Category Archives: Theory

Home of Mahan, Corbett, and modern naval theory.

The Foundations of Innovation (Part 1 of 5) – A Model of Innovative Change

October 22, 2014 Guest Author 2 Comments

How should we scope and understand the dynamic processes behind innovation, in order to better set ourselves up for success? Stealing from John Boyd’s formulation of “people, ideas, and hardware”, let’s add some more nuance, and consider a simple and universal model of change in social systems. We’ll start by artificially separating the world into three basic categories: groups (bureaucracy, incentives, processes, etc), ideas (doctrine, concepts, narratives, etc) and tools (tech, infrastructure, etc), and simulate them evolving and interacting with each other on a left to right timeline.

Figure 1. A General Model of Change and Innovation

Successful Innovation springs from the mutual evolution of ideas, groups, and tools, with each influencing the adaptation of the others in no particular order or precedence, but rather by building upon each other iteratively and simultaneously. Let’s look at each component in detail:

IDEAS – Ideas are both the reason groups are formed, and are the genesis of our tools. If the nature of warfare is constant, as most modern strategists advocate, it is because the basic ideas inherent to human nature (including many tacit ones) have stayed constant over the millennia. Ideas set the context for what we do with our tools, and drives the formation and modification of our groups.

TOOLS – Even as the nature of war stays constant, its character is constantly changing mostly due to advances in these. Tools are born from ideas, but they also make new ideas and group social structures possible.

GROUPS – Groups define how we blend both ideas and tools in order to cooperate and adapt to the environment collectively. The way groups are structured through norms, rules, and bureaucracy determines how easily some ideas and tools develop and flourish, and can alternately decide which ones attenuate or disappear. Groups effectively act as the “throttles” of human societal evolution through the predictability and synergy that they make possible by focusing the efforts of many individuals towards common purposes. They also provoke conflict when the identities and aspirations of separate groups come in conflict with one another in ways that cannot be reconciled through compromise or toleration.

Engineering Innovation – How Strategic Agility is Created

We create strategic agility when we actively invest in improvements in all three of the areas mentioned above, and look for new possibilities in each specific area that will help us to release the full potential of the others. We also achieve agility by exploring multiple alternatives in each area, creating the adaptive variety needed to respond to emerging challenges that we won’t be able to fully anticipate. Then when the future presents itself, we have invested in the ideas, groups, and tools we need to cope. To innovate successfully, you have to innovate in all three areas, not just the most familiar or tangible ones.

But there’s a catch…

What we imagine happens – We like to think that there’s a smooth interchange between innovations in the three areas, that Moore’s law will grant us continuous returns in speed and power, that progress will continue upwards on a steady slope, and that the exchange between the three areas will keep pace with each other.

What really happens – In truth, we often see advances in one area without a commensurate advance in the others, creating imbalances that often lead to unpredictable and undesirable results. In many ways we’ve designed “Tools 3.0”, but are still stuck with the old ways of thinking, and the old bureaucratic structures.

We will talk about how and why this happens this week on DEF and the Bridge, and what we can do to maintain a healthy balance between innovations in all three areas.

Conclusion

Innovation is optional, but change is not. As Williamson Murray admonishes us in Adaptation in War (With Fear of Change):

It is clear that we live in an era of increasingly rapid technological change. The historical lesson is equally clear: US military forces are going to have to place increasing emphasis on realistic innovation in peacetime and swift adaptation in combat. This will require leaders who understand war and its reality as well as the implications of technological change. Imagination and intellectual qualities will be as important as the specific technical and tactical details of war making. The great challenge here is how to inculcate those qualities widely in the officer corps.

We’ll use our examination of the three components of the innovation model to help determine what those qualities are, and how we can promote them within our own organizations, even as junior members in the corporate process.

Bottom line: Those who fail to innovate will be left in the dust kicked up by those who do. It’s our duty to be successful innovators – and advocates for the constructs and concepts that lead to successful innovation in groups – lest we forfeit the legacy of freedom and self-determination that those who came before us fought, bled, and died for. You can’t just choose your favorite part of the model and expect that your problems will be solved – if you’re not innovating in all three areas simultaneously, you’re setting yourself up for even more unpredictability, unanticipated systemic consequences and vulnerabilities, expensive projects with little return on investment, and an increased possibility of a catastrophic failure in some situations.

