Blitzkrieg, guerrillas and counter-campaigns

Okay, sort of begin to see the psychology behind it. One more chart and then I'll comment on it.

Note this: select the moment—the decisive moment—the crisis has reached its climax, and I'm quoting it. When the vanguard—these are my underlines—is prepared to fight […], the reserves prepared to support the vanguard. Maximum consternation. […]

You read this, think about it, and say, well, that doesn't have that much appeal. If you're a beneficiary of the system and things are going well for you, it doesn’t. But now let's pretend you're getting cracked on. No matter what you do, you're not making out. All of a sudden these things seem to have very large importance in your mind. You can organize people and do things. It's of much greater importance. […] They're trying to show how the whole system is bankrupt, pull it apart.

[Exchange unclear.] That's true. […] crisis and vanguard. […] the vanguard exacerbates it, and starts getting that feedback loop, starts pulling the system down around its ears. Okay? So with that in mind, now let's look at Blitzkrieg and guerrilla strategy […], as they can play together. Then we're going to pull them apart.

There are two things they do, both of them: infiltration or penetration, and isolation. They do it at all levels. They also do it morally, mentally and physically. I'll let you read this chart, and I want to make some comments.

[…] Look what they're doing. See, they're trying to disrupt […]. Probe and test adversary and any allies […] in order to unmask […]. Note this statement: exploit critical differences of opinion, internal contradictions, […]. The idea is to foment mistrust and sow discord. In other words, so they can't function as an organic whole.

We talked about fomenting mistrust and sowing discord. In his system, you're trying to do what? Generate many non-cooperative centers of gravity. In other words, the inverse Clausewitzian notion. Thereby you can create this kind of an atmosphere—and I'm quoting Adolf Hitler here—mental confusion, contradiction of feeling, indecisiveness. […] They were afraid of it.

And Czechoslovakia: got the Allies, Chamberlain, and the rest of them to give the country away. Go through, read the history. And then against the Polish, of course, they weren't even, in the modern sense, able to compete against them.

France, of course: they were so pulled apart psychologically when he invaded, their armies came unglued. And all this crap you've been reading about their French Resistance—you know, it's all coming out—a lot of that's a myth. Very few were in the French Resistance; more were collaborators. That's all beginning to come out. Of course, they couldn't let it come out before. […] That's beginning to come out.

But there may be a question here for some of you people who have read Mao's treatise on protracted war. Blitzkrieg: you don't want to be protracted. There seems to be a paradox or a contradiction here. But you want to read that treatise. Mao says very explicitly: you want to have lightning engagements, lightning battles. The only reason for its protracted nature is because the guerrillas are weak. It's going to take time to build up their strength. But you don't want to get in […] and slug it out. It's in and out, in and out. So in that context they agree.

Okay, with that in mind, we'll split it out: first the Blitzkrieg, then the guerrillas.

First, Blitzkrieg. This is my second most dense chart. ² I want to give you a flavor of what's going on. Here I'm referring to your intelligence operations, your reconnaissance and all those kinds of things. The idea is to get an image of what's going on; also the shaping patterns of strength, weaknesses and […]. You're going to use it. You want to find out what's going on to begin the shaping process on him.

Then you want to use those patterns to find out what practical alternatives you can employ against him. It helps shape your mission, what I call mission commitment, and influence your command intent. Then you start assigning missions to your own people.

Well, here in a sense you have your observation, you have your orientation. Now you assign your mission. Your Schwerpunkt—we'll talk about it here in a minute. Very important idea. It's not just a physical thing; it's a moral, mental kind of thing. The idea is to duck his strength and go for his weakness. […] Tie him up here so you can exploit elsewhere.

And nowadays you hear about the Soviet Spetsnaz teams. You know, those infiltration teams we talked about. The Germans had them too. The Brandenburg Regiment, later on [Name unclear.]'s troops. They were called special seizure and destruction teams. They infiltrate your adversary's system, […], and they do these kinds of things. In other words, they start pulling his connections apart inside the system so it can't function as an organic whole. Sow confusion, disorder. And then, of course, your firepower is going to impede it.

Then your armored reconnaissance and your stormtrooper teams—in other words, infiltrating and finding out those paths of least resistance. Then finally your assault teams of tanks, infantry and so on pouring through on multiple paths. And when a breakthrough occurs, of course they blow through in order to try to cut their communications, lines of communication, […] their forces.

So you begin to see a number of activities taking place, a number of happenings. But with all these things taking place, it's very difficult for the adversary to sort out what's going on, in order to deprive him of realizing the purpose. Very difficult. Multiple things happen. […] I think that answers your question, right? […] Okay?

Here's the impression it leaves you with. ^{21 2} Blitzkrieg generates many non-cooperative centers of gravity. See, they're pouring in; they're just generating all these non-cooperative centers of gravity, so the […] organism can't function as an organic whole. So it starts magnifying [friction?]. That's what you want: generate non-cooperative centers of gravity, or isolated centers of gravity. [The system can't function or] provide one another necessary mutual support.

