New Rules of War

[zenpundit]

Hi Dr. Marc

I picked up on it but, honestly, i thought it was a complete and utter red herring. The cost effectiveness argument is based on a positive returns ROI only. In other words, he isn't including the "costs" (or potential costs) of not having big units with a lot of conventional force

There are significant potential costs to not having big forces. Agreed. I am not interested in having a military that cannot operate large units.

That said, using big units where smaller ones work with greater efficiency and effectiveness is a poor tactical choice.

It is a poor strategic choice if you cannot afford to deploy large units in order to use them inefficiently for years on end. This too is a significant cost - a threat actually - to our overall military capabilities

We can have big units and use them where/when big units work best and select more appropriate tools or degrees of force for other tasks, husbanding our resources for larger problems when they come along.

[zenpundit]

I happy with expensive, as long as its effective. You cannot use business words and norms to try and understand military power.

Economics, not business.

You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.

Burning a giant pile of money sheds light and heat and looks impressive but if it damaging your economy rather than your enemy then you are working hard to defeat yourself.

[zenpundit]

Would LBJ have lost the presidential primary in New Hampshire without the effects of Tet? His poll numbers dropped steeply

Would LBJ have withdrawn from the race for the presidency on March 1st or called a halt to bombing the enemy in order to seek a negotiated settlement? Johnson had called for a military victory in Vietnam, officially, only two and half years earlier.

Nixon entered office in January 1969 and started withdrawing troops by late summer. Richard Nixon never had any intention of winning the Vietnam War, though he'd liked to have seen GVN scrape by with some kind of independence, it was not a vital US national interest to him if it did (even less to Kissinger). Invading Cambodia or bombing North Vietnam was never used by Nixon to pursue a military victory but in context of gaining the upper hand in a negotiated settlement with Hanoi and triangulating secret diplomacy with Moscow and opening relations with Peking.,

Looks like the will to to continue fighting took a severe dent at least

[marct]

Hi Zen,

You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.

In general, I would agree. The devil, however, is in the details and, let's face it, the details in both Iraq and Afghanistan morphed into the construction of "democracies" which was not part of the original, political calculus of cost; neither were the "insurgencies" .

Could the initial, "conventional" political objectives have been met with smaller groups? Sure, they were initially in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he is forgetting about other potential competitors and about the time lag (and cost!) on retraining and re-equipping. You fight with what you have, and only modify to the point that it doesn't negatively impact your global position (that negative ROI point).

Burning a giant pile of money sheds light and heat and looks impressive but if it damaging your economy rather than your enemy then you are working hard to defeat yourself.

Agreed, and that is one of the constants on how to attack the US over the past 50 years or so. That being said, then why has the response to the economic "warfare" of various and sundry financial institutions not been dealt with in a similar manner? Why is he not advocating swarming by accountants which, IMHO, would have far more effect!

I'm going to stick with my initial interpretation of his economic argument as a red herring. He has included it only in a "rhetoric of rectitude" and excluded the broader systems in which it is embedded. as a piece of rhetoric, it's a moderately telling point, but as a piece of rational analysis it is trivial.

[shloky]

Shloky,

Here's the thing. How do we coordinate the "swarming" or attacking from multiple directions/with multiple means across the whole of government? We have a hard enough time within DoD with inter-service rivalries and equipment that doesn't talk to each other. And that's just tactical. Who's the person that is going to coordinate the inter-governmental "swarm" that will be the strategy? The only department in our government that has the global capability is Defense (lift, comms, people, money, and compulsory service) and (since this will inevitably involve a nation) the ambassador works for the President and not a combatant commander (or some special four-star). How long did it take for us to get relationships right in Iraq? How long will they take in Afghanistan with that many more nations?

Sure. That's not a flaw in swarming as doctrine, that's question of implementation.

That said, JSOC is a pretty good starting point of achieving what Arquilla's talking about, and how to achieve it. Highly trained, small, distributed teams to conduct complex operations with teams as small as two to several hundred.

What Arquilla says is "strategic" what he describes is tactical and operational. The quote in the box of you 11:28 PM post says it all.

