White Paper
Post-Structural Systems Architecture: Diagnosing and Redesigning the U.S. Army Holistic Health and Fitness System for Autonomous Soldier Readiness
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this white paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Government, or any current or former employer of the author.
Executive Summary
The Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) System is a vital investment in force readiness. However, current execution models risk making Soldiers dependent on embedded clinical experts for performance regulation and readiness maintenance. While this centralized model improves short-term garrison outcomes, it creates a critical Human Systems Integration (HSI) vulnerability: without deliberate capability transfer, the system risks producing a high-maintenance asset that relies on continuous expert supervision and data interpretation to function effectively.
In Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO), units will operate in austere environments under contested logistics and degraded communications. The operational tether to the Soldier Performance Readiness Center (SPRC) will not be reliably available. If a Soldier requires an external dashboard to regulate sleep or a specialist to plan fueling, that Soldier remains logistically fragile and insufficiently prepared for the decentralized demands of the modern battlefield.
To address this, this paper introduces Post-Structural Systems Architecture (PSSA). This framework uses Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) to diagnose H2F’s hidden disciplinary mechanisms, and HSI to redesign the system for autonomous Soldier readiness.
To build true operational reliability, H2F teams must shift from continuous expert management toward phased capability transfer. This paper outlines an architecture to achieve this:
Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model (ReARMM) Alignment: Synchronizing H2F support with the force-generation cycle, deliberately reducing clinical reliance as units approach the Mission phase.
Coaching Psychology: Utilizing tools like Motivational Interviewing and rapid micro-experiments to transfer readiness ownership from the expert to the operator.
Planned Obsolescence: Equipping practitioners to systematically engineer their own operational exit.
The highest expression of a human performance system is not perpetual expert management. The result must be a Warfighter capable of autonomous self-regulation when the expert, the facility, and the system are no longer present.