The Defence Horizon Journal - Podcasts
The Defence Horizon Journal Podcasts are part of the blog on security and defence-related topics. For more information visit www.tdhj.org
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Thursday Jan 02, 2025
Thursday Jan 02, 2025
This Podcast critically examines the Western military's reliance on manoeuvrist warfare as defined by NATO, positing that this approach may prove myopic in the context of potentially unlimited warfare. It argues that expecting a single set of forces to achieve decisive results against a resilient adversary swiftly is a high-risk strategy. Furthermore, an excessive focus on the manoeuvrist approach may disconnect military efforts from their fundamental political objectives, leading to tactical and operational disorientation and forfeiture of the strategic initiative. In response, the paper advocates for a recalibration of strategy towards attriting the adversarial Centre of Gravity instead of expecting definitive successes from quick and clean land operations. This approach requires Western forces to accept the dire consequences of strategic attrition and embrace prolonged and symmetric warfare strategies to secure favourable outcomes.
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Thursday Dec 26, 2024
Thursday Dec 26, 2024
New weapon systems, like drones, challenge the ability of tanks to manoeuvre on the battlefield, thereby influencing the conduct of operations by mechanised forces. In the 21st century, tank forces must persist in both attritional and manoeuvre warfare. Therefore, new design features, alongside updated tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), must be introduced for tanks in Western armies.
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Monday Dec 23, 2024
Monday Dec 23, 2024
China's weaponisation of economics is fully in line with China’s grand strategy. China relies mainly on using the indirect instead of the direct approach. Manoeuvre warfare as an indirect approach sees the opponent as an interconnected system, to which measures against identified vulnerabilities are applied. The goal is systemic destruction – the incapacitation or collapse of the opponent’s whole system – rather than cumulative destruction through a series of attritional engagements. An authoritarian government, like China, with unified, centralised and nearly unlimited state power exercise economic coercion through state capitalism against states, which rely on the private sector and an international, integrated global supply chain system for their economic welfare, using speed, agility and simultaneity.
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Friday Dec 20, 2024
Friday Dec 20, 2024
The widespread use of sensors and stand-off precision fires is increasingly hampering ground manoeuvre and endangering manoeuvre forces in their staging areas. While some militaries adopt Multi-Domain Operations (MDO)-approaches as a remedy, it might be cheaper and more effective for small and medium-sized powers to disrupt adversaries' MDO capabilities than to try and replicate them. Instead, drawing on the lessons of hider-finder competitions in the aerial and maritime domains, it offers some initial suggestions on how ground forces can use deception and denial approaches to prevent their adversaries from exploiting the “transparent battlefield.”
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Monday Dec 16, 2024
Monday Dec 16, 2024
The German Army's Medium Forces are crucial in maintaining the principles of Manoeuvre Warfare and the "Manoeuvrist Approach". Their mobility, flexibility, and rapid deployment capabilities make them essential for NATO's defence strategy, particularly on the eastern flank. These forces bridge the gap between light infantry and heavy armoured units, providing a versatile response to diverse threats. While challenges in logistics and adaptability exist, the Medium Forces represent a strategic asset in ensuring NATO's readiness and deterrence against potential adversaries. Their development underscores the importance of adaptability and innovation in contemporary military operations.
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Friday Dec 13, 2024
Friday Dec 13, 2024
Media is pivotal in shaping the discourse around attrition and manoeuvre warfare strategies in modern military contexts. These narratives contribute greatly to the perceived rivalry between the two strategies, impacting public perception and strategic decision-making. Given the prevalence of media bias in military reporting and its implications for public support and strategic outcomes, it is necessary to further challenge the notion of manoeuvre warfare's obsolescence and reach a nuanced understanding that recognises the continued relevance and potential evolution of manoeuvre tactics in modern warfare.
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Monday Dec 09, 2024
Monday Dec 09, 2024
As a prerequisite to effectively identifying and countering cyber and hybrid threats, as well as cognitive warfare/superiority campaigns against Western democracies worldwide, it is crucial to have cross-governmental and international information-sharing capabilities. Due to the vast amount of data, this process must be supported by technically advanced AI/ML-powered technology to analyse multilingual and publicly available information in near real-time. Such monitoring systems must send timely alerts to specific decision-makers, supporting them in formulating appropriate responses to hybrid activities as part of emerging and evolving cognitive warfare campaigns from adversarial countries like Russia and/or the People’s Republic of China.
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Friday Dec 06, 2024
Friday Dec 06, 2024
Technological innovations such as ubiquitous drones have led to a stalemate in the current war in Ukraine. Western observers who see the war of attrition as a disadvantage ask whether it can be transformed into a war of manoeuvre. We argue that this is only possible if the West succeeds in exploiting competitive advantage through innovations that are not accessible to or exploitable by opponents. To show this, we first extend the dichotomy to a triad of “guerrilla – attrition – manoeuvre”, including strategic shifts such as “unfreezing and freezing”. Drawing on civil literature on innovation, we argue that the unfreezing of attrition into manoeuvre corresponds to exploiting competitive advantages gained through innovation. However, because today's cutting-edge innovations come from civilian industry, they lack rarity and inimitability, and their respective advantages are, therefore, not sustainable. Until this situation is rectified, manoeuvre warfare will remain dead. The only way out is to develop decisive non-civil innovations or to focus on those competitive advantages, such as soft power, that the enemy cannot exploit.
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Monday Dec 02, 2024
Monday Dec 02, 2024
NATO's defence concept in the central region called for the Forward Defence close to the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. The aim was to achieve superiority through fire and movement through a manoeuvrist approach: manoeuvre combined with attritional effects. How this was to be achieved in battles of combined arms was assessed differently in the troop-contributing nations and within the NATO Command Structure. This led to discussions among concerned military authorities until harmonisation was reached shortly before the end of the Cold War.
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Friday Nov 29, 2024
Friday Nov 29, 2024
The recognition of existential threats such as cognitive warfare is crucial to avoid defeat. Western societies must address such threats by leveraging their militaries’ adaptability. Relying solely on the military poses risks, however, necessitating a comprehensive approach to national security. Coordination among all the instruments of power under democratic control is essential for effective outcomes. Western militaries should focus on deterrence and support political decision making. Cognitive warfare targeting civilians requires continuous societal education and enhanced governmental information capabilities. While international law addresses various challenges, there may not be a legal solution for those arising from cognitive warfare. In the face of modern threats Europe may need to defend its values through comprehensive, coordinated and synchronized means.
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