War Οf Τhe Worlds

The US military is pivoting its training operations from the anti-guerrilla tactics used in Afghanistan and Iraq to plans for a full-on, dug-in, nuclear-armed confrontation with an enemy superpower like Russia or China. Novelist and ex-Marine Phil Klay and photojournalist Peter Van Agtmael report on war's grave new frontier

- By Phil Klay. Photography by Peter Van Agtmael

AMERICA’S MILITARY IS preparing for a different kind of war. After two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting insurgents and terrorist groups who used guerrilla-style tactics, the US armed forces have a new focus: “peer-to-peer combat.” War between great nations with large militaries. War—hypothetically—with Russia or with China. Combat of the sort America hasn’t engaged in since Korea. As alarming as it may sound, every branch of the Defense Department is currently undergoing a major restructuring, reevaluating doctrine, weaponry, tactics, and training to prepare for just this kind of war. After a recent trip to Washington, DC—to help military experts workshop peer-to-peer war—Austrian army officer Franz-Stefan Gady, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told me that this new cultural and tactical pivot among the world’s major powers “could be as big of a change as going from frontier soldiers chasing Comanches to the Civil War.”