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i

iii

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

ALWAYS STRATEGIC: 

JOINTLY ESSENTIAL LANDPOWER

Colin S. Gray

February 2015

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copyrighted.
iv

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ISBN 1-58487-665-4
v

FOREWORD

The strategic quality of Landpower is widely 

known, but not widely understood. In this monograph, 

Dr. Colin S. Gray explores and explains the meaning 

of strategic Landpower. He is concerned particularly 

to argue that, although Landpower today must function in a joint environment, typically it is the dominant 

element in the team for U.S. national security.

The monograph lays emphasis upon the place 

of the human domain that leads in the role played 

by ground forces in strategy. Because of some widespread conceptual misuse, many people are not used 

to thinking of Landpower as a strategic instrument for 

American security policy. Dr. Gray aspires to help reduce the popularity of this important misconception. 

It is necessary for good policy that American Landpower should be considered and debated properly, 

which is to say in appropriate strategic terms.

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

vii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COLIN S. GRAY is Professor of International Politics 

and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, 

England. He worked at the International Institute for 

Strategic Studies in London, United Kingdom (UK), 

and at the Hudson Institute in Croton-on-Hudson, 

NY, before founding the National Institute for Public Policy, a defense-oriented think tank in the Washington, DC, area. Dr. Gray served for 5 years in the 

Ronald Reagan administration on the President’s 

General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and 

Disarmament. A dual citizen of the United States 

and UK, he has served as an adviser to both the U.S. 

and British governments. His government work has 

included studies of nuclear strategy, arms control, 

maritime strategy, space strategy, and special forces. 

Dr. Gray has written 27 books, including The Sheriff: 

America’s Defense of the New World Order (University 

Press of Kentucky, 2004); Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005); Strategy 

and History: Essays on Theory and Practice (Routledge, 

2006); Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace and 

Strategy (Potomac Books, 2009); National Security Dilemmas: Challenges and Opportunities (Potomac Books, 

2009); The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford 

University Press, 2010); War, Peace and International 

Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History, 2nd Ed. 

(Routledge, 2011); Airpower for Strategic Effect (Air University Press, 2012); Perspectives on Strategy (Oxford 

University Press [OUP] 2013), which is the follow-on 

to Strategy Bridge. The final volume in the Strategy 

Bridge trilogy, entitled Strategy and Defence Planning: 

Meeting the Challenge of Uncertainty, was published by 

OUP in 2014. Dr. Gray is a graduate of the Universities 

of Manchester and Oxford.

ix

SUMMARY

American Landpower is a strategic instrument of 

state policy and needs to be considered as such. The 

purpose of this monograph is to explore and explain 

the nature of Landpower, both in general terms and 

also with particular regard to the American case. Five 

themes drive through this work. Specifically, it is argued that: (1) Landpower is unique in the character 

of the quality it brings to the American joint team for 

national security; (2) the United States has a permanent need for the human quality in Landpower that 

this element provides inherently; (3) Landpower is 

always and indeed necessarily strategic in its meaning and implications—it is a quintessentially strategic 

instrument of state policy and politics; (4) strategic 

Landpower is unavoidably and beneficially joint in its 

functioning, and this simply is so much the contemporary character of American strategic Landpower that 

we should consider jointness integral to its permanent 

nature; and, (5) notwithstanding the nuclear context 

since 1945, Landpower retained, indeed retains, most 

of the strategic utility it has possessed through all of 

history: this is a prudent judgment resting empirically 

on the evidence of 70 years’ experience. 

In short, the strategic Landpower maintained today can safely be assumed to be necessary for security 

long into the future. No matter how familiar the concept of strategic Landpower is when identified and expressed thus, it is a physical and psychological reality 

that has persisted to strategic effect through all of the 

strategic history to which we have access.

1

ALWAYS STRATEGIC:

JOINTLY ESSENTIAL LANDPOWER

As we relearned in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United 

States should not enter a conflict with a strategic plan 

that amounts to little more than engaging and destroying the enemy order of battle. Lasting strategic success 

is not a function of enemy units eliminated or targets 

destroyed. A successful strategic outcome rests, as it 

has since time immemorial, on winning the contest 

of wills.

 General Raymond T. Odierno, USA, 

 General James F. Amos, USMC, and 

 Admiral William H. McRaven, USN 1

As this nation goes forward into a new century one 

thing remains certain; Landpower will remain central 

to our strategic success. There is no more unmistakable 

or unambiguous display of American resolve than the 

highly visible deployment of Landpower.

 General Raymond T. Odierno, USA, 

 General James F. Amos, USMC, and 

 Admiral William H. McRaven, USN2

Land operations have a uniquely significant role, in 

both peacetime and conflict, in addressing human factors. This assertion arises from the recognition that: 1) 

the Army, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Forces significantly contribute to the activities central to 

influencing the “human domain” short of war, such as 

peacekeeping, comprehensive military engagement, 

security force assistance, building partner capacity, 

and stability operations; 2) in conflict, the same forces 

are those most intimately and closely involved with 

the human networks—friendly, enemy, and neutral—

that comprise the “human domain,” and 3) strategic 

success most often occurs within the land domain, 
2

especially in the shared space between humans and 

the land, and potentially in the shared space between 

humans and the cyberspace domain.

 General Raymond T. Odierno, USA, 

 General James F. Amos, USMC, and 

 Admiral William H. McRaven, USN3

STRATEGIC LANDPOWER 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Geography is not joint, but warfare has become 

ever more noticeably so over the course of the past 

century. That said, even conceded, the idea of Landpower should be clear enough, although it assuredly 

is not beyond all frontier types of conceptual challenge. My subject is neither confused nor should it be 

at all confusing, unless, that is, one chooses to make it 

so. Although there are libraries crammed with studies 

of warfare on land, writings addressed explicitly and 

more or less discretely to exploration and explanation of Landpower are not in abundant supply. One 

explanation for thinness in the literature simply is that 

few gifted scholars have felt moved to explain what 

they believe is already common knowledge because it 

is or ought to be obvious. Landpower is both an empirically verifiable reality and also a conceptual construction. The need for reliable joint cooperative military effort renders the idea of Landpower apparently 

vulnerable to some erosion of the right to exclusive 

ownership and command. The constructivist categorization that may seem able to divide up the world 

into distinctive geographical domains can appear 

troublingly vulnerable to the political, strategic, and 

budgetary consequences of technological innovation. 

When one geographical domain cannot effectively 
3

resist functionally enabling assistance from capabilities designed primarily to exploit other geographies, 

understandably and predictably interservice rivalries 

are fostered and may fester. Common sense tends to 

be an early casualty in the politics of interdomainal 

military procurement and influence. This monograph 

has no wish to add fuel to any conflagration enabled 

by the military, for strategic nonexclusivity in Army 

competence and authority.

This discussion of strategic Landpower cannot 

avoid the necessity of identifying a true partnership 

of the “both and” kind. To be specific, Landpower is 

both essential for American national security and yet 

must depend critically upon the strategically enabling 

potential of other military domains. The somewhat 

uncomfortable dualism just expressed is generically 

all too familiar in a subject such as this that appears 

to make a mockery of distinctive hierarchy in relationships. For the reasons argued subsequently, Landpower unquestionably must be regarded as the premier 

category of military capability, but several caveats require recognition as potentially substantial hazards to 

the safety of the logic of the Landpower case. One notable contemporary reason why Landpower lacks sovereign strategic authority is because its effectiveness in 

deterrence or in combat action could be negated were 

the United States to be obliged to resort to large-scale 

nuclear use with a similarly nuclear armed enemy. 

It is true to claim that one might endeavor to define 

strategic Landpower in a way so highly permissive as 

to include the means of nuclear bombardment. However, a bid for such inclusivity in favor of Landpower 

plainly would not be culturally consistent with now 

traditional American habits of mind and organization 

concurring military categorization.4 Russians may 
4

well view their long-range nuclear-tipped and landbased missile forces essentially as artillery, but Americans do not and are unlikely to follow suit. However, 

strange to say, perhaps, the obvious potential menace 

posed by nuclear weapons to any verdict on combat 

by conventional Landpower does not serve greatly to 

demote the relative significance of the Army. It is necessary to appreciate the significance of commonsense 

boundaries to strategic argument. The case for strategic premiership that is the Army’s does not need to 

rest upon implausible, or worse, arguments claiming 

an ability to wage any or all combat of any character. 

To be assessed as critically important, there is no need 

for Landpower to make implausible acquisitive grabs 

in a hunt for the ability to cope sufficiently well with 

any and all categories of challenge.5

It is important to recognize that the high concept 

of strategic Landpower is essential both for what it 

includes and what it does not. Indeed, the integrity 

of the concept and the category of capability and implied behavior to which it refers, require clear enough 

boundaries if they are to function usefully. Although 

seapower, airpower, and now cyberpower, plainly can 

be regarded not unfairly as strategic categories that 

inherently are variably competitive with Landpower, 

also their legitimate distinctiveness is essential for the 

generic-like distinctiveness of Landpower. Indeed, 

given the cumulative accretion of military capabilities with domainal ancestry other than of a landward 

nature, it is vitally necessary for the conceptual and 

practical organizational integrity of Landpower that 

the frontiers demarcating seapower and airpower, for 

examples, are maintained meaningfully.6

The validity of the concept of Landpower is evidenced convincingly by facts “in the field.” Although 
5

Landpower is a conceptual construction, it does have 

historically verifiable empirical markers. Most empires are troubled by some residual persisting uncertainty over the proper frontier of their domains. 

It is only sensible to recognize that Landpower is a 

concept that can be interpreted in a way uncomfortably permissive of opportunistic seizure by military 

organizations whose primary focus is not the land. In 

truth, historical circumstance, military and strategic 

culture, and even individual personality, can play a 

role in the determination of what is and what is not 

regarded locally as Landpower. 

