Why the U.S. Army Needs To Say “No Mas” To WAS

Dan Goure

Security,

A bad idea that needs to go. 

Wide Area Security (WAS), what used to be called stability operations, is supposed to be one of the U.S. Army’s core competencies. It involves much more than providing security for rear areas or occupying enemy territory during the course of hostilities. Nor is it limited to classic counterinsurgency operations. As described in Army documents, it includes a range of tasks well beyond those reasonably considered to be part of counterinsurgency: establishing civil control, restoring essential services, supporting governance, supporting economic and infrastructure development.

Until recently, the Army believed WAS to be as important a mission as classic combined arms maneuver, what most civilians would call combat. Army leaders, and a lot of academics and defense experts, made the argument that while superiority in combat was necessary to defeat an adversary, particularly an enemy nation state, only success in conducting WAS could bring about a stable, long term peace. Advocates of WAS like to point out that while it only took this country around three and a half years to defeat the Axis powers, the U.S. military has maintained forces in Germany and Japan for the past 71 years. A similar situation persists in South Korea. The military’s effort to secure the peace in Afghanistan has been going on for more than 15 years and in Iraq for nearly as long without an end in sight in either case.

As a result of what ultimately must be recognized as the difficulties in these last two WAS campaigns, there has been a strong backlash both in government and by the American public. In fact, the Obama Administration’s 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance states explicitly that U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.