Meta-Warfare

[TheCurmudgeon]

I believe you are right, particularly when you say that, while the nature of war may not have change, the nature of politics has. I have been playing with this same concept for some time, and have considered writing on it, although I have not thought through how this actually alters strategy. That would be my interest.

What are you planning on doing with this? How can we help?

[AmericanPride]

I'm not really sure where this train of thought is going yet. I am approaching the dissertation phase of my education, and the closer I get, the less sure I am about which idea/research to pursue. I wonder about the paradigm shift in military-political theory recognized by Clausewitz, and if we are still trapped within that frame of thinking when thinking about warfare. And if we are in the intellectual trap, how do we recognize it and prevent surprise when the paradigm shifts again?

[TheCurmudgeon]

For what it is worth, I believe you are right. I plan to write a short piece on it in the future. But I do believe it deserves a more complete academic review of the topic.

[TheCurmudgeon]

I'm not really sure where this train of thought is going yet. I am approaching the dissertation phase of my education, and the closer I get, the less sure I am about which idea/research to pursue. I wonder about the paradigm shift in military-political theory recognized by Clausewitz, and if we are still trapped within that frame of thinking when thinking about warfare. And if we are in the intellectual trap, how do we recognize it and prevent surprise when the paradigm shifts again?

AP, just letting you know I am going to write something on this. I think our thought patterns are far enough apart for me not to be plagiarizing your idea. I will post an outline when I have one to let you see it.

Good luck on your research.

[AmericanPride]

AP, just letting you know I am going to write something on this. I think our thought patterns are far enough apart for me not to be plagiarizing your idea. I will post an outline when I have one to let you see it.

Good luck on your research.

Sounds good. Looking forward to seeing what you write.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Sounds good. Looking forward to seeing what you write.

Here is the introduction. It lays out the paper

Intro

The purpose of this paper is to explore how defining an enemy’s political center of gravity can help build a strategy to defeat the enemy. The point it to identify primary and supporting elements of our enemy’s political power in order to allow us to better target those power centers. If war is truly an extension of politics by other means, then the source of our enemy’s political power is a valid, if not critical, target. Therefore, accurately identifying that target, and understanding how to eliminate, preempt, or co-opt its power, is a critical part of any strategy.

The paper is laid out in four sections. The first is assumptions and definitions. Terms like “political warfare” and “hybrid warfare” may not have the same meaning to everyone, and it is always useful to explain any assumptions. Second is the idea of a political center of gravity. I explore three primary centers as well as several supporting elements that can reinforce the political center. Next is a short section on the strengths and weaknesses of each political center of gravity. Finally, I will conclude with some thoughts on the offensive and defensive applications of the ideas presented here.

[Bill Moore]

C,

I'm confident you realize this isn't new ground, political warfare is quite old, but like war itself it's character changes based on changes in political, economic, social systems, and technology. It needs to be explored more as a topic, but the CIA, State, USIS, and to a lesser extent special operations have experience in this realm. Victories in this area were generally short lived when applied offensively, but I think it offers a lot of promise employed defensively.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Open for criticism - my draft list of definitions

Definitions
1. Political War. The employment of all the means at a Political Entity’s command, short of organized lethal force, to compel an enemy to do its will.

2. Kinetic War. The employment of organized, legally recognized lethal force by a Political Entity to compel an enemy to do its will.

3. Terrorism. The employment of illegal lethal force by a political actor or Political Entity to compel an enemy to do its will.

4. Hybrid War. The employment of a combination of Political War, Kinetic War, and/or Terrorism by a Political Entity to compel an enemy to do its will. Hybrid War usually involves low-intensity conflict and the true antagonist pressing the conflict may be obscured.

5. Political. The “political” is a principal around which a people identify, organize, and bind themselves separate from other peoples. As used here, it is an abstract, values based ideal separate from politics, which are the day-to-day operations of a political entity. The easiest way to think of it is as the term “political legitimacy” shortened to leave out the term “legitimacy.”

