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.
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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.
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.
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!!
The author wasn't accurate in his use of military terms and examples. The level of thought is nevertheless above average.
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?
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
LOL!
What truly got my goat was this statement
[rant]Quote:
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!
[/rant]
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.
A RAND study pretty much defined the stuff about a decade ago.
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.
Cool! Where?
So the response to Wolfpacks was to STAY in Convoys, not disperse.Quote:
You're wrong. Wolfpacks were the answer to convoys, not the other way around. Convoys were the answer to individual subs in 1917.
OK, how does that qualify as "Swarming?" Did the Kriegsmarine ever call it swarming? Sounds like U-boat specific "Wolfpack," to me.Quote:
- 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....
So who else has used "Swarming" tactics?Quote:
This vast difference easily justifies that earlier authors chose to attach an own label to this behaviour.
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/
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.
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: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.Quote:
"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 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::DQuote:
(ask Arminius :p !)
....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!
Hi Ken,
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.
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.
Yup! That is the lesson he should have drawn from the legions.
:D
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).
So there is hope in this dark world, may netwar deliver us. :DQuote:
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
After that cheap shot let us look at this swarming thing.
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. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Wiki
It gets even better. According to this article we are also swarms, or at least have them in us!
I will continue later...Quote:
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
Firn
Firn:
Yes. Yes they do.Quote:
According to this definition all armed forces swarm.
Actually, that's precisely what it is.
To quote Sean J. A. Edwards in his work on the topic, swarming is:
Not sure why defining and understanding the past, present, and future of a core component of warfare isn't useful.Quote:
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.
Moving on, here's what Ronfeldt and Arquilla wrote in 2000:
Which is very much in tune with what Marc wrote:Quote:
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.
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.Quote:
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.
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.
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
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.
Scott,
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.Quote:
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.
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.Quote:
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.
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:
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. )Quote:
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.
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.
because it is not a core component, and its misleading.Quote:
Not sure why defining and understanding the past, present, and future of a core component of warfare isn't useful.
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.Quote:
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.
OK, give me practical real world examples of Points #1-3, and explain your reasoning.Quote:
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).
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.
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.Quote:
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.
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.
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.
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. And there is much more than meets the eye.
Firn
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).
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.
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/Mag...8/0108tet.aspx
Marshal Tukhachevskii wrote:
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.Quote:
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
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.
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.Quote:
“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).
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.
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/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.
Scott
Wilf wrote:
Most historians of the Vietnam War would strenuously disagree with your interpretation Wilf.Quote:
"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.'
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
Scale comes to mind.Quote:
Point being, if War today is really "more fast moving and unbelievably complicated," why should modern War not cost more than old simple WW2?
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.
Hi Zen,
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.
Maybe, but as most write drivel, I disregard them.
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.Quote:
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.
What was the effect? Please tell me how TV pictures in Jan 1968 effected the decisions taken by Nixon in 1973.Quote:
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
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."Quote:
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 happy with expensive, as long as its effective. You cannot use business words and norms to try and understand military power.Quote:
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.
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?
Hi Dr. Marc
There are significant potential costs to not having big forces. Agreed. I am not interested in having a military that cannot operate large units.Quote:
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
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.
Economics, not business.Quote:
I happy with expensive, as long as its effective. You cannot use business words and norms to try and understand military power.
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.
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
Hi Zen,
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).
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.
Sure. That's not a flaw in swarming as doctrine, that's question of implementation.Quote:
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?
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.
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.Quote:
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.
Of course its not new. Not sure anyone has ever claimed that adaptive leadership is new. To claim it's prevalent is disingenuous though.Quote:
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.
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.
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
Scott,
Hey, sure. There's been progress on the training front, not trying to discount that. We're not 'there' yet though.
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.Quote:
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.
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.
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. 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.