Reread the article and the thread. There are several different lines of argument:

What is new about this article?

Given much of it is a review of Col Warden's previous work, what are the strengths and weaknesses of his theory?

How effectively does Col Warden make his historical case to defend his theory?

The last I will leave to Fuchs, as he has done a bang up job so far

So what is new here? What are the strengths and weaknesses? The thesis appears to be:

Regardless of airpower’s potential, it can never realize its real capability so long as it remains bound to an anachronistic view of war with an anachronistic vocabulary. On the contrary, if airpower is truly to come of age, it must do so in the context of a modern concept of war that associates the use of force as directly as possible with end-game strategic objectives, not with the act of fighting. If this is to happen, the operators of airpower must understand, believe, and teach end-game strategy as the foundation of airpower. Failure to do so will condemn airpower to suboptimization and deprive its owners of using force in such a dramatically different way that will achieve national objectives quickly and at minimum cost. To succeed, airpower advocates must stop trying to use airpower as a substitute for its military predecessors, connect it directly to strategic end-games, adopt a new vocabulary to match airpower’s promise, and become serious promoters not of machines but of ideas.

The premises for this appear to be:

Land operations have dominated warfare and the vocabulary of war is land -centric and therefore prevents unconstrained thought about airpower.

This is indeed something I have never seen argued before. The argument made is that landpower was historically used in series, and the things which occured in series were called 'battles'. Doing away with the concept of serial 'battle' will therefore free us of the notion of serial engagement of the adversary and free airpower to be used simultaneously to affect multiple CoGs in parallel.

Has COL Warden read Joint doctrine lately?

When required to employ force, JFCs seek combinations of forces and actions to achieve concentration in various dimensions, all culminating in attaining the assigned objective(s) in the shortest time possible and with minimal casualties. JFCs arrange symmetrical and asymmetrical actions to take advantage of friendly strengths and adversary vulnerabilities and to preserve freedom of action for future operations. JP 3-0

Simultaneity is a key characteristic of the American way of war. It refers to the simultaneous application of power against key adversary capabilities and sources of strength. The goal of simultaneity in joint force operations contributes directly to an adversary’s collapse by placing more demands on
adversary forces and functions than can be handled. This does not mean that all elements of the joint force are employed with equal priority or that even all elements of the joint force will be employed. It refers specifically to the concept of attacking appropriate adversary forces and functions in such
a manner as to cause confusion and demoralization.

The COL's desires seem to be esconced in current doctrine, with the exception of attributing exculsivity of action to airpower.

Unconstrained, airpower provides the vehicle to directly achieve strategic ends without the need for other forces.

What if the strategic ends require interpersonal contact between human beings? Say to gain the support of a potential ally? Why can't land or naval forces be positioned so as to take simultaneous action that directly achives stragic ends? This key premise is actually an assumption, as no evidence is provided that it is true, and it is fairly easy to conjecture situations where it is not true. (for example if your desired end state is to enforce a strategy based on interdiction of maritime contraband how does one do board and search of potential interlopers with airpower?)

Strategy is about conceiving a desired endstate, identifying means to achieve it, implementing a course of action, and deciding when you are done.

Again, right out of Joint doctrine.

b. The design and implementation of leverage and the ability to know how and
when to terminate operations are involved in operational art and are discussed in Chapter III, “Planning Joint Operations.” Because the nature of the termination will shape the futures of the contesting nations or groups, it is
fundamentally important to understand that termination of operations is an essential link between national security strategy, NMS, and end state conditions — the desired outcome. This principle holds true for both war and MOOTW. JP 3-0

Opponents are complicated entities that can be simplified by a systems analysis. (e.g. Five rings model).

Here is where things start to get contentious. The issue is "complicated" vs "Complex". When some of the "five rings" anaysis of Gulf War 1 are looked at, the sample centers of gravity (see http://www.venturist.com/Prometheus%...%20Summary.htm) are given as:

Saddam Hussien (dead),
the electrical system non-functional,
roads and bridges unable to support mobility,
military officers demoralized or defecting,
air defense unable to interfere with US operations.

With the exception of affecting military officers, those are all complicated, but not complex systems that can be modeled, simplified and decomposed into a subset of vital nodes. Physical systems that those that can be effectively approached from a systems analysis perspective. Truely complex systems - most notably social systems - are largely opaque to the sort of systems analysis that is required to predict what an effect will do. Complex systems also have a characteristic of irreducibility - they can be decomposed only so far before any resulting model is no longer useful, and you will not no until after the fact that you have exceeded the irreducibility threshold.


Centers of Gravity can be identified in the system which, if affected quickly and and simultaneously, allow the state of the system to be changed to a new, more desirable state.

Another charateristic of complex systems is that the output can not be predicted from a given set of inputs. You can "set the dials and pul lthe levers" of a complex system the same way, and even if you have modeled it with 100% accuracy, you will get different outputs. When dealing with complex systems there is no way to no way to establish a requisite list of CoGs and no way to be certain that doing something to one COg will have a positive feedback one time and a negative feedback the next. This is the fundamental problem with "effects-basd warfare" in general. In every case Ive seen thee is no "theory of action" that connects the action taken, to the desired result - it is simply a matter of "guilt by association" or "correlation equals causality" (until it doesn't).

Were it possible to create a "strategic effects machine" we would have figured it out by now in Afghanistan. Alas there is no "CoG analysis" that tells what levers to pull and dials to turn to create teh desired end state. You can lament "trail and error" but you can desire a magic strategic endstate computer all you want, but what we know about complex system theory says its impossible. Energent behavior is "emergent" becasue by definition it is not predictable.


continued in next post