American Way of War

A short excerpt from Colin Gray's essay, The American Way of War.  From Rethinking the Principles of War, Chapter One, 2005. Published by the Naval Institute Press.

Full doc linked below.  

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The American Way of War: Critique and Implications, by Colin S. Gray

In the history of American strategy, the direction taken by the American
conception of war made most American strategists, through most of the
time span of American history, strategists of annihilation. At the
beginning, when American military resources were still slight, America
made a promising beginning in the nurture of strategists of attrition; but
the wealth of the country and its adoption of unlimited aims in war cut
that development short, until the strategy of annihilation became
characteristically the American way in war.1

What is the Question?

As excerpted above, Russell F. Weigley’s now-classic study, with its bold,
assertive title The American Way of War, comprises an invaluable extended
statement about American strategic and military culture. But, much has
happened since Weigley wrote the words quoted above in the dying phase of
America’s protracted and ultimately futile adventure in Vietnam. All too
plainly, the characteristically American way failed to deliver strategic and
political success in Southeast Asia. Was that undeniable fact a result of
endemic and enduring weakness in the American way of war; did it just
reflect the country’s way of war, its national style in warfare, at a particular
time; or did the American way attempt mission impossible in Vietnam? How
dynamic is the American way of war? Does it evolve to such a degree that it
is far from fixed by allegedly deep-rooted cultural influences? To press
skepticism further, is it even sensible to talk of the American way of war?
That it is a familiar concept and that Professor Weigley wrote a well-regarded
book about it certainly confer some legitimacy to the idea. Nonetheless,
many an unsound idea has survived because of the familiarity granted by
repetition, because of the blessings of ill-applied scholarship, and sometimes
because of official adoption.

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The 12 characteristics:
1. Apolitical
2. Astrategic
3. Ahistorical
4. Problem-solving, optimistic
5. Culturally ignorant
6. Technologically dependent
7. Firepower focused
8. Large-scale
9. Profoundly regular
10. Impatient
11. Logistically excellent
12. Sensitive to casualties

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https://www.dropbox.com/s/ohsbaslcklumvxu/2010-Colin%20Gray_American%20Way%20of%20War-writings--.pdf