Hybrid Warfare (merged thread)

[Tukhachevskii]

(Taken from above)

Sharia law is above UK constiutional law; no, not heard that one before - from a reliable commentator.

Best of all . Sharia law, a Muslim minority and acts of terrorism pale in comparison to the parliamentary expenses scandal - which has removed much of parliament's legitimacy.

Then there's . Please cite some evidence that Islamic charities in the UK have been engaged in this activity. Such a role is quietly alleged, rarely IIRC with any prosecutions, although bank accounts have been frozen - LIFG I recall. I know one such charity which actually gets UK taxpayer support for it's work and raised 2m UK pounds during the Gaza episode.

davidbfpo

Again the ways and means, not who and where. North Vietnam, conducted an insurgency in South Vietnam, to replace the existing government. The PLO had similar ambitions. Insurgency is merely a tool, by which policy is "set forth". It isn't the policy itself, except that the qualifying end state is always the replacement of a government over a people or state.

To say that something is far from reality is really only making a statement about one’s position relative to the reality being observed/perceived. I am sure we could both refer to “un-named confidential” sources who could back up our respective versions of reality. The difference would be, I suppose, that your position is akin to the higher ground (from the top down) while mine would be from the bottom up. I have, on many occasions, met individuals belonging to numerous Islamic groups, including the Muslim Council/Parliament, who have told me almost verbatim what I stated in my post regarding Shari ‘a law (indeed, one merely needs to read the Muslim Council’s founding manifesto back in 1990 for proof of their position, if you pm me I can send this to you).

Lenin once said that it was the task of Communists to tell the West’s useful idiots what they wanted to hear (dissimulation) and it’s the same with our ‘government approved’ out-reach/community affairs/minority leaders. I have often been told virtually the same thing by “certain reliable people”; as I am blessed/cursed with a permanent tan (no sun bed induced melanoma for me!) getting into events and passing myself off as ‘one of the bunch’ is probably a lot easier for me than for most people, as is soliciting information. Nonetheless I don’t think I can find anything like the kind of evidence you’re looking for, giving the difficulty of “profiling” possible terrorists and the like by government agencies ( as you say allegations but no prosecutions; but is that down to politics or law?) I don’t really have a chance, so I suppose that we are just going to have to disagree with one another and hope that time proves me wrong (and I sincerely hope it does). Although given that the money that goes to Gaza inevitably winds up in the pockets of less savoury characters is irrelevant I suppose (from various “sources”).

OTOH, I think it disingenuous to compare ministers abusing a perfectly legitimate system of monetary recompense which is then picked up by the media and turned into a circus event with the kind of thing I was talking about. I doubt that these same ministers are doing what they are doing to subvert parliament and replace it with a caliphate. But as you and I are on different wavelengths regarding the reality of that proposition, again, I suppose there’s nothing more I can say. I don’t mean to disparage what you are saying, I respect you and your greater experience and wisdom, but I just don’t agree (I suppose it might be a case of auctoritas non veritas facet legem as Hobbes would have said). When all is said and done I consider the threat from Islam to be an existential danger no different in terms of its magnitude, if not of greater magnitude, than Communism and Nazism (what Charles Maurras once described as ‘the Islam of the North’) and prefer to err on the side of extreme vigilance.

With respect to William F. Owen and the difference between ‘ways and means’ and ‘who and where’ I think given my civilian background I have to admit ignorance of the, essentially, military distinctions being made (or perhaps it’s a case of “essentially contested” concepts which are mutually exclusive?). Hopefully, in future, and having read up more of the threads, I shall be able to reply intelligently (although I doubt I shall ever have anywhere near the experience necessary to back up my claims). But I think in that sense I really have to bow to better qualified and experienced heads and wait a while longer and know what I am talking about before posting (really let enthusiasm, or is that hubris, get the better of me!). Apologies all round.

[William F. Owen]

With respect to William F. Owen and the difference between ‘ways and means’ and ‘who and where’ I think given my civilian background I have to admit ignorance of the, essentially, military distinctions being made (or perhaps it’s a case of “essentially contested” concepts which are mutually exclusive?). Hopefully, in future, and having read up more of the threads, I shall be able to reply intelligently (although I doubt I shall ever have anywhere near the experience necessary to back up my claims). But I think in that sense I really have to bow to better qualified and experienced heads and wait a while longer and know what I am talking about before posting (really let enthusiasm, or is that hubris, get the better of me!). Apologies all round.

a.) Call me Wilf - quicker to write.

b.) My hubris may well have caused me to be less than adequate with my elucidation of Ways and means versus Who and where.
The distinction I am attempting to make is that a useful description of warfare should account for what is attempting to be done, and how, versus purely technical description of the environment. Perhaps not usefully and perhaps I should think it through a bit more!

[Tukhachevskii]

a.)
The distinction I am attempting to make is that a useful description of warfare should account for what is attempting to be done, and how, versus purely technical description of the environment. Perhaps not usefully and perhaps I should think it through a bit more!

Thanks for that, although I have an inkling (no more perhaps) that the onus of responsibility for ignorance lies entirely with me. I think, in a nutshell, the distinction I was tryingto make was between politics and war as its continuation. Hence ‘who and where’ approximates to the political requirements as set down by a political authority/government (i.e., “Grand Strategy”/foreign policy) whereas ‘ways and means’ refers to the strategic goals thus defined (i.e., how to effectuate the desired suasion/destruction of a given enemy). For example, Bush’s National Security Strategy of 2002 defined the “who and where” which the military sought to bring about by deciding how (‘ways and means’). (At least this is what I was taught at Uni; perhaps therein lies the rub).

This is what I think I was getting at; in that defining the ‘who and where’ as non-traditional/conventional (whatever) threats NSS served simply to steer the military on the path toward new ‘ways and means’ of engaging with “new” target sets (who and where). Hence the drivers of the obsession with RMA/NCW/EBO was not so much a military (ways and means) issue but a political one (‘who and where’). OTOH, is this essentially a question of doctrine (i.e, Theoria vs. Phronesis)? By that I mean is it a case that the theoretical (doctrinal) ‘ways and means’ of, say, NCW was really about institutional ‘pork barrel’ politics and the military trying to protect its interests as opposed to the practical ‘ways and means’ of getting the job done with the tools in hand which didn’t require new doctrine just the innovative use of existing systems (rather than the innovative justification of existing systems and the acquisition of even more exotic ones)?

When ‘who and where’ was defined as regime A or state B the ‘ways and means’ of bringing about national goals could be comfortably framed in a ‘conventional’ mindset. Once political authorities became obsessed with the idea that the 11th September 2001 was the harbinger of a new kind of warfare then the military followed suite with trying to reinvent the wheel of ‘ways and means’ by trying to adopt a ‘non-conventional mindset’ to what was essentially still a practical military issue of destroying a given enemy. Of course, if by ‘ways and means’ you mean that the goal of the military is to ‘find, fix, and kill’ the enemy by whatever means necessary/available then we are in ‘violent agreement’. I do believe that I have now confused myself (!).

Nonetheless, as I stated before I think the issue is not just one of semantics (of us deploying similar language to say different things) but rather of concepts which are mutually exclusive in their use because they mean different things (thus we are using different languages, or more properly, vocabularies). Hence my civilian take on things vs. your (experienced) military take on things; IMO this is also the problem between policymaking and strategy which is a circle yet to be squared (‘Bohemian Corporals’ present a different problem altogether).

That’s why SWJ/B/C is a great medium through which civilians like myself can greater acquaint themselves with what war is actually about rather than what the theory says it is. For me that means reading more threads before I dare to write what I think I want to say without actually knowing what it is I am thinking (case in point). Anyway, thanks for the constructive feedback, very much appreciated.

[Bill Moore]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...100804018.html

N. Korea Swiftly Expanding Its Special Forces
Commandos Trained in Terror Tactics In Effort to Maintain Military Threat

IMO this article supports the importance of understanding the implications behind the concept of hybrid warfare, even if you think is is unneeded. Our foes are also learning organizations, and based on their observations of our techniques and tactics and Iraq, they are adapting to present a more complex threat, which in their assessment will neutralize some of our technological advantages. N. Korea potentially presents a large conventional threat, unconventional weapons, a large special operations capability to support their deep fight in S. Korea (and abroad), and now apparently a robust special operations/insurgent like capability to fight our forces in North Korea in the event we ever go to blows again.