Next in the series: We’ll continue with a deep dive into each component of the model, starting with Ideas.

Strategic Outlook, Theory

The Future of Maritime Security Studies

September 5, 2014 Guest Author 1 Comment

As part of the Fourth Global International Studies Conference held in Frankfurt (Germany) 6-9 August 2014, a series of panels was organized on Maritime Securityscapes. One of the events was a roundtable on the future of the emerging, informal subdiscipline “Maritime Security Studies”, a rapidly growing field of analysis and research. The participants were asked to provide their comments along four broad questions. The following is one participant’s input to provide food for thought and a better understanding of maritime security as an academic field of interest and study.

Frankfurt, site of the 4th WISC Global International Studies Conference (source: wikipedia).

What are the most pressing and important questions that Maritime Security Studies (MSS) need to answer?

There are four immediate aspects to this, two of which are more inward-looking and two of which are more outward-directed. First, students of maritime security must better utilize the momentum of conditions that are in favor of the thrust of the field (e.g., the littoralization of security, the maritime [and indeed naval] dimensions of climate change, the hypothesis of the increasing utility of naval forces in future conflict scenarios, the recent publication of a cross-sectoral European Maritime Security Strategy, etc.). Second, maritime security scholars must consider, and learn to mitigate, condisations that are seemingly at odds with the thrust of the field (e.g., current land-centric conflicts, continental geopolitical and strategic thinking in policy-making circles, etc.).

Third, there must be a consistent evaluation of the contemporary relevance of maritime security, especially in light of what will come after “anti-piracy”. The naval operations off the Horn of Africa have locked the theme of security at and from the sea in the minds of many policy-makers and analysts to the degree that maritime security is often seen as exclusively about counter-piracy. Naturally, this self-imposed limitation is neither desirable nor practical. Here, it is especially the strategic-minded researchers that have an obligation to make decision-makers aware of the broad security dimensions of the maritime sphere. While they cannot prevent the career of certain terms, they should at least attempt to manage it properly. Fourth, maritime security students must consider how policy-makers can be convinced that investments in maritime security capabilities and capacities at home and aboard is beneficial. This relates to the challenge of doing critical and pragmatic studies: traditional security studies are increasingly dominated and even overpowered by constructivist approaches.

What issues should be prioritized? What are the top priorities?

As with many fields of study, the top three priorities are funding, funding, and funding. Beyond stating this obvious desire, there appears to be the need to sharpen arguments and understanding of the subject matter “Maritime Security”. For example, in Germany, “maritime security” (“maritime Sicherheit”) has become an all-encompassing term, meaing all kinds of things to all kinds of people. From a naval perspective, “maritime security” usually means just one set of missions among many others (for the U.S. Navy as laid out in the most recent U.S. Navy strategy “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower” from 2007; for the German Navy by default, i.e. the operational experience in counter-terrorism and anti-piracy operations since 2002/2008).

Disciples of the emerging field of study should also not forget to look at the field from a commercial and naval perspective. The defense industry, after all, is increasingly looking at littoral security and the emerging maritime safety and security missions, fishery surveillance, counter-piracy, drug interdiction, environmental protection, humanitarian aid, and SAR. Commercial shipping companies are increasingly looking at security in the littoral areas, the ports, and the choke point regions. This offers critical and pragmatic scholars an excellent starting point to link their academic work and insight with influence on actual events and developments.

Scholars should also consider to revive and revitalize the concepts of seapower/sea power in their institutional, function, and geographic dimensions (as British naval strategy dean Geoff Till reminded us once, sea power is something that certain states, or seapowers, have). In addition, it behooves to freshen up on the three uses of the sea for navies (developed by Ken Booth in 1977 and Eric Grove in 1990): diplomatic, constabulary, and military.

Boundaries are a necessary evil. — Boundaries are a necessary evil, but they help to frame our analytical approaches.

What are the convergences between academic and policy needs in maritime security? Are there shared gaps and how could these be addressed?

