The U. S. Army Future Concept for the Human Dimension

Required Capabilities

While accurately predicting a single future OE remains problematical, the U.S. military must maintain the ability to project trends into a range of realistic alternative future OEs.

The U.S. military must have the global situational awareness to identify emerging trends as they originate, track these trends as they develop, and detect changes as they occur. The military must increase its own capability to do so, but must be equally diligent in forging relationships with international friends and allies, domestic and multinational business and industry, international agencies, academia, law enforcement agencies, and the press, among others.
The U.S. military requires a single entity coordinating the national collection and analysis of the required information, from which various agencies can access a common data point to which they can then apply their unique perspectives and interpretations to meet their specific requirements.
There must be an ability to store and rapidly analyze information. Advanced computing technologies must meet the challenge of rapidly sorting, tagging, and retrieving the information from a database and presenting it in a format usable by the human in the loop. Accurate analysis requires a capability to model the trends, predict their effect over time, and consider their interaction with other trends in near-infinite combinations. This is true in the arena of domestic trends as well as international and global trends. For example, the U.S. military will need an ability to collect accurate data for use in predictive modeling to determine which demographic groups are more likely to join and stay in the military.
In projecting the trends and examining the conditions of the future global OE, the military will refine its capability to anticipate conflict and an advanced modeling capability will help it to influence the trends early in hopes of shaping a future OE that avoids that conflict.

Questions for Further Examination

If a better understanding of the future global and domestic environments is a precondition for a successful national security strategy, then the Army must improve its ability to achieve this understanding. To this end, the following questions offer an opportunity for further study:

• 
  Where does the responsibility for initiating and continuing a comprehensive examination of the future OE reside?
  
• 
  Which Service or agency is best postured to coordinate an ongoing effort to focus national collection and analysis capabilities on understanding the future OE?
  
• 
  Who should participate and who requires access?
  
• 
  Does the Army need a new organization, agency, or community of interest, real or virtual?
  
• 
  In what form should the Army present the products of future analysis?
  
• 
  Will consumers have access to the data or only the analyzed and consolidated product? What restrictions due to security issues are acceptable?
  
• 
  How does the Army structure information sharing policy and procedures?
  
• 
  Other than our national intelligence entities, and local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, who can and should contribute to the gathering, analysis, and interpretation of this information?
  
• 
  Do our current policies and procedures allow us to gather and store relevant information about the domestic environment?
  
• 
  How can the Army ensure that commanders and staff are skilled enough with behavioral and social sciences in order to plan and execute all phases of full spectrum operations?
  
• 
  Is the Army legally able to do the analysis to develop an accurate understanding of the future domestic environment?
  
• 
  How does the Nation’s potential adversaries—large global competitors, regional rivals, non-state extremist entities, and others—view the future OE?
  

Even with the gifts of human understanding and of professional competence arising from careful training, our military leader will not be complete without character, character which reflects inner strength and justified confidence in oneself.

General Maxwell Taylor

Chapter 3

The Moral Component—Developing Soldiers of Character for the Army and Nation

3-1. Introduction

Of all the components of the human dimension, perhaps the most difficult to describe is the moral component. It is arguably the most important. It is rooted in character and from character comes behavior. Military character and a professional ethic form the bond of trust between the Army and the Nation. This bond when broken or distorted can and has had catastrophic consequences to the Nation. Incidents like My Lai and Abu Ghraib reveal poor character development in those who perpetrate such heinous actions and the leadership that fails to report or attempts to cover up the actions. These actions on both parts bring into question the quality of the profession, with grave impact on the Nation’s reputation.

This chapter examines constituent elements of the moral component: The warrior spirit, its moral and ethical foundations, and socio-cultural awareness. This examination describes how this component relates to the physical and cognitive components and emphasizes the requirement for balance between all three to develop well-rounded holistically fit Soldiers for the future Modular Force. It aims squarely at preventing future military scandal, but more realistically, at taking those measures that will develop, reinforce, and sustain the bond of trust between the Army and the Nation.
The words ethic, and moral are not interchangeable in a military context. Both treat ideas and concepts of right and wrong, but they derive from different sources. The military ethic, for example, is a set of standards unique to the institution, however shared across other elements of society. Moral on the other hand—specifically moral behavior—derives from broader sources. What one human being owes to another and how the Army inculcates and reinforces this commitment is part of the career-long development process.
FM 1 discusses the profession of arms and what it means to be a professional Soldier. It establishes as guiding values the Soldier’s Creed, the warrior ethos, and the Army values. Further, it admonishes Soldiers to live by those codes. While it is a chargeable offense to act outside the dictates of the laws mentioned above, the internalization of these codes establishes the soundness of Soldiers’ characters enabling them to operate as trusted, free agents.
Regardless of how changes in technology or the strategic environment present new and different challenges to the Army, one enduring legacy remains; within the Army profession, only men and women of strong character can fulfill the obligations of service to the Nation and to fellow Soldiers.⁵⁵ Sound character reflects the internalization of a set of fundamental beliefs and values that guide a person through life. FM 1 outlines the values that the Army believes are essential to the professional performance of duty under the widely varying, but usually difficult conditions of military service. Character built on values and beliefs serves as a moral compass that helps individuals make sound moral judgments in the midst of chaos, ambiguity, fear, and violence. The oft-cited “strategic corporal”⁵⁶ whose actions can easily garner good or bad international attention magnifies this emphasis on character.

Character develops through learning and experience. While people may admire and attempt to emulate others, they cannot borrow the character and reputation of another individual. Every Soldier must carefully develop their own character, but this is neither automatic nor a clearly mapped out process individuals can easily follow. Consequently, Soldiers must learn to make good moral decisions through practice. When the correct moral course of action is unclear, a lifelong habit of doing the right thing in all areas of one’s personal and professional lives may be the only guide. Well-developed character is the shield against the temptation to make immoral choices and decisions. The Army’s obligation is to assist in this process in order to develop Soldiers who consistently represent the highest moral character in and out of uniform. It is Soldiers of character who create the foundation upon which good units are built; units that can be trusted to accomplish their assigned missions without sacrificing their honor or integrity.

A man can be selfish, cowardly, disloyal, false, fleeting, perjured, and morally corrupt in a wide variety of other ways and still be outstandingly good in pursuits in which other imperatives bear than those upon the fighting man. He can be a superb creative artist, for example, or a scientist in the very top flight and still be a very bad man. What the bad man cannot do is be a good sailor, or Soldier, or airman. Military institutions thus form a repository of moral resource, which should always be a source of strength within the state.

General Sir John Hackett

“The Military in Service to the State,” p.119.

FM 6-22, addresses character as essential to leader development, but the concept applies equally to all Soldiers. People join the Army with their character largely shaped by their background, values, beliefs, education, and life experience. While such primary socialization is powerful, becoming a person of character, and a leader of character, is a lifelong process involving experience, education, self-development, direction, coaching, and mentoring. Soldiers of character develop through continual study, reflection, experience, and feedback. When leaders hold themselves and subordinates to the highest standards, those standards and values then spread throughout the team, unit, or organization and ultimately throughout the Army.

5. 
   While doing the right thing is good, doing the right thing for the right reason and with the right goal is better. Men and women of character must possess the desire to act morally in all situations. One of the leader’s primary responsibilities is to maintain an ethical climate that supports development of such character. When an organization’s ethical climate supports moral behavior, people will, over time, think, feel, and act morally.
   

This examination of the human dimension divides developing the character of Soldiers is into three parts: First, encouraging the growth of a strong military character—building a warrior spirit; second, promoting consistent individual adherence to a strong moral-ethical foundation on which to ground military character; and, third, enhancing socio-cultural sensitivity to fit the requirements of an era of persistent conflict. Developed together these processes will result in a character founded on a robust professional military ethic. The warrior spirit sustains the will to fight and provides the necessary motivation to persevere in the face of hardship and the threat of injury or death in battle. Socio-cultural development requires Soldiers to understand instinctively, and be sensitive to the reality, that their actions have different meanings to different sections of the local and global audience; that these meanings translate to consequences for their personal success and the perception of Americans by other nations of the world. This is particularly evident in the most senior and visible Army leaders who will continue to face extremely difficult situations in which their own sense of right and wrong may be in conflict with those of their civilian leaders or national policy. Accordingly, moral and ethical development requires integrity—aligning individual and professional values beliefs and behaviors so they become internally consistent with the ethical norms of the profession. The Army assists this alignment now and in the future through focused development programs throughout the lifecycle of the Soldier including concerted efforts to promote good judgment in morally ambiguous situations. This socialization process begins in inculcating a warrior spirit.