Current Enemies Caused Evolution Of U.S. War Vision, Contends Texas A&M Prof

COLLEGE STATION, Aug. 1, 2011 — The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in a radical shift in the U.S. Armed Forces’ concept of war, observes Texas A&M History Professor Brian McAllister Linn. Prior to these conflicts, both U.S. military and political leaders believed that technology would make wars rapid, decisive and cheap, he asserts.

In an article published in the summer issue of Dædalus: Journal of the American Academy Arts and Sciences, Linn notes that the pre-Iraq military dialogue on war was filled with terms such as “effects-based operations” and “full spectrum dominance.”

“Many believed that the next war was going to be an engineering problem,” Linn says. “You just had to figure out how much military force to apply and where to apply it. By hitting a few select points simultaneously, you could cause the collapse of the enemy’s ability to fight.”

However, the flaw in this theory was that the U.S. Armed Forces assumed that defeating the enemy’s military forces was all that was needed to secure victory, and no one really thought about the aftermath, Linn continues....