Army brigade commander: Adaptability key to success in field

Army forces in the Middle East must be able to employ innovative methods to increase mobility, according to a service official.

Col. Brian Sullivan, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, back from a rotation in the Middle East, told reporters at the Pentagon July 25 that adaptability and innovation are key to Army operations.

One of the innovations they developed was dividing up the command structure, which Sullivan said is too large.

"Look, there's no way this thing is survivable because it's way too big, it emits way too big an electronic signature, it can be found by a capable adversary and it can just be eliminated very quickly," he said. "So I said, 'We've got to figure out how to get smaller.'"

His solution was to split the larger command post into three smaller posts designated "red, white and blue" and distribute normal command post capabilities across them. His units trained under this new structure.

Iraqi security forces slowly adopted a similar structure in some areas, owing to some cultural differences, according to Sullivan.

"What that allowed us to do was to operate very well in Iraq where the environment [is] just based on the distributed nature of Iraqi security forces, the distributed nature of how ISIS was operating and what we were required to do to maintain stability across a very broad area," said Sullivan.

This helped their operations against ISIS, which Sullivan said wasn't acting as an insurgency but more like a defeated army. These remnants fight using asymmetrical warfare tactics such as improvised explosive devises.

One American soldier from the brigade was killed in a roadside IED attack on Oct. 1, 2017, leading to some changes in how personnel operated in the area. Troop movements became integrated with Iraqi forces and were done in daylight, which helped avoid a second attack.

"What the Oct. 1 IED attack taught us was the importance primarily of simply understanding your environment and adjusting accordingly," he said.

The brigade also dealt with contested areas in northern Syria, sometimes coming into contact with what Sullivan described as "Russian entities."

While he would not elaborate beyond Syria being a "competitive environment," he said it was not a major problem.

"Anything they were doing was not a major surprise to us," Sullivan said.

Sullivan added the Army's modernization efforts are crucial to the service maintaining its edge against enemy weapons and technology.

For example, ISIS' drones were easily taken down by the brigade's equipment and training, he said.

"This was another aspect that was always in transition," said Sullivan. "Based on the evolving nature of the threat, because of what industry is doing in respect to [unmanned aerial systems], we are always fielding new systems."

He added that much of this is due in part to the adaptability of soldiers, who have had to work with new technology frequently.