Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance

Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. US Battle Tactics of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Written By Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade. Modern warfare. Iraq War. Shock and Awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an adversary's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight. The doctrine was written by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in 1996 and is a product of the National Defense University of the United States. Rapid dominance is defined by its authors, Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, as attempting; "to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fight or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe." Further, rapid dominance will; "impose this overwhelming level of Shock and Awe against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on . . . [to] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels