Land Warfare in the 21 st Century (II) – [ed.1993]

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE CONDUCT OF LAND WARFARE

Technological innovations, many of which were dramatically demonstrated in the Gulf War, are giving rise to what is being called a “military-technical revolution.” This “revolution” will have a dramatic effect on the Army and land warfare through five dominant trends: lethality and dispersion; volume and precision of fire; integrative technology; mass and effects, and invisibility and detectability.

Lethality and Dispersion.

Over time, weaponry has become more lethal and individuals and units more dispersed. Lethality and dispersion are linked.²⁶ Rifling, introduced in mass during the mid-19th century, extended the range and accuracy of the individual weapon and artillery piece. This development forced individuals to go to ground and disperse. As rifles and artillery became more effective, units could no longer deploy in the dense, shoulder-to-shoulder formations that marked the age of the musket.[27]

Throughout the history of land warfare, tactics, organizations, doctrine, equipment, force mix, and methods of command and control all changed in response to increasing lethality and dispersion. These changes, in turn, had a corresponding effect on training, soldiers, and leaders.[28] The Gulf War saw an even greater increase in dispersion and improvement in the ability to deliver long-range lethal fires. Table 1 indicates that this increase can no longer be described geometrically for the changes witnessed in the Gulf were exponential changes. MRLS, Apache, Patriot, Lance, ATACMs, Abrams, Bradley–especially in conjunction with space-based platforms, the weapons delivery and maneuver systems of other services, and equipment like the laser designator and the position guidance system–all confirm that the trend toward increased lethality at greater ranges and increased dispersion of individuals and units are still at work. Furthermore, the trend will result in changes in tactics, organization, doctrine, equipment, force mix, and methods of command–just as it did in the past.

Post-industrial land forces will become more mobile, creating the requirement to communicate over greater distances, to maneuver more quickly, and to use fires from platforms of all services that are dispersed over greater distances. This trend will place a great premium on the commander’s ability to make decisions quickly, the staff’s requirement to synchronize the movements of greatly dispersed units, and the subordinate leader’s responsibility to make on-the-spot decisions within a senior commander’s intent. Greater dispersion will also place a great premium upon unit cohesion. Long acknowledged as one of the most fundamental, if not the most essential, building blocks of fighting power,[29] unit cohesion will be much harder to sustain in widely dispersed units, but no less required. One could build a good case, in fact, that the importance of quality soldiers and leaders and the need for excellent unit cohesion grows in parallel with the level of dispersion.

Volume and Precision of Fire.

The second trend concerns two factors: first, volume of fire (tonnage delivered in a given time) and precision. The volume of fire was low during the age of muzzle-loading individual weapons and artillery. The rate and volume of fire began to increase, however, with the introduction of breach-loading rifles, smokeless powder, magazines, belts, and other automatic loading devices. The move from muscle to machine–i.e. mechanization, motorization, and aviation–also contributed to the increased rate at which fire could be delivered. Not only could weaponry produce more lethal effects, but also produce them more frequently. “Ultimately the net effect of the progress in weapons technology,” Martin van Creveld points out, was to increase enormously the volume of fire that could be delivered, the range, at which it could be delivered, and the accuracy with which this could be done. The combination of all three factors meant that . . . the battlefield became a more deadly place than ever before.[30]

The trend in increased volume of fire culminated in an Army’s ability to deliver tactical nuclear weapons. Of course, with the increase in fire volume came corresponding changes in other areas of land combat: the use of entrenchments, the development of protected spaces on the battlefield like the tank and infantry fighting vehicles, and organizational changes like the U.S. Pentomic division of the 1950s and the flexible divisional structure of the 1970s and 80s. These evolutions affected not only weapons, equipment, organization, and tactics but also planning factors like casualty rates, logistic resupply rates, and the balance among combat/combat support/combat service support forces.

Along with an army’s ability to deliver an increased volume of fire came the rise in precision. Dragons, TOWs, laser-aimed  individual weapons; precision aiming systems such as those on the Abrams and Bradley; longer range precision weapons systems like Apache, LANCE, ATACMS, and MRLS; laser designators that guide artillery rounds as well as the bombs delivered by aircraft of other services; “brilliant” munitions now in development–all confirm the trend toward increased precision accompanying increased volume.

