TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Pentagon Rethinks Doctrine Of Two-War Strategy

ADVERTISEMENT

The New York Times

Published: March 16, 2009

WASHINGTON - The protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are forcing the Obama administration to rethink what for more than two decades has been a central premise of U.S. strategy: that the nation need only prepare to fight two major wars at a time.

For more than six years now, the United States has been fighting two wars, with more than 170,000 troops now deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The military has openly acknowledged that the wars have left troops and equipment severely strained, and has said that it would be difficult to carry out any kind of significant operation elsewhere.

To some extent, fears have faded that the United States may actually have to fight, say, Russia and North Korea, or China and Iran, at the same time. But if Iraq and Afghanistan were never formidable foes in conventional terms, they have already tied up the U.S. military for a period longer than World War II.

MILITARY REVIEW

The Rewrite

•Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the military is developing a guide to planning, budgeting and weapons-buying that makes sense in the 21st century.

•The discussion is being prompted by a top-to-bottom strategy review that the Pentagon conducts every four years, as required by Congress and officially called the Quadrennial Defense Review.

•The military plans to rebalance its strategy and forces to reflect lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan.

•The decisions will affect such things as the size of the Army, as well as the number of aircraft carriers and other long-range bombers.

The Questions

•Is there is a way to reshape the armed forces to provide for more flexibility in tackling a wide range of conflicts?

•Should planning for conflicts focus on counterinsurgency wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan?

•What focus should the United States have on well-equipped conventional adversaries like China and Iran, with which Navy vessels have clashed at sea?

REFINING TWO-WAR STRATEGY

•Among refinements to the two-war strategy that the Pentagon has incorporated in recent years is one known as "win-hold-win."

•Win-hold-win is an assumption that if two wars broke out simultaneously, the more threatening conflict would get the bulk of U.S. forces while the military would have to defend along a second front until reinforcements could arrive to finish the job.

•Another formulation envisioned the United States defending its territory, deterring hostility in four critical areas of the world and then defeating two adversaries in major combat operations, but not at exactly the same time.

THE BUSH MODEL

•The Bush administration's most recent strategy was completed four years ago.

•It added requirements that the military be equipped to deal with a broad range of missions in addition to war-fighting.

•Those missions include defeating violent extremists, defending U.S. territory, helping countries at strategic crossroads, and preventing terrorists and adversaries from obtaining biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

•Pentagon officials question whether current circumstances, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq already outlasting World War II, fit any of those models.

MILITARY REVIEW

REFINING TWO-WAR STRATEGY

THE BUSH MODEL

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT