Okay, as soon as I say I’m going quiet, something pops up that grabs my attention.

This time it’s Arthur Schlesinger’s oped in today’s WaPo, where he states that

Bush shifted the base of American foreign policy from containment-deterrence to presidential preventive war

Containment-deterrence was only the base of American foreign policy during the Cold War. It ceased to be a viable strategy with the fall of the Soviet Union. It hasn’t been the base of American foreign policy for going on fifteen years now! To imply that Bush discarded a happy and stable status quo is inaccurate. Such an implication also finesses the difficulty of proposing an alternative solution. By making a false dichotomy between Bush’s preventive war doctrine and the containment-deterrence doctrine of the Cold War, Schlesinger exaggerates Bush’s bellicosity and describes an excessively alarmist picture of the president’s foreign policy.

We all wish we had a nice bi-partisan concensus doctrine already in place to deal with the challenges and complexities of this 21st Century world. It is what makes people wistful when the speak of the “good old days” of the Cold War. But sighing over the tidiness of a past doctrine (made all the more tidy with the benefit of hindsight) won’t make our new doctrine. That requires creative thinking, grounded in an understanding of how we came to be here.

Let’s get on with it.

I’ll be taking some time off for a week or two. This will probably be accompanied with a corresponding vacation from blogging. Take care all, and catch you on the flip side with some more charge in the batteries.

Bill Getz tells us that

The Pentagon is engaged in an extensive buildup of military forces in Asia as part of a covert strategy to strengthen and position U.S. and allied forces to deter — or defeat — China. [1]

A covert strategy you say? We seem to be doing an awfully piss-poor job, then. When the Deputy Secretary of State says stuff like this, it kind of blows the cover…

…part of the message for China… is that others are going to hedge…
I’ve sort of said, ‘Look, if you guys [the Chinese] develop your military, you’re going to get these sort of reactions from us.’ [2]

But not to worry, we’re keeping them lulled into a flase sense of security through a brilliant subterfuge!

…our military presence in the Asia Pacific is already so significant, I’m not sure they would see those [our hedge strategies] as notable shifts. [2]

Oy. So they aren’t going to notice our subtle moves… until they pick up the WaTimes?

WSJ strikes a more measured tone, as usual. They also include this nugget:

Adm. William Fallon, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, says it will be a long time before China could challenge U.S. dominance in the Pacific. “Technologically, we are far and away more sophisticated than they are, and they know it,” he says. Adm. Fallon is also keen to promote more military exchanges with China, despite some skepticism at the Defense Department. [3]

I am not so pleased that the only evidence Adm. Fallon cites for American dominance is technological superiority (though we don’t know how Neil King truncated the Admiral’s quote), but I am pleased that he wants to promote military exchanges with China. In order to accurately understand the threat, we need to see clearly. And it is a whole lot easier to see clearly when you aren’t separated by an ocean.

[1] Bill Gertz, “More Muscle, With Eye On China,” Washington Times, April 20, 2006, Pg. 1.

[2] Robert B. Zoellick and Bill Gertz, “China Security Talks Mix With Politics, Economy,” Washington Times, April 20, 2006, Pg. 14.

[3] Neil King Jr., “As China Boosts Defense Budget, U.S. Military Hedges Its Bets,” Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2006, Pg. 1.

Bill Lind’s most recent essay has kicked up a great deal of excellent discussion. I’ve given Lind a hard time a few times in the past, but on this topic he is making a great deal of sense. Lind argues that

Concepts and doctrine are now developed through layer after layer of formal, structured meetings, invariably organized around PowerPoint briefings. Most attendees are there as representatives of one or another bureaucratic interest, and their job is to defend their turf. PowerPoint briefings not only disguise a lack of intellectual substance with glitzy gimmicks, they inherently work against the concept of Schwerpunkt. Slides usually present umpteen bulletized “points,” all co-equal in (lack of) importance. In the end, what is important is the briefing itself: the medium is the message.

Sonny weighs in with some first-hand experience:

Technology is rarely the problem. The misuse and abuse of technology is what bothers me. You might have some piss-poor analysis supported by fucked-up assumptions, but if your PP presentation looks good, and is formatted right, you are golden. If you slides look kind of crappy because you spent most of you time actually reading and analyzing the problem, you might get in trouble. “Is that Times New Roman I see in that slide? Oh no! Arial is the correct font, goddammit!”

Bingo. A related dynamic I have witnessed is what I’ll call “bureaucratic buzzword bingo.” This is where a presenter uses a word, such as “capability,” in a different way than memo X9184-4.13B did and somebody in the audience makes it his business to inform the hapless briefer about this egregious error. “You can’t really mean ‘capability,’” the sharpshooter will say, “because CJCS 3170.01B defines a ‘capability’ to be…” Sometimes, if the presenter is really lucky, there will be someone else in the audience who can cite another memo with a different definition. By the time the dust settles, whatever the briefing’s original point was will have been forgotten.

One could view this as rigorous attention to detail (after all, if we can’t agree upon what words mean, how can we hope to communicate?), but appearances are deceptive. Like a theatrical set, these discussions only appear to have depth. Their lack of substance becomes clear if one attempts to actually walk into that beautiful garden or that grand medieval hall. Instead of worrying about the ideas being conveyed by the words, these discussions are concerned with enforcing excessively stringent definitions of the words. Writing, speaking and briefing becomes an act of maneuvering pre-assembled formations of words, instead of an exercise in thinking about one’s ideas and then carefully choosing the best words to express those ideas.

Orwell diagnosed this problem more than fifty years ago in “Politics and the English Language:”

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a “party line…” When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases… one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying…

What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them.

Substitute “DoD” for “political” and I think Orwell’s words will resonate uncomfortably with anyone who has spent time in the military-industrial system.

Clear writing, clear speaking and clear thinking all reinforce one another. Original thinking cannot be expressed with unoriginal images. Creative ideas cannot be described with words overburdened by the weight of intitutionalized definitions. Arguing over fonts keeps us from engaging the actual ideas expressed by the words written in those fonts. This inverts the proper order. All mediums of communication exist only to serve the ideas they express.

Orwell’s path is difficult to walk is because it demands actual thought, and introduces the risk of having one’s ideas criticized. When a briefer is simply parroting back a stream of pre-assembled images and pre-defined words, he has no ownership of his content. Thus, if the content is challenged, he has no personal stake in its worth.

The resulting environment is extremely hostile to creative, thinking individuals like Sonny or the Marines mentioned by Lind in his article. Their frustration is clear and understandable.

But I believe that there is hope. I am optimistic that collaboration tools like blogs and wikis can lead us towards a new environment, one far more open to rigorous and original thinking. It is an idea that keeps me going when I get frustrated.

I picked up the Winter 2005/2006 issue of International Security today and found a duo of articles debating “The Afghan Model and its Limits.” The first, “Winning with Allies: The Strategic Value of the Afghan Model” by Richard Andres, Craig Wills and Thomas Griffith, argues that the combination of indigenous allies supported by SOF and airpower creates a revolutionary new tool in America’s foreign policy toolkit. Stephen Biddle responds with “Allies, Airpower and Modern Warfare: The Afghan Model in Afghanistan and Iraq,” arguing that Anders, Wills and Griffith overstate the applicability of the methods used in Afghanistan.

Biddle’s response is replete with primary sources (including interviews with SOF personnel who fought in Afghanistan, in-person visits to some of the battle sites), giving his claims about what actually happened in Afghanistan much more credence. Furthermore, his body of work examining military capability provides him with a firm foundation to build upon when he asserts that the relative skill of a military force is the single most decisive factor in determining its military capability.

