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2018
INDEX OF
U.S. MILITARY
STRENGTH
DAVIS INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN POLICY
Edited by
Dakota L. Wood
tion of the earth, with its peoples, for causes Where We All Live
either just or unjust. It is not to destroy the Of all the domains, the land domain has the
land and people, unless you have gone wholly greatest ability to create operational friction. It
mad.2 Fehrenbach was analyzing U.S. involve- is the environment that informed Clausewitzs
ment in the Korean War, and in his preface, he admonition that Everything in war is very
draws a lesson from that warfought in a time simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.4 Sol-
of great-power competition between nuclear- diers and Marines cannot slip the surly bonds
armed adversariesthat bears revisiting today: of earth.5 It is the domain where humans live,
and operating there almost certainly results in
human interactionfor good or ill.
The great test placed upon the United States
was not whether it had the power to dev- The Inherently Complex Physical As-
astate the Soviet Unionthis it hadbut pects of Terrain. The land domain, unlike
whether the American leadership had the will
to continue to fight for an orderly world rather
other physical domains (air and maritime) is
than to succumb to hysteric violence. Yet highly variable, and its very nature forces ad-
when America committed its ground troops aptation by ground forces. According to the
into Korea, the American people committed Armys 2005 working definition:
their entire prestige, and put the failure or suc-
cess of their foreign policy on the line.3
[Complex terrain is comprised of] those ar-
eas that severely restrict the Armys ability to
Over the past 15 years, the United States engage adversaries at a time and place of its
choosing due to natural or man-made topog-
has become an expeditionary power, largely raphy, dense vegetation or civil populations,
based in the Continental United States, ac- including urban, mountains, jungle, subter-
customed to projecting power by dominating ranean, littorals and swamps. In some locales,
the air, maritime, space, and cyber domains. such as the Philippines, all of these features
U.S. superiority was routinely contested only can be present within a ten-kilometer radius.6
in the land domain, albeit largely by irregular
adversaries, insurgents, and terrorists. U.S. Retired Army Lieutenant General Patrick M.
domain supremacy is eroding, if not ending, Hughes succinctly summed up the implications
with the renewal of great-power competition of operating in complex terrain: It is dam (sic)
of confidence, the American Army is probably Opportunities and Challenges. The prin-
going to be fighting in urban areas.9 While dense cipal opportunity that land forces offer is the
urban terrain can affect all of the domains, it cre- ability to impose a decision on adversaries that
ates particularly difficult challenges for land the other domains cannot: taking and holding
forces, as recent U.S. experiences in Mogadishu, ground, destroying enemy forces in detail, and
Fallujah, Baghdad, and Mosul demonstrate. controlling and protecting populations. Many
Dense urban areas enable an adversary to of the types of military operations required by
hideboth physically and among the popula- U.S. policy and joint doctrine shown in Table 1
tionmove unobserved, and achieve positions can be accomplished, in whole or in part, only
of advantage over friendly forces. Dense urban with elements operating in the land domain.
terrain occludes target acquisition by reducing Politically and strategically, operations in
targetable signatures and target exposure times. the land domain signal U.S. commitment be-
Beyond slowing the advance of ground forces, cause land forces, once deployed, can be diffi-
urban areas have a canalizing effect on mobility cult to extract. They are there for the duration.
that not only affects approach speed, but signifi- Ground forces are also essential for deterrence,
cantly increases the risk to maneuver elements. even in relatively small numbers. As Charles
It slows ground operations and often involves Krauthammer has noted:
clearing buildings one by one, putting friendly
ground forces at risk. Subterranean features like Today we have 28,000 troops in South Korea.
subways and sewer tunnels, multistory build- Why? Not to repel an invasion. They couldnt.
ings, and urban canyons only further com- Theyre not strong enough. To put it very
coldly, theyre there to die. Theyre a deliberate
plicate operations in cities, as experienced by message to the enemy that if you invade our
Germany in Stalingrad during World War II and ally you will have to kill a lot of Americans first.
