How, then, can our legions succeed militarily in a manner consistent with the principles of the Ameri-can regime? In answering this question, the first step is to recognize that, for the past 60 years, tactical mili-tary excellence alone has not translated to strategic success. This is the heart of the paradox that haunts the American way of war and peace, or rather how America intervenes with force: the United States fre-quently proves better at winning battles than wars.
In light of this fact, our future thinking and prepara-tion must do two things. First, we must maintain the capacity to fight and win on the battlefield; for while victories in battle do not necessarily lead to victories in war, strategic success cannot be built upon field failure. Second, we must think beyond the battle-field, and consider what is required of the land force so as to realize national strategic goals. Fundamental
to this second line of thought is the strategic value of the land force itself. While tactical and operational success rests on controlling the air, sea, land, cyber, and space domains, strategic success lies in “control-ling and influencing” the human “domain.” Since, as Corbett recognized, humans dwell on land rather than in other domains, Landpower will—or should—con-tinue to play a central role in national strategy.
The U.S. Army has put forward the “Prevent-Shape-Win” strategic solution to envision how Land-power might contribute to national strategy. I discuss the significance of each of these terms—prevent, shape, and win—elsewhere in this volume.6 Here, I address two specific challenges associated with this strate-gic solution: regional alignment and the difficulty of recognizing “wins.”
First, let us consider regional alignment, the cur-rent Army initiative to align brigade combat teams to specific regions of the world. Making U.S. forces regionally aligned is an important first step, but it is insufficient unless these forces are led by regionally acculturated talent, i.e., commissioned and noncom-missioned officers familiar with not only the military forces in a given region, but the region’s languages and cultures as well. The effective power of our forces aligned with the Middle East will be multiplied ex-ponentially if they are led by modern-day T. E. Law-rences. But to attract and develop this sort of talent requires a system of professional development and promotion quite different than the one the Army cur-rently uses. For an institution to produce Lawrences, it must have the investment strategy of a Warren Buffet; it must embrace the long-term view, for the most valuable human capital is not accumulated over-night. “Shaping” strategies, like the Individual
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tirement Account, penalize early withdrawals while rewarding expectation management and, above all, strategic patience.
Patient prevention and shaping are awarded with
“wins.” But the wins they lead to are not always the ones the Army, and our U.S. Armed Forces more gen-erally, are prepared to acknowledge, for the ultimate goal of these kinds of strategies is victory without bat-tle. To gain a clearer sense of what this entails, consid-er the case of Turkey. Aftconsid-er World War II, the Turkish military was a poorly-trained manpower-heavy force on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) flank. Through the deployment of military advisers, military equipment transfers, and whole-of-govern-ment support over the span of decades, Turkey de-veloped into the second largest power in NATO and a lynchpin of American Middle East security. With the fall of Communism, Turkey emerged as a regional pivot state, connecting Europe and the Middle East, and providing vital support during the First Gulf War and Operations PROVIDE COMFORT and NORTH-ERN WATCH. Because Turkey acted in its own sover-eign interests in the lead-up to the Second Gulf War, a number of observers have questioned Turkey’s value as an ally; however, they fail to acknowledge that Tur-key has continued to provide support to U.S. efforts in Iraq throughout the most recent war, and today supports U.S. efforts in the Syrian conflict. None of this was fated. It is the long-term return on an invest-ment seeded nearly half a century ago, one which has continued in ways small and large over that entire span. The Turkey case represents a clear win—not on the battlefield, but through prevention and shaping strategies. As we look to possibilities for an extended diplomatic-military intervention in Syria, the 90-year
investment in the U.S.-Turkey relationship may be coming to maturity, bringing large dividends to the United States, with the possibility of Turkey taking on some form of lead role in a future regional coali-tion aimed at protecting humanitarian safe zones, or in the longer term, containing and stabilizing condi-tions at and within the boundaries of a widening Syria civil war.
These questions will be at the core of our politi-cal debates in the years to come. While it is beyond my intent (and ability) to address each of them here, there are a few principles that can help us to consider how the military might maximize its contribution to national strategy in the face of budget stringency:
• A diverse spectrum of talented personnel pro-vides an important hedge against uncertainty.
Investments here, and now, will bear countable positive returns in the long run.
• Risk can be accepted by focusing service, com-mand, and functional capability and by reduc-ing redundancy and interservice competition.
• Limited focused research and development can develop technologies that hedge against uncer-tainty.
• Personnel quantity is costly; personnel quality is priceless.
• Reductions should facilitate and, indeed, re-quire “draconian” cuts to preserve only what is truly value-added.
• Engagements with foreign military personnel to shape the strategic environment have long-term strategic benefits.
• We need a holistic campaign-quality solution.
— Modules of unique and specialized functions and roles—packages of multi-composition
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forces that are capable of semi-independent action—can be “plugged-in-for-play” with other modules or into a “mother ship” head-quartering node depending on the breadth and nature of the intervention itself. This paradigm could conceivably be broadened as an organization and operational (O&O) model for integrating not only differing kinds of national military power (joint inte-gration), or for that matter national power in general (interagency and intergovernmental integration), but also multinational power.
— This “Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmen-tal, and Multinational (JIIM)-based” con-struct would provide a national and beyond constabulary-quality and campaign-quality force for international intervention. Post-modern crises and conflicts have already proven themselves to be complex, com-pound, and protracted affairs—long wars.
• Strategic prioritization, adherence to guiding principles, and powerful leadership are essen-tial to achieving the most effective military at the conclusion of a period of budget stringency.
Observing these principles will make it more likely that this period of fiscal austerity leads not to “Ameri-can decline” but to a fundamental re-examination and renewal of American grand strategy.
CONCLUSION: RENEWING