Small Wars Vs Small War

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“In this age, I don’t care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are, if you cannot create harmony—even vicious harmony—on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete. We have got to have officers who can create harmony across all those lines.” When General Mattis made this statement, one application he surely had in mind was conducting small wars around the globe. However, in the increasingly budget-constrained environment that the US military finds itself operating in today, the question which begs to be asked is whether or not conducting all types of small wars is even necessary any longer? …show more content…
government responsible for determining foreign policy and national security strategy overseeing operations. What differentiates small wars from large-scale conventional war? In conventional war, military forces should be the last resort, coming only after the Department of State has exhausted all available diplomatic means of resolving the impasse. However, the difference in execution of small wars is that the US may be forced to commit military resources while continuing to seek diplomatic solutions. According to the Small Wars Manual, “small war situations are usually a phase of, or an operation taking place concurrently with, diplomatic effort.” As such, the Department of State in their diplomatic efforts and the Department of Defense in their military action are components within the same effort and linked by the overall desired end state and objectives of the operation. However, there are additional major differences in the conduct of small wars that do not necessarily apply to large-scale conventional conflict which must be fully understood. Small wars are wars over people. They are often contests for the hearts and minds of the civilian populace in the area of the …show more content…
First and foremost, the executive branch of the government must have all tools and available options made available to them by the US military in responding to events around the globe. This is a direct result of the foreign policy and national security strategy of the executive branch providing the pretext for intervention and any reduction in plausible military responses is unacceptable. Additionally, it is too late to train for small war responses when the President has made the determination for a US intervention. Also, once it has been decided that an intervention will occur and that the host nation either lacks effective governance, the resources to solve the problem on their own, or both it is key that the US military has previously coordinated access to the regions of the world and pre-positioned assets to facilitate a rapid response. Additionally, it is critical that the US military stay proficient in all types of small wars as there is no “standard” archetype for small wars. Small wars are complex, unique, and episodic. As such, each type of response must be trained to and forces accustomed to operating in the environments encountered in all types of small wars (i.e. the environment will differ greatly in a foreign humanitarian assistance effort in an uncontested environment versus responding to a counterterrorism mission in a
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