Hybrid Warfare – Curtis L. Fox

Synopsis:

In Hybrid Warfare, Curtis Fox attempts to define a strategic tradition of Russian hybrid warfare within a three century context. The strategy hinges on interlocking components – e.g. information operations, network-centric warfare et cetera – which advance Russian geostrategic interests vis-à-vis great power competition. Similarly, effective application of hybrid policies tend to elevate a dynamic of convergence between the ways/means – as well as ends – of Russian strategy.

Excerpts:

“Russia’s unique experience in repelling Napoleon engrained the necessity of strategic barriers and buffer states into the political class. Kutuzov, a star pupil of eminent Russian Field Marshal Suvorov, demonstrated the efficacy of defeating sophisticated and numerically superior armies using indirect methods.

“Russia does not see hybrid warfare as an independent doctrine that departs in any way from traditional military practice. To the contrary, when the Russians plan what the West has come to call ‘hybrid wars’, they are merely deploying all available methods that maximize the chances of success for their conventional military forces.

“Non-kinetic operations create space: an opening where someone capable of organization amid chaos can make gains. Kinetic operations seize this space, using SOF to probe for footholds which can then be occupied through the rapid maneuver of elite ground forces.

“In a crisis and corresponding intervention, as envisioned by Gerasimov, Russia employs a wide variety of military and non-military measures, which are closely coordinated to achieve operational objectives… Likewise, subordinate doctrines like asymmetric warfare, reflexive control, information operations, low-intensity conflict, network-centric warfare, and fifth generation warfare fit neatly into Gerasimov’s model as a tool kit for escalating or de-escalating a crisis as needed.

“Russia would formulate the hidden-hand (fait accompli) strategy: establishing information dominance (both intelligence and propaganda), using intelligence operatives to raise friendly local partisans and militias, using special operations forces to quickly eliminate key targets and seize terrain; rapidly maneuvering heavy ground forces into the battlespace to entrench gains before the enemy can react.

*All excerpts have been taken from Hybrid Warfare: The Russian Approach to Strategic Competition and Conventional Military Conflict, -30- Press Publishing.

Theodosius and the Antibarbarian Reaction – Alessandro Barbero

Synopsis:

The Battle of Adrianople in 378 often signals a key crossroad in the history of the late Roman Empire, but Alessandro Barbero lays out a somewhat different narrative in his book The Day of the Barbarians. Barbero examines the event within a three century context, and chronicles the cultural evolution of Roman civilization leading up to the battle – as well as the civilizational reaction following the final peace agreement with the Goths. As Roman power began to decline in the fifth century, the long ignored aristocracy of Rome began to reassert itself by becoming the foremost voice of the anti-barbarian reaction.

Excerpts:

“In the dissatisfaction that the Greek East felt at the political and military hegemony of the Latin West lay the seeds of competition – if not hostility – between the two parts of the Roman Empire; those seeds would not fail to produce fruit.

“All the rhetoric about the universality of the empire, about its capacity for assimilation, was trotted out to demonstrate that Theodosius had made the right choice. And, to be clear, it wasn’t all empty rhetoric; to a certain degree, that capacity for assimilation genuinely existed.

“The army, which was a community, seemed like the perfect machine for handling this integration process. It absorbed barbarians, ground them down, and transformed them into Roman veterans, into the men whom emperors in their public discourses addressed as ‘comrades in arms’ and who constituted the real pillar of the empire.

“In certain regions of the empire, where the mercenaries had completely replaced the units of the regular army, the change was reflected in the language itself: In Syriac, starting at the end of the fourth century, the word for ‘soldier’ became Goth.

“Most people ultimately shared the assumptions about the empire’s ability to assimilate the barbarians but resisted granting them too much power too quickly and thereby abdicating the civilizing mission of the empire.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle That Led to the Fall of the Roman Empire, Walker & Company.

Nature of International Change – Robert Gilpin

Synopsis:

Robert Gilpin’s analysis of international affairs in War & Change in World Politics tends to hinge on two vital benchmarks. First, consensus operates as a cohesive glue for constructing equilibrium between the most powerful states. Second, hegemonic influence is the most potent prime mover for developing consensus vis-à-vis international politics. In this way, equilibrium within international affairs is dynamic and fluid relative to change.

Excerpts:

“A precondition for political change lies in a disjuncture between the existing social system and the redistribution of power toward those actors who would benefit most from a change in the system.

