brilliant at the basics
March 3, 2018 2:58 PM   Subscribe

Shock of the Mundane:
Conventional wisdom focuses on technological superiority as the key source of American dominance on the battlefield. Even though the United States is clearly still struggling at the strategic level in its fight against terrorists and insurgents, it is supremely confident in its ability to defeat these groups in combat at the tactical level, due in no small part to technological advantages such as total air superiority, remote surveillance, command-and-control systems, precision munitions, and night-vision capabilities. Observers are largely focused on these technologies – such as drones and night-vision goggles – and their potential diffusion to violent non-state actors. What has been overlooked in the debate over the combat potential of violent extremists is the diffusion of something much more rudimentary and potentially more lethal: basic infantry skills.
posted by the man of twists and turns (50 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
Partway through the article, there's a link to www.benning.army.mil. Ironically, its security certificate is insecure.
posted by clawsoon at 3:31 PM on March 3, 2018 [3 favorites]


While I'm less interested in the military question, there's a deeper idea here that I wish I could write in glowing letters of fire in the sky: you can't engineer your way out of a human problem, so study the humans.

No, we're not going to stop building new technology, and we shouldn't. However, technological change makes it ever more essential to understand what the technology can and can't do, and what the people using it (and the people it's being used on) can and can't do. I'd much rather see engineering lead by an understanding of human behavior, capabilities and limitations, because it's less likely to run headlong into human problems than the other way around. Humans aren't an engineering problem, and treating them like one ends badly.

I had a slightly different version of this discussion this week with a friend in human factors research (basically, attempting to answer psychological and behavioral questions from an engineering point of view). It leads to some remarkably weird assumptions about humans.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 3:57 PM on March 3, 2018 [20 favorites]


.mil addresses always come up with a certificate warning. At least, every single one I've ever gone to.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 4:13 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


Wow, that was a really interesting read:
On the one hand, military technology as a whole has changed tremendously over the last 100 years (nuclear weapons, satellites, missiles, et cetera). On the other hand, small arms are almost unchanged. The current Colt M4 carbine has more similarities to the Springfield M1903 (adopted in 1903) than differences. And the Colt M1911 pistol (adopted in 1911) is considered by many to be a superior side-arm to the Beretta M9 that has been issued to the U.S. Army for the last 30 years, and perhaps even the Sig Sauer that is set to replace it. It should not come as a surprise, then, that the core tactics that comprise modern combat have remained largely static.
Off to send it to my (ex-101st Airborne) brother now. Thanks for the post!
posted by languagehat at 5:10 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


I was confused by the author's use of the word diffusion. The concern cited is the "diffusion" of "basic infantry skills". Diffusion means two complementary things, dilution and dispersal. In dilution, a substance is introduced into another substance and the two intermix to reduce the initial concentation of the introduced substance. In dispersal, a similar operation takes place but the wider distribution of the introduced substance is highlighted. I suspect the author wishes to highlight the weakening of a discipline rather than the wider distribution of a given set of concepts. As the article was written, I found it difficult to follow in part because I kept trying to visualize how wider distribution of knowledge of old and well known concepts could weaken the application of that knowledge. Dispersal of knowledge strengthens both knowledge and practice, in my experience and opinion. Dispersal is a function of diffusion, and thus I found the use of the term confusing.
posted by mwhybark at 5:34 PM on March 3, 2018 [5 favorites]


Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:34 PM on March 3, 2018 [6 favorites]


Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed diffused.
posted by allegedly at 5:55 PM on March 3, 2018 [8 favorites]


I wonder if the author would agree that the US should also be more circumspect about who it shares knowledge and training about logistics with?

I was confused by the author's use of the word diffusion.

