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NATO After Enlargement: New Challenges, New Missions, New Forces
Stephen J. Blank Dr.
In 1999 NATO will formally admit three new members and adopt a new strategic concept. In so doing, it will take giant strides towards effecting a revolutionary transformation of European security. On the one hand, it could be said that NATO enlargement closes the immediate post-Cold War period that began with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But on the other hand, enlargement raises a host of serious new issues for the Alliance and for U.S. policymakers that they must begin to address now. Bearing this fact in mind, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) organized a conference with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in January 1998 to explore the new challenges confronting the NATO Alliance. These essays are the product of that conference.
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Breaking Away from the Bear
Dianne L. Smith LTC
Lieutenant Colonel Dianne L. Smith examines the development of post-Soviet Central Asian armed forces, Central Asian efforts to guarantee their national security, and the implications for the United States of this struggle. She cautions that the United States use its influence and its military-to-military contact programs judiciously. This is a region of great instability, with massive infusions of energy wealth just beyond the horizon. If these states can create viable methods to ensure domestic and regional security, this wealth may produce prosperity and secure well-being for their citizens. If these states fail to create institutions to preserve their national sovereignty, the new century could presage long, lingering chaos and waste on a grand scale. One need only look south to Afghanistan for such a model.
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Defining U.S. Atlantic Command's Role in the Power Projection Strategy
Douglas C. Lovelace Professor and Thomas-Durell Young Dr.
The authors of this monograph argue that the lynch-pin in the power projection strategy of the United States is a completely transformed U.S. Atlantic Command (USACOM). The monograph details how USACOM has been allowed to "evolve" since its inception in 1993 but is yet to achieve its full potential for implementing the CONUS-based power projection strategy. Recognizing USACOM as a principal actor in support of this new strategy, the authors recommend that USACOM should be further transformed into a "Joint Forces Command." Their analysis exposes the need for a significant review of Title 10 of the U.S. Code and a reexamination of some of the fundamental tenets underlying the structure and command of the U.S. armed forces. The reappraisals they propose will impact the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Staff, the Military Departments, and the unified combatant commands in important ways.
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Challenging the United States Symmetrically and Asymmetrically: Can America be Defeated?
Lloyd J. Matthews Colonel
The U.S. Army War College s Ninth Annual Strategy Conference was held at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, during the period March 31-April 2, 1998. The theme of the conference was Challenging the United States Symmetrically and Asymmetrically: Can America Be Defeated? There were some 150 attendees, including active duty military personnel as well as members of academe, the U.S. Defense and service departments, think tanks, corporations, and news media. This book is an outgrowth of that conference, though it makes no effort to present a comprehensive and literal record of events in the mold of traditional colloquium proceedings. Rather, the book is organized as an anthology of selected conference presentations, complemented by sufficient notice of roundtable and question-and-answer discussion to provide a glimpse of the vigorous interplay of ideas evoked by this most timely of topics.
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Halt Phase Strategy: New Wine in Old Skins . . . with Powerpoint
Earl H. Tilford Dr.
Analyzes the Halt Phase Strategy/Doctrine currently advocated by the Air Force. As a part of his analysis, the author traces the immediate origins of Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review. Dr. Tilford contends, however, that Halt's real origins are more closely identified with intrinsic Air Force strategic bombing doctrine, and are to be found in strategies associated with atomic and nuclear deterrence and warfighting. Thus, he concludes that Halt is really "new wine in old skins" being presented today more aggressively because of rapid technological advances.
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Nonlethality and American Land Power: Strategic Context and Operational Concepts
Douglas C. Lovelace Professor and Steven Metz Dr.
Nonlethal technology, concepts and doctrine may provide the Army a way to retain its political utility and military effectiveness in a security environment characterized by ambiguity and the glare of world public opinion. To explore this, the Army is undertaking programs and initiatives which may make it the driving force in nonlethality. The authors place nonlethality within its larger strategic context and explain how it is related to the revolution in military affairs. They then assess the arguments for and against the integration of nonlethality into American doctrine and procedures. Finally, they offer operational concepts which could serve as the basis for doctrine and for tactics, techniques, and procedures.
