SOLVING GORDIAN’S KNOT:

Balancing National Influences with Military Doctrine to Achieve Victory

"One always has enough troops when he knows how to use them." – Napoleon

How to engage the enemy or to prepare the American warrior for future engagements has for most of our history been an exercise in cultural norms. Translated this means that American strategy and doctrine has been directly influenced by the trilogy of actors—the government, which dictates policy; the military, who conduct the war; and the people, who supported the government and enlist—outlined in Clausewitz On War, which many consider the Bible of generalship for the last two hundred years. From doctrine, organization, training, equipment, and combat execution, how the nation responded to threats has rarely strayed from the national character or will. Nevertheless this may no longer be true in the twenty-first century. Missing from several modern military efforts has been a binding vision of what we as a people wish to accomplish and, more importantly, the lack of a national strategy influenced simply by the trilogy of actors. 

Instead, and for some time now, a fourth actor has grown in influence such that it has arrogantly proclaimed that we are in an era of Revolutionary change in Military Affairs (RMA). But what is this revolution? Some would say it is technological, other political, and other doctrinal in nature. They are all wrong! For as this newest actor gains influence and its power grows, it's assumed the status of an unequal partner and a disconnected between our national strategy and our cultural norms has resulted. It is this disconnect that defines the real revolutionary change occurring.  I associate this new paradigm with the formation of a Gordian Knot, which the other actors must solve in order to alleviate emerging domestic and international problems. Accordingly, how we untie this Knot will be heavily influenced by how we rebalance our national strategy and its quad of military influences.  

In that we are in a period of military transformation, and one where new strategies and doctrines are being explored, defended or attacked—political efforts to undermine national strategy is a direct consequence of the disconnects outlined above and have the unintended consequence of allowing our enemies to focus their efforts on influencing a score of politicians instead of concentrating on defeating the U.S. military—as a solution, I propose a bottoms up or military inspired solution to solving this Gordian’s Knot. I propose that we institute a strategy that balances the military influences with a doctrine that requires something other than “patience” on behalf of the American people. I call this strategy “Indirect Leverage”. 

            Before I continue let us further define who this fourth actor is?

Two-hundred years ago Clausewitz outlined in On War that a trilogy of influence or actors who defined the traditional or modern battlespace, that trilogy was a confluence of the government, the military, and the people. Harmony between these elements improved ones chances for victory. Considering the success of the United States, this harmony was solid throughout much of our history. Yet, with success was born a fourth actor whose influence is such that the other actors appear to been isolated from the equation, especially in low-intensity conflicts where national survival is not at stake. This fourth actor in a quad of military influences is the military-industrial complex (MIC), which to some clearly favors the treatment of war as but an extension of profits by other means. As a result of this new paradigm, we find ourselves in our present state of affairs and dealing with disconnects that are akin to a Gordian Knot. 

So pervasive has the military industrial complex become that  military conviction (doctrine) and transformational efforts have assume such a level of corporate arrogance that we are now in a state of believing ourselves masters of the urban environment and nation builders. Such direction is not only unsupported by any historical precedent, lacking the occasional use of wholesale slaughter or a declaration of total war, but it is inadequate as a tenet of our national strategy, always failing to undermining the modern enemies will or ability to fight when their harmony or trilogy of influences tend to be stronger than our own. In fact, our efforts of late seem only to encourage sustained resistance via sustained presence. Equally, the lessons by which we continued to transform our military, which are inspired within this dysfunctional quad of influences, will lead to continued failure at the strategic and operational levels of war, despite the benchmarks some officials have used in determining success and failure at the tactical level of combat, e.g. historically low casualties and battlefield victories. 

While I believe the influence of the military industrial complex to be a primary culprit in the developing strategic weakness of the United States, and one that the other actors must deal with, and not just during politically opportune moments, it is also a national strength. Research, technological developments, and innovation are hallmarks of our culture and should continue to be leveraged on the modern battlefield. But where that battlefield is and how the fight unfolds is following a industry led or technology inspired misinterpretation of our cultural capabilities. In fact, our arrogance to dominate opponents has only managed to minimize our capabilities through a clear-hold-build urban-centric direct engagement strategy whereby soldiers and commanders are asked to manage the daily lives of a Host Nation (HN) population. Oh, and to do so in a culturally astute way. Ironically, this last requirement is itself a new trend that has emerged to undermine past norms, and it is more a British tenet than an American one.

Anyhow, in any low-intensity conflict, and regardless of the policy concerning long-term sustainability of the defenders government, I propose replacing our present urban-centric or direct approach doctrine and its clear-hold-build model with a rural or ‘indirect’ strategy that ‘leverages’ our cultural capabilities and minimizes our military engagement so as to focus on political engagement. By such a strategy we maximize our technological advantages in a sweep-shape-negotiate model.

             Whereas a ‘direct’ strategy is what we are doing today—engaging insurgent forces, terrorists, and others in the urban environments; rebuilding Host Nation (Iraqi) governance, infrastructure, and attempting to develop national unity; and always seeking some form of ‘total’ victory—‘indirect leverage’ is counterintuitive to these inclinations, or the inclinations that we must utterly destroy then rebuild our enemies to achieve victory. ‘Indirect leverage’ focuses on achieving political victory where threats are neutralized and the balancing influences that define our national will, and the balancing influences that define peaceful stability within a belligerent nation, are maintained. As such, ‘Indirect Leverage’ incorporates American public opinion in strategic and military decision-making, as opposed to our present focus within Counterinsurgency Doctrine of maintaining American “patience” —the use of “patience” within a democracies military doctrine alone should give credence to the idea that a new doctrine is required!  

            Many today are seeking solutions to what appears to be strategic mistakes made in our War on Terror and ever growing lists of enemies since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Democrats wish to deal with these issues by reversing the post-Soviet Era decisions, shifting forces to more politically palatable theaters, or increasing the size of the military so (again) as to dominate an enemy with mass. Republicans tend to favor technological solutions, throwing more troops at a hot spot, or asking the American people for more of the aforementioned “patience”. I argue that our doctrine is flawed and that current political solutions fail to addressing the principle problem, that being the imbalances within the quad of military influences. I argue that we should keep the MIC robust, but balance its influence such that it is either a co-equal or lesser partner in forming our national strategy. Equally we must address those pieces of legislation that allow for disharmony within the political equation prior to and during conflicts. Too long have these imbalance wasted U.S. assets, encouraged political disunity, sustained our presence in international hot-spots, influenced our military doctrine, and undermined our cultural capabilities.

           Yet, before one is tempted to assume this is advocacy of a “risk averse” strategy—it is not. Indirect leverage and equalization of the quad of military influences, given the nature of our society, is about all our democracy harmonizing itself in order to achieve sustainable victories.  As such, ‘indirect leverage’ seeks the application of adequate force (as opposed to overwhelming or cowardly levels of force), upon a time line that minimizes societal disturbance, with the primary purpose of achieving leverage, and less so control, over the host nation.

            The roots of what an ‘Indirect Leverage’ strategy is can already be found in modern methods of dealing with international crisis and in addressing the imbalances that have resulted in strategic defeat when the enemy proves more resilient. In fact, there are scores of examples of how operational and tactical sub-elements of a new strategic doctrine would be defined. They include operations in Kosovo, Desert Storm, Libya, and even the CIA’s effort in Soviet occupied Afghanistan, all of which maintained public opinion, leveraged technology, and had support from both sides of the political isle. 

The focus of ‘Indirect Leverage’, as a doctrine, is on reducing threats to all elements of the trilogy. That is reduce threats to own troops by rendering enemy fighters susceptible to the concentrated will of their commanders, or, as Liddell-Hart put it, “The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.” What does this mean? It means we frustrate the efforts of our enemies’ leadership by unbalancing their influence over the rest of the equation. In summary we focus on the enemies desire to control the outcome. Without control the enemy has nothing so he will seek to maintain it even if that means relenting to American demands. It equally means developing operational tactics that leverage the full capabilities of our technological and MIC support advantages. This means, shaping the battlespace so that enemy fighters are, again, concentrated under the will of their commanders. What we are trying to do here is avoid an insurgency; avoid undermining the cultural norms of the enemy, even if they are non-Western in nature, so as to ensure stability after hostilities have ended. By concentrating on the enemies balance, rather than total dominance and reorganization of societies, we void needlessly involving those who can be influenced by other means. This requires some rethinking in the way we use strategic sources of power and significant doctrinal changes in the way we use military power.

Finally, and ironically, without change we will continue to be the victims of the enemies use of an ‘indirect’ strategy, whereby they recognize the dominance of the U.S. economy and military establishment, and concentrate their efforts of obtaining ‘leverage’ over one or more non-military actors within our quad of military influences. In today’s unbalanced system our enemy’s have chosen an insurgent path to sustain a fight just long enough so as to obtain the political sympathies of a score of American or international politicians. Why be the victims of such tactics and instead use it to our advantage; doing so requires a new doctrine, but one that isn’t wholly foreign to us.   As a soldier, I am losing faith and have been for some time now in the leadership of our nation. If politicians and the Pentagon continue to use our failings as an excuse to do nothing more than oscillate between competing theories on defense, none of which address the imbalances within the quad of military influences, I fear that the service of my fellow servicemen and women will have been for nothing, and the purpose of my life, citizenship, and patriotism wasted.