The Warden Collection (merged thread)

[Cliff]

Slap,

Your 'understand' implies the ability to ascertain what the possible future states of the system are. If you can't do that you can't create probabilitiies. I actually had this discussion with Col Warden and we just not get past the point where acknowlegdes he needed te 'effect' what I was calling prediction (develp knowledge of what produces future states of the system) and simply disagreed that such a thing constithted 'predictin'. To him it was n ot 'prediction if you not 100 percent certain it was correct-like a physics equation.

I would disagree that it isn't possible to determine what the potential futures look like. Again, you are falling into the trap Warden is arguing against- losing sight of the desired end state because we can't be sure exactly what will happen when we try to affect it. Yes, humans are human - not omniscient, falliable, and subject to react to events emotionally and not rationally. But you can still create a model of any system, and attempt to apply probabilities to it.

Take for example soil- it is a fairly complex system because there are all sorts of different materials that are part of it. Soils are pretty important to pretty much any infrastructure humans build. Yet a lot of what we know about soils engineering is simply theoretical models that allow us to model its behavior. We don't know the exact content, or even know exactly how it works - but with a certain degree of probability, we can use empirical data to predict how it will react. Yes, there are issues with the observer effects etc, but that doesn't mean you can't attempt to model a system's behavior.

He can define his terms how ever he wants, but point is that whatever you call i, the ability to project ahead in time the effect a set of perterbations will have on the future state of a complex system is not computable as a set iof probabilities. It would be nice if it were, but its not

Depends on how complex the system is and how good your data is.

My point about breaking is about the model breaking not about breaking the adversary system if you simplify the model of the system past the point of irreducibility it becomes b roken as a predictive tool (or that function that shall not be called prediction).

You are correct. But there are still potentially points where you can affect even a complex system. Additionally, it may be possible to pick COGs that are more predictable than others- obviously your level of confidence in your intel about a COG and its potential reaction to various effects has to enter into the decision making.

V/R,

Cliff

[pvebber]

Cliff,

We seem to be at a glass half empty/glass half full stateof affairs.

Like I said I think we are in general agreement on the individual issues at the high level. We appear to be disagreeing on the extent of applicability.

I would disagree that it isn't possible to determine what the potential futures look like. Again, you are falling into the trap Warden is arguing against- losing sight of the desired end state because we can't be sure exactly what will happen when we try to affect it.

We agree that a "picture of a desired end state" is the place to start with planning. The disagreement is in the degree to which "probabilities" are involved. It is the differnece between what Karl Popper calls "propensities" or the actual physical interpaly of dependant causes that results in a sytem responding to a set of inputs outputs consistently falling within an observed set of frequencies and the Bayesian notion of probability as way to represent the degree of belief in the truth of a statement.

This gets into some esoterica of probability theory, but if you are going to rigorously pursue a scientific theory of war based on the perceived liklihood of the outcomes of a model based on a systems theory decomposition of an a set of dynamis relationships between entities (what Warden is calling a "system") Then you need to eventually "do the Math" and apply the appropriate theoretical tools.

This is another aspect of the discussion I had with Warden that left me a bit put off, his desire to discuss "theory at the theoretical level" and not be troubled to dig into the implications of that theory or the need to "roll up the sleeves" and find the devil's in the details. That is also what Gen Mattis saw as a shortcoming of EBO proponents in general and has been a hallmark in all the attepmts to implement EBO that I've seen.

In broad terms keeping "theory theoretical" is OK - until someone says that we need to throw out our vocabulary and rethink our concepts of doing business. At that point there needs to be a "here is the evidence demonstrating the failure of current system, and justifying the use of the proposed system." To quote a buddy inside the beltway "The 'why wouldn't you if you could' argument will get you in the door, on a slow day, but won't get you a dime in funding..."

Take for example soil- it is a fairly complex system

Soil is a complicated, but not complex system from a material point of view. Its "mechanics of materials" properties are "propensities" - the distribution of weights you can support on samples of a given soil type are a result of effects caused by the physical interactions of the component particles in the soil. Variation is due to inhomogenieties in the distribution of components, not because of relationship dynamics between the components.

You can 'understand soil' - ie determine how the state of a system involving loads placed on soil will change over time (prediction) because the causal chains the produce effects can be modeled in a useful fashion. Soil with never behave suddenly likee water, or concrete in an unexpected fashion.

That can not be said of complex systems like nation states or other social structures.

Depends on how complex the system is and how good your data is.

No, actually that's not true. Take Conways Game of Life, a cellular automata
'simulator'. There is no way, regardless of how much data you can collect, of being able to predict the future state of a gameby any method except direct execution. In other words it is a DETERMINSITIC system of irreducable complexity. You can't create a simpler 'model' of a game of life tableau than the tableau itself to discover the future state of the system from a given state. Or while there are algorithmic tricks to save unrequired CPU cycles computing the nth state, there is no way to skip directly from the n-th to n+m-th state, without computing the states in between.

Now since we do not know the "rules for real life" there is a fundamental "limit fo knowdege" that means that the future states of complex systems are not just unknowable, becasue we don't know enoigh information YET - and will theoretically knowable at some future time when we have enough information - but future states of Complex systems are fundamentally UNKNOWABLE in the absolute sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life

You are correct. But there are still potentially points where you can affect even a complex system.

This is where Baysian methods get people into trouble. They think that Bayesian methods give you "probabilities" that are really the same as "propensities" and not simply "degrees of confidence in an outcome given your confidence in the prior proababilities". In other words "probabilities" about the future state of sytems analyzed using Baysian methods have nothing to do with the actual system itself, but are simple mesures of the impplications of the confidence you have in your assumptions, carried through to a conclusion.

Or in other words, there is no physical theory that connects the future state to a prior state in a Baysian (or certain types of Markov models - which are just chains of bayesian models) system decomposition. (THese are types used in every actual implentation of a Systems Analysis tool for these types of "EBO-ish" problems). Its simply a "belief chain" of how confident we are that a series of "results" will result from a series of "effeects". A few have actual "propensities" associated with them, but the vast majority are simple numbers pulled out of an analysts butt, or worse - come to by a consensus of a BOGSAT because "well, there is no way we can think of to do it".

Meaning, "we really have no fricken idea what the causal relationship between this effect and this result is, but gee wouldn't it be great if it existed, and because we don't know, we'll only give it a confidence of 72%".

IF it is an excercise it really doesn't matter, so to look good its gets raised to 94%.

Yes you can affect a complex system, but then what - if you can't assess the relationship between 'effect' and 'result' how does that help get you to the cool "picture of your end state"?

Additionally, it may be possible to pick COGs that are more predictable than others- obviously your level of confidence in your intel about a COG and its potential reaction to various effects has to enter into the decision making.

This is another major pathology in current Systems theory applications to the real world. IT has varioous forms - "you look for your wallet under the street light because you can see there, even though you know you heardit dropp a block back in the dark" or the "This is the thing we all agree on as a potential effect to generate this cause, so therefore it has a high probability of actually being a cause." The implication of that is that if enough people agree on something, it then physically manifests itself (which is something sports fans in particular are susceptible to )

And the most seductive "Doing this worked 3 out of the last 9 times we tried, a better success rate than any other, so lets do it again and assume it has a 33% chance of being effective. Try this with a coin you flip 9 times and then assume the result is the "actual probability of the coin". You will lose your bar money every time...

But are more than happy to act like it works in "real life"...becasue "what is the alternative"...

Not doing something you KNOW TO BE WRONG would be a start

[slapout9]

"This is another major pathology in current Systems theory applications to the real world. IT has varioous forms - "you look for your wallet under the street light because you can see there, even though you know you heardit dropp a block back in the dark" or the "This is the thing we all agree on as a potential effect to generate this cause, so therefore it has a high probability of actually being a cause." The implication of that is that if enough people agree on something, it then physically manifests itself (which is something sports fans in particular are susceptible to ) "

That is not really Systems theory, that is Human behavior theory. That is why he has consistently said to stay away from such actions.

[Ken White]

Cliff:

But you can still create a model of any system, and attempt to apply probabilities to it.

Can you define the 'you' quoted?

Can you insure that the 'you' involved will always be someone competent to make the judgements required?

I submit that if the answer to the first question is not 'whoever is in the chair at the time' and the answer to second question is not anyone of 'moderate intellect with experience in the efforts to be undertaken' then the concept is flawed. A strategic conceptualization that does not itself prepare to contend with the vagaries of humans is unlikely to provide an effective approach to dealing with problems or situations involving humans. If a concept takes an exceptionally capable person or persons to make it effective then it is likely to fail at any time employed by lesser beings. There are a lot of those about...

I've watched the US Army among others try to develop mechanistic theories to improve planning and other capabilities. None of them really worked well, mostly because attempts to make people think in mechanical terms, to apply metrics to everything, simply are rejected by most minds. Some people think like that, the vast majority do not and will subtly resist being forced to do so.

This question from Cliff deserves an answer and I'm sure pvebber has one:

So we should throw up our hands and give up? What do you suggest as an alternative?

However, in the interim, my answer is "pretty much what we humans have been doing for thousands of years when confronted with complex systems -- make the best judgment possible with the information available at the time." The item in bold is to illustrate another flaw in the Warden approach; to return to his background, nations and people do not react IAW the laws of physics like airplane do thus perfect or near perfect information on which to make decisions will rarely be available. In fact, generally far from perfect information is available in small quantities and some of that may have been skewed by the opponent and there will assuredly be gaps and errors in that which is available. You cannot perform Slap's "good systems analysis" far more often than you can do so...

I've long observed and we all really know that flawed input leads to erroneous conclusions which in turn drive improper responses. To use Slap's analogy, if you think the electricity is important -- and it is not -- then you can screw up. Indeed, you may do more harm than good. Conversely you may go Iraq and deliberately not attack the power system so that it can be used by you or your new friends...

pvebber:

..."theory at the theoretical level" and not be troubled to dig into the implications of that theory or the need to "roll up the sleeves" and find the devil's in the details.

Interesting observation. While I have not had the pleasure of talking to Colonel Warden, I have in encountered people in all four services who unfortunately tend toward that approach. I've met a very few who could and would adapt their theory to cope with reality but they've been the exception. I mention that to address your subsequent point:

In broad terms keeping "theory theoretical" is OK - until someone says that we need to throw out our vocabulary and rethink our concepts of doing business.

The current US Army training system was adapted from several civilian technical training theories designed ib the late 1940s to train assembly line workers. It was not appropriate for the Army even in the bad recruiting days of the mid 70s when it was adopted -- it is today totally inappropriate for a professional force. We still have it. It was a theory, it had neat slides, it was adopted by a less than stellar General (pun intended...) and as a result the Army has suffered -- I use the word advisedly -- for over 30 years with that theory. Our moderately well trained Army is as good as it is due to a lot of good leaders doing more than the system provided or required.

Point: It's not just a vocabulary issue, it's far more dangerous: 'neat' ideas get adopted and take on a life of their own.

Slap also says of Warden and applying his theory -- or any strategy -- to specious causes:

That is why he has consistently said to stay away from such actions.

Yes, he has. So have hundreds of thousands of thinkers before him, to include many in recent time. Any intelligent person would heed such advice. Yet, we went to Viet Nam, to Somalia, to Afghanistan, to Iraq. I think that goes back to who sits in what chair and when...

It's a flawed concept. Not disastrous, just not particularly helpful in many situations. It has certainly use in some cases but it is not safely applicable universally. No theory is.

[pvebber]

What is the alternative?

Here is a paper that gets at some of the issues:

http://www.necsi.edu/projects/yaneer...CSI_3_Litt.pdf

(Puts on flak vest to ward off incoming salvos targteing Martime -centric context )

[Cole]

Let's analyze COL (ret) Warden's perception that attack of the the Five Rings in the title above decreases in importance from left to right.

Leaders:
That's why we are conducting serial Predator/Reaper attacks in Pakistan and night raids in Afghanistan. Don't believe Pakistan would be nearly as receptive to parallel massive bombing of every madrassa and all of Northern Waziristan. The intelligence takes time anyway. It's hard to find a target from the air that does not want to be found. Should we have instead dropped a 2,000 lb bomb on Karzai's erring young relative and multiplied the collateral damage manyfold? Should we be bombing ISI leaders since they seem to be part of the problem? That would go over well.
Processes:
Believe that's why we attempt to replace the poppy-growing in Afghanistan with a different crop, and pursue better government as a solution to graft and warlords. It's difficult to encourage either from 40,000' or many miles off shore.
Infrastructure:
We know who gets blown up by IEDs or sniped trying to secure the host country's rebuilding efforts. The guy on the ground, not in the air or at sea. If you say, we don't need a guy on the ground, I would answer what happens when the enemy has invaded another country and still has guerillas, foreign fighters, and sympathizers staying behind? Do we abandon our allies? Now let's say the offending invader is Russia or China. Do we attack the infrastructure of invaded Ukraine or invader Russia. Russia is big and its hard to retrieve downed pilots there. They have nukes. China too! What happens to our infrastructure (Walmart) and oil supplies (Russia, Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Canada oops sorry).
Population:
Some would say that's why we have a population-centric strategy for locating the bulk of ground forces. It's more difficult to influence the population from 60,000' with a F-22 or B-2. Don't believe either has much of an EO/IR capability with stealth and altitude. How do they assure no collateral damage?

The British population increased its resolve as a result of WWII German bombing of London. A small diameter bomb can take minutes to travel multiple miles during which time targets may move near civilians or vice versa. With a "parallel" strategy and inability to perform BDA for multiple simultaneous targets, we miss failures and lose successes attributed as collateral damage by the adversary.

Fielded Forces:
Conveniently, this has the least priority because it the most difficult for airpower to accomplish. Bad guys can easily hide from airpower once their invasion is complete...and because of blitzkrieg-like ground invasions, they will nearly always be complete IN ALLIED TERRITORY, by the time a decision is made to do something about it.

So the author would say attack the leaders, processes, and infrastructure because they are more important. But the government we leave behind will simply go back to the original undesired behavior or fall again if we like that government, unless our ground forces have the opportunity to train their host nation replacements. It's insufficient to train only host nation pilots.

How long did it take us to find Saddam Hussein and would it take to locate Qaddafi or Kim Jon Il, or Chavez, or Ahmadinejad and Khameini? That last leader would go over well in the Islamic world.

If the leader is a tad crazy as many potential rogue nation leaders are, do they really care about processes and infrastructure? What if religious beliefs subscribe to an austere existence anyway, and jihadist sacrifice of the people is viewed as fully acceptable? What if they have nothing to lose anyway. Look at satellite pictures of North Korea at night to see how much electricity they have. If the enemy army is in allied territory, what stops them for living off the land and goods of the allie ala Sherman? If we ignore the fielded force sitting in allied territory ala Kosovo, and the leader is not as rational as Milosevich was, how does the war end?

Badly and with little accomplished I would respectfully submit. I would like to hear how the sniping would have stopped if NATO peacekeeping forces were not on the ground and if allied ground forces were not threatening a full scale invasion. We see how well we stopped leaders, processes, and infrastructure in Desert Storm without the full monte ground attack until completion. The Shiite populations didn't fare too well, either?

If instead of massive bombing of hidden enemies and hitting populations instead, or their infrastructure/processes (that will make long term friends) we instead attack the invading country on the ground, from the sea, and air...they are forced out of hiding where airpower, long range fires, and rapid maneuver can engage them. They are slowly choked of oil and exports by blockades. Our rapid build-up of ground forces by air initially, and eventually sea, protects ports and airheads from further invasion. Having adequate force remaining for stability operations, and keeping the "enemy" army intact and on our side to help stabilize prevents the problems that occurred in OIF and an initially neglected Afghanistan.

Just an alternative theory some call Joint and Combined Arms warfare and full spectrum operations.

[slapout9]

Posted by Cole:"If instead of massive bombing of hidden enemies and hitting populations instead, or their infrastructure/processes (that will make long term friends) we instead attack the invading country on the ground, from the sea, and air...they are forced out of hiding where airpower, long range fires, and rapid maneuver can engage them. They are slowly choked of oil and exports by blockades. Our rapid build-up of ground forces by air initially, and eventually sea, protects ports and airheads from further invasion. Having adequate force remaining for stability operations, and keeping the "enemy" army intact and on our side to help stabilize prevents the problems that occurred in OIF and an initially neglected Afghanistan."

Cole, your right. You just described Warden's Gulf War 1 Strategy. Perfect 5 rings example, works exactly as advertised.

[slapout9]

Let's analyze COL (ret) Warden's perception that attack of the the Five Rings in the title above decreases in importance from left to right.

That is a good idea on how to learn the process. Don't want to be critical but you were a little off as to how you would actually do one. Want to do Qaddafi as a system so you can see what I mean?

[pvebber]

Again, potentially depends on what crank you pull. Some have more predictable effects than others.

How do you determine "predictability"? but thanks for not pushing back on need for predictability

Like I said, the predictability is part of the information you should be making decisions on.

The problem is if you only consider the predicable part you will an answer KNOWN TO BE WRONG for the system as a whole. Based on what information do you determine predictability? What sort of "exeriments" do you do and on what? THis is the sort of "next level of detail" - detatil that makes the theroy practical - that one never can seem to get to.

Except that oncology only affects cancer, while airpower has the potential to affect almost any situation involving the use of armed force (IE, airdropping HDRs to folks would be analagous to giving someone an IV of nutrients when their digestive function has ceased).

Cancer is analogous to a major conflict - which poses a "threat to our system - or that of an ally, which is the only context where we are talking about "breaking" an adversary's ability to resist and the Five rings.

This discussion is about Wardens' Contention that our concept of war needs to change, not about HADR. This is where the discussion gets so slippery - WE AGREE that airpower is necessary and can accoplish all sorts of REQUIRED things - things that NOBODY else can do. That is not whats controversial about Warden.

Its the implications he draws from it that "we are broken" and need a major reboot to get it right. The thesis statement again:

Regardless of airpower’s potential, it can never realize its real capability so long as it remains bound to an anachronistic view of war with an anachronistic vocabulary. On the contrary, if airpower is truly to come of age, it must do so in the context of a modern concept of war that associates the use of force as directly as possible with end-game strategic objectives, not with the act of fighting. If this is to happen, the operators of airpower must understand, believe, and teach end-game strategy as the foundation of airpower. Failure to do so will condemn airpower to suboptimization and deprive its owners of using force in such a dramatically different way that will achieve national objectives quickly and at minimum cost. To succeed, airpower advocates must stop trying to use airpower as a substitute for its military predecessors, connect it directly to strategic end-games, adopt a new vocabulary to match airpower’s promise, and become serious promoters not of machines but of ideas.

90% of the article is not cotroversial (other than why he sees the need to bring it up again) its the conclusion above, which doesn't seem to follow from his premises that is controversial.

You are conflating his arguement about the strategic process with the effects of changing that process- they are separate ideas.

EXACTLY and I'm AGREEING with most of his views on strategic process (with the exception of the degree of dependance on systems theory) , but DISAGREEING on what he sees as the effect!!! (in the sense what you need to do to achive the desired result.

I disagree. A better analogy would be surgery, where a surgeon might use simulations and operate on a cadaver to keep proficiency, with the cadaver being exercises. Additionally, I would argue that airpower is probably the best exercised and rehearsed element of the US military. While the army has NTC and JRTC, and the Navy does do JEFXs, I would argue that Red Flag is probably the highest level and most extensive rehearsal in the world. Not to mention a lot of studying of the real-world system going on in between.

Surgery is a tool, it is not class of disease. The structure of the anlogy was to point out that you have a pratictioner looking at a particular category of war (disease) in Warden's case compelling an adversary to do what you want by threatening to break or paralyze him - that is major war.

Your example of operating on a cadavor reinforces my point about the single sidedness of the whole framework! Doing surgury on a cadavor is "complicated" but not complex. You can practive technique, but learn nothing about the response of an actual patient to the shock of being cut open. Rehersal and exercises of any peacetime sort are heavily scripted - sure the individual pilots in Red Flag get to "freeplay" dogfighting to a great extent - but that is like operating on a cadavor - there is no actual response from the actual adversary! You learn a lot about surgery - the tactics of air combat and dropping ordnance, but you learn ZERO about how the enemy "live body" will reposnd to the actual surgery.

"Study of the real world system" is like observing the behavior of patients. It gives a certain level of information, but the probaility of a particular surgury being successful is NOT PREDICTABLE FROM practice on a cadavor and observatin of the human body. "Probabilities" in such cases are at best bayesian measures of belief, not actual physical propensities.

See above- separate the change in process from Warden's expected result that we will use airpower more. You're harping on the chemotherapy, when really Warden is saying the diagnosis is the important part.

And I agree that diagnosis is the most important part. I just don't want a guy diagnosing me that thinks he can learn everything required to be a good doctor by studying books and cutting open cadavors. And thinks the most effective treatment is to give me a handful of pills that will attack all my symptoms at once and will cure me i none fell swoop. There was a time when that was routinely done. It was called "patant medicine" and often resulted in the doctor getting run out town as "snake oil salesman"

I'm harping on chemotherapy because that is what Warden is selling! (see thesis statement above again - if that is not what you consider the thesis statement, please let me know. I'm trying to argue about the paper and its specific arguments - and hopefully made clear the parts of Warden's theory I agree with, are in harmony with current joint doctrine and conceptual thinking and are not controversial.

The unfortunate part is that Col Warden has reputation of being an airpower advocate, which colors people's perceptions of any arguement he makes. It would be interesting to see what the reaction would have been had someone else written a similar paper.

That may be, but that desn't change the fact that the article is fundamentally about airpower advocacy, Warden's overall strategic theory doesn't have to be and I ask the question a different way - whatif Warden had made all the points, but with a thesis statment about how strategic theory has been outpaced in recent years by the unexplored ocean of NEW 'WAYS' transformational technology (MEANS) has given us. Can these new WAYS significantly affect the way we approach achieving ENDS?

If he asked that question, hoping to generate a discussion, then I think the result would have been far more positive. The fact he did not approach the paper from the point of view of "What are the implications of new WAYS on how we think about ENDS", but rather from the point of view of an airpower advocay piece, detracts from the broader applicability of his ideas on strategy and almost deliberately invokes a viceral "Here comes the Airpower Mafia starting to lay the ground work for the budget battle over the new Bomber". I fully concede that this is probably as much a bias effect as not...

As I said, I conceed fully that the more complex a system is, the more difficult the application of Warden's theory will be - but again, that doesn't mean his points are invalid.

If I can leave you with one notion that I hope you can seperate from the increasing parochialsm in my argumentation :

Replace the notion that "complexity" is a continuum of "complicated-ness" with the notion that there is a threshold where a combination of "complicated" but casually simple systems reach a "point of no return" beyond which they are no longer "complicated arrangements of simpple things" but "Complex" entities that will no longer exhibit their full range of behaviors if they are simplified back below that line.

This is the fundamental, transformational idea that comes form complexiity science. It is what enables combinations of organic molecules to become life, nad what allows networks of entities that exchange information to create novel behaviors. If this fundamental property did not exist, we would not, and out societies would be incapable of surviving.

You can call BS on every other thing i've said in this thread. I can't begin to articulate the importance of making the cognitive leap between looking at the world as a collection of simply complicated things, and one of truely complex things.

