In his discussion of the desirable attributes for a battlefield commander, Clausewitz wrote of the importance of “coup d’oiel” – perhaps best described as the ability to quickly recognize a truth that would ordinarily be missed or perhaps only perceived after long study and reflection. Whatever his other virtues, President Obama’s approach to his decision about what to do in Afghanistan clearly demonstrates that he is not choosing to rely on any personal sense of coup d’oiel in this instance. Given that we are already in October and what Clausewitz would have called the campaigning season is nearly over in Afghanistan, this deliberative process need not be considered a fatal flaw.
This morning (October 26), the Washington Post and other news sources are reporting that Obama’s deliberative process has included at least two war games exploring different US troop commitment levels. Given that the history of war gaming as a tool of military study and analysis (as well as an entertainment) is strewn with tales of political and military decision-makers mislead by war games, one can only hope that the decision makers have actually heard the cautionary voices of any professionals associated with these games.
In the most infamous war game incident, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) tried out its plan for the attack on the island of Midway in a war game in which the “American” side sank four JN aircraft carriers. The game directors restored the four carriers to the IJN side and the game proceeded to the anticipated Japanese victory. However, as naval historians and others will recall, at the actual Battle of Midway, the US Navy – aided by its ability to read Japanese communications – did go on to sink four IJN carriers and turn back the invasion force. (Many tellers of this story fail to point out that the game directors were not wrong in restoring the carriers because every war game has a whole list of questions to examine and in this case the game had to go on to examine them. The error would have been in the IJN failing to take note of the fact that the USN was still a potentially dangerous foe.)
However, this story also reflects a harsh reality about war games as an analytical tool – no matter how much data is piled up and analyzed for inclusion in the game, the war game is not predictive or prescriptive. A well planned and well conducted war game can clarify issues associated with a proposed course of action, but it cannot guarantee a specific real world outcome. In fact, the Prussian Kriegsspiel, a common ancestor of modern war games was no more than a tool that allowed Prussian officers to practice decision-making. It was not considered a valid or useful tool of analysis or for predicting the outcome of a military operation or campaign. (History also tells us, however, that even the Prussians would eventually attach almost mystical faith in their war gaming of various military plans and options.)
There are several reasons for limits upon what war games can tell us. One can be described in a paraphrase of the words of Chief of the General Staff Count Helmut von Moltke – “No war game scenario survives contact with the war gamer.” Or in the words of many a modern field grade American officer, “The enemy gets a vote.” No matter how well educated, informed, and talented they are, the war gamer will not exactly replicate the battlefield decisions that will be made by the real opponent. I know that many hobby and professional war gamers have designed a war game or a war game scenario only to find their expectations for that design shredded by the completely unforeseen and unexpected decisions of a war gamer seeing it for the first time.
Designers of (both hobby and professional) war games are familiar with the limits upon any attempt to model battlefield reality. Every one of them can tell of having presented the latest and most complex simulation to date, only to have someone point out how the design overlooks the extremely important factor of “X.” The reality is that there are just too many factors affecting and influencing a battle and its related decision making process to be captured in any war game.
I do wonder whether these war games factored in what is likely to be the real “schwerpunkt” or decision point of any renewed or expanded American military effort in Afghanistan: American public opinion. The Administration will have to do a very good job of selling its Afghan war strategy to the American people if it is to be given time for that strategy to bear fruit. Clearly, ongoing events in Iraq will color popular reaction to plans for Afghanistan. The US has the option to try and push the reset button in Afghanistan but they will not be able to reset public opinion on the conflict in Afghanistan without the investment of major political assets.
Note: Similar stories can be found about the use of war games during World War II by the German High Command as it pondered decisions on the Eastern Front. In a related note, it is ironic that as the Allies began the D-Day invasion of France at Normandy, many senior German commanders were out of position because of a scheduled German Army kriegsspiel on the subject of a possible Allied invasion.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A Rock and a Hard Choice
Last week the CATO Institute held its conference on the subject of Afghanistan and what the U.S. should do in the ongoing war there. The panel and conference were moderated by Christopher Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Panel members included Malou Innocent, Foreign Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute and co-author of Escaping the 'Graveyard of Empires': A Strategy to Exit Afghanistan; Celeste Ward, Senior Defense Analyst at the RAND Corp.; Patrick M. Cronin, Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University; Robert Naiman, National Coordinator, Just Foreign Policy; and Ted Galen Carpenter, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute, and co-author of Escaping the 'Graveyard of Empires'. You can see a podcast of the event at the CATO website. The two most striking points of the conference were the surprising degree of civility and the agreement that we need to do something different in Afghanistan (though without unanimity on what we should do differently) and we needed to start doing this something different soon.
