Showing posts with label Escalation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Escalation. Show all posts

Thursday, July 16, 2024

Potential Missions for Future PLA Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

I recently came across a 2013 Project 2049 Institute monograph detailing PLA efforts to research and develop UAV technologies. Ian Easton’s and Russell Hsiao’s report pieces together the PLA organizations, academic institutions, and industrial activities involved in Chinese UAV work; this is no small open source achievement. More importantly, though, it taps Chinese-language sources to outline concepts from each of the PLA’s services regarding potential future uses for UAVs. Many of these concepts unsurprisingly mirror a number of those under consideration by the U.S. armed services:
  • Long-range autonomous strike
  • “Wingman” duties for manned aircraft
  • Localized communications relay
  • Anti-ship scouting and targeting
  • Ground combat scouting and targeting
  • Wide-area surveillance

They make an additional key observation regarding the possibility that expanded PLA UAV capabilities might incentivize increased Chinese brinksmanship, and possibly the use of force, in a crisis:
“There could be a sense that because human pilot lives are not at stake, operators can push farther than they otherwise might. It is also not clear how nations would react to isolated UAV attacks in times of crisis, especially if these were blamed on mechanical or technical failure, or even on cyber hackers. In the future, PRC decision-makers might feel compelled to order “plausibly deniable” UAV attacks as a means of sending a political signal only to inadvertently wind up escalating tensions.” (Pg 13)
This dovetails closely to some of my own observations on unmanned systems and escalation management. The main difference is that whereas I proposed that an opponent’s unmanned scouts should be considered fair game for attacks during a crisis depending upon the circumstances at hand, it is entirely possible that an opponent might go further and use its unmanned vehicles to conduct limited attacks on traditional targets for coercive effect. The authors don’t argue that the PLA is considering use of UAVs for this kind of purpose, but they are correct that the PLA or any other UAV-operating military might.  The implications for crisis management deserve systematic examination through war-gaming.
Some of their most interesting but in no way surprising observations concern Chinese writings regarding the potential uses of UAVs to support anti-ship attacks. One such use proposed in the source writings is for UAVs to simulate inbound raiders, with the intent being to lure an opponent’s screening aircraft and surface combatants into wasting long-range anti-air missiles against these decoys. Other UAVs might perform electronic attacks against radars and communications systems. All this represents a longstanding and well-understood set of tactics. The requisite technical, tactical, and doctrinal countermeasures are similarly well-understood: multi-phenomenology outer-layer sensors that can classify contacts with high confidence, robust combat training to psychologically condition crews for the possibility of hostile deception, deep defensive ordnance inventories, and embracing tactical flexibility/seizing the tactical initiative. The only question is the defender’s will to invest in these kinds of countermeasures—both materially and culturally.
Easton and Hsiao also note that Chinese writers have proposed that some UAVs might perform direct ‘suicidal’ attacks against radars or warships (and in doing so fully blur the line between UAV and cruise missile). The Chinese sources additionally suggest that UAVs could replace manned aircraft as anti-ship missile-armed raiders, though I would argue this presumes the requisite artificial intelligence technologies for conducting attacks against ‘uncooperative’ targets in an ambiguous and dynamic tactical environment reach maturity.
Lastly, Easton and Hsiao’s sources suggest UAVs could serve as communications relay nodes that support anti-ship attacker—and perhaps in-flight missiles as well. For example, a scout UAV could conceivably provide targeting-quality cues to an over-the-horizon “shooter” via a relay UAV, and then provide periodic targeting data updates to the in-flight missiles thereafter. Or the relay UAV might enable direct communications between “shooters” within a given area. It might even enable direct coordination between in-flight missiles approaching on different axes. The use of highly-directional line-of-sight communications pathways or low probability of intercept transmission techniques would make this a particularly vexing threat. Clearly, naval battleforces will need means of detecting and classifying relay UAVs (not to mention scout UAVs) lurking in their vicinity.  
Easton and Hsiao observe that even though the sources they reviewed for their monograph wrote relatively little about using UAVs in the aforementioned ways for land-attack or ground warfare missions, there are no fundamental factors that prevent them from being extensible beyond the anti-ship mission. They’re absolutely correct on that point, and that’s something that all the U.S. armed services should be thinking about for the future.

