I think the SWJ community will benefit from the attached essay by Dr. David Ucko, who recently completed his doctoral work at King’s College London. This well-crafted essay has just been published by Orbis, the policy journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. It’s an objective assessment of where the United States stands in our adaptation to counterinsurgency and irregular warfare, from an outsider’s perspective.

Dr. Ucko’s research is focused on how well the U.S. is absorbing the right lessons from today’s ongoing conflicts, and how well DOD is institutionalizing the necessary changes across the doctrine, structure, training and education and equipment pillars of combat development. A student of American military culture, he notes our history of adapting to counterinsurgency campaigns, but then quickly discarding the lessons learned at the close of the war to return to our preferred conventional mode.

Ucko challenges whether or not DOD has truly embraced irregular warfare. “With the eventual close of the Iraq campaign,” he asks “will counterinsurgency again be pushed off the table, leaving the military just as unprepared for these contingencies as it was when it invaded Iraq in 2003?” Thus, this essay fits into the context of the debate we have seen on these pages and in the Armed Forces Journal (Shawn Brimley and Vikram Singh’s “System Reboot”) about whether or not the American Way of War will adapt or revert to form...

Continue reading "An Outsider's Perspective" »

Frans P. B. Osinga, The Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd, New York: Routledge, 2007, 313 pgs, $140 hardback, $35.95 paperback

I first met John Boyd on a very warm summer day in 1983 at Headquarters, Marine Corps. Frankly he did not make much of an impression to a then young Captain of Marines. The briefer went through an extensive set of slides extolling conflict over the ages. I recognized the various strands of Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and Liddell Hart (and thus indirectly T.E. Lawrence) weaved throughout the pitch. In the aftermath of a long run and a too large lunch, I preceded to take a somberly tour of the insides of my eyelids.

This mental rest stop did not impress my boss, a Vietnam veteran who was taken with Boyd’s ideas. As penance for my nap, he insisted I take the brief again the next day. Although I did not know it at the time, I never got a more valuable or more intellectually enriching experience over a decade in the Pentagon...

Continue reading "Unlocking the Keys to Victory" »

I'm writing to make everyone aware of an outstanding article on airpower's many crucial enabling contributions to Irregular Warfare. I think this will interest everyone given our previous exchanges on airpower and the COIN manual.

General Peck's article is a balanced, even restrained, articulation of what airpower can and has brought to today's ongoing irregular campaigns, and I highly recommend it. Gen Peck is the Commander of the Air Force Doctrine Center and Vice Commander of Air University. He brings impressive operational and academic credentials to bear on the subject, including his 300 combat hours in the F-15.

Continue on to find out more about Airpower’s Crucial Role in Irregular Warfare...

Continue reading "Airpower’s Crucial Role in Irregular Warfare" »

The purpose of this posting is to alert the Small Wars Journal community about an excellent new book by Dr. Jeff Record of the Air War College faculty. Professor Record is no dilettante in this arena; he served in Vietnam as a province advisor before embarking on an academic career, which has been distinguished by a steady stream of short but potent books. His Dark Victory about the 2003 invasion into Iraq is a powerful indictment of the Bush Doctrine and the Administration’s conduct of the Global War on Terrorism. It is must reading, as is his The Wrong War: Why We Lost in Vietnam which the readership would find fascinating in light of Operation Iraqi Freedom due to the similar delusions in our decision making and weak partners in both wars...

Continue reading "The Proverbial Contest" »

4GW as a Model of Future Conflict
Boyd 2007 Conference, 13 July 2007
Warfare Since Boyd Panel Presentation

F. G. Hoffman

I have been asked to be the token diversity candidate from outside the 4GW “church” today, and am honored just by the chance to appear at an event that preserves John Boyd’s deep intellectual contributions, and to be on stage with my fellow panelists and Col Eric Walters. My assigned task is to explain why academics and historians have problems with the 4GW construct. My remarks will draw up upon my work on an alternative concept called Hybrid Warfare which I have presented at Oxford University this past winter. My comments will also draw upon unpublished work about to be released in a book titled Global Insurgency and the Future of Armed Conflict, edited by Dr. Terry Terriff, of University of Birmingham (UK) and Aaron Karp and Dr. Regina Karp of Old Dominion University, in which several of our distinguished speakers have prominent contributions including Mr. Lind and Col Hammes.

Let me begin by summarizing the arguments up front. The 4GW construct is often criticized for three major faults.

The theory is described as “weak” and the concept is too diffused, having become over time the equivalent of everything that is asymmetric.

Second the history that is drawn upon is uneven and often “too selective,” that is it is packaged to support a major component of the theory without full examination of trends or detailed counter-findings.