“As is the case with domestic society, the nature of the international system determines whose interests are being served by the functioning of the system. Changes in the system imply changes in the distribution of benefits provided to and costs imposed on individual members by the system.

“In a diplomatic conflict the country which yields is likely to suffer in prestige because the fact of yielding is taken by the rest of the world to be evidence of conscious weakness… If they show want of confidence, people infer that there is some hidden source of weakness.

“Yet, even the most ruthless dictator must satisfy the interests of those individuals and groups who also wield power in a society. Powerful groups set constraints on and may even determine the actions of state authority. They constitute the society that is protected by the state; their particular concept of justice reigns.

“The maximization of efforts to attain economic and welfare goals entails the diversion of resources from national security. In a world of scarce resources, where every benefit entails a cost, societies seldom, if ever, choose guns or better, at least over the long run.

*All excerpts have been taken from War & Change in World Politics, Cambridge University Press.

Julius Caesar – Plutarch

Synopsis:

Plutarch’s biography of Julius Caesar examines the moral, and intellectual dimensions of Caesar’s character. Context is a pronounced component of Plutarch’s analysis – which utilizes the underlying Roman political culture of the era as a bedrock feature of the narrative. Further, Plutarch uses biographical anecdotes to advance an image of Caesar as a world historical individual. 

Excerpts:

“Sulla, without openly objecting, took measures to see that he was not elected and discussed the question of whether or not to have him put to death. When some of his advisers said that there was no point in killing a boy like him, Sulla replied that they must be lacking in intelligence if they did not see that in this boy there were many Mariuses.

“Cicero, who is thought to have been the first to have seen beneath the surface of Caesar’s political program and to have feared it as one might fear the smiling surface of the sea, and who understood how powerful a character was hidden behind Caesar’s agreeable, good-humored manners, said that, in general, he could detect in everything that Caesar planned or undertook in politics a purpose that was aiming at absolute power.

“For the cause of the civil wars was not, as most people think, the quarrel between Caesar and Pompey; it was rather their friendship, since in the first place they worked together to destroy the power of the aristocracy and only when this had been accomplished quarreled amongst themselves.

“For when Pompey, for some reason or other (possibly over caution), instead of putting the finishing stroke to his great success, retired as soon as he had driven the routed enemy inside their camp, Caesar, who was with his friends, remarked to them as he was leaving them: ‘Today the enemy would have won , if they had a commander who was a winner.’

“Brutus fancied that he heard a noise at the entrance to the tent and, looking towards the light of the lamp which was almost out, he saw a terrible figure, like a man, though unnaturally large and with a very severe expression. He was frightened at first, but, finding that this apparition just stood silently by his bed without doing or saying anything, he said: ‘Who are you?’ Then the phantom replied: ‘Brutus, I am your evil genius. You shall see me at Philippi.

*All excerpts have been taken from Fall of the Roman Republic, Penguin Books.

American Strategy in Vietnam – Bruce Palmer Jr.

Synopsis:

As a member of the American high command in Vietnam, Bruce Palmer Jr. offers his analysis on the shortcomings of American strategy in the war. According to Palmer, influence from initial assumptive errors menaced the efficacy of ways/means vis-à-vis American ends. By comparison, North Vietnamese strategic assumptions cohesively synthesized with desired ends.

Excerpts:

“The United States was overconfident in believing that superior U.S. technology, Yankee ingenuity, industrial and military might, modern military organization, tactics, and techniques, and a tradition of crisis solving in peace and war would surely bring success in Vietnam where the French had failed.

“The limitation of the war zone meant that there was no practical way to stop the infiltration of men and materiel into South Vietnam. Air interdiction throughout North Vietnam and in the panhandle of Laos could inflict personnel and materiel losses, but predictably could not stop the flow. South Vietnam was virtually impossible to seal off.

“President Johnson beginning in 1965 let it be known to North Vietnamese leaders that the United States did not intend to invade North Vietnam or otherwise try to bring down the Hanoi government. Thereafter U.S. actions without exception reaffirmed that impression of U.S. intent. This practically sealed South Vietnam’s doom, for it allowed Hanoi complete freedom to employ all its forces in the South.

“Perhaps most serious was that, engrossed in U.S. operations, we paid insufficient attention to our number one military job, which was to develop South Vietnamese armed forces that could successfully pacify and defend their own country… By the time the United States changed direction and gave South Vietnamese forces top priority, it was too late. American popular support had been frittered away.