--Updated 7/16/15 10:54PM EDT to fix first link in post--

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.

Tuesday, July 7, 2024

A Japanese View on Conventional Deterrence of China



Sugio Takahashi of the Japan Ministry of Defense’s National Institute for Defense Studies has published an excellent short monograph at the Project 2049 Institute on his government’s conventional deterrence policy evolution with respect to China over the past few years. His explanation of the subtle deterrence policy differences between the 2010 and 2013 National Defense Program Guidelines (Japan’s highest-level defense strategy document) is particularly interesting.
Takahashi notes that the 2010 document defined the Chinese threat as being the opportunistic use of primarily non-military tools of national power to gradually expand the maritime zones under Beijing’s de facto political control. This, he says, led Japan to develop a policy of “dynamic deterrence” that focused more on countering China’s use of low-end salami tactics as it deemed the risk of conventional aggression by the PLA was low. Under its dynamic deterrence policy, Japan sought to use persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) coverage of contested waters such as those surrounding the Senkakus to cue intercepts of Chinese “civilian” platforms by maritime law enforcement assets. Tailored military demonstrations of capabilities and readiness also figured into the policy. As he puts it: 
“…dynamic deterrence is intended to sensitize a challenger to the notion that they are always being watched, and that there are no physical gaps of defense posture, or “windows of opportunity,” for fait accompli or probing.” (Pg. 2)
While the 2013 Guidelines recognized the continuing problem of Chinese salami tactics, according to Takahashi it also recognized China’s increasingly-frequent deployment of maritime law enforcement—and sometimes PLA—assets near the Senkakus following Tokyo’s September 2012 purchase of the islands. As such, the 2013 Guidelines identified the emergence of escalation risks inherent to potential direct contacts between PLA and Japan Self-Defense Force assets in the East China. Maritime ISR still figured in heavily under the new Guidelines, but now had the task of enabling rapid responses by the Self-Defense Force to “deliberate or accidental escalation.” Conventional military considerations also rose in prominence, namely demonstrations of the Self-Defense Force’s ability to quickly and decisively conduct a circumstances-tailored response to any Chinese escalation along the spectrum of conventional conflict. This entailed deployments of Self-Defense Force units to forward positions as deemed situationally appropriate, plus the ability to quickly surge forces forward as required.
Takahashi asserts that the most immediate threat to Japanese interests remains China’s use of coast guard and other “paramilitary forces to challenge the East Asian maritime status quo. With respect to the South China Sea challenge, he correctly observes that:
“…since very few Southeast Asian countries currently have significant coast guard forces, there is a possibility that Southeast Asian countries will mobilize military forces to counter China’s paramilitary force. If that occurs, China can blame those countries as “escalating the situation” and further justify their mobilization of military forces. (Pg. 4)
This is exactly what happened to the Philippines in the 2012 Scarsborough Shoal incident.
Even more interestingly, he implies a Japanese government concern that if the U.S. were to publicly declare that China’s improvements of its nuclear second strike capabilities had led to a state of mutual nuclear vulnerability, it might encourage the Chinese to act more boldly in the conventional sphere. He refers to the stability-instability paradox, or rather the idea that the nuclear equilibrium made possible by a secure second strike capability in turn encourages adventurism at the conventional level.
While I understand Takahashi’s concern, it’s important to note that Cold War deterrence theorists did not believe the paradox was deterministic. As I noted in my SSQ article on conventional deterrence:
Glenn Snyder, an early articulator of the paradox, points out that the interplays between context, specific circumstances, and chance are the keys to its real-world application. In his view, a Soviet conventional offensive against NATO or Japan would have had vastly greater ramifications to US interests and prestige, and therefore more risk of unleashing inadvertent escalatory processes, than one against countries in which U.S. interests were peripheral. Robert Jervis agreed, noting that Schelling’s ill-controlled escalatory process meant nuclear equilibrium hardly created any margin of safety for major conventional provocations or wars.[1] Nevertheless, it is the defender’s inability to confidently know whether the stability-instability paradox will work for or against deterrence efforts at a given point in time that drives the need for a conventional hedging force capable of denying the opponent’s potential fait accompli attempts. (Pg. 154)

