A common, but incomplete, understanding of the American Army’s combat power is that it relies on technology and how good its combat formations are in using that technology. There is a sliver of truth in this. Senior civilian and military leaders who build the force using only this sliver of truth, however, present a danger to the nation. Fighting power—the strength and capacity of an army, especially one representing a democracy like the United States, is more complex.
It rests upon three types of confidence: social/political, tactical/operational and institutional. Without understanding and incorporating each type of confidence in war-waging planning, no matter how advanced the technology or how well units use it, America’s Army risks crumbling under the weight of war.
Social/Political Confidence
This three-sided confidence emanates from the relationship among the American people, their government and the U.S. Army that represents them on the battlefield. It’s a type of de facto, informal social contract, or an implicit agreement, that exists whether the Army is conscription-based or volunteer-based.
The American people, the first side of social/political confidence, through their representatives in Congress, say, in effect: “First, we will support you (our Army) with funds, equipment and our sons and daughters as long as you fight in legitimate ways, seem to have a reasonable plan to win, make progress toward winning and treat our sons and daughters with dignity and respect. Secondly, we will honor the sacrifices you make in serving us and take care of you for making them.”

The American people speak similarly to the executive branch, saying, “We will support you (the executive) as long as you use our sons and daughters for legitimate purposes; seem to have reasonable strategies, policies and plans to succeed at the tasks you set for our Army; make progress toward the goals you set; and don’t waste the lives and sacrifices of our daughters and sons. Furthermore, we (the people’s representatives in Congress) share the power to wage war with the president, so expect that we will question you (senior Army leaders as well as key executive branch leaders) and may withdraw our support if we don’t like the answers.”
The second side of social/political confidence—the executive branch—says to both the American people and the Army, in effect: “We (the senior political and military leaders of any administration) acknowledge that the coin of war is human life. So, we promise to respect your service by using and risking your (the Army’s) lives for only legitimate purposes and to ensure that you fight properly supported and in legitimate ways. We further promise to run our executive departments effectively enough to increase the probability of winning (i.e., achieving the strategic objectives we have set)—thus, not wasting your lives or sacrifices.”
Finally, America’s Army responds by saying, “We will sacrifice ourselves and risk our lives to the point of death, if necessary, to accomplish what you (the executive branch and Congress) have asked of us. And we will do it in such a way as to represent the values of America. We also will do our part (through our senior leaders) to help you make the best war aims, strategy, policy and planning decisions we know you are responsible to make. And, we are prepared to answer whatever questions you have of us.”
Confidence that these three “promises” will be kept allows the American people to feel that they will be defended while retaining an Army subordinate to civil authority. Keeping these promises also creates confidence that when the government orders the Army to fight, it will fight, and in a manner consistent with American values. Confidence in these three promises also assures those who risk death to fight on the nation’s behalf will be supported sufficiently during and after their use.
Helping create and sustain high social/political confidence has been part of America since George Washington. He understood that subordination to civil authority had a broad meaning. Don Higginbotham’s 1985 book, George Washington and the American Military Tradition, explains that in Washington’s mind, civil authority included Congress and, later, the executive; that to be loyal meant not silence and blind obedience but sometimes, dissenting with candor and respect; and that American soldiers were not subjects, but citizens of a free society.
Perhaps social/political confidence and trust emanating from all three sides and fitting well together is best seen when it is absent, as it was through much of the Vietnam War. Low social/political confidence restricts America’s strategic freedom of action; high confidence is a source of strength.
Tactical/Operational Confidence
Combat power at the tip of the Army’s spear results from the confidence soldiers have in themselves, their buddies, training, equipment, leaders and systems there to support them. The first five elements of tactical/operational confidence are the clearest. Few would question that soldiers fight harder when they have such confidence.
However, the last one is often opaque or invisible to many, but confidence in the systems designed to support combat soldiers plays a key role in a unit’s fighting power. For example, if a unit’s intelligence system routinely provides incorrect enemy information, arrives too late or is overly ambiguous, soldiers and leaders will be more cautious in executing their missions.
Similarly, if the medical system is lethargic in treating casualties or moving the wounded to appropriate medical facilities, soldiers and leaders may be less aggressive in execution. If the fires system—whether ground-based artillery or rockets, fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft, or drones—routinely delivers late, inaccurate or uncoordinated fires, soldiers and leaders may be more hesitant in execution. If the logistics system normally delivers ammunition late, or delivers the wrong type or quantity, soldiers and leaders are less confident that they will be resupplied correctly—and that changes how they execute a mission.
