The reigning theme at the 2016 AUSA Global Force Symposium was Army readiness. As was reiterated across the multi-day event, there are a number of factors that go into readiness, including and they can range from what soldiers are wearing,  to the communications devices in their hands, and varying needs from home station to the tactical edge. Speaking to reporters on March 17, Gen. David Perkins, commanding general of Army Training and Doctrine Command, addressed reporters March 17 and shared a few of his ideas on some key aspects of readiness in modern warfare.

1. Innovation

Everyone wants to innovate and produce something quicker, however, different scenarios require different types of innovation. but going into an unknown world, it's about increasing the speed of innovation. In a known world, like in the Soviet Union era, innovation focused on it was about differentiating "because you know what the enemy has and how long it takes them to build a new tank." You end up developing a long process for differentiating, including long lead times and "expensive, exquisite equipment," Perkins said.

But in the modern era, it's about more than just filling known gaps in static problem areas. "Today it's a 360-degree problem, you don't know who the enemy is...they pretty much change all the time," Perkins said. "Now there's no template for the enemy, and they pride themselves on having no template. The level of differentiation is not what's important, it's the rate of innovation."

2. Collaboration

According to Perkins, organizations with high rates of collaboration with many different, diverse inputs and perspectives are the key to succeeding in modern warfare.

"In the Army one problem we had when we had known problem sets ... was that we would [try to solve them] in bite-size pieces because the problems were so big no one person could solve it. That creates stovepipes, or as we call it, 'cylinders of excellence,'" Perkins said. "So we would have someone solving one part of a problem in one part in the world and then you tend to sub-optimize that part of the world. But organizations that have a high rate of innovation are collaborative."

3. Developing an understanding of the enemy. to problem-solve.

Perkins said understanding the enemy that means making better use of analysis and intelligence — not just providing data. It also hinges on exploiting that deeper understanding for actual problem-solving and decision-making at the appropriate levels — not just throwing money and technology at the problem.

"By focusing on war fighting challenges as you aren't buying a thing…you're building the future, building a capability to conduct entry operations, building a capability to understand the enemy," Perkins said. "So you have to create processes to bring together the silos we create it to solve known problems. We have to create a mosaic of what the future will be like because it's not just one thing. You have to open aperture."

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