An IW “Bottle of Scotch” Challenge

[MikeF]

Originally from Wilf: Personally I've totally rejected the idea of IW/RW and Small v Big War. It's not a useful distinction and responsible for much of the current confusion and avant garde BS that surrounds it.

I tend to agree that's why I try to simplify the discussion into a football metaphor. I don't see COL Gentile as anti-COIN and John Nagl as pro-COIN. I simply see them engaged in a healthy debate focused on what mixture of run/pass we should have within our military structure.

Originally posted by Bill Moore: The ongoing debate over the definition of IW and what it means to the military and the whole of government is creating much confusion, but that confusion is valuable and the debate is long overdue.

Bill's point is important. If WE disagree over our own definitions, how can our civilian policy-makers and bosses hope to understand what we do. This debate is healthy and much needed if only to educate so they can make informed decisions on how to employ us effectively.

v/r

Mike

[davidoff]

What is the point of defining IW? Is it so that we can classify and therefore work on strategies to counter it?

If this is the case then IW is, or is similar to, unconventional warfare and operations other than war. It is hard to prescribe a strategy without having boots on the ground because each situation can be different than it seems, and this reality will not be likely to present itself during the "fog of war".

Therefore, simplification may be helpful in that we work on strategies for specific situations without consideration of the type of warfare encountered.
In some ways IW can be defined as not fighting for territory or resources. Rather it is a a continuation of the cold war fight for ideology and does not confine itself to states or other boundaries. We need creative solutions on how to overcome ideas.

I know this definition is wide, but it is meant to encompass a lot of different types of adversaries and methods.

[William F. Owen]

In some ways IW can be defined as not fighting for territory or resources. Rather it is a a continuation of the cold war fight for ideology and does not confine itself to states or other boundaries. We need creative solutions on how to overcome ideas.

I know this definition is wide, but it is meant to encompass a lot of different types of adversaries and methods.

How does a fight for territory and and fight for ideology differ? Last I checked, only human beings have "ideas" and all humans live on land, or territory. I can't see how you can ever have a "war of ideas."

[selil]

How does a fight for territory and and fight for ideology differ? Last I checked, only human beings have "ideas" and all humans live on land, or territory. I can't see how you can ever have a "war of ideas."

Not all battles are for physical territory or using kinetic weapons. Sometimes trade, rights to transit across territory, inclusion in decision making, and other forms of soft power can be just as effective as bullets.

The use of kinetic power has only one utility. The cessation of the adversaries autonomic functions. Some times you want to keep an adversary alive as a wedge against another adversary. As such ideas are all you have and limited deterrence (another idea by the way).

[William F. Owen]

Not all battles are for physical territory or using kinetic weapons. Sometimes trade, rights to transit across territory, inclusion in decision making, and other forms of soft power can be just as effective as bullets.

All true, but that's not war. It's something else. Diplomacy? Soft power cannot kill and cannot break will, therefore it is not part of warfare.

The use of kinetic power has only one utility. The cessation of the adversaries autonomic functions. Some times you want to keep an adversary alive as a wedge against another adversary. As such ideas are all you have and limited deterrence (another idea by the way).

The use of kinetic power is central to war and warfare. If no one dies then no war took place. War as an instrument of Policy/politics is concerned with people living on land. Even sea and air have their purpose on land.

[Surferbeetle]

From wikipedia

A blockade is any effort to prevent supplies, troops, information or aid from reaching an opposing force. Blockades are the cornerstone to nearly all military campaigns and the tool of choice for economic warfare on an opposing nation. The International Criminal Court plans to include blockades against coasts and ports in its list of acts of war in 2009.

Blockades can take any number of forms from a simple garrison of troops along a main roadway to utilizing dozens or hundreds of surface combatant ships in securing a harbor, denying its use to the enemy, and even in cutting off or jamming broadcast signals from radio or television. As a military operation, blockades have been known to be the deciding factor in winning or losing a war.

[ginspace]

Sorry WillF, but I totally disagree...war is about breaking the will of your enemy and forcing him to accept your ideas, not about killing. It may involve kinetic effects, but certainly doesn't have to, and it definitely doesn't always have to be about the control of land.

