Future Conflict

[Jones_RE]

War's essential character has not changed and will not change. The specific techniques required for close combat will probably remain stable. Firepower has continued to advance at the expense of protection - missiles are smarter, cheaper and more destructive than ever. Avoidance, concealment, cover and suppression remain the only means to stay alive in the face of a hostile enemy equipped with modern weapons.

I believe that the United States will require a great deal more infantry - especially light infantry. Infantry can be quickly and cheaply deployed almost anywhere. Light infantry should train to win the support of the local population by protecting them and treating them according to a strict code of conduct.

We'll probably be well served by fielding a few regiments cross trained as constabulary - not pure military police but with enough training to be "good enough for government work." With a law enforcement mindset, but military weapons and manpower, they'll probably pay for themselves in peacekeeping deployments.

Against high intensity foes, I can only recommend training (In a free play, force on force environment that simulates battle as closely as possible). Suppression, concealment and use of terrain, as well as cooperation by all arms, will be necessary to combat widespread ATGM and smarter indirect fires. I believe Israel's heavy losses in southern Lebannon were a direct result of poor suppression, reconaissance and use of terrain by the IDF - as well as excellent uses of concealment and guts by Hezbollah.

Smart weapons will become cheaper and more widely available. While non-state actors will have a hard time getting them in quantity, if a few of them are sufficiently well handled we can expect a seriously rough time.

Submarines. The same hydrogen, fuel cell and hybrid technology that's exciting everyone about cars would be just dandy for powering a submarine fleet - and quieter than our nuke boast. Combine that with widespread availability for cruise missiles and the next war with a major power may well be fought right alongside our coasts.

In short, I foresee a world in which firepower is increasingly democratized. War will remain primarily a mental and moral affair, with the actual tools and techniques used mattering a hell of a lot less than the people using them.

[Reid Bessenger]

Zenpundit - thanks for the link to the NIC 2020 piece. I'm still going through it, and it is intriguing. Of the scenarios featured in the piece, I think that today, two years after the production of the document, the Pax Americana scenario seems less plausible even though it attractively suggests some degree of stability that the others lack in varying degrees.

The chart of Relative Certainties and Key Uncertainties on page 8 is provocative alone. There are some underlying assumptions not specifically broken out in the chart that seem to suggest oversimplification. An example is the last Relative Certainty listed: "US will remain single most powerful actor economically, technologically, militarily." I think that once a region is selected as a vehicle to examine the ideas put forth, this becomes ambiguous. The context of the document when I read it today is different from the time of publication, and that may account for much of the complexity I see confronting some of these points.

Again, thanks for the input. Still reading...

[Bill Moore]

War's essential character has not changed and will not change. The specific techniques required for close combat will probably remain stable. Jones

I have to challenge you on this one, or at least ask for clarification. The nature of war has changed considerably, and will continue to do so. I'm not sure what you mean by the character of war though?

Some changes:

1. As you mentioned, strategic reach, we can launch nuclear weapons anywhere in the world with relative ease. Unfortunately we see the emergence of undesired peer competitors in this area. This gives a nation (or perhaps some day a non-state actor) the ability to launch a strategic attack in a matter of minutes, without mobilizing and deploying an Army. No change from say Napolean's time?

2. Globalization, global migration, global communications etc. have created what some call a Flat World, but the security implications are serious, because global communications gives an actor the ability (within reason) the ability to mobilize an amorphous army in any country, say radicalize a segment of the Muslim population in France, then pass information on how to disrupt the French economy. 9/11 was transmitted world wide within minutes, and so are our efforts in GWOT. We have to respond to several different audiences near real time to maintain acceptable relationships in globalized economy, which means our response options are very limited. No longer can we pass out small pox infected blankets to weaken our adversaries, but they can do it to us.

3. There are ways to fight wars now without conventional armies, or where conventional armies only play a supporting role (see unrestricted warfare).

4. I'll challenge your close combat statement also, because close combat normally was defined (in conventional terms, which are too limited) as armed foes fighting one another within rifle range, where fire and maneuver tactics were essential. Now close combat is suicide bombers attacking unarmed civilians, or insurgents hiding behind civilians while executing an attack knowing that our forces must limit collateral damage, and they fire back and kill a women and child it will have a near immediate strategic impact on the nightly news (or the 24/7 news shows now). No change? There was time when we didn't worry about collateral damage.