By expanding what was already the world's largest special operations force, the North appears to be adding commando teeth to what, in essence, is a defensive military strategy. The cash-strapped government of Kim Jong Il, which struggles to maintain and buy fuel for its aging tanks and armor, has concluded it cannot win a conventional war, according to U.S. and South Korean military officials.

The havoc-raising potential of North Korea's special forces has grown as their numbers have increased and their training has shifted to terrorist tactics developed by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. forces in Korea.

North Korea has also begun to question the utility of the tanks and armor it can afford at the front, after seeing the ease with which U.S. precision weapons shredded Saddam Hussein's armored forces in Iraq, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry report

.

"The North Koreans made a decision based on the resources they have," said Kwon Young-hae, a former director of South Korea's National Intelligence Service. "The best way for them to counterbalance the South's technological advantage is with special forces. When Kim Jong Il gives pep talks to these troops, he says, 'You are individually, one by one, like nuclear weapons.' "

[William F. Owen]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...100804018.html

N. Korea Swiftly Expanding Its Special Forces
Commandos Trained in Terror Tactics In Effort to Maintain Military Threat

IMO this article supports the importance of understanding the implications behind the concept of hybrid warfare, even if you think is is unneeded.

OK, but NOTHING here is new. It's a re-stating of a 30-year-old fact bar the part that the NK are now less than convinced about their efficacy of their armour. Wow? Who saw that coming. This is someone playing with facts to fit the problem.

Wait for the next announcement that the Chinese are doing the same thing, and then the Russians. This really is the mountain of "So what."

Hyrbrid is a forcing mechanism, which relies on a basic falsehood, and massive gullibility on the part of the user.

[Bill Moore]

Wilf, we had this debate, and it is the war is war debate, or do we need terms like irregular and hybrid? Unfortunately, our Army and apparently the Israeli Army (2006) didn't respond well to these types of threats (and I agree they're old), so maybe articulating them will ensure we train for them. That is my underlying point for all of this. Once the full spectrum of threats are properly addressed in our training and education, then we can go back to the war is war statement and there will be no need for terms like irregular and hybrid.

[UrsaMaior]

OK, but NOTHING here is new. It's a re-stating of a 30-year-old fact bar the part that the NK are now less than convinced about their efficacy of their armour. Wow? Who saw that coming. This is someone playing with facts to fit the problem.

Wait for the next announcement that the Chinese are doing the same thing, and then the Russians. This really is the mountain of "So what."

Hyrbrid is a forcing mechanism, which relies on a basic falsehood, and massive gullibility on the part of the user.

Wilf
While being conservative in military matters is not only needed but also required, you cannot stop the wheel of time by simply closing you eyes. NK needs deterrence. They cannot do it with their missiles, with their nukes so they resort to IW. BTW IW was also the Yugoslav way of home defense having a territorial army which was to resort to guerilla war in case of an foreign (NATO/WP) attack. You are right that these methods are not new (kinda like you have to kill your enemy to stop it being a threat), but the system and the circumstances have significantly changed. Noone in the foreseeable future will have the industrial hinterland to match the US conventional strength (CVBGs, air regiments). So they HAVE to resort to IW. In turn in which NATO and other western forces have so to say mixed record. See China's White paper from 1996. You can find it in globalsecurity.org
And on the top of that there is the media which unlike the other state powers is neither controlled, nor limited by borders. A classic case for that is the demand by the USMC in Fallujah march 2004 to remove the Al-Jazeera reporters from the town as part of the ceasefire agreement.

[William F. Owen]

Wilf
While being conservative in military matters is not only needed but also required, you cannot stop the wheel of time by simply closing you eyes. NK needs deterrence. They cannot do it with their missiles, with their nukes so they resort to IW.

OK, but when has this ever not been blindingly obvious? It is very raison d'etre of Irregular Forces.

No one in the foreseeable future will have the industrial hinterland to match the US conventional strength (CVBGs, air regiments). So they HAVE to resort to IW. In turn in which NATO and other western forces have so to say mixed record. See China's White paper from 1996. You can find it in globalsecurity.org

Again obvious - and it also side steps the very debatable idea that the US and NATO are competent against any regular military force that are not complete clowns. You do not need much in the way of military capability, intelligently employed to challenge NATO.
IMO, there is no IW. Only irregular Forces. How is an ambush, a suicide bomber or an IED something "irregular"?

