Week 7 Examine the Strategic Leadership Involved with Crises Situ.docx
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TOWARD A THEORY OF FORCE DESIGN:
The Foundation of Capability-based Defense Planning
Salvador Ghelfi Raza1
, Ph.D.
ABSTRACT
Emerging from a millennium capped by a half
century of defense thinking dominated by Cold War-
era necessities, now tainted by the aftershocks of
September 11th
and aware of the inadequacy of
traditional rigid defense structures (whatever their
military might,) every nation state is finding a
need for a new concept and framework for defense
theory. Force Design--a complex-yet-taxonomic
decision making process which amalgamates policy
formulation, modernization of military hardware, and
organizational restructuring with changes in the
decision-making processes—fulfills that need.
In conjunction with effective decision-making
processes that recognize long-term goals (as well as
1
Dr. Salvador Ghelfi. Raza is professor of National Security Affairs at the Center for Hemispheric
Studies (CHDS) in the National Defense University. He received a Ph.D in Strategic Studies from
the University of Rio de Janeiro, and has a M.A from the University of London. He is a member of
the Group for Strategic Studies (Grupo de Estudos Estratégicos) of the University of Brazil (UFRJ,
Rio de Janeiro). His current research and teaching interests include force design, defense analysis,
games and simulation, and crisis management. The opinions, conclusions, and recommendations
expressed or implied do not reflect views of any agency, organization or government.
(razas@ndu.edu).
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procedures that can guide its execution,) Force
Design affords the two-way flow of critical
information and assessments needed both at the
political level and within defense ministries and
their subparts. Through Force Design a professional
defense sector can be created, appropriately sized,
based on an efficient use of resources, working
within precise guidelines and therefore subject to
democratic control.
Absent Force Design, decisions are taken based on
a set of foundations seen axiomatic and absolute
only because they remain unexamined; as a result
ministries and the political leadership often appear
to respond to events as they unfold. When problems
arise, the problem becomes the focus of attention.
In such situation, the urgency of decision making in
and of itself pushes aside the seemingly abstract
notion of force design.
Unless Force Design is addressed head on, unless
a system competent to address force design is
already in place, choices offered by ministries to
the political leadership are often no broader than
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between building “more of the same” (easier than
doing a comprehensive review) and developing an
entirely new approach (generally hinged imprudently
to some form of “technology”).
Lacking an existing force design capability,
inappropriate defense decisions taken in a hurry
generally fail to take into account the various
tradeoffs cannot systematically examine their
interaction(s). That is, decisions made tend to
result in capabilities later to be found incapable
of meeting defense objectives, i.e., operational
failure.
What is Force Design? This paper attempts to
depict the dynamic which it is. Its foundation is
capability-based defense planning. Upon this
foundation is a set of coherent concepts and a
framework that make them practical in both term and
significance. The resultant analytical construct
abstracts military capabilities into their component
elements, explicating concept and relationships.
Framework and concept to form a hierarchy which
articulates processes that allow ways and means to
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develop and choose defense alternatives--even when
limitations of knowledge and information exclude the
possibility of assessing all expected outcomes.
The final goal of Force Design is to accomplish a
system of concepts manifest within a framework which
is an open-ended measurement tool capable of 1)
assessing the changing relationship between
capabilities requirements and defense demands –
properly addressing the challenge of defense
planning in an era of uncertainty of threats and
information technology and 2) specifying
capabilities to be added that might lead to
different choices under three concurring
perspectives - adaptation, modernization and
transformation.
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INTRODUCTION
The demise of the Cold War, information
technology trends, and other contemporary factors
are associated causes for the emergence of new
uncertainties and threats to the State’s security
goals. However diffuse and asymmetric in their
impact, these causes have imposed defense reforms in
order to face a broad and more complex nexus of old
and new tasks, associated with efforts to eliminate
redundancy and inefficiency in the defense resource
allocation process. Such accounts often fail to
predict correctly that defense reforms effort in is
determining required military capabilities,
connecting present fiscal possibilities with future
demands of the use or threat of force towards
politically oriented objectives.
The term defense reform sounds like an aggressive
approach to get military superiority and
organizational strength. In fact, it is usually just
the opposite – an attempt to break out of a
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deteriorating situation, more likely to reflect a
recognition that one has fallen behind than an
attempt to exploit new possibilities.
The most telling basis for judging the complexity
of defense reforms is the degree of uncertainty of
political objectives, evolving technological
possibilities and resource allocation priorities,
considering that defense can both inhibit and
stimulate economic growth2
. A few examples might
give the sense of the manifestation of these reform
trends and goals in the Western Hemisphere3
:
♦ Argentina recently changed in its military
conscript/professional personnel ratio and is
endeavoring to integrate planning, programming, and
budgeting procedures in its defense planning and
2
There is a lack of consensus in the empirical literature on the positive and negative economic
effects of defense spending. On one hand, it is assumed that defense spending divert resources from
private and public non-defense investments (crowding out); on the other, it is assumed that defense
spending increases the utilization of capital (crowding in). The latter position is support by the
Benoit Thesis, referring to a positive association found between defense spending and growth for 44
less developed countries over the 1950-65 period.
See Benoit, Emile, Defense and Economic Growth in Developing Countries. Boston, USA: Heath,
1973. Sandler, T. E Hartley, K. The Economics of Defense. Cambridge, Ma: Cambridge University
Press, 1995. pp. 200-220. review the literature and tabulate models alternative to that of Benoit
arrising at different conclusion.
3
The object of analysis for this paper was limited to the Western Hemisphere – The Americas.
However, its conclusions and the proposed theoretical model it offers have higher ambitions in their
possible applications.
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resource management system, struggling to maintain
its operational military capability4
.
♦ Bolivia, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic
are endeavoring to produce Defense White Books
within the context of new roles for their Armed
Forces; whereas Chile is in the stage of revising
its White Book.
♦ Peru is reforming its defense organizational
structure. And the Paraguay is struggling in the
political arena to approve its Defense Organization
Law that would redefine military roles and mission
and reorganize the defense sector, eventually
changing the responsibilities of the Ministry of
Defense.
♦ Brazil faces complex civil-military relations
in the wake of the creation of its Ministry of
Defense (1999) and its National Defense Policy
(1996), with impacts on its defense command and
4
Argentina, Cámara de Diputados de La Nación, Ley 24.948 de 18 de febrero de 1998.
Reestructuración de las fuerzas armadas. For Directives of Military Planning, see
http//www.ser2000.org.ar/protect/Archivo/ d000 cbd2 htm. (Oct/02/9). And for operational
capabilities, see http://64.69. 09.103/mic/eabstract.cfm?recno=8796 (Jun/ 25/2002).
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control structure. Brazil’s National Multi annual
Plan PPA, explicitly declares that5
:
“The modernization of the Defense National System
will be the main objective of the project for
reequipping and adjusting the Brazilian Army, the
Brazilian Navy and the Brazilian Air Force,
together with the project for managing the armed
forces policy. Both projects will contribute to
reequip and adjust force structure to a new
technological pattern, assuring the country higher
protection”.
♦ In the US case, particularly, 11th
catalyzed,
albeit drastically, post-Cold War demands for
reform. As early as February 2001, the Project on
Defense Alternatives of the Commonwealth Institute
at Cambridge already pointed out four causes of
inefficiencies of the US Armed Forces, demanding
reforms in the context of the Quadrennial Defense
Review:
5
Brazil, National Government. Plano Plurianual. http://www.abrasil.gov.br/anexos/links/links.htm .
For an oeverview of current status of Brazilian Defense Reforms, see
http://www.estado.estadao.com.br/edicao/ especial/militar/militar/militar16.html; and
http://www.estado.estadao.com.br/edicao/especial/militar/militar/ militar11.html. (Oct 2001).
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“One type of inefficiency is manifest in excess
infrastructure – a Cold War residue. Today, the US
Armed Forces still maintain 20 percent of excess
infrastructure. Crude, costly and seemingly
intractable, this problem has had little political
salience. The support of excess infrastructure
drains money away from training, maintenance, and
quality-of-life accounts. A second type of
inefficiency derives from inter-service rivalry and
redundancy. A third type of inefficiency involves
having military “tools” and procedures that do not
correspond closely to today’s operational
challenges. Persistent shortages despite the
expenditure of more than $250 billion on
procurement during the past five years indicates a
failure to configure our armed forces to meet
current needs. A final type of inefficiency results
from the failure to fully exploit information-age
technology and organizational principles, which
could reduce structural redundancies in our
military and increase its flexibility. By
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contemporary business standards, our military
remains an industrial age organization” 6
.
What is extraordinary are not these changes in
themselves, since defense has an evolutionary
nature, been future oriented; but the scale and
scope of current defense reforms, with countries
endeavoring simultaneously to:
♦ Define organizational requirements in
association with new decision-making, control and
oversight mechanisms aiming at a higher degree of
political control over defense issues and
priorities.
♦ Increase the efficiency, efficacy and economy7
of defense resource allocation, with a focus on the
processes and criteria used for the formulation,
spending and evaluation of the defense budget.
6
The Commonwealth Institute. The Paradoxes of post-Cold War US Defense Policy: An agenda for
the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review. Project on Defense Alternatives, Briefing Memo # 18. 5
February 2001. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. pp. 6 Captured at
http:://www.comw.org/pda/0102bmemo18.html. (8/28/2001).
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Efficacy is defined as a measure of task accomplishment: the degree to which the activity/process
and resultant output delivered met the desired expectation. Efficiency translates the best
combination of resources to maximize efficacy. It is measured as a relationship of outputs to imputs,
usually expressed in terms of a ratio. A higher efficiency ratio translates a situation where changes
in defense capabilities for a small change in resources are balanced across all resources used to
produce those capabilities. Economy reflects the degree to which efficiency is obtained with lesser
fiscal spending
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♦ Define affordable military forces, balanced
against multiple axes, to hedge against uncertainty
in the current and future threat environment.
These overarching themes are linked into mutually
determinant chains of cause and causality, making
few of the decisions in security requirements and
defense planning either simple or noncrontoversial.
Previously unnoticed is the necessity of an
articulated set of concepts and its associated
analytical framework for planning defense
alternatives based on military capabilities. That is
why the following questions are always present: What
criteria oriented the identification of military
capabilities? What strategies do those capabilities
support and how do those strategies support
political objectives? How are budgets related to
those capabilities?
All these questions pertaining to the defense
reform debate – in its different shapes and
perceived priorities – have a common goal and a
common assumption. The common goal is to determine
credible military capabilities that connect current
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fiscal possibilities to future alternatives of
possible military action, with an acceptable degree
of political risk. The common assumption is that
peace has yielded insofar as the strength and
credibility of military capabilities to deter
threatening intentions by others.
While these central arguments of defense planning
are rather common-sensical, it is important to keep
in perspective that defining requirements for
affordable and credible military capabilities is a
complex issue demanding a set of valid conceptual
propositions articulated by a coherent internal
logic.
Conceptual propositions breed from reasoning and
a critical examination of past events while setting
requirements for future register that will bring
empirical evidence which, eventually, will make them
invalid. No conceptual proposition that pretends to
be scientific may postulate eternal validity. The
internal logic of the conceptual system provides the
articulating rules of its component propositions,
establishing a causal relationship between concepts,
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which provides the starting point and the
interdependency of the parts for the desired or
intended final product8
. This logic is only valid
insofar as it is useful for instructing the
collection, organization and interpretation of
quantitative and qualitative information; orienting
the research of alternative solutions for the
assorted problems; flanking its analysis with
consistent and explicit criteria; and allowing the
precise communication of results.
The validity of a conceptual system and its
internal logic assures that the devised problem is
the real problem, and not that it can be solved
within its domain of existing competencies; and that
the solutions proposed consider the relevant aspects
of the problem. Without the support of a valid
conceptual system, defense reform propositions are
mere opinions, without any ways of ascertaining
which opinion is better.
8
This is the requirement of making the axiology of the method explicit as condition of scientific
research. Without an axiological option explicated, the criteria used to define the problem,
determine appropriate research and integrate results are methodologically flawed. For a theoretical
discussion of axiological options and its relation with developing conceptual systems, see OLIVA,
A. Conhecimento e Liberdade. 2 ed. Porto Alegre: Edipurs, 1999. pp. 124.
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The required mind set for approaching defense
reforms must take into account the fact that most
conceptual propositions and their articulating logic
used for defense planning have their origin in the
last 50 years, in the wake of the Cold War, and are
already becoming either obsolete or inadequate. This
situation is potentially harmful for three
intertwined reasons:
♦ It might harbor inefficiency, compromising
the effectiveness of military capability.
♦ It might create misleading performance
evaluation criteria, masking capability
inefficiencies through methodologies deprived of
analytical rigor.
♦ It might cause the breakdown of policy,
strategy and resource allocation into isolated
processes, breeding into stove piping capabilities.
The outcome of this condition entails risks that
are not always recognized, with defense planners
often trying to “purchase a breakthrough model”
through experiences taken from other cases.
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Unfortunately, these models do not work properly
because they do not “import” the conceptual system
and the people who understand it.
Given post-Cold War demands of security and
defense, and the aftermath of September Eleven, past
conceptual system are to be taken with a grain of
salt. It seems appropriate and opportune to propose
a new conceptual framework for designing defense
alternatives. This would focus on the reevaluation
of the concepts of security and defense, taking into
consideration its evolving nature and diffused
contours; the mechanisms for forecasting
contingencies, within a framework that integrate
distinctive rising and falling patterns; and
requirements for efficiency and economy in defense
resource management. Such endeavor should more
properly be called Force Design.
This paper offers a conceptual framework for
force design with the identification and
relationship of variables required to understand and
plan defense reforms, accommodating three
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potentially concurring circumstances: adaptation,
modernization and transformation. It proposes an
innovative approach for understanding defense reform
trends and possibilities, systematically
articulating concepts and processes to assure armed
forces efficacy, efficiency and economy, providing
unity of purpose, unity of effort and unity of
action for effectively wielding power in support of
national will. Its overarching thesis is that force
design must serve as a guide to defense planning,
contributing to armed forces accountability,
professionalism and civilian control. Thus, defense
reforms can play an important role in both preparing
for the use of force and in maintaining peace. Its
underlying assumption is that defense reform demands
emerge as the differential between current defense
capabilities and the outcome of defense planning
offer of future conditions.
The paper is organized in four parts. Part one,
“Force Design”, sets the stage. It defines force
design as the fabric of military capability and
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develops a theoretical construct (an idealization
of a situation appropriate for a problem) that
abstracts capabilities components and identify its
relationships, discussing some tensions among these
components and its relationships. Part two, “Force
Design Framework”, presents three logical blocks,
articulated in an approach that examines the concept
of security and defense, presents mechanisms for
developing scenarios, and examining defense
superintendence requirements. Part three uses force
design concepts to present some judgments about
actual trends in defense reforms, taking a hard look
at current defense superintendence potential
mismanagement in the Western Hemisphere. Part four,
explores both the construct of capabilities and the
force design framework to present the concepts and
interrelationship of Adaptation, Modernization and
Transformation. The paper progress from a rather
conceptual approach in parts one and two to a
pragmatic proposal of a template in part five, to
conclude presenting Force Design as a new area of
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study with its own articulated set of concepts and
hypotheses.
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PART 1
FORCE DESIGN
Force design is the fabric of military
capabilities and, as such, it provides the
foundations for an integrated project of defense.
Its purpose is the conceptualization, development
and evaluation of alternative military capabilities
to attend defense requirements in response to
security demands, assuring that the proper set of
effective and efficient military is economically
identified, developed, organized, fielded and
supported.
Force design results – an integrated project of
defense - is the source of guiding principles that
contributes to communicate goals and plans that are
reinforced through rules and norms at all levels of
the defense organization. Such a project ties
objectives together and gives meaning and purpose to
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operational procedures, enabling all parts of the
organization consistently contribute to the overall
effort even though they have to act independently in
an environment changing rapidly. Equally important,
it include an indication of what capabilities will
not be develop, retaining an appropriate focus in
building essential capabilities. The basic purpose
of an integrate project of defense is to provide
guidance to those whose actions can affect the focus
and development of the required military
capabilities.
Although subordinating all defense operational
processes to a common purpose force design allows
the necessary latitude for leadership and
initiatives serving as an umbrella over the various
functional activities developed within the defense
establishment, establishing the context within which
day-to-day decisions are made and sets the bounds on
strategic options. Further, an integrated project of
defense guides in making trade-offs among competing
requirements for short-term and long-term goals.
Finally, it provides consistency among programs
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providing the instance of reference for resource
allocation.
These guiding principles are defined as the
pattern of decisions that determine the ultimate set
of military capabilities; being the blueprint for
force planning, programming and budgeting9
,
underpinning all defense related functions, to
include procurement and acquisition; intelligence
gathering; operational training and evaluation;
personnel (civil and military); educational
requirements; and technology research. Essentially
it is because of the ability of these guiding
principles to coordinate operational activities with
policy requirements assuring consistency over time:
that military capabilities development evolve in a
directed manner renewing, augmenting and contracting
its components to reinforce and expand defense
possibilities.
9
The traditional methodological approach for determining defense requirements was through
procedures commonly named either as force planning, strategic planning or military planning.
These are methodological approaches inherited from the Cold War period, led by the US initiative
under the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS). This System provided the
benchmark for other similar national initiatives, like the Brazilian Navy Systematic for High Level
Planning with its associated “Director Plan.”
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Although force design mills operational
requirements into defense alternatives, it is not
merely the application of military planning at
ministerial level, warning those who enter its
domains about the inadequacy of military operational
planning10
concepts and methodologies for the
processes and products that fall under its purposes.
This requires attention to the organizational
structure of a ministry of defense, involving
determining the number and qualification of the
individuals on the force design team.
Force design provides a set of concepts and its
articulating logic required for swiveling political
options into military capability requirements and
for cranking these requirements into force
alternatives, assuring jointness and
interoperability. It provides a functional logic for
management of the defense system, disciplining the
relationships of its component parts.
10
Military operational planning refers to current practiced methodologies used to determine the best
alternative form of assigning tasks and to direct actions to secure military objectives by the
application or the threat of force.
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Once an integrated project of defense has been
defined, it informs the development of subparts
related to individual services and defense agencies
that will converge to produce the required set of
military capabilities. The same logic that provide
focus on the required decisions at ministerial level
can help to divide responsibilities among multiple
agents, dedicating portions of effort to each
subunit of the defense establishment.
To insure that the alternatives chosen by
subunits is adhered to over time demands of an
integrated project of demand, force design provide a
systemic perspective in support of decisions
regarding preemptive additions or contraction in the
military inventory based of forecasted demands of
military capabilities required for the desired level
of efficacy; the exploitation of better integration
and synergy among component parts of the military
system in order to maximize its efficiency; and
exploit economies of scale and scope that compete on
the basis of price in order to assure economy within
acceptable levels of risk.
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MILITARY CAPABILITY
Common sense, capabilities are understood as the
quality of being able to use of be used in a
specified way.11
However, for specific force design
purposes, a military capability is the potential
ability of force components to perform a defense
task under specific pre-determined conditions, with
an expected degree of success.
Military capabilities are designed to fulfill the
demands of the use of force for political purposes,
having no intrinsic value – their value derives from
the assessment of success in its intended use and
has, therefore, a political nature. The above
statement is crucial for force design, because it
casts light on the fundamental question: how much is
enough? Providing the understanding that the only
acceptable answer for this question results from the
political priorities for defense; which allows
developing criteria to pair wise anticipated tasks
with requirements of quantitative and qualitative
11
Ganer B. The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style. New York: Berkley Books, 2000.
pp. 57
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dimensioning of force components under resource
constraints and acceptable level of risk.
The nature of these capabilities – instrumental
in the practice of violence under state authority -
define individualizing competencies defense
components have to acquire and circumscribes its use
within the political realm. Therefore, military
capabilities are not absolute values that could be
measured in terms of such things as the currently
available quantity of military assets, the number of
military personnel, and the possession of weapons.
Their value results from the assessment of the
potential ability of successfully perform defense
tasks in the pursuit of politically defined
objectives.
Structure of relationships
Military capabilities emerge in the functional
relationship of force components and operational
tasks. This functional outline of military
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capabilities determines its relationships with force
structure and concept of employment12
.
Figure 1 depicts a general overview of elements
that converge to produce military capability as
currently found in the literature13
. Force structure
defines the size, type, dimension, and stationing of
military assets. The performance of its components
depends on how they are organized, equipped,
trained, upgraded, maintained and supported.
12
The literature of force planning uses the term strategy as a synonym for concept of employment.
This paper will use the latter to develop the capability construct, reserving the former to translate
the use of combat for the purpose of war, in association with tactics, the use of force components in
the engagements.
13
For an in-depth discussion of defense planning, see, for example, DAVIS, P. K. e KLALILZAD,
Z. M. A Composite Approach to Air Force Planning. California, EUA: RAND Corporation, 1996.
DEWAR, J. e BUILDER, C. H. Assumption-based Planning. California, EUA: Rand Corporation,
1993. HAFFA, R. Jr. Planning U.S. Forces. USA: NDU, 1988. KAUFFMANN, W.N. Assessing
the Base Force: How Much is Enough. Washington, DC. EUA: Brookings Institution, 1992.
Support
Maintenance
Trainining
Support
Maintenance
Trainining
Military AssetsMilitary Assets ObjectivesObjectives
Missions
Operations
Missions
Operations
Force
Components
Force Structure Concept of Employment
Operational Structures
Capabilities Operational
Tasks
Policy Guidelines
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Figure 1: Structure of relationships
Force components are the functional aggregation
of force structure elements in combat and associated
support structures accordingly to practiced
doctrine.
The concept of Employment is a set of articulated
decisions that express the prioritization of
missions and operations, relating them with a
political logic. Objectives are elements, either
material or insubstantial, that must be worked over
through operations, in order to provide an intended
benefit that contributes to a specific mission.
Tasks are required actions to achieve objectives,
towards which there is some sort of opposition or
threat.14
Countries have their defense assets (number and
size) stationed or deployed in military bases.
14
These concepts will be retaken further on in this paper. Here they are stated with the purpose of
supporting arguments to explain the nature of military capabilities.
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However, these assets are not in themselves military
capabilities. It is meaningless to say, for example,
that Brazil’s aircraft carrier São Paulo is a
military capability. It is only an asset. Brazil’s
military capability reflects the scale and scope of
tasks that force components, where this asset might
be integrated, could perform with expected degree of
success.
One alternative of military capability for Brazil
could include the São Paulo in a force component to
contribute to defend Brazil’s sovereignty in the
Amazon area (defense objective), aiming to deter
international greed for the Amazon forest. The
resulting capability is conditioned by the
readiness15
degree of its component air wing, the
degree of training of its crew, and the ability to
sustain continuous operation for an extended period
of time.
The Aircraft Carrier São Paulo is based in Rio de
Janeiro, taking approximately 4 days to deploy (non-
stop) to the Amazon area, requiring the support of
15
At this point, it is proposed to understand readiness as the performance required to accomplish a
mission with expected degree of success.
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other assets with the technical ability for
replenishment at sea – tanker ships, in this case,
to refuel the escorts of the São Paulo. Similarly,
these tanker ships are not also in themselves a
military capability. Replenishment at sea is only a
technical requirement; the derived military
capability is the ability of the Brazilian Navy to
support continuous operation of its sea assets.
Brazil’s required military capability to defend
its sovereignty in the Amazon Area, exploring the
combat possibilities of air wing of São Paulo
aircraft carrier in a force capable to escort a
convoy transporting Army troops and material to the
region, would only be constrained by the
availability of tanker ships, if its defense posture
(relating the concepts of employment with force
structure), would demand short reaction time,
whereas keeping the São Paulo stationed in the Naval
Base of Rio de Janeiro (imposing non-stop deploy and
therefore requiring replenishment at sea).
If Brazil decides to station/deploy the São Paulo
to a northern naval base (changing force structure),
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it would produce a higher operational response tempo
for the Amazon Area with fewer demands of
replenishment at sea, with the compromise of
reducing the responsiveness of that force component
(integrating the São Paulo) to anti-submarine
operations within a context of maritime warfare to
protect the national flow of petrol in the South
Atlantic. This would change Brazil’s defense
posture, signaling a higher commitment to defend the
Amazon Area and, at the same time, would impose the
necessity of developing expensive shipyard
facilities in the northern region of the Country, in
order to provide repair facilities to this extremely
complex ship.
The required technical, fiscal and political
costs would have to be weighed against the
effectiveness of a reduced operational tempo
associated with the lower demands of replenishment
at sea. In addition, since the Army troops and
material that the São Paulo would convoy to the
Amazon Area would be held in Rio de Janeiro, the
decision of re-deploying this asset to the northern
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region should take into consideration the technical
characteristics and operational requirements of
Brazilian Army’s assets, increasing coordination and
control demands.
Referring to cost-effectiveness analysis, Brazil
could have decided, instead of convoying Army troops
and material using a force component integrated by
the Aircraft Carrier São Paulo, to use near-the-
shore maritime routes under the umbrella of the
Brazilian Air Force aircraft (changing the concept
of employment). In this case, the same task – to
protect the military flow of troops and material –
would be accomplished with other force components
and associated operations, without significant
changes in the defense posture.
The extensive list of possible alternatives
derived from Brazil’s case reflects the complexity
of force design. The mission potential of military
capabilities results from the assessment of task-
force functional aggregations to achieve assigned
objectives with force structure components.
Similarly, Mexico faces force design problems with
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its two oceans; Argentina with Chile and
Falklands/Malvinas; Venezuela with Suriname borders;
Colombia with its internal conflict; to mention just
a few other cases.
Having outlined the purpose and several trends in
force design, it remains to present its operational
definition. Force design is a system of decisions
aiming that the proper set of effective and
efficient military capability is economically
identified, developed, organized, fielded, and
supported. Whitin this operation definition, design
is related to a proposed solution to a perceived
problem, presented with necessary and sufficient
details to guide a course of action and evaluate its
outcomes, and the force as composite of military
capabilities explored to attend defense requirements
in response to security demands.
FORCE PLANNING
The specific and limited purpose of force
planning within force design is to determine the
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quantitative dimension, organization, and spatial
distribution of military assets in association with
a specific concept of employment for a determined
theatre of operation.
Force planning has different approaches that
might include more or fewer components and
processes, depending on the aggregation criteria
ruled by specifics doctrinal understanding. Force
design does not dispute these aggregation criteria
or doctrine16
; on the contrary, it recognizes these
efforts as a valid procedure to rationalize the
planning process, having as a reference the
guidelines it provides.
An example might help to clarify the distinction
between force design and force planning. Force
design might determine US capability requirements
for protecting America’s interests in Central and
South America, assuring combat efficacy against any
specific country or regional coalition, and
providing sea control and airspace interdiction
against drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
16
For an example, see Kent G. A Framework for Defense Planning. California: RAND Corporation,
1989.
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The purpose of force planning for the Caribbean
Basin Theatre of Operation specifically, would
determine how many X surveillance aircraft and Y
patrolling surface vessels based in Norfolk (VA) are
required to deter and prevent illegal air and
maritime traffic under strict rules of engagement
limiting the use of force. Force planning would also
determine the command and control requirements
associated with an operational structure for these
air and maritime assets to assure the required
operational tempo. In addition, force planning would
consider the redeployment of old surface patrol
vessels from Norfolk to Guantanamo (Cuba) to reduce
transit time, allowing fewer ships to perform the
same tasks. It would also consider that the
redeployment of these old patrol ships near the
theatre of operation would contribute to lesser its
aging rate until faster and less fuel consuming
combat ships could be developed and stationed back
in Norfolk. Force planning also considers what
changes in the concept of employment these new
assets might demand and determine how many new ships
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would be necessary and how enhanced air surveillance
detection aids (radar, for example) could reduce the
number of required surveillance aircraft.
During these processes, Force Design would shape
new rules of engagement and instruct Force Planning
about the changing defense roles and missions in the
Caribbean Basin, which would determine new tasks and
evolving readiness and doctrine requirements,
conditioning the specification, development and
deployment of these new assets. Force design is,
therefore, the instance of reference for force
planning. It provides planning guidance while
incorporating operational alternatives as a
condition of possibility for its designing purposes.
Although with complementary purpose, they do not
fuse into one all encompassing process. Force Design
is the master of force planning; recognizing that
its servant would makes its designing requirement
feasible. When these roles are inverted, or force
design simply does not exist, force planning starts
imposing limits to political alternatives. Politics
will do what the military says it can do and it can
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do what it thinks should be done: the military
becomes the master of policy.
FORCE DESIGN ENVIRONMENT
The complex interrelationship between the
problems force design faces must be viewed and
understood against the background of the political
structure of the society in which they occur,
although this may not always give us a clear
understanding of every detail. Current mechanism to
enforce defense reform range from reorganization
acts, assuming the structuring principle that legal
boundaries can create conditions for effective
defense reform, to political guidelines provided by
defense policy or “white papers”. The question,
therefore, of what kind and what amount of
information is need head into the devilish question
of functional relevance. Applying these
considerations, the most import feature in analyzing
the force design environment is to ascertain the
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place at the hierarchy of defense decision-making
from which its actions are guided.
Force design processes are related to defense
ministry functions, being deeply permeated with
settled and routinized situations and decisions in
situations that have not yet been subjected to
regulation.
Karl Mannheim, quoting the Austrian sociologist
and statesman Albert Schäffle, pointed out that:
“at any moment of social-political life two aspects
are discernible – first, a series of social events
which have acquired a set pattern and recur
regularly; and, second, those events which are
still in the process of becoming, in which in
individual cases, decisions have to be made that
give rise to new and unique situations”17
. This
distinction developed to qualify the difference
between the routine affairs of state and politics,
also apply to qualify ministerial functions in the
realm of administration and the realm of politics.
Notwithstanding the boundary between these two
17
Mannheim, K. Ideology & Utopy: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. London, UK:
Hancourt, 1936. pp.112.
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classes is rather difficulty, a set of enduring
characteristics is present in the ministerial
functions18
:
♦ To be the prime instrument for assuring
civilian control over defense alternatives.
♦ To represent the nation’s defense
requirements and advise on the implications of
proposed alternatives.
♦ To balance military expertise and
administrative-fiscal viewpoints on formulating
defense alternatives
Force design contribute to this ministerial
functions because it demands the explanation of the
assumptions that support the formulation of military
capability requirements, and determine making
explicit the articulating links between military
capability requirements and defense objective
demands, integrating and assessing those
assumptions, requirements and objectives with a
political logic.
18
Some of these functions are reflected in Huntington’s perspective of the “Departamental Structure
of Civil-Military Relations. Huntington, S. P. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of
Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press: 2000. pp.428-455.
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This is not without problems. For example, the
analysis of the definition of capability presented
by the Joint Pub 1-02 can explain a chain of
unexpected consequences of force design concepts in
the environment and vice-versa. This publication
defines military capability as: “The ability to
execute a specified course of action (a capability
may or may not be accompanied by an intention)19
”.
This view transforms military capability in a self-
sufficient ability to perform operations. When
military instrumentality becomes dissociated from
political goals, it allows military control of
policy alternatives, jeopardizing the prerogatives
of popularly elected governments to decide upon
defense alternatives.
Richard H. Kohn suggests evidence for this trend
in the US:
“The U.S. Military is now more alienate from its
civilian leadership than at any time in American
history, and more vocal about it. The warning signs
are very clear, most noticeable in the frequency
19
USA, Department of Defense. Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. 12 April 2001
(As Amended Through 9 April 2002). pp.62.
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with which officers have expressed disgust for the
President over the last year… Divorced now from
broad parts of American society, the military,
increasing Washington-wise, was determined never
again to be committed to combat without the
resources, public support, and freedom on the
battlefield to win… The military had accepted
“downsizing” and reorganization, but not changes
that invaded too dramatically the traditional
function of each of the individual armed services,
or that changed too radically the social
composition of the forces, or cut too deeply into
combat readiness, or otherwise undermined the
quality and ability of the military to fullfill its
functions”.20
One of the undisputed givens is that armed forces
are still a major player in national politics both
in the US and in the region, with influence through
expenditures, investments, and savings in the
economy and social environment to which they belong.
Thus, designing defense capabilities is an
20
Kohn, R.H. Out of Control: The Crisis in Civil-Military Relations. In The National Interests.
Spring 1994, pp.3-17.
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influencing factor in the national and international
arena.
Zackkrison’s21
study of the roles and missions of
the armed forces of Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, and Peru, brings a unique perspective to
force design environment:
♦ Argentina has the most distance between the
arguments, with civilians generally debating the
need for armed forces and the military successfully
lobbying the government for money to maintain
international multilateral operations.
♦ Brazil has the largest armed forces,
adequately funded, but has no real sense of
missions and not enough public support to push a
specific agenda.
♦ Chile has perhaps the best funded military in
the region, and the best defined set of roles and
missions, but faces just enough public hostility
that the future after General Augusto Pinochet’s
departure is a big question.
21
Zackrison, J.L. Drawdown to Instability: Defense Budgets and Mission Glide.
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♦ Colombia has the most urgency in defining an
adequate role for its armed forces because of the
threat to national survival at the hand of the
Marxist insurgents and drug traffickers.
♦ Peru faces the popular perception of having
lost a recent border skirmish against a much
smaller military, an increasing threat of
insurgency, and pressure from the armed forces for
more funding and better military equipment.
These facts should be understood in the
constantly changing configuration of experience in
which they actually lived. Notwithstanding, they
give an example of the ever- flowing stream of
trends that shape force design environment.
The measure of the relevance of this trends have
need of an analytical model that can assure that the
result to be achieved with force design do not
become detached from the environment it belongs. It
is needed to model the components and relationships
of military capabilities understanding that the
constituting characteristics of the whole will
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emerge through the relationships of the individual
characteristics of its component parts.
The goal is to understand not just the function
of individual military assets, doctrine, tasks,
objectives, but to learn how all of these components
interact within capabilities possibilities hoping
then to use this information to generate more
accurate defense planning methodologies that will
help to unravel the complexities of defense reforms
and the underlying mechanisms that provoke
inefficiency.
MODELING MILITARY CAPABILITIES
In order to design capabilities, first it is
required to understand that capabilities are a
measure of the resulting ability of force component
arrangements to perform a range of tasks. The
performances of these arrangements being depend on
the performance of its component parts and the
stability of its relationships. Secondly, it its
required to comprehend that abstraction is the first
step toward a model because it allows pointing out
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and organizing aspects of the reality as the object
of analysis. As Bunge22
presents, “ abstraction is
indispensable not only to apply causal ideas, but
also to permit either empirical or theoretical
investigation.”
Both provisions were included in the formulation
of the construct of capabilities depicted in figure
2. This construct identifies military capability
components, stating its precise meaning with the
description of its basic qualities, delineating the
outer edge of its component against the context they
pertain. That means giving significance to the
abstracted object of analysis, defining its
variety23
as pertaining to a system24
.
22
Bunge, M. La Causalidade: El Principio de Causalidade en la Ciencia Moderna. trad. Aernan
Rodrigues. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sudamericana, 1959. pp 189.
23
Variety is a concept developed by Ross Ashby within the Theory of Cybernetics. It is used to
explain the distinguishable conjuncts, regardless of the order in which they appear, necessary and
sufficient to describe the essential characteristics of the systems at the required level of abstraction.
ASHBY, W Ross. Introduction to Cybernetics. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1970. Chap. 7.
24
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, who introduced the General Theory of Systems in 1925/6, provides the
concept of system: a conjunct of interacting elements. The defense components are a system
because they possess a mutual dependency and complementary relationship: the performance of the
whole depends on the performance of its component parts. Bertalanffy, von L. Teoria General de
los Sistemas: fundamentos, desarrollo, aplicaciones. Trad. Juan Almela. México: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 1968, pag. 38.
There are authors, such Bertalanffy himself, who recognizes that the founder of Theory of System
would be W. Kohler, with his work Die Phsischen Gestalten in Ruhe and in Staionaaren Zustand.
Erlangen, 1924. Notwithstanding, the literature credits Bertalanffy for developing the Theory of
System because Kohler’s work is restricted to applying the concept of system to biological
phenomena, restricting its amplitude. For applications of the Theory, see Bertoglio, J. Introduction
a la Teoria General de los Sistemas. México: Limusa, 1982. This theory provides an investigative
methodology that could be synthetically described as: take the reality as it is presented, examine its
component systems and enunciate valid regularities presented.” This methodology was named
empirical-inductive. For a critique of the theory and investigation methodology, see Ashby, W.R.
