the Revolution in Military Affairswq974bw2345/wq974bw2345.pdf · ©1997,Booz-Allen&HamiltonInc. Page7 cohesion as a mathematical term in determining unit capability, 16 omits the

ENTROPY-BASED WARFAREA Unified Theory for Modeling

the Revolution in Military Affairs

hMark Herman

Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc.

July 1997

IntroductionThere is a hypothesis, first proposed by the Soviets in the late 70's, that the new

generation of precision weapons coupled with new sensor and information

architectures will generate a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). 1 This vision offuture warfare has been explored for over a decade by a small group of analysts and

is now partially embodied in the U.S. JV 2010 (Joint Vision 2010).2 This view holdsthat the period of the '90's and the early 21st century will be analogous to theinterwar years of the 20's and 30's when the Blitzkrieg and carrier warfare were firstdeveloped. Within this analogy, it is estimated that the world is in the equivalent ofthe early 20's with almost two more decades of developmental thought before somemore stable military regime is established. 3 The use of precision strike weapons,nascent information warfare capabilities, and advanced collection systems usedduring the Gulf War are touted as evidence of the analogy's validity.

As the RMA concept develops, the international defense community has had to

grapple with understanding the impact of advanced warfare concepts, such as

information warfare, and with the broader advantages conferred by high levels ofsituation awareness on the battlefield. Inadequate understanding of warfare

dynamics beyond the current attrition-based paradigm has, to date, constrainedunderstanding of the RMA.

Virtually all models4 currently used by the U.S. Department of Defense are

fundamentally attrition-based.5 When used in an analytical roles, these modelsoften provide quantitative results that support one recommendation over another.

1TheEconomist, "The Future of Warfare, TheEconomist (August 3, 1997), from Websitehttp://www.economist.com/issue/08-03-97/id4s63.html,p. 1.2 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Toint Vision 2010.(Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1996), p.19.

3 AndrewMarshall quote from The Economist, "TheFuture of Warfare, TheEconomist (August 3,1997),from Website http://www.economist.com/issue/08-03-97/sfoBl3.html,p. 1.

4 Forpurposes of this paper theterm model is used to encompass, models, simulations, and wargames.

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These attrition-based models, however, do not account for many of the important

factors that impact conflict outcome, such as command. The few models that

attempt to quantify C4ISR6 lack an analytic construct that goes beyond attrition,

resulting in basic effects that are usually measured as increases in the rate and

efficiency of attrition. When relying on models that quantify only part of the conflictequation, decision makers have had to fill in the blanks based on qualitativejudgment alone.

The analytic construct behind simulations influences the types of forces built and

the types of wars that are fought with those forces. During the Cold War, attrition-

based simulations strongly influenced the acquisition of large attrition-orientedforces. In the Post Cold War era, both the U.S. and international defense

communities need to reduce military establishments and focus resources on moreproductive investments. While continued reliance on an attrition-based paradigmin a Post Cold War era is likely to perpetuate the rationale for large military forces, a

more robust analytic construct can illuminate a more efficient and effective way ofconducting warfare with smaller, more agile forces. Fundamental to such a

paradigm shift is an understanding of the broader dynamics of warfare and hownew technologies and techniques impact future warfare. This paper proposes a new

analytic paradigm of warfare, articulating some of its implications for the emergingRMA.

This new modeling paradigm is predicated on the historical view that warfare can

be directed against the cohesion of enemy units or states rather than exclusivelyagainst the physical components that comprise those entities. Thus, for example,destruction of an armored unit's ability to maintain situation awareness, coordinateactions, and apply its will can destroy that unit's effectiveness at least as certainly as

5 Andrew Marshall (Director of the Office of the Secretary of Defensefor Net Assessment),interviewed by Mark Herman atOSD/NA (Pentagon 3A930), notes, Washington DC, USA,February 20, 1996.6 Command, Control, Communications,Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance,and Reconnaissance

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elimination of the unit's systems through firepower. Such great captains as Genghis

Khan and Alexander the Great practiced this style of warfare to generate decisiveone-sided outcomes. For example, in two of Alexander's most famous battles (Issus

and Gaugamela), his direct threat to the opposing commander (Darius III) caused the

collapse of the Persian army's cohesion before the majority of the force had engaged

in combat. 7 The resultant Persian collapse gave Alexander's numerically inferior

forces domination over the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

In the context of this paradigm, the goal of forces is to disorder the enemy whilemaintaining their own cohesion. Certainly the destruction of an enemy force can

accomplish this, but there are other dimensions that can now produce the same

impact. The author enlists a physics metric, entropy8, to describe the state of disorderimposed on a military system at a given moment. Broadly, this metric is based on

the fact that military forces are trained — and required — to act in a cohesive and

organized manner. In conflict, a military force is subject to various pressures thatcreate disorganization. In this paradigm, a military unit that has been whose entropyhas risen to the maximum level is no more than a mob. The mechanism by whichenemy disorganization and ineffectiveness are measured is entropy. The organizedapplication of the entropy metric is the foundation of entropy-based warfare.

