military

Enhancing Cyber Wargames: The Crucial Role of Informed Games Design

January 11, 2021 by Amy Ertan and Peadar Callaghan

by Amy Ertan and Peadar Callaghan

“Risk - Onyx Edition (Ghosts of board games past)” by derekGavey.
Licensed under Creative Commons

‘A game capable of simulating every aspect of war would become war.’

Martin Van Creed, Wargames: From Gladiators to Gigabytes, 2013.

The launch of the MoD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory first Defence Wargaming Centre in December 2019 is an opportunity for future wargaming design. While current games do enable some knowledge transfer, the tried-and-tested techniques employed by the serious games community would enhance these exercises with more effective strategising and training mechanisms. This article highlights how the characteristics of cyberspace require a distinct approach to wargames, and provides recommendations for improved development and practice of cyber wargames by drawing on established games design principles.

The use of games in educational settings has been recognised since the 4th century BC. Wargames, however, are a more recent invention. Wargaming first emerged in modern times via the Prussian Army. Kriegsspiel, as it was called, was used to teach tactics to officers as part of the Prussian Military Reforms in the wake of their devastating defeats at the hands of Napoleon. Ever since, military wargames have become a feature of training military personnel. The UK Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) Red Teaming Guide defines a wargame as ‘a scenario-based warfare model in which the outcome and sequence of events affect, and are affected by, the decisions made by the players’. These games, as noted by the MoD’s Wargaming Handbook, can be used to simulate conflicts in a low-risk table-top style setting across all levels of war and ‘across all domains and environments’. Wargames have repeatedly proved themselves a reliable method in communicating and practising military strategy that can be applied to explore all varieties of warfare.

As cyber becomes an increasingly important warfighting domain, both by itself and in collaboration with other domains, cyber wargames have begun to be played with the same frequency and importance as the traditional domains. Since 2016, the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) has annually coordinated Crossed Swords, focusing on technical training, while NATO’s annual Cyber Coalition focuses on goals including information-sharing and collaboration and the Atlantic Council’s Cyber 9/12 focuses on strategic policy-making. Military examples include the U.S. Naval War College’s Defending Forward wargames, where, in its simplest form, cyber defenders (‘blue teams’) defend against cyber adversaries (‘red teams’). While these games are a great step forward in understanding, analysing, and preparing for the problems of cyberwarfare, these exercises tend to draw on existing conceptions of traditional serious games. This represents a missed opportunity; the cyber domain differs from traditional conflict in ways that warrant a fresh look at the design of wargames.

By design, wargames create an abstracted model of reality containing primary assumptions and simplifications that allow the model to be actionable. Underlying assumptions include: that the enemy is known, rational and ruthless; that the conflict being modelled is zero-sum in nature; that the games are effective tools even without specifically conceptualising how knowledge transfer takes place; and that the scope of the game should mirror reality as closely as possible. While these assumptions are appropriate for—or at least not detrimental to—traditional models of kinetic warfare, they are problematic for cyber wargame design. The challenges with each underlying assumption are described in turn.

The Known, Ruthless, and Rational Enemy

As Larry Greenemeier noted a decade ago, in cyberspace, the fog of war is exacerbated. While traditional warfare often limits available knowledge on an adversary’s location, in the cyber domain the reality is that defenders may not know who the enemy is nor their goals. When the enemy is an unknown, they can appear to act in an irrational way, at least from the perspective of the defender. This is due to the inherent asymmetry of the attacker. Through reconnaissance, the attacker will more than likely hold more information about intended targets than the defenders. Each of these issues, individually and collectively, are typically under-emphasised in most rigid wargames.

A Zero-Sum Nature of Conflict

Rigid wargames use a unity of opposites in their design, the goals of one side are diametrically opposed to the other. This creates a zero-sum game in which the goal of both the red and blue teams is the destruction of the other side. However, cyber conflict holds features of non zero-sum games, such as how the victory of one side does not always come with an associated loss to the other. Additionaly, there is an asymmetry introduced that should be addressed in the game design stage.

Knowledge Transfer: What is Actually Being Taught?

Another assumption made in the deployment of wargames is that they teach. However what is being taught is not as closely examined. In general, serious games can be categorised into two broad types: low road (or reflexive transfer) games; and high road (or mindful transfer) games. Low road transfer games are concerned with direct training of a stimulus and a response in a controlled environment that is as similar as possible to the context that the player is presented with in real life. For example, a flight simulator. The second type high road games are designed to encourage players to mindfully make connections between the context of play and the real world. Reflexive games are more likely to emphasise speed whereas mindful transfers are more likely to emphasise communication between players. Games must be designed using the knowledge transfer type most appropriate to the intended learning outcomes of the game.

Overenthusiastic Scoping

Cyber operations do not exist in isolation from traditional models of warfare. The integration of cyber operations with kinetic warfare, however, dramatically increases the complexity. Even attempting to capture the whole cyber landscape in a single game runs the real risk of detail overload, decision paralysis, and distracting the player from the game’s intended learning objectives. The longer it takes to learn to play, the less time the player has available to learn from the play. In reality, one cannot accurately simulate the real-world threat landscape without sacrificing effective learning (unless the learning point is simply to illustrate how complex the cyber threat landscape might be). For example, if the cyber wargame is focusing on the protection of critical national infrastructure, then side-tasks focusing on several other industries are likely to confuse, rather than assist, participants in achieving the desired learning goals.

Recommendations

How should we best approach the challenge of effective cyber wargame design?

We propose that designed cyber wargames must be in line with the following four principles:

Include ‘partial knowledge’ states.If the cyber wargame player has full knowledge of the game state, the game becomes nothing more than an algorithmic recall activity where a player can predict which actions are likely to result in successful outcomes. Certain ludic uncertainties can be included to induce ‘partial knowledge’, simulating the fog of war as required for each game.

Include ‘asymmetric positions’ for the players.The character of cyberwar is better modelled through asymmetric relationships between players. Cyber wargame designers need to consider the benefits to having this asymmetry inside the game.

Confirm learning objectives and knowledge transfer type before commencing design.Both low road and high road transfer games are valuable, but they serve different functions in the learning environment. A conscious choice for whether the game is attempting to promote low road or high road transfer should be confirmed before game design commences to ensure the appropriateness of the game.

Clearly scoped game to explore specific challenges.A well-scoped smaller game increases players’ willingness to replay games multiple times, allowing players to experiment with different strategies.

Conclusion

As both cybersecurity and wargames increase in importance and visibility, so does research on the use of cyber wargaming as a pedagogical tool for practitioners, policymakers, and the military. Existing principles within the games design profession around clear scoping of goals, game narratives, and appropriate player capabilities may all be applied to enhance existing cyber wargame design. The inclusion of partial knowledge states and asymmetric player capabilities both reflect crucial aspects of the cyber domain, while explicit attention to a game’s desired learning objectives and scope ensures that the resulting designs are as effective as possible. In a world in which cyberspace is only expected to become a more common feature of modern conflict, it is strongly advised that the MoD’s Defence Wargaming Centre leverages these tools and training opportunities. In the asymmetric and unpredictable field of cyber warfare, we need all the advantages we can get.

Amy Ertan is a cybersecurity researcher and information security doctoral candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London, and predoctoral cybersecurity fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School. She is an exercise designer for cyber incident management scenarios for The CyberFish Company. As a Visiting Researcher at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence, Amy has contributed to strategic scenario design for the cyber defence exercise, Locked Shields 2021. You can follow her on twitter: @AmyErtan, or via her personal webpage: https://www.amyertan.com

Peadar Callaghan is a wargames designer and lectures in learning game design and gamification at the University of Tallinn, Estonia. His company, Integrated Game Solutions, provides consultancy and design services for serious games and simulations, with a focus on providing engaging training outcomes. You can find him at http://peadarcallaghan.com/

The German Military: Why So Little Bang, For So Much Buck?

