by Colonel William T. Anderson, Small Wars Journal Book Review
The Relevance of Operational Flexibility (Full PDF Article)
Mark Ethan Grotelueschen. The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
The newspapers today are filled with references to evolving Army doctrine in support of our national security interests. Very recently, the Army unveiled a new doctrinal publication highlighting the requirement for "nation-building" missions as well as conventional combat. This new field manual on Stability Operations comes on the heels of the groundbreaking counterinsurgency manual co-authored with the Marine Corps in 2006. Mired in Iraq, the Army jump-started its doctrine process under the leadership of forward thinkers like General David Petraeus. However, both documents have their critics arguing that the Army is headed in the wrong direction. Claiming the Army is guilty of losing focus of its "core warfighting" skills, these critics stress that the Army must be preparing for major ground combat operations. Spending too much time on non-traditional skills is, in their view, a "dangerous distraction."
This is not the first time the Army has wrestled with doctrinal controversy. In a well-written book on the First World War, author Mark Ethan Grotelueschen addresses the competing views about the nature of war within the US Army at the dawn of the 20th Century. Although there are many books on American operations in France, they are generally memoires or unit histories, all falling short of true campaign studies that tell us why the Americans fought the way they did. Mr. Grotelueschen provides us with an extensively researched book on how the Army actually prepared for the war and how it adapted its doctrine during the war to take advantage of lessons learned. It is highly recommended.
