FLEXIBILITY WITHOUT PURPOSE

Why the United States No Longer Has a Doctrine of War

Tom Raquer

Lt. Col. (Ret.), USAF • Southeast Asia Foreign Area Officer

From the series: After the Winter — Collapse, Spring, and the New First Turning

Writing for First Turning Strategists

April 4, 2026

PREVIEW

Over the past several days, I’ve examined how this war is actually being decided—through risk, flow, and time.

Today: the larger problem.

The United States is now conducting war without a doctrine.

Flexibility has replaced clarity.

That is not adaptation.

It is drift.

KEY POINTS

• The United States has inverted the Powell Doctrine without replacing it
• Ambiguity preserves options but destroys strategic clarity
• Wars now start without sustained public consent or congressional authorization
• Limited force avoids a quagmire but prevents decisive outcomes
• In a republic, the center of gravity is the citizen
• This reflects Fourth Turning conditions: authority expanding, legitimacy contracting

THE DOCTRINE GAP

The United States once had a framework for war:

Clear goal.

Overwhelming force.

Public support.

Defined end state.

It was imperfect—but it was coherent.

That coherence is now gone.

What has replaced it is not a new doctrine.

It is the absence of one.

DOCTRINE OR SYSTEM?

Analysts like Richard Fontaine describe the current moment as a shift in how the United States employs force. It is now more flexible. The approach is more limited and more adaptive.

That captures the surface.

It does not capture the condition beneath it.

Flexibility suggests intentional design.

What we are seeing is adaptation under constraint.

Authority is expanding.

Legitimacy is contracting.

The mechanism itself is beginning to fracture.

Doctrine is not being replaced.

It is eroding—because the framework that once made doctrine coherent is no longer aligned with itself.

FLEXIBILITY AS SUBSTITUTE

Recent operations share common features:

• Objectives are vague or shifting
• Force is limited—airpower, strikes, raids
• Public support is assumed, not built
• Congress is bypassed
• End states are undefined

This is often described as flexibility.

But flexibility is not a strategy.

It is the avoidance of decision.

THE FALSE CHOICE

Recent analysis frames the situation as a set of choices: escalate, withdraw, or cut a deal.

That framing is incomplete.

It assumes a decision determines the outcome.

It does not.

The constraint is not a choice.

It is a function.

The Strait of Hormuz is not controlled by declaration.

It is controlled by risk.

Even if the United States secures it militarily, it can’t compel ships to transit an unacceptable risk.

Even if Iran exerts pressure, it does not need to control the Strait.

It only needs to make control irrelevant.

This is the conundrum:

Not who controls the Strait—

But whether anyone can restore it to function.

A strategy can’t solve a problem it has misdefined.

THE CENTER OF GRAVITY

In a constitutional republic, the center of gravity is not the enemy.

It is the citizen.

A war that begins without consent does not accumulate strength.

It accumulates friction.

Every strike conducted without political alignment is an erosion at home.

FOURTH TURNING CONDITIONS

This is not temporary.

It is structural.

In a Fourth Turning:

Authority expands.

Legitimacy contracts.

Debate compresses.

Decisions accelerate.

Consent is bypassed.

War becomes easier to start.

Harder to sustain.

Nearly impossible to conclude cleanly.

CONCLUSION

The United States has not developed a new way of war.

It has lost the one it had.

What remains is:

Action without objective.

Force without definition.

Flexibility without purpose.

This can move.

It cannot produce outcomes.

Because strategy requires alignment:

Political purpose.

Military means.

Public consent.

That alignment is gone.

And without it, power does not accumulate.

It dissipates.

FINAL LINE

Power is not the constraint.

Alignment is.

SOURCES

• Richard Fontaine — strategic framing of escalation/withdrawal/deal options
• International Energy Agency — systemic energy dependence and disruption context
• United States Department of Defence — operational patterns and force employment

AUTHOR BIO (STANDARDIZED)

Tom Raquer is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. He is a Southeast Asia Foreign Area Officer specialising in Indo-Pacific geopolitical risk. He also focuses on maritime security and energy system disruption. He brings over 20 years of experience in political-military analysis, including service at U.S. Pacific Command and as a military diplomat to ASEAN.

His analysis focuses on how conflict, chokepoints, and systemic stress reshape global trade, energy flows, and strategic decision-making. He writes the series After the Winter — Collapse, Spring, and the New First Turning.