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On Diversity
Andre H. Sayles LTC
Colonel Sayles logically and calmly asks questions about diversity and its effect on the future of organizations, individual soldiers, and leaders. He provides important arguments in support of the Army's Consideration of Others Program. His thought-provoking discussion of diversity in the military meets his goal of providing dialogue that will be "helpful in your efforts to achieve the understanding that we all seek" on this difficult subject--"On Diversity."
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The Political-Military Rivalry for Operational Control in U.S. Military Actions: A Soldier's Perspective
Lloyd J. Matthews Colonel
The author presents a soldier's perspective of the operational implications of instant access to the battlefield by civilian leaders in Washington. It also suggests steps that might be taken to assure constructive collaboration between military and civil authorities, leaving each group to make its own essential contribution to success in the nation's military undertakings around the world.
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Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the Sahel: The Tuareg Insurgency in Mali
Kalifa Keita Lieutenant Colonel
June 27, 1990, is a significant date in the recent history of Mali. It marks the beginning of what Malians call "The Second Tuareg Rebellion." The first had been staged against the post-colonial Malian government in 1963. The national government had suppressed that rebellion with harsh coercive measures, and the Tuaregs continued to nurture grievances. The second Tuareg rebellion coincided in the early 1990s with turbulent political developments in Malian society as a whole. It soon was clear that Mali's stability and progress were contingent on ending the insurgency. This, in turn, required a solution to Tuareg grievances. By the mid-1990s, Mali apparently had found a solution. Though by no means easy, or assured, that solution may provide useful insights into conflict resolution in the region as a whole. This study describes the nature of the Malian solution and indicates the reasons for its success to date. More specifically, this study considers the Tuareg rebellion from the perspective of a senior Malian military officer who lived the events. It describes a conflict little known and poorly reported outside of West Africa. It emphasizes the trauma of conflict in developing societies and the excruciatingly difficult political and economic choices faced by their leaders. It highlights the appropriate role of the international community in resolving such conflicts. Finally, it illustrates that resolution of intra-state conflict in Africa requires intensive efforts to secure the willing cooperation of local communities with military and civil government agencies.
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Redefining Land Power for the 21st Century
William T. Johnsen Dr.
Divisive debates over the future force structures of the U.S. Armed Forces have continued despite the Report of the Commission on Roles and Missions for the Armed Forces (May 1995) and the more recent reports of the Quadrennial Defense Review (May 1997) and the National Defense Panel (December 1997). Part of the reason for the bitter nature of these debates is due to parochial partisanship. Part is due to a lack of clear understanding of the individual components of military power or of their collective interrelationships. This latter conclusion may be particularly true for land power. Responsibility for this misunderstanding does not always fall at the feet of outside observers. No official definition or general articulation of land power currently exists. And, because land power is self-evident to most who wear Army or Marine Corps green, they see little need to explain land power to a broader audience. But, if national leaders are to have a fuller under- standing of land power, its central role in the growing interdependence of military power, or the policy options that land power's versatility brings to security policy planning and execution, then such explanations are imperative. To help fill this conceptual gap, the author offers a definition of land power to meet the demands of the 21st century. While defining land power is his primary purpose, he also places land power within the overarching context of total military power. Additionally, he highlights the growing interdependence among the components of national power.
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Reforming NATO's Military Structures: The Long-Term Study and Its Implications for Land Forces
Thomas-Durell Young Dr.
The contemporary debate over the expansion of NATO to include Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary has largely overshadowed an important effort on the part of the Alliance to achieve "internal adaptation" through the work of the Long-Term Study. Part of this process has been a tortuous attempt to reform and reorganize the Alliance's integrated command structure. Often taken for granted, this structure provides the basis for NATO's collective defense, and increasingly, as seen in Bosnia, its ability to undertake peace support operations. However, the very value by which nations hold the structure has resulted in a difficult and time-consuming reorganization process which has produced only limited reforms. It is indeed surprising that the reorganization of the bedrock of the Alliance's military structure has garnered only limited attention outside of NATO cognoscenti. This can be explained, in part, by the fact that until recently the Long-Term Study has been cloaked in secrecy. Most key aspects of the reform process are now out in the public and require debate: a task in which the Strategic Studies Institute is keen to assist. And, let there be no mistake that the proposed reforms outlined by Long-Term Study have major implications for land forces in the Alliance. As argued in this essay, there are a number of proposed reforms which could have fundamental negative implications for command of these forces.
