Managing Multiple Strands

  That post was an in-depth look at the theory of EBO through the lens of John Boyd’s OODA loop, and I think that greater precision and efficiency in either strategy, tactics, or on-site operations, will require an acknowledgment that even the actors in the field operate from theory.  It’s just that often those theories have already been internalized — although they have probably already been questioned and put to the test many times, perhaps modified and improved through this process, in a soldier’s experience.  However, when the soldier’s experience is quite new, those internalized theories may have less utility or even be quite contrary to what is required.  The same holds for ‘ivory tower theorists.’  The difference between ivory tower theorists and the theorists in the field should be obvious; but I’ll give my thoughts:

• Not only is there a disparity between observational capability — the on-site theorist does not have the delay that his commanders a continent or two away have (not to mention homeland pundits), but also sees more of his immediate environment than those looking at computer screens or reading reports at some great but perhaps lesser distance — but also age and experience has produced in the ivory tower theorist a set of theories formulated to address more remote (i.e., past) observations.
• However, the on-site theorist may have less chance to step back from a situation to analyze it.  As Sonny said, “The operator has to act under incredible pressure and on short notice.”  This is part of the basis of that old bit of wisdom:  Ours is not to question why, but to do or die.  So the on-site theorist may be more prone to reliance on whatever theories have already been internalized, whether through training or experience, especially when activity reaches a high pitch, but also perhaps when activity is rather sporadic (moving from long periods in the barracks to occasional operation in the field) if this sets up a sense of ‘routine operation.’
  

Between these extremes, many exceptions can be found in individual theorists, whether in the field or at the Pentagon.  The point is: Anyone who acts acts from theory unless he is acting impulsively.  (Even then, the action is likely to be influenced by theory.)  For 5GW to be employed, a solid theoretical foundation must exist.  The validity or foolishness of the foundation must be tested, of course, and in many respects the foundation will be built from new experience as well as improved through attempts at deployment.  But building a new theory entirely ‘ad hoc’ will not work, because without a goal post we will succeed only in acting reactively, which amounts to running about the field hoping not to get hit or hoping to take the ball somewhere away from our opponents (and we could be running toward their goal post.)

Fortunately, much of the foundation for 5GW has already been laid out — long before 5GW theorists began to appear.  We have a better grasp of the most likely opponents for first generation 5GW operations (they will be 4GW forces, perhaps some 3GW forces) and many new approaches in traditional fields have been increasing our observational capability and paving the way for greater precision in warfare, by addressing the complexity of the emerging global environment.  Defeating those likely foes is the goal post, and the complex global environment is the field (of which the likely enemies are also a part).  We know many of the strengths of our enemies, the way they have been utilizing complexity, but we require a theory that understands their weakness as well.  5GW, being next-generation, will be useful only so far as we have been able to understand those weaknesses as well as we understand those strengths.

Dan of tdaxp, writing on Dreaming 5GW, has advanced the ball a yard or two by noting the tendency toward less-kinetic methods of operation in the generational shift:

0G Warfare focuses on ending an enemy’s ability to fight by killing their men. By the time we get to 4G Warfare almost none of the battle is in the field, but in the mind’s of men who will live regardless. This 5GW we talk of seems to be even more mental and less physical, seeking to leave the men, material, and even will of the enemy essentially unchanged. If kinetic intensity is seen as morally bad, then every new G is a moral improvement. 5GW may truly be “moral war,” compared to everything that has come before.

In this summary of his point of view, Dan has isolated both the strength and the weakness of 4GW fighters.

The destructive capability of 3GW forces has been made an oxymoron, since 4GW fighters have learned to avoid the field that will be pockmarked by shell blasts and occupied by armor divisions; they will operate where shells and armor cannot go: in the minds of the populations keeping that weaponry maintained and deployed. They will hit oil refineries, public servants, and pretty much anywhere that the finite force of 3GW weaponry is not.  These are their strengths.  By shaping the battlefield — shifting it to where kinetic force may not succeed directly and immediately — they have revised the definition of power.

Actually, they have only recognized the growing power of public opinion — a power intensified by the advent of democratic bureaucracies, capitalist entrepreneurialism, mass media, and the Internet, but also by the general complexity of modern societies.  This is part of their weakness.  The focus of this power shifts, and insofar as 4GW fighters have recognized this and are able to keep public opinion from settling or else are able to keep it trained, through repetitive kinetic action, they are strong; but the inherent weakness of opinion, which allows it to be shifted so easily, also allows it to be shifted by the opponents of individual 4GW groups.

Moreover, opinion gives way to knowledge, perhaps slowly at first, but surely.

What is known about the 4GW application of kinetic force?  There is no guarantee that any single kinetic action will produce the desired level of confusion or decision in the target population.  A shotgun approach is therefore deemed by the 4GW force to be necessary, a diffusion of kinetic power, neverending activity, and no ground gained during this attrition on the OODA processes of the foe.  (Even if the faith driving these 4GW fighters rests on the belief that ground will in fact be gained in the future, they operate on ‘no-ground’ or where 3GW weaponry cannot reach them, shifting their locations.)   The indirect reaction to applied kinetic force is not quite seen by the target, or may be (i.e., the sapping of will, the gradual destruction of systemic coherence) but the actual applications seem immoral, chaotic, demonic.  There is no apparent virtue seen in attacking a non-combatant or destroying infrastructure that might well benefit the 4GW fighter if he only used it.

The shotgun approach hopes to succeed by negating the limited observational capability of the 4GW force — though intermixed with a host population, that 4GW force is at some distance from the rest of the world and populations living far beyond the combat zone — but it cannot.  When it acts on the local level hoping to affect the global level, it is at a particuar disadvantage.  There are cracks between what the 4GW force does (its kinetic force) and the reaction of those observing that activity (public opinion), which no shotgun approach can fill.  On top of this, those who are left alive will remember their defeat as well as the methods utilized by the 4GW foe:  This is a little like the soldier able to leave the battlefield and analyze what has happened outside the need to act immediately.

So how might 5GW be conducted?  With precision unmatched in all the history of warfare.  It will act on the global level to affect the global level; not recognizing the bipolar dynamic of kinetic and non-kinetic activity, of force and public opinion, it will utilize one to shape the other and the other to shape the one from multiple directions, on multiple levels, eliminating the distinctions: there is no Man - State - System, but only the System that is all of these and more.  There is no Politics - Economics - Warfare - Public Opinion - Private Man.  When one thread is pulled, the rest move, if only slightly.  The slight perturbations affect the whole, and the Big Bangs are often gradual — and might go unnoticed.  The Big Bangs which are not gradual rearrange the parts in preparation for so many smaller bangs to come.  Those who operate only on the local level, or only targeting one node or a few, will be the inept ones. (And not all of those will be GG’s or destroyers.)  This is especially true given the fact that all these perturbations are slowly building a world in which those inept ones operate; reacting to that world, working within it, will mean they are already a part of the rearranged system even if they do not see it, which would be a good distinction between the reactive and the proactive principles.

All of that may sound esoteric, and I might be charged with Dreaming. It might also sound strangely unlike war.  Where’s the war part? might be a question asked of this dreamer.  Where is the distinction between kinetic and non-kinetic, between war and politics?   Or else, I might only be asked to give a concrete example of how this might look.  That would be a fair request, and ignoring the fact that any imagined example cannot be concrete, I might give the words of TM Lutas, left as a comment on John Robb’s blog, as an example of one way (of many) 5GW will play out.