The U.S. Armed Forces’ View of War - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

Estados Unidos. Armed Forces’ View of War

Brian McAllister Linn

Abstracto: Many military analysts now argue that the challenges of Iraq and Afghanistan have prompt-
ed a paradigm shift within the U.S. armed forces. They believe that techno-centric formulaic concepts of
warfare, such as effects-based operations, have been replaced by more complex, human-centered ap-
se acerca, such as those laid out in the 2007 Counterinsurgency Manual. This essay details the evolution
of U.S. military thought about warfare. It discusses how lessons from the past shaped current policy, el
impact of a technologically inspired Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), and the subsequent convic-
tion that properly equipped U.S. armed forces could rapidly and decisively defeat any and all opponents.
The inability of U.S. forces to achieve national objectives in either Iraq or Afghanistan despite their suc-
cess on the battle½eld has caused war intellectuals to seek new lessons from history, question the existence
of an RMA, and formulate a new vision of war that stresses uncertainty, adaptación, and innovation.

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Despite the continual issuance of buzzwords

emphasizing service unity and harmony–such as
“jointness,” “An Army of One,” or “The Few, el
Proud”–the armed forces’ internal divisions have
been vividly displayed during the last decade. A
number of important books detail the disagree-
ments between civilian and military leaders and
the long struggle to implement the “surge” and the
contrainsurgencia (coin) strategy.1 The wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan have generated a radical
transformation in military thought: eso es, a para-
digm shift from idealized, techno-centric, científico-
ti½c formulas–such as “network-centric warfare”
(ncw) or “effects-based operations” (ebo)–to
more complex, ambiguous, and human-centered
visions of war, which were encapsulated in 2007 por
The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field
Manual.2 This intellectual renaissance has led, ac-
cording to some, to military victory in Iraq and a
path to eventual success in Afghanistan. This inter-
pretation is attractive because it implies that the
A NOSOTROS. armed forces are adaptive, learning organiza-
tions that will develop new concepts to replace
failed ones. But it begs a number of central ques-

BRIAN MCALLISTER LINN is
Professor of History and Ralph R.
Thomas Professor in Liberal Arts at
Texas A&Universidad M. His publi-
cations include Guardians of Em-
pire: The U.S. Army and the Paci½c,
1902–1940 (1997) and The Philip-
pine War, 1899–1902 (2000), ambos
of which received the Society for
Military History Distinguished
Premio Libro, and The Echo of Bat-
tle: The Army’s Way of War (2007).
His current project is Elvis’s Army:
Transformation and the Atomic-Era
Soldier, 1946–1965.

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Estados Unidos.
Armed
Forces’
View of
Guerra

ciones, not least of which is how the armed
forces and their war intellectuals–broad-
ly de½ned in this essay as of½cers who
write on the theory and practice of war
–could have been so wrong about the
nature of warfare going into Iraq and
Afganistán. Answering this larger ques-
tion requires looking beyond the imme-
diate debate over Iraq-Afghanistan to ex-
amine how the U.S. armed forces arrive
at their understanding, or vision, of war-
tarifa, particularly in their use of history
and the role of war intellectuals.

Interpretations of the past, perceptions

of the present military situation, and pre-
dictions for the future combine to shape
the U.S. armed forces’ vision of war. Todo
three variables are the subjects of intense
debate. War intellectuals argue over such
basic questions as whether the preferable
strategy is to employ primarily land, mar,
or air power; to attack the enemy’s phys-
ical resources or his morale; or to pursue
a battle of annihilation or grind away in a
long war of attrition. One Air Force of½-
cer identi½ed no fewer than seventeen
different theories of airpower, noting
that the service had made little effort to
reconcile them.3 In a recent issue of Joint
Forces Quarterly, two articles by Army of½-
cers, “Let’s Win the Wars We’re In” and
“Let’s Build an Army to Win All Wars,"
simultaneously provided commentaries
on Iraq-Afghanistan and engaged in the
latest round of almost two centuries of
intra-service debate.4 Few of these inter-
nal disputes are ever resolved despite re-
current top-down efforts to impose con-
formity through “capstone” and “vision”
statements, doctrina, and other of½cial
pronouncements.5 Perhaps as a result,
American military thought tends to be
cyclical, with concepts (often little more
than buzzwords) being heralded as rev-
olutionary or “transformational,” then
quickly going out of fashion, only to re-

emerge under a new rubric a decade or so
más tarde.

