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- Herausgeber: Youcanprint
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
This book is designed to give contemporary strategists and current military leaders a solid, common understanding of an ever complex and ever evolving reality driven and influenced by perceptions in any domain rather than a logic, linear, factual, and well defined conceptual framework. As stressed in his preface to this book by Lieutenant General John T. Thomson, US Army, by “leveraging timeless classics by military theorists as well as historical examples and recent operations, it provides the foundation on “how to think” about today’s geo-political security environment”. It is primarily meant to educate the mind of future leaders and commanders or, more accurately, to guide them in their self-education; and it is also addressed to Governments, Universities, Organizations and all those who keep the responsibility to educate future generations, our future leaders, to be prepared to participate intelligently in the strategy-making process of their Nations or systems. In the post-modern environment, future leaders will battle for “perception dominance” in order to drive the course of future conflicts and confrontations where people, not systems or machinery, will define success.
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Content
Preface
Incipit
Chapter 1 – War dimensions
The origins
The physical dimension – time, space, forces
The cognitive dimension
The information dimension
Chapter 2 – War and domains
The political domain
The economic domain
The social domain
The infrastructure domain
The information domain
The space domain
The cyber domain
Chapter 3 – The current and future operating environment
Setting the stage: current operating environment
Setting the stage: the future, post-modern operating environment
Chapter 4 – New principles for post-modern warfare?
Chapter 5 –The opponent gets a vote
Chapter 6 –The Centre of Gravity Analysis in a multidomain context
Historical evolution
Proposed model
Theatre Centre of Gravity (or Natural)
Tactical Centre of Gravity
Operational Centre of Gravity
Strategic Centre of Gravity
Political Centre of Gravity
Chapter 7 – Analysis of the Opponent Possible Courses of Action
The ECoA Dilemma
The Development of ECoAs in Asymmetric Environment
The Design of Asymmetric ECoAs
The Hybrid Size
Final considerations
Chapter 8 - The Black Swan – The unpredictable
Chapter 9 - Minds on the ground - The human Hyperdomain
Conclusions
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Art of War in the Post-Modern Era
(The Battle of Perceptions)
Copyright
Title book: The Art of War in the Post-Modern Era - The Battle of Perceptions -.
Author book: Fabiano ZINZONE and Marco CAGNAZZO
© 2020, Fabiano ZINZONE and Marco CAGNAZZO
Self-publishing
ISBN: 978-88-31685-44-3
The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Ministry of Defense. Authors of this book enjoy full academic freedom, provided they do not disclose classified information, or misrepresent official Italian and other NATO countries’ policy. Such academic freedom empowers them to offer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest of further debate on key issues.
Acknowledgements
Our gratitude and esteem go to all colleagues, brother in arms, academics and friends that accompanied, nurtured, and encouraged our personal and professional development. Their wisdom and their inspiring thoughts nourished our longing for a thorough understanding of key principles and phenomena that govern an ever evolving, multifaceted, uncertain reality such as competition, conflict, and war, in any domain, under any circumstances. They indeed provided us the irrefutable need to analyse and assess against the fundamental tenets governing the matter our own experiences, our thoughts, our own interpretation of the past, current and, likely, future reality of the multidomain context in which all of us ceaselessly endeavour.
Very special thanks to Lieutenant General John T Thomson, US Army, NATO LANDCOM Commander at the time of publication of this book, for his long-lasting friendship, his inspiring leadership and his innovative approach to the matter; to Lieutenant General Sir Edward Smyth-Osbourne, British Army, for his provoking thoughts and our intellectual confrontations on the subject; to the late Sir Michael Howard, whose wisdom, teachings and deep understanding of the remarkable trinity influenced our way of thinking; to General Sir Richard Dannatt and General Sir John McColl, for their understanding of the true nature of conflicts in the Balkans and in Afghanistan as Commanders on the ground; last but not least to Professor Joe Strange, and other distinguished and remarkable academics and friends whose understanding of the current and future reality in any domain provided inspiration for our further research on the subject.
Milan, 22 June 2020
Fabiano Zinzone
Preface
In this compelling, well-researched and thought-provoking book, Fabiano Zinzone and Marco Cagnazzo provide a valuable body of work for today’s contemporary strategists and current military leaders. Importantly, the authors leverage timeless classics by military theorists as well as historical examples and recent operations to inspire us “how to think” about today’s geo-political security environment. They clearly acknowledge that the world in which we find ourselves is marked by growing uncertainty, rapid change, increased competitiveness, and greater decentralization. Moreover, they portend that leaders must expect and be prepared to confront a variety of complex problems, most of which will include myriad interdependent variables and all of which will include a human dimension.
“The Art of War in the Post-Modern Era (The Battle of Perceptions)” underscores that the nature of war is immutable…it remains a violent, fundamentally political, interactive human endeavor. However, this persuasive work cogently notes that the character of war is rapidly changing, and success will only be achieved by those that demonstrate the agility and adaptability to stay ahead or at least on par with it. The dynamic traits influencing the character of war include the ubiquitous nature of information, rapidly expanding technologies such as artificial intelligence and hypersonics, and the expansion of warfare domains like cyber and space.
The authors do an excellent job of describing the dimensions of war, particularly the rising prominence of the information dimension. It reminds us of the military cognitive hierarchy and that leaders must ultimately make sound and timely decisions. Increasingly, sound judgment is clouded by our hyper-charged world where time is severely limited. Accordingly, a good decision today is better than a great decision next week. Effective leaders require shared understanding and knowledge, the top levels of the cognitive hierarchy, to make good decisions. However, they are often overwhelmed with raw data and information overload, the bottom levels of the cognitive hierarchy. Whether at the strategic, operational or tactical level of war, military leaders are wise to shape their systems and develop their subordinates to understand the key points in this book with a healthy respect for the cognitive hierarchy as it relates to the decision making process.
I have known Fabiano Zinzone for many years and greatly respect his wisdom, vision, and judgment. He is a warrior blessed with an abundance of intellect, courage, and candor. Along with Marco Cagnazzo, this book does exactly what it intends: to provide a set of tools that can support one’s own thoughts based on culture, experience and one’s personal development in the understanding of an ever complex and ever evolving reality.
Albert Einstein once said, “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.” The authors have brilliantly helped us understand and define the problems in today’s security environment.
Reminder: Never forget that perceptions are reality in the eyes of the beholder.
J.T. Thomson Lieutenant General, U.S. Army
Incipit
“Philosophy teaches us to recognize that essential elements bear to one another, and it would indeed be rash from this to deduce universal laws governing every single case, regardless of all haphazard influences. Those people, however, who never ‘rise above anecdote’ as a great writer said, and who would construct all history of individual cases – starting always with the most striking feature… and digging only as deep as suits them, never get down to the general factors that govern the matter. Consequently, their findings will never be valid for more than a single case; indeed, they will consider a philosophy that encompasses the general run if cases as a mere dream”
Clausewitz,On War, p. 374
When we first thought about this book, the main question, after varied experiences as men at arms serving our country across a wide spectrum of military operations at different levels was “why?”. As it stands, the subject has been widely analyzed, studied and discussed by many illustrious authors, commanders and academics since the eve of human history. The first examples of dissertation over the best way to fight and win over an opponent and, in general, to establish a new status quo dates back to the eve of mankind. To date, despite some fragmentary scripts over the great battles of antiquity - quoting for example the Egyptian wars under the reigns of Ramses II and Thutmosis IV; or the epic raise of the Mesopotamic kingdoms; or the account of the Peloponnesian Wars, the first comprehensive analysis of the martial art in a wider scope stems from the oriental tradition. The endless conflicts in ancient China provided the need to understand the complex interaction amongst wars, people and power, a chaos to which, along the development of the great beliefs, Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, the martial culture produced a variety of scripts and traditions according to systematic analysis criteria, taking into account not only the gentlemen’s affair of war, but also, as it happened in ancient China and Japan, the economic and social domains1. This is key to our analysis, as the recent years, clearly have proven that the “whole”, all round, all inclusive, approach of the Oriental philosophy best serves the analysis and the tools required to understand the current and future environment. Having said that, though, this does not put at odds the Western and the Oriental approaches to the art of war. The apparently two opposite paradigms, as Michael Handel wrote, “…the basic logic of strategy, like that of political behavior, is universal”2.
In fact, and irrespective of the cultures that developed them, the principles for military strategy and war highlights, in their development, a continuum, a trait d’union between the ancient times and the current and future environment, sometimes even “returning to the past”, although the inner significance and application of the principles differ considerably. The whole, the multiple dimensions of a conflict, widely discussed throughout history and referring to the old oriental approach, become more and more vivid in the modern and post-modern interconnected, all round world, today and in the future, where no single domain will generate or be involved in the conflict alone.
The challenge then, which we accepted, is to analyze what and how has changed and, most of all, provide the reader the tools for a personal view on this everlasting issue. Our wholehearted gratitude goes to those, brother in arms, academics and friends who shared our path during our service and life.
Our discussions and, more than often, “intellectual confrontations” enriched considerably our ideas and our “consciousness” about a subject that, involving always human nature and its “irrational and imperfect” characteristics, remains an art rather than a logical, mathematical step by step process to the desired ends.
Milan, 22 June 2020
The authors
___________________
1 Ralph D. Sawyer, The Essence of War, Westview Press 2004, Preface.
2 Michael I. Handel, Masters of War, Classical Strategic Thought, Frank Cass, 2nd Edition London 1996, Introduction, Page xiii.
Chapter 1 – War dimensions
“…in order to understand the true implications (…) to the world in which we live, and most certainly for understanding how the premises of war in all its wider definition have changed, one may better served in applying Thomas Khun’s theory of scientific revolutions”3
The origins
Warfare is undoubtedly a cardinal element of humanity throughout history. Whether for political reasons or more seductive and materialistic aspects (territories, exclusive access to natural resources, development of economy and trade, and so forth), war has been part of human history from the outset. Nonetheless, the ends, ways and means of warfare evolved according to the development and progress of humanity. This statement, that appears to be somewhat obvious, is not so if warfare is analysed through the dimensions involved throughout and to their vectors. It is nonetheless useful, at this stage and for the purpose of the analysis, to identify a common terminology. Nowadays, there is a wide use of the terms domains and dimensions. Even the most advanced military doctrine as well as many distinguished authors, often refer to those as synonyms. Given the scope, and bearing in mind Socrates’ views4, one should think of definitions, in order to approach the analysis according to a common set of definitions. To this end, in this analysis the term dimension will be used to identify the key tenets, the elementary particles of the war as a whole, namely the physical dimension, the cognitive dimension and the information dimension. As for the domains, the term will be used to refer to the various macro systems or environments that include all aspects of our reality, such as the political, economic, security, information, etc. Looking through this perspective the latter are ever changing, according to the evolution of mankind. In fact, through history, new domains were involved in what was, at the eve of human history, a secluded, in time and space, aspect of our lives.
The physical dimension – time, space, forces