For reasons readily attributable largely to their 

geography and historical experience, particularly as 

those potent sources of influence are mediated by culture, many countries have never been in serious danger 

of being uncertain about the relative seniority granted 

officially and popularly to their geographically distinctive armed forces. For particularly clear examples, 

Britain has long regarded its Royal Navy as the Senior 

Service, while Russia and Germany have never been 

in serious peril of misunderstanding the ever arguably 

“luxury” nature of their episodically impressive naval 

power.7 Monarchical and then Imperial France periodically was proved persuadable that its greatness both 

required and could secure preeminence at sea as well 

as on land, but typically that belief, or one should say 

hope, was not well enough founded. The strategic frontier of France was on or about the Rhine, which had to 

mean that strategic Landpower needed to be the core 

of concern for French statecraft and strategy. Britain 

learned in the 17th century to distrust Landpower in 

the form of a standing army, which meant that it could 

make a virtue of the strategic necessity of its insularity for the achievement and sustenance of maritime 

preponderance.
6

The American case has been a mixed one that tracks 

recognizably with the broad influences of national 

geography and historical circumstance mentioned 

earlier. Although American Landpower, inclusively 

understood, was episodically briefly and deeply impressive in the early-1860s and the late-1910s for obvious reasons of wartime mobilization, there is no doubt 

that it cannot properly be assessed as being even somewhat equal in national cultural esteem to the military 

power and systems of Prussia/Germany and Russia. 

The physical and political geography of America prior 

to the construction of the Panama Canal in 1914, and 

the transoceanic immigrant origins of many Americans, meant rather ironically that the truly continental 

scale of the mature national geography was more than 

marginally offset in popular appreciation by the practical difficulty of transcontinental mobility. The relatively high national security that geographical insularity on a continental scale provided came naturally 

at a notable and politically contestable strategic price. 

Obviously enough, while American Landpower could 

and periodically did trouble Canadian and Mexican 

neighbors in North America, continental insularity 

also meant that the United States lacked easy access to 

the principal areas of world contention in and about 

Eurasia.8 In short, when the United States decided that 

it should intervene strategically in a forceful manner 

in world affairs, it found that command of the sea 

(and forward bases) across oceanic distances to Europe (and Africa) and Asia was absolutely essential. In 

addition, in the 1940s, the aerial domain also needed 

to be commanded before American Landpower could 

be brought into contact with the enemies of the day.

Contrary to appearances, perhaps, it is not my 

intention here to challenge the core ideas expressed 
7

so clearly by Generals Raymond Odierno and James 

Amos and Admiral William McRaven in the epigraphs to this monograph. Rather, I seek to emphasize the distinctiveness, indeed the uniqueness, of 

the American strategic historical experience. American Landpower has been no less strategic than were 

German and Russian/Soviet Landpower, but its historical manifestation was nationally different, albeit 

not conceptually in kind. The strategic meaning of 

Landpower is the same among states, but geography 

and history provide individual national contexts for 

strategic meaning.

THE CONCEPT OF STRATEGIC LANDPOWER

At present, the Army chooses to define Landpower as “the ability—by threat, force, or occupation—to 

gain, sustain, and exploit control over land, resources, 

and people.”9 There is much to recommend in this 

definition, given its privileging of the idea of control. 

An admirable vigor pervades the definition, while 

there is also room for some discretion on the boundary. It may be noticed that, although Landpower is 

discussed widely almost as a team player alongside 

other categories of power differentiated by geography or function, there is a sense in which it should be 

regarded as a primus inter pares (first among equals). 

The Army is not confused about this, but alignment 

in a common categorization as power, albeit duly 

modified to fit particular geography (e.g., seapower 

and airpower), can encourage misunderstanding. If 

anything, the very concept of Landpower, which unavoidably and indeed necessarily, privileges physical 

geography, somewhat undermines appreciation of its 

own full and true case. There is some danger of the 
8

Army, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Forces 

inadvertently diminishing the weight of their argument as a consequence of their combined effort to 

promote Landpower. The official definition quoted at 

the beginning of this section is good in that its nonspecificity regarding military means allows for useful 

inclusion of a wide discretion. Nonetheless, as a consequence of the broad geographical categorization, 

there does remain a somewhat inappropriate implicit 

commonality. In other words, Landpower appears to 

be regarded as another geographically identified category, more than marginally comparable to the sea and 

the air. Landpower risks under appreciation because 

of the comparability with the sea, air, and now cyber 

as well, that appears to be suggested by its name as an 

adjectival modifier of the concept of power.

It has been my first-hand experience for nearly 50 

years as a teacher and author on strategy, that it can be 

challenging to accord Landpower the quality of recognition it merits, because so often it is presented in the 

historical and conceptual company of other apparently more than marginally like ideas, such as seapower, 

airpower, and cyberpower. For obvious, and indeed 

all but self-evident reasons with admirably joint connection, it can be difficult for the Landpower triad of 

Army, Marine Corps, and Special Forces to be frank, 

yet also fair as well as honest.

What needs to be gripped and grasped beyond 

room for argument is the permanent geographical fact 

which is an enduring practical reality for strategy—

that the land matters most for humans. Indeed, we 

have no geographical choice. The other geographical 

environments, including the constructed ones now 

composed of cyberspace, and the functionally awesome domain of nuclear weapons, can be important, 
9

occasionally indeed even conclusively so. But the 

consequences of threat and action in all geographical 

contexts ultimately must have strategic and political 

meaning for and on land. This is hardly news, but 

exciting analyses pertaining to actual and potential 

conflict at sea, in the air, in cyberspace, and even concerning the political efforts of nuclear threat, all, finally and determinatively, have meaning for the land 

and Landpower. This is a matter of nature, but it is a 

fundamental truth of our human condition that can 

be hard to find if the distinctive geographies of our 

whole context are not appreciated correctly.

To claim that the land always matters most because 

it is the only physical geography that we can inhabit 

is not to claim, save in a formal sense, that all human 

conflict must be decided as a direct consequence of 

happenings on land. However, given that we humans 

can organize our security only for where we are able 

to live, on land, it has to follow that extraterritorial 

behavior needs translation as to its meaning for the 

strategic narrative on land. In common with physical 

geography, strategic history inherently is more than 

joint; it is a unified, at least a collective, whole, albeit 

sometimes confusing and untidy, as well as incomplete.10 Strategic history may well appear to repeat 

itself in parallel narratives, even if, more likely when, 

the paths of causation contributing to events are notably different. Overall, however, strategic threat, 

anxiety, and action, no matter the particular military 

forms taken at the time, have to be expressed recognizably in political and strategic terms readily explicable with reference to an inclusive understanding of 

Landpower.

I have argued elsewhere that the most potent question in the methodological arsenal of the strategist is 
10

the challenging, and sometimes even offensive appearing, demand for understanding carried by the elementary query, “So what?”11 Given that we can only 

inhabit and politically organize the land, it must follow that all strategic behavior judged relevant to our 

situation has to bear upon our Landpower, certainly 

as this concept currently is officially defined.

The Army’s (et al.) definition of Landpower is a 

permissive one, particularly given the broad inclusivity allowed by the focus upon a desired consequence 

of American behavior—control. Since it is an eternal 

truth that we cannot inhabit nonterritorial geography, 

it has to be the case that military forces of all kinds 

ultimately can be challenged by the basic, deceptively 

simple seeming, question deployed earlier. Whether 

or not ground forces are heavily involved, the single 

strategic historical narrative that is our human estate 

should be understandable as Landpower. The other 

geographical environments may well be militarily, 

strategically, and then consequentially politically, 

episodically more important than U.S. land—as in 

ground—power. But, the single and unified narrative 

of American strategic history must show effect in or 

for Landpower. Properly comprehended, as in intelligent understanding of the currently official definition of Landpower, there is no strict requirement for 

strategic Landpower to be delivered by ground forces. 

The geopolitical and therefore also the geostrategic 

context for American international behavior is nearly 

always about the acquisition of influence at a transoceanic distance. It follows that there can be no doubting the strategic necessity for substantial supporting, 

and occasionally even substitutional, effort on the part 

of military agents other than ground forces. Strategic 

Landpower must be a heavily and diversely joint en-
11

terprise. U.S. ground forces always require military 

cover and other kinds of support from friendly air assets, much of which in transportation and bombardment roles will need to be of medium and long range. 

Similarly, the absolute necessity for aerial support 

is paralleled by the necessity of transoceanic logistic 

provision, which for purposes other than brief raids 

still has to be transported by sea.

The core of the strategic argument for the U.S. Army, 

Marine Corps, and Special Operations Forces is borne 

by the powerful concept of control.12 These forces, 

though primarily the Army, inherently have qualities 

with high potential strategic value unique and indispensable to the nation. These qualities should be well 

known, but still there is a plausible case to be made for 

emphasizing their extraordinary relative importance. 

It is necessary to differentiate between general and 

contextually particular truths. Bearing in mind that we 

are investigating and explaining two heavily interconnected, but nonetheless distinctive, ideas—American 

strategic Landpower on the one hand, and American 

ground forces on the other—it soon becomes quite 

apparent why this vital distinction is simultaneously 

both important yet ultimately rather trivial in strategic 

and ultimately political assessment. What follows is 

a shortlist of ideas that serve to capture most of what 

needs to be caught in the particular conceptual web 

that is the prime focus of this monograph.

SOME PRE-THEORY ON STRATEGIC 

LANDPOWER

1. The case for the strategic relevance of Landpower must vary enormously with the scale and particular 

character of each individual conflict. Also, given that 
12

the character of future conflict is not reliably predictable, the United States requires of its Landpower that 

it should be ready enough for overseas deployment 

on relatively short notice. Obviously, the scale of the 

problem(s) must largely determine the lead-time required to ready forces for deployment that may have 

to be of protracted duration.

2. The unpredictability of policy demand for actions 

by Landpower, and the variety of possible geopolitical and geostrategic contexts, mean that the American 

approach to strategic Landpower needs to be considerably inclusive. The immediate roles required to be 

played by U.S. ground forces may be modest. Indeed, 

it is probable that in many cases the bare fact of their 

commitment and deployment may well be more significant strategically and politically than is their anticipated tactical effectiveness.

3. “Boots on the ground” carry, or at least imply, 

a quality of American desire or demand for political 

control of behavior locally that cannot credibly and effectively be borne by other kinds of military power. 

Air and missile power certainly can achieve control, 

indeed, the entire theory, policy, and strategy of nuclear deterrence rests on this belief. However, the quality 

of behavioral control that ground forces can secure is 

unique. The presence of those forces carry a message 

of reassurance or of potentially coercive menace that 

may be up close and even personal.

Also, the local deployment of ground forces typically requires a quality of local social and cultural engagement that can be strategically vital for American 

understanding; such engagement cannot be achieved 

from altitude or at sea. Needless to say, the potential 
13

benefits of a Landpower—as ground power—commitment have to be assessed in balance with its distinctive hazards. However, the danger and cost involved 

in being strangers in a strange land, foreigners amid 

an alien culture, today are quite well understood.13

Nonetheless, it remains true to say that there is a quality of political and even cultural commitment inherent 

in the forward deployment of American ground forces that is not, and cannot be, replicated by other kinds 

of action, almost regardless of the relative strength in 

their strategic promise. It must be said that many of 

the tough lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan are 

likely to age and perish in the 2010s, now that counterinsurgency (COIN) has lost its political, strategic, 

and military attractions for a while that may last for 

10 or 20 years. Although COIN certainly is, indeed 

ought to be, the most engaging of contact behavior 

in the human domain, it does not follow that our recent protracted COIN experience should be regarded 

definitively as the field test for the strategic utility of 

American Landpower.

4. It should never be forgotten that strategic force 

is military force considered and assessed for its political consequences. Awesome and possibly shocking 

though destruction may be when delivered from a 

considerable distance, one is bound to say that U.S. 

Navy Rear Admiral J. C. Wylie was definitely persuasive when he wrote:

The ultimate determinant in war is the man on the 

scene with the gun. This man is the final power in 

war. He is Control. He determines who wins. There 

are those who would dispute this as an absolute, 

but it is my belief that while other means may critically influence war today, after whatever devastation 
14

and destruction may be inflicted on an enemy, if the 

strategist is forced to strive for final and ultimate control, he must establish, or must present as an inevitable prospect, a man on the scene with a gun. This is 

the soldier.14

Wylie’s advice is not a magical elixir for ensuring 

that military success will be succeeded by strategic 

benefit. Not infrequently, people forget that strategic 

history is always flowing in a great stream of time, 

and that military victory or advantage may not result 

in the benign political effect that one might carelessly 

assume to be authoritative.15 The point needing emphasis here, properly assisted by the wise Rear Admiral, is that strategic effect has to be measured in its, political consequences. The reason why this must be so 

is because it is only policy, expressing political wishes, 

that can justify and legitimize the threat or use of strategic Landpower. The nexus between policy and strategy often is considerably closer than some scholars 

and many citizens assume to be the case. The austere 

basic elements of the theory of strategy that usually 

is taught in institutions of higher military education, 

typically distinguish clearly between strategy’s military ways and its political purposes.16 But, frequently 

in practice this can prove to be a notionally clear distinction that is not allowed to provide much by way 

of helpful guidance over practice.17 Plainly, the potent 

and attractively inclusive concept of strategic Landpower requires considerable care in its handling, since 

it brushes, at the very least, against the policy/politics 

“box” in a PowerPoint slide. This troubling thought 

now must be considered critically and rigorously if 

we are to be confident that the conceptual dimension 

to this analysis does not pose a lethal menace that can-
15

not be overcome at tolerable cost to the authority that 

should be allowed to the idea of strategic Landpower.

It is perhaps ironic that such an almost self-evidently useful concept as strategic Landpower should 

be as vulnerable to ill-considered doubt as it is. This 

may be a case not unlike that made for genius in 

war, to the effect that unquestionably extraordinary 

talent in command tends to be balanced more than 

somewhat by unattractive personal characteristics. 

The concept of strategic Landpower has high merit 

both as theory and in its practical implications. But, 

there is trouble both with the modifying and defining 

adjective and with the noun itself. The fact that this 

trouble is not well founded does not suffice to cancel 

criticism. In part, the criticism is avoidable, but also 

in quite good part, it refers to professional matters 

that are largely discretionary and therefore inherently 

more than marginally political in an inclusive sense. I 

need to be unambiguous as to the meaning of leading 

concepts and descriptors. Most especially, there is a 

necessity for clarity of meaning, as well as proper use, 

of principal terms. To those ends, I will explain the 

meaning of strategic and of Landpower. Many expert 

defense professionals may well differ from me on my 

explanations: so be it.

Strategic.

Strategic, the adjective, is misused very widely in 

its attribution to particular kinds of military forces 

because of their inherent nature or their presumed 

potential significance. This is simply wrong. Indeed, 

it is more than just wrong because it is a conceptual 

error that has harmful consequences for defense and 

war planning. In truth and pragmatically, all military 
16

forces, be they great or small in number and assignments, are latently, residually, strategic. Strategy is 

not effected by inherently strategic acts, but rather by 

the consequences of tactical and operational level behavior. Those consequences must vary hugely in relative (consequentially strategic) weight from situation 

to situation. To designate some kinds of forces clearly 

either as strategic or tactical is a cardinal error in military theory; the fact that states have made this mistake 

for several generations now does not miraculously expunge the error. Strategy is all about the consequences 

of tactical behavior. It should not be particularly difficult to understand why it is crucially important to the 

quality in policy for the military instrument and its 

behavior to be assessable in terms of the consequences of its actions. If one confuses the intended doing 

of strategy with tactical practice, then it will not be 

surprising if one is lost in a no-man’s land of confusion. What one would be saying would be that there 

are strategic, as contrasted with tactical, objectives (or 

targets, or forces). Strategic does not mean inherently 

nuclear, long-range, or even exceptionally important. 

The fact that the “strategic” adjective is so profusely, and indeed officially misused, does not somehow render it correct, or even just right enough. To 

summarize pointedly, the U.S. Army, by proper definition, inherently is a strategic instrument. By this, I 

mean that its potential and actual behavior must have 

influence, great or small upon the course of strategic 

history. The Army does not have some strategic, as 

may be differentiated from tactical, tasks, because that 

distinction is logically and practicably erroneous. This 

essential point was made most clearly by Dr. Antulio 

Echevarria when he explained that “all events in war 

have weight; even the least can have disproportionate 
17

effects.”18 Strategy consists of the consequences of tactical behavior. There are no lesser “tactical” duties. In 

order to grasp fully the meaning and implications of 

this elementary binary distinction, all that one needs 

do is to simplify the challenge as being in essence a 

distinction between cause and consequence. I appreciate that, when the tactical behavior in question 

appears very slight in the total context and narrative 

of national military effort, it will be difficult to accept 

as legitimate the idea that the modest scale of action 

under consideration nonetheless has some slight strategic meaning. The concept of strategic Landpower 

is intellectually healthy when it can be regarded as a 

philosophical and theoretical step in the right direction, though I must confess to being dismayed by the 

apparent need for the redundancy, since Landpower 

cannot possibly be other than strategic in its potential, 

let alone in practice.

Landpower.

Strategy can be problematic both in its design and 

in its practice when the politics that contribute massively to policy function to create effectively a collectivity of effort toward national security. Landpower 

can be rendered conceptually and then practicably 

uncertain for reason of an erosion of distinctiveness. 

I am troubled about the official definition of Landpower by analogy with the same reason that a thoroughly welcoming ecumenical approach to religion 

has the potential to dilute the core of what I may believe to be the truth. There is not a real problem here 

over the integrity of this concept of Landpower, but 

the Army should scarcely need to be advisedly prudent concerning the need to accommodate potentially 
18

contributing agents from other sovereign domains 

of strategic endeavor. It is appropriate to recognize 

and welcome jointly helpful assistance to the Army’s 

predominant Landpower on the part of the navy, 

air, space, and cyber—not to mention significantly 

the contribution by way of intrawar deterrence that 

nuclear armed forces may supply. But it is likely to 

be deemed important that the most formally licensed 

contributors to American Landpower should not imperil their military strategic leadership position. It can 

be challenging to discuss this aspect of the subject because authentically unified strategic argument about 

what is best for national security can hardly help but 

be brushed with some of the less wholesome features 

of inter- and even intraservice politics. Of course, it is 

only natural for contenders to play hard in support of 

their home team, but that team may be a geographically distinctive armed service, or a functionally separate 

element thereof, as contrasted with an entire national 

strategic effort.

In principle, the Landpower concept is not eroded 

and possibly diluted by high inclusivity of definition. 

However, Landpower in practice, which most essentially has to mean land control, can be vulnerable to 

actual as well as potential weakening by diffusion, as 

the control function is performed by military agents 

less committed to the core task of land and population 

control.19 It is advisable that a state’s army should be 

reluctant to shed many arguably specialist tasks as a 

consequence of political pressure, let alone joint good 

will. One needs to be cautious in explaining the reasons for such restraint in enthusiasm for joint endeavor. Fundamentally, the reason is because of the strong 

advisability of prudence in performance of the core 

Landpower mission. The essence of Landpower duty 
19

is control of a particular land area, territory, and what 

is on it for as long as policy requires. To fulfill this 

mission, protracted engagement may be necessary, 

possibly entailing some co-existence, if not necessarily 

cooperation, with a local population whose political 

sympathies and leanings cannot be assumed always 

to be friendly. 

It should not be forgotten that what makes Landpower strategic are the consequences of its behavior. 

There are many diverse ways in which a state can attempt to secure political influence where it most matters in the hearts, but probably more reliably in the 

minds of adversaries or those currently politically 

uncommitted. But, undoubtedly there is a uniquely 

persuasive (and coercive) quality to the local presence 

of the man on “the scene with the gun,” to employ 

Wylie’s telling phrase yet again. It is important that 

Americans should resist strategic capture by what 

can be made to appear as attractive alternatives to 

strategic Landpower. The leading attractions of most 

relevance here are budgetary economy and a greater 

prudence in political commitment. In other words, 

it is usual for there to be several alternative strategic 

ways in which political ends might be sought. It is 

important to recognize that the historical contextual 

reality almost always seems compatible with at least 

a shortlist of possibly appropriate alternative strategic 

approaches. That said, perhaps conceded, it is scarcely 

less significant for American policy to understand fully the nature of strategic Landpower and the reasons 

for that nature.

Strategic Landpower at its core comprises the 

ground combat forces of the state. In theory at least, 

recognition of strategic jointness should not confuse 

or mislead. What matters most for the discussion 
20

here is that the geo-strategically unique context of 

war, certainly of conflict, should be fully and accurately understood. No matter how great or small may 

need to be the assistance to, and support of, American land combat forces by other forces at and from 

the sea, the air, in space, and in cyberspace, such help 

will be needed. It is my contention that Landpower 

with the tactical character of forces built and trained 

to conduct ground warfare in its several forms must 

remain and be regarded authoritatively as essential. 