And Takahashi does a spectacular job outlining the qualities of such a hedging force. He states that:
“From the perspective of countering the A2/AD threat, however, putting more forces on the frontline would not be wise because these frontline forces could be neutralized or destroyed by Chinese A2/AD capabilities. A light presence on the frontline and a heavier stand-off strike force outside of A2/AD ranges would be better-suited for this environment.”(Pg. 6)
His observation on the need for two forward “echelons,” a “light” one consisting of lower campaign-value assets to fight on the “frontline,” and a “heavy” one consisting of higher campaign-value assets that fight from locations “over-the-horizon,” mirrors my own thinking on this issue. So does his subsequent observation that forward forces must be designed to be resilient against a Chinese conventional first strike, and thereby lower any Chinese incentives to conduct one in a crisis or limited conflict, let alone pursue a major conflict.
Takahashi raises the question of whether the best approach for structuring the “frontline” forces within a peacetime-contested zone is to employ tactical dispersal of lower-campaign value conventional forces in order to counter primarily military threats, employ primarily coast guard assets in order to counter salami tactic threats, or a mix of the two. I frankly believe a mix is the right way to go, with the non-military forces in the “area of contact” and the military forces latently backing them from a distance determined by the specifics of the situation. Takahashi is absolutely right that U.S. and Japanese leaders will need to work together to sketch out the “right capability portfolio and institutional division of labor,” not only between non-military and military forces but also the Japanese and U.S. contingents. His monograph provides a terrific starting point for that exact discussion.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.


[1] See 1. Glenn Snyder. Deterrence and Defense. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 225-26; 2. Glenn Snyder, “The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror,” in Balance of Power, ed. Paul Seabury (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1965), 199; and 3. Robert Jervis. The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 21-22, 105.

Tuesday, June 16, 2024

Thinking About Escalation Management in East Asian Strategy


There are plenty of articles and monographs published each year regarding U.S. strategy options for defending our allies in East Asia from Chinese or North Korean military aggression. The debate is not lacking for new strategy proposals, or debates over doctrine and operating concepts, or examinations of how each country’s forces stack up against each other. It is sorely lacking for serious examinations of escalation management.
Too often I come across a piece that claims the Chinese nuclear arsenal makes any wartime strike against a target on Chinese soil a fool’s errand, or that the Kim regime’s nuclear arsenal makes any military retaliation against a violent North Korean provocation an exercise in extreme risk. Both are perverse oversimplifications. If there’s anything we learned during four and half decades of thinking about deterrence policies and contingency plans during the Cold War, it’s that confrontations between nuclear-armed powers are competitions in extreme risk taking that don’t have predeterminable answers. Hence, the concepts of escalation dominance, escalation management, and “threats that leave something to chance.”
That’s what makes Vincent Manzo’s article in the latest Joint Forces Quarterly an absolute must-read. Manzo delves into the myriad escalation management considerations U.S. leaders would have to deal with in an East Asian crisis or conflict. His piece is one of the few I’ve seen that invokes the deterrence theories of Thomas Schelling in Sino-American or Korean Peninsula contexts. Manzo leaves few stones unturned in identifying the major escalation dynamics that would define crises or conflicts involving those countries. Beyond the calculus of deliberate escalation, he explores the many potential sources of accidental or inadvertent escalation that might occur on both sides in an East Asian clash.
Manzo’s article is heavily influenced by RAND’s seminal 2008 monograph on escalation management in the 21st Century, and makes for an excellent companion piece to Forrest Morgan’s outstanding 2012 paper on escalation management with respect to Russia. I can’t recommend all three of these works enough: they are essential reading for informed commentary on contemporary strategy with respect to these potential adversaries.
My sole quibble with Manzo’s arguments is a very minor technical one. While he does address means of bounding hypothetical attacks in the physical and cyber realms in order to attempt to signal restraint as well as capability, he does not note that the same is possible in the electromagnetic realm. Attacks against an adversary’s command and control networks, or wide-area surveillance and reconnaissance systems for that matter, do not necessarily risk extreme provocations or retaliation. It depends on the what, when, and how of the attack. There’s a fundamental difference in risk between jamming or exploiting a datalink to missile-carrying aircraft at sea vice one to missile Transporter Erector Launchers on land. Likewise, there’s a big difference between attacking a datalink to a definitively known non-nuclear capable unit vice one that might be nuclear-capable. The same is true with jamming or deceiving a sensor designed to detect and track surface vessels vice one that is clearly used for ballistic missile early warning. Some forms of electronic attacks leave no immediate calling cards; after-action signals analysis may be required to realize that it even occurred. Others attacks involve passive means: presenting false targets to a surveillance or reconnaissance system, or using obscurants to prevent detection by that system. All these carry far less escalation risk than deliberate electronic attacks against known strategic forces. But again, this issue is minor in the scheme of Manzo’s first-rate work.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.

Wednesday, April 29, 2024

The Fork in the Road at Lexington Green: A Cautionary Tale of Tactical Decision-Making at the Precipice of War

The Lexington Minuteman Statue (Author's Photo)
Jon's note: I was aiming to finish this piece honoring the citizen-soldiers of colonial Massachusetts in time for Patriots' Day; I'll settle for the proper month of the year.


19 April was the 240th anniversary of the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. On that day in 1775, a British composite force of roughly 700 regulars and marines was dispatched from their Boston garrison to raid the Massachusetts colonial militia’s stockpiled arms and materiel in Concord. The resultant clashes that morning at Lexington Green and North Bridge were but minor skirmishes compared to the series of engagements that occurred during the raiding force’s afternoon withdrawal to Boston. The British raiders would have been annihilated had it not been for their timely reinforcement with a brigade of regulars on the return trip; the latter alone suffered an astounding 20% casualty rate during its several hours in the field. Whereas only 77 militiamen had met the British at sunrise, nearly 4,000 militiamen and elite minutemen from Boston’s environs had either clashed with or were maneuvering against the Crown’s troops by sunset.  Just 24 hours later, Boston was surrounded by nearly 20,000 militiamen.[1] Many of these men would go on to form the nucleus of the initial Continental Army raised by the Second Continental Congress and commanded by George Washington.
While militarily insignificant in comparison to the afternoon’s running battle, the Lexington salvo and its sequel at North Bridge could not have been more politically and morally decisive. In both cases, British professional soldiers fired first at Massachusetts citizen-soldiers even though the latter’s organized ranks had not aimed weapons at the former’s. The British thereby set the war-opening escalation precedents, with concomitant effects on public opinion in the colonies as well as in Britain (albeit aided by the American Whigs’ vastly superior strategic communications efforts).[2] The American Whigs’ passions for and commitment to their cause were galvanized accordingly; the same cannot be said of British popular (or Parliamentary) sentiments.
It’s a given that an armed conflict of some scale between the Massachusetts Whigs and the Crown’s troops was nearly unavoidable. The political objectives of the British government and the Whig-dominated Massachusetts Provincial Congress were fundamentally at odds, and the latter’s de facto political control over the Massachusetts countryside represented a direct threat to British sovereignty over the colony. Nor could the British tolerate the Whigs’ organization of the colony’s militia units into a well-armed, highly trained, and quickly-mobilizable army controlled by and accountable to the Provincial Congress.
But as we will see, it is not a given that the events of 19 April would unfold as they did. Had the opening volley occurred under different tactical circumstances that day, who’s to say that the Whigs would have captured the political and moral high ground at all? In fact, it is theoretically possible that a different set of British tactical decisions on Lexington Green could have avoided a clash there altogether. Or perhaps with greater British restraint upon entering the town’s center, the way the encounter unfolded might not have been as favorable to the Whig cause.
General Thomas Gage
It’s important to note that General Thomas Gage, governor of the Massachusetts colony and commander of the British forces based in the city, fully accepted the possibility of a violent encounter. Gage had received orders from London on 14 April to preemptively decapitate the growing rebellion. The general no doubt reasoned that the most effective means of accomplishing this task was to eliminate the militia’s depot in Concord, as the other major depot in Worcester was out of range for a quick strike. Since every British expedition outside the Boston the previous fall and winter had been met by militia units from the surrounding towns, Gage had every reason to expect the same would occur during the Concord operation. His thinking was almost certainly colored by the failed British attempt to seize cannon in Salem two months earlier; that ‘surprise’ raid had only narrowly escaped coming to blows with the local militia.
It is not shocking, then, that Gage’s first draft of orders for the Concord operation specified that “if any body [‘of men’ inserted above the line] dares [‘attack’ written, then crossed out] oppose you with arms, you will warn them to disperse [‘and’ written, then crossed out] or attack them.”[3] The actual written orders issued to the raid commander, Colonel Francis Smith, did not contain any explicit direction as to what should be done under such circumstances. I agree with historian John Galvin that Gage’s guidance to Smith regarding rules of engagement was likely verbal as to avoid creating a paper trail for an operation Gage had every reason to believe would result in bloodshed.
Colonel Francis Smith
Gage likely assumed that Smith’s force’s size and training would allow it to dominate the handfuls of militia units that he believed would be able to respond in the worst case. His plan was further predicated on operational surprise reducing the speed and mass of the militia’s reaction. Gage simply did not appreciate how the militia’s century-old networks for communicating warning across the colony, doctrine and posture supporting rapid mobilization, and practice in conducting decentralized operations in accordance with a higher-echelon commander’s intent completely undermined his raid plan.[4]
As we well know, superior Whig intelligence collection efforts enabled Paul Revere’s and William Dawes’s triggering of the militia’s warning network on the night of 18-19 April. Between that warning and the delays Smith suffered while ferrying his force across the Charles River to Cambridge, the Lexington militia company under Captain John Parker was fully ready on the town’s Green as Smith approached along the road to Concord that morning. Parker had not received rules of engagement from his regimental commander specific to this particular British expedition, and there’s no evidence that Parker’s orders to his men departed from the Massachusetts militia’s de facto practice of authorizing the use of force only in self-defense or to counter direct attacks against their towns. When his scouts reported the British were minutes away, Parker lined his company up on the Green perpendicular to the road from Boston roughly 100 yards from where the road forked at the triangular Green’s apex. This standoff distance was at the fringe of effective musket range against an opposing formation. He did not place his men in a battle-ready formation. All evidence points to Parker seeking to demonstrate his company’s resolve to the British and thereby deter aggression against the town.[5]
Major John Pitcairn
Smith’s leading elements of regulars under his deputy commander, Royal Marine Major John Pitcairn, approached Lexington Green with muskets loaded and primed. Several factors led to this weapons posture. For one thing, Smith’s force had not progressed very far from its landing area in Cambridge before it became apparent that militia throughout the region were mobilizing and that any chance at operational surprise had been lost. Smith’s scouts, including a party that had briefly captured Paul Revere earlier that morning, had also collected ‘rumor intelligence’ of up to 600 militiamen waiting for the British in Lexington. Just outside the town, Pitcairn’s own scouts reported a lone figure had attempted to fire at them but failed when his musket misfired.[6] Pitcairn and Smith consequently had every reason to believe that they might be entering a hostile situation. Their decision to move to a high weapons posture, then, was logical from a self-defense standpoint.
But inherent self-defense was not their only possible motivation. Gage’s first draft of his operation order suggests that he defined ‘opposition’ by an armed militia unit to mean such a unit’s presence within immediate tactical reach of Smith’s force, that this presence alone would satisfy demonstration of hostile intent (from our modern rules of engagement standpoint), and that Smith was therefore authorized to decide for himself whether or not to warn a militia unit prior to employing lethal force. Given that the entire strategic purpose of the operation was to decisively ‘break’ the rebellion, it is logical to assume Gage verbally empowered Smith (and Pitcairn by extension) to order a precedent-setting first volley for purposes other than the column’s inherent self-defense. It seems to have never occurred to them that the particular circumstances in play on the occasion of setting such a precedent might matter far more than the demonstration of power and resolve they might mean to convey.
Even so, a deliberate move to set a conflict-opening precedent would require that Smith and Pitcairn possess tight tactical control over their force’s firing discipline. Pitcairn claimed in his post-battle deposition that his final order to the British infantry companies on Lexington Green in the moments before the fateful first shot was the equivalent of what today we would call “Weapons Tight.”[7] But Pitcairn did not have tight control over those companies thanks to the actions of a single subordinate, Royal Marine Lieutenant Jesse Adair. London loaded the muzzle and primed the pan, so to speak. Gage aimed the weapon; Smith and Pitcairn were merely the executors. Adair is the man who placed his finger on the hair-trigger.
