New Rules of War

[zenpundit]

First, a thank you to Wilf for giving me a head's up about this discussion earlier today. It was interesting to read being composed of a mixture of fair criticism of Arquilla's article and some comments that are, IMHO, missing the forest for the trees or are inexplicably just missing. I'd like to weigh in on a couple of points.

What I found to be very odd, on a board where strategic thinking is highly valued, that no one addressed Arquilla's introduction where he raised the critical variable of cost-effectiveness of large unit operations against smaller, irregular and networked opponents. Maybe Arquilla was not explicit enough. Let me try.

In WWII, the US spent approximately $ 330 billion 1940 dollars to wage war. By any standard that was a lot of money. However, for that fantastic sum, the US received a considerable strategic and tactical ROI including: contributing to the destruction, defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan; the deaths of roughly 11 million Axis soldiers and civilians; according to John Keegan, producing enough equipment and munitions to outfit 1200 divisions; thousands of combatant ships; 300,000 planes and three functioning atomic bombs, two of which saw use against the enemy.

Now, taking the lower-end estimate expenditure of $ 1 trillion for the war on terror, how does the ROI today compare to the example of WWII?

We have killed or captured low thousands (less than 10k) Islamist insurgents, some of who are al Qaida (President Bush claimed 75 % of AQ leadership) but AQ has held out against the US more than twice as long as the Wehrmacht and still has refuge in Pakistan. We have occupied Afghanistan and overthrown the Taliban government that hosted AQ, but the Taliban too has a refuge in Pakistan and continues to field fighters in Afghanistan. We invaded and occupied Iraq and needed a prolonged campaign to pacify the country and managed to exterminate an AQ affiliate there ( that only appeared because of our invasion). We have circumscribed AQ's operational capacity but from 2001-2010, the group has still managed to sporadically sponsor/inspire significant acts of terrorism in allied countries.

How much do you think each capture/kill of AQ costs per capita compared to killing or capturing an Axis soldier in WWII ?

"a big battalion can split into the 'small and many' when required". True, but how much is it costing us for the "big battalion" to try to go "small and many". Is the burn rate of money sustainable for the United States until AQ runs out of guys?

If not, then you have the operational prescription for spending your way to defeat. Which is what we are doing now.

Kind of like.... Vietnam, where incidentally, we lost despite having much better everything than the enemy (except of course, a strategy to win).

Speaking of the Vietnam War, if Wilf is confused on how small unit, tactical, swarming can have a strategic effect (or what it is), roll some old news video of VC terrorists swarming and seizing the US Embassy in Saigon during Tet, broadcast to the whole world.

Re-capturing the Embassy (which was not in doubt) or inflicting a catastrophic military defeat on the VC ( which the US and ARVN did) hardly mattered. The VC casualties during Tet were ultimately replaced by Northerners but the lost political credibility of MACV or the USG could not.

[William F. Owen]

Now, taking the lower-end estimate expenditure of $ 1 trillion for the war on terror, how does the ROI today compare to the example of WWII? [

Did he say that? I must have missed it. OK, so stupid people doing stupid stuff is .... stupid? Point being, if War today is really "more fast moving and unbelievably complicated," why should modern War not cost more than old simple WW2?
Fact is, War today is not more complicated - nor is warfare. We just believe it is, so we are happy to justify the costs on that basis. So what's Arquilla's point? That the level of analysis is very poor? Not argument from me.

Speaking of the Vietnam War, if Wilf is confused on how small unit, tactical, swarming can have a strategic effect (or what it is), roll some old news video of VC terrorists swarming and seizing the US Embassy in Saigon during Tet, broadcast to the whole world.

Certainly not confused. The attack on the Embassy had no element of so-called "swarming" what so ever. Many hundreds of decisions and actions taken after 1968 had significantly more effect on the outcome of the Vietnam war than some news footage. Wars are won and lost because of really decisive events. Not pictures of irrelevant events.

Saying "Swarming" is baby talk. It's like saying "Blitzkrieg". It pretty much indicates the person using it, is not well grounded in history, tactical doctrine, or anything that usefully progresses the discussion.

[Bill Moore]

Some initial rough thoughts on swarming that I hope to clean up later, but in the meantime swarm away on my comments if you wish.

Examples of military units employing the conventional tactics of encirclement, isolate, attack (whether at one point, or multiple points) is a terrible example if the intent is to show how the world has changed and the military just hasn't keep pace. Also agree with Wilf on the strategic comments, what strategic swarming example did he present? The Rand paper wasn't any better.