I can't speak to the specifically military context but in the broader policy world "diffusion" has been a term of art for the spread of a policy across polities since the 1960s, and does not in that use carry with it any connotation of dilution.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:55 PM on March 3, 2018 [11 favorites]


it may come from epidemiology, where “diffusion models” tracking the spread of a disease through a social network are common.
posted by vogon_poet at 6:02 PM on March 3, 2018


(and in some cases, depending on the model, there is a literal connection to the mathematics of physical diffusion of substances.)
posted by vogon_poet at 6:03 PM on March 3, 2018


The lesson we insist on learning the hard way is the home team usually prevails in asymmetrical warfare...
posted by jim in austin at 6:17 PM on March 3, 2018 [3 favorites]


this is why i'm not so sure that an american insurrection against the government is going to be so easy to put down - this knowledge of basic infantry tactics is something many americans are familiar with; in fact, quite a few of the people who talk about being able to do this have been trained in our armed forces and may have even used this knowledge on real battlefields

this is not something we should dismiss
posted by pyramid termite at 6:31 PM on March 3, 2018 [2 favorites]


Substitute "dissemination" for "diffusion," if you prefer.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:32 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


In French diffusion (défusion) literally means to broadcast.
posted by furtive at 6:40 PM on March 3, 2018


Ironically, its security certificate is insecure.

.mil addresses always come up with a certificate warning. At least, every single one I've ever gone to.

The DOD uses two root certificate authorities (DOD CA 2 and 3) which are not trusted root CAs in standard browsers. Basically, the government has declined to conduct the baseline auditing required for the browsers to trust their CAs (or at least decline to make the results public). DOD computers are heavily managed so it's simple for the CAs to be added to the machines that they really care about making secure connections to servers using .mil certs. Some, like the Coast Guard main site or DARPA do use certs from trusted CAs because they're intended to be civilian facing, but the expense of getting commercial certs for many sites has been deemed not worth it. You can see more information about why they're not about halfway down this page at here.

To the article itself, I can't disagree with the core concepts but a lot of it seems to boil down to guerrilla warfare works and unreliable allies don't, which has been true for centuries if not millennia.
posted by Candleman at 7:05 PM on March 3, 2018 [11 favorites]


America: We're Just Better at Murder!
posted by runcibleshaw at 7:24 PM on March 3, 2018


a lot of it seems to boil down to guerrilla warfare works

Quite the opposite. It's saying that enemies which used to be only capable of guerrilla tactics are becoming capable of doing both guerrilla tactics and disciplined small-unit infantry tactics. It's the difference between fighting the Viet Cong or fighting the Viet Cong + NVA.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:30 PM on March 3, 2018 [5 favorites]


It should not come as a surprise, then, that the core tactics that comprise modern combat have remained largely static.

The article describes a one-way diffusion of knowledge from the US to these insurgent forces. But I think there has been at least an equal, if not greater, diffusion of knowledge in the other direction. The Vietnam War forced fundamental changes in the US military's tactics; the same has happened during the current drawn-out engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not the first time that the US has faced guerrilla forces that were competent at basic infantry maneuvers and it shouldn't be such a surprise every time.

The sentences about how static infantry weapons have remained were interesting. Science fiction is full of laser blasters and suchlike, but the last century hasn't provided anything that really changed the parameters.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:32 PM on March 3, 2018 [3 favorites]


For those who didn’t see it, the article also mentions that the narco-terrorist groups in South America have also learned small unit infantry tactics. As the author points out, it’s all well and good for the US as we will be able to maintain our military superiority. However can we say that about Mexico, Nigeria, or other countries where insurgencies arise?
posted by herda05 at 7:53 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


I wonder if the author would agree that the US should also be more circumspect about who it shares knowledge and training about logistics with?

I think they made that point in the article... though they were talking about national militaries, and I suspect more advantage would be gained by not supporting every Northern Syrian militia that says it hates Russians.
posted by pompomtom at 7:56 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


you can't engineer your way out of a human problem, so study the humans.

