(Analyst's note: Absolutely must read this article. I understand that many of our readers are not "military types," but please remember that your sons, daughters, and grandchildren are now or will be in that great throng referred to as "the troops." As in any war, but especially in this war against the global jihadist, you and your entire family are being targeted by the enemy. The have attacked and will attack again on this our home soil. Obviously they will also attack our troops who are "forward deployed." How successful the jihadist will be depends a great deal on you and I understanding what is being said here.
As a nation, we must begin a significant study of our jihadist enemy - comprised of far more that simply the Taliban or al Qaeda -- and then proceed to defeat them. That means in simple terms that we must not only find, fix, and kill the enemy jihadist soldier, but those who are leading and supporting them as well. They are ruthless and we must understand that their jihad is NOT random. Our enemy has every intent to reestablish a caliphate which is the supreme institution of the Islamic state. The principle is to expand their religion and the means is the Islamic state. They have every intent to achieve state expansion goals under what they believe is sound religious doctrine. We have defeated them before - we must do so again.
As citizens, we insist on real leadership from our Presidents (Commander and Chief) and our Generals. If we do NOT demand from them what they have sworn to provide us -- protection from our enemies, both foreign and domestic -- their lack of leadership WILL kill "the troops" unnecessarily and significantly endanger every family in this great nation. Semper Fidelis.) sharia
In war, military strategy is tailored to meet the enemy’s threat, to persuade those who might fight not to fight, and when necessary, to win and achieve Victory in the shortest possible time. In the War against Radical Islam and its network of enablers, America’s top leadership achieves the opposite outcome. Meanwhile, many of today’s Generals and Colonels are repeating the Vietnam pattern of speaking critically of the Pentagon’s leadership in private, while eagerly accepting public praise and promotion from the Secretary of Defense for deferring to him and the Joints Chiefs in everything. It is time for the senior military leadership to stand up and be counted.
American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are rightly lauded by the American public for their courage and sacrifice in the fight for United States national security, but the high quality of American soldiers and Marines at battalion level and below cannot compensate for inadequate senior leadership at the highest levels in war. Today, the senior leadership of the U.S. armed forces in general and, the U.S. Army in particular, is overly bureaucratic, risk averse, professionally inadequate and, hence, unsuited to the complex military tasks entrusted to them. The Bush and Obama administrations have a preference for compliant, sycophantic officers who are fatally dependent on the goodwill of the Secretary of Defense and the President who promotes and appoints them.
Americans now confront issues of the utmost seriousness and gravity:
The lack of Warriors at our Senior Levels of Command – Military and Civilian:
The probability that future American military
operations and strategy will fail if generalship of this quality persists.
Or
The senior civilian leadership – The President - allows the Generals and Admirals to fight as they have been trained to win and achieve Victory and bring our troops Home.
Finding generals who are competent and ethical practitioners of war – officers who will communicate to their civilian superiors the truth of what is really happening and what actions and resources are required for Victory. President Abraham Lincoln struggled with such incompetents in the Civil War until he found someone who won battles. The man was Ulysses S. Grant, an officer no one in the Army’s command hierarchy wanted. Long before America entered World War II, Gen. George C. Marshall, an officer who had waited 36 years for promotion to flag rank, ended his first year in office as Army chief of staff in 1940 by retiring 54 generals. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Marshall continued to replace hundreds of generals and colonels, elevating men like James Gavin, a captain in 1942, to brigadier general and division commander in 1944. When Gen. Matthew Ridgway assumed command of the Eighth Army in Korea, he was no less ruthless than Marshall had been with commanders in the field who did not measure up.
In war, this condition is dangerous because the nation’s three- and four-star generals are the key figures who interface between policy and action. They decisively shape and implement the Military component of national strategy that is consistent with American policy goals, ensuring that results are attained within the framework of the mission, and taking into account intangibles such as the reputation of the American people. They determine the metrics that measure success or failure, and they create the command climate that motivates subordinate commanders to take prompt action to overcome any and all difficulties.
Two important corollaries must be mentioned. In war, for generals to succeed, they must be men of character and integrity, accepting risk and uncertainty as the unchanging features of war. They must also demonstrate a willingness to stand up and be counted, to put country before career and, if necessary to resign. Generals also must be students of their profession and of their enemies especially now with a thorough understanding of the Caliphate, Sharia and the goals of Radical Islam. They must be able to put themselves in the position of their enemies, avoid rigid adherence to ideas and methods that are ineffective, and adopt what works while concentrating their minds on the essential tasks. These attributes have been largely absent in the U.S. senior ranks.
