A critical look into how and why the U.S. military needs to become more adaptable. Every military must prepare for future wars despite not really knowing the shape such wars will ultimately take. As former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates once noted: "We have a perfect record in predicting the next war. We have never once gotten it right." In the face of such great uncertainty, militaries must be able to adapt rapidly in order to win. Adaptation under Fire identifies the characteristics that make militaries more adaptable, illustrated through historical examples and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Authors David Barno and Nora Bensahel argue that militaries facing unknown future conflicts must nevertheless make choices about the type of doctrine that their units will use, the weapons and equipment they will purchase, and the kind of leaders they will select and develop to guide the force to victory. Yet after a war begins, many of these choices will prove flawed in the unpredictable crucible of the battlefield. For a U.S. military facing diverse global threats, its ability to adapt quickly and effectively to those unforeseen circumstances may spell the difference between victory and defeat. Barno and Bensahel start by providing a framework for understanding adaptation and include historical cases of success and failure. Next, they examine U.S. military adaptation during the nation's recent wars, and explain why certain forms of adaptation have proven problematic. In the final section, Barno and Bensahel conclude that the U.S. military must become much more adaptable in order to address the fast-changing security challenges of the future, and they offer recommendations on how to do so before it is too late.

Adaptation under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime (Bridging the Gap)

History

Bensahel, Nora

Barno, Lt. General David

Military

Oxford University Press

Surveys several Middle East security issues and their implications for U.S. foreign policy.

The Future Security Environment in the Middle East: Conflict, Stability, and Political Change

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

RAND Corporation

The longterm success of the counterterror campaign will depend on concerted cooperation from European states, but a key question is the extent to which that cooperation should be pursued through European multilateral institutions. This study argues that the United States should pursue military and intelligence cooperation on a bilateral basis, and it should increasingly pursue financial and law enforcement cooperation on a multilateral basis. The United States should adopt a nuanced strategy in its counterterror relations with Europe.

The Counterterror Coalitions: Cooperation with Europe, NATO, and the European Union

This monograph examines prewar planning efforts for the reconstruction of postwar Iraq. It then examines the role of U.S. military forces after major combat officially ended on May 1, 2003, through June 2004. Finally, it examines civilian efforts at reconstruction, focusing on the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority and its efforts to rebuild structures of governance, security forces, economic policy, and essential services.

After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq

Middle East

U.S. experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated that improving U.S. capacity for stabilization and reconstruction operations is critical to national security. The authors recommend building civilian rather than military capacity, realigning and reforming existing agencies, and funding promising programs. They also suggest improvements to deployable police capacity, crisismanagement processes, and guidance and funding.

Improving Capacity for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations

Security force assistance (SFA) is a central pillar of the counterinsurgency campaign being waged by U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan. This monograph analyzes SFA efforts in Afghanistan over time, documents U.S. and international approaches to building the Afghan force from 2001 to 2009, and provides observations and recommendations that emerged from extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan in 2009 and their implications for the U.S. Army.

Security Force Assistance in Afghanistan: Identifying Lessons for Future Efforts

Oliker, Olga

Kelly, Terrence K.

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