Hybrid Warfare (merged thread) [Archive]

Rob Thornton

02-03-2008, 04:18 AM

I think there is some utility in doing what Frank Hoffman has done - thinking about war is an endeavor to understand it - it gives us a basis to contemplate ideas and consider their implications. I'm not apt to get wrapped up in the term - he could have called it blended, mixed, etc vs. the term he chose - being blended. I think there is an interesting thing at work here though - "3 block war" had a linear feel to it - I never felt that was right, but neither could I come up with something I liked better to explain or discuss to others what was going on. "Hybrid" as a term may be closer to the mark - at least it starts to get at the idea of simultaneity.

More important is the thinking that goes on with explaining what he's getting at when he uses "hybrid" - the form in this case is just the wrapping for the function - which is to contemplate the nature of the wars we are seeing. While there may not be much new - again generals such as Slim, Wellington, Marion, Grant, Scipio Africanus, etc. have probably had to contend with some of the same types of conditions in their own campaigns and eras (I'd also add that they may have had to contend with some that we no longer have to, and possibly becuse of culture, technology, or other internal and external influences may not have had to contemplate some of those we now face) - however, we still have to do the nug work to consider how those things apply within the context of the conditions we see or anticipate to really appreciate what they mean.

There is also a question of the audience - not all the folks are going to have a very good frame of reference for understanding military operations - in fact they may never have served at all - however, they may be the ones making the policy choices which lead (or don't lead) to the use of military force to achieve a political objective. Its hard enough to get uniformed personnel to read complex theory or even good history on military affairs - let alone civilians. We sometimes must put things in writing in a manner that creates discussion, but can be digestible for both the professional and non- professional.

I plan on reading the full body tomorrow - I'm just too tired to do it tonight. What I'll try to do when I read it is what I've learned to do with all thoughts people have put down to be read - figure out what the author is trying to get across, and evaluate if I think he's right or wrong, why I think that, and what does it mean to me.

I've not met MR. Hoffman, but I've read a few things he's wrote, from what I've seen he's on a similar journey like many of us to better understand war, and benefit both himself, and what he believes in by doing so. We're not always going to come up with the right terms or definitions - and in some cases there might just not be any - the idea might just be too big to box, however, if you are going to have a discussion based largely on content - meaning through the written word - where animate, interactive discussion is hard or impossible - you have to get some kind of term or definition down - no matter how limited it may be - just to move the ball forward.

I'll comment more tomorrow after I've read it fully - after a good night's sleep.

Best, Rob

William F. Owen

02-03-2008, 04:55 AM

- figure out what the author is trying to get across, and evaluate if I think he's right or wrong, why I think that, and what does it mean to me.

I don't think Frank is wrong, but I think it might not be useful, because he has not couched the idea of "Hybrid" conflict in a reality that can built upon in terms of doctrine.

EG: You have COIN, Hybrid, and War Fighting.

These are premised as being separate, discrete activities, that are part of a spectrum. - (Yes I know that makes no sense, yet that is what is conventionally suggested. Hybrid assumes a mix of two or more separate and discrete entities.)

Why not just suggest that as a professional army, you will have to fight many different types of enemies, with many differing aims and means. All the fundamentals stay the same.

Its hard enough to get uniformed personnel to read complex theory or even good history on military affairs - let alone civilians. We sometimes must put things in writing in a manner that creates discussion, but can be digestible for both the professional and non- professional.

Good point, but this must be held to rigour in the same way other professions, such as medicine, or engineering. Because we don't we end up with 4GW, EBO and other clown-like "concepts" all claiming to shiny new better ways of doing stuff.

Ron Humphrey

02-03-2008, 08:46 AM

I don't think Frank is wrong, but I think it might not be useful, because he has not couched the idea of "Hybrid" conflict in a reality that can built upon in terms of doctrine.

EG: You have COIN, Hybrid, and War Fighting.

These are premised as being separate, discrete activities, that are part of a spectrum. - (Yes I know that makes no sense, yet that is what is conventionally suggested. Hybrid assumes a mix of two or more separate and discrete entities.)

Why not just suggest that as a professional army, you will have to fight many different types of enemies, with many differing aims and means. All the fundamentals stay the same.

Good point, but this must be held to rigour in the same way other professions, such as medicine, or engineering. Because we don't we end up with 4GW, EBO and other clown-like "concepts" all claiming to shiny new better ways of doing stuff.

Does anything think the whole new and shiny sales pitch and different terms all stems from the fact that in western culture we have taken the whole premise of how to get buy-in from superiors too far.

Almost everyone has those times when they recognize something that has been dealt with before and they learned about it but the only way they can get it across is to figure out a way for their leaders to make the idea their own.

How do you get change to take place or at least be understood without reshaping, renaming, or repackaging it in one form or another.

Just thinking about it :confused:

William F. Owen

02-03-2008, 09:39 AM

Does anything think the whole new and shiny sales pitch and different terms all stems from the fact that in western culture we have taken the whole premise of how to get buy-in from superiors too far.

Almost everyone has those times when they recognize something that has been dealt with before and they learned about it but the only way they can get it across is to figure out a way for their leaders to make the idea their own.

How do you get change to take place or at least be understood without reshaping, renaming, or repackaging it in one form or another.

Just thinking about it :confused:

Excellent points. Again, this is a major problem area for me, because in my understanding, albeit limited, I am not aware that you see the same thing in Philosophy for example. There, all the serious practioners have a very good understanding of all the serious work. In military thought,

a.) a minute amount of people have a good and clear understanding of the core works. EG: I doubt my own understanding of Clausewitz because I have had to study him in isolation. This means my understanding of Foch is not as clear as perhaps it should be, though I'd argue that with anyone on the planet, bar Robert Leonhard!

b.) There is no general or widespread acceptance of which core works and thinkers are or were useful. EG, you go from the Genius of Carl Von C, to the idioacy of Liddell-Hart, and end up with the irrelevance of Boyd.

c.) I am not aware (and there maybe, just I don't know it) of any academic of valid Military institute that actaully teaches classes or courses on Military Thought. Therefore, because it is not studied, the playing field is open to the concetp designers to play as they please.

Maximus

02-03-2008, 01:26 PM

I'm a believer that "war" is "war" is "war" and that all talk of counterinsurgency, hybrid, multi-modal, etc. should be unnecessary. However, I see all too often that many in the U.S. military think of "war" only as Gettysburg, the Battle of the Bulge, the seige at Khe Sanh, Desert Storm, initial push during OIF-I, etc. We all know that "war" involves much more. This is why I'm often a fan of using terms like "3 or 4 block war", COIN, "hybrid" war, etc. Much good comes out of the discussions and debates about the validity of these terms and thus forces many in the military to truly think about the characteristics of the wars we've fought and those that we'll fight in the future.

Semper Fi,
Scott

slapout9

02-03-2008, 02:36 PM

Why not just suggest that as a professional army, you will have to fight many different types of enemies, with many differing aims and means. All the fundamentals stay the same.

Hi Wilf, I think this is a very important point. It is not different types of wars but different types of enemies. An enemies cultural backround will heavily influence his methods of war but it is the person that is different not the war.

William F. Owen

02-03-2008, 02:44 PM

Hi Wilf, I think this is a very important point. It is not different types of wars but different types of enemies. An enemies cultural backround will heavily influence his methods of war but it is the person that is different not the war.

Well COIN is counter-insurgency, and that is the fighting against insurgents. What always confuses me is that people think it is a type of conflict.

No enemy, no military action. - which is why I think the idea of the military action being only 20% of the solution is an aphorism based on a deep lack of understanding.

I think the most useful thing we can say about Hybrid Wars is drop the word "hybrid" and then we have a useful term on which to discuss ideas.

slapout9

02-03-2008, 02:57 PM

No enemy, no military action. - which is why I think the idea of the military action being only 20% of the solution is an aphorism based on a deep lack of understanding.

EXACTLY!!! that is why I say this Balderdash:D that Strategy is Ends,Ways and Means will get us killed if we don't change it. Enemies are People. This why I say Strategy is best understood as Motives, Methods and Opportunities.

Rob Thornton

02-03-2008, 03:59 PM

Two different things emerging on the SWC and the SWJ Blog - but we often have different audiences in each. I wanted to pull over my post fromthe blog to add to the discussion here.

Very thought provoking piece, here are some thoughts I got out of my first read.

Regarding, force structures, capabilities and alliances developed and sustained in order to implement strategies specifically to counter U.S. policy interests –I think he’s got a valid point – it comes with recognizing that no matter how you see yourself, other states and groups are going to have their own interests, and they will often run counter to yours – particularly if you espouse things they abhor. Even our closest allies don’t fully agree with us in a number of areas due to their own cultures and domestic politics, so when we see states and organizations finding they have more in common and more to gain by forming alliances to oppose us we should not be surprised.

This “band-waggoning” to pool resources is not new – what may be new is the influence that groups and individuals have, and the ability of geographically and culturally disparate groups to communicate with each other, as well identify how their short and long term interests are served by cooperating – this allows the formation of alliances and the synchronization of efforts in ways that were not possible or feasible 10-20 years ago – the liberalization of the western political and economic environment may have further enabled this allowing like minded enemies access to places, people and ideas that they did not have before. I’m not saying the latter is all bad either, or even a problem – much good has come out of that liberalization – however it is a condition we have to acknowledge – along with the notion that even when something is intended for good, those with a will, will find away to subvert its intended purpose – their own innovation and adaptation.

At the individual level - The speed to which the individual (or individual groups) can have an impact –from collecting more accurate information and disseminating it (could be a video sent through a cell phone network), to the time in which It can be analyzed and manipulated, then posted with new context to serve psychological purposes has increased. No argument there. However – what is the context? I think it means that non-aligned groups, opportunists have greater potential to reach out and participate in ways that while not directly serving the interests of our identified opponents, will cause up problems and drain our resources. They may work counter to both us and our opponents, but unless we can identify who they are, what their goals are, etc. we may confuse the issue and misjudge the conditions and environment – causing us to expend resources (time, money, people, etc.) toward things that are not part of the root problem, or that get us no closer to our objectives. To use an analogy, technology has raised the level of static or white noise we must see through to clearly identify who we should focus on – its kind of like global “Where’s Waldo”. In order to get better at finding Waldo – we’re going to have to find better ways of separating the chaff – this could be either through better analytics that are culturally and environmentally attuned, or by co-opting the white noise where we either find ways to look like Waldo ourselves while we hunt our enemies, or we make the white noise Waldo’s problem instead of ours.

The use of “preferred opponents” vs. “thinking” ones in describing our problem of prioritizing may not fully capture the problem. There is value in the statement if the measure of success is solely how much of a structure can I destroy – meaning inanimate objects to justify acquisition strategies, but the employers of the force don’t feel that way I think. Seems to me there are multiple conversations going on – there are conversations at the tactical, operational and strategic levels, as well as between them – then there seems to be the conversations between the regional COCOM CDRs and services and OSD, then there seems to be the ones between the latter and civilians. At different times context and the language which provides better answers gets reinterpreted for a number of reasons. The closer the inter-action with our enemies occurs, the more we consider our “thinking enemies”. The further away those conversations occur, the more it focuses on hardware and less on people. This may be more a condition then a problem that can be solved. I’d say it could be addressed by articulate uniformed folks making rounds in the halls of Congress –but it may not always be in somebody’s best interest to do so – I can yell as loud in my house as I want – but until I turn off Sponge Bob – my kids don’t seem to listen. This problem has been around since people invented politics though, and probably will not go away anytime soon –we just have to get better about how we work in those conditions.

I’m not sure that Marines are particularly more innovative then other services when the conditions in which they are working are roughly the same. SOF could arguably say they are the best innovators, etc. I think it might be better to consider the conditions which foster innovation – which are by and large ones where you either don’t have enough of something, don’t have access to something, or don’t have the right stuff. Arguably over the last seven years, we’ve seen adaptation and innovation across our military services, but maybe more so in the ground forces – just due to the nature of ground warfare (although other services serving in ground roles have been pretty innovative too). When we are not at war, and when OPTEMPO is low, and conditions don’t require us to make tough choices – Mr. Hoffman may have a point – the Marines did not have the largest service budget, but had to make some tough choices. I’m not sure that is accurate anymore – fighting a war changes that, and if we expect to be fighting for some time to come, then all the services are going to have to make tough choices, and all are going to have to be adaptive and innovative to mitigate the risk that comes with making tough choices.

.

Reference how to find Waldo – there are some things worth considering. One of the things that make finding Waldo easier is when you eyes become accustomed to pattern analysis – this means going beyond focusing on what is a pattern – be it intentional or otherwise, but extending it to recognizing what is not a pattern. Within the Waldo puzzle there are things that look “more” like Waldo, and things that look “less” like Waldo. Part of this gets into the whole issue of intuition and non-linearity, but you could also call it thinking beyond cookie cutter analytic tools. At first glance we tend to see allot of red & white – then we start to distinguish those blobs and develop a kind of Waldo hierarchy – until eventually we’re left with only a few choices.

There may be something worth considering when determining what we expend our resources on – in this case, even though something may not be Waldo – if it looks enough like Waldo – it may be worth going after, either to make finding Waldo easier, or to prevent it from replacing Waldo down the road – there are probably allot of variations in between. Going after these “like Waldos” does not mean we have to destroy them, it might mean we co-opt them (lots of shade under that tree) temporarily or more permanently. Notice I did not speak in absolutes – this is not a fire and forget – either the “like Waldos” become more like us and less like Waldo so that our interests remain more congruent, or down the road the “like Waldos” must be dealt with again.

With regard to making Waldo, and the “like Waldo” more at risk in their own environment – we need to figure out better ways to help the partner Host Nation develop security forces that are at home in their environment and look an awful lot like Waldo in order to better counter him. This is perhaps should be a good part of our strategy – and is one the enemy seems also to be engaged in.

Mr. Hoffman, I appreciate the effort that went into the piece, unless someone is willing to start a conversation, then the rest of us remain to degrees unengaged

Best, Rob

Rob Thornton

02-03-2008, 04:06 PM

Hey Slap,

EXACTLY!!! that is why I say this Balderdash that Strategy is Ends,Ways and Means will get us killed if we don't change it. Enemies are People. This why I say Strategy is best understood as Motives, Methods and Opportunities.

I diagree - but only because I thnk it depends on interpretation of Ends, Ways and Means. It means something different depending on who you talk to and what their concerns are. I think motives, methods and opportunities is also useful - particularly at understanding the proximate type causes - but can be constraining if you are looking for long term causes that have morphed from their orignal impetus or relation - but the effect remains the same. It gets back to the linear, deterministic sense of history vs. the non-linear, contingent one.

Both (ends/ways/means & motive/method/opportunity) I think have their place - neither should exclude the other.

Best, Rob

sullygoarmy

02-03-2008, 05:10 PM

This is certain the "flavor of the week". We just read a monograph called "Square Pegs in Round Holes" by the Australian Land Warfare Study Center where the authors expound on their theory of "Complex Irregular Warfare (CIW)". According to the authors,

"the proponent will adopt some ora ll of the four tenets of traditional irregular wafare but wll also exploit contemporary society to further their ends. An adversary is likely to take advantage of globalization and use technology to attack or cripple a state."

Most people will agree that the majority of potential enemies do not want to fight the U.S. conventional on coventional force. That being said, it makes perfect sense that hybrid war or CIW harnesses the strengths of the attackers while maintaining the flexibility to exploit limited conventional means for offensive action. I do not think this is earth-shattering to anyone...while the methods of warfare always evolve, the nature does not. From Sun Tzu to P4, no one disputes understanding the background, the nature, the goals, and the culture of an enemy is important to develop an effective national strategy translated by the Operational level commander down to the tactical executors.

That being said, certain elements and leaders of the U.S. army were too slow to realize things had changed. Whether wedded to their traditional branch outlook, reliving the glory days of the cold war, or just refusing to see the changing methods of the enemy, these writers of "hybrid/CIW" are serving a useful function: they stimulate debate in the professional military communities. Whether you buy their theory or think its just another way to make some $$$ by publishing these articles, people ARE talking about it, having discussions, some heated, and walking away thinking about the problem. If anything, these think-pieces emphasize the necessity to frame a problem before we jump into planning. By taking the time to frame a problem before rushing into making the powerpoint slide or pulling up an old templated NSS or tactical order from time past, our planners and leaders have a better chance of gaining a much more in-depth understanding of the obstacles ahead.

Ron Humphrey

02-03-2008, 07:41 PM

I am still working on getting through the paper, because I do as several others have also stated, believe that getting the dialogue started is a large part of the greater battle to bring about understanding and consideration of the realities of warfare.

I think the term hybrid is a useful term due to the fact that it is a largely encompassing term requiring the user to look outside of one or two linear
lines of thought. There may also be the added benefit that so many in our current political structure associate it with progress in relation to their energy and automobile choices :wry:

It is this very fact however that concerns me more than much of the literature which is being created. Mr. Hoffman as well as others are doing everything they can to forward the considerations necessary to be effective as armed forces in the long run and for that I applaud their efforts. Were they not doing so it is absolutely certain, considering historic precedence, that the greater structure would change very little other than in the short term. That I'm afraid is human nature and as such must always be held close to the heart when trying to determine any way forward.

We all know that the effectiveness of our military directly correlates to the ability and agility of our commanders and and enlisted soldiers in the field to overcome adversity and utilize whatever they have available to accomplish the mission. It is this idea of getting political buy-in to understanding the need for a well diversified portfolio of capabilities and contingencies, and to hopefully provide financing and approval for these various operations that bothers me.

Yes at the base of it the military is subordinate to it's civilian leadership and that is as it should be. But by enlarging the pool of those to whom you try to sell your wares don't you also bring more into the decision making process than should be in the first place? Isn't that a fairly historic problem (IE: to many Team leads not enough teams )

If we have to engage in this manner in order to get our own leadership to adopt or at least accept it in some form than ok, but is there a point at which we limit the overall audience to whom we give authority to make the ultimate decisions. Am I wrong in thinking that for real change to be affected it is not always required to be understood at all levels. Rather it is primarily necessary to gain acceptance of ideas based on experience and repute of its presenters.

SME's (the original context, Been There Done That guys )

Ken White

02-03-2008, 11:48 PM

Mike Innes

02-04-2008, 12:50 AM

Hi All. I just picked up on the release of Frank Hoffman's report today, and I'm on UK time right now, at 00:57, so won't be reading it until tomorrow. I noticed some of the discussion here got to the usual frustration with definitionalism, the utility of labeling, the utility of the label "hybrid", and so on.

Well, here's another to chew on: at a recent British International Studies Association (BISA) meeting, Antoine Bousquet, a new PhD graduate from the London School of Economics, presented what I thought was a pretty interesting paper on scientific metaphor in military thought.

More specifically, he gets into how the metaphors of four broad era in scientific developments/thought in the West have, in parallel, shaped military understanding of and approaches to war. The first three are fairly straightforward: clockwork/mechanical (ordered), thermodynamic (energetic), and cybernetic (think information and information loops). For the fourth era (now), he adapted a hybrid (!) term, chaoplexity, drawn from chaos and complexity theory and coined a little over a decade ago in a book entitled The End of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age.

Personally, I'm skeptical not of the uses of new labels and reconceptualization in general, but of overlabeling and relabeling the issues of now. A lot of the confusion and debate on what is and what isn't "new", I think, is gobbledygook longhand for "what we don't yet understand" and "insufficient historical hindsight to get a grip". In this case, though, I think Hoffman's work is worth considering; so's Bousquet's.

Here's the link to Bousquet's paper: www.bisa.ac.uk/2007/pps/bousquet.pdf

Thoughts?

Mike

slapout9

02-04-2008, 01:49 AM

Hey Slap,

I diagree - but only because I thnk it depends on interpretation of Ends, Ways and Means. It means something different depending on who you talk to and what their concerns are. I think motives, methods and opportunities is also useful - particularly at understanding the proximate type causes - but can be constraining if you are looking for long term causes that have morphed from their orignal impetus or relation - but the effect remains the same. It gets back to the linear, deterministic sense of history vs. the non-linear, contingent one.

Both (ends/ways/means & motive/method/opportunity) I think have their place - neither should exclude the other.

Best, Rob

Hi Rob, I could probabaly live with that except for the fact that people cause crimes and wars based upon their motives. So to me any theory of war that makes any sense must hold that understanding the motive is the most fundemental and important of all, from that everything else will flow.

William F. Owen

02-04-2008, 01:56 AM

Mr. Hoffman, I appreciate the effort that went into the piece, unless someone is willing to start a conversation, then the rest of us remain to degrees unengaged

I doubt there is anyone who does not appreciate the effort. Frank Hoffamn has a brain the size of a planet so I'll always listen (and he has had to sit and listen to me enough times!!). The paper asks a very valid question but....

I think we need ask, why we want to describe something in terms terms used. What Frank has held back from saying is that "the US/UK Forces may be too stupid to adapt."

Ron Humphrey

02-04-2008, 04:35 AM

As we all know. Therefor, it seems to me that it is incumbent on everyone who engages in warfare at any level, from the politician who sends units forth to the last Snuffy (yes, even him...) to read as much as possible on the topic and to discuss with others the various potentials and probabilities. Everyone who addresses war should be noted to the extent possible. Discussion is important but I've learned far more over a couple of drinks than I've learned in structured discussions. The important thing is to kick it around.

We are confronted with the fact that most of our political masters will not do this, therefor it's important that all practitioners do it and be thorough in their study so they can give the best possible advice. I think, though, that two thoughts should always remain in mind:

1. The theoreticians are human, that means they have experience (or not), education, heredity and environmental factors that have shaped them and their thoughts and thus, consciously or not, are subject to have some biases and possibly some gaps in knowledge. They also write for a specialist audience -- more frequently for other theorists than for practitioners --and thus these two factors can skew what they write or say and one is well advised to read or listen, evaluate and take that which ones instincts say are valuable while not hewing to anyone's line. That simply because no one has all the answers.

This is why I find myself hesitant to sign off on consistantly re-terming and putting the information in different contexts until it gains acceptance By the time we get that buy-in, will what they heard or accepted be very similar to what we were trying to say at all?

I think about how so many have taken the phrase " there is not a military solution to Iraq " and it has been twisted and prodded to mean so many different things; many of which are not much help to us.

People hear, learn, or take what they want from dialogue thus the more they get to choose from the more the choices reflect what they want and not necessarily what is or was intended.

I have now finished the paper and all in all it speaks succesfully to much of what has and is being debated at echelons above reality. I cannot find much that doesn't ring true in many contexts, yet I would love to have seen them tie in how current international players much larger than Hezbollah and Hamas are truly utilizing the capabiliies of networking and synchronous irregular and more conventional warfare as well as many other aspects of the UW / IW / WK(who knows) what else n efforts to affect ,transform, or otherwise just plain make trouble in any and all ways possible in order to acheive their goals.
IE( Iran, Russia, AQ , Hezbollah, Hamas, Half a dozen groups minimum in Africa, Libya Etc)

If you bring answers to the table without the readers getting an eyefull of what it really means now, in your face then they will generally look at it from a predictive vantage point. And as most humans do they will figure that they are about as good at seeing the future as you are.

2. At the end of the day, you'll be on a hill watching your Division deploy to meet the Screaming Horde approaching at from 3 to 300 kilometers per hour. Or you'll deplane with your company or troop in the middle of nowhere with skulking opponents everywhere. Or you'll be on a lonely street at Oh-dark-thirty wondering whether to shoot the two vaguely human shapes that seem to be approaching you. None of the theoreticians will be there with you...

You are as always eloquent in the simplicity of truth

Ken White

02-04-2008, 06:19 AM

Mike Innes said:
"Personally, I'm skeptical not of the uses of new labels and reconceptualization in general, but of overlabeling and relabeling the issues of now. A lot of the confusion and debate on what is and what isn't "new", I think, is gobbledygook longhand for "what we don't yet understand" and "insufficient historical hindsight to get a grip". In this case, though, I think Hoffman's work is worth considering; so's Bousquet's."That coincides with my thoughts. There are good ideas in both papers but IMO, neither really surfaces anything new (unless I missed something, always possible :o), they've just applied new tags while packaging a lot of disparate factors together rather well. Quite well, in fact.

One could've hoped for more illustrative discussion. Ron makes that point pretty well, I think:
"If you bring answers to the table without the readers getting an eyefull of what it really means now, in your face then they will generally look at it from a predictive vantage point. And as most humans do they will figure that they are about as good at seeing the future as you are."However, Wilf really sums the issue up rather neatly with this:
"I think we need ask, why we want to describe something in terms terms used. What Frank has held back from saying is that "the US/UK Forces may be too stupid to adapt.""My sensing is that both nations have a bunch of smart guys, many of whom have already figured out in detail what Hoffman and Bosquet have packaged neatly and named aptly. I think the issue is not that we're too stupid because I don't believe we are; I think the question is more correctly "...are the US/UK forces going to be able to overcome their bureaucratic leanings and risk aversion in order to adapt in a timely manner?"

With that, I'll go ponder Hybrid mixed blended chaoplexic 5.5G warfare while I sip my nightcap... :D

marct

02-04-2008, 01:32 PM

I think that Bosquet does a nice job of laying out the role of metaphor in organization; it's a good paper. I'm a little surprised, although not really I 'spose, that he didn't extend his analysis of metaphor to other, non-state groups since it seems pretty obvious that they are based on ones not included. Still reading the Hoffman piece...

My sensing is that both nations have a bunch of smart guys, many of whom have already figured out in detail what Hoffman and Bosquet have packaged neatly and named aptly. I think the issue is not that we're too stupid because I don't believe we are; I think the question is more correctly "...are the US/UK forces going to be able to overcome their bureaucratic leanings and risk aversion in order to adapt in a timely manner?"

Let me toss out several more general questions, then, based on Ken's restatement:

what metaphor governs the organization of US/UK forces ("life is like a bowl of....")?
what metaphor(s) govern our opponents?Marc

Mike Innes

02-04-2008, 02:18 PM

I think that Bosquet does a nice job of laying out the role of metaphor in organization; it's a good paper. I'm a little surprised, although not really I 'spose, that he didn't extend his analysis of metaphor to other, non-state groups since it seems pretty obvious that they are based on ones not included.

Actually, Bousquet's work - he has a full length manuscript coming out sometime later this year - primarily focuses on efforts/approaches/concepts to impose order on the battlefield, rather than on the "chaoplexic" nature of battelfield threats themselves. That would be the next step, I suppose - or more probably, though I've yet to read Hoffman's Hybrid Wars, this is where he and Bousquet complement each other. I'll be better able to comment once I've actually read FH's work... and that's all from me until I've done so. Later.

Mike

02-04-2008, 02:20 PM

what metaphor governs the organization of US/UK forces ("life is like a bowl of....")?

I can't speak for the UK but, the US seems trapped in this simile:

"Life is like a crap sandwich. Some days you take a big bite; some days you take a little bite; but every day you take a bite. However, the more "bread" you have, the less crap you have to swallow in each bite."

Now you know why everyone scrabbles around so much over resources and funding.

02-04-2008, 03:40 PM

The following is a clarification of the simile in my prior post, as it applies to Hoffman's essay.

I think what Hoffman has written is an example of trying to persuade others to give one what it thinks it needs. In this case, the perceived need is for the USMC to get more budget resources to maintain its autonomy. This quotation from the executive summary pretty much crystallizes the point of the paper:

We believe that the Marine Corps is particularly well suited for this security environment . . . . The Marine Corps has proven to be an innovative organization . . . and its core competencies provide it with the foundation to effectively counter (sic), if not thrive, against hybrid challengers (Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century, 9-10)
I am not sure that what Hoffman has to say is anything more than old wine in new bottles. IMHO his document is an effort to justify a unique mission for the USMC. It really adds little new to the discussion except to throw out another terminological framework for describing how and why people fight. I submit that the following two paragraphs summarize the point being made in essay rather succinctly.

People fight because they want something that others have. They fight because they cannot acquire what they want by other means. Were they able to develop the means to produce what they want, they would not need to fight for it. Were they able to talk others into giving them what they want, then they would not need to resort to force. Were they able to use economic means (barter or purchase) top get what they want, then they would not need to engage in violence. Since they cannot make, talk, or trade for what they want, they see no other option but to fight.
When one wants something badly enough, almost any means of attaining it is viewed as fair: the end justifies the means. If one has capabilities that greatly surpass the ability to resist by possessor of what one wants, then the only real limit on what one does links itself to the urgency of satisfying the perceived want. If one has limited capabilities, then the depth and urgency of the need may well drive one to do whatever is in one’s power to wrest what one wants a from its possessor.

Bill Moore

02-04-2008, 04:25 PM

It is disappointing to see that the Marines are attempting to get a grasp on the type of war we're fighting now, while many in the Army are resorting to name calling in a weak attempt to isolate those with new ideas, or new spins on old ideas, but at least they realize the world is changing.

In the book "Army at Dawn" the author notes many Army officers didn't see the need for armor, and thought they could defeat German Armor with good ole fashioned calvary. While we're not that bad today, we're still reluctant to adapt.

Big wars are generally described as conventional armies versus conventional armies, where the focus is defeating the other's army, thus that nation's ability to wage war, while small wars are generally focused on controlling the population (stability operations, COIN, etc.). Small wars (or conflicts) can be fought in isolation (the banana wars, Somalia, El Salvador, etc.), and they frequently follow big wars (OIF, post WWII from the Philippines to Germany [very limited]). Although they may be played on the same field, they are different games with different goals, different strategies, different adversaries, different task organizations, etc. Failure to realize this leads to improper strategy based on the mind set that war is war, such as we saw in at the beginning of Vietnam and OIF where big army wanted to focus on search and destroy, and in both conflicts they came to the realization that a pacification strategy was required (clear and hold). In both conflicts the Marines came to that realization well before the Army. I'm glad to see that the Marines are exploring what future war will look like and adapting, the Army will eventually follow.

While COIN certainly isn't new, and 4GW has it weak points, it is foolish to state war is war, if that was the case then we would have got it right in OIF sooner. Technology (especially information technology), globalism, and an assortment of other structural and cultural changes influences what war will look like. Based on some of the comments on this thread, I can see we still have leaders who lead our men on a calvary (the real calvary, mounted on horses) charge against an armor unit, because nothing ever changes and war is war.

Ken White

02-04-2008, 06:06 PM

So do the players.

Unfortunately, we don't get to choose what type(s) of war we'll be involved in and any attempt to concentrate on one spectrum or another would be quite foolish. The "only big war" folks are off base; the "COIN Divisions" proponents are off base. I think that most people realize we have to be a full spectrum force (and IMO that applies to all services) and hopefully, when the battles over roles and missions sort out, they will have succeeded.
It is disappointing to see that the Marines are attempting to get a grasp on the type of war we're fighting now, while many in the Army are resorting to name calling in a weak attempt to isolate those with new ideas, or new spins on old ideas, but at least they realize the world is changing.A significant part the problem is the arcane and foolish way Congress plays money games. That system literally forces communities (for lack of a better term) to compete with each other on a playing field that's far from level. This leads to people espousing positions that they think will gain traction as opposed to laying out what's required and pursuing the proper goals. I'm not at all sure how we fix that...
. . .
While COIN certainly isn't new, and 4GW has it weak points, it is foolish to state war is war, if that was the case then we would have got it right in OIF sooner. Technology (especially information technology), globalism, and an assortment of other structural and cultural changes influences what war will look like. Based on some of the comments on this thread, I can see we still have leaders who lead our men on a calvary (the real calvary, mounted on horses) charge against an armor unit, because nothing ever changes and war is war.I'm not a sports fan but to use that metaphor (this is for Marc T), look at last nights game. I suspect that many a Coach realized the way to defeat the Patriots was to shut Brady down. I'm sure they tried but either their plan wasn't good or their execution was flawed (regrettably, sometimes people just don't do their jobs very well...). The Giants Coach developed an effective plan to neutralize Brady and his guys executed it well. The result was an upset and a win.

That applies to fighting wars. Both the plan AND the execution have to be competent; a sluffing in either can ruin your day. The relative complexity and degree of integration of the world today in all aspects means that warfare is going to be more complex and that the separate types are going to blend -- we saw that in Viet Nam.

The North used all aspects of Hoffman's hybrid model, worldwide information operations, criminal activity -- many a kid got sucked into drugs and or the black market in country -- guerrilla techniques up to conventional attacks and every permutation in between. It was all there.

Yet, we ignored it. Surely we will not be that stupid again...

Eden

02-04-2008, 06:24 PM

I found little enough to object to in Hoffman's characterization of Hybrid War. You can argue the history or dispute his use of Hamas as a model of the new hybrid army, but in general I think most of us - mastering our inbred distaste for new buzzwords - would agree he has generally got it right. Where Hoffman fails, as most military pundits do, is in the implications he draws from this supposed tectonic shift in the nature of warfare.

Hybrid warriors are extremely difficult to defeat; on the other hand, they rarely win. Hoffman and others confuse tactical excellence with operational or strategic coherence. Because they are handy with the rocket, the bomb, or the ambush, we assume they must be able to use their street-corner triumphs to achieve their desired ends. But this is unclear to me. I don't see how Al-Qaida in Iraq or the successors to the Taliban are 'winning', except in the most negative sense of not losing. If we are driven from Iraq with our tail between our legs, who exactly has 'won' there, and what is their prize? Does anyone think that our various hybrid foes bent on establishing the universal cailphate have the slightest chance of reaching their goal?

What this portends is endless violence, without ultimate victory or defeat, a new Hundred Year's War. Oh, there might be the occasional Agincourt, but mostly it means pointless conflict decided in the end more by geography and demographics than by military excellence.

Now, just because I don't like it, that doesn't mean it won't happen. What it does imply is the continuing 'de-professionalization of violence'. Whenever warfare is endemic, civil and military roles inevitably merge, the rules of civilized behavior change, and the innocent bystander becomes more and more the target of 'military' operations. Except the whole concept of innocent bystander becomes obsolete. This is why medieval warfare was mostly a matter of plunder, induced famine, assassination, rapine, raids, and ambuscade, with the odd stand-up fight thrown in every other decade or so. Who's to say that the American public, after ten or twenty or fifty years, might not decide to use similar tactics against someone who can't be defeated any other way?

So, instead of proposing that we reorganize the infantry battalion, or include more cultural training at Leavenworth, or incorporate human terrain teams with combat units, or foster greater inter-agency cooperation, if we truly want to get ahead of the bow-wave of future warfare, let's do the following: eliminate civilian control of the military (or, alternately, make politicians generals without all the fuss of military training; after all, our opponents do it, apparently with great success); transform the combatant commands into commercial-for-profit enterprises; subject all government employees to the UCMJ; and eliminate all distinctions between 'contractors' and 'soldiers'.

Mostly, I want all the deep thinkers to either stop shying away from the implications of what they are forecasting, or spare the rest of us their repackaged revolutions.

Whew...I feel better.

Rob Thornton

02-04-2008, 07:31 PM

Ken,
Glad you brought up last night's game - and its usefulness in discussing the topic at hand. You'd mentioned the Giant's coach coming up with a plan to neutralize Brady - then of course being able to implement it. What is interesting to me is when we (whoever is thinking about it) starts trying to attribute how much of Brady's ineffectiveness can be ascribed to how well the NYG covered Moss (and other receivers) and how well they rushed against Brady vs. how well (or not so well) Brady's Offensive Line protected him - Bill P tried to change things up - he brought in a couple of Def Lineman to protect Brady in the 2nd Half - but it really did not change things much. Lay that out against the time needed to identify an open receiver (or one who is going to be open) then do the battlefield geometry to synchronize time & space and you come with some difficulty making a call as to exactly what happened. Now - add in 100 fans (or more) on the field to every player, each doing his own thing, and stretch it out over time - and you have a good set of conditions to better understanding the difficulty in considering cause and effect. Not to mention the Pat defense losing control of Manning in a sea of Dark Blue, then Manning looking up and seeing an open receiver and maiking the connection!

In the end, it may not matter - the NYGs went home the winner - The Giants not only had a plan, but had the where-withall to take advantage of the conditions as they emerged. So back to your point about military theory - the moment you step onto the field the theroist has to be put in the cheap seats (he is still there, but he's not on the field) so you can focus on the game as it is, not as it was thought about - the dead Prussian said roughly the same thing.

Best, Rob

slapout9

02-04-2008, 08:03 PM

Ken,

In the end, it may not matter - the NYGs went home the winner - The Giants not only had a plan, but had the where-withall to take advantage of the conditions as they emerged.
Best, Rob

Like I said Rob it is motives,methods and OPPORTUNITIES. To me good Generalship is more about identifying opportunities than anything else. He has to have the ability to find the chink in the enemies armor when it presents itself and use his available methods to satisfy his motive.:wry:

02-04-2008, 08:10 PM

What this portends is endless violence, without ultimate victory or defeat, a new Hundred Year's War. Oh, there might be the occasional Agincourt, but mostly it means pointless conflict decided in the end more by geography and demographics than by military excellence.

Now, just because I don't like it, that doesn't mean it won't happen. What it does imply is the continuing 'de-professionalization of violence'. Whenever warfare is endemic, civil and military roles inevitably merge, the rules of civilized behavior change, and the innocent bystander becomes more and more the target of 'military' operations. Except the whole concept of innocent bystander becomes obsolete. This is why medieval warfare was mostly a matter of plunder, induced famine, assassination, rapine, raids, and ambuscade, with the odd stand-up fight thrown in every other decade or so. Who's to say that the American public, after ten or twenty or fifty years, might not decide to use similar tactics against someone who can't be defeated any other way?
(SNIP)
Mostly, I want all the deep thinkers to either stop shying away from the implications of what they are forecasting, or spare the rest of us their repackaged revolutions.

Eden,

Well said.

However, I suspect that a better parallel is the 30 Years War rather than the 100 Years War. 4GW folks point to the Peace of Westphalia as a watershed point that ushered in what these theorists describe as 3GW. I suspect that instead it represents a point in time that "civilized people" chose (after facing the chaos you described--"plunder, induced famine, assassination, rapine, raids, and ambuscade, with the odd stand-up fight thrown in") to revisit how to organize themselves to protect the innocents of the world. I would not be surprised that we are at another such watershed moment, when the innocents (or their representatives) decide that it is time to shake up the folks who are running their current "protection racket."

I am reminded of the poles represented by Sheriff Bart and Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles. When folks get fed up enough, they don't "vote the rascals out." Instead, they get more physical. They ride the rascals out of town on rails or worse. Then they set up a new sheriff or turn to the county marshall to protect them. If the county marshal was the problem, they are probably going to look more locally. If the source of the trouble was the local authorities, they may go for a more regional security approach to limit the local abuse of power. I suspect we are just seeing a swing of the pendulum between two focal points of power--one is centralized and the other is decentralized (or local) protection.

02-04-2008, 08:27 PM

Lest readers think I am jesting with my use of Blazing Saddles, I offer up the conflict between the townsfolk, represented by Jimmy Stewart's Ransom Stoddard, and the cowboys/cattlemen, represented by Lee Marvin's Liberty Valance and the Major portrayed by John Carradine, from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as well. Even John Wayne's character, the rancher Tom Doniphan, recognized that the forces responsible for protection were changing, which is why he chose not to reveal who really was the man who shot Liberty Valence. I could list many other examples across many cultures, but I will just note the Japanese tale of the 47 Ronin as a final example of my point about the swing of the pendulum of legitimacy for "defending" the people.

Rob Thornton

02-04-2008, 08:31 PM

Slap - I don't know, to me we're both talking about a 3 legged stool - we're just looking at it from a slightly different angle:D Best, Rob

Ken White

02-04-2008, 08:37 PM

you've got it pegged...

Ken White

02-04-2008, 08:49 PM

Folks are always changing the rules and in discussions, there are always "well, if..." things thrown in. None of those things you posit happened to get to this point:
"...and you have a good set of conditions to better understanding the difficulty in considering cause and effect." This did happen:
...In the end, it may not matter - the NYGs went home the winner - The Giants not only had a plan, but had the where-withall to take advantage of the conditions as they emerged.With the last clause being by far the most important part of all that. Way far (plans have a tendency not to survive the first contact as they say)...

I suspect that you comparing me to a dead Prussian is geriatric abuse. I'll have to consult my Attorney on that... :D

Rob Thornton

02-04-2008, 08:53 PM

nice one - plus a good swing at the dangers of interpretive history and the difficulty of est. causal relationships. Rob

Graycap

02-04-2008, 09:00 PM

Thinking about the Super Bowl example: the two teams knew well what victory is all about in relative term. Are we sure that opponents in hybrid war share the same idea of victory ?

Only a doubt.

Now back in lurking position...

Graycap

Rob Thornton

02-04-2008, 09:22 PM

Slap - I wanted to think about the comparrison a bit more.

Ends, Ways and Means has its greatest value at the policy and strategy end (and to a lesser degree the operational) - not because it "should" be so, but because it "is" so. This has as much to do with the influence of domestic politics and resources as it does with considering providing long term direction that works through changes in conditions METT-TC writ strategic), and remain part of our more enduring strategic culture. Resources - how they are derived, allocated, play a hefty role in determining how military power will be employed to achieve some objective or end. Applying ends, ways and means at the tactical level can lead to inertia - either unable to put a body in motion to rest, or unable to put a body at rest into motion - depends on what your trying to accomplish.

Method, Motive, Opportunity I think has its greatest value at the tactical and to a lesser degree the operational, I think. This is where the first hints of opportunity often show up, where quick action(s) can be leveraged best, and where if you are willing to see things as they are; what you see can be the closest to what is - its why we try not to second guess our field commanders and leaders from afar (time, space, and immediate interests). Applying Method, Motive, Opportunity at the strategic level could wind up keeping us in the short term with regard to pursuing our own interests - it may also distance the relationship between policy and war - one that is contentious enough as it is.

I do think they are pretty much the same three legged stool, but depending on the way you're using it, it might look different.

I apologize if I've short-sheeted the concept, but words have meaning, and often mean different things to different people. What I think is most important is the discussion that is built around the terms toward a better understanding of the subject.

Best, Rob

Rob Thornton

02-04-2008, 09:31 PM

Hey Greycap,

Thinking about the Super Bowl example: the two teams knew well what victory is all about in relative term. Are we sure that opponents in hybrid war share the same idea of victory ?

What is that "first question" you should ask yourself before embarking upon war? - "What is the nature of the war I am embarking upon?" I think that means not only asking what it means to you, and how you will wage it, but what are the stakes of the outcome for your enemie(s) and how might they wage it. What are the possible outcomes for yourself and the enmy and how will that effect other things. The concept of the "Golden Bridge" - or allowing some option to the enemy other then win or die (could be political death) - what does it mean to him? What does it mean to you?

Makes you wonder - seems like the only folks that did not get the word that the Pats were going to win were the NYG. Someody said something last night about Green Bay being a better FB team - but the NYGs wanted it more. Will with a big "W" can make up for an awful lot.

Best, Rob

Rob Thornton

02-04-2008, 09:33 PM

I better get a lawyer before the city of Berkley tries to limit my free speech like they did the Marines - come to think of it, I should contact the ACLU - where is that damned card anyway:D - wait a second they are advocating for Berkley:mad:

slapout9

02-05-2008, 12:28 AM

Slap - I wanted to think about the comparison a bit more.

Ends, Ways and Means has its greatest value at the policy and strategy end (and to a lesser degree the operational) - not because it "should" be so, but because it "is" so. This has as much to do with the influence of domestic politics and resources as it does with considering providing long term direction that works through changes in conditions METT-TC writ strategic), and remain part of our more enduring strategic culture. Resources - how they are derived, allocated, play a hefty role in determining how military power will be employed to achieve some objective or end. Applying ends, ways and means at the tactical level can lead to inertia - either unable to put a body in motion to rest, or unable to put a body at rest into motion - depends on what your trying to accomplish.

Method, Motive, Opportunity I think has its greatest value at the tactical and to a lesser degree the operational, I think. This is where the first hints of opportunity often show up, where quick action(s) can be leveraged best, and where if you are willing to see things as they are; what you see can be the closest to what is - its why we try not to second guess our field commanders and leaders from afar (time, space, and immediate interests). Applying Method, Motive, Opportunity at the strategic level could wind up keeping us in the short term with regard to pursuing our own interests - it may also distance the relationship between policy and war - one that is contentious enough as it is.

I do think they are pretty much the same three legged stool, but depending on the way you're using it, it might look different.

I apologize if I've short-sheeted the concept, but words have meaning, and often mean different things to different people. What I think is most important is the discussion that is built around the terms toward a better understanding of the subject.

Best, Rob

Darn Rob, you almost had me convinced.... but I think Motive ,Method and opportunity can be applied to any level but it is greatest at the Grand Strategic level heres why. Motive is the simple Why should we go to War... Why did we invade Afghanistan ? Because AQ attacked us...Why do we want to get AQ because that's where UBL is...and why do we want to get UBL...becuase he is the leader of AQ that attacked our people and destroyed our property. The motive to attack is uniting and sustaining. Now apply the same reasoning to Iraq?? Saddam never attacked us, he didn't have any WMD, he didn't like Iran. See how understanding Motive leads to Strategic clarity and unity and if you get it wrong how it can backfire against you? I don't think Ends has that kind of clarity to it. That has been George's biggest problem he cannot define a good motive for attacking Iraq but the American people have and do support attacks against AQ and UBL because we have a good motive to do so.

Speaking of three legged stools did you here the one about the three legged RedNeck?:eek:

Also speaking of dead Prussians in the front of Galula's book on COIN theory (capter one I think) he makes a great statment where he says Reveolutionary War changes Big C's "War is policy carried out by other means" to "War is the Policy of a certain party inside a country to be carried out by EVERY means".!!! Sounds like Hybrid War to me. Later

William F. Owen

02-05-2008, 01:27 AM

We are suffering from a particularly parochial view of conflict.

In Sierra Leone, you had, from an equipment and training point of view, two or groups of insurgents, locked in a long a bloody war, with well equipped SA Mercenaries or UK forces turning up every now and then. It was just as complex than Iraq or Afghanistan. War, Insurgency or Hybrid War?

The nature of the conflict is defined by who is fighting and how they fight. That's it! Why do we seek to make it all way more complicated?

I think WM may be right when he suggests that Hybrid Wars may be a good bumper sticker to nab the USMC more of the budget.

Presley Cannady

02-06-2008, 01:37 AM

The nature of the conflict is defined by who is fighting and how they fight. That's it! Why do we seek to make it all way more complicated?

In the US, I assume to teaching war to the slow-moving, complicated beast that is procurement and training for a force of 3 million active and reserve spread across God knows how many specialties. You can untangle the mess greatly by picking one or two ways to fight and choosing your enemies accordingly, but that's obviously not an option. An infantry without artillery generally won't stand against a peer who has it, a static line won't stop the mechanized airland force from maneuvering around it, and the mechanized army can't do COIN without dismounting with style, grace and a smile. And nothing gets done if you can't control the sea and the air between tail and tooth. The US at least has reason to prepare warriors for all these tasks, and to do so in every terrain imaginable, and absent a Swiss Army knife replacement for the man, his equipment, or both, isn't this trend towards more and more categorization inevitable?

Rob Thornton

02-06-2008, 02:57 AM

Darn Rob, you almost had me convinced

Slap - I actually prefer that we differ on some things- over the 18 months or so that I've known you, you have always challenged me to think in different directions that have further increased my understanding of things.

Best, Rob

slapout9

02-06-2008, 01:57 PM

Slap - I actually prefer that we differ on some things- over the 18 months or so that I've known you, you have always challenged me to think in different directions that have further increased my understanding of things.

Best, Rob

Hi Rob, yes open debate is the best way to learn stuff:eek: Which leads me to this motive is simply the commander's intentions which just sounds better to me..Example...what are your intentions in this battle,war,situation,etc. as opposed to saying what is your end??? that just sounds all skint up and stuff. How many people do you know that would talk like that much less understand it? Of course I may just be used to this. When I was in high school I had alot father's ask me what my intentions were toward their daughter:eek:....Which was usually to seize and hold key terrain:eek:

Rob Thornton

02-06-2008, 10:20 PM

Originally posted by Mike Innes:

Personally, I'm skeptical not of the uses of new labels and reconceptualization in general, but of overlabeling and relabeling the issues of now. A lot of the confusion and debate on what is and what isn't "new", I think, is gobbledygook longhand for "what we don't yet understand" and "insufficient historical hindsight to get a grip". In this case, though, I think Hoffman's work is worth considering; so's Bousquet's.

Here's the link to Bousquet's paper: www.bisa.ac.uk/2007/pps/bousquet.pdf

Mike - thanks for posting the link. I finally got around to reading it, and like most good things, it gets you to think - and think about things differently. Its one of those things that I think you can go back to more then once and get still something out of.
Best, Rob

Mike Innes

02-07-2008, 05:54 PM

Mike - thanks for posting the link. I finally got around to reading it, and like most good things, it gets you to think - and think about things differently. Its one of those things that I think you can go back to more then once and get still something out of.
Best, Rob

De nada. That's what it did for me, too. Now that I've read a bit more of Hoffman, I'd have to argue that his and Bousquet's pieces complement each other quite nicely. To be read as a pair, in fact.

Bousquet's got another article-length piece in the most recent issue of the journal Cold War History, available here (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a789520902~tab=related).

Rob Thornton

04-05-2008, 02:04 PM

I was reading the SWJ Blog 5 APR OPED (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2008/04/5-april-swj-top-news-oped-roun/) and hit the Kagan and Kagan piece from the Weekly Standard "What Happened in Basra (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/951jhivj.asp)".

The Kagans' analysis says Iranian Quds were involved in Basra in both a Train, Advise and Assist role, but also to some degree in the fight. Would this fit our definition of a UW (Unconventional Warfare) campaign?

A few thoughts came up as I read the article:

1) If Iran has demonstrated a strong UW capability and capacity in the region to achieve its political goals, what are the conditions required for that capability to be effective? What are its limitations? What other ways does Iran use its influence and tools to compliment its UW capabilities? What would a continued use of UW to achieve its policy goals indicate for the region in the short and long term?

2) Where states like Iraq have some or all of the conditions required for a UW campaign to be effective, what capabilities are required to counter or mitigate those conditions within their borders? I don't want to limit the capabilities or actions to security and intelligence forces as some of the conditions required for a foreign UW campaign to be effective cannot be solely addressed by them.

3) With regard to our own efforts in Security Force Assistance - from foreign military sales to advising, from Iraq to the region, are we assessing this threat correctly in terms of its short and long term risk to our goals, and by extension the goals of our regional partners & allies (acknowledging that there are different degrees of partnership, cooperation and competing interests)? What are their shortfalls? What tools would be more appropriate for our partners and allies, and are in their long term interest to develop? Arguably Iran has had degrees of success with supporting, assisting, sustaining, training, advising proxies to extend its influence, is their success relevant to larger picture? why? What should we do about it and capabilities like it?

I really don't want to debate the Kaplans' analysis too much, except where to do so answers some of the questions. I think its also interesting to consider the level of autonomy the Quds have in Iraq, and the question of how much they are allowed to pursue their own interest independent of Iran's broader FP goals.

I think there are a few other things to think about that are relevant to the questions above. Its worthwhile to consider what other capabilities exist in the region. Iran has some capabilities with regard to conventional forces, para-military & intelligence capabilities oriented looking in, there is the question of Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities, Iran's terrain and demographics play a role, Iran's role with regard to the Caspian area, energy security from an International perspective, etc. I think that when considering UW capabilities like the Quds, or their support of proxies - we need to consider the broader environment that shapes their "ends/ways/means" thinking, or however you wish to frame the way Iran pursues its objectives.

Best, Rob

Distiller

04-13-2008, 06:24 PM

I think when dealing with Iran as a first step it is always useful to remember that Persia is one of the oldest cultures in the world, probably had the first large-scale industry (copper mining), and was already a full-blown empire reaching from the Bosphorus to the Indus when in Europe folks had just freshly figured out how to do iron.

On topic: Iran has it easy compared to a Western crusader, especially down on the lower Tigris. Same people, same culture, same religion, cross-border family ties, &c. Easy to be the fish here. And then the Iranian secret service has this strong triade of military, economic and religious power. And also they have a mission, it's not a "job" for them. They operate from a commonly agreed strategic basis, which is: get the Western crusaders. So even sympathetic non-members, or those who want to play it safe because they know they and their family will have to deal with the Persians much longer than with the Westerners. Passive support. Very much like with the Mafia.

The West can't do anything about it, realisticly. But I think the good news is that the Iranian Mafia is forced to keep to their cultural environment and their people, so besides Iranian refugees, expats, agents and a few opportunists in the West the influence will not spread. Btw, those groups are a worthy target of Western secret services.

I think one of the potentially weak points of the Iranian secretive organisation is the need to invest their substantial capital outside Iran. Probably a lot in the Gulf states and the Far East, but via the usual suspects Swiss and Channel Island trusts also in the West.
"Potentially weak" I say because the West is not particulary efficient (or keen) to keep grey and black money out of the system, so the political will for a little covert economical warfare is probably slim.

And regarding your third point: I wouldn't dare to count on any friends and allies in Arabia, regardless who they think should have been successor of the Prophet. Really. We are on their home-turf. And beyond a few suicidal opportunistic Shias I doubt that

And I'm pretty sure Quds is almost completely autonomous short of open war or something stupid like a dirty bomb somewhere (which is not in their interest - they thrive to a good part because of that underclared proxy-war in Iraq). Like the SS was, or the ISI is. I think as long as Iranian officials can handle it like Mission Impossible "Your mission, should you decide to accept it..." they can do pretty much what they want. Their head-honcho is a voodoo master! As if that old fart knew about operational details!

SWJED

11-14-2008, 01:39 AM

http://smallwarsjournal.com/images/jfqheader.jpg

Colonel David Gurney (http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/jfq_pages/bio/gurney_biov5.pdf) (USMC Ret.), Editor of Joint Force Quarterly (http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/NDUPress_JFQ_List.htm) and Director of National Defense University Press, when not closely following the debate between John Nagl and Gian Gentile, seeks out the best and brightest for their views on the potential threats we may face in the not so distant future – and of course any such search leads to Frank Hoffman (http://www.fpri.org/about/people/hoffman.html).

Colonel Gurney has, again, kindly – and we, again, greatly appreciate this – granted SWJ permission to post Frank's Hybrid Warfare and Challenges (http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/jfqhoffman.pdf) that will appear in the January 2009 issue of JFQ.

The U.S. military faces an era of enormous complexity. This complexity has been extended by globalization, the proliferation of advanced technology, violent transnational extremists, and resurgent powers. America’s vaunted military might stand atop all others but is tested in many ways. Trying to understand the possible perturbations the future poses to our interests is a daunting challenge. But, as usual, a familiarity with history is our best aid to interpretation. In particular, that great and timeless illuminator of conflict, chance, and human nature Thucydides—is as relevant and revealing as ever.

In his classic history, Thucydides detailed the savage 27-year conflict between Sparta and Athens. Sparta was the overwhelming land power of its day, and its hoplites were drilled to perfection. The Athenians, led by Pericles, were the supreme maritime power, supported by a walled capital, a fleet of powerful triremes, and tributary allies. The Spartan leader, Archidamius, warned his kinsmen about Athens’ relative power, but the Spartans and their supporters would not heed their king. In 431 BCE, the Spartans marched through Attica and ravaged the Athenian country estates and surrounding farms. They encamped and awaited the Athenian heralds and army for what they hoped would be a decisive battle and a short war.

The scarlet-clad Spartans learned the first lesson of military history—the enemy gets a vote. The Athenians elected to remain behind their walls and fight a protracted campaign that played to their strengths and worked against their enemies. Thucydides’ ponderous tome on the carnage of the Peloponnesian War is an extended history of the operational adaptation of each side as they strove to gain a sustainable advantage over their enemy. These key lessons are, as he intended, a valuable “possession for all time.”

In the midst of an ongoing inter-Service roles and missions review, and an upcoming defense review, these lessons need to be underlined. As we begin to debate the scale and shape of the Armed Forces, an acute appreciation of history’s hard-earned lessons will remain useful. Tomorrow’s enemies will still get a vote, and they will remain as cunning and elusive as today’s foes. They may be more lethal and more implacable. We should plan accordingly.

One should normally eschew simplistic metanarratives, especially in dynamic and nonlinear times. However, the evolving character of conflict that we currently face is best characterized by convergence. This includes the convergence of the physical and psychological, the kinetic and nonkinetic, and combatants and noncombatants. So, too, we see the convergence of military force and the interagency community, of states and nonstate actors, and of the capabilities they are armed with. Of greatest relevance are the converging modes of war. What once might have been distinct operational types or categorizations among terrorism and conventional, criminal, and irregular warfare have less utility today...

Jedburgh

02-11-2009, 02:31 PM

WINEP, 10 Feb 09: Countering Transnational Threats: Terrorism, Narco-Trafficking, and WMD Proliferation (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PolicyFocus92.pdf)

Table of Contents

Tackling the Terrorist Threat: Progress Made and Future Challenges
Kenneth Wainstein, Homeland Security Advisor

The Future of the Middle East
Thomas Fingar, Chairman of the National Security Council

Building the Global Counterterrorism Network
Michael Vickers, Assistant Secretary of Defense

Assessing the Fight against al-Qaeda
Ted Gistaro, National Intelligence Officer for Transnational Threats

Confronting the Challenge of Iran: Comprehensive Solutions for a Comprehensive Threat
Mario Mancuso, Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security

Drug Trafficking and Middle Eastern Terrorist Groups: A Growing Nexus?
Michael Braun, Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement Agency

Bob's World

03-04-2009, 01:42 PM

In my opinion this entire argument continues to chase the wrong line of logic. It is not a case of warfare changing. What we are experiencing is a case of the environment in which warfare occurs changing. This may seem a subtle point, but it is essential to the argument.

The principles of war, just like the principles of insurgency, do not change much. The one thing that in recent years has changed very much is the shift from a bi-polar, Cold War, non-globalized environment to a multi-polar, post-Cold War, Globalized environment.

This means that static situations are once again actively seeking a new “normal,” as they emerge from Cold War controls; that this is taking place in an environment that is not shaped by the balancing of two super powers; and most historically important, that it is taking place in this globalized environment, that empowers populaces as never before, and also has enabled the rise of non-state organizations like al Qaeda to be able to conduct Unconventional Warfare in a very state-like way to incite insurgency among disparate populaces, and also for quasi-state organizations like Hezbollah to similarly operate in a zone above the level of gang activity and its associated inefficiencies, but also below the level of state activity and its associated responsibilities and vulnerabilities to state power response.

In short, it is not about a change of warfare, it is about a change of environment.

slapout9

03-04-2009, 01:51 PM

Bobs World, What about this idea. We are confusing Types of Warfare with Strategy!

War doesn't change as you point out but Strategies will evolve and adapt as need be based upon the opponent and situation. What we call UW,FID,Insurgency,COIN,4GW, are not types of warfare but Strategies!!

Bob's World

03-04-2009, 02:08 PM

Words are important.

When one takes a position that "War has changed," and the pentagon buys into it and begins to restructure itself to fight and think about this new type of war, I believe you risk building the solution to the wrong problem, and thereby putting our nation at risk.

When one takes a position that "the Environment is changing," and the pentagon buys into that and sets about ensuring that it does not attempt to frame every emerging problem by an obsolete construct, but looks at each problem with fresh eyes, demanding that the intelligence community commits every bit as much of their considerable skill and energy to an understanding of the environment in which an event occurs as they do currently to describing the "threat" that is operating within that environment; you avoid always refighting the last conflict and thereby reduce our nation's risks.

Gian P Gentile

03-04-2009, 03:21 PM

Colonel (ret) Doug Macgregor sent to me via personal email his thoughts on this discussion on the "hybrid war" concept and gave me permission to post them on the SWJ blog.

"As most of us know, the IDF went through some considerable internal self-examination in the period after Lebanon. Most of the self-examination centered around the loss of basic competence associated with combined arms operations, but the self-examination ultimately went much further urging the tight integration of maneuver and strike with good intelligence in the context of all future combat operations.

In addition, the IDF embraced the use of armor, artillery and fuel air explosive in the conduct of urban operations with the object of minimizing the exposure of dismounted IDF troops to enemy fire. While the Hamas enemy may qualify as one of Frank Hoffman's hybrids, the IDF wasted no time in fighting for hearts and minds because the IDF knows there are none to win in the Islamic World.

In the final analysis, the so-called hybrid enemy that is absolutely not new in any way was crushed not by some scheme of culturally sensitive men with rifles, but by raw, irresistible military power directed with as much precision as possible. Whether there is any strategic payoff for Israel in this operation is another matter. But tactically and operationally, the IDF got it right.

Again, this too is not a new approach. Lots of hybrid enemies in Russia during WW II and earlier wars that were ultimately dispatched by the various combatants in exactly the same way. But it is good to see the IDF renew our understanding of reality."

Steve Blair

03-04-2009, 04:15 PM

Now all we can do is hope that the right folks are listening....

I'd also hazard a guess that part of the hype (as has been commented on before in numerous SWC threads) has to do with folks wanting to "make a name for themselves" by "discovering" this new type of war...which doesn't really exist. It's far easier to make something up than it is to do the legwork and go back through things. Most of the patterns we're seeing now have happened before...it's the changes in the environment (cultural, technological, and so on) that have really changed the dynamics.

Ken White

03-04-2009, 07:33 PM

gets it. Fads don't matter. As he points out, WW II was absolutely full of 'hybrid' war. So were some segments in Korea and many segments in Viet Nam -- most, even.

The only thing Hezbollah brings to the table that is new is a great deal of competence and proof that superior training produces superior results.

The lesson from the 2006 effort is do not forget the basics or try to fight a war on the cheap and with an incrementalist approach. Hmm. Weren't both those learned earlier, somewhere... :rolleyes:

Now let's see if all the armchair strategists finally tumble... :D

Thanks for posting that.

Bob's World

03-04-2009, 09:04 PM

Ken,

I agree they did not bring some new form of warfare to the fight, but they did come wrapped in a new form of quasi-state status that the policy types haven't figured out how to deal with yet.

How many times did we hear in the media and see in offical statements about "Hezbollah vs Israel." Why was this not simply Lebannon vs Israel. Give these guys a political sanctuary from the consquences of their actions and they will certainly be smart enough to take full advantage of it.

We really need to start figuring out when to separate a non-state actor from the state, and when to simply say: "Look, you can't be both part of the state when it suits you, and then a separate militant arm without implicating that same state in your actions when it suits you either. Pick one."

When non-state or quasi-state engagese a state, they often fare well because the tools of statecraft (DIME) do not work well against them. When a weak state engages a strong state they lose. We allowed a weak state to engage a strong state under the auspices of "Hezbollah," and it created unnecessary. The proverbial self-inflicted headwound for the West.

We do the same thing with Hamas. They are elected representatives of the Palestinian people, so we are foolish to not fully recognize that fact and make it painfully clear to them that they just voted themselves out of the non-state terrorist business. From here on out they are just another weak state, and any actions on their part against a stronger state will bring full state consequences down on the larger body they now represent.

We make this harder than it needs to be, and concepts like "Hybrid Warfare" don't help. The real issue are these evolving political statuses associated with Globalization, not some new form of warfare. In my thread, this is what I refer to when I speak of the "Environment."

Cavguy

03-04-2009, 09:58 PM

All,

Jack McCuen is a classical COIN thinker who published Art of Counter Revolutionary War (http://www.hailerpublishing.com/artofcwar.html) in 1966. He's a particpant on a closed forum I am involved in discussing the same topic. He has been an advocate of the Hybrid war concept. I post the below with his concurrence.

ALL,

Let me repeat my comments I made in a private discussion because I disagree with Russell Glenn's article, "Thought on 'Hybrid' Conflict" for a number of reasons.

First, he largely bases his article on the Israeli Lebanon campaign, which is certainly a prime example of a hybrid war and a clear example of the type of hybrid war we might expect in the future if we choose to intervene in such places as the Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, Pakistan -- although I'm not advocating or recommending any such operations. It is also the example which General Mattis, Frank Hoffman and their associates have been using as their example of hybrid war, along with, I suspect, Israel's recent campaign into Gaza. As Frank knows, I'm don't think that this is the best hybrid war example because of its limited context. In fact, Russell Glen uses this limited context as his basic argument that hybrid war's limited context makes it unworthy of use as a separate form of war. Rather, as I've said a number of times in earlier messages, I believe that the Vietnam, Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars are much better and wider context examples of hybrid war and refute Russell's basic argument.

Second, although Russell quotes my definition of hybrid war from my March-April 2008 Military Review Article, "Hybrid Wars," "...a struggle against an armed enemy and ...a wider struggle for control and support of the combat zone's indigenous population, the support of the home fronts of the intervening nations, and the support of the international community," which is a very wide definition, in deed, he then ignores it by saying that the term, "hybrid war," is primarily a tactical, rather a strategic one -- using Lebanon with Hezbollah as his prime example, rather than Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. I would have to agree that the Lebanon Campaign with Hezbollah was a rather tactical example; however, the impact of the war and its tactics had very wide strategic implications which were very critical and decisive, involving, not only a new strategy but wide impacts on the home front and international community which played critical roles in the ultimate success or failure of the campaign or war. As I mentioned above and as we have been discussing elsewhere, the conduct of the Vietnam, Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars was very wide and very strategic.

Third, something Russell does not mention is that we badly need the use of the term, "hybrid war," to develop an adequate strategy for these wars we have been, are and are likely to be fighting. Since I wrote my monograph on "The Art of Hybrid War" in 2007, I have been struggling to get the military to develop an effective strategy for the wars we have fought and are fighting in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and in the future. We need to call this new form of war something and get on with developing a strategy which will win them. The word "hybrid war" works well because this new from of war is a "hybrid" combination of symmetric and asymmetric war. Somehow, terms like "irregular war, "complex war" don't, to my mind at least, lend themselves to developing a highly complex, wide ranging strategy for them. As I say in my monograph, I'm not wedded to the term, "hybrid," but we had been call it something quickly and develop a strategy which will start winning them. Thus, for the moment, I'm going with "hybrid war."

Fourth, and finally as I have discussed privately with some of you, the concept of hybrid war offers a possible bridge within the military to heal the "cultural divide" which is separating the "traditionalists," who are strongly advocating the concepts of conventional/symmetric war and the "crusaders" who want to rebuild the military mainly around counterinsurgency/asymmetric war. Frankly, this cultural divide, both silently and openly, is severely hindering the military and civilian community in building the military and civilian components of our government in developing future strategy, reorganizing our military and civilian components, as well as equipping and training them for wars of the future. The concept of hybrid war, being a hybrid combination of these two concepts of war -- the symmetric and asymmetric -- offers a bridge on which both the "traditionalists" and the "crusaders" should be able to agree and operate. Sure, major compromises will have to be made and consolidations, but the fact is that we have to establish a military and civilian establishment which can fight and win any war, on any battlefield, anywhere in the world. That will require dominant symmetric/conventional/nuclear capabilities and asymmetric/irregular/counterinsurgency capabilities.

THAT'S WHY I LIKE THE CONCEPT OF HYBRID WAR.

WARM REGARDS,

JACK

Ken White

03-04-2009, 10:01 PM

I agree they did not bring some new form of warfare to the fight, but they did come wrapped in a new form of quasi-state status that the policy types haven't figured out how to deal with yet.True -- and regrettable, it's not that hard IMO. But that always seems to be the case; that they're behind the power curve. In my view that derives from trying to make too many disparate groups happy, an obvious impossibility...

Penalty of living in a democratic society, I guess. :wry:
How many times did we hear in the media and see in offical statements about "Hezbollah vs Israel." Why was this not simply Lebannon vs Israel. Give these guys a political sanctuary from the consquences of their actions and they will certainly be smart enough to take full advantage of it.As would most groups. Hezbollah just arrived at the conjunction of time and space that gave them the legs to climb from the primordial ooze. My admittedly limited experience with Lebanon leaves me convinced that many there would clobber Hezbollah in an eye blink -- if they could. They were too weak and could not stop its growth at the time; the west did nothing to slow or stop it (nothing new in that -- and I am not advocating force there...) and it grew and grew to the point that it is now powerful enough to threaten the state of Lebanon though they are carefukl not too push that too far (to date...). Hezbollah is not an existential threat to Israel though it is dangerous and pestilential threat. It can, if it wishes be an annoyance to others but that would likely be its death warrant and I think they're smart enough to realize that.
We really need to start figuring out when to separate a non-state actor from the state, and when to simply say: "Look, you can't be both part of the state when it suits you, and then a separate militant arm without implicating that same state in your actions when it suits you either. Pick one."Philosophically, I agree. Practically, I'm not sure that can be done given the current state of the world.As an aside, it will be interesting to see what the current worldwide economic downturn does to several simmering potential conflicts.

In any event If we try to impose order unilaterally, we'll be adjudged more evil; if we get a coalition to do it; they'll be judged evil -- in all cases, that judgment will be by lesser States who object to power to sort out problems (unless they do it locally or internally, then it's no one else's business). The UN is not going to be effective for the same reason, all the numerous little States will object. Only if the non-state actors do something really egregious will one get any traction -- and most know that and are careful not to cross that line. So. I agree -- but do not know how to accomplish what you suggest. That's because, as you say:
When non-state or quasi-state engagese a state, they often fare well because the tools of statecraft (DIME) do not work well against them. When a weak state engages a strong state they lose. We allowed a weak state to engage a strong state under the auspices of "Hezbollah," and it created unnecessary. The proverbial self-inflicted headwound for the West.True.
We make this harder than it needs to be, and concepts like "Hybrid Warfare" don't help. The real issue are these evolving political statuses associated with Globalization, not some new form of warfare. In my thread, this is what I refer to when I speak of the "Environment."Saw that and generally agree with it also. The issue, I think, is how do we 'educate' the already highly educated 'policy professionals' whose academic backgrounds somehow all too frequrntly seem to poorly equip them for dealing with the real world?