What is unique about military Landpower is its ability 

to persist in contested territory in the quest for control. Of course, the measure of control sought over 

adversarial behavior may not always be attainable at 

a cost the American political system finds tolerable, 

given the contemporary definition of national interest. 

But, the case for strategic Landpower cannot rest upon 

confident expectation of prudence in the policy that 

American politics determines. 

The “strategic” in the concept of strategic Landpower must rest in practice on the quality of values 

and assessments that are made. However, there is and 

can be nothing in the strategic Landpower concept itself that guarantees against misuse or even just bad 

luck. The value of this concept lies most essentially in 

its direction of attention to the overarching mission of 

control of land and what and who is on it. If the concept of strategic Landpower is deemed unduly inclusive, too permissive of assistance by ancillary military 

(et al.) agents other than ground combat and combat 

support forces, then it may be necessary to substitute 

a more exclusive official understanding of Landpower 

for the current one. Attractive though it certainly is 

in its corralling of any and all sources of influence 

over happenings on the ground, there is little doubt 
21

that the concept in probable effect comprises a charter for possible dilution of effort. When interpreted 

with good will, intelligently regarding the occasional 

peril in ill-conceived or clumsily executed “jointery,” 

there is no significant cause for alarm. However, conceptual formulae with unpoliced frontiers are likely 

to promote interservice and interfunctional strife that 

would be strategically unhelpful. Today’s concept of 

strategic Landpower is vitally important to the Army, 

Marine Corps, and Special Forces, but it could benefit 

from some enhanced clarity as to the unique strategic 

purpose of military Landpower.

WHY STRATEGIC LANDPOWER IS UNIQUE? 

WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT IT?

In order to understand fully Landpower, it is essential to grasp what is unique about it. Indeed, the 

differences in nature, not only in character, from other 

geographically distinguishable domains should be 

so obvious as to be in little need of identification, let 

alone emphasis here. Nonetheless, there is a shortage 

of full and proper appreciation of Landpower relative 

to military power designed to function in and from 

the other geographies.

I will make a modest effort to explain just why 

Landpower is and has to be of prime strategic importance. However, the argument here would be defeated 

in grisly strategic practice were nuclear deterrence to 

suffer a brief lapse at the wrong moment in super and 

great power relations. There is an extremely potent 

and persuasive case to be made on behalf of Landpower, but it does have limits. Unless one were to attempt to accept an extreme liberality of inclusiveness, 

it is neither relevant nor helpful to attempt to stretch 
22

conceptually the Landpower domain so as to render it 

as embracing nuclear-armed forces of intercontinental 

range. In other words, although Landpower would 

be a vitally significant participant in any conflict process that might be concluded with nuclear warfare 

conducted on a large scale, once a substantial nuclear 

“exchange” was either imminent or actually extant in 

process, Landpower most likely would lose relative 

significance. Indeed, it may not be an exaggeration to 

argue that the bilateral conduct of nuclear warfare on 

a large scale probably would render the prosecution 

of further strategic efforts problematic in the extreme. 

If this is granted as a strong probability, the strategic 

quality of Landpower could well prove of little importance. Large-scale nuclear employment certainly is 

a relevant concern for theorists (and practitioners) of 

strategic Landpower, but it is one that need not, and 

hence should not, hinder progress in this analysis. I 

choose not to allow the hopefully distant possibility of 

a large scale American nuclear exchange either with 

Russia or China to obstruct the path toward proper 

understanding of strategic Landpower. It is sufficient 

for our purpose here simply to note the grim but most 

likely rather distant prospect of nuclear warfare and 

move on. This is a classic “What if . . .” of future strategic history that cannot be permitted to control and 

thereby shape our understanding of today and tomorrow. What follows in this section is written unavoidably in the knowledge of nuclear possibilities, but such 

happenings are judged to reside in the mercifully bare 

short list of game-changing possibilities that ought 

not to detain attention further in this monograph.

The question of greatest moment for analysis and 

explanation here is the one posed in the title to this 

section: rephrased a little from the section title, we 
23

must ask “What is different about strategic Landpower; how and why is it unique?”

The Land Matters Most. 

We are a species able to live only upon the land. 

This means that all our cultural, economic, political, 

and strategic business has to be conducted with territorial reference and context. Even global maritime 

trade makes sense only with reference to its territorial 

origins and destination. Maritime logistics are essential to globalization, but that is solely a transportation 

narrative; the demand and the supply both require territorial definition. It is all too commonplace for writers 

today to be so bedazzled by contemporary diversity 

in logistics, and by the sheer variety of adaptive geographical exploitation expressed in military arsenals, 

that the enduring most senior significance of territoriality appears to be lost. The character of commerce 

and of warfare is ever changing, but we have been, 

and must remain, land animals. It has to follow that 

political organizations and their military agents must 

understand security concerns and anxieties ultimately 

and unavoidably in territorial terms; and those terms 

always need relation to safety in and of the political 

home, the homeland, which is a most telling concept 

in its implications.

Landpower Is about Proximity for Control. 

From time to time, the United States asks more of 

its armed forces than the securing of some influence 

over foreign decisionmaking. In addition, what is required is a physical control that possibly, indeed probably, will have to be achieved coercively. It is relative-
24

ly rare for us to need the ability to control behavior in 

this nonpermissive way, but it does occur. There are 

threats as well as actual violent behavior that must be 

opposed, stopped, and even punished. While plainly 

hostile behavior certainly can be harassed and possibly halted by a wide variety of measures, the quality 

of control achievable by the “man on the scene with 

the gun” has a definitive quality unmatchable by other 

agencies. This is not to suggest that the local presence 

of Landpower itself can resolve political problems 

that may also be significantly cultural, but the local 

and potentially enduring presence of our soldiers assuredly alters the local context within which new decisions by foreign agencies will have to be made.

The virtual occupation of foreign lands by means 

of menace (and more) from altitude, or from over the 

horizon at sea, is not the strategic or moral equivalent 

to the occupation, if necessary the seizure, of foreign 

territory, and presence in the closest of proximity to 

foreign nationals. The down-side to the proximity and 

human contact achieved by a Landpower presence is 

too obvious to need much comment here. Obviously, 

it can be difficult in the extreme for the United States 

to distinguish between a local presence and possibly 

military (and policing for public order) effort that is 

sufficient, and one that is too much. It is a problem 

endemic in warfare that, notwithstanding rather naively optimistic theory and policy that was authoritative through most of the 1960s, competitive effort in a 

violent conflict cannot be controlled predictably and 

reliably. At least this is true if we are determined to 

prevail strategically and politically.20

In summation, the dynamics of a conflict can begin 

to take the lead over policy and its politics, meaning 

that the former will serve the latter, rather than vice 
25

versa, as should be the case. Plainly, the high potential strategic value of a local deployment of American Landpower is likely to stimulate—for a while, at 

least—greater effort on the part of local opposition. 

What is certain is that the forward deployment of this 

Landpower will raise the political stakes significantly for an administration with American voters (and 

parents and other loved ones). This high quality of 

personal political commitment will be both of almost 

inestimable positive value for the quality of American 

political commitment, but also inevitably will comprise a major creation of policy-political vulnerability. 

All countries care more about the safety of their own 

soldiers than they do about casualties among foreigners, including allies. This is inevitable and indeed 

usually quite proper. It is exactly the very quality of 

care felt by Americans about the forward deployment 

into probable military action of their soldiers that renders strategic Landpower so potent a commitment, 

stamped though it is, and indeed should be, with 

acute policy concerns on the domestic front.21

Strategic Landpower and the Importance 

of the Human Domain. 

The grand concept of strategic Landpower can appear so elevated and abstract that it appears to resist 

understanding in human terms. General Charles Krulak, U.S. Marine Corps, went some way, possibly even 

too far, toward proper appreciation of the individual 

human contribution to great enterprises of state with 

his idea of the “strategic corporal.”22 To many commentators, this concept seemed extravagant: after all, 

what could be the strategic meaning of behavior by a 

corporal? Surely strategy was discussed and decided 
26

by people of high rank. In fact, as noted already in this 

monograph, corporals do strategy—they have some 

strategic effect whether or not they are aware of it at 

the time or even in some retrospect. Although strategy 

certainly is designed, decided, and implemented as 

direction at a high level of command, as, if not more, 

important is the fact that strategy actually is done in 

the only zone of behavior possible, which is the tactical. Strategy bereft of tactics and operations essentially is meaningless aspiration. Strategy and its strategist 

author conceive and plan what will be attempted, and 

it may well be sensible to extend the idea of strategy 

so as to include command.23 However, the strategist 

as conceptualizer, planner, and commander is envisaging the consequences of his adversarial direction of 

tactical and operational performances. The entire process that results in strategically significant behavior is 

inherently and essentially human. Landpower really 

is about soldiers. They are supported and enabled to 

be effective by particular technologies and logistics, 

but they do not “serve” equipment, rather the equipment serves them. The technical performance of machinery is of the highest relative importance to military professionals who must perform their duty at sea, 

in the air, and in cyberspace. The landward domain, in 

contrast, finds military equipment both essential and 

important, but not usually critically so.

The key reason why the land domain is unique and 

different is because so much of significance that occurs on it is subject to human discretion. A critically 

important enabler of this human discretion is the rich 

variety of geography—human and natural—and the 

wide scope of possibilities that render thought and 

behavior difficult to predict, given the pertinent opportunities and hindrances. Of course, there are moral 
27

qualities common in importance across domains; 

courage, determination, fortitude, integrity, honesty, 

and so forth. However, the geo-physics of the domains other than the land that require extremes of dependence upon the competitive quality of technology 

(e.g., ships, aircraft, and computers), routinely need to 

ask less of the military personnel committed to their 

use and exploitation than do the forces that express 

and perform as strategic Landpower. The abstraction 

that is the concept of Landpower always descends in 

practice to the behavior of people in uniform, no matter how technologically advanced their equipment.

