"...The General saw the mountain-range ahead,
With their 'elios showin' saucy on the 'eight,
An' telegraphed the Boojers wouldn't fight.
For 'e might ' ave gone 'an sprayed 'em with a pompom,
Or 'e might 'ave slung a squadron out to see-
But 'e wasn't takin' chances in them 'igh an' 'ostile kranzes,
He was markin' time to earn a K.C.B... ."
- "Stellenbosch" by Rudyard Kipling1
Traditional, uniformed military organizations are trained, organized, and resourced to fight and win the Nation's wars.2 In the past, this has meant defeating or destroying the opposing uniformed armed forces and seizing or controlling the opposing capital. War was a duel against one opponent. The military problem was to generate enough combat power to destroy located and well-understood enemy Battle Operating Systems. Victory conditions were clear. A leader surrendered. The fight was over and imposing the political solution was a simple problem for the diplomats and politicians. In spite of Clausewitz, military operations were seen as separate from the other tools of national policy. Von Moltke, the German strategist, indicated that when the guns begin to fire, the diplomats should fall silent.3 Leonhard, author of The Principles of War for the Information Age, cites the 1993 version of FM 100-5, "The ultimate aim of all military operations is the destruction of enemy armed forces", as particularly pernicious.4
Today, however, U.S. forces face the long-awaited asymmetric, non-linear battlefield. As Lind, an American strategist, noted, on this Fourth Generation Battlefield we see trends blurring the distinction between Peace and War, and civilian and military.5 Rapid, decisive warfare targeting militaries and capitals has little effect on trans-national or ideologically- based groups. In fact, the capture or death of leaders may not end a conflict with widely dispersed, ideologically motivated, and technologically super-empowered individuals in a globalized world.6 Decentralized, cellular groups, sharing an intention can create a form of swarm warfare difficult for traditional militaries to counter.7 War ceases to be a duel, with factions and nations, allied in one moment, competing against us the next moment. Unlike the battlefield addressed by traditional internal war or revolutionary warfare doctrine, multiple players with divergent end-states are the norm.8 The security problem is defining the enemy and understanding his Battle Operating Systems so that our already overwhelming combat power can be effectively focused. In this instance, victory conditions are unclear. A terrorist leader cannot surrender his sword and ensure the cessation of hostilities. Establishing the military conditions does not guarantee the political solution. You and I can clearly see this trend in Palestine. Diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and political systems are part of a larger complex adaptive system and are not separable.
Traditional militaries have faced non-traditional environments before. From Kipling's Boer War to revolutionary and ethnic conflicts around the world, the track record is not good. Luttwak indicates that the purpose of command and control (C2) systems is to distribute uncertainty.9 The tendency under greater uncertainty is greater distribution. Traditional militaries, being terrain focused, tend to divide terrain into sectors. They then inefficiently distribute scarce supporting resources, failing to identify a main effort because of uncertainty. Subordinate commanders are left the problem of stabilizing or pacifying their areas of operations. Without clearly perceived political objectives and military conditions resulting in true measures of effectiveness, commanders must substitute controllable measures of performance (i.e., boots on the ground, patrols conducted, and casualties). These leaders find themselves in the position of avoiding "Stellenbosch" (During the Boer War, the British sent out-of-favor officers to this town). The result is that Force Protection becomes mission number one, defining a successful rotation, and creating a defensive paralysis.10 The perception of stability in one's sector and anticipation of unit rotation becomes more important than the local reality. Scales highlights the danger of a force hunkering down into base nodes and narrow lines of communication, which could be attacked in detail like pearls on a string.11
Therefore, the problem we face is to adapt our systems to the uncertain and amorphous environment of the Fourth Generation Battlefield. We need a strategy that establishes victory conditions. We need operational concepts that focus our strengths against the threat to re-establish symmetry or create a favorable objective warfare environment.12 We need clearly defined measures of effectiveness that empower subordinate commanders and redefine success.
This piece is not designed to review strategic concepts like military transformation, capabilities-based planning, or effects-based operations. Nor will we write a campaign plan or provide specific remedies, which would require this document be classified. We intend to provide a general framework for the War on Terror that is missing, according to a Rand Report, a Center for Strategic and International Studies Congressional Testimony, a leaked memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the author's experience.13
This work recommends a strategy based on the adaptation of risk management tools. We further identify the following operational concepts to support this effort: transformational intelligence-driven operations; Operational Net Assessment and targeting processes; Special Operations Forces (SOF) executive agency and control of the large General Purpose Force (GPF) formations; Joint and Interagency operations that focus all lines of operation for greater effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability. Finally, we will illustrate measures of effectiveness tied to the adapted targeting process.
