U.S. Armed Forces and the Operational Level of War -- Are We Prepared to Win

This monograph examines the operational level of war, a concept rediscovered by the United States Army with the publication of the 1982 version of FM 100-5 and reinforced by the appearance of the succeeding version in 1986. Military doctrine and theory is examined to determine what components and conditions constitute operational level warfare. A paradigm of operational level war is proposed and compared to U.S. military experience in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam to establish the key theoretical aspects of operational art that were present or absent in each historical example. The final portion of the paper compares current U.S. force structure and doctrine with the model to ascertain whether we understand operational art and are prepared to wage war successfully at that level. The monograph concludes that there are significant shortcomings in our ability to be successful at the operational level, and it provides recommendations for the correction or mitigation of these shortcomings.