumes that the service member comes in as a blank slate, then all forms of training and education as well as physical and mental conditioning are necessary. But soldiers do not come in tabula rosa. Seldom, if ever, does the system - or very often - anyone within the system bother to inquire about what that person experience in the 18+ years prior to entry into military service. It does come out in test scores, because in the absence of that information, performance-based assessment is all that the training system has to go by - and what you end up with is a remediation loop that endeavors to "shape" the soldier into a different person. It doesn't always work. Sometimes you end up "breaking" the individual, more often the soldier learns to conform to the standard - but not without a high personal cost. We accept this self-sacrifice as intrinsic to military service and the soldier's lifestyle. Eventually, all service members are released or retire, and they often spend much of the rest of their lives getting back to themselves. Not infrequently, they rediscover interests that they had forgotten during their time in uniform - this is no less so because of the demands placed on them in uniform.

So I really think one needs to be careful - and think hard - about how soldier motivation migrates from the Pavlovian responses they were taught in initial entry training through to self-actualization (presumably what senior leaders experience at the height of their profession). I do believe that the personnel system could improve self-actualization by offering service members less of a cookie cutter career path, one that offers them the chance to make a unique and irreplaceable contribution to their country and to the military institutions they serve, rather than just serving their time as a cog in the machine. And they will better able to enjoy their fishing expeditions when they have to hang it up once and for all.

Mike,

Great article; very inciteful thought, ideas, and options regarding the direction the Army needs to head with its idea of life-long learning for its soldiers.

I've studied all of the other new Army concepts, but not the Learning Concept; I will now do so. All of these concepts represent and attempt to posit something new that might be helpful to implementing much needed change. Sometimes they are of value, sometimes not, but they at least seek to posit new ideas.

I wholeheartedly agree that although technology is very much now an integral part of the 'world' environment we must all embrace, it is not the ultimate answer to all of our problems. As you point out, We must beware of the well-funded materiel developer's call as it is as intoxicating as the siren's call; like the sirens call it will lead us off our desired course.

I think there is great merit in your Chinese proverb... we need a learning strategy that addresses both individual and collective learning that incorporates close, near, and long-range development objectives (begs the quesiton of what these objective should be). The pertinent questions are 'what' does the Army provide education on? 'When' in a soldier's 20-30 year career, is it provided? Ancillary to your point of 'learning through practical experience' is 'what' should the Army motivate soldiers to learn on their own initiative [function of visionary leadership?]?

It is difficult, if not impossible, to 'learn' if one does not want to learn. Likewise teachers cannot 'teach' someone who does not want to learn. Learning how to think critically and creatively is much different than learning how to manipulate technology either to be entertained or to conduct some sort-range funciton; we must carefully distinguish between these. Again, perhaps the answer lies more in what 'motivates' one to learn [function of visionary leadership?]. This gets at your point of commander's responsibilites not only to 'teach' but to motivate their soldiers to 'learn.'

I commend you for investing the time, energy , and effort to formulate your thoughts into an inciteful article. Critical review in these blogs is much easier than actually formulating your thoughts into an article. Good on ya!

Dick

Truth in lending, I have not read the Army's Learning Concept 2015 (only the Army Capstone Concept and the Army Operating Concept). That said, this critique of the Army Learning Concept provokes some thought about learning in today's operational and strategic environments; at its root - art versus science. I certainly agree with this sentence:

"A meaningful and relevant learning strategy should descend into the challenging and messy environment of ambiguity and face the complex leadership, team-building and moral/ethical issues."