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Within the past decade, the U.S. military has implemented a number
of programs to assess the changes underway in the global security
environment and in the nature of warfare. Defense leaders and
thinkers have concluded that revolutionary change is taking place
and, if the United States develops appropriate technology,
warfighting concepts, and military organizations, it can master or
control this change, thus augmenting American security. In this
monograph, Dr. Steven Metz, who was one of the earliest analysts of
the strategic dimension of the revolution in military affairs,
suggests that official thinking within the U.S. military may be too
narrow. The information revolution, he contends, will have
far-reaching strategic effects. The transformation it brings will
not only be technological, but political, social, ethical and
strategic as well.
U.S. military strategy is undergoing its most serious examination
since the end of the Cold War. Led by Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, this process is designed to assess every dimension of the
strategy, including its most basic assumptions and concepts. For
the first time in over a decade, everything about U.S. military
strategy is subject to question. One of the most important elements
of U.S. military strategy for the past ten years has been the
belief that a force able to fight two nearly simultaneous major
theater wars (MTW) of the DESERT STORM type would be capable of
dealing with the full gamut of security challenges that the United
States is likely to face. Now nearly every expert on U.S. military
strategy agrees that this force shaping paradigm needs a relook.
The authors explore the open-source literature on the revolution in
military affairs that has resulted from the Gulf War.
Security professionals and strategists are discovering the
post-cold war world is as rife with persistent, low-level violence
as its predecessors. In fact, many regions are experiencing a rise
in the amount of conflict in the absence of restraints previously
imposed by the superpowers. Since frustration in many parts of the
Third World is actually increasing, insurgency--the use of
low-level, protracted violence to overthrow a political system or
force some sort of fundamental change in the political and economic
status quo--will be an enduring security problem. Unfortunately,
most existing doctrine and strategy for dealing with insurgency are
based on old forms of the phenomenon, especially rural, protracted,
"people's war." But as this type of insurgency becomes obsolete,
new forms will emerge. It is important to speculate on these future
forms in order to assist in the evolution of counterinsurgency
strategy and doctrine. Dr. Steven Metz uses a psychological method
of analysis to argue that two forms of insurgency, which he calls
the "spiritual" and the "commercial," will pose the greatest
intellectual challenges to security professionals, military
leaders, and strategists. The specific nature of such challenges
will vary from region to region.
Counterinsurgency is seemingly not of great concern to the U.S.
Army today. This may represent a period of remission rather than
the apparent abandonment of the mission. It is possible that the
U.S. military may again become engaged in counterinsurgency support
in the future. In this study, Steven Metz argues that the way the
Department of Defense and U.S. military spend the time when
counterinsurgency support is not an important part of American
national security strategy determines how quickly and easily they
react when policymakers commit the nation to such activity. If
analysis and debate continues, at least at a low level, the
military is better prepared for the reconstitution of capabilities.
If it ignores global developments in insurgency and
counterinsurgency, the reconstitution of capabilities would be more
difficult. Today, there is no pressing strategic rationale for U.S.
engagement in counterinsurgency but history suggests that if the
United States remains involved in the Global South, one may emerge.
American counterinsurgency strategy has unfolded in a distinct
pattern over the past 50 years. At times, policymakers saw a
strategic rationale for engagement in counterinsurgency. When they
did, the military and Department of Defense formed or reconstituted
counterinsurgency doctrine, concepts, and organizations. When the
strategic rationale faded, these capabilities atrophied. This
pattern may be repeated in the future. During the last decade of
the Cold War, the U.S. military developed an effective approach to
insurgency and implemented it in El Salvador, but this focused on
one particular type of insurgency: Maoist "people's war." The El
Salvador model may not apply to post-Cold War forms of insurgency.
Moreover, many of the basic assumptions of American
counterinsurgency strategy appear obsolete. Trends such as
ungovernability, the routinization of violence, and the mutation of
insurgency change the costs/benefits calculus that undergirded Cold
War-era strategy and doctrine. During the current period of
remission in insurgency, the Army should use its intellectual
resources to analyze ongoing mutations in insurgency and to open a
debate on the nature of a cogent post-Cold War counterinsurgency
strategy. This strategy should expand its conceptual framework and
stress three principles: selectivity, multilateralism, and
concentration on secondary support functions including indirect or
second-tier engagement. Such efforts will pave the way for the
reconstitution of American counterinsurgency should it be required.
What design would I be forming if I were the enemy? "Y Frederick
the Great The great difficulty in forecasting the future strategic
environment and the force structure needed in response is the
plethora of variables that change the calculus. Only hindsight
reveals the failure of a Maginot Line or the brilliant success of a
mechanized Blitzkrieg doctrine. In the final analysis, the reader
must judge the line of reasoning. In this monograph, Dr. Steven
Metz and Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Millen examine the trends in
the strategic environment in their development of the Future
War/Future Battlespace. One fact is clear. Traditional warfighting
has changed in the post 9-11 era. The U.S. military must adapt or
fail. There is no other recourse. Dr. Metz and LTC Millen have
superbly framed the strategic environment into four strategic
battlespaces and have examined the ways future adversaries will
operate within them to thwart U.S. strategic initiatives. In this
context, these variables influence the path that Transformation
must take. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this
monograph as a topic of debate concerning Transformation and the
Objective Force. Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr. Director Strategic
Studies Institute
The facts of Dwight D. Eisenhower's military career are well-known.
This does not mean, however, that there is nothing to be gained
from a careful examination of his experience. Few if any American
officers performed a wider array of strategic functions - he was a
staff planner in the War Department, wartime commander of a massive
coalition force, peacetime Chief of Staff, and Supreme Allied
Commander in Europe. Eisenhower was directly involved in a number
of major transitions including the building of the wartime American
Army, its demobilization following the war, and the resuscitation
of American military strength during the initial years of the cold
war. This means that Eisenhower's career can provide important
lessons on how a coherent strategy should and should not be built
during times of strategic transition. That is what this monograph
begins to do. It is not intended to be a biography in the usual
sense and thus offers no new facts or insights into Eisenhower's
life. Instead it uses that life as a backdrop for exploring the
broader essence of strategic coherence and draws lessons from
Eisenhower's career that can help guide the strategic transition
which the U.S. military now faces. WILLIAM A. STOFFT Major General,
U.S. Army Commandant
For high school and upper middle school teachers, this compendium,
drawn from NSTA's award-winning, peer-reviewed journals, comprises
inquiry-based activities, lesson plans, and case studies designed
to help teach increased awareness of energy, environmental
concepts, and the related issues.
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