A weapon system that works today may be ineffective in six months. A tactic that works this week may be outclassed by the adversary next week. The development of the war in Ukraine therefore shows not only the importance of drones, telewar, innovation or artificial intelligence. It shows the importance of being able to change faster than the adversary. The Armed Forces do not just need to be faster at changing. We need to get better at deciding what to change quickly, what to standardize and what not to institutionalize at all.
I argue that future military superiority will not be determined solely by who has the best systems or the best-trained personnel, but by who can detect changes most quickly, at all levels, understand their significance, and translate that understanding into changed tactics, technology, and organization.
The ability to adapt should be considered an independent military capability like other military capabilities. As I have argued before, it is not enough to have innovation activities, for example through experimental offices or periodic combat laboratories.[1] The organization needs to establish a continuous cycle of: observe, identify problems, develop a sufficient solution, test, deploy, measure impact, modify again. A form of “capability development OODA loop” that addresses the “demands of war” more effectively than traditional development processes.
Well aware that this is a topic that has been discussed a lot in the last five years, I still want to describe how I see the war of adaptation that we see in Ukraine and are facing ourselves. In this and future articles, I also want to discuss how Sweden can build a defense force that is able to change as quickly as the next war requires. By adaptation, I mean changes that are made in response to an observed problem or a change in the operational environment. Because we all agree THAT the Defense Forces need to be able to adapt quickly, what may not be as established is HOW we get there.
The traditional development
The defense equipment process is often criticized for being slow, but the cautious speed has a function in peacetime. The process creates a long-term perspective and contributes to both security of supply and operational security. This is simply because the process is adapted for a time when there is no real urgency, and thus uses the time to produce documentation, ensure that standardization is followed and that the end product is of high quality. The traditional process is slow for a reason. The requirements for documentation, security, interoperability and life cycle management reduce risks that a quick local solution does not have to deal with.
For several decades, Swedish defense planning was based on long time horizons for acquisition and capability development. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, that time horizon has become significantly shorter, pushing us closer to the developmental logic of war.
The logic of war's development
That war requires rapid change is something we have learned from previous wars. A lack of ability to adapt quickly to the enemy's introduction of new capabilities or new technology inevitably leads to soldiers dying and can mean that wars are lost. The Armed Forces are currently in the midst of the paradox that has eluded, and continues to elude, the world's armed forces. Namely, the requirement to be both an effective organization that can perform life-threatening tasks almost routinely (the so-called spinal cord behavior), while at the same time it must be able to adapt and establish new routine behaviors; not infrequently imposed by an adversary.[2] Even though we are not at war, we are still in what can be called the development logic of war, which requires speed, availability, short iterations and local problem solving in order to achieve immediate effect. The logic of war does not mean that quality or safety becomes unimportant. However, the trade-off between perfection and time changes. In war, the value of the solution is a function of both effect and time. A solution that provides 80 percent of the desired effect today may be more militarily valuable than a 100 percent solution that reaches the unit tomorrow.
This is where the conflict arises for the Armed Forces where we are right now. Regulations, financial management, responsibilities and established processes are still designed for a more traditional development logic. At the same time, the external situation and politics, and by extension the Swedish citizen, demand a defense that is not only ready to "fight tonight" but that can also continue to fight for an indefinite period of time.
Four levels of customization
In order for the Armed Forces to be able to adapt quickly to prevailing conditions, adaptations need to be able to take place at four levels: technical, tactical, organizational and institutional. The division is a simplification, inspired by research on military adaptation, innovation and organizational learning.[3] The levels should not be understood as a linear staircase where every technical change will eventually become institutional. Rather, they describe how deeply a change needs to penetrate the organization's technology, behaviors, structure and institutional systems. Roughly simplified, the normal time horizon of the levels can be described as from hours (level 1) to several years (level 4).
Level 1 – Technical Adaptation (The Tool)
Technical adaptation means that an existing military capability is modified through changes in materiel, components, software or system configuration, without its basic organizational use needing to change. What we have today is what we will have in the war tomorrow and thus it is the first level of adaptation. We change what we have. The technical level can be very close to the actual battle and therefore allows for the shortest adaptation cycles. This is where we see local adaptations around the functionality of the equipment, which frequencies are suitable for the specific area or which software version in the drone gives the best effect. Here, the existing system is simply modified on site directly by the operator or by technicians.
Level 2 – Tactical Adaptation (Usage)
Tactical adaptation means that an existing capability is used in a new way, combined with other capabilities or given a changed role to meet a change in the opponent or in the combat environment. When we practice with our equipment, we practice routine ways of using the equipment so that it comes into its own. This forms a baseline from which we then proceed when reality presents itself. Here, how the technology is used is adapted, regardless of whether it is modified or not. This can involve flight altitudes, how sensors are combined or local protective measures that must be introduced to be able to continue using critical capabilities. Here, the tactical commander is the central actor.
Level 3 – Organizational Adaptation (The Structure)
Organizational adaptation involves changes to the structure of units, responsibilities, division of competence, decision-making mandate or resource allocation in order to better utilize or meet a changing military reality. The problem we face cannot be solved by simply modifying equipment or tactics. An organizational change is required to achieve a desired effect on the battlefield. For example, going from having a SUAV group in a battalion to having a reinforced sensor platoon with multiple capabilities. Another example is command posts. If recurring enemy combat forces the unit to work with smaller, distributed and more mobile staffs, ultimately changing antennas or grouping technology is not enough. The command organization itself may need to change. Adjustments that can take a few months to years to implement depending on how extensive they need to be.
Level 4 – Institutional Adaptation (The System)
Institutional adaptation means that experiences lead to lasting changes in doctrine, training, materiel processes, personnel structure, regulations, resource allocation or other systems that shape the long-term behavior of the organization. It can be considered implemented when the organization is no longer dependent on the individuals who first solved the identified problem. If it is discovered at level 1 that programmers are needed to adapt the drones at the front, it is at level 4 that the formal training and career paths are established, along with software management and how the specific software will be acquired. This is where the major challenges lie with a battlefield that changes continuously on an annual basis. The institution, in this case the Swedish Armed Forces, has a familiar pattern where development and planning occur with a planning horizon that is ten or fifteen years in the future.
The deeper the change, the longer it takes.
The problem is not a lack of change. The problem is being able to distinguish temporary solutions from lasting lessons. Changes often happen faster than the organization can identify, select, disseminate and institutionalize the experiences that should actually survive the next adaptation cycle. Simply because level 4 will not have time to change, for example, training manuals at the same speed as level 1 modifies how a sensor is used.
At the same time, it is the reality we have to accept. All changes at level 1 neither can nor should be institutionalized. Rather, the organization needs to choose the right things to change, that is, identify the changes that are not situationally adapted or local phenomena. The Armed Forces will not benefit from being faster at institutionalizing all changes, as they will likely become outdated before a decision has had time to be implemented in the organization. An organization can therefore be fast at changing and still adapt incorrectly. Adaptability is therefore not just about speed but about the ability to choose which experiences to spread and which to allow to die locally. It may seem strange to argue that the Armed Forces should become better and faster at changing, and at the same time say that it should not happen quickly. That is the paradox I mentioned earlier where the organization should both be changeable and routinely be able to handle one of the most dangerous things a nation can face, war.
One way to approach the paradox is to allow the mandates for change to be far down in the organization. That is, the operator at the lowest level has the mandate to open the “black box” that is an assigned system and implement the modifications that are needed to continue to use a certain system. That the commander on site is met with understanding when he uses equipment in a way that it was not designed for, and that unit commanders have the mandate to implement organizational changes without being limited by decided organizational structures. When the three levels have this form of predefined degrees of freedom, the higher level can free itself from details and focus on finding the lasting lessons and implementing them.
The future advantage will not only lie in better technology but in better learning
The armed forces that develop new solutions the fastest will not necessarily win. The advantage rather goes to the organization that can allow thousands of local adaptations to take place, quickly identify which ones work, and then disseminate the right experiences without simultaneously becoming rigid in yesterday's solutions. On the adaptive battlefield, therefore, the ability to learn, forget and relearn faster than your opponent a success factor.