Examining the war of counter insurgency and war on terrorism is possible to affirm that the idea of strategy is partly forgotten. Sun Tzu affirmed that the enemy could be defeated attacking its weakness and Machiavelli that is necessary to cut the resources that the adversary makes strong. These concepts are not applied for defeating the adversaries, because technology is considered a lot.
Paolo

But good provoking stuff nonetheless and thanks for the tip on Coker – I will check him out.

And apologies for having violated your pragmatic, necessary and welcome posting-policy (‘be sensible, be polite’) with my poor attempts at lame humour. As Jim Storr said somewhere recently: ‘doctrine is not inherently funny.’ I’ll try to be more thoughtful in future.

Combined arms. Most broad functions were established (aside from perhaps cyber and space weapons systems and doctrines) some time ago. So what did I mean when, having praised the timeless virtues of combined arms, I wrote that

‘the types of arms combined today are not the combined arms of the Somme, the bocage, or the advance to the Yalu. Ditto the societies combining them and the nature of enemies they are combined against.’?

I meant just that. The devil is in ‘type’, which you use broadly as synonymous with role, but I use more narrowly as referring to characteristics and capabilities. These have certainly changed, partly in response to advances in technology, partly in response to societal (or, whisper it, cultural) trends. For that reason, our armed forces must deploy violence in ways that they would not have done previously. The development of non-lethal munitions, bombs with smaller yields and unmanned weapons platforms are responses to some of these trends. That goes some way beyond ‘lozenge shaped tanks’, I suggest, into a qualitative transformation of what weapons can and should do.

For more on which try some Christopher Coker – especially his Humane War and War in an Age of Risk.

No, trust me, you did demand to be challenged. True you did not _ask_ to be challenged, as such. It’s a bit like going into a rough pub and engaging the resident cage-fighter’s girlfriend in suggestive banter. You are not, at that point, demanding a mano-e-mano fist-fight to the finish but, having set a particular course, one must not be surprised at the outcome…

Now come on: ‘the types of arms combined today are not the combined arms of the Somme, the bocage, or the advance to the Yalu.’ If you mean that there has been some paradigm shift (?) in the nature of combined operations then I would be interested in learning more. But if you simply mean that the tanks aren’t lozenge-shaped and the planes aren’t biplanes anymore then true enough – but somewhat a trite observation, non? Nothing wrong there, of course, everyone has a right to triteness. I seldom exhibit any other quality.

Thanks for clarifying the culture point: I’m only scraping along because I am slow. Recently I have got used to someone pointing to ‘cultural differences’ – then everyone nods wisely and drifts away from the problem. We do need to think more clearly about what we mean by culture and your post is a good start.

Respectfully,
T

you tend to treat cultures as primarily national in their scope. But there is decent evidence that modern militaries, not unlike those of the late 18th/early 19th centuries, are cosmopolitan. They are part of an international professional military class. They study each other, they attend each other’s staff colleges and academies, and now and again (as with Clausewitz in Russia) they hire foreign advisors into their militaries. You cannot understand the evolution of Japanese strategic culture without the role of the British navy and the Prussian army (not to mention the Wilhelmine constitution).

This might also apply to the Brit, French and German chaps you mentioned. They will differ -but they will also overlap mightily, I suggest.

On your Napoleonic point: isn’t it the case that the time and opportunity of that long war enabled N’s enemies to adapt and emulate his model? Wasn’t this factor just as important as Hegel?

So I would take a more cross-border definition of culture here.

Is AQ strategic, then. Does it have goals? Yes. Does it have theories of violence. Yes. Can you have strategy with only limited C2. Answer, yes. See Dima Adamsky in the latest Studies in Conflict and Terrorism for a start to answering that question. Common doctrine and mission command allow for instrumental violence with limited structure.

Combined arms – I didn’t demand to be challenged.

I am clearer on your cultural point (I think): the Prussian reaction to the disaster of Jena-Auerstadt being a great case study. People adapt, got it. But we still need to define ‘culture’, don’t we? Let’s take a punt: could you not argue that Prussia, analysing and reverse-engineering the Napoleonic art of war, produced something that was really a product of Prussian, rather than French culture? They didn’t break copyright. They applied all that good Hegelian/Kantian/Prussian cultural rigour to synthesise a system that was a good deal more intellectually grounded than what the French had been doing. After all Nappy was a genius, but a practical genius in the main, not really a great theory man. I know, I know: I will read the book!

I agree with you that the Islamists are borrowing concepts (Hegel again!) from the West. But if they are then they certainly aren’t applying them in any way that a western strategist would understand. Islamist terrorists don’t seem to be using violence to achieve policy goals in a concrete utility of force sense. You just have to look at UBL’s latest pronouncement on climate change etc to see the dreadful futility of his murderous cause. Now that is not to say that what he is doing doesn’t make ‘sense’ from his own cultural perspective – but doesn’t that show that he is following his own cultural path rather than adopting a western outlook?

Finally, having scraped over your cultural speed bump, you demand to be challenged over your combined arms assertion. I don’t get it: in Afghanistan today there are infantry, armour, artillery, and air all co-operating together. If there was any salt-water nearby then I’m pretty sure there would be naval gunfire too. In what way is this any different from 1918 onwards? Yes, yes, I know the kit is fancier, more expensive etc, but conceptually where/how do you see the break?