American War Strategy
American war strategy refers to the overall approach and tactics employed by the United States in military conflicts. It encompasses the planning, decision-making, and execution of military operations to achieve specific objectives. American war strategy has evolved over time, influenced by factors such as technological advancements, geopolitical considerations, and lessons learned from past conflicts.
5 Key excerpts on "American War Strategy"
eBook - ePubThe New American Way of War
Military Culture and the Political Utility of Force
- Ben Buley(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...2 The science of strategy War as a political instrument in the nuclear age We’re a young and new field, trying to discover ourselves. The parallel I think of is economics. The economists feel they have come to understand the broad workings of the economy and are able to control depressions. In the same way, we are trying to grasp the inner workings of war in order to control it. Donald G.Brennan, 1965 1 From the end of World War II, American strategic thought was increasingly influenced by an emerging science of strategy pioneered by civilians. In its assumptions about the relationship between war and politics, this new scientific discourse on war represented the cultural antithesis of the absolutist philosophy that continued to shape the strategic thinking of the military. Whereas the latter tended to regard war as the failure of politics and were sceptical of the political utility of military force, the scientific civilian strategists enthusiastically accepted the primacy of political objectives and sought to restore, through scientific and technological means, the link between force and the rational pursuit of policy that appeared severed in the nuclear age. The evolution of US military discourse thus took on a pronounced dialectical character: the emergence of diametrically opposed conceptions of the political utility of war corresponded closely to the divide between military and civilian professionals within American military culture. The civilian strategists’ intrusion into a realm traditionally regarded as the province of military professionals was legitimized by their scientific credentials and their focus on calibrating the use or threat of force to the ends of national policy...
eBook - ePub- Kersti Larsdotter, Kersti Larsdotter(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Strategy in theory; strategy in practice Hew Strachan ABSTRACT The practice of strategy is different from strategic theory. The latter was largely developed by professional soldiers from the experiences of the Napoleonic Wars, and compared the present with the past to establish general truths about war. It used history as its dominant discipline until 1945. The advent of nuclear weapons made history seem less relevant, and prompted the inclusion of other disciplines; deterrence theory also made strategic theory more abstract and distant from the practice of war. Since 9/11, the experience of war has forced strategy to become less theoretical and to do better in reconciling theory with practice. In his book, Modern Strategy, published in 1999, Colin Gray declared with his customary forcefulness (and the italics are his): ‘ there is an essential unity to all strategic experience in all periods of history because nothing vital to the nature and function of war and strategy changes ’. 1 Gray is not alone among scholars working on the place of war in international relations who see history as a continuum. Edward Luttwak, Beatrice Heuser and Lawrence Freedman have taken similar lines, albeit with less directness. Nor are they wrong to do so: it is better that history contributes to an understanding of war and strategy than it does not. However, history is not just a repository from which we cherry-pick enduring truths. If it were, there would be little value in obeying Michael Howard’s injunction that we study military history in width, depth and context. 2 The more we do that, the more we see nuance, difference, and even discontinuity. Colin Gray is a student of politics with a strong interest in history; this essay is written by a historian with a strong interest in policy. The value that Gray sees in history is a sense of continuity. Many historians, particularly those who look to the longue durée, set out with a similar purpose...
eBook - ePubMasters of War
Classical Strategic Thought
- Michael I. Handel(Author)
- 2005(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...military insisted on the need for patience and the importance of not beginning a war until military strength sufficient to achieve decisive results had been concentrated in the region. Once the U.S. military had prepared adequately, concentrated the necessary forces in the field, mobilized public opinion in America and the allied states, and established clear objectives, its early caution was replaced by a readiness for action and an eagerness to fight. In this way, the study of the classical works on strategy had a substantial, even if indirect, influence on the success of the United Statesled coalition in the Gulf War. Particularly for those at the highest levels of command, the study of On War and The Art of War was not, after all, an idle academic exercise. 10 * * * At times, the very simplicity of the concepts expounded by Clausewitz and Sun Tzu causes them to be ignored or misunderstood. One such deceptively simple idea is Clausewitz’s emphasis on the need to under stand the nature of each war (for a detailed discussion of this key con- cept, see Chapter 9 below): The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test [viewing war as an act of policy] the kind of war on which they are embarking: neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive. (Clausewitz, On War, pp. 88–89) Jomini makes the same point even more succinctly: We will suppose an army taking the field: the first care of its commander should be to agree with the head of state upon the character of the war. (Jomini, The Art of War, p. 66) Unlike Saddam Hussein, President Bush and the military leaders with whom he worked understood the political and technological nature of the impending war...
eBook - ePubUS Defense Politics
The Origins of Security Policy
- Harvey M. Sapolsky, Harvey M. Sapolsky, Eugene Gholz, Caitlin Talmadge(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Warden, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat (Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1989). Recommended additional reading Andrew Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East (New York: Random House, 2016). Names the war that has no name, a conflict fueled by political hubris and plagued by poor generalship. p.32 David H. Bayley and Robert M. Perito, The Police in War: Fighting Insurgency, Terrorism, and Violent Crime (New York: Lynne Rienner, 2010). America discovers it needs a colonial service if it is going to provide internal security and good government to others. Ian Bremmer, Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2015). An insightful policy analyst envisions the strategy options and pleads for Americans to choose a grand strategy in the 2016 election. Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller (eds.), America’s Strategic Choices (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, rev. ed. 2000). All the grand strategic alternatives argued by their academic advocates. Aaron L. Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). Examines how American political and economic values shaped strategy in the nation’s longest war. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, rev and expanded ed. 2005). The classic recounting of the ebbs and flows of America’s Cold War grand strategy. David Rieff, At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005). Reality sets in on the hopes of interventionists. Astri Suhrke, When More Is Less: The International Project in Afghanistan (London: Hurst & Co., 2012). Overwhelming Afghanistan with money and ambitious but unrealistic projects, all in the effort to save it....
eBook - ePubThe Nature of War in the Information Age
Clausewitzian Future
- David J. Lonsdale(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Therefore, one should prepare for war with this very much at the forefront of one’s mind. This has implications for procurement policies, as well as the training of future warriors. Strategy however is a complex beast. As Clausewitz expressed in On War, the policy objective should dictate the level of violence and destruction to be used. One has to factor the resistance of the enemy into this calculation also. It is the judgment of the strategist that must find the correct balance between the violent nature of war and the demands of policy. The bottom line in this discussion is that warfare, above all else, is a human activity. This is true both in terms of the units that actually do the fighting, and in reference to the fact that it is an activity best thought of in terms of human interaction. This fact endows warfare with many of the elements that have been discussed in this chapter. However they choose to organise themselves politically or socially, and whatever terms they employ to describe the motivations behind their decision to wage war, humans fight each other for human reasons. As a result of this, the ‘climate of war’ and the ‘trinity’, and therefore the work of Clausewitz, come very close to defining the true nature of warfare. The rest of this book will be devoted to an exploration of warfare in the information age, to assess whether On War will continue to best reflect the nature of war. Alternatively, the work of either Jomini or Sun Tzu may prove more fruitful. Or finally, maybe the character of war will change so significantly that new theorists will have to be utilised to understand the nature of warfare in the information age. Because Strategic Studies is a practical subject, any work that has become anachronistic should not serve as the basis for military education and preparation for war. NOTES 1. Van Riper and Scales, ‘Preparing for War in the 21st Century’, p. 6. 2. Francois Heisbourg, The Future of Warfare (London, Phoenix, 1997), p. 1...
