US Army: Still not ready for 21st Century War

This article on the US Army and future war has been making the rounds. The Modern War Institute at West Point argues that the US ARMY has it all wrong. It says:

The modern context of positional warfare, as argued by British theorist J.F.C Fuller, thus renders “physical” land invasion between nuclear powers an “obsolete thing.” Regional powers like Russia and China are protecting sovereign and adjacent territories with unprecedented reconnaissance-strike defenses that cannot be degraded without attacking systems in home territory and incurring instant strategic escalation. The US Army’s renewed focus on large-scale ground combat against peer threats with maneuvering field armies, as directed in its capstone doctrine, FM 3-0: Operations, presents a mismatch of problem and solution to these hybrid challenges.

The US Army could put together one, perhaps two old style maneuver corps the likes of which we featured in World War 1990: Polish Storm, one based on the 1st Armored Division, one based on the 1st Cavalry Division.

The United States will definitely not be landing an army on the Asian mainland. A hot-war could break out with Russia, we suppose. We file that under the 'not impossible' category. But it is unlikely the US Army will need to fight a battle of maneuver.

Still we believe the US Army should maintain the capability to do so, but much of its focus should be on COIN, civil affairs, and the like.

By the way, the US Army is Wrong on Future War links to an article that argues COIN doesn't work. That link is wrong. There's a KFC in Fallujah after all. Try writing that in 2004.

In this century American military campaigns succeed when they 'go native' in the British sense. By which we mean, Special Forces and CIA paramilitary types armed with laser guidance systems and brief cases of cash working with the indigs. This method worked in Afghanistan in 2001, in Northern Iraq in 2003, in Somalia in 2007, and also Anbar in 2007 with the Anbar Awakening.

And if we happen to have written magazine articles on all of those campaigns, well, that's just a coincidence.