Embrace Knowledge, Share Knowledge, Be Knowledge

The military of today is transforming. With the anti-gravity belts of Buck Rogers, and ray guns from the early days of science fiction still a distant future, the military is still transforming, and is doing so in such a way that escaped many science fiction authors.

Future military tech is still impressive, but I believe even the most pessimistic post Star Wars service member would look at what is proposed with a ho hum shrug of “Is that all?”

So how is military transforming to such an extent that I want to talk about it? Well, here is the answer. The military is changing the way it thinks. That alone is a monumental leap for many of us that have spent a career in the military to accept. However, difficult to accept it is true.

The Army discovered while operating in Iraq that the enemy, Al-
Qaeda, was able to adapt, change, overcome, communicate, and facilitate knowledge transfer within twenty-four hours. The Army had a tried and true way of disseminating knowledge, which was very simple. Obstacles were encountered, and lessons were learned. A set of procedures were developed to overcome the obstacles. The procedures were proven and made into doctrine. This process took years. Soldiers could still react to situations as they felt best, but when following a doctrine that was outdated often cost lives. Something needed to be done, information needed be exchanged, and not when the company in theatre was returning home and being debriefed but in real-time with the other company that was in another town in another area of Iraq.

The beginnings of knowledge networks were created. Platoon Leaders (PLs) instead of doing an After Action Review (AAR) and sending it up to Brigade, could write up their AAR and put it on a network that allowed other PLs, to learn from their experience and adjust how they operated the next time they went out on a mission, not how they operated on their next deployment.

The change in the thought process now puts the emphasis on the lower levels exchanging their knowledge out and up, instead of the old way of thinking. Generals developed the doctrine based on history, and pushed it down.

However, this could not have happened without the internet. A medium of communication needed to be in place that allowed for near instantaneous transfer of knowledge. The internet is perfect, telepathy would be better, but what we have is more than adequate for the job.

I said at the beginning that the military is transforming, and it is. In addition, our lives are being transformed by the same forces that have forced the military to embrace this new way of thinking; I’m not talking about the threat of a terrorist attack. What I’m talking about is the availability of knowledge and the ability to access it.

For along time we have been told that we live in the information age. And for good or evil it will be exploited.