Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

William S. Lind • 115to influence, perhaps determine the outcome of the ground battle. They operate offthe same map as the ground commander and have the same intent, mission andSchwerpunkt.ME: They have no centralized system of control?COL. ARN: No, of course not. The ground situation changes too rapidly for that. Anytype of centralized control quickly reduces pilots to mere technicians, and if thathappens, all your aircraft can do is bomb orphanages.ME: And your casualty rate operating this way is?COL. ARN: High enough so that the infantry see an occasional dead aviator. It’s goodfor their morale to understand that others share their extreme danger.Does the Islandian Marine Corps offer a possible model for the United StatesMarine Corps? Those who believe that U.S. Marines actually depend on their vast,multilayered headquarters structure would certainly say no, but one who has observedthe U.S. Marine Corps over time might reply that real life is lived at the battalion level.All the Islandians have done is take that fact and make it official. In so doing, theyhave achieved some goals that might not be irrelevant to the American situation. Theyhave obtained a large number of combat units from their total manpower. They haveassured that, within those combat units, most Marines are trigger-pullers. They havemade their Marine Corps and the FMF almost the same thing. They have given theirCommandant simple, effective tools he can use to see where his Marines are and whatthey are doing. In sum, they have adopted a force structure consistent with maneuverwarfare doctrine, a doctrine the U.S. Marine Corps also espouses.The Islandian leg of my tour offered lessons in how to organize for both Thirdand, by implication, Fourth Generation War. The latter requires lots of light infantry,which the Islandian model provides.But the greatest challenge facing states that find themselves fighting Fourth Generationwars is intellectual. No one has thought through how to do it. Resurrecting oldcounterinsurgency doctrine – as the U.S. Army has recently done – is a step forwardfrom simply using firepower to destroy targets, but at best it marks a way station.Fourth Generation War’s multiplicity of parties, fighting for many different kindsof goals, creates an environment that is qualitatively different from insurgency andcounterinsurgency waged within the state framework. Mao was a brilliant guerrillaleader, but he was not fighting Fourth Generation Wars.