September-October 2019 MILITARY REVIEW16
A military government “spearhead” (I Detachment) of the 3rd U.S. Army answers German civilian questions in April 1945 at an outdoor oce in
the town square of Schleusingen, Germany. I Detachments moved in the wake of division advances to immediately begin the process of civilian
stabilization and normalization. (Photo from book, e U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany 1944-1946, by Earl F. Ziemke)
ree Perspectives on
Consolidating Gains
Lt. Gen. Mike Lundy, U.S. Army
Col. Richard Creed, U.S. Army
Col. Nate Springer, U.S. Army
Lt. Col. Sco Pence, U.S. Army
MILITARY REVIEW September-October 2019
W
inning bales while losing wars is an
expensive waste of lood and treasure.
Armies that win bales without folowing
through to consolidate taical gains tend to lose wars,
and the U.S. Army has experience on both sides of the
historical ledger in this regard. While consolidation of
gains has been a consistent military necessity, it remains
one of the most misunderstood features of our warght-
ing doctrine. Many strugle to understand the relation-
ship between the strategic role, the responsibilities of
the various echelons, and the aions required across the
range of military operations. As the requirement and
term “consolidate gains” is relatively new to our doc-
trine, this article seeks to clarify what it means and en-
compasses. To do so, it aproaches consolidating gains
from three perectives: the taician, the operational
artist, and the strategist. By considering the perective
of each level of warfare, one may beer understand how
echelons and their subordinate formations consolidate
gains in mutualy suporting and interdependent ways.
How the Army
Contributes to Winning
e U.S. Army contributes to achieving national
objectives through its four unique strategic roles:
shaping the security environment, preventing con-
ict, prevailing in large-scale combat operations
(LSCO), and consolidating gains. ese strategic roles
represent the interelated and continuous purposes
for which the Army conducts operations across the
competition continuum as a part of the joint force.
Successful consolidation of gains is an inherent part
of achieving enduring success in each of the other
three roles in competition and conict.
e operational environment is a competition
continuum among nation-states. e pulicly released
Sumary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy describes
the requirement to defeat one peer adversary while
detering another.
1
e National Defense Strategy also
adresses other things the joint force and the Army
must continue to do. While the Army focuses on
readiness to deter and defeat a revanchist Russia, a
revisionist China, a roue North Korea, and an Iran
seeking regional hegemony, it also must continue to dis-
rupt terorism abroad to protect the homeland while
continuing to full oligations to security partners in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. A large part of the
Consolidating Operational Gains
in the European eater during
World War II
“e workhorses of military government on the
move were the I detachments [‘Spear Detach-
ments’] composed of three or four ocers apiece,
ve enlisted men, and two jeeps with trailers. ese
detachments represented the occupation to the
Germans, at once the harbingers of a new order
and the only stable inuence in a world turned
upside down. ey arranged for the dead in the
streets to be buried, restored rationing, put police
back on the streets, and if possible got the electric-
ity and water working. ey provided care for the
displaced persons and military government courts
for the Germans. … Since, in an opposed ad-
vance, predicting when specic localities would be
reached was impossible, the armies sent out spear-
head detachments in the rst wave—I detachments
whose pinpoint assignments were east of the Rhine.
eir job was to move with the divisions in the front.”
—Earl F. Ziemke, “e Rhineland Campaign,” chap.
XII in e U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germa-
ny, 1944-1946 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Oce, 2003), 186.
September-October 2019 MILITARY REVIEW
Total Army remains engaged in security force as-
sistance, counterinsurgency, counterterorism, and
stability-related missions, the focus of which is to
consolidate gains in suport of host-nation govern-
ments. Consolidation of gains in present-day Iraq
and Afghanistan is inherently the purpose of the
advise-and-assist missions for which security force
assistance brigades were designed.
While recognizing that the U.S. Army consoli-
dates gains during competition, during conict, and
aer LSCO, this article focuses on consolidation of
gains within the context of the Army’s third strategic
role: prevail in large-scale combat. Armed conict
against a peer adversary is likely to encompass mul-
tiple corps in large geographical areas inhabited by
signicant populations. Any conict is also likely to
require ground forces to defeat enemy forces in or-
der to reealish the sovereign control of an aly or
partner’s land and population. is would be an im-
mense undertaking and requires thinking about how
to simultaneously consolidate gains from the boom
up and top down. Consolidating gains during LSCO
looks dierent at each stage of the operation and
from each level of warfare.