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The capability construct is an ideal25
model with
two purposes. The first purpose is to abstract the
complexity of the empirical reality in necessary and
sufficiently analytical variables; and explaining
how these variables interact, contract and maintain
relationships that enable a required capability to
be obtained. The second purpose is to explain the
sensibility of military capability to changes in the
security and defense environment, providing
assessment criteria of its efficiency, efficacy and
economy in adapting, modernizing and transforming
the defense sector in response to changes in the
security environment. The sensitivity analysis of
General Systems Theory as a New Discipline. EUA, General System, 3, 1958, pp. 1-6. Ashby
proposes an opposite approach, named deductive: instead of studying the system in a progressive
form, from inferior to superior levels of abstraction, he recommends taking the conjunct of all
conceivable systems and reduce them to a unique system of acceptable dimension. Luhmann, N.
Power. Toronto: John Willey & Sons, 1979, proposes interpreting a macro system – society as the
most complex macro system - using the deductive methodology. He aims to eliminate the main
restriction of Bertalanffy’s approach that in macro system the distinction between the surrounding
environment and the objected system under analysis becomes blurred. Luhmann’s theory wasn’t
completely accepted because it cannot be applicable to others fields that have more restricted
objects of analysis.
25
Ideal models, according to Weber, are theoretical models resulting from a selective process that
blocks some elements from the reality and explains its content unequivocally. Ideal models do not
exist as part of the reality; they are only a proposition of a hypothetical relationship of elements
abstract from that reality. Weber, M. Ensaios Sobre a Teoria da Ciência. Paris: Plon, 1965. pp.76.
Ideal models are not a description of the reality, because they retain only some of its aspects,
representing relevant aspects of the totality that are regularly presented in the object of
investigation. They are not also an average term of the reality because ideal models do not emerge
from quantitative notion. Popper converges to Weber’s understanding of ideal models and explains
its utility in preventing contradictions and impreciseness when theorizing upon selected aspects of
reality. Lévis-Strauss has a different interpretation of ideal model. According to him, an ideal model
is a simulacra, a relational conjunct that simplifies reality in order to explains the totality of the
phenomenon. See Bruyne, P. Herman, J. and Schoutheete, M. Dinâmica da Pesquisa em Ciências
Sociais: Os Polos da Prática Metodológica. 5 ed. trad. Ruth Joffily Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves.
pp. 48.
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military capability to changes in the security and
defense environment requires making explicit
possible forms of its relationships and logical
consequences. That means supporting hypothesis
formulation and explaining its elements of
refutation.
The capability construct, as an ideal model – in
the sense o logical -, is not a hypothesis and,
therefore, can be neither true nor false but valid
or not valid depending on its utility for
understanding reality26
. That means that it has its
own conditions of possibility; it contains its own
principle of constitution, encapsulating a conjunct
of defined predicative, arbitrarily created
accordingly to the necessity of the investigation,
that can be used – or not – as an instance of
reference to compare empirical data drawn from the
reality .
The construct models capabilities as an open
system. It assumes a flow of materials, information,
etc. from and to the surrounding environment,
26
Bruyne, P. Herman, J. and Schoutheete, M. Dinâmica da Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais: Os Polos
da Prática Metodológica. 5 ed. trad. Ruth Joffily Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves. pp. 48, 182.
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implying that its variety assumes different values
in time, as well as the relationship between its
component are dynamically reconfigure, whereas
keeping the system in a uniform state27
. This
explains the characteristic of military capabilities
to retain its efficacy while its components are
reconfigured. It will also explain the limits and
possibilities of adaptation, modernization and
transformation trends.
Pragmatically, the construct will help in problem
definition in force design: what will (and will not)
be considered as inputs and outputs. This entails
defining the scope of the expected alternatives,
what procedures will be followed in generating and
evaluating alternatives, and in selecting the
alternatives to recommend to political decision.
27
The concepts of “closed and open system” are part of Bertalanffy’s General Theory of Systems. A
system is defined as closed when it can be considered in an equilibrium state independent of the
surrounding environment. Chemistry, for example, deals with physical-chemical reactions in
isolated recipients; and thermodynamics affirms that its laws are only applicable to closed systems.
Opens systems have in their animus the governing factor towards higher states of order and
organization. This paper uses the same characterization for capabilities, having adaptation,
modernization and transformation as trends to higher states of order and organization. The biologist
Driesch uses this description to characterize a system of living organisms. A uniform state is
achieved when an open system is in equilibrium. Closed systems equilibrium is dependent of the
initial conditions. The final concentration of a chemical product depends on the initial concentration
of its components. However, in open systems, uniform state is achieved based on the systems own
parameters, and therefore is independent of its initial conditions. Drischel, H. Formale Theorien der
Organization. Halle: Nova Acta Leopoldina, 1968, pp. 136, in Bertalanffy, von L. Teoria General
de los Sistemas: Fundamentos, Desarrollo, Aplicaciones. Trad. Juan Almela. México: Fondo de
Cultura Económica, 1968. pp. 40.
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Readiness
Rules of
Engagement
Enabling Elements
Military Hardware
Personel
Operational Protocols
Military Assets
Combat
Support
Operational Structures
C4
Tasks
Objectives
Interoperability
Force Components Regulating Factors Concepts of
Employment
Doctrine
Derivative
Elements
Operations
ISR
Figure 2: Capabilities construct
Military capabilities alternatives are a
particular manifestation of a (intended) stable
relationship of three conjuncts28
of elements: the
conjunct of force components, the conjunct of
regulating factors, and the conjunct of concepts of
employment, all interacting with each other in
unique ways.
28
M.D. Mesarovic explains the concept of conjunct as the individualizing properties that provide to
some type of cluster of elements within the environment its quality as system components. Each
conjunct is, in itself, a system, defined by particular analytical criteria used to isolate them from the
rest. Mesarovic, M.D. Foundations for a General System Theory. New York, USA: John Willey &
Sons, 1964. pp. 1-24.
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The concept of employment, force components and
regulating factors are mutually determined elements
of capabilities. The first assures the proper
relationship of tactical possibilities, strategic
alternatives and political goals. The second
determines the proper quantitative and qualitative
dimensioning of military assets and organizations,
being enabled by interoperability, jointness,
command, control, communications and computing (C4)
possibilities. The regulating factors link both
force components and concepts of employment,
assuring the external coherence of military
capabilities with the political will and internal
coherence between its component parts. By examining
these complex interactions, it is possible to shed
more light on how they alter defense reforms
possibilities.
THE CONJUNCT OF FORCE
The conjunct of force emerges in the articulation
of A) military assets possibilities, B) operational
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structures, and C) its enabling elements, which will
make tactics and strategy possible.
A) Military Assets
Military assets are the means effectively used to
accomplish assigned tasks and the means necessary to
provide efficiency and sustain the tactical effort
for a certain period. For analytical purposes, each
military asset has three component elements: 1)
military hardware; 2) personnel; and 3) protocol of
operations29
.
1) Military hardware
Military hardware is the machinery and equipment
of war, such as tanks, aircraft, ships, rifles, etc.
The identifying criterion for including an element
in the conjunct of military asset is its sufficiency
for a specific purpose. Such is the case with a war
ship, with its sensors, weapon systems, engines,
damage control systems, communication and command
centers integrated into a single platform with the
purpose of providing task efficiency.
29
For a typology of military assets, see Brzoska, M. et. al. Typology of Military Assets. Bonn, Ge:
Bonn International Center for Conversion. Paper 16. April 2000.
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A Boeing 747 initially conceived for civilian
airlines might become a military asset as a troop
transport; a merchant freighter may become a tank
carrier or an ordinary SUV may be converted into an
armed scooter. On the other hand, if it is
considered aircraft, warships or tanks originally
conceived as war-machines, the question would be
what are the distinguished features that typify a
corvette, a frigate and a cruiser other than their
size and weaponry? A corvette with sophisticated and
powerful weaponry might overcome a frigate in an
artillery duel, but the overweigh of this weaponry
could restrain its speed and performance, allowing
the frigate maneuver fast to overcome its weakness.
Similar propositions could be posed to the entire
war arsenal with its composing typology of fighters,
bombers, aircraft carriers, tanks, guns, etc.
Clearly, not only their aptitude to fly, navigate or
off-road traffic empowers these material components
as military assets. What defines these material
means as military assets is their ability to provide
tactical efficacy. However, because resources are
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always constrained, efficacy should be associated
with efficiency. An efficient combat asset, for
example, will perform tasks with less fuel, which is
transformed into a wider deployment range or longer
periods on station without replenishment.
In other words, the criteria to define a military
mean is whether it is able to provide an
identifiable contribution to the required task,
being a lever of influence in the outcome. Military
assets are defined using four combining criteria:
• Mobility and staying power: the ability of
military means to deploy and maintain continuous
operations. Mobility and staying power can be
enhanced by new transportation and communications
technologies.
• Offensive and defensive firepower: offensive
firepower regards the ability to damage (neutralize
or destroy) adversaries’ fighting ability by
attacking targets such as missile launch sites,
airfields, naval vessels, command and control nodes,
munitions stockpiles, and supporting infrastructure.
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Offensive firepower includes but is not limited to
physical attack and/or destruction, military
deception, psychological operations, electronic
warfare, and special operations, and could also
include computer network attack. Defensive firepower
seeks to affect the adversary’s ability to achieve
or to promote specific damage against our assets. It
includes all aspects of protecting personnel,
weapons, and supplies while simultaneously employing
frequent movement, using deception and concealment
or camouflage.
• Sustainability: the ability to perform
tactical actions until successful accomplishment or
revision of the tasks.
• Tactical Flexibility and Versatility: the
ability to adjust assets configuration to confront
changes in the environment, laying out a wide range
of interrelated response paths.
2) Military personnel
Military personnel are considered in force design
in its qualitative and quantitative dimensions. The
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qualitative dimension of military personnel
translates both its total combat efficiency and the
individual ability to assess complex situations
making and implementing decisions within the domain
of their professional expertise, with reasonable
expectation of success. The quantitative dimension
of military personnel deals with the required mix of
active, reserve, professional and conscripts to
effectively operate, deploy, and maintain material
means required to attend a set of concepts of
employments.
The common trend in personnel reforms, supported
by most scholars as a by-product of the end of the
Cold War, has been downsizing the military and a
complement of civilians. This is a monumental
decision that has to be carefully throughout in its
impacts. David McCormick30
summarizes its
complexity:
“Judging the appropriateness of an army’s
downsizing objectives is more complicated than it
might appear. The logic behind each of the four
30
McCormick, David. The Downsized Warrior: America’s Army in Transition. New York: New York
University Press, 1998. pp 75-76.
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primary objectives – protecting quality, shaping
the force, sustaining personnel readiness, and
demonstrating care and compassion – is persuasive.
An officer corps of exceptional quality is
obviously crucial to a dynamic and effective
military organization, even more so given the
uncertain challenges of the post-Cold War era.
Maintaining promotion opportunities and enhancing
professional development opportunities as a means
of retaining to performers seems reasonable, too,
especially since downsizing organizations often
lose their most valued performers. Similarly, there
is an obvious and compelling need for shaping the
officers corps by precisely identifying the
individuals with the specific skill and expertise
needed in a downsized organization and for
distributing officer cuts across the entire officer
corps…Sustaining personnel readiness is also a
reasonable objective. Personnel readiness in the
aggregate is a telling indicator of the alignment
between cuts in force structure and cuts in
personnel, two activities that should ideally go
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hand in hand. Thus, personnel readiness allows the
army to gauge how effectively it is managing this
aspect of downsizing. In addition, at the unit
level, reasonably high levels of personnel
readiness are necessary for effective unit training
and operations. And, personnel readiness obviously
has significant implications for the army’s wartime
capabilities. Finally, a caring compassionate
approach to downsizing is justified on moral as
well as practical grounds. From a moral
perspective, it has traditionally to those who
loyally serve. And, as noted earlier, fair and
compassionate treatment of downsizing victims
affects the attitudes and performance of those who
remain and influences an organization’s ability to
recruit new members.”
In the US case, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
believes that the military's personnel management
system might be a Cold War relic that encourages too
many service members to stay for 20 years, too few
to stay thereafter, and most members to scurry
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between assignments at a pace harmful to unit
cohesion and to families. 31
3) Operational protocols
Operational protocols are the instructions of how
to operate efficiently those material means,
exploring their technical characteristics to
maximize task effectiveness. An operational protocol
for five similar surface ships to deploy in calm sea
aiming sonar detection of low speed submarines would
recommend a pattern of simultaneous turning to have
a detection probability of 80%. Another protocol of
operation for the same class of ships operating in
rough sea would recommend another pattern for a 60%
detection probability32
.
More efficient protocols of operations can be
developed by applying computational routines to a
generic “model”, modifying its parameters to make
military assets to satisfy performance requirements
appropriated to a wide variety of conditions, or to
31
Tom Philpott. Military Update: Longer Careers, Fewer Moves: Two Of Rumsfeld's Tougher
Goals. http://www.militarylifestyle.com/home/1,1210,S:1100:1:1187,00.html. (June 19, 2002).
32
For methodological processes of developing operational protocols, see NAVAL WAR COLLEGE.
Naval Operations Analysis. (2. ed.). Annapolis, EUA: NWC Press, 1989.
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make them to perform existing tasks better, or to
implement tasks never before performed.
However, one of the most difficult and expensive
activities of modern armed forces is exactly making
efficient protocols of operations. It demands
sophisticated centers of operational analysis and
complex processing. For this reason, not all
countries can afford such centers. The problem,
therefore, is that they might employ newly acquired
military assets with obsolete operational protocols,
virtually neutralizing their efficiency. However,
since they do not have such centers, they do not
realize their necessity, or simply deny this
problem. The error, therefore, is circular, with
increasing costs of acquiring and maintaining
technologically sophisticated assets with
diminishing returns in terms of effectiveness.
When defining the military assets conjunct, the
relevant variable is the tooth-to-tail ratio of
fighting assets to its supporting components.
Fighting assets are designed to maximize combat
ability relatively to foreseen opponents. Supporting
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components are designed to assure the maintenance of
the cutting edge of fighting assets. The fighting
tooth needs refueling and ammunition supplies to
maintain combat ability. Without supplying vessels,
tank aircraft, depots and bases, the fighting
ability would be severed to the point of impairing
task possibilities. In US, for example, the fighting
tooth has required deployment of only 4% of active-
duty personnel33
.
The conjunct of military assets, therefore,
includes both its cutting edge and its supporting
device categories. Training and motivation of
military personnel, the internal military
organization, communications systems, logistical and
other systems all may enhance or prejudice military
capability because they possible impact on the
possible tooth-to-tail ratio.
B) Operational Structures
The conjunct of operational structures creates
the ability of military assets to perform operations
33
The Paradoxes of post-Cold War US Defense Policy: An agenda for the 2001 Quadrennial
Defense Review. Project on Defense Alternatives, Briefing Memo # 18 5 February 2001.
http:://www.comw.org/pda/0102bmemo 18.html. . pp. 5. (8/28/2001)
59
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in support of required tasks. They are designed,
therefore, to attend command and control
requirements, articulating military assets in order
to get task efficacy through the efficient
performance of the parts. Its role is to make the
conjunct of military assets present in a military
capability become more than the sum of the parts.
For analytical purposes, operational structures have
two distintive components: 1) Combat structures, and
2) Support Strutures.
1) Combat structures
Combat structures allow parts of the conjunct of
military assets to be detached and deployed to
specific tasks, allowing expansion of the number of
possible tasks that the conjunct might perform.
Therefore, the synchronization of detachment and
reincorporation of those parts maximizes the
potential ability of military assets to accomplish
the envisaged concept of employment.34
34
See Department of the Army, United States of America. 1986 US Army Field Manual 100-5,
blueprint for the AirLand Battle. Washington DC: Brassey’s (US), Inc, 1991. To identify the impact
of combat structure in force structure and warfare see Deichman, P.F. der. Spearhead for Blitzkrieg:
Luftwffe Operations in Support of The Army: 1939-1945. New York, USA: IVY Books, 1996.
Diechman’s book is also relevant to see the functional role of doctrine in the relationship of combat
structure and the conjunct of military assets.
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2) Support structures
Support Structures are designed to fulfill two
simultaneous demands. The first refers to the
maintenance of military effort in time. In this
case, the purpose of support structures is to
provide the adequate logistical flow to maintain
both military means in their optimum technical
performance, and personnel adequate supplied in
order to assure the continuous validity of
operational protocols, providing for the expected
performance of military assets. The second demand
imposed on support structures is to prepare the
conjunct of military assets to attend operational
requirements. In the first demand, support
structures are articulated with combat structures,
timely linking, for example, depot resources with
theatre demands. In the second demand, support
structures group military assets by types and
classes, seeking a gain in scale in maintenance,
repair and training.
Decisions regarding military assets and the
organizational design are highly dependent on the
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degree of require jointness, as well as on decisions
regarding how force components are deployed,
interconnected and specialized.
C) Enabling Elements
The range of possibilities provided by military
assets in response to tasks depends on the 1)
interoperability of their component parts, and 2)
the possibilities created by command, control,
communication, and computing. Together, they
contribute to achieve and jointness synergy.
1) Interoperability
Interoperability defines the degree of
compatibility between force components that permits
them to work together to produce expected tactical
results. It explores technical features incorporated
in military assets to perform operations.
Interoperability is a technology function. It
depends on a systemically integrated conjunct of
knowledge and instructions that fulfill or create
specific demands of force designing, and guide the
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production possibilities of defense products and
processes though proper techniques35
.
Technology differs from techniques in
continuously reconstructing and transforming itself,
having as reference all previous knowledge, whereas
techniques are specific knowledge circumscribed in
time and space oriented to use or produce required
products and processes. Technology supports the
presumption of certainty that force components will
produce expected results to tasks demands, and
determines the transforming rules of knowledge into
force components possibilities36
.
35
Literature offers a variety of definitions of techniques within an unresolved discussion about the
difference with technology. Longo defines technology as the organized assemblage of all scientific,
empiric and intuitive knowledge used in the production and commercialization of goods and
services; and techniques as the purely empirical and intuitive knowledge. Longo, W.L. O
Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico do Brasil e suas Perspectivas Frente aos Desafios do
Mundo Moderno. Belém: UNAMA, 2000. pp. 11,12. For Morais, technology is derived from the
evolution of techniques. For him, techniques refers to Paleolithic, Neolithic, medieval or even
modern humankind creative behavior used to provide human necessities though the transformation
of the environment; and technology refers to more recent practice of objective human creativity.
