try to be prepared for as many differnat situations as possible.
So there are situations when working back from a single scenario is not the best strategy to use. Since the reason you give is political, this reinforces the idea that its unrealistic to expect that you can always work in military-centric vacuum, disassociated from politics.

That is why he calls it mapping the system. It is a map nothing more or less. Understanding function is a differant step.
Not according to this article. It is all part of step 2WHAT

At the highest level of analysis, we start this process by identifying the systems that need to change so that we can realize our future picture;
at the next level of analysis, we continue by identifying the centers of
gravity (the control or leverage points) against which to apply real resources to force needed system change.
The process by which the model of the system you are trying to abstract through the 5 Rings process is defined is not directly addressed. Since this modeling of functions (the first stage in application of systems theory - you have to understand the system in detail before you can simplify it) it lead to one of the criticisms of Wardens process - that it tries to jump directly to "simple" without a real understanding of the "complex". The real world attempts to do this (SOSA or system of systems analysis) lead to things like the much maligned powerpoint diagram of systems interactions in Afghanistan. The treatment of systems as essentially static by SOSA analysts and the inability to "know what you don't know" about a system lead to much of Gen Mattis' criticism of EBO - which centered in large measure on difficulties implementing SOSA in an way that sufficiently informed decision-makers (I saw this first hand in several JEFX's).

I can tell you from personal experience it works very well.....In LE we call them TASERS they take any will to fight right out of the person. We need Military level TASERS!
So you taser (tase?) somebody, and then they get up and get into the police car right? No the taser ENABLES you take him into custody. It doesn't convince him to get in the car, it just removes his ability to resist for a few minutes. If you don't exploit that opportunity, then he just gets up and runs away. In many ways we have military tasers. Our overwhelming superiority has "taken the fight" out of many potential adversaries, leading them to exploit non-military avenues to engage us. 9/11 taught us the a military is not required to attack us.

The Air Force may be able to provide tasers, but as Warden admits, it only enable ground forces ability to take the perps into custody.


That is exactly why you need to stay in physical area....you can't analyze someones intentions...it is impossible, he may lie to you.....but you can analyze CAPABILITIES and be prepared to disable,disrupt or destroy them
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Like I demonstrate in wargames people bring me into, if you make a country's military irrelevant, it will oblige and use it as a red cape and goad you into military engagement that distracts you from the true political purpose. This is especially true when they have a command of social landscape and maneuver the US to solidify its social networking position by attacking its military on "good ground". In other words if you insist on divorcing the physical from the cognitive and social dimensions, then that will be your undoing. Wars are not "physical" but social phenomena. Physical interaction is simply one way to influence social dynamics. IF you use chess strategy and the adversary know you will, he will make the game Go and will win. You can of course just turn the juice up on the taser and kill the perp, but then you have to deal with the social consequences.

It depends on WHO's house you burn down....the rest of the population may love for doing just that!
Ahhh! not so fast - you just changes the boundary around the system! Another fundamental problem with Warden's use of systems theory. He arbitrarily places convenient boundaries around the "system". I was not trying to influence the broader population. If you don't understand the social as well as the physical network you could also push a large contingent into your adversary's camp by heavy handed "physical" action.

Once again, you can't just draw a boundary around the physical components of an adversary system and ignore the cognitive and social effects of "effecting" the physical parts.

He was a smart guy. But that is really Warden's ultimate point War is the final option never the first,second or even the third. It is only justifiable when you need to eliminate a threat to your survival.
Then he is arguing to fundamentally change the "American Way of War" which is that we employ military forces worldwide as the stick behind or diplomatic and economic carrots. It also begs the question of what constitutes a "threat to our survival"? Was WWII really a threat to OUR survival? WWI certainly wasn't. None of the wars since have been.

What if our survival is not threatened, but our position of economic leadership in the world? If China established a "Pacific NATO" that declared its goal to be not threatening our survival, but systematically degrading our economic might until there was a "level playing field" in their opinion and we no longer constituted a superpower? How do you utilize military force forward in the world, if your stated policy is not to use it unless your national survival is threatened. If an LCS that is inconveniently placed is sunk, what do you do? A Carrier Strike group? THe belligent says "go home and we have no beef with you". That is not a threat to your survival, but emasculates you on the world stage.

If you are only going to war against existential threats why not just maintain a an ICBM force and tell the world, any country that threatens my existence goes away. You then don't need an Air Force.

I really don't think that is what Warden has in mind.

I think he was transferred to another job before he finished.
Which doesn't answer the question of what is broken with the current system? And why it is better to assume the Air Force can do everything and rule things out, rather than look at the joint force as a whole, and decide which service is most effective and efficient at providing desired capabilities?

Nicky is smart, and understands the dangers of dividing the physical from the social and focusing on the wrong one:

But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.
http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince17.htm