So it raises a rather interesting question: how do blitzers simultaneously sustain rapid pace and abruptly adapt to changing circumstances without losing your own cohesion? Because if you try to go rapidly, you can't adapt. You adapt, and you can't penetrate deep. So they're opposing tendencies.

Another thing: you give everybody a lot of freedom of action down below, the Blitzkrieg flies apart. You try to constrain your activities, and they can't blitz. Too much top-down command and control. Another opposing tendency. We've got some opposing tendencies. How do we resolve these opposing tendencies? Same thing you have with […]. You have to resolve these opposing tendencies.

So let's take that on. Here's what I call Blitz operating philosophy. The key point you have to keep in mind: each level, from simple to complex, platoon all the way up to theater, they all have their own observation, orientation, decision time cycle. Keep in mind, as you go up to a higher level, the OODA loops go slower and slower and slower. More to keep track of. Down lower, you operate at a faster tempo. In other words, the more events we must consider, the longer it takes to go through them.

This brings out the idea that faster tempo or rhythm at lower levels should work within a slower rhythm or larger pattern at higher levels. In other words, so the system doesn't start coming apart. So how do you harmonize these different tempos and rhythms?

Now, first point—it's a little vague, I'm going to fill it in here in a minute—you want to give lower-level commanders wide freedom within an overall mind-time-space scheme. Everybody can feel it, whether it's the higher level or the lower level. What do you want to call it? A common outlook, common frame of reference, whatever you want to call it. That's one point. You can begin to get the idea; we're not there yet.

Another thing, what I call shaping it: you can shape the overall scheme by using what we call a mission concept and also their Schwerpunkt concept. You sometimes see their mission concept advocated today, what they call [Auftragstaktik?]. I think that's where it gets away from it a little bit. And the Schwerpunkt, which we're going to get into. So these different tempos and rhythms don't start pulling one another apart within their own system. Okay, so with that in mind—

Raises this question: what the hell do we mean by overall mind-time-space? What does that imply or presuppose? And how did the mission–Schwerpunkt concepts give shape to this overall scheme? We're going to take that on in order.

First of all, what does that imply or presuppose? And this is very important. I'll let you read it, and I'll comment on it. Now, General Blumentritt was a general during World War II in Germany. And I'm quoting him here: presuppose a common outlook based upon […], a body of professional officers, et cetera. And those are his underlines, not mine.

An officers' training institution allows the subordinate a great measure of freedom of action and freedom of manner in executing orders. Calls for independent, daring initiative, et cetera. Look at this point: without a common outlook, officers cannot give subordinates freedom of action and maintain coherence of ongoing action.

Well, let's assume you don't have a common outlook, and give people freedom of action. First thing, it's going to dissolve away. And so if you don't have people who have a common outlook, then what are you going to be forced to do? You're going to need very top-down, centralized command and control. That's all you have. I'll get into it a little deeper in a few minutes, but I don't want to take it too far right now. But if you don't have a common outlook, then if you give freedom of action, it all dissolves away. So you have to have that preceded by a common outlook.

So the implication is rather clear. Now, when he used the words “a body of officers,” he was talking about the general staff in the German system. That's what he was referring to. He was referring to a particular body, a particular […]. General staff. Code word for general staff, I guess. So think about that. […] without a common outlook, otherwise it dissolves away into chaos. I'm going to go a little deeper here. Okay, so it raises this question.

How do the concepts of mission and Schwerpunkt shape the scheme? Let's take on mission first.

Here's an important thing. Think of it as a contract or an agreement between the superior and the subordinate. The subordinate agrees to make his actions serve the superior's intent in terms of what is to be done. In other words, the superior determines what is to be done. The subordinate determines how it's going to be carried out. How it's going to be carried out. In other words, it gives him the freedom to exercise imagination in terms of how intent will be realized.

But note the second point. Many Americans have a hard time coming to grips with it. Part of this concept, the subordinate is given the right to challenge or question the feasibility of the mission. In the Prussian system, they had the right to challenge that mission before the decision was made about it, if he feels […]. On the other hand, once he agrees, then the superior has every right to expect this to be carried out.

There is a limitation. Remember, while this concept of mission gives form and expression […]. Remember, if you're a superior, and let's say you give somebody a mission or a task down below, […] other subordinates. You give him an independent task. They have to know how they're going to glue and work with the others, and that's where the Schwerpunkt concept comes in. I'll show you in a minute. You get more than one subordinate […], you have to glue it all together to make it work as a whole.

How does Schwerpunkt play into this? Let's give you a feel for the Schwerpunkt.

So the Schwerpunkt acts as a center or axis, a harmonizing agent. In other words, you say this Schwerpunkt will be in this direction. Here's our Schwerpunkt. It gives focus and direction. The Army calls it focus of main effort, […].

It's used to help shape commitment and carry out intent at all levels, theater down to platoon. In other words, you have a Schwerpunkt at theater level, army group, army, corps, division, regiment, battalion, company, platoon. Schwerpunkt inside Schwerpunkt inside Schwerpunkt inside Schwerpunkt. Right. […] You know what it says. More specific.

So let's say I'm going to be a battalion commander, and I want to lay down some tasks for my subordinate commanders. They'll say that the Schwerpunkt will be in this area; the following units are affected. They know then, when they lay the task down below, I don't tell them how to do anything. This is what I want done. Here's the mission, here's the Schwerpunkt. […] They pass right on down, […]. In fact, some of the people I work with, they always say, hey, what's the Schwerpunkt for operation here? […] the Schwerpunkt?

Or where's the focus? […] the focus, fine, the other people support that. Even though they're doing different things, they always keep in mind what that focus is, unless you shift the focus of the operation. So you can think of it as a focusing agent or a medium to realize that intent. The implication is that it is a unifying concept or a unifying medium. Okay. Now let's tie it all together. I want to talk about this chart a little bit, the key ideas.

Sort of opposite, in some sense, the way you think of it. So to tie it all together: their operating philosophy is based on a common outlook, freedom of action, and realization of these concepts that we talked about, mission concepts. And the key thing is to emphasize implicit over explicit communication, which suggests the secret of the German command lies in what's unstated or not communicated to one another. In other words, instead of laying down detailed orders, the secret lies in what's unstated.

Let me give you a feel for that as a fighter pilot, in our time. When I used to be an instructor in the fifties out at Nellis, when you start instructing pilots in air-to-air tactics, you're going against other adversaries. First thing they do, they start talking, jabbering all the time on the radio. Not only that, their communications are going at a slower pace than the onrushing events. So the whole thing dissolves away into confusion and chaos.

So then you've got to work with them over and over and show them under which situations what you're going to do. So eventually you say the key idea is, when you go up there, you don't say anything. You'll be able to anticipate my moves; I can anticipate yours. Of course, that's mental telepathy, you can't quite do that. But then when you utter a word, it's like a code word, dripping in information. He knows exactly what you're doing, what you're not going to do. You don't have all this conversation. So it's that implicit communication, the unstated communication that you have.

And now your communication is going quicker than the oncoming events. So now you can stay ahead of the oncoming events. Instead of the events taking you out, you're taking them out. Unstated. Well, now if you work together for a long period of time—you know, where you work with a person a long period of time—you give one word, they know what to do.

If you haven't, then you've got to lay out a detailed instruction. If you have to lay out a detailed instruction, it takes longer. Plus […] later on anyway, you have to modify it, which stretches it even further. So that common outlook is very important. Because that common outlook really means shared images or views for those kinds of things that you're trying to work together on. You worked it out before. If you don't have it and you try to say, “Go, go to it, tiger boy!”—expect a disaster, you're probably going to get one.

Because really, how do you get a common outlook? If you don't have those implicit connections or bonds, there's no common outlook. Those shared images, those shared views, those shared impressions, there's no common outlook. Without any common outlook, you can't get freedom of action. See, they all play together. Instead, you have to have very detailed top-down […], with rigidity, time-consuming nature and stuff.

But if you have it the other way, you can depend upon it. You don't have to communicate. Then what you do, you diminish that friction and reduce the time, as well as gain both quickness and security. Because if you don't talk very much, the other guy's listening in, eavesdropping on communication, he doesn't have much to work on. In fact, I remember one historian noticed some of the archives had British talking about this German unit that came into the field. They noticed it, [they didn't know] what was going on.

Further, now note this: multiple narrow thrusts. I have that. Let's discuss that. It raises a rather interesting question. We talked about it before. And we're tending to show it in a physical sense, but it has a mental sense too.

Why do you want to employ multiple thrusts, bundles of multiple thrusts, bundles of thrusts inside bundles of thrusts? And the typical way people like to respond to that is, well, you know, it's for flanking things. Yeah, but that's not the way to think of it. There's a much better way to think of it.

There's a much better response. Some of you probably already guessed it. Because if you present somebody with many happenings, you're going to start generating confusion, disorder in his system. It takes time for him to sort out what's going on. You're trying to stretch out his mind, make it difficult for him to adapt. Stretch him out. Because while you're stretching him out, you do something else, and you have to stretch him from there too.

That in turn multiplies your opportunities to get into his gaps, exposed lines and vulnerable rear. That in turn allows you then to splinter his organism and […] at all levels—tactical, grand tactical, strategic. […] Just pull them literally apart. In other words, […] can't function as an organic whole. You can't get a focus and direction to cope with the oncoming event.

Incidentally, when I talk about tactical, grand tactical, strategic in a military sense, in terms of levels, normally you think of tactical up to about division. Grand tactical—nowadays they like to call it the operational level—from division up to army, army group. And strategic, army, army group to theater and beyond. So when they talk about levels, you see it in that sense. It's not exactly that; they tend to do it in that sense. That's kind of reasonable. So now if we glue all that together, we—

—can lay out what I call, in a sense, the essence of the Blitzkrieg, where they're kind of pulling it together. I think somebody was talking to me right after the last break, as a matter of fact. Talking about the campaign, when the team starts coming unglued, people start departing the scene and everything else. They don't want to be part of a losing campaign.

That's what happens. Talking about that, you can put that pressure on your adversary and cause him to start coming unglued in certain areas. Then he starts losing his allies, and that makes it even more difficult for him to cope.

Here, I'm talking about Poland, […]. Manchuria, I'm talking about the Russians against the Japanese, [Name unclear.]. Middle East, the Israelis. Russians in '68 in Czechoslovakia. Once again, the Israelis, after they got their act together.

Unsuccessful: Russia, winter of '41–'42. Partial reasons for that lack of success—only partial—the winter weather. There's some more fundamental reasons I'll get onto later on. Russia, fall and winter of '42–'43: here I'm referring to the Caucasus–Stalingrad campaign. And interestingly enough, initially the intent of that operation was to mask off Stalingrad and try to conquer the Caucasus. Instead, Hitler decided he wanted to take Stalingrad. And of course, when they did that they started going strength against strength, violating strength against weakness, and of course the whole thing turned into a debacle.

North Africa, '42. Here I'm referring to Rommel against the British. Initially Rommel had great successes against the British, but eventually the British, by reading his communications, cut his lines of communication, overwhelmed him and did him in, as you well know. And one of the big reasons: initially, when they did have the advantage, Hitler was treating it as a peripheral theater because he was occupied elsewhere, and didn't give Rommel the forces that they needed in order to do the job. It might have turned out differently.

In any case, Russia, summer of 1943. Here I'm referring to the Battle of Kursk. The Russians got wind of what the Germans were up to through their own intelligence. The Germans were trying to pinch out what's called the Kursk salient. And since the Russians knew where the onslaught was coming, either very near or in that Kursk salient, they stashed in there roughly 1.4 million men. And the Germans leaped off with about 750,000. And they not only knew what the Germans were up to; they even had their initial axes of advance, where they were coming from. So they could figure out how to adapt to it. Of course, the thing resulted in a disaster for the Germans. […]

And then, of course, the Ardennes. That was against ourselves, America, on December 16, 1944. There were two penetrations. There was a northern penetration […] that came in with the Sixth SS Panzer Army under [Dietrich?], and the southern sector with the Fifth Panzer Army under Wehrmacht commander [Manteuffel?]. The Schwerpunkt was assigned to [Dietrich?], the Sixth SS Panzer Army. They got hung up. The commanders tried to prevail upon Hitler to shift the Schwerpunkt. He did not. By the time he did, [Manteuffel?] got stopped. They lost their flexibility and adaptability.

In other words, as time went on, we see a more centralized, top-down command-and-control system beginning to exist in the German system. So what's my point? We see in Poland, for instance, Hitler levied a general intention upon the German army to carry it out. He did not interfere in operations. For the most part, in France, [negation unclear]. Except, remember, he did stop the panzers outside of Dunkirk, and of course the British got out of Dunkirk. But as time went on, he began to impose himself more and more in the operational aspects of the war, until finally we got the Ardennes, very deeply involved, very highly centralized command and control.

Raises an interesting question: why did he gravitate towards such a thing? Why did he do this? And of course every German officer that I talked to always came up with the same answer: he did not trust his commanders. In other words, his system was based upon mistrust, not trust. Now if you go back to Napoleon, it was the same thing, in a different sense. Remember, he held a grand design in his mind, didn't trust his commanders. Not only that, he knew what he picked. [Aside unclear.] Of course, politicians don't do that either. Getting down to fundamentals.

So if you pick those kinds of people, then you have to live with the result. But when you let all that information wash over your brain, all of a sudden a fundamental truth comes out. All centralized command-and-control systems are based upon mistrust. Otherwise, why do you need it? Otherwise, why do you need it? They're all based on mistrust. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have one.

Coming back the other way to illustrate: you people have some of the same problems. [Name unclear.]—I use him because he says it so well, articulates things well. He says, look, let's pretend you're a division commander, because you know you can get a little pick of who you're going to get from the personnel people. They're also going to send you what you don't want because you're not going to get the pick of the litter; the other guys have to take […]. And he said, the people who are good, you want to put them on a long leash. The people who are not so good, you're going to watch them very carefully because they're going to get you in trouble.

But what does that suggest? Instead of talking about any one kind of a command-and-control system, you're talking about a multidimensional command-and-control system. Now if you have smart electronics you're going to feed your command-and-control system, that's hard to do. Instead, you tend to get the lowest common denominator, the one […] people are going to get you in trouble. Now it tends to become more rigid. […]

That's one reason. That's based upon mistrust, because it should be. These guys are going to get you in trouble. Another reason is, even if people are gifted, you're talking about strategic items like nuclear weapons. You're not going to give a guy a lot of freedom of action. He may launch a couple megatons. That's based upon mistrust. It should be. So you want to keep those kinds of things in mind when you go to centralized command and control, very detailed instructions based upon mistrust. The question is, if not, why do you need it? There might be good reasons. You have to keep that in mind. Very important. Okay, with that in mind—

—let's shift gears now and go to guerrilla warfare. This is my most dense chart. Just a little bit more than the other one. Modern guerrilla campaign. I'll let you read this. Take the time to read it, because this is the kind of thing you're more closely aligned with, you people are involved in. Note the first bullet: capitalize on discontent and mistrust. You know your adversary. You know there's going to be problems there. You want to exacerbate them.

A lot of action is taking place here […], a very high political content, as you can see. Some of these things I don't recommend for the campaign, though.

Boyd? Some of the sharper aspects. [Exchange unclear.] Yeah, you can do that […]. But you see what's going on, many things are going on here. There's a couple things I want to draw to your attention. First of all, remember we talked about the Blitzkrieg or what I call, you might say, conventional operations. They tend to be only destructive, apparently. Here you're seeing two kinds of things. They're destructive in one sense, but they're also constructive in the other sense. You're trying to build up allies on your side at the same time, build up your system. In particular, I try to make that clear with this particular bullet right here. We're trying to do that.

Remember what Sun Tzu said: know your enemy, know yourself. He was only two-thirds correct. You have to know your enemy, know yourself, and know those third parties, the uncommitted. And you think about it, in a political campaign you have that same problem. You have to know yourself, know your enemy, and the people that are going to vote. See, we like to say, well, in the military there's a bad guy and there's a good guy. There's also other people looking on. If you misbehave, he's going to build up the allies. You become isolated. Now you have a hard time […].

So in that sense Sun Tzu only had two-thirds. Know your enemy, know yourself, and the uncommitted third party, potential adversaries. Very important. You've got to keep that in mind. I normally bring it out later, but […] you people being political […] now, since we're talking about this particular chart. But I think you get the drift of what's going on here: both a destructive and a constructive effort. Destructive, where you're trying to make your adversary so he can't play, destroy his stability, build up yours, and suck the people to your side.

So in a sense, here's the essence of a guerrilla campaign. You have the destructive part here and the constructive part here. In some sense, we had a problem with that in Vietnam because we figured we were going to hand out a few trinkets and good stuff, and that was going to establish a bond. That doesn't work. […]

Audience? Language problem.

Boyd? Language is a big problem, that's correct. Very big problem. […] And of course the implication: they penetrate their adversary's moral, mental and physical being. […] get right in there, generate those […]. At the same time, […]. So you've got both destructive and constructive effort.

So if we look back, let's tie a few things together now. Remember, we talked about nineteenth-century capitalism, the revolutionary strategy and the modern guerrilla campaign. Pulled together, what's that underlying strategic philosophy? [Redundancy or summation?]

I really can't overemphasize […]. You think of it this way too. We all have certain friends, and you know when you're with someone, you get to share their experience over time. You know there's certain delicate things you don't say. We all know that. We just mentally say that's forbidden territory, don't talk about it, bring it up […].

But turn the argument around. You know your adversary. Try to find those hidden things; in a delicate way, bring it out so he comes unglued, and then you leverage […]. You don't want to seem like you're a party; you've got to come out so he does it to himself. If it looks like you're a party […], also destroy your own moral […]. You really can't morally isolate somebody. That's very important to know. In politics you well know, in one sense you want to isolate your adversary and build up your support. And likewise, don't have that happen to you. […]

But there's three aspects of isolation: moral, mental and physical. You can physically isolate somebody. Mentally you can isolate somebody. Morally you can't; he has to isolate himself. You really can't isolate—he has to do it. Of course you can set things up so when he dives into it, that's up to him. You really can't do that. He has to do it.

Okay, now here's an insight. We're always talking about support of the people. What the hell does that mean, support of the people? I want to take that on with a deeper appreciation […].

In fact, you people probably already do, since you're in political […] some military people […]. The implicit connection is your bond. The implicit connection is those shared experiences, those shared values that we talked about. You have to be able to blend in the emotional, cultural, intellectual environment. You can't stand apart. It doesn't work. You've got to get right in that thing. You're breathing and thinking and seeing the way they do. That's why they put people in to do that, because when you do that, then you become one with the people. You do have those implicit connections […].

In this sense, the people's feelings and thoughts become guerrilla feelings and thoughts, […] build up the way they think. Remember what I told you earlier: if you have too sharp an ideology, what's going to happen? That's going to inhibit that process. You've got to be able to see it from their viewpoint. Once you understand that, then […] guerrilla feelings and thoughts become […]. In other words, you can start working […], you can start getting them going your way. It takes time. And the result, if you do it correctly: guerrillas become indistinguishable from the people while government is separate or isolated from the people. In other words, they have nothing to […]. They can't figure out why they lost.

Then they all start pointing fingers at one another, which we're still doing over Vietnam. The military's blaming the Congress. The Congress, they don't know who the hell they're blaming, and people out there are trying to figure out who's at fault. And the veterans are coming back, saying, “We got screwed.” Look around. It's happening.

