Mad Scientist Laboratory

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist welcomes returning guest blogger LTC Nathan Colvin with today’s submission, judged as a semi-finalist in our recent Back to the Future Writing Contest. Tackling our writing prompt — How could our future be different than our past experiences and what are the potential surprises or disadvantages? — LTC Colvin’s cautionary piece explores the return of Great Power Conflict, reminding us that the U.S. Army’s current operational concept is Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), not Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO).  “While conflict in multiple domains is likely, large-scale multi-domain operations remain less likely between two great powers due to the conventional material costs and the slippery slope toward nuclear weapon use.”  The Joint Force’s approach to deterrence and conflict must address the full spectrum of operations, as future conflicts are likely to remain hybrid ones.  “Assuming that great powers will only fight great wars can lead to death by a thousand cuts while holding a tourniquet” —  Read on!]

Introduction

Russian tanks roll across the heart of Europe. China dramatically increases capabilities across all domains. Great powers are back with a vengeance. Analogies drawn from the Cold War and World War II return. Multipolarity challenges the United States’ hegemonic position. Deterrence makes its way back into strategic thought. Great nations with big armies renew conversations about power balancing. Theorists are proud to make realism great again. Like an elastic band snapping into place, Army culture returns to familiar conversations about relative combat power, fires, and maneuver. While certainly the most dangerous form of war, are Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) inevitable amongst great powers?

My argument is no. While geopolitical dynamics may resemble historical conditions leading to direct great power wars, states are more interdependent than ever, are restricted by the nuclear weapons revolution in military affairs, and are constrained by the costs of conventional war. The proper lesson from history is that conflict abhors a vacuum, and threats will take advantage of whatever space is available. Therefore, the Army must consider diverse solutions to deter and win in both LSCO and non-LSCO Multi-Domain Operations.

What’s so great about these powers anyway?

What makes a great power, well, great? Although definitions vary, great powers can exert themselves beyond their near abroad to achieve goals. Today, great power should be able to extend capabilities to a global scale (Bohler 2017) through their level of capability, geographic reach, and be recognized as a great power by other nations (Danilovic 2002). France, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan, United States, Russia/USSR, and China are historical Great Powers.

Great powers interact with the world cooperatively or competitively. When competition between two powers leads to direct military clashes, conflict occurs. Where cooperation occurs, both states benefit from the transaction, while in competition or conflict, one or both powers suffer. The dynamics of these interactions create a hierarchy of states, first formally recognized in the 1814 Concert of Europe.

Realists say that states vie to be the most powerful while limiting other states’ ability to overtake them. The resulting phenomenon of states allying with the leader (bandwagoning) or against them (balancing), is known as balance of power theory (Waltz 1979).  When one power is on the rise, another declines – which puts them on a crash course for a zero-sum conflict (Mearsheimer 2010). The current dominant narrative puts China on the rise, Russia trying to rise, and the United States in relative decline (Kroenig 2022). No doubt a recipe for war, right?

Historically speaking, you could argue there is significant proof that great power war is inevitable. After all, since the Concert of Europe, great powers fought each other from the Hundred Days War to World War II. However, during the same period, there were as many small and/or proxy wars as great power wars. After World War II, the dynamic shifted further as “the resultant Cold War was an approximately 40 year-long political, military and economic confrontation between the USA and the Soviet Union and their respective allies… [that] never escalated into direct military confrontation between the superpowers, but involved an unprecedented arms race with both nuclear and conventional weapons as well as plethora of proxy conflicts”(UCDP 2023). The Korean, Vietnam, and Russian-Afghanistan wars were the closest great powers came to direct conflict, but they remained proxy wars. What can we attribute to this nearly 80-year lack of Great Power Conflict?

(Not) Going Nuclear

In the pre-WW II examples, Great Powers could gain from conflict. Zero-sum outcomes incentivized the use of force and created conditions for increasingly lethal battlefield capabilities. Increased capability extended the scale of vertical escalation possible. This trend continued until the Cold War. The parallel expansion of nuclear arsenals created a new dynamic. As Bull (1996, 48) points out, “it is only in the context of nuclear weapons and other recent military technology that it becomes pertinent to ask whether war could not now be both ‘absolute in the results’ and take the form of a ‘single instantaneous blow’ in Clausewitz’s understanding of those terms.” In other words, nuclear weapons “capped” the escalation race, especially once stockpiles ensured Mutually Assured Destruction. At that point, winner-takes-all possibilities shifted to a likely lose-lose situation.

If vertical escalation is capped, what are other choices? Investments in hypersonics, long-range precision fires, future vertical lift, space, and cyber capabilities extend geographic range, supporting horizontal escalation options. Alternatively, great powers could avoid military confrontation with each other, instead choosing to escalate both vertically and horizontally in the diplomatic, informational, and economic elements of national power. In the Cold War, that led to the exclusive use of proxies. Today, adversaries take advantage of complex interdependence to employ “hostile acts outside the realm of armed conflict to weaken a rival country, entity, or alliance” known as gray-zone aggression (Braw 2022). This leads to a sort of “diagonal escalation.”

There will not be (and probably never have been) purely conventional or unconventional wars – only hybrid ones. Hybrid wars are fought at varying intensities and scales, depending on the “means” available, the creativity of “ways” imagined, and the “ends” desired by the adversary. As the resources required to employ, and the destruction of lethal means increases, the more likely conflict will press “ways” horizontally into multiple domains and dimensions. While conflict in multiple domains is likely, large-scale multi-domain operations remain less likely between two great powers due to the conventional material costs and the slippery slope toward nuclear weapon use. If LSCO does occur, the likelihood of fighting through a CBRN environment is high.