6. Political Entity. A group of people organized around a political ideal. They could be anything from a State to a terrorist organization. They are distinguished from other groups, like criminal or religious organizations, by their intent to control the traditional aspects of political power, like the creation, operation and application of civil and criminal laws; collection of revenue and the distribution of goods and services for the general welfare; the uncontested application of legitimate force; and provisions for the common defense.

7. Political Center of Gravity (PCoG). The PCoG is the source of the Political System’s power. It is what binds the people together as a group and gives them their motivation to act in concert towards a specific political or military goal.

8. Political System. Political systems are typologies of the various ideals people use to bind themselves into a political element with the purpose of controlling the traditional aspects of political power.

9. Autocratic System. A political system where political power emanates from a central authority. The governing authority has absolute, or near absolute power and is not answerable to the general population.

10. Democratic System. A political system where political power emanates from the general population. The governing authority is answerable to the general population, who are the true source of political power.

11. Ideological System. A political system where political power emanates from a guiding Ideology. The governing authority draws it power from the population’s belief in the ideology.

In a footnote I will probably add that Political War may involve the application of covert lethal force on a targeted basis (assassinations, elimination of spies, etc.)

[TheCurmudgeon]

C,

I'm confident you realize this isn't new ground, political warfare is quite old, but like war itself it's character changes based on changes in political, economic, social systems, and technology. It needs to be explored more as a topic, but the CIA, State, USIS, and to a lesser extent special operations have experience in this realm. Victories in this area were generally short lived when applied offensively, but I think it offers a lot of promise employed defensively.

I do, but I think that distinguishing the nature of the target makes a difference.

[Bill Moore]

I believe you are right, particularly when you say that, while the nature of war may not have change, the nature of politics has. I have been playing with this same concept for some time, and have considered writing on it, although I have not thought through how this actually alters strategy. That would be my interest.

What are you planning on doing with this? How can we help?

Concur, and this is what I'm struggling with in the Strategy in the 21st Century forum section I'm working on occasionally. Will definitely update it in late April when I have some time based on recent insights gained from a number of readings and discussions, but most prominently the book "Connectography," which I just posted a short review of in the what are you reading section. Globalization is changing governance more than local issues in my view, and that change in governance and priorities has implications for strategy. Our current strategy is inept, we're squandering our wealth via military operations that give us little in return. When they don't work we double down and give it another go. If we're not careful we'll find ourselves in a similar situation that the USSR found itself in at the end of the Cold War.

I realize you and AP are playing it safe, because the dogmatic ones who tend to dominate the military education systems love to promote that the nature of war doesn't change, only its character. However, being a little more iconoclastic, I think the very nature of war is changing. Fortunately there are ongoing studies led by non-U.S. academics (thankfully) to honestly explore this argument.

We have impacted the world little since the end of the Cold War, the world has changed, and we don't know how to wield our power to achieve desired ends anymore. Our political system is in shambles, and we're no longer the shinning light on the hill for much of the world. What does it mean? Will we actually evolve, or relying on blind faith, ride our outdated world view until it spins out of control into its death spiral?

The following article is sad, but true. Our government will not fix itself, and electing populists like Trump may seem appealing because he is from outside the system, this approach never works. He isn't a professional in policy any more than the lawyers in Congress. Even if he was a visionary, our system doesn't allow visionaries to make progress. Our system is flawed by design to ensure we have a relatively weak government, well that worked, but a weak government can't address our challenges domestically or internationally.

https://medium.com/@paragkhanna/5-wa...s-dccaa2ce1d0a

5 Ways America’s Government is Much Worse than Other Countries

Donald Trump just won the ultimate reality show: American politics. Since Trump’s shocking election victory, people around the world have been wondering how such a great democracy could so easily come off the rails. Many citizens of foreign countries are even taking pride in how much better their systems are than America’s. Based on my new book Technocracy in America, here are five ways other political systems are more effective than America’s.

(1) Unelected electors indirectly elect our president
(2) The Cabinet is stacked with friends of the president
(3) The government is full of political hacks rather than professional experts
(4) We have two useless chambers of Congress instead of just one
(5) We don’t amend the Constitution even though it is desperately needed

[TheCurmudgeon]

I realize you and AP are playing it safe, because the dogmatic ones who tend to dominate the military education systems love to promote that the nature of war doesn't change, only its character.

