Prescription for the Counterstroke

The purpose of this paper is to determine, at the operational level of war, those factors in the defense which support a successful defensive-offensive and in particular to examine those factors relevant to the NATO Center today. The study incorporates a theoretical examination of the mobile defense; looks at several operational level counterstrokes to distill from them their "historical constants"; applies those lessons to the defense of the NATO Center today; and briefly explores the concept of airmechanization. The author concludes that attrition warfare is an increasingly unacceptable approach to combat for the U.S. Army and that a maneuver style of war is more appropriate, particularly in the NATO Center. If so, then a mobile defense is the most likely means of successfully executing such a maneuver system. Furthermore, the counterstroke, as an integral component of the mobile defense, capitalizes upon the tenets of initiative and agility. The counterstroke force, however, requires a significant agility differential on the battlefield, most easily achieved thorough mobility. Since, as von Senger advises, all modern armies are mechanized or motorized, aviation offers the agility and mobility required of a counterstroke force. At the operational level of war, the author feels that this force should be an airmechanized division.