War on Speed
- Barring a resumption of conscription, austerity and domestic politics will mean a smaller active duty peacetime force that will have to formally shed some of the Cold War legacy missions it is no longer capable of executing or willing to fund.
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- Any major land conflict the US enters is likely to be expeditionary against a much more numerous opponent ( North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, China or a proxy war – likely in Africa) while our technological edge over near-peer and second to third tier adversaries, while remaining, will be less than in previous decades.
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- The US may face more than one “small war” at a time with an allied or friendly state requesting FID/COIN help against an insurgency of some kind.
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- The US may face an insurgency at home from Mexican narco-cartels that may begin as a law enforcement matter and be escalated by cartels into a serious paramilitary insurrection and terrorism problem before political authorities are willing to acknowledge the gravity of the threat (i.e. American politicians will behave much like their Mexican counterparts did in the 2000’s. Indeed they are already doing so in regard to massive cartel infiltration of American cities)
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- The US will retain sufficient nuclear deterrent, Naval and strategic air capability to make a conventional or nuclear attack on the American homeland extremely unlikely.
The US Army, even in a reduced size, will probably retain the role of “mailed fist” land force with a core of armor, motorized infantry, artillery units along with infantry that could conceivably be scaled up to much larger levels of personnel in a grave crisis. But the reality is the politicians will always try to fight foreign wars with peacetime forces, so to be of real use, the Army must be able to go to war “as is” and win it very quickly. It is unlikely that a serious opponent like Iran, if it’s leaders believe the US intends regime change, will permit America a leisurely 6-12 month build-up of an invading host in a neighboring state the way that Saddam did [ can you imagine PLA generals sitting on their hands as the US Army put, say, 10-15 divisions of American and coalition troops on their border with Vietnam?]
So if the US Army is to be operationally relevant by virtue of speed, there must be a deep all-services investment in the unsexy air and sealift capacity to move a substantial amount of troops and their heavy equipment in days or weeks instead of months ( most likely combined with even greater efforts at pre-positioning ). Speed and maneuver in operations depends on getting there in the first place.
Assuming we have many divisions or brigades (if we stay “modular’) arriving somewhere, increasing operational speed is partly a work of the Army’s leaders spending years changing the organizational culture to give subordinates real room to take initiative within their commander’s intent. This will help improve both physical maneuver as well as information flow by reducing the institutional incentives to create paralysis by micromanagement.
Accepting loose reins may mean more American casualties, far more enemy combatant casualties and consequent civilian collateral damage as field grade and junior officers take greater responsibility and the tempo of operations accelerates. ROE will have to be simpler and hew closer to what is permitted under the Laws of War vice what overly complex guidance prevailed at certain times in Afghanistan. This will require ruffling the feathers of international law professors, lefty NGO activists, anti-American journalists and some members of Congress.
On the other hand, we might start winning wars again.
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T. Greer:
August 26th, 2013 at 7:00 am
“the Army must be able to go to war “as is” and win it very quickly.” (emphasis added).
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Zen, help me understand the basis for this comment. I have been reading a lot of TX Hammes’ stuff lately (post in the works), and I am struck by how often he says “we should assume that our next war will be a long one.” Do you think this is a faulty assumption? American history has a lot of wars we thought we’d win quickly…..
J. Scott Shipman:
August 26th, 2013 at 2:24 pm
If I may interject, T. Greer: Unless the war goes nuclear, I suspect Iraq and Afghanistan are preludes to more long wars. Most of this is related to policy and the 24X7 news cycle. War is hell, but when conveyed via Youtube, policy makers will tend towards timid engagement policies (as we’ve seen in Afghanistan, which has become more like “whack a mole” than a resolved and sustained effort as a matter of policy to win). The news cycle forces policy makers and leaders to act with restraint, which often provides an advantage to the enemy—hence the war drags on without resolution, as the enemy has time to adapt and counterattack on their schedule, not ours. Just a thought.
morgan:
August 26th, 2013 at 6:10 pm
Mobility and speed were critical elements of the South African’s 26-year long war in South West Africa/Namibia. Many times they were outnumbered by Angolan Army and Cuban forces, along with the South West Africa Peoples Organization’ forces, and prevailed by virtue of speed and mobility. A good read on it is Roland de Vries’ 2013 book, Eye of the Firestorm, which details events in that war from the late 1970’s through the past-apartheid new political dispensation in South Africa. In fact de Vries’ motto is: “Strength lies in mobility.” He is a good writer but the book is lengthy–over 900 pages long–but written in clear, easy-to-understand English.
david ronfeldt:
August 27th, 2013 at 12:37 am
fwiw, i turned to wondering the other day about the term “vector” and, browsing around, learned (re-learned?) that it has long been a key concept of Paul Virilio and related postmodern theorists. i don’t quite get it, but it seems somewhat apropos your post, as in the following passage:
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“The vector is a key term for Virilio. It describes the aspect of technology which interests him most and also the style of writing he employs to capture that aspect. It is a term from geometry meaning a line of fixed length and direction but no fixed position. Virilio employs it to mean any trajectory along which bodies, information or warheads can potentially pass. Vectors are potential trajectories. The gift of technology to strategy is ever faster, ever longer vectors, with greater and greater acceleration. Unlike Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘line of flight’, escaping from static power, the vector in Virilio is power, a power beyond metaphors of structure, with which writing must find ways to keep pace.”
