Strategy in the 21st century, a project summary

 

Strategy is a timeless discipline. Tactical doctrines change as do technological capacity, but the elements of good strategy reoccur time and again through out the centuries.

This project is an essay collection written by an amateur historian, with a veteran’s perspective. The conclusions are my own. Much of the topics and material will come from my own informal studies.

America faces a number of strategic challenges unlike any she has faced in the past. The early 19th century saw the American Republic mostly dealing with European imperial powers, defending American maritime commerce, and fighting indigenous native tribes for possession of the land. This would remain the strategic challenges and situation for the rest of the 19th century, only broken by the brutality of the American Civil War.

Through 20th century brought an isolationist United States, which was economically strong but militarily weak, into the international competitions between great powers. Two World Wars and the Cold War pushed the United States to the forefront of nations in power.

Now the 21st century has dawned and new challenges are before America. The United States has become the guarantor of the independence of the global commons. Whether international sea & air, or orbital space; the United States has pushed each nation to have equal access to all. Part of the military capacity of the United States, with global reaching power projection, was to fulfill these missions. The other major challenge to the United States is a series of interlocking defense alliances that place the United States in the task of defending 25% of the human population potentially from any aggression from the other 75% of Humanity.

In an era of nuclear weapons, and expanding robotic warfare; the challenges facing the United States military are unlike anything most major powers have faced in the past, yet this still does not mean that there has never been any comparable strategic analogy before.