The differences between the two perspectives can be distilled to the following disagreement. Andres, Wills and Griffith argue that “it is skill and motivation relative to the plan of operations that matters most - not skill realtive to the enemy.” This means that so long as US military planners are careful to use indigenous allies “appropriately” - aka in accordance with the level of skill - then the US will be able to replicate the wonderful effects produced in Afghanistan with confidence. Biddle disagrees and argues that “skill is indeed essential: allies with inferior skills cannot expoit precision airpower even with US SOF. The Afghan Model will sometimes work, but less often than Andres, Wills and Griffith claim…”

From this perspective, the fundamental error Andres, Wills and Griffith make is that they minimize the enemy’s ability to make life difficult. The enemy gets to have a say in what the plan of operations needs to accomplish. Operations are not planned in a vacuum. A sufficiently skilled enemy will be able to shape the battlespace such that indigenous opponents with lesser skills will be unable to defeat them - even with support from US SOF and airpower. The limitations of the Afghan Model mean that its range of potential uses is smaller than Andres, Wills and Griffith acknowledge.

An article from a random Japanese newspaper (ah, the sources Google News leads us to…) tells us that some French students are continuing their protests, despite Chirac’s retreat:

Students hoping to make use of the momentum to force the government to back down on other measures planned demonstrations Tuesday across the country.

The protests are not as widespread as those before Chirac’s surrender, but they indicate that some French students are reacting like any good strategist. They found a weakness, their opponent is vulnerable, and so they are attempting to exploit the moment to make some more progress.

Students welcomed the death of the contract but now want the government to scrap the entire law — not just the article that would have created the youth jobs contract.

This indicates what a difficult road France faces. Even with reports of 22% unemployment among youths (the exact demographic that was active in the notorious riots of last fall), the alliance of students and unions proved to be too powerful for Chirac to overcome. It seems to me that France needs to liberalize its economy if it is going to grow sufficiently to provide enough jobs for its population. In order to do this it will have to pass measures like this. How to do this?

One off-the-cuff idea I had while reading this article was mis-direction. Use a high-profile (and somewhat controvertial) policy that will ultimately fail to distract from more subtle (but influential and long-lasting) policy changes that will remain. This would require betting on the protests losing momentum after an initial win (towards that end, it will be interesting to see how long they can sustain momentum after this win). It would also depend upon being able to contain the political fallout of backing down to protests. The entire idea might be worthless - just brainstorming here. Maybe one of my more politically savvy readers could put me straight on the shortcomings.

Good article in the NYTimes today regarding Brazil’s 30-year path to energy self-sufficiency. Echoing my comments regarding economic arguments for alternative energy sources, I particularly liked the following:

Consumers’ suspicions remained high through the 1990’s and were overcome only in 2003, when automakers, beginning with Volkswagen, introduced the “flex fuel” motor in Brazil. Those engines gave consumers the autonomy to buy the cheapest fuel, freeing them from any potential shortages in ethanol’s supply. Also, ethanol-only engines can be slower to start when cold, a problem the flex fuel owners can bypass.

“Motorists liked the flex-fuel system from the start because it permits them free choice and puts them in control,” said Vicente Lourenço, technical director at General Motors do Brasil. [emphasis added]

This sort of agility is only valuable if the energy market is volitile. If the cheapest fuel (be it ethanol or gas) were constant, then there would be little value in a flex-fuel option. You would simply purchase a vehicle that would allow you to use the cheapest fuel and you would be set for the life of your vehicle. As the volitility of gas prices increases, however, the value of the flex-fuel option also increases.

“Such assumptions suggest that Soviet leaders will be rather bumbling or, better, cooperative. These are best called ‘Western-preferred-Soviet strategies.’”
-Albert Wohlstetter, The Delicate Balance of Terror

“…no theory survives contact with actual human beings”
-Sonny

“…probably the second greatest source of intelligence error is mirror imaging …the greatest mistake is assuming that people will be… rational according to our definition of what is rational.”
-Paul Wolfowitz

Sonny is cocerned about the strategic skill of some civilian leaders. As a civilian who aspires to the title of “strategist,” I take this concern very seriously. A fundamental aspect of dealing with a thinking adversary is that you must give him credit for being smart. Assuming that your adversary will make a mistake isn’t a strategy. A friend of mine studied chess last year with a Russian Grandmaster. When critiquing a line of reasoning, he would often berate my friend for “outer space thinking,” which usually involved a long chain of reasoning premised upon the the grandmaster falling for an absurdly simple gambit. “Is fantasy world,” he would say through his thick accent, “what is this? Is outer space thinking!”

