• . • 

Friction and 

Future War 

Barry D. Wa

lll~ +llmmlllllmB~. Im 

".I I III+IP'AV.~ +r ~- 
A popular Government,

without popular information or the 

acquiring it,

is but a Prologue to a Farce or a T

perhaps both.

Knowledge will forever govern ig

And a people who mean to be t

Governors,

must arm themselves with the po

knowledge gives.

JAMES MADISON to W. T. BA

August 4,1822
FRICTION AN

FUTURE WA

Barry D. Watts

McNair Paper 52

October 1996

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ISSN 1071-7552
2. CLAUSEWITZS DEVELOPMENT OF 

UNIFIED CONCEPT OF A GENERAL FRIC

(GESAMTBEGRIFF EINER ALLGEMEINE

FRIKTION) .......................

3. SCHARNHORST'S CLARITY ABOUT W

AS IT ACTUALLY IS {EIGENTLICHE KRIE

4. CLAUSEWITZ'S MATURE CONCEPT

OF GENERAL FRICTION ............

5. FRICTION BEFORE, DURING, AND

AFTER DESERT STORM ............

6. THE INTRACTABILITY OF STRATEGI

SURPRISE .......................

7. THE INACCESSIBILITY OF CRITICAL

INFORMATION ....................

8. EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY AS A SOU

OF FRICTION AND EXEMPLAR FOR TH

9. "SITUATION AWARENESS" IN

AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT AND FRICTION ..

10. NONLINEARITY AND A MODERN

TAXONOMY OF GENERAL FRICTION ..

1 1 . IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE WAR

ITS THEORY, AND ITS CONDUCT .....

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ..............
gpp, p

was condensed by Williamson Murray, editor of

American Defense Annual, for the 1996-19

condensation did not include three entire secti

this present study (chapter 3 on Schamhorst's i

on strategic surprise, and chapter 9, which co

data bearing on friction's role in future war). D

significant parts of other sections, especially 

precipitated a fair amount of rewriting as he and 

version that met his length constraint but still r

of the original essay. While this process le

improvements, it did not generate any substan

The impetus for substantive changes 

Beyerchen, of the Ohio State University, in 

Beyerchen, a formidable student of both Claus

dynamics, raised an important issue concerning 

of general friction that harked back to Andy M

late 1995, as to whether the "magnitude" of g

been declining in recent decades. After much d

forth, I added several pages of new material in ch

introduced decision-cycle times and viabl

"possibility space" as candidate measures.

These additions prompted others, primar

Besides expanding and improving the treatment 

discussion of chance was thoroughly revised i

1903 essay on the same subject, again after mu

Beyerchen.

By the time these changes had bee

condensation of the original essay for Brassey's 

Defense Annual was far enough along that the 

to make its text consistent with the post-Beyerc

was no room to incorporate substantive change

text restores most of the original and goes 

conceptually; this is one reason why the Directo
Director of Net Assessment since 1973. He encou

from the outset and, as always, provided probing 

step of the way.

Be

VI
AND FUTURE W

1.

THE ONCE AND FUT

PROBLEM OF GENE

FRICTION

Since the end of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, there 

discussion of the possibility that technologica

means of combat would produce ftmdamental ch

wars will be fought. A number of observers have 

nature of war itself would be transformed. Some 

view have gone so far as to predict that these cha

great reductions in, if not the outright eliminat

impediments to timely and effective action in 

Prussian theorist and soldier Carl von Claus

introduced the term "friction." Friction in war, o

historical lineage. It predates Clausewitz by 

remained a stubbornly recurring factor in com

down to the 1991 Gulf War. In looking to th

question is whether Clausewitzian friction wou

changes in leading-edge warfare that may lie ahe

impediments reflect more enduring aspects of w

can but marginally affect. It is this question th

will examine.

Clausewitz's earliest known use of the 

"describe the effect of reality on ideas and 

occurred in a 29 September letter written to his 

von Briihl, less than 3 weeks before France def
American military officers today most 

Clausewitz's unified concept of a general frictio

einer allgemeinen Friktion) as the "fog and frict

diverse difficulties and impediments to the effect

force that those possessing military experie

associate with this phrase are generally ackno

played significant roles in most, if not all, o

Clausewitz's time. Even in a conflict as inundated 

advanced weaponry as the 1991 Persian Gulf 

Desert Storm), there was no shortage of frict

tactical, operational, strategic, or even politica

examination of Desert Storm suggests that fricti

experienced by the winning side were not appre

scope or magnitude than they were for the Ger

lightning conquest of France and the Low Count

'Hans Rothfels, quoted in Peter Paret, Clausewitz and th

Theories, and His Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer

note 3. Clausewitz married Marie von Bruhl in December 1

married, Marie Clausewitz identified herself whole-heartedl

work, "acted as his amanuensis and after his death as his e

"what still remains the complete edition of his works which s

4" [Michael Howard, Clausewitz (Oxford and New York: Ox

1983), 8].

^arl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, ed. Werner Hahlw

1980 and 1991), 265; Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Pe

Howard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 

3The March 1992 edition of Air Force Manual 1-1: Basi

of the United States Air Force states that war is characterized 

chance" (vol. I, 2). The reigning view in the U.S. Army 

uncertainty, fog, friction, danger, stark fear, and chance . .

accurately the conditions with which military forces have 

continue to contend" (General Gordon R. Sullivan and Lieu

M. Dubrik, "Land Warfare in the 21st Century," Strategic 

Army War College, 4th annual conference on strategy, Febr

see U.S. Marine Corps, Warfighling, Fleet Marine Field Man

4-7.
technological advances, nothing precludes 

whether the scope or overall magnitude of Cl

may change. Some U.S. military officers who 

how future wars may be fought have sugges

advances in surveillance and information 

sufficiently lift "the fog of war" to enable fut

manders to "see and understand everything on 

are visionary military officers alone in this s

month assessment conducted by a Washington, 

institute on the prospects for a "Military Te

(MTR), the participants concluded that "what 

more than precision attacks or laser beams, 

information loop with near-perfect clarity and 

its operation to a matter of minutes or second

important of all, to deny it in its entirety to th

These forecasts concerning conflict in the i

at least three first-order questions about C

concept of a general friction. First, contrary 

probably thought, is it likely that general fri

''"[Admiral William A.] Owens Says Technology 

Breakthroughs Could Give Forces Total Command of F

the Navy, 23 January 1995, 3. See also, Admiral William 

Battlespace Knowledge: The Winning Edge, eds. Stuart E

Libicki (Washington, DC: National Defense University Pr

and Owens, "System-Of-Systems: US' Emerging Domin

Promises To Dissipate the 'Fog of War'," Armed Force

(January 1996): 47. The meaning initially associated wit

of Dominant Battlefield Awareness was that, by connectin

and shooters together via appropriate information and comm

it should be possible to detect, track, and classify most (or al

objects moving on land, the surface of the ocean, through 

a cube of battlespace some 200 nautical miles on a side.

'Michael J. Mazarr, Jeffrey Shaffer, and Benjamin E

Technical Revolution: A Structural Framework," C

International Studies (CSIS), Washington, DC, final report 

on the MTR, March 1993, 58.
other in future conflicts? Third, do wars since 

or foreseeable advances in the means of wag

demand major modifications of Clausewitz's 

Alternatively, how might Clausewitz's original 

interpreted in light of contemporary knowledge, 

the standpoint of disciplines such as evolution

nonlinear dynamics?

The first task in trying to answer these ques

Clausewitz's mature notion of general friction

common baseline for discussion, we will review 

friction in Clausewitz's thought (chapter 2) and 

intellectual clarity of his mentor and second fathe

David von Schamhorst (chapter 3). Using t

taxonomy of Clausewitz's mature concept will the

extended (chapter 4).

The second task is to subject our baseline 

general friction to the test of empirical evidenc

Persian Gulf War suggest about the persistence 

friction as recently as 1991 (chapter 5)? And doe

that conflict provide any grounds for concluding 

role or "magnitude" has appreciably diminished 

II?

The third task is to examine friction's prospec

conflicts. This task presents special problems 

evidence about wars yet to be fought is not 

arguments for friction's undiminished persistence 

have to be constructed on the basis of related stru

in other areas. The discussion will aim, therefo

three conclusions by various indirect argum

prospects for eliminating friction entirely appear 

friction gives every evidence of being a built-in or 
Clausewitzs concept in contemporary terms is 

better understanding its likely role in future w

one may conclude about the possibility o

eliminating its frictional impediments.

What sorts of arguments and evidence m

these conclusions? Before military conflict ev

apparent intractability of the prospect of strat

offers a "pre-combat" parallel to general fric

inaccessibility to central economic planners o

needed to run a national economy more eff

forces driven by a myriad of individual choices 

"friction" comparable to that built into m

(chapter?). The propensities and constraints 

by biological evolution provide a wellspring 

that seems likely to persist at some level as lo

does (chapter 8). Finally, air combat data and 

evidence can be used to quantify, within a s

interaction, the degree to which the presence o

loop" dominates engagement outcomes (chap

With these indirect arguments for genera

undiminished persistence in future war in han

exploit the modem notion of nonlinear

reconstructing Clausewitz's original concept in 

terms (chapter 10). Among other things

understanding of nonlinear dynamics reveal

built into combat processes can render the co

combat unpredictable in the long run by repea

'While the ideas in this essay are the author's respon

Marshall encouraged exploration of the possibility th

structural or built-in features that could not be wholey elim

means of combat. Marshall, however, was also willing 

that advances in Ihe information aspects of conflict could 

magnitude of frictional impediments, particularly at the 

OF THE UNIFIED CONC

GENERAL FRICT

[Gesamtbegriff Fin

gemeinen Frikti

This chapter and the next recapitulate 

concerning Schamhorst, Clausewitz, and the 

friction. While this recapitulation does not go 

what can be found scattered throughout Pete

and the State and related works pertaini

development, conceptualization, and theoret

concept, it is important to pull the main threads 

in one place to provide a baseline understand

friction on which to build.

Once again, Clausewitz's earliest know

"friction" occurred in a 29 September 1806 lett

Written while in the field with the Prussi

grenadier battalion, Clausewitz invoked Fr

growing anxiety over the resistance Schamho

encountering to any all-out, bold, or well-conce

Prussia's full military potential against the Fre

Bonaparte.' As Clausewitz observed to M

Prussian army at that time had "three command

chiefs of staff," a situation that provoked hi

much must the effectiveness of a gifted ma

'Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His 

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 71 an
Prussian army created by Frederick the Great (1

after the remnants were defeated at the battle ofP

1807, led to the reduction to a mere satellite of th

of the independent state that Frederick had mana

the first rank of European powers.3

When Clausewitz first used Friktion in the 180

he could only guess, despite his forebodings, ho

would actually turn out. Thus, to read this first kn

friction in its actual historical context, the term w

refer to the powerful resistance to sound decisio

action that had developed within the Prussian army 

outcome of the war was known.

Clausewitz to Marie von Bruhl, 29 September 180

Clausewitz and the Slate, 124. The three commanders-in-chief 

William III, who chose to accompany the army; Duke Ka

nominal commander; and, Prince Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, who 

of half the army [Carl von Clausewitz, "From Observations on 

Catastrophe," Historical and Political Writings, trans. and 

Daniel Moran (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 199

was one of the two chiefs of staff, but "no one high or low 

headquarters of the army had the kind of confidence in him tha

(ibid., 53).

'Michael Howard, Clausewitz (Oxford and New York

Press, 1983),14 and 16; Clausewitz, "From Observations on 

Catastrophe," 63. Frederick II's desperate gamble in the first 

1742) to seize the Austrian province of Silesia through an u

attack almost doubled the size of his small kingdom [R. R. Pa

Great, Guilbert, Billow: Prom Dynastic to National War," in 

Strategy: From Machiavelli to the. Nuclear Age, ed. Peter P

Craig and Felix Gilbert (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University P

the close of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), which str

overseas empire, Prussia had become one of the main compon

balance of power even though her size and population were 

than those of the other major powers (ibid., 104-105). At Je

French under Napoleon came close to eliminating Prussia as 
mentioned two distinct sources of what he te

the whole machinery": (1) "the numerous c

touch everything"; (2) "the numerous dif

accurate execution of the precise plans t

formulate."5 The second source, internal resist

recalls the type offrictional impediment in Cla

to Marie. The first, the play of chance, rep

expansion of the original notion through the 

major category of friction.

By April of the following year, shortl

resigned his Prussian commission to switch s

his king (Frederick William ID) and me Frenc

invasion of Russia, he had pushed the concep

essay Clausewitz sent to the Prussian crown p

William IV), whom he had been tutoring in add

the war academy faculty, Clausewitz listed e

the "tremendous friction" that makes even th

actions so difficult to execute in war:

1. Insufficient knowledge of the enemy

2. Rumors (information gained by remote o

3. Uncertainty about one's own strength an

4. The uncertainties that cause friendly troop

their own difficulties

5. Differences between expectations and re

6. The fact that one's own army is never as 

paper

7. The difficulties in keeping an army supp

''Carl von Clausewitz, "Uber das Leben und den Ch

Historisch-polilischeZeitschrift, I (1832), quoted in Paret

71; also see Carl von Clausewitz, Historical and Politic

'Clausewitz, quoted in Paret, Clausewitz and the S

of detachments that was the subject of this lecture referre

to guard an army, disrupt the enemy's forces, or gather 
py y 

the unified concept of a general friction (Gesam

gemeinen Friktion) in the final chapters of On 

Nevertheless, this expanded formulation goes well 

of 1806 and, according to Peter Paret, constitutes 

systematic development of friction, including its p

its negative aspects.7

Insofar as Clausewitz's efforts to reach a scien

defensible) understanding of eigentliche Krieg (wa

are concerned, friction remained an enduring the

Undoubtedly the challenges and frictions he expe

the Russian army in 1812 and during the last t

Napoleonic wars (1813-1815) "strengthene

pronounced realism," thereby reinforcing his intell

to find a comprehensive way to "distinguish real 

paper."9 Still, to realize how central a concern fr

Clausewitz, we need look no further than the unfin

that his widow published after his death as Vom K

"almost completely" occupied the last twelve yea

has since overshadowed everything else that Cl

Not only is the unified concept treated at length i

On War's first book but, as Paret has observed, it 

the entire work.""

"Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 197-198.

''Ibid., 202. Paret has argued (107) that with the final s

April 1812 essay to the Prussian crown prince, he had develop

"into a comprehensive theoretical concept" for describing t

theory and actuality in war.

^bid., 148, 150, 156, and 361-363.

'Ibid., 256; Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Pet

Howard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 

'°Marie von Clausewitz, 30 June 1832, in Clausewitz, 

"Paret, CSausewitz and the Slate, 202. On the view exp

of On War's first book, the diverse factors that distinguish r

paper include war's intense physical demands, its mortal d
What Is War? In response, Vom Kriege 

abstract the essence of war from its pure concep

properties that war must have to be what it is.

essence of the concept leads immediately to the 

is the use of force to compel the enemy to do 

theoretical conclusion, it is a short step to th

certainties, and the play given to chance in battlefield p

'^In an unfinished note believed to have been writte

Clausewitz died, he offered this appraisal of the manusc

after his death under the title Vom Kriege: "The manuscrip

operations that will be found after my death can, in its pr

nothing but a collection of materials from which a theory 

distilled....The first chapter of Book One alone I regard a

serve the whole by indicating the direction I meant 

(Clausewitz, On War, 70). In all probability, this chapt

War Clausewitz wrote before he died [Edward J. Villacres 

"Reclaiming the Clausewitzian Trinity," Parameters (Au

'^aret terms this process phenomenological abstract

Edmund Husserl's term Wesenschau. (Paret, Clausewil

However, this sort of analysis of pure concepts can b

Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which wa

There is no evidence that Clausewitz ever read any of Ka

As Michael Howard has noted, the ideas that formed the b

particularly the distinction between the ideal and its impe

real world, were so much a part of Prussian intellectualis

need to read the critiques to be familiar with this (Clause

Johann Gottfried Kieswetter, who was one of the perma

Institute for Young Officers when Clausewitz attended 

overseen by Schamhorst (1801-1804), was an influenti

philosophy and is usually credited with having "strongl

awakening interest in philosophic method" (Paret, Clau

Paret is sometimes inclined to discuss the method employ

Georg Wilhelm Priedrich Hegel's "dialectic of thes

Clausewitz's analysis of the pure concept of war is p

method than Hegel's (ibid., 84, note 13).
quite different. A series of short sections w

indicate the inadequacy of purely theoretical conc

then argue the validity of this empirical mod

abstract essence. As the section titles declare:

7. WAR IS NEVER AN ISOLATED ACT

8. WAR DOES NOT CONSIST OF A SINGL

9. IN WAR THE RESULT IS NEVER FINAL

10. THE PROBABILITIES OF REAL LIFE 

EXTREME AND THE ABSOLUTE REQUIR

11. THE POLITICAL OBJECT NOW COME

AGAIN

12. ANY INTERRUPTION OF MILITARY A

EXPLAINED BY ANYTHING YET SA

The last section introduces the problem of t

activity often observed in actual war. Explaining 

seemingly contrary to war's abstract essence occu

20. All that need be said for present purposes 

content is that imperfect knowledge and chance 

part of the explanation. With this difficulty in h

argument concludes as follows:

If we now consider briefly the subjective nature of 

by which war has to be fought, it will look more t

gamble.

In short, absolute, so-called mathematical fa

firm basis in military calculations. From the ver

interplay of possibilities, probabilities, good lu

weaves its way throughout the length and bread

'"Clausewitz, On War, 77.

"Ibid., 78.
Clausewitzs theoretical writings must be 

context. To repeat the oft-cited definition given 

One, of On War: the unified concept of a g

"more or less corresponds to the factors that 

from war on paper."17 The diverse sources o

the things that render action in war "like mov

element" and "span the gap between the pure co

concrete form that, as a general rule, war assu

From Clausewitz 's first use of the term fr

final revisions of the manuscript for On War 

1830, friction was unquestionably among the 

employed to understand the phenomena of wa

simply a notion that Clausewitz toyed with 

Rather, the idea of 1806 grew over the cours

decades into a theoretical concept that lies at 

mature approach to the theory and conduct of 

"Ibid., 85-86.

"Ibid., 119.

"Ibid., 120 and 579.
SCHARNHORSTS C

ABOUT WAR AS IT ACT

(Eigentliche Krie

Today Clausewitz is widely credited with ha

notion of Friktion to refer to the impediments 

It is probably fair to say that he was the firs

positive and negative aspects of general fric

device for mediating the differences between w

in practice. Nonetheless, the concept has roo

Clausewitz's mentor Gerhard von Scharnhorst

a whole, it was Scharnhorst who "first sh

course."' This section will explore Scham

Clausewitz's notion of general friction.

Scharnhorst began his military career w

army. Early recognition of his potential as a te

first 15 years of service with Hanover being la

teaching of officers and military scholarship.2 

he had "established a reputation throughout t

Europe as a knowledgeable and prolific writer 

inventor of improvements in gunnery, and edit

periodicals."3

'Mane von Clausewitz, quoted in Carl von Clausewi

Paret and Michael Howard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Un

Charles Edward White, 'The Enlightened Soldie

Militarische Gesellschafl in Berlin, 1801-1805," Ph

University, 1986, 19-26 and 33-36.

'Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the Slate: The Man, His 

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 62. 

noted, "is rightly revered as one of the giants in the creati

distinguished as a thinker and a statesman as he was as a 

15
Hondschoote, in September 1793, Schamhorst 

several weakened Hanoverian units fleeing the 

turned the impending rout into an orderly rear-g

helped to preserve the entire corps.5 The followin

Hanoverian general Rudolf von Hammerstein wa

cupy the town of Menin in southern Belgium, Sc

as Hammerstein's principal staff officer. At Me

improvised a system of ditches and barricades 

garrison of 2,400 men to repel several French a

encirclement by 20,000 troops under Jean-Victo

rejecting a French offer of honorable capitulatio

decided to save his force by breaking thr

Schamhorst took command of a part of the co

attempt and, on the night of 30 April 1794, su

strong French opposition. Though Menin was los

deliverance of "the garrison was seen by the A

victory and became a feat of arms famous in the m

of those years" in which Schamhorst's contribu

recognized.6

After the campaigns of 1793-95, Schamh

Hanover and began to use "his recent experience to 

about the revolution in warfare that was obviousl

Europe."7 The changes in warfare to which Scham

''Carl von Clausewitz (and Gneisenau), "On the Lif

Schamhorst," Historical and Political Writings, trans. and 

Daniel Moran (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 19

biography of Schamhorst was believed at the time to have bee

Wilhelm Neidhardtvon Gneisenau (1760-1831), but was "alm

in collaboration with Clausewitz" (ibid., 85).

'Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 63; White, "The Enlig

'Paret, Clausewitz and the Slate, 64. For the final paragra

report on the retreat from Menin, see Clausewitz (and Gneisen

Character of Schamhorst," Historical and Political Writings

^aret, Clausewitz and the Stale, 64. Prussia's involvem

First Coalition ended with the Treaty of Basel in 1795 (How
while their ranks were filled with conscrip

ganged "volunteers," or mercenaries.9 In the 

warfare" that came to dominate the pre-1789 

usual plan was to seize an enemy province 

summer campaign season while the defender 

from doing so; no battle was ever sought, or fou

to further the moderate or limited ends of on

within the European balance of power; being p

of the government, such wars were estranged 

the people.10 When battles were waged, 

revolutionary armies on delivering the 

concentration offirepower "produced linear tac

of troops in long, thin lines blazing away at 

blank range, which turned pitched battles into m

that commanders of expensive regular forc

possibly could."" Beginning in 1793, ho

diplomatic wars waged by professional arm

came to an abrupt end with the emergence of th

arms.12 As Clausewitz wrote:

Suddenly war again became the business of the 

of thirty millions [in the case of revolutiona

whom considered themselves to be citizens. 

