....on using overwhelming force by our military in fighting evenemies around the globe. That doing so can...

... military “must not try to use force only in an overwhelming capacity, but in the proper capacity, and in a precise and principled manner.” ....


Gee Admiral............Ya think? After nine years of this crap, you finally figured this out?

The proper term for this is called "blowback", originally coined by our Central Intelligence Agency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/us/04mullen.html?ref=world

You achieve victory by using overwhelming force on your enemies. I would argue that the reason we have yet to achieve victory in Afghanistan is because we have yet to use overhwelming force. Dragging these wars out for years on end is insanity.

This is an very fascinating debate in military circles. On one side you have the conventional forces drive the enemy to mercy Powell doctrine, and on the other hand the Mullen/ Petreaus COIN/ use precise military force but also beware of the civilians doctrine.

I side with the Mullen and Petreaus side as future conflict are going to be asymmetrical, and add to that the new technologies of drones, accurate artillery, more accurate guns and missiles, it makes more sense to use more more specifically and narrowly to avoid civilian causalities.

Asymmetrical warfare also leads to the importance of the local population. If overwhelming force is used, then the likely of a town switching over to the aggressors side is minimized by civilian causalities. We have seen this in the first couple years of Afghanistan as carpet bombing or dominate force projection has ticked off the local population to the point where they support the Taliban because the U.S. killed their son or daughter or family member in a military strike.

Overwhelming force, as mentions, ignores military technology as well. During the Powell doctrine, we did not have drones, or smart bombs really or soldiers that can communicate with ease on the battlefield. It was largely still a Cold War style military, with large tanks and soldiers to fight the Soviets. Now, as we face asymmetric forces, the need is more targeted, more precise uses of force. But, those uses are still kinetic enough to slow or defeat the enemy.

I've talked with a few of my colleagues who are Air Force and Army guys about this debate and it is a good one. It is easily one of the most contentious debates in the Pentagon as it largely focuses on whether you still want a large conventional force projection or a smaller, lighter, more adaptive asymmetrical force?

I fall more on the side of the Powell doctrine. I believe that true defeat of the enemy can only be achieved by swift, decisive and total victory. Anything less and you leave the opportunity for them to retreat, rearm, reasses and reengage. I believe the Vietnam, Korea, and the first Gulf War are all examples of why the Powell doctrine is necessary.

BCBulldog wrote: I fall more on the side of the Powell doctrine. I believe that true defeat of the enemy can only be achieved by swift, decisive and total victory. Anything less and you leave the opportunity for them to retreat, rearm, reasses and reengage. I believe the Vietnam, Korea, and the first Gulf War are all examples of why the Powell doctrine is necessary.

But, I would argue those are wars of the past, and wars of the future will more be like Iraq in 06, Afghanistan and the 2006 Israel/Hezbollah war. Wars of the future are going to be more asymmetrical with the local population at the center of the struggle.
And the nature of technology has made the Powell doctrine obsolete, not needed.

If done well and if timely war styles of the past have an ability to minimize the number of wars in the future.

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.

ptown_trojans_1 wrote: This is an very fascinating debate in military circles. On one side you have the conventional forces drive the enemy to mercy Powell doctrine, and on the other hand the Mullen/ Petreaus COIN/ use precise military force but also beware of the civilians doctrine.

I side with the Mullen and Petreaus side as future conflict are going to be asymmetrical, and add to that the new technologies of drones, accurate artillery, more accurate guns and missiles, it makes more sense to use more more specifically and narrowly to avoid civilian causalities.

I don't think it is as cut and dry as you say. I am not saying we carpet bomb the hell out of a city and then sift through the rubble to stamp out the remaining resistance. We can utilize new technology and accurate weapons, yet still deploy overwhelming military force against our enemies. More so if our weapons are accurate an precise.

ptown_trojans_1 wrote: Asymmetrical warfare also leads to the importance of the local population. If overwhelming force is used, then the likely of a town switching over to the aggressors side is minimized by civilian causalities. We have seen this in the first couple years of Afghanistan as carpet bombing or dominate force projection has ticked off the local population to the point where they support the Taliban because the U.S. killed their son or daughter or family member in a military strike.

If we are an aggressor attempting to take a town/city the primary objective IMO would be to use overwhelming force to first destroy the active combatants. Considerations should be made as to whether the civilian population is actively or forcefully providing aid to the combatants. In the end my opinion is that it is made clear to all by our willingness to use overwhelming force, that any resistance is futile and will result in unnecessary death and destruction.