July 3, 2020 by Michael Trinkwalder

by Michael Trinkwalder

The Kampfpanzer Leopard 2 A5 of the German Army (Image source: Wikimedia)

In its current state, the German Armed Forces, or the Bundeswehr, are neither “structurally capable nor equipped” for the military defence of the NATO alliance. This is the damning verdict of the former German Parliamentary Commissioner of the Armed Forces Hans-Peter Bartels. In recent years, stories about the Bundeswehr’s poor level of readiness have become an all too familiar tale, with at times none of the country’s submarines being operational or Germany having only enough ammunition to arm just four of its Eurofighter aircraft, to name just some of the more egregious examples. Consequently, the current state of the German Armed Forces has not unjustifiably been characterised as “nothing flies, nothing floats, and nothing runs.” What is to blame for the embarrassing state of the German Bundeswehr?

A Funding Problem or an Efficiency Problem?

Internationally, coverage of this issue has mostly focused on Germany’s continued failure to reach the NATO military spending target of two per cent (as measured against the country’s GDP) – and the severe strain this has put on the German-American relationship. However, with the help of COVID-19, Germany’s 2020 defense budget of about €50.4 billion ($55,43 billion) is set to rise to 1.58 percent of its GDP. Even back in 2019 at just 1.36 percent of its GDP, Germany’s military budget exceeded that of every single member of NATO except the United Kingdom and the United States. Yet, for instance, France maintains a larger military, with thousands of troops deployed abroad, a nuclear strike force, etc. – with a defence budget that was €3 billion ($3.5 billion) lower than the German one. So, why does the German military get so little value for its money?

Accordingly, the German military does not just have a funding problem, it has an efficiency problem, with defense reforms and their lack of political direction often being the source rather than the remedy of the Bundeswehr’s problems. Since virtually all of these reforms were aimed at saving cost, with little thought being directed towards the retention of conventional warfighting capabilities. Thus, after reunification, military functions were privatised, conscription was suspended and the Bundeswehr was gradually reduced to its current strength of fewer than 185,000 soldiers. The German military went from being solely focused on territorial and alliance defence towards an almost exclusive focus on out-of-area missions in Afghanistan, Mali, Iraq, or Syria. Arguably, it was only the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s increasingly belligerent behavior that prevented further cuts. Additionally, the post of the Minister of Defense is infamous for being a graveyard for promising political careers. Indeed, in the last two decades, only a single defense minister has managed to spend more than a single term on the aptly named ‘ejection seat.’ Therefore, those opposed to change could simply wait-out any serious reform attempt.

Bureaucracy Strangling Everything and Everyone?

However, Germany’s military efficiency problem goes beyond half-baked reforms or a frequently changing political leadership. In his recent reports to parliament, Commissioner Bartels blames a culture of overregulation within the Bundeswehr for smothering “everything and everyone” in thousands of self-imposed regulations and rules. It is not as if armament projects of other militaries weren’t also prone to delays and cost overruns, but in Germany the Bundeswehr’s culture of overregulation is compounded by a lack of qualified personnel in its procurement agency the BAAINBw.

As a result, virtually none of Germany’s military lighthouse projects, like the armored personnel carrier Puma, the A400M transport aircraft, or the F125 frigates were completed in time or on budget. Even routine repairs and maintenance is often impossible due to a lack of stored spare parts and the byzantine procurement process. Leading to serious technical problems down the line and forcing soldiers to cannibalize other weapon systems for parts. In fact, the Ministry of Defense estimates that it will take until 2031 to fully equip all of its soldiers – a prediction that is already looking increasingly shaky. Particularly, since the Bundeswehr might be heading for a new round of major budget cuts - courtesy of the COVID-19 recession.

Cause for Optimism?

