Maintaining American Military Power In an Age of Uncertainty
Maintaining American Military Power In an Age of Uncertainty
by Michael Horowitz
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2011 is a critical year for the American military. With President Obama’s original July 2011 deadline for assessing American progress in Afghanistan rapidly approaching, it makes sense to take a step back and think about the next steps for the American military. Sharp disagreements exist between those who believe that the United States should optimize its military for future counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns like Afghanistan and Iran, and those who believe the United States should focus instead on its conventional capabilities. The decisions the United States makes now will influence its defense posture and military capabilities for the next generation.
This dialogue is taking place under the shadow of growing national debt and a lagging American economy, which will make the decisions taken over the next few years all the more important. Yet at the same time, the future is extremely difficult to predict. Predictions about the future of warfare are much more likely to end up in the dustbin of history than to accurately inform policy makers and planners.
One way to think about how the United States can position itself in future security environments and maintain operational flexibility involves understanding the financial and organizational requirements for adopting new military innovations, an approach called adoption capacity theory. In combination with the security environment, the adoption capacity constraints associated with potential changes in the character of warfare shape the costs and benefits of different response strategies for both state and non-state actors. We can predict the choices states make in response to a new innovation and the likely implications for the international security environment by focusing on the capacity of states to successfully meet the resource mobilization challenges and the organizational changes required to adopt a new innovation.
Download the full article: Maintaining American Military Power In an Age of Uncertainty
Michael Horowitz is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. This article is drawn from his book, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010). Thanks to Frank Hoffman, Michael Noonan, 1st Lt Frank Furman (USMC) and 2nd Lt Nicholas Francona (USMC) for their excellent suggestions.
