Way Of War

In 2012, General Dempsey states “Mission Command is fundamentally a learned behavior to be imprinted into the DNA of a profession of arms.” The way Mission Command has evolved through the past years is indicative to the US Military adjusting to a new threat. The concept of Mission Command is not new, what is important is how General Dempsey states “Education in the fundamental principles of mission command must begin at the start of service and be progressively more challenging..” The General emphasizes the need for education at the start of the individual’s service. Additionally, this highlights the United States Army’s doctrinal adjustment to the new threat. During the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US faced an enemy whose creativity and adaptability are two of its greatest assets. The fast-paced situation changes in both of those AOs required tactical level leadership maintain the autonomy to “exercise disciplined initiative.” This type of initiative historically leads to mission success, specifically in fast-paced situations where a key to success is forcing the enemy to react.

In his article, “Why Has American Stopped Winning Wars?” Dominic Tierney discusses some of the topics in his recent book, “The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts.” The book, unlike the article, provides recommendations for how America can adapt to a new era of warfare. Having said that, Tierney’s article published in the The Atlantic, provides no such recommendations nor does it provide adequate reasoning to support his argument, rather he leaves the reader emotionally charged and unable to make an informed judgement concerning the validity of his claims. Specifically, the author commits the fallacies of appealing to emotion, followed by the presentation of glittering generalizations and a false dichotomy. Therefore, the purpose here is to analyze his argument as outlined in the article, “Why Has American Stopped Winning Wars?”

The ways in which the United States has conducted its military operations since becoming an independent nation has largely depended upon the overall political and military objectives of each individual conflict. The United States first three hot wars after the end of World War II display the marked difference in US objectives and the operations used to achieve them better than any other modern wars in which American troops participated.

From the earliest recorded history, humans have waged war upon one another. To conquer and expand their empires, military leaders have experimented with hundreds upon hundreds of tactics and theories about how to wage these wars. The United States Army has refined and crafted the science of warfare and the art of leadership, designing six ‘warfighting functions’ that interrelate with each other. These warfighting functions shape the way an United States Army Officer plans for combat. The six warfighting functions are Mission Command, Movement and Maneuver, Intelligence, Fires, Sustainment, and Protection. The use of these functions can be directly related to the success of many victories the United States has seen, not only on the War level, but also for specific battles. In researching the Siege of Yorktown, it is clear to see that these warfighting functions were key to the victory of the siege. This decisive victory legitimized the then freshly founded United States of America.

The battle of Ap Bac was a small battle engaged between the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the insurgents, or the People Liberation Armed Forces (Viet Cong AKA VC) with the assistance of American’s weapons and advice during the Vietnam War. It took place on 2 January, 1963, near a small village named Ap Bac which is located approximately 65 km southwest of Saigon in the Mekong Delta. (Starry, 2002). As a senior leader, it is important that we have to be technically and tactically proficient. In order to be proficient, we not only need to be trained, but also we have to know how to gain experience from past battles in history using battle assessment, and critical thinking process to study the battle. That way, we know what needs to be improved, how to sustain it, and how would we execute it better next time. Therefore, studying the history of the battle of Ap Bac will enhance the knowledge of how the commanders used the most effective and efficient method for applying decisive action on the battle field. It would be a successful outcome for the South Vietnamese ARVN, and Kennedy’s administration would have gained more trust from American people for the presence of American troops in Vietnam, if the American advisers and the ARVN’s commanders would have integrated intelligence preparation of the battlefield (ITP) throughout the operations process to identify the gaps of intelligence between human intelligence (HUMINT), outsourcing

To paraphrase the quote attributed to Trotsky, “We may not be interested in insurgency but insurgency is interested in us.” The United States faces this dilemma. The question remains how to prepare for this amidst competing interests and threats. The U.S. military should prepare for both conventional and irregular warfare, while prioritizing conventional warfare, recognizing irregular warfare as the most significant short term threat to national interests and conventional warfare the most threatening in the long term. This paper will compare and contrast the considerations for these types of warfare, explain why the U.S. should prioritize conventional operations while preparing for both, and describe the short and long term

Strategy is the name of the game, and in Russell Weigley’s The American Way of War, the U.S strategies and policies used throughout history are revisited. Weigley’s focus on the historic strategies of American warfare starts as early as 1775 This book is arranged in different sections depending on the location and strategy, not really sequential in some cases. Weigley went very in depth with his work and made his book a fun read and understandable. He also gave a very detailed amount of historic American military past. To wrap it up, The American Way of War was overall very enjoyable.

