Forging the Sword

Forging the Sword

Author: Benjamin Jensen

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2016-02-24

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0804797382

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As entrenched bureaucracies, military organizations might reasonably be expected to be especially resistant to reform and favor only limited, incremental adjustments. Yet, since 1945, the U.S. Army has rewritten its capstone doctrine manual, Operations, fourteen times. While some modifications have been incremental, collectively they reflect a significant evolution in how the Army approaches warfare—making the U.S. Army a crucial and unique case of a modern land power that is capable of change. So what accounts for this anomaly? What institutional processes have professional officers developed over time to escape bureaucracies' iron cage? Forging the Sword conducts a comparative historical process-tracing of doctrinal reform in the U.S. Army. The findings suggest that there are unaccounted-for institutional facilitators of change within military organizations. Thus, it argues that change in military organizations requires "incubators," designated subunits established outside the normal bureaucratic hierarchy, and "advocacy networks" championing new concepts. Incubators, ranging from special study groups to non-Title 10 war games and field exercises, provide a safe space for experimentation and the construction of new operational concepts. Advocacy networks then connect different constituents and inject them with concepts developed in incubators. This injection makes changes elites would have otherwise rejected a contagious narrative.


Commentary on "The US Army in Multi-domain Operations 2028"

Commentary on

Author: Huba Wass de Czege

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 9781584878230

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Countering the aggression of Russian or Chinese "hegemonic" behavior will require a rapid, ready, and appropriate reaction along anticipated lines of operations to deter rather than accelerate crisis escalation, and to defend the status quo when challenged. Do the central ideas in the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Pamphlet 525-3-1, "The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028," provide logical counters to hegemonic behavior from Russia or China?This monograph offers a critique of TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1 to avoid the foundational flaws from its predecessor concepts, AirSea Battle and Multi-Domain Battle, and to reinforce the foundation for continued discussion, analysis, and development to evolving Army and Joint doctrine.Today the United States and its Allies must cooperate to keep our advantageous peace. By keeping the peace between the United States, Russia, and China, and by the logic of our theory of victory, we are all more likely to manage other lesser anticipated and unanticipated dangers ahead.


Military Realism

Military Realism

Author: Peter Campbell

Publisher: University of Missouri

Published: 2024-03-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780826223128

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After the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army considered counterinsurgency (COIN) a mistake to be avoided. Many found it surprising, then, when setbacks in recent conflicts led the same army to adopt a COIN doctrine. Scholarly debates have primarily employed existing theories of military bureaucracy or culture to explain the army’s re-embrace of COIN, but Peter Campbell advances a unique argument centering on military realism to explain the complex evolution of army doctrinal thinking from 1960 to 2008. In five case studies of U.S. Army doctrine, Campbell pits military realism against bureaucratic and cultural perspectives in three key areas—nuclear versus conventional warfare, preferences for offense versus defense, and COIN missions—and finds that the army has been more doctrinally flexible than those perspectives would predict. He demonstrates that decision makers, while vowing in the wake of Vietnam to avoid (COIN) missions, nonetheless found themselves adapting to the geopolitical realities of fighting “low intensity” conflicts. In essence, he demonstrates that pragmatism has won out over dogmatism. At a time when American policymakers remain similarly conflicted about future defense strategies, Campbell’s work will undoubtedly shape and guide the debate.


Deciding what Has to be Done

Deciding what Has to be Done

Author: Paul H. Herbert

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 1428915591

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Beskriver udviklingen af den amerikanske hærs doktriner efter Vietnam-krigen.


Active Defense

Active Defense

Author: M. Taylor Fravel

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-12-08

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 0691210330

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What changes in China's modern military policy reveal about military organizations and strategySince the 1949 Communist Revolution, China has devised nine different military strategies, which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) calls "strategic guidelines." What accounts for these numerous changes? Active Defense offers the first systematic look at China's military strategy from the mid-twentieth century to today. Exploring the range and intensity of threats that China has faced, M. Taylor Fravel illuminates the nation's past and present military goals and how China sought to achieve them, and offers a rich set of cases for deepening the study of change in military organizations.Drawing from diverse Chinese-language sources, including memoirs of leading generals, military histories, and document collections that have become available only in the last two decades, Fravel shows why transformations in military strategy were pursued at certain times and not others. He focuses on the military strategies adopted in 1956, 1980, and 1993-when the PLA was attempting to wage war in a new kind of way-to show that China has pursued major change in its strategic guidelines when there has been a significant shift in the conduct of warfare in the international system and when China's Communist Party has been united.Delving into the security threats China has faced over the last seven decades, Active Defense offers a detailed investigation into how and why states alter their defense policies.


Synchronizing Airpower And Firepower In The Deep Battle

Synchronizing Airpower And Firepower In The Deep Battle

Author: Lt.-Col. R. Kent Lauchbaum

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 1786256037

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In this award-winning study on Synchronizing Airpower and Firepower in the Deep Battle, Lt.-Col. R. Kent Lauchbaum argues that current joint doctrine does not provide sufficient and acceptable guidance for synchronizing Air Force and Army deep operations. To improve such synchronization, Colonel Lauchbaum proposes five modifications to current joint doctrine.


The Blind Strategist

The Blind Strategist

Author: Stephen Robinson

Publisher: Exisle Publishing

Published: 2021-04-07

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1991001010

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Did Nazi war criminals deceive the United States military during the Cold War? A new book by a Canberra-based historian tells the story of how America’s most famous and influential military theorist was seduced by the lies of Hitler’s defeated generals. From the author of Panzer Commander Hermann Balck and False Flags comes The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War. Colonel John Boyd, a maverick fighter pilot, revolutionized the American art of war through his ideas on conflict and the human mind. Boyd claimed that victory is won by the side which transitions through 'decision cycles' faster than the enemy and his ideas gained influential converts in the Pentagon who were seeking a new way of waging war after defeat in Vietnam. Although Boyd’s theories became the basis of American military doctrine, he relied upon the fraudulent testimony of former Nazi generals who fabricated historical evidence to disassociate their reputations from their defeat and cover up their willing participation in war crimes. Boyd certainly changed the American art of war, but did he corrupt it in the process? The Blind Strategist separates fact from fantasy and exposes the myths of maneuver warfare through a detailed evidence-based investigation. Discover how maneuver warfare has resulted in catastrophic decisions in this must-read for anybody interested in American military history.


Alternative Conventional Defense Postures In The European Theater

Alternative Conventional Defense Postures In The European Theater

Author: Hans G. Brauch

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 1317840976

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First published in 1993. This volume, edited jointly by the American strategic expert Robert Kennedy and the German peace researcher Hans Giinter Brauch, takes up conceptual ideas developed by Horst Afheldt and Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker, as well as others on both sides of the Atlantic, since the 1960s. Our aim has been to contribute to the development of concepts that would reduce the danger of a third world war by the creation of more stable structures in the context of a defensively oriented conventional defense posture. In this volume a variety of alternative approaches to European conventional defense, driven for the most part by similar strategic considerations, are presented by German and American experts to a larger international audience.