“There is nothing more detestable to an American than losing.”
So said General Patton in World War II.
Almost immediately after winning World War II, the United States would go on to lose
most conflicts it entered in against irregular forces.
So how exactly does one win at war?
Total Annihilation
The best way to defeat an enemy is to, well, kill all of them.
The battle of annihilation was perhaps the first way that man learned how to wage war,
and gave us some of the greatest battles in history such as the battle of marathon, the
battle of the bulge, and the battle of the Somme.
The strategy is simple, in that there is no strategy.
Armies rush forward and victory is decided by the side with superior firepower, or in
ancient times, the best trained or most men.
During the American Civil War, the battle of Gettysburg was a battle of annihilation,
and resulted in the greatest single-day loss of life in American history.
There were no feints, no cunning ploys or stratagem- the goal was simple: total destruction
of the opposing force.
In World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy was outnumbered by the American Navy.
To further add to the IJN's troubles, its supply lines stretched across the sea and
were vulnerable to interruption by the Americans, while the Americans were impossible to blockade
due to the massive size of the American pacific coast and the US drawing few critical supplies
from overseas pacific trade that it couldn't simply re-source from elsewhere.
The only advantage that the IJN had was that its home ports in Japan were close to the
theater of war, while the US's pacific coast was thousands of miles away.
In order to win against the US, Japan knew it could not afford to fight a widely dispersed
war throughout the Pacific theater.
Instead, it would need to deliver crippling blows to the Americans in order to shut them
out of the Pacific altogether.
To this end, Japan sought a decisive battle of annihilation against the US, and almost
achieved this at both Pearl Harbor and Midway.
However, the US wasn't biting, and after the devastating ambush at Pearl Harbor, the US
navy couldn't afford to go toe-to-toe with the bulk of the IJN fleet.
Therefore the US engaged in numerous skirmishes with the IJN, and only fought decisive engagements
when the tactical situation favored the US overwhelmingly.
It was a brilliant strategy straight out of Sun Tzu's own playbook, and worked to keep
the IJN off-balance long enough for US forces to reconstitute- at which point even if it
had been able to engage the US navy in a battle of annihilation, the IJN would've lost anyways.
Fabian Strategy
While the battle of annihilation doctrine seeks to win a single decisive engagement,
the Fabian strategy is the complete opposite, and instead seeks to avoid any decisive engagements.
Rather, the Fabian strategy seeks to engage in numerous skirmishes with light, highly
mobile forces that sap the enemy's morale, supplies, and troop strength.
The strategy is named after Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, who ruled the Roman Republic
during the time that Hannibal of Carthage was busy trampling most of it with his elephants.
Hannibal had pulled off an incredible feat of military brilliance at the start of his
invasion by crossing the Alps with his army, a feat thought to be impossible.
This allowed him to stab straight into the soft underbelly of southern Roman Italy, which
was largely undefended.
The move caught the Romans completely by surprise, and Hannibal quickly took much Roman territory
for himself.
Hannibal defeated the Romans in two separate major engagements, as he himself pursued a
battle of annihilation strategy.
Deep in the heart of his enemy's territory, Hannibal's only hope for ultimate victory
would be to win a decisive victory against Rome, and the strategy was working.
That's when Fabius Maximum was appointed leader of Rome, and immediately implemented a new
method of fighting.
Fabius understood two things about his enemy: Hannibal may be in the heart of Roman territory,
but this placed him in a strategically perilous position, and Hannibal could never achieve
victory against Rome on his own, but instead needed Rome's allies in italy to lose faith
and turn on her.
The more victories that Hannibal won, the weaker Rome's position became- so Fabius denied
Hannibal his victories.
Instead of sortieing out for climactic battles worthy of a Hollywood film, Rome would fight
a war of attrition.
War parties set out to find and destroy Carthaginian foraging parties, and they would burn crops
and kill livestock that they came across.
Fabius further moved his troops so as to force Hannibal to make the difficult choice of leaving
his Mediterranean sea ports, and source of resupply, if he wished to engage the Romans.
Fabius' strategy worked like a charm, preventing Hannibal from taking any decisive military
action and steadily chipping away at the morale of his army while exploding his operational
costs to keep that army in the field.
Romans however were used to winning decisive battles, and public opinion turned against
Fabius, believing that he was a coward for avoiding a direct confrontation.
He was removed from power and his successor soon led Roman legions into glorious battle
against Hannibal- only to be immediately crushed.
The Romans quickly learned that Fabius had been right all along, and re-adopted his strategy
to ultimately force Hannibal out of Italy.
The Fabian Strategy focuses on long-term attrition against the enemy.
The purpose is to deny enemy forces any clear political or military victories, while overextending
his forces and destroying his means of resupply.
The Taliban have successfully employed a Fabian strategy to drive the United States out of
Afghanistan, denying the US a decisive victory for nearly 20 years of war.
Despite its hopes of victory in a battle of annihilation against the US Navy, the Imperial
Japanese Navy was ultimately defeated by the use of the Fabian strategy.
While IJN battle groups doggedly pursued a decisive confrontation against the Americans,
US submarines slipped past them to wreak havoc on Japanese supply lines which were left largely
undefended due to a lack of available assets.
