Targeting

[William F. Owen]

Your enemy is the Automobile system of the US. So what do you do...you attack General Motors that's what you do.. right?....they are the Center of Gravity right? So you go bomb the hell out of GM...what happens? people buy more Fords and Toyota's!!! Why because you only attacked at the target level (even if it is a huge target) to achieve a Systems Effect you would have had to attack ALL of them!! In some way (even if it was non-lethal).

In order to change the entire System..... especially a human oriented System. You must attack the whole system or you will see the system adapt and come back as you pointed out.

The utility of military force is to break will, either by annihilation of exhaustion.
That's it! Armies are not systems and nor are any human organisations. It's a nice myth. Breaking one critical part, will rarely cause collapse. The Germans lost an entire Divisional HQ to an air strike in Normandy and no one noticed!

What you say about targeting is entirely correct, and in line with what Ron Tira writes. (met him recently. heck of a nice guy... for a fighter pilot!). Sooner or later someone has to plant a flag on a hill or a building. How would Hezbollah have felt if every village in the Southern Lebanon got covered in Blue and White flags? - and then live in the knowledge the Jews can come back anytime and use your toilet... and it'll cost you many lives to stop them.

Ironically, your handle says it all. I subscribe to the "stay down or get F**ked up," school of military thought.

[Bill Moore]

Hey Slapout, I'm sorry buddy, but I'm not taking my poms poms out of the closet yet. This topic is worth signficant discussion and debate, but I'll be short on time for the next few weeks, but here is a quick response.

First, you said the enemy is a system. O.K. we can say the enemy is a system, the enemy is a network, the enemy is a group of people, the enemy is nation, all are perceptional models to help us understand the problem. The problem is if we use the wrong perceptional model we misrepresent the problem, and thus develop the wrong strategy, but I digress.

Let's use the system model (note you can perceive systems in a number of ways). If the enemy is a nation-state such as Germany during WWII, then the nation is the ultimate the system we want to target. The nation is a system composed of several subsystems (economic, political, social, defense, legal, etc.) that interact with one another in various ways. Using the example provided by W Owen of a German Infantry Division, the Inf Div "could" be classifed as a node of a component (Infantry) of a subsystem (Army) of a subsystem (defense) of a system (Germany). Framing it this way, it would seem apparent that the loss of a division was simply the loss of a node of a component two subsystems down from the over archng system, so the effect while painful wouldn't be decisive in itself. If we destroyed all the nodes, that would cause the Infantry subsystem to collapse, which would make the rest of the Army system much less effective, thereby weakening the nation state system. That is one way to look at it, but I think it is a stretch. I think it can argued there are effects derived from destroying this node that are acculmative in nature on the nation's morale that the system model doesn't address. On the other hand, where the system approach may have made a difference was if we went after Germany's ability to generate electric power, we would have crippled their industrial production capacity, which many German officers thought would have ended the war two years earlier.

I agree that presenting problems as systems so we can understand them may be useful for certain situations, but I also think using the system paradigm has serious limitations, especially when applied to insurgencies, Al Qaeda networks, and the drug cartels. Of course it does have "some" use, but Warden's five ring model will not provide us with sufficient understanding of the problem set to develop a comprehensive strategy. We have tried this approach numerous times throughout history to no avail, as this is the American way of war (or the industrialist way of war). I guess you could argue we were doing it wrong (perhaps), but you can also argue that this approach while useful is not a targeting pancea, and it doesn't come close to providing a complete strategy for defeating the enemy. I think we should apply multiple models to the same problem set to see what we come up with, use Warden's system approach, use PMESII analysis, use ASCOPE, and others, all provide a different way to understand the problem and factors influencing the problem(s).

[slapout9]

Hi Wilf, I was rather confused at your response about systems. A short definitions os a system is persons,places,and things using a process to accomplish some purpose. The Army has the purpose of breaking the enemies will to fight by using the processes of Annihilation and or Exhaustion would be an outstanding definition of the Army as a system.

Agree on my handle Wilf SBW (Slapout Based Warfare) is about how to get the Enemy Slapout of town.



Hi Bill, what is usually called 5 rings analysis Warden calls mapping the system. The 5 rings are meant to be a map that shows all the persons,places and things that are in your AO. Somehow over time people just stopped calling it that or explaining it that way and usually just call it a 5 rings analysis. The point being whether you use PEMSII (i keep wanting to say Pepsi) or ASCOPE doesn't really matter. The fact that you are mapping the a system is the important thing. ASCOPE isn't that different than the 5 rings to me but either one is fine. CARVER is just tool that I would use to analyze the 2nd ring (System Essentials) instead of doing an entire fractal 5 rings map. Adaption or evolution of a process is life

The Rand Corp. did a study called "Street Smarts" where they suggested that OAKCO be used to create a human terrain map long before human terrain teams were talked about. The same acronym would go hand in hand with the physical terrain analysis. Example Key Terrain would be VIP's, avenues of approach would be people who could introduce you to or influence key terrain. obstacles could be crowds or individuals that were working against you to block access or influence key terrain you were also trying to influence. If I can find the link to the paper I will post it here. So you are are busy have enjoyed the debate and education throughly.


PS: All you other smart folks out there jump in at any time. where's them Air Force dudes hiding at

[William F. Owen]

Hi Wilf, I was rather confused at your response about systems. A short definitions os a system is persons,places,and things using a process to accomplish some purpose. The Army has the purpose of breaking the enemies will to fight by using the processes of Annihilation and or Exhaustion would be an outstanding definition of the Army as a system.

OK, so maybe I am missing something. What is the antithesis of a system? Based on your definition, everything is a system. I see Armies as organisations, with varying degrees of hierarchy. I would also debate the use of the word "process." This implies procedures - which brings us to drills, etc.

My understanding of "System" is that poorly demonstrating by Fuller and Liddell-Hart with the "bullet to the brain" analogy that gives us all the Manoeuvre Warfare silliness.

[slapout9]

Everything is a system Wilf. And every system connects to another system all the way up to the universe. Below is one of the best introductions to systems thinking I have ever read. it is short and easy to read. To first understand a system you have to know it's purpose the original cause for it to be created. Sounds you talking dosen't it Give it a read I think you will like it.



http://www.forseekers.com/Meaning-Ch2.pdf

[William F. Owen]

Everything is a system Wilf. And every system connects to another system all the way up to the universe. Below is one of the best introductions to systems thinking I have ever read. it is short and easy to read. To first understand a system you have to know it's purpose the original cause for it to be created. Sounds you talking dosen't it Give it a read I think you will like it.

http://www.forseekers.com/Meaning-Ch2.pdf

OK, but how is this useful. It's all wonderfully logical, but I'm not sure I see it's relevance to Military Thought. How does considering the enemy, "a system" help me break his will? How would thinking of Hezbollah as a system help? Clausewitz's trinity helps me understand how to defeat Hezbollah, but this system thing is all a bit abstract.

[Ken White]

is (or will react as) a 'system' will get a surprise. Warden's theory has never been effectively proven simply due to that fact. Bill summed it up well with this:

"The problem is if we use the wrong perceptional model we misrepresent the problem, and thus develop the wrong strategy..."

[Bill Moore]

Slapout you've become a desperato if you're openly calling upon the Air Force to come to your rescue. I'm sure some will because Warden's Five Rings was a successful ploy to squeeze mo money from Capital Hill for their attack craft, while letting their lift capacity go underfunded and dwindle, so they could then coerce the Army into helping them buy the C-17. You have to give it to them, they know how to play the game on Capital Hill.

The bottom line is Warden's system has merit in some situations, he is obviously an intelligent man with great insights, but my rub is the tendency to think there is one tool out there that will answer the mail for all of our security challenges. I don't think Warden's system effectively addresses targeting for insurgencies and other irregular threats. An opinion based on some experience; however, if you can provide examples where this methodology was actually "effective" in targeting an insurgency please provide them. If you can do that, I'll get my poms poms out of the closet again.