By Brig. Gen. John S. Brown, U.S. Army retired

It has been almost 50 years since Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor published the first edition of The Uncertain Trumpet, a compelling criticism of overreliance upon nuclear weapons and massive retaliation, and a strong endorsement of full spectrum forces capable of flexible response. At that time the active duty Army numbered 860,000, but its numbers would increase dramatically—first as the incoming Kennedy administration adopted Taylor’s theories, and then as the Vietnam War exerted its demands. We are still committed to full spectrum forces capable of flexible response, but our methods of achieving them have evolved over time.

Taylor envisioned achieving flexible response through major increases in force structure, and by some collateral differentiation of forces, as well. President John F. Kennedy was particularly supportive of Special Forces designed to train indigenous troops and dominate the lower end of the combat spectrum. Within five years the numbers of Special Forces increased more than tenfold. Moving up the combat spectrum, there were paratroopers such as those who intervened in the Dominican Republic in 1965, mechanized forces such as those holding the line in Europe and strategic forces exerting nuclear deterrence. A metaphor popular at the time pictured the Army as a toolbox; reach in and pull out the tool appropriate to the crisis of your choice.

The demands of Vietnam understandably challenged the inventory of the toolbox. Special Forces were particularly overtaxed and ultimately did most of their work in the mountainous fringes populated by such ethnic minorities as the Montagnards. Throughout the rest of the Vietnam War conventional units adapted themselves to unconventional requirements, and the bulk of the advisory effort fell upon officers and NCOs with conventional backgrounds retrained for the task at hand. Although most of the fighting occurred at the lower end of the combat spectrum, flexible response came to be redefined to include escalation dominance. For those occasions when our adversaries chose to stand and fight, we sustained the wherewithal to quickly pile on firepower and maneuver units to overwhelm them. Our pursuit of escalation dominance in Vietnam saw the helicopter come of age, the introduction of precision-guided munitions and imaginative uses of armor.

We lost the Vietnam War for reasons other than tactical expertise, but we turned our backs on the experience anyway. Our post-Vietnam renaissance made the upper end of the combat spectrum our priority, and we focused again on the Soviet behemoth. All force structure was justified in terms of what it could do to derail a Soviet onslaught across Europe. Mechanized divisions could slug it out. Light divisions had the strategic mobility to arrive quickly and contest rough terrain or urban sprawl. Paratroopers could peck away at isolated forces on the margins or vertically envelop them when we were ready to counterattack. Special Forces could mobilize indigenous resistance and raise havoc in the Soviet rear. In this contest with Goliath we turned the notion of escalation dominance upside down and adopted the premise of lesser included scenarios. Forces prepared to fight at the high end of the spectrum could shed weight and adapt to the lower end, if necessary.

We never fought the Soviets, but in 1991 Saddam Hussein did present us with a Soviet-like adversary. This was a serious mistake. In Operation Desert Storm the Iraqi Army was on the receiving end of 20 years of preparation with an army like theirs in mind. In the war’s aftermath the U.S. Army faced an even more dangerous adversary, downsizing. With the Cold War behind us, the American people understandably wanted to cash in on a “peace dividend,” and that dividend required substantial reductions in military spending. The Army Chief of Staff at the time, Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, faced budgets in free fall while actual operational requirements overseas remained undiminished. He was also under considerable pressure to recast a major portion of the Army into a constabulary suitable for the supposedly more benign new environment.

A student of history, Gen. Sullivan pledged to expose the Army to “no more Task Force Smiths,” while mustering the latest simulation and modeling techniques to test the adjustments to organization, tactics and weaponry necessary in diverse situations. In this analysis he had profited from the experience of the British, who for some years had rotated units between services, as heavy forces in Germany and as a constabulary in Northern Ireland, with intervals of reequipping and retraining in between. Gen. Sullivan was also conscious of American training techniques, which made greater use of simulated environments, and were ever more likely to marry newly arrived troops with equipment other than their own at the National Training Center and elsewhere. A new definition of flexible response, emerging in practice before theory, featured mutable units that could be reequipped and retrained for virtually any mission. If leadership, organization and quality soldiers were present, the rest could be made to follow. To strain the metaphor, one now had a toolbox full of Swiss Army knives. This improved upon the efficiency of a now much smaller Army.

The premise of mutable units was soon put to the test. Peacekeeping in Sinai and Macedonia, humanitarian relief in Somalia and Florida, and armed escort to returning refugees in Kurdistan all featured units reconfigured from original missions and designs. Partnership for Peace, NATO’s studied effort to reconcile with former adversaries, introduced a potpourri of diverse training missions. Each partner wanted to engage, but each also had a unique definition of the combined operations they would accept to fulfill that purpose.

Haiti offers an example of the potential complexities of post-Cold War operations. During our September 1994 intervention we found ourselves executing two plans in parallel, one an airborne assault to crush the Haitian army, the other a helicopter landing to cooperate with it. At the last minute, diplomacy prevailed, and the planes bearing paratroopers turned around in midair. Helicopters landed 10th Mountain Division troops in full battle gear; they flopped onto the tarmac at Port-au-Prince, to be greeted there by an officer from the U.S. Embassy in Class B uniform who cheerfully informed them they were now to work alongside the newly friendly Haitian army. Such flexibility is an increasingly common requirement. The “three block war” has become a metaphor for operations in Iraq, and artillerymen patrolling the streets as infantry or tankers serving as constabulary hardly inspire comment anymore.

The other day I had reason to speak of the 16th Infantry Regiment, the first wave on Omaha Beach. In the early 1960s battalions bearing their lineage anticipated roles and missions similar to those of World War II. In Vietnam they fought counterguerrilla warfare, and in the 1980s they came back as panzer grenadiers on steroids. In the 1990s they served at every point on the combat spectrum, from high intensity warfare in Desert Storm through peacekeeping in the Balkans. Now they take their turn at the three block war in Iraq. Much the same could be said of any of our hallowed flag-bearing units. Terms such as “flexible response” change in their definitions over time. Underlying principles of leadership, unit cohesion and dedication to mission do not.


Recommended Reading:

Stewart, Richard W., General Editor, American Military History (Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History, 2005)

Taylor, Maxwell D., The Uncertain Trumpet (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1974)

Wilson, John, Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades (Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History, 2005)