Panther E. Rothenberg, "Maurice of Nassau, Gustav

Montecuccoli, and the 'Military Revolution' of the S

Makers of Modem Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuc

with Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert, (Princeton, NJ: Pr

1986), 32. Rothenberg argues that it was during the period 

armies, founded on the principle of hierarchical subordinat

obligation, took the shape they have retained to the presen

'Michael Howard, Clausewitz (Oxford and New Y

Press, 1983), 15

"Clausewitz, On War, 590-591.

"Howard, Clausewitz, 15.

"White, "The Enlightened Soldier," 42.
p

The great peril posed by revolutionary Franc

1815 did not lie fundamentally in advanced weap

technique, although the French armies of the period 

none in artillery and "made ingenious use of the n

dispersed infantry formations, " which had been 

even before 1789.14 The issue that came to occupy 

1795 was more fundamental: "How was it t

untrained, undisciplined, under-officered, its gen

not jumped-up NCOs [noncommissioned offi

adequate supply system, let alone any seriou

structure, how did it come about that these ... force

hold their own against the professional soldiers 

powers but actually defeat them?"15 In response, S

full note of the advantages in strategic position, n

political and military command, and incentive 

enjoyed over the allies of the First Coalition; he 

with objectivity and precision the superior effectiv

organization and tactics.16 But beyond these militar

he discerned a deeper reason for French succ

strength possessed by a freer nation, a condition 

connected with the transformation of French society 

the revolution and the emergence of the idea of a 

"Clausewitz, On War, 592.

^Howard, Clausewitz, 7; also see Clausewitz, On War, 

"Howard, Clausewitz, 7.

"Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 64.

"Paret, Clausewitz and the Stale, 64; Howard, Clausew

Enlightened Soldier," 42-43 and 95-99. An early produ

speculations on what he had observed in the War of the Firs

page essay, "The Basic Reasons for French Success [Entwickl

Ursachen des Gliicks der Franzosen in dem Revolutionskreige

friend Friedrich von der Decken published in their periodical 

1797 (Paret, Clausewitz and the. State, 32, note 25, and 64).
For manpower they depended not on high

expensive regular troops but on patriotic volun

conscripts in apparently unlimited quantities who

virtually free. The French troops foraged for th

they deserted there were plenty more to t

Insufficiently trained for linear tactics in battle, 

a combination of free-firing skirmishers and d

attack, first to wear down and then to overwhel

was in any case likely to be badly outnumbere

hordes of self-sacrificing infantry Bonaparte wa

in ever increasing proportions, and cavalry trai

pursuit.19

The upshot of Schamhorst's analysis of the 

French success, first published in 1797, was cle

revolution in military affairs driven primarily by 

changes. Granted, as Jean Colin argued in 1900, 

not without any technological component: the la

century saw improvements in artillery, ro

cartography that undoubtedly abetted the rise 

warfare after 1789.20 Still, on the whole modem 

Scharnhorst and Clausewitz that the prim

sociopolitical. If so, then the military revolutio

period is quite different from the contemporary 

coming decades, ongoing advances in microelect

technologies and software, satellite commun

sensors, and low-observable technologies w

technologically driven revolution in warf

development of mobile, armored warfare (Blit

"Paret, Clausewilz and the State, 33; Clausewitz, On 

"Howard, Clausewilz, 17.

"R. R. Palmer, "Frederick the Great, Guilbert, Bill

National War," in Makers a/Modern Strategy: From Mac

Age, ed. Peter Paret, with Gordon A. Craig and Felix 

Princeton University Press, 1986), 95.
French military power after 1789, the next questi

was, How could monarchies like Hanover or Pru

challenge of the French nation-in-arms? If 

France's military prowess was the emergence of 

went Schamhorst's answer, then the monarchie

themselves into nations. But "was it possible t

except, as the French had done, by the overthro

institutions and the creation of a plebiscitary dict

terror?"22 Schamhorst's solution was to propose 

of Hanover's military institutions. He advocate

of officers and NCOs, promotion to lieutenant by 

abolition of nepotism and favoritism, more sens

military justice, expansion and re-equipment 

transformation of infantry tactics along French l

a permanent general staff, reorganization of the a

2

'The foremost American proponent of the hypothes

century will see a combined-systems revolution in how war

technological advances is Andrew W. Marshall. See, for exa

"Some Thoughts on Military Revolutions," Office of Net A

memorandum, 27 July 1993, especially 1-5; Commanders 

and Jan M. van Tol, "Revolutions in Military Affairs," J

(Spring 1994): 24-31; and, Thomas E. Ricks, "Warning 

Fought Will Change Radically, Pentagon Planner Says," Th

15 July 1994, Al. Soviet military thinkers such as Marshal N

talking openly in the early 1980s about the possibility that a

weaponry, including the development of so-called "automate

strike complexes," long-range and high-accuracy munitions, 

systems, "make it possible to sharply increase (by at least an o

destructive potential of conventional weapons, bringing the

to weapons of mass destruction in terms of effectiveness" (I

of the Soviet Union N. V. Ogarkov, "The Defense of Soc

History and the Present Day," Krasnaya zvezda [Red Star]

May 1984, 2-3.

^Howard, Clausewilz, 17.
technologically driven changes in how wa

confronted militaries around the globe betwe

The requirement of monarchies like Prussia to re

as well as their armies suggests that counters 

revolution demanded more fundamental ad

technology-driven changes in warfare that the 

may face in the decades ahead.

As compelling as Schamhorst's analysis of 

by the revolutionary France may appear to us to

support in Hanover. The Hanoverian military w

the need for fundamental reform in the military 

in the government of George III was willing to 

of the Hanoverian aristocracy and to defend 

privileges. Instead, "Schamhorst was disregard

ambitious troublemaker, and vacancies in 

continued to be filled with men who were no m

It was this turn of events that brought Scha

the late spring of 1801. Though he had turned 

offer to enter Prussian service, he subs

negotiations, and when Frederick William 

Schamhorst resigned his Hanoverian commi

appointment as a lieutenant colonel in the 

Stationed in Berlin, he set about trying to enac

army created by Frederick the Great.

One of the duties Schamhorst assumed in 

recast the Berlin Institute for Young Offic

academy.25 Because Schamhorst himself le

tactics, and the duties of the general staff at th

initial years in Prussian service, he soon cam

"Paret, Clausewilz and the Stale, 65.

"Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 65. During 

Schamhorst also longed for his own command, "but his su

his requests" (White, "The Enlightened Soldier," 40).

"Paret, Clausewitz and the. State, 68.
year course at the head of his class, Scham

reported to the king, Frederick William III, th

Clausewitz exhibited "unusually good analysis 

Schamhorst, 46 years old when he arrived in 

height of his powers. Despite the fact that his in

Berlin war college still presented the traditio

theory should eliminate accident and chance fro

Schamhorst, with his pronounced sense of realism

up this belief."28

The humane, rationalist hope of late 18t

writers such as Henry Humphrey Evans Lloyd 

Dietritch Adam Heinrich von Billow (1757-1807

of "rational principles based on hard, quantifiab

reduce the conduct of war to a branch of the na

from which the play of chance and uncertainty

eliminated.29 Lloyd, who held important field 

Austrian army during the Seven Years War (17

well known in Europe for his criticism of Frederi

a strategist based on his purported applica

principles to the historical events of that conflict

the mathematical approach that would later b

English automotive engineer Frederick W. L

1946),31 Lloyd's enthusiasm for achieving certai

^Howard, Clausewitz, 7.

"Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 76.

^Ibid.^Oancm.

^Howard, Clausewitz, 13.

'"John Shy, "Jomini," in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of 

150. Antoine-Henri Jomini (1779-1869) felt that "he owed 

debt to General Henry Lloyd" (ibid., 148). Schamhorst w

Lloyd's writings, but in a very different way than Jomini (W

Soldier," 28).

^Lanchester's so-called "laws of war" postulated two dis

"linear" and "square" laws, between casualties, force ratios

engagements, depending on whether the opposing sides ar
mathematical precision and to keep on wagin

being under the necessity of striking a blow."3

officer by training but without command exper

more strongly quantitative position in his 180

angewandete Strategic [Pure and Applied St

claimed that the success of a military operation d

the angle formed by two lines running from the 

weapons such as swords, or with "modern long-range" we

Lanchester, Aircraft in Warfare: The Dawn of the Fourth A

41]. Lanchester's approach used differential equations t

laws, and his pioneering work was included in the U.S. Na

operations research (Philip M. Morse and George E. 

Evaluation Group Report No. 54: Methods of Operations R

Operations, Washington, DC, 63-74). For those uncomfo

equations, a purely arithmetic illustration of Lanchester's s

in Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., Fleet Tactics: Theory and Pra

Naval Institute Press, 1986), 66-69.

^Henry Lloyd, quoted in Howard, Clausewitz, 13. 

Gulf War, many in the U.S. have again raised Lloyd's idea 

the current term, "nonlethal" warfare. By the time Clausewi

that we know as On War, he had experienced war three tim

1794 and 1795, when "he was swept, passive and uncompr

of exertion, violence, and suffering"; briefly in 1806 when

participated in Prussia's bitter defeat at Auerstadt; and, b

when "he took part in, or was able to observe at close hand

strategic combinations, as well as major battles, detached o

people, and political-military negotiations," including 

'corpses and dying men among smoking ruins, and thou

[who] pass by screaming and begging and crying in v

Clausewitz and the State, 222). Small wonder, then, that in 

On War Clausewitz wrote: "Kind-hearted people might o

some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy withou

and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. P

a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous 

which come from kindness are the very worst" (On War, 75

but wonder whether these words will prove any less true 

century.
while Lieutenant Clausewitz was a student at t

during 1801-1804, Schamhorst's own views ab

were quite different from those of Lloyd and B

during the period 1802-1806, when Schamhors

teaching and building a "true military academ

lectures began to address a part of the art of war t

later wrote in Schnamhorst's obituary, had been 

in Prussian "books and lecture halls: war as 

Perhaps the best account of what Clausewitz was 

Paret's summary of Schamhorst's theoretical vie

No military theorist of the time was as conscious 

of the innate conflict between theory and reality. 

of this fundamental issue, and his refusal to seek 

increasingly complex abstractions, constitute the 

lesson he taught Clausewitz.... Rather than empha

theory could eliminate accident, which was obvio

the case, it might be pedagogically more 

[Schamhorst] thought, and far more realistic, to s

of theory to help men deal with surprise, to help t

unforeseen. From there it was only a short step 

the fortuitous not as a negative but as a pos

indispensable part of reality.35

^saet, Clausewitz and the State, 92. The young Clause

raised numerous objections to Billow's attempts to reduce 

quantitative principles, not the least of which was that B

illustrations showed that campaigns had been won from 

operations, and lost with a base that met Bulow's criteria (

mature Clausewitz was even harsher, rejecting the sort 

produced by Billow's principles as "completely useless" fant

215).

"Clausewitz (and Gneisenau), "On the Life and Char

Historical and Political Writings, 90.

^aret, Clausewitz and the State, 71. Paret is clear that S

resolved the conflict between theory and war as it actuall

(ibid.).
The mature concept of general friction w

Clausewitz's invention alone. Its origins als

realism and clarity of his teacher Schamhor

actually is, the limits of pure theory, and th

eliminating chance, a powerful source of gen

military operations. The positive aspects of the 

of chance in war deserve special emphasis. Wh

Lloyd and Billow saw impediments in chance 

constrained, if not eliminated, Clausewitz came t

that able, alert commanders could exploit.36

^"In war ... all action is aimed at probable rather tha

degree of certainty that is lacking must in every case be 

whatever you like to call it.... But we should not habitual

involves the least uncertainty. That would be an enormou

times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom." (Cla

In the twentieth century, the exploitation of the opportuni

is something that became second nature to top-performin

commanders such as Heinz Guderian and John S. Wood 

"Generals Baick and von Mellenthin on Tactics: Implicatio

Doctrine," BDM/W-81-399-TR, 1 July 1981, 26, 31-32, a

Baldwin, Tiger Jack (Ft Collins, CO: Old Army Press, 19
CONCEPT OF GEN

FRICTION

With the foundation provided by chapters 2 

complete the initial task of clarifying Clausewit

general friction. The account of the concept 

two interlocking difficulties: the absence of a re

taxonomy of general friction's various compone

Clausewitz's confusing use of the term Friktion 

unified concept as well as to one of general fri

or sources. The easiest way to clarify, 

Clausewitz's original concept is to resolve these 

place to begin is with what Clausewitz calls 

war."

The first book of On War offers two 

elements that, for Clausewitz, coalesce to form 

war (der Atmosphdre des Kreiges):

Chapter 3. Book One: Chapter 8. Boo

1. danger 1. danger

2. exertion 2. physical ex

3. uncertainty 3. intelligence

4. chance' 4. friction2

What do these lists represent? Ignoring 

discrepancies in the last two places of both lists 

'Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, ed. Wemer Hah

1980 and 1991), 237; Carl von Clauzewitz, On War, trans. 

Howard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 197

Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 265; On War, 122.

27
unambiguously identified in On War as sources 

friction in the inclusive sense of the unif

distinguishes real war from war on paper.3

Next, can the apparent discrepancies in th

fourth places be resolved? The easiest place to be

question is to look at the detailed meanings Clau

danger and physical exertion as sources of genera

reading of Chapter 4 in On War's first book, "O

reveals that the phenomenon at issue consists 

effects that the imminent threat of death or muti

on the ability of combatants at every level to th

effectively. Physical exertion is much the same

physical demands that combat so often makes o

quickly begin to impede clear thought or effec

sense of what danger and exertion have meant 

century battlefields, the reader need look no furth

General Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway's 

the battles fought by two air-mobile infantry bat

1 st Cavalry Division in the la Drang Valley a

Vietnamese regiments during November 1965; 

searing account of armored warfare, the read

examine Avigdor Kahalani's description of the de

the Israeli army's Battalion 77 on the Golan H

1973.4

Turning to "intelligence" versus "uncertainty,

describes the former in terms of "every sort of 

the enemy and his country, the basis, in short, of 

operations."5 Further discussion, however, tur

'Clausewitz, On War, 114,115, 117, and 119.

""See Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Gallow

Once ... And Young (New York: Random House, 1992); a

The Heights of Courage: A Tank Leader's War on the 

Greenwood Press, 1984).

'Clausewitz, On War, 117.
items in the two lists is, therefore, more apparen

all that needs be added from a contemporary p

light of the fundamental role played by uncer

quantum mechanics and information theory, 

deeper, more pervasive concept of the two

uncertainty seems the preferable term.

What about "chance" versus "friction" at th

Here the discrepancy is more substantive. The 

of the relevant chapter in On War (Book One, 

in War"), as well as the opening sentence of 

seem to be about the unified concept of general f

terms "the 'general concept' of friction"; by c

and fourth paragraphs, and all of the third sa

sentence, appear to focus on friction "in the na

Paret interprets as "the impediments to smooth 

the thousands of individuals who make up an 

reconcile these apparently divergent aspects of g

this case, they appear to be genuinely distin

narrow sense is certainly a robust source of res

action in war. It recalls the meaning Clausewitz 

to the term Friktion when he first used it in the 

to Marie von Briihl before the battle of Auerstad

reiterated toward the end of the third parag

However, it is not reasonable to equate this sou

chance in the sense of the unforeseeable acciden

luck and bad, that runs throughout the tapest

understood as the countless accidents one ca

unquestionably a legitimate source of general 

quite distinct from friction in the narrow sen

argues that chance (meaning fortuitous events r

'Ibid., 84-85.

^eter Paret, Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His T

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 373.
1. Danger's impact on the ability to think clearl

in war;

2. The effects on thought and action of com

exertion;

3. Uncertainties and imperfections in the inf

action in war is unavoidably based;

4. Friction in the narrow sense of the internal re

action stemming from the interactions betwee

machines making up one's own forces; and

5. The play of chance, of good luck and bad, 

combatants can never fully foresee.

Besides resolving the textual ambiguities abou

sources in On War, this list also tries to 

component in sufficient detail to make its role 

possible.

How complete is this taxonomy of genera

general concept is construed as all the disp

distinguish real war from war on paper, it is no

other important and distinct sources of general f

Consider, once again, Clausewitz's argument fr

chapter as to why the actual conduct of war falls 

maximum possible application of violence imp

concept. One of the reasons offered by Clause

spatial and temporal limitations to the employme

in the Napoleonic era: "WAR DBS NOT CONSI

SHORT BLOW." In an age of intercontinen

weapons, these physical limits may be consider

were in Napoleon's day. Nonetheless, physical l

with thermonuclear weapons, and to these phys

added the political limitations of war's subordina

the final analysis, the political reason why nucl

not used during the Cold War was that American 

makers alike came to realize that an all-out 
emphasizes the unpredictability of interactio

stemming from the opponent's independent 

suggested in chapter 10, unpredictability stem

decisions and interventions in the course of bat

chance in the sense of unforeseeable events. F

seems best to leave the unpredictability of intera

source of friction.

One further source of general frictio

Clausewitz's injunctions in Book Eight of On 

of war be suited to its ends.10 Perhaps the mo

century case in point is the U.S. intervention in V

widely accepted view that the war was unwinna

of determinism that is seldom warranted in hum

the firepower-intensive, "search-and-destroy" 

U.S. Army eventually adopted, with its mispla

counts, nor the incremental bombing of No

proved suitable means for building a viable 

nation capable of defending itself. As Schamh

of the First Coalition, "One side had everythin

little."" In light of Ho Chi Minh's calculation i

could lose 10 of his men for every French sol

drive France from Indoschina, this same asumm

applied to America in Vietnam as well.12

^ohn G. Hines and Daniel Calingaert, "Soviet Strategic 

A Preliminary Review of U.S. Interpretations," RANI) w

NA, December 1992, 4-7.

"Clausewitz, On War, 139 and 149.

"Ibid., 605-608.

"Schamhorst, "Entwicklung der allgemeinen Urs

Franzosen," quoted in Charles Edward White, "Th

Schamhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berl

dissertation, Duke University, 1986, 43-44.

"Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: 
2. physical exertion

3. uncertainties and imperfections in the inf

action in war is based

4. friction in the narrow sense of the resistanc

forces

5. chance events that cannot be readily foresee

6. physical and political limits to the use of mi

7. unpredictability stemming from interaction 

8. disconnects between ends and means in war

This taxonomy clearly goes well beyond trad

contemporary readings of Vom Kriege.1* Instead

of general friction closer to what Clausewitz mig

he had lived long enough to revise On War to h

This essay began with three questions ab

friction:

• Is it a structural feature of war or 

transitory?

• Even if general friction cannot be elimina

its magnitude for one adversary or the othe

l3r^he author included a fairly similar reconstruction of 

backup material for a lecture last given to the Air War Coll

See Barry D. Watts, "U.S. Doctrine for Strategic Air Att

lecture slides, Air War College, Maxwell APB, AL, Septemb

27B ("General Friction: A Reconstruction").

'^or arecent historian's explication of friction in the t

see Christopher Bassford, Clausewitz in English: The Rece

Britain and America: 1815-1945 (Oxford: Oxford Univers

For an interpretation that connects friction with nonlineari

increasing degradation toward randomness that is the essence 

Beyerchen, "Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpre

International Security (Winter 1992/93): 75-77. While Be

invites readers to reconsider Clausewitzian concepts in ligh

nonlinear dynamics, it does not specifically attempt a whol

Clausewitz's unified concept of a general friction..
The initial step toward answering these quest

Clausewitz's original concept, which we have n

task, which will be the focus of chapter 5, is to 

evidence for general friction's persistence down 

Although we are not yet far enough along to 

to the original questions about general friction

insights can be drawn from the clarification of C

concept so far. Regarding the first question

Clausewitz's staunch refusal to accept that any th

principles of war could eliminate chance sug

view, friction was an inherent feature of viole

nation states. From the lowest-ranking soldier to 

marshals, friction was a force with which comba

had to cope.

Yet, turning to the second question, C

suggested various "lubricants" that could ease 

resistance that friction caused for one's own mili

On War combat experience, maneuvers sufficien

officers' judgment for coping with friction, a

leader like Napoleon, are all mentioned as viable 

general friction within one's own army.15 The G

system's emphasis on individual initiative and ju

Schamhorst deserves considerable credit, 

institutional lubricant to general friction. A

mentioned, there are at least hints in On War 

chance could provide opportunities to exploit 

pervasive force ... on the enemy's side."16 Thu

"Clausewitz, On War, 100-103 and 122.

"Ibid., 17, 167, 198, 407-408, and 560. John Bo

Clausewitz for focusing almost exclusively on reducin

friction, and failing to explore the rich possibilities 

adversary's friction/uncertainty" (John R. Boyd, "Pattern

dated April/June/July 1979, Slide 24; in the December 1986 

see Slide 41). Boyd is right. Granted, in a few places 
the opponents center of gravity, was undoubted

Newtonian physics via Kantian concerns about 

was possible. The first edition of Isaac Newt

Naturalis Principia Mathematica [Mathemati

Natural Philosophy], with which modem physic

in 1687, and the core question oflmmanuel Kant'

Reason, published in 1781, was how certain 

judgments, like the equality of action and reactio

of motion,17 which lay at the core of Newtonian 

possible.18 Clausewitz was familiar with thes

Kantian ideas and, even in On War, invoked the m

of the army as a machine whose internal fricti

mechanics, be reduced to a few points."'9 Noneth

from the final list of general friction's sources 

section that, over time, his unified concept m

manuscript that Clausewitz's widow published as Vom Krieg

positive potential to influence outcomes by increasing its mag

side (Paret, "The Genesis of On War" in Clausewitz, On W

Boyd and Paret are correct in noting that "Clausewitz neve

the various ways in which one side influences the other" (Par

War.'" in Clausewitz, On War, 25).

^The proposition that for every action there is alwa

reaction was one of Newton's three principles of mo

Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, in Robert M

Great Books of the Western World, vol. 34, (Chicago: Enc

1952), 14].

^Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norm

York: St. Martin's Press, 1929), 55-58. As Kant remarked, 

nature, meaning Newton's astonishingly effective mathem

physics, existed, it is quite proper to ask how such a science 

"Clausewitz, On War, 119 and 120. Note that virtu

occurred in Clausewitz's historical account of the 1812 camp

The Campaign of 1812 in Russia," Historical and Politica

eds. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (Princeton, NJ: Prince

1992), 165-1671.
in common with 20th-century fields like nonl

the neo-Darwinian synthesis of evolution biol

the eye.
AND AFTER DESERT 

Has general friction been a continuing fe

Clausewitz's time? If so, is there any 

"magnitude" of its influence has changed ap

decades? A minimalist response would be 

detailed campaign history since Napoleon h

strongly confirmed general friction's persisten

colleague with many years of teaching experie

War College has observed that friction's pe

Clausewitzian concept that most military offic

from combat arms, instinctively embrace.' In

one part of On War that uniformed student

colleges usually think they understand.

This minimal response, however, is unlik

lacking either firsthand experience with milita

depth familiarity with me history of at least a f

Napoleon (particularly twentieth-century milita

does it offer much insight into the possibility t

of general friction's influence on combat proc

may have changed over the years.

To furnish a more complete response to 

friction's role in recent times, therefore, this 

evidence from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Ope

has been chosen for various reasons. First, i

large-scale conflict available. Second, Coaliti

many of the most technologically advanced 

existence, including satellite communications 

direct-attack and standoff precision-guided we

'Thomas A. Keaney, discussion of a partial draft of 

37
the air.

At the tactical level of the Coalition air ca

most cursory look at day-to-day operations sugg

no shortage of general friction. Aircrews h

equipment malfunctions, inadequate mission-p

lapses in intelligence on both targets and 

coordination problems between strike and 

(including a number of F-l 1 IF sorties aborted o

the war due to being unable to find tankers 

refueling3), target and time-on-target (TOT) cha

unanticipated changes in prewar tactics, adv

traditional lack of timely bomb damage assessme

many wings, minimal understanding of what hi

was trying to accomplish from one day to the ne

problems were new under the sun in 1991. I

personally experienced virtually all of them whi

North Vietnam during 1967-1968.

Elaboration of two examples from the pre

suffice to substantiate friction's seeming

pervasiveness at the tactical level during Desert 

initial three days of actual operations (17-19 

Coalition air commanders began to shift low

operations to medium altitude in order to minimiz

^he Gulf War Air Power Survey was commissioned o

then Secretary of the Air Force Donald B. Rice "to review al

in the Persian Gulf (Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen

Survey: Summary Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Govern

1993), ix and xi). The survey was directed by Dr. Eliot Co

University's School of Advanced International Studies. The 

chief for operations and effects.

'Gulf War Air Power Survey, "Missions" database, ATO 

Day 3, entries for the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing. Coalition 

to devote some five months to scripting the first two days 

meticulous detail. The third day of the war was the first plan

rightly came to be known as "the ATO day from hell."
like the F-l 6 and F/A-18 when pilots began 

bombs from altitudes well above 10,000 feet.5 

F/A-18s predominately employed unguided 

Desert Storm, the persistence of this restriction 

ground offensive began on 24 February se

ability of these aircraft to hit pinpoint targets su

optic cable junctions linking Baghdad to its for

and Kuwait, ordug-in Iraqi armor.6 Thus, in 19

of Coalition sensitivity to losses, coupled with 

of eliminating more than a fraction of the Iraqi

SAMs, imposed an unexpected degradation in 

accuracy of Coalition aircraft that persisted 

campaign. During the Vietnam war, most air

was done manually or with very early com

'*Keaney and Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey: S

^hile minimum "medium-altitude" release altitud

varied considerably prior to the beginning of the ground c

release altitudes in the vicinity of 14,000-17,000 feet we

Desert Storm for P-16 pilots dropping unguided bombs 

For these release parameters, the slant range to the aim 

around 20,000 feet, and the combined system error could 

pilot did everything right and the [continuously compute

system worked perfectly" (Richard J. Blanchfield, et al.. 

and Training in Gulf War Air Power Survey, vol. IV, 

Training and Space Operations (Washington, DC: U.

Office, 1993), 86). Because pilots seldom perform perfe

conditions, one suspects that miss distances of 200 

uncommon for visual dive bombing from medium altitude

campaign.

"To be stressed is that Coalition air commanders explic

on bombing altitudes initiated after the third day of Desert 

the ground offensive. The message dispatched by B

Glosson to the ten fighter wings under his command at 1

1991 authorized flight leads to determine release altitude

"consistent with the risks to American and Al

RESTRICTN.LFT, 241600Z Feb. 1991).
Desert Storm. Adverse weather conditions subst

operations, especially during the early days of the 

the Coalition's ground offensive at the conflic

second and third nights of the war, more than half 

117 strikes were aborted or unsuccessful due to 

Baghdad; on the second day of the ground campa

1991), all F-117 sorties were canceled due t

disruptive did the cumulative effects of adverse w

the air campaign that the Coalition's head ai

Brigadier General Buster C. Glosson, came t

"number-one problem" and, by implication, as a gr

than the Iraqi Air Force.9 Similar assessme

disruptive effects on air operations can be foun

World War II. In reflecting on the Combined B

against Nazi Germany that he helped both to pla

Major General Haywood Hansell observed in 1

was actually a greater hazard and obstacle than 

Force" during 1942-1945.'° In the case of 

therefore, it would probably be fair to say that i

been a major frictional impediment to effective w

the emergence of aircraft as a military 

World War I."

^Csal von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Peter Paret 

(princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 120.

"Barry D. Watts and Thomas A. Keaney, Part II : Effect

Gulf War Air Power Survey, vol. II, Operations and Effe

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993)

'Major General Buster C. Glosson, Gulf War Air Power 

April 1992.

"Haywood S. Hansell, Jr., The Air Plan That Defe

Georgia: Higgins-McArthur/Longino and Porter, 1972), 12

' 'The anticipated fielding in quantity of precision weapon

Attack Munition (JDAM) in the first decade of the twenty-firs

begin to ameliorate the frictional impediment that adverse wea

has long posed for bombing operations by fixed-wing airc
exchange for a single Coalition fighter believe

down by an Iraqi MiG-25 on the first night of th

did the Iraqis lose effective control of their own 

43 days of fighting, they are known to have mo

to-surface attack sorties against Coalition targ

Mirage F-ls involved were shot down prior to 

an F-15 of the Royal Saudi Air Force.13 

Coalition air forces is, if anything, even more 

comparisons between the opposing sides: by 

Storm, Coalition fighter and bomber crews had 

"shooter" sorties, meaning sorties on which th

carried air-to-air or air-to-ground munitions, 

than 1,000 by the Iraqis.14

In fairness, it should be said that the Iraqi A

designed to deal with an adversary as large 

Coalition air forces it faced in 1991, nor did it 

contest control of the air. Instead, the Iraqi Air F

hoped merely to impose some losses on it

operations while riding out Coalition air stri

conjecture assumes that the Global Positioning System (

reasonable accuracy with the initial JDAM weapons canno

by enemy countermeasures, especially around high-va

example also illustrates the inherent limits of purely te

friction at the tactical level.

"Watts and Keaney, Part II: Effects and Effectivene

"Ibid., 109.

"Major Lewis D. Hill, Doris Cook, and Aron Pink

Compendium in Gulf War Air Power Survey, vol. V, A Sta

Chronology (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Print

Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf Wa

the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and 

of 1991 (Public Law 102-25) (Washington, DC: U.S. Gov

April 1992), 152. The actual figure for Iraqi "shooter" so

it is likely that the Iraqis flew some sorties that were no

forces or intelligence.
forces. Saddam Husseins strategy was not to rel

for decisive results but, instead, to bank on his ar

inflict enough casualties on Coalition ground un

would not be able to stand the pain; his model of f

the kind of bloody ground battles of attrition that h

1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.17 When, in late Janua

Hussein ordered the probing attacks that precipit

Khafji, he assumed that Iraqi ground forces cou

despite the presence of Coalition air power. 

however, proved disastrously wrong on the night 

When an E-8 Joint STARS (Joint Surveillance Tar

System) detected at least two Iraqi brigades on 

Kuwait trying to move south, Coalition air pow

inflict such devastating destruction that both un

before they could even reach the Saudi border.18 F

inability of Iraqi ground forces to move even at ni

Coalition air power was a tactical issue, 

implications for Iraqi strategy. In retrospect, S

"Gulf War Air Power Survey, CHC-10, "(S) Fact P

Aircraft Bunker Vulnerabilities," 24 January 1991. Within 3 

attacks on hardened Iraqi aircraft shelters, Iraqi combat aircraft 

(Watts and Keaney, Part II : Effects and Effectiveness, vol. H

"Watts and Keaney, Part II: Effects and Effectivene

Williamson Murray, Part I: Operations in Gulf War Air P

Operations and Effects and Effectiveness (Washington, D

Printing Office, 1993), 70 and 92-94.

^Norman Cigar, "Iraq's Strategic Mindset and the Gu

Defeat," The Journal of Strategic Studies (March 1992): 3

also. Watts and Keaney, Part II: Effects and Effectiveness, vol

"Watts and Keaney, Part II : Effects and Effectiveness

The Tactical Air Control Center log indicated that the diversio

response to JSTARS detection of what were later identified as 

3rd Armored and 5th Mechanized divisions was underway b

time on 30 January 1991.
January and was never attempted again not on

Coalition air power dominated the military outc

but illustrates that unexpected frictional imp

operational and strategic consequences as wel

This last point suggests that Iraqi frictio

higher than the Coalition's at the tactical 

operational and strategic levels of the campa

sense, general friction's manifestations go far 

failure of Iraqi strategy in the Gulf War as w

military outcome. Understandably, these obs

the reader to conclude that Coalition forces e

any, friction at the operational and strategi

Coalition friction was certainly less at these lev

no means absent.

Consider Coalition efforts during the P

destroy the Iraqi nuclear program. The Coalit

goal of promoting the "security and the stab

Gulf provided the political basis for tryin

program with military means.19 By the ev

destruction of Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and 

capabilities, including research, production, a

had become an explicit objective of the air c

these capabilities were identified in U.S. 

operations order for the campaign as one of 

centers of gravity."21

"George Bush, "Address to the Nation Announcing t

States Armed Forces to Saudi Arabia," 8 August 1990, 

Presidents of the United States: George Bush, 1990 (in tw

July 1 to December 31, 1990 (Washington, DC: U.S. Go

1991), 1108.

^Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 95.

"Watts and Keaney, Part II : Effects and Effectiven

two primary centers of gravity were (1) the forces of the R

Iraqi leadership together with national-level means o
aimed at inflicting enough destruction on nuclear

that it would take many years for the Iraqis to rec

development effort able to produce operational nu

This seemingly straightforward targeting pr

not only on inadequate intelligence about indiv

more importantly, on Coalition misunderstand

system as a whole. The difficulties went much d

to identify even half of the geographic locations c

or nuclear-related facilities by the final days o

nature and operation of the Iraqi nuclear pr

understood.

In 1976 the Iraqis had struck a deal with the 

two nuclear reactors, the larger being a 70 me

(USCINCCENT OPORD 91-001 for Operation Desert Storm

and 3B).

"Prior to Desert Storm, Coalition intelligence believed 

some years, if not a decade or more, away from fielding a nu

wake of intrusive, on-site inspections carried out by Interna

Agency (IAEA) inspectors operating under the auspices of the 

Security Council after Desert Storm, a very different assessm

time of the Gulf War Iraq was probably only 18 to 24 mont

crude nuclear device and no more than three to four years 

deliverable weapons" [David A. Kay, "Denial and Deceptio

Proliferators: Iraq and Beyond," The Washington Quarterly 

Kay was chief inspector on three of the early UN nuclear w

post-Gulf War Iraq.

"Postwar IAEA inspections eventually uncovered some 

at 19 different geographic locations in Iraq (United Natio

"Report on the Seventh IAEA On-Site Inspection in Iraq un

Resolution 687 (1991): 11-22 October 1991," Report S/23215

8 and 63; Michael Eisenstadt, Like a Phoenix from the Ashes? 

Military Power (Washington, DC: Washington Institute f

1993), 92-93. By contrast, as of 27/28 February 1991, U

holding only eight nuclear targets, of five were believed dest

and one still operational (J-2/JCS Daily BDA Assessment: Op

GWAPS NA 353, briefing slides for 27/28 January 1991).
usable as fuel, the possibility arose that once 

it would be used to irradiate yellowcake wh

would begin yielding weapons-grade plutoniu

prospect provoked the Israelis to plan a preem

the Osirak reactor at Al Tuwaitha, about 25 

Baghdad, before it became operational.26 The a

by Israeli fighters on Sunday, 7 June 1981, 

subsequently rebuilt.

While it was generally believed in the Wes

acquire nuclear weapons went mostly dormant 

five or six years, the truth of the matter was 

picture eventually pieced together by internatio

months after Desert Storm ended was that the 

Israeli raid had been to redesign the progr

vulnerability to accurate bombing. Realizin

necessary to produce plutonium in the quantitie

weapons presented large, fixed targets that w

destruction as Osirak had been, the Iraqis alter

nuclear program; instead of pursuing pluton

shifted to enriched uranium.27 m short order me 

a clandestine, lavishly funded, and highly red

included three parallel tracks for ura

electromagnetic-isotope separation using c

enrichment; and, gaseous-centrifuge enrichm

"Jed C. Snyder, "The Road to Osiraq: Baghdad's 

Middle East Join-mil (Autumn 1983); 567-568 and 576-

"Ibid., 577-578.

^Eight Israeli F-l 6s put fourteen 2000-pound Mk-84

two other bombs dropped destroyed an adjacent building. 

One Reactor (Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, 

"Watts and Keaney, Part {I: Effects and Effectiven

"Rolf Ekeus, United Nations Security Council, Rep

1991, "Annex: Report by the Executive Chairman of 

established by the Secretary-General pursuant to parag

Council resolution 687 (1991)," 4.
to import needed elements from foreign source

construction of decoy facilities became part a

national-level program.29 In retrospect, this redes

to acquire nuclear weapons succeeded. Through 

Desert Storm, the nature, scope, and detail

Baghdad's nuclear program were never underst

commanders and military planners.

As a result, Coalition air forces were unable 

nuclear program effectively during Desert Storm, 

it. Even with laser-guided bombs, aircrews st

where to aim and at what they are aiming. To com

frictional impediments Coalition airmen encou

target system, the Iraqis displayed a surprising cap

further disperse, and hide program elements, i

material, once the campaign began.30 The upsh

Iraqi work on nuclear weapons was halted by D

many program elements damaged or dispersed, th

to achieve its operational objective of eliminati

program. The crux of this failure, moreover, 

manifestations of Clausewitzian friction: Coalitio

the nature of the target system reinforced by prodig

to conceal its nuclear ambitions from the 

"Kay, "Denial and Deception Practices of WMD Pr

Beyond," 87-98.

^David Kay, letter to Barry D. Watts, 20 October 1992

"Like the frictional impediment of adverse weather, fail

functionality of a target system has antecedents at least as far b

In the case of the Anglo-American Combined Bomber Off

Germany, the most telling example is the "coal/transpo

distributed the lifeblood of German war production, coal for 

the division of labor that enabled the war economy to adap

attacks [Alfred C. Mierzejewski, The Collapse of German W

1945: Allied Air Power and the. German National Railw

London: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 17

fundamental goals were to "accomplish the destruction a
Nazi Germany and imperial Japan following 

what one cannot deny is that general friction 

forces from achieving their stated operationa

regarding Iraq's nuclear-weapon program duri

One can draw much the same conclu

Coalition's operational goal of "destroying

Guard (RG) forces, which were also identi

commander, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

of gravity. Despite U.S. Army doctr

synchronization, the planned timing betwe

holding attack in the east, whose objective w

City, and the multi-corps "left hook" from the w

German military, industrial and economic system and 

morale of the German people to a point where their cap

is fatally weakened" (U.S. Eighth Air Force, "The Com

from the U.K.," 12 April 1943, U.S. National Archives, 

594, 2). The collapse of German war production was in f

1945 because of the collapse of the country's transportat

and Elbridge L. Shaw, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on 

(Washington, DC: U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, 

January 1947), vol. 200 (European War), 89-91]. Howeve

war that this long-sought goal was achieved. General H

lamenting to this chief bomber commander in Europe, 

with all the tremendous striking power at Spaatz's dispo

"much better and much more decisive results than we a

Pagg, "The Climax of Strategic Operations," in Wesley 

Gate, eds., T fie. Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 3, E

V-E Day, January 1944 to May 1945 (Washington, DC: U

Office, 1951), 716].

^Revealing insofar as general friction's persistence 

Norman Schwarzkopf appears to have still believed some 

that the Iraqi nuclear program had been destroyed dur

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf with Peter Petre, The A

Take a Hero (New York: Linda Grey/Bantam Books, 19

also personally testify that the head intelligence officer for 

Command during the war adamantly subscribed to this sa

1992.
their attack to reach Kuwait City within three days 

made that timeline.33 To make matters worse, whe

ground offensive kicked off around 0400 hours 

1991, Third Army initially stuck with its original 

the advance of the heavy units in XVIII Airborne a

24 hours.34

As early as 0840, however, Schwarzkopf re

Iraqi demolitions in Kuwait City indicative 

preparations and called Lieutenant General John Y

Army commander, to obtain his views on scrap

timetable and attacking early with the heavy forc

of the heavy units in XVIII Airborne and VII 

moved up to 1500 hours on the 24th. Nonethel

soon became impossible to make up, especially 

Corps. As darkness approached on February 24t

commander. Lieutenant General Frederick Franks

with his three division commanders about the wi

ahead through the night, elected to stop his advan

the following morning.36 Regardless of the 

decision, it did not reflect the theater commande

Third Army historian later wrote: "A gap had 

between the tactical operations Franks was fightin

''MichaelR. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, The 

Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (flew York: Little, B

1995), 304, 371, and 376.

^Brigadier General Robert H. Scales, Jr., Certain Victor

Army in the Gulf War (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief 

1993), 216-223.

"Richard M. Swain, "Lucky War": Third Army in 

Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff 

230: also see Schwarzkopf with Petre, 453-454.

'"Gordon and Trainor, 379; Swain, 236-237.
were."38 It would be going too far to argue 

between intentions and actuality in the Gulf 

Iraq's armored and Republican Guard forces w

destroyed despite the immense tactical succes

100-hour ground offensive.39 Another importa

bearing on this outcome was the gap betwee

Coalition ground commanders that the Iraqis wo

and what the Iraqis actually did: begin a wholesa

the Kuwait theater of operations on the night o

These two frictions, in turn, were compoun

others. The Coalition's 100-hour ground off

some of the worst weather of the campaign. B

Iraqi armored and mechanized units in the theate

"Swain, 238. Swain argues that as early as 25 Febru

language by VII Corps and Third Army in communica

Schwarzkopf s headquarters in Riyadh began to open a ga

the theater commander and his subordinate field comman

^Lieutenant General John H. Cushman, "Desert 

Proceedings (October 1993): 76.

^As of 1 March 1991, some 840 tanks (at least 3 65 of 

Guard T-72s), 1,412 other armored vehicles (mostly arm

and 279 pieces of artillery of various types were still in the 

forces and outside of Coalition control (Central Intellig

Imagery Analysis, "Operation Desert Storm: A Snapshot o

10022, September 1993). Of the totals cited, at least 39 tan

vehicles belonging to the Republican Guard's Hammurabi 

in the early morning hours of 2 March 1991 by the Ame

Infantry Division as the Iraqis attempted to reach the Haw

and escape northward (ibid.).

'"By around midnight (Riyadh time) on the night 

STARS was showing heavy traffic moving north from 

Basrah; at0135 hours Riyadh time on February 26th (173

in Washington, DC), Baghdad radio announced an Iraqi w

and, by morning on the 26th, coalition intelligence in the 

mass exodus led by the Iraqi III Corps in the east (Swa

JSTARS tapes for the night of 25/26 February 1991 cond

April 1995).
the fighting. More crucially, coordination pr

soldiers and airmen, especially on 27 February

effective use of fixed-wing aviation to prevent th

armored forces that, in October 1994, woul

deployment of American forces to the Persian Gul

impediments, U.S. Army commanders basically 

original plan of trying to destroy the Republican 

smashing headlong into them with a multi-div

armored and mechanized units rather than first en

forces and then reducing them at the Coalition

operational concept, which emphasized synchro

units aimed at presenting no flanks, was a do

preference very different from the practices of 

commanders in World War II such as Heinz Gu

Baick, and John Wood.43 In Clausewitzian term

"'ClA, "Operation Desert Storm," IA 93-10022.

^ a controversial article, Jim Burton was the first to crit

and Schwarzkopf for preferring a synchronized phalanx attac

Republican Guard units in the rear of the Kuwaiti theater rat

and annihilation [Colonel James G. Burton, "Pushing Them 

Proceedings (June 19930: 37-42]. In later issues of Proceeding

elicited heated responses, particularly from U.S. Army particip

who sought to defend their service's performance. Burton's 2

"Desert Storm: A Different Look," provides an in-depth exami

available evidence bearing on this controversy. Burton's conc

analysis is, once again, that the U.S. Army "did not know h

thrust to the enemy's rear."

"As early as 1926, German army maneuvers stressed t

of having units advance boldly ahead without "maintaining a 

"regard for troops on their flanks" James S. Corum, The Roo

von Seec.kt and German Military Reform (Lawrence, KS: 

Press, 1992), 185]. During World War II, Baick and "P" Woo

to be among the most skilled practitioners of this approach 

warfare [BDM Corporation, "Generals Baick and von M

Implications for NATO Military Doctrine," BDM/W-81-399-

31-32, and 39; and Hanson W. Baldwin, Tiger Jack (Fort C
100-hour ground offensive, then, is one of 

overlaid on top of one another, with several gr

offensive unfolded. From this perspective, the 

of friction appears more than adequate to exp

Coalition commanders failed to achieve their op

of destroying the Republican Guard. General Sc

in his postwar book that his intention had been 

destruction on the Republican Guard that they 

"a threat to any other nation."44 The return of add

to the Gulf when T-72-equipped Republican Gu

escaped destruction in 1991 again menaced Kuw

demonstrates that this goal was not achieved dur

Thus, despite the Coalition's enormous mili

evident that general friction had operational, if n

even on the Coalition's side of the hill.

