Provolution "Forgotten Wars Series" THE CHACO WAR

[Provolution]

The Gran Chaco War: Fighting for Mirages in the Foothills of the Andes









The Gran Chaco is the most inhospitable part of the inhospitable Chaco Boreal, a largely uninhabited, 250,000 sq-mi region west of the Paraguay River and east of the foothills of the Andes in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina. It is an arid, semi-desert, where some of the highest temperatures recorded in South America are encountered. In the west, near the mountains, the Gran Chaco is a flat, sparsely vegetated, waterless plain. Further east it is a thick, dry, almost impassable thornbrush jungle punctuated by dense stands of quebracho trees and grassy clearings. There are few people, but myriad biting, stinging insects and many tropical diseases. Prior to 1928, the region's only real value was the tannin extracted from its quebrachos and the meager grazing it provided for cattle. Such was the unlikely bone of contention in South America’s bloodiest, twentieth-century war.

The Gran Chaco belonged originally to the same Spanish colonial district (audiencia) as Bolivia. So it was, in Bolivian eyes, legally subject to the Spanish administration's successor government in La Paz. But the mountain peoples of the Bolivian Altiplano, a Quecha Indian underclass and a Spanish aristocracy, descended from Spanish conquistadores, had little real connection with the sweltering lowlands of the Gran Chaco or with the indigenous peoples who inhabited it. Bolivians did not live in the Chaco,nor did they exploit its meager resources. Bolivian businessmen looked into the possibility of a port on the Paraguay River, but otherwise did little to make use of the territory, gravely compromising their claims to the area, at least in North American and European eyes. On the other hand, the Guarani, the largely indigenous people of Paraguay, were linked to the Chaco by culture and language. Paraguayan settlers had long since brought cattle to the region and had established a tannin industry based on the quebracho. Paraguay had settled and improved the country. The government had brought industrious Mennonite communities from the United States to settle in the Chaco and had sold extensive tracts to Argentinian land developers and cattle companies. Thus, while Paraguay had claimed the Chaco when Spanish rule collapsed in 1810, its real hold rested on de facto grounds—use and occupation—rather than de jure title

So matters might have rested. Bolivia might never have taken an interest in its one-time de jure territory, and Paraguay might have gone on with its quiet, unofficial settlements. But in 1884, Bolivia had lost the Pacific War and, with it her coastline, to Chile. To the nineteenth-century mind, great powers were sea powers that could carry on trade and project power over global distances. Suddenly, Bolivia had to either give up her aspirations to greatness or find some other outlet to the sea. The former course was anathema to fiercely nationalistic Bolivian politicians, newspaper editors, and student agitators. The officer corps of the defeated army likewise rejected any course that conceded the reality of defeat. Bolivians thus turned their hopes to their remaining frontier, the Chaco Boreal and its navigable border, the Paraguay River.

At first, both sides seemed content to press their claims by peaceful means. A series of international arbitrations and temporary settlements brokered by Argentina, President Hayes of the United States, and King Leopold of the Belgians kept the peace for a time. Both sides marshalled their historians and turned over their archives for supporting documentation. Meanwhile, the status quo continued.

Then, in 1928, oil was discovered in the foothills of the Andes at the western extremity of the Chaco. Bolivia suddenly took belated notice of its neglected territory and sought to assert its rights. The Gran Chaco seemed on the verge of an oil boom. Further oil fields might lie beneath the Chaco's arid plains. More importantly, Bolivian-controlled pipelines and a sovereign oil port now seemed absolutely necessary. Without them, Argentina would have a monopoly on shipping the oil and the nation's rightful profits would be syphoned off by foreign speculators. Paraguay reacted to this sudden onslaught from the north with violent indignation. The Guarani saw no reason why the late-comers from the mountains should enjoy the fruits of their labors, simply because a defunct colonial power had made a few thoughtless marks on a map. They were in no mood for territorial concessions. At the time of its independence from Spain in 1811, Paraguay had been one of the larger nations on the continent. But three neighbors, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, had seized more than half its territory in the War of the Triple Alliance. The loss still rankled, and impoverished Paraguay was not prepared to let its last hope for economic development join its other lost territories.

Fighting began in 1928, when Bolivia tried to establish an outlet to the sea via the Paraguay River. Paraguayan troops wiped out a newly established Bolivian border fort. An exchange of sporadic raids and skirmishes commenced. But formal warfare did not start for four more years. The League of Nations carried on a series of desultory negotiations and arranged a truce.

When full-scale hostilities commenced in June 1932, both countries immediately faced daunting logistical difficulties. The swamps and forests, together with the lack of roads, the harsh climate, and the vast distances involved, made assembling and moving troops extremely difficult. Soldiers and animal transport were ravaged by disease, ill-fed, and chronically short of materiel. Yet the belligerents were determined to fight a proper, modern war, in so far as their means would allow.

At first, Bolivia had the advantage militarily, particularly in the air. In the course of the conflict, the Cuerpo de Aviación had about sixty combat aircraft available, including various fighters, Curtiss bomber-reconaissance biplanes, and Junkers W.34 bomber-transports. In 1930, it used the proceeds of its mines and a line of credit from Standard Oil of Bolivia to conclude a major arms deal with Vickers. Bolivia acquired a number of Vickers 6-tonne tanks (right) and Carden-Lloyd Mk. VI tankettes (machinegun carriers), 55-mm mountain artillery, Vickers machineguns, and six Vickers Type 143 Bolivian Scouts, an export fighter for which Bolivia proved the only customer—surely one of the shortest total production runs on record. The Scout's supercharged, 500-hp Bristol Jupiter VIA radial engine and generous wing area gave the Scout a good high-altitude performance for its day, an important consideration in Bolivia. It spanned 33 ft 6 in, was 26 ft 3 in long, and weighed 2246 lbs maximum at takeoff. Service ceiling was 20,000 ft and maximum speed was 150 mph. Like all the fighters in the conflict, it was armed with a pair of rifle caliber machineguns, .303 Vickers in this case.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/chacobolfight.gif

Fighters, Cuerpo de Aviación Boliviano, 1930-35: Curtiss Hawk II (top); Vickers Type 143 Bolivian Scout (bottom)

Four Curtiss P-1 Hawks were acquired in 1927 and nine Hawk IIs in 1932-33. The Hawk II was the principle Bolivian fighter. It was essentially a land-based version of the US Navy’s BFC Goshawk. A 600-hp Wright R-1820 gave the Hawk II a 202-mph top speed and a 25,000-ft service ceiling. Nine Curtiss Falcon two-seat reconaissance bombers—radial-engined variants of the US Army O-1/A-3—were added at the same time. The ground troops were meanwhile provided with organic air defense in the form of excellent SEMAG-Becker 20-mm AA guns, two of which were supplied to a division (Bolivian divisions were actually of regiment or batalion size).



Bomber-Reconaissance, Cuerpo de Aviación Boliviano, Villa Montes, 1935: Curtiss Falcon

While Bolivia began the war with new, Vickers- and Curtiss-built equipment, impoverished Paraguay’s armed forces were caught between procurement cycles and desperately short of cash. From 1927-1929, the country had re-equipped its air force with a number of French-made Potez 25A.2 reconaissance bombers and seven Wibault 73C.1 fighter monoplanes (numbered 1-7). The Potez 25 was a widely exported two-seat biplane developed primarily as what would later be called a COIN airplane. It was designed for use against the fractious, independence-minded natives of France’s colonies. It looked very much like a WW1 type. While excellent for its intended purpose, it was at a definite disadvantage when facing aerial opposition. It spanned 46 ft 4.75 in, was 29 ft 10.25 in long, and weighed 4317 lbs (t/o). It could reach 137 mph and 23,600 ft. Range was 410 miles and bombload was 440 lbs. The Wibault was a rarity for its time, an all-metal parasol monoplane covered with Wibault’s own system of corrugated metal skinning. It was about 25 ft long, spanned 35 ft 11 in, and weighed 3351 lbs. Performance closely approximated that of the Potez.




Combat aircraft, Paraguayan Air Force: (top) Wibault 73C.1 fighter, Primera Escuadrilla de Caza, 2nd Lt. Juan Gonzales Doldan, Campo Grande, 1932; Potez 25A.2 reconaissance-bomber, 1932-35

Unfortunately, the aircraft were already obsolescent in 1932. Worse still, Paraguay had tried to economize by standardizing on one engine for both fighters and bombers. Unfortunately, the engine Paraguay chose was the 450-hp Lorraine-Dietrich 12Eb. This was a water-cooled, W-12 with three banks of four cylinders each. It was heavy and old fashioned, and its cooling system had been marginal even in northern Europe. In the sweltering Gran Chaco, it was a disaster. So much had been spent for the airplanes, however, that nothing could be spared for replacements. What little finance was available had to be spent on other, more urgently needed armaments. Shortly after the start of operations, Paraguayan mechanics found themselves frantically cannibalizing aircraft to keep a minimum number of flying. Many were lost to forced landings and in-flight fires. Soon, serviceability was so bad that the Wibaults had to be grounded so that the remaining engines could be reserved for the more urgently required Potez.

The army was in somewhat better shape. During the final months prior to the outbreak of war, Paraguayan diplomats secured a secret loan from Argentina. Unlike Bolivia, Paraguay had almost no standing army and no peace-time budget for mobilization stockpiles. While their troops fought the first skirmishes of the war armed with machetes and one castoff Argentine Mauser rifle for every 3-7 men, a civilian purchasing commission frantically shopped the arms bazaars of Europe for bargain equipment. Ironically, the inexperience of the men selected for the task and the crippling, national lack of funds now proved fortuitous. While Bolivia's professionals spent lavishly on "serious" weapons, like heavy Schneider howitzers, water-cooled heavy machineguns, tanks, and the all but useless little Vickers mountain guns, the Paraguayan amateurs bought poor man's artillery—light, cheap, Stokes-Brandt mortars, three of which could be had for the price of one field gun—and Madsen light machineguns (right). Cartridges and artillery shells could be had clandestinely, free of charge, from the Argentine army, and grenades were in production in Paraguay itself. In the heat, dense brush, and mud of the Chaco, lightness, mobility, and a high trajectory were the dominant requirements. Mortars, grenades, and light automatic weapons so dominated the battlefields that Bolivia was forced to return to Vickers for large quantities of both. Later in the war, when Paraguay's funds were exhausted, she relied almost entirely on capturing this fresh Bolivian materiel for her own needs.

Mercenaries were much in evidence throughout the conflict. The chief of the Bolivian general staff and, for a time, de facto dictator of the nation, was a German veteran of World War 1's Eastern Front, General Hans Kundt. Chilean mercenaries and a Czech contract military mission advised Bolivian forces in the field. Paraguay had the services of two White Russian emigrés, General Belaieff, formerly of Wrangel's staff, and Gen. Ern. Another Russian, Vladimir Porfenenko, and one Walter Gwynn flew fighters for Paraguay, the latter being killed. Late in the war, a large-scale Italian mission arrived to train and equip Paraguay's exhausted forces prior to their final victory.

Paraguay, however, relied for the most part on a series of brilliant native officers for her tactical and strategic planning, while Bolivia leaned heavily on the foreigners. Many of Paraguay's unit commanders had gained combat experience as volunteers with the French army in World War 1. They were quick to note the mistakes of their supposedly more advanced, more civilized European counterparts and made use of the experience gained in the conflict that awaited them in their homeland. Paraguay's army commander, Colonel later General later Marshal José Félix Estigarribia, epitomized the brilliance and professionalism of this largely amateur army. He was easily the greatest soldier of the war. He capitalized on the Guarani's knowledge of the forest and on the independence born of egalitarian Paraguayan life. He husbanded his meager resources, avoiding the suicidal assaults on entrenched positions that characterized the fighting on Europe's Western Front. But he also mounted audacious attacks when conditions were favorable and frequently encircled and destroyed Bolivian forces that far outnumbered his own. Unlike his Bolivian counterparts, he was on close terms with the civilian government and the elected president, Eusebio Ayala, throughout the war and recognized his duty to bow before civilian wishes.

 

[Provolution]

While her soldiers were excellent, the Bolivian command was uniformly awful. The native officers were politically ambitious and frequently insubordinate. With the exception of the air force pilots, a number of whom had flown for France, Bolivians lacked tactical sense and imagination. Kundt was, if anything, even worse. He had been a good peacetime general, maintaining Prussian discipline in a large and well-equipped peacetime army. He had commanded a regiment on the Russian Front. But, as Paraguay's excellent intelligence service soon discovered, he had learned none of the lessons that produced victory at Tannenburg and in the 1918 offensives. Instead, he repeatedly sent his men charging into frontal attacks on dug-in enemies, without artillery preparation or the covering fire of machineguns. Flanking maneuvers were utterly alien to his way of thinking. Aerial reconaissance was, in his opinion, worthless, because airmen were prone to exaggeration (several disastrous encirclements were in fact spotted by Bolivian reconaissance and reported to Kundt and his officers in good time, but the German generalissimo dismissed the reports out of hand). The Chileans and Czechs were consummate professionals, by all accounts, but they arrived on the scene late, at the behest of a rapidly fading civilian authority, and were not allowed to take any major part in the war.

Curiously, Paraguay's French-trained army had mastered the German tactics Kundt disdained. Estigarribia invariably bypassed strongpoints and infiltrated enemy lines, often encirling his opponents (Paraguay held over 30,000 POWs by the war's end, against 3,000 held by Bolivia). The White Russians were hardly known for tactical brilliance or flexibility, either during the World War or in the Civil War they so conspicuously lost. Yet Belaieff and Ern designed field fortifications with storm troopers and infiltration in mind. They created entrenched "islands" armed with mortars, machineguns, wire, and mines. These islands shared interlocking fields of fire designed so that infiltrators would find themselves channeled into killing gounds. (Left: strongpoints typical of the fortins used by both sides, after a sketch by Fernandez)



The Gran Chaco conflict was, in fact, largely a war of engineers. Cutting trails through the jungle, building roads, erecting field fortifications, and, above all, locating and drilling wells were the activities that determined the pace and outcome of battles. The Chaco was largely without potable surface water, even where vegetation was thickest. Before attacks could be mounted or ground held, water for men and horses had to be brought forward by truck. Trucks and gasoline were always in such short supply that their availability decided the timing of offensives or the feasibility of holding ground. Neither belligerent could afford to purchase the vehicles in the requisite numbers, and wastage was high in the rough, roadless Chaco. To make the best use of the trucks, the distance between water sources and the front had to be kept short. When it was not, breakdowns and enemy guerilla actions could produce disaster. The Andean officers were less conscious of this necessity than the Guarani. Many times, entire Bolivian divisions disintegrated and surrendered en masse when encircled by inferior forces. They had outrun their water convoys, and, weakened by dehydration and maddened by thirst, proved unable to resist the offer of even the smallest cup of water.

Bolivia's heavy investment in armor went largely for nought. While the equipment was state of the art, it was fundamentally ill-suited to conditions in the Chaco. It could not force passage through the scrub and quebracho, so infantry had to go ahead to cut a path. Gasoline was scarce and urgently needed by the trucks that brought up water and took back wounded. Since temperatures topped 100º in the shade by mid- morning, crews had to operate with every possible hatch open. In close country, the Paraguayans quickly found that they could easily ambush tanks and destroy them with grenades. (Right: Vickers/Carden-Lloyd Mk. VI tankette)



Airpower was largely misused in the Chaco War, particularly by Bolivia. Bolivia enjoyed almost total air superiority until the last days of the conflict. But it did her little good. Her commanders ignored aerial reconnaissance, though the information provided was usually excellent. Officers invited losses by ordering low-level air strikes against entrenched positions that could not be seriously harmed by the relatively light weapons the aircraft could carry. Yet they did not let their airmen attack the long, strung-out columns of slow moving trucks and road-building infantry that characterized the campaign. Nor did they attempt to disrupt Paraguayan traffic at the vulnerable crossings over the Paraguay River. The Junkers trimotors were frequently called on to drop supplies to the many encircled Bolivian units that invariably resulted from combats with the Paraguayans. These missions were highly successful up to a point. Accurate drops were generally made from low altitude into small positions and in the face of ground fire. But the three or four aircraft available could never successfully supply more than a few rounds of ammunition and a few bandages to hundreds or thousands of troops trapped without water in the blazing Chaco sun. Paraguay's infantry dominated leadership also neglected the air arm, though with better reason, given the low serviceability and vulnerability of the available airplanes. Nevertheless, Paraguay achieved some success attacking Bolivian transport and using her few single seaters for fast reconnaissance. The Potez 25 reconnaissance planes were called on for tactical intelligence only in cases of dire need, since they were few in number and likely to be lost to Bolivian fighters or antiaircraft guns. Paraguayan aircraft also carried out some successful small-scale supply drops, notably at the battle of Nanawa, where Lt. Col. Luis Irrazábal's 5th Division ran out of ammunition after flooded roads slowed road transport to a crawl. The air drops let the Paraguayans beat off Bolivian assaults until reinforcements could arrive and counterattack. Bolivia lost 2000 killed in the attack against 248 Guarani defenders.

Air combat was a relative rarity over the Chaco. Reconnaissance and close support for the infantry held a higher priority for both sides than did air-superiority and counter-air missions. Moreover, given the distances and the small numbers of aircraft involved on each side, pilots had a hard time finding one another. Paraguay began the war flying from its main base at Campo Grande, near the capital, Asunción, while Columbian aircraft operated out of Villa Montes, almost 400 miles away in extreme southern Bolivia. Paraguay's air force fought the Battle of Boqueron (9-29 September 1932) from advanced air fields at Isla Taguato and Isla Poi, but deployed a total of only three Wibault fighters and five Potez 25s, few of which were airworthy at any one time. On 30 September 1932, a Wibault gained the dubious distinction of being the first aircraft destroyed by air-to-air combat in South America. It crashed and was written off during landing after a fight with a Vickers 143. Fighters flew frequent escort missions for reconnaissance and bombing aircraft as well as independent armed reconnaissances of their own. By 1935, both sides had lost about 30 aircraft of all types. There were no real aces, but the Bolivian Maj. Rafael Pavon became widely known for his three victories.

By 1933, the air situation began to change. Doubtless through the good offices of Argentina, Paraguay secured the help of an Italian military training mission and Italian armaments. Italian tactical precepts and reliable, high-performance aircraft soon turned the small Paraguayan air arm into a force that could more than hold its own against the Andeans. The fighter force was re-equipped with five of the excellent FIAT CR.20bis, an agile biplane powered by a reliable, 425-hp FIAT A.20AQ water-cooled V-12. Bergamaschi AP.1 attack monoplanes and Caproni Ca.101 bomber-transports rounded out the force.

The Italians also provided Paraguay with several examples of Ansaldo's new CV33 tankette. This was a small machinegun carrier developed from the Carden Lloyd, but incorporating better armor protection and a marginally roomier fighting compartment. The Italians expected great things from these vehicles. Tankettes would, they hoped, replace the unprotected foot soldier in the new mechanized divisions of the future. In the Chaco, however, the CV33s seem to have seen little service. The CV33 suffered from the same limitations as the Bolivian tanks. It would have been cramped and insufferably hot in action, and would thus have been vulnerable. Guarani infantry put little faith in armor after their own tank-hunting exploits. The CV33 had a short range, moreover, and competed for modest gasoline supplies that were needed by the indispensable trucks.



Paraguay won almost all the battles of the Chaco War, often by encircling numerical and materially superior Bolivian units. Superior leadership and better familiarity with the country proved decisive. Paraguay's army was, in fact, limited only by her relative poverty and consequent lack of materiel. After 1932, almost all her trucks, artillery, machineguns, and small arms were obtained from captured Bolivian stocks. Paraguay's armies finished up outside the Bolivian fortess of Villa Montes, astride Bolivia's oil fields. By 1935, she had conquered all of the disputed territory in the Gran Chaco.

