Opposed System Design

[SWJED]

This could easily be moved to the "Kilcullen" thread but I have placed it here because I'm not certain if the SWC members are familiar with the blog Opposed System Design, whose blogger "Wiggins" is a defense analyst at a well known institution that shall remain nameless.

Wiggins comments on 4GW and the Fabius Maximus article:

4GW Sub-types

(Dave - If it fits better on the thread, please feel free to move it)

Thanks Mark - let's leave it here at Blog watch - I already linked to the post from the SWJ Daily News Links...

[slapout9]

We had this discussion some time ago on SWC when I said there are 2 kinds of war under our system declared and undeclared and then moved on to war in the 1st,2nd,third degree based upon intensity and violence. Bill Moore was involved. Also I found an article from military review called "Insurgencies you cannot win from 1973" I think. The author specifically mentions type one,two and three when naming insurgencies and recommends the military change to this system to better understand it. I will try and find all the post later today have to go to work now.

Here is the link to the article it was posted under thread is everybody wrong? The theory was never completed because the uthor died shortly after publication.
https://calldbp.leavenworth.army.mil...00010/art5.pdf

[marct]

Hi Folks,

First off, let me echo Mark's comments about maybe this would be betterin the Kilculen thread <wry grin>.

As a simple dichotomy for analytical purposes, we can say that 4GW’s come in two types, reflecting the degree of involvement of outside interests (obviously there are many other ways to characterize 4GW).

1. Violence between two or more local groups, who can form from any combination of clans, governments, ethnicities, religions, gangs, and tribes.

2. Violence between two or more sides, where at least one is led by foreigners – both comprising, as above, any imaginable combination of factions.

......
The issue is how to distinguish the local groups of a type one 4GW from the foreign groups of a type two 4GW.

There seems to be a basic epistemological assumption operating here that defines "distance" in terms of either physical geography or membership within a nation state: i.e. terms like "local", "foreign", etc. I think that this is a fundamental error.

We have been talking about what constitutes a "nation", or any other type of community, in the information age in another thread (sorry Dave, couldn't find it to link). I've argued elsewhere that it is a combination of shared interest and communicative ability. "Community" does not require geographic proximity or contiguity (which is an assumption that underlies the concept of nation states). Given this, why should we base any typology of conflict on it; especially when it is glaringly apparent that our opponents don't?

I'd like to pose a question for discussion: What if we recast "distance" in terms of perception, "interest" and communication?

Marc

[slapout9]

marct, I agree epistemology or proper identification of reality is the first step to success or mis-identification the first step to failure. Thats why I thought wars should be classified on violence and intensity. Example 1st degree war WMD's in use 2nd degree warfare conventional weapons in use 3rd degree warfare small arms and explosives. The range or location does not matter the intensity and effect of the weapon does. Example one non-uniformed bad guy with WMD=1st degree warfare and requires a 1st degree response. what say ye?

[marct]

Hi Slapout9,

marct, I agree epistemology or proper identification of reality is the first step to success or mis-identification the first step to failure. Thats why I thought wars should be classified on violence and intensity. Example 1st degree war WMD's in use 2nd degree warfare conventional weapons in use 3rd degree warfare small arms and explosives. The range or location does not matter the intensity and effect of the weapon does. Example one non-uniformed bad guy with WMD=1st degree warfare and requires a 1st degree response. what say ye?

I would certainly agree with you that "intensity" is useful for some classification purposes. I think that what I am struggling with now is away to shift out of rigid taxonomies and move to a model that uses these as dimensions.

Let's take your example of one bad guy with a WMD. Does it require the same response as 100 million bad guys with a WMD streaming across the order? I don't think so, although there are certainly elements of similarity. Let's for the moment drop the term WMD since it is a political rather than a technical term. Let's take the same example and say it's a 20 megaton nuke. The similarity is in defense (i.e. stopping it being delivered), intel (finding out about it and then finding it)and in worst case planing. The difference is in the other 100 million bad guys armed with AKs streaming across the border . So the presence or absence of a nuke or any other WMD should influence our perceptions of a threat or conflict, but I don't think it should define it.

The reason I mentioned epistemology is not to argue that any particular perception of reality is "True" in some transcendental way. On a purely personal level, I do believe that such transcendental "Truths" exist, but I don't believe that individuals (or groups) are capable of fully understanding them. But, as with most engineers, I can deal with a 99.9999% understanding .