2
e consolidation area is an important feature of
LSCO at the taical level. Field Manual (FM) 3-0,
Operations, explicitly identied the consolidation
area to solve an age-old prolem during operations.
3
Army forces consistently strugle with securing the
ground between brigades advancing in the close area
and the division and corps rear boundaries, particu-
larly during oensive operations when the size of ar-
eas of operation (AOs) expand. Maintaining tempo
in the close and deep areas requires that the division
and corps suport areas be secured as the lines of
communication lengthen. However, this leaves the
prolem of defeating bypassed forces and securing
key terain and population centers to be solved in
ad hoc fashion. “e typical solution was to assign
combat power from brigades commied to oper-
ations in the close and deep areas to the maneuver
enhancement brigade (MEB).”
4
is proved satis-
factory during short-duration simulations as long as
the division bypassed only smal enemy formations.
“Actual experience against Iraqi forces during the
rst few months of Operation Iraqi Freedom [2003]
indicated this aproach entails signicant risk” in
Extract from TIME magazine
“How Disbanding the Iraqi
Army Fueled ISIS”
By Mark ompson
29 May 2015
“General Ray Odierno, [former] Army chief of sta, says the
U.S. could have weeded Saddam Hussein’s loyalists from the
Iraqi army while keeping its structure, and the bulk of its forc-
es, in place. ‘We could have done a lot beer job of sorting
through that and keeping the Iraqi army together,’ he told
TIME on ursday. ‘We struggled for years to try to put it
back together again.’ e decision to dissolve the Iraqi army
robbed Baghdad’s post-invasion military of some of its best
commanders and troops. … it also drove many of the sud-
denly out-of-work Sunni warriors into alliances with a Sunni
insurgency that would eventually mutate into ISIS [Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria]. Many former Iraqi military ocers
and troops, trained under Saddam, have spent the last 12
years in Anbar Province baling both U.S. troops and Bagh-
dad’s Shi’ite-dominated security forces, Pentagon ocials
say. ‘Not reorganizing the army and police immediately were
huge strategic mistakes,’ said [General] Jack Keane, a retired
Army vice chief of sta and architect of the ‘surge’ of 30,000
additional U.S. troops into Iraq in 2007. ‘We began to slowly
put together a security force, but it took far too much time
and that gave the insurgency an ability to start to rise.’”
To view the complete article, visit hps://time.com/3900753/
isis-iraq-syria-army-united-states-military/.
19MILITARY REVIEW September-October 2019
CONSOLIDATING GAINS
the real world, where not accounting for both the ene-
my’s wil and means to continue a conict resulted in a
wel-resourced insurgency in a maer of months.
5
FM 3-0 emphasizes that an “enemy cannot be alowed
time to reconstitute new forms of resistance to protract
the conict and undo our initial baleeld gains.”
6
is is
based upon experience that indicates consolidating gains
requires more combat power than what is required for
the initial taical defeat of enemy forces in the eld. is
in turn must drive planners at the operational and stra-
tegic levels to account for the need for these aditional
forces. If not, a short-war planning mindset using “mini-
mum force” risks the ability to consolidate gains taicaly,
operationaly, and strategicaly.
Deliberately wrien to empower operational plan-
ners and commanders to anticipate aditional force re-
quirements, FM 3-0 provides an expanded description
of the operational framework and the consolidation
area in chapter 1. While consolidate gains aivities
are adressed throughout FM 3-0, chapter 8 is sinu-
larly dedicated to the topic. It says consolidation of
gains are “aivities to make enduring any temporary
operational success and set the conditions for a stale
environment alowing for a transition of control to
legitimate authorities.” e chapter concludes with a
review of the theater army, corps, division, and brigade
combat teams (BCTs) in operations and the distinctive
roles they play in consolidating gains.
7
e folowing perectives expand upon the last
section of chapter 8 by describing the considerations
and responsibilities for consolidating gains at each of
three levels of warfare. Instead of explicitly identify-
ing the echelon (brigade, corps, division, eld army,
or theater army), we start with the taician, advance
to the operational artist, and then conclude with the
strategist. e intent is to provide insight on consoli-
dation of gains for the warghting professionals at the
level for which they are responsile, not necessarily
the type of headquarters or rank.
e Tactician’s View
ose ho hae won ictoies are fa more numerous than
those ho hae used the to avantage.
