Strands of Military Leadership in the 21st Century

Columnist Col (Retd) EAS BOKHARI studies the element of leadership in the past century.

The very theme which I intend to tackle is futuristic - and with that the most prominent parameter is of Uncertainty. And when you delve in that domain - you are liable to make mistakes - and therefore my judgement may be flawed at places. I am just having a fling at the profile of future military leadership and its parameters and the disciplines in which the future military leaders should have definite expertise - notwithstanding the present rather primitive and grooved thinking that persists in our armed forces.

We seem to be ready and preparing for the last war and not the future war. Yes, it is important to realise that it is not so easy to plan for ‘uncertainty’ - and provide military leadership for this contingency.

Colin S Gray writes in his book, “Weapons Don’t Make War”....

“It is only human for our reach to exceed our grasp... Governments seek the impossible; they want to know what will happen. By definition, the future has not happened. No quantity of research dollars and no degree of sophistication in research methodology can overcome that frustrating fact. Scholarship is often helpful, but in political affairs it cannot discover that which has yet to occur...”1     

Under these daunting conditions my predicament can be well imagined. The topic under discussion is surely a mouthful and at the very best its surface can be scratched - all the same the topic is cardinal that it does need some detached thinking. We shall study some future leadership traits at the grass root levels (and of course the guidance has to come from above, and the more elevated levels of command.)

There is an eternal antagonism between Man and machine - and some writers, obsessed as they are with the machine (and a handmaiden of Man) somehow relegate Man to an inferior position in the battle scenario. “... The great captains of history understood the importance of learning from the bottom up what makes soldiers fight. Great battlefield commanders were successful because they were able to appeal their soldiers to do more than technology today would have us believe is possible.”2

It is to be conceded that unit is the basic and cardinal brick in the organisation of any fighting machine - and perhaps the most  functional one too.. It is the last ladder of personal command - and after that the commands start functioning from rear - which a well-known historian calls ‘Plaza Toroing it in the rear.’

The unit may be an insignificant unknown element - yet it can have a tremendous effect on the outcome of battle/war - of course if properly and skilfully led by leaders armed with the best understanding of war fighting and various other parameters of leadership and the basic military grind which I shall outline a little later.

Field Marshal The Viscount Montgomery of Alamein - KG who had experienced command of 30 men (a platoon) - and then who went on to command of a force no less than two million soldiers says this of grass root performance in battle ”... There are unknown junior leaders - the good regimental officers and NCOs, who lead their men forward, or hold their positions to the last in order that success may come elsewhere, and who fall unknown... It is these later who in the end win the battle by their initiative and courage - sometimes in spite of the generals”.3

I personally do not really agree with the end bit of the above assessment as the juniors must get the inspiration from the top - and if a general is not well versed and is a goof - the subordinates will never perform well. A general must be a superb student of war and should know how to use his troops most economically - and yet most profitably.

With the end of the cold war - and break up of the Soviet Union there appears to have been a very considerable change in the battle scenario - and the most important aberration will be that there will be more of regional conflicts and perhaps no ‘world wars’ as we know them.

And then again compared with war fighting prior to the First World War first and the foremost the present day battle field has changed very considerable from the good old days of chivalry/fellow feeling. One can assume that at that time the equation of war had just a couple of variables - and most of the fighting was single dimensional. It was easy to support the great Napoleanic shibboleths that ‘Providence marches with big battalions’ et al - and at least three to one superiority is needed for an attack operation. All this I suppose is not really applicable now and we have the recent operations to unhinge these shibboleths (I mean Kargil operations).

Of course it was not easy to fight a single dimensional war - but it was definitely easy to predict the results of the battle by simple operational analysis technique as the variables were limited which had the direct bearing on the results of battle.

Prior to the First World War - neither there was any really effective use of air - nor there was for that matter any concept of Combined operations - and the tanks had just been reluctantly accepted by the armies (though a brainchild of the British - these were to be effectively used by the German against the British and French in the Second World War with great elan).

For all its bravery and valour of the soldiery - there was hardly any innovative or I should say predicted fighting involved. The soldiers were just shoved into the battlefield without the commanders really being able to assess the likely results scientifically (before the battle).

As indicated above the fighting was not qualitative - and somehow in most cases no extraordinary skills were needed at personal levels - and the men did as desired. It was a quagmire out of which soldiers never got out. With the introduction of tanks - and the air, additional dimensions were added to the equation of war - and fighting gradually became more sophisticated - and perhaps independent of the Napoleanic myth of ‘Big Batallions’. It became qualitative.

