What Land Power Sounds Like

Dr. Maren Leed at CSIS is anchoring a fascinating series called The Ground Forces Dialogue.  Her latest guest (today) was Major General H.R. McMaster, Commander of the Army's Maneuver Center of Excellence.  As many of you know, McMaster is famous both in and out of the Army.  He's a warrior King--author, scholar, fighter.  Tough as nails, and smart as anyone.

But now and again, he gets things wrong.  Or at least, wrong enough to be challenged.



If you have an hour, spend it with Dr. Leed and MG McMaster, and listen to one of the most articulate spokesmen for Land Power do his thing.

I invite your attention also to a couple of things that any navalist should consider:

1.  MG McMaster cites core competncies in Land War as practiced by the U.S. Army--combined arms maneuver and wide area security.  These are cited in the Army Operating Concept of 2010, and defined thusly: "Combined arms maneuver is the application of the elements of combat power in a complementary and reinforcing manner to achieve physical, temporal, or psychological advantages over the enemy, preserve freedom of action and exploit success.  Wide area security is the application of the elements of combat power in coordination with other military and civilian capabilities to deny the enemy positions of advantage; protect forces, populations, infrastructure, and activities; and consolidate tactical and operational gains to set conditions for achieving strategic and policy goals."  McMaster's (and the Army's) view of the world seems to me to enshrine ever-war.  It isn't enough to just fight and win in war (combined arms maneuver), but we must also take as a core competency in the Active Duty Army all of the functions of occupation.  To me, it isn't a question of whether or not our Army needs to do both, but more a question of how it prioritizes them and where the skills sets reside. The argument to size the Active Army to do both of these things is a strikes me as worthy of criticism.

2.  MG McMaster is asked to speak about lessons we may have improperly learned from 12 years of conflict.  He raises in his answer, the concept of "raids" vs. "war", and his sense that many policy makers have begun to confuse the two.  I may have been hearing a dog-whistle, but what I heard was a dig at the Marine Corps in particular and American Seapower in general. Put another way, a new generation of arm-chair strategists--as they view the future security environment--have come to confuse what is required to conduct "raids" with what is required to conduct "wars".  And in McMaster's view, wars are what the Army is for.  The problem I have with McMaster's view is that all conflict is not war, and our garrison-force Army is not as useful as other forces at our disposal to deal with the span of conflict that does not include war (and its almost by definition self-licking Army ice cream cone, wide area security).  After more than a decade of land war, I believe the country is moving toward a posture of reliance on its deterrence and "raiding" forces and de-emphasizing its "war making" forces.  This is natural, and it is understandable given our fiscal environment.  It is not "eliminating" its war making capability--quite the contrary--it will spend billions to re-set it. 

Bryan McGrath