Ghost of a flea: Messy war

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October 28, 2008

Messy war

As experience in Afghanistan and Iraq turns from theory to practice, opposition grows toward Future Combat Systems and the Revolution in Military Affairs.

Two distinct groups are emerging in the Army with quite different views on the nature of future wars the U.S. is likely to fight and the decisions the service should make about future force structure and weapons. The first group is the Title 10 side that urges the Army to embrace the troubled Future Combat Systems program and new operational concepts built around dominant battlefield intelligence. The other side is represented by officers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who think future wars will resemble the messy reality of the current ones.

In a new paper, Army Col. H.R. McMaster, definitely a member of the messy war group, calls for abandoning so-called transformation, which is intellectually rooted in the idea of a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). McMaster, of 73 Easting and Tal Afar fame, is a highly influential soldier-scholar who is currently putting together a brain trust for Gen. David Petraeus to review U.S. policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at October 28, 2008 07:41 AM

Comments

I especially like this line of McMaster's:

Moreover, efficiency in war means barely winning, and in war, barely winning is an ugly proposition. In war one seeks to overwhelm the enemy such that he is unable to take effective action; the business principle of maximum payoff for minimum investment does not apply. The complexity and uncertainty of war require decentralization and a certain degree of redundancy, concepts that cut against business’s emphasis on control and efficiency.

Which isn't to say that the military can't learn from business, just that not all of the lessons are transferable between the two.

Posted by: Damian at October 28, 2008 11:09 AM

The US Army is going to end up fighting both wars, in the following order:

1) Smaller-scale, long-duration brush wars that bleed the services of exceptionally valuable high-demand, low-density assets and personnel.

2) Larger, more traditional wars as near-peer opponents figure out that decades of constant warfare have left the US a) without funds to modernise aging assets and b) with a force structure geared at killing off lower-tech, non-peer OPFOR, and c) with a populace unable to entertain the idea of fighting a much more massive war, expensive in lives, assets and treasure.

Just ask the Romans.

Posted by: Chris Taylor at October 28, 2008 03:32 PM