A system to protect troops: problems of development.

The role of troop protection as a variety of action that in many respects determines the degree of realization of the potential capabilities of forces engaged in combat missions grows substantially as the armies of the leading world nations add precision weapons and other efficient armaments, including those based on new physical principles, to their arsenals. Advances in the means of warfare are conducive to an increasingly important shift in the content and methods of operations in wars and military conflicts. For example, increasingly often the priority is given to "standoff" forms of combat missions, with engagement by fires being established as an independent stage in an operation. Domestic and foreign military analysts concur in the opinion that 21st-century military operations will be characterized by the warring sides seeking supremacy in all spheres, including outer space, information, and electronics. The content of warfare is going to flesh out with some new forms, such as information-psychological, reconnaissance-sabotage, electronic, ecological, and other special operations. Strategic forces and assets, including space-based, will be employed to perform fire, reconnaissance, command-and-control, and navigation assignments for the benefit of the operational and even the tactical echelon. That will make it possible to bring an all-out pressure to bear on the enemy forces to the entire depth of their disposition, as well as on the infrastructure, industrial and military facilities, and the natural environment. This calls for stepped up efforts to create effective forces and assets for troop protection. It will also mean looking for organizational forms of their comprehensive employment and for new methods of protective action.

For this country, the troop protection problem has an added urgency due to the fact that it has grown weaker militarily and therefore at the present time is unable to deal with the defense capability problems solely by the methods of strong-arm confrontation with a potentially strong adversary. This is why the main principles of all-out troop protection have been incorporated, though not in full, in new draft manuals. However, the work on a new troop protection system conforming to the modern conditions of military operations is still in progress. Completing it necessitates solving a number of scientific, organizational and technical problems, of which the main are the following: to develop new conceptual foundations for a troop protection system; to take further the art of troop protection applicably to the modern conditions in an operation (combat); to include principles of troop protection in manuals; to prepare troops for practicing protective measures in peacetime as well as during a war; to create a new generation of weapons and protective equipment; to train the command personnel in organizing protection; to develop a base of knowledge and theoretical foundations of a history of troop protection, etc. All these are some exceptionally pressing problems that call for an urgent action. Let us consider the most important ones more closely.

The necessity of developing the conceptual foundations for a troop protection system is that the system should not be just new; it should also be scientifically substantiated and the same for all the services, combat arms and the special forces. Previously we had a system of protection from mass destruction weapons (PMDW). But it lacked any scientific foundations and validations, although, for some unclear reasons, it became an element of operational and combat support. As a result, its efficiency remained low and out of tune with the casualty-producing elements of nuclear weapons and other types of MDW. It was only their non-use in the 20th-century wars that helped avoid a huge loss of human life and other grave consequences. The PMDW paralleled different types of support, something that enabled the shifting of responsibility for troop protection to minor personages. But its chief shortcoming was that it had too narrow goals and thwarted the full-scale realization of even the available protective capabilities of troops.

To avoid making former mistakes, the new protection system should be placed on a strictly scientific basis. In the first place, it implies a comprehensive approach to the problem. For example, the modern manuals define the combined-arms combat as one combining strikes, fire and maneuver; the operation and warfare as a whole are viewed as a totality of military operations of different scale, conducted in any environments, and by the different services and combat arms of the RF Armed Forces. But in neither case does troop protection shape into a system, the definitions addressing only one aspect of warfare, its content based on subject classification. But both operation and combat are such a complex and many-faceted process that they must be considered and studied in a more comprehensive manner. The Military Thought repeatedly expressed the view that warfare was not only a totality of military actions but also a confrontation between' sides that takes place in space and time and consists in the engagement of the adversary, protection of own forces, support for combat operations, and control of warfare. (1) As the present writer sees it, this definition is more preferable, because, being based on the problem and functional classification of the military science, it neither rules out nor even downplays the importance of the just mentioned subject, combat-arm-service classification, while providing a definite advantage in terms of deeper penetration into the essence of the warfare process at the functional level.

