New Rules of War

[marct]

Hi Ken,

Swarming and Checkerboards. They crop up every few years, are touted as the Holy Grail and fail miserably in application far more often than not.

I remember reading some years back, that a science becomes a science when it drops static typologies and looks at change over time. Swarming, checkerboards, etc - any tactic really - can work if the factors limiting the situation are right. No tactic, however, is a Holy Grail; they will all fail if the situational limits are against them.

Those who tout the techniques -- and the net centric stuff-- invariably are theorists who will have no responsibility for executing but cite a success or two and rarely mention the many failures of their recommended techniques.

Hey, I resemble that remark !

More seriously, cherry picking historical examples of the success of a tactic (or strategy) is fine as long as it is designed to highlight the limiting factors. Unfortunately, the author in this article appears to be doing it for another reason. Swarming, as a tactic, seems to work best when there is limited capability for opponent identification and when immediately available defensive technologies can be breached quickly. It also seems to work really nicely when you have both of those conditions and the aim is actually to attack in some other area, usually moral via logistics (i.e. force the non-swarming group to invest heavily in infrastructure and logistical support). Probably the classic campaign along these lines, which, BTW, Arquilla does not mention, was Crassus' expedition against the Parthians.

The theories espoused in the article are not totally wrong but most will fail in combat application due to personnel quality. People are the problem

Actually, training people is the problem. Well trained people and units will be able to shift gears and fight as required.

Yup! That is the lesson he should have drawn from the legions.

The sharp and well trained will do what MarcT said, send out Cohorts for independent operations as required. His summary of the good and bad in the article is on target, not least in this: