The fast tempo decisive combat operations has been called the "New American Way of War." This is in contrast to the traditional "American Way of War" which emphasized using massive amounts of firepower in a "grinding strategy of attritions" like the United States did against Germany and Japan in World War II. A major problem for Joint Force commanders and their staffs is that the speed of campaign in this "New American Way of War" challenges their ability to adequately plan for both the decisive war fight and the transition to post conflict operations. Campaigns of attrition in the traditional "American Way of War" tended to be long and therefore there was time during the war fight to plan for the aftermath. Obviously, a solution to this problem is not to revert back to the attrition based strategy, but to figure out how to best organize our commands to deal with this planning complexity. There are many implications with this transition from war fighting to the post conflict across the echelons of command and levels of war from training of combat forces to the integration of the interagency into the operational concept. This monograph focuses on one such implication of this new American way of war, the ability for the command structure to adequately plan through the entire campaign. The monograph's thesis is to better facilitate the transition from the dominate phase to the stability phase will require separate operational-level headquarters, with sufficient training and expertise, focused on each of these phases working under a geographic combatant commander's overall operational design. In operational design, it is important to get the overall command structure right with appropriate levels of responsibility and clear relationships and objectives. An examination of three past operations will reveal insights on the validity of the hypothesis. The first case study is General Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters' Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) during World War II which is an example of the traditional massive firepower, attrition-based "American Way of War." We will see how the SHAEF command structure organized where the length of the dominate phase was much longer and therefore time to prepare for the stability phase was longer. The two other case studies, US joint operations in Panama, and Operation Iraqi Freedom are examples of the "New American Way of War." These operations had dominant phases that were very fast causing a quick transition to the stability phase. The SHAEF case study will reveal insights on what type of organizations, policies, procedures, and training, that evolved over time, that will need to be built into how we operate in the "New American Way of War." This monograph uses organizational theory concepts of differentiation and integration to analyze the command structures in each of these case studies. This monograph concludes that it is not only important to properly structure the command through differentiation and integration to meet the complexity of the environment, but it is also necessary to have commanders and staff that are knowledgeable of how to conduct the transition from the dominate and the stability phase. The monograph recommends that this transition be trained in exercises and taught at appropriate Army and Joint schools and courses.

ADA 471797 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)