And now we have seen the 1991 Gulf War - yet new parameters like the precision guided missiles, anti-missile missiles, stealth aircraft (perhaps a stealth tank might be there soon) - and a host of other new war fighting technologies which is making the equation of war multifaceted - and multi-variable.

The point I am stressing is that war fighting has become more and more vibrant, dynamic, and multi-faceted for a simply oriented commander of troops at almost all levels. Such a simple soul does not fit in the scheme of things as his outfit will remain ill trained at the very best with his leadership being flawed.

To be an effective leader I suppose one has to master or learn at least the elements of the mathematics of war - and then apply it as and when needed. This in simple language means to exploit the variables on the face value as they affect the result of the battle. A good leader and commander will discern this at an early stage and capitalise on that. This is real sophistication in war fighting.

I am not quite sure whether we have any such sophisticated mechanism in our armed forces - although simulations and other exercises are of course held for evaluation of effectiveness of units and formations (of course there is no enemy there).

Let us get on to the topic of mathematics of war for some time. During and prior to the First World War - the mathematics of war fighting was pretty simple and it was simple enough to work out the attrition rates and relate these to time as working parameters (as the variables were very few).

I am not thrusting the study of mathematics of war (on all) - but I would suggest the topic - important as it is - the operational analysis techniques should be introduced in the curricula in the Staff Colleges, and the NDC. This will pay hands down at some stage of the careers of senior officers and technicians of war. One of the earliest advocates of this rather arcane discipline was an eccentric and colourful British Engineer - Frederick William Lanchester. His work mainly the N-Square Law is still of great significance - and he is consulted worldwide notwithstanding some improvements which have been recently suggested to update his work by Joshua Epstein4 and an obscure work - produced by Martin Marietta Energy Systems Inc and entitled “Combat Modelling With Partial Differential Equations” and its main author is mathematician V Protopopescu.5 This pamphlet no doubt is a heavy reading for the uninitiated - but can be had from PISTECH - Nilore - a PAEC outfit.

Lanchester was an Englishman who died in 1946 at the age of 78 and “was interested, among other things, in aerodynamics, economics and industrial problems, the theory of relativity, fiscal policies, and military strategy. His writings on these matters... exhibit such striking independence of judgement and boldness of conception that it is surprising to learn that he was an engineer.6

... Lanchester was one of the first to recognise the extent  to which aircraft would alter the character of warfare. Nebolus profoundities had of course been uttered on the subject since Biblical times, - and even military men - the more advanced thinkers among them were aware of the outbreak of the First World War that the airplane would change some of their business methods. It was Lanchester however who first considered the matter quantitatively. He set down his conclusions on the subject in ‘Aircraft in Warfare - 1916’. ——- a series of articles contributed in 1914 to the British Journal Engineering.”

To continue with Lanchester, he was convinced that operations of the land armies could be executed as well or better by a squad or fleet of aeronautical machines. If this should prove true, the number of flying machines eventually to be utilized by any of the great will be counted not by hundreds but by thousands, and possibly by tens of thousands, and the issue of any great battle will be definitely determined by the efficiency of the aeronautical forces. To prove his point he found it necessary to make a mathematical model in which the analysis of the relation of opposing forces was carried out in battle - and resulted his famous N-Square Law.

No theory can be ultimate especially in war fighting where new parameters (just as the air dimension) creep in as the business in itself is dynamic and ever changing - and it is the identification of new dimensions and factors which distinguish a good commander from a poor one and how to compensate for such parameters.

Some of the serious flaws that have developed in the Lanchester work over a period of time have been corrected by the Combat Modelling by Differential Equations as below:

• The treatment overcomes some of the flaws - if that can be said so by improving the random effects in the attrition process.

• Improvement in the attrition structures other that those treated in the classical Lanchester model to be included.

• Time and force size dependent attrition rate coefficients to be included. Non-combatant attritions like surrenders, desertions, sickness etc. replacements and or withdrawals - and engagement of heterogeneous forces (infantry, armour, mechanized infantry, air assault etc) to be included.

Let us get on to another leadership trait - and that unfortunately may look to be mundane but it is important that a leader is time efficient 7  and perhaps may have to undergo a Management Course. This is quite common nowadays in continental and US Armies. An army leader should no more be judged by the girth of his belt or the colour of his hair but what is his intrinsic knowledge of his profession especially in these days of ET (Emerging Technologies.) In our case we are just catching up with India in many technologies - but then India is not sitting idle - she is making further improvements especially with Israeli nexus and Russian support in ET.

