Small Wars Journal

www.smallwarsjournal.com
The Manoeuvre Warfare Fraud

William F. Owen

Originally published by the Royal United Services Institute, this article appears here with
permissions of the author and RUSI.

The concept of Manoeuvre Warfare (MW) in its modern form was first advocated in the
early 1980s as part of the US military conventional response to perceived Warsaw Pact
superiority. It has since become widely accepted as a style of warfare and generic
concept of operation. This paper will argue that the community it was intended to serve
based its wide acceptance largely on ignorance and a lack of intellectual rigor.

Manoeuvre versus Attrition

In all its various definitions a premise of MW is the acceptance of the idea that there is a
separate and distinct alternative style of warfare identified as Attrition Warfare. This
presumption has been regularly and categorically stated in various publications including
the US Marines 1989 FMFM-1.
1
In 1997 the re-written manual, issued as MCDP-1
2
,
stated that the two styles were part of a spectrum. This spectrum was never illustrated nor
described.

The definitions and examples employed in making this distinction use the argument that
attrition seeks to defeat an enemy by killing and destruction, whereas manoeuvre
defeats by attacking those components without which the greater body of the enemy
cannot fight such as command and logistics. MCDP-1 defined this focus as attack the
enemys system. One of the stated goals of the 1997 MCDP-1 publication was to
clarify and refine important manoeuvre warfare concepts. Thus the USMC sought to
portray themselves as adherents to MW placing themselves in contrast to an organisation
that may have sought proficiency across a spectrum or styles, to be used as and when
appropriate.

To quote the 1989 MCDP-1

Manoeuvre warfare is a warfighting philosophy that seeks to shatter the enemys
cohesion through a variety of rapid, focused, and unexpected actions, which create a
turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope.
3


In other words, the USMC seeks to do things with which the enemy cannot cope with the
result that it will yield. It is hard to think of an alternative articulation that would not
appear crass. Why would you seek to do something else? Why not say,

The US Marine Corps seeks to shatter the enemys cohesion through a variety of rapid,
focused, and unexpected actions, which create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating
situation with which the enemy cannot cope.

However, the usefulness of this aspiration is in the precise nature of those unexpected
actions. Identifying what these actions should be and how to perform them is a necessary
step in defining the concept
4
.

The problem is that while many have written about Manoeuvre, there is little writing
about Attrition. There are descriptions of attrition approaches, but they are generally
clumsy attempts to make Manoeuvre more appealing. For example, the 1997 MCDP-1
it states attrition warfare relies on

Technical proficiencyespecially in weapons employmentmatters more than
cunning or creativity
5
.

What is wrong with that? If your troops are well equipped, for example, with J avelin
missiles, or any reasonably complex weapons system, and the enemy is an armoured
formation, technical proficiency may well have more merit than cunning or creativity.
The idea of technical proficiency was originally stated in FMFM-1 as

Warfare by attrition seeks victory through the cumulative destruction of the
enemys material assets by superior firepower and technology. An attritionist
sees the enemy as targets to be engaged and destroyed systematically. Thus the
focus is on efficiency lead to a methodical, almost scientific approach to war
6


This definition makes attrition sound pretty good. Most battles have been won, or
operations have been successful because a percentage of the enemy was killed and the
rest gave up. By far the simplest and most easily understood methods of breaking an
enemys will to fight is to inflict great violence and death upon him. Attrition works. In
terms of a theory of war, do we want clever and complex or do we want simple and
effective?

The whole edifice of Manoeuvre Warfare rests on the idea that there are two competing
forms of warfare, manoeuvre and attrition, one of which is skilled and the other which is
clumsy. This construct is false; it makes no sense to favour one form over the other. To
do so is to limit available options by slavish adherence to ways over ends. The idea that
MW and Attrition are either separate styles or part of a spectrum does not stand analysis.
While the selective use of examples by MW adherents has sought to prove them as
opposing or differing styles, they are better explained as complimentary. They are in no
way distinct or alternative forms of warfare. Success in battle is based on breaking the
enemies will to resist. There are well-recognised fundamentals to this activity on which
most military doctrine is based. These fundamentals were clearly articulated by Henri
J omini, Carl von Clausewitz, Ardant Du Picq and Ferdinand Foch, and great many
others. Whether intentional or accidental, the advocacy of MW is based the selective use
of examples, altered definitions, and some deliberate misrepresentation.

