Hybrid Warfare (merged thread)

[Ron Humphrey]

I am still working on getting through the paper, because I do as several others have also stated, believe that getting the dialogue started is a large part of the greater battle to bring about understanding and consideration of the realities of warfare.

I think the term hybrid is a useful term due to the fact that it is a largely encompassing term requiring the user to look outside of one or two linear
lines of thought. There may also be the added benefit that so many in our current political structure associate it with progress in relation to their energy and automobile choices

It is this very fact however that concerns me more than much of the literature which is being created. Mr. Hoffman as well as others are doing everything they can to forward the considerations necessary to be effective as armed forces in the long run and for that I applaud their efforts. Were they not doing so it is absolutely certain, considering historic precedence, that the greater structure would change very little other than in the short term. That I'm afraid is human nature and as such must always be held close to the heart when trying to determine any way forward.

We all know that the effectiveness of our military directly correlates to the ability and agility of our commanders and and enlisted soldiers in the field to overcome adversity and utilize whatever they have available to accomplish the mission. It is this idea of getting political buy-in to understanding the need for a well diversified portfolio of capabilities and contingencies, and to hopefully provide financing and approval for these various operations that bothers me.

Yes at the base of it the military is subordinate to it's civilian leadership and that is as it should be. But by enlarging the pool of those to whom you try to sell your wares don't you also bring more into the decision making process than should be in the first place? Isn't that a fairly historic problem (IE: to many Team leads not enough teams )

If we have to engage in this manner in order to get our own leadership to adopt or at least accept it in some form than ok, but is there a point at which we limit the overall audience to whom we give authority to make the ultimate decisions. Am I wrong in thinking that for real change to be affected it is not always required to be understood at all levels. Rather it is primarily necessary to gain acceptance of ideas based on experience and repute of its presenters.

SME's (the original context, Been There Done That guys )

[Ken White]

As we all know. Therefor, it seems to me that it is incumbent on everyone who engages in warfare at any level, from the politician who sends units forth to the last Snuffy (yes, even him...) to read as much as possible on the topic and to discuss with others the various potentials and probabilities. Everyone who addresses war should be noted to the extent possible. Discussion is important but I've learned far more over a couple of drinks than I've learned in structured discussions. The important thing is to kick it around.

We are confronted with the fact that most of our political masters will not do this, therefor it's important that all practitioners do it and be thorough in their study so they can give the best possible advice. I think, though, that two thoughts should always remain in mind:

1. The theoreticians are human, that means they have experience (or not), education, heredity and environmental factors that have shaped them and their thoughts and thus, consciously or not, are subject to have some biases and possibly some gaps in knowledge. They also write for a specialist audience -- more frequently for other theorists than for practitioners --and thus these two factors can skew what they write or say and one is well advised to read or listen, evaluate and take that which ones instincts say are valuable while not hewing to anyone's line. That simply because no one has all the answers.

2. At the end of the day, you'll be on a hill watching your Division deploy to meet the Screaming Horde approaching at from 3 to 300 kilometers per hour. Or you'll deplane with your company or troop in the middle of nowhere with skulking opponents everywhere. Or you'll be on a lonely street at Oh-dark-thirty wondering whether to shoot the two vaguely human shapes that seem to be approaching you. None of the theoreticians will be there with you...

[Mike Innes]

Hi All. I just picked up on the release of Frank Hoffman's report today, and I'm on UK time right now, at 00:57, so won't be reading it until tomorrow. I noticed some of the discussion here got to the usual frustration with definitionalism, the utility of labeling, the utility of the label "hybrid", and so on.

Well, here's another to chew on: at a recent British International Studies Association (BISA) meeting, Antoine Bousquet, a new PhD graduate from the London School of Economics, presented what I thought was a pretty interesting paper on scientific metaphor in military thought.

More specifically, he gets into how the metaphors of four broad era in scientific developments/thought in the West have, in parallel, shaped military understanding of and approaches to war. The first three are fairly straightforward: clockwork/mechanical (ordered), thermodynamic (energetic), and cybernetic (think information and information loops). For the fourth era (now), he adapted a hybrid (!) term, chaoplexity, drawn from chaos and complexity theory and coined a little over a decade ago in a book entitled The End of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age.

Personally, I'm skeptical not of the uses of new labels and reconceptualization in general, but of overlabeling and relabeling the issues of now. A lot of the confusion and debate on what is and what isn't "new", I think, is gobbledygook longhand for "what we don't yet understand" and "insufficient historical hindsight to get a grip". In this case, though, I think Hoffman's work is worth considering; so's Bousquet's.