—Polybius
8
e taician focuses on bales and engagements,
aranging forces and capabilities in time and space to
achieve military objectives. e point of departure for
thinking about consolidating gains at the taical level
is clearly understanding that the means for doing so is
decisive aion: the execution of oensive, defensive,
and stability tasks in the ever-changing context of a
particular operation and operational environment.
e goal is defeating the enemy, accounting for al his
capabilities to resist, and ensuring unrelenting pressure
that grants him no respite or oportunity to recover
the means to resist. Corps and divisions assign AOs,
objectives, and ecic taical tasks for their subor-
dinate echelons. While initialy they must focus on
the defeat of enemy forces, the ultimate objective is to
consolidate gains in a way that ensures the enemy no
longer has the means or wil to continue the conict
while maintaining a frienly position of relative ad-
vantage. Divisions and corps have a critical, mutualy
interdependent role in making this hapen.
While limited contingency operations over the
last twenty years saw corps headquarters function
as joint task forces or land component commands,
during large-scale ground combat operations, corps
ght as taical formations. Corps provide com-
mand and control (C2) and shape the operational
environment for multiple divisions, functional and
multifunctional brigades, and BCTs. e corps plans,
enales, and manages consolidation of gains with its
subordinate formations while anticipating future op-
erations and continuously adjusting to developments
in the close and deep areas. As LSCO concludes in a
part of the corps AO, the corps headquarters assigns
responsibility, usualy a division but in some cases
one or more BCTs, to consolidate gains in that AO.
When LSCO is largely concluded throughout the
corps AO, it reorganizes the AOs of its subordinate
echelons in a way that enales the most rapid consol-
idation of gains with the capabilities availale.
A corps consolidation area is comprised of the phys-
ical terain that was formerly part of its subordinate
division consolidation areas, which the corps assumed
responsibility for as it shied the division rear bound-
aries forward to maintain tempo during oensive
operations. e division assigned the corps consolida-
tion area may be a unit that was ecicaly dedicated
to and deployed for the task or one that was folowing
in suport of the close ght, or it may be a division
that was already commied that remains focused on
September-October 2019 MILITARY REVIEW20
defeating enemy remnants and bypassed forces. As
the corps enjoys success and its AO expands, a larger
proportion of its combat power may be commied to
consolidate gains. e commitment of combat power
to consolidate gains should enale tempo and is not
intended to draw forces away from the ghts in the
close and deep areas. is means that taical and op-
erational level planners need to anticipate the amount
of combat power necessary to simultaneously defeat
the enemy in the close and deep areas while consoli-
dating gains in their AOs. Accounting for the required
aditional forces during operational planning and force
ow development prior to conict is essential. Again,
a short-war, minimum-force planning mentality at the
strategic and operational level wil likely result in insuf-
cient forces to maintain oensive tempo and continu-
ously consolidate gains to win decisively.
Because divisions begin to consolidate gains in their
own consolidation areas, their decisive-aion focus
is heavily weighted toward oensive tasks designed to
defeat al remaining enemy forces in the eld and se-
cure key terain that is likely to encompass population
centers. is means that when corps ealish consoli-
dation areas, particularly when they assume responsi-
bility for division consolidation areas as frienly forces
advance, their focus in terms of consolidating gains is
likely to be broader and emphasize stability tasks, area
security, and governance. e divisions should have
already consolidated gains to some degree, particularly
in terms of defeating enemy remnants and bypassed
forces. Successful consolidation of gains at the division
level creates security conditions more amenale to a
higher level of focus on populations, infrastructure, and
governance at the corps level because there are few or
no enemies le to contest frienly forces in an AO.