All that said, much will remain the same, so we can't throw the baby out with the bath water. However, instead of us developing an ever bigger Army (light infantry or not, it is expensive), I think we need to pursue stronger relations with our allies. I don't like coalitions of the willing, because as we're seeing that isn't binding, but we need something along the lines of NATO, but more globalized (not regionally focused), and a new list of threats (beyond Warsaw) that are agreed to, if we ever hope to generate enough forces to mitigate the emerging threats during this period of massive economic and social change, which I think is a transition period, much like the Middle Ages, but we still have to maintain an acceptable level of security during this period.

[120mm]

I have to challenge you on this one, or at least ask for clarification. The nature of war has changed considerably, and will continue to do so. I'm not sure what you mean by the character of war though?

Some changes:

1. As you mentioned, strategic reach, we can launch nuclear weapons anywhere in the world with relative ease. Unfortunately we see the emergence of undesired peer competitors in this area. This gives a nation (or perhaps some day a non-state actor) the ability to launch a strategic attack in a matter of minutes, without mobilizing and deploying an Army. No change from say Napolean's time?

While a rogue state may be able to launch a missile(s), these weapons are not a realistic option for a member of the civilized world. Symbols only

2. Globalization, global migration, global communications etc. have created what some call a Flat World, but the security implications are serious, because global communications gives an actor the ability (within reason) the ability to mobilize an amorphous army in any country, say radicalize a segment of the Muslim population in France, then pass information on how to disrupt the French economy. 9/11 was transmitted world wide within minutes, and so are our efforts in GWOT. We have to respond to several different audiences near real time to maintain acceptable relationships in globalized economy, which means our response options are very limited. No longer can we pass out small pox infected blankets to weaken our adversaries, but they can do it to us.

3. There are ways to fight wars now without conventional armies, or where conventional armies only play a supporting role (see unrestricted warfare).

4. I'll challenge your close combat statement also, because close combat normally was defined (in conventional terms, which are too limited) as armed foes fighting one another within rifle range, where fire and maneuver tactics were essential. Now close combat is suicide bombers attacking unarmed civilians, or insurgents hiding behind civilians while executing an attack knowing that our forces must limit collateral damage, and they fire back and kill a women and child it will have a near immediate strategic impact on the nightly news (or the 24/7 news shows now). No change? There was time when we didn't worry about collateral damage.

Light infantry is the ONLY truly precision guided weapons system. Our main defense against any of the threats listed is aggressive patrolling, combined with the right "touch" when going door to door. I think we do need more light infantry, we just need it to more closely resemble a heavily armed police force than a "2nd Mech".
All that said, much will remain the same, so we can't throw the baby out with the bath water. However, instead of us developing an ever bigger Army (light infantry or not, it is expensive), I think we need to pursue stronger relations with our allies. I don't like coalitions of the willing, because as we're seeing that isn't binding, but we need something along the lines of NATO, but more globalized (not regionally focused), and a new list of threats (beyond Warsaw) that are agreed to, if we ever hope to generate enough forces to mitigate the emerging threats during this period of massive economic and social change, which I think is a transition period, much like the Middle Ages, but we still have to maintain an acceptable level of security during this period.

Good luck. Sooner or later, we would need to eat some things we wouldn't care for, politically, with this approach. I'm not saying we shouldn't, I'm just saying that we need to be prepared to to take this approach

Excellent topic and discussion!

[Tc2642]

War's essential character has not changed and will not change. The specific techniques required for close combat will probably remain stable. Jones

I have to challenge you on this one, or at least ask for clarification. The nature of war has changed considerably, and will continue to do so. I'm not sure what you mean by the character of war though?

I think there may be some confusion over how we define terms here.

I for one, think the nature of war has not changed but that it's characteristics have, the nature of war is always political, although how it is fought and the methods used to fight it, the characteristics, the features of war have changed over time. Although character and nature can be mentioned in the same breath, for the sake of clarity that's how I define them.

[Reid Bessenger]

Perhaps we can benefit from a definition of terms. I regard "nature" as applied in "the nature of conflict" to refer to those enduring characteristics that identify a thing in regard to how it is composed, how it functions, and how it relates to other things. The specific inclusion of those enduring characteristics is critical to the nature, because the value of knowledge of a thing's nature is realized through that immutability. This may seem pedantic, but I think it's central to our discussion of future conflict. Armed with the enduring characteristics of conflict, we can assess the trends that shape the specific form conflict may take, and from that identify capabilities required to engage from a position of advantage.

The Nature of Conflict.

Conflict of ideas or violence or both. (LTC D. A. Fastabend, USA, in "A General Theory of Conflict" submitted 1 May 1996)

"War is a violent clash of interests between or among organized groups characterized by the use of military force."
"The essence of war is a violent struggle between two hostile, independent, and irreconcilable wills, each trying to impose itself on the other." (United States Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 1, 1997)

These provide a sound starting point. I think in factional conflict there may be more than two parties. Interested in your comments.

[slapout9]

The motives of war like the motives for crimes are eternal, it is the methods and opportunities that will change largely because of newer technologies.

[TROUFION]

JOpsC Family of Joint Concepts -
Executive Summaries
www.dtic.mil/futurejointwarfare

Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (CCJO)
•Purpose: Overarching concept of the JOpsC family that guides development of future joint force capabilities. Broadly describes how the joint force is expected to operate in the mid to far term, reflects enduring national interests derived from strategic guidance, and identifies the key characteristics of the Future Joint Force.
•Scope: Describes the environment/military problem expected in 2012-2025 Proposes a solution to meet challenges across the ROMO to guide force development, organization, training and employment.
•Problem: Complex and adaptive adversaries will likely employ traditional, irregular, disruptive and catastrophic methods, singularly or in combinations to keep the future joint force from being successful across the ROMO.
•Central Idea: Joint Forces, in concert with other elements of national and multinational power, will conduct integrated, tempo-controlling actions to dominate any adversary and control any situation in support of strategic objectives.

Major Combat Operations (MCO): Joint operating concept (JOC)
•Purpose: Proposes seven core building blocks that form the foundations for US success in future major combat operations as well as eleven principles to guide the decisions and actions of Operational Commanders in conducting major combat operations.
•Scope: Captures the most challenging of the likely adversaries and conditions the US may face in the next decade against a regional competitor.
•Problem: Our understanding of the operational level of war and operational art must change in response to the changes in the environment and increasingly dynamic adversaries.
•Central Idea: Compel the enemy to accede to our will by: achieving decisive conclusions to combat; setting conditions for decisive conclusion of the confrontation; using joint, interdependent forces to swiftly apply overmatching power, simultaneously and sequentially; employing joint power at all points of action necessary; and creating an asynchronous perception of our actions in the mind of our enemy.


STABILITY OPERATIONS: (JOC)
•Purpose: Articulates how a future joint force commander plans, prepares, deploys, employs, and sustains a joint force conducting stability operations. Proposes 10 principles to guide a joint force commander’s thoughts on the conduct of operations pre, during, and post- conflict.
•Scope: US government and coalition partner response when war is thrust upon us, and under circumstances including a change in the political arrangement of an opponent’s government that precede, are concurrent with, and follow MCO.
•Problem: US and allies face future challenges conducting stability operations due to a complex mix of global dangers, problematic nation-states, and illegal transnational organizations.
•Central Idea: The joint force, as part of a multinational and integrated, multi-agency operation, provides security as well as initial humanitarian assistance, limited governance, restoration of essential public services, and other reconstruction assistance—until the security environment permits civilian agencies to perform these functions.

STRATEGIC DETERRENCE: JOC
•Purpose: Prevention of adversary aggression or coercion threatening vital interests of the US and/or our national survival. Convinces adversaries not to take grievous courses of action by means of decisive influence over their decision making.
•Scope: Describes how Joint Force Commanders (JFCs) will plan, prepare, deploy, employ, and sustain a joint force to contribute to a strategic deterrence strategy set forth by national leadership through 2015.
•Problem: Shift from optimized planning against specific adversaries to planning designed to address a wider spectrum of contingencies to deter both initial and escalatory use of WMD as well as the transfer of WMD.
•Central Idea: To exercise decisive influence over a potential adversary’s strategic deterrence Center of Gravity: the decision-making calculus of key adversary decision-makers.

BATTLESPACE AWARNESS: JOC
•Purpose: Provides commanders and force elements the ability to make better decisions faster by enabling a more thorough understanding of the environment in which they operate, relevant friendly force data, the adversaries they face, and non-aligned actors that could aid in or detract from friendly force success.
•Scope: Future Joint Force Battlespace Awareness capabilities to support the full ROMO as envisioned circa 2015.
•Problem: Describes the envisioned changes to friendly operations that will drive BA capabilities to support these new operational concepts and anticipated changes in adversary capabilities and operations that will necessitate alterations in BA capabilities.
•Central Idea: Enables Joint C2, Force Application, and Force Protection to: bring military means to bear at critical points; allowing commanders to make efficient operational decisions; avoid enemy denial and deceptions; break-through or circumvent anti-access and area denial strategies; and, thwart enemy attempts to harm U.S. interests worldwide.

JOINT C2: JOC
•Purpose: Enabled by a robust, secure, integrated network, and through the employment of collaborative information environments, the Joint Force Commander will possess a seamless, deployable command and control capability, agile across the ROMO. •Scope: Describes a vision of how Joint Command and Control (C2) will be executed in 2015 in support of the Joint Force Commander. •Problem: Instead of de-conflicting the operations of service components, the 21st century Joint Force Commander must integrate separate capabilities of the service components so that they are able to conduct cohesive operations.
•Central Idea: Joint C2 will be a joint decision making process that is dynamic, decentralized, distributed, deployable, and highly adaptive. Provides the Joint Force Commander a networked, dispersed, joint force that can work together in a virtual problem space, accessing any piece of information, any place and at any time, in response to any operation across the ROMO

FORCE APPLICATION: JOC
•Purpose: Guide the transformation of the US Armed Forces by describing those overarching force application (FA) capabilities and associated attributes needed to meet future military challenges.
•Scope: Capabilities required to effectively apply force against large-scale enemy forces in the 2015 timeframe, described in the context of Major Combat Operations.
•Problem: US Forces must be able to respond rapidly anywhere around the globe, to include within the US, and provide overwhelming force to meet any contingency. In addition, the joint force must be ready to operate in a multinational and interagency environment as a member of a hastily created coalition.
•Central Idea: FA attributes characterize the two overarching force application capabilities – the ability to maneuver and the ability to engage – required to meet future military challenges. Stated as twelve broad categories that build on the attributes in the JOpsC, and put a focus on desirable qualities to be pursued when considering force application improvements.

NET-CENT OPERATIONS: JOC
•Purpose: Identify the principles, capabilities, and attributes required for the Joint Force to function in a fully connected framework for full human and technical connectivity and interoperability that allows all DOD users and mission partners to share the information they need, when they need it, in a form they can understand.
•Scope: Information and decision superiority-based concept describing how joint forces might function in a fully networked environment 10 to 20 years in the future
•Problem: Current human and technical connectivity/interoperability of the Joint Force, and the ability of the Joint Force to exploit that connectivity and interoperability, are inadequate to achieve the levels of operational effectiveness and efficiency necessary for success in the emerging operational environment.
•Central Idea: Proposes is that if the Joint Force fully exploits both shared knowledge and technical connectivity, then the resulting capabilities will dramatically increase mission effectiveness and efficiency.

[Reid Bessenger]

Thanks again to Zenpundit for bringing this study to our attention. For a link see his earlier post on this thread. The report is written from a US government perspective. I've read the report and provide a few point from it along with some editorial for discussion.

Future Trends

Globalization, defined as the growing interconnectedness reflected in the flow of information, technology, capital, goods, services and people world-wide. It will favor those who possess or have access to technology over those with a relative lack. It requires a global infrastructural system of conduits for the associated transfer, and rules to govern that transfer. There are vulnerabilities to this system, including the physical secutrity of the transfer mechanisms and potential methods of activity that fall outside the rules associated with this system. Globalization will leave pockets of people behind, even in close proximity to other groups who enjoy its benefits. This will contribute to instability and insecurity. The report states this is the megatrend that will "shape all other major trends in the world of 2020."

Challenges to the Nation State

The report expects the nation state to continue to dominate the geopolitical environment, but forsees challenges from globalization, international corporations and other integrating organizations, religion-based or identity politics, and an overwhelmed internation support infrastructure. It also notes a risk of a roll-back of democratization associated with what has been referred to as the "third wave of democratization," the former Soviet republics and in southeast asia in particular. The challenges associated with demographic issues confronting nations will provide substantial challenge as well. The report focuses on youth bulges, but I think that the aging populations faced by several nations will prove particularly challenging too.

The report addresses the potential for pervasive insecurity to emerge from the influence of weak and weakening governments, lagging economies, religious extermism and demographic bulges. This risks a multitude of internal and regional conflicts. I think this is especially the case along the energy and identity politics lines. The report assess the possibility of these conflicts escalating to major power conflict as remote, owing in part to the influence of globalization.

Regarding the employment of the terror tactic, the report states that these situations will provide the foundation for some to conclude terror is the appropriate tactic on a larger scale.