Logistics and the Success or Failure of Major Campaigns

Introduction

The relationship between logistics and war fighting is complicated. In fact, unconventional warfare uses no conventional logistics system. This paper examines two major campaigns where military logistics led to success or failure. In Operation Barbarossa, the German logistics system failed; in Operation Overlord, Allied logisticians suffered from “analysis paralysis.” Why did Barbarossa fail despite having enough supplies? Why was Overlord successful even though logisticians were unable to identify appropriate invasion routes? These questions are answered by examining the factors that logistics planners and operations planners must consider.

Operation Barbarossa

The German invasion of Russia during World War II, called Operation Barbarossa, was initially successful: the use of Blitzkrieg tactics caught the Soviets unprepared. As the operation proceeded, however, the vast distances involved and the cold Russian winter were too much for the German’s supply lines, and the invading army experienced shortages of ammunition, fuel, and food. This slowed German progress and allowed the Soviets to regroup and counterattack.

German soldiers fighting in the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa, 1941.

Why exactly did Operation Barbarossa fail, and at what point should it have been clear to German military leaders that it was a lost cause? The answers to these two questions depend on the sources used.

Castano[1] notes that German generals were interviewed after the war, and that “these generals blamed everyone but themselves when stating why the invasion failed.” These generals blamed “Hitler, the War in the Balkans, the early onset of winter and the strategic debate between Hitler and the OKW [supreme military command] concerning there the primary thrust of the invasion should be directed.”[2]

Castano follows Van Creveld[3] in placing the blame squarely on the logistical planners. The German forces advanced faster than supply could be delivered to them, and ammunition and fuel were in short supply, even early on the invasion. German troops needed to obtain food from Russian and Ukrainian peasants, thus generating animosity. The resupply effort depended on the Soviet railroads, which were in poor repair. The roads turned to mud, leaving panzer and motorized infantry exposed. Finally, by “July 11, after just nineteen days, 25% of German supply vehicles permanently broke down.”[4], preventing ammunition and fuel from reaching where they were needed.

The ground froze in November, which allowed the tanks and other vehicles to resume movement, except that the Germans were lacking winter-weight oils and winter clothing. Castano notes that “troops started gasoline fires under their tanks to warm up the oil sufficiently so that the engines could turn over.”[5] On 4 December, the temperature fell to -25° F, and one regiment reported 300 frostbite casualties. The next day, the Soviet Army started a counter-offensive, and the German line fell apart.

Fenrick[6] analyzes the German defeat differently, using contemporary operational art and design. Hitler had identified Moscow as the operational center of gravity (COG) in that the four instruments of national power – diplomats, Stalin’s propaganda machine, military leaders, and industry – were all based there. Hitler also correctly identified the strategic COG – the Soviet military – but underestimated their strength. However, Hitler became distracted by Leningrad and Kiev, taking his eyes off the COG.

Fenrick notes that Hitler underestimated his own operational reach, the ability to project military capabilities to a specific time and place. Fenrick and Castano agree that German forces outran their logistical support due to the conditions of the roads and railways.

Finally, Fenrick faults Hitler with poor arrangement of operations. Hitler did not phase or sequence operations effectively. Instead of consolidating gains after initial successes, the Germans diluted their strength by engaging in simultaneous offences. For example, the encirclement of Kiev in September 1941 was a success, but it diverted resources from Moscow.

For Fenrick, the failure of Operation Barbarossa was due to multiple operational issues, of which logistics was only one part.

Operation Overlord

The Allied invasion of France, called Operation Overlord, involved 18 months of meticulous planning, with the central idea being to deliver troops and equipment into the theater faster than Germany. To this end, the planners developed a large model identifying all factors that would affect this rate of flow[7]. The four most crucial factors were:

1. Number of ships and landing crafts available on D-Day.
2. Size and number of beaches, their gradients, and the prevailing weather conditions.
3. Availability of deep-water ports close to the beaches, needed for ongoing troop and equipment delivery.
4. Feasibility of providing air support.

Examining maps of France, General Frederick Morgan soon discovered that no landing site matched those four factors, and in fact the factors are in some ways self-contradicting[8]. In the parlance of JP 3-0, the logistics planners narrowly focused on operational means (resources used to accomplish some goal). Morgan focused on ends (“the set of required conditions that defines achievement of the commander’s objectives”)[9]. In this situation, the end was to establish a presence on the continent from which the German forces could be evicted from western Europe. Morgan then realized that the real constraints were that:

1. The invasion must be launched from somewhere close to the Allies’ main base in Britain.
2. The landing sites had to be within range of the RAF’s Spitfires.

These two constraints instantly eliminated all but north-west France, namely Normandy and the Pas-de-Calais. From the standpoint of operational planning, the logisticians painted themselves into irrelevancy. The four factors the logisticians identified were sure to maximize the flow of troops, equipment, and supplies into the theater of operations – but that theater did not exist! Morgan was able to determine the theater and identify candidate landing zones without 18 months of analysis.

The Operation Overlord logisticians suffered from “analysis paralysis”: they provided schedules for delivering troops and materiel, but those schedules could not by themselves be implemented (operationalized). Their schedules and plans were useful to a certain extent, however.

Once the invasion got underway, the Allies received all the supplies they initially needed, but after the breakout from St. Lo, the U.S. Army spearheads were moving 75 miles per day and required 200 tons of supplies per day. Ensuring the ongoing delivery of fuel to maintain this rate was difficult. The initial plan was to capture Cherbourg and other ports along the British Channel for use for fuel resupply. Those ports were not captured.

According to Williams[10], 7 million long tons of POL (petrol, oil, and lubricants) were stored in the U.K. for use by the Allies, but there was no way of getting that to the forces. The initial plan was to use jerricans to move POL from fuel distribution points to where the POL was needed. Unfortunately, jerricans were in short supply[11]. To partially ameliorate this situation, pipelines were laid under the English Channel as part of Operation PLUTO (Pipeline Underwater Transportation of Oil). These pipelines were slow in coming online, so Normandy beaches continued to be used for offloading.

Williams notes that “Logisticians assured TUSAG [Twelfth U.S. Army Group] and SHAEF [Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force] that they could sustain the attacking armies with only the ports of Brest, Quiberon Bay and Cherbourg.”[12] Brest was captured on 19 September but was too badly damaged by the Germans for it to be usable. Quiberon Bay became irrelevant due to its distance from the Allied armies[13]. Cherbourg was captured six weeks behind schedule, and at the time of the breakout from St. Lo, the only operational harbors were Cherbourg and an artificial harbor called “Mulberry A.”[14]

Conclusions

In considering these two operations, it is clear that logistics alone does not determine the success or failure of a campaign. Poor logistics planning may result in the failure of an operation, but it is no guarantee (for example, the Campaign of 1870 of the Franco-Prussian War had logistical failures but was a success for Von Moltke[15]).

With Operation Barbarossa, logistics problems became apparent 19 days after the start and persisted throughout the campaign. The failure of this operation can be attributed in whole or in part to logistics.

The problems encountered in Operation Overlord were of a different nature. The meticulous planning of the logisticians failed to produce any candidate landing points. It took General Morgan thinking of the operation in a strategic and operational way to identify Normandy. Operation Overlord was certainly a success, but the contribution that the initial logistics plan played in that success is minimal.

A viable logistic plan must involve reliable supply chains, a reliable transportation network, schedules for delivering and allocating resources, and be adaptable to changing campaigns[16]. Both Barbarossa and Overlord lacked a reliable transportation network, but the logistics plan for Operation Overlord was too inflexible. The speed at which the Germans and the Allies moved were faster than the supply chains could deliver, leaving little to no possibility of delivering materiel.

From a planning perspective, operations must involve correct calculation of the enemy’s center of gravity (and the degree to which the enemy is willing to defend that COG). Operational reach is of course important. Operations must be phased, which means that victories must be consolidated. Operation Barbarossa failed to consider those aspects, whereas Overlord did make use of those factors.

