Operational Art for the Objective Force

Abstract

Despite the concept of logical, in the place of physical, lines of operations in the 2001 version of FM 3-0, planners of the ongoing counterterrorism campaign face the same challenge as planners of peace-support operations in the Balkans. Today's doctrinal concepts for operational design hamstring planners' and commanders' abilities to design and conduct effective, coherent campaigns for operations across the spectrum of conflict in today's security environment. AS THE U.S. Army's Transformation to an Objective Force begins, a host of questions have emerged. What might the Army of the future be called on to do, where, against what opponents, and under what conditions? How will the Army operate in the future joint, multinational, and interagency context? What technological innovations will affect the future conduct of Army operations? How will the Army fight tactically? How will the Army conduct those campaigns and operations that are predominantly land in character; that is, what will be the operational art of the future? During a series of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) seminar war games and annual Army Transformation war games, observations began to emerge to suggest that warfare was not changing only at the tactical level; the conduct of the campaigns of the 21st century would be significantly different from those of the 20th century. Operational Art's Development Before considering the operational art of the future, it is necessary to understand the operational art of the present. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Army added the operational level of war and operational art to its doctrine, which became the AirLand Battle Doctrine of the 1986 version of Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations.' The logic and necessity of the argument for operational art was so compelling that the joint community incorporated virtually intact the Army's doctrine into Joint Publication (JP) 3-0. Doctrine for Joint Operations. The operational design construct of 1986 grew out of a sustained, detailed TRADOC study of military theory, history, and practice. The combination of insights and conclusions drawn from those three areas of study resulted in the doctrine that enabled the successes of Operations Just Cause in 1989 and Operation Desert Storm in 1990. Among the key theoreticians examined were Carl von Clausewitz, with his contribution of centers of gravity, fog, friction, and culmination; Henri Jomini, with his derivation of lines of operation and decisive points; and the Russians Triandifilov and Tuchachevsky, with their development of deep battle and the operational level of war. And, because it was the lens through which all activity was viewed at the time, the entire theoretical approach was grounded in Newtonian logic and linear determinism.3 The analysis of history that went into developing the operational-design construct for AirLand Battle was equally exhaustive. Study of Napoleon's campaigns reveals the concept of large-formation operations, and the development of all-arms corps that could fight and win a battle on their own, independent from the main army. Helmuth von Moltke's 1866 and 1870 campaigns demonstrated the importance of maneuver. Ulysses S. Grant's campaigns in the American Civil War provided insight into the dynamics of operations distributed in time and space but united in purpose. The German Army blitzkrieg and the Russian Army deep operations in World War II contributed further insight into arrangement of battles and military action in time, space, and purpose. In the area of practical application, the experiences of the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973 were coupled with Cold War preparations for the expected large-scale, high-intensity combat defending the Central Region of Europe against attack by the Soviet Union. Experiences such as repeated multicorps REFORGER exercises, deliberate war planning, and senior-leader war games provided a forum for understanding the challenges of operational maneuver of large formations. …