In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the military is enmeshed in rebuilding local institutions, helping to restore essential services and safeguarding a vulnerable population. The new manual is an attempt to put these endeavours—along with counterinsurgency warfare—at the core of military training, planning and operations. That would require some important changes. “There is going to be some resistance,” General Caldwell said. “There will be people who will hear and understand what we are saying, but it is going to take some time to inculcate that into our culture.”

Even as they welcomed it, other Army officers said there were inconsistencies between the newly minted doctrine on how to wage war and current practice. Army brigades in Iraq have too few combat engineers to support civil programmes, they said. Also, they added, the Army does not promote officers who advise the Iraqi and Afghan security forces as readily as battalion staff officers and needs to improve their training.

Some Army officers have also questioned whether the development of the Army’s Future Combat System, a multibillion-dollar programme in which air and unmanned ground sensors will be networked with armoured vehicles so that soldiers can attack targets from a safe distance, is consistent with this new vision of war.

When the United States invaded Iraq, Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, spoke highly of the value of speed and high-technology military systems. The mission of stabilising Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein was generally treated as a secondary concern.

... contd.