For the taician, consolidating gains at the di-
vision level is initialy dicult to distinuish from
other LSCO for a couple of reasons. e rst is that
it represents a transition within a portion of the AO
that might not be readily aparent. e second rea-
son is that ealishing security within a portion of an
AO requires defeating enemy remnants and bypassed
forces through decisive aion, and that is likely to
require oensive operations, which dier only in scale
from what a BCT was doing previously. When an AO
Members of a UN public health and welfare detachment, a com-
posite allied force, meet at a crossing point on the 38th parallel
circa early October 1950. For more information, see the sidebar
on page 21. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army Special Operations
Command History Oce)
MILITARY REVIEW September-October 2019
is designated a consolidation area, the BCT assigned
to it may already be there, so consolidating gains
becomes a form of exploitation and pursuit by forces
already in contact with the enemy. If an uncommied
BCT is assigned an AO to consolidate gains, the tran-
sition is more explicit even if the assigned tasks do not
change. In either case, taical planners must antici-
pate what aditional capabilities the division should
provide the BCT to facilitate area security, secure
key terain, and control the local population. Some
of those capabilities are likely to be under control of
the corps and must be task-organized down into the
division for use by the BCT.
In al cases, every eort should be made to ac-
count for the requirement to consolidate gains early
in the planning process so that adequate aditional
combat power is availale to consolidate gains with-
out diverting forces from other purposes and losing
tempo. Similar to how the corps aproaches consol-
idating gains, the division may pass an uncommied
BCT forward into the close area to maintain tempo
and momentum and assign an already commied
BCT consolidate gains related tasks in its AO. is
aproach avoids the complexities of a relief in place
while in contact and generaly saves time but ads
the complexity of a forward passage of lines requir-
ing detailed planning and rehearsals.
e BCT entrusted with the division consolida-
tion area enales the division’s MEB to focus on the
security and C2 of the suport area(s) and enaling
operations in the close and deep areas. MEBs are
task organized with engineer and military police
units to facilitate maneuver suport while securing
routes and sustainment sites from mid-level threats.
eir focus is enaling the desired tempo of opera-
tions in the close and deep areas, not consolidating
gains achieved in those areas.
e easiest way to think of the division consolida-
tion area is as another close ght area with a dierent
purpose. FM 3-0 states that a division consolidation
area requires at least one BCT to be responsile for
it as an assigned area of operations.
9
No smaler force
can hanle the task because the BCT is the rst
element capale of controling airspace and employ-
ing combined arms across an AO. As an operation
progresses, multiple BCTs may be employed to
consolidate gains within the division AO, particularly
Consolidating Gains in Korea
Following a successful UN amphibious counteroensive
in September 1950, the invading North Korean military
was forced back north out of South Korea and even-
tually across the Yalu River into China. Accompanying
the Allied forces as they crossed the 38th parallel were
public health and welfare detachments whose mission
was to administer military government in occupied
areas. However, the existence of these detachments
was short-lived, as Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and
drove UN forces back below the 38th parallel. ese
detachments were subsequently replaced by Unit-
ed Nations Civil Assistance Corps, Korea (UNCACK)
teams, which provided civil aairs support in the south
with the stated missions of helping to “prevent disease,
starvation, and unrest,” to “safeguard the security of the
rear areas,” and “to assure that front line action could go
on without interruption by unrest in the rear.” Guidance
given to these units was oen vague. One UNCACK of-
cer later recounted that the only guidance he received
in two years of service was, “Your orders are to see what
needs to be done and do what you can.”
For more on the public health and welfare detach-
ments and UNCACK teams, see “Same Organiza-
tion, Four Dierent Names: U.S. Army Civil Aairs
in Korea 1950-1953,” U.S. Army Special Operations
Command History Oce, hps://www.soc.mil/AR-
SOF_History/articles/v7n1_same_org_four_names_
page_1.html.
September-October 2019 MILITARY REVIEW22
toward the successful conclusion of large-scale ground
combat operations. Successful consolidation of gains
ultimately denies the enemy the time, space, and psy-
chological breathing space to reorganize for continued
resistance. At the taical level, consolidating gains is
the preventative that kils the seeds of insurgency.
History shows that successfuly consolidating
gains requires a much broader aproach than simply
assigning aditional stability tasks to existing subordi-
nate formations. ey lack the ecialized capabilities
to comprehensively consolidate gains in an enduring
manner because it is simply not what they are designed
to do; they are built for LSCO. Our Army adressed
this prolem eectively in the past. During World War
II, the United States realized that it would need to
set conditions for the governance of the teritories it
liberated in Europe and the Pacic.