For many war intellectuals, the past is
prologue to the future. But it is a past that
has been carefully edited to display the
correct lessons, most notably the impor-
tance of military preparedness in peace
and military autonomy in wartime. Allá
is a tendency to interpret the nation’s
martial history as a dismal cyclical narra-
tivo, or as one Army general staff de-
scribed it in 1916: “a startling picture of
faulty leadership, needless waste of lives
and property, costly overhead charges . . .
due entirely to a lack of adequate prepa-
ration for war in time of peace. But we
have not yet learned our lesson.”6 The cri-
tique of American society goes far be-
yond civilians’ unwillingness to fund
adequate military budgets. War intellec-
tuals have attributed the nation’s physi-
cal and moral decline to a variety of fac-
tores: immigration and urbanization prior
to World War I; paci½sm in the interwar
período; permissive teachers and parents
after World War II; the media, politi-
cians, academics, and pot-smoking hedo-
nists after Vietnam; y, en años recientes,
the physical, moral, and educational de-
½ciencies that may render 75 percent of
American youth un½t for military ser-
vicio. In many narratives, civilian feckless-
ness is only redeemed by the dedication,
patriotism, courage, and skill of profes-
sional of½cers. Senior commanders’ mem-
oirs often detail the protagonist’s strug-
gle against inept or corrupt political mas-
ters, a tradition spanning more than a cen-
tury, from Civil War General George B.
McClellan, to World War II General Doug-
las MacArthur, to the conqueror of Bagh-
dad, General Tommy Franks.

The armed forces’ ambivalence toward
American society and its political repre-
sentatives has helped shape military in-
tellectuals’ understanding of the present
as well as their perceptions of future war.

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Since the 1820s, military scenarios deal-
ing with foreign attacks have all assumed
that the public would be essentially help-
less to defend itself. In the view of many
war intellectuals, civilians are to set poli-
cy, ensure the armed forces have suf½-
cient resources, and let military leaders
conduct the battles and campaigns that
secure victory. Civilian leaders who vio-
late this division, who dare to disregard
the advice of military professionals–or
worse, interfere in combat operations–
are held in special disdain. One of the ser-
vices’ most bitter historical memories is
that of President Lyndon B. Johnson and
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
micromanaging the war against North
Vietnam, even to the extent of charting
the daily bombing sorties, while the su-
pine commanders in the theater and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff abrogated their mil-
itary responsibilities. General Franks as-
serts that this lesson from Vietnam
taught him to insist on maintaining his
operational independence against polit-
ical and military superiors who sought to
interfere in his conduct of the invasions
of Iraq and Afghanistan.7
History also influences the U.S. armed

forces’ conception of war by providing
examples to support or criticize current
políticas, organizaciones, equipo, o
armas. In the late nineteenth century,
naval of½cer and historian Alfred Thayer
Mahan, who all but invented maritime
historia, interpreted the past as demon-
strating the need for the United States to
acquire global markets and a new steel
battle fleet. Following World War I, cav-
alry advocates looked particularly to the
Civil War for evidence to repudiate those
who said the horse had no place on the
modern battle½eld. Por décadas, Marine
Corps war intellectuals have invoked the
Gallipoli debacle to highlight their own
service’s superior conduct of amphibious

warfare. The authors of a 1989 article on
“fourth-generation warfare” postulated
that war had passed through three suc-
cessive generations and was entering a
new one. Consistent with many other
writings of the 1980s, the article warned
of the threat from guerrillas and terror-
ists but also rhapsodized about futuris-
tic technologies, such as directed-energy
weapons and robotics, which few would
argue have been the decisive factors in
recent insurgencies.8 Drawing on the les-
sons of the past as a means to anticipate
the future, military intellectuals often
claim to be prophets when some of their
predictions are realized.

The dangers of what the services call
“lessons learned” from history are evi-
denced in the use of blitzkrieg. For de-
cades, the term has been synonymous
not only with a type of warfare character-
ized by speed, flanking, encircling move-
mentos, and psychological paralysis of the
opponent, but also with institutional in-
novation and transformation. According
to some American war intellectuals, después
defeat in World War I, Germany learned
the correct lessons and recognized the
opportunities of a “Revolution in Mili-
tary Affairs” (rma) de½ned by new tech-
nológico (tanques, airplanes), new concepts
(in½ltration, maniobra, close air support),
and new organizations (mechanized for-
ces). In contrast, Francia, which had ac-
cess to the same lessons, the same tech-
nológico, and the same concepts, hid be-
hind the Maginot Line. En 1940, Alemania
launched a whirlwind campaign that
shattered France in six weeks, thereby
demonstrating the consequences of the
rma. At this point, the narrative ends;
rarely mentioned are the Wehrmacht’s
failure against the Soviet Union or its
complicity in the Nazi state’s atrocities.
En efecto, the blitzkriegers were, and are,
less interested in history than in prov-
ing that military organizations that seize

brian
McAllister
Linn

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140 (3) Verano 2011

Estados Unidos.
Armed
Forces’
View of
Guerra

the opportunities offered by an rma
achieve victory, and those that do not are
defeated.