Most importantly, logistics and operational planning must be synchronized with tactics and the commander’s strategy for achieving the desired goal[17]. Both Barbarossa and Overlord failed in this, but in different ways. The logistics planning done in preparation of Operation Overlord was detached from the desired end state and the tactics and strategy used to achieve that end state. Once the desired end state was determined (removing German forces from western Europe using an established presence in France), the strategy, operations, tactics, and logistics became aligned. Operation Barbarossa suffered from over-optimistic logistical planning as well as a lack of a clear end state. Hitler chose three targets, but with competing priorities: military and industrial control were both desired, but with no plan for how one would support the other. As such, the operation was detached from logistics and the end state was left unspecified.

Footnotes

[1] Castano, p. 17.
[2] Ibid, p. 23-24.
[3] Van Creveld, p. 148-154.
[4] Castano, p. 26.
[5] Ibid, p. 27.
[6] Fenrick, NCO Journal, 2 May 2022.
[7] Van Creveld, p. 207.
[8] Ibid, p. 207-208.
[9] JP 3-0, GL-9.
[10] Williams, p. 12.
[11] Williams, p. 12.
[12] Ibid, p. 19.
[13] Denny, p. 7-9.
[14] Williams, p. 17.
[15] Von Creveld, p. 103.
[16] JP 5-0, I-7.
[17] Ibid, I-3, I-5, I-6, etc.

Bibliography

Castano, V. “The Failure of Operation Barbarossa: Truth versus Fiction.” University of North Carolina at Pembroke, 11 April 1997. https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncp/f/Castano,%20Vincent.pdf

Denny, N. “Seduction in Combat: Losing Sight of Logistics After D-Day.” U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 2003. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA416387.pdf

Fenrick, P. “Operation Barbarossa: A Lesson in Hubris and Strategy.” NCO Journal, 2 May 2022. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archives/2022/May/Operation-Barbarrosa/

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Operations (JP 3-0). 22 October 2018. https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp3_0.pdf

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Planning (JP 5-0). 01 December 2020. https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp5_0.pdf

Van Creveld, M. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Williams, P. “A Marine Corps Logistician Examines Logistics Planning and Execution During Operation Overlord: A Study in Effectiveness and Implications for Today.” Marine Corps University, 20 March 2013. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA601695.pdf

The First Gulf War as a Successful Joint Operation

Introduction

In this paper it is argued that the First Gulf War was a successful joint operation, and that the “jointness” was organized according to the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. To justify this thesis, the historical events that lead to the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act are explained, and the Act itself is described. Next, the history of the First Gulf War is briefly recounted. The war is examined through the lens of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, and we see that it was executed in the manner prescribed by the Act. Finally, the connection between successful execution and successful joint operation is examined, and the thesis is thus supported.

USAF photo of F-16A, F-15C, F-15E war planes flying over burning oil wells during Desert Storm, 1991

Background

The concept of joint operations has been present in US military thought since at least 1905¹, but it came to the fore with the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, and eventually became part of doctrine². The Act streamlined the military hierarchy while allowing different branches to work better together. There were two small military operations during the Carter Administration whose outcomes led to the passage of the Act.

The first was the attempt to rescue the hostages taken from the US Embassy in Tehran by followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The operation, called Operation Eagle Claw³, began on 24 April 1980 with eight helicopters. The helicopters encountered severe dust storms which disabled two of them. After refueling, one of the remaining helicopters was found to be faulty. This brought the number of helicopters to five, below the minimum viable number needed to complete the rescue and so the mission was aborted. As the helicopters were refueling for departure, one of them crashed into a C-130 tanker, killing eight servicemen.

An analysis of this incident, the “Holloway Report”, found twenty-three issues⁴, which included problems with command and control, coordination of joint training, and a lack of weather reconnaissance. From these recommendations, the Joint Special Operations Command was established in December of 1980.

The second military operation was the liberation of Grenada in October 1983. On 13 March 1979, the Marxist New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation Movement, also called the New JEWEL Movement, or the NJM, seized control of Grenada, and formed the People’s Revolutionary Government. This happened when Eric Gairy, the prime minister, was out of the country.

The United States recognized the new government on 22 March 1979. The American ambassador promised aid projects, but a US-backed coup d’état led by Gairy seemed imminent. Grenada broke-off relations with the United States and formed relations with the Soviet Union, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

Reagan won election in 1980, and in response to the growing relation between Grenada and Fidel Castro as well as concerns for the safety of 600 American medical students on the island, an invasion of Grenada, called Operation Urgent Fury, was planned. The operation began on 25 October 1983. The People’s Revolutionary Government was toppled, Soviet and Cuban forces were expelled, the students were rescued, and a new government was installed. The operation ended after 8 days, on 2 November 1983.

The operation, while a military success, exposed problems that would later be addressed by the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Intelligence was lacking. In particular, the 600 medical students were located at two different campuses, and American forces took 30 hours to reach the second campus. The maps used were not topographic maps but rather tourist maps with hand drawn MGRS lines⁵. Communication systems used by the US forces were incompatible between the branches and this hindered the coordination of operations⁶.

The Goldwater-Nichols Act

The Goldwater-Nichols Act had made several changes to military structure, and therefore operations and planning⁷, the most relevant being:

First, it created the position of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This position is the principal military advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense. This arrangement allowed the chairman to choose overall strategies while giving command authority to joint combatant commanders. However, the chairman “may not exercise military command over the Joint Chiefs of Staff or any of the armed forces.”^{8 9}

Second, the various branches were to use combined procurement to not only share the latest technology but also to ensure communication interoperability.

Finally, the service chiefs no longer had any operational control of their forces. This role was taken over by combatant commanders, and those commanders were responsible for either geographic regions or specific functions. Since multiple branches were involved in all the regions or all the functions, combatant commanders are inherently joint commanders.

The First Gulf War

The first major test of the Goldwater-Nichols Act was the First Gulf War of 1991. The issues prompting that war were the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait starting on 2 August 1990 and fears that Iraq would next invade Saudi Arabia.

This invasion prompted immediate and universal condemnation. Included in the reaction was UN Security Council Resolution 660 which demanded the immediate withdrawal of all Iraq forces from Kuwait, and Resolution 661 which imposed international sanctions against Iraq.

The US and UK deployed forces into Saudi Arabia to deter Iraq movement into Saudi Arabia as well as to force Saddam Hussein to follow Resolution 660. Meanwhile, President George H. W. Bush began building a large coalition of nations, encouraging them to either contribute their own forces or provide support.

Among the nations to join the coalition were many Arab/Muslim nations including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the Kuwait government in exile. Of those, Saudi Arabia and Egypt provided considerable support to the coalition - Egypt would commit 35K to the operation, while the Saudis not only hosted coalition forces but provided troops and air support.

The final ultimatum, Resolution 678, came from the United Nations, giving Iraq until 15 January 1991 to withdraw from Kuwait. They didn’t withdraw, and Operation Desert Storm started the next day.

In an attempt to fracture the coalition, Iraq launched missile strikes on Israel starting on 17 January 1991, hoping that an Israeli response would alienate the Arab nations and cause them to drop out. At the urging of the Americans, Israel did not retaliate, and the coalition mostly held throughout the war.

The Gulf War was fought according to the AirLand Battle doctrine¹⁰. In this, land and air forces collaborate with the air forces depriving the enemy of air and logistical support. Ground forces then performed rapid and aggressive maneuver warfare to dominate enemy targets. To do this, a large amount of materiel must be pre-positioned, say in Saudi Arabia.

The air campaign lasted from 17 January 1991 to 23 February 1991 - 42 consecutive days and nights. It consisted of over 100,000 sorties, performed primarily by the US Air Force, with the Navy and Marine Corps also contributing. The other coalition partners, even Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE), also supplied aircraft.

