America needs a Foreign Legion

Michael O’Hanlon advocates recruiting foreigners into the US military in this Bookings Institute video:  “The Future of the Military“.  He wrote two articles with Max Boot advocating this. 

• “Create a U.S. foreign legion“, Armed Forces Journal (March 2007).
• “A Military Path to Citizenship“, Washington Post (19 October 2006).

These articles have attracted much consideration, even mockery, but the idea is sound.  Recruiting a Foreign Legion as a secondary force is neither a crazy nor unproven idea. France and Britain have used them for centuries, without apparent ill effects. Like everything else in life, recruiting foreigners for one’s armed forces has dangers and can be used to excess.

I presented such a proposal in “Lessons Learned from the American Expedition to Iraq” (29 December 2005).

Excerpt:  A Foreign legion for America

Visionaries point the way to success in the age of 4GW

After WWII we entered the age in which 4GW is the primary mode of warfare.  In response first come analysts, followed by visionaries, then solutions (in three kinds).

Analysts (see this chapter) and visionaries provide the foundation on which solutions are build.  Visionaries propose radical ideas for the conduct of warfare (beyond anything we can do today) or even visions of new geopolitical regimes.  They play several essential roles. Their creativity provides new directions to more conventional experts. Their imaginations provide vigor and energy to stimulate others to write about 4GW. Their writings appeal to both the public and decision-makers in a way that few analysts can equal, communicating the nature of modern war to a large audience much as Carl Sagan did for science.

Like Sagan, successful visionaries earn more money than almost anyone else in their field.  This is the “sweet spot” in any profession, offering fame and fortune.

4GW: A solution of the second kind

Solutions of the first kind:  new things (i.e., robots, autonomous flying vehicles,
software to help us understand and manipulate foreign societies).

Solutions of the second kind:  new ideas about tactics and strategy.

Solutions of the third kind:  new ways to shape our institutions (aka politics),
usually by altering how they recruit, train, and promote people.

Shawn Brimley has provided an example of a solution of the second kind with “A Grand Strategy of Sustainment“, posted at the Small Wars Journal (20 March 2008). I agree with almost everything he says, which seems to be in the broad current of work about grand strategy in the era of post-trinitiarian conflicts — in which 4GW has become the dominant mode of war. William Lind, Chet Richards, me, and many others have said similar things.

Most of these works focus on description of a desired new tactic and strategy, with little analysis of why we in fact do things differently or how can our institutions effect these new ideas. Such analysis usually features ample use of “American should do” this and that. A key factor in solutions of the second kind is why we have our current policies, and that answer suggests the cure used by each author.

How to get the study of 4GW in gear

Here is an question by Jason lifted from the comments on A solution to 4GW — the introduction.

Fabius, if you reference “Masters of War” by Michael Handel (which I am reading), the author makes the point that even 4GW is Trinitarian since you still have the three components - the state, the populace, and the non-state actor. Even if the non-state actor is embedded within the populace, there is a distinction between the general populace, which must be agitated to support the state against the non-state actor.

This is interesting on several levels.  It offers a legitimate question, keying off the work of an expert in military history (Handel being one of the top scholars in his generation of Clausewitz’s works; he died in 2001 — correction per Jason in the comments ).  It also offers insight as to why the study of 4th generation warfare has progressed so little in the past five or ten years.  The question having been debated at length in many forums, I will slight it in favor of the second issue — which seems of immediate and practical significance.

A solution to 4GW - the introduction

 We now have an adequate basis upon which to develop a solution for 4GW (at least, a “Mark I” version).  Three recent books provide the last missing pieces of this puzzle:

• If We Can Keep It by Chet Richards  (aka IWCKI)
• Brave New War by John Robb  (BNW)
• The Changing Face of War by Martin van Creveld

None of these are long (IWCKI is only 152 pages) or inaccessible to the general reader, as they are clearly conceived and well-written.  These works build on the foundation of many other books and articles since the study of 4GW began (using an arbitrarily point) with publication of Into the Fourth Generation by William Lind et al (1989), and Martin van Creveld’s Transformation of War (1991) and The Rise and Decline of the State (1999).

