Theater Campaign Plan

The National Defense Strategy (NDS): The NDS outlines how DOD will contribute to achieving National Security objectives.

Within days of Iraqi forces invading Kuwait in 1990, President Bush publicly backed the United Nations’ (UN) stance on the incursion with four national strategic objectives and determined that, ‘if invited, US forces would be deployed to deter further Iraqi attacks, defend Saudi Arabia and enforce UN resolutions.’ From the national strategic objectives, the military end-state is deduced. The military end-state is a conceptual element of operational design which describes the conditions that forces must achieve to attain strategic objectives/ hand over main effort responsibilities. The military end-state does not necessarily indicate the end of a military activities to attain national objectives. While one specific national objective would not

1c. How well do those operational objectives support the attainment of the Theater strategic objective(s)?

There is a cascade of departments influential informing planning. The National Defense Strategy (NDS) flows from the National Security Strategy and informs the National Military Strategy and provides the foundation for the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The QDR focuses DODs strategies and capabilities and focuses on operations of today and tomorrow. The NDS provides the framework for DOD strategic guidance, deliberate planning, force development and intelligence.16 Ch II 11-3 Strategic Direction and Joint operations.

USAWC Theater Strategy and Campaigning – The Role of Landpower in the Achievement of National Strategic Objectives in the JIIM Environment

The Diplomatic, Informational, Military, and Economic (DIME) are the four instruments of National Power. The United States Government (USG) uses the DIME to address advance USG interests to prevent war. These elements incorporate an all-inclusive range of national power. Governmental agencies use these tools when developing or refining strategies. The diplomatic instrument is led by the Department of State (DOS) and the ability to negotiate, influence, relate, and gain agreement with international organizations, foreign countries, and non-governmental entities. The informational instrument is the USG’s ability to communicate using interconnected global networks and many other methods relaying our national intent. The employment of the Informational

If I was in the role of a senior adviser to the President of the United States will view strategy and grand strategy with such skillful management and wise intelligence of state affairs. Strategy may be defined as an overall plan that is crafted with a series of actions and support in order to increase favorable possibilities of victory, or winning favorable goals to their interests and purpose (Heuser, 2010). Strategy may include the uses of the country’s instruments of power, usually military forces. However, statecrafts have to keep in mind that the conflicting side may have the common interest and a common strategy. Strategy itself is not only a concept, but “an inherent element of statecraft at all times” (Heuser, 2010).

Our first challenge to understanding Unconventional Warfare (UW) is there is no national policy or joint doctrine. This lack of appetite for incorporating UW into national strategy stems from two reasons. First, UW does not fit into the time constraints our key leaders have to work within. POTUS, Congress, members of the JCS, and our military commanders are not willing to invest in a campaign that exceeds their tenure. To do so would be career suicide. UW campaigns need about 18 - 24 months to achieve effects. This requires SOF activities conducted in the steady-state to synchronize with a whole-of-government approach.

The great military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz, defines strategy narrowly as “the use of an engagement for the purposes of the war.” More broadly, Clausewitz implies that strategy is the application of ways and means to achieve the desired ends in war. Thus, strategy is the mechanism for connecting war to policy. However, the National Security Strategy (NSS) clearly states, “a smart national security strategy does not rely solely on military power.” Therefore, the NSS is not a Clausewiztian military strategy but what B.H. Liddell Hart describes as grand strategy, or “policy in execution,” whose goal is to “marshal all the resources of a nation” towards achieving a political objective. By its reliance on “all elements of our national strength,” the NSS can therefore be described as a grand strategy. The NSS is clear in its reliance on “all elements of our national strength,” as a whole-of-government approach to achieving US strategic ends that coordinates the nation’s diplomatic, information, military, and economic (DIME) power. It is a strategy that requires significant non-military ways and means. Therefore, the answer to the question of whether the Department of Defense (DoD), as the embodiment of the nation’s military power, has sufficient ways and means to meet this strategy’s prescribed ends, the answer must be no.

In his compelling and prescient testimony in June 2004 to the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, The “Post Conflict” Lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan, Anthony Cordesman outlined “critical failures of American understanding of the world that it faces in the 21st century, and in the nature of asymmetric warfare and defense transformation.” The failures he articulates and the prescription for their remedy appear to logically work hand in glove as the basic needs foundation, the catalyst, for counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine. The experience of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan however, and the subsequent debate of the efficacy and

Each president has his own personal preferences and goals that he is forced to place on the back burner in order to address these domestic and systemic influences. However, should the political atmosphere present opportune conditions, “...existing political constraints and opportunities are well understood by the individual in office, and if these factors are in a position to the manipulated, the president is capable of exercising control beyond that of any other individual in the world.”7 Under these circumstances the president may attempt to initiate his own vision of a grand strategy, which consists of clearly articulated notions of national interest in combination with a set of plans for advancing said ideas.8 Grand strategies, which are the president 's arguments about the role the U.S plays in the global stage, are often laid out in advance, with the

In order to meet the standards approved by the President or Secretary of Defense, US forces must; ensure energy resources from the region are available for friendly states without corruption. Secondly transportation and key infrastructure must be maintained and/or expanded without external assistance. Lastly the threat from Ahurastan and SAPA must be isolated or defeated.

NATO’s degree of involvement is not limited to its member states as over 40 states, which are not members of the organization, are involved in political and security issues concerning the organization. Roping in other countries has facilitated improved exchange of information, enhanced understanding of conflicts in regions where NATO seeks to intervene but does not have a presence. Despite being an American-centric entity, NATO’s functions have all the attributes of an international organization working for the preservation of international peace.

In response to increased SAPA activity sponsored by the Government of Ahurastan, the Government of Azerbaijan has asked for aid from the coalition in order to defeat SAPA and deter any conventional aggression by Ahurastan. The UN (with a mission ongoing in Nagorno-Karabakh) has not yet passed a resolution in the authorization of of force in Azerbaijan. The US/Allied contributions will be approximately as follows represented on Table 1. The chain of command is presented in Table 2 and Table 3. The key, number one politico-military issue will be to develop and justify the multinational command structure with its command relationships for the coalition to defend Azerbaijan. This will build upon and plug national forces into EUCOM JTF East while maintaining maximum coalition nation pride and autonomy as possible.

To best understand NATO and the EuroCorps, one must know the evolution of Europe’s military cooperation in conjunction with the Union’s overall integration. Europe’s military policy has been shaped by The Treaty of Brussels, the European Defense Community (EDC), the North Atlantic Treaty, and the Western European Union respectively.