Nine Approaches to Transformations

Intro

A recent study by McKinsey sees that digital technology will continue driving and forcing organisations to transform.  Their survey found that 89% of the respondents had launched some digital transformation. Unfortunately, they only captured 31% of the expected revenue lift and realised just 25% of the total expected cost savings. Transformation of socio-technical enterprise is challenging and becomes increasingly challenging according to Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar or Simon Johnson and Daron Acemoglu . 

Introducing new technical opportunities, migrating legacy content in new processes and knowledgebases, introducing new ways of working, providing people with new competencies and career paths, providing new value to customers, and opening potential markets to grow is not easy to orchestrate over months and years while most of the old structure, operational costs expenditure, laggards among personnel, habituated customers, and sub-optimised shareholders are setting obstacles on the transformation paths.

This essay studies nine approaches to transformation from a personal experience perspective, aiming to summarise their feasibility to a challenge: Project portfolio, Engineered swimming lanes, Capability portfolio, Digital transformation, Linear change management, Organisational transformation, Culture driven transformation, Operational performance optimization and co-designed social change. 

Figure 1: Nine ways to approach transformation 

1. Project Portfolio

The first approach, and sometimes the simplest, is a project portfolio. The portfolio analyses the current situation (AS-IS). It defines where the enterprise needs to be in the end state (TO-BE). These two positions represent the end of the transformation roadmap. The number of projects (Temporary endeavours intended to create a specific unique outcome)  is established to provide one tangible step after another to take the enterprise towards its visioned end state, as illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: A classical project portfolio approach in transformation

Naturally, the portfolio will include interdependent projects, so their timing and scope need to be well adhered to proceed with firm steps. Unfortunately, as always with a human endeavour, there are typical pitfalls that need mitigation:

• Original project plans cannot consider all variants in the future and, therefore, need adjustment to the portfolio's situation before launch.
• Outer forces always affect the transformation, so minor and more extensive amendments are needed to keep paths clear and steady.
• Measuring only projects' achievements does not drive the transformation, so leading and lagging indicators are required to keep a steady pace at the transformation level.
• Project management may be in everyone's comfort zone, so natural tendency may focus on project-level doings while deviating from the end state and achieving milestones on the way.

The project portfolio is feasible in shorter transformations where migration or change does not fit the current organisational structure but requires temporary ways to arrange people to deliver the outcome. The portfolio may be actionable in cases where technology needs modernising and end-user training.   

2. Engineered Swimming Lanes

A slightly more structured approach compared to the project portfolio is the engineered or designed swimming lanes way to arrange projects in the portfolio. For example, the swimming lanes may be defined in a military way (DOTMLPFII  or TEPIDOIL ) or architectural way (facilities, technology, information, processes, competencies, business value streams, products ). The swimming lanes are sometimes divided into phases, such as the COBIT plan, build, and run, to align life cycles between each project and make procurement easier to manage, as illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Transformation arranged as swimming lanes with life cycle phases

The swimming lane approach is feasible in engineering and specification-led transformations, e.g., large ERP  or C5ISTAR  implementations. Naturally, there will be challenges like:

• Focusing only on each lane but forgetting the impact in other lanes, like producing doctrines (D) or tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) without implementing them in the information systems (I) or training them to operators (T).
• When several projects must achieve the RUN phase simultaneously to enable some significant change, individual project-level delays may ruin the entire plan. Hence, intermediate solutions or alternative projects need to be in place to ensure reliability.
• Focusing on lanes will not deliver the transformation. Hence, clear leading and lagging drivers  must keep up the pace on roads towards TO-BE.

3. Capability Portfolio

Stepping more strategically, larger enterprises, especially the military, need to manage the life cycle of their core capabilities and assess their impact in the market or area of operation against their adversary or competitor capabilities.  For example, in military affairs, some capabilities are based on platforms (e.g., main battle tank) with several decades' long life cycles. Maintaining their applicability and reliability with mid-life updates (MLU) is cost-effective if the adversary is not aiming to disrupt with faster evolution (arms race ). Capability may comprise life cycle lengths varying from 30+ years to 24 hours, as illustrated in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Capability portfolio managing life cycles

Transformation is managed through the life cycle, calling platforms to the assembly line for MLU, which is typical for the main battle tank, fighter attacker, or frigate. Migration and replacement projects are typical for information technology hardware, whose life span seldom lasts five years. Software updates and patches are more frequent and require continuous integration (CI)  processes run by existing development and operation organisations. 

The capability portfolio also manages personnel, training, facilities, and other elements. Common mistakes observed using this approach:

• Not understanding which elements have the shortest life span or are more sensitive to warehousing environment changes. Some armaments may run on old operating systems, creating a significant vulnerability when connected to other effectors. Rocket engines, integrated circuits, and electricity require stable warehousing conditions.
• Retiring a long-served platform or arm also retires all trained reservists, gravely impacting the war-time order of battle.
• Not following the technical life cycle but extending hardware or software life span for cost-saving reasons may lead to higher replacement costs (Year 2000 bug)  or dependency on rare technical competencies (legacy software ).
• Not following adversary (or competitors') intentions, deploying higher-performing sensors and effectors, and keeping old equipment stocks may lead to strategic surprises during the first engagement days. 

4. Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is developing organisational and technology-based capabilities that allow an organisation to continuously improve its impact against adversaries in operation, lower its operation costs, and, over time, gain and sustain operational or strategic advantage over adversaries.  Projects cannot deliver digital transformation, which requires changes at all layers of the enterprise: technology, information, processes, and affairs, as illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Gears of Digital Transformation

The continuous transformation cycle  needs a technical foundation where information is digitised using platforms. The platforms enable organisations to digitalise their processes, improve cost-efficiency, create new products, or provide new value. Based on digitised information and digitalised processes, organisations may seek significant changes in their business, making sense of areas of interest (network-enabled capabilities ) or deploying effectors (Mosaic Warfare ). 

