Chief Historian's Footnote
History as Decision Support
By Jim Malachowski
Article published on: in the Winter 2026 edition of Army History
Read Time: < 4 mins
In our ongoing conversations across the force about the role and future of the Army History Program, it’s essential to distill our function down to its core. Although our work is grounded in rigorous, time-tested standards, its ultimate purpose is brutally practical. Our job is to improve decision making and combat capability. Our historians are, in essence, staff officers. Their unique contribution is the ability to analyze past operations, identify recurring challenges, and help commanders avoid relearning costly lessons—the kind that get people killed and cause missions to fail. In today’s complex environment, this is not an academic exercise; it is a critical component of decision support. At the end of the day, our value proposition to the force lies in three key areas: providing decision advantage, preserving institutional memory, and delivering operational context.
Decision Advantage: Interpreting Our Own Experience
Just as our colleagues in the G–2 interpret adversary intent, our historians—both here at CMH and in the field—are charged with interpreting the Army’s institutional experience. They connect current operations to historical precedent, enabling staffs to anticipate friction points and recognize enduring patterns. When a commander or staff principal asks, “What happened the last time we tried this?,” the historian provides a concise, tailored, and—most important—factually validated answer.
This is a live, operational function. The work our CMH staff historians do on staff rides for deploying units is a perfect example. We do not just walk leaders through a battlefield of the past; we connect the challenges of that terrain and the decisions made there to the specific mission set they are about to undertake. More critically, as we continue the monumental task of producing the U.S. Army’s history of the post-9/11 wars—our “Tan Books”—we are adding to a vast data lake of operational experience. This work is not destined for display on a dusty shelf. It is a resource that allows a division planner today to understand the second-and third-order effects of partnering with local forces in a specific region or to anticipate the unique logistical strains of a rapid deployment, all based on the exhaustively researched experience of those who came before.
Institutional Memory: The Bulwark Against Corporate Amnesia
Every command and organization in the Army struggles against the relentless erosion of continuity caused by staff turnover. As I have argued before, personnel churn creates a knowledge vacuum—the organization blinks every time someone leaves. With every permanent-change-of-station cycle, we lose corporate knowledge. The hard-won lessons from the last combat training center rotation or the previous deployment walk out the door. Maybe the unit keeps a copy of the after action report, but before long it will be lost. Our historians and the Army Historical Program are the principal bulwark against this institutional amnesia.
Through the continuous, often unglamorous work of collecting and organizing institutional and operational records, conducting oral history interviews, and compiling annual histories, our people preserve and transmit that vital knowledge. This is not a passive process of collection. It is the active curation of experience. When a new commander arrives and proposes a fundamental change, the historian is often the only staff member who can provide a detailed briefing on previous attempts, highlighting not just the outcome but also the rationale, the unintended consequences, and the points of friction. CMH’s electronic records management systems, the Army Historical Resources Online–Classified at the secret level and its counterpart (due later this year), the Army Historical Resources Online–Unclassified/Controlled Unclassified Information (colloquially known as Red Arrow and Green Arrow), provide a searchable archive of the Army’s experience and a deep well of institutional knowledge essential for navigating complex, sensitive issues with the thoroughness and respect leaders expect. Historians ensure today’s decisions are informed by the full weight of our Army’s experience.
Operational Context: Delivering the “Why”
Ultimately, history in an operational setting is not about memorizing facts; it is about understanding the why. A tactic’s success is inseparable from its context. The historian’s most vital task is to provide that context in formats commanders and staffs can use—short studies, briefing slides, and direct participation in the military decision-making process.
This is where our mission faces its greatest challenge. Every commander who cuts a historian position eliminates a versatile and knowledgeable staff officer whose expertise is difficult to replace. Every history report not written or never sent to the archive robs the Army of its lived experience and hard-fought lessons. Doing so directly degrades our ability to provide decision support denies current commanders the lessons for which their predecessors paid a heavy price. Providing history as decision support is the central mission of the Army Historical Program. It is our duty to ensure that the lessons of the past are not merely recorded but are available and used to inform the decisions of today and tomorrow. Our relevance depends on it.