Epic Landpower Fail: Lack of Strategic Understanding by Matt Cavanaugh, War Council
The US Army will not be very successful in the coming operating environment unless it develops a sense of strategic understanding in its officers (and senior noncommissioned officers). For the purposes of this essay, strategic understanding is defined here as: awareness, comprehension, and ability to communicate broad purpose for the use of force and the relationship between tactical action and national policy. Trends tell us two things that demand this characteristic: first, landpower is inherently attributional; second, the Regionally Aligned Forces model ensures that the American Army will go to more places, faster, in smaller numbers, than ever before. Inadequately preparing for these landpower trends will lead to both institutional and individual epic fail…
But the organization need not worry for the sake of one sarcastic, expensive flavored-coffee drinking lieutenant. This is bigger: the US Army will not be very successful in the coming operating environment unless it develops leaders with a sense of strategic understanding - both RAF and the ability to conduct sustained landpower missions are at stake.
Comments
Despite having an individual opinion, I am not certain what specifically is meant by the phrase the army's "ability to conduct sustained land power missions are at stake."
If it is directed at the Army being able to conduct protracted occupations of a hostile country, that era has come and gone -- at least for some decades into the future, and arguing for it will politically ensure the army is shrunk to a point where it is unable to conduct such operations.
If it is meant to insure the Army is able to conduct sustained operations such as their successful effort in the First Gulf War, than they have the possibility of being able to re-develop such an organization and the logistical infrastructure needed for conventional operations, should it be politically astute enough to so argue for itself. Should the Army's brass and officers collectively continue to take a pro-intervention / protracted war of occupation stance, one can rest assured the goal of sustaining those type operations (using whatever acronyms) will not be met -- at least during this Presidential Administration.