Publications

Throughout the twentieth century, the United States Army was oriented primarily on waging conventional warfare against a similarly armed great power, first the German Army during the World Wars and later the Soviet Army during the Cold War.

The United States has been at war since the end of 2001. In October of that year it began sending forces into Afghanistan. In March 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. Today, US forces remain heavily engaged in both countries. In the Fall of 2008, there were some 200,000 US troops in the region, of which about 150,000 were in Iraq and about 35,000 in Afghanistan. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the US military has also been engaged in homeland security related operations.

Special Operations Forces (SOF) are elite, highly trained military units that conduct operations that typically exceed the capabilities of conventional forces. They have figured prominently in US military operations since 2001 and have become central to the implementation of US national defense strategy with respect to the war against violent Islamic radicalism. During the unconventional war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom, SOF played a pivotal role by integrating US precision air power with the operations of irregular Afghan opposition forces to achieve rapid regime change and eliminate al Qaeda’s primary sanctuary.

During the 1920s and 1930s, even as it was engaged in a series of “small wars,” the Marine Corps dedicated itself to solving the “Gallipoli problem”: how to conduct amphibious assaults against a heavily defended shore. To do so, the Corps had to develop new concepts of operation, tactics and techniques, equipment, and organizations that enabled it to apply combat power against the enemy more effectively. The most daunting tactical challenge for the Corps was gaining a foothold on an enemy shore and steadily building combat power while under constant attack. The Navy and Marines thus developed an operational concept that included extensive shore bombardment from Navy ships and naval aircraft, amphibious landing craft by which the Marines could get to the beach, and various techniques for methodically breaking through and reducing enemy defensive positions. The fruits of the Corps’ labor were seen in the many amphibious successes of the United States military in World War II, in both the Pacific and European theaters.

For more than half a century, the US military has been well known for developing and employing the most advanced weapon systems in the world. However, over the years, perhaps nothing has contributed more to the effectiveness of the US military than the quality of its personnel. Indeed, in order to be effective, the US military must have adequate numbers of high-quality military personnel, with the right experience, training and skills.

The emergence, during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, of a peacetime defense industry of significant proportions was an unprecedented event in the history of the American republic. Two geopolitical developments made its emergence more or less unavoidable for a nation committed to leadership of the Free World after World War II. One was the onset of the US-Soviet Cold War in the late 1940s and the formulation, in response, of the strategy of trying to contain Soviet power. The other was North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in June 1950, which precipitated the large increases in defense spending called for in Paul Nitze’s formulation of containment in April 1950. The standing military-industrial complex that these developments brought into being endures to this day.