The U.S. Army Profession of Arms After a Decade of War
This paper examines the U.S. Army's Profession of Arms initiative as articulated in General Martin Dempsey's 2010 White Paper and the 2011 follow-up report, both produced after nearly a decade of sustained combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The paper explores how the Army defines professional soldier identity across four fields of expertise — military-technical, human development, moral-ethical, and political-cultural — and how prolonged counterinsurgency operations challenged those standards. It also surveys the historical context of the U.S. Army's conflicts from the Revolutionary era through Iraq and Afghanistan, and considers the human costs of repetitive deployments on soldiers, families, and public trust.
- Introduction: Pentagon's 2011 overview of war's impact on the Army
- General Dempsey's 2010 Army White Paper on the Profession of Arms: White paper's mission to refresh understanding of military professionalism
- Defining the Professional Soldier: Four expertise fields and layers of Army culture defined
- The 2011 Profession of Arms Report: An Army in Transition: Army ethics, self-regulation, and stress from repeated deployments
- Historical Timeline of U.S. Army Conflicts: Civil War through Iraq and Afghanistan casualty comparisons
- Conclusion: Call for ethical strength, rest, and family support
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What makes this paper effective
- It grounds its analysis in primary sources — two official Army white papers — giving the argument institutional authority and specificity.
- The paper moves logically from a broad policy framing through definitional content to historical context, building a coherent picture of Army professional identity over time.
- Direct quotations from General Dempsey and General MacArthur are used strategically to let the primary sources speak, while the author provides analytical framing around them.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates close reading of government policy documents as primary sources. Rather than treating official publications as mere background, the author interrogates their rhetorical choices — noting, for instance, when language is "self-promotional" — while still extracting substantive content about Army doctrine and ethics. This dual approach balances source summary with critical commentary.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a Pentagon overview, then devotes separate sections to the 2010 and 2011 white papers, unpacking definitions of professional expertise and Army culture in detail. A historical survey of U.S. Army conflicts provides comparative context for the human cost of the post-9/11 wars. The conclusion synthesizes the ethical and human dimensions raised throughout, calling for continued institutional vigilance and support for military families.
Introduction
The Pentagon released a one-page explanation of the Profession of Arms (POA) in 2011 that points out the "significant impacts" the preceding nine and a half years had on the "Army, its Soldiers, Families and Civilians" (Pentagon). This statement acknowledged that many of the impacts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are "well documented and are being addressed," but noted that "there remain, however, other consequences that we seek to understand." Within those consequences, the Pentagon wanted to "take a hard look" at how soldiers had changed as "individuals, as professionals and as a profession" (Pentagon).
The level of responsibility carried by today's Army soldiers is "like no other profession," owing to the fact that soldiers are entrusted to "apply lethal force ethically and only when necessary" — an extremely difficult task given the "chaotic and deadly machinations of war" (Pentagon). The support that the Army and its soldiers receive from the American people is described as "tremendous," and the Army is "forever grateful" and pledges never to take that support "for granted."
Works Cited
The Profession of Arms / An Army White Paper. "I am an expert and I am a professional." U.S. Army / CG TRADOC Approved. Retrieved September 21, 2011, from:
The Profession of Arms / 2011 U.S. Army Posture Statement. Retrieved September 21, 2011, from:
The Profession of Arms After 10 Years of Persistent Conflict. Center for the Army Profession and Ethic Combined Arms Center, TRADOC. Retrieved September 21, 2011, from:
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