Adapting the Doctrinal Discourse on Campaign Planning to the Reality of Current Conflicts

Abstract

Abstract : The historical examples of World War I, World War II, Korea, and the 1991 Gulf War are the basis of current Joint and Army campaign planning doctrine. These conflicts highlight the requirement to centrally plan campaigns that efficiently utilize scarce military resources against similarly organized and relatively homogeneous conventional foes. Over the course of 80 years, the destruction of this opposing force as efficiently as possible became the objective of American military campaigns. Concurrently, the U.S. military learned that while conducting counterinsurgency and stability operations, specificity of action tailored to the particular characteristics of a given operating environment was more important to achieving strategic objectives than the efficient employment of scarce assets. Joint and Army campaign planning doctrine did not capture these lessons; instead, they continued to focus on high-intensity combat. Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrated spectacularly the limits of the current concept for campaign planning. It showed that the Joint Force Commander could plan and execute a campaign that destroyed the opposing force, but failed to create the conditions that supported the attainment of strategic objectives. Furthermore, it demonstrated that the centrally planned joint campaign could not envision all the nuances of the theater of operations and provide relevant guidance to subordinate commanders conducting counterinsurgency and stability operations. The purpose of this study is twofold: to make the case for adapting current Joint and Army doctrine by providing the historical context that led to its development, and to describe how commanders have successfully adapted current doctrine to win in Iraq.