SFA as part of a campaign design: supporting operational requirements (part 1)

[jmm99]

from Slap
That is SBW (Slapout Based Warfare)

in some cases (e.g., Guatamala 1954), civilian agency based warfare (if you want to call disinformation and destablization "warfare"). BTW: Beaumarchais and the trading company of Roderigue Hortalez & Co were civilian.

Slap, in hindsight, if you were Louis XVI, would you have made that phone call ?

Long-term negative blowback from short-term operational success.

[jmm99]

Here we have a listing (more focused on upstate NY, but including other NY units, with brief mention of units from other states) of: NY Frontier Loyalists; Downstate Loyalists; and Other Loyalists.

Note that, for the much greater part, these were authorized units (that is, regular units within the Laws of War of that time, and probably still today) - soldiers of the Crown serving their King as British citizens.

Certainly, the RW was more a civil war than anything else, as you can see by following the various links here (including Tyrrell's ancestor), and here.

PS: The source of much US Ranger (SOF) mythology is the unit known as Rogers' Rangers of the French & Indian War. What is not generally well known (see in link "Other Loyalists") is that the RW Queen's Rangers was a regiment originally raised on August 16, 1776 by the same Robert Rogers.

Command passed from Rogers to Lt. Col. Christopher French in 1777, followed by Major James Wemyss of the 40th Regiment of Foot, who was wounded at Germantown. The Queen's Rangers achieved its greatest fame (or notoriety, depending on your viewpoint) under the leadership of John Graves Simcoe, first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. Simcoe took command of the Rangers on October 15, 1777.
...
The unit was later placed on the Regular British rolls as part of the "American Establishment" in May 1779 and renumbered as the First American Regiment.

The Queen's Rangers were stationed in New York until sent to Charlestown in April 1780, returning to New York in June. The Rangers returned to south in December as part of Arnold's expedition to Virginia. After this they became part of Cornwallis' army, eventually surrendering at Yorktown.

and from Wiki:

At the outbreak of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord, former Rangers were among the Minutemen firing at the British. After these events, Robert Rogers offered his help to the commander of the Colonial Army, George Washington. Washington refused, fearing that Rogers was a spy because Rogers had just returned from a long stay in England. Rogers was infuriated by this and did indeed join the British--forming the Queen's Rangers (1776) and later the King's Rangers.

So, should we look at Rogers via British law and politics (a patriot), or via American law and politics (a traitor) - or should we simply ignore law and politics, as some might suggest ?

[slapout9]

Slap, in hindsight, if you were Louis XVI, would you have made that phone call ?

jmm99,
No, because the situation was to unstable to take the risk. But that is based on hindsight. Plus everything is a system to me. I don't care if they have uniforms or don't. I look at the effect being achieved, if they perform the functions of a soldier that is all I need to know.

Wilf is right when he says we have to many words for what are essentially Infantry operations actually EBO (Effects Based Operations) to me. Just my opinion, which is why I push systems thinking, makes things a lot simpler and clearer.

[jmm99]

from Slap
No, because the situation was to unstable to take the risk. But that is based on hindsight.

agreed on this one - the "hindsight" point (where everything is 20-20 ).

Serious question, how do you evaluate the systems (plural) in play during the RW ? And to what end result or results ?

I look at it as a lawyer and see at least two: British Crown (including the Loyalists) and the Rebel Americans (with France as a co-belligerent).

But, I'm not into systems analysis as a formal discipline. Thus, the question, which seems pertinent to that with what Rob started this thread.

[slapout9]

agreed on this one - the "hindsight" point (where everything is 20-20 ).

Serious question, how do you evaluate the systems (plural) in play during the RW ? And to what end result or results ?

I look at it as a lawyer and see at least two: British Crown (including the Loyalists) and the Rebel Americans (with France as a co-belligerent).

But, I'm not into systems analysis as a formal discipline. Thus, the question, which seems pertinent to that with what Rob started this thread.

Have to go do my honey do list Will answer shortly.

[Bob's World]

If I were to apply design to this particular problem set (not to SFA...that is just one potential solution or line of operation that I could shape to apply to some aspects of the larger problem once I had achieved a fuller understanding through the design process), I may well start by simply writing the three parties ID'd my JMM99 on a big whiteboard in a triange formation about 3' apart. Circle each.

Those three big circles could be connected by arrows running each way, with description of the nature of the enagement/perspective each way.

Then go ahead and Cluster around each node the key sub-parts, with their particular perspectives that made them unique. Attempt to connect these as well with the same identification of the perspectives/relationships on the lines. Key individuals and groups.

Then step back and look at it for a while and discuss it with your team. Not looking for solutions, just trying to gain an understanding of the dynamics at work.

Add environmentals. Economic, political, cultural, etc.

