The first time I really considered the cost of combat, I was standing on a hot, crowded Boston sidewalk. I was listening to my officer candidate school classmates reconstruct the Battle of Bunker Hill—a famous name in military history, although the bulk of the fighting took place on the nearby Breed’s Hill, and that’s where our eyes were fixed as we imagined the action of June 17, 1775. Britain won the battle that day, but at a cost of over a thousand troops lost, more than twice the tally of the colonists’ casualties. This was the first time I ever heard the phrase “Pyrrhic victory.” One of the presenters passed around a musket ball and the smooth, heavy metal seemed incredibly benign for all the damage it did. The battle rose from dusty history to become vividly real, its shocking toll impressing itself on my conception of war and the profession of arms.
The staff ride is a time-honored tool for the US military, one that provides opportunities to engage with historical context to inform leaders and shape better outcomes in combat. Using detailed analysis and physical presence to drive home lessons learned, the staff ride seeks to develop “critical thinking skills, essential creativity, and decision-making capabilities” in the participants. Quite literally, it uses the lessons of the past to shape the thoughts of the individuals preparing to fight modern conflicts.
Currently, Army University Press, which develops and conducts staff rides for Army organizations, offers two options for prepackaged staff rides. One is an in-person staff ride conducted using published guides and centered on physical visits to battlefields. The other is a virtual option, which replicates a battlefield’s terrain in a virtual environment. This two-category framework highlights a flaw in the staff ride methodology: Namely, how do you study battles that exist in no physical place or conflicts that are widely dispersed, unorganized, and unrestricted by the physical space of a named battle?
With the expansion of operational environments to include the cyber domain and with insurgencies that often lack set-piece battles as a significant form of twenty-first-century combat, we do ourselves an incredible disservice by restricting the staff ride to physical battlefields. We should study the southern resistance to post–Civil War Reconstruction with the same intensity as the battles that led up to it. We should aim to understand the journalism practices that fogged the prelude to the outbreak of World War I to better frame present-day disinformation practices that clog the virtual sphere, like those that obscure the Ukraine War. These and other historical examples are all ripe opportunities to prepare for future combat.
In 2014, the northern Iraqi city of Mosul fell to ISIS fighters with minimal resistance, in part, due to the #alleyesonISIS hashtag and its subsequent impact on morale of the defenders of Mosul. It is impossible to adequately study ISIS’s lightning seizure of the city without also studying its information dimension. We are missing the boat, leaving ourselves open to repeating historical mistakes because our pedagogy does not acknowledge their validity. The US military has shifted how we think about terrain, expanding its definition as we grow our warfighting concept. Staff rides should follow suit, expanding their topical range outside of physical locations exclusively.
The Center for Military History publication The Staff Ride allows for consideration of instances of conflict that are not based in a physical space as staff ride topics. It highlights the gap in our current perspective on military history, emphasizing that military professionals “must develop the capacity to think and comprehend in multidimensional, multifaceted, and strategic contexts, appreciating both principles and circumstances.”
The use of historical study for professional development is an essential aspect of building well-rounded, prepared leaders. This helps to fill experiential gaps and provide additional insight to developing critical thinking. Yet, the expansive, nebulous, and shifting contours of conflict are not restricted by physical terrain or limited to physical combat. Expanding comprehension of these other aspects could in the future prevent costly mistakes by US forces. Examples that can serve as sources of valuable lessons span military history and opportunities to learn are limited only by our own lack of curiosity and our attachment to the staff ride model we are used to.
These events are as important as the combat successes and failures during the Battle of Gettysburg and the invasion of Normandy. They can be examined with the same level of professional inquiry and would provide essential insights into future conflict, where the US military’s success or failure may rest on more than domination of the physical sphere of combat.
Expanding the concept of staff rides and publishing nonstandard staff rides enables leader development by building on historical concepts while incorporating the expanded operational environment. As we continue to grow, nurture, and expand our military’s thinking in preparation for future conflict, we must retain the lessons already learned while actively seeking the lessons overlooked.
Captain Megan Wood is a US Army public affairs officer with two overseas deployments to the Middle East and has previously served as a forward support company commander, logistics officer for Mission Training Complex Leavenworth, operations officer for current operations FORSCOM, and executive officer to the Army National Guard G3 directorate.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Lt. Col. Jennifer Bocanegra, 1st Cavalry Division