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1: Rudyard Kipling, Rudyard Kipling Complete Verse: Definitive Edition (New York: Anchor Books, 1989), pp. 475, 476. During the Boer War, the British sent the more notoriously incompetent commanders to the Town of Stellenbosch.
2: Department of the Army, "The Army Vision, 2000". www.army.mil
3: LTC Robert R. Leonhard, The Principles of War for the Information Age (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1998), pg. 149.
5: William S. Lind et al, "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation", Marine Corps Gazette, October 1989, pp. 22-26. This prescient article highlights both technological and ideology based trends in warfare.
6: Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York: Knopf Publishing, 2000). Friedman identifies the dangerous technology-driven trend towards super-empowered individuals. He also notes that modernization does not equal westernization, in particular the values the National Security Strategy identifies as non-negotiable.
7: Newton Howard, Seeking Peace in Our Time: Toward Global Defense Policy Laws ( Washington, DC: 1stBooks Library; 2002 ISBN: 1403373221). Dr. Howard identiies his concept of intention awareness which enables organizations to operate independently of direct guidance.
8: MAJ H. M. Hannon, ed., History of Revolutionary Warfare Vol. I (West Point, NY: USMA, 1979). The concepts of internal warfare, including governmental legitimacy, remain valid. However, the constructs in the 1970's were tailored to address communist sponsored insurgencies.
9: Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1987), Pg. 210. in Newton Howard, Theory of Intention Awareness in Tactical Military Intelligence: Reducing Uncertainty by Understanding the Cognitive Architecture of Intentions ( Washington, DC: 1stBooks Library; 2002- ISBN: 1403376603). Dr. Howard interprets this passage as indicating that what is distributed is uncertainty.
10: Admiral (Ret.) Leighton Smith, USN, "Force Protection is No More a Mission, Than Hope is a Course of Action", XIII Annual Strategy Conference, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 9-11 April 2002
11: MG Robert H. Scales, Jr., Future Warfare Anthology, Revised Edition (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2001), pg. 275.
12: Leonhard, pg. 229. Objective conflict involves fighting an unlike opponent when and where he is weak. This is opposed to subjective conflict, which involved defeating a like opponent when and where he is strong. Leonard's concept of the Law of Duality is an interesting twist on the idea of asymmetric warfare. He indicates that this is not a new concept at the tactical echelon and that asymmetry, as in objective conflict, can work for us as well as against us.
13: RAND, "Executive Summary: 2nd Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving WMD, Washington DC, 15 DEC 2000. Frank J. Cilluffo, " Combating Terrorism: In Search of a National Strategy", Statement to the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, 2001, pg. 2. FOX News, 3 NOV 03. The author was Chief of Plans for CJSOTF-N from December 2002-May 2003, Chief of Plans for CJSOTF-AP in June 2003, and currently serves as Chief of the Special Operations Theater Support Element for Combined Forces Land Component Command in the Central Command Area of Responsibility.
David E.A. Johnson, Senior Fellow
Lt. Col. David Johnson is a senior research fellow with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Paris in Theoretical Information Science. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, a Graduate of the Command and General Staff Course, the Joint Defense College (France), and holds a Masters Degree in the History of Strategy from the Sorbonne. An Army Strategist, he has recently served as an Army Legislative Liaison with the House of Representatives, Chief of Plans for the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Northern Iraq and Chief of Plans for the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force for the Arabian Peninsula. He is currently assigned as Chief of the Special Operations Theater Support Element-Central Command. His dissertation is in the domain of intention awareness with implications for wireless encryption and the creation of organization independent software. He has participated in numerous working groups for the development of military decision-making systems, both American and French. He has published articles in Infantry and Special Warfare magazines.
This work is posted along the "Fair Use of Copyrighted Works" provisions. This work was originally published by:
The Center for Advanced Defense Studieswith the following provisio:
The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052
This work reflects the opinions of the author and not the official positions of The George Washington University, The Department of Defense, or any other organization with which the author is affiliated.
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