In sum, scrutiny of Operation Desert 

Clausewitzian friction persisted at every leve

Even for the Coalition, general friction had opera

consequences, not merely tactical effects. Mo

specific frictional impediments documented, fro

and faulty intelligence to the American army's d

Army Press, 1979), 39-46 and 61 -69]. By contrast. Third 

emphasized the use of phase lines and Global Positioni

maintain the geographic alignment of the flanks of adjace

like the spoke of a "Great Wheel," from a northward-to ea

(Scales, 252-254; Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 287).

""Schwarzkopf with Petre, 384 and 499.

'"Between 3 and 9 October 1994, the Iraqis massed as 

including two Republican Guard divisions and over 1,0

northern border [David A. Flugham, "Iraq Invasion Threat 

Aviation Week and Space Technology, 14 November 1994

H. Cushman, "Back to the Gulf," Proceedings (Decemb

next 10 days, various force elements and some 14,00

including marines and elements of the U.S. Army's 24t

Division, were rushed to the Gulf.
compared to earlier conflicts in this century? 

"quantity" for comparison would be the dif

Coalition friction and Iraqi friction. How mi

imbalance between opponents compare with i

campaigns from the Vietnam period, the Korean 

The immediate problem, of course, is find

gauging or measuring the required differential 

comparable over periods of decades, if not long

especially at the operational and strategic leve

readily springs to mind. Indeed, setting aside recu

at least some operations researchers and military 

captured everything important about combat in t

author is not aware that such an overarching me

seriously proposed, and for obvious reasons. 

difficulties of constructing such a metric are appa

final taxonomy of general friction's various sourc

What single metric could quantify the frictional i

two sides stemming from things as diverse as da

in the information on which action in war is based

and political limits to the use of military force

between ends and means in war? Further, gi

advances in the means of combat during the 20th 

frictional imbalance between Coalition and Iraq

initial two days of Desert Storm be comparable 

during the battles of Jena and Auerstadt on 14 O

suspects that merely describing such a metri

qualitative terms, would be hard given the likelih

imbalances could fluctuate considerably over 

actual campaign. Precisely measuring such imb

historical cases on a scale applicable to earlier 

would, almost certainly, be even harder.46

'''These difficulties measuring the frictional imbalance b

recall Andy Marshall's concerns about the measurement of 

wrote in the mid-1960s: The "conceptual problems in const
what it was during the German Blitzkrieg across 

and France in May 1940. These two campaigns

by just over a half century, are perhaps as comp

duration as most that could be selected from the 

Both produced lop-sided blow-outs in which 

friction was palpably less than the loser's.47 

friction at the operational and strategic leve

winning side to fall short of all it might have ach

had long-term consequences: in 1940 some 338

mostly British, escaped from Dunkirk harbor a

beaches to fight another day, much as happene

Iraq's Republican Guard in 1991.48 Thus one m

these 1940 and 1991 examples that friction not 

persisted relatively undiminished in "magnitud

Can we put some substance behind this spec

it presumes that these well-matched historical cas

or dimensions that do in fact provide rough mea

balance of friction between the opposing side

useful measure of military power have not yet been faced

measure looks hard, and making estimates in real situations 

W. Marshall, "Problems of Estimating Military Power," R

1966,9).

""For classic accounts of Allied friction in May 1940, s

C. Fuller, The Conduct of War, 1789-1961 (Minerva Pres

Antoine de Saint Exupery, trans. Lewis Galantiere, Fligh

Harcourt, Brace & World, 1942), 56. For insight into Ger

campaign, especially during the crucial crossings of the M

Allan Doughty, The. Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of 

Books, 1990), 131-165, 323-324, and 329-332.

""Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol

(Boston: Bantam Books, 1949), 100.

""The author is indebted to Alan Beyerchen for the 

differences in "decision-cycle times" and possibility space as 

relative balance of friction between opposing sides. As h

May 1996, my contention in this section that the gross ma

imbalance between opponents did not appear to be very diffe
general friction. Instead, they are intended to ind

in which such metrics may be sought.

In the case of the Blitzkrieg in May 1940, a 

some insight into the frictional imbalance betwee

degree to which Germans quickly achieved a tem

days between their pace of offensive executio

responses. By focusing the main attack, incl

German armored forces, through the "impassable

the Allies least expected it, the Germans got an im

advantage at the outset. France's intelligence sys

identify the main German attack, and as late as 

May, the third day of the campaign and only h

Guderian's XIXth Panzer Corps crossed the M

Sedan, French commanders and analysts contin

the main attack was coming to the north through 

Once across the Meuse, Guderian in particula

forward with less than two-thirds of his forces 

for enemy actions against his flanks."51 He

armored breakthroughs were exploited at a pace 

the temporal gap between German actions and 

Consequently, the "cycle times" of successive 

began to fall further and further inside those 

British. By the time the leading German spearhe

to the west and the Channel coast on 15 May, th

decision-cycle times between the two sides had 

of being comparable to a chess game in which o

two moves for every one taken by the opponent

Many of the same patterns are evident in Des

true of the Allies in 1940, the Iraqis were su

direction of the main Coalition ground offen

it had been in May 1940 can only be defended if such indice

a minimum, qualitatively described.

'"Doughty, 325.

"Ibid., 224.
pace of Coalition units, much as happened to 

ground units in May 1940 compared to the speed 

units advanced. In the chess analogy, the Iraq

24-28 February 1991 is perhaps best compared 

Coalition ground forces were allotted two, or p

moves for every Iraqi one and the Iraqis were on

location of Coalition "pieces" when they actually 

Thus, in terms of decision-cycle times, the fr

between opponents in 1991 appears, if anyth

slightly larger than in May 1940.

Decision-cycle times, though, only addres

friction. A somewhat broader, but by no mea

indicator of the relative balances of general fr

1991 is the notion of option sets in possibility 

aggregate of viable moves available to each side 

these two campaigns. In both instances, the s

available to the eventual victor was probabl

available to the eventual loser at the outset of of

Further, over the course of the two campaigns

the Allies and Iraqis contracted rapidly and subs

respectively, to those of the Germans and the U

In a matter of days from the beginning of larg

losing side's best remaining option had been re

as many soldiers and as much military equipme

as possible, strategic defeat having become un

since the Iraqis had more initial latitude to nego

their forces) out of the theater of operations w

"As a campaign unfolds, the attractive options ten

adversaries. For instance, on the first day of the Germans' M

options of going either to Paris or to the Channel coast were 

the panzer units in Army Group Center began wheeling to

May, though, the option of going to Paris was far less at

perspective due to the way the campaign had unfolded t

earlier.
furnish parameters that enable one to compare

incompletely, the magnitude of frictional im

opponents in May 1940 and January-February 1

decision-cycle times, one could even envisio

imbalance at specific stages of these conflicts 

What about option sets in possibility space? 

similarly quantifiable? On the one hand, 

possibility space appear to be the more ge

"measures." On the other, the notion of viable 

dimensional "possibility space" is probably not 

captured by a single number. Instead, estim

options over time would almost surely require 

mathematical object. As Alan Beyerchen h

frictional imbalance between adversaries at any p

envisioned as a dynamic "shape" in a multi-di

space"53 rather than as any single number or valu

not at all obvious that the differential in options 

1940 than in 1991.

Again, the two metrics just discussed do 

universally applicable or to encompass 

manifestations of general friction. They were dra

similar campaigns They were not intended to so

measuring the relative frictional imbalance betwe

but to indicate the direction in which progress 

"Phase or "state" space is a way of visualizing the be

system. Its coordinates are the "degrees of freedom of the sy

P. Crutchfield, J. Doyne Farmer, Norman H. Packard, 

"Chaos," Scientific American, December 1986, 49). In 

pendulum, for example, the relevant phase space only requir

pendulum's velocity over time, and its position or displa

center. Once initially set in motion, a frictionless pendulu

phase space, whereas one subjected to friction follows an 

point.

"Alan Beyerchen, e-mail message to Barry Watts, 31 
recently as 1991. The exposition will now tur

most daunting task: to build a case for general f

undiminished persistence in future war.
STRATEGIC SURP

Granting that Clausewitzian friction prevent

from achieving important operational-strategic 

Storm's lop-sided outcome, why should one ta

infer that technological advances in the future w

any enduring solution to the historical proble

direct evidence just presented of general f

undiminished persistence as recently as 199

regarding friction's future role under the prem

progress. Direct, empirical evidence from wa

after all, is unobtainable. Nonetheless, reaso

fields as diverse as economics, evolutionary bio

dynamics for suspecting that many real-world 

physical ones, can exhibit structural unpredic

sort of inherent unpredictability seems to be par

Clausewitz subsumed under his Gesamtbegrif

Friktion, confirmation of similar, if not relate

in fields far from war would begin to build a cas

that Clausewitzian friction will persist regardl

'Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912) was perhaps 

mathematically rigorous basis for believing that physica

long-term unpredictability [lan Stewart, Does God Play D

Chaos (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 64-72]. Howe

Poincare's work "was fully understood only in 1954, as a 

Russian academician A. N. Kolmogorov, with later 

Russians, Vladimir Arnold and J. Moser (the three bein

KAM)" [John Briggs and F. David Peat, Turbulent Mirror

Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness (New York: 

41-42]. The current view of nonlinear dynamics is that 

nonlinear systems in their "chaotic" regions is unpredicta

59
strategic surprise.

Japan's 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl H

the problem of strategic surprise into a deeply pe

for an entire generation of Americans.3 The horr

of a surprise Soviet nuclear attack on the United 

a constant feature of the four-decade Cold War 

and the Soviet Union, reinforced the primacy o

another generation. Yet, notwithstanding al

American leaders, defense analysts, intellige

military planners have put into "solving" the pr

surprise, the literature on the subject, as well as h

suggests that the problem is intractable.

The classic 20th-century account of how stra

occur despite a wealth of intelligence on en

intentions remains Roberta Wohlstetter's 1962 

surprise attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harb

1941. "Never before," she concluded after si

sources available to the American government d

preceding the attack, "have we had so comple

picture of the enemy."4 The available "signals

^The greatest obstacle to the establishment of the theor

fact that evolution cannot be observed directly like the pheno

as a falling stone or boiling water, or any other process that 

minutes, or hours during which ongoing changes can be car

Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolu

(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1982), 310].

^FOT a poignant account of the visceral impact that news 

on Pearl Harbor had on most Americans, see Robert A

Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of 

(New York: Atheneum, 1968), 229-231. And while Ard

behavior have been much maligned, he was certainly 

universality and depth of the feelings most Americans experie

of the attack to evolutionary biology.

''Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and D

Stanford University Press, 1962), 387.
embassies such as Berlin, Rome, and Washin

had also achieved some success in reading 

Japanese agents in major American cities and po

leaders possessed traffic analysis on Japanese 

codes; extremely competent on-the-spot polit

analysis was furnished by the U.S. embassy in 

classified information was provided by B

(although there was a tendency at this stage amo

and Americans to distrust each other's privileged 

there were various unclassified sources of info

very accurate reporting and predictions on the 

scene by the overseas correspondents of sever

newspapers.6 "All that we lacked was the d

[Tokyo time], a precise list of targets, and, m

ability to estimate correctly Japanese desperation 

Ibid., 1-2. Wohlstetter noted, however, that the nont

word "signal" cited had been inspired by and was compatib

contemporary theory of information" (ibid.). This c

clarification. In the mathematical theory of communicati

Shannon and Warren Weaver, information is a measure of 

when selecting a message, not a measure of its meaning [

Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Comm

University of Illinois Press, 1949), 8-9]. It is precisely 

information content of communications processes with unce

meaning, that enabled Shannon to show that informatio

mathematically by an equation having the same form 

famous equation for the entropy or disorder of a thermody

and 48-51).

"Wohlstetter, 31 and 382-384. To the six cate

Wohlstetter added a seventh: public and classified informa

intentions, moves, and military vulnerabilities (ibid., 384). 

final months and weeks preceding the Japanese attack 

evaluations of the accumulating signals could not be don

was being done by or intended on the American side.

''Ibid., 345 and 349.
to them after the Japanese attack, were embedded 

of "buzzing and blooming confusion" or "noise

identification and interpretation extremely diffi

given "the very human tendency to pay attention 

support current expectations about the enemy.

phenomenon of background noise went far be

clatter of useless information and competing sig

on Pearl Harbor was preceded by previous alerts 

be false alarms that numbed subsequent reaction

of potential danger; American attention in Hawai

sabotage than attack due to the prevailing hypoth

Japanese attack on Siberia; and, the Japanese w

concealing certain key signals while introducing 

into American collection systems.10 As f

understanding the meaning of the signals that w

relevant, American assessments of Japanese abili

to accept the risks of an attack on the U.S. fleet at 

quite different from those that the Japanese in fact 

war planning and decision making." Thus, even 

could have been identified amid the surroundin

"Ibid., 339.

''Ibid., 55, 387, and 392. The interwoven phenome

relevant signals or rendering their interpretation problemati

features of cases of strategic surprise since Pearl Harbor

evidence of relevant "signals" being lost in background "n

Cuban missile crisis, see Dino A. Brugioni, Eyeball to E

McCort (New York: Random House, 1990 and 1991), 145 

surrounding noise making the interpretation of signals the m

in the 1973 Arab attack on Israel and Iraq's 1990 seizure of K

are discussed later in this section).

'"Wohlstetter, 393.

"Ibid., 354-355. The deployment of the U.S. Pacific fl

the spring of 1940 was seen in Washington as a deterrent, whe

a target (ibid., 89).
Although the significance of this signal see

retrospect, at the time it failed to provide "an u

of an attack on the Philippines."12 Among othe

commanders in the Philippines did not respond 

signal on the presumption that the Japanese did 

for immediate air attack of the Philippines. 

fighter was believed by American intelligence, 

out, to lack the range to reach U.S. airfields in th

land bases on Formosa; and the alternative, using 

out because all six of Japan's large carrie

correctly in this case, to have been committed to 

Harbor.13 "There is a difference, then, betwe

available somewhere in the heap of irrelevanci

as a warning; and there is also a difference betw

a warning, and acting or getting action on it."1

From such discouraging evidence and obser

concluded that the problem of avoiding stra

essentially intractable.

we have found the roots of ... surprise in ci

affected honest, dedicated, and intelligent men. 

such surprise at any time lies in the cond

perception and stems from uncertainties so basi

likely to be eliminated, though they might be 

precautions of secrecy, which are necessary eve

to keep open privileged sources of informati

those who have the power of decision. M

attention is directed by beliefs as to what is lik

one cannot always listen for the right signals.15

"Ibid., 396.

"Ibid., 360-361. The devil lay in the details. Unb

intelligence, the Japanese had found ways to extend th

enough to reach targets in Manila from Formosa.

"Ibid., 389.

"Ibid., 397.
prodigious efforts by governments and intell

avoid it. In 1973, for instance, the Israeli g

surprised by timing, place, and method of the coo

Syrian attack on the morning of 6 October as the 

by the Nazi invasion of 22 June 1941 (Opera

Worse, U.S. intelligence, though aided by such 

as satellite reconnaissance, was every bit as sur

attack in 1973 as the Israelis were.17 Much as in 

relevant signals were received, but the "buzzi

noise, reinforced by active and successful Arab d

their significance while various explanatory h

Arab force build-ups being observed so complic

that, as late as 5 October ,"no [Israeli] national-le

that war was imminent."18 A similar picture 

warning and decision emerges from a careful r

wishful thinking, ingrained hypotheses, and amb

that obscured Saddam Hussein's true intentio

preceding Iraq's seizure of oil-rich Kuwait 

Particularly striking in this case is the fact that 

invasion, the Kuwaiti Emir and top officials o

ministry remained firmly convinced, despite 

secret U.S. photographs that plainly showed th

"Avi Shiaim, "Failures in National Intelligence Esti

Yom Kippur War," reprinted in The Art and Practice of 

George E. Thibault (Washington, DC: National Defense U

380 and 381. This article originally appeared in the Apr

Politics.

"Richard K. Betts, Surprise Attack: Lessons fo

(Washington, DC: The Brooldngs Institution, 1982), 75, no

late as 3 October 1973 the Defense Intelligence Agency asses

on the Syrian and Egyptian fronts as coincidental rathe

designed to lead to major hostilities" (ibid.). The Central Inte

to a similar position as late as 5 October.

^Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfort

Failure in War (New York: The Free Press, 1990), 105 an
have agreed with Roberta Wohlstetters original 

problem is intractable.20 This consensus no

lessons of history, but general agreement on the d

root sources of the intractability lie in uncertain

human perception and judgment too fundamenta

and for all. Direct evidence of enemy intentions 

and warning indicators are ambiguous; concep

meaning attached to the signals received often p

the face of contradictory evidence; and, the stron

among many aspects of surprise attack mean

hypothesis can quickly lead both intelligen

interpretation down the wrong path.21 Among 

attackers can always change their minds at the 

"General H. Norman Schwarzkopf with Peter Petre, 

Doesn't Take a Hero (New York: Linda Grey/Bantam Boo

R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals

of the Conflict in the Gulf (New York: Little, Brown and 

26.

M

"'^ the study of Pearl Harbor has anything to offer t

have to accept the fact of uncertainty and learn to live with 

"The search for an infallible system of advance warning o

forawill-o'-the-wisp" (Shiaim, 402). "Intelligence failures 

they are natural. . . . [T]he intractability of the inadequacy 

inseparability from mistakes in decision, suggests one 

perhaps most outrageously fatalistic of all: tolerance for disa

"Analysis, War, and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures A

in Thibault, ed., 378-379). "History does not encourage 

surprise attack. One can only hope to reduce the seve

surprised, to issue clearer and more timely warnings, to ga

preparations, and to be more adequately prepared to minim

surprise attack occurs" [Ephrain Kam, Surprise Attack: T

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 233].

"Kam, 214.
to be eliminated from or greatly diminished in fu

first point to be made is one of consistency. Des

historical evidence that strategic surprise has 

problem in the past, it remains conceivable 

eliminated by technological advances we cannot 

or, perhaps, even imagine. What would be lo

however, is to hold that either surprise or friction 

the other. If there is no ironclad, bullet-proof 

being the victim of a surprise attack in 

manifestations of Clausewitzian friction will 

continue to form the atmosphere of war, even if 

be reduced.

The force of this argument springs from reco

similarities underlying both surprise attack and 

general friction. More than a few twentieth-c

begun with surprise attacks, and their avoida

strategic level tends, not unreasonably, to be ca

conflict problem. Still, at the levels of operatio

surprise attacks also occur within ongoing confl

the unique threshold associated with war initiatio

the information on which action is based, dange

unpredictability of two-sided interaction appea

sources or causes of the prewar surprise-attack pr

of general friction during subsequent military 

possibility of being subjected to a surprise at

conflict can be viewed, therefore, as a prewar 

general friction. And because the underlying co

of avoiding surprise are fundamentally the sam

the arbitrary threshold separating peace from 

tractability of surprise attack at the outset, as w

^Cohen and Gooch, 119. The likelihood that the E

intended to go to war in May 1973 but were stopped at 

Soviets is based on classified research by a number of prom

Israeli intelligence community into their own files.
complex problems represented by the task 

shortest route connecting each of some finite 

Does the intractability of strategic surprise 

prospective magnitude of friction in future w

twentieth century, the potentially catastroph

being surprised do not appear to have lessened

eventually recovered from the surprise of Op

and went on to play a major role in the even

Nazi Germany, but at a horrific cost in human a

especially during the initial German offensive

were able to recover from the surprise of the 

Syrian attack on 6 October 1973 but, again, 

Both the Soviet Union in 1941 and Israel in 1

on the brink of catastrophic defeat as a resul

The likely adverse consequences of an all-o

nuclear attack on the United States at any time 

would have undoubtedly surpassed those tha

the surprise German attack of 22 June 1941 

attack of 6 October 1973. Hence the frictional 

"The intractability of the traveling salesman or 

problem is as follows. As the number of cities to be 

number of calculations required to solve the proble

rapidly—in fact by an exponential function of n. With 

solutions eventually become infeasible using all currently 

the times required to solve themusing the fastest com

exceeds human, or even cosmic, time scales. For a sum

circumvent this kind of intractability by relaxing the requ

of the calculated result be counded by an arbitrarily s

Joseph F. Traub and Henryk Wozniakowski, "Breaking 

American, January 1994, 102-107. Whether or not mor

to the class of "hard" problems represented by the Stein

preeminent problem in theoretical computer science" (

Ronald L. Graham, "The Shortest Network Problem," Sci

1989, 88).
roots of surprise lie in aspects of human 

uncertainties too basic for technological advance

less eliminate, then it is difficult to see why this 

will diminish in the magnitude of its prospective 

war.
CRITICAL INFORMA

Chapter 6 provided an indirect argument fo

relatively undiminished persistence in future 

merely documenting its recurrence in past con

light on several traditional sources of Cla

(danger, informational uncertainties, etc.). 

argument for general friction's robust persi

arises from the distribution of information w

systems such as market economies or the earth

market economics and evolutionary bi

fundamental information involved in the 

processes (or adaptations) is, for all practical p

at particular places and times.1 The claim o

comparably fundamental information involved 

of combat within any reasonably large volu

exhibits precisely the same inaccessibility due 

space and, especially, time. Even granting the 

in information systems and related techno

expected to occur in the decades ahead, the tem

critical information bearing on the conduct 

military operations alone seems sufficient to 

future persistence of general friction, but to ra

possibility of greatly reducing its overall mag

'The terms "adaptive" and "adaptation" are inte

expansive sense of encompassing the algorithmic informat

problems that "occur at critical points in fields as diver

psychology, economic planning, control, artificial in

mathematics, sampling, and inference" [John H. Hollan

and Artificial Systems: An Introductory Analysis with 

Control, and Artificial Intelligence (Cambridge, MA: M

69
than six decades, especially during twenty fruitful 

London School of Economics after 1931, he 

foremost critic of socialist economics, arguing u

aims and programs associated with centrally d

were "factually impossible to achieve or execute 

impossible."2

At the core of Hayek's mature economic p

notion of the market as an evolutionary proces

adaptation) whose primary function is the gatheri

of dispersed, unsurveyable information:

Modem economies are vastly complicated. Some

process immense quantities of information, conce

and incomes of consumers, the outputs and cos

future products and methods of production, and 

interdependences of all of the above. The task o

information, let alone making sense of it, is beyon

intelligence. But it is not beyond the market

"spontaneous order" out of chaos.3

In Hayek's own words: "Modem economics exp

extended order can come into being, and how it it

information-gathering process, able to call up, 

widely dispersed information that no central pla

alone any individual, could know as a whole, po

How could the exquisite order of the m

spontaneously without being designed and consc

2P. A. Hayek, in The Collected Works ofF. A. Hayek, 

vol. 1, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (Chicago: 

Press, 1988), 7. Bartley's plan to publish a new standard colle

envisioned 22 volumes as of 1988. Written when Hayek was i

Fatal Conceit represented the culmination of decades of o

thought.

'"In Praise of Hayek," The Economist, 28 March 1992

"Hayek, The Fatal Conceit, 14.
"indispensable for the development of trading

formation of larger coherent and cooperating s

appearance of those signals we call pric

development of trade, which Hayek identified 

the emergence of Egyptian, Greek, and other 

depended on the freedom or liberty of trader

from the use of privileged "information for pur

themselves."7

Given this "reconstruction" of how toda

order most likely emerged, how could such a 

process information that is inaccessible to any 

group?

Much of the particular information whic

possesses can be used only to the extent to wh

use it in his own decisions. Nobody can comm

all he knows, because much of the informatio

of he himself will elicit only in the process of 

action. Such information will be evoked as h

particular task he has undertaken in the cond

finds himself .. . Only thus can the individua

look for, and what helps him to do this in 

responses others make to what they fin

environments. . . . The market is the only 

providing information enabling individuals to 

advantages of different uses of resources of 

immediate knowledge and through whose use

intend or not, they serve the needs of 

individuals. This dispersed knowledge is ess

and cannot possibly be gathered together an

authority charged with the task of deliberately 

'Ibid., 29-30.

'Ibid., 31.

"Ibid., 42.

'Ibid., 77.
gathers and processes only comes into existence 

are confronted with particular economic choi

circumstances. Other elements, especially those 

long-term consequences, can only be known late

of the subsequent contingent choices open to other 

as a planned surprise attack can be aborted at 

individuals can react in more than one way to pe

signals and effects at times of their own ch

marketplace, therefore, "unintended consequence

a distribution of resources is effected by an impe

which individuals, acting for their own ends (them

rather vague), literally do not and cannot know w

result of their interactions."10

Hayek's outlook reflects a keen appreciatio

there are "limits to our knowledge or reason in ce

'Ibid., 84.

"'Ibid.,71.

"i

Ibid., 62. That limits to human knowledge exist in 

undeniable at this late juncture in the 20th century that reiter

claim may seem unnecessary. However, because the most inc

comes from fields such as mathematical logic and nonlinea

not widely understood by nonspecialists, it may be useful to c

First, KurtGadel's landmark 1931 paper, "On Formally Und

[in Jean van Heijenoort, ed., Principia Mathematica and Rel

Frege to Gadel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 18

MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 597] established hard 

formally proved within any axiomatic system sufficient fo

Gadel's so-called "first incompleteness theorem" states that, 

strong enough for the counting integers (1,2,3, . . .) and arit

addition and multiplication, it is always possible to construct a 

properly interpreted (from outside the formal system), can be 

neither provable nordisprovable (that is, decldahle] within the 

years, Gregory Chaitin has extended Gadel's work by sho

structure of arithmetic can be random" [lan Stewart

Undecidability," Nature, 10 March 1988, 115; also see G. J. 

Randonmess, and Incompleteness: Papers on Algorithmic Inf
discovery that economic events could not b

"by preceding events acting as determining ca

of later interactions.13 The upshot is not to 

However, the temporal inaccessibility of key ec

means that detailed predictability is lost.

This same pattern of "essentially disperse

plays a crucial role in evolutionary biology. 

events, meaning the earliest point in lineage 

organisms united by descent at which the e

species can be discerned. An example would 

female who is the most recent direct ancestor, 

every human being alive today. Scientists ha

"Mitochondrial Eve" in light of the fact that, sin

in our cells are passed exclusively through the m

mitochondria in all the people alive today are d

the mitochondria in her cells.14 However, be

could, whether by accident or a lack of evolutio

died off, Mitochondrial Eve "can only 

crowned."15 Her status as the closest direct fem

human alive today depends not only on conti

ed. (London: World Scientific Publishing, 1990), especi

Second, Edward Lorenz's 1963 discovery of nonperiodi

simple set of atmospheric convection equations is widely 

established the impossibility of making accurate, long-range 

than 10 days to 2 weeks into the future [Edward N

Nonperiodic How," in Hao Bai-Lin, Chaos (Singapore: W

Company, 1984), 282 and 292-293. Lorenz's article o

March 1963 issue of T/ze Journal ofAtmospheric Science

Ross, "Lorenz's Butterfly: Weather Forecasters Grap

Accuracy," Scientific American, September 1990, 42].

^Hayek, 98.

"Ibid., 97.

"Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evo

of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 97.

"Ibid., 98.
time suggests definite limits to what can be 

individual, or group of individuals, at any giv

From an evidentiary standpoint, the consistent f

the present century of centrally directed econo

economic performance comparable to that of the 

order argues that these limits ought to be t

Sufficiently complete and unimpeachable inform

major uncertainties about the future course of 

appear to be possible in economics and, almost c

is true of biological adaptation through natural sel

these parallels to the frictional uncertaintie

combatants in wartime cannot, in and of themse

existence of similar limits to combat processe

"Ibid., 99 and 103. "Species have an extension in spa

structured and consist of populations which, at least in part (w

are independent of each other" (Mayr, 408). Put another 

between species are surprisingly fuzzy, both spatially and 

Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of 

Universe without Design (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987

'^ayek, 8. Hayek did not, of course, claim that the exte

with capitalist or market economies produced anything a

allocation and use of resources, only that the "order generate

far outstrip plans men consciously contrive." The result 

experiments in the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, Yugoslavia, V

seem to provide compelling proof of Hayek's contention that 

more efficient. For an illuminating account of the counter

genetic or adaptive algorithms, see John R. Koza, Genetic P

Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection (C

Press, 1992), 1-8. Genetic programming, Koza emphasiz

admittedly incorrect solutions and it only occasionally produc

solution to the problem" (ibid., 5).

"Given the mathematical immensity of biological "d

with the fact that in that multidimensional space there are vastl

dead than alive, Richard Dawkins is doubtful that we will ev

able to choose phenotypes by selecting the relevant genotype 

For lucid introductions to the structure, dimensionality, and 

"design space" see Dennett, 104-123; also, Dawkins, 43-10
conclusion? Consider, once again, the profou

Coalition planners faced during Desert Storm i

the Iraqi nuclear program. Only the intrusive in

under United Nations auspices after the war re

Iraq's nuclear program had escaped destruc

Storm. In this same vein, revelations in Aug

Iraqi preparations in December 1990 to empl

reveals that there were fundamental facts abou

were neither known nor knowable outside Sad

circle and selected military units for some year

ended.19 To see the essential contingency of su

the following possibility. If all physical 

documents) regarding Iraqi biological warfare 

destroyed, and if everyone involved had g

without telling, the information that surfaced i

defection of some of Saddam Hussein's close

one day, have become unrecoverable.

For those unpersuaded by the precedin

consider a third: the temporal contingency of 

enough destruction had been imposed on th

(RG) heavy forces by 28 February 1991 to prec

to threaten Iraq's neighbors. By mid-1993, m

after Desert Storm ended, this question had 

heated debate.20 Yet, as we saw in cha

unambiguously decidable by Western observer

when RG heavy units, equipped with T-7

destruction in 1991, again deployed to threat

''"R. Jeffrey Smith, "U.N. Says Iraqis Prepared Germ 

The Washington Post, 26 August 1995, Al.

^See Colonel James G. Burton, "Pushing Them 

Proceedings (June 1993): 37-42; Lt. General Ronal

Accomplished, In Full," Proceedings (August 1993): 6

E. Punk, Proceedings (September 1993): 22 and 24; and. C

Proceedings (November 1993): 19-25.
about the efficacy of particular military actions wi

future. Indeed, based on history, the most plausi

draw is that such dispersion will continue to be 

war. If it does, then so will Clausewitzian frictio

The distinction between explicit and tacit k

additional support for this viewpoint. In this 

knowledge refers to meaningful information tha

entry into data bases and information systems. Tac

contrast, encompasses the implicit information 

capabilities that humans carry around inside them 

genetic endowment and biological develo

background and upbringing, and cumula

experiences.22 Such knowledge is, in an imp

directly accessible, although it can be drawn u

appropriate contexts. Michael Polanyi has used 

to refer to human capabilities to know or sense 

explicitly told or specified, and offered the ability 

face of a friend or relative based on subsidia

particulars as an example of such knowledge.23 A 

"The meltdown of a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Islan

how uncertain judgments about cost effectiveness can remain 

itself. As the philosopher Daniel Dennett noted, we canno

meltdown was a good thing or a bad thing. The pro

insufficiently precise measurement; we can't even determin

negative, of the value to assign to the outcome" (Dennett, 4

"John Boyd has been especially clear that the o

observation in his observation-orientation-decision-action cy

is "shaped by genetic heritage, cultural tradition, previo

unfolding circumstances" ("Organic Design for Command 

1987, Slide 13 in John R. Boyd, "A Discourse on W

unpublished compilation of various presentations, including 

as well as Boyd's 1976 essay, "Destruction and Creation").

^Michael Polanyi, in Knowledge and Being, ed. Maj

University of Chicago Press, 1969), 123, 133-134, 164, 21

argued that the structure of tacit knowledge explained how 

underlying scientific discovery were possible (ibid., 143).
it is widely dispersed among individuals

impossible) to enumerate in detail, and gener

use by concrete circumstances or instance

activity. The right kinds of tacit knowledge 

organizations a tremendous, long-term advanta

adversaries, as the Israeli Air Force's dom

adversaries from 1967 through 1982 documen

tacit knowledge, on the other hand, can have 

effect, as Schamhorst discovered in the final w

twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt. The

illuminate the roots of friction in the narrow 

led Clausewitz to coin the term, but suggest a f

for general friction's future persistence a

magnitude. Unless tacit knowledge can be wh

component of the combat capabilities of milita

the narrow sense will remain a feature of futur

"During the 6-day war of 5-10 June 1967, the Israeli 

have destroyed some 450 Arab aircraft, of which at least 6

air combat; the Israelis lost 50 planes, three in aerial com

aircraft artillery (Zeev Schiff, "The Israeli Air Force," Air F

1976, 34; Born in Battle, no. 2, 1978, Israel's Air Force: 

East, Eshel-Dramit, 36). In the Yom Kippur War of 6-24 

Air Force claimed to have downed some 265 Egyptian 

mostly in air-to-air combat; while admitting to losing 10

or four were lost air-to-air, around 40 to surface-to-air miss

to anti-aircraft artillery (Schiff, 37). Other sources have 

October 1973 at 442 aircraft, including 21 Iraqi planes, an

at no fewer than 370 Arab planes for as many as ten Israe

Nicolle, "The Holy Day Air War," Air Enthusiast Interna

During 7 days of intense air combat in June 1982 associa

of Lebanon, Israeli pilots claim to have downed 80 Syrian 

Su-20s plus five helicopters; the Israelis are thought to hav

though none in air-to-air combat [Victor Hintham, Ai

Detailed Record of Air Combat, 1945 to the Present (N

1990), 70].
to effective action within one's own forces, w

future. It is conceivable that advances in informa

may reduce the spatial dispersion of explicit kno

related advances can even render some portions o

explicit, although one suspects, given how mu

information processing is both dispersed and 

consciousness in any direct or real-time manner

knowledge will remain so.25 However, temp

information and irreducibly tacit knowledge appe

limits to how much of all that combatants might 

actually be gathered together and explicitly gra

prospects for one opponent or the other to redu

much less drive near the vanishing point, the frict

the dispersed information and tacit knowledge em

organizations seem dim. These conclusions c

without appealing directly to the occurrence of si

in Hayek's extended market order and evolution

the family resemblance across all three areas do

merely accidental.

^or summaries of how the brain works based on curren

Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown 

253-256; also William H. Calvin, "The Emergence of Int

American, October 1994, 101-107. Dennett's account especi

adequate to explain how Polanyi's tacit knowledge, includin

is possible.
SOURCE OF FRICTIO

EXEMPLAR FOR TH

The previous chapter utilized evolutionary biol

to the possibility that the spatial-temporal inac

information argues that human beings and t

neither eliminate all uncertainty about the hi

future combat interactions, nor substantially r

of such uncertainties beyond the limits set by d

and tacit knowledge. This chapter has two ai

evolutionary biology as a source of general fric

and, second, to explore whether evolutionary 

better model for a "scientific" theory of w

sciences like physics.

On the current reading of fragmentary ev

fields, the human family, genus Homo, emerg

years ago in Africa, east of the Rift Valley in r

geographic isolation and, spurred by subsequen

evolved rapidly toward modem man. Homo 

mid-1980s, when consensus finally emerg

evidence of the molecular and fossil records, 

human evolution from "archaic" Homo sapie

man is estimated to have occurred between 45,0

ago.2

'Yves Coppens, "East Side Story: The Origin of 

American, May 1994,89 and 94-95; also, Meave Leakey, 

National Geographic, September 1995, 41-42.

^ick Gore, "The Dawn of Humans: Neandertals

January 1996, 11-12 and 30; David Pilbeam, "The De

Hominids," Scientific American, March 1984, 96. Pilbea

79
successive, slight, favorable variations; aided 

manner by the inherited effects of the use and di

in an unimportant manner, that is in relation to ad

whether past or present, by the direct action of ex

and by variations which seem to us in our ig

spontaneously."3

Darwin's core idea will not be defended 

observations. First, The Origins of the Species con

"that have only recently begun to be properly fi

fundamental being the absence of the concept 

discrete unit ofparticulate inheritance.4 Though t

appeared in an obscure Austrian journal by t

Mendel in 1865, Darwin himself never hit upon 

gene or any adequate theory of inheritance. This 

in Darwin's original theory was not filled in unt

when die statistician and biologist R. A. Fisher a

worked out modem population genetics.5 There 

other weaknesses in Darwin's formulation of d

selection. While most of these remaining 

overcom during the 1940s through the wor

modem man at 40-45,000 years ago; Gore, writing a decade 

1980s the remains of modern humans that lived at least 9

unearthed.

Shades Darwin, The Origin of the Species by Means of 

Great Books of the Western World, ed. Robert Maynard Hutoh

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952), 239. For an overview of Dar

natural selection as formulated in The Origin of the Species

Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inh

MA: Belknap Press, 1982), 394-534. From 1859 to 1872, six 

of the Species appeared, and Darwin vacillated a great deal t

some issues, notably speciation (ibid., 410 and 424).

''Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolut

of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 20.

'Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the E

Reveals a Universe Without Design (New York: W. W. N
theory ever has been or could be. True, vig

remain in evolutionary theory, not the least of 

replicating molecules could have initially eme

these controversies are matters of "just scienc

matter how they turn out they "will not undo t

idea."7 As the paleontologist Stephen Jay Goul

"Natural selection is an immensely powerful ye

theory that has held up remarkably well, 

unrelenting scrutiny and testing, for 135 years.

just how secure core Darwinism (the minimal th

evolution is guided in adoptively nonrandom 

nonrandom survival of random hereditary c

gleaned from Richard Dawkins' 1991 argume

known empirical theory capable, even in princi

most difficult of problems posed by life anywh

namely, the problem of the existence of adapti

'Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 20. Mayr, fo

credited with the modern theory of spcciation by initial 

(Dawkins, 239).

^ennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 19. For thos

entirely closed but nonetheless see nee-Darwinism as bein

Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Dawkins' The B

excellent overviews of the modern synthesis and the evid

'Stephen Jay Gould, "The Evolution of Life on 

American, October 1994, 85. In 1972, Gould and Niles 

theory of punctuated equilibrium that described the patter

as being one of long periods of relative stasis punctuate

bursts in which new species emerge. This theory has be

turns out, by many outside the fields bearing on evolutiona

of Darwin. Gould's position in his overview of evolutionar

1994 issue of Scientific American does not support this 

overview of the punctuationist controversy, see Dawkins

'Richard Dawkins, "Darwin Triumphant: Darwinism 

Michael H. Robinson and Lionel Tiger, eds., Man and Beas

DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), 38; also s

Watchmaker, 317. Dawkins' claim regarding adequate 
wars demands for physical exertion. These are str

remarkably uncontroversial sources of friction, 

tactical level of individual combatants an

Nevertheless, there is evidence that their com

human beings in ground combat establish a temp

long continuous operations can be sustained 

precipitous declines in effectiveness. Furth

limit—about four days—has not changed for at 

years, it appears to be rooted in human cognitive an

built in by evolution.

The most recent evidence bearing on these 

during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Particularly 

fifteen hours of the Coalition's ground offensive, i

that in the view of Richard Swain, the U.S. Third 

"were indicative of the larger problem of friction 

events included VII Corps' failure to capture the r

Safwan in accordance with General Schwarzkopf

as the fact that the VII Corps effectively stopped 

hours on the morning of 28 February 1991 rathe

to advance until 0800, the official time for 

offensive operations. One can easily identify 

proximate causes of these lapses. Key individua

command had had little sleep since the ground 

and many were approaching physical and mental 

complexity should not be construed as implying that core D

other than an empirical theory. As Dawkins has stressed, discov

verified mammal skull... in 500 million year-old rocks" wou

Darwinism (The Blind Watchmaker, 225). Darwin himself w

the empirical nature of natural selection: "If it could be d

complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been 

successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely b

cited in Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 249).

'"Richard M. Swain, "Lucky War": Third Army in 

Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff 

300.
what Richard Swain did in reflecting on what h

Douglas Southall Freeman notes that, during the 

War, "in the Army of Northern Virginia the m

almost anything for four days, but the fifth day 

instance they would crack." When judgin

unraveling of right control on the night of 27-28 

by men who had had little rest for four days of 

combat, one may well remember Freeman's war

the fifth day. ..." Interestingly enough. Major 

Smith of the 1st U.K. Armored Division began 

rather than oral, orders to avoid confusion due t

part of the sender and the receiver.''

Swain attributes the loss of tight control to 

directly recalls war's demands for physical 

Clausewitz's sources of general friction. Wh

occur in time of war, though, the companion fricti

human lives being at stake, including one's 

impossible to separate. For participants in co

sustained operations, die risk of death or mutilati

compelling. Yet, even for high-level comman

Schwarzkopf, danger makes itself felt in term

responsibility for the men under their command

their parts can get people killed unnecessarily

visceral danger can, and does, impose its own k

The fact that Coalition forces appear to have 

same four-day limit on sustained operations in 19

the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia 

suggests that enduring human limitations are 

"Ibid., 300-301.

"The loss of focus, particularly on leadership target

toward the end of the first week of the Desert Storm air camp

air planners in (then) Brigadier General Buster Glosson's 

cell indicates that the frictional problem Swain highlighted i
sufficient sleep whenever the opportunity arise

the underlying psychological and physical lim

appear to be every bit as real as the regularitie

physics, but to be grounded, ultimately, in t

circumstances of the late (or upper) Pliocene, 

years ago, that gave rise to the emergence of the 

also worth noting that, as Lionel Tiger emphasiz

tissue developed in these evolutionary condit

action," particularly with respect to courtship and 

abstract thought.14

There are, then, finite limits, grounded 

evolution, to the capabilities of humans to rec

orient themselves by integrating that input wit

and information, reach plausible decisions abou

and act upon those decisions.15 Anytime the d

begin to push participants toward those limits, mu

them, various frictions begin to impede more a

observation, orientation, decisions, and actions

pilots can attest from firsthand experience, the 

can quickly constrain sensory input, with auditory 

crew and flight members being the first to go. D

ground operations surfaced among airmen as well.

"John Boyd deserves credit for reminding the author t

such as German panzer units in May 1940 had been abl

operations longer than four days by allowing participants 

opportunity.

"Lionel Tiger, "The Cerebral Bridge from Family to 

Dennen and V. Falger, eds., Sociobiology and Conflict: Evo

on. Cooperation, Violence, and Warfare (London: Chapman 

"This formulation was consciously patterned on Joh

orientation-decision-action "cycle" or "loop." The roots of B

as it is usually termed, can be traced at least back to his 4 

"New Conception for Air-to-Air Combat," which stressed s

faster operational tempos than the adversary. Boyd 

"observation-orientation-decision-action cycle" in early 19
their graves like men stricken blind who run

cliff."16 The consequences of such effects s

severe in future combat as they have often been i

Indeed, short ofreengineering" Homo sapiens a

it is difficult to see how the potential adverse e

these inherent biological limitations can be relia

less eliminated, so long as humans and their p

integral part of war.

Biology, therefore, confers relative permane

sources of friction in war. The potential of dan

impede effective military operations is always 

the surface. Realistic training and actual combat 

Clausewitz recognized, do much to keep 

impediments at bay, beneath the surface. Howev

human potentials for sex and aggression t

programmed in for at least 99 percent of the tim

distinct genus, the potential for a determined, ca

push human combatants beyond their biolog

effective observation, orientation, decision m

seems an inherent, deeply programmed limit

evolutionary perspective, technological solution

certainly not possible so long as we remain hum

The theory of biological evolution has anot

our thinking about Clausewitzian friction. 

"Captain Don S. Gentile, as told to Ira Wolfert, One

York: Stratford Press, 1994), 11. Today, Gentile is offici

air-to-air kills of German aircraft in Europe during World W

some of his wartime service, the U.S. Eighth Air Force also c

destroyed on the ground as "kills." Gentile's wartime tally 

last operational sortie in April 1944 was 23 German aircraft 

7 on the ground [Mark M. Spagnuolo, Don S. Gentile: Sold

(East Lansing, MI: College Press, 1986), 298].

"Robin Pox, "Aggression: Then and Now," in Ma

Michael H. Robinson and Lionel Tiger (Washington, DC: 

Press, 1991), 89.
• Proposition II: Outcomes are highly c

various indirect effects or second-order con

from a campaign or war may not be knowab

after the conflict has ended.

• Proposition III: In combat, from mome

the differential between the levels of 

experienced by the two sides that matters m

• Proposition IV: So long as human 

proclivities, and limitations remain an int

Clausewitzian friction will retain the pote

difference between success and failure.

The salient observation about these four 

present purposes is that they are neither read

amenable to the kind of quantification that en

positions of the planets to be precisely predicte

the future. Only Proposition III offers any hin

predictive relationship. But even in this instance 

metric for measuring the absolute level of frictio

given moment by each side would be needed, and 

metric exists. In fact, it seems open to doubt wh

is possible other than in a qualitative or conce

indicators like decision-cycle times and possibi

ways of gaining insight into the rough balance 

over the course of particular historical episodes. 

possibility space relative to politico-military obj

provide the basis for a fairly comprehensive in

friction. Still, we do not appear to have anyth

measurable physical quantities like temperature 

To push this last point a bit further, Isaac 

formulated his famous second law of motion a

motion is proportional to the motive force impre

^John Boyd had concluded by 1977 that it was the 

between the two sides that mattered most in combat outcom
where F is the impressed force, m is the mass of t

to the force, v the object's velocity, t is time, a

acceleration (the time rate of change of v). 

compared to the speed of light, drnldt approach

the most familiar form of Newton's second law, F 

force, mass, velocity, time, and acceleration, F, m

physically measurable quantities.

As Ernst Mayr has emphasized, physicists 

been strongly (and arrogantly) inclined to 

quantitative, predictive laws as "co-extensive w

implication, this attitude has led many in th

sciences to the prejudice that evolutionary biolo

a full-fledged empirical science on a par w

synthesis, or else is at best a proto-science stil

Newton. The reason is that the principles of ev

established by Darwin and his successors are 

qualitative hypotheses just proposed about wa

laws like F = ma.21

'''Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philoso

the Western World, vol. 34,14.

2

°Mayr, 33. In key instances in which biological 

conflicted, as in William Thomson's calculation that the ag

several orders of magnitude less than the "several th

postulated by Darwin, the biologists turned out to be right a

(ibid., 428). As Mayr also noted, the skepticism about evo

by physicists as prominent as Niels Bohr and Wolfgang Pa

based in no small part on an "oversimplified understa

processes involved in evolution" (ibid., 429).

^Por a summary of the main facts and generaliz

Darwin's original theory of evolution by natural selecti

Illustrative of the generalizations or principles involved in 

following: "Survival in the struggle for existence is not rando

on the hereditary constitution of surviving individuals. 

constitutes a process of natural selection" (ibid., 480). Fo
speaking, the Newtonian synthesis was s

relativistic mechanics of Albert Einstein early i

both Newtonian and relativistic mechanics wer

the emergence of quantum mechanics during the 

a major implication of Darwinian theory is to sh

regard explanations as unscientific and "unsatis

do not contain quantitative laws, "or when they 

enable the event in question to have been predi

even that most quantitative of empirical scienc

thoroughly quantitative down to its roots. As 

and physicist Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912) 

scientist's selection of which facts to pay atte

practically infinite number of knowable facts, 

capricious or random, is ultimately based on qu

such as simplicity, repeatability, and beauty—j

quantification.23 Last but not least, Poincare's 

nee-Darwinian population genetics, see Mayr, 551. An ex

principles underlying population genetics is: "There is onl

large mutations and very slight individual variants bein

gradient" (ibid.).

^Michael Scriven, "Explanation and Prediction in 

Science, 28 August 1959, 477.

"Henri Poincare, Science and Method, trans. Franci

Dover, 1952), 15-24. Much the same point can be made ab

While rapid growth computational capabilities has given ri

mathematics not previously practicable, the hallmark of mat

provability, and the ultimate criteria for what is accepted 

remains both qualitative and subjective. An example is th

of the law of the excluded middle (p or not-p) in order 

existence to denumerable sets, thereby eliminating the "n

sets first explored by Georg Cantor as meaningless [L. E. J. 

and Formalism," in Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putna

Mathematics: Selected Readings (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: P

71]. Logically this rejection amounted to excluding negatio

implies p) as a permissible rule of inference in mathematic

mathematicians today embrace the position that mathematics 
inaccessible from the classical bash-out-a-form

Two points follow from these observations

heavily non-quantitative and non-predictive char

biology is as legitimate an empirical science as a

Indeed, its lack of quantification arises from th

diversity of the phenomena with which it deals

very reason, evolutionary biology would app

paradigm for an overarching theory of war th

physics. Regardless of how one feels about the 

any of the four hypotheses offered above, the

kinds of qualitative, but empirically refutable, p

adequate science of war would require.

intuitions of the natural numbers. Their disinclination to d

historical, pedagogical, and anthropological reasons that de

[Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh, The Mathematica

Birkaauser, 1981), 395].

^Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of 

"Ibid., 87.
AIR-TO-AIR COMBA

FRICTION

The last three chapters sought to build 

supporting the proposition that the potential fo

of, general friction is likely to persist more or l

future wars despite technological advances. Th

not, however, be construed as implying that fr

to technological manipulation. The weapons o

friction will manifest itself, and superior weap

potential for manipulating the relative balance 

opposing sides in one's favor.

To demonstrate technology's abilit

Clausewitzian friction, it will be necessary 

interactions. Tactical interactions and effects

operational and strategic levels of war, 

quantification and statistical analysis, at least 

reason for separating the aspects of war that a

those that are not along the imprecise bounda

interactions from the operational level of war 

penetration by political-strategic objectives

experience, the concrete, specific political-stra

pervade the conduct of actual conflicts so inf

operational art as to render both inputs and ou

irredeemably qualitative in character. Only at 

interactions do political-strategic aims become 

to allow a fair degree of quantification of over

'While the idea of getting a rough "feel" for a magn

directly nor precisely measure may initially seem peculia

discussions of "generic distance" in "animal design 

91
, 

reasons. Not only has an extensive body of 

experience been accumulated since 1914, but 

evaluations have been flown on instrumente

simulators for the express purpose of providing st

data. In addition, air-to-air combat is as dependen

by advanced technology as any area of late 20t

Land and naval warfare reach back to the begin

history. Powered flight, by comparison, was only 

as a result of aeronautical and engineering adv

Orville and Wilbur Wright, and the heavier-th

phenomenon that dates only from World Wa

airplane, there would have been neither airmen 

so strong has been the psychological attachm

airmen to the planes they happened to fly that, 

pilots identify themselves first and foremost a

specific aircraft types, often down to the model.

What factors have tended to drive engagemen

to-air combat? As suggested in chapter 6, surpri

to general friction. Air combat experience going 

evolutionary biology. As Dawkins, Fisher, and others de

today measure "genetic distance" other than in a conceptu

Yet, just as examining "Poincare sections" (surfaces in phase 

periodicity of dynamic systems) yields qualitative insights i

not attainable by crunching standard equations, discussion

leaps in animal design space yield fruitful insights into evolu

Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidenc

a Universe without Design (New York: W. W. Norton, 1

commander Jon M. van Tol deserves thanks for rem

complex air-to-air engagements have seldom involved th

"shooters" typical in tactical interactions on the ground.

'Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military 

Analysis (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press

McCoy Smith, The Air Force Plans for Peace 1943-1945 

Hopkins Press, 1970), 18.
"90% of all fighters shot down never saw the 

Hubbard was by no means alone in observing 

form of the unseen attacker from six o'clock pla

in engagement outcomes. The American P-47 

(17.75 air-to-air kills in World War II) stressed 

shot down by enemies they see."5 Similarly, t

pilot Erich Hartmann, whose 352 kills during 

him the top scorer of all time, later stated tha

eighty percent" of kills never knew he was the

fire."6

Subsequent technological developments in 

air combat did not change the basic pattern ob

Zemke, and Hartmann during World War II. T

include the shift to jet fighters for air superiorit

War, the advent of infrared air-to-air missiles by 

the appearance of radar-guided air-to-air m

American use in the Vietnam War. In Southe

fighter crews experienced around 600 air-to-ai

April 1965 to January 1973. These engagem

"Mark E. Hubbard, "The Long Reach: Deep Fighter E

Fighter Command, intro. by Major General William E. K

This wartime publication was developed by asking some o

seasoned fighter pilots and fighter leaders for accounts 

flying long-range-escort missions over occupied Europe in 

(ibid., 3). It consists of 26 such accounts plus General Ke

Kepner, 33. Lt. Col. John C. Meyer (24 air-to-air ki

two more in Korea), Capt. Robert S. Johnson (27 kills in W

George Preddy (26.83 kills) also emphasized the importanc

attacker (ibid., 39, 42, and 53).

'Raymond F. Toliver and Trevor J. Constable, The B

(New York: Doubleday, 1970), 173. Hartmann had exce

usually enabled him to spot enemy planes long before hi
jargon of American fighter crews, such failures 

cognizant of what is taking place in the air comb

to avoid being hit by enemy fire have come to 

breakdown of "situation" (or "situational") aware

air context, situation awareness (or "SA") can be 

ability of opposing aircrews to develop and 

representations of where all the participants i

combat arena are, what they are doing, and where 

be in the immediate future.

While it seems plausible to those experienced 

arena that situation awareness provides at lea

marker of frictional imbalances at the tactic

concepts are not coextensive. Generally speaki

given side implies low friction for that side 

However, the better than 20 percent of fighter cr

enemy fighters in Southeast Asia who became aw

just before ordnance impacted their aircraft—b

'''Forces Journal International, May 1974, 30; R. Fra

Greenhaigh, Carl Grubb, Gerard E. Hasselwander, Robert F. 

Ravenstein, Aces and Aerial Victories: The United. States A

Asia 1965-1973 (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force Hist

1976), 157. The U.S. Air Force was credited with 135 fight

by B-52 tail gunners) versus 60 losses; the U.S. Navy and 

scored 55 kills against 15 losses.

SProject Red Baron III: Air-to-Air Encounters in S

(Cameron Station, VA: Defense Documentation Center, Ju

summer of 1975, instructors at the U.S. Navy Fighter Wea

were briefing that 55-60 percent of the American crews dow

did not see their attacker until after they were hit, and anot

bogey before weapons impact but not in time to do anyth

Watts, personal notes, Topgun Class 04-75, 24 June 

experience in 1982 revealed a similar pattern. Israeli F-16 pilo

about half of Israel's kills in 1982, reported that, excluding g

their victims did not react prior to weapons impact (Colonel J

Combat Results Shape the Next Air-to-Air Missile," unclass

1985, slide 6).
aircrews in these dire circumstances could still 

"possibilities" as initiating futile "last-ditch" m

for the ejection-seat handles, or simply waitin

damage their aircraft sustains from the op

missiles. But since none of these possibilitie

their real options were few-to-none.

With this distinction between situation aw

friction in mind, how is the ebb and flow of the 

waxing and waning of the latter? Does the im

awareness between adversaries over the cours

provide a sense of the magnitude of fric

Building on the notion of option sets in po

answer involves two interwoven but op

tendencies. The first concerns the disappeara

time, the second the creation or emergence o

dissipative, the other is creative.

In air-to-air combat, the unexercised option

or recede over the course of a tactical evolutio

than the high-level or "strategic" options affectin

such as the Germans' Blitzkrieg of May 1940. 

pilots on one side elect to enter the fight in a fo

their opponents are easily able to acquire all o

then a host of more dispersed, difficult-to-de

quickly foregone by the side embracing the t

potential format side to generate ambiguity, co

later in the engagement is, of course, by no m

some options have been lost at the outset wit

may or may not eventually prove fatal, and ot

wayside with each successive move or action.

At most, however, the falling aside of o

branch points in an air-to-air engagement 

negative or dissipative aspect of how option set

during an aerial encounter. The positive or c

generation of new possibilities by dint of o

creativity, quickness, and, above all, interactio
w, yO, qv

friction lessens while the attacker's does not, thu

in the relative balance of friction in favor of the d

changes in each opponent's situation awarene

briefly diverge from changes in the balanc

evolution just described can be understoo

quantitative shift in S A in favor of the defender

exceptions, there appears to be some link betw

levels of friction and their levels of SA.9

Even without the evidence from subsequent t

(Air Combat Evaluation) and the AMRAAM (A

Range Air-to-Air Missile) OUE (Operational U

combat data from Europe in World War II a

during 1965-1973 not only confirm die conte

(Proposition I) that general friction can dominate 

but indirectly quantify what the term "domin

historical air-to-air combat. If some 80 percen

resulted from aircrews being unaware that they 

until they either were hit or did not have time t

then a relative deficit of "situation awareness"1

'The complex, unfolding dynamic of some options f

while others emerge or approach underscores the genius of 

"an interplay [Spiel] of possibilities [Maglich

[Wahrscheinlichkeilen], good luck and bad [Gliick und unG

throughout the length and breadth of the tapestry of war. C

be "merely" a metaphor. Yet, given how much effort is n

it, to say nothing of adding anything new, it is a powerful 

'"During the AMRAAM OUE, situation awareness (S

perception of the whole picture, not only location but also 

both friendly and enemy" forces (Veda, 'The Influence o

(U)," briefing slides, 14 February 1985, unclassified 

(Continued)." SA involves processing enough informatio

accurate picture of where all the participants in an aerial enga

they are likely to be in the near term (measured in second

Force pilots were generally using the term "situational 
After the Vietnam War, SAs dominance 

fighter combat was extensively confirme

simulations of air-to-air engagements. In the lat

air-to-air tests were flown on an instrum

maneuvering range north of Nellis Air Force Ba

Intercept Missile Evaluation (AIMVAL) and AC

pitted "Blue Force" F-15s and F-14s against 

chosen to simulate the Soviet-built MiG-21; C

air combat maneuvering instrumentation (ACM

a combat area some 40 nautical miles in d

"realtime" data on the engagements." The 

"armed" with guns, short-range infrared (IR) 

medium-range, radar-guided AIM-7F Sparrow

limited to guns and IR missiles.

AIMVAL sought to assess the operatio

existing and proposed infrared missile conc

explored the factors affecting engagement outco

aircraft are involved, with force size, force rat

(ground controlled intercept) condition (Red ad

"situation awareness" (Major Donald Stiffler, "Grad

Awareness," USAF Fighter Weapons Review, Summer 1

Stiffler also identified SA with the orientation step of Jo

orientation-decision-action loop. Boyd's appreciation of th

SA in air combat can be traced back to a 1974 briefing that 

creating "an outstanding air superiority fighter while rever

trend normally characteristic of such an endeavor" (C

"Conception," Development Plans and Analysis, Air S

summer 1974, slide 2).

"Clarence A. Robinson, Jr., "Fighter, Missile Gains P

and Space Technology, 4 April 1977, 12.

"Lt. Col. R. E. Guild, "AIMVAL Analysis," Headq

Studies and Analysis, briefing, 25 February 1978, slide 3 

details on the five IR missile concepts tested on F-15s and P

see Clarence A. Robinson, Jr., "Aerial Combat Test to Ad

and Space Technology, 25 April 1977, 28-30.
used in AIMVAL and required a total of 360 v

involving 1,488 sorties.15 Needless to say, 

engagements and sorties were flown preparing fo

In fact, perhaps the most famous single engage

was the ACEVAL "Towering Inferno" 4-v-4 

participants were shot down after a minute and 52 

a valid trial.16

By the end of 1977, there was growing 

implications of these tests. ACEVAL, for exam

designed on the premise that when Blue fighter

guided missiles to shoot from beyond visu

engagement outcomes would depend "prim

performance characteristics of the avionics and 

employed" and, with proper testing, could be 

basis.17 If this premise had been borne ou

represented a sharp departure from historical com

which human factors such as inferior situatio

consistently proven to be the dominant facto

outcomes. At the time, there were a number 

viewed AIMVAL and ACEVAL first and forem

choosing between hardware alternatives. Eve

fighter pilots insisted on reading the tests as show

factors like long-range identification and mi

"Colonel E. J. Griffith, "ACEVAL: Origin, 

Applicability," briefing, undated, slide 2 ("ACEVAL"). Griff

commander.

'"Guild, "AIMVAL Analysis," slide 6 ("Test Trial Ma

"Griffith, "ACEVAL," slide 8 ("Test Matrix").

""No-Win War at Dogbone Lake," U.S. News and Wo

1978,56.

17!. A. Kaufman (Project Leader), "Multiple Air Co

WSEG Report 247, Institute for Defense Analyses Study S

2.
incremental hardware advantages had tended to 

run as opponents adapted, and that in ACEVAL 

had been five times as influential on outcomes 

force ratio or the initial GCI condition.19 Suffic

that by 1979 there was a wide range of opinio

technological advances to preempt the frictio

dominated historical air combat.

In retrospect, the AMRAAM OUE, cond

Douglas flight simulators starting in 1981, r

favor of Clausewitz. The AMRAAM OUE t

over 1,200 engagements involving around 

sorties.20 Instead of a small cadre of special

AMRAAM OUE participants were drawn from 

the U.S. Scenarios included fighter-sweep situ

v-4) as well as trials in which the Blue fighter

escorting strike aircraft (2-v-4 + 4,2-v-2 + 6, an

half the trials were excursions from the standar

air patrol scenarios.

"For a hardware-oriented reading of AIMVAL, see 

"Boots" Blesse, "The Changing World of Air Combat

October 1977,34-37. Blesse was credited with shooting d

the Korean War. For an interpretation of AIMVAL 

interactions rather than hardware differences, see Majo

Changing World of Air Combat, or Plus Ca Change, Plu

Air Force Magazine, December 1977, pp. 35-35. By t

overriding concern expressed by most of the aircrew partici

would "be incorrectly interpreted and used to support w

reflecting industry's desires and not operational needs" 

Burkley, trip report from 7-9 December 1977 visit to Nelli

"Lt. Col. S. R. Dvorchak, "Getting It On in the 

Tactical Analysis Bulletin, vol. 79-2 (special), 25 July 

Dvorchak later observed, if you view ACEVAL strictl

hardware, the results become "incomprehensible" (te

October 1986).

"Veda, "AMRAAM OUE," slide 9 ["(U) AMRAA
force was given the mediumrange, radarguide

half the non-excursion trials were run with 

engagement. The natural expectation was that in 

least, Blue hardware advantages would drive enga

The bottom line from the test, however, turned ou

Situation awareness proved to be "the single mos

affecting engagement outcomes."22 For both side

adversary weapons envelopes and keeping outs

being "shot," while trying to maneuver adversar

weapons envelopes, proved as important and d

been in ACEVAL. Especially for Red fig

AMRAAM, the role of situation awareness in s

avoiding being "shot down" tended to hang 

differences than before.

To preempt misinterpretation, the statistic

AMRAAM OUE engagement outcomes by sit

should not be construed as implying that har

aircraft performance, avionics, and missile capab

nothing. To the contrary, superior Blue ha

building blocks or baseline elements of advantage 

had to work hard to overcome and, in the aggrega

advantages were reflected in superior Blue 

Statistically, though, the outcome of any parti

most often hinged on very small differences her

large set of interrelated human and hardware 

dominant of these factors was situation awarene

"Guild, "AIMVAL Analysis," slide 7 ("Summary 

Environment"); Griffith, "ACEVAL," slide 3 ("Test Desig

Hardware").

"S. R. "Shad" Dvorchak, "On the Measurement of 

Military Operations Research Society, June 1986, slide 7 (

Important"). The source of this conclusion was Veda's "A

SECRET, 3 August 1983, slide 41 ("(U) Overall Comments"

declassified.
proposition that eradicating friction in so

through hardware improvements is, at best, u

Does the bottom line from the AMRAAM 

that technological manipulation of fricti

impossible? Not at all ;/ the technology is 

problems. Since the earliest days of air-to-air c

I, sorting in the sense of the timely and e

opponents has been a sine qua non of positi

enemy aircraft as opposed to merely avoidi

oneself). While sorting is a trivial proble

engagements, and manageable with voice com

it becomes vastly more difficult in 4-v-4

engagements. Obviously sorting in complex e

situation awareness, and this awareness has to 

maneuvering one's own aircraft, manipulat

making the critical targeting decisions that p

today's top-performing fighters can sustain G

nine times the earth's gravity, as well as high 

the environment inside the cockpit is both phy

demanding. All-aspect, high-G missiles, inclu

fired from well beyond visual range, fur

problems of developing and maintaining h

missile envelopes themselves are highly dyn

least, the time spans participants have for obs

on, orienting themselves, deciding what to do 

targeting), and trying to execute split-second 

compressed. Thus, even the slightest misstep i

4 or more complex engagements can quickly l

Blue side's failure to target two of the Red fig

the one-minute-and-52-seconds "Towering 

ACEVAL illustrates.23

^heRed fighters that were initially not targeted qu

on the Blue side, thereby reducing the fight to a messy 2
the AMRAAM OUE, and the MultiSource Int

conducted in simulators). Yet, in reflecting on a

Sparks felt that he had not once witnessed perfe

and more complex engagements.24 "You're only 

efficient as you think you are [at sorting in comp

which is why you go out with a sexy missile 

anyway."25 As Clausewitz wrote, in war "the 

difficult" and it is hard for normal efforts to achie

results.26 Such observations go far to explain 

deficits in SA relative to the opposition have been 

dominant in engagement outcomes than differ

weapons, force ratios, or other conditions such as 

GCI. It also strongly suggests that friction's influ

in air combat during World War II was not noti

Korea's "MiG Alley," the Vietnam War, the Mi

1973 and 1982, or even in Desert Storm. In t

friction's "magnitude" does not appear to 

noticeably over the course of all the techno

separating the P-51 from the F-15.

