Small Wars Journal

The Role of Offset Strategies in Restoring Conventional Deterrence

Thu, 01/04/2018 - 1:12am

The Role of Offset Strategies in Restoring Conventional Deterrence

Octavian Manea

SWJ interview with Robert O. Work, the 31st Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Usually when we are talking about the Cold War, the first thing that we think in terms of a strategic framework is containment. But what has been the role the offset strategies played in the broader Cold War competition? In 1997, William Perry made an interesting observation that I think is worth reflecting on: “these strategies, containment, deterrence and offset strategy were the components of a broad holding strategy during the Cold War. I call it a holding strategy because it did not change the geopolitical conditions which led to the Cold War, but it did deter another World War and it did stem Soviet expansion in the world until the internal contradictions in the Soviet system finally caused the Soviet Union to collapse. The holding strategy worked.

As Bill Perry suggests, technological offset strategies played an important role during the Cold War. The thinking about offset strategies can actually be traced to WW2. When the United States entered the war, planners concluded that the U.S. would need over 200 infantry divisions and about 280 air combat groups to ultimately defeat the Axis powers. However, U.S. leadership knew that if they built so many infantry divisions, the manpower they would need to work the arsenal of democracy wouldn’t be there. They therefore made a conscious decision to hold the number of infantry divisions to no more than 90 while keeping the 280 air combat groups. The thinking was that a “heavy fisted air arm” would help make up for the lack of infantry parity with the Axis powers.

The “90-division gamble” turned out to be a winner, but it was a close-run thing. In 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, the U.S. Army literally ran out of infantry, forcing leaders to rush untrained troops to the front. Despite this, the idea that technology could help offset an enemy’s strength took hold in American strategic thinking. As a result, throughout the Cold War, the U.S. never tried to match the Soviet Union tank for tank, plane for plane, or soldier for soldier. It instead sought ways to “offset” the potential adversary's advantages through technological superiority and technologically-enabled organizational constructs and operational concepts.

President Eisenhower was well aware of the 90-division gamble. When he became president, he asked how many infantry divisions it would take to deter a Warsaw Pact invasion of Europe. Coincidentally, he was told about 90 divisions. Eisenhower knew that having a “peacetime” standing army of that size was neither politically nor fiscally sustainable. To counter Soviet conventional superiority, he therefore opted for what is now thought of as the First Offset Strategy (1OS), which armed a much smaller U.S. ground force with battlefield atomic weapons, and an explicit threat to use them on invading Warsaw Pact forces.

The 1OS strategy worked. We know this because the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies adopted a new campaign design to forestall NATO’s use of nuclear weapons early in a campaign. They planned to conduct conventional attacks in powerful successive echelons to achieve a penetration of the NATO front lines. Once a breach was achieved, an Operational Maneuver Group (OMG) would drive deep into NATO’s rear.  The Soviets believed that once an OMG was operating behind NATO’s front lines, NATO leadership would be dissuaded or incapable of resorting to nuclear weapons. We’ll never know if NATO would have ever approved atomic attacks in response to a Warsaw Pact invasion.  But we do know the 1OS provided a credible deterrent and had a major impact on Soviet thinking.

Fast-forward twenty years. While we were in Vietnam, the Soviet Union spent a huge amount of money in conventional equipment and technology. By the mid-1970s, there was a pervasive sense that the Soviet Union had achieved conventional superiority. This occurred around the same time the Soviets achieved strategic nuclear parity. Under these circumstances, underwriting NATO conventional deterrence with the threat of battlefield nuclear weapons simply wasn’t credible anymore. In this new context, the U.S. sought to reassert conventional dominance in order to improve strategic stability.

The plan to reassert conventional dominance had many parts, including a move to an All-Volunteer Force, an emphasis on the operational level of war, a thorough force-wide modernization—think of the Army’s “Big Five”—and a renaissance in realistic, force-on-force training. All of these initiatives were, in turn, backed by Bill Perry’s Second Offset Strategy, which sought to arm new operational level battle networks with guided munitions and sub-munitions.

Battle networks were nothing new. The first modern battle network was the British home air defense network assembled at the start of WW2.  Like all battle networks that followed, it had four interconnected grids. It had a sensor grid with radars, aircraft spotters and in the later stages of the campaign, electronic intelligence capabilities, all designed to sense the battlespace. It had an enormous command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) grid consisting of hardened underground command posts connected by radio and telephone that worked to make sense of what the enemy was doing, facilitate command decisions, and transmit orders to friendly forces. It had an effects grid consisting of Spitfire and Hurricane fighter squadrons, antiaircraft weapons, barrage balloons and electronic warfare capabilities designed to achieve the specific combat outcomes directed by the C3I grid. And it had a sustainment and regeneration grid that allowed the British to continue fighting and restore combat losses.

This battle network allowed the outnumbered British Air Forces to keep the larger German Luftwaffe from knocking Britain out of the war. Radar was the key sensor grid advance, which helped take surprise out of the Luftwaffe attacks. It informed the C3I grid when the bomber streams were coming and where they were headed. The C3I grid was able to exploit this information to mass the RAF’s relatively short-ranged fighters against German attacks, where they fought at line of sight ranges using unguided machine gun and cannon fire. The sustainment and regeneration grid kept producing fighters, and pilots who were shot down over their home territory had a much better chance of getting back into the fight. All this—along with heavy doses of bravery and skill—allowed the British to make up for their losses, continue the fight, and win the Battle of Britain.

The 2OS battle network had all the same characteristics of the British home air defense network, but it focused on the land battle. It relied on new airborne sensors that could see well beyond the NATO front lines to identify massing ground forces with the same ease air radar could identify massing air forces. By so doing, the sensor grid could discern the Warsaw Pact’s first, second and third echelon forces as they were forming up, and track them along their lines of approach. New C3I nodes and processes would quickly convert incoming sensor data to targeting information and transmit it directly to ground-based missile and air attack units armed with guided anti-armor munitions and submunitions. These guided weapons promised to be as accurate at their maximum effective ranges as they were at line-of-sight ranges. All this should allow the American battle network to “look deep and shoot deep,” and mount devastating attacks and advancing Soviet forces long before they reached NATO front lines. This new operational battle network would be demonstrated in an advanced concept technology demonstration called Assault Breaker, announced in 1976 when William Perry assigned DARPA to assemble its grids and test them using production prototype sensors and effectors.

Assault Breaker, and the 2OS it portended, really caught the Soviets’ attention. In 1979 the Soviets conducted a big war game in which they explored what might happen if NATO actually deployed the operational capability to hit successive attacking echelons with long-range guided munitions. The game suggested that if the battle network performed as the Americans expected, NATO would be able to break up a Warsaw Pact attack before a breakthrough could occur, and keep OMGs from getting into NATO’s rear without resorting to nuclear weapons.

When we successfully demonstrated the Assault Breaker concept in 1982-1983, the Soviets concluded the game results were accurate. Shortly thereafter, in 1984, Marshall Ogarkov, the head of the Soviet General Staff, declared that conventional guided munitions, precisely targeted through theater battle networks, could achieve battlefield effects roughly equal to those of tactical nuclear weapons. These new conventional “reconnaissance strike complexes” thus represented what Soviet military theorists called a “military-technical revolution.” Their appearance completely upended the Soviet’s campaign design, and convinced the General Staff that a conventional invasion would not likely succeed. In other words, the 2OS convinced the Soviets of NATO conventional superiority, and helped in no small way to end the Cold War without a shot being fired.

If you look back in time in 1984, it is interesting to note that the Soviets actually understood the implication of the 2OS long before most American strategists did. It wasn’t until Desert Storm that American strategists understood that the 2OS had caused a fundamental shift in conventional warfare.

So it was that the First and Second Offset Strategies contributed the broader U.S. “holding strategy” during the Cold War. The 1OS and 2OS were both designed to reduce the chance we would fight a conventional conflict before the Soviet system collapsed.

