U.S. Army Doctrine: From the American Revolution to the War on Terror

5. Doctrine for a Post--Cold War World

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'//'Å(&&. Doctrine continues to be the engine of change. Thus, as a doctrine-based Army, change begins by changing our body of ideas—changing how we think about warfighting and operations other than war.—General Frederick M. Franks Jr., Military Review (December 1993) On 25 December 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union ended a significant chapter in the history of U.S. Army doctrine. Since 1949, various permutations of keystone manuals had fixated upon countering Soviet aggression, primarily in Europe but also globally. Operational and tactical doctrine had been written for conventional and unconventional warfare under nuclear and nonnuclear conditions. Now, with the Soviet Union gone, service leaders searched for a credible nationalsecurity threat and a doctrine to defeat it. Doctrinal revision was already underway under General Carl E. Vuono, the army chief of staff, before the Soviet Union’s downfall. When General Gordon R. Sullivan replaced Vuono on 21 June 1991, he viewed the global strategic situation as awash with “partially-developed democratic institutions and emerging free markets” in countries with low standards of living. Sullivan believed that the service must adjust its doctrine to face emerging threats to the national interest.1 An intellectual and avid reader, Sullivan envisioned a doctrine that would guide the service into a postindustrial era. He agreed with Alvin and Heidi Toffler’s book War and Anti-War, Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century, which argued that the United States had reached a historical turning point owing to computer technology. If computers could determine the outcome of future wars, the Army had to understand and 222 : CHAPTER FIVE exploit their capabilities as an operational imperative, especially in an era of uncertainty for the international situation and the service.2 In August 1991, Sullivan selected General Frederick M. Franks Jr., the former commander of VII Corps during Operation Desert Storm, to replace General John W. Foss at TRADOC. An armored cavalry officer, Franks had a long association with army education, having previously served as deputy commandant of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in the early 1980s. Franks believed the 1986 AirLand Battle doctrine had been appropriate for the Cold War and the Gulf but considered its precepts unsatisfactory for projecting army forces from one region of the world to another against foes with dissimilar equipment, size, and tactics. As the Cold War was ending, the Army partially drew down forces in Europe and returned them to the United States. As forces returned to the homeland, the Army required a doctrine that addressed how to project power from the United States in response to global threats. Producing a postindustrial-age doctrine at the end of the Cold War was difficult but not impossible. But doing so meant convincing many senior officers that there was ample reason to do it. General officers had risen to the top because of their leadership and management ability within a Cold Gordon Sullivan, upper left (U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania) DOCTRINE FOR A POST–COLD WAR WORLD : 223 War bipolar world. They had taken comfort in facing a clearly identifiable threat. Others believed that the 1986 AirLand Battle doctrine was ideal, the culmination of progressive ideas about warfare that had reached their natural outcome. Some understood that times had changed but were unsure of what doctrine was needed.3 Forging consensus required a patient salesman with a respected service pedigree, attributes that Franks possessed. Even if it delayed matters, patience involved sending draft chapter outlines to senior army leaders for feedback and revision, a technique with late-nineteenth century roots. Together, Sullivan and Franks designed and implemented what amounted to a psychological operations campaign aimed at prying the Army out of its Cold War comfort zone. Targeting the decision makers, senior army leaders, Sullivan’s objective was to attain service consensus in order to transform the Army. To Sullivan, doctrine was an instrument of change, not simply precepts for regulating operations. Sullivan selected Colonel James R. McDonough, director of the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), to head a writing team at Fort Leavenworth . McDonough was a published army intellectual with an outwardly calm demeanor. He was, however, mission focused with...