Panic at the LSCO

Yet in the Army today, what is old is new again. LSCO harkens back to the Army’s historical victories and provides a clearer purpose than “small wars” or counterinsurgency, making it particularly palatable to Army culture. However, the Army’s operational concept is Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), not LSCO. While MDO acknowledges the very real possibility of LSCO, it does not forecast LSCO’s inevitability over other forms of conflict, competition, or even cooperation. So, while all LSCO is likely a Multi-Domain Operation, not all MDO is LSCO. Assuming that great powers will only fight great wars can lead to death by a thousand cuts while holding a tourniquet. Instead, our approach to the future must include the full spectrum of operations.

Ramifications for the Future

To be clear, I am not saying that developing LSCO capabilities is wrong. But like Kagan (2020), I am saying we must ensure that our refocus precludes an overcorrection. For example, the current Russo-Ukraine War is cited as a case for the return of LSCO. Yet from a Great Power perspective, it is a proxy war. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons and is now a target by a state that is bound by treaty to guarantee its security. Operationally, we may learn LSCO lessons from this war, but strategically the lessons are different.

The Army of the future must be able to generate deterrence by denial and by punishment in both LSCO and Non-LSCO conditions, across multiple domains, and diverse geography. Deterrence by denial requires both capability and will that make it infeasible for an adversary to succeed, while punishment requires severe penalties (Mazarr 2018). If the Army attempts to leave unconventional war behind, non-denied space is created which adversaries could exploit, likely through proxies. Conventional responses are often unsuitable to such threats, providing adversaries with an asymmetric advantage resistant to deterrence by conventional punishment. To mitigate outcomes such as these, tailored forces are required in the unconventional space (Crombe, Ferenzi, and Jones 2021). Ensuring balance across domains and DIME is foundational to integrated deterrence (McInnis 2022).

Avoiding historical biases toward conventional capability and not relying on Cold War definitions of deterrence requires vigilance. As designers of the future endure the machinations of modernization, they should employ tools to maintain balance. For example, the matrix in Table 1 (below) looks at geographic threats, compared to both LSCO and non-LSCO conflict types. Experimentation, wargaming, operations research, historical review, or other methods help determine the form of capabilities required by the framework. In turn, force designs can be tailored and judged appropriately across all three components. Tools like these should be employed in the developmental processes.

Conclusion

The Army may learn incorrect historical lessons if we assume great powers will fight great wars. While many great powers fought each other directly, they also fought small adversaries and used proxies. Russia is learning today the costs of modern conventional war are so high it is difficult to justify its use. Since World War II, no two nuclear-armed countries directly went to war with each other. A focus on the “most dangerous” form of war (LSCO) is appropriate to create a credible deterrent, but cannot wholly replace other capabilities required for MDO. Strategically, without credible non-LSCO capabilities, deterrence by denial is not truly possible.

If you enjoyed this post, check out the following related content:

Insights from Ukraine on the Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Warfare

China’s PLA Modernization through the DOTMLPF-P Lens by Dr. Jacob Barton

Great Power Conflict: 2040

Would You Like to Play a Game? Wargaming as a Learning Experience and Key Assumptions Check and “No Option is Excluded” — Using Wargaming to Envision a Chinese Assault on Taiwan, by Ian Sullivan

Other People’s Wars: The US Military and the Challenge of Learning from Foreign Conflicts and associated podcast, with Brent L. Sterling

Then and Now: Using the Past to Secure the Future and associated podcast, with Warrant Officer Class 2 Paul Barnes, British Army,

Four Models of the Post-COVID World

The Future Operational Environment: The Four Worlds of 2035-2050

The Army’s Next Failed War: Large Scale Combat Operations, by MAJ Anthony Joyce

Disrupting the “Chinese Dream” – Eight Insights on how to win the Competition with China

Hybrid Threats and Liminal Warfare and associated podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. David Kilcullen

Non-Kinetic War, by COL Steve Banach (USA-Ret.)

Alternate Futures 2050: A Collection of Fictional Wartime Vignettes, by LTC Steve Speece

The Battle of Rioni River Valley: A Story of Future Warfare in 2030, by MAJ James P. Micciche

The Outsized Fear of Small Nuclear Threats, by proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. James Giordano and Bob Williams

About the Author:  Nathan Colvin is a U.S. Army Strategist recently selected for Colonel and the U.S. Army War College Fellowship in Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Modeling and Simulations from Old Dominion University, where he is also completing his last semester of coursework toward a Ph.D. in International Studies as an I/ITSEC Leonard P. Gollobin Scholar. He earned master’s degrees in Aeronautics and Space Studies (Embry-Riddle University), Administration (Central Michigan University), and Military Theater Operations (School of Advanced Military Studies). He has deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Latvia as an aviator, operational planner, and strategist. He is currently participating in the HillVets LEAD program where he will chair a panel on US-Ukrainian Veteran cooperation in employment and entrepreneurship.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

 

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist welcomes today’s guest blogger LTC Christopher J. Heatherly with his thoughtful piece exploring what we are missing in contemporary military planning — assessing the risk of success.  Using two historical use cases from the opening months of both the Korean conflict and Operation Iraqi Freedom, LTC Heatherly explores the pitfalls military staffs court in only mitigating the risk of failure in planning operations.  While an instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, LTC Heatherly developed a useful mnemonic aid — E/W/M/R +/-  (i.e., Ends/Ways/Means/Risk (success and failure) — to help future staff officers address both success and failure in risk mitigation to ensure more thorough plans are developed, affording Commanders a greater range of options.  LTC Heatherly applies this tool to the Operational Environment and the on-going war in Ukraine, querying whether Ukraine and NATO are prepared for the risk of catastrophic success? —  Read on!]

