**The American Way of War through 2020**

**H. H. Gaffney, The CNA Corporation**

**The views expressed in this and other papers associated with the NIC
2020 project**

**are those of individual participants. They are posted for discussion
purposes**

**only and do not represent the views of the US Government.**

The American Way of War through 2020

**H. H. Gaffney, The CNA Corporation**

Summary

A distinctive American Way of War emerged in the post-Cold War period as
the United States engaged in nine sizable combat or near-combat (Haiti)
operations, beginning with Panama in 1989, and continuing through
Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. This American Way of War is
characterized by deliberate, sometimes agonizing, decision-making,
careful planning, assembly and movement of "overwhelming" forces, the
use of a combination of air and ground forces, joint and combined,
applied with precision, especially by professional, well-trained
military personnel. How this American Way of War resolves the situations
is more problematic---resolution does not automatically flow from the
capabilities applied.

A conjunction of events made this emergence of a tested American Way of
War possible, including both the end of the Cold War and the kinds of
situations that presented themselves and to which the U.S. eventually
responded (especially with regard to Iraq and the former
Yugoslavia).[^1] There was considerable transformation of force
developing during the Cold War during the post-Cold War period, as one
compares Desert Storm in 1991 to "the major combat phase" of Operation
Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

The characteristics of the American Way of War can be summarized as
follows:

1.  Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. got involved for reasons
    particular to the situations, not because it was pursuing some grand
    strategy. If there was one element in common among most of them it
    was that the U.S. was in pursuit of an obnoxious leader.

2.  The U.S. has been reactive, and deliberately so. That is, most of
    the situations in which it chose to engage in combat haven\'t arisen
    out of the blue, but have simmered for some time before U.S.
    intervention, nor has the U.S. reacted fast. Scratch one
    myth---about the need for speed of response. Operation Iraqi Freedom
    was preemptive.

3.  In most cases, the U.S. carefully planned the operation before it
    started. The cases where the planning was not so careful---Somalia
    and Kosovo---turned out to be the messiest. The regional Combat
    Commander (i.e., the Unified Commander) gets to do the planning. But
    this planning has been subject to intense and prolonged iteration
    with Washington, including at the political level.

4.  The U.S. has generally sought international sanction for its
    operations---except for Panama. It has also sought coalition
    partners and other international support. This was true even for
    Operation Iraqi Freedom, though the depth of dedication to this
    effort has been questioned.

5.  The U.S. has been remarkably successful in getting bases. This
    explodes the myth the access around the world is drying up. Of
    course, it takes hard diplomatic work, not always successful---we
    don\'t get everything or everywhere we ask for.

6.  Operations tend to be under tight political control, in part because
    they have tended to be short. Political control also entails
    minimizing own casualties (which the U.S military wants to do
    anyway, especially in the age of the All Volunteer Force) and
    avoiding collateral damage. Political sensitivities are reflected in
    this characteristic.

7.  U.S. forces operate joint and combined. The operation is never given
    to just one service (though it was very heavy Army in Panama). The
    U.S. has preferred to use overwhelming force and not to enter
    operations piecemeal.

8.  The most salient characteristic of the post-Cold War period is that
    the U.S. likes to lead with air strikes. It goes hand in glove with
    minimizing own casualties and, as strike capabilities have evolved,
    controlling collateral damage.

9.  The "major combat phases" have tended to be rather short -- even for
    Kosovo, which was the longest (78 days---though we didn't know that
    when we were in it). Peacekeeping has been a much longer
    affair---see #12 below.

10. But air strikes alone have proved insufficient to end or resolve
    conflicts. The experience of the 1990s has shown that either ground
    forces or diplomacy are needed to wrap up the conflict.

11. The U.S. has gotten to test and evolve its capabilities across these
    cases. Especially important has been the growing networking of
    capabilities, especially for air strikes.

12. The U.S. can\'t go home easily. It did for Panama, Haiti, and
    Somalia. But it has ended up with long residual operations for Iraq,
    Bosnia/Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Iraq has been particularly
    difficult, and one has to say that whatever it is called---from
    Phase 4 or Stabilization to Nation-Building---hadn't been part of
    the American Way of War.

Where the applications of this American Way of War may take place in the
future is unknown. North Korea, China-Taiwan, India-Pakistan, and Iran,
as well as various internal conflicts, are places that threaten war.
Would all these cases still be threatening come 2020? The greatest
unknown is how the Global War on Terror may proceed and how this
American Way of War applies to it. However, with the lessons learned
from experience, the sustainment of legacy forces and the continuous
improvements in these forces, the capabilities of the American Way of
War will remain available. Moreover, maintaining a strong military is
rooted in American politics and America is a rich country that can
afford it. Much depends, though, on the evolution of the world as a
system and the conflicts that may punctuate that system on one hand, and
the disposition at the political level in the United States to use the
forces on the other hand.

Background

This paper was prepared for presentation at the conference on "the
changing nature of warfare" sponsored by the National Intelligence
Council. It was presented as part of Panel 2, on "What are the
contemporary characteristics of war that are likely to persist into the
future?" And further, "What are the characteristics of contemporary
conflict that are likely to be consigned to the dustbin of history by
2020?" The panel was to focus on the last 15 years of conflict in order
to assess what the "current way of war" was and reach judgments about
how long-lived and relevant operational concepts that are current now
may be in the future.

A new "American Way of War" emerged after the end of the Cold War, in
successive combat experiences. The CNA Corporation examined the nine
main cases of combat from 1989 through 2003 in which the U.S. was
engaged, including the latest---Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)---to
discern its characteristics. War-fighting is, of course, at the core of
what U.S. forces do. Around that core, we speak of some larger strategic
functions, such as deterrence, presence, interaction with allies, and
preparation for the future (currently referred to as "transformation").
Those factors provide the strategic contexts in which the American Way
of War has been developed and exercised by successive U.S.
administrations after the Cold War.

We examined the following situations to which the U.S. responded with
combat forces: Panama in 1989, Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1990/91,
Somalia beginning in late 1992, Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1996 (the
Deliberate Force air strikes only), the Desert Fox strikes on Iraq in
1998, Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan beginning in October 2001, and
Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.[^2] Our objectives were (a) to discern
the characteristics of the American Way of War and (b) to illustrate
transformational operations or capabilities that became manifest during
these combat experiences.

![](media/image1.wmf){width="5.011111111111111in"
height="3.763888888888889in"}

We examined these situations empirically: how the U.S. got into the
situations, how it sought and obtained international sanction (or did
not), how it assembled the forces, how it conducted combat, and how it
got out of the situation---or didn\'t. The front and back ends---how the
U.S. got into the situation and how it picked up the pieces
afterwards---are extremely important for assessing the strategic effect
of operations. Many assessments of the American Way of War have
concentrated on the tactical operations without covering the broader
political and strategic considerations. Our study did not delve into the
long history of America at war, the individual services\' dreams and
plans, Joint Vision 2020, or other theoretical writings as to what the
American Way of War "ought" to be. Our description of the American Way
of War is not concerned with contingency plans or abstract scenarios.
Rather, it concentrates on actual combat experience in the post-Cold War
period.

A Little History

Many of the capabilities we now see as part of the American Way of War,
from PGMs to AWACS to GPS to Stealth, were initially developed during
the Cold War. They had been developed in part because, in the
competition with the Soviet Union, and especially in the European
context, the U.S. figured that quality could offset the presumed Soviet
superiority in numbers. But the U.S. also feared that the Soviets might
surprise the world with new technologies, as it had most dramatically
with the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957. The U.S. wanted to
stay ahead in the technological competition.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the U.S. also began to fear that the
Soviets would be more clever in their utilization of new capabilities,
as revealed in Soviet discussions in the early 1980s of "the
military-technological revolution" (MTR) and its combination with
Operational Maneuver Groups (OMG)---notwithstanding that the Soviet
economy and empire were beginning to collapse at about the same time and
in fact these innovations were indications of the weakness they felt
(which the U.S. only realized later). About the same time, some in the
U.S. were devising the Air-Land Battle doctrine, which was meant to take
advantage of new capabilities to strike Soviet and other Warsaw Pact
forces in their rear echelons, not just in defense against assault on
the front lines.

The emergence of the All-Volunteer (professional) Force after the
experience of Vietnam also contributed to the new American Way of War.
It reinforced the American cultural tendency to remain ready by
carefully selecting people and training them intensively. The payoff in
people came in Desert Storm, where, as Stephen Biddle has shown, the
"synergistic interaction of skill and technology" accounted for much
more than the performance of superior weapons themselves.[^3]

During the last half of the Cold War, the U.S. didn\'t have much chance
to practice these emerging capabilities in real combat. It didn\'t
consider Vietnam a test case---indeed, the American Way of War that
emerged might well be described as "the anti-Vietnam way." Grenada was
too small and messy, though it pointed to the need for improvements in
command and control and jointness. U.S. involvement in Lebanon and its
dénouement in the bombing of the Marine barracks was an accident, an
almost inadvertent involvement---and a main stimulus for jointness,
according to the authors of the Goldwater-Nichols revision of the
defense legislation. For an understanding of intensive conventional
warfare, the U.S. relied heavily on Israel\'s experience in the 1973 war
and in its subsequent air and anti-tank operations against Syria in the
Bekaa Valley in 1982 (for example, it learned how some Soviet systems
(SA-6, MiG-25, T-72) could be defeated and was able to recalibrate
ammunition consumption rates likely to be encountered in intensive
armored combat).

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War may have
given the U.S. more latitude to intervene in the Gulf area and the
Balkans. The Soviet Union under Gorbachev and Shevardnadze was quite
cooperative with the U.S. in 1990-1991. Saddam might have thought the
Soviets were still behind him, and he probably still did until the U.S.
overthrew his regime 12 years later in Operation Iraqi Freedom. It may
have been that fear of the Soviets kept Tito\'s Yugoslavia together, but
most observers said that the country was bound to fall apart upon
Tito\'s death, and it did---but it took nine years after that for it to
happen. If Yugoslavia had fallen apart while the Soviet Union still
existed, it is unclear whether Western intervention would have been
possible or might have resulted in some kind of clash with the Soviets
if it were attempted.

Post-Cold War Context

The end of the Cold War may well have had a liberating effect on both
operational innovation and innovative use of systems that had entered
the inventory during the Cold War. The U.S. no longer had to fear that
it would reveal classified capabilities to the Soviets. Moreover, there
was no fear that the Soviets would intervene or that U.S. and allied
operations might escalate to either regional or global war.[^4] U.S.
policy-makers did not seem concerned about weakening deterrence
elsewhere in the world---even though in Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi
Freedom a substantial portion of the total of U.S. forces was brought to
bear. Restrictions on the use of "black programs" developed to defeat
Soviet systems were lifted and regional commanders were free to employ
virtually any conventional capability---including those, like JSTARS,
still under development.

Perhaps the most salient change in the strategic environment that
prompted U.S. combat interventions was taking place coincidentally at
about the same that the Cold War ended: the enervation and collapse of
post-colonial leaderships. Noriega in Panama, the Duvaliers in Haiti,
and Siad Barré in Somalia were representative. The death of Tito and the
rise of Milosevic and the collapse of the monarchy in Afghanistan also
signaled the end of old regimes. Earlier, in 1979, the fall of the Shah
of Iran was also representative of the end of an era. These failures of
governance set new conditions for conflict. Perhaps some of these
leaders were sustained for too long in office by the Cold War, but in
any case, they all lost their capabilities to govern. We also saw
classic aggression by one of the six rogue nations in the
world---Iraq.[^5]

The post-Cold War strategic environment, and its reflection in
continuing U.S. military involvement around the world, was much broader
than the instances of combat we studied. U.S. forces spent only 6
percent of the time in intense combat operations in the nine cases
across nearly 14 years.[^6] And most of these combat operations involved
only a small portion of the forces. The exceptions were Desert Storm and
Operation Iraqi Freedom, and in the air commitment over Kosovo.[^7]

The American Way of War as it Emerged had the Following Main
Characteristics:

-   **With the exception of Iraq and the pursuit of al Qaeda in
    Afghanistan, the U.S. got involved for reasons particular to the
    situations, not because it was pursuing some grand strategy.** If
    there was one element in common among most of them it was that the
    U.S. was in pursuit of an obnoxious leader. These leaders have all
    proven to be elusive: Noriega disappeared for a few days; it took 8
    months to discover Saddam Hussein; Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Dr.
    Karadzic, and General Mladic still have not been found and arrested;
    and Aidid was not captured. Only Cedras in Haiti was forced into
    exile. Milosevic was eventually turned over by his own people for
    trial in The Hague as a war criminal. Nevertheless, all these
    leaders lost their power or their base of operations as a result of
    U.S. interventions.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **Until Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the U.S. was reactive, and
    took the time to thoroughly deliberate whether to intervene. OIF was
    the expression of a preemptive strategy, but was itself deliberated
    within the Administration for a year and a half.** Most of the
    situations in which the U.S. chose to engage in combat did not come
    out of the blue. Rather, they had simmered for some time before U.S.
    intervention. Nor has the U.S. reacted in undue haste. In most
    cases, the U.S. carefully planned the operation before it started.
    The cases where the planning was not so careful---Somalia and
    Kosovo---turned out to be the messiest. In all cases, the regional
    Combat Commander (previously called the Unified Commander) got to do
    the planning. But this planning was subject to intense and prolonged
    iteration with Washington, especially at the policy level. This is
    not surprising, considering that most of the situations had a high
    political sensitivity, especially since many were not viewed as
    critical to U.S. national security. Only the two wars involving Iraq
    and the retaliation against Afghanistan for harboring al Qaeda have
    been thought to be strategically critical.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **The U.S. generally sought international approval and cooperation
    for its operations.** This might have been in the UN Security
    Council, or in the NATO forum. Sometimes it relied on existing UN
    resolutions, as for the Desert Fox strikes on Iraq in 1998. It also
    sought and obtained support from other countries for Operation Iraqi
    Freedom, but could not obtain enough support in the UN Security
    Council for a second resolution that explicitly authorized the use
    of force. Operation Just Cause in Panama (1989) was the only
    situation for which the U.S. did not seek international
    approval.[^8]

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **Given the great distances from the U.S. to the situations in the
    Gulf area, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa, it was remarkably
    successful in getting access to bases in those areas.** This
    suggests that the assertion that gaining access around the world is
    increasingly difficult may be a myth. Of course, it has taken hard
    diplomatic work to gain access with the countries in the area, and
    it is not always totally successful---the U.S. didn't get everything
    or everywhere it asked for, and sometimes the host country placed
    restrictions on U.S. operations (e.g., it did not get Turkish
    approval for the transit of U.S. ground forces for Operation Iraqi
    Freedom, but it did have essential bases on the Gulf side and
    eventually got air transit rights over Turkey). For Operation Just
    Cause in Panama, the U.S. still had bases in Panama. Haiti was close
    enough to the U.S., and NATO bases were available to support
    coalition air operations over Bosnia and Kosovo.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **Operations tended to be under tight political control,** in part
    because the combat situations have tended to be resolved or
    otherwise ended in a relatively short time before they could become
    routine and authorities delegated downward. Reachback capabilities
    have improved so much that Washington and the Combatant Commander's
    headquarters had a much clearer picture of the operation. This not
    only enabled tight control, but also engendered confidence that
    activities in the field were being conducted according to plan and
    within the limits established by both political leadership and the
    Combatant Commander. Political control also entailed minimizing own
    casualties (which the U.S military wants to do in any case,
    especially in the age of the All-Volunteer Force where trained
    manpower is valuable) and avoiding collateral damage. Most
    operations involved political debate in Washington, and thus the
    political leadership had to remain on top of them (perhaps the least
    contentious was the retaliation in Afghanistan for the 9/11 attacks
    in the United States).

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **Operations were joint and combined.** They were never assigned to
    just one service (though the operation in Panama was carried out
    mostly by U.S. Army personnel). The U.S. preferred to use
    overwhelming force and not to enter operations piecemeal. One
    exception may have been Somalia, which was a classic case of
    "mission creep" and changing command relationships, including
    confusion between U.S. and UN control. Jointness was reinforced by
    the fact that all these combat experiences involved U.S. forces
    operating in a relatively confined geographical space---piling into
    one spot, as it were, raising the risk of fratricide and thus
    requiring careful deconfliction and coordination, and also opening
    up the possibility of greater synergistic effects. This was in
    contrast to the "American Way of War" envisaged against the Soviet
    Union during the Cold War, where the scenarios envisaged were global
    and the forces were expected to be dispersed and stretched in the
    event of war. Of course, most of the capabilities that characterize
    the American Way of War in the post-Cold War period were developed
    for the density of a prospective conflict in central Europe.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **Before Operation Iraqi Freedom, the most salient characteristic of
    the American Way of War in the post-Cold War period was that the
    U.S. led with air strikes, that is, where the situation lent itself
    to that option and where the U.S. was reluctant to use its own
    ground forces.** Establishing air superiority and leading with air
    strikes has been dominant in U.S. strategic culture since World War
    II, and was the essence of the Nixon Doctrine of around 1970 (where
    allies would provide the bulk of ground forces and the U.S. had
    unique and substantial air capabilities). In the new era, it goes
    hand-in-hand with minimizing own casualties and, given the precision
    with which strikes can be applied, controlling collateral damage.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **In both Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the combination
    of air and ground forces represented the full flowering of the
    American Way of War**. Simultaneous air and ground campaigns
    characterized World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and would have reached
    new intensities if NATO and the Warsaw Pact had ever gone to war in
    Central Europe. However, there has been a constant complaint by the
    U.S. Army that close air support had not been quite realized, in the
    sense of that close and timely coordination that would permit air
    weapons to be dropped very close to the U.S. ground forces.[^9] The
    combination of air and ground devastated Iraqi forces in Desert
    Storm---but had been led by 39 days of air strikes. New twists to
    air support of ground forces had been demonstrated in the
    Afghanistan. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S. achieved its
    closest coordination yet of air and ground operations, but there are
    still difficulties.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **Air strikes proved insufficient by themselves to end or resolve
    conflicts.** The experience of the post-Cold War period showed that
    either ground forces or diplomacy are needed to wrap up the
    conflict. Diplomacy can be problematic from the military point of
    view---it\'s not like a planned, coordinated military campaign
    leading to predictable results. But diplomacy averted combat in
    Haiti and led to peace in both Bosnia and Kosovo.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **The U.S. had the opportunity to test and evolve its war-fighting
    capabilities across these cases.** In effect, the frequent short
    episodes of combat permitted U.S. forces to test and experiment in
    battle with new systems and concepts. These included the assembly
    and delivery of forces to the area of combat and logistic support at
    the front and back ends. Especially important was the growing
    networking of capabilities, especially for air strikes, and
    involving tactical use of satellite relays. But the U.S. did not get
    involved in these situations simply to get war-fighting
    experience---it engaged in most of them only with the greatest
    reluctance.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **U.S. forces couldn't go home easily.** They did leave Panama,
    Haiti, and Somalia---after several months. But they were saddled
    with long residual operations for Iraq, Bosnia/Kosovo, and
    Afghanistan. The follow-on military operations after Desert Storm
    were particularly prolonged: 12 years of the Maritime Interception
    Operation (MIO) in the Gulf and the Northern Watch and Southern
    Watch policing of no-fly zones over Iraq. Now, after "the major
    combat phase of" Operation Iraqi Freedom, U.S. forces and other U.S.
    agencies face the longest occupation since those in Germany and
    Japan after World War II.

As it has Emerged, the American Way of War has been Based on the Mix of,
inter alia:

-   **A belief in technological superiority.** While this belief was
    ingrained in American culture as the nation developed its economy,
    it became an "article of faith" on the military side of U.S. affairs
    during the competition with the Soviet Union\-\-\--in part to
    compensate for perceived numerical military inferiorities.

-   **The importance of air dominance.** This was one of the highest
    realizations for the United States in its pursuit of technological
    superiority. Both in World War II and the Cold War, it was seen as a
    way to project power speedily across great distances and as a unique
    American contribution to allied forces.

-   **The importance of having highly capable people in the U.S. armed
    forces.** This is also ingrained in American culture, including its
    emphasis on training. It has achieved its military realization in
    the All-Volunteer Force.

