Military Review English Edition January-February 2017 | Page 27

DELIBERATE WAR PLANNING

Producing Strategic Value
through Deliberate War
Planning
Lt. Col. Jim Cahill, U.S. Army

T

he U.S. military invests sizable resources in
deliberate war planning to prepare for future
operations in defined crisis conditions. However,
the actual value of current deliberate war planning to
military readiness and future combat performance is
questionable. This article starts with a brief assessment
of the modern U.S. war planning system, then addresses
two factors that would enable the deliberate war planning
community to deliver greater strategic value.
The first factor, oriented toward prospective planners,
is promoting awareness of tensions in both bureaucratic
politics and civil–military relations that pervade the process and influence the outcomes. Failure to understand
and respect the power of these two tensions equates to
letting them become the dominant forces in deliberate
war planning to the detriment of any operational or strategic value planning is supposed to provide.
The second factor is the construction of a theoretical
framework to understand the actual and potential value
added by deliberate war planning. This theoretical framework consists of seven dimensions of planning utility that
are sorely needed to counteract the bureaucratic politics

and civil–military relations tensions that currently pervade the process and curb its effectiveness. The potential advantage of these planning factors is that they
can be applied empirically to gauge the value of a given
deliberate planning effort.
This is not the first attempt to undertake empirical
research on war planning.1
The new contribution
Lt. Col. Jim Cahill, U.S.
sought here is greater unArmy, is a military advisor
derstanding of the utility
at the U.S. Department of
of the activity. Such an
State and a PhD student at
understanding could set
George Mason University’s
conditions for increasing
Schar School of Policy and
effectiveness in future
Government. He holds a
practice. Based on the
master’s degree in internapresumption that delibertional public policy from
ate war planning positively
Johns Hopkins University
influences the manner in
School of Advanced
which the United States
International Studies and a
applies military force,
BS from the University of
this matter is vital to U.S.
Minnesota. His previous
national security.
assignments include re-

Soldiers from the 329th Regional Support Group, based in Virginia
Beach, Virginia, team up with soldiers from the 1030th Transportation Battalion from Gate City, Virginia, 13 November 2010 to rehearse
for a staff exercise during their annual training at Camp Dodge, Iowa.
The soldiers focused on improving military decision-making processes, improving communication from group to battalion level, and setting conditions for better future operations during the annual twoweek training period. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Andrew H. Owen, Virginia
National Guard PAO)

search fellow at the RAND
Arroyo Center; joint plans
officer at U.S. European
Command’s J5 Contingency
Planning Division; special
assistant to the Chief of Staff
of the Army; and strategic
planner at Headquarters,
Department of the Army,
G-3/5/7 War Plans Division.

MILITARY REVIEW  January-February 2017

The Modern U.S.
War Planning
System
The United States is the
only country in the world
that currently professes to
“underwrite international
security … uphold our
commitments to allies

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