'Shock & Awe': an often misused term to be reckoned with; as used against U.S. Vets

Shock and Awe. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Shock and Awe (disambiguation).

Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an adversary's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight. The doctrine was written by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in 1996 and is a product of the National Defense University of the United States.

(Perhaps inevitably, the 1996 originated term <'Shock & Awe'> has been - especially since the 2002-2003 attack on Baghdad - used <more or less accurately> in many different subjective applications and figures of speech. - Opening Poster's editorial commentary)

Contents
1 Doctrine of rapid dominance 1.1 Civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure
2 Historical applications
3 In popular culture

7 External links

Doctrine of rapid dominance[edit]

Rapid Dominance is defined by its authors, Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, as attempting "to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fight or respond to our strategic policy- ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe."

Further, rapid dominance will "impose this overwhelming level of Shock and Awe against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on . . . [to] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the (designated, real or imagined) enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels."[2]

Introducing the doctrine in a report to the United States' National Defense University in 1996, Ullman and Wade describe it as an attempt to develop a post-Cold War military doctrine for the United States. Rapid dominance and shock and awe, they write, may become a "revolutionary change" as the United States military is reduced in size and information technology is increasingly integrated into warfare.[3] Subsequent U.S. military authors have written that rapid dominance exploits the "superior technology, precision engagement, and information dominance" of the United States.[4]

Ullman and Wade identify four vital characteristics of rapid dominance: "near total or absolute knowledge and understanding of self, adversary, and environment; rapidity and timeliness in application; operational brilliance in execution; and (near) total control and signature management of the entire operational environment."[5] Shock and awe is most consistently used by Ullman and Wade as the effect that rapid dominance seeks to impose upon an adversary. It is the desired state of helplessness and lack of will. It can be induced, they write, by direct force applied to command and control centers, selective denial of information and dissemination of disinformation, overwhelming combat force, and rapidity of action.

The doctrine of rapid dominance has evolved from the concept of "decisive force". Ullman and Wade enumerate the elements between the two concepts in terms of objective, use of force, force size, scope, speed, casualties, and technique.

Civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure

End of Wikipedia excerpts.
____________________________

As the title of this thread directly implies, 'Shock & Awe' has already become an improvised figure of speech to be reckoned with:

Although neither Von Clausewitz ('On War'- 1876), nor Sun Tzu ('The Art of War' - pre Christian publication in China), exercise the term ('Shock & Awe'), the applied practice of it is referenced by both authors.

A much more recent publication is authored by one of the co-founders of *that specific term: 'Shock and Awe', by Harlan K. Ullman.

*Shock and Awe can be and has been applied to criminal batteries and physical beatings, including those carried out by one or more persons against rape victims, including children. It's meaning - without the descriptive term itself - can be correctly applied to any physical and/or psychological overwhelming force, as it is projected upon, perceived, and/or directly experienced by whatever being or environment it is projected upon. Certainly the practice has been around much longer than the *terminology that describes it; just as 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder' has existed long before there was any term-for or academic/medical-address to it (*Refer, The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger).

With regard to the subject of Shock & Awe as it is recently improvised and used against - especially combat - veterans: The Homeland Security and Patriot Acts exhibit a grotesque language of attack upon veterans. Specifically in the brandishing of such language as: 'Returning veterans may be a threat to the nation', and, 'Veterans with combat skills may be recruited by Right Wing or Terrorist elements.' - Paraphrased.

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It seems that 'normalized' rogue elements of the federal government are swiftly advancing to include the Bureau of Veterans Affairs (Vets Administration), which federal facility's and employees are being controlled by their New World Order compromised policy makers in Washington, D.C., to adopt and practice a (not so well hidden; increasingly more bold and aggressive) agenda of *seizing ordinance (hunting and home defense firearms) and other targeted property from post-active-service veterans; who are beginning to respond as those who have been forewarned (Refer, '...the 2nd Amendment making of a well regulated militia of citizens,' the 4th Amendment of 'Right to Privacy'; the 10th Amendment enactment of *'State Sovereignty', *which has already been declared by Texas and Alaska, and is not 'secession from the Union'.).