By the D-Day landings in 1944, the U.S. Army had
assessed governance aptitude and expertise amongst
its ranks and identied 7,500 U.S. military personnel
to train in the United States as the cadre for military
governance in liberated areas. ey were placed into
governance detachments assigned directly to corps
and division commanders during combat operations
for the purpose of consolidating gains directly behind
the close area. Governance detachments reeab-
lished civil administration, cared for sick and injured
locals, registered the local population, assisted refu-
gees and displaced persons, colected weapons and
contraband, organized local citizens for the cleanup
of their communities, and reealished basic services
to the cities, towns, and vilages occupied by Alied
forces to the best of their ability.
For the taician, the goal is to continuously create
and then exploit positions of relative advantage that
facilitate the achievement of military objectives that
suport the political end state of a campaign. Al ef-
forts to consolidate gains ultimately suport that goal;
therefore, they must be synchronized and integrated
into the campaign plan itself.
Army and Navy Civil Aairs Staging Area (CASA) ocers listen to a
civilian speaker on stage with a large map of Asia at an assembly in the
spring of 1945 in Presidio of Monterey, California. (Photo courtesy of
the U.S. Army via the National Archives)
23MILITARY REVIEW September-October 2019
CONSOLIDATING GAINS
e Operational Artist’s View
Operational artists design military campaigns
to achieve strategic goals. They consider the em-
ployment of military forces and the arangement
of tactical efforts in time, space, and purpose to
achieve strategic objectives. Folowing the initialy
successful invasion of Iraq in 2003, the joint force
learned many valuale lessons about the importance
of rapily consolidating gains. The first and perhaps
most important lesson was adequately determining
the required means (forces) to accomplish not only
the tasks required to defeat enemy forces in the field
but also those required to estalish physical control
of the entire country. Identifying and deploying the
necessary capabilities to defeat al potential forms
of enemy resistance should be a fundamental part of
any operational aproach seeking to end a war with
an enduring and decisive outcome. This requires
breaking the enemy’s wil to resist.
Consolidating gains was and remains critical to
aacking the enemy’s wil. Part of breaking the wil to
resist is denying the availale means to resist, which
means kiling or capturing its reular and ireular
forces and separating them from the population, seiz-
ing control of weapons and munitions, and controling
the population in a
way that maintains
order and security
without creating incentives for further resistance.
is provides incontrovertile evidence of defeat
and removes the hope upon which those who would
mount a protraed resistance feed. It generaly has a
sobering eect on the population, particularly when
done quickly, an eect that endures if the means that
secure a population and enforce its orderly behavior
improve or do not excessively interfere with the eco-
nomic and personal lives of the people.
Planning to consolidate gains is integral to pre-
vailing in armed conict. Any campaign that does
not account for the requirement to consolidate gains
is either a punitive expedition or likely to result in a
protraed war. e planning must therefore account
for the desired end state of military operations and
work backward. It should determine how much dam-
age to infrastructure is acceptale and desirale, what
is required to physicaly secure the relevant terain
and populations, and what resources are availale
among both Army forces and our coalition alies. It
needs to account for al the potential means of enemy
resistance to ensure the
defeat of the enemy
Col. Nate Springer,
U.S. Army, is a recent
graduate of the Advanced
Strategic Leadership
Studies Program through
the School of Advanced
Military Studies (SAMS),
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
He holds an MA in security
studies from the Naval
Postgraduate School, an
MMAS from the Command
and General Sta College,
and an MA in strategic
studies from SAMS. He pre-
viously served as executive
ocer to the commanding
general, Combined Arms
Center, and commander
of 1st Squadron, 32nd
Cavalry, 101st Airborne
Division. His assignments
include multiple tours in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Col. Richard Creed,
U.S. Army, is the director
of the Combined Arms
Doctrine Directorate at
Fort Leavenworth and one
of the authors of FM 3-0,
Operations. He holds a BS
from the United
States Military Academy,
an MS from the School
of Advanced Military
Studies, and an MS from
the Army War College. His
assignments include tours
in Germany, Korea, Bosnia,
Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Lt. Gen. Michael D.
Lundy, U.S. Army, is the
commanding general of the
U.S. Army Combined Arms
Center and the comman-
dant of the Command and
General Sta College on
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
He holds an MS in strategic
studies and is a graduate
of the Command and
General Sta College and
the Army War College. He
previously served as the
commanding general of the
U.S. Army Aviation Center
of Excellence at Fort Rucker,
Alabama, and he has de-
ployed to Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq,
and Afghanistan.