Cavguy

03-04-2009, 10:05 PM

I'm continuing this thread over here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=6793)

Ken White

03-04-2009, 10:19 PM

Cav Guy. Read his book a long time ago; agreed with parts and not with others. I do strongly agree with this statement of his you quote:
"the fact is that we have to establish a military and civilian establishment which can fight and win any war, on any battlefield, anywhere in the world. That will require dominant symmetric/conventional/nuclear capabilities and asymmetric/irregular/counterinsurgency capabilities.Anyone who agrees with me is bound to be thinking correctly... :D

Or is that I agree with him so I must be thinking correctly... ;)

Either way, he's right.

P.S.

I have no hangup on hybrid war as a term; I just point out that as a practical effort, it's been around for years and thus is not 'new.' McCuen is correct, we have not dealt with it at all well and we need to be able to do that. No radical reforms are necessary, just common sense improvements -- and the civilian policy establishment is a big part of the problem.

slapout9

03-05-2009, 12:45 AM

Thats why the military became so interested in systems analysis in the late 50's and 60's. One method to analyze and develop a counter System to any Violent System out there. State,Non-State,4GW, Guerrilla,Insurgents,Terrorist,Gangs,and criminals.

Here is a link to an excellant paper on the subject, read it and look at how many differant groups it applies to. Simple is good:wry:
http://www.usafa.af.mil/df/inss/OCP/OCP52.pdf

Surferbeetle

03-05-2009, 03:27 AM

Slap,

Thanks for the link, more to read this weekend.

The UPS guy dropped off The Scientific Way of Warfare (Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity) by Antoine Bousquet (ISBN 978--0-231-70078-8) the other day. Dense reading, extensive footnotes, and I do not get the feeling that the author has spent time in the field, but it's pretty interesting so far (only on chapter 2).

Chapter 1: Technoscientific Regimes of Order in Warfare
Chapter 2: Mechanistic Warfare and the Clockwork Universe
Chapter 3: Thermodynamic Warfare and the Science of Energy
Chapter 4: Cybernetics and the Genesis of the Computer
Chapter 5: Cybernetic Warfare: Computers at War
Chapter 6: A New Informational Regime: From Chaos Theory to Complexity Science
Chapter 7: Towards Chaoplexic Warfare? Network-Centric Warfare

Regards,

Steve

William F. Owen

03-05-2009, 07:03 AM

I know both Doug MacGregor and Frank Hoffman, extremely well and have immense respect for both men - and I don't give that out lightly :D

Like most men I respect, I do not agree with all they say, but Doug hits the nail on the head with this one.

The IDF has made close examination of Hoffman's work, but they have very different ideas, that do no equate to "Hybrid". For the IDF Gaza and Lebanon are State v State warfare the civilians to be protected are their own. The fact that the enemy does not posses armoured brigades is utterly irrelevant - as it should be. There is no "new war". War is war and all wars are basically the same.

In my opinion "Hybrid" does serve a purpose if your Army/Services are intellectually incapable of grasping the nuance of the wider problem. It's the same justification as Manoeuvre Warfare.

Starbuck

03-05-2009, 07:13 AM

William F. Owen

03-05-2009, 07:26 AM

I think part of the problem you're running in to is that a lot of experts throw around the word "hybrid war" to describe a number of different phenomona. David Kilcullen uses it to refer to the complexities of fighting multiple insurgencies, criminal organizations and ethnic conflict in Iraq. Others seem to use it to refer to entities like Hezbollah, which didn't fight as conventional or unconventional. I think we may have fallen in love with a really cool buzzword.

In the old days of Empire, what Kilcullen refers to were called "Hostiles" and were a well known and well understood phenomena.

Hezbollah is no different from the NLF (VC) or the Boers. In fact they are exactly the same, just far less competent.

All be seen before and explained in detail. We don't need words or explanations. We just need some common sense.

Entropy

03-05-2009, 02:31 PM

I need to read more on hybrid warfare, but at first glance it does not seem all that new. I've been reading Roman (Republic) history lately and it seems to me they would be quite familiar with the concept of "hybrid warfare" if not the terminology.

Col.(ret) Macgregor said above:

In addition, the IDF embraced the use of armor, artillery and fuel air explosive in the conduct of urban operations with the object of minimizing the exposure of dismounted IDF troops to enemy fire. While the Hamas enemy may qualify as one of Frank Hoffman's hybrids, the IDF wasted no time in fighting for hearts and minds because the IDF knows there are none to win in the Islamic World.

He goes on to say that the IDF got it tactically and operationally right in the recent Hamas war. I agree with that to an extent, but Hamas' incompetence and mistakes, and the IDF's limited operational objectives (they didn't go "downtown" to root out hidden Hamas fighters/leadership) were factors as well.

slapout9

03-05-2009, 02:51 PM

Rank amateur

03-06-2009, 07:42 PM

Whether there is any strategic payoff for Israel in this operation is another matter. But tactically and operationally, the IDF got it right.
[/I]

Is like a pilot saying, let's not worry about landings, lets learn from the pilot who does fantastic take offs and level flights.

Ron Humphrey

03-06-2009, 08:38 PM

Is like a pilot saying, let's not worry about landings, lets learn from the pilot who does fantastic take offs and level flights.

Or cooking dinner with all the right ingredients and proper equipment but assuming 15 min at 800 will work rather than 60 at 200:wry:

The issue that seems to continue to be left out of much of the discussion whenever IDF is involved is the fact that how they "war" is and will always be completely different than how we can "war" because they live their thus your talking about the difference between fighting for survival(them) and changing things for someone else(us).

I've always agreed with WILF that war is war, Just seems like it needs to be stated that theres a big difference between -
Your War and Someone elses battles

Ken White

03-06-2009, 09:35 PM

survive, doing things right tactically and operationally are pretty important -- one error can mean disaster.

Which does not at all mean the Israelis did not profit strategically from the effort. Some times just demonstrating capability or will is a very important strategic effort (see Iraq, 2003-2009).

I do agree that the Israelis offer few usable examples for us -- but in this case, there is one minor lesson -- that 'hybrid' war is manageable.

TheLapsedPacifist

03-09-2009, 01:52 AM

Ron Humphrey

03-09-2009, 02:19 AM

This is all a mess...

We have Jack McCuen telling us that Hybrid is new and a combination of Symmetric and Asymmetric war - seriously? Who fights a symmetric war? Two boxers, maybe? And Hoffman spreading the term around with wild abandon.

I suggest:

1. It's not new.

2. The term would be useful if it prompted some of the dinosaurs / oil tankers (insert your own metaphor) to change course and if it galvanises the community - it isn't - it's being seized upon as a means to settle old scores (especially between the services...EBO anyone?), make reputations, but generally it is divisive.

3. We're trying to walk before we can run...I still haven't seen a decent Irregular Warfare definition...I think that we need to get our house into order before we start developing new terms for old problems.

I notice that the Israelis are pushing Hybrid real hard. Hezbollah's victory was a red herring - as this forum has stated, the Israelis got caught with their pants down. Ill prepared, not trained, and poorly equipped.

And the Hamas thing...Israel lost (didn't win) against Hezbollah, so it loses its deterrence... best thing to do is to find someone real quick and give them a good hiding, just so the neighbourhood knows you're still in business.

I think Hybrid's popularity stems from the fact that it is a useful fig leaf to cover someone's screw-up.

LP

it is unfortunately our mess because for all intensive purposes it does seem to drive where we go.

As for Hezbollah, Hamas, or other's should it really be considered indicatory in the least of what a different player involved in the same conflict should expect?

Do you suppose were it the ally's entering that there wouldn't be a massive difference in how they would fight. Or even if the Lebanese army where to go at it with them, are you sure it wouldn't be something more akin to Iraq or the Phillipine's, Farc, or (fill in the blank) I'm sure you get the point.

Or how about if we had decided to have a go at Russia during the Georgian incursion last year. What might that have looked like? Anywho long way of saying I for one am still waiting on the definition of "regular" (war, warfare, battle, conflict, negotiation, barter, trade, etc) anything having to do with one party gaining or losing something to or from another.

As to your concern with irregular warfare
How's this for definition.

Any conflict that occurs with the intent of achieving a given endstate, yet which is enacted through actions, teachings, or politics which do not conform to universally accepted norms for warfare.

No good? Oh well had to try.
Funny thing is seem's to me that once your able to accurately describe something in such a manner as to be encompassing of all actions to be found within it; it wouldn't be quite so irregular anymore:confused:

In this particular case I don;t see a problem with the definition being used now. Perhaps the more important issue is how it is used and by whom toward what ends?

slapout9

03-09-2009, 04:03 AM

I don't think we need anymore new words in the war vocabulary as many have pointed out, however I bet this catches on. Our economy is a hybrid economy, part planned and part free market (supposedly anyway) this term was popular when I studied economies a long time ago but it fell out of fashion and the term now is "mixed economy". However it is about to make a comeback and bet Hybrid Warfare will come with it....we will see.:wry:

William F. Owen

03-09-2009, 06:54 AM

I notice that the Israelis are pushing Hybrid real hard. Hezbollah's victory was a red herring - as this forum has stated, the Israelis got caught with their pants down. Ill prepared, not trained, and poorly equipped.

Not true. As I stated in a previous post on this thread, the IDF is not enamoured with "Hybrid". I was at the IDF's Staff Collage, the day after Hoffman, so I am pretty well aware of their reaction and reservations. I don't know who you think here is pushing it, but they are not on my radar.

In 2006 the IDF knew more about Hezbollah than any other organisation on the planet. The operational problems that did occur (and they did) had little or nothing to do with not understanding how Hezbollah worked.

What the IDF are concerned with is something a bit more nuanced than "Hybrid," and they've been talking about it for the last 10 years

Bullmoose Bailey

03-26-2009, 11:45 AM

Bob, your comments make a great deal of sense & I enjoyed reading them.

Certainly the model will be whatever the Congress & DoD say, irrespective.

Based on these things & your learned opinion, I have a question for you;

What then is the difference between "attrition" & "manoeuvre" warfare.

Pardon my ignorrance in asking, I thought I knew about five years ago.

But, matters have become somewhat blurred for me in those regards.

cheers.

Polarbear1605

03-26-2009, 12:19 PM

I will never recommend not to read a book but before you tackle "The Scientific Way of Warfare" you may want to read Colin Gray's ARTICLE "Irregular Warfare One Nature, Manay Characters". A Google search pops it up or the below link will get you there . Mr Gray can add a lot clarity to this discussion. :)
http://www.ndu.edu/keystone/docUploaded/Irregular%20Warfare%20-%20gray.pdf

George L. Singleton

03-26-2009, 12:30 PM

...but looks at each problem with fresh eyes, demanding that the intelligence community commits every bit as much of their considerable skill and energy to an understanding of the environment in which an event occurs as they do currently to describing the "threat" that is operating within that environment; you avoid always refighting the last conflict and thereby reduce our nation's risks.

Words are important to us but what about to our enemies today?

- Role of Civil Affairs (which encompases religious considerations)

- Role in background of VOICE OF AMERICA? Anyone notice that President Obama has started to use TV side of VOA overseas to make his points about Iran of late? *Pet subject of mine some of you may recall.

- Role of the Marine Corp in context of the variety of different environments we are up against these days...to include the damned pirates off coast of Africa.

- Huge role satellite, U-2, and drone intelligence has to be playing 24/7.

Cavguy

03-26-2009, 12:41 PM

Bullmoose Bailey

03-26-2009, 04:23 PM

Bullmoose,

You may find a quite enlightening and spirited previous discussion here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=6047):

T/M Cavguy, I'm on my way to that location tm:now......

Bob's World

03-26-2009, 05:11 PM

T/M Cavguy, I'm on my way to that location tm:now......

Ok, this is my hip-pocket answer without looking to formal definitions, so assess accordingly:

On a scale of "Strategic-Operational-Tactical" these two constructs would best fit within "Operational."

Back when I did conventional maneuver warfare the number one question I would demand of my S-2 was: Is the enemy force oriented or terrain oriented. Knowing if he achieves his ends by destroying or neutralizing my force if he achieves his ends by controlling some key terrain regardless of the status of my force in my mind is the critical thing a commander needs to know in order to calculate tactics and assess risk.

I do not, however, believe that attrition warfare is the opposite of maneuver warfare, the key difference is what the measure of success is, not how you seek to achieve it.

If destruction of the enemy force will achieve success, then one must conduct attrition warfare. This was the measure of success between European Armies for several hundred years between Kingdoms, but (personal opinion), General Grant proved that this was a false measure in wars between Nations. He made attrition a major supporting effort (Meade's campaign with his Army of the Potomac against Lee's Army of Northern Verginia under Grant's close supervision); while his main effort was maneuver based as Sheridan in the Shenandoah and Sherman in the SE targeted the will and wherewithal of the South to continue to support the fight. I posit that if Grant had simply destroyed Lee's Army we would have slid into a period of insurgency and ultimately would have lost the Union.

Maneuver warfare is usually terrain oriented, but can be force oriented, but uses speed and firepower as both security and to achieve localized advantages over one's opponent.

Both of these are valid in State vs State warfare, where the goal is for one government to achieve a position of advantage over another government so as to force them to succumb to the will of the victor. In Populace-based warfare agreements between governments are interesting, but it is the will and perception of the populace that is controlling.

Many COIN efforts turn into a massive punishment of the populace for daring to be dissatisfied with the poor governance provided by the government. What percentage of such a populace must one kill to gain their support? Certainly you can kill them into submission, but they will re-emerge if the underlying conditions of failure are not addressed. One of the key points that I stress is that the one thing that is truly new today is that due to the information tools available it is much more difficult to "suppress" an insurgency, and one must actually seek to resolve it.

This means that when the US goes someplace, like say Afghanistan, the majority focus must be inward on fixing the government, not outward on killing the dissatisfied populace (or outward focused on killing "terrorists" like the Pakistani agents we call the Taliban, or the Sunni Arab UW HQ we call AQN. The result was the same, we ignored a fragile new governance in favor of our own objectives in the country, and allowed competitors for the sovereignty of the country to slip in behind us and compete against the government). We were literally all on the perimeter looking outward for "enemies," while the government was failing behind us inside the perimeter.

So what is the measure of success in Populace-based warfare? I would argue that it is certainly neither terrain nor the enemy combat force. It is the support of the populace itself, and once gained, must be continuously nurtured. This is the continuous duty of government.

William F. Owen

03-26-2009, 05:52 PM

Maneuver warfare is usually terrain oriented, but can be force oriented, but uses speed and firepower as both security and to achieve localized advantages over one's opponent.

Well that's an interesting observation, but it's very different from the concept of maneuver warfare advocated by the US Army and USMC. At the higher Conceptual level, MW plays very well in COIN. The reality, as well all know is entirely different.

MW may have had a purpose once, but what that was is no longer clear.

Bob's World

03-26-2009, 06:32 PM

Well that's an interesting observation, but it's very different from the concept of maneuver warfare advocated by the US Army and USMC. At the higher Conceptual level, MW plays very well in COIN. The reality, as well all know is entirely different.

MW may have had a purpose once, but what that was is no longer clear.

4. Employment of forces in the operational area through movement in combination with fires to achieve a position of advantage in respect to the enemy in order to accomplish the mission. See also mission; operation.

William F. Owen

03-26-2009, 06:40 PM

4. Employment of forces in the operational area through movement in combination with fires to achieve a position of advantage in respect to the enemy in order to accomplish the mission. See also mission; operation.

Well aware... but this is where (http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/2008/09/the-manoeuvre-warfare-fraud.php) I am coming from

Bob's World

03-26-2009, 07:52 PM

Well aware... but this is where (http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/2008/09/the-manoeuvre-warfare-fraud.php) I am coming from

This one line says a great deal: "Success in battle is based on breaking the enemies will to resist."

I would just add from my perspective as a guy who spends a lot of time and energy working on and thinking about populace based conflicts that while your line is right on in state on state conflicts, I would offer a slight but important modification for populace based conflicts:

"Success in battle is based on breaking the enemies desire to resist." If I simply crush the people's will, they will be back with a vengence. If I defeat the violence and also take away the cause for trending to violence in the first place, I achieve an enduring peace.

States can come back at you too of course, but we have better mechanisms for detering state conflict than we do popular conflict.

William F. Owen

03-26-2009, 08:06 PM

"Success in battle is based on breaking the enemies desire to resist." If I simply crush the people's will, they will be back with a vengence. If I defeat the violence and also take away the cause for trending to violence in the first place, I achieve an enduring peace.

...or removing the enemies reason to resist? Breaking people's Will works, as well as anything else. It is the cause of military activity. It's why we have armies. Reason falls outside the scope of military thought.

So It works for a generation? Sometimes more. Sometimes less. Nothing lasts forever. King Hussein of Jordan eradicated the PLO in the Jordan in 1970. They never came back. Yes, he seceded the West Bank in 1988, but the point is, the "reason" is sometimes, not negotiable, so an enduring peace is not a solution. A period of a better peace may be achievable.

Bob's World

03-26-2009, 09:02 PM

The difference between being an Idealist in the real world and a realist in the real world, perhaps? I could tone down my positions to be more realist, but I think it is important to set the bar high, even if not achieved, there is great value in making the effort.

Often what is seen as impossible one day, becomes very possible the next with a simple change of perspective. For example, I saw an interesting piece on TV where an archeologist has sound evidence to support his theory that the Wailing Wall is actually a remnant of a Pagan Roman Temple (matchs exactly plans to another roman temple elsewhere) and that the Dome of the Rock is not built on the Temple, but rather beside it. It would take some digging to prove, and that is not allowed. How would that change the equation. If these structures were co-existing side by side and not either or, perhaps the people could move in that direction as well.

Of course no Jew wants to learn that he has been worshiping at a pagan Roman wall all these generations...

Point being though, if they could redefine the issues, they could redefine the conflict. To simply keep fighting over the same perspective will never resolve the problem. Oh well, won't solve this one here.

William F. Owen

03-27-2009, 05:04 AM

Of course no Jew wants to learn that he has been worshiping at a pagan Roman wall all these generations...

Eyh... Not so bad. I'd be intrigued as to the evidence. THE Wall is actually the face of a platform, on which the Second Temple stood. It's known not to be part of the actual Temple itself, and yes the Dome of the Rock is built over the rock, so that was not inside the Second Temple.

Point being though, if they could redefine the issues, they could redefine the conflict. To simply keep fighting over the same perspective will never resolve the problem. Oh well, won't solve this one here.
For sure. Wanna send the girls home and go get a beer? :D

William F. Owen

05-05-2009, 09:39 AM

If you want to be concerned about the future of the US Armed Forces, see here (http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54186)

Apparently,

Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy, said America's conventional dominance gives incentive to its enemies to use asymmetric means to undermine U.S. strengths and exploit its weaknesses.

“Preparing for this operating environment will pull the Army, and the military writ large, in two very different directions,” she told the roughly 200-person audience at the Army Leader Forum at the Pentagon.

On the one hand, the United States must be ready for irregular warfare, in which combatants blend in with civilian populations and conduct roadside-bomb attacks, suicide bombings and similar tactics, she said.

“Those of you who served in Iraq and Afghanistan know firsthand how challenging it is to operate effectively in such an environment,” she said.

Meanwhile, she said, the United States must remain prepared to deal with high-end threats, though these are much more likely to be asymmetric in character. Illustrating this concept, Flournoy described a scenario in which rising regional powers and rogue states use highly sophisticated technologies to deny U.S. access to critical regions and to thwart its operations.

These tactics range from anti-satellite capabilities, anti-air capabilities and anti-ship weapons to weapons of mass destruction and cyber attacks.

Further complicating the battle landscape is the prospect of sophisticated nonstate actors using high-end capabilities such as weapons of mass destruction or guided rockets or munitions, as in the case of Hezbollah in Lebanon during its 2006 war with Israel.

If anyone wants to tell me Ms Flournoy is correct in her assertions and reasoning, I would be fascinated as to the actual evidence or train of thought.

Spud

05-05-2009, 10:05 AM

C'mon WILF at least you've got a policy ... even if it just sitting on the fence.

Our latest effort contradicts itself paragraph by paragraph. See Greg Sheridan (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25415072-5013460,00.html) for the best 1000 words written on a 140-page 'blancmange.'

You guys are only wondering about where to apportion money. We're still trying to figure out what we have a Defence Force for.

Bob's World

05-05-2009, 10:29 AM

We're still pressing full steam ahead trying to make a Cold War strategy work in a rapidly changing environment.

Many military commentors and analysts who also take the correctness of that obsolete strategy look at the resultant friction to it and our challenges in dealing with the misdiagnosed threats as being "hybrid" or "irregular."

The fact is, of course, that the nature of man, and the nature of warfare does not change much. If your policies lead to conflict, those who you are in conflict with will seek their best advantantage to resolve the conflict in their favor. This is all quite regular, as it is also quite regular to apply a savvy mix of approaches to that same end. It has always been so.

Fact is that there is a lot of bad advice being offered at very high levels, not the least of which is because those at very high levels are almost universally very skilled, successful Cold Warriors.

But as Secretary Gates essentially said in his oft quoted (and a guiding document for the currently ongoing QDR) Foreign Affairs article: Thank God for Radical Special Forces Colonels. I resemble that remark.

There is no panacea in either "Hybrid" or "Irregular Warfare."

The key is to understand that the current is only irregular if one takes the positon that the Cold War was "Regular." Hardly. But that great anomally lasted so long in current memory that it is how we measure the world. Time for a new ruler to measure with.

Populaces held static in their governance by Cold War controls are in "movement" once again, those still held static by outside controls attempting to sustain an obsolete status quo are resisting those controls. We need to recognize this, and not be the obstacle to change.

Irregular Warfare, in my opinion, is best looked at not as a form or warfare, but rather as a clumsy description of this globalized, post Cold War world that we live in today. The tools of globalization are doing many very new things:

1. The speed and availability of information don't change the principles of Insurgency, but they do render obsolete many of the tactics. Become more principle based when studying why tactics that worked historically worked, and modify accordingly for today.

2. Islam is reforming. Understand the inner conflict in the middle east. This religious aspect to their quest for self-determination and our efforts to sustain a status quo all make for a very volatile mix.

3. Non-state actors can now act in very state-like ways. AQN wages UW. This is a new thing and it confuses our approach. It also creates new forms of "sanctuary" that we need to sort through.

William F. Owen

05-05-2009, 11:29 AM

goesh

05-05-2009, 01:53 PM

Just a civilian's opinion but the Conventional will always assure good order and discipline and the flow of goods and services in a timely manner - the rank and file will be marching forever and day. Naval and Air compoments of our national defense aren't being pulled apart, not even with my reach of imagination. With 300+ years of Indian warfare under our belt for starters, the Asymetrical hardly invokes confusion and disarray in the Army. I do see a lot of turf wars having been fueled by AQ and other assorted insurgents/jihadists but it is quite a reach to even speculate that it has caused systemic dysfunction or can cause it.

Surferbeetle

05-05-2009, 02:27 PM

All this "complex adaptive" stuff is rubbish. If want complex adaptation, look at 1914-18! Far worse than anything the world could throw at us today.

All that is needed is adjustment, not revolution, and re-building.

Wilf,

Napoleonic warfare and trench warfare are static datapoints in the flowing history of human warfare.

I hope that where we can agree is that in most fights one picks up whatever is available/at hand: stone, stick, common electronics & explosives, computer, radio/tv/cell phone, a highly engineered rifle, reconstruction policies :rolleyes: and uses them over a continuum of violence (which is not just limited to physical violence) in order to have one's way.

From this particular vantage point complex adaptive means having the abilities and skills to use not just gray matter by itself but to augment it with math/computers/electronics in order to rapidly exert influence out of proportion to what we were given by the creator (the whole basic tool using primate thing).

Since these tools are widely available to everybody who is skipping around on our worldwide battlefield, and as per the usual battlefield rules it's adapt or die out there, the choice is clear...

Regards,

Steve

William F. Owen

05-05-2009, 02:41 PM

Since these tools are widely available to everybody who is skipping around on our worldwide battlefield, and as per the usual battlefield rules it's adapt or die out there, the choice is clear...

Steve, if you are telling me that adaptation is inherent and essential to warfare, I agree absolutely. It is, always was and always will be.

...so why do we suddenly talk about adaptation as if it is a new requirement or warfare now being complex. Warfare always was. War is not changing in ways we don't understand. Nor are our enemies changing in any degree that requires new insight. What we seek to achieve by violance, does not change.

When the Kansas Fire Brigade, attack Jerusalem, for fun, using hot-air balloons, I'll admit I was wrong!

Surferbeetle

05-05-2009, 03:01 PM

Steve, if you are telling me that adaptation is inherent and essential to warfare, I agree absolutely. It is, always was and always will be.

We are on the same page here...or to use SWJ-speak, we are in violent agreement...

...so why do we suddenly talk about adaptation as if it is a new requirement or warfare now being complex. Warfare always was. War is not changing in ways we don't understand. Nor are our enemies changing in any degree that requires new insight. What we seek to achieve by violence, does not change.

The nature of war has not changed nor will it ever change (unless of course we somehow manage to radically change our genome)...it has always been adapt or die...basic biology.

However, where we seem to sometimes disagree is upon the definition of Warfare: the act or methods of waging war which is of course imbibed with change itself. Change: mutation/chaos/complexity/stochastic/randomness. This is where the terms hybrid, special operations, asymmetric, economic, conventional, unconventional, etc. are placed in front of the word warfare and shortly thereafter we here at SWJ collectively lose our minds and spew coffee all over the computer monitor...

When the Kansas Fire Brigade, attack Jerusalem, for fun, using hot-air balloons, I'll admit I was wrong!

This would be an amazing sight in and of itself...if it ever goes down give me a call, I'll bring the beer and perhaps we can find a good vantage point to compare notes from...

Best regards,

Steve

Tom Odom

05-05-2009, 03:49 PM

When the Kansas Fire Brigade, attack Jerusalem, for fun, using hot-air balloons, I'll admit I was wrong!

Which Kansas Fire Brigade?

There's lot's of hot air at Leavenworth

It could happen...:wry:

Ken White

05-05-2009, 03:59 PM

Hybrid warfare? Those pesky Steppe dwellers and the Egyptians invented Composite Bows. Then there was the thought "Let's distribute blankets from smallpox victims" ...

Bill Moore

05-05-2009, 05:08 PM

If anyone wants to tell me Ms Flournoy is correct in her assertions and reasoning, I would be fascinated as to the actual evidence or train of thought.

Wilf, the hybrid concept is not new, but some of the potential threats are new (that is simply due to an ever changing geopolitical environment and new technology available, which is simply a continuation of history), so the character of war has changed. I'm trying to discern exactly what you disagree with Ms Flournoy on? The list of threats or the hybrid war concept?

Bob's World, I agree with most of your points, but the majority of Cold War conflict was so called irregular warfare, where one side attempted to win over a select population using armed conflict in Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Angola, Greece, Italy, Turkey, etc. Fortunately for us the communist system was bankrupt, so even if we weren't that good at counterinsurgency, we still won that particular round. I think an argument could be made that this war is still ongoing, based on the apparent surge in Maoist insurgency activity throughout many parts of the world. The difference is we don't have near competitor nuclear superpowers fighting a largely overt proxy war. Proxy wars are kind of like computer games, the guys pushing the buttons don't get dirty.

From this particular vantage point complex adaptive means having the abilities and skills to use not just gray matter by itself but to augment it with math/computers/electronics in order to rapidly exert influence out of proportion to what we were given by the creator (the whole basic tool using primate thing).

Steve, not to reopen an old debate on our opposing views of EBO, but complex adaptive systems is not about tools, it is about human behavior and the ability for humans to learn and adapt. In simple grunt terms (my language) the enemy has a vote, because they will adapt to our response and we will adapt to theirs, thus conflict co-evolution. I strongly disagree with your assertion that a tool will allow us to simplify war into a math equation. Tools may help, but I tend to trust a "good" commander's inutition much more than a tool.

Wilf makes the point that none of these concepts are new is correct (that is only half true, our descripton of something as old as mankind is new), but again I would argue not useful. 90% of our failures in so irregular warfare are due to leadership failures to understand the nature of the problem and respond correctly. 90% of the successes are due to leadership successes. The other 10% is random or luck. You would think fixing the leadership issue would be relatively easy, but it isn't due to our deeply embedded culture for conventional warfare, thus whether new or not, the concepts of IW and hybrid warfare are useful forcing mechanisms. I suspect you'll disagree, but I don't know how you can argue the point that we didn't do very well initially fighting this type of war, and I'm not sure how the argument that war is war (even though its true) is helpful is fixing our underlying problems. Please explain your positon?

I think the main issue for our general purpose forces creating an awareness of the holistic nature of war through education and training. In addition to fixing our professional education and culture, we need to direct more funding towards Special Operations, security force assistance, and so called asymmetric capabilities such as cyber, missile defense, space dominance, etc.

William F. Owen

05-05-2009, 06:01 PM

Wilf, the hybrid concept is not new, but some of the potential threats are new (that is simply due to an ever changing geopolitical environment and new technology available, which is simply a continuation of history), so the character of war has changed. I'm trying to discern exactly what you disagree with Ms Flournoy on? The list of threats or the hybrid war concept?

If she had started her testimony with the words "Business as usual to anyone with a brain," I'd agree with her.

I don't agree with a Hybrid War concept. It falls between being an invented problem, and naming something we don't need to name. It's a another poorly defined feature of contemporary military thought.

What threats are we seeing that are so new? No weapon the enemy is using in Iraq or A'Stan is less than 30 years old or more in terms of actual employment. What emerging regional powers (that we don't know about)

Sea Mines? Anti-ship missiles? Broad Band Jamming? Passive Radar? Sarin? VX? What about all these are so surprising or even "new technology?"

If US Armed Forces are being pulled in two very different directions then someone needs to be sacked for stupidity for letting that happen.

Surferbeetle

05-05-2009, 07:20 PM

Bill,

Appreciate the response. You and I are 'active learners' and have learned in both the classroom and field that Humans are more important than hardware. We both know that all that running around on a battlefield with an equation on piece of paper is going to do is get somebody killed, instead it takes men and women who are willing to physically do what must be done. My point is this does not mean that hardware/and the math behind it should be ignored, and I will try to provide some relevant examples which show that math has and continues to help to create the conditions for success on the battlefield.

Steve, not to reopen an old debate on our opposing views of EBO, but complex adaptive systems is not about tools, it is about human behavior and the ability for humans to learn and adapt. In simple grunt terms (my language) the enemy has a vote, because they will adapt to our response and we will adapt to theirs, thus conflict co-evolution. I strongly disagree with your assertion that a tool will allow us to simplify war into a math equation. Tools may help, but I tend to trust a "good" commander's intuition much more than a tool.

I suspect that you too remember learning about John Henry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore)) way back when. Look where we are today with respect to earthmoving (http://www.cat.com/cda/layout?m=37840&x=7) equipment. How about crossbows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow) versus our 'old' standby the M-16 musket (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle) IMHO you and I stand at a similar point in history with respect to the evolution of some more aspects of warfare from art into a math based science. The computer and the internet have had huge roles in our and our enemies TTPs in this particular event and the genie will not be heading back into the bottle any time soon.

Wilf makes the point that none of these concepts are new is correct (that is only half true, our descripton of something as old as mankind is new), but again I would argue not useful. 90% of our failures in so irregular warfare are due to leadership failures to understand the nature of the problem and respond correctly. 90% of the successes are due to leadership successes. The other 10% is random or luck. You would think fixing the leadership issue would be relatively easy, but it isn't due to our deeply embedded culture for conventional warfare, thus whether new or not, the concepts of IW and hybrid warfare are useful forcing mechanisms. I suspect you'll disagree, but I don't know how you can argue the point that we didn't do very well initially fighting this type of war, and I'm not sure how the argument that war is war (even though its true) is helpful is fixing our underlying problems. Please explain your position?

Using the following definitions:

War: struggle over life and death

Warfare: the act of waging war or methods used for waging war

Unconventionally during the invasion of Afghanistan and conventionally during the invasion of Iraq we did very, very well. As you mentioned however, the enemy has a vote and has adapted to our style of warfare. My point is that we need to continue to adapt our methods of warfare as well and a conventional, non-asymmetric, math-free/light response will not answer the mail. Our combat trained/tested leadership at all levels NCO/WO/Officer is the glue that holds it all together; in spite of the cold war bureaucracy which works to hold us back in some important respects.

I think the main issue for our general purpose forces creating an awareness of the holistic nature of war through education and training. In addition to fixing our professional education and culture, we need to direct more funding towards Special Operations, security force assistance, and so called asymmetric capabilities such as cyber, missile defense, space dominance, etc.

I agree with you on this point, and as usual here at SWJ our path takes us right back to the importance of relevant training...

Steve

Ken White

05-05-2009, 07:52 PM

I don't agree with a Hybrid War concept. It falls between being an invented problem, and naming something we don't need to name. It's a another poorly defined feature of contemporary military thought.My take also...
If US Armed Forces are being pulled in two very different directions then someone needs to be sacked for stupidity for letting that happen.1. I think that US tactical and operational thinking has been so severely constrained by our fetish with 'metrics' and providing 'systems' thinking that we see anything out of OUR now constrained definition of ordinary as something new when in fact it is not; thus our perception -- or rather, that of some (fortunately not all) of our 'strategic thinkers' -- is easly skewed.

2. Add to that the US governmental system that says Person C get elected to replace Person B. Person C must appoint People who will publicly refute every trick, technique, policy or statement of Person B -- just. as Person B and his or her folks did yo Person A.

... a. Until, of course, they find out there was a very good reason for their predecessor's policies and quietly reinstitute them... :D

... b. In any event, new appointees will parrot new things just cause they're different. This usually consists, in DoD, of listening to the buzz amongst the troops and emphasizing something that predecessor civilians did not. Such mention will not necessarily be either in context or involve common sense. This is an obvious problem made worse by 1. above.

3. This governmental process also requires 'new' thinking every four to eight years. Sometimes, that appears, usually it's just the old wine with a new set of buzzwords.

Bill Moore

05-06-2009, 05:03 AM

What threats are we seeing that are so new? No weapon the enemy is using in Iraq or A'Stan is less than 30 years old or more in terms of actual employment. What emerging regional powers (that we don't know about) Wilf

The fact that the resistance in Afghanistan is a near peer competitor with the world's most modern military is a somewhat disturbing thought when you really think about it. Recently a senior officer suggested that our network centric warfare model (all seeing, all knowing, sensor-shooter technology stuff) is deeply flawed and that we need to revisit the principle of mass. Our high speed sensors and shooters are not getting the job done. What we need is more Soldiers walking the turf so we can control the populace and defeat the enemy. While I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water I tend to agree that our experiment with network warfare worked well fighting an inept enemy like Saddam, but it hasn't worked so well since then.

