The Warden Collection (merged thread)

[pvebber]

We all use models daily and we all understand that they do not mirror reality. They do, however, give us a comprehensible picture of a complex phenomenon so that we can do something with it. The best models at the strategic level are those that give us the simplest possible big picture. As we need more detail, we expand portions of our model so that we can see finer and finer detail. It is important, however, that in constructing our model and using it, we always start from the big and work to the small.

This view represents a reductionist view that one can understand how a system works by dismantling its parts and isolating the causes and effects of each.

Not all systems are reducible in this way because of system-wide interactions that are lost when you isolate component systems. So there is fundamental disagreement about the viability of his "best" model description.

Oh NoI should have known, you are one of those Quantum Physics guys. Till tomorrow.

YEs, my GS series is actually 1310 "physicist"

I feel like we are refighting the Bohr-Einstein dabates over the nature of quantum mechanics or the Copenhagen vs Many Worlds interpretation arguments more recently.

[slapout9]

This view represents a reductionist view that one can understand how a system works by dismantling its parts and isolating the causes and effects of each.
Not all systems are reducible in this way because of system-wide interactions that are lost when you isolate component systems. So there is fundamental disagreement about the viability of his "best" model description.

But isn't War fundamentally about breaking PHYSICAL systems? Isn't that what it is all about? Like Warden says if you break enough physical systems the enemies will to fight isn't going to matter very much because they will be physically incapable of resisting. After the War is over you can get into transforming or redesigning Systems but that needs to happen in some kind of a peaceful and stable environment.

[Fuchs]

But isn't War fundamentally about breaking PHYSICAL systems? Isn't that what it is all about? Like Warden says if you break enough physical systems the enemies will to fight isn't going to matter very much because they will be physically incapable of resisting.

I'm not sure - was this irony/sarcasm?

[Ken White]

I too am perplexed (as usual... ).

While that breaking of physical systems may in some cases be practical and therefor correct, my recollection is that there have been few occasions where it worked and that far more often one thing or another intrudes on the breaking physical entities process and insufficient damage is done to the minds of the opponent -- they just dig deeper and keep fighting...

Those things that intrude and thus deny the success or accuracy of the idea are both friendly and enemy. Perhaps more of the former...

[Fuchs]

There's also the fundamental problem that the more you break, the less your opponent has left to lose.

There were furthermore periods in European warfare where breaking things was pretty much irrelevant (not the least because the people of the time were not fixated on their tools of war since the enemy had the very same anyway). There were even wars in which actual fighting was of negligible relevance, while threats (such as to the enemy's supply depot line), diseases and the lack of supplies (such as the lack of food in besieged fortresses or in a siege camp) were of great importance.

The focus on 'breaking things' was uncommon even in naval warfare well into the late 19th century when explosive shells had finally pushed firepower into dominance over boarding for good (there were still some battleships captured instead of sunk at Tsushima!).


The whole focus on the tools and weapons of war and their destructive power is afaik a product of WW2.

Just an example; there's a civil war in Cote d'Ivoire right now but breaking things is of marginal relevance there.

[pvebber]

But isn't War fundamentally about breaking PHYSICAL systems? Isn't that what it is all about? Like Warden says if you break enough physical systems the enemies will to fight isn't going to matter very much because they will be physically incapable of resisting. After the War is over you can get into transforming or redesigning Systems but that needs to happen in some kind of a peaceful and stable environment.

Ah! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!

Help!

The strategic approach gives us the freedom to consider and mix every conceivable way to change a center of gravity—a bribe, an aerial bomb, a hack, a proxy, a conference, an award, assistance funding, or a thousand other possibilities.

But only one example is a kinetic attack! This is obviously your evil plan, to make me lecture you on Warden and thereby assme the mantle of Wardenista myself. Fiendishly Clever!

War is fundamentally about convincing someone (or multiple people) to do something they don't want to do. There are some exceptions (i.e. Revenge), but in general its either "Give me something" or "stop doing something".

Killing people and breaking things is a way to achieve those ends that Warden suggests we don't have to resort to:

Knowing the strategic objective, we start looking for the means to achieve it. Our choices would range from war defined as bloody and destructive to cajolery of some kind. In the middle of this spectrum, we might find something (currently nameless) that makes it physically impossible for a possessor of something we want to withhold it but involves little or no bloodshed and destruction. To make discussion easier, let’s call this “bloodless force.” If we had this option at a reasonable cost, we would probably choose it in those instances when cajolery failed and when we could not reasonably argue that we should take the bloody war path as a first choice.

and

When we engage in conflict, we should always make our strategic objective the creation of a better peace. Normally, in a better peace the vanquished do not bear such hatred for the victors that another trial becomes inevitable. One way of reducing postconflict enmity involves lessening the suffering and recovery time of the defeated party. Traditional wars have perverse and long-lasting effects, but airpower may someday offer an alternative.

and

The objective of a conflict is to achieve a future picture, not to kill and destroy.

