Subject: Royal Marine Commandant's speech on warfare
From the net…
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/gallipoli.html
Royal Marine Commandant's speech on warfare
This is a must read for all Marines who are interested in
strategic thinking and the future of warfare. This was the Gallipoli
Memorial Lecture given by Major General Buster Howes, OBE, Commandant
General of the Royal Marines, at RUSI, the Royal United Services
Institute (founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington).
Royal Marine Commandant's Gallipoli Memorial Lecture
12 May, 2011
Major General Buster Howes, OBE
Admiral Forbes, Ladies and Gentlemen, honourable members of the
RUSI - it is a great privilege for me to be invited to speak to you
today.
I am uncomfortably minded of President John F Kennedy's speech, at
a gathering of Nobel laureates in the White House in 1962, when he
reflected that : 'We have probably the greatest concentration of talent
and genius in this house except for those times when Thomas Jefferson
dined alone.' Noting that detractors of my particular amphibious clan
sometimes mischievously suggest that MARINE is not a noun, but an
acronym which stands for 'Muscles Are Required Intelligence Not
Essential' - I hope, in the next 25 odd minutes that a giant chasm does
not open, between the expectations of the informed and the erudite and
the insights of one of Kipling's 'Harumfrodites'. There is apparently a
perfectly respectable body of psychological research which indicates
that people often confuse those who are provocative and argumentative
with being smart. It occurs to me now, that this forlorn hope may have
unbalanced my speech!
My thesis and the title of this 'lecture' - is a quotation from
another prize winner - the , author of the 'Impossibility Theorem', who
suggested that 'Vast ills follow a belief in certainty'. I might
equally have chosen Voltaire's dictum that 'Doubt is not a pleasant
condition, but certainty is absurd'.
There is wisdom in insecurity - at least of the intellectual
rather than the physical kind! Indeed the former may be a pre-condition
for reducing the latter! Topically, a consequence of not being fixated
by either a search for, or an illusion of, certainty is that we can
fully align ourselves with the vision of 'Adaptable Britain' recently
articulated by the National Security Council; and consequently invest in
versatility - in forces that have dexterity, agility and nimbleness,
principally because of the quality of their people; that enjoy global
utility; that can be employed rheostatically, depending on the
situation; and that offer and preserve political choice once committed.
The law is so often in the circumstance and 'War is the unfolding of
miscalculation'. So today, I may be regarded as an evangelist for the
'Ilities', and will now develop some of these themes.
I will describe circumstances where 'vast ills have followed a
belief in military certainty'. Where analysis or intelligence has been
shaped by hubris, group think or vested interests to support
pre-conceptions; where the Red Team challenge has been mute and, to
paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan, 'And thus in his considered view, what
did not suit could not be true.'
I will then explore some of the lessons we might draw from these
episodes. I will indulge in a bit of 'crystal ball gazing' about the
future operating environment - hopefully without over-confidence!
Before summarising the possible deductions for our decision makers.
Following the rubric established by , the former and the first
Gallipoli Memorial right after RUSI took responsibility for delivering
them in 2001 - I will not talk directly about the Gallipoli Campaign,
and will glance only briefly toward the Dardanelles and its lessons for
amphibians, in conclusion. I nevertheless bear witness, at the outset,
to a fight that claimed almost 131,000 lives - 44,000 Allied and to
Ataturk's transcendent humanity in recognising, just 18 years later
that; 'your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After
having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.'
So, to three examples of 'certainty leading to vast ills'
(Maginot)
500 kilometres in length, 25 kilometres in depth; with over 5000
blockhouses and 142 'ouvrages' (or super forts) and taking 10 years and
a large proportion of the National Budget to build - the Maginot Line
remains a monolithic reminder of the risks in extrapolating myopically
from previous experience. It was Andre Maginot, the French Minister of
War's, conviction that the stalemate of the trenches in the First World
War could be exploited to advantage, through the creation of enhanced
static defences, to protect his nation from predation in the next.
The rationale for its construction was threefold: prevention of a
surprise attack; creation of a sufficient delay, of 3 weeks, to enable
the mobilisation of the French Army; and provision of decisive
counter-attack points from the integral super forts. The Line was
extolled as a work of military engineering genius.
But Guderian had an inconveniently different view. The German
invasion of France began almost exactly 51 years ago, on the 10th of
May. SICHELSCHNITT or SICKLECUT - an aptly named plan - scythed deep
into France, out-flanking the Maginot defences in the surprise attack it
was specifically constructed to negate, and rendered the fortifications
irrelevant. In a matter of weeks the debacle was plain and the French
Army capitulated.
(Iraqi Freedom)
Sixty three years later, in 2003, the Allied invasion of Iraq was
viewed by many US military strategists as an opportunity to demonstrate
the full might of post-modern Manoeuvre Warfare. There was much talk
about network-centricity; of 'free-flowing ribbons of combat power',
dynamically marginalising 'hard points' whilst decisively striking
against centres of gravity; and great confidence in the irresistible
advantage of technology - both information and kinetic - the Revolution
in Military Affairs and the 'American way of war' and a certainty that
Iraqi resistance would quickly crumble.
In direct consequence, fewer combat troops were deployed than
senior US military commanders requested. Army Chief of Staff, General
Eric Shinseki, in February 2003, assessed that the mission demanded
twice the number then in the order of battle. Concerns for combat units
becoming isolated in this new 'front-less' style of warfare were
countered with reassurances that air power and its dominance would
create an unhinging 'shock and awe' amongst the enemy.
My very modest personal experience of this campaign, in charge of
a Commando Unit committed to the initial assault wave of the war, and
heavily reliant on US air and aviation assets, was slightly different -
the combined arms plan seemed to unhinge itself in the first 11 minutes.
The confidence that we would never be far from overwhelming, friendly
combat power evaporated as the dedicated AC-130 and Cobra gun ships,
were then, promptly re-tasked and we confronted an opposed, daylight
helicopter assault into insecure landing sites.
Within days, Clausewitz's 'fog of war' also descended upon a
Captain Troy King of the US Army - following only the digital needle on
his commercial GPS and a 1:100,000 Theatre scale map, he proceeded to
navigate the 507th Maintenance Company straight into a series of
deliberate, Fedayeen ambushes within the city of An Nasiriyah. He had
inadvertently placed his soldiers at the tip of the Allied thrust into
Iraq - a full 12 hours ahead of the main US Marine Corps armoured
offensive. In a little over 60 minutes, eleven of the thirty three
soldiers in his eighteen vehicle convoy were dead, seven were captured
and nine were wounded; only six men and three vehicles escaped. A
further sixteen US Marines were killed in the subsequent counter-attack
battle and the plight of a 19 year old female soldier from Palestine,
West Virginia - Jessica Lynch - was broadcast across the world. The
spokesman for US Central Command, in Doha, commented:
'As far as the incident concerning the convoy, I believe that it
is probable, like many other tragic incidents in war, that a young
officer, leading his convoy, made a wrong turn and went somewhere where
he wasn't supposed to. There weren't combat forces around where it
happened.'
Twenty seven dead and over one hundred injured in just a few
hours, made that Bloody Sunday one of the costliest days in US military
history since Vietnam.
You may surmise that I am rather missing the point with my
selective and very tactical vignettes, but the shock of An Nasiriyah
halted the entire Coalition campaign for three days as governments
pondered nervously on the thought that this invasion might not, after
all, be just another pre-scripted, clinical demonstration of the
superiority of 4th Generation Western firepower and tactics.
Far from being anomalous, the 507th's experience was a portent of
the future and the grinding, asymmetric, attritional, urban struggle
that unfolded in the Sunni Triangle and elsewhere, and consumed vastly
more blood and treasure, in the following 6 years. We begin wars
thinking they're like astronomy and end them knowing they're like
astrology. Our contemporary reliance on the UOR system gives this
thought further credence
(Bouazzi)
And what of the last few months' experiences and the 'Certainties
and Ills' associated with the optimistically dubbed 'Arab Spring'?
In 2010, the UK Government - the MOD and other Departments
invested considerable time and careful thought in rationalising likely
threats and 'Ends' against affordable military 'Ways' and 'Means',
within the SDSR process. I participated in several such debates, both
here and 'around the corner'. At no point did our deliberations predict
that on the morning of 17th December 2010, just 2 months after the
publication of the White Paper, a 27 year old Tunisian - Tarek el-Tayyib
Mohamed Ben Bouazizi - would take his own life in an act of desperate
protest. And that this would resonate so profoundly and so quickly
across the entire region - where poverty and early death are after all
commonplace - that it would presage the swift and violent removal of
the long-established, ruling elites of Tunisia and Egypt and that civil
unrest would erupt in their neighbouring states.
(Lessons)
The Maginot Line reminds us of the dangers of certitude; of group
think; of 'putting all your eggs in one basket' or in a single means of
Defence. It underlines the perils of ignoring the realities of our
time; in this case an RMA associated with Manoeuvre Warfare and
Blitzkrieg.
The 2003 Iraq invasion and its aftermath demonstrated that
Blitzkrieg, technology and firepower have their limitations too; that
over-confidence in them can indeed be problematic; that the fulcrum of
advantage between the offence and the defence can be ephemeral,
unstable, unpredictable. As Professor Richard Holmes points out, as
Western Defence expenditure and investment in sophisticated weaponry
grew, the USS COLE was almost sunk by a speed boat packed with
improvised explosives. As scientists grappled with the complexities of
fielding ballistic missile defences, the Twin Towers were destroyed by a
dozen men armed with 50 cent plastic Stanley knives, who turned
passenger aircraft into weapons of mass destruction.
If asymmetry and hybridised warfare are paradoxically today's RMA
- the asymmetry of means; the asymmetry of stake; and the asymmetry of
legal constraint - and Somali piracy is a compelling example of the
latter - what Maginot Lines might we currently be clinging to? In
response to my request, as the Commander of Europe's naval counter
piracy forces, for India to provide further assets to operations off
Somalia, a senior naval official in Delhi shook his head wearily and
said 'elephants chasing ants'!
Bouazizi's legacy is a powerful reminder of our inability to
either predict or contain 'Events . dear boy'. And that we can't just
value and retain the capabilities of the moment, and for the crisis that
we're in - we must carefully invest in contingency forces and try to
insure against 'alternative futures' and Rumsfeld's 'Unknown Unknowns'.
Military outcomes often fly in the face of so-called
'certainties'.
In February this year, the US Secretary for Defence, Robert Gates,
ruefully observed that 'the US record on predicting conflict had been
perfect. We have never gotten it right!' He said this not as a
criticism or witticism, but simply as a truism. We must recognise the
contemporary relevance of Liddell-Hart's wisdom that uncertainty lies
coiled at the heart of all combat and that surprise is 'the pith and
marrow of war'. We must retain the resilience and flexibility to cope
with the inevitable mess, muddle and dislocation and, further, to
prepare for it.
Bouazzi's also reminds us of Edward Lorenz's 'Butterfly Effect'.
A seemingly inconsequential ripple can amplify, suddenly, to reverberate
strategically on a distant continent. It again reminds us of the
vulnerabilities of an increasingly inter-connected world.
The synapse of such events will surely narrow further as
globalisation accelerates. In 2000, 12% of the world's population owned
a mobile phone, today the UN estimates this figure to be 60%. In 1995
there were 16 million Web users globally, today there are 1.7 billion.
Growing exponentially, at over a quarter of a million new users per day,
Facebook will gain its billionth visage imminently. Its population
will shortly exceed that of China; and as a virtual nation, whose every,
unconstrained citizen can be mobilised at the click of a mouse - and at
the speed of light - it will move in startling and unconventional ways.
Its populace's 'freeboard effect' may, in future, become irresistible.
The MOD's Future Character of Conflict work describes the future
operating environment in a neat alliteration of 'C's: Complex;
Congested; Cluttered; Contested; Connected; and Constrained. As a naval
officer, I am tempted now to add a further 'C' to the list - Coastal -
but I'll come to that. My personal view is that the overall tapestry
looks about right because it may fairly be summarised by yet another 'C'
. Chaotic.
Geoffrey Till, speaking, here last year, suggested that we might
simply be reverting to the status quo ante - to 18th and 19th Century
reality, when maritime power and its ability to globally affect land
based outcomes was key. Mencken observed that 'wars break out at the
confused and shifting boundaries of changing power systems' - the
boundaries or Seams where tectonic strains and frictions are generated
and released.
Such Seams are no longer simply national - if indeed they ever
were. They may be more subtle and fluid - they may be cultural,
environmental (space/land/sea), religious, geographic, financial,
knowledge based or at the interstices of the actual and the virtual and
in the cyber domain.
Highly evolved societies have more dimensions . and more
vulnerabilities. Those who can operate successfully in and across
these Seams will be of increasing value. This will demand
multi-disciplinary, versatile teams which are not constrained by
conventional Departmental let alone Defence stovepipes. The increasing
premium placed on Special Forces is indicative.
(The Predicament)
Thucydides, the father of political realism, believed that we are
fixed by a trinity of honour, fear and interest. These form a complex
soup - some of which may be regarded as incidental and discretionary and
some essential to our identity and being and vitality. But if the ways
of the world - and conflicts in particular - defy accurate prediction,
some of our vital interests will be directly threatened unless nimble
contingent forces are held at readiness.
How do we gauge the risks of the opaque future and judge which are
acceptable and discretionary; which, in the business vernacular, should
be tolerated, transferred, treated or terminated - the last two
generally being the business of Defence? How do we avoid the folly of
only acknowledging the risks we feel we can afford, when crouching
amongst those we have felt obliged or free to ignore, may be something
genuinely lethal?
We are an Internationalist Nation in every way; historically,
geographically, culturally, demographically, politically and militarily.
The UK is a member of more international clubs and collectives than any
other country. How then should we calibrate the cost-benefit of all
these engagements or entanglements?
The resource-capability dilemma could be resolved in a number of
ways:
* We might reduce our internationalist ambitions and belatedly
recognise that Mercator's projection in a schoolboy's atlas is no longer
pink.
* We might seek to deliver our National interests through
increased pooling or sharing of international resources and more
arrangements like the 'Entente Frugale' .
* Or, we might move away from configuring fixed solutions to
'certainties' and instead pursue an expeditionary path - in every sense
- based around versatile forces that can react to the uncertain
realities of our environment.
Our path probably lies in a formulation of all three, but allow me
now to draw on three passages to elaborate just this 'third way':
'We are a maritime nation . we rely upon the seas for commerce.to
support our friends and allies..for on-scene response to crises where we
have no access rights or permissive facilities, and for representing
our national interests around the world..
The point is. the forces of choice to handle future crises will
likely continue to be aircraft carriers and amphibious forces with
embarked Marines. One might also speculate, as we enter an era
characterised by increasing terrorist activity, violence in drug
exportation and the use of coercive tactics such as hostage taking, that
amphibious forces with their evolving special capabilities will
increasingly emerge as the more logical force of choice.
There is no indication whatsoever that the zeal of xenophobic
radicals, messianic clerics, nihilistic students and other insurgents
bent on reversing the trend of emerging, albeit weak, impoverished,
democratic governments will decrease. These men of the streets and
villages are better dealt with by riflemen than by supersonic aircraft -
and they will be dealt with in areas where we will not likely have, nor
want to establish, bases ashore.'
That could have been written yesterday. It was actually published
by General Al Gray, Commandant US Marine Corps, 22 years ago, in 1989.
I'd just re-iterate one phrase:
'That amphibious forces with their evolving, special capabilities
will increasingly emerge as the more logical force of choice.'
This prescient assessment is now, increasingly being reflected in
the Defence policies, priorities and capabilities of, inter alia,
America, Australia, India, France, Italy, Holland, Russia and China.
Indeed, of those in the Defence 'premiership', only this island state
evidences scepticism.
To quote Robert Gates:
'The strategic rationale for swift-moving expeditionary forces, be
they Army or Marines, airborne or Special Operations is self evident
given the likelihood of counter-terrorism, rapid reaction, disaster
response, or stability or security assistance missions. But in my
opinion, any future Defence Secretary who advises the President to again
send a big land Army into Asia or into the Middle East 'should have his
head examined' - as General MacArthur so delicately put it.'
We might also consider the words of Edward Beach in "Keepers of
the Sea"
"From time immemorial, the purpose of a navy has been to
influence, and sometimes to decide, issues on land. This was so with the
Greeks of antiquity; the Romans, who created a navy to defeat Carthage;
the Spanish, whose armada tried and failed to conquer England; and most
eminently, in the Atlantic and Pacific during two world wars. The sea
has always given man inexpensive transport and ease of communication
over long distances. The sea has supplied mobility, capability, and
support throughout Western history, and those failing in the sea-power
test - notably Alexander, Napoleon and Hitler - also failed the
longevity one".
Almost ten 10 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan;
characterised, soberingly, by their own cornucopia of 'C' words, must
surely have stimulated us to find a different way to defend our
interests on the seams - particularly if our careful assessment of
future conflict environments suggests more of the same! To simply bow
to the inevitability of it all and the inescapable logic of mass and the
mantra of minimum force densities, is like again pouring miles of
cement, south of the Ardennes.
An alternative - perhaps even the alternative - is Maritime based
and Expeditionary. It is rests on the training and retention of high
quality people; not through greatly increased spending or smarter
technologies per se. Soldiers, and Marines, who are as intellectually
supple; emotionally strong and physically resilient. That belong to
organisations that are versatile and agile and can react and deploy
where they may not be invited - and can change the nature of events when
they arrive.
There are only two means of Theatre Entry when not invited -
exploiting the global commons of either the sea or air space. The
latter would require massive new investment by this country and would
only ever partially meet the need to lift combat units let alone sustain
them. There is a reason why 92% of the world's trade is moved by sea.
The force of 24 US Apache helicopters that deployed to the Bosnian
conflict required 6,200 protective troops and command and support
personnel; 550 C-17 flights and 26,000 tons of supporting equipment.
Further, air insertion is binary not rheostatic - you can't loiter. It
forces your hand. You're either in or you're out.
But we have 500 years of experience of using the sea to our
advantage. We already own the hardware to continue to do so. It can be
projected forward without commitment and poise - if needs be, almost
indefinitely, as a subtle and responsive instrument of coercion,
conventional deterrence and force on mind.
It can engage across the spectrum of interest, activity and
conflict; ranging from building political trust and support through
partnering; constabulary tasks to kinetic engagement.
(Gallipoli)
Yes, yes! But . what about Gallipoli, I hear you murmur.
Doesn't it graphically expose the flaws in the amphibious argument? On
the contrary, the Gallipoli campaign failed because the advantages of
amphibious operations were squandered or ignored. It lacked surprise,
manoeuvre and unity of command. The ANZACs were configured in
environmental stovepipes, rather than commanded across 'the Seams'. To
quote Sir Maurice Hankey, the then Secretary to the War Council, "the
whole affair was a 'gamble' based on the certain belief that the Turks
would be an inferior force.' There's that certainty thing again.
The campaign faltered for lack of manoeuvrists of Bernard
Freyberg's ilk and calibre - gallant officer he - who was wounded eleven
times and decorated with a VC, four DSOs and five MiDs when, finally, he
hung up his musket. Sensing, that forces landing at Bulair would be
decimated on the beaches, he jumped over the side of his landing craft,
and swam 5 mile ashore in full battle kit - fortunately he was also an
Olympic swimmer! Extemporising a deception plan, he then lit flares on
a separate beach, to draw the fire of Turkish machine gunners.
I'd like to begin to draw to a close by offering a couple of
challenges:
* Recognising that preventing wars is financially about 1000
times cheaper than fighting them, we must be more sophisticated in the
way we value and consequently fund those capabilities which can
forestall conflict, that engage and influence and obviate the painful
constancy of Wootton Bassett.
* You can't build trust in crisis. To borrow President
Obama's line, 'we need to be fixing the roof, when its not raining.'
* We need to consistently challenge assumptions - and
institutionalise the value of non-conformity. As General Mattis -
Commander CENTCOM - recently said:
'If you're constantly trying to make war more precise and
predictable, you'll promote people who thrive in squeezing out the
marginal drop of uncertainty. If you recognize war's essential messiness
and the enemy's adaptability, you'll reward mavericks, risk-takers, and
people who thrive in uncertainty.'
Finally, I'd like to leave you with an image of Corporal Mike
Stevenson. He is a 24 year old Royal Marines Commando serving in 40
Commando. It is the 20th of March 2003, a pitch black night and he is a
few miles off the coast of Iraq's Al Faw Peninsular. On the horizon, he
can see fires erupting and above, the after burners of salvos of Patriot
and Tomahawk missiles. He leads his 7 man section across the deck of
HMS ARK ROYAL, towards the clattering helicopter, They are all
encumbered with massive rucksacks - the equivalent of their body weight
in kit, ammunition, and weapon systems. Their sweat has already begun to
smudge their black maquillage.
This is the moment he has rehearsed repeatedly for the past 2
months - since he was first briefed, in outline, on his mission. He
knows every building on his target intimately - has drawn them, modeled
them, metaphorically inhabited them. He knows the ranges between
buildings and the emergency escape plan if it all goes wrong. Just as
the Sea King door is about to slid shut, his Company Commander appears.
"There's been a change of plan 'Stevie'"" he bellows - "you have to
attack a totally different target, about 10 'klicks' from the original
location." Stevenson looks at his Boss, a big toothy smile lighting up
his face "No worries, Sir - I knew it was too good to be true!" and
pulls out a pen to write down the new Grid Reference.
As Napoleon said of the Royal Marines - 'What could be done with a
100,000 men such as these.'
Thank you.
About the event:
Drawing on recent events in the Middle East and North Africa, this year’s Gallipoli Memorial Lecture will highlight why isolationism is not an option and why diplomacy alone can neither prevent nor solve all ills in an increasingly inter-connected world. As Commandant General of the Royal Marines, Major General Buster Howes OBE will consider how we should embrace such uncertainty. He will contend that as an island nation, a maritime orientated strategy provides our best solution to achieving a balanced maximum effect from our limited military resources. In a strategy that eschews fixity for manoeuvre, mass for unique quality and surety for agility and surprise, he will suggest that such a strategy is entirely compatible with a desire to ‘prevent not just cure’ and could become the keystone to redefining the way forward for interacting with our principal allies.
Major General Buster Howes OBE was commissioned into the Royal Marines in 1982. He has commanded at every possible level within the Royal Marines, including 42 Commando RM during the Second Gulf War. He is currently both the Commandant General of the Royal Marines, the Commander of the EU’s Counter Piracy mission off the Coast of Somalia and the first Royal Marine member of the Navy Board.