“The question for Hanoi was whether to continue to seek a quick collapse before the Americans could turn the South Vietnamese around, or to settle down for a more protracted struggle. Hanoi’s answer appears to have been to plan and prepare for a long war but at the same time to be ready to exploit any possibility of early success. At the heart of the subversion in the South was a healthy political structure, the shadow government of the Viet Cong, operating at every level.

*All excerpts have been taken from The 25 Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam, Da Capo Press.

Diplomacy and War in Livy – Niccolo Machiavelli

Synopsis:

Niccolo Machiavelli’s discourses on Titus Livy’s history of Rome offers a full spectrum examination of Roman statecraft. In book two, Machiavelli submits his analysis of war and diplomacy vis-à-vis Rome’s interaction with its allies – as well as enemies. Proximity, clarity, and swift resolve are features recognized as desirable for an ally.

Excerpts:

“Leagues made with rulers who lack either the means to help because they are too far away, or the power to help because they are disorganized or for other reasons, bring rather repute than assistance to those who trust in them.

“The advice which Hannibal gave to Antiochus, when this monarch was contemplating a war with the Romans. The Romans, he argued, could only be beaten in Italy, for others might there be able to avail themselves of their arms, their riches and their allies… he ended by saying that Antiochus had better first try to take Rome before attacking the empire, and Italy before attacking the other provinces.

“The Cimbri broke up a Roman army in Germany, and the Romans had no way to repair their defeat. But, when the Cimbri arrived in Italy, and against them the Romans could bring all their forces to bear, they were undone.

“I say again that a ruler who has his people well armed and equipped for war, should always wait at home to wage war with a powerful and dangerous enemy, and should not go out to meet him; but that one who has ill-armed subjects and a country unused to war should always meet the enemy as far away from home as he can.

“Slow and tardy decisions are no less harmful than are ambiguous decisions, especially when the point at issue is whether support is to be given to an ally; for by such slowness nobody benefits and to oneself it does harm.

*All excerpts have been taken from Machiavelli: The Discourses, Penguin Books Ltd.

Social and Military Institutions – Ardant du Picq

Synopsis:

In his analysis of French military institutions, Ardant du Picq advances a formula for institutional transformation which emphasizes a balance of pay, leisure, and “sociability.” According to du Picq, a synthesis of high pay and leisure may attract as well as retain higher quality officers. Likewise, increased sociability from top to bottom within units offers a disciplinary backstop vis-à-vis cohesion.

Excerpts:

“Armies are toys (in peace) in the hands of princes. If princes know nothing of them, which is the usual way, they disorganize them. If they do understand them, like Prussia, they prepare their armies for war.

“Man is merely a friend of equality but a lover of domination. He is easily persuaded to take the shadow for the substance.

“As the military spirit in France is waning, it must be replaced by well-paid noncommissioned and commissioned officers. Good pay establishes position in a democracy, and today no one turns to the army because it is poorly paid.

“The leisure of army life attracts three out of four officers, laziness if you like. This is the objective fact. If you make an officer into a schoolboy all his life he will send his profession to the devil if he can, and those who can will generally be those who have received the best education.

“French sociability creates cohesion more quickly than could be created among troops of other nations. Organization and discipline do the same, but with a proud people like the French, a rational organization united by French sociability can often obtain results without employing the coercion of discipline.

*All excerpts have been taken from Battle Studies, University Press of Kansas.

The Emergence of Conflict – Steven LeBlanc

Synopsis:

The behavioral school of thought vis-à-vis armed conflict is perhaps most effectively expressed in Steven LeBlanc’s book Constant Battles. According to LeBlanc, a so-called ‘risk threshold’ operates as the behavioral device which initiates, deters, or limits conflict. Such a threshold is innate within human action – and serves as a prime mover for sustaining armed conflict over time.

Excerpts:

“In some societies, like highland New Guinea and the Yanomama of Venezuela, warfare was extremely frequent, with raids, ambushes, or battles occurring annually or even monthly. Often these conflicts resulted in only one or two fatalities per incident. When the numbers are tallied over a person’s life span, many of the adult males died fighting.

“Often, when communities are clustered, the land between the clusters becomes hotly contested and thus uninhabitable. These relatively empty zones, or no-man’s lands, are found throughout the world among many different types of societies and are clear evidence for conflict.

“When scholars look carefully at these weapons and ask why people like the Australian Aborigines, who have so few possessions, would have so many weapons of war – special spears, special boomerangs, special spear-throwers, and shields and clubs used only for warfare – the importance of such weaponry becomes clear.

“In the New Guinea highlands, raids often had to be planned in secret, excluding the men and women with close relatives among the group to be attacked, because they were expected to warn the intended victims. All types of societies from foragers to states have these friend-enemy dual relationships.

“People do perceive resource stress before they are starving. If no state or central authority is there to stop them, they will fight before the situation gets hopeless. Resource stress in the form of hunger, and not starvation, is what precipitates warfare.

*All excerpts have been taken from Constant Battles: Why We Fight, St. Martin’s Press.

The Death of Persia, and the Death of Alexander the Great – Frederick the Great

Synopsis:

Frederick the Great devotes a small corner of his Anti-Machiavel to answer why the Persian Empire of Darius III did not rise again following the death of its conqueror – Alexander the Great. Rather than destroy the empire Alexander in a sense co-opted it, and used the institutions of the Persian Empire for his new Macedonian Empire. Frederick also keenly compares from a cultural/political context the nation-states of Europe in his own era with those of Alexander and Darius.

Excerpts:

“The same policy which carried the King’s ministers to the establishment of an absolute despotism to France, also taught them to distract the nation by using its lightness and inconstancy, to make it less dangerous: a thousand frivolous occupations, the trifles and the pleasures, was given in exchange for their rights and their power.

“France’s powerful armies, and a very large number of fortresses, ensure that the French Sovereign will possess the throne forever, and they do not have anything to fear now concerning internal wars or their neighbors invading France.

“The author (Machiavelli) considers these things from only one point of view. He does not discuss the structure each government has: he appears to believe that the power of the empire of Persia and the Turks was founded only on the general slavery of these nations, and on the single rise of only one man who is the absolute ruler. He is of the idea that a despotism without restriction, established well, is the surest means that a prince has to ensure reign without disorder, and resist its enemies vigorously.

“The difference of the climates, the peoples’ diets, and their level of education, establish a total difference between their way of living and of thinking – like the difference between an Italian monk and a Chinese scholar. The temperament of the English, stout-hearted but hypochondriacal, is completely different from the proud courage of the Spanish; and the French have as little resemblance to the Dutch as the promptness of a monkey-cry has with the phlegm of a tortoise.

“It was noticed from time immemorial that the custom of the Eastern people was a spirit of constancy in their practices and their old habits, of which they almost never depart. Their religion, different from that of Europeans, still obliges them in some way, for fear of trouble visiting their Masters, the company of not to consort with those which they call the infidel; and to avoid carefully all that could pollute their religion and upset the structure of their government. Here is what, in their countries, makes for security of the throne, rather than that of the monarch: the Emperors are often dethroned, but the empire is never destroyed.

*All excerpts have been taken from Anti-Machiavel, Newark Press.

The Architecture of Theories – Charles Peirce

Synopsis:

American philosopher Charles Peirce advanced a formulaic approach to language – which elevated linguistic clarity as a keystone of theory construction. With its emphasis on systematic language, modern analytic philosophy sustains a measure of kinship with Peirce’s ideas. Likewise, American operational – as well as strategic – doctrine features components of Peirce’s formulaic methodology by stressing representational language.

Excerpts:

“Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. That a pitched coin should sometimes turn up heads and sometimes tails calls for no particular explanation; but if it shows heads every time, we wish to know how this result has been brought about. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason.

“The one primary and fundamental law of mental action consists in a tendency to generalization. Feeling tends to spread; connections between feelings awaken feelings; neighboring feelings become assimilated; ideas are apt to reproduce themselves. These are so many formulations of the one law of the growth of mind.

“The remaining systems of philosophy have been of the nature of reforms, sometimes amounting to radical revolutions, suggested by certain difficulties which have been found to beset systems previously in vogue; and such ought certainly to be in large part the motive of any new theory.

“A modern physicist on examining Galileo’s works is surprised to find how little experiment had to do with the establishment of the foundations of mechanics. His principal appeal is to common sense and il lume naturale. He always assumes that the true theory will be found to be a simple and natural one.

“The great attention given to mechanics in the seventeenth century soon so emphasized these conceptions as to give rise to the Mechanical Philosophy, or doctrine that all the phenomena of the physical universe are to be explained upon mechanical principles.

*All excerpts have been taken from Philosophical Writings of Peirce, Dover.