My own thinking on the subject has recently been influenced by Death of a Myth by Bob Snelson on General Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn, published in 2005. I was struck by the author’s point that Custer’s battlefield decisions reflected how little he in fact knew or understood (beyond the tactical level) about the Native American peoples against whom he was making war. The army’s objective in this expedition was to attack the Sioux and the Cheyenne until they either moved onto the established U.S. government Indian reservations, or were annihilated. In essence, the U.S. Government had decided to use its military resources to compel these tribes to abandon their traditional way of life and its associated values and mores. Custer knew that the Indians would attempt to evade contact and combat with his force unless they perceived some advantage in fighting or a strong threat to the village and tribe that had to be countered. This understanding appears to be what led Custer to keep dividing his small command in order to cast a wide net that would force the warriors to come out fight.
The conflict between America’s Native peoples fighting to preserve their traditional way of life and an American government determined to see them acculturated or eliminated lasted for decades. It in fact resulted in the destruction of much of the traditional ways of Native Americans while many of the survivors were denied full membership in American society and ended up marginalized in their own homeland.
The United States deployed military forces to Afghanistan in pursuit of Al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors. Having brought down the Taliban regime, the efforts of the U.S. and its Allies moved away from military confrontation with and defeat of residual Taliban and Al Qaeda forces and forces were even removed from Afghanistan and sent to Iraq for the new war there. Our forces and assets remaining in Afghanistan became increasingly focused on social engineering and national building issues with the general ambition of building up a modern western-style nation state – to the detriment of Afghan elements still clinging to the more traditional system based upon clan and tribe. In the view of many Afghans, the U.S. goal is to compel them to abandon their traditions, their religion, and their entire culture.
It is increasingly clear that eight years after U.S. forces arrived in Afghanistan, the American people are unwilling to see the U.S. increase or prolong its commitment of time and resources to further push for any long term reshaping of that country. The Afghans themselves appear at least if not more reluctant to accept the sweeping changes pushed for by the U.S. and its allies, such as the elimination of poppy cultivation and full equality for women, among other things. Against the background of conflict between Al Qaeda/Taliban and the U.S. and its allies, too many Afghans are choosing the former as being less of a threat to traditional values and way of life. We need to decide that our most important objective is to deny Al Qaeda any sanctuary or presence in Afghanistan that would contribute to its terrorist plans and operations. Everything else must be considered a secondary and more long term goal. For the immediate future, the U.S. needs to decide now exactly what resources and forces it can commit and for how long – and adjust its goals accordingly.
My own thinking on the subject has recently been influenced by Death of a Myth by Bob Snelson on General Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn, published in 2005. I was struck by the author’s point that Custer’s battlefield decisions reflected how little he in fact knew or understood (beyond the tactical level) about the Native American peoples against whom he was making war. The army’s objective in this expedition was to attack the Sioux and the Cheyenne until they either moved onto the established U.S. government Indian reservations, or were annihilated. In essence, the U.S. Government had decided to use its military resources to compel these tribes to abandon their traditional way of life and its associated values and mores. Custer knew that the Indians would attempt to evade contact and combat with his force unless they perceived some advantage in fighting or a strong threat to the village and tribe that had to be countered. This understanding appears to be what led Custer to keep dividing his small command in order to cast a wide net that would force the warriors to come out fight.
The conflict between America’s Native peoples fighting to preserve their traditional way of life and an American government determined to see them acculturated or eliminated lasted for decades. It in fact resulted in the destruction of much of the traditional ways of Native Americans while many of the survivors were denied full membership in American society and ended up marginalized in their own homeland.
The United States deployed military forces to Afghanistan in pursuit of Al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors. Having brought down the Taliban regime, the efforts of the U.S. and its Allies moved away from military confrontation with and defeat of residual Taliban and Al Qaeda forces and forces were even removed from Afghanistan and sent to Iraq for the new war there. Our forces and assets remaining in Afghanistan became increasingly focused on social engineering and national building issues with the general ambition of building up a modern western-style nation state – to the detriment of Afghan elements still clinging to the more traditional system based upon clan and tribe. In the view of many Afghans, the U.S. goal is to compel them to abandon their traditions, their religion, and their entire culture.