This sanitized, didactic, almost mytho-
logical blitzkrieg/rma/transformation
narrative has been interjected into virtu-
ally every military reform debate in the
last four decades, from discussions of Ma-
rine Corps doctrine to which ½ghters the
Air Force should purchase. It has caused
numerous unanticipated consequences,
not least the fact that it may have led some
A NOSOTROS. senior commanders unknowingly to
repeat what historians have identi½ed as
a major mistake in the “German way of
war”: eso es, ½xating on tactics and oper-
ations while failing to consider how indi-
vidually successful battles and campaigns
will achieve the nation’s war aims (o
estrategia).9 This fascination with rapid ma-
neuvers, tactics, and battles was com-
pounded when the blitzkrieg of 1940 era
apparently replayed in the Gulf War of
1990 a 1991. The latter victory led many
to conclude, “[t]oday, and in the future,
armed conflict is expected to be short, de-
cisive, and accompanied with a minimum
of casualties.”10 That assumption, en
doblar, validated the belief that defeating the
enemy’s military forces on the battle½eld
de½ned victory, while everything else–in-
cluding occupation, reconstruction, y
paci½cation–was not in the dominion of
guerra.

In the 1990s, many war intellectuals pos-
tulated that an “information rma” was ei-
ther about to occur or already had. Ellos
pondered its signi½cance in a flood of dif-
fuse and often self-contradictory writing,
some of which now appears prescient,
but much of which, En realidad, was wrong.
Supporters of both ncw (primarily in
the Navy) and ebo (primarily in the Air
Fuerza) came to agree that by networking
the technology of the information age–
computers, sensors, satellites, the Inter-

net, and so on–geographically dispersed
military forces could synchronize their
movements and ½repower, deploy quick-
ly, and just as quickly overwhelm their
opponents. New weapons–stealth bomb-
ers, lasers, and precision-guided muni-
tions–would allow a few aircraft to
achieve effects that previously required
hundreds of aircraft flying thousands of
sorties and dropping several tons of
bombs. In the words of one proponent,
ebo allowed U.S. armed forces to “domi-
nate an adversary’s influence on strate-
gic events” without having to “destroy an
enemy’s ability to act.” Further, overtak-
ing its “operational level systems” would
induce systemic paralysis and force the
enemy to “acquiesce to the will of the con-
trolling force or face ever increasing de-
grees of loss of control.”11

Supporters of this “new American way
of war” alleged that rapid blows on care-
fully selected centers of gravity would
create cascading effects, leading to psy-
chological paralysis and loss of control;
collapsing the will of military and politi-
cal leaders; and resulting in a quick and
bloodless victory. They even claimed the
ability to predict the increments of vio-
lence that would achieve certain results.
Yet for all their claims of being “outside
the box” visionaries and futurists, el
ebo/ncw prophets were, in retrospect,
remarkably unimaginative in forecast-
ing the consequences of their counsel.
En efecto, the central fallacy of the ebo/
ncw vision of war–that U.S. war objec-
tives would be restricted to destroying
the armed forces of a centralized nation-
state–is readily apparent. Its advocates
only considered “effects” in the most im-
mediate military terms. They did not pon-
der the intermediate and long-term im-
pacts of “loss of control” in states that
were coercive theocracies, dictatorships,
or fragile tribal alliances–the very “failed
states” the national security strategy con-

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sistently identi½ed as the most likely areas
of conflict. Nor did they foresee the con-
sequence of creating, under the mantra of
“jointness,” U.S. armed forces that were
organizado, equipado, and trained only for
rapid, decisive operations. Most reprehen-
sible, they did not consider that if ebo/
ncw failed to deliver as promised, el
most likely result would be the very long,
bloody, frustrating attritional struggles
they claimed their approach would avoid.
En breve, ebo/ncw were tactics in search
of a strategy.

Desafortunadamente, ideological imperatives,
such as imperialism, neoconservatism,
and even apocalypticism, too often ½lled
this strategic vacuum.12 For instance, mil-
itary strategist Thomas Barnett, who as-
sisted Admiral Arthur Cebrowski in the
development of ncw, maintained that
Cebrowski’s “vision was a fundamentally
American way of war, one that promised
not just better wars, and not just shorter
guerras, but perhaps the end of war itself.”
Barnett envisioned ncw as providing
more than an ef½cient means to kill ene-
mies; he further explained: “I wanted to
see it used to short-circuit wars and war-
fare in general. I want wars to be obsolete
because America becomes so powerful
that no one is willing to take it on, y por lo tanto
America is willing to take on anyone–a
self-reinforcing deterrence.”13 In anoth-
er example, commentator William Lind
claims that his earlier writings on fourth-
generation warfare anticipated a clash of
cultures between the West and the rest of
el mundo. In his view, Islamic radicals are
perhaps less dangerous than domestic
“cultural radicals . . . who hate our Judeo-
Christian culture” and promote “multi-
culturalism.” He predicts that “the next
real war we ½ght is likely to be on Ameri-
can soil.”14 According to these perspec-
tives, military transformation was (y
perhaps still is) less a plan for reforming
the services than either a means to achieve

American global hegemony or the West’s
last hope for survival.

En 1998, the operational (and perhaps

ideological) rationale for military trans-
formation received of½cial sanction in the
Department of Defense’s blueprint for the
future, Vision 2010. The document states:
“Today, the world is in the midst of an
rma sparked by leap-ahead advances in
information technologies. . . . [El] advent
of the rma provides the Department
with a unique opportunity to transform
the way in which it conducts the full
range of military operations” by using
“information superiority” to “leverage”
the “capabilities” of other technologies
and assert “dominant awareness of the
battlespace.”15 Vision 2010 assumed that
Estados Unidos. armed forces’ superior access to
information would disperse nineteenth-
century theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s
“fog of war.” Information superiority
would allow commanders at all levels–
from the four-star general at his desk in
Tampa, to the infantry captain on the
battle½eld, to the pilot in his stealth
bomber–to have “perfect real-time situ-
ational knowledge.” By exploiting the po-
tential of experimental technology, uno
cannon could achieve tactical results that
previously required hundreds of shells,
thus allowing the United States to use
far smaller forces, which in turn would
allow far more rapid movement at all lev-
los. Idealmente, each bomb or shell not only
resolved a speci½c operational task (semejante
as the destruction of an enemy tank), pero
also contributed to a cumulative series of
“effects.” In short order, these “massed
effects” would both physically and psy-
chologically shatter (or shock and awe)
the enemy’s command and control orga-
nization.

For America’s opponents, Vision 2010
promised only rapid and decisive defeat.
Even before the battle began, their com-

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Linn

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140 (3) Verano 2011

Estados Unidos.
Armed
Forces’
View of
Guerra

munications would be jammed and their
access to accurate information disrupted.
Precision attacks on command centers
would cause further confusion and delay,
so that even if an enemy commander were
able to issue orders to subordinates, those
instructions would have little relevance
to the situation. Deprived of its guiding
cerebro, the enemy army would be unable
to coordinate its own ½repower or maneu-
ver forces effectively. Even if its troops
survived and its equipment escaped de-
estructura, the army would be little more
than an armed mob incapable of coher-
ent resistance. Unable to control its mili-
tary forces, the enemy government would
lose its will and submit to American dic-
tates. In short, victory on the battle½eld
or in the air campaign alone was suf½-
cient to secure U.S. national objectives.

For America’s armed forces, and espe-
cially its senior leadership, Vision 2010’s
implications were initially intoxicating
yet ultimately stupefying. Proponents
boasted that commanders would have
real-time battle space awareness to track
both their own and enemy forces, recog-
nize threats and opportunities, commu-
nicate their decisions, and have them
executed instantly. But precisely because
all future wars would be short and deci-
sive–with success measured entirely in
the destruction of enemy military forces–
the services placed little value on strate-
gic thinkers. Of½cers skilled at anticipat-
ing long-term implications and conse-
quences were unnecessary for wars that
would last a few weeks and had only one
objetivo. En cambio, the services selected
and promoted of½cers who were skilled
at managing the complicated control sys-
tems of ebo/ncw: commanders who
de½ned themselves as “operators.” Epit-
omized by Tommy Franks, such of½cers
proved adept at assembling matrices to
destroy enemy military forces but were
intellectually unprepared to deal with the

unforeseen consequences of battle½eld
victory.

Historians will continue to debate the
degree to which the U.S. armed forces’
embrace of high-tech warfare, aplicado
with scienti½c precision, and rapid, de-
cisive, and almost casualty-free victory
contributed to two interminable, indeci-
sive wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghani-
estan. Within the war intellectual commu-
nity, there is little consensus. Some remain
convinced that their prewar concepts and
technologies were sound; they blame pol-
iticians (particularly Donald Rumsfeld)
and the media. Others believe that al-
though ebo/ncw was fundamentally
flawed, innovative and adaptive leaders
fought against the rma/Rumsfeld “es-
tablishment,” reinvented counterinsur-
gency, and gave the United States the
means to victory in the war on terror. En
keeping with a long tradition of Ameri-
can military historiography–most clear-
ly seen in treatments of Korea and Viet-
nam–however much they differ on de-
tails, both interpretations exculpate the
armed forces and throw the burden of
victory or defeat on the will of the Amer-
ican public and its political leaders.

