Frank Hoffman: The Distorting Prism of American Military Culture

Posted By: Greg April 13, 2010

Former Marine and current adviser to the navy department Frank Hoffman, who I believe is doing some of the most forward thinking on doctrine and strategy, spoke at the Army War College strategy conference I attended last week.

He talked about war’s evolving character and how American military culture can be a “distorting prism” on thinking about future war. Partly to blame is the American conception of war as a football field, with established rules, fixed time period, teams, combatants and non-combatants, and a clearly delineated field of play. Our enemies, however, don’t share that same “box” approach to thinking about war, he said. One of the worst things to happen after Vietnam was the military rushing into too narrow a box focused on operational art, ignoring wider war.

The famous in defense policy circles book, “Unrestricted Warfare,” written by a couple of Chinese military officers, critiques the too narrow American conception of war. He worries the “mental frequency bandwidth” of the American military on conceptualizing future war is too limiting and the Chinese will exploit it.

To which, counterinsurgency advisor Conrad Crane, speaking on the same panel, added that there are two types of warfare: asymmetric and stupid.

— Greg

Pete

Well, words of great wisdom. If there is one thing that the Chinese have, it’s an understanding of warfare. Sun Tzu wrote “the Art of War” 500BC. It’s still relevant. These Chinese officers have probably summarised all that is wrong with the US military. Heed their advice, and give them a Green Card and get them into the Pentagon.

I always thought that the US vision of war was to turn up on a Monday, kick arse, Get the points, do the high -five, and get home to screw the Homecoming Queen Saturday night.

While I have the greatest respect for the only nation that ever put man on the Moon, its hard not to think that their military technology is only exceeded by their military stupidity.
- kristian
  
  Our military stupidity has been quiet successful for a couple of hunderd years. Is the US guilty of arrogance? Yes, all great powers are and have been. The Chinese would be included in that. See their involvement in Korea as an example.
Brian

“The Military” is too broad a term for a summary like “military stupidity”. There are troops willing to go and do what they’re commanded to do, including fight asymmetric and smart. Kindly refrain from broad-brushing the Military. The Stupidity, IMHO, is in the Press, and in the Politicians who fear the Press.

To underscore the “asymmetric or stupid”, symmetric warfare is one wherein your opponent has a fair chance against you. Choosing symmetry when asymmetry is within reach is stupid; never GIVE your opponent a fair fight.
Nidi

Seems to me the problem is, to expound on a metaphor used by Greg, is that we are trying to play football while they are playing rugby. The basic ideas behind each game are similar, as are the goals, but that’s it. The rules are different, the tactics are different; hell, even the boundaries are different. When you are going by rigid football guidelines and the other team is going by much more looser rugby guidelines, no matter how good your team is, they other guys will still run all around you and score without you being able to do much of anything to stop them.
Mitch S.

I Don’t think the “war as a football game” is the real problem.
When viewed broadly the US military has done a decent job adapting tactics to the situations (obviously this should not be accepted as “good enough”).

Problem is with the goal setters at the top.
I can’t think of any military that was tasked with the job of:
“Defeat the badguys (who are embedded in the populace) then make sure the populace loves us and adopts our political system, with minimum casualties (on both sides) and nothing that embarrasses us in the international press.”
orion_x7

Rules of engagement is tying the military’s metaphorically left wrist to right ankle, and the U.N has made it a point to push it/that. In the fine art of winning wars thinking outside the box is the victors path and our own war against England was fought in just that manner. Supply them, Support them and remember them….
Johnny

This blog post is way to funny. Our military is not stupid, some in it are, however, the Chinese have never engaged in a modern war, just cause Sun Zsu was chinese and wrote his Art of War in 500BC, doesnt mean the Chicomms are any good. All they do is copy everyone else and usually dont improve the product, while at least not western ones. Our rules keep are good name, and our political leaders handicap us. If people want us to be ruthless, rememeber a B-2 can hold like 80 500 JDAMS and we still have a lot of nukes and I am sure terrorist would love to have one detonate on the rags sitting on their craniums. BTW, if a football team and a rugby teamed played agaisnt each other the rugby team would run around the football team, however I am sure the football team would win, cause they are huge and would crush the rugby players.
- Pete
  
  No trhe rugby team would win because it doesn’t puff itself up with helmets and armour. I didn’t say that the Chinese were good, just that they know a lot about war. I mean when was the last time they invaded another country, or threatened one with nuclear weapons (which they DO have) They have been around in one form or another for 4000 years, the US since 1776
  - Blight
    
    The last time they invaded? Probably Vietnam in ’78. As for nukes, who knows?
    
    “Being around” doesn’t necessarily give their insights any more weight.
    If anything, the PRC springs out of “China” in ’49, which succeeded a government which formed in the ’20s, which came out of the ruins of the last dynasty. Why is cultural history an important weighting factor in saying whether or not someone is qualified to comment on warfare?
    - Curt
      
      besides, the Chinese Army was too busy killing their own population during the Cultural Revolution.
      - BLight
        
        Thought it was nutso demagogues and civilians more than the Army, but I could be wrong.
Billll

I see two stages to any war, first winning the war, and second, winning the peace. Mohamed won his war with blood and slaughter, then retired back home. Historically, this is the beginning of the end of an empire. His heirs, however, discovered that with a relatively judicious use of the sword, the gains could be consolidated to the point that even without an emperor, the empire lived on, and even expanded.

Today, winning a war is what the Armed forces do, and they do it well. Winning the peace should be the job of the State department, possibly in the form of an armed or at least armable force to keep the post-war peace. As Tom Lehr said:
“They’ve got to be protected,
all their rights respected,
’till some body we like can be elected”
Blight

Just because the Chinese haven’t fought airland battle, or a combined arms offensive since going at Vietnam (and stalemating) doesn’t mean they don’t know anything about warfare. And it doesn’t exempt them from being able to make observations on how the United States wages war.

In defense though, a country is a box unless you want to violate national borders. In that case, Afghanistan might be a war that the hypothetical Chinese posited in this thread are thinking about. A war that’s fought very clandestinely, with a mixture of locals and foreign troops (and even then, a coalition of foreign troops) fighting in and outside of the box, and outside the box, some of those “enemies” are friends of the nation next door, which professes to be your friend. Imagine seeing that in a football game…
jkt

Why do people cite Sun Tzu as proof of Chinese anything? If somebody from my ethnic group said something smart a hundred or a thousand years ago … how is that proof of anything about me?

The Chinese had Sun Tzu as an influence when they were strong, and when they were weak. When they were being colonized and when they weren’t. When they killed millions in Communist famines, and when they opened up to capitalism.

The Chinese will succeed or fail based on today’s Chinese. The national character of a country isn’t a static thing and can change radically in a generation, let alone thousands of years.
Mastro

The problem is that our current political/industrial/military system is too technology ($$) driven. So counter insurgency, mine warfare, and asymmetrical threats get ignored- they don’t build the $100 million dollar planes or $1 billion dollar ships.

I’m so tired of hearing about people’s 1000-4000 year history– I guess because the Hittites were so clever- or Salladin- Saddam should have kicked our butts?

The Chinese were a sad joke 100 years ago- they needed to adapt Western practices like Japan did- they finally are- so its big news- but Sun Tzu is so overrated.
BLight

He just has snazzy titles, like Art of War. Musashi wrote his own treatises, which I think are equally intriguing in their own right, but have yet to catch on in the West.