Achieving Peace Today

ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

"Are partnership, strength, and willingness to negotiate effective principles in achieving peace today?" (Laird 1970) The primary approach of establishing peace has been a topic of discussion over the past decades. The ability to understand what approach is effective is important in establishing peace in the future. I believe Laird's insights are applicable to today. Force restructure will continue to deter the threat of war and/or conflicts with our enemies. Budget decreases will minimize our nation's debt; however, a strong force must be maintained in order to secure our nation's interest. An integrated allied plan will allow the United States to share the burden of our national security with our allies. (Laird 1970)

Force restructure was an important part of Laird's insight in establishing peace for our nation. I feel today force restructuring continues to play a role in maintaining peace. Our force has transitioned from a wartime mindset to a peacetime frame of mind and we sustain peace through a show of force to deter conflict. As stated in the pamphlet The Army Operating Concept "the United Stated Armed forces conduct operations as part of the joint force to deter conflict" (TRADOC 2010).

Additionally, we have restructured our forces to operate in environments such as Iraq and Afghanistan fighting against unconventional warfare. As stated in the Congressional Research Service "the new brigade combat team configuration will be more flexible to deal with irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive challenges" (CRS 2008). The significance of this statement alone lets us know that our forces must be restructured in order to protect our nation's interest and the interest of our allies.

Furthermore, integrated allied planning is applicable to today and our nation has successfully utilized this principle during the Iraq and Afghanistan operations. As our nation combines military efforts with our allies such as a partnership, we together are able to defend the world with minimal burden on us and for a longer duration. As stated in the article, Institutionalizing Adaptation, "The most important military component of the Long War will not be the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower our allies to fight with us" (Nagl 2007). One can infer from the article that integration of our forces with our allies such as Military Transition Teams are necessary to sustain operations over a long period of time (Nagl 2007).

Additionally, US forces individually are incapable of providing security for the entire world without sustaining significant burden physically and financially. The Army Capstone Concept further supports the integration of allies by stating "security force assistance is essential to stability operations, countering irregular threats, preventing conflicts, and