On Firm Ground

Introduction

"Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won," wrote the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu. Twenty six centuries later, on the other side of the globe, legendary hockey player Wayne Gretsky opined that, "A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."

Though from rather different disciplines, they were making a similar point. In competition – be it athletic, business, or military – the true masters are able to anticipate what it will take to succeed in the future, then prepare their side accordingly before the fight begins.

This is the challenge that military leaders have faced as long as man has borne arms against man. Today, senior officers in the most advanced Western militaries, including the US Armed Forces and the IDF, struggle to anticipate the character of future conflicts, and to transform their forces in such a way to provide themselves with the greatest possible advantage over potential adversaries.

This issue is one of the hottest debates in military circles. Everyone recognizes the importance of the learning and innovation to prepare for the next fight, but what is the source of military innovation? How is it encouraged? Is it a matter of money, of technology, of organizational change?

Once a direction of innovation is decided upon, leaders have to deal with a persistent paradox. While committing resources to the future threats, they have to ensure that the force can win wars tomorrow morning, even when the adversary is of a vastly different character than the one they anticipate five years from now.

American military theorist and retired armored commander Dr. Douglas A. MacGregor deals with these pressing questions in Margin of Victory: Five Battles that Changed the Face of Modern War. MacGregor gained notice within the army for the prominent command role he played in the 1991 Gulf War's Battle of 73 Easting, then staked his claim as one of the Army's leading advocates for transformation with his 1995 work, Breaking the Phalanx, which called for replacing Army divisions with smaller joint units, deployable by air. His bold vision and passionate advocacy caused some to see him as a true innovator, while others viewed him as an abrasive radical, and tried to put him out to pasture in meaningless staff jobs.

Margin of Victory examines five key twentieth century land battles - Battle of Mons, 1914; Battle of Shanghai, 1937; Destruction of German Army Group Center, 1944; the Israeli Counterattack across the Suez, 1973; and the Battle of 73 Easting, 1991 – to make the case for the importance of transformation of today's US Army in anticipation of coming conventional wars against near-peer adversaries.

From World War I to the Gulf War

In the first chapter, Macgregor explores the story of Sir Richard Haldane, the British Secretary of State for War starting in 1905. Haldane push crucial reforms in the British Army in the lead-up to World War I, despite the dominance of the Royal Navy in British military thinking. 

Few British leaders saw a large and capable land force as crucial to the defense of the island kingdom. But Haldane "fought for a strong regular British Army designed for mobile, offensive warfare in Europe or Asia." From an army designed to fight colonial wars against primitive tribesmen, Haldane created the 160,000 man, 7 division British Expeditionary Force.

He created what MacGregor calls a "disruptive innovation cell" of like-minded officers with enough funding, authority, and senior patronage to push through reforms. The main innovations Haldane introduced were the establishment of a general staff and permanent staffs from brigade and above; an elite seven division strike force and all-volunteer professional force with regular training; a trained reserve of fourteen territorial divisions; officers training corps at British universities; and raising the level of soldiers' education.

The BEF was the force that Britain deployed to Europe to blunt the offensive of the Germany Army in 1914. Despite the reforms, the BEF itself wasn’t especially revolutionary – like the French, British commanders expected a short war of maneuver, and didn’t provide the BEF with much in the way of punching power.

Despite the BEF's inability to stop the German advance at the Mons in August 1914, and the long retreat to Paris in the aftermath, MacGregor sees the BEF's tenacious defense and orderly retreat as preventing the German's from smashing the French left flank and driving deep into France. Though it would take years more before the British could raise an army capable of striking back against the Germans, MacGregor argues that Haldane gave the BEF just enough margin to hold on and ultimately take a meaningful part in the Allied victory in Europe. 

The Second Chapter deals with reforms in the Imperial Japanese Army before World War II. 

The reforms were led by General Ugaki Kazushige, who was minister of war from 1924-1927, and from 1929-1931. The Imperial Japanese Army's performance in the Russo-Japanese War and in the Japanese intervention in Siberia during the Russian Civil War convinced Ugaki of the need to modernize the IJA with armored mobility, firepower, and airpower. Against the traditionalists, Ugaki and his revisionists designed a smaller, more technologically advanced army funded by a drastic drop in manpower.

The key reforms were reducing the army budget by cutting manpower; forcing resistant generals into retirement; changing force structure to triangular divisions; and modernizing the IJA's armaments.

But the traditionalists succeeded in blocking many of Ugaki's reforms for years, and by the Battle of Shanghai in 1937, it was too late to implement many of them. Ultimately, MacGregor argues, despite the victory in Shanghai, the fighting was far more costly than it needed to be. The eventual Japanese loss was due in part to the IJA's inability to reform itself in a way that created a margin of victory.  

MacGregor's third chapter deals with the destruction of the German Army Group Center by the Soviets in 1944. He details the transformations that the two armies had undergone. The German Army, he argues, structured itself for short, mobile wars, not extended wars over long distances like the Eastern Front in WWII. The early successes of the Wehrmacht were due to a partial transformation, says MacGregor, one that left most of the army reliant on horses. It was the weakness of their opponents as much as skill of the Wehrmacht that allowed Hitler to conquer Europe.

The Soviets, meanwhile, adopted the theory of deep operations, striking well beyond forward defenses into the enemy rear. In addition, the Soviets enjoyed unity of command, and the ability to concentrate forces in time and space. He credits this transformation for the ultimate Soviet victory. "The Soviet command structure, organization for combat, and supporting doctrine for the application of military power in the form of strike – artillery, rockets, and airpower – with operationally agile maneuver forces created a margin of victory that changed the course of European and world history."

But here MacGregor's analysis begins to unravel. In the same chapter, he admits that it wasn’t the Soviet armed forces but vast distances and severe winter weather that saved the Soviets in 1941. He also writes that the Soviet effort could not have succeeded with the machinery of terror that allowed it to focus production and spend millions of lives. Moreover, the Allied landings in Normandy in 1944 drew further German divisions away from the east, granting the Soviets an even more significant numerical advantage.

On the German side, MacGregor points to Germans lacking a "definitive operational purpose" and "attainable strategic objective" as the reason for the loss of their margin of victory. With all these other factors in play, it is hard to determine the effectiveness of the military transformations in question, and the role they played in the outcome.

The next case study involves Israel and the Sinai campaign against Egypt in 1973. MacGregor tells the story of Sadat's preparations for regaining the Sinai in a limited offensive, and of the development of the IDF from the pre-state militias to the eve of the Yom Kippur War.

The point that MacGregor is trying to make here is something of a question mark, however. The Egyptian transformation and preparation for a highly rehearsed campaign is clear. The pre-war changes in the IDF, on the other hand, greatly restricted its ability to respond effectively in the first days of the war. It was the tactical adaptations during the fighting, the skill of junior commanders, and the aggressiveness of the senior officers on the ground that allowed Israel to absorb the Egyptian attack and shift to the offensive. The margin of victory, then, was not a matter of a transformation of the ground forces, but cultural and organizational factors.

MacGregor then shifts to a conversation about developments in the Israeli and Egyptian militaries since, and future threats they will likely face. As interesting as this discussion is, it is descriptive rather than advancing MacGregor's argument.

The final case study deals with Desert Storm's Battle of 73 Easting, an encounter in which MacGregor himself personally participated. MacGregor details the weakness of the Iraqi army despite its size and recent experience in the bloody Iran-Iraq War. Beyond the Republican Guard, Iraqi forces were poorly trained, unmotivated, and had access to only inferior equipment.

The US Army underwent an intense modernization program after the trauma of the Vietnam War, partly based on lessons from the Yom Kippur War. New platforms included the M1A1 Abrams tank, the Bradley fighting vehicle, the Apache helicopter, the MLRS, and the JSTARS surveillance and battle management system. The US Army in 1991, says MacGregor, was a "muscular, well-oiled machine" with well-trained junior commanders.

The Battle of 73 Easting took place during the 100-hour ground campaign, in which lead armored cavalry elements of the VII Corps annihilated a Republican Guard brigade, while losing only one Bradley, 1 KIA, and 6 wounded. It was a total tactical victory for the attacking American forces.

The war left the US and Western allies convinced of the effectiveness of the technological revolution that put on such a dominating show in Iraq. However, certain conclusions garnered from the war, like the possibility of bloodless victories based on technology and standoff fires, led to avoidable mistakes in the 21^st century that have only been recognized in recent years.   

Though not all the battle analysis supports his conclusions on military innovation, and judging military reforms made or missed is always easier in hindsight, several key lessons on innovation emerge. Capable militaries – the British before World War I, the Japanese before World War II – regularly undervalue the importance of well-trained, well-equipped ground forces with relevant doctrine. Technology and tactics are important, but innovative operational art can overcome deficits in these areas, as the Soviets displayed as they marched inexorably toward Berlin. The culture that produces soldiers and officers also has a profound influence on the ability of militaries to innovate and improvise.   

Macgregor argues that America will face a high-intensity conflict against enemies with significant A2/AD capabilities somewhere in the Eurasian landmass, a war that the US cannot afford to lose. Air and standoff strikes will not be enough to win coming wars. "Maneuver forces on the ground are still necessary to exploit the profound but temporary paralysis that precision strikes induce."

He sees light infantry as a niche capability, whereas heavy infantry mounted on armored platforms will provide the necessary firepower and survivability to "close with the enemy, sustain losses, keep fighting, and attack decisively" in 21^st century wars.

The institutional Army has come to similar conclusions about its future challenges. It has moved quickly away from the focus on counterinsurgency that captured the attention of its thinkers since 2001. Now, it is preparing its forces for a fight against Russia in Eastern Europe or against China in the Far East. The Multi-Domain Battle concept, under ongoing development, is an attempt to bring US advantages to bear in a highly contested, lethal battlefield against a near-peer adversary. When Army planners apply the concept to enabling physical ground maneuver, they, like MacGregor, come to the conclusion that dispersed, stand-alone brigades with their own ISR- strike capabilities are needed to win. As Dado Center researchers Shmuel Shmuel and Lazar Berman (along with US Army co-authors) alluded in "Defining Multi-Domain Battle" (Dado Center Journal 16-17), the Army and Joint Staff have tried to stretch  MDB to cover virtually every challenge they expect to face, even non-kinetic grey zone competition, thus effectively stripping it of its meaning and potential significance. As it stands now, the current debate around MDB in the US is unlikely to lead to a greater "margin of victory" in the next conflict.

The Future of IDF Ground Forces

Though MacGregor is writing for the US Army, there are important lessons for Israeli military thinkers and commanders. As Dado Center commander Eran Ortal argued in Military Review, the IDF ground forces have missed out on the technological leaps and accompanying budgets of the precision strike RMA. Neither Israel nor other Western militaries can win the next war without ground forces that have undergone their own transformation, in order to overcome the increasing lethality and firepower of their enemies.

The US Army went all in on the idea of population-centric counterinsurgency against lightly armed guerrillas. Now it struggles to reorient for a far more lethal and complex conventional war. Israel paid the price in 2006 for its overemphasis on counterterrorism against Palestinians, forgetting how to conduct large operations against a capable adversary like Hezbollah. The IDF must ensure that across all realms – training, equipment, doctrine, expectations – it can fight extended wars with significant casualties on the front and at home.

A final point that MacGregor suggest another reason this could be especially challenging for the IDF. "Only war reaffirms the enduring truth that to be effective in battle, armed forces must be cohesive, inspired, undemocratic, and coercive in character; that Western armed forces in particular must be separate and distinct from the individualistic, ultra-democratic, and materialistic societies they defend." The IDF in particular is extremely influenced by the norms of the open and democratic Israeli society around it. Of course, some of this influence is inevitable given the mandatory draft in Israel, and the role of the reserves. But there is certainly room to consider whether too many norms from civilian Israel – frequent weekend leave, phone calls from parents to commanders, structuring units like start-ups, questionable discipline – damage the fighting character of the IDF, and render its soldier less prepared for a bloody war against a lethal adversary like Hezbollah.

“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time," said former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. That is unquestionably true; the job of IDF military strategists is to ensure that the army that Israel has when it next goes to war is as close to the one we need.