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Theoretical Precepts of an Army's Will to Fight

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Theoretical Precepts of an Army's Will to Fight THEORETICAL Lt Gen PR Kumar, PVSM, AVSM, PRECEPTS OF AN VSM (Retd), former Director General ARMY’S WILL TO FIGHT: of Military Operations. He continues IMPLICATIONS FOR THE to write and talk on international and INDIAN ARMED FORCES regional security and strategic issues. THEORETICAL PRECEPTS OF AN ARMY’S WILL TO FIGHT: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE INDIAN ARMED FORCES “Man behind the Machine matters Most, Always and Every time” Humans: The Final Arbiter in Battle. Assessing morale and will to fight (adversary and own) is crucial to the science and art of war (Warcraft). Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a political scientist at New York University, reckons human will matters enough for many wars to be won by what starts off, in strict military terms, as the weaker sidei. With very few exceptions, all wars and almost all battles are decided by matters of human will: breaking the enemy's will to fight while sustaining one's own will to fight is the key to success in battle. Will to fight is the disposition and decision to fight, to keep fighting, and to win. Technology, Transparency and Modern Weapon Systems: Dilution of HumanImpact. With continuous and increasing emergence of modern, potent, accurate, and long-range weapon systems, technology including 2 autonomous systems and ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), the essentially human nature of war is getting ignored. Many in the past have felt the same. Military history is, as a consequence, littered with disastrously wrong assumptions about belligerents’ will to fight. France (1950s), America and China (1960-70s), three UNSC members and major powers, for instance, famously under estimated the determination of Vietnam’s National Liberation Front when they intervened in Vietnam for their own strategic reasons and got a bloody nose instead. During the battle of DOGRAI on the Indo Pak border in the 1965 war, 3 JAT (Indian Infantry Battalion), known for their sustained dogged courage in battle, led by Lt Col Hayde, MVC achieved a superb victory against over whelming odds. Lack of focus on will to fight could create a vulnerable situation to many armed forces and nations forcing a critical situation. The best technology in the world is useless without the force of will to use it and to keep using it even as casualties mount and unexpected calamities arise. Use of Modern Computing to Quantify Morale and Will. Behavioral scientists are now, bringing the power of modern computing to bear on the question. Defence planners have long used computers to forecast the results of conflicts by crunching data on things like troop numbers, weapons capabilities, ammunition supplies and mechanized forces, air and naval forces quantification. The next step, which will be hugely facilitated with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and scientific models, is to extend the idea into the area of morale, by quantifying the psychological variables that determine whether troops will flee, or stand and fight. Important Definitions/Aspects pertaining to Will to Fight. Predicting human behavior is not anexact science, however, we can significantly improve our understanding of an individual or units will to fight by assessing and analyzing dispositionii, which allows for an estimation of overall military effectiveness and forecasting of behavior. Wars rarely end simply because one military destroys another. Government and leaders determine how and when wars end, and they may have to decide many times during a conflict whether their country should continue enduring risk and sacrifice or whether it is time to stop fighting. Tangible factors, such as remaining force levels, logistical resilience, weapon systems, are obviously part of the decision calculus, but it is often less-tangible political and 3 economic variables that ultimately determine what might be called national will to fight. It is the determination of a national government to conduct sustained military and other operations to achieve their objective, even when the expectation of success decreases or the need for significant political, economic, and military sacrifices increases. Pivotal Role of Influence Information and Psychological Operations (IIO and PSYOPS) affecting Morale and Will to Fight. Confrontation/ conflicts have moved from attrition to manoeuvre, and now to a combination of the above along with the cognitive domains of Information (Influence) Operations (IIO/IO) and Psychological Operations (PSYOPS). Nations would always prefer achieving their strategic aims without warfighting in the traditional sense, and impose their will using cognitive/non-kinetic domains. There are innumerable examples in military history where larger/stronger forces have lost purely because they lost morale and the will to fight. One very recent and extremely vivid and game changing event in history where IO and PSYOPS destroyed an Army’s will to fight, is the Capture of Northern Iraq by ISIS. In the summer of 2014 the IS (ISIL/ISIS or Daesh in Arabic) roared into Northern Iraq in pick-ups and fully armed (even swords), and blew away four fully trained and equipped Iraqi divisions which vanished overnight into thin airiii. But, contrary to tradition, they did not keep their operations a secret but wanted the world to know everything about it. The IS succeeded in subverting the minds and weakening/destroying the will to fight of all commanders, troops and the local population psychologically. Closer home, despite an asymmetric superiority in comprehensive national power (CNP), military and multi-domain fighting capabilities of the Chinese PLA along the LAC in East Ladakh, the Indian Armed Forces operational and tactical superiority, combat experience, high altitude expertise, years of managing the LC/LAC, and the Indian jawans fortitude, raw courage and morale puts India Army on an equal (if not better) footing to negotiate. Indian Army: Lack of Scientific Models to Evaluate Morale and Will to Fight. In our Armed Forces, lot of emphasis is paid to attributes of a leader and the role of morale as important battle winning factors. Theoretical and practical aspects are covered for officers and troops at the initial training, courses and on the job. However, we have not really added its contribution 4 (being intangible) when evaluating/or when carrying out a net-assessment (see definition in Notesiv of an adversary’s military strength and potential. In our Armed Forces we do a mix of scientific model(s) and affix values to tangibles based on historical precedence/subject experts/ground experience/collective wisdom of group (Delphi system of managementv). Indian armed forces needs to create models (specific to different situation/terrain/enemy) to assess value of own/adversary’s intangibles like morale and will to fight, which has become vital in today’s warfare. Rand Corporation Report 2108vi on Will to Fight: An Overview. In 2019, RAND published two reports for the US Army describing will to fightvii. They found that there is no generally accepted definition, explanation, or model of will to fight. This means that armed forces and subsidiary forces have no central point of reference for understanding what is, according to joint doctrine, the most important factor in warfare. They created a three-step model to which they finally integrated will to fight in simulation, and needs to be incorporated in planning for actual combat situations:- Step-1. Adopt Universal Definitions which are useful and necessary starting point for mutual understanding. Step-2. Creating a working model. A nine-step explanatory– exploratory–portable Model has been created. Step-3. Integrating Will to Fight in Simulation and Net Assessment of Forces. Computer simulation, tabletop exercises, and wargames can help bring clarity to complex issues and concepts, such as will to fight. If will to fight is one of the most important factors in war, and if it is absent or poorly represented in military gaming and simulation, and during net assessments, then it is a dangerous gap. Findings on Morale and Fighting Spiritviii. Training, espirit-de-corps, morale, motivation, capabilities and culture are important facets contributing to ‘will to fight’. After diligent research some interesting observations/conclusions are bulleted below:- Those who declared themselves willing to sacrifice the most were the ones who also seemed least interested in material 5 comfort and economic prospects. This was confirmed by actual embedding with troops and post-mapping for reality check. A typical fighting force, it is generally thought, will collapse sometime before a third of it has been destroyed. However exceptions are there, for example some Kurdish and IS units in Iraq, fought on in a coordinated fashion after sustaining far more grievous losses. Battles on famous last stands available online are strongly recommended for reading.Names of famous Indian armed forces battles post-independence are givenin the end notesix. Soldiers identity must get fully “fused” with those of his brothers in arms. Their top priority has shifted from family to another cause, a transcendental ideal that has become so “sacralised” that it would not be traded away for anything (seen in fundamentalist groups).It is a truism of the Indian infantry soldier that he dies/ready to die for his ‘paltan/units izzat/respect’, more than for the motherland. Fanaticism has long been recognized as a plus in a soldier, be it the Zealots of ancient Israel, the Roman Catholic conquistadors of the Americas, or the Nazis’ 12th SS “Hitler Youth” Panzer Division. War is a human endeavor, and we must treat it as such. Famous/Historic Battles showcasing Will to Fight upsetting military superiority:- Failed assessment of Arab will to fight leading up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War resulted in strategic surprise, nearly leading to Israel's defeat. The CIA’s analyses of Vietnamese will to fight. The Afghan mujahideen of yesteryears and Afghan Taliban of today have displayed such staying power, making up for their lesser capabilities with motivation, improvisation and living 6 conflict as a way of life.
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