Immediately prior to the start of the ground campaign, an artillery barrage was used to weaken or defeat any Iraqi defensive positions that survived the air assault. Performed by the Army’s 1st Infantry Division Artillery, 90,000 artillery rounds were fired in a period of 2.5 hours.

The ground campaign involved infantry and armored divisions from the US Army, the USMC, and the British 1st Armoured Division. Four of the largest tank battles in America’s history were fought during this phase of the Gulf War.

American and British forces crossed from Kuwait into Iraq on 24 February 1991. Saddam Hussain ordered that his remaining forces in Kuwait to withdraw on 27 February. Iraqi troops stationed at Kuwait International Airport didn’t get the memo, and their defeat was the end of combat operations within Kuwait. The next day, Iraq’s foreign minister announced that Iraq would accept the UN Security Council resolutions against it.

The First Gulf War as a Joint Operation

The above recounting of the history of the First Gulf War illustrates the influence the Goldwater-Nichols Act had on military operations. Operation Desert Storm was not only a multinational operation, it was a joint operation: the US military branches had to collaborate with partner nations, but more importantly the US military branches had to work in a coordinated manner¹¹.

This was possible primarily because the Joint Chiefs of Staff were given a Chairman. This position, then held by General Colin Powell, is purely advisory but it ensures that the separate combat commanders have a central point of contact. This allowed the branches to operate in a coordinated fashion.

The combined procurement required by the Goldwater-Nichols Act ensured that communication breakdowns seen during Operation Eagle Claw and Operation Urgent Fury would not happen again.

Finally, the Goldwater-Nichols Act encouraged interactions between the services in that combatant commanders were joint commanders that had operational control over their forces, not service chiefs. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr, the combatant commander of the First Gulf War thus had control over multiple military branches.

Success Factors

The First Gulf War was indeed a military success, and it was indeed a joint operation executed in a manner prescribed by the Goldwater-Nichols Act, as argued in the previous sentence. Was that success due to it being a joint operation?

It may be attempting to attribute the victory to the fact that it was a multinational operation, but other multinational operations were failures.

It is more reasonable to attribute success to the use of the AirLand Battle doctrine under a brilliant and experienced combat commander in pursuance of finite and delineated goals. This theory is ruled out because AirLand Battle doctrine explicitly requires control of the air and land dimensions of the battlespace. While this doesn’t necessarily imply that multiple branches of the military must be involved, the combined air and land capabilities of a single branch may not have been sufficient alone.

Conclusion

The First Gulf War was thus a successful joint operation, but there is one problem…

The only point of fault of this joint operation was the lengthy time needed to form a coalition. The people of Kuwait were living under the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party for almost 7 months, from 2 August 1990 to 27 February 1991, and socialists can do considerable damage in that period of time. The presence of Middle Eastern nations in the coalition may have prevented the war from expanding should the United States acted alone, however.

Barring this, the First Gulf War must be classified as a tremendous success for modern joint strategic planning and warfare. It demonstrated that while individual military branches are themselves powerful, they are even more powerful when they are used in a collaborative manner.

Footnotes

[1] Crosbie, “Getting the Joint Functions Right”
[2] JP 3-0: Joint Operations.
[3] Morrow, “Operation Eagle Claw remembered 40 years later.”
[4] Holloway, Final Report of the Special Operations Review Group.
[5] Bolger, “Operation Urgent Fury and its Critics.”
[6] Nightingale, “How Grenada Changed How America Goes to War.”
[7] Cook, “The Importance of Joint Concepts for the Planner.”
[8] PUBLIC LAW 99-433-OCT. 1, 1986, 10 USC 152c.
[9] Here’s looking at you, General Milley.
[10] King & Boykin IV, “Distinctly Different Doctrine: Why Multi-Domain Operations isn’t AirLand Battle 2.0.”
[11] Marquis et al. “The Advent of Jointness During the Gulf War: A 25-Year Retrospective.”

Bibliography

Bolger, D. “Operation Urgent Fury and its Critics.” Military Review, July 1986. Retrieved 5 October 2024 from https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Directors-Select-Articles/Operation-Urgent-Fury/

Cook, J. “The Importance of Joint Concepts for the Planner.” Joint Force Quarterly 99. National Defense University Press. 19 November 2020. Retrieved 4 October 2024 from https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/2421455/the-importance-of-joint-concepts-for-the-planner/

Crosbie, T. “Getting the Joint Functions Right.” Joint Forces Quarterly 94, 25 July 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2024 from https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/1913080/getting-the-joint-functions-right

Holloway, J. Final Report of the Special Operations Review Group. July 1980. Retrieved 5 October 2024 from https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/19709-national-security-archive-doc-10-final-report

Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-0: Joint Operations. 11 August 2011. Retrieved 6 October 2024 from https://www.moore.army.mil/mssp/security%20topics/Potential%20Adversaries/content/pdf/JP%203-0.pdf

King, S. & Boykin IV, D. “Distinctly Different Doctrine: Why Multi-Domain Operations isn’t AirLand Battle 2.0.” Association of the United Stares Army. 20 February 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2024 from https://www.ausa.org/articles/distinctly-different-doctrine-why-multi-domain-operations-isn%E2%80%99t-airland-battle-20

Marquis, G., Dye, D., & Kinkead, R. “The Advent of Jointness During the Gulf War: A 25-Year Retrospective.” Joint Force Quarterly 85. National Defense University Press. 1 April 2017. Retrieved 5 October 2024 from https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/1130670/the-advent-of-jointness-during-the-gulf-war-a-25-year-retrospective/

Morrow, K. “Operation Eagle Claw remembered 40 years later.” U.S. Army, 24 April 2020. Retrieved 5 October 2024 from https://www.army.mil/article/235436/operation_eagle_claw_remembered_40_years_later

Nightingale, K. “How Grenada Changed How America Goes to War.” Small Wars Journal, 23 October 2013. Retrieved 5 October 2024 from https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/how-grenada-changed-how-america-goes-to-war

PUBLIC LAW 99-433-OCT. 1, 1986. The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. https://history.defense.gov/portals/70/documents/dod_reforms/goldwater-nicholsdodreordact1986.pdf

Agile Combat Employment (ACE): Concepts and Criticisms

Introduction

The US Air Force Agile Combat Employment (ACE) is an operational approach that relies on distributing forces to reduce threats to the USAF while increasing unpredictability to our adversaries. According to the doctrinal note explaining ACE (AFDN 1-21)[1], the motivations for adopting this approach are the shrinking number of large bases, and the nature of current great power competitors who have the technological ability to convert fixed-location bases into contested areas.

Instead of using fixed-location bases. ACE entails the dispersal of forces into enduring locations (ELs) and contingency locations (CLs). ELs serve as hubs for CL spokes. Forces can move from CL to CL as the situation demands. These CLs are easy to conceal and allow for flexible responses. As described in AFDN 1-21:

“ACE shifts operations from centralized physical infrastructures to a network of smaller, dispersed locations that can complicate adversary planning and provide more options for joint force commanders. Its value is derived from the ability to hold adversary targets at risk from multiple locations that are defensible, sustainable, and relocatable. Airmen should expect to conduct operations at a speed, scope, complexity, and scale exceeding recent campaigns from distributed locations.”

ACE thus reduces the target value of large fixed-location bases, while multiple CLs complicates the planning of our adversaries.

AFDN 1-21 lists three “enablers” that are required for this system: first are Multi-Capable Airmen (MCA), who are able to perform tasks outside their primary occupation (AFSC). Second, MCAs are expected to operate according to mission command, meaning they must rely on their initiative to carry-out their commander’s intention. Finally, there are tailorable force packages that can be rapidly delivered to CLs as needed.

ACE uses a common lexicon with joint partners (posture, command and control, movement and maneuver, protection, sustainment, information, intelligence, and fires). The two most distinctive of these are sustainment, and command and control.

