Thomas P.M. Barnett - Army America needs versus the wars Americans prefer to wage

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When Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling recently published “A Failure of Generalship” in the Armed Forces Journal, a tipping point was reached in the long-brewing fight between the U.S. military’s “big war” and “small wars” factions.

The big-war crowd wants to write off Iraq as an aberration, preferring instead to focus on conventional war with rising powers like China. The small-wars faction envisions a future in which messy insurgencies are the norm.

The initial clash naturally involves issuing blame for Iraq because, from that dominant strategic narrative, all future ones must flow. Yingling’s small-wars faction points accusingly to a generation of senior officers who should have logically foreseen the emergence of such intra-national warfare as the primary threat to global stability in the post-Cold War era. All the signs were there, including a plethora of U.S. military interventions across the 1990s that involved such conflict.

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Thomas P.M. Barnett - Army America needs versus the wars Americans prefer to wage

I agree with Barnett’s basic point that our military is optimized for traditional, decisive conflict. In truth we need to be setup for both kinds of war. The majority of our efforts over the next several decades will most likely be small wars, yet history guarantees we will see another major conflict in the not real distant future. In fact our ability or lack thereof in dealing with insurgencies may well determine if we get drawn into another major war.

I would also point out that the strong preference for decisive conflict is far more than an American way of war. This strategic preference goes back at least to Classical Greece.

Hmm, I would say that the American style of war dates back to 1917 when the French educated the American officers on modern warfare, including their point of view on firepower and battle plans (wow, some americans will hate me for this!).

Drawing the line back to Ancient Greece does not really help, as the USA was coined by a Europe that had lost the characteristic of waging decisive wars in the meantime (especially in the 16th and 18th century) in favour of rather limited warfare.

Classical Greece wasn't coined by decisive warfare anyway before the Peloponnesian War and later on the even more violent Philipp II./Alexander the Great makedons. They most often only marched a day or two, aligned into a Phalanx, marched to each other and the war was over without pursuit or capturing of cities once one phalanx broke in battle and fled.

It's correct that there will be another major war, and it would be surprising if one knew about it even as little as three years in advance. It will most likely turn out being as surprising in its nature as WW1 because there were so few major wars in the past decades.
It's also correct in my opinion that mroe small wars will break out with western participation, although I consider that as easily avoidable.

I fail to see how insurgents somewhere in distant places are a threat for our security and therefore need to be combatted. There no real "need" for small wars proficiency in our armies as long as our politicians avoid stupid adventures in my opinion.

So the big war faction is in my opinion correct. Neither counter-insurgency campaigns nor amateurish peacekeeping missions without real mandate like Bosnia are unavoidable.
And in fact it would be quite possible to keep the whole NATO out of conventional conflicts for decades if our people and political elites truly wanted that.
But that won't happen. Wel'll see more peacekeeping about five to ten major wars with NATO country participation till the end of the century and a bit less large counter-insurgency campaigns, the next one at the latest around 2040 when the memories of Iraq and Afghanistan have faded.
Well, that's my guess - based on my feeling and on a look into 20th and 19th century history.

Note also that the "decisive battle" noted in Classical Greece often had little in the way of actual decision. Very rarely were the city-states involved decimated or otherwise critically harmed during phalanx battle. The incessant and endemic warfare during that timeframe testify to the remarkable indecisiveness of classical Greek warmaking, which as in all warfare also involved far more usage of skirmishing and raiding than portrayed in the classical texts, which were written by and for hoplite elites.

Decisive war had to wait for the Macedonians.

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Originally Posted by Lastdingo

I fail to see how insurgents somewhere in distant places are a threat for our security and therefore need to be combatted. There no real "need" for small wars proficiency in our armies as long as our politicians avoid stupid adventures in my opinion.

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In terms of ground warfare, I find it far more plausible in the next 10-15 years that US land forces have to deal with stabilizing a collapsed Pakistani or North Korean state, while attempting to secure both regimes' nuclear weapons, than any sort of conflict that would require high-end "conventional" operations.

I mean, who exactly are we going to fight a conventional ground war with massed armor formations with? Worst case scenarios in the Taiwan Strait would lead to air and naval combat, along with maybe a modest (and light) expeditionary force of Marines and the most mobile Army forces to defend the island. Does anyone actually think we are going to invade China? Or that the Russians will roll into Poland?

But in addition to North Korea and Pakistan, there are all sorts of ramshackle states the United States may find itself having to deal with at some point. Whatever happens in Iraq, Afghanistan is still a live issue, along with chunks of Africa. Whether or not it's wise to intervene in an individual failed state depends on each individual circumstance, but I can think of cases where important US interests will lead to some kind of intervention.

