Rediscovering US Military Strategy: A Role for Doctrine

ABSTRACT

This article argues that US military doctrine, and by extension that of most Western militaries, missed an opportunity in the period following the Cold War to rediscover the many types of military strategies employed to good effect before the industrial-age wars of the twentieth century. This missed opportunity resulted in Coalition forces having to relearn many of those strategies through costly trial and error in Iraq and Afghanistan.

KEYWORDS:

• Military Strategy
• Doctrine
• RMA
• Transformation
• Afghanistan

Notes

¹ US Army Training and Doctrine Command, Knowledge & Speed (Fort Monroe, VA, 1996).

² Alvin Toffler, Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (New York: Bantam, 1990); others include: Edward Cornish, The Study of the Future: An Introduction to the Art and Science of Understanding and Shaping Tomorrow’s World (Washington: World Future Society, 1984); idem, Futuring: The Exploration of the Future (Bethesda, MD: World Future Society, 2004); Nicholas Rescher, Predicting the Future: An Introduction to the Theory of Forecasting (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998); Robert Heilbroner, Visions of the Future: The Distant Past, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

³ US Institute of Peace, The QDR in Perspective: Meeting America’s National Security Needs in the 21st Century (Washington: US Institute of Peace, 2010), iii.

⁴ Some 25 more official studies appeared between 2000 and 2007; Sam J. Tangredi, Futures of War: Toward a Consensus View of the Future Security Environment, 2010–2035 (Newport, RI: Alidade Press, 2008), 43–49.

⁵ John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War,’ Atlantic Monthly 266/2 (1990), 35–50; Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press, 1991); Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars (Cambridge: Polity, 1999).

⁶ Compare: Stephen G. Nitzschke, ‘Vietnam: A Complex Adaptive Perspective,’ 1997, <http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1997/Nitzschke.htm.; David Kilcullen, ‘Countering Global Insurgency,’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 28/4 (2004), 597–617; Kimberly Holloman, ‘Complex Adaptive Systems Theory and Military Transformation,’ in Yin Shan and Ang Yang (eds), Applications of Complex Adaptive Systems (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2008), 278–305.

⁷ ‘International: Asymmetric War Poses New Challenges,’ Oxford Analytica, 24 October 2001, 1, is representative of this view. Compare: Michael G. Findley and Scott Edwards, ‘Accounting for the Unaccounted: Weak-Actor Social Structure in Asymmetric Wars,’ International Studies Quarterly 51/3 (2007), 583–99; Ivan Arreguin-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); T.V. Paul, Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Adam Lowther, Americans and Asymmetric Conflict: Lebanon, Somalia, and Afghanistan (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007). It has also recently been applied to stabilization and reconstruction operations: Department of Defense, ‘Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations,’ Department of Defense Directive No. 3000.05, Washington, 28 November 2005.

⁸ This also holds true for those who might simply wish to use ‘asymmetric’ as a substitute for ‘irregular;’ US military history shows a ratio of at least 11 unconventional or irregular conflicts for every conventional or regular one, and almost none of those was purely regular. Richard R. Grimmett, ‘Instances of Use of U.S. Armed Forces Abroad 1798–2007,’ RL 32170, Congressional Research Service, Washington, 2008.

⁹ Roy Licklider, ‘The Power of Oil: The Arab Oil Weapon and the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and the United States,’ International Studies Quarterly 32 (1988): 205–26.

¹⁰ Words of caution appeared somewhat later, reminding readers that the Cold War had its own brand of uncertainty, and it was no less important than today’s. Lawrence Freedman, ‘Frostbitten: Decoding the Cold War, 20 Years Later,’ Foreign Affairs 89/2 (2010), 136–144.

¹¹ Andrew W. Marshall, ‘Some Thoughts on Military Revolutions,’ ONA Memorandum for US Secretary of Defense, 27 July 1993; US Under Secretary of Defense (Policy), Maintaining U.S. Military Superiority (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, Net Assessment, 1999). For counterpoints, see MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray (eds), The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

¹² William A. Owens, Lifting the Fog of War (New York: Farrar, 2000); idem, ‘The Emerging US System of Systems,’ in Martin Libicki and Stuart Johnson (eds), Dominant Battlespace Knowledge: The Winning Edge (Washington: National Defense University, 1996). On predicting effects: David Deptula, Effects-Based Operations: Changes in the Nature of Warfare (Arlington, VA: Aerospace Education Foundation, 2001).

¹³ Compare: Joseph A. Engelbrecht, Jr, Lt Col Robert L. Bivins, Maj Patrick M. Condray, Maj Merrily D. Fecteau, Maj John P. Geis II, Maj Kevin C. Smith, Alternative Futures for 2025: Security Planning to Avoid Surprise (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University, 1996); CNO Strategic Studies Group XIV, The International Security Environment to the Year 2005 (Newport, RI: Naval Institute, 1995); David C. Gompert, Richard L. Kugler, and Martin C. Libiki, Mind the Gap: Promoting a Transatlantic Revolution in Military Affairs (Washington: National Defense University, 1999).

