Book Review - Breaking the Phalanx: A New Design for Landpower in the 21st Century

• Author: Major James R. Agar, Ii
• Pages: 07

266 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 160

BREAKING THE PHALANX:

A NEW DESIGN FOR LANDPOWER IN THE 21ST CENTURY1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR JAMES R. AGAR, II2

Few soldiers could accomplish the feats of Colonel Douglas Macgregor. During the Persian Gulf War, he directed a battle against Iraq's elite Republican Guard with only ten tanks and thirteen Bradley fighting vehicles at his disposal. After just twenty-three minutes, the Battle of 73 Easting was over with Iraqi losses of nearly seventy armored vehicles. Macgregor's troop suffered no casualties. Two years later at the U.S. Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, Macgregor again proved indomitable. "In a series of five battles, most units typically lose four, draw one; Macgregor won three, lost one, drew one-still the best showing since the Persian Gulf War."3

Colonel Macgregor then turned his attention to perhaps the most daunting task of his career: the reformation of the U.S. Army. In Breaking the Phalanx,4 Macgregor advocates a smaller, more concentrated, and lethal Army. He takes the title of his book from ancient military history when the Roman Legions first engaged the Macedonian Phalanx around 200 BC. While the Romans were outnumbered, their smaller and more agile Legions were able to flank the Macedonians and "break" the Phalanx. They defeated the Macedonians, not with an army that was superior in numbers, but superior in organization.5 Macgregor believes the fate suffered by the once impregnable Macedonian Phalanx may be a prologue for today's Army.

Macgregor sees land armies as the primary means for achieving and maintaining strategic global dominance. Using historical examples of every conflict from this century, he outlines how America habitually

neglects its defense needs, particularly the Army. It is this weakness, he argues, that then entices our enemies to strike. While the Air Force and Navy play significant roles in the game of strategic dominance, none of the major conflicts in this century were ended until the United States committed the Army to battle.6 Meanwhile, American ground forces in Europe and the Korean peninsula have successfully deterred communist aggression for fifty years.

But America's lynchpin of strategic dominance may have seen its zenith. Macgregor identifies two problems with today's Army: first, it is much smaller than anytime since 1948;7 and second, it's organized the same way it was during World War II.

Throughout the book, Macgregor appeals to the reader to resist further reductions in the troop strength or budget of the Army, even to the point of cannibalizing the budgets of the sister services. The wisdom of this is debatable, but Macgregor believes he has a plan to take the same numbers of soldiers in today's Army and organize them into a more effective fighting force.

According to Macgregor, the issue is one of information. Today's Army fights with far more information than it did decades ago. Commanders now possess a wealth of information from a variety of sources: satellites, computer networks, radar, and unmanned aerial reconnaissance. Weapons...