On Tactics Read online

  The Principles of War

  The most common system in use for the tactician to use in evaluating the various sources of tactical advice at his disposal is a list known as the principles of war. Although there are a few principles that seem to make an appearance on nearly every list, there is no one definitive list. Perhaps the earliest example of tactical recommendations arranged in such a manner is Napoleon Bonaparte’s list of six: objective, mass, offensive, security, surprise, and movement.

  The most influential theorist to codify principles of war was, unsurprisingly, Clausewitz. He did so in two works. First, he used them in his The Most Important Principles for the Conduct of War to Complement My Instruction to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, a pamphlet written when Clausewitz was tutor to the crown prince of Prussia as advice to the future ruler.8 Second, he revised them and included chapters on some of them in On War, which he wrote later in his life.

  In Principles, Clausewitz wastes little time with discussion but immediately presents the reader with the factors that must be taken into account for a theory of warfare. These include physical, material, and moral factors. In the first section, he refers to tactics as the “theory of combat.”9 In this early work, he has already adopted the division between a theory of tactics and a theory of strategy. Although this work is replete with ideas that will later appear in On War, it is far less organized than the later work. Various tactical recommendations appear throughout, but are not organized around the later terms he will use in On War. Even so, it is easy to see the germinating seeds of later concepts such as mass and economy of force.

  Although Clausewitz never finished On War, it is the final distillation of his ideas. Some of the principles are most recognizable in Book 3 titled, “On Strategy in General,” but the principles in use today could be almost entirely derived from this chapter and other selections from On War. Maneuver, for example, appears later. The indirect approach, a concept that would later form the entire strategic conception of British theorist Sir Basil Liddell Hart, is pithily summed up in one paragraph of Clausewitz’s book.10

  Although Clausewitz has been accused of being the Mahdi of mass, that is not even his first principle—that place belongs to boldness. Clausewitz’s ideas on each of his principles will be discussed at greater length in later chapters but it is important to point out that his principles were not merely scientific or physical and that principles cannot be used as a checklist or strict recipe. In the words of Jon Sumida, “Clausewitz recognizes the existence of principles of war, such as concentration of force, but he uses them as points of reference rather than standards of measure. In other words, the proper use of principles is to facilitate the understanding of the character of particular situations, not to serve as general instructions for action.”11

  In the twentieth century French general Ferdinand Foch published a book titled The Principles of War (first published in 1903). Foch’s system consisted of four major principles: economy of power, freedom of action, free disposal of power, and protection.12 Although Foch’s ideas were popular before World War I, his system seemed less relevant after that conflict.

  Despite their earlier appearance, the true father of the principles as we know them today is J. F. C. Fuller. In his work The Foundations of the Science of War, Fuller made the principles the centerpiece of his strategic vision.13 His list went through several formulations during his career, but he eventually settled on direction, concentration, distribution, determination, surprise, endurance, mobility, offensive action, and security. Importantly, he divided his principles along what he alternately called “the Threefold Nature of Man” or the “the Threefold Organization of Man.”14 This threefold organization was physical, mental, and moral: that is, man consisted of a body, a brain or mind, and a soul. Fuller then presented principles of the physical sphere, principles of the mental sphere, and principles of the moral sphere. After Fuller’s codification, lists of the principles of war proliferated, although many different versions were produced. What did not proliferate was his conception of the principles along physical, mental, and moral lines.

  Along with their continued use by theorists, the principles have made their way into the military doctrinal publications of nearly every military since Fuller’s time. The lists simultaneously show wide variety and remarkable consistency. Mass, for example, appears on nearly every list although it is sometimes referred to as concentration or depth. Surprise is another common principle as well as various forms of economy—of force, of effort, and so on. The problem with the various lists that appear in doctrine is a typical lack of discussion about how the principles work. Each is described, but the underlying logic is usually missing. The principles are therefore presented more as a checklist ready for memorization rather than an analytical device such as Clausewitz intended. Astonishingly, in JP-1 Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, the principles of war are presented in a diagram without a single word of exposition or explanation.15 Not even definitions of each principle are presented. The nature of the principles is lost and no context is offered to help tacticians understand their use. Adm. J. C. Wylie, in his book Military Strategy, called the use of the principles as rules as “logical nonsense” and wrote, “Worship of any such patter as the ‘principles of war’ is an unaware substitution of slogan for thought, probably brought about by the intellectual formlessness that must inevitably exist when there is no orderly and disciplined pattern of fundamental theory from which one consciously or unconsciously takes departure.”16 The lack of a theoretical tactical system produces this confusion and makes the principles all but useless.