Have the conflicts in Iraq and Afghan-

istan changed the armed forces’ percep-
tion of war? The document credited with
breaking the rma stranglehold on mil-
itary thought, and perhaps providing a
path to victory in Iraq and Afghanistan,
is The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterin-
surgency Field Manual of 2007. A project
directed by General David H. Petraeus
and current U.S. Marine Corps Comman-
dant James F. Amos, the manual is in many
ways an anti-doctrine. It even includes
such “paradoxes” as “sometimes doing
nothing is the best action,” and “some-
times the more you protect your force,
the less secure you will be.”16 In contrast
to doctrines of the 1990s–which empha-

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sized technology and treated opponents
as passive recipients of U.S. dominance
–the Counterinsurgency Field Manual in-
cludes an extensive and respectful analy-
sis of the nature of insurgencies: who leads
and who participates, how they are sus-
tained, how they use intelligence and me-
es, and what their capacity is to adapt
and innovate. This complex and flexible
approach to warfare appears throughout
the manual. The chapter on intelligence
discusses culture, another covers leader-
ship and ethics, and detailed appendices
provide information on social network-
ing and legal guidance. No es sorprendente,
both military of½cers and civilians have
termed this doctrine revolutionary.

The two services most affected by the
manual have taken different approaches to
the lessons learned from Iraq and Afghan-
istan. The Marine Corps asserts that it has
always engaged in counterinsurgency and
stability operations–and has done so
better than anyone. To add historical justi-
½cation, Marine intellectuals note that in
the 1990s, when the other services were
leaping onto the rma/ebo/ncw band-
wagon, Commandant Charles Krulak pos-
tulated that the future would be charac-
terized by the “three-block war”–a sce-
nario in which military forces would have
to deal with a spectrum of challenges si-
multaneously, ranging from convention-
al war to humanitarian aid. The Marines’
two-decade-old capstone statement, Guerra-
½ghting, is unique both for its longevity and
because it presents a theory of war that
emphasizes combat as merely a means to
a political end; en efecto, it maintains that
the application of violence must be con-
sonant with strategic objectives.17 Given
the Marine Corps’ conceptual foundation,
the freedom of inquiry at such elite pro-
grams as the School of Advanced War-
½ghting, and the willingness to empower
its commanders at all levels–what Kru-
lak termed “the strategic corporal”–the

Corps was (and is) far better positioned,
at least intellectually, to adapt and inno-
vate in response to the challenges of the
post–Cold War security environment. Para
the Marines, the challenge in Iraq and Af-
ghanistan is in the execution of a war½ght-
ing philosophy they believe is inherently
sound.

Estados Unidos. Army has been the service most

influenced by the experiences of Iraq and
Afganistán. This was not the case at the
beginning, when the ½rst Army “histor-
ic” team to reach Iraq after the fall of
Baghdad reportedly asked participants
only one question: “What was your role
in the greatest military victory ever
won?” But the collapse of Iraq into chaos,
the criticism directed at General Franks
and General Ricardo Sanchez, the scan-
dals of Abu Ghraib, and other irrefutable
evidence led many Army of½cers to ac-
knowledge just how poorly their service
had trained for operations beyond the
battle½eld.

The resulting transformation in the
Army’s vision of war goes far beyond the
counterinsurgency manual. The service’s
2008 capstone combat doctrine, FM 3: Op-
erations, repudiates many of the central
ideas of its 1993 predecessor, FM 100-5:
Operaciones. El 1993 operational manual
was evolutionary, emphasizing its connec-
tion with earlier operational doctrines
eso (from the Army’s perspective) had
led to victory in the Cold War and the
Gulf War. In the context of war intellectu-
al tradition, FM 100-5 was Jominian, estafa-
flating the methods of war–particular-
ly the preparation and conduct of cam-
paigns (or operations)–with war itself.
Like its predecessors, the doctrine aimed
to achieve a “quick, decisive victory on
and off the battle½eld anywhere in the
world”18; it assumed that “modern war-
fare” consisted of large-unit convention-
al combat between nation-states; and it

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140 (3) Verano 2011

Estados Unidos.
Armed
Forces’
View of
Guerra

used battle and victory almost synonymous-
ly with war. The few exceptions to the
1993 manual’s intense battle½eld focus–
such as the comment that “military forc-
es must be prepared to support strategic
objectives after the termination of hostil-
ities” and the few sentences devoted to
counterinsurgency and peacekeeping–
provided little preparation for Somalia,
much less Iraq.19

