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

Conclusion. Regulating Chaos

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UZSae Pity the theory that conflicts with reason!— Carl von Clausewitz, On War Shall a theory be pronounced absurd because it has only three-fourths of the whole number of chances of success in its favor?—Antoine Henri de Jomini, The Art of War Analyzing over 225 years of U.S. Army doctrine reveals that the American Army has been far more adaptive and innovative than scholars have acknowledged. Far from belonging to a rigid institution bent upon replicating the past, army leaders created a system that blended education and individual/group recognition of ideas to frame doctrine within both a national and service culture. Although technology and other factors affected doctrine, it was the individual soldier who mattered most. When the Army focused its doctrine on the American soldier, a pattern established by Major General George Washington and von Steuben in 1779, it was far more successful in developing appropriate precepts than when deviating from it. The relationship between doctrine and the U.S. Army reveals the purpose of the keystone manuals to be a philosophical methodology for winning wars and accomplishing other tasks, as determined by civilian authority. The manuals contain the essence of how the army leadership has envisioned regulating the chaos of armed conflict through military operations. Although compliance was often an issue and imperfection all but assured, doctrine was and is essential for army forces to plan, train, and carry out national-security missions. Generations of officers and enlisted men have consulted and used doctrine in peacetime and war. But doctrine is much more than the best available thought. The manuals spurred the development of strategy, operations, and tactics through theories about war and nonwar activities. They educated the officer corps. CONCLUSION : 279 They imposed control over the Army and sought to do the same to other services and allies. They justified agendas, as well as defended the service ’s relevancy. Keystone doctrine was the outcome of national and institutional values and expectations, yet the manuals’ precepts were hardly based upon American thought alone. More often than not, authors borrowed foreign ideas and recast them in an American light. Over the span of their history, the publications gleaned ideas taken from British, French, and German sources, as well as Italian and Soviet thought, among others. The first American doctrine established that precedent. From 1607 until 1779, no American warfighting doctrine existed. Militia and Ranger units followed informal practice. If any doctrinal manuals were used to train soldiers, they were primarily British. But the American Revolution demanded the establishment of a conventional Continental Army that, in turn, mandated a cohesive tactical system capable of vanquishing the British juggernaut. Major General George Washington and others knew this, but the tumultuous events of the rebellion hindered efforts to write a manual. Fortunately, at Valley Forge (1777–1778), Washington found an author in von Steuben, a Prussian officer with expertise in European drill procedures. Steuben, under Washington’s direct supervision, drew upon British and Prussian methods in crafting a doctrine specifically for the American soldier. There was no publication like it. Precisely what the Army required, it was a conventional tactical approach to war with the American soldier in mind. The manual, however, did not consider unconventional forces, which continued to follow informal practice. After the Revolution, the U.S. government required a doctrine for defending a fledgling United States from foreign invasion and for fighting unconventional forces, Indians, on the frontier. The 1779 Regulations was too cumbersome for the militia to learn quickly. Two victories by Indians over army forces intensified ongoing debate over how to organize and train troops to fight them. But the Army’s subsequent decisive victory at Fallen Timbers (1794), one made possible by taking time to train a mixed force to the 1779 doctrine, convinced service leaders that properly led and prepared conventional soldiers can defeat Indians. What the nation required was a conventional doctrine to turn rabble into a fighting force during a crisis. By the early 1800s, the army leadership looked to French doctrine for two reasons: Napoleon’s success in Europe and France’s effectiveness in turning a mob into an army during the years of the French Revolution. In 1812, the Army replaced its 1779 instructions with a 280 : CONCLUSION French-based doctrine. That manual proved so unpopular that it was replaced...