COIN Counterinsurgency (merged thread)

[selil]

Sam, from a class I gave last Friday

Dang I wish I could get classes like that.

So, I'm having an interesting discussion. Is COIN in Asymmetric warfare completely, slightly inside, or outside of Asymmetric warfare. I though it was a slam dunk and COIN was wholly inside the concepts of Asymmetric warfare. Then I got asked to define "Asymmetric Warfare". ugh. Well I found as many definitions as there are authors. Well now I'm not so sure about the relationships.

[John T. Fishel]

Guys--

You have produced a stimulating set of posts - thanks Rob for starting it. Let me drop back to the notion of levels of war for a few comments:

1. Not so very long ago, the US military saw only 2 levels of war - strategic and tactical. Some "visionaries" and/or historians kept mucking things up by pointing out that there was an intermediate level that, in the West, was often called Grand Tactics. The Soviets wrote a lot about that intemediate level and called it the operational level and we later adopted that name.

2. By the time I was teaching full time at Leavenworth (1992) we were teaching from a vertical Venn diagram that showed an overlap between the strategic and operational and the operational and tactical. We also had developed some terminology to address the overlaps - one was the Theater Strategic level. CTAC kept trying to oversimplify and equate levels of war with formations: thus, the operational level ran from the unified command down to the corps. (My boss in SWORD, COL Bob Herrick, related levels of war and troop formations by saying that the operational level could be defined in terms of a troop formation that could conduct operations relatively independently over time. That might be a regiment, brigade, division, corps, etc. In El Salvador by that approach, the operational level of war conducted by the ESAF was by Brigade, Military Detachment, and Immediate Reaction Bn formations - COL level commands.)

3. For me, the levels of war remains a useful concept in the conduct of COIN. I see a US national strategic level of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan where the National Security apparatus is trying to define objectives, appropriate COA, and provide the resources to achieve those objectives. I see the HN as trying to do the same thing with a key issue being the lack of congruence between US and HN objectives. At the Theater Strategic level in Iraq, the issue is how GEN Petraeus and AMB Crocker implement a strategy to achieve US objectives - some of which they have to define on the ground. My reading of Kilcullen is that the Anbar Awakening provided an opportunity to develop a new set of COA to achieve both military and political objectives. It also raised new issues at both the strategic and operational levels for the Iraqi government - problems, challenges, and opportunities.

I'm running out of gas, so I'll stop here. So much for my 2 cents!

Cheers

JohnT

[Tom Odom]

Dang I wish I could get classes like that.

So, I'm having an interesting discussion. Is COIN in Asymmetric warfare completely, slightly inside, or outside of Asymmetric warfare. I though it was a slam dunk and COIN was wholly inside the concepts of Asymmetric warfare. Then I got asked to define "Asymmetric Warfare". ugh. Well I found as many definitions as there are authors. Well now I'm not so sure about the relationships.

Sam,

I personally consider the entire construct of assymetric (mispelling is deliberate ) an artificial creation in that it says a clever enemy fights your weaknesses not your strengths. Only dead enemies match strengths and then not for long. I admit this gets back into the 4GW argument etc but wise warriors have always sought out the soft spots to slip in the blade.

In any case, if one adheres to AW models, then AW could apply to COIN or irregular warfare as well as conventional warfare if logically applied. For instance, 1986 Airland Battle was an AW application of conventional warfare against Soviet operational and tactical art.



John T on

By the time I was teaching full time at Leavenworth (1992) we were teaching from a vertical Venn diagram that showed an overlap between the strategic and operational and the operational and tactical. We also had developed some terminology to address the overlaps - one was the Theater Strategic level. CTAC kept trying to oversimplify and equate levels of war with formations: thus, the operational level ran from the unified command down to the corps. (My boss in SWORD, COL Bob Herrick, related levels of war and troop formations by saying that the operational level could be defined in terms of a troop formation that could conduct operations relatively independently over time. That might be a regiment, brigade, division, corps, etc. In El Salvador by that approach, the operational level of war conducted by the ESAF was by Brigade, Military Detachment, and Immediate Reaction Bn formations - COL level commands.)

That was going on when I was on the faculty 85-87 and again as a student 88-89--tactical was division and operational was corps. Strategic was higher but less defined. All of this was of course applied in support of Airland Battle--affectionately referred to as Airland Babble--on the plains of Europe. It had virtually no relevance when applied to contingency operations or the very real irregular wars ongoing in Central America at that time.

Best

Tom

[Steve Blair]

Sam,

I personally consider the entire construct of assymetric (mispelling is deliberate ) an artificial creation in that it says a clever enemy fights your weaknesses not your strengths. Only dead enemies match strengths and then not for long. I admit this gets back into the 4GW argument etc but wise warriors have always sought out the soft spots to slip in the blade.

Yet again we agree. I think it's another manifestation of the American/Western urge to label and thus compartmentalize the obvious...thereby making it somehow "special."

[PhilR]

I find the levels of war discussion very useful as theory with which to analyze past operations to acheive some focus and clarity of understanding.

The task of operational design and campaign planning, however, is one of synthesis. I find it disconcerting how much time I've spent in planning teams trying to come up with strategic COGs, operational COGs, and tactical COGs. Is MNF-I at the operational level or strategic level? I'm not sure and I don't think it matters. He has a higher headquaters to please, objectives, resources, terrain (human and other wise), allies, and enemies. Not all of these are clear, and some of them change as the campaign moves along. The focus must be on the inter-relationship of these factors specific to the situation--how to solve the problem at hand.

My personal lens on the strategic-operational-tactical is that it is less useful to view them as levels and more useful to look at them as almost diferetn functions. Strategic is the setting of broad goals and the allocation of resources. Tactical is the specific uses of those resources. Operational is the "logic" to include method, intermediate obectives, etc. that links the tactical actions into a coherent whole in order to acheive the strategic objectives. Understanding that tactical actions, if uncontrolled, tend to follow an internal logic, the operational art can consist of "disciplining" the tactical actions into the correct direction to reach the objective.

In COIN, the "tactical actions" are occurring on political, social, economic and military (security) lines. The operational art is not the arrow on the ground, but the blending of these actions so that they are mutually reinforcing and are actually leading to the objective (and not a dead end). Security without an understanding of the social and political dynamics may be just a temporary absence of violence that leads nowhere. Conversely, the correct aplication of economic solutions, quick enough, may overcome the this.

For all of the back and forth about the new COIN FM/MCWP, the most dangerous thing is if we think its all we have to read (and if we assume that it covers all COIN). Its a good beginning. The addition of a discussion on strategic-operational-tactical would be useful, if done with the thought of conducting critical analysis of past campaigns, not to provide a framework for future design.

[Van]

I've been faulted for asserting that 'asymetric' is the buzz word to make people feel like stuff Sun Tzu talked about is something new. Part of the problem may be that Western militaries have, for a few centuries, either fought symetric (XXth century conventional conflicts, or the Napoleonic wars for example) conflicts, fought with a radical degree of overmatch (Brithish Colonial forces frequently), or did not recognize asymetry in a timely fashion (the Boer War as seen from London, or Viet Nam as seen from LBJ's office).

Asymetry aided by modern media, comms technology, and the internet (overlapping but not redundant things), degrades the utility of using the old nomenclature of 'tactical, operational, strategic' as the lines get very blurry, but does not eliminate the usefulness of these concepts. These ideas are a convenient starting place, like telling elementary school students that there are only three states of matter, or that geometry is what you can do with a compass and a straight edge (take it up with a physicist or a mathmatician, the origami based geometry is really neat stuff, but I'm a liberal arts major and can't articulate it well). Like the now famous quote from an SF guy in Iraq "COIN is the graduate level of war".

Slightly flippant, but in COIN as in screw-ups, it is hard to tell which are little things and which are big things, and things that seem little can turn out to be really big (and contrawise). Taking time to drink tea with a sheik seems like a little thing to most folks, especially when you only discuss the weather and your kids'/grandkids' soccer games. But in the long run, this can accomplish operational or strategic level objectives (gaining local legitimacy/support, etc). And strategic level weapons systems are providing tactical fires (B-52...).

Gosh I miss the Cold War. It was so much simpler.