One of the key points that James Lacey makes in a recent book, after surveying a set of strategic rivalries/great power competitions from the classical world to the Cold War, is that power shifts (real or perceived) double the chance of war. In this regard, shifts toward parity are most likely to start wars.” To what extent is this structural variable identifiable in the operational environment that during the Cold War produced offset strategies twice? In other words what is the structural reality that triggers and makes the search for an offset strategy an imperative?

The United States adopted the 1OS when it enjoyed nuclear superiority.  It was a key part of the “New Look” and “New, New Look” Strategies adopted by the Eisenhower Administration, which relied upon the threat of massive retaliation at the strategic level and early use of tactical nuclear weapons during conventional confrontations.  Once the Soviet Union achieved strategic and tactical nuclear parity, however, the threat of tactical nuclear weapons was no longer credible.  U.S. strategists believed this made the likelihood of conventional war in Europe greater, which spurred the 2OS.

Similar thinking animates the Third Offset Strategy.  Both Russia and China were alarmed by the ease in which the U.S. defeated Iraq in the First Gulf War, and both made it their business to seek rough parity in battle network-guided munitions warfare. Both have now achieved that goal, if only in their “near abroads,” where they have assembled very powerful “anti-access, area-denial” (A2/AD) networks designed to deter, disrupt and defeat U.S. power projection operations near their home territories. If they choose to do so, these same A2/AD networks provide an umbrella under which they can project power to coerce their neighbors or threaten U.S. allies. As Lacey suggests, this shift towards conventional parity makes the likelihood of military confrontation between state powers higher.

With this in mind, the 3OS seeks to reestablish U.S. conventional overmatch, thereby strengthening both conventional deterrence and strategic stability. With regard to the latter, as a status quo power, the 3OS fits within a framework of comprehensive strategic stability, which consists of three supporting legs: strategic deterrence, conventional deterrence, and the day-to-day competition below the threshold of armed conflict. All work together to provide comprehensive strategic stability. Our concept of strategic deterrence rests upon the assumption of strategic parity and “mutually assured destruction.” In contrast we do not consider conventional parity to be a good thing. We much prefer having clear conventional overmatch, which is generally thought to be the best way to deter would be aggressors from resorting to conventional warfare below the nuclear threshold. To James Lacey’s point, then, the 3OS is a response to a new condition of parity in battle network-guided munitions warfare, which undermines both conventional deterrence and comprehensive strategic stability.  

As for whether the 3OS is “a holding strategy,” the contemporary challenges posed by Russia and Chinas are two different kettles of fish than the challenge posed by the Soviet Union. Russia is a resurgent great power, possessing a large nuclear arsenal and formidable conventional forces. But it no longer seeks to forcibly expand either its dominion or communism, and it demographics and economy both look really bad over the long term. On the Chinese side, their economy could surpass that of the U.S., and they are intent on becoming a global military peer. So I guess I would say the 3OS might be thought of as a holding strategy for the Russians, and a hedging strategy for the Chinese.

I tend to look at both powers less as adversaries and more as competitors, as geopolitical rivals. They see themselves and act like great powers, and they want to be treated as such—more as equals with the U.S. rather than as weaker minor powers. Consequently, I would say we are engaged in a very intense strategic rivalry with both, although because the Russians have used “active measures” against U.S. democratic processes and are actively working to undermine and fracture NATO, they can certainly be viewed in more adversarial terms.

Let’s describe the broader strategic context in which the 3OS is developing. What is the operational problem 3OS is trying to address?

Offsets inevitably cause adversaries and competitors to react. The Soviets clearly reacted to the 1OS, seeking both strategic parity and conventional dominance. Once they achieved their goals, the U.S. was forced to purse the 2OS, which in turn spurred a Chinese and Russian reaction to perceived U.S. conventional dominance.

Russian and Chinese adopted 2OS thinking and technologies to erect A2/AD (anti-access/area-denial) networks to confront our own battle networks. They do so to deter, forestall and disrupt any U.S. power projection operation near their own territory. But, as we discussed earlier, the networks also provide both with an umbrella under which they could coerce neighboring states or threaten U.S. allies.

The appearance of conventional A2/AD battle networks capable of directing guided munitions salvos as deep and as dense as our own threatens our ability to project power. This is a serious operational problem, and a direct challenge to a global superpower that relies on its ability to project power into distant theaters to underwrite both its alliances and conventional deterrence. If Lacey is correct that conventional parity often incentivizes aggressive and coercive behavior on the part of rising powers, this condition raises the likelihood of military confrontation. The whole idea of the 3OS is to restore our conventional overmatch, so deterrence is strengthened, and the chance of confrontation lowered.

Let’s discuss the relationship between offset strategies and deterrence, particularly its credibility. What role did the 2OS, with its technological, doctrinal and organizational innovations, play in changing the Russian perception on their battlefield competitive advantages? How did the 2OS help deter Russia? What was the impact of the Assault Breaker concept on the NATO deterrence posture and balance of power in Central Europe?

I think we’ve already covered much of this, so let me just amplify a few points and make a few new ones.  Up until and through most of WW2, at the broadest level, warfare could be thought of as unguided munitions warfare: most munitions that were thrown, launched, shot, or propelled missed their targets—and generally by very large margins, especially as range increased. As a result, unguided weapons warfare relied on mass to achieve target effects – huge artillery barrages, lots of anti-aircraft fire to shoot down airplanes, etc.

WW2 saw two alternatives to unguided weapons warfare: atomic weapons and conventional guided munitions.  Atomic weapons made miss distances less of a problem.  The sheer power of an atomic blast meant that any strike was generally “good enough for government work.” Conventional guided munitions worked in the opposite way; they sought to reduce the miss distance to zero, which meant smaller munitions could achieve the same effects as much larger unguided weapons. Moreover, conventional guided munitions introduced the idea of accuracy independent of range, which allowed effective long-range fires for the first time.

The 1OS exploited atomic weapons; the 2OS exploited guided munitions. Both strategies changed the principle of mass in a fundamental way, in that they allowed a smaller armed force using guided munitions to confidently take on and defeat a larger armed force that practiced unguided weapons warfare.

The whole thinking behind the operational and organizational constructs generated by the 2OS exploited the idea of accuracy independent of range to “look deep and shoot deep.” This basic operational idea required an interconnected battle network with a sensor grid able to look deep, a C3I grid able to identify and target enemy concentrations and an effects grid able to employ long-range guided munitions. Such an operational battle network allowed the application of precision effects across the battle space at the same time. Indeed, the whole idea behind the Air Land Battle was that the corps commanders would attack the deep echelons that were 72 hours away, the divisions commanders would fight the echelons that were 24 hours away, and the battalion commanders would take care of the close fight—all at the same time. This thinking was adopted in NATO called Follow on Force Attack, or FOFA.  FOFA was all predicated on the idea of using operational battle networks employing guided munitions to allow different command echelons to fight different temporal fights within a single integrated battle.

It was NATO’s perceived ability to simultaneously attack and destroy successive echelons without resorting to nuclear weapons that was such a game changer. Assault Breaker showed that NATO would be able to kill deep targets with conventional fires—a fact that shook the Soviets up. They realized a conventional attack was not likely to succeed because NATO would be able to defeat their forces before they reached their planned penetration point.

Many people think the 2OS was just about information dominance. But think back to what we said about the British Air Defense Network. It gave the British an information advantage that helped take surprise away from Luftwaffe attacks. But because most British effectors relied upon unguided weapons, the only thing the British could do with this information was to mass its fighters in front of Germany’s massed bombers and fight it out at line of sight ranges.  The same thing would have happened to FOFA absent the widespread use of guided munitions and submunitions. It was only when guided munitions were employed by a battle network’s effects grid that warfare fundamentally changed.

The Soviets understood that “reconnaissance strike complexes” that combined carefully designed sensor and C3I grids with conventional guided weapons represented a military-technical revolution that rendered subordinate massed, unguided weapons warfare. This was what convinced them that the U.S. enjoyed an insurmountable conventional overmatch along the Central Front. This realization undoubtedly strengthened NATO’s conventional deterrent and helped in no small way to end the Cold War.

