You should not quote that selectively, for the answer followed:
(my emphasis)Originally Posted by Marc
A strategy that ignores the given limits and civilian guidance is crap, not a strategy. It's not to be funded, but to be scrapped in favour of a real strategy within the imposed limits.
You (emphasis mine)should read more carefully. I asked a question about what he(Marc) thinks a politicians job is? Where I live Politicians change funding and laws all the time because they are temporally elected officials they may not have an accurate understanding of the true nature and magnitude of the problem until it is explained to them in detail, at which time they may and often do make changes to funding and manpower and laws.
Right, but doesn't Wardens desire to "start with strategy" imply that the military strategist should get to be the one to "picture the desired endstate"?2-Yes, you should start with the desired end state, the political objective but that is usually something that is given to the military not something which they get to create.
Aren't we doing what Warden cautions against in presupposing that our means will be to strike something? Or are you using "strike" in a generic sense of "to affect"?1-No, as you point out Libya is NOT the system you want to attack but you need to make a systems map of the country in order to see what you should avoid attacking. From there you need to map the Qudaffi Mafia(using table1 as an example) and all it's elements and then decide what to Strike.
SO lets say our strategic objective is to remove "the Qudaffi Mafia" from power along with their ability to adversely impact the oppsition regime's assumption of power.
Where do we get the information we need to understand how deeply the Qudaffi Mafia is insuinuated throughout the country? If all the COGs live in Ring 2 of systems essentials where do we get the "map" of these things? What happens if the map is a really complicated thing like the one Cliff linked to regarding Af/Pak?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/wo...oint.html?_r=1
Last edited by pvebber; 03-15-2011 at 05:10 PM.
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
-George E.P. Box
pvebber, really, really good questions. But I gotta go for now. I will respond as soon as I can, so keep thinking cause that is some really good stuff you bring up.
Again, read more carefully. I'll narrow down the emphasis from his quote:
"to fit the strategy"
Of course pols are supposed to set budgets (that's trivial), but not so "to fit the strategy".
----------
Politicians change every 4-6 years. That's a "duration of world war" interval. Any officer who thinks that he cannot adapt to their changes of effective restrictions in time should resign.
I expect a military to adapt in few weeks to at most a year. Everything in excess of a year is a too long reaction lag and testament of incompetence and/or organisational failure.
Obviously, this is a common illness of modern militaries. No military rises above "not good enough yet". They're all misguided, wasteful, ill-conceived and largely incompetent bureaucracies instead of the smart and agile warfare organisations the taxpayers deserve.
Funding and laws can come from a variety of sources. Democracies fund their wars with taxes. Autocracies fund their wars with proceeds from raw materials (oil, gas, copper,...). Non-state actors fund their wars with drug trafficking, blood diamonds, racqueteering, religious fundraising or state sponsors. Laws can come from congress, the Qur'an, the barrel of a gun, or the politburo. All sources of funding and laws have their limitations. There are only so many taxes you can raise. There are only so many drugs you can sell. There is only so much oil you can pump up. The legislative process is equally restrictive. If you want to get a majority together to vote a health care reform, you cannot distract members of Congress with increased war burdens in Afghanistan. If you want to impose your idea of legislation on your population by terrorizing them, you cannot count on your army to prevent an invading army from conquering Baghdad.
A good strategy takes all these limitations into account in stead of lamenting that politicians fail to overcome them. Did Mao ever complain that his strategy was underresourced? No. He had nothing. He did some hard thinking to figure out a strategy to win a war with nothing and he won. Did Vo Nguyen Giap ever complain that Ho Chi Minh's funding and laws did not fit his strategy. No, he developed a strategy to beat the Americans with what the Vietnamese economy, communist state sponsors and his own people's ingenuity and stamina could provide.
Again, like Warden said himself: "All military operations, including air operations, should be consonant with the prevailing political and physical environment." It's not the politicians' job to provide funding, manpower and laws to fit the strategy. It's the strategist's job to come up with an effective strategy within the limits set by funding, manpower and laws.