So we have a litany of appeals to "bloodless force" and as some have jokingly proposed "a theory of powerpoint power" (you just have to send the enemy the powerpoint detailing how you are going to dismember him, in parallel, and he will have no choice but to submit )

Yet we have a concept (outcome = physical (simple) X morale (complex))that deals only with physical systems and intentionally divorces "the hard part" because, well, its too hard. You can't bribe, cajol, confer with, give money or power to a physical gizmo.

All you can do is make so it doesn't work, or physically seperate it from the things it needs to work, or work upon. At the end of the day, if you restict yourself to physical systems, you pretty much restrict yourself to breaking them or breaking the connections to other things.

So one has to wonder just how literally Warden means us to take "bloodless"? He talks about airpower being the prefered means because it can "delievery energy with great precision". Yet seems to want to avoid to the extent possible killing people and breaking things. Particularly when he talks about things like:

In a few cases, we may find that just one or two will prove adequate, but in most instances we must affect several in a relatively compressed period of time. Notably, even in a large system such as the United States or China, the number of targets associated with strategic centers of gravity is rather small—considerably fewer than 1,000, more than likely.

If you do paralyze China by taking down their leadership, power and transportation networks (I would be amazed if that was 10,000 targets, let alone 1000, but I'll suspend disbelief , how many people will die from second order effects, even if none are killed in the initial attack? These do not seem to register on the airpower body count. This gets us once again to "nuclear warfare by conventional means" - the destruction of a states ability to function as a penalty for not doing what we want. WHy would such an attack not trigger a nuclear response by a country so equipped?

But, they will not, and they are not going to resent us for it, because everbody starved to death or sickened, rather than get blowed up by a bomb.

Of course if we sent them the powerpoint, they have nbody to blame but themselves

[slapout9]

Ken, Fuchs, PVebber, I don't think you guys are confused, by the questions ask you are seem to be getting it. A couple of tweaks may be needed Especially the critical importance of the Navy as Warden pointed out in the article and as Fuchs brings up.

But only one example is a kinetic attack! This is obviously your evil plan, to make me lecture you on Warden and thereby assme the mantle of Wardenista myself. Fiendishly Clever!

No evil plan intended, just good discussion.

Here is a better example of breaking a physical system by bloodless means. The first 911 attack against our (USA) ring#2 Systems Essentials.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCLRlVxOH-Q

And the "Moral Equivalent of War." It was an attack on our Physical System of Oil Dependence but no shots were fired. And they(OPEC/Arab Nations) won this one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tPePpMxJaA

Starting to see how it can be done? Like I have been saying our Enemies understand Ring theory and Systems Warfare very well. We seem to struggle with it. Much to our peril IMO.

[pvebber]

No evil plan intended, just good discussion.

I was being funny

Especially the critical importance of the Navy as Warden pointed out in the article and as Fuchs brings up.

The only reference to Navy's in Warden's latest piece is:

Readers need no reminder that one of the world’s truly great empires grew largely on the back of a Royal Navy that frequently won “wars”—or prevented them—by its mere presence.

An interesting testimony to a "non-Warden-like" strategy, particularly since the success of the Royal Navy was extremely improvisational, (ie it did not come from advnacing toward a future vision, but maintaining a status quo), it was very sequential (based on the time it took for infomation to travel, and the seasonal wind cycles), and was not system - theory based, but based on engagement with "forces" though often in the form of merchnatmen, not warships. The East India Company and its cargo were as important a form of "seapower" to the rise of British power as the '74 and its powder and shot.

Here is a better example of breaking a physical system by bloodless means.

No its simply a "revenge" attack against a "center of gravity". There was no strategy involved, it was simple revenge for having supported the ISrealis in the 73 war.

Nothing was "broken". They simpy reduced supply so costs would go up. They where not trying to force us to do anything, they simply wanted to cause fiscal pain.

And the "Moral Equivalent of War." It was an attack on our Physical System of Oil Dependence but no shots were fired. And they(OPEC/Arab Nations) won this one!

Hardly one of our "Great Moments in Strategic Thinking"... Like the war on poverty, the war on hunger, the war on drugs, or the war on people who don't sport enough colored ribbons, etc, this is war as metaphor, not "real" war.

To claim the Arab Oil Embargo as an example of the use of Warden's strategy is to claim that any activity involving centers of gravity is an example. And what is the role of airpower in such situations?

And by what measure did anybody "win"? They took a course of action that would impose financial cost on us, and we have since demostrated that it was a foolish thing to have done (a statment justified by the fact they have never done it again...). Pissing off your customers is invariably bad for business, no matter how indispensible you might think you are to them.

The fundamental non sequitor is still there. To the extent Warden's theory is about bloodless war (desired!) it is not about airpower. To the extent it is about airpower, it is not about bloodless war (not desired!). To the extent that it is bloodless, it is not about the physical, but the moral (too hard!) and to the extent it is about breaking things and killing people (simple), it must drive that factor quickly to zero. That leads to the resentment and bad peace one is trying to avoid.

And even in that context bloodless is a narowly defined thing, becasue if you are really going to "go to war" using a rapid series of parallel operations, you are not going to emply an oil embargo that takes months to years to achieve any strategic effect.

Trying to be all things in all ways, it ends up being "doing what you can against CoGs and hoping for the best (ie my desired picture of the future).

It just doesn't hang together.