The Will of Defense of a Society. 2nd Part.

(FINAL)

And the Strategy, the Operational Strategy and the Tactics, as Levels of its Military Actuation.

 

The Levels of Military Actuation.

The first level of activity in the defense of a society is called national strategy or, also, in a some antiquated form, great strategy. In it are included the economic and diplomatic resources of the State. As part of the resources of a nation to get his great strategics aims in a war.

Resultado de imagen de montesquieu  THE BARON OF MONTESQUIEU.

 

Military Strategy, or simply Strategy, in a great second level of activity, refers to the definition of the larger aims of a war, of an operations theater or of a campaign, including the distribution of the generally scanty military resources used to fulfill them.

Tactics refers to the ideal execution of the combats with an enemy, who opposes with armaments, to the achievement of our strategic aims.

Between strategy and tactics exists an essentially practical space of prominent activity, called the operational level or operational strategy. Its mission is to optimize tactics and the means available in a campaign and in the theater of operations. As such, it defines and conceptualizes the battles, marches, etc., both the military operations and its correct succession, according to those decisive aims. It provides the tactics and the decision, a transcendence far beyond of the pursuit and the tactical exploitation of success. That is to say, operational strategy employs tactics as an essential instrument, combining them to achieve the ultimate objectives to which they are orientated and dedicated to achieving, forming then part of its strategic nature.

 

Thus, the operational strategy defines its own aims in the theater or in the campaign of action, which are the incapacity and disorganization of the enemy by exploiting his strategic and operational vulnerabilities. The first is orientated to reducing the enemy’s combat capacity, seeking to functionally or positionaly disable it, while protecting own’s combat capacity. The second is get by occupying or destroying the enemy’s critical vulnerabilities in the operations zone.

Resultado de imagen de refinería de petróleo OIL REFINERY: SYMBOL OF THE ECONOMIC STRENGTH OF A MODERN SOCIETY.

 

The critics vulnerabilities of the enemy are those whose occupation or destruction produces his serious disorganization and/or the loss of his will of defense. They are those elements, characteristics, possessions that give sense to the fight that he maintains. Its loss instills inevitably in the enemy a sensation of hopelessness and a sense of uselessness in continuing the fight at those moments, except for accumulating more losses.

The critics vulnerabilities are different in each one of the levels of military action, although the effects produced in the superior levels are transmitted to the inferior ones.

A strategic critical vulnerability, handled capably by the Spaniards in century XVI during the conquest of America, was the capture of the great chief or emperor of the indigenous confederations of the great invaded countries (Moctezuma in Mexico, Atahualpa in Peru). But, once turned hostage, the symbolic representation of a leader of this type plummeted, because the social vitality of the community which he directed, demands his renovation, as if he had died.

In II World War, the occupation of the capital and the fall of the government were strategic critics vulnerabilities, to which was acceded through an operational strategy of mobile warfare: spring campaign of 1,940 in the Western Front. The same tried Hitler in 1941 in relation with Moscow in the East front. Probably in that total war, almost of extermination, its fall had not the political importance that was attributed to it. But Moscow constituted a great hub, a railway communications center vital for all the U.R.S.S. at the west of the Urales and, in this sense, it had been a critical operational vulnerability.

To achieve these strategic intermediate aims, the operational level has some specific operational means that are the intelligence, the imbalance and the incapacity of the enemy, the time or speed of the operations and combats, the logistic organization and his physical support or line of supplies and the correct sense of the own command.

It uses these means to drive and to use ideally (and without squandering) the tactical-operational means at his disposition.

Resultado de imagen de reuniones sindicales grandes  THE NATIONAL MORAL FLOURISHES IN ALL THE PLACES OF SOCIAL COEXISTENCE.

These are:

The ground transitability (in the whole geographical dimension of the nature of the areas, climate, station and hour of the day),

the combat capacity (military means made concrete in men, equipment, supports and combat vehicles) and the capacity of operational movement (transport of great and small tonnage, the supplies of all kinds and combustibles and the warehouses and accessible parks in the zone) owns available,

the freedom of action and the «favorable interfaces of action» with the enemy (that exist and that they can also be created always, by means of the extension or decrease of the «field of action» on that, as a tactical operational zoom, or by means of his change to another front sector or in the depth of the enemy zone). With these last 2 «systems» we can act always according to our criterion and interest and not simply react to the actions of the enemy.

This way, the mentioned «operational systems» realize the employment and the functioning of all the levels of the national defense. And they go from the conception and the great creation of aims, interests and available resources, received from the command and the nation, up to its practical final accomplishment. Involving in this also the necessary and the inevitable and imposed by the enemy, tactical employments of the military means, as stages for the ideal achievement of those commended aims.

THE END.

The Will of Defense of a Society.

And the Strategy, the Operational Strategy and the Tactics, as Levels of its Military Actuation

The Ideology or Concept and its Range.

The “will of defense” of a nation is its capacity to cause, create, develop and maintain defense forces. The strength of the defense forces, in turn, rely on the necessary support of the economy of the country and the diplomacy of the state. The will of defense is an expression of the will of being and the vital capacity, even biological, of a society. This concept overcomes and perfects the so called hybrid war or of V generation. That implies and supposes the employment of all his «orthodox and heterodox means of intervention» by the social belligerent group.

Resultado de imagen de GUERRA V generación  IMPRECISE ALLEGORY OF THE FIFTH GENERATION WAR.

 

As the term implies, will of defense is healthy, normal and sufficient when defense forces and the strength of the country’s economy and the quality of state leadership and diplomacy are proportional and adapted to the political objectives of society. These must also be adequate to the possible threats that the country may have to oppose, both within and out the country, within its geopolitical region or other sources of threat. This capacity and its performance in different situations stems from a correct “national moral”.