[wm]

Once upon a time, we had a perfectly good English word, “act.” We had another perfectly good English word that was its contrary, “react.” Somehow or other, folks in the military needed a stronger counterpoint to being reactive. Hence, we wound up with “proactive.” I submit that the adoption of “asymmetric” is a similar construct. We used to plan for and fight wars in a relatively linear fashion. Our rear areas were safe for our folks, with the exception of the occasional H & I fire and “strategic” airstrike. The same was true for our opponents. However, the run up country into Iraq quickly broke that paradigm. We quickly became more like the US Cavalry portrayed in John Wayne movies, with our supply trains attacked by the enemy while still deep in our rear areas. Of course, the reality is that such activity was jut as common in many other wars. (Things like Grierson’s Cavalry Raid during the Civil War come to mind.). While our form of war had ceased to be linear, “non-linear” just does not quite capture the attention. So a more catchy adjective was called for—“asymmetric,” that’s the ticket! Of course, asymmetry also conveys the notion that one side in the struggle is much bigger and/or can bring much more force/combat power to bear than the other side can. So we have a turn of phrase that allows users to bend the English language to their will as they see fit.
(Remember what Humpty Dumpty said to poor Alice—It’s a question of which is to be the master (`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' `The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.' `The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'—Full link here)

On the relationship of strategy, operations/operational art, and tactics, I suggest a mapping of these terms to the hierarchal taxonomy of an armed conflict. We have wars, which are made up of campaigns, which are made up of battles. Strategy maps to what we do to win the war, operational art is focused on winning a campaign, and good tactics bring victory in battles. We can of course have bigger and smaller variations of each—wars, campaigns, and battles. Nonetheless, a battle are usually focuses on direct engagements of one’s opponents in a particular geographic location in a restricted timeframe, a campaign strings together efforts to achieve a particular outcome in a geographic region over a more extended timeframe, and wars are the continuation of politics, which, as we all know, covers the gamut of human experience.

[Ken White]

Or something like that...

The COIN battle IS the Operational level.

I read Rob's initial post yesterday and I started thinking, always painful -- so I had some extra Bourbon to assuage the pain and then some more so I could think like a General. Massaged the whole process in my sleep last night, read all the foregoing this morning and decided that my initial reaction was correct.

Are we trying, as Americans always do, to needlessly complicate something?

Simply put, the strategy sends us to a country or countries. If an insurgency of any type (and there are many, no two will be alike) develops, the Operational level is the COIN effort.

The TTP involved in resolving that Operational task are many, varied and a number of the efforts described by many in this thread all roll into that.

We've played in a number of insurgencies since 1946; the four largest in terms of troop commitment were Korea in early 1951, 1st MarDiv, 5th RCT and three South Korean Divisions; DomRep in 1965; Viet Nam 1962-72 and the current operation (note term) in Iraq. All were quite different in every aspect.

The first two were virtually conventional operations against an irregular force (NKA left behinds in one and dissident Military types egged on by Cubans in the other), the last two were characterized by an abysmal failure to understand what was going to happen and to proceed to fight a land war in Europe in SEA or SWA. Neither was a good plan...

The Army that went into both theaters was euro-centric; as, he leered, is the Operational art . Yet, in both cases there was adequate warning of what was faced and it was ignored by the Army's power structure. In fairness, Iraq was hobbled by abysmal intelligence preparation (due to many and long standing politically induced problems) but it still took 18 months to realize we'd screwed the pooch. That it took another 18 months to turn things around is progress over Viet Nam where it took a total of seven years to do that but it still is too long. I submit a part of that length of time was due to efforts to over intellectualize the need and solutions. IOW, we needlessly complicated it -- and I know the domestic and in-theater political aspects also contributed to that delay.

The attitude of the local populace in all four major efforts I cited varied a bit. The first two had locals that just really wanted to be left alone and who just tried to stay out of the lines of fire. The second was mostly characterized by the same thing with the addition of random terror to force assistance to the insurgents by the populace, the current one sees that to a far greater degree. Contrary to many theorists, that ain't 4G, 5G or 9G warfare; it's Third Century warfare practiced in a digital age, no more.

Viet Nam did have an advantage that Iraq did not. The first US units in Viet Nam had been training for CI work and knew what to do -- regrettably, they were told to go on search and destroy missions instead. Complaints about this were ignored. In Iraq on the other hand, the Army was hobbled by 30 years of short sighted ignorance of CI and a proscription from on high to not even talk about it, much less train for it.

Our failures to date are simply not realizing that an insurgency was a planned effort by Saddam; in inadvertently being an accelerant to that Insurgency due to lack of training; in too slowly reacting and changing to meet that challenge; and most importantly at both the Operational level (the COIN effort in Iraq) and the strategic level (the goals, policies and plans of the USG in the greater ME and the world) not appreciating or properly implementing to this day effective counters to the opponents media operations plans and efforts.