Remember, you've heard Weinberger make a statement: we're not going to another campaign without the support of the people. Remember he laid out those six points or whatever […], one of the key ones. […] But also, we're not going to get into another goddamn military operation without the support of the people. Well, if that's the case, then we had every right to go in Vietnam, because the people did support that operation when we went in. But they didn't later on, and that's the key question: why not? So on that basis we had every right to go. You can go back and read the literature at the time we went in here. They supported […]. Of course they lost it. Good question: why? We don't like to answer that question. There's a good reason. We don't like to answer it. I'll get into it later on. Just hang on a minute.

Audience? How do you defend against that?

Boyd? Pardon?

Audience? How do you defend against that?

Boyd? I'll get into it later. We're almost here. I'm laying it all on Blitzkrieg and guerrilla. We're going to go to the counter-blitz and counter-guerrilla. Now I'm just shoving it all in one direction. Okay?

So if you look at a guerrilla campaign or a political campaign, note what I say here: […] demonstrate government […], erode government influence, but cause government to alienate itself from the people. You know how we don't understand that? We say the people are alienated from the government. That's not true. The government literally alienates itself from the people. That's what you want, […] from the people. And of course the other side is […]. Don't alienate the people. The government alienates itself from the people.

Remember what I said when you're talking about alienation. In fact, I'll give you three code words. If you're talking about cutting or severing lines of communication, in a sense you're talking about disconnection or separation. They call it severance or separation. If you're talking about physical isolation, cutting lines of communication—code word: disconnection or separation. If you're talking about mental isolation, can anybody give me the code word for that? […] No, no. Disorientation. When mentally isolated, he's disoriented. The code word for moral isolation is alienation.

Now, the military, if you go back in history, they're always talking about cutting a guy's lines of communication in a physical sense, but they don't really come to grips with the mental isolation or the moral isolation. Remember what I told you: physically you can isolate somebody. Mentally you can. Morally he's got to do it himself. […] Okay.

Let's look at some results here, guerrilla results. It's incomplete. American colonies: here we […] the redcoats; down here we became the redcoats. We're in full circle. I don't want to go through all of them.

Unsuccessful: the Philippines. We're talking about the Philippine insurrection at the turn of the century. We did some interesting things here when you read the history. Too bad we didn't learn much. We start out badly. But then some people start to think, hey, this is stupid. We've got to change our actions. […] made it pay off. South Africa: this is the Boer War. It caused the British enormous problems. And in a sense I really put it in the wrong column. In a sense, it should be over here. Because even though the British got the Boers to sign up for the armistice, the only way they could do so is by giving them some very easy terms, and the Boers got their independence later on anyway. So in a sense that's a misnomer, only because they signed up for the armistice.

We're familiar with these: Greece, […] the end of World War II and beyond. The Philippines. And here in the Philippines, an interesting case: a gentleman by the name of Ramon Magsaysay ²⁴ came on the scene about 1950, within about two years turned a disaster into a victory. Almost going down the […]. He was a very gifted guerrilla. [Question unclear.] Note the word, a guerrilla leader. You know what he was? He was a guerrilla who worked for the government. He used their techniques against them, against the guerrillas. So we see that, of course, […].

Okay, with that in mind, let's see the common theme that creeps up between the two. First of all, you don't necessarily go for the battle. I'm not saying you should avoid all battles, but that shouldn't be your preferred solution. Avoid the battle. Instead, you want to cut out the organic integrity indicated by […]. You've got to penetrate his system. Subvert or disrupt or seize those connections, centers […] that allow him to operate as an organic whole. [Exploit or destroy unclear] these qualities. The idea is to generate surprise and shock and reproduce it over and over again.

That in turn allows you to roll up or wipe out those isolated or disconnected debris in the system. And if you think about that, the intent then becomes a natural consequence of all that. That's what you realize. That's what you realize. […] Collapse.

Incidentally, I'll show you an example of this cutting connections or centers. I lifted it out of the book. Israeli example, 1949, by Yadin. […] Same idea there. Okay.

So it raises a rather interesting question. Why have they been so extraordinarily successful? […]

In any case, I finally got there. […] we're going to look at it the other way. Since we've gone all one way, it raises these questions. How can we counter the blitz, likewise […]? So let's look at the blitz.

Now remember earlier we showed a chart that talked about this kind of phenomenon. On one hand, you're trying to be irregular; on the other hand—

—you're trying to go deep, you're trying to adapt, and we made a point similar to this. It was difficult to sustain fast tempo, do all the shifting, and also try to go deep. That's correct. And that is a vulnerability, but you want to play upon it.

Okay. The main features […]: penetration, isolation, these kinds of things in order to generate surprise and shock. [Name unclear.] Acceptance of gaps and risk. Let me explain that. You see it very often in the literature when it's translated as gaps and risks. But when you look at what they're doing, it really isn't a gap. The gap's an avenue, and the risk is an opportunity, because you're letting a guy through so you can take the column apart.

But if you're terrain-oriented or attrition-oriented and want to hang onto the terrain, the gap is very real. If a guy comes through, you get all panicked. But if you use the terrain as a medium for maneuver, then the gap doesn't assume all that importance. You use it for leverage. […] In fact, that's what happens. Some people have a little tactical reverse—Christ, they start to panic. They make it even worse. You've got to think, say, wait a minute, maybe that didn't work out tactically, but that guy's stepping in the bag in another direction. […] We talked about that reserve.

Matter of fact, you only want to use those people you have to. Once you start having success, only use the people you need in order to keep the operation going. Keep funneling everybody back into reserves, keep reconstituting, because there's going to be a time you're going to need that to adjust to unforeseen circumstances.

To give you an analogy or a counterpart, if you're in a political thing, which suggests itself […] in my mind, you might have an operation when you're succeeding. It might be a long campaign. Then don't reveal all your arguments. Hold a lot of it back, so that he tries to adjust, and you give him a huge counter-adjustment because you've saved something back.

[…] reserves in terms of troops, ideas, and all that kind of stuff too. You don't want to save too much back if you're losing, I might add. […] But I'm saying, where you have that opportunity, don't expend everything. Because, in a sense, you can reveal yourself. Okay, posture of positions, alternatives—we already talked about that.

So when you said it was […] the blitz, in a sense, as I said, it's a reverse blitz. In fact, when we had [Name unclear.] here, it was very interesting. There was a meeting where they talked about offense and defense. […] He said, there's no difference. […] So what about the use of terrain? You use terrain on offense and you use it on defense too. If you start thinking the other way, you start becoming passive and make mistakes. Okay.

Guerrilla/counter-guerrilla campaign. Let's look at that. […] I want to bring out some key points. Vanguards need cause and support of people […]. They really make their own crises. […] Crises and vanguards represent the marriage of instability and initiative […].

Now this thought occurs, that in order to dry up […], one should strike at those […] that generate and exacerbate […]. Can you give me an example of that? [Exchange unclear.] I want to look at this; I'll come back to […] first. Who's that first guy? [Possibly: “Mikhail … Russian. Tukhachevsky.”]

[…] I'll let you read this, and I'll comment on it. It's not that difficult to understand. Sometimes it's quite difficult to implement. But here's where we normally have our problems: these first two bullets. You also might want to read my star down here. [Possibly: we're working the wrong side.]

But these two are important, and that's what Magsaysay understood. […] Very often we won't play these two; instead we're out here in the weeds just fighting all the time. We don't understand why we can't get there. These two are very important. He understood that.

For example, in his counter-guerrilla campaign, he was a defense minister. One of the things he did right away was send his commanders out in the weeds to try to flush the guerrillas […]. The ones that didn't succeed, he fired. And not only that, he used his propaganda: they're incompetent, et cetera. Plus, he knew they were incompetent anyway. So he just embellished it even more so to demonstrate to people he was serious, he was going to try to get the government to get its act under control. Got rid of them.

Then he put pressure on the president in order to sidetrack those politicians so they couldn't be in important positions. Fire them if he could. And you see, he embellished the hell out of that with propaganda, made them look even worse than they were. Well, these guys were going down the tubes.

So once you start doing that, you start demonstrating by act that you're serious about this and want to change it. Then you can start infiltrating their movement, because now you start getting the population on your side and start to penetrate inside their system. When you get inside their system, then you start playing these kinds of games rather than having them done to you.

A recent example: Weinberger made a very serious mistake. He came off looking like an idiot. He goes out there and defends that goddamn DIVAD when it was a piece of junk. And eventually he was forced to cave in. But he didn't get a lot of political leverage out of it because everybody knows he was forced to cave in.

You know what the DIVAD is—the Sergeant York, the air defense system. I happen to be a little bit familiar with it because I know the guys, real guys in the building, that worked the problem. […] They knew it. They just played every game they could. They leaked it everywhere. People kept the heat on Weinberger […]. In fact, there was one Marine lieutenant colonel that did a good job. Another point is Weinberger: what should Weinberger have done? He should have trashed it earlier.

Audience, inferred: Did that Marine lieutenant colonel have access to Weinberger and tell him it was a piece of junk?

Boyd: No, because the intervening layers wouldn't let him get access, which I'll come back to in a minute. It's very important. You're onto a very important point there. I'll come back to that later. Just hang on. That's a very important thing to talk about.

In other words, Weinberger was the emperor who has no clothes. In fact, Carter had the same problem, Jimmy Carter. I know a guy who quit over at the White House ¹², because he wanted everything to go up right through the so-called command and staff line, through the system. Well, that's guaranteed: the emperor has no clothes. You know you're going to walk around naked all your life if that's the case.

You've got to set up informal loops, and you better have those informal loops everywhere. I don't care whether you're down below or up topside. I'll cite my own case to illustrate that point. I was a major […] working in the Pentagon, and I was talking directly to the chief of staff, and nobody in between knew it. I was part of an informal loop. I can talk about it now—I'm retired […].

And one day, I was sitting in the office down there. We were doing some stuff on […]. And this exec came down who worked for [Name unclear.]. And he […]. He said, “Can I talk to you alone?” […] “Chief's got a problem.” “What's that got to do with me?” “He told me to come talk to you.” He says, “Here's the information he gets. Is it right?” “No.” “So how do we get the right information?” “Oh, that's easy.”

