Operational Art or War Doctrine

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ramana
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

https://twitter.com/elmihiro/status/149 ... sG40Q&s=19


Cross Domain Coercion: Current Russian Art of Strategy

Looks like it incorporates what Micahle Howard wrote about the four strands of strategy.
For instance, in his classic essay, The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy, Michael Howard explained that war is conducted along four dimensions: the operational, the logistical, the social, and the technological. Successful strategy requires taking into account of all of these dimensions, but under different circumstances, one or another might dominate. Howard pointed out that during the American Civil War, the North's victory was not due to the operational capabilities of its generals, but to its capacity to mobilize its superior industrial strength and manpower into armies. Ultimately, he observed, the logistical dimension of strategy proved more significant than the operational.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

How Blizkrieg failed against deep battle.


https://twitter.com/witte_sergei/status ... o6RqA&s=19
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by Mukesh.Kumar »

ramana wrote:How Blizkrieg failed against deep battle.


https://twitter.com/witte_sergei/status ... o6RqA&s=19
A reading ofA History of World War II- Lt. Col. Edd Bauer , which predates this conflict by years would confirm this.

Lt. Col Bauer starts the book with how the Werchmatt General Staff used the intervening years between the two wars to reevaluate and plan their strategy drawing lessons of how German efforts in WW1 were submitted in a war of attrition.

Ultimately, the German economy lost to the combined strength of the economies of the Society Union and the US.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

I think Pak based its attacks in. 1965 on Blitzkreig technique and it lost to IA war of attrition in Asal Uttar.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

I ordered the book from Amazon. Quite massive at 680 pages.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by Manish_P »

ramana wrote:How Blizkrieg failed against deep battle.


https://twitter.com/witte_sergei/status ... o6RqA&s=19
Concise, Informative, thought provoking.
ramana wrote:I think Pak based its attacks in. 1965 on Blitzkreig technique and it lost to IA war of attrition in Asal Uttar.
+1

Can a nation not adopt both techniques? Proactively start with 'Bewegungskrieg', capture enemy territory (or enemy held territory) and then settle down for the war of attrition.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by Pratyush »

I am not so sure that TSP was applying blitzkrieg against India in 65.

A reading of the official accounts shows that one armoured thrust in Jammu was met by vampires. The vampires got savaged by TSPAF Sabers. Then India attacked accross the international boundary.

This shows a disjointed planning and thinking from TSP. Not overreaching tactical planning and the determination to see it through.

During the battle of Asal Uttar the Pakistanis had trouble coordinating there tanks due to lack of basic training and equipment handling skills.

When faced with resolute and well trained Indian army. They suffered.

All in all a total fluster cuck from TSP.

The 71 war in the western areas had pretty much similar thinking displayed by the Pakistanis. Whereas, in the east Indian armed forces operated with clear aims and the determination to see them through.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by k prasad »

ramana wrote:I think Pak based its attacks in. 1965 on Blitzkreig technique and it lost to IA war of attrition in Asal Uttar.
An excellent analysis on the Asal Uttar:

Part 1 - https://medium.com/indian-defence/battl ... d289cd6798
Part 2 - https://medium.com/indian-defence/battl ... .ygi8aw1lk
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

RAND did a study on "The Will to Fight"
What Is Will to Fight?
In general terms, will to fight is the disposition and decision to fight, to keep
fighting, and to win. However, there is no generally accepted definition of will
to fight. There is no way to accurately quantify will to fight or delineate its
precise value. Despite this, will to fight can be more clearly understood and
practicably applied.

To do so, the RAND team undertook a literature review of over 200 published
works, reviewed U.S. and allied military doctrine, conducted 68 subject matter
expert interviews, and analyzed historical cases, war gaming, and simulation.
The result is a set of definitions, explanations, and models are intended to
help remedy this gap in general knowledge about will to fight.

So, how does RAND define the will to fight of a military unit, or a nation?

Military unit and organizational will to fight
Soldiers and the units they form develop the disposition to fight or not fight,
and to act or not to act, when fearing death. Disposition is likelihood: Soldiers
are more or less likely to fight or run, fight aggressively or passively, to follow
orders or break, run, or surrender. Influenced by this disposition, they make
decisions in the heat of combat, and even while they are far removed from
combat but perhaps still questioning their dedication to the mission. Military
unit will to fight is the disposition and decision to fight, act, or persevere as
needed.


National will to fight

Wars rarely end simply because one military destroys another. Government
leaders determine how and when wars end, and they may have to decide
many times during a conflict whether their country should continue enduring
risk and sacrifice or whether it is time to stop fighting.
Tangible factors like
remaining numbers of weapons and troops are obviously part of the decision
calculus, but it is often less-tangible political and economic variables that
ultimately determine whether to continue a conflict. National will to fight is the
determination of a national government to conduct sustained military and
other operations for some objective even when the expectation of success
decreases or the need for significant political, economic, and military
sacrifices increases.
I think there are deeper reasons for the soldiers to develop the disposition to fight.
Honor, trust in leaders/commanders, objectives of the fight, equipment to fight, etc.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by Cyrano »

Ramana garu,
I'd be curious to know if Rand the pre-eminent Amreeki sink sank has considered "Having nothing to lose, promise of 72 hoors" etc in its study after all the wars in ME.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by Pratyush »

The element of disposition covers the promise of 72 hoors.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

I don't think so. BTW all such armies lost!!!
They mention 1965 Pakistan
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

Good article that analyses Army Air joint synergy in the 1971 war.

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spot ... supremacy/
Commend the writer for being able to critique the former Chief.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

I think this thread is a good place to post this evaluation by Rohit Vats on Parakram.


https://theperspective.co.in/strategic- ... and-sindh/
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by Bala Vignesh »

Ramana garu,
The link seems to be dead.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by basant »

Bala Vignesh wrote:Ramana garu,
The link seems to be dead.
It is. But you can use the cached version which worked for me.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by VinodTK »

The Defender: Challenges Of Winter Warfare | 17 December, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ApCV7gFAvs
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

ramana wrote:Very insightful article by Captain Jawahar Bhagwat on Decline of Royal Navy by WWI

CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF BRITISH NAVAL LEADERSHIP DURING WWI – NEED FOR GREATER STRATEGIC ORIENTATION

Now try to look at the various naval battles of WWI in new light.

So strategy was lost and rest is tactical naval battles.

