Mission Revolution: The U.S. Military and Stability Operations

摘要

Stability operations are not new for the US military. In fact, the military has waged such operations since the birth of the US Army during the American War of Independence. The Barbary Wars off the coast of North Africa (1801-05 and 1815) and the invasion of Grenada -known as Operation Urgent Fury (1983) - are two examples. Despite its familiarity with stability operations throughout its 240-year history, the US Army has not regarded stability operations as a core mission - that is, until recently. Both the army doctrine reference publication (ADRP 3-07) and recent field manual (FM 3-07) dedicated to stability - released in 2012 and 2014 respectively - begin by stating the obvious but often overlooked the fact that the US Army has, during the last two decades, participated in more stability operations than traditional offensive or defensive operations. The ramifications and history of this new, doctrinal recognition of stability's primacy - much less how a highly bureaucratic institution like the US Army recalibrates its doctrine - is not easily explained.