Morais, R. J.F. Ciência e Tecnologia. 2.ed. São Paulo: Cortez & Morais, 1978. pp.102. Munford has
the same understanding of Morais regarding techniques: “through technical improvements we
create a new environment and highly organized new behavioral standards that have attended human
necessity of living in a orderly and predicable world”. Munford, L. Arte e Ciência. São Paulo:
Martins Fontes, 1986. pp.14. Jacques Ellul has an inverted perspective of the concepts when he says
that technology regards naïve activities oriented toward perfection; and techniques as the
contemporaneous mentality oriented to efficiency as a supreme goal. Ellul, J. A Técnica e o Desafio
do Século. trad. Roland Corbisier. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1968. pp. 445. Buzan sees in the
technology the most important factor in determining the nature of military alternatives and means of
force, isolated from political influence. Buzan, B. Strategic Studies: Military Technology &
International Relations. London, UK:MacMillan Press, 1987. pp.7. Häbermas, on the other hand,
thinks that technical reasoning does not abandon its political content. Habermas, J. Técnica e
ciência como Ideologia. (trad. Arthur Morão). Lisboa, Portugal: Edições 70, 1968. pp. 46.
36
For a historical perspective of the composition and influence of technology upon force design,
see: Macksey, K. Technology in War: the Impact of Science on Weapons Development and Modern
Battle. London, UK: Armour Press, 1986. Creveld, M. van. Technology and War: From 2000 B.C to
the Present. New York, USA: Free Press, 1991. Dupuy, T.N. The Evolution of Weapons and
Warfare. Fairfax, USA: Hero Books, 1984. Jones, A. The Art of War in the Western World. New
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2) Command, Control, Communications and
Computing (C4)
Command and Control, Communications and Computing
assure the processes transaction of operational and
support structures in a logical fashion, being an
integral part of force structure manifested in
military capabilities. They can lead to fewer
changeovers in force components and tasks to produce
required military capabilities, reducing cycle time
without changing military effectiveness or
increasing military effectiveness using lesser-
sophisticated conjunct of military assets. As the
size of force components increases, it can exploit
more and more tasks, but it also becomes
increasingly complex to select the C4 system that
makes it possible to provide effectiveness at a low
total cost/risk ratio and at the same time assure
interoperability37
.
York, USA:Oxford University Press, 1987. O’Connel, R.L. Of Arms and Men: A History of War,
Weapons and Aggressions. London, UK: Oxford U.P., 1989. MacNeill, W. The Pursuit of Power:
Technology, Armed Forces and Society Since A.D. 1000. Chicago, USA: The University of Chicago
Press, 1982.
37
For a in-depth discussion of Command and Control, see Weisman, R.M.L. A Conceptual Model
for Military Command and Control. Ontario, Canada: University of Ontario,UMI Dissertations
Services. 1992.
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Properly identified, C4 requirements lead demand
growth of military capabilities with preemptive
actions to exploit current deployment of military
assets considering its different degrees of
readiness tailored to expanding or contracting tasks
demands within a specific concept of employment.
THE CONJUNCT OF CONCEPTS OF EMPLOYMENT
The conjunct of concepts of employment define a
set of articulated decisions that express the
prioritization of objectives and its translation
into tasks requirements having operations as its
linking factors, whereas relating all of them with a
political logic.
In the US case, for example, the Navy has put
emphasis on network-centric operations, the Air
Force moves towards becoming an expeditionary force,
the Marines’s continuing experiments with concepts
such as Desert Warrior and Urban Warrior, and the
Army’s recently announced effort to develop medium-
sized brigades with increaded responsiveness38
.
38
Davis, P. Tranforming Military Force. California: Rand Corporation, 2002. pp. 231.
http://www.rand.org/ contact/personal/pdavis/MR1306.1.sec6.pdf . (Mar/20/2002).
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A) Objectives
Objectives are functionally sufficient
descriptors of foreseeable demands of the use of
force for political purposes. Each one encapsulates
a comprehensive content that justifies its
individuality and permanence, supporting the
assumption that during the processes force design
guides those demands of force will not change.
There are five implicit premises in this
formulation. First, that the objectives, once
selected, are necessary and sufficient to achieve
the predetermined purpose. Second, that the
processes are logically articulated. Third, that if
those objectives were achieved, the envisaged
initial purpose would be accomplished. Forth, that
its formulation and execution are bounded by some
degree of sufficient rationality. Fifth, that during
the processes, the objectives and the rules of
transformation will not change.
These premises support the proper linkages
between national interests and defense capabilities
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towards higher states of effectiveness, efficiency,
provided four conditions:
• Intelligibility: the denotative content of
objectives are clearly defined and understood.
• Feasibility: objectives are achievable within
the realm of practical possibilities and logical
reasoning.
• Assessment possibility: the results are
measurable either quantitatively or qualitatively.
• Compatibility: the effects are part of a
chain of causality addressing defense requirements
Intelligibility is the requirement for the proper
developing of plausible hypothesis related to a set
of accepted values and principles; and for clearly
communicated results. Assessment Possibility is the
requirement for determining the consistency of the
proposed objectives and its sensibility to changes
in the threat environment.
Attending intelligibility and assessment
possibility requirements are relevant to prevent
three common risks in defining defense objectives.
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The first risk is making static a dynamic process.
The second, is that objectives, as Lodi39
put,
convey solutions in terms of re-scaling existing
capabilities, increasing or downsizing, thus
restricting the emergence of new capabilities based
on different internal logic for rearranging force
components. Finally, objectives tend to focus on the
short term.
Compatibility is the enable of strategic
possibilities. It assures that the resulting effect
of operations – manifested in tactical use of
military assets in the engagements – might be
articulated toward the political goals though a
cascade of linked results.
B) Tasks
Tasks are a set of intended actions or desired
effects of the application of force towards specific
defense objectives. They are the building blocks of
the concept of employment, defining the intention
for using force components in a chain of linked
39
Lodi conclusions are taken for business strategic planning methodologies. However, his analyis
and conclusions can be transposed to force design because both fields explore similar articulating
logic and general concepts. See Lodi, J.B. Admininstração por Objetivos: Uma Crítica. São Paulo:
Pioneira, 1972. pp.25.
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tactical actions, expecting that the aggregated
outcome of this chain will contribute to achieve a
cascade of intermediate objectives having at its top
the defense objective.
The political logic that links objectives and
tasks can be understood with the comprehension of
its relation with 1) Defense Missions and 2) Defense
Roles.
1) Defense missions
Defense missions are the assemblage of tasks
within the scope of an intended purpose. Each
mission is related to a specific outcome, in the
form a hypothetical combination of assumptions and
chains of future developments that serve as a
reference for the diagnosis of current and required
tasks. Defense missions are, therefore, a
proposition of reality aiming to anticipate
possible, probable and plausible contingencies where
the uses of military capabilities are considered.
Determining and prioritizing missions are a prime
political decision found in a set of compromises
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seeking to reconcile, and where possible, to balance
conflicting questions of value. Once defined, they
orient the bulk of national effort towards the
political use of military capabilities in defense
related tasks. At least three important
characteristics are common to the use of the term
mission:
a) Time horizon: it defines a time horizon
for the anticipated impact of the tasks required to
carry out its mandate.
b) Focus: it required concentration of
effort on a narrow range of pursuits reducing the
resources available for other activities.
c) Chain of causality: in requires a series
of decisions supportive to one another following a
consistent pattern.
2) Defense roles
Defense roles are generic descriptors of the
nature of the effect, cause or consequence of
applied military capabilities in defense tasks.
Defense roles are usually categorized as nation
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building, diplomatic, combat, constabulary, and
police; reflecting the different political rules and
legal framework that bounds defense tasks.
Nation building roles shape defense tasks towards
the social and economic development of the state
under democratic governance, civil law and economic
rules of market regulation. International law and
treaties bind diplomatic and combat roles in peace,
crisis and war, asseverating Clausewitz’s conclusion
that war is the continuation of policy with the
introduction of means of force. The importance of
diplomatic roles lies in the fact that nations judge
potential adversaries in terms of its military
responsiveness, reliability, consistency, and, most
of all, unity: unity of purpose, unity of effort,
and unity of action40
. Constabulary and policy roles
are oriented to the maintenance of order and
enforcement of regulations, under national or
coalition legal mandate.
The priorities of defense roles reflect the
mandate of politics in defense issues. The
40
Foster, GD. The Postmodern Military: The Irony of "Strengthening" Defense. Harvard
International Review; Cambridge, Summer 2001. pp. 24-29.
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importance of clearly defined defense roles is the
assignment of functions for defense, making it
accountable for its results. Military capabilities
acquire fighting, diplomatic, police, or
constabulary roles depending on doctrine, the way
they are organized, deployed, trained, sustained,
commanded and controlled. The required status of
each of these requirements are assessed taking into
considerations topological characteristics of
possible areas of operation, national and alliances
fiscal and production possibilities to sustain
existing capabilities or incorporate others during
the course of operations. This, in turn, will
require a sustained degree of readiness41
articulated with expected tempo of the military
operations.
The relationship of objectives, roles and
missions, having tasks as its linking elements,
define a matrix of cross impacts.
41
The concept of readiness will be retaken further on. Here, it is proposed to understand it as the
degree of preparedness for a specific purpose.
