Mars Adapting: Military Change During War. Frank G. Hoffman. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2021.

A military’s ability to learn and adapt has received considerable attention over the last two decades.[1] Where scholars often regard peacetime innovation as driven from the top-down, they view wartime adaptation as originating from the field. In an influential argument from 2006, Adam Grissom advocated the study of bottom-up adaptation.[2] To a considerable extent, this notion has been applied to adaptations by Western armed forces in the face of challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan.[3] Generally, recent work on military adaptation shows that frontline units often initiate and implement changes in reaction to operational challenges based on their experiences.

In his new book, Mars Adapting, Frank Hoffman studies bottom-up adaptation through the lens of organizational learning theory to explain its dynamics. This theory states that business organizations must continuously evaluate their performance in a competitive and shifting environment to prosper and even survive. The organization’s ability to learn and change thus can confer a competitive advantage.[4] Hoffman states that this notion applies to militaries during wartime as they seek to gain an advantage over their adversaries. However, he recognizes that militaries are by nature large bureaucratic institutions “built around…routines and core competencies are hard to alter.”[5] While this characteristic may be necessary to maintain control over such vast organizations, it often impedes the ability to adapt to the volatility and uncertainty of war. 

Although organizational learning is a wide-raging field of study, a common characteristic of this literature is that it studies the process of developing knowledge for the organization from the experiences of individual members.[6] The individuals and teams engaged in the organization's operations interact with the environment and discover operational deficiencies. After addressing them, the acquired knowledge must then be transferred upwards to the various levels of an organization to become institutionalized. As such, organizational learning consists of a cognitive activity of knowledge acquisition and a behavioral process to use this knowledge to enhance organizational performance.[7]

Mars Adapting stands out in this field as Hoffman constructs a comprehensive framework to study learning in military organizations.

To be sure, Hoffman is not the first to apply organizational learning theory to military case studies. One of the first to do so was Richard Downie in his 1997 book Learning from Conflict. Downie studied how learning from experience could alter institutional norms, doctrine and procedure.[8] Interestingly however, Grissom rejected organizational learning theory as a suitable explanation for wartime change. He argued that the work of Richard Downie and John Nagl reduced “the bottom-up characteristics of organizational learning…to information gathering."[9] However, this criticism pertained more to Downie and Nagl's use of organizational learning literature than the inherent merits of organizational learning. Concurrent with the new focus on bottom-up adaptation, a more modest trend was emerging of scholars using some elements of organizational learning theory. Authors such as Chad Serena, Sergio Catignani and Raphael Marcus use aspects of organizational learning to explain recent examples of war-time adaptation.[10] Still, using organizational learning as an explanation for war-time change has drawn criticism for a lack of theoretical rigor.[11] More recent works by Aimee Fox and Tom Dyson have sought to address this shortcoming.[12]

This tension between operational challenges and institutional norms forms the heart of Mars Adapting.

Mars Adapting stands out in this field as Hoffman constructs a comprehensive framework to study learning in military organizations. He explains that commanders must analyze operations and their effects, for instance through after-action reports. Such learning mechanisms can then help identify deficiencies. Consequently, the unit, or wider organization, can apply changes to enhance organizational performance.[13] This process can be straightforward, if still hard to implement, when these changes are within the purview of a commander of a deployed unit or formation. Acquired knowledge can then even be shared horizontally to other parts of a force or among allies. Yet, when implementing lessons requires engagement from the wider institution because they challenge existing organizational norms, the learning process becomes more complicated as the institution must recognize the proposed change will enhance the organizational performance and accept it. This relates to the political dimension of enacting change based on learning processes central to organizational learning. Far-reaching changes in an organization will challenge the status quo, require finite resources, and incur risk on (parts of) the organization.[14] This tension between operational challenges and institutional norms forms the heart of Mars Adapting.

Hoffman captures this tension in his model, which incorporates the notion of single-loop and double-loop learning. Introduced by Chris Argyris, single-loop learning means adjustments to routines within organizational norms while double-loop learning refers to challenging these norms and adopting new competencies.[15] Thus, the institution’s leadership will generally accept single-loop adaptations as these will enhance the organization's performance. Conversely, double-loop learning requires that the leadership accepts challenges to institutional norms by the proposed changes. In Mars Adapting, Hoffman shows that double-loop learning is inherently difficult and even requires external intervention in the cases of pacification in the Vietnam War and the acquisition of Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles in Iraq.[16]

Hoffman tests this theoretical framework of learning as a process influenced by organizational capacity in four case-studies.

Having established a process of learning, Hoffman seeks to explain how organizational attributes can enable or impede learning, which he collectively calls Organizational Learning Capacity.[17] In contrast to external shapers as listed by Theo Farrell–domestic politics, strategic culture, civil-military relations and alliance politics–Hoffman looks at internal influencing factors. While he does not discount the influence of external factors, Hoffman examines what makes organizations prone to learn from experience. Based on reviewing literature on organizational learning and military adaptation he identifies leadership, organizational culture, learning mechanisms, and dissemination mechanisms. Examples of learning mechanisms include after-action reviews and campaign assessments. Typical military dissemination mechanisms are training, education, and doctrine. This emphasis on organizational learning capacity is an important contribution to the field as the (in)ability to learn in war depends primarily on internal factors. Even when external influences are brought to bear, the efficacy of such interventions remain contingent on the military institution’s acceptance. As such, the combination of learning from experience and the effect of organizational attributes accentuates the considerable agency of military organizations and their individual members to enact change.

Hoffman tests this theoretical framework of learning as a process influenced by organizational capacity in four case-studies. Mars Adapting alternates its focus among the American military services: the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater during World War II; the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War; U.S. Army in Vietnam, and the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom). For most readers who are interested in military adaptation, the latter two cases are familiar. Indeed, the wars in Vietnam and Iraq have become staples in this field.[18] To his credit, Hoffman interrogates primary sources to construct his case studies. Combined with his engaging writing style, this results in instructive chapters that form a critical appraisal of how military organizations learn during conflict. Hoffman also provides a comprehensive view on the manifestations of learning by examining changes in doctrine, organizational structure, technology, and training

For instance, the chapter on the U.S. Air Force in the Korean War illuminates the struggles of a young service to adjust to a war that asked it to digress from its institutional norms. Furthermore, Hoffman explains the value of learning mechanisms that generate relevant data on operational effectiveness. This data was eventually used by the U.S. Air Force to enhance its performance. Conversely, the chapter on the U.S. Army in Vietnam shows that learning mechanisms in this war bordered  on delusional as after-action reviews gauged an operation’s effectiveness through a conventional lens that had limited bearing on the war itself. Thus, Hoffman demonstrates that the existence of learning and dissemination mechanisms are by themselves insufficient. The organizational culture must be conducive to respond to signals from the field and leadership plays a vital role in implementing change.

Mars Adapting has its limitations. As Hoffman readily acknowledges, it only studies American examples. Consequently, whether his theoretical framework applies to other militaries is an open question. Those readers interested in learning processes during war among allies and adversaries would be well served by Michael Hunzeker's 2022 book Dying to Learn. He examines how the British, French, and German armies competitively adapted to challenges at the Western Front.[19] Even so, Mars Adapting’s theoretical framework is sufficiently clear to be evaluated against different historical cases.

A second limitation is that most of the literature on organizational learning that Hoffman uses was published over twenty years ago. As Hoffman aptly demonstrates, this does not invalidate the literature. However, the bibliography hardly represents the state of the art. The field of  organizational learning has continued to develop in recent years. New themes have emerged such as learning from crisis situations, knowledge transfer in projects and temporary organizations, and the influence of organizational politics on learning.[20]

Hoffman's book forms an important theoretical contribution to the field of military adaptation.

A third critical observation is that Hoffman awards little analysis on the influence of the type of conflict on learning. The wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq were limited wars of choice. Here, the institutional leadership resisted adaptations from the field as these conflicts were considered aberrations by the institutions’ leadership. Moreover, one can question whether the  acceptance of a war time adaptation is institutionalized when it is reverted after a given conflict as being incongruent with the standing organizational norms. The discarding of lessons from the Korean War by the U.S. Air Force after the cessation of hostilities forms a telling example.[21] A more comprehensive analysis of this dynamic in the book's conclusion would have provided valuable insight in the learning in distinct types of conflict and the potential for knowledge retention after war.

These critical observations notwithstanding, Hoffman's book forms an important theoretical contribution to the field of military adaptation. Mars Adapting cogently makes the case for adopting organizational learning literature to explain military change. Hoffman's clear and engaging writing style helps to introduce organizational learning theories to a wide audience. Moreover, the book succeeds in capturing and integrating the idiosyncrasies of military learning in wartime. As such, Hoffman sets an example that warrants emulation. His theoretical framework invites further study of different instances of military learning and provides a solid foundation to enhance the theoretical state of the field of military adaptation.

Martijn van der Vorm is an officer in the Royal Netherlands Army and a Ph.D. candidate at The Netherlands Defence Academy. The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not reflect the official position of The Netherlands Defence Academy, or the Dutch Armed Forces.

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Header Image: Peter Rubens' painting Consequences of War (1638) in Palazzo Pitti (Wikimedia).

Notes:

[1] See for example Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Meir Finkel, On Flexibility: Recovery Technological and Doctrinal Surprise on the Battlefield (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011); David Barno and Nora Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

[2] Adam Grissom, “The Future of Military Innovation Studies,” Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 5 (2006) 905-934.

[3] See for example James Russell, Innovation, Transformation and War: Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005-2007 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011); Theo Farrell, Frans Osinga, and James Russell (Eds.), Military Adaptation in Afghanistan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013).

[4] Frank Hoffman, Mars Adapting: Military Change During War (Annapolis: Naval University Press, 2021)

[5] Hoffman, Mars Adapting, 2

[6] Anna Wiewiora, Michelle Schmidt, and Artemis Chang. The 'How' of Multilevel Learning Dynamics: A Systemic Literature Review Exploring How Mechanisms Bridge Learning Between Individuals, Teams/Projects and the Organization.” European Management Review 16 (2019): 95; Daniel Kim “The Link between Individual and Organizational Learning.” Sloan Management Review 35, nr. 1 (1993): 38-39; Ikujiro Nonaka and Noboru Konno The Concept of "Ba": Building a Foundation for Knowledge Creation.” California Management Review 40, no. 3 (1998): 40-42.

[7] Wout Broekema When does the phoenix rise? Factors and mechanisms that influence crisis-induced learning by public organizations. (Leiden: Leiden University, 2018): 24.

[8] Richard Downie, Learning from Conflict: The U.S. Military in Vietnam, El Salvador, and the Drug War (Westport: Praeger, 1998), 22; see also John Nagl who emulates Downie's framework in: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2002)

[9] Grissom, "Future of Military Innovation Studies," 926.

[10] Chad Serena, A Revolution in Military Adaptation: The US Army in Iraq (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2011); Sergio Catignani  Coping with Knowledge: Organizational Learning in the British Army?” The Journal of Strategic Studies 37, no. 1 (2014): 30-64; Raphael Marcus Israel's Long War With Hezbollah: Military Innovation and Adaptation Under Fire (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2018).

[11] Stuart Griffin “Military Innovation Studies: Multidisciplinary or Lacking Discipline.” Journal of Strategic Studies 40, no. 1-2 (2017): 211-213.

[12] Aimee Fox, Learning to Fight: Military Innovation and Change in the British Army, 1914-1918. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Tom Dyson Organisational Learning and the Modern Army: a new model for lessons-learned processes. Abingdon: Routledge, 2020.

[13] Hoffman, Mars Adapting, 38-43

[14] Scott Ganz “Ignorant Decision Making and Educated Inertia: Some Political Pathologies of Organizational Learning.” Organization Science 29, no. 1 (2018): 55.

[15] See Chris Argyris “Double Loop Learning in Organizations.” Harvard Business Review 55, nr. 5 (1977): 115-124

[16] Hoffman, Mars Adapting, 264-265.

[17] Hoffman, Mars Adapting, p. 43.

[18] See for further examples: Nina Kollars, “War’s Horizon: Soldier-Led Adaptation in Iraq and Vietnam,” Journal of Strategic Studies 38, no. 4 (2015): 529-553; Austin Long, The Soul of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Military Culture in the US and UK (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018); David Fitzgerald, Learning to Forget: U.S, Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013).

[19] Michael Hunzeker, Dying to Learn: Wartime Lessons from the Western Front (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2021).

[20] See for example: Donald Moynihan, “From Intercrisis to Intracrisis Learning” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 17, no. 3 (2009): 189-198; Erik de Waard and Erik-Hans Kramer, “Tailored task forces: Temporary organizations and modularity,” International Journal of Project Management 26, No.5 (2008): 537-546; Geoffrey Aerts, Michael Dooms, and Elvira Haezendonck “Knowledge transfers and project-based learning in large scale infrastructure development projects: an exploratory and comparative ex-post analysis,” International Journal of Project Management 35, no. 3 (2017): 224-240

[21] Hoffman, Mars Adapting, 250.