Assessment of British Naval
Leadership
There were few Admirals in the RN at
the commencement of war who
understood the nature of modern war.
The British approach to World War I
veered to over confidence. David
Divine in his book ‘The Blunted
Sword’ concluded “the Admiralty
discouraged, delayed, obstructed or
positively delayed significant
technological developments ever since
the first marine engine and that the
inertia and stubborn resistance to
change resulted in stupendous waste,
inefficiency and consequential losses
27
including in WWI.” Except for
Churchill, the politicians tended to
accede to the advice of the Generals
and the Admirals on the premise they
were the experts and knew best, when,
in fact, as the war progressed the lack of
strategic orientation would become
apparent. However, Churchill was also
guilty and did not keep himself abreast
of operational infirmities which
resulted in the failed Dardanelles and
Gallipoli campaigns. The failure of
these campaigns (at the Dardanelles
and at Gallipoli) resulted in substantial
casualties and was a serious setback to
the Allied war command, including
that of Churchill. He resigned his
position with the Admiralty after being
demoted, and headed to the Western
Front to command a battalion.
The ineffective political leadership was
a lesson Churchill would learn well and
not to repeat during World War II.
Some of the reasons for the lack of
strategic naval leadership were as
follows:-
• Lack of opportunistic training in the
hard school of war and their seeming
continued association with the days of
sail.
• Changes at the Admiralty just before
the commencement of the War. In
military matters Prime Minister
Herbert Asquith was unsuited to the
role of wartime leader. He ceded
control and decision-making to the two
strong-willed men in his government:
Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, the
Secretary of State for War, and
Churchill, the First Lord of the
Admiralty. At times, they did not
comprehend operational constraints.
• The lack of joint planning between
the naval and the military staff. Neither
armed force had given much thought
on how decisive fleet action would
28 support the armies’strategies on land.
• Over reliance on the concentrated
fleet concept and the big battle, a
legacy of Mahan. This resulted in
battles of attrition and static warfare,
and the British fleet failed to deliver the
expected Nelsonic victory of total
29 annihilation.
• The British Admiralty, therefore,
looked to comparative battleship
strength and losses as the primary
30 means of strategic advantage, and
this was their indication as to which
side had command of the seas.
• The Admiralty war plans envisaged
blockade of the enemy coast. However
the primary reason was to entice the
High Sea Fleet to come out and give
battle and not bringing economic
31
pressure to bear.
• The Admiralty reiterated that the big
battle would protect one’s shipping
ignoring the historical experience of
the aftermath of Trafalgar. Thus, the
Admiralty made an ambiguous
connection between the tactical means
of battle and the strategic objective of
the safety of the Sea lanes of
32 communication.
•In addition to the above, they were
also influenced by Julian’s Corbett
derision of convoying resulting in
significant losses against unrestricted
submarine warfare.
• The British Navy did not take
advantage of communications thirteen
years after the first wireless signal had
been transmitted across the Atlantic
and superior intelligence was not
exploited sufficiently.
• Failed to perceive the impact of the
submarine that had been proclaimed as
an un-English weapon.
• The role of the airplane in a versatile
use was neither envisaged nor
33 realised.
• Poor operational execution of the
otherwise clear strategic plan of
Winston Churchill at Gallipoli due to
lack of operational experience coupled
with lack of surprise, not factoring for
mines, and also deficiency of shells.
• Less importance to professional
military education, a vital necessity to
developing a strategic orientation and
gain the intellectual credentials to
interact at par with power structures
and civilian authorities in the national
34 and international arena.
Dupuy Institute had a special issue on Jutland and a quantitative analysis of the Battle of Jutland on pages 7 to 10.


http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/v2n2.pdf

Basically, it confirms Capt Jawahar Bhagwat's assessment of the battle.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

A comparative analysis of Arab and Israeli armies in 1967 and 1973

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/054.pdf

Please read and reflect on how to analyze.

See page 27
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

US Naval War College Journal article in pdf format on

On Operations: Operational Art and Military Disciplines


War Is the Storm—Clausewitz, Chaos, and Complex War Studies

I recommend reading this for sure.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by BenG »

How weapons import failed Medieval Indian empires?
South Indian empires bought Mongol war horses to fight against the Delhi Sultanate. But the Sultanate's tactics and grand strategy triumphed over all the wealth and effort spent on imported horses.

How the Global Arms Trade (in Warhorses) changed Indian History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-_RHyHeZIo&t=198s
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

US Army Fort Leavenworth has a process called Staff Ride where historical battles and campaigns are studied.

It's a structured process described here: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals ... e-2020.pdf

I would like a small team to study it and do a Staff Ride for 1947 Skardu and 1962 War
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

Here is an example of Staff Ride at Pearl Harbor

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals ... Harbor.pdf
So do read an learn.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

ramana
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

Somewhere in this thread, I had brought up Andrew Marshall of the US and his concpt of Net Assessment.

Here is a podcast to know more about him. I will also post transcripts for the lazy ones.

https://rusi.org/podcasts/talking-strat ... l-strategy
Episode 6: Andrew Marshall: Net Assessment as a Tool of Strategy
Beatrice Heuser and Paul O’Neill
14 March 2023
30 Minute Listen
SHARE


Foreign policy strategist Andrew Marshall had a career that spanned seven decades from the late 1940s. He was hailed by a former KGB officer as ‘the grey cardinal, the éminence grise’ of the US revolution of military affairs, and as ‘the great hero’ of Chinese officers tracking developments in US military technology, claiming they had translated every word he wrote. Dr Thomas G Mahnken joins Talking Strategy to discuss his work and life.


Episode 6: Net Assessment as a Tool of Strategy: Andrew Marshall with Dr Thomas G. Mahnken



Beatrice Heuser: Thank you, Paul.

He has been described as the most influential person you've never heard of, but Soviets and the Chinese certainly had: he was hailed by a former KGB officer as the grey cardinal, the eminence grise of the American Revolution of Military Affairs, as the great hero of Chinese officers tracking developments in American military technology, claiming that they had translated every word he ever wrote. Andrew Marshall.

Andrew, or Andy, Marshall's career spanned seven decades, including 25 years at the RAND Corporation, where he worked alongside Herman Kahn(1), for example. As an organization composed of some of the most influential advisors to senior US administration officials, it ran, developed and matured methods of analysing the nature of the long-term competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the late 1960s, Henry Kissinger, also a former RAND member, recruited Andrew Marshall to apply these approaches in the National Security Council, where Marshall worked for several years before becoming the first Director of Net Assessment, a post he held for the next 43 years.

Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment. He's a senior research professor at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. After a distinguished previous career in and out of government, he currently serves as a member of the Congressionally Mandated 2022 National Defense Strategy Commission, and as a member of the Army Science Board. He is the co-editor of the prestigious Journal for Strategic Studies. Thank you so much for joining us today from Washington.

Thomas Mahnken: It's a real pleasure to be with you today.

Beatrice Heuser: Andy Marshall is credited with having invented net assessment, something that is all the rage now in NATO countries. Net assessment is an analytical approach to assessing an adversary’s, as well as one's own, capabilities in relation to one another. How does this work?

Thomas Mahnken: That's a wonderful question. You know, if we go back to Sun Tzu, we can read the famous aphorism, “know the enemy and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will be undefeated”.(2) And that's wonderful advice. But Master Sun doesn't exactly tell us how to do it. It's sort of the strategic version of “buy low, sell high”, and net assessment is all about that. It is all about measuring military balances. But, in order to measure military balance, you need to understand an adversary, a competitor, and you need to understand their strengths and weaknesses. And that's very challenging for all sorts of reasons - secrecy, deception etc. But then, of course, you also have to understand yourself. And self-knowledge can be very difficult as well for a whole bunch of different reasons - bureaucracy, maybe self-deception, and so net assessment is really all about that. It is all about coming up with side-by-side diagnostic assessment of a military balance, but also a head-to-head one. Trying to think about how the competitors would actually stack up, not just on some metaphorical balances, but how they might actually interact and clash on the battlefield.

Beatrice Heuser: I see two themes that seem to be the roots of this approach; that Andy Marshall had two themes that stretched through his career, all the way from when he started with RAND in 1950. Namely, on the one hand, a sort of statistical approach, a very mathematical approach, which he had from the World War II strategic bombing survey, where he worked alongside people like Robert McNamara, one supposes. And the other one is to look at how intelligence brings this material together and analyses it. Those are the two roots I think, of what he was doing. But then he added a lot more to that. He became very multidisciplinary. At the end of his life, he professed great interest in reading history, and much of the work that he commissioned, which was very, very diverse, included historical studies.

So, what was his methodology?

Thomas Mahnken: If he were here with us, he might even bridle at the use of the “M-word”. He had a very multidisciplinary approach, long before multidisciplinary approaches were in vogue. In part he got that from his time at RAND, and he certainly nurtured that during his time in Washington DC. You are right that he had a mathematical background. His academic background was in mathematics, and he was drawn to economists, but he was also drawn to political scientists, to historians. If I were to add a major thread in his work, it actually comes from the business literature, but the part of the business literature that really has to do with organisational behaviour and psychology. And I really think that was a key influence.

For him, when we talk about, say interaction, it wasn't a mathematical formula. It wasn't the collision of a couple of billiard balls. Interaction was about complex organizations making imperfect decisions based upon limited understanding of themselves and the other. So, I think his approach, whether it was to long-term competition with the Soviets, or thinking through things in the 21st century, really stands in opposition to a lot of the action-reaction arms race literature or this idea of states as unitary actors. I think he was fundamentally at ease with uncertainty, in a way that a lot of other thinkers have not been.

Beatrice Heuser: Despite the fact he came from this mathematical statistics background, and he had done some engineering in the Second World War, apparently he was much more open to seeing the world in ways which could not be reduced to simple formulae of “one independent variable, one dependent variable”, but tried to see it as a much more complex system.

What is the result of this? What are the sort of publications that came out of his Office of Net Assessment? What did he write himself? Can you give us a broad overview?

Thomas Mahnken: For most strategic thinkers, we immediately go to their writings and we judge them based on their writings. There actually is a very impressive body of work that he did at RAND, where his primary job was doing research and analysis and writing reports. It's very impressive, particularly for the time. His work on long-term competition with the Soviets, which was really finished in the late 1960s - it wasn't really published even in a redacted version until the 1970s - really reflects this view of long-term competition between actors working on imperfect information, trying to influence each other.

His work, also published at RAND, on measuring military power is a short piece that even speaks to us today, where he points out that this notion of military power is so central to international relations, to strategic studies, however, the closer you look at it, the more problematic the concept becomes. And he points out in that piece [that] we haven't really come to grips with the problem of measuring military power. I think that's as true today as it was in the late 1960s when he wrote it.

Then of course when you move to the White House where he was briefly, and then the Pentagon where he was, as you say, for four decades, his influence is a little bit more difficult to track. He's not writing monographs for public consumption or even for consumption of, say, the leadership of the Air Force. He is writing for the leaders of the Department of Defense (DoD). And so, when tracking his influence, one has to think about how he, his colleagues, his office, influenced the thinking of senior leaders in the Pentagon, which the Office did in a number of ways: both through its work, its assessments, through the ideas that the Office developed. Things like competitive strategies, things like this idea of a Revolution in Military Affairs, which of course didn't strictly arise within the Office of Net Assessment - it actually arose from a series of sources. But Marshall highlighted that as something that senior defence leaders should be thinking about it. And then he also had an influence through the broader array of scholars that affiliated themselves with the Office of Net Assessment.

So, tracking his influence as a maker of modern strategy - to steal a title from Edward Mead Earle and Peter Paret,(3) - during his RAND years its fairly straightforward, but then as a policymaker, as a public servant, it becomes a little bit more challenging.

Paul O’Neill: You've spoken about what we now call ‘complex adaptive systems’ and this idea of emergent strategy. And I can see, therefore, why his interest in organisation design, because of course it's the organisations that have to adapt, to respond. What impact do you think he had on the culture of the US military or the US government in terms of coping with that emergence, that willingness to accept the uncertainty you've highlighted?

Thomas Mahnken: That's a wonderful question. I don't know that he would judge his impact as being all that great.

It's back to the nature of organizations. They're very difficult to influence. I think he would' have judged his success much more on the ability to inform and influence senior leaders, and help them in their interactions with these large, complex national security organizations. He once told me “before any strategy can influence a competitor, it first has to survive your own system”. And that's absolutely true. It's one of those brilliant but basic insights. I think understanding the complex nature of organisations is key to bureaucratic effectiveness, but it also sort of limits the art of the possible in many cases.

Beatrice Heuser: In an interview that was conducted with him, he was very, very modest and he claimed, for example, that Henry Kissinger and he had not necessarily been colleagues or known each other very well at RAND, and yet it was Kissinger who called him first to the White House and then put him in the Department of Defense. Kissinger clearly appreciated his ideas and was probably one of those people one could list as being influenced by him.

What other individuals did he really work with very closely, and what other individuals who had power in the American security community were influenced by him?

Thomas Mahnken: I would start with three Secretaries of Defense. And they happened to be the first three Secretaries of Defense who were in office on the establishment and after the establishment of the Office of Net Assessment.

The first was [James R.] Jim Schlesinger [1929-2014]. Now, Schlesinger and Marshall were colleagues at the RAND Corporation. They were also close personal friends. And when Andy Marshall left the White House, it really was Jim Schlesinger who asked him to come to the Pentagon rather than returning to beautiful Santa Monica, California and the RAND Corporation, and prevailed upon Marshall to come to the Pentagon and establish the Office of Net Assessment. And Schlesinger, really as Secretary of Defense, saw himself as the sort of the strategist-in-chief for the Defense Department, and he saw a real role for the Office of Net Assessment in advising him and advising the leadership of the Pentagon on the future direction of the defence programme.

But then Schlesinger left and was replaced by a man who, at the time, was the youngest Secretary of Defense ever to serve, and that man was Donald Rumsfeld [1932-2021]. And Rumsfeld was a very different type of leader. He'd been an elected member of Congress. He'd been the White House Chief of Staff. And he didn't really know a lot about defence, but he was used to seeking out and getting strategic advice. And so, when Rumsfeld arrived at the Pentagon, again, sort of naively, he said, “Well, where's my, strategic advice office? And somebody in Rumsfeld's office said, “Well, it's the Office of Net Assessment.” And Rumsfeld walked out of his office, walked down the hall to the Office of Net Assessment and knocked on the door. And there was Andy Marshall opening the door. And, that led to a very productive relationship there where Marshall and his Office were able to provide advice of a different sort, that would be useful to Rumsfeld and the decisions he had to make.

Third was Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Defense, Harold Brown [1927-2019]. Now, you might think that an office established by Richard Nixon and, established by Jim Schlesinger might have been in jeopardy first when Jim Schesinger left and Donald Rumsfeld came in, but then clearly when the Nixon and Ford administration left, and Carter was ushered in. But in fact, Harold Brown as Secretary of Defense, was just that sort of defence-intellectual technocrat that really appreciated defence analysis, strategic analysis, and was probably, one of the most voracious readers of the Office’s products.

Those three vignettes sort of show you the Office's influence among three very different Secretaries of Defense.

Beatrice Heuser: Very interesting. Of course, Donald Rumsfeld then returned to office at later stage, and he and Marshall, and also Colin Gray(4) were friends. I know that Andy Marshall also commissioned a lot of work. So, they were both the products of his office, which was relatively small. He claimed that there had never been more than 17 people, usually around 15 or something like that. What sort of output did they have? Is some of that declassified now? What does it look like? Is it sort of reports with executive summaries? And then on the other hand, what sort of things did they commission? What sort of funds did they have?

Thomas Mahnken: Well, all of those things are really tied together. The Office of Net Assessment throughout its history has, by design, been small. And I think that is both because strategic minds are hard to come by, but also, I believe, the intent from the beginning was not to fall into the trap of believing that the Office could do everything itself. And so, the assistants in the Office, the military assistants, the civilians, really should be thought of as programme managers for a particular area. Their job is to think about a particular area, perhaps write an assessment on a particular area, but not fall into the trap that they can do everything themselves.

And so being able to tap into other sources of expertise, wherever they are, be that in the US government, be that in academia, be that in the federally-funded research and development world, places like RAND and the Institute for Defense Analyses. The study budget became a vehicle for tapping into the best minds and the best approaches. Back to your earlier question about methodology or approaches. If you're a historian, but you think that demography is extremely important, how do you tap into sources of expertise there? And so, on the one hand, yes, the office produced a number of assessments, very highly classified assessments - highly classified because they took into account all the information available regardless of its source and meant for the senior leadership, so not meant for public dissemination. So, there are a couple of them that have been declassified in one of the recent volumes of Foreign Relations of the United States, you can find kind of bits and pieces, but they weren't meant for public consumption, they were meant to inform leaders. But you are also right that the Office funded, sponsored a lot of other research, and to include, a lot of historical research. Frankly, a lot of what we know as this “strategic studies canon” bears the imprint of the Office of Net Assessment.