Introduction

The Korean War, 1950 — U.S. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur leads the United Nations authorized military intervention to repel North Korea’s Soviet Union- and People’s Republic of China-backed invasion of South Korea. Having been nearly thrown off the Korean peninsula at the Pusan Perimeter, MacArthur orders a bold amphibious assault into the North Korean rear at Inchon. The operation catches the North Koreans completely off guard and creates the conditions for a rapid multi-front advance into North Korea proper. UN forces seize the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and are postured to advance to the Chinese border. Ignoring all intelligence to the contrary, MacArthur briefs U.S. President Harry S. Truman there is scant risk of Chinese intervention.

Just days later, Chinese soldiers cross into North Korea while the USSR provides air cover and supplies. Under significant Chinese pressure, UN forces conduct a brilliant fighting withdrawal South. President Truman relieves General MacArthur for defying orders. General Matthew Ridgeway assumes command while the war largely stalemates along the 38^th parallel. After three more exhausting years, the combatants sign a cease fire on 27 July 1953. North Korea remains a regional problem set for the United States to this very day.

My study of the Korean War points to a significant problem in Army doctrine, in that MacArthur’s staff did not include the risk of success in their operational planning for Inchon or the follow-on pursuit into North Korea. A more robust planning effort by a forward-thinking commander and staff would have clearly elicited the danger of advancing too far North, too fast to the Chinese border, thereby creating the conditions for Chinese and Soviet military intervention. Apart from the danger to UN forces on the ground, this situation — for the first time — put two nuclear nations into conflict with the potential for a wider war. Deliberate examination of the risk of success would have identified contingency planning requirements for the UN and underscored the absolute need for a UN dialogue with the USSR and China to prevent horizontal or vertical escalation.

Risk Doctrine

To be certain, U.S. Army doctrine is replete with discussion on risk. Based upon this doctrine, military professionals normally view risk through the lens of failure to achieve their stated intent or goals. For example, a commander may direct their plans team to develop contingency options should a course of action fail.  Army Doctrine Publication 3-0, Operations, defines risk as:

“the probability and severity of loss linked to hazards. Risk, uncertainty, and chance are inherent in all military operations. When commanders accept risk, they create opportunities to seize, retain, and exploit operational initiative and achieve decisive results. The willingness to incur risk is often the key to exposing enemy weaknesses that an enemy considers beyond friendly reach. Understanding risk requires accurate running estimates and valid assumptions. Embracing risk as opportunity requires situational awareness and imagination, as well as audacity. Successful commanders assess and mitigate risk continuously throughout the operations process.” ¹

As a concept, risk is part of the larger planning model employing ends, ways, and means to accomplish an assigned mission. Briefly explained, ends are the desired objectives or end states, ways are the methodology of employment, and means are the resources available to the unit. Commanders employ risk assessments to gauge “the probability and severity of loss linked to hazards,” which allows them to facilitate risk mitigation and determine when or where to accept identified risks. In a simple example of risk assessment, a battalion commander directs the staff to plan a 5-mile unit run to assess the physical fitness and morale of his unit. The staff conducts a risk assessment and identifies heat stroke as a potential risk and assigns the attached medical platoon to have assets available (e.g., ambulance, cooling station, water points) to mitigate the same risk factors. This risk assessment process was part of every officer education level throughout my career. While doctrinally and operationally sound, it is also an incomplete concept.

History Rhymes?

The 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, better known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, stands in my mind as the first time I considered the Army’s planning model to be deficient through direct experience. I was assigned as one of two liaison officers from the 1^st Armored Division to V Corps from the series of pre-deployment exercises through the post-conflict occupation of Iraq. As part of these duties, I was seconded to the V Corps G2 ACE and later the Corps’ G5 plans team which provided a front row seat to the expected phases of a military operation — from Phase I (Shape) to Phase III (Dominate). From my perspective, V Corps developed a thorough plan through Phase III, but lacked clear guidance on the intent for Phase IV (Stabilize) and Phase V (Enable Civil Authority), nor did the Pentagon provide V Corps the necessary resources to account for the rapid collapse of Saddam Hussein’s government.

The civil unrest that followed Hussein’s fall from power is well documented and further details are beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice to say, U.S. forces were provided little direction and under resourced to restore control or prevent the widespread violence that engulfed Iraq. Similarly, the Iraqi ex-patriots expected to form Iraq’s new government and military lacked the all-important public appeal and capability to fulfill those roles. They simply disappeared from the battlefield. The ensuing power vacuum gave time and space for the multifaceted insurgency to form and virtually eliminate any chance for Iraq to develop a sustainable democratic government. The U.S.-installed Coalition Provisional Authority was dysfunctional (as evidenced by the acrimonious relationship between Paul Bremer and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez) and issued unsound directives, such as disbanding the entire Iraqi Army, which further contributed to a rapidly deteriorating security situation. U.S. forces remained in Iraq until 2021 and the nation itself faces continued unrest.

Summed up, the U.S. military of 2003 made the same mistake from 1950 of not considering the risk of success. Had the Department of Defense looked beyond Phase III, considered the consequences of a rapid Iraqi government collapse (with the inevitable resumption of centuries of interreligious-ethnic violence), installed professional, capable US and Iraqi leaders, and fully resourced the military (to include meaningful interagency participation) prior to initiating the operation, the coalition may have been able to rapidly restore central control and stop the insurgency at its onset.