by Russia in Grozny during its Chechen Wars.10 Which will galvanize us into a full-scale war
Weather. Weather, notoriously unpredictable against you.12
and ever changing, can conspire with terrain to
complicate the inherent challenges of land do- At the tactical and operational levels, the
main operations. Weather can impede the ability physical qualities of the land domain can
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, Joint Publication 30, January 17, 2017, p. V2,
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp3_0.pdf (accessed August 14, 2017).
heritage.org
provide opportunities that other domains do Counter adversary maneuver and pro-
not, such as physical protection. Adversaries and tect against adversary special operations
friendly forces can hide from observation and forces (SOF) activities;
avoid accurate attack from the other domains,
particularly the air domain. Fortifications, fox- Build partner capacity by training
holes, barriers, gullies, subways, buildings, etc. and advising;
all provide the ability to avoid the effects of en-
emy weapons. There are no foxholes in the sky.13 Operate more easily without the high-
This was the case in the 2006 Lebanon War, ly nodal structures of air and mari-
when Hezbollah hid rockets and other systems time forces;
in forested areas and in bunkers to avoid detec-
tion by and attack from Israels air force. Simi- Harden, conceal, and disperse
larly, the Islamic State (ISIS) went to ground in their capabilities;
Mosul, using congested, dense urban areas and
hiding among the people to avoid destruction Network with terrestrial links (e.g., bur-
from the air and to force Iraqi ground forces to ied fiber optics) that are hard to access
clear the city block by block. The Germans used and disrupt;
the impassable Ardennes Forest to marshal
forces for their attack and achieved surprise over Stockpile relatively large amounts of am-
Allied forces. Similarly, the North Vietnamese munition that can be protected;
used the cover of thick jungles to move troops
and supplies into South Vietnam throughout the Reload, resupply, and refuel in theater and
Vietnam War, despite U.S. air supremacy. away from large, vulnerable bases;
The land can also be used to conceal hazards
like mines, booby traps, and obstacles that im- Maneuver in the absence of overhead intel-
pede movement. There are also other inherent ligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
advantages for land forces in comparison with (ISR) and global positioning system data with
forces from other domains because they can: analog systems and target enemy forces; and
Maneuver on the land and take advantage Enable operation in the other domains
of terrain; from ground positions (e.g., counter inte-
grated air defense fires).
to-toe with the Warsaw Pact along the German fending along the German border during the
border, with substantial forces prepared to re- Cold War. The distance from the United States
inforce from the United States. Since the end of is greater, and reinforcements would have to
the Cold War, U.S. ground forces have been based come across land from Western Europe or risk
mostly in the Continental United States. The dif- attempting to arrive by air or sea under a for-
ference between U.S. levels in Europe toward the midable Russian anti-access/area-denial (A2/
end of the Cold War and those maintained there AD) complex that covers much of Eastern Eu-
today are startling. rope and the Baltic Sea.
Until the resurgence of Russia, a reduced Today, U.S. forces deploy from bases at
posture seemed adequate to protect U.S. in- home to conduct operations globally, which in-
terests while minimizing the costs of over- clude rotational forces in Afghanistan and Iraq
seas bases. The current U.S. posture in NATO, and modest forward-stationed ground forces
however, is now problematic, particularly in South Korea and those already mentioned
in Eastern Europe in the face of recent Rus- in Europe. This view that forces were better
sian adventurism. maintained at home but kept available for
The Baltic States, made members of NATO global deployement was a logical consequence
in its postCold War expansion, are vulnerable of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was fur-
with little U.S. or NATO presence to provide ther buttressed by the conclusion that Chinas
a deterrent. The lone rotational U.S. Army ar- military rise was principally a challenge for the
mored brigade combat team in Poland and the air, maritime, space, and cyber domains, even
Baltics is the only capability on the ground to though ground forces could contribute with
deter Russia, aside from the modest Polish and maneuver forces, SOF, long-range fires, and
Baltic State defense forces. War games held complementary capabilities in electronic war-
by a variety of organizations have repeatedly fare, cyber, and intelligence, reconnaissance,
demonstrated that Russian forces could likely and surveillance (ISR).15
reach the outskirts of Baltic capital cities in 60 As important as the physical positioning of
hours or less, leaving U.S. and allied forces little forces is the ability of those forces to win in
time to deploy.14 Although the armed forces of battle, which depends in no small measure
state irregular, state-sponsored hybrid, and population, require significant numbers of
state forces. ground forces, as seen in the 2006 U.S. Army
Importantly, the nature of the enemy and Marine Corps counterinsurgency doc-
and his will to continue fighting often can be trine: Twenty counterinsurgents per 1,000
countered and defeated only by ground forces. residents is often considered the minimum
Protracted air operations can be costly and troop density required for effective COIN op-
eventually result in diminishing returns. Na- erations; however as with any fixed ratio, such
val power has little, if any, ability to overturn calculations remain very dependent upon the
enemy seizure or control of land. This is also situation.19 The Surge in Iraq succeeded in
true for cyber and space. large part because it achieved a 50 per thou-
Non-State Irregular Adversaries. These sand ratio in Iraq, with 30 million people be-
are the main types of adversaries the United ing protected by 600,000 counterinsurgents
States has fought since 9/11, including the (160,000 coalition troops, 340,000 Iraqi secu-
Taliban, al-Qaeda, and now the Islamic State. rity forces, and 100,000 Sons of Iraq).20
The Russians faced this type of adversary in Conventional ground forces are augment-
the mujahedeen during the early stages of its ed by special operations forces that provide
Cold Warera war in Afghanistan, as did the conventional forces with important cultural
Israelis during the intifadas in the West Bank and advising capabilities. They also provide
and Gaza. These adversaries are generally important offensive capabilities. SOF capable
tering an insurgency is maintaining the po- ticular, is increasingly aware that it needs new
litical will to endure the costs in blood and capabilities (e.g., active protection for combat
treasure of a protracted conflict. As that will vehicles against RPGs and ATGMs) to operate
fades, political restrictions on force levels against state-sponsored hybrid adversaries. As
and engagements may result, easing the pres- Acting Secretary of the Army Patrick J. Murphy
sure on insurgent groups. The burden on the and Army Chief of Staff General Mark A. Milley
counterinsurgent is that he must win, while acknowledged in their 2017 posture statement,
the insurgent need only avoid losing to main- While we are deliberately choosing to delay sev-
tain influence. eral modernization efforts, we request Congres-
State-Sponsored Hybrid Adversaries. sional support of our prioritized modernization
State-sponsored or other hybrid forces may programs to ensure the Army retains the neces-
reflect many of the attributes and behaviors sary capabilities to deter and if necessary, defeat
of an insurgent force yet possess a significant- an act of aggression by a near-peer.26
ly higher level of lethality and sophistication. Beyond military capabilities, hybrid adver-
Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine and He- saries may also enjoy political advantages that
zbollah represent two modern hybrid forces, make wholly defeating them difficult. Hybrid
and U.S.-backed anti-Soviet mujahedeen in forces may have cross-border sources of supply
Afghanistan were an early example. that are difficult to interdict. Further, they may
The challenge posed by these adversaries enjoy the support of the local populace, as Hez-
is qualitatively different from the challenge bollah does in Lebanon. If they are seen as the
posed by irregular opponentssimilar to ma- legitimate government or at least as a strong
jor combat operations but at a lower scale and political actor, their defeat could be region-
with a mix of niche but sustainable high-end ally destabilizing.
capabilities such as anti-tank guided missiles State Adversaries. Events in Ukraine,
(ATGMs), MANPADS, and intermediate-range Syria, and the Pacific have drawn U.S. atten-
or long-range surface-to-surface rockets pro- tion once more to high-end state adversaries
vided by a state actor that may allow hybrid (Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran) that
forces to employ lethal force from greater range have capabilities ranging from small arms to
STABILIZE ENABLE
MILITARY EFFORT
DEVELOP REVISE,
AND MAINTAIN,
MAINTAIN DOMINATE OR CANCEL
OPERATION OPERATION
PLAN PLAN
SEIZE INITIATIVE
DETER
OPERATION SHAPING
THEATER SHAPING
GLOBAL SHAPING
heritage.org
nuclear weapons. They have long studied U.S. situation is different from the U.S. speed bump
capabilities and are modernizing their mili- in South Korea, where substantial Republic
taries to contest the United States across all of Korea forces deter North Korean action.
