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The American Way of War in the Twenty-First Century: Three Inherent Challenges

Shmuel Shmuel | 06.30.20

The reality of American military power has long been that the United States must project its forces into the enemy’s territory. This brings with it a host of challenges, some inflicted by the adversary and others that are self-inflicted (such as lack of strategic lift or production capacity ). In any future war, the US military will likely play an “away game,” and an adversary will probably not allow the United States to leisurely amass personnel and equipment on its borders, but will actively try to prevent it. As a result, the US military will suffer from an inherent asymmetry and have immense costs imposed on it, at least in the initial phases of the war. This challenge lies at the heart of what is colloquially called the “anti-access/area denial” family of military concepts.

To solve the challenges associated with this inherent asymmetry, a range of ideas have emerged— Multi-Domain Operations from the US Army, distributed lethality from the US Navy, Joint All-Domain Command and Control from the US Air Force, “mosaic warfare” from DARPA, and various “sweeping changes” from the Marine Corps .

A review of the commonalities between these concepts, however, reveals inherent challenges in them—and as such, at the heart of American military thought.

So Say We All

The first item in common between virtually all American concepts is the perception of the threat and threat actors. Even if there are some disagreements on the margins about the details, the threat is perceived as a global or regional military power, employing a long-range, layered, defensive complex, that protects long-range “strategic” offensive capabilities. The specific offensive and defensive assets may vary according to the unique environment the adversary will operate in. But despite the different details of assessments of, for example, Russia and China, the basic idea of both powers is similar. They both aim to protect land-based strike assets that will be used to strike American military capabilities, seeking to complicate the American arrival to the area of interest and operations inside it once US forces have arrived.

Second, there is also a general agreement about ways to survive this threat. Because the US military assesses the adversarial anti-access/area denial system as essentially a long-range strike complex, the ability to find targets and relay their locations back to strike assets in real time (called a “kill chain”) is essential to the adversary. Disrupting that chain can drive a stake through the heart of the entire strike complex.

The third area of consensus is the solution to the challenge. The adversary presents a system that is assumed to be both lethal and resilient. The overlapping fields of fire, reaching hundreds of kilometers from the adversary’s territory, are presented sometimes as impenetrable bubbles . The solution is to avoid detection, penetrate those bubbles, and eliminate the adversary’s strike assets themselves and their supporting command, control, and intelligence infrastructure. In a way, the American answer to the adversary’s intelligence-strike complex is the creation of a competing intelligence-strike complex, which will be able to direct distributed forces and strike assets, to operate inside the adversary’s anti-access/area denial bubbles and dismantle them from the inside. Herein lie three main challenges.

Inside Out or Outside In

In many, if not all, future conflict scenarios the US military expects to start the war numerically inferior , and quite likely surprised . The United States can try to compensate for this disadvantage with technological superiority, although that advantage is eroding . And in any case, quantity has a quality all its own. It is thus fairly safe to assume that a significant portion of American forces will have to fight their way into the area of operations, while the residual forward-positioned forces, possibly cut off from reachback support, will fight a defensive battle, or even a retrograde, against numerically superior forces.

The forces coming in will have to punch their way through the adversary’s defensive complex, possibly partially blind to what is going on inside those perimeters. Since the range of current defensive capabilities is longer than that of many American strike assets, the US military will have to use standoff munitions and small numbers of penetrating platforms. This approach is fighting “from the outside in.”

However, in the various concepts mentioned above, it is generally agreed that the best way to disintegrate the adversary’s defensive bubbles is by maneuvering inside them, obtaining real-time intelligence about defensive and offensive assets, and attacking them rapidly. This is fighting “from the inside out,” mostly with short-range weapons by what the Marine Corps calls “stand-in forces.” Since the United States will probably not have sufficient forces to perform large-scale operations with these forces in the initial phase of the war, there is a constant tension between the goal of achieving a sufficient stand-in presence to have an impact and the rather safe assumption that the war might start while the US is mostly in a standoff position. This is a gap that neither the Army’s concept nor the Marine Corps’ planning guidance elaborates on how to bridge. Both, as well as the National Defense Strategy, mention forward-positioned forces, but it is understood that those will never be enough. The answer that is presented is heavily investing in standoff fires capabilities and penetrating platform , so as to create a lethal intelligence-strike complex, or what amounts to a reverse anti-access/area denial system .

The Away Team’s Challenge

The assumption is that these reverse anti-access/area denial capabilities might be able to bring enough high explosives to enough targets to either punch a hole in opposing defenses or cause the adversary, somehow, to surrender. This assumption, however, ignores the key asymmetry between American forces and their adversaries. The Americans, as mentioned above, have to play an away game. That means they have to bring their forces and their supplies from the United States, or other remote locations, to wherever they are fighting. Despite attempts to somehow avoid the “iron mountain” of supplies, there is no way of hoping away physics. Vehicles require fuel, people require food, and munitions require replenishment. Eventually, prepositioned supplies and forces will run out, and the American war effort will require aerial and naval assets both for fighting as well as for transportation—assets that are, by definition, lucrative targets.

The adversary, on the other hand, is fighting on or from land—and critically, on or close to the adversary’s own territory. That enables the use of land platforms both for transport and for fighting. Land platforms are smaller, cheaper, simpler to produce, and far more numerous than their air and naval equivalents. Also, the land domain, with its mountains, valleys, and trees, is easier to hide in than the empty air and open seas. Furthermore, the land domain allows a defender dig in, and thus protect essential supplies, platforms, and nodes of command and control. Thus, China can fire tens of multi-million-dollar missiles at a nuclear aircraft carrier. Once this carrier is hit, it might take years to replace and will subtract substantial portion of American strike capabilities for a duration of time, especially at the outset of the war. On the other hand, mainland China has hundreds of thousands of targets. Very few of them are as strategic as an aircraft carrier. Those that China deems strategically vital are probably well dug in and thus physically hard to destroy and many of the rest are cheaper and more replaceable than even the munitions fired at them.

Even assuming away the friction of war, the United States might not have enough munitions to strike so many targets—and smart munitions, even the simple ones, require more resources to develop and produce. That means the US military can’t win a salvo war. However, its adversaries can.

Average costs of ammunition per item, FY 2017–2019 (in millions of US$)

Numbers of munitions purchased, FY 2017–2019 (see next figure for further detail)

Numbers of munitions purchased, FY 2017–2019

War is More than Striking Targets

This leads to another, larger, asymmetry between the United States and its adversaries. A look at current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as past wars such as Vietnam and World War II demonstrates how incredibly resilient a nation-state can be. History gives the lie to “effects-based operations” concepts that assume an enemy can be brought to its knees with a few targeted strikes on key nodes in its system. A nation-state with many millions of people can withstand years of war and hundreds of thousands of casualties and keep fighting.

However, the so-called revolution in military affairs that captured many defense thinkers’ minds in the late twentieth century did change something significant in military forces—or at least in Western military forces. It made them harder to replace. If in the past a national economy could be mobilized to produce hundreds of thousands of planes, tanks, and ships, today mobilization is far harder , and weapons are far costlier and take longer to produce.

A Western military could, theoretically, be broken by attrition—at least long enough for its adversary to establish facts on the ground. This is the other side’s concept of victory. The goal is to deny an adversary’s will or ability to fight on at least one (or more) levels of war. A concept of victory is unique to the opponent and is a function of its unique nature, environment, and circumstances. There are two important items to note about a concept of victory: one, it can be hard to imitate that of an adversary; and two, a concept of victory that is relevant against a certain foe might not be transferable to a different adversary.

A New Way of War, Inspired by the Past

The United States is not the first power to face this challenge. Before the age of American hegemony, it was Great Britain who ruled interests the sun never set on. The British faced the reality of not having a foothold on the continent where it considered its core interests to lie since the fall of the Pale of Calais. Britain had to compete globally with France, as well as on the European level with regional, smaller powers such as Austria, Russia, Spain and later, Prussia. At the height of its success, the Great Britain had a very distinct way of managing its interests. To execute its wars, Britain had replaceable European partners who conducted most of the warfighting on land. Meanwhile, Britain itself funded these wars, supported European partners with strategic lift, and secured the seas—while advancing British interests throughout the world under the cover of the war in Europe. While supporting its European partners, Britain simultaneously conducted its own global fight against its main rival, France.

The key to Britain’s power was not domination of the entire spectrum of conflict in all domains, but rather its economic might, backed by superiority in a single (naval) domain and its diplomatic ability to always find competent partners—at least militarily. Also, Britain chose to conduct limited wars. The goal, after the Hundred Years’ War, wasn’t taking over the thrones or changing the regimes or religions of any other European power, but rather to balance power in Europe and take control of colonies and other economic interests outside of Europe. Thus, war could always end with negotiations, without dire defeats and complete victories.

In a way, this represents a model. The United States doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. It just needs to rediscover it.

The ways to overcome the gaps in American military thinking mentioned above are twofold—tactical and strategic.

On the tactical level, the only way for the United States to overcome the standoff/stand-in gap is to use forces that are already inside the area of operations. These forces can never be entirely, or even mostly, American. They should overwhelmingly belong to host nations that border the powers the US military might fight against. The United States is fortunate to have a network of rich nations as allies. These nations could sustain vast militaries, at an affordable price, especially if their forces are organized for defense and operations close to their borders.

For that matter, the United States has little use of mid-sized nations that pay a premium for expeditionary , high-tech capabilities. It should encourage its allies to build forces that can withstand war in their area instead . Meanwhile, the United States should play a mostly supporting role, in the global theater—at least in the beginning of the war. It should help fund and regenerate forces , secure the global commons that support its allies’ wartime economies, and employ strategic enablers such as airpower, strategic intelligence collection, and, of course, the ultimate guarantee of the nuclear umbrella. When the United States fights outside its adversaries’ backyards, those adversaries will be forced to use expeditionary capabilities and pay the same premium Americans pay for their capabilities, but with far smaller budgets to sustain it. Thus, the concept of victory for the United States should be for partners to achieve tactical victory while the US military pursues operational victory—ultimately achieving strategic victory.

But this tactical solution will be for naught if the United States does not match it with another reform on the strategic level—abandoning the concept of total wars. The short era of fighting a great power, or even a medium power, to submission has passed. There is little chance that any combination of European countries can conquer Moscow or totally defeat China—at least without nuclear weapons. The time between the Napoleonic Wars and World War II was unique, in that societies were small and rural enough to subdue, yet large, young, rich, and productive enough to support large-scale mobilization, absorb casualties, and pursue conquests. Even assuming some kind of land maneuver in Russia or China is possible, there is the added factor of global urbanization. A modern megacity is a military nut no one knows how to crack. If the battle for Mosul is any indication, there is no military large enough to take over a single mid-sized city in China, let alone the entire state. Bombing it to submission, will probably not do either.

