THE TRANSFORMATION OF WAR AND THE FUTURE OF THE CORPS


           THE TRANSFORMATION OF WAR AND THE FUTURE OF THE CORPS

                     Major Robert David Steele, USMCR

                   Cleared for Publication 28 April 1992

     The Marine Corps, in combination with supporting Navy
elements, is our Nation's "911" force, well‑positioned to serve
in a variety of joint, combined, and‑‑if necessary‑‑unilateral
roles across the spectrum of combat and non‑combat operations.
The Department of the Navy 1992 Posture Statement, and the
Remarks of General Carl E. Mundy, Jr. Before Congress (Gazette,
April 1992), clearly outline how far we have come revitalizing
our traditional emphasis on littoral operations, and how we are
preserving our core capabilities in the face of imposed
reductions.

     All this is good.  Never‑the‑less, lost in the vortex caused
by a changing Unified Command Plan, sharp reductions in manning
and resources, and mixed (or absent) signals from national and
defense intelligence about the nature of the future threat, is
the fundamental fact that war as we know it has been transformed.
The future of the Corps depends not just on getting leaner while
maintain its traditional expeditionary emphasis, but on our
recognizing that we must train, equip, and organize our forces to
deal with four completely distinct types of opposing warrior
classes.



                           GUERRILLA
  Physical    HIGH TECH      WARS      LOW TECH    Natural
  Stealth,    BRUTES                    BRUTES     Stealth,
  Precision   (MIC/HIC)                 (LIC)      Random
  Targeting          Money‑‑Ruthlessness           Targeting

    ECONOMIC WAR       Power Base        TERRORISM

  Cyber‑             Knowledge‑‑Ideology           Ideo‑
  Stealth,    HIGH TECH                LOW TECH    Stealth,
  Database     SEERS                    SEERS      Mass
  Targeting   (C3I WAR)    CULTURAL    (JIHAD)     Targeting
                             WARS


                Figure 1.  Four Warrior Classes Illustrated

     Although appearing complex, the above figure simply shows
essential distinctions between each warrior class: its power
base, its preferred mode of warfare, its stealth mode, and its
targeting approach.  Additionally, the figure shows the four

kinds of war (guerrilla, terrorism, cultural, and economic) which
might be encountered between different sets of warrior classes.

     I have elected to identify these four classes of warriors as
the high‑tech brutes, the low‑tech brutes, the high‑tech seers,
and the low‑tech seers.  Something of their nature is illustrated
in Figure 1.  Each of these warrior classes has different
strategies, capabilities, and vulnerabilities.  Each has a
different source of power, a different approach to warfare, and a
different command and control, communications, computer, and
intelligence structure which must be dominated in the attack and
the defense.

     Below are four summations of each warrior class.


        High Tech Brutes       |        Low Tech Brutes
                               |
   Rely on money and capital,  |   Rely on "low slow singleton"
 physical stealth of equipment,| invisibility which creates a
 and precision targeting by    | "needle in the haystack" prob‑
 highly technical munitions.   | lem for high‑tech brutes; use
   Vulnerabilities include     | randomness of route and of
 command & control links, and  | objective to frustrate pre‑
 especially commercial commun‑ | planned physical surveillance.
 ications paths; also financial|   Relatively invulnerable as
 databases.                    | a class of warriors due to
   Capabilities unsuited for   | high profit (drugs) and high
 combat against low‑tech single| availability of expendable
 and mobile targets, mass      | individuals.
 movements of non‑combatants.  |   Capabilities match goals.
                               |
‑!‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑|‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
        High Tech Seers        |        Low Tech Seers
                               |
   Reliant on knowledge and    |   Reliant on ideological ap‑
 cyber‑stealth (invisible      | peal to masses.
 access to knowledge bases).   |   Impervious to high‑tech
   Vulnerable as a class to    | brute attack if latter pulls
 electromagnetic terrorism     | punches and fails to take the
 which "melts down" entire     | ideo‑cultural high ground;
 communications and computing  | oblivious to terrorism, and
 infrastructures, but single   | insensitive to knowledge or
 hackers are relatively        | profit pressures.
 invulnerable to detection and |   Can only be defeated by a
 control.                      | comprehensive ideological and
   Unable to deal with low‑    | cultural campaign which wins
 tech seers or low‑tech brutes.| away its grass roots support.
                               |
                 Figure 2.  Four Warrior Classes Described

     High‑tech brutes design systems which can defeat known and
predictable opposing capabilities.  They cannot handle ambiguity
nor can they handle non‑conventional defenses or attacks.

     Low‑tech brutes, in the short‑run, will be extremely
successful.  In the long‑run, unless they develop an ideology (or
form an alliance with low‑tech seers already possessing an
ideology), they lack the mental/spiritual energy that religion or
ideology can provide, and therefore can be defeated.

     Both in the short‑run and the long‑run, the ability of low‑
tech to defeat high‑tech cannot be underestimated‑‑low‑tech, by
relying on the human factor, introduces to warfare an unexcelled
capability for dealing with ambiguity and creating unanticipated
scenarios.  The fact that they do not seek political control of a
society, and can therefore develop various levels of
accommodation and co‑existence, also makes it difficult to
eradicate this class of warriors.

     In considering high‑tech seers, it is useful to surface the
distinction between "thinkers" and "process" servers.  Many of
the humans associated with the computer industry are in fact
nothing more than unthinking data‑entry "slaves".  Even the
notorious (or illustrious) "hackers" can be considered
"unthinking" to the extent that they exercise their pleasure
"mindlessly", to no objective end.  The most dangerous enemy is
that very small group which is morally driven, mentally powerful,
and‑‑perhaps through computers‑‑physically endowed.  It merits
comment that single high‑tech seers ("hackers") may exist within
low‑tech environments (e.g. Colombia, Iran), and place their
services at the disposal of criminals or zealots.

     Low‑tech seers are perhaps the single most dangerous threat
to any established community because they represent an
alternative or parallel infrastructure which can be used to
discreetly undermine any organization.  The bottom line is
simple: if the existing organization is not providing protection
and economic stability for its population‑‑the center of gravity
in most nations‑‑then the low tech seer, promising both salvation
and comfort, will receive support.  The low‑tech seer also
dominates in the moral arena by having a very powerful
ideological construct which can move its members to heroic feats
against physically more powerful and mentally more agile
opponents.

     We as a Nation, with our nuclear and conventional forces and
our bureaucratic organization, fall into one of the four
categories, that of "high‑tech brute".  As an aside, one observer
has comment that we as a Nation have a tendency to try to fit
reality to our force structure, rather than designing our force
structure to fit reality.  That is the point of this paper‑‑to
highlight the four different realities with which we must deal.

     We are relatively well prepared to defend ourselves against
other high‑tech brutes, having just seen the demolition of the
Soviet empire.  This is however, the least likely form of attack
against us in the future.

     We are completely vulnerable to attack from the other three
kinds of warrior, as illustrated below, and simultaneously
ineffective in the attack against those three warrior classes.

     Our challenge in the 1990's is two‑fold: to significantly
reduce our defense expenditures while also developing appropriate
capabilities essential to protect our citizens and our property
against all four warrior classes.  This can only be done by
radically changing the way we train, organize, and equip selected
elements of our forces.

     What is the problem?  As high‑tech brutes, we are the modern
equivalent of dinosaurs sinking into two tar‑pits.  One is an
information tar‑pit, overloading our now archaic sensor systems
(all of which are designed to deal with "known" threat signatures
that can be pre‑programmed).  The other is a mobility tar‑pit,
wherein we are frustrated by our heavy logistics train and heavy
ground and air mobility systems, constraining our ability to deal
with fleet of foot "singleton" threats.  Our air power, our
artillery, our armor‑‑all of these are marginally effective
against the low‑intensity opponent, and also remarkably
vulnerable to isolated attacks in garrison and rear areas.

     Our existing command and control, communications, computer,
and intelligence (C3I) infrastructure is only geared for
confrontation with other high tech brutes.  We are extremely
vulnerable to covert attack by emerging high tech seers
(hackers), to random attack by low tech brutes (narco‑barons),
and to broad subversion by low tech seers (fanatics).  For
example:

     ‑‑  Our increasing reliance on commercial communications
paths, as well as our relative lack of computer security
procedures throughout the government, when combined with the
pervasiveness of telephone technology, enable a single hacker,
from anywhere in the world, to shut down U.S. telephone switching
stations, and contaminate with viruses virtually any unclassified
system.  It merits comment that even if our classified data may
be safe, the telephone company operating systems, packet
switching networks, and so on, are not encrypted or protected,
and the flow of data will simply cease.

     ‑‑  The ability of narcotics barons to operate their
business with impunity across our borders and within our
communities, and the ability of terrorists to strike with
relative impunity‑‑they don't play by our "rules"‑‑are well
recognized.

     ‑‑  Our susceptibility to cultural subversion, a
susceptibility which stems in part from our national abdication
of any cultural standards (e.g. imposing English as a national
language in our schools), is less well recognized.
     Unfortunately, between our Nation's natural division into
nine relatively distinct regions, the deterioration of our
schools, and the strong ethnic roots that many of our immigrants
choose to nurture long after their migration to our country, we
are facing a period of internal cultural warfare which will have
a deleterious impact on our ability to wage external cultural
warfare.