Finally, the generational framework is labeled “indefensible” and unnecessary. In my own assessment, I find that it hides more than it reveals...

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Stopped in at Borders for my weekly fix and came across Ralph Peters’ latest anthology. (Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts that Will Shape the Twenty-First Century, Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2007, 367 pgs, $27.95) While I am pretty familiar with Ralph’s worldview and his extensive writings in the Armed Forces Journal, this one appeared to include a lot of his material that I had not seen. A few hours of reading confirmed my suspicion, and I wanted to let the readership know that this may top the cake for a brutal dose of reality and nonpolitically correct reporting from around the globe.

For those tired of the mainstream media’s twisted presentation of facts and generally warped reasoning, pick up Ralph Peters’ latest book. Anytime you are frustrated by the banal posturing of government officials and want straight-forward thinking, take a close look at Wars of Blood and Faith. It is a coherent assessment of today’s most pressing threats and opportunities from Africa to India to the Middle East. So if you’re a student of strategic affairs, a policy official enshrouded with the official view and want to break out of the blinkered pap you get from the party line, or simply an American citizen who wants to find insightful and at times brutally frank perspectives on current challenges, you don’t need not to look any further. Ralph Peters and Wars of Blood and Faith provide the most penetrating assessment of what could be called the age of identity-based conflict...

Continue reading "Fighting for Faith" »

I wanted to alert the SWJ community regarding my recently issued essay on modern counterinsurgency in the Summer issue of Parameters. This essay, titled “Neo-Classical Counter-insurgency?” strives to accomplish two objectives; a) an evaluation of the newly issued Army/Marine counterinsurgency manual and b) arguments for extending our understanding of classical (largely Maoist) insurgents into the 21st century. I think I was more successful about the former than the latter objective and I will await the SWJ’s collective assessment. This essay extends and builds upon my 2005 essay in the Journal of Strategic Studies, “Small Wars Revisited.” I am pretty satisfied with the COIN manual and believe it deserves the acclaim it has received to date. I think it’s a product of various schools of thought about modern insurgencies, although still too grounded in what I called the Classical School, based on the concepts of Mao and Revolutionary Warfare...

Continue reading "NEO-COIN?" »

Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, 2007, 208 pgs, $24.95.

John Robb’s long anticipated book is finally out, and I have to say that I think it’s an important contribution to anyone trying to make sense of today’s evolving security challenges. It’s a rather brilliant synthesis of Fourth Generation Warfare, net war, swarming and global insurgency. For those of you who not routinely read the Global Guerillas blog, Robb is a former counter-terrorism officer with the U.S. Air Force, and is now based out of Boston as a consultant. His blog has been highly regarded by forward thinking analysts as evidenced in the warm foreword written by the prescient James Fallows of The Atlantic Monthly. For those who are familiar with Robb’s main themes Brave New War offers a book length treatment of the problem and a number of recommendations for dealing with today’s religiously inspired, globally networked urban terrorists...

Continue reading "Global Guerrillas" »

Air Force Major General Charles Dunlap, a respected but frequently provocative author, has critiqued the Army/Marine counterinsurgency manual in a commentary titled “We have a COIN shortage” in the May Naval Institute Proceedings. I would have normally dismissed General Dunlap’s observations as a rare but poor example of discourse, as I have a lot of respect for him personally. But this commentary reflected more than just an inadequate grasp of irregular warfare. Having recently returned from a counterinsurgency symposium at Maxwell Air Force Base, it is clear that a broader misunderstanding exists about the nature of irregular conflict and FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 that needs to be cleared up...

Continue reading "“Non Cents”" »

I’d like to follow up Dave Kilcullen’s commentary about Dr. Luttwak’s specious article. Dr. Kilcullen is too much of a gentleman to suggest that someone has not taken their medication, yet he was far too gentle with the insidious notion that the writing team was advocating the moral equivalent of medical malpractice. (Full disclosure, I had a minor part in the production of the manual.) The new FM is a welcomed step forward, reflecting our current understanding of an increasingly complex and lethal mode of conflict. Dr. Luttwak may long for the gruesome effectiveness of “the Roman model,” but he has badly misdiagnosed the disease and his overemphasis on kinetic solutions reflects poorly on his grasp of history and a bad use of history out of context. The Romans were smart enough to minimize their footprint and maximized local leadership and control over government, taxes, and religion. The benefits or “carrots” of Roman rule were more obvious than its costs, but clearly the “stick” (more accurately the gladius and pilum) was available when necessary.

Continue reading "Luttwak's Lament" »