The character of war has changed over time. The character of offset has changed over time. In the past we had the Assault Breaker and Air-Land battle doctrine. Today the emphasis seems to be on Raid Breaker and Multi-Domain battle. How would you describe the “system of systems” dimension as well as the contours of the operational concepts and organizational constructs of the 3OS?

The Third Offset posits that advanced computing, big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI)—and the vastly improved autonomous systems and operations they will enable—are pointing towards new and more powerful battle networks involving human-machine collaboration and combat teaming.

The development of supporting 3OS operational concepts and organizational constructs is in its very early stages and is proceeding along two complementary paths.  The first is a technical path, which is exploring how we can improve the performance of our current battle networks by exploiting AI and the greater autonomous operations it allows.  This technical path includes: 

1) Injecting machine-learning algorithms throughout our sensor, C3I, effects and regeneration/sustainment grids, to improve performance in all battle network operations. These algorithms will help us more rapidly discern battlefield patterns, develop and share more accurate and timely common operational pictures, achieve more precise and discriminate combat effects, and provide needed logistics and maintenance support on demand.

2) Pursuing new means of human-machine collaboration—exploiting what machines and humans do best to make more timely and relevant battlefield decisions. In most instances, we intend to keep humans either in the loop or on the loop, but we will increasingly use machines to help humans make more relevant and timely decisions. However, in some instances we will delegate decision-making authority to machines, such as in cyber defense, electronic warfare, and missile defense.

3) Improving human-assisted operations—connecting every combat commander and operator to the power of the battle network when and where needed. In the 2OS, the power of the battle-network was generally exploited by the brigade level or above.  Over the last 16 years of war, information has been pushed further down the chain of command; we now see platoons and companies getting as much information as battalions and brigades used to receive. The 3OS sees battle network information getting down to individual or squad leader level.

4) Adopting new forms of human-machine combat teaming—the combination of manned and unmanned platforms in innovative ways. Operators are experimenting with manned-unmanned operations in every domain, with applications in the air domain leading the charge.

5) And fielding cyber and EW-hardened, network-enabled autonomous, and high-speed weaponry. Future autonomous weapons will collaborate during their attacks, taking into account an enemy’s defenses as well as the actions of friendly attackers. And hypersonic and directed energy weapons will be used to achieve more timely effects.

If you think of a matrix with a vertical axis consisting of the four battle network grids and a horizontal axis consisting of these 5 technological improvements, you begin to see how 3OS technologies point toward a new type of joint battle networks with increased levels of autonomy and human-machine collaboration. If the 2OS was about looking deep, shooting deep and hitting deep, the 3OS is about understanding the battlespace, planning, and achieving more discriminate effects faster than your opponent. If we fulfill this promise, we should gain a decisive competitive advantage.

The second supporting path of current 3OS efforts is to develop new technology-enabled operational and organizational constructs that give us an advantage at the operational level of war. One emerging operational concept is Raid Breaker. As we just discussed, in unguided weapons warfare most munitions miss their targets. It therefore relies on mass of fire to achieve target effects. In contrast, guided munitions warfare seeks only to saturate the defense, since any single leaker can achieve target effects.  This puts an enormous burden on the defense.  In a situation where both sides enjoy rough guided munitions-battle network parity, the side that has a marked advantage in point defense gains an enormous, potentially decisive advantage over the course of a campaign.

Raid Breaker is a concept that combines new autonomous sensors, new autonomous C3I capabilities and especially new high-speed effectors such as gun-launched hypersonic projectiles to force an attacker to fire increasingly dense—and expensive—guided munitions salvos to saturate a defense. Of course, for this concept to work, the cost per defensive shot must be significantly lower than the cost per offensive shot. Right now, defensive interceptors are much more expensive than offensive munitions. In essence, then, Raid Breaker is exploring how we might be able to win the guided munitions salvo competition at a price we can afford.

Another emerging concept is Multi-Domain Battle.  For the past 25 years, in confrontations against regional competitors, the Joint Force could count on superiority in every operational domain—space, air, sea, undersea, land and cyberspace. Now, faced by great powers with rough parity in battle network-guided munitions warfare, the Joint Force will be contested in every domain. Multi-Domain Battle seeks to achieve an advantage in this context by exploiting the aforementioned infusion of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning into our battle networks to achieve what I’ll call “cross-domain superiority.” If successful, even if the enemy can contest us in a single domain we should to be able to achieve physical, temporal and positional advantages by combining simultaneous operations in and fires from multiple domains—by massing effects from the air, from the sea, from the ground, from under the sea.

One thing I need to mention here is that neither of these two paths is likely to give us a lasting operational advantage like the ones we accrued after the 1OS and 2OS. Advances in 3OS technologies such as AI, big data and machine learning are being driven by the commercial sector and available to all competitors. The competitive landscape will thus have many “fast followers.”  3OS thinking sees us in an intense temporal competition where we need to strive to be the “fast leader.” Even then, we must be prepared for technical, tactical and operational surprise as some competitors beat us to the punch.  That is why you hear so much emphasis in the Department about the need to become more agile, flexible and resilient.

You emphasize that AI and autonomy are at the core of the 3OS battle networks. In 2015, Retired General Stanley McChrystal published a great book (Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World) where he described the JSOC network responsible for neutralizing Zarqawi - a “team of teams” effect, in fact an information age construct able to fuse resources and capacities from across the network, highly autonomous with the decision-making cycle decentralized pushed way down, able to access a common shared consciousness in order to achieve a strategic battlefield effect. Is this description applicable also to the human-machine operations contemplated by the 3OS?

Thank you for asking this question. A lot of people look at the 3OS and think that it is all about technology and high-end warfare. In fact, 3OS thinking was inspired from the beginning by the Gen. McChrystal’s thinking. Tony Thomas gave us a picture that was drawn on a white board by a Special Forces operator in early 2000s. It depicts a tactical battle network that transfers data from space systems, manned aerial platforms, unmanned aerial platforms, ELINT, SIGINT, HUMINT, and ground systems directly to an operator, labeled Yankee 01 in the picture, who is ready to conduct an operation against a high value target.   This picture was the inspiration for assisted human operations, which is all about rapid, decentralized decision-making, supported by the power of the battle network. The picture also well portrays a 3OS human-machine collaborative battle network with a high degree of human-machine combat teaming where decision-making authority is sometimes delegated to machines, and where the ultimate aim is the development of the “common shared consciousness” which was the secret sauce of General McChrystal’s team of teams.

This type of thinking and aim is as applicable to high-end warfare as it is to counterterrorist operations. The only difference between the two is their associated battle networks will be configured differently for the task at hand. In other words, while each battle network will incorporate AI and machine learning, human-machine collaboration, assisted human operations, human-machine combat teaming, and cyber and EW hardened network-enabled weapons, they will use them in different ways to support specific aims, operations and tactics. The operational and organizational constructs that will evolve from 3OS will all have similar traits where commanders and operators alike are trying to pull and exploit information and resources from across the network, develop a common shared consciousness, and exploit highly decentralized and in some cases autonomous decision-making cycles. Only the battle network’s grid configurations will differ, depending on the level of war or task at hand.

Should we expect an even more intensified competition below the threshold of armed conflict in the allied frontline regions placed in the immediate proximity of Eurasian geopolitical rivals, especially at a time when the parity in 2OS theater-level battle networks give these challengers local overmatch/superiority?

Yes.  But more intense competition below the threshold of armed conflict, is only partly due to 2OS parity.  This renewed competition is the natural result stemming from the resurgence of great power competition.  Great powers are generally very cautious about militarily confronting other great powers —especially since the advent of nuclear weapons.  This helps explain why there hasn’t been a great power war in over 70 years. But as they pursue their own interests, we can expect both Russia and China to press the United States and contest many aspects of the rules-based international order the U.S. has worked so hard to build.  While so doing, both seek to achieve their aims while operating below the threshold of armed conflict. And both great powers seek to secure and control their “near abroads,” which puts great pressure on the eastern flank of NATO and our Pacific allies.   Russia does this through a strategy of indirect action involving “active measures,” while China pursues a patient strategy of economic coercion and cooption supported by “gray zone” activities like those we see in the South China Sea.

