General Thoughts on Implied Grand Strategy

Absent a stated Grand Strategy the military service leaders are left to develop military strategy based on implied Grand Strategy, which in any democracy can be influenced by many factors. One underlining factor is that US political leadership has for decades assumed responsibility for global strategic conditions.

Since the cold war, the political party in power has been irrelevant to this circumstance. The implied Grand Strategy of the United States today, and looking into the 21st century, until otherwise acted upon or articulated by elected representatives, is to remain the sole point of leadership of the international system for global political, economic, and military power.

Developing military strategy from an existing, physical position of leadership with an implied mandate to maintain global leadership has been the primary focus of our nations strategic development since the end of the cold war. In all aspects of exercising national power in foreign diplomacy, the lack of certainty is reflected in the military strategy that has manifested over that time, and has been particularly amplified in the 21st century. The land forces debate has been healthy as Generals struggle to balance human network military theories with technology network military theories in the 21st century. One would be very hard pressed to make the case that one theory has emerged strategically better than the other, but both sides can make the case the debate has made the use of military power more lethal for our enemies on the tactical level.

I would suggest the inability to produce a strategic victory under either theory with military power has been both a blessing and curse of the 21st century. A blessing in that military power may be diminishing as an effective strategic political option when absent a clearly defined threat; while a curse in that once utilized the absence of strategic victory can perpetuate military power into an indefinite period of conflict.

If the Grand Strategy of the United States, implied by the actions of our political leadership, is to remain the sole point of leadership of the international system for global social, economic, and military power... has the land debate between human network military theories and technology network military theories thus far in the 21st century distracted us from developing a realistic 21st century military strategy?

The most interesting question I have been asked lately is why I believe the land forces need to be shaping themselves toward the human network military theories, or as some say take a “population-centric” over an “enemy-centric” approach for military planning best articulated from the "COINdinistas" point of view if I am at the same time often expressing favor of major conventional power for naval forces.

The reason why I believe the "COINdinistas" community has land warfare right is because in the 21st century, I do not see a scenario for land warfare where the land being fought over is a neutral medium.

Populations have residency to stake an ownership claim on land. Absent a clear and present danger, or ambition of empire, I continue to believe we are distracted from why we would utilize our human network military theories and technology network military theories in developing military strategy. The only strategic value of any piece of land outside the United States is when that land can be cultivated for social-economic exchange, a mutually beneficial system of trade that only holds value in peacetime. Said another way, only when fighting with and for a population does land warfare hold any value towards our strategic interests. In the 21st century, that means our land warfare fighting forces will always be fighting the insurgent from the point of view of the population, even when the insurgent is a foreign military power.

In those fights, the strategic winner in 21st century warfare will ultimately be who controls 1) the neutral mediums and 2) wins the social, informational, and metaphysical (religous and/or moral) high ground from the perspective of the population.

The sea, air, space, and cyberspace represent neutral mediums being contested, and all of these neutral mediums come with in a natural state of being ungoverned. In my opinion, a properly constructed military strategy for the 21st century must include the technologies, human skill, and doctrine to compete and take control of the neutral spaces that occupy the battlefields of the 21st century. The seat of power may be on land, but the control of power is determined by the control of neutral mediums that have access to the land being contested, and the social, informational, and metaphysical moral high ground influencing the population.

If I was using a label, I would label the type of power that engages the social, informational, and metaphysical moral high ground influencing the population soft power.

Now rank them. Is it hierarchical or are they equal?

• Sea power (maritime and naval power)
• Air power (commercial and military)
• Space power (telecommunications, scientific, and military)
• Cyber power (internet, intranet, and extranet, both capability and capacity)
• Soft power (social, informational, and moral)

When I look at neutral mediums, the first thing I note is that all of them can have populations, but the populations of neutral mediums only exist when enabled by technology. While people understand this with air, sea, and space; it is often misunderstood that Cyberspace either exists or it doesn't, making it a contested neutral medium, not a property of ownership. Just like the sea, air, and space - the natural state of cyberspace is ungoverned and control must be taken in order to achieve security. With neutral mediums, control means exploiting the use of the medium as necessary, not ownership. Both technology and populations must be accounted for in order to effectively exploit a neutral medium.

Why is this important? Because just as the exercise of air power for the military control of airspace must account for populations (Iran Air Flight 655), so must sea power account for for populations when exercising control. It is also important for the purposes of setting priority for exercising the capabilities of government power, for example, is soft power really as important as sea power? If they are truly equal, then why would we send a destroyer to do a soft power mission? Shouldn't we be building a soft power ship under that theory?

Should we develop military strategies that include the elimination of enemy technologies from neutral mediums, for example, anti-satellite weapons or a sea control strategy of exclusion - destroying every vessel on the sea in an area being contested.

What about at a higher level - is America still playing to win, or are we content going the way of the automobile industry, inventing the game just to see others do it better. Are we content with the world as it is today and blinded to the reality everything changes, or simply apathetic to the possibility we could ever lose our lead despite the continued outsourcing of our domestic manufacturing power, not to mention political priority of environment over production, a policy that our political competitors exploit as policy.

Grand Strategy does not appear forthcoming, and may never come without public demand. I see no demand, indeed I see no urgency and all we have is an implied direction. There is an interesting quark of American politics today, primarily due to the lack of strong political leadership at any level. Political authority in the 21st century has only been demonstrated by the never ending management of crisis, both foreign and domestic, rather than through the articulation of vision. Absent articulation of vision, how much longer is it realistic that our national political leadership to continue the policy that assumes responsibility for global strategic conditions? Is the strategic theory of dominance outdated?

In an emerging global system of regional powers, our strategic interests are primarily centered around access to neutral mediums. From a military strategy perspective, should we be shifting away from dominance towards the strategic theory of indispensability instead? At the beginning of the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt leveraged a very aggressive form of the Monroe Doctrine to keep the Germans and British out of areas in South America, including Venezuela and Panama. The British transitioned to the role of indispensable to American interests, rather than dominant over American interests, as a way to buffer political influence of Germany in South America. How does that lesson apply to the emerging regional conditions in the Pacific, or does it?

The existing, implied Grand Strategy of the post cold-war United States political leadership does not appear to consider these type of emerging conditions, or at least does not articulate a vision that covers this emerging possibility.