Compass Points - Maneuver Warfare
Response to USNI Proceedings
Compass Points - Maneuver Warfare
Response to USNI Proceedings
December 1, 2023
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The November issue of USNI Proceedings contains an article that offers a substantial critique of MCDP 1 Warfighting. Compass Points has received many replies to the article. One reply, by LtGen P.K. Van Riper, an experienced combat Marine and the first President of the Marine Corps University discusses the article at length. Excerpts from Major Denzel’s Proceeding’s article and portions of LtGen Van Riper’s reply are included below. Compass Points thanks both the author of the article, Major Denzel, and LtGen Van Riper for their discussion about maneuver warfare and MCDP 1 Warfighting.
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In his recent USNI Proceedings article, Major Christopher DenzeI advocates that MCDP 1 Warfighting should include more “science of attrition” instead of “art of maneuver.” Major Denzel is to be commended for entering a long-running discourse on the Marine Corps’ capstone doctrinal manual, MCDP 1 Warfighting. Having observed and participated in that discourse for more than 30 years, I believe his article is an example of a worrisome recent trend in the Marine Corps officer ranks, that is, a return to prescriptive solutions. We see this displayed in the Force Design 2030 plan and other current Marine Corps documents.
I was privileged to work with and mentor the primary author of the original and the follow-on editions of Warfighting, John F. Schmitt. I also served alongside General Al Gray who provided the impetus for the manual as well as continual guidance during its development. The three of us have extensive experience practicing and teaching others on the fundamentals of operational art. I know of no other Marines who have studied the subject so thoroughly.
It is tempting to believe that warfighting can be simplified. But that is not possible. War is complex and chaotic; it cannot be reduced to any simple mechanistic solution. The maneuver warfare approach urges leaders of Marines to think broader, see further, and understand deeper the great challenge of combat.
— Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, Former Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command
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Proceedings article:
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“[MCDP 1 Warfighting] confuses war’s character with its nature.”
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PKVR reply:
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MCDP 1 Warfighting provides an explanation of the immutable nature of war, offers a theory based on that nature, describes how to prepare for war, and proposes maneuver warfare as generally the best approach. Maj. Denzel never makes clear what he means by war’s character as distinct from its nature or how Warfighting confuses the two. The Army in its 1982 and 1986 editions of Field Manual 100-5, Operations, described the conduct of military operations with little explanation of an underlying theory. The FMFM 1 edition of Warfighting (published in 1989) approached the topic at a deeper, more philosophical level to provide a foundational understanding, where FM 100-5 approached the topic of warfare from a prescriptive point of view.
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Proceedings article:
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“However, Warfighting was strongly informed by the often-inscrutable ideas of military theorist and Air Force veteran John Boyd, in particular the OODA loop—observe, orient, decide, act. Bill Lind, a controversial aide to Senators Robert Taft and Gary Hart, radically interpreted Boyd and zealously championed some of his ideas, expressed in maneuver warfare. The Marine Corps ended up with an emotionally charged doctrine that nevertheless appeared to offer a harmonized view of war. And that view allowed Marines to imagine operational approaches to defeat the enemy.”
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PKVR reply:
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Maneuver warfare itself is not “an emotionally charged doctrine.” Warfighting offers a logical discourse. It is the debates over maneuver warfare that often have been emotionally charged. A careful reading of Joint doctrinal manuals that followed the publications of FM 100-5 and FMFM 1 (the original Warfighting manual) will show they contained elements of both documents. The problem is Major Denzel confuses operational art with Air-Land Battle.
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Proceedings article:
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“MCDP-1 esteems a single warfare method above all others. It makes maneuver the primary lens through which to understand warfare, which confuses the reader’s understanding of operational art. This ultimately leads many to misapprehend the nature of war, confusing it with the character of maneuver warfare.”