My original thoughts when reading this was similar, but maybe in a different scope. I tend to look at all US offensive military tech (meaning basically everything but nuclear deterrents) as an attempt to engineer our way out of dealing with the human problems of real foreign policy.
posted by Ickster at 8:10 PM on March 3, 2018 [3 favorites]


For those who didn’t see it, the article also mentions that the narco-terrorist groups in South America have also learned small unit infantry tactics

However can we say that about Mexico, Nigeria, or other countries where insurgencies arise?


Jalisco is in Mexico.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:29 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


Can someone explain more precisely what small unit infantry tactics means? The article mentions things like covering and flanking, but what is that? How would I know if I were watching great tactics?
posted by medusa at 9:55 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


I’m no expert, but there’s about a zillion combat videos on YouTube from Syria. Most of the (non-ATGM) footage shows rebels blindly emptying magazines around corners, one at a time, then dashing into the open. Simple stuff like having one bloke do the firing, while others move under that cover would probably save lives, and certainly save ammunition.
posted by pompomtom at 10:20 PM on March 3, 2018 [3 favorites]


Does the US really have better infantry skills than the rest of the world? The authors assume so, but they don't really justify it beyond "they learnt a lot from World War II". Is there any evidence of how much better-trained US infantry are from those of...France? Russia? Turkey?
posted by danohu at 12:06 AM on March 4, 2018


I don't think thee's any assumption that US infantry are inherently better than say other professional well-trained armies such as those of NATO nations, except for a higher percentage of troops with actual combat experience- which is itself pretty useful. The question is whether that knowledge is being transferred on to irregular troops.

IIRC, on of the big advantages US/NATO and 1st world infantry have is simply the ability t spend a lot of money and time on training for a professional army. I'm not sure irregular troops can match that.
posted by happyroach at 12:40 AM on March 4, 2018 [4 favorites]


Does the US really have better infantry skills than the rest of the world?

Yes. Watch footage of the Indian army sometime, or the Nigerian army, let alone irregular formations worldwide. Pay careful attention to things like the way soldiers carry their weapons, whether or not they practice good movement discipline, even whether or not they bother to do things like tuck in their bootlaces.

What you'll see, routinely, is soldiers gaggling up (so that many of them can be taken out at once, with a single grenade or burst of fire), skylining (i.e. walking at or near the crest of a hill, in such a way as to make plain targets of themselves), firing randomly, using only the most obvious locations for cover and concealment, stabilizing an assault weapon by its magazine while firing, etc. etc.

You can note striking before-and-after differences in certain formations, too, after they've been given a solid grounding in the basics of small unit tactics. I'm thinking of imagery of Jamaican army patrols from around the time they were searching slums for the notorious drug lord Dudus, vs. the same units after a visit from Ft Benning infantry trainers — they've clearly learned to formulate and execute the basics of an op order (essentially a more or less detailed briefing that summarizes the situation, mission and plan of execution for each given patrol), maintain their intervals, keep their weapons at the ready without aiming at or overtly threatening anyone, and in general function as an effective squad- or platoon-strength element.

Note that I am not speaking as to the wisdom or ethics of using such units or tactics in urban policing, merely observing that (elements of) the Jamaican army at least learned to do so convincingly. And yes, I do believe that being able to internalize a range of situationally-appropriate action drills, practice techniques like bounding overwatch and conduct fire and movement makes an enormous difference in the operational effectiveness of small units. That's why we train the way we do.

The current Colt M4 carbine has more similarities to the Springfield M1903 (adopted in 1903) than differences.

I find this fairly misleading, in that differences that may seem trivial to someone who's never fired either render the M4 a completely different and much scarier weapon. The move toward plastics and the accompanying reduction in weight, the adoption of the tumbling 5.56mm round, and most recently the adoption of Picatinny rail-based modularity allow the M4 to do much more damage, in the hands of a much less well-trained and disciplined user, in a much wider variety of scenarios and situations, requiring far less maintenance. In my own opinion and experience, anyway, all these differences in degree add up to a genuine difference in kind.
posted by adamgreenfield at 2:09 AM on March 4, 2018 [24 favorites]


Does the US really have better infantry skills than the rest of the world?

What I've heard British soldiers claim is that the US military are typically worse disciplined than they are, although doubtless better equipped. This might be true, but if so, it probably doesn't reflect worse training so much as the fact that the US military is a larger (about twice as large per capita) and hence less rigorously selected portion of the population. It might also be less to do with tactical knowledge and more to do with attitude, with the US military assuming superiority through technology (and possibly culture) and so being more prone to aggressive and risky tactics.
posted by howfar at 3:44 AM on March 4, 2018 [3 favorites]


Can someone explain more precisely what small unit infantry tactics means? The article mentions things like covering and flanking, but what is that? How would I know if I were watching great tactics?

This will sound a little ridiculous, but have you played any squad-level tactics game, e.g. XCom? The first time you played you probably moved your soldiers around without thinking about it very much, missed most of your shots and was summarily eaten for lunch by the aliens. After you put in the hours, your troops have decent skills and can actually make a shot, they have better gear and specialized roles, and you have figured out how to move them around without getting them all killed in a couple of turns because you stupidly run into a group of aliens without any turns to spare.

It's that more or less, only not turn-based and with actual people dying.
posted by Dr Dracator at 4:45 AM on March 4, 2018 [3 favorites]


this is why i'm not so sure that an american insurrection against the government is going to be so easy to put down... in fact, quite a few of the people who talk about being able to do this have been trained in our armed forces and may have even used this knowledge on real battlefields

this is not something we should dismiss


Especially given that said people, more often than not, seem to be the ones who most rabidly support a more divisive, rather than inclusive, world.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:47 AM on March 4, 2018


With all due respect, Dr Dracator, I’m not sure that’s the best example. I’d point instead to something hammered into me by one of my drill sergeants, which I only later learned was a catchphrase from a Clint Eastwood movie: “Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.”

In other words, your basic action drills and fire and movement techniques give you the elements of a vocabulary, and perhaps even a grammar that permits you to use that vocabulary in effective ways to achieve specified outcomes at the tactical scale (e.g. take this hilltop, clear this neighborhood, move overland to the objective and link up with another element).

But great tactics is the ability to do all that on the fly, in the face of thoughtful and concerted opposition, in real time, under the least propitious circumstances possible, while still accomplishing the mission, and without subjecting your own personnel and equipment to attrition.
posted by adamgreenfield at 4:56 AM on March 4, 2018 [8 favorites]


Clearly you haven't played enough XCom :)
posted by Dr Dracator at 5:00 AM on March 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


If you really want to play a video game about what the US Army thinks good small unit tactics look like, it's Full Spectrum Warrior. You control two fireteams and have to maneuver them to fix, suppress and then eliminate enemy positions.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:54 AM on March 4, 2018 [3 favorites]


What I've heard British soldiers claim is that the US military are typically worse disciplined than they are, although doubtless better equipped. This might be true, but if so, it probably doesn't reflect worse training so much as the fact that the US military is a larger (about twice as large per capita) and hence less rigorously selected portion of the population.

Britain also has a better and more standardized educational baseline, is basically monoglot (how many British servicepeople were ESL students?) and doesn't seem to have the US military's race issues (at least in this era).

Also, yes, the US is a whole lot better at squad and platoon level warfare than the insurgencies and irregular militias we've been up against in recent conflicts. But we haven't had to fight forces trained at anything close to a similar level in a long time, let alone forces with similar equipment or with their own air and artillery support.

The current Colt M4 carbine has more similarities to the Springfield M1903 (adopted in 1903) than differences.

You could compare a Model-T and a Porsche on this basis. Yes, engine, four wheels...
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:38 AM on March 4, 2018 [4 favorites]


The current Colt M4 carbine has more similarities to the Springfield M1903 (adopted in 1903) than differences.

Yeah, not really. The muzzle velocity is way lower, the rate of fire is way lower, the recoil is higher, the reload time is higher, and the weight is higher. They aren't very similar at all, with the M1903 more equivalent to your average deer rifle than a modern military firearm.

Look at the rate of fire for example: 15 rounds per minute vs 700. Even if you reduced that to 100 rounds per minute, that means 1 guy has the rate of 5 guys in WWII. Also, training a guy to achieve that rate of fire with decent accuracy and maintain that rate of fire for a longer period of time with the lower recoil and less weight is revolutionary.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:47 AM on March 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


DIFFUSION V DISPERSAL

When they point the gun right at you, diffusion is what the content of your lower bowel undergoes as it spreads to your undergarments. Dispersal is what you do with your shorts, socks, and maybe even your boots, if you make it back to your hootch undamaged.
posted by mule98J at 9:15 AM on March 4, 2018 [4 favorites]



I'm not sure how the writers of this piece ever got the idea that small unit tactics was a classified topic.

You can easily find our training manuals: try FM-7-8 to begin your instruction.
posted by mule98J at 9:57 AM on March 4, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'm not sure how the writers of this piece ever got the idea that small unit tactics was a classified topic.


They never claim this and indeed link various FMs in the piece.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:52 AM on March 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh, one last thing to note, though it's a matter of culture moreso than tactics per se: the US Army is traditionally less hierarchical than many many other militaries on Earth, pushing command initiative to the lowest possible operational echelon, and I think this is generally understood as being key to its relative effectiveness.

I'm not remotely claiming that it's horizontalist in its fundamental orientation, like the POUM militia Orwell served in during the Spanish Civil War, but the Army I served in was comfortable letting the commander on the scene determine the posture and disposition of their forces, even down to the point of letting an E5 command a three-person Tactical PSYOP Team in a Humvee with a high degree of autonomy and flexibility. We were taught that this was in maximum contrast with Soviet doctrine (because I am An Old and the TOE of the Soviet motorized rifle battalion was what I was trained on), but that I've seen, other than special operations elements, it just isn't how most armies do things.

And the thing is, it works. To a very crude approximation, it's the difference between the agile and waterfall schools of software development, and I at least took a lot of pride in belonging to a military that thought that way.
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:56 AM on March 4, 2018 [7 favorites]


I got to the third use of 'bad guys' to refer to anybody the US decides to fight or invade and couldn't go on. The author's technical grasp of military issues might be sound, but their politics are way too basic for me.
posted by signal at 12:46 PM on March 4, 2018 [3 favorites]


The days of imposing America’s will on others with impunity may be over.

That's some presidential level arrogance in this article.
posted by romanb at 1:28 PM on March 4, 2018


Good use of Edgerton's fun book.

Once again so much comes back to WWI.

Thank you for the link, the man of twists and turns .
posted by doctornemo at 3:03 PM on March 4, 2018


The level of autonomy enjoyed by small-unit commanders in Western militaries may be somewhat exaggerated for propaganda effect, to emphasize to the soldiers that they represent a democracy, that they are the good guys, even when the goals of the mission are somewhat questionable.

The problem also comes down to the fact that the US is often tempted to try using military means to solve political problems, even when military means cannot achieve the desired outcome. I blame the Dulles brothers.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 4:37 PM on March 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


Can someone explain more precisely what small unit infantry tactics means

In two words, discipline and auftragstaktik.

Discipline: soldiers who follow orders have a huge advantage over the disorganized. This includes everything from keeping weapons clean to not running away when someone shoots at you. Disciplined soldiers know What They Are Supposed To Do.

WWI showed the limits of what top-down discipline can achieve. Picture the Somme: soldiers by the thousand going over the the top and getting mowed down wave after wave in mute obedience to foolish orders. Hence...

