The New American Way of War

Max Boot

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003

Summary:  "The American way of war" refers to the grinding strategy of attrition that U.S. generals traditionally employed to prevail in combat. But that was then. Spurred by dramatic advances in information technology, the new American way of war relies on speed, maneuver, flexibility, and surprise. This approach was put on display in the invasion of Iraq and should reshape what the military looks like.

Max Boot is Olin Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power.

Beyond purely technical considerations, there are also important personnel issues. The services have made great strides in working together, but they need to do more to make their systems and mindsets interoperable. The military, which often succumbs to excessive caution in peacetime, also needs to encourage the spirit of innovation and audacity on display on the Iraqi battlefield. These are both high priorities for Rumsfeld, who is pushing an ambitious package of personnel reforms that is sure to be resisted by the Pentagon bureaucracy.

Transformation is by no means finished -- nor will it ever be. It is an ongoing process. But the victory in Iraq shows that the military is making impressive progress toward making the American way of war both more effective and more humane.