domains, seeking in particular to undermine Although land forces in the Pacific can make
the advantages that the U.S. military has en- contributions in many areas, they are central
joyed since Operation Desert Storm, including to deterring Russian activity in NATO. This
but not limited to uncontested use of close-in will require forward-positioned land forces
air bases and logistics facilities, overhead and/ that are large enough and capable enough to
or persistent ISR, and relatively unprotected, convince Russia that the game is not worth
high-bandwidth communications. the candlea case not made clearly in Georgia,
Again, the Russians present a particularly Ukraine, and Syria.
difficult challenge because of their proxim-
ity to Eastern European NATO members, the Old Concepts and Better Adversaries
lack of NATO forces on the ground in Eastern Complicating deterrence demands in East-
Europe, and the comparatively small militar- ern Europe and the Pacific is the advent of a
ies of the NATO frontline states. As noted, this tough, layered A2/AD environment designed
Thus, there is an urgent need for new con- 9. Assured Communications (i.e., protected
cepts and capabilities across the U.S. armed from enemy compromise or denial); and
forces that can be used to solve the access
challenge. For land forces, these concepts and 10. Vertical lift (e.g., next-generation helicop-
modernization initiatives will need to assist ters or tiltrotor aircraft).32
the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to operate
and win in increasingly contested land envi- Together, these capability areas will help
ronments while under threat from combined to improve Army resiliency in the event joint
arms fires that include missile, air, and other control of other enabling domains is disrupt-
potential challenges. ed. Further, they would provide the Army
Air and naval forces can mitigate the access (and the Marine Corps) with the ability to im-
challenges posed by increasingly capable com- pose cross-domain effects on an adversary in
petitors, but only to the extent that they can support of joint operations, such as through
get enemy targets within range of the weapons ground-based counter-air and electromagnet-
they carry (increasingly a problem for naval ic warfare systems. As air and naval forces can
forces in particular) and sustain an effective enable land operations, so too can land forces
posture overhead (a growing problem for air facilitate operations in other domains by le-
forces). Thus, the Army must have better or- veraging their ability to bring fires to bear
ganic capabilities that are relevant to conduct- against targets that threaten platforms and
ing land warfare in the modern age. To improve forces operating in the air and naval domains.
warfighting capabilities for these future battle- It is not enough just to develop next-gener-
fields, the Army has established modernization ation systems, however. The Army and Ma-
priorities to close the capability gaps that U.S. rine Corps must integrate these capabilities
land forces face against capable adversaries: together in functional warfighting concepts,
exercise those concepts, and then prepare to
1. Air and Missile Defense (SHORAD, short- fight that way in the field.
range air defense);
How Are the Domain and Related Warfare
2. Long-Range Fires such as improve- Concepts Changing?
ments to multiple launch rockets systems The resurgence of Russia has brought the
(MLRS) and advanced weapons like the role of land operations to the fore again, back
Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS); to the war Fehrenbach described in This Kind
of War, which highlighted the centrality of the
3. Munitions; land domain and the need to put boots (and fires,
electronic warfare, and other land-based capa-
4. Mobility, Lethality, and Protection of bri- bilities) on the ground to achieve policy objec-
gade combat teams (BCTs); tives and enable success in the other domains:
domainsairpower following World War II or to retake control of the skies and seas of a
cyber todaycan render land power all but ob- littoral conflict. Many elements of military
solete by deterring or defeating adversaries or competition in the 21st century will be de-
at least sufficiently degrading their capabilities fined by air, naval, and cyber forces, but the
to the point that they are no longer a significant fate of lands and peoples will continue to be
threat to the interests of the United States or determined principally by the staying power
its partners. The protracted aftermaths of the of land forces.
