The lessons to be learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom still are in the formative stage. It is not too early, however, to begin to examine the military principles that influenced U.S. and British war plans in Iraq. Our leaders at the highest levels now speak of a "new kind of war." The headlines proclaim the emergence of a "new doctrine for war." Even before 11 September 2001, President George W. Bush challenged us to "redefine war in our own terms" in response to the conflicts of a new century. To meet the President's challenge, we must revisit the principles of war and determine their applicability in the 21st century.
Immutable Principles?
Our current military doctrine is shaped by principles of war rooted in the Napoleonic Wars and the early Industrial Age. As a young Prussian officer, Carl von Clausewitz witnessed the raw force of Napoleon's armies as they pushed to the far corners of Europe. His classic 1832 study of warfare, On War, became the central reference for any discussion of the theory and practice of warfare. After Helmuth von Moltke's victories for Prussia in 1866 and 1870, Clausewitz's star was ascendant. His work stressed the importance of chance and confusion—the "fog of war"—but soon it would be cited to quite different purpose. Under the influence of Positivism, other military thinkers believed that rigor and method would yield the natural laws governing the conduct of warfare. By the end of the 19th century, the notion of a body of enduring principles was widely accepted. The work of definition and abridgement was well under way. The list of nine principles that appears in Navy doctrine publications today has not changed substantially in more than 50 years.
The military principles derived from the experiences of Clausewitz and his successors still enjoy great influence, but have they stood the test of time? Many respected military strategists have argued that the principles derived from these works are immutable. Henri de Jomini's famous injunction, "Methods change, but the principles are unchanging," speaks the minds of many. The Jomini school of thought, which influenced leading naval strategists, including Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sir Julian Corbett, was that the principles were "independent of the arms employed, of times, and of places." Their history, however, suggests otherwise. Lieutenant Colonel Marshall Fallwell, an instructor at the Army's Command and Staff College, was the first to illuminate the argument in modern terms.
Colonel Fallwell's 1955 study of the principles of war "made it obvious that their statement and even their number [had] undergone steady change and refinement" over the years. By reexamining the first steps toward a modern list of the principles, Fallwell was able to draw out the uncertainties and ambivalence surrounding their adoption by the U.S. armed forces. For 26 years, leading up to midcentury, the Field Service Regulations "treated the principles" but would not venture to list them. The debate on occasion was rancorous, but one point was never in doubt: the principles continued to matter.
Fallwell's work, and the studies that followed, opened the door to a continuing reinterpretation of the principles of war. Some have maintained that the real genius of Clausewitz's analysis was that it contemplated and even laid the foundation for just such refinements. But the Prussian was silent on when change was necessary and how military strategists might determine what changes to make. Looking back, we see that such reflection can be triggered by new threats and by technological watersheds.
So, what compels strategic thinkers to reevaluate the principles today? Three factors figure prominently:
- The battle space has expanded dramatically and become much more diffuse, with the enemy seeking cover and concealment in cities and towns among civilian populations.
- We have witnessed the reemergence of a hostile force that draws no distinction between combatants and civilians. In fact, it pointedly targets civilians.
- The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has placed them in the hands of dangerous and unpredictable forces—both rogue regimes and stateless actors.
Each of these emerging changes is serious by itself. Magnified by open-source technologies, they force policy makers to revisit their approaches to national defense. With radically new kinds of enemies and battlefields, we no longer can presume with Jomini that the principles of war are static or timeless.
Are New Principles Emerging?
Of the nine principles catalogued in Naval Doctrine Publication (NDP)-1, Naval Warfare, and the joint doctrine publications, several seem well positioned to retain their place in the canon. Surprise and security still are essential concerns for commanders on the modern battlefield. Other principles such as objective, economy of force, maneuver, and simplicity may remain relevant today, but military thinkers are likely to take exception to their inclusion without an update.
Offensive, defined as the ability to "seize, retain, and exploit the initiative," appears more apt than ever and, in fact, perfectly captures the predictive and preemptive doctrine President Bush expounds in the National Security Strategy. "As a matter of common sense and self-defense," the President has said, "America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed. We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best."
Even so, the evolving nature of the battlefield and the growing political constraints on warfare bring several principles under question. Our heavy reliance on precision munitions raises doubts about the common application of the principle of mass. And coalition campaigns that include diplomatic and economic as well as military efforts raise new issues with respect to unity of command. Concurrently, there is a growing body of evidence that makes a persuasive case for the addition of new principles such as will and simultaneity. Let's start with mass.
