Adaptive Enemies. Achieving Victory by Avoiding Defeat

Abstract : Once the dogs of war are unleashed and the shooting starts, conflicts follow unpredictable courses. Clausewitz warned that wars are contests between two active, willing enemies, both of whom expect to win. Once begun, war--with its precise planning and cerebral doctrine--quickly devolves into a series of stratagems and counter stratagems as each side seeks to retain advantages long enough to achieve a decisive end by collapsing an enemy's will to resist. Despite its video game image, the NATO campaign against Serbia was no exception to the Clausewitzian construct. Belgrade sought to overcome a tremendous material and technological disadvantage by capitalizing on its strengths: the ability to gain operational objectives quickly and then disperse to avoid the inevitable aerial assault. The Serbs thought that patience, tenacity, guile, and ground forces sequestered throughout the countryside would provide an interval to outwait the resolve of the Alliance. The political will of NATO proved stronger. But skill and perseverance on the part of the Serbian army in the face of a thousand aircraft with precision guided weapons is a compelling example of how an adaptive enemy can foil the best laid plans of a superior force by capitalizing on its own inherent strengths while minimizing those of an enemy. Over the last fifty years Western militaries, particularly the U.S. Armed Forces, have been remarkably consistent in how they fight. They have inherited an extraordinary ability to translate technological innovation, industrial base capacity, and national treasure into battlefield advantages as a result of enormous Cold War outlays. However, in an era of limited war, the commitment to limited ends demands the use of limited means. Thus the lives of soldiers have become even more precious and there is a growing impetus to develop a method of warfare that will replace manpower expenditures with an ever multiplying application of firepower.