Digital transformation requires to build a culture and operation model for an enterprise and hence vulnerable, for example:

• Political or owner's agenda changes resources or mission. Swedish Defence Force was building Nätverksbaserade Försvaret  in early 2000 to transform their capabilities and address the future Russian threats when a political decision cut their resources and changed their mission.
• Focusing on technology roll-out but forgetting to transfer human behaviour 
• Focusing on process performance and productivity indicators to gain cost-savings but not using opportunities to find new ways for affairs. 

5. Linear Change Management

The classical change management models of Kanter (1992)  and Kotter (1996)  explain several sequential steps to take in managing organisational change. The first step usually includes defining the organisation's position, why change is required, and the situation's urgency or "burning platform". Then, there is a need for strong leadership and a capable team to define and communicate the vision. Communication spurs action, and leader enables it by empowering and removing obstacles. On the road to change, a leader celebrates achievements and anchors them in the organisation's structure. Finally, there is no way to return, and the organisation may only mature and achieve a new equilibrium, as illustrated in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Linear steps in the transformation path

Naturally, the sequence of steps does not address the change because it was initially defined from common mistakes made by studied organisational changes. Nevertheless, change management approaches transforming affairs/business as a complex socio-technical system. It puts human and working society at the centre of the transformation. 

Change management may fail in numerous ways:

• Communication is the leverage for action, but humans usually need to hear WHY and what is there for me, our team, and the higher good. Purpose enhances motivation, which accelerates action. Many transformations claim that communication mistakes cause failures in change.
• Suppose the vision and communication do not visualise a new or better purpose after the transformation. In that case, the legacy culture eats many good ideas for breakfast. 
• Even after successful communication, there will be friction on the journey and pure opposition to change. An average of 30% of personnel will oppose or be passive when facing the change.  
• Suppose the strong leader is not walking the change talk. In that case, the vision and journey remain distant and threatening to personnel. They do not hop on the transformation train.

6. Organisational Migration

Firmly established institutions with a long history cannot change because the culture, heritage and values of organisations and people are fixed. Radical transformations of affairs, business or operations require smaller units outside the parent organisation to experiment and grow in new ways. Some experimentations may fail, but some may scale fast in new ways of doing things. The parent enterprise arranges promising subsidiaries under a new viable enterprise model to meet the future. As illustrated in Figure 7, the old structure and operation methods will be terminated.

Figure 7: Organisational transformation through migration

Military Forces launch these probing organisations as Future Force Units, experimenting first in exercises, then limited level in operations before launching more comprehensive force generation and deployment. Commercial organisations may acquire and merge small entrepreneurs with new technology products or extend markets to keep up with their competitors.  Other companies innovate new ways of doing business, products, and operations with their partners, within governmental innovation incubators, or in cooperation with universities.  

Since transformation aims after the radical restructuring of affairs or disruption of social structure, mergers, acquisitions, innovation networks, or consortiums face many confronts, for example:

• Leaders proceed without ruthless modelling and simulations with unrealistic expectations of new ways. Eventually, they do not realise the imagined value, meet the political risk appetite, or survive on the battlefield as expected. 
• Integrating smaller, agile, more entrepreneurial cultures under the established institutional culture fails because of culture clashes, organisational misfits or power structure. 
• "military organisations are societies built around and upon the prevailing concepts of war. A challenge to an established concept is a challenge to the organisation's social structure." Institute and culture eat experimenting subsidies for breakfast. 

7. Culture-driven

Organisational culture can be perceived as consistent, observable behaviour patterns in organisations. Incentives powerfully shape culture. Culture defines the process of "sense-making" in organisations.  Therefore, culture cannot be bypassed if transformation aims to change profound ways in the organisation. The culture-driven transformation starts with leadership, whose sense-making, behaviour and incentives must be changed first. Based on visible changes in leadership, their stories of different purposes towards a better future have more credibility to spread among personnel, creating further stories of new purposes and values. Storytelling  empowers people to behave differently, seek new ways, and acquire new competencies. The shared journey towards the vision establishes new connections among people, binds new links and incubates new ideas. The different transparency and open communication provide leadership with better information, improving organisational sense and decision-making. A positive cycle of continuous cultural transformation, illustrated in Figure 8, transfers people's behaviour, migrates information towards new flows, and acquires new technology.

 

Figure 8: Culture-drive transformation

No cohesive culture exists in any enterprise , so culture-driven transformation is not straightforward. For example:

• If the storytelling does not emphasise strategic goals and value creation, the subcultures hang on to better legacy stories. The fighter pilot stories of the Air Force culture do not quickly transfer to heroic stories of remote controllers or successful missions of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). 
• Central Transformation Office cannot monitor cultural-level powers since they are not visible in project or enterprise resource management systems. The cultural transformation indicators can only come from the business leaders and commanders.
• Influencers (individuals in the business unit who have large, informal social networks and are trusted and respected by others for their transparency, institutional knowledge, and ability to make sense of change) and those responsible (for initiatives, their implementation and new ways of value creation) approaches may differ in units and forces. Their alignment is essential in creating stories that empower personnel towards the journey. 
• Each unit may have different role models for virtuous behaviour. Units use different concepts and terminology for understanding and conviction. Formal reinforcement mechanisms are different for each Service . Self-confidence, teamwork, and skill building differ between Navy and Land Forces or Sales and Manufacturing.  These foundational cultural differences require different stories, echoed by influencers in proximity and expected from their commanders or managers.

8. Operational performance-driven

Affairs or business-level transformation may focus only on improving a process or operational performance. Performance improvement may be compliance, quality, productivity or maturity-oriented, as illustrated in Figure 9. All the above are feasible if the process or operation is at least the maturity level "defined". Below that maturity, other means are better. The quality approach improves, for example, process reliability, standardisation or best practice, and product or service quality. There are also quality frameworks for the entire enterprise.  

Continuous improvement of operations (LEAN or Toyota  approach) is part of the organisational culture that brings problems upfront, eliminates all waste (muda) in continuous effort (kaizen), and uses the pull principle to avoid overproduction and storing along the value stream.

Capability maturity improvement  is the third approach in this category. Starting from US DOD requirements for software development quality, the CMMI models have expanded to help organisations understand their capability and performance. They offer a guide to optimise business results using good practices, performance measuring, reliability and life-cycle costs analysis, and sustainability estimations. 

Figure 9: Operational or process performance-driven transformation

Operational optimisation improves the quality of service, output and cost-efficiency, but implementing it may face the following challenges:

• Even a CMMI 5-level software developer fails if the definition of the requirements is unclear, the required effort is underestimated, or the outcome is expected within the unrealistic deadline. 
• Performance is evaluated, and certifications are granted for an organisation, never being established at behavioural or cultural levels. 
• LEAN transformation is a strategy that cannot be delivered as a project. Continuous improvement requires continuous measurement and ridding of evident waste. The understanding and need for action should be written in policies and adapted to the culture. 
• LEAN is a holistic transformation involving the entire enterprise. It takes years to accomplish and requires involvement from all personnel, not only the early adaptors. 
• None of the quality management applications are successful if the management does not support them, there is no connection to financial performance, and process performance goals are not established or measured. 

9. Social, Co-design driven

A broader social change requires better tools than projects, programs, portfolios or implementations of strategies. One approach for social change is co-design, which uses design thinking methodology but in a more cooperative nature.  Design thinking is a method teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems, and create innovative solutions for prototypes and tests. Design thinking includes the phases of 

1. empathise with the society or user group, 
2. defining their challenges and possible solutions.
3. cycles of prototyping and testing will provide a solution that everyone can agree on
4. deployment may begin.  

There are three approaches societies or enterprises may use to free people to solve problems in Figure 10. Emancipation delegates authority to new teams to seek and test solutions, establish a unit, and merge back into society or affairs after maturation. Liberation empowers personnel to innovate and improve (Google's 20%-time policy)  anything they are passionate about. Abolition is a method to reform existing behaviour by banning constraints or freeing people from current legislative or social codes to find more suitable codes of conduct as a society.  In the enterprise, this may be implemented by establishing subsidiary companies outside of the parent company's institutional management and letting the subsidiary find the best ways of production and engage with their customers with a more entrepreneurial culture. 

Figure 10: Co-design approach to social transformations

Degrees of freedom, delegation, and understanding of outcome may vary in the three levels of co-design. So do the challenges in using this method for transformation, for example:

• Co-design is an iterative and collaborative process, which can make it difficult to predict outcomes. Institutes may perceive this lack of predictability as high-risk and hesitate to invest. 
• Attempts to innovate new behaviour and value fail because long-term plans are missing, lack of innovation or entrepreneurial mindset, fear of failing, lacking means to engage competent people, or lack of budget. 
• According to the statistics from the US, about 45% of new companies fail within the first five years. The reasons for failures may include not understanding the market, establishing the business processes, not having enough starting capital, or expanding too fast. 

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MULTI-DOMAIN APPROACH FOR ADVANTAGE IN CONFRONTATION AND CONFLICT

 Bottom Line Up First

U.S. DoD and NATO aim to build Multi-Domain Operation capabilities after successfully deploying Joint Operation capabilities during Desert Storm 1991. The chosen approach seems a logical and natural next step from a force and defence industry viewpoint. Unfortunately, from an adversary viewpoint, the best Armed Forces with Multi-Domain Operations capability constrained by the perception of war and peace is vulnerable to flanking manoeuvre through information, cognitive and social realms. A textbook example of Sun Tzu's lesson is "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

Striving after Multi-Domain Operations Capabilities

The U.S. DoD has been developing the concept of Joint Operations since the Goldwater-Nichols Act 1986 and used it masterly in Desert Storm 1991 so well that at least the Chinese PLA launched their reform.  

Contemporary militaries are evolving their operational concept from Joint Operations towards Multi-Domain Operations. NATO defines the approach as the "push for NATO to orchestrate military activities across all operating domains and environments. These actions are synchronised with non-military activities and enable the Alliance to create desired outcomes at the right time and place." The Domains NATO names as "Maritime, Land, Air, Space and Cyberspace".  

 Figure 1: A Poster of Multi-Domain Operations Symposium, AUSA 2024 © Greater Los Angeles Chapter Association of the U.S. Army

The U.S. DoD's next step in evolution is called Joint All Domain Operations. "JADO shifts the focus from 'multi-domain', which individual services have been operating in for decades, and places it back on tackling the challenges of joint operations."   The U.S. aims at a combined, connected  arms (without the Service structure) force that senses and effects as one through all domains and can host combined units from other nations. The concept has also been called "Mosaic warfare". It is enabled by the emerging technology experimented on in The Project Convergence exercises . DARPA is promoting mosaic warfare as "combining weapons we already have today in new and surprising ways, introducing manned-unmanned teaming, disaggregating capabilities, and allowing commanders to seamlessly call on effects from sea, land or air depending on the situation and no matter which of the armed services is providing the capability." 

Where did We Come and Where to Go with Multi-Domain

The Multi-Domain concept is not new. Guderian joined close air support from the Luftwaffe with his Pantzer-formations since horse-towed artillery was too slow to support mechanised armies.  The electromagnetic environment has been an established fighting domain since the introduction of radars, navigation and radio during the II WWW.  The U.S. DoD has been coordinating three Services capabilities towards one Joint objective.  With the spreading of the Internet, the cyber environment has become a viable avenue, first for espionage  and later for attacks like the Russian attack against Estonia in 2007  and the U.S.-led coalition Stuxnet attack against Iran in 2010 . Currently, at least the UK MOD and U.S. Army are promoting the doctrine of Cyber and Electromagnetic Activities as combined arms effects.  

Space has been used to support military capabilities since the Gold War. After the development of anti-satellite weapons and their testing since 1958, Space has become a battlefield.  See the evolutionary path illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Evolution of domains in military conflict

Multi-Domain or Joint, All Domain Operational capabilities are in a linear evolutionary path for the Armed Forces to aim. Furthermore, the defence industry is promoting technologies enabling connectivity, plug-and-play integration of platforms, and automation for faster reaction, robust survivability, and combined effects from all domains.  

In the future, the strategic advantage will be based on improved connectivity, faster OODA-loop, and combined effect over the entire adversary system. Does everybody follow the evolutionary rules or play the same game?