The inaccuracy of attrition metrics in measuring conflict should raise questionsthroughout the Department of Defense about the validity of these models and aboutthe limitations inherent in force-on-force paradigms. Department of Defenseanalytic model runs prior to the Gulf War almost universally predicted an attrition-

oriented outcome involving large numbers of Coalition force casualties, whichthankfully never materialized. This paper articulates an alternate model of warfare,

based on the entropy metric, that demonstrates the commonality of different styles

7 Arrian, TheCampaigns of Alexander,translated by Aubrey De Selincourt and J.R. Hamilton,(Middlesex:Penguin Books., 1976),pp. 119-120and 168-170.8 Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines Entropy as the steady degradation ordisorganization of a system or society.

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of warfare across the conflict spectrum. The thesis of this paper is thatfuture warfarecannot be adequately modeled using attrition as the primary measure ofeffectiveness. This thesis will be tested against dissimilar historical cases as a proof ofits efficacy.

To relate the theory to a more inclusive set of conflict measures of effectiveness, thispaper will be broken into three sections. The first section will deal with those factorscited by classic theorists and military historians as key to the dynamics that drivecombat outcome. The second section will take these key factors and articulate a

model of combat to illustrate how these factors operate across three styles of warfare(guerrilla, mobile, and conventional). The third section will examine some keyconcepts emerging from the RMA and how they can be modeled.

Dynamics of Combat: Theory and HistoryWarfare has three unchanging physical factors: force, space, and time.9 Commandershave manipulated these physical factors since the dawn of warfare. These factors aresubsumed within the human enterprise of warfare, which extends beyond thephysical factors to include such elusive qualities as morale, troop quality, andleadership.

Traditionally, force is the measure of the physical dimensions of an army, combatunit, or a society (e.g., economic force). It is the most easily quantifiable measure,

since it basically counts objects, such as tanks, and categorizes them to producevarious statistics that can be used for a variety of purposes.

Space is the measure of movement and control. How fast is the army moving? Howmuch territory does one side control? Subtler measures are also possible. One ofNapoleon's great strengths was his ability to coordinate the movement of his

9 Carl Yon Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and PeterParet,(Princeton: Princeton University Press., 1976),pp. 204-205.Clausewitz spoke in terms of forces in

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various corps components and have them mass upon the battlefield in a mannerthat gave him both force and spatial advantages (e.g., flank attack) over opponents.Napoleon's operations in support of his siege of Mantua during his Italiancampaign demonstrate his ability to use the spatial advantage of the central positionto repeatedly defeat numerically superior Austrian armies. 10

Time has traditionally been the hardest factor to quantify. Clearly time ismeasurable, but its impact on warfare is poorly understood. Great commandershave always understood the value of time. Caesar crossed the Rubicon with only theXIII legion because the political nature of the conflict rendered time, not force, as thekey to the conquest of Italy. 11 It is in the temporal dimension that advanced RMAconcepts hold their greatest promise, and it is this area that is least amenable to

attrition-based measurements.

Not surprisingly, armed strength is most commonly measured on the basis of force.Force — particularly when massive — is easily quantifiable, can be validatedtactically, and lends itself to analysis using such straightforward metrics as attrition.Attrition is a measure ofphysical destruction. Since attrition effects can be explicitlymeasured by counting methods and statistics, it has become the basic metric ofmilitary success. Thus, theaters of warfare with high force densities can bereasonably represented using attrition and force ratios, as exemplified by the ColdWar European front where NATO and Warsaw Pact forces stood in stalematepositions on the inter-German border. The military balance was the metric of theCold War whereby numerical measures of platform strength (e.g., tanks, artillery,ships, planes) defined international stability.

space that are unified in time.10 David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon. (New York: MacMillan Company, 1966), pp. 88-12111Julius Caesar, The Civil War, translatedby Jane Gardner, (Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1982), pp. 41--43.

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When, however, a model or simulation emphasizes force to the detriment ofwarfare's other dimensions — particularly as force densities diminish fromconventional to the low intensity conflict end of the spectrum — it fails to account

sufficiently for such other factors as friction, cohesion, and moral factors, whichclassical writers, military professionals, and students of military history haveacknowledged as important features of warfare. 12 Clausewitz wrote, "If the theory ofwar did no more than remind us of these elements, demonstrating the need to

reckon with and give full value to moral qualities, it would expand its horizon, and

simply by establishing this point of view would condemn in advance anyone who

sought to base an analysis on material factors alone." 13 Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinesemilitary theorist, made similar points in his chapter on estimates where force size isnot a primary factor, but a secondary "element" in assessing relative strengths.14

Precisely by over-emphasizing one element of warfare — force — over all otherconsiderations, forces were built during the Cold War which were fundamentallyinflexible and inappropriate for many military situations at the lower ends of theconflict spectrum and against RMA style forces. In a Post Cold War world that puts a

premium on flexible military forces, maintenance of the attrition metric is almostguaranteed to stunt the development of new military concepts and technologies.

One factor that is consistently identified as key to military strength is the notion ofunit cohesion, sometimes expressed as esprit de corps, morale, moral influence,training, or discipline.15 Most anecdotal descriptions of units performing above andbeyond expectations, in the face of overwhelming odds, can be attributed to thisfactor. Within the analysis community, very few models capture this term. (The

Joint Staff's Theater Analysis Model (TAM), although it explicitly quantifies

12 Clausewitz,p. 119.13 Clausewitz,p. 184.14 SunTzu, The Art of War (Sammuel B. Griffith translation), Oxford University Press, 1963, p.63.15 Wm Darryl Henderson, Cohesion: The Human Element in Combat. (Washington DC:


cohesion as a mathematical term in determining unit capability, 16 omits theClausewitzian concept of friction.) Friction, in its classical articulation, appears to beabsent from all models of unit behavior currently in U.S. Department of Defenseusage.17

Numerous attempts have been made to incorporate the notion of Clausewitzianfriction into models, but these efforts have ultimately derived from weaponsperformance and firepower data. RAND's Strategy Assessment System (RSAS) hasan explicit expression for friction, but it is fundamentally derived from firepowerinteractions, such as air power effects on ground forces. 18 Other approaches attemptto build hierarchical constructs which base the behavior of less detailed models onthe output of more detailed models. 19 The problem with the latter approach is thatthe less detailed, higher level models are calibrated by detailed attrition models;thus, the detail being added to the higher level model is simply more specificweapons performance data with inter-visibility calculations added. Alternateapproaches attempt to factor in some of the soft factors of intelligence through thedevelopment of targeting data within the command control system. 20 Theshortcoming of this approach is that it limits the use of intelligence almostexclusively to the purpose of more accurately applying weapons against targets.

Clausewitz described friction as the factor which "...combines to lower the generallevel of performance, so that one always falls far short of the intended goal."21

Friction occurs at all times and, within the American cultural experience, it might

National Defense University Press, 1985), p. 2.16 Booz"Allen & Hamilton, Inc., Theater Analysis Model,(Tysons Corner, Booz*Allen &Hamilton Inc., 1981), p. 43.17 Marshall, February 20, 1996.18 Paul K. Davis. Modeling Of Soft Factors In The RAND Strategy Assessment System (RSAS)No. 7538. (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1989), pp. 12-15.19 Paul K. Davis, An Introduction to Variable-Resolution Modeling and Cross-Resolution Model

Connection,

(Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1993), pp. 15-17.20 Steven C. Bankes, Methodological Considerations in Using Simulation to Assess the CombatValue of Intelligence and Electronic Warfare. (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1991), p. 16.21 Clausewitz,p. 119.


be equated with "Murphy's Law," whereby things just seem to go awry. Clausewitzacknowledged that a leader with an "iron will"22 could overcome the effects offriction, but only at a cost in reduced unit cohesion. It is from this perspective that

this author sees friction as a key element in the cohesion dynamic.

One concludes from reading Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Caesar23, and Napoleon24 that keysoft factors can be aggregated into the broad term of unit cohesion. Cohesion, in thiscontext, is a metric of efficiency whereby a unit with perfect cohesion carries out

military tasks to the full limit of its size and capabilities. 25 Conversely, a unit with

poor cohesion is capable of performing well below its theoretical potential efficiency.Cohesion is affected by two key variables: friction and disruption. Friction lowersunit cohesion based on the unit's own activities. As a unit moves, things break,

soldiers tire, and people meander. Disruption lowers unit cohesion based on enemyactivities. Herein lies the value of psychological operations, surprise attacks, and —in today's lexicon — information warfare. The RAND RSAS model's friction

variable more appropriately fits within this category of disruption.

One can imagine a mathematical model in which unit behavior is a function of its

cohesion and its physical capabilities (lethality). Between forces of equal cohesion,physical strength should prevail, but even momentary inequalities in cohesion can

severely unbalance an otherwise equal contest.

Alternate Model of Warfare

The macro expression for describing the combined effect of friction, disruption, andlethality on unit behavior is suggested by a term used in a RAND paper on

22 Clausewitz,p. 119.23 Julius Caesar,The Civil War (translatedby Jane F. Gardner), (Middlesex,PenguinPublishing, 1976), p. 153.24 Napoleon Bonaparte, The Military Maxims of Napoleon (translated by LtGen Sir George C.D'Aquilar C.8., edited by David Chandler), (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co.), p. 75.25 Henderson, p. 18.


