Epic Landpower Fail: Lack of Strategic Understanding
Epic Landpower Fail: Lack of Strategic Understanding by Matt Cavanaugh, War Council
The US Army will not be very successful in the coming operating environment unless it develops a sense of strategic understanding in its officers (and senior noncommissioned officers). For the purposes of this essay, strategic understanding is defined here as: awareness, comprehension, and ability to communicate broad purpose for the use of force and the relationship between tactical action and national policy. Trends tell us two things that demand this characteristic: first, landpower is inherently attributional; second, the Regionally Aligned Forces model ensures that the American Army will go to more places, faster, in smaller numbers, than ever before. Inadequately preparing for these landpower trends will lead to both institutional and individual epic fail…
But the organization need not worry for the sake of one sarcastic, expensive flavored-coffee drinking lieutenant. This is bigger: the US Army will not be very successful in the coming operating environment unless it develops leaders with a sense of strategic understanding – both RAF and the ability to conduct sustained landpower missions are at stake.
