Strategy Discussions

I wanted to footnote this strategy post just for future reference. Some good stuff below, but first, words of wisdom from Dr. Strangelove.

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No, I don't think I do, sir, no.
General Jack D. Ripper: He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Andrew Krepinevich, The Project on National Security Reform: Challenges and Requirements

As the PNSR report notes, the barriers to developing and executing sound national security strategy are many, and they are formidable. An argument can be made that the United States Government not only has lost the ability to do strategy well, but that many senior officials do not understand what strategy is. Despite these barriers, the benefits of crafting good strategies are so great—and the potential risks posed by ignoring strategy so deleterious—that they merit a strong push by senior U.S. national security decision-makers, the president above all, to overcome them. Although this recommendation is modest when compared to the PNSR’s comprehensive approach, it has the advantage of being relatively easy to accomplish, if the president wants to move in this direction. Revitalizing strategic planning at the highest levels of the government with a contemporary version of President Eisenhower’s NSC, to include the Planning and Operations Coordination Boards, could be an important first step toward achieving the laudable goals set forth by the PNSR.

John Robb, Threats to US Security in the early 21st Century, testimony to the HASC

We need to get better at thinking about military theory. Military theory is rapidly evolving due to globalization. It’s amazing to me that the structures and organizations tasked with this role don’t provide this. We are likely in the same situation as we were prior to WW2, where innovative thinking by JFC Fuller and Liddell Hart on armored warfare didn’t find a home in allied militaries, but was read feverishly by innovators in the German army like Guderian and Manstein. Unfortunately, in the current environment, most of the best thinking on military theory is now only tangentially associated with the DoD (worse, it’s done, as in my situation, on a part time basis).

Andrew Krepinevich, The Future of US Ground Troops, testimony to the SASC

The Army has understandably felt compelled to pursue the “full-spectrum” approach owing to the need to cover a range of missions within the limitations on its size imposed by fiscal constraints and its all-volunteer character. Yet even if this approach were viable, the Army remains too small for larger irregular warfare contingencies, let alone those that occur simultaneously.

Fortunately, the authors of the U.S. defense strategy have wisely chosen to address the gap between the scale of the challenges confronting the nation and the forces available to address them by focusing on building up the military capabilities of threatened states, and of America’s allies and partners. The Army must give greater attention to supporting this strategy, especially with regard to stability operations, as the best means of addressing the challenge of preparing to conduct operations at high levels of effectiveness across the conflict spectrum.

The Army has specialized forces. It will need more.

Prof Tom Fedyszyn, Naval War College, A New Obama Maritime Strategy?

That is all for now.