Operationalizing the Arctic
Ryan Burke and Cameron Carlson | 07.13.21
Words mean things. Simple yet obvious, this maxim encourages purposeful and considered word choice, including for the US military. Our words—and the meanings they convey in policy and strategy—shape our actions. When Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said in 2017 that the United States was shifting from a strategy of attrition to annihilation in the fight against the Islamic State, for example, his words meant things. Attrition and annihilation require different actions.
Defense policies and strategies are riddled with deliberate and calculated words—which makes the words used in the recent flurry of service-specific Arctic strategies that much more curious. There is no doubt that a tremendous level of effort went into producing the collection of Arctic strategies we find before us today. There are some wonderful words and thoughtful analyses within each. But for all good words, there are some equally strange ones leaving us to question exactly what they mean and the intent behind them? How will we achieve these goals? And do the services truly understand the many facets of the Arctic? In other words, how what will it take to translate these words into action? Or, in military speak, how will the US military operationalize its Arctic strategies?
The Curious Case of the Arctic Strategies
https://mwi.usma.edu/operationalizing-the-arctic/