I don't believe I am playing it safe. I believe that Clausewitzian "war" is all about politics and the political realm, where natural war is a natural state of human affairs that never changes.

" I define natural war as non-spontaneous, organized, lethal violence committed by one identifiable group of people against another identifiable group of people, executed by warriors and morally sanctioned by the entire group, for some purpose other than the violence itself. There are seven elements to this definition:
1.war is not a spontaneous act of violence like a riot;
2.war is organized—even simple raids by one group against another require planning and preparation;
3.from the onset, the probability of the violence leading to death on either or both sides is understood;
4.the fighting involves two groups that have a distinguishable identity based in anything from familial relationships (hunter-gatherer bands), to ethnic identity, religious identity, national identity, or ideological identity;
5.war is generally executed by a subpart of the group, the warriors;
6.the killing is morally sanctioned by the rest of the group—the warriors are not viewed as criminals; and
7.it is for a purpose other than simply violence, such as to gain resources, eliminate competition for resources, or to retaliate for attacks or territorial incursions."

"There Is Only War, But War Isn’t Always Political"

In that same paper I argue that our ideas about what war is and how it should be fought have transitioned in the last five centuries or so from "natural war" to "political war," which has a number of rules about legitimate targets and proportionality. So I truly believe that war has always been the same, but our political frame of reference both expands war into areas that are not lethal (like cyber warfare) and limits war by constricting legitimate targets (surrounding a city and starving out the population is now not war, but a crime).

In today's modern, political society, everything is defined by the frame of reference we surround ourselves with, including war. As that frame of reference changes, so do our ideas about war. What I think AP is saying is that, not everyone agrees with our ideas about what a government should look like. Because of that, their definition of "war" is different from ours. As a result of that, how it is fought and, most important, what it takes to win (or lose) is different than ours. We can fight till we are blue in the face, but we are, in essence, not fighting against each other but fighting past each other. I believe that is the crux of the problem both AP and I are thinking about.

Thanks for clarifying my thoughts, I know what my next paper will be about.

[AmericanPride]

In today's modern, political society, everything is defined by the frame of reference we surround ourselves with, including war. As that frame of reference changes, so do our ideas about war. What I think AP is saying is that, not everyone agrees with our ideas about what a government should look like. Because of that, their definition of "war" is different from ours. As a result of that, how it is fought and, most important, what it takes to win (or lose) is different than ours. We can fight till we are blue in the face, but we are, in essence, not fighting against each other but fighting past each other. I believe that is the crux of the problem both AP and I are thinking about.

I more or less agree with this statement in principle. I would add that I see it in two layers: first, a superficial layer, and second, a core or base layer. In the first, we have different governments like the U.S., Russia, China, et al. Their respective histories, values, and bureaucracies produce different approaches to warfare. But these are all fundamentally similar insofar they are all derived from a similar source: a modern nation-state with a more or less market economy. Each of them have extensive state apparatuses to maintain a large, uniform, more or less highly technical and professional standing army. They arrive at similar conclusions about the conduct and nature of warfare for this reason.

Then you have a base layer; that is the defining political-economic structure underneath all of it. Prior to the modern nation-state, we had feudal political-economic systems. These were defined by personal obligations, small state bureaucracies, small landowning classes, and large dispossessed populations tied to manors. Professional armies, where they existed, were relatively small, and when larger armies were necessary, they were raised and used carefully and temporarily. This perhaps explains why in World War I, when the last of the old era was swept away, that the Austrian-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires failed so spectacularly. The leadership recognized the need for a modern, standing army but their political systems did not allow for it.

I would like to also note that large, professional armies are not necessarily a consequence of modern technology (as opposed to state sophistication). The Roman Army is an example of historical, professional standing army. The Roman state was much more sophisticated than its tribal, despotic, or nomadic neighbors.