WH

Seems to me he has this question right:

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This intra-military debate should focus America's attention on the real question at hand: Do we see a future world full of messy Iraqs and Somalias and Haitis? Or should we pull back from that long war focus and prepare for conventional conflict with China?

Given the course of events since 9/11, which pathway seems more realistic to you?

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However, how about these as follow ons:

What kind of role should the United States play over the next 25 years in order to provide security to its citizens at home and abroad?

Why do many of us say we must think differently about security?

Must the United States be involved on a global scale in order to achieve
those ends?
What should be the shape of that commitment?

Walter Isaacson wrote a great OP/ED in the Post today
Excerpt

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Now we are again faced with a new and dangerous global threat, the rise of jihadist terrorism. But more than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, we have not yet responded with the creativity displayed at the outset of the Cold War. Instead, we are either disparaging Cold War institutions or, at best, tinkering with them to make them play a role for which they were never designed.

With a presidential election approaching, we should push the candidates to provide some imaginative ideas and a vision that match the creativity exhibited 60 years ago. Here, for example, are proposals they could explore:

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I think he is on the mark.
Regards, Rob

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Originally Posted by Rob Thornton

Must the United States be involved on a global scale in order to achieve
those ends?
What should be the shape of that commitment?


Regards, Rob

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As a major beneficiary of the current way the world is more or less setup, I think the United States has to be involved on a global scale. So much of our general day-to-day world is dependent on a global economy that is in turn dependent on relative stability, which has to be safeguarded against destabilizing forces like Jihadism and the like, never mind the whole issue of physical security. And before people think this is just about the West's addiction to mass-consumption economies, I find it hard to believe how developing world economies can be lifted out of poverty without a reasonably stable system of international markets that allows them to exploit advantages in comparative advantage and the like. This is not to say that the current scheme of "globalization" is perfect, but I don't see any positive alternatives to take its place if the whole system were to, say, collapse, due to a catastrophic geopolitical disaster in the Middle East that led to an unprecedented energy shock.

The devil is obviously in the details, though. Even if we stipulate a commitment has to exist, what shape it takes is open to debate.

WH

One of the reasons few people are willing to challenge us in "conventional" warfare is that they do not think they can beat us. We need to get to that point with insurgency warfare. If we do not, we will see it used much more.

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Originally Posted by whsieh

In terms of ground warfare, I find it far more plausible in the next 10-15 years that US land forces have to deal with stabilizing a collapsed Pakistani or North Korean state, while attempting to secure both regimes' nuclear weapons, than any sort of conflict that would require high-end "conventional" operations.

I mean, who exactly are we going to fight a conventional ground war with massed armor formations with? Worst case scenarios in the Taiwan Strait would lead to air and naval combat, along with maybe a modest (and light) expeditionary force of Marines and the most mobile Army forces to defend the island. Does anyone actually think we are going to invade China? Or that the Russians will roll into Poland?

But in addition to North Korea and Pakistan, there are all sorts of ramshackle states the United States may find itself having to deal with at some point. Whatever happens in Iraq, Afghanistan is still a live issue, along with chunks of Africa. Whether or not it's wise to intervene in an individual failed state depends on each individual circumstance, but I can think of cases where important US interests will lead to some kind of intervention.

WH

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Good post. Our enemies aren't stupid, they've all seen what happens when a state challenges us conventionally, as in Iraq (twice). Nuclear weapons have also changed the rules of the game, as Martin Van Creveld pointed out. We should be regarding small wars and non-state adversaries as the main challenge of the next century.

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Originally Posted by Granite_State

We should be regarding small wars and non-state adversaries as the main challenge of the next century.

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I suppose the challenge this presents is developing a sufficient capability to deal with small wars and non-state adversaries without weakening our conventional capabilities to the point that nation's believe they can challenge us conventionally again. Is this doable? And if it is doable, the real question is how?

My opinion is that this is not doable right now because it is not a military solution or fix. It will require a whole of government fix and the rest of government isn't ready to move in this direction yet.

Brian

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Originally Posted by jonSlack

The big-war crowd wants to write off Iraq as an aberration, preferring instead to focus on conventional war with rising powers like China

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Let's suppose some American president gets it into his head that the situation in China demands "regime change", "democracy", or whatever, requiring an invasion of the Chinese mainland. With a naval supply line stretching all across the Pacific ocean, you put an expeditionary force of 150,000 troops ashore. That seems to be about all we can muster, since a draft is off the table. Okay, now what? China covers a vast area. Are we supposed to occupy the place? There's only about 1.3 billion people in China. They could lose 100,000,000 people and might then think it was safe to eliminate their one-child policy.

If I was a Chinese general, why would I even attempt to fight a "big war" in such a scenario? Better to follow a Russian strategy to retreat to the vast interior, harassing an invader along the way, threatening his supply lines. Then just wear him down through attrition. And we're not even bringing up the subject of nuclear weapons in such a war. Rather than offer decisive battle somewhere, they could just start guerilla operations when the first GI steps ashore, and stick with it. If we're having this much trouble keeping a lid on Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi and the rest of these places, can you imagine what it would take for Peking, Shanghai, and the rest of Chinese coastal areas?

As Merv and Granite State point out, we (and any other Western style army) are going to see this kind of fight (at least in part) until we can show we can deal with it. It is many times cheaper to train and equip a guerilla force than build huge armored formations, a modern air force, navy, etc.

If our government intends to ignore how to fight and win a guerilla war because of THIS scenario, then somebody needs a psychiatric evaluation. Seriously, how would you fight the U.S. if it's armed forces show up on your shores for whatever reason, and you have only modest conventional abilities?

Of course, it might be better to think long and hard before you choose to get into one of these small (or not-so-small) wars in the first place, but that is a different post altogether.

No U.S. general (or that of any other country today) would ever contemplate a full-scale invasion and occupation of China. As noted, the nuclear weapons alone make such a scenario a non-starter --- never mind the enormous geographical and population scale issues.

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Originally Posted by tequila

No U.S. general (or that of any other country today) would ever contemplate a full-scale invasion and occupation of China. As noted, the nuclear weapons alone make such a scenario a non-starter --- never mind the enormous geographical and population scale issues.

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While the above is probably true, it is equally true that, in the 20th Century at least, the US was traditionally dragged into wars as an initially unwilling ally of other countries subjected to invasion. If we want to consider options other than the COIN-type events or small wars that are at one end of the spectrum, I suggest that the right answer is more on the lines of mid-level wars where the US intervenes after the fact to try to redress the injustice/balance of power caused by two "less than super" powers getting into a micturating contest. I submit we are more likely to get involved in a conventional war along the lines of DS/DS rather than a heavyweight slugfest like what was envisioned in our war planning for post WWII European conflicts.

Some possible scenarios--
--Assistance to RoK or Japan in NEA should a regime change occur with the death of Kim Jong Il and a muscle flexing by his successor or an invasion by the Chinese to establish his successor.
--A range possible actions in any of the less stable South or Central American countries--our response should, for example, Colombia decide it wants to supplement its cocaine income with oil income from Venezuela or Peru decide it wants to reestablish the Incan Empire by conquering Bolivia and/or Ecuador.
--A host of various alternatives in Africa, ranging from humanitarian interventions to stop brutal suppression of tribal seccessions (Nigeria vs. Biafra Round II, circa 2010) to overt grabs for resources (and these could be as simple as more water and arable land) among various African countries in the sub-Saharan regions. We are already avoiding the Darfur regional problem, dabbling in the Somilia problem again, and might have others (like Robert Mugabe's experiment as a national leader) to attract our attention sooner rather than later.

There should be plenty to entertain our military futurists and we need to have a range of force options not an "either/or" military that hopes it has gotten the "crystal-balling" right.

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Originally Posted by wm

Some possible scenarios--
--Assistance to RoK or Japan in NEA should a regime change occur with the death of Kim Jong Il and a muscle flexing by his successor or an invasion by the Chinese to establish his successor.

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I'm not convinced Japan and RoK would be on the same page in that scenario.

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Originally Posted by RTK

I'm not convinced Japan and RoK would be on the same page in that scenario.

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And were that the case, what would the US do? Would we feel compelled to act in a conflict between the islands and the peninsula? Which side would we support, if either?

We could probably conduct conventional maneuver warfare across the Korean Peninsula with our current force structure. But how well could we sustain it if we did not have Japan as a forward basing option?
We might be hard pressed to conduct meaningful maneuver operations on the Japanese islands. I think the problems that were foresee for WWII's Operations Downfall, Olympic, and Coronet and that were used to justify the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would come back to haunt us rather quickly.

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Originally Posted by Tacitus

If I was a Chinese general, why would I even attempt to fight a "big war" in such a scenario? Better to follow a Russian strategy to retreat to the vast interior, harassing an invader along the way, threatening his supply lines.

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Rather than offer decisive battle somewhere, they could just start guerilla operations when the first GI steps ashore, and stick with it. If we're having this much trouble keeping a lid on Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi and the rest of these places, can you imagine what it would take for Peking, Shanghai, and the rest of Chinese coastal areas?

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If waging small wars is a tool of the weak against the strong, would China really resort solely to a small war in any conflict with the US? Unless I am mistaken, China sees itself as a major power; if not completely on par with the US then at least close and working to create parity. If this is indeed the case, wouldn't a resort to an insurgent strategy present a completely different picture of China to the world?

