Toward Strategic Landpower

Sigh - one doesn't expect Vom Krieg in the pages of Army magazine. I do find this particular article to be embarrassingly shallow. Do we really know how to fight and win counterinsurgencies ? Do we really even come close to understanding the role of landpower, or any form of military force at all in such situations. If the path to success is a combination of talking and fighting (there are, believe it or not, people within the diplomatic corps who "get it"), who does the talking and who does the fighting ? Reading "The Indispensable Nation" by former Richard Holbrooke aide Vali Nasr should give us a better conception of where we messed up in Afghanistan. Do we really have to wait 20 years for some whipper snapper to write about a "better war" ? Why not have that conversation, like, now ?

Vapid prose full of jargon about the human domain does not convince me that we have a clue how to negotiate with friends and enemies alike, or that the Army has any respect for the intellectual and moral challenges posed by the "human domain". Trust us, we've learned the lessons of the past two wars, so a redo of Duffer's Drift will be a snap next time. What this boils down to as a big fat advertisement for the Green Berets, as if there were a single conflict we could point to that the Special Forces can claim to have "won". In any case, I find the oversimplifications, noble lies and stale myths promulgated in this article an insult to the warfighter's intelligence. Can't we have an honest debate about the nature of future armed conflict without this kind of propagandistic baby talk ?

"When a superpower decides that it must achieve a desired outcome on land (or should we say in the human domain), the commander-in-chief should have the appropriate tools and options ready and able to get the job done." (Emphasis added.)

OK, let's ask what would seem to be the logical question:

What then, generally, generically and historically speaking, has been the outcome that American commanders-in-chief have desired and still desire today?

Let's say that the enduring political objective of American commanders-in-chief -- yesterday and today -- has been and continues to be -- to (1) improve the prospects for American security and prosperity by (2) transforming and incorporating "frontier," "renegade," and "rival" states and societies, for example: American Frontier, American Southerners, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and our Cold War enemies (the former USSR, et. al). (Certain irregular and hybrid threats existing during these conflicts also?)

What were the tools and options that these earlier commanders-in-chief had at their disposal -- that were utilized to "get the job done" (see the paragraph immediately above)?

Do our present commanders-in-chief have these same or similar tools and options available to them today?

If so, would these such tools and options be sufficient to achieve today's transformation and incorporation projects -- re: today's "frontier," "renegade" and "rival" states and societies?

If not, why not, and what new and different tools and options are, therefore, needed?

(The goal of this exercise/inquiry? Not to have to "re-invent the wheel" if it is not necessary.)

This is a reality that the Army does not want to acknowledge. We are building a Maginot Line Army who will have to fight a Blitzkrieg war. It is almost painful to watch.