Putting article and discussing the concept of swarming from other discussions I had about swarming (before 9/11); it originally was self-organizing crowds who respond to spontaneously, or nearly spontaneously to an event. In some cases the swarm develops momentum over time. I don't think we or our enemies have yet learned to harness this potential to its full capacity.

Rough examples, and perhaps upon further consideration I'll withdraw these, but for now they are ideas for consideration.

1. The battle for Seattle, while many of the groups attended the protests with the clear intent to not only demonstrate against globalism, but create chaos they managed to trigger a much larger response where numerous protestors (who had no intent to do this originally) responded to the events and swarmed upon the security forces, and to some extent they actually self organized as a crowd. A few short years later we saw protesters from all over Europe swarm upon Genova, Italy to do the same thing.

2. I think many of the Eastern European independence movements (from the USSR) were representative of swarming.

3. There have been many instances of cyber swarming. There have been many times in recent years where the internet crowd would form a community of interest (self organizing) and attack a particular computer.

4. In Iraq there were many cases where coalition forces would be attacked, and spontaneously (not planned) numerous civilans would join the fray and swarm upon the unit in peril.

5. Most recently we had many Iranians self organize and protest the legitimacy of the election using twitter and other social networking devices, which resulted in a swarming action of sorts.

What's the so what of this? I think swarming can be used as an unconventional means to achieve strategic effect by intentionally releasing some information that turns on the swarm. This can be employed by both State and non-State actors.

Tired, calling it a night, but I think you see where I'm trying to go with this.

[Firn]

Some initial rough thoughts on swarming that I hope to clean up later, but in the meantime swarm away on my comments if you wish.

I think it will be interesting to give the concepts of biological swarms a closer look. Still Ken is on something when he points at the human element. So far, the use of principles of the so called "swarm intelligence" seems to have been proven to be a very interesting instrument in specific areas like computing.

"Ant warfare" too is fascinating stuff. And there is much more than meets the eye.


Firn

[Fuchs]

I personally have an interest in how we could exploit 'natural' self-organisation of people (for example let them find their talented leader themselves instead of force them to accept one) and horizontal coordination (neighbouring units cooperate to reduce the need for guidance of relatively ignorant staffs from higher levels).

[M-A Lagrange]

Dear Fuch

Your point is extremely valuable.
Dr Kilcullen did point out, in a past article in SWJ, the fact that for practicle reasons we did not really move since cold war as we still are looking for an elite to speak with. He was pointing out that because of our patern of governance we do need to have elites that do conform to our (western) standards.
the solution we did found to have the people choosing their chiefs and elites are elections. But as we all know here, elections do not warranty that the people will choose their elite, an elite their consider as legitimate and even less an elite that WE will consider as a good and relevant interlocutor.

I really think that there is something to be digging out on that particular point that will really bring a new way in "war", especially in the stabilisation/state building phase.

[Tukhachevskii]

Speaking of the Vietnam War, if Wilf is confused on how small unit, tactical, swarming can have a strategic effect (or what it is), roll some old news video of VC terrorists swarming and seizing the US Embassy in Saigon during Tet, broadcast to the whole world. .

Sir,

Although addressed to Wilf I would like to make some observations. The example you use of the attack on the Saigon embassy is disingenuous. The attack’s perceived victory had more to do with the North’s Dich Van propaganda programme which paid dividends when US news anchors handed the North a victory on a plate without checking the facts on the ground first. The camera men had no situational awareness and had never been embedded with US troops and thus knew nothing about combat or the disorientation that they would experience. Furthermore, the attack itself was actually a poorly planned “raid” by a reinforced infantry section/depleted platoon which was, appearances to the contrary (i.e., “news” footage), was quickly dealt with my the marines and MPs in duty. “Swarming” as a concept is what Kripke would have called a flaccid designator (i.e., what it seeks to designate is not the same across all possible worlds or even contexts) given that many of the activities which it claims to explain (in catch-all fashion) actually have established TTPs within service/JP doctrine (such as carrier aviation attacks on enemy ships, submarine “wolfpacks”, SOF raids, et al). “Swarming” as a concept, rather than a loose metaphor, is about as useful as designating all modern conflicts short of full-scale inter-state war “4th Generation Warfare”.

