THEORY
As Luttwak says in Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, the operational level is, perhaps, the trickiest to explain. Something clearly exists between decisions made at the theater level, such as the entire western front in World War II, and the those made by an infantry captain leading an assault on the Normandy beaches. But what is this middle level?
The battle is perhaps the easiest starting point for understanding the operational. The battles of the Bulge, Stalingrad, Midway, El Alamein, and Guadalcanal share some important features. One or both combatants were looking for a decisive engagement that will change the situation in a particular theater. The battle for Normandy gave the Allies a beachhead on the European continent. The Japanese were trying to cripple the American fleet at Midway, but failed. Battles don’t always result in one side gaining some significant advantage—a point well illustrated by the WWI meatgrinder battles of the Somme and Ypres. What matters, however, is that one or both sides are looking for a decisive change.
What’s interesting to note, by the way, is the decreasing frequency of significant battles in the history of modern warfare. John Keegan, in his classic book, The Face of Battle, makes this point at some length. Battles may be less frequent, but violence in wars like the civil war in Peru, the Serb-Croat conflict, and the Iran-Iraq war is no less intense, or in cases like Rwanda and Bosnia, far more vicious. Either the combatants aren’t seeking some dramatic clash, or they’re failing to engineer them. What, then, defines strategy at this level somewhere between the theater and the tactical levels.
To properly depict the operational level, then, you have to recognize its “combined arms” character. Conventional militaries have infantry, armor, air power, and naval power. Guerrilla armies have both fighters and political cadres. Operational strategy, therefore, is the realm where combined resources (not all strictly military) jointly contribute to the advancement of theater goals. Eisenhower’s strategy for D-Day—employing every type of unit available, from OSS units working with French partisans to battleships pounding the beaches—required skills far different from those that even the most capable Navy commander or Army major had. Similarly, an NLF commander for a South Vietnamese district needed to employ guerrillas. political cadres, spies, and the occasional support of conventional NVA units to slowly erode the Saigon government’s control and legitimacy.
We may not be as accustomed to thinking in operational terms, but this level often is the fulcrum on which larger victories and defeats turn. The stunning German successes in the first years of WWII were due largely to a great operational innovation, the blitzkrieg. In WWI, the first tanks were mobile artillery supporting the infantry; in WWII, the infantry now supported the tanks.
But not alone. Infantry screened the tanks from attack, pinned down the enemy, and blasted holes in the enemy line. Artillery pounded tough defenses. Aircraft bombed enemy units and headquarters, strafed enemy reinforcements moving to the front, and relayed the birds eye view of the battlefield. The tanks slashed through the enemy line, spreading confusion and panic, encircling masses of troops then unable to escape. Blitzkrieg therefore relied as much n the chaos it created as the actual number of casualties it inflicted. None of this would have been possible without radio communications, efficient supply lines, and troops trained to improvise in a quickly-changing situation.
Like any level of strategy, the operational level needs to work in concert with the levels above and below it. Military history often is a discussion of how well this synchronization worked.
Theater strategy for the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1968 set the overall goals (preserving an independent South Vietnam) and the broad means (attrition strategy). Opinions about what went wrong for the US vary from blaming the theater strategy itself (as discussed in an earlier post) to identifying points at which the operational strategy was working at odds with the theater strategy. Both arguments have their merit.
Whichever argument you find convincing, they both share one important point: the efficiency of US search and destroy operations in Vietnam, to large extent, didn’t matter. Operationally, a search and destroy operation—which might combine mechanized and airmobile infantry, armor, artillery, close air support from fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, and even the occasional naval bombardment—succeeded by their own measures. To indicate success, US commanders pointed to statistics like the number of enemy soldiers killed, the number of villages temporarily secured during a sweep, and the number of US casualties kept to a minimum. Unfortunately, these proved to be the wrong measures.
NVA and NLF military strength could undermine political stability in the South, but killing enemy soldiers wouldn’t necessarily give the South Vietnamese regime the strength and legitimacy it needed to survive. At its worst moments, search and destroy operations worked against the theater goal of keeping the Saigon regime alive. Free fire zones, the destruction of villages suspected of VC sympathies, refugees fleeing for their lives—the attrition strategy created these problems, and more, that deepened the political crisis in the South, and actually gave the Viet Cong more recruits. The real “center of gravity” in the conflict wasn’t the enemy soldier, but the US military was certainly trained and equipped to focus on that tangible and familiar target. Winning battles didn’t necessarily give the population a sense of security; killing guerrillas didn’t win support for the government. The Soviets learned the same hard lesson in Afghanistan.