Populations forced to provide support to our enemies will quickly see that their is a greater force taking control of the situation. Being they were subdued by a more ruthless force they would in general submit to our victory. They would see us as liberators as apposed to aggressors. The key would be their confidence that our conquering force will not leave until civility is restored. To many times we have not deployed the forces in this manner. We conquer and leave. Search and destroy it was called in Vietnam. This has been our greatest failure recently in Iraq/Afghanistan, and in the past in Vietnam. We have turned it around in Iraq but at the cost of many.

As for those populations that willingly aid our enemy their will must be broken as well. They must be brought to the point that the overwhelming force deployed against them will bring total destruction upon them unless they relent. If we show weakness they will exploit it. Otherwise we drag these conflicts out for countless years bringing greater death and destruction upon ourselves and our enemy in the long run as our adversaries have time to adjust to our countless new strategies.

ptown_trojans_1 wrote: Overwhelming force, as mentions, ignores military technology as well. During the Powell doctrine, we did not have drones, or smart bombs really or soldiers that can communicate with ease on the battlefield. It was largely still a Cold War style military, with large tanks and soldiers to fight the Soviets. Now, as we face asymmetric forces, the need is more targeted, more precise uses of force. But, those uses are still kinetic enough to slow or defeat the enemy.

I disagree that overwhelming force ignores military technology. On the contrary it uses it forcefully and effectively. I am not saying that many of the conflicts we face are those of large nation states with massive military hardware deployed against us. But just because we are not facing hundreds of tanks in the field does not mean we do not deploy decisive force against our enemies.

ptown_trojans_1 wrote: I've talked with a few of my colleagues who are Air Force and Army guys about this debate and it is a good one. It is easily one of the most contentious debates in the Pentagon as it largely focuses on whether you still want a large conventional force projection or a smaller, lighter, more adaptive asymmetrical force?

No doubt we need both capabilities. Their are situations where we will need to deploy an adaptive lighter force. It is my opinion that when our nation engages in a major military effort that it is done so with the primary objective being the enemy seeing continued resistance to our military effort as utterly useless.

It is imperative that if we engage in a major prolonged military engagement that it is sanctioned by congress preferably with an official declaration of war. This assures the full backing of our government. If you review our nation's military history you will find that the wars that ended with a question mark were those that were not officially declared.

majorspark wrote: You achieve victory by using overwhelming force on your enemies. I would argue that the reason we have yet to achieve victory in Afghanistan is because we have yet to use overhwelming force. Dragging these wars out for years on end is insanity.

99.990% of Afghanis are not enemies of the United States. So how do you justify overwhelming force when only a teeny tiny fraction of their population would like to do harm to America? Or Americans?

Secondly, there are more fundamentalist radicals in places like Turkey and Sudan...as opposed to Afghanistan.

You can never defeat an ideolology with overwhelming force. The more force you use, the more powerful the ideology becomes.

Footwedge wrote: 99.990% of Afghanis are not enemies of the United States. So how do you justify overwhelming force when only a teeny tiny fraction of their population would like to do harm to America? Or Americans?

You are taking my comment here out of the context of my argument. Overwhelming force today does not necessitate overwhelming civilian death. It means having enough forces in the field to take conquer and hold in as short a time as possible.

The people always pay a price for the actions of their leaders. Most Germans were not our enemies either. Yet they payed dearly. That sucks but such is the world.

Footwedge wrote: You can never defeat an ideolology with overwhelming force. The more force you use, the more powerful the ideology becomes.

You can it is just a matter of how much force and bloodshed you are willing to meet out. Look at Japan. Once a radical nationalist state that worshiped their emperor. Overwhelming force broke them and shatterd their belief in the diety of their emperor. Today they are one of the most pacifist states on the earth.

Spark...I don't think you can equate the Japan situation in WWII to the GWOT today. Terrorism is not state sponsored. I respectfully disagree regarding escalating any involvement in Mesopotamia.

The chaiman of the Joint Chief of Staff has spoken. We need to listen carefully to what he says. My hope is that the message resonates to Obama and that he reconsiders his expansionary policies in Afg/Pak.

Until he does, I consider him a war appeaser to the Pentagon and the war machine. And I hold him accountable for the escalating death count in the region.

He needs to heed the advice of the fiscally rigid libertarians. There is no "winning" in Afghanistan. Russian involvement there in the 80's proved that. Just like the French proved in the 50's that we can't "win" in Vietnam.

Foot...The Japan analogy was in response to your statement that we cannot defeat an ideology with force. I used the Japan analogy to show that it can be done. I do agree that this cannot be equated with the GWOT. The head of the ideology that Japan espoused was confined to one large island in the pacific. The ideology that the terrorists espouse is spread throughout the globe.