In 1981, General Donn Starry changed the trajectory of the US Army. He introduced the concept of the “extended battlefield” that would lead the following year to AirLand Battle. Just a few years earlier, he had led the US Army’s study of the Yom Kippur War that resulted in the 1976 doctrine of active defense. However, in the brief intervening period, professional debate and Starry’s own later experiments as the commander of V Corps in Germany revealed that the active defense doctrine was lacking, opening the door to its replacement.

Because the Army grounded its operational concept in a specific military problem, it could debate the shortfalls of active defense. Analysts recognized that the Soviets had also learned from the Yom Kippur War. Soviet officers understood that due to the firepower of new weapons systems, Warsaw Pact forces would have to overcome NATO forces before they could establish a cohesive defense. They argued for a “daring thrust” that exploited strategic surprise. Meanwhile, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, chief of the Soviet General Staff, recommitted the Soviet Army to “deep operations.” These ideas combined into a concept in which forward-deployed, high-readiness forces would conduct a high-speed, broad-front, surprise attack to establish lanes through unprepared defenses, which follow-on echelons would exploit. Since active defense relied on repositioning forces laterally to “win the first battle,” it risked creating the very vulnerabilities that the Soviets sought to exploit. The US Army might win the first battle but risked losing the second. Because the concept was based on a clear forecast of how the Warsaw Pact would fight, AirLand Battle provided a coherent theory of victory to drive change.

Starry also emphasized that the concept was based in politics. President Ronald Reagan had transitioned the United States from détente to a strategy that sought to “convey clearly to Moscow that unacceptable behavior will incur costs that would outweigh any gains.” Starry aligned the Army with this approach. The Army aimed to reinforce deterrence by threatening Soviet aggression with a counterattack that would liberate Eastern Europe. He wrote that “once political authorities commit military forces in pursuit of political aims, military forces must win something, or else there will be no basis from which political authorities can bargain to win politically.” The concept provided a means to deter the Soviet Union through punishment. AirLand Battle was a product of a specific strategic context and optimized the Army to face it.

The Issue with “How the Army Fights”

In October 2026, the Army released “How the Army Fights” (HTAF) to again change how the Army prepares for war. The document takes inspiration from AirLand Battle. However, the strategic context is radically different. The 2025 National Security Strategy transitioned the United States to a strategy of deterrence by denial in the Pacific’s first island chain. But HTAF is not clearly grounded in this new strategic context, and thus, it does not offer the Army a theory of victory for how to fight in that context. Absent the logical framework of a theory of victory, it risks providing ambiguous and contradictory guidance.

The document explains that it is a distillation of the Army’s existing operational concept of multidomain operations (MDO). In being so, it inherits the flaws of that concept. In a 2020 critique of MDO, Huba Wass de Czege, the lead author of AirLand Battle, explained that “to deter credibly, the MDO must clearly define the military problem and articulate a theory of victory that is understandable and logical to Allies and adversaries alike.” But the concept “fails the challenge.” Neither MDO nor HTAF establish Chinese political objectives or forecast how China would employ force to accomplish them.

Denying Denial

De Czege argued that MDO was not based on deterrence by denial. He wrote that “it assumes that an adversary’s surprise attack will overwhelm an unidentified allied forward defense and then immediately array multiple layers of defense. . . . [It] seemingly overlooks the very demanding task of defending an ally’s territory under armed attack.” Indeed, instead of defending forward, MDO envisioned a counterattack that replayed Operation Desert Storm. The initial concept arose out of experimentation with how best to liberate the Baltics after a successful Russian seizure. To obtain consensus with other services, MDO was translated to a Pacific context and incorporated the Navy’s preoccupation with Chinese antiaccess and area-denial capabilities. The concept focused on overcoming those capabilities to facilitate a counterattack rather than conducting a forward defense.

No matter the shifts in strategic context, the focus on the offense remains. When the Russo-Ukrainian War displayed the strength of prepared defenses, MDO did not change. When NATO adopted deterrence by denial in the Baltic region and vowed to “protect every inch of NATO territory,” MDO was not revised. When Taiwan began to implement an erosion strategy for prolonged, layered resistance against China, MDO was not altered. The Army still lacks doctrine for an amphibious defense or the defense of a megacity.

Even after the release of the 2025 National Security Strategy, HTAF continues to center on a counteroffensive to dislodge an enemy rather than reinforcing partners to prevent a fait accompli. HTAF neither mentions defensive tasks nor cites partners’ operational concepts. Instead, it continues MDO’s focus on achieving convergence to enable a vague notion of operational maneuver. At the heart of this problem is what de Czege identified: Neither MDO nor HATF are grounded in how the Army would fight in a specific strategic context.

Without this specificity, the resulting guidance is vague and contradictory. On one hand, HATF explains that the Army must “organize, train, and equip against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—the ‘pacing threat’—with the same institutional focus that the Cold War generations brought to the Soviet Army.” Yet, it does not deliver details on how the PLA fights. Later, the document states that the US Army’s “Close Battle forces train and equip to prevail in extreme environmental conditions—from the frozen Arctic to arid deserts to dense triple-canopy jungles. . . . The enemy always gets a vote, and they will inevitably cast it on the most unforgiving ground they can find.” These excerpts provide conflicting guidance: Should the Army prioritize preparing to defend against the PLA on the beaches and in the cities of the first island chain or in an unlikely Arctic scenario?

In another ambiguity, in Annex C, HTAF describes how “The Army’s forward-deployed ‘inside forces’ are shaping the strategic environment and are postured to act immediately on day one of a conflict.” This statement would align well with deterrence by denial, but the rest of the document does not detail how those inside forces will fight during the initial period of a conflict. Instead, it describes a sequential application of land power after other domains establish superiority: “Air and maritime forces establish superiority and control in their domains. . . . Land power then exploits those conditions.” How should forward-deployed forces fight if air and maritime forces are yet to establish superiority?

A Central Idea in Place of a Theory of Victory

The confusion comes from the lack of an organizing thesis. Instead of proposing a theory of victory, it offers a “central idea,” which it defines thus: “The Army fights through four operational elements. Convergence creates positions of advantage. Strike destroys the enemy at range. Close Battle seizes and holds ground. Endurance carries the fight across time and distance.” While those four elements may be a way to categorize how the Army fights, HTAF does not argue why this categorization is essential to deterring China. De Czege warned that “Any doctrine that is mostly concerned with managing internal processes and relationships, rather than coming to grips with the military problem, the mission, or the enemy, will fail.”

Without the disciplining logic of a specific military problem, the four elements appear arbitrary and overlapping. It is difficult to distinguish convergence and strike. The document describes an example for convergence: “when a commander executes a kinetic strike against an adversary command post while electronic warfare assets jam backup communication systems.” It the explains that strike “degrades and destroys enemy systems through offensive lethal and non-lethal fires at range.” Moreover, it aligns each element with differing Army echelons but does not explain the operational logic behind that alignment.

That alignment risks a capricious centralization of capabilities unsuited to the context in which the Army will fight. AirLand Battle established an operational framework for echelons based on both friendly capabilities and Soviet doctrine. It does not appear that HTAFs is similarly informed by PLA developments. After 2016, the PLA decentralized assets to brigades to enable initiative and tempo. China seeks to exploit strategic surprise and leverage a combat system built around speed. In countering that speed and surprise, the US Army is unlikely to fight with consolidated headquarters. For dispersed elements to seize the initiative from the PLA, they will require the direct support of decentralized capabilities.

Again, the document seems contradictory: Convergence and strike centralize capabilities, but the section on endurance argues the need for decentralized sustainment for disaggregated formations. In a further inconsistency, HTAF critiques the hollowness of the 1950s Pentomic Divisions because their subordinate units were stripped of capabilities, but then proceeds to advocate for a similar approach.

Furthermore, it is unclear how these four elements guide the Army’s development. Do they provide prioritization to illuminate how the Army mans, equips, and trains? Will they dictate force structure or capability development? Will officers pursue new convergence or strike career paths? Do they provide any additional insights beyond the Army’s existing framework of warfighting functions? Or, are these terms simply the latest jargon, broad enough to legitimate any endeavor that cites them?

Jargon Obscures Understanding

George Orwell cautioned that imprecise language reflected unclear thinking. In “Politics and the English Language,” he warned against the “invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases.” Here are some of the ready-made phrases from HTAF’s introductory “at a glance” page that muddle the Army’s thinking: “operational maneuver”; “pacing challenge”; “persistent observation”; “increasing lethality compresses decision time”; and “creates and exploits positions of advantage.” These unexamined phrases obscure ideas rather than enlighten readers.

De Czege similarly cautioned that “MDO’s use of vague language confounds the reader’s understanding of the concept. For example, the frequent use of ill-defined terms such as standoff and domain confuse the already thin logic of the concept. The evolution of MDO must use common English words to provide clarity as it informs Army, Joint, and Allied doctrine.” One particularly confounding MDO word is “convergence.”

In addition to overlapping with strike, convergence clouds rather than clarifies thinking. Convergence emerged as a tenet of MDO, yet de Czege advised that tenets could not replace a theory of victory. While in practice, it is largely a synonym for synchronization, one of AirLand Battle’s tenets, it has been elevated to something more profound. It has become central to how the Army fights. As HTAF expounds, “Leaders seek to maximize Convergence” (capitalized in the original).

Yet, the document provides no sense of trade-offs for convergence. In their interwar doctrine of “methodical battle,” the French also consolidated assets at higher headquarters and prioritized synchronization. A German observer of French maneuvers wrote that the French placed “twice as much importance” on synchronizing combined arms as the Germans. The French did not see a tradeoff between rapid action and synchronization, with their doctrine stating that “Audacious solutions. . . should be executed methodically.” In 1940, the French Army learned that seeking to maximize synchronization had drawbacks.

Similarly, HTAF does not discuss the pitfalls of methodically sequencing warfare. Once convergence establishes conditions, an adversary is defeated through strike and close battle. However, if the PLA just landed on a beach, should Army units await convergence, or should they immediately counterattack before the PLA can secure a lodgment? The Army provides no mental framework for units to think through how they should fight in such a situation, which risks commanders undertaking conflicting courses of action. During the drafting of AirLand Battle, John Boyd warned that “this idea of synchronization will ruin the Army.” Its heir, convergence, may fulfill his prophecy.

Clarify the Terms of the Discourse

General Alexus Grynkewich, the supreme allied commander Europe, recently provided an example of how to convey a theory of victory using clear, concrete language. He explained NATO’s new concept in three simple, sequential tasks: block, blunt, and break. To prevent a Russian fait accompli in the Baltics, NATO will block its initial thrust, blunt its momentum and regain the initiative, and then break its operational warfighting system. It is a theory that aligns with deterrence by denial, minimizes the risk of escalation, and clearly outlines how NATO’s member states need to fight.

For how an armed service can change its trajectory, the Army could look toward the Marine Corps. It has adopted a doctrine of expeditionary basing operations rooted in a specific strategic context. General David Berger, the previous Marine commandant, drove change through a new theory. Instead of prioritizing amphibious assault, Marines would support naval power projection by operating within the first island chain.

The change in the Marine Corps reflected Stephen Rosen’s work on military innovation. He explained that senior leaders drive change through a new theory of victory. He described how a “new theory of victory must be translated into concrete new tasks that . . . will be the measure of an officer’s effectiveness and will determine, by rewards and penalties, the way the community lives.” The Marines have altered their essence. The scope of this change can be found in the intense debate it evoked, but that debate was only possible because its terms were so apparent. The Army requires a discourse on how it fights, but that would require a clear hypothesis to debate.

AirLand Battle emerged because active defense had offered a concrete, and therefore debatable, hypothesis for how to fight the Soviets in Central Europe. Its specificity provided the terms of the professional debate, in which experts could challenge assumptions on how new capabilities would perform or how the Soviets would fight. Within just six years, this debate transformed how the Army fought. However, without framing a clear military problem within a specific political problem, the Army cannot state, or even debate, how it will fight.

As Carl von Clausewitz argued, “Under all circumstances war is to be regarded not as an independent thing, but as a political instrument; and it is only by taking this point of view that we can avoid finding ourselves in opposition to all military history. This is the only means of unlocking the great book and making it intelligible. Secondly, this view shows us how wars must differ in character according to the nature of the motives and circumstances from which they proceed.” Since the 1990s, instead of grounding how it fights in a potential conflict’s unique political character, the Army has tended to view war in a generic, technological character. As a result, concepts like MDO and documents like HTAF are inclined to define how the Army uses technology without first understanding why it would use it.

Some might argue that, unlike the Marines, the Army cannot confine itself to a specific threat and requires flexibility. After the Cold War, the US Army could pursue unfocused thinking; however, the United States is no longer the sole superpower sitting astride the world. It needs to prioritize resources and ensure it is prepared before a conflict. Without a clear military problem to focus thinking and establish trade-offs, the Army will struggle to innovate before a conflict.

Potentially, the Army could establish how it would fight against several adversaries, but for the near term, the Army can accept risk. Russia is consumed by its conflict in Ukraine. North Korea will struggle against South Korea’s qualitative edge. Iran has little capability to project power. In the current strategic context, and in accordance with the National Security Strategy, the Army should optimize to fight China.

Others might contend that focusing on deterring China, which inevitably means discussing how the Army would defend Taiwan, would undermine strategic ambiguity. However, the Taiwan Relations Act states that it’s the policy of the United States “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force. . . that would jeopardize the security. . . of the people of Taiwan.” The Army requires a vision that clarifies the necessary posture, force structure, capabilities, and training to maintain that capacity to resist. If the Army develops such a capacity, it will add to strategic ambiguity by providing political leadership with options. An unambiguously unready Army does not contribute to deterrence.

During peacetime, the Army must understand how it will fight its next war. HTAF may not provide that understanding, but, like active defense, it may stimulate a debate that results in an appropriate theory of victory. The US Army has long had the luxury of figuring out how it would fight in the midst of war. It could suffer a Bull Run, Kasserine Pass, or Task Force Smith and recover. Against China, it will not have such a luxury. To deny China its political objectives, the US Army will need to know how to fight during the opening salvos of a war. After all, the PLA will know how it will fight.

Robert G. Rose is the chief research officer at the Modern War Institute. He holds an undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy and graduate degrees from Harvard University and, as a Gates Scholar, from Cambridge University.

Patrick Sullivan, PhD is an academy professor and director of the Modern War Institute at West Point.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Capt. Andrew Phommavongsay, US Army