In the movie Star Wars, the Empire knew that in order to secure victory, they had to attack. The rebels had the gall to attack the Empire and destroy the Death Star. After that, Darth Vader had had enough. It was time to take the fight to the enemy.
In their strategic offensive into Pennsylvania which culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg, good generals knew that to seize the battlefield from the enemy, they had to go on the offensive.
Welcome to the third installment in our series examining the Principles of War. Today we are looking at the Offensive.
In our earlier post, we defined Offensive as:
Offensive: Take the initiative to seize and maintain the advantage over the enemy.
In the above video, it could be argued that the Union forces won the Battle of Gettysburg while they were in the defense. However, going by the above definition, the Union did “take the initiative” by seizing the high ground and forcing the Confederate army to attack under unfavorable conditions while the Union “maintained the advantage over the enemy.”
I’ll generally choose an historic example that best illustrates the principle under discussion. Not today. today we turn to a very popular TV show, The Walking Dead.
If you haven’t seen the show, it is about the Zombie Apocalypse and a group of survivors trying to rebuild. The group’s leader is named Rick. In season six, Rick’s group is confronted by another group led by a man named Negan.
Negan’s group, the Saviors, is bigger, better organized and better armed. Negan’s objective is the submission of Rick’s group and their subordinate incorporation into the Savior’s, of course under Negan’s command.
This confrontation goes on for two seasons until in season eight, Rick’s group finally attacks the Savior’s base which they call the Sanctuary.
Without mentioning the total lack of marksmanship, or even their apparent lack of a sound tactical plan, yes, Rick did take the offensive.
Back to our definition of Offensive, this doesn’t exclusively mean getting all your friends together and launching an ill-conceived attack against a fortified position. The full definition states “Take the initiative to seize and maintain the advantage over the enemy.“
There are many methods and techniques to achieve this, and has implications beyond the battlefield. Offensive can be applied to business, politics or even dating, if you think about it. But I digress.
In the Walking Dead, Rick’s strategic problem is that he was confronted by a superior enemy in terms of logistics, manpower, armament, and held a fortified position and up until then enjoyed complete maneuverability across the breadth of the battlefield.
Under those circumstances, how would Rick have “seized and maintained the advantage over the enemy?”
The old saying of there’s nothing new under the sun certainly applies here.
There have been many successful campaigns where the underdog triumphed throughout history.
From the Judean uprising against the Romans starting in 66 AD, to more modern examples like Viet Minh and later the Viet Cong fighting the French and Americans, respectively, in Vietnam and the Muhajadeen fighting the Russians in Afghanistan.
I served three tours in Iraq. My first tour was with the invasion in 2003 and my last was five years later, leaving in 2008. The Americans certainly had its successes, but after five years, we were still fighting an enemy that on paper should have never stood a chance against us.
Just one quick war story. In 2005, I was serving as the Intelligence trainer for the Iraqi Army 6th Division. Being successful in a role like that is as dependent on the personal relationships as it is actually teaching. At the Iraqi division headquarters in the southwest corner of Camp Liberty, Baghdad, there was an artificial pond built by Saddam Hussein back when. In 2005, it was dry and an Iraqi colonel asked me if I could help put water back in it. He assured me that he knew where the water source was right outside our back gate. He asked if he could show me.
I said sure, and followed him to the gate. Instead of stopping at the gate and pointing to the water, as I expected, he walked out of the gate and continued down the sand and gravel road towards a small village. There were three American soldiers guarding the gate. I told them that we would be right back. Being a major, they didn’t argue with me and I strolled out of the gate following the Iraqi colonel.
In about 6 minutes, a quick reaction force of four armored HMMVs came flying out to join us. Apparently, the gate guards, doing their job, informed Headquarters they just had an American major just walk out of the gate and the US 3rd Infantry Division dispatched these guys to go retrieve us.
I was quickly summoned to the Division Chief of Staff’s office for a proper chewing out. He was a great guy and an officer whom I highly respected. My dressing down consisted of words like “what were you thinking,” and “are you trying to get yourself killed?”
My response was, “Sir, isn’t the real issue we’ve had an entire infantry division here for over 2 years and we can’t control 100 meters outside the camp?”
The point is, the principle of Offensive doesn’t have to mean shooting Negan’s windows. It means having the enemy always reacting to what you’re doing and not you always reacting to what the enemy is doing.
Going back to the Walking Dead, Rick had more than two seasons to address this, seize the initiative and defeat Negan and his Saviors.
For a couple quick examples, Rick could have maintained the advantage over Negan first through surveillance and intelligence. The Saviors shouldn’t have been able to step outside or start a vehicle’s engine without Rick knowing about it.
Every single time any of the Saviors left the camp, they should have face some kind of attack, whether that was a roadside bomb (I faced many of these in Iraq), or a sniper taking out a couple of them. Not a full on force on force attack where Rick would probably lose, but a limited engagement that would employ and risk just couple of Rick’s guys.
This would have seized the initiative and kept the Savior’s in the position where they are continuously reacting to the conditions on the battlefield set by Rick and his “forces.” Like my experience in Iraq, despite being more heavily armed, superior weapons and equipment and outnumbering the enemy, Negan couldn’t walk outside to check the water without risking getting shot by Rick’s sniper.
It doesn’t always have to be kinetic. It can be as simple as stealing Negan’s vegetables from their garden to limit their food supply or sabotage their vehicles while they’re parked so the Saviors can’t use them to attack Rick’s camp.
Think outside the box.
In World War II, the British faced the dilemma of the German air force always bombing them (yes, I’m aware how I’m over simplifying the issue) and outnumbering the British RAF. To address this, they created the Special Air Service (SAS) whose mission was to drive sometimes hundreds of miles behind enemy lines to attack the German planes while they sat on the airfields.
Rick would maintain this tempo of operations, surveillance, unconventional attacks, and sabotage, until Negan’s Saviors were in a weaker position and the balance of power shifted to Rick.
Marine Corp Colonel John Boyd developed what he calls the OODA Loop. Leaders will go through a repetitive cycle of observation-orientation-decision-action when making decisions.
Everyone goes through the OODA loop when solving problems and reacting to changing circumstances and new information. In “seizing the initiative,” we have to do these steps faster than our adversary. Rick would have to “out-OODA” Negan.
This doesn’t always mean attack, but to seize the initiative and force the enemy to always react to you and not you reacting to your adversary. Success means being flexible, nimble and open minded. Importantly, Rick has to make decisions and act faster than Negan and the Saviors, maintaining the initiative and keeping the Saviors in a position of disadvantage.
The concept of the Principle of War, Offensive can be used in almost any circumstance, from business to politics to a disagreement over a fence with your neighbor. It isn’t about pure power or strength, it is about keeping your adversary in a position where you hold the initiative and they are reacting to you, and not the other way around.
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