The Indirect Approach

Strategy: The Indirect Approach by Basil Liddell-Hart was published in various forms
between 1929 and its final revised edition in 1967. In 1941 it was even published under
the title The Way to Win Wars. The book promoted the concept that the perfection of
strategy would be to produce a decision without any serious fighting. The aim was to
paralyse the enemy, not destroy him. The chief premise was the notion that one good
blow against the key vulnerability of the enemy could render him helpless or so reduce
his capability that he might be more easily overcome. Liddell Hart then went further in
suggesting that all truly successful military campaigns had achieved this through a
methodology he called the Indirect Approach. The key element of the Indirect
Approach was surprise. The most useful objective definition of surprise in a military
context is that it is the result of an action for which the enemy is unprepared and is thus
less able to respond effectively. Liddell-Hart euphemistically proposed the use of lines
of least expectation and dislocation - the clever exploitation of mobility to render
enemy strength irrelevant. In essence a frontal assault on a fortified enemy position is not
the smartest course of action. Yet no sensible military commander in the entire history of
warfare has ever spoken against using surprise or seeking to attack the enemys flanks
and rear.

Liddell-Hart work was very much affected by his personal traumatic experience of the
First World War. He concluded that the generals of the day were oblivious to the finer
points of strategy, and much of his work can be seen as a reaction to the carnage of that
war. However, as we shall see later, the view that the majority of First World War
generals were idiots is simplistic and inaccurate. Ferdinand Foch, for example had
articulated the idea of Core Functions as early as 1903 in his Des Principes de la Guerre
(On the Principles of War). The Core Functions are Find, Fix, Strike, and Exploit. They
can first be traced to Fochs Staff College lectures on campaign planning. Finding an
enemy means locating him in both time and space. Fixing him is reducing his freedom of
action usually by immobilising or suppressing him. Striking is doing that action that does
him harm, and breaks his will to continue. Exploitation is taking advantage of his
withdrawal from combat. Three years after Fochs work was translated into English, in
February 1921 Captain Liddell-Hart (as he was then) re-branded the Core Functions in
his work, The 'Man in the Dark Theory of infantry tactics. In the same period he spoke
of the Expanding Torrent system of attack. The Man in the Dark Theory uses the
example of one man, fighting another in total darkness, using his hands to find the
enemy. When he does, he grabs him by the throat to fix him and then delivers the blow to
strike him. This is an obvious but unacknowledged reference to Fochs core functions.

What is more, The Expanding Torrent system of the attack is also explicitly mentioned
in Fochs 1903 work in terms of water seeping through a crack in a dam and eventually
overwhelming it. If all this was not enough, Foch actually describes a concept of
Decisive battle he terms Manoeuvre, which is in contrast to a form of battle he calls
Parallel or Linear. Both forms are concentrated on doing a great deal of physical harm
to the enemy, but the Battle of Manoeuvre seeks to deliver decisive force at a critical
point, rather than seeking to beat the enemy everywhere. From this we can extrapolate
one of two things. The first is that if what Foch is suggesting is close to or near identical
to what the MW Theorists advocate, then a man, much maligned by the MW camp is in
fact one of the primary the authors of their ideas. The second is that if the MW theorists
are not in agreement with Foch then it seems necessary to ask why. Importantly, while it
is entirely possible that modern MW theorists have never read Foch
7
, Liddell-Hart almost
certainly did.

It bears mention that Liddell-Hart published a very critical biography of Foch in 1929,
entitled Foch. Man of Orleans. Whatever his pronouncement to the contrary, Liddell-Hart
had good reason to undermine Foch, because Fochs work warned against the idea of
victory without fighting
8
and Foch effectively cited Clausewitz in support of his
argument. Moreover, Foch had been associated with what Liddell-Hart saw as the woeful
conduct of the War on the Western Front. Liddell-Hart was well aware of Fochs ideas,
including his admiration of Clausewitz. Modern scholars, such as Christopher Bassford
9
,
have shown that Liddell-Hart had a less than comprehensive understanding of
Clausewitz.

