"Choosing not to learn": How Western militaries are failing to adapt to modern war

Western governments and militaries — including Australia's defence force — are failing to learn the lessons of modern war, according to a new Lowy Institute Analysis by retired Major General Mick Ryan (Opens in new window).

Ryan argues that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have rapidly adapted to changes in military technology, while Western governments and armed forces have been slow to institutionalise lessons from the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Australia is falling behind in several critical areas, Ryan finds, including drone and counter-drone capabilities, tactical ground operations, and long-range strike.

The problem, he argues, is not a lack of resources or available information.

"This deficit of learning is due to a combination of emphasis on pre-existing ideas, failure to accurately understand what occurs in foreign wars, application of disputed or misleading lessons, and failure to sustain the implementation of useful lessons," Ryan writes.

"It is a challenge of organisational culture, individual and institutional humility, leadership philosophies, and political inattention.

“Ignoring visible evidence from modern wars when adversaries are absorbing those same lessons at speed constitutes a strategic choice with potentially catastrophic consequences for military organisations — and entire nations.”

Ryan sets out a series of recommendations to improve the decision-making and preparedness of the Australian Defence Force (ADF):

• Improving political briefings to help parliamentarians understand the rapid evolution of military and national security technologies and strategies
• Reforming ADF leadership development and promotion processes to cultivate leaders who are adaptive, intellectually restless and willing to challenge established assumptions
• Implementing tailored AI tools for strategic and operational analysis
• Rapidly establishing dedicated drone and counter-drone units
• Creating emergency acquisition pathways for urgent operational requirements, modelled on Ukraine's approach to defence-industrial development

"These recommendations are not radical," Ryan says. "They do not require the abandonment of every existing capability program or wholesale restructuring of the ADF.

"They require something more difficult: a shift in institutional culture, a different kind of leadership, and the genuine humility to recognise that a military institution that learns more slowly than the threat evolves is already falling behind."

KEY FINDINGS

• Western military institutions exhibit a systemic learning deficit that prioritises exploitation of existing competencies over exploration of new solutions. The result is dangerously slow adaptation to battlefield innovations, demonstrated in Ukraine and Iran despite unprecedented access to openly available evidence.
  
• The inability to rapidly implement proven innovations is a failure of organisational culture, of promotion systems that reward conformity over innovation, and of political leadership that fails to demand institutional accountability for learning.
  
• If Western nations are to compete with the new authoritarian learning and adaptation bloc formed by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, an array of rapid organisational, cultural, technological, and leadership philosophy changes is needed in military institutions, including in Australia.

MEDIA CONTACT
Andrew Griffits
Head of Media and Communications
media@lowyinstitute.org (Opens in new window)