Challenges that Military Organizations Face on Innovation during Peacetime and Wartime - Coursework Example

CHALLENGES THAT MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS FACE ON INNOVATION DURING PEACETIME AND WARTIME Module Military departments are faced with various challenges in their attempt to incorporate innovation in operations whether in peacetime or during war. Innovation in military aims at improving the military activities in future especially after failure at war. Some of the challenges that affect innovation in the military are political interferences, intellectual trends, societal influence, positions in the military departments and personalities. Militaries need to improve on such realms like technology and technical capabilities as well as modernization of military intelligence both during wartime and peacetime. This paper attempts to outline various issues and challenges that are involved in the innovation process in militaries during wartime and peacetime. Since the twentieth century there have been challenges affecting the military in line with operations, technology and organizational and conceptual factors during peacetimes in military camps. Organizations took time to recover from the challenges that they faced and had to apply different strategies to achieve their visions in order to succeed. One of the problems associated with making changes during innovations in peacetime is the fact that many parties were involved in the process of innovation. Many of the military challenges experienced in ancient times still exist. Between 1918 and 1939 when the two World Wars took place there were periods of peacetime when militaries faced challenges. Challenges that took place during innovation of military technology during the wars were identified in programs such as Blitzkrieg. The operations that led to aircraft fighting as a tactical support operation to the land-based operations served as an example of the challenges in innovation that took place during the peacetimes in the first and second world wars. The aircraft technology which was mainly undertaken by the Americans required high technological knowhow and resources to ensure successful missions. Further, the Americans and British militaries introduced a tactical operation aspect through career aviation where the navy and air force soldiers combined skills to reinforce overall military activities. The growth and maturation of career aviation indicates that there were innovations that took place but involved challenging experiences.1 Between 1918 and 1939, innovation on world war strategies focused on success in the battleground. However, these innovations involved challenges such as heavy technological knowhow on the application and introduction of expensive military machines to ensure that war strategies are aligned to the goals of winning any war. Germany, for example, restored the warfare movement on land by creating Blitzkrieg, a RAF’s Fighter Command that was capitalized on radar, radio detection and advanced fighters like the Spitfire. This ensured there was an integrated air defense system that could help to overcome Germany’s enemies. On the other hand, the American-British militaries applied technical, organizational and doctrinal foundations for effective strategic bombing missions in the World War II by launching the career aviation meant to incorporate the navies. These innovations were meant to overcome the enemies but involved hard decisions in the military departments. Also, before completing a strategic initiative, there were a lot of resources and knowledge which were required to accomplish the various innovation processes.2 Most of the cases that are involved in military centers during peacetime innovations include technical developments that are supposed to be used as strategies for wartimes and ensuring that better fighting methods are developed. Technological advancement activities like radio communications, combustion engines, radars, aircraft technology, and tanks were just a small portion of the main innovation process that were undertaken during the world wars. Beyond the activities such as aircraft technology, the military organizations required more technological innovation equipment and the organization structures faced challenges of destabilization since the hard military strategies required tough decisions on organizations to ensure proper technological machines and strategies were implemented. Further, there were challenges like the political interference that affected the military decisions and strategies in one way or another. These challenges reveal how the innovation process in military organization faced difficulties.3 During wartime, the innovation programs are minimal since many of masterminds are engaged in the war and the innovations activities that are undertaken are based on the progress of the war. In such scenarios, innovations such as introduction of heavier machines, change of combat strategies and technical changes are introduced to change the outcome of war. In such situations only the military leaders are involved in pronouncing a new innovative strategy based on the experiences in the battlefields. The innovation strategies usually bring success but in some occasions, they lead to unexpected turn in the fight and thus leading to failure in war. The new measures of effectiveness are channeled towards the activities in the war field that marks the progress of the mission. Other innovative strategies like learning new fighting methods become ineffective and inappropriate since it is too late to incorporate new skills into military agents with limited time at the war. The problems that are associated with the innovation during war include intelligence collection and disputes from inability to change and learn by some intellectuals in organization leadership. These activities make wartimes extremely difficult for the organization.4 Failure to anticipate changes in the war field also lead to difficulties in the innovation process applied by the organization. When the war seems to be turning against a military organization, there may be confusion and conflicts among the leaders since they might not have anticipated a strong battle by the opponents. Since such incidences may be unexpected, the organization finds it hard to apply new innovation strategies. It has been indicated that one of the main challenge in the US military is the uncertainty about the capabilities of the enemy and how to plan for fighting resources and benefits of the technologies applied to engage in a fight. Since their fight with Vietnam, America has been cautious in preparation for fight against an enemy. America was poor in innovation during the war with Vietnam and this led to many questions about the effectiveness of the military group. During the peacetime, America did not apply changes that could help them establish an effective strategy to defeat a lowly-ranked opponent.5 The challenges of innovation in wartime are mainly caused by the proceeding of the war and the innovative strategies that the group establishes before war. When the organization fails to prepare well during the peacetime, confidence of the military group in the battlefield is usually affected. Innovation during the wartimes occurs because the military group feels that their strategies are ineffective or that they face inadequacy on their strategic goals. The decisions to innovate during the war are influenced by the judgment that focuses on the strategic effect of the ineffectiveness of the battlefield strategy. This means that an inappropriate innovation strategy might have been applied in the war field which would result to unexpected outcome. In such incidents the problems in wartime is brought by ineffectiveness of the organizational strategies and the plans they might implemented during the peacetime. Therefore the organization engages in processes that would lead to change in some of the strategic measures and plans that were applied during and before war. This leads to difficulties since it might be too late and lack of belief in their own strategy can lead to conflicts and defeat in war.6 One of the main challenge that affect innovations both during peacetime and wartimes is the political aspect which entails the civilians and the militants. There are incidences where national political figures interfere with the process of war or during the peacetimes. Moreover, such politicians may enforce application of certain strategies that may not be consistent with the military programs thus causing difficulties in the military organization. Since directives are given by leaders, some leaders apply dictatorial leadership strategies where they become the only decision-makers in such an organization. Such leadership styles may result to conflict among other leaders and members of a military group. In addition, a leader who makes decision without considering the opinions of other leaders puts the military organization at risk since he can issue a command or directive that can lead to defeat of the organization. In conclusion, military organizations are faced with various difficulties especially in peacetime and also during the war. Challenges in military organizations on innovations come owing to such factors like planning on the best strategy, huge resources and intelligence required for innovation, interference from political departments and leadership problems among the military leaders. Many of the innovation challenges take place during peacetime while challenges in wartime occur when the measures and plans of the organization are ineffective. Bibliography Fisher, Uri Joseph. 2007. Military entrepreneurship and war duration. Dissertation Abstracts International.68-07. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Colorado at Boulder, 2007. Millett, Allan, and Williamson Murray. 2010. Military effectiveness. Volume 2, Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosen, Stephen. (1991). Winning the next war: Innovation and the modern military. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Russell, James. 2010. Innovation, Transformation, and War Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005-2007. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=805147. Williamson, Murray. 2011. Military adaptation in war: with fear of change. New York: Cambridge University Press. Williamson, Murray, & Millet, Allan. (1998). Military innovation in the interwar period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Read More