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PKVR reply:
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First, maneuver warfare is not a “method,” rather it is an “approach” to operations and tactics. The statement that Warfighting causes many readers’ failure to understand the difference between the nature and character of war is an assertion without evidence. The author of Warfighting and those from whom he sought counsel certainly were not confused about the nature (immutable) of war, its character (enduring), and its face of battle (always changing).
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Several years ago, John Schmitt and I conducted a survey of Marines and military historians asking them to identify what they thought Marines believed about war and warfare. We “cross-waked” the results of that survey with Warfighting and found minimal disagreement and certainly nothing that would demand a rewriting of the publication. More to the point, Major Denzel fails to make the case that Warfighting presents an incoherent theory of war. He appears to prefer a different theory but that does not make Warfighting incoherent.
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Proceedings article:
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“As construed by MCDP-1, maneuver warfare is definitionally flawed and does not fit in any internally consistent theory of war.1 Its construction creates a false dichotomy between attrition and maneuver.
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PKVR reply:
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The author of Warfighting set out to re-establish a balance between maneuver and attrition, largely interpreted as fires, not to indicate there was a dichotomy between the two. In fact, Warfighting acknowledges the requirement for both in any operation, battle, or engagement.
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Proceedings article:
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“In the October 2022 Marine Corps Gazette, I borrowed from Army doctrine and military theorist Amos Fox to define those three methods by the defeat mechanisms they pursue, which helps resolve this false dichotomy.”
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PKVR reply:
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Here major Denzel oversimplifies attrition and maneuver and never provides a definition of “positional warfare.” He also mixes apples and oranges or more appropriately apples and handful of rocks. There are a wide variety of views on defeat mechanisms and any number of ideas on what they might be—pre-emption, disruption, dislocation, disorientation, degradation, and destruction to name a few. Where is the evidence that maneuver, attrition, and positional are superior? Finally, Warfighting never offers maneuver or attrition as defeat mechanisms but as operational functions to which currently we might add information (deception, psychological operations, and so forth.)
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Perhaps Major Denzel is telegraphing his knowledge of Karl Popper’s emphasis of falsification of scientific hypothesis, that is, that all theories be inherently disprovable. Those knowledgeable of his argument and who support the ideas in Warfighting will recognize that these ideas follow Thomas Kuhn’s view of shifting paradigms, that is, an existing paradigm determines practices until there are sufficient anomalies to cause it to collapse and be followed by a new and different paradigm.
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This is what happened after the end of the Vietnam War. Marines recognized their understanding of war and warfare was insufficient and needed replacement. Hence, maneuver warfare supersedes what was sometimes called “common sense tactics.” Major Denzel also disparages “gut” or intuitive feelings, which is surprising because this is the foundation of the Corps’ approach to decision making, an approach derived from cognitive psychologist Gary Klein.
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Proceedings article:
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“Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Maurice Duclos asserts that the operational factors of time, space, and materiel are the only measurable factors in competition.4 Duclos developed this notion to help special operations forces focus on activities that measurably contribute to competition rather than those that merely brief well. The argument is simple: If you cannot articulate the measured impact of an activity, you should not make it a priority. If you estimated an operation’s measured effect but failed to achieve it, you should recalibrate or terminate the activity.”
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PKVR reply:
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This is another example of reducing operations and tactics to formulas, an anathema to the true Maneuverist. It is an example of reductionist vice holistic or systemic thinking. I sense that major Denzell may have acquired this view of doctrine from his time as a student at the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) Nowhere does the MCDP 1 give any indication that Maneuver Warfare is infallible or that in the face of failure the only answer is to maneuver harder. The manual acknowledges that in some circumstances you may have to grind out a victory.
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Finally, no one who knew or studied the thoughts of John Boyd ever came to the erroneous conclusion that “Act” referred to attrition. And to be clear, I knew John and spent many hours with him discussing his theories on warfare. Those who would follow Major Denzel’s prescriptions will see war and warfare as scientific phenomena subject to the scientific method. This is the very view of war and warfare that maneuverist wanted to move away from as they were convinced it was the approach that led the US military astray in the Vietnam War.
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Proceedings article:
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“MCDP-1’s preoccupation with maneuver warfare makes it a fragile doctrine based on a single, unfalsifiable theory of victory. Getting past the philosophy and down to the application, MCDP-1’s maneuver warfare becomes indistinguishable from the attrition warfare it abhors. Something is maneuver warfare if a maneuverist says it is, even though it might instead be characterized (fairly) as efficient attrition.”
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PKVR reply:
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Here we have unsupported assertions, largely because Major Denzel again fails to recognize qualitative differences — he seems to be wedded to the quantification of war and warfare. Those who identify with Chowder Society II have offered ample evidence that EABO and the Stand-in Force concepts will not work. The majority of the more than 300 Compass Points posts explain in detail the many shortcomings of Force Design 2030. And John Schmitt as “Marinus” makes this clear in “Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations: Is the Marine Corps Abandoning Maneuver Warfare?” in the April 2022 Marine Corps Gazette.
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Proceedings article:
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“The service also should banish the idea that the enemy’s will is directly targetable in operational approaches. However important intangibles are, the ability to factor them into training and war planning is vanishingly small. Consider that no historically executed U.S. war plan has ever successfully targeted the enemy’s will. And one can hardly train to affect the will of an adversary. Even in force-on-force exercises, with no genuine threat to life or liberty, there is no real opposing will to be broken.”
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PKVR reply:
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To accept this claim is to believe that the master theorist, Karl von Clausewitz, was wrong. Clausewitz was NOT wrong!
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Proceedings article:
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“In addition, the Marine Corps must describe “falsifiable” theories of victory and articulate defeat mechanisms that would illuminate the advantages, disadvantages, and relevance of each. This would encourage adaptation on the battlefield and allow commanders to develop reliable operational approaches to problems. It is alarming to realize that MCDP-1 does not consider the possibility that maneuver warfare could fail. Its implicit advice in the face of an unsuccessful approach is to maneuver harder.
Describing more than one way to fight might remove some of the zealotry that buries discussions of EABO’s effectiveness under the orthodoxy of maneuver warfare. The implicit presumption that anything Marines do must be “maneuver warfare” is anti-intellectual claptrap. This is warfighting, not the Spanish Inquisition.”
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PKVR reply:
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I am in favor of robust discussions. It is regrettable that there was so little open discussion about Force Design 2030. Until very recently experienced opponents of Force Design 2030 were barred from participating in Marine Corps University seminars. I am still banned from MCU today.
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Proceedings article:
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“While the principles of warfighting should apply in all domains, it is impossible to read MCDP-1 without realizing it is a two-domain doctrine—air and land. It is regrettable that the maritime domain receives scant mention. And one can argue that information and cyber operations may more directly affect adversary will than action in the physical domains. Yet both domains are absent—a sign of the publication’s age.”
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PKVR reply:
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Not its age but the paucity of theories of how to maneuver and fire in these domains were the reason those domains were not included at the time John Schmitt wrote Warfighting. An updated version of the manual should strive to include them.
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The term “maneuver warfare” has been misleading to some, but there is a historical and theoretical basis for it. However, in hindsight the use of maneuver warfare may have been a misnomer. John Schmitt, General Gray, and I have noted this in our own professional discussions while also observing trying to change the term would bring its own problems. However, operational art is not a suitable replacement for it is an approach to designing and conducting campaigns and major operations, not a philosophical understanding of war.
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Proceedings article:
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“MCDP-1’s current form is flawed because of its overemphasis on an unscientific way of war and its blindness to a critical method: positional warfare. MCDP-1’s role in socializing new Marines into a warfighting ethos must be retained in any rewrite. But unless it is rewritten, other elements of MCDP-1 will continue to dilute intellectual debate, restrict innovative thinking about future conflicts, and reduce “maneuver warfare” into a shibboleth empty of practical meaning.”