All this activity is typical of great powers, and requires both the United States and its allies to up their strategic games.  As a status quo power, the U.S. seeks to achieve comprehensive strategic stability, underwritten by strategic deterrence, conventional deterrence, and competing with, contesting and confronting our rivals while avoiding great power war.  All three efforts are required to avoid crisis instability or miscalculations that might lead to armed conflict.  As we’ve discussed, while we accept strategic parity, we strive for conventional overmatch. The 3OS aims to convince both China and Russia that any escalation beyond intense peacetime competition would end badly for them.

In the past, the 2OS had a transformative effect on NATO’s deterrence posture. Today NATO is not well positioned to counterbalance 2OS theater-level battle networks. How do you see the effect of the 3OS thinking on influencing NATO's adaptation in an age of great power competition?

It’s too early to tell.  I think NATO is still debating whether Russia poses more of a conventional threat or more of a hybrid threat that seeks to destabilize the alliance through what I think of as governance and societal cohesion attacks. Additionally, as of yet there are no 3OS concepts like FOFA that might help transform NATO’s operational posture.

I think this will change in the near future.  In my view, a NATO Collaborative Human-Machine Battle Network designed for counter-power projection would strengthen conventional deterrence along the eastern NATO/EU border in a big way. Such a battle network would employ a variety of unmanned sensors and effectors to preclude the need for large formations on the eastern border. This battle network would include and control a NATO Operational Fires Network with common artillery, rocket and INF compliant ballistic missiles, augmented by distributed “containerized armories.” Such a network could mass extremely dense and accurate guided missile and air fires across a much greater front than seen in the 2OS.  “Containerized armories” would also allow smaller nations that cannot afford to raise and maintain combined arms formations to make a material contribution to NATO’s defense.

I think this discussions highlights an important point.  The 3OS is very “coalition friendly.” AI-enabled C3I grids with computer vision and natural language processing should allow more cohesive coalition command and control and operations. Distributed “containerized armories” filled with network-enabled anti-armor weapons will allow any nation to make itself a tough nut to crack. And even a small nation with skills in algorithmic warfare can be a critical contributor to a NATO Human-Machine Collaborative Battle Network. For this reason, ultimately I expect the 3OS to have an even greater transformative impact on NATO posture than did the 2OS.

Do you have any other thoughts that we have not yet covered?

Only one. Some people are worried about AI machines that will be able to reason in many ways like humans, and about delegating decisions about life or death to them. The 3OS exploits AI and autonomy, but it generally sees humans remaining either in the loop or on the loop—as is suggested by the terms human-machine collaboration and human-machine combat teaming. In our current thinking the human always comes first.

Accordingly, the envisioned road to the 3OS starts with the insertion of “narrow AI”—algorithms developed for a specific purpose—into our battle network grids. We posit that once we infuse all four of our grids with multiple narrow AI systems, the battle network will achieve what Gen McCrystal refers to as common shared consciousness.  If we can actually do this, when an adversary’s legacy battle network comes up against ours, it may appear as though our battle network is operating under “general AI,” or AI that mimics human thought and intuition. But but humans will still control and guide the battle network.

Now, that said, our competitors may go a different way. Russian and Chinese militaries, which support autocratic regimes, may be less worried about delegating lethal decision making authority to machines.  We know, for example, that the Soviets conceived of reconnaissance strike complexes that would ultimately be nearly wholly automatic, where machines made all the decisions about target engagement.

So the way democratic militaries think about 3OS networks may be different than the way our autocratic geopolitical rivals think about them. We have to see how this competition evolves over time. What will happen in a confrontation between 3OS battle networks where one is controlled mainly by humans and the other controlled mainly by machines? Which side will prevail?  I’m afraid we will see.

Bob Work is a Distinguished Senior Fellow for Defense and National Security at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and Senior Counselor with Telemus Group, a consulting firm specializing in defense forecasting, wargaming and qualitative analysis. He served as the 31st Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2014-2017.

About the Author(s)

Octavian Manea was a Fulbright Junior Scholar at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (Syracuse University) where he received an MA in International Relations and a Certificate of Advanced  Studies in Security Studies.

Comments

RantCorp,

I'm pretty much in agreement with our comments, and partially in agreement with Bob's. While I respect Mr. Work's intellect, I think his proposed off-set strategy isn't really a strategy at all. It is based on the premise that if we have more toys, toys that work faster, and toys that are interconnected it provides us with a decisive advantage. You and Bob largely unpacked the fallacy of this so-called strategy, but I'll add a couple of additional thoughts to chew on.

First, as the author and Mr. Work readily admit, our adversaries are adapting these technologies for military purposes as fast we are (pacing threats), so instead of an off-set, we have a new arms race. Those rarely end well. Furthermore, China, Russia, and others have developed real strategies to pursue their ends in ways that largely neutralize any military technology advantage we may enjoy. For now we'll call it gray zone strategies, and competing below traditional armed conflict against this type of challenge requires the Defense Department to do more than develop it conventional war fighting capabilities.

In recent years another strategically void concept has emerged within the department, which I see echoed repeated with no real thought behind it. That is gaining and demonstrating the ability to impose costs. What does that mean exactly in a strategic context? How is it intended to work? In most cases history has demonstrated it doesn't work, whether it was Hitler's battle of London or our strategic bombing of North Vietnam. Numerous actors throughout history have demonstrated they can endure our ability to impose costs seemingly beyond levels of human endurance. Of course throughout history war is always imposes costs, but it imposes cost in support of a military strategy, not simply kicking someone in the jollies and hoping they lose their will to fight.

In a conventional war this normally means neutralizing adversary's ability to employ force, and if required capture his capital. I know it is old school, but for conventional war Clausewitz basically has it right. After the conventional battle, the conflict may or may not end as we have seen throughout history. That means we may need to engage in uncomfortable stability activities to ultimately achieve our political ends. Yet it seems the off-set strategies simply wish this truth away.

Starting with the first off-set we have focused more on deterrence than winning. Deterrence theory is hard to prove or disprove, but I think most of us agree it has its merits. It also has its drawbacks when that is the focus of our strategic thinking. As Bob wrote, we don't play to win, we play not to lose. That puts us on our heels from the outset. We need to think more about strategy for winning, and what the implications are. Deterrence will not always work, then what?

There also seems to be a perception in the Defense Department that we're good at irregular warfare due to 15 plus years of doing it ineffectively. Now we are lifting and shifting to prepare for a conventional and WMD fight to increase our deterrence in this realm. We certainly need to regain readiness to fight conventional battles, but I think we're fooling ourselves if we think we're good at irregular warfare. Secretary Gates called for a balance in capabilities, but rather than balancing we teeter-totter between one extreme or the other. DoD programming methodology has replaced true strategy in large measure.

Bill C.

Fri, 01/19/2018 - 12:45pm

The first and second offset strategies, noted above; these appear to have been conceived of, and implemented, at a time when -- as former Secretary of Defense Perry suggests in the first paragraph above -- the U.S./the West was involved in an "holding strategy."

If the U.S./the West today is no longer pursuing a "holding strategy" -- but, rather, one more properly understood via our, shall we say, "nation-building" efforts in various parts of the world --

"Why the U.S. Military is in Somalia: The U.S. response to the challenges in Somalia has been to work with the Federal Government and the Federal Member state administrations, in coordination with the African Union, the United Nations, and other partners working toward a common goal: to support Somali-led efforts to stabilize and rebuild their country along democratic and federal lines."

http://www.africom.mil/media-room/article/30125/why-the-u-s-military-is…

Then how might this such major change in our overall strategic focus (from "holding" during the Old Cold War to, shall we say, "advancing" today) -- if at all - effect our new offset strategy? (If an offset strategy is even considered necessary today; this, as per our new "advancing" posture and strategy noted above.)

