In Search of Lasting Results: Military War Termination Doctrine

In the current war on terrorism, the President of the United States has specifically identified two former wartime enemies of the United States as members of an evil axis. The regimes ruling these two states (North Korea and Iraq) are the same ones that existed when the United States fought conventional wars against them. The primary research question asks, Did doctrine address at the time, or has it evolved to address, the issues of war termination which have created a 50+ year armistice in Korea and a 10+ year undeclared war against Iraq? The monograph distinguishes war termination from the broader term of conflict termination to avoid discussing certain forms of international conflict beyond the scope of military doctrine. The method of evaluation uses the war termination issues identified among the three levels of examining the causes of war proposed by Kenneth Waltz, as well as several considerations dealing with military force, surrender, and negotiation identified in previous literature. War termination issues identified by the research methodology in the Korean War include the importance of clear guidance on war objectives between the civilian political leadership and the commander in the theater of war; the influence of domestic elections; the effect of announced negotiations on public opinion and troop morale; the importance of established diplomatic communication channels between belligerents; the difficulty of negotiating with communist officials and the loss of initiative on the battlefield that accompanied truce talks; the difference in war objectives between the United States and other members of the UN command; and the impact of ambiguous foreign policy on US decision making. War termination issues identified during Operation DESERT STORM include the inadequate advice to the civilian leadership by military commanders concerning the capability of military force to achieve war objectives; the influence of limited support in the US Senate for the war; the hastening of war termination based upon the perceived impact of public opinion; the unpreparedness of military leaders to negotiate with the Iraqis despite overwhelming battlefield superiority and the resultant errors at the cease-fire talks; the lack of support among all coalition allies for certain US war objectives; and the lack of an overall US strategic vision for the region that resulted in an unwillingness to pursue stated war objectives. The US military doctrine that existed at the time of the Korean War and Operation DESERT STORM did not address war termination beyond outside of the concept of occupation of conquered territory. The current doctrine as stated in Joint Publication 3-0 and US Army Field Manual 3-0 has expanded greatly since 1991. JP 3-0 addresses the issues identified by the research methodology, with the significant exception of the role and responsibilities of the joint force commander and his subordinate commanders as negotiators during war termination. FM 3-0 does not address the majority of the issues identified. The monograph offers proposed deletions and additions to the appropriate sections of JP 3-0 and FM 3-0 to address the issues identified by the research methodology. These changes emphasize the role of the joint force commander as a negotiator, the distinction between war termination and conflict termination, and the role of US Army forces in maintaining leverage on the enemy to facilitate the rapid conclusion of negotiations on favorable terms. Finally, the monograph presents several recommendations for further research.