It's a journey. You add layers of information to your initial simple model increasing the complexity of data so that you can begin to work your way back to a simple, but far more accurate, understanding of the nature of the problem(s).

You may have began the drill with the mission of "prepare an SFA campaign build capacity and capability in the American security forces so that they can defeat the British and secure their independence."

By the time you have worked through the design process you may well have determined that such capacity is not the missing ingredient at all, and in fact a very different action of policy or perhaps a military action, etc is actually what will achieve your intended purpose.

Our problem is we're like a mechanic who fixed an engine using three particular wrenches, they aren't doing the job on a couple of cars that just came into the lot. Someone said "have you tried this new SFA wrench? It looks just like the FID wrench your holding there, but its very different and sure to work." So you get all excited and go back to wrenching away at the engine now with this new tool worked into the mix.

The purpose of design isn't to figure out how to apply a particular wrench, it is to understand the complex internal workings and relationships that make up a fully functional vehicle. May turn out it just needs gas.

But I would recommend strongly against simply dragging the driver out of the vehicle and jumping in with the guys family and driving off. No matter how poor of a driver he may have been, or how poorly he may of been maintaining the vehicle such actions are rarely appreciated and sure to produce unintended difficulties...

[jmm99]

the posts are moving so fast today it's hard to keep up.

Good point on bias, perception, etc., and:

Some of this I think is what we often call surprise, but may just as often be willful ignorance in that either we did not believe what we were seeing, or that we disregarded the evidence in favor of predisposition.

Recently, Ken and I had a little sidebar re: Chinese POWs in Korea (late Oct 1950) and FECOM C2's refusal to recognize the threat they posed. Knew I'd seen the story before; and lo and behold, in Fehrenbach's This Kind of War (p.315) is a Wide World photo (7 Nov 1950) of Ned Almond (Ken's Corps CO) talking to one of them, big as life (actually, the Chicom is pretty small). Almond knew they were Chinese; but Willloughby disregarded reality in favor of the dogmatic perception of Tokyo HQ.

Agreed, it usually is not that clear; and your job (to something I can relate) is like a hot day on a 200 yd bench rest range where the scope picture looks more like a fishbowl of roiling water.

------------------------
Hey, as to Laura Secord, here's a Wiki. She illustrates a point about civil wars - and probably relevant to Astan. Laura's husband James (officer in Loyalist Butler's Rangers) was a relative (distant cousin) of my wife's ggg-grandmother. The Secor (Secord; originally Sicard) family was of French Huguenot ancestry (Ambrose Sicard coming to NY in the 1600s). During the RW, the family split into Loyalists (James, etc.), Neutralists and Rebels (my wife's side). New York was a mess of conflicting people.

I don't know where you put all that into a plan. Hire a Pashtun genealogist, I suppose.

Tis a complicated world you have to plan for. We do appreciate it (which is why we sent you and pay you the big bucks :).

[Rob Thornton]

Originally Posted by jmm99

The bottom line, with relevance to this thread, is that, where law and politics for each side are based on entirely different constructs, their operational plans will also differ. CvC, methinks. In short, each side will be fighting a different war within the same armed conflict.

A full-spectrum planner would, in an ideal world, say: OK, here is our plan (version 1) based on our legal and political constructs and taking into account our operational capabilities

. But, here is their likely plan based on their legal and political constructs and taking into account their operational capabilities. So, to meet their challenge, we have to adapt our plan (version 2; etc., what will they then do ?). Final question (version Nx) - Can we do that and still achieve our legal and political end goals ?

I think this is what design can do for you. It does not mean that it will, it just means that as a investigative, learning tool , design can help you more accurately identify points of friction, convergent and divergent points, tolerance levels, etc.

JMM's point about the world of full spectrum planner and in an ideal world is a good one. The GIGO model is a good place to start as what you learn often depends on the knowledge that you been begin with - this is an area we could probably do better in if we cultivated multiple form of engagement that could feed a learning model vs. the natural types of compartmentalization we seem to enforce. However, there is also the issue of the willingness to learn and acknowledge natural bias - this is no small cultural issue as often the desire and pressure to just do something often overrule better judgment -e.g. just because we can does not mean we should.

The last question JMM asks is the reality of policy. Many times the policy requirements (CvC - the attraction to the object in view) are so great as to be immediate. Some of this I think is what we often call surprise, but may just as often be willful ignorance in that either we did not believe what we were seeing, or that we disregarded the evidence in favor of predisposition. Ken has made the point in many other threads about the poor decisions ref. US AID and USIS. I bring this up because of the discussion on other threads about "networks of networks" - multiple organizations doing multiple things on multiple levels touch different networks and can thicken them. Provided the information is analyzed for relevance to strategic (and operational if an operation is underway) questions, the ability to shape the conditions may be greater then if we wait to the point where its a contingency and positions are hardened (Means + Will = Resistance).

Also Marc T - who was Laura Secord?