I've been a bit busy and am behind the power curve as usual.

Before I start, I want to say that I would not classify myself as a "Wardenista" in the sense that I don't think that the 5 rings model is all powerful and usable in any situation. As Col Warden pointed out, sometimes airpower won't be able to be used in some situations.

That said, I think his points about starting at endstate and making that the focus of your efforts are very valid. I also think that trying to do this in the most efficient way possible as quickly as possible is also a good idea. I happen to think that airpower can get the job done in many cases... and I agree with Col Warden that we should be trying to make airpower more effective rather than adapting it and limiting it to what traditional thought would have it be.

Quote Originally Posted by pvebber View Post
I know I'm not going to convert Slap

I'm trying to understand the mindset he has (know thine enemy ) and why he is a "true believer" in the controversial ideas?

The controvertial issues raised by Warden's article being:

What is airppower's "true capability"? What is this "new vocabulary"?
I think Warden would say: The capability to act at the strategic level by bypassing fielded forces and directly affecting multiple centers of gravity in parallel. The new vocabulary is essentially focusing on ends and not battles.

How is this relevant if politicians determine the end-game strategy, or a consensus as to what it is cannot be achieved before a requirement to act occurs?
I assume that you mean politicians can't determine the end game.

I don't think we don't have an end game in mind in Libya. We surely do. Just because we can't talk about it publicly doesn't mean it's not there. I agree on the difficulty of defining the end state, but again I think that's for public consumption... I think the folks involved all have the same end state in mind, they just can't say it.

That said, if there is no end state, then I would argue we wouldn't get involved, as there's nothing to change.

If instead you mean that the long term endstate is undefined -IE we're not sure what we want Libya to look like, but we want to stop the slaughter- then I would argue that stopping the slaughter is still an end state. Refer back to ONW/OSW for a good example of ways to do this. OBTW, those campaigns did use elements of Warden's theory to achieve their limited ends - and they worked out pretty well - 0 US losses over 12 years, and the civilians protected.

What are these ideas?
The ideas Col Warden talks about in his paper. IE, end-state centric, parallel, affect COGs.

What is it about airpower that will remove the "unknown unknowns" that create "unplanned destruction or shedding of blood". How do we become so cocksure that our plan is going to work?
We continue to improve airpower theory, capabilities, and targeting and try to minimize collateral damage.

How can you create a desired end-state and a causally-linked set of events that attain it with a high probability in cases where you are dealing with a complex system (where by definition there is no discernible causal nexus between events.)?
pvebber, I think that it's very rare in human events for there to be no discernible casual nexus, especially in conflict. I agree that systems are complex, and casuality is not certain, but again I think that you are always calculating the most likely response when you talk about military force. Otherwise we would simply throw up our hands and give up on the whole business. The weather is not predictable with high accuracy beyond 24-48 hours.... but we still spend billions to get to a good-enough forecast. We also haven't stopped trying to improve our understanding or models. Why should something arguably just as important (using force to get our way) receive the same attention?

What is it that makes the notion of working back from a single desired end-state and evolving toward maximizing the "goodness" over a range of potential endstates incompatible? Why does one have to "win" over the other? Why can't we use the one that aplys best to a given situation and get the best of both worlds?
Warden is not saying that we can't... in fact, he says that we may be forced to. He is arguing that we should continually strive to to improve our means of reaching our desired endstate with minimum bloodshed.

I think this horse is about dead... you love complex systems theory and feel that nothing is predictable in human behavior. Essentially that means that you're relegated to a completely trial and error process. I am saying that we should continue to try and improve our ability to define an end state and reach it.

Slap pointed out 1942 as an example. Think about how far we've come since then... our ability to affect the enemy as a system is vastly improved- one B-2 can have the same effect as several hundred B-17s. Our intel has also improved massively. Is it perfect? Nope. But does that mean we should freeze things as they are and accept the status quo? I would hope not.

V/R,

Cliff