It seems there are few discrete and happy endings—like victory over Germany and Japan—in peacetime strategy. Advocacy is hard without a gripping tale to tell.

And third, the U.S. Air Force and fellow maritime forces should look at the situation up north as an opportunity as well as a threat. The U.S. armed forces, it is often said, only play away games. They are the visitor, venturing onto other home teams’ turf. There they have to contend not just with hostile navies but with an array of land-based anti-access weaponry. The Pentagon has struggled with figuring out how to nullify others’ home-team advantage so Washington can get its way in the South China Sea, Black Sea, and elsewhere around the Eurasian periphery.

In a sense the U.S. military could take advantage of role reversal in the Arctic, making the theater a laboratory for anti-access American style. Hostile forces may operate off U.S. seacoasts and will need managing if so. Fielding armaments able to reach out from land in concert with seagoing forces, and devising and practicing the necessary joint tactics, could let U.S. commanders glimpse the methods deployed by red teams around the world. And getting in the red team’s mind is a crucial step toward defeating it.

By augmenting its home-field advantage in the Arctic, then, the Pentagon might even the odds against home teams in Eurasia. The Arctic Strategy is a good start. But one hopes the service leadership will mix a little Patton into its thinking to go with the Westmoreland.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College. The views voiced here are his alone. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Flickr.