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Thread: The Warden Collection (merged thread)

  1. #61
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Saddam Hussien (dead),
    the electrical system non-functional,
    roads and bridges unable to support mobility,
    military officers demoralized or defecting,
    air defense unable to interfere with US operations
    Let's use this as an example (and I read '91 here):

    Two approaches to air war:
    'True' strategic air war with the intent to break the enemy government('s will to resist) directly with air power
    and
    operational air war in support of other arms; usually land support of a land campaign, rarely (Pacific War) primarily support of naval warfare. This may include bombing industries if those industries supply the OPFOR.


    Saddam Hussein was caught in a miscalculation.
    His withdrawal (the mission to be accomplished under UN mandate) would almost certainly follow if he understood his mistake
    . Offering him a way out that saves his face would likely reduce his resistance once he grasps the situation (and hurry the process up).


    So what needed to be done? He needed to be convinced that the situation is serious. Air power eventually achieved this when he ordered a withdrawal (ground offensive was accelerated to interfere with the withdrawal iirc).

    It did actually not take much to convince him that the coalition was serious. Diplomats could have paved him a nice way out of the mess and air power could have demonstrated political resolution with actual attacks. Those actual attacks could have been directed against his counter-strike capabilities in order to minimise the mess; attack aircraft airbases, SCUDs (the latter did eventually fail, of course), suppress long-range artillery (longer range than the ubiquitous D-30's).
    This would have required some self-support of air power in form of the strike package support; SEAD, AEW, ECM...
    The bombing of barracks, bridges, palaces, electrical nodes, tanks and bunkers was not strategically necessary (the CAS at Khafij was tactically useful, though).


    Now another version; air power in support of decisive land operations.
    The scenario is roughly the same, but the decision is expected to lay in the hands of the ground forces
    (assumption: Hussein is too stubborn to yield to air power alone.
    Air power softens up and deceives in order to prepare for a decisive land campaign advance: A near-encirclement of the occupation forces in Kuwait would almost certainly force Hussein to accept the need to withdraw. Alternatively, the encirclement could be completed in a more Clausewitzian approach of disarmament.


    It should be obvious in both cases that I'm not intent on destroying a card house with some smart moves; I'm intent on defeating the will.
    I look at personal preferences and assume somewhat purposeful decision-making within the limits of typical psychological malfunctions (such as cognitive dissonance or problematic group dynamics).
    An enemy head of state only needs to be attacked if it itself is the problem or if by assumption a successor would be more inclined to bow to our demands. Aggressor politicians deserve a high explosive event, but killing them makes it damn hard to negotiate an armistice with them in the following days and weeks.

    -----------------------------------
    The 2nd kind of air warfare (in support of a decisive surface campaign) isn't truly strategic in my opinion, but rather a support campaign that works through the economy/infrastructure (WW2 examples). It's working only very directly towards victory:
    Air power succeeds to pave the way for its exploits (SEAD, air superiority fight), air power affects the enemy at home (supply flow to OPFOR reduced), blue surface forces defeat red forces in battle more easily, red government accepts that it was overpowered militarily, its will is broken.
    That's often way too indirect because more direct, more elegant, approaches are available.

  2. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    The resources applied were in all the 1991-2011 examples out of proportion with the target. Show me contemporary air war strategy defeating a peer enemy in less than a half year anywhere and I'll buy that it's efficient enough.
    Hmm, there isn't one. That doesn't mean the strategy is invalid though. How about 1973 or 1967? Are those contemporary to you?

    Btw, the record for most rapid defeat of a Yugoslav government is an astonishing 11 days. The most powerful alliance ever took 78 days to force very limited demands.
    Mostly a political issue with NATO, which as I have pointed out Col Warden specifically warns against.

    The problem is merely that the whole 'rings' stuff is nonsense. The whole approach is just a bad idea. His writing is full of cluelessness with minimal inspiration. You need to get to the core if you want to break will, you need to look at psychology and preferences, not against an organisation complex.
    Name calling isn't useful, Fuchs. Psychology is exactly what Col Warden is talking about when he talks of attacking leadership.

    Here's a problem, though.
    Let's assume I think I have a better concept that the world-famous five rings crap.
    Would you expect me to publish it in an internet forum?

    I wouldn't even publish it in my blog.
    Good of you to not share with us, then.

    ... which was what he was told to propose, not what he proposed. There are certain people from that episode who do not hold him in high regard at all.
    That's true... because Col Warden bucked the establishment (TAC's leadership especially)... and the Army certainly didn't like that Stormin' Norman overruled their desires in favor of the USAF plan. Again, why does this matter in evaluating his ideas?

    By my methodology, Iraq would have been left alone since '97, for it had been disarmed as demanded in '96 and was no real-world problem any more.
    But you won't tell us how as you said.

    Yes, and I don't care about tight control.
    There's no inspiration behind what's being done, just transpiration and the standard meme of throwing resources at a problem.
    The 90's and 00's air wars followed the 8th AF approach of destroying this, then that - trial and error. We need something more close to Biafra air force, Flying Tigers or Luftwaffe May '40.
    We need air forces which deliver a good strategic effect on small budget, accomplish their mission against the odds and which can focus on what's decisive.
    There was actually extensive analysis and resources were not thrown willy-nilly at the problem, and it wasn't just destroying things. The effects were carefully calculated. The big problem was that the target set was limited to fielded forces, which as you point out was not a great target. Then again, that's pretty much the opposite of what Warden is arguing we should do...

    While the Flying Tigers and Luftwaffe in May '40 accomplished great things, I don't think they were shining examples of airpower strategy - especially the Luftwaffe. But this is distracting us from the real point - your argument for better use of resources is exactly what Warden is arguing for - so you agree with his ends but not his means?

    I'll translate this for you:

    The original strategy didn't work, a new set of targets was opened up and that strategy didn't work either, another set of targets was opened up and that strategy was still failing until finally the hero knight in shining armour arrived and rescued us all from the total strategic embarrassment: The Russian prime minister who convinced Milosevic that Russia would not intervene.
    The strategy used was not the one recommended by the airpower experts involved. You are conflating NATO's national and international grand-strategy issues with airpower strategy. Also, Warden argues that we shouldn't go to war if we're not willing to do what it takes to win - which seems to be what you're arguing (don't go with a less-than optimum strategy). While Russia's position was important, I don't think it was decisive - but even if it was important, how does that diminish the air strategy? It worked in the context of the political situation.

    Hardly. We bombed a small power for 78 days. Not elegant at all.
    You're using the same point (conflating grand strategy with military strategy) again.

    Most of all, it leads to additional wars because
    a) there were already too many hundreds of billions spent on the AF bureaucracy and its toys (and politicians never fail to hit the sunk costs fallacy!).
    b) air power offers a fantasy of a war (or bullying) on the cheap, without much negative effects of relevance
    Fuchs, if the west ever goes to war with China, I hope I am still around afterwards to talk to you about the fallacy of airpower. Your second point is also one that is made by Warden- we shouldn't focus on technological miracles, but find strategies that work.

    The Kosovo air war remains a strategic disaster on too many levels - it's astonishing how well this has been kept out of the public perception.
    * technical failure of DEAD attempts
    * technical failure of F-117
    I disagree with the DEAD, although there were issues. Many of these problems have been resolved. As for your second point, why do you think the USAF was trying to buy F-22s?

