Slide source comparison

(Variation of German experiences during WWII)

Posture

• Emphasize intelligence, reconnaissance (air and ground) and set up screen of forward outposts and patrols to report on adversary activity and warn of any impending or actual incursions.

• Deploy, disperse, and frequently redeploy/redisperse reconnaissance and mobile antitank/infantry/armored teams together with artillery in region behind screen so that they can mask dispositions as well as move inconspicuously/quickly to focus and shift local main efforts against adversary thrusts.

• Place armored teams, as mobile reserve, in echelon behind recce, anti-tank/infantry/armor and artillery so that they can easily focus effort and quickly move in to decapitate any local breakthrough—or push off for a blitz counterstroke.

Action

• Employ air and fast moving mobile/armored reconnaissance teams to determine direction/strength of thrusts and to continuously harass by repeated delaying actions and hit-and-run attacks in order to slow momentum and erode cohesion of blitz attack.

• Inconspicuously move in with high-speed mobile anti-tank/infantry/armored teams together with air and artillery support to strengthen favorable sectors. Hit adversary thrusts and resupply efforts with ambuscades and with repeated sudden/sharp flank and rear counter-thrusts to channel as well as drain- away momentum and break up cohesion of blitz thrusts.

• Concentrate swift armored combat forces (held in reserve) and use with air to rapidly drive a shallow and/or deep flank counterstroke in order to swing in behind and roll-up blitz offensive in detail (counterstroke launched while adversary is moving forward).

Idea

• Smash blitz offensive by inconspicuously using fast-tempo/fluidity-of-action and cohesion of counter- blitz combat teams as basis for shifting of forces and quick focus of air and ground effort to throttle momentum, shatter cohesion, and envelop blitz in order to destroy adversary’s capacity to resist.

Main features and emphasis

• Intelligence and recce action

• Infiltration/penetration and isolation

• Ambiguity, deception, speed, and violence to generate surprise and shock

• Mission/Schwerpunkt philosophy

• Acceptance of “gaps” and (related) “risks” in support of mission/ Schwerpunkt philosophy

• Echelon-in-depth (offense and defense)

• Reserves reconstituted and accumulated (at all levels) to support or generate success

• Posture of positions, alternative positions, dummy positions and roving positions to mask maneuvers and intentions

Key points

• Guerrilla vanguards need cause and support of people that is dependent upon regime’s unwillingness/inability to come to grips with crises of its own making.

Or more simply,

• Crises and vanguards represent the marriage of instability and initiative that create and expand guerrilla effort.

Hence,

• The thought occurs that in order to dry up a guerrilla upsurge, one should strike at those root causes or illegitimate inequalities that generate and exacerbate crises as well as provide a favorable climate for vanguards to form or operate in.

Action

• Undermine guerrilla cause and destroy their cohesion by demonstrating integrity and competence of government to represent and serve needs of people—rather than exploit and impoverish them for the benefit of a greedy elite.*

• Take political initiative to root out and visibly punish corruption. Select new leaders with recognized competence as well as popular appeal. Ensure that they deliver justice, eliminate grievances, and connect government with grass roots.*

• Infiltrate guerrilla movement as well as employ population for intelligence about guerrilla plans, operations, and organization.

• Seal off guerrilla regions from outside world by diplomatic, psychological, and various other activities that strip away potential allies as well as by disrupting or straddling communications that connect these regions with outside world.

• Deploy administrative talent, police, and counter-guerrilla teams into affected localities and regions to inhibit guerrilla communication, coordination and movement; minimize guerrilla contact with local inhabitants; isolate their ruling cadres; and destroy their infrastructure.

• Exploit presence of above teams to build up local government as well as recruit militia for local and regional security in order to protect people from the persuasion and coercion efforts of the guerrilla cadres and their fighting units.

• Use special teams in a complementary effort to penetrate guerrilla-controlled regions. Employ (guerrillas’ own) tactics of reconnaissance, infiltration, surprise hit-and-run, and sudden ambush to keep roving bands off-balance, make base areas untenable, and disrupt communication with outside world.

• Expand these complementary security/penetration efforts into affected region after affected region in order to undermine, collapse, and replace guerrilla influence with government influence and control.

• Visibly link these efforts with local political/economic/social reform in order to connect central government with hopes and needs of people, thereby gain their support and confirm government legitimacy.

Idea

• Break guerrillas’ moral-mental-physical hold over the population, destroy their cohesion, and bring about their collapse via political initiative that demonstrates moral legitimacy and vitality of government and by relentless military operations that emphasize stealth/fast-tempo/fluidity-of-action and cohesion of overall effort.

* If you cannot realize such a political program, you might consider changing sides!

We have indicated again and again the importance of popular support for guerrilla or counter-guerrilla success. Why?

Insight

Without support of people the guerrillas (or counter- guerrillas) have neither a vast hidden intelligence network nor an invisible security apparatus that permits them to “see” into adversary operations yet “blinds” adversary to their own operations.

• Now looking back and reflecting upon the panorama of military history, we can imagine three kinds of human conflict:

– Attrition warfare—as practiced by the Emperor Napoleon, by all sides during the 19th century and during World War I, by the Allies during World War II, and by present-day nuclear planners.

– Maneuver conflict—as practiced by the Mongols, General Bonaparte, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, Union General Ulysses S. Grant, Hitler’s generals (in particular Manstein, Guderian, Balck, Rommel) and the Americans under Generals Patton and MacArthur.

– Moral conflict—as practiced by the Mongols, most guerrilla leaders, a very few counter-guerrillas (such as Magsaysay) and certain others from Sun Tzu to the present.

• With these comments in mind let’s look into the essentials of each.

• Firepower, as a destructive force, is king.

• Protection (trenches, armor, dispersion, etc.) is used to weaken or dilute effects of enemy firepower.

• Mobility is used to bring firepower to bear or to evade enemy fire.

• Measures of success are (now) “body count” and targets destroyed.

• “Seize and hold terrain objectives” replaces Napoleon’s dictum: Destroy enemy army.

• Ambiguity, deception, novelty, mobility, and violence (or threat thereof) are used to generate surprise and shock.

• Fire and movement are used in combination, like cheng/ch'i or Nebenpunkte/Schwerpunkt, to tie up, divert, or drain away adversary attention and strength in order to expose as well as menace and exploit vulnerabilities or weaknesses elsewhere.

• Indications of success tend to be qualitative and are related to the widespread onset of confusion and disorder, frequent envelopments, high prisoner counts, or any other phenomenon that suggests inability to adapt to change.