FM 3 es, in its own words, “a revolution-
ary departure from past doctrine,” a set
of guidelines intended for a volatile era of
“protracted confrontation among states,
non-states, and individual actors increas-
ingly willing to use violence to achieve
their political and ideological ends.”20
The manual is consciously Clausewitzian,
not only in its numerous quotations from
On War, but also in its inclusion of sec-
tions on “uncertainty, chance, and fric-
tion” and its admonitions that of½cers
must understand the nature of the war
they are ½ghting. Whereas the 1993 doc-
trine was predicated on teaching of½cers
essential skills to master complex tech-
nología, el 2008 doctrine emphasizes
“how to think–not what to think” be-
cause doctrine must be “consistent with
human nature and broad enough to pro-
vide a guide for unexpected situations.”21
Almost heretically, it states, “[W.]inning
battles and engagements is important but
alone is not suf½cient. Shaping the civil sit-
uation is just as important to success.”22
Providing further evidence of the
Army’s transformation, The Army Capstone
Concept of 2009 dismisses many previ-
ously held convictions–for example, el
inevitability of the rma, the potential of
“leap ahead” technology, and the ideal of
“full-spectrum dominance”–as no more
than “labels.” Equally revealing, mientras
prewar vision statements portrayed mil-
itary opponents as hapless victims of
American might, the Capstone Concept
cites numerous recent examples to illus-

trate their adaptability, dedication, y
eficacia. To defeat them, the Army
must create military leaders who have a
“tolerance for ambiguity, and possess the
ability and willingness to make rapid ad-
justments according to the situation.”23
The recently released Joint Operating En-
vironment 2010 (JOE 2010) shows evidence
of both the transformation and the con-
gruence of Army-Marine Corps thought.
Its prewar predecessor was essentially an
engineering manual for the next decades,
a self-described “conceptual template . . .
to leverage technological opportunities
to achieve new levels of effectiveness in
joint war½ghting” and to allow the U.S.
armed forces to achieve “dominance,"
which was an end unto itself.24 JOE 2010
rejects such determinism; en efecto, one of
its goals is “guarding against any single
preclusive view of future war.”25 Where-
as the prewar vision statement focused
on future weaponry, JOE 2010 begins with
an extensive, rich examination of both the
nature of war and the nature of change.
And whereas the prewar joint vision was
relentlessly optimistic about the capabil-
ity of the U.S. armed forces to dominate
any opponent, JOE 2010 warns: “No one
should harbor the illusion that the devel-
oped world can win this conflict in the
near future. As is true with most insur-
gencies, victory will not appear decisive
or complete. It will certainly not rest on
military successes. The treatment of po-
litical, social, and economic ills can help,
but in the end will not be decisive.”26
Although the last decade of unconven-

tional warfare had the most influence on
the Marine Corps and the Army, hay
considerable internal resistance to both
counterinsurgency as a mission and to the
methods prescribed in the Counterinsur-
gency Field Manual. War intellectual Gian
Gentile is among the more vocal critics,
arguing that the guidebook draws too

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heavily from the Iraq and Afghanistan ex-
amples, and that many of its proponents
repeat the conceptual errors they attrib-
ute to conventional warfare advocates.27
Even among those who believe that the
armed forces ½nally have the concepts
and means to pacify Iraq and Afghan-
istan, there are those who believe that
neither the United States nor its armed
forces can afford such pyrrhic victories.
More discouraging yet, throughout the
Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts the Army se-
nior leadership has insisted that the ser-
vice’s future is bound to its prewar, rma-
influenced transformation agenda, a Fu-
ture Combat System that seems ideally
designed to re½ght the Gulf War of 1990.
The Air Force and Navy visions of war
have been even less changed by Iraq and
Afganistán. Though adamant that their
contributions to the current conflicts be
acknowledged, they remain committed to
their prewar concepts. Central to both ser-
vices is the same assumption held in the
1990s: eso es, if they achieve the means
(capacidades), then the ends (estrategia) will
sort themselves out. From this assump-
ción, both services look ½rst to technol-
ogia, then to concepts that will allow its
application. Recent Navy vision state-
ments emphasize sea power’s ability to
deter conflict, to control the littorals, a
support expeditions, to protect the home-
land, and to adapt to a variety of threats.28
The foreword to the U.S. Air Force’s 2003
basic doctrine acknowledges the danger
posed by asymmetric adversaries who
threaten the nation with weapons of mass
destruction, terrorism, and information
attacks. But for the most part, it reiterates
earlier concepts, such as ebo and preci-
sion strike, viewing the experiences of Iraq
and Afghanistan as further vindication of
these approaches. While the doctrine rec-
ognizes the importance of cooperation, él
still maintains “the new view of conflict”
in which “the prompt continued, aggres-

sive application of airpower” can win wars
without a land campaign. This statement,
like the assertion that airpower changes
the character of the “American way of
guerra,” dates back to one of the earliest pro-
ponents of airpower, General Billy Mitch-
ell.29 One senior Air Force of½cer who has
engaged in counterinsurgency debate, Mamá-
jor General Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., views the
Army-Marine counterinsurgency manual
as flawed by its “infatuation with the in-
dividual soldier, an af½nity for the close
½ght, skepticism toward new technolo-
gy, and an over-reliance on historical case
studies.”30 Dunlap maintains that prewar
conceptos, particularly information rma
and Air Force doctrine, proved themselves
in Iraq; de este modo, he criticizes his service for
failing either to articulate its own contri-
bution to the current conflicts or to con-
front the intellectual challenge of insur-
gency.

