Maneuver warfare is how the Marine Corps fights, but what is it? Why do we use it? What application does it have if you don't kill people and break their stuff for a living? What folows is a five part series. Part I: The basics of warfare, Part II: The thought process behind it all, Part III: Maneuver Warfare planning, Part IV: Maneuver Warfare execution, and Part V: Maneuver Warfare and its applications to the political arena. By the end of this you'll be able to take the principles that the US Marine Corps uses to conduct warfare and apply them to any situation in your own life. Let's dig in to some basic warfare theory!
Why fight?
This is the fundamental question. Why fight? Why not just sing songs or play soccer or discus things until there's a mutually beneficial solution for all parties? Well typically someone runs out of options at the table or their keeper is hurt, so warfare seems like the best answer to get what they want.
But what's that? Look at history and you'll find a lot of similarities between wars across time. Armies are generally fighting for their country to gain land, people, or resources, repel invaders, revenge, status, stuff like that. Generally political reasons so the war can eventually end (wars are hideously expensive, you know).
So great, now we’ve decided to go to war, but now we have to figure out just how we’re going to do that. Typically wars stop for only a couple of reasons. Either A) the other side is all deceased or B) the other side has lost his will to fight. You’ll notice that “Accomplishing goals” isn’t on here, largely because the goals of opposing sides are typically mutually exclusive. For the side that has accomplished their goals, they typically no longer desire to fight because they’ve done what they wanted to do. For the opposing side, they will only want to stop fighting if their will to fight is broken.
Two types of warfare
You break the opposition’s will to fight with two types of warfare: attrition and maneuver. To help illustrate the difference, we'll use two board games: Risk! and chess. In Risk! (the classic game of global domination) the goal is to fight and fight until the board is all one color. This idea of fighting until the other side is dead is attrition warfare. No fancy goals, just kill all the other guys. For the video gamers, this is your standard FPS deathmatch. Chess is a little different, the goal is not to wipe out the other side entirely, but rather to kill the king piece. This is more like maneuver warfare, it doesn't matter how many you kill as long as you accomplish the goal. Both types of warfare will break the opposition’s will to fight, and both sides can be used to completely deplete the opposition’s numbers.
Each type of warfare has advantages and disadvantages, and both types will be used at some point in a successful campaign. Form a strategic level, however, maneuver warfare is going to be the most efficient way to accomplish a side’s goals, and efficiency is king maintaining the resources required to sustain a victory.
Attrition warfare is simple enough; kill or maim enough of the other guy so they can’t field an army. As mentioned, this takes variously vast amounts of resources depending on how determined the enemy is. That whole “back against the wall” feeling where someone has nothing to lose means that a machine gun may not inspire much fear and won’t break his will to fight. Heavy casualties are the norm, and a victory using this type of warfare against a determined opposition often requires genocide.
Maneuver warfare is quite a bit different. Yes, you will almost certainly end up inflicting and taking casualties, however this is not a requirement. Maneuver warfare simply aims to break the opposition’s will to fight. This can be done through a combination of killing their people, breaking their stuff, propaganda, and other more traditionally political means. Those are just details, the big picture is finding the opposition’s source of strength and taking it away.
The Road Ahead
This will be a series of posts broken up to encourage a more focused discussion. I’ll be in and out, but I will read every post and I will try to respond to all questions that I can. For now, the reasons for warfare seems like a good introductory stopping point. In the future we'll discuss the thought process known as the OODA Loop, planning considerations, execution considerations, and lastly how we can take these ideas and apply them to decidedly nonviolent problems.
Lastly, a warning. This will be a broad brush, almost paint-roller size overview. It will also be decidedly not focused on warfare specifics. I am not a military historian, nor do I pretend to be one. I'm merely a Marine who was taught these ideas and who wants to explain them to the uninitiated, and I hope you come along for the ride.