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Some Complexities in Military Planning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
Extract
Several reasons for the welcome growth in serious public discussion of military affairs are apparent. Americans are increasingly realizing that we are terribly vulnerable. Military preparations can no longer be deferred until after the onset of hostilities, making it more important that we analyze carefully in peacetime what our preparations should be. The magnitude of our defense effort has so increased that it naturally draws more critical scrutiny. Above all, what we do in defense interacts crucially with our foreign policy. To these considerations that obviously stimulate discussion, we must add another that weakens an inhibition against it. Critics need defer far less than formerly to military expertise.
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- Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1959
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1 Since this discussion may be taken to be critical of other professions, it is only fair to acknowledge the deficiencies of one's own. Typically, economists escape fallacy in military affairs by the ignoble expedient of ignoring the field of inquiry. The few who enter it bring with them some special abilities, but also their own special limitations. (On this point, see Hitch, C. J., “Economists and Military Operations Research,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XL, No. 3, August 1958, p. 208.)Google Scholar That so few do enter is a sad commentary. If one looks at the staff of a big university, he is likely to find a Professor of Agricultural Economics, of Transportation, of Public Utilities, of Public Regulation of Industry, and so on, each concentrating upon the effects of government measures in one sector of the economy. Are these more important than the neglected military establishment, which directly absorbs far more resources than are utilized in these other sectors? The profession whose general concern is the allocation of resources within an economy seems to influence the apportionment of its own resources haphazardly at best.
2 World Politics, 1, No. 4 (July 1949), p. 478.
3 This oversimplification is not confined to non-economists dealing with military affairs. Writing on foreign aid, Millikan, Max F. and Rostow, W. W. assert: “…the distribution of funds among countries would be determined by absorptive capacity rather than by considerations of equity or politics” (A Proposal, New York, 1957, p. 58).Google Scholar In my opinion, this “absorptive capacity” is nowhere near as precisely definable as they make it out to be, and nowhere near as low, to the extent that it can be made precise. Consequently, their means of handling the allocation of aid among countries is an evasion rather than a solution.
4 See Thomas C. Schelling, “Surprise Attack and Disarmament,” The RAND Corporation, P–1574, to be published in the formcoming volume, NATO and American Security, ed. by Klaus Knorr.
5 See Wohlstetter, Albert, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Foreign Affairs, XXXVII, No. 2 (January 1959), pp. 211–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 Because General Gavin has been perhaps the most prominent expert publicly identified with the 100 per cent air-defense thesis, his own clarification of his position is pertinent: “At another point in the record, page 879 [Hearings, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations of the United States Senate, Dept. of Defense Appropriations for 1958], in response to questions on the effectiveness of air defense, I make the following statement: ‘;Well, we want a one hundred per cent air defense. And we consider this attainable…’I am quite sure that mere will rarely be any defense in applied military power so fully effective that every single element in the attacking force will be destroyed. I have no doubt, however, that in the nuclear-missile era when a nation so elects to defend a specific site it could provide an air defense so effective that it would not be worth die cost to an attacker to make a direct attack upon it.” Gavin, Gen. James M., “Why Limited War?” Ordnance, XLII, NO. 227 (March-April, 1958), pp. 810–11 (italics added).Google Scholar
7 We can do so by replacing the rigid concept of an overriding priority by the concept of an income elasticity of demand (percentage change in quantity demanded divided by the percentage change in total resources available—income, in the case of a consumer; by analogy, the total military budget here) that is lower, the greater the importance that we attach to a particular claimant upon the available resources. But there is little point in belaboring the income elasticity concept. It contributes a little clarification, but not a principle that is fruitful in this area for organizing data or guiding policy. We are dealing with the question of what the division of the military budget ought to be when the decisions are to be made collectively. The theory of consumer choice that uses the income elasticity concept, in contrast, concentrates upon individual choices, and typically is primarily interested in predicting rather than influencing income elasticities.
8 Lanchester, F. W., Aircraft in Warfare, London, 1916, p. 48Google Scholar; for elaboration, see chs. V and VI.
9 For reasons well put by Brodie (op.cit.), the “principles of war” have not been necessary to our discussion. But since we here touch upon one, the Principle of Concentration—variously given as Mass, Concentration of Force or, more generally, of Effort—the distinctive contribution of Lanchester might be emphasized. One trouble with the “principles” is their vagueness. Concentrate under what circumstances, by how much? In showing that his “N-square Law” applied under some circumstances but not others—e.g., not where, as in some primitive warfare, one man could fight only one other at a time—Lanchester demonstrated the variable importance of concentration. His “Law” was not put as immutable, but as a result of some specific warfare circumstances that had changed and could change further. That, as my colleague Albert Wohlstetter has quipped, the Principle of Concentration now turns out to be immutable only because concentration applies to me nuclear rather than the troop mass need not have troubled Lanchester.
Moreover, his Law, with suitable amendment for particular conditions, is a big first step toward answering the question, concentrate by how much? Using it, the magnitude of expected attrition of one's forces can be expressed numerically as a function of change in concentration, and the mathematics can be extended to show the variations in the probability of success in engagement. Thus the price of splitting forces can be put more meaningfully to a commander to weigh against the value of pursuing multiple objectives simultaneously. We must not overpraise Lanchester, for he was intoxicated enough by his discovery to commit the common error of overstressing its import in one area against conflicting considerations, of converting operational theory into dogma: “It is questionable whether under any circumstances it can be considered sound strategy to divide the main battle fleet on which the defence of a country depends” (Lanchester, , op.cit., p. 38). Still, especially for 1916, his contribution is outstanding.Google Scholar
10 I have argued elsewhere that the complementary contribution is more prominent when the alternative capability in question is “massive retaliation” rather than the much more discriminating and selective means of applying force that are tailored for limited war. The more we have of the latter, the less the strain on our will power in using it, and hence the less the credibility of a response by us can be discounted. Consequendy, the competitive aspect is more prominent relative to the complementary one in evaluating direct civilian defense vs. limited war capabilities than in evaluating such defenses vs. central war capabilities, and the evident diseconomy of maintaining special forces for limited war should be balanced against the much-less-evident economies in direct civilian defenses that such forces make possible. See my “Is ‘Dual’ Preparedness More Expensive” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XIII, NO. 2 (February 1957), pp. 48–51, and “Cost of a Dual Capability,” Ordnance, XLII, NO. 227 (March-April 1958), pp. 822–24.
11 Special Studies Report II of Rockefeller Brothers Fund, International Security—The Military Aspect, New York, 1958, p. 61.Google Scholar