On both sides, war fever was still high in some quarters. Some Guarani politicians now demanded revenge, compensation, or a "victor's peace" that would enrich their now desperately poor republic. They wanted to carry the war into Bolivia, severing the oil fields and the fertile lowland province of Santa Cruz from the Altiplano. Bolivia was equally bellicose. Her inept generals had by now forestalled criticism by overthrowing the constitutional government and imposing their own president on the nation. They proclaimed themselves willing to raise yet a third army to replace the two they had squandered and began yet another round of arms purchases. The war seemed likely to go on indefinitely.

But appearances were deceptive. Both countries were exhausted and on the verge of collapse. There were 80,000-100,000 dead. Paraguay held 300,000 prisoners, all of whom had to be fed, clothed, and housed at her expense. The familiar forests lay behind her army, the Bolivian mountains ahead. Paraguay was, moreover, too underpopulated and too poor to sustain even "moderate" human losses. She was a farming nation and needed her men at home. Bolivia had seemingly inexhaustible manpower, but her generals knew that this would not win the war, whatever they might say in public. Kundt's career had been ruined by defeat, and the civilian president had been overthrown, leaving a power vacuum at the nation's head. None of Bolivia's ambitious and politicized military chieftains wanted to be far from the capital in such times. By now, moreover, the nation's mineral wealth was mortgaged to the hilt, her costly arms were mostly lost, and morale in the army rank and file was so bad that even the stoical Quecha levies could not be relied on. Both sides needed peace.

A ceasefire negotiated in June 1935 led eventually to the signing of the Chaco Treaty in Buenos Aires in 1938. Both sides agreed to submit their claims to binding arbitration. The arbitrators, drawn from the ambassadors of other South American republics, granted Paraguay by far the largest piece of the disputed territory. She kept all of the Chaco, surrendering only mountain foothills that were geographically and historically Bolivian. Bolivia got only a narrow corridor to the river and a useless, swampy, purely symbolic "port" far up the Rio Paraguay. She was allowed railroad and port privileges in Paraguay, but these had been freely offered by Paraguay prewar.

Neither the victors nor the defeated did well out of the war. In 1936, Paraguay's able Liberal Party government, President Ayala, and the heroic Marshall Estigarribia were deposed in a military coup staged by rear echelon hard-liners outraged at the supposedly easy terms granted Bolivia. Paraguay succumbed to economic crisis and a series of coups and dictatorships culminating in Gen. Stroessner's police state, which lasted from 1954 to 1988. For a time, Bolivia's myriad colonels nervously husbanded their battalions and eyed their rivals in anticipation of the coup they knew must come. In May of 1936, less than two weeks prior to scheduled elections, the operationally inept Col. Ruilova Toro's leftwing faction siezed power, overthrowing the nominal president, Sorzano Tejada, and defeating the rightest forces of the only Bolivian officer to distinguish himself in combat, Col. Bilbao Rioja. "The command responsible for the loss of the Chaco has received," it was said, "the government for its reward."

And the oil? In a final irony, the petroleum wealth that had inflamed the imaginations of prewar nationalist agitators turned out to be a will-o'-the-wisp. There was no oil in the Chaco itself, and Bolivia's modest output was exported, not by river, but by pipeline through Brazil. The oil speculators pronounced themselves mistaken, and left the Gran Chaco to the cow, the quebracho, and the dead.

 

[SanPellegrino]

very interesting. I seldom get something to read about the history of South America.

 

[jroa99]

Good article...it's an interesting subject about which I've read little yet (only a couple of things here and there)...it's curious to see how the belligerants (sp?) tried to adapt modern/foreign (ie: mostly European) tactics and equipment to their situation and difficult terrain, all for relatively little in the end. It's also a bit ironic that the Chileans would aid and advise Bolivia on such matters (granted, in a limited way), especially after the War of the Pacific (which continues to have echoes in this day and age).

 

[earthguido]

Truly very interesting. It is a real shame that I never got to read something about this in high school, nor about the war in the pacific. Hey, they did'nt even teach me about my own country's history in the 20's...

Anyway, congratulations on your post, please continue making these!!!

 

[Provolution]

I will present my own analysis of the presented article on how certani concepts of linear versus non linear warfare can be understood, in order to understand the semantics of the conflict, which I will add a bit later. I thank you all for the compliments, and the plan is to present one major forgotten war from each continent until the series is complete, with an analysis.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Interesting.

 

[Provolution]

Doctrinal and Operational view on the Chaco War by Provolution


This essay is about two pre-assumed antithetical concepts, stability and adaptability in war, as viewed from the perspective of non-linear dynamics. The application of non-linearity, chaos and complexity theory to warfare has enjoyed some attention during the past two decades following the US military doctrinal reforms instigated by US Airforce Colonel John Boyd, and has the overall positive benefit of causing us to rethink our basic assumptions on how to wage wars.

This view strives to add to that effort and discuss some aspects of nonlinear dynamics that have not been covered before, specifically the relationship between stability and adaptability. It will first contrast linearity with non-linearity. It will then explore in more depth the non-linear concepts of bifurcation, control parameters, and fitness landscapes along with their ramifications for the evolution of military thought. It does not seek to equate linear with bad, and non-linear with good. This judgmental ascription does not serve the cause, which is to increase the options available so that we can better adapt to changing external circumstances.

1.

Attributes of Linearity

1.1

Linear systems, processes and actions are those in which the output is directly proportional to the input. It is linear thinking to assume that military force is directly proportional to the number of combatants and their weapons.
In Civ3, the blind notion that the "Stack of Doom" will do its work alone.

1.2

Linear actions obey the rule of additivity. If a system is perturbed by first an input A and then another input B, then the outputs of A and B summed together are identical to the output which would occur if the inputs A and B were first summed and the system were perturbed by their sum. If we drop five bombs on a building complex and then come along later and drop five more bombs, then if linearity were the rule, the result of those two bombing efforts would be the same as if ten bombs were initially dropped, assuming no intervening events. This direct additivity does not occur with non-linear actions. The extensive bombing of Vietnam, with more bombs spent than during WW2, proves that this theorem of additivity does not always apply.

1.3

In linear actions, the ratio of output to input continues to be constant throughout the entire range of experience. We extrapolate a straight line on behavior. Therefore, if a bombing campaign were linear, then given the effects of a bombing campaign at some time t, the same effects are assumed to continue to occur if the campaign is continued in time. But are bombing campaigns really linear, as assumed? If we define them strictly in terms of rubble produced, then the answer may be yes. But if the result we seek is some diminishment in capability or resolve, then the answer is no. During WWII, the German bombing of London continued to produce more rubble, but this simply hardened their resolve, not diminished it. The same occurred during the war with Vietnam. Adaptation occurred in other ways. For example, in WWII, the Germans simply moved some of their aircraft manufacturing into caves. The same could be said about Russian factories moved to Siberia, Vietcong chaning to more simplistic technology uses, and for the Chaco War, the Bolivians brought in the new equipment needed to have their own land conquered by the Paraguayan Army. General Kundt was clearly a linear thinker where his Paraguayan antagonist General, later Marshal, José Félix Estigarribia did everything unconventionally, and won by doing so.


If we evaluate the output of a military action in terms of its effects on the adversary, and the adversary is capable of adapting to our efforts, then it is unlikely that any military action will truly be linear. On the other hand, if we continue to take the same actions over and over again, regardless of the enemy's change in behavior, then we are not adapting, and have become something else, namely mono-stable (see Paragraph 3.3). General Kundts Bolivian Doctrine called for direct assault and victory by the numbers, a clearly WW1 linear doctrine that lost.

1.4

Attrition warfare is often modeled as a linear process. The "Lanchester Mechanism", for example, models attrition with two coupled equations: dB/dt = krR(t) and dR/dt=kbB(t), where in its simplest form (there are others), the kill rates are constant. Thus increasing the number of red force and blue force weapons, R and B, or increasing the red force and blue kill rates, kr and kb, by 25% is assumed to increase the rate at which attrition is extracted by a linear 25%. Actual attrition warfare, rarely strictly linear, tends to be discussed by many professionals as if it were. They describe battles as if they were contests of friendly versus adversary firepower, with the emphasis on body counts and targets destroyed. For example, those who defend the US battle results in Mogadishu by comparing the body counts of 18 American losses to over 1000 Somali losses exemplify thinking along these linear attrition lines. With this linear thinking, the tacit although rarely stated, assumption is that 25% more firepower will produce 25% more enemy casualties. Thus, offense seeks to minimize adversary firepower by destroying it and defense seeks to avoid adversary firepower effects (evade, hide, fortify against, obscure). In the Chaco war, the Bolivian side standing to gain most from attrition, lost due to their own decision to pursue a war favoring their own doctrinal thinking. The thought they could add more aviation, more tanks, more artillery, more mercenaries, more foriegn advidors and more ammunitition, and they thought running a normal and "common sense" campaign would do the job. Convention, moderation and a traditional belief in the intangible value of "common sense" lead to their downfall.

1.5

Technical Superiority - When the form of warfare employed by both sides is linear, then Technical Superiority gives a decided edge. It raises the value of the constant k in the basic equation for linearity Y = kX +b. Thus in the Battle of Crecy, the long bow gave the British a decided advantage, despite being vastly outnumbered by the French. Technical superiority as a way of obtaining decisive advantage in linear warfare works fine so long as the other sides is also employing linear warfare. Fortunately, Saddam Hussein was using linear warfare in Desert Storm, so US linear efforts paid off. However, he had since learned his lesson and has become decidedly non-linear, and the effectiveness of our efforts had dropped for some time. However, new doctrinal concepts revolving around PsyOps, sending emails with bribes to Iraqi generals, threats showing satellite images of their homes with a targeting marker on them, psychological reprogramming of their morale, willingness to submit and cooperate, as well as extensive use of phone, radio, faxes, emails, digital surveillance and the appplication of strategically deployed HUMINT and SIGINT changed the battlespace tremendously.
This core doctrine is referred to as 4CI (Command, control, communications, computer and intelligence).

For the Chaco war, the technology applied by the Bolivians was indeed supreme, but they lacked application of the technoogy, as they ignored excellent air recon, and strafed fortified strongpoints with light machineguns, but not vulnerable roadlaying units or logistical units locked in difficult terrain.
They used light tanks that did not fit into the Chaco landscape, and their artillery was mostly immmobile. However, with proper doctrine, under surveillance of an able central command, these would win.

1.6


The term "Force Multipliers" often displays linear thinking, depending on its usage. They are "…a capability that, when added to and employed by a combat force, significantly increases the combat potential of that force…"<Note 1> It appears as linearity when some form of special technical capability is employed to create the effect that is equivalent to more combatants. In this case, it invokes the rule of linear additivity in providing a greater effect as if there were more combatants engaged in the firefight. However, what we are really doing is increasing the value of k in the linear equation Y = kX +b, as described in the previous paragraph.

2.

Attributes of Non-linearity

2.1

Non-linearity means that the output is not directly proportional to the input. Instead, the ratio of output to input can rapidly grow larger or can de-escalate to a miniscule value.


Belisarius used non-linearity against the Persian army of Chosroes. He had his scouts spread out and ride up and down the region between his forces and the advancing Persian army scouts so that they would think Belisarius's forces were much larger than they really were (actually they were 1/10th the size of the their adversary). The effect was that the Persians turned around and went home, forfeiting the battle to Belisarius, without him having to engage in any fighting whatsoever. In this case, a very small input caused an enormously disproportional output.

2.2

Nonlinear systems do not obey the rule of additivity. The sum of inputs A and B does not equal the same result as if each of these are input individually and their results summed.

2.3

In linear systems, emergent behavior is assumed to result from the simple addition of the interactions between agents (an agent can be a single combatant, a combat unit, an entire army). In non-linear systems the emergent behavior of the whole is greater (or could be less) than the simple addition of the interactions. In all systems, the interactions between agents become inputs to each other. Emergent behavior is simply the collective behavior that results from interactions between agents, whose individual behavior is other than the emergent behavior. For example, a single molecule of a gas may have velocity, but not temperature and pressure. But a group of interacting (colliding) molecules exhibits the collective behavior of temperature and pressure. A single brain cell doesn't think, but the interactions between the large mass of brain cells in our brain exhibits the emergent property of thought.

2.4

Non-linear systems bifurcate into multiple states, and display many attributes that have a direct bearing on adaptation and the ability to remain unpredictable. Two extremely important concepts are bifurcation and fitness landscape. These are discussed in the following sections.

 

[Provolution]

3.

Bifurcation

3.1

Non-linear systems have the capacity to exhibit multiple stable states. This is illustrated in Figure 1 in what is termed a bifurcation diagram. The far left hand side of the diagram represents systems that are mono-stable and upon perturbation will eventually settle down to a single static or steady state condition. Just to the right of this region, the system "bifurcates". This merely means that there are two states available to the system. For one range of perturbations and conditions, the system will settle down to one state and for another range of perturbations and conditions, it will settle down to another state. As we progress towards the right, each branch splits, and then each branch further splits resulting in a rapid increase the number of stable states. On the far right hand side are those that are Chaotic. Chaotic systems appear to have an infinite number of potentially stable states. But they never settle down to any of these for long and are therefore considered to be unstable.

3.2

The number of possible states that can be stable for a system is limited. The term "attractor" is used to refer to the stable state a system will move towards with time. No matter where the system starts from or is perturbed to, it will eventual settle down or drift towards a small number of these attractors. Thus the attractor is a fundamental characteristic of a dynamic system. (For chaotic systems, which don't settle down, the sum of all the states visited is called a "strange attractor").






Figure 1: Bifurcation Diagram Shows Entire Range of Non-Linear System Behaviors

3.3

Systems that are mono-stable or in steady state are so stable that any perturbation causes them to snap back to their stable state, leaving no opportunity for adaptation. Change requires "surgery". An example of this would be a nation that solely uses attrition warfare to achieve its aims, regardless of the perturbation and underlying conditions (e.g. nature of adversary) causing them to go to war.

3.4

Figure 1 also shows an opportunistic region for adaptation. It is opportunistic precisely because there are so many states available. Many non-linear systems can be caused to bifurcate repeatedly merely by increasing the magnitude of the control parameters (see section 4). The most opportunistic portion is that immediately preceding the chaotic region (referred to as the "Edge of Chaos). The difficulty is the danger that a high amplitude perturbation (input) or change in system configuration (number of interconnections) could push the system into the chaotic region.

3.5

An example of this repeated bifurcation would be the behavior of the residents of Mogadishu during the operation to seize Aidid clan leaders. <Note 3> The state of Somali citizens going about their normal daily living bifurcated upon the perturbation by our forces into those still going about daily living and those erecting barricades and lighting summoning fires. As the mission progressed, Somali citizens increasingly abandoned daily living and thronged to the scenes of action. Those with arms fired at our forces from rooftops, windows and from locations within crowds. As our forces fired back at massed crowds comprised of both armed and unarmed citizens, the mobs responded to that perturbation with yet another bifurcation. Now they stormed towards the Americans and more switched from "bearing witness" to actively helping Somali gunman take the Americans out in the increasingly intensive fire fight (e.g. using children to point out the American positions to hidden gunmen). During the various firefights, Somalis massed and dispersed, massed and dispersed (they oscillated back and forth between these two states, with scenes of action being one attractor and places of cover being another). Militia adapted to our fire by deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians and hiding their weapons under their robes. When a Somali militiaman shot down the Blackhawk with an RPG, the wreck site became another scene of action and the Somalis converged towards it. At this point they again switched state to pure revenge, hacking at and parading around with parts of the dead airmen bodies. They were in yet another state when they set up a camera crew and entered the process of ransoming the pilot off.

3.6


Warfare is a "real time" system. The time it takes to settle down to a stable state, termed the transient, is also a measure of the system stability. <Note 4> Highly stable systems exhibit short transients, and snap back when perturbed. But warfare is a "real time" system in which the transient time and the operational timescale are equivalent. Attractors in this case do not persist, but are transient as well. This means the system is always moving towards a stable state (attractor), but before it gets there is perturbed towards another state. For this reason it appears to be chaotic. In war, when operations settle down to a stable state, they become predictable and are vulnerable. It is interesting to view the Somali "mass and disperse oscillation" behavior from this perspective, a situation we did not take advantage of.

4.

Control Parameters

4.1

Control Parameters are the determinants of a system's state. As these are slowly varied, the system attractor structure can change, leading to a different set of stable states. Typical classes of control parameters are those that affect (e.g. filter, amplify, suppress) the inputs that perturb the system and interactions, since these become a form of input to each "agent" (a combat unit can be considered an agent).

Synchronization of Forces: When the desire to concentrate firepower on a target leads to a command to synchronize one unit (e.g a tank company) to another, then the interaction between those two may lead to an input to one of them to slow down and even stop and wait on the other. The ability of these units to adapt to circumstances (change states) is still present, but the form of adaptation (states acceptable) is now restricted for the sake of maintaining synchronization. This means that synchronization drives the system towards the left on the bifurcation diagram and towards fewer available states. If taken to the extreme, synchronization can lead to mono-stability.

4.2

Some nonlinear systems are able to bifurcate repeatedly all the way from the mono-stable into the chaotic region. These display the property of iterative feedback, where the output from the previous cycle is fed back in as the input to the next cycle. Since it is the value of the input that drives the system to bifurcate, this feedback can either increase the number of states or decrease it depending on whether the feedback causes the input (control parameter) to increase or decrease.

4.3

The OODA Loop defined by John Boyd captures this iterative nature of warfare. It recognizes that the result of our actions is not just the direct effect on the adversary, but his adaptation to our actions, and his subsequent actions (or at least our observation of them) become part of the next input. It includes as inputs several feedback loops, as shown in Figure 2, which provide a fresh set of observations with which to re-orient.



Figure 2 John Boyd's OODA Loop Depicts Adaptation At All Levels Of Warfare

4.4


Based on the Boyd OODA Loop, it would appear that the inputs to the Observation phase are control parameters for warfare. But the real control parameter is that which determines whether there is just one, 16, or an infinity of available states. Or in other words, it is the parameter that would cause us to prefer one state under one set of conditions and another state under a different set of conditions. It would seem, then, that the actual main control parameter is Orientation, since this determines the Decision on what to do. It is the Orientation that sets the recognition for what the actual situation is and it is actually the primary input for determining what state to change to.

5.

The Fitness Landscape

5.1

Some states provide more opportunity for success than others. This relative value is expressed by a concept called the "fitness landscape". For biological entities, the fitness landscape defines how well suited its occupants are to optimize their survival, mating, and continued evolution. In warfare, it can define how well suited its occupants are to winning tactically, operationally, and strategically.

5.2

The fitness landscape is an "n"-dimension map that topologically represents all possible system states and rates every possible option in terms of some attribute or achievement that pertains to its optimal condition or success. To facilitate ease of understanding, fitness landscapes will be discussed herein as if they were only three-dimensional. Up is associated with higher fitness and down with lower. The occupants migrate between states in order to optimize their position on the fitness landscape. For example, a military force that optimizes its position on the fitness landscape is better able to survive and thrive because in that state it is better able to observe, orient, decide and act. Since this is a never ending process, the forces are always migrating along the fitness landscape from state to state, changing that landscape as they migrate. The force's path along that fitness landscape, in system-speak, is called its trajectory.

5.3

Fitness landscapes have no objective reality separate from the autonomous agents that inhabit them. What is a fitness hill for a Somali tribesman may be a ditch for an Army Ranger.

5.4

The fitness landscape is itself changed by our actions, since these actions impact the potentially available states and the level of fitness associated with each. It is continually dynamic and close coupled with us. Our competitors are also making decisions and this affects not just their fitness, but our fitness as well. For example, we can obtain air superiority in order to engage freely in air to ground attacks and think we are at the top of a fitness hill, only to have the adversary adapt by moving and hiding the desired targets so that their location is not precisely known. This flattens the fitness hill, essentially pulling it out from under us. In Stuart Kauffman's words: "…each coevolving partner chases peaks that move away from it faster than it can climb, each clambering forever uphill on deforming landscapes". Kauffman also describes stability as a state in which each agent is better off just sitting on top of its respective hilltop so long as the other does the same. An example is the Cold War strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction. This guaranteed that each side stayed pegged to its own hilltop and put all its energy into ratcheting upwards the height of its own hill. This is so enduring and stable a strategic state, that even with the collapse of the Soviet Union, each side remains ensconced on its hilltop.

5.5

Being internally focused means we spend all our time exploring the terrain of our local hill. Externally oriented means we build new connections that allow us to explore faraway hills and even jump clear across the landscape to a new distant hill.

5.6

Recall that interconnections between autonomous agents (military units, in this case) are a control parameter in determining the number of available states. An increase in the number of interconnections can increase the number of states available. This influences the ability of each side in a conflict to take an "adaptive walk", that is to adapt to circumstances in a manner that enhances its position on the fitness landscape. But these interconnections can be a double-edged sword. Too many interconnections can actually be deleterious when each unit is so interconnected with others that it loses the ability to act independently. This interdependence causes agents to settle for a compromise position and are only able to climb the lower fitness peaks.

5.7

Interactions of a particular type, called "canalyzing", actually make it more difficult to engage in an adaptive walk. These force the agent to a single fixed state, regardless of its other inputs. A single input can ripple through and lock up entire networks of interconnected agents. <Note 7> The effect is as if the entire network of agents is required to perform an adaptive walk up the same fitness peak. As a result, the fitness peak the agents are trying to climb becomes steeper.




Synchronization is an example of "canalyzing" interactions. Synchronization can be a successful approach if the entire network of interconnected agents can successfully climb the top of that now single, steeper fitness hill. But it incurs the risk of the adversary adapting while everyone is still slogging up that single, steeper hill. Through the effect of the adversary's adaptation on the topology of the fitness landscape, the entire canalyzed force could find itself at the bottom of a fitness chasm instead.

5.8

In contrast, if the agents (units) are too loosely interconnected they will tend to sub optimize. If individual agents selfishly optimize their position on the fitness landscape with little regard for other units, then their lack of coordination will result in a wildly fluctuating, uncoordinated fitness landscape for the group as a whole.

 

[Provolution]

6.

Predictability

6.1

Non-linear and chaotic systems are deterministic, but not necessarily predictable. determinism means that, given knowledge of an initial condition, the condition at some later time can be determined. This is the rule of cause and effect, where the system's output depends on and can be determined from the input. But the initial conditions cannot be known with infinite precision and there is always some small error in knowledge about that starting state. In most cases, it is assumed that the lack of precision in starting conditions will be reflected in the lack of precision in the later predicted condition. Doubling the accuracy of the measurement of the initial condition is assumed to double the accuracy of the final condition. Many non-linear systems do not obey this behavior. In these systems an almost infinitesimally small error in initial conditions will blow up to enormously large error in the predicted value of the final (or later) condition.

6.2

Sensitivity to initial conditions means that, given two seemingly identical inputs to a system, as time goes by their two paths (trajectories) will start to diverge. But there is a period of time during which their respective trajectories lie very close to each other and within this range (prediction horizon) our ability to predict is relatively good. This prediction horizon may be on the order of seconds (a cat), days (weather) or years (planetary paths). This implies that any dependency of planning on our ability to predict outcomes is also dependent on our knowledge of the sensitivity in initial conditions and how quickly seemingly similar trajectories will diverge.

6.3

If our inclination is to plan and operate within the prediction horizon then we are subjecting ourselves to vulnerability. If we operate within the prediction horizon for the sake of thinking we can be certain about the outcome, then the enemy can also predict our outcome and can adjust his actions accordingly.

6.4

A plan is an attempt to predetermine the trajectory across the fitness landscape. It attempts to predetermine the sequence of states that the forces visit, as if the fitness landscape is known and unchanging. It presumes that the enemy and itself are so predictable that the trajectory can be figured out ahead of time, and forces simply directed to adhere to the plan. Planning branches and sequels similarly presumes the alternative states and trajectories can be pre-determined. But war is a real time system of transients with trajectories towards states (attractors) that are transient themselves. The typical compensation is adjustments to plans made on the basis of an update in situational awareness and modified directions based on the plan adjustment. But the time lag between the replan and the redirection fails to keep pace with the rate at which the fitness landscape changes. Every action changes its topology.

6.5

If the adversary similarly uses plans as a basis for command and control, and if we act faster than his time to re-plan (that is, we operate inside his OODA loop), then his trajectory on fitness landscape becomes less and less optimal for survival, let alone conquest. Alternatively, if we ourselves doggedly pursue a plan that is not generating the desired response, then we might just as well have yanked our own hill on the fitness landscape out from under ourselves.

6.6

Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, admonishes us to attack the enemy in his plan. This is viewed as clearly superior to attacking his forces in the field. Attacking him in his plan can occur by switching to a state where his plan is rendered so irrelevant, that no adjustment to his plan has any real positive result at all. Since we don't want to be predictable, this means we don't want our trajectory to be predicted. We do not want to stay in one state for very long and we want to continue to change states in such a manner that the next state can't be determined by any logical means. It has recently become fashionable for us to announce on worldwide television our "phased approach" to war. In this case, we not only select the overall sequence of states we will migrate through, but announce it and describe it to our adversaries ahead of time. Recent events indicate that the adversary is all too willing to take advantage of this sudden illumination.

7.

Stability versus Adaptation

7.1

Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann defines three levels of adaptation, which exist on three different time scales. <Note 8> These reflect the ability or inability to cope by changing (evolving) survival strategy in order to keep pace with change. He defines direct adaptation as that existing on a very short time scale, in which the organization reacts to changes in very specified ways. On a longer timescale, there is time in responding to events for one adaptation scheme to compete with and replace another. In the longest time scale, Darwinian processes occur. If the evolution of survival schemes is not adequate, the organizations may not survive and merely disappear. We can apply Gell-Mann's view to the case of responses to opposing fire in an urban environment. The first level, direct adaptation, would be exemplified by immediate reactions based on current drill-based training approaches. The second level would be the selection of new approaches for dealing with urban warfare, such as those efforts currently being explored by USMC Warfighting Experiments. The third level would occur as these are tried out in future real world urban engagements and continually evolved based on real experience. Failure to continually evolve these warfighting approaches to the special situations found in urban combat would then result in total failure of our forces to survive in that environment with concomitant political ramifications.

