Evolution of Warfare

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]dannyrat wrote:
I also think that what i’m about to say is objective, and compassionate. No offense intended.[/quote]

I hope you’re not going to start every post like that? Say what you have to say, and let the chips fall where they may.

[quote]If you demonise the enemy, it’s so it’s easier to kill them right? Like shutting off your conscience before a fight, being ruthless and animalistic to get the neccessary task done. (Is this agreeable?)

For me, an inevitable and undesirable consequence of this immunity to conscience, is that things may be done in the heat of battle, that outside of adrenaline, are seen to be very wrong.

Couldn’t this be true? [/quote]

It’s obviously true, and that’s why war, even when necessary and justified is always atrocious and inhuman.

I think the problem with that view is that, pragmatically, it won’t work. You’ll be concerned with your enemy’s humanity while he’s shooting you in the face. In other words, you’ll lose. Badly.

That why boot camp breaks down the individual and his natural selfishness and then remakes him as part of a group. You don’t want someone concerned for his own life, you want him concerned for the group; you want him to stay and fight with his platoon, not running away. Similarly, you don’t want him having thoughts about the people he’s shooting.

You don’t want him thinking he’s killing a father of four; you want him killing a bunch of dogs, murderers, fascists, ragheads, whatever; anyone, as long as he doesn’t identify with them.

That’s where I see a problem with the proposed WW4 soldier: The entire mental outlook towards war and the enemy has to change.

In some way, it becomes less like out and out war and more like policing civilians.

22

But in essence, war has changed, with media and world opinion being a big part of warfare in general. Are massive military campaigns old fasioned? Is it now more feasible to insert small teams to get rid of the Bin Laden’s of the world, and then work with the media in the various regions to manipulate those people’s thinking, so radical groups no longer have resources to draw upon? Can this not be considered a type of warfare?

I would argue that against terrorism, this type of ‘propaganda’ warfare would be more successful. If the peoples in these regions were bombarded with information from their newspapers, and leaders about how terrorsm is not in their best interest, would it not eliminate the angry youth that these organizations draw upon? Look at how strongly the media can affect things in the US, I think this can be applied worldwide.

23

[quote]Z-Man wrote:
But in essence, war has changed, with media and world opinion being a big part of warfare in general. Are massive military campaigns old fasioned? Is it now more feasible to insert small teams to get rid of the Bin Laden’s of the world, and then work with the media in the various regions to manipulate those people’s thinking, so radical groups no longer have resources to draw upon? Can this not be considered a type of warfare?

I would argue that against terrorism, this type of ‘propaganda’ warfare would be more successful. If the peoples in these regions were bombarded with information from their newspapers, and leaders about how terrorsm is not in their best interest, would it not eliminate the angry youth that these organizations draw upon? Look at how strongly the media can affect things in the US, I think this can be applied worldwide.[/quote]

Interesting point. Two avenues seem to open up from that discussion.

If you are the weaker state or organization then world opinion will generally be in your favor. As a larger or stronger state or superpower will the world opinion ever side with your position (US, Israel eg.) no matter what position you take.

Second. What if you decide what is at stake is mor important then world opinion? Survival as a nation for example or the loss of many citizens. Unfortunately if you have foresaken the practice of overwhelming force your options are greatly limited.

24

I for one would have loved to see a group of elite US commandoes take out Saddam Hussein, rather than “Shock and Awe” over Baghdad. The overwhelming force option is always available, but you assasinate a dictator, and any other dictator will think twice about doing certain things again.

This doesn’t happen because of an unwritten code. All world leaders want to preserve their own safety, so they don’t assasinate each other, but are willing to send soldiers out to do their dirty work.

25

[quote]Z-Man wrote:
But in essence, war has changed, with media and world opinion being a big part of warfare in general. Are massive military campaigns old fasioned? Is it now more feasible to insert small teams to get rid of the Bin Laden’s of the world, and then work with the media in the various regions to manipulate those people’s thinking, so radical groups no longer have resources to draw upon? Can this not be considered a type of warfare?

I would argue that against terrorism, this type of ‘propaganda’ warfare would be more successful. If the peoples in these regions were bombarded with information from their newspapers, and leaders about how terrorsm is not in their best interest, would it not eliminate the angry youth that these organizations draw upon? Look at how strongly the media can affect things in the US, I think this can be applied worldwide.[/quote]

I don’t think that massive military operations are old fashioned. Someone will still have to go kill the bad guys. However, we are going to have to have a lot more troops who are able to find out who the bad guys are, who in the population supports them and why, and who in the population doesn’t support them and why.

I hate to play the “what if” game, but what if after we had secured Bahgdad, we had rolled in with replacement electrical equipment and utilities in order to fix what we had bombed and fix what the Hussein gov’t hadn’t been able to fix. What if we had hired Halliburton to pre-construct that stuff so that we could fly it in. Would that have made a difference in the security situation in Baghdad? I believe it would have.

The point one of the earlier posts made about Hezbollah was very important, they provide basic services to the population of Southern Lebanon that the Lebanese government can’t. The Palestinians did the same thing during the Intifada. That’s how you earn the support for your operations, and help turn the local opinion against the insurgents.

Insurgent warfare is about public relations in a way. You have to make yourself look better to the occupied population than the insurgents do.
So the Deptartment of Defense (note that I did not say military) has to take a greater inter-agency approach to warfare. The DOD runs schools, bases (essentially small cities), police departments (seperate from the military), fuel depots, and transportation services.

The expertise to rebuild what we blow up exists within the DOD. I think we need to tap that expertise and make it as expeditionary as the uniformed services are.
Behind the Marine Corps, and the Army forces should be the civlian components of the DOD working on rebuilding the infrastructure and providing security. It needs to be quick and effective, but it could be successful. It will certainly be massive.

26

[quote]hedo wrote:
If you are the weaker state or organization then world opinion will generally be in your favor. As a larger or stronger state or superpower will the world opinion ever side with your position (US, Israel eg.) no matter what position you take.[/quote]

I depends on the situation. There was wide support for the Afghanistan invasion, or for the 1st Gulf War when Saddam got kicked out of Kuwait. Not many where rooting for the underdog during those wars.

[quote]Second. What if you decide what is at stake is mor important then world opinion? Survival as a nation for example or the loss of many citizens. Unfortunately if you have foresaken the practice of overwhelming force your options are greatly limited.
[/quote]

If you’re ready to live with the bulk of world opinion against you, I guess there’s no problem. You have to be careful not to horrify to world to the point that they mobilize against you en masse, compounding the problem. You might also have to be ready to live with boycotts, embargos, expelled diplomats, etc. In today’s global economy, it can be extremely difficult for a nation, especially one who’s not self-sufficient in food or fuel production, to stand against the world.

27

That is a very interesting point. Had the DoD gone the humanitarian route, the insurgency may not have had the ability to take root. I agree someone has to kill the bad guys. What tends to happen with massive military operations is that you have far too much ‘collateral damage’ while the actual targets often get away. What the locals see is that all their infrastructure is gone, and at the end of the day, when they can’t get water, food or gas, it builds resentment of the new, and now occupying force.

If these things could be repaired, it may actually cost less in the long run, because the insurgency would not have a moral leg to stand on, if the ‘occupiers’ came with aid, food, water and other things to ease the life of the locals. But in order to do this, you can’t really hate the locals, which is what I think has happened in iraq. There is a huge cultural divide between the US military and the Iraqis. They are having a very difficult time accepting each other.

28

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
My question is whether you can ever win an occupation-style war if you’re not willing to inflict massive casualties on the invaded country?

A corrolary: How can forces that respect western values of respecting civilian populations fight against forces that purposefully hide within civilian populations?

[/quote]

Oil-spot strategy, where you make the focus separating the insurgents from the civilians, and controlling the population. Killing the insurgents is very much a secondary goal. British did this in Malaysia, U.S. made half-hearted effort in Vietnam, we are now finally supposedly doing this in Iraq (Tal Afar is the signature success story), but don’t have nearly enough men. I’d be happy to email anyone the excellent Andrew Krepinevich article on this in Foreign Affairs nearly a year back, which is credited with causing a fundamental U.S. strategic re-evaluation.

29

[quote]BH6 wrote:
Z-Man wrote:
But in essence, war has changed, with media and world opinion being a big part of warfare in general. Are massive military campaigns old fasioned? Is it now more feasible to insert small teams to get rid of the Bin Laden’s of the world, and then work with the media in the various regions to manipulate those people’s thinking, so radical groups no longer have resources to draw upon? Can this not be considered a type of warfare?

I would argue that against terrorism, this type of ‘propaganda’ warfare would be more successful. If the peoples in these regions were bombarded with information from their newspapers, and leaders about how terrorsm is not in their best interest, would it not eliminate the angry youth that these organizations draw upon? Look at how strongly the media can affect things in the US, I think this can be applied worldwide.

