La crisis de identidad del US Army.

 

 

 

Land Power Myths, Identity Crisis Put U.S. Army on the Back Foot

By Steven Metz, on 25 Sep 2013       

 

As the U.S. military struggles with severe budget cuts driven by political posturing rather than a strategic vision, the Army is facing a deep identity crisis. As defense expert Nadia Schadlow explained, "After 10 years of fighting two major wars and suffering the brunt of America’s military casualties, the most experienced and powerful ground force in the world now has to justify its value and relevance."

The historical American preference was to keep only a small army during peacetime, creating one only when war came and demobilizing afterward. That would not work during the Cold War, however, so, for the first time, the United States preserved its land power as a deterrent to land power-centric enemies, first the Soviet Union and North Korea with Chinese backing, and later "rogue states" like Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Air and sea power might be able to blunt an invasion by an enemy's conventional forces, but control of the land was the ultimate indication of America's seriousness and commitment to an ally, whether stationed abroad during peacetime to deter attack or, if necessary, fighting to repel an invasion. The U.S. Army thus served in part to reassure allies in dangerous parts of the world. Land power also allowed the United States to shape the outcome of conflicts and crises. In addition to large-scale combat, the Army provided a huge range of other capabilities, such as counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, stabilization, security assistance and disaster relief. But its primary mission was, in its own words, "to fight and win the nation's wars."

Today, the chances of an army-centric enemy invading a U.S. ally have decreased dramatically. Russia had a hard time fighting weak, neighboring Georgia—it poses no conventional military threat to NATO. North Korea has a massive army and a bizarrely unpredictable regime, but the South Korean military could defeat the North with modest assistance from U.S. ground forces. China could invade Taiwan but is unlikely to do so given the political and economic costs. Iran remains a threat to other nations in its region but not a conventional military one.

This state of affairs has led some defense experts, politicians and military leaders to contend that the United States no longer needs a large standing army since it is unlikely to face a major conventional war. But this belief rests on myths about land power, and one element of the Army's identity crisis is its inability to cut through them.

One recurring myth, for instance, is that the United States need only prepare for short wars. Americans have made this assumption many times, from the Civil War to Iraq. Despite proving disastrously wrong time after time, the myth survives, at least in Washington. Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently told an audience at the Association of the United States Army that the nation probably will not undertake any more large-scale, long-duration ground operations. “Our political leadership," he said, "has it in mind that they will do what they can to avoid a long war.” Apparently future U.S. political leaders will be more strategically astute than their predecessors and find ways to avoid involvement in major wars. History, in other words, has for some reason ended.

A second myth is that the qualitative superiority over all enemies that the United States has had at least since the 1950s will persist even while political posturing is forcing the military to slash training, professional education, recapitalization and investment in potentially breakthrough technologies. The only explanation for this is hubris: Americans and their elected leaders have become so accustomed to having the best military on Earth that they consider it inevitable and natural. But the military's leaders are no longer so certain that political leaders will make the investments needed to sustain their qualitative advantage.

A third myth is that allies and partners will pick up the slack as American land power declines. There are two problems with this idea. First, many allies and partners need significant U.S. help to undertake military operations outside their own borders, particularly with capabilities like transportation, long-range precision fires, logistics and intelligence. In future large-scale crises or wars, the U.S. military may not have enough of these capabilities to support both its own troops and those of its partners. Even traditional allies may defer less to a United States that brings significantly less military capability to the table. In a scenario like this, other potential coalition partners may decide that the political costs of working with the United States—including giving Washington a major role in shaping the outcome—are not worth it.

The Army has not been able to overcome these myths, leaving the country to make strategic decisions on faulty premises. The Army has not decided if its primary mission is still to fight and win the nation's wars and, if so, exactly what type of war it is talking about. Having become adept at large-scale conventional war, it is hard for the Army to walk away from it. And neither the Army nor its supporters have been able to make the American public and its elected leaders believe that the ability to shape the outcome of conflicts and control territory justifies the cost of sustaining a force that can react quickly to major wars, crises or natural disasters. Because Americans do not want any more wars like Iraq or Afghanistan, which were Army-dominated conflicts, they are convincing themselves that they don't need a large standing army.

Organizational identity crises are common during times of intense change. Large-scale war-fighting was the Army's focus for so long that it will take time to adjust to a global strategic environment where this is unlikely. The Army has spent an immense amount of time thinking about the strategic role of land power. Ultimately its identity crisis is less a result of internal failure than a reflection of America's broader and deeper identity crisis as it redefines its role in the world. But knowing that is little consolation. The danger is that slashing the Army now will make a revival of U.S. power more difficult or even impossible in the future. If the United States gets rid of its military capabilities, particularly land power, too hastily and with little regard for the long-term implications, American decline may become impossible to reverse.

Steven Metz is a defense analyst and the author of "Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy." His weekly WPR column, Strategic Horizons, appears every Wednesday.