b. budgetary constraints c. national will to sustain strategy under consideration d. national industrial capabilities to include equipment that can be produced, time required e. men/material required for a given task (logistics) f. expertise required to accomplish task g. time required to accomplish interim goals to allow a given strategy to be implemented h. intelligence gathering abilities II. Other nations' or groups' capabilities to include the above as applicable to a given nation or group; in the case of allies, their expected degree of cooperation ( us, them, currently uncommitted nations) Assumptions Costs I. Strategies of adversaries/allies to include threat analysis II. Projections of food available, demographics, etc. will continue as before or can be predicted with some certainty III. Objectives of allies/enemies, current and future IV. That intelligence upon which assessment of others' (and sometimes our own) capabilities are based is reasonably accurate I. a. environmental factors as they relate to strategic considerations are reasonably predictable (weather, geography, tide) b. predicted actions of enemy/allied world leaders to given strategy (one can expect reactions within given parameters) c. expected reactions of other national groups d. accurate assessment of own, enemy, and allied military capabilities (equipment, personnel, training) or that the assessment has errors within tolerable limits e. assumptions of the will of one's own countrymen and potential allies and enemies insofar as this is an assumption and doesn't fall into the area of capabilities f. viability of certain institutions (positive and negative, for example g. the continued viability of certain alliances or under what circum- Manpower required and casualties expected for own and enemy forces II. Loss of equipment expected, i.e. fungible equipment to be used on a one-operation basis and equipment required by a given strategy which is temporarily lost for other purposes (i.e. the concern over the loss of LST's if certain operations were to be undertaken in advance of OVERLORD/NEPTUNE, the Normandy Invasion) III. Cost in dissipation of one's national will or morale, i.e. assuming for the moment that our recent Lebanon strategy is otherwise perfect, what will be the mid- and long-term effect on the national will if servicemen continue to die in large numbers? IV. Monetary cost to equip, train, and provision forces to include all auxiliaries attached thereto, i.e. carriers and their attendant battle groups V. Psychological cost. This is somewhat different from cost in terms of national will or morale. How will we see ourselves as a nation and how will others see us if a given strategy succeeds or fails? What might be perceived as a benefit, in an international psychological sense, could turn out to be a negative, that is a cost, or the reverse might turn out to be true. The Grenada operation may serve as an example. If it is perceived to have saved American lives and to have restored a democratic government to the island, then most Americans may believe, over the long term, that the operation was justified. However, even under the best of long-term results, there will have been a cost in terms of a generation of ill will among certain governments and peoples. This negative aspect or cost undoubtedly was one of the many factors to have been discussed in detail in the decision-making process that led up to the placing of troops on the island. It is submitted that if a given strategy is formulated on the basis of an analysis of desired objectives, capabilities (ours and those of the enemy), assumptions gleaned from the best available intelligence, and projected costs that at least the operation will proceed in a logical manner. That is not a bad first step. II THE FORMULATION OF MILITARY STRATEGY Stansfield Turner When the term "strategy" is mentioned, most military officers will bring to mind one or more of the classical writers on military strategy, such as Clausewitz, Mahan, or Douhet. Clausewitz wrote in the early 19th century; Mahan at the end of that century; and Douhet in the early 20th century. The fact that military men do not turn naturally to more modern writers of strategy raises the question of why there have been so few prominent strategic thinkers and writers in the past 50 years. One reason is that strategy has become a much more complex and difficult subject today than when those classicists wrote. They could confine themselves to one-dimensional strategies. Clausewitz wrote about land warfare; Mahan about warfare at sea; and Douhet about the new air warfare. Each wrote of the virtues of his form of warfare in rather broad, sweeping terms, urging its primacy over the others: that is, Clausewitz made the case for a land strategy; Mahan preferred a maritime one; and Douhet felt both land and sea strategies could be replaced by an air strategy. These writers also urged the choice of particular tactics, such as Mahan's preference for engagements of main battle fleets, but there was little need for these writers to recommend choices between weapons systems. There were not many such choices available; troops were troops, though they might be employed in differing maneuvers; ships were ships, though they might be sailed in different formations; and aircraft were aircraft, though they might be engaged on different types of targets. The products of modern technology have changed this. There are many choices between weapons systems today. That there are adds two dimensions to strategy. The first is deciding when weapons of air and sea warfare can perform roles in land warfare, not just be a substitute for it, as Mahan and Douhet urged. The second is deciding which of the numerous alternative weapons of land, sea, and air warfare are best suited to any particular task. With respect to the first new dimension, air and naval warfare are definitely competitors for doing the tasks which armies once did exclusively. For instance, naval forces can envelop a flank with an amphibious assault in lieu of an infantry sweep; or can bombard a battlefield using aircraft or short range missiles in lieu of artillery; or can strike even deeper than artillery, to the very source of enemy power in his homeland with very long range aircraft or missiles. Thus, while control of the sea lanes over which land commanders and the civilian populations around them are supplied remains the key role of naval warfare, it is not the Admiral Stansfield Turner, USN (Ret.), was Director of Central Intelligence from 1977 to 1981. Previously, he was Commander in Chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe; Commander, U.S. Second Fleet; and President of the Naval War College. exclusive one. Similarly, air warfare can compete with either army artillery or naval bombardment forces in direct attacks on the battlefield; and with the Navy in striking deep into an enemy's homeland. Maintaining control of the airspace over a land commander's forces is still the key element of air warfare, but it is not the only one. Thus, the modern strategist must address the trade-offs between alternative types of military power which can be employed in a single circumstance, rather than the either/or approach of the classical strategists. The second new dimension is the wide range of options in weapons systems within each type of warfare. That troops are troops, or ships are ships, is no longer true. Troops come in many forms: infantry, light armored, heavy armored, airborne, helo-borne, alpine, and others; and there are endless kinds of artillery and missiles from which they can choose to equip themselves. So, too, there are wide ranges of choices in the weapons of navies and air forces. If strategy is confined to generalized pronouncements about principles of warfare and does not address such choices, it is going to be deficient. Military men do not turn to contemporary strategists today because such strategists as there have been have not been willing to address these new dimensions of choices between the use of land, sea, and air warfare and between the different weapons systems and tactics available within each area of warfare. Typically, arguments are offered that making these kinds of choices is not making strategy, but doing force planning or systems analysis or budgeting. One can define strategy any way one wants, of course, but the point is that strategy defined as the broad, sweeping principles of a Clausewitz or Mahan or Douhet has proven to be of little value to modern military leaders. The Joint Chiefs of Staff should be our primary source of military strategy. They have written many Joint Strategic Objectives Plans and such, but it is difficult to see that such writings have had any appreciable impact on the armed forces of the United States. The reason they have not is that such plans have failed to address trade-offs between types of warfare and between weapons systems. The failure of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or anyone else in the U.S. military establishment, to formulate meaningful strategy should be evident from the consistently poor performance of our military whenever it has engaged in actual combat of any significance since World War II. We fought to a draw in Korea, lost a war in Vietnam, and performed miserably on the desert of Iran. The loss in Korea can be attributed in good part to our inability to move forces rapidly to such a distant theater of war. Thus, instead of a quick victory, we had to fight back from Pusan, giving the Chinese time to think it over and enter the war. We lost in Vietnam in good part because our ground tactics were geared to movement on the plains of Europe, not the jungles of Asia; and our air tactics were keyed to the bombardment of large production and transportation facilities which didn't ́exist in that primitive society. We failed in Iran because of a lack of preparations for conducting light, mobile thrusts at great distances from fixed bases. Our only so-called successes in combat since World War II, the Dominican Republic, the Mayaguez, and Grenada were such unequal contests as not to be meaningful tests of strategic planning. Military men are quick to blame the failures on the quality of civilian direction, or over-direction of the military effort. There certainly were errors of political guidance, but the simple fact is that the U.S. military was not well prepared to fight in any of those particular situations. We had the wrong weapons and the wrong tactics for what we were called upon to do. That is evidence of a failure of strategic planning. Theoretically it is the responsibility of our political leaders to tell the military about the kinds of wars they should be prepared to fight. The fact is, however, that political leaders are unlikely ever to do so adequately. The political ramifications of setting down on paper just where the defensive perimeter of the United States lies are simply too great. Yet, the military cannot be equally ready for every eventuality. What the military can do is to establish priorities for what they will be ready to accomplish. We failed in Korea, Vietnam, and Iran precisely because since World War II neither our political leaders nor our military have looked past the two obvious and overriding priorities of deterring nuclear war and defending Western Europe. Contingencies elsewhere in the world were not accorded sufficient priority to warrant devoting resources or training to them. The point is that the military system was not even aware of the fact that alternative potential uses of our military power were being neglected. The key task for the formulation of military strategy, then, is to establish a sense of priorities as to what the military should be ready to achieve. It is ironic that we are so poor at setting such priorities for our military, because we each do establish priorities in our individual lives. Consciously, or subconsciously, we structure what we want to achieve in life, what uses of our money we think will provide us the greatest satisfaction, etc. For instance, if we buy a new automobile it is because we place the satisfaction of having a new car higher than a vacation trip or whatever. We base such priorities on assumptions; for instance, that a new car will save us money in repairs or a different job will get us to our income goal sooner. Sometimes our assumptions come true and we realize our expectations; sometimes they do not and we are disappointed or defeated. When we are defeated, it is often because our assumptions expressed more wishful thinking than reality. One advantage in formulating military strategy rather than doing personal planning is that it is easier to set up a system for review of our assumptions. As individuals we may or may not recognize our assumptions for what they are, and if we do, we may or may not reveal them to our family or friends and ask their opinions. In a military planning system we can build in a requirement that the assumptions be laid out clearly and rigorously reviewed. Unfortunately, our lack of good military strategy in recent years reflects the fact that such rigor is not practiced. In fact the one thing that our military most needs in order to formulate better strategy is a systematic approach to establishing priorities based on as explicit assumptions as possible. I will attempt here to illustrate what a systematic approach to formulating strategy could be like. I will do so by developing a specific strategy for the U.S. Navy in the 1980s and 1990s. The actual strategy which will evolve is not the substance of this essay. It is, rather, an illustration of one technique for reaching a strategy. The technique is intended to be so explicit that it can be challenged and debated at every step. Thus, if the reader disagrees with the substance of the strategy as it evolves, he should ask what assumptions he would make instead and why they would dictate a different strategy. The place to start formulating naval strategy is by reviewing our national objectives for having military forces. We need to set our naval strategy in terms |