Few units above the company grade; ridding the DoD of all the fat accumulated in the last few decades. Those are strategic choices, focused on restructuring your force to leverage an enhanced information environment. Indeed, the quote does say it all.

As to Don Vandergriff - I've read his stuff and talked to him about it. It's not new either. It's brought to the attention of folks who need to see it, but it's done on a daily basis in units in our army. Ken White had some great points here. http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...irregular-war/ But it's still at the tactical level. If it is something that folks latch onto and can say, look we're improving our Army with it, then fine, but it (like many other ideas being thrown around) isn't new. It came from Kriegspiel.

I do think that there are some good ideas there, but they're what we did in Korea when I was a platoon leader and what I put my platoon leaders through when I was a company commander. Reading and playing out scenarios on a terrain board and then critiquing it isn't new - but again (like Ken says) it works and builds adaptive leaders. Just so Don doesn't hate on me, I do think that it needs to be more in TRADOC courses rather than death by slide and I do think that it needs to be more draconian and folks need to be called out when they make mistakes.

Of course its not new. Not sure anyone has ever claimed that adaptive leadership is new. To claim it's prevalent is disingenuous though.

Training by rote is the norm, training by innovation is rare. Don's work is a useful framework for approaching it.

In the context of swarming, his work can help address the need that Ken brought up - ensuring we have highly trained, highly adaptive guys in the field.

[William F. Owen]

Those are strategic choices, focused on restructuring your force to leverage an enhanced information environment. Indeed, the quote does say it all.

Sorry what does this mean? What is an "enhanced information environment?" Knowing stuff?

[Scott Shaw]

Shloky,

I don't know what your perspective is, but just by the nature of the conversations on this board by members of our armed forces and government shows that adaptive leadership is more prevalent than many would like to point out. How far have we come since 2003? How about since 1974?

Check out Paul Yingling's stuff on TRADOC vs the operating force. (as a side not before I bash TRADOC - Is TRADOC completely full of those who want the status quo? Of course not. Folks in TRADOC come from the operating force and therefore fresh blood in. And it's getting much better than it was.) The operating force adapts everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan. I left theater in Jun 2008 and returned in Aug 2009 and then entire division AO had changed rules completely. No more unilateral operations, no more "1 Iraqi = combined ops" A bunch of officers including general officers, NCOs, and Soldiers had to start over in and be ready to go again against some hard fighters in about 30 days. That's adaptive.

Yeah, I acknowledge that we have some work to do, but cut us some slack. Don's primary arguments are against the institutional Army and they are changing as well. Don's website and the USMA Department of Military Instruction show it.

So, no, I don't think that I'm being disingenuous.

And JSOC's small teams doing stuff is still tactical or at the very highest operational. They may have an effect that is seen at the strategic level, but that is still only one or at max two elements of national power. IF we were to expand USSOCOM's mission to affect all of the elements of national power, it would only be able to do it in a small region. And if we were to expand it completely, we might as well re-name USSOCOM the "Department of Everything." It might be easier, but again, every other department within the USG would have to sign on to it - as they did the stability operations doctrine.

Scott

[shloky]

Sorry what does this mean? What is an "enhanced information environment?" Knowing stuff?

Knowing more stuff, better, faster, than before.

[shloky]

Scott,

Hey, sure. There's been progress on the training front, not trying to discount that. We're not 'there' yet though.

And JSOC's small teams doing stuff is still tactical or at the very highest operational. They may have an effect that is seen at the strategic level, but that is still only one or at max two elements of national power. IF we were to expand USSOCOM's mission to affect all of the elements of national power, it would only be able to do it in a small region. And if we were to expand it completely, we might as well re-name USSOCOM the "Department of Everything." It might be easier, but again, every other department within the USG would have to sign on to it - as they did the stability operations doctrine.

My point was JSOC is a good prototype. A model that can be used as a starting point for implementing a swarming doctrine across DoD.

As you describe, of course reforming bureaucracy will be a long, arduous process full of compromises - that's the nature of reform. Don't think that's a good reason not to though.

