Strategy and the Race to the Sea
Race to the Sea
Strategy is a Race to the Sea.
The Race to the Sea in 1914 pitted Britain, France, and little Belgium against the onslaught of the Hun. The Hun attempted to seize the coast of the English Channel in order to cut the French off from the British, something they achieved in a later act of Hunnish aggression in 1940. It started in the middle of the line. The Germans would advance and the Allies would block them. The Germans would attempt to flank the Allies and get blocked again. This pattern continued until both sides had reached the coast of the English Channel and could proceed no further. The result was stalemate and four years of incremental steps to one up the other side. In the process European civilization suffered a death blow from which it never recovered and millions died. The ancien regime was swept away in a sea of blood and discontent. Many fine fashions like classic French uniforms of red and blue and the Huns pointed helmets retreated to the realm of motorcycle gangs and reenactors.
The logic of strategic formation follows the logic of the Race to the Sea. You’re always probing for the weak spot in the opponent standing between you and the object of your desire. You will hit the weak spot. If you’re blocked due to it not being as weak as it looked, you probe for another spot or hit the same spot again. But, as Clausewitz maintained, action on the enemy is action on a living mass; the enemy gets a vote. So they’re constantly looking for weakness as well. As Clausewitz says in Book I of On War:
War is nothing but a duel on a large scale. Countless duels go to make up war, but a picture of the whole can be formed by imagining a pair of wrestlers. Each tries through physical force to compel the other to do his will; his immediate aim is to throw his opponent in order to make him incapable of further resistance.
This constant non-linear shifting of force and counter-force moves up and down the scale of power and desire in an attempt to find the right mix:
Systems in Conflict
Strategy is an ongoing attempt to reconcile cultural desire, political power, and outside stimuli into a pattern that will yield RADM Wylie’s “some selected degree of control”:
The primary aim of the strategist in the conduct of war is some selected degree of control of the enemy for the strategist’s own purpose; this is achieved by control of the pattern of war; and this control of the pattern of war is had by manipulation of the center of gravity of war to the advantage of the strategist and the disadvantage of the opponent.
The successful strategist is the one who controls the nature and the placement and the timing and the weight of the centers of gravity of war, and who exploits the resulting control of the pattern of war toward his own ends.
A point along the spectrum of power where you have blocked the enemy from finding a strategic advantage is a selected degree of control along that wavelength of the spectrum of power. A point on the enemy’s spectrum of power where you have found advantage over the enemy is a selected degree of control over along their wavelength of the spectrum of power. An ideal strategy would yield a selected degree of control along both your spectrum of power and the enemy’s spectrum of power. However, to strategize is to choose. You must decide where, given finite power, you concentrate your forces for defense and offense along the spectrum of power. Frederick the Great observed that, “he who defends everything defends nothing”. The obverse is also true: he who attacks everything attacks nothing.
Zenpundit posted on an ongoing debate he and Cheryl Rofer of WhirledView are having on the subject of Rofer’s advocacy of a drawdown in nuclear weapons with the goal of complete abolition of nuclear weapons sometime in the future. Zen has argued that the abolition of nuclear weapons would bring back the era of Great Power war that abruptly came to an end in 1945 with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rofer counters that, contrary to the world we had in 1913 or 1938, we have a more mature international community that has moved beyond politics where power is inherited and international relations that turn on family relationships. This reminds me of an exchange between the characters Captain Jean-Luc Picard, from the 24th century, and Lily Sloane, from the mid-21st century, in the movie Star Trek: First Contact:
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: None of them understand The Borg as I do! No one does. No one can.
Lily Sloane: What is that supposed to mean?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Six years ago, they assimilated me into their collective. I had their cybernetic devices implanted throughout my body. I was linked to the hive mind. Every trace of individuality erased. I was one of them. So, you can imagine, my dear, that I have a somewhat unique perspective on The Borg and I know how to fight them. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.
Lily Sloane: I am such an idiot. It’s so simple. The Borg hurt you, and now you’re going to hurt them back.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: In my century, we don’t succumb to revenge. We have a more evolved sensibility.
Lily Sloane: Bullshit! I saw the look on your face when you shot those Borg on the holodeck. You were almost enjoying it!
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: How dare you!
Lily Sloane: Oh, come on, Captain! You’re not the first man to get a thrill from murdering someone! I see it all the time!
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: GET OUT!
Lily Sloane: Or what?! You’ll kill me?! Like you killed Ensign Lynch?!
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: There was no way to save him.
Lily Sloane: You didn’t even try! Where was your evolved sensibility then?!
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: I don’t have time for this!
Lily Sloane: Oh, hey! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt your little quest. Captain Ahab has to hunt his whale. . .
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: What?
Lily Sloane: You do have books in the 24th century. . .?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: This is not about revenge. . .
Lily Sloane: Liar!
Zen argues that:
Human nature does not change. I agree that democracies are far less inclined, on average to fight one another than are authoritarian states but this average could easily be a product of modern democracy being a rarefied commodity until the last twenty years. We still have many brutal tyrannies on planet Earth and democracies are not incapable of aggression, error or hubris. Athens embarked upon the expedition to Syracuse, Republican Rome was more ferociously expansionistic than its later Emperors and the U.S. went through a Manifest Destiny phase.
The logic of disarmament runs counter to the logic of strategy. Strategy seeks to pit strength against weakness. If that isn’t available, it seeks to pit strength against strength. The least palatable option is to pit weakness against strength. A tie between two opposing wavelengths of equal strength on two opposing spectra of power is better than nothing. In the case of the most extreme end of the spectrum of power, annihilation, there is currently a tie between the nuclear armed Great Powers. That section of the spectrum has been taken off the table. To reopen the annihilation wavelengths will merely tempt others to seek advantage where the bravely virtuous have renounced their warheads and beat them into flower pots.
An “evolved sensibility” will not save you where sensibility is not backed by effective counter force. Evolved sensibility is merely the glove hiding the iron fist. Conflict, as Clausewitz explained, is a trial of moral power through the medium of physical power. Morality can only constrain where the correlation of forces is favorable. If the correlation of forces shift, every thing becomes a repeat of the Race to the Sea. As Zen argues:
A world that formally abolishes nuclear weapons, or reduces them to the point where major war appears to be a “survivable” risk even if they are used, creates incentives for states to wage war where previously the fear of nuclear escalation made statesmen pull back from the brink. Moreover, I do not think we will return to exactly the world of 1913 or 1944. History never repeats itself quite so neatly. No, I think we will see the dystopian worst of both worlds – increasing “bottom-up” chaos of 4GW insurgency ( which is driven by more factors than just the nuclear age) coexisting with a renewed interest of states in pursuing interstate warfare at the top.
Strategy is fundamentally as much about the denial of advantage as it is about the achievement of advantage. That is the reason for neutralizing the wavelengths of nuclear weaponry: to deny those wavelengths to the enemy. That is the reason for mastering COIN: the denial of insurgency as an option for opponents of the United States to run the Vietnam play. Narrowing available wavelenghts on the spectrum of power is better than widening it.
It’s simple prudence.
