Exploitation Tactics - A Doctrine for the 21st Century

Globalization has changed many security, economic, political, and social conditions that shape world behavior; which in turn has produced a new paradigm for warfare that is fundamentally different from the industrial aged warfare paradigm that the world was accustomed to in the 20th century. This paper recommends that current U.S. doctrine be modified to focus on "exploitation tactics" as a better way to support 21st Century Combat Operations. The paper uses a case study of the 2-25 Stryker Brigade Combat Team to demonstrate how to restructure a modular brigade size organization to increase its effectiveness on a 21st Century battlefield. This restructuring includes Brigade, Battalion, and Company Fusion/Exploitation Cells, Company and Platoons S2s, and toolkits that provide the technical means to support this exploitation strategy. Central to the restructuring effort is to create the ability for commanders at the platoon and company level to see and understand the battlefield so they can act decisively and maneuver intelligence throughout the depth and breadth of the Joint Force. This restructuring effort takes advantage of the work that has been done to better understand how to solve adaptive problems by agents of change in the Army, DoD, and academic community and lessons learned with Theater Fusion Cells and the F3EA process in Iraq and Afghanistan. This study will also describe the new role of command and control in the 21st Century. The challenge of Army leaders today is to harness the innovative and adaptive capacities of their people to solve complex adaptive problems. The U.S Government must also reframe its Global Security Strategy and institute a Whole of Government approach that allows it to shape the global environment through soft power and "Transparent Maneuver". While the new edition of Army Field Manual 3.0 acknowledges that the environment has changed, the doctrine for modular brigade combat teams needs to follow suit and adapt to 21st Century warfare by focusing on exploitation tactics that enable subordinate units to see and understand the complex operational environment of the 21st Century.