initial victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, both
states with only limited capabilities to contest The Nature of the Competition
U.S. operations in other domains, have not yet The global military challenges that con-
put these arguments to rest, despite the diffi- front the United States are evolving, and they
culty with which the United States pursued its are doing so in different ways. Managing these
policy objectives. Possible future conflicts with disparate challenges will be an added compli-
peer competitors, who will possess far more cation for the joint force. Today, just as Japan
sophisticated domain-denial capabilities, will and Nazi Germany represented unique chal-
likely bear little resemblance to recent U.S. lenges in the 1930s and 1940s, a rising China
warfighting experiences and reflect the diffi- and resurgent Russia pose problems that are
culties of achieving victories through a single dramatically different from anything else that
dominant domain. the United States has faced since the end of the
Additional arguments similar to those ex- Cold War. Coupled with these near-peer com-
tolling the primacy of technology have risen petitors are the continued challenges posed by
in the post-9/11 world as the United States has North Korea, Iran, turmoil in the Middle East,
begun to rely on relatively small numbers of and global terrorism.
highly trained special operations forces in its Concepts and capabilities that work in one
fight against disparate insurgent and terrorist setting and the mix of land with other forms
organizations. Special forces have enormous of military power may have little relevance in
utility because they can direct precision at- other settings. What is clear is that capabili-
tacks by air and maritime forces and can also ties that put the joint force at risk against even
Corps white paper Multi-Domain Battle: Iran) to hybrid adversaries (Hezbollah) to ir-
Combined Arms for the 21st Century recog- regular terrorist threats (al-Qaeda, the Taliban,
nizes the military problem that the current and ISIS). In this evolving security environ-
and future operating environments pose for ment, the land domain will be particularly im-
the United States across the domains: U.S. portant both in crafting concepts and capabili-
ground combat forces, operating as part of a ties to support U.S. deterrence regimes and in
joint, interorganizational, and multination- defeating Americas enemies if deterrence fails.
al teams [sic], are currently not sufficiently Time and current resourcing levels, how-
trained, organized, equipped, nor postured to ever, are not on our side. If the United States
deter or defeat highly capable peer enemies to does not approach these challenges with the
win in future war.36 The paper also includes a urgency required, it will forfeit its credibility
Solution synopsis: as a great power.
range artillery, rockets, and missiles. North Korea also has nuclear weapons.
28. James Mattis, Secretary of Defense, statement in support of Presidents FY 2018 budget request before the Committee on Armed
Services, U.S. Senate, June 13, 2017, p. 5, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Mattis_06-13-17.pdf (accessed
August 15, 2017).
29. Ibid., p. 6.
30. Patrick Tucker, Dunford: Without Better Funding, U.S. Will Lose Competitive Advantage in Just a Few Years, Defense One, June
12, 2017, http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2017/06/without-better-funding-us-will-lose-competitive-advantage-just-few-
years-top-general/138618/ (accessed June 25, 2017).
31. U.S. Army, Future Force Development Strategy, May 2017, p. 4.
32. U.S. Department of the Army, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management and Comptroller), FY 2018 Presidents
Budget Highlights, May 2017, p. 18, https://www.asafm.army.mil/documents/BudgetMaterial/fy2018/pbhl.pdf (accessed August 15,
2017).
33. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War, p. 290.
34. Antulio J. Echevarria II, Operational Concepts and Military Strength, in 2017 Index of U.S. Military Strength, ed. Dakota L. Wood
(Washington: The Heritage Foundation, 2016), p. 41.
35. Ibid., p. 43.
36. U.S. Army, Training and Doctrine Command, Multi-Domain Battle: Combined Arms for the 21st Century, white paper, February
24, 2017, p. 3, http://www.tradoc.army.mil/MultiDomainBattle/docs/MDB_WhitePaper.pdf (accessed June 19, 2017).
37. Ibid., p. 4. Italics in original.