*These seizures are already being carried out without due cause or due process of the courts, in the guise of hurriedly conjured-up, improvised and activated - United States Constitution sacking - 'medical holds'. In the language of the post-9.11.01 published Homeland Security/Patriot Act, and in accordance with President G.W. Bush's speech the day after 9/11 ('You are either for us or against us!'), the disarmament of law abiding American citizens is a high priority on the culminating *New World Order (*'One Government, One Military, One Religion', Etceteras) agenda, as it is being carried out via The White House. The Homeland Security Act's call to Patriotism clarifies that quite anyone at all 'might be' a terrorist. (How are things in your neighborhood, lately?)

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…"medical holds"….?

You mean, you've been visited by men in white coats?

 

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Saying people "may be a threat", and saying they "may be recruited" is not "shock and awe".
"Shock and awe" is an attack so swift and devastating in its power that the person or persons subjected to it are psychologically and physically beaten.
They make no resistance.
You could, if you wish, say that the curtailing of veterans' rights is "disrespectful", or "unfair", but to call it "shock and awe" is nonsense.

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Shock and Awe
http://www.channel4.com/news/iraq-war-10-years-on

 

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Isn't this the same as the 'Blitzkrieg' tactics employed by the Germans in WWII?

 

Although both were shock and awe, the Germans did this to peaceful people, while we do this to spank aggressors.

 

Well, hopefully. Though the last few times it's been less "shock and awe" and more an attempt at it that has resulted in an angrier and more determined rapidly relocatable and virtually unknowable enemy.

 

I could be a bit picky and say that France declared war on Germany, not the other way around, although poor little Belgium kind of got in the way a bit.

 

The OP says:

Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an adversary's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.

I think that Blitzkrieg was the nearest equivalent given the technology available at the time. Surely it was used against civilians too, there wasn't much differentiation in WWII, was there? Stukas etc. I think you're being picky. The intention was certainly the same.

 

The OP isn't saying that Blitzkrieg was the same as shock and awe.
OP is saying that a proposal to remove veterans' guns is shock and awe.

Next thing it will be a "holocaust".

 

That's clearly a misnomer then.

 

This statement by Ullman was interesting:

Shock and Awe can be and has been applied to criminal batteries and physical beatings, including those carried out by one or more persons against rape victims, including children. It's meaning - without the descriptive term itself - can be correctly applied to any physical and/or psychological overwhelming force, as it is projected upon, perceived, and/or directly experienced by whatever being or environment it is projected upon. Certainly the practice has been around much longer than the *terminology that describes it; just as 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder' has existed long before there was any term-for or academic/medical-address to it


He's an interesting man.
He compares the method he recommended, as a method of achieving a swift victory in Iraq, to rape.
That's absolutely right. He doesn't try to dress it up in fancy terms.
He reveals himself as a realist who knows that war is an evil business.
It's a pity that the US Government didn't ask his advice on what to do after the initial victory.
They might have had less trouble.
After "Shock and Awe", which was militarily a complete success, they descended into chaos.

 

This is really wrong. You should use the right words to describe something, so that rape is rape and a beating is a beating. Shock and Awe first gained prominance in the Iraq war (afaik) and describes a fearsome military assault, not a rape or a beating. Let's use the English language correctly and proportionately.

 

We used "shock and awe" quite effectively in Dresden, where we killed tens of thousands of innocent, peaceful people.

 

You have misunderstood.
He isn't saying that rape is "shock and awe", but that a rapist may use similar tactics to render their victim incapable of resistance.
Shock and awe is specifically a military term.

 

Dear Captain Kremman:
You exhibit a photograph of the conflagration of a portion of Baghdad. Harlan Ullman, originator of that term (seven years before the above photograph was taken) specifically gainsays the abundant news reporters ('Live and on the mean scene') of that happening, who consistently practiced and applied the term 'Shock & Awe' to that fiery event.

Ullman categorically disagrees with hasty misunderstanding and misusage of that term; you'll have to take you condescending authority to him - the guy who was not taken-in by the number of times the adrenalin-saturated, vicariously envious and incomplete cable news-caster's completely misunderstood and misrepresented the term he founded and wrote a book ('Shock and Awe') about.

If you had gold fish in your living room they might tremble at the commanding sound of your voice?

Another thing: apparently neither you nor anyone you love has ever been gang-raped and set on fire.

 

Have you ever been shanked with a hand-held bayonet? Mortared? Taken fully-auto incoming rounds and been rendered impotent from returning fire: not knowing whether the triple canopy obscured AK-47 rounds originate with friend or foe? Absorbed artillery recoil on the precipice of traumatic amputation? Overheard all of the cacophony generated around and about 16 of the 32 men you are responsible for, perishing 1-2-3 thru 16, under the shock and awe of an ambush? Had the honor and known the humiliation of working with covert operatives wearing blue jeans bristling with the accoutrements of savage children, this UDT Frogman(now called SEALs) and that Marine and that other Merc from the very Foreign Legion? Endured 3 consecutive days - 72 straight hours - of a category 5 hurricane whipping up steady lumbering 100 footers and rogue 140 footers disassembling your 25,000 ton ammunition ship-at-sea? Been so terrified you pissed your pants over and over again for 3 straight sleepless days night & day? Listened to men on smaller ships on their radios with monotone countenances even as they breathe their last? Been smashed - then pinned - against the side of your ship by a whale boat that just tossed you for the indifferently curling, hissing and breaking 30 foot white-beards? Lost your Partisan fiancé to abduction and murder? Heard the scream of a Butterfly? Engaged in a life & death living nightmare with 4 men wearing the same uniform you're wearing? Returned home to discover you could never get out of where you came from? And no one but the few who accompanied you would ever know or care to understand?: and prevailed?

These are my SMR (service medical record) 'stressors' by which I acquired yet another series of layers of PTSD, apart from those which afflicted me at age 5. And again on Nett Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, 1953-5. As for the 48 month military odyssey it would all be 'nonsense' if former Congressman Leon E. Panetta, who I met at a 1981 dated Veterans of Foreign Wars picnic; who went on 3 decades later to become the Director of the C.I.A., who accessed a very classified service jacket and empowered me with more 'compensatory' benefits than I can pronounce, after being called a prevaricator and a malingerer (and much worse), and getting in and winning and losing a hell of a lot of fights with my 'comrades' between 1958 and 2011, before every stressor that is listed here (and much more) was proved: by the Director of the CIA, before he went on to become the Secretary of Defense, before he retired... (Believe you me?)

If you were in combat on my boat I would have you summarily executed for mortally endangering everyone on board.

Have you seen Holocaust yet?

How many times?

www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?65934

Plural opportunity is also afforded in search mode:
'Nomads, Civilization & War: The Grass Routes of Civilization'.

 

'Shock & Awe' did not 'first gain prominence in the Iraq war'. You have the opportunity to understand that term in the Opening Post. The man who owns that extremely cogent term disagrees with you and whoever else cares to publicly embarrass themselves.

 

You could be correct, though in this case that would surprise me.
Can you give a link to where Ullman says that the term "Shock and Awe" should not be applied to the attack on Baghdad?
The attack on Baghdad would appear to be a text book example of Shock and Awe.
A massive display of superior strength, coupled with the removal of infrastructure, leading to swift capitulation.

There is an old saying "Success has many parents, while failure is an orphan."
But here we would have the man who authored the only thing that went to plan in the whole mess,
denying that he had anything to do with it. Surely not.

 

I did not say that Ullman has at any time 'denied that he had anything to do with it.' Ostensibly he did. His term was 'innovated' and applied to what he says is not shock & awe. It is you that has something to deny here, while you attempt to give me something to deny. There will be no out-of-the-established-contextual-box paradigm-shifts here. If and when you simply review the Opening Post-provided information and improvisationally enter various key words in search mode you will easily gain the prolifically provided opportunity to learn what you ask me to re-tell you.

"But here we would have the man who authored the only thing that went to plan in the whole mess, denying that he had anything to do with it. Surely not."

Your closing surety in the above sentence is the same false confidence a hovel of multi-striped on-and-off-site journalists and reporters likewise extended in all the excitement and confusion. Indeed, it's a very stimulating news 'n sports terminology, notwithstanding that the august author of it has made a point of rejecting its application to that theater. The formerly phone-booth ensconced Press has been liberated to the mobility of their cell phones upon which they continue to orphan themselves and anyone who takes them seriously.

Please refer, War, and Fire, by Sebastian Junger.

I accept your readable genuflection far beyond that of this nation's incumbent Oval Officer's world broadcast, immortally recorded, nationally threatening bow to the King of Arabia. Sometimes my keyboard spontaneously carries out one or more of Murphy's combative laws, in this case it was "When in doubt: Empty your magazine.".

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