I said, I'll provide it, but he can't let on that he even has that information. It will give him a basis for asking questions so he can suck out the right information. He's going to have to protect loops […]. So I said, here's what he's going to get. I said, here's what he should get. And so [Exchange unclear.].

And of course that didn't take. […] How do we get it to take? There's always a way to get it to take. Now when you hold the next meeting with the chief, have the chief say, you know, he's so bothered by this, he's upset—he could play it real good—that maybe we get an independent team in there to look at it, to have a fresh view of it. Well, Christ, nobody wants […]. Guess what? They coughed out the right answer, so you'll never get an independent team in there to take a look at it.

How many people here read In Search of Excellence ¹⁷? […] You need to understand what those informal communications really are. I talked to IBM people and other people. You can't compromise […]. I've been on the other end as a commander of a base the same way. Informal connections. I was getting information, but I didn't let on. No, I just said, somehow I don't feel comfortable. Let's take another look at it. If they resisted me too much, I'd say, well, maybe we better get another team to look at it. You'd be surprised how quickly their views would change.

Remember, […], each guy doesn't want to look bad above, particularly when you have a career mentality. You're worried about the next position up. I want to be sure that, oh, I don't look—well, that means there's some bad information that's not getting there. He may need it. That may be the most important information.

Another example—mine, I know my own—was I had a two-star general when I was a colonel ²⁰. We didn't get along at all. In fact, he hated my guts. I did his too. There were some reasons, but in any case, he said, can I talk to your people when you're not there? I said, of course. […] He said, I may ask them embarrassing questions. I said, ask them any question you want. I couldn't care less. You don't even have to tell me. Sneak in, or anything. I couldn't care less. Send any of your people […].

He thought that was crazy. [Speech unclear.] They might even make a couple of mistakes. So what? If I can't recover from a mistake, I shouldn't have a goddamn job. […]

Of course, what he didn't know, I totally penetrated his organization. As a matter of fact, on the lightweight fighter, if you know how the Air Staff system worked, you had the [Name unclear.], and you had the two-star level of the—what do they call it? I can't remember. Anyway, they have the [Name unclear.], a major-general-level board, Air Staff Board or something. Then they have the Air Council, which is the three-star, with the vice chief and chief […].

When we were going to the lightweight fighter, we did it all by word of mouth, and we had hardly anything down in writing except for money. And we had it totally obscured because there were a lot of generals that were trying to cancel it out. And so we were doing all our design work over the phone so they couldn't track. And they knew what was going on, but they couldn't find it. And we'd siphoned off money from certain accounts ²⁶. Of course, we had to deliver. But we had friends in place.

In fact, that one four-star general told me—he knew what I was doing—he says, publicly I'm going to condemn this operation. But, he said, you give it up, I'll kick you in the ass. Even some of them were on board, even though publicly they had to show a different face.

And so what happened was […]. But then we'd get cleaned out at the Air Council ²⁸. So I was told […]. Okay, great, we'll go through the Air Staff Board and then we'll hook around the Air Council, and give them information on the brief […]. In other words, we'll get it to the chief and some other people on the topside. […] So then we knew that. We got the decisions set up such that they were made above the Air Council.

After the decision was made, I was sent as a briefer to inform them. They thought it was going to be a briefing where they would be able to deliberate upon the decision. I go in there and say, oh, incidentally, this is an information briefing only. The decision was made. We just want to show you why we made the decision. […] It's more fun to take out a superior. Now, I don't advocate that. What I'm trying to say, we didn't take them out per se, but we had to get something done, and they were in the way. And we did have the support […].

We totally penetrated their system. The reason why: the people knew it was the right thing to do, whereas they were making these insane arguments for trying to keep some things […]. They had all these paradoxes […]. But of course, you don't see that. No, that's the kind of thing. So those things do go on.

In fact, this Marine colonel, he had a lot of support inside—they didn't realize it. [Name unclear.] Without this Marine lieutenant colonel, it would not have happened ³⁰. It's true. But see, that thing should have been killed a long time ago. There's some others that are the same way. […] They think it's embarrassing. It's wrong.

Like I tell people, let's say you lay out a theory, and you want to go ahead with it. Just because you have a theory, you go to some previous evidence and that doesn't mean it's all right. You may have something. So eventually you have to test it in a hard world, a world of hard knocks.

And I tell people, you've got to be prepared to be embarrassed by the results of the test. And if you're not prepared for that, you're in the wrong business. Because that's the whole idea: to find those flaws. It's not just saying, oh, nothing's wrong—you look like an idiot ³¹. You've got to be prepared to be embarrassed by the results of the test, or by the experience. That's part of the game.

And if you try to cover it up, and someone knows about it, they're going to use it to your displeasure at the moment you would least like them to use it, like when you're most vulnerable. Ah, we'll get rid of this guy over the side. I just can't emphasize that enough. Very important.

In any case, let's get more pragmatic, why that's important too. And I've already said it before […]. Why? I just said it […]. Then you can start looking inside their operation, make them blind to your operation, then you get […].