So I guess we arrive at another question: is there a particular direction or trajectory of this process or is it haphazard? Will the modern nation-state, as presently conceived, continue to refine and better itself? Or will another political-economic system arise that will also give birth to a new form of warfare?

[TheCurmudgeon]

So I guess we arrive at another question: is there a particular direction or trajectory of this process or is it haphazard? Will the modern nation-state, as presently conceived, continue to refine and better itself? Or will another political-economic system arise that will also give birth to a new form of warfare?

Your question goes far beyond what my small brain is capable of answering.

I will say this (if you believe that God created the earth about 5000 years ago you can stop reading now). Humans evolved with a finite set of psychological capacities that were designed to solve the problems of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. However, our problem solving capacity made the need to constantly hunt and gather food obsolete. We learned to grow crops and domesticate animals. Then we learned how to live that lifestyle. Then our brains solved other problems and we adjusted our lifestyle appropriately. We have learned a lot about how to remove all the problems we used to have. How to ensure we had food and shelter. How to extend our lives with medicine. How to pass on knowledge though the language and writing. But underneath all that, in our motivational and psychological minds, we are still just hunter-gatherers protecting our little space where we hunt and gather and fighting with other little bands to stay alive.

With that as my base assumption, there are only so many ways we can change. We can create new technology, but we can't change what motivates us (although we try like hell to self-medicate ourselves). I would suggest that you look at Professor Schwartz' ideas on universal human values. After years of study, he determined that there are a limited number of values that motivate people. If he is right, then there are a finite number of things that cause us to chose one social structure (including its political trappings) over another. This means that there are a limited number of political systems (even though you will see recurring themes).

My personal belief is that there are two basic themes: either the political system revers the Group as source of all political power or it revers the Individuals as the source of all political power. Variations of the Group include monarchies, theocracies, various autocracies, and communism. Variations of the Individual are Democracies, Republics, and ultimately anarchy. There are mixes, including Socialism, but these are the basic set of options. That is because these are the limits of what our value systems can support.

Is there something beyond this? Perhaps. Some new mix of values. Some way to balance the reverence with the Individual with the reverence for the group. Maybe something completely different.

Just remember, you asked.

[AmericanPride]

I read an article recently (don't remember the publication) in which the author discussed the consequences of the neural lace, which can potentially transform human thinking (and therefore, I imagine, warfare). I think AI (and human-AI interfacing) will be then next step in political evolution. If scarcity is eliminated, or severely reduced, or if virtually all human labor is made surplus, then the current political-economic system is no longer viable. Automation has been the largest driver of job destruction in the U.S. and that process seems to be quickening. What happens to people if there are no more jobs available? Our values (i.e. "the dignity of work") have not caught up to our technological capabilities.

Automation and AI seems the way forward for capitalism. It eliminates the cost and difficulty of managing human labor and increases profits, efficiencies, and margins. This is already occurring in the financial and industrial sectors. Services, like transportation, are next. The gig economy seems to be the half-way point between old capitalism and AI capitalism. The displaced surplus labor must move somewhere else. The privatization of armies (i.e. Blackwater) and the creation of small, highly capable & technical professional armies seems an accompanying trend to this. Neither of these rely upon a large, loyal population but instead on careerist, technical experts.

[OUTLAW 09]

BTW....it is not globalization that is inherently changing the face of governments and their individual politics...it is simply that we are in the early stages of the "fourth industrialization phase...IE robots" and actually while we write here the world is advancing into the "fifth industrialization phase paralleling the fourth phase...IE AI"...coupled with the 4th....robots......

We see it in the manufacturing and then the repair of say as an example farm machinery where grain harvesters now require a mechanics degree in IT and computer troubling shooting to repair a simple hydraulic leak....as they have five onboard computer systems tied to a central controller computer.

OR in the newest FORD factory that produces cars virtually worker free where the robots do everything and the human watches the control centers...AND where even this position will be replaced next year with AI..as per FORD...BMW has already moved into this new "industrialization battlespace using a combination of robots and AI in building the 3er model here in Germany....

AND BTW....prior wars were all about killing and destruction in order to force your will on your opponent....

SO is a cyber attack and or subtle manipulation of say an election via hacking and an influence ops using fake news...propaganda and disinformation actually forcing your will on an opponent?

So as industrialization changes so does future "wars" of the 21st century...

To argue that "war" has never changed ....flies in the face of 21st century reality....

[Azor]

I don't believe I am playing it safe. I believe that Clausewitzian "war" is all about politics and the political realm, where natural war is a natural state of human affairs that never changes.

" I define natural war as non-spontaneous, organized, lethal violence committed by one identifiable group of people against another identifiable group of people, executed by warriors and morally sanctioned by the entire group, for some purpose other than the violence itself. There are seven elements to this definition:
1.war is not a spontaneous act of violence like a riot;
2.war is organized—even simple raids by one group against another require planning and preparation;
3.from the onset, the probability of the violence leading to death on either or both sides is understood;
4.the fighting involves two groups that have a distinguishable identity based in anything from familial relationships (hunter-gatherer bands), to ethnic identity, religious identity, national identity, or ideological identity;
5.war is generally executed by a subpart of the group, the warriors;
6.the killing is morally sanctioned by the rest of the group—the warriors are not viewed as criminals; and
7.it is for a purpose other than simply violence, such as to gain resources, eliminate competition for resources, or to retaliate for attacks or territorial incursions."

"There Is Only War, But War Isn’t Always Political"

In that same paper I argue that our ideas about what war is and how it should be fought have transitioned in the last five centuries or so from "natural war" to "political war," which has a number of rules about legitimate targets and proportionality. So I truly believe that war has always been the same, but our political frame of reference both expands war into areas that are not lethal (like cyber warfare) and limits war by constricting legitimate targets (surrounding a city and starving out the population is now not war, but a crime).

In today's modern, political society, everything is defined by the frame of reference we surround ourselves with, including war. As that frame of reference changes, so do our ideas about war. What I think AP is saying is that, not everyone agrees with our ideas about what a government should look like. Because of that, their definition of "war" is different from ours. As a result of that, how it is fought and, most important, what it takes to win (or lose) is different than ours. We can fight till we are blue in the face, but we are, in essence, not fighting against each other but fighting past each other. I believe that is the crux of the problem both AP and I are thinking about.

Thanks for clarifying my thoughts, I know what my next paper will be about.

Lt. Col.,

I mostly agree with your take on “terrorism”. Firstly, I have always been of the opinion that it is unconventional warfare. Secondly, states have always been worse terrorists than non-state actors, and invariably refer to their enemies (usually unarmed civilians and their own citizens) as terrorists. On the one hand, terrorism as a term has been rendered almost meaningless; on the other, it is used so often that it cannot be ignored, and tends to mean indiscriminate violence and/or violence against civilians by non-state actors.

Technology is an issue as well. The types of improvised explosive devices utilized by the NLF/NVA against American forces in Vietnam were not available to the resistance movements of World War II. Quite frankly, the insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq had an abundance of explosive and detonation devices unavailable to prior guerrilla/terrorist forces.

One question, I would have for you is the moral sanctioning of non-state actors. What "entire groups" are specifically sanctioning Al Qaeda, Daesh and their affiliates? The Taliban is very much a Pashtun movement, and Hezbollah is a Shia movement, so I've left them out...

[davidbfpo]

I was struck by more this passage fits here:

The reduction in the numbers of people buying high quality newspapers in Britain in recent decades has led to a diminution in the amount of first-class journalism available. Together with the digital revolution in accessing information, this has made serious minded media debate on issues like terrorism more difficult.

The author is Professor Richard English, based @ Queens University Belfast and the passage is within a comment on the Westminster attack, so covered in another thread.
Link:https://theconversation.com/the-media-must-respond-more-responsibly-to-terrorist-attacks-heres-how-75490?

[TheCurmudgeon]

Thank you for your kind words. It is nice to know that I am not just crazy.

Technology is an issue as well. The types of improvised explosive devices utilized by the NLF/NVA against American forces in Vietnam were not available to the resistance movements of World War II. Quite frankly, the insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq had an abundance of explosive and detonation devices unavailable to prior guerrilla/terrorist forces. ...

I have always viewed technological advances in warfare the same way I view science fiction. Good science fiction places humans in a world of fantasy or advanced technology, but what actually does is reveal a "truth" about the human condition. That despite all the changes in the world, people are still people. So is the same for warfare and technology. Technology makes new ways of warfare possible, but it does not fundamentally change human nature.

One question, I would have for you is the moral sanctioning of non-state actors. What "entire groups" are specifically sanctioning Al Qaeda, Daesh and their affiliates? The Taliban is very much a Pashtun movement, and Hezbollah is a Shia movement, so I've left them out...

In the case of al Qaeda (and to a lesser extent, Daesh), I would argue that it is the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations. I am less sure about their support in Persian cultures. In the early days, that was the source of these groups funding. That is the community where their actions are most often morally sanctioned.

I have read a study that indicated that there was wider support amongst the Muslim community in Morocco and a few other Arab Countries for the activities of al Qaeda. It was from Pew and it was on the public support for terrorists. I am cautious of this study, but it would provide support for the idea that the activities of al Qaeda are morally sanctioned by a much wider group than simply some Salafists in Saudi Arabia.

[Azor]

In the case of al Qaeda (and to a lesser extent, Daesh), I would argue that it is the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations. I am less sure about their support in Persian cultures. In the early days, that was the source of these groups funding. That is the community where their actions are most often morally sanctioned.

I have read a study that indicated that there was wider support amongst the Muslim community in Morocco and a few other Arab Countries for the activities of al Qaeda. It was from Pew and it was on the public support for terrorists. I am cautious of this study, but it would provide support for the idea that the activities of al Qaeda are morally sanctioned by a much wider group than simply some Salafists in Saudi Arabia.

I'm setting my timer. The Spanish Inquisition of Outlaw, CrowBat, RantCorp and others are coming to explain the nuances of Sunni fundamentalism...

I tried to estimate how many Muslims of the total population were part of armed Islamist formations, and basically arrived at half the proportion of Northern Irish Catholics who were members of the PIRA, INLA, etc. I included parts of the Sudanese and Iranian militaries in my estimates, but it does indicate that Muslim conflicts with non-Muslims tend to be local affairs, and in a number of cases are state-sponsored or led e.g. Darfur. Curiously, only the numbers for Hezbollah and Hamas are in the range of "total war" mobilization, although I suspect much of this strength is dead weight collecting or extorting money, or non-combatants.

With respect to technology, were insurgents denied access to the IEDs used to destroy US vehicles remotely or RPGs, the casualty ratio would be simply eye-watering for them, and about as worth the effort as standing fast in 1991 or 2001...

[TheCurmudgeon]

I'm setting my timer. The Spanish Inquisition of Outlaw, CrowBat, RantCorp and others are coming to explain the nuances of Sunni fundamentalism... ...

I am fine with that. I don't find the term "Sunni Fundamentalism" helpful. Fundamentalism offers a level of correctness to their thinking that I don't think it deserves, so they can beat me up on that too.

I tried to estimate how many Muslims of the total population were part of armed Islamist formations, and basically arrived at half the proportion of Northern Irish Catholics who were members of the PIRA, INLA, etc. I included parts of the Sudanese and Iranian militaries in my estimates, but it does indicate that Muslim conflicts with non-Muslims tend to be local affairs, and in a number of cases are state-sponsored or led e.g. Darfur. Curiously, only the numbers for Hezbollah and Hamas are in the range of "total war" mobilization, although I suspect much of this strength is dead weight collecting or extorting money, or non-combatants....

I like your comparison with the IRA. I believe that, in 1975 you would have found that half the population of Boston would have "morally sanctioned" the actions of the IRA. But they did not hop a plane to Belfast (although some did).

I think it is very hard to equate who morally sanctions the actions of the terrorists with who would actively engage in the fight, although it is far to equate that number with who you have to convince that the terrorists are not worthy of their support.