Agree or not, the network centric form of warfare is how we fight. It is how we're equipped and trained to fight. It is enabled by satellites, computers, software, etc., and of course all these are increasingly vulnerable to attack through asymmetric means (counter-technology?). What happens to our ability to fight if our satellites are disabled? What happens if a virus shuts down our internet system supporting the fight? We'll have no common operational picture, navigation will be impacted, intelligence will be significantly hampered, sensor to shooter capability will be serious effected, etc. It will take precious time to shift back to paper maps, FAX machines, HF radio, etc. There are several things that are new; one of them is that our dependence on information technology has made us more vulnerable, because these systems are vulnerable to attacks using counter-technology.

What else is new? The fact that a kid in the Philippines can design, then employ a computer virus that causes millions, if not billions, of dollars of damage worldwide is somewhat new. 30 years ago a kid couldn't do that. If you believe the recent hype about our electric power grid being vulnerable to a computer attack from afar, that is also relatively new. We still haven't grasped the significance of global networking tools for enabling hostile global networks to coordinate their activities. We’re not the only ones who have a network. The World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle a few years back should have been a wake up call. The rapid proliferation of knowledge on line ranging from how to fire a weapon, organize a demonstration, make a bomb, sabotage a bull dozer, etc. with video and text support is all somewhat new.

I get your point, but if we opt to live in the past and continue on as though nothing is new, I think we assume exceptional risk. I don’t like cute labels either, and I don’t get her point about being pulled in two directions, but I still think there is some merit to the discussion.

William F. Owen

05-06-2009, 06:25 AM

What else is new? The fact that a kid in the Philippines can design, then employ a computer virus that causes millions, if not billions, of dollars of damage worldwide is somewhat new. 30 years ago a kid couldn't do that. If you believe the recent hype about our electric power grid being vulnerable to a computer attack from afar, that is also relatively new. We still haven't grasped the significance of global networking tools for enabling hostile global networks to coordinate their activities. We’re not the only ones who have a network. The World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle a few years back should have been a wake up call. The rapid proliferation of knowledge on line ranging from how to fire a weapon, organize a demonstration, make a bomb, sabotage a bull dozer, etc. with video and text support is all somewhat new.

Bill,

Sure, we are living in the information age. I fully admit that. It also has massive benefits for our side as well. There are now training and equipment opportunities that we could only dream back in the day. If some punk 18-year-old anti-WTO type can get it, then we need to sack folks who can't. It's obvious, and it's not hard. If there is any platoon commander in the US or UK who could not plan the 911 attacks we need to sack him as well.

However, my point is that the likes Flournoy and many, many others, is that they are saying "The dog ate my homework."
Anyone who is telling us that our enemy has technologies, is stating the obvious, and often has to overstate the threat to get the reaction they want.
Anyone saying war is now more complex is grossly unaware of military history.

The current defence debate is silliness on an industrial scale. I am not a luddite or yearning for the cold war. This is the easiest military environment we have faced since 1914. We need to realise that, and stop panicking about complexity, hybrids and networks.

Bill Moore

05-06-2009, 07:25 AM

Anyone who is telling us that our enemy has technologies, is stating the obvious, and often has to overstate the threat to get the reaction they want.

Anyone saying war is now more complex is grossly unaware of military history. Wilf

Concur that our current conflicts are simple relative to our previous fights, but they are not simple.

My question for you remains, how do we improve our military's ability to effectively wage this type of conflict without a forcing mechanism (IW in this case)? If we simply accept that war is war, how will that drive us to make needed changes in our doctrine and training?

William F. Owen

05-06-2009, 09:44 AM

Concur that our current conflicts are simple relative to our previous fights, but they are not simple.

ALL Wars/conflicts of any form or type are complex. I concur. The complexity varies, but they are never, ever simple! This is precisely my point.

My question for you remains, how do we improve our military's ability to effectively wage this type of conflict without a forcing mechanism (IW in this case)? If we simply accept that war is war, how will that drive us to make needed changes in our doctrine and training?

OK, excellent question and sorry not to have addressed before.

First, we need to reject or limit the use of forcing mechanisms, unless we openly state we are using them, and clearly articulate why and how we are using them. I don't like them, because they are inherently dishonest and talk down to soldiers - the very worst examples being 4GW and Manoeuvre Warfare. Hybrid War also seems to be a forcing mechanism.

Second, you need to write a "Year Zero" description of war and with that a description of what military does in it. - and you don't need to write all of it, because Clausewitz has done most of that for us.

Thirdly, and using the "Year Zero" model, we need to recover military thought from the nose dive it has been in for the last 10-15 years. The quality of military writing and especially that which is getting published in professional journals is at an all time low. Serious rigourous reviews of most of this work is lacking. We could start naming names here on SWC, but I suspect there is no appetite for it, especially among those who are serving, and I completely understand this.

Some of the US Military, and some of the UK, have a very skewed view of military history, thus it was understandable yet negligent in the extreme that US Army had no COIN expertise - there simply was no excuse, given that military history lays out all the fundamentals in stark detail. I strongly suggest that addressing the teaching and education of military history, as to inform practical knowledge would address this. It would also mean FM3-24 could be about 200 pages shorter than it is.

I would strongly suggest reading this (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/08winter/gray.pdf) by Colin S. Gray. It is brilliant and says everything better than I ever could

Surferbeetle

05-06-2009, 03:14 PM

Wilf,

Enjoyed the Gray link, he is well written and presents some points to reflect upon:

The domain of uncertainty can be distressingly large, however. If you are not blessed, or cursed, with a dominant enemy, the path of prudence is to cover all major possibilities as well as possible, without becoming overcommitted to one particular category of danger. The temptation is to assert that flexibility and adaptability are not policies, certainly not strategies. Nonetheless, they are often the basis for defense planning when the time, place, and identity of enemies are unknown, or at least uncertain.

This is the easiest military environment we have faced since 1914. We need to realise that, and stop panicking about complexity, hybrids and networks.

I have had the good fortune to spend some time on several trips at the WWI battlefield in Asiago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Asiago), Italy. As I wandered through the tunnels and trenches and across that battlefield I too gained a deep appreciation of what our brother soldiers endured in WWI, however I was not in the least impressed by the constrained/channeled/narrow/bungled thinking that led to trench warfare and its variants.

Rather than panic many, myself included, welcome the thinking and philosophy behind complexity, hybrids and networks. It seems to me that detractors of the various descriptive terms of warfare limit constrain themselves and and in so doing limit their ability to respond on the battlefield. This both contradicts the dictum 'A good commander maximizes his options' and seems contradict what Professor/Soldier Gray is presenting in his paper.

Regards,

Steve

William F. Owen

05-06-2009, 03:45 PM

As I wandered through the tunnels and trenches and across that battlefield I too gained a deep appreciation of what our brother soldiers endured in WWI, however I was not in the least impressed by the constrained/channeled/narrow/bungled thinking that led to trench warfare and its variants.
I think that very much depends if you feel Trench Warfare was avoidable. Personally, I do not think it was. The problems it presented were vast and mostly unforeseen. Should they have been foreseen? Well that's another question.

Rather than panic many, myself included, welcome the thinking and philosophy behind complexity, hybrids and networks. It seems to me that detractors of the various descriptive terms of warfare limit constrain themselves and and in so doing limit their ability to respond on the battlefield. This both contradicts the dictum 'A good commander maximizes his options' and seems contradict what Professor/Soldier Gray is presenting in his paper.

For me, these descriptions are "Ahistorical". _ they are not rooted in military history or even operational analysis. They are fortune telling, or speculation.

There is no threat, physical battlefield condition, or circumstance, now or emerging, that requires any form of novel response. Currently there is very little new in land warfare and even less in COIN. Technology is creeping forward, but it rewards us as much as our enemies.

For me, I just can't see what it is that the users of all this new language find so hard to understand.
How does calling something "Hybrid" help? The VC, Khmer Rouge, Northern Front, PLO and most forces in 1990's Balkans, were all "Hybrids." How is this insightful? How does it help?
Why not "Guerillas" or even "Irregulars" - words that worked for over 100 years!!

Ron Humphrey

05-06-2009, 04:01 PM

Because you all are so much more experienced at this type of thing.

Just two questions

Are these phrases being used by and for military or public wallet holder/decision makers consumption?

Does that make a difference?

J Wolfsberger

05-06-2009, 05:07 PM

Just two questions

Are these phrases being used by and for military or public wallet holder/decision makers consumption?

Does that make a difference?

From the original article, this:

"Gates proposed distributing allocated funds in accordance with what he characterized as the type of “complex hybrid” warfare he expects will be increasingly common. He placed roughly half of his proposed budget for traditional, strategic and conventional conflict, about 40 percent in dual-purpose capabilities and the remaining 10 percent in irregular warfare."

I understand the concept of Hybrid War. It seems to have a lot of utility for the process of framing problems and providing insight.

At the same time, there has been a lot of effort (and funding) expended on developing technology to replace boots on the ground through a "quality of firsts." Often, as I have seen it, without any appreciation of the realities of tactical, operational or strategic reality.

I think you've identified the right questions. Are we really making a fundamental effort to find out what the troops need to prevail in future conflicts, or are we just using the concept to justify more high tech development programs? We'll find out the answers this Friday.

Bob's World

05-06-2009, 05:33 PM

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

Apparently, Frank Hoffman has been designated by DoD as the provervbial "one-eyed man," as he came along with his Jerry Seinfield-like "concept about nothing" idea of "hybrid warfare" to provide an intellectual life ring of sort for those throughout the think tanks and conventional force that were totally befuddled that shock and awe tactics were not causing all of the threats of the world to simple curl up in the bottom of their foxholes and wave white flags; or that a combination of regime change and counterterrorism was not winning the GWOT.

This too shall pass. Clearly there is nothing new contained within the concept of hybrid warfare, and any fighter, be it on the playground or between global powers, or a non-state actor, will seek every advantage to match perceived strengths against perceived weaknesses. Don't lose any sleep about hybrid warfare, it doesn't help much, but I doubt it hurts much either.

As to "Irregular Warfare" more than anything else this is a vehicle to explain where DOD must develop enhanced capabilities and capacity to deal with they type of mission-sets that we will be both expected and tasked to accomplish over the next foreseeable future. It really doesn't matter if you think these are not proper military tasks, or even if you are absolutely correct in your position. Fact is the US military will be doing this, and we must therefore be able to do it well. The argument of is this "right or wrong" is over. The current agument is:

"If this is what we are going to do, how do we do it to the best of our ability without losing the ability to deal with more traditional military missions and threats."

At some point a good soldier having made his case comes to attention, salutes, and says "All the way, sir!" Then he goes out and makes it happen way more effectively than his boss could have ever imagined.

Time for us to start exceeding our boss's imagination. To grossly paraphrase BG Cota's D-Day directive:

Theirs just two kind of soldiers who are going to stay here on this blog and argue about it. Those who are irrelevant, and those who are going to be irrelevant.

selil

05-06-2009, 05:41 PM

Our high speed sensors and shooters are not getting the job done. What we need is more Soldiers walking the turf so we can control the populace and defeat the enemy. While I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water I tend to agree that our experiment with network warfare worked well fighting an inept enemy like Saddam, but it hasn't worked so well since then.

At the same time, there has been a lot of effort (and funding) expended on developing technology to replace boots on the ground through a "quality of firsts." Often, as I have seen it, without any appreciation of the realities of tactical, operational or strategic reality.

I think you've identified the right questions. Are we really making a fundamental effort to find out what the troops need to prevail in future conflicts, or are we just using the concept to justify more high tech development programs? We'll find out the answers this Friday.

You are both going down a path that is well trodden. Whether it be military or civilian the issues with adding technology to a problem set rather than evaluate the problem set is onerous. Consider the Honda Civic. It started out as a small compact car. It then got bigger, and bigger, abandoning it's roots as a high mileage vehicle. Meanwhile the entire product line of Honda bloated up faster the hoosier helen at the country buffet. When high MPG cars were needed Honda had to release a new product called the Fit.

The same can be said about the computer product world. Apple has made a mint off selling a stripped down operating system in a plain generic design collapsed around a central product theme. They also have bloated and grown (though not nearly as fast as Microsoft) to the point the latest operating system Snow Leopard will have few features but be a stripped down operating system again. The same is partially true about Windows 7 versus Vista.

We've discussed within the council the weight that soldiers carry, pack animals, the strategic corporal and other issues central to the theme. What we are talking about is additions to the core business of making war. Soldiers exist to kill the adversary and destroy the will of the adversary to resist. Everything we add to their pack, their training, their capacity should be central to that theme. Creating mesh networks that allow generals to micro-manage privates in combat add weight, cognitive overhead, and stultify the process of making war. We are not talking about a binary solution matrix but a spectrum. Whether we discuss third generation warfare high intensity conflict, or fourth generation impacts on the will of people to fight, the central theme of destroying the adversaries will to resist exist.

Systems theory has been abused by the military community and used as a buzz word to generate interest in what otherwise is a difficult conceptual framework. Thomas Barnett tried to discuss this with his sys-admin force versus the death dealing knuckle draggers. You need the spectrum which is how you get the hybrid mess. The military likes four bullet points per slide and an answer that is either yes or no, you will be told the correct answer before you begin. Sorry, any problem worth solving is likely much more a spectrum than a binary.

Technology makes a good sign post to the underpinnings of an organization. The more you push resources into tools the more likely you don't trust your people. The more you define missions around weapons systems the more likely success will be a pyrrhic victory. Technology has no moral victory. You can buy technology, but you have to train and lead troops. When i read different military journals and magazines filled with the fodder of military vendors touting technology as the venture toward success despite the failings of troops I'm left wondering then why fight? Technology and the choices employed tell us a lot about a fighting force. Does a particular technology make the warrior better, or allow them to be controlled easier?

Ron Humphrey

05-06-2009, 06:20 PM

How do you provide recognition of the tools which are meant to enable commanders to have better visibility of those in their subordinate commands in order to learn from and listen to them(awareness) without also providing the opportunity for micro-management?

Seems like I've heard some of our leaders say that answer is found in leaders who recognize both possibilities yet choose through wisdom not to do the latter.

jmm99

05-06-2009, 06:34 PM

Some of the hassle, and "evolution" of terminology, hinges on interpretation and implementation of DoD Directive 3000.05 (http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/300005p.pdf), November 28, 2005, "Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations", which provides in pertinent part (emphasis added):

4. POLICY

It is DoD policy that:

4.1. Stability operations are a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support. They shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DoD activities including doctrine, organizations, training, education, exercises, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning.

4.2. Stability operations are conducted to help establish order that advances U.S. interests and values. The immediate goal often is to provide the local populace with security, restore essential services, and meet humanitarian needs. The long-term goal is to help develop indigenous capacity for securing essential services, a viable market economy, rule of law, democratic institutions, and a robust civil society.

4.3. Many stability operations tasks are best performed by indigenous, foreign, or U.S. civilian professionals. Nonetheless, U.S. military forces shall be prepared to perform all tasks necessary to establish or maintain order when civilians cannot do so. Successfully performing such tasks can help secure a lasting peace and facilitate the timely withdrawal of U.S. and foreign forces. Stability operations tasks include helping:

4.3.1. Rebuild indigenous institutions including various types of security forces, correctional facilities, and judicial systems necessary to secure and stabilize the environment;

4.3.2. Revive or build the private sector, including encouraging citizen-driven, bottom-up economic activity and constructing necessary infrastructure; and

4.3.3. Develop representative governmental institutions. ... [JMM: the directive goes on for a number of pages].

Following the logic of this directive (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=846&highlight=directive+3000.05#post846), its concept is indeed a hybrid (whether a mess or not, we shall see) - where the hybrid is the posited fusion of military and civilian roles.

My perception, after reading James Dobbins, "The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG557.pdf)" (330 pp.), is that a majority of the stability tasks are what I would consider civilian.

However, except for some pilot programs (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=6636), there is no civilian force in place that equates to a large-enough "civilian expeditionary force" to handle real-world stability operations, without substantial DoD and military force participation in directly handling stability tasks.

-------------------

Hey, a Civilian Expeditionary Force = a CEF (a cousin to a MEF ?) - and, since it would need both air and logistics branches (to be truly independent and effective), we could have a CAGTF as its basic operational structure. :D

Ken White

05-06-2009, 08:48 PM

Wilf said:
"Thirdly, and using the "Year Zero" model, we need to recover military thought from the nose dive it has been in for the last 10-15 years. The quality of military writing and especially that which is getting published in professional journals is at an all time low.He's charitable. It's pretty pathetic IMO overall, there is an occasional bright spot in the journals but they're rare. Most articles tend to be too scholarly for practical use. Footnote and references are helpful, a term paper not so much so. Wilf also said FM 3-24 was 200 pages too long. I agree, however, I'm pleased to inform you, Wilf, that the even newer FM 3-24.2, designed, believe it or not for Bde and below, is 25 pages longer...

Selil said:
"Technology makes a good sign post to the underpinnings of an organization. The more you push resources into tools the more likely you don't trust your people."Exactly. Can't trust 'em because they're only half trained. That can be fixed and, slowly, we may be starting to do that. However, as Ron Humphrey said:
"Seems like I've heard some of our leaders say that answer is found in leaders who recognize both possibilities yet choose through wisdom not to do the latter (micromanage).Yep. Totally true -- we do not yet put emphasis on that trait; willingness to trust -- in the selection process.

Not all off thread as it seems -- Hybrid mess is the Thread topic and all those things I cite are indicative of such a mess. Hybrid warfare, OTOH, is older than recorded history; nothing new there...

jmm99

05-06-2009, 08:55 PM

in Eric Olson's parlance (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=71389#post71389) - military, paramilitary and civil - suggests one aspect of the evolution and fusion suggested by Directive 3000.05.

Ken White

05-06-2009, 09:06 PM

Thus the spate of SOCOM articles touting the troops. :cool:

That article's long on attaboys and short on specifics. Shaping, Shaping the battlefield..

jmm99

05-07-2009, 02:52 AM

Oh Ken, you old cynic - what, a flag officer being influenced by a mere QDR ?

One might find a more hands-on shaping process here (http://commandobabes.com/CommandoBabes/Base.html). Perhaps, one answer to the Southern Border problem. The pertinent issue to this thread is whether they are military, civilian or a fusion - "balanced warfare", so to speak.

Seriously, I'd like to hear BW's comment on the admiral's article, which I did not read as pure fluff - I'd also tout my command.

Ken White

05-07-2009, 04:00 AM

however, my cynicism is based on more years watching the circus than I probably had a right to -- certainly more than I ever expected. ;)

He's just playing the game and being smart about while giving his troops some deserved praise, synergies... :cool:

jmm99

05-07-2009, 04:24 AM

many more years of circus watching - and widening your already very broad spectrum. Serious comment - no :rolleyes:, just a :).

Surferbeetle

05-07-2009, 05:21 AM

...from my younger days...I had grabbed three photos of headstones from a cemetery in the treeline a ways further back up the hill from the war monument in Asiago (http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/asiago.htm). The cemeteries were full of Italians and Austrians but these three white marble headstones in particular piqued my interest:

311505 Sapper, H. Harris, Royal Engineers, 13th July 1918, age 23.

Second Lieutenant Lawrence Tindill, Duke of Wellingtons Regi, 21st June 19...

The third photo is going and I can't find my magnifying glass...but I can still see faintly, Lance Corporal H. Kirk and what looks to be Fusilier...

Found this link on Sapper Harris (http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=638341), this one on Fusilier Kirk (http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=638357) and this one on LT Tindill (http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=638400). Wow...

William F. Owen

05-07-2009, 05:40 AM

J Wolfsberger

05-07-2009, 01:07 PM

... I can't see why we need a new name for a common, enduring and obvious phenomena of warfare that is well over 2,000 years old.

Because sometimes you need to repackage the old product to get people to buy.

I don't see anything particularly novel in the concept of Hybrid War, either. We should be thinking in terms of fundamentals of warfare, what are the potential threats, what doctrine do we need to prevail, and what capabilities to implement it. Instead, it seems too many people put their effort into thinking in terms of finding a technology set that will solve all their problems. (And I admit my understanding may be due to some recent experiences.)

So from where I sit, based on some of the things I've seen happening, if "Hybrid War" gets people back on track, it has utility and I'm all for it.

William F. Owen

05-07-2009, 01:12 PM

Because sometimes you need to repackage the old product to get people to buy.
I understand

So from where I sit, based on some of the things I've seen happening, if "Hybrid War" gets people back on track, it has utility and I'm all for it.
Yet the very fact we have a new word, implicitly suggests that "Hybrid" is new, novel, and requires new thinking and solutions - and none of that is true.

Bill Moore

05-07-2009, 03:47 PM

Theirs just two kind of soldiers who are going to stay here on this blog and argue about it. Those who are irrelevant, and those who are going to be irrelevant.

This statement is out in left field, so hopefully it is simply a expression of frustration with the traditionalists. There is absolutely no requirement to buy into this concept to be relevant. You may not be part of the IW QDR good ole boy club if you don't, but relevance will be determined over time. If we have a major conventional war in the next 10 years, then the good ole boy club in with Congress will change. The fact is we don't know if this concept will work. I suspect it will make us better, and it does address the threats we face "today", so yes it is important to get on with it.

JFK told the military to prepare for this type of warfare in the early 1960s, and the only organization in DoD that adjusted was SOF, sound familiar? It isn't that any of this is new, the technology is new, the social-political environment is new, but all the aspects we address in hybrid warfare and IW have been around for years. I don't think anyone working on these concepts denies that (maybe some of the younger officers and contractors with an agenda). The issue is getting DoD to adapt, adjust, evolve, or quite simply get out of their conventional warfighting box.

Ken White

05-07-2009, 04:12 PM

At some point a good soldier having made his case comes to attention, salutes, and says "All the way, sir!" Then he goes out and makes it happen way more effectively than his boss could have ever imagined.This brought to mind the fact that everyone doesn't say that; some, for example say "Treat 'em rough." and there are a host of other mandatory unit greetings, each as valid as the other. I have said that 'All the way' bit literally thousands of times and I always thought it was sort of silly. I used to recommend the junior guy say 'Airborne' and the response should be the same as that given to the question "Are you a turtle?" Never could get my various chains of command to accept that... :D

Enough stupidity -- I have a serious comment. I generally agree with your post but I do have a reservation about an excessively large number of Bosses -- IMO, one is too many -- who will not give their subordinates the freedom and flexibility to exceed the Bosses sometimes regrettably limited imagination.

My solution was generally to ignore them and do what was right and that always worked for me other than a little spluttering (hard to get too upset at success). However, I've noticed relatively few subordinates would or will consistently do that...

That's a problem that adversely affects our combat capability. How do we fix that? :confused:

Ken White

05-07-2009, 04:22 PM

JFK told the military to prepare for this type of warfare in the early 1960s, and the only organization in DoD that adjusted was SOF, sound familiar?The Marines and US Army Light Infantry units adapted and adjusted and did it fairly well as did the Air Force. Only the dominant Heavy Division guys in the Army didn't adapt -- not because they disagreed with the need but because they didn't believe it would affect them and the European mission -- they were largely correct. Unfortunately, there were so many of those guys in Europe that when they migrated (sometimes directly on an ITT) to Viet Nam, they had no IW / COI / SFA / FID knowledge and as they replaced the first string light inf guys, the knowledge quotient went in the tank. So did integrity but that's another thread.

Penalty of the very flawed one year individual tour policy.

I will acknowledge the Pentagon largely didn't adapt -- they never do. Witness the dipwad one year tour policy and worse. They simply try to adapt peacetime thinking to wartime and that never works.. :rolleyes:

RedRaven

05-17-2009, 11:59 PM

First off, I'm not really sure where to put this. If its in the wrong forum please move this. Thanks.

The question I have is this: Many smart people are saying that in the future America's enemies will use "hybrid warfare." Is there anyone thinking/writing about how America could use "hybrid warfare" against it's enemies? (our equivalent of Unrestricted Warfare)

Is it a matter of sending SF behind enemy lines, or is it something much different? Morally would America fight a "hybrid war?" Is it it possible to use "hybrid war" as a defensive strategy? etc etc

Just something I'm thinking about...

William F. Owen

05-18-2009, 05:13 AM

I think what these people are talking about is Hybrid warfare against "Hybrid Threats," (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/03/further-thoughts-on-hybrid-thr/)

Much I as I know, respect and like Frank Hoffman, I think the concept is a very bad idea, and like "Complex" and "Assymetric" it's an invented problem. Hezbollah is clearly not a "Hyrbrid" threat. Why say that they are?
Moreover

It adds a dimension that adds complexity and thus confusion for no useful purpose.
It's a-historical. We didn't need to talk about them in the past. Why now?
It risks talking down to US soldiers. - and in my opinion does.
It is evidence free. Once the evidence is tested, you have to ask "so what"
It buys into all the old "post modern" myths, like "wars amongst the people." and 4GW. These ideas are merely opinions and similarly lacking in evidence.

Why do it? None of the world class military historians that I know, are hand-wringing over "Hybrid."

Put it this way. Talking about "Hyrbid" allows you to stop thinking, in the same way that telling a child that wall clocks have tiny men inside them making them work.

Bob's World

05-18-2009, 01:57 PM

Concur with WILF.

I've challenged several very savy proponents of this concept to explain it to me, and none have been able to penetrate my thick head significantly enough to show me not only how war is more "hybrid" now then it has been throughout the annals of time; nor how considering it as such helps in any way in shaping more effective strategies, plans or operations for the modern era.

I stand by my position that the one thing that is truly new under the sun is the speed and availability of information. This has several extremely important primary, secondary, etc, etc, effects that have a tremendous impact on the TACTICs of warfare (much like the invention of gunpowder, rifled muskets, machineguns, tanks, etc), but so far as I can tell has no impact on the underlying fundamental principals either state-based or populace-based warfare.

I caution against chasing fads and "easy-button" solutions to solve problems you don't understand, and suggest instead that one simply 'eats their spinach,' and do the research and analysis to understand such conflicts in general and how they have been addressed historically, and then start chewing on the implications of this new information age and how it has changed the playing field.

At the end of the day, perceptions of poor governance create the conditions that make a popualce ripe for insurgency; such populaces are then susceptible to dynamic leaders with an idological message to act out; and if a party outside of that populace and its governance has foolishly imposed itself in such a way as to produce a perception of being either the source or sustainer of the "poor governance," they will become a target of the uprising as well.

1.Avoid perceptions of legitimacy
2.Understand and address "poor governance" (not effective governance), and
3.Secure the populace and implement reasonable measures to bring the rebelling segment of the populace into line.

In otherwords, when you start off an operation by overthrowing an existing government and creating a new one, you have created a legitimacy hurdle that will be EXTREMELY difficult to clear (particularly if you don't appreciate how important that is). Likewise, as you have broken the government going in, it will be extremely ineffective. To try to make it effective exacerbates the legitimacy issue. Focus on what the populace thinks is important (goodness) and get the hell out. Let the new government work toward greater effectiveness, it may be slow and not to our standards, but it will increase their legitimacy.

None of this has anything to do with "hybrids" or "4Gs;" it is timeless, but is taking place in this new information environment.

slapout9

05-18-2009, 02:10 PM

Listen to the President explain it. Ignore the video stuff just listen to the speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WSGwnz7XpY&feature=related

Courtney Massengale

05-23-2009, 04:27 PM

I do think we need some new terminology to help define how warfare has evolved over the past 25 years. To my reckoning, the last real academic application that went into defining conflict that was separating “total war” from “limited war” after the Korean Armistice (of course, this wasn’t anything new – just a reinvigoration to describe the times). Most of the other terms spun out there that William Owen is talking about are derivatives of that transition.

Like Bob mentioned, things have sped up and been pushed down considerably. Its nothing new, but it has changed a lot of how we approach, plan, fight and determine the outcome of conflict. While it may be nothing new in the grand scheme, it does show a shift from how things were done from the previous iteration which in and of itself is worth study.

I don’t necessarily think that “hybrid war” is the right answer, but it does encourage me that people are putting thought into it and recognizing that we can’t continue to use the same definitions to address a different set of phenomena that have come to dominate modern conflict.

William F. Owen

05-23-2009, 05:37 PM

Ron Humphrey

05-23-2009, 06:03 PM

Why don't we just say "Irregular" - that dates from about 1770 or before, or we could say "Guerilla," and that dates from about 1809.

We do NOT need new words. All the "new" words are the problem, and no help in resolving the problem. Warfare has always evolved. War has not.

How well did Irregular or regular help us think about and address such things in the past as

-When you airdrop behind enemy lines the German's might flood it
or
-They might build dummies and put something hot in them
or
-If you change the grease for the rifles the Indian's military will use it might be a good idea to make sure it's not made with pig
or
-Well you get the point.

Yes all these things should have been recognized as probable but for whatever reason they still happened

So do we need new words? Probably not but does it hurt to have them if they at least lead someone to look for what they don't know rather than what they think they do?

Courtney Massengale

05-24-2009, 03:29 AM

We do NOT need new words. All the "new" words are the problem, and no help in resolving the problem. Warfare has always evolved. War has not.

I don't think we need new words - what we need are people willing to study and think about how warfare is evolving (or when we get to the point where we say it has evolved during this time period).

For example, its a disservice to say that the internet is just a different battlefield for guerilla or irregular warfare, therefore everything that could be said already has; we're just waiting for it to fall into our preconstructed schemas that have held for hundreds of years. Maybe the thought process behind cyber warfare in totality looks more like siege craft. Or biological warfare. Or building the Great Wall of China. We may not need a new word, but we don't know that the RIGHT words to use are unless we put some research and thought behind it.

What we don’t know is how many false starts and dead ends lead up to the formulation of a concept that has held for centuries. Through that process - as you mentioned - every once in a few hundred years we DO come up with something new.

William F. Owen

05-24-2009, 05:26 AM

So do we need new words? Probably not but does it hurt to have them if they at least lead someone to look for what they don't know rather than what they think they do?

When you clearly have a new phenomena, you should name it. Example would be "Tank" "Paratrooper" or "Deep battle." There is very very little new (actually I think none) that we need to describe currently.

I don't think we need new words - what we need are people willing to study and think about how warfare is evolving (or when we get to the point where we say it has evolved during this time period).

...but you have hundreds/thousands of these people, all hand-wringing about "complex adaptive" "human terrain," and all the other silly words. There is an entire industry pretending to study warfare's evolution, and it's inability to speak clear English and study military history has lead to this mess.

For example, its a disservice to say that the internet is just a different battlefield for guerilla or irregular warfare, therefore everything that could be said already has; we're just waiting for it to fall into our preconstructed schemas that have held for hundreds of years.
The Internet cannot be a "battle field." It's a source of information, and very much less successful at crafting opinion that TV, Radio, or newspapers. It's a form of media. Personally it fails my "so what test" as being something in need to worry about.

Now, please do not misunderstand me. I am all for the true, practical and useful study of warfare, and education about war, but the vast majority of what is being done is being done to justify the US buying new toys.

All the current writing about COIN, since 2001, has not identified ANYTHING new, except to reinforce the error that "COIN" is somehow a distinct and separate form of something that ..um ...errr... might not really be warfare. - which is rubbish.

Ron Humphrey

05-24-2009, 06:18 AM

When you clearly have a new phenomena, you should name it. Example would be "Tank" "Paratrooper" or "Deep battle." There is very very little new (actually I think none) that we need to describe currently.

The Internet cannot(emphasis Ron Humphrey) be a "battle field." It's a source of information, and very much less successful at crafting opinion that TV, Radio, or newspapers. It's a form of media. Personally it fails my "so what test" as being something in need to worry about.

That seems to dismiss many of the very aspects of warfare that definitely can and will happen there. I would give examples but I'm quite confident Selil could do so much better than I.

Now, please do not misunderstand me. I am all for the true, practical and useful study of warfare, and education about war, but the vast majority of what is being done is being done to justify the US buying new toys.

While true enough how many toys you could have bought at Toys R Us just in smaller sizes are currently doing some pretty important stuff both in killing enemies and protecting soldiers right now. Toy's aren't a bad thing just need to be used appropriately and for the right reasons.

All the current writing about COIN, since 2001, has not identified ANYTHING new, except to reinforce the error that "COIN" is somehow a distinct and separate form of something that ..um ...errr... might not really be warfare. - which is rubbish.

Can't say yah or nay to that since I haven't got nearly the experience you do I would only hope its at least a good thing that they are at least writing about it rather than ignoring it since "we don't do nation-building".
(PS not meant to be a jibe at you just paraphrasing the perceived reason this stuff got thrown in the dustbins for so long)

William F. Owen

05-24-2009, 06:58 AM

That seems to dismiss many of the very aspects of warfare that definitely can and will happen there. I would give examples but I'm quite confident Selil could do so much better than I.
battlefields have to be physical places where physical combat takes place. Warfare will never take place on the internet. The internet may be used in warfare, just like EW, but it is not a battle space in and of itself. In order fro something cyber to be effective it has to translate into physical effect.

While true enough how many toys you could have bought at Toys R Us just in smaller sizes are currently doing some pretty important stuff both in killing enemies and protecting soldiers right now. Toy's aren't a bad thing just need to be used appropriately and for the right reasons.
Sure. Now let's talk about MRAPs.... :)

Can't say yah or nay to that since I haven't got nearly the experience you do I would only hope its at least a good thing that they are at least writing about it rather than ignoring it since "we don't do nation-building".
(PS not meant to be a jibe at you just paraphrasing the perceived reason this stuff got thrown in the dustbins for so long)
Why the US knew so little about COIN, given the vast amount that was written is a very good question.

Courtney Massengale

05-24-2009, 04:17 PM

When you clearly have a new phenomena, you should name it. Example would be "Tank" "Paratrooper" or "Deep battle." There is very very little new (actually I think none) that we need to describe currently.

That's the exact same attitude that conventional wisdom held when tanks, paratroopers and the concept of deep battle were first dreamed up. None of them were particulary popular with those who didn't get the "so what".

If I recall correctly, didn't they try to court martial some of the early proponents of airborne operations as a way to shut them up?

All the current writing about COIN, since 2001, has not identified ANYTHING new, except to reinforce the error that "COIN" is somehow a distinct and separate form of something that ..um ...errr... might not really be warfare. - which is rubbish.

I think that statement can only be applied to what has been read, not necessarily what has been written. Some of the best research on COIN (used here as a generic placeholder) will be from journals, blogs, letters, etc from Soldiers who are experiencing it and writing about it without the intention of publishing or coining (no pun intended) new terms. Or perhaps there’s an article buried in some obscure journal that makes no sense today, but thirty years down the road will be seen as the jumping off point for a new area of study.

You’re also ignoring the fact that there is some value in this writing. Even if that value is William Owen getting so fed up with the COIN snake oil that he writes an article proving them wrong that becomes the prism through which all early 21st century warfare is analyzed. Most of the classics had some element of this motivation as part of their genesis – what’s to say that all these false starts won’t get people moving in the right direction?