From this perspective, the essence of confrontation in the process of warfare consists in each side opposing to an enemy engagement the protective actions of own troops, which must rise to the capabilities of the opposing side's weapons.

Since in the course of combat operations the adversary will seek to use various types of influence (fire, force, electronic, information, psychological, beam, toxic, ecological, etc.), which normally occur all together, the protection system, accordingly, should provide for corresponding types of countermeasures (see the figure). It follows from the foregoing that the comprehensive engagement (pressure) on the part of the adversary in the process of warfare must be opposed with all-out protection of own forces. Apart from that, it should be complex, adequate, adaptive and controllable.

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A new conceptual approach in line with these requirements will make it possible to create a comprehensive protection system capable of mobilizing all the capacities inherent in the troops and the cooperating power structures and of employing these for the preservation of the Armed Forces' combat capability as the latter are assailed by different types of weapons and adverse factors. But for that it is necessary to find such a form of organization of that system in an operation or a combat as would possess a considerable capacity for integrating the protective capabilities of units (subunits) while keeping from interfering with their other combat characteristics.

Protecting troops in an operation (combat) is aimed to preserve the combat capability of combined units and units, provide for the security of their activities, and create conditions, under which they can stably perform their functions within the timeframe set for a combat mission. This aim is achieved by weakening the pressure of weapons and adverse factors, enhancing stability and survivability of troops, as well as conserving favorable conditions created for the performance of missions throughout an entire operation (combat). The main troop protection tasks are supposed primarily to rule out the suddenness of massed enemy fire strikes and reduce their effectiveness, to weaken the degree of adverse factors, and to spot and eliminate their consequences. The protection methods should be universal and assure counteraction to different types of weapons and adverse factors.

The problem of creation and introduction of a troop protection system requires that we deal with a number of general tasks of methodological nature. For example, instead of stating the provisions on how to engage the adversary (the essence, the types, the systems) related to the troop protection, some official documents and teaching literature speak only about the weapons. In addition, up to the present time there are no comprehensive investigations studying operation (combat) command and control process, which is fundamentally different from the troop control in that its goal is preempting the adversary on the main missions. Seeking to come over from troop control to warfare control is a tendency in the military affairs that has taken shape in the last few years. Generally it is about the command and control effort becoming less formal and more creative. Step by step the tendency grows into a regularity. As automatic control systems take hold in line units, the controlling of forces and assets increasingly transmutes to the control of operations. Creating a troop protection system based on the functional principle will assist the process. This is why it is felt as necessary to investigate the essence, content, methods and other provisions of operation (combat) control and link them with provisions on troop protection.

Unlike the command and control of forces, the troop protection control, along with the control of complex engagement and all-round support, is primarily the control of the process of confrontation. The control of warfare, as the present writer sees it, consists in a purposeful endeavor on the part of commanders and staffs, aimed, on the one hand, at weakening the effective pressure brought to bear by the adversary, reducing the degree of his protection and worsening the conditions, in which he operates, while on the other at increasing the effectiveness of engagement systems, boosting the degree of protection of friendly troops, and improving the conditions, in which they operate. The main warfare control goal is to preempt the adversary in accomplishing a kill and to protect friendly forces from retaliation.

Taken as the basis, this approach makes clear the place and role of deception, operational and tactical camouflage and concealment that have been the subject of debates for years. What is clear is that they are potent warfare control factors, which make it possible to raise the degree of effective engagement of the adversary owing to surprise massed fire strikes and to ensure the necessary reliability of protection of friendly forces by concealing them from enemy reconnaissance and by compelling the adversary to deliver fire strikes at vacant areas.

An important aspect of the basic control effort is determining the controlling and the controlled elements, which most often implies higher-echelon and lower-echelon command and control elements. This assertion is correct, but only in relation to command and control of forces. As is common knowledge, warring sides at all times sought to control not only their own forces but also the adversary's actions, using for the purpose different methods of deception and psychological pressure. To do this, the control process is made to involve not only the friendly forces and the adversary, but also the environment.