The will of defense is shaped normally in the Armed Forces, in its capacity of specific instruments of the defense function. The resources of the Armed Forces include the human resources, psychological and intellectual resources and material resources. The basis for the will of defense, the source from which these resources flow is the society itself.

At the level of human resources, troops must have suitable training, the combat readiness and a certain esprit de corps. Human resources are shaped by doctrine, military direction and military moral. So, they can carry out the military operations withstanding the effort and the wear of them, while maintaining their conviction in the missions to which they are assigned.

Resultado de imagen de fuerzas armadas

Materials resources must support the military theory of the Armed Forces and have the necessary technological sophistication to serve the military’s objectives. They include the weapon systems and all the military hardware. All of these resources flow from a society that provides, maintains and nourishes them.

Which is operational about this natural phenomenon of the society’s capacity of defense?

In a modern society, the chain of transmission of the popular will to the Armed Forces, passes through a series of intermediate sociological gears of authorities and institutions. In them, crystallize and fulfill the popular will, albeit with all the shades, errors and deviations, derived from the degree of imperfection of society’s institutional system and of some authorities.

Resultado de imagen de misiles nucleares CHINESE INTERCONTINENTAL DF-41 MISSILES.

 

This implies that a direct military attack on the civil populace, does not debilitate the will of defense already shaped within its Armed Forces. So, military action is better focused on undermining the will of defense of the enemy armies, not on the society from which it springs.

To do this, the immediate goal would be the enemy’s Armed Forces, followed by the political system of the enemy’s country including its political objectives, plans, and alliances, as well as its military and auxiliary industries. Only finally would the focus of attack or pressure be on civilians of the enemy country.

The civil population, which is not intrinsically organized but is dominated by the ideological and institutional apparatus of the state, is capable of absorbing tremendous military blows. Examples of this are the bombing raids that Germany and North Vietnam endured for years. Ultimately, only the invasion of Germany forced its surrender. There is also the case of Iraq which was submitted to a kind of military siege in which its people were impoverished. Still, the Iraqi regime was even stronger than at the end of the allied invasion in the winter of l991, having suppressed internal opposition from Shiites and Kurds and having attracted the support or admiration of its resistance in the Arab world. Despite the first war against Iraq and the following siege, Iraqi’s did not rise against their political institutions and the content and expression of Iraq’s national will of defense was not altered. In the most radical case of a nuclear war, great civilian losses would occur initially, yet if the Armed Forces remained relatively intact due to defensive deployment and protection measures, it could prolong the defense of its country and even win.

This brings us to time as the environment in which the will of defense is expressed, and whose “effective factor” is “national moral”.

In effect, the will of defense is constructed in the time. And to destroy it requires actions within time. Those engaged in insurrection come to understand this point well. That a prolonged war directed at the source of the will of defense, the country’s people, will in effect attack the country’s national moral.

The National Moral, source of the Will of Defense.

The “national moral” is the collective conviction of how best to live by following historically-proven trends of peace, progress, own satisfaction, service and justice. This certainty is assumed by a society as its own vision, or conception of its destiny.

When individuals or groups do not subscribe this vision, or when they pervert it, the quality of national moral can deteriorates and often produces messianism. But, without illusion and enthusiasm, societies cannot achieve or create beneficial enterprises. Enthusiasm is a force of spirit, which conquers moral and ideological entropy (that is inevitably generated in societies), enlightened by a «reasonable illusion«.

Resultado de imagen de lideres mundiales THE DOCTRINE OF XI JINPING «illuminating» Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. IT WAS INCLUDED IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY. ONLY MAO AND DENG XIAOPING DESERVED SUCH AN HONOR.

 

When leaders also are in tune with the right social trend, and with the wishes of their people, a moral community is established between leaders and their people, that harmonizes and promotes national and social feelings. This process is the origin and creator of the national moral of societies and is at a different qualitative level than that of purely biased, ethnically-based or group-based interests.

There is an ideological creation from the people and to the people, which reason is that it most be in favor the people. Still, this process remains subject to deviations and historical aberrations.

The process of creating the national moral are positive when leaders act collectively with honesty and inspire their people to follow «correct ways» of living, within all the possible ways of living available to them. This implies and demands a certain ideological control on the part of the state’s leadership, which is one of its main functions. Abuses of this responsibility are best represented by Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Mr. Goebbels; the political deputies and the party structure for the proletarian dictatorship with Stalin, etc.

Resultado de imagen de winston churchill

The natural organs for forming and transmitting the “national moral” are far removed from official propaganda offices. The reason is that the natural organs that generate national moral are found in the nuclei of society’s collective action and in its natural and institutional leaders. That is to say, the spaces in which national moral is created are homes, schools, churches, political parties, unions, working centers, and associations in general, etc.

After the battle of England, Churchill said that the future generations would say that «that one was our more glorious hour». This was possible thanks to an unbreakable social discipline, which was not ensuing from the study of manuals of civic education, but of the follow-up of a model spread by infinity of personal testimonies. The diffusion of the moral model of the citizen owed in a great extent to the educational labor of the Anglican Church.

The own Montesquieu admitted that the republican virtues only existed in the tales of the antiquity. This way, they were attractive to a leader minority, but his adoption by the citizens could not be done by legal or constitutional mandate. The moral theoretically proposed values, were seen as something artificial and remote. Without real connection with a practical and known moral code, highlighted with alive examples that could be follow.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

 

The modern Hybrid Warfare. 3rd. Part.

(THE END)

The Multifunctional, Total or Multisubject Wars.

