Introduction

Some argue that great power war is inevitable. Russian tanks roll across the heart of Europe. China dramatically increases capability across all domains. Great powers are back with a vengeance. Analogies drawn from the Cold War and World War II return. Multipolarity challenges the United States’ hegemonic position. Deterrence makes its way back into strategic thought. Great nations with big armies renew conversations about power balancing. Theorists are proud to make realism great again. Like an elastic band snapping into place, Army culture returns to familiar conversations about relative combat power, fires, and maneuver.

The military is expert at retroactively creating narratives. However, just because a narrative resonates does not mean it is true or complete. As the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is reviewed, it is critical that the lessons learned and the narratives that are derived from those lessons, are thoroughly examined for bias. For example, in what ways does the Ukraine war resemble our definition of Large Scale Combat Operations? While there is more armor artillery in action than in our collective memory recalls, is quantity truly a quality all its own? Or, from a strategic standpoint, is it more important to examine this conflict as the outcome of unmanaged nuclear non-proliferation, insufficient security guarantees, the failure of understanding autocratic thinking, but the value of security assistance? While certainly dangerous, are Large Scale Combat Operations inevitable amongst great powers, or only possible when a minor power is in play?

While geopolitical dynamics may resemble historical conditions that lead in the past to direct great power wars, today states are more interdependent than ever, are restricted by the nuclear weapons revolution in military affairs, and are constrained by the costs of conventional war. The proper lesson for us to draw from history is that conflict abhors a vacuum, and threats will take advantage of whatever domain is available. Certainly an argument should be made for increasing traditional lethality in the force, but must that come at the expense of other required capabilities? If we believe that wars are prevented in competition and that adversaries will use all available ways and means in conflict, then the Army must consider diverse solutions to deter and win in both Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) and non-LSCO Multi-Domain Operations.

What is so great about these powers anyway?

What makes a great power great? Although definitions vary, the common thread is that great powers can exert themselves beyond their near abroad to achieve goals. Today, to be a great power, actors extend their capabilities at a global scale through their level of capability, geographic reach, but also recognition as such by other nations.[1] For example France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan, United States, Russia/USSR, and China were each considered great powers.

Great powers may interact within the world cooperatively or competitively. When competition between two powers leads to direct military clashes, conflict occurs. Where cooperation occurs both states benefit from the transaction, while in competition or conflict, one or both powers suffer. The dynamics of these interactions create a hierarchy of states, first formally recognized in the 1814 Concert of Europe.

Realists argue that states vie to be the most powerful while limiting other states’ ability to overtake them. The resulting phenomenon of states allying with the leading nation through bandwagoning or against the leading power through balancing is known as balance of power theory.[2] When one power is on the rise, another declines – which puts them on a crash course for a zero-sum conflict.[3] The current dominant narrative puts China on the rise, Russia trying to rise, and the United States in relative decline.[4] Realists would point to this as a recipe for a coming conflict.

But is great power war inevitable? Since the Concert of Europe, great powers fought each other from the Hundred Days War to World War II. However, during the same period, there were as many small and/or proxy wars as great power wars. After World War II, the dynamic towards hybrid confrontation continued towards distributing conflict in such a way, that it reduced the likelihood of existential defeat. “The resultant Cold War was an approximately 40 year-long political, military and economic confrontation between the USA and the Soviet Union and their respective allies… [that] never escalated into direct military confrontation between the superpowers, but involved an unprecedented arms race with both nuclear and conventional weapons as well as plethora of proxy conflicts.”[5] Korea, Vietnam, and Russian-Afghanistan wars were the closest that Great Powers came to direct conflict, but they remained proxy wars. What can we attribute to this nearly 80-year lack of Great Power Conflict?

