Contingency Forces in the Year 2020 Optimizing Joint Warfighting

Abstract

Since 1989, the world has seen extraordinary changes as the Cold War drew to a close and the strategy of containment ceased to be appropriate for the new world order. The world is now moving into a new era--one offering opportunities as well as posing dangers-a future interdependant world that has potential for peace and prosperity but also is threatened by regional instabilities. The current 1993 National Defense Strategy has four fundamental elements: strategic deterrence and defense, forward presence, crisis response, and reconstitution. The paper reviews the element of crisis response and the ensuing requirement for U.S. contingency forces to support this strategic element. This paper looks to the future year 2020 for this review and presents recommendations for optimizing joint warfighting of contingency forces for this time period. These recommendations are based upon a review of future trends that will shape the year 2020 and a historical analysis of five recent U.S. contingency operations: Operations Power Pack, Desert One, Urgent Fury, Just Cause, and Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Prior to this analysis, a model for viewing crisis response situations is developed that includes a doctrinal basis for joint warfighting. This model provides a joint warfighting perspective for the historical analysis of past contingency operations and for future planning for crisis response situations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 22, 1993
Accession Number
ADA264563

Entities

People

  • John M. Bratton

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Counter WMD
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Chemical Weapons
  • Command And Control
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Department Of Defense
  • Deployment
  • Doctrine
  • Employment
  • Governments
  • Joint Military Activities
  • Military History
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Organizational Structure
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.
  • Military History / Militaries and War Studies
  • Strategic Security Studies