Fall 2006 - Air & Space Power Chronicle - Air Force Link

90 AIR & SPACE POWER JOURNAL FALL 2006of the Next War and the Organization, Tactics,and Equipment Necessary to Meet Them”),becoming deeply involved in a number of maneuversthat tested the tank in a combinedarmsformation. At the beginning of WorldWar II, “there was no living American soldierwho knew as much as Patton about the mobility,mechanical features, fire-power, and tacticaluse of tanks.” 13 Although he did not enjoy immediatesuccess in his efforts to integrate thetank into the US Army, his drive and desire touse it in battle ultimately earned a prominentplace for this weapon in modern warfare. 14The US Marine Corps, always concernedabout its very survival, underwent the mostdramatic change. Retaining the constabularyforces that characterized the Marines duringthe 1920s would not allow the Corps to maintainrelevance in the looming global war thatwould require forces to conduct massive amphibiousoperations:In the early 1930s, the Marine Corps issued theTentative Manual for Landing Operations, whichbecame the “bible” of American amphibious assaultdoctrine in World War II, and created theFleet Marine Force . . . to operate as an integralpart of the fleet for the purposes of capturingadvanced bases. The Marine doctrine coveredall aspects of amphibious assault, including commandrelationships between land forces and thesupporting fleet, ship-to-shore movement andcommunications, air and gunfire support, andamphibious logistics. No other country in theworld, except Japan, had such an advanced doctrineby 1939. 15The resulting change constituted a completelydifferent function for the Marine Corps, resultingin amphibious doctrine (ways) and thenecessary equipment (means, such as the Higginslanding craft) to support the doctrine.Interwar experiences with military changeremain relevant today. Gen Henry H. Shelton,former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,noted that transforming the military requiresmore than just advances in technology; rather,one should focus on the resources and meansas well as operational concepts and organizationalstructures to use these technologies onthe battlefield:In the 1930s the Allied powers were hard at workdeveloping new airplanes, tanks, aircraft carriers,radar, and other advanced systems. As warbroke out, the Allies had, across the board, bettertechnology than the Germans, and more ofit. When the Germans invaded France in May of1940, they had fewer men, fewer artillery tubes,and fewer tanks than the Allies—and the tanksthey did have were inferior.But they had revolutionary operational conceptsfor employing their systems to achieve battlefieldeffects far greater than the sum of the parts.The next year they stood before the gates of Moscow,having conquered all of Europe from thearctic circle to the shores of Greece, from thecoast of France to within sight of the Kremlin. Intime, the Allies learned the hard lesson that howyou employ technology is even more importantthan the technology itself. But these lessons cameat a fearful cost. 16 (emphasis in original)Resistance to TransformationPeople view the military, normally consideredthe primary instrument for executingthe elements of national power, as the primeexample of a bureaucracy with “fixed and officialjurisdictional areas, a distributed structure,authority to give commands for dischargeof duties distributed in a stable way and strictlydelimited by rules, and methodical provisionfor the regular and continuous fulfillment ofduties.” 17 Is this an accurate description of thecurrent state of the US military today? Doesthe traditional bureaucratic model work wellfor it in this new environment? Carl vonClausewitz wrote that “everything is very simplein war, but the simplest thing is difficult,” continuinghis treatise with a discussion of frictionand how the simplest things get complicatedin the “fog of war.” 18 Planning and implementingnew organizational structures, technologies,and doctrines can indeed prove difficultfor an organization as large and steeped intradition as the US military.Warfare has become infinitely more complexsince Clausewitz’s time. Despite this increasedcomplexity and greater friction inwarfare, military organizations have maintaineda similar structure and organizational