The army is about to undergo its biggest organisational shake-up in 35 years as it prepares for a future in which there will be less emphasis on killing people.
New Chief of Army, Lieutenant-General Ken Gillespie, has outlined a series of changes to higher command under the ''Adaptive Army'' initiative.
He said the army had too many headquarters between units and high command.
''This slows down decision cycles, constricts the passage of information in an age of email and Blackberries, and the sharing of lessons learned,'' he said.
General Gillespie said the past decade's high tempo of operations had shown the weaknesses of current structures and the army was learning many lessons from this.
''... Our operations will often be less about killing the enemy than about making them irrelevant to the population,'' he said.
''The role of conventional operations in this context is to keep the enemy at arm's length while others undertake the capacity building essential to re-starting societies.''
This type of warfare required small teams of highly flexible soldiers, who could move between different types of operations.
They also needed to be able to deal with international law, humanitarian issues and the media.
However, the army would continue training for high-end conventional conflicts because these skills provided the foundation of all operations in which it would be involved.
Training and equipping soldiers was not enough; adaptability and a capacity to ''out-think an adversary'' was critical for success.
The Adaptive Army changes are the biggest since the Vietnam-era Hassett review in the early 1970s.
The army will still have three functional commands. They will eventually be Headquarters 1st Division, Special Operations Command and Forces Command, replacing Land Command, Training Command and Logistics Command.
The commander of 1st Division will be responsible for preparing soldiers for operations, mounting operations, and ensuring lessons from operations are quickly learned and adapted into pre-deployment training.
Special Operations Command looks after the special forces and Forces Command will ensure units and individual soldiers receive base training.
''These measures will ensure Army is better able to contribute to the conduct of joint operations, and do so in a manner that balances our current commitments with preparations for the future,'' General Gillespie said.
He said the army was also recognising that multiple deployments put significant strain on soldiers and their families.
''Another impact of high personnel tempo is that the same soldiers who conduct multiple deployments and who gain a significant amount of experience of benefit to our Army are missing the chance to do individual training between operations,'' he said.
The changes would help find ways to deliver individual training to address this.
The Adaptive Army initiative will be phased in; interim changes will begin from February next year and the final structure will be effective in 2011.
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