By Christopher Ankersen and Losel Tethong
Proceedings, October 2003
As shown in Iraq, shock and awe -- and its current incarnation, Rapid Decisive Operations -- promises startling effects with light forces and few casualties. But if it ignores the fact that the difficulties of "old" warfare have not disappeared, it risks future operations.
In Operation Iraqi Freedom we saw the beginning of a new form of warfare. Two aspects of the campaign stand out: the speed with which the combat phase was conducted, and the low numbers of casualties on all sides. And all this was achieved with far fewer forces than used in the first Gulf War. High technology allowed the armed forces to achieve startling effects without relying on mass. This is the revolution in military affairs we have been waiting for. Or is it?
In many regards, the Rumsfeld doctrine of Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO) resembles other hopeful theories, particularly those in the business field. The past decade was full of optimism, with economists declaring the end of the boom-and-bust business cycle and management gurus (and stockbrokers) hailing the arrival of the virtual firm. Out with the old, restrictive rules, and in with the fast and loose world of e-commerce and the New Economy. Of course, it was not to be. Companies went broke; stock markets crashed. The thinking that at first appeared visionary turned out to be naïve.
Are we in danger of falling into the same trap in the wake of the Iraqi campaign? A close examination of the concepts behind the Rumsfeld doctrine, coupled with an appreciation of the events of Operation Iraqi Freedom, reveals this to be the case. By adopting a strategy that reduces the range of options open to a commander, we increase the risk of failure across the range of operations.
Rapid Decisive Operations Explained
It is not entirely clear that a definitive framework exists for Rapid Decisive Operations doctrine, but it is possible to identify key characteristics. At its most basic, RDO doctrine is a recipe to "fight light, fight fast": "It concentrates on the use of special forces, air power, and high technology so that conflicts can be won more swiftly and with fewer troops."1 Rather than relying on the mass of large numbers of troops and weapon systems, RDO relies on creating devastating effects that debilitate the enemy, often without having to engage in long (and costly) destruction engagements. Perhaps the easiest way to contrast this new way of doing things and business as usual is to use the table set out in Harlan Ullman and James Wade's Shock and Awe (see Table 1).2
Clearly, doctrines based on shock and awe aim to allow militaries to be leaner; their effects-based outcomes favor fast and potentially smaller numbers of forces working to throw an enemy off balance. Mass is valued less than agility; large concentrations of forces present bigger targets and are susceptible to casualties. By selecting the most critical targets, the attacker can pare down the total number of weapons, concentrating fires on key command-and-control nodes. This is in opposition to older approaches that focus on the piecemeal destruction of an opponent's military forces.
Table 1: Key Differences between New and Old Doctrine
Elements
Rapid Dominance
(New Doctrine)
Decisive Force
(Old Doctrine)
Objective
Control the adversary’s will, perceptions, and understanding
Prevail militarily and decisively against a set of opposing capabilities
Use of Force
Control the adversary’s will, perceptions, and understanding and literally make an adversary impotent to act or react
Unquestioned ability to prevail militarily over an opponent’s forces and based against the adversary’s capabilities
Force Size
Could be smaller than opposition, but with decisive edge in technology, training, and technique
Large, highly trained, and well equipped; materially overwhelming
Scope
All encompassing
Force against force and supporting capability
Speed
Essential
Desirable
Casualties
Could be relatively few on both sides
Potentially higher on both sides
Technique
Paralyze, shock, unnerve, deny, destroy
Systematic destruction of military capability; attrition applicable in some situations
Much of the commentary during the Iraq war referred to "tipping," throwing the enemy off balance through consecutive, or ideally simultaneous, attacks. By presenting the enemy with more problems than he can handle, the attacker effectively can shut down any resistance. To achieve this level of coordination, attackers rely on high technology for communication, targeting, and to produce the weapons' effects. In short, the military becomes increasingly networked and focuses on the desired effect rather than the heavy hardware traditionally required to achieve it. If light is good, then virtual is better.
Ullman and Wade lean toward this preference. One of the characteristics that guides shock and awe is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police principle: "Never put a man where you can put a bullet."3 It is not being there that counts, but being able to make something happen. Technology is making that easier all the time.
Shock and awe and its current incarnation as RDO doctrine are a break with convention. They fly in the face of Napoleon's dictum giving pride of place to big battalions. Technology has made it possible to overcome the old restraints, to ignore the old rules. Who says you can't be in two places at once? Multiple stand-off weapon systems can make it seem as if you are. If the old rule is "concentration of forces," the new rule is "dispersion of forces and concentration of their effects."
Haven't We Seen This Before?
With all this talk of "new" it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we have been here before. In the 1990s, similar claims were being made, not about military strategy, but about economics. Again, technology was making it possible for companies to break the rules. Slow, bricks-and-mortar firms, with lots of employees and physical assets such as warehouses, head offices, and even products, were seen as dinosaurs. Agile, nimble enterprises with few employees and fewer physical assets were king.
