Strategypage writes about two things that I've been concerned about.
One, our military has concluded that our troops can switch between conventional warfare and counter-insurgency fairly easily as long as their leaders are adept enough to apply the right strategy and tactics and give the appropriate orders:
Last year, the U.S. Army came out with a top line field manual (FM 3-07) "stability operations" (the kind of "small wars" being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan.) The army has always had an FM-7 for "full spectrum operations" (total war, against troops in uniform, armed with a full spectrum of weapons and tactics). Now it is committed to training for both types of combat. The key to this is training the commanders. One discovery in the last decade is that the troops can switch from conventional combat, to irregular type operations, more quickly and efficiently than their bosses.
I wrote about exactly this concept about a year and a half ago (and I've railed against the idea that we should have a separate peacekeeping force on the assumption our troops can't fight low intensity wars for over a decade). It is good that our officers will be trained in both types of wars and that our troops will have the skill sets and discipline to carry out appropriate orders.
The Strategypage piece also touches on the ever-present and immediate media presence on the battlefield:
What the army doesn't like to touch too much, at least officially, is the media angle in all this. The brass are aware of the problem, and have been for decades. It was only in the 1980s that a serious effort was made to address the problems inherent in Information War. But even then, everyone at the table knew it was, well, politically sensitive, to address dealing with how the media, and its impact on the political leaders, would influence what the troops and their commanders would have to do. But the subject is being discussed by officers more and more, if only because it's the elephant in the room that really can't be ignored anymore.
The most important part of this development in my opinion is how our troops will fight successfully under that microscope. War is hell. That isn't a cliche. But war must be fought that way and our media and public could mistake the normal hell of war for crimes. I hope this aspect of the media's unblinking eye is addressed.
I am comforted by the direction we are taking in these two critical areas. If we are to successfully fight future wars, they must be successfully addressed.