The environment has much energy potential and can, under certain circumstances, put a considerable impact on the state and activities of friendly forces and the adversary. Environment control means a purposeful effort to modify the properties and states of the environment (accessibility, habitability, negotiability, traffic capacity, capability to support deployment and operations, protective and concealment characteristics, etc.) in order to create difficulties for the adversary and to preserve favorable conditions for friendly forces. Certainly, the idea to control the environment for military purposes calls for the development of relevant highly effective methods and technical assets.

At the same time, 21st-century wars will emphasize the problem of protecting "the quality of the environment." As is common knowledge, the objective of any operation (combat) basically contains two main missions: to rout (defeat) the adversary and to achieve territorial supremacy, the latter understood as the capture of a territory or the holding of a territory. What is meant in the overwhelming number of cases is the quantitative aspect (the size of an area, distance to the forward line, etc.). But combat operations may change a teritory's properties and make it unfit for both wartime combat operations and postwar economic activity. One vastly important problem in this connection is how to protect "the quality of the space" and make warfare "ecological." In an operation (combat) there is the system of troop protection, one of whose aims is precisely to provide a solution to this problem, but it is a short-term solution. In the longer run, it is necessary to put in place definite international legal rules for combat operations and to enforce compliance in the course of combat training and combat operations.

But it is hardly possible to create a science-based legislative and regulatory framework that will ensure the "ecological quality" of preparations for and conduct of warfare unless we devise some fundamental approaches to the problem. In a way its solution may be precipitated by the drafting of a methodology for the evaluation of the maximally admissible amount of military-technogenetic pressure on the environment in theaters (in areas) of presumed military operations. It may be based on a law prescribing preservation of the potentials of the sides involved in warfare and of the environment. As is common knowledge, the process of confrontation tends to detract from the sides' potentials, which means that these get mutually annihilated, causing changes and disturbances in the environment. If an aggregate potential impacting on the environment exceeds its restorative potential, the consequences of military-technogenetic pressure will become irreversible and call forth a definite ecological shift with pernicious consequences for the civilization. So, in each theater of operations the sum total of the killing potentials of the adversary, friendly forces and potentially dangerous economic facilities must not exceed the critical value, for otherwise there will be no way of restoring the environmental potential.

As for the all-round support of actions pursued by the troops, in the new functional interpretation it ought to contain provisions spelling out the missions assigned to the types of support with regard to effective engagement of the adversary, protection of friendly forces, and operation (combat) control. In this context, the traditional types of support will no longer include security, and operational (tactical) camouflage, concealment and deception, with material and information support, as well as reinforcement and mission assistance emerging as the general tasks of the support effort. Given the changeover from the linear tactics to multi-dimension actions, where effective engagement with fires is performed to the entire depth of disposition and from all physical spheres, the importance of security as a type of combat support declines and, as is evident from the record of modern wars and armed conflicts, it, in effect, is turning into a variety of operational (tactical) actions.

Used to validate the foundations of troop protection in an operation and combat, the conceptual approach explains why it is necessary to create functional systems and stimulates their development. It cannot be claimed that this kind of systems was not in use previously. It is well known that the operation (combat) planning provides for the creation and employment of nuclear, fire and other effective engagement systems as well as of antitank and anti-assault defenses, etc. The disposition of forces for an operation (combat) is in itself a system of its cooperating elements. All these systems are functional. A stable tendency in assets and methods of warfare at the present period is creating, in good time, combat automated stand-by systems modeled on the GMS (guided missile system) and the MS (missile system), and space-based reconnaissance, guidance, communication and navigation systems.

A good old combat training principle is to teach the troops whatever is essential in a war. In the Armed Forces organizational development, too, it would be a good thing to have a similar "ready-made forms" principle directing efforts to the well-in-advance creation of stand-by forces and functional systems ready to be employed at any moment. In this case it will not be necessary to use too much valuable time for organizing coordination between forces belonging to different combat arms in a period of preparations for an operation (combat), the low quality of coordination often being the cause of setbacks.

It is precisely the basis, on which the guideline documents should legally endorse the creation in an operation and combat of a troop protection system, which ought to be seen as a totality of functionally connected forces, assets and methods of protection, specialized protective systems, units and obstacles, as well as the protective properties and capabilities of military equipment, structures and the environment, used comprehensively and in concert in accordance with a unified plan. The fundamental function within it is due to be performed by a troop protection control system based on the functional principle, with the protection planning and coordination group of large strategic formations, combined units and units likely to become its central command and control element. It is only in this case that sufficient integration will be ensured of all available protective capabilities, which will make it possible to more fully realize the combat capabilities of forces.

An evaluation of the principle of creating systems of forces on the functional basis shows the expedience of its use in the process of Armed Forces reform as well. These assertions derive from the conclusion that the organization of the armed forces into services and combat arms was always more in tune with the mass-scale armies of the past and their peacetime combat training. At the same time, the radical reduction of the Armed Forces conducted within the framework of the existing service-and-combat-arm organization is dangerous in that we may unwittingly pass the point of no return and thus lose irrevocably the system underlying the force configuration along with combat readiness. Therefore, as it seems, the reform ought to be oriented to the creation of combat (support, command-and-control) systems based on the functional principle, something that will make it possible at any time during the reorganization not to lose sight of the critical parameters of the emerging systems.

The new all-round troop protection system cannot function with high efficiency unless steps are taken to create a new generation of weapons and protective equipment. At the initial stage it is expedient to enhance its capabilities mostly by modernizing the existing weapons, reconnaissance equipment, EW, radiation and chemical protection gear, engineering and medical support assets, etc. But this is clearly insufficient for achieving the required degree of effectiveness enabling the neutralization of the constantly growing capabilities of weapons. For this reason, the attitude to the development of new-generation weapons and protective equipment must change radically. The necessary prerequisites are inherent in the structure of the troop protection system and principles for its creation. For example, the comprehensive nature of protection, which envisages a coordinated employment of forces and assets belonging to different combat arms, makes it possible to single out priorities in weapons and protective equipment due to enhance their effectiveness and save a lot of material resources and time. One ought to list among such priorities the development, instead of the traditional passive protective equipment, of universal asymmetric means of protection specifically designed for active counteraction, which means fielding against an enemy weapon a means capable of neutralizing it.

The problem of creation and use in an operation (combat) of functional systems, including troop protection systems, calls for considerable changes in the training of the officer cadre, which should also be based on the functional principle. The educational system that trains the combined arms officer--the would-be commander of a motorized rifle (tank) division (regiment)--how to handle aircraft, artillery, motorized rifle, tank, flame-throwing, engineering and other units (subunits) must be replaced by a system envisaging instruction primarily in the organization of comprehensive effective engagement of the enemy, all-round protection of forces, control and all-round support of combat operations, to wit, the ability to create relevant functional systems and control them in the course of combat operations. But the structure of universities and chairs, one based on the same old service-combat-arm organization, is thus far holding back this important step.

Increasingly of importance today is the problem of creating a base of knowledge on troop protection in view of a continuity gap that has formed in consequence of the elimination of the old MDW protection system and resignation of the relevant specialists, and the delay in creating a new troop protection system. The present writer believes it can be solved by creating a specialized discipline, "History of Troop Protection," within the military science and by developing specialized interactive modules for automated command and control systems, containing expert systems to support the algorithm of decision-making on troop protection.

It ought to be stressed in conclusion that creating and introducing the new all-round troop protection system is a difficult and big task, but it must be tackled without delay, in a purposeful manner and on a strictly scientific basis, because it is only in this way that we may maintain combat skills and combat capability of our forces at a level enabling successful performance of combat missions.

NOTE:

(1.) Voennaia mysl', No. 12, 1993, pp. 18-23; No. 6, 1997, pp. 38-44.

Col. V.K. KADYUK (Ref.)

Doctor of Military Sciences