To survive in this brave new world, firms would need to work at e-speed. Velocity was everything: speed to market, speed to the next big thing. Lightness and agility achieved near perfection in a virtual world. Companies went online, shedding bricks for clicks. Manufacturers, the paragons of the old economy, were eclipsed by upstart cellular telephone concerns, selling bandwidth and airtime not widgets and gadgets. Even oil companies went high tech, becoming energy derivatives traders. Old methods and measurements no longer worked. New benchmarks had to be created to capture the potential of this revolution.
In addition to going virtual, the new economy meant that companies needed to shed unproductive components. For instance, why have a shipping department if you could team with FedEx and have it take over that function for you? The practice of vertical "dis-integration" produced a whole host of alliances, each allowing companies to focus on their core competencies while at the same time shedding unneeded weight (in the form of employees, vehicles, or buildings).
One of the most fascinating aspects of the e-economy in the late 1990s and early part of this century is how high expectations (on the part of consumer, investor, and analyst alike) grew. With every technological advance, the far-fetched became possible, and the barely plausible a certainty. Very quickly there arose an expectations gap. If stock prices could double in a month, surely they could triple in a fortnight. And so it went. As one analyst commented, in the case of one infamous company, "investors were valuing Enron based on the prospects of industries that had yet to be invented."4
Of course, this story does not end happily. Obscene amounts of money were lost when the emperor's clothes were found to be missing. The NASDAQ crashed hard, shedding cash and hope along with it. There were many losers. Purely virtual enterprises were wiped out, literally overnight.
What is interesting here is not that the New Economy crashed, but that notable survivors made it through. While the declarations of some of the e-commerce dodos now seem naïve, they did apply in some particular, peculiar circumstances. It is not so much that these economic theories were wrong, but more that they were not right all the time. For the most part, those that survived the tech bubble's burst combined aspects of the new economy with the old. They used technology to shake up order management and reduced costly inventories through agile supply chains; this gave them high marks on the new scales. But in addition, they had good, reliable, desirable goods and services. They had real people to react to emergencies, such as complicated orders or customer complaints.
The point is that rather than being able to perform well only in the best-case scenarios, the winning companies prepared for the worst as well. Sometimes, when everything was going well, it was possible to shift into high gear and operate in the frictionless world of virtual commerce. However, much of the time business meant fixing problems and getting things to people.
The mistake the losers made was creating a business model (and a business) based on the exciting promise of the new 10% and ignoring the other 90% of the equation. The winners, on the other hand, were able to stay the course because they did well in the old 90 and captured much of the new 10 as well. Having a Flash Web site was not good enough; there needed to be something behind it to bring customers back and money in.
How applicable are these lessons from the dot.com era? To better understand this question, it is useful to trace the development of shock and awe doctrines to their intellectual forebears: elements of the Flexible Response doctrine of the 1960s.
In the Beginning
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy turned to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and asked him to develop a force structure and doctrine for U.S. conventional forces. The strategy of flexible response was born in reaction to the inadequacies of a strategy predicated on massive (nuclear) retaliation alone. The Korean War had proved the need for credible, subnuclear alternatives. In Kennedy's words:
I am directing the Secretary of Defense to undertake a reorganization and modernization of the Army's divisional structure, to increase its non-nuclear firepower, to improve its tactical mobility in any environment [and] to ensure its flexibility to meet any direct or indirect threat.5
McNamara and Kennedy understood that the best way to manage risk was to have a diverse set of options. Accordingly, the Army's divisional structure was changed from one of standardized "pentomic" divisions to one with armored, mechanized, light, airborne, and air cavalry formations. These formations themselves were built on a common core, but the exact mix of maneuver units could be adjusted to fit the particular mission. This structure therefore was able to accommodate missions from Vietnam to Europe.
Kennedy wanted lighter, more agile forces added to his existing portfolio so that more courses of action would be available to him. McNamara gave him a diversified package of options that increased the President's (and the military's) flexibility. McNamara wanted to reduce the threat that came from putting all the military eggs in one basket. Perhaps this approach came from his business background. In the commercial world risk is managed through diversification. Getting caught out because of overly optimistic planning was as foolish in the Pentagon as it was in the board room.
Risky Business
RDO doctrine is in danger of missing these important lessons. Blinded by its successes, RDO disciples may miss that it is headed into dangerous territory. It is a doctrine that focuses on the best 10% and neglects the other 90%. It reduces the number of options available to commanders (including the President) and thus increases the risk of failure. To illustrate this, it is important to look at three lessons from Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The persistence of friction. One of the most remembered things about
Carl von Clausewitz is his insistence that even the simplest things are difficult.
