“In the event of a conflict, the application of calibrated force posture positions the right mix of ready forces and capabilities so they can rapidly transition to combat operations, penetrate and disintegrate enemy anti-access and area denial systems within days, and exploit the resultant freedom of maneuver to defeat the enemy within weeks rather than months.”
—The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028[1]

The United States Army has a problem. As it extricates itself from protracted counterinsurgency and stability operations in Afghanistan and reorients towards large-scale combat operations, the Army has realized its adversaries, namely China and Russia, have adopted a security posture bent on undermining its preferred way of war. These adversaries have developed systems and doctrine that “achieve physical stand-off by employing layers of anti-access and area denial systems designed to rapidly inflict unacceptable losses on U.S. and partner military forces and achieve campaign objectives within days, faster than the U.S. can effectively respond.”[2] Through multiple wargames and exercises following the events in Crimea, the Army has concluded that Russia, for example, can achieve its military and political objectives in the Baltic in under three days, a fait accompli too costly to contest.[3] Such rapid aggression requires an equally rapid response.

…this obsession with speed and duration is a strategic miscalculation that…cedes the nation’s geostrategic advantages by embracing an operational concept foreign to its nature.

To thwart this accelerated threat, the U.S. Army is pursuing an equally speedy operational concept that employs a combination of “forward presence and expeditionary forces to deny enemy objectives within days and achieve an operational position of relative advantage within weeks.”[4] Commonly referred to as multi-domain operations, the concept embraces short war thinking and promotes a vision of war conditioned entirely on speed. According to the concept, U.S. Army formations operating as part of the joint force create or leverage effects at decisive spaces across multiple domains—land, maritime, air, space, cyberspace, and the information environment—to neutralize and dis-integrate enemy anti-access and area denial systems, enabling maneuver forces to isolate and defeat the enemy at echelon. Aside from a single acknowledgement of the potentiality of protracted war, the concept devotes none of its substance to articulating how the U.S. Army would fight such a conflict.[5] Instead, multi-domain operations promises to deliver decisive results in a big, complex war against a peer threat in only a matter of weeks. However, this obsession with speed and duration is a strategic miscalculation that threatens to undermine a central tenet of the Total Force Concept, unnecessarily jeopardizes the U.S. Army’s most capable forces, and cedes the nation’s geostrategic advantages by embracing an operational concept foreign to its nature. Instead of rushing to battle, the U.S. Army would fare better by joining the fight later, after political leaders have reached consensus, a coalition has formed, and the nation has had time to mobilize the economy that brought it victory in previous big wars.

To achieve this twenty-first century Blitzkrieg, the Multi-Domain Operations Concept suggests recalibrating components by transferring capabilities currently in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve to the active component to facilitate deployments within “strategically relevant time periods.”[6] Recognizing the harm in this requires looking back at an important reform made in the aftermath of a past conflict. Emerging from the painful civil-military tumult of the Vietnam War, Army Chief of Staff General Creighton Abrams sought a safeguard to ensure the newly minted all-volunteer force could not be hastily committed to a big war without the support of the American people. As part of the Total Force Concept, the so-called Abrams Doctrine vested critical enablers and support capabilities in the Army National Guard and Reserve, ensuring that any attempt at large-scale combat would require significant mobilizations.[7] Abrams believed the disruptions posed by these mobilizations would not only force responsible congressional debate, but also would ensure the American public shared in the risk and burden of war.[8] These provisions were intended to function as a de facto check on the president’s authority by increasing the political risk inherent in decisions to commit the nation to war.

Under the Total Force Concept, the active component divisions and corps cannot conduct large-scale combat without their supporting transportation, engineer, maintenance, and supply units in the National Guard and Reserve. By 1989, roughly 89% of the U.S. Army’s maintenance companies and 67% of its combat engineer and transportation units were in the reserve component.[9] Today, the Army National Guard—primarily composed of combat support formations and enablers—makes up approximately 39% of the total force.[10] The U.S. Army Reserve, although smaller, contains 69% of the total force’s sustainment brigades and battalions and 52% of its transportation units.[11]

Although Army National Guard and Reserve mobilizations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draw into question the doctrine’s ability to check presidential power, housing the support units necessary for a sustained ground campaign in the reserve component undoubtedly functions as a brake on the rush to war. Based on timelines from Iraq and Afghanistan, reserve component enablers and support units required, on average, 97 days of pre-deployment training before their required arrival in theater.[12] In an age when the president's ability to use force abroad is largely unchecked, this is an important window for prudent debate, consensus building, and the national mobilization necessary to ensure public support for a potentially costly endeavor abroad. However, the “calibrated force posture” proposed by multi-domain operations seeks to reduce this critical window by shifting key enablers and support capabilities from the Army National Guard and Reserve to the active component in order for self-sustaining formations to deploy, fight, and win in mere days or weeks, not months.[13] Not only does this compress the timeline for debate, it unnecessarily exposes these expeditionary forces to the full brunt of an enemy attack.

