Macgregor's study economically and convincingly makes the case for the inescapable importance of land forces in wars of the future and, no less important, in the deterrence of such wars.
This work proposes the reorganization of America's ground forces on the strategic, operational and tactical levels. Central to the proposal is the simple thesis that the U.S. Army must take control of its future by exploiting the emerging revolution in military affairs. The analysis argues that a new Army warfighting organization will not only be more deployable and effective in Joint operations; reorganized information age ground forces will be significantly less expensive to operate, maintain, and modernize than the Army's current Cold War division-based organizations. And while ground forces must be equipped with the newest Institute weapons, new technology will not fulfill its promise of shaping the battlefield to American advantage if new devices are merely grafted on to old organizations that are not specifically designed to exploit them. It is not enough to rely on the infusion of new, expensive technology into the American defense establishment to preserve America's strategic dominance in the next century. The work makes it clear that planes, ships, and missiles cannot do the job of defending America's global security issues alone. The United States must opt for reform and reorganization of the nation's ground forces and avoid repeating Britain's historic mistake of always fielding an effective army just in time to avoid defeat, but too late to deter an aggressor.
Foreword by Donald Kagan
Introduction
Landpower and Strategic Dominance
Meeting the Demands of Revolutionary Change in Warfare
Organizing Within the RMA Trendlines
Fighting with a New Information Age Army in 2003
Shaping Landpower for Strategic Dominance in the 21st Century
Streamlining Defense to Pay for Strategic Dominance
Final Observations and Future Prospects
Appendix A: Glossary of Military Terms
Appendix B: Glossary of Military Abbreviations and Acronyms
Appendix C: The Corps Support Command
Appendix D: Army Prepositioning Afloat
Selected Bibliography
Index
Reviews
^IBreaking the Phalanx^R by Douglas A. Macgregor is essential reading for any serious student of the current militray modernization debate embodied in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), National Defense Panel and Joint Vision 2010 processes....Senior leaders would do well to consider its recommendations and analysis.—Military Review
Endorsements
Very provocative. This is exactly the kind of thing that should be preoccupying us all.—Brent Scowcroft, LTG, USAF (ret)^Lformer National Security Advisor under President Bush
Thank God someone is thinking about the dangerous future we are lurching toward, and how the United States military must change and adapt to deal with the untidy realities of the new century....Macgregor, in ^IBreaking the Phalanx^R, offers us cutting-edge analysis of what's wrong, suggestions of how to fix it, and a great place to begin the debate.—Joseph L. Galloway, Senior Writer, ^IU.S. News and World Report^R^Lco-author of ^ITriumph Without Victory^R
By any standard, this is a landmark contribution to the debate on the future of our military forces.—Dr. Raymond M. Macedonia^Lscientist and co-author of ^IGetting it Right^R
