Short Bursts: Paradigms and Punctuations – How to Change a Warfighting Concept

By Lieutenant-Colonel Todor (Ted) Dossev

The Canadian Army is at an inflection point driven by the growing realization that the emerging characteristics of modern conflicts require new-to-us concepts, structures and technologies.^{Footnote 1}  We realize that we are in a changing “paradigm,” and that we need new models to prepare for the next war. So, what are paradigms, and how do they change? This short note synthesizes dominant theories of paradigms, diffusion of innovations and “punctuations” in military affairs as models for future development and a call for ideas.

About one year ago, the Commandant of the Canadian Army Command and Staff College, Colonel Fraser Auld, wrote about epistemology—the theory of knowledge.^{Footnote 2}  He placed warfighting theories near the core of military knowledge and defined these theories as the “frameworks for understanding, explaining and communicating how we believe we must fight in order to win.” He reminded us that our theories should also change dynamically as new evidence emerges. In the Canadian Armed Forces we call these collective theories our “warfighting concepts,” and they are examples of paradigms.^{Footnote 3}

Paradigms

The language of paradigms and paradigm shifts comes from the study of scientific revolutions. In the early 1960s, a physicist-turned-historian-of-science named Thomas Kuhn observed how dominant scientific theories change.^{Footnote 4}  In The Nature of Scientific Revolutions, he defined paradigms as “universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.”^{Footnote 5}  In other words, and in a narrower, more colloquial sense, a paradigm is the commonly accepted understanding of how a (scientific) community defaults to approaching its usual problems. In the case of the Army today, this might be a combat team attacking a dug-in platoon. But for our purpose now, what Kuhn was most interested in describing was how a community shifts from one paradigm to another.

According to Kuhn, paradigm change progresses from normal science through the discovery of an anomaly, or multiple anomalies, which do not fit the existing model, leading to crises. These, in turn, trigger the creation and emergence of a new paradigm and a better explanation for the anomalies. Once a new viable paradigm is complete, the old paradigm is replaced, in what Kuhn calls a revolution. Then the cycle repeats when a new crisis occurs. Put very simply, a paradigm is how we think the world works and how we operate within it. So, when confronted with a world that does not fit our paradigm, we change our models and adopt new methods to find solutions. In a military context, this could be the replacement of the horse for the vehicle as the primary means of transport when confronted with trenches, machine guns, barbed wire, indirect fire artillery, and the availability of the internal combustion engine. As a result, we saw the emergence of mechanized, combined arms manoeuvre, which was adopted asymmetrically by European powers in the early 20th century.

In the Canadian Army today, mechanized, combined arms manoeuvre remains the dominant paradigm. It is rooted in our industrial capacity to produce specialized armoured vehicles with radios. Today, the advent of robotics, artificial intelligence, long-range fire, and the deep obstacle belts observed in Ukraine represent anomalies leading us into crisis.^{Footnote 6}  Still, we cannot quite abandon our old way of fighting until we have developed a replacement—and that could be a long process. Hence, the urgent need to visualize this process in time.^{Footnote 7}

Diffusion of Innovations

There is a useful graphical model for the uptake of new ideas in Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations, which can easily be adapted to show the fade of old ideas, and the competition between new ones.^{Footnote 8}  In Figure 1 below, Rogers shows how over time (x-axis), some portion of the population (y-axis) begins to accept a new idea (paradigm). Rogers was concerned with the uptake of cellphones or fax machines or some other technology; however, this graphic could just as easily apply to the acceptance of a heliocentric model of the solar system or a new warfighting concept.

Rogers also offers the concept of critical mass being “the point at which enough individuals in a system have adopted an innovation so that the innovation’s further rate of adoption becomes self-sustaining.”^{Footnote 10}  It is a short leap to use the same graph in reverse and show how an old paradigm fades as the population begins to adopt the new (Figure 2). In an army, where the cost of getting it wrong is so high, the extinction of an old paradigm could be as much of a challenge as the acceptance of the new.