As was the case with the growth in the volume of fire, the rise in precision will change the weapons, equipment, organization, and tactics of 21st-century land forces. Planning factors will be as different for the armies of the 21st century compared to the 20th century as 20th century armies differed from those of the 19th. The introduction of high-energy weapons, electro-magnetic rail gun technology, super conductivity, and other yet-to-be-identified technological improvements will continue the upward trend lines of fire, volume and precision. The greatly dispersed land forces of the 21st century will continue to increase their ability to deliver a high volume of precisely aimed fires with a very high first-round-hit probability. This ability will be increased even further when one considers the result of integrative technology.

Integrative Technology.

Integrative technology will introduce a level of precision to the overall force, not just to individual and massed fires, that has been impossible up to this point in the history of land combat. In the 21st century, the systems of land forces will become an integrated circuit that is, in turn, part of a network of combined land/air/sea/space forces. With this integration network will come improved precision at the point of battle.

Napoleon introduced a “visual telegraph,” called the Chappe, as a rapid means to transmit his orders. Under the right conditions, he could communicate with his subordinates 120 miles away in about an hour. This innovation increased his ability to coordinate the actions of his subordinate forces.[31]

Modern integrative technology, however, started with the telegraph and railroad–two systems that, when joined, revolutionized warfare.[32] The telegraph moved information around the battlefield quickly. Information assisted command and control, improved unity of effort, and increased the potential for coordinated effort and agility throughout the theater of operation or of war. The railroad provided the means to realize the potential that the telegraph offered. Rail made it possible to move large numbers of troops, equipment, supplies, and weapons systems quickly. Furthermore, the management and organization of the railroad–from the operation of loading docks to the computation of time/distance factors necessary to schedule rail use–integrated the information system of the telegraph, the delivery system of the railroad, and the command and control system of the military.[33]

First by field wire, then by the introduction of radio and aviation, the use of integrative technology expanded in scope. Each improvement widened the ground commander’s ability to orchestrate all the intelligence assets, weapons systems, maneuver forces, and logistical units at his disposal. Complexity accompanied this growth, making staffs more necessary and synchronization of functions more important. Interestingly, two false beliefs accompanied each improvement: first, that some extraordinary technological advance yet to take place would result in the land commander acquisition of “perfect, real-time” information upon which to base his decisions and direct his subordinates; second, that greater centralization in decision making would yield greater combat effectiveness at the point of battle.

Realities on the battlefield, however, proved otherwise. The very nature of war consists of fear, fog, danger, uncertainty, deception, and friction–these are not conditions that can ever generate “perfect information.”[34] Reports that a commander receives are often incomplete and incorrect. An enemy commander strives to deceive his adversary, hiding what he does as best he can; what one sees on the battlefield, therefore, must be interpreted. Interpretation faces the same impairments that we noted above in connection with obtaining information. Certainly, advanced technologies, multiple collection methods, and other means can increase the reliability of information and aid in decision making. The realities of what goes on in combat, however, will frustrate forever those searching for “perfect, real-time” information. To hope for technology that will be capable of gathering and using such information to feed a centralized military decision making system is to hope in vain. Developing subordinate commanders who are able to make decisions on-the-spot within the intent of their higher commander–that is, decentralization not centralization–will remain vital even into the 21st century.

Withal, the search for integrative technology on today’s battlefield goes on. The links between scout and attack helicopter, between JSTARS and weapons delivery platforms (air and ground), between forward ground elements and rear positioned indirect fire systems, between tanks of an M1A2 unit–all have produced a quantum leap in the use of integrative technology. Like the leap produced by the increased volume of precision fires and greater battlefield dispersion, increased integrative technology is important in its effects. Extensive, near-real time communications among a number of intelligence gathering systems, maneuver systems, fire systems, and logistical support systems provide the ground commander with a potentially revolutionary opportunity and with monumental challenges.

The opportunity is the integration of the reconnaissance and intelligence gathering systems (technological and human) with command and control, fire delivery, and maneuver nodes. Once all are linked digitally to logistical support centers, these task forces will become combined arms task forces qualitatively different from the ones we now have. The degree of situational awareness that a commander will have under these conditions will be orders of magnitude better than he has now. It would not be too bold to claim that his perception of the battlefield will change. The computation of combat power and logistical planning factors, the determination of the proper ratio among combat, combat support, and combat service support, as well as a definition of each of the operating systems and their interrelationships–will require rethinking. Significant further adjustments in doctrine, organization, and command and control, as well as service relationships, also will be necessary.

The digitization of the battlefield is a major leap-ahead in the conduct of warfare, but not a break from the past. The limiting factor in the quest for making maximum use of integrative technology will not be the hardware, it will be human and organizational. Integrative technologies will enhance the ability of commanders and their units to fight with scarce assets. The complete use of integrative technologies will revolutionize command and staff procedures. Software will allow much of the information now transmitted by radio and synchronized on acetate and charts to be self-synchronized automatically, computer to computer. Smart command and control systems will create a common perception of the battlefield and the theater among members of a joint task force. This perception, in turn, will facilitate the rapid massing of combat assets–precise weapons systems and maneuver forces–to attain objectives decisively. Such a development will not eliminate the necessity for staffs and commanders, but the art and science of decisionmaking and staff synchronization will change radically.

The challenges that accompany such revolutionary advances in information gathering and use remain as before: increasingly capable integrative technology may, once again, generate the false belief that centralized decision making will result in greater combat effectiveness at the point of battle. As explained previously, however, realities of the battlefield and the nature of war demonstrate otherwise.

Using an earlier leap-ahead technology, the telegraph, Moltke knew that the flow of information would still never reach him fast enough and in enough detail to allow him to command from his headquarters. The cycle of action-reaction-counteraction on the battlefield unfolded much faster than a headquarters could gather information, process it, make a decision, then transmit that decision to those who must execute. Rather than impose new and stricter demands for information to feed a centralized decision and command system, Moltke created units and chose commanders who were able to operate under the conditions of uncertainty and succeed with less information.[35] Integrative technology will increase the tempo of action-reaction-counteraction on the post-industrial battlefield; thus, it will continue to emphasize decentralized decisionmaking and initiative at lower levels of command. The effects of the first three trends–lethality and dispersion, volume of fire and precision, and the use of integrative technology–join in reinforcing a fourth: the trend toward the ability of smaller units to create decisive effects.

Mass and Effects.

Smaller units are able to create decisive effects in three ways. [36] The first is simply physical. The repeating rifle and machine gun, in conjunction with increasingly accurate indirect fires of artillery, began to allow fewer soldiers and smaller units to concentrate the effects of more firepower than their numbers alone would suggest. This is a natural outcome of the first two trends. The volume of deadly fire “emptied” battlefields, but those left on them were far more capable. As motorization, mechanization, aviation, and communication developed and improved, this capability increased. Ground forces not only had at their disposal more lethal weapons that could shoot more often and more accurately, but they could employ weapons systems that were physically located at some distance from the point of battle. Furthermore, ground forces developed the capability to move across, or over, the battlefield much faster, more easily, and with more safety than had their predecessors.

The second way that smaller units can create decisive effects is organizational: mixing arms within a formation. The 19th century version of this phenomenon began with separate infantry, artillery, and cavalry divisions being combined under a single corps headquarters. Over time, mixing arms descended from corps level to combat teams–that is, mixing arms within divisions and regiments like those of the World War II era. The next development produced what came to be called combined arms teams as low as company and troop level. The development of these teams at lower levels gave commanders the opportunity to incorporate direct and indirect fires more easily. As the inclusion of the weapons systems of fixed and rotary wing aviation became a standard and essential element of the combined arms team, commanders were able to add the effects of air platforms to those of the armor, infantry, and field artillery. The result was smaller units being able to produce decisive effects.

Maneuver is the third way that smaller units can create decisive effects. Initially maneuver resulted from muscle power–the foot and horse. However, machine-powered ground systems–the rail, truck, tank, armored personnel carrier, infantry fighting vehicle, self-propelled artillery, and protected combat support and combat service support vehicles–greatly increased land maneuver. When land forces began to include machine-powered air systems–the utility, cargo, scout, and attack helicopters–the conditions were set for another leap in land maneuver. Like the score of a great symphony, each of these movements–first from muscle to machine-powered ground systems then to machine power air systems–began quietly and developed gradually. Each increased mobility, improved opportunities for maneuver, and resulted in greater agility. At each step, improved maneuver capability contributed to the land combat commander’s ability to move over increasingly dispersed areas and converge quickly at the decisive point, thus concentrating effects of both fires and maneuver. Each move thus increased the land force commander’s ability to operate at a faster tempo than before.

The history of land warfare reflects the manner in which various arms have been integrated into the combat team. Initially land combat moved from being conducted by unitary armies to being fought by combined arms, ground-based formations. The second step took place when combined arms, ground-based formations became combined arms, ground/air-based units. Land combat units are currently at this point; however, the movement is not over. The third step will take place when land combat is waged by formations consisting of combined arms, air/ground-based units. This is the direction land combat is now taking. At each step, decisive effects have resulted from ever smaller units.

This development is reinforced by the increased use of integrative technology. Recent integration of land combat units has been primarily, but not exclusively, internal. Internal integration includes the ability of members of a combined arms task force to talk and coordinate among the combat, combat support, and combat service support units of the task force. This integration was, and remains, absolutely essential. In the 21st century, however, internal integration will not be sufficient. To maximize the benefits of maneuver and tempo, increase the firepower available to a land force commander, and synchronize the contributions of all the services, land forces must be fully integrated with air and naval forces. Only then will the commander be able to leverage completely the complementary powers of the joint force.

Thus, when one includes the trend toward increased use of integrative technology, another element in the trend toward a smaller unit’s capability to produce decisive effects can be postulated: the evolution of combined arms into joint arms. The result will be fully integrated joint task forces, including combined arms task forces of multiple services, that can be tailored to fit the specific set of geographic, political, and threat conditions existing in a given situation. In such fully integrated joint task forces, true qualitative change is possible–the whole of such a force will be greater than the sum of the parts. Based upon the situation, an Army brigade task force in conjunction with a Marine Expeditionary Unit, Air Force squadron, and Navy task force–fully integrated under the command and control of a joint task force headquarters–could produce the effects that required, during the World War II era, a much larger force.

In sum, these trends indicate, and the Gulf War as well as Operation JUST CAUSE corroborate, that as the size of the unit decreases, there can be a corresponding increase in the effects it is able to produce if it is equipped with the right technology used by high-quality, well-trained and well-led troops employing proper doctrine. These trends verify that smaller or fewer units will be able to produce decisive effects because of the vast array of weaponry they have at their disposal and the speed with which they will be able to acquire targets, maneuver, employ fires, and relocate. Think of the maneuver possibilities that could be generated for ground or air commanders by very dispersed special operations forces or of the potentially decisive effects these very small forces–integrated into the forces of all services–have when equipped with secure satellite communications, laser designators, and position guidance systems. Small teams in the right place, at the right time, and linked in with the right systems have the potential to produce, or at least contribute to, decisive results.

Once again, a paradigm shift is developing. Many of the old rules of land warfare that concern the calculation of combat power have been shattered already. Individually and collectively, the implications of these moves toward compressing greater firepower in smaller unit packages will require significant adjustments in doctrine, leadership, organization, and command and control as well as service relationships. The limiting factor will not be technological, it will be human and organizational.

Invisibility and Detectability.

The final trend helping to paint the picture of land combat in the 21st century concerns a land force’s ability to hide from the enemy while being able to detect that enemy at greater ranges. In the mid-19th century, invisibility–the ability to hide from the enemy–took the form of movement at night, and the use of trenches, vegetation, and terrain to cover the deployment of troops, equipment, and supplies. Detectability was limited to line of sight–scouts, spies, and cavalry. The balloon and field glasses added range to the human eye as did the aircraft when it was first introduced, but line of sight remained primary.