How is the Multi-Domain Approach Doing in the Contemporary Continuum of Conflict?

Since the 2010s, the U.S. military planners have recognised the continuum of conflict from low to high intensity  rather than black-and-white peace and wartime in the Westphalian system . Continuum models illustrate a variety of dimensions along the line of cooperation – competition – confrontation – conflict, including non-state, hybrid and state conflicts or narrative, a zero-sum and non-zero-sum in Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning 2018.  Militaries globally have been studying how to engage U.S. Military Power with other means and ways, as stated by Hoffman and Mattis 2005: 

"Our conventional superiority creates a compelling logic for states and non-state actors to move out of the traditional mode of war and seek some niche capability or some unexpected combination of technologies and tactics to gain an advantage."

The Chinese (PRC) PLA's recognition and understanding of the current form of war is one of "informatisation" and "intelligentization", where battlefield dominance is achieved through information technology and networked forces, increasingly assisted by automation and artificial intelligence.  They see that patterns of warfare have changed from attrition-based warfare (although the fact in Ukraine)  patterns carried out at the front to information firepower strikes and network-electronic integrated confrontations that occur throughout the battlefield or even globally. The PLA concept of operations includes three lines:

1. "Collective operations refers to the need to develop a range of interconnected operational systems that can work cooperatively, coordinate the combination of military and non-military measures outlined above, and achieve the PRC's desired war outcomes."  Possibly, the PLA's definition of the Multi-Domain Operations concept.
2. "Asymmetric strikes are enabled by a thorough understanding of the enemy's operational system and focused on attacking key vulnerabilities, weakening the enemy's operational strength, capabilities, and potential by applying resources as efficiently as possible."  Possibly refers to ways to project power other than through contemporary military domains.
3. "Paralysing the enemy's systems centres the tailored application of force to reduce key areas of an enemy's functionality and gain initiative and control of battlefield developments."   It possibly indicates more innovative avenues of effect and centres of gravity.

These three lines of operation are combined with "war control",  which may refer to controlling the scope, scale, and pace of war.

The PRC also has a more holistic view of the competition over Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economy, Technology, Infrastructure and International relationships through the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and the Global Security Initiative.  Beijing is pursuing "efforts short of armed conflict by expanding coercion to new fronts, violating principles of sovereignty, exploiting ambiguity, and deliberately blurring the lines between civil and military goals", as described in the U.S. National Defense Strategy of 2018. 

Russia, on the other hand, was relatively successful in launching operations in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and Middle Africa, manoeuvring within the continuum without crossing the red line of war. Only the 2022 intention to launch a coordinated "blitzkrieg" to capture Kyiv and change the government exposed their main incapability at strategic, operational and tactical levels of warfare.  Nevertheless, the Russian ability to wage information operations  supported by cyber-attacks  and salvos of hundreds of missiles and drones are impacting NATO and Ukrainian political decision-making and structures.

Russia has long been preparing the foundation for their influence operation among domestic and European populations. After the first three months of Russian "Special Operation", some Ukrainians still believed in the de-Nazification of Kyiv.   Over 2.5 years of war, the majority of Greece, Bulgaria, and Italy citizens do not want to send more weapons to help Ukraine win.  Most of the citizens of Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria do not perceive Russia as a threat.  Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia are torn between Russian influence and willingness to become members of the European Community. 

It appears that all countries and militaries are not capable or willing to follow the Multi-Domain competition but play a different game around the military strong points. While Western militaries are building Joint Multi-Domain capabilities in physical and cyber realms, China and Russia are joining their efforts over cyber and information realms to bypass the Multi-Domain militaries waiting behind the war threshold and target both political and population cognitive and social structures with information and kinetic means for terror. 

Figure 3 illustrates the confrontation between two entities. BLUE is an open society and economy with 4th industrial supporting advanced military force but constrained by Westphalian Peace-War definitions. RED is projecting its power more flexibly through the entire spectrum of realms: Physical, information, Cognitive and Social without breaching the line of  War. RED operates in the information realm, using available channels to plant perceptions, beliefs and memes in the cognitive sphere (human perception).  The planting is harvested at the social level where opposing sides spread xenophobia, media bubbles are enforced, and wildly spreading memes are faster than any truth. Cyber attacks and physical destruction support the main information operation of the critical infrastructure in the physical realm.  The RED Multi-Domain approach differs from BLUE militaries space, air, land, sea and cyber. The Jointness of RED hybrid operations is created by controlling information operations, cyber operations and kinetic actions of criminals and terrorists. The Joint impact is multiplied in BLUE media channels, affecting BLUE political and public opinion. The War Control targets soft spots, triggers a small impact and lets the adversary system multiply its effect. It sounds like Sun Tzu's optimum strategy to win the battle without fighting. 

 

Figure 3: Difference of the game between some countries DIME power projection

It may be wise for the Western Armed Forces to consider more of the Total National Defence (Totalförsvaret  in Sweden and Kokonaismaanpuolustus  in Finland) besides getting finally rid of the legacy boundaries of different Services on the battlefield.

References:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1560-1.html

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A Quick View of Modern Military Strategy

What is a Modern Military Strategy?

Definition for a Military Strategy

National-related strategy is comprehensive, provides direction, has a purpose of control, and is fundamentally concerned with applying power in achieving national goals. (Eccles, 1958) Current national-level strategic thinking assumes that states and other competitive entities have interests they will pursue to the best of their abilities. Interests may be realised in end states like survival, economic well-being, and enduring national values. A good strategy is never developed in isolation. The following figure illustrates one view of the strategic horizon. (Yarger, 2006)

Figure 1: A comprehensive strategy view

Carl von Clausewitz defined the military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war." (Clausewitz, 1984) B.H. Liddell Hart extended the definition to "military means" and "to fulfil the ends of policy." (Liddell Hart, 1967) Lenin and Trotsky extended the strategy towards the art of infinite conquest by diminishing the boundaries between war and peace in the struggle of classes. (Strachan, 2008) 

It seems natural that military strategy is subordinate to national defence strategy, being its military pillar. The US defines national strategy as: "The art and science of developing and using the political, economic, and psychological powers of a nation, together with its armed forces, during peace and war, to secure national objectives." (Mattis, 2018)

An Environment for Military Strategy

From the strategic survivability viewpoint, a state may perceive threats as existential, global/regional, and intra-state threats. Military force may be required to mitigate threats in all of these categories, for example, taking care of flows of immigrants fleeing changing climate and withering resources, deterring the violence spreading caused by the clash of ideologies, or preventing the alienation of the nation's youths. These state strategic goals are not close to military ways of using controlled violence but can be assigned to the Armed Forces. Therefore, a military strategy is always a part of state security and defence strategies.

