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.