Over the years I have run across a number of Australian Operations Research and Historical Analysis efforts. Overall, I have been impressed with what I have seen. Below is one of their papers written by Nigel Perry. He is not otherwise known to me. It is dated December 2011: Applications of Historical Analyses in Combat Modeling
It does address the value of Lanchester equations in force-on-force combat models, which in my mind is already a settled argument (see: Lanchester Equations Have Been Weighed). His is the latest argument that I gather reinforces this point.
The author of this paper references the work of Robert Helmbold and Dean Hartley (see page 14). He does favorably reference the work of Trevor Dupuy but does not seem to be completely aware of the extent or full nature of it (pages 14, 16, 17, 24 and 53). He does not seem to aware that the work of Helmbold and Hartley was both built from a database that was created by Trevor Dupuy’s companies HERO & DMSI. Without Dupuy, Helmbold and Hartley would not have had data to work from.
Specifically, Helmbold was using the Chase database, which was programmed by the government from the original paper version provided by Dupuy. I think it consisted of 597-599 battles (working from memory here). It also included a number of coding errors when they programmed it and did not include the battle narratives. Hartley had Oakridge National Laboratories purchase a computerized copy from Dupuy of what was now called the Land Warfare Data Base (LWDB). It consisted of 603 or 605 engagements (and did not have the coding errors but still did not include the narratives). As such, they both worked from almost the same databases.
Dr. Perrty does take a copy of Hartley’s database and expands it to create more engagements. He says he expanded it from 750 battles (except the database we sold to Harley had 603 or 605 cases) to around 1600. It was estimated in the 1980s by Curt Johnson (Director and VP of HERO) to take three man-days to create a battle. If this estimate is valid (actually I think it is low), then to get to 1600 engagements the Australian researchers either invested something like 10 man-years of research, or relied heavily on secondary sources without any systematic research, or only partly developed each engagement (for example, only who won and lost). I suspect the latter.
Post WWII………….1950……..2008…………118……………….86…………….32
We, of course, did something very similar. We took the Land Warfare Data Base (the 605 engagement version), expanded in considerably with WWII and post-WWII data, proofed and revised a number of engagements using more primarily source data, divided it into levels of combat (army-level, division-level, battalion-level, company-level) and conducted analysis with the 1280 or so engagements we had. This was a much more powerful and better organized tool. We also looked at winner and loser, but used the 605 engagement version (as we did the analysis in 1996). An example of this, from pages 16 and 17 of my manuscript for War by Numbers shows:
Attacker Won:
Force Ratio Force Ratio Percent Attack Wins:
Greater than or less than Force Ratio Greater Than
equal to 1-to-1 1-to1 or equal to 1-to-1
1600-1699 16 18 47%
1700-1799 25 16 61%
1800-1899 47 17 73%
1900-1920 69 13 84%
1937-1945 104 8 93%
1967-1973 17 17 50%
Total 278 89 76%
Defender Won:
Force Ratio Force Ratio Percent Defense Wins:
Greater than or less than Force Ratio Greater Than
equal to 1-to-1 1-to1 or equal to 1-to-1
1600-1699 7 6 54%
1700-1799 11 13 46%
1800-1899 38 20 66%
1900-1920 30 13 70%
1937-1945 33 10 77%
1967-1973 11 5 69%
Total 130 67 66%
Anyhow, from there (pages 26-59) the report heads into an extended discussion of the analysis done by Helmbold and Hartley (which I am not that enamored with). My book heads in a different direction: War by Numbers III (Table of Contents)
When men believe that their chances of survival in a combat situation become less than some value (which is probably quantifiable, and is unquestionably related to a strength ratio or a power ratio), they cannot and will not advance. They take cover so as to obtain some protection, and by so doing they redress the strength or power imbalance. A force with strength y (a strength less than opponent’s strength x) has its strength multiplied by the effect of defensive posture (let’s give it the symbol p) to a greater power value, so that power py approaches, equals, or exceeds x, the unenhanced power value of the force with the greater strength x. It was because of this that [Carl von] Clausewitz–who considered that battle outcome was the result of a mathematical equation[1]–wrote that “defense is a stronger form of fighting than attack.”[2] There is no question that he considered that defensive posture was a combat multiplier in this equation. It is obvious that the phenomenon of the strengthening effect of defensive posture is a combination of physical and human factors.
Dupuy elaborated on his understanding of Clausewitz’s comparison of the impact of the defensive and offensive posture in combat in his book Understanding War.
The statement [that the defensive is the stronger form of combat] implies a comparison of relative strength. It is essentially scalar and thus ultimately quantitative. Clausewitz did not attempt to define the scale of his comparison. However, by following his conceptual approach it is possible to establish quantities for this comparison. Depending upon the extent to which the defender has had the time and capability to prepare for defensive combat, and depending also upon such considerations as the nature of the terrain which he is able to utilize for defense, my research tells me that the comparative strength of defense to offense can range from a factor with a minimum value of about 1.3 to maximum value of more than 3.0.[3]
NOTES
[1] Dupuy believed Clausewitz articulated a fundamental law for combat theory, which Dupuy termed the “Law of Numbers.” One should bear in mind this concept of a theory of combat is something different than a fundamental law of war or warfare. Dupuy’s interpretation of Clausewitz’s work can be found in Understanding War: History and Theory of Combat (New York: Paragon House, 1987), 21-30.
He actually tested his equations to historical data, which are presented in his paper. He ended up coming up with something similar to Lanchester equations but it did not have a square law, but got a similar effect by putting things to the 3/2nds power.
As far as we know, because of the time it was published (June-October 1915), it was not influenced or done with any awareness of work that the far more famous Frederick Lanchester had done (and Lanchester was famous for a lot more than just his modeling equations). Lanchester first published his work in the fall of 1914 (after the Great War had already started). It is possible that Osipov was aware of it, but he does not mention Lanchester. He was probably not aware of Lanchester’s work. It appears to be the case of him independently coming up with the use of differential equations to describe combat attrition. This was also the case with Rear Admiral J. V. Chase, who wrote a classified staff paper for U.S. Navy in 1902 that was not revealed until 1972.
Osipov, after he had written his paper, may have served in World War I, which was already underway at the time it was published. Between the war, the Russian revolutions, the civil war afterwards, the subsequent repressions by Cheka and later Stalin, we do not know what happened to M. Osipov. At the time I was asked by CAA if our Russian research team knew about him. I passed the question to Col. Sverdlov and Col. Vainer and they were not aware of him. It is probably possible to chase him down, but would probably take some effort. Perhaps some industrious researcher will find out more about him.
It does not appear that Osipov had any influence on Soviet operations research or military analysis. It appears that he was ignored or forgotten. His article was re-published in the September 1988 of the Soviet Military-Historical Journal with the propaganda influenced statement that they also had their own “Lanchester.” Of course, this “Soviet Lanchester” was publishing in a Tsarist military journal, hardly a demonstration of the strength of the Soviet system.
While this relationship might appear primarily technological in nature, Dupuy considered it the result of the human factor of fear on the battlefield. He put it in more human terms in a symposium paper from 1989:
There is one basic reason for the dispersal of troops on modern battlefields: to mitigate the lethal effects of firepower upon troops. As Lewis Richardson wrote in The Statistics of Deadly Quarrels, there is a limit to the amount of punishment human beings can sustain. Dispersion was resorted to as a tactical response to firepower mostly because—as weapons became more lethal in the 17th Century—soldiers were already beginning to disperse without official sanction. This was because they sensed that on the bloody battlefields of that century they were approaching the limit of the punishment men can stand.
Soldiers with Battery C, 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division maneuver their Paladins through Hohenfels Training Area, Oct. 26. Photo Credit: Capt. John Farmer, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cav
Last autumn, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley asserted that “we are on the cusp of a fundamental change in the character of warfare, and specifically ground warfare. It will be highly lethal, very highly lethal, unlike anything our Army has experienced, at least since World War II.” He made these comments while describing the Army’s evolving Multi-Domain Battle concept for waging future combat against peer or near-peer adversaries.
It is possible that ground combat attrition in the future between peer or near-peer combatants may be comparable to the U.S. experience in World War II (although there were considerable differences between the experiences of the various belligerents). Combat losses could be heavier. It certainly seems likely that they would be higher than those experienced by U.S. forces in recent counterinsurgency operations.
Dupuy documented a clear relationship over time between increasing weapon lethality, greater battlefield dispersion, and declining casualty rates in conventional combat. Even as weapons became more lethal, greater dispersal in frontage and depth among ground forces led daily personnel loss rates in battle to decrease.
The average daily battle casualty rate in combat has been declining since 1600 as a consequence. Since battlefield weapons continue to increase in lethality and troops continue to disperse in response, it seems logical to presume the trend in loss rates continues to decline, although this may not necessarily be the case. There were two instances in the 19th century where daily battle casualty rates increased—during the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War—before declining again. Dupuy noted that combat casualty rates in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War remained roughly the same as those in World War II (1939-45), almost thirty years earlier. Further research is needed to determine if average daily personnel loss rates have indeed continued to decrease into the 21st century.
