The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[J Wolfsberger]

...More importantly, i think that it does not capture the current uses of cyberspace as a "realm of conflict" well at all. IMO, cyberspace needs to be treated as if it were any other type of terrain in which and through which conflict and co-operation may take place.

Absolutely, 100%, dead nuts on correct.

And adding to it, the entire media is part of the military landscape.

[slapout9]

Absolutely, 100%, dead nuts on correct.

And adding to it, the entire media is part of the military landscape.

Double no, triple dead on it. Warden was of the first people to mention that in the future whole wars could be won or lost in the Cyber-Phere as he called it.

[William F. Owen]

And adding to it, the entire media is part of the military landscape.

So we need to think about "Media" like Logistics, and Intelligence?
If military operations are being conducted in line with legal guidance, why consider the media?

Where does media have it's greatest effect? On the political dimension or the military dimension?
Military action sets forth policy. I submit that media is part of the political landscape. - more over, how is media different from "public opinion?"

It would be a very great mistake to assume all our "enemies" are "Skilled media operators" or that it matters as much as some think, because the Russian and Chinese have very different ideas.

[zenpundit]

Hi Wilf,

Will try to respond in reverse order, more or less, since my last comment:

If military operations are being conducted in line with legal guidance, why consider the media?

Good and fair question. Because if you do not deign to consider the media's impact of how they are likely to be framing military operations, by embracing an artificial mental compartmentalization between military and political domains, the civilian policy makers over time are going to have the lawyers find technical reasons to increasingly circumscribe how you carry out military operations beyond what is required by the laws of war ( in the very long run, this creates agitation to change the laws of war themselves by diplomatic means to the further disadvantage of conventional militaries facing insurgents). Some of their media driven ROE that they will want for political reasons are not going to make much sense or enhance the likelihood that an operation will be successful.

There's reasons that the political ratchet has gone in only one direction -greater restrictions on the use of military force - since WWII. Not wanting to be bothered with contemplating the implications of the "political landscape" is in itself, not a winning strategy for militaries retaining their legal ability to carry out their core function effectively.

I submit that media is part of the political landscape. - more over, how is media different from "public opinion?"

Having sat, in my time, at editorial meetings, it's the difference from being the playwright or the director and sitting in the audience watching the play unfold on stage. Any idea that the media reports rather than intentionally shapes is completely daft.

I submit that Steam and Telegraph has at least as substantial social and cultural effect, as the Internet, Computers and so-called modern media

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I agree. Not everyone adapted immediately or neatly though. It's a couple of generations between the experience of the Union using railroads and telegraphs in the Civil War or von Roon's mobilization reforms and the elaborate, universal scale seen in 1914. Moreover, von Roon faced heavy opposition from that pesky political landscape.

Yet read the military discussions of late 19th Century and you see how military men have got their heads around steam power, new weapons, railways, telegraph and most of everything else. They are applying what they know for certain and not attempting to hypothesise or guess at what they do not.

Across what Wilf, sixty years?

The flaw here is you are looking at the discussions of the military figures over a long stretch of time who understood the implications of change and got things right. Everyone knows who George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower were. No one recalls the name of the superior officer who told them to stop writing articles about tanks if they wanted to stay in the Army. DeGaulle was not the voice of the French officer corps on tanks either, for that matter.

Speculation and hypothesis are not bad things. Provided they lead to something empirical, they're a gateway to progress.

If they say "consider the impact of the media," they are totally wrong, because the "effect" depends on the action, and you cannot predict 2nd and 3rd order effects reliably or even how the media will see them. - you cannot tell the future.

True, you cannot predict second or third order effects in a social environment in a mathematical or precise sense but you can forecast. We intuitively game out probabilities whenever we make decisions in situations where there are many variables in play - and when a decision is important we tend to give the more critical and likely variables greater consideration before deciding on a course of action.

So why not point this out and stop panicking about complexity and media? Do we really think that the political dynamic of today is more complex than that in Europe at the time of Luther?

The critical relationship is between military force and politics. Media only bears on the latter - as CvC explained. Surely the aim here is to explain something simply and usefully, not compound the problem

Who is panicking? The simple explanation is that in combat situations where the political dynamic retains supremacy over military necessity or "best practice", the media is likely to have a lot of influence over the outcome by eroding the political will you mentioned. Ignoring that reality and proceeding full steam ahead will contribute to that erosion.

Whose media and effect on who? You cannot please everybody. Military forces, use violence to gain political outcomes. "The Media" is not a cohesive coherent body. What play well with Fox, will be called a "war crime" with the BBC, and no one in Texas cares what anyone in Cairo things

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There are always multiple audiences to consider and choices to be made among them. There always was but today they are more likely to view events in something closer to real time, with greater simultaneous reactions. Or at least less lag.

So show me successful armies that failed to adapt? 1914-18 and 1936-45 saw far more radical changes in Warfare than anything seen today. Why do we now think it "requires adaptation." Kind of silly to even say it, in an historical context

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It's the unsuccessful who failed to adapt. by definition, the successful eventually came around.

Media influence is ENTIRELY political. The impact of the media is only relevant to the the policy being sought by force. If it is not, then commanders are asking Media permission or approval to do stuff - which is like asking an 8 years old for advice on marriage.

I share your low opinion of the media - but in this instance, the media is more like an 8 year old who exerts a degree of control over the adults in the house. Ignoring media influence or calling it political doesn't help change the fact that it influences events or reactions of political leaders.

[William F. Owen]

Some of their media driven ROE that they will want for political reasons are not going to make much sense or enhance the likelihood that an operation will be successful.

So are the ROE driven by Politics/Policy or media?

There's reasons that the political ratchet has gone in only one direction -greater restrictions on the use of military force - since WWII. Not wanting to be bothered with contemplating the implications of the "political landscape" is in itself, not a winning strategy for militaries retaining their legal ability to carry out their core function effectively.

I am all for the military gaining "political goals" via force or threat of force. What leave me confused is the inability of many to understand military force as an instrument of policy. Media speaks to an effect on Policy, - and only then in "policy" an ameliorating agent to violence. The military should only listen to Politicians, not Editors.

Any idea that the media reports rather than intentionally shapes is completely daft.

Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean. Some media are actors in the conflict and do manufacture or adapt messages to suit a policy agenda.

The flaw here is you are looking at the discussions of the military figures over a long stretch of time who understood the implications of change and got things right. Everyone knows who George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower were. No one recalls the name of the superior officer who told them to stop writing articles about tanks if they wanted to stay in the Army. DeGaulle was not the voice of the French officer corps on tanks either, for that matter.

Tanks or Mechanisation in general? Point being, a lot said about Tanks, in the 1920's turned out to be dead wrong. - and yet the UK and US both went to war with no horse drawn equipment, unlike the Germans. The general trend since the 19th century is for armies to over-hype technology, not the opposite.

Who is panicking? The simple explanation is that in combat situations where the political dynamic retains supremacy over military necessity or "best practice", the media is likely to have a lot of influence over the outcome by eroding the political will you mentioned. Ignoring that reality and proceeding full steam ahead will contribute to that erosion.

Panic may be too stronger word. Needless waffling perhaps? The reality of the "media" eroding political will has been a major factor in war since Ancient Rome, and before. Media passes information to the Public and the "people" are part of the "trinity." This stuff is not new. My point being precisely that. How Lincoln and Grant viewed the "newspapers" is directly relevant to today.

The infinitely possible and unknowable effects of things we cannot predict, are pointless to consider. For example: NATO kills civilians in Afghanistan = "Sadly unavoidable." The IDF kill civilians in Gaza = "War Crime!"

The primary purpose of modern media is to make money by providing "News entertainment." Personally I do not think Military Operations should be effected by such drivers.