Coercive Operations and
their Influence on the
Equipment Programme
20 ISMOR
Ben Bolland
Mike Purvis
Caveats
• Work in progress
• Constrained need-to-know
– Experimental design and study purposes to be kept away from
experimental participants.
28 August 2003
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Requirement (Exam Question)
Coercion and deterrence are key principles underpinning the
use or threat of force … but there has been very little
research or analysis on them. The aim of this work is to:
• Gain an improved understanding of the mechanisms through
which coercive effects can be achieved.
• Explore and identify causal links between military action and
coercive effect in order to support balance of investment
appraisals based on the coercive attributes of different
equipment procurement options.
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What is Coercion?
• We need a definition that is:
– analytically useful
– clearly bounds the problem
– is reasonably intuitive
• “The threat or use of armed force as a continuation of
political conflict, within political constraints, to gain a
disproportionate change in the political (and hence
military) behaviour of an adversary”
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Scope
• Focus on coercion delivered by military capability
– Other means and ways handled in other studies
• Level of effect
– Concerned with coercion of adversary decision-makers at
strategic or operational level, within a campaign
• Timeframe of analysis
– Seeking a coercion assessment capability for equipment BoI
studies.
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Possible Questions (easier to harder)
• 1) What ways of employing coercive force are more
effective than others?
• 2) How coercible is the leadership? Is the target
leadership coercible or not?
• 3) What quantity of coercive force is required to have the
desired coercive effect upon the target?
• 4) Will we win the political conflict? Can we coerce the
target before they do things ('counter-coercion') to
undermine our will?
• 5) Where will we have most effect?
• 6) When will we win?
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Intermediate-level analysis
Decision-making bureaucracy’s
behaviour
POLITICAL
STRUCTURE
Decision-making
bureaucracy’s
influence / control
(bargaining between
interest groups)
-
-
Individual’s
influence / control of
decision-making bureaucracy
(see Greenstein)
External influences
(context)
Individual’s
behaviour
Cultural
behaviours
(Hofstede)
Cultural beliefs
Personality traits
(Hermann)
CULTURE
Social interactions /
construction
INDIVIDUAL
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Individual’s beliefs
(OPCODES - Leites,
George, Holsti,
Walker)
Affect (emotion)
Individuals’ motives
(Psychological
Motivations
approach McClelland,
Atkinson, Winter)
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Linking equipment characteristics to coercive potential
(early thoughts)
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Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
Why Gaming?
• Coercion is about choices available to a human centred
leadership.
• Coercive effect is achieved through perceptions of
damage and cost/benefit calculus.
• Coercion involves humans and their decision-making.
– We don’t know how to model this, yet.
• Hence the use of Human-in-the-loop gaming.
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Experimental Gaming
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Gaming
• Primary factors:
– Coercibility of Red leaderships.
– Relative attributes of Blue coercive options.
– Red’s perception of coercive options.
• Secondary factors:
– Level of pressure applied by Blue; each coercive option will
have different levels of pressure within them.
– Other factors contributing to placing of coercive pressure upon
Red.
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Key Dimensions
• 7 Regime Types
– 4 Predominant Single Leaders
– 3 other types
• 4 Coercive Options (CO)
• 5 Levels of Pressure
– threats, signal, irritate, incapacitate, defeat
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Key Dimensions
DEFEAT
INCAPACITATE
SIGNAL
COERCIVE OPTION 3
THREATS
COERCIVE OPTIONS
COERCIVE OPTION 4
IRRITATE
REGIME TYPES
COERCIVE OPTION 2
COERCIVE OPTION 1
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Three End States
• ‘Coerced’
– Blue achieves political goals short of escalating to the defeat
level of force. Red chooses to back-down.
• ‘Physically Forced’
– Blue achieves political goals using the defeat level of pressure.
Red has no choice.
• Red uses WMD.
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Game Method
• One sided, one-player.
• Conditions controlled.
• Pre-scripted decision-tree based.
• Each CO played four times per scenario.
• Players pre-screened and tested for suitability.
• Players given extensive leadership profile before games.
• Scenario brief given at start of each game.
• Players face sequence of decision points.
• Ethical guidelines followed.
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Method Lineage
• David Daniel, 1979, What Influences a Decision?
• George Pickburn and Rachael Davis, 1990, Command
decision-making. An investigation by analytical gaming.
• Purvis and Bolland, 2002…
– Strategic-political decision-making under coercive pressure.
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Translation of Results: Feeding
Coercive Effects into Modelling
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Tracking effects
Red Will to oppose Blue objectives
from Blue Perspective
Acquiescence
Fully effective
red capability
No effective
red capability
Red Capability
from Blue Perspective
A Jones-Purvis
diagram
Defiance
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Tracking effects - desired impact of actions
Red Will to oppose Blue objectives
from Blue Perspective
Blue
Influencing
Blue
Coercing
Red Capability
from Blue Perspective
Red Initial
position
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Blue use
Brute Force
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Tracking effects
Red Will to oppose Blue objectives
from Blue Perspective
Blue desired end-state
curve
Red accedes to
Blue objectives
Red Capability
from Blue Perspective
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Tracking effects
Red Will to oppose Blue objectives
from Blue Perspective
Most of our tools operate in the
capability dimension. We use
historically based modifiers
(impact of shock and surprise,
defeat levels, other factors) and
scenario scripting to reflect
impact on will
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Red Capability
from Blue Perspective
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Tracking effects
Enemy will to oppose enemy objectives
from own Perspective
Don’t forget Red is playing
the same game
- to different rules?
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+
Enemy Capability
from own perspective
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Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence