Other articles of interest
Other articles of interest in the OCT 16 JFQ
Fast Followers, Learning Machines, and the Third Offset Strategy
Quote:
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. . . . This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.
—Isaac Asimov
A perfect quote to sag way into a discussion on strategy for the remainder of the 21st Century.
Quote:
In 1993, Andrew Marshall, Director of Net Assessment, stated, “I project a day when our adversaries will have guided munitions parity with us and it will change the game.”2 On December 14, 2015, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work announced that day’s arrival when arguing for a Third Offset during comments at the Center for a New American Security.
The article gives a good run down on what the 3rd Off Set Strategy is all about (whether one agrees or disagrees with it logic). Unlike other articles I have seen, it also presented a list of risks associated with this strategy. One that I found compelling, but not compelling enough to stop the forward march of technology is:
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A New Fog of War. Lastly, the advent of learning machines will give rise to a new fog of war emerging from uncertainty in a learning machine’s AI programming. It is a little unsettling that a branch of AI popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s was called “fuzzy logic,” due to an ability to alter its programming that represents a potential loss of control and weakening of liability.
The article ends with:
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However, pursuit of game-changing technologies is only sustainable by breaking out of the increasingly exponential pace of technological competition with Fast Followers. A Third Offset Strategy could do this and could provide the first to adopt outsized advantages. Realistically, to achieve this requires integrating increasing layers of autonomy into legacy force structure as budgets align to new requirements and personnel adapt to increasing degrees of learning machine teaming. The additive effect of increasing autonomy could fundamentally change warfare and provide significant advantage to whoever successfully teams learning machines with manned systems. This is not a race we are necessarily predestined to win, but it is a race that has already begun with strategic implications for the United States.
The next article starts to address the missing link in the 3rd Off Set Strategy, which is how will we employ all these capabilities? The author makes a strong argument for leveraging wargaming.
Wargaming the Third Offset Strategy
Quote:
It is not only technology but also how new capabilities are employed that produces military power.13 A new capability is more than just a new technology. It requires new concepts for employing the systems and training on how to operate them as part of a larger joint fight. The strategy is unlikely to reach its full potential until the joint community develops new operating concepts.
In conclusion:
Quote:
Officers should take an active role and imagine future battlefields as part of their JPME experience and field exercises, learning to analyze the art and science of military practice. The joint community can work with the individual Services and integrate Third Offset wargames with JPME curriculum. Officers and the civilian academics who work in JPME should be incentivized to research and critique alternative operating concepts that emerge from the wargames.
Pursued along these lines, the net benefit of wargaming the Third Offset could well be to empower a new generation of military leaders to take ownership of intellectual development in the profession of arms.
Old wisdom increasing effete
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...l-internationa
After reading Octavian's interview of the author who wrote, The Case for a Grand Strategy of Responsible Competition to Defend the Liberal International Order, on the SWJ Journal at the link above it invoked more thoughts on the relevance of assumed truths when it comes to strategy thought. The argument that follows is based on the assumption that a rules based international order is essential for maintaining an acceptable level of security and opportunity for continued prosperity for most of the developed world.
If the above assumption is valid, then it calls into question the wisdom of the adage of, he who defends everything, defends nothing. This is certainly true for the military at the tactical and operational levels; however, at the strategic level a violation of international law anywhere is a threat to the international order everywhere. Failure to defend the international order in the so called areas of peripheral importance creates an environment for revisionists and anarchists create a norm where it is acceptable for a growing number of actors to challenge the order without paying a price for their transgressions. Furthermore, in an increasingly interconnected, hype globalized world local threats are increasingly transnational and often transregional.
Challenges to the international order do not include every internal issue between a populace and its governance, but it does include state aggression upon another state that fails to meet the generally accepted reasons to wage war. It does include significant transnational crime, such as cyber crime, human and other illicit trafficking, China's production of counterfeit medication to sell to developing countries, terrorism, illicit/illegal expansion of one's territory, major environmental crimes (such as China's overfishing of areas well outside of China's EZZ, crimes against humanity such as genocide, etc. Failure to ignore these and allow them to fester and expand creates a world where a rules based international order exists in name only.
This does not imply that the U.S. military needs to respond to every violation, that is simply not sustainable, but it does beckon back to a recent past prior to the attacks on 9/11 where the U.S. did a respectful job of helping others help themselves, and supporting coalitions of the willing to address threats to instability and the rules based international order. Whether we were left of bang, or at the early stages of bang, these actions helped shape the world overall in a positive direction. It is past time to determine how we can return to an acceptable balance of effort, an effort that recognizes the U.S. military has important roles outside of the Middle East that have been neglected too long. That neglect has empowered actors intent on reshaping the world order in a way that will only benefit regional hegemons, which in turn will lead much greater instability, as nations will resist falling under their sway.
'Fight or Flight: How to Avoid a Forever War against Jihadists
An article by Dan Byman & Will McCants 'Fight or Flight: How to Avoid a Forever War against Jihadists' (11 pgs) in The Washington Quarterly and here is a selected passage that makes me think it fits here!
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We argue, however, that this fear of safe havens and the politics that under gird it are misplaced. Safe havens can be dangerous, and at times it is vital for the United States to use force, even massive force, to disrupt them. Yet not all safe havens and not all the groups in the havens are created equal.
Their new rules:
Quote:
First, no militant group should be allowed to build a foreign operations cell that targets the United States....Second, no militant group should be allowed to take over a major city in acountry vital to American interests. Third, no militant group should be allowed to ethnically cleanse an entire people.
Link:https://twq.elliott.gwu.edu/sites/tw...an-McCants.pdf
Awaiting the National Security Strategy
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...re-and-entropy
The New Era of Non-State Actors: Warfare and Entropy by Jason Thomas
This article appears to be identical to the one that SWJ published on 12 SEP 17, and in sum it argues that the West must prepare for a significant increase in threats posed by non-state actors, to include states actors sponsoring non-state actors to threaten our national interests. Of course this isn't new, but perhaps the means and ways that state actors can leverage non-state actors has changed enough to warrant serious reflection.
Quote:
The difference now is that instead of seeking to overthrow the established authority of Western governments, the modus operandi has shifted to penetrating deep within all layers of a Western country’s government, economic, cyber security, media and civil society in order to subvert and influence.
Unfortunately, the author didn't explain why these threats would expand and more importantly he didn't offer suggestions on how the West should prepare. Instead he provides a list of non-state actors and then various legacy theoretical frameworks for consideration that are largely based on COIN theories developed during the Cold War. However, his reference to how Clausewitz's writings may have limited the West's view of strategy. An assertion worth exploring as the Trump Administration works on its first National Security Strategy (NSS). However, with McMaster as his National Security Advisor, I see little hope that the strategy team will look far beyond the influence of Clausewitz. Furthermore, it isn't Clausewitz's writings that are limiting our imagination and strategic theory, it is our interpretation of them and what the West has chose to focus on. Principally the deeply flawed center of gravity construct.
Quote:
One of the most modestly insightful military-academics, Dutch Air Commodore Dr Frans Osinga (2006), argues that “the current Western mode of thinking and waging war, which is founded on Clausewitzian principles, is giving rise to non-Clausewitzian styles of warfare, with obvious consequences for the state of strategic theory.” An attachment to Clausewitz has not benefitted Western strategic approaches to what William Lind (1989) described as “fourth generational warfare” against technologically weaker, non-state actors. This Clausewitzian mindset may have resulted in the slow recognition by governments of alternative conflict paradigms, whereby the predominant game has been the physical destruction of the enemy.
It seems the administration's national security team is focused largely on state-actors, and have limited their focus on non-state actors to ISIS. There are a lot of significant non-state actors that threaten our interests beyond ISIS, and strategy should not focus on the only on the current shinny object, but that is the nature of how we do strategy in the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks. The issue is identifying how the world is changing and what changes we want to promote, and what changes threaten our interests we need to defend ourselves from. It is a complex task, and based on the rate of change, one that is bound to produce a flawed product, yet a strategy is still needed to drive unity of effort across the whole of government and ideally unify the West (loosely defined) in a way that the West cooperates to defend common interests. This will require policy founded on empirical data and critical thinking, not simply stating China is a threat or ISIS needs to be defeated. Everything is increasingly connected (see next post), and these challenges cannot be viewed in isolation. How we approach them will impact other strategic factors that will impact our longer term security.
The emerging U.S. National Security Strategy
The Reagan National Defense Forum has been annual event for the past few years where several leaders in national security come to share their ideas. This year NSA McMasters provided an overview of the tenants of President Trump's emerging National Security Strategy (NSS), which is anticipated to be signed and published within the new few weeks.
The following article captures some of the key points that LTG McMasters shared with the audience.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article...rity-strategy/
National Security Advisor Hints at Basis of Trump’s National Security Strategy
He drew an interesting parallel to President Reagan vision of renewing America's confidence to address our national malaise after the Vietnam War, and subsequent retreat from the world stage under President Carter (my view). McMaster asserts the Trump administration will do the same, and the NSS will enable this moral factors recovery.
Quote:
Confidence in the United States and the nation’s influence abroad were at a low point, McMaster said. “The Soviet Union appeared to be on the rise and America, it seemed, was in decline,” he said. “President Reagan ushered in a dramatic rethinking of America’s role in the world and a dramatic renewal of American confidence. America would not only triumph in the Cold War and beyond but reach a new height of influence and prosperity.”
It was also fitting to discuss the Trump administration’s national security strategy, which will be released shortly, since Reagan signed the first national security strategy in 1987, the general said.
The key threats identified in McMaster's speech were the existing 4+1 (China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Violent Extremists), and he emphasized that North Korea was the most immediate threat to U.S. interests.
As during Reagan's time, McMaster emphasized the need to dramatically rethink national security based on these threats and our core interests.
He identified the four core national interests as:
1. Defending the homeland (traditionally this includes U.S. citizens overseas and our allies, not sure if that will be the case in this NSS)
2. Prosperity (you can't be a superpower without super economy, he emphasized fair trade)
3. Preserving peace through strength (ensuring a rules based international order, it is also worth noting we can't sustain economic growth without a rules based international order.)
4. Increasing U.S. influence (discussed the importance of our values, but not imposing our way of life upon others).
I like that he addressed the importance of understanding the dynamic and competitive nature of the security environment. He also noted that with competition comes interaction and change, so we must be prepared to change. That tells me we need to shed some our legacy views of the world.
This introduction to the draft NSS leaves many questions, and it appears it will continue to cling to the key tenants of previous NSSs, but pursue our aims more aggressively than President Obama's approach, but not as idealistically based as the Bush administration. In short, we'll regain our confidence to the shape the world, and in so doing, our allies and partners will be assured that we intend to protect our core interests (which more often than not are shared interests with our allies).
It still begs the question how we can afford this? Even in the unlikely event the proposed tax cuts generate more tax income for the government due to greater productivity of the U.S. economy we still have a massive and growing national debt. We are still facing a government shut down this month if Congress doesn't pass a budget or a continuing resolution. DoD is challenged to address force modernization due to budget uncertainty. The military requires a significant increase in its budget to rebuild its force, and simultaneously it will have to sustain it global war on violent extremists. How we continue to wage this war and how we modernize the force both need to be relooked if we're going to arrive at feasible solution for resourcing the NSS.
The rebuilding of the defense force can't simply consist of repairing broken legacy equipment (tanks, plans, helicopters, vehicles, etc.). Instead, DoD must build a 21st century force that can defend our interests from 21st Century threats. These threats range from cyber, WMD, and advanced weapons systems that may neutralize many of our current capabilities. Does more ships for the Navy matter if our adversary increasingly has the means to put them at the bottom of the ocean? Can a J35 defend us against an UAV swarm? Do we really have the means and policies to protect ourselves from sophisticated cyber attacks against our infrastructure? A cyber expert earlier in this thread points out we don't.
Developing what we hope will be a feasible strategy is extremely difficult, and implementing it will be harder. Rice bowls will need to be broken, bureaucratic processes re-wickered, the budget must be aligned to support the strategic means, and many people in key positions who can't adapt to the new strategy will need to be sidelined.
Can't Kill Enough to Win? Think Again
Source: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proce...in-think-again
By Lts. Col. Bolgiano and Taylor (Ret.), Proceedings Magazine, December 2017, U.S. Naval Institute
Quote:
Those given the awful task of combat must be able to act with the necessary savagery and purposefulness to destroy those acting as, or in direct support of, Islamic terrorists worldwide. In 2008, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Admiral Michael Mullen said, “We can’t kill our way to victory.” Ever since, many have parroted his words. But what if Admiral Mullen was wrong? The United States has been at war with radical Islamists four times longer than it was with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II. And those previous enemies were far more competent and aggressive than the terrorists. It is time to kill a lot more of them.
Key Arguments:
- U.S. ROEs are too restrictive and JAGs are incompetent
- "It takes killing with speed and sustained effect to win wars"
- The First Gulf War was bloody, but for the Iraqis
- The Civil War was a war of attrition
- The U.S. used strategic bombing against civilians and combatants in Germany and Japan, including the use of nuclear weapons
- Edward Luttwak was right in 1999 ("fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace...")