This week I had the good fortune to find two remarkable articles, both about organizations in the Long War struggling to adapt themselves to changing circumstances that neither had originally foreseen.

As Michael Gordon notes in the NY Times, the US Army is on the verge of releasing the latest version of its capstone operational doctrine:

Military officials described the new document, the first new edition of the Army’s comprehensive doctrine since 2001, as a major development that draws on the hard-learned lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, where initial military successes gave way to long, grueling struggles to establish control.

Meanwhile, as Amit Paley writes in the Washington Post, our adversaries are similarly refining their ideas and tactics:

From internal documents and interviews with members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a picture emerges of an organization in disarray but increasingly aware that its harsh policies have eroded its popular support ... The group's leadership is now jettisoning some of its past tactics to refocus attacks on American troops, Sunnis cooperating closely with U.S. forces, and Iraq's infrastructure.

Without suggesting any kind of moral equivalency or legitimacy, it is instructive to look at both groups as learning organizations, struggling to cope with rapidly shifting landscapes that lessen the traditional advantages held by each side. For US forces, the need to shift away from the traditional US tactic of not sending a man when a bullet will suffice to the manpower-heavy demands of COIN has been a difficult lesson, and one that still makes a significant portion of the Army's leadership uncomfortable. For AQI, the idea that they would have somehow lost local legitimacy to those they dismiss as "Crusaders" would have been ludicrous even two years ago - and yet, that is exactly what has happened in parts of Iraq. Both groups now face a pressing need to learn and adapt or die.

For those not familiar with the idea of "learning organizations", perhaps the best definition out there is the one outlined by Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline that describes the following:

Organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.

Nowhere in this definition do you find a requirement for a vast commitment of resources, an intricate supporting bureaucracy, or a 20-page vision statement, carefully vetted for inclusive language and market-tested ideas. What you need are skilled, motivated people and the willingness to let them push boundaries and explore the means to achieve their goals.

Both sides have the capability to be powerful learning organizations, and yet both are handicapped by ideologies that prevent them from achieving their full potential. For the American Armed Forces, it is a vision of warfare that believes in a transparent battlefield where information dominance and precision munitions rule the day, and potential enemies are blasted off the map as soon as they become visible to the Global Information Grid. While seductive in its promise of minimal casualties and destruction (on both sides), this theory flies in the face of the experience of thousands of years of warfare, where friction is omnipresent and humans make decisions that are not always predictable and quantifiable. For al-Qaeda, it is a belief that many of their fellow Muslims are, at best, lapsed in their faith - at worst, they are out-and-out apostates who need to be cleansed from the community of believers in order for Islam to regain the prominence it once held. As Shi'a states and populations begin to reassert themselves to a degree not seen since the tenth century, views and actions like those above will become increasingly untenable.

It has become a truism that the current battle is a fight for hearts and minds. While popular opinion (especially in the United States) is certainly a factor, the ultimate victory will go to the side that is able to transcend its own biases and prejudices to a degree that allows it to adapt to changing circumstances while still keeping sight of the overarching objectives.

The battle of wits is joined. Who learns, wins.