A Problem of Character: How the Army’s Myopic Focus on Technology Has Clouded Its Thinking
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by Major Robert Rose, USA
Harding Paper 24-4 / December 2024
In Brief
Discussions of how the Army should prepare to fight a future war have become myopically focused on technological change as indicating a broad transformation of the character of war.
These arguments ignore context. To effectively prepare for future conflict, the Army needs to recognize that each war has a unique and malleable character, which is driven by political, societal, economic and geographic factors, as well as by technology.
Throughout its 250-year history, the Army has had to adapt its approaches to wars of diverse characters.
By employing a more holistic lens to forecast the character of a war with China or Russia, we can predict that they would pursue limited ends with limited forces using surprise to achieve a fait accompli.
The Army needs to be ready to pursue a strategy of annihilation to rapidly and decisively defeat an opponent’s forces before they can establish a defense-in-depth, which would prolong the conflict and risk nuclear escalation.
https://www.ausa.org/publications/a-problem-of-character