Information Warfare — entropy.26 Genghis Khan is one of many famouscommanders who have practiced styles of warfare that have de-emphasizedattrition.27 Such a style has been called by many names, including maneuverwarfare, but for purposes of this paper itwillbe called "entropy-based warfare." For

purposes of this paper, the collective expression of a unit's cohesion and current

capabilities is measured by its entropy level. As a unit's entropy rises, its overallcapability decreases. Conversely, a unit with low entropy can realize its full physicalpotential.

The concept is based on the fact that a military force must maintain certain cohesiveproperties based on its orderly construction and operation. As a force loses cohesion,

its entropy level increases until, at maximum entropy, the unit becomes a mob ofindividuals who are incapable of coordinating combat potential. The object of war

has always been to bend an enemy to one's will, and a means to that end has been to

defeat the enemy's ability to resist. Attritioncan be an effective means to this goal,but it is important to recognize that other methods have been used to achieve thecollapse of military forces.

The non-attrition factors which directly affect combat outcome are often poorlyunderstood, and danger arises when resource and strategy decisions are based on

analysis which excludes these misunderstood factors. During the Vietnam War, forexample, U.S. policy makers used a mental model of attrition warfare which theNew York Times called the "meat grinder." The model's basic metric — reductionin enemy activity — led analysts to conclude that superior sized U.S. forces woulddeter the North Vietnamese from continuing to escalate their force commitments

26 John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt,

Information,

Power, and Grand Strategy (unpublished),(Santa Monica: RAND, July 1995),p. 19.27 James Chambers,The Devil's Horsemen. (New York: Morrison and Gibbs, Ltd, 1979),p. 63.


and convince them that they could not prevail. In fact, high U.S. force levelsproduced the opposite effect. 28

According to traditional metrics of conventional warfare — such as force ratio,territory held, and relative casualties — the U.S. won in Vietnam. In reality, U.S.morale (both army and societal), despite superior U.S. firepower, was near thebreaking point. Such discrepancies between theory and reality lead one to questionwhether or not the U.S. model of conflict is valid.

Mao Tse Tung articulated a spectrum of conflict that spanned three phases. 29 At thelow end of the spectrum, guerrilla operations are characterized by the preponderantuse of irregular forces. This level of warfare today is broadly defined as Low IntensityConflict (LIC). Mao's characterization of conventional warfare as the high end of theconflict spectrum is well illustrated by the 1990-91 Gulf War. The middle of thespectrum is the domain of mobile warfare, which emphasizes non-linear operationswith a mixture of regular and irregular forces. It is noteworthy that the dynamics ofconflict are constant across the Maoist operational spectrum of guerrilla, mobile, andconventional combat.

Efforts to exploit this commonality in simulation modeling have failed to date,largely due to the customary selection of attrition as the basic metric. The difficultywith the attrition metric is that it fails to address command and control,information superiority, and organizational advantages. Historical cases on thelimitation of viewing warfare through attrition abound, but Midway and France1940 are prime examples. One is struck by the impossibility of explaining theoutcomes of these campaigns without considering the broader dynamics of warfare.

28 Jeffrey S. Milstein, Dynamics of the Vietnam War: A Quantitative Analysis and PredictiveComputer Simulation, (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1974), p. 49.29 Mao was discussingguerrilla war andnotexplicitly describinga spectrum of conflict. The author feelsjustified in taking this liberty by the fact that although Mao's perspective was that of an insurgent


At Midway, U.S. information superiority resulted in the destruction of the Japanesecenter of gravity, their aircraft carriers and naval air crews. During the France 1940

campaign, German command and control advantages, coupled with organizationaladvantages (e.g., the panzer division and armored corps), belied the predictableforce-on-force outcome based on French numerical armored superiority. At thelower end of the conflict spectrum, the inability of attrition-based methodologies to

demonstrate the advantages of maneuver, deception, and psychological operationsreduce the force-on-force paradigm to a tertiary consideration.

Characterisially, guerrilla operations tend to emphasize unconventional tactics andsmall combat encounters. Yet the impact of the ambush, the rear area attack, and

psychological operations can reduce an opponent's strength as dramatically as a well

placed precision munition. Harassment tactics disrupt an enemy force, even wheredestruction of physical capabilities may be minimal. In guerrilla warfare, if thepopulace supports the insurgents, intelligence on guerrilla movements is hard toobtain. As counter-insurgency (COIN) forces move about in classic search anddestroy missions, they incur greater friction than normal due to the hostile populaceand the uncertainty amongst combat leaders. In such an environment, even smallguerrilla strikes can have great disruptive effects on COIN forces. COIN forcessubjected repeatedly to such effects begin to respect and then fear the enemy, furtherincreasing the disruptive effects of the guerrilla strategy. Such COIN forcesexperience an increase in their entropy level.