For command and control, it is assumed that there is a robust communication system in place that is adaptive and resilient even in the most challenging of environments.

For sustainment, logistics needs to operate on a push system using predictive modeling; local and regional consumer markets would alleviate stresses to the distribution system.

ACE Compared With 4th Generation Warfare Operations

In many ways, ACE is similar to 4th generation warfare (4GW)[2]. Both expect their individual fighters to possess multiple skills and the ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome. ACE uses mission command, whereas 4GW uses the similar Auftragstaktik (an aggressive form of professionalism and cultural philosophy expected of all members of a force)[3]. ACE logistics relies on a push methodology whereas 4GW uses a combination of push and pull systems. Both use local support to supplement shortcomings in the logistics systems.

The operational methods of both ACE and 4GW forces are described by the DOCA loop[4]: disperse – orient – concentrate – act. Being dispersed, the CLs are, separately, low-value targets. They must concentrate to bring significant force to bear against a target.

ACE is different from 4GW in that the latter does not have ELs. A shared problem both ACE and 4GW forces have is described below.

Logistics Problems

Ackerman[5] finds that the ACE doctrine has unrealistic logistics expectations. Aircraft require tremendous amounts of maintenance, and the needed spare pool size would be large. Cannibalization of aircraft that are not mission capable to ensure others are mission capable would be an option. He states that “ACE employment capability sounds great in a lab or an academic setting; however, many assumptions with logistics and sustainment must occur in order to achieve success.”

Problems identified by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army

Derek Solon provides an overview[6] of a People’s Republic of China analysis of ACE, which the Chinese refer to as the “water lily plan.” The Chinese identify three problems with[7] ACE:

First, fearing counterstrikes, countries may not allow the USAF to use their airfields as CLs. This fear could make even reliable allies unreliable.

Second, ACE will not reduce the AF’s reliance on permanent bases, since the EL hub is still supporting the CL spokes. The EL is still a target, and its elimination will greatly limit the functions of the CLs.

Finally, it is possible for an adversary to “short circuit” ACE by getting inside its OODA loop: “if the opponent deploys sea and air reconnaissance and strike platforms in advance to shorten the kill chain, it is entirely possible to capture the short time window when US aircraft dock at small forward bases and carry out precision strikes.”[8]

Synchronization Issues

In order to be combat-effective, the forces of multiple CLs must concentrate their firepower. Doing this requires these CLs to operate in a synchronized manner, which requires a well-functioning medium-range communication system. This is explicitly listed in AFDN 1-21 as a requirement, but it is a significant point of failure. Even a partial failure of the communication system (only affecting one CL, for example) would still degrade the overall capabilities of the combined EL and its CLs.

Conclusion

As Ackerman would say, ACE looks good on paper, but the logistics and synchronization problems together with the issues found by the People’s Liberation Army would seem to indicate that ACE would not work in practice.

Footnotes

[1] USAF, Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21: Agile Combat Employment.
[2] Lind & Thiele. 4th Generation Warfare Handbook.
[3] Widder, “Auftragstaktik and Innere Führung.”
[4] Lind & Thiele. 4th Generation Warfare Handbook, p. 69.
[5] Ackerman, “Agile Combat Employment: A War-Time Readiness Fallacy.”
[6] Solon, “The PLA’s Critical Assessment of the Agile Combat Employment Concept.”
[7] Yuan Yi, et al. “The US Air Force's "agile combat deployment" is difficult.”
[8] Ibid.

Bibliography

Ackerman, R. “Agile Combat Employment: A War-Time Readiness Fallacy.” Universal Synaptics. 10 October 2022. Retrieved 26 September 2024 from https://www.usynaptics.com/agile-combat-employment-a-war-time-readiness-fallacy/

Lind, W. S. & Thiele, G. A. 4^th Generation Warfare Handbook. Castalia House, 2015. Retrieved 26 September 2024 from https://ia802901.us.archive.org/27/items/4thGenerationWarfareHandbookWilliamS.Lind28129/4th_Generation_Warfare_Handbook_-_William_S._Lind%25281%2529.pdf

Solon, D. “The PLA’s Critical Assessment of the Agile Combat Employment Concept.” China Brief 21(14), 16 July 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2024 from https://jamestown.org/program/the-plas-critical-assessment-of-the-agile-combat-employment-concept/

USAF. Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21: Agile Combat Employment. 23 August 2022. Retrieved 24 September 2024 from https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/AFDN_1-21/AFDN%201-21%20ACE.pdf

Widder, W. “Auftragstaktik and Innere Führung: Trademarks of German leadership.” Military Review, September-October 2002. Retrieved 25 September 2024 from https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Hot-Spots/docs/MC/MR-Sep-Oct-2002-Widder.pdf

Yuan Yi, Xu Wenhua, Xu Jinhua. “The US Air Force's "agile combat deployment" is difficult.” China Military Network, Ministry of National Defense Network. 2 July 2020. Retrieved 26 September 2024 from http://www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2020-07/02/content_265061.htm

Strategic Planning Aspects of Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan

Introduction

Do modern strategic planning principles apply to historical battles, or is the application of those principles nothing but “retconning”? This is tested out on Joshua’s conquest of Canaan as described in the Bible.

Fall of the Walls of Jericho
Fresco at the Vatican by Raphael or his School, c. 1519

Summary of the Base Text

Prior to the start of the Book of Joshua, Moses and his people have been wandering the desert for 40 years. Joshua was about to become Moses’ successor.

Now that Moses is dead, God tells Joshua to take the people into the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. He states that they must get ready to cross the Jordan River, and He describes the extent of the land. He tells Joshua to be strong and not to be afraid, and that the people Joshua will lead must follow Moses' commandments.

Joshua then orders the leaders of the people to get ready for the journey and that in 3 days they'll cross the Jordan River. Once across, they'll take the land - God is ready to give it to them. Joshua states how the land will be divvied-up: 2.5 tribes will have east side of the Jordan River but must send troops to support the upcoming fighting. Those troops will be returned once the other tribes are safe. The people promise to follow Joshua as they did Moses.

Joshua sends two spies ahead to look at the city of Jericho. When they arrive there, they are taken in by a woman (prostitute?) named Rahab. The king of Jericho wants the spies, but Rahab protects them by hiding them on the roof of her house.

After the king's men went a-searching for the spies outside the walls of the city, Rahab informs the spies that the city is afraid. She makes the spies promise that Joshua will not kill her family. She helps them escape the city, telling the spies to hide in the hills for 3 days and then go back to their people. The departing spies tell her to tie a red string to the window and to get her family into the house where they'll be safe.

The spies return and report to Joshua.

The next morning, Joshua and all the Israelites leave Shittim and set camp next to the Jordan River. Three days later the tribal leaders go to every tent and tell them to follow the Covenant Box carried by the Levite priests. Joshua tells the priests to carry the Box at the front.

God tells Joshua to send the priests to the riverbank and wait. God then halts the water and allows the Israelites to cross. They commemorate the crossing by laying heaps of stone in the river and on the shore. They pitch their tents near the east side of Jericho.

The crossing proves to the people that God has Joshua's back!

God commanded Joshua to circumcise the Israelite men. They stayed at Gilgal until they were strong again. They ate the Passover meal, and the next day they ate food that came from Canaan. They never ate manna again.

God tells Joshua what he and his men must do in order to win the city of Jericho: they must march around it one time each day for 6 days, the priests blowing their trumpets. On the 7th day they must march around it 7 times while the priests blow their horns. The priests will blow their horns once more and the soldiers must give a loud shout. The city walls will fall, and the army will go into the city.

They did this, and on the 7th day the walls fell. The soldiers capture the city. Joshua has his two spies go to Rahab's house and bring out her family who were then taken to the Israelites' tents. The soldiers saved the precious metals, then burned the city to the ground. Joshua makes a promise: if anyone tries to rebuild the city, their children will die.

One of the Israelites took some of the precious metals for himself, and God became angry.

