Recommended Reading
Excellent, excellent stuff today.
Top Billing! William F. Owen (AFJ) – The War of New Words
This is a much discussed article by SWC stalwart and military consultant, Wilf Owen:
…..Hybrid threats have always existed, but previously we called them “irregulars” or “guerrillas”; both words, in this context, are more than 180 years old. The definition of hybrid threats as “a combination of traditional warfare mixed with terrorism and insurgency” accurately describes irregulars and guerrillas, both of which can be part of either an insurgency or a wider conflict. Yes, guerrillas have changed over time. So have regular forces. Armies of 1825 looked very different from those of 1925 or 1975, yet all were regular forces. Do we need a new word for regular or “conventional” forces? “Hermaphrodite” perhaps?
The most common attempt to redefine the activities of irregular forces and guerrillas has been the using the word “asymmetric,” predicated on trying to describe a dissimilar employment of ways and means that was apparently new. Yet history does not support this thesis, nor does it usefully inform thinking about the future.
The use of the word “hybrid” implies that there is some new phenomenon that requires new codification. If you want to testify before Congress that the U.S. armed forces must have the ability to confront and defeat guerrillas and irregulars, then that advice has been valid for 200 years. Why is it different today?
Those who use the word “hybrid” also tend to use the word “complex” when describing contemporary warfare. This raises the question: When was warfare ever simple? Contemporary warfare is no more complex than historical warfare.
It may be that there is a generation of serving soldiers who do not understand war and warfare as well as past generations, but that is not to say that war today is more complex. The Internet does not make warfare more complex. TV coverage does not make war more complex. Public opinion does not make war more complex. If the root of the argument is that society is becoming more complex, therefore warfare will be more complex, then 20 years from now it will become supercomplex or hypercomplex. Obviously, this is rubbish.
Wilf is an arch-Clausewitzian and he is taking his SWJ amigo Frank Hoffman to task here, along with the 4GW school, EBO advocates, Network-centric Warfare, the COINdinistas, Martin van Creveld, John Boyd, John Robb and pretty much every military theorist since maybe von Moltke the Elder. I enjoy Wilf’s commentary and he has at times, been kind enough to contribute to my projects or engage me in debate. While I can say that I have learned from his insights, on some matters he’s completely wrongheaded and we are never going to agree. Wilf is, however, a great read.
John Robb – IS THE US DoD LOCKED IN AN IVORY TOWER?
The other reason, and this explains the innovation gap, is that most commercial innovation requires an ability to: synthesize strands of complex analysis that span multiple fields of endeavor, plow through ambiguous or messy data in real-time without pause, and flexibly respond to rapidly changing events. In short, everything a PhD is trained NOT to do, at risk of professional suicide.
Yes. In fairness, I will add some caveats to John’s point. First, his argument applies most to PhD’s on the tenure track in universities or university-like settings. Secondly, there are brilliant PhD’s out there who are fantastic synthesizers and original thinkers. They just happen to drive most of their more orthodox colleagues nuts or be the notorious “black sheep” of the institution ( and they are markers for “X” number of similar iconoclasts driven out of programs or positions).
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