This paper reviews America’s paradoxical love-hate relationship with war and how this relationship influences American warfare through the research and study of the interpretation and analyzation of American military models, policy and goal changes, the use of military technology, “American way of war,” and the relationship with, preparation for, and application of war.

The failure of CENTCOM to apply effective operational design to Operation Iraq Freedom (OIF) started The United States down the road toward defeat. There are several reasons for the CENTCOM failures; first, the initial plan failed to incorporate or understand the POTUS’s guidance in the form of National Strategic Ends. Without this complete understanding of the POTUS’s strategic ends, Franks and CENTCOM planners simply could not identify the correct military end states necessary to set the condition to meet the POTUS’s strategic ends. Without this understanding they badly neglected their plan’s phase IV inadequacies. (site) Second, Franks and his planners’ failed to conduct operational design before planning OIF. Without this operational

Iraq began the crisis with one of the world's larger armies, equipped with great numbers of tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery, some of which were state-of-the-art models. It had a sizable air force with many top-line fighters and fighter-bombers (F-1s, MiG-29s and Su-24s) and a modern air defense command and control (C2) system. During the last six months of the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi army had demonstrated a capability to conduct multi-axis, multi-corps, combined-arms operations deep into hostile territory. The staff could conduct long-range planning; coordination of air and artillery preparations; timing of movements and operations; coordination of complicated logistics requirements; and movement of supplies, equipment, and troops to the right place at the designated time. They had developed excellent operational security and deception. Iraqi ground forces had more than 5,000 main battle tanks, 5,000 armored infantry vehicles, and 3,000 artillery pieces

Clausewitz defines war as an “act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” The nature of war is enduring yet the character of war changes over time. Current US strategic guidance is advancing the point of view that since the character of war has changed to focus on irregular wars then the US military should prepare for a future of irregular wars. This shift in focus forgets that the nature of war is enduring and in order to be successful, we must prepare for all types of conflict. This paper will define the types of conflict and the likelihood of each followed by a discussion of US strategic guidance and ending with an analysis of the training resources and force structure requirements needed to achieve success for all types of

The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.

Undoubtedly, there is an American way of war. Its central themes may be shared with different nations, but the origins, I feel, are uniquely American. Historian Geoffrey Parker contends, and I wholehearted agree, that there are six descriptors defining our military characteristics. They are: organization, discipline, morale, initiative, flexibility, and command. In sum, these traits create the bedrock in which the U.S. military operates and fights. I believe the origin of the six previously mentioned traits is our relatively juvenile, when compared to other western nations, American culture. Since our inception, we had to “figure” things out which to lead us to concepts that worked when face with immediate threats. Another distinctive

Van Creveld predicted that armed forces of the world would have to adapt to the frequency of involved conflict. This challenging book was too readily dismissed by some critics as reflecting Van Creveld?s personal proximity to the first intifada against Israel and a classic case of overgeneralization (1991, pg. 25). The massive mechanized assault conducted by an American-led coalition to pry Iraq?s invading force out of Kuwait in 1991 lent credence to those who did not want to contemplate the rise of new modes of combat. ?The Changing Face of War? represents van Creveld?s second attempt to flesh out the developments in military history and the rise of unconventional methods in book-length form.

The American “way of war” is primarily based on the American interpretation of the national fundamentals and values to include capitalism and basic freedoms surrounding financial enterprising as applied in the democratic system. Along with these ideals concerning free marketing and democracy, the American “way of war” seeks to reinforce alliances with nations that uphold similar concepts and values through international trade and commerce. In doing so, the United States intrinsically denounces political ideologies that are contradictory, such as communism.