In general, the attacks are realized to the software of a system, looking for a «weakness» of this one. And using the malicious codes, the back entrances, etc. A penetration or attack to the software is prevented in general with an antivirus adapted to the received virus. To attack the hardware is necessary to act on the «physical component» of the computer. And his detection, with the nowadays existing miniaturization, turns out to be very improbable and long in the time, until the devastation is detected. The best way of acceding to the hardware is realizing the intrusion in the factories of components and of assemblies. But these are protected by control measures of components and external equipment, based on the nationality and the producer of them.

The cyberattacks go to cybernetic networks of the society, both public and private, to the communications and means of control of equipment and networks. Becoming concrete definite in the facilities of different out-standing or strategic sectors of a country or alliance; like, industrial centers, military communications, administrative public negotiations, social opened networks, energy distributors, intranets of banks and economic means. And they seek to paralyze or to disturb the functioning of them or to distribute in them more or less opened tendentious information, to alter or to direct the public or particular general opinion in favor of the interests not always evident of the attackers.

Resultado de imagen de ataques ciberneticos mas famosos

The cyberattact is a «total attack» of swarm type; that is, of multiple and simultaneous or sequential character. It is directed on the economic, administrative, civil and military structures, which hold and allow that a «social group» should work. It is a «form of fight» in the cybernetic area. Where «one» seeks «to occupy» tactical or strategic «advantageous positions«. And «to damage» the enemy, preventing him from keep his pace, his «habitual tempo» of functioning and stealing and depriving him sometimes of the costly goods of research and development created by him. And that were allowing him to keep a competitive advantage in national «intervention means» in the industrial, economic and military fields. A branch of the cyberattack is the industrial espionage.

With them is achieved to seriously concern and debilitate the diplomatic, economic, military and civil sectors of a society. In the civilian is the original humus, the social essence, as creator of the «national morale» and the «will of defense» of the social group. Being those sectors the «means of intervention» with which a State counts for his global, holistic defense, against the aggression and external and internal dangers.

It is known the supposedly American attack using an advanced virus against the software of the Iranian centrifugal machines. That were operating to separate the isotopes of the Uranium 235 and Uranium 239 (not fissionable), using his different “molecular mass”. Seeking to obtain U235 enough pure to create «self fissionable critical masses«, the explosive of the atomic bombs, for his supposed nuclear devices. As the % of purity between an industrial use, to generate electricity, for example, and the great purity that needs a «critical mass», both «activities of successive enrichment» are perfectly recognizable by the foreign intelligence. In May, 2010 it was detected by the Iranians a malicious virus, called Stuxnet, in the of Nataz’s nuclear station. And that gave to a thousand of them the «order» of self-destructing. But, already in January of this year, the inspectors of the Atomic International Energy Agency (the AIEA) and the Iranian technical personnel had detected that many centrifugal machines were working slowly or badly and without a certain motive.

Resultado de imagen de ataques ciberneticos mas famosos

China takes a privileged singular position as a «great universal factory» in the global economy. And the same sells cheap products of immediate consumption on a large scale, that compete principally in price, which makes already products of high added value with the most modern technologies. This allowed him to lead one of the most significant and consistent cases of cyberattacks on a large scale against a country or coalition. The history was published by Bloomberg.

The agents of a unit of espionage and cybernetic war of the Chinese Popular Army managed to place some malicious «components» in the motherboards of IT equipment of the Supermike company, of San Jose, California. Who buys to Chinese factories, which have, in turn, subcontracts and suppliers of components in China. This way, the IT equipment with this «Trojan horse» allowed the cybernetic Chinese spies to accede for 3 years to industrial and governmental secrets of the EE. UU.

The anomalies emerged in 2015, when Elementary Technologies, who was designing software to compress files, reported of them in the baseplates of his cybernetic servants. Around 30 technological companies existed, between them Amazon and Apple, and diverse agencies of American intelligence, «invaded» in the Chinese attack. It was verified that the cybernetic servants of Elementary were mounted by Supermike, which is the major world producer of cybernetic servants.

It was found that some plates of the cybernetic servants had installed a «perfected component» that did not appear in his design and that it was not a chip. This multifunctional «foreign corps» would have been placed in 4 factories of China that mount the cybernetic servants of Supermike.

Resultado de imagen de ataque chino al hardware THE SUPPOSED CHINESE COMPONENT INTRODUCED IN THE HARDWARE.

The physical interventions in the hardware are more difficult, because all customers theoretically verify the equipment that they make or buy. Attack to the other people’s hardware foreign are doing usually during his traffic from the manufacturer to the client. That is the method that the American agencies use. But this malicious and comfortable manipulation of the Chinese spies can be effected because China is the great manufacturer (with license or without her) of hardware (computers, mobiles). And the directors and controls of his factories collaborate of well or badly degree with the «requests of the authorities», in a wide sense.

And, finally, some days ago was important the recidivist case, still not close, of the Chinese giant of the telecommunications Hua Wei. This way, the agencies of intelligence of the U.S.A- has warned that must not be used the products and services of Huawei and ZTE. Accusing that the terminals of these brands might be working as «cybernetic concealed agents«, spying for the Chinese government. Also, the Pentagon has prohibited to his personnel to introduce in the military bases the products of these brands.

China, as a great power example, of realizing his own and adapted «combinations» of means of intervention in his different stages.

Imagen relacionada CHINA’S ASPIRATIONS…

One first Chinese national foreign objective is to promote the multipolarity in the world structure of the great powers and his allies. Looking that does not exist a world hegemonic power, like the USA, that hinders him in the extension of his influence and power from his «nodal center«.

For it, he will create alliances and will establish agreements with others countries in detriment or in substitution of that hegemonic power. And he will be a «obstructionist intransigent actor» in all the actions that that power promotes unilaterally in the international forums (UNO, Atomic International Energy Agency). This way, the actions of the western nations in the Syrian conflict were frustrated and limited by the systematic veto of China to his approval in the Security Council. Though the Chinese communists consider to be out of the fight for the direct influence in the Moslem Middle East. And, the Chinese decision to renew his relations with the Sub-Saharan Africa, it was partly a strategic corollary of the «war to the terror» of the USA and the NATO in Middle East, as supplier region of crude oil and gas to the whole world.

Resultado de imagen de china poder político militar A CHINESE NAVAL GROUP OF STRATEGIC PROJECTION SAILS IN THE CHINA’S SOUTH SEA, AFTER CROSS  THE TAIWAN’S STRAIT.

China is for Russia and Russia is for China a partner, competitor and rival, if it is worth this polyvalent definition, which does that none of the expressions is in fullness. Both are «emergent powers«, according to the new nomenclature, determined in growing, in not get damage directly for the moment and in eroding the hegemonic power and his Europeans allied.

This way, the Chinese would not act directly, not by third interposed countries, in Syria, in the boiling cauldron of the Asia of the Southwest, scene of the global contest that sunnis and Shiites develop for the control and the supremacy in the Islam. But they will do it collaborating up to a point with the interests and the diplomatic propositions of the Russians. Reinforcing this way a political common position of counterweight and neutralization of the influence of West in the zone. And in exchange for a certain Russian reciprocity in favor of the Chinese interests, in other countries in which do not shock the national influences of both. Resultado de imagen de china Paracelso y Spratly. A CHINESE NAVAL BASE OF MISILES IN A SMALL ISLAND OF THE PARACELSO’S ARCHIPELAGO .

A strategic exterior Chinese preference goes towards the Indian subcontinent and to the nations of the first Asian circle of terrestrial and maritime nearness. The India is a radical rival at his measure, with whom it beared several frontier wars in the middle of the 20th century. The India has a political structure more advanced than China, the liberal participant democracy, still in spite of all his contradictions, ethnic, religious and social discrimination and lacks of all kinds. And it possesses a demographic strength that overcomes China’s people grow. Though lately the Chinese begin to realize the irrational of his «pseudo scientists» methods of the control of the birthrate. That the communist China applied in altars of a material rational progress. Progress which only enjoys in diverse degrees at the present, the members of the communist party and his families, the technical personnel who design, stimulate and develop it, the chiefs and officials of the armed forces and a minority of entrepreneurs and men of business. That have prospered at the shade of an institutional inveterate clientele of the mentioned public elites.

At the west of China, close with his Sinkiang’s immense region (Xinjiang), in the Oriental Turkestan, there is a rosary of former soviet socialist republics of 2 thousands Km long, that get until the Caspian Sea. They are, from east to west, Kazajistan, Kirguistan, Tadzikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. And there form these countries a monolithic set of several etnias, gathered in the names of them, but extended over several simultaneously, of Turkoman origin, of the central steppes of Asia. And agglutinated also by his belonging to the Islam sunní. All this form a multinational defensive and refractory shield to the expansive activity and to the significant presence of the Chinese in his internal matters or in his exterior trade, always with effects of political guardianship. These Turkoman Muslims are rather potentials allied of the Great Russia, with only she puts a bit of care and dedication to attract and to attend them.

Imagen relacionadaCHINA PROJECTS IN  AFRICA HER ECONOMY AND INFLUENCE. DISPLAYING HERSELF AS A COUNTRY THAT NEVER WAS COLONISLIST.

Another great strategic preference of Beijing is to extend his influence and increase the economic and diplomatic bows with the development nations, specially those who have «natural resources and primary cultures«, that are necessary for the manufacturing production, the supply and the general development of the nations. She has taken it even far beyond his geographical borders of political influence or strategical military.

With the interminable income of his exports and with the knowledge of the development in many areas, China does intelligent and massive strategic national «landings» in diverse countries of Africa and Spanish America. With them it establishes «binding alliances» of backing, advising and support. Trying to anchor firmly and creating allies or «friends» by all this world in development. 

Going firmly by the political, economic, diplomatic and military way of turning to what China really seeks to be:

one (or the) hegemonic power in the 21st century.

 The litigious, even violent, and, at least, very menacing, that China keeps with the countries of the East Asian, demonstrate how awkward, despotic and subjecting can be his presence in the short distances. When China thinks that com into play his national interests or his national pride. Whose loss in hands of the «foreign powers» until almost middle of last century, is one of the neurotic tics of the exterior politics of Beijing, from October 1, 1949.

In the Sea of the South of China, this power is expansive and hegemonic. And keeps litigious more or less important with the rest of the Asian countries bathed by this sea. That are The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

This sea has 3500 thousands Km2. And China thinks that it is his «Second Persian Gulf«, for the sub aquatic oil and natural gas deposits, existing and estimated. For comparison and perspective, the Mediterranean Sea only has 2500 thousands Km2 and his coasts bathe to 24 countries in three continents. None of which is hegemonic or expansive.

In order to settle itself in the «disputed archipelagos«, China follows a strategy of small and consolidated advances. Installing in them, in islands and rocky islands, military air or naval bases and extending the logistic capacities of some of them, substracting area to the sea. This has forced to some coastal countries to realize occupations in the islands of his regional seas. Destined, rather, to indicate his presence and sovereignty.

Two of the most showy cases are the archipelagos of Spratly and Paracelso.

The Spratly has hundreds of islands and rocky islands spread by more than 400 thousand Km2, near the Philippines. In relation to this archipelago, the Court of Arbitration of The Hague already pronounced that does not exist a legal base for the Chinese claims. And that the Spratly are not islands with economic projection. But, China, simply, does not recognize it.

The Paracelso’s archipelago, at 700 Km south of Hong Kong, is placed at the west of the southern Sea of China, in the entry of Tonkin’s gulf (Vietnam). There, China has crude oil platforms in dispute with the Vietnamese government. Near the Chinese facilities have been diverse incidents between the Vietnamese fishing boats and patrols and the Chinese ships of escort. That have dispersed them using water cannons.

The modern Hybrid Warfare. 2nd Part.

 

The Multifunctional, Total or Multisubject Wars.

(CONTINUATION)

The abuses against the civil population are always counter-productive in a counterinsurgency struggle and more in an internal revolt. Sometimes, the hurries to form new troops lead to a deficient or incomplete training of these. They are not vaccinated against the stress, specially here the mental one, nor against the frustration of the not fulfilled plans or of the enemy ungrateful surprises. This leads to discharge almost inevitably the anger and the enervating impotence in the civil population, intermingled voluntary or by force with the rebels.

Resultado de imagen de rusia guerra de siria Russians in Syria. First, they devastate and then his infantry advances to sweep away and occupy. The Syrian civil dead do not matter for them.

With embarrassing frequency, when the human or technological «sensors» of Russia, Arabia Saudi or the West countries detect some probable activity from Iraqi, Syrian, Huttis or Zaidies rebels or the foreign “muyahidin”, first they devastate the building, the «block», the zone. Then they go to sweep up and to do the «body count», for their statistics. Sometimes, among the rubbles, they can get the corpses of an Arabic innocent and numerous family. They abuses of the attrition, which is indiscriminate and perverse when the enemy fuses with the civil people. They neglect the unexpected active patrolling, which needs proportionally less material and human means, but more trade, moral courage, freedom of action and creativity in the low and intermediate commands and NCO and in the men.

 

A necessary complement of the regular net are the false rebels bands. These would be destined to operate in zones inclined to the insurgency, from where some of their members come from. Their activity and concealment would be favored by the decentralized character of the rebel groups. Their missions would be to obtain information, to prove the loyalty of the civil ones and to annihilate small enemy groups or lone suicidal terrorists. They should not be bigger than a reinforced squad or section, except in combat special occasions.ç

Cuenta regresiva: dos buques de guerra rusos, listos para zarpar rumbo a Siria  Two disembarkation vessels of the Black Sea’s Russian Fleet load troops for Tartus’s Syrian port. «To defend the national Russian interests in Syria».

There were prominent the practices of counter insurgency of the Portuguese in his immense colonies of Africa, between some of which there were a distance of 3 thousand Km. Raising great logistic problems like for a small nation, which was not possessing excessive resources or friends. It was important the politics of «national integration» (with mottoes as «Portugal is not an European nation» or «It is not a small nation»; «Portugal is a big multicultural nation»). And that was practiced by the Portuguese troops, on the basis of the respect the population, the lack of unnecessary or necessary not explained reprisals and the improvement or the development of the autochthonous civil population. Counting with the «economic, of education, of civil engineering, logistic means» available, always loins and in penury. That is to say, the Portuguese «means of intervention» were acting together in an operational «mix». Done in accordance with his capacities and the functions and national aims of this Hybrid War, directed by a central coordinating command.

But, the population understood the politics of «sincere approximation» and it reasonably helped the Portuguese troops to isolate and border on the «irregular bands» of the different rebel movements in the most distant or inhospitable regions of the different countries. That could not gain the battle for «the hearts and the minds» of the Angolans and other peoples.

 

Imagen relacionada Column of Portuguese troops on the verge of continuing the march.

This made a «impasse», a dead point, in the military development of the colonial classic «guerrilla wars». The rebels bands could not create stable «guerrilla bases». That could allowing them to have a cozy rear and a permanent and sure refuge. And to indoctrinate, to grow and fortify and to spread over the different regions of each country. Depriving the military enemy, little by little, of the domain over the native and their lands. And the Portuguese could not surround and annihilate the guerrillas placed in the remote zones of the territories. Which simply slipped and changed of sure location.

The first that saw this perspective of his future were the Africanists and the metropolis officials. And this led, finally, to the «revolution of the carnations» of April 25, 1974, to the overthrow of the Marcelo Caetano’s corporate salazarist regime and to the decolonization of Portugal. For whom the long wars meant an intolerable bleeding of humans and materials resources, in the perspective of an indefinite stagnation.

But, when the colonial independence came (Angola, Guinea and Mozambique), as consequence of this point of balance reached, the valid speakers to negotiate it with the Portuguese were relatively not much, badly prepared and with a weak and superficial organization, which was not supported without the foreign «socialist» help.

The diplomatic Warfare, the normal and the heterodox.

One of the «means of intervention» of a world or regional power to obtain his «national and strategic aims» are the «Foreign Relations«. That has a concept qualitatively more extensive than the Diplomacy. This refers to the State or government affairs, that treat 2 or more nations (alliances). And the diplomatic «function» is to negotiate by the political way what communicates to him his State. department or secretary. Asking and receiving successive instructions, if it was necessary, to support and continue the negotiation. And being kept or not in his execution and protocol relations, within the qualities of discretion, prudence and tact that characterize his trade.

Resultado de imagen de diplomacia internacional The international Diplomacy gets entangled.