The effects of sea power and the policies that make and shape it must ultimately be felt ashore. The same goes for maritime security studies; there are inherent limits to bemoaning “sea blindness” again and again. Policy and maritime security studies both need a better understanding and appreciation of the value and virtue of naval power, and the opportunities of naval forces (presence, flexibility, versatiltiy, modularity, speed, crisis response, etc.). To that end, Maritime Security Studies disciples must learn to embrace navies (even if it means learning some dreaded military lingo and going to acronym hell and back). Navies, in turn, should learn to reach out to the academia and ask hard questions and demand sustainable answers and solutions. Whereas many navies are more about operations than about strategy, and policy-makers often confront a whole host of demands and pressures that keep them from thinking (and acting) strategically, the ultimate goal must be a closer linkage between naval officers, policy-makers, and maritime security students. Those in every field that reach out to the other two players must be identified, and the relationship could even be deepend by way of reserve duty in a navy for civilians and academic fellowships for naval officers).

The secret fantasy of the Maritime Security Studies analyst.

How can the new maritime security studies be strengthened? What institutions will we need to undertake research collaboratively?

From a German perspective, there isn’t a single definitive center of gravity for maritime security (especially strategic) intellecutal thought, although there are a number of institutions that could collaboratively engage in maritime security studies (such as the Future Ocean cluster in Kiel, the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, and the University of the German Armed Forces). Maritime Security Studies can only be strengthened in a comprehensive manner. Geramns love the comprehensive approach but too often quickly turn a blind eye toward the indispensable military component of that approach. This requires a mapping of institutions and actors who are into the subject. The Institute for Security Policy in Kiel, with its demonstrated experience in third-party research projects and maritime security and naval strategy expertise (one PhD completed in 2009, one to be completed this year, three more due between 2015 and 2018) would be another natural player. Last, but certainly not least, the Center for International Maritime Security itself could play a role.

What are plausible next steps for Maritime Security Studies?

There should be a drive for greater institutionalization of the field through dedicated conferences, journals, university chairs, summer schools (one such event was recently organized in Greece), M.A. and PhD courses, etc. There could be a biennial maritime security studies conference – not unlike the McMullen Naval History Symposium in Annapolis, MD – that brings together experts and students from different fields (e.g., naval strategy, recent naval history, etc.). The subject at hand is interesting and exciting enough to explore more dimensions and collaboratively engage in visits on ships, war games and simulations, etc.). In the end, the goal must be to move from maritime case studies such as the dominating anti-piracy operations to the larger trends.

Sebastian Bruns is a Research Fellow at the University of Kiel’s Institute for Political Science/Institute for Security Policy. He holds an M.A. in North American Studies (U of Bonn 2007). The views he presented in Frankfurt and here are his own.

Asia-Pacific, History, Theory

The Geographic Limits of National Power

July 25, 2014 Guest Author 1 Comment

It is surprising that in the fine group of “personal theory of power” essays CIMSEC ran jointly with The Bridge May-June, no author selected strategic geography as a subject source. Despite advances from steam power to cyber communications that have reduced the relative size of the world, large geographic obstacles like the Hindu Kush mountain range in Afghanistan and vast empty space of the Indian Ocean continue to cause trouble for even the most powerful states.

Geopolitical theorists from Sir Halford Mackinder to journalist Robert Kaplan have warned of the pitfalls of ignoring geography in strategic calculations and estimates of national power. Successful great powers always included strategic geography in their deliberations up through and including the period of the Second World War. The advent of a muscular and well resourced Cold War, buttressed by an arsenal of advanced nuclear and conventional weapons convinced many U.S. decision-makers that strategic geography was a concept of the 19th rather than the 20th century. The Kennedy administration completed this break with the past in its implementation of the doctrine of “Flexible Response” as the cornerstone of U.S. strategic thought. As stated in Kennedy’s inaugural speech, the United States would employ its vast technological and financial resources to “support any friend” and “oppose any foe” regardless of geographic relationship to U.S. strategic interests. Despite the debacle of the Vietnam War, the U.S. was largely able to continue this policy until the very recent past.

Now, a combination of decreasing military budgets, a smaller armed force, and public disinterest in supporting causes not directly tied to U.S. interests demands that the U.S. return to a rigorous practice of geopolitical calculation. It must exercise discipline in determining how, where and when to commit military forces in defense of national interest. The examples of Afghanistan and the Indian Ocean demonstrate the fundamental limits geography can impose on national power. They also illustrate an important law in geostrategic analysis. A nation may overcome geographic barriers like the Hindu Kush or the Indian Ocean, but such an achievement requires technological and financial commitment. If such effort is not sustained, geographic limitations will again impose their effects.

The cases of conflicts in Afghanistan and control of the Indian Ocean over history illustrate the limits geography exposes on national power. Isolated by a series of geographic barriers including the Hindu Kush mountain range, Afghanistan remains a remote location. Its unique series of mountain passes in key locations has drawn Eurasian conquerers from the dawn of history. These men and their armies came not so much to capture Afghanistan, but rather to control these mountain passes that form a virtual “roundabout” for transiting in and around Central Asia. Control of Afghanistan throughout history has meant easy access to Iran, the Indian subcontinent and northern Central Asia.

Afghanistan’s false reputation as a “graveyard of empire” comes not so much from it’s inhabitants who seem to habitually resist any attempts at outside control, but rather the problem of maintaining a large force in such a remote region. Western armies from Alexander the Great to the present U.S. and NATO force in the country have had to create a long, tortuous, and expensive supply line into or though Afghanistan in order to sustain their military operations there or in adjacent lands. Alexander, British imperial forces in three wars, and now American and NATO forces have always crushed Afghan resistance and have been able to maintain a reasonable amount of control within the region. They have departed only when deprived of the economic support that provides the technological edge to their warfighting and logistics capabilities. A nation can maintain an army of many thousands in Afghanistan, provided that power or group of powers is willing to fly in supplies or negotiate their delivery through unfriendly states over long and difficult overland routes. Now that financial support for the technological effort necessary to sustain a large Western force in Afghanistan is failing, the limits of geography are again re-imposing themselves on the remote Central Asian region.

The Indian Ocean has equally proved itself a vast and relatively remote space from the early 1400’s when Chinese Admiral Zheng He sailed its waters seeking trade and building Chinese influence to recent, frustrating efforts to located missing Malaysian Air Flight 370. When the Chinese Ming dynasty decided to forgo further Zheng He voyages in 1424, either for economic reasons, an intensified Mongol threat, or just superstition (the accounts vary), geographic limits returned with later, deadly results for the Chinese empire. Nascent European powers like Portugal, the Netherlands, and the British were able to penetrate and control the Indian Ocean and its key chokepoint connections to the Pacific. In just 200 years, the once omnipotent Chinese Empire found its coastline controlled by powerful European naval forces. The Chinese failure to appreciate the geographic limits of seapower caused the near-dismemberment and wreck of the Chinese state.

The British Empire also lost control of the Indian Ocean when it failed to either fully fund its naval presence there or fully implement a technological solution to mitigate funding shortfalls. A series of Royal Air Force (RAF) facilities, originally conceived to support air policing of imperial holdings became a crucial element of British efforts to control the Indian Ocean in spite of reduced naval expenditures. This network of RAF installations became even more important after the Second World War as the strength of the Royal Navy (RN) plummeted and newer, longer-ranged aircraft could patrol wider areas of ocean, especially when equipped with radar. The British finally abandoned this network of installations in the 1970’s as their naval presence in Singapore came to an end. When this happened, the limits of geography were re-imposed and the Indian Ocean again became a relatively un-patrolled open space. This vacuum of power allowed the Soviet Navy to enter the Indian Ocean with nuclear cruise missile submarines and threaten U.S. forces in transit, as well as Australian interests.

The United States would do well to respect these examples of geographic limits, as significant financial restraints limit future U.S. military efforts. Extreme geographic disadvantage can be overcome by a combination of financial and technological solutions. In the absence of such effort however, geographic limitations again impose effects and limit the exercise of national power. With a shift in U.S. attention to the large Indo-Pacific region, geographic obstacles to the exercise of U.S. power will require innovative, well funded technological solutions. The U.S. must fund these efforts, such as improved unmanned platforms, better offensive and defensive capabilities for naval units and improved space-based surveillance of the region. Neglecting such actions will create significant geographic barriers to the exercise of U.S. national power in the Indo-Pacific region.

