Winning Modern Wars through Adaptation

Adaptation is THE critical contemporary and future capability for nations and their military organisations to win in war.

Ukrainian M1 tank with multiple adaptations including new armour and EW systems. Source: Army Recognition.

The ultimate test of military preparation and effectiveness does not end once a war begins. On the contrary, history strongly reflects the enduring phenomena of learning and implementing change during war as well…The requirement that a force must adapt while it is in combat is built into the inherent nature of war. Frank Hoffman, Mars Adapting: Military Change During War.

Throughout the war in Ukraine, the most important capability that Ukraine and Russia have employed and honed has been their ability to learn and adapt. This is an interactive fight because each side is learning based on the reactions of their adversary, and then finding and implementing solutions to improve their effectiveness against that enemy.

This process, which I have described as The Adaptation Battle, occurs at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. At its best, learning and adaptation takes evidence-based observations from the battlefield, shares them with the right analytical agencies, ensures the resulting lessons are then integrated into evolved training, doctrine, organisations, infrastructure, logistics and leadership models.

In many cases, adaptation is local or shared within a small community. And, in some cases, learning and adaptation does not improve the overall effectiveness of a military institution because the context or the situation has changed. There have been examples of all three approaches, from both Ukraine and Russia, since the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But adaptation also occurs at multiple levels within military institutions, it occurs before and during wars, and it also takes place in corporate entites who have links to, or interests in, military organisations. Finally, adaptation takes place within enemy organisations as well as within allies.

The aim of this article is to explore this environment, and propose key steps that Western military institutions should be taking now to ensure they have the appropriate ‘adaptive stance’ at all levels within their organisations and with their interactions with external entities.

Why is Adaptation so Crucial?

Systemic adaptation is the mechanism for learning and combining technology, people and ideas in many different and new combinations at different levels within a nation’s warfighting effort. This permits the development of theories of victory, and strategies, that pose multiple dilemmas for an adversary – or group of adversaries - at the political and strategic levels as well as on the battlefield.

Adaptation is the mechanism to build advantage in many areas continuously while constantly negating enemy advantage and interfering with their learning and adaptation systems.

Finally, understanding and having a systemic, strategic and well-led approach to adaptation is something that can give a nation, or alliance, greater power in both peace and war. At the same time it is something that can used against us to devastating effect if we don’t understand it or if we don’t make efforts to degrade our enemy’s ability to learn and adapt.

A few other aspects of adaptation should be emphasised.

First, adaptation is an essential foundation for battlefield learning and continuous generation of advantage. The old saying ‘adapt or die’ has firm historical foundations. But effective modern adaptation must occur, and be nurtured, at every level of a military enterprise and every level of war.

Second, it is key to learning about the enemy and improving the capacity of friendly forces to negate an adversary’s existing (and new) advantages in technology, tactics, people and generation of smart ideas and massed capability over time. This process occurs in war, but must begin in peacetime.

Therefore, the third point to be made is that adaptive processes must be in place when wars begin to minimise the strategic shock of the initial days and weeks. Both Russia and Ukraine underwent periods of military transformation in the years before the large-scale invasion in 2022. This provided a foundation for their subsequent ‘adaptive stance’ in war.

Fourth, adaptation theory can play a crucial role in learning about how societies evolve in the transition from peace to war in a more efficient fashion. The transition from the post-Cold War security order to what now exists in Europe has been traumatic for politicians and citizens, who assumed large scale war in Europe was simply impossible in the modern world. Some still don’t accept the new reality, and therefore there is uneven investment in defence capacity in Europe.

Fifth, understanding the different levels of adaptation is important for building the quickest and most effective transition from peace to war for military organisations. This subject was recently examined by Meir Finkel in his terrific book, On Agility. It provides recommendations on this strategic adaptation from peace to war which include: 1. Conceptual and doctrinal flexibility; 2. Organisational and technological versatility; 3. Flexibility in command and cognitive skills; and 4. The mechanism that nurtures fast learning and rapid circulation of lessons.

Sixth, adaptation is key to continuously improving productivity in defence industry before and during war. As I will explore shortly, adaptation is not purely a military endeavour. There must be close and continuous links with those who research, improve and produce all forms of military materiel from boots to precision munitions to drones.

Seventh, adaptation is important for the cognitive aspects of war. It underpins learning about enemy misinformation and the impact it is having on friendly populations and political systems. Adaptation is crucial to not just winning the war, it is central to winning the ‘story’ about the war.

Finally, adaptation is foundational to developing leaders at all levels who are fit to lead and evolve in a rapidly changing environment. As such, adaptation is a central concept for continuously improving training and education, and evolving ‘what right looks like’ in leaders at all levels as war progresses. And, it should go without saying, this adaptative training and education system should produce leaders who understand their function as adaptation leaders and nurturers.

Adaptation has a clear and central purpose in contemporary and future military institutions. But to build and enhance the capacity of military institutions to successfully engage in, and win, the adaptation battle, they must understand the environment in which adaptation takes place.