The same holds true for the protection, mobility, and command and control systems—all of which are designed to increase the probability of successful outcomes in battle (the tactical level of war) and campaigns (the operational level).
The combat power of any unit results from a complex set of factors. A reductionist understanding of combat power—that it springs from technology or proper use of it—is an oversimplistic understanding. Any reduction in the efficiency and effectiveness of the systems designed to support combat units reduces soldier and leader confidence and results in a reduction of combat power.
Tactical/operational confidence is the responsibility of the military chain of command—primarily commanders, senior enlisted advisers and staffs. The chain is important because combat formations fight “nested” under echelons of command. How the systems of any battalion work, for example, is not just a function of that battalion’s proficiency, but also is a function of how efficient and effective the brigade’s and division’s systems operate. Brigade system capacity derives from the divisions and corps under which they operate. For those in a division, system capacity derives from the parent corps and army. The proficiency of each echelon matters with respect to producing confidence up and down the chain of combat units.
A good example of how systems affect fighting is seen by tracing the flow of individual replacements—of soldiers and leaders; of gas, ammunition, maintenance and repair capacity, and availability of replacement vehicles; and of the capacity to generate new fighting units as the Allies moved east from Normandy, France, to Berlin in 1944 and 1945. Another is then-Lt. Gen. Ulysses Grant’s capacity to maintain the momentum of the multiple, simultaneous campaigns he orchestrated in 1864–65. In both cases, the efficiency and effectiveness of tactical/operational systems directly affected combat power at the front. Low tactical/operational confidence reduces combat power; high confidence increases it.

Institutional Confidence
Tactical/operational confidence does not arise ex nihilo, out of nowhere. Rather, it derives from strong civil and military institutional capacity. The Department of Defense, the Department of the Army and the Army’s major commands—together—play a key role in generating tactical/operational confidence.
At the department level, the secretaries of defense and the Army maintain 10 functional responsibilities directly affecting combat power, as described in the U.S. Army War College’s How the Army Runs: A Senior Leader Reference Handbook, 2021-2022. They decide—with the advice and cooperation of senior Department of the Army military leaders and commanders of the Army’s major commands—what should be the proper size and composition of the Army. This decision includes identifying needed capabilities; determining how to produce those capabilities; figuring out the size and composition of the Army—to include reserve component forces; figuring out the personnel and materiel requirements and publishing authorization documents for the force; as well as establishing priorities to fill within resource constraints.
This decision is both important and difficult, for the Army’s size and composition always will be lesser than objectively necessary. The nation simply cannot afford what is objectively needed. This gap produces strategic risk, and senior civil and military leaders must identify this risk clearly, judge what constitutes acceptable risk and recommend options to civil authorities.
Once this decision is resolved, the departmental institutions and major Army commands go about acquiring personnel and materiel necessary for the force.
They also ensure that there are appropriate policies, actual physical and intellectual capabilities and adequate doctrine to train individuals, leaders and units; to develop and educate leaders; to distribute the force throughout the country and internationally; to deploy and redeploy units on operational missions as well as routine rotation of individuals and units; to sustain the people, materiel and facilities through upgrade, repair (to include medical treatment for personnel) or replacement; to separate, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, personnel, units, equipment and facilities; to acquire, manage and account for the funding associated with each of the functions above according to law and regulation; and to put in place transparent and accountable procedures to execute each of the functions and internal audit and inspection processes to preserve institutional integrity and bureaucratic stability.
Institutional confidence—produced by executing the above functions efficiently and effectively—is the ultimate source of tactical/operational confidence. Of course, the reverse also is true. Poorly executed institutional functions either in DoD, the Department of the Army or the Army’s major commands reduce institutional confidence and, sooner or later, erode tactical/operational confidence and combat power. Those soldiers and civilians who run the departments’ set of institutions may not be labeled “warfighters” themselves, but what they do directly affects those who fight and wage America’s wars.
Of course, sufficient technology and proficiency in using it matters with respect to creating and sustaining combat power in the Army. It also matters in retaining the Army’s qualitative edge.
Equally clear, however, is this: Combat power also results from three important forms of confidence—social/political, tactical/operational and institutional. Combat power is the result of a delicate balance of multiple factors. The common understanding is reductionist and dangerous, for it ignores or disregards the complexity involved in creating and sustaining combat and, therefore, risks adopting simplistic solutions to a complex problem.
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Lt. Gen. James Dubik, U.S. Army retired, a former commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, is a senior fellow of the Association of the U.S. Army. He holds a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and is the author of Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory.