Irregular Warfare
Army is beginning to shape itself for complex irregular warfare. The new Army vision calls for a “campaign-quality Army- that incorporates both Joint and expeditionary capabilities.
This includes the capacity not only to conduct decibels combat operations, but also to sustain operations indefinitely, as well as to adapt Itself to the unexpected and unpredictable, As Army Chief of Staff General Shoemaker puts It, “The Army preeminent challenge Is to reconcile expeditionary agility and responsiveness with the staying power, durability, and adaptability to carry a conflict to a victorious conclusion no matter what form it eventually takes. This vision is oriented on the more asymmetric adversaries targeted in the war on terror.
General Shoemaker focuses on the undetectable and “morally unconstrained” adversaries who are opposed to the United States and its allies. The Army professes to recognize that its enemies will seek asymmetric approaches that provide shelter in those environments and methods for which we are least prepared. Overcoming this adversary requires the adoption off mindset that Is both expeditionary and Joint. This approach accepts uncertainty about location, the high probability of an austere environment, and the need to fight Immediately upon arrival.
It moves the Army from Its current disposition toward predictable enemies to an understanding that the new enemies are elusive and will have to be engaged in the far corners of the world. Appropriately, the individual soldier is the centerpiece for the Army transformation. The Army’s pending transformation gives primacy to the warrior ethos, training, and education of “the ultimate combination of sensor and shooter,” the individual soldier. Its education programs will focus on teaching soldiers how, rather than what, to think, since defeating adaptive enemies requires the Army to outthinking the enemy.
The vision statement aptly notes the need for greater agility and versatility, which it says will be gained by emphasizing modularity at the brigade level and combined arms at the lower levels. 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act and the related Initiative to establish U. S. Special Operations Command (COM). 38 Embedded wealth the congressional legislation was the express expectation that the services achieve a higher order of mint cooperation. Additionally, Congress mandated a particular service-like” status for Special Forces to preclude longstanding prejudices against the elite, unconventional, and secretive component of America’s arsenal.
Congress’s insights in this regard have paid significant dividends in the past few years. Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) revealed a remarkable renaissance in operational capability. Small teams of agile warriors quickly established relationships with the leadership of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance and ably applied America’s firepower against the Taliban. Subsequently, numerous examples of valor and Improvisation on the fly in Iraq and elsewhere are testimony to the need for and utility of Special Forces.
In a world of anarchy, the masters of chaos” provide sophisticated and discriminate means. 39 The Department of Defense has recognized the Importance of this unique arm In the war on terror and assigned COM with a lead role In combating transnational terrorist networks. Coma’s end strength has been increased since 1 ,405 members in IFFY, to nearly 53,000 personnel. 40 Army special forces, SEAL teams, and aviation support have albeit increased. During the troubles in Northern Ireland, the arrival of British troops in 1969 was at first welcomed by Roman Catholics.
But the army’s heavy-handed methods, such as large cordon-and-search operations and the shooting of 13 civilians on Bloody Sunday in 1972, pushed many Catholics into the arms of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Historically, counterinsurgency campaigns have almost always failed. This is especially so when the counterinsurgency are foreign troops fighting on the insurgents’ territory.