Fuchs offers:
Unfortunatley we kind of get the worst of both worlds the way the system ends up working.Of course pols are supposed to set budgets (that's trivial), but not so "to fit the strategy".
The President puts out a "National Security Strategy".
The military chiefs then creates supporting military strategies of various sorts (regional, service, roles and misions, etc.)
DoD civilians then provide an input to the President as to what they think it will cost to implement what they think address the Presidents objectives.
The President then tweaks it and sends it to Congress where a whole bag of worms is opened.
The President has a set of political objectives in establishing the NSS. The Military chiefs have a bunch of institutional objectives in its response. DoD can be a focusing, or diffusing lens on the uniformed input.
Congress has a entirely different set of objectives based on sending money to their various constituencies. They add and remove elements at will totally independant of any notions of "Strategy".
This lack of an overall source of "strategy" and a coherent "ways and means" approach to acomplishing it has been argued about going back to G. Washington.
The current climate is perfect example. We are still strategically adrift without a "picture of a desired end-state". The desire for a US militarily dominant into the far future is still out there, but now competes with the notion of a US that "leads the strategic consensus" rather than is simply dominant. That is good becasue we can't afford to be "militarily dominant" everywhere we might want.
We (and the world) is entering a period of fiscal austerity. We have over-promised and underdelievered for too long and over the next 10 years will pay the piper. (which is great for me becasue I want to retire in about 15 years which means my golden years will likely be on the upside the next positive wave)
In how to deal with the inevitable budget reductions of the near future, the President, the Serivices, the DoD, and Congress are seperated by their varying objectives, so its not question of "Strategy driving funding" vs "Strategy constrained by funding" - we have neither effective strategy, nor an effective means of funding. So we will muddle along as we always have - with strategy and resources chasing each others tails like the gingham dog and the calico cat.
Last edited by pvebber; 03-15-2011 at 06:52 PM.
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
-George E.P. Box
Heh. Totally true.
At least as pertains to democracies, there is little prospect for change barring an existential war. I suspect that is to be tolerated and perhaps even admired a bit but it sure is frustrating, mostly because the politicians who literally force their militaries to that marginal state do not realize the limitations (and hidden costs) they impose upon themselves...
You want probability and a systematic approach? You can't handle a ..;)
Because some want to attribute probabilities and science to warfare and budget allocations, lets look at some possible figures.
The first assumption balances probabilities for war over the next 20 years in various parts of the world. If the US chose option A with more air and seapower and showed no willingness to deploy ground forces to fight or deter terror, I would submit based on the abandonment of land troops in Lebanon, Somalia, and the cruise missile attacks of Afghanistan, failed no-fly zone over Iraq, and failure to act in Libya all increase likelihood of a terrorist attack to .95 over the next 20 years versus only .85 if the U.S. continues terror deterrent efforts in places like Afghanistan, etc.
A similar hypothesis is that if we withdrew U.S. ground forces in South Korea, the loss of the tripwire effect would increase probability of war there. One could make a claim that a subsequent rush to Korea would involve greater ground losses than if we had forces there already. But I kept the losses the same but the probability of war higher with no forces there.
Finally, I acknowledge that increased spending on air and seapower would decrease an already extremely low probability of war with China. If a minor nuclear exchange occurred, it would be the same death toll regardless of which option we chose. Of course if no minor nuclear exchange occurred, losses would be far lower in both scenarios.
The last point is a primary one. The very high probability of another terrorist attack and subsequent war over the next 20 years must be balanced against the extremely low probability of war with China or Russia due to economic interdependency and MAD making it a lose-lose proposition. With MAD, even if we had limited conflict with either quasi-superpower, the probability is still pretty good that no nuclear exchange would occur.
Potential U.S. Deaths over next 20 years from warfare and/or terrorist attack
..Middle East .. Korea China
Option A: [.95 x 8,000] + [.2 x 12,000] + [.02 x 100,000] = ?
Option A: 7,600 +2,400 + 2,000 = 12,000 dead
Option B: [.85 x 8,000] + [.1 x 12,000] + [.04 x 100,000] =?
Option B: 6,800 + 1,200 + 4,000 = 12,000 dead
Next since COL (R) Warden and other USAF proponents and sellers of AirSea Battle would argue for greater defense budgets for Air and Seapower, lets look at what the above option A (higher air and seapower spending) compares to an option B with the more traditional equal spending between all the services.
For starters, air and seapower procurement is far costlier as are O&S costs than Army procurement and O&S expense. Army Manpower expense is admittedly higher. But because of the disproportionate costs of air and seapower, you can see how the U.S. could easily spend $2.5 trillion more than in a balanced approach over the next 20 years.
Service Defense Budgets over next 20 years in todays dollars
Air Force ..Navy/Marines ..Army
Option A: $5 trillion + $6 trillion +$2.5 trillion = $13.5 trillion
Option B: $3.5 trillion +$4 trillion +$3.5 trillion = $11 trillion
Finally, as the war winds down, it is somewhat startling to see how rapidly some are talking about reducing Army size. The already highly disproportionate deployment rate of Army versus other services is unlikely to improve if Army manpower is seen as a billpayer to increase air and seapower spending.
The below figures are based on one 6 month deployment by the Air Force, Navy, and Marines every 30 months with the Army deploying for 12 months out of every 30 months in Option A (smaller Army, more spent on air and seapower) and for 12 months out of every 40 months in Option B (traditional near equal spending for all services) where the Army stays nearly as large as it currently is. Note that the Army still gets the raw end of the deal either way.
Deployed months over the next 20 years: Air Force (6 mths) Navy/Marines (6 mths) Army (12 mths)
Option A: .48 months ..48 months .96 months
(Decrease Army and slightly fewer AF/Navy/Marines)
Option B: ..48 months .48 months .72 months
(Keep Army ranks higher and slightly fewer AF/Navy/Marines)
If the US desires to be a major continental power, build a large army. If the US desires to be a major global power, build a large Navy, and control the air and space above it.
The role of armies in peacetime is pretty narrow, and regardless of all the hype and current conflicts in 3-4 places, we are a nation at peace. The vast majority of those conflicts are elective; in that if they were medical procedures, our insurance wouldn't cover them.
Having sat at the big table (and banged my head on the same) in the QDR process; and worked the halls of the Pentagon vainly attempting to get each of the services to give two flying monkeys of concern over their statutory responsibility to fund all service-common aspects of Special Operations Forces, I understand the inter-service rivalry. All of the services are insanely biased and self-serving. None of them want to "lose" to a sister service in the grand priority and budget competition.
The Army (and the Marines, though this actually fits well within their wheelhouse) have latched onto Terrorism, Irregular Warfare, Asymmetric Warfare, Security Force Assistance, and every other bottle of snake oil they could pull of the shelf in an effort to stay in the game at a wartime footing in an era of peace. Frankly, treating peace like war may be good for the Army, but it is not healthy for the rest of the nation, and someone needs to throw the switch and side rail the crazy train.
As to Warden? Like all models, there is value in any model that helps one to organize their thoughts and to consider possibilities they might otherwise have overlooked. Employ Warden for that and it is helpful. Also like all models, if one comes to see them as some sort of magic machine that one can dogmatically follow steps A through Z to get to a perfect solution, one deserves what they get. Its a framework for thinking, and that is helpful, and that is enough.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
By that I think he is talking about the problem of linkage. How do military objectives link to achieving the political end state.
Yes, strike was a poor choice of words "affect" is the proper term.
First the real problem as I see it, would be the opposition regime, you better get that one right or it is not going to matter much in the long run. To answer your question on "Qudaffi's Mafia" the problem as I see it, like all criminal/terrorist/insurgent/gang organizations is that it is essentially a Clandestine system. They don't have traditional Tanks,Ships,Planes and Bases. They alter the civilian environment(things,and locations) that are already there to be used for criminal/war activities. They use secrecy,subversion,deception to hide what and where they are.
Second you don't get a systems map from anywhere, you have to create it. That is why I say the model is not prescriptive(as many people say) it is descriptive. It lists the broad categories of the elements of all systems but you have to go and discover them yourself. That is generally going to be an Intelligence function. Hence the old saying Airpower is Targeting and all Targeting is Intelligence. I would change that to All Strategy is Targeting and all Targeting is Intelligence. It dosen't matter if it is doen by the Army,Air Force,or Navy.
Third the map you posted is....well just crazy IMO. How in the world would you use something like that. If you want to know what a usable map would look like there are a couple of ways to do it, but generally you are going to end up with a list of the essential people,places and things that they need to operate the system.
Both China and Vietnam had big Armies with alot of guns and a lot of ammunition. Now somebody paid for that and it wasn't cheap. I agree about the Laws, neither were concerned with laws, they had no political restrictions to worry about, all they were concerned with was wining.
Heh.. Funny you say that...
Many years ago some of us told a lot of the "We need a SO service..." types to be careful what they wanted, they might get it...
Barbwire Bob may have persuaded Nunn and Goldwater but I'm not at all sure he did the Nation any favors...
It's hard to convince someone to give you money when you have your own pot which you don't share at all well and when you imply to the folks you want to give you money that they're lesser, pedestrian beings, isn't it...That's true and it applies to SOCOM-as-service as well. However, it's as much an effect of out pathetically poor budgeting system and a venal Congress as anything. The services are not blameless but Congress creates more problems than it solves -- not least by years of overfunding DoD.I understand the inter-service rivalry. All of the services are insanely biased and self-serving. None of them want to "lose" to a sister service in the grand priority and budget competition.Nor is it good for the Army or the Marines...The Army (and the Marines, though this actually fits well within their wheelhouse) have latched onto Terrorism, Irregular Warfare, Asymmetric Warfare, Security Force Assistance, and every other bottle of snake oil they could pull of the shelf in an effort to stay in the game at a wartime footing in an era of peace. Frankly, treating peace like war may be good for the Army, but it is not healthy for the rest of the nation, and someone needs to throw the switch and side rail the crazy train.
In their defense, they have not so much latched onto it as been forced to grab it. And truth be told, SOCOM has not helped in that.
Turf protection is a people problem. It isn't beneficial and it's a by-product of poorly crafted laws, a poorly functioning Congress -- and poor leadership. It is in part funded by such massive amounts of money being made available which inculcates greed -- our boom and bust way with money does not help. It also would not be such a problem if it were not tolerated, even encouraged...True dat.As to Warden? Like all models, there is value in any model that helps one to organize their thoughts...Its a framework for thinking, and that is helpful, and that is enough.
slapout9,
Mao and Ho Chi Minh did not have big Armies when they started their fight against Tsjang Kai Tsjek's nationalist regime and French colonial rule respectively. They created these army from among the peasants with agitation and propaganda. It was only much, much later that these peasant insurgencies involved into big Armies with a lot of guns and a lot of ammunition.
I disagree with you that you agree with me about laws. I think you are missing my point. I did not say that our opponents do not have political restrictions to worry about. On the contrary. ALL power systems have political restrictions to worry about.
On restrictions of democratic power systems; see Harvey Sapolsky:
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4330354
On restrictions of islamist power systems; see Erik Claessen:
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/Military...430_art017.pdf
On restrictions of autocratic power systems; see Norvell De Atkine:
http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars
Marc, thanks for the refernce points. I will read them and get back with you.
I forgot to add I am and have been reading "The Unknown Story of MAO" by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Big book and hard to read but as the title says what we think and know about MAO as opposed to the rest of the story about MAO is different.
Last edited by slapout9; 03-16-2011 at 04:46 PM. Reason: stuff
OK, given the political endstate I described, what are the associated military obectives?By that I think he is talking about the problem of linkage. How do military objectives link to achieving the political end state.
OK, so how do we get the information we need to make one? since they "They use secrecy,subversion,deception to hide what and where they are." Is this a national intelligence function or a military intelligence function? How do we know when we have enough to start doing some o that thar 'affectin' ?Second you don't get a systems map from anywhere, you have to create it.
Hmmmm so if we are not going to actully moel system, how is it we are using systems theory to figure out what shold be on our list? The whole thing about a systems theory approach that Warden leverages is that if you understand the system holisitcally, you can "find the flaw in the deathstar".Third the map you posted is....well just crazy IMO. How in the world would you use something like that. If you want to know what a usable map would look like there are a couple of ways to do it, but generally you are going to end up with a list of the essential people,places and things that they need to operate the system.
However, if you don't have the plans to the deathstar how do you find the single point of failure vent to drop your photon torpedo down?
How do you know how to prioritize what goes on the list or "what they need to operate the system" without a model of this system to tell you what the CoGs are?
As far a the posted map goes, from what I've seen of these things, that is a REALLY simple one. Each of those little text boxes would have a map of similar complexity inside it, and similarly complex maps inside many of those. Wardens paper discusses a ROM of 1000 targets to affect the CoGs, out of "a whole list" that would number in the 10s if not 100s of thousands inthe case of a major power.
For Libya it would be perhaps an order of magnitude less, but you are still looking for 100s of target among perhaps 5-10 CoGs out of a potential target list of 1000s of items.
Appreciate you bearing with me trying to puzlle this out
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
-George E.P. Box
Keep going don't stop. You ask many of the questions I did. But you need to bear with me because retired LE folks have to have another job to keep paying the bills and I am the dog shift for awhile with no access to a computer. But I will answer in detail later today
Appreciate you bearing with me trying to puzlle this outtonight. In the meantime read this from the SWJ Blog, it's a little complicated for my taste but he it is a start point. My way is better of course
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/201...network-desig/
Great article!
But I sense a bait and switch...The rings in figure 2 are different than the Warden rings...
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
-George E.P. Box
...From Left Field - A better definition of "airpower"?
I was talking to some folks around the ofice and it hit me that there is some touble with Warden's defintion of Airpower as:
So is an ICBM or other ballistic missile "ground power" since it is not guided and comes from a ground launcher? But then a realtively short ranged guided artillery projectile or SAM would be "airpower"?To keep this simple, we will not talk about current service organizations. Thus, ground power is anything essentially tethered directly to the earth, including people, tanks, and artillery; sea power is anything that operates on or under water but does not include aircraft or missiles launched from ships; and airpower is anything guided that flies through the air and space, regardless of who owns it or its launch platform. If we want to avoid parochial arguments that confuse our assessment of the options, we need to stay with these definitions. After reaching conclusions, we can decide which organizations should own and operate the three types of power.
Does my ship, which is a seapower platform when it is firing ballistic rounds from its gun become an airpower platform when I load a guided round? If I put a rail gun on my ship that fires unguided rounds hundreds of miles is that rail gun seapower, but the shorter range Harpoon missile that only affects ships is "airpower"? Is a ship that only fires guided weapons an "airpower" platform?
How about a high powered laser? Is that that not airpower because its not guided, but a short range SAM is airpower becasue it is?
Can we come up with a better definition of "airpower" that perhaps uses some aspect of overall precision rather than just "guided"? And the notion that a crucial discriminator of "airpower" has to do with some function of "action at a distance"? Bt not all action at adistance? (ie the target matters?)
Last edited by pvebber; 03-16-2011 at 09:05 PM.
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
-George E.P. Box
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