As forensically relevant situations change, law enforcement must change with them.

Yet, as in many walks of life, this doesn't necessarily happen.

Well-documented military situations can show us the psychology of such failures to adapt.

Society and law enforcement face increasingly and frequently interlinked challenges in the modern world. As rates of societal change increase, so does the operational tempo of police work (Sharps, 2022, 2024). Even venerable law enforcement challenges, such as public disorder, have acquired new dimensions, as recently observed in “social media-fueled” takeovers, such as that over the July 4, 2026 weekend in Newport Beach, California. In that situation, law enforcement deployed mounted officers. Horses are often very effective in police work; they can go where vehicles frequently can’t, and they provide psychological intimidation and sheer mass. However, the aftermath of the operations of mounted officers, in the media-intensive world of modern sensitivities, can be devastating for officers and department reputations alike. It’s a difficult call for police commanders to make.

It’s important to understand the psychology involved in choosing whether to use an older tactic in a novel social environment. The use of horses in harm's way has a long history, of course, and frequent sense; yet it’s proved difficult to give up even when using the horses was a very bad idea. For example, even in the twentieth century, some army officers fought the replacement of horses with mechanized armor with adamantine conviction. The last American horse cavalry charge actually occurred in World War II (Ramsey and Rivele, 1990). These operations in the twentieth century involved great courage, and were sometimes effective, as horse cavalrymen found new and unorthodox ways to fight. Yet superannuated horse-cavalry........

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