Air University Review, March-April 1983
Lieutenant Colonel John A. Warden III.
The course of the world would be far different if the ancient Greeks had resolved only to fight for restoration of any territory lost to Persian expansionism. Similarly, our heritage would differ substantially from what it is if the Romans had ceased their efforts the moment Hannibal left the peninsula. In both cases, the ultimately victorious states had a goal of so reducing their opponent’s postwar power and position as to guarantee a substantial improvement in their own postwar position—not merely to return to a status quo ante. Conversely, those states like the Roman Empire after Augustus that entered war, by choice or necessity, with only a goal of not losing something frequently lost all.
A positive goal is virtually a prerequisite of success in war. Not only is this historically demonstrable but it finds support in common sense and experience outside war. The football team with a superior defense and inferior offense may finish the season with relatively few points scored against it, but it is not going to win the championship. If winning the championship or coming close to doing so are the measures of success, then the overly defense-minded team has failed. The company with a strategy aimed at protecting its market share rather than increasing it quickly falls prey to competitors with a positive strategy. Man simply performs better when his goal is exploration or conquest of new territory.
Success in war is unlikely for the state wedded to protection of the status quo. This is not to say that aggression is justifiable or necessary, but when war is forced on a state by an aggressor, then it becomes imperative for that state to adopt a goal of ending the war in a better position than it was at the start. Without that goal, it will almost surely end up in a worse position. Additionally, there is something morally repugnant about expending great sums of blood and treasure merely to end at the starting line and just as vulnerable to renewed aggression.
Positive goals can range from a Carthaginian solution (total destruction of the enemy state) to border adjustments. The choice from within this range must depend on a number of factors including the aims of the enemy, relative capabilities, and a realistic view of the ensuing peace. The latter is perhaps most important, for wars should be fought for the peace that follows, not for the momentary triumph of arms.
There is nothing easy about selecting a war aim—as Americans we should be acutely aware of the difficulties. The Carthaginian solution is final, but it kindles the fiercest resistance and imposes terrible moral burdens on a civilized state considering it. At the other extreme, a border adjustment, unless carefully crafted after taking into account ethnic and historical considerations, is likely to lead to renewed hostilities as irredentism becomes the war cry of the defeated.
Through the ages the conquests that have been most successful and the peaces that have endured the longest have tended to fall into two categories. The first involves assumption, either directly or indirectly, of the key power positions within the conquered state while simultaneously respecting the religion and customs of the people. Alexander the Great was a master of this form while Hitler ignored it with fatal consequences. The second form requires the establishment of more or less self-regulating power centers, each strong enough to defend but not so strong as to be capable of attack. Europe after Napoleon is a good example of the latter.
The state whose enemy is an empire made up of forcibly assimilated peoples is in a position to capitalize on the possibilities immanent in both forms. The captive peoples, if promised a future wherein they can follow their own gods, will, with proper assistance, throw off the old yoke even if it means accepting a different one. At the same time, the disparate groups within the old empire can form the nucleus for autonomous states, which will balance each other at best and at worst not constitute a threat to the destroyer of the empire for some time to come. For the empire’s enemy, the goal and the grand strategy to reach that goal are evident: first dismemberment through internal rebellion and then establishment of new, smaller states for the future peace. How rusty are the hoops of empire and how vicious the empire’s repression of its captives will determine how much external force must be applied to start and conclude the enterprise.
It would be an act of folly and shortsightedness for a major power to accept war with an expansionist empire and eschew as a war goal the dissolution of that empire.
Now that the war—or peace—objectives and the commensurate grand strategy are identified, it is possible to address the difficult problems of planning and force structure within a coherent framework. These two areas, which are a large part of military strategy, have for some time become so confused as to create very real dangers. For example, it is not unusual to read or hear of a commander who says he cannot execute the war plan because there is not enough transport to get a particular unit to the front by a certain time. This is a classic case of confusing force structure (or programming) with current plans.
Two basic types of planning exist. The first starts with a long-range analysis of objectives and grand strategy compared with probable enemy strategy and forces. The second type centers around what is to be done if war starts tomorrow for whatever reason.
In the first type, the planner is most concerned with developing a force structure capable of executing a particular optimum strategy. By looking at enemy strength, he can decide how many air wings, army divisions, and naval battle groups are required to carry out his strategy. He can establish various time frames such as five, ten, or fifteen years into the future. He can then reference a point—five years, for example—and say that the present force structure is inadequate for the task and that so many more planes or ships will be needed or that so much more transport will be required to put a division in a particular place by a particular time after mobilization begins.
Of course, a force-structuring exercise is much more complex than that just outlined. Political constraints inhibit identification of optimum forces, and fiscal constraints that will apply until war is imminent dictate further scaling down of desired forces. Nevertheless, despite its limitations, the process provides a useful framework in which to develop future forces. However, when this process is confused with current operations, the result can be fatal.