Adair was reportedly a ‘forward-leaning’ (but at 36 years of age, hardly young) junior officer.[8] He did not hold any command or staff responsibilities in Smith’s force; he was an ‘at-large’ officer in the expedition. Earlier in the morning he had served alongside a few of his peers as Pitcairn’s scouts; this was the group that reported the firing attempt by the ‘lone gunman’ outside Lexington. He and five other ‘at-large’ junior officers accompanied the expedition’s leading companies as they entered Lexington center and found Parker’s Lexington militia company positioned on the Green.
Situation on Lexington Green, roughly 0520 on 19 April 2024 (from Fischer, 192)
In their post-battle depositions, Adair’s compatriots claimed that several hundred militiamen were arrayed before them.[9] Their estimates were likely skewed by the fact that the Lexington Meetinghouse at the Green’s apex obscured full view of the field, not to mention the ‘intelligence’ regarding the Lexington militia’s strength they had collected earlier. Adair almost certainly interpreted Parker’s parade-ground formation as a threat to the British column, even as far back from the road as Parker had positioned his men.
If we assume Adair had authority to order the tactical employment of units not under his formal command (a disturbing proposition to say the least), then what were his options? He or one of his colleagues could have ordered the column to halt and then he or a colleague could have personally scouted the Green to assess the situation and perhaps even speak with Parker. He could ordered the column down the left fork in the road towards Concord and then detached several companies into flanking positions along the Green perpendicular to Parker’s formation so that the latter could not pivot and fire into the main column as it marched by. These two options exemplified restraint in a precipice-of-war situation. They would have allowed time and space for more measured decision-making.
Instead, Adair chose to dispatch several companies down the right fork in the road and into the Green to directly parallel the Lexington company at close range. The quick march he ordered past the Meetinghouse’s north side reportedly became a charge; the two companies of light infantry halted 70 yards from Parker’s men. At the same time, the horse-mounted Pitcairn rode around the Meetinghouse’s south side and onto the Green while the rest of the column turned left at the fork and then halted on the Concord road. By all accounts, combination of British regulars’ “huzzah” cries and the bellowed orders from Adair, the other ‘at-large’ junior officers on the Green, and Pitcairn made any British attempt to exercise tight tactical control impossible. At least some British officers, probably from Adair’s group on the battle line, yelled at Parker’s company to disperse. Measuring the situation, Parker ordered his men to do exactly that. Seeing the militiamen begin to withdraw, Pitcairn ordered the regulars on the battle line to “surround and disarm” them—an action that can only be explained by his not appreciating Parker’s attempt at deescalation.[10] The confusion and sense of imminent danger on both sides must have been profound. Little wonder, then, that shots rang out.
Looking east from the left side of the Lexington Militia Company's lines towards the Green's apex. British battle formation was roughly 70 yards forward from this position. (Author's Photo)
The British were convinced the first shot came from one or more militiamen withdrawing through the area behind Buckman Tavern across from the north side of the Green, or perhaps from a rogue sniper in or behind the tavern itself. The militiamen were convinced one or more British officers fired first with pistols.[11] I agree with historian David Hackett Fischer’s conclusion that both sides’ accounts are probably true, and that if there was a singular ‘first shot’ by someone on one side (whether accidental or deliberate) it occurred almost simultaneously with a singular first shot by someone on the other side.
The post-battle depositions on both sides, though, are consistent in asserting that Parker’s men on the Green did not fire first. And yet they were exactly who came under fire from the British companies on the battle line. The only legitimate targets, if any, were not on the Green. By indiscriminately engaging Parker’s men on the Green, the British undercut any claim to inherent self-defense. In doing so, and as pointed out earlier, they also undercut their political and moral position. The fact that Smith’s expedition failed to achieve any of its operational objectives in Concord and was nearly destroyed on the return trip, while very significant at the campaign-level, is strategically secondary.