Joshua sent some men to reconnoiter the city of Ai. They returned, letting him know that 3000 men should be able to take it. Those men were all killed in their attempt to take Ai.

Joshua prayed in front of the Covenant Box. God tells him why he allowed Ai's soldiers to be victorious: some of his men had taken the precious metals.

The next morning, Joshua has all the tribes stand before God. God picksout Achan, who then tells everybody what he did. Joshua sends men to collect all the items Achan had hidden for himself. They also remove Achan's sons, daughters, and cows, sheep, and donkeys. They take all of them to the Achor valley where the Israelites stoned them to death.

God ceased being angry with his people.

God tells Joshua to take the city of Ai, but this time they can keep the animals and other valuables.

Joshua places 30,000 men to the west of Ai. In the morning, Joshua had his other men attack from the north. They feigned retreat, the Ai chased them, leaving the city undefended. The men who were waiting to the west then attacked the city, setting it ablaze. The Israelites who had been running away saw the smoke then turned to fight the men of Ai.

The Israelites who took the city went out to fight the Ai, so the Ai was trapped between two groups. Only the king of Ai survived. The king was captured and brought to Joshua. He was hung, then buried.

Following this, Joshua builds an altar on Ebal mountain. He carves Moses' laws into stones, then reads them to the Israelites as well as the foreign people among them.

Some people from the city of Gibeon approach Joshua, convincing him not to attack them if they became his servants. Joshua and the Israelite leaders agreed not to attack Gibeon. Three days after making this agreement, Joshua learns that the Gibeonites lived near them, but due to the promise Joshua made, they did not take the city.

The king of Jerusalem, King Adoni-Zedek, convinces four other kings to band together to form the Amorites and then proceed to attack the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites ask Joshua (currently at Gilgal) for help. Joshua and his army march from Gilgal and attack the Amorites. The Amorites withdrew from Gibeon, in part because of the Israelite army, in part because the Lord sent large hailstones down upon them. Joshua asks God that the sun stand still over Gibeon city and the moon stand still over Aijalon valley, allowing the Israelites to punish their enemies.

Their armies routed, the five Amorite kings take refuge in a cave. Joshua orders the cave to be sealed until they finish fighting the enemy armies. The Israelites did defeat them but allowed some members of the Amorite armies to make it back to their cities to tell the people of the events. The five kings are released from the caves and are then killed and buried in that cave.

Joshua and the Israelites then attack the other cities, cities that were far from Gilgal in one long fight. After this they returned to Gilgal.

Several kings from the north band together in an attempt to kill the Israelites, but Joshua and his armies defeat them. Fighting in this way, Joshua takes the whole land. After that, the people do not have to fight anymore. Thus the Canaanites were driven out - Joshua captured their territory, but the people remained.

In the end, Joshua and the Israelites took the land of 31 kings in 6 years.

Strategic Planning

As described in Joshua 1-12[1], Joshua incorporated many principles of strategic planning into this campaign. In particular, the balancing of ends, ways, means, and risk - identified by Lykke[2] as crucial to strategic planning - was displayed. (Note: since the Book of Joshua is told in third-person omniscient, we have no way of knowing if Joshua was considering this balance.)

The desired end was to capture Canaan for later division amongst the twelve tribes. Joshua did capture the territory, eliminating many of the cities it contained, but the Canaanite people did survive. The way this goal was accomplished was through two broad campaigns supported by HUMINT, one to the south (described in Joshua 10) followed by a northern campaign (Joshua 11) where Joshua and the Israelites defeated 6 Canaanite areas and 31 kings in 6 years. Joshua did this with the means of the Israelite army and his leadership over that army, his campaign planning, along with some supernatural help at each stage. Because of divine assistance, the risk was low.

Lykke[3] would call this a "balanced strategy" in that the selected way (the campaigns) is capable of and has sufficient means (Israelite army + planning + divine assistance) to obtain the desired end (capture Canaan).

Various center of gravity (COG) considerations should be considered. Eikmeier[4] describes the following concepts:

Center of gravity is the primary source of strength, power, or resistance, which can be either physical or moral. In the case of the Conquest of the Land of Canaan, this would be the large Israelite army (physical strength) plus the belief that they had divine protection (moral strength).

Critical capabilities are the abilities the COG has in order to make it the central player in the given scenario. In this situation, this would be the fighting abilities of the Israelite army.

Critical requirements are the resources and means for the critical capability to be operational. In order for the Israelite army to be operative, there are some means of logistic support, Joshua's leadership, and a leadership structure. This latter is hinted at in the source text - Joshua commands the leaders of the 12 tribes, and the tribal leaders command their armies.

Critical vulnerabilities are the "critical requirements or components thereof which are either deficient or vulnerable to neutralization, interdiction, or attack (moral/physical harm) in a manner that achieves decisive results." There are two vulnerabilities, one explicitly mentioned in the Book of Joshua, the other implicit. Explicitly mentioned is the possibility that one of the men may disobey the Lord's commandments - this is demonstrated in how Achan's looting caused God to remove His favor, resulting in Joshua's defeat in his first attempt to take the city of Ai. A second source could be disunity amongst the 12 tribes. Joshua addressed this with the stoppage of the Jordan River, the sun and moon standing still, etc.

Eikmeier[5] describes how to connect the strategic framework with the COG in several steps.

Step 1: identify desired goal - capture and control the territory of Canaan.

Step 2: Identify ways to achieve that goal - cross the Jordan River, eliminate the two cities closest to the crossing point (thus establishing a toehold), and then expand control through southern and northern campaigns.

Step 3: List the means required to enable and implement the critical capability (the way) - the Israelite army would be the way, supported by the information Joshua's spies returned. There is only one non-military way mentioned in the source text: the assimilation of the Gibeonites.

Step 4: Choose the most consequential entity from the list of means, and this will be the center of gravity. In this example, the critical capability would be the skillful use of the Israelite army.

Eikmeier then describes the "Does/Uses Test" as a way to validate the cogency of the analysis: the COG does the action and uses resources to accomplish it. In this scenario, the Israelite army does the action (conquering the Canaanite territory) and uses resources (supplies) to do it. Thus we have selected the proper COG as the .

Conclusion

Based on the strategic framework outlined in JP 5-0[6] and expanded by Lykke and Eikmeier, strategic planning does appear to be in action in the capture of Canaanite territory.

Footnotes

[1] Source text used here is from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua+1-12&version=NIV&interface=print
[2] Lykke, "Defining Military Strategy."
[3] Ibid.
[4] Eikmeier, "A Logical Method for Center-of-Gravity Analysis."
[5] Ibid.
[6] JCS, Joint Planning, Ch. IV, especially p. IV-5

Bibliography

Eikmeier, D. "A Logical Method for Center-of-Gravity Analysis". Military Review, September-October 2007. Retrieved 19 September 2024 from https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20071031_art009.pdf

Joint Chiefs of Staff. JP 5-0 Joint Planning. 16 June 2017.

Lykke, A. "Defining Military Strategy" Military Review, January-February 1997. Retrieved 19 September 2024 from https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/75th-Anniversary/75th-PDF/75th-Lykke.pdf

JPP Applied to Rising Military Suicide Rates

Introduction

This paper uses the Joint Planning Process (JPP)[1] to address a hypothetical situation related to rising suicide rates of military personnel. The situation is described in the following problem:

You are the Commanding Officer of a squadron/battalion/destroyer who has experienced a significant increase in suicides over the past two years. Your immediate superior asks you to utilize the model of the Joint Planning Process with your leadership team to develop a course(s) of action to address the problem. How would you approach the issue? How would you define the problem? What courses of action would you propose? What criteria would you establish to grade your courses of action? How would you measure success?

For this paper, the recommendations are for a USMC or Army battalion. Unfortunately, the described course of action won’t transfer to squadrons or destroyers.

