Quote Originally Posted by John T. Fishel View Post
Some of this obviously means thinking outside the proverbial box (although we better not forget what is inside the box in our newfound enthusiasm). Two of the most innovative strategic thinkers whose work is emminently adaptable to small wars are Air Force - Boyd with his OODA Loop and John Warden with his "inside out warfare" and 5 strategic rings. One can, of course, use these ideas in a purely conventional sense or apply them to small wars in innovative ways - as, indeed, one can with Clausewitz.

John, this is absolutely true EBO of which the 5 rings is just the targeting part works better from a ground perspective than it does from an Air perspective. Example during the fracas between Israel and Hezbillah I saw a guy on TV from the Air Force explain how they bombed just the ends of a bridge to lessen damage and create the effect of usage denial to the enemy. He never understood that he also denied use for his side plus somebody would have to pay for it to be rebuilt. Only!!!ground forces could have created the situation by seizing the bridge that would have denied it to the enemy, plus they could use it for their side and nobody had to pay to repair it. EBO also has a targeting concept that is not talked about much called positive an negative energy. Positive energy to effect a target is good like building a school. The part that the Air Force always wants to talk about is negative energy..taking energy away from a target ie bomb it.




Although this story comes from Desert Storm, I think it is applicable to this discussion. My good friend, the late AF Col., Ben Harvey worked for Warden in Checkmate. Ben told me that in planning for the air campaign, they had come up with a bombing approach to taking down the Baghdad power grid that would be only temporary and it could have been restored in a very short time. Had it been employed (it obviously was rejected) a significant amount of civilian hardship could have been avoided. The short term psychological impact would have been enormous but think of the possible long term effects given the current civil war and insurgency in Iraq.
John, they did do this in a very limited area it was called a carbon graphite bomb or something like that. Tiny fibers shorted out the electrical grid but as soon as they were wiped off the electricity came back on, very labor intensive to fix which was the idea behind it, to turn the power off but not do any real damage.