Nonetheless, there is some reason for optimism, in April a new law went into effect aimed at facilitating the procurement of new equipment. The current Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has been unwavering in her calls for Germany to meet the two per cent spending commitment – even if only by the year 2031. Arguably just as important is her announcement of a major upcoming reform of military procurement and maintenance that could among other things decentralize parts of the procurement process and return certain maintenance and repair capacities to the different armed services. Additionally, the German military has also distinguished itself in the current health crisis, which could spare the Bundeswehr from bearing the brunt of the coming COVID-19 budget bust-up.

Because of the lengthy time-frame of its military reforms, the German military will have to tackle its efficiency as well as its spending problem simultaneously. Considering, Trump’s plans to withdraw almost 10,000 soldiers from the country, Berlin better figure out how fast. Germany and NATO can no longer afford a Bundeswehr that is at best only capable of “conditional operationality.”

Disclaimer: The author was a civilian employee of the German Armed Forces. The views expressed in the article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the German Armed Forces, the German Government, or the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Michael Trinkwalder is the 2020 Young Professionals in Foreign Policy Europe Fellow; he is a Research Assistant at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, where he focuses on EU-NATO cooperation, defense innovation, and the implications of the rise of China. He holds an M.A. in International Relations from the KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and a B.A. in International Business Studies from the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. You can follow him on Twitter: @m_trinkwalder

China, Myanmar, War Crimes and the Issue of “National Sovereignty”

January 29, 2020 by Anna Tan

by Anna Tan

A banner reads “Myanmar warmly welcomes the Chinese President Xi Jinping” (Image credit: AP/Aung Shine Oo)

In September 2017, ten Rohingya Muslims were executed by the Burmese military in the village of Inn Din, Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Afterward, journalists leading the Reuters investigation that exposed the massacre were charged with treason under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and once an icon of peace, fiercely defended the government’s incarceration of the two journalists arguing that their detention had “nothing to do with freedom of expression at all” and was all about the “violation of the Official Secrets Act”. The Reuters journalists were later released in 2019 through an annual presidential clemency after a year of unyielding international pressure and legal support led by Amal Clooney.

The whole debacle formed part of the 2016 persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, which entailed a violent crackdown of the Muslim minority that has settled in the land for generations. The Rohingyas were subject to the arson of their villages, gang rapes, and infanticide, which the UN has called a “textbook ethnic cleansing”. In the end, over 20,000 Rohingyas died and over 700,000 fled their homes, crossing the border to Bangladesh and residing in refugee camps ever since. Suu Kyi dismissed the genocide claims at the ICJ hearings filed by The Gambia and instead defended the “clearance operations” including the Inn Din massacre as part of a “counter-terrorism” response by the military, yet completely omitting a plethora of remaining war crimes committed by those same armed forces.

On 16 November 2019, the New York Times published the Xinjiang Papers, which explicitly showed in over 400 leaked pages a breakdown of how the Chinese government organised the crackdown on Uyghur Muslims – a Turkic ethnic minority – into “re-education camps.” These facilities, better described as concentration camps, see one to three million Uyghurs detained extrajudicially in Xinjiang each year. Later evidence also corroborated this puzzle. The BBC’s recent insider report on such “thought transformation camps” renders an eerie atmosphere as one cannot help but concur such camps are run with no motive other than ethnic-cleansing and Sinification.

Xi Jinping has repeatedly described the Uyghur Muslims as “being infected by a virus” that needs to be “eradicated,” following multiple terrorist attacks in the region, in the form of riots, bombings, and knife attacks. For Beijing, “stability” is key since Xinjiang serves as the gateway for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects with Central Asia and Pakistan. However, Beijing’s approach to achieving stability is in many ways one that could instead undermine the state’s very authority and legitimacy, because of its oppressive policies pursued outside of the rule of law. Here, memories of the Tiananmen Massacre still remain fresh.

Meanwhile, in Myanmar, Suu Kyi’s refusal to call out the war crimes against civilians continued, with prospects for an end to the 70-year long Burmese Civil War seeming increasingly frail. Once a major Western ally, Suu Kyi’s shining moment after the landslide 2015 elections proved to be short-lived, leaving Myanmar dependent on China. Despite on-going local protests stirred by environmental and land-right concerns against China’s BRI projects in Rakhine, Suu Kyi has increasingly grown friendly with the Communist Party-led country which over the past two decades has consistently vetoed UN Security Council resolutions regarding human rights violations in Myanmar, actions perpetrated by the same actors that worked with the military in prolonging Suu Kyi’s house arrest. Once a fierce critic of China and of imbalanced investments, the foundations of Suu Kyi’s foreign policy have been upended. Instead, China is now employed as a bulwark against international criticism on Myanmar’s human rights fiasco.

Wang Yi and Suu Kyi in 2016 (Image Credit: Reuters)

Her meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi ahead of the ICJ hearings sent clear signals to the world that both countries are now united against the international community in Myanmar’s domestic political issues, with Suu Kyi thanking China for “safeguarding national sovereignty” and “opposing foreign interference.” China’s intermediation role with armed groups over the last couple of years has increased despite two failed attempts by China to repatriate the Rohingya, actions that are widely seen as having exacerbated the situation.

It is difficult to decipher the exact Sino-Burmese strategies in “resolving” the Rohingya crisis, but it remains crystal clear that both parties are suggesting that the West is an outsider in this rather peculiar yet unsurprising entente. China, usually staunch about following its “non-interference” principle to its foreign policies in contemporary political discourse, we see there can be exceptional cases. Earlier, during the Libyan Civil War in 2011, Beijing found its involvement essential, with over 30,000 Chinese nationals in Libya needing to be evacuated. Myanmar, on the other hand, provides China with a gateway to the Indian Ocean; thereby circumventing the South China Sea, a much-disputed area of maritime security and defence.

Once on antagonistic terms, the distinction between China’s communist leaders, Suu Kyi’s government and the military of Myanmar now seem to be increasingly challenging one to make, with their exclusionary narratives running parallel. Is China, an authoritarian country, truly an ideal friend to help Myanmar towards becoming a democracy, let alone a liberal one? Suu Kyi’s remarks thanking China for “safeguarding [Myanmar]’s national sovereignty” with regards to foreign influence is farcical. In addition, with the landmark visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Myanmar – which saw the signing of 33 memorandums of understandings (MoUs), protocols and agreements including bilateral partnerships on issues regarding border patrol, police, information and media services – there is little doubt as to the hegemonic aspirations of China.

Indeed, China’s moves with regards to a cash-strapped economy like Myanmar is another step in its debt-trap diplomacy. This development is reminiscent of the case of the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka – where the conflict-ridden country, unable to save its fledgling export rates and attract sufficient Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), found itself forced to sign a 99-year lease of the port to China to cover its colossal amount of current account deficit. Sri Lanka’s case should give Myanmar a premonition about what is still yet to come.

Xi Jinping and Aung San Suu Kyi shaking hands, during a visit aimed at cementing the ties between China and Myanmar (Image Credit: SCMP)

The ICJ’s verdict arrived shortly after Xi’s visit to Myanmar, on the 23 January. The UN court ruled against Myanmar with a unanimous approval of provisional measures as requested by The Gambia on the war crimes against the Rohingya. This ruling may well be a disappointment for many Burmese loyalists that rallied across the country in support of Suu Kyi’s ICJ defence earlier in December last year, as well as a cause for disillusionment amongst the country’s believers who were confident that the ICJ case is firmly secure in the hands of Suu Kyi’s political eloquence, despite the insurmountable evidence pointing in the other direction.

Though long overdue, perhaps the ruling will provide a stronger reason for the Burmese to question their status quo politics and politicians. However, the answers should be obvious as to whether Myanmar, currently caught in an asymmetric relationship with China, truly has its national sovereignty “safeguarded;” whether or not if Myanmar is walking in the right direction towards liberal democracy; and indeed whether a brighter or darker future awaits the country.

Anna is an MSc student for Global Affairs at King’s College London. She has previously worked for UNDP and the American Red Cross. Her research interests are on ASEAN-North Asian relations, conflict-resolution, human rights and diplomacy. She is also currently a Programme Coordinator for the Conflict, Security and Development (CSD) Conference 2020 hosted by Department of War Studies and Department of International Development (DID). You can follow her on Twitter: @AnnaTanGTW

War from the skies: The rise of US strategic airpower under Trump

April 29, 2017 by Hemant Shivakumar

By Hemant Shivakumar

The USA’s use of strategic airpower is helping gain political and military dividends for President Trump despite limitations around communicating intent and causing collateral damage.

A few weeks ago, the US military dropped a ten-ton Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB) to purportedly take out ISIS-K militants operating close to the Pakistan border (in Nangarhar province) in Eastern Afghanistan. Employing a high-wattage munition against an asymmetrically weaker group signaled the Trump administration’s unprecedented, high-stakes approach towards tackling non-conventional forces. Analysts termed this as a key tactical shift in US counterterrorism operations. Moreover, far from former President Obama’s reluctance around missile strikes against the Syrian government, the US military’s use of Tomahawk missiles to destroy the Syrian government’s air bases – in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad in Khan Sheikhoun – underscored a new strategic temperament within the Trump administration. Similar to his predecessor, Trump has, so far at least, indisputably espoused airpower and aerial strikes as the principal method of applying military force by the USA.

As the administration’s unflinching confidence in airpower guides its military policy, the mixed signals it generates around US commitment and credibility is problematic. On the one hand, US air strikes on Syria risked escalation. On the other hand, Washington hardly communicated anything about the administration’s commitment to the region, leading a confused Russia and Iran to issue warnings against repeated attacks in the future. While deploying US marines to Raqqa in Syria implied US resolve, it conceded little latitude into Trump’s strategic goals over such an action. Interestingly, President Trump attested to delegating the tactical decision-making to his military chiefs - unlike his predecessor - generating further confusion about comprehending US goals and actions. Further, whether US’ tactical use of air munitions in Syria or Afghanistan deter countries like North Korea is moot, a point Trump also acknowledged. As countries struggle to assess the credibility and rationale of American actions, such ambiguity ties closely with airpower’s limitations around communicating intent. Despite such inhibitions, US preference for airpower is unlikely to be moderated.

This is because the US administration’s reliance on aerial platforms for counterterrorism and targeted strikes since 2012 has been exceptional, aided by Precision-Guided Weapons (PGWs). Given the increased reliance on PGWs, the number of sorties and strike rates are lower than those conducted during the Gulf War in 1991 and the campaigns against Serbia in 1998 and Afghanistan in 2001. According to US Air Force Lt. General Robert Otto, the increasing precision of air munitions has rendered such ‘dumb’ large-scale bombing unnecessary. Similarly, US Army Lt. General Mayville noted during initial coalition airstrikes against ISIS in 2014 that 96 percent of munitions used were precision-guided. Soon after the US military scaled down its active fighting presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration set up Special Forces (SOFs) teams for carrying out local training and operations and expanded the use of airstrikes. Under Operation Inherent Resolve, US SOF and coalition forces trained national armies in Iraq and used precision air strikes and drone attacks to guide their tactics. For instance, US SOF often carries out drone-based targeting of militants in western Mosul and in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan to achieve tactical goals. The Iraqi and the Afghan armies are currently assisted by superior US air intelligence capabilities as well – such as aerial reconnaissance, air surveillance; as well as signal intelligence that is supplemented with local human intelligence. As of early 2016, nearly 11,000 airmen were using Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) such as Reaper and Predator drones for Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Surveillance (ISR) operations. Such increasing range of US airpower against non-conventional forces represents a significant promotion – moving away engaging several ground forces to a high-octane airpower guiding local ops.

