Rethinking Security

Chuck Norris Tactics

I have a new post at RTJ on a little-recognized past counterterrorism success: the growth in tactical and operational professionalism of military and police CT units.

Science Fiction and Strategy, Continued

I have a new post looking at some interesting contrasts between Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers, the Vietnam airmobility concept, and the Iran-Iraq war at RTJ.

And best of all, while writing it I rewatched parts of the awesomely bad 1997 film version. Hollywood, how about a reboot of this one, Iron Man style?

Complex Operations and Policy Planning

(H/T AEI Defense Studies and Small Wars Journal) NATO's Defense College has published a new edited volume on complex operations that should be of great interest to those interested in contemporary COIN, operational art, and strategy. There's plenty of great stuff here, but I want to highlight the great essay by Jeremiah Pam on wicked problems and complexity.

Pam looks at the public policy, complex adaptive systems theory, urban planning, and economic theory roots of our knowledge of "wicked problems" and complexity in operations. He also connects our current issues in civil-military operational cooperation to the longstanding issues of complex development and aid projects studied by luminaries such as William Easterly of NYU. Pam also looks at the literature in business and public policy planning and the lessons it might have for political-military strategy. All in all, a standout chapter !

COIN Debate: A Second Look

I have a new post about the politics and problems of the COIN debate in America at RTJ.

Operational Theory and Metaphor

In Azar Gat's History of Military Thought, Gat argues that organized military science in the 18th century shifted from descriptions of how to train, equip, and motivate men to the conceptualization and direction of operations. The idea of the "line of operation" originated as a Jominian concept that encompassed the relationship between a base of operations, lines of communication, lines of maneuver, and decisive points in the operation. In turn, Jomini developed these ideas from the more restrictive definition offered by Henry Lloyd, who saw the the line of operation as a line that clarified the relationship solely between marching army and its supply depots.

There's an interesting discussion in the Small Wars Council right now about the evolution of the concept in US doctrine, specifically the growth of "logical lines of operation" (LOOs). LOOs are obviously disengaged from the Line of Operation's physical context, and instead serve as something of a clarifying device for integrating a number of different objectives together (security, information operations, etc).

Chris Paparone (author of a number of different works on operational theory) jumped in to make the most interesting point:

Several years into the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are characterized more by FID- and COIN-oriented activities and goals, doctrinaires searched for a way to define the metaphysical (“logical”) links between military activities as they relate to more nebulous goals like “population security,” “support to insurgents,” and “increasing legitimacy of the host government.” These writers searched for the additional abstraction to describe how to intertwine activities of other agencies and organizations that are nonmilitary in nature (and may constitute the main effort with the military-in-support). Army doctrinaires called these “lines of effort” while joint doctrinaires labeled them “logical lines of operations.” Keep in mind that these efforts are geared to desirable social and psychological change; hence, are not clearly tied to the physical world. Logical lines of operation are more existential (subjective, interpretive, infused with human-created meaning, etc.) in that they address PEOPLE -- changing minds, social norms, ideas about legitimacy, and so on. In essence, you are orienting military activities and nonmilitary activities on the opinions, values, and attitudes of a POPULATION (be they good guys, bad guys, &/or “fence sitters”).

In essence, as Paparone later argues, the problem with this conceptualization is that it seems to visualize a direct and entirely linear input-output process between an operational-level military or interagency process and a causal effect in a complex social system. The thrust of the emerging Design movement is to use modern social science and complexity theory to try to better orient the span of military activities towards the holistic operational system as well.

The larger problem with Logical Lines of Operation (LOO), though, lies with the disaggregation between the physical meaning and the abstract one. This is something of a problem with modern Western operational theory in general. Many operational theory concepts as conceptualized in the US (such as the debate about the Center of Gravity concept) use abstract and/or metaphorical models to better orient force. The problem, however, is that the abstractness of these models leaves their meaning very fuzzy and in turn problematizes the relationship between the metaphor, the employment of combat power, and the expected output or effect.

The American understanding of the Center of Gravity (COG) concept, for example, sometimes leads to nearly Talmudic parsing over what the COG is, even when the concept (as originally conceptualized by Clausewitz) may not apply to the situation at hand. If several completely plausible (yet radically different) opponent COGs are produced (as they sometimes are in military analyses of opponents) then the American use of the concept should be examined. In turn, the quest for "effects" led Israeli commanders to tell puzzled subordinates to "render the enemy incoherent" in 2006. And to go even far back, we can look at JFC Fuller's concept of striking the "brain" of an army--something that physically did not exist.

The chief risk is that in employing metaphorical concepts as ordering devices for the use of force, one directs force at things that either do not exist (such as JFC Fuller's "brain of the army"). Or, for that matter, there is the risk that the ordering schemas incorrectly manage the translation of force into political power or misdiagnose the relationship between the two entirely. EBO's flaw was that it visualized human societies as closed systems, for example. As I wrote with Crispin Burke back in February, new concepts and debates might clarify this doctrinal controversy a bit, although there are some risks.

More on Anti-Access and Power Projection

I continue my earlier analysis in a new post in RTJ.

Defense and Power Projection

I've posted an extended analysis of the "anti-access" and power projection issue at Red Team Journal.

Book Expansion

As I mentioned before, I have a tendency to jump back and forth between many different books. So I'm still reading the books I mentioned in this post (with the exception of Alan Millett and Williamson Murray, which I finished), but I've started reading some new books as well.

• Archer Jones, Elements of Military Strategy: A Historical Approach, 1996.
• Aleksandr A. Svechin, Strategy, orig. published 1927, 1993 reprint.
• Chaim Herzog, War of Atonement: The Inside Story of the Yom Kippur War, orig published 1975, 2009 reprint.
• Martin Kitchen, Rommel's Desert War: Waging World War II in North Africa, 1941-1943, 2010.
• Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1-2 Campaigning, 1997.

I've read about a third of Jones, nearly half of Kitchen, half of MCDP 1-2, and just started Svechin and Herzog.

Some brief capsule comments: Jones's book expands on his unique strategic theory and typology he introduced in The Art of War in the Western World. Svechin's book is a work of strategic theory by the Soviet Union's perhaps most brilliant theoretician-practitioner outlining his view of the shift away from a Napoleonic way of warfare to a "modern" style. Herzog's is a dated but valuable (so far) overview of the Yom Kippur war from an Israeli and primarily military perspective. Kitchen continues the emerging historical consensus of Rommel as a good tactician but a massively flawed commander in other respects. MCDP 1-2 is a good document to begin from when looking at campaign planning and its role in the larger processes of strategy.

I'll try to review each, like Zenpundit, when I finish. I'm also looking forward to Starbuck's review of the new Kilcullen book.

The Strategic Game: Kiras on Strategy

Unlike Zenpundit, (the link shows his amazingly large and well-regulated reading schedule) I tend to jump around with books I read. So I'm still working on these books, although I did finish reading A War To Be Won a week or so ago. On that note, I thought Millett and Murray did an remarkable job of writing a purely military one-volume history of the war that put all of the large battles, major operations, and campaigns of the conflict in every theater of the war in proper perspective.

I recently also read Special Operations and Strategy: From World War II to the War on Terrorism by James D. Kiras. Although this book touches on the somewhat narrow topic of Special Operations Forces (SOF), it has a much wider field of vision and echoes the message of Joseph Fouche's "Strategy of the Headless Chicken" post.

First, Kiras gives us a run-through of strategic theory ranging from Hans Delbrück to J.C. Wylie as well as theories of "strategic paralysis" from J.F.C. Fuller to the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Kiras argues (correctly) that attrition has been historically misunderstood as a kind of mindless slog. Rather, attrition is a cumulative strategy that involves progressively raising the adversary's cost of fighting through a variety of both material and psychological means. The competing strategy, annihilation, is a rapid and violent action of some sort that either destroys the opponent's army or cripples his means to resist in one blow (such as a computer network strike).

Strategic paralysis theory (which he identifies mainly as a province of interwar maneuver theorists and some airpower theorists) is a subset of annihilation strategy which leverages technology. Kiras points out that those seeking strategic paralysis often lack the information, strength, or decisiveness needed to implement it. A competent industrial-era (or beyond) enemy with enough capabilities to effectively resist is unlikely to allow themselves to be out-maneuvered Liddell-Hart style, or put to flight with some bombing of select industrial nodes.

With this prelude, Kiras then points out that SOF are best employed in a manner that enhances the strategic performance of regular forces. This does not mean tying them down with tactical support tasks, like the Allies did in Kiras's case study of the 1944 Normandy campaign. Rather, it means best leveraging them to accomplish tasks uniquely suited to their capabilities that add to the conventional "hammer" already pressing the opponent. The actions of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) in psychologically and materially pressing the Afrika Korps through raiding missions is an example Kiras employs. Kiras also discusses the "non-linearity" of attrition, employing complex systems theory to look at how the additive effects of a series of small raids coordinated in a campaign can produce large systemic consequences for an opponent.

Kiras effectively debunks what he calls the "handful of heroes" style of analysis on the subject, noting that the strategic effects of individual missions that some authors blow out of proportions for cinematic effect is marginal at best. To those who might retort by pointing out Entebbe, Kiras insightfully notes how Entebbe harmonized with the larger Israeli policy of that period. This, however, isn't going to stop me from watching The A-Team. If Rampage Jackson (playing Mr. T's old role) does not have Mr. T's massive gold jewelry, however, I might be upset.

Despite the title, Kiras only addresses the War on Terror in passing. This a book whose main historical source text is World War II, and rightly so given the nature of his thesis. Nevertheless, Kiras does a service by outlining (with copious historical examples) the strategic utility and limitations of an arm of policy that is being used extensively today in a rather controversial manner. His larger explorations of strategy are also persuasive and insightful.