Also disagree about the internet not being a battlefield (especially since it was designed as way of circumventing physical battlefields), but that’s a different thread. ;)

TheCurmudgeon

05-24-2009, 07:51 PM

I think you are looking at the problem wrong. It is not warfare that has change. It has not. The principals still hold true.

I think the political environment has changed. It is the spread of ideas that encourage individual actors to take a more active role in the fight.

It began to change around the 1700's with the reintroduction of democracy and has been changing ever since. Just look at Napoleon's problems in Spain and his inability to quell the grass roots revolt with conventional forces.

War is a political tool and I believe it has to be viewed in the context of the political environment, not independent of it. War now can be more decentralized, existing directly in the minds of the population. No longer dependent on a king, lord, or state to justify and finance it can exist free of state control bending directly to the will or whim of the people or some fraction of them based on whatever ideal they are espousing.

Then again, I could be totally wrong.

William F. Owen

05-25-2009, 03:54 AM

That's the exact same attitude that conventional wisdom held when tanks, paratroopers and the concept of deep battle were first dreamed up. None of them were particulary popular with those who didn't get the "so what".
Sorry, but that's just not true. All were popular and their utility recognised. In the UK, lack of money, and service politics prevented them developing at the rate they did in Germany or Russia - and Russia had purges. If you read the professional journals of the time, - and I have - you'll see the Brits talking about the bones of Deep Battle in 1917!

You’re also ignoring the fact that there is some value in this writing. Even if that value is William Owen getting so fed up with the COIN snake oil that he writes an article proving them wrong that becomes the prism through which all early 21st century warfare is analyzed.
I certainly never ignore the value of good writing, or the contribution of those with valid and useful experience. It is how this thing is done. I am fed up with the new and mostly silly words.
To whit, you asked,

Many smart people are saying that in the future America's enemies will use "hybrid warfare." Is there anyone thinking/writing about how America could use "hybrid warfare" against it's enemies?
So your question is basically would the US fight it's enemies in the same way that the Viet Cong, The PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas or the LTTE guerillas fought? There were/are Guerilla and Irregular Forces. If that's your question, why use the word "Hybrid?" Why do any of us use this word?

Also disagree about the internet not being a battlefield (especially since it was designed as way of circumventing physical battlefields), but that’s a different thread.
If you can physically kill in cyberspace, then it is a battlefield, and if you are telling me that IP based data comms have military application, then I agree, but the Internet is not a battlefield, unless folks die. Words matter. In military writing "Battle Field" has a precise meaning. Please do not invent new ones for it.

Icepack6

05-26-2009, 10:19 PM

A couple of thoughts:

1. I often think we spend to much time trying to "bin" understanding(s) of warfare beyond Clauswitz and SunTzu. As an aviator, I am fond of and a practitioner of "compartmentalization," but find it has little utility in understanding warfare, and trying to understand the difference between "hybrid warfare" as compare to fighting regulars/irregulars in any other scenario.

2. Despite the dated language of the Small Wars Manual, I find little in FM 3-24 that wasn't covered, in some measure, in 1940. Does that not mean we shouldn't discuss possible future concepts? No, but I strain all that I read/hear through the "classics" and find little substance other than "back to the future" rehashing of the obvious--only with new terms and frames of reference.

3. A primary dicutum first introduced to me as a young lieutenant learning air combat is: Success in any kind of contest, be it air combat or the Super Bowl, is defined when opportunity meets preparation. Visualizing the battlespace, understanding possible branches and sequels, and being prepared for the unforseen as it relates to all factors of METT-TLS has done us well over history.

William F. Owen

05-27-2009, 04:48 AM

1. I often think we spend to much time trying to "bin" understanding(s) of warfare beyond Clauswitz and SunTzu.
Some may and I may appear to be one of them, but I am not. There is much excellent military writing post 1831. However, what the US fixates on is "explicit forms and observations" like Manoeuvre Warfare, 4GW or EBO, most of which is unfit for purpose.

2. Despite the dated language of the Small Wars Manual, I find little in FM 3-24 that wasn't covered, in some measure, in 1940. Does that not mean we shouldn't discuss possible future concepts?
FM3-24 has created a whole new set of problems, that the SWM cleverly avoided, and the problem may well be FM3 and not the FM3-24. It probably should probably never have been written.

Be very careful of future concepts, because almost all attempt to predict the future or warfare, and that is nearly impossible and military technology is far more limited than we commonly suppose. The best people to discuss the future of warfare with are good, operationally knowledgeable military historians.

Steve Blair

05-27-2009, 01:58 PM

Why the US knew so little about COIN, given the vast amount that was written is a very good question.

Simple. Because such knowledge wasn't valued by the institution as a whole (and by that I refer mainly to "Big Army" and the AF). The history behind this statement is deep, going all the way back to the earliest days of the Army. Hopefully at least some of the hard lessons will be retained this time....

And I agree that the term "irregular warfare" is as good as any, and possibly more useful than "hybrid" (are we going to be arming a fleet of Priuses now?).

Courtney Massengale

05-27-2009, 09:33 PM

Apologies for getting this a bit out of order, and with all due respect, but this:

To whit, you asked,
Many smart people are saying that in the future America's enemies will use "hybrid warfare." Is there anyone thinking/writing about how America could use "hybrid warfare" against it's enemies?

So your question is basically would the US fight it's enemies in the same way that the Viet Cong, The PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas or the LTTE guerillas fought? There were/are Guerilla and Irregular Forces. If that's your question, why use the word "Hybrid?" Why do any of us use this word?p

Makes me want to run with this more than I probably should.

Those were not my words; the original poster was a Council Member named RedRaven who asked that question. I’m not sure how much of your last response is predicated on the erroneous believe that two different posters were the same and thus my comments about military writing are directly implying what was said in the original post about “hybrid warfare”.

So with that grain of salt...

If you read the professional journals of the time, - and I have - you'll see the Brits talking about the bones of Deep Battle in 1917!

I don't dispute that the bones of deep warfare (or tanks, paratroopers, etc) were out there and in writing, but you have no idea how they were received. What's to say that those published "bones" weren't dismissed just as you are dismissing contemporary writings?

If anything, that the Soviets - not the Brits - get most of the credit for advancing deep battle and putting it into practice by the late 20s should speak volumes.

If you can physically kill in cyberspace, then it is a battlefield, and if you are telling me that IP based data comms have military application, then I agree, but the Internet is not a battlefield, unless folks die. Words matter. In military writing "Battle Field" has a precise meaning. Please do not invent new ones for it.

In that there isn’t an operation definition for “battlefield” (only Area of Operation and Area of Interest), I sought out the military writing precise meaning that you alluded to. Everything I ran came across defined a battlefield as a place where a battle took place. So the real question is how do you define battle? None of the ones I found include “folks die” as a component of a battle. The one definition that I was referenced to repeatedly is from Trevor Dupuy - “a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, wherein each group will seek to defeat the others within the scope of a military campaign, and are well defined in duration, area and force commitment”.

Using that definition, the internet would qualify. Obviously you have to make an argument for it, but it’s in there. While the argument for making “folks die” over the internet is a thin string, the ability to defeat an enemy over the internet could be defined in real terms.

slapout9

05-27-2009, 10:15 PM

to all factors of METT-TLS has done us well over history.

Icepack,I know what METT-TC is but am not familiar with METT-TLS??

Icepack6

05-27-2009, 10:45 PM

Slapout9-

METT-T has gone through a few revisions over the years, snce I first learned it in the early 70s. The -TLS means Time-Logistics-Space (space, as in "area available"). Every couple of years, somebody tries to reinvent stuff that has worked through the years. Cheers!

RedRaven

05-28-2009, 10:53 PM

Yes, sort of...

So your question is basically would the US fight it's enemies in the same way that the Viet Cong, The PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas or the LTTE guerillas fought? There were/are Guerilla and Irregular Forces. If that's your question, why use the word "Hybrid?" Why do any of us use this word?

To explain myself I first need to explain why I used the word "hybrid warfare."

To me "hybrid warfare" is just a way of describing the TACTICAL EVOLUTION of Guerilla and Irregular warfare, and our response to those evolutions. For example: many IED emplacers now film their attacks and put it up on the internet for all too see. IEDs are an old tactic (we used to call them "mines" or "booby traps") and even filming your attacks is an old tactic. But, distributing that footage TO THE ENTIRE WORLD to be used simultaneously as a:

- Recruitment tool
- A training tool
- Morale Booster
- A tactic to apply international pressure to the U.S
- A tactic to apply internal pressure to the U.S

That is something new.

However you are correct, what we call this evolution is truly not important. As long as we realize that guerilla/irregular/hybrid warfare is in fact evolving.

I think the above discussion (in the thread) let me answer my own question by more clearly defining "hybrid warfare" for me:

I don't think the U.S can us "hybrid warfare" (read: irregular) unless it is against an enemy which matches us in capability, and in the case of such enemies we would be better of using conventional warfare, with maybe some irregular tactics mixed in.

On the other hand as long as we continue to move along and institutionalize such things as IO, MiTT and other counterinsurgency doctrine we will do better in future "hybrid wars." (read: irregular wars) when countries that cannot compete with us conventionally choose to use those tactics againest us or our intrests.

I now realize that all of this seems to come to full circle to "Nagl v. Gentile," but since I am still learning this definitely helps me to conceptualize the issues... :D

Bob's World

05-28-2009, 11:11 PM

Simple. Because such knowledge wasn't valued by the institution as a whole (and by that I refer mainly to "Big Army" and the AF). The history behind this statement is deep, going all the way back to the earliest days of the Army. Hopefully at least some of the hard lessons will be retained this time....

And I agree that the term "irregular warfare" is as good as any, and possibly more useful than "hybrid" (are we going to be arming a fleet of Priuses now?).

Just because the Brits gained a great deal of experience in suppressing colonial uprisings, in no means makes them experts at true "COIN." Similarly, just because the US has gone to the school of hard knocks on "Post-regime change FID," does not make us experts on COIN either.

I was in a conversation with some Flags a few weeks ago and one of them says: "The Brits are no longer the experts on COIN." The other retorts "and they never were!" Both laugh.

Well, my take is that neither of us are, as we both base our COIN expertise on our experience gained from being unwelcome guests in other people's countries.

None of this has anything to do with Hybrid warfare of course, but then again, there is no such thing as hybrid warfare (or more accurately, all warfare is "hybrid" so to add the word adds nothing), so no harm in getting off topic to poke the COIN "experts" a little... :)

William F. Owen

05-29-2009, 05:15 AM

But, distributing that footage TO THE ENTIRE WORLD to be used simultaneously as a:

- Recruitment tool
- A training tool
- Morale Booster
- A tactic to apply international pressure to the U.S
- A tactic to apply internal pressure to the U.S

That is something new.
So what you are saying is that there is a political dimension to all forms of warfare.

However you are correct, what we call this evolution is truly not important. As long as we realize that guerilla/irregular/hybrid warfare is in fact evolving.
OK, but we always did realise it. We are extremely good at realising it. There is no debate and it is not an area we lack knowledge in. Using the word Hybrid adds nothing

I think the above discussion (in the thread) let me answer my own question by more clearly defining "hybrid warfare" for me:
I would merely offer, you cannot have a hybrid war. War is war. There may be differing styles of "warfare," but there always have been. Guerilla and Irregular Forces are not, and never have been limited to Guerrilla or Irregular Warfare.

William F. Owen

05-29-2009, 05:30 AM

Just because the Brits gained a great deal of experience in suppressing colonial uprisings, in no means makes them experts at true "COIN." Similarly, just because the US has gone to the school of hard knocks on "Post-regime change FID," does not make us experts on COIN either.
Agreed, but it does mean that when the Brits make observations about COIN, they come with a great deal more informed judgement than from other armies.

I was in a conversation with some Flags a few weeks ago and one of them says: "The Brits are no longer the experts on COIN." The other retorts "and they never were!" Both laugh.
Maybe a valid opinion, but there is a flip side to that coin.. The British Army has always treat COIN/Security Operations as something it just does, as well as combat operations. You have to do both. It's not an argument.
In popular vernacular, "It's who we be. It's how we roll."

The US, in sharp contrast has arrived at it's current confused position, in spite of its understanding, to whit I would submit that things like FM3-24 are more symptomatic of the problem, rather than the solution.

It would be a mistake to assume that welcome and hard won operational success in Iraq is actually a product of the things people want to believe in. It might be, but I think Afghanistan may test that thesis.

Bill Moore

05-31-2009, 01:55 AM

I would strongly suggest reading this by Colin S. Gray. It is brilliant and says everything better than I ever could posted by WILF

Wilf, first thanks for the link to the great article by Collin Gray, I also read one of his books "Another Bloody Century", and find myself a fan, but I still feel he is missing something. However, what he gets and what he attempts to get others to understand is probably much more important than what he may be missing.

His point about the future being unknowable is beyond refute, and as we discussed in another forum the abnormaly bellicose behavior demonstrated by North Korea reminds us that war can come at any time and our enemy to a large extent will define its character. It is a lot more comfortable to think about COIN than a large rocket barrage into a modern country (S. Korea) followed by an attempted land invasion. Gray reminds us that the challenge is to cope with uncertainty, not try to diminish it.

Gray struck gold when he pointed out a law of war that I think our modernization program tends to ignore. The greater the dependency on a capability, the higher the payoff to an enemy who can lessen its utility, in effect turning our strength into a weakness. This dovetails nicely with a previous comment that I will paraphrase: If we have the luxuary of picking a fight, then think twice about picking a fight where the characteristic of it does not favor our strengths.

Unfortunately (I think) I agree that the process of COIN disengagement has begun, despite the hype to the contrary in the QDR. Donor nations are tired, and we see other threats on the horizon that we may be ignoring at our peril. However, he did add that our study of irregular warfare was worthwhile, because it was an obvious gap in our capabilities, and we won't always get to chose our fights (e.g. Afghanistan).

There is nothing that Gray wrote however that would convince me that our pursuit of excellence in irregular warfare and hybrid warfare (more troublesome, but still has some uses) is off track as long as we keep it in perspective. To the contrary I think his article supports it, we have to prepare for an uncertain future, and on September 11th, 2001 we were not ready to wage the type of war we were about to wage. We just can't afford to let the COIN doctrine to become the new Fulda Gap doctrine where we myopically focused the Army on one problem set.

On the other hand, he made strong arguments on why the West will see conflict with Russia, and the U.S. will see conflict with China eventually. We're hardly in an age now, or even in the immediate future where we will only have to deal with irregular threats. Irregular threats will continue to be a persistant player in current and future conflicts, but they will not be the only threat.

slapout9

05-31-2009, 04:35 AM

I find it strange that Colin S. Gray is being quoted considering he says Americas future is to become a total Airpower type organization.

Bill Moore

05-31-2009, 04:44 AM

Slap,

In what article or book did he write that? Everything I have seen to date he is cautioning us from becoming over fixated on air power, COIN, etc. and ensure we're well rounded enough to respond to a whole spectrum of threats. I don't think Warden and Gray are like minded, though they may agree on some points. Bill

slapout9

05-31-2009, 04:47 AM

slapout9

05-31-2009, 04:55 AM

Bill, here it is.

http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/ARI_Papers/GrayARI2.pdf

Bob's World

05-31-2009, 12:36 PM

Woah...been away from this thread a while, and come back and see I have a little cleaning up to do!

My comments about "one-eyed man" in no way intended to disparrage Frank Hoffman. More my frustration with how blind our collective policy/security/intelligence community has been to seek out a true understanding of the challenges that face us today. For me the lightbulbs really started going on when I came to a series of revelations:

1. The only thing truly new in the world today is the rate and availability of information. This does not change the nature of warfare, nor does it change our Ends as a nation. It does, however, in very very significant ways render ineffective many of the time proven tactics of COIN, and empower new tactics for Insurgency and UW. Fascinating stuff, but there are no "Easy Button" solutions that are so attractive for some reason with certain communities.

2. That insurgency happens when government fails. A couple of key thoughts to go with this is that that failure is not one of effectiveness, but is subjective, often intangible, often mere perception, and often wholly irrational to that "failed" government; but always always to be assessed from the perspective of the affected populace. Said another way: "Populaces don't fail governments, its governments that fail populaces." This means that any good COIN (or FID) program must be rooted in ensuring that the govenrment knows the problem is their fault and that focus of efforts will be on understanding where the are falling short and addressing those specific issues. Period.

The criticality of Legitimacy. This is probably the number one issue the US needs to grasp and address. GWOT is largely a function of a wide number of populaces, primarily Muslim and in the Middle East, perceiving that the US is a major source of legitimacy of the poor governments ruling over them, and that they cannot effect change through legitimate means at home until the break that source of external legitimacy. This condition was created through our Cold War engagement, and now we must work equally hard to extricate ourselves from that perception without abandoning the nations and populaces (screw the individual leaders, we owe them nothing) who we have built these relationships with.

This list could go on (I've been learning a lot these past several years), but when I say its time to get on board with IW not because we all need to be good corporate men (those who know me are laughing hard at the thought of me ever being that), but that it is happening, and God help us if we let the same guys who designed GWOT design IW! Stop arguing (and back to my hero Gen Grant) either start skinning, or hold a leg for the guy who has the knife!

William F. Owen

05-31-2009, 01:17 PM

I find it strange that Colin S. Gray is being quoted considering he says Americas future is to become a total Airpower type organization.

My reading of the document concerned gives a very clear indication of the limitations of air power and how it's advocates have consistently fallen foul of reality.

It's men like Colin Gray that give me hope. I have read very very little he has ever written that I disagree with. He uses the old words!

Guerilla, rebellion, Irregular, small war.....

Umar Al-Mokhtār

05-31-2009, 01:24 PM

is a true appreciation for military history. Take WW II (WW I works too but the US was involved on a smaller scale so it is mostly ignored here). Most politicians see the “big war:” Normandy, the strategic bombing campaign, Hiroshima, etc... Basically the HIC portions only. They totally fail to see the CBI, the Chindits, the Maquis, the Alamo Scouts, Tito's Partisans...

WWI had a similar dynamic, again everyone looks at the Western Front and often miss that dude Lawrence, von Lettow-Vorbeck, Lyautey...

The American Revolution saw Washington and Greene fighting in conventional fashion while Marion, Pickens, and Sumter prosecuted a guerrilla campaign in the South.

I will not bother going into France's Indochina War and our Vietnam War.

Hate to tell them, but this “new paradigm” of “hybrid war” has been around for quite sometime. Seems to stem from the American penchant for wanting to have concise catchy names for things. ;)

William F. Owen

05-31-2009, 01:32 PM

...and here we go again...

1. It does, however, in very very significant ways render ineffective many of the time proven tactics of COIN, and empower new tactics for Insurgency and UW.
Do you think those that created the Genocide in Rwanda could have used the internet to create it? ...or was Government Radio a better choice?

2. That insurgency happens when government fails.
If you are telling me that War is the setting forth of politics, and all insurgents seek political end states, the OK, but every government can be said to have failed some element of it's society. - so I can't see where that gets us.

The criticality of Legitimacy. This is probably the number one issue the US needs to grasp and address.
This assume legitimacy is an absolute. Understandings of legitimacy vary very widely, so if you are telling me that "dissatisfaction with elements of US foreign policy is a source of conflict" I'll agree. Does that get us any further?
...and if we want to go down this road, for every position you or anyone else sees as legitimate, I can show you an opposing one, so ...

...war is a setting forth of legitimacy by other means?...

Bob's World

05-31-2009, 01:51 PM

Ahh, brother WILF. As you focus more on the military aspect of insurgency and counterinsurgency, you are more, I believe, of the counterinsurgent camp. "Defeat the insurgent and defeat the insurgency."

I have come to the position where those activiities are certainly a critical supporting effort of any good COIN program, but that one must primarily "address the root causes of poor governance to defeat the insurgency."

As you look at the long history of such conflicts everytime the former approach was used it merely suppressed the movement, never solved it.

The much touted tactics applied in Malaysia of "separating the insurgent from the populace," while feasible in that era and that environment simply are not any more. If its just me and a dozen buddies hunkered, cold, wet, miserable, infested with jungle sores, constantly on the run, it is easy for us to simply give up hope and quit. We feel quite alone and ineffective. But when I get a text on my cell from a supporter back in the UK telling me how we are inspiring the movement there and to keep up the good work, or from the capital where a webpage is being managed that brags about our deeds and the worthiness of our cause, or from a similar movement three countries over where they just had a major success, or when I check the balance of my account and see that money is pouring in from supporters around the world...etc. It's just damn hard to break my morale or separate me from the populace.

All the more reason that the COIN force, the government, must be more sophisticated and more holistic these days. Must stop being cavalier and simply blaming the insurgency on the populce (the "let them eat cake" approach) or on some evil outside instigator with his ideology (the "Pied Piper theory of insurgency approach). One must get real. One must take the (ok, 12-step approach). "Hi, my name is (insert name of national leader here), and I have a problem...

Until one does this, they are simply blaming their failures on others and attempting to suppress the evidence of those same failures.

William F. Owen

05-31-2009, 02:28 PM

Ahh, brother WILF. As you focus more on the military aspect of insurgency and counterinsurgency, you are more, I believe, of the counterinsurgent camp. "Defeat the insurgent and defeat the insurgency."
Damn straight, and the reason is simple. An Insurgency is armed military force. Therefore it requires armed military force to prevent it gaining it's political objectives by military means.

....but that one must primarily "address the root causes of poor governance to defeat the insurgency."
Wouldn't that be nice, but addressing the causes of poor governance lies in the politics of the country concerned.
You Bob, I assume are only a registered voter in the US. You have no right to interfere in another country's politics, unless so enabled as an instrument of US Foreign Policy, and how that instrument is applied is the subject of party politics, so you don't get a say, unless elected.

As you look at the long history of such conflicts everytime the former approach was used it merely suppressed the movement, never solved it.
...but that depends where and when you stop the clock. Oman, Peru, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Sri-Lanka... maybe.
When folks blithely say, COIN is 80% political 20% military, it categorically ignores that military action is ALWAYS taken for political ends. To say "there is no purely military solution" is exactly correct - and correct for ALL Wars, not just COIN.
You can trace the German aggression of WW2 to their dissatisfaction with the conclusion of WW1 and the the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour with the US oil embargo on Japan.
Would better "Governance" would have avoided 911, or was it the result of a failed US Foreign Policy? Had said Policy since made Muslims any happier?

slapout9

05-31-2009, 04:07 PM

My reading of the document concerned gives a very clear indication of the limitations of air power and how it's advocates have consistently fallen foul of reality.

It's men like Colin Gray that give me hope. I have read very very little he has ever written that I disagree with. He uses the old words!

Guerilla, rebellion, Irregular, small war.....

Wilf, how can you say that? He flat out states that is impossible for the US to be anything but a Hi-Tech power. That is a rather bold statement, but I am sure the Air Force loves it. We agree on one thing, it is an old concept that he is referring to. The Air Force idea of bomb them to oblivion and let the Infantry pick up what is left. He drank the whole pitcher of big blue kool-aid on this one.

I have read everything by Gray that I could find for free(poor policeman) and he always seemed to be as objective as possible, but not in this case, he specifically ignored some of the low-tech and cheap options that Warden has advocated for some time.

William F. Owen

05-31-2009, 04:17 PM

Wilf, how can you say that? He flat out states that is impossible for the US to be anything but a Hi-Tech power. That is a rather bold statement, but I am sure the Air Force loves it. We agree on one thing, it is an old concept that he is referring to. The Air Force idea of bomb them to oblivion and let the Infantry pick up what is left. He drank the whole pitcher of big blue kool-aid on this one.

I have read everything by Gray that I could find for free(poor policeman) and he always seemed to be as objective as possible, but not in this case, he specifically ignored some of the low-tech and cheap options that Warden has advocated for some time.

OK, now DL'd the document and it turns out to be one other than I thought! :o
I assumed I head read it... but apparently I have not even seen it before.

I'll be back!

Bill Moore

05-31-2009, 06:52 PM

Slap,

I disagree with your interpretation of Gray's paper, which by the way is focused on air power (which he mentioned as a caveat to the readers). He repeatedly states that he doesn't understand the continued debate within the U.S. military over land and air power, since both are essential. His central argument in this paper and others is that the U.S. lacks a strategy to unify all its warfighting tools.

I will argue the debate almost solely arises from a few narrow minded officers in the Air Force like COL (R) Warden, who speak more as a company man, than as a warrior who understands warfighting. Senior U.S. officers in theory are supposed to be joint, not parachocial. They are supposed to demonstrate professional maturity and have the higher interest of their country in mind versus the interests of their service. There may be examples, but I'm aware of any senior Army Officer making arguments against air power? We love fighting under the protection of world's finest air force, but we also realize (as do most Air Force officers) that air power isn't always decisive. Once we commit to go to war it generally requires a full effort of sea, land and air power (plus political, economic, information, etc.). In situations short of war air power has proven very successful, such as

Israel's interdiction of Saddam's nuclear production capability.
U.S. air power strike on Libya in response to their state sponsored terrorism.
Putting pressure on Serbia in regards to withdrawing their forces from Kosovo.

However, I see a parallel with air power and nuclear weapons. We had nuclear weapons primarily for strategic deterrence, but over time our foes learn how to tie our hands and make the nukes politically infeasible (asymmetrical threats). A perfect example was Al Qaeda's attack on 9/11, what could we have nuked to any effect? The same is true with kinetic air power, what could we have bombed that would have any lasting deterrence effect? Air power enabled us to be successful in the first phase of the Afghan war, but without land power (U.S. and Northern Alliance) it wouldn't have achieved much.

I included several excerpts from Gray's paper that gives Air Power its due, but also puts it in context.

Near exclusive focus upon the contributions airpower can make to warfare is a mistake.

The study advises frank recognition of airpower’s situational limitations. Those limitations are less than they used to be, but some remain simply as a consequence of the physical realities of flight with reference to a conflict that must relate, ultimately, to decisions and behavior on land.

technological innovation lies at the heart of the argument for the privileging of airpower in a new American way in warfare. There is nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. Unfortunately for the integrity of the argument, technology is only one of warfare’s seven contexts.

Plainly, a holistic theory of warfare is lacking today. As a direct consequence, argument about the strategic implications of airpower’s recent transformation or the allegedly enduring necessity for the presence of “the man [our man, naturally; CSG] on the scene with the gun” is conducted
out of context and even, one can assert, out of paradigm

Future warfare must, and will, be joint and perhaps even integrated in well “internetted” character.

The potential value of airpower in future warfare is a spectrum of possibilities, depending upon the contexts or situation.

American airpower is a very great asymmetrical advantage. At least, it is very great if it is properly equipped, trained, provided with suitable concepts of operation—doctrine—and properly employed within a coherent strategy in the service of a prudent overall strategy and national policy.

For reasons that are both pragmatically sensible as well as deeply cultural, one can expect airpower to remain the most favored military agency in the American way of warfare.

It is important for those sincerely convinced of the great advantages conferred by superior airpower not to understate its systemic and situational limitations.

First, because airpower, broadly defined, is and will long remain a prime source of US asymmetrical advantage, it should be exploited to the fullest for all the leverage it can deliver.

Ken White

05-31-2009, 07:14 PM

Agree. I don't see the Paper as anything other than a balanced view and a cautionary to folks not to get air power or land power centric...

slapout9

05-31-2009, 08:09 PM

Bill, you agree with this? I don't see anything balanced or helpful in this. Where was this non debatable Airpower advatange during 911. It is futile to debate it because he is wrong.

Gray's 3rd conclusion

Third, it is futile to debate the subject of America’s airpower
advantage either strictly from the perspective of rational strategic
analysis or even with heavy-to-dominant reference to interorganizational
politics and influence in Washington. It is a fact that high
technology is the American way in warfare. It has to be. A hightechnology
society cannot possibly prepare for, or attempt to
fight, its wars in any other than a technology-led manner. A
technology privileging American approach to combat is of long
standing and is beyond intelligent debate. To seek technology
solutions to military challenges, in many cases whether or not
there are superior or comparable alternatives theoretically available,
is the American style. The reasons for this condition reach
back to Colonial times, certainly through the nineteenth century,
and became legendary among America’s allies and foes in
World War II.

Ken White

05-31-2009, 08:45 PM

9/11 point. What does one have to do with the other?

Also, I see you posted his 3d conclusion -- what is wrong with it?

Bill Moore

05-31-2009, 09:04 PM

What was he wrong about? I'm not sure what your argument is here, but I'll take a swag at it.

9/11 was the culmination of a lot of factors, but in the end it was a successful attack due to the failure of airport security at Logan Airport. In this situation security forces were asleep at the wheel, and this weakness was exploited.

I wonder if we would have launched a war against "terrorism" if 9/11 didn't happen, but we still continued to suffer a major terrorist attack against one of our embassies or military compounds every 3-5 years? This is the political context that Gray makes reference to.

This goes back to one of our previous debates, are we really at war with terrorism, drugs, and poverty? Can we achieve victory against any of these by waging war? If not, then what are we doing? We were forced (we opted, but we didn't have many options) to fight, but I'm not so sure (in hindsight) that declaring war was the right answer. Since terrorism will "always" be with us, just like illegal drugs, have we entered another war with no end and really no meaning? What is the strategic context of the war against terror?

Generally, terrorism is best dealt with via good security measures, law enforcement in depth (city, county, state, federal, and international) and by the intelligence services (the critical war in the shadows that some in our Congress continue to undermine). In this context air power is a small player, but so is war making land power.

What changed? Obviously the American people demanded a visible answer (a reaction) to 9/11, so we invaded Afghanistan after the Taliban refused to turn over Al Qaeda. That changed the character of the fight from law enforcement and intelligence work to a conventional military operation. That in itself, IMO, was prudent, but instead of just launching a major punitive raid, which was quickly realized wouldn't defeat terrorism, we once again changed the mission, this time to nation building in hopes of pacifying entire populations with democracy and free markets, thus denying that area a future safe haven to terrorism.

Air power was essential for the first part, and as Gray stated Air Power is not restricted to kinetic power. Only our Air Force could have moved our Army to and sustained our Army in a remote land locked country. Only the Air Force had the reach to hammer Taliban and Al Qaeda positions with kinetic power. Air also provided critical intelligence support. So based on our conventional strategy for the first phase of the "war", air power was an essential part of the equation. Special Forces and the Northern Alliance we're not going to defeat the Taliban without air power in a few short weeks. The bombing not only broke the Taliban's and AQ's will, but it stiffened the will of the Northern Alliance which empowered them physically and psychologically to take and hold the ground surrendered by the Taliban.

After the Taliban and AQ broke ranks and ran into Pakistan for safehaven, the character of the war changed into a more unconventional fight, where air power is much less influencial (still critical based on the way we decided to fight the war). Now air power, at least the kinetic application of it may be doing more harm than good, but the intelligence and sustainment aspects of air power are still critical.

Air power will probably never prevent a future terrorist attack, but it may provide a deterrence (especially if it is a state sponsored attack) and a viable counterattack mechanism in some situations. My underlying argument is we can't effectively wage war against terrorism. A lot of folks laughed when the President said we're going to change GWOT to overseas contingency operations, but IMO that makes more sense. Furthermore, we can't define every future threat based on Al Qaeda. If we go to war with North Korea in the future, Al Qaeda will become back page news, and the same is true if Russia attempts to forceably reintegrate certain countries back into its imaginary empire.

slapout9

05-31-2009, 09:33 PM

Short answer is this when you lead with technology you lose.

Backround: I was reading a NOVA interview of General Van Riper and he was talking about this very subject. He said we should figure out the concepts for how we will fight the enemy and develop the technologies to support our fighting concepts. And he went on to point out that when you lead with technologies first you will probabaly end up loosing and I think he is correct in that. Hence my objection to Gray's conclusion about leading with technology.

911 was an Air Strike....they had a fighting/attack concept first and then just developed/stole the technology to accomplish it.

Finally this is not an attack on Gray I like his stuff at least what I have read. I don't think this paper was balanced and it was largley inconclusive IMHO.

Now my opinion for what the Air Force concepts should be.

Clear the Skies.....Hold the Skies......Build an Air Bridge to the Objective. Now develop technologies that support that.

Bill Moore

05-31-2009, 09:47 PM

Slap,

I'm in total agreement with the first part of your post, and at first glance I agree with the second part about the air bridge.

Your point goes back to the old saying that when you're a hammer everything looks like a nail, and I suspect you're right (though I can't think of any historical parallels except maybe Vietnam) that we tend to design strategy around our technology instead of using technology to support our strategy. Excellent point. Bill

slapout9

05-31-2009, 09:52 PM

(though I can't think of any historical parallels except maybe Vietnam) that we tend to design strategy around our technology instead of using technology to support our strategy. Excellent point. Bill

Exactly, I think Vietnam (project agile type stuff) was a tipping point. We used to do it right but lately....I don't know.

Oh and lest I forget did you see in the news awhile back The War On Drugs is officially over per the Obama Administration, don't know if we one but it is over.

Bill Moore

05-31-2009, 11:40 PM

I'm siding with Wilf on this one, and will as far to say that Bob's World is wrong, because he believes he has found an absolute truth that is useful to the counterinsurgent. None of these ideas are absolute or overly useful IMO. I would like to see an example applied to Iraq or Afghanistan.

1. The only thing truly new in the world today is the rate and availability of information.

New since when? Yesterday? 20 years ago? 50 years ago? Information availability and choices of where you can get your information are more numerous than ever, and while it is important it is not the only new kid on the block. Depending on when new starts the list of what is new and relevant to warfare could fill a book ranging from advanced satellites, armed UAVs, space based technology, the use of cyberspace to manage complicated industrial and military systems, new forms of armor, faster boats and vehicles, new oil exploitation technologies, nuclear proliferation, the fall of the USSR, a multi-polar world, new ecomonic models, global warming, the formation of Israel as a State, etc.

2. That insurgency happens when government fails.
"Populaces don't fail governments, its governments that fail populaces." This means that any good COIN (or FID) program must be rooted in ensuring that the govenrment knows the problem is their fault and that focus of efforts will be on understanding where the are falling short and addressing those specific issues. Period.

While there are many example during the Cold War where your argument could hold some water, this is hardly an universal truth. Is it the government's fault that some radicals with an ideology that doesn't appeal to the majority want to pursue their ends via insurgency? It is only the government's fault if they don't crush this insurgency. The way you phrased the argument is that the government should just bend over and take it up the back side, and appease the radicals by meeting their needs. Sharia law for everyone, someone shot at our policemen, so I guess that is what you all want, I'm so sorry for failing you.

The criticality of Legitimacy.

This is in the IW definition, but what does it really mean? I interpret it to mean that the people in general freely submit to their government's rule, but the government still must weld some stick (coercion) to keep people in line with accepted norms of behavior such as not driving drunk, not speeding, not robbing banks, not raping, not shooting abortion doctors, etc. If a government does not have the willing consent of "most" of the people, then it must either rule with an iron fist (North Korea, Burma, USSR, Mao's China, etc.) to preserve power, or collapse.

The much touted tactics applied in Malaysia of "separating the insurgent from the populace," while feasible in that era and that environment simply are not any more.