    * tactical failure of way too inept mission planning (such as no variance in French UAV routing and predictable Tomahawk flight routes)
    * tactical/technical failure of BDA from the air
    BDA is always problematic, but massive improvements have been made there. It will always be an issue.

    * intelligence failure on colossal scope before the war
    * political failure: lies about the reasons for war
    * intelligence failure: BDA
    * top HQ failure to teach politicians about what air power can achieve
    * top HQ failure to understand that the short bombing around Sarajevo is NOT a good analogy
    * political failure: opposition instead of cooperation with Russia
    BDA is a repeat, the rest are issues with the NATO alliance and not airpower.

    * logistical failure: Race to Pristina airport
    * readiness and deployability failure: TF Hawk
    * strategic failure: poor understanding of the purpose of destruction
    * PR failure: slowed down train bombing video was a lie
    Same point as above

    * reconnaissance failure: aerial imagery misinterpretation on colossal scale
    * reconnaissance and targeting failure: way too many decoys were engaged
    * reconnaissance and targeting failure: deployed ground forces were barely scratched despite being targeted
    Got it, why do you think there's been massive investments in ISR tech and systems?

    * strategic failure: way too long campaign in light of the disparity between NATO and Yugoslavia
    * political failure: Greece was not convinced to make bases available
    * logistical failure: use of North Italian instead of South Italian bases was idiotic
    * political failure: many countries provided small packages of combat aircraft instead of the alliance tailoring a force of only the best for the job
    * political failure: no gains for us
    * political failure: we're stills tuck in there with blue helmets
    * political failure: a few thousand criminal insurgents fooled us into fighting their war
    * political failure: said thugs are now operating the organised crime hub of Europe under our protection
    * political failure: we came to end an ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovars that did not really exist and then we didn't really keep the Kosovars from cleaning most of Kosovo ethnically from Serbs
    Again, grand strategic issues.

    The whole thing was a huge embarrassment, and the air war component contributed a lot to the embarrassment. Only so-called "victory" prevented that the whole world laughed about us.
    Same. Fuchs, you argue many of the same points that Warden makes, but then criticize him. You take the fact that the NAC and the political leadership of NATO didn't take the advice of the military experts until it was obvious it was the only way to achieve victory, and use that to discredit the original strategy. Additionally, you give Warden no credit for the fact that he agrees that we should not go to war if we're not willing to use the proper strategy for political reasons. You criticize Warden for his argument's intellectual rigor, then use misleading and repetitive examples of your own to support your counter.

    I know I am not going to convince you, and that's OK. I would appreciate it if you avoided name calling in future discussions, though. Even if you disagree with someone you can still respect them.

    V/R,

    Cliff

  3. #63
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Not to intrude on a good discussion I'm enjoying...

    but I posit this, properly redacted to preclude assignment of intent, evil or otherwise, for consideration.
    "... no credit for the fact that he agrees that we should not go to war if we're not willing to use the proper strategy for political reasons."
    Well, I freely give such credit -- however, being an ancient, curmudgeonly cynic, I also have to point out that most warfare theorists, good, bad and indifferent have said things to that effect. It is almost a mantra among them, ancient to classical to contemporary.

    My suspicion is that part of the problem is few politicians read the treatises and will insist on sending folks off to fight while barring the use of good strategeries or even sensible TTP...

    The follow on to that is that many arguments about theory and strategy -- indeed many great ideas pertaining to strategy -- founder on that shoal. If is a very problematic word...

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    Quote Originally Posted by pvebber View Post
    There are several different lines of argument... ...How effectively does Col Warden make his historical case to defend his theory?
    The last I will leave to Fuchs, as he has done a bang up job so far
    Agree with all but your last line. Warden's historical examples aren't perfect, but Fuchs' aren't much better.

    Has COL Warden read Joint doctrine lately?

    When required to employ force, JFCs seek combinations of forces and actions to achieve concentration in various dimensions, all culminating in attaining the assigned objective(s) in the shortest time possible and with minimal casualties. JFCs arrange symmetrical and asymmetrical actions to take advantage of friendly strengths and adversary vulnerabilities and to preserve freedom of action for future operations. JP 3-0

    Simultaneity is a key characteristic of the American way of war. It refers to the simultaneous application of power against key adversary capabilities and sources of strength. The goal of simultaneity in joint force operations contributes directly to an adversary’s collapse by placing more demands on
    adversary forces and functions than can be handled. This does not mean that all elements of the joint force are employed with equal priority or that even all elements of the joint force will be employed. It refers specifically to the concept of attacking appropriate adversary forces and functions in such
    a manner as to cause confusion and demoralization.

    The COL's desires seem to be esconced in current doctrine, with the exception of attributing exculsivity of action to airpower.
    Note the focus on forces in the above paragraphs- that is what Warden is arguing against. Additionally, I would say that joint doctrine is not always (or even often) neccessarily followed. Additionally, the JFC is normally an Army commander, and the Army doctrine is very force centric.

    Unconstrained, airpower provides the vehicle to directly achieve strategic ends without the need for other forces.

    What if the strategic ends require interpersonal contact between human beings? Say to gain the support of a potential ally? Why can't land or naval forces be positioned so as to take simultaneous action that directly achives stragic ends? This key premise is actually an assumption, as no evidence is provided that it is true, and it is fairly easy to conjecture situations where it is not true. (for example if your desired end state is to enforce a strategy based on interdiction of maritime contraband how does one do board and search of potential interlopers with airpower?)
    Again, Warden isn't saying that land or naval power won't work, or can't help- he is saying that airpower can be more effective in many situations. The fact that airpower can work doesn't mean that land or seapower can't.

    Strategy is about conceiving a desired endstate, identifying means to achieve it, implementing a course of action, and deciding when you are done.

    Again, right out of Joint doctrine.

    b. The design and implementation of leverage and the ability to know how and
    when to terminate operations are involved in operational art and are discussed in Chapter III, “Planning Joint Operations.” Because the nature of the termination will shape the futures of the contesting nations or groups, it is
    fundamentally important to understand that termination of operations is an essential link between national security strategy, NMS, and end state conditions — the desired outcome. This principle holds true for both war and MOOTW.
    JP 3-0
    I agree, I don't think Warden would argue. He is saying that the language we use tends to drive us to a certain strategy. Your example cited puts the termination or desired outcome at the end... Warden is say

    Okay, quibble time- MOOTW is out, your JP 3-0 must be out of date.

    From JP 3-0, 17 Sept 2006, (Inc change 1 13 Feb 08), page I-3:

    Theater strategy is determined by CCDRs based on analysis of changing events in the operational environment and the development of options to set conditions for success.
    Warden argues that strategy should start at ends, then work backwards. The Joint Ops Planning Process starts at the ends and theoretically works backwards. But a few paragraphs after the one you cite we have this:

    Commanders strive to end combat operations on terms favorable to the United States and its multinational partners. The basic element of this goal is gaining control over the enemy and/or gaining influence over a relevant population.
    Warden would say that control drives us to strive for decisive battle to seize control of terrain, when we might be able to achieve our objectives by influencing the enemy's will. Subtle differences, but Warden is saying that attrition and battle are a part of our basic mentality in the US military.

    The Army's Military Decision Making Process is similar, although even more force/terrain centric- as it probably should be. The first steps of Course of Action Development are "assess relative combat power", then Generate Options which consists of making COAs...

    A good COA can defeat all feasible enemy COAs while accounting for essential stability tasks.
    FM 5-0, March 2010, B-14 to B-15

    In other words, the COA is developed based on the enemy forces expected actions. Again, the Army tends to drive most joint planning because they are most of the people involved.

    Opponents are complicated entities that can be simplified by a systems analysis. (e.g. Five rings model).

    Here is where things start to get contentious. The issue is "complicated" vs "Complex".
    Agree on that!

    When some of the "five rings" anaysis of Gulf War 1 are looked at, the sample centers of gravity (see http://www.venturist.com/Prometheus%...%20Summary.htm) are given as:

    Saddam Hussien (dead),
    the electrical system non-functional,
    roads and bridges unable to support mobility,
    military officers demoralized or defecting,
    air defense unable to interfere with US operations.
    With the exception of affecting military officers, those are all complicated, but not complex systems that can be modeled, simplified and decomposed into a subset of vital nodes. Physical systems that those that can be effectively approached from a systems analysis perspective.
    No argument there, Desert Storm was a relatively un-complex setup, especially since our objectives were fairly simple (eject Iraq from Kuwait, make sure they could defend themselves but not attack neighbors post-conflict).

    Truely complex systems - most notably social systems - are largely opaque to the sort of systems analysis that is required to predict what an effect will do. Complex systems also have a characteristic of irreducibility - they can be decomposed only so far before any resulting model is no longer useful, and you will not no until after the fact that you have exceeded the irreducibility threshold.
    True. Humans are complex. But you can still determine ways to affect them.

    Centers of Gravity can be identified in the system which, if affected quickly and and simultaneously, allow the state of the system to be changed to a new, more desirable state.

    Another charateristic of complex systems is that the output can not be predicted from a given set of inputs. You can "set the dials and pul lthe levers" of a complex system the same way, and even if you have modeled it with 100% accuracy, you will get different outputs. When dealing with complex systems there is no way to no way to establish a requisite list of CoGs and no way to be certain that doing something to one COg will have a positive feedback one time and a negative feedback the next. This is the fundamental problem with "effects-basd warfare" in general. In every case Ive seen thee is no "theory of action" that connects the action taken, to the desired result - it is simply a matter of "guilt by association" or "correlation equals causality" (until it doesn't).
    I guess my point is, what alternative do we have? Also, I think Warden's argument on the time element is critical... because humans are involved, and provide most of the complexity and a lot of the uncertainty on effects you refer to above, psychology matters. If you can successfully hit someone so quickly and in so many places that they can't react, the likelihood of them reacting in the way you want is increased, because they don't have time to change their actions or adjust.

    Were it possible to create a "strategic effects machine" we would have figured it out by now in Afghanistan. Alas there is no "CoG analysis" that tells what levers to pull and dials to turn to create teh desired end state. You can lament "trail and error" but you can desire a magic strategic endstate computer all you want, but what we know about complex system theory says its impossible. Energent behavior is "emergent" becasue by definition it is not predictable.
    What was our desired endstate in Afghanistan? I think Col Warden would argue that putting in extensive troops in on the ground in the first place was part of where things went wrong... He also says that airpower may not be the answer (yet), but that we should try and figure ways to use it to achieve our ends.

    The COIN scenario is obviously the most difficult to apply Warden's system to... but then again, have Design, JOPP, MDMP, or FM 3-24 been completely successful in AFG?

    On to the next one... good points!

    V/R,

    Cliff

  5. #65
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    Default Almost there... stay on target!

    Quote Originally Posted by pvebber View Post
    Affecting CoGs in series vice parallel is dramatically more expensive.

    Only if you are inept at operational art. How do you know that the cost of firing 1000 cruise missiles all at once to achieve your objective is going to be more successful than firing 100 on 9 consecutive days. or 8 or 7? Boyd discusses this problem in relation to OODA loops.
    I think Col Warden is making a generality here... but it is supportable. Take your example - the cost of deploying troops to the field for 9 days is going to be 9 times the cost of deploying them for 1 day. Not as big an issue for you Navy folks, but everyone else pays...

    Maybe urban legend, but supposedly he tells the story of a dogfight with a new pilot where he makes a complicated series of maneuvers, the response to which would lead to Boyd being on the youngsters 6. After completing the maneuvers Boyd is horrified to find the younster behind HIM. He asks the youngster how he figured out how to turn the tables. The youngster said "I had no clue what to do, I was gonna go left, then thought maybe right and all of a sudden there you were in front of me!"
    Having been that guy once (OK, it might have happened twice), I will submit that one of the hardest opponents in BFM can be someone who is new and thus has no clue... because sometimes they will do something completely dumb, but if you take a second to ask "why did he do that? that was dumb..." it might just work!

    You can make the OODA loop so much faster than your opponent that you end up outsmarting yourself, or paralyze him so much that he can't even surrender. With tipping point phenomena, you can't predict how much effect you need to effect the tip, or how much excess you applied after the fact. Sometimes incrementalism is also a political requirement.
    Hmmm... agree on the political. If you've properly analyzed your opponent, then the inability to surrender should be immaterial, because you'll know when he's there and leave him a way to let you know he's done.

    Again Warden's argument requires a very determinsitic world view to be correct. There are parts of an adversary "system" that operate that way, but on the whole they do not, and the parts that do may not always be politically acceptable because of collateral effects.
    Again, Warden is not arguing that we're there now - only that we are getting closer, and should keep trying - and that we will not get closer if we give up because ground and seapower folks tell us it'll never work.

    Now these criticisms should NOT be extended to "well, then you must mean we shouldn't even try". Criticism is not condemnation - it is the seemingly obvious caution that we should not try to apply a theory that indeed works against some parts of the some problems, to ALL parts of ALL problems.
    Which is why Warden says we should see if we can make airpower work in a quick/less costly way, and if not, consider if we really want to go to war.

    Some systems we have to try to understand in their holistic, complete, complex entirety, because simplification introduces errors that render overly simplistic models useless. Just because we want there to be an easy answer that we can apply airpower to simply, quickly and relatively bloodlessly doesn't mean that is possible. Everything we have learned from the last 10 years of war has demonstrated that the heady days of Joint Vision 2010, eliminating the Fog of war and mechanically applying combat power to centers of gravity win wars is folly. Either that or our best and brightest fighting these wars are criminally incompetent for not having achieved our desired endstate quickly and cheaply.
    This goes back to the same point above.

    When all is said and done, lets assume Warden is 100% correct. Then what? What changes?

    How do we change Joint doctrine to use a language that "enables unconstrained use of airpower"? What things would a Warden designed Air Force do that todays Air Force doesn't do? How does our concept of war change if we assume airpower is a "strategic end-sate generating machine"? How does it harmonize our future growth with China so the rising tide floats all boats? How does it convince Iran to abandon its desire for nuclear power? How does it reduce the strategic risk of our excessive debt? In a multi-polar world what are the end-states we can achieve by compelling, coercing, or denying? Can airpower be a carrot instead of a stick? (other than by giving away!)
    My thoughts on what Warden would answer: We focus on the endstate. Our concept changes to focus more on the desired ends and the quickest way to get there vs. a force/battle centric way of thinking. On China, fully funding a robust airpower capability would potentially allow you to deter Chinese military action, confining the competition to the economic realm- which after all is what US grand strategy has been about since World War II. As for Iran, it either deters them or gives you the capability to affect their regime leaders in a way that convinces them it's too painful to continue. Rather than focusing on hitting their nuclear program, how about we target the president, mullahs, and revolutionary guards through their extensive financial holdings? That's the difference Warden would promote. The debt issue is not a military one, so I agree that airpower can't solve that - although if Warden's ideal was realized, we could probably cut a lot of folks. I think that airpower can be a carrot - reference our current strategy of outsourcing containment of Iran by improving other folks' Air Forces in the gulf.

    Probably the biggest lesson I have learned over the last year of hanging with the Army is that the Army doesn't like strategy. I'm not trying to attack- there's good reason for this. And this is not something I came up with - this is what the Army folks have told me (one of them is going to be a FA-59, or strategist). Again, the Army drives most joint doctrine and planning because it is the biggest service and normally the JFC. This is a big part of why Warden is saying we have a hard time thinking about airpower. This is what Warden is arguing against - again, he's not saying we're there now, but that we (airpower advocates) should keep trying to get there. He is not advocating bombing everything in sight- or even that bombing is always necessary - in fact, he wants to reduce the amount of direct kinetic damage.

    Good discussion pvebber.

    V/R,

    Cliff

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    Let's use this as an example (and I read '91 here):
    Saddam Hussein was caught in a miscalculation.
    His withdrawal (the mission to be accomplished under UN mandate) would almost certainly follow if he understood his mistake
    . Offering him a way out that saves his face would likely reduce his resistance once he grasps the situation (and hurry the process up).
    Uhhm, this is the guy who killed hundreds of thousands of his own folks in the Iran-Iraq war...

    So what needed to be done? He needed to be convinced that the situation is serious. Air power eventually achieved this when he ordered a withdrawal (ground offensive was accelerated to interfere with the withdrawal iirc).

    It did actually not take much to convince him that the coalition was serious. Diplomats could have paved him a nice way out of the mess and air power could have demonstrated political resolution with actual attacks. Those actual attacks could have been directed against his counter-strike capabilities in order to minimise the mess; attack aircraft airbases, SCUDs (the latter did eventually fail, of course), suppress long-range artillery (longer range than the ubiquitous D-30's).
    This would have required some self-support of air power in form of the strike package support; SEAD, AEW, ECM...
    The bombing of barracks, bridges, palaces, electrical nodes, tanks and bunkers was not strategically necessary (the CAS at Khafij was tactically useful, though).
    You assume Saddam is a rational actor who cares about his people... I think that's a false assumption. Also, the second objective was to make sure Saddam could no longer threaten his neighbors - hence the CAS and AI. Your "demonstration" sounds a lot like McNarma and LBJ's "sending signals"... Most of the electrical and bunker targets were intended to degrade C2 of the Iraqi IADS, which is neccessary to do the rest of your list.

    Now another version; air power in support of decisive land operations.
    The scenario is roughly the same, but the decision is expected to lay in the hands of the ground forces
    (assumption: Hussein is too stubborn to yield to air power alone.
    Air power softens up and deceives in order to prepare for a decisive land campaign advance: A near-encirclement of the occupation forces in Kuwait would almost certainly force Hussein to accept the need to withdraw. Alternatively, the encirclement could be completed in a more Clausewitzian approach of disarmament.
    Again, I think you assume a lot about Saddam.

    It should be obvious in both cases that I'm not intent on destroying a card house with some smart moves; I'm intent on defeating the will.
    I look at personal preferences and assume somewhat purposeful decision-making within the limits of typical psychological malfunctions (such as cognitive dissonance or problematic group dynamics).
    An enemy head of state only needs to be attacked if it itself is the problem or if by assumption a successor would be more inclined to bow to our demands. Aggressor politicians deserve a high explosive event, but killing them makes it damn hard to negotiate an armistice with them in the following days and weeks.
    You are confusing Warden's model, Fuchs. Attacking the leadership ring doesn't neccessarily mean you kill them... you just have to affect them.

    The 2nd kind of air warfare (in support of a decisive surface campaign) isn't truly strategic in my opinion, but rather a support campaign that works through the economy/infrastructure (WW2 examples). It's working only very directly towards victory:
    Air power succeeds to pave the way for its exploits (SEAD, air superiority fight), air power affects the enemy at home (supply flow to OPFOR reduced), blue surface forces defeat red forces in battle more easily, red government accepts that it was overpowered militarily, its will is broken.
    That's often way too indirect because more direct, more elegant, approaches are available.
    Again, you seem to agree with Warden, but just don't like the way he wrote his arguement. The last line is pretty much his 5 rings model in one sentence...

    V/R,

    Cliff

  7. #67
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cliff View Post
    Uhhm, this is the guy who killed hundreds of thousands of his own folks in the Iran-Iraq war...
    ...this didn't seem to bother us and was not the subject of the '91 conflict.

    You assume Saddam is a rational actor who cares about his people... I think that's a false assumption.
    No, I assume Saddam was a mostly rational actor who cared about his power. There are many ways how someone like that can be threatened without threatening his people much.
    The more someone wants to keep, the more you can threaten. The more you have destroyed already, the less you can threaten with destruction.

    Also, the second objective was to make sure Saddam could no longer threaten his neighbors - hence the CAS and AI.
    This was pointless, for Turkey was in NATO, Syria and Iran were powerful enough to defend themselves, Jordan is too close to Israel and it wouldn't have required a second lesson to teach him not to touch Kuwait or Saudi-Arabia. Who's left? Qatar and Bahrain? Same as Kuwait, plus he lacked the transport to invade them.
    His ability to threaten neighbours would have been gone by a mix or military and political reasons anyway - without destruction of most of his heavy weapons.

    Your "demonstration" sounds a lot like McNarma and LBJ's "sending signals"...
    They were in the trap that they demanded too much, were seen as wanting to achieve even more (indirect rule) and being unable to hit most of the factories that produced for the war effort. The failure of a recipe under such conditions means nothing unless another recipe is known that would not fail.

    Most of the electrical and bunker targets were intended to degrade C2 of the Iraqi IADS, which is neccessary to do the rest of your list.
    I consider this as overrated. The Iraqi air defences were susceptible in many ways. The effort against the C2 was redundant.

    You are confusing Warden's model, Fuchs. Attacking the leadership ring doesn't neccessarily mean you kill them... you just have to affect them.
    ...which will work about as well as the Bomber Command's bombing reduced work morale unless you have a good idea what effect has the best probability of success. That's what it's all about.
    And someone here had hinted at killing leadership, that's why I referred to it.

    Again, you seem to agree with Warden, but just don't like the way he wrote his arguement.
    No, I don't agree at all, even if conclusions from my model can be misunderstood to be close to his.



