Posted on 12/13/2002 1:41:00 PM PST by VaBthang4
The Paradigm Shift
Breaking the Phalanx has not made its way to my bookshelf, yet, but LTC MacGregor`s ideas essentially define another step in the evolution of warfare. I devoured the Army Times article and much of what I have seen on this list server and like what I read. So, here is my little guy view: Force reductions are chewing our limbs off and we are agonizing over having enough uniformed automators to run our command and control data structures.
As information systems (email, Web, FTP, Interactive Databases, GCCS) and the backbones they ride become even more robust and reliable, usage of voice and sneaker nets are actually declining dramatically.
Traditional voice Comms guys must increasingly embrace the data world (You would think they were being made to kiss a skunk) and logisticians are now competing for bandwidth to pass their critical information. This naturally brings up the question: What is REALLY going on here? Answer - a paradigm shift. This is the proper academic lingo but I like a more direct stab at this problem. What is going on is nothing less than a revolution in warfare. The Russians view the move toward automated command and control systems as the "Sixth Generation of War" in their understanding of the history of armed conflict. This in turn is riding a much larger shift many of us now call the information revolution. In order to put this in perspective with the past and project forward into the future, we must look at a couple of base principles.
1. In the history of warfare, efficiency is sometimes more important than mass and mass is sometimes more important than efficiency. One of the most important tactical innovations in warfare was the Roman Cohort about 200 years before the time of Christ. It was flexible against the phalanx and provided for plugging in archers, stone slingers, and the occasional horse charge. Though this implies mass, these cohorts were actually based on efficiency because the time required to train swordsmen, javelin throwers, and others was about a generation.
Stupidly using a cohort would destroy the investment of a generation. The next time a seriously important tactical innovation occurred was in the late 1300s when the King of Italy formed massed ranks of musketeers from the drunks and criminals who infested his cities.
After a minimal amount of training, the King of Italy threw this organization against a bunch of Spanish knights to cover a retreat. He saw them as a cheap novelty he could toss to oblivion against the cream of Spanish knighthood. Imagine the King of Italy`s surprise when he had to stop his retreat and begin a pursuit because those drunks and criminals routed the Spanish knights. Suddenly, the art of war became the province of commoners because massive numbers of musketeers could be drafted and trained quickly and cheaply as opposed to the years and years of expensive training required to train a single knight. The ultimate expressions of the dominance of mass over efficiency were the Industrial era wars that peaked in World War I & World War II. Now, however, "One shot equals one kill" weapon systems and Desert Storm are my proof that warfare has already shifted back to that place where efficiency is more important than mass.
2. Nations tend to fight wars in the same manner that they generate their wealth. Why? You gotta pay for the armies and weapons that fight wars. If you have a lot of money, you can buy a lot of firepower, and you can project massive forces without worrying too much about efficient spending... Until you go broke. The King of Italy failed to follow through on his tactical innovation but the King of Spain learned the lesson very well. He met with a Jewish banker named, Maimonides, to figure out some new and innovative methods for bank loans and credit.
Along with this came new and innovative methods of taxation.
Almost overnight, Spain developed a massive army and navy equipped with gunpowder weapons and had a large empire. Its King could quickly raise massive forces, train them, and use them to project his power abroad. From this, the businessmen of Spain applied these lessons to their own interests and just like the Spanish military, mass became more important than efficiency. Naturally, Maimonides is recognized as the father of modern banking. Since his innovations, western civilizations have suffered global depressions every 80 years but that is another story.
Today, as credit dries up, information is the ever increasing commodity that makes the difference between smart, efficient investment and stupid, massive waste.
3. Equally important to wealth generation is firepower in its defensive and offensive forms. When "One shot equals one kill," it is suddenly very hard to project offensive mass no matter how much money you have. In times like this, efficiency is more important than mass and the power of government itself actually shrinks because this technology is suddenly available, in many forms, to the common citizen. In the blink of an eye, a nation can go from squashing an idiot like Saddam Hussein`s massive army to internal problems where national police elements must train on weapons of war to deal with its own citizens, e.g. a nutcase like David Koresh.
Here is a better way of viewing this. In the 1200s when the Nobles of England forced King John to sign the Magna Charta, the issue was taxation.
Not taxes paid by Peasants but the taxes paid by nobles.
They demanded the right to at least vote on whether or not the King could levy taxes on them. By limiting the power of King John to raise taxes, two things happened. The nobles had even more money for raising their own forces and King John had less for maintaining the forces he needed to compel those nobles to bend to his will. This happened because King John simply did the power necessary to fight all those nobles at once. Even so, nobody was saying stuff like, "Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness..." as guaranteed rights possessed by common people. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "All men are created equal..." In that little tax fight, the Peasants were a significant factor. Why? Because the average American farmer owned a rifle that could shoot further and more accurately than the British Brown Bess. A shift. A commoner was more able to defend himself and his home against tyranny in 1776 than a peasant in the 1200s. Now, lets combine two thoughts. What happens when: A.The paradigm shifts back so that efficiency is more important than mass, and B.The tools of that efficiency, rather than being in the hands of a trained, governing elite like King John and his nobles, is in the hands of many many small groups of techno-capable people like commoners, peasants, and nuts like David Koresh? Hmmm. C2 against the above combination will be difficult at best.
