To Understand

The one thing I've always appreciated about the military, more specifically the Marine Corps, was the down-to-earth reqirement of dealing with "reality". For anyone serving in the 5 branches of the military there is always the risk of never returning home or to be horribly maimed for life. This reality cannot be avoided. Subsequently, the armed forces constantly review their warfighting doctrines to insure we can kill as many of our enemy in the most efficient ways possible in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of casualties suffered by our men and women in uniform.

Thanks to the blog, Adventures of Chester, comes this interesting doctrinal rationale for manuever warfare in the Marine Corps for the 21st century. What especially intrigues me about this rationale is the acknowledgement of mans millennial tendency for war:

The Marine Corps approach to warfare, as codified in Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 1, Warfighting, is the product of years of conceptual development, innovation, and experience. Maneuver warfare, the philosophical basis for EMW(Expeditionary Manuever Warfare), acknowledges the timeless realities of human conflict and does not attempt to redefine war on more humane or less risky terms. The fundamental nature of war— A violent struggle between hostile, independent, irreconcilable wills characterized by chaos, friction, and uncertainty—will remain unchanged as it transcends advancements in technology.

What has changed is the gradual shift in reliance from the quantitative characteristics of warfare—mass and volume—to a realization that qualitative factors (speed, stealth, precision, and sustainability) have become increasingly important facets of modern warfare.

Maneuver warfare stresses proactive thought and action, elevating the operational art beyond the crude simplicity of attrition. It combines high tempo operations with a bias for action to achieve advantage—physical, temporal, or conditional—relative to an adversary. The aim is to shatter an adversary’s cohesion, succeed in other operations by rapid action to mitigate damage, or resolve a crisis on favorable terms.

Maneuver warfare encourages decentralized decision-making, enabling Marines to exploit the chaotic nature of combat. Decentralizing decision-making allows Marines to compress the decision cycle, seize fleeting opportunity, and engage enemy forces from positions of advantage, which empowers us to outthink, outmaneuver, and outfight our adversary.

Woe to our enemies!