Land Warfare: 21st-Century Theory and Doctrine

For the fifth time in 20 years the US Army is rewriting its capstone doctrinal manual, FM 100-5, Operations. Today's Army is smaller, leaner, more technologically capable but also more fragile. With a smaller force, but a decisive technological edge, the modern Army's challenge is to achieve the nation's strategic objectives rapidly and decisively without using overpowering mass and fires. The Army must make the right doctrinal choices for tomorrow in a world that is different but still dangerous. It needs a new doctrine and approach to joint warfare and joint operations. In the air and at sea, US adversaries cannot compete, but our land forces face many major threats. Because human conflicts remain struggles for land and its populations and resources, getting the doctrine of land warfare right is as important as anything the Army will do in the next generation. Strategic Challenge The Army's strategic posture has evolved in the post-Cold War era. Today's Army is a small, high-tech, force-projection Army with limited forward presence. To defeat potential opponents, the Army is structured to deploy rapidly over strategic distances to conduct joint and combined operations with other services and allies. US national strategy requires joint doctrine and training, service interoperability and high readiness levels to achieve credible deterrence, decisive victory in war and success in military operations other than war. Our declared strategy commits us to fighting and winning two major theater wars, each roughly equivalent to the Gulf War, which could overlap. The United States no longer faces a hostile superpower threatening the nation's survival. But the Soviet Union's demise has brought a return to severe regional conflicts grounded in age-old religious, cultural and ethnic enmities. In the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, sub-Saharan Af rica, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, the collapse of bipolarity has revived and encouraged inter- and intrastate conflicts. In the Korean Peninsula and Iran, authoritarian regimes preaching hatred of the west continue to threaten our allies and interests. In some ways, the Army's task is now harder. While all the services are smaller, the Army has absorbed a disproportionate share of force reductions that followed the Cold War's end. The Army lost 40 percent of its active force structure and is now manned at its lowest level since before World War II. This loss of mass and supporting infrastructure is accompanied by deep cuts in the Army's budget. The Army is now less able to face powerful regional opponents with traditional methods. For decades, the Army fought with overwhelming firepower and ample logistics, supported by dominant air and naval forces. Army doctrine emphasized positional, linear warfare. Army forces maneuvered to place massed firepower on the enemy. This approach to land warfare proved overwhelmingly successful in destroying enemy forces in the field. However, today's Army lacks the size, mass and abundant resources to wage prolonged positional warfare. Clearly, it is time for a bold shift in we apply power to win on land. Doctrine and Theory's Role What is doctrine? The common short definition---how to fightmisses the crucial point that campaigns, battles and engagements are unique events, each with its own context and circumstances. The rigid application of rules or formulae is a sure road to disaster. Tactics, techniques and procedures show us to fight. Doctrine shows us how to think about fighting. This distinction is the first step to understanding what doctrine is and why it is central to victory in battle. Doctrine is a thought process for solving problems in war. The basis of all doctrine is a sound theory of war. The link between theory and doctrine is fundamental-indeed, inescapable-because theory provides two things we need to make decisions in war-a mental picture of the battlefield and a rational explanation of why and things on the battlefield interact. …