BATTLEFIELD OF THE FUTURE

AIRTHEORY FORTHE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
defense system to protect it from attack . Fifth, the enemy is a
system, not an independent mass of tanks, aircraft, or dope
pushers . And sixth, the five rings provide a good method for
categorizing information and identifying centers of gravity .
We said earlier that our goal in war would generally be to
make the cost-political, economic, and military-to the
enemy higher than he was willing to pay or to impose strategic
or operational paralysis on him so that he would become
incapable of acting. Now, with an understanding ofhow enemies
are organized, we can begin the process of determining how to
accomplish either or both with airpower tools .
The object of war is to convince the enemy leadership to do
what you want it to do . The enemy leadership acts on some
cost/risk basis, but we can't know precisely what it might be .
We can, however, make some reasonable guesses based on
system and organization theory . To do this, put yourself in the
center of the five rings as the leader of a strategic entity like a
drug cartel or state . You have certain rather basic goals that
normally will take precedence over others . First, you want to
survive personally (this is not to say you won't die for your
system, but you probably see yourself and the system as being
closely tied together) . For you to survive personally (in most
instances) the system you lead must survive in something
reasonably close to its present form .
Let us say that you are the leader of a drug cartel and an
enemy threatens you credibly with the following (to which you
cannot respond) : your bank accounts will be zeroed, your
communications with the world outside your mountain retreat
will be severed, your cocaine processing facility will be
destroyed, and your house will be converted to rubble . To
avoid these nasty things, all you have to do is agree to stop
selling cocaine in one country . What do you do? If you are
remotely rational, you agree immediately . Failure to do so
means your system effectively ceases to exist, which leaves
you personally in a precarious position and unable even to
retire in splendor because you can't get at the billions you had
socked away in a country with strict privacy in banking laws .
Suppose that only some of these dire events were threatened
or deemed likely . In this case, you might choose to negotiate .
Perhaps you would agree to sell less cocaine in the target