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... The publication of FM 100-5, 1982 edition, changed things. That manual revived the centrality of offensive action and recognized the growing reality of the Big-Five in the reequipping of the Army, giving it the potential to conduct offensive operations at the tactical and operational level. The AirLand Battle concepts that underlay the 1982 edition of FM 100-5 frightened NATO Europe, partly because it demonstrated this offensive character which was so at odds with the basic concept upon which NATO rested its existence. But it made the U.S. Army happy, and the years that followed demonstrated that the U.S. Army could revive itself and recreate itself as a genuinely professional military force without equal in the tactical and operational realms. Operation DESERT STORM validated the AirLand Battle concept, the Big-Five reequipping choices, and the Training Revolution that had taken hold during those two preceding decades...
Then hubris set in. It was evident at nearly every level in the institution. Read U.S. Army doctrine today, and you will see a struggle to trump each successive set of superlatives —Full Spectrum Dominance is a good example. The Quality of Firsts—See First, Understand First, Act First, Finish Decisive—is another. These may be neat slogans, but they reflect a sense of sophomoric chest-pounding totally inappropriate as doctrine and reflect shallow thinking about the present realities now confronting us, or more importantly the future. They are little more than statements of what every military person of every age has sought within the limits of the tools available. It goes deeper as each successive description of the future operating environment repeatedly recites that the future will be chaotic, irregular, ambiguous, and so forth—as if it was not equally so for our forefathers...
But it is past time to give sober address to doctrine in an imperfect world, employed by imperfect people, against implacable but human enemies. Too much current doctrine is self-congratulatory nonsense written to deal with tank armies on the plains of central somewhere. It fails to partake of the relatively clear directive qualities of the above two cited FMs. Doctrine should set forth principles and precious little more. That would allow the Army to adapt those things that endure to ever-changing conditions and the tools available. Paring the baroque structure of developing doctrine might facilitate deeper discussion of its application, and that just might protect us from the charge of failing to understand the war in which we are engaged and of trying to make of it something which, by its nature, it cannot be...