    I don't think they were shining examples of airpower strategy - especially the Luftwaffe.
    They were example of good bang for the buck, success under adverse conditions and focus on the important.

    Luftwaffe in May '40 (France Campaign) focused on one thing only: The success of the land campaign. It began with some pressure on the French air force and a fake Schwerpunkt and proceeded with all might to support at the real Schwerpunkt - Sedan. Only a few per cent diversionary missions were about something else than supporting the land campaign.
    This choice of focus was proved to be correct in the process.
    It was a peer/peer conflict (actually, Germany was even a bit weaker), the Luftwaffe was not clearly superior in quality (its losses were higher than the French and British ones!) - the one thing that deserved them a place in air war history as first greatly successful air campaign was the focus on a single mission.

    Compare this with the miserable targeting of '99.
    What exactly was the purpose of destroying a railway bridge if there were no army movements anyway?
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 03-10-2011 at 09:32 AM. Reason: Correct date for France campaign

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    While the Flying Tigers and Luftwaffe in May '40 accomplished great things, I don't think they were shining examples of airpower strategy - especially the Luftwaffe. But this is distracting us from the real point - your argument for better use of resources is exactly what Warden is arguing for - so you agree with his ends but not his means?
    Warden's use of the Luftwaffe to illustrate his examples is one of the points (IMO) where he really goes off the rails. The Luftwaffe did exactly what it was designed to do, because the Germans had a different conception of airpower based on their experiences in World War I. Was it in line with Warden's vision? No. Does that automatically make it wrong? Certainly not.

    Warden continues to chase the myth of warfare on the cheap (from our perspective, at least). He is also far too wedded to the idea that airpower can be decisive in any area, and if it can't we shouldn't get involved. If you read "The Air Campaign," you would think that the Air Force won the war in the Pacific all by itself and that the Battle of Britain was a failed defensive campaign. Warden is also (again IMO) far too linked to the idea that kinetic efforts should be divorced from political considerations, and far too often falls back on the "politicians tied our hands" argument when airpower doesn't work as advertised. Warden's theories work well in computer games, but I really think they fall short when put to the real world test.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
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    Default Interesting Discussion!

    Cliff, thanks trying to penetrate my thick seawater soaked brain!

    I’ll try to give some specific responses as I get the chance. Some general philosophical differences we seem to be having:

    The “why wouldn’t you want” argument. Your interpretation of Warden seems to be “given Warden might be right, why wouldn’t you want that to be the case”? This is a an increasing spillover from political debate to defense debate that I find very troubling. If you didn’t have to “choose 2” between quick, cheap and effective why wouldn’t you? Well because there are these things called the Laws of Physics and Economics… I don’t want to minimize your good arguments by painting them with that broad brush, but a warning from the school of hard knocks

    The “if it’s necessary, why not aim for sufficient”? A variation on the above that I think is at the heart of what many find off-putting to Warden’s arguments. For a Navy guy I’m considered almost an airpower heretic. I have probably read more Airpower doctrine and concepts than I’ve read Navy doctrine and concepts (of course there is so much MORE of it…shame on my Navy brethren for their paucity of operational thought…). I have some rather radical notions of Air-Sea Battle that get at changing how we think about “Fleet Power” (or more broadly to the Air-Sea partnership “Expeditionary power”). I just don’t see what the problem is that makes “airpower is necessary AND sufficient to achieve strategic ends” a desirable goal?

    Definition of “strategy”. I have a copy of Military Strategy by Wylie on my desk. I find it the most personally influential single source on the subject. Its purpose is stated as :

    “One purpose of this book is to try and demonstrate that it is possible to study warfare, and be both fundamental and practical about it, without dissecting a battle or counting bullets or tracing the route of the nth division on a large scale map. What is necessary is that the whole of the thin, all of war, be studied. The fragments of war, the minor parts of strategy, the details of tactics are quite literally infinite. We know from the hard experiences of the physical and social sciences that if the parts are not ordered in some prior way, are not held up to some broad concept, all we can do is remain the prisoner of raw data.”
    So I am receptive to the notion of transcending ‘battle’ as a concept but leery of Wardens desire to “replace it” with some as yet undisclosed ‘vocabulary”. This could just be semantics, but there is a difference to between eliminating the notion of battle, and getting beyond it to understand concepts at a higher level of abstraction.

    Wylies preferred definition of Strategy is:

    "A plan of action designed in order to achieve some end; a purpose together with a system of measures for its accomplishment”.
    Note that it places ends first, and “war” and “means” do not appear in this definition. Also, as someone previously stated, it is something that transcends the purview of the military.

    So two issues of definition: First is the apparent assumption Warden makes that the airpower strategist should formulate the ends. This is argued from a “why wouldn’t you want” point of view rather than acknowledging that at least some, if not most of the time, the desired end state is given to the military strategist by politicians, war being the “extension of politics by other means”. So there is an implied control over the end state in Wardens definition of strategy that is desireable but unrealistic.

    Second, while Warden argues that means should be left out of the discussion, the fact that “airpower” is invoked implies means. It seems he wants to have it both ways, he wants strategy to be elevated beyond means to the realm of ideas, just so long as those are AIRPOWER relate ideas.

    He almost makes the reduction absurdum jump, but pauses at the brink in his historical discussion about unlimited mobility changing the nature of land power and battles. Lets replace “airpower” with “transporterpower”. Taken to the extreme his argument appears to be that the ultimate form of strategy would be to think in terms of “beaming effector things instantly wherever you wanted”.

    When you want to compel an adversary to do your bidding, you analyze his “system” you create a set of exactly appropriate “effectors” and you simultaneously “beam” them into precise locations in his system to so that the adversary is compelled to do what you say. If your method of compulsion is to “collapse his system” then that would be possible. The problem is, as we saw in Iraq, does “collapsing his system” actual get you to a desirable end state? If you only partially collapse the system, how do you know that your “pulse of power” is going to exceed the tipping point of coercion and not just piss the adversary off and cause an undesired vertical or horizontal escalation? This gets to teh unrealistic assumptions behind the "parallel is always cheaper" argument - a problme of not knowing what you don't know, not of "well 5 is cheaper than 6 is cheapre than 9". How do know to pick 5 for your only pulse of power?Where is the “theory of action” that actually links the “transport plan” to desirable strategic end states other than “collapse” or “paralysis”?


    The “what alternative do we have” argument. Thanks for pointing out I grabbed an old JP 3-0. The newer one brings up the idea of “design”. I knew there are many that think the ideas of design are implicit in good operational art. I tend to agree, but to the extent it helps folks understand good operational art, the design metaphor has value as an alternative to overpromising on the limits of planning.

    I would say to those who say “he doesn’t really mean to be as wedded to prediction and determinism as you make it sound”; if that is true than he should avoid making statements like: “It also opens another very exciting possibility: conflict with little or no unplanned destruction or shedding of blood.”

    Positing that as a “possibility” is only possible if one assumes a level of predictability about the future that is known to be unattainable.

    More later...
    "All models are wrong, but some are useful"

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    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Still busy, but pvebber instead of "battle" think Ambush or as the Army says create an "Overmatch" or a "Mismatch" between weapons systems or tactics. That is what he means by avoiding "Battle" or equal forces fighting each other.


