Battle of Churubusco . Fought near the City of Mexico 20th of August 1847 ( 1847 ), hand-tinted lithograph , by John Cameron ( artist ) and Nathaniel Currier ( lithographer ), digitally restored . ( Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons )
Expeditionary Land Power
Lessons from the Mexican-American War
Maj . Nathan A . Jennings , U . S . Army
Since drawing down its large-scale counterinsurgency campaigns in the Middle East , the U . S . Army has been increasingly adopting , as described by its thirty-eighth chief of staff , “ an expeditionary mindset ” to “ conduct forced entry in denied areas under extremely austere conditions anywhere in the world .” 1 While many are turning to the two world wars and interventions in Korea , Vietnam , Afghanistan , and Iraq for applicable lessons , the campaigns of the nineteenth century — with the exception of the Civil War — may offer more relevant case studies where relatively small , technologically advanced , and professionally led forces deployed to distant theaters . From the Indian Wars that raged across expanding American frontiers to the global attacks of the Spanish- American War , the republic ’ s oldest military service evolved to negotiate rapid and economized expeditionary warfare in both conventional and guerrilla settings . 2
In the Mexican-American War , 1846 – 1848 , a series of sparsely resourced but highly effective expeditions exemplified the U . S . Army Operating Concept ’ s imperative for future forces to jointly “ present the enemy with multiple dilemmas ” by being able to “ conduct expeditionary
42 January-February 2017
MILITARY REVIEW