Journal of Global Security Studies, 2(1), 2017, 18–38
doi: 10.1093/jogss/ogw028
Research Article
Uncertain Victory: Information Management and
Military Power
Ryan Grauer
University of Pittsburgh
Abstract
War, as Clausewitz reminds us, is fought in the domain of uncertainty. Human nature, friction, and
chance combine to create a fog that shrouds both friendly and enemy activities. Accordingly, effective
warfighting is as much a product of information gathering and processing as deliverance of kinetic energy. Existing theories of military power, however, privilege the latter over the former. This paper seeks
to address this imbalance and push forward scholarly understandings of martial capability by advancing a new framework for thinking about the way in which militaries’ capacities to manage uncertainty
condition their abilities to generate combat power. The manner in which militaries organize their command and control structures is identified as a key factor in the management of uncertainty, and its role
in facilitating both information management and the generation of martial strength is theorized. The
command structure theory advanced is provisionally assessed through an examination of a key battle
in the Russo-Japanese War—an engagement that Japan won but, by all conventional measures of military power, it should have lost. The paper concludes with a discussion of open questions raised by the
claim as well as scholarly and policy implications.
Keywords: military power, military effectiveness, uncertainty, war, Russo-Japanese War, organization theory
Why, when combat ensues, are some militaries more capable of defeating others? Military power is arguably the
most significant driver of stasis and change in the international system; states and empires have risen and fallen, global political orders have been rearranged, and the quality
of life of countless individuals has been shaped, if not determined, by the superior capabilities of some to succeed in
combat. Accordingly, scholars, policymakers, and warriors
alike have long sought to understand why some armed
forces are stronger than others. Though their efforts have
produced a vast array of explanations for, and theories of,
military power, we are nevertheless still often surprised
when belligerents reveal their actual capabilities in war.
Nominally weaker forces defeat their foes, armies thought
to be equivalent to or only slightly stronger than their
adversaries unexpectedly rout their opponents, seemingly
mismatched belligerents fight to draws, and analysts are
left grasping for explanations of observed events. Why?
I argue that much of our inability to accurately anticipate and assess belligerents’ military power stems from
the failure to systematically account for armed forces’
varying capacities to cope with one of combat’s essential
characteristics: uncertainty. Scholars and analysts have
long understood and frequently noted that warfighting is
a risky, unpredictable endeavor (Clausewitz [1832] 1976,
86). After acknowledging the point, however, they tend
to develop theories of military power in which the effects
of uncertainty are held constant across belligerents.
Forces enjoying material preponderance, fielding highskilled forces, and employing clever tactical, operational,
and strategic approaches to warfighting are implicitly
assumed to be at least as good as, or better able than,
Grauer, Ryan. (2017) Uncertain Victory: Information Management and Military Power. Journal of Global Security Studies, doi:10.1093/jogss/ogw028
C The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association.
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RYAN GRAUER
their opponents in overcoming the fog and friction of
combat as they translate their advantages into battlefield
victories. This approach, while facilitating theoretical
parsimony, creates barriers to understanding. Unexpected and unforeseeable developments always arise during combat and, more frequently than even probabilistic
theories anticipate, undermine the effects of factors like
material preponderance, soldier quality, and force employment on the generation of military power. A complete understanding of military power must thus systematically account not only for belligerents’ material and
non-material resources, but also for their ability to bring
those assets to bear effectively in the face of battlefield uncertainty.
To push forward the literature on military power, I
develop in this essay an argument that inverts conventional approaches to understanding martial strength by
privileging belligerents’ capacities to cope with war’s uncertainty. Specifically, I argue that an armed force’s ability to swiftly gather, process, and respond to continuously
changing information in combat can often serve as an independent, primary driver of martial strength. When a
military employs a command and control system—or
command structure—that provides greater speed and accuracy with which to detect and react to emergent battlefield challenges and opportunities, decision-makers can
use resources more effectively than can their adversaries.
Such a military is then likely to defeat its adversary, even
if it is disadvantaged according to traditional measures of
martial strength.