Amos Doolittle's late 1775 engraving of the Lexington clash
The stupidity of Adair’s decision is magnified if we take the liberty of indulging in some counterfactuals. For instance, if there were in fact one or more Whig-aligned rogue gunmen not under Parker’s command in the vicinity of Buckman Tavern, then he (or they) would have found it harder to take the British under fire had Adair not deployed the two companies into the Green opposite Parker. Perhaps the rogue(s) could have maneuvered into a different position to engage the column on the Concord Road, but that would have only made it more clear that the fire had not come from Parker’s men. Granted, the subsequent chain of events would likely have been chaotic and might still have led to a direct exchange between Parker’s company and the British. Nevertheless, the facts on the ground would have been different—and the Whigs' assertions of the moral superiority of their cause might have been undercut.
It’s also entirely possible that the first shot would have occurred at North Bridge in Concord if it hadn’t in Lexington. Or perhaps the confrontation at North Bridge would not have resulted in an exchange of fire at all had all involved there not been aware of the hostilities a few hours earlier. All the same, it’s quite likely given Gage’s orders and the overall circumstances that some clash would have occurred either later that day or on a subsequent occasion. Such a clash would not necessarily have resulted from a strategically-impactful failure of British tactical decision-making.
It should be clear from this story that former U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Charles Krulak was quite correct with his concept of a “strategic corporal” two decades ago, except in the Lexington case it was a “strategic lieutenant” who ultimately directed the path of history. Any contemporary junior officer and his or her field grade commander could easily find themselves in a similar brink-of-war situation someday. Unlike the British government in April 1775, though, these modern officers’ political masters might actually want to avoid hostilities.
It follows that much should be learned from the many British operational and tactical mistakes that led to the clash on Lexington Green (of which I have only listed a few). In my opinion, the most important of these mistakes was Gage’s and his subordinates’ failure to appreciate that just because their government was willing to start a war to achieve its objectives didn’t mean the way the war started at the operational and tactical levels wasn’t of critical strategic importance. Neither Gage, nor Smith, nor Pitcairn made any discernable effort to think through exactly what ought to be sought or avoided in a first clash with the Whigs. Neither Smith nor Pitcairn made any discernable attempt to issue clear intentions to their subordinates regarding what to do in a confrontation, let alone to maintain tight tactical control over their force when actually in contact. As a result, they essentially tossed a lit matchbox in the form of Adair amidst several leaking barrels of gasoline. We should thank them for that, as while the results were disastrous to the Crown’s interests, they led directly to the birth of our democratic republic and its enshrinement of natural rights in law.




The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.



[1] John R. Galvin. The Minute Men — The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution. (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2006): 99, 230, 236.
[2] David Hackett Fischer. Paul Revere’s Ride. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1994): 275-276.
[3] Galvin, 100-101.
[4] Ibid, 6-33, 59-61.
[5] Ibid, 64, 122-124.
[6] Ibid, 119.
[7] Derek W. Beck. “Who Shot First? The Americans!” Journal of the American Revolution, 16 April 2014, accessed 4/23/15, http://allthingsliberty.com/2014/04/who-shot-first-the-americans/
[8] See 1. Ibid, 116; and 2. “Jesse ADAIR B. ABT 1739 D. BEF DEC 1818.” Ancestry.com, undated, accessed 4/23/15, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nickblackhurst/pbl19276.html
[9] Beck, http://allthingsliberty.com/2014/04/who-shot-first-the-americans/
[10] See 1. Galvin, 124-125; 2. Fischer, 190-191, 3. Beck, http://allthingsliberty.com/2014/04/who-shot-first-the-americans/
[11] See 1. Fischer, 193-194; 2. Beck, http://allthingsliberty.com/2014/04/who-shot-first-the-americans/