-   **Dominance of "the commons,"** i.e. sea, air, space. This is
    necessary in the first place because the U.S. has had to move across
    the oceans to wherever it enters combat and would not want to be
    hindered en route. During actual combat, the U.S. has relied on
    satellites, air superiority, and immunity for its rear area
    facilities and operating areas, including the sea. It was challenged
    in the maritime commons by mines and the threat of air and cruise
    missile attacks in Desert Storm, but has not been threatened since.
    In Iraq and the former Yugoslavia, its air superiority was
    challenged by older Soviet air defense systems. The U.S. put
    considerable effort into their suppression. In the cases studied,
    the U.S. has not been challenged in space.

-   **The centrality of accurate firepower.** This has been an ages-old
    military goal, that is, to be more effective in destroying enemy
    forces. In the cases studied, the U.S. has demonstrated great
    efficiency in firepower through technological advances. These
    advances have also permitted greater economy of force. An additional
    benefit of the accuracy of firepower is less collateral
    damage---though this has also brought higher expectations that
    collateral damage would be minimized.

-   **The ability to synthesize all the forces and capabilities,** i.e.,
    through jointness and networking, given the concentration of forces
    and the need to maintain direction and control.

Many Elements of Transformation were Progressively Demonstrated in the
Nine Combat Situations

Elements of transformation, as we currently understand the term, were
exercised in each of the nine case studies. These elements include
direction and control of the operation, innovations in the use of
existing systems, and the use of new systems. In each case, we examined
the contributions of these transformations to the efficiency of the
operation, the overall success of the operation itself, and to the
resolution of the situation.

The U.S. has believed in applying overwhelming force to solve a
situation---a concept that might be regarded as "something more than
might otherwise be considered appropriate." The current administration
is now referring to the concept as "overmatching force." In the cases we
examined, U.S. operations tended to be well-planned and economical in
the forces assembled, committed to the operation, and supported.

-   Desert Storm was perhaps the least efficient, in that the plans were
    to build up to a force matching the size of the Iraqi army and to
    support the ground forces with 30 days worth of ammunition prior to
    launching the counterattack into Kuwait. In the event, and unknown
    to the U.S. there were large numbers of desertions on the Iraqi side
    prior to the combat phase. The U.S. ground forces used only 1.5 days
    of ammunition against opposition that was in retreat.

-   The less-well-planned operations---Somalia and Kosovo---involved a
    series of changes in both the forces committed and the objectives of
    the operations. But while Somalia turned into a mess once mission
    creep set in, the Kosovo operation saw progressive advancement in
    the efficient use of airpower, both in selecting and attacking
    targets and in controlling collateral damage.

-   In any case, the most visible growth in efficiency through
    transformation was in airpower. This was a product of the networking
    of air capabilities (greater inclusion of naval air, for instance)
    and the availability of PGMs (Precision-Guided Munitions, to include
    Tomahawk). The U.S. and its coalition partners were also able to
    restrict own casualties in ways unprecedented in history.

Most of the nine operations were successfully conducted in terms of
bringing major combat to a conclusion in a relatively short time. The
main enemies defeated were Iraq and the Taliban. Both had pre-war
mystiques (based on Iraq's equipment on one hand and the Afghanis
successful guerrilla war against Soviet forces) that were demolished
quickly by U.S. technology, efficiency, and utter domination of the
information sphere---to the surprise of those enemies. In both cases,
however, insurgencies continue. In the cases of Bosnia and Kosovo, the
Serbs were tougher to crack, in part because the U.S. and its allies
were reluctant to send in combat ground troops against them. The
instruments that ultimately caused the Serbs to recede from the
battlefields were political and diplomatic.[^10]

Finally, total resolution of situations---in the sense of completely
restoring order, getting economies functioning, and achieving stability
of political leadership---proved difficult, despite the transformations
in U.S. war-fighting capabilities. As noted earlier, obnoxious leaders
proved difficult to track down, however good the transformation in U.S.
eavesdropping and Special Forces capabilities have become. Residual
operations after the two wars with Iraq were and are prolonged. U.S. and
other NATO forces and civilian authorities must still maintain the peace
in Bosnia and Kosovo. However, the awesome efficiency of U.S. forces
removed the proximate threats in each of the cases we examined, opening
up the opportunities for peaceful evolution in each of the countries
involved.

The operations against Iraq were the only two comprehensive operations
undertaken by U.S. forces and their allies, as they involved air,
ground, naval (though mostly naval aviation), and Special Forces
elements, supported by extensive and improved command, control,
communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
(C4ISR).

This American Way of War is now part of the legacy. It will persist and
be improved upon---transformed as it were. Though I must say, the old
abstract Cold War myth of "lighter, faster" keeps intruding. I'm not
quite sure why---but it flows out of the old expectation of Soviet
surprise attack. "Lighter, faster" does not flow out of the experience
of the American Way of War as I laid it out.

Is the Past a Prologue?

U.S. combat operations from 1989 to 2003 have been a proving ground that
has established an American Way of War of a certain character, as
outlined earlier. The cases we examined---in which the circumstances
necessitated combat---enabled the American Way of War to be developed
more rapidly and realistically than exercises might have permitted
before (although the earlier development of doctrines, practice of
tactics, and training on equipment, including at the National Training
Center in the California desert, contributed greatly to the successes of
the forces). In virtually every case, new or improved concepts,
capabilities, and command arrangements were employed with some degree of
success. Over the period commanders were willing to test new systems
still in development---UAVs and JSTARS, for example. The progress of the
evolving American Way of War came about largely because U.S. forces were
used so frequently in combat in this period.

We can expect that the American Way of War will continue to evolve---to
transform---over the next 16 years through 2020. The ongoing global war
on terrorism will provide some particular challenges for the adaptation
of the forces, since the enemy is so dispersed and irregular. Less
certain may be the need to conduct large-scale and comprehensive combat
operations on the order of Desert Storm or Operation Iraqi Freedom; one
always worries about North Korea, but they haven't attacked since 1950.
Second, the long-term commitments facing U.S. ground forces in Iraq and
Afghanistan suggest that additional operations involving substantial
ground forces cannot be undertaken in any case until U.S. ground forces
have fully left Iraq and have recovered and possibly unless the U.S.
Army and U.S. Marine Corps personnel are increased. It is worth noting
here that Afghanistan has still not been pacified.

On the other hand, U.S. air and naval forces will continue to be
available to conduct the sorts of operations that the U.S. and its
allies conducted over Bosnia, Kosovo, in Desert Fox against Iraq, and,
with the aid of a few forward air controllers on the ground, in
Afghanistan. Indeed, at one point, the pattern of air strikes (albeit
often coupled with local ground forces, which do not represent
"transformation" as such) appeared to be the dominant characteristic of
the American Way of War. The deterrent value of this demonstrated air
power is not to be underestimated. How this would be relevant in the
global war on terrorism, though, is not clear.