Could information technology be used 

longstanding pattern of very low sorting efficie

engagements arising from seemingly small la

awareness? Early experience in 4-v-4 and 

engagements with the recently fielded Joint Ta

Distribution System (JTIDS) indicates that the 

JTIDS not only provides integrated, all-aspec

^The primary source of this observation was the ACEV

training missions, invalid trials, and valid trials. These some 

examined for sorting well after the test was flown. Not 

sorting was found (S. R. Dvorchak, phone conversatio

December 1995).

"Billy R. Sparks, phone conversation with the author, 

"Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Peter Paret 

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 119 and 
Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWA

28 Iraqi fighters without a single loss, includ

engagements that began with BVR shots.27 W

F-15s flew against basically the same fighter/A

that had done so well in the 1991 Gulf War, the 

advantage" enabled them to dominate their op

ratios of four-to-one or better.28 Hence t

applied, can certainly manipulate the differenti

opposing sides to one's advantage at the tacti

This conclusion suggests a corollary 

technological stratagems for gaining tactical a

deserving mention, will not be argued at len

information technologies alone, when focus

"Major Lewis D. Hill, Doris Cook, and Aron Pin

Compendium in Gulf War Air Power Survey, vol. V, A St

Chronology (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printin

John M. Deur, "Wall of Eagles: Aerial Engagements 

Storm," unpublished page proofs. Prior to Desert Storm, 

only recorded a total of four BVR missile kills during 

1968), Linebacker III I (1972-1973), the Yom Kippur W

Peace for Galilee (1982)—see James Burton, "Letting C

Next Air-to-Air Missile," briefing, January 1985, slide 3. 

of the 16 Desert Storm engagements that began with BVR 

accomplished by another missile launched within visual 

the Iraqi fighter running into the ground.

^"Darts and Laurels," Armed Forces Journal Inter

80; 390th Fighter Squadron, 366th Wing, "P-15C JT

Project (OSP)," briefing, undated. Mountain Home APB, 

Major Gary L. Crowder, 31 July and 8 November 1995. T

September 1993 to September 1994 and involved 20 JTI

15C JTIDS Operational Special Project (OSP)," slides 

varied in size and complexity from 4-v-4 to 8-V-18 with 

AWACS support on 70 percent of the scheduled mission

equipped F-15 pilots reported their "situation awaren

(ibid., slide 11). Besides knowing where the friendlies and 

greatly enhanced accurate sorting and targeting.
training could even provide margins of superior

magnitude to the initial experience with JTID

although this extension of the hypothesis w

confirmed empirically.

The implication that cannot be drawn from J

however, is that friction has been permanentl

adversary forces fielded a system comparable to 

burden of achieving superior situation awareness a

to-air would fall back on the "manual" abilities o

absorb, interpret, and act upon automated informa

where and doing what more quickly or more ef

opponents (or both). Exactly how frictional i

ultimately manifest itself in this "technological

conditions is hard to anticipate. What can be said 

though, is that by reducing the aspects of fricti

discussing with improved information system

probably manifest itself in other ways or in area

even be able to predict. There are two reasons fo

First, new technology amounts to introducing 

combat area, and the indirect and second-order 

novelty within the context of human interactio

ever, fully predictable. Second, if both sides h

novelty or innovation, in this case JTIDS, then 

resulting SA and targeting data into knowledge an

quicker than the opponents will still ultimately b

the same sort of "gray matter" that members of 

been carrying around in their skulls for the l

years. Both sides will have improved compared to 

without JTIDS, but the relative margin of advant

to differences between the men in the machines.
TAXONOMY OF GE

FRICTION

All but one of the historical and conceptual el

this essay's fourth and final task—recasting 

modem terms—have now been introduced. 

item is the concept of nonlinearity as it has co

in fields like mathematics and physics since 

revealing how small differences in inpu

differences in outcomes, nonlinear dynamics w

the task begun in chapter 6 of building ind

friction's undiminished persistence in future 

last conceptual elements needed to update and 

original concept.

Nonlinear science has been deferred to the 

burdening the exposition any earlier than nec

that various readers may find unfamiliar, d

simply alien to the subject at hand. As men

Clausewitz himself was not the least bit shy 

concepts like friction and center of gravity fro

day to illuminate the phenomena of war. Furth

1992/93 issue of International Security Ala

convincingly that Clausewitz himself not only 

profoundly nonlinear phenomenon . . . consis

understanding of nonlinear dynamics," but th

approach to the analysis of war "has made it d

and appreciate the intent and contribution 

author's experience has also confirmed that a

'Alan Beyerchen, "Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the 

International Security (Winter 1992/93): 87-88.

105
py

What is nonlinear science all about? The c

hard to describe. Nonlinear dynamics arise from 

or feedback. A system, whether physical or math

some initial state. That initial state provides the in

mechanism which determines the new state of the 

state then provides the input through whic

mechanism determines the system's next state, 

successive state is causally dependent on its pred

happens to the system over the course of many 

more complex and less predictable than one mig

nonlinear system exhibits sensitive dependence 

states, then at least three long-term outcomes are 

system eventually settles down in some single 

there despite further iterations (long-term stabilit

settles on a series of states which it thereafte

endlessly (periodic behavior); or, (3) the system w

or unpredictably (so-called "chaotic" behavior). 

detailed predictability of the actual state of the s

over the course of a large enough number of iter

behavior, however, should not be confused w

Successive tosses of a coin remain the exemp

process; if the coin is not biased, then the pro

2While this description of nonlinear dynamics and c

purposes of reconstructing general friction, it overlooks def

and details that are far from trivial, particularly to mathematicia

"absence of periodicity has sometimes been used instead of 

[on initial conditions] as a definition of chaos" [Edward Lo

Chaos (Seattle: University of Washington, 1993), 20]. Howe

compact, meaning that "arbitrarily close repetitions" need 

periodicity does not guarantee that sensitive dependence is p

20). Readers interested in exploring various definitions of c

Lorentz, 3-24 and 161-179, and James A. Dewar, James J. G

Juncosa, "Non-Monotonicity, Chaos, and Combat Models," 

R-3995-RC, 1991, 14-16,
py pgpyp

On this view, chaos may be described 

deterministic, or is nearly so if it occurs in a 

possesses a slight amount of randomness, 

deterministic."4

The "mathematics of chaos" that has been 

1960s to explain the sort of nonlinear dyna

Lorentz's infinite pinball machine can be easil

a personal computer or a programmable ca

simple nonlinear equation such as the "logi

^nfl - -^n) (where the variable x is a real num

I], and the "tunable" constant k can be set 

Depending on the choice ofk, the logistic mapp

of the long-term outcomes just described: 

chaotic behavior. Unfortunately, those 

mathematics and programming languages (how

are easily deterred from such "experiments" 

very simplest nonlinear functions, the requisit

require more than the arithmetic of real number

matter the amount of repetitive number crunc

serious exploration demands machine assistan

to be meticulous about the number of plac

Lorentz, Essence. 10 and 23-24.

-•Ibid., 8.

'Heinz-Otto Peitgen, Harmut Jiirgens, and Die

Fractals: New Frontiers of Science (New York: Spong

also, ]an Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematic

Blackwell, 1989), 155-164. For a rigorous treatment of t

the "quadratic iterator"), see chapter 11 in Peitgen, Jiirgen

the final-state or "Feigenbaum diagram" (after the physi

for the logistic mapping "has become the most impor

(587). Mathematical built-in function NestList renders 

needed for a basic understanding of the logistic mapping 

the same calculations can be easily carried out on a c

Packard HP-48SX.
pg 

will persist more or less undiminished in future 

technological developments. Specifically, the 

plays is to close the door once and for all to 

predictable (at least in principle), "clockwork" un

most persuasively during Clausewitz's lifetime by 

physicist Pierre Simon de Laplace (1749-1827).

The idea that the subsequent motions and e

phenomena could be completely predicted on t

earlier states was first argued at length in the 17

priest Roger Boscovich (1711-1787).8 Howeve

who, more than anyone else, seemed to make go

'Edward Lorentz's discovery of chaos was precipitated 

a research shortcut. At the time he was trying to develop 

making successive runs on a computer. The output of the 

weather patterns over a period of "months." At a certain sta

made some adjustments to the model and then, rather than c

from the beginning as he had done previously, Lorentz 

generating a new run by entering the weather data from midwa

to three decimal places rather than six. As a result of this m

saw his weather "diverging so rapidly from the pattern of th

just a few months, all resemblances had disappeared" (Ja

Making a New Science (New York: Viking, 1987), 15-16).

leaders interested in nonmathematical introductions t

may wish to consider John Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Scie

F. David Peat, Turbulent Mirror, or Edward Lorentz, The E

*Poi the crucial excerpt from Boscovich's most famous a

his 1758 Philosophiae Naluralis Theoria Reducta ad Unle

Nalura Exislentium [A Theory of Natural Philosophy Reduce

Existing in Nature], see John I). Barrow, Theories of Every

Ultimate Explanation (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 199

certain how far the Theoria influenced the subsequent de

theory, this work was widely studied, especially in Britain wh

Sir William Hamilton, James Clerk Maxwell, and Lord 

theoretical advantages of the Boscovichian atom over rigid 

Whyte, Boscovich, Roger Joseph, in The Encyclopedia of 

Edwards, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan and the Free Press, 
Newtonian cosmology and physics."9 Wh

(1642-1727) had never been fully convinced 

solar system, suggesting that it might re

correction now and again,10 Laplace eventua

proven "that every known secular variation, s

speeds of Saturn and Jupiter, was cyclic and 

indeed entirely stable and required no div

Laplace also completed the theory of tides an

Newton's famous problems, the deduction fro

the velocity of sound in air.12 This unbroken 

removing all the known anomalies in Newto

Laplace to conclude that the universe was rig

the spirit of Boscovich.

Laplace's clearest expression of this whol

of the world picture can be found in his 1814 

sur les probabilites [Philosophical Essay on P

is a lucid nontechnical introduction to his pr

laws of chance, the Theorie analytique des pr

for one instant," he wrote,

an intelligence which could comprehend all th

nature is animated and the respective situation 

compose it, an intelligence sufficiently vast to 

'R. Harre, "Laplace, Pieire Simon de," The Encyclo

Paul Edwards, vol. 4 (New York: Macmillan and the F

'"Isaac Newton, Optics, in Great Books of the Wes

also, Richard S. WestfaU, Never at Rest: A Biography of I

Cambridge University Press, 1980), 777-778.

"Harre, 392.

"Ibid., 392.

"James R. Newman, "Commentary on Pierre Simon 

of Mathematics: A Small Library of the Literature of Ma

the Scribe to Albert, vol. 2 (Redmond, WA: Tempos, 198

1296. Laplace's Theorie analylique appeared in 18

Napoleon.
certain as the planetary orbits; the only difference 

is that due to our ignorance.14

On Laplace's understanding of reality, the operatio

down to the most minute details and the sma

strictly determined by quantitative, predictive, m

The world is quite literally a giant clockwork. 

called "demon", meaning a sufficiently vast intelli

ciently accurate and complete data about the univ

in time, all past and future states are calculable

human ignorance or shortcomings in such matters, 

laws of nature leave nothing to chance, not even 

or the emergence and evolution of life on Earth.1

The difficulty with this Laplacian outlook is 

plausibility or enduring appeal. By the beginnin

century the vast majority of working physicists acc

determinism", meaning causality plus long-term 

a well-established scientific fact, and many people 

The problem is that the universe we happen to inha

deterministic in the full sense Laplace meant, not 

domains like physics and pure mathematics. Th

like the Earth's tides and solar eclipses that can, b

perturbations, be highly periodic and, hence, pre

and precisely retrodictable across the majority 

range. However, there are also processes such a

the precise weather conditions at a given locat

(temperature, winds, humidity, cloud conditions

absence of precipitation, etc.) that are so sensitiv

"Pierre Simon de Laplace, "Concerning Probability," 

ematics, vol. 2,1301-02; the cited selection is an excerpt from 

philosophique sur les probabilities.

'^or Laplace, the fundamental objects of probability the

events, but degrees of belief necessitated by the impe

knowledge [Theodore M. Porter, The Rise of Statistical T

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 72].
unpredictability that is inconsistent with fu

determinism." At best, these sorts of highly 

harbor occasional islands of predictable beh

unpredictability.17

This untidy situation reared its head earl

of Newtonian physics. During the drafting 

Newton's Principia Mathematica, which appe

ran into difficulties moving from the pro

mutually attracted to one another by gravita

solved, to the problem of describing the dyn

bodies (the many-body problem).18 In the 

returned to this problem in the form of the d

moving about the Earth, which was in turn 

three-body problem).19 Once again, though

ments fell short of his aspirations. In retrosp

culties with the irregularities of lunar 

understandable. As we now know, the three

'^avid Ruelle, Chance and Chaos (Princeton, NJ: P

1991), 45-47; Lorentz, 77-110.

"While the contrast between the gross behavi

perturbations in the weather at a given location is legitimat

The earth's weather exhibits predictable regularities 

temperatures in the summer than during winter, and even 

times of future sunrises can be delayed or advanced a m

of measurable decreases or increases in the Earth's spe

therefore, has a fair point in noting that, "when we com

weather forecasting, we are comparing prediction of p

some lesser irregularities with prediction of irregularities a

nonlinear science is not so much an alternative to the cl

an expansion that puts irregular processes on equal foo

this regard, Lorentz is on record as objecting to the 

behavior is more fundamental or "normal" than chaotic 

''Westfall, 430. A second edition of Principia Math

and a third in 1726, the year before Newton's death.

"Ibid., 540.
erally an impossible one in the sense in which N

solve it.21

Again, Laplace thought he had proved th

perturbations of the planets were periodic rather 

they would "repeat themselves at regular inte

exceed a certain moderate amount," thus subs

stability for divine intervention.22 Unfortunate

longer consider Laplace's proof of the stability o

rigorous, and "all attempts to make it so have fai

recent years evidence has been accumulating to s

of Pluto, and the solar system as a whole, appear 

chaotic on time scales of 4-20 million years.24

^mLorentz.lU.

^The history of mathematics is littered with impossibl

example from antiquity is the problem posed by the Greeks o

that is, constructing a square with an area equal to that of a giv

of a straight-edge and compass [Howard DeLong, A Profile o

(New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1970), 29]. Whi

suspected that this problem was impossible under the stated 

until the 19th century thataproofwas finally given which sho

that such a construction is hgically impossible (ibid., 69). Th

case was tied to the specified means, and the calculus of N

Wilhelm Leibniz provided an alternative method that allo

squared, if not exactly, at least to whatever degree of precisio

required. By comparison, Gadel's incompleteness theorems 

type of mathematical impossibility because there do not a

principle, alternative means to the deductive methods of inf

theorems apply (ibid., 193). The "impossibility" associated 

problem is somewhat different. The impossibility is not that 

at all, or even no stable ones, but that in certain regimes the 

unstable that future states of the system cannot be predicted 

^Laplace quoted in Newman, 1293.

^ony Rothman, "God Takes a Nap: A Computer Find

Chaotic," Scientific American, October 1988, 20.

^Gerald Jay Sussman and Jack Wisdom, "Numerical E

tion of Pluto Is Chaotic," Science, 11 July 1988, 433; also S

"Chaotic Evolution of the Solar System," Science, 3 July 1
body problem in which the third body is vas

other two, Poincare discovered motion so com

"homoclinic tangles" to use the technical term, 

attempt to draw the corresponding figure.25 Thi

is "fundamental" or built in; neither "gathering 

nor processing it better, will eliminate the un

Poincare wrote in 1908 of chance in the sense 

to be discernible giving rise to large, noticeab

A very small cause which escapes our not

considerable effect that we cannot fail to see, and 

the effect is due to chance. If we knew exactly 

and the situation of the universe at the initial m

predict exactly the situation of that same univer

moment. But even if it were the case that the na

longer any secret for us, we could still only 

situation approximately. If that enabled us to pr

with the same approximation, that is all we 

should say that the phenomenon had been 

governed by laws. But it is not always so; it 

small differences in the initial conditions produ

in the final phenomena. A small error in the fo

an enormous error in the latter. Prediction bec

and we have the fortuitous phenomenon.27

"Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematic

Lorentz's discussion of George William Hill's "reduced" v

problem, see Lorentz, 114-120 and 192-193.

"Crutchfield, Farmer, Packard, and Shaw, "Chao

December 1986, 46.

"Henri Poincare, Science and Method, trans. Franc

Dover, 1952), 67-68. This passage has been often quoted b

See, for example, Crutchfield, Fanner, Packard, and S

recognizes other sources of "chance" than human ignoranc

an explicit rejection by Poincare of Laplace's "demon" o

it also recognize "chaos"? As Lorentz has noted, Poincare'

problem was not begun in search of chaos. Instead, Poinca
traveling up and down the vortices that heating cre

and Maurer's tiny experimental device: "The mom

experiment, and chaos showed up in a real thing, 

a fluid, it completely changed the reaction of the [p

chaos]."28 Since then, scientists have confirm

chaotic29 or unpredictable behavior that is 

contemporary nonlinear dynamics in a wide r

phenomena, including electronic circuits, 

electromechanical systems, hydrodynamics, acous

state physics, biology, and even ecology.30 Chaotic 

lies between order and disorder, is quite wides

world, if not fairly ubiquitous. Granted, sta

dynamics, as exemplified by the Earth's tides, are 

the orbits of the heavenly bodies" and found chaos in the pr

And while we cannot be certain, "we are left with the feeli

recognized the chaos that was inherent in the equations with 

intimately" (ibid., 120).

^Madhusree Mukerjee, "Profile: Albert Libchaber's S

Snowflake," Scientific American, March 1996, 42. Libcha

published their discovery of chaotic behavior in superfluid hy

Bai-Lin, Chaos (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co

^Tien-Yien Li and James A. Yorke first introduced the 

1975 paper, "Period Three Implies Chaos," to denote the unp

in certain "deterministic" but nonlinear feedback systems (

Their choice of this term remains, at best, mischievous becau

notion ofrandomness with that of local unpredictability wit

bounds. For example, the well-known "chaotic" attractor 

Lorentz is unpredictable in that, "even when observed for lon

does not ever appear to repeat its past history exactly; yet the b

pattern it generates in state space is by no means whol

"Deterministic Nonperiodic Plow," in Bai-Lin, 282 and 289). 

however, Li and Yorke insisted on using the term "cha

nonperiodic dynamics of certain equations despite advice from 

"choose something more sober," and the term has stuck (Bai-

'"Bai-Lin, 67-71; for a more recent example of chaotic in 

"Chaotic Chaos in Linked Electrical Circuit," Science News, 

22.
physical phenomena, and within those chaot

predictability is lost. In this sense, chance abo

What bearing has the discovery of non

reality on friction in future war? Clausewitz 

other human activity "is so continuously or u

with chance" and suggested that war most re

cards in its sensitivity to chance.32 He and S

that chance (Zufall33) could not be eliminated f

Clausewitz identified chance events as an expli

friction, although he did not (and could not) 

differences from what is expected or predicte

turn success into failure and vice versa. What 

nonlinear dynamics does is to explain how su

or "chance" occurrences of "the kind you can n

can give rise to long-term unpredictability.34 L

human judgments about chance and probabil

result of ignorance. In many cases, including g

cards, he felt that we simply do not know enoug

calculation time, to predict the outcomes. 

language of nonlinear dynamics, Laplace's p

human ignorance prevents us from complete

differences between our representations of ph

actuality. If, however, these small differences c

then nonlinear dynamics explain how glob

unpredictability can arise from the structural 

feedback when the feedback function exhibits, 

of its domain, extreme sensitivity to initial 

"Peitgen, Jiirgens, and Saupe give an estimated valu

onset of chaos in the quadratic iterator (Chaos and Fract

^Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Peter Pa

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 85 an

"Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, ed. Werner Hah

1980 and 1991), 207 and 237.

"Clausewitz, On War, 119.
q

nonlinear systems confirms some of the deepest in

and Scharnhorst had into the nature of combat 

fundamental role of chance in those processes. I

unforeseen and unforeseeable differences in 

conditions, which, on present evidence, ca

eliminated even by Laplace's demon, allow us t

within the framework ofnonlinearity.

How might these insights into the con

nonlinearity and at least two components of gener

recast the concept in more modem terms? 

thought-provoking piece of research bearing on 

carried out by James Dewar, James Gillogly, and 

the RAND Corporation. Their aim was to see i

arising from "mathematical chaos" could be d

simple computer model of land combat.36 Their 

was the fact that computer models of comb

"nonintuitive" results, by which they meant "non

which a capability added to the side of one com

less-favorable result for that side."37 Since such 

computer models can arise from other numer

nonlinearity—including round-off error, the wro

"John R. Boyd, "Conceptual Spiral," unpublished briefin

slides 14 and 31. Boyd lists nine features of the various 

processes we use to make sense of the world that, unavoidably

or differences, whether large or small, in initial or later cond

include: the numerical imprecision inherent in using the 

numbers in calculations and measurement; mutations arising 

or other unknown influences in molecular and evolution

ambiguities of meaning built into the use of natural lang

German as well as the interactions between them through t

32).

^Dewar, Gillogly, and Juncosa, "Non-Monotonicity

Models," iii.

"Ibid., v.
criteria based on the state of the battle at the 

This feature was a mathematical surrogate f

making (or intervention) in the battle in respon

attrition the two sides had suffered to that 

constitute intuitive and unintuitive, or 

nonmonotonic, behavior in such a model? D

Juncosa's 1991 paper offers the following char

example of monotonic behavior, fix Blue's in

troops and allow Red's initial strength to vary 

troops. Each value of Rg represents a separate 

Table 1: Dewar, Gillogly, and Juncosa's Ex

Combat Model

Parameter Blue 

Initial troop strength

Combat attrition

calculation

Reinforcement

threshold

Reinforcement block

size

Maximum allowable

reinforcement blocks

Reinforcement delay

(time steps)

Withdrawal threshold

B.

B^, = B, - R^2048

R^/B^4orBn<0.8

B,,

300

5

70

Rn/B^10orB^<

0.7 B,,

R

0

3

5

7

R

R

^bid., v and 4-5. Note that because this model is "pi

continuous," Dewar, GiBogly, and Juncosa's "definition of c

not the same as, definitions of chaos found elsewhere in the 

their definition, see 18).
Rg varying from 700 to 1,800, seriously nonm

ensues: "Red wins when starting with as few a

when starting with as many as 1623 troops, and 

number of reversals of fortune in between." w 

flip-flopping of which side wins as Rg varies 

troops is what constitutes unintuitive or nonmo

What did Dewar, Gillogly, and Juncos

mathematical chaos in this type of model? 

computational and input sources of nonintuitiv

roundoff error and time-step granularity, th

demonstrate non-monotonicity in a version of the 

they termed the "force-ratio-only mapping":

Specifically, in a simple model with unlimited rei

have shown for a specific decision (when t

reinforcements) based on the state of the battle 

the ratio of the opposing forces numerical str

underlying dynamics of the model satisfy fo

conditions characteristic of chaotic system

"misbehavior" of this model is structura

computational, it is in the nature of the phe

modeled, decisions based on the state of the batt

They further noted that if the reinforcement decis

so that they are no longer a function of the state 

"the nonlinearities, the chaos, and the nonmonot

disappear."41

What implications, if any, can we draw 

concerning friction in future war? Dewar, Gil

were reluctant to make any inferences about rea

"Ibid., 5.

""Ibid., 16 and 42.

4

'Ibid., 43.
research holds out the promise that mathematic

chaos of war might be related. As a strong cav

easy to presume that they are necessarily connec

not the behavior in our simple model is akin to b

battle is an interesting question but one that 

thought and research.42

This essay has sought to furnish precisely t

and historical research that Dewar, Gillo

recommended prior to linking mathematical ch

combat model to something like the general fri

real war. Given the complexities of actual c

linkage need not insist that decision making in 

mapping faithfully models any concrete ins

making in actual combat. Nevertheless, non

been confirmed in a wide range of physical pr

demonstration of non-monotonicity in a math

combat, however simplified, is certainly sug

effectiveness, results, and overall outcomes 

unpredictable.

One can go further. As first noted in ch

insisted in On War's second book that the very 

interaction between opposing sides was bound 

unpredictable.43 Nonlinear dynamics in ge

Gillogly, and Juncosa's results with their force-

in particular, reveal how inspired Clausewitz's 

is no longer a mystery to explain how unpredi

arise from human purposes and decisions with

of causality. In nonlinear systems that are sensit

initial or later conditions, the interaction of ite

so magnify the smallest of differences, includi

from human decisions, as to render combat ou

^Ibid., vi.

""Clausewitz, On War, 139.
presumption underlying this specific reconstruc

friction ultimately arises from three elementary 

• Human beings and their purposes

• The spatial-temporal inaccessibility of 

military affairs

• The unpredictability of chaotic process

This hypothesis suggests the following list of 

sources as a late-20th-century alternativ

"Clausewitzian" sources listed at the end of cha

1. Constraints imposed by human physica

limits, whose magnitude or impact are inevit

by the intense stresses, pressures, and resp

actual combat

2. Informational uncertainties and 

differences stemming, ultimately, from the sp

dispersion of information in the external e

military organizations, and in the mental 

individual participants

3. The structural nonlinearity of combat p

give rise to the long-term unpredictabil

outcomes by magnifying the effects of 

differences and unforeseen events (or, con

negligible results from large inputs).

At least three observations are in order to 

motivate this reconstruction of general friction. 

list is shorter than any of those offered in chapt

that the reconstruction attempts to focus on the 

or elementary sources of friction. Derivative so

intelligence or human reactions to the imminen

mutilation inherent in combat, are clearly impli

called out separately.
sources. The participation of finite human bein

of information in war, and unpredictabilities of 

give rise to surprising and unforeseen discrepan

eliminated, and we are right to gather them, 

guises, under the notion of chance. Poincare's 

if human ignorance could be set aside, chance w

itself in several guises. These unavoidable manif

include imperceptible small causes that have la

effects, the reverse in which great causes yield 

and causes either too complex or too numerou

When nonlinear processes amplify such structu

uncertainties, they render large-scale results unp

rise to ever larger differences between what w

happens that, in turn, feed back into nonlinear 

in its various guises, therefore, is rendered p

again, without letting go of causality.

""As Beyerchen ("Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the U

77) noted, "nowhere" does Clausewitz provide "a succinct 

war.

'''Poincare, Science and Method, 67-70 and 72-76. Bey

Poincare left the door open to yet another form of chance

interaction between the "slice" of the universe we can app

part that we, as finite beings, do not or cannot (Alan Beyer

Barry Watts, 12 June 1996). "Is this a third way of 

Poincare asked. In reply he wrote: "Not always; in fact, in t

come back to the first or second." (ibid., 76). Given 

always" rather than "Never," there appear to be, on this und

of chance that transcend human ignorance as well 

imperceptible microcauses that, through, amplification, hav

stochastic effects of causes too multitudinous or complex to 

interaction of causes arising from different "slices" of un

surprise us because we cannot take in the universe as 

speculates that Poincare was less concerned about this thi

was Clausewitz (e-mail message, 12 June 1996). For 

Poincare's treatment of chance, see The Essence of Chaos
war that it does not provide a very precise instru

the phenomena at issue.46 If we return to the 

friction as the entire panoply of factors that d

from war on paper, Clausewitz's reason for p

collection of things together under a single conce

friction was the bridge between war in the a

reality. Still, the objection suggests that some pa

concept into separable-but-fundamental compo

fruitful. Whether the three proposed in this 

remains to be seen. However, constraints on 

stemming from the physical and cognitive 

participants, uncertainties rooted in the spatial-te

of the information on which action in war is unav

the unpredictabilities inherent in nonlinear dy

precise and, potentially, more promising as co

any of the decompositions of general friction in 

Third, the principal merit of the late 20th-c

Clausewitzian friction proposed in this section 

it gives to general friction's place in militar

limitations, informational uncertainties, and n

pesky difficulties better technology and enginee

but built-in or structural features of the violent i

opposing groups we call war.

As a consequence, general friction's pot

outcomes, as Proposition I in chapter 8 implie

persist regardless of what changes technologica

pass in the means of combat. Why? Because at l

sources of Clausewitzian friction lies, when all is 

in the weapons we wield but in ourselves. The p

in the loop, with all the diverse frailties, phy

limits, purposes, and decisions which th

""Andrew Marshall reiterated this concern as recently a

reviewing the first complete draft of this essay.
act, and those actions, in turn, involve processes 

nonlinear. On this reconstruction of Cla

therefore, general friction arises, to paraphrase R

from fundamental aspects of the human conditio

unpredictabilities that lie at the very core of co
WAR, ITS THEORY, A

CONDUCT

Our original point of departure was the notio

advances in sensor technologies and informatio

will) enable the side exploiting them more effe

its "fog of war" while turning the opponent

ignorance."' Implicit in this view is the presump

everything that is going on" in a volume of battle

that technological advances will eventually "s

all.2

Better weaponry, like superior training or op

can certainly provide leverage for shifting the 

friction decidedly in one's favor, especially ag

lacking comparable means altogether. The pot

Surveillance and Attack Radar System (Joint STA

during the 1991 Gulf War to enable Coalition co

coherent vehicular movement on the ground tha

if ever, been able to follow before was truly br

one in their right mind would consciously prefe

inferior equipment. However, driving one's o

while, simultaneously, rendering the enemy's e

not, at its core, a technical problem.

In the first place, even in an "information-

there is only so much that any human can abso

'Lt. Col. Ed Pelker, "Information Warfare: A View of 

Perspective: Joint Warfighting Center's Newsletter, Septe

^arry Lynn, "Battlefield Dominance and ARPA Focu

Projects Agency (ARPA) memorandum, 29 June 1995, 2

125
means that some key pieces will be inaccessibl

and place. Those who have held senior positions 

military services need only reflect on how much 

about what was taking place in their own 

appreciate the reality of information being spat

inaccessible. Third, the empirical fact of nonline

coupled with the unavoidable mismatches betw

representations of it, reveal fundamental limit

matter how much information and processing p

advances may one day place in human hands. 

one may wish that Laplace had been right in vi

a predictable clockwork, at the end of the twe

outlook no longer appears defensible either in pr

To push the implications of these three poin

ways in which friction will manifest itself in fu

undoubtedly involves human foibles, inaccessib

nonlinear dynamics. No matter how much tech

may constrain general friction in some areas, 

arguments mounted in the second half of this e

will simply balloon in others, often in ways that 

Technological innovation in the means of 

novelty into warfare, and the indirect effects 

consequences of novelty are never predictable wi

of certainty.3 Who among IBM's executives ge

the early 1980s that, first, mini-computer servers 

computers would so rapidly erode the com

mainframe business that "Big Blue" would post 

loss in 1992, lay off tens of thousands of worker

3

 John Boyd has identified the differences or misma

small) that unavoidably exist between the world and our un

point in time as the root source of novelty in science, engin

("Conceptual Spiral," slide 23).
would contribute to womens liberation 

generations of young ladies to post letters t

without their parents' knowledge?6 The soc

technological innovation are especially hard t

after all, a social enterprise.

Looking ahead to how friction may one d

future conflict, one should also consider th

"digitized battlespace" to subtle forms of m

deception. The more the U.S. military embra

and synthetic environments, the greater will 

subtle manipulation of our "situation awareness

adversary, to say nothing of simply confusin

overabundance of "information." Indeed, it is e

the application of information technologies 

expand, perhaps enormously, the potential for d

the more "transparent" battlespace becomes

participants may feel pressured to make life-o

shorter and shorter spaces of time.7 Hence, ther

reasons to expect that the wholesale introductio

information technologies into future war, fa

''Paul Carroll, Big Blues: The Unmaking of IB

Publishers, 1993), 217-222,325-328, and 347. IBM execu

of the changes that would restructure their industry. "The

long task forces with loads of smart people and forecasted t

that would cripple IBM, but IBMers couldn't quite bring th

about those cataclysmic changes" (ibid., 3).

'Andrew Marshall provided this anecdote. The Israel

primarily to locate targets beyond friendly lines. To get the

had to overfly friendly units and soon began revealing 

often not located precisely where they claimed to be. Whi

used in their intended role, the Israelis felt that imposing m

position reports by their own units constituted the larger 

'"A Survey of Telecommunications: The Death of D

30 September 1995, 28.

Andrew Marshall suggested this possibility.
g

end of chapter 5, this question raises a 

concerning the actual measurement or quantif

differences between opponents. Decision-cyc

option sets in possibility space were introduced 

substance behind the intuition that general fric

and influence on Desert Storm in 1991 d

noticeably less than its magnitude and aggregate 

during the Germans' May 1940 assault on F

Countries a half-century earlier. If anything

attractive options may have been somewhat le

1940 because the Iraqis had more "maneuver roo

despite the Coalition's one-sided access to ad

information systems, including satellite imager

data.

Whether notions such as decision-cycle time

sets in possibility space can be extended in the 

precision and completeness to these judgments 

On the one hand, they appear useful in supporti

general friction's rough magnitude at different ti

and those judgments seem comparable to the k

that biologists such as Richard Dawkins have 

versus "small" leaps in genetic space.8 On th

Beyerchen's caution that attractive option sets 

over the course of a conflict are best envisi

"shape" in a multidimensional phase space, rat

number, indicates the immense difficulties of pr

in concrete situations. Of course, to repeat a po

5, cycle times and options in possibility space 

aspects of general friction. The matter of a go

"Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker; Why th

Reveals a University without Design (New York: W. W. 

basic idea of Dawkins, Fisher, and other biologists is th

design space have a much lower probability of being viab
qppp

we may be longing for simple, quantitative m

possible. One can measure temperature or m

with a single number, but social utility 

consequences of wartime decisions years afterw

matter entirely given the spatial-temporal 

relevant information and the limits of human 

A related point that emerged most vividl

high situation awareness by one side need n

favorable balance of friction. Crystal-clear aw

death is imminent is of little value if one's 

responses has reached the vanishing po

information is useless if there no longer remai

the defeat or destruction of one's forces. A 

level of battlespace awareness vis-a-vis the 

barring the "unbarrable" exception of Clau

Ungliick (good luck and bad), a necessary con

war, but it is certainly not a sufficient one.

What might be some of the more salient im

friction's relatively undiminished persistenc

military theory? To begin with a minor but una

has been some resurgence ofanti-Clausewitzian 

fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Martin van 

example, has argued that because future wars 

conflicts waged by non-state actors against 

regular forces" of states like Israel, Britain, Ru

States are "all but useless," the age of large

warfare on the Clausewitzian, "trinitarian" mo

its last gasp."9 This view, whatever its m

character of war in the post-Cold War era is 

really touch the subject of this essay, general 

''Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (N

1991), ix-x, 2, 29, 62, and 224-225.
gpp

chapter 8 are not such a theory, although they re

start should one choose to begin with the problem 

The recasting of Clausewitz's original conce

suggests that starting there would be a good id

"frictional" components highlight some of t

features of real war as opposed to war on paper. 

kinds of "structural" features had its inspiration 

Schamhorst and Clausewitz had concerning wha

and recurred on the battlefields of their day. 

theoretical emphasis on friction, particularly a

chapter 10, was as legitimately scientific as Dar

evolution of biological species by means of nat

Third, it is easy at this stage to clarify 

Clausewitz's thought. On the one hand, the Pr

theorist has not been spared in this essay. Where 

friction and related matters warranted correct

wholesale revision in light of later knowle

experience, changes have been made without h

other hand, Richard Simpkin expressed the op

book Race to the Swift that friction was, to his m

most important contribution to military thought.

retired U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd had 

conclusion by the spring of 1982 based on 

"Ibid., 245. It is relevant, given the interpretation of 

2 and 3, to add that van Creveld's reading on Vom Krie

instance, he asserts without any discussion or argument tha

"axiomatic method" and is "mainly deductive in character

only conclude that van Creveld has little familiarity wi

whether those of Euclid, Giuseppe Peano, Gottlob Frege, or 

interested in pursuing this particular criticism may wish to 

method with that in Patrick Suppes' Axiomatic Set Theor

1972).

"Richard Simpkin, Race to the Swift: Thoughts on 

Warfare (London: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1985), 1
This essay, however, had a more ambitious 

for the conclusion that general friction will con

future warfare regardless of technological cha

combat. Perhaps the single most important th

tapestry of the essay's argumentation is summa

III in chapter 8: the realization that it is the diffe

"Early versions of the second law of thermodynam

irreversible processes in which some of the energy 

unavailable for useful work. Rudolf Clausius (18

formulated the second law as the principle that "No pro

the sole result is the transfer of energy from a cooler body 

W. Atkins, The Second Law (New York: W. H. Freem

25 ]. Entropy, whose unit of measurement is energy/te

Kelvin, for example), was introduced to label the ma

stored in thermodynamic systems (ibid., 38). A more 

second law is that if an isolated system in thermodynam

function, S, which is the entropy or degree of disorder of 

0 [Gregoire Nicolis and Uya Prigogine, Exploring Com

(New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1989), 61

connected Clausewitzian friction and the second law of 

to determine precisely. However, a critique of his "Patte

written by a military historian following its presentation 

Army Command and General Staff College in May 198

describing friction as Clausewitz's most important 

thought at that time. It was Ludwig Boltzmann (184

macroscopic state of a thermodynamic system to its m

Boltzmann's formulation of this relationship takes the fo

is entropy, k is Boltzmann's constant, and W rep

microscopic arrangements of the system associated with 

79). In the 1940s, Claude Shannon's early work on inf

that information, understood as a measure of one's f

selecting a message, has the same form as Boltzman

entropy [Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, The 

Communication (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois 

48-53]. Perhaps more than anything else, it was Boy

connection between information (in the sense of unce

disorder) that led him to connect Clausewitzian friction 

thermodynamics.
false issue that diverts attention from the real bus

comparatively small frictional advantages can, 

feedback, have huge consequences for combat ou

to-air experience detailed in chapter 9 confirm

relative advantages hinge fundamentally on

imposed by human physical and cognitive limits

uncertainties and unforeseeable differences st

spatial-temporal dispersion of information 

environment, military organizations, and the b

participants; and, (3) the structural nonlin

processes.

One may or may not choose to gather these 

features of combat and war under a single u

general friction, as Clausewitz did. Nonet

destined to remain the root sources of one side's 

advantage over the other even in the age of so-c

based warfare. Consider, after all, how much 

overturned or rejected to conclude otherwise. A

one would need to overthrow nonlinear dynami

of thermodynamics, the fundamental tenets 

evolutionary biology, and all the limiting 

mathematical logic, including Kurt Gadel's famo

theorems and Gregory Chaitin's extension of 

demonstrate the existence of randomness in arit

task indeed!
y y

Corporation since retiring from the U.S. Air 

colonel in 1986. His Air Force career includ

Southeast Asia in F-4s, F-4 assignments in 

faculty duty teaching philosophy and mathema

Air Force Academy, two tours in the office o

Assessment, and 3 years as a Soviet threat sp

Staff's Project Checkmate.

Since joining Northrop Grumman, Mr. 

included analyses of U.S. military capabilities, 

and military strategy for corporate headqu

divisions, as well as work on corporate stra

planning. From 1991 to 1993 he headed the 

Survey's work on operations and effectiv

continued to do pro bono work for the Office o

such topics as military innovation during the in

revolution in military affairs.

Mr. Watts holds a B.S. in mathematics fro

Academy and an M.A. in philosophy from 

Pittsburgh. His initial foray into the subj

friction was in his 1984 book, Foundations of U

Problem of Friction in War, published by Air 

133
million troops, was about to take command of A

Europe under Elsenhower, when he was killed in com

July 1'944.

The/allowing is a complete listing a/published 

information on availability of specific titles, con

Manager, Publications Directorate & NDU P

Washington, DC 20319-5066 (telephone: commercia

325-4379).

1. Joseph P. Loreiiz, Egypt and the New Arab Coa

2. John E. Endicott, Grand Strategy and the Pacif

3. Eugene V. Rostow, President, Prime Minist

Monarch? October 1989.

4. Howard G. DeWolf, SDI and Arms Control, N

5. Martin C. Libicki, What Makes Industries 

1989.

6. Melvin A. Goodman, Gorbachev and Soviet 

World, February 1990.

7. John Van Oudenaren, "The Tradition of Chan

Policy," and Francis Conte, "Two Schools of S

Understanding Soviet Foreign Policy, April 19

8. Max G. Manwaring and Court Prisk, A Strategi

Insurgencies: Insights from El Salvador, May 

9. Steven R. Linke, Managing Crises in De

PEPCON and Avtex Cases, June 1990.

10. Christine M. Helms, Arabism and Islam: S

Nationless States, September 1990.

11. Ralph A. Cossa, Iran: Soviet Interests, US Con

12. Ewan Jamieson, Friend or Ally? A Question/o

1991.

13. Richard J. Dunn III, From Gettysburg to th

Coping with Revolutionary Technological Cha

March 1992.

14. Ted Greenwood, U.S. and NATO Force St

Operations in the Mediterranean, June 1993.

15. Oscar W. Clyatt, Jr., Bulgaria's Quest for Se

War, February 1993.
Storm Case Study, July 1993.

19. Eugene V. Rostow, Should Article 43 of the Uni

Be Raised From the Dead? July 1993

20. William T. Johnsen and Thomas Durell-You

Daniel N. Nelson; William C. Bodie, and 

European Security Toward the Year 2000, Augu

21. Edwin R. Carlisle, ed.. Developing Battlefield T

1990s, August 1993.

22. Patrick Clawson, How Has Saddam Hussein S

Sanctions, 1990-93, August 1993.

23. Jeffrey Simon, Czechoslovakia's "Velvet D

Cohesion, and European Fault Lines, October 1

24. Eugene V. Rostow, The Future of Palestine, Nov

25. William H. Lewis, John Mackinlay, John G. Ru

Urquhart, Peacekeeping: The Way Ahead? Nove

26. Edward Marks and William Lewis, Triage f

January 1994.

27. Gregory D. Foster, In Search of a Post-Cold War 

February 1994.

28. Martin C. Libicki, The Mesh and the Net: Spec

Conflict in a Time of Free Silicon, March 1994.

29. Patrick Clawson, ed., Iran's Strategic Intention

April 1994.

30. James W. Morrison, Vladimir Zhirlnovskiy: A

Russian Ultra-Nationalist, April 1994.

31. Patrick M. Cronin and Michael J. Green, Redefin

Alliance: Tokyo's National Defense Program, No

32. Scott W. Conrad, Moving the Force: Desert S

December 1994.

33. John N. Petrie, American Neutrality in the 2

Impossible Dream, January 1995.

34. James H. Brusstar and Ellen Jones, The Russian 

Politics, January 1995.

35. S. Nelson Drew, NATO from Berlin to Bosn

Security in Transition, January 1995.

36. Karl W. Eikenberry, Explaining and Influenci

Transfers, February 1995.

37. William W. Mendel and David G. Bradford, Intera

A Regional Model for Overseas Operations, Mar
Security Alignments in Europe, April 1995.

41. Barry R. Schneider, Radical Responses to 

Evaluating Preemptive Counter-Proliferation, M

42. John Jaworsky, Ukraine: Stability and Instability

43. Ronald Tiersky, The Mitterrand Legacy and th

Security Policy, August 1995.

44. John A. Cope, International Military Educatio

Assessment, October 1995.

45. Elli Lieberman, Deterrence Theory: Success o

Israeli Wars? October 1995.

46. Stanley R. Sloan, NATO's Future: Beyond 

December 1995.

47. M. E. Ahrari, The New Great Game in M

January 1996.

48. Mark J. Roberts, Khomeini's Incorporation of th

January 1996.

49. Steven Philip Kramer and Irene Kyriakopoulos, T

Europe in the 21st Century, March 1996.

50. Alan L. Gropman, Mobilizing U.S. Industry in W

and Reality, August 1996.

51. Ralph A. Cossa, The Major Powers in North

September 1996.
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INS'I'ITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATE

NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVE