When To Concentrate and When To Spread

Concentrate or Spread:

    the forces
        _ Attention
        _ Men
        _ Equipment
        _ Materials.

Forces, not force. A combination is always needed, to do anything.

Concentrate when you decide to finish off. Spread when you decide to contain.

This is for all 3 levels of action (strategy, operations, tactics).

At Strategic Level

Decide to go to war, or to not go to war. Dont attempt to do both.

As an entity you are at war or you are not at war.

You allocate your resources differently when you are at war as compared to when you are not. When you are at war, allocate considerably more resources for war effort than for any other purpose. The other purposes are maintenance, reserves, growth and luxury.

This, putting considerably more in one thing than other things, is what concentration is. Note the word "considerable". Obviously when you put your resources in multiple things some of them get more than others and one of them may get highest. Its not concentration though. Concentration is when one thing get considerably more than other things, like double or more, than its usual share. Usual share, as in non war time; its when you are just guarding your assets, not defending your assets against enemy attacks, and not doing your own attacks on enemy assets.   

 

Bigger the enemy is you are at war with compared to you, more resources you have to put on war effort, and lesser have to be left for other purposes, to the extent of spending no resources at all for reserves, growth and luxury in dire situation.

If enemy is considerably bigger than you then spend almost all resources in war effort and spend all the rest in maintenance; you cannot afford to build reserves then because of security concerns; and risks in investing in R&D and expansion of capital are too high because of inherent uncertainty in all investments and because of time needed you dont have; luxury obviously you cannot afford in such dire situation.   

When being at minor war, and also in peace time, you can spend some resources in non war effort and non maintenance purposes, that is in reserves, growth and luxury. Dont do any (primary or secondary) concentration in any non war effort purpose.

You can never afford to concentrate your resources in any non war effort purpose, even in minor war or peace times because you have to considerably do all of building of  reserves, investment in growth, and have luxury. You cannot concentrate on any one of them. You have to build reserves and invest in growth in such times because they are the only times you can do those and you need reserves to have spare quantity of resources in war time to fall back on if any of your plans fail or if your enemy give you a surprise, and growth to have qualitatively better resources in war time. Luxury you dont utilize in war time but is needed in peace time for moral. 

In desperate situation you can forego all non war effort expenditures including maintenance. Its because if an asset is not expected to survive long enough there is no point in spending (very limited at this point) resources in maintenance. 

Dont Be At War At All Times And Dont Be At Peace At All Times

You cannot concentrate for long time, its intense, that is, consume resources at faster rate than they can be replinshed.

You can but shouldnt spread for long time, it makes you weak because you start losing your ability to concentrate. Spreading is easy because it not intense but more you spread and for longer you spread more time it will take to concentrate once such need rise, and the rate you then concentrate goes down as well.  

You have to be at war at some times and at peace for the rest of the times. If it was not so there will be no sub-heading in this article asking you to be at war or not at war because then you will always be at war.  

Even if you are a big empire and your calculation about the war is that its not likely to hit your core or your mantle and that only your peripheries are likely to be engaged you shouldnt attempt to be at perpetual war. Reasons include:

        Your enemy can by chance hit deeper than you think.

        Your Head of State need rest and you cannot afford him ignoring war matters.

        Constant state of war is bad for moral.

        Your country needs healing after damage, whole of your country need the healing.

Dont go to war with all enemies at the same time.

Understanding The CheckerBoards:

    At the top most level, the strategy level, you have multiple of checkerboards. Each checkerboard is a separate front.

    Actions at one checkerboard dont effect actions at other checkerboards.

    Set of pieces at each checkerboard is a division. You have as many divisions as checkerboards.

    A division is a combination of forces. Since its a combination it can achieve results.

    A division to perform its actions dont require any other division to be at any specific position or to perform any specific action. A division can perform its actions independent of other divisions.

    Since a division do not depend on other divisions to achieve its results you can have multiple of them in action at the same time.

    A division do require other divisions to leave resources for it so it gets its preparations before it can perform any action.

    Divisions compete each other for resources.

    Divisions are what you manipulate at the top most level.

Attention is a resource and there is very limited supply of it. Any action or preparation done at strategic level need personal attention of your Head of State.
At one or some checkerboard move one or few pieces each forward. Hold positions at other checkerboards. Dont go all in at all places.
It is strategic success to be at war with a maximum of only one enemy at a time. Its already potentially dangerous to be at a two front war.
Having achieved strategic success you still have to place whole divisions to defend against enemies you are not at war with. You cannot be too sure who can join in with your already at war enemy.
Put as many divisions against each enemy as fronts that are likely to be opened. Likely to be opened by you as your plan, or likely to be opened by your enemy. Enemy being those you are already at war with as well as those you are not at war with.
A division can be as large as a million soldiers and as small as 2 men. A front can be militarily, diplomatic, industrial, commercial, clandestine etc.
Dont leave any place you cannot accept loss of unguarded. Open a front there by placing a division. Independence of divisions from each other work for your benefit.
If your offences fail or get blocked at some checkerboards you still continue at other checkerboards. Its another way independence of divisions work for your benefit.

