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by Colonel (Ret) John D. Rosenberger
In his classic article, The Principles of War, published in Military Review in September 1981, General Donn Albert Starry—the father of Air Land Battle—argued that a thorough historical analysis of successful campaigns, battles, and engagements in the past reveals there are nine fundamental principles of war—principles that if artfully applied at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war, will assure victory in conventional land combat. These principles are: objective, offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, surprise, security, simplicity, and unity of command. Indisputably true, these principles have been mother’s milk to generations of U.S. Army planners and commanders. Moreover, they’ve been adopted by the Joint force.
What General Starry did not address was the fact that new technological developments, spawning new methods of warfare, can preclude the application of these principles leading predictably to tactical, operational, and strategic defeat.
This was the case in both World War I from 1914-1918 and World War II from 1939-1945. This was the case in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020. This is the case in the Russia-Ukraine War raging for the past four years.
During World War I, the advent and rapid spread of new technologies—such as the machine gun and massed artillery of varying caliber—transformed battlefields into slaughterhouses. The scale of destruction was so immense that soldiers were forced to seek refuge underground to survive. Opposing trench systems stretched for approximately 475 miles, from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps, along the Western Front. Within mere weeks, the fluid maneuver warfare of summer 1914 collapsed into a grim stalemate, giving rise to a brutal war of attrition that endured for four years. Over this period, an estimated 9.7 million soldiers perished, with countless more wounded or permanently disabled. In essence, the overwhelming lethality of these technologies rendered the traditional Principles of War virtually obsolete.
Clearly defined operational and tactical objectives became unattainable. Plans reflecting simplicity shattered against curtains of lead and steel. The ability to maneuver, penetrate defenses, exploit penetrations, attack flanks, or drive deep into the enemy rear became impossible. Offensives by both sides failed repeatedly. Neither side could seize, retain, or exploit tactical and operational initiatives to any significant degree. Massed formations of soldiers were decimated in minutes, e.g., 19,240 British soldiers were killed the first day of the Battle of the Somme; an additional 38,230 soldiers were wounded. Operational and tactical surprise could seldom be achieved or exploited despite deception efforts. Security, or force protection, could be provided only by entrenching and employing camouflage to protect and preserve manpower and supplies. Unity of command, though uniformly established on both sides, had little effect on success or failure at the tactical or operational level.
Twenty years later, during World War II, in response to the brutal attrition warfare that characterized WW I, an entirely new method of warfare emerged—introduced by the Germans initially, then replicated by the Soviets—leveraging a host of new technologies that restored the ability to apply the Principles of War. New technologies such as amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM) radios enabled the rapid, controlled movement and synchronization of combined-arms teams, thereby accelerating the tempo of battle. The advent of modern tanks, self-propelled artillery, and mechanized infantry, operating in tandem with close air support, enabled a new form of land warfare known as blitzkrieg. Aircraft specifically designed to perform reconnaissance and surveillance provided actionable intelligence. Radar provided advanced warning of the enemy aircraft's approach. Mass formations of heavy bombers decimated industrial production and critical civilian infrastructure. The list goes on.
As a result, the ability to employ the Principles of War was restored. Clearly defined operational and tactical objectives became attainable again, enabled by armored forces that could maneuver continuously and, when properly employed, placed the enemy at a disadvantage. Plans and tactics reflected simplicity, preserving unity of effort and cohesion. Offensives conducted by opposing forces—German, then Russian, then American/British—succeeded in succession and led to the decisive defeat of opponents. Tactical and operational initiative could be seized, retained, and exploited. Massed, fast-moving formations penetrated static defenses before transitioning to envelopments and pursuits enabled by the principle of economy of force. Operational and tactical surprise were often achieved and exploited, enabled by sophisticated deception operations and using terrain to attack from unexpected directions at unexpected times. Security, both active and passive, was successful overall in protecting and conserving combat power. Unity of command became a hallmark of successful combat operations on either side.
The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War
With a similar effect, some 80 years later, the proliferation and use of unmanned aerial drones on global battlefields in the past four years has fundamentally changed the way wars are fought at the tactical level. By adapting this new commercial technology for tactical use on the battlefield, a new form of warfare emerged in 2020. Utilizing reconnaissance drones linked directly to fire direction centers and cannon/missile batteries, combined with swarms of top attack loitering munitions, the armed forces of Azerbaijan systematically destroyed Armenia’s land forces in 44 days during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
First, Azerbaijani forces destroyed the Armenian air defense forces and gained air supremacy. Unopposed in the air, they attacked command posts at every echelon, disrupting Armenia’s ability to command and control the employment of its forces. Next, they destroyed artillery and missile batteries, then armored forces in defensive positions, and lastly entrenched infantry. The battlefield became transparent. There was no place to hide. The morale of Armenian soldiers collapsed, followed by their will to fight. The root cause was evident. Armenian forces had no countermeasures to intercept enemy drones. They had no means to acquire and track enemy drones in flight, no means to jam or spoof the drones’ communication/data links, no capability to destroy the drones with kinetic or directed energy weapons, or air-tracking systems to quickly re-trace drone flight paths and kill the Azerbaijani soldiers controlling them. In other words, the Armenians lost the counter-reconnaissance battle. They had no means to effectively counter this new technology.
Azerbaijan’s ingenious use of this new technology introduced the world to a new method of warfare, so effective that it rendered the Armenian army unable to apply the immutable Principles of War. Armenia’s strategic, operational, and tactical objectives could not be attained. Simple defensive plansand well-constructed defensesshattered under incessant and precise drone and artillery attacks. The ability to maneuver, to conduct counterattacks, or rapidly reposition forces to contain penetrations, much less conduct counteroffensive operations, became impossible. Armenian forces rapidly lost the tactical and operational initiative, never to be regained. Massed formations of soldiers or mechanized forces were decimated within minutes. Operational and tactical surprise could not be achieved or exploited despite their best efforts.The battlefield was transparent to Azerbaijani forces. Security, or force protection, could be achieved only by entrenching, dispersing forces, limiting radio communications, and employing camouflage and decoys to protect and preserve manpower and supplies. Unity of command made little difference under this relentless and systematic destruction of Armenia’s critical warfighting capabilities.
The Russia-Ukraine War
Over the past four years, we have again witnessed the transformative power of new technology. In February 2022, Russia extended its invasion into Ukraine, igniting a brutal and protracted war that is still raging. Heeding the lessons from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, both opponents invested heavily in the acquisition and production of multiple classes and types of drones. The battlefield, extending across the 1000 km front, is flooded day and night with aerial drones that conduct battlefield reconnaissance, loiter, search, and then strike the vulnerable tops of armored vehicles, buildings, dugouts, and trench lines. Some are controlled by local operators, some are controlled via satellite links. An increasing number are controlled by fiber-optic cable spooling off as they fly, invulnerable to jamming. Some fly autonomously to targets as they are programmed to do, thereby reducing their vulnerability to electronic jamming.
Reconnaissance drones, with optical and thermal cameras and GPS-location capabilities, transmit imagery and accurate target locations directly to mortars, cannon artillery, and multiple rocket launcher crews. Kill chains take seconds, not minutes, to execute. The prolific use of thousands of inexpensive top attack drones—a new addition to the arsenal of precision indirect fires—has destroyed thousands of pieces of combat equipment and decimated their crews. Never has a battlefield been so transparent or deadly. Consequently, the casualties have been horrendous, like the battlefields of WW I. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, on both sides, have been killed, wounded, and maimed. Just as soldiers adapted to the murderous effects of machine guns and massed artillery in World War I, opposing soldiers have been forced below ground to survive, fighting from opposing trench lines, bunkers, basements, and the protection of village rubble. Likewise, the war has devolved into a brutal war of attrition, conditions in which the Principles of War cannot be applied.
As a result, Ukraine’s strategic, operational, and tactical objectives have proven unattainable; Russia’s political and military objectives are within reach, utilizing relentless small-scale attacks achieved at an enormous cost of men and materiel. Simple and optimistic plans—like Ukraine’s nine-brigade offensive in the summer of 2023—shatter under a rain of precise indirect fires, swarms of attack drones, and electronic jamming. The ability to maneuver, penetrate defenses, exploit penetrations, attack flanks, or drive deep into the enemy's rear has proven impossible. Offensives of scale have failed repeatedly, forcing both opponents to adopt Hutier tactics, small unit attacks, which were utilized successfully penetrate trench lines and defenses towards the end of WW I. Neither side can exploit tactical success mired in a war of attrition. Consequently, tactical and operational initiative cannot be seized, retained, or exploited to any successful degree by either side. Massed formations of soldiers and armored combat vehicles have been decimated in minutes once exposed. Operational and tactical surprise is extremely difficult to achieve, much less to exploit. Security, or force protection, can only be provided by entrenching, masking thermal, electronic, and physical signatures, using decoys, utilizing forests for concealment, and using camouflage to protect and preserve manpower, equipment, and supplies. Unity of command, though uniformly established on both sides, has had little impact on tactical success or failure. In sum, the innovative use of new technology has spawned a new form of warfare, so effective and so destructive that it nullifies any land army’s ability to apply the Principles of War.
Restoring the Ability to Apply the Principles of War
The predominant lesson of this war between Russia and Ukraine is clear. Any nation that wants to leverage the time-proven Principles of War, restore freedom of maneuver for ground forces, and prevail on conventional battlefields of the future, must recognize that any chance of achieving tactical success lies in their military’s capability to blind the enemy—to prevent the enemy from seeing the battlefield within every domain: air, land, maritime, space, and cyber. Blinding the enemy must be the first decisive point achieved in any viable future campaign against a peer competitor or its proxy. Without the capability to protect your own forces from being acquired and attacked within each war-fighting domain, achieving tactical, operational, and strategic success by applying the Principles of War is impossible. The question is whether the U.S. Joint Force can do it. Is there any evidence that the Joint Force is organized, equipped, and highly trained to accomplish this decisive operational task in the event of a first strike by a peer competitor? Disturbingly, there is little evidence at all. Just consider these three facts.
First, Indo-Pacific Command and European Command are not currently postured, organized, equipped, or trained to survive and absorb the effects of a first strike by the People’s Liberation Army or Russian forces, then quickly blind these potential enemies across all domains and launch an overwhelming counteroffensive. Neither combatant command has one or more Standing Combined Joint Task Forces established that are organized, equipped, highly trained, and poised to respond immediately and effectively to a first-strike attack. It would take months to form, equip, and train an operational Combined Joint Task Force capable of performing this task in either theater.
Moreover, neither of these two combatant commands have a force task-organized, manned, equipped, highly trained, and poised to electronically jam, disrupt through cyberattack, or physically destroy the Chinese or Russian constellation of global positioning satellites, surveillance satellites, and ground-based satellite control centers above and within the most likely areas of conflict. In fact, the United States has become the first space-faring nation to declare a ban on anti-satellite weapons testing. Both Russia and China are vigorously pursuing these capabilities and have demonstrated a broad range of effective solutions.
The U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force are scrambling to identify and develop effective counter-drone technologies to jam, disrupt, and destroy swarms of manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft and vessels that our air, land, and sea forces will inevitably face in future combat. They all realized that they were not equipped, organized, or well-trained to undertake it. Compared to the impressive advances made by Russia in the past four years in the Russia-Ukraine War, and China's burgeoning anti-drone capabilities, our ability to quickly regain air superiority on a battlefield or achieve freedom of action on the seas lies years in the future. The same applies to the Joint Force’s ability to acquire, penetrate Russian and Chinese anti-access/anti-denial systems, and destroy all enemy air, land, and sea-based air defense systems within a likely Joint Operational Area.
Lastly, neither combatant command has a fully functional and resilient Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control network that would enable existing Joint forces or a future Standing Joint Task Force to command and control its forces, maintain common friendly and enemy situational awareness and situational understanding, and synchronize the employment of the Combined/Joint team—prerequisites to applying the Principles of War at the operational and tactical level.
These three facts, among many we could cite, are sufficient evidence that our Joint force currently lacks the capability to blind potential enemies in a large-scale conventional war, and that our future operational and tactical commanders will be unable to leverage the time-proven Principles of War in future conflicts. Consequently, the outcome of a large-scale conventional war against one of our peer competitors is predictable. We will lose the war, and the slaughter of our servicemen and women will be immense, far beyond the tens of thousands lost in the Russia-Ukraine War, and far beyond what the American people and our allies will tolerate. Let this stark realization drive the tempo of change and the creation of new warfighting concepts, doctrine, formations, and capabilities we need to restore our ability to exploit the extant in the time-tested Principles of War. Our enemies certainly have.
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Colonel (Ret) John D. Rosenberger served 29 years in the U.S. Army as a combined arms warrior, leader, mentor, distinguished trainer, and life-long student of military history. Key assignments: Director, SACEUR’s Command Training Program for NATO Combined Joint Task Forces; Commander, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (NTC OPFOR); Chief of Staff, 1st Cavalry Division; G3, 4th Infantry Division; Senior Brigade Trainer at the U.S. Army National Training Center; Commander, 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment; Deputy G3, 3rd Armored Division during Desert Shield/Storm; and Brigade S3, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Armored Division. COL Rosenberger has published numerous articles and op-eds the past 30 years on the topics of intuitive leadership in war, the science and art of battle command, strategic competence, the critical importance of high-performing staffs, and Joint All-Domain command and control. He is a winner of the Colin L. Powell Joint Warfighting Essay Contest sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute, Proceedings. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of JANUS Research Group, Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.