4. Information pulls it all together. Efficient use of information in undermanned infrastructures dramatically increases the importance of things like:
A. AI systems capable of filtering the megabytes of intel information generated by sensors, satellites, and other sources.
B. Email for sustaining base Ops, for C2, and for linking these together when in the Force Projection mode. This link will be especially important for the Loggies who are no longer able to send massive amounts of material with deploying forces. Once again, Efficiency over Mass.
C. Interactive web sites for widely different uses from in-bound Soldier information sites to HTML based database reports where a commander can view the readiness of the forces he commands.
D. C2 apps like GCCS that generate common operational pictures for all elements of a deployed JTF.
E. ...and so on. Two examples that reveal the impact of Information: One of the most important reasons why American Commoners were better able to defend themselves against King George than the Peasants of the 1200s who had to deal with King John was the printing press. Literacy and the availability of printed information passed on philosophical thoughts, fiery political speeches, and practical hints about loading, aiming and firing a rifle into advancing British Infantry. In fact, John Knox and then Joshua Chamberlain 80 years later learned the art of war by reading then applying what they learned. The availability of information and the willingness to use it is what empowered both these men.
U.S. Grant was the first American commander to use information as his primary tool for waging war. He used the telegraph, railroads, and waterways to obtain a "Common Operational Picture" and maneuver a wide variety of forces in coordinated actions against the entire domain of a common enemy. His mastery of using particularly the telegraph and railroad to move information slides into the background of Vicksburg and Appomatox, but both those victories would have been impossible without his use of those information systems.
Breaking the Phalanx focuses on tactical organizations. My view is that we better get busy keeping up with LTC MacGregor because we have Phalanxes in our own world that we must outflank. One thing we must communicate to our own killers and operators is that "You never need command and control data communications systems very badly until you need them REAL BAD." Then, it is too late to invent the wheel because the resources, time, and people will be long gone or dusty and broken.
Summary: Four concepts we must keep in mind as we look into the past and project historical lessons into the future: What is more important: Efficiency or Mass? How does the nation generate wealth? What is more preeminent: Offensive or Defensive firepower? How do you use information to pull it all together?
Finally, trained operatives.
They must know mission goals and have initiative to complete them on their own. ( A major weak point of the old Soviet military. )
In the blink of an eye, a nation can go from squashing an idiot like Saddam Hussein`s massive army to internal problems where national police elements must train on weapons of war to deal with its own citizens, e.g. a nutcase like David Koresh.I found extremely annoying. Koresh may have been a bit of a nutcase, but he did nothing to deserve the s&*#storm that fell on his head. The Feds created that situation by not just arresting him on one of his routine trips to town. Instead, the ATF created a fiasco, because they wanted a telegenic "dynamic takedown" at budget time, which went bad, then Reno and the Feebs compounded the error.
Koresh's fate was sealed when ATF agents got killed in the initial fiasco. If he were allowed to peacefully surrender, there was a good chance that a Taxas jury would have acquitted them for acting in self-defense against an illegal attack, followed by a civil suit against the feds. That precedent could not be allowed.
I always thought Waco became nothing more than a cover up of giant fed bungling. But you may be right. There may have been a much larger government motivation at stake than just being exposed of their incompetence. Perhaps as you suggest, government power and control was at stake.
BatFags/FiBi's and alphabet agencies were indeed fishing for funds and it backfired on innocence IMO.
Stay Safe, Stay Armed and Stay Honest !
I think you are entirely correct. How very depressing.....
That's pretty much what happened to the survivors.
They were acquited of murder charges, but convicted on weapons charges. The Jury thought they were letting them off lightly, but the judge sentenced them to 80 years.
L
The federal government CANNOT allow its agents to be killed without drastic consequences to the killer, regardless of how justified the circumstances. The federal government CANNOT allow its agents (like Lon Horiuchi) to be prosecuted for "following orders".
To do otherwise would be to risk agents refusing to follow orders if they had doubts of their legality, or to refuse to undertake an operation if they felt the personal risk was too high.
The downside of hiring thugs as your enforcers is that a large percentage of them, while willing to commit atrocities to further their careers, are cowards when it comes to facing personal risk
Actually the Feds cannot prevent that. They lost their case where they contended Horuchi could not be tried for murder, but the new district atty in Idaho declined to prosecute.
Or was "persuaded" not to prosecute, on pain of losing federal funding/support, or perhaps finding himself a target of a federal probe. Notice that the old prosecutor, who dared to bring the case, LOST his job before the case could be brought to trial.
Can anybody here think of a cse where a federal LEO was successfully put in jail for violating a private citizen's civil rights in the course of doing his job?
Rodney King?
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