It’s still possible in this analysis to pin blame on American theater strategy for creating other problems. The United States threw away much of its leverage with the South Vietnamese regime. Without leverage, the US could not budge successive governments in Saigon to make painful but necessary. Commitment itself became too much of a fetish, cornering the United States into arguing that its credibility in containing the USSR and China was, somewhat ridiculously, being tested in a country peripheral to the interests of all three superpowers. However, even if the theater strategy for fighting the Vietnam War had been a work of supreme brilliance, the operational strategy often worked against it.
PRACTICE
The big question about the current war in Iraq is, Are we winning? If our theater goal is to create a stable Iraq, friendly to the United States, capable of shifting the Middle Eastern balance of power, the answer is clearly no. Obviously, the US and its allies have insufficient troops to maintain control over Iraq; moving it into the column of reliable US allies seems like a dim hope. So far, Iraqi police and army units have proven ineffective; in the siege of Fallujah, they actually joined the forces fighting US troops. The Iraq war has made it harder for the United States to deal with the North Koreans, the Iranians, and perhaps also al Qaeda. (At least in one example, the Iraq invasion has helped a terrorist group allied with al Qaeda.)
But the problem isn’t merely one of strength. We could double, triple, or quadruple the number of troops, and still find the political ground in Iraq crumbling beneath us. In fact, I would argue, the current US operational strategy ensures our failure.
It goes without saying that the impressive plans for the invasion weren’t matched by equally impressive plans for the occupation. After a swift victory over Iraq conventional forces, US troops were caught by surprise by escalating guerrilla attacks. The Bush Administration, the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the US Central Command have all blamed these attacks on terrorists and insurgents (alias guerrillas). The fact that US authorities use these terms interchangeably is an unfortunate sign of exactly how unprepared the United States is for the war it’s now fighting. Not only do you use different operational techniques to defeat guerrillas and terrorists, but what the United States is doing today is doomed to fail against either kind of opponent.
As in Vietnam, American forces are now focusing at the operational level on the enemy’s military strength. Whether the enemy is Ansar al-Islam or the Sadrist “Army of the Mahdi,” US forces are primarily concerned about killing or capturing as many of these enemy troops as possible. Tanks, helicopters, and jet aircraft pound enemy positions, often in heavily populated areas. American commanders believe that captured guerrillas—or, sadly, the relatives of suspected guerrillas—are “intelligence assets” that might help track down and eliminate even more enemy fighters. The pressures to wring information out of these “assets” have led to the dehumanizing, counterproductive, and shocking events at Abu Ghraib, Baghdad airport, and other jails. Meanwhile, efforts to win public support through rebuilding the country—the Vietnam-era term was civic action—continue on a completely separate track from military operations. Civic action is often impossible, since the people responsible for it—contractors, US troops, or humanitarian organizations—can’t safely reach the people they’re trying to help, or guerrillas demolish the work they’ve already done.
The operational strategy is clearly not working, in large part because we have a limited understanding of the enemy. The “insurgency” isn’t a monolithic organization, but a combination of different guerrilla, terrorist, and criminal groups. This mélange is hardly new in the history of warfare. Recent conflicts in Angola, Sierra Leone, the Balkans, Peru, El Salvador, Indonesia, the Philippines, and elsewhere have featured similar mixes of these three groups—often within the same organization (such as the FARC in Colombia).
However, the anti-occupation guerrilla groups are the real “center of gravity.” Not only are the guerrillas more numerous than the terrorists (including al Qaeda allies) and criminal gangs, but the they pose the most serious threat to the US occupation. Tragically, the guerrillas are far more akin to partisan forces fighting a foreign occupier—heroic figures to people inside and outside Iraq—than the universally condemned terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks. It’s easy to think that, because the guerrillas threaten us, killing as many guerrillas as possible is the road to victory. We'd be wrong yet again to believe that myth.
