U.S. Armed Forces and the Operational Level of War -- Are We Prepared to Win

Abstract

This monograph examines the operational level of war, a concept rediscovered by the United States Army with the publication of the 1982 version of FM 100-5 and reinforced by the appearance of the succeeding version in 1986. Military doctrine and theory is examined to determine what components and conditions constitute operational level warfare. A paradigm of operational level war is proposed and compared to U.S. military experience in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam to establish the key theoretical aspects of operational art that were present or absent in each historical example. The final portion of the paper compares current U.S. force structure and doctrine with the model to ascertain whether we understand operational art and are prepared to wage war successfully at that level. The monograph concludes that there are significant shortcomings in our ability to be successful at the operational level, and it provides recommendations for the corrections or mitigation of these shortcomings.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 06, 1988
Accession Number
ADA197192

Entities

People

  • Henry S. Scharpenberg

Organizations

  • United States Army Command and General Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerial Warfare
  • Air Defense
  • Air Force
  • Aircraft Carriers
  • Birds
  • Civil War
  • Combat Areas
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Military Applications
  • Military History
  • Military Organizations
  • National Security
  • Navy
  • Second World War
  • Tactical Air Support
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Systems Analysis and Design