Military Review English Edition July-August 2016 | Page 87

VERDUN

lessons in mind, let us turn to the American theory of
war and consider its implications for the future.
The 2015 National Military Strategy divides the world
into state adversaries and violent extremist organizations
(VEOs). In the document, these are depicted as two ends
of a spectrum, each requiring a different set of mechanisms to address them. State adversaries are subject
to “deter, deny, defeat,” while VEOs receive “disrupt,
degrade, defeat.”17 However, these alternative approaches are actually two expressions of the same underlying
theory—a theory that looks a lot like Falkenhayn’s.
The National Military Strategy states that if America
or its interests are attacked by a state adversary, the
American military “will respond by inflicting damage
of such magnitude as to compel the adversary to cease
hostilities or render it incapable of further aggression. …
Denying an adversary’s goals or imposing unacceptable
costs is central to achieving our objectives.”18
The Joint Operating Concept suggests the American
military will achieve this military effect through globally
integrated operations—rapidly combining and deploying capabilities across settings and services traditionally
considered discrete.19 In the Army Operating Concept:
Win in a Complex World, 2020–2040, this is expressed
through the idea of “joint combined arms operations”
that “present the enemy with multiple dilemmas” to
“compel enemy actions” by “putting something of value
to them at risk.”20 These dilemmas, combined with
American capacity for rapid maneuver, “dictate the
terms of operations and render enemies incapable of
responding effectively.”21
The Naval Operating Concept for Joint Operations
supports such globally integrated operations through
“sea strike” (offensive power from the sea), “sea shield”
(sea-based defensive systems), and “sea basing” (logistic support for expeditionary forces). In time, these
capabilities will “project increasingly decisive offensive
power” and “enhance homeland defense, maintain
freedom of the seas, assure access through strategic
chokepoints and in the contest littorals, and project
defensive power deep inland.”22
The Air Force captures this idea under the aegis of
“operational agility,” which will “place an adversary on
the ‘horns of multiple dilemmas’ by swiftly applying
different strengths to produce multiple approaches.”23
This has the effect of enabling the Air Force to “leverage multidomain standoff strike capabilities whose
MILITARY REVIEW  July-August 2016

effective ranges exceed those of an adversary’s defensive
systems to engage high-value, time-critical, and highly
defended targets.”24
At both the joint and service levels, the U.S.
military has determined that it will be compelled to
face diverse threats in a resource-constrained future,
and that it must engage those threats by organizing
and equipping itself to operate in tailor-made, widely
dispersed formations that access a broad suite of
capabilities and respond to circumstances so quickly
as to inflict enormous harm on enemy forces. In the
face of violence, the enemy finds itself either militarily unable to achieve its aims or so brutally punished
that the aims no longer seem worthwhile. The United
States also intends to employ this theoretical mechanism against VEOs, albeit at a reduced level of violence. Lethal means are used to destroy VEO formations and prevent them from achieving their military
aims while nonlethal support to state capacity and
development makes those aims seem less worthwhile
to potential recruits.
If these are the givens, the friendly efforts and the
military effects postulated by our theory of war, what
kind of political outcome do we seek? Implicit in the
military effects that are articulated above is the idea
that we alter adversary behavior but achieve neither
total capitulation and occupation nor long-term resolution. Conflict will be short and sharp, and the goal
of the United States is to impose costs so high as to
lead an adversary to cease their undesirable behavior
or live with a degraded capacity for further action.
While we may use decisive maneuver as a strategic
means, our Joint Operating Concept implies that we no
longer expect it to result in a battle of annihilation
that resolves a long-term security competition.

Conclusion
In many regards, the contemporary American
theory of warfare is much like Falkenhayn’s. We
will use surprise and agility to mass capabilities
and achieve a military result that we can translate
into an improvement in the political environment
without achieving a decisive victory that eliminates
our strategic competitors. Like Falkenhayn, we are
adapting to the new strategic givens in our environment: It is simply too costly, in an era with both nuclear weapons and nearly ubiquitous durable small
85