Auftragstaktik: train soldiers to ask what their officers were intending when they gave the orders, so that low level soldiers can improvise solutions to problems their commanders had not anticipated. This requires not just memorizing techniques, but understanding why those rules exist and what the exceptions might be. Armies trained in this way fight smarter than their opponents.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:11 PM on March 4, 2018 [2 favorites]


Discipline: soldiers who follow orders have a huge advantage over the disorganized. This includes everything from keeping weapons clean to not running away when someone shoots at you.

Yeah, this is the whole point of drill & ceremonies and the manual of arms, or what I used to refer to as "the yoga of organized violence." As I thought of it, it's not merely about internalizing a set of essentially arbitrary commands at the level of muscle memory, but about the metaprocess involved in learning to do so for any further set of commands that may be issued, very much including ones with a tactical purpose.

And the discipline isn't simply arbitrary most of the time. There's a reason why my drill sergeants spent so much time screaming at their trainees over things like "John Wayne-ing" (wearing your kevlar with insouciance, not fastening its straps — the name gives you a hint as to the era of media in which such gestures were first conveyed as an index of cool). Do that in combat, and what looked cool in the pictures you took for your buddies back on the block may well get you killed.

I think this is doubly salient when so much of the world's collective notion of what it means to be a soldier, and especially what soldiering looks like, is heavily mediated by the twin processes of Hollywood and gaming. Going back to the original point, I can generally get at least a very rough idea of the actual competence of a fighting element from the degree to which they're hamfistedly trying to convey the effortless tacticool of actual operators. You see this with Oath Keepers, with overweight cops on the Bumfuck PD's SRT, and with dudes who run off to join the peshmerga with overheated notions of glory, every bit as much as you do with Somali warlords or pirates in the Straits of Malacca. They've all seen the same films, all played the same games, and all think that's how you both do and convey the profession of arms.
posted by adamgreenfield at 1:59 AM on March 5, 2018 [4 favorites]


Regarding the possibility of a US insurgency, I think it will most likely fail despite the enormous hoards of guns out there, and the collection of ragtag militas and Oath Keepers and Three Percenters and whatnot with a certain level of infantry training. An insurgency needs a grounding in the populace (there are numbers being bandied about) and a plausible promise. If it's "evict the invaders" or "overthrow the corrupt regime and hold elections" that's pretty easy to get behind. I don't really see what the US insurgency will bring to the table, except for "guns for everyone" and an assortments of hatreds of different out groups.
posted by Harald74 at 2:31 AM on March 5, 2018 [2 favorites]


(Don't forget, also, that every last Oath Keeper thinks of himself — and it's definitely a "him" — as the protagonist of the story, the Final Champion and Defender of The White Race. I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think the chances of individuals with this particular set of pathologies operating effectively as a cohesive, disciplined unit are super high.)
posted by adamgreenfield at 6:02 AM on March 5, 2018


I think it's reckless to scoff at groups like the Oath Keepers given the history of right-wing paramilitary 'death squads' in corrupted or failing or failed Central and South American democracies.

Oath Keepers: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Stewart Rhodes, a former U.S. Army paratrooper and a Yale Law School graduate who once worked for Congressman Ron Paul, founded the Oath Keepers group in 2004 to protect the U.S. Constitution against enemies “foreign and domestic,” according to the organization’s website.

The group is made up of former military and law enforcement personnel.

That said, I'm not sure "cohesion and discipline" is really the goal. This, to me, sounds like a mealymouthed way of saying "we're terrorists:"

“Go armed, at all times, as free men and women, and be ready to do sudden battle, anywhere, anytime, and with utter recklessness,” Rhodes says on the Oath Keepers’ website. “That IS the price of freedom.”

posted by snuffleupagus at 7:41 AM on March 5, 2018 [2 favorites]


This is a fine article, but I will never get used to the fact that serious grown-ass adults regularly use the term 'bad guys' without irony.
posted by echo target at 8:04 AM on March 5, 2018


“The Price of Professionalization,” John Q. Bolton, Small Wars Journal, 25 December 2015
posted by ob1quixote at 9:49 PM on March 5, 2018


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