Electronic intelligence gathering and countermeasures as well as electronic deception developed in the early-to-mid 20th century. This added a new dimension to detectability and invisibility. Electronic means, especially when employed as part of a ground-air-space based system, also provide the ground commander the capability to detect the enemy even beyond the horizon. Using electronic means correctly, land forces can become invisible to their enemy by appearing to be at one place while actually being at another. General Patton’s “dummy” headquarters used to reinforce the German’s belief that the invasion of Europe would occur at the Pas de Calais and to cover Patton’s Third Army’s deployment into France is but one of many examples of how electronic means can produce “invisibility.” Mock equipment, dummy headquarters, phoney messages, faints, ruses, and other deception operations also contribute to a land force’s invisibility.

Holography, virtual reality, the use of micro-electromagnetic systems, nano-technology, televideo, and other information networks have the potential to increase the land force’s invisibility to the enemy. Integrating the information available from AWACS, JSTARS, UAVs, as well as other currently available systems and those yet-to-be-developed further increase the land force commander’s ability to detect the enemy at extended distances. Advanced technological and human intelligence systems will continue to expand the commander’s detection range, improve the resolution of the information gathered, and disseminate the data to the proper levels via near real-time, digital transfer. The battlefield will become more transparent to the commander of such a force and more opaque to his adversary.

Taken together, these trends enable one to forecast what land combat in the 21st century may be like. That forecast has two parts. First, how will political leaders use land forces? Land forces of the 21st century will be involved in preventing

crises from occurring or from developing into conflicts; resolving conflicts before they spread or become war; or ending wars decisively on terms favorable to the United States and its allies.

Preventative measures will include alerts or deployment of forces before a crisis occurs; exchanges and contacts to promote confidence-building; and operations that nurture stability or defuse instability–e.g. peace enforcement, supervision of cease-fires, assisting in maintenance of law and order, protecting the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and the enforcement of sanctions.

Preventative measures also include those long-term relationships that build or sustain strong regional friendships. In many cases, the demonstrated ability and will to deploy forces that are technologically superior and fully capable of decisive victory in a variety of conditions contribute to preventing crises from occurring or from developing into conflicts.[37] Such capability itself contains deterrent value.

While political leaders will use land forces, as well as naval and air forces, in a preventative way whenever they can, to focus solely on preventative measures would be wrong. American land forces also will be called upon to end hostilities, decisively and on terms favorable to the United States and her allies.

Second, how will land combat be conducted in the 21st century? Regardless of how land combat forces are used, they will be capable–operating as part of a joint force–of detecting the enemy at extended, over-the-horizon distances while remaining invisible to that enemy; delivering fires–also over the horizon–to facilitate maneuver; thus destroying the enemy force and disintegrating his cohesion throughout the depth of the theater or battlefield. Further, land combat forces of the 21st century will be raised, equipped, deployed, organized, and trained to achieve overwhelming success in both traditional war and those “operations other than war” that Michael Howard accurately described as “often indistinguishable from traditional war.”³⁸

Each of the five trends is important in its own right. The synergism they create, however, reinforces the changes occurring in the international and domestic context where wars are fought and military force is used. Together, the changes occurring in so many areas that affect the conduct of land warfare result in a crescendo of change. The projections identified for each of the trends and the resulting forecast concerning the conduct of future warfare are not the result of Buck Rogers-type speculation or Star Wars science fiction or radical breaks with the past. Rather, they are extrapolations–sometimes linear, sometimes not–of forces that have come together, like natural forces combine into a thunderstorm. In the midst of such change, one can only begin to understand the scope of the paradigm shift required.[39] However, the details provided by the trends–lethality and dispersion, volume and precision of fires, integrative technology, mass and effects, and invisibility and detectability–and the background provided by the conceptual shifts outlined earlier–the passing of the cold war strategic paradigm and the refining of the understanding of how to use military force–provide a forecast clear enough to begin positioning the Army for these developments.

CONTINUITIES IN THE NATURE OF WARFARE

As this positioning takes place and the Army of the 21st century emerges, strategists should not be mesmerized either by the amount of change taking place or by the expectations of advanced technology. As much as the conduct of warfare will change in the future, at least three aspects will remain the same. First, the future will differ little from the past with regard to the root causes of war. People–whether political leaders of a nation-state or leaders of some other kind of organization–still fight wars as a result of fear, hatred, greed, ambition, revenge, and a host of other quite human and ever-present emotions. They still fight when they perceive that they can accomplish their objectives by resorting to force, or that they have no other alternative, or that honor or pride or principle or “the gods” demand it. In other words, they fight for what are to them fundamental reasons, even if others do not share or understand their rationale. Therefore, strategists must clearly and completely think through the use of countervailing force and its possible unintended consequences.

The future will also be similar to the past with respect to a second important aspect of war: its nature. The nature of war, even in “operations other than war”–peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, or enforcement of sanctions–remains a contest of wills where one group attempts to force its will on others. Ambiguity, uncertainty, fog, friction, danger, stark fear, anxiety, and chance as well as leadership, courage, comradeship, self-sacrifice, and honor–continue to describe accurately the conditions with which military forces have had to contend and will continue to contend. Death and destruction remain the coins of war’s realm, and no amount of technology or euphemistic labels will alter their weight. As much as one would like to think that simple solutions are possible, the reality is that wars are messy.

Perhaps the most important constant is this: war demands both science and art from the leaders who wage it. To think that one without the other will solve the problems posed by war is to err and err seriously. The future will find predictive modelling, integrative technology, precision guidance systems, and other high technology increasingly useful–necessary, but not sufficient. The artistic side of war will remain: creativity, intuition, leadership, motivation, decisionmaking under conditions of limited information. These will never lose their importance, for they describe war’s essence. Technology contributed greatly to victory in the Battle of Britain for example, but technology alone cannot account for British success.

Finally, the future will resemble the past with respect to the essence of fighting power. Technology is important to the process of generating combat power, but one must not let the glitter of technology obscure other sources of fighting power. “An army’s worth as a military instrument,” van Creveld explains,equals the quality and quantity of its equipment multiplied by [its] fighting power. The latter rests on mental, intellectual, and organizational foundations; its manifestations, in one combination or another, are discipline and cohesion, morale and initiative, courage and toughness, the willingness to fight, and the readiness, if necessary, to die.[40]

The root causes of war, the nature of war, and the essence of fighting power–these are several of the immutable elements concerning war. As absolutely essential as maintaining technological superiority is, especially in helping offset reductions in size, the simple truth is that technology will not solve all the problems associated with war. Prosecuting war requires both science and art. Judgment, trust, cohesion, creativity, flexibility, and just plain guts also are absolutely necessary. Again, van Creveld is instructive,

When the chips are down, there is no `rational’ calculation in the world capable of causing the individual to lay down his life. On both the individual and collective levels, war is therefore primarily an affair of the heart. It is dominated by such irrational factors as resolution and courage, honor and duty and loyalty and sacrifice of self. When everything is said and done, none of these have anything to do with technology, whether primitive or sophisticated.[41]

Those who would seek “silver bullets” must first acknowledge that land warfare under Napoleon, Grant, Pershing, Patton, Ridgway, Westmoreland, Thurman, Stiner, Schwarzkopf, and Hoar is surprisingly similar. War is a matter of heart and will first; weaponry and technology second. Thus, while strategists must understand the role that technology plays in changing how land combat will be conducted in the 21st century, so too must they acknowledge the ways in which the nature of warfare remains constant.

Political and military strategists would also be wise to remember what General Sherman wrote of General Grant’s campaign plan to end the Civil War. In April 1864, just one month prior to starting his final campaign, Grant had sent Sherman a map upon which was sketched the general plan for the 1864-65 campaign. Seeing the map, Sherman understood what was in Grant’s mind. In response, he wrote: “this was as far as human foresight could penetrate.”⁴² Sherman knew that it would be folly to plan in detail too far into the future, for there were too many variables and too many unknowns. Grant and his subordinates would have to remain flexible, ready to react to situations and events that they had no way to predict. On one hand, Grant’s overall vision remained fixed throughout the campaign. On the other hand, the specifics remained flexible.

Sherman’s words provided good advice at the dawn of industrial warfare, and they are equally instructive at the dawn of post-industrial warfare. By understanding the two conceptual shifts that have and are taking place relative to the context of war, the five trends that affect the conduct of post-industrial warfare, and what remains constant among all that is changing, one can forecast how land combat may be conducted in the 21st century. Like Grant’s overall campaign plan, that forecast–albeit in outline form–can act as the goal to guide near-term plans.

One should be skeptical of any military strategist who claims certainty about the future of warfare, especially those who assert that technology changes the fundamental nature of war. One should be even more skeptical of the political strategist who believes that certainty in war is possible. “For precision cannot be expected in the treatment of all subjects alike…”, Aristotle reminds us. “A well-schooled man is one who searches for that degree of precision in each kind of study which the nature of the subject at hand admits.”[43] Good advice for political and military strategists alike.

Notes:

26. Christopher Bellamy, The Evolution of Modern Land Warfare: Theory and Practice, New York: Routledge, 1990, p. 47.
27. Richard Simpkin, The Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty-First Century Warfare, New York: Brassey’s Defense Publishers, 1985, pp. 1-18, 79-92; Martin van Creveld, Technology and War, New York: The Free Press, 1989, pp. 81-97, 167-182; Colonel T.N. DuPuy, U.S. Army retired, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1980, pp. 190-202; James J. Schneider, “Vulcan’s Anvil: The American Civil War and the Emergence of Operational Art,” School of Advanced Military Studies Net Call, Fort Leavenworth, KS: July 23, 1992, pp. 16-20.
28. van Creveld, Technology and War, pp. 172-182.
29. John Keegan, The Face of Battle, New York: Vintage Books, 1977, pp. 295-298; S.L.A. Marshall, Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command in Future War, Glouster, MA: Peter Smith, 1978, pp. 36-49, 85-156; Ardant DuPicq, Battle Studies, Ancient and Modern Battle, Harrisburg, PA: The Telegraph Press, 1946, pp. 94-102; Anthony Kellett, Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle, Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing, 1982, pp. 41-49; John Ellis, The Sharp End: The Fighting Man in World War II, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980, pp. 315-352; Roger Spiller, “The Tenth Imperative,” Military Review, April 1989, pp. 2-13; and, “Isen’s Run: Human Dimensions of Warfare in the 20th Century,” Military Review, May 1988, pp. 16-31.
30. van Creveld, Technology and War, p. 171.
31. Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1980, pp. 109-114.
32. Bellamy, p. 68.
33. Schneider, pp. 25-26; van Creveld, Technology and War, pp. 156-170.
34. Martin van Creveld, Command in War, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985, pp. 261-275; Richard Simpkin, pp. 227-255; von Clausewitz, pp. 100-121.
35. van Creveld, Command in War, p. 146.
36. Richard Simpkin, pp. 79-86, 93-114, 133-143. Simpkin explains his concept of “sufficient” mass on these pages. He acknowledges that the argument that smaller forces can create decisive effects is true only up to a point. That point is identified as the one at which the mass involved is insufficient to threaten the enemy force. To use this amount of mass is to err on the side of deficiency. One can also err, Simpkin points out, on the side of excess. One can employ too much mass–that is, a force so large that all of it is not usable. Between these two extremes is “sufficient mass,” that amount sufficient to threaten the specific enemy force in question. Clausewitz expresses a similar notion in Chapter 14 of Book Three, “Economy of Force.” Here Clausewitz maintains that a commander achieves true economy of force when “all forces are involved…[and] no part of the whole force is idle.”, p. 213.
37. Gary L. Guertner, “Conventional Deterrence and U.S. Strategy,” The Washington Quarterly, Winter 1992, pp. 141-151.
38. Howard, p. 176.
39. Kuhn, pp. 52-172.
40. Martin van Creveld, Fighting Power, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982, p. 3.
41. van Creveld, Technology and War, p. 314.
42. William T. Sherman, “The Grand Strategy of the Last Year of the War,” in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Retreat with Honor, Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, p. 248.
43. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by Martin Ostwald, Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merril Educational Publishing, 1962, 1094b10-25.

Autore: James M. Dubik Colonel & Gordon R. Sullivan General

Fonte: US Army War College Press