Operation Iraqi Freedom knocked out the major rogue enemy the U.S. had
confronted and may have created a dramatically new strategic situation
in the cockpit of the world---the Persian Gulf area---and thus perhaps
for the whole world, assuming Iraq emerges as a stable and secular
state, which is difficult to predict at this time (May 2004). In the
meantime, Libya has decided to give up its WMD program-related
activities and not to buy military equipment from the other rogues.

The most serious state enemies that remain are Iran and North Korea,
especially as they develop and build nuclear weapons and missiles with
which to deliver them. The two countries are otherwise contained. Iran
and North Korea also do not lend themselves easily to the preemptive
application of the American Way of War---Iran's population is large, its
territory vast, and its capital far inland, while North Korea would
devastate Seoul before being subdued. Syria also continues to be a rogue
state. Syria apparently has chemical warfare capabilities and may be
weaponizing Scud and No Dong-type ballistic missiles with chemical
warheads. But Syria has been contained by Israel and has followed more
benign foreign policies than the "Axis of Evil" states, although it
still supports the terrorist Hezbollah in Lebanon and appears to be an
avenue for terrorists to enter Iraq.

Some people also wonder whether the U.S. would ever again face as
militarily incompetent an enemy as Iraq---yet the few armies, air
forces, and air defenses the U.S. might face come essentially from the
same Soviet mold that the Iraqi military came from. They have the same
equipment, now vastly outdated, the same bad training regimens, and the
same hierarchical, initiative-stifling, politicized command structures.
And they have troubled economies. The collapse of the Soviet Union has
eliminated the free distribution of military equipment from that source,
though much still lies around the landscape, as demonstrated in
Iraq.[^11] Moreover, the collapse of the Soviet Union demonstrates that
big military programs may well ruin economies.

The possibility of conflict with China over unification with Taiwan also
remains an unresolved issue that is likely to persist well into the
future. So long as the U.S. remains committed to defending Taiwan from
an unprovoked Chinese attack and so long as China is unwilling to forego
the use of force, the bleak cloud of conflict will be present. Unlike
the forces in North Korea and Iran, the Chinese military is improving,
thanks to a rapidly growing Chinese economy. How "the American Way of
War" as described in this paper would be applied in a battle over Taiwan
is an interesting question.

Beyond those problems with other states lies the whole global war on
terror. Al Qaeda and the offshoots it has inspired are a much more
diffuse, shadowy enemy, which may take a whole different kind of
American Way of War, except if the U.S. were to retaliate in those
states in which the terrorists attempted to establish a base as they did
in Afghanistan. Instead, any combat against the global terrorists is
more likely to involve U.S. Special Forces or other covert operations
and the exercise of non-military capabilities and operations of a law
enforcement nature, plus the continued attempts to dry up their
financial resources. A larger task, which goes beyond the capabilities
for the American Way of War described here, is that of getting at the
root causes of terrorism through reform in the countries from which they
have originated. Achieving peace between the Israelis and Palestinians
is also necessary.

There is also the festering problem of insurgency combined with
narcotics traffic in Colombia.

The exercise of the American Way of War in the period 1989-2003 has
resulted in fundamental strategic improvements: the removal of Saddam
Hussein's threat to peace and stability in the Middle East, the removal
of the Al Qaeda terror base in Afghanistan, and the end of the most
serious remaining conflicts in Europe (i.e., those in the former
Yugoslavia). Each of these situations still requires the internal
restoration of governance and economies, but they no longer pose
strategic threats.

The nine combat experiences in which the U.S. engaged since 1989
provided real-world validation of the transformation of U.S. forces'
capabilities. The successful application of military force in these
situations may presage future successes, depending on the maintenance of
trained and ready forces, the circumstances, deliberation at the
political level, reasonably careful planning at the command level, and a
willingness to exploit the new capabilities that have been delivered to
the forces. Thus, the template of the American Way of War that has
emerged in the post-Cold War era suggests that the past is prologue---at
least as far as the way the U.S. may contemplate the use of its forces
in actual conflicts. Whether situations comparable to the nine we have
examined may arise and whether a U.S. administration may find it
necessary to use the forces remains to be seen.

Even if opportunities for the kind of combat demonstrated in the
American Way of War do not arise, the development of that way of war and
the transformation of U.S. capabilities that made it possible are likely
to have an impact around the world. Beyond Iran, North Korea, Syria, the
global terrorists, and Colombia lies the whole issue of whether the U.S.
can dissuade possible future military competitors from entering arms
races with the United States. The American Way of War as we have
described it in this paper has proven capabilities difficult for any
other country to duplicate, especially given the large U.S. defense
budget and the large amount (\$64 billion proposed for fiscal year 2005)
that it tends to spend on research and development (R&D).

While some say that other countries---unspecified, but some suggest
China---may try to emulate U.S. capabilities, the development and
sustainment of U.S. capabilities may also have a dissuasive effect. That
is, emulation of the American combination of political direction,
organization, technology, practice, and trained and motivated career
personnel would be difficult. This is a cultural question, it takes
time, and it may take a country some failures in actual combat
experience to find out what works and what doesn't---and whether it has
a taste for war. The next 16 years might not be sufficient for such
emulation to be achieved, even if attempted, but the indications of any
progress may be evident by 2020.

Looking Out to 2020

What of the U.S. military Legacy may well Persist

The U.S. has come out of its post-Cold War historical experience, that
is, its grounding in combat, with:

-   **A big professional force.** The experience of the Cold War made
    the U.S. fear demobilizing (or at least very much). Moreover, U.S.
    volunteer personnel have established careers in the military that
    U.S. leadership wishes to sustain. At the same time, the personnel
    burden is not large: only one half of one percent of the population
    is in uniform, representing less than one percent of the work force.

-   **An expeditionary and logistics character**, originally developed
    for World War II, but now even more efficient in its airlift and
    specialized sealift. This would be affected only by a massive shift
    of military resources to homeland defense following a new
    devastating assault by the terrorists.

-   **Leading technology.** It's in the U.S. nature, reinforced by the
    Cold War and the fear of surprise Soviet advances in technology.
    This fear persists. "To stay ahead of a putative peer competitor" is
    still the main driver of U.S. military transformation, though many
    in the U.S. also speak enviously of what they see as more aggressive
    innovation and risk-taking in private industry.

-   **High readiness.** This goes with being expeditionary, that is,
    having to deploy long distances to fight and the time that entails.
    It also derives from the old fear of Soviet surprise attack.
    Moreover, U.S. forces find that it's essential to keep its volunteer
    personnel busy and training at their skills, lest they leave for
    more active employment.

-   **A strong tendency to jointness.** Experience in operations is
    practically the only way to bring all the services together.
    Otherwise, the individual services tend to go their own way,
    inventing their own worlds and enemies to fight.

-   **Military strength rooted in U.S. politics.** Neither party can
    look soft on defense. Moreover, the U.S. military establishment is
    the most respected institution in America (Abu Ghraib
    notwithstanding).