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The Creeping Irrelevance of U.S. Force Planning
Jeffrey Record Dr.
Jeffrey Record examines what he believes is a half-century-old and continuing recession of large-interstate warfare and, since the World War's demise, the unexpected and often violent disintegration of established states. He then addresses the Department of Defense's persistent planning focus on multiple conventional war scenarios, concluding that this focus on the familiar and comfortable is becoming increasingly irrelevant to a world of small wars and MOOTW. The author's critical analysis leads him to propose significant and controversial changes in planning standards, force structure, and defense spending. His thought-provoking analyses, conclusions, and recommendations should fuel further discussion of how America's military can best tackle the strategic uncertainties of the post-Cold War world.
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AY 97 Compendium Army After Next Project
Douglas V. Johnson Dr.
These student papers are largely focused on present problems which must be solved before movement toward the future can make much progress. If they are not dramatically futuristic in approach, they are nevertheless set against a future backdrop which is still in the process of being defined. The broader Army After Next program, led by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, is an experiment, an examination of what could be. The Army War College seeks to play its part through this contribution and by educating those officers who will field, staff, and command our future Army.
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European Security and NATO Enlargement: A View from Central Europe
Stephen J. Blank Dr.
On August 4-5, 1997, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), together with the Reserve Officers Association, cosponsored a conference in Prague on "Eurasian Security in the Era of NATO Enlargement." In order to clarify fully the emerging security agenda in Europe and hear from member states and other interested parties, SSI invited analysts and officials from all of the Central and East European countries, including those invited to join NATO, those not invited, and those former Soviet states with a vital interest in the outcome, e.g., Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. The panelists provided assessments of their respective countries' perspectives, of their own governments' policies, and of how they see emerging trends in European security issues. The chapters in this monograph offer a representative selection of the papers presented at the conference. By publishing them, SSI offers our readers a broad spectrum of views, including some not often heard, on the issues connected with NATO enlargement. In this manner, SSI seeks to shed fuller light on what could be the single most important national security issue to appear before Congress and other Alliance legislatures in 1998.
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New Century, Old Thinking: The Dangers of the Perceptual Gap in U.S.-China Relations
Susan M. Puska Colonel
The author provides an examination of the reciprocal relations between China and the United States over the past century and a half. She articulates the theme that cycles of misperception have characterized the relationship. If this past is prologue, then potential conflict looms darkly over future U.S.-China interactions. The first step toward precluding conflict, according to the author, is to understand the nature of the past relationship. Then, the two countries must overcome the deep perceptual gap between their cultures, their historical views and their ideological perspectives. Such understanding, widely shared in each society, will not assure development of bilateral partnership, but is essential to giving it a chance.
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The Role of the Armed Forces in the Americas: Civil-Military Relations for the 21st Century
Donald E. Schulz Dr.
In November 1997, the United States Army War College joined with the U.S. Southern Command, the Inter-American Defense Board, the National Guard Bureau, and the Latin American Consortium of the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University to cosponsor a conference entitled "The Role of the Armed Forces in the Americas: Civil-Military Relations for the 21st Century." The meeting was held from 3 to 6 November in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and was hosted by the New Mexico National Guard.
The conference brought together over 150 prominent civilian governmental and military leaders and some of the most noted scholars from throughout the Americas. It was designed to support the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Southern Command's objectives of strengthening democratic institutions, assisting nations in eliminating threats to their security, supporting economic and social progress, and enhancing military professionalism. In addition, the meeting sought to promote the Army Chief of Staff's goals of conflict prevention through peacetime engagement, strategic outreach to organizations and institutions outside the Department of Defense, and the enhancement of Active and Reserve component integration. Included in this publication are the papers and speeches delivered at the conference, rapporteurs' synopses of the working group discussions and an analysis, with recommendations, of the implications for civil-military relations and U.S. policy. These presentations, the level and scope of participation, the candor of the dialogue, the outstanding support provided by our cosponsors, and the charming atmosphere of Santa Fe all contributed to making the meeting a success. -
Five-Dimensional (Cyber) Warfighting: Can the Army After Next be Defeated Through Complex Concepts and Technologies?
Robert J. Bunker Dr.
The theme for the U.S. Army War College's Ninth Annual Strategy Conference (April 1998) is "Challenging the United States Symmetrically and Asymmetrically: Can America Be Defeated?" Dr. Robert J. Bunker of California State University, San Bernardino, answers the question with an emphatic "yes." He expounds a scenario in which a future enemy (BlackFor) concedes that the U.S. Army's (BlueFor) superior technology, advanced weaponry, and proven record of success in recent military operations make it virtually invulnerable to conventional forms of symmetric attack. Therefore, BlackFor seeks asymmetric ways to obviate BlueFor's advantages. Dr. Bunker's scenario frontally assaults some of the premises he sees emerging from the Army After Next Project. It posits not a new peer competitor for the United States, but a new type of enemy for which, in Dr. Bunker's view, we will be ill-prepared, given our likely force development azimuths over the next two decades. It may be tempting to dismiss the possibility of an enemy possessing all the capabilities Dr. Bunker describes. Nonetheless, his paper points to potential changes in warfare that, even partially effected, must absorb our Army's professional attention as we address the challenges of the next century.
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Russia's Armed Forces on the Brink of Reform
Stephen J. Blank Dr.
Despite over a dozen years of talk, the Soviet and now Russian military has not undergone a true military reform. What did happen was a form of degeneration and disintegration, but not a methodically planned and directed transformation and/or adaptation to new conditions. Consequently, defense policy, in all of its ramifications, has remained essentially unreformed and remains an impediment to Russia's accommodation to today's strategic realities. This study presents an assessment of Russian defense policy as Russia has begun, in late 1997 and 1998, to grapple with the enormous challenges that inhere in the process of military reform. The outcome of what can only be a protracted process will have profound implications, not only for Russia, but for its neighbors and partners, chief among them being the United States. Given the coincidence of this reform process with what many believe to be a revolution in military affairs and the continuing urgency of reducing nuclear threats, the ongoing observation of Russian military policies remains very important for the United States.
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The Age of Revolutions
Claudia Kennedy Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, postulates a future world where challenges to the national security and national interests of the United States will come from many sources. Not only will the armed forces of the United States have to be prepared to counter attacks by nation-states with armed forces equipped with modern weapons, they must also be ready to address a wide range of challenges across the spectrum from urban warlords to narco-terrorists. Today there is a great deal of talk about focusing on the high end of the threat and relying on one dimension of military power, air power, to halt an attack by any would-be aggressor. As General Kennedy's monograph indicates, that will address only a small and distinct portion of the possible challenges we will face in the 21st century.
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Force Planning Considerations for Army XXI
William T. Johnsen Dr.
The U.S. Army has moved along the path of preparing for the 21st century. This process began with the conceptual examinations and assessments carried out under the "Louisiana Maneuvers" and the Army's Battle Labs, and matured through the Force XXI process. The Army recently completed its first series of Advanced Warfighting Experiments that will shape the redesign and restructure of the future force, Army XXI, for the early years of the new millennium. While the broad outlines of Army XXI have been sketched out, many of the details remain to be filled in. Undoubtedly, these efforts will be influenced by the recent reports of the Quadrennial Defense Review (May 1997) and the National Defense Panel (December 1997). Indeed, debates over details of the force structure and the ultimate size of the Army are not likely to abate any time soon. To assist in the further conceptual development, Dr. William T. Johnsen places Army XXI in a broad strategic context. He briefly examines the anticipated international security environment and the roles that the U.S. Armed Forces and the Army can be expected to perform. He then assesses a wide range of general factors that will influence the capabilities needed to carry out the anticipated roles. Finally, he examines general and specific criteria that can be used to determine the appropriate size of Army XXI.
