The Warden Collection (merged thread)

[slapout9]

I will be away from a computer for the rest of the week so no SWC till then

The week after 10/22/07 the Smart Wars conference starts. I am going to see if I can do daily posts of what we covered in class that day. So while I am away from the computer does anyone have any questions,topics,etc. they would like me to bring up? Just list what you want and I will see what I can do.

The case study method will be applied using Warden's Prometheus Process for past wars,current wars and major disasters. We may just pick one or several or all. Here is the list from the Agenda I just received. Pick one if you like.

American Revolution
US Civil War
American Indian Wars
Napoleonic Wars
Spanish American War
Russo-Japanese War
WW I
WW II
Korea
Vietnam
Gulf War I
Serbian War
Future Asteroid Attack...thats what it says on the paper
Later Slap

[slapout9]

Hi guys, just a short note to say what's going on. I have been really busy the last couple of weeks. The class finished last week and it was fantastic. I can say this that one of the attendees just finished a presentation to some general at the Army War college. The presentation was largely about our plan for Turkey. He was rather impressed with the planning methodology so we will see what happens. This weekend I hope to write a description of what went on last week but I just can not get to it right now

I had a lot of help from some SWC members in preparing for this SWJED,Rob Thornton,RTK,Cow Gurney,Jedburgh He was late John Fishel,Steve Metz if I missed anybody sorry. It has been rather eerie sometimes in the short time since this happened. Some exact phrases we said in class have appeared in the media.

Again thanks for all the input. Slap

[slapout9]

I was not sure how to write this and then came to the conclusion that the best place to start is at the beginning

So here we go. The class was taught in two parts the first was SMART WARS and the second was SMART STRATEGIES.

The smart wars part was the a new part of Warden's writings that I had never seen before. So what is a smart war? It is one that you know you will win, before you start it. To do this a war decision calculus was introduced.

1-Is winning the war Achievable?
2-What is the reward you will receive?
3-What is the cost you must pay,$ and lives ?
4-What is the risk of loosing or damaging other relationships.


Only four questions but very tough questions. These were meant to be answered by the government. It is the level of Grand Strategy. Which was used to guide the level of Military Strategy

Once this was explained to us we looked at a number of historical wars and in retrospect stated why we thought they were or were not smart wars.


I through out two zingers. One was the Dominican Republic Crisis of 1965 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The Cuban Crisis received a fair amount of discussion.

The Missile crisis was a failure at the military level for the USSR but at the Grand Strategic Level it was a success. A pledge by the US not to invade and accept a Communist regime in our western hemisphere.

This emphasized the importance of the Grand Strategy level....it must be right to start with or you end up with a situation you don't like regardless of the military conflict.

From here we were told to act as the Government of Turkey and prepare a military solution for the PKK. This is when we moved to the SMART STRATEGIES part of the course.

I will leave this up for a while for your comments and questions and then post the SMART STRATEGY process.

[Rank amateur]

I think the way that the questions are asked implies that there's an answer, when in fact there are a range of possible outcomes with probabilities attached to each, which reminds me of
Ike's theory of small wars

[Ken White]

I think the way that the questions are asked implies that there's an answer, when in fact there are a range of possible outcomes with probabilities attached to each, which reminds me of
Ike's theory of small wars

on war, all war -- as I read your link earlier it was not necessarily small ones -- don't cover the problems. Essentially, that 'theory' divined by Fred from talking to someone other than Ike puts emphasis -- according to Fred -- on the commnader's estimate of the situation. Valid -- and important.

Doesn't take much imagination to believe that you and I might look at a problem, absorb all the same data and arrive at estimates that differ. That can a have an obvious and significant impact on what follows.

Not necessarily a flaw but the first problem in the Warden theory that he supposes that entry to war is an elective. It generally, for the US, has not been. Slapout used two great examples, the Dominican Republic and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The former was elective and I submit that Wardens' parameters were not applied -- but did, in the end, apply almost accidentally. We just reacted to a situation not of our making but not to our liking and it worked out okay.