Dupuy also discovered that, as with battle outcomes, casualty rates are influenced by the circumstantial variables of combat. Posture, weather, terrain, season, time of day, surprise, fatigue, level of fortification, and “all out” efforts affect loss rates. (The combat loss rates of armored vehicles, artillery, and other other weapons systems are directly related to personnel loss rates, and are affected by many of the same factors.) Consequently, yet counterintuitively, he could find no direct relationship between numerical force ratios and combat casualty rates. Combat power ratios which take into account the circumstances of combat do affect casualty rates; forces with greater combat power inflict higher rates of casualties than less powerful forces do.
Winning forces suffer lower rates of combat losses than losing forces do, whether attacking or defending. (It should be noted that there is a difference between combat loss rates and numbers of losses. Depending on the circumstances, Dupuy found that the numerical losses of the winning and losing forces may often be similar, even if the winner’s casualty rate is lower.)
Dupuy’s research confirmed the fact that the combat loss rates of smaller forces is higher than that of larger forces. This is in part due to the fact that smaller forces have a larger proportion of their troops exposed to enemy weapons; combat casualties tend to concentrated in the forward-deployed combat and combat support elements. Dupuy also surmised that Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s concept of friction plays a role in this. The complexity of interactions between increasing numbers of troops and weapons simply diminishes the lethal effects of weapons systems on real world battlefields.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, higher quality forces (that better manage the ambient effects of friction in combat) inflict casualties at higher rates than those with less effectiveness. This can be seen clearly in the disparities in casualties between German and Soviet forces during World War II, Israeli and Arab combatants in 1973, and U.S. and coalition forces and the Iraqis in 1991 and 2003.
Combat Loss Rates on Future Battlefields
What do Dupuy’s combat attrition verities imply about casualties in future battles? As a baseline, he found that the average daily combat casualty rate in Western Europe during World War II for divisional-level engagements was 1-2% for winning forces and 2-3% for losing ones. For a divisional slice of 15,000 personnel, this meant daily combat losses of 150-450 troops, concentrated in the maneuver battalions (The ratio of wounded to killed in modern combat has been found to be consistently about 4:1. 20% are killed in action; the other 80% include mortally wounded/wounded in action, missing, and captured).
It seems reasonable to conclude that future battlefields will be less densely occupied. Brigades, battalions, and companies will be fighting in spaces formerly filled with armies, corps, and divisions. Fewer troops mean fewer overall casualties, but the daily casualty rates of individual smaller units may well exceed those of WWII divisions. Smaller forces experience significant variation in daily casualties, but Dupuy established average daily rates for them as shown below.
For example, based on Dupuy’s methodology, the average daily loss rate unmodified by combat variables for brigade combat teams would be 1.8% per day, battalions would be 8% per day, and companies 21% per day. For a brigade of 4,500, that would result in 81 battle casualties per day, a battalion of 800 would suffer 64 casualties, and a company of 120 would lose 27 troops. These rates would then be modified by the circumstances of each particular engagement.
Several factors could push daily casualty rates down. Milley envisions that U.S. units engaged in an anti-access/area denial environment will be constantly moving. A low density, highly mobile battlefield with fluid lines would be expected to reduce casualty rates for all sides. High mobility might also limit opportunities for infantry assaults and close quarters combat. The high operational tempo will be exhausting, according to Milley. This could also lower loss rates, as the casualty inflicting capabilities of combat units decline with each successive day in battle.
It is not immediately clear how cyberwarfare and information operations might influence casualty rates. One combat variable they might directly impact would be surprise. Dupuy identified surprise as one of the most potent combat power multipliers. A surprised force suffers a higher casualty rate and surprisers enjoy lower loss rates. Russian combat doctrine emphasizes using cyber and information operations to achieve it and forces with degraded situational awareness are highly susceptible to it. As Zelenopillya demonstrated, surprise attacks with modern weapons can be devastating.
Some factors could push combat loss rates up. Long-range precision weapons could expose greater numbers of troops to enemy fires, which would drive casualties up among combat support and combat service support elements. Casualty rates historically drop during night time hours, although modern night-vision technology and persistent drone reconnaissance might will likely enable continuous night and day battle, which could result in higher losses.
