It's how to think outside the box...
Marc, forgive an old guy who hasn't progressed much beyond late 20th Century technology:) I readily concede that there is a whole raft of new media that could be delivered by Commando Solo or from a much greater distance by other means. I would also argue that small wars thinking - as most of us would - goes way beyond info war. As in all war, we still have to put steel on target at the same time as we win hearts and minds and disrupt C4I++++.
Some of this obviously means thinking outside the proverbial box (although we better not forget what is inside the box in our newfound enthusiasm). Two of the most innovative strategic thinkers whose work is emminently adaptable to small wars are Air Force - Boyd with his OODA Loop and John Warden with his "inside out warfare" and 5 strategic rings. One can, of course, use these ideas in a purely conventional sense or apply them to small wars in innovative ways - as, indeed, one can with Clausewitz.
Although this story comes from Desert Storm, I think it is applicable to this discussion. My good friend, the late AF Col., Ben Harvey worked for Warden in Checkmate. Ben told me that in planning for the air campaign, they had come up with a bombing approach to taking down the Baghdad power grid that would be only temporary and it could have been restored in a very short time. Had it been employed (it obviously was rejected) a significant amount of civilian hardship could have been avoided. The short term psychological impact would have been enormous but think of the possible long term effects given the current civil war and insurgency in Iraq.
Here we go..."Air Force rushes to contribute"
SERVICES AGREE TO WRITE JOINT DOCTRINE FOR COUNTERINSURGENCY OPS
http://www.insidedefense.com/secure/...NTAGON-23-21-1
The many promises of technolgy - almost fulfilled
Hey LawVol,
Quote:
"calls for devising techniques that avoid exposing thousands of young Americans to the hazards of combat." How could anyone oppose this idea?
I think the danger here is that of people (be they the public, the policy makers, or the administration) buying into the fallacy that technology solves all, and that wars can somehow be reduced to the application of technology. Fundamentally, wars are bloody affairs, or as Sherman put it, "they are cruel."
While perhaps future Americans might be spared the horrors of combat, many non-American civilians would not. From the ground - I can assure you bombs (even PGM/LGB types) do not always hit where they are promised. Technology will always have some PE - but where you are talking "bombs" or 'missiles" you raise the stakes of the consequences. Unless you are willing to take on a separate and equally detrimental set of unintended consequences for the application of using air power to solve every problem in war and conflict, and unless you are willing to kill enough people (I believe many will be innocents) indiscriminately to get your message across, then I'd say you have to inject people/soldiers on the ground.
Since I'm a knuckle draggin "bog -togz" as was mentioned in MG Dunlap's AFJ article, I profess an inclination to live on the ground - the only wings I have are from falling out of an airplane. However I believe the capacity or the use of Air Power is far from realized in COIN, but its greatest unrealized potential in COIN lies outside the 500lb-200lb range. I also think MG's article was not aimed at engaging sister services about COIN, its generally accepted that calling somebody names gets you off on the wrong foot. I think his article was partly aimed at impassioning his on service of the rightness of a parochial view that a hammer is always the tool of choice, and partly aimed at politician purse string holders. I would no more listen to an Army or Marine GO who said they had all the answers, and resorted to calling the others names, war is serious business and not one for playground antics.
I think that if we are going to use war to achieve political ends, then we must be cognizant of the need to win the peace that follows. Sometimes unrestrained use of airpower has been, and probably will be required (certainly in a conventional, force on force) - we certainly have the best outfit to do that. An insurgency though is about people, and involves one(or more) group(s) of insurgents trying to coerce a government and its public to adapt their views or solutions through the use of force - since the insurgent srtategy ivolves the pubic, its likely that the two will be inter-mingled - the insurgent must be with the people to convince them as they few resources. This makes it very confusing and often difficult to kill the right people, the further away you are from the context of the situation the harder it is to get it right.
This is not about servicing targets - even at the tactical level. MG Dunlap points to the killing of Zarquawi as the highpoint of success in an otherwise dismal performance. While I like killing bad guys who kill Americans, it only gets you so far. did we disrupt AQIZ operations, maybe some - but how do you qualify it? To me MG Dunlap's statement shows he does not understand how COIN is different, you can't just finish your problems by killing a leader. AQ and other organizations thoroughly understand the military culture predominant in the US armed forces- the desire and the amount of effort we will expend to kill one person to "show" results knows few bounds. Consequently they have decentralized, and developed a regenerative capability. COIN is about changing the environment in which the insurgent or terrorist lives in - call it ideology if you like, call it "basic human needs", or call it something else. Since killing insurgent leaders has limited utility, you have to change the rules to make the real long term difference. COIN is about changing the rules of the environment, not destroying critical pieces of it.
As hard as it is to swallow it, people are required to do that. I'm not asking MG Dunlap to put on ACUs or run a patrol, the USAF has plenty of great things to do that only they can do. I would like their help in a constructive dialogue in how to employ their service's assets in a manner that both help us win the war and the peace.
Regards, Rob