Figure 2: A generic threat environment from a state security view (Mattila, 2022)

Strategic Horizon - Finite or Infinite - for a Military Strategy

Military strategy is all about using armed power in a confrontation between two or more societies. (Gray, 1999) Call these societies nations, states, coalitions, enterprises, or groups. Previously, the escalated confrontation ended in war between states, but nowadays, we have a different continuum of conflicts. (Carse, 2013) Wars are seldom declared since military strategies seek more clandestine ways to wield power. In Ukraine, Russia never admitted involvement but used their conventional forces without insignias and mercenaries or voluntary groups, i.e., Little Green Men, to occupy Crimea and Eastern parts of Ukraine in 2014. (Wikipedia, 2024) Phenomena is called a hybrid conflict in the Western military-strategic thinking. (Hybrid CoE, 2024) Since the Westphalian world order is no longer valid, the military needs to think of strategy as part of an infinite game with various actors through the entire spectrum of relationships.

Figure 3: Continuum of conflict according to US Military Strategy 2015 © U.S.DoD

Lines of Power Projection in a Confrontation

Traditionally, militarised violence has changed social behaviour by causing material and human attrition in the physical realm. Survivors of the violence have forwarded information about horrors to other people, whose feelings and beliefs are altered based on the received information. (US DoD, 2018) People may change their behaviour when these new feelings and beliefs are confirmed within the social construction. (Zuboff, 2019, ss. 93-97) That is the simple, linear approach. Whereas, in many revolutions, a force captures control over broadcasting services, starts distributing their information and changes the behaviour of society. Besides, social media has enabled terrorists to distribute videos of their physical violence to a broader audience, thus extending the impact of fear and terror. (Kaldor, 2012) Furthermore, the art of strategy (Sun, 2014, ss. 92-93) aims to conquer or suppress the adversary without fighting by indisposing the adversary's plans and preventing the junction of its forces. The physical attrition on the battlefield, especially against prepared positions, is perceived as the worst scenario. Figure 4 illustrates that cyberspace gradually extends towards the physical, information and cognitive realms and subsequently opens new avenues to create impact and change human behaviour.

Figure 4: A wider view of lines of military power projection (Mattila, 2022)

An Operational Military Strategy

There are two types of military strategies: operational and force development strategy. The operational strategy uses existing military capabilities to achieve political aims. (Smith, 2008) The force development strategy aims to meet the requirements of future threats and objectives stated by political analysis.

The operational strategy is one element in a four-part structure: (Gray, 1999)

• First are the political ends to be obtained. 
• Second are the strategies for obtaining them, and how resources will be deployed. 
• Third are tactics, how resources that have been deployed are used or employed. 
• Fourth and last are the resources themselves, the means at our disposal. 

Thus, operational strategy and tactics bridge the gap between ends and means.

Operational strategies are, for example, attrition, annihilation, exhaustion, Fabian strategy or any variation and combination of these four:

• Attrition seeks to gradually erode the combat power of the enemy's armed forces. The perfect example of this is WW I (Wikipedia, 2024) and seemingly, the recent Russian Spring 2024 effort against Ukraine. (Institute for the study of war, 2024) 
• Annihilation seeks the immediate destruction of the combat power of the enemy's armed forces. Napoleon is considered a perfect example of this strategy as he was seeking a single massive battle which won the war all at once. (Wikipedia, 2024) When Russia denied this opportunity, Napoleon was not able to achieve his political goals of annihilating Russian Forces and gaining a surrender.
• Exhaustion seeks the gradual erosion of an enemy nation's will or means to resist. Here, one is pursuing an indirect objective, using military power not against the enemy's armies or navies, but against the things that make him capable of fighting at all. The U.S.-led coalition used this strategy of not hitting the enemy's combat forces directly but making them irrelevant by destroying their industrial base, logistics, and Command and Control in The First Gulf War. (Chun, 2010) Another example is the US waged wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. In both cases, the US popular opinion was exhausted with negative information coming from the front. (Kimmit, 2009)
• Fabian Strategy (named after the Roman dictator Quintus Fabius trying to avoid direct confrontation with Hannibal in the 2nd Punic War) seeks to avoid the conflict and, if possible, to survive while gaining more time and resources to switch to other strategies. The approach was used by Tsar Alexander against Napoleon’s Grand Armeen attack when scorching resources from their avenue of approach, George Washington in the American Revolutionary War against English forces, and Viet Minh using hit and run against French forces. (Wikipedia, 2024)

These strategies may include deterring, denying, disrupting, degrading, or defeating, as called in the US DoD integrated approach 2015.

A Military Force Generation Strategy

The Force generation strategy can be presented using Gattorna’s strategic posture analysis (Gattorna, 2010) in Figure 5. Military strategies can be analysed from four postures: 

• lower risk strategies of Evolutionary and more proactive Protective or 
• higher risk strategies of reactive Operational and Pathfinder.

Most of the European militaries develop their forces in an Evolutionary posture. Evolutionary means that they continuously but carefully improve their forces with available technology and copy tactics from other forces they benchmark. Posture is a low-risk approach, but for example, NATO was caught by surprise when the Warsaw Pact disintegrated, and it took a long time for NATO to react to fulfil new expectations in the 1990s and 2000s. The Russian operations in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria again caught NATO countries unprepared, and now they are busy reacting and trying to address old threats of peer-level or dominant conventional forces.

At their northern borders, the Warsaw Pact and China developed their forces in an operational posture. Since they did not have the latest technology but had a willing population and strong 2nd and 3rd generation armament manufacturing, they developed massive armies using conventional technology at an elevated level of operational efficiency.