It is increasingly clear that eight years after U.S. forces arrived in Afghanistan, the American people are unwilling to see the U.S. increase or prolong its commitment of time and resources to further push for any long term reshaping of that country. The Afghans themselves appear at least if not more reluctant to accept the sweeping changes pushed for by the U.S. and its allies, such as the elimination of poppy cultivation and full equality for women, among other things. Against the background of conflict between Al Qaeda/Taliban and the U.S. and its allies, too many Afghans are choosing the former as being less of a threat to traditional values and way of life. We need to decide that our most important objective is to deny Al Qaeda any sanctuary or presence in Afghanistan that would contribute to its terrorist plans and operations. Everything else must be considered a secondary and more long term goal. For the immediate future, the U.S. needs to decide now exactly what resources and forces it can commit and for how long – and adjust its goals accordingly.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Walking the Battle Ground -The Modern Staff Ride
During the 19th Century, the Prussian Army led the way in the field of military education for its officers and future commanders. The Prussians introduced institutions of formal higher military education, the use of map or terrain table based war games to hone decision-making skills, and they introduced the staff ride – a guided tour of an historical battlefield to included examination and discussion of what happened during the battle fought on that ground and why. This practice is one of the reasons for the existence today of our own National Battlefield and National Historical Parks and Sites maintained by the underfunded National Park Service. Originally intended for the training of America’s military officers, these parks are now part of a larger system intended to introduce the American people and others visiting the United States to the complicated history that created and shaped this nation.
Officers on a military staff ride would be expected to have read about and studied the battle before the ride. During the actual staff ride, the director of the ride might challenge one of the participating officers with a question about what actions he might take to attack or defend a given position on the battlefield, or whether the original attack might have been better executed or supported perhaps resulting in a different outcome. In my experience, there is still no better way to really understand a battle than to visit and walk over the ground upon which it was fought. I am happy to say that I have had the good fortune to be able to personally visit many battlefields, fortifications, castles, etc. during my travels and have been cataloging my collection of such visits on Google Maps: Battlefields, Castles, and Forts I Have Visited.
The importance of terrain and its impact on a battle is an aspect of warfare not often explained to the general public and not easily accessible to those not professional soldiers. Jeff Shaara’s “Killer Angels” included several references to the importance of “good ground” and how it shaped the battle of Gettysburg – highlighted by General George Meade’s question (as a new and still nervous commander of the Army of the Potomac) arriving at the battlefield during the night, “Is this good ground?” meaning, can this army fight and possibly win here against Robert E. Lee? He was quickly assured that, “This is good ground!” There are today a few books that explain how terrain and climate affect military operations, historically and today. These include:
"Military Geography for Professionals and the Public" by John M. Collins (ISBN 1-57906-002-1),
"Battlegrounds, Geography and the History of Warfare" edited by Michael Stephenson (ISBN 0-7922-3374-3), and
"Battling the Elements, Weather and Terrain in the Conduct of War" by Harold A. Winters (ISBN 0-8018-5850-X).
I recently viewed a cable TV documentary program on the battle of Antietam that did succeed in illustrating the importance of terrain on a battle and upon the men who are fighting it. A couple of participating researchers and a cameraman stood in the sunken lane position held by Confederate troops. As they watched from this vantage point, a second group of researchers walked towards them along the route followed by Thomas Francis Meagher’s Irish Brigade during its original attack on the lane. Viewers clearly saw the approaching researchers appear and disappear in the undulations and irregularities of the ground which would have protected the advancing Irish from much of the Confederate fire until they were very close. This meant that despite the distance of the open ground they had to cross, the men of the Irish Brigade were actually protected in great degree against Confederate fire by the undulating nature of the ground leading up to the Confederate position in the sunken lane. Such insights into why a battle was fought or ended in a particular way can only be obtained on the actual ground.
The modern day equivalent of the Staff Ride can be achieved with a good guide book or a good guide and some preparation before you visit the battlefield. It is also possible to download complete staff ride guides for a number of U.S. battlefields that have been prepared by the Center for Military History. You can start with a booklet that explains the Staff Ride itself and what goes into the planning of a staff ride called "The Staff Ride." You can also download Adobe pdf versions of the staff ride guide books to several battlefields in the United States from the Army Command and General Staff School website.
The available ones include:
The Battle of Cowpens (South Carolina)
First Bull Run (Virginia)
The Battle of Antietam (Maryland)
The Battle of Balls Bluff (Virginia)
You can also find useful maps for visiting Civil War battlefields at the website of The Civil War Preservation Trust which hosts a collection of maps prepared by the organization. A number of these are even presented on the website with animation and discussion of the battle. The Osprey Campaign Series of books published in the UK and the US are a series of books on wars, campaigns, and battles that include good maps and information useful in walking a battlefield. Also from the UK comes the publication After The Battle “Then and Now” which publishes books and magazine collections of photos showing many battlefields as they appeared in period photographs and images alongside photos of how they appear today (or at least as of the date of publication given how long this magazine has been around).
