Military Review English Edition July-August 2016 | Page 88

arms, to invade and occupy other countries for the
long-term. As a result, we will fight, we will leave,
only to fight again.
Given these similarities, it is worth considering
how Falkenhayn’s apparently prudent, combat-tested
theory of warfare led to the failure at Verdun and how
we can avoid similar catastrophes in an era of limited
war. The dangers are threefold: We may have made
faulty assumptions about the terrain, the adversary,
and ourselves.
The terrain is the danger to which we are most
attuned. Considerable energy is dedicated in each
of the Operating Concepts to describing global trends
regarding urbanization, youth, computers, and military technology. However, if we do not realize that
we have adopted a theory of limited war for limited
aims, we may be planning to undertake operations
that we have no need to actually undertake; for
example, our theory may not necessitate fighting
in or occupying a megacity. Prudence demands we
reexamine future trends in the light of how we intend
to actualize the theory of warfare we have adopted,
lest, as in Verdun, our wheels get bogged down in a
muddy field of our own making.
Like Falkenhayn, our theory of warfare relies on
either rendering an adversary prostrate or raising
the costs of further conflict to unacceptable levels.
Both conditions require a clear understanding of how
the adversary thinks about cost and how to manipulate those costs, and both may be hard to observe
in real time. Strategic land power is one of the only
mechanisms that signals U.S. intentions to continue
a campaign until our aims are met.25 However, if the
adversary is not completely defeated (as in Russia in
1915), then we may find ourselves conducting retrograde operations against reconstituting force—operations that we have not considered or rehearsed in
our current doctrinal approach. Moreover, if we do
not completely destroy the adversary military, but
can only operate on the adversary’s will (as in our
campaigns against VEOs), we may find ourselves, like
Falkenhayn, hoping that victory is still just around a
corner we never turn.
Finally, just as Falkenhayn’s failure to clearly
communicate his intent at Verdun and its place in his
overall theory of warfare led to subordinate commanders acting in contravention to the logic of that
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theory, so too are we in danger of failing to communicate across echelons how the U.S. military will operate
in the future. The U.S. theory of warfare seems to
dictate a high-speed, aggressive, destructive campaign
to damage the adversary—it does not envision total
defeat, occupation, social reorganization, and withdrawal. However, the latter is precisely how we talk
about campaign planning and how we train staffs and
tactical formations. Consequently, it will be difficult to
achieve the strategic ends envisioned by the National
Military Strategy and the Joint Operating Concept using
the doctrinal means presently at our disposal. This
disconnect is incredibly dangerous. Like Falkenhayn’s
lieutenants, our commanders of the future will be
trained to keep pressing the attack when our policymakers expect them to withdraw to defensible positions, and in doing so, may unravel the entire raison
d’etre of the operation.
It is difficult to imagine a place that better embodies the horror of modern war than Verdun. By the end
of the battle, the ground was so thick with bodies that
each shell stirred up new corpses even as it buried the
old. Men fell to the bottom of shell holes on their way
to the front and drowned trying to scrabble up the
muddy sides. The infantry lay helpless in the middle of
an artillery duel that lasted months. The fight for Fort
Vaux unfolded in pitch-black hallways, behind barriers
made of the dead and volleys of grenades. Phosgene
was used for the first time. Even after almost one hundred years, Verdun stands as an enduring monument
to the fundamental violence of using machines to tear
human beings apart.
Given the extraordinary levels of violence, it is
reasonable to ask what anyone hoped to achieve that
could be worth that cost. The answer, in the eyes of
Falkenhayn, was the destruction of the French army
as a fighting force. If it depleted its reserves, sapped
its will, and gave up on military means to recover its
lost territory, Germany would be able to survive the
war. However, because employment of his theory at
Verdun failed to properly account for the ground,
was inadequately shared with the officers under his
command, and overestimated the impact the battle
had on the enemy, Verdun ended in a German failure.
Given the extraordinary demands future warfare in a
complex world, it is imperative that we do not make
the same mistakes.
July-August 2016  MILITARY REVIEW