Marine Corps Community Services: How to Talk Openly About Suicide

Each of the seven steps of the JPP will be used. As specified in JP 5-0[2], the steps are:

1. Planning Initiation
2. Mission Analysis
3. COA Development
4. COA Analysis and Wargaming
5. COA Comparison
6. COA Approval
7. Plan or Order Development

Overall, this paper makes minimal assumptions about the causes of military suicides. It is assumed that such suicides are related to harrowing missions or rapid operational tempo. The choice for these factors was motivated by the observation that “the average warrior saw 40 days of combat during World War II and 240 days during the Vietnam War” and that “something changes inside a warrior the first time they take another's life or watch a comrade fall on the battlefield… Warriors feel rage and anger and want payback; but they also feel a sense of loneliness they have never experienced before.”[3]

All courses of action (COA) presented here propose collecting information on family history of mental health issues, prior symptoms of PTSD, etc. Focusing on family history is nothing new, as some research has performed statistical analyses only on demographic factors[4].

Research has compared suicide rates amongst the warfighters in different wars, and it is generally assumed that the suicide rates for World War II are lower than all wars from the Korean War to the GWOT[5] [6]. Additional studies have specialized in suicides only from the GWOT[7]. The study by Smith et al seemed to show that “War does not historically appear to increase suicide rates in active-duty U.S. Army soldiers or U.S. civilians.”[8] If this is true, veteran suicides are more common than active-duty suicides.

Step 1: Planning Initiation

Planning begins when the order to investigate the sudden increase in suicide rate of a particular battalion, and to use the JPP to devise a course of action that addresses this problem.

Step 2: Mission Analysis

Staff estimates: The battalion commander will have the following personnel available:

• The executive officer (XO) (a major)
• 4 company commanders, including HQ company (captains)
• 4 company XOs (first lieutenants)
• 1 battalion sergeant major
• 4 first sergeants, the company-level senior NCOs
• 1 or 2 medical specialists.

The enlisted personnel would be best at gathering information on those who committed suicide. Both officers and enlisted personnel should be involved in determining what changed two years ago. Finally, the XO will be charged with organizing the information that was collected.

Mission statement: The battalion experienced a substantial increase in the rate of suicides over the past two years. The mission is to reduce that rate to where it stood prior to two years ago, at least. These rates will be measured in terms of the percentage of the battalion lost in a single month.

Commander’s critical information requirements (CCIR): To determine the success of the mission, we must know the suicide rates prior to two years ago. It would be worth reviewing records as far back as possible, at least from five years ago.

The fundamental question that must be answered is: what changed approximately 2 years ago? Rates of suicide increased significantly starting two years ago, and that change must be understood. This is one part of the CCIR.

Another CCIR that can be collected prior to the implementation of the chosen COA are profiles of the troops who committed suicide over the previous two years. Information collected should include family life, family history of mental health issues, prior symptoms of PTSD, CPTSD, or TBI[9].

Information on suicides must be collected while the chosen COA is ongoing. This will allow the effectiveness of the COA to be measured. The implementation plan for the COA can be continually adjusted as needed.

Impact on other operations: The impact on other operations, either ongoing or future will depend on the chosen COA. At bare minimum, there would be minor personnel additions that should not change ongoing or future operations. Another COA could require significant changes to both ongoing and future operations.

Step 3 COA Development

COA 1: Reproduce techniques that were used in historical situations to reduce rates of suicide. For example, during the Battle of Verdun[10], Marshal Philippe Pétain rotated French troops after two weeks on the front lines. This was called the “noria system,” and the Germans practiced something similar. One consequence of this was that a larger number of troops gained combat experience. It is not clear what effect this system had on troop suicide, if any.

It may be worthwhile to examine historical techniques that resulted in increased suicide rates – and for us to do the opposite.

COA 2: Move psychological support closer to the battalion. This would allow troops to get help in a timely manner and can be done either permanently or on an as-needed basis.

COA 3: Determine what changed starting two years ago that could cause the increased suicide rates – and reverse it. Likely causes can include personnel changes, change in mission, and change in operational tempo. Retraining or reassigning personnel can fix the first cause. Changes in mission or operational tempo will require more substantial changes, say by using Pétain’s noria system.

Step 4 COA Analysis

COA 1: The initial stage of this COA is primarily historical research. It must be conducted by historians, and so by someone external to the battalion. If the pace of research is slow, this will delay implementation. If historical methods to reduce suicides are found, the implementation of the methods could involve major operational changes.

COA 2: This COA requires either that a psychiatrist or a medic with some appropriate training be added to the battalion. Psychiatrists are usually located at the division level or higher and are in short supply.

The assignment need not be permanent: it may make sense to assign a psychiatrist temporarily to the battalion depending on recent or upcoming harrowing activities. This can provide an immediate solution, at least in some cases.

COA 3: The goal of this COA is to make changes to the battalion based on the answer(s) to the “what changed” question. If the relevant difference was a personnel change, it will be necessary to investigate whether increased suicide rates happened at the previous locations where the personnel were assigned, then retrain or reassign the personnel.

If the increased suicide rate was caused by either a change in mission or a change in operation tempo, these hypotheses should be verified by examining other battalions in similar situations. Either of these two causes may significantly impact current or future operations.

Changes in personnel, mission, or operational tempo are not the only potential causes of the increase in suicide rates. Other potential causes include an interruption in family communications, or various changes that could be described as code of conduct or HR actions, etc. For those changes, it should be simple to reverse them with no impact on current or future operations.

Step 5 COA Comparison

COA 1 will require some research, and the required data may not be available. For example, the noria system was implemented to ensure fresh troops were available for the battle, not to minimize suicide rates, and there is a lack of data regarding such rates.

It may not be possible to execute COA 1 as historical data may not be available. If multiple historical methods are found, then they must be evaluated and compared, and the one(s) that show the most promise should then be implemented.

COA 2 may not be a practical solution depending on the level of hostility to those that have thoughts of suicide within the battalion. If the level is high, a troop experiencing suicidal thoughts may be too ashamed to seek help.

COA 3 is the most practical plan of action, in part because the scope of action is so limited in comparison to COA 1 and COA 2. Even if it is found that a change in mission or a change in battle tempo was the underlying cause, these can be corrected.

Both COA 3 and COA 1 can involve operational changes, and COA 1 might require the most such changes, depending on the historical approach used.

For COA 3, the staff size and their assigned roles will be the same as described in Step 2.

Using the “Course of Action Comparison” found in JP 5-0, a plus/minus/neutral comparison would be most appropriate[11].

Criteria	COA 1	COA 2	COA 3
Time to Implement	-	+	+
Personnel Changes	+	-	0
Mission Changes	-	+	+
Operational Tempo Changes	-	+	+

Step 6 COA Approval

The plan of action will be sent to the division commander for review and approval.

Step 7 Plan or Order Development

The steps needed to execute COA 3 are as follows:

1. Obtain records going back at least 3 - 5 years.
2. Look for changes in personnel, mission, and/or battle tempo immediately prior to the period of increased suicide.
3. For any of the changes, selectively examine similar changes in other battalions.
4. Once the change has been identified, reverse it when possible – see notes below on how to accomplish this.
5. Gather statistics.
6. Compare new state (post COA 2 implementation) with prior state (pre-COA 2). Was there a difference in suicide rate?
7. Repeat as needed, adjusting plans when desired results are not achieved.

Each of the three changes listed above (personnel, mission, and tempo) can be addressed.

1. One example of personnel change is as follows: suppose LT X transferred into the battalion prior to the increase in suicide rate. Was LT X’s prior assignment marked with increased suicide rate, and did that rate plummet after his departure? If so, LT X should be sent for additional leadership training.
2. Another situation is when LT X is good, but the LT he replaced was much better. Again, additional training and mentorship should fix this problem.
3. Suppose there was a change in mission, say from building roads to participating in a humanitarian rescue following a tsunami. The two-week rotation plan used by Marshal Pétain mentioned above should be effective in reducing stress levels and so result in a lower suicide rate.
4. Finally, a change in operational tempo can also be addressed by the two-week rotation plan.
Note: experimentation usually involves a control group. Depending on the comparison being made, it may be unethical to require a control group.