I brought up epistemology, because I think it is crucial that we have an understanding of how we construct and validate those perceptions of reality; including the limitations of those constructions. Now, one of the things we "know" (read "it works most of the time and hasn't yet been disproved") is that predictive sciences only become predictive one we move them away from taxonomies and move them towards relational statements that can be tested and measured: in short, once we start modeling them using dimensions in the old Cartesian format.

Let's take that example I started with about geography vs communication. Back in the days before rapid multiple communications, say the pre-Napoleonic wars, community and geographic proximity tended to be the same (not always since there were always certain exceptions, but it was a pretty good rule of thumb). Once we started expanding our technology base to include things like deep sea telegraph lines, air flight and railroads, this shifted. The culmination of this trend (so far) is in the 'net. Nowadays, people are more likely to have a distributed community than they are to have a geographic community. SWC is actually a good example of this.

Now , let me keep on being pedantic in my lecture mode <grin> and we'll go back and look at changes in warfare over roughly the same time period.

Pre-Napoleonic warfare, and let's restrict that to 18th century, tended towards a combination of militias and professional units. The militias were raise in a geographic locality, while the professional units were, in theory, "national" structures (actually, many were composed of mercenaries bt that's another story). Napoleon used the levee en masse, rapid movement and communications (he developed the semaphore telegraph system), and used the early 19th century equivalent of Shock and Awe tactics (think of the French columns).

The post-Napoleonic 19th century saw an artificial constraint on wars in Europe and the spread of "Colonial wars" (basically counter-insurgency wars). I always found it fascinating hat breach loaders were invented at the start of the Napoleonic era (the Ferguson Rifle), but didn't really get deployed until the US Civil War (the Sharpe's Carbine) and, fully deployed, after the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 (cf the Battle of Sadowa) where the Prussians were equipped with the Dreyse needle-gun. The results of this led to an arms race <wry grin>.

Now, all of this required mass production, which certainly fit into the industrialization of the times. But industrialization also involved the strengthening of national and transnational organizations including newspapers, telegraph systems and economic alliances. One effect was to create "national" and, in some cases (e.g. the British Empire) "trans-national" systems of consciousness (e.g. a shift in the US from loyalty to a state to loyalty to the federal government). By the time of WWI, when the alliance system in Europe was breaking down, we find the oddball situation where armaments and military tactics bear almost no resemblance to each other; there is also a major cultural problem in dealing with the technical aspects of warfare (see, for example, the Canadian officer cashiered for Conduct Unbecoming for saving thousands of Canadian soldiers lives).

I'm not going to carry this on for the rest of the 20th century (hat's usually three lectures in my Intro to Anthropology course so I will spare you ). Suffice it to say that there is a strong relationship between communications, community and combat. One point of reference is that the anti-war protesters in the Vietnam era should have been considered co-belligerents with the VC and the NVA.

So, now we are dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan. Let me ask you a question: do you think that a 20 megaton nuke would be any more damaging to the war effort than the political withdrawal of an ally? I would argue that, in the long run, the train bombings in Spain were more effective, for the Islamists, than a 20 megaton nuke - they succeeded in getting the Spanish out of the war entirely, something a nuke wouldn't have done.

Okay, end of lecture .

Marc

[Steve Blair]

I tend to draw away from classification based on intensity because it can lead to serious disconnects. Vietnam is a good example. To us this was a limited deal, but to NVN it was stage 1+. And violence is relative. Marc's example of the Spain bombings is spot on here. Also, basing classification on violence instead of impact on national interest (for example) tends to draw war away from its political foundations, and that link needs to be clearly and constantly drawn.

Perhaps this explains my aversion to 4GW and similar classifications. War is simply too complex and too interdependent on outside (and internal) variables to be conveniently labeled. To me 4GW is just adding a layer of politics to 3GW, or expanding the focus from operational levels to strategic levels. What we're looking at now is an environment where instant (or near instant) communications has made the political aspect of war fully equal (or superior) to the firepower side of war. In some cases (such as Spain) the political aspect will dominate. In others (such as the early stages of Iraq, possibly) the military/firepower side will dominate.

It's the law enforcement/terrorism parallel again. Sometime you have to negotiate with the guy, and at other times you let the sniper take the shot...

