This book argues that the US Army has made four significant shifts in the content of its capstone operations doctrine along a spectrum of war since the end of WWII: 1) in 1954 it made a shift from a doctrine focused almost exclusively on mid-intensity conventional warfare to a doctrine that added significant emphasis to high-intensity nuclear warfare; 2) in 1962 it made an even greater shift in the opposite direction toward low-intensity unconventional warfare doctrine; 3) in 1976 it shifted back to an almost exclusive focus on mid-intensity conventional warfare content; 4) and this is where Army doctrine remained for 32 years until 2008, when it made a doctrinal shift back toward low-intensity unconventional warfare – five and seven years into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively.Closely tracking each of these shifts, the author zooms in on specific domestic, international and bureaucratic politics that had a direct impact on these shifts.
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D. C. RasmussenUnited States Army Doctrinehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52132-5_1
Begin Abstract
1. Introduction
David C. Rasmussen1
(1)
US Army Garrison, Installation Management Command, West Point, NY, USA
David C. Rasmussen
Abstract
Defines military doctrine, describes changes in Army doctrine from 1942 to 2008, establishes theoretical framework, reviews existing scholarly literature on military doctrine, establishes main and alternative arguments, and outlines remaining chapters.
Keywords
Army doctrineMilitary doctrineUnconventional warfareConventional warfareNuclear warfare
End Abstract
The US Army [hereafter Army] made four significant shifts in the content of its operations doctrine along a spectrum of war since the end of WWII: (1) in 1954 it made a shift from a doctrine focused almost exclusively on mid-intensity conventional warfare to a doctrine that added significant emphasis to high-intensity nuclear warfare; (2) in 1962 it made an even greater shift in the opposite direction toward low-intensity unconventional warfare doctrine; (3) in 1976 it shifted back to an almost exclusive focus on mid-intensity conventional warfare content, discarding almost all low and high-intensity content; (4) and this is where Army doctrine remained for 32 years until 2008, when it made a doctrinal shift again toward low-intensity unconventional warfare five and seven years into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively.
What explains these four shifts in doctrinal content along a spectrum of war? The first three were made within a 22-year period—all during the Cold War, but during periods of relative peace. The first occurred after the Korean War, and the second and third shifts occurred three years before and after the Vietnam War respectively. The fourth shift along the spectrum was not made for another 32 years—a full 17 years after the end of the Cold War, and during two simultaneous wars. So how and why did the Army make these doctrinal shifts when it did? This introductory chapter lays the groundwork for that answer, explains what military doctrine is and why it is important, and provides explanations for understanding as used in my four subsequent case study chapters.
Military Doctrine
Military doctrine is the central idea, collective body of thought, and belief system of a military organization or branch of service (Alger 1985; Jackson 2013; Romjue 1997). It is used to guide the organizing and equipping of military units and to employ them to accomplish military missions (Avant 1993; Farrell and Terriff 2002; Heller and Stofft 1986; Kretchik 2011; Posen 1984; Spiller 1997; Zisk 1993). Doctrine is authoritative. It is published by military headquarters to subordinate commands and branches (Johnston 2000). It is used to train and educate soldiers, leaders, and commanders at all levels about these central ideas, collective bodies of thought, belief systems, organization, equipment, and how to best accomplish military missions (Hoiback 2011).
The US military defines doctrine as the “fundamental principles by which military forces or elements thereof guide actions in support of national objectives” (US Department of Defense 2016, 71). Fundamental principles define the type and nature of war or wars that a military organization prepares for and how it will fight those wars. Fundamental principles about the nature of war and how to fight as well as national objectives are subject to change, and military organizations update doctrine periodically to reflect those changes. British military historian J.F.C Fuller captured this changing nature of military doctrine well when defining it as, “the central idea that at a given time, as affected by strategic circumstances, actuates an Army” (Romjue 1984, 6).
The type and nature of war described in post-WWII US military doctrine varies along a continuum or spectrum of war: from low-intensity unconventional to mid-intensity conventional to high-intensity nuclear warfare (Fig. 1.1) (Dupuy et al. 2003, 65–66). Low-intensity unconventional warfare is armed conflict involving state-sponsored and non-state military forces organized and trained in an irregular and inconsistent manner equipped with mixed assortments of old and new weapons—mostly of small and minimally destructive capacity (e.g., rifles and machine guns, and other man-portable or light truck-mounted weapons such as rocket propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns). The intensity of unconventional warfare involving conflict with irregular forces is low when compared to the other levels of warfare along the spectrum (Dupuy et al. 2003, 254; Hasler 2011, 16–17; House 2008, 28; Van Creveld 1991, 18–32).
Fig. 1.1
Spectrum of warfare described in post-WWII US military doctrine
(Source Dupuy, Trevor, et al. 2003. Dictionary of Military Terms: A Guide to the Language of Warfare and Military Institutions. 2nd ed. New York, NY: The H.W. Wilson Company)
Mid-intensity conventional warfare is armed conflict involving state-sponsored forces that are organized, trained, and equipped in a regular and consistent manner with the latest warfare conventions and equipped with the most destructive non-nuclear weapons available. The intensity of warfare involving conflict with conventional forces is greater than that of conflict with unconventional forces but is less than that involving the use of nuclear weapons (House 2008, 25–28; Van Creveld 1991, 10–18).
