Tag: Strategy

We Must Keep Our Presence of Mind

“…though embattled…we are [called] to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle.” — John F. Kennedy

The 130 people killed in Paris on November 13th and the 14 Americans killed in San Bernardino on December 2nd, are a malevolent reminder that we’re at war with Islamic militants. And while the attacks and senseless murder of these people was terrible, it wasn’t something any of us can honestly say we never thought would happen. We’ve been hearing from experts in the media for years that it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” attacks like this will take place inside Western nations. Of course this is not something experts had to tell us, we’ve always known this as a fact of life.

It’s not surprising that militants operating covertly in our open societies, on a mission to kill Westerners and willing to die in the process, will eventually succeed in pulling off high causality attacks. The critical question now is about how we respond. We can do many things, but what we cannot do is overreact. This is exactly what the forces of reaction across the West, especially in the U.S., will cause us to do if we’re not collectively determine to combat it. This leads to costly mistakes and it’s exactly what our enemy wants us to do. Like a good fighter, our foe prods his bigger and stronger opponent, hoping we will lash out and overextend ourselves–tactically, morally and financially–and make the foolish and costly mistakes that we’ve proved so willing to make. They’re playing the long game, and so must we.

For responsible, and I dare say sensible people, we cannot let fear and anger dictate our response. There is a lot of fear stoking going on, especially by certain cable news channels and politicians who spread mindless outrage and fear for shameless political gain. Just as we resist our enemy, we should resist these sirens luring us toward the rocks.

Out best weapon is our ability to keep our presence of mind.

In the aftermath of these tragedies, America and her Western allies will examine security policies and make some reasonable adjustments. European nations, specifically within NATO, need to come together and formulate a more comprehensive, active, and long term strategy for thwarting and defeating these militants. For the Europeans it will require, and America should demand, a much greater commitment in manpower, money, and materials abroad. The U.S. needs equal partners in this long war. This is a generational conflict and all Western nations should be actively committed–beyond mere rhetoric–to waging this long war.

With that said, President Obama is absolutely correct: “There is no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq.” A crisis, again, I remind you, that we Americans are partly to blame for creating by invading Iraq in 2003. Our invasion of Iraq destabilized the region. Let’s not add more fuel to the fire. Winning this long war will ultimately be about diplomacy, alliances, politics, and economics…not blood and iron. In the short term we must fight and defeat our enemy, but we must realize that the war of today is fought to win the peace of tomorrow.

Going forward our war against these terrorists should be a steady and ruthless counterterrorism campaign waged by air power, special forces, and intelligence operatives across the middle east. Along with that, we must have sensible policies at home that allow us to deal with enemies amongst us, plotting to kill innocent people. This is critical. This will include supporting laws like the Patriot Act, which are in-fact important in keeping us safe.

It’s my hope that Americans will be actively resistant to any large scale boots-on-the-ground action in the middle east. Another ground invasion will only create more terrorists, while needlessly killing and maiming more American soldiers and costing the American tax payer hundreds of billions of dollars we don’t have on another large scale misguided military venture we can’t afford. We need to focus our fiscal resources on rebuilding a stable American middle-class, not on invading and rebuilding Iraq or any other part of the middle east.

We need to fight a smart war, not one that exhausts us morally and fiscally.

Review of Alchemist of War by Alex Danchev

downloadI’m reasonably well versed in WWI and WWII history. I’ve been a dedicated reader of Sir John Keegan’s books and various other well known war historians for years, but all through the thousands of pages of history I’ve read I don’t recall seeing the name Basil Henry Liddell Hart. I first heard the name B. H. Liddell Hart while reading Robert Greene’s 33 Strategies of War. Greene’s discussion of Liddell Hart and the quotes Greene provided of the great strategist were very interesting and stayed with me. Liddell Hart seemed more than just a war strategist. So it was a pleasure while recently scanning the shelves of a used bookstore that I came across Alchemist of War: The Life of Basil Liddell Hart by Alex Danchev. This biography is good, not only because its portrait is so interesting but because Danchev is so artful at the rendering.

Liddell Hart served as an officer in the first world war. His experience with the futility of trench warfare pushed him to find a better way “to ensure that if war came again there should be no repetition of the Somme and Passchendaele.” With theories like The Man in the Dark and the Expanding Torrent, Liddell Hart began his search to solve the problem of “continued impetus against defense in depth.” The problem, as the tactics of WWI showed, was once an attacking army penetrated the defensive lines (trenches) of the enemy, the attacking force quickly lost momentum as it bogged down in layers of additional defensive works. The attacking army, at this point, then occupied a salient within the enemy line. The enemy, having better communications within it’s own lines, quickly organized their reserve forces on 3 sides of the attaching armies salient and either stalled the break-through, defeated it entirely, or beat it back while inflicting heavy casualties. This would happen over and over in WWI. Successful breaks in the enemy line or “exploitations” could not be properly followed up and exploited fully. Decisive victory, hence, was illusive. The war would be a stalemate, a bloody war of attrition in the “mausoleums of mud.”

Liddell Hart would eventually develop the Indirect Approach. This theory involved the mechanization of the army, with infantry tactics playing support instead of the leading role. Liddell Hart wrote: “Of all the qualities of war it is speed which is dominant.” Celeritas, speed and swiftness, are the primary virtues of a successful army and the thinking of a successful commander. You must be able to stay ahead of your enemy in movement and decision making. WWI Infantry tactics were no match for the advances in weaponry. Weapons like the machine gun changed warfare forever and so tactics had to evolve to avoid needless slaughter and stalemate. 

The Tank would be the answer to the tactical and strategic mobility needed on the battlefield to exploit a break-through in the enemy line. The Tank would be the battleship of the battlefield. A force of heavily armored Tanks could penetrate enemy lines and quickly exploit the break-through by driving further and further into the enemy’s defenses, disrupting communications and, more importantly in Liddell Hart’s view, affecting the mind of the opposing commander. Getting to victory is more than just defeating the enemy forces. The Indirect Approach was very much an attitude of mind and a psychology more so than strictly a battlefield tactic. As Danchev writes: “The indirect approach has usually been physical, and always psychological.”

On the battlefield, the Indirect Approach is about making the enemy commander quickly come to the realization in his mind that he’s defeated. This realization of defeat would hopefully bring the battle to a quick conclusion and avoid a needless slaughter. “In other words the strategy of the Indirect Approach is not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its continuation by a battle is sure to achieve this.” As Ardant Pu Picq said: “Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war.” The Indirect Approach is meant to bring the enemy commander to a quick realization that defeat is inevitable. As the battle quickly turns on the defeated commander and he sees the collapse of his defenses, the loss of communications, his mind comes to see the only option left.

The Indirect Approach would be Liddell Hart’s signature contribution to strategic theory. Like so many philosophical insights Liddell Hart saw the application of the Indirect Approach as applying to all human domains, not just warfare:

I have long come, with reflection on experience, to see that most of the fundamental military theories which I have thought out apply to the conduct of life and not merely of war — and I have learnt to apply them in my own conduct of life, e.g. the ‘man-in-the-dark,’ economy of force, the principle of ‘variability’ [flexibility], and the value of alternative objectives.

So also with the theory of the Indirect Approach, which I evolved in the realm of strategy in 1928-29, have I come gradually to perceive an ever widening application of it until I view it as something that lies at the root of practical philosophy. It is bound up with the question of the influence of thought on thought. The direct assault of new ideas sets up its own resistance, and increases the difficulty of effecting a change of outlook. Conversion is produced more easily and rapidly by the indirect approach of ideas, disarming the inherent opposition . . . Thus, reflection leads one to the conclusion that the indirect approach is a law of life in all spheres — and its fulfillment, the key to practical achievement in dealing with any problem where the human factor is predominant, and where there is room for a conflict of wills.

Whether it be in war, an argument with a friend, a discussion with your son or in the affairs of love, the Indirect Approach was a law of life that allows one who has mastered its application to overcome his opponent through adept indirect maneuvers rather than direct confrontation.

Alchemist of War is a great read. As far as I can tell it’s the only full length biography of Basil Henry Liddell Hart. Danchev does a superb job of drawing you in and holding your attention captive. At no point, in my view, did the narrative slow or become uninteresting. Danchev’s prose is entertaining for his incisive wit and verve. I found myself pulled along by my enthusiasm not only for the subject but for the enjoyment of Danchev’s style. A good biography written by a fine scribbler.