The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[jmm99]

The 2009 CCJO at least identifies the problem which concerns me (fn 5 at p.46 - reformatted for clarity):

[5] Several terms are used to refer to the type of warfare generally waged between standing state militaries.

Conventional warfare, perhaps the most commonly used term, suggests warfare according to established conventions, which is generally accurate. Conventional warfare is not defined in doctrine, however, although conventional forces are:

“conventional forces—1. Those forces capable of conducting operations using nonnuclear weapons. 2. Those forces other than designated special operations forces.”

DOD Dictionary of Military Terms, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/ [accessed 8 October 2008]. Based on this definition, conventional warfare thus would include irregular warfare not conducted by special operations forces.

Joint Publication 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, uses the term traditional war, which

“is characterized as a confrontation between nation-states or coalitions/alliances of nation-states. This confrontation typically involves small-scale to largescale, force-on-force military operations in which adversaries employ a variety of conventional military capabilities against each other in the air, land, maritime, and space physical domains and the information environment. The objective is to defeat an adversary’s armed forces, destroy an adversary’s war-making capacity, or seize or retain territory in order to force a change in an adversary’s government or policies.”

(Washington: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 14 May 2007), p. I-6.

Traditional warfare, however, implies military methods based on time-honored cultural history, which routinely has included irregular warfare and which may have little in common with future warfare between regular military forces.

The logical alternative to irregular warfare is regular warfare, which suggests warfare between regular, uniformed state militaries -- although one would be hard-pressed to find an historical example of a completely regular war.

“Regular” is defined as “of, relating to, or constituting the permanent standing military force of a state <the regular army> <regular soldiers>.”

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com [accessed 8Oct08].

Compare all these to:

“irregular forces -- Armed individuals or groups who are not members of the regular armed forces, police, or other internal security forces.”

[DOD Dictionary, accessed 8Oct08.]

And:

“irregular warfare -- A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s). Irregular warfare favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capacities, in order to erode an adversary's power, influence, and will. Also called IW.”

[DOD Dictionary, accessed 2 October 2008].

All of which points to the ultimate futility of trying to describe warfare in terms of definitive categories.

While one can well agree with the bolded last sentence as a generalization; in any particular situation, one has to:

1. Define the enemy, which includes not only identification but also a determination of status because different rules apply depending on status; and

2. Distinction between the enemy (e.g., enemy combatants and enemy non-combatants) and non-enemy personnel (primarily civilians).

No cookbook recipe exists for application of the principles of definition and distinction that is a "one size fits all" solution.

The CCJO recognizes this complex environment, which if not actually chaotic is likely to provide uncertainties:

pp.11 & 12

Of the conditions that are changing, perhaps the most significant is what one observer has described as “The Rise of the Rest” [2] -- the increasing ability of other states to challenge the United States for influence, if not globally, then certainly regionally. The economic and military predominance that has underwritten U.S. foreign and defense policy for the past two decades can no longer be assumed. These emerging, advanced military competitors will be able to pose significant regional military challenges in the event of conflict.

In addition, a variety of nonstate actors -- often motivated by extremist religious or ethnic ideologies -- are emerging with some of the power of states, but lacking the political discipline imposed by national sovereignty and accountability. Many of these entities already have or soon could have the capability and capacity to pursue their interests by armed force. Many operate across state or even regional boundaries. They rarely adopt the centralized structure of states, which would expose them to greater external pressure, but instead take the form of popular movements or distributed networks, usually empowered by the connectivity of the Internet.

[2] Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of the Rest,” Newsweek, 12 May 2008.
.....
The foreseeable future promises to be an era of persistent conflict -- a period of protracted confrontation among states, nonstate entities, and individual actors increasingly willing to use violence to achieve their political ends.[3] ... Such protracted struggles will not lend themselves to decisive military victory, but often at best will be amenable to being managed continuously over time. Many of these conflicts may cut across national, regional, cultural, and combatant command boundaries, complicating the responses to them.

[3] Field Manual 3-0, Operations (Washington: Headquarters, Department of the Army, Feb08), foreword.

and that the mix of various forces may require re-definition or supplemention of terms we are normally used to using - having both military and legal consequences:

p.16

Warfare against the regular forces of a sovereign state using orthodox means and methods can be called conventional or regular warfare, while warfare against predominantly irregular forces can be called irregular warfare.[5] The latter tends to be protracted, favors working through partners, and revolves around the support of the population rather than solely the defeat of enemy fighting forces. These clean distinctions will rarely exist in reality; however, as often in the past, future conflicts will appear as hybrids comprising diverse, dynamic, and simultaneous combinations of organizations, technologies, and techniques that defy categorization.[6] Likely adversaries can be expected to pursue and adopt any methods and means that confer an advantage relative to U.S. military power -- including methods that violate widely accepted laws and conventions of war.[7] Even an advanced military power can be expected to adopt some methods considered “irregular” by Western standards, while nonstate actors increasingly are acquiring and employing “regular” military capabilities. Rather than attempting to defeat U.S. forces in decisive battle, even militarily significant states are likely to exploit increasingly inexpensive but lethal weapons in an erosion strategy aimed at weakening U.S. political resolve by inflicting mounting casualties over time.[8]

[5] quoted in full at start of post.

[6] Frank G. Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars (Arlington, VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, December 2007). “Hybrid threats incorporate a full range of different modes of warfare including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder. Hybrid Wars can be conducted by both states and a variety of non-state actors.” [p. 8.]

[7] Including the popular term asymmetric warfare, defined as “armed conflict between belligerents having different strengths and weaknesses.” Wiktionary, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/asymmetric_warfare [accessed 8 October 2008].

[8] In classical military theory, the term is strategy of attrition, which is contrasted with strategy of annihilation. See Hans Delbrück, History of the Art of War Within the Framework of Political History, trans. by Walter J. Renfroe, Jr. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), vol. 4, chap. IV.

Having said all that, CCJO comes back to the gold standard as to its understanding of war, as opposed to the different forms and complexity of warfare (the conduct of war):

p.16

Despite this wide variation, all wars share the same fundamental nature. In any form or context, war is organized, reciprocal violence for political purposes. War is essentially a violent struggle between hostile and independent wills, each trying to impose itself by force directly upon the other or upon some contested population. This struggle combines physical, mental, and moral aspects. It is simultaneously a clash of material means -- weapons, equipment, and supplies; of intellect, as manifested in opposing strategies, operations, and tactics; and of resolve and morale. War is therefore not action against an inanimate object, but is “always the collision of two living forces.”[9]

[9] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 77.