    Also, "bloodless" means killing who you want to kill..... but only those that you want to kill. Precision killing if you will. To make it current instead of a No-Fly Zones we should create a "No Qaddafi Zone"! Instant,precise vaporization of the problem child and his strange offspring


    Gotta Go!

  11. #71
    Council Member ganulv's Avatar
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    Default Not fully funded already?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cliff View Post
    On China, fully funding a robust airpower capability would potentially allow you to deter Chinese military action, confining the competition to the economic realm- which after all is what US grand strategy has been about since World War II.
    I don’t mean to come off as catty, but what is your metric for full funding? The U.S. military budget is already four to five times that of China’s. The federal government could spend even more on airpower, yes, but in a world of limited resources is there any realistic reason to argue that it should?

    Even if your logic holds I don’t know that the U.S. really needs any more economic competition from China than it already has.

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    Council Member pvebber's Avatar
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    Default Some specific responses

    Note the focus on forces in the above paragraphs- that is what Warden is arguing against. Additionally, I would say that joint doctrine is not always (or even often) neccessarily followed. Additionally, the JFC is normally an Army commander, and the Army doctrine is very force centric.
    Joint doctrine is written from the operational level point of view - that of orchestrating ways and means to achive an end that is often (usually?) given. Some of Warden's fire appears to be aimed to bypassing the operational level and linking tactical action to strategic ends. The reference to force is about means in the strategic construct of "ends, ways, means". Do you think when he talks of "battle" that is really about the need to orchestrate ways and means against the adversary ways and means (ie the campaign?) and just skip to tactical action for strategic purpose?

    If part of the solution Warden is proposing is to "chang ethe vocabulary" that comes by changing doctrine. Whether we follow it is immaterial, it is the source of "vocabularly" for any discussion.

    The Army is only the JFC for land campaigns. With the exception of Iraq and Afghanistan, I think just about all the other CJTFs are Navy or Air Force?

    Current doctrine in general tends to be "force centric becuase its aabout employinghte means we currently have.

    It have been better for me to have invoked Joint concepts instead of Joint doctrine?

    Again, Warden isn't saying that land or naval power won't work, or can't help- he is saying that airpower can be more effective in many situations. The fact that airpower can work doesn't mean that land or seapower can't.
    Warden's argument seems to be that airpower alone has the ability to attack multiple CoGs in Parallel.

    "Only within the last 75 years has airpower made it possible to attack multiple centers if gravity in parallel. Can there be any question that we desperately need to rethink war?"

    One argue that seapower has had the ability to attack multiple CoGs for considerably longer than that, it depends on what you consider a CoG. We may well have been able to starve japan into submission in WWII had more attention been played to strangling her SLOCS rather than incinerating population centers (er, strategic sources of wartime labor).

    Airpower is unable to reach many CoGs in the required capacity without seapower, so one could make many of the same arguments with seapower rather than airpower as the "effector of greatest economy".

    Similarly, there are CoGs that you can't appropriately affect by breaking and instead requires a human being on the ground to appropriately influence. Airpower can't have tea with a tribal elder and convince him to plant alfalfa instead of poppys.

    The arguments Warden makes are necessary ones, but the zeal to make them also sufficient to all cases is what rankles parochial hackles.

    Warden argues that strategy should start at ends, then work backwards. The Joint Ops Planning Process starts at the ends and theoretically works backwards.
    So what is he arguing with. He's won that battle! Why harp on it so much in the paper? IF its about Iraq and Afghanistan, well those were political wars whose ends were political animals that evolved over time for political reasons. Its almost like Warden is arguing that we should only fight wars that fall into the category he is himself defining. Sorry but military folk do get to put constraints on politicians in this country. And war is not always a matte of choice. The adversary gets a vote, and will endeavor to orchestrate situations that are outside Wardens' nice tidy "war box".

    We are already so dominant militarily that there are only a handful of potential military rivals who would take us on militarily and in many cases the militaries of those countries are essentially "sacrifical anodes" that will be sacrificed on the alter of puplic spectacle for the express purpose of NOT letting us fight Wardens sort of sterile, bloodless war.

    Warden would say that control drives us to strive for decisive battle to seize control of terrain, when we might be able to achieve our objectives by influencing the enemy's will. Subtle differences, but Warden is saying that attrition and battle are a part of our basic mentality in the US military.
    The requirement to establish control and provide order to a state after we "Collapse it" is arequirement of international law. We can't just "break" a country, and then point our finger like Ming the Merciless and chide for their impertanane not giving us what we want. As we have seen in Iraq, the other side may decide to "collapse" on a schedule other than the one we plan for just to leave us in a quagmire and transition the battle to an irregualr playfield. Again Warden seems to imply a degree of predictability (you need predicatability in to to plan to the level Warden implies) than is possible.

    It is not control that drives us to battle, but competition with the adversary. Warden ascribes to airpower (as many airpower theorists have done) an irresitibility to airpower. Based on what does airpower get to magically avoid enemy attempts to stop it? Last time I checked we did not transpporter bombs and despite the desire to avoid talking 'means' airplanes and missiles, though fast, are still requred to transit through increasingly capacble IADS systems and deal with adversary elements of airpower. Most consider those encouners to be "battles" and they can't be wished away.

    In other words, the COA is developed based on the enemy forces expected actions. Again, the Army tends to drive most joint planning because they are most of the people involved.
    Agin this is becasue of the pesky reality that the adversary has a strategy, and ways and means that are used to oppose us. When you have means, and the other guy has means, they will bump into each other in the execution of strategy. Despite the desire for immunity, airpower for the foresable future must engage in battles with enemy airpower just llike seapower and land power must.

    Service drivers to palnning is very AOR specific. The Navy dominates PAC AOR planning.

    True. Humans are complex. But you can still determine ways to affect them.
    But how they will respond is unpredictable. For a test case, tell your wife that you are going use Warden's strategy to get here to do what you want.

    Then again... don't

    more later...
    "All models are wrong, but some are useful"

    -George E.P. Box

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    Default I'm arguing a theoretical point...

    Quote Originally Posted by ganulv View Post
    I don’t mean to come off as catty, but what is your metric for full funding? The U.S. military budget is already four to five times that of China’s. The federal government could spend even more on airpower, yes, but in a world of limited resources is there any realistic reason to argue that it should?

    Even if your logic holds I don’t know that the U.S. really needs any more economic competition from China than it already has.
    Ganulv-

    I was trying to respond to pvebber's theoretical China question... I agree that our absolute budget still is way bigger than China's, and the federal debt is a bigger threat than anything else- meaning budgets will get cut. Warden would argue that the airpower (again airpower is not just Air Force) budget should be boosted at the expense of other military accounts - and I was attempting to show how he might apply that additional airpower to the China scenario.

    I think that given the current fiscal environment and our current commitments it is unlikely that any of the services will get a significant budget boost over anyone else. One feature of our current system is that everyone has supporters in the public and in Congress, meaning true tradeoffs are very difficult to get.

    One note on budget, though - the USAF budget (proposed) for FY12 is $166B. Of that, $30.92B is not controlled by the USAF, but goes to joint organizations (a lot of classified stuff for three letter OGAs). Another $9B pays for space procurement for systems like GPS, comm sats, launchers that support the entire joint force (and a lot of other folks). That's a total of $39.92B, or 24% of the USAF budget that essentially goes to supporting the entire DoD. I'm not complaining about this - I just think folks don't realize how much money the USAF spends on space to enable the entire joint force. It's not all Raptors and white scarves! The Navy and Army are actually buying more aircraft in FY12 than the USAF.

    V/R,

    Cliff

    Link to Budget docs:
    Air Force Financial Management Budget Site

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    Default Good points...

    Quote Originally Posted by pvebber View Post
    The “why wouldn’t you want” argument. Your interpretation of Warden seems to be “given Warden might be right, why wouldn’t you want that to be the case”? This is a an increasing spillover from political debate to defense debate that I find very troubling. If you didn’t have to “choose 2” between quick, cheap and effective why wouldn’t you? Well because there are these things called the Laws of Physics and Economics… I don’t want to minimize your good arguments by painting them with that broad brush, but a warning from the school of hard knocks
    Agree that it is difficult... Warden's arguing to keep trying, though. Reality right now is effective and quick are possible but cheap the USG doesn't seem to be able to do. It will be very interesting to see what happens with the USAF's new Long Range Strike systems, as they are supposed to be affordable based on limiting requirements.

    The “if it’s necessary, why not aim for sufficient”? A variation on the above that I think is at the heart of what many find off-putting to Warden’s arguments. For a Navy guy I’m considered almost an airpower heretic. I have probably read more Airpower doctrine and concepts than I’ve read Navy doctrine and concepts (of course there is so much MORE of it…shame on my Navy brethren for their paucity of operational thought…). I have some rather radical notions of Air-Sea Battle that get at changing how we think about “Fleet Power” (or more broadly to the Air-Sea partnership “Expeditionary power”). I just don’t see what the problem is that makes “airpower is necessary AND sufficient to achieve strategic ends” a desirable goal?
    My Navy bro keeps telling us how the Navy doesn't have a lot of doctrine or planning processes... the contrast with the Army doctrine taught at CGSC is impressive from what he says. Air-Sea Battle will be very interesting... and I think it will involve a lot of airpower - which again is NOT (necessarily) Air Force. By Warden's definition, the Aegis is an airpower system, since it has the ability to control the air.

    So I am receptive to the notion of transcending ‘battle’ as a concept but leery of Wardens desire to “replace it” with some as yet undisclosed ‘vocabulary”. This could just be semantics, but there is a difference to between eliminating the notion of battle, and getting beyond it to understand concepts at a higher level of abstraction.
    A lot of discussion would probably be neccessary... and I agree that the heart of the matter is getting to the higher levels.

    Wylies preferred definition of Strategy is... Note that it places ends first, and “war” and “means” do not appear in this definition. Also, as someone previously stated, it is something that transcends the purview of the military.
    I think that someone was me. Although I must admit that Ken said it first. Right or wrong, the politicians own the grand/national strategy level.

    So two issues of definition: First is the apparent assumption Warden makes that the airpower strategist should formulate the ends. This is argued from a “why wouldn’t you want” point of view rather than acknowledging that at least some, if not most of the time, the desired end state is given to the military strategist by politicians, war being the “extension of politics by other means”. So there is an implied control over the end state in Wardens definition of strategy that is desirable but unrealistic.
    Hmm, this isn't the way I read it. He says that we must decide what we want the future to look like... but I don't see where the "we" has to be an airpower person. I agree that it will come from higher - I think the point is that once the end state is known, we should work backwards from there.

    Second, while Warden argues that means should be left out of the discussion, the fact that “airpower” is invoked implies means. It seems he wants to have it both ways, he wants strategy to be elevated beyond means to the realm of ideas, just so long as those are AIRPOWER relate ideas.
    Hmm. I think that is not the point... the point is that if we start with ends first, we likely will end up selecting airpower much more often than we have in the past:

    This methodology allows us to select the most appropriate centers of gravity and then apply airpower (if appropriate) to produce direct strategic results. It
    Obviously Warden is an airpower advocate, and as I have pointed out this article is aimed at folks who are involved in airpower. So yes, it is advocating increased use of airpower. But I think we need to take Warden at his word - he admits that airpower may not be used in all cases - but is asking that airpower professionals should keep working to make it more effective.

    He almost makes the reduction absurdum jump, but pauses at the brink in his historical discussion about unlimited mobility changing the nature of land power and battles. Lets replace “airpower” with “transporterpower”. Taken to the extreme his argument appears to be that the ultimate form of strategy would be to think in terms of “beaming effector things instantly wherever you wanted”.
    Yes, he is arguing that increased mobility increases effectiveness.

    When you want to compel an adversary to do your bidding, you analyze his “system” you create a set of exactly appropriate “effectors” and you simultaneously “beam” them into precise locations in his system to so that the adversary is compelled to do what you say. If your method of compulsion is to “collapse his system” then that would be possible. The problem is, as we saw in Iraq, does “collapsing his system” actual get you to a desirable end state? If you only partially collapse the system, how do you know that your “pulse of power” is going to exceed the tipping point of coercion and not just piss the adversary off and cause an undesired vertical or horizontal escalation? This gets to the unrealistic assumptions behind the "parallel is always cheaper" argument - a problem of not knowing what you don't know, not of "well 5 is cheaper than 6 is cheapre than 9". How do know to pick 5 for your only pulse of power?Where is the “theory of action” that actually links the “transport plan” to desirable strategic end states other than “collapse” or “paralysis”?
    Everyone is focusing too much on the kinetic effects... which Warden is not:

    Warden:
    The strategic approach gives us the freedom to consider and mix every conceivable way to change a center of gravity—a bribe, an aerial bomb, a hack, a proxy, a conference, an award, assistance funding, or a thousand other possibilities.
    The “what alternative do we have” argument. Thanks for pointing out I grabbed an old JP 3-0. The newer one brings up the idea of “design”. I knew there are many that think the ideas of design are implicit in good operational art. I tend to agree, but to the extent it helps folks understand good operational art, the design metaphor has value as an alternative to overpromising on the limits of planning.
    Sorry, I am a nerd for pointing that out... only noticed because your excerpt had MOOTW, and I have had the MOOTW pounded out of me (so to speak) over the last year. Design is an Army concept that was all the rage about a year ago... my impression is that it is still important, but a little less emphasized. We had a few lessons on it at CGSC, but it wasn't emphasized. From FM 5-0, 26 Mar 10, page 3-7:

    Three distinct elements collectively produce a design concept as depicted in figure 3-1. Together, they constitute an organizational learning methodology that corresponds to three basic questions that must be answered to produce an actionable design concept to guide detailed planning:
    �� Framing the operational environment—what is the context in which design will be applied?
    �� Framing the problem—what problem is the design intended to solve?
    �� Considering operational approaches—what broad, general approach will solve the problem?
    The interesting thing to me is that the problem frame and environmental frame are not all that different from the models used in EBO - a way of understanding a complex problem. It does not stress the casuality as much, but it is not as different as many think.

    I would say to those who say “he doesn’t really mean to be as wedded to prediction and determinism as you make it sound”; if that is true than he should avoid making statements like: “It also opens another very exciting possibility: conflict with little or no unplanned destruction or shedding of blood.”

    Positing that as a “possibility” is only possible if one assumes a level of predictability about the future that is known to be unattainable.
    Again, Warden is saying that speeding you attack reduces the ability of the enemy to react, and thus makes him more predictable (see his figure 3).

    In my opinion, Warden is talking about how to plan... we have to have a plan, and try to reduce even complex systems to something we humans can understand. We then need to try and affect those systems... but the fact that Warden advocates a certain plan doesn't mean that's the end of it... once the plan is executed, there will inevitably be changes made and adjustments based on the enemy.

    V/R,

    Cliff

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    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Great interchange...

    I realize everyone knows this but one item above hit a nerve. Speed and aggressiveness are needed at times and certainly have a place but they are not always beneficial. From Cliff:
    Warden is saying that speeding you attack reduces the ability of the enemy to react, and thus makes him more predictable (see his figure 3).
    Boyd said somewhat the same thing. Both were fighter pilots and both understood the laws of physics and aerodynamics. One's experience can color one's thinking in subtle ways...

    Aircraft must react in rather predictable ways (I would never say Airmen -- and Soldiers, Sailors and Marines -- tend to also do that ) but people, units, governments are far less predictable and can even be erratic...

    My observation has been that on both a tactical and strategic levels, and with respect to efforts in war and other than war, that statement is far from universally true. In fact, speedy action aimed at creating a set of reactions can fail in its intent due to a variety of circumstances, nor least failure to successfully achieve your aim. Politics can intrude and delay effects...

    The other guy can interfere. A fair example is our old bete noir, Saddam. He told us what he was going to do; give weapons to all, release the prisoners from the jails and wage unrestricted guerrilla warfare. He gave Medals to two Russian Generals (who advised him to do that) and we completely ignored or missed all that even though our admittedly kinetic action was rapid. Shock and Awe it was not...

    There is also nothing wrong with deliberately not being speedy to entice the competitor or opponent to overextend. Subadai did that repeatedly 800 years ago and he also at the time loosely controlled large Armies literally hundreds of miles apart (without GPS and Satcom, no video ). That doesn't mean it is a technique not still useful, particularly at the strategic level...

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    Quote Originally Posted by pvebber View Post
    Joint doctrine is written from the operational level point of view - that of orchestrating ways and means to achive an end that is often (usually?) given.
    pvebber, Warden doesn't believe in Joint Warfare as in everybody gets a piece of the pie. He believes in the designation of a "Key Force" similar to what the Marines believe in Maneuver Warfare, the designation of the "Main Effort".

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    There are also obvious problem with a speedy campaign from the point of view of operational research.

    One example; shall 100 cruise missiles be fired at once or over a period?
    "At once" has survivability advantages (saturation), but also huge BDA and cost disadvantages; you don't know which one will hit, so you either accept that some targets will survive or you need to shoot several times at the same target, often wasting munitions on a target that was destroyed by the first shot already. You also need more launcher systems, which can be expensive (think of SSN-launched Tomahawks, for example).

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    Great discussion, wish I had more time...

    In my opinion, Warden is talking about how to plan... we have to have a plan, and try to reduce even complex systems to something we humans can understand. We then need to try and affect those systems... but the fact that Warden advocates a certain plan doesn't mean that's the end of it... once the plan is executed, there will inevitably be changes made and adjustments based on the enemy.
    But this not the "new" in this paper - its essentially the EBO argument.

    The problem is it states a premise that is *WRONG*!

    we may WANT to reduce complex sytems to something we humans can understand but this is a fool's errand! By their nature, complex systems are irreduble at a certain point and models that reduce them in complexity below that point by introducing cause and effect assumptions cease to be useful.

    We seem to all be in agreement about the piece parts - its the way warden assembles them that appears to be the crux of the issue.

    The purpose of a model is prediction. You set the dials and levers on the model, you turn the crank, and see what. IF you simplify a complex system to the point where it is "understandable" - ie you get predictable outputs from the inputs - then you have BROKEN IT. By definition you get different outputs from a complex system each time you turn the crank. That is called emergent behavior and is the key caracteristic the differentiates a complicated (but causally simple) system from a complex one.

    Complex systems have the inherent property of surpring you.

    There are apsects of complext systems that are simple. Like power grids and supply chains. BUt the entirety of system of the kind Warden represent with the 5 rings is not.

    The anaolgy I see here is one to medicine. Warden appers to me as an oncolologist who is a practioner of chemotherapy.

    He argues that the human body is a system and should modeled as a simple system, with obvious "centers of gravity" that a variety of chemo therapy drugs can effect.

    He then makes the leap that the rest of medicine is being held back because it uses a vocabulary dating back to well before oncology even existed and chemotherapy was known.

    Medicine has always been stuck in a paradigm of treating symptons in series, over time leading to long and costly hospital stays that are bankrupting health care.

    Chemotherpy drugs can be simultaneously injected directly to the site of tumors and can effect individual genes and do all manner of miraculous things.

    So to reduce the bankrupting cost of hospital stays, we need to redfine the nature of medicine to the realm of oncology, and adopt a strategy of simultaneously injecting chemotherapy drugs (well, if we think it helpful we can use radiation or other means - its not to say every treatment besides chemotherapy should be eliminated - but in order for chemotherapy to acheive its true capability...), and then follow up in out-patient clinics that are much cheaper.

    After all its all about trying to jump directly from treatments to cures as quickly as possible with the lowest cost...

    The rest of doctors look at this approach and go "is he fricken crazy...?!?!"

    Yes, we need to understand the patient as a system - but a human is more than the sum of its parts it can only be simplified so far before the model of human is useless to guide diagnistics and treatment.

    Yes oncology might be the most "intense" form of medicine, but there are a host of medicial problems out side oncology.

    Yes chemotherapy is an indespensible form of treatment, but it is not applicable to every disease and it does not makes sense to redefine medicine to oncology becasue of a desire for chemotherapy to "reach its full capability".

    Assuming that because hospitalization is expensive, that means that simultaneously injecting chemotherapy drugs, based on simplified models of how a human bodyworks, will be effective, is not a logical argument.

    Particularly given the fact carrying the analogy perhaps too far, that you only actually treat a real patient every 10 or 15 years, the rest of the time you just deal with your simplified model and ASSUME that the results will apply to the real patient.

    The individual parts of Wardens argument are sound. No one is arguing the 'necessary" part. Its the way he puts them together and says "and therefore... we need to redfine medicine, and completely change the way we treat disease, and if your patient's illness doesn't fit this mode, then we should not be treating them" that has us scratching our heads, like the doctors in the analogy.
    Last edited by pvebber; 03-11-2011 at 01:53 PM.
    "All models are wrong, but some are useful"

    -George E.P. Box

  19. #79
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pvebber View Post

    "The purpose of a model is prediction."
    The purpose of Warden's model is to understand the system first, then create a set probabilities, not predictability. To find leverage points "COG's" in the system that will most likley create the end result you want.

  20. #80
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pvebber View Post

    "IF you simplify a complex system to the point where it is "understandable" - ie you get predictable outputs from the inputs - then you have BROKEN IT."
    The whole point of War is to break it(the System). You want to physically break the system and then leave it broken or rebuild it as fast as possible.

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