Publications

The growth of foreign ballistic missile arsenals has received considerable attention in recent years. Less noticed has been the spread of increasingly capable cruise  missiles. The 2003 Iraq War showed that while the United States has made strides in protecting its forces against ballistic missiles, it has placed far less effort on addressing the threat posed by cruise missiles. While US and Kuwaiti Patriot theater ballistic missile defense (TBMD) batteries intercepted and destroyed all nine Iraqi ballistic missiles launched at military targets, they failed to detect or intercept any of the five HY-2/CSSC-3 Seersucker cruise missiles launched against Kuwait. One came close to hitting Camp Commando, the US Marine Corps headquarters in Kuwait, on the first day of the war. Another landed just outside a shopping mall in Kuwait City. The missiles also contributed to fratricide, causing the loss of two coalition aircraft and the death of three crewmembers.

The Army’s plan for “Unit-Focused Stabilization”—organizing soldiers into combat units that would remain intact for about three years at a time—will implement an approach to personnel management that has been ardently promoted for decades both by some of the Service’s most distinguished general officers and by some of its most prominent internal critics. This approach, which is generally referred to as “unit manning,” marks a sharp departure from the Army’s practice during most of the 20th century. In the past, personnel were routinely moved in and out of combat units, even during major wars in Vietnam and Korea, according to the dictates of a system focused on developing the careers of individual soldiers by moving them though a variety of assignments rather than on maximizing the organizational stability of units.

A thorough review of the forces impelling current naval transformation efforts, the arguments for and against small combatants made during the Streetfighter debates, the Navy’s broader transformation plans, the potential role of small combatants in the 21st century “Assured Access Navy,” as well as the design goals for the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship leads to the following proposition: small network combatants have an important role to play in 21st century naval warfare, and the reconfigurable Littoral Combat Ship may make important warfighting contributions as part of the Navy’s 21st century “Total Force Battle Network” (TFBN).

This study assesses the US Army’s transformation initiative. Its goal is principally diagnostic, rather than prescriptive. That is, this assessment examines the Army’s approach to transformation in light of the challenges it will likely confront over the mid- to long-term future (i.e., 2013–2018). It is not intended to be prescriptive (i.e., to offer an alternative to the Army’s transformation initiative). This assessment concludes that the Army’s transformation vision, if realized, would yield  revolutionary results and displace the combined arms, mechanized operations that have dominated since the dawn of blitzkrieg. However, it also finds that there are substantial risks inherent in the Army’s approach to transformation, and that the Service is likely proceeding down a transformation path that is too narrow to account for the full range of missions it will likely confront in the post-transformation era.

In early 2002, the Department of Defense (DoD) unveiled the results of its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). The NPR was conducted to meet a congressional requirement for a “comprehensive review” of the policy, strategy, plans, stockpile, and infrastructure for US nuclear forces. It was the second such review. A similar undertaking was completed in 1994.