Steve Wills is a retired surface warfare officer and a PhD student in military history at Ohio University. His focus areas are modern U.S. naval and military reorganization efforts and British naval strategy and policy from 1889-1941. He posts here at CIMSEC, sailorbob.com and at informationdissemination.org under the pen name of “Lazarus”.

Theory

Army’s Strategy Education Lessons for the Navy

July 24, 2014 Guest Author 4 Comments

By: Bowen Vernan, Navy Helicopter Pilot

In May 2013, Chief of the Army, General Ray Odierno stood in a small DC area ballroom in front of a few dozen graduates and their families. Central to the crowd were several Army Captains and recently minted Majors as well as the 2013 Class of the Institute for World Politics. General Odierno and the US Army were both familiar friends with IWP, having participated in speaking engagements and sending dozens of students through the tiny graduate school nestled in an old mansion on the outskirts of Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. IWP’s faculty of approximately 30 instructor-practitioners are all leaders in their diverse field of expertise. At no other institute of learning is such a small group constituted of Generals, Ambassadors, and former Intelligence Operatives. The high caliber of experience brought together by the instructors drives the school to focus in a few key areas. IWP’s majors are limited to Master’s Programs is the fields of Statecraft and National Security Affairs, Statecraft and International Affairs, and Strategic Intelligence Studies with an additional Executive M.A. in National Security Affairs.

In a city filled with storied centers of learning such as Georgetown University, George Washington University, and countless military and intelligence centers of excellence, why has the Army invested their time and money in a school of less than 150 students? The Army has simply adopted IWP as a vehicle for training their Officer Corps in a way that no other military or civilian institution can currently supply. Beyond the ever present push for inter-service “jointness” IWP takes the Army’s mid-level leaders to a new level of inter-agency understanding and cooperation. The broad array of government leaders is seen not only in the staff, but also the student body of IWP. A typical class, consisting of only a handful of students could contain of a Captain from the US Army, an analyst from the CIA, and a Foreign Service officer from the State Department, all instructed by a retired Air Force General, Intelligence Community Professional, or former member of the National Security Council to learn the lessons of the past and together share ideas using every facet of the United States Government’s foreign policy resources. In an environment where fiscal resources are being stretched ever thinner among all government agencies, the Army has used IWP as a planning lab for learning how to better achieve mission goals by employing the resources and expertise of all government agencies. Following their time at IWP, many Army graduates are able to take their newfound understanding of inter-agency capabilities and jointness to forge the future of a more integrated and more capable US Army and US Government. It is clear that the Army has found a unique and invaluable resource in a government focused melting pot of higher education. However, the US Army is currently the only branch of the US Military that sends active duty officers to be among the ranks of the student body of this particular school. If the Army has found value from this program, why have the other services not followed the Army’s lead?

The US Army has recognized the importance of strategically focused professionals since the creation of the Functional Area (FA) 59 designation for Strategic Planning and Policy Officers. The Navy is starting to realize a need for a similar expertise to the Army’s FA 59 program. Making strides to create a new US Navy skill set, the Naval War College has recently begun its inaugural year of a Naval Strategy program. While the program is a first step in creating a corps of strategically thinking Naval Officers, it appears to be limited in scope and lacks a “full government” approach. To be prepared for the future of warfare, US Navy military planners will need to be familiar with the realms of conflict that reach far beyond naval engagements and sea power to remain effective.

It is my belief that the US Navy faces an additional hurdle in its pursuit of a strategic level expertise: the stigma that in order to remain relevant an officer must remain tactical. As a junior officer, I have seen my role as a tactical asset in the aviation community quickly diminished by the ever present budget cuts and the ever expanding age of unmanned aerial vehicles fulfilling every role from air-to-air combat to airborne vertical replenishment. However, when I attempted to look to the future and the Navy’s need to focus strategically, I quickly discovered that even inquiring how to shape the next generation of war fighter was frowned upon by the operational environment.

While the US Navy will always have a need to build young officers to sharpen the “pointy end of the spear”, an equal value must be placed on sharpening the young ingenious minds which will shape the strategic picture needed to effectively employ the Navy’s spear alongside the CIA’s arrows and the State Department’s shield in order to maintain America’s role as the preeminent foreign policy leader.

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.