To make better sense of the situation, here are some points of comparison that reveal how different operational strategy looks for fighting terrorists, guerrillas, and conventional armies:
|
Counterterrorism |
Counterinsurgency |
Conventional war |
Required amount of force |
Very small. |
Moderate. |
Overwhelming. |
Type of units involved in combat |
Small military units, such as Delta Force (US) or the SAS (Britain). Agents within the terrorist organization are also required. Other military assets are usually irrelevant; using them in their normal role to bring maximum firepower to bear on a foe is counterproductive when civilians die in the crossfire. |
Troops who can stay in a region, work with the local population, and earn their trust are a must. Primarily infantry, with perhaps some armor or air support on infrequent occasions. Again, using overwhelming firepower can be counterproductive. |
Combination of all types of military units (infantry, armor, artillery, air, naval) needed for a particular operation. |
Type of operation |
Raids on terrorist cells, hostage rescues, police sweeps for supporters or informants. Intelligence operations critical, from eavesdropping on communications to infiltrating terrorist cells. |
Sweeps to eliminate guerrilla presence from a region. Following that, defense against guerrilla raids, plus constant patrolling to prevent the re-infiltration of guerrilla forces. Some similarity to the intelligence operations used against terrorists. |
“Traditional” military attacks to seize territory, wear down enemy forces, disrupt command and communications, eliminate supply depots, etc. |
Coordination with grassroots political or “civic action” efforts |
Akin to police efforts to gain information about criminals from the local population. |
Critical on all fronts—everything from building bridges to helping ensure fair elections. |
Little or none required. |
Time to plan and execute |
Given the challenge of penetrating the veil of secrecy around terrorist cells, operations can take months or years. Occasionally, you have the opportunity to strike a training camp or other facility, but these are normally not fatal blows to the terrorist organization. |
The overall operation—securing an area, ensuring the growth of security and legitimacy—normally takes months or even years. |
Operations can be planned and executed in days or weeks. |
Number of opponents |
Terrorist cells are usually very small—sometimes less than 10 or 20 people. Their supporters can also be a very small group. |
Smaller than a conventional army, but larger than terrorist cells. The number of supporters can be small or large, depending on the phase of the guerrilla conflict and other factors. |
Large, if they present any threat to US forces. |
Ease of identifying the enemy |
Very hard. Terrorists are highly secretive, adept at hiding within the population, and surface very briefly for swift, dramatic strikes. |
Hard. Usually disguised, and guerrilla operations are normally hit-and-run affairs. You can find guerrillas in particular regions (“liberated zones”), and you can catch guerrillas in the act out their own military operations. Political operatives will be harder to spot than fighters, however. |
Easy. (They wear uniforms.) |
Importance of territory |
None. |
Low to moderate, depending on the phase of the conflict. Guerrillas need to establish an increasingly larger presence in broad areas of the country to achieve victory through a final military push or the political collapse of the regime. |
High. Territory determines how safe are lines of supply and communications, how much of the country is under your control, where you’re vulnerable to enemy attack, and where you can make attacks. |
Measures of success |
For terrorist operations, the political paralysis of the enemy and their willingness to comply with your demands. For counterterrorist operations, the number of terrorist cells eliminated, and the prevention of any “regeneration” of the terrorist organization. |
For both sides, the tilting of the political balance of power. Both military and non-military means are critical, but the goal is to engineer the political collapse of the enemy’s base of support. |
For both sides, territory seized, plus reduction or elimination of enemy forces. |
There are a lot of points of comparison you might cite, but the ones used here are enough to support the basic argument: these three types of warfare demand three different operational strategies.
Do US operations in Iraq look like classic counterinsurgency or counterterrorist operational-level strategy? Not at all. The US military is still an organization trained, equipped, and rewarded for its ability to fight conventional wars—a familiar problem with a long legacy. As Andrew Krepinevich argued in a great but often overlooked book, the US Army, thrown into an unfamiliar situation in Vietnam, first tried to apply familiar operational principles. The result (until key changes in 1968 and 1969) was the ubiquitous search and destroy operation—a failure however you look at it. This problem wasn't as simple as the “If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail” principle. Changing the operational approach would have required wrenching organizational and doctrinal changes that the Army wasn’t convinced it needed to make—particularly when these military reforms may have threatened the Army’s “core mission” and undercut its ability to operate independently of other services and civilian agencies.
Obviously, this part of the Vietnam story is of more than historical interest. The US military is, once again, wrongly focused on the enemy soldier. Operations to find, fix, and finish the enemy—in Fallujah, Najaf, Karbala, Baghdad, and elsewhere—may result in an impressive body count. They won’t help win the war.
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