Bobs World, What about this idea. We are confusing Types of Warfare with Strategy!
War doesn't change as you point out but Strategies will evolve and adapt as need be based upon the opponent and situation. What we call UW,FID,Insurgency,COIN,4GW, are not types of warfare but Strategies!!
Words are important.
When one takes a position that "War has changed," and the pentagon buys into it and begins to restructure itself to fight and think about this new type of war, I believe you risk building the solution to the wrong problem, and thereby putting our nation at risk.
When one takes a position that "the Environment is changing," and the pentagon buys into that and sets about ensuring that it does not attempt to frame every emerging problem by an obsolete construct, but looks at each problem with fresh eyes, demanding that the intelligence community commits every bit as much of their considerable skill and energy to an understanding of the environment in which an event occurs as they do currently to describing the "threat" that is operating within that environment; you avoid always refighting the last conflict and thereby reduce our nation's risks.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
Good point, Bob!
Now all we can do is hope that the right folks are listening....
I'd also hazard a guess that part of the hype (as has been commented on before in numerous SWC threads) has to do with folks wanting to "make a name for themselves" by "discovering" this new type of war...which doesn't really exist. It's far easier to make something up than it is to do the legwork and go back through things. Most of the patterns we're seeing now have happened before...it's the changes in the environment (cultural, technological, and so on) that have really changed the dynamics.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
Two parallel threads ...
I'm continuing this thread over here
Violent Systems
Thats why the military became so interested in systems analysis in the late 50's and 60's. One method to analyze and develop a counter System to any Violent System out there. State,Non-State,4GW, Guerrilla,Insurgents,Terrorist,Gangs,and criminals.
Here is a link to an excellant paper on the subject, read it and look at how many differant groups it applies to. Simple is good
http://www.usafa.af.mil/df/inss/OCP/OCP52.pdf
Slap,
Thanks for the link, more to read this weekend.
The UPS guy dropped off The Scientific Way of Warfare (Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity) by Antoine Bousquet (ISBN 978--0-231-70078-8) the other day. Dense reading, extensive footnotes, and I do not get the feeling that the author has spent time in the field, but it's pretty interesting so far (only on chapter 2).
Chapter 1: Technoscientific Regimes of Order in Warfare
Chapter 2: Mechanistic Warfare and the Clockwork Universe
Chapter 3: Thermodynamic Warfare and the Science of Energy
Chapter 4: Cybernetics and the Genesis of the Computer
Chapter 5: Cybernetic Warfare: Computers at War
Chapter 6: A New Informational Regime: From Chaos Theory to Complexity Science
Chapter 7: Towards Chaoplexic Warfare? Network-Centric Warfare
Regards,
Steve
Sapere Aude
I think part of the problem you're running in to is that a lot of experts throw around the word "hybrid war" to describe a number of different phenomona. David Kilcullen uses it to refer to the complexities of fighting multiple insurgencies, criminal organizations and ethnic conflict in Iraq. Others seem to use it to refer to entities like Hezbollah, which didn't fight as conventional or unconventional. I think we may have fallen in love with a really cool buzzword.
Now that is what I call the PhD level of warfare. Especially chapter 3Originally Posted by Surferbeetle
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