We have a bad tendency to place templates on things (rarely works, others don't play by our rules * ); attempt to sound highly professional (we are and we don't need excessive adherence to buzzwords to prove it -- even as we try to dazzle the non-serving Academics and Congroids); be too prescriptive in assigning missions and methods thus stifling initiative and innovation ( * again); not quickly ascertaining where the COG is (in the current case, worldwide public opinion has to be a contender...) and, importantly, consistently failing to apply KISS...

[Tom Odom]

For all of the back and forth about the new COIN FM/MCWP, the most dangerous thing is if we think its all we have to read (and if we assume that it covers all COIN). Its a good beginning. The addition of a discussion on strategic-operational-tactical would be useful, if done with the thought of conducting critical analysis of past campaigns, not to provide a framework for future design.

Phil,

Amen. I love Dave Kilcullen's 28 articles as a framework and have used it extensively on here after a couple of council members bounced their thoughts against it. I taught a class to a young separate batttalion staff last week on COIN and they had FM 3-24 and Kilcullen as a pre-class reading assignments. But I told them that neither the FM nor Dave K's work obviated their responsibility to think, evaluate, and create.

Your point on COGs and levels of war is also well taken. Too many planners do not see planning as synthesis--they see it as purely process and that usually means a checklist. The checklist says identify COGs so we do so, regardless of applicability. A parallel was IPB and identfying NAIs and TAIs--used to see so many that they covered the entire area--safer that way it seemed when in reality having too many was like having none.

best

Tom

[TT]

Very interesting, and very intriguing, discussion. Your discussion has sparked two questions - though I should in the spirit of full disclosure note that I am one those who seriously struggled, and probably failed, to understand ‘Operational Level for Dummies’ , opting instead to accept 'It depends' as an answer I could live with.

Steve Blair:

In that particular situation, the operational COG was really the tribes themselves. I don't mean the Sioux per se, for example, but the various bands and factions within what the whites considered the Sioux. In the Southwest it centered on a variety of sub-groups and tribes within wider families, but the effect was still the same. If you could "turn" segments or factions of the tribes, you stood a good chance of coming out ahead.

Steve’s example seems to lean away from what seems to be a general view that in COIN the COG is the ‘population’, by which is meant, by and large, the protection of the population and, in some cases at any rate, the providing for the needs of the population. But over the past 6-8 months I have come to wonder whether this is really the case, whether instead this is the ‘aim’ of COIN efforts rather than the COG. If one perceives the population as the ‘aim’, then it seems to me that COG should be the social (and cultural?) environment of the population (their primal loyalties, interconnections, religion, world view/culture, etc and so on). To accomplish ‘turning segments or factions of tribes’ seems, to me, to suggest that what is being influenced to achieve the desired result is the social-cultural system of the Sioux or the tribes that comprise the Sioux. Much of the discussion here and elsewhere also seems to point to their social system being the COG.

Of course, the corollary of this that has to be asked is, does such a change in how we think is the COG make a difference? I suspect it would, but honestly do not konw. I can only suggest/guess that this would mean that everything that is said, every little thing that is done (cups of tea with a sheikh), is part of an IO campaign aimed at influencing the social environment of the population. This is, of course, the general tenor of discussion regarding what should and/or can be done in COIN of a lot of discussion on these boards and elsewhere as well.


My second question stems from the fact that what is being discussed here is ‘our’ levels of war. But what are ‘their’, our opponents, levels of war? If their perception of the levels of war differs from ours, does it matter?

And perhaps to complicate this a bit, does it matter that it is very probable that al Qaeda’s, as in OBL et al, perception of the levels of war is different from that of their many affiliates, such as al Qaeda in Iraq?

[Rob Thornton]

Hey TT,

My second question stems from the fact that what is being discussed here is ‘our’ levels of war. But what are ‘their’, our opponents, levels of war? If their perception of the levels of war differs from ours, does it matter?

Interesting question!

I'm starting to think there might be question or at least part of a question for Marc. - Maybe it gets to perceptions of time, space and scope by opponents. Maybe there be something in there about action/reaction/counter-action - is that specific to a particular culture, or is that more of a universal learning function?

I think it may be useful in trying to understand what your enemy is trying to do to you, but I'm not sure it prevents you from framing the depth of your own activities. I think it also could shed some light on applicability of other lenses/cognitive framing - like CoGs and Lines of Operation,etc. Another council member PM'd me about applicability and utility of doctrine, tenets and principals to COIN. My initial thoughts were that I believed in general they were broad enough to accommodate a great deal of conditions and that it depended on how they are interpreted by people.