Although Liddell-Hart wrote persuasively, he did not want historical fact, argument or
complexity to get in the way of promoting what he saw as his good idea. He, therefore,
set about ransacking the historical and operational record for selected examples to prove
his point. His place in history as a military thinker is greatly open to debate, as Brian
Bond, J ohn Mearsheimer, and J ames Harrison have observed.
10
Despite his flawed
analysis and these challenges to his credentials, Liddell-Hart still occupies pride of place
amongst many MW adherents.

The First World War (WW1)

MW proponents portray WW1 as the poorly conducted slaughter of armies through the
ineptitude of the general officers involved. To this end the MW adherent has to play fast
and loose with the historical record, and to ignore the reality of several vast national
armies thrown at each other in a limited area of terrain, with little by way of tactical
mobility other than horses and foot. These constraints, combined with the varying effects
of telegraph, railways, and tinned rations, created the deadlock of the Western Front.
Attempts to break the deadlock were of necessity attritional, and technical. The Western
Front was created by a unique confluence of historical and technological circumstances.
It was not a matter of military strategic or operational choice. The generals all understood
wars of manoeuvre and mobility because they had studied and trained for these, as the
field regulations and military writing of the time indicate. They were wrong-footed by the
extremely rapid development of military technology, and also confounded by the sheer
size of the endeavour in which they found themselves. Mobile warfare (albeit slow and
un-mechanised) was the predominant form of warfare before WW1. The static attrition of
the Western Front was an unexpected aberration.

MW advocates regularly cite the German use of storm detachments as a good example
of a MW approach to breaking the deadlock of the trenches. The Germans saw it as the
only way to exploit the shocking and suppressing effects created by massed artillery.
Operation Michael, the failed March 1918 German offensive, despite initial success, soon
outran its logistics, and artillery cover and withered away to nothing without supporting
fires. The often touted initial success of the storm detachments is not, when studied
carefully, a textbook case of effective infiltration by light infantry as the MW advocates
suggest. The German infantry were far from light. They were heavily armed (including
with manhandled light field guns) and were supported by massive amounts of artillery
(over 10,000 guns and mortars on a 53 kilometre front) and gas. Their success can be
largely attributed to a very poor British defence and the advantage of fog. When on 28
March the German Army attempted its 'final offensive' to roll up the British Army from
south to north, the outcome was complete failure.

Indeed one fine example of operational military success in WW1 was Allenbys Palestine
campaign, the importance of which Liddell-Hart denigrated. It rather suited him to
promote the efforts of the unconventional and publicly lionised T.E. Lawrence, with
whom he corresponded. It did not sit well with Liddell-Hart to promote Allenby as a
practitioner of the indirect approach, because he was a thoroughly conventional, albeit
gifted, cavalry officer. In fact Lawrences guerrilla campaign, under cover of an Arab
rebellion against the Turks, was much more limited than many suppose. His primary
objective was to make best use of the ways the Arab tribes involved liked to fight.
Banditry and raiding came naturally to them and they saw no use in other methods.
Lawrence successfully applied these traits within the framework of the Palestine
Campaign. It is worthy of note that the decision to ferment rebellion amongst the Arabs
through incentives was almost certainly a political rather than a military decision. The
inability of the Indirect Approach to differentiate between military thought and politics
and diplomacy is a recurring one.

Sun-Tzu

Sun Tzus The Art of Strategy
11
is often cited as an exponent of MW. The use of the
word strategy is significant because it encompasses the political as well as mil
dimension. Thus when Sun-Tzu famously says
itary

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

This quotation is about coercion, not manoeuvre. Sun-Tzu is referring to diplomacy and
politics not military action. An enemy will capitulate or comply because it fears harm
from overwhelming and decisive military action or, more simply, attrition. Sun-Tzu
maintains that the ambassador can get what he wants because his Emperor has the
military power to present any enemy with a very real threat of destruction. He was
foreshadowing Clausewitzs maxim that War is the continuation of politics with the
admixture of other means. Those other means included bribery, corruption,
assassination, fermenting rebellions and hostage taking.

Most of Sun Tzus writings were widely accepted and incorporated into military doctrine
in advance of the arrival of MW. They are not particularly insightful as the MW lobby
has suggested in progressing its particular agenda by associating it with ancient and
proven wisdom. For example, FMFM-1 quotes Sun-Tzu as saying Speed is the essence
of war: take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes,
and attack unguarded spots'
12
. This quotation is from Section XI, The Nine Situations
and based on the standard US translation by Samuel Griffiths. However another
translation of the same passage is Speed presides over the conditions of Strategy'.
13

'Presides' is not synonymous with 'essence', nor is 'strategy' with 'war'. One translation
continues, Seize opportunities so that others do not gain'. Again, this is subtly but
crucially different from an alternative take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness
because it could apply to political or diplomatic action as well as military. To assume that
Sun-Tzu was only concerned with military conduct vastly degrades the relevance and
usefulness of his writing. What is more, there is nothing in his writing to suggest that he
did not advocate the rational and effective use of overwhelming violence as and when
required. The aspiration of victory without fighting is for politicians, intelligence
agencies and diplomats rather than soldiers.

Boyd and Lind

Two significant advocates of MW are J ohn Boyd and William Lind. Thanks to the work
of Franz Osinga, we know that Boyd was strongly influenced by his reading of Liddell-
Hart, T.E. Lawrence and Sun-Tzu, and therefore by their inaccurate translations and
interpretations.

Lind made Boyds OODA loop central to his own writing on MW. Lind describes the
OODA loop as:

Conflict can be seen as a time competitive observation-orientation-decision-
action cycles. Each party to a conflict begins by observing. He observes himself,
his physical surroundings and his enemy. On the basis of his observation, he
orients, that is to say, he makes a mental image or snapshot of his situation.
On the basis of this orientation he makes a decision. He puts the decision into
effect, ie. he acts. Then because the action has changed the situation, he
observes again, and starts the process anew. His actions follow this cycle
14


Essentially Linds explanation of the OODA loop is If you understand the situation
better and more quickly than your enemy, you can employ surprise to defeat him. This
notion is not in doubt but how does the OODA loop actually add to our understanding?
Furthermore, the OODA loop is only valid in the context of certain activities, most of
which are far removed from conflict. Chess grand masters can make extraordinarily
quick, yet highly complex decisions, which may conform to a simplistic description of
the OODA loop. The OODA loop is an idealised representation of one possible decision-
making process. People may use the OODA loop to play chess but does it actually help
them to play chess more effectively?. This process requires one to observe and orientate,
that is, look and understand. If this is to be done more quickly than the enemy, how is
effectiveness to be measured? In particular, how does one know when one has sufficient
understanding of a situation which the enemy is trying to conceal from one? How can one
observe and understand when outcomes are ambiguous or concealed? The word risk
never appears even in Boyds earlier more complex version of the OODA loop. It is
neither the accurate description of the process it claims to be nor is it an inherent part
specifically of MW. It could equally well be applied to prosecuting attrition.

Recon Pull was also a concept unique to Linds peculiar understanding of MW.
Reconnaissance is primarily aimed at finding where the enemy is located. It serves the
Core Function of find. In reality, Recon pull is merely reconnaissance using mission
command
1
. A commander tells his reconnaissance forces to go find something, but does
not tell them how. The implication of the idea of recon pull is that there is an antithesis
called recon-push. Recon push or command push would be a matter of telling
reconnaissance where to go and how to get there, and is thus the practice of detailed
command. Are reconnaissance and mission command useful and effective? Of course
but both can be practised in the absence of a conceptual framework of MW. So-called
Attrition Theory, emphasising the physical destruction of the enemy, could be enhanced
and assisted by both mission command and good reconnaissance.

MW was in fact valid, operations could be practised using detailed orders as opposed to
mission command if there is an adequate common operating picture and good command
and control links as Network Centric Warfare
2
is intended to provide. Intriguingly one
might argue that a fully networked coherent common operating picture could make
mission command unnecessary.

Race to the Swift

Published in 1985, (the same year as Linds Manoeuvre Warfare Handbook) Richard
Simpkins Race to the Swift, subtitled Thoughts on 21
st
Century Warfare was one of the
most widely read works of military thought of its day. Indeed US Army General Don
Starry, and TRADOC Commander, wrote its foreword so the book was promoted to the
US military readership as well as in UK. Simpkin was a former Royal Armoured Corps
Brigadier, and a recognised authority on Soviet Deep Operations Theory. Although it is a
somewhat confusing, overly complex and rambling work, it contains an intriguing insight
into the dynamic between what Simpkin called manoeuvre and attrition theory. Simpkin
saw the basis of manoeuvre theory as pre-emption and surprise. Manoeuvre theory drew
its success from the seizure of opportunity. Attrition, on the other hand, had great utility
in being able to deter an opponent, or force him to comply by making him fear harm and
therefore, perhaps, for the user to win without fighting. However once fighting
commenced he saw the two theories as being complimentary. This view is in sharp
contrast to the one that suggests Manoeuvre and Attrition are competing styles of

1
Mission command is a tenet of doctrine held to be fundamental to MW theory whereby sudordinate
commanders to the lowest level are given freedom of action to achieve their specified objectives within a
broad but clearly expressed commanders intention given to them by the superior commander.
2
And indeed the UKs Network Enabled Capability.
warfare. However Simpkin failed to articulate why differentiating two complimentary
styles was actually necessary or useful.

Conclusions

The case that there is some definable style of operation of MW is not well made by its
adherents partly because of the very poor quality of evidence presented. The entire
subject has lacked a rational analysis of land warfare derived from fundamental concepts.
How useful is it to focus on proving or even needing to promote the idea that there are
two competing forms of operation, when basic elements such as surprise seem to be
poorly understood. A discussion on the merits of creating surprise can be usefully and
effectively conducted without reference to Sun-Tzu, Liddell-Hart or Clausewitz. If one
accepts that the breaking of will effects the defeat of an enemy, one first needs to
understand what breaks will. Moreover, if breaking the enemy's will to resist is not what
creates success, one must ask what should be done, and how one is do it.

The wide acceptance of MW indicates a lack of understanding of the works and examples
cited to promote it and ignorance of the purpose and limits of the military instrument.
Success in conflict can be achieved in many circumstances without fighting or with
minimal violence but this is achieved primarily through other means and typically with a
subordinate military contribution. Military concepts and doctrine cannot provide these
solutions. They can at best articulate the military contribution particularly for liberal
democracies where the military serve the elected leaders. If the word 'manoeuvre' is to be
sensibly applied to military doctrine, it is best used in its traditional meaning. The
purpose of manoeuvre is to gain a position of advantage relative to an opponent. This
advantage may be used to deliver overwhelming violent attrition.

William F Owen is British and was born in Singapore in 1963. Privately educated, he
joined the Army in 1981, and served in both regular and territorial units until resigning
in 1993 to work on defence and advisory projects in Kuwait, Taiwan, Algeria, the
Philippines, and Sierra Leone. An accomplished glider, fixed wing and helicopter pilot,
he works as a writer, broadcaster and defence analyst.

1
FMFM-1 War fighting Page 28
2
MCDP-1 War fighting Page 36
3
MCDP-1 War fighting page 73
4
The author wishes to acknowledge work of Major Craig A. Tucker, and his School of Advanced Military
Studies paper False Prophets: The Myths of Manoeuvre Warfare and the Inadequacies of FMFM-1
Warfighting.
5
ibid page 36
6
FMFM-1 War fighting page 28
7
If one accepts the work of Frans Osinga, in relation to the work of John Boyd, then Boyd almost certainly
never read Foch. TE Lawrence was also provably ignorant of Foch work, despite famously criticising him.
8
Foch, Principles of War, 1918 Edition, page 34
9
http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/Bassford/Chapter15.htm
10
Liddell-Hart, A study of his military thought, Brian Bond. Liddell-Hart and the weight of History, J ohn
Mearshiemer, andMen Ideas and Tanks, J P Harris 1995.
11
Sun-Tzu wrote about the Art of Strategy, not War. The character often translated as War, is in fact Bing
meaning Strategy.

12
FMFM-1 War fighting Page 57
13
RL Wing translation, The Art of Strategy, page 141
14
William Lind. The Manoeuvre Warfare Handbook, Westview Press 1985

SWJ Magazine and Small Wars J ournal are published by Small Wars J ournal LLC.

COPYRIGHT 2008 by Small Wars J ournal LLC.

Permission is granted to print single copies for personal, non-commercial use.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial
Share Alike 3.0 License per our Terms of Use. We are in this together.

No FACTUAL STATEMENT should be relied upon without further investigation on
your part sufficient to satisfy you in your independent judgment that it is true.

Contact: comment@small warsjournal.com

Visit www.smallwarsjournal.com

Cover Price: Your call. Support SWJ here.