The Truth About the Secret Sauce: There is no Secret Sauce

Recent technological advancements on show in the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have indicated, to some, that there is a new American way of war. Scholars, however, do not seem to have reached consensus on what a new way of war for the United States would embody. Depending on the scholar, their beliefs are underwritten by the American ability to wage war with highly interconnected, agile, precise, and extremely damaging methods or because the United States is capable of waging war with a small, Special Forces centered footprint. Other scholars argue that there is not a new American way of war because traditional methods are still necessary in many kinds of conflict. Scholars who address this question focus on conflicts that they believe to be important indicators of how the United States will act in the future, but miss the forest for the trees. The choice of a particular method of combat in any given war is not the result of some national tendency, but rather the result of the political object desired. The political object is the ultimate arbiter of the choice of strategy in war, and that is certainly not new to how the United States wages war.

Whether there is a new American way of war is dependent on what the term “way of war” actually means in the first place. When scholars argue for one way or the other, they do not seem to be on the same page regarding the definition of the term. This is problematic because each camp seems to talk past the another when making their respective appeals. Frederick Kagan points out that more often than not, what is meant by “way of war” is the choice of a particular form of “combat.” This definition is insufficient because it is manifestly true that new forms of combat are continually...

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..., none are sufficient to be useful in every circumstance.

Therefore, while there is a disagreement over whether or not there is a new American way of war, the argument, in its entirety is not built on solid ground. The United States does not now, nor has it in the past, wage war with a specific method of combat. Additionally, those who persist in making the claim despite that fact both misrepresent the way that recent conflicts were fought and how the political object of a war effects how wars are fought. Thus, there is not a new American way of war, but rather a new, and perhaps ephemeral political object present in recent wars. It is a profound mistake to pigeonhole American policy and military tactics. Such an attempt fails to consider the different circumstances surrounding each individual war—and thus the necessity to adopt different means within each of them.