全球智库信息集成服务系统

Two Trends from World War II to the Present

• Land warfare has evolved away from conventional combat against state actors and their standing forces to an increasing incidence of irregular warfare fought by joint forces against nonstate actors. This has led to an increasing U.S. reliance on special operations forces.
• While the Army learns tactical and operational lessons from the wars it fights, it sometimes struggles to recognize the broader implications of its experience and adapt at a strategic level.

Seven Lessons from the Past 13 Years of War

• Lesson One: Making U.S. national security strategy has suffered from a lack of understanding and application of strategic art.
• Lesson Two: An integrated civilian-military process is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of effective national security strategy.
• Lesson Three: Because military operations take place in the political environment of the state in which the intervention takes place, military campaigns must be based on a political strategy.
• Lesson Four: Because of the inherently human and uncertain nature of war, technology cannot substitute for sociocultural, political, and historical knowledge and understanding.
• Lesson Five: Interventions should not be conducted without a plan to conduct stability operations, capacity-building, transition, and, if necessary, counterinsurgency.
• Lesson Six: Shaping, influence, and unconventional operations may be cost-effective ways of addressing conflict that obviate the need for larger, costlier interventions.
• Lesson Seven: The joint force requires nonmilitary and multinational partners, as well as structures for coordinated implementation among agencies, allies, and international organizations.