New Rules of War

[William F. Owen]

New Rules of War (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/22/the_new_rules_of_war)

Take a look. The article uses very poor evidence to make some not very good points, thus loosing the good points that may have been made.

Anyone wants to defend the use of history or facts here, I'm all ears.

[Chris jM]

thus loosing the good points that may have been made.

Are you being kind here Wilf, are do you genuinely see some good points in this? I'm normally very cautious of trashing someone's work without reflection and secondary sources/ opinions to put it into perspective (or, from another perspective, I'm an easily persuaded sell-out...)

However I failed to see anything of relevance or utility here at all.

Rule 2: Finding is the new flanking is flawed, albeit the least flawed of the three. If you can't find the enemy then flanking, attacking by fire or even an all-out up-the-guts assault will simply not be possible. As to portraying 'finding' rising to prominence over the 'strike, exploit' (the flank) I'd suggest this is rather a part of fighting an enemy who seeks to employ guerrilla/ unconventional tactics. Alexander's forces in Bactria would empathise with the difficulty in finding an enemy who seeks to avoid pitched battle - and history could provide countless more examples. If the author wanted to say that finding the enemy in the COE/ any COIN-type undertaking is more important as a tactical function than striking him then I would agree. We enjoy a huge advantage in terms of technology and firepower (most counter-insurgents do) so delivering death and destruction isn't the problem, but finding him is. But to portray a grand narrative of battle whereby flanking was once being a dominant form of manoeuvre and is now replaced by that of finding? Uh, no.

Rule 1: "Many and Small" Beats "Few and Large." Nice idea I'd like to subscribe to, but god does tend to be on the sides of the big battalions that are backed by overwhelming firepower supported by solid doctrine and led by competent leaders... all of which is outside the simplistic rendering of the above. After all, a big battalion can split into the 'small and many' when required.

Rule 3 - Swarming is the New Surging I'll admit that I struggle to create a solid argument against the concept of swarming, but it has always struck me as being infeasible. My gut feeling is that swarm tactics lack operational mobility once deployed, they are too difficult to resupply/ their logistic chain is simultaneously too fragile and too inefficient and the individual part of the swarm is too easily suppressed, fixed and defeated in detail by a competent enemy.

As to the concept of netwar, I don't think too much needs to be said as I doubt anyone will argue in support of it.

At the practical level I see it as inevitable that increased technology will be pushed down to the lowest level. I hate the term 'Network Centric Warfare' as it seems to replace the concept of warfare with the concept of a network - better perhaps is work towards a 'Warfare Centric Network'. Much like the concept of recon pull/ push we need to think of technology as being a network push, not a network pull. The core concepts of close combat won't dramatically change, so best support the core combat functions as we know them rather than trying to change.

In my capacity as a student of war/history, I'm seeing military progress as evolution rather than revolution. Along with that reading comes the caveat that anyone peddling revolution or the silver bullet ought to be treated with great suspicion.

[William F. Owen]

Are you being kind here Wilf, are do you genuinely see some good points in this?

Thus my statement, "thus loosing the good points that may have been made."

Finding is good. Always has been. = Good.
Nothing to do with flanking. Flanking fulfils a completely and utterly different function, which is found in "Fixing." = Does not understand the Core Functions, thus undermines his understanding that Finding is good. He merely states it, and does not demonstrate he understand why. - and this is the high point!!

[Fuchs]

The author wasn't accurate in his use of military terms and examples. The level of thought is nevertheless above average.

[Chris jM]

Thus my statement, "thus loosing the good points that may have been made."

I should have worded my question better - do you see any good points being able to arise from this? Not only are the 'rules' nonsense, the premise and reasoning on which they are founded is flawed.

And Fuchs, where is the level of thought above average? I fail to see any indications of above average thought. Claiming that it's original thinking I can agree with, but as to the quality of thought?

[Fuchs]

Most articles on military matters are quite devoid of thought, the bar "average" is quite low.

Most military writing is about technicalities and superficial stuff. In fact, about 90% of military writing should be considered to be poorly done PR texting.

[William F. Owen]

I should have worded my question better - do you see any good points being able to arise from this? Not only are the 'rules' nonsense, the premise and reasoning on which they are founded is flawed.

I concur. It was a massive missed opportunity. There are some really critical debates to be had, but the US (and pretty much the UK) seem incapable conducting it in a useful way. Why that is might also be worth asking!

[Fuchs]

The best effect of such texts is to push readers into new territory. Some readers may feel compelled to look up "swarming" for their first time, for example.

(Swarming works under the condition of superior elusiveness of the swarming parties; see sub wolfpacks in '40-'42, Parthian light cavalry.)

[Tukhachevskii]

Regarding Arquilla's "Rule No. 1" this statement irks me no end:

"This was the case during the Vietnam War, too, when the prevailing military organizational structure of the 1960s -- not much different from today's -- drove decision-makers to pursue a big-unit war against a large number of very small insurgent units. The final result: 500,000-plus troops deployed, countless billions spent, and a war lost. The iconic images were the insurgents' AK-47 individual assault rifles, of which there were hundreds of thousands in use at any moment, juxtaposed against the U.S. Air Force's B-52s, of which just a hundred or so massed together in fruitless attempts to bomb Hanoi into submission".

This statement neither proves that smaller and more numerous is better than larger and fewer nor does it provide evidence of the need for a paradigm shift in the organisation of armies. Why?

The US Army in Vietnam fought numerous engagements with both the NVA and the Viet Cong both of which were organised and fought differently (the former as conventional units fighting "set-piece" battles and the latter as "insurgents"). Yet, in all cases the US Army and USMC fought succesful engagements (take the battle of Hue city for instane or the Tet Offensive). Both the US Army and the USMC adapted their units to fit METT-T considerations without needing to tweek TOEs (take the firebase concept for instance). The reasons for the US "losing" the war (when in fact they actually lost the peace, or rather, South Vietnam did) were geopolitical, grand strategic and domestic with regards to the overly restrictive ROE imposed on the forces by both Congress and the President and were not solely due to the armed forces having failed to "transform". The author is not deploying a ceteris paribus (all things being equal) chain of reasoning. Furthermore, he later compares the forward deployment of platoon sized units in conjunction with allied tribes in Iraq as evidence of the force-multipling effects of "networked" systems after mentinong the surge, the surge, firthermore, which was finally responsibile for beinging order I might add. I don't know what particular axe Arquilla has to grind or from which corporation he recieves his consultants cheque but this article, IMO, made even William Lind's turgid "4th Generation Warfare" article seem like an exercise in historical erudition.

[J Wolfsberger]

I got as far as page three, and read this: "For many centuries, legionary maniples (Latin for "handfuls") marched out -- in their flexible checkerboard formations -- and beat the massive, balky phalanxes of traditional foes, while dealing just as skillfully with loose bands of tribal fighters."

So, that explains the stunning Roman victory at Teutoburger Wald.

Oh, wait ... :rolleyes:

Poor mastery of history, poorly reasoned, not much use.

[William F. Owen]

The best effect of such texts is to push readers into new territory. Some readers may feel compelled to look up "swarming" for their first time, for example.

(Swarming works under the condition of superior elusiveness of the swarming parties; see sub wolfpacks in '40-'42, Parthian light cavalry.)

So what is "Swarming." Wolfpacks, moved dispersed then massed on command, often directed by aerial reconnaissance. The answer to Wolfpacks was convoys - again massing.

Mongols did not "swarm." Nor did Panzer Regiments. I keep hearing about Swarming, but no one actually seems to know what it is. If it just means simultaneous attacks from multiple directions, then its hardly a useful characterisation.

[marct]

I don't know what particular axe Arquilla has to grind or from which corporation he recieves his consultants cheque but this article, IMO, made even William Lind's turgid "4th Generation Warfare" article seem like an exercise in historical erudition.

LOL!

What truly got my goat was this statement


Then again, perhaps the best example of a many-and-small military that worked against foes of all sizes was the Roman legion. For many centuries, legionary maniples (Latin for "handfuls") marched out -- in their flexible checkerboard formations -- and beat the massive, balky phalanxes of traditional foes, while dealing just as skillfully with loose bands of tribal fighters.


Sure, maniples were a key tactical unit: as part of a cohort. In no Roman campaigns I'm aware of were maniples used as a basic unit separate from their cohorts. Cohorts, along with ala, would be detached for independent operations, but not maniples. And if he wants an example of ancient "swarming", and how effective it was, he should take a look at the final battle of the Boadicean revolt! And, as far as those "flexible checkerboard formations" are concerned, he really should consider that tactics are effected by technology as, for example, when my ancestors stomped the legions at Adrianople. As for the Teutonberg Wald, well, what can I say? It's all the fault of that nasty Arminius (aka Herman) who was waging an unconventional campaign :D!


Honestly, there are a few good ideas in the article but, to my mind at least, they are buried in an overpowering morass of poor historical scholarship and an even poorer ability to abstract the essential factors. For example, as Wilf quite correctly points out, "finding" has always been important (ask Arminius :p!). Smaller units and increased segmentation can work and be incredibly effective, but they are dependent upon the technologies involved, especially the defensive, mobility and logistics technologies, and the use to which they are put.

[Fuchs]

A RAND study pretty much defined the stuff about a decade ago.


So what is "Swarming." Wolfpacks, moved dispersed then massed on command, often directed by aerial reconnaissance. The answer to Wolfpacks was convoys - again massing.

You're wrong. Wolfpacks were the answer to convoys, not the other way around. Convoys were the answer to individual subs in 1917.

Wolfpacks were quite complicated. Aerial recce played a minor role, there were never more than two aerial recce squadrons with sufficient range available and their aircraft were quite suboptimal.

First Phase:
Establish a screening line till one sub gets in contact with a convoy (that enough subs can intercept in time).

Second Phase:
One sub gets into contact and keeps in contact, shadows the convoy and radios its position and movement.
A central station receives the radio message and transmits necessary info, not the least to make sure that every sub gets the message with minimum radiation from the shadowing sub.

Third Phase:
The subs of the wolfpack move into position and attack all in the same night, from different directions if possible at almost the same time.
This was a saturation approach to overcome the defences.

Fourth Phase:
Convoy still being shadowed, subs regroup for an attack another night, proceed to phase 3 again.



It's vastly different from the more understood tactics of battlefleets and army units/formations from battalion up to corps (the big arrows on maps).
This vast difference easily justifies that earlier authors chose to attach an own label to this behaviour.
Conventional tactics don't include an all-round pulse attack - not even during the annihilation of a pocket.
The German army would never have developed wolfpack tactics - their mode of attack was too much opposed to the Schwerpunkt idea. The difference is huge.


@marct:
"Finding" was no key issue in the Teutoburg Forest battle. Enemy identification was the key issue for the Romans, logistics & politics for the Germans.

[marct]

Hi Fuchs,


"Finding" was no key issue in the Teutoburg Forest battle. Enemy identification was the key issue for the Romans, logistics & politics for the Germans.

Hmmm, I would include "enemy identification" under the heading "finding" myself, as in finding the moles :D. And I agree, for the Germans it was definitely politics and logistics.

[William F. Owen]

A RAND study pretty much defined the stuff about a decade ago. Cool! Where?

You're wrong. Wolfpacks were the answer to convoys, not the other way around. Convoys were the answer to individual subs in 1917.
So the response to Wolfpacks was to STAY in Convoys, not disperse.



First Phase:
Establish a screening line till one sub gets in contact with a convoy (that enough subs can intercept in time).
Second Phase:
One sub gets into contact and keeps in contact, shadows the convoy ....
Third Phase:
The subs of the wolfpack move into position and attack all in the same night, from different directions if possible at almost the same time....
Fourth Phase:
Convoy still being shadowed, subs regroup for an attack another night....


OK, how does that qualify as "Swarming?" Did the Kriegsmarine ever call it swarming? Sounds like U-boat specific "Wolfpack," to me.

This vast difference easily justifies that earlier authors chose to attach an own label to this behaviour. So who else has used "Swarming" tactics?

[Fuchs]

http://www.rand.org/pubs/documented_briefings/DB311/

My position is that RAND pretty much defined this term for military theory by publishing that work. That was a legitimate move because they identified a group of tactics that were sufficiently different from more common tactics to deserve a group name.


edit: Slightly related text http://redteamjournal.com/2009/12/interposing-tactics/

[Fuchs]

So the response to Wolfpacks was to STAY in Convoys, not disperse.

Not really. The response to wolfpack tactics was a huge set of efforts.

- dispersed aerial sub hunter patrols over the whole ocean
- suppressing the shadowing by pressing the subs below water using carrier-borne aerial cover for the convoy
- sub hunter groups (equivalent of combat air patrols) near their bases
- naval minelaying (especially in training areas and coastal regions)
- bombardment of bases, shipyards and industry
- more escorts per convoy
- more efficient convoys (area of a square grows faster than its borders - bigger convoy allows for more freighters per escort)
- technological innovation
- intelligence efforts
- industrial effort (a much, much larger ship production output)
...and of course a higher tolerance for losses than some 'experts' had expected.

[Ken White]

Swarming and Checkerboards. They crop up every few years, are touted as the Holy Grail and fail miserably in application far more often than not. Those who tout the techniques -- and the net centric stuff-- invariably are theorists who will have no responsibility for executing but cite a success or two and rarely mention the many failures of their recommended techniques.

What most miss is the human dimension. Too many leaders are not up to the theoretical level of performance. A good example is the above mentioned Viet Nam experience that Tukhachevskii posted:
"This was the case during the Vietnam War, too, when the prevailing military organizational structure of the 1960s -- not much different from today's -- drove decision-makers to pursue a big-unit war against a large number of very small insurgent units..."The good Perfesser fails to note -- or notice -- that the Organization was totally capable of morphing into small units and Checkerboarding and many units did just that and did it successfully but USARV / MACV did not do so in toto because the leadership and the too powerful Staffs at high echelons were comprised of people whose experience was predominately in northwestern Europe and thus they tried to force the fight in the paddies to be conducted the same way they would have on the north German plain.

The theories espoused in the article are not totally wrong but most will fail in combat application due to personnel quality. People are the problem

Actually, training people is the problem. Well trained people and units will be able to shift gears and fight as required.

The sharp and well trained will do what MarcT said, send out Cohorts for independent operations as required. His summary of the good and bad in the article is on target, not least in this:
(ask Arminius :p !):D

[William F. Owen]

Not really. The response to wolfpack tactics was a huge set of efforts.

....so basically enhancing and supporting the convoy system? No convoys, no point.

I think the question could be, did the Wolfpacks require a disproportionate allocation of resources to defeat, balanced by was the Wolfpack the best use of the U-boat - which I do not think it was!

[marct]

Hi Ken,


Swarming and Checkerboards. They crop up every few years, are touted as the Holy Grail and fail miserably in application far more often than not.

I remember reading some years back, that a science becomes a science when it drops static typologies and looks at change over time. Swarming, checkerboards, etc - any tactic really - can work if the factors limiting the situation are right. No tactic, however, is a Holy Grail; they will all fail if the situational limits are against them.


Those who tout the techniques -- and the net centric stuff-- invariably are theorists who will have no responsibility for executing but cite a success or two and rarely mention the many failures of their recommended techniques.

Hey, I resemble that remark :eek::D!

More seriously, cherry picking historical examples of the success of a tactic (or strategy) is fine as long as it is designed to highlight the limiting factors. Unfortunately, the author in this article appears to be doing it for another reason. Swarming, as a tactic, seems to work best when there is limited capability for opponent identification and when immediately available defensive technologies can be breached quickly. It also seems to work really nicely when you have both of those conditions and the aim is actually to attack in some other area, usually moral via logistics (i.e. force the non-swarming group to invest heavily in infrastructure and logistical support). Probably the classic campaign along these lines, which, BTW, Arquilla does not mention, was Crassus' expedition against the Parthians.


The theories espoused in the article are not totally wrong but most will fail in combat application due to personnel quality. People are the problem

Actually, training people is the problem. Well trained people and units will be able to shift gears and fight as required.

Yup! That is the lesson he should have drawn from the legions.


The sharp and well trained will do what MarcT said, send out Cohorts for independent operations as required. His summary of the good and bad in the article is on target, not least in this::D

:D

[Fuchs]

....so basically enhancing and supporting the convoy system? No convoys, no point.

I think the question could be, did the Wolfpacks require a disproportionate allocation of resources to defeat, balanced by was the Wolfpack the best use of the U-boat - which I do not think it was!

The subs weren't the best use for the resources spent on the sub force (should have gone into the army), but the wolfpack tactic was a great use for the subs as long as the sub tech was competitive.

The disproportionate allocation of resources happened on the allied side; their production of new ships made the German sub effort look tiny by 1943.

Eighteen American shipyards built 2,751 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945, many more other freighters and tankers were built, the new escorts (destroyers, destroyer escorts, corvettes) already outnumbered the subs. The allied air power dedicated to the Battle of the Atlantic exceeded the total German bomber force since 1942.

Industrial dissimilarity and very special technological factors (the wolfpack tactic required the subs to cruise faster than the convoy, which was impossible for the late-war early SSKs) defeated the sub wolfpacks, not some tactic in itself (although new tactics helped to reduce cargo ship losses and caused greater sub losses).

[Firn]

But the principles of networking don't have to help only the bad guys. If fully embraced, they can lead to a new kind of military -- and even a new kind of war. The conflicts of the future should and could be less costly and destructive, with armed forces more able to protect the innocent and deter or defend against aggression.

Vast tank armies may no longer battle it out across the steppes, but modern warfare has indeed become exceedingly fast-paced and complex. Still, there is a way to reduce this complexity to just three simple rules that can save untold amounts of blood and treasure in the netwar age


So there is hope in this dark world, may netwar deliver us. :D


After that cheap shot let us look at this swarming thing.


Swarm describes a behaviour of an aggregate of animals of similar size and body orientation, often moving en masse in the same direction. "Swarming" is a general term that can be applied to any animal that swarms. The term can be applied to insects, birds, fish, various microorganisms such as bacteria, and people. The term applies particularly to insects. "Flocking" is the term usually used for swarming behaviour in birds, while "shoaling or schooling" refers to swarming behaviour in fish. The swarm size is a major parameter of a swarm.

According to this definition all armed forces swarm. Or better all the armed forces are swarms, be it on the battlefield or when in search of food. :D

It gets even better. According to this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/science/13traff.html?ei=5087&em=&en=2770422853e9f63e&ex=1195102800&pagewanted=print) we are also swarms, or at least have them in us!


Even brain cells may follow the same rules for collective behavior seen in locusts or fish.

“One of the really fun things that we’re doing now is understanding how the type of feedbacks in these groups is like the ones in the brain that allows humans to make decisions,” Dr. Couzin said. Those decisions are not just about what to order for lunch, but about basic perception — making sense, for example, of the flood of signals coming from the eyes. “How does your brain take this information and come to a collective decision about what you’re seeing?” Dr. Couzin said. The answer, he suspects, may lie in our inner swarm

I will continue later...


Firn

[shloky]

Firn:


According to this definition all armed forces swarm.

Yes. Yes they do.


I keep hearing about Swarming, but no one actually seems to know what it is. If it just means simultaneous attacks from multiple directions, then its hardly a useful characterisation.

Actually, that's precisely what it is.

To quote Sean J. A. Edwards in his work (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1100/index.html) on the topic, swarming is:

a primary maneuver that results in an attack from multiple directions (all points on the compass) by 5 or more (semi) autonomous units on a single target/unit.

Not sure why defining and understanding the past, present, and future of a core component of warfare isn't useful.

Moving on, here's what Ronfeldt and Arquilla wrote (http://www.rand.org/pubs/documented_briefings/DB311/) in 2000:



Examples of swarming can be found throughout history, but it is only now able to emerge as a doctrine in its own right. That is largely because swarming depends on a devolution of power to small units and a capacity to interconnect those units that has only recently become feasible, due to the information revolution.

Which is very much in tune with what Marc wrote:



Smaller units and increased segmentation can work and be incredibly effective, but they are dependent upon the technologies involved, especially the defensive, mobility and logistics technologies, and the use to which they are put.


Arquilla's basic point is that the world has changed - we've entered an era of unprecedented connectivity and, logically, military structure should reflect that shift.

Swarming is a useful approach to understanding how to do so, and the rules Arquilla outlines are useful in thinking how to accomplish that task - smaller units (#1) wielding sophisticated information flows (#2) are able to accomplish complex and varied tasks as the need arises(#3).

[Ken White]

Swarming is a useful approach to understanding how to do so, and the rules Arquilla outlines are useful in thinking how to accomplish that task - smaller units (#1) wielding sophisticated information flows (#2) are able to accomplish complex and varied tasks as the need arises(#3).Now all we have to do is convince the Politicians who do not trust Generals to start doing so and get the Generals who do not trust Captains to start trusting Sergeants.

Swarming has worked; will work -- but you need trained and trusted troops to do it. We, the US do not do either thing as well as we can or should.

[Scott Shaw]

While I will admit that Edwards did his homework on the battles of Alexander against the Scythians and Crassus against the Parthians - what he fails to do is link the term "Parting Shot" to the "Parthian Shot." He tries to, but doesn't go that far. Yes, it's true, the Parting Shot came from Persia - or at least the term does.

What Arquilla fails to do is realize (or at least recognize) that "swarming" or a coordinated attack from multiple directions (as Wilf points out) is not new. It's old - at least tactically. Edwards examples show that. Clearly the Romans and the Macedonians understood that the Parthians and Scythians had enough of a network or at least a plan to attack from multiple directions.

There's no need to confuse the terms - attacking from multiple directions isn't new. Ken's right - it takes trained and trusted troopers to do it. It's being done everyday in Iraq on the streets and has been for several years. I'm just not sure what the "new" term does other than confuse folks.

Another point that Arquilla neglects is modularity - there's no divisional structure anymore that just plops down. Yeah, some "divisions" go with "their" brigades at the same time, but that's just due to a rotation. When units get to theater, they're broken down according to their capabilities and sub-units are attached to different commands. Both Afghanistan and Iraq are like this. 3rd BCT, 1st Cav in 06-08 was three of it's assigned battalions, a light cav squadron from the 82nd, a Stryker infantry battalion, Paladins from 3rd ACR, and an MLRS battery from Sill.

Scott

[zenpundit]

First, a thank you to Wilf for giving me a head's up about this discussion earlier today. It was interesting to read being composed of a mixture of fair criticism of Arquilla's article and some comments that are, IMHO, missing the forest for the trees or are inexplicably just missing. I'd like to weigh in on a couple of points.

What I found to be very odd, on a board where strategic thinking is highly valued, that no one addressed Arquilla's introduction where he raised the critical variable of cost-effectiveness of large unit operations against smaller, irregular and networked opponents. Maybe Arquilla was not explicit enough. Let me try.

In WWII, the US spent approximately $ 330 billion 1940 dollars to wage war. By any standard that was a lot of money. However, for that fantastic sum, the US received a considerable strategic and tactical ROI including: contributing to the destruction, defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan; the deaths of roughly 11 million Axis soldiers and civilians; according to John Keegan, producing enough equipment and munitions to outfit 1200 divisions; thousands of combatant ships; 300,000 planes and three functioning atomic bombs, two of which saw use against the enemy.

Now, taking the lower-end estimate expenditure of $ 1 trillion for the war on terror, how does the ROI today compare to the example of WWII?

We have killed or captured low thousands (less than 10k) Islamist insurgents, some of who are al Qaida (President Bush claimed 75 % of AQ leadership) but AQ has held out against the US more than twice as long as the Wehrmacht and still has refuge in Pakistan. We have occupied Afghanistan and overthrown the Taliban government that hosted AQ, but the Taliban too has a refuge in Pakistan and continues to field fighters in Afghanistan. We invaded and occupied Iraq and needed a prolonged campaign to pacify the country and managed to exterminate an AQ affiliate there ( that only appeared because of our invasion). We have circumscribed AQ's operational capacity but from 2001-2010, the group has still managed to sporadically sponsor/inspire significant acts of terrorism in allied countries.

How much do you think each capture/kill of AQ costs per capita compared to killing or capturing an Axis soldier in WWII ?

"a big battalion can split into the 'small and many' when required". True, but how much is it costing us for the "big battalion" to try to go "small and many". Is the burn rate of money sustainable for the United States until AQ runs out of guys?

If not, then you have the operational prescription for spending your way to defeat. Which is what we are doing now.

Kind of like.... Vietnam, where incidentally, we lost despite having much better everything than the enemy (except of course, a strategy to win).

Speaking of the Vietnam War, if Wilf is confused on how small unit, tactical, swarming can have a strategic effect (or what it is), roll some old news video of VC terrorists swarming and seizing the US Embassy in Saigon during Tet, broadcast to the whole world.

Re-capturing the Embassy (which was not in doubt) or inflicting a catastrophic military defeat on the VC ( which the US and ARVN did) hardly mattered. The VC casualties during Tet were ultimately replaced by Northerners but the lost political credibility of MACV or the USG could not.

[shloky]

Scott,


There's no need to confuse the terms - attacking from multiple directions isn't new. Ken's right - it takes trained and trusted troopers to do it. It's being done everyday in Iraq on the streets and has been for several years. I'm just not sure what the "new" term does other than confuse folks.

Arquilla doesn't say swarming is new. He says that the conditions are now in place for a swarming to have a strategic role rather than a purely tactical one. Doctrine.



Another point that Arquilla neglects is modularity - there's no divisional structure anymore that just plops down. Yeah, some "divisions" go with "their" brigades at the same time, but that's just due to a rotation. When units get to theater, they're broken down according to their capabilities and sub-units are attached to different commands. Both Afghanistan and Iraq are like this. 3rd BCT, 1st Cav in 06-08 was three of it's assigned battalions, a light cav squadron from the 82nd, a Stryker infantry battalion, Paladins from 3rd ACR, and an MLRS battery from Sill.


Sure. It doesn't go far enough though. The hierarchy is still prevalent, and thus susceptible to disruption from nimble enemies who have embraced the swarm as doctrine.

To get a handle on just how deep a rethink we need, and to put in tangible terms what effect integrating the swarm at a doctrinal level can hae, a quote from the article:


A networked U.S. military that knows how to swarm would have much smaller active manpower -- easily two-thirds less than the more than 2 million serving today -- but would be organized in hundreds more little units of mixed forces. The model for military intervention would be the 200 Special Forces "horse soldiers" who beat the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan late in 2001. Such teams would deploy quickly and lethally, with ample reserves for relieving "first waves" and dealing with other crises. At sea, instead of concentrating firepower in a handful of large, increasingly vulnerable supercarriers, the U.S. Navy would distribute its capabilities across many hundreds of small craft armed with very smart weapons. Given their stealth and multiple uses, submarines would stay while carriers would go. And in the air, the "wings" would reduce in size but increase in overall number, with mere handfuls of aircraft in each. Needless to say, networking means that these small pieces would still be able to join together to swarm enemies, large or small.

Which brings us to Ken's point, on which he's absolutely right. It does take a different kind of culture, particularly in regards to training. (Don Vandergriff's leading the way on that front. I'd recommend his books on the topic. )

[William F. Owen]

To quote Sean J. A. Edwards in his work (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1100/index.html) on the topic, swarming is:

a primary maneuver that results in an attack from multiple directions (all points on the compass) by 5 or more (semi) autonomous units on a single target/unit.
Huh? Seriously? OK, so based in that 5 planes attacking a single ship with 72 degrees of separation counts as swarming? Obviously that definition is not useful, workable or insightful. More over, based on my example, why is so good? Fact is, in this example it's less useful, not more.

Not sure why defining and understanding the past, present, and future of a core component of warfare isn't useful. because it is not a core component, and its misleading.

Arquilla's basic point is that the world has changed - we've entered an era of unprecedented connectivity and, logically, military structure should reflect that shift. That may be his point but I find it without evidence. Unless he can show me practical and workable examples of how this all works, I cannot see how he is helping. Militaries need to change for the same reasons they have always needed to change - to be better at warfare. Theoretical navel gazing is not the answer.

Swarming is a useful approach to understanding how to do so, and the rules Arquilla outlines are useful in thinking how to accomplish that task - smaller units (#1) wielding sophisticated information flows (#2) are able to accomplish complex and varied tasks as the need arises(#3).
OK, give me practical real world examples of Points #1-3, and explain your reasoning.

[William F. Owen]

Arquilla doesn't say swarming is new. He says that the conditions are now in place for a swarming to have a strategic role rather than a purely tactical one. Doctrine.
Again how? Examples? My use of the word "Strategic" is the use of force for a political goal.

[William F. Owen]

Now, taking the lower-end estimate expenditure of $ 1 trillion for the war on terror, how does the ROI today compare to the example of WWII? [
Did he say that? I must have missed it. OK, so stupid people doing stupid stuff is .... stupid? Point being, if War today is really "more fast moving and unbelievably complicated," why should modern War not cost more than old simple WW2?
Fact is, War today is not more complicated - nor is warfare. We just believe it is, so we are happy to justify the costs on that basis. So what's Arquilla's point? That the level of analysis is very poor? Not argument from me.

Speaking of the Vietnam War, if Wilf is confused on how small unit, tactical, swarming can have a strategic effect (or what it is), roll some old news video of VC terrorists swarming and seizing the US Embassy in Saigon during Tet, broadcast to the whole world.
Certainly not confused. The attack on the Embassy had no element of so-called "swarming" what so ever. Many hundreds of decisions and actions taken after 1968 had significantly more effect on the outcome of the Vietnam war than some news footage. Wars are won and lost because of really decisive events. Not pictures of irrelevant events.

Saying "Swarming" is baby talk. It's like saying "Blitzkrieg". It pretty much indicates the person using it, is not well grounded in history, tactical doctrine, or anything that usefully progresses the discussion.

[Bill Moore]

Some initial rough thoughts on swarming that I hope to clean up later, but in the meantime swarm away on my comments if you wish.

Examples of military units employing the conventional tactics of encirclement, isolate, attack (whether at one point, or multiple points) is a terrible example if the intent is to show how the world has changed and the military just hasn't keep pace. Also agree with Wilf on the strategic comments, what strategic swarming example did he present? The Rand paper wasn't any better.

Putting article and discussing the concept of swarming from other discussions I had about swarming (before 9/11); it originally was self-organizing crowds who respond to spontaneously, or nearly spontaneously to an event. In some cases the swarm develops momentum over time. I don't think we or our enemies have yet learned to harness this potential to its full capacity.

Rough examples, and perhaps upon further consideration I'll withdraw these, but for now they are ideas for consideration.

1. The battle for Seattle, while many of the groups attended the protests with the clear intent to not only demonstrate against globalism, but create chaos they managed to trigger a much larger response where numerous protestors (who had no intent to do this originally) responded to the events and swarmed upon the security forces, and to some extent they actually self organized as a crowd. A few short years later we saw protesters from all over Europe swarm upon Genova, Italy to do the same thing.

2. I think many of the Eastern European independence movements (from the USSR) were representative of swarming.

3. There have been many instances of cyber swarming. There have been many times in recent years where the internet crowd would form a community of interest (self organizing) and attack a particular computer.

4. In Iraq there were many cases where coalition forces would be attacked, and spontaneously (not planned) numerous civilans would join the fray and swarm upon the unit in peril.

5. Most recently we had many Iranians self organize and protest the legitimacy of the election using twitter and other social networking devices, which resulted in a swarming action of sorts.

What's the so what of this? I think swarming can be used as an unconventional means to achieve strategic effect by intentionally releasing some information that turns on the swarm. This can be employed by both State and non-State actors.

Tired, calling it a night, but I think you see where I'm trying to go with this.

[Firn]

Some initial rough thoughts on swarming that I hope to clean up later, but in the meantime swarm away on my comments if you wish.

I think it will be interesting to give the concepts of biological swarms a closer look. Still Ken is on something when he points at the human element. So far, the use of principles of the so called "swarm intelligence" seems to have been proven to be a very interesting instrument in specific areas like computing.

"Ant warfare" too is fascinating stuff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO8OdOdJWnE&feature=related). And there is much more than meets the eye.


Firn

[Fuchs]

I personally have an interest in how we could exploit 'natural' self-organisation of people (for example let them find their talented leader themselves instead of force them to accept one) and horizontal coordination (neighbouring units cooperate to reduce the need for guidance of relatively ignorant staffs from higher levels).

[M-A Lagrange]

Dear Fuch

Your point is extremely valuable.
Dr Kilcullen did point out, in a past article in SWJ, the fact that for practicle reasons we did not really move since cold war as we still are looking for an elite to speak with. He was pointing out that because of our patern of governance we do need to have elites that do conform to our (western) standards.
the solution we did found to have the people choosing their chiefs and elites are elections. But as we all know here, elections do not warranty that the people will choose their elite, an elite their consider as legitimate and even less an elite that WE will consider as a good and relevant interlocutor.

I really think that there is something to be digging out on that particular point that will really bring a new way in "war", especially in the stabilisation/state building phase.

[Tukhachevskii]

Speaking of the Vietnam War, if Wilf is confused on how small unit, tactical, swarming can have a strategic effect (or what it is), roll some old news video of VC terrorists swarming and seizing the US Embassy in Saigon during Tet, broadcast to the whole world. .


Sir,

Although addressed to Wilf I would like to make some observations. The example you use of the attack on the Saigon embassy is disingenuous. The attack’s perceived victory had more to do with the North’s Dich Van propaganda programme which paid dividends when US news anchors handed the North a victory on a plate without checking the facts on the ground first. The camera men had no situational awareness and had never been embedded with US troops and thus knew nothing about combat or the disorientation that they would experience. Furthermore, the attack itself was actually a poorly planned “raid” by a reinforced infantry section/depleted platoon which was, appearances to the contrary (i.e., “news” footage), was quickly dealt with my the marines and MPs in duty. “Swarming” as a concept is what Kripke would have called a flaccid designator (i.e., what it seeks to designate is not the same across all possible worlds or even contexts) given that many of the activities which it claims to explain (in catch-all fashion) actually have established TTPs within service/JP doctrine (such as carrier aviation attacks on enemy ships, submarine “wolfpacks”, SOF raids, et al). “Swarming” as a concept, rather than a loose metaphor, is about as useful as designating all modern conflicts short of full-scale inter-state war “4th Generation Warfare”.:wry:

On the embassy attack see the following (for example);
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2008/January%202008/0108tet.aspx

[zenpundit]

Marshal Tukhachevskii wrote:


Although addressed to Wilf I would like to make some observations. The example you use of the attack on the Saigon embassy is disingenuous. The attack’s perceived victory had more to do with the North’s Dich Van propaganda programme which paid dividends when US news anchors handed the North a victory on a plate without checking the facts on the ground first. The camera men had no situational awareness and had never been embedded with US troops and thus knew nothing about combat or the disorientation that they would experience

This is the equivalent to saying "No fair! They cheated!" and that had we been able to control the environment and worldview of the participants, all would have been well.

Well, sure but unfortunately, the attack in Saigon occurred within the real world and not in a war-game with do-overs.

Yes, the VC acquired a "perceived victory" by seizing the embassy - force was used to acheive a strategic political effect. Complaining about the medium - here the media and their deficiencies - is like complaining about the electrical grid when a saboteur cuts power lines ("If the grid had been designed properly...."). Moreover, you are making an assumption that the reporters and camera men lacked situational awareness. There were 12 million WWII vets in America and 1..8 million who served in the Korean War. Some of these folks were reporters, photographers and editors.


“Swarming” as a concept is what Kripke would have called a flaccid designator (i.e., what it seeks to designate is not the same across all possible worlds or even contexts) given that many of the activities which it claims to explain (in catch-all fashion) actually have established TTPs within service/JP doctrine (such as carrier aviation attacks on enemy ships, submarine “wolfpacks”, SOF raids, et al).

With all due respect to the erect Mr.Kripke, I never said "swarming" has to be used across all possible worlds. I think concepts are best used where as models that accurately represent the phenomena they purport to describe. Where they don't, use something else that fits better. Few concepts will scale up seamlessly from a platoon to a strategic nuclear exchange.

The VC swarming the embassy in Saigon may have been tactically amateurish and poorly planned. That's interesting but irrelevant. It was good enough to seize the embassy.

[Scott Shaw]

Shloky,

Here's the thing. How do we coordinate the "swarming" or attacking from multiple directions/with multiple means across the whole of government? We have a hard enough time within DoD with inter-service rivalries and equipment that doesn't talk to each other. And that's just tactical. Who's the person that is going to coordinate the inter-governmental "swarm" that will be the strategy? The only department in our government that has the global capability is Defense (lift, comms, people, money, and compulsory service) and (since this will inevitably involve a nation) the ambassador works for the President and not a combatant commander (or some special four-star). How long did it take for us to get relationships right in Iraq? How long will they take in Afghanistan with that many more nations? What Arquilla says is "strategic" what he describes is tactical and operational. The quote in the box of you 11:28 PM post says it all.

As to Don Vandergriff - I've read his stuff and talked to him about it. It's not new either. It's brought to the attention of folks who need to see it, but it's done on a daily basis in units in our army. Ken White had some great points here. http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/11/reorganizing-for-irregular-war/ But it's still at the tactical level. If it is something that folks latch onto and can say, look we're improving our Army with it, then fine, but it (like many other ideas being thrown around) isn't new. It came from Kriegspiel. I do think that there are some good ideas there, but they're what we did in Korea when I was a platoon leader and what I put my platoon leaders through when I was a company commander. Reading and playing out scenarios on a terrain board and then critiquing it isn't new - but again (like Ken says) it works and builds adaptive leaders. Just so Don doesn't hate on me, I do think that it needs to be more in TRADOC courses rather than death by slide and I do think that it needs to be more draconian and folks need to be called out when they make mistakes.

Scott

[zenpundit]

Wilf wrote:


"Certainly not confused. The attack on the Embassy had no element of so-called "swarming" what so ever. Many hundreds of decisions and actions taken after 1968 had significantly more effect on the outcome of the Vietnam war than some news footage. Wars are won and lost because of really decisive events. Not pictures of irrelevant events.'

Most historians of the Vietnam War would strenuously disagree with your interpretation Wilf.

Sure, there are downstream decisions of greater importance but they would have been different decisions - sometimes in response to different questions -had Tet been considered a victory.

Westmoreland, of course asserted Tet was a victory for the US in military terms and technically, he was correct. It also did not matter. After being told of progress for years by high civilian and military officials, Americans watched towns, bases and the embassy in South Vietnam being overrun on television. The effect of irrelevant pictures can be profound:D



Point being, if War today is really "more fast moving and unbelievably complicated," why should modern War not cost more than old simple WW2?

Scale comes to mind.

Also, why would "fast" always mean more expensive than "slow"? Moreover, situations might be complex or complicated but proposed solutions might be simple. And whether the solutions are simple or complex does not automatically correlate with cost by itself.

Using large units against small, irregular, networked opponents has been very expensive. Stupidity surely adds costs but the base cost of moving large military forces around the globe ain't cheap.

[marct]

Hi Zen,


What I found to be very odd, on a board where strategic thinking is highly valued, that no one addressed Arquilla's introduction where he raised the critical variable of cost-effectiveness of large unit operations against smaller, irregular and networked opponents. Maybe Arquilla was not explicit enough. Let me try.

I picked up on it but, honestly, i thought it was a complete and utter red herring. The cost effectiveness argument is based on a positive returns ROI only. In other words, he isn't including the "costs" (or potential costs) of not having big units with a lot of conventional force. My suspicion as to why he left it out is that the two examples that come to my mind, Rome late 4th century and Byzantium ca. 1030, both took his current advice and got trashed as a result of it. It is analogous to a bank saying "Well, we haven't had a robbery in years, so let's cut costs by doing away with our security people and systems"; aka, as my friends in IT put, an id1t error.

[William F. Owen]

Most historians of the Vietnam War would strenuously disagree with your interpretation Wilf.
Maybe, but as most write drivel, I disregard them.

Sure, there are downstream decisions of greater importance but they would have been different decisions - sometimes in response to different questions -had Tet been considered a victory.
Evidence? Tet did not break the American will to fight. It's a myth. US troop levels went on rising until Jan 69 and did not begin decreasing till August 69. Nixon invaded Cambodia in March 1970! The 1973 oil crisis doomed the South far more than Tet.

Westmoreland, of course asserted Tet was a victory for the US in military terms and technically, he was correct. It also did not matter. After being told of progress for years by high civilian and military officials, Americans watched towns, bases and the embassy in South Vietnam being overrun on television. The effect of irrelevant pictures can be profound:D
What was the effect? Please tell me how TV pictures in Jan 1968 effected the decisions taken by Nixon in 1973.

Also, why would "fast" always mean more expensive than "slow"? Moreover, situations might be complex or complicated but proposed solutions might be simple. And whether the solutions are simple or complex does not automatically correlate with cost by itself.
I never said fast. Arquilla did. Meaningless to me. I agree the solutions should be simple. All mine are. Simple works. Unfortunately we have a military academic community focussed on masturbating over the imagined problems, and coming up with things like "swarming."

Using large units against small, irregular, networked opponents has been very expensive. Stupidity surely adds costs but the base cost of moving large military forces around the globe ain't cheap.
I happy with expensive, as long as its effective. You cannot use business words and norms to try and understand military power.
What is a "networked opponent?" Please tell me. How is some bunch of Taliban speaking on ICOMS we are listening to "networked?" Using a cell-phone?

[zenpundit]

Hi Dr. Marc


I picked up on it but, honestly, i thought it was a complete and utter red herring. The cost effectiveness argument is based on a positive returns ROI only. In other words, he isn't including the "costs" (or potential costs) of not having big units with a lot of conventional force

There are significant potential costs to not having big forces. Agreed. I am not interested in having a military that cannot operate large units.

That said, using big units where smaller ones work with greater efficiency and effectiveness is a poor tactical choice.

It is a poor strategic choice if you cannot afford to deploy large units in order to use them inefficiently for years on end. This too is a significant cost - a threat actually - to our overall military capabilities

We can have big units and use them where/when big units work best and select more appropriate tools or degrees of force for other tasks, husbanding our resources for larger problems when they come along.

[zenpundit]

I happy with expensive, as long as its effective. You cannot use business words and norms to try and understand military power.

Economics, not business.

You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.

Burning a giant pile of money sheds light and heat and looks impressive but if it damaging your economy rather than your enemy then you are working hard to defeat yourself.

[zenpundit]

Would LBJ have lost the presidential primary in New Hampshire without the effects of Tet? His poll numbers dropped steeply

Would LBJ have withdrawn from the race for the presidency on March 1st or called a halt to bombing the enemy in order to seek a negotiated settlement? Johnson had called for a military victory in Vietnam, officially, only two and half years earlier.

Nixon entered office in January 1969 and started withdrawing troops by late summer. Richard Nixon never had any intention of winning the Vietnam War, though he'd liked to have seen GVN scrape by with some kind of independence, it was not a vital US national interest to him if it did (even less to Kissinger). Invading Cambodia or bombing North Vietnam was never used by Nixon to pursue a military victory but in context of gaining the upper hand in a negotiated settlement with Hanoi and triangulating secret diplomacy with Moscow and opening relations with Peking.,

Looks like the will to to continue fighting took a severe dent at least

[marct]

Hi Zen,


You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.

In general, I would agree. The devil, however, is in the details and, let's face it, the details in both Iraq and Afghanistan morphed into the construction of "democracies" which was not part of the original, political calculus of cost; neither were the "insurgencies" :wry:.

Could the initial, "conventional" political objectives have been met with smaller groups? Sure, they were initially in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he is forgetting about other potential competitors and about the time lag (and cost!) on retraining and re-equipping. You fight with what you have, and only modify to the point that it doesn't negatively impact your global position (that negative ROI point).


Burning a giant pile of money sheds light and heat and looks impressive but if it damaging your economy rather than your enemy then you are working hard to defeat yourself.

Agreed, and that is one of the constants on how to attack the US over the past 50 years or so. That being said, then why has the response to the economic "warfare" of various and sundry financial institutions not been dealt with in a similar manner? Why is he not advocating swarming by accountants which, IMHO, would have far more effect!

I'm going to stick with my initial interpretation of his economic argument as a red herring. He has included it only in a "rhetoric of rectitude" and excluded the broader systems in which it is embedded. as a piece of rhetoric, it's a moderately telling point, but as a piece of rational analysis it is trivial.

[shloky]

Shloky,

Here's the thing. How do we coordinate the "swarming" or attacking from multiple directions/with multiple means across the whole of government? We have a hard enough time within DoD with inter-service rivalries and equipment that doesn't talk to each other. And that's just tactical. Who's the person that is going to coordinate the inter-governmental "swarm" that will be the strategy? The only department in our government that has the global capability is Defense (lift, comms, people, money, and compulsory service) and (since this will inevitably involve a nation) the ambassador works for the President and not a combatant commander (or some special four-star). How long did it take for us to get relationships right in Iraq? How long will they take in Afghanistan with that many more nations?

Sure. That's not a flaw in swarming as doctrine, that's question of implementation.

That said, JSOC is a pretty good starting point of achieving what Arquilla's talking about, and how to achieve it. Highly trained, small, distributed teams to conduct complex operations with teams as small as two to several hundred.


What Arquilla says is "strategic" what he describes is tactical and operational. The quote in the box of you 11:28 PM post says it all.

Few units above the company grade; ridding the DoD of all the fat accumulated in the last few decades. Those are strategic choices, focused on restructuring your force to leverage an enhanced information environment. Indeed, the quote does say it all.



As to Don Vandergriff - I've read his stuff and talked to him about it. It's not new either. It's brought to the attention of folks who need to see it, but it's done on a daily basis in units in our army. Ken White had some great points here. http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...irregular-war/ But it's still at the tactical level. If it is something that folks latch onto and can say, look we're improving our Army with it, then fine, but it (like many other ideas being thrown around) isn't new. It came from Kriegspiel.

I do think that there are some good ideas there, but they're what we did in Korea when I was a platoon leader and what I put my platoon leaders through when I was a company commander. Reading and playing out scenarios on a terrain board and then critiquing it isn't new - but again (like Ken says) it works and builds adaptive leaders. Just so Don doesn't hate on me, I do think that it needs to be more in TRADOC courses rather than death by slide and I do think that it needs to be more draconian and folks need to be called out when they make mistakes.


Of course its not new. Not sure anyone has ever claimed that adaptive leadership is new. To claim it's prevalent is disingenuous though.

Training by rote is the norm, training by innovation is rare. Don's work is a useful framework for approaching it.

In the context of swarming, his work can help address the need that Ken brought up - ensuring we have highly trained, highly adaptive guys in the field.

[William F. Owen]

Those are strategic choices, focused on restructuring your force to leverage an enhanced information environment. Indeed, the quote does say it all.
Sorry what does this mean? What is an "enhanced information environment?" Knowing stuff?

[Scott Shaw]

Shloky,

I don't know what your perspective is, but just by the nature of the conversations on this board by members of our armed forces and government shows that adaptive leadership is more prevalent than many would like to point out. How far have we come since 2003? How about since 1974?

Check out Paul Yingling's stuff on TRADOC vs the operating force. (as a side not before I bash TRADOC - Is TRADOC completely full of those who want the status quo? Of course not. Folks in TRADOC come from the operating force and therefore fresh blood in. And it's getting much better than it was.) The operating force adapts everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan. I left theater in Jun 2008 and returned in Aug 2009 and then entire division AO had changed rules completely. No more unilateral operations, no more "1 Iraqi = combined ops" A bunch of officers including general officers, NCOs, and Soldiers had to start over in and be ready to go again against some hard fighters in about 30 days. That's adaptive.

Yeah, I acknowledge that we have some work to do, but cut us some slack. Don's primary arguments are against the institutional Army and they are changing as well. Don's website and the USMA Department of Military Instruction show it.

So, no, I don't think that I'm being disingenuous.

And JSOC's small teams doing stuff is still tactical or at the very highest operational. They may have an effect that is seen at the strategic level, but that is still only one or at max two elements of national power. IF we were to expand USSOCOM's mission to affect all of the elements of national power, it would only be able to do it in a small region. And if we were to expand it completely, we might as well re-name USSOCOM the "Department of Everything." It might be easier, but again, every other department within the USG would have to sign on to it - as they did the stability operations doctrine.

Scott

[shloky]

Sorry what does this mean? What is an "enhanced information environment?" Knowing stuff?

Knowing more stuff, better, faster, than before.

[shloky]

Scott,

Hey, sure. There's been progress on the training front, not trying to discount that. We're not 'there' yet though.



And JSOC's small teams doing stuff is still tactical or at the very highest operational. They may have an effect that is seen at the strategic level, but that is still only one or at max two elements of national power. IF we were to expand USSOCOM's mission to affect all of the elements of national power, it would only be able to do it in a small region. And if we were to expand it completely, we might as well re-name USSOCOM the "Department of Everything." It might be easier, but again, every other department within the USG would have to sign on to it - as they did the stability operations doctrine.


My point was JSOC is a good prototype. A model that can be used as a starting point for implementing a swarming doctrine across DoD.

As you describe, of course reforming bureaucracy will be a long, arduous process full of compromises - that's the nature of reform. Don't think that's a good reason not to though.

[Schmedlap]

By "swarming" are we referring to a tactic similar to what the guerrillas used against the US COP in Wanat? That is fine if you're a third-world guerrilla. American forces have a much pickier public back home that gets upset if anyone dies.

For us, why bother swarming? I'm reminded of a book that I read before joining the Army (http://www.amazon.com/Spec-Ops-Studies-Operations-Practice/dp/0891416005). While it's focus is on Special Operations forces, the lessons in it are equally applicable to any force the is outnumbered or facing a well-prepared enemy. Swarming seems like a less efficient use of resources, that is more difficult to C2, with negligible, if any, benefits.

[Firn]

After having read quite a bit about self-organization, mostly concerning ants and termites I want to throw in some thoughts. An interesting presentation can be found here (http://staff.washington.edu/paymana/swarm/dicaro_lecture1.pdf).



According to Scott Camazine.. [et al.]:

“ In biological systems self-organization is a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower-level components of the system. Moreover, the rules specifying interactions among the system's components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern.[7]

So far so good. A slide of the linked PPP.



Basic ingredients:


Multiple interactions

Amplification of fluctuations and Randomness

Positive feedback (e.g., recruitment and reinforcement)

Negative feedback (e.g., limited number of available foragers)



To make self-organization work you need a lot of active and responsive components which interact through a complex web communications and feedbacks. For termites this includes a "random" walk in search of food, the amazing construction of huge mounts to the highly integrated defense of it against attackers*.


Another slide.


How is self-organization achieved?

Communication is necessary:


Point-to-point: antennation, trophallaxis (food or liquid exchange), mandibular contact, direct visual contact, chemical contact, . . . unicast radio contact!


Broadcast-like: the signal propagates to some limited extent throughout the environment and/or is made available for a rather short time (e.g., use of lateral line in fishes to detect water waves, generic visual detection, actual radio broadcast


Indirect: two individuals interact indirectly when one of them modifies the environment and the other responds to the new environment at a later time. This is called stigmergy (e.g., pheromone laying/following, post-it, web)



We see that in this case pretty much every form of conceivable communication is used to self-organize the colony. There is lot trying things out (random walk, coordinated raid), reaction to local events (scout reports food sources to the next ant), to global events (the broadcasted "alarm" signal warning termites of an attack gets broadcasted through the whole colony by "relay termites"), adaption (switching from a no longer worthwhile food source, stopping an attack on too well defended termite mount). At the core all interesting stuff, most already known, but hard to implement as it touches a lot of subjects. Due to our human nature organizational things become both a further bit more complicated and easier. :D


Firn


*Very interesting stuff but I do not know if it fits in.

[Ken White]

But I can't see most western politicians accepting that; the need for 'control' drives their thinking...:o

Zenpundit:
What I found to be very odd, on a board where strategic thinking is highly valued, that no one addressed Arquilla's introduction where he raised the critical variable of cost-effectiveness of large unit operations against smaller, irregular and networked opponents. Maybe Arquilla was not explicit enough. Let me try.Perhaps because cost effectiveness in this context is either a red straw or a herring man. As is your example. WW II expense are largely irrelevant to fighting today. A WWII Infantryman carried on his person or had usually readily available about $500.00 worth of clothing and equipment in 1944. That's roughly $5,620.00 in 2006 dollars.

His 2006 counterpart will have had about $25,000.00 in clothing and equipment in that year dollars. The majority of that difference is for materiel that did not exist in 1944. The NVG alone can run from 2 to 10K type dependent. Optical sights on all weapons...

Then consider UAVs and other factors.:wry:

That's merely one small point, a far larger issue is what capability those dollars bought and what combat effectiveness was or is produced. Cost effectiveness is too easily skewed to prove that money is being 'wasted.' What should be purchased for the spending is combat effectiveness. I have no doubt what so ever that the average Infantryman in Viet Nam was more capable than his WW II counterpart probably by a factor of two-- and I have no doubt that my serving Son and his contemporaries are miles ahead of us old guys, probably by another factor of at least two and quite possibly up to four. So yes, we're spending more but we're buying far more capability with fewer but considerably more expensive people.

As an aside, comparing wars is rarely wise, all are different and each must be taken on its own merits. My favorite is to point out that we usually fight as Brigades or RCTs and only in two recent wars did we really fight Divisions, so compare WW II to Desert Storm... :D

Further on Viet Nam. You may be correct in your statement of the Historians perception of the embassy seizure in Saigon and I'm old and thus have a suspect memory but my recollection that the embassy seizure was a quite minor blip except for the political wonks who made a big deal out of nothing. Most American pretty much ignored except for being hacked at the politicians US who allowed,even encouraged it to happen. I have to agree with Wilf, most of the Historians have made a hash of Viet Nam -- way too much politics involved in the 'scholarship.'

Shloky:
Which brings us to Ken's point, on which he's absolutely right. It does take a different kind of culture, particularly in regards to training. (Don Vandergriff's leading the way on that front. I'd recommend his books on the topic. )True on the cultural change and there's another point. First the culture change; Not going to happen. Two reasons, the desire for control by Politicians and senior people who do not trust subordinates because they know that our training is weak. Add a refusal to provide the training really required in a Democracy where Mommas get upset at a 1 to 2 percent KIA rate in training -- and that's what effective training will cost. We've only been able to really do that in major wars (Civil, WW I and WW II). We could not or did not do it during Korea, during Viet Nam and we are not doing it now. We train better than we ever have but we are still a long way from training competent soldiers and Marines, Officer or Enlisted right out of initial entry.

Another factor is recruiting people who can and will do the things Argquila and you suggest. I strongly doubt the numbers are there. They could possibly be but you would then create a culture that would make Congress very, very uncomfortable. There are many there who think the Armed forces are already a little to competent...

I agree that Vandergriff's proposals are an improvement but even though only go part way -- and do recall he's been pushing that for over 10 years... :(

[William F. Owen]

Hi Zen "Panther 35 in on the guns"


You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.
So spend blood and treasure for little effect makes no sense? I agree. That's why I want effect over efficiency and not "cheap stuff" or "cost saving." The debate is what serves the purpose. Not what it costs.



Would LBJ have withdrawn from the race for the presidency on March 1st or called a halt to bombing the enemy in order to seek a negotiated settlement? Johnson had called for a military victory in Vietnam, officially, only two and half years earlier. Tet was significant. It did not loose the war, or even represent a turning point. It wasn't Kursk or Stalingrad. - and was the North better of with Nixon than LBJ?

Nixon entered office in January 1969 and started withdrawing troops by late summer. Richard Nixon never had any intention of winning the Vietnam War, though he'd liked to have seen GVN scrape by with some kind of independence, it was not a vital US national interest to him if it did (even less to Kissinger). Nixon had a strategy, unlike LBJ. He was no less determined to "win."

Invading Cambodia or bombing North Vietnam was never used by Nixon to pursue a military victory but in context of gaining the upper hand in a negotiated settlement with Hanoi and triangulating secret diplomacy with Moscow and opening relations with Peking.,
Sorry but it was. It was instrumental in the coup in Cambodia and it knocked out all the major NVA base areas for two years. No single action did more military damage to the NVA than the Cambodian invasion. It was military action focussed on military forces, and yes it had strategic effect.

Watergate and the 73 Oil crisis doomed SVN greatly more than the very minor reversals of Tet five years before. - and ultimately, too many Americans died for no strategic goal the US was prepared to risk against China and the USSR.
Wars are not won and lost on CNN, or the front page of the New York Times.

[shloky]

Wilf,

After reviewing your posts in this thread, it's clear you don't seem to understand how information drives decision making, and, in a broader sense, how the evolution of the information environment would affect that process.

In short, you are essentially blind to an entire feature of the modern terrain. In classic terms, it is like being unaware of the existence of cliffs.

[Fuchs]

That's why I want effect over efficiency and not "cheap stuff" or "cost saving." The debate is what serves the purpose. Not what it costs.


Look up the definition of efficiency.
It's effect per cost.

There's no way how a look at effect only (ignoring cost) could be superior to a look at efficiency.
The word has been mis-used by unintelligent parrots a lot, but that doesn't change its definition.

[Ken White]

is he saying that flawed perceptions from erroneous or politically skewed information should not drive decisions?

I suspect he like I knows that happens but bitterly regrets that it does. It isn't a question of wishful thinking, simply stating the fact that it happens, should not -- and need not. As he said, a lot of 'historians' write drivel -- and a lot of decision makers do not allow themselves to be swayed by 'information' (see Bush, G.W. for a recent example).

Take the Saigon Embassy and Tet, both discussed above but in the terms of the historian's views on them . Some of us who were around back then have a totally different take on the actions and reactions to them. While it is true that perception is reality, it is not quite true that Politician's perceptions are deliberately attuned to what they THINK their voters want, they are attuned to what the Politician personally wants and attributes to what his or her voters should want in his or her view.

I believe that and a few other aberrations are the issues Wilf alludes and object to...

Fuchs:
There's no way how a look at effect only (ignoring cost) could be superior to a look at efficiency.Depends on your viewpoint or emphasis. Militarily to look at effectiveness is the only sensible option.

However, holistically and politically for the majority of circumstances you're certainly correct. Cost is, of course, always a factor and in times of peace or near peace it dominates. Frequently in times of minor war it is an inconsequential issue; it literally becomes a non-issue in total existential war or anything near it (like WW II) when military effectiveness and/or combat effectiveness (not the same thing) take precedence, occasionally totally.

The military professional should look solely at effectiveness for his plan and recommendation, the Politicians will then tell him what they will support and he must retool his plans accordingly. In many cases, there will be minimal constraint imposed by 'cost efficient' models and the effectiveness can and will rule what happens. If, however, one plans with an eye on efficiency (which entails giving costs undue emphasis), then one is likely to produce a flawed plan that will not be effective. I emphasize that in this respect, I'm speaking of financial costs only; impacts such as economy of force or effort, casualties, terrain or initiative lost or gained are in reality more an effectiveness issue, current and future, than one of efficiency.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs:Depends on your viewpoint or emphasis. Militarily to look at effectiveness is the only sensible option.

You can maximize effect at given cost or minimize costs at given effect.

There's absolutely no point in preferring effectiveness over efficiency because efficiency in achieving a desired effect (= at minimum cost) is simply unbeatable.
Effectiveness is only about one variable while efficiency considers two important variables - it's a much richer term.

No one with a functioning brain will ever strive for the best ratio of effect and cost and willfully fail to achieve the desired level of effect by doing so.

A military that looks only at effectiveness is bound to waste resources and fail its master, the people, by performing poorly.
Look at the LCS, F-35 or the fuel cost in AFG, Puma for examples. In fact, every Western military force is extremely wasteful because they don't strive for efficiency.
I won't accept any excuse like "militarily only effectiveness counts" because the latter is ethically the same as to send a troop of soldiers every hour to rob a bank.
The damage that wasteful behaviour in the military does to the welfare of the nation is extreme.

Many "victories" were more damaging (net) to the "victorious" nation than staying at peace would have been. The costs of military & war suck and threaten to badly impair the Western nations in their ability to reform themselves for the future.

[William F. Owen]

After reviewing your posts in this thread, it's clear you don't seem to understand how information drives decision making, and, in a broader sense, how the evolution of the information environment would affect that process.
OK. So I don't under how "information drives decision making." So I do not understand the planning process, or command?
That you merely assert it, does not make it so. Kindly provide evidence as to why you think that.

You then state I do not understand "how the evolution of the information environment would affect that process." - So basically, again, I do not understand how the some aspects of information technology effect the planning process and command? Do I understand you correctly?

[William F. Owen]

I suspect he like I knows that happens but bitterly regrets that it does. It isn't a question of wishful thinking, simply stating the fact that it happens, should not -- and need not. As he said, a lot of 'historians' write drivel -- and a lot of decision makers do not allow themselves to be swayed by 'information' (see Bush, G.W. for a recent example).
Thanks Ken. Gold standard as ever.

Information is not understanding and everyone has three versions of history and ten versions of every new story.

[William F. Owen]

Look up the definition of efficiency.
It's effect per cost.

Well aware. I was using the term within the strict confines of military performance and capability. I am also well aware its an issue of balance and high degrees of efficiency have huge pays-offs in effectiveness, and vice versa.
My point is that I want to bias end-states and not process.

[Firn]

I'm going to stick with my initial interpretation of his economic argument as a red herring. He has included it only in a "rhetoric of rectitude" and excluded the broader systems in which it is embedded. as a piece of rhetoric, it's a moderately telling point, but as a piece of rational analysis it is trivial.

I share this point of view just as the accusation of cherry picking. The author commits one of the biggest sin in science, trying to build a case fitting his premediated option by a very biased (and even erroneous) selection of interpretations. I also miss context, context and context.

About the bits about training, initiative and more liberty of movement for the lower levels. This reminds me a bit of a trend in the Germany army doctrine before WWII or I'm wrong Fuchs?

Firn

[Fuchs]

About the bits about training, initiative and more liberty of movement for the lower levels. This reminds me a bit of a trend in the Germany army doctrine before WWII or I'm wrong Fuchs?


I observed how clubs, amateur sports teams and the like organize. Natural leaders who want to lead and have enough respect to do so (without being able to send someone to jail for disobedience) can easily be identified in these environments.
It seems that this 'natural' method of identifying or choosing leaders may be superior to some extent and in some cases to the "this is Lt XY, salute your new platoon leader!" approach.

I did also observe how almost no-one is a natural born leader. Most people have a high tolerance for crap and don't intervene to fix problems*. Almost no-one is interested in training others to enable the team to perform better as a whole. Few dare to push forward and raise the mood when things go wrong.

On several occasions I grew tired of some chaos I spotted and organized teams. The reactions were about 10% overtly positive, 85% followed and 5% disagreed. Many noted that they were relieved that finally someone brought some plan and organization into the affair. I didn't organize because someone authorized or even commanded me to do so - it simply worked because someone in the crow suddenly was accepted as leader & coordinator.


Having observed many inexplicable cases of idiots in NCO or officer rank, I grew quite skeptical about the "let's select men with potential and teach them to be leaders" approach. It's slow at best.

That's where my interest in self-organisation comes from.


-------
*: And I say this based on observations among Germans who have - as I learned recently from a foreigner - the reputation that they police each other to maintain order.

[Ken White]

You can maximize effect at given cost or minimize costs at given effect.There are others. Lot of gray out there...
There's absolutely no point in preferring effectiveness over efficiency because efficiency in achieving a desired effect (= at minimum cost) is simply unbeatable.Unbeatable in many respects, no question -- but sometimes the desired result will require a degree of effectiveness to be achieved that is inefficient. ;)
Effectiveness is only about one variable while efficiency considers two important variables - it's a much richer term.It also puts the two variables in competition.

Sometimes efficiency will win, occasionally effectiveness will.
No one with a functioning brain will ever strive for the best ratio of effect and cost and willfully fail to achieve the desired level of effect by doing so.I agree with that, however, not everyone has a functioning brain. If one has functioning brain, one may occasionally run across an opponent whose brain functions a little better, causing efficiency to take second place to effectiveness. :eek:
The damage that wasteful behaviour in the military does to the welfare of the nation is extreme.We can agree on that as well
Many "victories" were more damaging (net) to the "victorious" nation than staying at peace would have been.And that... :cool:
The costs of military & war suck and threaten to badly impair the Western nations in their ability to reform themselves for the future.Probably true. Shame there are people out there who either don't realize that or don't care... :rolleyes:

Economics is indeed the dismal science. Warfare OTOH is not a scientific endeavor -- it is the application of an art. Art is inherently inefficient.

[William F. Owen]

Based on some private e-mails from lurkers on this board, I think I can now add this,

Swarming is essentially perceived phenomena by people observing a condition and arbitrarily assigning the word "swarm" to what they see. It has no basis in tactical doctrine, other than the successful application of normal and well understood tactical applications may look like a "swarm" to the victim.

[zenpundit]

Dr. Marc,


The devil, however, is in the details and, let's face it, the details in both Iraq and Afghanistan morphed into the construction of "democracies" which was not part of the original, political calculus of cost; neither were the "insurgencies" .

Very true. Iraq was a stretch and Afghanistan morphing in under a half-century is an impossibility.


That being said, then why has the response to the economic "warfare" of various and sundry financial institutions not been dealt with in a similar manner? Why is he not advocating swarming by accountants which, IMHO, would have far more effect

Amen. For an anthropologist, you are a fine economist.

Ken,

Impressive response. You wrote:


That's merely one small point, a far larger issue is what capability those dollars bought and what combat effectiveness was or is produced. Cost effectiveness is too easily skewed to prove that money is being 'wasted.' What should be purchased for the spending is combat effectiveness. I have no doubt what so ever that the average Infantryman in Viet Nam was more capable than his WW II counterpart probably by a factor of two-- and I have no doubt that my serving Son and his contemporaries are miles ahead of us old guys, probably by another factor of at least two and quite possibly up to four. So yes, we're spending more but we're buying far more capability with fewer but considerably more expensive people.

Fuchs already carried on the discussion with you on effectiveness/efficiency, so I won't beat a dead horse.

Agree with you that combat-effectiveness per soldier has been greatly multiplied (very Cebrowskian :)), and expensive technology is part of that. That's a good thing. I'm not looking for cost savings by going "cheap" on what individuals or small units use. Given pie-in-the-sky objectives by politicians, the military naturally tries to secure maximum deployment of personnel and resources when most of the realistic military objectives (as opposed to political/diplomatic/economic objectives) that can be acheived in any given situation short of a great power war require less. Sometimes much less because the military is often used as a blunt instrument for inherently political and murkily complex problems ( ex. Lebanon 1980's, Somalia and Haiti 1990's) to which they are ill-suited as the primary instrument of national policy.

I fully understand the perspective of military specialists needing to plan a campaign or a mission from the point of effectiveness over cost. They should. However, the purpose of civilian leadership in is to ensure that the war effort is sustainable over time until victory is acheived, which means setting parameters and priorities whether it is "Germany, First", "Don't go north of the Yalu" or "we're building carriers not battleships". Our national political leadership have pursued the war on terror generally in a way that maximizes expenditure without maximizing effect. As we are waging war on borrowed money, we ought to, at least, bring our strategic goals into alignment with what the military is most likely to be able to accomplish and put more heft into the activities of HUMINT operators, diplomats and economic development rather than chase diminishing returns with marginal dollars.

Wilf,


Tet was significant. It did not loose the war, or even represent a turning point. It wasn't Kursk or Stalingrad. - and was the North better of with Nixon than LBJ?

LBJ was inept in foreign affairs and Nixon was adept. After Tet both sought a negotiated settlement with North Vietnam, but the difference is LBJ had no idea even how to begin such a process and Nixon did; moreover, he intended to try and drive a hard bargain with Hanoi. Nixon's foremost worry in the summer of 1968 was that LBJ would give away the store to the Communists in order to get Humphrey elected.


