War Termination: Theory, Doctrine, and Practice

Abstract

This monograph discusses the theory and doctrine of war termination and evaluates their application during the Persian Gulf War. It defines war termination across the operational continuum. It develops a theoretical war termination model using a rational actor model composed of four sectors -the government, the military, the people, and the media. The war termination model portrays the rational actors operating within the framework of war expectations and conditions. Based on perceived war conditions of winning, losing, or stalemate, the monograph defines the actions for each sector based on existing theory. The monograph traces war termination theory developed in the rational actor model from the strategic level through Joint doctrine to US Army doctrine, evaluating Army doctrine for consistency within both the strategic process and the doctrinal hierarchy. Finally, having defined the war termination theory and doctrine, the monograph evaluates how the theory and doctrine were applied during the Gulf War by comparing model expectations with actual actions and outcomes. Based on this evaluation, the monograph identifies model and doctrinal shortfalls. The monograph concludes that the war termination model and the US Army warfighting doctrine are fundamentally sound. While the term “war termination” is commonly applied at the strategic level, the term “postconflict” activities is more appropriate for the Army’s operational and tactical focus. Army doctrine in FM 100-5 does not currently identify a requirement for postconflict activities; the planned 1992 revised edition will address this area. The addition of postconflict activities to FM100-5 will provide the Army a doctrinal consistency with the joint operational and national strategic levels.