"Fundamental Changes in Warfare" Topic

"Fundamental changes in the character of war and warfighting technologies necessitate that the United States Army focus on developing its personnel and continuing to advance technology innovations. As we move into an increasing complex world and unprecedentedly intertwined international system, our adversaries can acquire new technologies much quicker than ever before. In addition, our enemies are improving themselves in a diverse array of capabilities, including some large overarching structural changes. These adaptations are being made with the express purpose of challenging American military preeminence in the international system. The strategic environment will be engaged at a variety of angles as we see an increase in hybrid warriors as well as highly skilled cyber forces in even middle-tier states. If the United States wants to be prepared to engage each threat, whether individually or simultaneously, it must make significant training and strategic changes in order to effectively address each threat.

Enemy Adaptations

The Department of Defense 2015 National Military Strategy explicitly lists strategies directed towards Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and what is termed "violent extremist organizations", which specifically mentions ISIS and al Qaeda (National Military Strategy 3). These states and state-actors have a variety of ways they have been trying to militarily compete with the United States, with increasing reliance on training and technology, instead of prior reliance on quantity of forces and terrorist warfare. State adversaries are conducting structural overhauls in an effort to compensate for their comparative weaknesses that they have already identified.

The first broad category that our adversaries have been addressing is increasing various programs within their own militaries that closely mirror American and European military norms. For example, China and Russia are designing and executing new training programs equivalent to those used by Western militaries. A new style of training exercise in these two vying powers is combined arms maneuver, where they seek to integrate a wide variety of capabilities into more combat effective operations. (Chinese Strategy White Paper through US Naval Institute) This is a direct copy of modern American and European exercises. Although there previously were large-scale maneuvers, especially within the Warsaw Pact, these are a new and significantly more advanced version previously unseen by the states in questions. This plan has a clear three-step progression of:…"
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