Moreover, strategic airpower is providing both political and military dividends for the new administration. The new administration’s missile strike on Syria ratcheted up US involvement in the conflict while attesting to broad Republican consensus around setting up safe zones in Syria. Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake agreed with Trump’s decisions to bomb Syria; while earlier in April 2017, Hillary Clinton had also admitted to the necessity of US military involvement in the conflict. Aerial bombing is also seen as a secure, inexpensive intervention tool by the American public as well. In a recent CBS-conducted poll, while 18 percent of Americans approved the use of US ground forces in Syria, 57 percent approved the use of limited airstrikes. President Obama’s drone warfare targeted specific militants using Hellfire missiles, while the precision-based and the technological advancements of delivery systems have expanded the range of air munitions such as MOAB or Hellfire missiles to achieve a wider variety of strategic goals such as denying terrain, bunker bombing, taking out mines, etc. In Iraq (Mosul) and in Afghanistan, remote drone attacks are helping the coalition forces gain key tactical positions against ISIS and thwart advances by the Taliban. Further, should the USA achieve a military victory against ISIS and the Taliban in the future, airpower would unarguably have been an enduring factor. There is little to broker any domestic or military opposition to such a hands-off, low-cost (in terms of American lives) strategy.

The US’ growing conviction in its airpower triumphs has also meant relying less on traditional military allies such as Pakistan to counter terror. Since the 2011 operation by US forces in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad to capture Osama Bin Laden, US aid commitments have stalled and the Trump administration has illustrated little interest (so far) in the relationship. On the other hand, multiple US administrations over the last sixteen years have scaled up? their level of defense commitments with India, much to Pakistan’s chagrin. Further, with the development of well-sized national armies and police in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the US administration is more directly involved in working with local national governments and picking up homegrown intelligence to help with its operations. During his recent visit to Pakistan, the US National Security Adviser McMaster advised Pakistan to tackle terror in all its forms, reflecting assessments that Pakistan is an impediment to the US’ ongoing counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan.

Lastly, collateral damage and related mixed messaging due to airstrikes remain a concern. In Afghanistan and Syria, coalition airstrikes threaten to collapse the benefits accrued by ground-based counter-insurgency (COIN) forces over the preceding years. The inadvertent bombing of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospitals in Kunduz and in Aleppo, and the ensuing collateral damage reflect the limitations of airpower as a primary use of force. However, such setbacks seem to have no bearing on moderating the use of strategic airpower in the early days of the Trump administration.

Hemant Shivakumar is an MA student in the War Studies program and is the Managing Editor at StrifeBlog.

Notes:

[1] The ISIS-K (also ISIS Khurasan) is a faction of the militant Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Image credit: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/what-%E2%80%98the-mother-all-bombs%E2%80%99-means-trumps-foreign-policy-20180

Feature image credit: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-mother-of-all-bombs-moab-slated-to-be-used-against-iran/5333811

The Challenge of Operational Assessment in Contemporary Conflict

February 19, 2017 by Noah Cooper

By: Noah Cooper

1990-91: General Norman Schwarzkopf talks with General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a press conference regarding the Gulf War.

The immutable nature of war suggests that despite the form of warfare undertaken by the belligerents, conflict is a duel between opponents vying to subdue the other. The type of war dictates the character of the conflict and is subject to the myriad variables that influence its dynamics. For instance, there are characteristics of counterinsurgency that are distinctive to this form of warfare not typically present in conventional or violent conflicts waged between states or state-like entities (e.g., the demonstration of movement and maneuver techniques by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [ISIL] employing captured Iraqi military equipment demonstrates that the execution of conventional warfare is no longer the purview of states).

A particularly prominent difference among the aforementioned styles of warfare is the methodologies employed to assess the progression of the military campaign. Logically, the use of quantifiable metrics dominates the assessment practices by entities engaged in conventional war. Commencing from the estimated enemy order-of-battle, or the assessed organization, disposition, and strength of its fighting forces developed through the intelligence process, battlefield commanders simply subtract the number of enemy assets destroyed or rendered inoperable. The practice of assessment in this type of environment, though iterative, ultimately seeks an end state consisting of the attrition of the enemy fighting force to a point that the opposing force renders it combat ineffective. In this scenario, the force focuses operationally on the attainment of military objectives and thus, operates relatively independent of the political goals of the campaign. Operation Desert Storm - the military means designed to respond to Iraq’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait - illustrates this assertion. The well-defined purposes of the U.S. strategy to contend with Iraqi aggression facilitated an approach to attack the enemy’s military centers of gravity (i.e. leadership, infrastructure, and military forces) and to thus, focus on the military objectives of the campaign. The decisive victory of U.S. and Coalition Forces and the assessed attrition of Iraqi forces, particularly along the termed “Highway of Death,” contributed to the decision to declare a cease-fire, 100 hours following the initiation of the ground campaign. In this instance, the quantifiable assessment of military action was the principal element guiding the decision-making processes.

In contrast, the assessment of progress in counterinsurgency or “hybrid” warfare, such as the conflict waged against ISIL, is more challenging, as the intertwining of the desired political and military goals complicates the evaluative process. Commanders, in conjunction with their political counterparts, must contrive means to assess simultaneously the attrition of enemy forces, the population’s allegiance, and the overall stability of provinces, districts, cities, etc. This includes the appraisal of various measures of effectiveness that are criteria that an organization employs to assess changes in a system, or in the case of conflict, alterations to the operating environment. Indicators of changes in a counterinsurgency or hybrid setting, similar to those analyzed in conventional warfare, are often quantifiable and thus, defined and measured in a straightforward fashion. For instance, efforts to effect an insurgent organization’s sources of financing might include the targeted destruction of oil and gas facilities to degrade the enemy’s financial networks. In this scenario, a commander’s staff would fuse operational and intelligence information to include the number of facilities, equipment, and personnel successfully targeted; the total number of hours of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets levied to identify these targets; and the enemy’s estimated reaction, ascertained from intelligence analysis, to determine if such an effort is contributing to a stated objective.

Conversely, other indicators of change are not conveniently calculable, such as the enemy’s will to prolong the fight, the strength of the enemy’s narrative, and the level of entrenchment of the adversary’s ideology into the population, among others. These are challenging measures to determine, particularly in the current conflict waged against ISIL, in which the primary contributions of Coalition Forces are enabling assets (i.e., specialized military capabilities to include intelligence collection, precision artillery, and, most notably, aerial strikes), rather than ground forces to interact directly in the operating areas. Acquiring a knowledge of these elements will advance a commander’s knowledge of the effects of the campaign more effectively than transparent metrics.

Why then, do the assessments of progress reflect that of a conventional conflict (e.g., numbers of strikes conducted, enemy equipment destroyed, and territory regained)? Perhaps the obvious answer is the minimal presence of coalition ground troops, which marginalizes the coalition’s ability to develop a first-hand knowledge of the operating environment. However, this condition should not absolve those prosecuting the war from conducting a continuous and detailed analysis of the campaign’s progress that relies primarily on numeric facts. The appeal of employing quantifiable effects is the definitive nature of the data. For example, a quantity of enemy removed from the battlefield subtracted from the originally assessed number of fighters yields an amount that is easy to comprehend and thus, to incorporate in gauging the effectiveness of friendly force activities. Undeniably, the responsibilities of command are such that the availability of quantifiable metrics eases decision-making, as such, data, derived from mathematical calculations, acts to reduce ambiguity. However, the logic of such conclusions is not always concrete and metrics are often misleading. Were the fighters easily replaced foot soldiers or were they specialists (e.g., bomb-maker, sniper, financier, etc.), which are not replaced easily? Accurate assessments require the synthesis of such metrics with qualitative examinations of the enemy and friendly actions. Without such rigor, a commander and a war fighting staff will be unable to measure the mission accurately and that will undoubtedly affect the campaign’s outcome.

Noah Cooper is an MA candidate in the War in the Modern World Program at King’s College London. He received an MA from John’s Hopkins University and is an active duty U.S. Army officer. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Department of the Army, U.S. Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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