Recommendations

Simply stated, the U.S. military should incorporate the risk of success into its planning methodology and doctrine. During my assignment as an instructor at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College, I taught American and allied field grade officers the Joint Operations Planning Process (JOPP), as well as an introduction to Design Theory which, at the time, was still relatively new to the larger military. The students were generally familiar with the ends, ways, and means construct and experienced in the risk assessment process. To assist the students’ planning abilities, I developed a shorthand annotation as a mnemonic tool employing the traditional ends, ways, means, and risk model, albeit with a critical addition – namely, the risk of success. The tool read as “Ends/Ways/Means/Risk (success and failure)” or as E/W/M/R +/- in shorthand. The students’ inclusion of both success and failure in risk ensured more thorough plans development that also afforded a greater range of options to the commander during the inevitable unforeseen conditions, whether challenges or opportunities, which arise during a military operation.

The E/W/M/R +/- theory is just as applicable today as it might have been in the Korean War or Operation Iraqi Freedom. World attention is currently focused on the criminal Russian invasion of Ukraine. In contrast to the expectations of most experts, Kyiv successfully defeated Moscow’s invasion and now threatens to retake territory lost in the 2014 Russian seizure of Crimea and the Donbass. Where the West once feared the risk of failure if Ukraine fell to Russian territorial aggression, it must now consider the risk of success should the Ukrainian military enjoy further battlefield victories which reclaim ground Moscow considers sovereign territory. The U.S. military and its allies should also consider the risk of catastrophic success should Vladimir Putin be removed via internal or external actors. It is unlikely Putin would be replaced in a smooth transition of authority, with several actors looking to assume power and some Russian states seeing an opportunity for independence. As with Iraq in 2003, the absence of a strong central authority will again create conditions for interethnic/religious or intra/interstate conflicts with the added wildcard of Russia’s vast weapons of mass destruction arsenal. Western leaders must be prepared to address the very real challenges such a power shift could create — either via direct or indirect ends, ways, and means. A more holistic approach to risk planning could help identify and set conditions to act before they occur.

Conclusion

Accurately forecasting the future is at best a difficult business “for even the very wise cannot see all ends.”²  The world is an open, often chaotic, system, impossible to fully predict. Doctrine and operational experience provide a solid foundation for military professionals but need continued revision. Risk of success evaluation in future planning will ensure the right resources are available and simultaneously provide commanders with robust options in advance of the actual conditions occurring.

If you enjoyed this post, check out the following related content:

The Operational Environment (2021-2030): Great Power Competition, Crisis, and Conflict, along with its source document

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but it Does Rhyme, by Aaron Horwood

The Hermit Kingdom in the Digital Era: Implications of the North Korean Problem for the SOF Community, by Colonel Montgomery Erfourth and Dr. Aaron Bazin

Insights from Ukraine on the Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Warfare

Four Models of the Post-COVID World

The Future Operational Environment: The Four Worlds of 2035-2050

About the Author:  Lieutenant Colonel Christopher J. Heatherly enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1994 and earned his commission via Officer Candidate School in 1997. He has held a variety of assignments in Joint forces land component command, special operations, Special Forces, armored, and cavalry units. His operational experience includes deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, Kuwait, Mali, and Nigeria. He holds master’s degrees from the University of Oklahoma and the School of Advanced Military Studies.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), or U.S. Army Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF).

¹ ADP 3-0, Operations, 31 July 2019, pages 2-11 through 2-12, Headquarters, Department of the Army, retrieved 11 Dec 2022. https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN18010-ADP_3-0-000-WEB-2.pdf

² Tolkien, JRR. 1994. The Fellowship of the Ring, page 58. New York. Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt.

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, featuring General Robert Brown (USA-Ret.), President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of the United States Army (AUSA), discussing how the Army can reach the next generation of Americans, the creation of Multi-Domain Task Forces, challenges in the Pacific Area of Responsibility (AOR), and the importance of the Human Dimension — Enjoy!]

[If the podcast dashboard is not rendering correctly for you, please click here to listen to the podcast.]
General Robert Brown (USA-Ret.) is an experienced commander who has led at every level, from platoon through Army Service Component Command. Serving as Commanding General of U.S. Army Pacific, General Brown led the Army’s largest service component command responsible for 106,000 Soldiers across the Indo-Pacific Region before his September 2019 retirement.

General Brown is a 1981 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he was commissioned as an Infantry Second Lieutenant. His assignments took him across the globe including deployments in support of Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, Operation Joint Forge in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and two combat deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Before U.S. Army Pacific, he commanded the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; and the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence and Fort Benning, Georgia.

He also served as Chief of Staff for U.S. Army Europe; Deputy Commanding General for the 25th Infantry Division; Commander, 1st Brigade (Stryker) 25th Infantry Division; Commander, 2nd Battalion 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division; the Joint Staff, J-8; Army Staff, Strategy and War Plans Division G3/5/7 in the Pentagon; Aide-de-Camp, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; Executive Officer to Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; Assistant Professor and Deputy Director, Center for Enhanced Performance, West Point; and Infantry Assignment Officer, Human Resources Command.

General Brown holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy, a Master of Education from the University of Virginia, and a Master of Science in National Security and Strategic Studies (Distinguished Graduate) from the National Defense University.

General Brown retired after more than 38 years of service. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) before becoming President and CEO in October 2021.

