Studying War and Warfare

"... In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, defense thinking was hijacked by a fantastical theory that considered military operations as ends in and of themselves rather than just one of several instruments of power that must be aligned to achieve sustainable strategic goals. Advocates of the “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA) predicted that advances in surveillance, communications and information technologies, along with precision strike weapons, would overwhelm any opponent..."

Herein MG McMasters points to the 1991 Gulf War as the turning point in defense thinking.

I believe that we must look, instead, more to:

a. The end of the Cold War and

b. Our belief that those populations who were still being denied a Western way of life and a Western way of governance (obtensibly by their governments and these governments' military, police and intelligence forces) were now only waiting for us to liberate them from these unwanted conditions.

With this new kind of thinking in place, "the opponent" came to be viewed ONLY as the oppressive regimes and their oppressing instruments of power.

The "people," we thought, were with us.

Thus, "to achieve sustainable strategic goals" (as in the case of Russia and China, the transformation of outlying states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines), we need only plan and prepare for military operations that could quickly and efficiently convince, coerce, compel or take down an opponent's regime and its military forces.

Again, we believed that the "population" would then easily, rapidly and, mostly on their own, adopt our modern western ways.

This, I suggest, is where we got off into the deep kimshi -- by considering, post the Cold War, that it was only the regimes and their military forces who were our opponents, and not also the population as in days past.

Thus, while RMA -- and, indeed, Sea/Land Battle -- may have relevance as relates to opposing regimes and their military forces, these would seem to have much less relevance as relates to populations who would oppose us.

And, it appears, these populations still do exist.

War is first and foremost the final state of escalation of a political conflict. Soldiering maybe solely about the trade-craft of a soldier, but soldiering isn’t the sum of warfare. War as an activity is a lot more than the soldier, and officers who fail to grasp this are of only marginal value to the State.

The Soldier and Sailor is brought into the conflict as a main actor when violence and coercion become acceptable terms for solving the conflict. The application of that violence is the Soldier’s duty, and his officers are charged with the when and the why of its application. The thing about the when and the why is that they both require judgement and assessment of other humans, which requires an education in humans, i.e. the social sciences (poli-sci, anthro, history, economics). Soldiering isn’t a social science at all…it is a hard science of steel on target and refueling rates. The problem with the hard science is that it has an ideal end-state
when targets are exhausted and further movement is not required, it's called genocide. War is not a hard science, it is the application of all tools of a society, hard science included, in resolving a group conflict that has escalated to the use of violence.

The Soldiers’ duty is to be extremely, highly, proficient in their tasked skills. The Officers’ duty is to be prepared to direct the application of those skills. The latter task is impossible if the Officer’s intellectual efforts are completely consumed by soldiering and he devalues all other forms of knowledge. Unless, of course, he is only ever expected to practice genocide.

The Force (every Service) must maintain a highly, technically proficient enlisted corps, and a technically proficient and highly educated officer corps that knows how to soldier and can judge when and why to soldier.

As I have suggested before, I believe that MG McMaster misses the mark by suggesting that what made the future appear easier and fundamentally different from the past was/is advanced technology/RMA.

I argue that what made the future appear easier and fundamentally different from the past -- and thus what actually threw us off and what continues to throw us off -- was/is our belief that now, post the Cold War, everyone wants to be like us.

I suggest that it is this belief, not RMA, that caused/causes us to prepare only to defeat a resisting country's governing regime and military forces and not, also, its resisting populations; populations who, post-the Cold War, we erroneously thought would see us as "liberators."

This was/is grave error. In this regard consider:

"While the ongoing RMA provides significant advantages to technology-based societies, the concept of a Peoples' War remains its Achilles heel, thereby underscoring the crucial role that cultural values, ideologies, and belief systems play in motivating a society for war."

http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/Echevarria/APSTRAT2.htm (See Item No. 3, the paragraph entitled "Conditions for Victory.")

Thus, while RMA -- and for that matter Air-Sea Battle -- might help to defeat an enemy country's military forces, these would not seem to have much utility and relevance re: the real 21st Century battle at hand, to wit:

a. "Our" goal to have other states and societies adopt our way of life and our way of governance and

b. "Their" goal (the populations' goal) to retain -- or to regain -- their own way of life and their own way of governance.

And in this battle, it was/is, I suggest, our deep illusion regarding, shall we say, "the end of history" that hurt us/continues to hurt us the most -- much more so, I believe, than any thinking that we have or might have had regarding advanced technology and RMA.

This is what Iraq, Afghanistan, et. al should have taught us.