Richard M Beckinger

Theory, Its Impact on Military Doctrinal and Organizational Change During a Time of War Richard M Beckinger

Publisher Marketing: This monograph's purpose is to explore theory and its impact on military organizational and doctrinal changes during a time of war. Answering the research question will prove useful in contributing to the professional dialogue for the US to continue to maintain the best led, trained and equipped military in the world. One underlying assumption was that, rationally, theory should drive doctrine, which produces organizational change and that technological or capabilities improvements (prior to, during and after change) would influence, but not dictate, the wholesale refinement of either theory or doctrine. The research methodology used historic analysis of warfare theorists, case study comparison of past success and failure and scrutiny of lessons only just learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). The starting point for the study was the importance of theory, the role of theory development in producing refinement in the application of combat power with a brief review of past and contemporary theorists' impact on doctrine, as well as organizational structures. This study relied on a historical perspective with, a dialectic approach to show the impact of change during a time of major wars, specifically, during World War II within a conventional warfare framework of both friend and foe, and the unconventional American experience in Vietnam. This was proceeded by a focused discussion on contemporary lessons learned during OIF and OEF, to include observations in 2004-2005 from the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) Combat Training Center (CTC) on Brigade Combat Team (BCT) transformation. Observations are on modular transformation by the active force and mobilization of the reserves legacy BCT, closing with thoughts on changes generated within the Army Aviation community during the Global War On Terrorism (GWOT). The conclusion on the role of theory was that historically each service has gravitated to what it identified as the m