Some might see this ready, expeditionary war capability as a temptation
for aggression and empire-seeking. Iraq might be cited as an example,
but, given the failure there to find WMD and connections to al Qaeda and
the quagmire resulting from U.S. attempts to stabilize the country, it
looks as if Iraq was a one-off exercise of this preemptive doctrine. If
the U.S. really had good intelligence on North Korea's or Iran's nuclear
capabilities, it might still preemptively attack them. But conquest of a
whole country is another matter.

The U.S. public doesn't like going to war, nor does Congress, though
Congress's ability to restrain the executive may be waning. War is also
costly, and operations both use up equipment and squeeze the funds
available for new equipment---which may represent a dilution of the
transformation that could otherwise be pursued in quieter times. There
is also a feeling in the U.S. that involvement deep in a place like Iraq
leaves the country unready for some rogue to take advantage of U.S.
distraction---notwithstanding that North Korea has passed up innumerable
such opportunities for the last 50 years. Finally, the prolonged
occupation of Iraq and its drain on the family-oriented volunteer
military personnel may cause difficulties for recruitment, both for
active and reserve components, in the near future.

What this says is that this American Way of War I have described is
neither the totality of defense efforts or of foreign policy. Rather, it
is only the "battle" portion of it, as Lt. Col. Echevarria of the Army
War College described it in a recent pamphlet. The American Way of War
is thus not "grand strategy." And the people immersed in it do not do
economics. The unfolding of the world through 2020 is going to be mostly
about economics.

There are more ways to nudge the world in a positive way toward 2020
than with the American Way of War. Some of us speak now more of
horizontal scenarios than the punctuated vertical scenarios. The global
war on terror will be a horizontal scenario, punctuated not by war or
even battles, but by incidents. But the U.S. is not going to manage this
world evolution just with the American Way of War.

In Projecting the Persistence of U.S. Forces and the American Way of War
to 2020, Much Depends on the Evolution of the World

The big trends in security affairs in the world may well continue:

-   **The decline of state-on-state warfare.** And it is not clear what
    country would want to take on "the American Way of War."

-   **The decline and obsolescence of classic military establishments**,
    as in Russia. Part of this is due to the absence of threats. More
    important is economics (as Putin says). In the globalization era,
    the state's role in economics is (a) not to kill the golden goose
    that is expanding the economy by taxing too much (again, see Putin),
    and (b) to provide housing, health care, education, and pensions,
    especially as populations age. Those who dream about a new era of
    warfare are never economists. The dissuasive effects of America's
    persistent sustainment of the capabilities of the American Way of
    War play here.

-   **The decline in the number of internal conflicts,** however intense
    some may be and however much some are never solved (e.g., Colombia).
    Old conflicts die out, and new ones arise, but overall the numbers
    are declining. This trend would have to be reversed. The U.S. has
    been reluctant to intervene in such situations---it only intervened
    in four of the 37 internal conflicts counted across the 1990s
    (Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo), and Somalia was not a very
    effective demonstration of the American Way of War. In any case, the
    full capabilities of the American Way of War would not come to bear
    during an intervention in an internal conflict. Whether the
    prolonged "stabilization" phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom leads to
    lessons learned, better pre-planning, and other kinds of
    capabilities in the American Way of War remains to be seen, but it
    was not part of the nine cases we studied. The U.S. is only now
    learning those lessons.

-   **As an opposite trend so far, the growth and dispersion of Islamic
    global terrorists** now seems to be the major threat to global
    security. This may be arising from the major structural deficiency
    in world globalization---the inability of the Islamic states to
    accommodate their surging populations yet being in such close
    proximity to the advanced world that the populations feel those
    pressures.

The specific situations we know about that could either be resolved or
drag on through 2020 include:

-   **North Korean and Iranian proliferation.** We keep hoping that
    North Korea will simply collapse and that the populace will grow
    tired of the mullahs in Iran and toss them out of office in a new
    revolution. The outside world seems to have little effect on either
    evolution.

-   **We worry about a war between India and Pakistan,** one which
    escalates to the use of nuclear weapons. So do they. India may be
    undergoing healthy economic growth, but, as their election just
    showed, the growth is not getting down to enough of the poor
    people---the 800 million villagers. Pakistan is close to being a
    failed state. A favorite U.S. military planning scenario is going
    into South Asia to restore order after a nuclear exchange. But if
    the U.S. doesn't have enough resources to police Iraq, it doesn't
    have enough to handle 50 times the population.

China may be the real wild card in all this, though, as Arthur Waldron
says, the country itself is the Chinese leadership's real wild
card.[^12] At the moment, the Chinese economy may be overheating, and
yet they have still not created enough jobs to absorb layoffs from
reforming state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or to absorb the 200 million
people that are currently floating between village and city. In the
meantime, the PLA obsesses about Taiwan and is benefiting from the
growth in the economy to improve its forces.

Aside from the general evolution of conflicts and the particularly
worrisome situations, we might worry about the availability of energy
resources through 2020 on one hand and such afflictions as AIDS on the
other. It is not clear how these would result in warfare nor the
relevance of the American Way of War.

Much also Depends on the Evolution of U.S. Politics and Policies

The maintenance and use in warfare of "the American Way of War" is not
an objective inevitability. It is not detached from U.S. political
leadership and their political choices. All these uses and development
of the American Way of War are subject to political decisions. The
administration in power rules.

The U.S. polity is now debating:

-   How to prosecute the global war on terror. If there is a next
    catastrophic terrorist attack in the U.S., we could see a huge shift
    of defense resources to homeland defense.

-   At the other end of the spectrum is the challenge of
    nation-building, for which I suspect the U.S. nation doesn't have
    quite the guts or resources to undertake. Defense is basically a
    domestic program, related mostly rhetorically to foreign policy (it
    makes us feel strong).

There is a good deal of discussion in the United States these days about
the roots and evolution of U.S. foreign policy and U.S. propensity to
use force. This discussion even includes observations that the U.S. has
historically had a propensity to take preemptive action, though perhaps
neglecting to note that such action, until Iraq, was confined to the
Caribbean and Central America (the Monroe Doctrine).[^13] It is also
said that the U.S. has tendency to unilateralism, again neglecting to
mention that it has much to do with the Monroe Doctrine. Rather, as a
democracy, the U.S. has tended to be reactive, and to react only after
long and painful deliberations. From World War II on, it has sought to
form alliances and coalitions for any actions. The question lies in the
balance between internal U.S. debate on one hand and early consultation
with allies in order to solicit inputs to that debate and to garner
support ("sharing the burden") on the other hand.

In the first place, Iraq may be exhausting the U.S., or at least, as
many say, come close to "breaking U.S. ground forces" (Army and
Marines). In any case, it is uncertain right now (May 2004) as to when
the U.S. can substantially reduce its forces in Iraq and when thereafter
the forces can be reconstituted (i.e., their equipment restored and
their training resumed).

