What Is America's Theory Of War?

The concept of war as a static and unchanging occurrence is an outdated and dangerous miscalculation. More accurately, war is a fluidic, evolving and shifting phenomenon constantly reinventing itself, rendering stagnant, inflexible principles potentially disastrous. Consequently, as students of war and future players in this transforming theatre, the study of eras of significant development is an extremely relevant pursuit. Recognizing the need for adaptation and the creation of doctrine is now a prerequisite for any effective modern commander. War is unpredictable in nature and particularly so in current theatres of operation, in which change is rapid

A) The title of the book is The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War and the author is Andrew Bacevich. The book was published in New York, New York by the publisher Oxford University Press in the year 2005. It is the first edition and contains 270 pages.

Carl Von Clausewitz and Helmuth Moltke the Elder were both practitioners and theorists of the war art in the 19th century. Their military thoughts on war’s character and its dynamics have influenced the later militaries in the conduct of war. Particularly, the Clausewitzian concept of the “culminating point of victory” and the Moltke’s principle of “Auftragstaktik”, or mission type tactics by a decentralized command were implemented and culminated in the battlefield of World War II. Moreover, today, the US Army has adopted both concepts in its latest refined “AirLand Battle” doctrine recognizing their importance in the operational art of modern warfare.

The American Civil War is debatably the first modern warfare in American history (Hagerman, 1988, XI). The Civil War was the beginning of a new era, the contemporary operational environment. Field commanders had to deal with conditions, influences, and circumstances that affect the utilizations of military forces. Commanders could no longer rely on past experiences to determine future outcomes. Commanders had to take variables other than military forces into consideration. Field commanders during the American Civil War had to deal with several factors that affect the conditions, influences, and circumstances on the battlefield: national will, nature and stability of the state, military capabilities, economics, sociological demographics, information, physical environment, time, and technology. Commanders had to focus on all aspects of the operational environment to effectively employ military forces.

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.

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.

War is a human endeavor. Humanity continually pursues solutions to counter evolving threats with the end of preserving power while also enabling peace. Civilizations resort to war to maintain their perception of this equilibrium. Defined threats and adversaries have changed throughout history, however, the essence of human nature and the base concept of conflict itself have not. Carl von Clausewitz’s theories on warfare capture the relationship between humanity and its application of war, remaining relevant in today’s era through their pensive explanations of timeless philosophical principles regarding the concept of war. These theories regarding war in politics, the key factors affecting war, and the extent that war is applied are inherently interconnected, providing insight on the relationships between humanity and its application of war.

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.

Warfare is a relentless and unending march to gain an edge on the opponent and defeat him as quickly as possible and minimize your own losses. Over the centuries there have been five military revolutions that have fundamentally changed the framework of war and have forever changed Western history. According to Knox and Murray the five military revolutions are: the creation of modern nation-state and modern military institutions, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, World War I, and the advent of nuclear weapons. Within each military revolution have been associated and resultant revolutions of military affairs that are lesser transformations but nonetheless significant and a requirement for today’s military officer to understand.

There are no universal theories to explain the true nature and character of war, and any war theories are not a fact or absolute truth. All strategic principles are dynamic and contextual, so “every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions.” The battlefield environment of the 21st century will be the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and nature of war will be completely different because of the Revolution in Military Affairs. Highly advance communication and information technologies, a dramatic increase in computing capabilities, developed of precision munitions, dominant air and space power ‘war could be waged by the projection of

The comprehension of the term ‘total war’ has had great significance towards the understanding as to how wars are fought, affect society and differ from other conflicts. The main issue that arises is conclusively defining total war and is continually differing between both historians and military combatants alike. Roger Chickering defines states “total war is distinguished by its intensity and extent. Theatres of operation span the globe; the scale of the battle is practically limitless” all the while adding “total war requires the mobilisation not only of armed forced but also of whole populations” This definition, while not quintessential is a good starting point for a definition due to its broadness and acceptance of the idea of the incapability to fully mobilise a society’s entire resource. David A. Bell states that it is often defined as ‘a war involving the complete mobilization of a society’s resources to achieve the absolute destruction of an enemy, with all distinction erased between combatants and non-combatants’ . However, he notes the limitations of such an idea including the inability for societies to meet such criterion, in particular, the ability for a society to completely utilise its resources towards the war effort. Ultimately, Jeremey black, while not giving a conclusive definition for the term, total war, does acknowledge different definitions by various individuals distilling many of their arguments and consequently outlining main characteristics of

According to Milan Vego in, Joint Operational Warfare: Theory and Practice, he defined Operational Art as, “a component of military art concerned with the theory and practice of planning, preparing, conducting, and sustaining campaigns and major operations aimed at accomplishing strategic or operational objectives in a given theater.” (p. I-4) Even though I am not in the business of defining the term Operational Art, I would still suggest amongst all of the various definitions that I have read this one definition by Vego appears to be practicable and serves its purpose well. For any military action, there must be planning, sustaining, executing of a mission such that theater objectives are met. In other words, a belligerents Center of Gravity must be identified through means of military and policy actions to obtain success.

Sun Tzu understood the nature of war as “the province of life or death,” and a “matter of vital importance to the state.”1 I agree. In my own experience, war awakens your primordial instincts and strips you of your self-rationalizations. Sun Tzu defined the character of war when he wrote, “water has no constant form, there are in war no constant conditions.”2 Accordingly, Sun Tzu’s principals of war offer a framework adequate to explain the nature and character of 21st century warfare, which I rationalize as a near-continuous battle of ideologies fought through asymmetric means to advance the values and interests of state and non-state actors.

Contrary to popular belief the origin of The Art of War is unknown. Written in the age of knights and gentleman Sun Tzu has written a timeless classic in the basic roots of military strategy and war. The thirteen chapters of knowledge can relate to anything from modern warfare to personal development.

This essay intends to define and give an overview of the ‘Principles of War', the philosophers that coined these principles and with examples from the various countries that used and have their own perspectives on the ‘Principles of War'.