Leadership cannot be divorced from the calibre and the make up of the soldier to be led. The soldier of future will be much more different than the one we have seen and dealt with hitherto. The soldiers of the past did not have good reputation in so far as adaptability which the following two quotations, one from Gen Fuller and the other from the celebrated physicist Dr Albert Einstein indicate:

• “It is no use giving an idea to a soldier - He does not take it until it is obsolete - and once he takes an idea he does not leave it till it is totally destroyed....”

• “The man who loves to march to the tune of band was given his great brain by mistake - spinal cord would have been sufficient for him.”

And then the great humorist Dr Johnson said “... No man will be a sailor in His Majesty’s ships who has contrivance enough to get himself in jail; for being in ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned. A man in jail has more room, better food and commonly better company....”

I suppose this is too much - the present soldier or at least the one operating in the 21st Century will be totally different. A US Study ‘Strategic Technologies for the Army of the 21st Century (Star 21) has been published - and the main thread in the research about the future soldier is that the future soldier is that he should act as a system controlling an array of equipment. Consequently, a soldier in the battlefield may be given sensors, communication equipment, and pocket computers - besides weapons and protective gear. Even special purpose robotic helpers (force multipliers) might help soldiers carry their loads on the battlefield.8

Surprisingly in our environments the fighting still remains a slogging affair sans all the sophistications mentioned above - but it should not take long before we also induct the ET. (Emerging Technologies) if we are to survive as a nation - and enter the 21st century with our chest out and head up.

It would perhaps be appropriate to close the discussion and I shall insist that mind is the ultimate weapon - and it is the resilience and adaptability and mental mobility of appropriate commanders which count in the battlefield and for bringing about success.

No doubt that our environments -taking the threat perception into consideration are not really state of the art - all the same our leadership should be mentally prepared to make use of such state of the art military tools as the operational analysis, Games Theory - and perhaps in certain restricted ways the Lanchester equations notwithstanding its limitations.9

It is heartening to know that this has been realised in our thinking in the Army - and a number of presentations have already appeared in the press (open) - and GHQ Army Journal.9

Finally, I would like to refer to one of my presentations in the Nation (quite recent one) - in which the theme and the importance of these force multipliers of generalship/leadership have been expounded by Major Sverker Johansson of the Swedish Army. “... So why should we waste time and energy/effort in studying operational analysis and such disciplines as ‘Games’ Theory. There is a perfectly good reason for all this trouble - and at the risk of some repetition - it is really important for a field commander to understand fully which parameters may have a role to play and influence the course of an armed conflict. And if he is not solely trusting on luck - he should ensure that he has control over these factors to the greatest extent possible. And when a critical variable (some of these cannot be fed into a computer for an answer) begins to approach a further critical dimension or value, then he can initiate counter action in time, thus avoiding an action which might defeat - his tactical or strategical purpose.10

These are some of the requirements of generalship of the 21st Century and must be heeded to. I have intentionally avoided the mathematics part as that involves calculus and differential equations and would make the reading heavy.

As a summation of this short discourse, I would like to say that Pakistan generalship as it is, cannot be berated or found lacking in the essential strands of leadership, but then the mandate of the 21st Century may be a bit too much. And then the enemy which Pakistan has to face is both crafty and unpredictable - and perhaps deceitful and unchivalrous and who cannot be matched man for man and in the resource crunch of both ET and other military hardware - we should be able to produce innovative leadership at the time of crisis. And of course we are lucky to know who our enemy is.

Our leadership is required to harness to their optimum utility, those parameters of the equation of war such as leadership, superior training, morale et al which cannot be fed in a computer as raw figures to give a ready answer which the enemy might be working with. And yet these are the parameters about which I have been stressing throughout this presentation.

Last but not the least, the generalship however sophisticated it may be - the Man out there in the middle cannot be forgotten. Just follow the lines which I quote here “... Many would have us believe that the soldier now operates simply as a cog in a complex machine to wage war, while each new product of technology brings us closer to a future where wars will be waged solely by machines. This is a seductive but dangerous argument. The individual soldier will, as in the ages past, ultimately make the difference in the battle field. The Army must not forget its “Soldiers as it prepares to operate in the 21st Century.”