Conclusion

The goal of this planning document was to apply the Joint Planning Process to correct an increase in suicide rates for a battalion. The goal is to reduce the suicide rates in the battalion to the rate from two years ago. The COA proposed here can be implemented with minimal effect on mission or operational tempo, and results are measurable. The success or failure of the COA can be accessed, and it can be modified as needed. The COA (either in original or modified form) can be considered a success if suicide rates were reduced to the level prior to the increase, at least.

Footnotes

[1] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 5-0
[2] Ibid, Ch V.
[3] Fisher, “Vietnam vet shares coping skills with combat warriors.”
[4] Ramchand, The War Within, pp. 19-25.
[5] Smith, “A historical comparison of U.S. Army & U.S. civilian suicide rates, 1900–2020.”
[6] This hypothesis is debated in Pollock, “Estimating the number of suicides among Vietnam veterans.”
[7] Suitt, “High Suicide Rates among United States Service Members and Veterans of the Post9/11 Wars.”
[8] Smith, “A historical comparison of U.S. Army & U.S. civilian suicide rates, 1900–2020.”
[9] Ramchand, The War Within.
[10] Wikart, “Memories of Verdun.”
[11] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 5-0, Appendix G.

Bibliography

Fisher, D. “Vietnam vet shares coping skills with combat warriors.” U.S. Army. 15 May 2009. Retrieved 13 September 2024 from https://www.army.mil/article/21185/vietnam_vet_shares_coping_skills_with_combat_warriors

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Planning. 16 June 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2024 from https://www.airforcespecialtactics.af.mil/Portals/80/prototype/assets/joint-pub-jpub-5-0-joint-planning.pdf

Pollock, D., Rhodes, P., Boyle, C., Decoufle, P., & McGee, D. “Estimating the number of suicides among Vietnam veterans.” Am J Psychiatry 147, no. 6 (June 1990). https://doi:10.1176/ajp.147.6.772

Ramchand, R., Acosta, J., Burns, R., Jaycox, L., & Pernin, C. The War Within: Preventing Suicide in the U.S. Military. RAND Corporation (2011). Retrieved 9 September 2024 from https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG953.pdf

Smith, J., Doidge, M., Hanoa, R., & Frueh. “A historical comparison of U.S. Army & U.S. civilian suicide rates, 1900–2020.” Psychiatry Research 323 (May 2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115182

Suitt, T. “High Suicide Rates among United States Service Members and Veterans of the Post9/11 Wars.” Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs (21 June 2021). Retrieved 15 September 2024 from https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2021/Suitt_Suicides_Costs%20of%20War_June%2021%202021.pdf

Wikart, F. “Memories of Verdun.” Western Front Association. (2020). Retrieved 15 September 2024 from https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/memories-of-verdun-by-francois-wikart/

Review of “The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need”

Introduction

In his 2020 paper “The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need,” Gregory Foster[1] appears to make a reasonable suggestion: that our military should be geared to missions it will be likely to encounter in the next few years instead of fighting highly unlikely conventional conflicts with China or Russia. The missions he envisions do not fall into the military’s purview, however, and the overall future direction he proposes for the military would not pass muster either against contemporary National Defense Strategy documents.

The 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, received 29 M1A2 Abrams tanks, Sept. 26, 2014, at Fort Hood, Texas. Photo by U.S. Army

Summary

Gregory Foster’s "The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need" begins with his reading of the 2018 National Defense Strategy[2], claiming it represents the "intellectual stagnation that pervades the military." He summarizes it through four points:

1. The U.S. military has been emasculated and "rendered largely impotent by forcing it to focus on frivolous, tangential threats and missions such as countering violent extremism."[3]
2. The U.S. military is in danger of being replaced as the world's premiere fighting force.
3. Our current and future strategic situation is defined by great power competition (GPC).
4. To compete in this era of GPC, our organizational, doctrinal, and technological methods must emphasize lethality.

Foster derides all this as a rehashing of Cold War ideology and is "woefully and dangerously outmoded, outdated, self-serving, self-deluding, and self-perpetuating such received truths are."[4] Our true adversaries are “pandemic disease, cyberattacks, climate-induced natural disasters, and violent, rogue-actor extremism." These choices of "frivolous, tangential threats and missions" fit into a framework for military history that Foster proposes. He divides military history into four phases:

Hot war - practiced since antiquity, the use of force played a significant role in the conduct of statecraft.

Cold war - defining characteristic was detente, the avoidance of using force against a major power. Direct force was replaced by the use of proxies such as in the Korean and Vietnam Wars

New war - this is our current historical state, in which non-military power and non-traditional uses of the military offer the most promise for success but must struggle for legitimacy against the forces of tradition and stagnation. New war carries with it an imperative to redefine what militaries properly do.

The trajectory of all this is a future historical phase which Foster calls "No War" which he insists we should all be seeking. In this future state, militaries as currently conceived are made obsolete. We are prevented from getting this future state by a combination of tradition, the military-industrial complex, and the properties of a well-functioning (conventional) military - it is necessary to add that adjective because Foster imagines a different type of military as described below.

The primary problem we face, Foster insists, is that our military is not adapted to the real threats - the military we have is not the military we need. The wars we face are asymmetric and therefore, Foster asserts, are inherently unwinnable. In addition, "pandemics, natural disasters, cyberattacks, and random acts of violent extremism are very real, very serious, very deadly, and very demanding."

The issue then becomes: should we prepare for conventional wars with Russia or China, which are unlikely, or the "wars" (his quotes) we will face?

Fundamental to this is a question Foster asks: "what the military’s role properly ought to be: to serve itself (in the manner of a self-interested interest group); to serve the regime in power; to serve the state; or to serve society and even humanity (as grandiose as that might sound)?"

Foster concludes with (more) denigration of our current military and describes what the military should be: "The military we need would be quite the opposite: light, constructive, predominantly nonlethal, precise, noncombat-oriented, manpower-dominant, tailored, multilaterally-capable/-dependent, reassuring, de-escalatory, affordable, and sustainable. It would be a strategically effective force, designed to respond to a robust array of complex, most-frequently-occurring emergencies – peacekeeping, nation-building, humanitarian assistance, disaster response – that ultimately contribute most demonstrably to the overarching normative strategic aim of enduring global peace."

Analysis

First, we must address Foster's four criticisms of the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS):

1. That the military was emasculated and forced to focus on frivolous missions is true, and Foster goes on to propose more frivolous missions.
2. The U.S. can indeed be replaced as the world's premiere fighting force, but through two methods: spending by a near-peer power or by our own neglect.
3. The NDS is quite flexible in who our military competitors will be and allows for both great powers as well as non-state actors and other competitors acting asymmetrically. It also addresses cyber warfare and the threats posed by hackers.
4. Yes, the NDS focuses on lethality, which is what any good military should be.

While Foster is correct in stating that the military required by the NDS is enormously expensive; he proposes to replace this with an enormously expensive public works project addressing the problems of "pandemics, natural disasters, cyberattacks, and random acts of violent extremism."[5]

One of Foster's criticisms of the U.S. military is that "[u]nilateralism (and the attendant felt need for self-sufficiency) dominates multilateralism (with the attendant imperative for collective decision-making and action)." [6]This is blatantly false, as demonstrated by not only the body of doctrine involving partner nations, annual multinational training operations, and operations where we went out of our way to build coalitions, such as the 2003 Coalition of the Willing built in preparation of the Iraq war. Indeed, strengthening alliances and attracting new partners is one of the goals of the NDS.

