Nigeria 2013-2017

[jmm99]

Alach, The New Aztecs - Ritual and Restraint in Contemporary Western Military Operations (2011, SSI, pp.81):

SUMMARY

Centuries ago, the Aztecs of Central America fought their wars in a ritualized and restrained manner, not seeking total victory but rather the capture of live prisoners. It was a style of warfare that seems strange to us today, who have been brought up on Clausewitzian concepts of the meaning of war. We think of ourselves as scientific, instrumentalist practitioners of the art of war, seeking maximum military effectiveness.

The key argument of this monograph is that the Western way of war has actually come full circle and returned to its primitive roots. The monograph begins by identifying the primary factors that shape war. It then studies the evolution of warfare over time, beginning with what is known as primitive warfare. War began as glorified hunting, an extension of martial culture, heavily circumscribed by both ritual and restraint. The monograph then examines the major historical eras of warfare. While there was no steady evolution in a single direction, by and large, warfare became less and less subject to cultural restraint, and more and more total.

The monograph then briefly examines a range of recent Western operations that show a clear move away from total war and back toward ritual and restraint. Our most recent wars are driven far more by cultural beliefs and moral standards, including respect for international law, than they are by considerations of raw military effectiveness. A secondary argument, linked intimately to the first, is that we in the West, especially the media, do not seem to realize that we are limiting our arms to such an extent. We continue to see contemporary warfare as brutal and extremely deadly.

The monograph then posits a series of interlinked factors contributing to this re-emergent ritual and restraint. The main factors are a decline in the perceived utility of war, sociocultural attitudes in the West, the impact of democracy, and the professionalism of contemporary soldiers. Finally, the monograph looks at the implications of this return to ritual and restraint. Are the “new Aztecs” in danger of appeasing the “sun god,” but ignoring the conquistadors at the gates?

Alach's bottom line is generally somber (pp.37-39):

THE IMPLICATIONS OF RITUAL AND RESTRAINT

This monograph has taken the position that the West, turning aside from the progression of history, has returned, at least for now, to a ritualized and restrained method of warfare, albeit for very different reasons than those that motivated primitive tribes to behave in such a manner. What does this mean for the West?

A positive implication is the possibility that Western military behavior will affect the behavior of other military cultures. This may then lead to humanitarian, restrained warfare becoming the norm. It will likely have positive effects for humanity as a whole, strengthening respect for life and reducing the number of people who die from conflict. However, there are other more ominous implications as well.

One is that that the West will lose an accurate understanding of the nature of war. The longer it continues to fight in a constrained manner, the more normalized that methodology will become. The decision making spectrum available to leaders for future military endeavors will be restricted to those low-danger, low-intensity options favored today.

A further implication of this style of warfare is that future military operations will be driven by public opinion and politics more than by policy. Traditionally, it has been the role of leaders to lead; while they have been cognizant of popular beliefs, they have also understood that there are some elements of national policy that are unpopular, but necessary. In some ways, this is still so in the West; countries are still willing to embark on unpopular expeditions. The problem develops, however, when leaders are “anxious to go to war, but unwilling to fight.” Leaders, ignorant of the realities of war, try to limit the political harm flowing from an unpopular operation by heavily restricting the methods used in order to minimize the casualties and costs.

Another implication is the prospect of the West losing the moral high ground through grandiose efforts to keep the moral high ground—paradoxically a self-defeating approach. Treating one’s enemy with some respect is wise, for it prevents overconfidence.

However, if the West continues to demand that its forces treat its enemies with extraordinary respect, take maximum care to avoid collateral damage, and even avoid the killing of enemy combatants, the end result may well be an increase in the public cachet of the enemy. Expectations determine perceptions.

The final implications relate to military effectiveness.

First, there is the question of whether or not ritualized and restrained methods of conflict are actually counterproductive on the battlefield, especially when fighting a foe whose methods are unrestrained.

The second is to question whether or not restrained methods have the unintended effect of extending the duration of wars, which in turn increases the overall harm inflicted by the conflict. If this is so, then by trying to limit the brutality of war, the West may make it ultimately even more harmful.

The third element is the potential effect of such a style of warfare on the West’s future effectiveness. As noted, ritualized and restrained wars usually last a long time. By maintaining a series of overseas garrisons for the foreseeable future, the West may well weaken itself substantially. Militaries may become so focused on these low-intensity, long-duration operations that their efficacy for other operations will decline.

It pays to consider the Aztecs. At the time of the Flower Wars, the Aztecs were hegemonic in Central America. They could fight in a ritualized way because they had no true rival. When a rival did appear—a rival named Cortes, who fought in an amoral, instrumental, rational, unrestrained, and non-ritualized manner—the Aztecs were defeated. Cortes fought to kill. He fought to win.

Is there a Cortes awaiting the West today? Will we, the contemporary Flower Warriors, face a foe who, to be defeated, requires our willingness to kill, be killed, and fight to the bitter end? Is the current style of Western warfare but a mere historical blip, a momentary anomaly that will disappear when the world changes again? History cannot answer that question, but we had better be prepared to answer it ourselves.

The next author, Anna Simons, sees Cortes having a definite advantage over the contemporary Flower Warrior.

- to be cont.-

[jmm99]

Picking up where Alach left off is Anna Simons, 21st Century Cultures of War - Advantage Them (2013, NPS, 64 pp.), whose title answers the "Cortes" question - the contemporary Flower Warriors will fare as badly as the Aztecs.

INTRODUCTION

This paper aims to sound two alarms. First, about “them.” We Americans have long assumed many non-Westerners are more primitive, less advanced, and ultimately less capable than we are. This is a mistaken view. Not only are many much more sophisticated than we realize, but they are especially adept in the realm of social relations, which has never been our strong suit.

Consequently, one challenge we face is that in much the same way our technological prowess led the Soviets to overreach (and thus the Soviet Union to collapse), non-Westerners’ ability to outmaneuver us in the field of social relations will lead us to continue to overextend ourselves. And worse, we won’t achieve clear wins. In writing this I do not mean to imply that our overreach will be purposely orchestrated by any one actor or set of actors, although that remains a distinct possibility. Rather, people abroad (and here at home, working on behalf of people abroad) will continue to seek U.S. military assistance for a host of reasons, both venal and legitimate, and the effects will continue to be cumulatively corrosive. Just look at our current culture of war—which brings me to the second source of alarm: us.

Our technical ingenuity, our work ethic, and our productive capacity have long distinguished us. Engineering, one could say, is our forte. We Americans make things work. All of which would appear to stand our military in good stead. And indeed, until recently, our “can do,” problem-solving professionalism did advantage us. However, no longer. I write “no longer” because we no longer seem to want to apply our comparative strengths definitively. At the same time, “can do” overstates what we can accomplish. ...

On the issue of "Restrained warfare":

3) Restrained warfare. Since the advent of the Cold War, every “war” the U.S. has fought has been limited which, by definition, means restrained; we neither go all out nor commit our entire arsenal to winning. The U.S. has been able to wage limited wars thanks to our positioning and resources. No one can out-produce us. Geographically, we remain impossible to overrun. Better still, in every conflict since the Mexican War, we have fought “over there.”

This has been hugely significant. It means that we actually could have fought with less restraint had we so chosen, and that we are the ones who have decided to limit the nature of war. We like to think we have done so for ideological and moral reasons. But, on closer examination, this might be as much an artifact of the dawning of the nuclear age and the Cold War, coinciding with the luxury of no near-peer adversaries apart from the USSR. After all, no one we have fought against has really fought back: not Panamanians, Somalis, Serbs, or even the Iraqi Army.

World War II marks several watersheds. Among them, our rules of engagement have grown increasingly complicated and more discriminating, while non-Westerners increasingly target non-combatants. Or, as Zhivan Alach has put it, while “The West may be retreating toward restraint in warfare… non-Western actors may be charging headlong toward unrestrained methods.” Actually, the anthropologically correct observation would be that everyone demonstrates restraint—it is just that what constitutes restraint is cross-culturally contingent, and non-Westerners don’t apply the same brakes we do. Not only are non-Westerners who seize power bolder in what they are willing to do, but they exhibit no discernible remorse.

For obvious reasons, comity between a society’s conception of war and how combatants would fight if they were unconstrained is harder to achieve or maintain in democracies and heterogeneous states than in militarized (especially militarized tribally based) societies, which leads to yet another Western/non-Western rub.
...
... At least since WWII, policy makers in, and not just out of, the military have helped habituate the Services to regard fighting as a signaling device. Recall Vietnam—the U.S. bombed Hanoi to get the North Vietnamese to negotiate; bombing wasn’t done to force them to give up. Or more recently there is the example of Kosovo and our 79-day-long air war.
...
... Yet, treating war as a messaging device overlooks two truisms about the use of force. First, in Western/non-Western contests, miscommunication is all but guaranteed. We only deceive ourselves when we assume others understand, or will want to understand, or will not want to purposely misunderstand the intent in our messaging. Second, fighting never feels semiotic to those engaged in it.

On "Wile":

Wile requires at least four attributes:

1) the ability to identify that feature or set of features in an adversary’s culture that can be used as the fulcrum by, with, and through which to permanently alter conditions,

2) the ability to read all players so that you know how to appeal to, neutralize, and/or outwit each equally well,

3) an intuitive ability to tease, test, and probe so that you can make your own opportunities and don’t operate on others’ timeline(s), and

4) an appetite for twitting others, which means relishing the idea of turning the tables on adversaries in order to cause them to undo themselves.

At best, the most unconventional U.S. units today strive to “screw with others’ heads,” which they can generally do only after commanders figure out how to wrest the right authorities from the right agencies and bureaucracies. Then, should such individuals succeed at fusing their information operations, psyop, strategic communications, and operator capabilities to sow dissension and distrust, at best they can cause problems at the tactical and operational levels: they usually don’t have the wherewithal to strategically coordinate beyond their area of operations.

This is why to truly “screw with their heads” requires that commanders be able to apply wile: a) locally, b) coordinating across locations and over time, and c) supra-locally in order to both buy and control time.

Of course, to give the military its best shot at mastering a situation so that others can’t effectively maneuver it, or anything else, against us—to include youth, accidental guerrillas, or public sentiment—calls for unrestrained warfare. But, given current sensibilities, this hardly appears an option. Thus, seeking to “screw with others’ heads” provides one way to augment the use of force. Or, replace it.

However, we would make a massive, but classically American mistake, to assume that wile is something the military can either teach or train. William Donovan and the OSS recognized how uncommon an attribute wile is. They also realized it was a trait that needs to be selected for ...

Answering the quest for wily coyotes, Lindeman, Better Lucky Than Good - A Theory of Unconventional Minds and the Power of 'Who' (2009, NPS; Anna Simons was his thesis advisor) (161 pp.). IMO: His most material point:

B. THEORY OF AN UNCONVENTIONAL MIND

Simons suggests that succeeding in irregular warfare, especially when operating in foreign cultures and with “Others,” requires something that cannot be taught—or trained. The right “kind” of mind is necessary. She makes it clear that this is an important distinction. It is not temporal, like a frame of mind. It is a permanent kind of mind.[3] It’s an unconventional kind of mind.

To understand what an unconventional kind of mind is, it is important to first understand what a conventional kind of mind is. Given a conventional kind of mind, an individual’s ability to evaluate, process, and contend with new or different situations is bounded by domain and wedded to past actions. An individual with an unconventional kind of mind is not bound by these constraints. Someone with an unconventional kind of mind is capable of synthesizing across domains or innovating in order to solve problems while orienting and adapting to new circumstances or changing conditions.

This thesis posits that success in an irregular warfare environment requires individuals with an unconventional kind of mind; some individuals naturally think unconventionally, or irregularly, compared to everyone else. These individuals have a natural ability to, as Simons writes:

...intuitively think in terms of branches and sequels, and therefore don’t need to ask themselves what the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order effects of an action might be–they’ve already factored that in without consciously factoring it in. Or they have the ability to see angles from angles that remain obtuse to others.[4]

These are the first-stringers that America should be seeking to employ in irregular warfare.

3 & 4. Anna Simons and Mike Weathers, “Anthropology and Irregular Warfare – India,” (Unpublished paper, Naval Postgraduate School, 2008), 20-21.

All worth reading.

Regards

Mike