Does anyone agree that there is a distinct disconnect between how U.S. military doctrine defines war and how our advesaries define war? M.J.

M.J.

I think your question is one of the most important ones put forward on this forum, and the essence of understanding our enemy, which is key if we want to attack his strategy instead of his fielded forces.

I find that it is hard for us to play the role of the red cell when we war game various courses of actions. I think most of us, even though we try to avoid doing so, are forced to use mirror analysis, which I define as seeing ourselves when we look at the enemy. I think we frequently assume the enemy has our values, uses western logic in his decision making (remember game’s theory?), etc. It is hard to overcome years of training indoctrination and to apply our vocabulary (our thinking tools) outside of its intended use.

Not only does our non-western enemy think about war differently, I think our non-western enemy has a distinct advantage in that there is not as much separation between the political and the military, so they understand the concept of the total war better (military is truly tied into political objectives), while I think our military is focused on staying in its lane and destroying the enemy’s fielded forces, which puts us at a distinct disadvantage.

When Bin Laden declared war on America, what did he mean by war? When President Bush declared war on terrorism mean what did he mean? Are they symmetrically opposed definitions? I don’t think so….