“It is sometimes said that strategic theorists assume rationality on the part of those whom they study because they cannot assume anything else. To pass judgment on whether anyone is rational or irrational in political life is to assume that one exists in Olympian detachment with a unique insight into what constitutes supreme powers of reasoning (a self-evidently delusional position). The assumption of rationality, however, does not suppose that the actor is functioning with perfect efficiency or that all rational decisions are right ones, merely that an actor’s decisions are made after careful cost–benefit calculation and the means chosen seem optimal to accomplish the desired end.”

      Now contrast this with Douglas Ollivant’s new paper, which argues that the Iraqi Sunnis made a rational decision to align their community with the United States after massive attrition at the hands of Iraqi Shiite and Iranian-backed forces during the height of the “civil war” phase of the Iraq war. Or, for that matter, this quote from William F. Owen’s paper about counterinsurgency:

“The population is not the prize. The population are the spectators to armed conflict. The prize is the control the government gains when the enemy is dead and gone. Control only exists when it is being applied, and it exists via the rule of law. The population will obey whoever exercises the power of law over them. Power creates support. Support does not create power. This is the source of great confusion.”

      Here, simplicity is not being used to advance simplistic ideas–Ollivant and Owen are both drawing from rather complicated academic and experiential sources for their insights. Rather, it is that simplicity serves as an ordering principle for drawing coherent conclusions about complex social forces. We assume, in the case of both, that counterinsurgency is not so different from other forms of war and politics. The basic principle that politics equals “power over peoples” applies, and we observe that actors often alter their perceptions and goals based on informal assessments of relative power. Again, doing so does not erase the immense complexity inherent in political life and its armed sub-branch. But it does provide a useful way of approaching it.
      Simplicity brings out the most important element of politics: the “ghost in the machine” represented by the crucial importance of both internal and external forms of power in political life. Such a “ghost” is by definition hidden–sometimes purposefully. But I suspect most of the time it is because we sometimes mislead ourselves into thinking we’ve gotten to a more enlightened place where such coarse considerations are a thing of the past. The ghost occasionally rattles its chains and we catch a brief glimpse, only to discount it as an illusion or nightmare.
      Extraneous complexity can sometimes obscure our understanding of security policy problems. Mike Few had an interesting perspective based on his own experiences in Iraq a little while ago:

“We acknowledged that they were thinking, rational men acting over perceived grievances generated from either ideology or emotion. Unfortunately, we still had to fight it out for a bit until we exhausted the enemy, but we did not coddle, preach, or attempt to win their hearts, minds, or soul even when we disagreed with them. …I’m wondering if we really respect our enemy, or do we feel that he is just a confused, illiterate soul waiting to have his heart, mind, and soul converted by modernity?… He is not a victim of circumstance. He made a choice.”

       I’ve seen a lot of complex explanations about the role of root causes and structural inequalities for the actions of terrorists and criminals. But perhaps the simplest explanation is that they made a choice–for ideology, power, or whatever–that they were going to transgress what we understand as basic societal rules of conduct, and that they arrogated to themselves the unique right to do so. To add to my colleague Alex Olesker’s thoughts, there are plenty of disadvantaged people who are not killing each other over gang turf. Likewise, not every student radical upset over the Vietnam War or racial inequality chose to rob banks and strike poses with automatic weapons. This doesn’t mean that force and coercion will always be the answer to dealing with adversaries–whether small-time criminals and student revolutionaries or nuclear-armed states on the other end of the spectrum. But neither is development, aid money, or appeasement. Even on a good day both might fail, since the efficacy of any method of changing someone’s behavior is situation-dependent. We’ve learned from our dealings with Pakistan’s deep state and its Taliban proxies that neither impotent threats nor enlightened inducement will change the basic strategic choice they have made because our current policy objectives place a high premium on Pakistani cooperation.
       In closing, if our world is indeed getting more complex–and I’ve seen many convincing arguments for either side–we will need simple explanations and models even more–as long as we recognize their faults and limitations.

The killings of American soldiers by Afghan troops are turning into a “rapidly growing systemic threat” that could undermine the entire war effort, according to a classified military study.The study by Jeffrey Bordin, a political and behavioral scientist working for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, warns that the magnitude of the killings “may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern history.” Based on interviews with some 600 Afghan troops, the report concludes that there is a dangerous “crisis of trust” between Afghan forces and American soldiers that is being ignored by top commanders. …Mr. Bordin and other similar researchers, part of a so-called Red Team within the military, are tasked with finding weaknesses and shortcomings that the enemy may exploit.

      Red teaming is not a search for a worst-case scenario, but rather a look at the role of assumptions. Some assumptions can prove to be valid if accurately defended. Others are not.
       One red team study I’d like to see on Afghanistan would be on the feasibility of the emerging “Biden-plus” consensus. While the flaws of the current policy have been detailed, I have yet to see a substantial look at the assumptions of the lighter footprint model.

“The essential difference is that war is not an exercise of the will directed at inanimate matter, as is the case with the mechanical arts, or at matter which is animate but passive and yielding, as is the case with the human mind and emotions in the fine arts. In war, the will is directed at an animate object that reacts. …The second attribute of military action is that it must expect positive reactions, and the process of interaction that results. Here we are not concerned with the problem of calculating such reactions—that is really part of the already mentioned problem of calculating psychological forces—but rather with the fact that the very nature of interaction is bound to make it unpredictable.”

      The importance of such an understanding is often seen in the somewhat controversial practice of historical counterfactuals. Good and realistic counterfactuals (as opposed to more fanciful, “What if Lee had automatic weapons/ninjas/Harriers at Gettysburg” type popular counterfactuals) identify the essential political and military factors in a given engagement or campaign and look at how they might have been plausibly altered, the effect on the overall situation, and the probability such an turnaround could have happened at the time. Often such analysis raises uncomfortable questions for those committed to pat understandings of strategic outcomes.
       One popular example is the May 1940 German campaign in France. Military historians such as Robert Doughty, Williamson Murray, and Karl Freiser have all emphasized how it could have gone differently. The original plan, which emphasized more of a re-run of the Schlieffen operational concept, would probably been vastly less successful in adopted. Fitting a common German pattern, the operational campaign was the result of “strategic desperation” arising from the often opportunistic policy and strategic designs devised at the higher level. Finally, on the tactical level there were numerous points at which the German advance could have been stymied–the tenacious resistance that ensued during the crossing of the Meuse River by the German XIXth Corps and the vulnerability of the Sedan bridgehead being cases in point.
      This is not solely an issue that applies to conventional military operations–it is also relevant to internal political struggles as well. Revolutions are perhaps some of the most contingent events because they depend so much on public demonstration of power and feasibility. When people perceive regime weaknesses, momentum increases as people not normally inclined to protest join the caravan. Outcomes also depend on calculations made by political-military elites within the regime structure as to their own stake in future outcomes as El Presidente calls for the rabble protesting outside the palace to be introduced to T-72 tank treads.
      Of course, sometimes counterfactuals tend to reveal fundamental inevitabilities set by strategic decisions. The Soviet Union absorbed the destruction of armies and industry in 1941 and effectively regenerated its forces while preserving its military capacity beyond the Urals. If the Germans had succeeded in taking Moscow it is difficult to see how it could have led to a Soviet collapse. A similar analysis points to the fact that the German campaign in Northern Africa was an economy of force mission that was always secondary to the massive push East–if Erwin Rommel had been more successful it is similarly difficult to imagine how he could have sustained and expanded these gains. Such analysis, however, does not invalidate the role of contingency–it only points out that events are not completely chaotic–larger strategic factors do set the stage for operational and tactical events.
       Red teaming recognizes contingencies and brings them to the forefront of analysis by questioning inevitability as embodied in underlying assumptions. The RAND Corporation’s Assumptions-Based Planning (ABP) model, for example, forces planners to unearth structural assumptions that may not be immediately apparent in strategic futures and the results if those assumptions fail. In this light, red teaming–fundamentally future-oriented and optimized for the commander or policymaker–shares many important similarities to the process of historical analysis. A red teamer examining the matchup between Libyan Army loyalists and rebels and a historian looking at the Falklands War will begin by delineating the important political and military factors of the engagement and think about how the interactions between respective actors could alter the outcome in ways not predicted by standard analysis.

• On a tactical level–where choices have direct consequences, and real learning sometimes does occur–red teaming can make a difference.
• On a strategic level–where policy is charted and events are saturated in political opportunism–red teaming is worthless.

      I’m certain you can find exceptions to both assertions. I’ll also grant that red teams have improved their methods in the last decade. Still, I’m skeptical that good (even great) red teaming can turn the average policy maker from a preferred course of action. Human nature and political impulse will trump red teaming nine times out of ten.
      Policy makers are tempted to aim the red team at a preferred outcome. When this happens, the team becomes a shill–a role that tends to reinforce poor decisions and taint red teaming as a practice.
      Please persuade me this argument is faulty; alternatively, if you think it’s accurate, tell us how we fix it.

The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) scholar Antulio Echevarria II, however, disagrees with the Paret interpretation. The Army analyst argues that the Paret translation, while the best available, gives the false impression that COG is a source of strength. He then suggests that Clausewitz’s own metaphor is drawn from classical physics’ concept of “the point where the forces of gravity can be said to converge within an object, the spot at which the object’s weight is balanced in all directions. Striking at or otherwise upsetting the center of gravity can cause the object to lose its balance, or equilibrium, and fall to the ground.” In Echevarria’s view, the center of gravity is neither a strength nor weakness. Echevarria explains that the COG is a point of connectivity—a state of unity or purpose from which the opponent comes together. As such, they can be directly attacked to upset the delicate balance. Echevarria argues that Clausewitz’s concept is derived primarily from the mechanical sciences and reflects a holistic and systemic view of the opponent.

      This interpretation is remarkably different from how it is expressed in JP 5-0, where the COG “can be viewed as the set of characteristics, capabilities, and sources of power from which a system derives its moral or physical strength, freedom of action, and will to act.” This, in turn, led to the concept of critical requirements and vulnerabilities, which is an American innovation as well. These are subtle but important differences. In the American conception, the COG is a source of strength that exists on every level of war. In the Clausewitzian concept, the COG is simply a point of connectivity that binds the opponent together. The Clausewitzian concept is, from a practical perspective, more useful. Why?
      In James McPherson’s retelling, Abraham Lincoln’s strategic acumen lay in his recognition that the Confederate Army was the COG of the Southern war effort. His generals, on the other hand, were obsessed with maneuvering to gain control of the Southern capitol. Seen in this light, striking the COG had massive effect across the Southern system. This is what an real “effects-based operation” looks like. The Southern Army was neither either purely of strength or weakness, but it was what bound the Southern war effort together. There is nothing really complex about this–as Clausewitz tells us defeating the enemy’s fielded forces is a good idea. This is true either in a campaign of annihilation or erosion.
      The critical vulnerabilities and requirements, target value analysis, systems analysis, and campaign design frameworks may be useful in and of themselves in operational art for various purposes. But they have little to do with the Clausewitzian concept of the COG. If we want to use these frameworks we should justify them on their own merits. The COG as Clausewitz originally defined it is also an eminently practical framework. The author’s proposed redefinition also comes close to the Clausewitizian COG definition too.

Raymond Parks is the point of contact for Sandia’s Information Design Assurance Red Team.