[Schmedlap]

By "swarming" are we referring to a tactic similar to what the guerrillas used against the US COP in Wanat? That is fine if you're a third-world guerrilla. American forces have a much pickier public back home that gets upset if anyone dies.

For us, why bother swarming? I'm reminded of a book that I read before joining the Army. While it's focus is on Special Operations forces, the lessons in it are equally applicable to any force the is outnumbered or facing a well-prepared enemy. Swarming seems like a less efficient use of resources, that is more difficult to C2, with negligible, if any, benefits.

[Firn]

After having read quite a bit about self-organization, mostly concerning ants and termites I want to throw in some thoughts. An interesting presentation can be found here.

According to Scott Camazine.. [et al.]:

“ In biological systems self-organization is a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower-level components of the system. Moreover, the rules specifying interactions among the system's components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern.[7]

So far so good. A slide of the linked PPP.

Basic ingredients:

1. Multiple interactions
   
2. Amplification of fluctuations and Randomness
   
3. Positive feedback (e.g., recruitment and reinforcement)
   
4. Negative feedback (e.g., limited number of available foragers)

To make self-organization work you need a lot of active and responsive components which interact through a complex web communications and feedbacks. For termites this includes a "random" walk in search of food, the amazing construction of huge mounts to the highly integrated defense of it against attackers*.


Another slide.

How is self-organization achieved?

Communication is necessary:

1. Point-to-point: antennation, trophallaxis (food or liquid exchange), mandibular contact, direct visual contact, chemical contact, . . . unicast radio contact!
   
   
2. Broadcast-like: the signal propagates to some limited extent throughout the environment and/or is made available for a rather short time (e.g., use of lateral line in fishes to detect water waves, generic visual detection, actual radio broadcast
   
   
3. Indirect: two individuals interact indirectly when one of them modifies the environment and the other responds to the new environment at a later time. This is called stigmergy (e.g., pheromone laying/following, post-it, web)

We see that in this case pretty much every form of conceivable communication is used to self-organize the colony. There is lot trying things out (random walk, coordinated raid), reaction to local events (scout reports food sources to the next ant), to global events (the broadcasted "alarm" signal warning termites of an attack gets broadcasted through the whole colony by "relay termites"), adaption (switching from a no longer worthwhile food source, stopping an attack on too well defended termite mount). At the core all interesting stuff, most already known, but hard to implement as it touches a lot of subjects. Due to our human nature organizational things become both a further bit more complicated and easier.


Firn


*Very interesting stuff but I do not know if it fits in.

[Ken White]

But I can't see most western politicians accepting that; the need for 'control' drives their thinking...

Zenpundit:

What I found to be very odd, on a board where strategic thinking is highly valued, that no one addressed Arquilla's introduction where he raised the critical variable of cost-effectiveness of large unit operations against smaller, irregular and networked opponents. Maybe Arquilla was not explicit enough. Let me try.

Perhaps because cost effectiveness in this context is either a red straw or a herring man. As is your example. WW II expense are largely irrelevant to fighting today. A WWII Infantryman carried on his person or had usually readily available about $500.00 worth of clothing and equipment in 1944. That's roughly $5,620.00 in 2006 dollars.

His 2006 counterpart will have had about $25,000.00 in clothing and equipment in that year dollars. The majority of that difference is for materiel that did not exist in 1944. The NVG alone can run from 2 to 10K type dependent. Optical sights on all weapons...

Then consider UAVs and other factors.

That's merely one small point, a far larger issue is what capability those dollars bought and what combat effectiveness was or is produced. Cost effectiveness is too easily skewed to prove that money is being 'wasted.' What should be purchased for the spending is combat effectiveness. I have no doubt what so ever that the average Infantryman in Viet Nam was more capable than his WW II counterpart probably by a factor of two-- and I have no doubt that my serving Son and his contemporaries are miles ahead of us old guys, probably by another factor of at least two and quite possibly up to four. So yes, we're spending more but we're buying far more capability with fewer but considerably more expensive people.

As an aside, comparing wars is rarely wise, all are different and each must be taken on its own merits. My favorite is to point out that we usually fight as Brigades or RCTs and only in two recent wars did we really fight Divisions, so compare WW II to Desert Storm...

