[rohrpost] shock and awe

[g i s e l a m u e l l e r <gisela@inbeta.de>]

das buch zum angriff:
"Shock & Awe. Achieving Rapid Dominance." 1996.
http://www.dodccrp.org/shockIndex.html


kleine kostprobe:

"It is, of course, clear that U.S. military forces are currently the 
most capable in the world and are likely to remain so for a long time 
to come. Why then, many will ask, should we examine and even propose 
major excursions and changes if the country occupies this position of 
military superiority? For reasons noted in this study, we believe 
that excursions are important if only to confirm the validity of 
current defense approaches. There are several overrarching realities 
that have led us to this conclusion. First, while everyone recognizes 
that the Cold War has ended, there is not a consensus about what this 
means for more precisely defining the nature of our future security 
needs. Despite this absence of both clairvoyance and a galvanizing 
external danger, the United States is actively examining new 
strategic options and choices. The variety of conceptual efforts 
underway in the Pentagon to deal with this uncertainty exemplifies 
this reality. (...)

The aim of Rapid Dominance is to affect the will, perception, and 
understanding of the adversary to fit or respond to our strategic 
policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe. Clearly, the 
traditional military aim of destroying, defeating, or neutralizing 
the adversary's military capability is a fundamental and necessary 
component of Rapid Dominance. Our intent, however, is to field a 
range of capabilities to induce sufficient Shock and Awe to render 
the adversary impotent. This means that physical and psychological 
effects must be obtained.

Rapid Dominance would therefore provide the ability to control, on an 
immediate basis, the entire region of operational interest and the 
environment, broadly defined, in and around that area of interest. 
Beyond achieving decisive force and dominant battlefield awareness, 
we envisage Rapid Dominance producing a capability that can more 
effectively and efficiently achieve the stated political or military 
objectives underwriting the use of force by rendering the adversary 
completely impotent.

In Rapid Dominance, "rapid" means the ability to move quickly before 
an adversary can react. This notion of rapidity applies throughout 
the spectrum of combat from pre-conflict deployment to all stages of 
battle and conflict resolution.

"Dominance" means the ability to affect and dominate an adversary's 
will both physically and psychologically. Physical dominance includes 
the ability to destroy, disarm, disrupt, neutralize, and to render 
impotent. Psychological dominance means the ability to destroy, 
defeat, and neuter the will of an adversary to resist; or convince 
the adversary to accept our terms and aims short of using force. The 
target is the adversary's will, perception, and understanding. The 
principal mechanism for achieving this dominance is through imposing 
sufficient conditions of "Shock and Awe" on the adversary to convince 
or compel it to accept our strategic aims and military objectives. 
Clearly, deception, confusion, misinformation, and disinformation, 
perhaps in massive amounts, must be employed.

(...)
Theoretically, the magnitude of Shock and Awe Rapid Dominance seeks 
to impose (in extreme cases) is the non-nuclear equivalent of the 
impact that the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had 
on the Japanese. The Japanese were prepared for suicidal resistance 
until both nuclear bombs were used. The impact of those weapons was 
sufficient to transform both the mindset of the average Japanese 
citizen and the outlook of the leadership through this condition of 
Shock and Awe. The Japanese simply could not comprehend the 
destructive power carried by a single airplane. This incomprehension 
produced a state of awe.

(...)
The goals of achieving Rapid Dominance using Shock and Awe must be 
compared with overwhelming force. "Rapid" implies the ability to 
"own" the dimension of time-moving more quickly than an opponent, 
operating within his decision cycle, and resolving conflict favorably 
in a short period of time. "Dominance" means the ability to control a 
situation totally.

(...)
Rapid Dominance must be all-encompassing. It will require the means 
to anticipate and to counter all opposing moves. It will involve the 
capability to deny an opponent things of critical value, and to 
convey the unmistakable message that unconditional compliance is the 
only available recourse. It will imply more than the direct 
application of force. It will mean the ability to control the 
environment and to master all levels of an opponent's activities to 
affect will, perception, and understanding. This could include means 
of communication, transportation, food production, water supply, and 
other aspects of infrastructure as well as the denial of military 
responses. Deception, misinformation, and disinformation are key 
components in this assault on the will and understanding of the 
opponent.


(...)
Finally, we argue that what is also new in this approach is the way 
in which we attempt to integrate far more broadly strategy, 
technology, and innovation to achieve Shock and Awe. It is this 
interaction and focus which we think will provide the most 
interesting results."
usw. usw.



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