Mass versus Precision. The shift in the application of mass is both measurable and illustrative. As Robert Kaplan observed, "While the average engagement during the Civil War featured 26,000 men per square mile of battlefront, the figure is now 240. . . . it will dwindle further as war becomes increasingly unconventional and less dependent on manpower."3 Precision munitions offer another benchmark change. During World War II, we allocated an average of 600 bombs per target. Today, we can destroy the same target with a single Joint Direct Attack Munition. The new generation of Global Positioning Systemaided Joint Stand-Off Weapons provides accuracy within 3 meters, with an air launch range of 200 miles.
There are obvious advantages to eliminating a threat with one shot instead of 600. But do these technological advances mean we no longer have to contemplate massing large numbers of troops or weapons to obtain our objectives? The question highlights a fundamental point about the interdependence among the principles of war. The ongoing debate about the adequacy of the size of the U.S. force in Iraq drives the point home. Today, the salient principle in sizing the force is economy of force, not mass.
The heart of the issue may lie in the concept behind the principle. Napoleon used a mass of firepower and personnel to achieve a desired effect because the limitations of his technology required it. It took a great number of cannonballs to hit, let alone destroy, a target. If Napoleon's industrial base had allowed him to achieve the desired effect without the expense, he would have done so.
Looking again at our ability to destroy a target with one shot and considering the likelihood that the target will be in an urban setting, we may consider the principle as more accurately a concentration of effect rather than of mass. Significant advances in the lethality of conventional military weapons bring additional weight to this consideration. The military world may not be ready to jettison mass from the list of principles, but the concept of "persistent precision" offers a more contemporary alternative.
Unity of Command versus Unity of Effort. Napoleon controlled his forces through a strict hierarchy, directing large sections of his resources to perform identical tasks in a small area in unison. Today's forces, operating jointly and in coalitions, act more in concert than in unison as dispersed groups coordinate independent actions to achieve the overall objective. Unity of effort may now contribute more to ultimate success than unity of command.
There is a subtle but important distinction between the concepts of "command" and "effort." Unity of effort acknowledges the pluralism inherent to Clausewitz's axiom that war is the extension of politics. In the global war on terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the focus is on economic and diplomatic objectives as well as military ones. We are targeting terrorist bank accounts to deny economic power. We are creating coalitions to politically isolate terrorists and the regimes that support them. We are dispensing economic, medical, and cultural aid-defined as soft power—to attack the brutal living conditions that give rise and rationale to terrorism.
Today's military leaders also are required to ensure unity of effort with other governmental agencies. The strengthened relationship between the military and the Central Intelligence Agency, for example, played a principal role in the first act of Iraqi Freedom. Evan Thomas and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek gave us a vivid description of CIA Director George Tenet's race to the Pentagon to confer with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld before meeting with the President to confirm reports of the suspected location of Saddam Hussein. This information quickly was relayed to military leaders in theater, and within hours, F-117A stealth fighterbombers and Tomahawk missiles launched in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea roared toward Baghdad.
Later in the Iraqi campaign, a B-1B aircrew provided an eye-opening example of the time compression available to combatant commanders. Within 12 minutes of completing an aerial refueling over western Iraq, the aircraft dropped four satellite-guided GBU-31 bombs that flattened targets in the Mansur neighborhood of the capital. Total time elapsed from the receipt of targeting intelligence at the Pentagon to delivery of the bombs in Baghdad: 45 minutes. The coordination of effort, magnified by the tempo of operations, makes it possible to think in new ways about unity of effort as well as the closely aligned concept of simultaneity.
Unity of command certainly incorporates unity of effort, but the changing nature of modern warfare, combined with new technologies for battlespace management, prompt us to ask whether the principle should be refocused and renamed. As more coalition efforts fall outside the conventional battlefield, "unity of effort" better expresses the goal of unifying military and nonmilitary measures to achieve our ultimate objectives.
Time to Recognize Will. Strategist Basil Liddell Hart once observed that loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. Following that line of thought, after World War II, morale was added to the official British list of principles.
The concept of will is no less a factor on today's battlefield. Dr. Harlan K. Ullman, principal author of Shock and Awe, the book that inspired the first phase of Iraqi Freedom, put it bluntly: "The idea is to crack the enemy's will as quickly as possible." Although some Iraqi forces withstood the "shock and awe" of our initial campaign, Dr. Ullman and others believe this approach saves lives, because "you get them to quit before they die."
From the individual war fighter to the resolve of a nation, will is often the deciding factor in combat and war. The outnumbered Spartans who faced Xerxes at Thermopylae, the colonists who faced the might of the British Empire, and Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey's forces at Guadalcanal all proved that victory often goes to the side with stronger will. Desert Storm proved the negative: lack of will among Iraqi forces led many to surrender to any opposing force they could find, including television crews. It may be time to add will to the U.S. principles of war.
