Small Wars, Big Changes
From today’s Congressional Quarterly (subscription required) – Small Wars, Big Changes by John Donnelly.
… U.S. military leaders, including Rumsfeld’s successor, Robert M. Gates, now recognize that the nature of warfare itself is changing, from conventional conflicts between nations to “small wars” — counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, religious and ethnic strife — and that the Army must change with it.
The new doctrine, spelled out in publications such as the newest Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, published in late 2006, is that the Army must be prepared to wage all types of warfare but focus much more of its attention on irregular, guerrilla conflicts like that in Iraq.
This is a fundamental change that will drive most other decisions within the Army — from recruitment to equipment — and will permeate every defense debate for the foreseeable future.
In fact, it already has. Military journals are full of articles and commentary on counterinsurgency. Last summer, eight months after the Army field manual appeared, the Air Force rushed out its own doctrine on the subject.
For the Army, the new doctrine means a seismic culture shift. It will still have guns and tanks, but it will also need more people skilled in languages, public affairs, economic development, even anthropology. Instead of grudgingly accepting the task of nation building, as it did in the Balkans and in Iraq at first, the new Army for the most part will have to embrace the role. In this way, the high-technology, smart-weapons “revolution in military affairs” that has captivated Pentagon strategists for decades is becoming a revolution beyond military affairs.
Though it is too early to tell precisely what the ramifications might be in general defense policy and the budget, most experts think the Army will not get a big budget increase, but will have to reorder its priorities, shifting money from, say, high-tech hardware to personnel…
More here too, at Abu Muqawama