(Not) Going Nuclear

In the pre-WW II examples, Great Powers could gain from conflict. Zero-sum outcomes incentivized the use of force and created conditions for increasingly lethal battlefield capabilities. Increased capability extended the scale of vertical escalation possible. This trend continued until the Cold War. The parallel expansion of nuclear arsenals created a new dynamic. As Bull points out, “it is only in the context of nuclear weapons and other recent military technology that it becomes pertinent to ask whether war could not now be both ‘absolute in the results’ and take the form of a single instantaneous blow’ in Clausewitz’ understanding of those terms.”[6] In other words, nuclear weapons capped the escalation race, especially once stockpiles ensured Mutually Assured Destruction. At that point, winner-takes-all possibilities shifted to a likely lose-lose situation.

If vertical escalation is capped, what are other choices? Investments in hypersonics, long-range precision fires, future vertical lift, space, and cyber capabilities extend geographic range, all support horizontal escalation options. Alternatively, great powers could avoid military confrontation with each other, instead choosing to escalate both vertically and horizontally in the diplomatic, informational, and economic elements of national power. In the Cold War, that led to the exclusive use of proxies. Today, adversaries reverse complex interdependence to employ “hostile acts outside the realm of armed conflict to weaken a rival country, entity, or alliance” known as gray-zone aggression, which leads to a sort of diagonal escalation. [7]

If Large-Scale Combat Operations do occur, the likelihood of fighting through a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear environments are high. Yet, no new major Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear capabilities are currently being introduced at this time in the U.S. Army. So how serious is the Army about large, scale combat operations in their most likely forms?

The idea of purely conventional or unconventional wars is a fiction — all conflicts are both. Colin Grey calls this false dichotomy a strategic “categorical confusion”. Hybrid wars are fought at varying intensities and scales, depending on the means available, the creativity of ways imagined, and the ends desired by the adversary. As the resources required to employ and the potential destruction of lethal means increases, the more likely conflict will press ways horizontally into multiple domains and dimensions. While conflict in multiple domains is likely, large-scale multi-domain operations remain less likely between two great powers due to the conventional material costs and the slippery slope toward nuclear weapon use. If Large-Scale Combat Operations do occur, the likelihood of fighting through a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear environments are high. Yet, no new major Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear capabilities are currently being introduced at this time in the U.S. Army. So how serious is the Army about large, scale combat operations in their most likely forms?

Panic at the LSCO

Yet in the U.S. Army today, what is old is new again. Large-Scale Combat Operations harkens back to the Army’s historical victories and provides a clearer purpose than small wars or counterinsurgency, making it particularly palatable to Army culture. However, the Army’s operational concept is Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), not Large-Scale Combat Operations. While multi-domain operations acknowledge the very real possibility of Large-Scale Combat Operations, it does not forecast their inevitability over other forms of conflict, competition, or even cooperation. So while all Large-Scale Combat Operations are Multi-Domain Operations, not all Multi-Domain Operations are Large-Scale Combat Operations. When great powers prepare only for “great” (LSCO) wars, they prevent the single striking blow, but leave themselves vulnerable to death-by-a-thousand cuts, all while holding a metaphorical tourniquet of capabilities. Instead, the Army’s approach to the future must include the full-spectrum of operations.

Ramifications for the Future

This is not an argument against developing Large-Scale Combat Operations capability. But like Kagan, I argue that the Army’s refocus must not be overcorrected.[8] For example, the current Russo-Ukraine War is cited as a case for the return of Large-Scale Combat Operations. Yet from a Great Power perspective, it is a proxy war. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons and is now a target by a state that is bound by treaty to guarantee its security. Operationally, we may learn Large-Scale Combat Operations lessons from this war, but strategically the lessons are different.

The current Russo-Ukraine War is cited as a case for the return of Large-Scale Combat Operations. Yet from a Great Power perspective, it is a proxy war. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons and is now a target by a state that is bound by treaty to guarantee its security. Operationally, we may learn Large-Scale Combat Operations lessons from this war, but strategically the lessons are different.