On the embassy attack see the following (for example);
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/Mag...8/0108tet.aspx

[zenpundit]

Marshal Tukhachevskii wrote:

Although addressed to Wilf I would like to make some observations. The example you use of the attack on the Saigon embassy is disingenuous. The attack’s perceived victory had more to do with the North’s Dich Van propaganda programme which paid dividends when US news anchors handed the North a victory on a plate without checking the facts on the ground first. The camera men had no situational awareness and had never been embedded with US troops and thus knew nothing about combat or the disorientation that they would experience

This is the equivalent to saying "No fair! They cheated!" and that had we been able to control the environment and worldview of the participants, all would have been well.

Well, sure but unfortunately, the attack in Saigon occurred within the real world and not in a war-game with do-overs.

Yes, the VC acquired a "perceived victory" by seizing the embassy - force was used to acheive a strategic political effect. Complaining about the medium - here the media and their deficiencies - is like complaining about the electrical grid when a saboteur cuts power lines ("If the grid had been designed properly...."). Moreover, you are making an assumption that the reporters and camera men lacked situational awareness. There were 12 million WWII vets in America and 1..8 million who served in the Korean War. Some of these folks were reporters, photographers and editors.

“Swarming” as a concept is what Kripke would have called a flaccid designator (i.e., what it seeks to designate is not the same across all possible worlds or even contexts) given that many of the activities which it claims to explain (in catch-all fashion) actually have established TTPs within service/JP doctrine (such as carrier aviation attacks on enemy ships, submarine “wolfpacks”, SOF raids, et al).

With all due respect to the erect Mr.Kripke, I never said "swarming" has to be used across all possible worlds. I think concepts are best used where as models that accurately represent the phenomena they purport to describe. Where they don't, use something else that fits better. Few concepts will scale up seamlessly from a platoon to a strategic nuclear exchange.

The VC swarming the embassy in Saigon may have been tactically amateurish and poorly planned. That's interesting but irrelevant. It was good enough to seize the embassy.

[zenpundit]

Wilf wrote:

"Certainly not confused. The attack on the Embassy had no element of so-called "swarming" what so ever. Many hundreds of decisions and actions taken after 1968 had significantly more effect on the outcome of the Vietnam war than some news footage. Wars are won and lost because of really decisive events. Not pictures of irrelevant events.'

Most historians of the Vietnam War would strenuously disagree with your interpretation Wilf.

Sure, there are downstream decisions of greater importance but they would have been different decisions - sometimes in response to different questions -had Tet been considered a victory.

Westmoreland, of course asserted Tet was a victory for the US in military terms and technically, he was correct. It also did not matter. After being told of progress for years by high civilian and military officials, Americans watched towns, bases and the embassy in South Vietnam being overrun on television. The effect of irrelevant pictures can be profound

Point being, if War today is really "more fast moving and unbelievably complicated," why should modern War not cost more than old simple WW2?

Scale comes to mind.

Also, why would "fast" always mean more expensive than "slow"? Moreover, situations might be complex or complicated but proposed solutions might be simple. And whether the solutions are simple or complex does not automatically correlate with cost by itself.

Using large units against small, irregular, networked opponents has been very expensive. Stupidity surely adds costs but the base cost of moving large military forces around the globe ain't cheap.

[William F. Owen]

Most historians of the Vietnam War would strenuously disagree with your interpretation Wilf.

Maybe, but as most write drivel, I disregard them.

Sure, there are downstream decisions of greater importance but they would have been different decisions - sometimes in response to different questions -had Tet been considered a victory.

Evidence? Tet did not break the American will to fight. It's a myth. US troop levels went on rising until Jan 69 and did not begin decreasing till August 69. Nixon invaded Cambodia in March 1970! The 1973 oil crisis doomed the South far more than Tet.

Westmoreland, of course asserted Tet was a victory for the US in military terms and technically, he was correct. It also did not matter. After being told of progress for years by high civilian and military officials, Americans watched towns, bases and the embassy in South Vietnam being overrun on television. The effect of irrelevant pictures can be profound

What was the effect? Please tell me how TV pictures in Jan 1968 effected the decisions taken by Nixon in 1973.

Also, why would "fast" always mean more expensive than "slow"? Moreover, situations might be complex or complicated but proposed solutions might be simple. And whether the solutions are simple or complex does not automatically correlate with cost by itself.

I never said fast. Arquilla did. Meaningless to me. I agree the solutions should be simple. All mine are. Simple works. Unfortunately we have a military academic community focussed on masturbating over the imagined problems, and coming up with things like "swarming."