We must define the problem before attempting to describe a solution.  Thomas Kuhn described a paradigm as shared body of knowledge, definitions, and assumptions, allowing communication among workers in a specific field, and focusing their research on agreed-upon key questions.  Modern war lacks a consensus on these things; hence the debate frequently devolves into cacophony.  Even the “community” talking about 4GW lacks a tight paradigm, and the discussion seems to be fragmenting with the multiplication of war’s generations (5th gen, 6th gen) and criticisms — often quite valid – of 4GW as (in my words) a hall of mirrors.   (See this post on DNI for more on the definition of 4GW)

This might result from the conceptual basis of 4GW having been ripped from the context established in van Creveld’s writings, without regard for the distinction he draws between the broad class of non-Trin conflicts and war (the latter being a subset of the former).  Can we build a more-or-less agreed upon framework to facilitate discussion?  (Paradigms are conceptual tools, not miniature versions of reality)

One telling similarity between the the Wehrmacht and the US Military

“Center of Gravity versus Lines of Effort in COIN“, Herschel Smith, at the Captain’s Journal (3 March 2008) — An article well worth reading.  Thoroughly researched, Smith provides several powerful insights and provides an excellent operational and tactical perspective.

From a larger perspective this article shows how the 21st century US military is locked into a historically common trap.  No matter how good, it remains harnessed to US elites’ geopolitical thinking — poorly reasoned, emotional (ruled by hubris and fear).  Our military apparatus consistently provides professional, smooth execution of bad strategy.   We do the wrong thing, but brilliantly.  In this we have become like the WWI and WWII German military (aka loosely as the Wehrmacht), attempting to overcome foolish strategy with operational excellence.  In the seventh article of William Lind’s ”On War” series (12 March 2003), he presented on of his most incisive observations:

Between 1809 and 1945, the Prussian and, later, German armies developed what is often called maneuver warfare of Third Generation warfare. For the past quarter century, the U.S. military has been trying to adopt this German way of war, and failing.

Our metastable Empire, built on a foundation of clay

More thoughts on the “dreamland” described by Wolfgang Schivelbusch in The Culture of Defeat.   In the concluding chapter he says…

The West’s victory in the Cold War was, however, the first to be achieved explicitly by the economy in its own name.  Perhaps it is for this reason that the economy received a new nom de guerre:  globalization. 

… The growth in the economy’s power and prestige after 1990 was not confined to its functional efficiency but came to touch areas of society previously monopolized by religion and nationalism.  if people looked toward anything in the hope of salvation or in fear of damnation, it was increasingly the economy.  having lost faith in God, the nation, and utopian politics, they credited the economy with the power to both create paradise on earth and to destroy life as they knew it.  In the West, the threat of collective extinction attached no longer to war — which had in any case become a long-distance media event — but rather to the economy, with its doubt threat of devastating the environment and wiping out jobs

Like Minerva’s owl, our faith in Mammon may have come too late.  A grim future of geopolitical and economic problems presses on our imaginations as we see the end of our hegemonic delusions, founded as they were on unlimited borrowing at low interest rates.  In response we retreat into comfortable dreams.  We can elect leaders with vast ambitions (foreign for McCain, domestic for Obama), but can no longer afford them.  

ABCDs for today: About Blitzkrieg, COIN, and Diplomacy

Here and here I discussed our tactical retreat in Anbar Province of Iraq.  Dan Tdaxp raises an interesting and valuable question (here) about this:  what does “retreat” mean in 4GW?

The previous generations of war occured in physical space.  We plot their course on maps, using lines and arrows.  A  3GW “retreat” means movement away from geographic objectives. 

Can we show the course of the Iraq War on a map?  Not easily, as 4GW occurs in social space (aka human terrain).  For example, we speak of the “moral high ground”.  Also note the growing role of anthropologists (e.g. Kilcullen) and the social sciences (e.g., in FM 3-24) in counter-insurgency (COIN) theory and practice.  Update:  Ralph Peter’s article “The Human Terrain of Urban Operations” (Parameters, Spring 2000), esp. his challenge at the end, is a poorly-recognised milestone of 4GW analysis –reintroducing the social sciences to the art of 4GW. 