Simultaneity as a Principle. Simultaneity, properly exploited, seems to trump more traditional principles. While combined arms and attacking the enemy from different directions concurrently are as ageless as human conflict, achieving simultaneous effects has become ever more central to the modern commander's battle plan. We now should ask whether the culture of innovation and experimentation responsible for the most impressive technical breakthroughs in battlefield awareness could be further advanced by the inclusion of simultaneity among the principles of war.
Mark Thompson, in an article for Time magazine, revealed the important role simultaneity played in the battle plan for Iraqi Freedom:
The first Gulf War was as relentless and predictable as the tides. . . . the second Gulf War, if it comes, would be more like the Big Bang—hundreds of towering explosions all across Iraq, all at the same time. The Pentagon buzzword for this is Simultaneity . . . [in which] unprecedented numbers of smart, satellite-guided bombs attack a multitude of targets over a great sweep of territory, swiftly followed by U.S. troops seizing key objectives.
The objective and the practice of simultaneity now span and in some ways transcend the interdependence of many of the traditional principles of war. The change in the field is of such magnitude that simultaneity warrants our consideration as a new principle.
Similar arguments—some based in technology, others in jurisprudence—can be advanced for the greater part of the traditional canon of principles. Whatever the outcome of the current debate, whichever elements remain and which pass into history, one thing seems certain. The principles of war still matter. Not the least of the reasons for that is their continued influence on the evolution of military doctrine.
Principles Guide Doctrine
In a 1994 essay on naval doctrine, Dr. James Tritten, a special advisor to the Naval Doctrine Command, identified the major influences on military doctrine, from government policy to emerging technology. He explained that these topical, or ephemeral, influences are balanced by the enduring lessons of history, the strategic culture of the nation and service, and the ever-present factors of geography and demographics. "Distillations of military history, such as the principles of war," he concluded, "are a major input into doctrine." Dr. Tritten goes on to say that "principles of war are abstractions of the lessons learned from the history of armed conflict." Rethinking the principles, and then recasting the doctrine that rests on them, ensures that the lessons are learned and passed on.
Human nature might prefer timeless principles and military doctrine, but that could be a costly deception. Dr. Tritten maintains that they must instead be always responsive to changing influences. Much like Clausewitz, he makes a compelling case for approaching doctrine, and the underlying principles that drive it, as evolving and dynamic. If we accept that the principles of war are changeable, and are changing now, we must also accept the responsibility to think rigorously about those changes and to keep pace with them.
This cannot be an armchair exercise. The consequences in the field are too great. The debate must extend beyond military theorists to include the leaders and operators who will be called to put these principles into practice. We must be sure of their future relevance because these principles will transform the way we plan, what we buy, how we train, and ultimately, how we fight.
As we review the traditional principles of war, some will be reaffirmed, others updated, and a few may be discarded or replaced. In the process, we will learn to think about the principles that will influence our doctrine and guide our transformation for the 21st century. Our objective should be clear. It is not to replace one set of principles, hostage to time and place, with another equally constrained. A new list is not the point. Instead, a thorough reconsideration of the list should spark as many questions as it answers. The effort should prompt us to reexamine not just what our strategy is, but also how we think about it. Many of the core issues and differences of perspective Fallwell noted in 1955 are still with us. The debate this time will be equally vigorous.
A Profession Rooted in Principles
In an 1862 address to Congress, President Abraham Lincoln noted, "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so must we think anew, and act anew." As we think anew, our understanding of the principles of war will become broader and deeper. Today, our military is thrust into ever more troubled and unfamiliar terrain. The moral and philosophical dilemmas raised by these engagements give Lincoln's words a fresh resonance. The imperative for reevaluation reaches far beyond the next revision of the basic texts for U.S. military doctrine.
We will not find perfect answers, but we can begin by posing the right questions. Today, more than ever, the profession of arms must be a principle-based enterprise. As we head into new conflicts and new types of warfare, we must be confident of the principles that guide us. Rethinking the traditional principles in light of the changing face of war offers another dividend. While the task will not be easy, it will prepare us to better understand the relationship of war to our history and to the emerging character of the United States. Ultimately, this effort will provide an enduring foundation for U.S. military doctrine as the 21st century unfolds.
Rear Admiral Morgan most recently served as Senior Military Assistant to Secretary of the Navy Gordon England. Dr. McIvor is Vice President, National Security Studies, at Gray Hawk Systems in Alexandria, Virginia. The Secretary’s Action Team is a quick response cell that directly supports the Secretary of the Navy. Admiral Morgan would like to thank Commander Todd Leavitt, USN, Lieutenant Colonel Ed Logue, USMC, Lieutenant Commander Fred Kacher, USN, and Lieutenant James Dillon, USN, for their contributions to this article.