Using large units against small, irregular, networked opponents has been very expensive. Stupidity surely adds costs but the base cost of moving large military forces around the globe ain't cheap.

I happy with expensive, as long as its effective. You cannot use business words and norms to try and understand military power.
What is a "networked opponent?" Please tell me. How is some bunch of Taliban speaking on ICOMS we are listening to "networked?" Using a cell-phone?

[zenpundit]

Would LBJ have lost the presidential primary in New Hampshire without the effects of Tet? His poll numbers dropped steeply

Would LBJ have withdrawn from the race for the presidency on March 1st or called a halt to bombing the enemy in order to seek a negotiated settlement? Johnson had called for a military victory in Vietnam, officially, only two and half years earlier.

Nixon entered office in January 1969 and started withdrawing troops by late summer. Richard Nixon never had any intention of winning the Vietnam War, though he'd liked to have seen GVN scrape by with some kind of independence, it was not a vital US national interest to him if it did (even less to Kissinger). Invading Cambodia or bombing North Vietnam was never used by Nixon to pursue a military victory but in context of gaining the upper hand in a negotiated settlement with Hanoi and triangulating secret diplomacy with Moscow and opening relations with Peking.,

Looks like the will to to continue fighting took a severe dent at least

[William F. Owen]

Hi Zen "Panther 35 in on the guns"

You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.

So spend blood and treasure for little effect makes no sense? I agree. That's why I want effect over efficiency and not "cheap stuff" or "cost saving." The debate is what serves the purpose. Not what it costs.

Would LBJ have withdrawn from the race for the presidency on March 1st or called a halt to bombing the enemy in order to seek a negotiated settlement? Johnson had called for a military victory in Vietnam, officially, only two and half years earlier.

Tet was significant. It did not loose the war, or even represent a turning point. It wasn't Kursk or Stalingrad. - and was the North better of with Nixon than LBJ?

Nixon entered office in January 1969 and started withdrawing troops by late summer. Richard Nixon never had any intention of winning the Vietnam War, though he'd liked to have seen GVN scrape by with some kind of independence, it was not a vital US national interest to him if it did (even less to Kissinger).

Nixon had a strategy, unlike LBJ. He was no less determined to "win."

Invading Cambodia or bombing North Vietnam was never used by Nixon to pursue a military victory but in context of gaining the upper hand in a negotiated settlement with Hanoi and triangulating secret diplomacy with Moscow and opening relations with Peking.,

Sorry but it was. It was instrumental in the coup in Cambodia and it knocked out all the major NVA base areas for two years. No single action did more military damage to the NVA than the Cambodian invasion. It was military action focussed on military forces, and yes it had strategic effect.

Watergate and the 73 Oil crisis doomed SVN greatly more than the very minor reversals of Tet five years before. - and ultimately, too many Americans died for no strategic goal the US was prepared to risk against China and the USSR.
Wars are not won and lost on CNN, or the front page of the New York Times.

[Ken White]

But I can't see most western politicians accepting that; the need for 'control' drives their thinking...

Zenpundit:

What I found to be very odd, on a board where strategic thinking is highly valued, that no one addressed Arquilla's introduction where he raised the critical variable of cost-effectiveness of large unit operations against smaller, irregular and networked opponents. Maybe Arquilla was not explicit enough. Let me try.

Perhaps because cost effectiveness in this context is either a red straw or a herring man. As is your example. WW II expense are largely irrelevant to fighting today. A WWII Infantryman carried on his person or had usually readily available about $500.00 worth of clothing and equipment in 1944. That's roughly $5,620.00 in 2006 dollars.

His 2006 counterpart will have had about $25,000.00 in clothing and equipment in that year dollars. The majority of that difference is for materiel that did not exist in 1944. The NVG alone can run from 2 to 10K type dependent. Optical sights on all weapons...

Then consider UAVs and other factors.

That's merely one small point, a far larger issue is what capability those dollars bought and what combat effectiveness was or is produced. Cost effectiveness is too easily skewed to prove that money is being 'wasted.' What should be purchased for the spending is combat effectiveness. I have no doubt what so ever that the average Infantryman in Viet Nam was more capable than his WW II counterpart probably by a factor of two-- and I have no doubt that my serving Son and his contemporaries are miles ahead of us old guys, probably by another factor of at least two and quite possibly up to four. So yes, we're spending more but we're buying far more capability with fewer but considerably more expensive people.

As an aside, comparing wars is rarely wise, all are different and each must be taken on its own merits. My favorite is to point out that we usually fight as Brigades or RCTs and only in two recent wars did we really fight Divisions, so compare WW II to Desert Storm...

Further on Viet Nam. You may be correct in your statement of the Historians perception of the embassy seizure in Saigon and I'm old and thus have a suspect memory but my recollection that the embassy seizure was a quite minor blip except for the political wonks who made a big deal out of nothing. Most American pretty much ignored except for being hacked at the politicians US who allowed,even encouraged it to happen. I have to agree with Wilf, most of the Historians have made a hash of Viet Nam -- way too much politics involved in the 'scholarship.'

Shloky:

Which brings us to Ken's point, on which he's absolutely right. It does take a different kind of culture, particularly in regards to training. (Don Vandergriff's leading the way on that front. I'd recommend his books on the topic. )

True on the cultural change and there's another point. First the culture change; Not going to happen. Two reasons, the desire for control by Politicians and senior people who do not trust subordinates because they know that our training is weak. Add a refusal to provide the training really required in a Democracy where Mommas get upset at a 1 to 2 percent KIA rate in training -- and that's what effective training will cost. We've only been able to really do that in major wars (Civil, WW I and WW II). We could not or did not do it during Korea, during Viet Nam and we are not doing it now. We train better than we ever have but we are still a long way from training competent soldiers and Marines, Officer or Enlisted right out of initial entry.

Another factor is recruiting people who can and will do the things Argquila and you suggest. I strongly doubt the numbers are there. They could possibly be but you would then create a culture that would make Congress very, very uncomfortable. There are many there who think the Armed forces are already a little to competent...

I agree that Vandergriff's proposals are an improvement but even though only go part way -- and do recall he's been pushing that for over 10 years...

[Scott Shaw]

Shloky,

Here's the thing. How do we coordinate the "swarming" or attacking from multiple directions/with multiple means across the whole of government? We have a hard enough time within DoD with inter-service rivalries and equipment that doesn't talk to each other. And that's just tactical. Who's the person that is going to coordinate the inter-governmental "swarm" that will be the strategy? The only department in our government that has the global capability is Defense (lift, comms, people, money, and compulsory service) and (since this will inevitably involve a nation) the ambassador works for the President and not a combatant commander (or some special four-star). How long did it take for us to get relationships right in Iraq? How long will they take in Afghanistan with that many more nations? What Arquilla says is "strategic" what he describes is tactical and operational. The quote in the box of you 11:28 PM post says it all.

As to Don Vandergriff - I've read his stuff and talked to him about it. It's not new either. It's brought to the attention of folks who need to see it, but it's done on a daily basis in units in our army. Ken White had some great points here. http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...irregular-war/ But it's still at the tactical level. If it is something that folks latch onto and can say, look we're improving our Army with it, then fine, but it (like many other ideas being thrown around) isn't new. It came from Kriegspiel. I do think that there are some good ideas there, but they're what we did in Korea when I was a platoon leader and what I put my platoon leaders through when I was a company commander. Reading and playing out scenarios on a terrain board and then critiquing it isn't new - but again (like Ken says) it works and builds adaptive leaders. Just so Don doesn't hate on me, I do think that it needs to be more in TRADOC courses rather than death by slide and I do think that it needs to be more draconian and folks need to be called out when they make mistakes.

Scott

[shloky]

Shloky,

Here's the thing. How do we coordinate the "swarming" or attacking from multiple directions/with multiple means across the whole of government? We have a hard enough time within DoD with inter-service rivalries and equipment that doesn't talk to each other. And that's just tactical. Who's the person that is going to coordinate the inter-governmental "swarm" that will be the strategy? The only department in our government that has the global capability is Defense (lift, comms, people, money, and compulsory service) and (since this will inevitably involve a nation) the ambassador works for the President and not a combatant commander (or some special four-star). How long did it take for us to get relationships right in Iraq? How long will they take in Afghanistan with that many more nations?

Sure. That's not a flaw in swarming as doctrine, that's question of implementation.

That said, JSOC is a pretty good starting point of achieving what Arquilla's talking about, and how to achieve it. Highly trained, small, distributed teams to conduct complex operations with teams as small as two to several hundred.

What Arquilla says is "strategic" what he describes is tactical and operational. The quote in the box of you 11:28 PM post says it all.

Few units above the company grade; ridding the DoD of all the fat accumulated in the last few decades. Those are strategic choices, focused on restructuring your force to leverage an enhanced information environment. Indeed, the quote does say it all.

