Miranda Priebe Bücher

Tracing the evolution of the U.S. Army throughout American history, the authors of this four-volume series show that there is no such thing as a "traditional" U.S. military policy. Rather, the laws that authorize, empower, and govern the U.S. armed forces emerged from long-standing debates and a series of legislative compromises between 1903 and 1940. Volume IV covers the period from 1970 to 2015, from changes to U.S. military policy that resulted from the Vietnam War through years of persistent conflict following the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks. In spite of significant changes in the strategic context during this period, the fundamental laws underpinning U.S. military policy remained largely unchanged. Volume IV also discusses how the demands of persistent conflict since the 9/11 terrorist attacks have led to increased use of individuals and units from the reserve components

Tracing the evolution of the U.S. Army throughout American history, the authors of this four-volume series show that there is no such thing as a "traditional" U.S. military policy. Rather, the laws that authorize, empower, and govern the U.S. armed forces emerged from long-standing debates and a series of legislative compromises between 1903 and 1940. Volume III covers the period from 1940 to 1970 and examines how the Army, while retaining the basic legal underpinning established by 1940, evolved in light of the radically different security requirements associated with the nation's emergence as a superpower and the need to maintain forces overseas and to rapidly respond in support of alliance commitments. The wars in Korea and Vietnam, and associated debates best to generate the required forces and how to balance military requirements with political concerns, led ultimately to the development of Total Force Policy: an effort to eliminate the need for conscription, except in special circumstances, and to further professionalize U.S. military forces

The 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy instructed the U.S. military to become more operationally unpredictable and suggested that doing so would help the United States deter attacks on U.S. partners. The authors of this report propose a definition of U.S. operational unpredictability-adversary uncertainty about how the United States would fight; develop four potential approaches for increasing U.S. operational unpredictability and deterring attacks on U.S. allies and partners; and assess how the four approaches could affect U.S. relations with Russia and China. They also examine two Cold War-era cases in which the United States sought to be more operationally unpredictable. The authors find that increasing adversaries' perceptions of U.S. operational unpredictability may be possible if the United States has detailed information about their operational analysis and decisionmaking processes. The most promising way to increase U.S. operational unpredictability is to publicize new U.S. capabilities and demonstrate that they give the United States multiple options for achieving its key objectives. However, increasing U.S. operational unpredictability may be costly and, in some cases, involve negative side effects (e.g., reducing U.S. military effectiveness and increasing China's and Russia's threat perceptions). The authors recommend weighing the potential costs and effectiveness of these approaches against more traditional approaches to deterring U.S. adversaries