Really? I think it is more appropriate than ever, and failure to understand this is a failure to understand the centers of gravity in this type of conflict. The successes in certain towns in Iraq were the result of separating the insurgent from the populace period. The tactics used in Malaysia may or may not be applicable in most cases, but the "principle" of separating the populace from the insurgent is not simply an idea that cannot be disregarded by any serious military leader. Getting a text message from Florida won't do a lot for my aching stomach or shortage of ammunition.

Must stop being cavalier and simply blaming the insurgency on the populce (the "let them eat cake" approach) or on some evil outside instigator with his ideology (the "Pied Piper theory of insurgency approach).

We had this debate before, and history and current events continue to prove that you're wrong. There may be spontaneous riots, but there are not spontaneous insurgencies. Insurgencies require leaders to mobilize and organize the people. The communists and now the Islamists were and are pro's of using outsiders to provide that leadership to instigate rebellion. Find one example of a successful insurgency that didn't have leadership? By the way, most insurgencies do fail, so that fact my itself undermines your main argument that governments must roll over and play dead and meet the demands of the insurgent.

reed11b

06-01-2009, 02:11 AM

Sorry to change tracks, but my concern, partially expressed by Wilf and Ken and Bill Moore, is that the key inovations that make the US better at CT, SFA, FID, IW, small wars, and possibly STABO (still arguing to myself on the legitamacy of the STABO concept) are also the key innovations we need to improve at HIC. Training focused on the small unit level (not, I repeat NOT the individual level), unit structure and training designed to maximize core compentancies and flexability, unit manning and deployment schemes that consider the combat behavior of soldiers, weapon systems prioritized to FIGHT not intimidate, etc etc. Notice I did not say COIN. The US should not even consider the COIN mission unless we are expecting California to revolt. COIN is against the population and that is counter the US world view. When we have tried it in the past it has either been a near term disaster or created negative long term effects.
Key point, what is good for IW is often good for HIC and these are the improvments we need to look for to instititionalize.
Reed

Bob's World

06-01-2009, 02:14 AM

Bill,

You're twisting my words to fit your paradigm.

For example, I never said that insurgency does not require leadership, or ideology for that matter. In fact, I believe that both are critical requriements for a successful insurgency. I just believe that so long as they are effective they are fungible. So long as the underlying conditions exist that give rise to insurgency a leader will step up to lead, and he or she will find a message that speaks to the populace. As Chairman Deng said regarding ideology and insurgency, and I agree, "it does not matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice."

We tend to focus on the surface issues, the acts of terror, the insurgent, the leader, the ideololgy applied. All are important, but none are the cause of the problem.

Take OEF-P. An excellent FID program is being implemented by the US in the southern Philiippines, Philippine security forces grow more competent every day; but it is an effort doomed to failure so long as the Government of the Philippines refuses to address the very real grievances of the Muslim populace of the South. The only true success can come from addressing this enduring grievance. The main effort for the US, if we truly want to deny the use of the Southern Philippines as a sanctuary from which attacks could be launched against America and American interests then we would focus on the main effort: Hard carrots and sticks with the government of the Philippines to get serious about the peace process. But we don't because there are other things we want from the government of the Philippines even more, and out of our fear of losing those things we don't press the governemnt to do what really needs to be done.

The same can be said of our approach with the Saudis.

In both cases we are seen as a source of legitimacy of the government, in that we help preserve them in power in exchange for support of our interests. The people notice; and when the people rise up in insurgency they attack the sources of legitimacy of the government they wish to change. This, more than any other thing, is at the heart of GWOT, and yet we ignore the heart and instead flail at the edges.

We attack leaders.

We attack ideology.

We support despots.

We kill members of the populaces the insurgents come from.

So no, WILF is wrong on this. His approach is the one the destroyed the British Empire; and if we think applying the same approach will not have the same effect on us, we're fooling ourselves.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I just want to give them some alternative perspectives to consider.

Bill Moore

06-01-2009, 03:08 AM

Bob's World,

On the Philippines I agree wholeheartedly, there is no end game because it appears that the government of the Philippines is not interested in seriously considering a realistic political settlement with the MILF. I recall that many of us who supported the Philippine Army durng the 80's in their fight against the New People's Army agreed if we grew up in a remote area in the Philippines we probably would have been communist insurgents, because the government under Marcos simply didn't care about the people. The NPA rallying cry would have been enticing. The same would probably be true if I grew up in a Moro village in Mindanao. In a way this gets at Reed's point, we don't do COIN, we do FID. We can do great FID, but in the end if the government can't get its COIN right it won't make a difference. What turned the fight around in both El Salvador and the Philippines (against the NPA) was a new President with new ideas, who reached out to the populace. Unfortunately, the NPA arose from the ashes once again because the government has failed to address the needs of the people. We're in agreement up to that point.

Let's go to (Wilf has me hooked on this now) the back to the basics: interests, pride, and fear. In the 80's it was in our interests to maintain use of Clark, Air Force Base and Subic Bay to support our ability to project force throughout the globe, but primarily Asia if the Cold War turned hot. You can argue we sacrified our principles of how a country should be governed by siding with Marcos in exchange for realizing greater strategic interests. Bad FID/COIN, but darn good strategy. He is a bastard, but he's our bastard approach. There are parallels with the fight against Islamic based terrorism in the Southern Philippines. We're scared that the movement will grow and threaten our interests in the region if it isn't beat down, so we over look the bad governance and "try" to focus the problem to defeating the terrorists, which is probably an impossible task, since in this case it is the ineffective governance that permits the terrorists to survive (although it is much tougher now than in previous years, and it is not unthinkable that the military could defeat the ASG, but the ASG is only part of the problem). In fairness, the current Philippine government is much more responsive to the people's needs than Marcos, but it will take years to weed out the corruption that undermines its efforts to reach out to the people effectively.

However, going back to your example of Saudi. The government may be oppressive, and it may be illegitimate, but do you think the Wahabi fundamentalist movement has popular support? Do you think "most" Saudi's would prefer to live under a stricter version of Shari'a law? Do you think it is in our "interests" to allow the Saudi government to fall to the Islamists? I know you have an understanding of global economics, and Saudi still provides the bulk of the fuel that drives the global economy. Again he may be bastard, but he is our bastard. You can say that doesn't work, but it has worked for us and other nations for years. You can't compare the British experience to the American experience. The Brit's colonized their empire generated much hatred and longing for freedom from their rule, while we influenced the countries we needed to influence using our elements of national power DIME.

So your right,

In both cases we are seen as a source of legitimacy of the government, in that we help preserve them in power in exchange for support of our interests.

but this is what nations do. Until we come up with another viable strategy for protecting our interests I suspect this is what we'll continue to do, even if at times it makes us a little sick to our stomach.

We attack leaders. Do you mean insurgent leaders? Yes we do, and in some cases there are probably better options, we seem to be stuck in a targeting paradigm. We confuse targeting with strategy, instead of using targeting to support strategy.

We attack ideology. The more you attack it, the more you validate it, I think we learned this, and I think we're just now learning how to address their ideology in a way that is helpful.

We support despots. When it is useful to our interests. The other option would be to???

We kill members of the populaces the insurgents come from.

Not trying to be cute, but war is hell, and don't forget that the insurgents in many cases also kill and terrorize the populace they come from.

Posted by Reed,
The US should not even consider the COIN mission unless we are expecting California to revolt. COIN is against the population and that is counter the US world view. When we have tried it in the past it has either been a near term disaster or created negative long term effects.
Key point, what is good for IW is often good for HIC and these are the improvments we need to look for to instititionalize.

Do you mean California or Key West, Florida where Jimmy Buffet led an attempted separatist movement? I think the Coast Guard blockaded Key West for a few hours, and when Jimmy realized they wouldn't be able to get any weed or booze he called the rebellion off :D.

In all seriousness, if we do a regime overthrow (Japan, Germany, Iraq, and Afghanistan) then we're in facto the government, even if we quickly prop up another government and pretend they're in charge. Until their bureaucratic systems mature, and that can take awhile if we're putting in an entirely new form of government, then we're doing COIN. To pretend otherwise is to get on the road to failure. We want to transition to the point where we're doing FID as fast as possible, but fast as possible isn't a few days after their election. Maybe we would have more successful in Iraq and Afghanistan if we slowed the train down and focused on the COIN fight while simultaneously putting considerable effort into building their government and security forces, instead of rushing through the process?

reed11b

06-01-2009, 04:07 AM

In all seriousness, if we do a regime overthrow (Japan, Germany, Iraq, and Afghanistan) then we're in facto the government, even if we quickly prop up another government and pretend they're in charge. Until their bureaucratic systems mature, and that can take awhile if we're putting in an entirely new form of government, then we're doing COIN. To pretend otherwise is to get on the road to failure. We want to transition to the point where we're doing FID as fast as possible, but fast as possible isn't a few days after their election. Maybe we would have more successful in Iraq and Afghanistan if we slowed the train down and focused on the COIN fight while simultaneously putting considerable effort into building their government and security forces, instead of rushing through the process?

Good Point, well taken. My argument would be that we need to know how to "win the peace" and that this is more important then being proficient in COIN. In another thread I outlined a long list of original mistakes we made in Iraq that made an insurgency inevitable, and strongly contend that the scope of the insurgency in Iraq was completely avoidable. Are saying that these steps to provide increased security and structure fall under COIN? I have always felt that successfully ending a conflict w/o it turning into a COIN fight was a separate skill base. What are the councils thoughts on this?
Reed

William F. Owen

06-01-2009, 04:53 AM

slapout9

06-01-2009, 05:08 AM

Key point, what is good for IW is often good for HIC and these are the improvments we need to look for to instititionalize.
Reed

Can you expand on that? You are about to convince me. Does anybody care if California revolts...I thought they already had:)

reed11b

06-01-2009, 06:03 AM

Can you expand on that? You are about to convince me. Does anybody care if California revolts...I thought they already had:)
My point was that the American way of preparing for HIC, focusing on individual and large unit training, individual manning, unwieldy unit structure and equipment, focusing on equipment over training, etc etc, are both poor for HIC and IW and that many of these "reforms" are recognized as important for IW, but that they also help our HIC abilities. I.E. Better trained infantry with a better doctrine will provide a greater improvement in HIC warfighting ability then any new FCS system. I'll try to put togethor a coherant argument after I get some much needed sleep
Reed
Added: another key mistake is individual training over small unit training. Training as a fire team, squad and platoon is more important then air assault or Ranger school and that "special skills" need to be unit not individual based. Yes, this means I would have to give up my shiny parachutist badge, but I can live with that.

William F. Owen

06-01-2009, 08:05 AM

Bob's World

06-01-2009, 12:47 PM

Hi, my name is Bob, and I am a strategist.

At least I try to be, guilty as charged. But with that said, I do not buy into the conventional wisdom on what strategy is or is not; or who does it or who does not.

It's just not that simple. When I showed up at the Army War College they said essentially: "Congratulations with 20 years under your belt we will now teach you to be strategic." This mindset reinforces the idea that strategy is something associated with a particular rank, or level of command, and certainly looked at in a purely procedural perspective that is true.

I look at it differently (ok, no big surprise there, I get it...). But to me strategy is not a level of command perspective, a vague statement so generic as to be virtually worthless that Colonels write, Generals approve, and virtually no one reads. To me that is nearly as mindless as it is worthless.

For me strategy is a level of understanding. Once that strategic level of understanding is achieved it is then something of value to everyone in the chain of command, from the Chairman down to the Squad Leader that helps them put their actions into perspective and execute them in a way so as to achieve the best possible effect. Have I achieved the strategic solution to populace-based conflict? No, but it is my quest. I am confident that I am heading in the right direction, and I believe that I am very close, but it is a continuous process with daily refinements as new or old information tests and either validates or invalidates the strategic concepts.

Is this somehow the sacred territory of just elected officials? God help us if it is. No, everyone involved in this from top to bottom as a duty to think, to ponder, to question, to seek understanding. Certainly also to do our mission as assigned.

I picture that cliché' scene in every movie on organized crime were the big boss smacks some underling while declaring "I don't pay you to think!" Many Regular officers may very well feel those same intellectual shackles as well. That's sad where true. Because we do get paid to think, and you don't have to wait until you get to the War College to get started.

William F. Owen

06-01-2009, 02:18 PM

Hi, my name is Bob, and I am a strategist.
Hi Bob! My name is Wilf and I'm not a strategist, and even if I was I could give up anytime. I just choose not to... :wry:

....helps them put their actions into perspective and execute them in a way so as to achieve the best possible effect. Have I achieved the strategic solution to populace-based conflict? No, but it is my quest. I am confident that I am heading in the right direction, and I believe that I am very close, but it is a continuous process with daily refinements as new or old information tests and either validates or invalidates the strategic concepts.

Is this somehow the sacred territory of just elected officials?
Strategy to me is the practical conduct/expression of your foreign policy. The military makes a contribution to it, but it is essentially political, and also the product of political belief. The specifics of your strategy created from your personal political and moral beliefs. It's not a rational business.

- so telling Soldiers to "think strategically" is essentially flawed. Teaching them how military power can be applied to achieve any given strategy does make sense

Thus Military thought and science generally limits itself to the how military force serves policy, not makes it.

Ken White

06-01-2009, 04:12 PM

...so telling Soldiers to "think strategically" is essentially flawed. Teaching them how military power can be applied to achieve any given strategy does make sense

Thus Military thought and science generally limits itself to the how military force serves policy, not makes it.I agree that Bob's World continually sallies into the political realm (the SO community does that quite often, I think it's it's probably genetic -- and one reason I left that commune... ;) ) and that you're correct on the division of effort. Strategy is a politically determined course; the Soldats can but propose and the Pols will dispose.

A 'strategy' is, as you say, merely a potential route -- not the goal -- to achieve a policy.

However, one of the assumed or presumed roles of the SO community is the influencing of 'earts and moinds so my sensing is that he knows you're correct but cannot cease proselyting to get the silly-villyun politicians to adhere to sensible 'strategies.' An idea with which I truly can wish him success.

My disagreement, if it is such, with Bob is that I'm convinced he's wasting his time because their concern (the majority at any rate) is now and forever will be reelection, not strategerizing... :(

I'm incredibly lazy; I hate to see good effort by smart people go for naught. :wry:

slapout9

06-02-2009, 06:14 PM

A 'strategy' is, as you say, merely a potential route -- not the goal -- to achieve a policy.

How about this....Strategy is how you make the enemies power irrelevant to you accomplishing your objective.

Coldstreamer

06-02-2009, 06:14 PM

Isn't 'strategy' to do with the context[B[/B] of the issue, rather than its relative merits?

Therefore, a Platoon Commander thinking hard about how to destroy a Dushka firing from a compound is dealing with a fundamentally tactical problem. If he calls in a 2000lb-er on it, and the compound is full of civilians, there will be strategic implications, because Karzai will complain, and ISAF will cede more support/tolerance from the population. But the problem itself is a tactical one.

Whereas if we're trying to secure energy supplies for the next 20 years, this is a strategic issue. The choice between building a nuclear power station, or drilling for more North Sea Oil is perhaps a tactical one - but again both have 'strategic' implications in terms on industrial bases, environmental impact etc.

Therefore the strategic issue of dealing with a global islamist insurgency is clearly a strategic one, especially when mapped onto the risk of WMD proliferation and the increased porousness and vulnerability of an interconnected world.

Somewhere, leaders need to provide the intellectual clarity to lay down clearly how and where we will fight, for what ends, and in so doing identify which issues are reconcilable (ie - we accept scope for dialogue because an insurgent has some legitmate grievance)...and where we say, 'f*** you' - its not happening - the committed irreconcilable - whether thats a nuclear Iran (clock ticking), a nuclear NK (too late!) or AQ.

General Rupert Smith observed at a v good lecture at Kings College London that the UK had not had anythintg that remotely resembled a coherent national strategy, in terms of a vision for the role of the country, international objectives, and a foreign policy to achieve them and nest military efforts. Hard to diagree.

William F. Owen

06-02-2009, 06:42 PM

Coldstreamer me old mate,

From ADP LAND OPERATIONS Page 4-5

“… to determine the aim, which is or should be inherently political; to derive from that aim a series of military objectives to be achieved: to assess these objectives as to the military requirements they create, and the pre-conditions which the achievement of each is likely to necessitate: to measure available and potential resources against the requirements and to chart from this process a coherent pattern of priorities and a rational course of action.”
THIS IS UK DOCTRINE!
So, a goofed tactical action - bombing a UN kindergarten - is only a goof if it creates lasting and decisive political effects.
So you can't have a "Strategic Corporal" because Corporals cannot achieve lasting decisive political effects.
So not resourcing the formation is A'Stan is actually de-facto strategic failure.
Help any?

Ken White

06-02-2009, 06:58 PM

Quoth Slap:
"...Strategy is how you make the enemies power irrelevant to you accomplishing your objective."Practically and semantically, I agree and think most would do so. In the politico-military context though, the issue become who decides the "how." Many moons ago, Lincoln gave Grant the authority to make those decisions; from then forward, however, that has not been the case. In the last 100 plus years in ALL western democracies, the politicians have been very firm in retaining control over the "how" decisions. I doubt that will change and as Coldstreamer says:
"Somewhere, leaders need to provide the intellectual clarity to lay down clearly how and where we will fight, for what ends...I agree but history and indications lead me to believe that the Politicians don't know enough, generally do not want to listen to the advice of non-politicians and are prone to make decisions based on domestic political concerns rather than the true geo-political or strategic issues at hand. So I think that's unlikely to change. :(
General Rupert Smith observed at a v good lecture at Kings College London that the UK had not had anythintg that remotely resembled a coherent national strategy, in terms of a vision for the role of the country, international objectives, and a foreign policy to achieve them and nest military efforts. Hard to diagree.Rupert's a smart guy, fair book. He's too nice -- I'd say the European hearth nations as a whole have that problem. Penalty of a democratic approach to government. Generally, for most of us, the merits outweigh the obvious disadvantages. Democracies don't do strategy very well; they can do policies though -- but they tend to change after elections. Sigh.

Wilf may be right about Strategic Corporals -- but I was once a Sensuous Sergeant. It's all about the means to the end desired.. :D

Coldstreamer

06-02-2009, 07:10 PM

Wilf may be right about Strategic Corporals -- but I was once a Sensuous Sergeant. It's all about the means to the end desired.. :D[/QUOTE]

Too much information! But at least you knew what you were trying to do, and the means to go about it! I suspect todays political class would struggle equally in that field, were it not for interns, special advisers and secretaries on tap!

Coldstreamer

06-02-2009, 07:12 PM

Coldstreamer me old mate,

From ADP LAND OPERATIONS Page 4-5

THIS IS UK DOCTRINE!
So, a goofed tactical action - bombing a UN kindergarten - is only a goof if it creates lasting and decisive political effects.
So you can't have a "Strategic Corporal" because Corporals cannot achieve lasting decisive political effects.
So not resourcing the formation is A'Stan is actually de-facto strategic failure.
Help any?

Brother,

As most of the time, violently agreeing. I was taking issue more with some of the other comments. My bad for being less than clear.
However, with the compressed 24/7 news cycle, the interweb and all the other issues we see, could we not say Lyndie England (poor sap/poorly led) was a strategic PFC? Lasting political damage? Worldwide perception impact? Big hit to moral high ground?

William F. Owen

06-02-2009, 07:26 PM

However, with the compressed 24/7 news cycle, the interweb and all the other issues we see, could we not say Lyndie England (poor sap/poorly led) was a strategic PFC? Lasting political damage? Worldwide perception impact? Big hit to moral high ground?

You can't go on being a Guards officer if you start making incisive and intelligent observations like that! Rupert and Tarquin will get very miffed!

....but yes, this is the nature of the debate. My points are:

a.) Lyndie England cannot loose the war for you.
b.) What she did will still have the same effect, with or without the internet or 24 hour news - Remember this?
http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs024/images/canon/06.jpg
or
http://www.pinolobu.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/vietnam_girl_napalm.jpg
Neither picture or the stories surrounding them had strategic effect. The only thing that generally creates strategic effect is the reporting of something strategically significant - The Sinking of the Lusitania, being a good example, and 911 being another. Both were deemed indicative of a collective intent, with political aims. Lyndie England type issues are very different.

Coldstreamer

06-02-2009, 08:06 PM

You can't go on being a Guards officer if you start making incisive and intelligent observations like that! Rupert and Tarquin will get very miffed!

....but yes, this is the nature of the debate. My points are:

a.) Lyndie England cannot loose the war for you.
b.) What she did will still have the same effect, with or without the internet or 24 hour news - Remember this?
http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs024/images/canon/06.jpg
or
http://www.pinolobu.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/vietnam_girl_napalm.jpg
Neither picture or the stories surrounding them had strategic effect. The only thing that generally creates strategic effect is the reporting of something strategically significant - The Sinking of the Lusitania, being a good example, and 911 being another. Both were deemed indicative of a collective intent, with political aims. Lyndie England type issues are very different.

Now now...when Rupert and Tarquin are sober they're actually quite bright! More importantly, they have decent estates for their fat old company commander to shoot upon - so cease your Light Division wibbling! (Not so different from a number of Riflemen I know, come to think...)

And I disagree! I think all your examples are have strategic effect - its a question of degree. The Vietnam pics most definately had a negative impact on the perception of the war, the opinion (right or otherwise) of the legitimacy of the US. And in all these things, Legitimacy, and the perception of it - is the most important strategic factor of all. US (IMHO) came unstuck in Vietnam because they were backing a loser - Govt of SVN couldn't/wouldn't provide for its people in an equitable way - VC notwithstanding (query Karzai and Kabul...oi vay...)
Collective intents? Political aims? Again all relative. What about that nutter who plugged Archduke Ferdinand and lit the fuse for WW1. Was he part of an organised collective that wanted World conflict? Or an aggreived Balkan who just wanted to lash out at the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

I think enough Lindie Englands probably can lose the war for you. The local national populace get incensed and support the insurgent more. The home base loses faith and want out. The Allies have even more of an excuse to break out their inhalers and run for their immodium tablets. And the poor bloody infantry groan, wait for the incoming, and count down the days until the RIP, and subsequent PTSD.

I thinks are more complex (and yet more simple) than the old state on state 'big event' paradigm.

reed11b

06-02-2009, 08:23 PM

US (IMHO) came unstuck in Vietnam because they were backing a loser - Govt of SVN couldn't/wouldn't provide for its people in an equitable way - VC notwithstanding (query Karzai and Kabul...oi vay...)

If that were true 9/10ths of Africa would have had an effective insurgency by now. There is a long history of goverments that have existed only to better themselves at the expense of people, and this has a long history of mostly acceptance by the population. This good goverment as a form of COIN is a very new concept and has hardly been proved. I tend to question it's effectivness myself
Reed

slapout9

06-02-2009, 08:39 PM

Quoth Slap:Practically and semantically, I agree and think most would do so. In the politico-military context though, the issue become who decides the "how." Many moons ago, Lincoln gave Grant the authority to make those decisions; from then forward, however, that has not been the case. In the last 100 plus years in ALL western democracies, the politicians have been very firm in retaining control over the "how" decisions. I doubt that will change and as Coldstreamer says:I agree but history and indications lead me to believe that the Politicians don't know enough, generally do not want to listen to the advice of non-politicians and are prone to make decisions based on domestic political concerns rather than the true geo-political or strategic issues at hand. So I think that's unlikely to change. :D

I was thinking more at the level of Grand Strategy(national Policy) it should be how we harness our national resources to avoid having to go to war in the first place, If our National Policy fails, somebody tries to stop us from achieving our goals peacfully..... then do as Coldstreamer says draw a line and say this is enough and if need be we will light the big candle. However as you point out practically one should not hold your your breath that this will happen. And yes I was a wild ass Buck Sergeant:wry:

Coldstreamer

06-02-2009, 08:41 PM

When the Cold War was raging, much of Africa was indeed riven by insurgency. And many of those insurgencies were fuelled by bad governance- expertly stoked by communist agent provocateurs and advisors.

Africa is difficult - most African 'countries' barely warrant the name, God help them - arbitrary colonial lines across the continent, with no development from ethnic, geographical or political lines. And most are indeed riven with internal conflict and insecurity - largely based on the reasons stated.

Coldstreamer

06-02-2009, 08:45 PM

I was thinking more at the level of Grand Strategy(national Policy) it should be how we harness our national resources to avoid having to go to war in the first place, If our National Policy fails, somebody tries to stop us from achieving our goals peacfully..... then do as Coldstreamer says draw a line and say this is enough and if need be we will light the big candle. However as you point out practically one should not hold your your breath that this will happen. And yes I was a wild ass Buck Sergeant:wry:

Bang on. Today's problem is a pretty average collection of decisionmakers in the political class of the West. Particularly unfortunate at this juncture of history...Remember the roll call at 9/11...Blair...Bush...Schroeder...Chirac....

Oh God...

slapout9

06-02-2009, 08:50 PM

Coldstreamer, I am reminded by a remark John Maynard Keynes made when he was trying to help us out with a little economic problem we were having, sometimes called The Great Depression. :eek:

"America Is To Stupid To Be The World Leader" by JMK

Coldstreamer

06-02-2009, 09:35 PM

I prefer the phrase 'last best hope'...!

If we were to banter, I'd recall Churchill's famous words
"America can always be trusted to do the right thing...after it has exhausted all alternatives"

..but I prefer the soldiers' maxim - 'lead, follow or get out of the way!'

and I don't see anyone else in the free world picking up the baton.

slapout9

06-02-2009, 10:32 PM

slapout9

06-02-2009, 10:42 PM

Ah the good old days when we new what we stood for. Noo-Ku-Lar Combat!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ynY5NvYsZY

William F. Owen

06-03-2009, 05:21 AM

- so cease your Light Division wibbling! (Not so different from a number of Riflemen I know, come to think...)

And I disagree! I think all your examples are have strategic effect - its a question of degree.
Well we could put in another way, and that is these pictures became emblematic of US Strategic failure, but I can't see how a picture of very minor tactical actions can inflate the worth of the tactical action.

The Vietnam pics most definately had a negative impact on the perception of the war, the opinion (right or otherwise) of the legitimacy of the US. And in all these things, Legitimacy, and the perception of it - is the most important strategic factor of all.
Whose legitimacy. Legitimacy, as used by the 4GW crowd is an entirely cultural construct. Legitimacy is really only relevant in that it causes political action.

I think enough Lindie Englands probably can lose the war for you. How many is enough? :D
Seriously, yes you are correct, but only when they cause your side to change the policy or the other sides leadership change their intent.
Example: The PIRA killing Lord Mountbatten caused not a blip in UK policy to Ulster, yet there was massive public outrage.
Now did the Sergeants Affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sergeants_affair) get the UK to leave Palestine. Some say it did, but the evidence is doubtful.
Basically the argument that some News coverage, of a purely tactical act, can alter the course of a conflict means strategic and operational planning is useless since it has to account for a degree of prediction that is essentially impossible. What is more there is no evidence from history that this is the case.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was strategically significant. If the nutty Balkan has shot the Archduke's French Bulldog, "Scipio" no one would have cared... except the British....

I thinks are more complex (and yet more simple) than the old state on state 'big event' paradigm.
War has always been infinitely complex. It cannot become more complex.

Steve Blair

06-03-2009, 02:34 PM

Yes, where is General Eisenhower?

Building another military/industrial complex somewhere, no doubt....:D

Tukhachevskii

08-01-2009, 02:22 AM

Comrades,

I have only been a member of the forum for a short while and yet have found my decision to be most rewarding; viz, the general disdain/contempt felt for William Lind and Thommas Hammes. I know it's a long post but please find below the text of a short response I wrote in the space of an evening (and therefore the reasoning may be a little rough around the edges) for a chap by the name of Kristian Gustafson, formerly RCAF, who was teaching Non-Conventional Threats at Brunel University when I was (briefly) enrolled on their MA in Intelligence and Security Studies (thankfully, I came to my senses and left, for a myriad of reasons). His response was...'Perhaps you should read The Sling and the Stone, may be that will convince you'?! Classic, absolutely calssic (the ex-soldiers in the class were also similarly derisive of his comments on 4GW). No footnotes but I hope many of you find the information interesting.

Nigeria and the Three Myths of Fourth Generation Warfare

‘War is more than a true chameleon...’

Almost two centuries ago Clausewitz described the method of critical analysis in the study of war as proceeding in three logical and sequential stages; firstly, the discovery and interpretation of historical facts; secondly, ‘the tracing of effects back to their causes’; and, thirdly, ‘the investigation and evaluation of means employed’. He also warned that ‘effects in war seldom result from a single cause; there are usually several concurrent causes. It is therefore not enough to trace, however honestly and objectively, a sequence of events back to their origin: each identifiable cause still has to be correctly assessed’. Thus, "the primary purpose of any theory is to clarify concepts and ideas that have become, as it were, confused and entangled. Not until terms and concepts have been defined can one hope to make any progress in examining the question clearly and simply and expect the reader to share one’s views".

Neither William Lind nor Thomas Hammes have heeded Clausewitz’s warning or advice in propounding the “confused and entangled” concept of Fourth Generation Warfare. They have cobbled together a number of myths in order to re-invigorate and update guerrilla warfare for the 21st century while covertly pushing an agenda that seeks to raise the profile of the U.S. Marine Corps, hitherto neglected in favour of the ‘sexier’ services such as the Army and Air Force, in the Great War on Terror (GWOT) and ensure it has the ear of budgetary officials in Congress. Their assumption that warfare has evolved through three generations, or paradigms, up to the current fourth is based upon an incoherent understanding or appreciation of military history; that war is generational is the first myth. They also assume, even though they tacitly or accidentally acknowledge that insurgency or guerrilla warfare is of older provenance than first generation warfare, that insurgency in the modern era constitutes a new kind of war; this is the second myth. Following on from this they see its cause as a result of the decline of the state and its hold on the monopoly of violence as new non-state actors come to the fore. This third myth constitutes the Achilles heel of their entire thesis and is as historically incoherent an assumption as it is theoretically simplistic based as it is on the assumption that states everywhere are identical in time, space and capacity. We shall take Clausewitz’s advice and analyse the “confused and entangled” concept of Fourth Generation Warfare in the course of which we shall see that there are very good reasons for William Lind’s lament that ‘no one in the U.S. military “gets it”’.

1st Myth: War is Generational
The first myth concerns warfare as a generational phenomenon the basic rudiments of which are as follows. Modern war can be traced to the end of the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia which created states and then gave them monopoly on legitimate violence and thus war making. This system of states then became worldwide and ushered in the First Generation of war. The state provides a wealth-generating economy, a complex social structure allied to nationalism which enables the training and equipping of mass armies as well as the technological base necessary to sustain them with mass produced lightweight artillery and small arms. In the First Generation states engage in war with armies composed of foot-soldiers organised into lines and columns which engage in linear combat exemplified by the wars of Napoleon. This generation is responsible for the distinction between civilian and military as well as a military culture in which hierarchy (ranks and professionalism) and discipline is prevalent creating a culture of order. This generation is thus characterised by mass armed forces.

The Second Generation is characterised by attrition or firepower as the solution to problems raised by First Generation mass armies on the battlefield. Allegedly a French development dating from WWI ‘centrally-controlled artillery’ in conjunction with supporting arms was used to erode and destroy the fighting power of the enemy. Consequently obedience rather than initiative becomes the norm while a parallel deepening of trends evinced in the First continues with the advent of railway transport enabling the strategic and operational concentration of troops, telegraph communications and large-scale logistics.

The Third Generation is manoeuvre centric which originates with Germany in WWI and culminates with Blitzkrieg in WWII in which the tempo of operations is increased through decentralisation which, in unison with surprise and mental and ‘physical dislocation ... seeks to get into the enemy’s rear and collapse him from the rear forward’. Although aircraft, mechanised forces and radio communications are available to all the belligerents only the German army had a leadership inspired enough to seize the initiative afforded by these technologies (and by implication the current U.S leadership does not).

In the current Fourth Generation ‘the state loses its monopoly on war’ and is ‘marked by a return to a world of cultures, not merely states, in conflict’ such as the clash between Christianity and Islam. The ‘universal crisis of legitimacy of the state’ thereby ushers in a whole plethora of non-conventional threats such as ‘invasion by immigration’ which undermines America thanks to the ‘poisonous ideology of multiculturalism’. Fourth Generation warfare is characterised by non-state actors which seek to capitalise on the crisis of the state which is now unable to mobilise against an asymmetrical, i.e., non-state, enemy and who seek to ‘use international, transnational, national and sub-national networks for their own purposes’. The consequence is an age of universal insurgency or a global guerrilla war as exemplified by Mao’s theory of People’s War. Hammes even goes as far as to predict a Fifth Generation of war conducted by ‘super-empowered individuals’ armed with biotechnology. Fourth Generation warfare will be fought by light infantry against an opponent who refuses to acknowledge the Geneva Convention while simultaneously having also to prevent the disintegration of enemy states. Lind’s answer to Marines faced with Fourth Generation warfare is, however, and without any hint of irony, to dust off books about the Spanish guerrilla operations against Napoleon (of the First Generation of mass warfare no less).

The conceptualisation of the evolution of war from Mass (1st) to Attrition (2nd) to Manoeuvre (3rd) to Global Insurgency and the death of the state (4th) is not only theoretically disingenuous but historically inaccurate to say the least even when Lind’s right-wing neo-conservative ideology doesn’t get in the way. We will show this through brief analyses of the Napoleonic wars, World War One and Ancient warfare in relation to generations One to Three. The Fourth Generation issues of insurgency and state failure will be dealt with in later sections.

Tukhachevskii

08-01-2009, 02:22 AM

Contrary to Lind and Hammes the First Generation Napoleonic era is understood by historians to be a ‘paradigm of manoeuvre warfare’. Harnessing the levee en masse of the Revolutionary period Napoleon fielded vast numbers of troops organised into semi-autonomous corps d’armée each of which was a miniature combined arms army able to manoeuvre independently and concentrate swiftly for battle. Each corps was composed of infantry and cavalry divisions supported by artillery. The Grand Armée had invested heavily in heavy and light infantry with numerous companies of voltigeurs and tirailleurs, specialised for close combat skirmishing, combined with heavier infantry battalions optimised for firepower. The cavalry was similarly divided into heavy and light formations which could be used for screening and ‘bold shock action against enemy formations weakened by infantry attacks and artillery fire’. Through ‘dexterous coordination of infantry, cavalry and artillery’ the French heavy infantry would, under cover of artillery and skirmishers, deploy ‘in flexible mixtures of lines and columns’ while the enemies fighting power was eroded through artillery and his initiative stymied through threats of or actual cavalry attacks forcing him to deploy into defensive squares rather than manoeuvre to engage. This manoeuvrability and flexibility meant that ‘immense areas of Europe would become war zones as the scattered components of his armies would manoeuvre and converge on their prey’ (an early-modern form of swarming). This system was first disrupted during the Peninsular War in Spain where Napoleon was faced with guerrillas whom the French termed insurgés. Napoleon’s forces were tied down by guerrillas as well as British and Portuguese regular forces which prevented him from concentrating on any one threat. Yet the guerrillas’ general lawlessness made negotiating untenable given that they were largely uncoordinated belonging to differing factions, clans, parties or interest groups rather than the disintegrating central government (the Suprema), and, moreover, spent as much time attacking their fellow countrymen and plundering their own country as they did fighting Napoleon.

The Second Generation of attrition is similarly more nuanced than Lind and Hammes perceive. It was not France but Germany that initiated, under the leadership of Falkenhayn, the strategy of attrition which was instigated after the giant “manoeuvre a priori” of the Schlieffen plan came to a grinding halt. Designed to ‘bleed the French Army white’ Falkenhayn hoped to draw French infantry toward the symbolic fortress of Verdun where, matching his plan to the nature of his enemy, he knew ‘they would launch counterattack after counterattack, as was their fashion, with disregard for life and limb’. Thus with one eye on the forthcoming British Somme offensive he hoped to knock France out of the war through the erosion of their national morale through the mass killing of their troops. However, it was topographical conditions that favoured such an approach in the first place where ‘French positions on the east bank of the river curved in a semicircle from Brabant, on the north, to the Cotes of the Meuse on the south. The northern arc was, therefore, not only subject to direct fire, but could be enfiladed along its whole length by German batteries’. In contrast, the Eastern front was a marked by large-scale manoeuvre given the disparity in force to space ratios which favoured movement allied to superb German signals intelligence (or, Russian incompetence) and is exemplified in the Battle of Tannenberg and the later attack on Rumania by Falkenhayn. In the latter operation Falkenhayn even used motorised (truck borne) infantry as his part of the advance strike element of his 9th Army. Similarly, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan exemplifies the use of firepower to remedy manpower deficiencies and actually came to replace manoeuvre as the preferred method of Soviet counterinsurgency operations.

Tukhachevskii

08-01-2009, 02:23 AM

The Third Generation of manoeuvre, what Lind and Hammes erroneously label Blitzkrieg, can actually be located farther back in history with the Assyrians (c. 900 B.C.) who combined horses with chariots and armed the riders with spears and bows. This enabled ‘the first true long range army, able to campaign as far as 300 miles from base and to move at speeds of advance that would not be exceeded until the coming of the internal combustion engine’. Psychologically chariot warfare led to the creation of a disciplined warrior group adept at ‘flock management’ wherein they would approach ‘their enemy in loose crescent formation’ by which they could herd their foot bound opponents and begin attacking them from afar with bows only to dispatch them at close quarter having divided and segmented them (an example of ancient swarming). The Assyrian empire fell largely due to the inroads of the Scythians who had learned to ride the horse at an earlier date. Yet, if anything qualifies as a generation or paradigm shift in (manoeuvre) warfare it is the domestication of the horse by the steppe based Sredni Stog culture group around 4,100 B.C in an area presently in Southern Ukraine which not only ‘expanded the size of potential exploitative territories by a factor of five, nullifying whatever territorial boundaries existed previously’ but also, ‘provided the ability to strike across great distances at hostile neighbours and to retreat (typically the most dangerous part of a pedestrian raid) faster than any pedestrian party could pursue’. In later North Africa where elephants were more widely available they became the equivalent of modern tanks and were used to great effect by Hannibal. He had them partially covered in armour, fixed iron spikes to their tusks, manned them with up to four warriors equipped with bows, slings, and javelins and used them for shock action and breaking through dense Roman infantry phalanxes. They were defeated, ironically, not through force of arms but by guile and cunning when at the Battle of Zama (202.B.C.) Scipio Africanus ordered his entire front line ‘to make a tremendous blare with trumpets and horns, which startled the elephants [...] some of them actually turned tail at once, rushing back on their own troops’. Those that were not so rattled were dispatched by experienced and specially trained light infantry, velites, who had faced them before and engaged them with javelins and bows. Afterward, in a scene foreshadowing the First World War, the Carthaginians were forced to surrender their war elephants and refrain from training them in future. In this context First Generation warfare trumped the Third.

Lind and Hammes generational approach to the evolution of warfare assumes that each generation was superseded by the next which is evidently not the case. Manoeuvre, attrition and mass are not generations but methods of war fighting deployed in diverse combinations according to the strategy of the combatants and the conditions in which war is being waged (such as geography, climate, or topography). No attempt was made by either author to differentiate between mass, manoeuvre and attrition at the tactical, operational or strategic levels of war. For instance, in WWI tactical mobility was largely dependent upon muscle power while strategic mobility was largely determined by effective railway systems resulting in ‘a twentieth century delivery-system, but a nineteenth century warhead’. Whereas tactical combat is almost always an affair characterised by attrition. Warfare at sea was always a combination of manoeuvre and attrition based on the firepower of ship borne weaponry- bows, Greek fire or cannon -combined with the massed effects of entire fleets later augmented by aircraft (viz. the battles of Salamis 450B.C.; Lepanto 1571; Trafalgar 1805; Tsushima 1906; Midway 1942, etc.). The question of the autonomy of the fourth generation presents us with similar anomalies and problems, some of definition others of scope and location.

2nd Myth: “Insurgency” is the same as “War”
Thomas Marks has commented that ‘when all manner of internal warfare is lumped under the rubric “terrorism”, crucial distinctions are lost’ and the same could be said for insurgency in Lind and Hammes’ framework. According to Rod Thornton ‘insurgencies and war are, in many ways, mutually exclusive. They require different vernaculars, psychologies and approaches. At heart, insurgencies need to be managed away while wars need to be won’. Terrorism, on the other hand, ‘may have much more in common with strategic bombardment than with small unit tactics’. But, the ‘key element of terrorism is the divorce of armed politics from a purported mass base, those in whose name terrorists claim to be fighting’. And where does the partisan warfare perfected by the Soviets during WWII to create a ‘front-behind-the-front’ fit in? Indeed, Mao’s Communists, who supposedly perfected guerrilla warfare, largely fought their KMT rivals ‘with large-unit conventional military operations between massed armies’. Also, as Walter Laqueur states, modern guerrilla warfare, rather than being coherent phenomena, ‘was a system of warfare chosen instinctively, without the benefit of any preconceived doctrine’. In fact many of the insurgencies currently ongoing began in exactly the same way and evolved, along with their goals and the strategies to achieve them, over time. As Brian Jenkins observed, ‘the three components of armed conflict― conventional war, guerrilla war and terrorism ―will coexist in the future [as they have done in the past]. Governments and sub-national entities will employ them individually, interchangeably, sequentially or simultaneously’. This complexity is evident in Nigeria where the concept of insurgency as an autonomous (4th generation) realm based on ‘the very idea of an impermeable membrane separating or opposing two discrete entities– government and rebels –breaks down immediately’.

The numerous insurgent groups in Nigeria have a complex relationship to the state, to each other and to the international economy (oil) only some of which will be covered here. Many insurgent groups and criminal gangs are linked to the political process often as hired thugs. In the 2003 elections in the state of Bayelsa’s Southern Ijaw local government, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) used local criminal and militant groups to attack each other’s supporters and intimidate voters. Local Ijaw groups used these linkages as temporary ‘alliances of convenience’ to acquire political favours or hard cash. Insurgent-criminal groups such as the Niger Delta Vigilantes (NDF) and the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NPDVF) actually started out life as thugs for hire for local and regional politicians and then went free-lance when that support dried up although they are still occasionally called upon for favours returned in kind.

Tukhachevskii

08-01-2009, 02:23 AM

Secessionist insurgencies revolve around ethnic and economic issues concerning Nigerian oil resources which are located in small ethnic territories. The Movement for the Survival of the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality (MOSIEN) is engaged in a secessionist insurgency demanding greater political and economic autonomy or outright independence. As is the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) who represent the Ibo-speaking south eastern regions and have increased their activity after the corrupt elections of April 2007 and have called for a UN supervised plebiscite. The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) was originally a non-violent protest group demanding economic empowerment who then adopted armed resistance and secessionist goals after a number of violent Nigerian police and military crackdowns.

International oil companies such as Chevron, Total and Shell are also involved in the insurgent matrix. They pay local militias for protection against other groups as well as paying off local opposition groups with ‘cash payments’. Oil companies also undermine the central government buy providing ‘monthly pay and perks, including housing, transport, meals and medical services to police, army and navy personnel deployed to protect their installations’. Shell admits to importing arms and ammunition from a Lagos arms dealer for its affiliates whereas Total officially states that Nigerian officials, such as supernumerary police and commissioners, are its own employees.

In 2005 an umbrella insurgency group appeared claiming to represent the entire Niger Delta called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and has been by far the most lethal and professional of the insurgent groups. MEND demands that 20-50 percent of oil revenues be redistributed back to local communities in the oil producing regions through local community governed foundations rather than the corrupt and un-transparent patronage system used currently. Nonetheless MEND is also linked with local politics involving struggles between the ethnic groups it purports to represent as well as continued attacks on oil pipelines and refineries in order to steal oil for finance purposes (‘oil-bunkering’).

State violence is also endemic with extra-judicial killings in 2003 amounting to 3,100 deaths in the
Ogoni state alone which led MOSOP to take arms. On 19th February 2005 the Nigerian Army destroyed 78 homes and killed countless civilians in what was supposed to be an operation against a local criminal-cult group called Isenasawo after reports of communal fighting between Odioma and Obioku residents. Instead of attacking Isenasawo, who are often used by local and regional actors to secure pipelines, the army attacked innocent civilians.

3rd Myth: Globalisation is destroying the State
By arguing that the state has failed through the use of examples from places where the state was never successful in the first place is disingenuous. There is no unbroken line of descent of contemporary states from Westphalia because most modern states outside Europe, and even some inside, came into being only after 1945. Also, the idea of what states are differs across the theoretical spectrum with the Weberian one used by Lind and Hammes, in which a state possesses a legitimate monopoly on violence, inapplicable to the U.S. given that civilians and state governments are constitutionally empowered to bear arms which would mean that the U.S. is not a state. If a state is defined as a physical base composed of a population and a territorial space governed by legitimate permanent institutions then the Byzantine Empire qualifies as a state long before Westphalia enshrined the notion of sovereignty into European international law. However, sovereignty, supposedly the defining characteristic of states as self-government without external constraint, ‘like power and independence, also varies in degree among states’. Moreover, because of the skewered relationship between imperial centres and their peripheries the post-colonial state as an institution never took deep roots in all but a few examples (such as Canada, Australia and India). Indeed most new states were not even states prior to independence because they were not states within their respective imperial systems. In the case of Africa,
Most of them could be found within the elaborate constitutional framework of the British Empire which included entities such as ‘colonies’ (settled, conquered or ceded), ‘protectorates’ (including ‘colonial protectorates’, ‘international protectorates’ and ‘protected states’), ‘mandates’ or ‘trust territories’, and ‘condominia’. Many British dependencies were constitutional amalgams. The Gold Coast, for example, was a multiple dependency consisting of a settled colony (Gold Coast Colony), a conquered colony (Ashanti), a protectorate (Northern Territories), and a trust territory (British Togoland).

Tukhachevskii

08-01-2009, 02:24 AM

Upon independence these states achieved legal sovereignty even though they lacked formal or de facto sovereignty based on institutional coherence and capacity and are thus ‘quasi-states’. State development was further affected by the export of superpower rivalry into the South via proxy wars, the creation of client states and arms transfers to friendly governments and non-state guerrilla groups which accentuated the already fragile political matrix of the region. This centre-periphery relationship continues to this day in a less overt but no less damaging manner and is vital to understanding state-failure especially in relation to the processes of globalisation.

Regarding Globalisation, understood as a largely economic process, it is important to remember that ‘every economic system must rest on a secure political base [...] the international political system constitutes one of the most important constraints on and determinants of markets’. Like Pax Britannica of the nineteenth century, Pax Americana ‘provided the political framework within which these economic and other transnational activities were taking place’. Some states do very well out of globalisation because they underpin it via a state/market symbiosis and reflect the dominance of liberal capitalist states, particular the U.S., over international financial and political organisations. Those that do not generally reside in what the U.S. neoconservative writer Thomas Barnett at the Office of Force Transformation at the Department of Defence called the ‘non-integrating gap’ which is seen as inherently prone to failure, chaos and war (the connection with Lind and Hammes is obvious).

But this is because of economic centre-periphery relations that parallel political conditions in which core imperial states, whose economies function as the centre of the world economy, exploit peripheral states who provide raw materials and resources at rates of exchange favourable to the North but not the South. Order in this region is maintained by a series of semi-peripheral client states, backed up by the core when needed, as well as through the co-optation of the elites of Southern states (the comprador class). Consequently, these comprador elites ‘behave in ways which advance the interests of the core within their own societies rather than in ways which might improve the lot of their compatriots’. In Nigeria for instance the political elite are ‘united in the philosophy of personal enrichment through access to state power’. Access to state power means access to the ‘enormous gains from the sale of crude oil, as a result of OPEC price increases in 1973 and 1978, [which] increased the impetus of the Nigerian politico-military bureaucratic class to primitive accumulation’. As an under-developed Third World ‘Petro-state’ which survives off external rent rather than a domestic tax base Nigeria contains a number of pathologies which include unaccountability to its citizens, vulnerability to domestic subversion, non-transparency, an ineffective bureaucracy and dependency upon external actors. As we have seen in the previous section Nigerian insurgencies are a complicated morass of internationally funded, state-supported and non-state actors all of whom have a complicated relationship to the state (MEND), the regime (NDPVF, NDV), the territory (MOSOP, MASSOB, MOSSIEN) and the international environment (Shell, Total, Chevron). The “non-integrating gap” is precisely so because it is penetrated to such a degree that autonomous action, the exercise of state sovereignty, benefits no-one outside it. Until these policies change insurgencies in states locked in a vicious cycle of self-predation and self-destruction will continue the downward spiral into anarchy. In other words the cause of the insurgency is partly to do with the policies of the West in accentuating and exacerbating the penetrated state as much as they are caused by indigenous and historical forces to do with a weak and in some ways artificial state. On the other hand, in Afghanistan under the USSR and now under NATO the problem is not preserving the failing state but that the Afghan state never really existed in the first place and given local hostility at being forced into the borders of an externally imposed system of governance this crisis is set to continue for some time. It is not Globalisation that is destroying the state but other states and their policies especially in the core.

Interestingly Fourth Generation warfare appears problematic for two types of states in particular; “Liberal-Democratic” and “Developing” or penetrated “Quasi-States”. For authoritarian and non-liberal states the effects of Fourth Generation warfare and its supposed domination of the media-sphere and ability to manipulate international opinion is minimal. Syria crushed the Muslim Brotherhood insurgency in 1982 by virtually destroying the city of Hama and has not faced another insurgency since. In the last Chechen war the Russian army successfully defeated a Fourth Generation (Pan-Islamist) foe with a combination of First, Second and Third generation methods and perhaps being a non-liberal state, for whom international opinion and the “rights” of its opponents were irrelevant, was a distinct advantage. Yet perhaps this is the central issue that Fourth Generation warfare theorists skirt around; the disparity in strategic culture between democracies and their opponents. Democracies, though fierce once committed to battle, are hamstrung by a lack of long-term political will and commitment which, more than brute firepower or high technology, determines the outcome of insurgencies.

Tukhachevskii

08-01-2009, 02:25 AM

In conclusion although William Lind seems to revel in the fact that earlier copies of his article may have been read by Al-Qaeda, reportedly found in the caves of Tora Bora, we may rejoice at the confusion it may have sown in their minds if true and assuming a degree of intelligence uncommon among such groups. Ignorant of history and theoretically illogical as a concept “Fourth Generation Warfare” is merely old wine in recycled bottles and not very good wine at that. Insurgencies are, more often than not, complex non-linear phenomena which require a similarly multi-faceted strategy to resolve them. Unlike war between states, which take on and follow regular patterns amenable to generalised prediction, each and every insurgency will have its own specific conditions each of which will require a specially tailored approach. The Gordian knot of war may be easily cut but insurgency requires that the knot be disentangled. Consequently, insurgencies cannot be simply theorised in accordance with a general universal covering law (of the historicist or positivist kind) or pigeon-holed into tidy conceptualised schemata but must be minutely analysed and just as minutely ‘managed’. Thus, Clausewitz’s words of yesteryear, regarding thinkers who believed the key to victory was about dominating key terrain (the “commanding heights”) , is just as relevant when considering the writers of Fourth Generation Warfare and others concerned with the grand theory of “future war”;
"These are the favourite topics of academic soldiers and the magic wands of armchair strategists. Neither the emptiness of such fantasies nor the contradictions of experience have been able to convince these authors and their readers that they were, in effect, pouring water into the leaky vessel of the Danaides. Conditions have been mistaken for the thing itself, the tool for the hand that wields it".

jmm99

08-01-2009, 04:12 AM

...general disdain/contempt felt for William Lind and Thommas Hammes....

While many here disagree with excess emphasis on "generations" in warfare, I fail to see a "general distain/contempt" for them as individuals - or that they could be called "lunatics".

Attack the message, not the messenger - officer and gentleman standard.

slapout9

08-01-2009, 04:20 AM

While many here disagree with excess emphasis on "generations" in warfare, I fail to see a "general distain/contempt" for them as individuals - or that they could be called "lunatics".

Attack the message, not the messenger - officer and gentleman standard.

Ditto that!!! TX Hammes is no lunatic.

William F. Owen

08-01-2009, 06:38 AM

I have only been a member of the forum for a short while and yet have found my decision to be most rewarding; viz, the general disdain/contempt felt for William Lind and Thommas Hammes.

Whoah there boyo. I know both Lind and Hammes. I cannot speak for all here, but I am firmly against, Manoeuvre Warfare and 4GW. In no way do I hold any contempt or disdain for either man. I think their ideas are misleading, but that in no way effects by personal feeling for them. Good guys.

....and don't get me started on Mr "Deep Battle" Tukhachevskii!

Tukhachevskii

08-01-2009, 12:16 PM

Duly noted. You're right, of course, ad hominem attacks aren't very sportsman like. I think it was a case of transfering my antipathy towards one individual in particular and superimposing it upon Lind and Hammes. Nonethelss, apologies all round.

BRICK0302

08-01-2009, 03:13 PM

You all seem to take the name for “hybrid war” quite seriously, but there has been little discussion about the purpose of such a label. I believe that using the term “hybrid war” can be instructive for someone actually confronted with it. We naturally try to compartmentalize complex information to simplify it, which undoubtedly results in us excluding relevant information. A term like “hybrid” forces the individual to recognize the fusion of what could easily be compartmentalized into “conventional” or “regular” and “asymmetric” or “irregular war.” Is there a difference between irregular and hybrid war? As I see it there is. Imagine if we had to fight the conventional Iraqi forces of OIF 1 and the irregular forces of OIF II at the same time? We certainly would not have been prepared for it, we may not be prepared for it now. In hybrid war the opponent can force us to deploy conventional forces by offering a “regular” target as well as the need for force protection against their “conventional” capability. This may be a Hezbollah rocket battery or regiment of Viet Cong Regulars. With such threats on the battlefield, you can’t simply rely on the formations and tactics required for successful COIN, nor would many commanders resist the temptation to not pursue these "regular targets" at the expense of controlling the population. These situations are challenging because forces must simultaneously be prepared to deal with these two unique and separate threats. When these forces are working in concert it is certainly a challenge modern armies have not prepared for. I would posit that although nothing in war may be “new,” a new understanding (or a review of old understanding) of “hybrid war” is warranted. With only a superficial understanding of Vietnamese “People’s War Doctrine” I can see that their use of conventional forces for achieving limited objectives forces their opponent to maintain a costly conventional force presence that simultaneously undermines their success in the Vietnamese main effort which is control of the people. They used to great affect against us during the Vietnam War while we simultaneously attempted conventional and COIN strategies that were not always fused or mutually supporting. There is the space that exists for a new understanding of this not new dynamic. If a new name helps us to recognize that this fusion exists, then “Hybrid War” is as good a word as any, and it has certainly helped me. When I think of “Hybrid War” I do not consider 4GW or modern capabilities, I only think about an enemy that fights simultaneously on two small but unconnected spectrums. The result is a requirement to have two different capabilities to meet these two threats. The kicker is that each of our capabilities is at best suboptimal and at worse actually detrimental to countering the enemy’s threat that that our capability doesn’t mirror (our conventional Forces are not good for COIN and our COIN forces are not optimal for conventional combat). When both of the enemy’s forces occupy close space on the battlefield, its can become a wicked problem. Add non-state actors, organized crime and all the rest and you’ve got an old problem that may deserve a new label.

jmm99

08-01-2009, 07:04 PM

Please make use of the Hail & Farewell forum (and your User Profile) to introduce yourself. It provides context for those reading your posts.

With respect to this thread (without getting into the merits of using the term "hybrid" militarily), I think it's important to distinguish between the words "war" (an armed conflict) and "warfare" (how that armed conflict is conducted). That distinction applies both legally (on that, I'm on firm ground) and militarily (on which, I've placed reliance on the opinions of others - such as Wilf).

From a legal standpoint, there is no such thing as a "hybrid war" - you either have a "war" (defined in Hague terms), or an "armed conflict" (defined in Geneva terms, which are broader than Hague), or you do not.

Legally, one might speak in terms of "hybrid warfare"; that is warfare involving state and non-state actors; or warfare involving regular combatants and irregular combatants; or warfare involving the political struggle and the military struggle (common to all warfare, except perhaps the ultimate state of "absolute war" in CvC's theoretical sense). However, using that term in any particular context is meaningless unless the context is particularly defined. In which case, you probably do not need the term.

PS: I originally said that Geneva's terms are "slightly broader" than Hague. That is true for state on state armed conflicts. However, Geneva (via Common Articles 2 & 3) introduced the concept of "Powers" to armed conflicts which are not nation-states. Since most conflicts since 1990 have involved at least one non-state actor ("powers" not signatory to Geneva), Geneva in that respect is infinitely broader than Hague.

Bill Moore

08-01-2009, 10:47 PM

Legally, one might speak in terms of "hybrid warfare"; that is warfare involving state and non-state actors; or warfare involving regular combatants and irregular combatants; or warfare involving the political struggle and the military struggle (common to all warfare, except perhaps the ultimate state of "absolute war" in CvC's theoretical sense). However, using that term in any particular context is meaningless unless the context is particularly defined. In which case, you probably do not need the term.

I'm not a fan of hybrid warfare, because like many I have long recognized it has a norm of warfare throughout the ages, BUT we all recall more than one senior officer during OIF saying "no one told me about this threat". If nothing else it provides a cool buzz phrase (the U.S. military can't function without cool buzz phrases) describing the full spectrum of threats during warfare. It shouldn't be required, but it is, because the U.S. military is still attempting to break free from the Fulda Gap paradigm of warfare. We have come a long ways, but not far enough that we won't be bounce back into it if allowed. It will take a new generation of leaders, probably the ones who are relatively junior field grades now. Of course by then the nature of the threat will have changed and all our soldiers will be well versed in foreign languages and how to fix sewage systems, and yet once again ill prepared for the next threat. What we really need to invest in is a better crystal ball :).

selil

08-02-2009, 07:30 PM

I've often thought of hybrid warfare as a nice little synonym for full spectrum of operations.

You know ALL the ways of conflict. Acceptance of Air operations through civil operations.

Wowser. In many ways it is simply war.

goesh

08-03-2009, 02:34 PM

slapout9

08-03-2009, 03:24 PM

goesh

08-03-2009, 04:02 PM

You betcha' slap and it gave us the ol' zip gun too - somwhere in your Dept.s evidence room there are probably one or two stashed somehwere covered in dust. From flint-tipped 'hellfire' missles of 10,000 BC to our platforms of today, its almost moot to regard the concept of "hybrid" as something modern but that's just one man's opinion. I see a pattern change though that is distinct, mainly the quality of civilian input and direct involvement in military affairs in some very non-traditional ways, hence my previous qualifier of "almost moot" - now a camo tu tu would be a hybrid in my opinion.

Ken White

08-03-2009, 06:08 PM

And, yeah, it sure looks hybrid...:rolleyes:
LINK (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/72/208005282_e4288eb7a8.jpg%3Fv%3D0&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/32941508%40N00/208005282&usg=___R_SxhUnN7BXLOvBaRKoVLJDisM=&h=475&w=475&sz=150&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=MdYyJXOucXkANM:&tbnh=129&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3DCamouflage%2BtuTu%26hl%3Den%26client% 3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3DP0M%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1)

jmm99

08-03-2009, 06:49 PM

after some thought, that the camo tutu is "kinda cute"; but that it just isn't me - damme. :D

More seriously, this seems astute:

goesh
I see a pattern change though that is distinct, mainly the quality of civilian input and direct involvement in military affairs in some very non-traditional ways, hence my previous qualifier of "almost moot"

The mix of civilian and military has raised and will raise some complex legal issues. I don't have a name for what we should call that area legally, but it goes beyond the traditional laws of armed conflict.

Getting down to the very basics, LOAC looks to:

1. Is there an armed conflict ?

2. What is the status of the conflicting "powers" (state or non-state) ?

3. What is the status of the individuals in the area of armed conflict (basically, regular combatant, irregular combatant and civilian) ?

So, what is the status of a soldier who is doing what is normally a civilian task ? And, what is the status of a civilian who is very much integrated into the military structure, but is performing what is normally a civilian task ?

It is one thing to have the Marine Corps and Peace Corps with a bright line separation between the two. But what happens legally when you mix them (a camo tutu in effect) ?

More questions than answers, I'm afraid.

selil

08-03-2009, 08:25 PM

- it went 'hybrid' when the first Neanderthal man was dropped at 40' by a Cro-Magnon man using at atlatl. The Neanderthal crew saw him lying on the ground, his club and short, burnt-end wooden stabbing spear beside him and they ran like hell back to their cave and thus began the interplay of mind, matter and weaponry and it's been mutual adoption and adaptation ever since....

Having extensively used an Atlatl and being capable of drilling a thumb sized target at 50 meters with one. I would tell you if I was throwing, my spear at 40 feet it would go through the first neanderthal, the next, and likely the next.

The Atlatl is the artillery of early mankind.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

goesh

08-04-2009, 02:32 AM

"The mix of civilian and military has raised and will raise some complex legal issues. I don't have a name for what we should call that area legally, but it goes beyond the traditional laws of armed conflict." JMM99

Well, the saving grace is military discipline, several hundred years of metered and measured response, sadly tempered with extreme sacrifice for it to ever get truly out of hand and civilians be dominating the show. I thought the lads were maybe getting soft, coming from my history of DIs being able to beat the living sh** out of boots and I wondered about high techery when a green towel around the neck in the bush in 'Nam was a wonderous thing to have but I've seen 'em and what they've done in two theatres of war and the complications of new legal burdens has not hindered our capability, commitment or professional standards and I ain't being a cheer leader here, its common observation. From Mai Lai to Abu Ghraib, discipline keeps the right and wrong decisions in check and balance and that is basis of any collective evolution. From a conventional or a COIN perspective, once US citizens are in harms way on foreign land in armed conflict, the judgement of Commanders and senior NCOs on the ground will still carry the most sway when the final verdicts come in, regardless of this new nuance of civlian input and impact.
Selil - any man that could spear 2 Neanderthals with one throw can wear a tu tu if he wants and I won't say a darn word about it, Ken might, but he is tougher than me.

Ken White

08-04-2009, 04:18 AM

and take my thumb off before I can cock my SAA, I ain't messin' with. Not to mention I don't run, dodge and jump so well nowadays. :D

Or that with my luck, I'd be the second Neanderthal in line...

Tukhachevskii

08-06-2009, 05:58 PM

In the thread “ Is Irregular Warfare Really "Irregular" Anymore?” William F Owen made the comment that “The important thing is the political objective of the operations, and how to achieve them. Ways and means, not who and where”. I’d like to respond to this here in connection with co-called “hybrid wars” (about which, I too, for what it’s worth, am sceptical if not down right incredulous). Owen states that the political objective of operations is of central importance in military operations (agreed) but that it is “ways and means” not “who and where” that should determine operational planning (disagree). Very often the ways and means is determined by who and where; we would not fight tribal insurgents in Aden the same way we fought Hitler. The end states we fought for, the enemy we were fighting and the operational environment all affected how we fought as much as why. Borrowing from Clausewitz I’d like to make the following observations about so-called hybrid wars following on from the above. According to Clausewitz strategy is something that is framed within the remarkable trinity of People-Government-Army corresponding roughly to Passion-Reason-Violence. The European, or Western, way of warfare as it has historically developed (and this includes the laws of war) relies on a sharp bifurcation between the inside of the trinity (the state) and the outside (the environment composed of other states). In Schmittian terms this corresponds to the definition of friend/enemy. Thus State A fights State B for whatever reason (of state/ raison d’etat); it’s Us against Them. This form of warfare, call it conventional if you will, is predicated upon the assumption of relatively coherent political entities which can distinguish themselves from other entities regardless of the actual political composition of the state in question (thus whether a state is Absolutist, Dictatorial, Democratic, etc is irrelevant). But what I see as a crucial development is that such cosy bifurcations are no longer possible (and this has strategic effects) when the distinction between Them and Us breaks down. For instance, and this is really my point, would our current strategy in Iraq or more pertinently Afghanistan be different if there weren’t large number of Muslims living in NATO countries who can and do affect the policy forming process either passively (through threats of violence) or actively (by supporting left-wing or other parties that espouse policies more favourable to Muslims or by creating “moral panics” among our electorates or even providing intelligence and material support to their co-religionists)? Is our strategy abroad being hamstrung or held hostage by the representatives of the people we are fighting (abroad) at home and who claim the same rights (without fulfilling either the duties or responsibilities underpinning them) as Us and who use these to engage in what Brooke Goldstein calls “lawfare”? As William F. Owen and other qualified observers have noted, what we call hybrid wars, Irregular Wars, etc. aren’t really new phenomena. The British Empire, Russian Empire, the United States in its (dare I say, Imperial phase) of continental expansion all fought “irregular”/”asymmetric”/”whatever” threats. However, these threats did not have constituencies which they could rally to their cause within the political system of their opponents thereby undermining what Carl Schmitt called the will formation of the state (i.e., the government and the people). These, let’s call them, polemically, “fifth columns”, can undermine two legs or two corners of the trinity, the government and the people, by shaping their opinion or, even attacking it (i.e, 7/7 in Britain or Madrid or even the attempt in Britain to shame our brave soldiers returning from war who discover that, actually, our enemies line our streets booing us “over here”). This, I posit, is the real “mess” of Hybrid wars given that our (NATO) states are democracies within which, procedurally at least, minorities can exert political pressure upon politicians whose strategic sense is a long as their nose and who really only care about domestic re-election. This, I would submit is the real, or at least a significant factor, in the new circumstances within which we have to fight not the supposed tactical or operational asymmetries between our forces and those of our opponents. That’s just my penny’s worth, political correctness be damned, but it’s something I’ve been mulling over for a while now.

Tukhachevskii

08-06-2009, 06:16 PM

Tukhachevskii

08-06-2009, 06:17 PM

What I’m saying in a nutshell is that insurgency isn’t just being fought over there but over here too. The home front is as much a battleground as the foreign AO.

selil

08-06-2009, 08:40 PM

argh.. egad.. Tukhascevskii don't take this wrong but paragraph breaks... Pretty please?

William F. Owen

08-07-2009, 12:48 PM

Also I should mention that what is happen at home (in the UK) at least qualifies as much as an insurgency as what is going on in Afghanistan (ndeed, they are interlinked). And that this is what, I at least, understand to be the real mess which one could describe as "Hybrid".

What I’m saying in a nutshell is that insurgency isn’t just being fought over there but over here too. The home front is as much a battleground as the foreign AO.

Well this pertains to my "ways and means" and not who and where. What insurgency is occurring within the UK?

Tukhachevskii

08-07-2009, 03:40 PM

Well this pertains to my "ways and means" and not who and where. What insurgency is occurring within the UK?

I’m just going to do a stream of consciousness thing and see where it leads us (although I thought my original post was too all intents and purposes, for a blog at least, self-explanatory).

Firstly a working definition of insurgency, with which to begin answering your question (more for my benefit than yours), would probably go something like this, as per FM 3-24-2, “an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict [/B][/I]. The key distinction between an insurgency and other movements is the decision to use violence to achieve political goals. An insurgency is typically an internal struggle within a state, not between states. It is normally a protracted political and military struggle designed to weaken the existing government’s power, control, and legitimacy, while increasing the insurgency’s power, control, and legitimacy”. Though I have issues with this I'll leave it as a heuristic steering mechansim for what (I think) I want to say.

More directly I do believe that Muslim communities constituting ‘parallel societies’ are engaged in an insurgency within their host societies. The mass of Muslims, passive though they may be (taking a backseat for the moment), provide the more politically active members of their community with an ample base from which to draw support (there are few Muslims, IMO, who would refuse mobilisation, in whatever form, once that call has been invoked with explicit reference to the Quran, the Hadith or the Shari’ a). Furthermore, the religion itself is incompatible with Western Democracies as Islam defines itself as a complete political system (this is not an invention of Qutb but is traceable to Mohammed) not merely a system of religious belief (I for one am apt to define communities as they themselves understand themselves rather than how we would like to them to understand themselves/behave). Loyalty for a Muslim is to his/her Ummah first (normatively speaking), everything else comes second.

The idea of Islam’s supremacy over any and all other political systems is “hardwired” into the Islamic mentalité. After all if you want to know what makes an Islamist you only have to look at Islam (as the COG). What is a “Radical” Muslim if not someone who has taken the Quran it its word (or Muhammad for that matter). Islam, after all, means “submit!” (it is the verbal imperative form of the root verb “he submitted”, sa-la-ma). Any system of belief that has as its title, to say nothing of its contents, the command to submit (or what? one asks?) is suspect in my eyes. Perhaps I’m prejudiced but then there’s a lot to be said for prejudice pace Burke:

"Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man’s virtue his habit; and duty becomes a part of his nature‟ .

As for insurgent acts; Muslims born in Britain have been found fighting their supposed compatriots (the British Armed forces) in Afghanistan; the failed Glasgow airport suicide attack; the 7/7 attacks ; the establishment of Shari ‘a courts and the declaration of the Muslim Council, now the supposed Muslim Parliament, that Shari’ a law supervenes UK constitutional law (i.e, that Muslims are beyond and even above the law of the UK) and thus directly threatens the legitimacy of parliament and constitutional democracy as the sole representative mechanism for the UK, etc. We could quibble over the distinction between the above as acts of terrorism, insurgency or political activism but I’d rather see them as forming a continuum rather than as distinct activities per se. Very often insurgencies abroad (one thinks of Afghanistan and Pakistan here but also in the wider ME) are appealing to a support base in the West drawn from their own communities who can, if activated, become proxies in the rear areas of their host states (sort of like Soviet Partisans). And let’s not forget the funding, equipping and even training of insurgents (whether that be at “paint-balling events” or hiking) undertaken or provided by Islamic charities (which see the case of the Holy Land Foundation and its relationship to CAIR in the US at the NEFA website).

Interestingly over at the blog-them-out-of-the-stone-age-blog the site founder (whose name currently escapes me) claims that the civil rights movement spearheaded by Martin Luther King qualifies as an insurgency, counter-intuitive yes, but I believe there’s a grain of truth in there and similar thinking/reasoning can be made for what’s happening here in Blighty.

davidbfpo

08-07-2009, 04:14 PM

(Taken from above)
As for insurgent acts; Muslims born in Britain have been found fighting their supposed compatriots (the British Armed forces) in Afghanistan; the failed Glasgow airport suicide attack; the 7/7 attacks ; the establishment of Sharia courts and the declaration of the Muslim Council, now the supposed Muslim Parliament, that Sharia law supervenes UK constitutional law (i.e, that Muslims are beyond and even above the law of the UK) and thus directly threatens the legitimacy of parliament and constitutional democracy as the sole representative mechanism for the UK, etc. We could quibble over the distinction between the above as acts of terrorism, insurgency or political activism but I’d rather see them as forming a continuum rather than as distinct activities per se. Very often insurgencies abroad (one thinks of Afghanistan and Pakistan here but also in the wider ME) are appealing to a support base in the West drawn from their own communities who can, if activated, become proxies in the rear areas of their host states (sort of like Soviet Partisans). And let’s not forget the funding, equipping and even training of insurgents (whether that be at “paint-balling events” or hiking) undertaken or provided by Islamic charities (which see the case of the Holy Land Foundation and its relationship to CAIR in the US at the NEFA website).

A lot here, so an indication only why I find this viewpoint inaccurate. No-one to my knowledge has ever identified a UK citizen fighting in Afghanistan; yes, a recent report on an Aston Villa tattoed body and reports of UK accents overheard on the radio. Sharia courts have been running for years, for very limited cases, usually family disputes; similar to the courts used by the Jewish community. Sharia law is above UK constiutional law; no, not heard that one before - from a reliable commentator.

Best of all
directly threatens the legitimacy of parliament and constitutional democracy as the sole representative mechanism for the UK, etc. Sharia law, a Muslim minority and acts of terrorism pale in comparison to the parliamentary expenses scandal - which has removed much of parliament's legitimacy.

Then there's
And let’s not forget the funding, equipping and even training of insurgents (whether that be at “paint-balling events” or hiking) undertaken or provided by Islamic charities... Please cite some evidence that Islamic charities in the UK have been engaged in this activity. Such a role is quietly alleged, rarely IIRC with any prosecutions, although bank accounts have been frozen - LIFG I recall. I know one such charity which actually gets UK taxpayer support for it's work and raised 2m UK pounds during the Gaza episode.

davidbfpo

William F. Owen

08-07-2009, 04:29 PM

An insurgency is typically an internal struggle within a state, not between states.

Again the ways and means, not who and where. North Vietnam, conducted an insurgency in South Vietnam, to replace the existing government. The PLO had similar ambitions. Insurgency is merely a tool, by which policy is "set forth". It isn't the policy itself, except that the qualifying end state is always the replacement of a government over a people or state.

Tukhachevskii

08-07-2009, 08:31 PM

(Taken from above)

Sharia law is above UK constiutional law; no, not heard that one before - from a reliable commentator.

Best of all . Sharia law, a Muslim minority and acts of terrorism pale in comparison to the parliamentary expenses scandal - which has removed much of parliament's legitimacy.

Then there's . Please cite some evidence that Islamic charities in the UK have been engaged in this activity. Such a role is quietly alleged, rarely IIRC with any prosecutions, although bank accounts have been frozen - LIFG I recall. I know one such charity which actually gets UK taxpayer support for it's work and raised 2m UK pounds during the Gaza episode:confused:.

davidbfpo

Again the ways and means, not who and where. North Vietnam, conducted an insurgency in South Vietnam, to replace the existing government. The PLO had similar ambitions. Insurgency is merely a tool, by which policy is "set forth". It isn't the policy itself, except that the qualifying end state is always the replacement of a government over a people or state.

To say that something is far from reality is really only making a statement about one’s position relative to the reality being observed/perceived. I am sure we could both refer to “un-named confidential” sources who could back up our respective versions of reality. The difference would be, I suppose, that your position is akin to the higher ground (from the top down) while mine would be from the bottom up. I have, on many occasions, met individuals belonging to numerous Islamic groups, including the Muslim Council/Parliament, who have told me almost verbatim what I stated in my post regarding Shari ‘a law (indeed, one merely needs to read the Muslim Council’s founding manifesto back in 1990 for proof of their position, if you pm me I can send this to you).

Lenin once said that it was the task of Communists to tell the West’s useful idiots what they wanted to hear (dissimulation) and it’s the same with our ‘government approved’ out-reach/community affairs/minority leaders. I have often been told virtually the same thing by “certain reliable people”; as I am blessed/cursed with a permanent tan (no sun bed induced melanoma for me!) getting into events and passing myself off as ‘one of the bunch’ is probably a lot easier for me than for most people, as is soliciting information. Nonetheless I don’t think I can find anything like the kind of evidence you’re looking for, giving the difficulty of “profiling” possible terrorists and the like by government agencies ( as you say allegations but no prosecutions; but is that down to politics or law?) I don’t really have a chance, so I suppose that we are just going to have to disagree with one another and hope that time proves me wrong (and I sincerely hope it does). Although given that the money that goes to Gaza inevitably winds up in the pockets of less savoury characters is irrelevant I suppose (from various “sources”).

OTOH, I think it disingenuous to compare ministers abusing a perfectly legitimate system of monetary recompense which is then picked up by the media and turned into a circus event with the kind of thing I was talking about. I doubt that these same ministers are doing what they are doing to subvert parliament and replace it with a caliphate. But as you and I are on different wavelengths regarding the reality of that proposition, again, I suppose there’s nothing more I can say. I don’t mean to disparage what you are saying, I respect you and your greater experience and wisdom, but I just don’t agree (I suppose it might be a case of auctoritas non veritas facet legem as Hobbes would have said). When all is said and done I consider the threat from Islam to be an existential danger no different in terms of its magnitude, if not of greater magnitude, than Communism and Nazism (what Charles Maurras once described as ‘the Islam of the North’) and prefer to err on the side of extreme vigilance.

With respect to William F. Owen and the difference between ‘ways and means’ and ‘who and where’ I think given my civilian background I have to admit ignorance of the, essentially, military distinctions being made (or perhaps it’s a case of “essentially contested” concepts which are mutually exclusive?). Hopefully, in future, and having read up more of the threads, I shall be able to reply intelligently (although I doubt I shall ever have anywhere near the experience necessary to back up my claims). But I think in that sense I really have to bow to better qualified and experienced heads and wait a while longer and know what I am talking about before posting (really let enthusiasm, or is that hubris, get the better of me!). Apologies all round.

William F. Owen

08-08-2009, 06:25 AM

With respect to William F. Owen and the difference between ‘ways and means’ and ‘who and where’ I think given my civilian background I have to admit ignorance of the, essentially, military distinctions being made (or perhaps it’s a case of “essentially contested” concepts which are mutually exclusive?). Hopefully, in future, and having read up more of the threads, I shall be able to reply intelligently (although I doubt I shall ever have anywhere near the experience necessary to back up my claims). But I think in that sense I really have to bow to better qualified and experienced heads and wait a while longer and know what I am talking about before posting (really let enthusiasm, or is that hubris, get the better of me!). Apologies all round.

a.) Call me Wilf - quicker to write.

b.) My hubris may well have caused me to be less than adequate with my elucidation of Ways and means versus Who and where.
The distinction I am attempting to make is that a useful description of warfare should account for what is attempting to be done, and how, versus purely technical description of the environment. Perhaps not usefully and perhaps I should think it through a bit more!

Tukhachevskii

08-10-2009, 03:23 PM

a.)
The distinction I am attempting to make is that a useful description of warfare should account for what is attempting to be done, and how, versus purely technical description of the environment. Perhaps not usefully and perhaps I should think it through a bit more!

Thanks for that, although I have an inkling (no more perhaps) that the onus of responsibility for ignorance lies entirely with me:o. I think, in a nutshell, the distinction I was tryingto make was between politics and war as its continuation. Hence ‘who and where’ approximates to the political requirements as set down by a political authority/government (i.e., “Grand Strategy”/foreign policy) whereas ‘ways and means’ refers to the strategic goals thus defined (i.e., how to effectuate the desired suasion/destruction of a given enemy). For example, Bush’s National Security Strategy of 2002 defined the “who and where” which the military sought to bring about by deciding how (‘ways and means’). (At least this is what I was taught at Uni; perhaps therein lies the rub).

This is what I think I was getting at; in that defining the ‘who and where’ as non-traditional/conventional (whatever) threats NSS served simply to steer the military on the path toward new ‘ways and means’ of engaging with “new” target sets (who and where). Hence the drivers of the obsession with RMA/NCW/EBO was not so much a military (ways and means) issue but a political one (‘who and where’). OTOH, is this essentially a question of doctrine (i.e, Theoria vs. Phronesis)? By that I mean is it a case that the theoretical (doctrinal) ‘ways and means’ of, say, NCW was really about institutional ‘pork barrel’ politics and the military trying to protect its interests as opposed to the practical ‘ways and means’ of getting the job done with the tools in hand which didn’t require new doctrine just the innovative use of existing systems (rather than the innovative justification of existing systems and the acquisition of even more exotic ones)?

When ‘who and where’ was defined as regime A or state B the ‘ways and means’ of bringing about national goals could be comfortably framed in a ‘conventional’ mindset. Once political authorities became obsessed with the idea that the 11th September 2001 was the harbinger of a new kind of warfare then the military followed suite with trying to reinvent the wheel of ‘ways and means’ by trying to adopt a ‘non-conventional mindset’ to what was essentially still a practical military issue of destroying a given enemy. Of course, if by ‘ways and means’ you mean that the goal of the military is to ‘find, fix, and kill’ the enemy by whatever means necessary/available then we are in ‘violent agreement’. I do believe that I have now confused myself (:eek:!).

Nonetheless, as I stated before I think the issue is not just one of semantics (of us deploying similar language to say different things) but rather of concepts which are mutually exclusive in their use because they mean different things (thus we are using different languages, or more properly, vocabularies). Hence my civilian take on things vs. your (experienced) military take on things; IMO this is also the problem between policymaking and strategy which is a circle yet to be squared (‘Bohemian Corporals’ present a different problem altogether).

That’s why SWJ/B/C is a great medium through which civilians like myself can greater acquaint themselves with what war is actually about rather than what the theory says it is. For me that means reading more threads before I dare to write what I think I want to say without actually knowing what it is I am thinking (case in point). Anyway, thanks for the constructive feedback, very much appreciated.

Bill Moore

10-13-2009, 06:43 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100804018.html

N. Korea Swiftly Expanding Its Special Forces
Commandos Trained in Terror Tactics In Effort to Maintain Military Threat

IMO this article supports the importance of understanding the implications behind the concept of hybrid warfare, even if you think is is unneeded. Our foes are also learning organizations, and based on their observations of our techniques and tactics and Iraq, they are adapting to present a more complex threat, which in their assessment will neutralize some of our technological advantages. N. Korea potentially presents a large conventional threat, unconventional weapons, a large special operations capability to support their deep fight in S. Korea (and abroad), and now apparently a robust special operations/insurgent like capability to fight our forces in North Korea in the event we ever go to blows again.

By expanding what was already the world's largest special operations force, the North appears to be adding commando teeth to what, in essence, is a defensive military strategy. The cash-strapped government of Kim Jong Il, which struggles to maintain and buy fuel for its aging tanks and armor, has concluded it cannot win a conventional war, according to U.S. and South Korean military officials.

The havoc-raising potential of North Korea's special forces has grown as their numbers have increased and their training has shifted to terrorist tactics developed by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. forces in Korea.

North Korea has also begun to question the utility of the tanks and armor it can afford at the front, after seeing the ease with which U.S. precision weapons shredded Saddam Hussein's armored forces in Iraq, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry report.

"The North Koreans made a decision based on the resources they have," said Kwon Young-hae, a former director of South Korea's National Intelligence Service. "The best way for them to counterbalance the South's technological advantage is with special forces. When Kim Jong Il gives pep talks to these troops, he says, 'You are individually, one by one, like nuclear weapons.' "

William F. Owen

10-13-2009, 07:09 AM

Bill Moore

10-13-2009, 07:21 AM

Wilf, we had this debate, and it is the war is war debate, or do we need terms like irregular and hybrid? Unfortunately, our Army and apparently the Israeli Army (2006) didn't respond well to these types of threats (and I agree they're old), so maybe articulating them will ensure we train for them. That is my underlying point for all of this. Once the full spectrum of threats are properly addressed in our training and education, then we can go back to the war is war statement and there will be no need for terms like irregular and hybrid.

UrsaMaior

10-13-2009, 07:38 AM

OK, but NOTHING here is new. It's a re-stating of a 30-year-old fact bar the part that the NK are now less than convinced about their efficacy of their armour. Wow? Who saw that coming. This is someone playing with facts to fit the problem.

Wait for the next announcement that the Chinese are doing the same thing, and then the Russians. This really is the mountain of "So what."

Hyrbrid is a forcing mechanism, which relies on a basic falsehood, and massive gullibility on the part of the user.

Wilf
While being conservative in military matters is not only needed but also required, you cannot stop the wheel of time by simply closing you eyes. NK needs deterrence. They cannot do it with their missiles, with their nukes so they resort to IW. BTW IW was also the Yugoslav way of home defense having a territorial army which was to resort to guerilla war in case of an foreign (NATO/WP) attack. You are right that these methods are not new (kinda like you have to kill your enemy to stop it being a threat), but the system and the circumstances have significantly changed. Noone in the foreseeable future will have the industrial hinterland to match the US conventional strength (CVBGs, air regiments). So they HAVE to resort to IW. In turn in which NATO and other western forces have so to say mixed record. See China's White paper from 1996. You can find it in globalsecurity.org
And on the top of that there is the media which unlike the other state powers is neither controlled, nor limited by borders. A classic case for that is the demand by the USMC in Fallujah march 2004 to remove the Al-Jazeera reporters from the town as part of the ceasefire agreement.

William F. Owen

10-13-2009, 08:31 AM

Wilf
While being conservative in military matters is not only needed but also required, you cannot stop the wheel of time by simply closing you eyes. NK needs deterrence. They cannot do it with their missiles, with their nukes so they resort to IW.
OK, but when has this ever not been blindingly obvious? It is very raison d'etre of Irregular Forces.

No one in the foreseeable future will have the industrial hinterland to match the US conventional strength (CVBGs, air regiments). So they HAVE to resort to IW. In turn in which NATO and other western forces have so to say mixed record. See China's White paper from 1996. You can find it in globalsecurity.org
Again obvious - and it also side steps the very debatable idea that the US and NATO are competent against any regular military force that are not complete clowns. You do not need much in the way of military capability, intelligently employed to challenge NATO.
IMO, there is no IW. Only irregular Forces. How is an ambush, a suicide bomber or an IED something "irregular"?

And on the top of that there is the media which unlike the other state powers is neither controlled, nor limited by borders. A classic case for that is the demand by the USMC in Fallujah march 2004 to remove the Al-Jazeera reporters from the town as part of the ceasefire agreement.
Modern War flows from modern politics. Nothing changes. All media is political, and therefore actors in the conflict. This has never not been the case, as long as media has existed.

Bob's World

10-13-2009, 09:58 AM

Sounds to me like they are recognizing the need for greater defensive capability that is effective in the current environment, or rather a great "counter-occupation" capability; and less of an armor heavy offensive capability.

That's a good thing, as we have no need to invade and occupy this country, nor do the South Koreans, or the Chinese. If they were investing heavily in offensive capabilities, then I would worry.

But for those who do spend time thinking about things like "how would I invade N. Korea" do me a favor and go tell your boss its time for a major overhaul of the plan, as the phase you've been basically blowing off is now the most difficult and critical phase of the operation.

UrsaMaior

10-13-2009, 10:04 AM

OK, but when has this ever not been blindingly obvious? It is very raison d'etre of Irregular Forces.

Obvious? I had to repeat them, since you seem to forget about them. Besides I have always thought that SF are part of the armed forces, not part of MAD.

Again obvious - and it also side steps the very debatable idea that the US and NATO are competent against any regular military force that are not complete clowns.

Obvious? Even if we accept your presumptions given the current examples of other high-tech forces' ""competency"" like IDF 2006 or Russian Army 2008, the sheer amount of NATO's RMA gadgets and their trained crews will prevail in a HIC. According to you NATO troops do their job badly but I am positive the others are even worse. What about that White Paper? You seem to forget about it too. Probably there is a be a newer version of it for sure, which would be more interesting.

You do not need much in the way of military capability, intelligently employed to challenge NATO.

Could you please elaborate?

IMO, there is no IW. Only irregular Forces. How is an ambush, a suicide bomber or an IED something "irregular"?

What was irregular about spanish partidos? Or hussars in the 17-18th century? That they were not regular. Please do not get into semantics.

Modern War flows from modern politics. Nothing changes. All media is political, and therefore actors in the conflict. This has never not been the case, as long as media has existed.

So Clausewitz is right?
I agree with you that politics and war are as ancient as the first tribe or whatever. But these interlinked concepts change over the time. Like it or not. And the current armed forces are still organised, trained and equipped 80% for HIC, while in reality there is only 10-15% maximum chance for that. Yes even if the esteemed Colin S Gray and you say that things have remained the same, they are not. In the 'complacency kills' forum there is a video of ieaqi youngsters blowing up a bradley. I bet it was fueling the whole iraqi resistence's morale for a week or so. When was such small deed not Zaitsev's or Wittmann's heroic deeds capable of achieving such a feat?
Accept it or not the warning signals are here. It is up to us whether we recognize them. I do not dare to compare myself to them, yet De Gaulle and Liddell-Hart met deaf ears. Surprisingly, Guderian and Tuhachevski were listened to.

William F. Owen

10-13-2009, 11:10 AM

Obvious? I had to repeat them, since you seem to forget about them. Besides I have always thought that SF are part of the armed forces, not part of MAD.
Sorry, I don't understand the question.

Obvious? Even if we accept your presumptions given the current examples of other high-tech forces' ""competency"" like IDF 2006 or Russian Army 2008, the sheer amount of NATO's RMA gadgets and their trained crews will prevail in a HIC. According to you NATO troops do their job badly but I am positive the others are even worse. What about that White Paper? You seem to forget about it too. Probably there is a be a newer version of it for sure, which would be more interesting.
It's not a presumption. It's not an issue of competency per se. It's an issue of evidence. When has NATO or the US fought a true peer competitor, since 1945? North Koreans, Chinese and Vietnamese? Iraqis?
90% of the IDF's problem in 2006 was an complete lack of preparation to fight a force the had vast amounts of knowledge about.

Could you please elaborate?
Imagine 5,000 "Irregulars" or even "Regulars" with, 1,000 RPGs/PKMs, 200 ATGMS, 200 MANPADS, and 6,000 122mm rockets, dug in across 10km frontage and depth, of hilly broken and close terrain. They don't even have to be that good, to cause all Armies a very major head ache.
This is obvious. It is not insightful.

Please do not get into semantics.
So don't get into the fact that words have meaning? Doesn't that really limit useful discussion? Simple question. What is Irregular Warfare, if not Warfare conducted by Irregulars? SF are not Irregulars and they do not - much as they like to say it - conduct irregular warfare, unless working with Irregulars.

So Clausewitz is right?
Concur

I agree with you that politics and war are as ancient as the first tribe or whatever. But these interlinked concepts change over the time.
Really? When? Sure they have evolved in terms of how they are practised, but not in terms of why.

Like it or not. And the current armed forces are still organised, trained and equipped 80% for HIC, while in reality there is only 10-15% maximum chance for that.
What were the % chances of 911? HIC is not a meaningful description. A Force trained to fight other regular forces, SHOULD be able to fight irregulars. A force that is trained and equipped to only fight irregular forces, is severely in danger from a competent (or even semi-competent) force.

Yes even if the esteemed Colin S Gray and you say that things have remained the same, they are not.
Humbled to be put in the same league as Colin Gray (who has invited me to speak at Reading at the end of the month!) but neither of us say things have remained the same. "We" keep having to point out that things folks say are "new" usually are not. We are not against innovation. We are against an ignorance of military history and lazy thinking in Strategic studies.

In the 'complacency kills' forum there is a video of ieaqi youngsters blowing up a bradley. I bet it was fueling the whole iraqi resistence's morale for a week or so. When was such small deed not Zaitsev's or Wittmann's heroic deeds capable of achieving such a feat?
Wittman's attack, stalled a Division, IIRC. Did the video kill anyone or alter any military action? IF not, it's irrelevant. Video of irrelevant action is irrelevant. Would Wittman's attack have been more tactically effective if filmed? I think not.

Accept it or not the warning signals are here. It is up to us whether we recognize them. I do not dare to compare myself to them, yet De Gaulle and Liddell-Hart met deaf ears. Surprisingly, Guderian and Tuhachevski were listened to.
Hybrid does not constitute a "warning" to anyone other than the catastrophically stupid. Will the wars of future see a mix of regular and irregular forces? Sure. All Wars do! That is not insightful.

...and Liddell-Hart predicted nothing, and gave rise to a whole raft of idiotic military thought. He engaged in fraud and ruthless self promotion to re-write his contribution to history. We would have been better off without him!

Tukhachevskii

10-13-2009, 11:29 AM

[URL="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100804018.html"]
N. Korea Swiftly Expanding Its Special Forces
Commandos Trained in Terror Tactics In Effort to Maintain Military Threat

IMO this article supports the importance of understanding the implications behind the concept of hybrid warfare, even if you think is is unneeded. Our foes are also learning organizations, and based on their observations of our techniques and tactics and Iraq, they are adapting to present a more complex threat, which in their assessment will neutralize some of our technological advantages.

Forgive me for replying to the above post with a recycled variant of something I posted at the kings of war website but I thought the comments appropriate;

I have to say that making ‘world historical’ generalisations about the nature of future war is like an exercise in divination. I am not personally convinced by the ‘hybrid wars’ or ‘fourth generation warfare’ spiel. If one understands the historical trajectory of North Korean state formation once quickly comes to the conclusion that the most natural thing for a guerrilla regime to o is emphasis its guerrilla forces. This is not a new development. North Korea’s guerrilla or special forces units have been a feature of its armed forces since at least the sixties. Let’s not forget the tunnel incidents of the 60s and seventies and the famous raid (that date escapes me at present) where NK commandos attempted to assassinate President Park. The DPRK was utilising and emphasising its guerilla ops decades before the "Hybrid Fad" too off. While Simpkin, Westmorland and others were busy developing "Assault Breaker, Deep Battle, Air Land Battle" etc, the North Koreans had already realised conventional war between them and the US/SKorean armed forces would be suicidal. Defence industrial concerns, internal stability, sabre-rattling foreign policy (the need to appear fierce even if brittle) and the corporate interests of the Army (and its role in the regime) necessitated a huge conventional build-up.

Furthermore, one should be cognisant of the geopolitical realities of the region. North Korea is not Syria, or Israel or Russia. It really only borders one ‘hostile’ state and the foreign forces of the U.S. Furthermore, the six-party talks, the ballistic missile project and its nuclear weapons programme (whatever its status) bolsters North Korea’s security situation despite what it might appear. The North is diplomatically adept at brinkmanship as a style of diplomacy. But, and here the real issue, is North Korea’s ‘defence transformation’ (tongue in cheek) really about military strategy or regime survival? I think that latter. What I mean by this statement is that employing 1.2 million troops in conventional formations equipped with large numbers of domestically produced armoured vehicles when more than 70% of your domestic oil supply comes via China is not cost effective. Given the draughts and the famines in the 1990s which decimated the available manpower reserves which could be conscripted into the armed forces doesn’t it make more sense to demobilise them and re-divert them into civilian sectors of the economy?

On the other hand it also serves to cut down the influence of the armed forces, especially the geriatric general staff (the old school), who might be a threat to any change in leadership. After all, when Kim Jong-il came to power the first thing he did was rein in the KWP hardliners (hence Kwang Jang Yop’s departure to the South) and it makes sense to prune the hardliners from the military who may object to Kim’s son (whichever one takes the reins). Reducing the military’s power base by diverting forces away from the regular army, and thus into the jurisdiction of the now suitably aligned KWP, makes sense from the perspective of regime survival.

So what this rather rambling post is trying to say is that there’s always more going on than purely a case of ‘international socialisation into the norms of military modernity’ or “hybrid warfare” etc. Our opponents have more on their minds that participating in doctrinal/ideological/philosophical debates which have really rather more to do with intra-service rivalry (a la pork barrel politics- anyone remember Colin Powell’s adumbration of a two theatre warfighting capability as well as international “policing” after the Cold War?) than it has to do with an objective state of affairs. My (recycled) two pence worth.

UrsaMaior

10-13-2009, 12:53 PM

Sorry, I don't understand the question.

You said SF are for deterrence. I said I thought they are part of the conventional forces.

It's not a presumption. It's not an issue of competency per se. It's an issue of evidence. When has NATO or the US fought a true peer competitor, since 1945? North Koreans, Chinese and Vietnamese? Iraqis?

It is an oxymoron Wilf. They are not capable since they have not fought a true peer? IMHO 1991 Iraq was close to true peer. Only the technological gap -remember Bekaa 1982?- was already too big between NATO and WP.

90% of the IDF's problem in 2006 was an complete lack of preparation to fight a force the had vast amounts of knowledge about.

With all respect this is a completely perfect definition for incapable. Not for the single soldier but for the leadership which in modern wars matters more or even most.

Imagine 5,000 "Irregulars" or even "Regulars" with, 1,000 RPGs/PKMs, 200 ATGMS, 200 MANPADS, and 6,000 122mm rockets, dug in across 10km frontage and depth, of hilly broken and close terrain. They don't even have to be that good, to cause all Armies a very major head ache.
This is obvious. It is not insightful.

With this scenario I would employ good old 2nd generation ;) fire roller, lots of FAC, and CAS. Any lieutenant with average knowledge of military history should be able to handle it.
If it is South Lebanon you are talking about I would drop leaflets in all local languages, in the presence of international (yes swedish too ;) observers) for a day or two, then do the same.

So don't get into the fact that words have meaning? Doesn't that really limit useful discussion? Simple question. What is Irregular Warfare, if not Warfare conducted by Irregulars? SF are not Irregulars and they do not - much as they like to say it - conduct irregular warfare, unless working with Irregulars.

Good point. IMHO it also contains more promoted use of propaganda (vs kinetic ops) e.g. lip service or other and other irregular means (yes IEDs and terror attacks too). VietCong did it too, IIRC they also used kamikeze style attacks also.

Really? When? Sure they have evolved in terms of how they are practised, but not in terms of why.

Hell sure there is a difference between under and above the "military horizon" aka warrior equals all able bodied men, or soldier who is either levied, conscritped or volunteer. Trade blockade was an every day symptom of wars in 18-19 century try to do it now! I am really sorry to say that but HIC is just as likely as a good old naval blockade or massing troops on the border. Before some fundamentalist jumps on me I am not saying we should throw away all heavy equipment like the brits in the sixties dumped their conventional capbilities in favor of nukes. I am saying why (along with you) never changes. How and by whom does and it is of importance.

What were the % chances of 911? HIC is not a meaningful description. A Force trained to fight other regular forces, SHOULD be able to fight irregulars. A force that is trained and equipped to only fight irregular forces, is severely in danger from a competent (or even semi-competent) force.

If we believe Michael Scheuer and the two chinese PLA colonels (I keep forgetting their names) the % was way higher than outsiders thought.

It is an oxymoron again. If my force is unable to counter IW why does it matter whether it comes from irregulars or regulars. Yes we saw in Fallujah and in South Lebanon that no IW actor can hold ground against a modern combined army.

You and col Gentile thinks that LIC and HIC are incompatible like Rh + and Rh - in blood types. Why? Light infantry regiments were the elite of their times. Why it cannot be done today? There is't any need for dozens of armour divisions anymore.

Humbled to be put in the same league as Colin Gray (who has invited me to speak at Reading at the end of the month!) but neither of us say things have remained the same. "We" keep having to point out that things folks say are "new" usually are not. We are not against innovation. We are against an ignorance of military history and lazy thinking in Strategic studies.

Agreed. See my siganture. Nothing new under the sun. Yet Vietnam was lost, the russians (think of their partisans!!) have lost A'stan and ... These and other lessons are not learned yet. Some are like the declararion by the US Army IIRC taht any hacker activity against US armed forces is considered a military attack. But that is only tactics. If China dumps dollar as a tool in oil revenues (which seriously threatens US interests) would there be a military solution? Of course not. The international system have changed significantly see G7 becoming G20. Most armies are still legging behind in adaptation.

Wittman's attack, stalled a Division, IIRC. Did the video kill anyone or alter any military action? IF not, it's irrelevant. Video of irrelevant action is irrelevant. Would Wittman's attack have been more tactically effective if filmed? I think not.

And Zaitsev helped to turn the battle of Stalingrad according to propaganda cuz the 'fascists had to keep their heads down slowing their advance'. Today where you have not won until CNN aired it (BTW whose quote is this?) morale (political and military alike) is more important than bodycount.

To be continued

UrsaMaior

10-13-2009, 01:18 PM

Hybrid does not constitute a "warning" to anyone other than the catastrophically stupid. Will the wars of future see a mix of regular and irregular forces? Sure. All Wars do! That is not insightful.

Hybrid wars was a way to formulate 'times have changed' for those who were unfit to digest 4GW modell. Those who resist that a fundamental change is occuring in the international system does not accept any of these new 'schools'. Which reminds me of Jeune Ecole of the french navy. Did torpedo boats and subs rendered dreadnought unusable? No. Did they sink a number of them yes. Did they achieved a change? Yes. IMHO it is a good analogue to our discussion.

...and Liddell-Hart predicted nothing, and gave rise to a whole raft of idiotic military thought. He engaged in fraud and ruthless self promotion to re-write his contribution to history. We would have been better off without him!

I am aware that you don think too much of "the maneuver fraud" yet 'blitzkrieg' was also a way which significantly changed the way wars are approached. I think, no I am positive we are living in an age of similar changes. Yes blitzkrieg works on the same principles on which Alexander the Great fought. BUT if we strip the complex reality down too much we cant really tell the difference. Not because there is not any, rather cuz our view is too narrow.

William F. Owen

10-13-2009, 01:53 PM

UrsaMajor:

Going round in circles here, because I am clearly not explaining myself in my answers.

a.) All I do and write is predicated on that fact I think we (US and UK) need a good deal of change. We are not good. We are far less good than we think we are, and we were never that good, back when we thought we still were. Some day soon, some bunch of semi-competent clowns, will kick our ass. If that's the case then we could be in real trouble with anyone really good.

b.) Hybrid, 4GW, EBO, SOD and all the other silly ideas are obstacles to effective change because they are all founded on a series of false premises. They are simply wrong!
They all assume we are currently competent but that the "rules" have somehow changed. They have not! We just cannot seem to pull our heads out of our collective asses, because we think that "new war" is the problem, when in fact we are the problem.

Additionally they seek to divert us from getting the really important stuff right. We cannot do that if we are paralysed by silly ideas like "war is now more complex." War has always been complex, and we mostly suck at being good it. - to be good, we just have to suck less than the others - so yes. Irony!

All for change, but let's base it on what we know works. Not silly pet theories which are forcing mechanisms for the terminally stupid.

Fuchs

10-13-2009, 02:48 PM

UrsaMaior

10-13-2009, 05:41 PM

UrsaMajor:
a.) All I do and write is predicated on that fact I think we (US and UK) need a good deal of change. We are not good. We are far less good than we think we are, and we were never that good, back when we thought we still were. Some day soon, some bunch of semi-competent clowns, will kick our ass. If that's the case then we could be in real trouble with anyone really good.

With all respect Wilf it is Ursa Maior, the stellar constellation meaning big bear. Being 190 cms with 130kgs it is my nick since ages.

I was told by a senior hungarian (70+) general that between 1973 and 1982ish it was common belief that WP can break through the Fulda-gap. All they were afraid of was the nuclear retaliation after they reached the french border. In the second half of the 1980s they were working on what should they do after Berlin was occupied by the imperialists. You never really know how good you are unless you can match yourself against true peers.

I can put something valuable on it that your "semi-competent clowns" will not be a regular army but a bunch of kids / every day guys/gals out there
- for fun (like that russian guy who broke the unbreakeable 27 digit code of WiFi networks using a modified 3D graphics card)
- for profit (like MS-13)
- for the greater glory of some unknown minority (I dont have the slightest idea say pirese ;) )
- on the payroll of a gov't (like that youth group responsible for shutting down half of Estonia's internet).

Of course ICBMs, YAL-1s, MLRSs and JDAMs and F-22s are good against some future advesary once in a decade, but it won't be a littoral combat ship or a Stryker MGS that will save your / our ass, but determined, creative, well educated and at last but not at least well paid grunts who will know what to do at the right time at the right place, and it won't be a targeted kill by a Hellfire or a collapsing building by a Tomahawk cruise missile, much rather a well placed video in a filesharing site or one single shot through a window by a good ol' 7,62×51 NATO round put into the right person and not into some bystander or even a one line news on the stock exchange billboard heralding the untimely death of an overzealous broker.

b.) Hybrid, 4GW, EBO, SOD and all the other silly ideas are obstacles to effective change because they are all founded on a series of false premises. They are simply wrong!
They all assume we are currently competent but that the "rules" have somehow changed. They have not! We just cannot seem to pull our heads out of our collective asses, because we think that "new war" is the problem, when in fact we are the problem.

Additionally they seek to divert us from getting the really important stuff right. We cannot do that if we are paralysed by silly ideas like "war is now more complex." War has always been complex, and we mostly suck at being good it. - to be good, we just have to suck less than the others - so yes. Irony!

All for change, but let's base it on what we know works. Not silly pet theories which are forcing mechanisms for the terminally stupid.

Sorry Wilf these are the words of Echevarria, col. Gentile and others who say 'if it ain't broke don't fix it!'. Well it is broke. If not now then in 2-5 yrs all of you will see exactly how REALLY broke it is in the very moment when your semi-competent clowns will kick our NATO/US/UK/Israeli a$$. You say these 'nonsenses' direct that much needed attention from REAL changes. I say these are really serious issues and I don't have the slightest doubt that among others William S Lind or Martin van Creveld (including some high ranking officers of the hungarian army) would stop spending time on it as soon as direct evidence shows that they are an obstacle in the way of better security. If the much predicted $hit happens you and the paleoconservative military thinkers cannot just simply say sorry we were wrong. I say let these unorthodoy theories have a try, thank God conventional deterrence and security measures work well enough giving us some time. If these acronyms turn out be a fool's errand you can still say we told you in advance but if not and the world nowadays is way more complicated than you think what then? I am sorry I am not willing to put my kids' future on your perception.