Improving Maneuver Warfighting with Antoine-Henri Jomini: Warfighting Functions, the Single Battle Concept, and Interior Lines

Abstract

After distilling 2,500 years of military thought, particularly that of Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, and U.S. Air Force colonel John R. Boyd, Warfighting, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 1, does a remarkable job describing war and a warfighting philosophy. Noticeably absent in this document, however, are the ideas of Swiss military theorist Antoine-Henri Jomini. More importantly, Warfighting contains three interrelated gaps, namely identifying the significance of the seven warfighting functions, describing the importance of warfighting function integration, and explaining warfighting function integration in terms relative to an enemy. Consequently, Warfighting conveys a nonholistic approach to war and, consequently, articulates an incomplete warfighting philosophy. When applied within a modern context, however, contextualizing Jomini’s theory of war offers a solution to each of these gaps. Therefore, the U.S. Marine Corps should amend Warfighting to include equal emphasis on all warfighting functions, utilization of the single battle concept to explain the importance of integrating all warfighting functions to achieve a desired end state, and adoption of Jominian interior-exterior lines framework to describe warfighting function integration in relative terms to an enemy. Failure to do so invites an inability for maneuverists to achieve greater tempo and create combined arms dilemmas in the twenty-first century.