A Revolution in Military Learning? Uncovering the Potential of Lessons-Learned Processes

该补助金涉及有关军事学习过程的概念，经验和理论研究问题，这些问题有可能在各种各样的作战环境中大幅提高北约成员国的军事效力。军队能够迅速捕捉成功的个人/团体适应和部署的士兵/盟友的错误作为组织学习的能力是军事效力的一个持久特征。组织内和组织间的学习能力差，降低了关键的“机构军事”活动，如培训，理论和军官教育的相关性，使士兵在正在进行的和未来的行动面临着一个“适应陷阱”的重新学习经验教训，在外地。当代作战环境的性质日益迅速变化，加剧了适应陷阱对士兵和平民安全以及作战/战略成功的负面影响。在2000年代，军队试图通过在军种和联合环境中建立永久性的“吸取经验教训”程序来应对这一挑战。它们由专门的经验教训分支机构管理，重点是提高军队识别最佳实践以及发现、解决和传播来自演习、行动和盟友的战术和行动层面经验教训的能力。然而，总结经验教训的过程对军事学习产生革命性影响的潜力仍未得到开发。在交流、储存和传播信息方面的技术进步并没有伴随着在吸取经验教训过程的概念和组织方面的进步。从业人员指南提供了关于军队如何改善学习障碍的有限建议。军事创新研究、管理研究和组织研究也未能在吸取经验教训的过程中考察最佳实践。因此，该项目通过探索三个关键的概念、经验和理论主题，为理解经验教训的潜力做出了重要贡献。首先，可以从管理研究和组织研究中汲取的经验教训，这些经验教训是关于提高军事经验教训过程有效获取、管理、传播和利用作战、演习、和盟友（吸收能力）。其次，该项目将探讨迄今尚未探索的案例研究的小型军事早期采用经验教训的过程：爱沙尼亚，荷兰和葡萄牙。在此过程中，它将探讨从私营和公共部门收集的最佳做法在军事环境中的效用，以及小型军队在开展经验教训进程中面临的挑战。该项目还将探讨在高强度战争训练演习和稳定行动中运行经验教训过程的更普遍的挑战。该项目将调查小型军队中是否出现了创新做法，这些做法可能会丰富对适用于所有军队和其他公共部门组织的经验教训最佳做法的基本原理的理解。最后，该项目将照亮的范围，通过探索新古典主义现实主义在理论化军事学习的分析杠杆，在改善经验教训的过程中，从业者机构。它将加深对结构性学习障碍（包括官僚政治、组织文化和战略文化）与增强吸收能力的活动之间相互构成关系的理解。研究问题、时间表和详细的影响计划是与从业人员合作制定的。评估结果将提供与其工作直接相关的产出，并将纳入《北约经验教训手册》和北约程序、政策、指令和培训。

This grant engages with conceptual, empirical and theoretical research questions about military learning processes which have the potential to substantially enhance the military effectiveness of NATO member-states in a wide-variety of operational contexts. The capacity of militaries to quickly capture successful individual/group adaptation and mistakes by deployed soldiers/allies as organisational learning is an enduring feature of military effectiveness. Poor intra- and inter-organisational learning capability reduces the relevance of key 'institutional military' activities, such as training, doctrine, and officer education, leaving soldiers in ongoing and future operations facing an 'adaptation trap' of relearning lessons in the field. The increasingly fast-changing nature of contemporary operational environments has sharpened the negative consequences of an adaptation trap for the safety of soldiers and civilians, and for operational/strategic success. Militaries have sought to rise to this challenge by establishing permanent 'lessons-learned' processes within service branches and the joint environment during the 2000s. Run by dedicated lessons-learned branches, they focus on improving a military's ability to identify best-practices and to uncover, resolve, and disseminate tactical- and operational-level lessons from exercises, operations, and allies. However, the potential of lessons-learned processes to revolutionise military learning remains untapped. Technological advances in communicating, storing, and disseminating information have not been accompanied by advances in the conceptual and organisational dimensions of lessons-learned processes. Practitioner guidance provides limited advice about how militaries can ameliorate barriers to learning. Military innovation studies, management studies, and organisation studies have also failed to examine best-practice in lessons-learned processes. Hence this project makes an important contribution to understanding the potential of lessons-learned by exploring three key conceptual, empirical, and theoretical themes.First, the lessons which can be drawn from management studies and organisation studies about best-practice in the activities which enhance the capacity of military lessons-learned processes to effectively acquire, manage, disseminate, and exploit lessons from operations, exercises, and allies ('absorptive capacity'). Second, the project will explore hitherto-unexplored case studies of small military early-adopters of lessons-learned processes: Estonia, the Netherlands, and Portugal. In doing so, it will explore the utility of best-practice gathered from the private and public sectors in a military setting and the challenges that small militaries face in running lessons-learned processes. The project will also explore the more general challenges of running lessons-learned processes in high-intensity warfare training exercises and stabilisation operations. The project will enquire whether innovative practices have emerged among smaller militaries which might enrich understanding of the fundamentals of lessons-learned best-practice, applicable to all militaries, and to other public sector organisations. Finally, the project will illuminate the scope for practitioner agency in improving lessons-learned processes by exploring the analytical leverage of neoclassical realism in theorising military learning. It will sharpen understanding of the mutually-constitutive relationship between structural barriers to learning, including bureaucratic politics, organisational culture, and strategic culture and the emergence of activities which enhance absorptive capacity. The research questions, timetable and detailed impact plan have been developed in cooperation with practitioners. Its findings will deliver outputs of direct relevance to their work and will be integrated into the NATO Lessons-Learned Handbook and NATO procedures, policy, directives, and training.