The same can be said of forays into Mogadishu, Bosnia, Haiti and Kosovo -- though all three of the last are still to be 'settled.'

Cuba was not elective in the sense that all our actions were responses and that there was no war. There was not one simply to the fact that we gave away far more than we gained. Not only the strategic loss that Slap mentioned but the fact that our trade for removal of the few marginally accurate USSR missiles from Cuba was to remove all the many generally accurate US missiles from Europe and Turkey. Kennedy gave away the farm and covered it well. Not that he was wrong, just that there are a lot myths about that whole thing.

One could say that had Warden's rules -- or Ike's -- been applied to Iraq, we wouldn't be there. One could also say that had both sets been applied, we would be there. It's viewpoint dependent.

Take a look at them:

" 1-Is winning the war Achievable? 2-What is the reward you will receive? 3-What is the cost you must pay,$ and lives ? 4-What is the risk of losing or damaging other relationships. "

Who makes the determination on achievable? Does the opposition agree with your assessment? Is or are stopping genocide, removing a dictator, honoring a treaty obligation, ensuring the viability of another nation adequate rewards? How do you capture the costs in a notoriously unstable and unpredictable milieu? Is honor more important than a relationship; more importantly, given the pragmatic approach of most nations to relationships, is that a temporary loss?

Lots of questions to ask and few answers -- and most of the time, the interpretation of the answers will be in the mind of the decision maker.

I'd also suggest that while attacking Iraq was a decision on our part, it was not entry into a war, it was an election to fight in a certain place at a certain time, the war which caused or enabled (again, viewpoint dependent) that election was NOT our decision.

My point is that the US rarely starts wars, thus to talk of "...a smart war? It is one that you know you will win, before you start it." is to artificially constrain ones vision, develop tunnel vision as it were, focused on a world we don't inhabit.

Better to develop strategic thinking on how to respond to provocations. I suspect we'll see a number of those for the next decade or so.

[Rank amateur]

Ken makes some good points.

For a war of choice - like Iraq or Grenada- the two relevant questions are:

What's the worst case scenario?
Are you prepared for the worst scenario?

When you're attacked, pride pretty much demands that you respond.

Complicated analysis is only required when you get in a game of chicken: Iran. Diplomatic factors must be considered too. Since the cost of war is high, there is almost always a deal that is better for both sides than war, but obviously some governments are too stupid or too egomanical or too deluded about their military abilities or too idealogical or have other agendas, to take it.

[Ken White]

...For a war of choice - like Iraq or Grenada- the two relevant questions are:

What's the worst case scenario?
Are you prepared for the worst scenario?

When you're attacked, pride pretty much demands that you respond.

Complicated analysis is only required when you get in a game of chicken: Iran. Diplomatic factors must be considered too. Since the cost of war is high, there is almost always a deal that is better for both sides than war, but obviously some governments are too stupid or too egomanical or too deluded about their military abilities or too idealogical or have other agendas, to take it.

First, three questions:

Is Iraq a war of choice or is the attack on Iraq simply an operational intermediate objective in a broader conflict?

In determining the "worst case scenario" are errors of commission or omission, even egregious ones, possible?

With respect to being prepared for the worst case scenario, if the best professional advice is that one is prepared and that turns out to be incorrect, who is at fault?

Plus a couple of comments:

There are reasons other than pride to respond to attacks. Not least of these is that a series of probing attacks eliciting no or little response can give the attacker a false image of the probability of eventual success and thus encourage the attacker to increase the tempo and strength of his attacks.

Accepting that "the cost of war is high, (and) there is almost always a deal that is better for both sides than war..." is true, it is possible that "...obviously some governments are too stupid or too egomanical or too deluded about their military abilities or too idealogical or have other agendas, to take it" is also true. The question that arises is what action should be taken if one side, NOT a government, will not deal and proves this by making 'demands' that are beyond the power of the nominal opponent, a government, to grant, if that side has no population or infrastructure to protect or steer it through votes or opinion and if it initiates hostilities by attacking that nominal opponent over a period of years, it would seem there should logically be a point at which the nominal opponent ceases to accept such attacks and takes some action of one kind or another.