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Objectives
A B C D
Mission
1 TasksTasksTasksTasks A
Roles
2 TasksTasksTasksTasks b
3 TasksTasksTasksTasks c
4 TasksTasksTasksTasks d
Figure 3: Cross-Impact matrix of objectives,
tasks, missions, and roles
Strategy links tactical intended results with the
purpose of defense through a political logic; and
use tasks, missions and roles to both instruct its
formulation and assess its results.
Canada offers an example of the relationship of
mission, objectives, and tasks42
:
Defense Mission:
Defend Canada and Canadian interests and values
while contributing to international peace and
security
Defense Objective:
42
Canada. Defense Planning Guidance 2001 – Chapter 2 – Strategic Directions.
http://www.vcds.ca/dgsp/dgp/ dgp2001/chap2e.asp. (Jun/01/2002).
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To conduct surveillance and control of Canada’s
territory, aerospace and maritime areas of
jurisdiction. This Defense Objective will be met by
Defense Tasks:
1. Protecting Canadian sovereignty through
surveillance and control of Canada’s territory,
airspace and maritime areas of jurisdiction; and
2. Mounting an immediate, effective and
appropriate response for the resolution of
terrorist incidents that affect, or have the
potential to affect, national interests.
Tasks determine the chain of operations and
actions [tactical] expected to be accomplished to
achieve an objective. Defense mission instructs
strategy formulation establishing the validity of
linked task results for defense objectives and
security goals. Defense Roles provide parameters to
assess the degree of efficacy of these valid results
to the envisage success defense and security policy
determine. That means that strategy completes itself
in the tactical possibilities and in the political
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determinants; having no significance isolated from
any one. Finally, it should be kept in mind that
objectives, roles and missions are enormously
sensitive issues, for they means fiscal resources.
C) Derivative elements
Derivative elements mediate the process of
desegregating tasks attending both the criteria
formulated based on 1) Intelligence, Surveillance,
and Reconnaissance (ISR), and 2) the practiced
categories of operations. Together, they offer the
criteria for developing guidelines for making
decisions about the employment of the force
components, reflecting how decision-makers define
the hierarchy of tasks and describe through missions
their understanding of the country’s requirements of
security and defense.
1) Intelligence, Surveillance, and
Reconnaissance (ISR)
ISR ensures that threats will be detected well in
advance. Asymmetric threats, for example, such as
information and terrorist attacks, are more
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difficult to predict than large-scale conventional
attacks, and therefore have significantly less
strategic warning associated with them. The response
to asymmetric attack, however, is unlikely to
trigger the requirement for national mobilization of
conventional forces. As a conclusion, readiness
requirements that anticipates a longer period of
increasing tension marked by hostile activities,
warning indicators and instances of crises prior to
the outbreak of a conflict, may be undertaken with
the expectation of warning time prior to the
emergence of a threat necessitating mobilization.
2) Operations
Operations are doctrinarly defined actions taken
in the pursuit of defense tasks, such as convoying,
combat air patrol, interdiction, reconnaissance, and
replenishment at sea. These actions inevitably
involve a degree of coordination; nonetheless, they
need not necessarily result in either desired or
desiralbe results.
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The assemblage of practiced operations are
doctrinally defined and categorized, varying from
country to country and time to time accordingly to
the practiced conceptual system used to determine
those categories and the criteria used to allocate
operations within each category. Currently, the
general trend is to define two broad categories for
operations: one reflecting the bulk of the required
warfare effort against a specific type of assets
(submarine warfare, mine warfare, etc.); the other
reflecting required supporting actions to provide
efficiency of the operation in the first category
(replenishment, surveillance, intelligence, patrol,
etc.).
Across the spectrum of operations, small-scale
contingencies are the dominant trend in the current
defense environment, expanding its limits toward
war-like operations and diplomatic actions. The US
uses nine categories for smaller-scale
contingencies, which are defined as the range of
military operations: 1) beyond peacetime engagement
but short of major theater warfare; 2) opposed
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interventions; 3) coercive campaigns; 4)
humanitarian intervention; 5) peace accord
implementation; 6) follow-on peace operations; 7)
interposicional peacekeeping operations; 8) foreign
humanitarian assistance; 9) domestic disaster relief
and consequent management; 10) no-fly zone
enforcement; 11) maritime intercept operations; 12)
counterdrug operations and operations in support of
other agencies; 13) noncombatant evacuation
operations: 14) shows of force; 15) and strikes.
These categories and the criteria to allocate
contingencies in each one of them have been a focus
of debate, making it a major issue in the post-Cold
War era to offer a public rationale for capabilities
needed to handle the full range of contingencies
without putting undue strains on budget and
political possibilities.
Combined as derivative elements of the capability
construct, ISR and operations attend four basic
purposes:
1) To collect authoritative information about
the security and defense context;
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2) To provide criteria to identify required
tasks to be performed (application domain
decomposition);
3) To orient representational abstractions for
those tasks; and
4) To define interactions and relations among
objectives and tasks to ensure that a) constraints
and boundary conditions imposed by context are
accommodate, b) identify data to be collected and
appropriately addressed, and c) control the flow of
information that allow the derivation of tasks be
stopped or restarted, assuring that the scope and
scale of tasks are represented with discernible
details.
THE CONJUNCT OF REGULATING FACTORS
Regulating factors are the arsenal of normative
instructions linking the requirements of the
concepts of employment with the possibilities of
force components. This arsenal comprises A)
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Doctrine, B) Readiness Guidelines, and C) Rules of
Engagement (ROE).
A) Doctrine
Doctrine is the acerb of experiences and
practices that guides the selection of operational
protocols, instructing the individual and collective
use of military assets towards higher levels of
efficacy and efficiency, and exploring operational
and support structures to perform military
operations43
.
Doctrine is associated with tactical success,
while operational protocols are associated with the
technical performance of military assets. Military
commanders are expected to have the moral courage to
discard a doctrinal recommendation based on its
professional experience and even intuition, when
they perceive that current doctrine will not produce
the expected tactical success in the novel situation
he/she confronts. Operational protocols provide
guidance, but it is the ability to interpret its
43
For a discussion on military doctrine, see Drew, D.M and Snow. D.M. Making Strategy: An
introduction to National Processes and Problems. Maxwell, Alabama: Air University Pres, 1988.
pp.163-174.
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adequacy and translate it into tactical success that
makes a general a master of war.
B) Readiness
Readiness is defined as the level of preparedness
for personnel and materiel to respond to considered
tasks. The time assigned to a force component to
reach the readiness level is the time required to be
fully manned and equipped at organizational
strength, including training and logistics stocks
necessary for the operations or actions assigned.
Readiness requirements are specified at three
levels: 1) tactical, 2) structural and 3)
mobilizational.44
1) Tactical Readiness
Tactical readiness determines the level of
training and maintenance necessary for timely
deployment of military assets. It explores
operational and support structure possibilities to
accomplish a predetermined range of tasks with
44
See Betts, Richard. Military Readness: Concepts, Choises, Consequences. Washington, DC.
EUA: Brookings, 1995.
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expected degree of success and acceptable level of
risk.
Higher degree of tactical readiness, either to
prepare to immediate deployment or simple to
communicate political intentions, demands military
assets be kept in higher state of alert with its
systems energized and manned, causing personnel
fatigue and increased rate of material damage. In
turn, personnel fatigue and higher maintenance
demands burdens the support structures, stressing
the logistics possibilities to the point that the
degree of expected tactical success can not anymore
be maintained.
2) Structural Readiness
Structural Readiness determines military
organizational architecture and logistic
requirements to avail, when demanded, large scale
and higher periods of tactical readiness, either
increasing the range of possible tasks or
diminishing risk probability. However, structural
readiness has its costs. Higher degree of structural
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readiness immobilizes capital and resources for
future actions, inherently creating inefficiency.
Maintaining large repair facility mostly inactive
and enormous logistics structure are expensive;
similarly, structural readiness demands a top heavy
military personnel structure based upon the
assumption that it is more difficult and time
consuming to prepare officers than soldiers. In
addition, structural readiness bets on time for
bolstering military capabilities.
3) Mobilizational Readiness
Mobilizational readiness determines priorities
for the conversion of the peace time social,
technologic, industrial and economic national
possibilities into military assets and support
requirements to avail and maintain tactical efforts
through the organizational and logistic
possibilities created by the structural readiness.
Mobilizational readiness also has its costs, mainly
in terms of preparing and maintaining an inventory
of conversion possibilities.
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The proper balance of tactical, structural and
mobilizational readiness requirements reflect
concept of employment possibilities and the
assumption of time available for deploying military
capabilities and the efforts to sustain that effort.
Location decision also impacts in readiness
alternatives. This balance, therefore, changes as
the concept of employment changes. US readiness
spending per person in uniform, for example,
averaged 22 percent more (in inflation-adjusted
terms) during the Clinton years than on the eve of
the 1990-1991 Gulf War45
.
C) Rules of Engagement
Rules of engagement are directives delineating
the circumstances and limitation under which the use
of force would be initiated, continued and ceased.
These rules have a political nature with two
mutually complementary dimensions. The first one,
judicial, refers to the limitations imposed by
domestic and international law, in peace and war, to
45
The Paradoxes of post-Cold War US Defense Policy: An agenda for the 2001 Quadrennial
Defense Review. Project on Defense Alternatives, Briefing Memo # 18 5 Feburary 2001.
http:://www.comw. org/pda/0102bmemo18.html. Downloaded in8/28/2001. pp. 5
84