Draft White Paper from Army Chief Sees Hybrid Warfare as New 'Aim Point'
June 22, 2009 -- Army officials must "completely change" their thinking as they make the conduct of hybrid warfare the service's central "aim point" from which all programs and plans flow, according to a May 29 draft of a white paper by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey.
In Pentagon jargon, the term hybrid warfare describes conflicts exhibiting characteristics of both traditional, force-on-force operations and irregular, guerrilla-style warfare. Pentagon officials believe hybrid warfare will be the predominant kind of conflict in the foreseeable future.
A focus on hybrid warfare -- Casey's white paper puts the type of conflict somewhere right-of-center on a notional axis of peace on left and war on the right -- would bring with it increased flexibility to take on a variety of missions, the draft document argues. “From this aim point, we can more readily adapt along the spectrum of conflict, weighting offense, defense and stability operations according to mission requirements,” it states.
In that context, capabilities designed to defeat regular adversaries must be “adaptable” for use against “irregular” enemies, the paper states.
While service officials have begun taking to heart the implications of hybrid warfare on their thinking, more must be done to move the Army away from an “aim point” born during the Cold War, Casey argues.
“Our current institutional processes and programs devolved from a different aim point and an expired operational concept,” the document states. “The culture of the Army has not totally assimilated our new aim point and doctrine, ones focused at the middle of the spectrum of conflict and on full-spectrum operations,” it adds.
A “balanced Army,” as the document calls it, rests on the service being “versatile, expeditionary, agile, lethal, sustainable and interoperable.”
Versatility depends in large part on a functioning Army Force Generation process and the modular fighting forces it provides, according to the white paper.
“It is our strategic estimate, supported by our experience over the last two decades, that for the foreseeable future we need a multi-weight force, composed of infantry [brigade combat teams] augmented with protected vehicles, Stryker BCTs and armored BCTs -- forces of high mobility and robust protection” to meet 21st-century security challenges, the document states.
The document floats the idea of “relaxing the linkage” between Army units and their equipment. Citing recent experiences, Casey sees merit in independently moving equipment around the globe and giving it to forces arriving in a given crisis region as needed.
“We can extend this versatility by rethinking the composition of our Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS), ensuring that they contain a wide range of capabilities, to include those that increase the survivability of infantry BCTs within an improvised explosive device environment,” the white paper states. “In this way, we can ensure our forces are fully prepared for the broadest range of challenges.”
Positioning hybrid warfare as the Army's “aim point” should not be confused with optimizing the service for irregular warfare, the draft white paper states. “While we realize the importance of irregular warfare, the Army does not view it as a distinct, unique category of conflict -- warfare is warfare,” the document reads.
According to a spokesman, Casey was traveling at press time and could not be reached for comment on the draft paper. -- Sebastian Sprenger
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