I don’t think that massive military operations are old fashioned. Someone will still have to go kill the bad guys. However, we are going to have to have a lot more troops who are able to find out who the bad guys are, who in the population supports them and why, and who in the population doesn’t support them and why.

I hate to play the “what if” game, but what if after we had secured Bahgdad, we had rolled in with replacement electrical equipment and utilities in order to fix what we had bombed and fix what the Hussein gov’t hadn’t been able to fix. What if we had hired Halliburton to pre-construct that stuff so that we could fly it in. Would that have made a difference in the security situation in Baghdad? I believe it would have.

The point one of the earlier posts made about Hezbollah was very important, they provide basic services to the population of Southern Lebanon that the Lebanese government can’t. The Palestinians did the same thing during the Intifada. That’s how you earn the support for your operations, and help turn the local opinion against the insurgents.

Insurgent warfare is about public relations in a way. You have to make yourself look better to the occupied population than the insurgents do.
So the Deptartment of Defense (note that I did not say military) has to take a greater inter-agency approach to warfare. The DOD runs schools, bases (essentially small cities), police departments (seperate from the military), fuel depots, and transportation services.

The expertise to rebuild what we blow up exists within the DOD. I think we need to tap that expertise and make it as expeditionary as the uniformed services are.
Behind the Marine Corps, and the Army forces should be the civlian components of the DOD working on rebuilding the infrastructure and providing security. It needs to be quick and effective, but it could be successful. It will certainly be massive. [/quote]

Great post. Although I think the root of the problem is that the Rumsfeld Pentagon is completely uninterested in fighting a long-term, successful counter-insurgency. “We don’t do nation building,” remember?

30

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Great post. Although I think the root of the problem is that the Rumsfeld Pentagon is completely uninterested in fighting a long-term, successful counter-insurgency. “We don’t do nation building,” remember?
[/quote]

I think that stance was the greatest mistake Rumsfeld has made, and should have lead to his relief as the Sec Def back in 2004.

That stance has more or less taught the world how to fight the United States. Every opponent knows that insurgency negates our technological advantages.

31

[quote]hedo wrote:
…
The military of the future must be able to go to war with enough cultural knowledge to thrive in an alien environment. Empathy will become a weapon. Soldiers must gain the ability to move comfortably among alien cultures, to establish trust and cement relationships that can be exploited in battle. Not all are fit for this kind of work. Some will remain committed to fighting the kinetic battle. But others will come to the task with intuitive cultural court sense, an innate ability to connect with other cultures. These soldiers must be identified and nurtured just as surely as the Army selects out those with innate operational court sense.
…
[/quote]

Interesting article. However, how many soldiers would be able to reach this level?

And if you have a couple of those, you should put them in the oval office. They would be able to resolve any conflict without going to war.

32

[quote]BH6 wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Great post. Although I think the root of the problem is that the Rumsfeld Pentagon is completely uninterested in fighting a long-term, successful counter-insurgency. “We don’t do nation building,” remember?

I think that stance was the greatest mistake Rumsfeld has made, and should have lead to his relief as the Sec Def back in 2004.

That stance has more or less taught the world how to fight the United States. Every opponent knows that insurgency negates our technological advantages. [/quote]

Yup. Rumsfeld has been an abject disaster, don’t see how anyone can still defend him. But the seeds for this realization were laid in Somalia, if not much earlier.

33

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
BH6 wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Great post. Although I think the root of the problem is that the Rumsfeld Pentagon is completely uninterested in fighting a long-term, successful counter-insurgency. “We don’t do nation building,” remember?

I think that stance was the greatest mistake Rumsfeld has made, and should have lead to his relief as the Sec Def back in 2004.

That stance has more or less taught the world how to fight the United States. Every opponent knows that insurgency negates our technological advantages.

Yup. Rumsfeld has been an abject disaster, don’t see how anyone can still defend him. But the seeds for this realization were laid in Somalia, if not much earlier.[/quote]

Yeah, it wasn’t all Rumsfeld, but he started the “Transformation” thing. It was his DOD that failed to see that an insurgency would rise out of the invasion of Iraq and it was his DOD that failed to transform the military to fight insurgencies, rather than the russians.

Honestly, the F-22 is not going to do us any good in Iraq, Afganistan, or anyother war we are going to get in. The Virginia class submarine? What a waste, we are propping up General Electric but not making ourselves better warfighters on the ground.
There is no transformation.

34

[quote]pookie wrote:
If you’re ready to live with the bulk of world opinion against you, I guess there’s no problem. You have to be careful not to horrify to world to the point that they mobilize against you en masse, compounding the problem. You might also have to be ready to live with boycotts, embargos, expelled diplomats, etc. In today’s global economy, it can be extremely difficult for a nation, especially one who’s not self-sufficient in food or fuel production, to stand against the world.
[/quote]

It’s also worth pointing out that the rest of the world “mobilizing” against the US over foreign policy differences, would be suicidal. Stop trade with the US and watch what happens to your economy. Would a Canadian PM standing up to the US bully last very long with 90% unemployment? You need us at least as much as we need you, so stop this silly talk.

“Getting back at us” or “hurting us” is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Europe, China, or especially Canada threatening the US with economic cut-offs is obviously hollow, given the trading/economic situation.

35

[quote]ChuckyT wrote:
It’s also worth pointing out that the rest of the world “mobilizing” against the US over foreign policy differences, would be suicidal.[/quote]

Actually, I was thinking more about the various countries in the Middle East, not the U.S. or other Western countries.

I can’t really foresee a situation where all the rest of the world would oppose the U.S. You’d have to do something so reprehensible that you’d probably have a civil war as your own people would oppose it. For all our various differences, we still mostly share the same basic values.

That said, note that the U.S. is still mindful of public opinion when it goes to war. Just look at the number of precision bombing video we get shown on the news, to demonstrate that with smart weapons, only the target is hit and there’s minimal collateral damage. Of course, we don’t get shown the ones that miss.

We’re each other’s biggest trading partner, so of course barriers between the U.S. and Canada are unlikely. They still happen though; just recently you lifted a special “tax” that had been placed on Canadian lumber. Most analyst contend that the tax would’ve been lifted much sooner if we’d gone with you in Iraq.

Same goes for the beef embargo when a mad cow was found in Alberta. The embargo was maintained long after the safety of the beef stopped being an issue.

So, while a complete trade stoppage is nearly impossible; there are still some “carrot-and-stick” routines being done on a case by case basis.

In 2003, I had a guy on Ebay refuse to ship me a printer I’d won because I was Canadian.

I agree. But again, I wasn’t thinking of the U.S., but more of countries like Israel, Egypt, Syria and the like. Those countries suffer a lot more when UN sanctions are imposed.

Note though, that there is a whole spectrum of trade barriers, mostly in the forms of tariffs or taxes that can be used to impede trade while not cutting it off explicitely. Still, I think it would require some pretty extreme scenario to have a major portion of the world unite against the U.S.; and yes, we’d all suffer from it.

36

View from a dumb ground pounder.
What the article and posts say seems to be true; that we are seeing a new type of warfare, or rather, an escalation of a previously played assymetrical warfare.

The role of counter-insurgency, guerilla operations has always been in the realm of special forces / SAS. They are trained specially to engender empathy for specific regions, able to work with/ advise/ train foregin armies, take part in limited actions in support of other nations, but still remain detached enough to kill SPECIFIC enemy targets.
The key feature of these guys is their ability to think on their own under pressure, to be culturally sensitive and also be able to manipulate psyops/ propoganda. Sounds just like the guys we need. Thier depth of knowledge/ training/ specialization engenders trust from their commanders to devolve leadership down to the lowest level. There is trust.

Unforunatley, they are SPECIAL forces - not just because they are studly, but also because of the psychological adaptability and resiliance. Not everyone can do it. It takes years to train them. It costs a lot. The attrition rate is high.

What we are looking at is getting an 18 year old with a GED to the same level as an SF E7/ E8 in one year or less in massive numbers to effectivley transform the army to be ready to fight this type of small unit tactics led war.
Not only is the time & money an issue, but the level of knowledge required is held within the SF community and not widely distributed to the masses (and I’m not making digs or accusations about that).

There are inroads being made to reach this, but it’s going to take time.

37

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Another very interesting analysis – from an historical perspective:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081706D[/quote]

Very interesting read.

In a nutshell, he’s saying that a democratic nation can not win a 4th generation war.

In order to do so, they would have to be willing to destroy the enemy completely by killing the whole nation.

[i]But what if you (Thank God) cannot?

…the Romans have some instructive alternative examples for us. Remember, even for Romans there were some unrecognized armed communities that they could not be defeated. Indeed, sometimes non-state actors instead defeated entire Roman armies. What exactly did Rome do then?

With the Visigoths, the Romans entered into negotiation. But here negotiation meant much more than “talks.” The Romans, however reluctantly, were forced to develop a serious relationship with their enemy. Yet miraculously, soon they ceased being the enemy. They were not yet exactly foederati, or “allied” yet, but they were on the way there. The Romans from time to time even had to fight them, and use strong force to reestablish the terms of relationship.

But they gave the Goths what they most wanted, which was: to be Roman. Once they were really and truly Roman, moreover, they were Rome’s most steadfast friends. A Gothic king, Theoderic, even fell in battle alongside Romans in that celebrated place where Attila’s Huns were stopped forever.

This is not to say that America, or especially Israel, can repeat anything like this with the armed communities that task them. But the point is that they have not really tried. Both Americans and Israelis talk a big line about not negotiating with “terrorists” – when they really mean armed communities like Hezbollah and Hamas. But calling such communities “terrorist” is not just trash talk, it is tantamount to a kind of unilateral disarmament. It is like taking half the tools in your kit and throwing them away.
[/i]

38

[quote]k.elkouhen wrote:
But they gave the Goths what they most wanted, which was: to be Roman.[/quote]

I thought what the Goths wanted was to wear dark clothing and makeup and talk about how cool being dead is.

Seriously, I’m not sure how well that tactic would work when opposing religions are involved. Can each side ever see the other one without they being infidels/unbelievers/heathens/etc? The Romans where pretty pragmatic about religion; which is not the case with any of the parties involved in our modern conflicts.

39

I understand what the article is trying to say, but I don’t think it’s anything new.

Tactics have changed with technology, and will continue to change. The Napoleonic square, cavalry, massed charges, and even trenches have been outpaced by technolgy. This, to me, is the constant- technology and killing capability will dictate tactics.

The idea of trading space for time and keeping the initiative are not new ideas. Washington traded space for time, the NVA traded space for time, and the South would have won the Civil War had they done the same. It’s the standard tactic of a country that is outmanned, outgunned, and outmanufactured- hitting hard, then slipping into the hills. No different than the Picts against the Romans, Francis Marion in South Carolina, or any other force defending against invasion.

Occupations are even more complicated, and rarely have good results.

40

[quote]BH6 wrote:
Z-Man wrote:
But in essence, war has changed, with media and world opinion being a big part of warfare in general. Are massive military campaigns old fasioned? Is it now more feasible to insert small teams to get rid of the Bin Laden’s of the world, and then work with the media in the various regions to manipulate those people’s thinking, so radical groups no longer have resources to draw upon? Can this not be considered a type of warfare?

I would argue that against terrorism, this type of ‘propaganda’ warfare would be more successful. If the peoples in these regions were bombarded with information from their newspapers, and leaders about how terrorsm is not in their best interest, would it not eliminate the angry youth that these organizations draw upon? Look at how strongly the media can affect things in the US, I think this can be applied worldwide.

I don’t think that massive military operations are old fashioned. Someone will still have to go kill the bad guys. However, we are going to have to have a lot more troops who are able to find out who the bad guys are, who in the population supports them and why, and who in the population doesn’t support them and why.

I hate to play the “what if” game, but what if after we had secured Bahgdad, we had rolled in with replacement electrical equipment and utilities in order to fix what we had bombed and fix what the Hussein gov’t hadn’t been able to fix. What if we had hired Halliburton to pre-construct that stuff so that we could fly it in. Would that have made a difference in the security situation in Baghdad? I believe it would have.

The point one of the earlier posts made about Hezbollah was very important, they provide basic services to the population of Southern Lebanon that the Lebanese government can’t. The Palestinians did the same thing during the Intifada. That’s how you earn the support for your operations, and help turn the local opinion against the insurgents.

Insurgent warfare is about public relations in a way. You have to make yourself look better to the occupied population than the insurgents do.
So the Deptartment of Defense (note that I did not say military) has to take a greater inter-agency approach to warfare. The DOD runs schools, bases (essentially small cities), police departments (seperate from the military), fuel depots, and transportation services.

[/quote]

I am reminded of the IRA also…terrorists with Ireland’s support. They fought the good fight initially, then turned into something resembling the Mafia. Don’t think that power doesn’t corrupt terrorists too, no matter how high their ideals.

And war has always, always been about public relations. After the loss at Chancellorsville, Lincoln made the famous quote, “My God, what will the country say?” America won the Revolution because a combination of victories turned the people and the opposition to the king against the war.

War has always come down to logistics and funding. That will never change…and so war will never change. The tactics will, but never the basic tenets.