In 4GW “retreat” means movement away from objectives expressed in people terms:  building institutions, changing loyalties, motivating friends and de-motivating opponents.  Traditionally these are strategic considerations — diplomatic maneuvers, the decisive factors in many wars.  Our alliance with France made victory possible for the American Revolution.  Gaining support in Britan led to the rapid collapse of Britain’s will to fight after Yorktown and their generous terms in the Treaty of Paris (1783).  The Union inflamed Britain’s hatred of slavery to keep the UK out of the Civil War, a necessary ingredient for victory.

Recommendation to read: “Is Warfighting Enough” by Richards and Vandergriff

“Is Warfighting Enough?” by Chet Richards (Colonel, USAF, retired) and Don Vandergriff (Major, USA, retired) — now available online in the February 2008 edition of the Marine Corps Gazette.

The shelves of many libraries groan under the weight of articles calling for new ways of analyzing geopolitical and military issues.  In four pages this article shows how the theories of John Boyd can provide this, which we desperately need.  Instead of yet another analysis of 4GW, this sketches out solutions – practical methods for building forces capable of fighting 4GW’s, and how to use them.

Another valuable aspect of this article:  both Richards and Vandergriff are excellent writers, able to express complex reasoning in a clear and brief fashion.

About the The Marine Corps Gazette

There are many good periodicals about modern warfare.  I consider The Marine Corps Gazette to be one of the best.  Since the publication in 1989 of the Lind et al article Into the Fourth Generation it has been in the forefront of coverage of and discussion about the paradoxes and challenges of 4GW.  The Gazette is available to members and subscribers only.  If you’re eligible, join!  If you’re not, subscribe!  Click here for details.

For more on this subject

• For more about the Adaptive Leaders Course:  Recommended reading: transforming the Army, the hard way
• The Adaptive Leadership Symposium will be held on 19 March 2008 at Greenville SC.  Download the conference brochure here (234 kb PDF).
• For a links to the online works of Donald Vandergriff:  The Essential 4GW reading list: Chapter Two, Donald Vandergriff.
• For links to the online works of John Boyd see the DNI archive page, which also lists books about Boyd and his thinking.
• Boyd’s theories are explained in more detail in Chet Richard’s book Certain to Win.

Arrows in the Eagle’s claw - about 4GW analysts

This series describes the various types of solutions to modern warfare, herein called fourth generation warfare (4GW).  It sketches out a typology, showing the five types of writings about 4GW, their relationship to one another and their relative potential.

• Analysts - the foundation of the pyramid.  All solutions rely on sound analysis.
• Visionaries -bold imaginations seek solutions to 4GW, outside of the confines of real-world constraints.
• Things, applying America’s trump cards — technology and logistics — to defeat 4GW opponents.
• Ideas, solutions based on new ways of thinking to defeat new modes of war.
• People, solutions based on new ways of leading people:  selecting, training, organizing, and promoting them.

See Chapter I for a summary of this schema.  Chapter II considers those works providing analysis of 4GW.  4GW analysts have drawn on a range of resources, including history, military theory, and the social sciences.  Their work is foundational to the development of solutions, for nothing can be done except by luck without a deep understanding of factors such as…

• our situation (strengths, weaknesses, goals, etc),
• the other players on the world stage (both state and non-state actors),
• and the almost infinite range of scenarios possible in the near and far future. 

Since most of those writing about 4GW combine analysis and recommendations, included in this group are those whose work focuses on more on description than prescription.  Any simple categorization is somewhat arbitrary when applied to individuals.

Some highlights of 4GW analysis to date

There are too many brilliant works in this literature to adequately cover in a one post, but here are a few highlights.

Arrows in the Eagle’s claw - solutions to 4GW

This series describes the various types of solutions to modern warfare, herein called fourth generation warfare (4GW).  It will attempt to show their relationship to one another and their relative potential.  4GW appears to be the dominant form of warfare in the 21st century, so mastery of it might prove necessary for America’s prosperity or even survival.  This is a topology, a wide perspective view of writings about 4GW.  Future chapters will examine these divisions in more detail.

Analysts – the foundation of the pyramid

This first class of work provides analysis, drawing on a diverse range of resources including history, military theory, and the social sciences.  This is foundational to the development of solutions, for nothing can be done except by luck without a deep understanding of

• our situation (strengths, weaknesses, goals, etc),
• the other players on the world stage (both state and non-state actors),
• and the almost infinite range of scenarios possible in the near and far future. 

Since everyone working with 4GW does some combination of analysis and recommendations, I include in this group those whose work focuses on more on description than prescription.  Applied to individuals, any simple categorization is somewhat arbitrary.

Readers of journals in this field — such as  DNI, Parameters, or the Marine Corps Gazette — will see that this category of work is by far the largest both in volume and number of writers.  It includes, just to name a few,  Martin van Creveld, David Kilcullen, Chet Richards, and John Robb.

Visionaries — another important component of the foundation

One step beyond Lind: What is America’s geopolitical strategy?

Part X of a series about America’s new Long War

First, we would have to adopt a realistic strategic goal, one that might be attainable. The present strategic goal of turning Afghanistan into a modern, secular, capitalist state with “equal rights for women” and similar claptrap lies in the in realm of fantasy.
William Lind, On War #237 (15 October 2007)

Can America Have “Realistic Strategic Goals”?

Lind’s analysis (brilliant as usual) raises an uncomfortable question: are his recommendations reasonable, or do they too lie in the realm of fantasy? After all, when did America last have a reasonable geo-political strategy? Is this an impossible thing to ask of our current ruling elites?

A great nation needs a clear and simple geo-political strategy. They focus one’s strength and limited resources, and allow allies to easily coordinate their actions with ours.

• The British Empire sought cheap raw materials, export markets for its goods, the channel ports in friendly hands, and to prevent one state from dominating Europe. Plus a few humanitarian goals, such as eliminating the sea-borne slave trade.
• The Czars sought to expand Russia’s borders to the Mediterranean and Pacific, while maintaining its vast multi ethnic Empire.
• Nineteen century America had its Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine.
• Cold war America sought (1) containment of communism and (2) spread of free trade under the US dollar-based Bretton Woods system, both implemented though a web of alliances.

America takes another step towards the “Long War”

Summary:  This report is just a sketch, some thoughts that hopefully spark discussion about America’s rush to war. It proposes the following:

1. There is as yet insufficient evidence that America is threatened sufficiently to justify the large-scale mobilization of citizens that we call “war.”
2. There is insufficient public evidence that al Qaeda or Islamic jihadists are so serious a threat.
3. The war was begun in Iraq and Afghanistan with inadequate analysis and planning, and those errors continue to this day.
4. Even if this threat is of sufficient magnitude, war is not necessarily the solution.
5. To the extent that force is required, at present we are not equipped to employ it in the manner needed. A scimitar makes a fine weapon, but a poor scalpel.

Introduction

Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis, Chapter 12 (1959)

The flood of information and commentary available today can obscure events of the greatest significance. We see that today, as America takes another step towards the long war. Without thought or reflection, without debate by our elected officials, without our consent. In many ways just like the Cold War.

If the US starts a new long war, it is our war - for good or ill. Congress and the President are our agents no matter how they conduct our affairs. As bin Laden reminds us, following our leaders does not relieve us of responsibility.  Wars put all that we that we have, all that we are, on the table to be won or lost. Before we enlist ourselves and our children in a new war, let’s think. Is the wager worthwhile? Are the odds in our favor? Are there alternatives other than war?

In the past we have neglected these questions to our sorrow.

Contents

Why We Lose at 4GW

From “Knowing the Enemy“, George Packer, The New Yorker  (12 December 2006) 

In 2004, when McFate had a fellowship at the Office of Naval Research, she got a call from a science adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had been contacted by battalion commanders with the 4th Infantry Division in a violent sector of the Sunni Triangle, in Iraq. “We’re having a really hard time out here-we have no idea how this society works,” the commanders said. “Could you help us?” The science adviser replied that he was a mathematical physicist, and turned for help to one of the few anthropologists he could find in the Defense Department.

This pitiful little vignette shows one reason why we lose: structural failures in the Department of Defense. Among the thousands of support people in DoD, a battalion commander found nobody better to help understand Iraq than a mathematical physicist. A science advisor to the Joint Chiefs found no better expert on the Middle East than an anthropologist with no specific expertise in that area.

