There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
I didn't miss OIF, just referred to it as "Iraq", which I thought sufficiently obvious. I didn't claim that US intervention had ceased, only that it has been scaled back from its Cold War peak.
Actually foreign fighter sources don't correlate very well with dictators installed or sustained by the US. Libya and Syria provide large numbers of foreign fighters, and they have some of the tinniest tinpot dictators around, but those dictators were not installed by the US and are not sustained or supported by the US. The Saudi Government was not installed by the US, receives no US aid, and is in no way dependent on the US.
There's a world of difference between dealing with pre-existing independent autocracies, as we do in China, Uzbekistan, Saudia Arabia, the Gulf States, and many other places, and directly interfering in local political processes to install and preserve autocrats who answer to us and serve our interests, which was our favored MO during the Cold War.
If you're going to maintain that US interference in the domestic affairs of other countries has increased since the Cold War, that really needs to be supported by some evidence, since it's anything but clear. In much of the world, in fact, the trend seems to be quite the opposite.
Very true, but just because there are dictators, friendly or otherwise, doesn't mean they are our tools or our responsibilities. During the Cold War we got used to assuming that any dictator who was nominally on our side was our creation and our tool (even though in fact we often ended up being their tools), and that perception has carried over. It's often not valid. We do ourselves no favors by trying to impose a Cold War paradigm where it doesn't fit, or by squeezing ground truth into a model rather than adjusting the model to deal with varying ground truths.
My mistake.
I was under the impression that when one uses the words "no such thing as" that it was equivalent with "imaginary."
As an example,
"There is simply no such thing as Santa Clause."
"Santa Clause is imaginary."
Well, Santa Clause is REAL! And so is blitzkrieg!
Merry Christmas!
Last edited by M.L.; 12-17-2010 at 02:30 AM.
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
I don't quite agree with the above. Are you talking about "ideas" per se or "ideology"? Ideologies are very important. The "idea" that they are and that there are purely material causes to conflict ignores how one comes to understand/comprehend those causes in the first place. Ultimately, Ideas (relatively free floating concepts) or ideologies (codified systems of thought/dogma) are fundamental to understanding intentions. We don't interpret the world outside of ideology or thought systems or culture. A stream may be a flowing source of fresh water to one group of people (and thuse a natural resource to be exploited) and a living avatar of the mountain god to another. Acknowledgement of it in the former sense doesn't really help us in tackling the problem that one tribe seems to have inadvertendly decalred war on another by taking water/eseence from the stream. Two different sets of peoples may exist in the same material environment but because of their cultural predispositions or their ruling ideology (they may well be alternatives) we intepret and therefore act upon their situation differently. American's have a view of the world which though they find perfectly normal (and thus non-ideological) and the rest of us don't (we have our own normalised/ideological views of the world and vice versa; free-world anyone? Different stata of society and in/out groups will also have their ideologies as will ruling classes/elites, etc. The world simply isn't value-nuetral or non-ideological in anything other than the brute physical sense of "this is something solid in my hand" one associated with physics or natural science.
The fact that we have a global Islmist insrugency is because
Firstly) it defines all Muslims as Muslims and as a Supra-state entity (the Ummah), thereby helping to internationalise local conflicts (which may well be nothing to do with Islam) much like Catholicism did in the early modern period,
Secondly) it provides an insturmental and explanatory framework/narrative within which to situate their identites ("British" muslims can empathises with Muslims in suffering in Palestine) and,
Thirdly), it is the basis for that interpretation in the first place.
It's easy for us in our ideologically relativist countries ("the west" if you like, though itself an ideological construct) to think that we don't think ideologically (when we do). Part of the problme resides in our rationalist propensity to divide life into distinct realms when in actual fact fact it's all inter-related. Ideas are not separable from actions, motives or historical events (a la Collingwood)
Last edited by Tukhachevskii; 12-17-2010 at 10:12 AM. Reason: Forget it! Can't find the references I need to illustrate
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
No, I'm simply saying that ideology is not the overarching bogeyman it is made out to be.
Catholics in N. Ireland did/do not resist English occupation because Irish tend to be Catholic and English tend to be Protestant; but it makes a handy label that diverts attention away from the political nature of the conflict for the state.
"ideology" of communism was used to help move forward the "idea" of liberty from European colonialism in many countries. It wasn't communism that caused the problem, it was the presence of illegitimate foreign/foreign created governance.
We see much the same today with Islamism. It is a handy devise for a certain family of populaces with similar political issues to take on where legal means of challenging those political issues are limited at best.
Its nice to be able to blame one's problems on others. Addicts of all sort do this with a skill of rationalization that blinds them to how they are lying to themselves and everyone around them. They become delusional, and it is only when they have that "face down in the gutter, come to Jesus" moment of how F'd up they are that true healing can begin. This is why one of the first steps of the 12-step program is the admission of responsibility for the problem.
Every government faced with insurgency should begin with a 12-step program; in fact, a session at all of these large summit meetings should be held in the basement of a church or community center, with world leaders sitting humbly in a circle on hard plastic chairs as they take turns recounting their problems and struggles to overcome them.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
OK. I see where you're comming from. I think the kind of instrumental ideology you are talking about is often refered to by Marxists as false conscousness or nystification. What I'm trying to get at is something deeper and more constitutive. When Stalin was approached by the Allies to reinstate the Collective Security pact he shrugged it off and went for the Nazi's instead (who were ideologically predisposed toward hating the Bolsheviks more than the "Western" Allies). How do we explain that through pure materialism? According to one kind of non-ideological/idea centric conception (structural realism) Stalin's "real" interests should have been to join the Allies and balance against Nazism. He didn't. So Ideas, or what he was thinking (his biases if you will) are imortant factors as is the background knowledge to which they refered. Stalin's reasoning was that the capitalist powers (of which Fascist/Nazi germany was the most aggressive) wanted the Soviet Union (their natural enemy) to be dragged into a war with nazism (the highest stage of capitalism) to weaken the USSR. Stalin thought, why the hell do I want to do that. Better to let the advanced capitalist state (Germany) fight the lesser capitalist states and let them exhaust each other to the death or one will win (germany) which will then be so weakened that it too will be unable to stop the eventual triumph of communism. Either way we (the USSR) stay out of it until a more propitious time so, yeah, lets make our bed with Hitler, its better for us. (This is not the famous ICEBREAKER thesis by the way, that;'s a purely military hypothesis that sought to argue wether the USSR was preparing to invade Germany...they were but only after what they assumed would be a war of exhuastion between the Nazis and the "Allies". (See Albert Weeks's Stalin's Other War or read the review here);
Now, assuming Stalin (or Muslims) would actually get into a church you assume that we all share the same understanding/interpreation of "reality" (which isn't neutral) and that we can all be set free from our mind forged manacles to see reality as it really is (only we can't because reality depends upon one's point of view/culture/ideology [in the non-instrumentalist socially constructive sense]). Berger and Luckmann have a pretty good go at expalining that kind of stuff hereTo conclude that ideology was readily disposable, meaningless, or otherwise irrelevant to Soviet policy making, especially as concerned the global arena and long-standing Leninist revolutionary goals, is unrealistic, unhistorical and inaaplicable. For the Soviet regime, its ideological underpinnings were fundamental. It is no exageration to say, one must think, that, to use the Soviet expression, ideology served as the Soviet regime's "lodestar". (p. 2 from the book)
Last edited by Tukhachevskii; 12-17-2010 at 05:44 PM.
Interesting passage from Brassey's encyclopedia of land forces and warfare By Franklin D. Margiotta:
"[Carl von Clausewitz] introduces the term campaign on the strategic level because he needs a military operation between "engagement" and "war" since the distance in time, space, and force is too great between the two.
One can justifiably argue that Clausewitz sometimes reached the conclusion that there should be a third military level between strategy and tactics, but he did not define a new one expressly below strategy."
As I have said before, the operational level of warfare was born, though not matured, in the Napoleonic period. Clausewitz, writing On War as more or less an "After Action Review" of the Napoleonic period, recognized this nascent concept. However, it wasn't until WWI, when the need to coordinate vast armies, as well as synchronize combined arms tactics, did the operational level truly come into its own.
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
CvC said somewhere(can't remember which book) that the connection between Strategy and Tactics is Marching! Remember Strategy is choosing the right point,the right time,and the right force. You march to the right point, at the right time, with the right force in order to engage the enemy with Tactics.
I cannot remember that he did say that, but that is largely correct. A campaign/operation merely ensures that tactics take place in the time and place relevant to the strategy.
This is not correct. Campaign does not sit between Strategy and tactics.
Not true. The British had no concept even close to "the operational level," and they did the majority of the effective fighting in 1918. Indeed they never even talked about "operational level" until they copied the US in the 1980s.However, it wasn't until WWI, when the need to coordinate vast armies, as well as synchronize combined arms tactics, did the operational level truly come into its own.
Why does anyone want to put a level between Strategy and Tactics? Why complicate something with a falsehood?
The Operational Level is a sophistry invented by men unable to comprehend the basics. The conduct of Operations, does not make for an "Operational level" because all levels of command conduct operations!
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
this question:
from THE U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE GUIDE TO NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES VOLUME I: THEORY OF WAR AND STRATEGY. 4th Edition, J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr., Editor, July 2010 (p.13; p.21 pdf):from Wilf
Why does anyone want to put a level between Strategy and Tactics?
Both CvC and Jomini (both used "operations" as a key element of their strategic teaching) are rejected as being too military only and theater-specific (pp.13-14 of above text):CHAPTER 2
A SURVEY OF THE THEORY OF STRATEGY
J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr.
A common language is both the product of and basis of any effective theory; people conversant in the theory habitually use words in the same way to mean the same thing. Such meanings may be unique to the theoretical context even if the word has other non-theoretical usages. Thus, the word "passion" used in a Christian context has an entirely different meaning than in secular usage. Similarly, doctrinal military terms, while hopefully used consistently by military individuals and organizations, may differ slightly (or even radically) in common usage. Strategy is such a word. Defining it is not as easy as one would think, and the definition is critical.
Part of the problem is that our understanding of strategy has changed over the years. The word has a military heritage, and classic theory considered it a purely wartime military activity—how generals employed their forces to win wars. In the classic usage, strategy was military maneuvers to get to a battlefield, and tactics took over once the forces were engaged. That purely military concept has given way to a more inclusive interpretation. The result is at least threefold: 1) Strategists generally insist that their art includes not only the traditional military element of power but also other elements of power like politics and economics. Most would also accept a peacetime as well as a wartime role for strategy. 2) With increased inclusiveness the word strategy became available outside the military context and is now used in a variety of disciplines ranging from business to medicine and even sports. 3) As the concept mutated, the military had to invent another term—the U.S. settled on operations or operational art—to describe the high-level military art that had once been strategy.[1]
1. See Hew Strachan, “The Lost Meaning of Strategy,” Survival, Vol. 47, No. 3, Autumn, 2005, pp. 33-54.
So, the reasion why the "operational level" was introduced was not because the changers were "unable to comprehend the basics". They knew exactly what both CvC and Jomini said - it's quoted above by Bartholomees. The reasons are the two he sets out above and which I requote:Clausewitz wrote,
Because this is a classic definition, it is not satisfactory—it deals only with the military element and is at the operational level rather than the strategic. What Clausewitz described is really the development of a theater or campaign strategy. Historian Jay Luvaas used to say that because Clausewitz said something did not necessarily make it true, but did make it worth considering. In this case we can consider and then ignore Clausewitz.“Strategy is the use of the engagement for the purpose of the war. The strategist must therefore define an aim for the entire operational side of the war that will be in accordance with its purpose. In other words, he will draft the plan of the war, and the aim will determine the series of actions intended to achieve it: he will, in fact, shape the individual campaigns and, within these, decide on the individual engagements.”[2]
The Nineteenth Century Swiss soldier and theorist Antoine Henri Jomini had his own definition.
This again is military only and theater-specific.Strategy is the art of making war upon the map, and comprehends the whole theater of war. Grand Tactics is the art of posting troops upon the battle-field according to the accidents of the ground, of bringing them into action, and the art of fighting upon the ground, in contradiction to planning upon a map. Its operations may extend over a field of ten or twelve miles in extent. Logistics comprises the means and arrangements which work out the plans of strategy and tactics. Strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point; grand tactics decides the manner of execution and the employment of the troops.[3]
2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds./trans., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 177.
3. Antoine Henri Baron de Jomini, The Art of War, G. H. Mendell and W. P. Craighill, trans., 1862, reprint, The West Point Military Library Series, Thomas E. Griess and Jay Luvass, eds., Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1971, p. 62.
And an interesting thought from David Betz (at this KoW post, The State of Strategy) re: the result of this switcheroo:1) Strategists generally insist that their art includes not only the traditional military element of power but also other elements of power like politics and economics. Most would also accept a peacetime as well as a wartime role for strategy. 2) With increased inclusiveness the word strategy became available outside the military context and is now used in a variety of disciplines ranging from business to medicine and even sports.
The best answer that I've seen (so far) as to why there is an "operational level of war".David Betz 25 May 2010 at 08:26
Not just you, no; I was struck by a similar thought. If you look at Thomas’s list of old Europe strategists they’re all military up to Engels and Lenin. With the Americans it’s military up to Wohlstetter. ‘Applied strategy’. After that it’s much more civilian and abstract. Strachan talks about this in his series of articles in Survival about strategy starting with ‘The Lost Meaning of Strategy’. The bottom-line seems to be that during century 20 for a number of reasons (but most significantly because of nukes) strategy came to be something ‘practiced’ in the main by civilian academics; the military meanwhile became more or less completely focussed on their ‘operational art’–moving brigades around on a map. So who does ‘strategy’ now? The military? Well, not so much. The politicians? One suspects not. Which leads to the unsettling suspicion that the answer is no one. Which kind of makes sense when you look at the state we’re in.....
Cheers
Mike
PS: So far, 1891 Bigelow, The Principles of Strategy (previously linked to Google Books) is an interesting read - lots of Jominian-CvC "operations" viewed with US military vignettes.
From Book 2-Chapter 1, the J.J.Grahm edition copied from The Clausewitz Homepage. Bold section is added.
"Marches are quite identical with the use of the troops. March in the combat, generally called evolution, is certainly not properly the use of weapons; but it is so completely and necessarily combined with it, that it forms an integral part of that which we call a combat. But the march outside the combat is nothing but the execution of a strategic measure. By the strategic plan is settled, When, where, and with what forces a battle is to be delivered?—and to carry that into execution the march is the only means"
From Book 3-Chapter 8,same source as above. Strategy as a Triple determination.
"Strategy fixes the point where, the time when, and the numerical force with which the battle is to be fought. By this triple determination it has therefore a very essential influence on the issue of the combat."
Last edited by slapout9; 12-18-2010 at 12:22 PM. Reason: add stuff
Sorry, this is garbage. Strategy has always included all instruments of power, but strategy also assumes an opponent, and is always under pinned by the use of force. So strategy only applies in peace, if you are prepared to use force.1) Strategists generally insist that their art includes not only the traditional military element of power but also other elements of power like politics and economics. Most would also accept a peacetime as well as a wartime role for strategy.
2) With increased inclusiveness the word strategy became available outside the military context and is now used in a variety of disciplines ranging from business to medicine and even sports.
That folks in Sport or medicine, use the word "strategy" is utterly irrelevant to any argument in this area.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
One of the tenets of operational warfare is determining lines of operation. In the Napoleonic period, this was quite literally marching, since that is how armies largely moved to and fro. So, it is natural that marching would figure prominently in CvC's conception of campaigning.
Obviously, this concept of lines of operation evolved in later conflicts as marching became less central to the battlefield.
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
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