It is too soon to determine whether this

last decade of persistent conflict will
result in a major transformation in the
armed forces’ vision of war. Perhaps the
current interest in counterinsurgency is
no more than an intellectual re-booting
prompted by the insurgencies/civil wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this respect, él
is well worth remembering that the ini-
tial campaigns in both countries were
hailed as proving both the rma and
ebo/ncw. They are now cited as proof
of the fallacies in these visions–in some
cases by the same pundits.31 The last de-
cade has shown that the armed forces’
vision of war matters, and that war intel-
lectuals have more impact, and deserve
far more study, than they have received.
The major questions and the most sig-
ni½cant critiques emerging from Iraq and
Afghanistan are not about the U.S. armed
forces’ equipment, training, or ability to
adapt at the tactical level. Bastante, ellos son
directed at the intellectual competence of

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140 (3) Verano 2011

Estados Unidos.
Armed
Forces’
View of
Guerra

the of½cer corps, particularly the senior
leadership–namely, its critical thinking
habilidades, its grasp of strategy, and its ability
to adapt and innovate. Por ejemplo, why
did it take so long for these experts to
understand that the war they were ½ght-
ing was not the war they had prepared to
½ght? Beyond the speci½c issues raised
by the Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts lies a
host of more general questions. Is mili-
tary transformation a result of new ideas
or new technology? Are “big ideas” such
as the rma, transformación, or fourth-
generation warfare important concepts,

or do they provide dangerously simplistic
interpretations of recent changes in war-
tarifa? Is there an American way of war
that predisposes the nation and its armed
forces to certain strategies or methods?
Are the services capable of learning from
errores? How will of½cers assimilate the
lessons of the past decade into their new
visions of war? What form will new chal-
lenges to the national interest take? Bear-
ing these uncertainties in mind, the role
of war intellectuals is central to under-
standing the past, present, and future of
the armed forces.

notas finales

1 David Cloud and Greg Jaffe, The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future
of the U.S. Ejército (Nueva York: Three Rivers Press, 2009); Tomas E.. Ricks, Fiasco: The Amer-
ican Military Adventure in Iraq (Nueva York: Pingüino, 2006); Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble:
General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008 (Nueva York:
Pingüino, 2009); Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search
for a Way Out in Iraq (Nueva York: Asuntos Públicos, 2008). For an overview of the development
of post-Vietnam U.S. concepts of war, see Fred Kagan, Finding the Target: The Transformation
of American Military Policy (Nueva York: Encounter Books, 2006). I thank Gian Gentile, Bryon
Greenwald, and Richard Muller for their insight on the service perspectives and the current
defense debate.
2 David A. Deptula, Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare (Arlington, Va.:
Aerospace Education Foundation, 2001); James N. Mattis, “usjfcom Commander’s Guid-
ance on Effects-based Operations,” Joint Forces Quarterly 51 (2008): 105–108; Edward A.
Herrero, Effects Based Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare in Peace, Crisis, and War
(Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: dod Command and Control Research Program, 2002); David H.
Petraeus and James F. Amos, The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual
(chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
3 James M. Herrero, “Air Force Culture and Cohesion,” Airpower Journal (Caer 1998): 40–53;
William C. tomás, “The Cultural Identity of the United States Air Force,” Air & Space Power
Diario (Enero 2004), http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/thomas.html (ac-
cessed October 14, 2010); Peter Faber, “Competing Theories of Airpower: A Language for
Análisis,” Aerospace Power Chronicles, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/au/faber.htm
(accessed October 14, 2010). For further information on airpower and military thought, ver
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-thry.htm.
4 John Nagl, “Let’s Win the Wars We’re In,” Joint Forces Quarterly 52 (Enero 2009): 20–26;
Gian Gentile, “Let’s Build an Army to Win All Wars,” Joint Forces Quarterly 52 (Enero
2009): 27–33.
5 Peter M. Swartz with Karin Duggan, A NOSOTROS. Navy Capstone Strategies and Concepts (1970–2009)
(Alejandría, Va.: Center of Naval Analysis, Febrero 2009), http://www.cna.org/documents/
D0019819.A1.pdf.
6 “A Proper Military Policy for the United States,” Journal of the Military Service Institute 59
(July–August 1916): 29.

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7 Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier (Nueva York: Regan Books, 2004),
441. Brian McAllister Linn, The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War (Cambridge, Masa.:
Prensa de la Universidad de Harvard, 2007), 79–80, 109–110, 236–237; Peter Maslowski, “Army Val-
ues and American Values,” Military Review 70 (Abril 1990): 10–23; h. R. McMaster, Derelic-
tion of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to
Vietnam (Nueva York: harpercollins, 1997).

8 William S. Lind, Keith Nightingale, John F. Schmidt, Joseph W. suton, and Gary I. wilson,
“The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation,” Marine Corps Gazette, Octubre
1989, 22–26, http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/lind/the-changing-face-of-war-into-the
-fourth-generation.html (accessed November 13, 2010); Antulio J. Echevarria II, Fourth-Gen-
eration War and Other Myths (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, 2005); William F.
Owen, “The War of New Words: Why Military History Trumps Buzzwords,” Armed Forces
Diario (Noviembre 2009): 34–35.
9 Roberto M.. Citino, The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich (Law-
rence: University Press of Kansas, 2005); Echevarria, Fourth-Generation War and Other Myths,
14-dieciséis; Rolf Hobson, “Blitzkrieg, the Revolution in Military Affairs and Defense Intellectu-
como,” Revista de Estudios Estratégicos 33 (Agosto 2010): 625–643.

10 Deptula, Effects-Based Operations, Foreword.
11 Ibídem., 5–6.
12 For a provocative interpretation of this confluence of military reformers, militarism, and im-
perialism, see Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced
by War (Nueva York: prensa de la Universidad de Oxford, 2005).

13 Thomas P. METRO. barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century (Nuevo
york: GRAMO. PAG. Putnam’s Sons, 2004), 328. Arthur K. Cebrowski and John H. Garska, “Network-
Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” Proceedings (Enero 1998), http://www.kinection
.com/ncoic/ncw_origin_future.pdf.

14 William S. Lind, “Fourth-Generation Warfare: Another Look,” Marine Corps Gazette, Novem-
ber 2001, http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/fourth-generation-warfare-another-look.
15 Secretary of Defense William S. cohen, Annual Report to the President and the Congress (1998),
cap. 13, “The Revolution in Military Affairs and Joint Vision 2010,” http://www.dod.gov/
execsec/adr98/index.html (consultado en septiembre 23, 2010).

16 Petraeus and Amos, Estados Unidos. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, 48–49.
17 A NOSOTROS. Marine Corps, War½ghting (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Department of the Navy Headquarters,

1989).

18 Department of the Army, FM 100-5: Operaciones (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Department of the Army
Headquarters, Junio 14, 1993), Preface. Antoine-Henri Jomini was a nineteenth-century mili-
tary historian and strategist who has been criticized for his allegedly geometric approach to
warfare.

19 Ibídem., 1–4. For the treatment of counterinsurgency, see 13–18.
20 Department of the Army, FM 3: Operaciones (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Department of the Army

Headquarters, Febrero 27, 2008), Foreword.

21 Ibídem., D-1.
22 Ibídem., Introducción.
23 A NOSOTROS. Army Training and Doctrine Command, The Army Capstone Concept: Operational Adapt-
capacidad: Operating Under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict,
2016–2028, TRADOC Pam 525-3-0 (Fort Monroe, Va.: Department of the Army Headquar-
ters, December 21, 2009).

24 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Vision 2010 (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995).

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140 (3) Verano 2011

Estados Unidos.
Armed
Forces’
View of
Guerra

25 General James N. Mattis, "Prefacio,” in U.S. Joint Forces Command, Joint Operating Envi-

ambiente 2010 (Norfolk, Va.: usjfcom, Febrero 18, 2010).
26 A NOSOTROS. Joint Forces Command, Joint Operating Environment 2010, 53.
27 Gian Gentile, “A Strategy of Tactics,” Parameters (Agosto 2009): 5–17.
28 A NOSOTROS. Marina de guerra, A NOSOTROS. Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard, Naval Operations Concept 2010: Imple-
menting the Maritime Strategy (2010); A NOSOTROS. Marina de guerra, A NOSOTROS. Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard,
A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (2007); Swartz with Duggan, A NOSOTROS. Navy Cap-
stone Strategies and Concepts, slides 1481–1484.

29 A NOSOTROS. Air Force, Air Force Basic Doctrine (Noviembre 17, 2003), 17; A NOSOTROS. Air Force, Estados Unidos. Air

Force Transformation Flight Plan (2003).

30 Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Shortchanging the Joint Fight? An Airman’s Assessment of FM 3-24 y el
Case of Developing Truly Joint COIN Doctrine (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Airpower Research
Instituto, 2008), 18.

31 Max Boot, “The New American Way of War,” Foreign Affairs 82 (July–August 2003): 41–58.

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