So what is left is to fight on the periphery —on islands, waterways, and bases far from the mainland or motherland, and often for interests far from them, as well. Incidentally, these are also interests that can later be negotiated over, as opposed to the survival of the nation or the regime.

These two suggestions are a continuation, in a way, of British military thought at the height of the island nation’s global power—fighting limited wars with partners. It seems that the world is slowly reverting to its pre-modern form—a big and fragile Russia, a strong China, and wealth that is flowing on the world’s commons, with no power willing or able to annihilate the other. In this world, concepts developed for an era of unipolar supremacy will not do.

Shmuel Shmuel is the director of the Institute for Military Studies at the Israel Defense Forces’ Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies . Follow him on Twitter @Samdavaham .

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or those of the IDF or the Dado Center.

Image credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kaila V. Peters, US Navy

Maybe the most provocative and insightful sentence I've read on this subject in a long time:

"The time between the Napoleonic Wars and World War II was unique, in that societies were small and rural enough to subdue, yet large, young, rich, and productive enough to support large-scale mobilization, absorb casualties, and pursue conquests."

If true — and I certainly think it might be — this should cause the Army to rethink its approach to large-scale combat within the context of great power war.

Great article my friend! Will you be willing to give lecture about that?

A very good article. We are living in a digital information age, thus we need to reinvent the way we fight future wars by redefining their nature.

This may seem nuanced, but its an important point. "As a result, the US military will suffer from an inherent asymmetry and have immense costs imposed on it, at least in the initial phases of the war."

– Wars do not lend themselves to flawed notions of structuring such as "phases" – even against an inferior enemy; for individual operations within the overall campaigning effort – phases may be appropriate.

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The American Way of War

William Shawcross, the British journalist, historian, and human rights advocate—once a fierce critic of the Nixon-Kissinger years, now a defender of the West’s struggle against radical Islam—has written the best book yet on the dilemmas Western governments face in dealing with Islamic terrorists. 1

Shawcross focuses on three general topics: the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols that emerged after 9/11 and their relationship with past Western efforts at punishing war criminals at Nuremberg; the poorly thought out and ultimately cancelled decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal civilian court in Manhattan; and the strange somersault of President Obama, who has now embraced or expanded almost every measure that Senator and candidate Obama alleged was either anti-constitutional, counter-productive, or near barbarous.

Shawcross reminds us that Nuremberg, while not perfect jurisprudence, was good enough to punish Nazi war criminals in a legal, sober, and judicious fashion—without resorting to summary executions or referring high officers of the Third Reich to civilian courts in Britain and the United States. His father, Attorney General Hartley Shawcross, was the leading British prosecutor at Nuremberg and later led the prosecutions of various Soviet spies—an experience that the younger Shawcross alludes to frequently to good effect in his book. We have, then, both ample precedent and confidence that military tribunals can be used to try war criminals and terrorists.

And what is the alternative? Shawcross walks us through the proposed trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—championed by a Democratic administration, with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, which, at the time, enjoyed broad public support. Yet the immediate objections to the KSM trial from across the political spectrum—does the architect of 9/11 deserve Miranda rights and a state-supported legal team?—forced liberal Attorney General Eric Holder to back down, given the many contradictions in trying a terrorist as if he were an American felon.

In understated fashion, Shawcross finishes by systematically reviewing the strange about-face of President Obama on the anti-terrorism policies that he inherited. Candidate Obama, to much acclaim and with great effect in damaging public support for the Bush-Cheney protocols, proclaimed Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, preventative detention, wiretaps, and intercepts to be amoral and superfluous—only to embrace them all as president. Shawcross is not surprised: any executive responsible for the security of his citizens—as opposed to a rhetorician making campaign talking points—would appreciate that these protocols were useful and legal. In the present confusing times, we have reached an Orwellian point when waterboarding three confessed mass-murdering terrorists was between 2003-2008 deemed a war crime, while blowing apart over 2,000 suspected terrorists by drone assassination since 2009 is apparently not.

We have ample precedent that military tribunals can be used to try war criminals and terrorists.

Shawcross writes carefully, without bluster and exaggeration, and the effect is a damning indictment of much of the popular rhetoric of the decade after 9/11 that insisted we had no legal or moral right to deal with al Qaeda kingpins as we had in the past with other such terrorists and criminals.

Eliot Cohen—author of a valuable study of supreme command and an advisor in Condoleezza Rice’s state department in the latter months of the Bush administration—raises the question: where did the American way of war derive from? 2

Cohen, however, believes the U.S. way of fighting is more complex, incorporating all sorts of non-conventional elements. To make that point, he reviews warfare of the eighteenth-century along the northeastern seaboard of the American continent—that rugged two-hundred-mile corridor of mountains, forests, and lakes from Albany to Montreal dubbed the “Great Warpath.” His investigations reveal two less appreciated sources for the way Americans currently fight.

One was the birth of a unique, and less remarked upon strain of raiding, ambushing, subversion, living off the land, ad hoc alliance building with indigenous peoples, long-range reconnaissance, and patrolling behind enemy lines. The other was a sort of military populism: non-traditional tactics, by which early colonialists survived against the superior numbers of the French, Indians, Canadians—and later their erstwhile British allies—were not strictly mandated from on high by officers steeped in formal strategy and tactics. Most of the ways of defeating savage enemies arose from the ground up among observant Vermont militiamen, New England farmers-turned-fighters, and local community defense forces. They formed the “middle” stratum of the military that not only was in the best position to adapt to new challenges, but was also able to convince both subordinates and superiors how to follow its new military paradigm. In short, it soon became very American for men in the field to draw new tactics up on the fly to fit an ever-changing war—and not to worry much about who had figured out what worked best.

How did so many Americans, with so few resources, fight so well against the better supplied French and British troops?

Whether one accepts his larger thesis, Cohen has offered a fine narrative of the little known French and Indian War, when pre-revolutionary Americans learned to fight in ways that would bring real dividends in the looming Revolutionary War, and then again during the Civil War, whether in the career of Nathan Bedford Forrest or William Tecumseh Sherman.

War, of course, is predicated on weapons. None have killed more human beings—not poison gas, not the atomic bomb, not incendiary napalm, not land mines—than the Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifle ( Avtomat Kalashnikova—1947 ) . Three recent books review how this lethal weapon emerged; why it became a signature weapon of third-world revolutionaries; and how the so-called Soviet bloc was able to produce an assault rifle often more reliable and easier to use than any contemporary European or American competitor. 3

The most informative account is C. J. Chivers’s scholarly The Gun . Chivers is skeptical of many of the claims by Mikhail Kalashnikov surrounding the birth of AK-47, and offers a fair account of the acrimonious rivalry between the M16 and AK-47.  The rivalry reflects the Soviet preferences for reliability, durability, simplicity, and economy versus the American insistence on accuracy and craftsmanship.

Chivers argues that few inventions of the twentieth-century have done so much to kill so many through “war, terror, atrocity, and crime.” AK-47s, he notes, are often the favored weapons of drug cartels, teenaged killers in Africa, terrorists, and insurgents. After offering a clear-headed analysis of the AK-47—focusing on its simple design, easy fabrication, and near indestructability—he surprisingly offers the emotional hope that eventually the seasons, aging, and wear and tear will finally rid the world of this nearly indestructible menace—and with it, the bestowing into the hands of untrained near-children the world over the power to kill indiscriminately and en masse. To this hope, one might rejoin that the fault is not in our stars, but in our selves.

Larry Kahaner’s book AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War is an engaging story of the contemporary AK-47 as a cultural phenomenon. He too reminds us that many of the terrorist movements and insurgencies in Asia, Latin America, and especially Africa would have been impossible without the widespread dispersion of the AK-47, the ideal weapon for impoverished, poorly trained mercenaries. In the revolutionary mind, communism had produced a people’s gun that was every bit the match for capitalism’s more elite weapon, in the real conditions of contemporary war.

Kahaner points out that the acrimonious controversy between the AK-47 and the M16 resurfaced again forty years after the Vietnam War during the post-Saddam Hussein insurgency, when improved versions of both assault rifles collided in the streets of urban Iraq. And the verdict was again ambiguous at best. U.S. troops who still used the M16 or its subsequent improved models, largely preferred their own weapons; but they developed a grudging respect for the insurgents’ “bullet hoses,” which shot streams of deadly large-caliber bullets at close ranges and seemed impervious to the sand and heat of the Iraqi landscape. The break-up of the Soviet Union, and the dumping of vast arsenals of AK-47s by post-Warsaw-Pact states, together with the near parity that such a simple, cheap AK-47 offered to far more expensive and intricate American weapons, ensured that millions would have access to deadly assault weapons in a way unknown even during the Cold War.

No weapon has killed more human beings than the Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifle.

Then there is the book by Mikhail Kalashnikov himself, the creator of the AK-47. Now a nonagenarian, Kalashnikov in 2009 won the title, Hero of the Russian Federation, the country’s highest honor. With the help of his daughter Elena Joly, Kalashnikov wrote an autobiography, first published in French in 2003 and now available in English. Kalashnikov fought during the worst months of the German invasion of Russia; in 1941, in a failed counter-offensive, he was almost killed when his Red Army tank regiment was cut off and overwhelmed.

During a long subsequent illness and recovery, Kalashnikov’s innate gun-making talents were noticed. And so, despite his lack of formal design training, he was soon promoted to work with a team of Soviet engineers, quickly emerged as a senior designer, and was mostly responsible for the creation of the AK-47. The most fascinating chapters in Kalashnikov’s story are about the nightmare of life in Stalin’s Soviet Union, in which any achievement, commercial or intellectual, earned envy, which could translate into charges of being a counter-revolutionary, would-be elite—an accusation with often deadly repercussions.

As Chivers and Kahaner also point out, and as is discernible in Kalashnikov’s memoir, his relationship with his own deadly invention over the last two-thirds of a century has proved ambiguous. Kalashnikov is proud of his promotion to the rank of lieutenant general in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and under Communist rule he was twice honored as a Hero of Socialist Labor. Yet even as Kalashnikov details the horrors of Stalinist Russia that resulted in his own family’s brutal exile, he concludes, “I consider Stalin as one of the great national leaders of the twentieth century, and as a great army leader.” He also seems both to deny culpability for the carnage that the AK-47 wrought, and yet laments that unlike the case of the M16’s creator Eugene Stoner, Kalashnikov did not receive commensurate multimillion-dollar royalties from his design.

One theme of these five diverse books is a sort of appreciation of the American way of war. Shawcross’s work is a paean to well-intentioned American officials, in the face of easy criticism, finding a good balance between security and justice, when both were thought to be impossible in our postmodern world of global terrorism. Cohen is impressed that so many Americans, with so few resources, fought well against better supplied French, and, later, British troops—and suggests that such a frontier-like, pragmatic spirit still infuses a diverse and innovative U.S. military. The authors of the AK-47 books, whether intended or not, paint a rather dark picture of the Soviet state, the post-war Communist world, and the nature of how rogue states and arms dealers developed and dispersed arms often to deadly clients that were the enemies of civilization.

1 William Shawcross, Justice and the Enemy: Nuremberg, 9/11, and the Trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (Public Affairs, January 10, 2012).

2 Eliot A. Cohen, Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War (Free Press, 2011). (Hanson wrote an essay-length review of this book for National Review .)

3 C. J. Chivers, The Gun (Simon & Schuster, 2010); Larry Kahaner, AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War (Wile, 2006); Mikhail Kalashnikov, with Elena Joy, The Gun that Changed the World (Polity, 2007). Hanson wrote a comparative review of these three books for the New Atlantis .

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Lost in Translation: The American Way of War

A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.                                                                                       – Thucydides [1]

Strategists and military historians have written prolifically on the topic of an American way of war.  With U.S. troops leaving Iraq and with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan winding down, it is perhaps time to examine again the American way of war in order to evaluate its application for future conflicts.  Historian Russell Weigley first attempted to define the American approach to conflict in 1973.  Many writers have wrestled with this concept since, outlining the numerous characteristics of the American methodology, addressing the distinction between a way of war and a way of battle, and illustrating the advantages and disadvantages of these characteristics in major conflicts and small wars.  Within the historiography, authors have also tried to define the characteristics of the strategic American way of war, which includes advancing American national interests through various means, and how our culture and preparation for war actually shape the American strategy.

Taking the differing perspectives in the American way of war historiography into account, one notes there is no authoritative listing of characteristics that define an American way of war; however, extrapolating the commonalities, what emerges is a tactical way of battle and a strategic way of war.  The tactical way of battle has an adaptive U.S. military using an aggressive style of force as to overwhelm and destroy enough of the enemy’s forces to acquire a decisive and quick victory with minimal casualties.  The seemingly irresistible forces of well-trained professionals use speed, maneuver, flexibility, and surprise.  This method of battle is highly dependent on technology and firepower, and has large-scale logistical requirements.

From a strategic standpoint, the American way of war seeks swift military victory, independent of strategic policy success; the desired political and military outcomes do not always align.  When analyzed, this style of warfare reveals the American under-appreciation for historical lessons and cultural differences often leads to a disconnect between the peace and the military activity that preceded it.  The strategic way of war also includes alternative national strategies such as deterrence and a war of limited aims.  Given this model, it appears that there is not a singular American way of war.  Rather, the American way of war is twofold: one is a tactical “way of battle” involving a style of warfare where distinct American attributes define the use of force; the other is a strategic “way of war,” attuned to the whims of a four year political system, a process not always conducive to turning tactical victories into strategic success.

Military historians and strategists have endeavored to define the American way of war, or rather define the characteristics of a tactical American way of battle.  Weigley in The American Way of War, the pioneering work published in 1973, first described an American way of war, arguing it consisted of a unique American methodology: one of attrition and annihilation. [2]   He contends that from the colonial era to the Civil War, while America developed as a new country, its military forces were relatively weak, so it engaged in wars of attrition.  An example is George Washington using the interior of the Continent to draw in the British, away from their fleets and resupplies during the War of Independence.  From the Civil War through Vietnam, as America developed politically, economically, and militarily, its robust military capabilities allowed a transition from a strategy of attrition to one supporting a strategy of what Weigley calls annihilation .  The strategy of annihilation relied on the creation of large masses of forces employing mass, concentration and firepower to use overwhelming power to destroy the enemy.  This overthrow of the enemy in costly battles was the surest way to victory and the essential elements of Weigley’s tenets of attrition and annihilation remain as the main legacies and preferences of the American way of war. Weigley misuses the examples of John Pershing wearing down the German Army in 1918 and the U.S. Army’s landing in France to defeat the Germans in 1944-45 in his explanation of annihilation.  Weigley confused the term of annihilation with what was actually, attrition, the eventual wearing down of the enemy.

The analysis of an American way of war post-2001 includes many historians, like Brian Linn and John Lynn, questioning the original consensus of an American way of war (made up of Weigley’s annihilation and attrition), and describing more applicable characteristics of a tactical way of battle that better relate to the small wars in American military history.  In his book The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War, Linn states that “appreciating a national way of war requires going beyond the narrative of operations, beyond debates on the merits of attrition or annihilation, firepower or mobility, military genius or collective professional ability.” [3]   Linn has several objections to Weigley’s classic work, pointing out the infrequency of annihilation and attrition during the eight decades between the end of the Civil War and the middle of World War II.  Linn states American soldiers were forced to adapt, improvise, and overcome constraints to practice a way of war better suited to their specific circumstances, which included counterinsurgencies and peace-building and rarely included the characteristics of annihilation or attrition. [4]   Linn denies the existence of both an American and Western way of war, stating the American way is more an adaptive way of battle with army officers blending “operational considerations, national strategy, and military theory as they conceived them at the time.” [5]

In terms of a distinct American discourse on war, John Lynn brings up the prevalence of “three related tendencies: 1) abhorrence of U.S. casualties, 2) confidence in military technology to minimize U.S. losses, and 3) concern with exit strategies.” [6]   This assertion correctly describes several tendencies in the American way of war.  British strategist Colin Gray, similarly to Lynn, includes the same three characteristics in his conceptualization of an American way of warfare.  In total, Gray puts forth 13 features that characterize the enduring traditional, and cultural, American military conduct in warfare. [7]   Gray’s characteristics show the U.S. military is an institution best prepared for combat against a symmetrical, regular enemy rather than an asymmetrical enemy.  The U.S. method of fighting and victory in World War II is preferable to the U.S. method of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.  The apolitical and astrategic characteristics of Gray’s American way of battle emphasize the goal of tactical victory, autonomous from strategic policy and with very little regard to the peace that follows.  The quick U.S. tactical victory in Iraq, for example, did not lead to peace and stability in the country directly after.

Strategist H.H. Gaffney argues that a distinctive American way of war emerged in the post-Cold War period.  Gaffney analyzed U.S. engagement in nine main cases of combat or near-combat operations, from Panama in 1989 to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, in order to discern what characteristics made up an American way of war. [8] Gaffney describes the American way of war as “characterized by deliberate, sometimes agonizing, decision-making, careful planning, assembly and movement of overwhelming forces, the use of a combination of air and ground forces, joint and combined, applied with precision, especially by professional, well-trained military personnel.” [9]   Historian and editorialist Max Boot similarly describes a “new” American way of war, one that relies on speed, maneuver, flexibility, and surprise, seeking a quick victory with minimal casualties on both sides by being heavily reliant on precision firepower, Special Forces, and psychological operations. [10]   Boot uses the recent invasion of Iraq to display the successful use of this new American way of war, which led to the U.S. ambitiously occupying all of Iraq in the matter of weeks with minimal casualties and minimal cost.  Both Gaffney and Boot’s characteristics are more complex than Weigley’s original annihilation and attrition tenets.  They also describe characteristics that contribute to the tactical win, as these characteristics have at its core the quick resolution of a conflict and the quick return of U.S. forces back to their home bases, which does nothing for ensuring the political objectives of the nation.

When evaluating these various characteristics, the question arises whether or not these characteristics belong to an American way of war or an American way of battle.  A way of war would imply a political, economic, social, and military approach to the U.S. view of war, rather than merely a battle focus.  Retired army officer and current director of research at the U.S. Army War College, Antulio Echevarria in Toward an American Way of War denies an American way of war, but instead states what we have is an American way of battle. [11]   Echevarria believes that until the American way of war develops the capability to make the leap from victory on the battlefield to strategic success, it will remain merely a way of battle. Gaffney also formulates an American way of battle whose characteristics do not tie-in to grand strategy, since these characteristics are simply tactical and do not encompass foreign policy. [12]   This leads to the need, in limited war as much as in conventional war, for an all-inclusive approach to achieve military tactical victories, with the hope that these victories, in and of themselves, will help define strategic objectives and translate into something resembling policy success. 

The characteristics of the American tactical way of battle are advantages in large-scale, force on force conflicts. The goal of bringing an enemy’s forces to battle in order to crush them in a decisive engagement is a military ideal that generals have sought for centuries, one that has rarely been obtainable.  American culture, whether it is through movies, books, games, or folklore, values courage in open battle and bringing an enemy out into the open in order to defeat him.  The question is what drives the American conduct towards this big decisive battle.  In the books Western Way of War and Carnage and Culture , historian and political essayist Victor Davis Hanson asserts that the Western way of war is one of decisive battles.  The classical Greeks invented the idea of representative Western politics as well as the fundamental form of Western warfare, the decisive infantry battle, which was the focus of Greek hoplite armies. [13]   Crucial differences, such as discipline, cohesion based on community association, and superior equipment, often ensured Greek victory despite being outnumbered by the enemy. [14]   The classical training of America’s Founding Fathers included an imbuement of these ideals of Greek consensual government and by association, the Greek form of fighting.  This influence of Greek government and Greek style of fighting led to the American penchant for the big decisive battle.  Both consensual government and decisive battle sought the same goal: clear, instant resolution to a dispute.  Achieving a clear tactical goal through instant resolution minimizes time and lives lost; because volunteer professional soldiers are expensive to raise, train, and are difficult to replace.  A short decisive war for total victory is the preferable American way. 

Despite what seems to be the desire for fighting the big, decisive battle, “small wars” are just as much a part of how Americans fight as is conventional war.  David Kilcullen argues that since 1816, 83 percent of conflicts fall under “civil wars or insurgencies.” [15]  Boot brings up U.S. involvement in small wars, such as the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the Philippine Insurrection in 1899, Bosnia in 1992 and Kosovo in 1999, actually outnumbered U.S. participation in major conflicts.  Boot contends these small wars were fought not to attain a decisive victory, but to inflict punishment, ensure protection, achieve pacification, and even to benefit from profiteering. [16]    The U.S. involved itself in so many small wars, that the U.S. Marine Corps published the Small Wars Manual in 1940, giving the purposes of small wars as restoring normal government or giving the people a better government than they had before, establishing peace and order, instilling in the people the sanctity of life and property and advantages of civilization and liberty, and whenever possible, making the indigenous agencies responsible for these matters. [17]   U.S. involvement in small wars, for the reasons just outlined, had as much or more to do with an American way of war and rise to world power than Weigley's big conventional wars of annihilation.

If one part of the American way of war is the tactical “way of battle,” made up of an aggressive style of force as to overwhelm and destroy enemy forces to acquire a decisive and quick victory with minimal casualties, the other is a strategic “way of war” attuned to the whims of a four year political system and not necessarily able to turn tactical victories into strategic success.  In the American polity, the national security strategy tends to chronologically last as long as the four-year presidential cycle (eight years at most), with a President needing to show resolution in order to get reelected.  President Obama’s 2010 National Security Strategy has four enduring national interests: Security, the security of the United States, its citizens, and U.S. allies and partners; Prosperity, a strong, innovative, and growing U.S. economy in an open international economic system that promotes opportunity and prosperity; Values, respect for universal values at home and around the world; and International Order, an international order advanced by U.S. leadership that promotes peace, security, and opportunity through stronger cooperation to meet global challenges. [18]   The strategic American way of war includes advancing these enduring national interests through various means, whether through all out military intervention, deterrence, limited war, or simply political negotiation.  The key remains turning military intervention authorized by the President into quick, tactical military success that, in turn, translates into policy success during the short presidential term .

Looking at the national interests in the National Security Strategy more closely gives us the reasons for U.S. intervention.  In terms of security, the U.S. is only one of a handful of countries that can conduct offensive type of operations in not only neighboring, but also in far-off countries.  The ability to do this allows the U.S. to strike preemptively, before any fighting occurs on U.S. soil.  This policy characteristic of the American way of war is, in fact, a defensive model that seeks to anticipate and strike any threat before it reaches the U.S. [19] In terms of economic prosperity, the National Security Strategy states that American involvement is not necessarily for the exploitation of a local resource, but instead for minimizing disruption to global markets and for the free flow of global resources; economic benefit coming from opening foreign markets to American products and services as well as increasing domestic demand abroad. [20]   In terms of values, the American way of war strategically promulgates the advantages of American democratic ideals with American leadership committing itself to the fight to spread democracy and capitalism, which inherently means committing forces to fight against differing ideologies, from Communism during the Cold War to Islamic extremism in Afghanistan.

In terms of achieving national interests, the American way of war includes several different strategic tools beyond military intervention in the big, decisive battle and small wars.  It includes diplomacy, deterrence, strategic positioning, embargoes, international coalitions and economic pressure. [21]  There is a strong interdependence between military tactics, operations, and strategy, so much so that what soldiers do tactically has a strategic effect, which in turn has political consequences.  Civil affairs operations and foreign military training are examples of tactical operations with strategic implications.  These missions are, in fact, the military’s version of diplomatic “soft power” and act as a form of diplomatic deterrence. [22]   Despite these extra diplomatic tools, the American concept of war rarely extends beyond the winning of battles and campaigns to the work of turning military victory into strategic success.  During the post-Vietnam self-examination, U.S. strategists recognized winning campaigns did not equate to winning wars, which meant accomplishing one’s strategic objective.  One of the most noted examples of this is the Tet Offensive of 1968.  The North Vietnamese and their associated forces adopted a conventional strategy, which the Americans defeated through decentralized military operations. Although the offensive was a tactical defeat for the Communist forces, the scope and ferocity of the campaign discredited President Johnson’s characterization of progress in Vietnam throughout the closing months of 1967.  The offensive became a strategic victory for the Communist forces with President Johnson’s announcement that he would not run for re-election and with the next President, Nixon, focusing on an exit strategy from Vietnam. [23]  One of Clausewitz’s maxims states “War is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means…The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose.” [24]   This consistent disconnect between policy and on-the-ground operations must change so that the American way of war can integrate the use of the military into a consistent and unambiguous national strategy, one that will let American politics capitalize on tactical victories.

The interpretation of current conflicts through discourse is another factor that shapes the strategic American way of war. Lynn relates the warfare of a particular era to its own unique cultural dialogue, “the complex of assumptions, perceptions, expectations, and values” that the particular society holds about war and warriors. [25]   He argues that discourse does not remain the same over time because of changing circumstances and evolving cultural norms. Thus the role of culture shapes combat and the interpretation of that combat just as preparation for war shapes the strategic American way of war.  The U.S. democratic culture and emphasis on free speech allows its many competing interest groups to join in on the intellectual debate during preparation for war.  This peacetime intellectual discussion by the intelligentsia and pundits in the media, reflections on wartime service by the military, and the given American attitude toward war combine to shape the strategic American way of war.  This discourse also includes the U.S. military regularly and methodically conducting after action reviews in order to study military history to not repeat mistakes, to improve theory, and change or shape needed doctrine. [26]   Though advantageous to a certain extent, competing interest groups and differing ideologies in our pluralist democracy inhibit coherent strategy making, but one idea remains constant, if Americans must take up arms for a cause, they demand a quick and decisive victory.

Thus, the American way of war is twofold: a tactical “way of battle” involving an aggressive style of warfare to overwhelm and destroy enemy forces to acquire a decisive and quick victory with minimal casualties, and a strategic “way of war” where the desired political and military outcomes do not necessarily align.  Weigley first attempted to define the American approach to conflict through the characteristics of attrition and annihilation. Subsequent historians have either enumerated as many as 13 characteristics to define the American way of battle or on the other hand denied the existence of it.  The characteristics of a way of battle show an institution with a preference for combat against a symmetrical, regular enemy rather than an asymmetrical enemy, despite our history of small wars, counterinsurgencies, and nation building.  In terms of achieving our national interests, the strategic American way of war includes several tools beyond military intervention to pursue our enduring national interests of security, prosperity, values, and international order, to include discourse, which is one of the elements that shape our way of war.  There will continue to be a need for a holistic approach to capitalize on military tactical victories in order to achieve these national interests and for a President to declare policy success.

Defining the American approach to conflict and knowing its strengths and weaknesses will allow the U.S. to be more effective in future fights.  Current American popular perception of what is occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan is that American forces are conducting High Intensity Conflict (HIC), the idea of World War II style fighting where American forces win battles, declare victory, and then leave.  Not only is this inaccurate for our times, but also for many of the small wars American forces have conducted in the last 150 years.  These small wars might have had a HIC component to it, but it was short and quickly followed by counterinsurgency, stability operations, and/or nation-building.  Future fights will continue to include a mixture of conventional HIC operations, counterinsurgency fights, and stabilization efforts.

If there are two things that the strategic American way of war must address immediately, it is the consistency in the application of military intervention and having a standard of selectivity.  Former Secretary of State Kissinger argues for the need for criteria, as indiscriminate involvement would drain a crusading America and isolationism would mean giving up security to the decisions of others.  “Not every evil can be controlled by America,” he wrote, “even less by America alone.  But some monsters need to be, if not slain, at least resisted.” [27]   Strategically applying military intervention and selectively involving ourselves in future situations in pursuit of our national interests will do the most to unify our disparate American tactical way of battle and strategic way of war.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Boot, Max.  Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (New York, NY: Basic Book, 2002).

Clausewitz, Carl von. On War , Michael Howard and Peter Paret trans. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).

Hanson, Victor Davis. Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2001). 

Hanson, Victor Davis.  The Western Way of War (New York, NY: Suffolk, 1989).

Kilcullen, David. Counterinsurgency (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy , (New York, NY: Simon & Shuster, 1994).

Linn, Brian.  The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

Lynn, John A. Battle: A History of Combat and Culture (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003).

Nye, Joseph Jr. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2004).

Various. “Part I – An American Way of War.”  In Rethinking the Principles of War , Edited by Anthony D. McIvor, 13-140. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005.

Weigley, Russell F. The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1977).

Journal Articles

Boot, Max. “The New American Way of War.” Foreign Affairs , (July/August 2003). 

Echevarria II, Antulio J.  “An American Way of War or Way of Battle?”  (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2004).

Gaffney, H.H. “The Amercan Way of War through 2020” (Alexandria, VA: Center for Strategic Studies, CNA Corporation, 2006).

Gray, Colin S. “Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy: Can the American Way of War Adapt?” (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2006).

Linn, Brian M. “‘The American Way of War’ Revisited,” The Journal of Military History , Vol. 66, No.2 (April 2002).

Electronic and Web-based Sources

The U.S. Army’s After Action Reviews: Seizing the Chance to Learn. Excerpt from: David A. Garvin, “Learning in Action, A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work” (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000), 106-116. http://www.wildfirelessons.net/documents/Garvin_AAR_Excerpt.pdf (accessed Nov 9, 2011).

Huntington, Samuel P.  The Problem of Intervention, A Conversation with Samuel P. Huntington, (Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley, 1985) http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/Huntington/huntington-con3.html (accessed Nov 9, 2011).

National Security Strategy (White House, May 2010) http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf (accessed Nov 9, 2011).

Thucydides Quote http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/957.Thucydides (accessed Nov 9, 2011).

Willbanks, James H.  “Winning the Battle, Losing the War,” New York Times , March 5, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/opinion/05willbanks.html (accessed Nov 9, 2011).

[1] Thucydides Quote http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/957.Thucydides (accessed Nov 9, 2011).

[2] Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1977), xxii

[3] Brian M. Linn, The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 3.

[4] Brian M. Linn, “‘The American Way of War’ Revisited,” The Journal of Military History , Vol. 66, No.2 (April 2002), 503.

[5] Ibid, 530.

[6] John A. Lynn, Battle: A History of Combat and Culture (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003), 321.

[7] Colin S. Gray, “Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy: Can the American Way of War Adapt?” (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2006), 30.

The 13 characteristics and their definitions are: Apolitical, the U.S. military wages war for the goal of victory with very little regard to the peace that follows; Astrategic, war is an autonomous activity with no connection to strategic policy; Ahistorical, as a new nation Americans are not culturally attuned to lessons nor insights from history; Problem-Solving/Optimistic, we believe there is a solution, whether through foreign policy or use of the military, to even unsolvable dilemmas; Culturally Ignorant, Americans lack cultural empathy and do not understand the beliefs, habits, and behaviors of other cultures; Technologically Dependent, the U.S. depends exceedingly on technological advances and mechanical solutions; Firepower Focused, sending mass firepower despite the circumstance is preferable to sending vulnerable soldiers; Large-Scale, the U.S. is not materially minimalistic, but rather equips, mobilizes, and wages war reflecting its wealth; Aggressive/Offensive, the preferred style of operation is an aggressive offensive style due to geopolitics, culture, and material wealth; Profoundly Regular, the U.S. is an institution best prepared for combat against a symmetrical, regular enemy; Impatient, the American approach to warfare is that it must be decisive and concluded as rapidly as possible; Logistically Excellent, the U.S. has a large logistical footprint which means able logisticians, but also means a lot of guarding and isolation of American troops; and lastly Highly Sensitive to Casualties, Americans are very averse to a high rate of military casualties.

[8] H.H. Gaffney, “The American Way of War through 2020” (Alexandria, VA: Center for Strategic Studies, CNA Corporation, 2006), 3.  The nine operations are:  Panama in 1989, Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1990/91, Somalia in late 1992, Haiti in 1994, the Deliberate Force air strikes in Bosnia in 1996, the Desert Fox strikes on Iraq in 1998, Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan beginning in October 2001, and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

[9] Gaffney, “The American Way of War through 2020” 1.

[10] Max Boot, “The New American Way of War.” (New York, NY: Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003).

[11] Antulio J. Echevarria II, “An American Way of War or Way of Battle?”  (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2004).

[12] Gaffney, “The American Way of War through 2020” 18.

[13] Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War (New York, NY: Suffolk, 1989), 223-225. 

[14]   Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2001), 3.  “Such unique Hellenic characteristics of battle – a sense of personal freedom, superior discipline, matchless weapons, egalitarian camaraderie, individual initiative, constant tactical adaptation and flexibility, preference for shock battle of heavy infantry – were themselves the murderous dividends of Hellenic culture at large.  The peculiar way Greeks killed grew out of consensual government, equality among the middling classes, civilian audit of military affairs, and politics apart from religion, freedom and individualism, and rationalism.”

[15] David Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency (Oxford, 2010) ix-x.

[16] Max Boot, Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (New York, NY: Basic Book, 2002), xvi.

[17] United States Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual (New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing, 2009), 32 (first published: Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1940).

[18] National Security Strategy, (White House, May 2010) http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf (accessed Nov 9, 2011).

[19] The Israelis also have a similar strategy integrated into their operational paradigm.

[20] Ibid, 32.

[21] Ibid, these various methods are discussed throughout Section III, Advancing Our Interests, 17.

[22] Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2004).

[23] James H. Willbanks, “Winning the Battle, Losing the War,” New York Times , March 5, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/opinion/05willbanks.html (accessed Nov 9, 2011).

[24] Carl von Clausewitz, On War , Michael Howard and Peter Paret trans. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 87.

[25] Lynn, Battle: A History of Combat and Culture , xx.

[26] The U.S. Army’s After Action Reviews: Seizing the Chance to Learn. Excerpt from: David A. Garvin, “Learning in Action, A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work” (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000), 106-116. http://www.wildfirelessons.net/documents/Garvin_AAR_Excerpt.pdf (accessed Nov 9, 2011).

[27] Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy , (New York, NY: Simon & Shuster, 1994), 833.

About the Author(s)

Lieutenant Colonel Rose Lopez Keravuori is a US Army Reserve Military Intelligence officer serving as a Battalion Commander at Ft Meade, MD. She was commissioned in the US Army from the United States Military Academy in 1997, and earned a Masters in Diplomatic Studies from the University of Oxford in 2014.  She is the CEO and Founder of ROSE Women, LLC a business targeting human trafficking and focused on empowering women through USAID and Dept. of State contracts.  She enjoys reading and studying military history as a hobby.

The study of this topic…

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This article provides an interesting view of a topic that has garnered significant interest since the publication of Weigley’s The American Way of War. The author demonstrates that the majority of the work on the topic of an American way of war falls into two broad categories. The first category describes a “strategic way of war” and the second a “tactical way of battle.” The title of this article accurately articulates the erroneous categorizing of all these works under the single heading of “a way of war”. Colin Gray in War, Peace, and International Relations highlights an important difference between the term “war” and “warfare”. War, he argues, “is a legal concept, a social institution, and is a compound idea that embraces the total relationships between belligerents.” In contrast, he defines warfare as “the actual conduct of war in its military dimension.” He claims the two concepts are vitally different and “often the two are simply conflated.” According to Gray, the conduct of War is not about fighting. The fighting is important, “but it can only be a tool, a means to a political end.” Confusing the term warfare with waging war highlights the difficultly that some states have in leveraging military victory to achieve strategic success. Military victory alone, even when it supports the strategic objectives, is not enough to achieve strategic success. In such cases, lack of success is not a military failure but a strategic failure. Russian military theorist Aleksandr A. Svechin recognized that “no amount of operational proficiency could overcome strategic miscalculation regarding the nature of the war embarked upon.” Svechin believed that the conduct of strategy was not in the province of a military commander but of “integral military leadership” which combined the political, military, and economic leadership under a chief of state. Thus discussing “a way of war” utilizing only examples of the military dimensions of a conflict confuses the terms war and warfare as well as the responsibilities of all the national actors that are involved in the conduct of war.

I had much the same reaction to this article, especially with respect to point #3 above. But the central issue comes forward in Hubba Bubba's point #6: what is the role of doctrine, and are we even knowledgeable enough about the doctrine - and its antecedents - to apply it in the context of "lessons learned", or have a debate on what doctrine recommends. When NTC went in, the one favor that the OC teams did TRADOC was to take what was presented in the "How to Fight" manuals seriously. Very quickly, theyu discovered that there was a range in which the doctrine worked, and if you went outside that range, bad things happened. So the net effect was to reinforce doctrine and challenge it at the same time. The truth is that we both need the soldiers and we need the doctrine. The crack at Jomini is symptomatic of the problem - at least Jomini tried to distill what he had experienced of war into something theoretically useful, something that could be demonstrated as true or false in the light of continued experience. Archtypes and metaphors have exactly this virtue, that they enable the communication of experience across time and culture. How else can we profit from studying the past - even our own past experiences ? Yes, it is common sense to opine that a program of social change imposed from outside requires a long term commitment of resources and a determination not to give up. Even so, one should not imagine that an abandoned project will leave no marks. Building roads in Afghanistan is one of the more concrete and irreversible tokens of America's presence there. Why not accept this for what it really is ?

I might be a little harsh in this critique, but this article looked to me like something reincarnated from an Intermediate Level Education (ILE) paper that simply summarizes the reading requirements from any given course on strategy. Here are some thoughts after chewing on this one this morning… 1. In framing problems, to include understanding whether there is some American "way of war" in a strategic, tactical (or operational- left out entirely by the author) sense, one starts with describing or making sense of the problem. Subsequently, they move to an analysis phase, where they apply critical and creative thinking, and lastly they hope to achieve synthesis. This article is firmly rooted in the "description" phase which ultimately reads like consolidated cliff notes on several prominent authors on American military culture, strategy, and tactics. I tried to find the thesis for this one, and just could not nail it down. I was left asking, "so what?" 2. The article alleges that the strategic way of war for America rests in being "attuned to the whims of a four year political system." I do not think the author clearly identifies this theory, backs it up, or links it to the supporting documents and organizing logic. Was this the thesis? I agree that our political masters swap out on a general 4-8 year cycle, but most military conflicts span several democratic elections, and do not seem to change too radically. Johnson already wanted out of Vietnam before the Tet Offensive- Nixon’s election campaign was no different a strategy than many others during time of war; one of the cited authors (Linn) also wrote a good book on the Philippines War. He mentioned the fierce race between McKinley and Bryan; indeed this was a counterinsurgency “small war” as well and Bryan attempted to do what any rival politician does- argue for another solution for American “victory.” Bryan lost anyway, but one might generalize the entire Cold War period as a continuous “strategy” of sorts that espoused the concept from the Kegan Telegram/NSC-68 phase of “containment” and evolved along several harmonious threads forward along multiple presidencies. Détente, and Reagan’s revival after Carter (I will cede that the Carter Administration was indeed a strategic blunder of enormous proportions) all followed a basically unified strategy that supported long-term American goals.

3. The author jumps from tactical to strategic theory in a way that makes me ponder why she never addresses the operational level of war? One should not attempt to suggest “perhaps it is time to examine again the American way of war in order to evaluate its application for future conflicts” if one is going to ignore the major linking concept between tactical and strategic planning/execution! Now, if the author contends that unusual position that there is no “operational level”- she could state that in her introduction to frame her organizing logic a bit tighter.

4. “In terms of values, the American way of war strategically promulgates the advantages of American democratic ideals with American leadership committing itself to the fight to spread democracy and capitalism, which inherently means committing forces to fight against differing ideologies, from Communism during the Cold War to Islamic extremism in Afghanistan.” - Really? Should we consider the term “Banana Republic” in the context of our 20th century foreign policy actions in South America? How many democratic nations did we collapse or inhibit out of our overarching fear of Communism, or the lobbying interests of capitalist venture that might lose their profit through nationalization efforts? We like to claim that we spread democracy, except many times we enforce dictators, be they African, South American, or Middle Eastern and help us with other more important foreign policy ventures.

5. “The strategic American way of war includes advancing these enduring national interests through various means, whether through all out military intervention, deterrence, limited war, or simply political negotiation. The key remains turning military intervention authorized by the President into quick, tactical military success that, in turn, translates into policy success during the short presidential term.” - I must disagree with this as well. Once again, strategic goals often outlast any presidency…and either by design or accident, assimilate into subsequent administrations despite their political positioning. Case in point- Afghanistan. The Obama Administration is significantly different from the Bush Administration on foreign policy goals, although both clearly share a desire to prevent the export of globally significant terrorism out of Afghanistan. I use the term “globally significant” to reflect that fact that we indeed can live with a residual Taliban element in Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan…and we will. We can even live with a pro-Taliban style Kabul regime, if they end up getting elected in 2014. That is one reality- provided that they are unable to export terrorism on a global scale. People deserve the government they get, and the Afghans are included in that, especially if they vote for it. Now, the Obama Administration HAS continued the Bush Administration’s strategy of nation building, despite them changing their lexicon and refusing to say “Global War on Terror.” From 2003 forward (the Afghan conflict from 2001-2003 was indeed a small-scale UW campaign that did quite well until we began to do the following…) we began attempting to change Afghan society at a core value level. Organizational Theorist Mary Jo Hatch models this in her cultural wheel of transformation; we over time intend to change how Afghan society empowers women, enjoys a political process, economic transition, literacy issues, and even ideological preferences (moderate Islam over radical or Takfiri Islam). These are massive transformations that cannot possibly be implemented and completed in a 4 or even 8 year term. We might see some quantifiable success in 20 years, or perhaps 30. That is well beyond the next election cycle- yet there is an organizational logic within our Afghan military strategy that endures (and will continue to endure in some form) despite the oval office gaining a new rear end in the chief’s chair. There are of course ways each administration changes course, but this is not like turning a car on a dime- it is steering a multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier in the Panama Canal. It also begs the question of why? This leads to synthesis, and gets us out of the rote description of the majority of this article. Linn wrote this…Weigley wrote this…Kilcullen wrote this…

6. Last point in my rant. “This discourse also includes the U.S. military regularly and methodically conducting after action reviews in order to study military history to not repeat mistakes, to improve theory, and change or shape needed doctrine.” - Again, I think the author fundamentally misunderstands AARs and how our military organization thinks, and “thinks about thinking.” In the many AARs I expect our vast SWJ military audience to have experienced at National Training Centers, military schools (okay Ranger, you are a no-go…), and in combat, how often does our organization question the METHODOLOGY versus question the performance of the soldiers? This goes right back into the ridiculous self-licking ice-cream cone logic of Jominian strategy: “if you follow my principles of war exactly, you will always win regardless of what conflict you enter…and if you lose, you lost only because you failed to follow my principles correctly.” Our military culture does this in virtually every AAR- we blame the soldiers for failing, not the doctrine, methodology, or logic we use. We are unable to be critical thinkers if we cannot examine how and why we think; why we approach conflicts and see things the way we prefer versus the way they are. Indeed, our AAR processes are “methodical” as the author states, but they are usually a finger-drill if the soldiers were not the problem. Now, humans make mistakes and can always improve- but what about when the humans follow the procedure and doctrine perfectly…and catastrophically fail? Do we fire the humans, or fire the doctrine? You tell me…I’m just chewing gum.

- Hubba Bubba

My thought as I went through Leavenworth, reading Weigley and others, is that much of what has been postulated as the "American way of war" might be more accurately characterized as "war between nation-states;" where one must defeat the opposing populace, and not merely their military, or sieze their capital, as one can to secure a victory over a Kingdom.

The US has been among this movement of transition to more populace-based governance from its inception, and our major wars have been against other such nation-states primarily. Thus "the American way of war." My take was that Grant was the first military leader to key in on this at the strategic level, while Lee clung to a passe world of grand tactics of army vs army, and games of "capture the flag" that no longer mattered in the harsh, cold realities what it takes to defeat a populace-based nation state. Lucky for us, Sherman's march would have looked like a Sunday school parade compared to what would have happened if Lee had avoided Antietam and Gettysburg those two summers, and instead unleashed his forces on the populace of the North. I suspect the populace of the North would have quit, and the defense of Washington and the grand Army of the Potomac would have been moot testimonies to a bygone era. Bypassed like MacArthur bypassed Rabaul. But Lee didn't get it. Our military history and doctrine still does not get it.

The fact that we do not understand our own history is why we convince ourselves that we can, oh, say, defeat the Republican Guard, capture Baghdad, and then proclaim victory. Perhaps if we'd left Saddam in power to acknowled defeat and force the same upon the people. But getting him out was the goal, and at that point Iraq became a very disjointed collection of populace-based groups that were nowhere close to being defeated. Defeat of an Army or Fleet, or capturing a Captital in merely the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end. THAT is the reality of "The American way of war."

First, this well written article should certainly provide for a lively discussion, being that it focuses mainly on research presented more for the purpose of clearing the air than an attempt to assert yet another theory. As such those with a theory, or personal support of a theory, will certainly find at least some fault with some aspect of this presentation. For knowingly positioning herself without a specific camp on her side, in the middle of so many opinions, I must applaud the author and thank her for stoking the debate.

Concerning the article more specifically, the author provides a good accounting of the varied historical record, and in doing so enables readers to consider the options not only based on her conclusion, but also from the evidence that American involvements in previous wars provides. It does seem an apparent fact that we have a more reactionary and obscured American purpose for many of our recent wars. Albeit possible that sound discussions may occur at the National Security Council, it is rarely evident in the political commitment that follows. This might explain why we tend to have very nebulous end states for many of the conflicts the US gets involved in, ranging from weak resolve in the duration to an unwillingness to employ enough resources to secure the best outcome versus a passable success with as few resources as possible.

The notion of having selectivity, as cited from Kissinger, I would presume is not one of who, what, when, and where, as some commenters have interpreted it, but rather one of reasons for involvement, answering the question why are American lives and resources to be wagered in support of American national interest. This accounting would naturally require defining our a short term and long term American Strategy antedating a current conflict. In other words, as a nation, our resources must return some gain preeminently to America, as unpalatable as that may be to some more egalitarian tastes. American military resources are not a social benefit for the world to consume; they are a means, a powerful and at times brutal means, towards American goals. Other countries may benefit from our actions, but their benefit should never be our overarching reason. Just as tactically we may try to "win the hearts and minds" in another country, we are not there with the objective of building roads and schools, rather because doing those actions aids in our attempt to accomplish US military and political tasks toward realizing the American national objectives that required our involvement to begin with.

The article's address of political involvement highlights the US model of civilian authority over our military, as is taught to our officers as a valued and sacred American attribute reaching all the way back to GEN Washington. Here again the notion of selectivity would apply. Our constitutionally defined form of government clearly distinguishes between the national interest and individual political interest. Allowing the American way of war, national interest, and strategy be influenced by the transient career goals of elected officials was not the purpose and is both detrimental to the nation as a whole and supremely selfish with regards to sacrifice of our service members. Where and how this is addressed may be beyond the scope of this journal, but still requires acknowledgement.

Another point of importance that the author raises is the the difference between tactics, strategy and a Way of War. It often seems in discussions and recent literature that these terms often get combined, mixed up, and misused. Tactics are methods of combat, the strategy is how the elements of national power will achieve the American end state in support of American interest and goals, and as mentioned above the Way of War is why we wage war and the national character that defines our values as applies to the use of war as a means. This can be flexible, but even flexibility has boundaries. These boundaries should be known lest we bend to far and break, becoming something that is other than America.

As the popular term "irregular warfare" often injudiciously describes anything other than a very limited definition of regular warfare, it is certainly a regular form of warfare to those that employ it, not random and unconsidered. So must our Way of War be, perhaps flexible, but never random. To allow flexibility and avoid random action and random outcomes, it is essential to discern, perhaps only abstractly, the American Way of War. With the myriad of variables involved and as difficult and polarizing as it may be, this seems to be what the author ultimately challenges us to do. Let's to it!

Is it not a good thing that there is not a definitive American Way of War? How hopeless would it be to be able to pigeon-hole American cultural, societal, governmental, military, and economic thought into one, giant, monolithic input/output block from which we can determine all that has gone before and all that will come. Such a block would be indicative of a nation absolutely incapable of coping with resolving the lessons of the past, the change of the present, with the needs of the future.

The very fact that a definitive American Way of War seems so undefinable is actually a positive indicator that a large group of diverse people occupying a good sized portion of the northern part of the Western hemisphere have been able to demonstrate an ability, albeit not always efficient or pretty, to adopt to the world around them instead of reacting to every situation with the "American Way."

A survey of history indicates that this nation has fought some major wars and lots of little wars, conflicts of short duration and conflicts measuring decades, engagements involving a trickle of blood and engagements involving a torrent, wars of great public involvement and wars of little public interest. For every quick Grenada we have simmering Indian Wars, for every hasty exit from a Somalia, we have years spent in Haiti (1915-1934), from every hot headed entry into a Spanish-American War, we have the incrementalism of a Kosovo. Some have gone well, some have gone bad - but what they all indicate is that dependent upon the countless variables of national sentiment and national power at any given time, decisions about the use of force, and how much force, have truly occurred in context, not according to a checklist or pre-determined national "characteristic."

I truly thank the author for such a great summary of scholarly thought on this subject - but I am equally opposed to the author's apparent recommendation that we create some sort of "plug and play" approach to an "American Way of War" for future effectiveness - a relative term. As messy as it is, the inherent inefficiencies of our democracy serve as important computing engines through which decisions on the use of force must pass. They are the best means to ensure that using force, and employing force, occur appropriately to time and place.

I'd offer that the last 30 yrs of US Army teaching is at the heart of the problem. The officers that started their careers as 2LTs after 1973 were part and parcel of the shift over the next 15 yrs to a "never another vietnam" mentality. All of a sudden we were studying the Somme and drive to the Rhine mixed in with 18/19th century theorists for a grand view of warfare.

As a cadet, I never once learned anything about LICs other than that they exist and that they aren't as hard or interesting as HICs. As an Armor officer commissioning as Iraq kicked off the story was no different. Everything in my professional military education prepared me for Mar-May 2003. After that....crickets. Ironically, going through NTC as late as early-2009 in preperation for deployment in a manuever brigade my most valuable and sophisticated training was kinetic. Aside from react to IED (overglorified react to stepping on a mine) the rest of my training was notional across the board. Conduct Key Leader Engagement is summed up as "drink tea, never promise money, ask about the Sheikh's family". React to indirect contact is "run around looking for casualties, plot a POO on a map". And most damningly of all, cultural training is "don't touch/look at women, shake only the right hand, don't decline tea". Thank god I'm wasn't a 2LT from Kentucky on his first trip OCONUS encountering funny dressed brown people from Disney's Aladdin...because college or not, I would be lost!

More to the point of history. That is one subject that every facet of American life outside academe is pitiful at. We never learn of the US action in Philippines, Mexico, Plains Territories, Cuba, Korea (1945-1950), etc. And we most certainly never learn about how US military operations integrated (or not) with diplomacy or any other effort that one might expect in a strategy. All 3 generations of officers knew how to do was kill people and break things, and we were damn good at it.

It is a bit - dispiriting - to see a soldier, even a citizen soldier put out an article that contradicts everything the US Army has taught about the relationship between strategy, the operational art and tactics for the last 30 years. Far from drawing on the historical sources, the author's assertions strike me as anachronistic. Is the current generation's grasp of American military history really this bad ? Well, if so, that becomes self-confirming evidence of the truth of Colin Gray's 13 theses listed in footnote 7.

Perhaps like this article, the historical record of American arms is like the Rohrschach blot in which one induces images formed by one's preconceptions rather than the perceptible form of the image. At this critical juncture, we as a community appear to be at a loss. At a loss for a clear path forward into the future. At a loss to deal with the immediate dilemmas of ends and means. At a loss for success stories to teach our men and women in uniform, so as to spur them to excel in sacrifice.

Every canine form has its day, and so we may indeed be seeing the "revenge of the attritionist nerds" who have been so badly handled in our doctrine and training literature. For while one way of dealing with that ugly old attritionist past is to suppress it, and another way is to embrace it and make it one's own. I really don't know which side this article is taking.

On the question of transforming the Army into a more pliable instrument of state policy, we of course have seen this Youtube video before. My sense of it is that we would not like, and could not sustain a US military establishment that was so well tailored to low-intensity conflict that it was very good at it. Calls for quick and decisive victories ring hollow, whether or not one calls these situations "wars of attrition" or some other derivation of Fabian methods. While it is probably a policy imperative to escalate the intensity of the conflict against any insurgency the United States may face in the future, the pitfalls of that approach are self-evident, as the history of 1967-68 indicates, even as much as the history of 2006-7 and 2010-11. A real change to the American Way of War would be to accept that we must live within the laws of strategic gravity.

Great article! And a great contribution to the growing body of literature on the dissonance between the way Americans manage warfighting and warfare.

The frustrating inability of US policy to capitalize on tactical victory since 1945 is difficult to explain without straining post-WWII western democratic exceptionalism. The thesis that ties this strategic incompetence to the American political system is on solid ground. At no level in the US government, from civil servant to POTUS, is strategic thought incentivised in any meaningful, real-time, way. On the contrary, tactical decision making tied to artificial decision cycles is the norm (I would also throw the 'targeting cycle' in this formulation). This is a product of our populist-trending political evolution, and its corollary is seen in the stock market, where financial reporting quarters drive decision making with no less weight than election cycles.

A similar disconnect (in this case a fortunate one) is seen in the perpetual squandering of Wehrmacht's tactical victories by the Third Reich's strategic-level leadership. Eventhough fascist megalomania on a national scale gave the Reich momentum, the operational and technological excellence of its armed forces simply prolonged a war rather than playing a role in realizing a sustainable strategic objective for the country. While we should count our lucky stars that the Germans failed to have a similar debate in 1939, the effects of this disconnect are nevertheless instructive. Tactical/operational excellence in the absence of a strategic framework and plan is a pointless exercise in destruction.

I would challenge Maj. Lopez Keravouri on her conclusion, however. I gather from the last paragraph that the Armed forces should be reserved for "appropriate use", itself defined as selective involvement in situations of national interest. How does this address the issue of the absence of strategic planning and followthrough? A "selected involvement" can be formulated as simply as "Lybia but not Darfur because one has oil and is easier to get to" but it doesn't articulate how it is that a tactical victory is supposed to be translated into a strategic one. If it's simply a matter of where one gets involved then a simple ultra-conservative international policy that keeps us out of most things most of the time would suffice. If, on the other hand, its a matter of how one gets involved, then competent strategic thought is required.

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• Historically Speaking

The American Way of War Debate: An Overview

• Brian McAllister Linn
• Johns Hopkins University Press
• Volume 11, Number 5, November 2010
• 10.1353/hsp.2010.a405440
• View Citation

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In the two hundred years since 1775, there has been thirty-five years of fighting in what we consider major conflicts or wars. This averages out to about one year of war to every almost 6 years of our existence as a nation and during that time, we have not been without formal military organizations. Over the course of history, the United States has engaged in many battles that were a crucial phase in developing who and what we have become. Throughout this assessment, we will analyze what were some of the true tipping points that shaped (1) America’s paradoxical love-hate relationship with war and, (2) How this relationship influences American warfare.

America And The Great War Essay

Throughout history there has been competition for resources and domination. This competition has led to conflicts that have caused destruction, social disruptions and death. World War I was no exception to this competition. World War I was known as the war to end all wars and was caused by a combination of factors. Some causes of World War I was nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and the main cause which was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip of Serbia. While the United States attempted to remain neutral and stay out of the war, Germany choose actions that gave the U.S. no choice but to enter and help their Allies defeat the other powers.

America and World War II Essay

     One of the most important wars ever fought was World War II. In the midst, the Nazis

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The American Way of War

The third of three essays on the revolution in air power

The Gulf War was America's first serious war after Vietnam. It is tempting to think of this conflict largely as a land war. The principal public hero of the war was a land man, U.S. Army General "Stormin'" Norman Schwarzkopf . Some of the most conspicuous aspects of the Gulf War had to do with the so-called ground war: the largest invasion force gathered since World War II facing "the fourth largest army in the world" along the feared Saddam Line; the U.S. Army's VII Corps in its great wheeling assault on the Iraqi forces in Kuwait; the slaughter of retreating Iraqis on the "highway to hell."

This view of the war is misleading. A dry but accurate summary of what really happened may be found in the General Accounting Office's 1996 report "Operation Desert Storm: Evaluation of the Air War" :

Operation Desert Storm was primarily a sustained 43-day air campaign by the United States and its allies against Iraq between January 17, 1991, and February 28, 1991. It was the first large employment of U.S. air power since the Vietnam war, and by some measures (particularly the low number of U.S. casualties and the short duration of the campaign), it was perhaps the most successful war fought by the United States in the 20th century. The main ground campaign occupied only the final 100 hours of the war.

Approximately 1,600 U.S. combat aircraft, supported by about 100,000 sailors, Marines, and pilots, took part in the Gulf War. These included thirty-year-old B-52 bombers; the Air Force's F-16 and the Navy's F/A-18; the F-117 stealth fighter; and A-10 Warthog close-air-support attack planes, plus ship- and air-launched cruise missiles. In some 42,000 strikes the allied planes dropped 88,500 tons of bombs on Iraq and on Iraqi targets in Kuwait. About 9,500 bombs were laser- and television-guided "smart" weapons, and about 162,000 were conventional "dumb" bombs.

From the first the U.S. warplanes and cruise missiles were able to penetrate Iraqi air defenses with near impunity and to strike their targets with remarkable accuracy. The effect of this was terrible. "In the past, air forces fought through elaborate defenses and accepted losses on their way to the target or rolled those defenses back," Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen wrote in the Air Force's official analysis, Gulf War Air Power Survey . "In the Gulf War, the Coalition could strike Iraqi air defenses immediately, and they never recovered from these initial, stunning blows." The cruise missiles and the F-117 stealth fighters (which flew only two percent of the total attack sorties but hit nearly 40 percent of the strategic targets) were especially terrifying: "These platforms were able to set the terms for air operations over Iraq and to bring the reality of the war home to the residents of Baghdad."

The accuracy of the bombing was extraordinary. As General Michael Dugan, a retired Air Force chief of staff, wrote, the F-16 and F/A-18 fighters were able to place 50 percent of their bombs within thirty feet of their aim points; but "even 30-foot accuracy is no longer interesting." The smart bombs routinely hit within three feet of their targets. Desert Storm, Dugan wrote, "was a vindication of the old concept of precision bombing; the technology finally caught up with the doctrine."

And the new American air power delivered, finally, on the old dream of a relatively bloodless victory. Counting casualties in both the air war and the ground war, the U.S. forces lost 146 lives in combat. Only thirty-eight allied warplanes were lost, and only fifteen American tanks. Moreover, and more incredibly, air power delivered this wildly lopsided victory in a fairly humane fashion. Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths owing to bombing are still a matter of debate, but there is no question that, considering the huge number of bombs that were dropped, not that many noncombatants were killed.

In Operation Desert Storm the generals fought not the last war but the next. The Gulf War was the template for the United States' following three important military conflicts—the two Balkan campaigns and, most recently, the battle of Afghanistan.

In the summer of 1995 NATO launched a military offensive against the Bosnian Serb forces waging an "ethnic cleansing" war against Bosnian Muslims. In eleven days of air strikes supported by Bosnian and Croat ground offensives, the U.S.-led warplanes of Operation Deliberate Force flew 3,515 sorties, attacking forty-eight target complexes with 1,026 bombs, 708 of them guided weapons and 318 unguided, plus twenty-three cruise missiles. The operation essentially destroyed the Serbs' command-and-control structure; relatively few enemy civilians were killed. Almost immediately the Bosnian Serbs began negotiating, and within months they signed the cease-fire they had refused to contemplate for three years.

In the spring of 1999 a NATO coalition again went to war against the Serbs, in Operation Allied Force . This time they faced the main forces of Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia, in Kosovo. The attack was waged entirely by air, and employed 1,055 aircraft from fourteen nations, with U.S. warplanes handling up to 80 percent of the workload in 13,000 attack sorties over the course of a seventy-eight-day campaign. The allied planes delivered 23,000 bombs and missiles (of which 35 percent were precision-guided), including 329 cruise missiles against 490 fixed targets and 520 movable ones.

The campaign destroyed or severely damaged most of Yugoslavia's industrial and communications infrastructure, wrecked its economy, destroyed a large measure of its armored assets, inflicted (by NATO's estimate) 5,000 to 10,000 casualties, drove the Serb forces from Kosovo, and led to the toppling of Milosevic's government. Only two allied planes were downed, and only thirty bombs caused civilian casualties, with about 500 civilians killed.

The campaign in Afghanistan followed the model of the previous three and advanced beyond them to achieve what The Washington Post reporter Thomas E. Ricks called "the new American way of war, one built around weapons operating at extremely long ranges, hitting targets with unprecedented precision, and relying as never before on gigabytes of targeting information gathered on the ground, in the air, and from space."

Since October 7 U.S. warplanes have flown 24,000 sorties over Afghanistan, delivering 22,000 bombs, missiles, and other ordnance. In the Gulf War only five percent of the bombs dropped were precision-guided; in Afghanistan the equivalent figure was about 60 percent. "Precision" had become very close to ubiquitous, and was grafted on to weapons that once were (famously) imprecise. In Afghanistan the old B-52s that had carpet-bombed Vietnam were guided by satellite-fed data from ground troops to drop bombs in designated 1,000-yard-long areas. And precision became cheap. The chief instrument of precision in the Gulf War, the Tomahawk cruise missile, cost more than $1 million apiece. In Afghanistan precision was most often supplied by the Joint Direct Attack Munition, an $18,000 kit that uses a GPS system to convert a dumb bomb into a smart one. Of 6,650 JDAMs dropped in Afghanistan, the Air Force reports, less than 10 percent missed their targets.

The Taliban government of Afghanistan fell, in a few months, with only 4,000 U.S. troops on the ground, and with only seventeen American deaths. The independent Project on Defense Alternatives estimated the number of civilian bombing deaths at 1,000 to 1,300—higher than in Kosovo, but still remarkably low.

With its twelve nuclear aircraft-carrier battle groups (no other nation has anything even remotely comparable), its stealth bombers, its cruise missiles, its remarkable global guidance and communications systems (which allowed the war in Afghanistan to be run in real time, on the ground, from U.S. Central Command), its generations-ahead fleet of warplanes—with all this the United States stands alone in the world and in history.

No nation before has possessed any force like this; no other nation possesses any force like it now, or any force capable of sustained defense against it. "Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power; nothing," the historian Paul Kennedy observed after the battle of Afghanistan. "One hears the distant rustle of military plans and feasibility studies by general staffs across the globe being torn up and dropped into the dustbin of history."

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Reconsidering the American Way of War

US Military Practice from the Revolution to Afghanistan

Antulio J. Echevarria II

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Challenging several longstanding notions about the American way of war, this book examines US strategic and operational practice from 1775 to 2014. It surveys all major US wars from the War of Independence to the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as most smaller US conflicts to determine what patterns, if any, existed in American uses of force. Contrary to many popular sentiments, Echevarria finds that the American way of war is not astrategic, apolitical, or defined by the use of overwhelming force. Instead, the American way of war was driven more by political considerations than military ones, and the amount of force employed was rarely overwhelming or decisive. As a scholar of Clausewitz, Echevarria borrows explicitly from the Prussian to describe the American way of war not only as an extension of US policy by other means, but also the continuation of US politics by those means. The book’s focus on strategic and operational practice closes the gap between critiques of American strategic thinking and analyses of US campaigns. Echevarria discovers that most conceptions of American strategic culture fail to hold up to scrutiny, and that US operational practice has been closer to military science than to military art. Providing a fresh look at how America’s leaders have used military force historically and what that may mean for the future, this book should be of interest to military practitioners and policymakers, students and scholars of military history and security studies, and general readers interested in military history and the future of military power.

Preface I. Preludes 1. American Ways of War: Turns in Interpretation 2. American Strategic Culture: An Elusive Fiction 3. American Military Art: A Misleading Analogy II. American Military Practice 4. The Revolutionary War to the Mexican War 5. The Civil War to the Boxer Rebellion 6. The Caribbean Wars to the Korean War 7. The Guatemalan Coup to the War on Terrorism Conclusion and Observations Bibiography Index

"Provides valuable synopses of the most important campaigns and explains what they reveal about developments in military practice, demonstrating the variety of ways in which US leaders have adapted their approaches to military force to fit the circumstances."— Foreign Affairs "Issues a powerful challenge to established thinking on all fronts. . . . Echevarria’s book represents an important contribution to the debate over the American way of war."— Political Science Quarterly "It is the best synthesis of the American way of war discourse to date and a must-read for students, scholars, service personnel, and government officials interested in military history."— On Point "Antulio Echevarria II has written an excellent book for historians, military professionals, and others with a good grasp of the history of America's wars. However, his concise survey of over two hundred years of American military strategy and operations will also be useful in college courses."— Michigan War Studies Review "Provides a valuable counterpoint to a topic relevant to current debates about American strategy and policy. It is always beneficial to understand clearly from whence one comes before determining where one ought to go."— Lieutenant Colonel Brian L. Steed, US Army , Proceedings "Asserts quite convincingly that what people actually did is at least as important and instructive as what they thought or said."— US Military History Review , Robert S. Ehlers, Jr. "Makes a material contribution to the long-standing debate about strategic culture."— Naval War College Review "A fresh look at how America's leaders have used military force historically and what that may mean for the future, this book should be of interest to military practitioners and policymakers, students and scholars of military history and security studies, and general readers interested in military history and the future of military power."— 2015 Univeristy Press Books for Public and Secondary Schools " Reconsidering the American Way of War  is a thoughtful, rich, and convincing examination of how and why the United States has used military force to accomplish national objectives throughout its history. Echevarria dismantles the various proponents of a unique American 'way of war' by proving that  US military practice has always been shaped by the politics of the moment. His thesis that there is no unifying theory is refreshing in its clarity and rife with strategic and operational implications. This book demands attention; a must-read for military officers, politicians, academics—and pundits—who all too often ignore the inherently pragmatic nature of the American approach to war in their attempts to shape the policy debate."— David E. Johnson , director, chief of staff of the Army Strategic Studies Group and author of Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945 and Hard Fighting: Israel in Lebanon and Gaza "A must-read for those convinced that there exists an 'American way of war' that emphasizes overwhelming mass and crushing victory no matter the strategic goals. Echevarria's brief but remarkably thorough survey of American military history highlights enormous variety in military practice, no consistent achievement of overwhelming mass, and far more attention to political control than is commonly acknowledged."— Thomas McNaugher , Professor & Director of Studies, Center for Security Studies (CSS), Georgetown University "This book is both the best analysis of the American way of war debate and a provocative historical interpretation of how the US has waged war. An essential contribution to one of the most significant issues in current US military policy."— Brian McAllister Linn , Ralph R. Thomas Professor of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University

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About the author.

Antulio J. Echevarria II is a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and is currently the editor of the US Army War College Quarterly, Parameters . He is the author of several books, including Clausewitz and Contemporary War .

Hardcover 232 pp., 6 x 9 ISBN: 978-1-62616-139-9 May 2014 World

Paperback 232 pp., 6 x 9 ISBN: 978-1-62616-067-5 May 2014 World

Ebook 232 pp. ISBN: 978-1-62616-068-2 May 2014 World

Categories: International Affairs , History , Migration , Security Studies , United States , Military History ,

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American Way Of War Analysis

Show More Introduction In this essay, I will illustrate information regarding the Way of War and the existed of this war throughout our history. Also, throughout this article, I will describe the American way of War and the different assessments of the American Way of War. Furthermore, this document will challenge the wide-ranging group of some of the many obvious explanations of the American Way of War. Moreover, throughout this paper, I will hunt ways to outline the American Way of War and look at the American military practice. The American Way of War First, The American Way of War remains to stay and is not going away. Moreover, no combat takes location in a vacuum, but perhaps, one is merely an extension lead of the prior. By nature, …show more content… Ironically, America military troops used unusual weapons. The napalm and the herbicide defoliant were the weapons of choice that were used. American Way of War continued to search for quick military success and self-governing of planned policy. Tactical Way of War Another way of war is tactical that engages a form of warfare. In early 1970, The American Way of War was thought about and practiced by key U.S. military and Policy. However, the tactics are fulfilled thru the overall purpose of trying to win a conflict that is against the enemy's country. Many American’s soldiers and political forerunners perceived the ruin of an adversary and the profession of his wealth as marking the conclusion of the war and the start of post- war conferences. Also, it is a process, in which maneuvering is engaged to accomplish a finish or a goal. Importantly, the tactic is a phrase used to illustrate the ability of combat on or to adjoin the battleground. Furthermore, tactics at all times is challenging--and have turned out to be more and more problematic--to differentiate in from the strategy for the reason that the two are so symbolic. Nevertheless, the approach is restricted but tactics are dependent upon strategic …show more content… On the other hand, this war created in a bloodbath. Furthermore, countless lives were distraught, as a result of this horrendous battle. Remarkably, America’s ways of war grew tremendously and became more informed about the ways of an enemy attack. Nevertheless, the occurrence of Pearl Harbor charted shame and a senseless act that devastated the United States for many decades. On the other note, the U.S has confirmed its fighting proficiency by, competitive firearm and fighting maneuvering capability to take a blow from the enemy. The American Way of War searched for swift military victory and independent of strategic policy. Forging ahead, the American Way of War military and governmental officials had significant concerns that pertained to the fixing of two major issues. Next, the military establishment and politically aware trailblazers must deliberate more meticulously concerning how to turn conflicts into a conquering aftereffect. Regrettably, at no time it was verified who was accountable for the conception and continuing the American Way of

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American Odyssey: a Journey into World War II

This essay about America’s involvement in World War II examines the multifaceted motivations behind the nation’s entry into the conflict. It explores how events like the attack on Pearl Harbor, geopolitical tensions, economic considerations, and moral imperatives converged to propel the United States onto the global stage. Through a nuanced analysis, it highlights the complex interplay of factors that shaped America’s decision to confront the challenges posed by totalitarian regimes and defend democratic values. Ultimately, the essay underscores the significance of America’s role in the war and the enduring legacy of its contributions to freedom and justice on a global scale.

How it works

The narrative of America’s involvement in World War II is a tapestry woven with threads of courage, sacrifice, and determination. As we embark on this exploration, we delve into the depths of history to unravel the enigmatic motives that propelled the United States onto the world stage during one of its darkest hours.

At the outset, the landscape of global politics was fraught with tension, akin to a delicate dance on a geopolitical tightrope. The United States, ensconced in its policy of neutrality, stood as a bastion of peace amidst the storm brewing in Europe.

Yet, beneath the facade of neutrality lurked a simmering cauldron of apprehension and uncertainty. The tendrils of war stretched across continents, casting a shadow of doubt on the efficacy of isolationism.

The turning point came in the form of a cataclysmic event that shook the very foundations of American resolve. December 7, 1941, etched itself into the annals of history as a day of infamy. The serenity of a Sunday morning was shattered by the thunderous roar of Japanese bombs raining down on Pearl Harbor. The echoes of destruction reverberated across the Pacific, awakening a sleeping giant from its slumber. In the aftermath of the attack, a nation mourned its fallen heroes and rallied behind the clarion call for justice.

Yet, the decision to plunge into the maelstrom of war was not a hastily made one, but rather a culmination of simmering tensions and calculated considerations. The specter of totalitarianism loomed large on the horizon, casting a pall of uncertainty over the fate of democracy. The rise of fascist regimes in Europe and Asia posed an existential threat to the values cherished by the American people. The blitzkrieg tactics of Nazi Germany and the expansionist ambitions of the Axis powers sent shockwaves of trepidation rippling across the globe.

Amidst the clamor of war drums, economic imperatives played a pivotal role in shaping America’s destiny. The specter of the Great Depression still lingered in the collective memory of the nation, casting a long shadow over hopes for prosperity. The fires of industry, once extinguished by economic malaise, were reignited in the crucible of war. The war machine roared to life, churning out a torrent of steel and munitions that would fuel the Allied cause. The Lend-Lease Act emerged as a beacon of hope, providing a lifeline to beleaguered nations in their darkest hour.

Yet, beyond the realm of geopolitics and economics, lay a moral imperative that tugged at the heartstrings of the American conscience. The atrocities perpetrated by the Axis powers sent shockwaves of horror reverberating through the corridors of power. The Holocaust, with its unspeakable horrors, served as a stark reminder of the depths of human depravity. The principles of freedom and democracy, enshrined in the bedrock of American society, stood in stark contrast to the tyranny and oppression unleashed by fascist regimes.

In the crucible of war, the United States emerged not only as a military juggernaut but also as a beacon of hope for a world shrouded in darkness. The sacrifices made by millions of Americans, both at home and abroad, served as a testament to the indomitable spirit of a nation united in purpose. From the sands of the Pacific to the beaches of Normandy, the American odyssey unfolded with courage and conviction.

In conclusion, the decision to enter World War II was a confluence of factors that transcended mere geopolitical calculations. It was a journey into the unknown, guided by the moral compass of a nation standing on the precipice of history. As we reflect on the legacy of that tumultuous era, let us remember the sacrifices made by those who came before us and strive to uphold the values for which they fought and died.

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