The Foreign Relations also include other relations and more heterodox actions. That is necessary to look for, to keep and to support in the exterior to obtain our national aims. This way, a function of the foreign relations is to appear for it, new opportunities and more secondary ways or routes and «means of intervention«. The Foreign Relations collaborate directly, since always it has been done, using the means and the in force national strategy, with the Intelligence, the Economy and the national Armed Forces. That is to say, acting together in a «mix» of functions and means of intervention, the war always has been Hybrid from the Prehistory. Creating new opportunities and ways, to apply and use the whole creative and potential capacity of the State, to achieve his strategic and operational aims.

A succinct example between thousands of situations. The «central operational command of combined war» can request to Foreign Relations the search of dissident or domestic enemy in a potential enemy country. Located one o more of these, there are valued his capacities, circumstances, implantation and operational possibilities. This way, FF. RR. would present a report to the central command in the shape of a «founded resolution”, involving in it. That is, valuing schematically the existing cases and being decided by one or two, depending on his qualities and our general or punctual convenience.

Resultado de imagen de Metternich diplomacia Prince Klemens Wenzel Metternich (1773-1859). As diplomat was more important in his achievements, that Napoleon in his wars. 

These dissidents or enemies will be politicians or also armed rebels. In the first case, our nation might grant to them asylum, scholarships, economic support and advice to his groups. In the second one, in a phase of major confrontation, we could also send supply and armaments, advisers and trainers and «special operations» or of «foreign volunteers» units, to support and/or reinforce them in his insurgents activities.

The Propaganda as a «mean of intervention«.

At the beginning of the 16th century the «reformists and heretical» ideas of the priest Martin Luther propagated in the center and north of Europe, with the help of the press. The origin of the word propaganda arises during the Counter Reformation. It is a reference to the spread of the catholic faith.  With the Jesuits in the forefront of this task of catechizing. Facing to the deviations from the preexisting orthodoxy, taught by the Lutherans, Huguenots, Calvinists, Erasmists, etc. Today, the Propaganda Fide is the Vatican Catholic Congregation for the Evangelization of the Peoples.

It is not up to the I World war when the term acquires a negative or pejorative significance. It originates in the popular indignation towards the systematic efforts of the belligerent powers in that one, to manipulate in his favor the ideas and, with it, the attitudes of all, the neutral, enemies and its own population. This might be the certain modern origin of the “false news«, tendentious, insidious, sectarian, equivocal… That the Spanish-speaking snobs name «fake news» now .

This way, in the 30s of last century, the propaganda «of war» or «national» evoked in the majority of the persons the vision of malevolent forces, which were supposed strange and alienating, trying to wash their brains. The need arisen with the outbreak of the World War II, to cooperate to the effort of total war with all the available means, in an imposed conflict that was threatening the survival of the democracies, and the new advance in the sociological and psychological fields during the period between the wars, they will go progressively and firmly to the acceptance by the Western nations and his Armed Forces of the application of the psychological warfare.

Resultado de imagen de propaganda fide The Roman Palace of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide.

The propaganda always handles basic, essential information, that are easy and simple by definition. This is due to the fact that his «aim» (the «target») is always large and numerous: the population of a certain country or region, or a religious, economic, racial or socially different extensive group. They are those that it is necessary to inform, convince and, according with the cases, to protect.

The National Economy as a «mean of intervention».

The Economy is an important and classic “mean of intervention» of the State and of the Nation. It means and involves in the effort of war the capacity of obtaining and producing all kinds of goods and services, intermediates and finals, that the technologies and processes in effect in each stage are capable of get and obtain.

Resultado de imagen de reagan and gorbachev  Reagan and Gorbachev.

The Economy is tied here directly with the applied, specific education, of the skilled workforce, who is needed and could be achieved in a nation. The own aptitude to obtain goods or services (even with tourism, raw materials, trade) appetizing to other nations or social groups, will serve for the direct exchange or for barter of the goods and services in which a society is showing a deficit. As an example, energy or specifically qualified workforce.

Also, in cases of need and usefulness, a nation can decide to assign more productive resources to the production of a certain good. But, all more it is required specialization in the production, the performances, both neat and economic (as cost of them) will be minor. By virtue of the laws of the diminishing performance and of the increasing costs that suffer these «specialized reconverted productive processes«.

It is very easy to use the cement in producing military goods of static defense (bunkers, defensive armed lines) and not to raise buildings with it; it is relatively easy to convert the industrial vehicles factories of into armored vehicles plants. And it is very difficult to obtain great performances from a dairy changed in an arms plant.

It is evident that all this process of restructuring the capacity of production of a nation, will require the control by a political determined and firm command. And the confirmation and the support of a temporal laws of war, which decide and support it firmly. Approved by a sufficient majority of the Legislative Power.

Paradigmatic is the example of the USA and the Soviet Union, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, in the decade of the 80 in the 20th century. The armament career that imposed the first nation collapsed the economy of the second one. That could not continue, with his economic capacity without competition (in the productive capital), nor incentives (to the workforce), the pace to which it was forcing to produce the goods and planned services. And a whole economic social politics system, as the “real socialism”, implosion and ruined. Taking with him, in a few years, the whole political military framework mounted by Moscow. In order that it was his influence sphere, his western tampons «defense» and his political social empire, after the World War II. Years later, a Soviet ex-diplomat opened his heart: «we did not have even to eat…»

The Cybernetic War, a characteristic “mean” of the modern Hybrid War.

A «mean of intervention» against the enemies or to change or to influence wills, which was not known, for unthinkable, until a few years ago, is The Cybernetic War.

The cybernetic attacks can go to the software or the hardware of the personal IT, managerial or institutional systems. The software is the «logical support» of an IT system, which makes possible the accomplishment of the different tasks. This «logical support» includes the operating system and the applications or IT programs that those realize. The hardware is the machinery or the set of physical components of the computer. This way, summarizing, the software generates instructions that are executed by the hardware or physical support of the system.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

The modern Hybrid Warfare.

The Multifunctional, Total or Multisubject Wars.

The modern Warfare.

Till now, the wars were making between big and small «nations». They were the only capable of generating a «will of defense». This made concrete in the Armed Forces and in the economy, the diplomacy and the people support of their societies. Looking for the defense of their strategic and national interests and their survival. A procedure or protocol existed for the war declaration and for the signature of the peace agreement. The one that was not respecting the honor procedure was considered to be infamous. And if he was turning out to be defeated, could wait for a severe punishment. President Roosevelt, on Monday, the 8th of December, 1941, at 12:30 pm. hour of Washington, in his speech before the American Congress assembled in Joint Session, and transmitted by radio to the nation, was declaring: «Yesterday was a day marked by the infamy…I request you declare the existence of a State of War between the United States of America and Germany, Italy, the Japanese Empire and all their Allies». And at the end were Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Resultado de imagen de george clemenceau

The contemporary wars lasted a few years. After which, exhausted the industrial capacity and the will of defense of the defeated nations, not necessarily invaded or occupied, these were accepting their defeat and the peace was signed. When the armistice or the peace conditions were too leonine and humiliating, they were originating new vital defense «impulses or take-offs» in the defeated people. Seeking to overcome and avenge the received damages and offenses. Those were the sure germ of a future war within a generation, measured in around 25 years. Just remember the treaty of Versailles or «Diktat» against Germany, signed on June 29, 1919, promoted by Georges Clemenceau, called the Tiger. Whose last payments referred to interests of the already liquidated principal debt, the reunified Germany has just done at the end of September, 2010, approximately 90 years after accepted.

The threat of the use of the atomic weapon in the war between the industrial powers, removed indefinitely the historical and recurrent danger of a war of interests of any class between them. The civil and military leaders of all of them, have exhibited throughout more than 65 years an exquisite tact, supported by the nationals diplomacy and economy, in the international relations and in the resolution of the raised conflicts. No «minor» relative question was deserving to assume the risk of an uncertain, costly nuclear warfare and without clear «victors». In any case, the big hegemonic powers or the principal ones in a strategic zone, were solving regionally his ideological and of interests fighting. And they were doing it by means of regionally limited sectoral wars.

Resultado de imagen de cuba en etiopía Cuban «internationalists» Forces  supporting Ethiopia against Somalia in 1977.

Where were fighting their partners and like-minded, local, not atomic and subsidiary nations, even out of their strategic natural zone. There we have the case of Angola, Cuba and South Africa, after the decolonization of the first one. Also the fight in the Horn of Africa between Mengistu Haile Mariam’s Ethiopia, Cuba and Siad Barre’s Somalia. The latter’s overthrow, after his defeat in the war for getting the Ogaden Desert in 1991, precipitated Somalia in the chaos in which still is. And we have the Israel and the Arabic bordering countries case, which threaten her from time to time with her elimination and with throwing to the sea the surviving Jews.

The modern communications have rushed, marking character, into the contemporary wars: the wireless or waves of wide spectrum; the road networks and the diverse engine vehicles. A special challenge, which appears in all the coercive conflicts, not necessarily armed in all his phases, is the so called cybernetic war. Made concrete in the attacks to the «enemy» across the universal wireless communications network. These aggression are capable of penetrating the first and second levels of security lines, most known or common. And to commit an outrage against the databases and the processes of the normal computers of companies, individuals and institutions. Until a few years ago, only the developed states had access to this vanguard technology. And this also connects the 3th and 4th generations wars: the employment of the cyberattacks is not already only in hands of the big powers. As example, driving mad the computers of the hostile plants of enrichment of the uranium 235. Today, small nations and groups of fanned rebels or of conceited little rascals, with certain knowledge and lean resources, can realize successfully cybernetic assaults at certain level.

Resultado de imagen de guerra guerrillas Vietnam North Vietnameses regular Forces equiped with Soviet design’s PPSh-41 sub machineguns.

In the last decades, the wars are showing in very asymmetric levels of means and efforts confronted. So much is so, that the Americans call them wars of 4th generation or asymmetric wars. But they are nothing more than the old guerrilla wars of the History. And, often also, of national liberation. Let’s not forget that always the rebel and insolent enemy is despised. He is judged by the laws of armed sedition and attack against the National Security. From May, 1808 Napoleon so had in consideration the Spanish. Or the European powers to the nascent nations in Africa and Asia, after the World War II, from Algeria up to Indonesia, passing to Angola (the Portuguese were saying that she was a national province) and Vietnam.

Birth and Situation of The Hybrid Warfare.

The First Generation of wars would be marked by the development and consolidation of the State concept. The wars of The Second Generation would be characterized by the commitment of the societies in the Cause or the Mother land. His model is the French Revolution; there appear the manufacturer and transport revolutions, which made possible the extension of the operations theater, not so much the maneuvers speed, and they extended the spectrum of the objectives. In them were used literally armies of masses, where the shock had great importance and independently that the cavalry or the infantry was the principal weapon. In the wars of Third Generation, at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th, the modern technology supports and modifies the actions. And the factor that contributes to the definition of the wars of Fourth generation is the globalization and the return to the man as decisive actor.

Resultado de imagen de guerra guerrillas Afganistan contra URSS The Soviet tanks fight against an evasive and fleeting irregular enemy in Afghanistan. Who will win?