Foster describes the wars we face today as "entirely wars of choice. No existing conflict, nor any reasonably to be anticipated, demands our involvement. And the wars we face are far removed from the total wars of the distant past and even farther removed from an idealized state of stable peace we have yet to seriously pursue, much less achieve."[7] How did we get to this condition where we only face wars of choice? Will the changes he proposes allow us to only fight wars of choice? Doesn't Foster know about this thing called "deterrence?" Foster also does not consider the time needed to rebuild the military should the U.S. need to pursue one of these older types of wars.

The idea that "pandemics, natural disasters, cyberattacks, and random acts of violent extremism" necessarily require military solutions is not proven. Further, does this cover pandemics released as biological weapons? What about pandemics or epidemics that seem to follow the election cycle?

Are asymmetric wars inherently unwinnable? Examination of the historical record shows that asymmetrical warfare has been practiced in some form since at least the time of Sun Tzu - his Art of War is applicable to both symmetric and asymmetric forms of warfare. Further, there are numerous examples of asymmetric wars being won by the defending nation. Finally, authors such as Mao Tse-Tung claim that asymmetric war can and should convert to symmetric war, as demonstrated by the Communist Revolution in China.

Is the "No War" historical state achievable? Is it even desirable? Or is it the case, as George Santayana wrote, that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” Foster does not answer these questions.

Foster’s Proposed Course of Action

Much like his analysis of military history pointing towards a "No War" end state, his conception of a future military is also pointing towards a course of action, but what? The answer is not in "The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need" but rather in an earlier paper Foster authored and was published in CounterPunch[8]. During the "No War" phase, traditional militaries will become obsolete, and their main activity will be to "demilitarize the military."[9]

The paper in CounterPunch does not address why asymmetric wars are unwinnable, but Foster does write: "Douglas MacArthur famously said, “There is no substitute for victory.” Today there is no possibility of victory."[10] Another of his papers, published in Salon[11], also does not answer this assertion. The Salon article does explicitly state that demilitarizing would involve both nuclear disarmament as also general and complete non-nuclear disarmament.

Conclusion

Foster, in "The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need," besides seriously mischaracterizing the NDS, also seems to be unaware of the concepts of deterrence and the doctrine of joint operations. His idea of non-military missions is covered in the March 2021 “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.”[12] His plans for demilitarizing the military will not be possible even in the 2022 "National Defense Strategy,"[13] however.

Footnotes

[1] Foster, "The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need."
[2] Department of Defense, "Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America."
[3] Foster, "The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need."
[4] All quotes for the remainder of this section are from Foster, "The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need."
[5] Foster, "The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need."
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Foster, "Demilitarizing the Military."
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Foster, G. "Let's demilitarize the military.”
[12] The White House, “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.”
[13] Department of Defense, "2022 National Defense Strategy."

Bibliography

Department of Defense. "Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America." 2018. Last retrieved 4 September 2024 from https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf

Department of Defense. "2022 National Defense Strategy." 27 October 2022. Last retrieved 4 September 2024 from https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.PDF

Foster, G. "Demilitarizing the Military." CounterPunch. 19 June 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2024 from https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/19/demilitarizing-the-military/

Foster, G. "Let's demilitarize the military: The Pentagon may pose the single greatest threat to our democracy." Salon. 16 March 2016. Retrieved 5 September 2024 from https://www.salon.com/2016/03/16/lets_demilitarize_the_military_partner/

Foster, G. "The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need." Defense One. 28 June 2020. Retrieved 3 September 2024 from https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/06/military-we-have-vs-military-we-need/166470/

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Planning. 16 June 2017. Retrieved 3 September 2024 from https://www.airforcespecialtactics.af.mil/Portals/80/prototype/assets/joint-pub-jpub-5-0-joint-planning.pdf

The White House. “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.” March 2021. Last retrieved 3 September 2024 from https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf

Grappling with Great Power Competition

Following the end of the Cold War, Pentagon war planners shifted to regional conflicts. During Iraq and Afghanistan, strategic planning was replaced by operational and tactical planning even at the level of day-to-day combat. With the reemergence of Great Power Competition (GPC), it is necessary to revert to global planning to set the conditions necessary for peace with peer competitors.

As discussed in Archuleta and Gerson’s “Fight Tonight”[1], war plans depend on three inputs: perceived and capable threats, the desired policy end state, and resource constraints.

Since the "setting of global conditions" must work across the continuum of competition (cooperation, competition below threshold of armed conflict, and armed conflict), it makes sense to consider the desired end state for three types of competition separately.

For lack of better terms, the competitor nation or non-state actor will be called "friend with benefits," "frenemy," or "enemy" depending on their place on the continuum. Actions the US Military takes are designed prevent or address armed conflict, which means moving the relationship with the competitor away from enemy status to frenemy or even friend status.

For each of these three types of relations, interactions we have with them must not only be appropriate for the current relation type, but also relevant to the next step on the continuum of competition.

For example, joint training exercises provide an opportunity to appraise the friendly nation's military capabilities for several reasons: first, this information would be useful if the US and the friendly nation should need to cooperate in a multinational military operation; second, to handle the situation where relations with the friendly nation should decay (so the formerly friendly nation becomes a frenemy). Bonds created by the joint training can help mend any move away from cooperation, however.

This addresses friends and frenemies. For enemies, the goal is to deter or address armed conflict. This is a third purpose for joint training exercises: they are shows of force, and also let the enemy know that we have friends (cooperative nations).

To get a very rough initial draft of a war plan, we run the area of interest through this framework. For example, in the Indo-Pacific Area of Operations, the primary perceived threat is China, with North Korea playing a secondary role. The desired policy end state would be containment. Joint training exercises with partners in the region, like Japan and India, serve as a deterrent to expansion. The resource constraints are the available U. S. military capabilities[2] in the region (U.S. Pacific Fleet and its component parts, Diego Garcia and other bases, etc.) plus the capabilities of friendlies.

B1-B Lancer departing from Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, 7 October 2021
Photo by Senior Airman Rebeca M. Luquin, U.S. Air Force

These are regional conditions for the Indo-Pacific AO. Extending this to global conditions (as recommended in Archuleta and Gerson[3]) involves doing the same sort of things in other parts of the world, especially for nations that are friendly or potentially friendly with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Does this accomplish GPC containment through deterrence?

China practices "unrestricted warfare" which involves military, economic, diplomatic, propagandistic, and other approaches to control other nations[4]. Meanwhile, Russia often practices “liminal warfare” which means they shape outcomes to their advantage using military and nonmilitary methods while staying below the threshold of armed conflict[5].

Maintaining bases or enacting treaties granting the right of entry into maritime ports raises the standard of living of friendly countries. This leads to trade agreements, mutual assistance, and diplomatic relations. This helps to counter the unusual types of warfare practiced by China and Russia but is perhaps not sufficient since China and Russia aren’t economically contained[6].

Footnotes

[1] Archuleta & Gerson, “Fight Tonight: Reenergizing the Pentagon for Great Power Competition.”
[2] Nicastro, L. “U.S. Defense Infrastructure in the IndoPacific.”
[3] Archuleta & Gerson, “Fight Tonight: Reenergizing the Pentagon for Great Power Competition.”
[4] Qiao & Liang. Unrestricted Warfare.
[5] Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes.
[6] Spalding, R. War Without Rules.

Bibliography

Archuleta, B. & Gerson, J. “Fight Tonight: Reenergizing the Pentagon for Great Power Competition.” Joint Force Quarterly 100. 17 February 2021. Retrieved 29 August 2024 from https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/2498193/fight-tonight-reenergizing-the-pentagon-for-great-power-competition/

Kilcullen, D. The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West. Oxford University Press, 2020.

Nicastro, L. “U.S. Defense Infrastructure in the IndoPacific: Background and Issues for Congress.” Congressional Research Service. 6 June 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2024 from https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47589

Qiao & Liang. Unrestricted Warfare. Shadow Lawn Press, 1999.

Spalding, R. War Without Rules: China's Playbook for Global Domination. Sentinel Press, 2022.