A New Principle of War: ‘Understanding’ Must Take Its Rightful Place Atop the Pantheon
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Reflecting revered assumptions and long-standing paradigms, The Principles of War are a list of tenets enshrined since 1949 in the Army’s Field Manual 3-0 “Operations” and more recently in other service and joint doctrines. These foundations — Mass, Maneuver, Unity of Command, and the rest — have stood largely pat for a half-century. That reflects their enduring utility, yet is prima facie evidence of a need to seriously re-examine them, particularly as conflicts in the ancient battlefields of Mesopotamia and Afghanistan wind down.
The post-Cold War era has generated new vulnerabilities and new forms of adversaries and combat applications. A decade of combat and complex operations has pulled up the roots of strategic thought and operational habits framed in response to a monolithic threat. That threat no longer exists, but it is imprinted into the U.S. military culture. The challenge is adapting to new demands, new threats and an evolving character of conflict. We must discard what is no longer relevant and reinforce everything that is immutable or enduring.
The following is offered for consideration by the joint war-fighting community: a new principle for the list, and indeed one to be placed atop the rest:
Understanding: Craft strategy and operations upon a detailed understanding of the nature of military conflict and the specific context (cultural, social, political and geographic) in which military force is to be introduced and applied.
STRATEGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY
Strategist Bernard Brodie once observed that “good strategy presumes good anthropology and good sociology.” Fundamentally, war involves an iterative competition between peoples whose behavior patterns will be a result of a complex combination of factors. Our national security community has experts who monitor and study the strategic and military culture of adversarial states and assess an opponent’s military capabilities. During the Cold War, we created a cadre of experts in Russian history, language and culture. After the Cold War, we lost that expertise. We became what Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former Central Command commander, calls “order of battle oriented” — focused on quantifying a known opponent and laying out his capabilities in neat templates. Then-Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn’s 2010 critique of intelligence operations in Afghanistan reflects the consequences of this mentality.