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PKVR reply:
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Here again we see the “blindness” of Major Denzel to war and warfare. Any simple, scientific (Newtonian) approach is fundamentally flawed. War and warfare have their own dynamics and they evolve in a manner more akin to an ecology than the clocklike view the good Major apparently has of war. In short, war and warfare are nonlinear phenomena meaning they are inherently chaotic. Nothing can change that fact.
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Proceedings article:
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“Some worry that rewriting MCDP-1 might ruin it. John Schmitt, its author, has likened writing MCDP-1 to catching lightning in a bottle—an event unlikely to happen again and impossible to try to replicate. But if Marines do not actually employ the maneuver warfare envisioned by MCDP-1, there is no harm in ruining it. The Marine Corps might end up with a more usable doctrine that Marines feel less emotional over. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
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PKVR reply:
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Is Warfighting a powerful guide to understanding? Warfighting has been reprinted in several different languages and employed by many other militaries around the world. In addition, it has been used by business and industry. It ranks with the greatest works on war ever written. To the degree that Marines do not employ the fundamentals of maneuver warfare, the cause is the all too prevalent mechanistic approach of many Americans to any problem. Some have said we are a nation of engineers who tend to approach problems analytically.
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Victory in warfare requires an understanding of its nonlinearity (chaos). Major Denzel appears to argue for a mechanistic, reductionist approach to warfighting. This is not what Marine leaders in combat need. It is tempting to believe that warfighting can be simplified. But that is not possible. War is complex and chaotic; it cannot be reduced to any simple, mechanistic solution. The maneuver warfare approach urges leaders of Marines to think broader, see further, and understand deeper the great challenge of combat.
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USNI Proceedings (usni.org) November 2023 - Vol. 149/11/1,449
Maneuver Warfare Is Just Operational Art
Rework MCDP-1 to synthesize the science of attrition with the art of maneuver.
By Major Christopher Denzel, U.S. Marine Corps
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/november/maneuver-warfare-just-operational-art
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Marines.mil
MCDP 1 - Warfighting
I don't post to demean Maj Denzel's entree' into the Maneuver Warfare discussion; it is welcome and his writing is reminiscent of the Maneuver Warfare Anthology of the early 90's. I have thought for some time, however, about the seeming generational divide that has become apparent in doctrine and philosophy discussions, and has influenced the FD2030 debate. I might well be wrong, but pretend we're in the Quantico Officer's Club around the fire pit, and I'm speaking extemporaneously among professional colleagues on a Friday night. And please take these flawed observations as grist for further writing and discussion.
-The officers that seem to understand the Corps' fundamental philosophy and doctrine best are those that began their careers pre-2003, and experienced the earliest days of OIF I and II.
-The officers that came into the Corps in the waning years of OIF and the post 2010's seem to see the Corps fundamental philosophy and doctrine as passe' and not relevant to today's warfighting.
These observations are derived from a few realities of the past 23 years:
-I was an instructor at TBS pre-2003. We instructors had weekly discussion sessions on Boyd, MCDP-1, and how to teach Lt's the maneuver warfare philosophy. Our curricula was rich with TDGs and our field exercises were force-on-force freeplay wherever possible. The FINEX was a full force-on-force maneuver exercise.
-Post 2003/2004, our training and education system was gradually distracted from our fundamental philosophy as the Long War wore on. In the mid-2000's, TBS and other Marine Corps PME venues replaced hours of maneuver warfare instruction with classes on culture, language, and the necessities of COIN operations in the Iraq and Afghanistan AOR.
-This lack of education in maneuver warfare was compounded as these Lts reached the FMF. They were enslaved to a "Pre-Deployment Training Plan" which dictated exactly how they would train to deploy, from basic admin classes to marksmanship and combat training. This training was monitored and recorded by HQMC and centrally managed.
-The later years of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars were marked by 1) Frictionless warfare. 2) Certainty. 3) Precision. COIN, in general, was characterized by the ability to gain a target, follow that target for days and weeks, develop a targeting solution, and hit that target precisely. COIN was a slow-moving and predictable effort, which gave the immediate satisfaction of seeing a bad actor obliterated by a precision weapon and marking that actor as dead on an "effects" matrix, then...extrapolate those effects to make predictions on the insurgency as a whole.
-FD2030 as an operating concept is premised on 1) Friction-free warfare (Net-centric, always-on comms), 2) Certainty (Persistent ISR), and 3) Precision to achieve violence-free effects (The idea that we can use a precision weapon on an enemy capital ship...to deter further escalation...flies in the face of the nature of war. The Japanese thought they could deter through precision strikes too.)
-Bottom line: The post-2010's officer (our current field grades) have been systematically deprived of a fundamental education in maneuver warfare philosophy, have not had the experience of its implementation, and have only seen slow-moving, technology-enabled COIN. With this limited warfare experience, they are further educated in the promises of precision, certain, and frictionless technology enabled warfare in our higher education venues, and hear DOD leadership reinforce this with talk about the "character of war changing dramatically."
-Add to this: Where the Vietnam era officers knew we had failed, the Iraq/Afghanistan AAR don't seem acknowledge our failures. There is no Corps-wide sense that we prosecuted those wars to failure, and no Corps'-wide examination of why that might be. Where "righting wrong doctrine" drove maneuver warfare thought in the 1970's, there is no such sense of urgency in the wake of the GWOT. Indeed, we think the slow, certain, precise way in which we fought COIN can be operationalized into a "competition" scenario with a conventional foe.
-This is why I stated, in a previous post, they'll have to learn on their own. This is not an "old man vs. young man" issue, but it is a generational issue. Our senior leaders for the past 25 years, and our schoolhouse instructors contributed to this failure of training and education, and these next generation officers will pay the price.
P.S. Maj Denzel references "The Attritionist Letters," in his article. A review of their specific critiques is in order. Their publication in the late 2000's was appropriate to their time, and were a point-by-point documentation of the erosion of maneuver warfare thought and practice that was happening during that time. They were an eerie and accurate prophesy of the current state of our operating philosophy and doctrine.
Thanks, and I'll buy a round if we're ever at the Quantico Officers Club fire pit.
I believe Colonel Dinsmore’s assessment is on the mark; at least it seems that way for someone who saw action in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Lebanon, and Iraq/Kuwait and engaged wholeheartedly in the heated debates that occurred from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s. When I hung around Quantico, LeJeune, Pendleton, and 29 Palms in the first two decades of the 2000s I had a sense the Corps was losing its way intellectually. In some ways it seemed and still seems like the officer corps, overall, has regressed to the Jominian era that Marines left behind after 1989 when they rediscovered Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and John Boyd.
I had a conversation similar to the one in this thread yesterday with an old Marine friend. Below are the words I sent him in the last round of our discussion. I definitely hope we can keep this thread on Compass Points going for more than a day.
“Reflecting on your question this afternoon I think the best background might come from Azar Gat’s A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War. Below is a link to pages with the table of contents of the book. In essence, during the Clausewitzian era there was a reaction to the military thought that came from the Enlightenment, which resulted in a Counter-Enlightenment, the German Movement, or Romanticism. Those from Enlightenment period looked to the natural sciences as a model for studying war. Those who reacted negatively to this approach turned to the humanities. The Prussians and then the Germans were at the forefront in studying war from a humanities point of view. Their understanding prevailed in parts of Europe, but it was largely the mechanistic approaches of Jomini that captured the attention of most militaries. You may recall the story that Civil War generals carried a copy of his book, The Art of War, under their arms. His views certainly prevailed until our own (US Army and US Marine Corps) intellectual revolution after the Vietnam War when US war colleges and command and staff schools introduced Clausewitzian thought. His ideas certainly imbued FMFM-1 and MCDP-1 Warfighting. My observations . . . in talking with current serving officers is that there has been a general backsliding, and the Maneuver Warfare philosophy is only honored in name. We certainly see that in much current professional writing.”