We define/express the utility of things and their adequacy - when something lacks utility, ceases to be useful - we adapt what exists, innovate out of the original, or invent something new to get us where we need to go - we're pretty good at that - we should hold doctrine, tenets and principles to be descriptive vs. prescriptive - whatever tools get you there

I'm still thinking about what everybody else wrote - I did not expect so much so fast - most of you guys said you'd post on Saturday - never look a gift horse in the mouth though (BTW there is an Arabic parallel to that expression, although I don't remember how it went). I do want to go ahead and say thanks for your interest and your brain cells, although it looks like we can still get some mileage out of this one.

Best Regards, Rob

[Rob Thornton]

From John T:

3. For me, the levels of war remains a useful concept in the conduct of COIN. I see a US national strategic level of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan where the National Security apparatus is trying to define objectives, appropriate COA, and provide the resources to achieve those objectives. I see the HN as trying to do the same thing with a key issue being the lack of congruence between US and HN objectives. At the Theater Strategic level in Iraq, the issue is how GEN Petraeus and AMB Crocker implement a strategy to achieve US objectives - some of which they have to define on the ground. My reading of Kilcullen is that the Anbar Awakening provided an opportunity to develop a new set of COA to achieve both military and political objectives. It also raised new issues at both the strategic and operational levels for the Iraqi government - problems, challenges, and opportunities.

From Tom:

That was going on when I was on the faculty 85-87 and again as a student 88-89--tactical was division and operational was corps. Strategic was higher but less defined. All of this was of course applied in support of Airland Battle--affectionately referred to as Airland Babble--on the plains of Europe. It had virtually no relevance when applied to contingency operations or the very real irregular wars ongoing in Central America at that time.

I do think you need some kind of medium for translating policy goals into strategy and also for relating success and failures on the ground into the pursuit of those policies. When we are committing blood and treasure toward a purpose there needs to be linkage. I do think it could be a mistake to limit the association of a level of war to an echelon - that one seems to firmly relate to large, conventional force on force actions. In irregular wars the catalyst for a operational or strategic action/effect/objective could be a HN force with an advisory team conducting their own independent operations, or a UW action by a large guerrilla force led by an ODA (or ODA like unit), just to provide a couple of alternatives.

I find it useful to think of strategy of the application of means and ways by the assigned uniformed proponent (I guess you could use COCOM/Unified CMD or a JTF or a sub-Unified CMD - MNF-I is closest to the latter, but not designated as so in fact - probably a reason for that though) to achieve a policy end.

Another way to consider "operational" might be an element with sufficient means that it can conduct a series of actions/coordinate and execute different LOOs in terms of scope, time, and depth to achieve an advantage toward realizing the strategy.

I mentioned before that I stole and adapted something I'd picked up from DR Mike Matheny on tactics - but I'm going to expand it a bit "the thinking human application of technology, resources & procedures on the battlefield to achieve a purpose"

The other thing I stole was the there is a greater importance of technology at the tactical level then at the operational and strategic. This is very much the realm of the physical. Even though a unit might be "tactical" in the sense its task and purpose, or its size and composition - it may very well be simultaneously facilitating operational LOOs.

These are not doctrinal definitions of the levels of war, but as John said, I think they are still useful in considering how you link things, plan, allocate resources, assess the situation, adjust course, exploit success, report to higher, etc. This is not Grant and Lee, yet in a philosophical sense it is. Well my head hurts now - so I'll take Ken's advice and pour myself a Maker's Mark!

Best regards, Rob

[slapout9]

From John T:




In irregular wars the catalyst for a operational or strategic action/effect/objective could be a HN force with an advisory team conducting their own independent operations, or a UW action by a large guerrilla force led by an ODA (or ODA like unit), just to provide a couple of alternatives.


Best regards, Rob

Two points:
1-action/effect/objective is the greatest error of how EBO is taught as opposed to how it was supposed to be taught. The process is this ACTION/TARGET/EFFECT/OBJECTIVE. Our enemy is not doing 4GW no matter how much the authors claim. Is what they are doing is EBO and they understand TARGETING like nobody else. If you understand targeting the ways and means become almost infinite, but if you try to effect the wrong target it doesn't matter how well or precise it is, it will not work for you.

2-Effects are ALWAYS tied to a target. If you can not explain why effecting this target will help you achieve your ultimate objective you have no business striking it in the first place because you don't know what you are doing.