Moreover, if this were the strategy, why Cina's increasing interest in force projection (deep water navy, 5th gen fighters, anti-satellite capability, etc.)? Is it possible that China may employ a hydrid war that blends conventional and unconventional tactics and strategy?

Mainland China doesn't need insurgent tactics against heavy forces. It can simply resort to significant quantities of light infantry as it did in the Korean War.
Such troops would be very tough to fight in many Chinese landscapes.
Their setbacks in the 1979 punitive expedition against Vietnam told them that they need a more professional army than before.

Its attempts to gain modern, heavy weaponry and force protection/amphibious capabilities can easily be explained as regional hegemon aspirations. It's the traditional role of China to dominate its neighbours and I believe there's little that can be done about it unless you form formal alliances to counter that.

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Originally Posted by LawVol

If waging small wars is a tool of the weak against the strong, would China really resort solely to a small war in any conflict with the US? Unless I am mistaken, China sees itself as a major power; if not completely on par with the US then at least close and working to create parity. If this is indeed the case, wouldn't a resort to an insurgent strategy present a completely different picture of China to the world?

Moreover, if this were the strategy, why China's increasing interest in force projection (deep water navy, 5th gen fighters, anti-satellite capability, etc.)? Is it possible that China may employ a hydrid war that blends conventional and unconventional tactics and strategy?

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China has alot of options to resist any invader. A Navy to attack supply lines across an ocean, or get in the way of any Normandy style landing.

Look, I'm just saying that they could take a page out of the Russians' play book assuming somebody chose to make a landing on the mainland. They wouldn't need to mirror US forces to come out ahead in such a fight. Retreat inwards, wearing down the invader through a multi-million strong infantry army, organizing guerilla operations in the rear of the invader. Maybe they retreat to a place of their choosing and fight conventionally, as the Russians did at Borodino. Then harass the invader every step of the way back to the coast. An invader might see the whole spectrum from guerilla operations on up. It is merely an option.

Who said guerilla warfare had to be used only by a weak country against a strong one, anyway? You can make your own call on how weak the USSR was on the eve of Operation Barbarossa and afterwards. It certainly got stronger as the war went on in the east. They used a partisan army in the rear to cause trouble, in conjunction with building up large conventional forces in the front. Any Eastern Front experts out there could chime in on how many forces they tied down, but just from looking at maps in books, it seemed to have been a considerable amount that could have been used elsewhere.

But back to the topic, at hand. I have a question. Assuming Iraq is an aberration, and you are preferring instead to focus on conventional war with rising powers like China. What would that change about how the U.S. armed forces looked before we invaded Iraq? How do you plan to organize, outfit, and conduct a war with China, even if is a conventional only fight?

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Originally Posted by Tacitus

But back to the topic, at hand. I have a question. Assuming Iraq is an aberration, and you are preferring instead to focus on conventional war with rising powers like China. What would that change about how the U.S. armed forces looked before we invaded Iraq? How do you plan to organize, outfit, and conduct a war with China, even if is a conventional only fight?

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I am not advocating a focus on conventional war. I do believe that we will continue to face situations that will require COIN skills, including regime change, humanitarian efforts that go awry, etc. However, I do not think we can focus on COIN skills to the exclusion of our conventional advantage.

We have clearly mastered conventional war and I believe we can master COIN as well. However, I sense an undercurrent of doubt when it comes to preparing for a peer competitor in many things I've read. If our enemy (whomever it may be in the future) seeks to capitalize on our weakness, are we doing him a favor by overly focusing on COIN to the detriment of conventional capabilities? Rather than assuming the next war (or some future war rather than the very next one) will be like Iraq, or Korea, or WWII, couldn't it be a blend of the two? And if this scenario is realistic, should we be capable of fighting both types of war simultaneously?

Maybe this line of thinking is way off-track, but I can't help but notice that most of what I read falls into one camp or another. If I'm not making sense, my apologies.

I don't think anyone is saying that we need to focus on small wars to the absolute exclusion of conventional wars. That would be just as folly as our current void in small wars capability. But even the "Iraq is an aberration" crowd has to admit that we are lacking the small wars area and future small wars will happen. Therefore, whether the future brings more small wars or more large wars, we need to be prepared for both, as Merv Benson has pointed out in this thread.

While Barnett and Yingling are both correct, the situation is not as dire as it seems. The Marine Corps is small and adaptable enough to shift its focus to small wars and counterinsurgency and has a storied history in such conflicts, although mostly forgotten until recently. I believe the Marines can take on a greater focus in counterinsurgency without losing too much capability to conduct expeditionary warfare from the sea. In fact, the traditional expeditionary mindset and missions of the Marine Corps lend themselves to a counterinsurgency mission. The Army, meanwhile, can maintain its traditional superiority in conventional land warfare that its size, budget, and technologically-focused mindset are more suited to deal with.