Well-trained, disciplined, capably led troops are less susceptible to the paralyzingeffects of entropy-based warfare. Such units move and function efficiently, therebyminimizing self-inflicted friction, and good leadership minimizes the effects ofdisruptive setbacks. Alert and ready, such units can minimize their susceptibility to

surprise attacks. Through discipline and adherence to stringent rules of engagement,

against the Japanese, the three phases of his Guerrilla warfareparadigm do describe the spectrum ofconflict from very low to high intensity warfare.

»


units can avoid antagonizing the populace by maintaining the legitimacy of thegovernment and the cause that they represent. 30 With patience and perseverance,such forces can exploit their superior combat capabilities to inflict attrition onguerrilla forces. This has been a formula for success in the past and will likelycontinue to be so for the foreseeable future.

The following Venn diagram illustrates the relationships among the various factorsjust discussed. The three rings of the diagram represent the key factors thatcontribute to a unit entropy. Friction comprises those activities the unit performsthat increases its entropy level. Disruption includes those activities that the enemyconducts to increase a unit's entropy level. Lethality is the firepower a unit has to

directly reduce the enemy forces through physical contact.

Diagrammatic Representation of Entropy-Based Warfare

Where these factors intersect, more severe entropy effects are possible. Theintersection of Lethality and Disruption is the effect that destruction of a criticalnode has on the overall performance of the unit. This would be the destruction of a

30 Manwaring,p. 23.

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unit's command staff or a surprise night attack where attrition effects are magnifiedby other factors. The intersection of Lethality and Friction is the physical loss ofequipment or personnel, due to breakdown or mines, which prevents a unit fromachieving its desired tempo of operations. The intersection of Disruption andFriction is the use of psychological warfare and other information warfaretechniques to both reduce a unit's efficiency and cause unit paralysis. The centralintersection, where all three factors are coordinated, is a more extreme expression of

the previous three examples.

An example of the entropy-based warfare concept is supplied by General Greene'smobile warfare campaign during the American Revolution. The American

Revolution had been underway for more than five years when General Gates wassmashed by Cornwallis at Camden on August 16, 1780. This victory briefly allowedthe British forces to successfully pursue their pacification of the populace throughtheir support for the Tory population by deploying forces in a series of strongpoints,such as Ninety-six, and mobile columns of Tory and British regulars. Despite keyBritish setbacks at King's Mountain and the continued viability of the variousPartisan bands,31 by all metrics of the time the Revolutionary forces were on theoperational and tactical defense.

With the assignment of General Greene, the Americans adopted a mobile warfarestyle which had been evolving since the beginning of the war.32 The basic preceptswere to avoid direct contact with larger British forces while threatening multiplepoints through the maneuver of the regular forces. These operations were intendedto animate the partisan bands under Marion, Sumter, and Pickens.33 Themaneuvers were not designed to concentrate American forces, but to disperse and

31 John S. Pancake, This Destructive War: The British Campaign in the Carolinas. 1780-1782.(Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1985), p. 123.32JohnMorganDederer, Making Bricks Without Straw: National Green's Southern Campaignand Mao Tse-Tung's Mobile War, (Kansas: Sunflower University Press, 1983), pp. 13-14.33 Christopher Ward, The War of the Revolution Vol. 11. (New York: The MacMillan Company,


disrupt the operations of British forces. 34 The more the British forces were dispersed^the more vulnerable they would be to Partisan forces who were able to achievefavorable conditions for harassment operations. The more the American regularsdispersed, the stronger they became due to the increased numbers of militia thatbecame available by their presence. The overall impact of these collective operationswas to disorganize and demoralize the British forces while creating conditionsfavorable for the continuation of the Revolution at the grass roots level.35

In this case, the impact of mobile warfare is discernible through the Entropy-BasedWarfare Model. British losses, with the exception of Cowpens and Guilford CourtHouse, were negligible as compared to medical casualties;36 consequently, attritionmethodologies cannot explain the impact of mobile warfare on the British defeat.The impact of the Partisan operations supported by mobile Regular forces was to

reduce British force cohesion overall, particularly among the Tory auxiliaries. As a

result of these operations, the British gave up the Carolinas without Greenewinning a single victory.37 (It should be remembered that mobile warfare operationswere not solely the province of the American forces. The British employed severalCOIN units, such as the Queen's Rangers, who achieved similar results when theysurprised superior sized forces.38 )

In this example, the mobile forces caused disruption by forcing enemy reactions to

their maneuvers. The rapid British counter maneuvers, lacking time for extensiveplanning, resulted in amplified friction effects as the forces pursued into regionsthat were not pre-stocked with logistics, straining lines of communication to the

1952), p.750.34 Pancake, p. 130.35 Pancake, p. 131.36Ward, p. 83637 William P. Cumming and HushRankin, The Fate of a Nation: TheAmerican Revolutionthrough contemporary eyes. (London: Phaidon Press Ltd, 1975),p. 311.38 LtCol Simcoe, A Tournal of the Operations of the Queen's Rangers, From theEnd of the Year1777 to the Conclusion of theLate American War. (Exeter: Printed by the Author, 1787), pp. 24--26.

