Skip to content

Mad Scientist Laboratory

… Exploring the Operational Environment

  • Home
  • About
  • Mad Scientist APAN
  • The Convergence podcast
  • TRADOC G-2 Multimedia
  • Guest Bloggers
  • Contact
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy
  • Terms Of Use

Tag: Henry Mintzberg

Posted on March 19, 2018March 19, 2018

37. Virtual War – A Revolution in Human Affairs (Part II)

(Editor’s Note: Originally published under the same title in Small Wars Journal, Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to present Part II of our guest post by COL(R) Stefan J. Banach, distilling the essence of his original article. Part I may be read here.)




Framing and naming the Virtual War paradigm is a challenge for leaders today. The United States’ leaders, who have responsibility to win the Nation’s wars, have lost personal mastery for warfare in our time. The U.S. is fighting the wrong war, with the wrong policies, strategies, doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures. The logic for warfare in our time is askew, as we have seen at previous junctures in history. The value of mechanization versus the horse and the application of air power on modern battlefields during the 1919-1939 inter-war period are notable historical examples where new technological advantages were not immediately appreciated by “the experts.”

STAFF/AFP/Getty Images
Asymmetric Warfare, Political Warfare, Gray Zone Operations, Hybrid Warfare, Cyber Warfare, Cognitive Maneuver, et al., are competing heuristics that are bantered about continuously in security think tanks and in the halls of the Pentagon in an attempt to frame and name the paradigm for warfare in this era. Each of the aforementioned warfare nomenclatures and frameworks that are being used to describe warfare today are propagated in the Virtual Domain and are further shaped in the Cognitive and Moral Domains, before they are manifested in the Physical Domain environments, which include: air, land, sea, and space.

The entity that controls the Virtual Domain and masters Virtual War Campaigning first, will indirectly achieve social control, and will win every war they engage in, at pennies on the dollar.

MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty Images
The Russian Gerasimov Doctrine
and the Chinese 2025 Strategic Plan are both indirect approaches to achieving social control of domestic and foreign populations through the use of Virtual War technology driven conventions.


REUTERS/Stringer
Social Control is the goal of Virtual War. China and Russia are well suited in this pursuit given their respective repressive governance cultures.


Invoking Sun Tzu is appropriate, as he summed up the goal of Social Control in this quote,

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

Global “Social Control” is possible for the first time in the history of the world. Burgeoning Social Control capabilities are nested in: global satellite imagery, swarms of civilian and military aerial drones, public camera surveillance systems in our “smarter cities,” iPhone tracking protocols, Fitbit devices, the internet, artificial intelligence, DNA, Social Security numbers, Driver’s License numbers, Credit Reports, online personal health records, and all the associated digital, personal, and financial contrivances which exist today.

In the years ahead, the Social Control challenge will become acute as every human being will potentially have bio-medical nanotechnologies embedded in them to ensure optimal health. Each of these medical Nano devices will have a digital interface that presents both new opportunities for increased wellness and new vulnerabilities. Humans will be susceptible to the traditional biological viruses which exist today. New technologies will need to be developed to protect us from artificial virus “infections” that could be mass transmitted in targeted societies, using the embedded Nano medical implants that will serve as the host within our bodies.

Metaphorically, the overwhelming propensity for Physical Battle Space Maneuver is the United States’ modern-day Maginot Line. Like the French from 1919-1939, the U.S. has spent more money than all of its Allies combined in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) since 2001, executing Physical Battle Space Maneuver activities. Like the French prior to WWII, the United States’ leadership is preparing for the last war it won and does not see the Virtual Blitzkrieg that is upon it every day. There is an ongoing complete envelopment of all the significant U.S. national interests by way of Virtual War – or – Virtual Battle Space Maneuver, and it is happening right in front of us.

Creating an effective Virtual War acumen requires a systemic reframe of leadership development and the creation of non-standard doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures for how our national security forces and law enforcement agencies compete in Virtual Space.

Virtual Space is the decisive terrain and securing it is the decisive operation.

For additional information on Russian and Chinese initiatives to win the Virtual War, download and review Timothy L. Thomas’ works addressing these topics at the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) Bookshelf.

COL(R) Stefan J. Banach concluded his military service as the U.S. Army’s 11th Director of the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). As the SAMS Director, he led the development of the initial Design Methodology concepts and doctrine for the U.S. Army from 2007-2010. He is a Distinguished Member of the 75th Ranger Regiment and served in that organization for nine years, culminating with command of the 3rd Ranger Battalion from 2001-2003.

HOT!!!

Explore the latest TRADOC G-2 OE content on the Operational Environment Enterprise

Download and check out our new OE Assessment — TRADOC Pam 525-92, The Operational Environment 2024-2034: Large-Scale Combat Operations

Learn more about how our Pacing Threat fights in ATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics

Click here to read the Army Future Command’s new AFC Pamphlet 525-2, Future Operational Environment: Forging the Future in an Uncertain World 2035-2050 addressing the mid- to far term OE and watch the associated video!

Watch the TRADOC G-2’s Threats to 2030 video addressing the challenges facing the U.S. Army in the current OE (i.e., now to 2030)

PRIMERS ON THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

The Changing Character of Future Warfare video

Potential Game Changers handout

TP 525-92-1, The Changing Character of Warfare: The Urban Operational Environment

The Arctic Through 2035: An Overview of the Operational Environment and Competitor Strategies for U.S. Army Training, Doctrine, and Capabilities Development

The Information Environment: Competition & Conflict anthology

MORE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT RESOURCES…

Foreign Military Studies Office OE Watch

Watch The Future of Unmanned Maritime Systems Webinar [via a non-DoD network]

“THE CONVERGENCE” — Army Mad Scientist Podcasts

Former Undersecretary of the Navy James F. “Hondo” Geurts and Dr. Zachary S. Davis, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, discuss Strategic Latency Unleashed: The Role of Technology in a Revisionist Global Order and the Implications for Special Operations Force and how to think radically about the future, capitalize on talent, and unleash technological convergences to out-compete our adversaries, and when necessary, defeat them decisively in conflict.

COL John Antal (USA-Ret.), author and innovator in the interactive gaming and learning industry, discusses the implications of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, the psychological effects of drone warfare, and the future of maneuver.

COL Scott Shaw, Commander, U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group, discusses the future of ground warfare, including lessons learned from the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in 2020 and the realities of combat for tomorrow’s Soldiers.

Dr. David Kilcullen, bestselling author and expert on unconventional warfare, discusses how the U.S. Army must prepare to engage “Dragons” and “Snakes” as they employ Liminal Warfare and blended cyber-kinetic operations to avoid our conventional warfare dominance.

Mr. Doowan Lee, CEO and co-founder of VAST-OSINT, discusses disinformation, changes over time in approaches to information warfare, and collaboration between Russia and the Chinese Communist Party on information operations.

Click here to listen to other episodes of “The Convergence”

Mad Scientist Partner Sites

Modern War Institute Podcasts

Former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work Assesses the Future Battlefield

Dr. Moriba Jah on What Does the Future Hold for the US Military in Space?

Elsa Kania on China and its Pursuit of Enhanced Military Technology

Small Wars Journal Mad Scientist Page

U.S. Army War College War Room

U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin

Australian Army The Cove

Australian Defence College The Forge

Search

ARCHIVES

  • July 2025
  • June 2025
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017

Content has been removed to align with the President’s executive orders and DoD priorities in accordance with DoD Instruction 5400.17, “Official Use of Social Media for Public Affairs.”

  • Twitter
Proudly powered by WordPress