In today’s podcast, General Brown discusses how the Army can reach the next generation of Americans, the creation of Multi-Domain Task Forces, challenges in the Pacific AOR, and the importance of the Human Dimension. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our discussion:

• • • AUSA, like many other thought-leading organizations, has found itself needing to adjust to changing demographics and has focused its outreach on connecting the Army with the community. Army bases have become heavily fortified in the post-9/11 environment, making it more difficult to reach that next generation of potential recruits. With “community connectors” and “community partners,” AUSA has the opportunity to tell the Army story and make those critical links.

• • • The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is more aggressive now than in the last several decades. Relying on his experience as the Commanding General of U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC), GEN Brown believes the combination of an aggressive and over-confident CCP could be dangerous and potentially lead to accidental conflict.

• • • 

      In the Indo-Pacific, it will be a Joint fight and every domain matters. China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) is powerful and can repel U.S. Forces at significant distance. To combat this A2/AD problem, GEN Brown and others created the Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTF) – a small maneuver force that could get inside that A2/AD bubble and persistently occupy land – enabling air and maritime assets to enter the fight.

• • • Allies and partners are key. Training and practicing together, as a Joint force, with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific will be vital to preparing for and deterring potential conflict with adversaries.

• • • People are our advantage and analyzing the human dimension has unearthed some latent truths. Training, education, and Leader development will need to produce individuals who thrive in ambiguity and chaos and the next generation of Soldiers must be empowered.

• • • Resilience can be built. With ubiquitous connectivity through social media, failures are rarely kept private. Responding to failure is a crucial component of building resilience and a critical part of success. Providing a purpose, goals, and spiritual foundation for the squad will help them develop the characteristics necessary to respond positively to failure and grow resilience within their unit.

 

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next episode of The Convergence on 27 April 2023!

 

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The Operational Environment (2021-2030): Great Power Competition, Crisis, and Conflict, along with its source document

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

 

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist welcomes guest blogger Aaron Horwood  with today’s submission, judged as a semi-finalist in our recent Back to the Future Writing Contest. Tackling our writing prompt — How can history inform us about the future of competition and conflict? — Mr. Horwood revisits lessons learned from the Pacific Theater of Operations and our island-hopping campaign to explore the twin tyrannies of time and distance and their strategic implications for Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) sustainment.

In any future conflict with China, our Joint Force’s lethality and overmatch are irrelevant if it cannot be sustained.  Mr. Horwood’s Fortress Guam stands resolute in the face of the PLA’s onslaught on the Second Island Chain due to its three subterranean nuclear powerplants.  While Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright‘s  forces on Corregidor surrendered after six months of heroic defense in 1942, Guam’s defenders are able to “hold until relieved,” as directed by the White House and Pentagon.  But will today’s leaders continue to heed Napoleon Bonaparte‘s timeless maxim — “The amateurs discuss tactics: the professionals discuss logistics“? — Read on!]

As America prepared to face down the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 2020’s, the seeds of our failure were sown; we made having a “decisive” technological advantage into an idol. If we only sacrificed enough money on the altars of hypersonic 6^th generation combat platforms, directed energy weapons, drone swarms, quantum AI integration, and orbital weapon platforms. victory would be assured.

Now as I watch the last evacuation flights from the runway of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the reality of that hubris has been laid bare. Yes, we had won every battle in the last five months, but as our fuel runs out, nearly all Air Force assets and Navy surface ships are withdrawing to the West coast. While our nuclear submarine force is able to continue its deadly duel under the water, the Air Force simply can’t fly without fuel, and without their surface escorts, our nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are too vulnerable.

As the whine of jet engines fades, I began to hear the voices of the NCO’s directing Soldiers, Marines, and Guamanian volunteers building field fortifications and decoys on the surface of the island. Beneath my feet the work continues to expand the existing 150 km of tunnels we are dependent on which hide and protect our synthetic fuel plant, hangers, storerooms, weapons, quantum AIs, barracks, fabrication units, medical facilities, and so much more.

From a nearby tunnel entrance, a M97 Zeus Surface-to-Space Laser emerges; soon the night sky sees the flash of strange and straight lightning jumping from the ground into the night to destroy an unseen target as part of the ongoing battle to degrade enemy orbital intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities in a 2,000 km radius around the island. In hides across the island, it is joined by every anti-drone, anti-missile, and anti-air energy weapons platform and their supporting radar arrays that could be pushed onto the island by air in the last two months. Supporting them are our small reserve of anti-ship, ground attack, and anti-air missiles; as well as the two squadrons of F35 joint strike fighters our synthetic fuel plant can sustain. Each of these weapon platforms work together to deny the enemy access, and hopefully provide a critical advantage to our forces when they push back West across the pacific.

We are not the only island fortress, but the others have only weeks or months left until they run out of fuel and can be bypassed.  In caverns nearly 500 feet below ground are three Pele and one Vulcan class nuclear reactors that power our weapons and AI networks, circulate our air, purify our water, power our underground fabrications facilities and container farms, and produce a small but steady stream of synthetic jet fuel. Unfortunately, they provide less than a tenth of the original planned for energy we would need for the synthetic fuel plant to sustain Air Force and Navy operations in the area. The President and War Department ordered us to hold until relieved and we will do so, but few of my men believe that will only be for the six months they claim. Thankfully each reactor carries a three-year internal fuel supply, far more time than the CCP can accept, so they will have to come and land troops and pay in blood to remove us.

This was proven when the CCP accepted outrageous casualties in breaking the 7^th Fleet in the South China Sea, destroying three of our aircraft carriers. The degrading of ISR assets and the long-range strike capabilities on their many nuclear-powered island bases proved to be decisive in the battle. They know the cost of taking Guam will be high, but the cost will be greater still if our Navy is allowed to regroup, return, and leverage the assets on this island.

As I walk back to my command post I am reminded of the old saying that history repeats itself, first as a tragedy and then as a farce. In 1941, Imperial Japan faced a crippling oil embargo, and in response attacked Pearl Harbor to buy the time and space necessary to secure oil fields across the Pacific. Ironically, the Japanese failed to destroy Pearl Harbor’s fuel storage site or to prioritize targeting the 11 fleet oilers the Pacific fleet had of its required 72. At the time, Admiral Chester Nimitz remarked, “had the Japanese destroyed the oil, it would have prolonged the war another two years,” and forced a withdrawal of U.S. forces to the West coast. As it was, the Germans did prioritize commerce raiding and in 1942, they sank half of the Allied Tanker fleet; in short, we got lucky. By 1943, we had flipped the dynamic on the Japanese and through aggressive commerce raiding and seizing of oil fields, we were pushing West, bypassing fuel starved Japanese garrisons.  By 1945, they were reduced to extracting oil from pine needles to protect Japan itself. It was this close call that drove the U.S. Navy to incorporate nuclear power into its carriers and submarines, to cut them free from the tether of fuel.

Unfortunately, too many of our leaders looked back and only saw how carriers changed the nature of naval warfare; the CCP saw the lesson we were taught and spent the intervening 100 years preparing. Then last year, facing oil sanctions in response to their blockade of Taiwan, they too launched a surprise attack. WWIII started on the morning of 25 December 2041 when CCP submarines and converted container ships scattered around our coasts launched swarms of drones and missiles targeting every American and Allied deep-water port, fuel refinery, and major piece of infrastructure within 500 miles of a major coastline.  This was followed by unrestricted submarine warfare, prosecuted by dozens of manned and unmanned submarines that within a few months eliminated 70% of the U.S, Merchant Fleet — none of the six resupply ships sent to Guam made it. While both sides forswore the first use of nuclear weapons, industrial scale warfare had returned to our world and our world was fundamentally changed.

The supply chain modern society requires was fundamentally broken — economies ground to a halt, rolling brownouts became common, and soon mass starvation will be seen in many countries around the world that depend on food and fertilizer imports.

While CCP troops stormed into Korea and Taiwan, the U.S. Air Force and Navy returned the favor and ran rampant through Chinese merchant fleets and critical infrastructure to forcibly de-industrialize their country. Some pundits and talking heads expected the coming famine in China to result in a quick surrender. What they failed to realize is that the CCP leadership viewed the looming deaths of tens of millions of their citizens as an opportunity to reset Chinese society, a second great leap forward. If our intelligence reports are to be believed, they are already culling the old, the poor, and there undesirables in order to reset the Chinese demographic time bomb, fix their imbalanced gender ratio, and finish their purges of the  ethnic and religious minorities.

I finally arrive at the tunnel airlock that leads to my unit’s assembly area and underground barracks. A Voice of America broadcast drones in the background, giving hope-filled updates on the war effort and how soon things will change. I wonder if the will of the American people will break before that of our enemies, and if we can win the race against time to rebuild our industrial, military, and logistic capacities, before the enemy can consolidate its gains.

What we learned from World War II is that disruptive new technologies like aircraft carriers can dominate and change the battlefield; what we forgot — and the CCP exploited — is that regardless of how deadly our technology and training make us, without adequate logistical support, they don’t matter.

If you enjoyed this post, check out the following related content:

China Landing Zone content on the TRADOC G-2‘s Operational Environment Enterprise public facing page — including the BiteSize China weekly topics, ATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics, People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces Quick Reference Guide, and more!

The Operational Environment (2021-2030): Great Power Competition, Crisis, and Conflict, along with its source document

Enabling Future Game Changing Capabilities with Mobile Nuclear Power, by Dr. Juan Vitali, as well as the Study on the use of Mobile Nuclear Power Plants for Ground Operations report from the Deputy Chief of Staff G-4, U.S. Army, 26 October 2018

The Use of Renewable Energy to Power Military Vehicles, by then MSG Jessica Cho, one of the Sergeants Major Academy‘s semi-finalist submissions of merit featured in Sinews of War: Innovating the Future of Sustainment

“No Option is Excluded” — Using Wargaming to Envision a Chinese Assault on Taiwan, by Ian Sullivan 

The U.S. Joint Force’s Defeat before Conflict, by then CPT Anjanay Kumar

How China Fights and associated podcast

China: Our Emergent Pacing Threat

Other People’s Wars: The US Military and the Challenge of Learning from Foreign Conflicts, with Brent L. Sterling, and associated podcast

Then and Now: Using the Past to Secure the Future by Warrant Officer Class 2 Paul Barnes, British Army

China: Building Regional Hegemony and China 2049: The Flight of a Particle Board Dragon, the comprehensive report from which this post was excerpted

The Most Consequential Adversaries and associated podcast, with GEN Charles A. Flynn

China’s PLA Modernization through the DOTMLPF-P Lens, by Dr. Jacob Barton

Competition in 2035: Anticipating Chinese Exploitation of Operational Environments

About the Author:  Aaron Horwood is a former U.S. Army Engineer Captain and current Nuclear Engineering Ph. D. student at the University of South Carolina. His area of research focuses on the unique risk profile of mobile military nuclear power; he currently interns with the Special Reactor Concepts Group at Idaho National Lab and is a Shielding and Risk SME in the U.S. Army Chief of Engineers Nuclear Power Branch.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