My thought here possibly stated another way:

In the past, our first and second offset strategies were undertaken, as per former SecDef Perry above, to "stem Soviet expansion in the world ... "

If today we are dealing with states and societies who, now, are determined to stem OUR expansion in the world,

"Differing from the previous Tsarist regional empire and the Soviet globalist one, the new Russian foreign policy has a more pragmatic goal. It aims to build different types of buffer zones against NATO encroachment to the West and U.S. counter-terrorism efforts in Central Asia."

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-battlefield-of-tomorrow-fought-...

Then how might this such reversal -- of both OUR and indeed THEIR overall strategic purpose and focus -- how might these such major changes effect our thoughts on, for example:

a. The need for (and if needed) the configuration of our new offset strategy?

b. The need for "conventional deterrence;" this, as a/the central focus of our such (if needed in this new strategic context) new offset strategy?

(Note: Even with President Trump now in office for a year, these such "nation-building"/"advancing" efforts still seem to dominate -- and indeed still seem to define -- our current strategic purpose: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/america-quietly-starts-nation-building…)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/opinion/president-trump-nation-build…

RantCorp

Thu, 01/18/2018 - 7:27am

Reading this article I was reminded of the propagandist methodology employed by those who sought to justify the ‘Missile Gap’ , the ‘Domino Theory’ and Westmoreland's “ Firepower” in the 1950s and 60s.

Throughout this piece the author regularly presents speculation as evidence of fact. To be sure he is careful to qualify much of his supporting argument boosting Offset Strategies 1, 2 and 3 as a matter of opinion, but then (as my mind’s eye understood his reason) sums up this speculative prelude as a self-evident proof of fact.

Straight off the bat he wrote:

‘…planners concluded that the US would need 200 infantry divisions and 280 air groups to defeat the Axis powers. ….The 90-divison gamble turned out to be a winner, but it was a close-run thing’
.
The author fails to mention the strategic weight of 500 Soviet infantry Divisions, 50 British, 50 Commonwealth and any number of French, Pole, Chinese etc formations. Also in the fight - 100,000 Allied tanks and nearly 280,000 Allied aircraft - neither manufactured in the US nor manned by the US military during WW2.

And

‘Both Russia and China were alarmed by the ease in which the US defeated Iraq in the First Gulf War.' and ‘It wasn’t until the First Gulf War that American strategists understood that the 2OS had caused a fundamental shift in conventional warfare.’

So if we defeated Iraq in 1991 who was it we have been fighting - in one form or another - until just a few weeks ago?

Needless to say someone should have told the Iraqis 16 years ago about the futility of opposing 'fundamental change' and how defeated they were.

Is it just me but has anyone else noted how similar the fate inflicted on Berlin in May 1945 looks to the fate our latest OS has left Aleppo, Raqqa , Fallujah and Mosul. Maybe it's just a distorting effect of black and white film.

For sure we didn’t line up 20,000 artillery pieces and pound them like the Red Army did to Berlin, but 2017 war by annihilation appears to me to be exactly the same as 1945 war by annihilation.

Unlike the 250,000 diehards who defended Berlin, we reduced a major modern metropolis to rubble to take down a few thousand lightly armed, barely trained Fruitcakers.

‘It was only when guided munitions were employed by a battle network’s effects grid that warfare fundamentally changed.’

It would appear the saving grace that is precision guided munitions has inexplicably mistaken tens of millions of bricks, roof tiles, lamp-posts, doorways and windows as a clear and present danger, requiring no end of overwhelming force.

‘….the ultimate aim is the development of the “common shared consciousness “ which was the secret sauce of General McChrsytal’s team of teams.’

Was that the same secret sauce that McChrsytal described (just before he was relieved of his command) oozing from a “bleeding ulcer”? I at least understood this to mean McChrsytal's acknowledgement that ‘whack a mole’ was merely a tactic with little lasting positive operational consequence and zip strategic effect.

I for one fail to see how this tactical 'shared consciousness' – whether formulated on a IBM main-frame or the reverse side of a bar mat - would alter its inherent weakness.

Leaving to one side my unnecessary need to reaffirm that I’m an opinionated asshole, I think we all agree that it is imperative we measure the success of any military strategy by the nature of the political Ends it brings about when the widespread killing mercifully stops.

I often read our RMA-enriched strategic prowess has been considered numero uno since 1945. ( Certainly if cost is any measure we are without question superior to the rest of the world combined and some.)

Our national debt and our renewed search for greatness suggests to me that too much of this fine thing is a luxury and we need to do better . Surely we owe it to ourselves to attempt to ease up on the good stuff.

However, rather than assessing strategic effect grounded in speculative RMA specifications, perhaps it is more prudent to examine the results on where and when we have actually sent our youth to kill or be killed.

After all, an honest assessment of the political Ends of OS 1,2,3 shaped warfighting is the least we owe the past, present and future generations.

So here goes...since 1945 -

Korea.. 4 years, 54000 US dead and a festering 50 year old stand-off that has now escalated to the real possibility of state on state nuclear war.

Vietnam…. 10 years, 52000 US dead and ignominious defeat.

Grenada….a week, 6 US dead and victory.

Panama…a week, zero US dead and victory.

Desert Storm.. 100 hours 300 US dead and military standoff leading to….see below.

Iraq…16 years, 4000 + US Dead - appears at an end and.... victory for Iran!.

Afghanistan….. 16 years, 3000+ US Dead and still going.

Obviously this is a simplistic summation but how anyone considers such a list of warfighting to be an endorsement of a military strategy that costs 600 billion dollar a year, defies my imagination.

A century ago, amidst the slaughter of trench warfare, a similar stubbornness lay siege to the thinking shaping military strategy.

Back then our most distinguished military minds persisted in prosecuting a form of warfighting that was, for all intents and purposes, the mass-murder of a generation of European youth.

While we have largely spared our own young such mindless slaughter, our opponents are convinced (rightly or wrongly) we have in fact slaughtered theirs as much we slaughtered our own a century ago.

While I wholeheartedly agree the solution is a population-centric one, I disagree with RCJ as to how Resistance and Revolutionary Energy shapes the nature of our problem.

From what I could discern from their fighting native populations, the rulers of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan et al recognize the peril posed by their own domestic RRE and as such they understand the critical need to de-energize this youth-bomb threat so best to maintain their autocratic hold on power.

They attempt to solve this most complex of political dilemmas by sending as many of their politically zealous youths off to some distant conflict (in the name of a supernatural fantasy, honor, buy the farm, threatened imprisonment etc.etc) whereupon we obligingly kill them.

Domestic RRE threat solved and any blame absolved.

Warlock has pointed out the demographic reality of youth of fighting age almost everywhere except the West. Within every TO's we find ourselves drawn to, this political ticking youth-bomb is already a reality or is fast approaching.

I mean to say, image the rage going thru the mind of a 19 year old New Yorker walking back into Lower Manhattan on 9/11 and taking in the two towers lying as mountains of rubble.

Try if you can, imagine what will be going thru the mind a 19 year Iraqi returning to Mosul and taking in the stench of hundreds of unburied dead and tens of thousands of piles of rubble where the folk and buildings of his hometown once stood.

Many folks will argue that mindset driving the rage provoked by the destruction of the WTC and Mosul, Aleppo etc. to be so different that any causal factoring parallels are misguided.

My experience suggests, for much of our young opposition, they are one and the same.

The trauma many young Arabs have suffered has shaped a cognitive lens that views the proportionality of blame for their predicament to be equally shared; regardless of who they or we recognise as the oppressor or liberator.

In fact the wrath aimed at the actor who sallies forth to ‘Liberate the Oppressed ' may attract a more vehement rage. The presence of a well-meaning liberator constantly reminds them of their own inadequacy to maintain their personal and/or their family's freedom.

This is a reaction many of us find difficult to comprehend (especially so if we have taken casualties get rid of the bad guys ).

The unexpected nature of resentment directed at us can be the source of murderous intentions and outcomes – on all sides.

The asshole running the ISI, IRGC, various Arab Makhabarats, Mafioso and other political goon squads entrenched in autocratic nation-states understand this counter- intuitive paradox much more comprehensively than we do. IMHO this is a major shortcoming.

Without exception this paradox plagues millions of young men in the various TOs we are currently engaged. Their political masters are as masterful at exploiting this mass trauma – whether induced by decades of constant war or life as a refugge - as they are ruthless, determined and effective.

All of us a familiar with the effects of PTSD and the sometimes harrowing behavior it can have on the most disciplined of minds – years, even decades after the traumatizing event.

Our very latest ‘courageously restrained' RMA approach to shaping an acceptable political End is to send a $1 million 250 kg SDB thru the nearest window of someone - militant or civilian - who is more than likely suffering PTSD.

Clearly that is never going to work.

Delivering SDBs thru thousands of windows across an entire city of deeply traumatised people is exactly what the enemy’s leadership wants/needs us to do.

The 'riddle of the trenches' was solved by Combined Arms, meticulous planning and massive sandbox rehearsals down to the level of private.

A century later the 'riddle of COIN ' also needs a different military strategy. What was done to Fallujah , Raqqa, Mosul, Aleppo, Beirut, Hue and numerous other cities etc. since the end of WW2 is clearly not the answer.

The fight for the political allegiance of billions of under 25 year olds is either asymmetric or stupid.

Since 1945 our opponents have accepted this truism and shaped and refined their military strategy accordingly. We on the other hand refuse to adapt and as such condemn our military to repeated strategic failure.

We’ve all got one,

RC

I have a great deal of respect for Robert O. Work, and his accomplishments. However, I must take exception to three assertions made by Work in the interview.

Firstly, the First Offset was a disaster. Not only was Eisenhower’s massive retaliation posture unethical if not criminal, but his administration hollowed out U.S. conventional capabilities to the degree that Kennedy had no conventional options to deal with Cuba in 1962, to say nothing of the Warsaw Pact in 1961. Despite the flexible response doctrine pursued by Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, nuclear posture changed little until the 1970s, and the reconstruction of conventional capabilities was interrupted by the Vietnam War. Not only did the First Offset degrade U.S. conventional forces for twenty years relative to adversaries, it also provoked a nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and spurred proliferation elsewhere. This is not to say that the U.S. should have attempted to overmatch the Warsaw Pact conventionally in the 1950s-1970s, but that a flexible and dual response should have been pursued from the outset rather than cost-cutting.

Secondly, the Second Offset was not so much a response to Soviet nuclear parity, as it was a continuation of U.S. reliance upon airpower and the maturation of precision-strike technologies. As Work himself noted, the effects of the Second Offset were not apparent to the U.S. leadership until Operation Desert Storm. I have no doubt that individual Americans and Soviets were aware of the coming “revolution”, but it is clear that 1991 was a watershed in military history, in the same way that Operation Barbarossa was more impactful in the Kremlin than the numerous warnings from Soviet intelligence officers in the preceding weeks had been. Rather than a counter to nuclear weaponry, the Second Offset was the realization of conventional capabilities that had been lacking twenty years previously.

Third, Work appears to attribute the entire Second Offset to Bill Perry: “All of these initiatives were, in turn, backed by Bill Perry’s Second Offset Strategy, which sought to arm new operational level battle networks with guided munitions and sub-munitions.” Yet the Second Offset had many, many architects, including Harold Brown, Donn Starry, various DARPA Directors, and other DOD officials, who served before, with, and after Perry. Indeed, Work notes that Assault Breaker was only demonstrated after Perry had left the DOD. Given Perry’s recent punditry with regard to North Korea and Iran, which coincides with the policies of the previous administration, in which Work served, I find this rather interesting.

Warlock

Thu, 01/18/2018 - 1:36pm

In reply to by Bill C.

I don't see that GEN Votel is talking expansion at all. We didn't go in and force design of Somalia's government. Because we equate rule-of-law, one-man-one-vote, and free market economies with goodness, we tend to look favorably at countries that evolve similar practices and supporting institutions, but that hasn't prevented us from dealing with others. And we don't have teams on the ground in Somalia forcing that evolution.

Likewise, NATO. NATO expansion was about holding on to the post-Cold War status quo and preventing Russia from regaining influence in Eastern European and former Soviet republics...a measure as (or more) popular with the countries in question as with the U.S. The Russians, who retain a proprietary view of those countries, disagree, but they'd like to recover an earlier status quo.

The offset strategies are economic strategies as they apply to force structure -- specifically, how can we get by with a smaller military force? That has nothing to do with political or military strategy those forces may support. (Or lack thereof.)

Bill C.

Fri, 01/12/2018 - 3:04pm

In reply to by Warlock

Examples:

- General Votel:

BEGIN QUOTE

"It’s certainly not perfect. It is Somalia and they’ve had a lot of challenges for a lot of years. But, today, they’ve got an elected president. They’ve got a parliament. They’ve got a constitution. They are now establishing a national army. And those are all good and positive things."

END QUOTE

http://www.tbo.com/list/military-news/gray-zone-conflicts-far-more-compl...

(Note here that General Votel appears to clearly be defining "progress" in "expansionist" terms; thus, in terms of advancing our way of life, our way of governance, etc.; this, in places such as Somalia?)

- Major General Linder:

BEGIN QUOTE

Differing from the previous Tsarist regional empire and the Soviet globalist one, the new Russian foreign policy has a more pragmatic goal. It aims to build different types of buffer zones against NATO encroachment to the West and U.S. counter-terrorism efforts in Central Asia.

END QUOTE

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-battlefield-of-tomorrow-fought…

(Note here that Major General Linder does not suggest that these Russian efforts [clearly described by MG Linder here in "containment" and/or "roll back" terms?] are either invalid or irrational. Nor does MG Linder here appear to be discussing NATO, etc., expansionist efforts of the past, to wit: those that have already been realized. Rather, the focus of MG Linder's thoughts here appear to be on U.S./Western expansionist designs now -- and in such places as the Ukraine and Central Asia. Yes?)

So let me suggest that it now becomes important for you to:

a. Better advance and explain -- and better substantiate/support -- your "maintain the status quo" position. (Herein, and for my part, I would welcome opinions of academics, pundits, etc., that would help validate your thoughts and oppose mine.) And to:

b. Possibly indicate how "maintain" might effect our New Offset Strategy? (If, under "maintain," such a strategy is even required?)

Warlock

Fri, 01/12/2018 - 8:54am

In reply to by Bill C.

Explain in actual, identifiable actions, rather than opinions from academics and pundits, this position. Afghanistan was not an attempt to expand power and influence -- it was a reaction to a change in the status quo, in the form of a massive terrorist attack on the U.S. Iraq was also an attempt to maintain the status quo, as the 15-year policy of active containment was becoming untenable. Expansion of NATO into former Warsaw Pact and Soviet republics was an attempt to maintain the immediate post-Cold War status quo of a less powerful Russia. We reached a zenith in 1991...unstated U.S. strategy since then has revolved around trying to maintain that moment.

Bill C.

Wed, 01/10/2018 - 4:46pm

In reply to by Warlock

If the desire of the U.S. -- in the wake of the Soviet Union's demise -- was/is to "maintain the status quo," then how do we explain the U.S.'s clear efforts, post-the Old Cold War (and much as we would have expected the Soviets/the communists to have done if they had "won"), to:

a. Take some kind of advantage of the "unipolar moment;" this,

b. To INCREASE one's power, influence and control throughout the world; and, this, by:

c. Attempting to transform (by force in some instances) outlying states and societies more along one's own -- unusual and unique -- political, economic, social and value lines?

Are these such actions (for example, if embraced by the Soviet/the communists had they won the Old Cold War, and/or by we ourselves given that we did); are these such actions:

a. Synonymous with the concepts of "maintaining," "hanging on" and/or "regaining?" Or are they, instead,

b. Synonymous with something else, for example, with the concepts of "expansion," "improvement" and/or "achieving an even better position?"

Herein, logic -- and, if nothing else, the sacrifices made by the populations of the "winning" states and societies during the Old Cold War -- calling out for/demanding/ requiring nothing less than "b" immediately above?

(The New Offset Strategy, therefore and accordingly, needing to consider -- and accommodate -- this such effort?)

Warlock

Tue, 01/09/2018 - 3:04pm

In reply to by Bill C.

You found some new authors to quote for the new year! I didn't even realize LaFeber was still writing.

Mearsheimer -- besides tying himself to the realist model, which hasn't effectively applied since pre-WWI -- ignores that in the wake of the Soviet Union's demise, the U.S. was a preponderant power...hence, the U.S. desire to maintain the status quo. And trying to hang on (or regain, if you like) has become the default U.S. strategy. "Make America Great Again" wasn't a slogan coined from a memory of the 1950s (no matter what the Rust Belt thought)...it draws on the early '90s, when as long as you weren't in the steel or auto industries, the U.S. was economically and militarily unstoppable.

Bob's population focus has a point, though: look at the demographics for most states in turmoil, and you'll find a bulge in the 18-30 (or so) age range. Couple that with poor economies, and you have unemployed, discontent 18-30 year olds with time on their hands...the stuff protests and riots are made of. You can try and sell democratic, free market ideals and institutions all day long, but what grabs them a visible future holding a decent-paying, somewhat interesting career. That's not the complete answer, of course, but it's something that we rarely address in planning.

Robert C. Jones

Tue, 01/09/2018 - 12:42pm

In reply to by Bill C.

Bill, in the Cold War we were containing. We would conduct UW to incite insurgency to take down regimes more likely to side with the Chinese or Soviets; and we would conduct FID to prop up regimes we saw as likely to stay loyal to our team in exchange for money, protection, etc.

Many insurgencies were suppressed through the application of state power. Repeat as necessary and call "wins." Other movements were able to thwart state power. Increasingly this suppression is an effect that is more difficult, more expensive, more provocative and less durable. In fact, a US foreign policy so heavily rooted in this idea of employing our own state power to shape the governance of others to forms we believe best for us is a much more powerful driver of transnational terrorism than is the radicalized form of Islam employed by those seeking to coerce us into an approach for advancing our interests better suited to the world as it actually exists today.

We are a bit adrift in terms of where we think we are going as a nation in our interactions with the rest of the world. The latest NSS thankfully backs off of the aggressive liberalism of the past two administrations that sought impose our values and ideas of governance onto others. But we remain adrift. We play not to lose in a game we cannot seem to define. Whereas China plays to win in a game they can capture in a single phrase: "One Belt, One Road." There was a time when the US was equally focused.

Bill C.

Mon, 01/08/2018 - 7:49pm

In reply to by Robert C. Jones

Above you said: "Ultimately, in an era of competition between revisionist and status quo actors, we are the preeminent status quo actor."

John Mearsheimer, however, says: "Great powers, I argue, are always seeking to gain power over their rivals, with hegemony as their final goal. This perspective does not allow for status quo powers, except for the unusual state that achieves preponderance."

Christopher Layne notes that: "The Soviet Unions collapse transformed the international system dramatically, but there has been no change in U.S. grand strategy. In terms of ambitions, interests, and alliances, the U.S. is following the same grand strategy that it pursued from 1945-1991 -- that of preponderance."

(This [preponderance], after all, and as NSC-68 clearly indicates, was -- and apparently still is -- "the policy that the United States would pursue even if there was no Soviet Union.")

Thus, given that:

a. There is no "status quo power" in the world presently and that, accordingly,

b. The United States continues to pursue its grand strategy of preponderance even today; herein,

c. Still believing -- as it did in the past century -- that "security" and "domestic tranquility" can only be achieved by advancing our political, economic, social and value institutions and norms throughout the world. (See my comment immediately above.)

Given these such matters, how does (a) "our resilience" and (b) "their brittleness" play out in this new century?

a. Much as it did in the Old Cold War? Wherein, "leveraging the power of populations" (a) proved exceptionally difficult for the United States/the West ("capitalism," etc., it was said back then, did not "sell," and "colonialism," as we all know, poisoned the water), but (b) proved exceptionally useful/beneficial to our opponents? Or:

b. Much as Fukuyama seems to indicate? Herein, the "stream" that the populations step into today being much different than that which the populations stepped into during the Old Cold War? This allowing, as you suggest, that today's "offset strategy" should be population-focused/population-centric?

(Note: This reliance on the population [see such places as the Greater Middle East, Russia, China, etc., today); this does not seem to have worked out very well for the U.S./the West so far in this new century. Thus, the U.S./the West's apparent return to state-focused/state-centric efforts -- such as the employment of "Security Force Assistance Brigades" -- these, to help foreign governments "force" the transformations that we require on their populations?)

Robert C. Jones

Mon, 01/08/2018 - 3:45pm

In reply to by Bill C.

Bill C, I think we differ significantly as to cause and effect.

The US is a maritime and merchant nation. We have a luxury of resources, diversity, broad oceans, and weak, friendly land neighbors. We also were blessed with a system of governance designed to prevent the very type of domestic revolt that you suggest fills us with fear.

In our formative years we were able to leverage the protection of the British navy as we consolidated our hold on the North American continent. Foreign contests for power were not in our interest. As the 20th century grew near our growing power made us a revisionist state, and we began to flex our muscles, much as China does today. Britain realized they may have to fight us some day, and even though we remained allies, they lost to us all the same. Likewise, China need not fight us to defeat us, and we are proving far less savvy than the Brits.

So, I think you miss my point entirely. I am just saying that our resilience is a strategic strength; and that the brittleness of our major challengers is their strategic weakness. It is usually wise to avoid war where one can, and to match strength against weakness.

Bill C.

Mon, 01/08/2018 - 2:03pm

In reply to by Robert C. Jones

- If we can agree that, since at least the 1880s, "fear" -- of domestic revolt (based on both economic and political factors; see the quoted item immediately below) -- has done much to drive the U.S.'s "liberal" expansionist foreign policy:

BEGIN QUOTE

Williams, Walter LaFeber, and other leading Open Door historians have demonstrated that from at least the 1880s U.S. economic expansionis has been based on two linked factors. First, U.S. policymakers have believed that prosperity is the key to domestic political stability and have perceived that American prosperity depends on access to overseas markets, investment opportunities, and raw materials. Economic expansion thus is the prerequisite for avoiding political and social unrest at home. Second, the Open Door's flip side is apprehension about the consequences of "closure" -- fear of what would happen to American core values if the United States were denied economic access to key overseas regions. U.S. policymaker believe that the United States would have to adopt a regimented, state-planned economy, including government-imposed restrictions on imports, exports, and capital flows.

The Open Door has always been more than simply an explanation of the role of economic factors in the U.S. grand strategy. Ideology, or what Williams called the "American system," is at the heart of the Open Door. America's economic and political system can be safeguarded only in a world that is sympathetic ideologically to the United States. Specifically, if ideologically hostile states -- Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, the Soviet Union -- dominated Eurasia, the United States would have to transform itself economically and politically to defend itself. As Ross A. Kennedy observes, the fear that in an ideologically closed world the United States would be hard-pressed "to becoming an authoritarian, militarized state constantly on the verge of war" was first articulated by Woodrow Wilson.

END QUOTE

(From Christopher Layne's 2006 "The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present. See Page 32. In addition, note that NSC-68 appears to identify these exact same "fear-requires-expansion" aspects of the America dilemma; this, in such statements as: "The objectives of a free society are determined by its fundamental values and by the necessity for maintaining the material environment in which they flourish." And: "Our overall policy at the present time may be described as one designed to foster a world environment in which the American system can survive and flourish. It therefore rejects the concept of isolation and affirms the necessity of our positive participation in the world community.")

- Then can we also agree that the United States may -- due to these such expansionist/outlying state and societies "transformational" requirements (based on the "fear" reasons noted above) -- be viewed as something other than a "status quo" power?

BEGIN QUOTE

U.S. hegemony marks the fulfillment of long-standing grand strategic objectives. Since the early 1940s, the United States has striven to create a unipolar distribution of power in the international system. And in the three regions that matter the most to it -- Western Europe, East Asia, and the Persian Gulf -- it has maintained a permanent military presence both to prevent the emergence of new poles of power and to establish the kind of regional stability necessary to uphold a U.S.-dominated international order by more or less replacing anarchy with hierarchy in those regions.

Although some scholars argue that as a hegemon the United States is a status quo power, its grand strategy is actually a peculiar mix. The United States is a status quo power in that it aims to preserve the existing distribution of power. Consistent with the logic of offensive realism, however, the United States is also an expansionist state that seeks to increase its power advantages and to extend its geopolitical and ideological reach. To preserve the status quo that favors them, hegemons must keep knocking down actual and potential rivals; that is, they must continue to expand. The Athenian leader Alcibiades captured this reality when, urging the Athenians to mount the (ultimately disastrous) Sicilian expedition, he stated, “We cannot fix the exact point at which our empire shall stop; we have reached a position in which we must not be content with retaining but must scheme to extend it, for, if we cease to rule others, we are in danger of being ruled ourselves.”

END QUOTE

http://www.nyu.edu/steinhardt/e/pdf/humsocsci/mias/readings07/90.pdf (See Page 13.)

- If this indeed is the case (given these "expansionist" requirements -- based on the "fear" factors noted above -- the U.S., since at least the early 1940s, has been something other than a "status quo" power/state), then does not the "new offset strategy/ies" have to accommodate the United States's such -- continuing it would seem -- status and requirements?

(COL Jones: Note that I looked into these "fear=liberal foreign policy" matters based on certain of your thoughts over at the recent "Documentary on the Vietnam War" thread. They seemed to jive, and help us understand why, as NSC-68 states at least twice as I recall -- "This would be the foreign policy of the United States even if the Soviet Union and communism did not exist." [Or words to that effect.])

Robert C. Jones

Mon, 01/08/2018 - 9:22am

Personally, I believe the best hope for an effective, durable offset strategy lies in leveraging the power of populations. Technology advantages are fleeting and expensive, creating vulnerabilities in equal part to any temporary advantage they offer.

Ultimately in an era of competition between revisionist and status quo actors, we are the preeminent status quo actor. We have lost our strategic focus because we are playing not to lose, and frankly that is counter to the strategic culture of the US. But we can take faith from the reality that the state actors that see the greatest gains in challenging the status quo are autocratic regimes, where the government controls the population. These types of governance are becoming increasingly brittle in the current strategic environment.

In the West in general, and the US in particular, we have governance where the people perceive themselves to control the government. This lends an inherent resilience these brittle challengers lack. Sure they can turn faster than us in gray zone dust ups, but they know that their greatest vulnerability is their own populations.

We will chase techie toys and service-based concepts like MDB; but our best matchup is in a game of populations.

Bill M.

Sat, 01/06/2018 - 2:26pm

In reply to by Bill C.

Bill C.,

Your analysis is flawed. The Cold War didn't start until after WWII, and the majority of territory that the communists achieved control over happened during WWII. We even invited Russia to participate the Pacific theater during WWII, because we anticipated a much tougher fight with Japan. As for China, we pulled support from the Nationalists for a lot of reasons, and never attempted to deter Mao from winning the civil war in China. The communists made limited gains after the Cold War was initiated. How well our deterrence worked, or how much it contributed to this remains in question, so your points are still valid.

From the beginning of our article above:

"Usually when we are talking about the Cold War, the first thing that we think in terms of a strategic framework is containment. But what has been the role the offset strategies played in the broader Cold War competition? In 1997, William Perry made an interesting observation that I think is worth reflecting on: “these strategies, containment, deterrence and offset strategy were the components of a broad holding strategy during the Cold War. I call it a holding strategy because it did not change the geopolitical conditions which led to the Cold War, but it did deter another World War and it did stem Soviet expansion in the world until the internal contradictions in the Soviet system finally caused the Soviet Union to collapse. The holding strategy worked.”

At least two things would seem to be wrong in this analysis:

a. First: That the advance of communism (and, thus, the advance of Soviet, Chinese, etc., power, influence and control?) -- throughout the world -- this was effectively "stemmed" by the U.S./the West during the period known as the Old Cold War. And

b. Second: That "conventional warfare deterrence" played a major role; this, in the achievement of this such (false it would seem?) claim of such "stemming."

In this regard, consider the following:

First: As to my suggestion that neither the communists nor communism (and, thus, neither Soviet, Chinese, etc., power, influence and control) was effectively "contained" by the U.S./the West during the period known as the Old Cold War:

"At its zenith -- just before the 1989-91 collapse of Eastern European socialism, and the Soviet Union -- the reach of Communist-style governments stretched across Eurasia from Berlin and Prague to Vladivostok and Shanghai, and from the frozen Siberian tundra down to Indochina; additional Communist outposts could be found in the New World (Cuba) and in sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia). In 1980, the world’s seventeen established Marxist-Leninist states presided over roughly 1.5 billion subjects (out of a total world population of approximately 4.4 billion). At that apogee, over a third of humanity lived under regimes that professed the “communist” intent: and the encompassed populations represented a tremendous variety of cultures, ethnicities, levels of material attainment, and demographic structures.

http://www.aei.org/publication/population-aspects-of-communist-countrie…

Next: As to my suggestion that "conventional warfare deterrence" did not play a major role in the accomplishment of this such (false/erroneous?) thought of such "containment:"

"Because of the development of weapons of mass destruction, Khrushchev argued, traditional warfare, with its classical armies, became unfeasible as a means of promoting world revolution ... Using unconventional warfare as the key instrument of their concept of peaceful coexistence, communism has already subjugated hundreds of millions of human beings in the more advanced areas of the world; and the present Sino-Soviet block offensive is focused upon the underdeveloped and newly emerging nations. ..."

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1034145?seq=5#page_scan_tab_contents

Bottom Line Thought -- Based on the Above:

As the above information appears to indicate, "conventional warfare deterrence" (a) was not successful and (b) did not seem to play a role; this, in (c) preventing the Soviets/the communists from gaining significant power, influence and control, throughout the world, during the period known as the Old Cold War.

Herein, Khrushchev (et. al?) understanding that, because of the development of weapons of mass destruction, (a) "conventional warfare" -- as a means of achieving "expansion" -- this would no longer be possible and, thus, that (b) UW, as a means of achieving this objective, was the only way to go?

(Thus, from a "broader Cold War competition" point-of-view, to suggest that [a] the Soviets/the communists, using UW, made substantial "gains" during the period of the Old Cold War and that [b] the U.S./the West, improperly focusing on "conventional warfare" deterrence, etc., actually experienced substantial "losses?")

Warlock

Thu, 01/04/2018 - 8:01am

In reply to by flagg

That will require a fundamental change to current acquisition practices -- we'll have to be willing to go to the field with less than perfect (and less than perfectly-tested) technology, and more importantly, we'll have to be willing to turn over technology more rapidly. That's more expensive than keeping weapons in service for 50 years with a few software upgrades, but it'll be essential to maintaining the edge we're looking for.

“One thing I need to mention here is that neither of these two paths is likely to give us a lasting operational advantage like the ones we accrued after the 1OS and 2OS. Advances in 3OS technologies such as AI, big data and machine learning are being driven by the commercial sector and available to all competitors. The competitive landscape will thus have many “fast followers.” 3OS thinking sees us in an intense temporal competition where we need to strive to be the “fast leader.” Even then, we must be prepared for technical, tactical and operational surprise as some competitors beat us to the punch. That is why you hear so much emphasis in the Department about the need to become more agile, flexible and resilient”

Further to that is Joe Felter’s related article:
https://www.hoover.org/research/its-not-just-technology-beyond-offset-s…

In a world of increasingly accessible commercial off the shelf technology, competitive advantage will have to come from continuous cumulative innovation.

Build, measure, learn, acquire, field, repeat.