Friction, said the Prussian, is everywhere. However, hope springs eternal; just
as the New Economy sought to escape the inconvenience of profits and losses, so
shock and awe doctrines try to convince us that they can overcome the worries
of everyday soldiering. The war in Iraq demonstrated that friction is here to
stay. Weather still affects operations; distance is not dead; geography does make
a difference; and the enemy does not always cooperate. Because high-tech solutions
could be seen to free commanders from these issues, they were dismissed as irrelevancies.
Too lean. Sometimes being too light can be dangerous. There are two
examples from Iraqi Freedom where this could have led to severe problems. The
supply trains stretching across the desert were vulnerable to attack, which meant
that elements of the 82nd Airborne division—the only operational reserves
available—had to be committed. The expensive task of providing security absorbed
a great deal of personnel and reduced the flexibility of the commander to react
to other challenges. Rather than being portrayed as a significant issue, the commitment
of the reserve was taken in stride, worriers dismissed as yesterday's men.
The second example was more widespread. There might have been enough forces in
theater to conduct combat operations, but it became evident in places such as
Basra and Baghdad that no extra forces were available to handle the critical job
of maintaining law and order. Hospitals were left unsecured and looting was widespread.
Again, by planning for one aspect of the mission, rather than considering a range
of contingencies, commanders were left to make unsavory choices between securing
the peace and ensuring force protection. This might be explained by RDO's Mountie
principle: "never put a man where you can put a bullet." Unfortunately,
bullets (or even unmanned aerial vehicles) do not win hearts and minds and therefore
cannot consolidate the victory achieved with combat. By not having troops available
for these foreseeable and essential tasks, commanders' options were constrained.
Fair-weather friends. The conventional wisdom in the United States
is that peacekeeping is for chumps; other members of a coalition will need to
step in and provide the necessary forces. However, this, too, is reminiscent of
the doomed thinking of the New Economy. By concentrating on supposed core competencies
and relying on partnerships, options were constrained. Partnering works well when
it works. What do you do when it does not? Despite the fact that more than 50
countries were members of the coalition, few have troops on the ground. In the
meantime, U.S. and British forces are overstretched, vulnerable, and taking casualties,
further complicating matters. The worst-case scenarios encountered during operations
in the 1990s should demonstrate that missions do not separate neatly into phases;
combat and peace operations often are conducted simultaneously.
The Importance of Getting It Right
Operation Iraqi Freedom is providing important lessons. Shock and awe advocates will point to the fact that the operation was rapid, casualties were light, and special forces and air power were used well together. High-tech gadgetry and real-time intelligence will be shown to be invaluable. All this is true. But just as New Economy advocates were right about a lot in e-commerce, they were mistaken about a great deal as well. In addition to the novel advances made in the war in Iraq, old lessons were reaffirmed. Joint and combined arms tactics were proved, sometimes in their breach, to be effective. As one analyst noted, "Who controls the air controls the fight. At the end of the day, war must be won on the ground."6 Shock and awe did not decapitate the regime immediately; hard pounding was required. Low-tech, close-quarter combat was essential in securing victory.
Much of what lies ahead—transformation, the codification of RDO doctrine, allied force developments—will depend on the insights drawn from Iraqi Freedom.7 It is hoped that lessons drawn from the seductive but illusory appeal of the New Economy can be borne in mind as well. Similarly, the previous transformation of the military under Secretary McNamara should remind us that changes should increase and improve the options open to a commander, not limit them. Concentrating too much on the potential that shock and awe doctrines possess, while ignoring the sobering fact that the difficulties associated with old warfare have not disappeared, does nothing but increase the risk of future operations. A balanced, diversified strategy that can handle the full range of requirements—high- as well as low-tech—is the way ahead. Wishing away reality is not an option.
1. Toby Harden, "‘Fight Light, Fight Fast' Theory Advances," Daily Telegraph ( London), online ed., 14 April 2003.
2. Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996). Online version www.ndu.edu/inss/books; accessed 12 April 2003. While RDO doctrine and the original Rapid Dominance doctrine are not completely synonymous, such a comparison is instructive.
4. Holman W. Jenkins Jr., "The New Economy's Sore Losers," Policy Review, April 2003, online ed.
5. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962, p. 401.
6. Richard Hart Sinnreich, "Relearning Old Battlefield Lessons," The Washington Post, 24 April 2003, p. A25.
7. The British armed forces are watching the outcome of the Iraq war with close attention, and some feel they will "transform" along similar lines as the United States. See Jonathan Carr-Brown and Peter Almond, "Armed Forces to Be Slashed for Hi-tech War," Sunday Times (London), online ed., 20 April 2003.
Mr. Ankersen is studying for a doctorate at the London School of Economics. From 1988 to 2000 he was an infantry officer in the Canadian Army, serving in Croatia and Kosovo. He has written widely on military and defense matters. Mr. Tethong is a managing strategy consultant in London. He served as a navigating officer in the Canadian Navy from 1989 to 1998. He is a graduate of Georgetown University's master of science in foreign service program and specializes in Asian affairs and energy security.
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