The Japanese refused to disperse their forces for the majority of the war, and despite making
up the smallest component of the US Navy, American submarines sunk an incredible 54%
of all Japanese shipping, totaling 4.9 million tons of badly needed war supplies.
The Siege
The problem with waging war is that sometimes an enemy position is too strong to take in
one sweeping offensive.
Modern battle doctrine states that for an offensive operation to be successful, friendly
forces should outnumber enemy forces at least three to one.
This disparity in numbers is to make up for the many force multipliers that a defender
enjoys- things such as well-protected fortified positions, clear fields of fire, and support
artillery.
Sometimes though waging a battle, no matter the numerical advantage, is suicidal, or would
produce casualties so great as to result in a pyrrhic victory.
In these cases, the siege has often been the strategy of choice.
The aim of a siege is simple: starve out an enemy and force them to surrender or to leave
their fortifications and meet you for battle without the force multipliers of their defensive
positions.
In order to successfully lay siege to an enemy however, two elements are critical.
First, the enemy must have no means of viable resupply.
If you're laying siege to an enemy force that is still receiving routine resupply, you aren't
laying siege at all- instead, you're allowing your force to be pinned down while the enemy
can maneuver other forces around you.
Secondly, you must be able to resist the enemy's attempts to break out of the siege, holding
your own strong enough defensive positions that an enemy's attempts to rally and break
the siege will fail.
In modern, post World War I combat sieges are extremely rare.
This is largely due to the incredible power of modern weapons, which when brought to bear
in large enough numbers all but nullify the defensive advantage of strong defensive positions.
The Battle of Stalingrad in World War II is often wrongly thought of as a siege, but it
was in fact a fluid battle, with both sides struggling to capture and hold strategic points
throughout the city.
Before the modern era sieges were very commonplace, and entire cities could be held under siege,
slowly starved into submission.
Some truly horrible human tragedies have taken place during sieges, as the powers that be
refused to surrender even as people were dying inside their walls from starvation.
In the modern era technology has made weapons too destructive to employ effective long-term
fortified defense strategies, and the adoption of combined arms and maneuver warfare threatens
to destroy any army adopting a long-term fortified strategy.
While protracted battles in a singular location may be termed 'sieges', the truth is far from
it as in these fights both sides are constantly maneuvering against each other, such as both
battles of Fallujah in Iraq.
Combined Arms
Combined arms warfare has its roots in the earliest days of human history and the domestication
of the horse.
This led to the creation of cavalry, mounted warriors with excellent mobility and a high
degree of shock value against non-mounted opponents.
However, few historical generals made effective use of cavalry in combination with more traditional
forces, often simply treating the two as wholly separate tools doing different jobs on the
battlefield.
Alexander the Great is believed to be amongst the first European generals to make use of
cavalry in what today would be called a combined arms doctrine.
Most ancient militaries used cavalry for the purpose of harassing an enemy force while
the infantry did the real fighting, thus their cavalry was equipped with light lances and
javelins which would continually harass the enemy's flanks without being pulled into a
decisive engagement.
Alexander's legendary Companions however made up the first part of his 'hammer and anvil'
strategy.
Much like ancient Iranian cavalry, the Companions were armed with spears and pikes, and would
be dispatched to attack the enemy's rear or flank.
The infantry meanwhile would be fully engaged at the enemy's front, thus making the Companions
the hammer, and the infantry the anvil upon which the enemy was smashed upon.
This brilliant use of cavalry led Alexander to become one of the greatest conquerors of
all time, and help cement the doctrine of combined arms warfare in military thinkers.
Today no military can achieve victory without mastering combined arms warfare.
This modern doctrine makes use of tanks supported by mobile infantry to decisively engage the
enemy, while attack helicopters and ground attack airplanes provide direct fire support.
Artillery can pin down enemy units attempting to move to reinforce, or devastate an enemy's
rear area forces, while electronic attack assets disrupt enemy communications or gather
vital intelligence.
High above the battlefield, fighter jets provide air cover, defending friendly forces from
enemy air attack and destroying enemy fighters that threaten friendly air support assets.
To attempt to use any one of these forces without the other in modern warfare would
be an absolute disaster, and even a weaker force that has a greater mastery of combined
arms can achieve victory against a much larger force.
US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were routinely outnumbered in combat, sometimes with disparities
as great as 12 to 1!
Yet American mastery of combined arms warfare and the lack of suitable capabilities from
the enemy led to US victory in these engagements.
Most famously, in 2018 Syrian pro-government forces led by Russian special forces and aided
by Russian mercenaries attacked a position held by 40 American special forces troops
and a small number of Syrian Democratic Front militia.
The attacking force was estimated to number at around 500 by US sources, and was supported
by artillery and a number of T-72 and T-55 tanks.
US forces on the ground were vastly outnumbered, and the engagement should have ended in complete
annihilation for the small American contingent.
Instead, US artillery immediately engaged the enemy from nearby positions, while American
B-52s, F-22s, F-15s, AC-130 gunships and Apache attack helicopters provided direct ground
attack support.
America's superior use of combined arms led to a stunning US victory, with zero casualties
amongst US troops and only 1 SDF fighter wounded.
The enemy meanwhile suffered up to 100 killed with many more wounded, the loss of most of
its heavy vehicles, and the deaths of many of their Russian private contractor advisors.
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