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breaking point. The British need to disperse their forces created doctrinal and unit

disruption for British forces trained to fight in large linear masses. After each Britishvictory, their forces were further concentrated, conceding more territory to theAmericans.39

American partisan forces launched vicious surprise attacks into this environment,

killing isolated detachments and raising the overall state of alert for unaffected

forces. The need for constant vigilance stretched British forces to their limits, evenwhen no direct threat was present. In the end, the British military machine's

entropy state had risen so high that Cornwallis removed his forces from the region,conceding the ground and the populace to the American forces.

This historical example demonstrates the interaction of the three axes of entropy-based warfare. In this campaign General Greene manipulated force, space, and time

factors to raise the entropy level of the British forces to achieve his militaryobjectives. In the near future it appears that these factors, combined withtechnological and organizational advances, offer new opportunities to exploitentropy-based warfare concepts.

Modeling the RMA

Characteristically, revolutions in military affairs usually occur in direct response to a

known military system. Hence, carrier aviation evolved to destroy the battleship,and it can be argued that if the Cold War had gone hot, submarines would havereplaced surface combatants as the dominant capital ship. The post-Cold War

military system is based on conventional high performance platforms, such as thetank, large surface combatant, and the tactical fighter. The evolving RMAemphasizes computer information networks coupled with advanced munitions.

39Cumming,p.3oB.


In theory, a force based on an interconnected architecture will utilize its advancedinformation assets to understand, locate, and target vital enemy capabilities.Through application of advanced long range munitions and information warfaretechniques, an enemy force can then be dismembered by coalescing military force onvery coordinated timelines from spatially dispersed locations. The impact on theplatform-based force is that it will find itself disconnected, unsupported, and unableto mass its platforms. In this construct, the platform-based force is defeated before itcan effectively respond, because it masses force much more slowly than themunitions-based force. Hence, it is in the superior manipulation of the time

dimension that the munitions-based force finds its major war winning advantage.

As new concepts associated with the network-centric RMA evolve, some keyfeatures have developed. The first key feature is that the RMA is informationdriven and has a high reliance on distributed interactive computer networks. Thesenetworks define the new RMA military units just as hierarchical commandstructures defined the platform-based force of the Cold War era. It is believed thatthis shared view of the battlespace, enhanced by advanced simulation capabilities,will impart significant time advantages over less aware opponents.

Another key aspect of the RMA is its use of precision munitions as the primarymechanism of destruction. These precision munitions are enabled by theinformation networks that feed coordinates and terminal guidance instructions to

give these weapons their lethality. In the past, when a weapon's footprint was only a

small fraction of the geo-location error of the target, massive numbers of munitionswere necessary to account for the error. The Allied strategic bombing campaign inWorld War II is a good example of this principle. With the advent of the RMA, thegeo-location error of the target and the weapon footprint now stand in relativelyequal proportions to each other. If a target's position is known, it is almost alwayshit with one weapon. With timely, updated information, the high probability thatthe target is still at its last sighted location gives teeth to the phrase "one shot, one


kill." It is the coupling of these two features (information driven networks andprecision munitions) that allows for an information advantage to be translated into

a step function increase in lethality over a platform based force. This concept hasbeen called "network-centric" warfare.40

In network-centric warfare, networked computers and databases are manipulated to

create a real-time picture of the battlefield which links all echelons of commandthrough the commander's intent. Force interactions generate effects that are

synchronized in time to produce high order effects upon the enemy. These highorder effects are captured by the entropy-based warfareparadigm. As enemy forceslose their cohesive qualities, they are struck with overwhelming force to effect their

final dispersal and surrender. Attrition measures alone do not capture the intent ofthis style of conflict. This form of high intensity conflict should change the characterof the upper end of the conflict spectrum by displacing the platform-based warfare ofWorld War II and the Cold War with the munitions-based, network-centric warfare

of the post Cold War era.

The information-driven aspect of the RMA also translates into another concept:dominant maneuver. This is an old notion now reborn. To maneuver against an

enemy's center of gravity was the hallmark of Napoleonic warfare. In that period, a

pre-revolutionary army's line of communication was its center of gravity. Anythreat to it was assured to garner a predictable enemyreaction. Napoleon's use ofinitiative allowed him to maneuver against the enemy's line of communication,

reducing the opponents options to a small set of predictable alternatives, each with a

prearranged contingency already in place. Dominant maneuver is the new term for

this old concept. Dominant maneuver utilizes information superiority to locateenemy weaknesses and rapidly maneuvers forces, such as airmobile forces, against a

40 VADM Art Cebrowski, (N6), interviewedby Mark Herman and Dan March atJ6,Pentagon,Washington DC, USA, March 7, 1997.

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known center of gravity. Enemy reactions are then predictable and targetable with

precision munitions.

It should be obvious that the center of gravity for the RMA force is its informationand their supporting networks. An RMA force without its information superiorityloses its key advantages in time and force. Without information superiority, a

network-centric force begins to lose leverage to a platform-based force. The need to

maintain information superiority results in the re-vitalization of another oldconcept: information warfare. Sun Tzu, in his chapter on Employment of SecretAgents, covers many of the key information warfare concepts. The newtechnological angle is that the distributed and extensive nature of the networks hascreated a new medium in cyberspace. Much as combat occurs on land, at sea, and inthe air, cyberspace is the new arena for informationcombat. If the RMA force isunable to protect its networks from the full range of enemy responses, it could finditself vulnerable to older, less efficient, more robust systems.

Although information warfare, first mentioned in Sun Tzu, has existed throughouthistory, the emphasis of the emerging RMA on interconnected information systemsoffers this form of conflict greater direct leverage than has been possible in the past.Throughout history, all military forces have gathered intelligence, decided oncourses of action, communicated decisions, and implemented those decisions. In thenineteenth century, the telegraph began to augment the communications regime, to

be followed by radio. In the twentieth century, intelligence gathering was alteredfirst by the airplane and then the satellite. With the advent of computer networks,the way in which decisions are made and information is manipulated and passedhas been significantly altered as machines perform many of the functions onceperformed solely by humans. This augmentation of human oversight has creatednew opportunities for information warfare to be waged on timelines beyond humanperception across global spatial dimensions. Hardware and software performancebecomes a significant set of variables whose impact is not yet well understood. It

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may be that the nation who first understands this dimension of the emerging RMAwill gain an advantage similar to that enjoyed by the Germans during their Francecampaign in 1940.

Part and parcel with information warfare is the achievement of informationsuperiority. A reasonable prediction of future enemy actions is enabled by accurate

"situation awareness," as defined in its broadest sense. Such awareness entails not

only accurate knowledge of enemy locations and order of battle, but an appreciationof the state, location, and cohesion of both enemy and friendly forces and societies.Situation awareness transcends simple force localization to encompass andunderstanding what such forces are capable of accomplishing — both in terms ofsystems and the cohesion of the units possessing them. Situation awareness is theglue that links the known past with the unknown future. This informationsuperiority is a cornerstone of JV 2010, a principle upon which all otherramifications will rely.

An important factor in information superiority is the use of space as the location formany components of the advanced intelligence gathering and communicationsystems that support the distributed information networks. The implications of thisare the almost certainty that space, in any large conflict, will be the scene ofinformation warfare attacks. Since one of the simplest means for attacking thesesystems would be with various forms of lethal munitions, the weaponization ofspace will likely be a hallmark of 21st century warfare.

In summation, the RMA in its current conceptualization is enabled and relies oninformation driven computer networks. The information networks conferinformation superiority. Information superiority places strong emphasis onprecision strike, dominant maneuver, information warfare, and space conflict.These concepts are the key features of the RMA.


This construct suggests that the ability to quickly coalesce effects in time, as opposedto space, may be one of the most critical advantages of the emerging RMA. A

platform-based force moves at the pace of the platforms. Air platforms can move at

mach speeds, but the land and naval platforms move at rates measured in the 10s of

kilometers per hour. The network-centric RMA force moves at the speed of themunitions. Effectively, all munitions move at mach speeds whether they are glidebombs carried on air platforms or self propelled missiles. In order for this force to beefficient it must acquire, interpret, and act on information at rates commensurate

with the tempo of its munitions.

When effects are coalesced in time, well within the opponents ability to react, theability to concentrate the forces lethality against the enemy's critical functions can

result in sudden surges in enemy entropy. The vital functions lost to precisionstrike are often those capabilities that could otherwise re-impose order upon theunit, such as senior non-commissioned officers and command elements. Thedouble effect of losing vital functions and the ability for the unit to heal itself canlead to rapid increases in enemy entropy and loss of the capability to resist.

The RMA force is not without its requirement for platforms to conduct maneuvers.However, the choices are broadened because light airmobile forces supported byprecision strike can move at 100s of kilometers per hour as contrasted by the armorheavy forces of the Cold War. The traditional drawback of such forces is theirvulnerability to enemy armor forces and anti-air capabilities. Informationsuperiority and the ability to move comfortably within the enemy's reactioncapability allows light forces to substitute maneuver agility for the protectivequalities of armor. When heavy enemy forces react to the maneuver, theinformation dominant force uses its precision strike to defeat those forces. As a

result, the RMA force can mass effects in time more quickly than heavy Cold Wararmor forces can mass spatially.

© 1997,Booz-Allen & HamiltonInc. Page 21

NATO air operations in Bosnia are illustrative of the ability of light forces supportedby precision munitions to overcome more heavily armed ground forces. The Italianmilitary described the operational impact of NATO air power in Bosnia as thedecisive catalyst in bringing the parties to the peace table. According to Italiansources, the Serbs fielded approximately 80,000 troops with heavy weapons against a

poorly equipped army of some 280,000 Muslims. NATO air power was able to

disrupt Serbian operations by targeting and destroying their fragile Command andControl system and then causing Serbian leaders to dig in their heavy forces, for fearthat they would be targeted by NATO air strikes. With the main Serbian forceadvantages neutralized, the larger, more lightly armed Muslim army began to makeheadway on the ground. This convinced the Serbians that the conflict, for the timebeing, had to come to a halt.41 It was the imposition of massive disruption thatraised the Serbian military's entropy level, making them vulnerable to a weakerMuslim force.

When modeling forces or societies in this analytic paradigm, one is forced to

conclude that critical factors in the RMA equation include an understanding of theimpact of information content, synchronization of the databases that share thatinformation across networks, and the knowledge advantage of one side over

another. If a measure of the inconsistencies in information content held by one sidebetween its component parts were viewed as reducing the barrier to entropyincrease, then one can visualize how small differences in synchronization couldmeasurably affect a force's performance. Clearlyforces that move at 10s of kilometersper hour are less sensitive to small perturbations in synchronization, but forcesmoving at the speed of mach have less tolerance for error. If the opponent coulddisturb the situation with information warfare attacks on the network's timekeeping functions, the precision timing that an RMA force requires could be

41 General Cucchi (Director of Ce.Mi.S.S., CASD), interviewedby Mark Herman at CASD,Rome, Italy, October 16-18, 1995.

4


significantly thrown off with commensurate impacts on force efficiency andperformance.

In network-centric warfare, the information network is the center of gravity. Inconflict situations, portions of the network will be damaged or destroyed due to

enemy action. It is the ability of the network to re-route, repair, or bring onadditional nodes that will determine its robustness. If network performance issignificantly impacted for part or all of the force, then information superiority,maneuver agility, and precision strike capabilities should suffer similar impacts.This loss of cohesion and its corollary rise in entropy could see the RMA forceincapacitated while sustaining only very low attrition.

Viewing the RMA from this perspective, one is struck by the advantages conferredby force efficiency and the potential fragility of the force if its underlyingrequirements for information are not met. However, when the RMA force'sinformation requirements are met, the platform-based force is outclassed in the keydimensions of force, space, and time. The use of attrition as the primary measure ofeffectiveness obscures more than it enables analyses of advanced RMA forceconcepts. Consequently, attrition is a woefully inadequate paradigm for evaluatingfuture warfare.

The entropy-based warfare paradigm captures these neglected aspects of conflict andallows other dimensions of the warfare equation to impact a model's computationalspace. Whereas attrition-based models place the majority of their emphasis onquantity, the Entropy-Based Warfare Model creates a more balanced view of conflict,by emphasizing both the physical impacts of attrition and the asymmetrical effectsattrition, friction, and disruption have upon the unit or society as a whole.

Conclusion

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The Entropy-Based Warfare Model uses an alternate, more encompassing metric forcombat effectiveness. What should also be evident is that attrition metrics are totallyinadequate to describe the key dynamics of operational level interactions. TheEntropy-Based Warfare Model should fill this analytic void. Guerrilla, mobile, andconventional warfare all utilize the same factors of lethality, friction, anddisruption, but with different emphasis depending on the strategic factors, relativestrength, and character of the forces engaged. When conflict is described in the terms

of friction, disruption, and lethality, the common threads that tie guerrilla, mobile,and conventional warfare together become more visible and illuminate where theRevolution in Military Affairs may be going.

The importance of this concept, and its attendant model, far exceeds the academicarena. Decision makers weigh options when conceiving, buying, and deployingforces. If the conflict model used is deficient, it stands to reason that the decisionswill also be deficient. The ability to measure in a consistent manner all dimensionsof warfare enable alternative concepts to evolve and gain a fairer hearing in thedecision process. For example, the entropy-based warfare paradigm, through itsmore robust metrics, could influence decisions to field smaller more capable forcesthat rely on a plethora of methods to achieve successful conflict outcomes in thesupport of national objectives. The goal at the end of the day is to improve andclarify the decision maker's options. Enhanced conflict models based on a moreaccurate understanding of the factors that have historically driven conflict outcome

should lead to better decisions and improved results.

4


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