The historical record shows that troops require 

armament good enough or sufficiently adaptable to 

meet the demands of their tactical and operational requirements. Superior technology may be exploited in 

order to secure tactical advantage, but only rarely is a 

technical lead in weaponry the most plausible reason 

explaining satisfactorily military success in battle. For 

example, American success in its deployment and employment of Landpower in both the world wars of the 

20th century owed relatively little to technological advantage. To understand what happened strategically 

in 1918 and then in 1944-45, one needs to look a long 

way beyond, and behind, the quality of rival equipment in widespread American use.24 In land warfare, 

sheer quantity (of many kinds) can have a quality 

all its own. Also, decisions as to how weapons will 

be used, and the highly variable facts concerning the 

measure of human determination that soldiers will 

choose to show under extreme pressure, must fuel uncertainty over relative adversarial performance. Accepting the risk of overstatement, one should endorse 

the quite common assumption that performance in 

war depends more upon the ways in which weapons 
28

are used than upon the competitive combat quality of 

the weapons themselves—within reason, I must hasten to add, because this can be a dangerous idea to 

endorse uncritically and too readily. To lay emphasis, 

as we should, upon the superior significance of the 

human terrain that is the core of Landpower is not to 

suggest or even imply that dimensions other than the 

human do not matter in landward conflict.25 But it is 

unmistakably clear about the primary importance of 

people.26 Strategic Landpower is dominated in historical practice today, as it always has been in the past, by 

the human domain.

Presence and Politics. 

More often than not in the irregular style of conflict 

of the 21st century, the strategic value of U.S. Landpower as local presence can be of greater significance 

than its military worth in the armed struggle. There is 

a quality of credibility to forward human commitment 

not reachable with alternative ways and means. This 

is not to deny that American forward local presence 

may be akin to a two-edged sword. As a hate object 

for the focus of hostile attention, the Western soldier 

on the ground in physically and culturally alien terrain is an adversarial gift as a target to the insurgent. 

But, if we prove able to raise our game in the field of 

cultural tolerance—especially given the fact that we 

will be the foreigners, the Other in local terms to some 

degree—there is no doubt that the forward deployment of our most highly valued asset, people, carries a message of seriousness of political intent that is 

universally persuasive. 

The point may seem almost too obvious to be worthy of mention, but it is important that we do not forget that our military behavior is always about politics. 
29

In the 2000s, we learned and re-learned a great deal 

about the domestic politics of Afghan and Iraqi societies, not infrequently as a damaging consequence of 

our mistakes. This can be perilously easy to overstate, 

but when we intervene in a hugely foreign country, 

unless our struggle unavoidably has to be overwhelmingly, not even only primarily, military in nature, we 

are bound to become intimate, if relatively ignorant, 

players in local political struggles.27 Military readers 

should not be dismissive of the point just registered, 

because all military endeavor, with its strategic effect, 

ultimately has to be about political effect. There can be 

no military or strategic consequences that do not have 

implications, direct or indirect, for a political narrative. This is not merely an argument, rather is it a definitional truth blessed by an abundance of evidential 

material, as well as by the philosophical authority of 

Carl von Clausewitz.28 If this were not so, then military performance, successful or otherwise in a battlefield sense, would have to be bereft of meaning. 

Military deployment and employment is instrumental for political purpose, or even for cultural purpose that will have political meaning. I am suggesting 

that the forward deployment of strategic Landpower 

must have unusually intense and probably complicating consequences for the course of local political 

events, not least because our knowledge and understanding of the informal structures of power in many 

foreign societies is weak or even near absent altogether. When we join the local fight(s) of others, notwithstanding the seriousness of our own policy purpose, 

we become active players in violent struggles that have 

rules and procedures we are unlikely to comprehend 

adequately for a while. I write this not in order to argue a case against foreign intervention, but rather only 
30

to suggest that the very nature of the human domain 

most characteristic of Landpower all but guarantees 

that we will need to pay a price in errors committed if 

we are to be effective in the human domain particular 

to an alien foreign society. Admittedly, there is much 

in tactics, and even possibly in operational art, substantially common as sound military practice across 

frontiers and cultures. But, even the humble corporal, 

who would be “strategic” in a positive sense, needs 

to be careful to give the least local offense consistent 

with reasonable understanding of his duty. 

Contrary to appearances, possibly, what I have just 

written is not intended as a warning against foreign 

intervention; indeed, if anything, it is an argument 

generically supportive of the thesis that Landpower 

is, by its very nature, near certain to have a uniquely 

strategic effect when forward deployed into an active 

theater. There is a Janus-like quality unique to Landpower among the whole range of military domains, 

meaning that this particular, most essentially human 

kind of military power, has unequalled potential to 

yield to us either, even both, extraordinary strategic 

advantage and unusually costly and possibly embarrassingly unsuccessful strategic returns. The deployment of our soldiers into harm’s way far abroad should 

never be treated merely as a routine matter for policy 

and strategy.

Strategic Landpower and Political Territoriality. 

Because of the enduring nature of the human domain, every actual, as well as plausibly probable, potential conflict has some territorial definition. Whether 

particular tracts of land are sought as objects to own 

legally and politically, or are very desirable for their 

instrumental value when controlled, there is always 
31

a territorial dimension to strategic history.29 In its 

very nature, Landpower inherently and necessarily is 

about land and the resources that exist both in and 

on it. While seapower, airpower, cyberpower, and nuclear weapons may have deterrent or coercive merit 

as instruments of strategic influence, Landpower is 

unique, and indeed essential, as the strategic agent capable of securing and sustaining the political control 

of territory and its assets.30 Necessarily as well as obviously, Landpower also is probably uniquely capable 

of discouraging, defeating, and punishing adversaries 

on land. This argument does not ignore the strategic 

utility derivative from joint efforts in support of the 

narrative on territorial security, but neither is it confused as to who or what must be in the lead for control 

that lasts on the ground. 

It is my contention that, as land animals, humans 

must and do care most about the land (among all environments). This elementary, indeed simply elemental, 

truism explains why Landpower has to be regarded 

as the most vitally strategic of all among the military 

contenders for highest priority in relative strategic importance. Moreover, it should not escape notice that, 

even when behavior at sea, in the air, and in cyberspace looms large and perhaps ominously in public 

consciousness of threat, the anxiety thus produced is 

translated reflectively into acute concern over landward security. This is unavoidable because all terrestrial concerns need due conversion into analyses 

and arguments that bear upon our inalienably territorial approach to, and understanding of, national security. Joint military action in and from geographies 

other than the land occasionally will promote concern 

or even, in extremis, alarm, but there will always be 

some territorial reference or implication that cannot 

plausibly be denied for long.
32

This monograph now turns to address the joint 

context within which Landpower must function 

strategically.

JOINTLY ESSENTIAL, BUT ALSO 

ESSENTIALLY JOINT

Strategic Landpower is a team accomplishment, 

with ground forces providing the most defining of 

characteristic capabilities and behaviors. Specifically, 

the strategic merit in Landpower derives particularly 

from the unique ability of ground forces to secure and 

exploit territorial control of natural and human geography. If the United States needs to send coercive 

signals, either in warning or in the form of limited but 

pain-causing actions, then often it will be sufficient 

to confine our coercive behavior to the sky, the sea, 

and these days probably also to cyberspace. But, if the 

putative inimical menace or harmful deeds that are 

our reason for anxiety or hurt are politically intolerable, then a need may be determined for the effecting of change in the local context.31 When a situation 

is perceived as requiring alteration of a nonmarginal 

kind and is certain to be resisted, with at least some 

force applied locally, then the political case for the 

deployment of strategic Landpower will be a strong 

one. Usually, it will be more than slightly challenging 

politically for a President to decide to place American 

boots on foreign ground; this is as it should be because 

the commitment of Americans to war, or at the least 

to a warlike prospect, should never be undertaken 

casually and lightly.

It may be worth emphasizing the fact that the 

whole context of contemporary warfare is intrinsically and therefore essentially joint in character. Indeed, 
33

the character of warfare is now so substantially and 

necessarily permanently joint that it is appropriate 

to understand the jointness of the environments for 

conflict as being so stable as to merit its being understood as an integral feature in the nature of modern 

conflict. In other words, it is not plausible to anticipate 

scenarios for future armed conflict wherein American 

ground forces would not need or want to function in 

ways enabled by joint effort by a suitable mix of contributions from forces at sea, in the air, in space, and 

in cyberspace. Even if and when American ground 

forces are overwhelmingly of particular military and 

strategic significance, there would be need for support 

of various kinds provided by military, and also probably some civilian, elements designed to operate in or 

on geography other than the land.

It is not an important demotion of American Landpower to acknowledge that it is not, and cannot be, 

synonymous with ground power alone. Co-existing 

with the world’s premier navy and air force may be a 

budgetary nuisance from time to time, but it is nonetheless a crucially valuable enabler of success for U.S. 

Landpower. After all, it should not be unduly challenging to the intellect both to grasp the distinction 

between Landpower and ground forces (or power), 

and also to recognize the supportive importance of 

contributions from the extra-territorial geographical 

environments. Similarly, it ought not to be outstandingly difficult to explain that the most essential mission for American Landpower is the occasional vital 

need to send American boots to hit foreign ground at 

times and also in places not always reliably anticipatable long in advance.

Logistics are always of critical importance to national security, and there are excellent reasons why 

logistical competence long has had to be strongly 
34

characteristic of what one might chose controversially 

to term American ways of war.32 Bluntly stated, if the 

American military establishment was not competent 

in its ability to meet the logistic needs of its forces, the 

country simply could not fight, at least it could not 

do so for very long. American geopolitics in several 

senses quite literally mandated the logistical marvels 

that have been displayed from the 18th to the 21st 

centuries. Whatever else may have been less than 

competitively excellent about American Landpower 

through more than 2 centuries, challenges to supply 

and movement almost invariably have been met exceedingly well.33 An important reason for this generally satisfactory strategic condition simply has been, 

and remains, American alertness to the implications of 

raw distance. Not only does the American homeland 

comprise and consist of territory continental in scale, 

but global geopolitics located the United States both 

comfortably and uncomfortably at oceanic distances 

from the territorial heartland of world politics and 

strategic history that is and remains Eurasia–Africa.34

The joint dependencies that critically help to enable U.S. Landpower to be strategic are not discretionary, rather they are unavoidable reflections of the facts 

of physical, political, military, and therefore strategic 

geography. While the dominant ground-force agencies in U.S. Landpower—the Army, Marine Corps, 

and Special Forces—may own and thereby control 

with maximum authority and legitimacy, specialized 

capabilities in fire support, transportation, communications, and intelligence, such particular ancillary 

aids do not serve significantly to menace the broad 

meaning or nature of Landpower. Often arguably, it 

may appear to matter which armed service is primarily responsible for troop conveyance and logistical 
35

sustenance of both inter- and intra-theater kinds. But 

understanding of the nature of strategic Landpower 

should not be confused by the color of uniform the 

supportive personnel wear in performing essential 

joint duty. This is not to attempt to argue foolishly that 

political ownership of some particular tasking areas 

does not matter. The military tribes and sub-tribes, despite their essential joint commonality, do each have 

military cultures that fall short of a perfect match 

with those most prevalent among “client” Landpower 

combatants on the ground. Experience of and in distinctive combat roles and duties feeds expectations of 

support from domains other than the ground that are 

not surrendered lightly to those whose military culture is likely to be somewhat alien. The most obvious, 

albeit extreme, example of this phenomenon is the 

persisting successful determination of the U.S. Marine 

Corps to own and provide its essential close air support from its own ranks.35 Marine aircrew are Marines 

first and aircrew somewhat later. Joint interdependencies endure and are necessary, but they cannot serve 

entirely to obscure the significance of the facts of geophysics. In other words, each geographical (or at least 

functional, as with cyber power) domain has to be 

respected for its unique qualities. 

The narrative of strategic Landpower primarily 

must be one dominated by the course of local events 

for ground forces. But, notwithstanding military urgency on the ground, provision of joint support from 

the air requires a permissiveness of weather conditions that will not always be present reliably when 

and where it is most needed. Even assuming goodwill, honest intention, and strong determination, the 

facts of diverse geography may reveal rhythms in 

feasibility that complicate strategic life for the smooth 

conduct of joint enterprises.
36

It is well and necessary to remember that a critically important enabling task for joint endeavor is 

performed by nuclear-armed elements of the forces. 

These forces, specialized and deployed militarily triadically for potential employment from land, air, and 

sea (primarily submarines), can play a vital if typically 

undepreciated role as a deterrent preventive that enables U.S. Landpower to function successfully strategically. Ever since the mid–1950s, American theorists 

have argued about the extended deterrent worth of 

nuclear weapons.36 For our purpose here, suffice it to 

say that strategic Landpower not infrequently must 

carry some risk of triggering a great deal more war 

than the country would like. I must hasten to explain 

that the nuclear peril may be vitally necessary in order to discourage nuclear escalation on the part of an 

adversary, while the latent menace in our nuclear posture should help critically to persuade enemies to desist from doing us harm. We can argue about the risks, 

dangers, and potential benefits of nuclear armament, 

but there is unlikely to be any clear and definitive 

strategic conclusion. However, suffice it to say that 

the U.S. nuclear arsenal serves essentially as a joint 

enabler for the strategically significant employment 

of our Landpower. Of course there are risks, “Those 

that live by the sword . . .” and so forth. Nonetheless, 

when the American public is invited by rival advocacy 

groups to endorse and adopt either a version of “minimum deterrence” or the principal alternative—which 

is close to steady state with our existing nuclear posture—it should be encouraged to recognize that in an 

increasingly nuclear-armed world, joint performance 

by Landpower must have nuclear deterrence as a 

literally vital strategic enabler.37
37

As the concluding issue for this section, it is important to ask whether or not strategic Landpower should 

be thought of as a category of military power that is 

approaching its “sell by” date. Not infrequently, the 

forward deployment of Landpower, if not actually 

obsolescent as a purposeful strategic act in statecraft, 

nonetheless has been recognized as so extraordinary a 

behavior as to merit policy characterization as a “last 

resort.” In his recent book, Reconsidering the American 

Way of War, Echevarria claimed plausibly, that “[a]s 

the air campaign illustrated [over Kosovo in 1999], the 

post-Cold War environment did not necessarily suggest that war itself is a last resort for policy, only that 

the use of land power might be.”38 In the decade of 

COIN and related behavior, the 2000s, the U.S. Government rediscovered the unique virtues of Landpower as ground power in Afghanistan and then in 

Iraq, if only in the numerically austere forms deemed 

appropriate by then Secretary of Defense Donald 

Rumsfeld.39

American Landpower committed geopolitically 

forward substantially in COIN mode is inherently 

hazardous; in good part, the peril reposes in the inexorable and potentially strategically weakening effect of the foreign, indeed alien, features of the societies and cultures with which we engage. However, 

although there are lessons to be learned that should 

encourage us to be cautious about our ability to help 

distant friends and allies resist and defeat insurgency, 

it would be a grave error in policy and strategy were 

the country to reject any and all missions intended 

to thwart irregular insurgents. The American body 

politic should remember clearly enough that COIN 

was rejected by the armed forces almost mindlessly 

as a consequence of denial of the Vietnam experience, 
38

only to discover that the strategic need for a quality 

of Landpower able to cope with this kind of conflict, 

alas, had not disappeared. There was much about the 

U.S. strategic performance in and over Vietnam that 

did serve as an invaluable basket of negative lessons, 

but in vital addition, the country could learn much of 

positive worth from its protracted adventure there; 

a like judgment applies quite clearly to our lengthy 

experience(s) in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s 

(and a little beyond).

The joint essentiality both of and for Landpower 

is not in doubt. We know that policy and strategy are 

driven not only by objective happenings abroad, but 

also by distinctly subjective political, strategic, and 

some astrategic sentiments here at home in the United 

States. Because Landpower is so human in personal, 

moral, and tangible ways, it is almost uniquely vulnerable to wild swings in what currently is fashionable in “correct” political opinion. When we want 

American action to be taken, the most seriously committing of possible behaviors is to dispatch some of 

our human military assets. The fact of “our lives” on 

the line carries a message of moral as well as political and military seriousness that is unmistakable. All 

too obviously, of course, the forward commitment 

of our soldiers unavoidably is also to offer a hostage 

to strategic fortune. Fashions in political and strategic aspiration and belief come and go, and assuredly 

will come again. But the future of U.S. politics and 

policy on security is certain to continue to register 

as necessary and often dominant role for strategic 

American Landpower.
39

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This monograph identifies and advances a fivepoint argument that, in toto, comprises the core of the 

case for the healthy maintenance of substantial strategic Landpower. This is not, and cannot be, an original 

thesis, because it reflects appreciation registered by 

thought and in action over the course of 2 1/2 millennia. That said, it is noticeable how readily people 

forget, or perhaps just fail fully to recognize the heart 

of the matter with respect to Landpower. In good part, 

I suspect rather ironically, a principal reason for some 

contemporary failure of understanding is only an 

overfamiliarity with our subject here. Apparently, it 

is challenging to attempt to have deep and hopefully 

authoritative thoughts about a concept that in many 

pragmatic ways is and can be treated all but casually 

day to day. In this monograph, I have sought to step 

around both the pressing tactical and technical issues 

of the day, and also to avoid insofar as I was able the 

dominant policy-political issues that bear directly 

upon the Army’s future. Instead, I have striven to explore the very nature of strategic Landpower both as it 

is today and as it should remain tomorrow.

1. Landpower is unique and irreplaceable. One 

of the better terse explanations of the nature of Landpower was provided recently by Brigadier (Ret.) 

Allan Mallinson of the British Army, when he wrote in 

The Times (London): “Only ground troops can ‘smell 

the battlefield,’ discriminate and consolidate.”40 It is 

important to understand and appreciate the enduring 

fact that, among all the variety of armed forces, it is 

only ground troops that systematically make personto-person contact with people—foes, friends, and temporarily bystanding neutrals. Only in land warfare is 
40

contact, even personal contact, made, exploited, and 

maintained often to the point of a definitive conclusion. Context and narrative may be gained and appreciated from a distance, via photographs, electronic 

surveillance, or even the old-fashioned printed page, 

but Mallinson penetrates to the heart of the matter 

when he cited the opportunity and ability to “smell 

the battlefield.” 

There should be no doubt that the danger for a democracy is unique when it decides to deploy its soldiers to foreign lands. However, some of the uniquely 

politically entangling dangers that can attend foreign 

deployment may have incomparably high merit also. 

They provide exactly the personally empirical sources 

of comprehension that will only be the product of 

first-hand exposure to foreign cultural patterns and 

traits. Also, often it is important for the American Soldier not to fade too discreetly into the local natural 

or man-made landscape. U.S. political commitment of 

concern for an ally’s security typically requires some 

visible and tangible strengthening evidence by way of 

the human domain in the form of its soldiers. 

Also, of course, it ought never to be forgotten that 

Landpower by its nature must exert itself upon and 

within a geography that nearly always includes a foreign population. The vitally important idea of understanding the human domain necessarily pervades all 

aspects of the mission set for Landpower.

2. The human domain is an inclusive concept of 

timeless worth. Armed conflicts do not appear on our 

policy and strategy horizons in a standard pattern. 

That said, as it needs to be, what is standard in and 

about conflict of all kinds is the dominant importance 

of the human domain. From the most civilian of do-
41

mestic politics through to the sharp end of war in its 

warfare, the human element always is of decisive importance. Even when the possibility of war seems to 

be related to the balance, or more likely the perceived 

imbalance, of military strengths between competing 

arsenals, one finds that human impulse and sentiment 

tend to dominate cool analytics. The relative significance of the human domain may appear to have diminished with the ever higher levels of technological 

prowess that characterize international strategic competition, but such a conclusion is inappropriate. 

Sometimes we may fool ourselves into believing 

that we have achieved the ability to peer into the future with reliable understanding. Such belief is as easy 

to understand as, alas, it is always false.41 What we do 

know about the future with complete reliability is that 

it will be dominated by the free will exercised by often 

unpredictable individuals. Civilizations, cultures, nations, tribes, and other groups, may well be anticipated to move strategic history along in earnest pursuit 

of particularly favored narratives, but social science 

for crowd psychology does not carry high and convincing promise of predictive utility. Athenian historian and (unsuccessful) general Thucydides identified 

“fear, honor, and interest” as comprising in the barest 

of inclusive summary form the leading motivations 

in statecraft. It so happens that what he wrote nearly 

2,500 years ago is as true, certainly it is as plausible, today as it was then. Of course, tactical details are nearly 

always changing, but at the very elevated level of the 

motives behind and within the politics that produce 

the policy that needs and sometimes finds expression 

in strategy, it is not close to self-evident that our human domain today is very different from that of the 

Ancient Greeks. Similarly, when we consider tactics in 
42

the great stream of time we soon discover that revolutions in weaponry have not and probably cannot result in revolution in the personal peril attending, and 

anxiety concerning, combat. 