To take two examples. I don't think the literature on military innovation that we have and take for granted, that literature on military innovation wouldn't exist, and certainly in the form that it exists, without support from the Office of Net Assessment. Similarly, the literature on military effectiveness wouldn't exist if it weren't for sponsorship of the Office of Net Assessment.

That wasn't because Andy Marshall was a philanthropist. It was because he realized that a lot of basic research needed to be done in order to inform the Net Assessment enterprise. He needed frameworks, he needed models, he needed historical case studies to try to inform his work and his Office's work in trying to inform and educate senior policy makers.

Paul O’Neill: What efforts did he go to, to try to ensure that they weren't just going to the usual suspects or people that agreed with them? Because it strikes me that what you've been saying is ‘you need a plurality of views’ and even history itself isn't neutral. So, what was Andy Marshall doing to create this Office that would drag in those different perspectives to allow you to get a proper understanding of yourself and your adversaries that you described earlier?

Thomas Mahnken: Well, a couple things. First one has to start with his personality. I mean, he had a wonderfully curious mind and was always questioning, from the first day I met him, to the last time I saw him, which was just a couple weeks before he passed, he was always asking questions, including questions about the past. Did we get it right? Did we really understand this? Was there something that we missed? And over the years, he and I had just wonderful conversations along those lines. And again, you think about somebody at that station, that time of life, the tendency is to say, ”Oh yes, look, you know, I got it right, And, and let's talk about all the ways I got it right now.” He was always saying, “No, maybe we got it wrong, and what might have happened that didn't happen.” And so, he had that wonderfully open, inquisitive mind throughout his life. So that was one thing.

And then second, he invested a lot in new voices, whether accomplished professionals outside of the ’Bubble’, outside the usual suspects, but also the next generation. I first came to the Office as a graduate student and, he and I stayed in touch throughout the rest of his life. But even in his last years, he just thrived around younger scholars. It goes with that kind of inquisitive questioning mind; he always wanted to hear different voices, and different approaches.

Beatrice Heuser: Can I just ask you on another line of inquiry, this multiplicity of interest that he had, and the way in which he was interested also in strategic culture, in different ways of doing things. There's one comment about how, when he was studying the Soviet arsenal, what he came away with was to say how impressed he was about how different it was and how different the Soviet thinking about nuclear weapons was, which other people would then call strategic culture.

Are strategic culture and historical trends universally recognized as important for net assessment?

Thomas Mahnken: They should be, let's put it that way. Whether it's net assessment or long-term competition, you know, the fact that you have interaction of competitors, who are very different, who are marked by their history, by their culture; it really is fundamental. So much International Relations theory is premised on states being unitary actors, being like-actors, receiving and processing information reliably and, and just, and just kind of, you know, bouncing off of each other.

I think what Marshall saw, and this really does go back to his early days at the RAND Corporation, what he saw when he looked at the Soviet Union, and I think we have to try to recapture what that was like, trying to figure out the Soviet Union at a time when we didn't have satellites, we had very few reconnaissance aircraft. We're trying to figure out what the Soviets were all about. And as he and his colleagues looked at that, they saw patterns of behaviour very different from those of the United States. They saw the Soviets investing in air defence on a massive scale in a way that the United States wasn't doing; as the Soviet nuclear arsenal began to take shape doing things very differently than the United States was doing. And Marshall, as one of a relatively small group of people that had access to some of the most sensitive information available at the time, he was able to take those insights and really run with them, including in this area of organisational culture, strategic culture. Just this basic insight that we had a competitor that did things very differently than we did.

Paul O’Neill: You started off talking about the complexity of knowing yourself and knowing your adversary, and I can see how in the context of the United States versus the Soviets, where you've got two primary actors, you might actually be able to get your head around some of that. But one of the great successes I think that Andy Marshall has had, is that it's spawned this desire for Offices of Net Assessment around the world. But I wonder whether either he had a view or you have a view as to how realistic that is, because if you are not a superpower, you can't act alone; and therefore it's not only a case of knowing yourself and your adversaries, but knowing yourself and all of the other people that you need to be working with, and your adversary and all of the other people they may be working with. So, is it a realistic prospect to try to emulate what Andy Marshall was doing in the US-Soviet era in the more complex global era today, in countries that aren't the global hegemon, such as the United States?

Thomas Mahnken: Well, first off, I'll admit my bias, right. So, as somebody who's interested in strategy, and interested in strategic studies, I believe that all times, all places, everywhere, it always makes sense to think strategically and it's always beneficial to some extent. So that's my bias. But beyond my bias, I think it happens to be true.

Having the ability to do strategic assessment is valuable whether you are a superpower or a middle power or a smaller power. From the very beginning, the Office of Net Assessment was interested not just in the United States and the Soviet Union, but also looking at, say, the NATO-Warsaw Pact balance. Two very different alliances, of course. So, it's not just something, you know, for superpowers. I could make the argument that strategy is most in need when one's margin of superiority is waning or is the least, right, and I think that certainly has been the American experience, which is people get most interested in net assessment and military balances when they're concerned about the military balance. When you think your way ahead, then why worry about it? You just sort of spend your way out of the problem. For middle powers, for regional powers, doing a good job of assessment is even more important than for a superpower.

Paul O’Neill: Is it a different kind of job though to the one that was being done by the United States, or is it fundamentally the same process, and it's just that there are additional, more complex actors?

Thomas Mahnken: I think the net assessment approach is transferable. I think, regardless of whether you are sitting in in Washington, or in London, or Brussels, or Canberra, thinking in terms of complex interaction, thinking in terms of the need to know your enemy and know yourself, I think that can't help but be beneficial. Now does it look different based on your perspective? Sure. It looks different based on what particular aspect, what particular military balance, you're looking at. Thinking about competition in space looks different than competition in ground forces or something like that. And that takes us back to that multidisciplinary approach to net assessment. It's why one size doesn't fit all. That's why one discipline shouldn't be privileged above all others.

Beatrice Heuser: I have two last questions there, and if I may start with one, which is in commissioning work with these many different disciplines. Did it start always with Andy Marshall and his team defining what they were looking for and then asking for bids? Or did they simply encourage people to put forward bids?



Thomas Mahnken: A mixture of the two. So, in some cases there were defined things that they knew that they were interested in. Some of that could be very, very mundane, you know, ’we are looking to develop a long-term data set on X’ just because we need that. But in other cases, many other cases, it was being open to interesting ideas, partially formed ideas that others brought to the Office. Just to pick up on something you said earlier, you talked about Marshall's modesty, and I think that's true, but I think there's, there's something more to it. I once asked him in, in retirement to the extent that you thought you were successful, why were you successful? And he said, “Because I listen to people”. And again, that's so basic, but it is so rare, particularly in the world that we inhabit, where everybody wants to tell you what they think. And Marshall was a listener. He was quiet. He was an introvert, but he was a listener, and he saw the value in that. He saw the strategic value in listening to what other people had to say.

{i]{If I may digress Modiji is a great listener!}[/i]

Beatrice Heuser: And my final, final question to you then is: are we right to consider Andy Marshall as a strategist?

Thomas Mahnken: I really do think so. Again, to borrow from Edward Mead Earl and, and Peter Paret, he was a maker of modern strategy. During the first part of his career, you could say in a more sort of traditional way, a semi-academic way as a researcher and a writer. And then in the second part of his career as a strategist and as a strategic advisor. The man retired after more or less, 65 years of public service in two very different, although related capacities. And I just think that's extraordinary.