Drawing solid conclusions is difficult but the question of future battlefield attrition is far too important not to be studied with greater urgency. Current policy debates over whether or not the draft should be reinstated and the proper size and distribution of manpower in active and reserve components of the Army hinge on getting this right. The trend away from mass on the battlefield means that there may not be a large margin of error should future combat forces suffer higher combat casualties than expected.
There is a lot of smart writing being published over at The Strategy Bridge. If you don’t follow it, you should. Among the recent offerings is a very good piece by Erik Heftye, a retired Air Force officer and senior military analyst in the U.S. Army’s Mission Command Battle Laboratory at Fort Leavenworth. His article “Multi-Domain Confusion: All Domains Are Not Created Equal,” takes a look at an au courant topic central to the new concept of Multi-Domain Battle (MDB).
Defense grognardshave been grumbling that MDB is just a new term for an old concept. This is true, insofar as it goes. I am not sure this is in dispute. After all, the subtitle of the U.S. Army/U.S. Marine Corps MDB white paper is “Combined Arms For The 21st Century.” However, such comments do raise the issue of whether new terms for old concepts are serving to clarify or cloud current understanding.
This is Heftye’s concern regarding the use of the term domain: “An ambiguous categorization of separate operating domains in warfare could actually pose an intractable conceptual threat to an integrated joint force, which is ironically the stated purpose of multi-domain battle.” Noting the vagueness of the concept, Heftye traces how the term entered into U.S. military doctrine in the 1990s and evolved into the current four physical (land, sea, air, and space) and one virtual (cyberspace) warfighting realms. He then discusses the etymology of the word and how its meanings imply that all of the domains are equivalent in nature and importance. While this makes sense for air, sea, and land, the physical aspects of those domains do not translate to space or cyberspace. He argues that treating them all analogously will inevitably lead to conceptual confusion.
Heftye recommends a solution: “In order to minimize the problem of domain equivalence, a revised construct should distinguish different types of domains in relation to relevant and advantageous warfighting effects. Focusing on effects rather than domains would allow for the elimination of unnecessary bureaucratic seams, gaps, and turf wars.” He offers up a simplified variation of the domain construct that had been published in the superseded 2005 edition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Capstone Concept for Joint Operations, which defined a domain as “any potential operating ‘space’ through which the target system can be influenced—not only the domains of land, sea, air, and space, but also the virtual (information and cyber) and human (cognitive, moral, and social) domains.”
This version not only simplifies by cutting the five existing categories to three, but it also groups like with like. “Land, sea, air, and space are physical domains involving material reality. Cyberspace and information, as well as the electromagnetic spectrum are virtual domains involving sensing and perception. The construct also included a human category involving value judgements.” Heftye acknowledges that looking at domains in terms of effects runs contrary to then-Joint Forces Commander General (and current Defense Secretary) James Mattis’s ban on the use of the Effects Based Operations (EBO) concept by the U.S. military 2008. He also points out that the concept of domains will not be going away anytime soon, either.
Of course, conceptual confusion is not a unique problem in U.S. military doctrine argues Steve Leonard in “Broken and Unreadable: Our Unbearable Aversion to Doctrine,” over at the Modern War Institute at West Point (which is also publishing great material these days). Leonard (aka Doctrine Man!!), a former U.S. Army senior strategist, ruminates about dissatisfaction and discontent with the American “rules of the game.” He offers up a personal anecdote about a popular military staff pastime: defining doctrinal terms.
We also tend to over-define our terminology. Words in common usage since the days of Noah Webster can find new life—and new meaning—in Army doctrine. Several years ago, I endured an hours-long argument among a group of doctrine writers trying to define the term “asymmetric.” The suggestion—after three full hours of debate—that the group consult a dictionary was not well-received.
I have no doubt Erik Heftye feels your pain, Doctrine Man.
Drawing upon an array of sources, including recent Russian military operations, preliminary conceptualizations of MDB, Carl von Clausewitz, J.F.C Fuller, and maneuver warfare theory, Fox takes a crack at shaping the parameters of a doctrine for Multi-Domain Battle (MDB) operations on land. He begins by summarizing how MDB will connect operations to strategy.
Current proponents suggest that [MDB] will occur against peer competitors in contested environments, providing the US Army and its joint partners with a much thinner margin of victory than in the recent past. As such, US forces should look to create zones of proximal dominance to enable the active pursuit of objectives and end states, and that dislocation is the key to defeating an adversary capable of multi-domain operations.
The essence of MDB will be a constant struggle for battlespace dominance, which will be “fleeting, fragile, and prone to shock or surprise.” Achieving temporary dominance only establishes the pre-conditions necessary for closing with and destroying enemy forces, however.
Fox suggests envisioning the cross-domain, combined arms, and individual arms of ground forces (i.e. direct fire weapons, indirect fire weapons, cyber, electronic, information, reconnaissance, et cetera) as “zones of proximal dominance” or “as an orb of power which radiates from a central position.” Long-range weapons perform a protective function and form the outer layers of the zone, while shorter-range weapons constitute the fighting functions.
[O]ne must understand that in multi-domain battle they must first strip away, or dislocate, the protective layers of an enemy’s force in order to destroy its strength, or its inner core. In the cross-domain environment, an enemy’s outer core is its cross-domain and joint capabilities. Therefore, the more of the enemy’s outer can be cleaved away or neutralized, the more success friendly forces will have in defeating the enemy’s main fighting force. Dislocating the outer layers and destroying the inner core will, in essence, defeats the cross-domain enemy.
Dislocation is a concept Fox adopts from maneuver warfare theory as “a critical component of defeating an enemy with cross-domain capabilities because it denies the enemy access to its tools, renders those tools irrelevant, or forces the enemy into environments in which those tools are ill-disposed.”
Fox’s perspective is well informed and logical, but exploration of the implications of MDB are in the earliest stages. The essay is a fascinating and highly-recommended read.
Images of RAND wargames from a 1958 edition of Life magazine. [C3I Magazine]
A friend tipped me off to RAND Corporation‘s “Events @ RAND” podcast series on iTunes, specifically a recent installment titled “The Serious Role of Gaming at RAND.” David Shlapak, senior international research analyst and co-director of the RAND Center for Gaming, gives an overview of RAND’s history and experiences using gaming and simulations for a variety of tasks, including analysis and policy-making.
Shlapak and Michael Johnson touched off a major debate last year after publishing an analysis of the military balance in the Baltic states, based on a series of analytical wargames. Shlapak’s discussion of the effort and the ensuing question and answer session are of interest to both those new to gaming and simulation, as well as wargaming old timers. Much recommended.
We do like to claim we have predicted the casualty rates correctly in three wars (operations): 1) The 1991 Gulf War, 2) the 1995 Bosnia intervention, and 3) the Iraq insurgency. Furthermore, these were predictions make of three very different types of operations, a conventional war, an “operation other than war” (OOTW) and an insurgency.
The Bosnia intervention prediction is discussed in Appendix II of AMW and the Iraq casualty estimate is Chapter 1 and Appendix I.
We like to claim that we are three for three on these predictions. What does that really mean? If the odds of making a correct prediction are 50/50 (the same as a coin toss), then the odds of getting three correct predictions in a row is 12.5%. We may not be particularly clever, just a little lucky.
On the other hand, some might argue that these predictions were not that hard to make, and knowledgeable experts would certainly predict correctly at least two-thirds of the time. In that case the odds of getting three correct predictions in a row is more like 30%.
Still, one notes that there was a lot of predictions concerning the Gulf War that were higher than Trevor Dupuy’s. In the case of Bosnia, the Joint Staff was informed by a senior OR (Operations Research) office in the Army that there was no methodology for predicting losses in an “operation other than war” (AMW, page 309). In the case of the Iraq casualty estimate, we were informed by a director of an OR organization that our estimate was too high, and that the U.S. would suffer less than 2,000 killed and be withdrawn in a couple of years (Shawn was at that meeting). I think I left that out of my book in its more neutered final draft….my first draft was more detailed and maybe a little too “angry”. So maybe, predicting casualties in military operations is a little tricky. If the odds of a correct prediction was only one-in-three, then the odds of getting three correct predictions in a row is only 4%. For marketing purposes, we like this argument better 😉
Hard to say what are the odds of making a correct prediction are. The only war that had multiple public predictions (and of course, several private and classified ones) was the 1991 Gulf War. There were a number of predictions made and we believe most were pretty high. There was no other predictions we are aware of for Bosnia in 1995, other than the “it could turn into another Vietnam” ones. There are no other predictions we are aware of for Iraq in 2004, although lots of people were expressing opinions on the subject. So, it is hard to say how difficult it is to make a correct prediction in these cases.
P.S.: Yes, this post was inspired by my previous post on the Stanley Cup play-offs.
The recent commitment by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to developing the concept of multi-domain battle led me to wonder: is this going to re-ignite the currently-dormant-but-unresolved debate over maneuver vs. attrition in American land warfare thinking? Will long-range precision fires and cross-domain targeting change the relationship between fire and maneuver in modern combat tactics? With an emphasis on fires of the kinetic and non-kinetic variety as the remedy to the challenge of anti-access/area denial capabilities and strategies, are multi-domain warfare theorists swinging the pendulum to the side of attrition?
What Is The Role of Maneuver In Multi-Domain Battle?
Consider this description of the Army’s conception of multi-domain battle offered by General David G. Perkins, Commander, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command:
[F]uture multifunctional Army fires units will provide the joint task force with a single unit combining surface-to-surface (land and maritime), surface-to-air, electromagnetic, and cyberspace cross-domain fires. These fires formations integrate with emerging Navy, Air Force, Marine and special operations forces capabilities to provide the commander multiple resilient options for striking the enemy and covering joint force maneuver.
At the same time, ground forces with improved maneuver and close combat capabilities allow the joint force to overwhelm or infiltrate dispersed enemy formations concealed from joint targeting and fires. A joint force containing effective ground forces requires the enemy to expose their dispersed forces to defeat in ground combat, face destruction from joint fires if they concentrate, or the loss of key terrain if they displace.
Future Army and Marine tactical ground maneuver units will combine sufficient cross-domain fires capability to enable decentralized ground maneuver and the creation of durable domain windows for the joint force with the mobility, lethality and protection to close with and destroy enemy ground forces in close combat. With combined arms pushed to the lowest practical level, these units will be flexible and resilient with the ability to operate in degraded conditions and with sufficient endurance to sustain losses and continue operations for extended periods and across wide areas.
The Army clearly sees maneuver to be an integral part of multi-domain battle, with an emphasis on closing with enemy forces to engage in close combat. However, it seems to me that the same technological changes that are prompting consideration of the new concept raise some questions:
Is the ability to take and hold ground an anachronism in anti-access/area-denial environments?
Will the purpose of maneuver be to force enemy ground maneuver elements to expose themselves to targeting by long-range precision fires? Or will maneuver mean movement to advantageous long-range precision firing positions, particularly if targeting across domains?
Is an emphasis on technological determinism reducing the capabilities of land combat units to just what they shoot?
The Maneuver Warfare Debate
Such questions seem sure to renew debates regarding the relationship between fire and maneuver in U.S. land warfare doctrine. The contemporary concept of maneuver warfare emerged in the early 1980s, as military and civilian practitioners and thinkers in the U.S. and the NATO countries came to grips with the challenges posed by Soviet military power in Europe. Inspired by the tactical and operational successes of the German Army during World War II, William Lind, John Boyd, Robert Leonhard, and Richard Simpkin, among others, drew upon a variety of American, British, German, and even Soviet sources to fashion a concept that established maneuver and attrition as distinct forms of warfare. In this telling, the First World War had been dominated by an overemphasis on the attritional effects of firepower, which yielded only bloody positional stalemate. In response, the Germans innovated new tactics to restore maneuver to the battlefield, which when combined with tanks and aircraft, led to their spectacular “blitzkrieg” victories in World War II. Their adversaries learned and adapted in turn, and developed maneuver doctrines of their own that helped defeat the Germans.
Maneuver warfare theories informed development of the U.S. Army’s AirLand Battle concept and operational doctrine of the late 1980s. The U.S. Marine Corps also integrated maneuver warfare into its doctrine in the 1997 edition of its capstone manual, MCDP-1 Warfighting. The idea of a maneuver style of warfare had plenty of critics, however. By the early 1990s, the Army had settled for a balance between maneuver and firepower in its combat doctrine. Debates and discussions about deep operations persisted into the late 1990s, but were preempted in large measure by the shift to irregular warfare and counterinsurgency after September 11, 2001. U.S. land warfare doctrine did get a brief test during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but the woefully outclassed Iraq Army was quickly and decisively overwhelmed by American combat power, yielding few insights into future warfare against peer or near-peer opponents.
Despite the official enthusiasm of the Army and Marine Corps, there are many aspects of the concept of multi-domain warfare that will need to be worked out if it is to become a viable combat doctrine and not simply justification for development of new weapons. One task will be to overcome the suspicions of the sister services that it is merely a gambit in the ongoing interservice budget battles. (Similar skepticism dogs the associated Third Offset Strategy.) Developing a better sense of exactly how long-range precision fires, cyber and information operations, and other innovative technologies might affect ground combat would be a good place to start.