Unless there were another Iraq-type situation requiring that the U.S.
invade a country harboring terrorists, it would not appear that the
global war on terror would place a huge demand on U.S. Defense
Department resources---unless a catastrophic terrorist incident in the
U.S. were to lead to a huge switch of those resources to homeland
defense. Whatever the case, that would send "the American Way of War"
off in quite another direction.

At the other end of the spectrum, some in the U.S. have suggested that
the U.S. might have to engage in much more "nation-building" to "drain
the swamp" in which terrorists breed. This would either entail reducing
fighting forces and increasing constabulary forces, or some large shift
of funds to other U.S. government agencies. Aside from whether
nation-building is even practical, such a switch is likely to encounter
fierce political resistance in the U.S., either to do it or to shift the
resources to other agencies. In any case, nation-building is not what we
have considered to be "the American Way of War," which still implies
quick resolution of a conflict and thus quick return of U.S. forces back
to their home bases.

The U.S. military is strongly supported in U.S. politics, so its budget
is not likely to decline for a few years at least. But as 2020
approaches, the U.S. may well be facing a continuing budget deficit and
greatly increased outlays for Social Security and Medicare as the
population ages. This could put a squeeze on the defense budget, though
not substantial cuts (given U.S. politics), unless there were some kind
of national or global financial disaster. The effects of a squeeze, and
depending also on the costs of continuing operations and the inevitably
rising costs of new equipment, could be some reduction in force
structure numbers. The U.S. still fears the emergence of some new "peer
competitor" replacing the Soviet Union and exhibiting some new
technological innovations, so that, faced with a trade-off between new
systems and maintaining force structure, it would probably prefer the
new systems.

Some Broad Alternatives for U.S. Forces Through 2020

So what are the big bracketing alternative paths---not for the world,
but for the American Way of War within the world?

-   **A simple evolutionary momentum, rooted in the continuing support
    emerging from U.S. politics.** The U.S. sustains this kind of force,
    which nonetheless shrinks in numbers as the budget levels off
    because of the deficit and the bills to support an aging population
    and yet new systems cost much more as the U.S. continues the quest
    for more quality (just as in the Cold War).

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **A huge shift of defense resources to homeland defense**, following
    an atrocious and catastrophic terrorist incident---which also causes
    the U.S. to retreat from the world. This would also entail shifting
    resources to domestic security agencies out of DOD.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Contrariwise, **a huge shift of national security resources to
    nation-building**: economic, on governance, and peacekeeping. This
    also would involve shifting funds from DOD to AID and other
    international agencies.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **"The System Administrator" force:** lots of professional military
    cooperation around the world, including coordinated interventions in
    failing states.

One trouble is that the current DOD planning system appears to be
totally inappropriate for any of this. It is focused on inventing a new
peer competitor and fighting him in classic wars.

In previous studies at The CNA Corporation, we had devised three grand
alternatives for post-Cold War U.S. forces, though those studies
predated the global war on terror. First devised back in 1992, we had
not found a different set of alternatives in successive studies since
that time. We characterized the alternatives for U.S. defense efforts as
follows:

I. The stabilizing force, also known as the presence force.

II\. The response force, also known as the surge force.

III\. The transformation force, also known as the future force.[^14]

We looked at each of these forces in terms of what future it implied the
U.S. was seeking, in what direction legacy forces would be nudged in the
alternative, and how the forces might be operated. We also fed the
alternative forces back into globalization, i.e., to see how they might
nudge the evolution of the world system, as it were.

The American Way of War as it has emerged after the Cold War fits
Alternative II, the response or surge force. For the alternative:

-   **The future is contingencies,** that is the unexpected or
    unanticipated situations that might disrupt globalization if not
    responded to. Put another way, U.S. forces would be "the SWAT team."
    In the near term, the contingencies we envisaged in previous studies
    included an attack on or by Iraq (which could well disrupt the whole
    Middle East and with it the oil market) or by North Korea (which
    would certainly disrupt the South Korean economy, one of the prime
    engines of both the Asian and world economy). In the longer term, we
    said it might be a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Responsive U.S. forces
    are also a deterrent to such aggression. Some people worry about
    "response" being too late, but the nature of this force is not the
    speed of response, but the inevitability of U.S. response and its
    overwhelming nature, that is, it's capacity to punish.

-   **"What to build" is a joint force.** We anticipated a concentrated
    effort, not efforts scattered around the globe, as the nature of the
    response. This would require integrated air, ground, sea, and space
    efforts. In addition to the basic forces that each of the services
    builds, the option would entail all the connecting and supporting
    capabilities for a joint force---as demonstrated in Afghanistan.
    Tailored attacks on the specific defenses of the rogues would be
    anticipated, that is, "anti-anti-access." Strike capabilities would
    take priority, but as time goes on, tactical ballistic missile
    defenses would be part of the force and might take priority for
    scarce resources over national missile defense. In the general
    globalization context, this military capabilities of this joint
    response force would be unmatched by any other country---though it
    could also make it progressively harder for allied forces to
    integrate with U.S. forces.

-   **Operating the Response Force** would be a mix between exercising
    joint forces in preparation for contingencies and concentrating
    overseas deployment in the areas of potential contingencies as a
    deterrent, especially to rogues who might attack their neighbors. We
    suggested less spreading of U.S. forces in engagement with other
    countries around the world.

The United States takes pride in this kind of alternative. But it has
implied less engagement with friends and allies around the world. We see
some of this in the repositioning of the forces that is now
planned---though the proposals to date have not been quite clear. But it
means withdrawing most of the U.S. forces from Germany and relocating
them to the United States, while redeploying some of them on temporary
bases to places "closer to the likely action," which usually means
closer to the Middle East. The U.S. Navy, too, has a Fleet Response Plan
(FRP) described as a surge force (a hitherto forbidden word in the Navy,
for the service during the 1990s had staked all on "presence," i.e., as
part of the stabilizing alternative). At the same time, the global war
on terror could involve, not contingencies, but little actions by small
U.S. forces dispersed through "the arc of crisis," i.e., from the Strait
of Gibraltar around to southeast Asia.

More difficult is the transformation of such forces because high
readiness and the planning for contingencies may limit the imagination
about future types of warfare. Yet if transformation involves not just
more exotic systems, but also the training and acculturation of U.S.
military personnel, better networked forces, and adaptability, this is
not precluded by the response/surge alternative and is consistent with
the American Way of War as we have described it.

Conclusion

The U.S. military, like other militaries, except those that emerge from
revolutions (e.g., Trotsky's Red Army), evolves off its legacies. These
legacies are based on the acquisition of equipment that may last for a
long time, especially as quality and reliability have been improved, and
there are no rapid modernizations elsewhere, such as the Soviet Union
posed. The legacy is also based on the lore passed on from the more
senior military personnel and reflected in the training and education of
new personnel. If this lore arises from actual combat experience---as
the U.S. practiced and improved upon from 1989 through 2003---it may be
especially deeply rooted. This is what is reflected in the American Way
of Way as described.

The question arises what could perturb this legacy over the next 16
years, through 2020. We have said that the global war on terror may not
lend itself to this model of the American Way of War unless a new
harboring state is found for us to strike. Otherwise, the global war on
terror is likely to involve very small actions by smaller forces, not
requiring very sophisticated technology, except as it is linked into the
worldwide intelligence and surveillance system that looks for clues as
to where the terrorists may be. But this waging of the global war on
terror may be possible as a "lesser included case" within the
maintenance of the overall legacy. The exceptional perturbation we have
mentioned could be a massive shift to nation-building on one hand or a
massive shift to homeland defense on the other, with the associated
shift of fairly constrained defense resources.

Will the confrontation between China and Taiwan still be with us 16
years hence, and how might both those countries evolve in the interim,
either to make war more likely or less? (We have in mind, i.e., the
evolution of a much more decentralized China, even if not a "democracy,"
whatever that is.) Back in 1990, we worried about North Korea taking
advantage of U.S. distraction in its confrontation with Iraq, but heard
for the first time that, "the North Koreans are starving." 14 years
later, the situation for the North Korea people has hardly improved, but
North Korea has become the proud possessor of a few nuclear weapons. Its
government did not collapse. So both the Taiwan situation and North
Korea could be with us for another 16 years.

Will India and Pakistan finally go to war over Kashmir, and will they
use nuclear weapons? It is not inevitable. We have worried about such a
war since 1974 when India first tested a nuclear device. The two
countries are certainly more advanced in their thinking and
communication about nuclear war than the U.S. and Soviet Union were in
the early 1960s,[^15] but both Pakistan and India are vulnerable to
internal instabilities. Pakistan is also on the front line in the global
war on terrorism.

Right now, the U.S. is preoccupied with Iraq, and beyond that, the
global war on terror. It still has a problem in Afghanistan as well. We
have no real idea how that war on terror will evolve, though the
demographic and resource situations in the Arab and other predominantly
Muslim countries do not look good, so that the production of terrorists
is likely to continue.

Yet the U.S. is not helpless in nudging outcomes toward 2020. It has the
resources. It has a powerful military, likely to be relatively even more
powerful as the years pass (in 1994, a rough calculation of what
proportion of the world's defense spending the U.S. spent was 38
percent. The figure quoted these days is 51 percent). It has a powerful
economy that is still the engine of the world economy, though on some
days it looks like China might eventually take over as the engine, given
its huge population---but the U.S. has practically been adding the
equivalent of the Chinese GDP each year in its own economic growth. A
lot depends on whether U.S. political leadership is ready to engage in
the world---but relying just on "the American Way of War" for that
engagement has proven to be not too promising, given U.S. experience in
Iraq.

We should remember, however, that the elements of the triptych---of
world evolution, U.S. force policy, and the evolution of U.S.
forces---are only loosely related. Therein lies the genius of this
triptych, for if they were closely coupled, we would be vulnerable to
surprise evolutions and have less adaptability---in all three aspects.

[^1]: 1\. During the Cold War, the U.S. had engaged in major wars in
    Korea and Vietnam. The Korean War was, in a way, a continuation of
    World War II. The new American Way of War described in this paper
    can be characterized as "Not the Vietnam Way," though why this is so
    won't be explored here. Lebanon in 1982-1983 was also a "not to be
    repeated" case. The "post-Cold War Way" might have started with
    Grenada in 1983 and the tanker war of 1987-1988 in the Persian Gulf,
    but we started our analysis with 1989.

[^2]: 2\. We did not include the retaliatory strikes against Sudan and
    Afghanistan after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. We
    also omitted all peace enforcement operations (since they
    technically don\'t involve combat as such) and the limited Tomahawk
    cruise missiles strikes against Iraq in 1993 and 1996.

[^3]: 3\. Stephen Biddle, "Victory Misunderstood: What the Gulf War
    Tells Us about the Future of Conflict," *International Security*,
    Vol. 21, No.2 (Fall 1996), pp. 139-179).

[^4]: 4\. There was a minor possibility of a clash with the Russians
    upon their independent intervention in Kosovo---that is, their dash
    from Bosnia to the Pristina airfield, after the truce with Serbia
    had been agreed upon.

[^5]: 5\. The six rogues are Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, and
    Cuba. Syria and Cuba have long been neutralized, but now Syria is
    under pressure from the U.S. as a spillover from the war in Iraq.
    Qaddafi has put Libya on the sidelines for the moment. Milosevic was
    a rogue, and is now being tried in The Hague.

[^6]: 6\. See W. Eugene Cobble, H. H. Gaffney, and Dmitry Gorenburg,
    *For the Record: All U.S. Forces' Responses to Situations,
    1970-2000,* CNA Information Memorandum (CIM) D0008414.A1/Final, June
    2003.

[^7]: 7\. Not included in this study of the American Way of War are the
    peacekeeping operations in Bosnia (IFOR/SFOR) and Kosovo (KFOR), the
    long Northern Watch and Southern Watch policing of the no-fly zones
    over Iraq, which involved sporadic exchanges of fire, especially
    from 1998 to 2003, and the maritime interception operation against
    Iraqi smuggling in the Gulf.

[^8]: 8\. Given the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. has reserved the right to
    intervene in the Western\
    Hemisphere without further international sanction. However, for the
    Grenada invasion,\
    the U.S. lined up the agreement of the Organization of Eastern
    Caribbean States (OECS).

[^9]: 9\. The U.S. Marine Corps, with its organic air, feels that it has
    better air-ground coordination for close air support.

[^10]: 10\. There is a myth among some that a threat of attack by ground
    forces caused Milosevic to give up on Kosovo. There is no evidence
    from Milosevic to this effect. Rather, he said that he gave up
    because of NATO solidarity and Russian betrayal. NATO bombed
    Chernomyrdin to the table.

[^11]: 11\. While the Soviet Union ostensibly transferred military
    equipment under loan agreements to countries ostensibly with cash
    (e.g., Algeria, Libya, Iraq), the loans have never been paid back,
    and Russia has despaired of every collecting on the loans. Cheap
    Chinese equipment is still on the market.

[^12]: 12\. Remarks at the Kluge Center, Library of Congress, December
    4, 2003.

[^13]: 13\. John Lewis Gaddis, *Surprise, Security, and the American
    Experience* (Harvard\
    University Press, 2004).

[^14]: 14\. See H. H. Gaffney, *Globalization and the U.S. Navy: an
    Annotated Briefing* (The CNA Corporation: CAB D0006753.A1/Final,
    July 2002), pages 31-35.

[^15]: 15\. Rear Admiral Raja Menon (retired), "Reflections on India's
    Nuclear Doctrine and Command\
    & Control" (informal paper, April 2003).