General purpose force doctrine
In contemporary American strategic parlance, the general purpose forces have come to mean those forces intended for conflict situations other than nuclear war with the Soviet Union. As with all military forces, the general purpose forces are powerfully determined by prevailing conceptions of the problems they must meet and by institutional biases as to the proper way to deal with those problems. This paper deals with the strategic problems these forces are intended to meet, the various and often conflicting doctrines and organizational structures which have been generated in order to meet those problems, and the factors which will influence general purpose doctrine and structure in the future. This paper does not attempt to prescribe technological solutions to the needs of the general purpose forces. Rather, it attempts to display the doctrinal and institutional context within which new technologies must operate, and which will largely determine whether these technologies are accepted into the force structure or not.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 5791493
- Report Number(s):
- LA-11115-MS; CNSS/Papers-2; ON: DE88002227
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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