desaxx: Note: Operational Art

Signposts

“A nation is only as strong as its people. To ensure national strength there must be adequate military forces, properly equipped to repel any attacks upon our sovereignty, and such forces must be backed up by a well organized civilian population of high morale which can produce all the necessities for carrying on modern warfare. This unity of military and civilian strength will be only as strong as its weakest component, therefore, we must ensure that all parts of this combination are equally strong.” --- Admiral Chester W. Nimitz quoted in Military Review 27, no. 10 (January 1948): 11.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Note: Operational Art

Definitions of operational art are not hard to find. I will echo a theoretician and writer who has long been associated with the concept of operational: there is a small cottage industry devoted to defining operational art. Debates over exactly what constitutes operational art began very soon after the official introduction of the term in U.S. military doctrine. Today, operational art is firmly rooted in Army and Joint doctrine. Still, with the somewhat controversial revival of operational design (or simply design) and the even more controversial effects-based operations, it seems that operational art is once again a topic of popular discussion in military periodicals.

Operational art is not new. It has been present in the art of war even if in earlier periods of warfare it was not an overt presence. Since operational art is a kind of specialized mental process, taking place primarily in the mind of the overall operational commander, there are less and less glimpses of it as we travel back in the history of warfare. Presumably Alexander the Great executed design to create the mental framework for how his forces would defeat the enemy, and he used operational art to furnish campaign plans that his subordinates could carry out, but there is no concrete evidence of this.

Today’s operational environment is likewise not really new. Even though the present world of asymmetric threats, non-state actors, and weapons of mass destruction seem to define a unique strategic landscape, there is actually far more continuity with the past than breaks. Warfare is still politically based, featuring critical alliances, necessary coalitions, economic competition, and struggles over control of physical territory and resources.

Today, considering national and transnational threats, political and military leaders conduct operations in an increasingly complex, interconnected, and increasingly global operational environment. This results in a larger and more complex operational environment, which has raised the profile and importance of operational art. With a globalized world, and multi-polar international system, it has become imperative that modern militaries get military actions right--i.e., the political and economic costs of failed military actions is too great, especially for democratic regimes to tolerate. Operational art is an indispensable tool for commanders to make sure the employment of military forces directly support the attainment of strategic aims with the least possible risk. Risk cannot be divorced from strategy.

The most useful definition of operational art, for both the Army and Joint arenas, concentrates on its functionality, not a particular organizational echelon, force size, or headquarters. Operational art began in the context of large force, deep operations, featuring disruption and distributed maneuver, but it was never meant to be confined to that context. Operational art exists at the level where commanders and their staffs translate strategic aims into military operational objectives and conceive operational plans to organize tactical actions to achieve those aims. This is true whether the means include only an airborne battalion task force or a 90,000-strong multinational, combined joint task force.

Operational art connects the strategic to the tactical. But what does this really mean? How are positive strategic ends--compelling a competitor state to relinquish claim to a region, or hand over control of its nuclear program--achieved through negative tactical outcomes. We still cannot get around the fact that the application of forces at the tactical level entails destruction of physical and human resources. This mild dichotomy--tactical control and destruction leading to more favorable political agreements, arrangements, etc.--is resolved through the creative application of operational art.

In Brief

The last few years have seen Iran’s strategic position worsen significantly. New sanctions are hurting the economy. Tehran would like to be part of any solution to the Syrian power struggle. Iranian leaders look favorably on the withdrawal of ISAF forces from Afghanistan and are planning to increase their involvement in the country after 2014. Iran-Afghanistan trade is increasing after hitting a historic high of $1.3 billion in 2010. Iranian civilian leaders continue to view the Taliban as an enemy even though the Revolutionary Guards continue to supply Afghan insurgents. Though Ahmadinejad talks glowingly about the SCO, the latter’s stalled security advancements are seen as a setback. Iran realizes it needs the support of Turkey, Russia and China. Iran and Turkey have clashing interests over the outcome in Syria. Loss of the Assad regime will increase Iran’s isolation. Russian support for Iran was cooling---including the cancellation of a $1 billion S-300 air defense system contract---but has been warming lately. Many Central Asian governments see Iran as a reliable long-term economic partner and key ally in transportation of energy resources to South Asia and the Gulf region.
In real dollars, the U.S. has spent as much in Iraq as it spent in Vietnam. This is dramatic because: Iraqi insurgents never receive anything close to the external support Vietnamese communists received from the Soviet Union and China; war in Iraq against anti-American insurgents was never part of a larger, global conflict like the Cold War (the GWOT is rather flimsy in retrospect); and war to sustain an anti-communist South Vietnam was part of a larger policy of countering and containing the Soviet Union.
The recent campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan are being called “costly wars” which it is hard to argue with. But in the case of Afghanistan it interesting that it is considered a costly war given: the original strategy (from 2001 and 2002) was supposed to be economical (cheap); the original strategy did not include any aspects of nation building; and the game changing strategic move to population-centric counterinsurgency made popular by GEN (Ret) McChrystal’s August 2009 assessment was never entirely convincing. Was population-centric counterinsurgency well thought out or reached for because of Army institutional momentum? How can U.S. military forces build ties between the dominant ethnic group, the Pashtun, if they see the Karzai government as fundamentally corrupt and partially illegitimate following the controversial 2009 election? The war in Afghanistan should never have been this expensive. It might be justified to pour billions into a Karzai government if the U.S. was buying a Cold War-era Germany, Japan, or South Korea but that will not happen. Setting aside whether Afghanistan can ever be a South Korea, the region---especially Iran, India, and Pakistan---will not allow it.
Has the U.S. built a twentieth century Maginot Line in the form of information operations, or perhaps space operations?
Has the now common practice of rotating units—but especially mid- and high-level commanders—out of theaters of operation on a regular basis, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq recently, undermined the military’s ability to win longer term complex operations such as counterinsurgency?
Has the U.S. military failed at 'campaign continuity' in Afghanistan (Operation ENDURING FREEDOM)?