  Another problem with the principles of war post-Fuller is their inflation. The principles used by Napoleon and others and put forth by Clausewitz and his successors were methods used to defeat the enemy on the battlefield. They were simple and few. As time went by, more and more were added and the principles began to encompass more than just defeating an enemy in battle, making them less and less useful to the tactician. Eventually the U.S. military added joint principles that are of import to the strategist but of little use to the tactician.17 Too many principles are posited with too little amplifying information.

  The confusion caused by this feast and famine presentation along with their continual inflation is evident in Robert Leonhard’s The Principles of War for the Information Age. In it, Leonhard weighs the doctrinal principles of war in use by the U.S. Army at the time and finds them wanting: “We point to successful armies that didn’t mass, and we claim that they ‘massed effects.’ We consider victorious warriors who won while on the strategic defense, and we point to their occasional use of offensive tactics to prove the efficacy of ‘Offensive.’ We view the enormous complexity of Operation Just Cause or Desert Storm and yet claim that they were true to the principle of ‘Simplicity.’ We point to disunited, successful armies as proof of ‘Unity of Command.’ We permit the most dull-witted frontal attack to prove ‘Maneuver.’ . . . As long as they work.”18

  Leonhard then proceeds to lay out a vision of a revolution in military affairs (RMA) and dismisses the principles as too old and thus no longer relevant, replacing them with new principles based on his expectation of a change in the nature of war based on the information revolution.

  Leonhard’s frustration is a function of how he and many others think about the principles. Leonhard expects a scientific, mechanical application of the principles: Mass + Maneuver = Victory. If these principles do not work in this simplistic manner, then they should be discarded. Yet not even Jomini, whom Clausewitz criticized for attempting to apply immutable scientific principles to war, claimed that the principles operate as Leonhard expects them to operate.19

  Leonhard’s RMA never occurred. Or if it did, it was quickly beheaded by a warrior in sandals holding an AK-47 and fighting for the return of a seventh-century caliphate. What he and other theorists missed is the underlying timelessness of Clausewitz’s framework, which included the overriding power of mora
l forces and the pervasive presence of probability and chance. This tradition was continued by theorists such as Ardant du Picq and J. F. C. Fuller, but many theorists such as Leonhard and the technology-focused militaries of the post–Industrial Revolution era forgot the essential moral nature of combat and leaned toward a more scientific and geometrical conception of tactics along the lines of Jomini.

  One exception to that trend is Col. John Boyd, United States Air Force. Boyd is better known for other ideas, but a central part of his conception of strategy is the use of Fuller’s physical, mental, and moral spheres. Boyd believed that one must attack the enemy on all three of these planes simultaneously.20

  Physical represents the world of matter–energy–information all of us are a part of, live in, and feed upon.

  Mental represents the emotional/intellectual activity we generate to adjust to, or cope with, that physical world.

  Moral represents the cultural codes of conduct or standards of behavior that constrain, as well as sustain and focus, our emotional/intellectual responses.21

  Boyd believed that any organization, military or otherwise, must interact with its environment on a physical, mental, and moral basis and that achieving victory in war requires that the enemy be physically, mentally, and morally isolated from this interaction. The physical, mental, and moral spheres will be explored in greater detail later, and our concern is strictly with Boyd’s ideas at the tactical level, but suffice it to say that Boyd continued and indeed expanded on Fuller’s threefold nature idea when it comes to combat.

  Boyd is better seen as a member of the artistic school of theorists that include Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, du Picq, Fuller, and others rather than a more scientific school. To be sure, both the artistic school and the scientific school blend together at points. Clausewitz’s On War is highly scientific in its conception, as were Boyd’s presentations; even Jomini eventually admitted the importance of moral factors in combat. The distinction is important because the art/science duality of war is essential to understanding the nature of the principles of war.

  The division is typified by the major doctrinal developments of the 1990s and early 2000s. On one hand, many theorists believed that the information revolution would bring about an RMA, as mentioned above. The essential ideas of the RMA were that technology—specifically ever developing communications technology, digitization, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles—would obviate the “fog of war” and probability and chance. The RMA’s tactical expression was effects-based operations or network-centric warfare. Another group of thinkers believed that the uncertainty and probability in war could not be obviated through technology, but believed that their effects could best be mitigated through decentralized decision-making and training combat forces to out maneuver—rather than simply destroy—enemy forces. This approach is exemplified by MCDP: 1: Warfighting, the capstone U.S. Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP).

  Like war itself, combat has an immutable nature. It remains, underlying the actions of combatants across the centuries. Combat is a contest between people or groups of people intent on destroying each other. It is violent, tragic, horrifying, and exhilarating. It follows that theory must account for the nature of combat across the centuries as well.