Beatrice Heuser: Dr. Mahnken, thank you very much for having made sure that we now all know about this very influential person, Andy Marshall, and we've learned an awful lot in this talk with you. Thank you for having joined us from Washington today.

Thomas Mahnken: My pleasure. Thank you.

Andrew Marshall spent 25 years at the RAND Corporation, which developed methods of analysing the nature of the long-term competition between the US and the Soviet Union. He was recruited by Henry Kissinger to apply these approaches in the National Security Council, and later became the first Director of Net Assessment, a post he held for the next 43 years. His special approach to strategic thinking was interdisciplinary, questioning everything – including past successes – and encouraging out-of-the box thinking.

This week’s guest, Dr Thomas G Mahnken, is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He is a Senior Research Professor at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and currently serves as a member of the congressionally mandated 2022 National Defense Strategy Commission and as a member of the Army Science Board.

The views or statements expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by RUSI employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of RUSI.

Recommended reading

Marshall, Andrew W: ‘Long-Term Competition with the Soviets: A Framework for Strategic Analysis’, R-862-PR (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1972).

Adamsky, Dmitry (Dima): ‘The art of net assessment and uncovering foreign military innovations: Learning from Andrew W Marshall’s legacy’, Journal of Strategic Studies 43:5 (2020), pp. 611–644.

Mahnken, Thomas G (ed.): Net Assessment and Military Strategy: Retrospective and Prospective Essays (Cambria Press, 2020).

Rosen, Stephen Peter: ‘The impact of the office of net assessment on the American military in the matter of the revolution in military affairs’, Journal of Strategic Studies Vol. 33 No. 4 (2010), pp. 469–482.

Petrelli, Niccolò: ‘Analytical innovation in intelligence systems: the US national security establishment and the craft of ‘net assessment’, Intelligence and National Security Vol. 37 No. 1 (2022), pp. 1–18.

Marshall, Andrew W: Reflections on Net Assessment, eds. Jeffrey S McKitrick and Robert G Angevine (Andrew W Marshall Foundation and Institute for Defense Analyses, 2022).

Augier, Mie: ‘Thinking about war and peace: Andrew Marshall and the early development of the intellectual foundations for net assessment’, Comparative Strategy Vol. 32 (2013), pp. 1–17.

Cyrano
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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Col Douglas Macgregor''s book Margin of Victory might be worth reading.

ramana
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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An appraisal of 1971 operations by Maj Gen Jogindar Singh (Retd).

Link: http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spot ... -1971-war/
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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Read the critique of the operation in the Western Sector.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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ramana wrote:An appraisal of 1971 operations by Maj Gen Jogindar Singh (Retd).

Link: http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spot ... -1971-war/
The Russians in comparison are not as good as us. They have some major shortcomings in prosecuting the offensive in Ukraine which we solved in 1971. We ensured that the major strike components were synergized with local proxies and that they were of sufficient size before stepping into the conflict. The Kremlin was too overconfident in the beginning that Kiev would sign away territory but the US stepped in and they ensured this dragged on. They had to pull out losing momentum and restart major campaigns while training conventional forces. More to say but really impressed with the performance of Indian military. Should be studied more.
ramana
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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Not in this thread.
We have two threads to study Ukraine ops.
Please post there.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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ramana wrote:Not in this thread.
We have two threads to study Ukraine ops.
Please post there.
It's an important to show that there were critical operational maneuvers and logistics which were actually solved by Indian armed forces in 1971 which Russia is trying to figure out now. My post wasn't only about Ukraine war.
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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Revisiting air power in Falkland war.

https://t.co/ARLKvJXDga
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridg ... strategiya
Strategiya: The Foundations of the Russian Art of Strategy. Edited by Ofer Fridman. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2021.

A shroud of myth and legend surrounds Russian strategy. As far back as the 1980s, the U.S. began looking at the widespread use of precision-guided munitions and other associated technology because the Russians had an allegedly more advanced conception of their potential. In 1982, the operational level of war debuted in U.S. doctrine, allegedly because it existed in Soviet doctrine. In recent years, a strategy of hybrid warfare or gray zone operations or liminal warfare has been attributed to Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces General Valery Gerasimov.[1] These are not examples of perfidious Russian strategic communication or maskirovka camouflage, rather it is merely a consequence that few in the West can access Russian sources and see for themselves what the Russians are actually saying.

THE ONLY WAY TO COMBAT SUCH MISCONCEPTIONS IS TO TAKE THE RUSSIANS AT THEIR WORD.


The only way to combat such misconceptions is to take the Russians at their word. Specifically, by reading their words. Strategiya: The Foundations of the Russian Art of Strategy, edited by Dr. Ofer Fridman, Lecturer at King’s College London, is one of the best weapons available. Alongside The Russian Understanding of War by Oscar Jonsson, Strategiya is one of the best ways to access Russian strategic thinking short of being able to read the Russian language.[2] The book provides selections from works written mostly by Russian officers who fled the Bolshevik regime, thus providing a lens on a Russian thought were it not derailed by Marxist-Leninist ideology and Stalin’s purges of Russian generals. Had this tradition remained, Russia might not have found itself in its current situation.

Fridman opens the book with a short introduction about these writers and why he chose to highlight them. Then he gets out of the way and lets them speak for themselves. All of the writers had military experience in the Russian Imperial Army, the White Army, or the Red Army with the exception of one. Anton Antonovich Kersnovsky was only 13 when he fled Russia during the Russian Civil War. He wrote on military affairs as an expatriate civilian between the world wars. When World War II broke out, he joined the French Army and fought against his former country’s ally, Nazi Germany, and was seriously wounded. He died of tuberculosis in 1944.

Fridman’s introduction ably sets up the reader to find, through reading these selections, that the conventional wisdom on Russian strategy includes a number of impressions that are shattered by these works.

The biggest bubble that Fridman bursts with this book is the belief that Russia has in recent years developed a conception of hybrid war or gray zone operations or liminal warfare that seeks to exploit a supposedly myopic Western conception of conflict that sees only war or peace. In reality, this is part of the Russian strategic tradition going back well over a century. All of the works mention the importance of political agitation and what George Kennan called political warfare prior to or during a conflict.[3] Yet, these writers are not part of some exotic Eastern or non-Western tradition, a common trope usually fueled by shallow comparisons of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. In fact, all of these writers are rooted in Western education and Western traditions. All of them mention Clausewitz’s description of war as politics with the addition of violent means along the spectrum of conflict from limited to unlimited aims. These views are neither new nor non-Western. They are applications of the most influential and allegedly the most conventionally-minded of Western theorists.

THE IDEA OF AN OPERATIONAL LEVEL OF WAR SIMPLY DID NOT EXIST IN RUSSIAN OR SOVIET WORKS PRIOR TO ITS ADOPTION BY THE U.S. ARMY, ALLEGEDLY BECAUSE OF ITS IMPORTANCE TO SOVIET WARFIGHTING. IN FACT, THESE WRITERS STRONGLY FAVOR THE OPPOSITE: AN UNDERSTANDING OF WARFARE THAT INVOLVES NOT TACTICS AND STRATEGY SEGREGATED BY OPERATIONS BUT MORE INTEGRATION. :roll:

Another common assumption—really a myth—is the Russian invention of the operational level of war. Just as Soviet doctrine includes no such idea, neither do these non-Soviet Russian writers.[4] The idea of an operational level of war simply did not exist in Russian or Soviet works prior to its adoption by the U.S. Army, allegedly because of its importance to Soviet warfighting. In fact, these writers strongly favor the opposite: an understanding of warfare that involves not tactics and strategy segregated by operations but more integration. For example, General of the Infantry Genrich Antonivich Leer (1829-1904) writes in the first selection:

“In reality, strategy and tactics are two constantly fused sides in every military affair. It is impossible to draw a distinguishing line separating them. The main goal of theory should not be an attempt to separate them, but to show how they are infinitely interwoven in each military affair.”[5]

Where Soviet writing lacks the concept of an operational level, these writers seem to go further and argue against it. The closest analogue is the phrase operatika to depict an idea similar to modern operational art. This is a phrase unique to these works, as it does not appear in Soviet doctrine. Fridman is careful to contextualize this and helpfully points out in footnotes that this idea should not be viewed as an early version of the operational level of war.



The overarching theme of these writers is not that the operational level lacks political factors but focuses on the political nature of war and the importance of the political context. Political warfare is not unique, it is simply an aspect of shaping the strategic context. The idea of an operational level, or levels at all, where politics is not present would be seen as simply absurd. The common thread that unites all of the writers is that they are steeped in a tradition of war that views it as a fundamentally political and social act. Unsurprisingly, the only strategic theorist mentioned by every single author is Clausewitz, although not all of them mention him favorably. Nevertheless, they all see political factors as pervasive, even for tactical decisions. As Donald Stoker has pointed out, it is this pervasiveness, the idea that “political goals affect every level of military activity,” that differentiates Clausewitz and the Clausewitzian tradition from others, not just the identification of war as a political act which was pointed out by other writers first.[6] It is this pervasive political and social context which makes mental and moral factors so important. Indeed, more important than material factors. It is also the aspect of Clausewitz most frequently ignored by Americans in and out of uniform. The Russians here do not ignore it and their focus on the political aspects of conflict is obvious throughout their works. It is also something they share with Bolshevik/Soviet writers, although the writers in this book give full vent to their disdain for them. The exceptions are Leer, who died before the rise of the Bolsheviks, and Lieutenant General Evgeny Ivanovich Martynov (1864-1937), who joined them and the Red Army, a service for which they rewarded him with summary execution in 1937. The mistaken belief in a new Russian “gray zone” way of war is not the result of Russian thinking, but of American ignorance of the subject.

It is ironic, then, that the modern Russian military could so seriously misjudge the political situation regarding Ukraine in 2022. The Kremlin launched an invasion of Ukraine on the presumption that Ukrainians would lack the political will to fight, the political leadership to do so effectively, and that NATO countries would lack the political unity to support them.[7] Three swings, three misses. The importance of a people’s will to fight, a theme of On War and the works in Strategiya, is directly applicable to the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War. Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian military believed that modern precision-guided and digital technology would diminish the importance of political will in war, the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs. This idea seemed to be confirmed by the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and subsequent American operations in the 1990s where the Iraqi Army seemingly lost the will to fight in the face of American technological advantage. In reality, Saddam Hussein and similar regimes give their people no reason to fight, whatever the odds. And so Putin continues a disastrous conflict in Ukraine, unable to understand that a people’s will to fight is affected less by what they have to fight against and more by what they have to fight for.

THE MISTAKEN BELIEF IN A NEW RUSSIAN “GRAY ZONE” WAY OF WAR IS NOT THE RESULT OF RUSSIAN THINKING, BUT OF AMERICAN IGNORANCE OF THE SUBJECT.

Both China and Russia believe modern technology will produce “non contact” or “contactless” warfare where adversaries sling ever more advanced missiles at each other without their maneuver or surface forces ever making contact to slug it out for territory and access.[8] Ironically, both point to the U.S. military as having proven the concept, although U.S. maneuver and surface forces are still the centerpiece of its doctrine. Would that modern Russia remembered this lost tradition of strategic thinking that focuses on mental and moral forces as more powerful and more important than technology, they may not have made the mistake of invading Ukraine in the first place.

The biggest downside to the book is its readability. Russian writing can be dense and stodgy at the best of times, and Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century was not the best of times. Of course, Fridman’s purpose here is not readability but resurrection. The works selected have long been inaccessible to non-Russian speakers and were chosen because of their influence among Russians, their applicability to modern Russian thinking and events, and, most importantly, to replace myths with facts. In that goal, the book certainly succeeds.
However, it was Operational Art that helped the Soviets defeat the Nazi German Army. By quoting Russian instead of Soviet generals maybe missing the forest?
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

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https://www.usiofindia.org/publication- ... -View.html
Net Assessment: The Art of Long View
Author : Major General Sanjeev Chowdhry (Retd),




Abstract

Net Assessment (NA) provides decision makers with a deep insight into national security management and is a tool for relative analysis of military balances between competing nations or even potential competitors.2 These assessments range from weapon comparisons to those at the regional or world level. The end state of any net assessment is to evolve long-term military strategic efforts to achieve the desired military edge. The key aspect of the procedure is the environmental scan which is carried out by a range of tools and techniques. Scenario building is an essential ingredient of any net assessment which is a methodology to test the current strategy and check if it would work in the diverse types of futures expected to arise. The benefits of net assessment are invaluable, and India needs to take it up for future strategic initiatives.

Introduction

Post-World War II, a significant weakness in strategic planning was acknowledged, and it emerged that adequate attention was not being given to long-term evaluation of the emerging competitions. The entire strategic picture was never put together and, hence, the need was for real diagnosis and not just threat assessments to justify military strategies.

Net Assessment (NA), as an instrument for military strategic analysis, has now become an important strategic tool in national security management systems and is being undertaken in a number of countries. In the USA, the Net Assessment group as part of the National Security Council was formed in 1972 under a Presidential Decree. It was converted to the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) and transferred to the DoD in 1973. The director ONA is responsible for providing the Secretary of Defence, and other senior leaders, with independent comparative assessments of the prospects of the military capabilities of the United States relative to other actors, as well as the political, economic and regional implications of those assessments.3 The US Congress made NA of military competition a required function under the law when it directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff with responsibility for conducting such assessments.

The term ‘Net Assessment’ is a combination of two distinct words Net and Assessment, where Net implies the consideration of all aspects and perspectives significant to the problem at hand and Assessment means the systematic process of analysis, appraisal, and review to determine the salient information to develop knowledge. As per Paul Bracken, a professor of political science and business at Yale University, the best way to define NA is to understand that it is a practice and not an art (like military judgment), or a science (like chemistry). A properly conducted NA will provide the policymaker with adequate information to allow the building of successful objectives, goals, and strategies for a nation. But unfortunately, it remains something of a mystery to many.4

In India, the Directorate of Net Assessment (DNA) was created as part of HQ Integrated Defence Staff in 2002, based on the recommendations of the Group of Ministers. It was envisaged that the creation of DNA will facilitate undertaking long and as well as medium terms assessments, outside the perspective planning directorates of the Service Headquarters, comprising the totality of national capabilities (political, military, and economic). However, in comparison with the American ONA, the directorate was not adequately staffed, and neither did it have the requisite mix of civilians and combatants. No permanency was accorded to the organisation, and neither was the intelligence setup integrated. Keeping in view the geo-strategic template of India, the need to have such an organisation is obvious and we need to further empower the organisation.

NA differs from threat assessment. Threat analysis focuses on the strength and weaknesses of the adversary based on a broad judgment of combat capabilities. NA, on the other hand, centres on a greater analysis of strengths and weaknesses by considering factors like state of the economy and its impact on defence spending, national technical base, state of militarily critical technologies, the character of national leadership, national myths, and their impact on decision making, etc. The process deals with issues well beyond current military capabilities.5 NA can be of various types as under:

n Overall Security Environment in the form of global, regional, or national NA.

n Military balances as strategic & operational NA.

n Weapons and force compassion as an operational NA.

n Lessons learned and historical evaluation.

n Special assessments on a case-to-case basis.

Process of NA

The broad methodology commences with identification and articulation of the national vision, followed by identification and articulation of the desired region of nation’s security influence and formulation and implementation of strategies to achieve aspirations and defeat competition.

Steps of Net Assessment

The five steps of the process are explained below:

n Step-1. This involves generation of the need as felt by the decision maker and is the commencement of the Net Assessment Project. The issue that is worrying the decision maker often becomes the subject matter of analysis. An example could be - To evaluate the war-waging potential of Pakistan in the next 15 to 20 years.

n Step-2. This involves theme mapping and is a detailed investigation of the subject. This allows a range of factors to be arranged in a logical sequence and the establishment of interdependency and causal relationships among them. It enables spelling out the contours of a research project and provides a framework for the study. To this end, conduct of seminars/workshops/panel discussions and interaction with experts is necessary. The essential steps of theme mapping are to establish ‘Conceptual Necessity’ and frame the ‘Research Design’ comprising identification of the type of assessment and competing players, the hypothesis, research questions that need to be answered, and the research methodology.

n Step-3. It involves a diagnostic style of comparative analysis using various tools and techniques to scan the environment. The basic steps involved are to work out the present balance analysis, extrapolate the trend analysis, define the key drivers of change, carry out a competitive analysis by comparing concepts and strategies and, finally, identify asymmetries and competitive edges.

n Step-4. Scenarios, which are visualisation of future/alternate futures, are then formulated based on iterative analysis of scenario defining drivers of change.

n Step-5. Because of the net assessment exercise and through simulation and gaming, strategic asymmetries are diagnosed between competitors to identify environmental opportunities to support senior policymakers in the formulation of effective strategies.

Tools and Techniques

Steps 1 and 2 are theoretic and need no elaboration. The most crucial step is Step 3 and there are various tools and techniques available to carry out an environmental scan. Some relevant tools / techniques used in the Net Assessment process are discussed in the succeeding paragraphs.

BMC Analysis. The main drivers of a nation state’s security can be grouped under Base-what is accorded to it by nature, and which may, if at all change very slowly and imperceptibly, e.g., geospatial base, geo-material base, geo-demographic base. Next is Means- man-made competencies which can be utilized to pursue national objectives and aspirations viz military, economic, and political; and finally, the Capacity for collective action which could be politico-social and psychological.

SWOT Analysis. This enables the researcher to identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of competitors. The steps for carrying out such an analysis are:

n Opportunities and Threats, which are always external, are brainstormed and then prioritised by giving out a probability of occurrence/success rating. Those with a high probability of occurrence and high attractiveness are the major opportunities and should be the focus of formulation of strategy while those having a low probability of occurrence and high attractiveness/seriousness should be monitored for change. On the other hand, all those with a high probability of occurrence and high seriousness emerge as major threats. Subsequently, the Strengths and Weaknesses, which are always internal, are evaluated and prioritised. A summary of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and threats is finally rank ordered.

n Once the SWOT review is complete, the future strategy may be readily apparent, or a series of strategy options or combinations will suggest themselves. The SWOT analysis identifies possible strategies, which emerge as S-O, S-T, W-O, and W-T combinations, with the aim being to build on strengths, resolve weaknesses, exploit opportunities, and avoid threats. One S-O strategy could be S1-O1 articulated as, ‘Utilise Strength 1 to Exploit Opportunity 1’ and so on.

n All plausible S-O, S-T, W-O, and W-T options thus developed must be tested for their Environment-Value-Resources congruence. Those found to be congruent may only be considered for final articulation and the making of strategy choices. It must be kept in mind that Environment imposes constraints on the implementation of strategy, Values may not allow a particular strategy option, and Resources required to implement the strategy option may not be available.

Trend Exploitation. This tool uses historical data to gain insight into future developments, i.e., extrapolate to infer the future from the past. Net Assessment looks at long-term trends and ascertains asymmetries and competitive edges between nations, intending to provide decision-makers a sense of future direction in terms of capability development and contours of future competition.

Delphi Technique. Based on the belief that group judgments are more valid than individual judgments, this is a process to survey and collect the opinions of experts on a particular subject. The technique takes place by the controlled elicitation of group opinion by iterative use of questionnaires with selective feedback of earlier responses as an informational input for later reference by group members. It involves a researcher pooling expert opinion about factual questions, particularly in the context of forecasting the future, and is a highly effective tool for decision making.6

De Bono’s Six Hats. The Six Thinking Hats approach was created by Edward de Bono, a Maltese physician, psychologist, and philosopher. The Six Thinking Hats technique gets one to look at a problem in six separate ways. These six perspectives are7,8

n Blue Hat: ‘The Conductor’s Hat’. When you or your team are in blue hat mode, you focus on controlling your thinking and managing the decision-making process. There is an agenda, summaries, and conclusions are reached.

n Green Hat: ‘The Creative Hat’. The green hat represents creative thinking. While donning this hat, one explores a range of ideas and possible ways forward.

n Red Hat: ‘The Hat for the Heart’. This hat represents feelings and instincts. With this hat, one can express feelings without having to justify them logically. It looks at problems using gut intuition, reaction, and emotion.

n Yellow Hat: ‘The Optimist’s Hat’. With yellow hat thinking, you look at issues in the most optimistic light possible. You accentuate the benefits and the added value that could come from your ideas.

n Black Hat: ‘The Judge’s Hat’. This hat plays the Devil’s Advocate and is about being cautious and assessing risks. One employs critical judgment and brings exactly the reasons for the concerns.

n White Hat: ‘The Factual Hat’. The white hat represents data & information gathering and an analytical view. It reflects being neutral and objective and is concerned with data and taking an analytical view. The aim is to look at data and extrapolate a past trend from historical data.

Cross-Impact Analysis. Cross-impact analysis is widely employed to inform management and policy decisions based on the formulation of scenarios, defined as combinations of outcomes of relevant uncertainty factors.9 It is the general name given to a family of techniques designed to evaluate changes in the probability of the occurrence of a given set of events consequent on the actual occurrence of one of them.10 It can help the analyst and forecaster explore how certain factors are likely to interact with each other.11

All the techniques discussed above need not be utilised together. Some or a combination could be attempted depending on the nature of problem at hand.

Scenario Building

Moving to Step 5, a scenario is defined as a context-dependent description of a probable future (fictitious) situation extrapolated from the present (start state), a hypothetical chain of events (the scenario dynamics) leading to a final situation (end state). A scenario must be plausible, internally consistent, based on rigorous analysis engaging, and compelling. Scenarios are stories (or narratives) set in the future, which describe how the world might look in, say, 2025 or 2050. They explore how the world would change if certain trends were to strengthen or diminish, or if various events were to occur. Normally a set of scenarios are developed (between two and five) representing different possible futures, associated with different trends and events. These scenarios are then used to review or test a range of plans and policy options or be used to stimulate the development of new policies, or as the basis for a strategic vision. They are also a useful means of identifying ‘early warning’ indicators that signal a shift towards a certain kind of future.12,13,14,15

Stages. The eight stages to developing scenarios are:

n Stage 1-Initiating a Scenario. This is the first initiating step that defines the purpose of the scenario-building exercise or the focal question. This could be a result of brainstorming. It also lays down the time dimension for the exercise including a period for the development of scenarios and time steps for the development of scenario dynamics (viz, annual time steps, five-yearly time steps, etc). Certain purposes could be16:

o What will the future of Country X / Region Y look like in 10 years? (country / region analysis focus).

o What risks do we face in Country Y over the next 5 years? What contingency plans should we put in place? (Risk management focus).

n Stage 2-Identification of Key Decision Factors. In the next stage, the key decision factors (KDFs) are identified which are critical to the decision. This could also be a result of brainstorming and will help the team to focus on what is important for planning If Stage 1 has identified Management of National Security up to the year 2030, as the purpose, the KDFs could then be seeking military competitive advantage, economic security and status, self-sufficiency in energy and adequacy of mineral and raw materials for growth, internal socio-economic stability, technology edge to drive key national endeavours, etc.