As to Don Vandergriff - I've read his stuff and talked to him about it. It's not new either. It's brought to the attention of folks who need to see it, but it's done on a daily basis in units in our army. Ken White had some great points here. http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...irregular-war/ But it's still at the tactical level. If it is something that folks latch onto and can say, look we're improving our Army with it, then fine, but it (like many other ideas being thrown around) isn't new. It came from Kriegspiel.

I do think that there are some good ideas there, but they're what we did in Korea when I was a platoon leader and what I put my platoon leaders through when I was a company commander. Reading and playing out scenarios on a terrain board and then critiquing it isn't new - but again (like Ken says) it works and builds adaptive leaders. Just so Don doesn't hate on me, I do think that it needs to be more in TRADOC courses rather than death by slide and I do think that it needs to be more draconian and folks need to be called out when they make mistakes.

Of course its not new. Not sure anyone has ever claimed that adaptive leadership is new. To claim it's prevalent is disingenuous though.

Training by rote is the norm, training by innovation is rare. Don's work is a useful framework for approaching it.

In the context of swarming, his work can help address the need that Ken brought up - ensuring we have highly trained, highly adaptive guys in the field.

[William F. Owen]

Those are strategic choices, focused on restructuring your force to leverage an enhanced information environment. Indeed, the quote does say it all.

Sorry what does this mean? What is an "enhanced information environment?" Knowing stuff?

[shloky]

Sorry what does this mean? What is an "enhanced information environment?" Knowing stuff?

Knowing more stuff, better, faster, than before.

[Scott Shaw]

Shloky,

I don't know what your perspective is, but just by the nature of the conversations on this board by members of our armed forces and government shows that adaptive leadership is more prevalent than many would like to point out. How far have we come since 2003? How about since 1974?

Check out Paul Yingling's stuff on TRADOC vs the operating force. (as a side not before I bash TRADOC - Is TRADOC completely full of those who want the status quo? Of course not. Folks in TRADOC come from the operating force and therefore fresh blood in. And it's getting much better than it was.) The operating force adapts everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan. I left theater in Jun 2008 and returned in Aug 2009 and then entire division AO had changed rules completely. No more unilateral operations, no more "1 Iraqi = combined ops" A bunch of officers including general officers, NCOs, and Soldiers had to start over in and be ready to go again against some hard fighters in about 30 days. That's adaptive.

Yeah, I acknowledge that we have some work to do, but cut us some slack. Don's primary arguments are against the institutional Army and they are changing as well. Don's website and the USMA Department of Military Instruction show it.

So, no, I don't think that I'm being disingenuous.

And JSOC's small teams doing stuff is still tactical or at the very highest operational. They may have an effect that is seen at the strategic level, but that is still only one or at max two elements of national power. IF we were to expand USSOCOM's mission to affect all of the elements of national power, it would only be able to do it in a small region. And if we were to expand it completely, we might as well re-name USSOCOM the "Department of Everything." It might be easier, but again, every other department within the USG would have to sign on to it - as they did the stability operations doctrine.

Scott

[shloky]

Scott,

Hey, sure. There's been progress on the training front, not trying to discount that. We're not 'there' yet though.

And JSOC's small teams doing stuff is still tactical or at the very highest operational. They may have an effect that is seen at the strategic level, but that is still only one or at max two elements of national power. IF we were to expand USSOCOM's mission to affect all of the elements of national power, it would only be able to do it in a small region. And if we were to expand it completely, we might as well re-name USSOCOM the "Department of Everything." It might be easier, but again, every other department within the USG would have to sign on to it - as they did the stability operations doctrine.

My point was JSOC is a good prototype. A model that can be used as a starting point for implementing a swarming doctrine across DoD.

As you describe, of course reforming bureaucracy will be a long, arduous process full of compromises - that's the nature of reform. Don't think that's a good reason not to though.

[Schmedlap]

By "swarming" are we referring to a tactic similar to what the guerrillas used against the US COP in Wanat? That is fine if you're a third-world guerrilla. American forces have a much pickier public back home that gets upset if anyone dies.

For us, why bother swarming? I'm reminded of a book that I read before joining the Army. While it's focus is on Special Operations forces, the lessons in it are equally applicable to any force the is outnumbered or facing a well-prepared enemy. Swarming seems like a less efficient use of resources, that is more difficult to C2, with negligible, if any, benefits.