National Military Missions and Warwinning
Abstract
America confronts a paradox after Desert Storm. On one hand the defense budget is declining as deficit reduction assumes a heightened national priority. On the other hand, the Armed Forces are pulled and shaped by global geopolitical change that diffuses U.S. interests and alters the security environment. Though the likelihood of an Armageddon-like battle is slim now, from a historical and statistical standpoint the number of smaller conflicts could increase. Is America's military sized and shaped for the times? Desert Storm answered many questions about America's relative military strength and the use of the military as an effective instrument of national power. But Desert Storm was the result of capabilities developed throughout the large Reagan-Era military build-up, the scope of which no one is likely to see in the future. Fiscal realities drive defense drawdowns even as the United States reexamines military strategy, threats, and lessons learned from the first conflict of the post-cold war era. This paper discusses five areas that provide "new thought" for developing military strategy. First, it examines the views of several great military strategists and relates them to today's technologically advanced environment. Second, it touches on events in the Iraq conflict that put the ideas behind these strategists into action. Third, in the aftermath of Iraq, it defines the new "American way of war": a combination of economic, diplomatic, and military instruments of power acceptable to the American public for future conflict. Next is a contemporary framework for viewing an enemy's strategic and operational centers of gravity, those vital areas of a country's power base that define its ability to wage war. This framework leads to the final section of the paper, which addresses the merits of addressing military missions from a national perspective as a way to reconcile military strategy and requirements with budgets.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 10, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA437623
Entities
People
- John Piazza
Organizations
- National War College