At any given moment, a state has armed forces that consist of a precise number of personnel, planes, ships, and tanks. At the same time, it has the potential to acquire through construction, conscription, or purchase some additional numbers. At the time a war starts, only forces in-being exist, and those are the only forces a planner can intend to employ on day one of the war. It is obvious that the forces in-being today are rarely, if ever, going to be the same forces in quality or number that are desired to execute an optimum strategy five years in the future. It should be equally clear that if more forces than exist are required to carry out a particular strategy, then that strategy cannot be carried out until the forces materialize. In plain words, at any instant strategy must be consistent with force structure because strategy can be changed instantly whereas force structure cannot. The commander who tries to use a strategy or war plan designed to be executed with more force than he has is courting disaster; and the planner who fails to provide a strategy or war plan built around available forces has not done his job.
When optimum strategies are developed, they frequently include goals of an emotional and political nature, such as preventing the loss of territory or concluding hostilities within a fiscally attractive short period of time. Indeed, these goals can often be achieved if sufficient years exist to acquire requisite forces and build fortifications or whatever else is needed. Those same goals, in the absence of appropriate force structure, are unobtainable and cannot and should not be part of current planning.
The job of current planning is exceedingly difficult and, for many, distasteful, for it inevitably forces the planner to do things he does not want to do and may not be trained to do. As an example, the planner who for years has lived with a future "optimum" strategy which perhaps bars loss of territory may come to think of territory as an end in itself, rather than a means to achieve ultimate war aims. When faced with the need to plan for a situation where forces are inadequate to hold territory, he tends to put force inadequacy out of his mind and unrealistically hold territory as though the means to do so were at his disposal. Of course, politicians will often goad him into following this fatal path, for the untrained have great difficulty in understanding the force structure, at a given instant, must determine strategy for that instant. The German experiences at Stalingrad and after come to mind.
The current planner must look objectively at all the forces at his disposal. He must be willing to trade space for time, and he must view space in three dimensions, not two. He must be willing to commit air, land, or sea forces independently or as a combined team. He must be willing to consider different approaches. Indeed, he must be flexible.
When attacked on a wide front by overwhelming enemy forces, retreat is the obvious move unless the sacrifice of significant portions of the friendly forces will buy the time introduce enough new forces to go on the offensive. Otherwise, to stand fast in a vain effort to hold territory will merely end in the loss of irreplaceable men and machines and inability to prosecute the war at another time and place. How might World War II have come out if the British army had stood futilely at Dunkirk as the German army did at Stalingrad? The planner must remember that territory is just as much a means to the end as are his military forces.
Space in modern warfare is three dimensional. Air forces may attack the enemy hundreds or even thousands of miles ahead of surface forces. Theoretically, air forces can destroy enemy ground forces, but with great certainty they can slow and even stop advancement. In many ways, air forces, whether from land bases or from carriers, are the first line of attack. They are highly mobile and easy to concentrate. Air firepower can be moved much faster and with far less transport than can equivalent amounts of land firepower. Air power can control the third dimension while buying time to deploy ground forces to fight in the second dimension. This significant capability must not be ignored or denied. It may be the key to victory.
The fact that an attack takes place in one theater does not mean that the current planner must respond in that theater. He must consider strategic flanks as well as tactical flanks. If he is fighting an empire, as earlier discussed, and if the grand strategy is dissolution of that empire, he should consider whether there are vulnerable areas outside of the attacked theater. In general, an empire will be most vulnerable where it has made its latest conquests or where the religion or culture of the conquered differs most from the empire’s core area. If the empire is made to collapse, early loss of territory in the first theater will take care of itself very quickly.
Many variations on a theme can be played by the planner faced with actual or imminent war. Most of the themes have been written and are to be found in the histories of the great commanders and planners. Alexander, the grand strategist, showed how a few could conquer many. The North Vietnamese demonstrated that toughness and resoluteness could prevail against qualitative and quantitative superiority unbacked by equal moral strength and resolution. Tiny Britain brought Napoleon’s continental system to ruin by attacking its strategic flanks. Pantelleria surrendered to air forces. What can be conceived can be done.
A momentary inferiority in quantity or quality need not be fatal. For it not to be, however, plans must be bold and realistic. They must not confuse the real here and now with the optimum future. They cannot permit emotional attachments or inveterate antipathies to interfere with rationality. If done right and executed properly, plans lead to victory. And if the war goals were well chosen and a proper grand strategy adopted, then victory leads to a better peace—which can be the only justification for fighting.
Moody AFB, Georgia
Contributor
Lieutenant Colonel John A. Warden III (USAFA; M.A., Texas Tech University) is Assistant Deputy Commander for Operations, 347th Tactical Fighter Wing, Moody AFB, Georgia. His previous assignments include Chief, Wing Inspections Division, Eglin AFB, Florida; Assistant Executive to Chief of Staff, Plans Officer, Air Staff; and F-4 pilot in Tactical Air Command and USAFE. Colonel Warden flew 266 combat missions in OV-l0s in Southeast Asia.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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