Further on Viet Nam. You may be correct in your statement of the Historians perception of the embassy seizure in Saigon and I'm old and thus have a suspect memory but my recollection that the embassy seizure was a quite minor blip except for the political wonks who made a big deal out of nothing. Most American pretty much ignored except for being hacked at the politicians US who allowed,even encouraged it to happen. I have to agree with Wilf, most of the Historians have made a hash of Viet Nam -- way too much politics involved in the 'scholarship.'

Shloky:

Which brings us to Ken's point, on which he's absolutely right. It does take a different kind of culture, particularly in regards to training. (Don Vandergriff's leading the way on that front. I'd recommend his books on the topic. )

True on the cultural change and there's another point. First the culture change; Not going to happen. Two reasons, the desire for control by Politicians and senior people who do not trust subordinates because they know that our training is weak. Add a refusal to provide the training really required in a Democracy where Mommas get upset at a 1 to 2 percent KIA rate in training -- and that's what effective training will cost. We've only been able to really do that in major wars (Civil, WW I and WW II). We could not or did not do it during Korea, during Viet Nam and we are not doing it now. We train better than we ever have but we are still a long way from training competent soldiers and Marines, Officer or Enlisted right out of initial entry.

Another factor is recruiting people who can and will do the things Argquila and you suggest. I strongly doubt the numbers are there. They could possibly be but you would then create a culture that would make Congress very, very uncomfortable. There are many there who think the Armed forces are already a little to competent...

I agree that Vandergriff's proposals are an improvement but even though only go part way -- and do recall he's been pushing that for over 10 years...

[William F. Owen]

Hi Zen "Panther 35 in on the guns"

You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.

So spend blood and treasure for little effect makes no sense? I agree. That's why I want effect over efficiency and not "cheap stuff" or "cost saving." The debate is what serves the purpose. Not what it costs.

Would LBJ have withdrawn from the race for the presidency on March 1st or called a halt to bombing the enemy in order to seek a negotiated settlement? Johnson had called for a military victory in Vietnam, officially, only two and half years earlier.

Tet was significant. It did not loose the war, or even represent a turning point. It wasn't Kursk or Stalingrad. - and was the North better of with Nixon than LBJ?

Nixon entered office in January 1969 and started withdrawing troops by late summer. Richard Nixon never had any intention of winning the Vietnam War, though he'd liked to have seen GVN scrape by with some kind of independence, it was not a vital US national interest to him if it did (even less to Kissinger).

Nixon had a strategy, unlike LBJ. He was no less determined to "win."

Invading Cambodia or bombing North Vietnam was never used by Nixon to pursue a military victory but in context of gaining the upper hand in a negotiated settlement with Hanoi and triangulating secret diplomacy with Moscow and opening relations with Peking.,

Sorry but it was. It was instrumental in the coup in Cambodia and it knocked out all the major NVA base areas for two years. No single action did more military damage to the NVA than the Cambodian invasion. It was military action focussed on military forces, and yes it had strategic effect.

Watergate and the 73 Oil crisis doomed SVN greatly more than the very minor reversals of Tet five years before. - and ultimately, too many Americans died for no strategic goal the US was prepared to risk against China and the USSR.
Wars are not won and lost on CNN, or the front page of the New York Times.

[shloky]

Wilf,

After reviewing your posts in this thread, it's clear you don't seem to understand how information drives decision making, and, in a broader sense, how the evolution of the information environment would affect that process.

In short, you are essentially blind to an entire feature of the modern terrain. In classic terms, it is like being unaware of the existence of cliffs.

[Fuchs]

That's why I want effect over efficiency and not "cheap stuff" or "cost saving." The debate is what serves the purpose. Not what it costs.

Look up the definition of efficiency.
It's effect per cost.

There's no way how a look at effect only (ignoring cost) could be superior to a look at efficiency.
The word has been mis-used by unintelligent parrots a lot, but that doesn't change its definition.

[Ken White]

is he saying that flawed perceptions from erroneous or politically skewed information should not drive decisions?

I suspect he like I knows that happens but bitterly regrets that it does. It isn't a question of wishful thinking, simply stating the fact that it happens, should not -- and need not. As he said, a lot of 'historians' write drivel -- and a lot of decision makers do not allow themselves to be swayed by 'information' (see Bush, G.W. for a recent example).

Take the Saigon Embassy and Tet, both discussed above but in the terms of the historian's views on them . Some of us who were around back then have a totally different take on the actions and reactions to them. While it is true that perception is reality, it is not quite true that Politician's perceptions are deliberately attuned to what they THINK their voters want, they are attuned to what the Politician personally wants and attributes to what his or her voters should want in his or her view.

I believe that and a few other aberrations are the issues Wilf alludes and object to...

Fuchs:

There's no way how a look at effect only (ignoring cost) could be superior to a look at efficiency.

Depends on your viewpoint or emphasis. Militarily to look at effectiveness is the only sensible option.

However, holistically and politically for the majority of circumstances you're certainly correct. Cost is, of course, always a factor and in times of peace or near peace it dominates. Frequently in times of minor war it is an inconsequential issue; it literally becomes a non-issue in total existential war or anything near it (like WW II) when military effectiveness and/or combat effectiveness (not the same thing) take precedence, occasionally totally.

The military professional should look solely at effectiveness for his plan and recommendation, the Politicians will then tell him what they will support and he must retool his plans accordingly. In many cases, there will be minimal constraint imposed by 'cost efficient' models and the effectiveness can and will rule what happens. If, however, one plans with an eye on efficiency (which entails giving costs undue emphasis), then one is likely to produce a flawed plan that will not be effective. I emphasize that in this respect, I'm speaking of financial costs only; impacts such as economy of force or effort, casualties, terrain or initiative lost or gained are in reality more an effectiveness issue, current and future, than one of efficiency.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs:Depends on your viewpoint or emphasis. Militarily to look at effectiveness is the only sensible option.

You can maximize effect at given cost or minimize costs at given effect.

There's absolutely no point in preferring effectiveness over efficiency because efficiency in achieving a desired effect (= at minimum cost) is simply unbeatable.
Effectiveness is only about one variable while efficiency considers two important variables - it's a much richer term.

No one with a functioning brain will ever strive for the best ratio of effect and cost and willfully fail to achieve the desired level of effect by doing so.

A military that looks only at effectiveness is bound to waste resources and fail its master, the people, by performing poorly.
Look at the LCS, F-35 or the fuel cost in AFG, Puma for examples. In fact, every Western military force is extremely wasteful because they don't strive for efficiency.
I won't accept any excuse like "militarily only effectiveness counts" because the latter is ethically the same as to send a troop of soldiers every hour to rob a bank.
The damage that wasteful behaviour in the military does to the welfare of the nation is extreme.

Many "victories" were more damaging (net) to the "victorious" nation than staying at peace would have been. The costs of military & war suck and threaten to badly impair the Western nations in their ability to reform themselves for the future.

[William F. Owen]

After reviewing your posts in this thread, it's clear you don't seem to understand how information drives decision making, and, in a broader sense, how the evolution of the information environment would affect that process.

OK. So I don't under how "information drives decision making." So I do not understand the planning process, or command?
That you merely assert it, does not make it so. Kindly provide evidence as to why you think that.

You then state I do not understand "how the evolution of the information environment would affect that process." - So basically, again, I do not understand how the some aspects of information technology effect the planning process and command? Do I understand you correctly?

[William F. Owen]

I suspect he like I knows that happens but bitterly regrets that it does. It isn't a question of wishful thinking, simply stating the fact that it happens, should not -- and need not. As he said, a lot of 'historians' write drivel -- and a lot of decision makers do not allow themselves to be swayed by 'information' (see Bush, G.W. for a recent example).

Thanks Ken. Gold standard as ever.

Information is not understanding and everyone has three versions of history and ten versions of every new story.

[William F. Owen]

Look up the definition of efficiency.
It's effect per cost.

Well aware. I was using the term within the strict confines of military performance and capability. I am also well aware its an issue of balance and high degrees of efficiency have huge pays-offs in effectiveness, and vice versa.
My point is that I want to bias end-states and not process.