The Army of the future must be able to generate deterrence by denial and by punishment in both Large-Scale Combat Operations and Non-Large-Scale Combat Operations conditions, across multiple domains, and diverse geography. Deterrence by denial requires capability and will that make it infeasible for an adversary to succeed, while punishment requires severe penalties.[9] If the Army attempts to leave unconventional war behind, non-denied space is created which adversaries exploit, likely through proxies. Conventional responses are often unsuitable to such threats, providing adversaries with an asymmetric advantage resistant to deterrence by conventional military punishment. To mitigate outcomes such as these, tailored forces are required in the unconventional space.[10] Ensuring balance across domains and the Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economic strategic components is foundational to integrated deterrence.[11]

Avoiding historical biases toward conventional military capability and not relying on Cold War definitions of deterrence requires vigilance. As designers of the future endure the machinations of modernization, they should employ tools to maintain balance. For example, the matrix below looks at geographic threats, compared to both Large-Scale Combat Operations and non-Large-Scale Combat Operations conflict types. Experimentation, wargaming, operations research, historical review, or other methods can help determine the form of capabilities required by the framework. In turn force designs can be tailored and judged appropriately across all three components. Tools like these should be employed in the developmental processes.

Conclusion

The U.S. Army may learn incorrect historical lessons if we assume great powers will fight great wars. While many great powers fought each other directly, they also fought small adversaries and used proxies. Today Russia is learning the costs of modern conventional war are so high it is difficult to justify its use. Since World War II, no two nuclear-armed countries directly went to war with each other. A focus on the most dangerous form of war (Large-Scale Combat Operations) is appropriate to create a credible deterrent but cannot fully replace other capabilities required for multi-domain operations. Strategically, without credible non-Large-Scale Combat Operations capabilities, deterrence by denial is not truly possible.

We must also be cognizant that there is a daily struggle our forces face, which is for resources. Although incredibly well-funded, the United States military does not have access to unlimited means. The ensuing competition for resources through our legislative, executive, and popular processes require clear narratives which resonate with military experts and laypersons alike. This necessity can lead to a self-reinforcing cycle of seeing what we need to ensure we “win” the resource battle. A fuller understanding of lessons might be difficult to communicate, but is necessary, since the scope of actual vulnerabilities, risks, and threats are even more serious than the ones on which we are focused today. By reframing the Ukraine conflict, we can take one step closer to this broader understanding.

Nathan Colvin is an officer in the U.S. Army. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Modeling and Simulations from Old Dominion University, where he is also completing his Ph.D. in International Studies as an I/ITSEC Leonard P. Gollobin Scholar. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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Header Image: Ukrainian fag, Lviv, Ukraine, 2021 (Artem Kniaz).

Notes:

[1] Vesna Danilovic, When the Stakes Are High: Deterrence and Conflict among Major Powers (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002). Ron Bohler, What Is a Great Power? A Concept and Its Meaning for Understanding International Relations (Place of publication not identified: GRIN Publishing, 2017).

[2] Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979).

[3] John Mearsheimer, “Structural Realism,” in International Relations Theories, ed. Dunne, Tim, Kurki, Milja, and Smith, Steve (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), ODU Blackboard.

[4] Matthew Kroenig, “International Relations Theory Suggests Great-Power War Is Coming,” Foreign Policy (blog), August 27, 2022, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/27/international-relations-theory-suggests-great-power-war-is-coming/.

[5] UCDP, “United States,” Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 2023, https://ucdp.uu.se/country/2.

[6] Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 2. ed., 2. [print.] (London: Macmillan, 1996), 48.

[7] Elisabeth Braw, The Defender’s Dilemma (American Enterprise Institute, 2022).

[8] “Military Learning and the Future of War,” Institute for the Study of War, September 16, 2020, http://dev-isw.bivings.com/.

[9] Michael J Mazarr, “Understanding Deterrence,” Perspectives, 2018, 13.

[10] Katie Crombe, Steve Ferenzi, and Robert Jones, “Integrating Deterrence across the Gray — Making It More than Words,” Military Times, December 9, 2021, https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2021/12/08/integrating-deterrence-across-the-gray-making-it-more-than-words/.

[11] Kathleen McInnis, “‘Integrated Deterrence’ Is Not So Bad,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, October 27, 2022, https://www.csis.org/analysis/integrated-deterrence-not-so-bad.