Here's the link to Bousquet's paper: www.bisa.ac.uk/2007/pps/bousquet.pdf

Thoughts?

Mike

[Ron Humphrey]

As we all know. Therefor, it seems to me that it is incumbent on everyone who engages in warfare at any level, from the politician who sends units forth to the last Snuffy (yes, even him...) to read as much as possible on the topic and to discuss with others the various potentials and probabilities. Everyone who addresses war should be noted to the extent possible. Discussion is important but I've learned far more over a couple of drinks than I've learned in structured discussions. The important thing is to kick it around.

We are confronted with the fact that most of our political masters will not do this, therefor it's important that all practitioners do it and be thorough in their study so they can give the best possible advice. I think, though, that two thoughts should always remain in mind:

1. The theoreticians are human, that means they have experience (or not), education, heredity and environmental factors that have shaped them and their thoughts and thus, consciously or not, are subject to have some biases and possibly some gaps in knowledge. They also write for a specialist audience -- more frequently for other theorists than for practitioners --and thus these two factors can skew what they write or say and one is well advised to read or listen, evaluate and take that which ones instincts say are valuable while not hewing to anyone's line. That simply because no one has all the answers.

This is why I find myself hesitant to sign off on consistantly re-terming and putting the information in different contexts until it gains acceptance By the time we get that buy-in, will what they heard or accepted be very similar to what we were trying to say at all?

I think about how so many have taken the phrase " there is not a military solution to Iraq " and it has been twisted and prodded to mean so many different things; many of which are not much help to us.

People hear, learn, or take what they want from dialogue thus the more they get to choose from the more the choices reflect what they want and not necessarily what is or was intended.

I have now finished the paper and all in all it speaks succesfully to much of what has and is being debated at echelons above reality. I cannot find much that doesn't ring true in many contexts, yet I would love to have seen them tie in how current international players much larger than Hezbollah and Hamas are truly utilizing the capabiliies of networking and synchronous irregular and more conventional warfare as well as many other aspects of the UW / IW / WK(who knows) what else n efforts to affect ,transform, or otherwise just plain make trouble in any and all ways possible in order to acheive their goals.
IE( Iran, Russia, AQ , Hezbollah, Hamas, Half a dozen groups minimum in Africa, Libya Etc)

If you bring answers to the table without the readers getting an eyefull of what it really means now, in your face then they will generally look at it from a predictive vantage point. And as most humans do they will figure that they are about as good at seeing the future as you are.

2. At the end of the day, you'll be on a hill watching your Division deploy to meet the Screaming Horde approaching at from 3 to 300 kilometers per hour. Or you'll deplane with your company or troop in the middle of nowhere with skulking opponents everywhere. Or you'll be on a lonely street at Oh-dark-thirty wondering whether to shoot the two vaguely human shapes that seem to be approaching you. None of the theoreticians will be there with you...

You are as always eloquent in the simplicity of truth

[Ken White]

Mike Innes said:

"Personally, I'm skeptical not of the uses of new labels and reconceptualization in general, but of overlabeling and relabeling the issues of now. A lot of the confusion and debate on what is and what isn't "new", I think, is gobbledygook longhand for "what we don't yet understand" and "insufficient historical hindsight to get a grip". In this case, though, I think Hoffman's work is worth considering; so's Bousquet's."

That coincides with my thoughts. There are good ideas in both papers but IMO, neither really surfaces anything new (unless I missed something, always possible ), they've just applied new tags while packaging a lot of disparate factors together rather well. Quite well, in fact.

One could've hoped for more illustrative discussion. Ron makes that point pretty well, I think:

"If you bring answers to the table without the readers getting an eyefull of what it really means now, in your face then they will generally look at it from a predictive vantage point. And as most humans do they will figure that they are about as good at seeing the future as you are."

However, Wilf really sums the issue up rather neatly with this:

"I think we need ask, why we want to describe something in terms terms used. What Frank has held back from saying is that "the US/UK Forces may be too stupid to adapt.""

My sensing is that both nations have a bunch of smart guys, many of whom have already figured out in detail what Hoffman and Bosquet have packaged neatly and named aptly. I think the issue is not that we're too stupid because I don't believe we are; I think the question is more correctly "...are the US/UK forces going to be able to overcome their bureaucratic leanings and risk aversion in order to adapt in a timely manner?"

With that, I'll go ponder Hybrid mixed blended chaoplexic 5.5G warfare while I sip my nightcap...

[marct]

I think that Bosquet does a nice job of laying out the role of metaphor in organization; it's a good paper. I'm a little surprised, although not really I 'spose, that he didn't extend his analysis of metaphor to other, non-state groups since it seems pretty obvious that they are based on ones not included. Still reading the Hoffman piece...

