New Rules of War

[Valin]

Uncommon Knowledge

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5


Foreign Policy: The New Rules of War
The visionary who first saw the age of "netwar" coming warns that the U.S. military is getting it wrong all over again. Here's his plan to make conflict cheaper, smaller, and smarter.
JOHN ARQUILLA
MARCH/APRIL 2010

Every day, the U.S. military spends $1.75 billion, much of it on big ships, big guns, and big battalions that are not only not needed to win the wars of the present, but are sure to be the wrong approach to waging the wars of the future..........(Snip)

[William F. Owen]

Part 1

Well I tried. I watched Part 1 and it was like listening to 8-year-olds talk about
the social sciences. I actually have quite a lot of time for Hanson, so I really do not get where this all goes. Based on what Arquilla said, Napoleon's Armies and Nelson's Navy were "networked."

Twaddle!

[Tukhachevskii]

... at least if you’re a well trained Aussie. Apart from the colloquial use of the term swarm (as opposed to the conceptual status it has acquired in the hands of some) the following comments may be of interest from “Taking Tactics From The Taliban: Tactical Principles For Commanders” from the Australian Army Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, Autumn, 2009 ...

The ‘swarm’ is the Taliban offensive tactic [my emphasis], usually employed against dismounted elements in the ‘green zone’ that remain static for too long (two to three hours) and defensive positions such as overwatch and patrol bases. Some warning of a swarm is often—but not always—provided by the exodus of local Afghans from the area some ten to twenty minutes prior to the attack and an increase in intelligence warning of an offensive. During a swarm, Taliban fighters will manoeuvre on two to four flanks using fire teams of three to six men armed with medium machine-guns and RPGs who attack simultaneously. This was a tactic with which CT Spear became very familiar and tactically equipped to confront. I developed my seventh tactical principle as a response to the Taliban fire pocket and swarm: dismounted patrols must always operate within mortar range.

CT Spear countered the Taliban’s major tactics with carefully planned tactics of its own. The team defeated the fire pocket by fighting into one side while suppressing the other firing points and then rolling them up from the flank. The Taliban fighters would occasionally withdraw to alternate firing points as the team advanced and the commander would then decide how far he wanted to pursue them given his existing boundaries and task.

The team used the same tactic to counter the swarm, although a platoon was unlikely to be able to handle a larger force on its own and such a confrontation would usually turn into a fully-fledged combat team engagement. The element in contact would go into, or remain in, all round defence and allow its JTAC or JFO to call in indirect fire and close air support to buy time for the combat team commander to manoeuvre his cavalry and infantry to support. My eighth and ninth principles supported this and carried the necessary corollaries: any force must contain at least three elements that can support one another while patrolling deep in the ‘greenzone’.

Dismounted sections must operate within 500 metres of one another and platoons within 1000 metres of one another, particularly if they are operating away from the protection of overwatch. Use of this tactic facilitated rapid offensive manoeuvre in support of an element in contact. In essence, we aimed to ‘swarm the swarm’ [my emphasis], in keeping with my tenth principle: fight the most likely course of action, but be postured for the most dangerous.(culled from pp.31-38)