Will Traditions Hold us Back?

Wavell Room Audio Reads

Tradition can be defined as an inherited, established and customary pattern of thought or action that can be transmitted from generation to generation due to their commonly accepted authority. In a military sense, Army traditions encompass customs and beliefs that unite different sets of soldiers. These traditions take form to us as behaviours, doctrine and actions.
The British Army's website states that 'The British Army is a professional and disciplined team, with a long tradition of service to the country'.1Readers can infer that this means the Army does the nation's bidding, whether at war or peacetime, without delay or question. This endures (and has done since 1689) always; we know this from the long standing function of Parliament to authorise taxes for war and defence.
It can be safely assumed then that the 'tradition' of the British Army being ever-present and ready to provide defence for the British people is a good one.
Does tradition hold us back?
But do Army traditions hold us back in other areas of defence? As the Army evolves and responds to current and emerging threats can it respond sufficiently? Valerii Zaluzhnyi wrote recently that technology 'boasts an undoubted superiority over tradition'.2
Arguably he was cornered into this analysis through the rigours of a war he oversaw as the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Army, until February 24. However, Zaluzhnyi's dismissal does not make it a poor analysis; Zaluzhnyi's Army went to war with Russia and faced some of the most extreme fighting in Europe since WW2. They have had to adapt and survive whilst holding off Russian military superiority and they learned quickly that holding on to tradition and current thinking was costly.
Adapting to the threat and remaining fluid is one thing; changing your approach entirely is quite another, but quite necessary according to Zaluzhnyi.
When Zaluzhnyi mentioned 'traditions' (doctrine & processes), he was talking about improving the situation on the battlefield. He went so far as to state that a wholesale redesign of battlefield operations was needed to distance themselves from outdated, stereotypical thought processes that were harming his troops and country's war effort through simply being not up to task.
This redesign, he concluded, would reshape Ukrainian military doctrine on a fundamental level for the better and help Ukrainian soldiers compete with and defeat Russian troops. This would however require substantial buy-in to be successfully integrated. No small task but surely too risky to ignore; the war with Russia was handing out lessons in evolutionary warfare and Zaluzhnyi was paying attention.
Relevance of experience
The British Army has had no such recent exposure or conflict with a peer adversary. The COIN environment in Iraq and Afghanistan taught us valuable lessons in insurgency warfare, counter-IED, ISTAR and medical support which 'had a profound impact on the Army's equipment, training and doctrine',3 but arguably did not find shortcomings in it. Consequently we have no experience of what should be retained and what should be dismissed or updated regarding our approach to warfare and warfighting.
How are we to know if our doctrine will hold up in a large-scale peer to peer engagement? We have banked heavily on the Land Operating Concept (LOpC): 18 months in the making, full of NATO partner consultation input and interrogated by RUSI, ISS and DTsL; it is the doctrine that dictates how we will win future wars. General Sir Patrick Sanders said it is 'the most robustly evidenced and inclusive piece of conceptual thinking that the Army has produced in over three decades.
This places the British Army at the intellectual edge of land warfare, able to lead in NATO and support our sister services across all domains'. 4
The LOpC clearly shows then that as an organisation we are attuned to the need to evolve and adapt to the changing threats around the globe. It highlights the need for need for technological sup...