On the readily accessible historical evidence, the 

human domain that rules in strategic Landpower in 

several senses would appear to be all but permanent. 

Changes in the human military condition have been 

hugely transformative in appearance, but are far less 

impressive when we enquire about the nature of conflict through the ages. The particulars of anxiety, fear, 

ambition, and contingent opportunity vary in rich 

detail from situation to situation, but as Clausewitz 

explained in the most summary of forms: “Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, 

uncertainty, and chance.”42 He proceeds immediately 

and deeply into the human domain by arguing that:

If we consider them [the “four elements” immediately above] together, it becomes evident how much 

fortitude of mind and character are needed to make 

progress in these impeding elements with safety and 

success. According to circumstance, reporters and 

historians of war use such terms as energy, firmness, 

staunchness, emotional balance, and strength of character. These products of a heroic nature could almost 

be treated as one and the same force–strength of 

will–which adjusts itself to circumstances: but though 

closely linked, they are not identical.43

It seems unmistakable to this author that Thucydides 

and Clausewitz were writing about a phenomenon of 

armed conflict common to both of them.

3. Landpower is always strategic. The permanent 

nature of Landpower as a strategic instrument and asset does not mean that always it is so regarded. Mili-
43

tary behavior, the activity or passivity of one’s Army, 

cannot help but have strategic meaning. There is no 

reason in abstract logic or empirical fact why Landpower’s strategic quality should be questionable. Given that strategy is about the consequences of behavior, pre-planned and intended or not, there is nothing 

extraordinary about the claim that Landpower has to 

be regarded as a strategic asset. Indeed, this author 

is somewhat surprised that many people appear to 

be mentally disturbed in their occasional strategic 

thinking by the suggestion that Landpower needs to 

be thought of as an inherently strategic tool of state. 

However, it is one thing to win a philosophical argument on logical merit, but it is quite another to ensure 

that that conceptual success influences attitudes and 

alters relevant behavior. 

A significant part of the challenge facing the idea 

and the practice of strategic Landpower lies in what 

might be termed the technology overlay that in appearance, at least, seems often to demote the relative 

importance of “the man on the scene with the gun.” It 

can be difficult to explain to audiences, even to those 

containing military specialists, that the outcome to 

armed conflict and its warfare typically is not determined as a consequence of competition in technological sophistication. For a contemporary hypothetical 

example of argument, we can be sure that there will be 

no reliable causal connection between a military’s sophistication in available computers and its prospects 

of achieving military and strategic advantage. The 

reason for this apparently unreasonable argument is 

because strategic performance and its meaning is influenced by so many variables that even a clear advantage in communication technology is unlikely to 

be able to compensate for the ill effects of decisions 
44

in command and tactical performance that prove to 

be seriously flawed. In short, technically wonderful 

computers cannot rescue a strategic adventure that 

seeks to achieve what is politically, culturally, and 

possibly even militarily unachievable. This argument 

is employed here not for the foolish purpose of casting 

doubt on the military and strategic value of excellence 

in digital communication, but rather to insist that there 

is far more to war and warfare than high technology. 

Regarded prudently as an enabler for strategically and 

operationally sensible endeavors, there is everything 

to be said in praise of reliable advanced computers. 

Whatever its reactive technical state when competitively regarded, Landpower unavoidably is always a 

strategic instrument. If this fact is not understood, is 

disregarded, or is rejected, then the Landpower at issue is likely to be misused as a consequence. The worth 

of Landpower as a potential strategic asset must vary 

widely according to the constraints and opportunities 

allowed by historical circumstance, and somewhat in 

keeping with the quality in threat and competitively 

in combat displayed and demonstrated by the soldiers. Due recognition as a strategic asset does not 

mean automatically and in truth miraculously that 

our strategic Landpower must be strategically successful in coercive pursuit of policy ends that ought to 

be politically prudent.

4. Strategic landpower is always a joint instrument. Some competition between service organizations and functions is both inevitable and even desirable. It is not unusual for there to be reasonable 

sounding and looking grounds for approaching a mission in quite radically alternative ways. The tool bag 

of different military capabilities, human and techni-
45

cal, typically can offer a range of choice. Provided the 

core human function of Landpower is not sidelined 

when it really needs to be the central prop for an effort, the feasibility of discretion over ways and means 

is thoroughly desirable. Certainly, there should be no 

automaticity of Landpower response to a range of scenario needs that do appear to require local American 

presence on the ground in question. In point of fact, 

there are situations when the politics of forward deployment for U.S. ground forces appear to argue in 

favor of only minimal evidence of presence—in which 

case, American military assistance from altitude and 

probably from beyond the horizon at sea is most 

appropriate. 

The central purpose of this monograph is to help 

ensure that whatever U.S. politics and policy decide 

is the most suitable strategic response to some local 

or regional crisis, at least there should be no misunderstanding of the benefits, as well as the probable 

costs, of Landpower. It is beyond the scope of this 

monograph to explore and explain the complex connections among politics, policy, and strategy. But, it 

is important to recognize that Landpower inevitably 

engages closely either with local politics, or with the 

consequences of those politics, in ways that are not 

possible for other instruments of our military power. 

The strategic function most essentially being about the 

consequences of military behavior is not itself political 

in nature, but it cannot help being all about politics 

nonetheless. 

Although the use of Landpower is an exercise in 

strategy and not in politics, the landward element 

in our joint ventures ensures that we will engage in 

contact with local political conditions. Our Sailors and 

armies in effect can remain convincingly in America 
46

in some important senses (e.g., in American “forts” as 

operating bases), even when their behavior has local 

effect “in country.” The Soldier can be isolated to a degree from local human contact, but we need to remember that personal as well as reputational contact in the 

human domain of conflict is literally the most distinguishing of the characteristics potentially uniquely 

valuable about Landpower. American policy does not 

always desire or require foreign contact and true local 

engagement in its strategic commitments, but when it 

does, it is necessary that the merit as well as the possible cost of forward deployable Landpower is well 

enough understood.

5. The case for strategic Landpower is as old as 

strategic history. Finally, it should be appreciated that 

the case for strategic Landpower is really as ancient 

as all of strategic history in the great stream of time. 

Landpower, one might attempt to argue, is no longer 

the instrument of final argument of state power, now 

that nuclear weapons have become permanent elements in some national arsenals.44 However, the nuclear era was not a decade old before there was quite 

general recognition that, although the strategic utility 

of those weapons was high, it was also limited in domain. Indeed, contrary to many expectations fueled by 

the unsatisfying course and disappointing outcome of 

the war in Korea from 1950 to 1953, neither conceptual exploration nor subsequent technical innovation 

served helpfully to render nuclear weapons practicably useful as a strategic instrument. 

As a necessary consequence of the practical limitations inhibiting the military and strategic value of 

nuclear weapons, the United States found itself needing to employ its Landpower as in the days of yore, 
47

at least with a pretense of nuclear innocence. In other 

words, the permanent addition of nuclear weapons to 

state arsenals, possibly surprisingly, has had only a 

modest effect upon the strategic utility of Landpower. 

Of course, Landpower potentially would be sharply 

disciplined in its use were it to be employed as threat 

or in battle against another nuclear weapon state. 

However, Landpower retains much of its strategic 

utility, even in a political context influenced by anxieties about nuclear risks and danger. The nuclear dimension to the American joint narrative of military power 

for strategic effect is real and occasionally, albeit only 

rarely, immediately important. As a general rule, it is 

appropriate to consider America’s nuclear arsenal being a joint team player whose usual, though essential, 

duty is to keep the nuclear weapons of other states 

off the political field of play. With only the blessedly 

lonely exception of nuclear weaponry, the whole narrative of strategic history is one demonstrating conclusively the essential continuity in the strategic and 

political meaning and relative value of Landpower.

ENDNOTES

1. General Raymond T. Odierno, USA, General James F. 

Amos, USMC, and Admiral William H. McRaven, USN, “Strategic Landpower: Winning the Clash of Wills,” Strategic Landpower 

White Paper, no date, p. 7.

2. Ibid., p. 4.

3. Ibid., p. 2.

4. I recognize the fact that the concept of (national) strategic 

culture is much contested. For good examples of careful challenges to the idea of strategic culture, see Antulio J. Echevarria 

II, “American Strategic Culture: Problems and Prospects,” Hew 

Strachan and Sibylle Scheipers, eds., The Changing Character of 
48

War, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011, Chap. 23; and 

Antulio J. Echevarria II, Reconsidering the American Way of War: 

US Military Practice from the Revolution to Afghanistan, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014, Chap. 2. Echevarria 

makes some plausible critical points, but I believe that, on balance, the concept of strategic culture deserves to be saved from 

comprehensive scholarly slaughter, always provided its perils are 

recognized, understood, and explained.

5. Suitably skeptical comment upon the likelihood of there 

being a continentalist bias in American culture because of the national geography (which changed radically in the 19th century, of 

course) is offered usefully in Echevarria, Reconsidering the American Way of War, p. 39.

6. I have addressed the much contested subject of strategic 

orientation in respect of attitudes toward the national geography in my books, War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History, 2nd Ed., Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 

2012, Chap. 19; and Perspectives on Strategy, Oxford, UK: Oxford 

University Press, 2013, Chap. 4.

7. See Holger H. Herwig, “Luxury Fleet”: The Imperial German 

Navy, 1888–1918, London, UK: George Allen and Unwin, 1980; 

and Bryan Ranft and Geoffrey Till, The Sea in Soviet Strategy, 

Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983.

8. For an outstanding geopolitical and geostrategic analysis 

that is more than merely an impressive period piece, see Nicholas John Spykman, America’s Strategy in World Politics, 1942, New 

Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007. Spykman is too little 

read these days, so to help correct this condition, see Colin S. Gray, 

“Nicholas John Spykman, the Balance of Power, and International 

Order,” The Journal of Strategic Studies, forthcoming.

9. Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3–1, Unified Land Operations, Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 2012, Glossary-4.

10. See Colin S. Gray, Strategy and Defence Planning: Meeting 

the Challenge of Uncertainty, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 

2014, Chap. 3.
49

11. Gray, Perspectives on Strategy.

12. Odierno, Amos, and McRaven.

13. In his writings critical of America’s protracted efforts to 

achieve counterinsurgent success in Iraq and Afghanistan, former 

U.S. Army colonel Gian Gentile plausibly expresses doubts about 

the ability of protracted Western military and other efforts to 

cope well enough with the pressures, anxieties, and often confusing loyalties encountered in very alien societies. See Gian Gentile, 

Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency, New 

York: The New Press, 2013. Ironically enough, Stanley McChrystal offers fairly persuasive evidence in support of the thesis that 

COIN in Iraq and Afghanistan required a level of cultural and political understanding that may be beyond attainment by foreign 

soldiers in strategically useful numbers. Even in the rare cases of 

foreigners with adequate cultural comprehension, the practicalities of local deal making and breaking is apt to frustrate attempts 

to achieve what we consider to be positive strategic effect. See 

Stanley McChrystal’s very detailed memoir, My Share of the Task, 

New York: Penguin, 2013.

14. J. C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power 

Control, 1967; Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989, p. 72.

15. See Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking 

in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, New York: Free 

Press, 1986.

16. See Harry R. Yarger, Strategy and the National Security Professional: Strategic Thinking and Strategy Formulation in the 21st Century, Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008.

17. Hew Strachan has offered the following cautionary words 

on the relationship between policy and military action: 

Generals who have fought actual wars have found that the 

presumption that war is a continuation of policy—axiomatic 

for Huntingdon and reemphasized through a one-sided and 

selective reading of Clausewitz—has created as many problems as it has solved. Policy, as Clausewitz acknowledged, 

can be an alien element in war.
50

“Strategy or Alibi? Obama, McChrystal and the Operational Level 

of War,” Survival, Vol. 52, No. 5, October–November 2010, p. 165.

18. Antulio J. Echevarria II, “Dynamic Inter-Dimensionality: 

A Revolution in Military Theory,” Joint Force Quarterly, No. 15, 

Spring 1997, p. 36.

19. The importance of control as the object in war is central to 

Wylie, Military Strategy, and is the principal contribution of the 

book to strategic theory.

20. The bundle of ideas that emerged in the mid–1950s and 

matured a decade later on the broad subject area of a desirable 

flexibility of response in strategy led probably inevitably to the 

placing of undue faith in the willingness of adversaries to respond, or not, with reliable predictability to American threats and 

limited military-punitive actions. The whole array of ideas pertaining to limited war in the nuclear age that was triggered initially by reaction to, and reflection on, the war in Korea, fuelled a 

notably flawed belief that strategic orchestration was possible by 

clever Americans. The happy, but actually uncomfortably close, 

outcome to the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 served to feed 

the fire of strategic self-confidence imprudently. The allegedly 

new pseudo-scientific strategy of crisis management was born. 

This strategic confidence died as a direct result of the Vietnam 

experience. See Beatrice Heuser, The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking 

War from Antiquity to the Present, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010, Chap. 17; and Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: 

A History, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014, Chap. 13. 

An exceptionally useful truly contemporary analysis by a leading strategic theorist of the period is Robert E. Osgood, Limited 

War: The Challenge to American Strategy, Chicago, IL: University of 

Chicago Press, 1957.

21. In all countries, though particularly in popular democracies, political stability on the home front is an essential requirement that has to underpin, and indeed enable, strategic effectiveness abroad. This point was registered with outstanding clarity in 

Philip A. Crowl, “The Strategist’s Short Catechism: Six Questions 

Without Answers,” Harry R. Borowski, ed., The Harmon Memorial 

Lectures in Military History, 1959–1987, Washington, DC: Office of 

Air Force History, U.S. Air Force, 1988, pp. 377-388.
51

22. Charles Krulak, “The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in 

the Three-Block War,” Marines Magazine, Vol. 18, May 1999, pp. 

28–34. For an Australian view, not to be outbid by the U.S. Marine Corps, see David Schmidtchen, The Rise of the Strategic Private: 

Technology, Control and Change in a Networked-Enabled Military, 

Duntroon, Australia: Land Warfare Studies Centre, Australian 

Defence Force Academy, 2006. Given the widespread popular acknowledgement of the significance of Krulak’s argument, it was 

somewhat ungracious of Smidtchen not to mention his thesis, 

which had been aired half a decade earlier.

23. See Colin S. Gray, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice, 

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010, Chap. 6.

24. Echevarria, Reconsidering the American Way of War, pp. 41-

42, is plausible in the modesty of his claims concerning the competitive quality of American military equipment, especially for 

the warfare waged against Germany.

25. I explore the subject of technological sophistication and 

combat effectiveness in my Perspectives on Strategy, Chap. 5, 

“Technology: Magic Bullets?”

26. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter 

Paret, eds. and trans., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 

1976, pp. 85, 104, 339.

27. Such unavoidable involvement in foreign domestic politics and their cultural antagonisms are all but thematic in the 

better of the recent studies of the American and British strategic 

experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s. See McChrystal, My Share of the Task; Jonathon Bailey, Richard Iron, and Hew 

Strachan, eds., British Generals in Blair’s Wars, Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2013; and Hew Strachan, The Direction of War: 

Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, UK: 

Cambridge University Press, 2013.

28. Clausewitz, On War. The pervasive significance of politics 

is emphasized in Colin S. Gray, The Future of Strategy, Cambridge, 

MA: Polity Press, forthcoming in 2015.
52

29. Worded thus, it is easy enough to note the corresponding 

fit with Thucydides’ theory of the three primary motives in statecraft being “fear, honor, and interest.” Thucydides, The Landmark 

Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, Robert B. Strassler, ed., New York: Free Press 1996, p. 43. His “fear, 

honor, and interest” covers more than adequately the reasons behind Vladimir Putin’s actively aggressive statecraft and strategy. 

The Greek general and theorist-historian would have understood 

Russian policy toward Ukraine with scant need for education in 

our contemporary detail.

30. The clearest, indeed almost certainly the definitive, strategic explanation for this is provided with admiral economy in 

Wylie’s Military Strategy.

31. Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence, New Haven, CT: 

Yale University Press, 1966, remains the most impressive theoretical study of coercion in contemporary statecraft. In addition, 

there is some lasting value in the analyses presented in Lawrence 

Freedman, ed., Strategic Coercion: Concepts and Cases, Oxford, UK: 

Oxford University Press, 1998. See particularly Freedman’s Chap. 

1, “Strategic Coercion.”

32. Thomas M. Kane, Military Logistics and Strategic Performance, London, UK: Frank Cass, 2001; and Echevarria, Reconsidering the American Way of War, are both eloquent on the importance of logistics to strategy. In addition it is well worth noting the 

judgment of professional military logistician Rear Admiral Henry 

E. Eccles, USN (Ret.), who wrote explaining that “logistics is the 

bridge between the national economy and the tactical operation 

of the combat forces.” See Henry Eccles, Military Concepts and Philosophy, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1965, p. 19.

33. In his outstanding biography of Dwight Eisenhower, author Jean Edward Smith observes that: 

In terms of logistics and supply the maneuvers [U.S. Army 

in Louisiana, 1941] helped put in place the wartime coordination that distinguished the United States Army in every 

theater. Lieutenant Colonel LeRoy Lutes, who handled the 

supply effort of [Patton’s] Third Army, became the Army’s 

chief of distribution during World War II and was ulti-
53

mately promoted to lieutenant general. Lutes ensured that 

American forces always had more of everything than they 

might possibly need.

Ironically, perhaps, Eisenhower himself was not known for his logistical skills. See Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace, 

New York: Random House, 2012, p. 171.

34. The basic texts are Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals 

and Reality, 1942, New York: W. W. Norton, 1962; Nicholas John 

Spykman, America’s Strategy in World Politics: The United States and 

the Balance of World Power, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942; and 

Nicholas John Spykman, The Geography of the Peace, 1944, New 

York: Archon Books, 1969. Notable studies of a more recent vintage include: Ciro E. Zoppo and Charles Zorgbibe, eds., On Geopolitics: Classical and Nuclear, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinas Nijhoff, 1985; and Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: 

What the Map Tells Us about Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against 

Fate, New York: Random House, 2012.

35. In his fairly frank biography, former Secretary of Defense 

Robert M. Gates had this to say about the USMC: 

But an important reason the Marines deployed to Helmand 

was that while Marine Commandant Jim Conway was eager to get his Marines off their duffs in western Iraq and 

into the fight in Afghanistan, he also insisted that all the 

Marines deployed to a single ‘area of responsibility’—one 

battlespace—with Marine air cover and logistics. Only 

Helmand fit Conway’s conditions. The Marines were determined to keep operational control of their forces away from 

the senior U.S. commander in Tabul and in the hands of a 

Marine lieutenant general at Central Command in Tampa. 

The Marines performed with courage, brilliance, and considerable success on the ground, but their higher leadership 

put their own parochial service concerns above the requirements of the overall Afghan mission.

Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, New York: 

Alfred A. Knopf, 2014, p. 340.

36. See Lawrence Freedman, Deterrence, Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 2004, pp. 34-36; and Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence Now, 

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
54

37. For a sensible contribution to the “minimum deterrence” 

debate, see Keith B. Payne (Study Director), Nuclear Force Adaptability for Deterrence and Assurance: A Prudent Alternative to Minimum Deterrence, Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2014.

38. Echevarria, Reconsidering the American Way of War, p. 149.

39. See Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir, New York: Sentinel, 2011, for the full story from the thenSecretary’s perspective.

40. Allan Mallinson, “The British need to head back east of 

Suez,” The Times (London), August 23, 2014, p. 28.

41. For reasons explained in Gray, Strategy and Defence 

Planning, pp. 17-20.

42. Clausewitz, On War, p. 104.

43. Ibid.

44. It should not be forgotten that there is often a nuclear context to a local or regional crisis, whether or not nuclear weapon 

states have sought explicitly to extend nuclear deterrence as cover 

for the strategic behavior and misbehavior of allies, friends, and 

perhaps bold neutrals.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General William E. Rapp

Commandant

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U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE PRESS

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Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil