Precision Paradox and Myths of Precision Strike in Modern Armed Conflict

Abstract

Precision strike has assumed an outsized role in modern warfare. In the First Drone Age, drone-based precision strike promises to deliver accurate, first-time hits. Some assert that drone-based precision strike and precision strike-based strategies appear to offer a more civilised and antiseptic method of waging war. Amos C Fox argues that the Precision Paradox is a cautionary heuristic to illustrate the potential shortcomings of precision strategies, thereby allowing decision-makers to incorporate a modicum of realism into their thinking. The Precision Paradox also helps to illustrate the need to return to military thought rooted in realism and reason, instead of military thought based on linear, best-case scenario suppositions.◼

On 4 April 2003, the US Air Force dropped two Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) satellite-guided bombs on the home of Ali Hassan Al-Majid – better known as ‘Chemical Ali’. Ali, the cousin of Saddam Hussein and the director of Saddam’s intelligence service, was one of the US coalition’s high-profile targets. In the strike’s immediate aftermath, US secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, stated that ‘[w]e believe that the reign of terror of Chemical Ali has come to an end’.¹ The strike on Chemical Ali came only a few weeks after the US’s precision strike on Dora Farms, an area in which intelligence suggested Saddam Hussein might be hiding. In both cases, the strikes were accurate – hitting their intended target precisely – but ineffective. In Saddam’s case, the strike was ineffective because he was not present at the farm during the time of the strikes; regarding Ali’s, he was present, but the strike did not kill him.

Writing about the impact of those strikes on the war, Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor stated: ‘Chemical Ali was still alive and well. Saddam and his top officials had scattered to the four winds, but they were not finished yet’.² Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt summarised the US’s precision strike scorecard between the months of March and April 2003, writing that the US targeted 13 Iraqi senior political and military leaders but, in every case, the US walked away empty-handed.³ Furthermore, the attempt to eliminate Saddam Hussein, Chemical Ali and other senior Iraqi leaders resulted in the death of more than 100 civilian bystanders, a portent of the errancy of the allure of precision strike and so-called ‘decapitation strategies’.⁴

USS Gabrielle Giffords launches a Naval Strike Missile in the Philippine Sea during Exercise Pacific Griffin, October 2019. Courtesy of US Navy / Shannon Renfroe

As the US scrambled to withdraw from Afghanistan in August 2021, its forces – employing the latest drone sensing and strike capability – attacked a car believed to be transporting enemy fighters. The strike was accurate – hitting the car and killing the people inside the car – but it was ineffective because it killed additional people in the area, including seven children.⁵ Journalist Azmat Khan correctly stated that in this strike, the death of the civilians was not the byproduct of a hasty strike conducted under the pressure of a chaotic withdraw from the conflict, but one of hundreds, if not thousands, of precision strikes which generated errant effects and killed more people – and created grander destruction – than intended.⁶

In both the Iraq and Afghanistan examples, a simple pattern emerges around precision strike: (a) accurate, but ineffective strikes; (b) failure to generate the targeteer’s desired effect on the target, and in some cases on the overall war, which (c) results in increased civilian casualties and collateral damage. This pattern, which is understood as the ‘accurate, but ineffective cycle’, generates (d) a Precision Paradox, the definition of paradox within this article being a statement or proposition that despite sound reasoning from an acceptable premise, leads to an outcome that is senseless, illogical or unacceptable. Considering this definition, the Precision Paradox can be understood as d = a+b + c. This logic is the causal mechanism that explains the Precision Paradox’s recurrence in modern armed conflict and arguably, why the paradox will continue to remain relevant in future wars. The Precision Paradox can be summarised as the incongruence between precision strike theory and the fervent enthusiasm of precision ideologues, with the factual basis of objective truth regarding the effects of precision strike.

The discussion of precision and precision strike herein is not examining policy, tactics, leadership, training, nor munition types or delivery systems. This article explores precision and precision strike from a causal standpoint. To that end, the article starts with the accepted assumption that states use precision strikes because they are perceived as a safer option than non-precision strikes. In this case, ‘safer’ means that the strike(s) causes less death and destruction than a conventional or non-precision strike might do in the same situation. ‘Safer’ does not mean that the strike is inaccurate, that is, that the strike hits its target with almost no margin of error. The accuracy of precision weapons is not the point in question here. This article’s examination of the Precision Paradox is two-fold. First, it acknowledges the fact that the broad idea of precision strike is not a panacea and, thus, should not be either explicitly described or alluded to. Second, the examination of the Precision Paradox seeks to build a language to explain, from a causal and intended outcome point of view, how and why precision strike is not a panacea. The main output of this examination is the language and concept of Precision Paradox – not policy recommendations, how to improve training or a lecture on leadership.

Considering the relationship between the Precision Paradox and precision strike theory, four points or elemental ideas emerge. First, theorists and other precision advocates built precision strike theory, and its derivative concepts, doctrines and force design, on a flawed logic. Precision strike theory’s flawed logic rests on the assumption – proven invalid in nearly every concept since the idea was introduced – that precision strikes which target political leadership, senior military commanders or command nodes can create sufficient cognitive dislocation to cause an adversarial state, their military or their military operations to collapse with nary a fight.⁷ History has proven this assumption both invalid and, at best, fanciful thinking.

Second, accurate strikes are not equivalent to effective strikes. If accurate strikes are not effective – as operations in the battle for Mosul (October 2016–July 2017) clearly illustrate – then precision-based warfighting requires additional strikes and, likely, a subsequent use of land force activities to offset the shortcomings of precision strikes.

Third, if precision strikes are often accurate, but ineffective, and additional strikes or land operations are required to create the effect intended with the initial precision strike(s), then precision strategies do not decrease civilian casualties and collateral damage in conflict zones. Instead, battles like the siege of Mosul evince that the cyclic nature of precision strike’s accurate but ineffective attacks increase civilian casualties and collateral damage.⁸ Correspondingly, the Precision Paradox exhibits that as accurate but ineffective strikes accumulate, so too do civilian casualties and collateral damage.

Fourth, history does not yet provide a single instance in which precision strike has hastened a war to a timely conclusion. History does provide, on the other hand, a ledger chock full of wars of attrition precipitated by precision strike strategies. Put another way, the Precision Paradox illustrates that precision warfare, in which strikes are accurate but often ineffective, generates wars of attrition.

Viewed collectively, these four hypotheses are the foundational underpinnings for the Precision Paradox theory. These four principles, and the Precision Paradox collectively, should be the point of departure for any scholar, policymaker or practitioner interested in advocating, or researching, precision warfare in contemporary or future armed conflict.

This article proceeds in the following manner. First, the article provides background on the evolution of precision strike theory to help clarify how precision warfare has come to represent the supposed zenith of 20^th century military strategy and operations. To do so, this article presents a loose pedigree between Napoleon Bonaparte’s Austerlitz campaign – the apogee of political–military deftness – to today’s precision strike warfare. The link between the two concepts being that political and military alike are in constant pursuit of decisive political–military victory. Today’s means have changed from those of Bonaparte but, to be sure, the quest for a quick, decisive victory remains just as insatiable.

Second, this article uses three case studies to illustrate the Precision Paradox. The case studies are used to illustrate each of this article’s four primary points regarding the Precision Paradox: (1) accurate strikes do not necessarily directly correlate into effective strikes; (2) eliminating senior military leadership does not have the impact on operations that precision strike theory supposes; (3) precision warfare often increases civilian casualties and collateral damage; and (4) precision warfare contributes to wars of attrition. This article uses the Russo-Ukrainian war to depict that precision strikes on senior military leadership and command nodes do not hasten cognitive collapse and accelerate rapid decisive operations as precision strike theory, or precision enthusiasts, would have one believe. Next, this article probes the Syrian Civil War’s Battle of Raqqa and Operation Inherent Resolve’s siege of Mosul to ascertain that accurate strikes do not correlate to effective strikes. Raqqa and Mosul correspondingly depict precision warfare as a strategy rife with high civilian casualties and collateral damage, while ushering wars of attrition.

Third, as this article makes clear, the Precision Paradox is somewhat deterministic. The deterministic dynamics of the Precision Paradox results in attrition being the Paradox’s hallmark. Considering the villainy most policymakers and practitioners attribute to attrition, this article thus concludes with considerations that must be reflected on when evaluating the role that precision strike might play in theory, strategy recommendations, military doctrines and operational plans.

Methods and Limitations

The Precision Paradox is a theory which is a derivative of an inductive approach to the study of armed conflict. The theory is a bridge between precision warfare theory and a general appreciation of modern (and future) armed conflict. This article summarises the Precision Paradox in a simple equation: e = a+b + c+d, when:

• e = Precision Paradox;

• a = accurate strikes do not correlate to effective strikes;

• b = ineffective, but accurate strikes do not create their desired effect;

• c = additional strikes, or operations, are conducted to overcome ineffectiveness; and

• d = additional strikes increase civilian casualties and collateral damage.

The Precision Paradox does not materialise when precision strikes do, in fact, result in first-time success, that is, the strike achieved its intended purpose with no additional use of force being required on that specific target. Considering the Precision Paradox equation, if variable a or b is not present, then Precision Paradox becomes a purely theoretical consideration.

This article relies on open-source information to support the veracity of the Precision Paradox. Open-source information is the primary means of information because most quantifiable data regarding state-based precision strikes is either classified or has not been empirically documented. Nonetheless, this article relies on qualitative reasoning to support the arguments that underpin the Precision Paradox theory.

This article comes with two acknowledged limitations. First, the heavy reliance on US precision theory and usage. That over-reliance is due to the US’s overarching lead in drone warfare and precision-guided munition (PGM) use in modern warfare and not courtesy of a bias in favour of the US. Second, this article provides a heuristic (the Precision Paradox) based on theory that cannot be supported by quantifiable analysis. For instance, battles such as Raqqa or Mosul cannot be rewound and the use of precision munitions replaced with unguided munitions to compare the variances between the two approaches. For this reason, the Precision Paradox is referred to as a heuristic, instead of a law, in warfare.

Precision Warfare: Background Information

Antoine Bousquet notes that the allure of precision strike continues to intoxicate political and military leaders with the belief that wars can be won cheaply and quickly, by simply eliminating an adversary’s senior leadership with a handful of guided munitions.⁹ James Rogers suggests that this fever has gripped the US since as early as the First World War. Rogers asserts that in the period between the two world wars, US air power theorists, unlike many of their European counterparts, would ‘[s]eek to avoid indiscriminate and disproportionate bombing of the enemy … and put at its very core the motivation to reduce the cost to both civilians and American military life, while still securing victory’.¹⁰ Nevertheless, precision strike and short-war enthusiasts persist in avoiding evidence to the contrary and proceed to spin the yarn, positing that selective targeting with precision munitions can induce strategic paralysis and demoralisation in an adversary. Paralysed and demoralised, or so the theory goes, carries with it the potential of triggering the collapse of an adversary’s ruling regime and cause its military to return to its barracks after little to no combat.¹¹

The pursuit of precision, put simply, is the quest for accuracy. Accuracy’s importance is not an end unto itself but instead, it is sought after because of financial prudence.¹² Limited resources constrain all state and non-state actors and, if their resources are not judiciously managed, hasten their culmination. Andrew Krepinevich, for instance, affirms that efficiency-oriented equipment, organisations and methods of operating reflect finite means.¹³

Precision theory alleges that accurate weapons systems and operating from stand-off reduce the number of rounds required to kill or destroy a target.¹⁴ Furthermore, accurate weapons theoretically rouse deft tactical action and consequently, hasten battlefield victory.¹⁵ Theorists likewise posit that accurate weapons diminish the strain on an actor’s logistics tail.¹⁶

In recent decades, however, humanist perspectives assumed equal, if not greater, importance in warfare than fiscal conservatism. The international community’s endorsement of proportionality, military necessity, discrimination and preventing undue suffering in warfare reflects this change in attitude.¹⁷ Moreover, the adoption of doctrines, techniques and training that incorporate international humanitarian law (IHL) are visible demonstrations of this commitment. The humanist leaning of precision theory appeals to governments interested in maintaining close alignment to IHL.

Modern precision strategies, to include those of the US and its allies, fall within this context of warfare. Modern precision strategies in the First Drone Age (a term used by drone enthusiasts to refer to the post-Gulf War era) use long- and close-range precision weapons systems to support IHL and resource considerations.¹⁸ In addition, actors use stand-off and smaller land forces to make themselves hard to detect and more challenging to engage.

Bousquet posits that many of today’s policymakers, scholars and practitioners make similar pronouncements regarding drone warfare, PGMs and precision strike strategy’s relevance to winning current, and future, armed conflict.¹⁹ The 1991 Gulf War, in which the US and its allies routed a vapid Iraqi military, was contemporary precision strike’s first real test.²⁰ During the Gulf War, PGMs accounted for roughly 8% of expended munitions but their ‘magic’ captured the attention of the Western world.²¹

Western military thinking and procurement in the post-Gulf War era – emblazoned with images and narratives of the PGM’s accuracy in Iraq – gave rise to an age dominated by claims of precision strike’s game-changing potential.²² Western military thinking throughout the First Drone Age has gravitated towards the belief that long-range and stand-off PGMs would circumvent land force employment altogether, by attacking an adversary’s centre of gravity and subsequently propel the adversary towards psychological paralysis.²³ Military strategists such as US Air Force Colonel John Warden asserted that psychological paralysis would prevent an adversary’s ability to develop an effective military response and furnish US military commanders with their own Austerlitz, albeit without the bloody, expensive and politically dangerous mess of battle and extensive force deployments.²⁴ Precision strategy, moreover, would encourage a fresh ‘revolution in military affairs’, which would benefit both the US and its allies.²⁵ The precision zealotry of this period subsequently motivated several warfighting concepts to include rapid dominance, parallel warfare, effects-based operations, and shock and awe.

Somewhat predictably, PGMs morphed from a niche capability in the early 1990s into chic new warfighting stratagems by the late 1990s. In the 1998 Kosovo War, US General Wesley Clark, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, recalls that political sensitivities at the time were such that land operations were out of the question and that NATO would instead fight an air-centric precision strategy in Kosovo.²⁶ In a campaign almost exclusively fought from the air, US and NATO PGM usage in the Kosovo War was 29%, up from 8% in the Gulf War.²⁷

The trend of receding from land operations towards air-centric precision warfighting quickened in the intervening years. In 2001, the US invasion of Afghanistan registered 60% PGM usage, while the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 witnessed PGM use at 68%.²⁸ Armed drones and precision technology improved and became cheaper during the ensuing years, which further increased the diffusion of precision warfighting technology and the development of drone-heavy precision-oriented strategy.²⁹

In addition, contemporary conflicts demonstrate that drones, PGMs and precision strategies are not the antidote for warfare’s moral and physical carnage. Scant evidence supports the claims of precision advocates, such as Harlan Ullman et al., that precision strategies win wars quickly, that they avert battle between land forces or that precision strategies are less destructive than other warfighting approaches.³⁰ Facts also fail to sustain the assertion that precision strategies require fewer salvos, fewer munitions and lessen the logistics load more so than unguided options.³¹ The tension between aspirational precision warfare theory and empirical evidence nevertheless permeates the post-9/11 landscape, which further hastens the Precision Paradox.

The Precision Paradox reveals that the collateral damage, physical destruction and battlefield death from the First Drone Age’s PGM-based strategies and those that rely on unguided munitions are commensurable. The Precision Paradox further illustrates that PGM accuracy does not inherently create effectiveness; namely, a strike might hit its intended target, however, the strike is just as likely to fail to yield its intended effect on the target, despite first-hit accuracy. This dynamic – accurate but ineffective strikes – precipitates more strikes to bring about the intended outcome, not fewer. The accurate but ineffective cycle – the Precision Paradox’s élan vital – makes warfare more destructive and longer lasting, which contradicts precision theory’s proclamations of innocuous warfare and hastened wars. Last, the Precision Paradox’s accurate but ineffective dynamic creates the situation in which precision strategies quickly grind through PGM stocks, surpass industrial base production and cause, either, campaigns to slow to allow production to catch up, or the combatant to use unguided munitions to bridge the production gap. The problem has shown itself not only in Ukraine but also in the US-led campaigns against the Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and the Philippines.³² Nevertheless, the Precision Paradox, which sees precision theory turned on its head by reality’s impact on the praxis of warfare, results in drone warfare and precision-based wars taking the character of slow attritional grinds.

Case Studies in the Precision Paradox

The Precision Paradox is the manifestation of suboptimal and unintended outcomes associated with precision warfare strategies.³³ The suboptimal outcomes in the Precision Paradox arise from the incongruence between aspirational, unrealistic precision warfare theories and the praxis of armed conflict. This situation manifests because precision thinking relies heavily on linear and optimum scenarios in its development process, while failing to account for the genuine circumstances of war and the acceptance that adversaries are motivated, resourced and learn and adapt while under duress. The Precision Paradox provides several unique features for investigation. However, this article limits its focus to civilian casualties and collateral damage, and the financial costs of precision strategies.

A common refrain among precision advocates is that precision strategies and PGM use reduces civilian casualties and limits damage to civilian infrastructure.³⁴ The trope tends to be more factual in counterterrorism situations than in conventional conflict. Abigail Watson and Alasdair McKay challenge the orthodoxy of precision theory, asserting that the use of PGMs, delivered from long-ranges and from aerial platforms, prevent an attacking force’s ability to implement useful and effective civilian protection mechanisms.³⁵ As a result, civilian deaths and damage to infrastructure do not decrease but paradoxically increase with the use of drones, long-range fires and other remote attack systems.

Precision enthusiasts allege that the use of PGM is more economical than the use of unguided munitions and that PGM use hastens the end of war.³⁶ Armed conflict in the First Drone Age does not support this assertion. Despite the US’s considerable use of precision strike technology during Operation Inherent Resolve’s battles of Raqqa and Mosul, for instance, each took several months to conclude. Raqqa wore on for five months, while Mosul blistered northern Iraq for nearly 10 months. To put Mosul’s duration into historical context, the First World War’s Battle of Verdun, one of the war’s noted battles, also lasted nearly 10 months, and was dominated by its era’s precision strike capability – observed, indirect fire.

The following case studies illustrate the Precision Paradox and the challenges associated with PGMs. This article’s case studies highlight the causal mechanisms that reinforce the applicability of the Precision Paradox. The case studies also provide cautionary tales because they demonstrate what can happen when ‘precision goes wild’ and does not act in accordance with its theoretical underpinnings.

The Battle of Raqqa (June–October 2017)

In Raqqa, the Islamic State operated among the city’s civilian populace. To protect itself from adversaries, the Islamic State used the city’s inhabitants as human shields. The Islamic State also used the city’s infrastructure for protection, basing and command and control.³⁷ Its strategy in Raqqa proved successful – dulling the US, coalition and US proxy efforts to eliminate the organisation’s stranglehold on the city and its population.

In May 2017, US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, emphatically advanced a change in US tactics in Syria. US forces operating in opposition of the Islamic State would no longer be using attrition tactics but would instead use annihilation tactics, and would ‘dismantle the ISIS caliphate’ beginning in the city, thereby denying Islamic State’s fighters the opportunity to abscond from Raqqa.³⁸ In practical terms, Mattis’s directive meant that US forces would hunt and eliminate the Islamic State members operating in Syria. Mattis stated that there would be no change to the rules of engagement and that the US would still readily adhere to IHL, but his remarks did imply that the US would more ruthlessly pursue the Islamic State in Raqqa.³⁹

The US’s change in strategy and tactics did not result in an increase of US forces on the ground in Syria. Instead, the US relied on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as its proxy for combat operations against the Islamic State.⁴⁰ The US supported its proxy force with long-range precision fires, armed drones, attack aviation, combat aircraft and combat advisers – among other resources – throughout the battle.⁴¹ By outsourcing land combat to proxy forces, while maintaining enough advisers to help with targeting and intelligence, the US offloaded a majority of its IHL considerations and responsibility to the SDF.

The US and its coalition and proxy force began the Battle of Raqqa in earnest in June 2017. The Islamic State sought to offset US advantages in sensing, targeting and precision strike by operating among the city’s civilian populace. The Islamic State used the city’s inhabitants as human shields to flummox and undermine US strike capability, and to frustrate the US’s ability to protect the civilian population. The Islamic State also used civilian infrastructure for protection, basing, sustainment and command and control.⁴² The Islamic State’s use of civilian infrastructure unsurprisingly escalated collateral damage and civilian casualties within the city.

The Islamic State’s strategy made sense. It provided the organisation with a method to overcome significant US advantages in remote surveillance, precision strike and the loss of human capital by confounding the US’s ability to discern civilians from fighters.⁴³ The Islamic State’s strategy and tactics should not come as a surprise. Michael Schmitt asserts that ‘[w]hen precision capabilities are possessed unequally on the battlefield, the resulting asymmetry may lead the disadvantaged side to resort to tactics that violate the most basic principles of international humanitarian law’.⁴⁴ The Islamic State confounded US and coalition attempts to adhere to IHL by operating in ways reminiscent of those experienced by US forces in Iraq during the early phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Furthermore, the US and coalition’s use of proxies in close contact with Islamic State did not improve the target identification process, which had the second-order effect of increasing, not reducing, civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure. The US think tank, RAND, seconded this assessment, positing that ‘[b]y choosing to conduct the Raqqa operation with a very limited ground presence and a high reliance on the SDF, the United States effectively shifted risk from US military personnel to the civilian population of Raqqa’.⁴⁵ As a result, the use of PGMs did little to minimise civilian harm during the battle.

The destruction of Raqqa was complete. After the battle, UN adviser Jan Egeland said of Raqqa: ‘I cannot think of a worse place on earth now’.⁴⁶ The irony of that statement can be felt when balancing it against the claim of US officials that the conflicts in Syria and Iraq were the most precise bombing campaigns in the history of warfare.⁴⁷ The city’s population was approximately 200,000 prior to the conflict. Roughly 18,000 civilians remained in the city by the battle’s end; the fighting within the city destroyed 14 of Raqqa’s 24 neighbourhoods.⁴⁸ Khan notes that while the number is uncertain, US precision strikes, which often misidentified innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure as hostile targets, significantly contributed to the high degree of civilian deaths during the battle.⁴⁹

The Battle of Mosul

Operation Inherent Resolve’s Battle of Mosul provides an instructive example for how drone-laden precision strategies in large-scale combat operations precipitate the Precision Paradox. Between October 2016 and July 2017, the combined effect of combat between the US, its coalition and the Iraqis on one side, and the Islamic State on the other, destroyed the city of Mosul. Statistics reveal that the battle reduced the city’s population from two million inhabitants to 700,000 and created 900,000 internationally displaced persons (IDPs). The battle, in which all sides sought to both survive and win, destroyed over 40,000 homes, generated more than 10 million tons of rubble and left Iraq with a $2-billion reconstruction bill.⁵⁰ In hindsight, the nine-month battle is more reminiscent of the hardships of urban warfighting in the Second World War than of high-tech modern warfare.

The US Department of Defense suggests that civilian deaths during the battle range between 320 and 1,400. Several NGOs, on the other hand, state that the number of civilian deaths ranges between 10,000 and 11,000.⁵¹ Many of these NGOs state their civilian death calculations are the direct result of coalition and Iraqi strikes, and not the result of the combined effect of all the combatants’ activity.⁵² The New York Times, for instance, expounds on the battle’s high death toll in a 2021 exposé. Khan correctly comments that poor intelligence, hasty targeting and the demand for results, more so than anything else, doomed the US’s drone-dominated precision strike strategy in Mosul to high civilian casualties, massive IDPs and momentous damage to infrastructure.

Taking a step back, why did the US’s precision strategy fail to deliver on the concept’s theoretical promises? The Islamic State’s basic desire to survive is the first contributing factor. The desire to survive should come as no surprise when considering basic systems theory and applying a realist’s eye to conflict studies. French soldier-scholar Ardant du Picq contends that ‘[m]an in battle … is a being in whom the instinct of self-preservation dominates at certain moments, all other sentiments’.⁵³ Russian military theorist, Alexander Svechin, echoes du Picq, positing that the first principle in warfare is to insulate oneself against a quick and decisive enemy attack.⁵⁴

The Islamic State used a variety of tactics, like those it used in Raqqa, in pursuit of self-preservation. The Islamic State’s priority tactic was the avoidance of US, coalition and Iraqi reconnaissance systems and to confound targeting processes.⁵⁵ Tunnelling from structure to structure in Mosul was one way that Islamic State fighters sought to sidestep reconnaissance and targeting. When PGM strikes were accurate but unsuccessful, Islamic State fighters stayed mobile and absconded from the damaged structure to other buildings in the vicinity.⁵⁶ The Islamic State’s repositioning drove a new targeting cycle and additional precision strikes.⁵⁷

The iterative character of combat between the Islamic State and the counterterrorist forces took the form of a classic challenge–response cycle. Challenge–response cycles are realist reflections of combat in an adversarial context, which break from monochrome linear theories, like those that dominate precision theory, and demonstrate the true struggle of warfare. Challenge–response cycles occur at the micro-level (that of discrete human activity), at the macro-level (that of strategic-actor interaction) and all levels of social organisation in between. In any instance, the challenge–response cycle continues until one actor either achieves its objective or it cannot continue competing and thus, removes itself from the conflict.

Moving from theory to practice, the challenge–response cycle was visible in Mosul through the US and coalition’s methodical pursuit of the Islamic State with incessant PGM strikes in support of Iraqi land forces. Despite the US and coalition’s best intentions, the Islamic State’s eagerness to survive and win in the face of overwhelming odds resulted in US and coalition PGMs, in conjunction with Iraqi land force operations, tearing Mosul apart as they chased the Islamic State through the city.⁵⁸

The Islamic State’s use of human shields and forcible civilian relocations to hotspots on the battlefield is another example of the way in which the challenge–response cycle erodes precision strike effectiveness and fuels the Precision Paradox. The principle of proximity and density dictates that a high proportion of civilians on a battlefield will create a correspondingly high proportion of civilian casualties and collateral damage, regardless of the tactics or munitions used.⁵⁹ Viewed collectively, the Islamic State’s use of human shields and forced relocations – the response to the challenge provided by the counterterrorist forces – accelerated civilian casualties and collateral damage in Mosul.

Bad tactics, such as ‘morale strikes’ and ‘roof knocking’, exacerbated the destructive effects of the challenge–response cycle and thus also contributed to the Precision Paradox. The Iraqi security forces, for example, displayed a keen unwillingness to advance in the face of stalwart Islamic State resistance. US and coalition forces used morale strikes – attacks on unimportant objects to demonstrate the presence of air support – to inspire the Iraqis and compel them to continue advancing.⁶⁰ The contribution of morale strikes to civilian casualties and collateral damage in Mosul is unknown but it certainly contributed to the wave of inefficiency and destruction that swept through the city.⁶¹

Roof knocking – another example of bad tactics – is the practice of firing a PGM over a target and detonating the munition overhead. The airburst is intended as a ‘knock’, which is supposed to spur a building’s inhabitants to vacate the facility.⁶² Shortly after the knock, a salvo of PGMs follow to eliminate the target. Roof knocking in Mosul proved ineffective, wasteful and destructive because it failed in its aim, used more munitions when less were required and created undue damage.⁶³

To conclude this case study, open-source information lacks the fidelity to parse the true distinction between which actor bears responsibility for the significant number of civilian casualties and collateral damage in Mosul.⁶⁴ Nevertheless, the US’s much-publicised precision strategy and precision strike capabilities failed to live up to their hype in Mosul. The challenge–response cycle, the Islamic State’s unwillingness to be easily and quickly defeated, the Iraqi security forces’ reluctance to advance in combat and questionable US and coalition tactics, all contributed to derail the US and coalition’s linear precision strategy in Mosul. That strategy fuelled paradoxical effects that allowed precision strike to significantly contribute to the creeping wave of attrition in Mosul that disemboweled the city one human life and one man-made structure at a time.

The US Army acknowledges, somewhat surprisingly, the limitations of its precision strategy in Mosul. The US Army’s Mosul Study Group, a small organisation assembled by the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Command to distill lessons learn from the battle, asserts that:

In Mosul, the destruction of physical terrain did not necessarily equate to comparable effects against personnel or communication nodes. Munition choices in Mosul, amplified by the structural density of the city, were not always proportional to the intended effects on the enemy and, when combined with rules of engagement considerations, on collateral damage. Even when considering overpressure and blast waves from these rounds, ISIS fighters were forced from their defensive positions by shrapnel or direct fire weapon systems, rather than blast effects. ⁶⁵

Russo-Ukrainian War

The Russo-Ukrainian War is an example of the Precision Paradox involving one state actor against another – unlike Raqqa and Mosul. Russia’s use of PGMs shows scant difference from how it uses unguided munitions. Russian military tactics in Ukraine, which appear to be towards flattening cities and terrorising civilians, is the primary contributing factor to this situation.⁶⁶ Strikes on a maternity hospital in Mariupol (9 March 2022), an attack on a busy train station in Kramatorsk (8 April 2022), a strike on a packed shopping mall in Kremenchuk (27 June 2022) and strikes on a hotel and apartment building in Odesa (1 July 2022) are a few examples of how Russia has used precision to terrorise civilians.⁶⁷

Russia’s pitiless siege tactics and indifference for IHL have contributed, as of mid-2022, to the conflict’s 11,000 civilian casualties, which includes more than 5,000 civilian deaths. Russia’s disregard for IHL has also generated seven million IDPs and nearly six million refugees.⁶⁸ Russia’s brutality, meted out by PGMs, has resulted in many world leaders and NGOs seeking to classify Russia’s actions in Ukraine as war crimes.⁶⁹

PGM consumption is another consideration to emerge from this conflict and aligns with similar findings from the US’s campaigns against the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and the Philippines. The bottom line is that PGM utilisation is wreaking havoc on all participants, both active and passive, and their respective war stocks and industrial bases.⁷⁰ Ukraine’s supply of precision munitions, greatly enhanced by contributions from Western states, is being churned through at a prodigious rate.⁷¹ That problem became more pronounced as Russian forces adapted from early Ukrainian success, which was the result of drone-launched PGMs tank plinking their way to victory in Kyiv and Kharkiv.⁷²

On the other side of the conflict, brutish operations and terror tactics erode Russia’s PGM supply.⁷³ Economic sanctions have chastened Russia’s ability to import the required components to produce PGMs, challenging Moscow’s ability to replace battlefield expenditures.⁷⁴ The theft of washing machines and other domestic products by Russian soldiers in Ukraine during the spring of 2022 is symptomatic of the impact of such sanctions on PGM production.⁷⁵ Pilfered products were shipped back to Russia to help Russian industry offset the material shortcomings stifling PGM production.⁷⁶ Russia’s situation was so dire by the summer of 2022 that Russian President Vladimir Putin turned to Iran for assistance to overcome the PGM deficiency.⁷⁷ Douglas Barrie summarises Precision Paradox-associated challenges presented by precision strategies by stating: ‘[t]he intensity and duration of the Ukraine conflict, and Russia’s apparent stockpile issues, will be posing questions for other defense ministries as they reassess their own assumptions on precision weapons stocks and the industrial capacity to replenish them’.⁷⁸

Although the conflict is far from over, the Russo-Ukrainian War provides a state-on-state example of the Precision Paradox and illustrates how the paradox resonates with state-on-non-state examples. Alex Vershinin, for instance, posits that the Russo-Ukrainian War wrecked precision strike’s ‘one shot, one kill’ hypothesis, especially as it pertains to large-scale combat operations. Modern militaries are not fragile entities susceptible to defeat in a single decisive strike. Modern militaries reflect a state’s adaptive, robust and redundant system, which pursues both self-preservation and self-interest, in armed conflict. Considering modern states’ redundancy and resiliency, strategic victory in armed conflict today requires inordinate – and unknown – amounts of war materiel and human capital.⁷⁹

Analysis

Inefficiency is an inherent flaw within precision warfare theory and consequently, inefficiency is one of the driving forces behind the Precision Paradox. Precision warfare’s theory is built on a ‘one shot, one kill’ methodology. Yet, well before the challenges of the First Drone Age, Carl von Clausewitz cautioned against such unrealistic and linear thinking by stating that ‘[m]an and his affairs, however, are always something short of perfect and will never quite achieve the absolute best’.⁸⁰

Clausewitz correctly points out that inefficiency always destabilises idealistic pursuits of perfection, such as those to which precision warfare theory subscribes. Most precision theory and strategies conflate accuracy with efficiency and thus embed a critical pitfall into their thinking. However, the reality of the situation is that high percentage hit rates (accuracy) do not guarantee a high percentage success rate (efficiency).

Inefficient strikes are counterproductive. Recalling the challenge–response cycle seen in Mosul, an accurate strike that does not destroy the target, or a strike that fails to achieve its desired effect, can cause the aggressor to re-engage until it achieves its preferred outcome. As the cycle continues, the area and the people touched by each strike’s destructive power grow. At the macro-level, the Precision Paradox peaks when the simultaneous cycling of accurate, but ineffective strikes occur at multiple points of contact and along multiple fronts, accelerating the number of civilian casualties, collateral damage and PGM consumption.

Next, precision advocates assert that precision strategies hasten the duration of war, which in turn, reduces the precisionist’s financial stress and strain of warfighting.⁸¹ However, survival instincts and self-interested action unravel precision theory’s one strike, one kill methodology, resulting in higher, not lower, munition consumption and associated logistics costs.⁸²

For instance, Gulf War analysts found that the use of one tonne of PGMs in Iraq replaced 12–20 tonnes of unguided munitions and saved the US 40 tonnes of fuel per ton of PGM delivered.⁸³ The Gulf War, however, only represents one data point in the precision warfare era. The post-Gulf War era sees quantitatively higher PGM usage, and this period demonstrates that high first-strike hit percentages do not equate to effective strikes, nor do high first-strike hit percentages correlate to fiscally responsible warfighting strategies.⁸⁴ A team of analysts at RAND came to a similar conclusion and offered four recommendations to remedy these Precision Paradox-related challenges. First, the West must revamp targeting processes to make it more efficient. Second, the West must modify how it allocates high-demand (PGM) assets. Third, the West must develop useful ways to incorporate unguided munitions to offset PGM depletion. Finally, the West must develop doctrines better suited for PGM employment in urban terrain.⁸⁵

Conclusion

The Precision Paradox is both a cautionary tale and a self-correction mechanism. The Precision Paradox provides notice that military thinking must move beyond fanciful beliefs in unproven and historically inaccurate postulates about technology and warfare. Modern drone enthusiasts, such as James Rogers, are taking notice. Rogers cautions that as the US loses agency as both a drone and precision hegemon, drone-driven atrocities will likely increase.⁸⁶

The Precision Paradox rises from precision theories and strategies lacking a requisite degree of realism. Antoine Jomini’s work highlights that this is not a new challenge in the practice of warfare: ‘[c]orrect theories, founded upon right principles, sustained by actual events of war, and added to accurate military history, will form a true school of instruction for generals’.⁸⁷ J F C Fuller echoes Jomini by stating that: ‘[m]ethod creates doctrine, and a common doctrine is the cement which holds an army together … we want the best cement, and we shall never get it unless we can analyze war scientifically and discover its values’.⁸⁸ Clausewitz offers perhaps the most fitting, and well-known, argument for realism in military thought, positing that warfare is a human endeavour, and as a result, fog, friction and chance will always impact even the most meticulous plans.⁸⁹

To help overcome the Precision Paradox in future warfare, practical, empirical information must be the cornerstone for military thinking – from conceptual work to doctrines, to policy and strategy, and tactical plans.

Military thinking must move beyond the pursuit of the modern-day equivalent of ‘decisive battle’ through unrealistic precision strategies. Modern actors, embodied by dynamic systems, are too redundant and robust for such an approach to work. Instead, current and future military thinking must possess realist verities of war and warfare, account for the challenge–response cycle and move beyond the unrealistic belief that one-shot, one-kill theories are truly viable. A failure to do so will perpetuate the Precision Paradox and its devastating battlefield effects.◼

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amos C Fox

Amos C Fox is a PhD candidate at the University of Reading. Amos is also the Chief Human Resources Officer for the Irregular Warfare Institute and he hosts the Revolution in Military Affairs podcast.

Notes

1 ABC News, ‘Iraq Missile Attacks Missed Real Targets’, 30 August 2004.

2 Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2007), p. 523.

3 Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, ‘The Struggle for Iraq: Intelligence; Errors are Seen in Early Attacks on Iraqi Leaders’, New York Times, 13 June 2004.

4 ABC News, ‘Iraq Missile Attacks Missed Real Targets’.

5 Azmat Khan, ‘Military Investigation Reveals How the US Botched a Drone Strike in Kabul’, New York Times, 6 January 2023.

6 Azmat Khan, ‘The Civilian Casualty Files: Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Strikes’, New York Times, 18 December 2021.

7 Antoine Bousquet, Scientific Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity, 2nd Edition (London: Hurst and Company, 2022), pp. 202–04.

8 Becca Wasser et al., The Air War Against the Islamic State: The Role of Airpower in Operation Inherent Resolve (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2021), pp. 168–76.

9 Bousquet, Scientific Way of Warfare, pp. 202–04.

10 James Rogers, Precision: A History of American Warfare (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023), p. 9.

11 Christopher Tuck, Understanding Land Warfare (London: Routledge, 2022), pp. 50–53.

12 Herbert Van Tuyll and Jurgen Brauer, Castles, Battles, and Bombs (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp. 122–32.

13 Andrew F Krepinevich Jr, ‘The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment’, Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments, 2001, pp. 34–38.

14 James Blaker, ‘The American RMA Force: An Alternative to the QDR’, Strategic Review (Vol. 25, 1997), pp. 21–30.

15 David Deptula, Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare (Arlington, VA: Aerospace Education Foundation, 2001), pp. 11–13.

16 Blaker, ‘The American RMA Force’, pp. 23–24.

17 Michael Schmitt, ‘Precision Attack and International Humanitarian Law’, International Review of the Red Cross (Vol. 87, No. 859, 2005), pp. 462–66.

18 Barry Watts, ‘The Evolution of Precision Strike’, Center for Budgetary Analysis, 2013, pp. 3–4.

19 Bousquet, Scientific Way of Warfare, p. 117.

20 Malcom Brown, ‘Intervention That Shaped the Gulf War: The Laser-Guided Bomb’, New York Times, 26 February 1991.

21 Thomas Mahnken, ‘Weapons: The Growth and Spread of the Precision Strike Regime’, Daedalus (Vol. 140, No. 3, 2011), p. 49.

22 Ibid., p. 49.

23 John Warden, ‘The Enemy as a System’, Airpower Journal (Vol. 9, No. 1, 1995), pp. 41–55.

24 Ibid.

25 Blaker, ‘The American RMA Force’.

26 Wesley Clark, Waging Modern War (New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2001), p. 116.

27 Mahnken, ‘Weapons’, p. 51.

28 Ibid., p. 51.

29 Peter Bergen, Melissa Salyk-Virk and David Sterman, ‘World of Drones’, New America, 30 July 2020, <https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/world-drones/introduction-how-we-became-a-world-of-drones>, accessed 1 August 2023.

30 Harlan Ullman et al., ‘Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance’, National Defense University, 1996, p. 8.

31 Wasser et al., The Air War Against the Islamic State, pp. 305–06.

32 Ibid., pp. 305–06; Doug Cameron, ‘US Struggles to Replenish Munition Stockpiles as Ukraine War Drags On’, Wall Street Journal, 29 April 2023.

33 Amos C Fox, ‘The Mosul Study Group and the Lessons of the Battle of Mosul’, Association of the United States Army, Land Warfare Paper 130 (February 2020), pp. 1–13.

34 US Air Force, ‘Global Vigilance, Global Reach, Global Power for America’, Air & Space Power Journal (Vol. 28, No. 2, March/April 2014), <https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/images/airpower/GV_GR_GP_300DPI.pdf>, accessed 30 July 2022.

35 Abigail Watson and Alasdair McKay, ‘Remote Warfare: An Introduction’, E-International Relations, 11 February 2021, <https://www.e-ir.info/2021/02/11/remote-warfare-a-critical-introduction/>, accessed 12 February 2021.

36 William Perry, ‘Perry on Precision Strike’, Air and Space Forces Magazine, 1 April 1997, <https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0497perry>, accessed 30 August 2023.

37 Michael McNerney et al., Understanding Civilian Harm in Raqqa and Its Implications for Future Conflicts (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2022), pp. 47–50.

38 Jim Garamone, ‘Defeat-ISIS “Annihilation” Campaign Accelerating, Mattis Says’, US Department of Defense, 28 May 2017, <https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/1196114/defeat-isis-annihilation-campaign-accelerating-mattis-says/>, accessed 31 August 2023.

39 Ibid.

40 Louisa Loveluck and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, ‘The Islamic State is “Fighting to the Death” as Civilians Flee Raqqa’, Washington Post, 8 August 2017.

41 Center for Civilians in Conflict, ‘Recommendations to Anti-ISIS Coalition on Operations in Syria’, 20 June 2017, pp. 1–2, <https://civiliansinconflict.org/publications/research/recommendations-anti-isis-coalition-operations-syria/>, accessed 31 December 2023.

42 McNerney et al., Understanding Civilian Harm in Raqqa and Its Implications for Future Conflicts, pp. 47–50.

43 Ibid., p. 91.

44 Schmitt, ‘Precision Attack and International Humanitarian Law’, p. 466.

45 McNerney et al., Understanding Civilian Harm in Raqqa and Its Implications for Future Conflicts, p. 91.

46 UN News, ‘No “Worse Place on Earth” Than Syria’s Raqqa, Says Senior UN Adviser Urging Pause in Fighting’, 24 August 2017, <https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/08/563802-no-worse-place-earth-syrias-raqqa-says-senior-un-adviser-urging-pause-fighting>, accessed 31 August 2023.

47 Khan, ‘Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes’.

48 Loveluck and Gibbons-Neff, ‘The Islamic State is “Fighting to the Death” as Civilians Flee Raqqa’.

49 Khan, ‘The Civilian Casualty Files: Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes’.

50 Raya Jalabi and Michael Georgy, ‘This Man is Trying to Rebuild Mosul. He Needs Help – Lots of It’, Reuters, 21 March 2018.

51 Amnesty International, ‘Iraq: New Report Places Mosul Civilian Death Toll at More Than Ten Times Official Estimates’, Amnesty International, 20 December 2017.

52 Ibid.

53 Ardant du Picq, ‘Battle Studies: Ancient and Modern Battle’, in JN Greely and RC Cotton (translators), Roots of Strategy: Book 2 (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1987), p. 77.

54 Alexander Svechin, Strategy (Minneapolis, MN: East View Information Services, 1991), p. 248.

55 Henry Flood, ‘From Caliphate to Caves: The Islamic State’s Asymmetric War in Northern Iraq’, CTC Sentinel (Vol. 11, No. 8, 2018), pp. 30–34.

56 Dan Lamonthe et al., ‘Battle of Mosul: How Iraqi Forces Defeated the Islamic State’, Washington Post, 10 July 2017.

57 Wasser et al., The Air War Against the Islamic State.

58 Lamonthe et al., ‘Battle of Mosul: How Iraqi Forces Defeated the Islamic State’.

59 Cathal Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 370.

60 Wasser et al., The Air War Against the Islamic State, pp. 92–109.

61 Fox, ‘The Mosul Study Group and the Lessons of the Battle of Mosul’, p. 8.

62 Wasser et al., The Air War Against the Islamic State, pp. 231–32.

63 Adam Taylor, ‘Israel’s Controversial “Roof Knocking” Tactic Appears in Iraq. And This Time, It’s the US Doing It’, Washington Post, 27 April 2016.

64 Wasser et al., The Air War Against the Islamic State, p. 169.

65 Mosul Study Group, ‘What the Battle for Mosul Teaches the Force’, Association of the United States Army, 2017, p. 57.

66 John Ismay, ‘Russian Guided Weapons Miss the Mark, US Defense Officials Say’, New York Times, 9 May 2022.

67 Daniel Victor and Ivan Nechepurenko, ‘Russia Repeatedly Strikes Ukraine’s Civilians. There’s Always an Excuse’, New York Times, 15 July 2022.

68 Human Rights Watch, ‘Ukraine: Apparent War Crimes in Russia-Controlled Areas’, 3 March 2022, <https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas>, accessed 31 August 2023.

69 Ibid.; Office of the Commissioner United Nations Human Rights, ‘Situation of Human Rights in Ukraine in the Context of the Attack by the Russian Federation: 24 February 2022 – 15 May 2022’, 29 June 2022, <https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/ua/2022-06-29/2022-06-UkraineArmedAttack-EN.pdf>, accessed 31 August 2023; Nandita Bose, ‘Biden Urges Putin War Crimes Trial After Bucha Killings’, Reuters, 4 April 2022.

70 Jeffrey Sonnenfeld et al., ‘Business Retreats and Sanctions are Crippling the Russian Economy’, SSRN, 20 July 2022, <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4167193>, accessed 31 August 2023.

71 Eric Schmitt and Julian Barnes, ‘Ukraine’s Demands for More Weapons Clashes with US Concerns’, New York Times, 12 July 2022.

72 Jack Watling, ‘Ukraine War Update: Dr. Jack Watling’, Doomsday Watch, 20 July 2022, <https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/war-update-dr-jack-watling/id1593634121?i=1000570572578>, accessed 31 August 2023.

73 Anne Applebaum, ‘Russia’s War Against Ukraine Has Turned into Terrorism’, The Atlantic, 13 July 2022, <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/russia-war-crimes-terrorism-definition/670500/>, accessed 31 August 2023.

74 James Byrne et al., ‘Silicon Lifeline: Western Electronics at the Heart of Russia’s War Machine’, RUSI, 8 August 2022, p. 5.

75 Jack Detsch, ‘Ukraine Has Ground Down Russia’s Arms Business’, Foreign Policy, 21 July 2022.

76 Byrne et al., ‘Silicon Lifeline’, pp. 15–18.

77 Nasser Karimi and Vladimir Isachenkov, ‘Putin, in Tehran, Gets Strong Supporting Iran Over Ukraine’, Associated Press, 19 July 2022, <https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-syria-iran-289c3422c8980e7650dbde2c326d248a>, accessed 31 August 2023.

78 Douglas Barrie and Joseph Dempsey, ‘Russia’s Missile Inventories: KITCHEN Use Points to Dwindling Stocks’, IISS, 11 July 2022.

79 Alex Vershinin, ‘The Return of Industrial Warfare’, RUSI Commentary, 17 June 2022.

80 Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 78.

81 Perry, ‘Perry on Precision Strike’.

82 Blaker, ‘The American RMA Force’, pp. 23–24.

83 Office of the Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, ‘Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Tactical Air Warfare’, November 1993, p. 17, <https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA275347.pdf>, accessed 29 January 2024.

84 Michael Pietrucha, ‘The Five Ring Circus: How Airpower Enthusiasts Forgot About Interdiction’, War on the Rocks, 29 September 2015 .

85 Wasser et al., The Air War Against the Islamic State, pp. 306–07.

86 James Rogers, ‘Drone Warfare: The Death of Precision’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 12 May 2017.

87 Antoine Jomini, ‘The Art of War’, in JD Hittle (ed.), Roots of Strategy: Book 2 (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997), p. 556.

88 JFC Fuller, The Foundations of the Science of War (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1926), p. 35.

89 Clausewitz, On War, p. 101.