Military personnel have no choice but to learn this through their personal experience with conflict. Some civilians, however, can ride through life without having to confront this reality.

As Chet Richards states in Certain to Win (p92), the Basic Rule of All Competition (BRAC) is:
IQ (us) < = IQ(them).
Out-smarting alone isn’t going to lead to victory.

This is one of the shortcomings of Game Theory. It is focused on calculating your way to victory. More iterations give you more insight. But what is keeping your adversary inside the framework of the game? The assumption of Common Knowledge of Rationality doesn’t apply to real-world conflict.

Ultimately, the only way to develop strategic skills is through experience. Like method acting, it is something you must learn through _doing_. Reading and thinking alone will not get you there.

A civilian aspiring to strategic insight needs serious experience dealing with actual thinking adversaries. It doesn’t have to be military experience, but it has to be real.

I came across an interesting renewable energy blog today by the name of Bird in the Bush. In a post that quickly caught my eye, Jacob Silber writes that volitility is the enemy of infrastructure investments. But what about looking at volitility as a risk to be mitigated through the use of real options, rather than an extranality that prevents companies from making infrastructure investments? This is an idea that I’ve been mulling over for a month or two.

“Volatility makes investment in infrastructure and new technologies incredibly difficult” when companies look at an investment as a binary build/no build decision. Instead, companies ought to look for investments that will let them respond to negative events or capitalize on positive ones. In this sense, many alternative forms of energy represent a valuable risk mitigation strategy. This is one way of being active, instead of reactive (becacuse relying too much on reaction leads to strategic vulnerability).

Volatility will delay what we desperately need now: significant investments in alternative technologies that will allow a migration from fossil fuels to clean energy.

On the contrary! As I indicated above, I think that volatility could give companies an incentive to consider alternative technologies. For example, last fall I read about many school districts moving to bio-diesel in response to the price spike caused by the hurricanes. Investing in an option to use an alternative fuel for a company’s fleet would leave it well positioned to insulate itself from a future price spike.

This isn’t to bash Silber’s post (I love his succinct description of the “yoyo effect” volitility can have upon demand and supply); he just sparked my thinking on a subject that is very closely related to resilience. The volitility of energy costs may not be as malevolent as a human adversary, but they are similar in the sense that the best strategy for dealing with each involves agility and resilience.

Sonny manages to post from the road and shares some further thoughts on our ongoing discussion of strategy.

Regarding NCW, he offers the following:

Our military reflect our culture in many respects. We live in a “connected” information-intensive culture; our military will reflect some of that. For many of the kids coming in NCW or whatever you want to call it just makes sense and it’s something they will pretty much do on their own. NCW does not need “proponents”. It just comes naturally.

Bing! As the first generation of digital natives begins to work its way though the ranks of the military, these ideas of information sharing will cease to be policies and become assumptions. Do you think that people who grew up blogging, IMing and googling are going to hit the DoD and all of a sudden accept stovepiped systems? Hell no! Digital natives don’t name this stuff, they do it. It shows up on the mainstream radar when Goggle makes an integrated public transport and mapping service for Portland, but there are plenty of people making their own integrated services for other cities. Digital immigrants are the ones coming up with names like Web 2.0. Digital natives aren’t worried about naming it because they are already living it.

Now, there are some who argue that NCW is about more than just interoperability, that it represents a shift to “Information Age Warfare.” But I agree with Stephen Biddle that the dramatic victories in Iraq in 2003, Afghanisatan in 2001-2002 and Iraq in 1991 do not represent a fundamental shift in the nature or conduct of warfare. This, however, is another discussion.