Institute for Statecraft
This little known and discreet "think tank" has some excellent members, two of them are good friends and I've met a couple of others. Chris Donnelly is a former USSR military expert, based at Sandhurst and then a Soviet Studies team - which IIRC was disbanded as a cost-cutting measure.
Their website:http://www.statecraft.org.uk/
davidbfpo
Joint Force Quarterly
The October 2016 issue of the Joint Force Quarterly has some articles that shine some light on how our current Department of Defense leadership is looking at aspects of strategy for a 21st Century.
First, From the Chairman: Strategic Challenges and Implications
http://ndupress.ndu.edu/JFQ/Joint-Fo...-implications/
The Chairman identified 4 strategic implications:
Not a new challenge, but it remains a significant challenge, more so tighter restrictions on the purse strings. The ability to wage non, unconventional, conventional, and nuclear warfare (I'm lumping cyber under non-conventional for now). While hybrid threats also are not new, it is still a useful concept for reacquainting the force with the totality of warfare. Before 9/11 is was conventional warfare centric, no need to worry about unconventional adversaries, after 9/11 the force swung in the other direction. Need to get after those terrorists, there will never be a conventional war again. We have started, and need to continue, to stop treating wars like Military Occupational Specialties (MOSs). One soldier specializes in conventional warfare, while another specializes in unconventional, and treat warfare more like liberal arts, than a technical trade school.1. The first one is foundational. We need a balanced inventory of joint capabilities that allow us to deter and defeat potential adversaries across the full range of military operations.
Back to the gray zone, a zone we compete in, but not as effectively as our adversaries.2. The second implication is the need for us to more effectively employ the military instrument of national power to address the challenges Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea present. Each of these nations, in different ways, fully leverages economic coercion, political influence, unconventional warfare, information operations, cyber operations, and military posture to advance their interests. This is competition with a military dimension that falls below the threshold that would trigger a traditional and decisive military response. And since these countries compete in ways that mute our response, they continue to advance their interests at the qualitative and quantitative expense of our own.
3.Short discussion on multi-domain and rapid pace of change.The third implication, and to me one of the most significant, is that we have a mandate to keep pace with the character of war in the 21st century.
4.This one worries me, because it is ahistorical and far being strategic as written. It continues to push the military-industrial-complex myth that if our technology enables us to dominate the 5 "recognized" domains, we will prevail strategically.Therefore, the fourth implication is the need for greater strategic integration in the future, both in our strategy development and in our decision making processes. The intent is to build a framework within which we can address these 4+1 challenges across the five operational domains with which we are dealing and the many associated functions.
I did like the closing though:
What drives me, and what motivates our Joint Staff team, is the changing character of war. How do we get more agile? How do we frame decisions for our senior leadership in a more effective way? Just like every other endeavor in our profession, it begins with a common understanding of the threat, and a common appreciation for the capabilities and limitations of the Joint Force, and then a framework within which we could make real-time decisions that will most effectively employ that force.
Other articles of interest
Other articles of interest in the OCT 16 JFQ
Fast Followers, Learning Machines, and the Third Offset Strategy
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. . . . This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.
—Isaac Asimov
A perfect quote to sag way into a discussion on strategy for the remainder of the 21st Century.
The article gives a good run down on what the 3rd Off Set Strategy is all about (whether one agrees or disagrees with it logic). Unlike other articles I have seen, it also presented a list of risks associated with this strategy. One that I found compelling, but not compelling enough to stop the forward march of technology is:In 1993, Andrew Marshall, Director of Net Assessment, stated, “I project a day when our adversaries will have guided munitions parity with us and it will change the game.”2 On December 14, 2015, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work announced that day’s arrival when arguing for a Third Offset during comments at the Center for a New American Security.
The article ends with:A New Fog of War. Lastly, the advent of learning machines will give rise to a new fog of war emerging from uncertainty in a learning machine’s AI programming. It is a little unsettling that a branch of AI popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s was called “fuzzy logic,” due to an ability to alter its programming that represents a potential loss of control and weakening of liability.
The next article starts to address the missing link in the 3rd Off Set Strategy, which is how will we employ all these capabilities? The author makes a strong argument for leveraging wargaming.However, pursuit of game-changing technologies is only sustainable by breaking out of the increasingly exponential pace of technological competition with Fast Followers. A Third Offset Strategy could do this and could provide the first to adopt outsized advantages. Realistically, to achieve this requires integrating increasing layers of autonomy into legacy force structure as budgets align to new requirements and personnel adapt to increasing degrees of learning machine teaming. The additive effect of increasing autonomy could fundamentally change warfare and provide significant advantage to whoever successfully teams learning machines with manned systems. This is not a race we are necessarily predestined to win, but it is a race that has already begun with strategic implications for the United States.