n Stage 3-Driving Forces. Once the key factors have been listed, the third step involves listing driving forces in the macro-environment that will shape the future of these factors. They could be social, technological, economic, environmental, and political.

n Stage 4-Rank Ordering. Next comes the ranking of key factors and driving forces based on two criteria: first, the degree of importance for the success of the focal issue or decision identified in Stage 1, and second, the degree of uncertainty surrounding those factors and trends. The point is to identify the two or three factors or trends that are most important and most uncertain.

n Stage 5-Scenario Logic. The logic or structure of a given scenario will be characterised by its location in the matrix of forces or divers and involves defining the following:

o Scenario ‘Parameters or Constants’. These are ‘High Impact-Low Uncertainty’ factors identified earlier.

o Scenario ‘Variables or Drivers’. The task team focuses on grouping the ‘High Impact-High uncertainty’ factors – identified as drivers, which revolve around two or more critical axes of uncertainty. Each of these axes presents mutually exclusive different trends referred to as scenario logics. Based on each different logic, separate scenarios need to be developed leading to separate future end states.

o ‘How Many Scenario Logics?’. Each Scenario Logic will dictate as many plausible scenarios as possible. The effort should be to identify those combinations of the behaviour of the drivers which are logical and plausible.

n Stage 6-Scenaro Writing. Having decided on the number of scenarios to be written, a team of experts is constituted to write each scenario. Before commencing on writing the scenario, each team must describe the time dimension (period & time steps), the scenario logic, and the target end state.

n Stage 7-Scenario Analysis. This is where the scenario-building team interprets the scenarios linking them back to the strategic decision(s) identified in Stage 1. Each scenario team must present respective scenarios to the nominated teams and in presence of other teams. A detailed critique must be held, and the presenting team should be able to convince ‘plausibility’ of each development which is part of its ‘scenario dynamics.’ If needed, the scenario team is allowed to go back, rework scenario dynamics, and refine and present the same again.

n Stage 8-Selection of Leading Indicators and Signposts. It is important to know as soon as possible which of several scenarios is closest to the course of history as it unfolds. Once the different scenarios have been fleshed out and their implications for the focal issue determined, then it is worth spending time and imagination on identifying a few indicators to monitor in an ongoing way. Each scenario will be analysed for its impact on the organisation and derive ‘Decision Needs’ to exploit opportunities and avert threats.

Formulation of Strategy

The decisive step in the process of Net Assessment is to formulate effective strategies to face the probable future and not get surprised by it. It also entails taking mid-course strategy corrections as projected scenarios pan out on the time horizon.

Conclusion

Depth and width of inquiry and analysis is the basic requirement of the Net Assessment process. The concept of jointness is thus epitomised by this process and a Net Assessment practitioner is by necessity a practitioner of jointness as well. It is impossible to carry out a worthwhile Net Assessment by confining the inquiry and analysis to just one or a few aspects. Even if the Net Assessment project is confined to a specific functional aspect like a maritime balance between two competitors it will still require examination of many other factors that will impact the specific balance.

Net Assessment is like the stock market. Everyone on Dalal Street has the same information available to them about stock prices and company performance. Balance sheets and operating statements of companies are public information and are readily obtainable. But some players do better than others. Having data is important. But it is not enough. Time after time some players use information that is available to all to make a lot more money than other players. The Net Assessment uses data that is widely available and creates Strategic Insights that lead to Decisive Advantage.

As per Peter Schwarz, using Scenarios is like rehearsing the future.17 You run through the simulated events as if you were already living them. You train yourself to recognise which drama is unfolding. It helps you avoid unpleasant surprises and know how to act in your interest.

Endnotes

1 Summary The Art of the Long View – SlideShare https://www.slideshare. net/ramadd1951/summary-the-art-of-the-long-view

2 https://ids.nic.in/

3 James H. Baker > U.S. Department of Defense > Biography

4 Net Assessment: A Practical Guide Paul Bracken, https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=460780

5 Op cit https://ids.nic.in/

6 Research guidelines for the Delphi survey technique https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... lines_for_ the_Delphi_Survey_Technique/link/5c6c136f299bf1e3a5b3d408/download

7 Six Thinking Hats®, Looking at a Decision in Different Ways https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_07.htm

8 What are the six thinking hats https://faun.pub/what-are-the-six-think ... bdd2ac48b6

9 Using cross-impact analysis for probabilistic risk assessment, Ahti Salo,Edoardo Tosoni,Juho Roponen,Derek .W. Bunn, Online Library, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... 2/ffo2.103

10 Crosss Impact Analysis, http://foresight-platform.eu/community/ ... -analysis/

11 Cross-impact analysis Alan Porter and Huaidong Xu, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10. ... 90.9726770

12 The Use of Scenarios in Long Term Defence Planning https://plausiblefutures.wordpress.com/ ... -planning/

13 Scenario Planning and Analysis https://saylordotorg.github.io/ text_international-business/s12-05-scenario-planning-and-analysis.html

14 On Scenario Planning https://mycourses.aalto.fi/ pluginfile.php/1172197/mod_folder/content/0/On%20Scenario%20Planning%20.pdf? forcedownload=1

15 Scenario Planning - Global Interagency Security Forum https://gisf.ngo/resource/scenario-planning

16 Scenario Planning https://gisf.ngo/wp-content/uploads /2020/02/0350-Rhyddarch-2009-Foresight-Horizon-Scanning-Centre-Scenario-Planning.pdf

17 Rehearsing The Future – Making Better Strategic Decisions https://www.b2binternational.com/public ... -planning/

@Major General Sanjeev Chowdhry (Retd) is a graduate of the DSSC Wellington, and College of Defence Management. He commanded a new raising Composite Artillery Brigade and a Subarea. He served as DDG (Artillery) looking after modernisation and as Director (Net Assessment). His instructional tenures include one at Special Frontier Force Academy and at Defence Services Staff College.

Journal of the United Service Institution of India, Vol. CLII, No. 629, July-September 2022.



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Y I Patel
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by Y I Patel »

The article mentions that what is now fashionably called hybrid warfare was practiced by Russia/USSR a century ago. What it leaves out is that this kind of hybrid warfare including instigating uprisings was widespread practice leading up to WW-1 by the British, Germans, Russians et al. So this feigning that it is some kind of a new development just serves to whitewash history
ramana
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Re: Operational Art or War Doctrine

Post by ramana »

I think the West is having a crisis of confidence and finding willing charlatans to boost morale.

Long ago Genghis Khan used to send informants to spread the news about the cruelty of his troops and make the enemy lose confidence.

Also read about his general Subutai who practiced early form of operational art.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subutai
He often gained victory by means of imaginative and sophisticated strategies and routinely coordinated movements of armies that operated hundreds of kilometers apart from each other.
And Deep Battle
Russia derived the most use out of a careful study of the Mongol campaigns. Their closer proximity to the steppe gave them greater interest and access to the Mongolian campaigns, first analyzed by the Russian General Mikhail Ivanin in the 19th century, which became a recommended text in the Russian military academies up until the mid 20th century.[61] Ivanin's work became used in the Deep Battle doctrine developed by Soviet Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Mikhail Frunze, and G. S. Isserson. Deep Battle doctrine bore a heavy resemblance to Mongol strategic methods, substituting tanks, motorized troop carriers, artillery, and airplanes for Mongol horse archers, lancers, and field artillery. The Red Army even went so far as to copy Subutai's use of smokescreens on the battlefield to cover troop movements.[62] Later in the 20th century, American military theorist John Boyd and some of his followers used Genghis Khan and Subutai's campaigns as examples of maneuver warfare.[63]
And these jokers want to re-write history.
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