My sensing is that both nations have a bunch of smart guys, many of whom have already figured out in detail what Hoffman and Bosquet have packaged neatly and named aptly. I think the issue is not that we're too stupid because I don't believe we are; I think the question is more correctly "...are the US/UK forces going to be able to overcome their bureaucratic leanings and risk aversion in order to adapt in a timely manner?"

Let me toss out several more general questions, then, based on Ken's restatement:

1. what metaphor governs the organization of US/UK forces ("life is like a bowl of....")?
2. what metaphor(s) govern our opponents?

Marc

[Mike Innes]

I think that Bosquet does a nice job of laying out the role of metaphor in organization; it's a good paper. I'm a little surprised, although not really I 'spose, that he didn't extend his analysis of metaphor to other, non-state groups since it seems pretty obvious that they are based on ones not included.

Actually, Bousquet's work - he has a full length manuscript coming out sometime later this year - primarily focuses on efforts/approaches/concepts to impose order on the battlefield, rather than on the "chaoplexic" nature of battelfield threats themselves. That would be the next step, I suppose - or more probably, though I've yet to read Hoffman's Hybrid Wars, this is where he and Bousquet complement each other. I'll be better able to comment once I've actually read FH's work... and that's all from me until I've done so. Later.

Mike

[wm]

[*]what metaphor governs the organization of US/UK forces ("life is like a bowl of....")?

I can't speak for the UK but, the US seems trapped in this simile:

"Life is like a crap sandwich. Some days you take a big bite; some days you take a little bite; but every day you take a bite. However, the more "bread" you have, the less crap you have to swallow in each bite."

Now you know why everyone scrabbles around so much over resources and funding.

[wm]

The following is a clarification of the simile in my prior post, as it applies to Hoffman's essay.

I think what Hoffman has written is an example of trying to persuade others to give one what it thinks it needs. In this case, the perceived need is for the USMC to get more budget resources to maintain its autonomy. This quotation from the executive summary pretty much crystallizes the point of the paper:

We believe that the Marine Corps is particularly well suited for this security environment . . . . The Marine Corps has proven to be an innovative organization . . . and its core competencies provide it with the foundation to effectively counter (sic), if not thrive, against hybrid challengers (Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century, 9-10)

I am not sure that what Hoffman has to say is anything more than old wine in new bottles. IMHO his document is an effort to justify a unique mission for the USMC. It really adds little new to the discussion except to throw out another terminological framework for describing how and why people fight. I submit that the following two paragraphs summarize the point being made in essay rather succinctly.

People fight because they want something that others have. They fight because they cannot acquire what they want by other means. Were they able to develop the means to produce what they want, they would not need to fight for it. Were they able to talk others into giving them what they want, then they would not need to resort to force. Were they able to use economic means (barter or purchase) top get what they want, then they would not need to engage in violence. Since they cannot make, talk, or trade for what they want, they see no other option but to fight.
When one wants something badly enough, almost any means of attaining it is viewed as fair: the end justifies the means. If one has capabilities that greatly surpass the ability to resist by possessor of what one wants, then the only real limit on what one does links itself to the urgency of satisfying the perceived want. If one has limited capabilities, then the depth and urgency of the need may well drive one to do whatever is in one’s power to wrest what one wants a from its possessor.

[Rob Thornton]

Originally posted by Mike Innes:

Personally, I'm skeptical not of the uses of new labels and reconceptualization in general, but of overlabeling and relabeling the issues of now. A lot of the confusion and debate on what is and what isn't "new", I think, is gobbledygook longhand for "what we don't yet understand" and "insufficient historical hindsight to get a grip". In this case, though, I think Hoffman's work is worth considering; so's Bousquet's.

Here's the link to Bousquet's paper: www.bisa.ac.uk/2007/pps/bousquet.pdf

Mike - thanks for posting the link. I finally got around to reading it, and like most good things, it gets you to think - and think about things differently. Its one of those things that I think you can go back to more then once and get still something out of.
Best, Rob

[Mike Innes]

Mike - thanks for posting the link. I finally got around to reading it, and like most good things, it gets you to think - and think about things differently. Its one of those things that I think you can go back to more then once and get still something out of.
Best, Rob

De nada. That's what it did for me, too. Now that I've read a bit more of Hoffman, I'd have to argue that his and Bousquet's pieces complement each other quite nicely. To be read as a pair, in fact.

Bousquet's got another article-length piece in the most recent issue of the journal Cold War History, available here.