In addition to the research and reading before the battle, you will want to make sure that everyone dresses appropriately, wears good walking shoes, and has easy access to plenty of water. Many successful staff rides include a planned picnic and/or an evening dinner over which the day’s trip can be discussed further. Optional but often useful items would also include binoculars (or a telescope if you want an idea of how an 18th and many 19th Century generals viewed a battlefield), a compass or handheld GPS receiver that will also give you compass points and bearings.
So, got everything you need? En avance!
Officers on a military staff ride would be expected to have read about and studied the battle before the ride. During the actual staff ride, the director of the ride might challenge one of the participating officers with a question about what actions he might take to attack or defend a given position on the battlefield, or whether the original attack might have been better executed or supported perhaps resulting in a different outcome. In my experience, there is still no better way to really understand a battle than to visit and walk over the ground upon which it was fought. I am happy to say that I have had the good fortune to be able to personally visit many battlefields, fortifications, castles, etc. during my travels and have been cataloging my collection of such visits on Google Maps: Battlefields, Castles, and Forts I Have Visited.
The importance of terrain and its impact on a battle is an aspect of warfare not often explained to the general public and not easily accessible to those not professional soldiers. Jeff Shaara’s “Killer Angels” included several references to the importance of “good ground” and how it shaped the battle of Gettysburg – highlighted by General George Meade’s question (as a new and still nervous commander of the Army of the Potomac) arriving at the battlefield during the night, “Is this good ground?” meaning, can this army fight and possibly win here against Robert E. Lee? He was quickly assured that, “This is good ground!” There are today a few books that explain how terrain and climate affect military operations, historically and today. These include:
"Military Geography for Professionals and the Public" by John M. Collins (ISBN 1-57906-002-1),
"Battlegrounds, Geography and the History of Warfare" edited by Michael Stephenson (ISBN 0-7922-3374-3), and
"Battling the Elements, Weather and Terrain in the Conduct of War" by Harold A. Winters (ISBN 0-8018-5850-X).
I recently viewed a cable TV documentary program on the battle of Antietam that did succeed in illustrating the importance of terrain on a battle and upon the men who are fighting it. A couple of participating researchers and a cameraman stood in the sunken lane position held by Confederate troops. As they watched from this vantage point, a second group of researchers walked towards them along the route followed by Thomas Francis Meagher’s Irish Brigade during its original attack on the lane. Viewers clearly saw the approaching researchers appear and disappear in the undulations and irregularities of the ground which would have protected the advancing Irish from much of the Confederate fire until they were very close. This meant that despite the distance of the open ground they had to cross, the men of the Irish Brigade were actually protected in great degree against Confederate fire by the undulating nature of the ground leading up to the Confederate position in the sunken lane. Such insights into why a battle was fought or ended in a particular way can only be obtained on the actual ground.
The modern day equivalent of the Staff Ride can be achieved with a good guide book or a good guide and some preparation before you visit the battlefield. It is also possible to download complete staff ride guides for a number of U.S. battlefields that have been prepared by the Center for Military History. You can start with a booklet that explains the Staff Ride itself and what goes into the planning of a staff ride called "The Staff Ride." You can also download Adobe pdf versions of the staff ride guide books to several battlefields in the United States from the Army Command and General Staff School website.
The available ones include:
The Battle of Cowpens (South Carolina)
First Bull Run (Virginia)
The Battle of Antietam (Maryland)
The Battle of Balls Bluff (Virginia)
You can also find useful maps for visiting Civil War battlefields at the website of The Civil War Preservation Trust which hosts a collection of maps prepared by the organization. A number of these are even presented on the website with animation and discussion of the battle. The Osprey Campaign Series of books published in the UK and the US are a series of books on wars, campaigns, and battles that include good maps and information useful in walking a battlefield. Also from the UK comes the publication After The Battle “Then and Now” which publishes books and magazine collections of photos showing many battlefields as they appeared in period photographs and images alongside photos of how they appear today (or at least as of the date of publication given how long this magazine has been around).
In addition to the research and reading before the battle, you will want to make sure that everyone dresses appropriately, wears good walking shoes, and has easy access to plenty of water. Many successful staff rides include a planned picnic and/or an evening dinner over which the day’s trip can be discussed further. Optional but often useful items would also include binoculars (or a telescope if you want an idea of how an 18th and many 19th Century generals viewed a battlefield), a compass or handheld GPS receiver that will also give you compass points and bearings.
So, got everything you need? En avance!
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