Conclusion

At strategic level you do have to spread. While working on a project you still have to eat. You cannot avoid maintenance expenses except in desperate times. Also, you cannot take too high a risk to put all the resources at one front.

Another point is that its manipulation. Its not fire and forget. Time is a dimension to be used for controlling divisions. Sometimes you order a unit one thing, at other times somethings else. Active control and feedback are keys.

At Operational Level

    for each sub-division at a front, decide that it either attack, or defend.

A sub-division is one that cannot effectively perform its actions without another sub-division performing its own action at the same time at the same front.

All the forces at a front are combinely a division.

Different parts of a division have to work in unison, at the same time, to get desired results. This is different than divisions who are at different checkerboards and can work independently of each other.

Pieces at a checkerboard are sub-divisions of the division at the checkerboard. They have to work together to achieve results.

Not all sub-divisions have to be in action at the same time. Some, for example, reserves, are not planned to be moved at all if everything go fine. Some, like supporting parts, supplies and medical, communications and engineering etc, take no active part in implementing tactics. Even the rest are not all to take part in every tactic.

Operational level though is limited to a front and thus is smaller than strategic level is more complicated because of inter-dependency of sub-divisions on each other.

A front is a battlefield if fighting is happening in it.

At a battlefield, for fighters, traditionally there were sub-divisions like a center and flanks and optionally a rear-guard and upfront. In modern warfare there can still be a sort of center, though not that heavy, to suppress enemy fire and to hold enemy by shooting from distance, and a sort of flank that move close-in to enemy undetected to do some bombing and some shooting from near.

Time is still a dimension to be used for controlling at operational level. Depending on the tactic you are implementing on a day a different order can be given to same sub-division than the order given to same sub-division another day.

Defending A Front

If you have to defend a front you are commander at, spread your forces. This will deny giving your enemy any significant target to attack and also force it to spread its forces as well for its own defence.

If there is some critical resource in the area that you cannot afford losing; resource such as a city thats major because its transportation hub or because of its industrial base, or a command center, or depos, or mines etc; critical because loosing it greatly reduce your fighting ability; then your enemy has a target.

If your critical resource can be mobile, such as command center or depos, just move it away, beyond enemy's reach. If your critical resource is fixed, such as a city or a mine then you have to either move the enemy's reach away by engaging enemy elsewhere or if you cannot do that or tried but failed then you have to defend the critical resource at the critical resource.

Best way to defend an immovable resource is to engage your enemy elsewhere so the fighting not come near the resource. If it do come to it, you are locked to defend it, this is a bad situation; in this situation whatever you do you get huge losses, you dont have maneuverability, you are locked and your enemy may have artillery. Even if it dont have artillery there is very few tricks you can do when you are locked and therefore its easy for your enemy to guess your plan. Once enemy guess your plan, when you implement it you get huge losses.

Avoid getting locked. Dont let enemy come near your critical resources. If you cannot stop enemy from doing that then move as much of the resource away as you reliably can. You can reliably move a resource away if:

    _ its light

        > people; anything that people can carry, on foot, without using vehicles, such as food, tools etc.

    _ its medium, as long as you can provide light vehicles such as buses, small trucks, cars etc.

        > dismantled factories, workshop machines etc.

 You cannot move away intact factories, buildings, mines etc.

Dont move resources if you are in range of enemy fire or can be during the transit.

Dont move away resources if where you are moving can also soon, as in same war, come under enemy fire or cannot be better defended than where you are now or cannot handle the influx of resources.

If you are confident that no above stated problem can happen for the movement of resources then you must do the moving.

 

If all critical resources are moved then dont defend that location for long, after some fighting retreat, let the enemy take the location, then put the enemy at siege in that location.

If significant amount of critical resources are not moved away till the area come under range of enemy fire, then you have to defend the area for long. Since you are at defence, concrete and bricks/stones are your friends. Hide behind walls or underground. Dont clear up rubble to get a clean shot, its urban warfare, you cannot have a clean shot.

Its defensive warfare. Your city is being destroyed and your resources are being kept hostage but you can make the losses heavy for enemy too and you can hold a lot of enemy forces so that your other forces at other fronts are freed from much burden and can attack and win at other fronts and then once path is cleared come for your help.

Without help from outside your forces inside the city cannot win. Most they can achieve is withdrawal of enemy forces from the city but its a tie, not victory.

For victory you need your forces outside the city to siege the enemy in the city.

No matter how you are containing your enemy, be it by a fight in open field or a fight in city or even by putting them under siege in city while you stay outside, you dont concentrate your forces at few points, you spread them on many points. If you concentrate your forces at few points you give enemy the achievable target of bringing them down one by one while taking fire from points its not concentrating at that time. Thick targets have more depth and less surface area so less rate of fire.

If your forces are well spread they are too many targets to be brought down in series because a large number of them will not be under enemy fire and will be freely firing at enemy. Enemy cannot attack a large number of targets simultaneously because it need concentration for attack and concentration means less left for other attacking units so less number of other attacking units.

Your defense points may not be equally armed. If there is a point thats more likely to be attacked than other points then put more of your forces there than at any other point. A point more likely to be attacked is where enemy cannot be effectively brought under cross fire by other defense points, such as corner of a fort or base, or some special terrain place or pathway. If the defense point cannot provide cross fire cover to other defense points then dont put more forces there than at other points, keep those extra forces in reserve. Yes there can be points which can provide cross fire support to others but those other defense points cannot provide cross fire support to it, such as canyons very near to a corner of a front or base, or parts of ground shielded by walls. 

If your enemy dont have artillery then always have fixed defense points. Fixed defense points can be better prepared to take an attack than adhoc temporary points. If your enemy do have artillery and you dont have counter artillery then dont use fixed defense points.

If your enemy has artillery and you have counter artillery then have fixed defense points. In this situation you do want enemy artillery to fire at those points so that its position is revealed so you can attack it.  Also in such situation have fewer and larger defense points, so that they can sustain enemy artillery attack, than when there is no artillery to deal with.

If all or almost all of the fight is going to be hand-to-hand then spreading your forces, around the enemy when containing enemy in open field, on parameter of the city, fort or base if you are defending one, results  best.

If enemy do have missile weapons, such as arrows, slings, javelins, or have artillery, and you are containing the enemy, then dont spread your forces around or along. That will be too thin to fire counter missiles because troops there will be all dead or disabled before they can fire back. Defense points in missile warfare have to be thick enough to sustain enemy fire for considerable period of time to be able to do considerable counter fire.

If enemy attack units are heavy and your defense units are light then you have to have thick points, that is, have more men at each defense point. If your only counter fire against enemy tanks is bazookas and rocker launchers then have many multiple of men at each defense point than number of tanks likely to attack at that point at one time.

If enemy attack units are heavy and your defense units are also heavy then have thin points, not thick points. Having thick points in such situation is counter productive because if you have thick points you cannot cover as much area and cannot have as much cross fire support. Have few multiple of tanks at each defense point than number of tanks likely to attack at that point at one time.

Conclusion

Operational level is limited to a front. This can be a battlefield.

One division for each front. 

Sub-divisions at a front are like pieces at a checkerboard. To do any action you have to have
co-ordination between such pieces. 

There is a balance to be made between number of points you spread your forces at and intensity of your forces at those points, depending, among others, upon missile vs melee and heavy vs light weapons.    

At Tactical Level

There is no manipulation at this level. All under you do the same thing.

There is only leadership at this level, no politics. The commander is visible to all under him.

You have only one dimension to worry about at this level, the time dimension. Your unit is so small that it cannot effectively do two things at same time.

At different times though your unit may have to do different things and accordingly must have the capacity to do so. Thats why its a team.

Teams and groups both are made up of people. Only difference is that team have different types of workers in it and all members of a group are exactly same type of workers.

In a fighter unit, for example, different soldiers use different types of weapons.That variety is needed at battlefield, even at a tactical-unit level, because when attacking may and almost always have to face defenders that use different means to defend themselves. Having a section of only riflemen would not be enough to take an enemy position because enemy may be using riflemen as well as machine gun men, so the unit must have, at the very least a grenadier, in addition of riflemen. Same goes for defense, the unit need riflemen to shoot far and slow, and machine gun men to shoot near and fast.

Conclusion

Tactical level is mirror opposite of strategic level, among other things also in unity of action. You do only one thing at a time at tactical level whereas at strategic level you are bound to do multiple things at the same time. At tactical level you are too small to effectively do multiple things simultaneously, at strategic level its too risky to focus on one program.

At strategic level, both in offense and defense you need multiple fronts per enemy. Each of these venues, the fronts, have to be independent in action from each other. At operational level, for any tactic you apply you need multiple tactical units working in unison, each of the tactical units doing exactly one thing at a time. At tactical level, each unit do exactly one thing at a time, can do different things at different times so need a team, not a group.

Tactical level is the simplest of all the levels of action. In it your focus is on task on hand, not on what happened before and what to do later. Your focus is on how you do your work right here right now.  

 

When To Go To War And When Not

If you are not prepared to defend all conceivable areas where enemy can attack or take losses of such, dont start a war.

If you do decide to go to war, concentrate your forces to finish off enemy's power, but concentrate where?

Where To Concentrate 

Concentrate to finish off enemy's ability to fight. Its in its manpower, weapons, and ammunition. Enemy can replenish any losses in these, using its as yet civilian population and military-industrial base.

A country effectively never run out of manpower. Ammunition stocks are hidden and plenty so cannot be effectively destroyed. Only thing that can be effectively destroyed (finished off) is weapons, and only heavy weapons at that.

A heavy weapon is one that a person cannot carry. These are not plenty, and not hidden.

Light weapons are those weapons that a person can carry. They are plenty and well hidden, thus cannot be effectively destroyed.

Manpower is useless without equipment, equipment is useless without materials. Soldiers cannot fight without weapons, weapons cannot do anything without ammunition.

Its the weapons where you have to concentrate. If enemy has no weapons it cannot do any fighting.

You cannot effectively destroy enemy's light weapons. You can only destroy its heavy weapons.

In absence of heavy weapons enemy can only do gorilla operations, it cannot do any invasions, it cannot protect any buildings or machineries (you can always blow such to ground using your artillery). Gorilla operations should be defended against by rangers and prevented by police action, no need to involve military.

You either get a quick victory or a long war.

You get a quick victory by finishing off enemy's ability to fight (destroy its weapons) before its military-industrial base can replenish it. Longer the war goes on higher the degree to which enemy's military-industrial base can replenish it.

There is no middle ground here. If you are unable to destroy enemy's ability to fight before it can be replenished then it will be replenished. You have to then destroy it faster and enemy in turn will restore it faster, and so on, till one of you is unable to do the replenishing faster than its own destruction and will slowly start to lose the war.

The How, What and Why of Decisions; Who Can Ask Them To Whom

As stated before, a battlefield (front) commander cannot forego the attack decision indefinitely once its made by the higher up (the Head of State). Depending on the details in order the front commander may be allowed to choose the day of attack but thats where his authority at strategy level ends.

Its for the Head of State to decide which front to open and which front to change into a battlefield, to defend where and to attack where. That is, the HOW of actions at strategy level.

The Head of State also have to decide the WHAT of actions. That is, what end result to achieve.

The Head of State can and almost always should take advices from able persons. Its he who choose from those able persons who to take advices from. He not have to follow these advices. He can decide whether to follow those advices or not.

Ordinary sub-ordinates, that is, all the sub-ordinates in the empire other than those in the advisory-council-that-selected-the-emperor, can ask him the what of his actions, that is, what end result he want to achieve, and may suggest, alternate paths to such end results. They can also ask the HOW but in most situations the emperor should either keep it a secret or just give a general idea.

Ordinary sub-ordinates cannot ask the WHY of actions. Only the people that have authority to place and dispose the emperor, that is, members of the advisory council, can ask the WHY question.

The advisory council has authority only on selection and disposition of the emperor. The emperor once selected is not bound to take their advices, and if taken advice to follow it in any matter including running of state and waging wars.

How To Not Be At War

At strategic level you can decide to not go to war at all; fighting itself is concentrating and you may well decide to not concentrate at all.

If you are not at war then you must be containing your enemy. Contain your enemy by doing clandestine operations and by doing diplomacy.

Clandestine Operations

Do clandestine operations to prohibit or significantly delay enemy's all technological progress thats only usage is in military or that can be converted into military usage faster than you can stop that conversion.

Diplomacy

Do diplomacy in form of:
    _ strenghthening relations with your allies
    _ converting friends into allies
    _ making friends with your enemy's allies

More ongoing programs you have and more intense they are, more strengthened your relations are with your allies and friends. At certain level of involvement in programs 2 countries not just use each other's resources, they also have huge investments made in each other, investments so huge they cannot take each others' defeats passively, they have to come for help, they are allies.

Anti-Diplomacy

Clandestine Operations can be used to reduce enemy's allies into enemy's friends.

Final Words: Dont Hesitate

As you must not go to war unless you are well prepared, you must not be at peace if you are prepared. If you have a clean shot and can handle the consequences, shoot, dont hesitate. Finish off your enemy as soon as you can afford to.

Dont be afraid that once you finish off all enemies you can and become way too powerful to not have any external threats your country will after a generation or two start infighting. When it happen your descendants will be better off fighting such a war as compared to fighting real enemy.