Understanding Implications of Iraqi Insurgency: 4th Gen Warfare & OODA Loop, Slides of Psychology

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Fourth Generation

Warfare &

OODA Loop

Implications of

The Iraqi Insurgency

OBSERVE ORIENT DECIDE ACT

Machines don't fight wars. People do, and

they use their minds.

• Col John R. Boyd

Military action is important to the nation—it is

the ground of death and life, the path of

survival and destruction, so it is imperative to

examine it.

- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

INTRODUCTION

Orientation is the Fulcrum of

Boyd’s OODA “Loop”

Orientation is the fulcrum of Boyd’s OODA Loop. It shapes the

way we interact with the environment—hence the way we

observe it, the way we decide, the way we act.

Orientation shapes the character of present observe-orient-

decide-act loops—while these present loops shape the

character of the future orientation.

Source: Col John Boyd’s Organic Design from “Patterns of Conflict”

Observe Orient Decide Act

Using the OODA “Loop”

• … emphasize implicit over explicit in order to gain a favorable mismatch in friction and time (ours lower than any adversary) for superiority in shaping and adapting to circumstances. (Organic Design, 22)
• … we have to make intuitive within ourselves those many practices we need to meet the exigencies of the world (Abstract, 1)
• … we must develop a fingerspitzengefühl for folding our adversaries back inside themselves … (Strategic Game, 45)
• Definition — agility: the ability to shift from one OODA/orientation state to another more rapidly than an opponent, in response to changing circumstances

Observe Orient Decide Act

Implicit guidance & control

Fourth Generation Warfare

… the threat America faces is not merely terrorism, which is only a technique. The threat is fourth generation warfare, which is a vastly broader phenomenon. Fourth generation war marks the greatest dialectically qualitative change in the conduct of war since the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years War in 1648.

William S. Lind, Strategic Defense Initiative, The American Conservative November 22, 2004

INTRODUCTION

Characteristics of Fourth Generation

Warfare

• The loss of the state's monopoly on war and on the first loyalty of its citizens and the rise of non-state entities that command people’s primary loyalty and that wage war. These entities may be gangs, religions, races and ethnic groups within races, localities, tribes, business enterprises, ideologies—the variety is almost limitless;
• A return to a world of cultures, not, merely states, in conflict; and
• The manifestation of both developments—the decline of the state and the rise of alternate, often cultural, primary loyalties—not only “over there” but in America itself.

William S. Lind, Strategic Defense Initiative

INTRODUCTION

OBSERVE

• Sophistication of insurgent attacks is increasing.
• Trend is developing towards attacking in small groups.
• Attacks are becoming more coordinated, reflecting agile and

adaptive tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

OBSERVE

When I read his (T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom ) description of why he thought his outgunned, outmanned, unsophisticated force could prevail, a chill ran down my spine. His rebellion, he wrote, faced “a sophisticated alien enemy, disposed as an army of occupation in an area greater than could be dominated effectively from fortified posts.” Meanwhile, his side was supported by “a friendly population, of which some two in the hundred were active, and the rest quietly sympathetic to the point of not betraying the movements of the minority.”

… in waging or countering an insurgency, the prize is psychological, not physical. At one point, he notes in an aside, while waiting for reinforcements “we could do little but think — yet that … was the essential process.” Thomas E. Ricks, Lessons of Arabia, Washington Post November 26, 2004

OBSERVE

Observation of U.S. Actions in Iraq

Most of the generals and politicians did not think through the consequences of compelling American soldiers with no knowledge of Arabic or Arab culture to implement intrusive measures inside an Islamic society. We arrested people in front of their families, dragging them away in handcuffs with bags over their heads, and then provided no information to the families of those we incarcerated. In the end, our soldiers killed, maimed and incarcerated thousands of Arabs, 90 percent of whom were not the enemy. But they are now.

Douglas A. Macgregor, War Strategy: Dramatic failures require drastic changes St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sunday, Dec. 19 2004

OBSERVE

Iraq has become a field laboratory for a class of insurgent- terrorists well schooled in fourth generation warfare and supported by angered Iraqis.

Radical youths from Europe and the Arab world are being trained in Iraq according to Europe's anti-terror chief.

Raf Casert, EU Official: Iraqi Camps Training Radicals, Associated Press, 14 Dec 04

OBSERVE

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the military has

slowly recognized that its fundamental assumptions about warfare

are being rendered obsolete ... now in Iraq, the insurgency has

transformed the battlefield into one that is both nonlinear and

noncontiguous, with sporadic fighting flaring up in isolated spots

around the country.

Phillip Carter, How The Front Lines Came To The Rear New York Times December 12, 2004

OBSERVE

Our Culture

We are addicted to technology and technological solutions vice operational solutions.

We have lost sight that people and ideas are the essence of why wars are fought.

In our traditional western view, the low-tech approaches of fourth generation warfare are the "tactics of the weak."

Because 4GW actors are militarily weak compared to their state opponents, their techniques often include “terrorism” and manifest as an insurgency.

As a result, 4GW is often successful in circumventing our military's far stronger high-tech-conventional posture.

OBSERVE

Our Culture vs. “Theirs”

Most men—especially men from non-western cultures and less developed areas—take great pleasure in waging war. (Martin van Creveld, Ralph Peters)

“Americans tend to think that deep down we all have the same values. Americans believe that all these terrorists, if you scratch beneath the surface, are looking for religious equality and justice.

That's complete and utter nonsense. Americans can't face the reality that different people have different values.”

Ibn Warraq Why I am Not a Muslim Prometheus Books, August 1995

OBSERVE

Insurgent cellular networks maximize operational security.

Iraqi insurgents use terrorists’ techniques: i.e assassination

and intimidation to manipulate the population. (Counterpoint:

Does killing these insurgents only make more enemies? How

does one disable insurgents without killing them? Can they

be disenfranchised?)

Insurgent modus operandi (MO) is to attack soft targets.

Iraqi insurgents garner local and popular support, frequently

using an intimidation and assassination campaign and tribal

influence.

Countering above requires obtaining and keeping confidence

and support of the population so that we are able to acquire

actionable intelligence on insurgents.