Russian Now, closing the historical and definer curl, the wars of V generation are called hybrid or multi functional wars, which, really, always have existed. With the major or minor participation of each one of the «available means of intervention» (Foreign Relations, regular and irregular Armed Forces, Economy, Cybernetics, etc) in the social group, to obtain the «functions of intervention» search for. Forming a “means” mix, adapted to all situations and confrontation theaters.

Not for nominating nowadays with an exotic and new word, preferably foreign, one makes this way a «mean or a function of intervention» fresh and promising. The problem is that the ignorance of the history, still the recent one, impoverishes the new concepts, ideas and situations of conflict. Without winning in application, efficiency and cognitive capacity with it. With this, only it falls or repeats the previous history, returning to learn it. And that, as in a spiral screw, only changes the phenomenon temporal «plane of execution«. Where are kept safe and now partly secret, the different «essential parameters» of the phenomena of the conflicts and fights.

In Afghanistan, the Soviet «experience» of fight against the insurgency between December, 1979 and January, 1989, as invading and oppressive military force, supporting a regime of his orbit, turned out to be a complete disaster for the U.S.S.R., on not having obtained any of his strategic or national aims. But, in Syria, the insurgents were settling themselves and controlling some nearly definite territories. And they were defending them well until the year 2016, after the intervention of Russia…

And the Russians from his successful, but very short experience there, praise nowadays the employment of a «center of coordinating control» in each operations theater. That would be entrusted to coordinate, in a convergent and global effort, the specific means at the disposal of the command of the theater. Every «mean of intervention» will be specialized here depending on the tasks to completing.

Resultado de imagen de rusia guerra de siria Russian Forces fight in Syria in support of al-Assad’s regime.

The tasks to coordinate in the theater, to stimulate the policies adapted to the interests of Russia and to the coexistence and the peace, would be: of military ordinary or special character and of advice; diplomatics; of cooperation with civil administrations and governmental forces or others present; of reconstruction and support of the population. Here would intervene the diplomats, civil engineers, technical personnel of administration, educators, units of rural policemen, economic advisers and sociologists. Forming mixed «functional packages» to integrate in the » coordinating center » of intervention and collaboration.

To all that the Russians call the Valery Guerasimov’s doctrine. Though it is not more than a collection of policies, trends and actions of before and now.

The military forces will be destined to the regular operations of assault and defense. Included the custody of sensitive aims, so much personal and industrial groups, as of structure and infrastructure; the establishment and defense of control positions, both fixed and itinerant; the assault to the bases, concentrations and movements of important enemy forces; the combat and/or recognnoissance patrolling that covers the territory in hands or threatened by the irregulars and the occupation of enemy taken positions.

The American multi subject doctrine is contained in the concept, the regulations and the updates of the Modern Air Land Battle. And they apply in his politics and actions the same «means of intervention» that all the great powers. The general James Mattis, Secretary of Defense until Thursday, the 20th of December, 2018, in which it was fulfilled the glass of his discrepancies with Trump. For his not consulted order of retreat of the contingent of 2 thousand American soldiers in Syria.

Mattis explained in his letter of resignation, in a condensed, easy and deep way the ideas of the Pentagon on the hybrid or multifunctional war. In order that Trump could understand it. «Our strength is joined to the strength of our system of alliances. And, in similar form, we must be unequivocal and decisive with the countries which interests and trends are opposite or are in tension with ours«.

Resultado de imagen de seal navy The SEALs.

Almost all the «means of intervention» of the State, used to obtain his national aims, already were present in the panoply of means at his disposition, a long before this new name of the Hybrid War. The «functions of intervention» were developed by «means» adapted to the real possibilities of his epoch. And they were obtaining the looked aims, though they were very specific. There we have the actions of the SAS (Special Air Service) as «special forces of punctual intervention with limited objectives” in the enemy rearguard. Fighting against this one and to support and help the local «forces of resistance to the occupant». In the USA we have to the SEALs, the Rangers, the Delta force and the Special Forces, among others. In Germany is the GSG 9 group. In Australia and New Zealand they have the same name that the British corps.

The strategic and tactical needs of the war and the functions of the «means of intervention» are slightly variable. And his variability is a function of the improvements in general training, scope, speed, capacity of shock and fire on the enemy, communications between «means», protection of these, etc. That offer the successive technologies applicable to the «means».

And all the colonial metropolis, fighting in the wars of liberation raised after the World War II, developed with variables degree and fortune, methods and policies of civil development, of link the overseas natives to the nation, of «gaining the hearts and the minds» of the autochthonous population.

The Guerrillas Wars.

The pompously so called fourth generation wars are the counterinsurgency wars or guerrilla warfare or irregular wars or armed revolts or liberation wars or organized banditry, which always have existed, coexisting with the conventional variants of warfare. They are those that the USA has lost or not gained lately: Vietnam, The Lebanon (peace disembarkation of “marines”, then demolished in their barrack) and Somalia (the uncontrollable and unforeseeable wasp’s nest of «all against all» by the local lords of the war and the Islamic militias). They are uneven wars (they call them now «asymmetrical warfare») against an enemy of lower technological military level, relative to the regular enemy forces, always rooted in the own or occupied civil population and slight militarily intense but very extensive in the space and the time.

The wars against the armed irregular are by its Nature long, painful and difficult. Its prolong character originates from the need that a popular force, departing almost from nothing, develops and spreads. Managing to moral or militarily defeat a regular own or of occupation army. The difficulty and the cruel evil arise from the high civil component that takes part in them. They are wars located in the home courtyard, in the own or occupied rear.

It is necessary, therefore, to avoid the prolongation of the conflict, which is mining the conviction of the own forces and allowing that the enemy should spread, strengthen and prevail.

(TO BE CONTINUED)