  While the nature of combat does not change, its character does. Clausewitz compared war to a chameleon whose outward appearance changes despite the fact that it remains a chameleon. Warfare shares this dynamic, which explains why the ambush was an effective tactic in the ancient world and remains so today. In 340 BC, on the island of Sicily, a Carthaginian army comprising their most elite troops was marching toward Syracuse, a Greek colony in southeastern Sicily. The Syracusans ambushed the Carthaginians in a narrow defile from high ground while the latter were attempting to cross a river. The Carthaginians were annihilated.22 Today, the ambush is the preferred tactic among the Taliban in Afghanistan and other insurgents around the world. The underlying principles that make the ambush effective—surprise, maneuver, firepower, and mass, to name a few—are of warfare’s timeless nature even though the character of the ambushes changes. Javelins and arrows were exchanged for rifle bullets and rocket-propelled grenades, but ancient Syracusans and modern Pashtuns use the same ideas to win tactical engagements.

  The Nature of the Principles: Principles of Battle

  There are several essential concepts of the nature of warfare to understand how the principles work.

  First, they are not principles of war at all. In fact, they are more accurately called principles of battle. Antulio J. Echevarria II writes, “A way of war implies a war focus, which in turn necessitates a holistic view of conflict, one that grasps how—in the atmosphere of violence that is war—political, social, economic, and military activities may contribute to, or detract from, the accomplishment of preferred ends.”23 The principles are far too simplistic to be applied to war as a whole. It follows, then, that they are principles of tactics.

  The principles would be even more useful if they were restricted further. Some of them are not tactics but simply pervasive good ideas. A tactical engagement is not won through simplicity, although it is generally a good idea to utilize simple plans where appropriate. A complex plan that arranges numerous tactics may defeat a simple plan. For example, a solid defensive scheme that utilizes mass, depth, and interlocking firepower is an exceedingly complex undertaking. A direct assault of such a defensive scheme, while simple, is almost sure to fail if the defenders are adroit enough in their execution. This does not mean the principles should be discarded, but it does imply that our modern conception of them is flawed.

  Probability and Chance

  One of the most important ideas put forth by Clausewitz in On War is the pervasive presence of probability and chance in war. In fact, in his three-part conception of war—known as the trinity—probability and chance are the second. He also mentions that probability and chance “mainly concerns the commander and his army.”24 Tactical deployments can never be a sure thing. Military history is replete with examples of outnumbered or outgunned forces winning battles and engagements that, on paper, they should not have been able to win.

  This idea’s application for the principles is key. The utilization of tactical principles such as mass or surprise raise the probability of success but they do not guarantee it. Combining more than one principle raises the probability of success exponentially. It is, however, important for tacticians and strategists to realize that 100 percent probability is an impossibility. Niccolò Machiavelli, a Renaissance-era theorist, used the Roman goddess Fortuna to discuss the randomness of chance affecting human events. The tactician must remember as he plans that the enemy always gets a vote—and so does Fortuna.

  A New Conception: Tactical Tenets

  There are a few problems then with the principles of war that this work intends to correct. Through proliferation, expansion, and modification the principles of war drifted away from their original intent and conception. Classic theorists intended them as a list of tactical methods that would increase the probability of success in battle but not guarantee it. They were not intended to be applied at the strategic level, although the word “strategy” appears alongside them frequently before its modern definition calcified. Unmoored from their context, the principles were expanded in random directions.

  To fix this, we reintroduce their nature in that they are subject to war’s probability in chance and that they are tactical-level methods and not strategic. We reattach them to the planes on which we interact with our enemy: the physical, the mental, and the moral. When the principles are subject once again to their nature, we must examine how they connect to the overall strategy to which they are subject and contribute. This will hopefully provide a theoretical framework—or at least the beginnings of one—to assist both tacticians and strategists in thinking about, studying, and planning tactics. The physicist Stephen Hawking has described the field of physics as divided between two theories used for different examinations. The fi
rst is the general theory of relativity which applies to large objects; basically anything that can be seen with the naked eye. The second is quantum mechanics, which applies to “phenomena on extremely small scales, such as a millionth of a millionth of an inch.”25 Clausewitz and other major strategic theorists provide us with the equivalent of the general theory of relativity for war. There is, however, no equivalent of quantum mechanics that provides a theory of the granular level of war, or a theory to explain victory on the battlefield.

  Conclusion

  The rest of this book, then, is an attempt to provide that theory of quantum mechanics, a theory of warfare to complement war’s general theory of relativity as explained best by Clausewitz. It is built on a restricted set of tactical principles focused on one object: victory on the battlefield. Those tenets are organized by their use in physical, mental, and moral planes of conflict. Once we have explored how to achieve victory, we will explore the meaning of victory, and finally its use. This will lead us to tactical concepts that expand on the tactical tenets. Finally, we will explore the need to connect tactics to policy through the use of strategy. It is, in short, a humble attempt at a unified theory of tactics. The tactician is not a technician, but his tools have been misappropriated and misused by those who believe he is. This work is an attempt to retake them.