High-intensity nuclear warfare is armed conflict involving state-sponsored forces that are organized, trained, and equipped with nuclear weapons. The intensity of conflict involving the use of nuclear weapons is the highest and most destructive level of warfare along the spectrum of war (Van Creveld 1991, 2–10).
Army Doctrine 1942–2008
The US Army is a doctrine-based organization. Doctrinal concepts inform how it is funded, manned, organized, equipped, trained, and ultimately, how it prepares for and operates during wartime to achieve national objectives (Romjue 1997). Because so much is at stake surrounding Army doctrine—it matters. Doctrine informs how $ billions get spent in annual taxpayer dollars, affects choices about who is drafted or recruited, leads to decisions about which weapons contracts get awarded, and who gets manufacturing jobs.
Doctrine is often cited as a source of both Army successes and of its failures in wartime. Critics of the Army’s performance in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973 point to faulty doctrine as one reason the US did not accomplish its political objectives there. Wrong doctrine led to wrong organization, wrong equipment, and the wrong training for that conflict (Avant 1993; Krepinevich 1986). In contrast, military leaders and defense scholars often point to the Army’s AirLand battle doctrine of the mid-1980s as a leading cause of US success in the Persian Gulf War (Scales 1993).
The Army is the primary land component of the US military. Its mission is to “fight and win the Nation’s wars through prompt and sustained land combat….” (US Army 2012, 1–8; US Department of Defense 2010; US Government 2016). Army doctrine prescribes the central idea and fundamental principles that guide the accomplishment of this mission. Like other US military doctrine, it includes a description of the type and level of war or wars the Army expects to fight: low-intensity unconventional wars, mid-intensity conventional wars, or high-intensity nuclear wars.
Army doctrine is hierarchical. The Army refers to the doctrine that sits at the top of its hierarchy as capstone doctrine (US Army, TRADOC 2012). Since 1942, the Army’s capstone doctrine has been its Field Manual (FM) 100-5 Operations (Kretchik 2011, 143). Since the inception of FM 100-5, it has “set the foundation for developing…other fundamentals…detailed in subordinate field manuals…. [It] shapes all of Army doctrine, while influencing the Army’s organization, training, materiel, leadership and education…” (US Army Headquarters 2008, v–vii).
It was in 1942 that the War Department first established subordinate major functional Army commands in order to expand Army capabilities to meet the challenges of WWII. This allowed Army Headquarters to delegate responsibility for the preparation of FM 100-5, and the training of individuals and units in its implementation, to its newly created Ground Forces Command. Although preparation and training of the manual was delegated, approval authority of FM 100-5 remained at Army Headquarters and does so to this day. As part of a subsequent Army reorganization, Ground Forces Command was redesignated as the Office of the Chief of Army Field Forces (OCAFF) in 1948. The newly designated OCAFF retained responsibility for preparing and training of FM 100-5. OCAFF was in turn redesignated as Continental Command (CONARC) in 1955 in order to command the Army’s numbered continental US (CONUS) regions. As with OCAFF, the newly designated CONARC retained responsibility for the development and training of FM 100-5. Command of the Army’s numbered CONUS regions quickly become CONARC’s primary focus, while development and training of FM 100-5 lost priority. To address this issue, the Army created its Combat Developments Command (CDC) in 1962 and made development of doctrine its primary mission. That said, the Army left responsibility for training of doctrine with CONARC. This new split between the development of Army doctrine and the training of Army doctrine caused confusion and proved to be problematic. To address this issue the Army disbanded both CDC and CONARC in 1973, and re-united both the functions of developing and training Army doctrine under a single new Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) where both remain today (Romjue 1997, 14–15; Romjue et al. 1993, 5; Nielsen 2003, 234).
Army capstone doctrine development since 1942 has followed a top-down bottom-up refinement process. Guidance concerning central ideas, fundamental principles, and the type of war or wars the Army expects to fight is provided by Army Headquarters to the command responsible for doctrine development. The doctrine command refines and distributes this top-down guidance to the Army’s other commands and separate functional branches. The doctrine command then collects and reconciles bottom-up input from the commands and branches into a coherent draft of FM 100-5, and provides it back up to Army Headquarters for review and approval by the Chief of Staff of the Army. At this point, Army Headquarters, as well as the Chief of Staff himself, may make final changes prior to publication and dissemination of capstone doctrine to the rest of the Army (US Army TRADOC 2012).
Army Headquarters’ development of central ideas, fundamental principles, and its identification of the war or wars it expects the Army to fight are not conceived in isolation. These can be influenced by the White House, Congress, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, other US armed services, foreign military services, and US allies and adversaries alike. A considerable amount of attention is paid to these outside sources of influence by Army Headquarters before, during, and after it releases its top-down guidance to subordinate commands and branches for bottom-up doctrinal input and refinement.
The Army capstone doctrine development process is iterative. The Army has published 13 separate editions of FM 100-5 since the WWII period: 1942, 1944, 1949, 1954, 1962, 1969, 1976, 1982, 1986, 1993, 2001, 2008, and 2012 (US Army Headquarters 1942–2012). Although the content of the doctrine contained in these 13 editions has varied slightly between emphases on offensive versus defensive operations, there have been just four instances of a significant shift of emphasis from one type and level of warfare to another—from unconventional to conventional to nuclear. These shifts occurred in 1954, 1962, 1976, and 2008.