Lt. Col. Sco Pence,
U.S. Army, is the executive
ocer to the commanding
general, Combined Arms
Command. He holds a BA
in organizational psychol-
ogy from the University
of Michigan, an MBA from
Webster University, and
an MMAS in operational
art from the School for
Advanced Military Studies.
His previous assignments
include commander, 5th
Squadron, 73rd Cavalry,
82nd Airborne Division;
baalion and brigade
operations ocer in the
173rd Airborne Brigade;
and assistant S3 and HHC
commander of the 75th
Ranger Regiment.
September-October 2019 MILITARY REVIEW24
in detail. Planning should also determine, based upon
the availale resources, where and when to accept risk
in terms of balancing the need to consolidate gains
against maintaining the desired tempo of an operation.
Consolidating gains throughout the operation may
require a slower tempo but result in a shorter conict,
while a high-tempo operation that quickly achieves
taical success may result in a longer conict because
signicant parts of the enemy forces and population
not engaged or inuenced by the initial bales may
retain both the means and wil to resist.
e Roman general Scipio Africanus is an exam-
ple of a successful operational artist in ancient times
who understood the importance of consolidating
gains. During the Second Punic War, he designed the
campaigns against Hannibal’s Carthaginian armies
and their Spanish alies while the authorities in Rome
decided the overal strategy. In 208 BC, although
outnumbered, he launched an initial assault to seize
the critical port of Cartagena, Spain, and with it the
base of suplies and reinforcements for Hannibal’s
movement from North Africa to the Italian penin-
sula. Folowing the seizure of Cartagena, he showed
mercy to the vanquished Spanish troops and built a
reputation for baleeld diplomacy. Scipio made ef-
fective use of the slow reaion of other Carthaginian
forces in Spain. While maintaining a defense around
the perimeter of Cartagena, he alocated sucient
forces to eectively administer the population. He
found work for the captured artisans and set free al
of the residents that agreed to suport his cause. His
enlightened and innovative leadership resulted in a
stale and secure environment that protected non-
combatants as a means to achieve Rome’s strategic
aim of denying Spain as an enemy base of opera-
tions.
10
Without eective consolidation measures in
Cartagena, Scipio would not have been ale to control
the gains he had won. News of his aions folowing
the seizure of Cartagena won over three of the most
powerful tribes in Spain and gave Scipio a numerical
advantage against the Carthaginians. Months later,
he routed the Carthaginians at the Bale of Baecula.
Historian B. H. Lidel Hart noted, “Scipio, more than
any other great captain, seems to have graed the
truth that the fruits of victory lie in the aer years of
p e a c e .”
11
ese timeless historical lessons are ignored
at our peril, and the striking similarities between con-
icts over time should inform our eorts today.
Campaign planners designate forces to consol-
idate gains and advocate for strategic-level leaders
to alocate the resources necessary to achieve objec-
tives. Candor and mutual understanding criticaly
impact this dialoue. Strategic leaders must make
resource alocation decisions based upon wel-in-
formed operational-level planner estimates and in-
formed by the actual operational environment in the
context of our doctrine, not the potentialy faulty
assumptions that underpin a desire for easy victories.
Understanding the population in the area of opera-
tions is a critical step toward avoiding faulty assump-
tions. Cheap and easy victories where populations do
not play a significant role in the conflict are not the
historic norm and are virtualy impossile against
capale enemy nation-states.
A Strategist’s View
In the philosophy of a there is no pinciple more sound
than this: that the peranence of peace deends, in large
degree, upon the magnanimity of the icto.
—Col. I. L. Hunt, Civil Aairs Ocer, World War I
12
e military strategist is most concerned with
creating multiple options and conditions that place
the United States in positions of relative advan-
tage. When considering ends, ways, and means, the
strategist needs to consider, and reconsider, con-
solidating gains before, during, and aer a conict.
Military governance is a good example of potential
strategic-level consideration to consolidate gains
mentioned earlier. roughout most of American
military history, a lack of forethought about military
governance at the strategic level has made the consol-
idation of gains during and aer large-scale combat
markely more dicult. e reality is that military
governance has been an unavoidale component of
American military intervention going back to the
Indian Wars of the nineteenth century.
ere has been an ongoing debate, rekinled from
one campaign to the next, about what the U.S. military’s
proper role should be in the administration of gover-
nance to civilian populations under its control. e
prewar debates center on whether the military should
25MILITARY REVIEW September-October 2019
CONSOLIDATING GAINS
execute such a task or if governance should be le to
professional bureaucrats. Regarless of the debate, and
whether the military does or does not want to execute
governance operations during large-scale combat, the
military nds itself governing out of necessity both
during and aer conicts even if it is rarely, if ever,
labeled as such. In most cases, this hapens because there
is no other government entity present to do the job in
the rst place. e Second World War is one of the few
examples of strategists linking military governance and
consolidating gains to enduring strategic outcomes.
Folowing the surender of Germany, the Oce
of Military Government United States (OMGUS) in
the American Zone was ealished to command and
control al governance operations. Control of gover-
nance detachments shied from taical commanders
to OMGUS. Once military governance detachments
were under the control of the post-surender terito-
rial C2 structure of OMGUS, U.S. governance eorts
were beer streamlined and coordinated with the
German governmental system maximizing eciency
with German counterparts at the local, regional, and
national levels. e alignment of U.S. governance de-
tachments with the German governmental structure in
the post-combat phase was imperative and accelerated
reoring Germans to power at every level, crucialy
removing the U.S. Army from the governance side of
the street as soon as possile.
e debate between the ecacy of the land, sea, or
air power is realy one of consolidating gains. People
transit through the air and sea. ey live on land. e
Scipio’s Noble Deed (1640), painting, by Nicholas Poussin. Roman
general Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus conquered the port of
Carthage located in what is today southern Spain. One widely retold
anecdote that emerged from this conquest was his reputed return of
a beautiful young captive woman unravished to her family and an-
cé. is gesture reportedly promoted his reputation among the local
conquered population for justice and mercy, which facilitated their
acquiescence to his rule and their cooperation. e reputed event
became emblematic of his shrewd diplomatic approach to stabilizing
and consolidating Roman gains in a series of campaigns that eventually
cleared the way for his eventual conquest of Carthage itself. (Painting
originally from Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Digital/me-
chanical reproduction via Wikimedia Commons)
September-October 2019 MILITARY REVIEW26
initial U.S. strategy in Vietnam (1965–1968) was to
use air power to bomb targets in North Vietnam in
order to force the North Vietnamese to the negotiat-
ing tale.
13
Although the bombing imposed great suf-
fering and material damage, the failure of the Army
of the Repulic of Vietnam and U.S. ground forces to
consolidate taical gains in ways that earned popular
suport ceded those gains.
e execution of military government has proven an
inescapale, crucial aect of war that the U.S. military,
ecicaly the Army, must consider. e U.S. military
must plan and prepare for the execution of military
governance before, during, and aer combat operations.
is planning deserves the same, or perhaps greater,
level of professional forethought than combat operations
received. Failure to do so results in the type of ad hoc
aproach that charaerized our experiences in Iraq.
Conclusion
e U.S. Army has consolidated gains, with varying
degrees of success, throughout its history. It did so in the
Indian Wars, aer the Civil War during Reconstruction,
during the Spanish-American War, during World
War II and Korea, and in Vietnam, Haiti, Iraq, and
Afghanistan. e success of consolidation-of-gains op-
erations shaped how those wars and conicts are viewed
today. How we plan for, execute, and folow through
with consolidating gains in our generation wil deter-
mine not just the strategic advantages of the Nation but
dene the way history judges our aions.
By placing the reader in the shoes of the taician, the
operational artist, and the strategist, this article sought
to provide a clearer understanding about consolida-
tion-of-gains operations. e release of FM 3-0 in 2017
and the professional discussion that folowed enaled an
OMG
Bavaria
OMG
Wuerttemberg-Baden
OMG
Greater Hesse
OMG
Bremen
OMG
Berlin District
Laenderrat
OMG–Oce of Military Government USFET G-5–U.S. Forces in the European theater civil aairs-military government section
Coordinating
committee
Control sta
Control council
Berlin
Kommandatura
Oce of military government
(United States)
Deputy military
governor
Military governor
also theater commander
Regional government
coordinating oce
Liaison and security oces of Landkreis and Stadtkreis level
USFET
G-5
U.S. Military Government Relationships aer 1 April 1946
(Figure from e U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany 1944-1946, Earl F. Ziemke)
27MILITARY REVIEW September-October 2019
CONSOLIDATING GAINS
apreciation of how the Army strategic roles contribute
to the joint defense of the Nation, identied organiza-
tional gaps, and began to change the Army. Military pro-
fessionals must engage in thoughtful reection and study
of how we consolidate gains on the baleeld if we are
to prevail in future conicts. We welcome the insightful
professional discussion that ensues.