 

[Editor’s Note:  Crowdsourcing remains one of Army Mad Scientist’s most effective tools for harvesting ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a wide variety of interested individuals, helping us to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions.  Today’s post by guest blogger LTC Daniel Gomez is an outstanding example of the power of disruptive creative writing and was judged to be the winning submission from our recent Back to the Future Writing Contest.  Our adversaries continue to probe, watch, and learn from us, driven to rapidly innovate in their quest for asymmetric advantage.  LTC Gomez explores one such advantage at the nexus of online gaming, where savvy adversaries can “conduct multi-domain, synchronized operations across multiple geospatial regions…. operating as independent self-sustained and distributed joint teams, using real-time culturally neutral comms.”  Read on to learn how Decentralized Autonomous Organizations could converge the power and reach of gaming, the mass of like-minded “virtual nations” of individuals, and nefarious tactics like “Deep-Snapping,” “Spot-Blowing,” “Husking,” and Swatting to out-compete and out-influence the greatest global military power — “you have been warned!”]

September 22nd, 2033 3:18 AM EST.

Jamil’s cheek pressed firmly into the cold hardwood floor of his living room, a black tactical boot on the back of his neck holding him in place. He watched as the blue and red lights of police cars swept across his leather couch and pictures of his wife and daughters. He listened as armed men trounced through his suburban home, resting in a subdivision cul-de-sac just outside Alexandria. The officers called to each other, their conversation accented by doors being kicked open.

“Clear!” one shouted.

“Second floor clear, Sir, no contact!” another called down the stairway.

An older man in a tactical vest holstered his handgun and sneered. “Dammit, let him up,” he ordered.

Jamil felt the boot lift off his neck and heard the snap of pliers cutting through the zip ties cinched around his wrists. The emotion rushed to his head as he rose from the ground, a black-gloved hand helping him.

However, before Jamil could voice his anger, the outrage, the mortal danger they could have put his family in, the lead officer interrupted his thoughts, “Sir, I am sorry, but,” he paused, “We believe you were swatted.”

Two weeks ago, Lieutenant Colonel Jamil Roberts was assigned as the officer in charge of the Joint Operations Center (JOC) of Special Operations Joint Task Force Wolf. It was a unit designated to track and interrupt illicit operations in Eurasia, specifically Turkey and its northern neighbors. His in-brief consisted of a hundred slide intelligence MS PowerPoint presentation, seventeen white papers on transnational organizations, a Center for Army Lessons Learned Handbook on Russian operations in the Russo-Ukraine war 2022-2025, and a DisneyFlix documentary series on China’s Invasion of Taiwan in 2027.

With the fluctuation of political and military power in the United States, Indonesia, the New Soviet Union, and China, both State and Non-state actors across the globe have begun irregular warfare operations regionally and internationally. The JOC in-brief of “known” adversaries paled in comparison to the list of “unknown or potential” adversaries. TF Wolf operated out of Constantinople, Turkey, in support of the European Union’s military. It provided a myriad of capabilities, including Military Deception, Cyber, and Information Operations.

“So let me get this straight?” Roberts said, pacing back and forth in front of his Intel team on the JOC Floor. “You’re telling me that a mobile video game…”

“Yes, Sir,” Staff Sergeant Rodriguez replied.

“…has more technological prowess and military support capability …” Roberts stammered.

“That’s correct, Sir,” Sergeant Major Lee added.

“…than I have ever had…” Roberts continued, his voice peaking to an uncomfortable volume.

Rodriguez nodded, her eyebrows scrunching together along with her nose.

“…in my twenty-three years in the Army… fifteen in Special Operations… and eight at JSOC?” he asked, exasperated.

“Yep…” Rodriguez replied, popping her lips.

“I’m done for today,” he huffed. “Sergeant Major,” he acknowledged.

“Have a good leave, Sir,” Lee replied, his hand chopping the sky with a mock salute.

Roberts pushed the JOC door open, mumbling to himself, “Stupid multinational drug dealing, crypto stealing, human trafficking, video-game playing crime syndicates!”

Lee turned to Rodriguez as he flipped through the briefing.

“The boss is right. It’s just crazy how we are supposed to be the greatest fighting force on Earth, and these third-rate actors run circles around us using mobile games,” he said depressingly.

“SGM, it takes me fourteen clicks to check my AOL.gov email,” Rodriguez answered, sitting back at her desk.

Lee continued flipping through the slides. Apparently, a non-state actor called LAST was using a mobile game called Shambling Corpses: Legacy to manage operations from the Mediterranean, through Turkey, and up through the Southern Caucuses. Based on a graphic novel turned Netflix Miniseries, SCL was a free to play game that seemed innocuous. Players would log in and lead a group of survivors through the apocalypse by gathering resources, attacking zombies, and managing their army. After reaching level 10, players would be thrust into a random clan to continue their journey to become Clan Master of their numbered region. These clans and regions, however, were not geo-specific. Players from any country with Wi-Fi or satellite service would join together and conduct operations across SCL‘s different gameplay modes. SCL also featured micro-transactions so paying players could jump ahead of their peers by substituting money for speed-ups and resources.

Lee flipped to the last slide. In SCL‘s WAR game mode, clans had to invade other regions to secure key terrain to gain special resources giving them distinct advantages in battle. The clan leader had clan staff send out scheduled and impromptu messages to ensure well-resourced players would be available to invade and win. The staff would need to manage recall rosters of up to 80 players at a time across multiple time zones and countries. SCL had an auto-translate chat feature that could enable communication across one hundred languages. The LAST Clan had members from Korea, China, the USA, Turkey, Russia, and Brazil, to name a few. Additionally, in WAR, the clans had to manage their alliances, map out the regions of opposing clans, and manage their clan bonus resources to support their invasion force.