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Joint U.S. Army-Navy War Planning on the Eve of the First World War
Adolf Carlson Colonel
All the histories of the First World War devote considerable attention to the impact of war plans and war planners—how in the foreign relations among the great powers war plans became factors in their own right. Many of these plans revealed volumes about the attitudes of the officers who wrote them, from the offensive a l’outrance of French plan XVII to the cold calculation of the Schlieffen plan, which called for the invasion of an unoffensive neutral country to achieve a military advantage.
Americans usually exclude themselves when they discuss the pre-war military plans, but there were U.S. war plans in 1914. How these plans were developed, and their impact on the development of American strategic thought will be the theme of this paper, revealing a United States less militarily naive than commonly thought and suggesting insights relevant to U.S. strategy on the eve of the next century. -
Searching for Stable Peace in the Persian Gulf
Kenneth Katzman Dr. and Stephen C. Pelletiere Dr.
Congressional Research Staffer Kenneth Katzman reviews the history of dual containment, and shows how adherence to the policy has eroded. He suggests it is time for Washington to change course in the Gulf, and lays out a course of action the United States should follow to maintain its leadership role in this vital region. Dr. Katzman's monograph deals thoughtfully with this controversial issue.
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World View: The 1998 Strategic Assessment from the Strategic Studies Institute
Earl H. Tilford Dr.
World View presents the annual strategic assessments of the analysts at the Strategic Studies Institute. It is fifth in a series that reflects both our individual forecasts and collective review of the key security issues facing the United States. The process that produces World View also leads to our annual Research and Outreach Plan. The strategic context is not vastly changed for 1998. It is as complex and uncertain as it has been virtually every year since the end of the Cold War. This year, however, we are also assessing the future in the light of the Quadrennial Defense Review, published in May 1997, and the Report of the National Defense Panel, issued in December. Like the first post-Cold War decade, the first 20 years of the next century will be vibrant times for the armed forces, and the Army in particular. The 21st century, as we already see today, will be a time in which land forces play pivotal roles in the strategic environment. This central place of land forces in our national defense coincides with the evolution of the Army to Army XXI and subsequently to the Army After Next, potentially a more revolutionary transformation. The Strategic Studies Institute offers World View as an assessment which we hope will be of value to strategic planners, as well as to those who have an interest in the nation's security well into the 21st century.
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Multinational Land Formations and NATO: Reforming Practices and Structures
Thomas-Durell Young Dr.
The problems Dr. Young grapples with in this account have been exacerbated by a variety of evolving realities stemming from the new, post-Cold War security environment. Reduced national force structures, new NATO roles and missions emanating from the military implementation of Alliance Strategy and the rapid reaction requirements associated with the embryonic Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF) Concept are but three of a multitude of inter-related issues which have driven the requirement to address NATO force structure requirements as a whole, as part of the ongoing internal adaptation of Alliance structures and procedures.
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Problems and Solutions in Future Coalition Operations
Phillip Kaiser Mr., Jon Kessmeier Mr., and Thomas J. Marshall Mr.
Each year, the United States Army, Europe (USAREUR) undertakes a conference-study program on a matter of strategic significance, with several objectives. The topic relates to USAREUR’s mission; anticipates future requirements; contributes toward building democratic norms within the militaries of emerging democracies; and serves to inform the USAREUR staff, higher headquarters and other U.S. Government agencies of active measures to improve current practices. Examples of topics in the last several years are Preventive Diplomacy, Planning and Conducting Large Scale Emergency Operations, and Military Support to Democratization in Europe.
In 1996, USAREUR undertook to study “Problems and Solutions in Future Coalition Operations.” That topic was germane not only because of the U.S. Government’s participation in several current coalitions, but also because USAREUR will continue to be in the vanguard, participating in a wide variety of multinational operations. While coalitions may be a way of life for most militaries, changes in the geostrategic environment over the past several years have created new challenges and opportunities for U.S. participation. Protecting the Kurds in Iraq after the Gulf War, supporting humanitarian relief operations in Rwanda, deploying a preventive diplomacy force to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to guard against a spillover of the Balkan conflict, and providing forces to support the implementation of the Dayton Accords for Bosnia have tested the United States’ ability to work with new partners, in support of new missions, in unfamiliar parts of the world.
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