What is a ‘Lesson’?

By Major John Rickard - September 15, 2021

Reading Time: 8 min  

The definition of ‘lessons learned’ in the Canadian Army is “the adding of value to an existing body of knowledge, or seeking to correct deficiencies in areas of concepts, policy, doctrine, training, equipment or organizations, by providing feedback and follow-on action.”1 A lesson can also be considered to be a factor identified from experience that has a high degree of correlation with an undesirable or desirable outcome – cause and effect. How does one know that an observation will add value to the Army’s warfighting methods, or that the lesson identified is correct in the moment or applicable in the future? We have a validation process of course, but let’s briefly consider six categories of lessons.  

The ‘Obvious or Readily Identifiable’ Lesson 

This type is relatively easy to identify and perhaps could even have been foreseen prior to the experience. As he prepared for the 100 Days campaign in 1918 Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie observed that “Lessons from previous fighting had shown that certain branches … should be strengthened and reorganized. The Engineers and Machine Guns in particular were not able to accomplish their tasks in battle without drawing heavily on the Infantry for additional personnel.”2 The changes Currie made based on his observations had a positive impact on the combat power of the Canadian Corps. A more recent example of an obvious lesson is from Afghanistan where we determined that integral echelon support “is difficult during decentralized Arm[oure]d operations.”3  

The ‘Transient’ Lesson  

This type is highly contextual in time, place, geography and opponent. Although General William C. Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command (MACV) in Vietnam, studied the Malayan situation, he did not believe there were many directly transferable lessons for his specific problem. In terms of counterinsurgency writ large Steven Metz has argued that it “might not be the best response to insurgency. Over the past fifty years, the concept of counterinsurgency has become so encumbered with implications and ‘lessons,’ many of them derived from the Cold War, that it is time to move beyond them.”4  

The ‘Enduring’ Lesson 

This is one which persists through time and context. The principles of war and the concept of combined arms could be considered enduring lessons derived from military history. So too could the idea of battlegroups, at least since the Second World War. The omni-directional nature of battlefield threats in history can also be considered an enduring lesson. Thinking in some circles posits that this is a modern phenomenon of asymmetric warfare. Yet the British War Office concluded in 1943 that:

A most important lesson-though by no means a new one-that was learned by hard experience is that everyone in a theatre of war, whatever his rank or arm of the service, is a fighting soldier. In a situation where frontages are extended, localities widely separated, and enemy patrols active, there are many opportunities for enemy infiltration … there were numerous instances of clerks, cooks, batmen, and drivers being compelled to fight.5

Consider also Paul Johnston’s assertion that “historically, attrition has been central to settling the outcome of virtually all major wars. Military historians may choose to decry this, but the pattern is strong enough that, if we are to learn anything from history, we ought not ignore it.”6  

The ‘False’ Lesson 

This a flawed deduction flowing from ignorant or untruthful interpretation of an event, a false premise, or cognitive confusion due to rapidity of analysis. False lessons can also be characterized by (1) linear projection; (2) hasty, ill-considered adaptations; and (3) fixation on past success.7 The Israeli Defence Force’s overreliance on Effects-Based Approach to Operations (EBAO) during the 2006 war with Hezbollah, specifically the idea that air power could terminate wars on Israeli terms more effectively than could ground manoeuvre, could be considered a false lesson. Indeed, the more general argument that air power can win wars by itself continues to reverberate and could be considered an enduring false lesson.  

The ‘Lost’ Lesson  

This is perhaps the most unfortunate in that it is unconsciously forgotten due to the nature of bureaucratic processes or institutional cognitive fatigue/poor record keeping. General William E. Dupuy, commander of Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), observed during the Yom Kippur War that the Israelis discarded their all-tank doctrine for combined-arms manoeuvre, and deduced that this was a major lesson.8 Yet the IDF deduced from the Six Day War six years earlier, to their detriment, that tanks alone could decisively execute a counterattack in the future. Even in the very midst of war lessons are forgotten for many reasons. Major-General Chris Vokes, commander of 1 Canadian Infantry Division in Italy, noted that artillery barrages of the greatest strength were “ineffective unless the inf[antry] follows close behind and take full advantage of the neutralizing effect.”9 Indeed, this basic lesson had to be stressed over and over again. 

The ‘I Don’t Know What the Lesson Is’ Lesson 

Although it is easy to create categories of lessons, there is no guarantee that the war being studied will yield neat categorization. Confusion should be anticipated. Consider Second British Army’s problem with anti-tank gun doctrine in Normandy. The two main types of country encountered were the rolling, open, corn-lands and the close, stiffly hedged, ‘bocage.’ Both were thoroughly difficult anti-tank country. “It is thus extraordinarily hard,” offered observers, “to come to the correct conclusions as to what our armament should be – and to sort out the real from the false lessons [emphasis added].”10  

Your Own Experience with ‘Lessons’ 

Lord Keyes once observed that “we are slow to learn and quick to forget, and the lessons that we might have learnt from a study of previous operations are often only learnt by trial and error and bitter experience in each successive generation.”11 You doubtless have had experience with some or all of the lesson categories discussed here. Is trial and error the best we can do? Tell us what you think.

Notes

1. DAOD 8010-0, Lessons Learned, 30 April 2004.
2. Lieut.-General Sir A.W. Currie, Canadian Corps Operations During the Year 1918, Interim Report (Ottawa: Department of Militia and Defence, n.d., c.1919), 3.
3. Army Lessons Learned Centre, Lesson Synopsis Report (07-003), Tanks Employment in Southern Afghanistan, 11 May 2007.
4. Steven Metz, Learning from Iraq: Counterinsurgency in American Strategy (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2007), 76. 
5. War Office, Notes from Theatres of War No. 13: North Africa-Algeria and Tunisia, November 1942-March 1943, May 1943, p. 3.
6. Paul Johnston, “The Myth of Manoeuvre Warfare: Attrition in Military History,” in Allan D. English, ed., The Changing Face of War: Learning from History (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998), 22-23. 
7. Joseph J. Collins, “Desert Storm and the Lessons of Learning,” Parameters 22, no. 3 (Autumn 1992): 83.
8. Major Paul H. Herbert, Deciding What Has to Be Done: General William E. DePuy and the 1976 Edition of FM 100-5, Operations Leavenworth Papers No. 16. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute, 1988), 31, 33.
9. Major-General Chris Vokes, Crossing of the Moro and the Capture of Ortona, p. 7.
10. The Invasion of Western Europe, RA 2 Army Arty Notes No. 2 (period 19 Jun – 6 Aug), Library & Archives Canada, RG 24, Volume 10,554, File 215B2.013(D3).
11. Lord Keyes, Amphibious Warfare and Combined Operations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943), 7.