Nixon had a strategy, unlike LBJ. He was no less determined to "win."

We agree that Richard Nixon had a strategy. Unfortunately, winning in Vietnam was not part of it and never was ( to use one of your phrases, such a position is "evidence-free"). In Nixon's own words he was looking for "unexplored avenues to probe" in "finding a way to end the war".

Nixon began moving beyond Vietnam as a national priority in 1967 when he penned "Asia After Vietnam" for Foreign Affairs. This position hardened after his pre-presidential campaign world tour. The idea that Nixon intended to "win" is belied by the record of Kissinger's Paris talks and numerous other documents.


Sorry but it was. It was instrumental in the coup in Cambodia and it knocked out all the major NVA base areas for two years. No single action did more military damage to the NVA than the Cambodian invasion. It was military action focussed on military forces, and yes it had strategic effect.

Sorry, it was not. With Cambodia, Nixon gave his military leaders - whom he did not trust, nor who trusted him - far more of what they had been asking to do for years but this was in part because of the demands he was imposing on them with the pace of troop withdrawals. Arguably, Cambodia bought GVN a breathing space and was the right thing to do but it was not (and did not) going to compel Hanoi to come to terms. It was on Saigon, not Hanoi that the USG ultimately imposed peace terms.


Watergate and the 73 Oil crisis doomed SVN greatly more than the very minor reversals of Tet five years before

Watergate certainly rendered Nixon and later Ford of extending air power and military assistance to GVN as the USG had promised Saigon. Tet however did not doom GVN, it changed American perceptions of the war and political support for it here at home.

[William F. Owen]

Arguably, Cambodia bought GVN a breathing space and was the right thing to do but it was not (and did not) going to compel Hanoi to come to terms. It was on Saigon, not Hanoi that the USG ultimately imposed peace terms.
So what did compel Hanoi to start peace talks?
By 1972, Nixon is sending more Carriers, mining North Vietnamese harbours and increasing the bombing. NVA desertions reach record levels. Military force is getting Nixon what Nixon wants - flawed as those desires maybe.

My point is that even as late as 1973, the Vietnam War was America's to loose. This had all moved things on a very far way from the very minor tactical effects of Tet, 4-5 Years earlier!!

[Rex Brynen]

Swarming is essentially perceived phenomena by people observing a condition and arbitrarily assigning the word "swarm" to what they see. It has no basis in tactical doctrine, other than the successful application of normal and well understood tactical applications may look like a "swarm" to the victim.

Nicely put. For example:


Hizbollah guerilla fighters "swarmed" Israeli Merkava MBTs (Main Battle Tanks)–including possibly Merkava Mk4 MBTs–and fired at the sides and rear of the tanks with multiple ATGMs simultaneously.... ATGMs placed in over-watch positions at the rear provided fire support for Hizbollah fighters in the frontline trenches and hidden bunkers, who would suddenly pop out and attack the Merkava tanks at close range with their swarm tactics, and then quickly disappear again...

Are Anti-Tank Guided Missiles the New Primary Threat in Urban Warfare/MOUT? (http://www.defensereview.com/are-anti-tank-guided-missiles-the-new-primary-threat-in-urban-warfaremout/), Defense Review, 19 August 2006.

Which shorn of the trendy "swarm" word, actually means:

Hizbullah conducted AT ambushes. Having done so, they then took cover.

Personally, I think we could go further with the application of analogies drawn from the animal kingdom to make warfare sound more avant-garde. For a start, I would suggest replacing platoon with "hunting pack," CAS with "raptor strikes," and C4I with "hive brain."

[William F. Owen]

Are Anti-Tank Guided Missiles the New Primary Threat in Urban Warfare/MOUT? (http://www.defensereview.com/are-anti-tank-guided-missiles-the-new-primary-threat-in-urban-warfaremout/), Defense Review, 19 August 2006.

Which shorn of the trendy "swarm" word, actually means:

Hizbullah conducted AT ambushes. Having done so, they then took cover.
...a good example of people looking a reports of phenomena, extrapolating and getting it wrong.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by William F. Owen
Swarming is essentially perceived phenomena by people observing a condition and arbitrarily assigning the word "swarm" to what they see. It has no basis in tactical doctrine, other than the successful application of normal and well understood tactical applications may look like a "swarm" to the victim.

Agree with you that "military" examples cited are pretty lame, and probably the result of someone asking RAND to do a study on what swarming means to the military. Every military tactic I have seen described as swarming is simply an ambush, encirclement, isolating maneuver, raid, etc. Absolutely nothing new, and largely a waste of tax payers dollars to conduct such a study.

Going back to my original post where I cited examples ranging from the activists in Iran, the Battle for Seattle, etc. as potential events that could be described as swarming (though still no utility in doing so), where you have a trigger event(s) and a spontaneous reaction that self-organizes (to some extent). Kind of like kicking a hornet's nest. The hornets don't have a plan for such an event (an assumption), but quickly react by swarming their poor attacker. Understanding it that way may have some value (the availability of information globally can lead to spontaneous swarming events, etc.), but tend to agree with the so what crowd. Need to call it what it is, but on the other hand the study of such biological phenomia is fascinating.

[zenpundit]

Wilf wrote:


So what did compel Hanoi to start peace talks?
By 1972, Nixon is sending more Carriers, mining North Vietnamese harbours and increasing the bombing. NVA desertions reach record levels. Military force is getting Nixon what Nixon wants - flawed as those desires maybe.

My point is that even as late as 1973, the Vietnam War was America's to loose.

While Richard Nixon was a complex and morally flawed man, when he was at his best as a statesman there's much there worthy of admiration and close study. Coming into office having been dealt the worst hand of any president since FDR, he played his cards shrewdly.

The negotiations began in 1968, the Paris Accords were signed in 1973. Who was most effective in using military force to acheive political ends is best judged by which side got most of what they wanted. In my view, what Nixon managed to eke out from Hanoi with punishing bombing campaigns was an unreciprocal release of American POWs and a longer "decent interval" for the GVN than Hanoi might have preferred. That's about it.

Now, Nixon was being actively undercut by liberal Democrats in Congress at every step, some of whom, IMHO, badly wanted the US to lose the war for ideological and partisan reasons and were also nasty and vindictive toward our South Vietnamese allies - a prime example being our sitting Vice-President's whose conduct as a freshman senator toward South Vietnamese refugees was a disgrace. If Nixon had popular support, he might have pressed North Vietnam still harder with military force and gotten a better deal, but his objective was always cutting a deal that could be sold at home, not a victory.

[wm]

Sorry to come late to this debate, but . . .


In WWII, the US spent approximately $ 330 billion 1940 dollars to wage war. By any standard that was a lot of money. However, for that fantastic sum, the US received a considerable strategic and tactical ROI including: contributing to the destruction, defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan; the deaths of roughly 11 million Axis soldiers and civilians; according to John Keegan, producing enough equipment and munitions to outfit 1200 divisions; thousands of combatant ships; 300,000 planes and three functioning atomic bombs, two of which saw use against the enemy.

Now, taking the lower-end estimate expenditure of $ 1 trillion for the war on terror, how does the ROI today compare to the example of WWII?

We have killed or captured low thousands (less than 10k) Islamist insurgents, some of who are al Qaida (President Bush claimed 75 % of AQ leadership) but AQ has held out against the US more than twice as long as the Wehrmacht and still has refuge in Pakistan. We have occupied Afghanistan and overthrown the Taliban government that hosted AQ, but the Taliban too has a refuge in Pakistan and continues to field fighters in Afghanistan. We invaded and occupied Iraq and needed a prolonged campaign to pacify the country and managed to exterminate an AQ affiliate there ( that only appeared because of our invasion). We have circumscribed AQ's operational capacity but from 2001-2010, the group has still managed to sporadically sponsor/inspire significant acts of terrorism in allied countries.
It might be worth comparing apples to apples. The two efforts are of completely different kinds in oh so many fundamental ways. As a simple example consider constancy of purpose in the two conflicts (and that is problematic because OIF and OEF are, and were, not one conflict.) From the Allies’ perspective, World War II had a fairly constant scope. I do not think the same can be said for the efforts now categorized as overseas contingency operations in the CENTCOM AOR. When scope and requirements are not defined early and held constant, then the cost of execution rises significantly. Don’t just take my word for it; take a look at most Defense acquisition programs.

There are significant potential costs to not having big forces. Agreed. I am not interested in having a military that cannot operate large units.
That said, using big units where smaller ones work with greater efficiency and effectiveness is a poor tactical choice.
It is a poor strategic choice if you cannot afford to deploy large units in order to use them inefficiently for years on end. This too is a significant cost - a threat actually - to our overall military capabilities
We can have big units and use them where/when big units work best and select more appropriate tools or degrees of force for other tasks, husbanding our resources for larger problems when they come along.

. . .

You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs (sic) different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.The assertions made in this second set of quotations have no basis. Where is the double blind test that shows that small units do better than “big battalions” in a given operational scenario? Comparing the effort from the initial days of OEF in Afghanistan with how things happen to be proceeding on the ground today is another example of comparing apples to oranges. The thinking expressed in this combined quotation is similar to the stuff that Bentham and Mill used to justify Utilitarianism as a moral theory. One sets a problem that is impossible of solution when one tries to justify a decision by comparing its consequences to the hypothetical consequences of a decision not made or a course of action not taken. One cannot turn back the hands of time, replay the tape, and choose a different path. One can say that a given action produced more happiness, greater cost benefit, etc. than another that was not chosen but that is because the act not chosen, being unchosen, produced nothing. But, that is really the degenerate case.

[marct]

Hi Zen,


Very true. Iraq was a stretch and Afghanistan morphing in under a half-century is an impossibility.

Yeah, what more can I say on that one :wry:.


Amen. For an anthropologist, you are a fine economist.

Oi vey! I guess we never can get rid of some of our roots (I was originally accepted into university in economics .....:o).

[zenpundit]

Late is always better than never!


It might be worth comparing apples to apples. The two efforts are of completely different kinds in oh so many fundamental ways. As a simple example consider constancy of purpose in the two conflicts (and that is problematic because OIF and OEF are, and were, not one conflict.) From the Allies’ perspective, World War II had a fairly constant scope

Actually there's no more logical reason to keep WWII conceptually aggregated than the War on Terror. There's very little the kind of fighting Stillwell did in Burma had in common with the invasion of Sicily, strategic bombing of Germany or the Battle of the Coral Sea. The lack of constancy and magnitude of scope was itself a great challenge for Marshall and the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Were it not for Hitler's gratuitous stupidity in declaring war on the US, FDR would have faced a serious political obstacle in linking the war in Europe to America's war with Japan.


Where is the double blind test that shows that small units do better than “big battalions” in a given operational scenario? Comparing the effort from the initial days of OEF in Afghanistan with how things happen to be proceeding on the ground today is another example of comparing apples to oranges.

Having a priori ruled out using case studies, even those occurring in the same battlespace conducted by the same military within a short period of time, what is your proposal for conducting such a double-blind test of combat operations?

[wm]

Actually there's no more logical reason to keep WWII conceptually aggregated than the War on Terror. There's very little the kind of fighting Stillwell did in Burma had in common with the invasion of Sicily, strategic bombing of Germany or the Battle of the Coral Sea. The lack of constancy and magnitude of scope was itself a great challenge for Marshall and the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Were it not for Hitler's gratuitous stupidity in declaring war on the US, FDR would have faced a serious political obstacle in linking the war in Europe to America's war with Japan.
Unlike World War II, the current conflicts, OIF (soon to be Operation New Dawn or OND) and OEF, will not really matter much in the great scheme of things should the coalition's efforts be less than successful. The magnitude of evil being confronted there pales in comparison to that manifested by the opposition during WWII. (By the way, had Hitler not declared war on the US, I submit that FDR would have had little trouble getting the US involved in the ETO once the evil of the Nazi regime became apparent to Americans.) That is the connection I was trying to suggest in my early post about constancy of mission. I see the point about operational/tactical differences in different WWII theaters to be a non sequitur. Of course the techniques used varied depending on whether operations were cfonducted in CBI, North Africa, the Russian steppes or the frozen Karelian Peninsula; that is the essence of METT-TC. What did not change was the strategic mission: to compel the aggressor Axis nations to surrender unconditionally. There was no mission creep, as much as Churchill and Patton may have wanted it.

Having a priori ruled out using case studies, even those occurring in the same battlespace conducted by the same military within a short period of time, what is your proposal for conducting such a double-blind test of combat operations?
I don't think I ruled out case studies a priori. In certain circumstances, case studies would be an excellent approach. In fact I suspect that a properly constructed and presented case study approach is germane in the present analysis. I was also not proposing that we use a double blind test in combat. What I was suggesting is that an appeal to consequences as a means of comparing the goodness of alternatives is not likely to be an appropriate methodological approach for the current subject.
Instead, I would argue from analogy (which is the essence of the case study approach) and would look for data upon which to make a basis for analogy. In the case at hand, I would like to know whether you could cite some examples that are relevantly similar, examples where big battalions did not get the job done and some other examples, also relevantly similar, where small units did achieve the desired results. As part of the discussion, I think you also need to cash out what counts as desired results and justify that normative position. If neither of these pieces is missing, then I submit that your position,
using big units where smaller ones work with greater efficiency and effectiveness is a poor tactical choice.
is merely handwaving. It may in fact be the case that an effective and efficient solution is not what the national leadership is really after here, just as it may not really matter what tactical choices one makes because strategic and/or operational considerations may far outweigh the tactical ones.

[William F. Owen]

There's very little the kind of fighting Stillwell did in Burma had in common with the invasion of Sicily, strategic bombing of Germany or the Battle of the Coral Sea. The lack of constancy and magnitude of scope was itself a great challenge for Marshall and the Combined Chiefs of Staff.
Hmmm.... I'm not sure I get your point. In WW2, as with today, combat is combat. Sure there are theatre specific peculiarities, but so what?
Infantry men in Burma and Sicily would have a very great deal in common. Yes there are differences, but why are they relevant, beyond the obvious?

Am I missing the point?

[Rex Brynen]

To get back to Arquilla's original argument about the need for smaller/smarter/more flexible/networked forces as a necessary response to networked insurgents using a "swarm" approach, it struck me today that we actually have a paired comparison of two militaries, organized along radically different lines, faced with insurgencies in similar human and physical terrain:

1) Ba'thist Iraq versus various Kurdish insurgencies, and the 1991 uprising in the south

2) US/coalition/Iraqi forces versus various Iraqi insurgencies, 2003-present

The ponderous, hierarchical, Soviet-style Iraqi military was, by any possible measure, for more successful at suppressing insurgents than has been the much more flexible, modular, networked US military... quite the reverse of what Arquilla's argument would suggest.

The answer, as I'm sure everyone realizes, is rooted in the willingness of the Ba'th to use force in certain ways, and the balance of terror that it was thereby able to establish. Don't get me wrong--I'm not suggesting the "Roman" (or Ba'thist) model as an appropriate approach for post-Cold War Western COIN and stability operations. I am suggesting that what has changed here is not so much the rise of the "swarm" but the very much greater importance of the changing social, political, normative, legal, and informational milieu within which COIN operations take place.

[William F. Owen]

The ponderous, hierarchical, Soviet-style Iraqi military was, by any possible measure, for more successful at suppressing insurgents than has been the much more flexible, modular, networked US military... quite the reverse of what Arquilla's argument would suggest.

Excellent point.

[Ken White]

My first thought on reading about the the swarms in the article was of a US or generally western 'swarm' element operating under western constraints confronting an opponent who did not operate under those constraints...:(

[Ron Humphrey]

Trying to keep up with you guys is becoming ever more difficult. Although I think I have been able to track with the majority of the conversation i have one ?

IF your looking at "swarming" in relation to war is it too much of an oversimplification to start back at square one and look for examples of swarming in other arenas first to get perspective?

I think someone else mentioned biological examples so for me that automatically brought to mind animals(Bees)(Bats) and cells(reproduction/viruses,etc)

In the former Why is it that bees however small can take down a much more robust opponent is it because even though they be outmatched in capability they out number the target. In this case doesn't the swarming relate more to the fact that no one attacks at one place at one time, but that they may repeatedly attack the same place many times. Just depends on time and space available.

One more example brought to mind was water. Why is it that something that takes a very specialized tool to breakdown(earth,rocks.etc) can be worn down by water in such fashion as it is. Is it not that the water flows to such space as it is afforded and never ceases to seek new paths . Isn't this another type of swarming.

Long and short
Is it too "simplistic" to say that the key strength in swarming might be found in its ability to recognize and act on any vacuum afforded in a given path

[wm]

The ponderous, hierarchical, Soviet-style Iraqi military was, by any possible measure, for more successful at suppressing insurgents than has been the much more flexible, modular, networked US military... quite the reverse of what Arquilla's argument would suggest.

The answer, as I'm sure everyone realizes, is rooted in the willingness of the Ba'th to use force in certain ways, and the balance of terror that it was thereby able to establish. Don't get me wrong--I'm not suggesting the "Roman" (or Ba'thist) model as an appropriate approach for post-Cold War Western COIN and stability operations. I am suggesting that what has changed here is not so much the rise of the "swarm" but the very much greater importance of the changing social, political, normative, legal, and informational milieu within which COIN operations take place.