While the redistribution of territory is often an outcome of treaties, wars have always been fought over religion, ethnicity, and economics to mention just a few root causes. Wars have certainly been fought over the control of sea lanes, and the only reason wars haven't been fought in space is because we don't live there yet. You can be assured that there will be wars fought in cyberspace in the future, and although these attacks may result in death due to economic and infrastructure collapse, the initial effects will not be kinetic.

if you think your will can't be broken with soft power, you haven't learned the lessons of the Vietnam war, the Algerian revolution, or any other irregular war won by an insurgency. Information and psychological warfare is often the only tool of IW, and it is very effective against a liberal democracy. Killing may play a role, but it is by no means the defining characteristic of war.

Speaking of irregular warfare, the last QDR defined it as "conflicts in which enemy combatants are not regular military forces of nation states." This includes civilians and is a type of warfare that occurs at every level in what the Chinese call Unlimited Warfare.

We are currently engaged in an "unlimited war of ideas" with radical Islamists (and have been for over a millenium) that transcends mere kinetic effects and petty squabbles over who gets the water, oil, and olive trees. It is a clash of civilizations as Huntington theorized, but there's no reason for it to end in the destruction of one or other.

I am a believer that warfare is not a zero-sum game, and that there is a moderate solution to every problem where both parties can emerge better off than they were. Irregular warfare requires an irregular approach to victory.

[William F. Owen]

Sorry WillF, but I totally disagree...war is about breaking the will of your enemy and forcing him to accept your ideas, not about killing. It may involve kinetic effects, but certainly doesn't have to, and it definitely doesn't always have to be about the control of land.

OK, so which wars in history have resulted in NO casualties? War is killing. Read Clausewitz. Changing someone's ideas without killing is marketing or diplomacy, and nothing to do with the military. Killing is what makes war a distinct and discrete human activity. It's what defines war.

We are currently engaged in an "unlimited war of ideas" with radical Islamists (and have been for over a millenium) that transcends mere kinetic effects and petty squabbles over who gets the water, oil, and olive trees. It is a clash of civilizations as Huntington theorized, but there's no reason for it to end in the destruction of one or other

.
The "Radical Islamist" have terrain based objectives. A Pan Islamist Caliphate or a US withdrawal from Iraq/Afghanistan and the "land of two mosques." It may even be "world domination." How is this not about land?

Speaking of irregular warfare, the last QDR defined it as "conflicts in which enemy combatants are not regular military forces of nation states." This includes civilians and is a type of warfare that occurs at every level in what the Chinese call Unlimited Warfare.

So which combatants who are not regular military forces of nation states have causes not attached to land or their people who hark from a specific geographic area?

I have read Unlimited Warfare. I don't bother reading it anymore.

I am a believer that warfare is not a zero-sum game, and that there is a moderate solution to every problem where both parties can emerge better off than they were. Irregular warfare requires an irregular approach to victory.

I believe Warfare is about getting what my people want and that is not a moderate solution, because the other side is Not moderate. If they were I wouldn't need to kill them. Irregular Warfare just means being careful about who you kill, and why you kill them. That's the only difference.

[William F. Owen]

if you think your will can't be broken with soft power, you haven't learned the lessons of the Vietnam war, the Algerian revolution, or any other irregular war won by an insurgency. Information and psychological warfare is often the only tool of IW, and it is very effective against a liberal democracy. Killing may play a role, but it is by no means the defining characteristic of war.

The Vietnam was was not won by an insurgency. The NLF had been soundly defeated by 1970-71. Vietnam 1964-75 was a war between nation States (North Vietnam, China and Russia, versus an Allied Coalition) with a 60K US dead. Not much soft power involved. Dead US Soldiers broke the will of the US Govt to commit to a military solution as they had done in Korea. The Republic of South Vietnam was militarily defeated, by conventional military forces.

The Viet Minh, Militarily defeated the French, using conventional military strength (Infantry and artillery). Again, not much "soft power" involved.

Both Algerian "civil wars" saw vast amounts of killing. The French withdrew because they could not hold onto power in an effective or legitimate way.

Information and Psychological means are adjuncts to violence. The are violence enhancers. If they are employed without violence, then they are marketing or diplomacy, and nothing to do with war.

[jkm_101_fso]

I tend to agree that's why I try to simplify the discussion into a football metaphor. I don't see COL Gentile as anti-COIN and John Nagl as pro-COIN. I simply see them engaged in a healthy debate focused on what mixture of run/pass we should have within our military structure.

Would it be correct to say that COL Gentile wants to run the wishbone and only throw on third and long?
...and Nagl believes in the multi-formation "west coast" offense and wants to throw every other down (even on first sometimes)?