     We exacerbate this situation by imposing an expensive, slow
to act and react, hierarchical command & control process on the
"brute" force structure on our Nation, at a time when we require
a relatively inexpensive, fast‑acting, "seer" capability able to
act anywhere, anytime, without regard to any national, ethnic, or
religious strictures.  We persist is having bureaucratic "turf
wars" because no one has really come to grips with the fact that
we are at war, now, in four different environments!

     What does this analysis suggest?  It suggests that warfare
in the future will be fought at the platoon level, under
relatively autonomous circumstances and with limited resource to
complex combinations of combined arms.

     Brainpower, understanding of local cultures and conditions
including operational geography, and highly responsive all‑source
tactical intelligence will be critical force multipliers under
such circumstances.  Autonomous decision‑making by the commander
(or single Marine) on the spot will be the norm.

     What is the solution?  For selected elements of our national
defense organization, we need to revisit our concepts of
operation, doctrine, and force structure planning methodology,
substantially reduce the base force idea, and think instead of
four expanded and significantly improved capabilities:

     ‑‑   Paramilitary and clandestine/indigenous variants of our
Special Forces to attack and destroy selected low tech brute
forces on their home ground and without necessarily having the
support of local host governments

     ‑‑   Foreign area experts, ideally with ethnic roots and
intuitive understanding necessary to fully appreciate the nuances
of religious and other forms of low tech ideology, and to develop
global or precision ideological defense and attack campaigns

     ‑‑   Computer security (defense) and computer attack
specialists able, with the selective assistance off tactical and
strategic communications specialists to penetrate, monitor,
disrupt, deceive, and dominate any computer or any communications
system for any length of time, ideally without being detected

     ‑‑   Expeditionary and sea‑based variants of our
conventional forces, able to conduct precision raids and guide
precision munitions in coordination with covertly‑inserted
Special Forces or indigenous clandestine assets.



                   Forces for Future Warfare

         Vs. Low‑Tech Brute: Paramilitary/Clandestine
         Vs. Low‑Tech Seer: Foreign Area Specialists
         Vs. High‑Tech Seer: Computer Specialists
         Vs. High‑Tech Brute: Expeditionary Forces


                   Figure 3.   Forces for Future Warfare

     Each of the above forces will have its own requirements,
both for C3I support to its planning, programming, and
operations; and for C3I offensive capabilities against its
primary warrior class opponent.  We are not ready!

     Policy‑makers, political leaders, and industrial managers
need to think through four different kinds of national security
capability, each with a different C3I defense/attack problem set,
and each with a different concept, doctrine, training, and
acquisition problem set.

     The private sector, increasingly given to forming its own
international security corps and hiring specialists to protect
its computers and its people, will have a role to play in the
multi‑dimensional competition/conflict environment described in
this paper.

     One of the hardest policy problems‑‑with significant legal
ramifications‑‑is that of establishing dividing lines between the
public and the private sector.

     In a fast‑moving global environment, where crime, culture,
and knowledge cannot be controlled by any government or group of
governments, we are finally going to have to come face to face
with the possibility that the private sector can do things that
government cannot not, and we may actually have to develop
methods of "privatizing" certain security and
conflict/competition functions.

     Within the Marine Corps, these concepts should translate
into a substantially reinforced ability to conduct paramilitary
operations (i.e. not necessarily in uniform), augmented by
tailored clandestine human intelligence support networks in
countries in high interest to the Marine Corps.  This should
result also in a dramatically expanded investment in our Foreign
Area Officer program (both active and reserve); ideally I would
like to see every officer, and most non‑commissioned officers,
required to learn and maintain a second language as a basis for
promotion.  Truly expeditionary forces should by definition be
led if not manned by "foreign area officers".  Finally, to deal
with the severe threat to our communications and computers, I
would create a C4 security occupational specialty, dedicate at
least one officer and one non‑commissioned officer to computer
security matters at each MAGTF or division/wing level, and
establish an integrated Marine Corps C4I Security Plan which
provides for training, equipping, and organizing our forces to be
effective in a fragile C4 environment.

     The GOOD NEWS is that these capabilities will cost a
fraction of what our high‑tech systems have cost and are
projected to cost, and, with the exception of the linguistic and
cultural warfare capabilities, can be stood up relatively
quickly.  The money is there, but only if there is a radical
reduction in our investments against old technology and old
concepts.





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