(see http://www.evolutionzone.com/kulturezone/futurec/mwark/mwark.virilio)
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and speaking of metaphors, does the above offer food for thought?
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also, fwiw, it’d be good if we not only got speedier at getting in, but also at getting out. i remain aghast at the phenomenal amounts of expensive stuff we leave behind.
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Ski:
August 27th, 2013 at 1:22 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyBtMxZgQs
One of my favorite move clips showing the OODA Loop at work. The swordsman is moving much faster, yet, Indy just pulls out a pistol and shoots him calmly.
Ski:
August 27th, 2013 at 1:28 am
Another great OODA Loop example, this time with Alan Moore (the comic genius behind The Watchman amongst others):
http://swords-and-veeblefetzers.blogspot.com/2010/11/omega-men-26-brief-lives.html
Scott:
August 27th, 2013 at 2:36 am
I agree that there will be long wars in the future, especially if the administration is foolish enough to commit us to Syria – overthrowing Assad can be accomplished with speed, but dealing with the factional fighting that will most likely arise afterwards cannot. Speed of information, though, may help – particularly in identifying who the insurgents are. But that’s a whole other subject based on the COIN debate going on now.
Grurray:
August 27th, 2013 at 3:11 am
Old Mexican saying is,
El miedo no anda en burro –
Fear doesn’t ride on a burro
zen:
August 27th, 2013 at 4:10 am
Hi Gents,
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Great comments!
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T. Greer – I think TX is weighing in against those who assume a long conventional war with another great power or a 2nd tier one can’t happen ( some of this relates to the inside DoD budget/force structure debate). I agree that it could. Blundering in to one though at this juncture would be a strategic disaster. We can’t afford any more of these open-ended “let’s use military force and see what happens” no strategy long wars. Any war of choice for the next ten to twenty years has to be a relatively quick campaign like Panama, Gulf War I etc. for a simple political objective and a swift exit or should just be avoided altogether.. That is all we can manage unless we dramatically change our domestic regime where skimming the economy for a rentier -finance sector is our overriding political economy priority to one that is more balanced.
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Scott – Agree. Would add political class has no vested interest in winning wars that they begin as losing them does not seem to involve any form of accountability, political or otherwise.
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Morgan – Did not know that one. Thank you!
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David – Never heard of Virilio but “vector” makes sense to me as a physics analogy as a direct line of some level of force. That would fit nicely with strategy or a strategist pondering options to use or not use force against something. Agree we are not speedy about getting out and our incentives to waste war material seem to be in the Pentagon DNA
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Scott – In my view, going into Syria is a lose-lose scenario for the US
zen:
August 27th, 2013 at 4:12 am
Ski – re: Indy – we seem to have forgotten how to fight unfairly 😉
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Gruray – A good saying
michael robinson:
August 27th, 2013 at 6:02 am
If any conflict with a serious adversary is going to last over a matter of weeks is not ‘speed’ going to be dependent on the following; control over and the ability to manage the logistical chain, from sourcing raw materials through production (and the ability to finance – one thinks of the discussions and increasing frictions between UK & US in 1916-7 over finance and raw materials markets) and then final delivery to forward areas. Also the need to secure and manage the information flow necessary to maintain such extended and diffuse network – does the US have sufficient semiconductor fabrication plants, supplies of rare earths etc.within its physical control to ensure such have not been comprised at point of manufacture? .
Could I be the only person concerned about US forces reliance on effective monopoly contractors such as Halliburton, KBR etc. for the sourcing and delivery of types of infrastructure and crucial supplies – food & fuel come to mind immediately – whose staffs are I assume not in the end subject to military orders?
Bob Weimann:
August 27th, 2013 at 3:33 pm
“Accepting loose reins may mean more American casualties, far more enemy combatant casualties and consequent civilian collateral damage as field grade and junior officers take greater responsibility and the tempo of operations accelerates. ROE will have to be simpler and hew closer to what is permitted under the Laws of War vice what overly complex guidance prevailed at certain times in Afghanistan. This will require ruffling the feathers of international law professors, lefty NGO activists, anti-American journalists and some members of Congress.
On the other hand, we might start winning wars again.”
You nailed it.