This paper*, by Colonel John A. Warden III of the US Air Force, begins with a severely rational examination of how to achieve the objectives of the United States.
'At the strategic level' says Colonel Warden, 'we attain our objectives by causing such changes to one or more parts of the enemy's physical system that the enemy decides to adopt our objectives, or we make it physically impossible for him to oppose us. The latter we call strategic paralysis. Which parts of the enemy system we attack ... will depend on what our objectives are, how much the enemy wants to resist us, how capable he is, and how much effort we are physically, morally and politically capable of exercising.'
But what is the enemy 'system'? Warden offers a simplified model of five rings. At the centre is the leadership or brain. In the next circle are the organic essentials, food, energy, and so on. Thirdly, there is the infrastructure, of vital connections and skeletal essentials: roads, airfields, factories, transmission lines. The fourth ring is the population which is sustained by these essentials, and is necessary to sustain them. Lastly, and in fact least important for many purposes, is the circle of the fighting mechanism.
The purpose of modern war is not to confront arms, or kill soldiers. If this process can be avoided altogether, that would be fine by the controllers of modern war, provided only that they could exercise their will over enough of the other rings to bend the enemy leadership to their own purposes. Colonel Warden writes:
'We must not start our thinking on war with the tools of war - with the airplanes, tanks, ships and those who crew them. These tools are important and have their place, but they cannot be our starting point, nor can we allow ourselves to see them as the essentials of war. Fighting is not the essence of war, nor even a desirable part of it. The real essence is doing what is necessary to make the enemy accept our objectives as his objectives'.
The full paper can be found on at:
www-cgsc.army.mil/usaf/Pubs/Enemysystem.htm