The Army is fighting a new war: to stay relevant.
The nation’s largest military branch bears the brunt of Pentagon budget cuts, and politicians from President Obama on down are running away from the idea of another major ground war after 13 years of exhaustive, often frustrating conflict with ambiguous results.
Army leaders have responded with a new operating doctrine that builds on the hard lessons learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, where a force trained primarily for large, mechanized ground warfare often found itself stymied and had to improvise new tactics while settling for something short of the traditional concept of victory.
The new doctrine, called “Win in a Complex World,” reasserts the Army’s position as the base for a defense strategy that encompasses diplomatic, economic and informational concerns as well as military ones. It was rolled out at the Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington last week amid a full-court press by Army leaders to avoid further budget cuts.
“We have to remain a robust, reliable and ready force, not some hollowed-out shadow of a former self,” Army Secretary John McHugh said. “As history has shown, airplanes and ships alone cannot win our wars and protect our peace.”
The doctrine is organized around uncertainty, which Army leaders think will be the most constant element of future operations. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno laid out those concerns in an Oct. 14 speech: “This new environment that we think we’ll have to operate in is one that consists of diverse enemies which will employ traditional, unconventional and hybrid strategies to threaten U.S. security and our vital interests.
“Threats may emanate from nation-states or non-state actors such as transnational terrorists, insurgents and criminal organizations. Enemies will continue to apply advanced as well as simple and dual-use technologies while attempting to avoid U.S. strengths. Additionally, to accomplish political objectives, enemy organizations will expand operations to the U.S. homeland. Enemies and adversaries will operate beyond physical battlegrounds, and enemies will subvert efforts through infiltration of U.S. and partner forces while using propaganda and disinformation to affect public perceptions.”
One of the most important innovations in the new doctrine is the recognition that the Army’s future leaders need to be able to act strategically as well as tactically and operationally, said Gen. David Perkins, who leads the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command that developed the document.
Army leaders say that is one of the most important lessons learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they were often reminded of the adage that you can win all the battles and still lose the war. “We realized that actually the operational-tactical level of war is inadequate,” Perkins said.
The new doctrine outlines how future Army leaders should be trained to think beyond the clash of arms and see themselves as projections of American diplomatic, economic and even moral power as well. That comes directly from the experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, where troops were often called on not just to fight, but also to rebuild. Female troops became role models for Afghan and Iraqi women, and helicopter pilots organized the construction of schools and medical clinics.
The doctrine also leverages U.S. relationships with its allies. Michael O’Hanlon, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution, noted that the network of U.S. allies around the world represents 70 percent of global gross domestic product and many of the world’s largest militaries.
“So preserving that and building on that has to be seen as a strategic priority,” he said.
Meanwhile, as other countries erode the U.S. advantage in cutting-edge military technology such as pilotless aircraft, precision-guided missiles and cyber warfare, the new doctrine suggests that the Army look to dominate in other areas such as joint operations.
“We probably do it better than anybody else,” Perkins said.
One of the biggest advantages, he said, is the professionalism of the U.S. soldier, which has endured as budget cuts have affected how fast the Army can exploit technology through new weapons programs.
“It gets to the core of who we are and the level of trust” in soldiers, Perkins said, remembering that his Iraqi counterpart once told him that being a U.S. general was easy because he didn’t have to worry about mutinies or commanders selling their equipment on the black market.
It means that leaders on the battlefield can let subordinates know their intent and trust them to accomplish the mission, rather than micromanaging.
“What we want to do is not control compliance of subordinates, but empower subordinates to exploit the initiative,” Perkins said. All of this is easier said then done, especially in a tight budget environment. In an Oct. 15 speech, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel revealed that only two of the Army’s 37 brigades were considered combat-ready a year ago because so much training had been canceled due to budget cuts. That number has improved to 12 of 37 but “it falls short of what I believe is sufficient to defend our nation and our allies with minimum risk,” he said.
Janine Davidson, a former Pentagon official who is now a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that although this generation of Army leaders deserves credit for recognizing that the nature of warfare has changed, “I don’t think it’s going to be easy” to remake the force to be ready for the multitude of challenges.