Lee stood up from his GSA-procured leather-bound swivel chair and exclaimed, “This isn’t a game!” He strode up to the whiteboard on the JOC floor.

“This,” he circled a capital L in red, “is LAST!”

“These,” he drew multiple circles in blue, “are different countries!”

“What LAST is doing, is using SCL, to learn how to conduct multi-domain, synchronized operations across multiple geospatial regions! They are operating as independent self-sustained and distributed joint teams, using real-time culturally neutral comms,” he finished, emphatically drawing arrows connecting all of the shapes.

“I’m done for today…” Lee sighed, dropping the marker onto the board. “Rodriguez,” he acknowledged.

“Sergeant Major,” Rodriguez replied, still looking down at her laptop, her hand chopping the sky with a mock salute.

Rodriguez continued to update her LAST intel file, focusing on how they received funding. Users throughout the Dark Web would purchase parcel pieces of the LAST decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to become members. The Clan leaders would then “Baski kagidi” or “Print Paper” in Turkish, selling those parcels to another party. The catch is that they would retain ownership “under the table” only to purchase those parcels back at a higher rate. The members would then engage in hacking operations to “add value.”

LAST engaged in blackmail Deep-Snapping (manipulating accessed home camera video with deepfakes), and Spot-Blowing (accessing car toll passes visiting less than reputable locations). It wouldn’t be a one-time deal either; LAST would force victims to pay monthly “security” fees to gig workers, who were most likely AI ChatGPT-X bots. The LAST operatives also shared videos of these operations on the Dark Web and charged money for views. The payments would be done in cryptocurrency but washed in a “cash-out marketplace.” Think of it as a pawn shop for crypto, where whoever had held the crypto was more valuable than what the crypto was being traded at. Last year alone, they made $230 million.

LAST operated via a mix of low and high-tech mediums. They would meet locally, at chain restaurant kiosks, or virtually, in gaming apps like SCL. LAST even created a new tactic, Husking. A husk is an extremely vulnerable person. Their only job is to activate a burner satellite phone. The phones were hazardous and, when powered up, activated a one-time use AI script that issued blackmail statements to scam victims.

Rodriguez felt like a broken record. She tried to explain to her leaders how our adversaries would use the convergence of emergent technologies to their advantage, but to no avail.  Gaming, apps, crypto, DAOs, hacking, blackmail, ChatGPT, and AI were all right there waiting to be used… but it seems that LAST got there first. Wrapping up, she headed outside to the JOC phone locker.

Her Musk Phone Bracelet buzzed to life when it recognized her DNA.

“Ninety-three messages?” she whispered in disbelief. “Read,” she commanded.

Her bracelet emitted a holograph of an AI-generated green-eyed woman sitting on a gilded throne.

“Good Afternoon, Sarah; my name is Jade. LAST has been watching your little work there in Constantinople, and LAST is not pleased. Discontinue your operations now, or face the consequences,” she whispered. “You have been warned.”

The woman disappeared and faded into the TF Wolf Crest, followed by an exploding logo of her daughter’s dance school.

Two weeks later, in the slums of Chittagong, Bangladesh, Amreet ripped open a black plastic bag using his decayed and yellow teeth. He wiped a thin coat of mercury off the satellite phone inside with his sleeve and plugged in a dilithium battery. The phone vibrated and turned green, showing it had achieved signal.

On the other side of the world, at 0300 EDT, a desk officer pressed the glowing answer icon on her headset, “Alexandria Police Department, what’s your emergency?”

If you enjoyed this post, check out the following related content:

Virtual Nations: An Emerging Supranational Cyber Trend, by proclaimed Mad Scientist Marie Murphy

Gaming Information Dominance and Russia-Ukraine Conflict: Sign Post to the Future (Part 1), by Kate Kilgore

The Exploitation of our Biases through Improved Technology, by Raechel Melling

What the Joint Force can learn from K-Pop “Stans” by Matthew Ader

Extremism on the Horizon: The Challenges of VEO Innovation, by Colonel Montgomery Erfourth and Dr. Aaron Bazin

Hybrid Threats and Liminal Warfare and associated podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. David Kilcullen

The Classified Mind – The Cyber Pearl Harbor of 2034, by proclaimed Mad Scientist  Dr. Jan Kallberg

Weaponized Information: What We’ve Learned So Far…, Insights from the Mad Scientist Weaponized Information Series of Virtual Events, and all of this series’ associated content and videos 

In It to Win It: Competition, Crisis, & Conflict

Is Ours a Nation at War? U.S. National Security in an Evolved — and Evolving — Operational Environment and the comprehensive publication from which it was excerpted — Is Ours a Nation at War? Proceedings for the TRADOC G-2 2021 “Role of America’s Army in National Defense, 2021-2030” Campaign of Learning, published by our colleagues at the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL)

About the Author:  Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Gomez currently serves in the US Army Reserve as an Instructor of Innovation and Creativity at Joint Special Operations University, United States Special Operations Command. During his twenty years in service, Daniel served two combat tours in Iraq, two Special Operations deployments to the Pacific Theater, and five years as an instructor, scenario designer, and course manager at the United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. Daniel is the CEO of First Person Xperience LLC, an education and training company focused on teaching Creativity, Adaptability, and Human Dynamics to National Defense Professionals. 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).