[Tom Odom]

In 2002, a friend and fellow historian at the Combat Studies Institute, Dr. Tom Huber, put together an anthology on Compound War, studiying the relationships between regular and irregular forces on the conventional and unconventional battlefield. I like the methodology and the results--as a historian, I find them more relevant and infintitely less sterile than 4GW. In that regard, Huber and the authors all play to my own inclinations--much like those of Steve--to see the world as a long running play with many acts and changes of scenery built around enduring themes.

Best

Tom

In the long history of warfare, a recurring theme is the combined use of regular and irregular forces to pursue victory. The American colonists relied upon regular Continental Army troops and local militia in their war for independence. British troops commanded by Wellington fought alongside Spanish peasant guerrillas against Napoleon in Spain. The Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong organized local militia units, regional forces, and a regular army for use in their struggle to topple the Nationalist government. In these and many other cases, the practice of employing regular and irregular forces together was not only applied, but also instrumental in bringing victory to the side that at the beginning of the conflict seemed clearly inferior to its opponent.
In 1996, in an article entitled “Napoleon in Spain,” Dr. Thomas M. Huber of the Combat Studies Institute (CSI) coined the term “compound warfare” to describe this phenomenon of regular and irregular forces fighting in concert, as he examined the reasons for Napoleon’s failure to pacify the Iberian Peninsula. The article, written to support CSI’s course in modern warfare at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, received high praise from student officers, from the CSI faculty, and from the Institute’s director at the time, Colonel Jerry Morelock. Impressed by Dr. Huber’s analysis of the synergistic effects achieved by Wellington’s British Army and Spanish guerrillas as they worked together against Napoleon’s forces, Col. Morelock suggested that other members of CSI examine examples of this pattern of warfare in other times and places. This book is a compilation of their studies.
While the basic concept of compound warfare is easily grasped, in practice, the phenomenon can assume many forms. Dr. Huber’s initial chapter provides a conceptual framework that can be used to facilitate analysis of the problem. The most straightforward form of compound warfare is that in which one side has a regular (conventional) force and irregular (unconventional) forces fighting under unified direction. In this situation, the full complementary effects of compound warfare can be realized, as each type of force conducts operations that give full expression to its own capabilities. A crucial aspect of the complementary relationship between regular and irregular forces is the way in which they increase the number and the variety of threats faced by the enemy. Irregular force operations pressure an enemy to disperse forces that otherwise would be concentrated against regular forces.

Regular force movements pressure an enemy to concentrate forces that he would like to disperse to counter irregular force attacks. Unless the enemy has forces large enough and mobile enough to engage all threatening actions by both types of forces simultaneously and effectively, the side possessing regular and irregular forces should be able to achieve local superiority in certain places at certain times. That local superiority is critical because it establishes a foundation upon which to build a larger, more capable force structure and fight even harder.
The importance of achieving local superiority is addressed by Dr. Huber in his development of the idea of “fortified” (strengthened) compound warfare. This variation of compound warfare exists, according to Dr. Huber’s definition, when a regular force is shielded from destruction in some definitive way. This situation can be created when a regular force has superior agility and mobility, has an advantage in technology, is protected by terrain, or has constructed a strong defensive position. It might also be created by diplomatic activity and the establishment of an alliance with a major power that can exert military pressure on the enemy. When an entity fighting compound warfare reaches the point where it is “fortified” (possesses indestructible local superiority in some area), there is room for optimism about its prospects for future success.
While there can be significant differences between “fortified” compound warfare and the simple form of compound warfare, what they have in common is that a regular force and an irregular force coordinate their operations. But what of a conflict where irregular guerrillas fighting for a cause act independently from a regular conventional army? Can the dynamics of compound warfare still be present? That issue is addressed in the essays dealing with Ireland and Afghanistan. In both cases, an equivalent for a regular army existed and that equivalent served to limit the military resources that were directed against the guerrillas. It is also possible for there to be an equivalent for the major-power ally that Huber makes a major feature of “fortified” compound warfare. In the Chinese civil war, central Communist
direction over regular conventional and irregular guerrilla units made this a case of simple compound warfare. But this war became a variant of “fortified” compound war when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded China and inadvertently aided the Communists by forcing the Nationalist government to withdraw troops from campaigns designed to exterminate Mao’s forces. Unintentionally, the Japanese army performed a service for the Communists equivalent to what could be expected from a major-power ally. Clearly, while the concept of compound warfare is simple, the dynamic relationships and effects of compound warfare can take many different shapes and appear in many different environments.

Compound War