FORCE XXI OPERATIONS

FORCE XXI OPERATIONS

TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5

A Concept

for

the Evolution of Full-Dimensional Operations

for the Strategic Army of the Early

Twenty-First Century

1 August 1994

Leading Intellectual Change

Commanding General

United States Army Training and Doctrine Command

Fort Monroe, Virginia

As General Sullivan and General Franks state in their forwarding letters, TRADOC Pamphlet

525-5 is a powerful first step toward Force XXI, providing focus and direction for the entire Force

XXI Campaign Plan. For almost twenty-two years TRADOC has been the United States Army¡¯s

architect of the future, helping it to evolve from a post-Vietnam force to one that has achieved

battlefield victories in Panama and Iraq and a long record of successes in operations other than

war¡ªSomalia, Rwanda, and now in Haiti. Today TRADOC¡¯s mission as architect of the future

continues but within a whole new framework. We have crossed the threshold into a new strategic era

while simultaneously entering a new age, the Information Age. Though our Army has changed and

grown successfully many times, at no other time has this mission been more challenging and complex.

As a thinking and learning institution where physical change is led by intellectual thought,

how we think about the future will dictate some of the outcome of what we think about the future.

There are, in gross terms, two approaches. The first approach is characterized by standing on today¡¯s

intellectual mountain top with an understanding of the present, and seeing as far as one can see¡ªor

as one can afford¡ªand then conservatively moving forward into the future a step at a time. It is a

relatively safe approach. The second approach is a bold one in which we intellectually go on a staff

ride to a mountain top in the 21st Century, look around and see what we can, and then articulate that

as a vision for the future. That vision then becomes a starter set of ideas and thoughts to lead us

forward into the future. We¡¯ve taken this second approach.

TRADOC Pam 525-5, a vision of the future, is the intellectual foundation for Force XXI. It¡¯s

not doctrine, but a lighthouse, a think piece describing what might be. The thoughts and ideas in this

pamphlet must be converted to hypotheses and tested through analysis and experimentation. There

will certainly be a number of versions of this vision as we grow toward our future. Change is so

rapid, so pervasive, and so complex that the work of crafting the Army for the next century is now

everyday work for us all. We are living in and moving smartly toward the 21st Century today.

WILLIAM W. HARTZOG

GENERAL, U.S. ARMY

COMMANDING

A Concept

for

the Evolution of Full-Dimensional Operations

for the Strategic Army of the Early

Twenty-First Century

-How you think about the future

frames what you think about the future

which drives what you do about the future.-

UNITED STATES ARMY

T H E C H I E F O F S TA F F

Every successful and coherent transformation of an organization begins with a clearly articulated statement about what it wants and needs to become. We have taken this fundamental principle

to heart and embraced it. We know that physical change invariably has its underpinnings in imaginative and rigorous thought about the future. Over the past three years we have steadily laid the intellectual and doctrinal groundwork that prepares the way for our Army¡¯s collective journey into the

Twenty-first Century. You know our work: FMs 100-1, 100-5, 100-17; JCS Pubs 1 and 3.0; and

others. Now it is time to take the next - and perhaps most important - step. The publication of

TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5: Force XXI Operations, is the first step of our doctrinal journey into

the future - and what a powerful first step it is.

TRADOC has done a masterful job of causing us to think hard about how Army operations

will change in the coming years. 525-5 provides us with the institutional framework for our experiments and doctrinal debates. First, they explore the impact of information systems and other emerging technologies on the operational environment of the future. Second, they give us provocative

insights into the critical battle dynamics we should exploit to remain the most powerful and capable

Army on earth. We know that we will make a quantum leap; 525-5 helps us to see how.

More importantly, this is a work that tells us about how the entire Army must change - from

the foxhole to the factory - top to bottom. While the majority of the text focuses on the operational

portion of the Army, do not be misled. The operational environment that 525-5 describes has clear

implications for the remainder of the Army. We cannot fight the way that 525-5 envisions without

changing how we organize, train, mobilize, project, and sustain the force. The responsibility for

these functions all reside in the institutional, or TDA, Army. So, when you think about, analyze, and

debate the merits of the text, do not forget to consider those points in the context of the larger Army

of which we are all a part.

The Army needs your experience, intelligence, energy, and willingness to engage with the

world of the future. Only the collective intellectual enthusiasm and curiosity of the Army at large

will make our 21st Century doctrine the best it can be. We cannot grow without thinking, debating,

and experimenting. TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5 is the vehicle for this healthy process. I encourage

you to share your ideas with others. Expose your own ideas to rigorous analysis. Engage others in

honest debate. Share the results with the Army. This doctrine will be our legacy to those who follow

us. Each of us shares in the responsibility for getting it right.

Into the Twenty-first Century,

Gordon R. Sullivan

General, United States Army

Chief of Staff

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