Octavian Manea
The most recent US national defense strategies and decades of wargames have underscored the obsolescence of the American expeditionary approach to warfare, which marked the post-Cold War era. In light of this, what are some contemporary methods for projecting power in proximity to mature Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) powers to effectively counter aggression in the absence of air, maritime, information or space superiority? This Strategy Debrief examines some of these potential new ways with David Ochmanek, a senior international and defense researcher at RAND, and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development from 2009 to 2014.
Octavian Manea: How would you define the legacy approach to warfare practiced by US in the post-Cold War era?
David Ochmanek: If we think back to Desert Storm and all the interventions we have had since then – against Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Libya – there are parallels across those. What I call the legacy American approach to war, which carried us through the post-Cold War era, was characterised first by its expeditionary approach. The bulk of the force that was required to achieve our objectives had to be deployed to the theatre from elsewhere after the decision to intervene. The second feature of it is that it was sequential. What did we do for the first four days of Desert Storm? It was devoted to gaining dominance over the battle space. We attacked air defenses and military Command and Control (C2) so that we could create an environment where the rest of the joint and combined force could operate – if not with impunity – at least with freedom of action.
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