INTRODUCTION

Military technology has expanded and surpassed anything which could have been imagined a century before. Nuclear weapons can eliminate entire cities. Modern laser- and GPS-guided munitions offer incredible accuracy and modern optics can eliminate the challenges of night-fighting. Drones and satellite communication give commanders a real-time feed of events on the battlefield, while modern vehicles offer increasingly powerful armament and effective protection. Technology would seem to offer all the answers.

However, the increasing reliance on technology is not without its risks – drones can be jammed or hijacked, communications intercepted, precision weapons are only good if the correct target location is known, and a poorly trained man with an RPG can destroy a cutting-edge vehicle. Technology can give a force an edge but the deciding factors will be its tactics, training and discipline.

So how is victory to be achieved? In traditional military thought this is achieved by applying a force’s ‘centre of gravity’ (in Clausewitzian terms) to a point in the enemy line where it can be smashed. Such blitzkrieg concepts work well where your enemy is defined, but are less effective in asymmetrical conflicts where the enemy is dispersed and there are no front lines.

The era of large battles may not yet be fully over, but there has been an increasing move away from the use of overwhelming force towards operations by small bodies of soldiers achieving their goals through ambush and sabotage – using the tools of the insurgent and the guerrilla against them. This echoes the strategy of Sun Tzu where victory is achieved by the extraordinary, not the ordinary. It is the surprise attack that will succeed where the frontal attack fails.

Fundamentally, all war is based on deception. Mislead the enemy and attack where they least expect it, at targets that are weak and disorganised. Make the enemy think you can strike anywhere so their resources will be divided trying to protect everything at once.

Welcome, then, to this world of espionage, sabotage and false-flag operations, where one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, and the line between guerrilla and elite soldier is increasingly blurred. Welcome to Black Ops.