Well put Rex, but I suspect that the answer is not quite as simple as tipping "the balance of terror." Neither the Ba'athists nor their opponents were fighting with home field advantage (or both were). As natives, they could be very effective because they shared the language and culture of their opposition. In contrast to that, while its opponents were able to follow Mao's precept of swimming ln the ocean of the people, the Coalition, consisting of outsiders, was not quite as lucky . The Baathists, being locals, knew what kind of bait to use to catch the fish. The coalition forces were much more like tourists on a fishing trip far from home. They weren't even sure which pools were stocked, much less what kind of tackle to use.

Furthermore, I doubt that the "importance of the . . social, political, normative, legal, and informational milieu within which COIN operations take place" has changed much since when Titus finished up the work of his father Vespasian and quashed the Jewish Revolt in 70 AD or when Marius and Sulla won the Social War of 91-88 BC. What may be different is how well various forces involved in fighting against insurgencies, insurrections, and revolts recognize and apply those parts of METT-TC (or whatever fancy acronym du jour one wishes to apply) which reflect that milieu.

[Ken White]

Long and short
Is it too "simplistic" to say that the key strength in swarming might be found in its ability to recognize and act on any vacuum afforded in a given pathI believe it to be accurate at any rate. However, militarily, problems arise in several areas:

- Recognizing. The really big one...

- Getting the massive numbers available to a swarm of bees is problematical; add getting most much less all the actors in a swarm of humans, unlike bees, to do the correct thing at the right time...

- Rocks are tough and durable but they are also static and rarely react to, evade, withdraw temporarily or counterattack the water that erodes them over considerable time -- time which may not be available to a military force...

That's not to say that swarms won't work, just that the fates must be kind and the reliability of effective action is unlikely to be adequate to satisfy most commanders or politicians -- the human factor (on the part of the Swarmers, the Swarmees and their respective bosses... :wry: ).

[Fuchs]

The ponderous, hierarchical, Soviet-style Iraqi military was, by any possible measure, for more successful at suppressing insurgents than has been the much more flexible, modular, networked US military... quite the reverse of what Arquilla's argument would suggest.

They failed to defeat the Kurds and they had it easy with the Shi'ite rising just as the MC had it easy at Fallujah.

The Iraqi army did furthermore not do the job (that it did) alone. Saddam had powerful intelligence service(s?). That was crucial for the suppression of the kind of low level resistance that the foreigners faced since 2003.

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

About swarming: I'm beyond the typical age for it (I'm 33), but let's out myself as someone who played a bit online, mostly in pvp (player vs player) battles.
The example is very useful in regard to swarming.

#1
The basic mode of pvp is that everyone "fights" as an individual, merely taking into account what others do. A team without voice communication acts often like an animal swarm, pack, herd. They move into position and suddenly one decides to attack and all attack. This sudden decision can also define what target will be attacked or the route or direction of attack.

#2
This becomes much more effective when voice communication is being added. Targets are called, one calls for patience, help is being requested, reports are made and the attack is usually timed.

#3
A team with voice comm and a leader becomes more effective, quicker and less wasteful (in regard to time, firepower, opportunities).

#4
There's also the possibility of a very leader-controlled encounter with a great degree of control. This mode is extremely slow, but it's very capable in predictable, complex situations. It's rarely used in pvp, but very common in pve (player versus environment, that is: against computer-controlled opponents).

#5
Then again a team that has played together for a while can be very different again; voice comm loses relevance because they know what to do, when and how. They can again approach the basic mode of operation; keep eyes open and try to do what's necessary to win. Central control can be reduced to three or fire commands with a total of less than 20 words - in a "fight" of 10-30 minutes.
The effect is usually superior to all previous modes despite the similarity with the first one.



Swarming can be seen as simply "keep eyes open and use your brain" and nothing special. It's quite different from orthodox tactics, though.

Let's call #1 incompetent swarming, #2 leaderless cooperation, #3 mission tactics, #4 order tactics and #5 competent swarming.

I assure you that #3 is superior to #5 in a crisis, but that's the only exception to the otherwise universal superiority of #5 in PvP.


I observed these patterns and results in different games, with German and international (English-speaking) players, over years and with very different game mechanics. Teams were 5 to 40 players strong.

I'm convinced that I observed universal, natural human behaviour patterns (at least for males, age group 16-45).

#5 works usually best. Do not take it lightly, and don't despise it for a superficial similarity to #1. Incompetence is possible in any system.

It may be difficult to extrapolate this stuff to the behaviour of small units or units instead of individuals. Nevertheless, "swarming" is something that we should look at.
History (a trend away from authoritarian control in the Western world) suggests that we probably know enough about leadership by exogenously enforced authority, but probably not enough about decentralized, independent yet cooperative forms of coordination.

A modern military is a bureaucracy. I served long enough in the Bundeswehr to know what this means. Such a bureaucracy has a tendence to develop according to the preferences of the bureaucratic hive mind. That does not need to be optimal, it's certainly averse to self-organisation ("disorder") and there's pretty much a technological lock-in in favour of what we know as orthodox military doctrine, command & control.
Others who do not get "educated" by such a bureaucratic can revert to more "natural" modes of operation. They do not need to break through a technological lock-in barrier. They may actually use methods that are superior in sizeable niches.

[jmm99]

and MAJ Shannon's thesis. The FP article by Arquilla, The New Rules of War (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/22/the_new_rules_of_war?page=full), mentioned the Mongol "Crow Swarm":


Simultaneous attack from several directions might be at the very cutting edge in conflict, but its lineage is quite old. Traditional tribal warfare, whether by nomadic horse archers or bush fighters, always featured some elements of swarms. The zenith of this kind of fighting probably came with the 13th-century Mongols, who had a name for this doctrine: "Crow Swarm." When the attack was not carried out at close quarters by charging horsemen, but was instead conducted via arrows raining down on massed targets, the khans called it "Falling Stars."

Classing the highly organized Mongol forces under Subodai (I'd call them conventional light and heavy cavalry) as "traditional tribal warriors" seemed a bit suspect to me, so I Googled up "Crow Swarm" and "Mongol". I found a master's thesis by MAJ William D. Shannon (USMC), Swarm Tactics and the Doctrinal Void: Lessons from the Chechen Wars (http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA483607) (June 2008), U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (John Arquilla was a thesis advisor).

MAJ Shannon's issues (pp.16-17 pdf):


Is there potential to turn swarming concepts into doctrine for U.S. forces? In order to answer this question, this thesis will ask the following questions:

• Are there relevant historical precedents that provide sufficient analysis to explore development of swarming concepts?

• Does the concept of swarming address any gaps in military doctrine?

• Can we [U.S. forces, and more specifically, Marines] incorporate swarm tactics into our doctrine for use in the offense and defense without drastic changes to organization, command, control and communications (C3), training, and logistics?

and Conclusion (pp.91-92 pdf):


G. CONCLUSION

The research conducted here and in other scholarly and professional publications, coupled with military doctrine and experimentation, all but leads to the conclusion that there is potential to develop doctrinal swarming concepts. This is based on developing answers to the three research questions posed in Chapter I.

First, that the Chechen Wars did provide additional information and lessons learned in relation to not only the war in general, but to this thesis’ independent variables, regarding the use of swarm tactics.

Second, reviewing doctrine and warfighting experiments has confirmed the existence of doctrinal void in the area of swarm tactics, which implies a need to construct doctrinal swarming concepts, engage in experimentation, and promulgate swarm TTPs in doctrine and training.

Finally, with the implementation of the DO concept, our knowledge from the first two research questions and previous scholarly research on swarming, a potential future swarming doctrine concept foundation is set. This would allow Marines and other forces to employ swarm tactics offensively and defend against and repulse enemy swarms. The only thing left for us to do is “do it.”

So, tossing out another piece of red meat to be swarmed on .... ;)

Regards

Mike

PS: MAJ Shannon presents four "swarming" examples from history (pp. 18-23 pdf)


1. The Mongol Swarm ....

2. Napoleon’s Retreat from Russia ....

3. The Winter War ....

4. The Soviet Afghan War ....

I expect there will be some controversy about those examples. :)

[Ken White]

#5
Then again a team that has played together for a while can be very different again; voice comm loses relevance because they know what to do, when and how. They can again approach the basic mode of operation; keep eyes open and try to do what's necessary to win. Central control can be reduced to three or fire commands with a total of less than 20 words - in a "fight" of 10-30 minutes. The effect is usually superior to all previous modes despite the similarity with the first one.
...
#5 works usually best. Do not take it lightly, and don't despise it for a superficial similarity to #1. Incompetence is possible in any system.Totally agree. However, you also said:
I assure you that #3 is superior to #5 in a crisis, but that's the only exception to the otherwise universal superiority of #5 in PvPand I can also agree with that

Thus my constant contentions that (a) we do not train as well as we should; and (b) METT-TC is the ultimate ruler of all things...

[zenpundit]

WM wrote:


I don't think I ruled out case studies a priori. In certain circumstances, case studies would be an excellent approach. In fact I suspect that a properly constructed and presented case study approach is germane in the present analysis

No, you arbitrarily ruled out the most germane case study available a priori is all, because it was favorable to small units and of immediate relevance to the current conflict. However, we are in agreement that properly constructed case study approach is a useful methodology. Good, this is progress. We can come back to case studies in a bit.


I was also not proposing that we use a double blind test in combat. What I was suggesting is that an appeal to consequences as a means of comparing the goodness of alternatives is not likely to be an appropriate methodological approach for the current subject.

I never said that you proposed it, WM. What you suggested was that a double-blind test was an appropriate standard of proof for my proposition to have to meet in order to be accepted as valid:


Where is the double blind test that shows that small units do better than “big battalions” in a given operational scenario?

I agree that a double-blind test could provide some convincing evidence to help support or alternatively, to falsify, my proposition that there are some scenarios where small units are better tactical choice than large ones. What I asked of you was that you in turn explain how such a double-blind test of combat operations might be constructed.

I appreciate all the effort you are expending in attempting to school me in basic logic, but along the way, it might be more helpful if you practiced some yourself. Either answer the question and demonstrate how a double-blind test of combat operations might be conducted (the experimental ethics alone should prove to be fascinating explanation) or admit that it was never an appropriate standard of proof to apply in the first place.

Oh, and speaking of non sequiturs.....


Unlike World War II, the current conflicts, OIF (soon to be Operation New Dawn or OND) and OEF, will not really matter much in the great scheme of things should the coalition's efforts be less than successful. The magnitude of evil being confronted there pales in comparison to that manifested by the opposition during WWII

[Rex Brynen]

They failed to defeat the Kurds and they had it easy with the Shi'ite rising just as the MC had it easy at Fallujah.

The sole reason, of course, that they failed to defeat the Kurds was de facto US protection of northern Iraq--hardly a fair test. They did, however, effectively suppress them in 1975 (following the withdrawal of Iranian support) and again at the end of the Iran-Iraq War (ditto).

[wm]

I agree that a double-blind test could provide some convincing evidence to help support or alternatively, to falsify, my proposition that there are some scenarios where small units are better tactical choice than large ones. What I asked of you was that you in turn explain how such a double-blind test of combat operations might be constructed.

I appreciate all the effort you are expending in attempting to school me in basic logic, but along the way, it might be more helpful if you practiced some yourself. Either answer the question and demonstrate how a double-blind test of combat operations might be conducted (the experimental ethics alone should prove to be fascinating explanation) or admit that it was never an appropriate standard of proof to apply in the first place.

We seem to be talking past each other (or are in violent agreement in some regards). I am more than willing to accept that there are tactical scenarios where one organizational construct is more likely to achieve the desired results than another. (See here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=94363&postcount=68) for instance.) My position is not that the double blind test is the appropriate standard of proof for such claims. Rather I hold that an appeal to the principle of utility is an inappropriate form of justification because to prove its claims, one must use a double blind test that cannot (and should not) be applied in the case at hand. Therefore, I will not grab either horn of the false dilemma presented in the quotation above.

You previously professed an hypothesis (although it seemed to be expressed more as an axiom)--using small units sometimes produces more utility (a greater balance of good--economic good in your case) than operating with "the big battalions." I believe that your hypothesis was unproven. I asserted that the appropriate method for proving it would be a double blind test. My suggestion about the double blind test was the conclusion of an enthymeme based on an unstated premise: a double blind test is the way to prove assertions about choosing options based on a comparison of their relative costs and benefits.

I take it from your parenthetic remark about the experimental ethics, that you find conducting such a test to be unethical. So do I. I further suggest that the conduct of such a double blind test is not practically possible--one cannot control for the extremely large number of situational variables. To make the experiment a true double blind, as a minimum the conditions of METT-TC would have to be identical. Two concurrent operations would need both to occupy the same battle space and to engage the same opponents under identical environmental conditions. The experiment would also require the same leadership on each side. I don't think we can perform the cloning and experiential replication needed to meet the leadership requirement in order to conduct the two operations simultaneously. Allowing for the possibility to reset the situation (with the non-human variables replicated and controlled for) and rerun with the alternative force package, one would still need to ensure the leadership "bracketed" out the experiences of the prior operation. How likely is that?

To sum up, my argument is as follows:
1. The truth of the claim you made was undemonstrated;
2. The method of demonstration for the claim's truth is a double blind test;
3. A double blind test of the claim is not feasible, either ethically or practically;
4. If a method of demonstration is not feasible, then the truth of claims that require that demonstration are unknowable;
5. Claims whose truth is unknowable are hand waving.
6. The claim you made was hand waving.

1 is an observation; I presented arguments for the truth of 2 and 3; 4 is a methodological assumption; 5 is a definition; and 6 is the conclusion of the deductive argument.

[Ken White]

I suggest that 4 is not an assumption, it is rather a fact that is dictated by the infinite number of variables probable and that is in addition to the premises stated in 3.

[Infanteer]

The ponderous, hierarchical, Soviet-style Iraqi military was, by any possible measure, for more successful at suppressing insurgents than has been the much more flexible, modular, networked US military... quite the reverse of what Arquilla's argument would suggest.

Was it? Or was it the Ba'athist political system that was more effective.

US forces seemed just as adept at crushing flare ups (Fallujah) as the Republican Guard. The Ba'athist Regime dealt with the day-to-day stuff and Paul Bremer and CPA Law simply could not.

Juxtapose the two - would the ponderous, hierarchical, Soviet-style Iraqi military be effective at suppressing irregular opponents in Texas? They would probably be aiming to "modularize" and gasping for a "population-centric" solution by now as well....

As for the swarming bit, I'm having trouble following it - is an area ambush a swarm? Satellite patrols? What's new about "spreading out"?

[Firn]

As for the swarming bit, I'm having trouble following it - is an area ambush a swarm? Satellite patrols? What's new about "spreading out"?

I think it means something different to a lot of people. Having read a bit about biological swarms, swarm intelligence and self organization I would argue that you can use it for a lot of things. For example:



Fish derive many benefits from shoaling behaviour including defense against predators (through better predator detection and by diluting the chance of capture), enhanced foraging success, and higher success in finding a mate. It is also likely that fish benefit from shoal membership through increased hydrodynamic efficiency.

Fish use many traits to choose shoalmates. Generally they prefer larger shoals, shoalmates of their own species, shoalmates similar in size and appearance to themselves, healthy fish, and kin (when recognized).

On the other hand (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC319259/?page=1):



The nasute soldiers of the neotropical termite Nasutitermes costalis function as scouts by exploring new terrain for food in advance of the worker caste and regulate foraging activity by laying trails composed of sternal gland pheromone. Additional soldiers are at first recruited in large numbers, and subsequently workers appear as the pheromone concentration increases. The role of the nasutes in the organization of foraging is extremely unusual for the soldier caste in social insects and appears to be a component of a foraging/defense system that controls the recruitment of foragers and effectively deters attacks by ants, the most fierce and important predators of termites.

In this swarms the self organization makes sure that termite soldiers get recruited through sophisticated communication, told the objective (food), the intent and to observe METT. By using a combination of stealth and saber they reach the objective, recruit immediatly huge reinforcements "to get there first with most", use the stronger form (defense) and chemical shots to fend off attacking ants, exploit their success and mount after the successful action a fighting retreat. :D

Only half-joking
Firn

[wm]

In this swarms the self organization makes sure that termite soldiers get recruited through sophisticated communication, told the objective (food), the intent and to observe METT. By using a combination of stealth and saber they reach the objective, recruit immediatly huge reinforcements "to get there first with most", use the stronger form (defense) and chemical shots to fend off attacking ants, exploit their success and mount after the successful action a fighting retreat. :D

Only half-joking
Firn

We can problably anthropomorphize almost any description of a phenomenon to make it easier for us to understand it. However, such an anthropomorphic description does not necessarily describe what is actually going on. For example, we could say that a thermostat turns on the air conditioner because it feels too hot, but I doubt that most folks really believe that a mechanical device has any feelings at all. Using gods and spirits as operative elements in describing how and why things work went out of fashion about the same time as phlogiston theory, didn't it?

Once we are able to take Humpty Dumpty's advice and make sure that we, not the word, is the master, I suspect we will find "swarming" is just some old wine in a new bottle. And as we know, no one wine is good for every occasion.

[Dayuhan]

Was it? Or was it the Ba'athist political system that was more effective.

US forces seemed just as adept at crushing flare ups (Fallujah) as the Republican Guard. The Ba'athist Regime dealt with the day-to-day stuff and Paul Bremer and CPA Law simply could not.

Juxtapose the two - would the ponderous, hierarchical, Soviet-style Iraqi military be effective at suppressing irregular opponents in Texas? They would probably be aiming to "modularize" and gasping for a "population-centric" solution by now as well....


I'm not sure Saddam's effective suppression of internal dissent can be attributed purely to his "ponderous, hierarchical, Soviet-style military". Did he not also employ a quite ruthless internal security police, supported by an extensive network of informants? It would seem to me that the function of Saddam's military in suppressing actual regionally distinct instances of rebellion could be duplicated or improved by an effective occupying force, but that it would be difficult or impossible for a foreign power to replicate Saddam's internal security police, a considerable difference.

[Rex Brynen]

I'm not sure Saddam's effective suppression of internal dissent can be attributed purely to his "ponderous, hierarchical, Soviet-style military". Did he not also employ a quite ruthless internal security police, supported by an extensive network of informants? It would seem to me that the function of Saddam's military in suppressing actual regionally distinct instances of rebellion could be duplicated or improved by an effective occupying force, but that it would be difficult or impossible for a foreign power to replicate Saddam's internal security police, a considerable difference.

In many ways, that was precisely my point: the what matters most in successful COIN is not the networked decentralization of the counter-insurgents, but a host of other things.

The Iraqi mukhabarat, it might be added, was also a very old fashion hierarchical organization... but one that was both cross-cut by other patterns of loyalty, and counterbalanced by multiple overlapping systems of internal security and social control. It was also able to use terror in a way that US forces would never use (having spent some time myself in Iraq in the Saddam days, I know well that the level of fear that the regime could create was quite remarkable.)

Platoon for platoon, I would certainly prefer to have lithe and flexible forces over the Iraqi Army (indeed, that accounts for some of the IDF's successes over its Arab neighbours). However, to reduce the ability to respond to contemporary irregular threats to this alone, as the original article does, I think is placing far, far too much weight on a single variable.

[Firn]

Once we are able to take Humpty Dumpty's advice and make sure that we, not the word, is the master, I suspect we will find "swarming" is just some old wine in a new bottle. And as we know, no one wine is good for every occasion.

Agreed. However the new bottles can greatly influence our perception of the old wine and our wine experience. Just as a beautiful glass beats plastic in a classy dinner and drives important businesses.

"The finest glasses for both technical and hedonistic purposes are those made by Riedel. The effect of these glasses on fine wine is profound. I cannot emphasize enough what a difference they make." (Quelle: Robert M. Parker, Jr. The Wine Advocate)


We can problably anthropomorphize almost any description of a phenomenon to make it easier for us to understand it. However, such an anthropomorphic description does not necessarily describe what is actually going on. For example, we could say that a thermostat turns on the air conditioner because it feels too hot, but I doubt that most folks really believe that a mechanical device has any feelings at all. Using gods and spirits as operative elements in describing how and why things work went out of fashion about the same time as phlogiston theory, didn't it?

Also agreed and in my post I tried to point out the muddy nature of this "swarm" business, a word which can be seemingly used and abused almost everywhere. However we do know increasingly more and more on how for example social insects are able to build grand buildings with brilliant thermoregulation, to rely on douleia (greek for slave) labour or to organize complex activities like fungiculture to feed large colonies. There is no magic in that even if it looks like it. The principles which allow such tiny insects to tackle together such tasks are the fascinating part of the story.


Firn

[William F. Owen]

"The finest glasses for both technical and hedonistic purposes are those made by Riedel. The effect of these glasses on fine wine is profound. I cannot emphasize enough what a difference they make." (Quelle: Robert M. Parker, Jr. The Wine Advocate)


...and my wife would argue that only "pu**ies" drink beer from glasses - and it should be drunk from the bottle or can.

...am I missing the point? :wry:

[Firn]

...and my wife would argue that only "pu**ies" drink beer from glasses - and it should be drunk from the bottle or can.

...am I missing the point? :wry:

Perhaps, if you look at the first post of this thread. ;)

Packaging, labeling, marketing are all part of the game, be it a wine (-glass) or idea business thus the phrase of the old wine in new bottles. The author of the article relies greatly on the shiny wordbottles to reinforce some of his better ideas and to create attention for them, but he sadly fails to support his arguments. He still benefits through this article, but not so the target audience, as he may harm the good ideas.


Firn

P.S: Wine or beer, can or glass, it all depends on the METT-T. :p

[marct]

Hi Firn,


Packaging, labeling, marketing are all part of the game, be it a wine (-glass) or idea business thus the phrase of the old wine in new bottles. The author of the article relies greatly on the shiny wordbottles to reinforce some of his better ideas and to create attention for them, but he sadly fails to support his arguments. He still benefits through this article, but not so the target audience, as he may harm the good ideas.

Okay, I going to play scholarly pissant here, the but best translation of the phrase (meme actually) is "old wine in new skins" *not bottles). The reference, IMO, goes back to the absolute stupidity of anyone who would take something good (old wine) and put it into a new container that will make it less good, especially since the new wine skin will change the flavour and, quite possibly, split. It's not a reference to the presentation of the wine, it's a reference to the storage of the wine :D.

Now, on the presentation front, I am all in favour of crystal, especially for good reds. You can ruin the taste of a good wine by using a presentation vessel that changes / destroys its taste; like using a silver goblet for anything but a very sweet red or mead ;).


P.S: Wine or beer, can or glass, it all depends on the METT-T. :p

Nah, never drink beer from a can unless it's already in the making love in a canoe category :p!

[wm]

Okay, I going to play scholarly pissant here, the but best translation of the phrase (meme actually) is "old wine in new skins" *not bottles). The reference, IMO, goes back to the absolute stupidity of anyone who would take something good (old wine) and put it into a new container that will make it less good, especially since the new wine skin will change the flavour and, quite possibly, split. It's not a reference to the presentation of the wine, it's a reference to the storage of the wine :D

From one pedantic pissant to another--
I think the original reference is at Mark 2:22:

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.

The problem is that new wine has not yet finished fermenting. Thus, it could give off more gas, causing the wineskin to expand. An old wineskin, having dried out, is less likely to be able to expand. To relieve the additional pressure, it will split instead.

Maybe, on this analysis, my difficulty with design is that I am indeed trying to put new wine in an old skin--my old conceptual framework (the old wineskin) may be unable to grok the material that is expressed in FM 5.0 under the rubric of design (the new wine).

[marct]

From one pedantic pissant to another--
I think the original reference is at Mark 2:22:

Drat, knew I should have tracked the reference down rather than rely on insufficiently caffeinated memory! Thanks for the correction, WM.


Maybe, on this analysis, my difficulty with design is that I am indeed trying to put new wine in an old skin--my old conceptual framework (the old wineskin) may be unable to grok the material that is expressed in FM 5.0 under the rubric of design (the new wine).

Maybe, but from what I am seeing, it's not "new wine" at all. I'm still slogging through on a line by line read right now....

[William F. Owen]

It took an e-mail of a lurker to remind me of a central point I made recently while speaking in the UK, in reference to Tet.

The flow down effects of the Tet Offensive were because they really happened, not because they got reported and photographed on TV. Media cannot make decisive events "more decisive," in any way that it can make irrelevant events decisive. Media is NOT instrumental. It's merely illustrative.

The only way it can be instrumental to policy is when it actually misleads the policy maker, as the relevance of an event. - something policy makers should not let happen. Accurate reporting can only report real events with real effects.

[Fuchs]

I think the point wasn't about reporting, it was about propaganda and the Americans have their own Dolchstoßlegende that asserts that their own media & Jane Fonda became propagandists for the enemy.

Propaganda, of course, can influence will quite apart from real events.

[Gnaeus]

Apparently, when writing his article and proposing his theory of the "New Rules of War," Arquilla overlooked the Marine Corps' base unit for conducting war...the MAGTF. Rule 1 leads readers to the conclusion that the military has a rigid and inflexible structure that is only suited to fight using large maneuver elements such as divisions. The flaw in Rule 1 becomes especially apparent when examining it next to the MAGTF structure. Arquilla states the the military has a "scaling problem," even though the MAGTF is built around the principals of task-organizing forces based on its mission and scope of operations. The ground combat element of the MAGTF could be a division, if it was required, but the GCE could even be scaled down to company-size if the situation dictated. What I find even more misleading in this article is that Arquilla states "the Marines now routinely subdivide their forces into "expeditionary forces" of several hundred troops each." This further implies that the expeditionary construct of Marine forces was a knee jerk reaction to the current counterinsurgency environment, even though the MAGTF concept has been around and applied since the 1960s. I would think that a Naval Postgraduate School professor would have a better understanding of the composition and doctrine of the Marine Corps.

[Steve the Planner]

Foreign Policy has an interesting article: The New Rules of War.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/22/the_new_rules_of_war?page=0,0

Lots of little interconnected, high-energy teams vs. big army.

Steve

[Ken White]

LINK (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=9795).

Lengthy thread on the article...

[Outlaw 7]

Well welcome to the world of "open source warfare" OSW---was wondering when the rest of the world would catch up.

[Outlaw 7]

Love this---finally someone is talking about swarming attacks which have been the bread and butter of the Sunni insurgency since 2007 and which now has transitioned to the Taliban via internet battle videos.

Read "Swarming on the Battlefield" a 2000 RAND study by Sean Edwards.

Why are we doomed to literally recreate the wheel--this study was commissioned by the Army, swarm attacks have been discussed in open source warfare since 2004, and the Sunni insurgents have shown us their battle videos complete with mission briefs since 2007.

But hey all those videos were deemed to be enemy propoganda!

[Ken White]

A lot of folks have swarmed over the years. That article is not on the cutting edge of anything as a lot of folks pointed out above...

NOTE: Thread merged to preclude redundancy.

[William F. Owen]

Read "Swarming on the Battlefield" a 2000 RAND study by Sean Edwards.
If that's the study I re-read recently it's a very contestable piece of work.

Why are we doomed to literally recreate the wheel--this study was commissioned by the Army, swarm attacks have been discussed in open source warfare since 2004, and the Sunni insurgents have shown us their battle videos complete with mission briefs since 2007.

Sorry, I do not understand "open source warfare." Like Ken White says the imaginary tactic of "swarming" has been around a long time. It's a perception. It's not a doctrine.

Once you boil it down saying "Swarming" is like saying "Choo-choo train." It's OK when you're 8. It's not OK if you're a locomotive engineer.

[politicsbyothermeans]

If a swarm takes a long time, do you call it a surge?

[Outlaw 7]

Anyone here on this blog ask the 1st Cav what they thought about "swarming".

Ask about the high losses at two of their COPS in 2007/2008 and then deduce that there is nothing to swarming---it was the primary battle tactic of the IAI and AAS starting in 2007.

Ask US forces about their losses in recent COP attacks in Afghanistan.

Jesus guys do some reading and asking--- actually the article was the first sign that someone is starting to understand "open source warfare" (OSW).

I cannot believe the number of comments here that seems to wipe the concept of swarming off the table and to a degree want to negate a DoD study by RAND off the table.

[Steve Blair]

Jesus guys do some reading and asking--- actually the article was the first sign that someone is starting to understand "open source warfare" (OSW).

Many of us have, and continue to do so, and that's why some folks here are pointing out that there is nothing especially new or unique about "swarming." You might be better served asking why the professional force as a whole seems to have been so surprised by what is essentially a basic form of tribal-based warfare.

Simply creating a new acronym for a technique does not automatically make it either new or unique. Within our own military history framework, any veteran of the Indian Wars could have told you about swarming, and any helicopter pilot from Vietnam could have told you that RPGs are, in fact, a great anti-helicopter weapon. Yet we seem to have to constantly relearn lessons.

[Outlaw 7]

To all---and where you all when the discussion around "swarming" and "open source warfare" (OSW) broke in of all times 2004 WHEN it was how many months after we entered Iraq? Here is a portion of that article.

Tuesday, 18 May 2004
GLOBAL GUERRILLA SWARMING
Swarming tactics have been used successfully in wars throughout history by a variety of organizations from the tribal Parthians (horse archers) to 20th century Germans (U-boats). Global guerrillas (next generation terrorists) will likely use swarming tactics as part of their doctrine. This technique, in combination with new market-based financing techniques is what's called a killer combo.

Definition.
A good place to start an analysis of swarming is Sean Edwards' "Swarming on the Battlefield (PDF downloads). Here's his excellent definition of swarming: a primary maneuver that results in an attack from multiple directions (all points on the compass) by 5 or more (semi) autonomous units on a single target/unit.

Benefits.
It's easy to see the advantages of this type of maneuver:


•It cuts the enemy target off from supply and communications.

•It adversely impacts the moral of the target.

•It makes a coordinated defense extremely difficult (resource allocation is intensely difficult).

•It radically increases the potential of surprise.

Types.
Swarming is typically divided into two types:
Massed swarming -- Swarmers begin as a massed unit. They break apart and then swarm on target.
Dispersed swarming -- Units are dispersed (geographically) from the start. Once a target is identified, they converge to attack. This is the most difficult of the two types of swarming to defend against since the attacker never presents a massed target.

Effectiveness.
Historically, swarming is successful only when it scores high in the following areas:


•Elusiveness -- either through mobility or concealment.

•Long range firepower -- standoff capability.

•Superior situational awareness -- having more information about the enemy than they have about you.

Swarming contra infrastructure systems: guerre de course
Given this background, how will global guerrillas use swarming? First, the target for global guerrillas won't be isolated military units but rather urban infrastructure systems. The objective of these attacks will be damage that results in economic attrition. Let's examine how global guerrilla's will leverage swarming tactics to accomplish this objective.

The effectiveness of Global Guerrilla swarmers.
Global guerrilla swarmers will maintain their effectiveness across the vital swarming attributes in the following ways:


•Elusiveness. Global guerrillas attain concealment through anonymity in large urban environments. Reliance on the local population isn't necessary. High degrees of mobility are accomplished by leveraging public transportation networks.

•Superior situational awareness. Open source intelligence is easy to accomplish (via the Internet, the media, and other sources). Further, encrypted global communications, via the Internet, enables global intelligence sharing information sharing. The small size of operational cells limits the potential of discovery and counter-guerrilla intelligence development.

•Standoff attacks. Like many historical swarming attacks, global guerrillas will have significant standoff firepower potential -- the ability to attack from a distance. However, this firepower isn't a traditional weapon, rather, its the global guerrilla's ability to use attacks on infrastructure to impact downstream systems miles (perhaps hundreds of miles) distant. Attacks will be rotated among infrastructures in a modern variant of horse archer tactics.

How global guerrilla swarmers will surmount traditional limits to operations.
Historically, swarmers have been limited by terrain, logistics, and communications. Global guerrillas will not be constrained by these limits. This makes global guerrilla swarming unique to history as can be seen in the attached 2x2 matrix. The upshot is that global guerrillas will be able to conduct dispersed swarming maneuvers on the operational level. Here's how global guerrillas will surmount the traditional limits on swarming:


•Ubiquitous public transportation networks (roads to airlines) enable rapid, low-cost transportation for dispersed units.

•Logistics requirements can be met via open economic transactions and don't require population support. The requirements for operations are relatively limited (damage to infrastructure requires low-tech tools). Additionally, the small size of the cells (~5 people) requires little housing/food/etc and in most cases would fall well below the threshold of detection.

•Real-time, anonymous, wireless communications (both data and voice -- VoIP, e-mail, Web, cellphones, etc.) enable global guerrillas to coordinate dispersed operations on the operational level. Tactical operations will be of a conventional type, typically by a single unit or individual.

[Outlaw 7]

To all---a challenge to the readers here.

ASK any current BCT or BN or for that matter any Company Cmdr located currently in Iraq or Afghanistan for their definition of "swarming".

THEN wait for the blank stares and THEN listen to the comment "never heard anything about it".

AND why do we waste then massive amounts of money on CALL if we do not learn from the previous experiences of ie the 1st CAV in Diyala or the beatings we recently took on two Afghan COP attacks ALL of which were "swarming" attacks.

WHAT does it take to be recognized as a formal battle tactic with you all?

[Ken White]

'recognizing an old tactic being used currently as something that should not be a surprise...' with 'Failure to recognize a tactic.'

The two are not the same thing. :eek:

You might also search the Threads here before criticizing. John Robb and Arquila, swarming and open source warfare, generational warfare or not, have all been cussed and discussed here a good many times over the last few years. Nothing you have posted to date is particularly revelatory or new to most here. It's not that we aren't aware, it is simply that we don't agree. That should be acceptable. :cool:

[Outlaw 7]

Ken---being cussed and discussed and found of no interest is WHAT the great answer to members of Allied/US military killed or wounded by a tactic that a discussion group deems of no interest?