Wargaming the Third Offset Strategy
In conclusion:It is not only technology but also how new capabilities are employed that produces military power.13 A new capability is more than just a new technology. It requires new concepts for employing the systems and training on how to operate them as part of a larger joint fight. The strategy is unlikely to reach its full potential until the joint community develops new operating concepts.
Officers should take an active role and imagine future battlefields as part of their JPME experience and field exercises, learning to analyze the art and science of military practice. The joint community can work with the individual Services and integrate Third Offset wargames with JPME curriculum. Officers and the civilian academics who work in JPME should be incentivized to research and critique alternative operating concepts that emerge from the wargames.
Pursued along these lines, the net benefit of wargaming the Third Offset could well be to empower a new generation of military leaders to take ownership of intellectual development in the profession of arms.
One more
The other article worth considering for future strategy from the JFQ OCT 16 is:
Global Power Distribution and Warfighting in the 21st CenturyI agree with the argument, the focus on the 4 + 1 is too narrow in scope, and the assumption that if we can deter/defeat these threats we'll be capable of managing other threats may prove to be dangerously misleading.The U.S. national security community needs to focus more on the driving forces and likely associated consequences that will influence warfighting in the 21st century. A disproportionate amount of effort is spent by national security experts on narrow problem and solution spaces without an adequate appreciation of broader trends and potential shocks that could dramatically change U.S. national security perspectives. By largely ignoring these longer term factors, the U.S. military is unlikely to develop the needed national defense capabilities to deal effectively with critical threats in this emerging environment.
The author identified four crucial threat concerns.
1.2.trend toward a more disorderly world, should it happen, would be largely driven by the rise of malevolent nonstate actors, reduced authority and legitimacy of nation-states in many regions, and decreased ability to provide effective global governance.3.the further rise of regional hegemons of revisionist powers such as China, Russia, and Iran, whose objectives often clash with U.S. national interests.super-empowered” individuals and groups capable of levels of violence formerly only within the purview of nations
4.Closed with this:greatly increased level of nuclear proliferation beyond the gradual erosion of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that we see today.
Unfortunately, in my view the rest of the article pretty much promoted what is already happening with the 4+1 (how to deal with state and non-state actors) within DoD circles; however, the author did make one clear distinction that I agree with, and that is non-state actors must be treated with the same level of effort as state efforts. While the author didn't write it, I'll expand the argument that our focus on non-state actors must move beyond VEOs or Islamic extremists. Non-state actors come in all forms, and can wage various forms of warfare at the strategic level, increasing so with the proliferation of technology.A properly designed, bifurcated military approach that is employed effectively in coordination with other components of national and international power would support these objectives. Focusing on major power wars and treating other national security challenges as lesser included cases, however, would not. U.S. decisionmakers in charge of developing an effective military approach to counter the emergent threats outlined herein need to choose wisely—U.S. national security and global international security in the 21st century could depend on it.
Paradigms a changing
As this thread matures I want to further explore the impact of changes in policy, technology, adversary stratagems, and environmental factors that will, or should, drive changes in our national strategy. Starting 2017 with an excellent study by Hal Brands that addresses the reality of the impact of our allies and partner's decline relative to our competitors, and his proposed changes to mitigate the negative impact of this trend.
It is important, because we too readily assume allies and partners will share more of our collective security burden, but as he points out they are increasingly unable to do so. One of the few bright points is Australia's increasing contributions, while one of the darker points is the special relationship between the UK and U.S. is risk based on UK's lack of defense capacity. The reality of these changes mandate changes in our assumptions, which in turn will change our strategy.
The first link is an article that summarizes the report (shamelessly stolen from the news roundup on SWJ today)
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017...adjust/137608/
America’s Allies Are in Decline. Here’s How the US Should Adjust
Times change, however, and so has the global distribution of economic and military power. America’s closest and most powerful allies have seen their shares of global GDP and military power fall since the mid-1990s, due to slow or stagnant growth and—in Europe especially—prolonged disinvestment in defense. More broadly, U.S. allies in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific have seen their economic and military power decline relative to Russia and China, America’s most prominent rivals.The article summarizes several key points, but I still recommending reading the entire report for those interested in the topic. It can be found at this link:To be clear, this decline is no reason to abandon or deliberately undercut America’s alliances. Given the vital role that those alliances have long played in U.S. statecraft, this “cure” would be far worse than the disease. What the United States must do, rather, is to adapt its approach to alliance management in ways that mitigate the geopolitical effects of allied decline and bolster the global order that Washington has long used those alliances to uphold.
http://csbaonline.org/uploads/docume...NE_FINAL_b.pdf
Old wisdom increasing effete
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...l-internationa
After reading Octavian's interview of the author who wrote, The Case for a Grand Strategy of Responsible Competition to Defend the Liberal International Order, on the SWJ Journal at the link above it invoked more thoughts on the relevance of assumed truths when it comes to strategy thought. The argument that follows is based on the assumption that a rules based international order is essential for maintaining an acceptable level of security and opportunity for continued prosperity for most of the developed world.
If the above assumption is valid, then it calls into question the wisdom of the adage of, he who defends everything, defends nothing. This is certainly true for the military at the tactical and operational levels; however, at the strategic level a violation of international law anywhere is a threat to the international order everywhere. Failure to defend the international order in the so called areas of peripheral importance creates an environment for revisionists and anarchists create a norm where it is acceptable for a growing number of actors to challenge the order without paying a price for their transgressions. Furthermore, in an increasingly interconnected, hype globalized world local threats are increasingly transnational and often transregional.
Challenges to the international order do not include every internal issue between a populace and its governance, but it does include state aggression upon another state that fails to meet the generally accepted reasons to wage war. It does include significant transnational crime, such as cyber crime, human and other illicit trafficking, China's production of counterfeit medication to sell to developing countries, terrorism, illicit/illegal expansion of one's territory, major environmental crimes (such as China's overfishing of areas well outside of China's EZZ, crimes against humanity such as genocide, etc. Failure to ignore these and allow them to fester and expand creates a world where a rules based international order exists in name only.
This does not imply that the U.S. military needs to respond to every violation, that is simply not sustainable, but it does beckon back to a recent past prior to the attacks on 9/11 where the U.S. did a respectful job of helping others help themselves, and supporting coalitions of the willing to address threats to instability and the rules based international order. Whether we were left of bang, or at the early stages of bang, these actions helped shape the world overall in a positive direction. It is past time to determine how we can return to an acceptable balance of effort, an effort that recognizes the U.S. military has important roles outside of the Middle East that have been neglected too long. That neglect has empowered actors intent on reshaping the world order in a way that will only benefit regional hegemons, which in turn will lead much greater instability, as nations will resist falling under their sway.
'Fight or Flight: How to Avoid a Forever War against Jihadists
An article by Dan Byman & Will McCants 'Fight or Flight: How to Avoid a Forever War against Jihadists' (11 pgs) in The Washington Quarterly and here is a selected passage that makes me think it fits here!
Their new rules:We argue, however, that this fear of safe havens and the politics that under gird it are misplaced. Safe havens can be dangerous, and at times it is vital for the United States to use force, even massive force, to disrupt them. Yet not all safe havens and not all the groups in the havens are created equal.Link:https://twq.elliott.gwu.edu/sites/tw...an-McCants.pdfFirst, no militant group should be allowed to build a foreign operations cell that targets the United States....Second, no militant group should be allowed to take over a major city in acountry vital to American interests. Third, no militant group should be allowed to ethnically cleanse an entire people.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 07-19-2017 at 03:52 PM. Reason: 34,807v
davidbfpo
Muddled Thinking
Excellent article from OTH we lack of understanding in our language. Nobody knows what anybody is talking about anymore.
https://overthehorizonmdos.com/2017/...fense-debates/
A good article, but perhaps misplaced here. I didn't hear McMasters use any buzz phrases, and the ideas he promoted for this NSS are built around enduring principles in U.S. strategy. McMasters, perhaps more than anyone else I heard speak, is believer in the enduring nature of war.Originally Posted by slapout9
It is refreshing to hear an Air Force officer address the limitations associated with clinging to new technology as a replacement for strategy. Our adversaries have already developed new gray zone strategies to negate our technical advantages. If we end up getting in a high intensity conflict, it is doubtful that any of these technologies will be decisive.
The former SecDef and his deputy were the advocates the 3rd Off-Set Strategy, not the current regime. Although I suspect the 3d Off-Set effort will continue. As I noted earlier in this thread, after WWII strategy was no longer focused on winning, it became focused on deterrence. That lead DoD to focus on programs to develop the means to deter adversaries. We see the services compete for funding for their latest toy, often with little idea of how it will enable execution of a viable strategy to win. Of course, if you only want it for deterrence, I guess winning is a secondary thought?
Having read Boyd's biography, I think his initial ODAA loop was about decision speed to determine the out come of a dog fight between fighter aircraft. However, as Boyd moved beyond tactical to strategic he adapted the ODAA loop, and the article provides a good description of the strategic ODAA loop. Arguably a weakness in our ranks.
This understanding is critical to strategists. Without it we simply react.But what Boyd was getting to with his actual OODA loop diagram – which is considerably more nuanced than the simple one referred to in most instances – was that there is not just one cognitive process in play here, and that it does not just work on one direction since orientation also influences observation. Competitive advantage is gained by leveraging all of the mechanisms available to you across the physical, mental, and moral levels of interaction, but first, you have to understand what they are, and improve your orientation while seeking to influence the cognitive processes of your adversary.
I thought the thread is about 21st Century Strategy. The article seemed to fit that General discussion, but it's your thread if you don't like it ask David to move it somewhere else.
You're right, I thought it was specifically in response to the NSS comments, so my response was a crude way of asking for clarification. It is very relevant to the thread. Actually one of the more relevant ones.
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