U.S. Military Doctrine: Culture, Contrasts, and Agendas

U.S. Military doctrine is evolving rapidly. All the services, within the past five years, have produced new capstone doctrinal manuals. All but one takes into account the momentous changes that have occurred in the world during this time-frame. These publications seek to establish a culture and system of beliefs that becomes the operational warfighting philosophy of that particular service. Developed in an independent setting, individual service doctrine can look very different from their respective sister services view of preparing for, and conducting war. Such contrasts can lead to agenda setting that can cause friction in the joint environment. This paper examines the capstone doctrine of each of the services, notes the major contrasts, and identifies the agendas of each. Apparent conflicts are identified and a recommendation is made for each service with regard to making their respective doctrine more compatible with their counterparts. Those recommendations entail a continuous review process that includes a team of senior liaison officers who would provide advice t individual services in an effort to help develop more interoperable doctrine. Doctrine, Operations, Joint, Joint doctrine, U.S. Military doctrine, U.S. Army doctrine, U.S. Navy doctrine, U.S. Air Force doctrine, U.S. Aerospace doctrine, U.S. Marine corps doctrine.