Getting Strategic Competition Right

"A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine." This Soviet observation during the Cold War could easily apply to the Joint Concept for Competing, released last year by then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley. At ninety-one pages and over thirty thousand words the JCC is unlikely to be read by many serving personnel. That is a shame because it is an important document—so important it is now being updated by Gen. Milley's successor General Charles Q. Brown. The Joint Concept for Competing is a farsighted document with much to commend it. It builds on a legacy of innovative thinking that transplanted ideas from the world of special operations into mainstream defense strategy via its predecessor, the 2018 Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning. One of these ideas was to apply "systems thinking" to deal with the complexity of the competitive space below the threshold of war. This is a powerful concept, and by building on it, the authors of the next JCC can revolutionize and bring a durable advantage the United States' approach to strategic competition.