LOOK at any of the CTC's training scenarios since 2007---NOT a single "swarming" event--I would say that flys in the face of reality but it might seem to some here as "not deemed of interest".

I look for the open and deep discussion of what is occurring and why we are failing and we are failing in Afghanistan to occur, but maybe this location is the wrong place for that--for to look at failure means one is willing to challenge and challenge hard current doctrine but maybe that is not in the DNA of this blog site.

WHY is it that much of the latest open discussions are in fact occuring outside of blogs like this and and are not occuring inside the military or defense contracting world?

EXAMPLE: Take the Pakistani LTC article released here on SWJ which really challenges current US reporting and in fact states the country is covered by 98% of a Taliban shadow government and is fighting a phase 2/3 Mao style guerrilla war AND a massive discussion breaks out on is swarming or is it not a valid "tactic."

I can see why a large number of military personnel no longer return to this site

[politicsbyothermeans]

I'm doing about ten things at once here but I'm just thinking about it (swarming) when it really isn't a tactic at all. Specifically, I'm thinking about Mogadishu.

The concept of "flash mobs" is not new to the cultural underground in many first world countries. Flash mobs have many of the same characteristics of the "new" concept of swarming, save they generally don't result in violence.

And the things they have in common is robust and redundant communication and a lack of centralized leadership. Localized leadership, yes, but no real centralized leadership and I'm wondering if that is a vulnerability or a strength.

[William F. Owen]

To all---and where you all when the discussion around "swarming" and "open source warfare" (OSW) broke in of all times 2004 WHEN it was how many months after we entered Iraq? Here is a portion of that article.

Tuesday, 18 May 2004
GLOBAL GUERRILLA SWARMING

...and? That article is mostly wrong.
Swarming is merely what multiple attacks looks like to an observer who has a very limited view point. Nothing new here.
The Mongols were described as "hordes" for the same reason, and they explicitly did not "swarm" or do anything like it.

[Steve Blair]

I look for the open and deep discussion of what is occurring and why we are failing and we are failing in Afghanistan to occur, but maybe this location is the wrong place for that--for to look at failure means one is willing to challenge and challenge hard current doctrine but maybe that is not in the DNA of this blog site.

WHY is it that much of the latest open discussions are in fact occuring outside of blogs like this and and are not occuring inside the military or defense contracting world?

I can see why a large number of military personnel no longer return to this site

I'd second Ken's challenge to review older threads on this site before you start accusing folks here of "not challenging current doctrine." I'd also repeat what I said earlier and what some others have said in different ways: this is nothing new. Swarming...horde tactics...flash mobs...it's nothing new and has been around for as long as there have been tribal-based groups that function in conflicts in that way. Maybe RAND has just 'discovered' it again, but that does not make it new.

What I would say, and have said before, is that the Army seems determined to relearn almost every small wars lesson the hard way...and has manifested this particular training defect since before Vietnam. It accelerated after VN to be sure, but the trend had been there before. As a student of history this particular blind spot concerns me a great deal, but it appears to be built into the institution's DNA...and has been since before the Civil War.

How do you deal with "swarms"? If our own military history is any guide, you focus on being VERY solid at the basic tactical levels and develop strong unit solidarity and integrity. Rotating units as units and not individual replacements is a good start for unit integrity, but training is a different matter.

Those are just starters.

[Fuchs]

The irritating thing about swarms is the manoeuvre à priori approach instead of manoeuvre à posteriori. This simply doesn't fit well to a new tactical fashion.

Why are swarms supposed to attack from multiple directions at once, again and again?
This adds predictability, synchronization challenges (high demand for communication) and includes multiple attacks on strong points (instead of only weak spots).

It made sense with sub wolfpacks, but it doesn't in general.

Why not all-round probing coupled with exploitation of opportunities instead? Too slow?



Btw. I still don't think that swarming theory is nothing new. The stuff has been done at times, but swarming is NOT covered by orthodox military theory. Even corps-level military theory is at most about relatively few units/formations converging - and march divided, fight united isn't a good enough match. Even the termination of pockets is no good match.



There's nothing wrong with developing some new military theories even if there's almost no historical example. It's a good idea to develop theory first before testing something in practice. The mere thought about a new theory is a worthy exercise in a time of very outdated or very limited full out modern war experiences.

On the other hand I wouldn't call every terrorist attack with more than one strike in a time window of a few minutes "swarming".

[Ron Humphrey]

The irritating thing about swarms is the manoeuvre à priori approach instead of manoeuvre à posteriori. This simply doesn't fit well to a new tactical fashion.

Why are swarms supposed to attack from multiple directions at once, again and again?
This adds predictability, synchronization challenges (high demand for communication) and includes multiple attacks on strong points (instead of only weak spots).

It made sense with sub wolfpacks, but it doesn't in general.

Why not all-round probing coupled with exploitation of opportunities instead? Too slow?


IMH Unedumacated Opine ion
Simplest answer to that is sorta what Ken said earlier in this thread in response to one of my posts



That's not to say that swarms won't work, just that the fates must be kind and the reliability of effective action is unlikely to be adequate to satisfy most commanders or politicians -- the human factor (on the part of the Swarmers, the Swarmees and their respective bosses... ).


Ill add to that that to me the probing you speak of vs. swarming in at least the full blown do it right kinda thing would be like the difference in a blind man finding the cracks through touch vs someone with sight seeking the signs of weathering which might lead to cracks.

Both very well could find,fix,and finish the key would be how to recognize which one you were doing and when.




Btw. I still don't think that swarming theory is nothing new. The stuff has been done at times, but swarming is NOT covered by orthodox military theory. Even corps-level military theory is at most about relatively few units/formations converging - and march divided, fight united isn't a good enough match. Even the termination of pockets is no good match.



There's nothing wrong with developing some new military theories even if there's almost no historical example. It's a good idea to develop theory first before testing something in practice. The mere thought about a new theory is a worthy exercise in a time of very outdated or very limited full out modern war experiences.

On the other hand I wouldn't call every terrorist attack with more than one strike in a time window of a few minutes "swarming".

The nothing new is true; however there is the context that no one ever has been where and in the circumstances of what they are now.(not exactly:D)

I might however be so bold as to suggest that a certain form of swarming in a somewhat germane to the discussion form has been seen recently in some of natures big blows.

Try comparing those oranges and pears
(Disasters / Wars)(recovery/response/prosecution,etc)

[Steve the Planner]

I enjoyed the article, but not nearly as much as the SWJ debate.

Leave it to Ken to point out that swarming has been around since before written history.

Funny to me is that the "big picture" discussion in the article misses the big point. Sure, swarming can be an effective attacking strategy, but, IMO, so much of the mission (right or wrong) has moved far beyond attacking (clearing), and into that magical "Hold" and "Build" place against which swarming can be effectively employed.

If only the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan was "defeat the bad guys and go home." But how do you unscramble the actual mission from the easy win?

How do you effectively apply swarming to hold and build? Decentralized cells? Free standing mini-districts?

One of my pet notions about Afghanistan is that we did a quick easy swarm in 2001, and keep trying (unsuccessfully) to apply that "winning" temporary strategy (over and over again), despite that it's limitations are so profound that it condemns us to winning the battles but lo9sing the war (Cordesman's critique).

Converting "win" to sustainable success requires something that we are just trying to think through without either the words or tools. An underlying administrative capability, able to apply to and reasonably hold and positively alter vast areas is remarkably different than the quick hits that, when added up, create nothing.

Isn't that the essence of the "Fixing Intel" debate? The White House was asking about deep background admin/operation/social structure issues which nobody on the US side had ever seriously contemplated, let alone collected to contemplate.

To PBOM's Query (If a swarm takes a long time, do you call it a surge?): I think you call it hold and build, or occupation, or the next obvious and necessary element of success.

Steve

[Firn]

I already posted before that I'm troubled by the very (very) broad use of the term swarming. Some tentative tries in the RAND study (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1100/MR1100.chap1.pdf).

SOME DEFINITIONS


A definition of swarming is necessary before the proper historical
examples can be selected. For the purposes of this monograph, a
swarming case is any historical example in which the scheme of
maneuver involves the convergent attack of five (or more) semi-
autonomous (or autonomous) units on a targeted force in some par-
ticular place.3 “Convergent” implies an attack from most of the
points on the compass.


Admittedly, the phrase “convergent attack” could be stretched to
include every case in history in which an army or unit ended up sur-
rounded by the enemy and attacked from all sides during the course
of a battle. Encircling and surrounding an enemy has always been a
desirable goal: It cuts off the enemy’s supply lines and destroys his
morale by cutting off any possible retreat. The distinction is that
swarming implies a convergent attack by many units as the primary
maneuver from the start of the battle or campaign, not the conver-
gent attacks that result as a matter of course when some unit
becomes isolated and encircled because of some other maneuver.

So there it is. I will comment later on it, as I will try to toss CvC and some other observation into it.


Firn

[William F. Owen]

For the purposes of this monograph, a
swarming case is any historical example in which the scheme of
maneuver involves the convergent attack of five (or more) semi-
autonomous (or autonomous) units on a targeted force in some par-
ticular place.3 “Convergent” implies an attack from most of the
points on the compass.

I think we can all agree that this does not describe swarming, in any way that is useful. Five is a swarm?

[wm]

It may give one pause (not meant as an ad hominem).

NPS Vita information on Arquilla is here (http://research.nps.navy.mil/cgi-bin/vita.cgi?p=display_vita&id=1023567719) and very limited data for Ronfeldt at Rand is here (http://www.rand.org/about/people/r/ronfeldt_david.html).

[William F. Owen]

It may give one pause (not meant as an ad hominem).

NPS Vita information on Arquilla is here (http://research.nps.navy.mil/cgi-bin/vita.cgi?p=display_vita&id=1023567719) and very limited data for Ronfeldt at Rand is here (http://www.rand.org/about/people/r/ronfeldt_david.html).
Wow...
John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Swarming and the Future of Conflict, RAND Corporation, 2000. Good catch that man.

Actually I care very little about folks background. I care a great deal about arguments and rigour.
Some of the stupidest military ideas ever, came from very experience and very decorated soldiers!

[Firn]

I think we can all agree that this does not describe swarming, in any way that is useful. Five is a swarm?


Hard to say. I would not put down a hard and fast rule concerning numbers, especially since also larger formations act through smaller ones which can be also maneuver and fight semi- and independently. If you look at the level of platoons or sections you can easily come up with a lot of swarming units. So if we understand swarming as a form of convergent attack of a large number of independent units then even "standard" western military forces should be able to do it.

Jan Breytenbach has a number of interesting reviews of many actions and operations of the border war. He gives some good insight why units like the 32. Batallion were so successful in the smaller, guerilla and larger, more conventional phases of the war. Almost all of the decisive qualities span over the whole spectrum of the war. The strategy and the METTC force specific adjustments. He stresses the importance of the delegation of leadership (letting the right people leading the fight, no micromanagement from above), the even greater value of personal initiative as well as the careful and responsive coordination and support of the forces at the higher level which enabled the 32. to outguerilla the guerilla.

A lot of small units fought SWAPO in southern Angola alone or coordinated and forced the enemy with their seemingly non-cohesive btn. to show their lack of cohesion and to retreat hundreds of km northwards. In this instance the highly centralized command structure of SWAPO proved to be unable to cope with so many dispersed and far-flung operations.

Western forces have shown that they are able or even especially well suited for such operations if the circumstances make it necessary. The true question is if politics and the higher ranks muster the will to allow and support it.


Firn

[William F. Owen]

Hard to say. I would not put down a hard and fast rule concerning numbers, especially since also larger formations act through smaller ones which can be also maneuver and fight semi- and independently.
Agreed. Five is not a useful number.


If you look at the level of platoons or sections you can easily come up with a lot of swarming units. So if we understand swarming as a form of convergent attack of a large number of independent units then even "standard" western military forces should be able to do it.
The real issue for sections and fire teams in a convergent attack is the de-conflicting manoeuvre, stand-off and indirect fires.

We have to get over this silly view about "western forces" and tactics. There are no special tactics done by some other folks! It's a myth! Western armies are generally the most tactically skilled. There is no great secret to tactics or new tactics or any tactical insight, not already well examined.

Folks who talk about swarming simply do not understand the basics, when it comes to turning cool sounding theories into actual hard practice.

[Rifleman]

Swarming is merely what multiple attacks looks like to an observer who has a very limited view point. Nothing new here.


So, does it boil down to this?:

"Find the bastards. Then pile on." - George S. Patton III - Commander, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment

[davidbfpo]

From Firn's post (No.126)
Jan Breytenbach has a number of interesting reviews of many actions and operations of the border war. He gives some good insight why units like the 32. Batallion were so successful in the smaller, guerilla and larger, more conventional phases of the war.

Firn found a lengthy interview in German alas in the Austrian Defence Forces publication: http://www.bmlv.gv.at/pdf_pool/omz/oemz2009_01.pdf

Whilst the main website has the option for an English version finding the publication in English eluded me: http://www.bmlv.gv.at

Jan Breytenbach's book on 32 Batt. has appeared before on SWC in late 2009:

'They Live By The Sword: 32 'Buffalo' Battalion - South Africa's Foreign Legion' by Col. Jan Breytenbach (Pub. Lemur 1990). A unit formed in 1975 from black Angolans, with South African (white) officers and NCOs. Formidable reputation as mainly COIN fighters and suggested as a non-US / non-Western example. Note Eben Barlow (Executive Outcomes) was an officer in them.

Few copies about if Amazon is correct: http://www.amazon.com/They-live-swor...9129763&sr=1-1 . Republished in 2003 as The Buffalo Soldiers: The Story of South Africa's 32 Battalion 1975-1993.

The unit's website; http://www.32battalion.net/index.htm

[Valin]

Uncommon Knowledge (http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/)

Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0D8tAAc3ow)

Part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMInZdp4hVY)

Part 3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stQ-r_DKxzk)

Part 4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wEOFTxFi2s)

Part 5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84XmXLHzp70)


Foreign Policy: The New Rules of War (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/22/the_new_rules_of_war)
The visionary who first saw the age of "netwar" coming warns that the U.S. military is getting it wrong all over again. Here's his plan to make conflict cheaper, smaller, and smarter.
JOHN ARQUILLA
MARCH/APRIL 2010


Every day, the U.S. military spends $1.75 billion, much of it on big ships, big guns, and big battalions that are not only not needed to win the wars of the present, but are sure to be the wrong approach to waging the wars of the future..........(Snip)

[William F. Owen]

Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0D8tAAc3ow)


Well I tried. I watched Part 1 and it was like listening to 8-year-olds talk about
the social sciences. I actually have quite a lot of time for Hanson, so I really do not get where this all goes. Based on what Arquilla said, Napoleon's Armies and Nelson's Navy were "networked."

Twaddle!

[Tukhachevskii]

... at least if you’re a well trained Aussie. Apart from the colloquial use of the term swarm (as opposed to the conceptual status it has acquired in the hands of some) the following comments may be of interest from “Taking Tactics From The Taliban: Tactical Principles For Commanders” (http://www.defence.gov.au/army/lwsc/Docs/aaj_autumn_09.pdf) from the Australian Army Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, Autumn, 2009 ...


The ‘swarm’ is the Taliban offensive tactic [my emphasis], usually employed against dismounted elements in the ‘green zone’ that remain static for too long (two to three hours) and defensive positions such as overwatch and patrol bases. Some warning of a swarm is often—but not always—provided by the exodus of local Afghans from the area some ten to twenty minutes prior to the attack and an increase in intelligence warning of an offensive. During a swarm, Taliban fighters will manoeuvre on two to four flanks using fire teams of three to six men armed with medium machine-guns and RPGs who attack simultaneously. This was a tactic with which CT Spear became very familiar and tactically equipped to confront. I developed my seventh tactical principle as a response to the Taliban fire pocket and swarm: dismounted patrols must always operate within mortar range.

CT Spear countered the Taliban’s major tactics with carefully planned tactics of its own. The team defeated the fire pocket by fighting into one side while suppressing the other firing points and then rolling them up from the flank. The Taliban fighters would occasionally withdraw to alternate firing points as the team advanced and the commander would then decide how far he wanted to pursue them given his existing boundaries and task.

The team used the same tactic to counter the swarm, although a platoon was unlikely to be able to handle a larger force on its own and such a confrontation would usually turn into a fully-fledged combat team engagement. The element in contact would go into, or remain in, all round defence and allow its JTAC or JFO to call in indirect fire and close air support to buy time for the combat team commander to manoeuvre his cavalry and infantry to support. My eighth and ninth principles supported this and carried the necessary corollaries: any force must contain at least three elements that can support one another while patrolling deep in the ‘greenzone’.

Dismounted sections must operate within 500 metres of one another and platoons within 1000 metres of one another, particularly if they are operating away from the protection of overwatch. Use of this tactic facilitated rapid offensive manoeuvre in support of an element in contact. In essence, we aimed to ‘swarm the swarm’ [my emphasis], in keeping with my tenth principle: fight the most likely course of action, but be postured for the most dangerous.(culled from pp.31-38)