Adapting the Doctrinal Discourse on Campaign Planning to the Reality of Current Conflicts

The historical examples of World War I, World War II, Korea, and the 1991 Gulf War are the basis of the current Joint and Army campaign planning doctrine. These conflicts highlight the requirement to centrally plan campaigns that efficiently utilize scarce military resources against similarly organized and relatively homogeneous conventional foes. Over the course of eighty years, the destruction of this opposing force as efficiently as possible became the object of American military campaigns. Concurrently, the United States military learned that while conducting both counterinsurgency and stability operations, specificity of action tailored to the particular characteristics of a given operating environment was more important to achieving strategic objectives than the efficient employment of scares assets. Joint and Army campaign planning doctrine did not capture these lessons; instead, they continued to focus on high intensity combat. Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrated spectacularly the limits of the current concept for campaign planning. It showed that the Joint Force Commander could plan and execute a campaign that destroyed the opposing force, but failed to create the conditions that supported the attainment of strategic objectives. Furthermore, it demonstrated that the centrally planned joint campaign could not envision all the nuances of the theater of operations and provide relevant guidance to subordinate commanders conducting counterinsurgency and stability operations. To achieve strategic objectives, commanders of corps, divisions, and brigade combat teams began planning campaigns tailored to the specifics of their areas of operation that were nested with the plans of their higher headquarters. Though this proved a successful adaptation to the reality of the conflicts in Iraq, the Army did not incorporate the notion of nested campaign planning into the latest editions of Field Manual 3-0, Operations, or Field Manual 5-0, The Operations Process. Joint and Army campaign planning doctrine is losing relevance to the nature of current conflicts. The Army must balance the requirement to destroy efficiently conventional opposing forces in major combat operations against the requirement to effectively consolidate the gains and achieve the national objectives during stability operations. If the Army does not incorporate into its doctrine the necessity of nested campaign planning, it will continue to rely on the local improvisations of field commanders. As with each past conflict that the United States fought, future commanders will eventually adapt successfully to deliver victory to the nation, paying for their adaptations with American blood and prestige. The United States Army can choose either to adapt its doctrine, or to cling to a concept that is fast losing relevance to current conflicts. The purpose of this study is to make the case for the adaptation of current Joint and Army doctrine by providing the historical context that led to development of current doctrine, as well as describing how commanders have successfully adapted that doctrine to win in Iraq.