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infantry antitank RPG rocket-propelled grenade RSO routine security operation SAM surface-to-air missile TOW tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided TRADOC US Army Training and Doctrine Command TTPs tactics, techniques, and procedures VJTF Very High Readiness Joint Task Force

       Introduction

      In America’s First Battles, 1776–1965, Charles E. Heller and William A. Stofft argue that, “With little prior warning, the Army must be capable of fighting in a variety of geographic locales against any one aggressor or a coalition of potential aggressors in joint and combined formations.”1 Since 1986, when these lines were written, the US armed forces have had to shift from peace to war a number of times. The need to enter a conflict rapidly is an enduring global demand and, given today’s dynamic geopolitical environment, has become more relevant than ever.

      The ability to transition swiftly from peace, or from a prolonged lowintensity conflict (LIC), to the high-intensity conflict (HIC) of war and to succeed in the initial engagements is usually discussed in terms of readiness, capability, and capacity, which are related to materiel, personnel, doctrine, and training. Every security establishment—whether state or nonstate—is familiar with these aspects. This book, however, deals with the other complementary, important, but generally neglected “soft” aspects of moving from peace to war: the mental ability to shift from peacetime to wartime, the challenge of consolidating a coherent doctrine when war erupts in the midst of an ongoing peacetime conceptual-doctrinal debate, and the difficulty of achieving proficiency on short notice when new weapons systems become available at the last minute (or even after units have deployed).

      The initial phase of hostilities may seem unimportant from a broad perspective when considering prolonged conflicts such as World War I, World War II,2 Vietnam, Afghanistan, and others, but in fact, these initial battles are more crucial than ever for a number of reasons. First, as John Shy contends, “The results of the first battle play a crucial role in strategy.”3 It can be argued that this is also the case in prolonged conflicts, but more importantly, “All wars involve a high level of ignorance and uncertainty … but it is the very beginning of war when lack of knowledge or confidence may dominate the situation, before commanders can assess the results of their first realistic test of estimates, assumptions, guesses, predictions, hopes and fears.”4 This means that, practically speaking, first battles are experiments and thus play an essential role for military organizations that are trying to be receptive and adaptive to change.

      Second, in comparatively short and intense wars (like the kind Israel fights), early engagements shape the physical and mental conditions for the engagements that follow. This was the case at the beginning of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat based his 1973 campaign on the assumption that the initial battles would be of supreme importance: “We should have the upper hand in the first twenty-four hours of fighting, because, I said, he who wins the twenty-four-hour encounter will surely win the entire war. Our plan and method of execution should be based on the kind of action designated to tip the balance in our favor within the initial twenty-four hours.”5

      In late 2001–early 2002, at the peak of the Palestinian suicide bomber offensive against Israel, senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers believed that fighting the terrorists inside the refugee camps would result in hundreds of IDF casualties. The first successful attacks in February 2002 in the Balata refugee camp outside Nablus by an IDF paratrooper brigade and in the Jenin refugee camp by the Golani Brigade, restored the confidence of Israel’s political and strategic policymakers in combating terror in densely populated urban areas. The success of these initial engagements enabled the order to be given a week later to occupy the major cities in the West Bank as part of Operation Defensive Shield.

      The 1976 version of the US Army’s operations doctrine, FM 100–5, focuses on a central European scenario similar to the Yom Kippur War and states: “The first battle of our next war could well be our last battle…. The United States could find itself in a short intensive war—the outcome of which may be dictated by the results of the initial combat.”6 Winning the first battles is also important for the expeditionary units that are the first to fight. During and after the Cold War, US Army doctrine emphasized the importance of force projection and, later, the expeditionary forces’ mental and cognitive challenge. The 1993 edition of FM 100–5 states:

      Force projection usually begins as a contingency operation—a rapid response to a crisis. Alert may come without notice, bringing with it tremendous stress on soldiers and systems, accompanied by pressure from the media for information….

      Force-projection operations will challenge Army leaders. Early critical decisions set against a backdrop of uncertainty and friction, will be required at every level—strategic, operational, and tactical—in war and in operations other than war. The commander and the force will routinely be required to plan and execute multiple concurrent activities. Decisions made early will begin to set conditions for successful mission accomplishment.7

      Regarding expeditionary forces, the US Army’s 2008 FM 3–0 states:

      Future conflicts will include incomplete planning information, rapid deployments with little or no notice, and sustained operations in austere theaters….

      Expeditionary capabilities are more than physical attributes; they begin with a mindset that pervades the force. Soldiers with an expeditionary mindset are ready to deploy on short notice. They are confident that they can accomplish any mission. They are mentally and physically prepared to deploy anywhere in the world at any time in any environment against any adversary. Leaders with an expeditionary mindset are adaptive. They possess the individual initiative needed to accomplish missions through improvisation and collaboration. They are mentally prepared to operate within different cultures in any environment. An expeditionary mindset requires developing and empowering adaptive thinkers at all levels, from tactical to strategic.8

      The US Army’s future concept of “multidomain battle” (see chapter 5) assumes that “adversaries can conduct armed conflict via regional campaigns with limited warning to seize limited strategic objectives and consolidate gains within days or weeks.” Therefore, “Multi-Domain Battle requires a dynamic mix of forward presence forces, expeditionary forces, and partner forces to deter an adversary and, if required, to defeat his plan within days and not months.”9

      It is important to note that American military thinkers also stress the need for a rapid reaction capability by newly organized expeditionary forces, and they suggest a combination of organizational, technological, training, educational, and career management changes to achieve the necessary transformation. For example, Douglas Macgregor, in his book Transformation under Fire, suggests three modes of operation for these new forces: rapid intervention with minimal or no alert in places where the United States or its allies do not have a presence but, for strategic reasons, need to intervene; a constant presence in key areas in peripheral parts of the globe to enable a rapid reaction against emerging threats to US interests; and a constant presence to support the stability of important countries and prevent regional crises.10 In a later book, Macgregor restricted his suggestions for future American intervention but still emphasized the need “to maintain powerful force-in-being—forces designated to win the first fight, because we may not get the second chance to win a second.”11 Others, such as Eliot Cohen in The Big Stick, suggest that decision makers in Washington should prepare the US Army for much wider intervention

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