ISSUE 183 : Nov/Dec - 2010 - Australian Defence Force Journal

main attack into Western Europe through Belgium. But the freak loss of a suitcase containingGerman plans instigated a change in focus to an attack through the Ardennes—a plan whichsurprised the Allies, made far better use of Germany’s superior ability in manoeuvre warfareand, of course, vastly changed the course of the war. 13The nature of warfare: surprise, stress and adaptationThe very nature of warfare reinforces its own unpredictability. Surprise is a certainty; itsimportance in increasing combat power is well-documented in military circles and itsachievement can have a significant influence over the outcome of engagements. 14 Surprisecan provide effects quite disproportionate to the energy expended and adversaries will oftenignore the easiest or most logical actions in order to achieve it. Whether obtained largelyby intention, as epitomised at Troy by the Greeks with their wooden horse, or chiefly bychance, as with the German offensive through the Ardennes in 1940, surprise in military termstranslates to catching an opponent unprepared—a failure of prediction.The stresses, both psychological and physical, created by the violence, fear and destruction thatcharacterise war can make decisions and actions prone to both error and illogical reasoning. 15Prior to World War 2, many proponents of aerial bombing predicted it held the power to winwars alone, through the demoralisation of civilian populations. Yet, in practice, the bombingof civilians generated almost exactly the opposite effect.Armed forces will also tend to adjust their tactics and strategies to maximise their ownadvantages while minimising their opponents. Following the 1991 Gulf War, the benefitsthat information technology provided led a trend towards highly-networked ground forcessupported by high-precision air power. 16 Western confidence in the superiority of such a forceinitially seemed justified by results in Afghanistan and Iraq. Little consideration, however, wasgiven to predicting how an enemy would adjust to fight such an enabled foe. Opposing forcesturned away from conventional tactics and moved instead to the use of irregular warfare. Thisminimised Western advantages and highlighted deficiencies in counter-insurgency trainingand equipment. 17‘Black swans’ or what we don’t know we don’t knowThe complexities of the human mind, reality and warfare combine to make the accurateprediction of future trends very difficult. It is also an axiom that we can never know completelythe true state of any situation we are faced with. As Nassim Taleb puts it in his book, TheBlack Swan, we can break down what we know into ‘known-knowns, known-unknowns andunknown-unknowns’; the latter of these Taleb terms ‘Black Swans’ and they tend to have farreachingeffects. 18Consider American strategy prior to 7 December 1941. The US knew that Japan had developeda strong, capable naval force. They also knew they could never be completely confident ofthe disposition of Japanese naval forces but made what US planners no doubt consideredto be reasonable assumptions about likely Japanese strategy towards the US. What they didnot know that they did not know (and therefore were completely unprepared for) was thatJapan was technologically able (and strategically willing) to use its naval forces in an attack onPearl Harbor.29