Tomes Robert R. US Defence Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military Innovation and the New American Way of War, 1973-2003

Routledge, 2007. — 224 p.US Defence Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom examines the thirty-year transformation in American military thought and defence strategy that spanned from 1973 through 2003. During these three decades, new technology and operational practices helped form what observers dubbed a 'Revolution in Military Affairs' in the 1990s and a 'New American Way of War' in the 2000s. Robert R. Tomes tells for the first time the story of how innovative approaches to solving battlefield challenges gave rise to non-nuclear strategic strike, the quest to apply information technology to offset Soviet military advantages, and the rise of 'decisive operations' in American military strategy. He details an innovation process that began in the shadow of Vietnam, matured in the 1980s as Pentagon planners sought an integrated nuclear-conventional deterrent, and culminated with battles fought during blinding sandstorms on the road to Baghdad in 2003. An important contribution to military innovation studies, the book also presents an innovation framework applicable to current defence transformation efforts. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, US defence policy and US politics in general.Military innovation and defense transformation
Study overview
On military innovation
Introducing military innovation studies
Coming to terms with military innovation
Contextualizing innovation
Military innovation studies: a sketch of resources
On innovation for profit
Learning from the military revolution in early modern Europe
Chapter conclusion
American military strategy from the Second World War through Vietnam
On “Carrying a Twig”: postwar defense planning
Changes in the international security environment
The new look
Flexible response and the emerging framework for innovation
The Soviet nuclear RMA: on the strategic and operational threat
American military strategy and the legacy of Vietnam
Chapter conclusion
Military innovation in the shadow of Vietnam: the offset strategy
The post-Vietnam security environment
Toward technological innovation: DARPA and the offset strategy
An emerging revolution in army doctrine, training, and operational art
Air power developments: precision warfare, tactical aviation, and space power
Leveraging the information revolution
Shifts in national security planning
Chapter conclusion
Expanding missions, new operational capabilities
The Reagan buildup and shifts in national security planning
Time-dominance, interdiction, and battlefield integration
Military thought and doctrine: AirLand Battle and
Follow-On-Forces Attack
New security challenges and military missions at the end of the Cold War
Chapter conclusion
From RMAs to transformation: rediscovering the innovation imperative
Revisiting the American RMA
From RMA thesis to transformation policy
Revisiting information superiority
The Bush doctrine and preemption
Chapter conclusion
Conclusion: revisiting the military innovation framework
Revisiting context, the security environment, and necessity
Perceptions of innovation attributes
Enablers
Organizational factors
Revisiting the innovation milieu
A final theme from the thirty-year transformation
Notes