Some current transformations of strategy, tactics and weapons technology would have been utterly unimaginable only a few years ago. Still, certain ancient and medieval principles of warfare remain entirely valid. The same can surely be said for the more modern ideas of Carl von Clausewitz, B.H. Liddell Hart and Antione Jomini. Their crucial concepts have long been part of the curriculum at the U.S. Military Academy and at the War Colleges. They can be ignored now only at very great risk.
For America's current leaders, attention must be paid. This includes an expanded awareness of the unchanging requirements of vision, national strategy and national survival. Ironically, however, at a moment of unprecedented national peril, our senior political and military leaders have strayed far from such awareness. To correct this loss of direction, they should begin with a close look at Sun-Tzu.
Chinese military thought originated amidst Neolithic village conflicts almost 5,000 years ago. But it was Sun-Tzu's The Art of War, written sometime in the 5th century BCE, that synthesized a coherent set of principles designed to produce military victory. At best, the full corpus of Sun-Tzu’s works and those of the other great strategists should be well understood and followed closely by all who currently seek to strengthen our military posture in the essential global war against terror and radical Islam. Indeed, the timeless Principles of War apply even more aptly to today’s global conflict than they did to past historic conflicts. As set forth in the annals of military history, these principles are best identified as:
- Objective
- Offensive
- Mass
- Economy of Force
- Maneuver
- Unity of Command
- Security
- Surprise
- Simplicity
The United States now needs to re-evaluate the very meanings of power in world politics and of the associated war principles that seek victory in a warfare that is not prolonged. The principle of “Objective” states – “When undertaking any mission, commanders should have a clear understanding of the expected outcome and its impact.” Today we call it the “endgame.” Following Clausewitz and Sun-Tzu, commanders (to include the Commander-in-Chief and his staff) need to appreciate political ends and to understand how the military conditions they might achieve can contribute to these ends. Another principle, that of the “Offensive,” states that “offensive operations are essential to maintain the freedom of action necessary for success, exploit vulnerabilities and react to rapidly changing situation and unexpected developments.”
America’s leaders should begin with Sun-Tzu's principles concerning diplomacy. Political initiatives and agreements may be useful, they will be instructed, but prudent military preparations should never be neglected. The primary objective of every state should be to weaken enemy states (today, states that support terror, e.g. Iran, North Korea and Syria) without actually engaging in armed combat. This objective links the ideal of "complete victory" to a "strategy for planning offensives." “One who cannot be victorious assumes a defensive posture; one who can be victorious, attacks....Those who excel at defense bury themselves away below the lowest depths of Earth. Those who excel at offense move from above the greatest heights of Heaven."
The principle of “Mass” outlines that commanders at all levels aggregate the effects of combat power in time and space to overwhelm enemies or to gain control of the situation. Time in warfare applies the elements of combat power against multiple targets simultaneously, and space concentrates the effects of different elements of combat power against a single target.
There is another section of The Art of War that can help the United States. This is Sun-Tzu's repeated emphasis on the "unorthodox" or, as we prefer to call it today, unconventional warfare. We must, from a high-level strategic view, look at this current global war as combating an enemy who fights in a completely unorthodox manner, and we must fight him the very same way, but more cleverly and more effectively. We must use our full military and intellectual arsenal as a super power to bring victory sooner rather than later. And this can be done only with a specific endgame in mind, and with a corollary commitment to victory.
Drawn from the conflation of thought that crystallized as Taoism, the ancient strategist observes: "...in battle, one engages with the orthodox and gains victory through the unorthodox." In an especially complex passage, Sun-Tzu discusses how the orthodox may be used in unorthodox ways, while an orthodox attack may be unorthodox when it is unexpected. Taken seriously by our strategic planners, this passage could represent a subtle tool for strategic and tactical implementation, one that might purposefully exploit an enemy state's particular matrix of military expectations.
For the United States, the "unorthodox" should now be fashioned not only on the battlefield, but also long before the battle. Indeed, to prevent the most dangerous forms of battle, which would be expressions of all-out unconventional warfare, the United States should examine a number of promising new postures. These postures would focus upon a reasoned shift from an image of "orthodox" rationality to one of somewhat "unorthodox" irrationality. This is what the late American nuclear strategist Herman Kahn once called the "rationality of pretended irrationality." For now, every enemy state knows pretty much exactly how the United States will initiate and conduct war. President Obama’s recent speech at West Point disclosing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is a good example of naiveté. If, however, the United States did not always signal perfect rationality to its enemies – that is, that its actions (defensive and offensive) were not always completely measured and predictable – it could significantly enhance both its overall deterrence posture and its capacity to carry out certain preemption options. These same lessons now apply to diplomacy and politics, which are all too often mired in entirely predictable U.S. policies.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul E. Vallely, Major General (USA/Ret.) is an author, military strategist and Chairman of Stand Up America and Save Our Democracy Projects.