And on the top of that there is the media which unlike the other state powers is neither controlled, nor limited by borders. A classic case for that is the demand by the USMC in Fallujah march 2004 to remove the Al-Jazeera reporters from the town as part of the ceasefire agreement.

Modern War flows from modern politics. Nothing changes. All media is political, and therefore actors in the conflict. This has never not been the case, as long as media has existed.

[Tukhachevskii]

[URL="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100804018.html"]
N. Korea Swiftly Expanding Its Special Forces
Commandos Trained in Terror Tactics In Effort to Maintain Military Threat

IMO this article supports the importance of understanding the implications behind the concept of hybrid warfare, even if you think is is unneeded. Our foes are also learning organizations, and based on their observations of our techniques and tactics and Iraq, they are adapting to present a more complex threat, which in their assessment will neutralize some of our technological advantages.

Forgive me for replying to the above post with a recycled variant of something I posted at the kings of war website but I thought the comments appropriate;

I have to say that making ‘world historical’ generalisations about the nature of future war is like an exercise in divination. I am not personally convinced by the ‘hybrid wars’ or ‘fourth generation warfare’ spiel. If one understands the historical trajectory of North Korean state formation once quickly comes to the conclusion that the most natural thing for a guerrilla regime to o is emphasis its guerrilla forces. This is not a new development. North Korea’s guerrilla or special forces units have been a feature of its armed forces since at least the sixties. Let’s not forget the tunnel incidents of the 60s and seventies and the famous raid (that date escapes me at present) where NK commandos attempted to assassinate President Park. The DPRK was utilising and emphasising its guerilla ops decades before the "Hybrid Fad" too off. While Simpkin, Westmorland and others were busy developing "Assault Breaker, Deep Battle, Air Land Battle" etc, the North Koreans had already realised conventional war between them and the US/SKorean armed forces would be suicidal. Defence industrial concerns, internal stability, sabre-rattling foreign policy (the need to appear fierce even if brittle) and the corporate interests of the Army (and its role in the regime) necessitated a huge conventional build-up.

Furthermore, one should be cognisant of the geopolitical realities of the region. North Korea is not Syria, or Israel or Russia. It really only borders one ‘hostile’ state and the foreign forces of the U.S. Furthermore, the six-party talks, the ballistic missile project and its nuclear weapons programme (whatever its status) bolsters North Korea’s security situation despite what it might appear. The North is diplomatically adept at brinkmanship as a style of diplomacy. But, and here the real issue, is North Korea’s ‘defence transformation’ (tongue in cheek) really about military strategy or regime survival? I think that latter. What I mean by this statement is that employing 1.2 million troops in conventional formations equipped with large numbers of domestically produced armoured vehicles when more than 70% of your domestic oil supply comes via China is not cost effective. Given the draughts and the famines in the 1990s which decimated the available manpower reserves which could be conscripted into the armed forces doesn’t it make more sense to demobilise them and re-divert them into civilian sectors of the economy?

On the other hand it also serves to cut down the influence of the armed forces, especially the geriatric general staff (the old school), who might be a threat to any change in leadership. After all, when Kim Jong-il came to power the first thing he did was rein in the KWP hardliners (hence Kwang Jang Yop’s departure to the South) and it makes sense to prune the hardliners from the military who may object to Kim’s son (whichever one takes the reins). Reducing the military’s power base by diverting forces away from the regular army, and thus into the jurisdiction of the now suitably aligned KWP, makes sense from the perspective of regime survival.

So what this rather rambling post is trying to say is that there’s always more going on than purely a case of ‘international socialisation into the norms of military modernity’ or “hybrid warfare” etc. Our opponents have more on their minds that participating in doctrinal/ideological/philosophical debates which have really rather more to do with intra-service rivalry (a la pork barrel politics- anyone remember Colin Powell’s adumbration of a two theatre warfighting capability as well as international “policing” after the Cold War?) than it has to do with an objective state of affairs. My (recycled) two pence worth.