[Rob Thornton]

Slapout,
It brings up a good point. I know you are passionate about EBO. One of the reasons I grouped the three together was to provide a menu depending on how a planner might design a campaign. Not everybody looking at the thread may know this - but EBO (Effects Based Operations) are Joint planning doctrine, but not Army planning doctrine (however you will find it referenced in some FMs) - but if you are an Army 3 star HQs acting as a Joint HQs then you use Joint doctrine - unless you have a good reason not to. There are also some Army units using EBO and EBO hybrids in theater - one thing I believe EBO does do well is lend itself to looking at a systems environment (PMESII) in pursuit of Logical Lines of Operations - what I'm not crazy about is establishing causal relationships.

I think there is some differences in the way services view systems theory - which is partly why Joint doctrine is so hard to get published - services argue over terms and definitions because it defines the way they see life.

If you understand targeting the ways and means become almost infinite, but if you try to effect the wrong target it doesn't matter how well or precise it is, it will not work for you.

Slapout - if you would, expand on that a bit - I think its important.

Effects are ALWAYS tied to a target. If you can not explain why effecting this target will help you achieve your ultimate objective you have no business striking it in the first place because you don't know what you are doing.

I think you could also say that it is tied to unintended consequences which create new problems vs. solving problems.

However, I also think there are always going to be some unintended consequences when we're talking about people and social organizations even if its the right target. Some of these could lead to new opportunities, some will be adverse.

How fast you can identify and exploit, mitigate/neutralize and rectify those consequences in a social environment is tied to how much they influence other LLOOs - ex. the relationship between clean water, sewage, electricity and health and their bearing on local government credibility to how much a piece of insurgent propaganda resonates.

Best Regards, Rob

[marct]

My second question stems from the fact that what is being discussed here is ‘our’ levels of war. But what are ‘their’, our opponents, levels of war? If their perception of the levels of war differs from ours, does it matter?

Interesting question!

I'm starting to think there might be question or at least part of a question for Marc. - Maybe it gets to perceptions of time, space and scope by opponents. Maybe there be something in there about action / reaction /counter-action - is that specific to a particular culture, or is that more of a universal learning function?

I've been following the discussion but, in a fit of unusual reticence, I've been keeping quite . Well, as the newly coined "old saying" goes "it takes two to tango and if I'm in 3/4 and your in 7/12, we ain't gonna get the prize!".

Certainly our opponents perceptions are important! Just think about all the fuss and bother with having to fight someone who isn't a state! I mean, really, the gall of some of these people! <said with a very phony British accent>.

On a more serious note, cultural categories of space, time and scope are quite mutable. In some ways they actually depend on how the language is constructed. For example, our western fixation on causality is based, in part, on the noun - verb structures we use. If this was compared with some of the Amerind languages, we see totally different forms. Edward Sapir's Language, Culture and Personality deals with some of these issues. As a note, the very terms that are being used in this current thread relate to early 19th century physics (e.g. Centre of Gravity), and this has a pretty serious impact on how "levels" are conceived.

So, I'm going to turn it around and ask people what are the words and phrases that AQ uses to describe their perceptions of "conflctual reality"? Once we have those, then we can start to analyze how they construct their levels.

[Ken White]

My Farsi has deteriorated to beyond rusty but I do recall there were a number of Persian military operational terms that had no good English equivalent and vice versa.

The Iraniha were competent if not great soldiers in the western mode (the conscript bulk did not help) and the USAF MAAG guys always told me the the IIAF had better CEPs on ground attack missions than the TAC norms. They were quite enamored of Liddel Hart and the indirect approach. Many in the MAAG saw that as a desire to avoid harsh combat; some of us saw it for what it was. Smart.

Interestingly, some of their Officers used to (semi) jokingly say we, the US Army, were "too Prussian."

[slapout9]

Hi Rob. I didn't know you put that together actions/effects/objectives. Because that is exactly how it appears in the new AF Doctrine Manual on operations, which is really confusing. The AF targeting manual makes a lot more since in explaining the process as it should be.

To expand on targeting I will say it how Col. Warden says it. After you have mapped the system with the 5 rings template to include any fractal analysis, "Decide on what targets to effect and stay at that level until you can't stand it." Jumping to the how to do it level will lead you into the trap of just acting on targets just to be doing it. Like the expression you can win every battle (actions for the sake of actions) and still loose the war(inability to choose the right targets that will lead you to success.

As I have said before, the all time EBO was 9-11. They understood the targets to hit and when that is known the means to do it will almost come to you simply by using what is already available in your current environment.


Warden's concept of EBO planning is extremely close to the Army Artillery concept of D3A. The concept of CARVER has a lot of similarities to the 5 rings analysis from the standpoint of it concentrates on high value targets COG's but yet still takes into account adverse effects. The E stands for Effect on populace which could be positive or negative. He (Warden doesn't believe in a single COG, all systems have multiple COG's) The final multiple target set of CARVER is very close to the 5 rings analysis in this respect as it relates to selecting COG's.

I would agree with you about varying definitions of systems theory between the services, it is that way in the civilian world too.

[wm]

Certainly our opponents perceptions are important! Just think about all the fuss and bother with having to fight someone who isn't a state! I mean, really, the gall of some of these people! <said with a very phony British accent>.

On a more serious note, cultural categories of space, time and scope are quite mutable. In some ways they actually depend on how the language is constructed. For example, our western fixation on causality is based, in part, on the noun - verb structures we use. If this was compared with some of the Amerind languages, we see totally different forms. Edward Sapir's Language, Culture and Personality deals with some of these issues. As a note, the very terms that are being used in this current thread relate to early 19th century physics (e.g. Centre of Gravity), and this has a pretty serious impact on how "levels" are conceived.

So, I'm going to turn it around and ask people what are the words and phrases that AQ uses to describe their perceptions of "conflctual reality"? Once we have those, then we can start to analyze how they construct their levels.

MarcT,

I wonder, from a pragmatic point of view, whether the inquiry is really worth the effort. If we are seeking to pre-empt or disrupt the bad guys' plans, why do we need anyhting more than an understanding of what they mean, temporally, by "long term," "mid term," and "short term"? In short, I am not clear on why Rob wants to do this mapping of military doctrinal teminology.

Now I am going to change horses here. Your post inclines me to believe that you have fallen under the spell of folks like Habermas, Derrida, and Foucault (the structuralist/post structuralist, not the physicist). I am thinking you place the cart before the horse in your last paragraph. I submit that we can only know the meanings attached to the words and phrases used by our opponents to describe their "levels of war" in a complex that also includes the theoretical constructs the words and phrases convey. First, we must determine whether they even operationalize a notion of "levels of war." Just because we do, I would not want to suppose that this is a universal practice in war theorizing.

I also have some issues with your point about etymology. While it may well be the case that COG originally derives from Newtonian physics, it has long since taken on new meanings divorced from that original context. The following is an example of what I mean. In the 80's, the U.S Army offered an effective writing course. One point made in the course was using vocabulary correctly. The purist vocabulary gurus pointed out that military writers habitually misused 'viable.' Its definition, coming from biology, is "able to sustain life;" yet military writers and speakers talk about viable plans and viable options among other things. The community of speakers here, not being biologists, knew pretty much what they really meant when they used 'viable' and that most often was 'workable,' 'practicable,' or something synonymous.

I revert to my earlier post with the quotation from C. L. Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll. He was an Oxford don, holding a chair in mathematics at Christchurch, a mathematician and logician who recognized the problems with which language is fraught, especially when one tries to formailze natural language into logical argument in symbolic form. He put versions of many of those problems, humorously, into the mouths of his characters in his Alice stories.
In your last post, you seem to have taken the opposite pole to Humpty Dumpty, allowing the words to determine what and how we think, while our ovoid friend chooses to make the words bend to his conceptualization of the world.
I am proposing that there is something like a Hegelian middle ground here. We reach an understanding of other view points by successive approximations in a dialectic exchange with those who hold that point of view different from our own. The initial foot in the door (or camel's nose in the tent) is indexed to those things which we have in common because we are all human beings. An interesting exmple of this is found in the Star Wars Next Generation episode "Darmok," summarized here. For dry philosophical alternatives, I suggest a look at the literture in the philosophy of language on the problems of radical translation, radical interpretation, and the indeterminacy of translation (W.V.O Quine and Donald Davidson as prime sources).

[Rob Thornton]

Hey guys,
[QUOTE]
wm:

I wonder, from a pragmatic point of view, whether the inquiry is really worth the effort. If we are seeking to preempt or disrupt the bad guys' plans, why do we need anything more than an understanding of what they mean, temporally, by "long term," "mid term," and "short term"? In short, I am not clear on why Rob wants to do this mapping of military doctrinal terminology.

To be honest I'm not sure either - but it just "felt" related, and so sparked an interest. I like it when we have several different (but related to a degree) thoughts going on in a single thread. It allows me to get to places I might not if we remained too focused on the original statement/problem/inquiry. We've had threads that seemed to radically depart from where they started, but when viewed as a whole when the thread was exhausted, offered a more complete set of possibilities.

In the case of this departure - I guess it fits (albeit loosely) with the concept of multiple LLOOs, and maybe the ideas of Red Teaming, how and why we make decisions and their consequences. Sometimes I also need a square put in front of me before I stop looking for circles. Our departure into the EBO discussion is also useful I think because its helping shape context - and clarify content for a diverse group.

I also have some issues with your point about etymology. While it may well be the case that COG originally derives from Newtonian physics, it has long since taken on new meanings divorced from that original context. The following is an example of what I mean. In the 80's, the U.S Army offered an effective writing course. One point made in the course was using vocabulary correctly. The purist vocabulary gurus pointed out that military writers habitually misused 'viable.' Its definition, coming from biology, is "able to sustain life;" yet military writers and speakers talk about viable plans and viable options among other things. The community of speakers here, not being biologists, knew pretty much what they really meant when they used 'viable' and that most often was 'workable,' 'practicable,' or something synonymous.

I was thinking about that yesterday, but was not sure how to say it well. When a term enters new usage by a different audience and takes on different values - does that make it any less viable (no pun intended)? Some of this gets to the original question about defining and relating the levels of war in COIN.

I revert to my earlier post with the quotation from C. L. Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll. He was an Oxford don, holding a chair in mathematics at Christchurch, a mathematician and logician who recognized the problems with which language is fraught, especially when one tries to formailze natural language into logical argument in symbolic form. He put versions of many of those problems, humorously, into the mouths of his characters in his Alice stories.
In your last post, you seem to have taken the opposite pole to Humpty Dumpty, allowing the words to determine what and how we think, while our ovoid friend chooses to make the words bend to his conceptualization of the world.

A fantastic point - I spent a good part of last night and this morning watching the C-Span coverage of House and Senate testimony (yes I know it appears I have no life, but I'm here at Belvoir and the family is in PA) from GEN (R) Jones and his group on the progress of ISF. I also have a serious interest in this particular topic.

Some members of Congress asked questions to obtain information to weigh in their decisions, some (Ds & Rs) proposed an observation in the form of a question which could not be responded to.

They were reasonably good at looking earnest as to cause me to wonder if they were doing it on purpose, or is that just how they define a question. In some cases I felt that the common language required to articulate the question or answer was just not there - possibly because the preceding questions and answers set the perception for the subsequent ones. I think this is important when we are considering various LLOOs and Physical LOOs in a campaign plan, or in the broader strategy - how much of what you ask next depends on what was asked last? How much influence does the limitations of expressions bind our cognitive abilities?

from wm,

I am proposing that there is something like a Hegelian middle ground here. We reach an understanding of other view points by successive approximations in a dialectic exchange with those who hold that point of view different from our own. The initial foot in the door (or camel's nose in the tent) is indexed to those things which we have in common because we are all human beings.

I quoted that just because it should precede every serious discussion that seeks an answer

Best regards, Rob

[Tom Odom]

Warden's concept of EBO planning is extremely close to the Army Artillery concept of D3A. The concept of CARVER has a lot of similarities to the 5 rings analysis from the standpoint of it concentrates on high value targets COG's but yet still takes into account adverse effects. The E stands for Effect on populace which could be positive or negative. He (Warden doesn't believe in a single COG, all systems have multiple COG's) The final multiple target set of CARVER is very close to the 5 rings analysis in this respect as it relates to selecting COG's.

I would agree with you about varying definitions of systems theory between the services, it is that way in the civilian world too.

Indeed it is and we have worked targeting, EBO, EBP, Full spectrum planning here at JRTC for the past 6 years as have units in both theaters. Some have used CARVER; most use PEMSII as a framework. On COGs in general, when we worked COGs in the 80s we were looking for the long pole in the tent--that node or vulnerability that would collapse an enemy's capabilities. That in itself was nothing new--we did the same in WWII. But this was all discussed in terms of operational art and in the hopes of getting away from the attritional position warfare of the Active Defense. Now when we talk COGs we are not really talkng COGs in that single critical node sense--we are talking vulnerabilities but it is muti-layered approach and yes, effects are very much part of it.

Best

Tom