Notes
1. Department of Defense, Summary of the National Defense
Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American
Military’s Competitive Edge (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Publishing Oce [GPO], 2018), 6.
2. Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO,
6 October 2017), chap. 8.
3. Ibid., 1-35.
4. Mike Lundy and Rich Creed, “e Return of U.S. Army Field
Manual 3-0, Operations,” Military Review 97, no. 6 (November-De-
cember 2017): 19.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. FM 3-0, Operations, chap. 8.
8. Polybius, “Book X,” e Histories of Polybius, 6.36, accessed on
26 May 2019, hp://penelope.uchicago.edu/ayer/E/Roman/Texts/
Polybius/10*.html.
9. FM 3-0, Operations, 8-6.
10. Polybius, “Book X,” 2.7–2.9.
11. B. H. Liddell Hart, Scipio Africanus: Greater than Napoleon (La
Vergne, TN: BN Publishing, 1926), 45.
12. I. L. Hunt, American Military Government of Occupied
Germany, 1918-1920: Report of the Ocer in Charge of Civil Aairs,
ird Army and American Forces in Germany (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Oce, 1943), vii, accessed 2 July 2019, hps://
history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/interwar_years/american_
military_government_of_occupied_germany_1918-1920.pdf.
13. John T. McNaughton, Dra Memorandum for Secretary of
Defense Robert S. McNamara, “Annex–Plan for Action for South
Vietnam,” in e Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, vol. 3 (Washington,
DC: Department of Defense, 24 March 1965), accessed 1 July 2019,
hps://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon3/doc253.htm.
Sgt. Verlan Gunnell (second from right) speaks with Eleanor Roosevelt
(third from right) in this photograph from World War II. Also pictured
(from le) are Brig. Gen. James Edmunds, administrative ocer of the
Oce of Military Government, United States (OMGUS); Ambassador
Robert Murphy, political adviser of OMGUS; Lt. Gen. Lucius Clay,
deputy military governor of OMGUS; Richard Jones; and Sgt. Jay
Campbell (far right). (Photo submied by the Gunnell family via e
Preston Citizen/e Herald Journal, hps://www.hjnews.com/)
September-October 2019 MILITARY REVIEW28
For more on consolidating gains, Military Review recommends
the previously published article “e Particular Circumstances of
Time and Place” by retired U.S. Army Col. David Hunter-Chester.
e author, a trained historian, compares the U.S. occupation of
Japan with the coalition occupation of Iraq, while also drawing on
his personal experience working with the Coalition Provisional
Authority in Baghdad, to show why U.S. plans and policies for oc-
cupying any country should be tailored to the situation. To view
this article from the May-June 2016 edition of Military Review,
visit hps://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/
Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20160630_art010.pdf.
Military Review also recommends the previously published article
“Government versus Governance” by U.S. Army Maj. Jennifer Jant-
zi-Schlichter. e author asserts that there are two main reasons
that the U.S. military has been unable to achieve success in building
sustainable governments in Iraq and Afghanistan: the U.S. military
has failed to dierentiate between government and governance;
and it does not eectively train and educate its personnel on how
to execute this task. To view this article from the November-De-
cember 2018 edition of Military Review, visit hps://www.armyu-
press.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/ND-18/
Jantzi-Schlichter-Govt-Governance.pdf.
For those interested in older examples of successful consolidation of
gains in U.S. military history, Military Review recommends the pre-
viously published article “Expeditionary Land Power: Lessons from
the Mexican-American War” by U.S. Army Maj. Nathan A. Jennings.
e author details the planning and execution of a campaign by
Gen. Wineld Sco that is considered by many historians to be a
textbook example of how consolidation of gains were eectively
incorporated into an overall invasion and occupation plan. To view
this article from the January-February 2017 edition of Military Re-
view, visit hps://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/
Archives/English/MilitaryReview_2017228_art010.pdf.
