Friday, December 20, 2002

Concern at the Top for Iraq Campaign The head of the US ARMY and the Commandant of the MC are quoted in the British press as being at odds with the idea of the administration that a war in Iraq will be easy. 4:34:06 PM    comment []

Beware of the Elephant - Our organizations are too big to cope with the modern threat An excerpt from Maj Vandergriff's Book - Spirit Blood and treasure Although the era of fourth-generation warfare is only beginning, it is already apparent that size and resources, however vital they may have been in the past, can be a liability in fourth-generation warfare. This is because of the overarching importance of the need to minimize a nation's target profile. All successful fourth-generation belligerents thus far have practiced this principle. The side that has nothing to attack inevitably forfeits the initiative if it cannot stop its opponents from attacking anything. In Mogadishu, Gen. Muhammad Farrah Aideed successfully denied the U.S. Army's Task Force Ranger a target by constantly moving his headquarters. When Aideed was given an opportunity to attack them, the result was the collapse of the UN intervention. Likewise, the Chechens' success in eluding Russian targeting has produced a war of attrition that Russia's weak economy will be hard pressed to sustain. Communist guerrillas in Vietnam and the Mujihadeen in Afghanistan were in their own fashion also able to steal the initiative from their opponents by denying them targets. In the recent war over Kosovo, the Serbs easily dispersed their military forces sufficiently to negate the effects of NATO air strikes. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's air forces could not protect the NATO-backed Kosovar-Albanian guerrillas from Serbian attack. On the other hand, Serbia was still a conventional nation state with cities and other infrastructure that could be targeted from the air and whose destruction would cause substantial hardship. Serbia was forced to agree to NATO's occupation of Kosovo not because the tiny Balkan nation was too small to oppose the powerful nineteen-nation NATO coalition, but because it was too large. Even so, Serbia at least temporarily thwarted NATO plans to create an independent Kosovo and occupy and break up Serbia. Victory eluded Belgrade because it presented too much of a target. Fourth-generation warfare thus threatens to place second-generation powers in the position of the elephant terrified by a mouse, of the dinosaur whose eggs are eaten by rodents, or of the lion stung to death by a swarm of wasps. 11:37:08 AM    comment []

What is Fourth Generation Warfare? Roughly speaking, "fourth generation warfare" includes all forms of conflict where the other side refuses to stand up and fight fair. What distinguishes 4GW from earlier generations is that typically at least one side is something other than a military force organized and operating under the control of a national government, and one that often transcends national boundaries.  This is an excellent resource that contians many links to thinking about this type of situation. Again I include this not just foir those interssted in the future of arms but 4th generation business and organizational problems as well. 11:15:45 AM    comment []

The Need to Shift from Bureaucrat to Warrior/leader "The Revolution in Human Affairs: Changing the Culture for the 21st Century," by MAJ Donald E. Vandergriff, USA.  Recently, one of the most talked-about presentations in Washington.  If we don't restore the warrior culture, then the other "revolutions" in military affairs are merely ways to spend money.  Why our current culture isn't doing the job, how it got this way, and what it's going to take to fix it. Here is a huge but compelling slide show - the debate in the Army is underway. It is not just about the militatry but all organizations 10:59:42 AM    comment []

Culture - the Driver for Organization - Lessons from the Battlefield for all Organizations Culture Wars - An extract from "Digital War: A View from the Frontline" by Maj. Donald E Vandergriff Our current culture upholds and practices 2nd Generation Warfare doctrine. It is a linear doctrine, soon enhanced by information technology, and a culture that promotes centralized decisions, stifles subordinate independence and autonomy. 2nd Generation Warfare advocates the use of massive firepower, calling for a strictly controlled battlefield outlined by detailed graphics. For example, both the divisional and corps graphics in Desert Storm, and our emphasis on teaching checklists and lock-step procedures at our branch schools and combat training centers, confirm this fact.8 Third Generation Warfare evolved during World War I as a German idea-based reaction to the Allies' material superiority. (see Lessons from Vimy) It relies on groups of highly trained units led by well-educated leaders trusted to make on the spot decisions in order to bypass enemy strengths and attack his weaknesses. The key to the success of this tactical and operational approach was that the Germans already possessed a culture that emphasized the decentralization and rapid decision making by its officer corps to accomplish missions.9 Fourth Generation Warfare is an extension of 3rd Generation Warfare with no limits to its depth, no front lines, with targets going beyond the traditional type, i.e. military units. Fourth Generation Warfare is irregular warfighting skills/capabilities in close quarters combat and small unit operations among state/non-state actors. In contrast to the U.S. Army’s current 2nd Generation focused doctrine, 4th Generation warfare calls for a decreased reliance on firepower/attrition in ground combat. It also decreases the reliance on deep strike/strategic bombardment in air warfare. The officer corps that operates in a 4th Generation Warfare environment must become experts in fast-transient littoral penetration operations, information war operations, special force operations, political-military operations, counter-drug/anti-terrorist/anti-nuclear operations, and be prepared for increased occurrences of urban/suburban combat.10 Future adversaries, driven by the moral forces of cultural and ethnic differences, are learning how to neutralize the technological advantages of industrial-strength, firepower intensive armies, particularly in irregular close-quarters combat in urban and suburban areas. In Chechnya, Beirut, and Mogadishu, front lines disappeared; the distinction between friend, foe, and noncombatant became vague to non-existent, and simple hand-held weapons (RPG-7s), used by well-disciplined, small irregular units, turned armored vehicles and helicopters into coffins and conventional formations into death traps. The Intifada, armed with stones, reinforced by CNN, bought more for the Palestinians than four conventional wars with Israel. The main weapons in the Ayatollah's arsenal, when he overthrew the Shah, were the moral strength of the committed and the audiocassette recorder. While the form of 4th Generation Warfare has roots reaching back at least to T.E. Lawrence and Lettow-Vorbeck in WWI, it is still evolving and is not yet well formed or understood. One common denominator, however, is beyond dispute: the premium on INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE has INCREASED, enhanced by information technology.11 The type of revolution that must occur, is not technologically driven, but mentally, and deals with changing the Army's culture. Part of the revolution is most assuredly technological. Whatever technology offers us must be validated and vitalized by human nature. The Army's culture is defined by the way it accesses, develops, and manages its officers, and enforces policies that promote the economic advancement of the individual at the cost of unit cohesion. Such practices have been passed down from generation to generation of personnel managers beginning with the management scientific revolution, or the "Progressive Era" at the end of the 19th Century.12 It is important and timely precisely because the current culture uses the interaction of technology and culture to stifle initiative.13 The ideas of maneuver warfare, particularly Boyd's theory of operating inside the adversary's Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action loop, provide a way out of the dilemma that has evolved from two "revolutions," and provides the Army the foundation for the right culture to prepare leaders and units to fight on future battlefields. Boyd's theories are grounded on an appreciation of how the mind and body act in a conflict situation. Once we understand this, we can develop a personnel system that combines the superior engineering skills of the United States to match variable technologies to historically proven invariant human capacities. 10:43:30 AM    comment []

Canadians Are Ready for Telehealth If Canadians are this ready to look for health information online, then they are ready for Telehealth. 7:13:22 AM    comment []