In 2006, during turnover with 2nd Recon in Al Anbar, SSgt Eric Kocher said something that stuck in my mind. “We’ve got operational ADD,” he said. “We go somewhere, poke around for a couple weeks, then we leave.”
While he was talking specifically about the way we were being employed, his sentiments can be applied across the operational spectrum from the small-unit tactical level all the way to the strategic level. We seem to have come to expect war to operate on a schedule. Needless to say, it doesn’t. The enemy gets a vote, as they say, and that can throw your desired schedule into a cocked hat. Not only does enemy action affect the timeline, but in a combat zone, even more than anywhere else, Murphy is king. Equipment breaks. Weather grounds helicopters or slows movement. The imagery turns out to be outdated, and where there was a crossing, there is now just a ten-foot-deep canal. Somebody gives the lieutenant a map.
Read the rest at Breach-Bang-Clear: http://www.breachbangclear.com/site/10-blog/350-peter-nealan-on-operational-add-in-warfare.html