From this a logician could infer the full story of America’s inability to successfully wage 4th Generation Wars (4GW), just as from a drop of water “a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other” (Sherlock Holmes in “A Study in Scarlet,” part 1, chapter 2).  However, logicians are rare. For the rest of us, here is a brief attempt to explain one of the great puzzles of our time: why the US has lost - is losing - and will continue to lose - 4th Generation Wars (4GW).

Introduction

An early symptom of impending defeat is loss of confidence in one’s tactical doctrines. In a strong military culture, though, this can spark a burst of creativity. In WWI, this resulted in the perfection by the German Army of infiltration tactics. Later, with new technology, this became blitzkrieg.

How has the prospect of defeat in Iraq affected the US military?

America’s Most Dangerous Enemy

Summary:  This essay examines the most dangerous enemies of America.  Two little known dangers appear far most serious than the usual suspects.  Appropriate responses are discussed.

Threat definition is the key phase when developing a grand strategy. Especially today, as America faces many dangerous enemies.  Who are our most dangerous foes?

China

Billions of people, a rapidly growing economy that will inevitably replace America in both economic and geopolitical importance. One of our largest creditors, its technological theft and unfair trade practices are destroying America’s industry. A military confrontation over Taiwan is inevitable in the near future.

Islamofascism

This mutant version of Islam combines traditional Islam, nostalgia for a long-gone age of Muslim supremacy, and Fascism. Motivated by hatred of western culture, if not stopped it will control not only the vital Middle East oil producers, but also important States such as Pakistan and Indonesia. Large minority populations of Muslims will destabilize other States (e.g., India and the EU). Even small Moslem enclaves, such as those in the US, can act as fifth columns.

The “Gap” Nations

As Thomas Barnett explained in his March 2003 Esquire article:  ”Disconnectedness defines danger. “

… show me where globalization is thinning or just plain absent, and I will show you regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and — most important — the chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global terrorists. … My list of real trouble for the world in the 1990s, today, and tomorrow, starting in our own backyard: (Haiti, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, former Yugoslavia, Congo, Rwanda/Burundi, Angola, South Africa, Israel-Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Indonesia).

However terrifying you find these foes, we face two much greater dangers.

I.  Paranoia

The Myth of Grand Strategy

Summary: What would a grand strategy for America look like? This critiques our current policies and Barnett’s proposals in terms our limited wisdom and power. It ends with recommendations for design of a modest but functional strategy for America.

The world is in turmoil. America has wealth and power like no previous nation. We only lack a grand strategy to guide us. Fortunately we have no lack of Grand Strategists recommending that America exert its strength to reshape the world, and providing a vision to guide us.

“Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been trying to come up with an operating theory of the world — and a military strategy to accompany it.
Now there’s a leading contender. It involves identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them.”
Introduction to “The Pentagon’s New Map“, Thomas P. M. Barnett, Esquire, March 2003

Lessons Learned from the American Expedition to Iraq

The mainstream media remains focused on assigning blame for the war, with occasional reports on current events and discussions of exit strategies.  Let’s attempt to see the bigger picture.

Defeat seems the appropriate description for the American expedition to Iraq. Consider the cost!  Hundreds of billions of dollars spent, all in effect borrowed from Asia.  Thousands of Coalition soldiers dead, tens of thousands wounded. And, of course, uncounted thousands of Iraq civilian killed and wounded.  For what?

1. To establish some form of Kurdish state? The Turkish Government, among our stronger allies, will not thank us for this.
2. To establish Islamic State(s) in the Arab regions of Iraq? Probably difficult to sell this to the American people as “victory.” Certainly an odd aspect of our “War on Terror.”
3. To establish a Shiite State in southern Iraq? Good news for Iran, a charter member of the “Axis of Evil.” Bad news for Iraq’s southern neighbor, Saudi Arabia, most of whose oil fields lie in Shiite tribal areas.

Perhaps we can redeem ourselves by learning lessons of sufficient value.

Lessons learned #1: Avoid Third World colonial wars.

Circulating on the Net are letters from soldiers in Iraq. Many are quite sad. Here’s an especially noteworthy example: