Theoretical and procedural frameworks for planning and conducting military campaigns in contemporary political warfare.

The escalation of political warfare this century has exposed Western frameworks for planning and conducting military campaigns as well past their use-by date. Time to get over the binary fixation and get up to speed.

Introduction

Political warfare has been a mainstay of strategic statecraft for centuries.^[1] However, contemporary political warfare—that of the past 20 years—has seen a mismatch between its usage with it being favoured by authoritarian governments compared to Western democratic governments. This has created a mismatch in the role and structure of different militaries and how they are involved in contemporary political warfare. This essay will argue that the existing frameworks for planning and conducting military campaigns do not allow Western militaries to effectively adapt to contemporary political warfare. This inability can only be remediated by significant change to Western militaries’ approaches to planning, their structure, and their interplay with other government agencies. Only then will Western militaries effectively be able to plan and adapt to contemporary political warfare, which is of critical importance for Western governments to redress the currently unchecked strategic disadvantage.

This essay will proceed in three parts. Firstly, an analysis of what comprises contemporary political warfare and why there is a global mismatch in its recent utilisation. Focus in this section will be limited to case examples of China and Russia, the main proponents of contemporary political warfare. Secondly, a comparison will then be made of how Western militaries are currently being utilised, or not, as the case may be, in countering this political warfare. Case examples here will be limited to Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Lastly, this essay will then demonstrate what is currently missing in these countries’ existing theoretical and procedural frameworks for military campaigns by describing recommendations to improve their utility in political warfare. These recommendations will focus on the militaries themselves as well as other government agencies, the latter being a necessity to improve how a Western military can approach contemporary political warfare.

Contemporary Political Warfare

The selection of 20 years (essentially the first two decades of this century) for the use of the term ‘contemporary’ is not an arbitrary choice, but one that matches a shift in both China’s and Russia’s resourcing of it as a tool of statecraft. This is especially true when it is compared to Western governments. An understanding of this period is therefore essential to progressing to why the existing frameworks of planning in Western militaries are currently inadequate. Indeed, the opening two decades of this century have seen ‘the regimes in Moscow and Beijing reaffirm the potential for harnessing offensive political warfare to undermine the US and its Western allies’.^[2] Both regimes demonstrate an approach to political warfare which mirrors their domestic environment of oppression, surveillance and police-state mentality, again illuminated further by direct comparison to Western nations.

‘Political warfare’  is used in this context to describe any given government utilising ‘a very wide range of instruments in efforts to persuade, intimidate, coerce, undermine and weaken opponents’ to reach some advantageous end state or effect.^[3] This demonstrates that a military responding to political warfare has a wide range of opposing agencies to counter, a key point in assessing how it is contemporarily inadequate from a Western military perspective. China, for instance, has the United Front Work Department, the Propaganda Department, the Ministry of State Security—all agencies unified under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with the intent of unifying political warfare actions rather than a loose collection of isolated activities.^[4] Russia, too, has strongly nationalistic agencies working in cooperation towards an overarching strategic goal. Both countries in their approach to political warfare utilise their militaries as one component of the ways and means to these strategic ends, with no significant equivalent from Western nations over this same contemporary time period.

The methods used by China and Russia in contemporary political warfare are of vital importance in determining how Western militaries can effectively counter them. To this end, modern examples are most demonstrative of these methods and will be assessed here. In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s regime has seen many political advances as a result of contemporary political warfare. For example, Russia’s defence in depth has improved as a result of coercion on neighbouring states in Eastern Europe and the Baltic region to create a geographical buffer zone.^[5] Further afield, Russia has managed to create division in democracies such as the United States and others within NATO, by distracting decision makers and distorting democratic procedures.^[6] This is usually done by information operations and attempts at creating a distorted and delegitimised image of these countries globally. China, similarly, has propagated their attempts to assume a global hegemonic status by gathering intelligence, planting disinformation and seizing effective control of strategically important infrastructure.^[7] These are not uniquely Chinese or Russian approaches to political warfare or grey zone activities, but are separated from the West by the scale of the activity as well as the apparent openness of it occurring. This large-scale approach matches the authoritarian attitude within their own domestic spheres, for both Russia and China, in keeping their own populations complicit and subject to their rule. This is in obvious contrast to Western democratic nations that elect their governments, and this translates across to the issue of Western militaries not having the same approach as a result. This mismatch will now be explored further.   

The West’s existing theoretical and procedural frameworks

With this understanding of contemporary political warfare, attention can now focus on the planning and conducting of military campaigns within Western militaries, to demonstrate why there are considerable shortcomings. Australian Defence Doctrine Publications (ADDPs) are distinct from Australian Defence Force Procedures (ADFPs), since the former is of the theoretical level and the latter at the procedural levels.^[8] Both of these doctrines have a heavy emphasis on the concept of operational art—the concept of linking available resources with tactical actions to an end state of the desired strategical objective: put more simply, using ways and means to get to an end. Risk is then incorporated into these factors, ultimately to create the four-step Joint Military Appreciation Process (JMAP). Underpinning this process is what is known as the Centre of Gravity (COG) analysis—‘a characteristic, capability or locality from which a military force, nation, alliance or other grouping derives its freedom of action, strength, or will to fight’.^[9] This concept then allows planners to define the relationship between ends, ways, means and risk, as well as analyse courses of action to ultimately develop a concept of operations. COG analysis has become more prevalent in operational design of Western military doctrine since the late 1990s.^[10] This is the same timeframe previously described of the increase in contemporary political warfare from Russia and China. This now leads to the crux of the issue of why these theoretical and procedural frameworks are left wanting in dealing with contemporary political warfare—the attachment of the West to a definitive, kinetic battle.

There is a Western way of war, which the above doctrine is firmly anchored to—one that is ‘birthed by the citizen soldiers of classical Greece’.^[11] It is one which favours a binary concept of peace or war, which matches Western culture and perceptions.^[12] This is further evidenced by the definition of operational art, which is of vital importance to Western doctrine—‘combat actions forged into an ensemble to provide the creative tactical material for extensive operations united by strategy’.^[13] The emphasis and reliance on combat and kinetic actions is to be noted, and further creates the overall picture of a doctrine of military campaigns with clear delineations between war and peace. There is nothing incorrect or contradictory to this approach per se, and it is a continually evolving process through military academic study and experience. Where it falls short, however, is when it is viewed through the lens of contemporary political warfare, which by definition does not have such stark demarcation of war and peace and instead fits intentionally in between the two. This creates new difficulties which are not readily fixable by this extant doctrine and plays into the development and success of the contemporary political warfare facing Western democracies and their militaries.

This approach to doctrine and military campaigns is relatively uniform across Western nations and not unique to Australia. For example, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resultant end of the Cold War, the US Army’s doctrine manual stated: ‘The American people expect decisive victory—they prefer quick resolution’ and ‘their values and expectations to be met.’^[14] This is a strategic culture which repeats across Western nations, and in contrast to the aforementioned authoritarian approach of grey-zone warfare or such actions that fall short of war. The end result here is an inability of Western militaries to clearly define their ends when the opponent is non-traditional and asymmetric by intent. This in turn then enables, and indeed perpetuates, a situation of military planning processes not being effectively able to counter contemporary political warfare, since the opponent centre of gravity is obtuse and variable. Amongst these Western nations, the United Kingdom is perhaps the outlying exception since their recent doctrinal developments have included concepts of minimising the intent of a decisive victory or seeking a formal surrender.^[15] Instead, the newer doctrine includes focusing on concepts like population opinion, synergies between non-military forces and military capability measures beyond conventional combat. These issues will be explored further in the next section of how the existing theoretical and procedural frameworks can be improved with respect to the demands of contemporary political warfare. 

The disadvantageous mismatch of Western militaries and contemporary political warfare is perhaps best summated by analysing the Gerasimov model—Russia’s 2013 doctrine created by General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.^[16] In this planning framework, there are six clearly defined phases of conflict. The first two are of most relevance to this question—that conflict opens with a covert phase and then continues on to a second phase of exacerbation, which includes economic and other non-kinetic measures. The existing frameworks for Western militaries do not have an equivalent component in their planning or subsequent conduct of military campaigns, placing them at a strategic disadvantage prior to any given campaign having even started. This is another component of Western militaries’ planning doctrine which needs to be acknowledged and addressed in future concepts of planning at both the theoretical level and the procedural. 

Improvement by change

Having now assessed both contemporary political warfare and the existing theoretical and procedural frameworks, attention can shift lastly to how the latter can be improved to better match these demands. A number of academic studies have attempted to analyse how best to improve this aspect of Western military planning.^[17] A common theme of the resultant recommendations is to target the military assessments used in planning, to be more comprehensive and systematic. For Australian practice, this translates to emphasising that the commander’s decision cycle and generation of decisive points in the JMAP process requires broader inter-agency input.^[18] This is the more comprehensive component—in not limiting the assessment inputs to military planners but instead ensuring the process is more inclusive of non-military agencies. The expected outcome of this approach is to generate a logical flow of planning elements to lead to decisive points for the commander which encompass the required input of all elements of contemporary political warfare. The systematic aspect of how this can occur is ultimately beyond the scope of this essay, other than to highlight that the extant planning process requires a restructure to enable this broader input.

Another key reason for the need of a more comprehensive military planning model is to counter the limitations previously described of the West’s strong sense of delineation between war and peace, or conflict and non-conflict. Planning, by its nature, requires revision and updates based on continuous assessment and reassessment, and the current escalating use of actions short of warfare are not being appropriately addressed. The future result of this is difficult to determine, but it is not unreasonable to question if escalating political warfare will drive us to violent conflict.^[19] This outcome can be avoided, or at least have violent conflict brought more towards the West’s strategic control, by decoupling military planning from the stark delineation of conflict or not, similar to what Russia and China have firmly grasped  over the last 20 years. To this end, the following recommendations for  improvements to Western military planning and conduct of campaigns will increase both the practicability of operations  and their relevance to contemporary political warfare.    

Firstly, in recognising that military planning is a tool of a whole-of-government approach, military planning should include more civilian representatives from other government agencies to enhance understanding and coordination. Should this not occur, there will likely be a perpetuation of the inward military vision of kinetic actions or not, and a risk of plans that do not effectively reach the required end state of countering contemporary political warfare. Secondly, and closely attached to the first recommendation as a corollary, there should be greater incentivisation and training for military representatives within other government agencies. In Australia, for instance, more senior military personnel in agencies such as Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Home Affairs, Health and other such departments will enhance coordination and mutual understanding. This will further aid the comprehensiveness of military planning, provide greater scope of available logistics and courses of action, and remove the inward view of the military only viewing problems with a militaristic mindset.

The third recommendation to amend a shortcoming in Western militaries’ frameworks is to enable cooperative military-government agencies to focus on ‘critical information requirements’ surrounding political warfare threats.^[20] Western nations within Europe have begun to make progress on this issue, with a recent request for further intelligence on Russian financial involvement with political donations, leaders and parties.^[21] These sorts of intelligence elements will further enhance the overall picture for inputs to comprehensive military planning, as well as aid the whole-of-government in terms of policy-making decisions. This point is worth emphasising since the military can achieve a side effect of embracing this recommendation by helping shape government policy—a considerable benefit to the relevance and authority of any government agency.   

The fourth and last recommendation with respect to Western militaries’ planning is to emphasise the need for proactivity in utilising their forces in areas which are deemed susceptible to foreign persuasion through political warfare. The benefits of this approach are twofold for military planning—firstly, it helps reduce the global effect of opposition political warfare activities, and secondly, it provides the Western militaries with experience and operational impact to adapt to the demands of contemporary political warfare. This recommendation is particularly important in the development of experience for military planners, in particular if the aforementioned recommendations see a redevelopment of sorts of military planning. It is appreciated and understood that any new processes will take time to become familiar and be of useful practical application. Therefore, taking a proactive stance of utilising it will indeed see multiple benefits for the improvement of both the theoretical and procedural frameworks.  

Conclusion

Contemporary political warfare is an ever-present and evolving issue faced by Western governments. It is therefore of paramount importance for militaries to also evolve in how they can respond to it. As has been demonstrated, the present planning frameworks have multiple limitations in allowing Western militaries to adapt to these demands, and the end result is a strategic disadvantage to Western nations and their populace. While the shortcomings listed in the theoretical and procedural frameworks have recommendations of a seemingly simple nature, the implementation of these recommendations will require a significant shift in strategic thinking, culture and behaviours. This will not be a simple change, nor easily implemented, and will spread over years to mature fully. During this time, as per the nature of any sort of warfare be it kinetic or political, the opposition will continually evolve and find new ways to counter these developments. This is analogous to the planning process itself—recalling that in matters of strategy, the enemy has a say.^[22] As such, while this essay presents shortcomings and recommendations to the planning process to enable Western militaries to adapt to the demands of contemporary political warfare, it acknowledges that it is not complete. There are shortcomings which have not yet come to light or cannot be anticipated, other than to acknowledge they will arrive, and the process of planning will continually need to adapt.   

Bibliography

Australian Defence Doctrine Publication (ADDP) 5.0, Joint Planning. Canberra: Directorate Publishing, Library and Information Services, 2018.
Australian Defence Force Publication (ADFP) 5.0.1, Joint Military Appreciation Process. Canberra: Directorate Publishing, Library and Information Services, 2019.
Babbage, Ross. ‘Comprehensive Coercion: China’s “political warfare” campaign against Australia.’ The Strategist Online (June 2018): 1-2.
Babbage, Ross. Winning Without Fighting: Chinese and Russian political warfare campaigns and how the West can prevail. Washington: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2019.
Barnett, FR. Political Warfare and psychological operations. Washington: National Defence University Press, 1989.
Blaxland, John. ‘A Geostrategic SWOT Analysis for Australia.’ The Centre of Gravity Series, no. 49 (2019): 1–20.
Brady, Anne-Marie. ‘Magic Weapons: China’s political influence activities under Xi Jinping,’ conference paper delivered at The corrosion of democracy under China’s global influence, Arlington, (September 2017).
Brady, Anne-Marie. ‘Resisting China’s magic weapon.’ Lowy Institute Online, (September 2017): 1-4.
Campbell, Angus. ‘War in 2025’, speech delivered at Australian Strategic Policy Institute International Conference, Canberra, (June 2019).
Connable, Brendan. Embracing The Fog of War: Assessment and Metrics. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2012.
Darczewska, Jolanta. Active Measures: Russia’s key export. Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies, 2017.
Dunne, Kelly. ‘ “Breaking In” to operational art,’ The Cove Online (April 2019): 1-4.
Evans, Michael. ‘Centre of Gravity Analysis in Joint Military Planning and Design: Implications and Recommendations for the Australian Defence Force.’ Security Challenges 8, no. 2 (2012): 81–106. 
Fielding, Marcus. ‘Regime Change: planning and managing military-led interventions as projects’, Australian Army Journal 4, no. 2 (2007): 107-124.
Hamilton, Clive. Silent Invasion. Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books, 2018.
Kilcullen, David J. ‘Australian Statecraft: The Challenge of Aligning Policy with Strategic Culture.’ Security Challenges 3, no. 4 (2007): 45–65.
Lee, Sangkuk. ‘China’s three warfares: origins, applications and organizations.’ Journal of Strategic Studies 37, no. 2 (April 2014): 198-221.
Lockyer, Adam. ‘An Australian Defence Policy for a Multipolar Asia.’ Defence Studies 15, no. 3 (2015): 273–89.
Mazourenko, Elena. ‘A Theory-based framework for critical thinking in Defence planning and assessment,’ Defence Science and Technology 12, no. 1 (Dec 2014): 77-90.
Porter, Patrick. Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes. London: Hurst & Company, 2009.
Robinson, Linda. Modern Political Warfare – Current practices and possible responses. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2018.

Footnotes

¹ Patrick Porter, Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes (London: Hurst & Company, 2009), 7.

² Clive Hamilton, Silent Invasion (Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books, 2018), 5.

³ Ross Babbage, Winning Without Fighting: Chinese and Russian political warfare campaigns and how the West can prevail (Washington: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2019), 13.

⁴ Babbage, Winning Without Fighting, 17.

⁵ Jolanta Darczewska, Active Measures: Russia’s key export (Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies, 2017), 64.

⁶ Babbage, Winning Without Fighting, 23.

⁷ Darczewska, Active Measures, 67.

⁸ Australian Defence Force Publication (ADFP) 5.0.1, Joint Military Appreciation Process, (Canberra: Directorate Publishing, Library and Information Services, 2019), iii.

⁹ ADFP 5.0.1, Joint Military Appreciation Process, 7.

¹⁰ Michael Evans, ‘Centre of Gravity Analysis in Joint Military Planning and Design: Implications and Recommendations for the Australian Defence Force.’ Security Challenges 8, no. 2 (2012): 82. 

¹¹ Porter, Military Orientalism,10.

¹² FR Barnett, Political Warfare and psychological operations (Washington: National Defence University Press, 1989), 83.

¹³ Kelly Dunne, ‘ “Breaking In” to Operational Art,’ The Cove Online (April 2019): 3.

¹⁴ Barnett, Political Warfare, 74.

¹⁵ Linda Robinson, Modern Political Warfare – Current practices and possible responses (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2018), 302.

¹⁶ Babbage, Winning Without Fighting, 51.

¹⁷ Brendan Connable, Embracing The Fog of War: Assessment and Metrics (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2012), 17.

¹⁸ Elena Mazourenko, ‘A Theory-based framework for critical thinking in Defence planning and assessment,’ Defence Science and Technology 12, no. 1 (Dec 2014): 78.

¹⁹Angus Campbell, ‘War in 2025,’ speech delivered at Australian Strategic Policy Institute International Conference, (Canberra, 2019).

²⁰ Robinson, Modern Political Warfare, 313.

²¹ Hamilton, Silent Invasion, 17.

²² Mazourenko, ‘A Theory-based framework’, 82.