7.2

With the Gell-Mann adaptation model in mind, we can examine U.S. Aerospace Doctrinal Stability.


Air Force Manual 1-1, Volume II, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force states:

*

"… modern codification of the principles of war was accomplished by Col J. F. C. Fuller in 1916. In addition to eight "strategical principles," Fuller also presented three "tactical principles"—demoralization, endurance, and shock. In 1920 the British army adopted Fuller’s strategic principles. The following year the US Army listed these eight principles, plus the principle of simplicity, in War Department Training Regulation 10-5, Doctrine, Principles, and Methods. Although various principles have been added and subtracted over the intervening years, the list we have today is essentially the 1921 US Army list (movement is now called maneuver and cooperation is now called unity of command)…" (emphasis added) <Note 9>

7.3

Cultural beliefs, not necessarily codified in doctrinal manuals, can also drive overall strategy. An example is the USAF's belief in victory through airpower. This view, first conceived in the 1920s in the theories of Billy Mitchell and Guilio Douhet, was expressed explicitly by De Seversky in his 1942 book by the same name. It expresses the belief that war can be won strictly though an aerial bombing campaign. As De Seversky put it, "…only through supreme air power can America attain the supreme victory…all else becomes a secondary subordinate, auxiliary operation…". <Note 10>

7.4

The basic premise of this view is that the adversary will abandon its political objectives, given sufficient destruction of particular target sets. The primary debates within this cultural outlook center around what to bomb with candidates including munitions factories, population centers, the enemy field army, war materiel, transportation, communications, key economic nodes (industrial web), oil/transportation, etc., with the expected result also varying from an uprising and overthrow of the existing government by the disgruntled masses, to military and political submission, etc. <Note 11>




The USAF Victory Through Airpower cultural view has endured with little change for at least the past 57 years. It represents a remarkable degree of mono-stability and lies all the way on the left-hand side of the bifurcation map where "radical surgery" is required to cause any real change.

7.5

From an adaptation perspective, the issue is not whether or not the existing doctrine is correct. The issue is why it has changed so little, why it is so mono-stable, given radical changes in the identity and nature of our adversaries. As we determined in Section 4, it is the control parameters that cause a system to bifurcate into multiple states, and the primary control parameter in war is orientation. It would then seem that the reason our aerospace warfighting doctrine is stuck in a mono-stable state is because our orientation is locked up.

7.6

To get our orientation unstuck, we need to take in new inputs, and not force-fit them, but tear apart our existing orientation and synthesize another. Some camps advocate maneuver warfare in the place of attrition warfare. But to simply replace one alternative with another does not resolve the predicament. From an adaptation perspective what we are seeking is to make use of a multiplicity of approaches. Boyd's scheme incorporating all three forms of conflict - attrition, maneuver and moral - provides an adaptive, evolutionary approach.

7.7

The Boydian approach tracks extremely well with the nonlinear dynamics of war. He advocates that we "Operate inside adversary's observation-orientation-decision-action loops to enmesh adversary in a world of uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, confusion, disorder, fear, panic, chaos,..and/or fold adversary back inside himself so that he cannot cope with events/efforts as they unfold." He refers to the Strategic Game as "A game in which we must be able to diminish adversary's ability to communicate or interact with his environment while sustaining or improving ours". He advocates that we "Deny adversary the opportunity to cope with events/efforts as they unfold". These all prevent the adversary from performing an adaptive walk across the fitness landscape. We pull his fitness hill out from under him and freeze him in place. He can still experiment, and may luck out, but he will very likely find himself at the bottom of a fitness trough. In this we do not merely adapt to the existing fitness landscape, but have changed the fitness landscape to our liking.
7.8

In Boyd's view of maneuver warfare, we perform "irregular and rapid/abrupt shift from one maneuver event/state to another"…to…"Generate many non-cooperative centers of gravity, as well as disorient, disrupt, or overload those that adversary depends on, in order to magnify friction, shatter cohesion, produce paralysis, and bring about his collapse." In this we become unpredictable as we traverse the fitness landscape. Our continual and rapid execution of OODA loops provides the continual re-orientation that is the control parameter for being able to rapidly shift between states. At the same time, we deny the adversary the same ability by disrupting his interactions to create non-cooperative centers. With these non-cooperative centers, his fitness landscape becomes a set of widely fluctuating non-harmonious peaks for his organization as a whole. We disrupt his ability to execute his OODA loops, and without Orientation, he is unable to shift to more fit states.
7.9
It is interesting to view Boyd's legacy to us in light of the role that new technology plays in our ability to wage war. It has become very vogue in some circles to invoke Boyd's OODA Loop as justification for new, superior technology to win "the information war". The idea is that we can be almost omniscient with regards to situational awareness, and become capable of replan and redirection at ever increasing speeds. From the perspective of the fitness landscape and our ability to perform adaptive walks, this does render the peaks less steep and once on a peak allows us to pull it up higher under us. On the other hand, that presumes that that peak is really the place to be. The advantages of new technology are only partially realized if all we are doing is doggedly staying at the top of the same fitness hill. But the real advantage in new technology can be gained if we use it as a way to jump across large distances of the fitness landscape from peak to peak without having to adaptively walk the entire landscape between. It should catapult us to a completely different set of states that provide not an incremental, but a quantum non-linear leap forward in our ability to wage war.

Conclusions

Stability and adaptability appear to be entirely antithetical. It would seem that we should simply abandon stability for the sake of adaptability. But this would negate the actual value of stability. Some degree of stability in doctrine provides a way of forming a common orientation among the forces. It provides a context in which strategy can be overlaid and a shared way of thinking. The real issue is whether our doctrine continues to adapt and evolve. In the Gell-Mann model of adaptation, evolution is the key to continued survival. Non-linear dynamics tells us that the path of evolution contains a multiplicity of branches, and that only some of these provide success. By measuring ourselves on the fitness landscape we can gauge which branches provide opportunity for adaptation and which do not. When we become stuck at a cross-roads or stuck in one state, then we have orientation as a control parameter to open up another series of branches. If our orientation is locked up then we need to consider how we are treating our inputs. The consequences of becoming fixated on a single line of thought are that we become predictable. In a competitive arena, predictability makes us vulnerable to the adversary and provides him an opportunity to negate our attempts to adapt.

"Machines don't fight wars, people do, and they use their minds."

Col John Boyd

 

[Longasc]

DAMN, Provo!

Really interesting, as it deals with a conflict I have never heard or even thought about.

I am not going to comment on the Bifurcation diagram, I would prefer an excerpt of the page it was originally posted on!

But there is really no need, as you explained this rather sophisticated concept with examples that makes this stuff easier to grasp. Still, it is a bit hard for the cursory read!