¹⁴ The official definition of EBO is: ‘a process for obtaining a desired strategic outcome or “effect” on the enemy through the synergistic, multiplicative, and cumulative application of the full range of military and other national capabilities at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.’ US Joint Forces Command, ‘Rapid Decisive Operations White Paper,’ Norfolk, VA, 2002, 20. It was part of ‘Network-Centric Warfare,’ an umbrella concept vigorously advanced by the late Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski of the US Office of Force Transformation. David S. Alberts, John J. Gartska, and Frederick P. Stein, Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority (Washington: C4ISR Cooperative Research Program, 1999).

¹⁵ James N. Mattis, ‘USJFCOM Commander’s Guidance for Effects-Based Operations,’ Parameters 38/3 (2008), 18–25. The once-popular theory of ‘shock and awe,’ tried in the opening stages of the Iraq War, combined strategic bombing theory, precision targeting, and EBO. See also Barry R. Posen in this volume, who describes types of uncertainty. See also Harlan Ullman and James P. Wade, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (Washington: Center for Advanced Concepts and Technology, 1996); for counterpoints, see Eric L. Haney, Beyond Shock and Awe: Warfare in the 21st Century (New York: Berkley Caliber, 2006).

¹⁶ This model was advanced by Col. Arthur F. Lykke, Jr, an engineer, who taught a generation of military strategists at the US Army War College. Arthur F. Lykke, Jr, ‘Toward an Understanding of Military Strategy,’ in Art Lykke (ed.), Military Strategy: Theory and Application (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, 1993), 3.

¹⁷ John Bigelow, The Principles of Strategy: Illustrated Mainly from American Campaigns, 2nd edn (New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1894), 224–29.

¹⁸ Antulio J. Echevarria II, ‘American Operational Art, 1917–2008,’ in John Andreas Olsen and Martin van Creveld (eds), The Evolution of Operational Art: From Napoleon to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 151–52.

¹⁹ ‘… with a view to placing it in such a position, relative to the enemy, as to increase the probability of victory, increase the consequences of victory, or lessen the consequences of defeat.’ Arthur L. Wagner, Strategy (Kansas City: Hudson-Kimberly, 1904), 5.

²⁰ Edward B. Hamley, The Operations of War Explained and Illustrated, 5th edn (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1889).

²¹ G.J. Fiebeger, Elements of Strategy (West Point, NY: US Military Academy, 1917), 4.

²² Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-0, Doctrine for Joint Operations (Washington, 1995), II-2, emphasis added.

²³ Colin Gray, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford: Oxford University, 2010), 7; John Stone, Military Strategy: The Politics and Technique of War (London: Continuum, 2011), 4.

²⁴ Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-0, II-2, emphasis added; compare non-doctrinal definitions: ‘If strategy is the art of war and tactics the art of battle, then operations is the art of campaigning.’ John A. English ‘The Operational Art: Developments in the Theories of War,’ in B.J.C. McKercher and Michael A. Hennessy (eds), The Operational Art: Developments in the Theories of War (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 7–28.

²⁵ This was also true of the doctrine pertaining to military operations other than war, which captured principles and described types of operations rather than strategies. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-07, Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other than War (Washington, 1995).

²⁶ For more on the case of Afghanistan, see Antulio J. Echevarria II, Reconsidering the American Way of War: US Military Practice from the Revolution to Afghanistan (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2014), 150–53.

²⁷ Firepower was also brought to bear in the form of B-52 bombers, B-1 ‘Stealth’ bombers, and strike aircraft (F-14s and F-18s). Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons of Afghanistan: War Fighting, Intelligence, and Force Transformation (Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2002).

²⁸ Also summarized in Antulio J. Echevarria II, ‘After Afghanistan: Lessons for NATO’s Future Wars,’ RUSI Journal, 159/3 (2014), 20–23.

²⁹ For the first see Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 19th edn (Bonn: Ferd. Dümmlers, 1989), Book II/Chap. 1, and Book III/Chap. 1, 345; Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1986), 128, 177; for the second see Antine-Henri Jomini, The Art of War, trans. G.H. Mendell and W.P. Craighill (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1862), 62.

³⁰ Antulio J. Echevarria II, Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

³¹ See the definition provided by Harald Høiback in this volume.

³² See, for instance, Rolf Hobson, ‘Blitzkrieg, the Revolution in Military Affairs and Defense Intellectuals,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (2010), 625–635.

Additional information

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Antulio J. Echevarria II

Professor Antulio J. Echevarria II holds the US Army War College Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies and is the editor of Parameters. He has a doctorate in history from Princeton University and has had a distinguished military career. He has authored four books: Reconsidering the American Way of War: US Military Practice from the Revolution to Afghanistan (2014), Clausewitz and Contemporary War (2007), Imagining Future War (2007), and After Clausewitz (2001), as well as numerous articles. He enjoyed a NATO Fulbright as well as a visiting research fellowship with Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Programme.