Rushing the nation’s most capable forces into the opening barrage of an enemy assault not only pits them against a full-strength force—well-stocked with precision munitions and first-rate weapons with the benefit of interior lines—but defies logic and the historical realities of large-scale combat. Instead of exchanging opening blows on the ground with Russia or China, the historical record indicates the U.S. Army would be better served by joining the fight later, after the enemy has spent much of its vital stocks and been worn down by host nation forces in theater. Previous wars featuring hitherto untested weapons and capabilities witnessed opening campaigns marked by maneuver and violence, only to be followed by significant periods of inactivity as munitions shortages and casualties forced belligerents to reconstitute and refit.

During Europe’s initial foray into industrial warfare, for example, the autumn of 1914 saw widespread violence as massive Allied armies clashed with German forces at First Marne and First Ypres, where the Germans lost over 100,000 soldiers.[14] However, early 1915 was marked by relative quiet as the initial war of maneuver stalled for a lack of men and materiel—primarily artillery shells—to carry on the offensive.[15] Both sides resorted to a form of positional warfare as they sought time to mobilize their economies for what they now realized would be a long war of attrition.[16] Twenty-five years later, after the Wehrmacht ransacked Poland and introduced the world to Blitzkrieg, the bulk of the German force observed a strategic pause from October 1939 to May 1940. In what came to be known as the Sitzkreig, Hitler and his generals focused their efforts on armaments production—again, artillery shells—and training and expanding their army.[17] In both instances, the German leadership had no choice but to pause and refit before continuing the fight. The British, in an effort to reassure France and forestall German aggression in the west, hurriedly assembled ten infantry divisions and rushed them to the continent in 1939. However, the British Expeditionary Force lacked adequate armor, artillery support, and training. It also had failed to absorb the lessons from Germany’s earlier operations in Poland.[18] Their ensuing rout and catastrophic defeat in just over two weeks nearly cost the British 240,000 soldiers, exemplifying what can occur when ill-prepared forces are rushed into a fight.   

Strategists seeking victory in the next war must exploit this operational rhythm to full advantage and spare their best trained and equipped forces from deploying into the teeth of a well-armed enemy on the march. Natural lulls in combat offer opportunities that are otherwise squandered by rushing into battle. Aside from allowing the enemy to expend precious resources during the opening salvos of a campaign, displaying strategic patience enables observation and collection on enemy weapons, tactics, and vulnerabilities, while providing the necessary time to man, train, and equip the right force for the fight. Although it need not be long—perhaps only the three to four months required to mobilize the reserve component—the time spent readying the U.S. Army for combat also provides a valuable window for drawing on the strengths that have brought America victory in previous big wars.

Straddled by two oceans and neighbored by friendly states, the United States possesses the geostrategic advantages of time, relative security, and the world’s strongest economy.[19] These factors are the reason the country has been successful in previous large-scale combat, and they negate the need to embrace an operational concept predicated on short and lively wars. America’s role as the arsenal of democracy is recognized by many as its greatest contribution to victory during World War II.[20] In that war, Germany employed cutting edge doctrine in pursuit of a rapid victory only to be crushed under the combined economic weight and superior coordination of the Allies.[21] The brilliance of U.S. grand strategy was on full display as President Roosevelt and his advisors purposefully delayed entry into the war and leveraged the economy to support allies and save American lives, ensuring U.S. forces only fought a badly weakened Wehrmacht.[22] Little has changed today, and statesmen would be wise to push back against military advice that urges joining battle prematurely. As Michael Handel notes, “...prolonged wars have been won by more effective leadership, better cooperation among allies, greater actual and potential economic strength, and favourable topographical and geographical conditions.”[23] The United States must leverage these same advantages when seeking victory in future large wars. Building a coalition and bringing the full brunt of American economic might to bear against an enemy requires time, which a nation forfeits when it rushes into war under an operational concept at odds with its strategic strengths.

Infatuated with speed and maneuver, advocates of multi-domain operations do not shy away from comparing it to Blitzkrieg, but the origins of multi-domain operations reach back even further into German military thinking.[24] Multi-domain operations can be traced to German kurtz und vives (short and lively) warfare, a way of battle designed “to fight short, sharp wars that ended in decisive battlefield victory.”[25] While this may sound appealing, the Germans only resolved themselves to it because they recognized their geography and economy did not lend itself to winning wars of attrition against more powerful neighbors.[26] While  acolytes if multi-domain operations point to the Wehrmacht's early wins as evidence that short and lively campaigns work, they often fail to acknowledge that, in both world wars, this thinking ultimately led to strategic defeat.[27] Considering America’s geostrategic strengths, it is hard to reconcile why the U.S. Army would neglect the nation’s economic and technological might, and the relative security provided by its geography, in favor of an operational concept crafted by a virtually landlocked central European state with limited resources.

While  acolytes if multi-domain operations point to the Wehrmacht's early wins as evidence that short and lively campaigns work, they often fail to acknowledge that, in both world wars, this thinking ultimately led to strategic defeat.

In his work, The Allure of Battle, Cathal Nolan carefully examines the seemingly endless pursuit of decisive victories through battle, concluding one should “always be deeply skeptical of short-war plans and promises of easy victory, for they shall surely go awry as combat commences and descends into chaos.”[28] With its lofty promise to deliver decisive victory on the quick, the U.S. Army’s Multi-Domain Operations Concept is yet the latest incarnation of wishful, short-war thinking that has long enticed strategists, generals, and policymakers seeking an escape from the unavoidable reality that large-scale combat requires large-scale attrition. While short war concepts may prevail when applied against weaker states, they rarely pan out in fights between peers. And while there is nothing wrong with wishing for a short war, the rebalancing necessary to fight tonight, as it were, risks further distancing the nation from its army by structuring an active component that requires neither its reserve counterparts nor the nation’s resolve to be thrown into the fight. This is a dangerous development that presents a greater risk of fait accompli than Russian tanks attacking towards Tallinn. Instead of deceiving itself with short war delusions, the U.S. Army should steel itself for the realities of large-scale combat by reinforcing interdependencies between the components and strengthening relationships with allies and industry—the real ingredients for success in big wars.

Christopher Parker is a U.S. Army officer and strategist. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect the views of the United States Army, Department of Defense, or U.S. Government.

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Header Image: Soldiers at Point Mugu (SGT Steven Lewis/U.S. Army Photo)

Notes:

[1] Department of the Army, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1 (Fort Eustis, VA: United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, 2018), 17, accessed March 25, 2020, https://www.tradoc.army.mil/Portals/14/Documents/MDO/TP525-3-1_30Nov2018.pdf.

[2] Ibid, vii.

[3] David A. Shlapak and Michael W. Johnson, Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank: Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2016), 1, accessed March 25, 2020, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1253.html; Department of the Army, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, 11.

[4] Department of the Army, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, 24.

[5]  Ibid., 24.

[6] Department of Defense, Unclassified Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2018), 7, accessed March 26, 2020, https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf; Department of the Army, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations, 2028, viii.

[7] Harry G. Summers, “The Army after Vietnam,” in Against All Enemies: Interpretations of American Military History from Colonial Times to the Present, ed. Kenneth J. Hagan and William R. Roberts (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986), 363.

[8] National Defense Research Institute, Assessing the Structure and Mix of Future Active and Reserve Forces: Final Report to the Secretary of Defense (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1992), 94-95, accessed March 30, 2020, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR140-1.pdf.

[9] Martin Binkin, Who Will Fight the Next War? The Changing Face of the American Military (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1993), 109-110.

[10] The Reserve Forces Policy Board, Improving the Total Force: Using the National Guard and Reserves (Washington, D.C.: Reserve Forces Policy Board, 2016), 99, accessed March 30, 2020, https://rfpb.defense.gov/Portals/67/Documents/Improving%20the%20Total%20Force%20using%20the%20National%20Guard%20and%20Reserves_1%20November%202016.pdf?ver=2016-11-17-142718-243.

[11] Ibid, 100.

[12] Christopher M. Schnaubelt, et al., Sustaining the Army’s Reserve Components as an Operational Force (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017), 96, accessed March 30, 2020, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1400/RR1495/RAND_RR1495.pdf.

[13] Department of the Army, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, 17, 37.

[14] Cathal J. Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 366.

[15] Ibid., 366-369.

[16] Ibid., 366-367.

[17] Ben H. Shepherd, Hitler’s Soldiers: The German Army in the Third Reich (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 63, 68-69.

[18] Ibid, 68, 86-87.

[19] The World Bank, Gross Domestic Product Ranking, 2018, accessed April 2, 2020, https://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf.

[20] Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat,” December 29, 1940, The American Presidency Project, accessed April 2, 2020, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fireside-chat-9; Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1995), 192.

[21] Michael I. Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, 3rd, rev. and expanded ed. (Great Britain: Routledge, 2001), 9.

[22] Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country (New York: Picador, 2014), 23-25.

[23] Michael I. Handel, Masters of War, 9.

[24] Bill Hix and Robert Simpson, “Accelerating into the Next Fight: The Imperative of the Offense on the Future Battlefield,” Modern War Institute at West Point, February 26, 2020, accessed March 30, 2020, https://mwi.usma.edu/accelerating-next-fight-imperative-offense-future-battlefield/.

[25] Robert M. Citino, Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2007), 4.

[26] Ibid, 3-4.

[27] Hix and Simpson, “Accelerating into the Next Fight.”

[28] Cathal Nolan, The Allure of Battle, 579.