The US Armed Forces have varying Pathfinder and Protective strategies. They have tried to gain strategic advantage two times by being a Pathfinder in developing the newest technology. First, the Strategic Defence Initiative in the early 1980s, which, although only an information operation, helped to exhaust the resources of the Soviet Union. (Wikipedia, 2024) Second, the Network Centric Warfare initiative (US DoD, 2001), which gave them an upper hand in the Gulf Wars, succeeded in annihilating twice the military might of Saddam Hussein. The US has been applying a protective posture to prevent other nations from copying their advanced technologies by controlling high-tech exports to China. (Eitel, 2024)

Figure 5: Strategic postures for military development strategies (Mattila J. K., 2020)

Samples of Current Military Strategies

The United States of America

The US National Defense Strategy 2018 (Mattis, 2018) differs from its predecessor, 2015 (U.S. DoD, 2015) in recognising China and Russia as the higher national threats. The strategy realises that fast-developing commercial technology is available to state and non-state actors thus eroding the Protective posture the US has previously enjoyed. The strategy emphasises sustaining US strengths in the lethality of their forces, strong alliances, technological innovation and culture of performance, which create an advantage against their opponents in confrontations. However, the US strives for Operational superiority by improving its operational dynamism, Interagency integration, and building a more lethal force for performance but within limits of affordability. Furthermore, the intention to "field a lethal, resilient, and rapidly adapting joint force" and the statement that "size matters" hints at traditional Attrition as the operational strategy. Only "advanced autonomous systems are invested broadly," tells of efforts to regain long-term strategic Pathfinder advantages.

The United Kingdom

The U.K. National Security Strategy 2015 (UK MoD, 2015)recognises that, besides non-state actors, there is a rise in Russian state-born confrontations. Also, the cyber environment is perceived as a new dimension for confrontation and conflicts, requiring improved defensive capabilities and national resilience. Armed Forces are required to increase their manpower and create Joint Force 2025 to project force abroad. The Joint Force is demanded to be bigger (50,000) and more agile to tackle a broader range of more sophisticated adversaries together with security and intelligence agencies. The UK follows the Evolutionary strategy of increasing and developing its conventional force. However, the request for further agility proves a hint of Operational superiority. In conclusion, the military might be employed agilely using joint and interagency effects, indicating the operations' attrition/exhaustion types.

Finland

The Government's Defence Report in Finland 2017 (PM of Finland, 2017)recognises the deteriorated security situation after the occupation of Crimea, conflict in eastern Ukraine, and rising tension in the Baltic Sea region. They recognise that cyber and psychological operations are signs of Russian ability to wield "a wider range of instruments in pursuing its objectives." The increased challenge for Finnish defence is reduced early warning and a more comprehensive range of instruments (military and non-military) used against the military, government and population through all five dimensions of operation (space, air, land, maritime and cyber). The clause "Finland must be able to resist military pressure and a rapidly escalating military threat and repel a large-scale attack" may indicate, to a degree, Fabian strategy to gain time for allied forces to come and strengthen the defence. Therefore, the Finnish strategy aims to build the resiliency of forces, government, and society. Subsequently, they seek better ability to provide and receive military assistance and raise the threshold effect of armed forces in preventing the escalation of the conflict.

Further, the force utilisation is described as "forces are divided into manoeuvre (operational), regional and local forces. The regional forces are used to create regional defence coverage. The manoeuvre forces create the centre of gravity of the defence and fight the decisive battles. The local forces participate in the battle and provide security, surveillance, and support to the manoeuvre and regional forces in their area and assist them in maintaining contact with the other authorities." 

The development strategy sustains the long legacy of evolutionary posture as the strategic capability programmes remain at the level of replacing dated platforms with new but similar ones. The strategy writers have seen it necessary even to defend the posture with "It is not possible to substitute the Hornet fleet's capability with GBAD systems or with any unmanned aerial vehicles already in operational use or on the design board; they would cover but a part of the Hornet fleet's capability."

A Temptation of AI in Military Affairs

Will the European Military miss the window of opportunity for the 4th generation industrial-based force generation?

Keywords: National Defence, Artificial Intelligence, Weaponization, Security Strategy

Introduction

The human ability to collect information, make sense of a situation, optimise action, and learn while executing has been challenged recently in games, simulators, diagnoses, and real-time analysis. How may this development reflect future tactical combat-level decision-making? Is the machine going to win the man in combat?

Based on recent AI progress, artificial cognitive abilities and skills are emergently dominant compared to human competencies. In theory, the military may access Artificial Intelligence, which could:

• Gain knowledge from a zero-knowledge starting point through gaming against itself and, within months, master a given battle scenario’s technical, tactical, and possibly operational level features for victory.
• Anticipate adversary moves ahead, create a picture of potential scenarios, and predict adversary manoeuvring in 3-D space within seconds in a fully digitalised battlefield.
• Make short-term decisions within 80 milliseconds and optimise decisions simultaneously at technical and tactical levels.
• Identify lessons from the events and gain 150 years of theoretical combat experience teaching itself overnight.

At the same time, the price has decreased, and the availability of components increased to build lethal autonomous weapons from commercial products. A “slaughterbot” that nearly killed the president of Venezuela in 2018 could be built by an experienced hobbyist for less than $1,000. States are not able to control the manufacturing of lethal weapons as it becomes easier to weaponize commercial cyber-physical products of the 4th generation of industrial manufacturing.

During the ongoing War against Ukraine, the Russian military is massing troops and firing where their operational art finds the best course of action. However, even in Russia, the live mass is consumed too fast concerning available expendable and willing human resources.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) aims to counter U.S. dominance asymmetrically in all five battle domains through intelligentised ”combat capabilities for joint operations based on the network information system and the ability to fight under multi-dimensional conditions.”

U.S. DoD all-volunteer force recruiting has been declining for the past 15 years, and no silver bullet has yet been found to mitigate the gradual loss of human potential and competency. Furthermore, the 2$ trillion annual budget is struggling to maintain the required fleets of armament.

With the emerging Russian threat, European militaries are struggling to build up their military capabilities while the cost of defence material is rising, recruiting cannot address the need for enlisted, and deadlines to achieve national defence goals are closing fast.

Will the temptation of AI overcome the ethical concerns and generals fill their order of battle from the cyber-physical actors and sensors of the fourth industrial revolution?

How the Use of Artificial Intelligence May Impact Military Confrontation?

Digitalization changes human endeavours from physical to social level, including military affairs:

• Information operations and cognitive warfare are ongoing and taking place mainly outside of the military attention
• The physical battlefield is more transparent due to the density of sensors deployed
• Asymmetrically used, remote-controlled weapon systems challenge 2/3 generation industrial platforms on the battlefield
• Cyber electromagnetic effects have proven effective against current generations of military system of systems
• The ability of defence industrial production becomes a key strategic asset in prolonged conflicts like in Ukraine
• 4th Industrial Revolution-based (4IR) information, data, and algorithm-driven military affairs promise major advantages for commanders.

The traditional near-peer analyses of a number of arms and men with Lancaster I and II laws of attrition between BLUE and RED Forces are not sufficient when the battlefield and opposing societies change in different ways, culture becomes either an enabler or obstacle for the military to adopt new capabilities and the national and coalition defence industry either can or not produce and maintain 4th industrial cyber-physical armament. The main components of a model assessing the impact of AI in the military system of systems are illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: A Model for assessing the impact of Artificial Intelligence technologies in military confrontation

Strategic Pressure Builds Up Between the European Union and Russian Federation Confrontation

Strategic analyses between the European Union and the Russian Federation bring up differences in resources and opportunities. Table 1 compares the larger but diversified European society against the smaller but more coherent society of Russia. Both populations are growing older and smaller over time. European society is producing more and dependent on exported energy whereas Russian society is smaller and dependent on energy exports. Both sides have about the same number of active troops, but European troops are more digitized than Russian. Furthermore, Russia has a wider base to recruit reservists than Europe and, with higher resilience against casualties, can play longer confrontation games. Both societies are exporting arms. EU exports advanced 3rd industrial generation armament whereas Russia produces surplus in 2nd and lower 3rd generation armament.

Table 1: Strategic comparison between EU and Russia concerning resources

European Union	Russian Federation
Democratic decision-making between 27 nation-states	One autocratic state with 193 ethnic groups
Over 448 M people, speak 24 official languages and believe in a god 52 %	Over 147 M people, speak one official language and believe 60% of orthodox
With a median age of 44.5 and a fertility rate of 1.46 live births per woman, society is in a negative population change	With a median age of 40.3 and a fertility rate of 1.42 live births per woman, society is in a negative population change
Produces 16.6 % of the world GDP Consumes 59 billion GJ energy of which 3/5 is imported	9th largest economy with 54% coming from oil and gas exports
Military expenditure 1.6% of GDP	Military expenditure 5.9% of GDP
Active-duty troops 1.34 million	Active-duty troops of around 1 million
Not tested but probably more fragile concerning casualties	Tolerates over 1200 casualties/day and is resistant even over 500 000 casualties over 2 years
Nuclear capable (FRA) with high digitalization level of Forces	Nuclear capable but low digitalization level of Forces
Exports over 20% (FRA, GER, ITA) of arms in the world	Exports 11% of arms in the world
Produces more 3rd and 4th generation advanced armament	Produces more 2/3rd generation bulk armament

Based on the analysis, it seems that Putin’s regime has a window of opportunity in using the smaller but coherent population to support less advanced but higher volume armed forces to achieve his political goals after he failed to use information operations and the European energy dependency to manipulate democratic decision-making. 

Military Capabilities Comparison Reveals the Gap for AI Opportunities

After the strategic level analysis, the following Table 2 takes the research one step down to the military operational analysis of systems performance and capabilities. Table 2 illuminates the fact that the EU military forces are somewhat minor to the Russian operational performance as the Russians can use wider avenues of attack (physical, information, cognitive and social) for their joint operations and gain dominance in social and physical realms. Military scenarios wargame with Russian 2nd and 3rd generation troops storming over the European side borders using the “shock and awe” or the “blitzkrieg” art of manoeuvring, bypassing the few defending forces and speeding towards the capitals, seizing them, and freezing the conflict as experienced in the 2014 invasion of Ukraine. 

Table 2: Operational-level systems analysis of the EU and Russian military capabilities

European Union	Russian Federation
Reactive rather than proactive political decision-making with slower implementation	Faster decision-making and implementation top-down through the regime
Open media and social media for foreign manipulation	Ability to wage information operations and cognitive warfare while protecting society from foreign manipulation
Advanced digitalization, data, and information but lacking knowledge creation	Ability to disable or suppress advanced technology on the battlefield (by jamming GPS, radars, sensors, and targeting emitters)
Few advanced 3rd generation industrial weapon systems lacking interoperability	Ability to manufacture higher volumes of 2/3 generation armament
Incohesive and non-interoperative forces with little or no combat experience	Ability to train simple, repetitive skills for technical military performance
	More advanced operational art with 3rd generation forces
Fragile societies in hardship and casualties	Ability to tolerate more casualties and societal hardships
Defence industry is not able to sustain or reproduce 2/3rd generation armament in masses	Ability to transfer society to support 2nd and 3rd generation Armed Forces power projection for a longer time

Because of the real or perceived underminer status of the EU military decision-makers, there is a temptation to invest in:

• more automated force (decreasing the probability of human casualties) against conventional fighters, 
• precision targeting payloads (preventing collateral losses when fighting in densely populated areas) versus area bombardment 
• faster identifying and recognising adversary manoeuvring on the battlefield (to use sparse blue forces more optimally)
• countering the dominant operational art of the red force (faster analyses of the available lines of operation and selecting effective courses of action)
• sustain advanced 3rd generation armament in taxing environment to improve capability availability (digital twins to pre-emptive maintenance)
• manufacture 4th industrial dual-use cyber-physical products in sensor and effector platforms (meeting the red 2nd and 3rd manufacturing advantage with 4th generation additive manufacturing).

Is the Digital Leap Possible for the EU Military Forces?

Digital leap or transformation is always challenging, particularly for the military, because of the nature of military culture to sustain command and control structure even in chaotic situation. Figure 2 provides some simple checkpoints to improve the transformation towards more digital, data-driven and artificial intelligence-enhanced force:

1. Define your strategic posture against your potential adversary to adjust goals and resources in balance
2. Define your process development opportunities and limitations for each core function, i.e., Force utilisation, generation, deployment/projection, sustainment, and support
3. Consider your Forces' ability to take steps on the digital transformation road
4. Define why you need to change. Is it to improve cost-efficiency in times of diminishing budgets, potential threats from adversaries, or just implement a transformation dictated by politicians
5. Consider the width of your leap towards the future, particularly, how wide transformation your current culture supports
6. Divide your transformation portfolio into three folders: unfreeze, move, and refreeze. 

Figure 2: A simple tool to improve success in military digital transformations

Artificial Intelligence and Fog of War

Done Improperly, Artificial Intelligence May Enhance the “Fog of War” Rather than Improve the Situational Awareness

For centuries, technology has been used to improve situational awareness, but the realisation has sometimes fallen short. The 1990s network-centric warfare initiative in the U.S. DoD developed operative situational awareness but neglected the tactical level, which exposed the military to micro-manage battlefield. Tactical Data Links have provided superior connectivity since the 1970s but a vast array of deployed datalinks have delayed the update of tactical communications and now there is a need for a wide leap from formatted messages to Internet Protocol data transfer. Computerisation of battle management has left the commanders with screens full of up-to-date, detailed information, but exposed to challenges in recognising the essentials from the amount of information. The development of technology introduces first time a cognitive-level companion to soldiers. Are they ready to trust artificial advice in stressful situations?

Figure 1: Evolution of Military Systems of systems

Recently, Artificial Intelligence technology (AI) has promised to bring visibility through the “fog on the battlefield”. There are four mistakes that the military should avoid in implementing Artificial Intelligence in this concern: 

1. New technology makes soldiering harder for individuals, although it adds capability;

2. AI introduces a new kind of cognition on the battlefield;

3. Decision-making will be accelerated to machine speeds; 

4. AI will introduce new ways for deception on the battlefield. 

Let’s look at each of them more in detail.

1. AI Will Make Individual Soldiers’ Jobs Harder Even Though It Increases the Capability of the Force

In the beginning, just flying a fighter used to be an all-consuming task for pilots. Then digitalization introduced expert logic to make flying simpler but same time introduced more sensors and weapon systems. Then sensors, aerodynamic systems, and weapons were integrated, requiring automation to manage threat, target acquisition, and flying situations.  Furthermore, systems become more complicated, including, e.g., guided weapons and electronic attacks in 5th-generation aircraft. The next (6th generation) fighter aircraft will be surrounded by several “autonomous air systems” (UAS) flying in formation alongside and the pilot needs to operate an even more complex swarm of platforms, sensors, and weapons. The complexity is beyond human control and needs AI enablement.

Figure 2: Wingman UAS aircraft concept

 

2. New Kind of Battlefield Cognition

Human understanding or cognition has been the ultimate decision-maker in previous wars. We spend long hours in general staff college to learn to understand the battle and study different analytical methods to make the best decisions. The implementation of AI technology in command and control introduces an “alien cognition”. AI has gone through a different military education. It does not necessarily follow human morale or values. The AI considers statistical correlations, calculates a long chain of probabilities, and optimizes through large decision trees. All of these are intuitively impossible for human cognition. The future battlefield requires social cognition and AI cognition to communicate and understand each other and thereby work together in human-machine teams better than individually. Commanders need to be educated in dealing with complex issues within human-machine relationships and build intuition to recognise when a human understanding is subordinate to machine cognition. 

Figure 2: New mixture of cognition on the battlefield

 

3. Human-speed vs Machine-speed

The pace of warfighting has increased throughout the history of war. The decision cycle (OODA) is getting shorter, and situations are more ambiguous and stressful. Ethical implementation of Artificial Intelligence requires humans in the OODA loop to ensure compliance with Laws of War and Rules of Engagement. All good when the situation unfolds at the pace of human understanding. But when hypersonic weapons are guided by artificial intelligence or an approaching fighter is piloted by AI optimized in a dog fight, slowly reacting humans in the loop will end with more casualties. Left in autonomous mode, the AI may conclude the situation totally against the mission of the operation and end up slaughtering innocent by-passers. On the other hand, current military risk-avoiding cultures are already keeping their defensive systems in auto-mode. The probability of this behaviour does not decline with more semi-automated systems on the battlefield. 

Figure 4: Intelligent hypersonic weapons change the pace of combat

 

4. Deception at Machine-speed

Information operations (INFO-OPS) are a significant part of contemporary military operations. INFO-OPS requires a massive amount of data that only Artificial Intelligence may make sense. Artificial Intelligence will command the information impact on individual behaviour at higher sophistication, scale, and lower cost than anytime before. It is already challenging for humans to recognise deep fake videos (manipulated real-time videos) from real ones. On the other hand, AI-enabled sensors are doing the primary image recognition in the machine-speed battlefield. Currently, people are playing with autonomous cars and taping traffic signs to appear different from the autonomous vehicles. The cyber, electromagnetic, and physical realms open a variety of attack vectors to mislead your machine or human sensors.

Figure 5: Earlier deception of intelligence analysts does not affect the Artificial Intelligence

Conclusion

In summary, AI deployment, just like new technology, may lead to mistakes and fatalities in military affairs. Nevertheless, the promise of military effects and impacts in adversary systems drives the development and fielding of AI-enabled sensors, effectors, and integrators. Soldiers need to be trained to understand the new artificial cognition, communicate with it, train it, recognise its strengths and weaknesses, and work together with it to win more fights than the adversary. The future battlefield requires officers with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills more than ever before.

Sources:

https://warontherocks.com/2020/03/fog-friction-and-thinking-machines/

https://www.popsci.com/future-air-force-fighters-leading-drone-swarms/

https://www.popsci.com/china-drone-swarms/