A Status Check on the Army’s Preparation for the Next War
Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Donahoe and John Spencer | 07.06.21
There is an aphorism that generals always fight the last war, and armies consequently spend the time between conflicts training how to fight better under conditions they most recently experienced. The implication is that military forces often fail to focus on the enemy they should be preparing for—the ones they are most likely to fight in the future. As the US military’s role in the war in Afghanistan comes to an end, there are concerns that the Army will continue to focus on counterinsurgency operations against insurgent forces, rather than cognitively disconnecting to fully focus on preparing for a future war against a potential peer adversary. The Army is in a critical period of transition as we approach the end of US military involvement in Afghanistan. Make no mistake, US Army leadership is making concerted efforts to refocus priorities to better posture junior soldiers and leaders to transition from counterinsurgency operations to large-scale, conventional war preparedness in Eastern Europe or the Pacific region.
Agent of Change: The Maneuver Center of Excellence
Discussion surrounding the need for the Army to reimagine and reconfigure itself began as early as 2011, when then president Barack Obama announced a pivot to Asia, which recognized China as a peer competitor and national security priority. The 2017 National Security Strategy and 2018 National Defense Strategy indicated a commitment to begin shifting priorities away from the irregular warfare being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and toward preparations for a large-scale conventional fight. These documents clearly recognized China and Russia as primary national security threats, which the US military must be prepared to compete with, deter, and—if necessary—defeat on the battlefield. Army leaders across the force have made it very clear what the Army is preparing for.
https://mwi.usma.edu/a-status-check-on-the-armys-preparation-for-the-next-war/