In reality, multiple alternatives could compete to address the anomalies, though they might never reach full uptake. Figure 3 shows several competing theories being partially adopted, then fading, while one emerges as the successor paradigm. In the practical case of the Canadian Army, these could be anti-drone nets or cages, electronic warfare or hard-kill interceptor drones (or something entirely different) as a response to the crisis brought on by robotics. 

Punctuated Equilibrium

A final layer to the discussion is to consider multiple national actors as in an infinite game, striving for the best paradigm for their strategic objectives, and relative to their adversaries.^{Footnote 11}  For this, Clifford Rogers’ adoption of punctuated equilibrium, first presented in a paper discussing revolutions in military affairs (RMA), offers a suitable model.^{Footnote 12}

Rogers borrows from natural sciences the idea that “evolution proceeded by short bursts of rapid change interspersed with long periods of near stasis rather than constant, slow alteration.”^{Footnote 13}  He proposes that, in a similar fashion, military power “derived from a series of sequential military revolutions, each an attempt to reverse a disequilibrium introduced by the previous one.”^{Footnote 14}  These punctuations were responses to crisis brought on not only by changing technologies, but also the warfighting concepts developed by adversaries.

Put differently, militaries adapted through a series of rapid turns through paradigm shifts, then rested in relative equilibrium with minor improvements until another disruptor emerged. For instance, the form of mechanized warfare practised in Desert Storm is not all that different from the fighting in the 1967 Six-Day War or even from WWII—what improved were the capabilities of the vehicles, while the paradigm remained the same. But these are very different from the Western Front in 1915. In effect, mechanized warfare has been the dominant paradigm for almost a century. Today, mechanized warfare is in crisis, not only because of portable anti-armour missiles, but also from ubiquitous observation, armed drones, loitering munitions and industrial-scale obstacle belts. Observing conflicts in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh suggests we have entered a period of punctuation, where we can expect several rapid turns of paradigm change through anomaly, crisis and revolution, before settling on a new equilibrium.

Punctuated equilibrium then implies the existence of periods of equilibrium and periods of punctuation (Figure 4). In these moments, one belligerent will have an advantage over the other. For instance, Napoleon’s corps system (march divided, fight united) gave him an advantage over Prussia in 1806, but by 1813, the new Prussian staff system had not only found parity but had surpassed the French armies.^{Footnote 15}  This back-and-forth between Germany and France continued for the next 140 years, with the two sometimes engaging from relative equilibrium (1914), or sometimes from a punctuated advantage (1871, 1939).^{Footnote 16}  Importantly, the punctuations were not always technological (needle gun, tank), but sometimes structural (corps), or even conceptual (staff, levee en masse): in fact, the most profound punctuations were first and foremost epistemological. In Canada’s case today, it seems we are behind in the most recent punctuation.

Now What?

But what are our best ideas? Will we continue to strive to incrementally improve on mechanized manoeuvre, or will we create something radically new? The Chief of Force Development and the Canadian Army Land Warfare Centre are working through these questions now. Whatever they develop will be better than what we had previously, but may need several iterations and patience as we refine and respond to the adaptations of our adversaries. Moreover, it will take time to build out the force in a new model. Acquisition of equipment, structures, doctrine and training all take time, but waiting for the perfect solution will take even longer.

Colonel Auld placed warfighting theory near the centre of his model of military knowledge, but at the very core, he placed warfighting philosophy. It was the philosopher of war, Carl von Clausewitz who wrote: “The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature.”^{Footnote 17}  If we enter the next conflict, thinking it will be like the last or trying to turn it into one of mechanized manoeuvre despite the evidence, we will have failed in this supreme judgment. What we need now are the competing ideas to devise the next paradigm.

About the Author

Lieutenant-Colonel Ted Dossev is a husband, father and cavalry officer currently serving as the military course director of the new Advanced Land Power Studies course at the Canadian Army Command and Staff College. Lieutenant-Colonel Dossev is an Art of War Scholar, and a graduate of the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies.