McMaster on war (merged thread)

[Ron Humphrey]

'HR' spoke yesterday at IISS, London to a nearly full conference room on the project, with a small number of slides; in a nice touch he had to operate the PPT control himself and sometimes forgot. Very clever delivery and some wicked humour: UK Ministry of Defence (Strategy) questioner poses question and 'HR' responds did I hear you right Tragedy?

A lot to absorb and many points that could be applied to law enforcement.

IISS I think will add a video to their website soon: http://www.iiss.org/ .

Later 'HR' added his praise for the contribution of SWJ / SWC.

More another day.

davidbfpo

Not up yet

[William F. Owen]

"The biggest change is that we're recognizing some of the limitations in technologies that were designed to improve situational understanding and situational awareness," said McMaster. "We understand now how enemy countermeasures can place what we need to know about the enemy and what we need to know about the situation outside the reach of technology."

Seriously? After 20 years of folks telling telling them this they now just get it? I find this statement profoundly depressing.

I could comment on a lot else, but frankly, I think the above speaks for itself.

Additionally,
a.) Someone has to understand that the US (and the UK) were not good at fighting regular forces. Since about 1988 we just happen to have been faced with very very incompetent regular forces. Korea and Vietnam clearly showed the great limits of the US's ability to fight any type of enemy.

b.) The idea that warfare is now more tricky and complex is without evidence. Trying to tell the US fighting man that everyone has to change because the enemy has "cleverly adapted," is to promote a falsehood. Moreover, enemies will and have always adapted.

For those wedded to the OODA loop, it's worth noting, if the observations are wrong, the rest fails.

To quote Colin S. Gray,

....there are no new ideas and methods in strategy and warfare. The classical canon of strategic texts contains, and repeats, them all. However, the U.S. defense community, with its multitude of stakeholder interests, its genuinely global challenges, and its awesome array of conceptual, organizational, technical, tactical, logistic, and social, issues – to specify only some of the categories – positively invites the marketing of novelty.

[Fuchs]

a.) Someone has to understand that the US (and the UK) were not good at fighting regular forces. Since about 1988 we just happen to have been faced with very very incompetent regular forces. Korea and Vietnam clearly showed the great limits of the US's ability to fight any type of enemy.

I would indeed point at the summer of '45 as the line between 1st class and lesser opponents. The enemies in Korea and Vietnam had a very narrow set of competence; their combined arms capability was in its infancy.

Many U.S. FMs are still full of the same B.S. that the French used to defeat themselves in 1940. Especially the emphasis on planning & firepower as well as the lack of emphasis on agile decisionmaking and agile formations are terrible.
Several U.S. divisions were probably ahead of current U.S. doctrine in 1944.

The quest for "situational awareness" is in part explained by a desire to gather information for planning because of a doctrinal inability to handle the fog of war.

Reformers should listen to the readily available "3GW" crowd, for their lessons don't seem to have been understood yet.

[marct]

"The biggest change is that we're recognizing some of the limitations in technologies that were designed to improve situational understanding and situational awareness," said McMaster. "We understand now how enemy countermeasures can place what we need to know about the enemy and what we need to know about the situation outside the reach of technology."

Seriously? After 20 years of folks telling telling them this they now just get it? I find this statement profoundly depressing.

You know, I took that quote as a face saving way of reversing the worst of the cyborgophile tendencies in FCS. Ever since RoboCop and Terminator, the US public has been enamoured of the idea of cyborg warriors; something the earlier (pre-9/11) FCS played into. As to why they played into it, my gut guess would be twofold. First, the public belief that human casualties would be reduced, and second, the growing split between civilian public "consciousness" and the military.

There is a bureaucratic imperative operating in almost all large organizations that translates to "Must get more resources.... Hmmmm, resources!" {spoken in a Homer Simpson voice for added effect}. The cyborgian vision of FCS certainly played out along these lines. But, as with all bureaucracies, there was a tendency to force individual members of the organization to accept the organizational rhetoric as reality. I think this was pretty clearly shown in the reaction to Van Ripper's actions in Millennium Challenge.

But how do you change the rhetoric (aka organizational construct of "reality") without damaging the organization? The simplest way to do it is very, VERY, slowly (think about the phrase "Holy Mother Church in Her Wisdom has always said that..."). In particular, note the phrase "We understand now how enemy countermeasures" (emphasis added). This implicitly says that "it's not our fault!" without having to admit that the entire idea was stupid in the first place.

Let me pull that last comment out a bit....

I think that the rhetorical vision of FCS was "stupid" for one, simple reason: it excludes human nature. The more control span you give to a commander, the greater the temptation to use it. Furthermore, such an enhanced control span disregards one of the most brilliant pieces of technology in the arsenal of warfare - the human mind. Having such a control span makes a force much less able to react on the fly while, at the same time, increasing the likelihood of producing "commanders" who are only capable of following the Book.

Honestly, I'm rather heartened by the current discussions. I think that they are very well aware of the potential problems and how to solve at least some of them.

[William F. Owen]

Don't get me wrong. I am very happy that they are spotting the mistakes, but that does require someone to acknowledge it was a mistake and to have the honesty to point out why it was a mistake.

There was boat loads of evidence the FCS crows chose to ignore. The problem is not the stupidity of FCS. It is the ignoring of the evidence.

"War is now more complex" is based on choosing to ignore the actual evidence, and to reason their way through what the problem actually may be.

[davidbfpo]

HR McMaster's IISS talk is now available, in two parts, his speech (33 mins) and the Q&A (29 mins): http://www.iiss.org/ scroll down slightly and click on 'watch the speech'. The 'strategy' or 'tragedy' quip is in the first minute of the Q&A, superb.

davidbfpo

[J Wolfsberger]

There was boat loads of evidence the FCS crows chose to ignore. The problem is not the stupidity of FCS. It is the ignoring of the evidence.

If I may quibble, ignoring the evidence is only an implementation of stupidity.

"War is now more complex" is based on choosing to ignore the actual evidence, and to reason their way through what the problem actually may be.

It is more complex because the span of control issue that MarkT cites has already arisen. The issue of tactical responsiveness can be addressed through implementing auftragstaktik, and "two up, two down" communication, etc. (Which, by the way, I believe the Aussies have gone after in a big way.) That, however, requires leadership, trust in subordinates ...

But, then, recognizing that would require people to "... reason their way through what the problem actually may be."

[marct]

Hi JW,

If I may quibble, ignoring the evidence is only an implementation of stupidity.

True, but it's also a case where a lot of the policy directives originated outside of the military. As a system, FCS had that cool, post-Star Wars, post-Cold War feel to it that attracted a large segment of the civilian and political population. Ignoring the evidence may actually have been partially required by the political realities that the US military lives under. That, however, isn't to ignore or excuse what showed up in Millennium Challenge; the entire system needed to be re-thought and re-worked after that little fiasco, and that was the responsibility of the military.

[Ken White]

The issue of tactical responsiveness can be addressed through implementing auftragstaktik, and "two up, two down" communication, etc. (Which, by the way, I believe the Aussies have gone after in a big way.) That, however, requires leadership, trust in subordinates

For two reasons:

We have not done it that way in the time of service of the current crop of Flag officers -- the fact that we have in the past done it and been quite successful and that we have generally been less successful since we stopped doesn't seem to penetrate...

We cannot trust subordinates because we KNOW they're only half trained...

[William F. Owen]

Recently saw H.R. McMasters speak at the Land Warfare conference in Israel. Very impressive, and his comments actually addressed exactly my concerns, as did my conversation with him afterwards.

Essentially, if we accept the substantial limitation of human beings in relation to information technology, then we may see useful progress.