[pvebber]

That is why I said electricity(just one example) can be both used to kill the patient AND bring the patient back to life and it can be done very fast. IMO opinion most true COG's at the Systems level will tend to be dual use when it comes to affecting large Nation/State systems. That is what makes his theories so useful not just theoretical, they can be used to produce and protect the things of life or the things of death. Think Lighting bolt from the sky not nuclear weapons, although as you know I really,really like Major Kong from Dr. Strangelove

LIke I siad, if all you are interested in breaking or paralyzing the adverary, then that is OK, if you wnat to cure him of a disease you perceive him to have, electricity is necessary (to power gear) but insufficient (won't cure anything.

If your response to getting the adverssary to do what you want is to threaten to break or paralyze him, them you need to break open the nuclear warfare theory, becasue that is where you are - nuclear warfare by conventional means.

"You do what i want or I will impose such a compelling cost on you that you will not be able to afford resisting."

The opportunity for the use of such means are really, really limited

That is not really Systems theory, that is Human behavior theory. That is why he has consistently said to stay away from such actions.

No, its Complex Adaptive System theory. Which Human behavior theory is a subset of. Though its currently not understood to that level becasue humans are so complex.

Sorry but Wardens magic equation

outcome = physical x morale

is simply nonsense and the implication that you can ignore human behavior theory (the Complex part) by seting "physical to "0" is downright dangerous.

This is in effect saying that a problem has simple parts and complex parts and you can create an effect independant of the complex part by affecting the simple part. A complex system is either complex, or not, and the extent to which it has "simple" parts does not mean that affecting the simple parts wiill yield a simple response from the system.

The real world just doesnt wok that way.

[Cliff]

Sorry I am lagging this fight- not enough time to really keep up!

How do you determine "predictability"? but thanks for not pushing back on need for predictability

I think you have to have ways of defining the confidence you have in your understanding/information, combined with solid political/economic/social/scientific analysis of the available data.

The problem is if you only consider the predicable part you will an answer KNOWN TO BE WRONG for the system as a whole. Based on what information do you determine predictability? What sort of "exeriments" do you do and on what? THis is the sort of "next level of detail" - detatil that makes the theroy practical - that one never can seem to get to.

Just because you pick the most effective/predictable ways to affect a system doesn't mean the answer will be "KNWON TO BE WRONG" for the whole system. As for the "exeriments", see above- exhaustive analysis of the environment/system. For instance, see here for an effort to understand different human behaviors.

Cancer is analogous to a major conflict - which poses a "threat to our system - or that of an ally, which is the only context where we are talking about "breaking" an adversary's ability to resist and the Five rings.

Warden talks about affecting the system in this paper, not neccessarily breaking it. I think the cancer analogy is getting in the way.

Surgery is a tool, it is not class of disease. The structure of the anlogy was to point out that you have a pratictioner looking at a particular category of war (disease) in Warden's case compelling an adversary to do what you want by threatening to break or paralyze him - that is major war.

Your example of operating on a cadavor reinforces my point about the single sidedness of the whole framework! Doing surgury on a cadavor is "complicated" but not complex. You can practive technique, but learn nothing about the response of an actual patient to the shock of being cut open. Rehersal and exercises of any peacetime sort are heavily scripted - sure the individual pilots in Red Flag get to "freeplay" dogfighting to a great extent - but that is like operating on a cadavor - there is no actual response from the actual adversary! You learn a lot about surgery - the tactics of air combat and dropping ordnance, but you learn ZERO about how the enemy "live body" will reposnd to the actual surgery.

First off, a slight side note- at Red Flag there is an actual response from an actual adversary - in fact, the USAF has one of the largest and best resourced Aggressor forces in the world, and they use actual adversary tactics and operational doctrine. Nothing scripted about that. You are suggesting that the only way we can learn better ways of waging war is to actually wage it, and learn by trial and error. I am saying that would be a very wasteful and irresponsible way to operate, although I'll grant you that it seems to be the way we (the US) seem to like to operate. Part of why the USAF has been so successful is because of the culture of the debrief - the fact that (thanks to USAF Weapons School) most USAF warfighters have a structured way of debriefing where honest assessments are conducted of everyone's performance. These debriefs are brutal, and rank doesn't matter in them- in fact, in most cases an O-3 or junior O-4 is the one leading them. Additionally, these lessons are captured in training, and combined with the lessons captured in warfare are used to develop new doctrine and tactics. I would submit this is a much better technique than what we used in WWII - a bunch of theory that had been rehearsed but never really tested or exercise, resulting in the USAAF having to learn by trial and error.

Now I am not saying that this will completely take the enemy's choice out of the equation- far from it. But isn't it a pretty good idea to study all the possible choices the enemy could make, train against the most likely and most dangerous ones, and then develop ways of limiting the enemy's choices?

At some point we hae to make a decision on how we will act, so at some point we've done all the analysis we can and must decide based on potentially imperfect information. At that point we are operating off of our best guess of how the enemy will react to the different effects we attempt to have on his system. But the alternative is to do nothing- which may be a good choice, but many times won't lead to our desired end state.

"Study of the real world system" is like observing the behavior of patients. It gives a certain level of information, but the probaility of a particular surgury being successful is NOT PREDICTABLE FROM practice on a cadavor and observatin of the human body. "Probabilities" in such cases are at best bayesian measures of belief, not actual physical propensities.

See above. Yes we cannot assign with certainty a definite and completely accurate probability. But since we're humans and not omniscient, we always will be operating on imperfect information!

And I agree that diagnosis is the most important part. I just don't want a guy diagnosing me that thinks he can learn everything required to be a good doctor by studying books and cutting open cadavors. And thinks the most effective treatment is to give me a handful of pills that will attack all my symptoms at once and will cure me i none fell swoop. There was a time when that was routinely done. It was called "patant medicine" and often resulted in the doctor getting run out town as "snake oil salesman"

See above - the cadaver is as you say practicing techniques and process against the most accurate representation we can make of our adversary, to include the human portions thereof. Most of doctor's knowledge of how the body reacts is based on scientific studies of past occurences. These are not perfect, and don't mean that your body will react exactly the same way (IE "side affects vary but may include...") Unless you never want to be treated by a doctor ever again, you will have to accept that the doctor is making the best guess at what the treatment should be - and in most cases is probably close to right.

I'm harping on chemotherapy because that is what Warden is selling! (see thesis statement above again - if that is not what you consider the thesis statement, please let me know. I'm trying to argue about the paper and its specific arguments - and hopefully made clear the parts of Warden's theory I agree with, are in harmony with current joint doctrine and conceptual thinking and are not controversial.

Don't disagree- that is the thesis. Your chemotherapy example is wrong- he is arguing for a different method of diagnosis, which will then lead to different treatment in many cases.

That may be, but that desn't change the fact that the article is fundamentally about airpower advocacy, Warden's overall strategic theory doesn't have to be and I ask the question a different way - whatif Warden had made all the points, but with a thesis statment about how strategic theory has been outpaced in recent years by the unexplored ocean of NEW 'WAYS' transformational technology (MEANS) has given us. Can these new WAYS significantly affect the way we approach achieving ENDS?

You'd still criticize him because he's Col Warden.

If he asked that question, hoping to generate a discussion, then I think the result would have been far more positive. The fact he did not approach the paper from the point of view of "What are the implications of new WAYS on how we think about ENDS", but rather from the point of view of an airpower advocay piece, detracts from the broader applicability of his ideas on strategy and almost deliberately invokes a viceral "Here comes the Airpower Mafia starting to lay the ground work for the budget battle over the new Bomber". I fully concede that this is probably as much a bias effect as not...

I think it is funny... as I have mentioned before, the USAF is the one service that it is "cool" to bash. You don't see the USMC, USN, or USA bashing each other to the same extent (especially here), but just mention airpower and watch the spears fly. I think a lot of this stems from the bad blood from the 50s when the USAF took msot of the money due to the decision to rely on the few nukes we had to allow a smaller budget... I understand that folks can't get accept the fact that maybe an article has validity even though it was written by an airpower advocate for the USAF's professional journal.

Replace the notion that "complexity" is a continuum of "complicated-ness" with the notion that there is a threshold where a combination of "complicated" but casually simple systems reach a "point of no return" beyond which they are no longer "complicated arrangements of simpple things" but "Complex" entities that will no longer exhibit their full range of behaviors if they are simplified back below that line.

I understand the concept- again I ask you what is the alternative? you essentially are saying that there's no way to envision a future and plan to try and reach it. If you really think that, then how are we (the military) to be ready for future conflicts? How do we ever achieve our objectives? I think a lot of our problems sometimes stem from the US military (and the USG's) penchant for making things more complicated than they need to be. See here for an example... This often results in us wringing our hands while we wait for perfect information. As Patton said, "a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week".

V/R,

Cliff

[Backwards Observer]

I think it is funny... as I have mentioned before, the USAF is the one service that it is "cool" to bash. You don't see the USMC, USN, or USA bashing each other to the same extent (especially here), but just mention airpower and watch the spears fly.

This may sound unfair, and please correct me if I appear woefully misinformed, but out of the services mentioned, the USAAF/USAF is possibly the only one to have systematically engaged itself in the purposeful mass slaughter of civilians; yet it seems eager to cloak its existence in an aura of inerrant and pious purity somehow removed from the world 'red in tooth and claw'. My apologies if this comes across as "uncool" bashing.

[Fuchs]

You seem to forget the Philippine insurrection and the Indian wars. The other services weren't saints either.

[Backwards Observer]

You seem to forget the Philippine insurrection and the Indian wars. The other services weren't saints either.

You're a troublemaker. But perhaps you're right, I appear to have a very selective memory. As stated, it was possibly an unfair thing to say. Airpower, es tut mir leid.

[slapout9]

You'd still criticize him because he's Col Warden.

Yep!

I think it is funny... as I have mentioned before, the USAF is the one service that it is "cool" to bash. You don't see the USMC, USN, or USA bashing each other to the same extent (especially here), but just mention airpower and watch the spears fly. I think a lot of this stems from the bad blood from the 50s when the USAF took msot of the money due to the decision to rely on the few nukes we had to allow a smaller budget... I understand that folks can't get accept the fact that maybe an article has validity even though it was written by an airpower advocate for the USAF's professional journal.

That is the real problem if his uniform was different color none of this would matter. Look at the Army ASCOPE analysis system which is basically the same thing (6 rings analysis). If Warden's uniform was a different color we could be looking at creating common ground between the two (basically the same ideas) for better overall understanding of the Enemy.....but no we are going to do that, we are going to play the "not invented here (service oriented)game". So the country and the services as a whole will suffer.

[Marc]

That is the real problem if his uniform was different color none of this would matter. Look at the Army ASCOPE analysis system which is basically the same thing (6 rings analysis). If Warden's uniform was a different color we could be looking at creating common ground between the two (basically the same ideas) for better overall understanding of the Enemy.....but no we are going to do that, we are going to play the "not invented here (service oriented)game". So the country and the services as a whole will suffer.

I disagree, the 5 (or 6) ring analysis simply is not useful in many cases. It has already been mentioned that the model does not apply to law enforcement, counterinsurgencies and stabilization operations. However, many strategists have a tendency to discard these types of operations as military anomalies.

So let's do a relevant reality check: a blog wargame. How would Warden's theory work against Iran if the Iranian leadership chooses to apply a 2006 Hezbollah-style "Mosaic Defense"?

In 2005, the IRGC announced that it was incorporating a flexible, layered defense -- referred to as a mosaic defense -- into its doctrine. The lead author of this plan was General Mohammad Jafari, then director of the IRGC's Center for Strategy, who was later appointed commander of the IRGC.

As part of the mosaic defense, the IRGC has restructured its command and control architecture into a system of 31 separate commands -- one for the city of Tehran and 30 for each of Iran's provinces. The primary goal of restructuring has been to strengthen unit cohesion at the local level and give commanders more latitude to respond to potential threats -- both foreign and domestic. But the new structure would also make it difficult for hostile forces to degrade Iranian command and control, a lesson the Iranian military has learned by analyzing U.S. operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans.

The mosaic defense plan allows Iran to take advantage of its strategic depth and formidable geography to mount an insurgency against invading forces. Most of Iran's population centers and major lines of communication are spread out within the interior of the country. Iran's borders are ringed by rugged mountain ranges that serve as natural barriers to invasion. As enemy supply lines stretched into Iran's interior, they would be vulnerable to interdiction by special stay-behind cells, which the IRGC has formed to harass enemy rear operations.

The Artesh, a mix of armored, infantry and mechanized units, would constitute Iran's initial line of defense against invading forces. IRGC troops would support this effort, but they would also form the core of popular resistance, the bulk of which would be supplied by the Basij, the IRGC's paramilitary volunteer force. The IRGC has developed a wartime mobilization plan for the Basij, called the Mo'in Plan, according to which Basij personnel would augment regular IRGC units in an invasion scenario.

IRGC and Basij exercises have featured simulated ambushes on enemy armored columns and helicopters. Much of this training has been conducted in an urban environment, suggesting that Iran intends to lure enemy forces into cities where they would be deprived of mobility and close air support. Iran has emphasized passive defense measures -- techniques used to enhance the battlefield survivability -- including camouflage, concealment and deception.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...#ixzz1GZlSR02Z

[slapout9]

pvebber,sorry for the late start but here we go. Go to the link below and then go to chapter 3 for a good 5 rings analysis of how these systems are organized. Since Qudaffi is not much more than a Terorist leader IMO this is a pretty good template to start with.



http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/acsc/97-0393.pdf


Also bear in mind this paper was written in 1997, very far sighted as the capabilities that we are and will need in the future IMO, which is one of the key points in Warden's article.

[slapout9]

It has already been mentioned that the model does not apply to law enforcement, counterinsurgencies and stabilization operations. However, many strategists have a tendency to discard these types of operations as military anomalies.

Not sure what you mean by the that? It was through LE that I first found out about it, I saw it up close and personal and it does work. It was taught to Couter Drug Task forces in the South, Mid-West and North.