This command structure approach to thinking about
military power advances our understanding of martial
strength in at least three ways. First, by systematically
considering militaries’ abilities to cope with uncertainty, this approach brings theory closer to the practice
of combat; warfighting little resembles the certainty
and sterility of measuring and comparing forces’ dispositional characteristics in the way existing work prioritizes. Second, a command structure approach promises
new insight into currently anomalous cases. Though
there are many theories of military power, cases abound
in the historical record, which, at present, defy explanation. Considering such battles with an eye toward the
belligerents’ capacities to cut through the fog of war
and thus employ soldiers and materiel more effectively
helps analysts better understand why some militaries
are more powerful in combat than others. Finally,
examining belligerents’ command structures should
provide a greater depth of understanding in cases that
we think we already understand. This theoretical approach, when married with other existing explanations,
19
could facilitate a more complete understanding of the
generation and use of military power.
I develop this argument in five sections. The first reviews the strengths and weaknesses of existing literature
on military power. The second connects militaries’
capacities to cope with the inherently uncertain nature of
combat to the generation of martial strength, and lays the
groundwork for what I call the command structure theory of military power. The practical utility of the argument is then probed in the third section through an exploration of one of the most surprising, theoretically
anomalous, and historically significant combat actions of
the twentieth century: the Russian and Japanese battle at
Liaoyang. The fourth section considers possible challenges to the argument laid out in this essay. The fifth section concludes with a brief discussion of some scholarly
and policy implications.
Military Power
Military power is the capacity of an actor to use violence
in an organized fashion to defeat similarly constituted
actors in conventional land battles. That is, military
power may be usefully understood as a dispositional
characteristic of belligerents that must be assessed in relational terms—more powerful actors are those with the
ability to, in the face of all opposing efforts, exert their
will and achieve their objectives in conventional combat
actions waged on land while denying their adversaries the
same.1 An actor’s military power can only be known with
certainty after combat is concluded, but there are many
existing theories pointing toward factors that may help
analysts anticipate likely levels of martial strength before
battle ensues. These claims tend to emphasize one of four
factors: material preponderance, weapons technology,
soldier quality, or force employment.
1 Thinking about an actor’s military power in this way, as
an attribute that varies in value across social interactions, space, and time, rather than one that remains
constant no matter the opponent and context, aligns with
common understandings of the concept of power more
generally (Dahl 1957; Lukes 1974; Baldwin 1989). Note
that combat outcomes are observable implications of
actors’ relative power, not equivalent to martial strength
itself. Focusing on military power in conventional land
battles, and setting aside for the purposes of this essay
irregular conflicts and the role played by air and naval
forces, adheres to standard practice in the literature on
martial strength, permitting competitive hypothesis testing (Brooks 2007, 3; Biddle 2010).
20
Uncertain Victory: Information Management and Military Power
In Theory
Material preponderance theories are perhaps the most
common explanations of military power. While many
analysts simply assume that large stocks of men and
materiel equate with power, and the best-endowed force
will have the capacity to defeat its adversary, some articulate causal logics detailing why this should be the case.
Frederick Lanchester’s (1956) famed formulae suggest
that numerical superiority permits preponderant actors
to defeat others through attrition, eventually eliminating
their foes before their own destruction (see also HomerDixon 1987). Some scholars argue that the capacity to defeat others depends on an ability to prevent breakthroughs in defensive lines. These analysts contend that
breakthroughs are most likely when aggressors achieve a
force-to-force ratio (FFR) of 1.5:1 in the theater of operations or 3:1 at the point(s) of attack (Dupuy 1985, 11–
12; Mearsheimer 1989). Defensive success in preventing
breakthroughs is likely when forces under attack generate
high battlefield force densities, or force-to-space ratios
(FSRs) (Liddell Hart 1960; Mearsheimer 1983, 43–52).
Some scholars emphasize the influence of weaponry
employed in creating military power. Offense-defense
theorists note that, when predominant weapons technologies enable the generation of extremely high levels of
firepower, defenders should prevail. When such technologies increase military mobility, attackers should prevail
(Jervis 1978; Glaser and Kaufmann 1998; Van Evera
1999). Others argue that, because forces are likely to engage in both offensive and defensive actions over the
course of a war—and sometimes during a single battle—
the general sophistication of actors’ technologies matters
more than the weapons’ offensive or defensive orientation. Belligerents with an overall edge in weapons quality
should be capable of defeating their adversaries when attacking or defending (Biddle 2004, 16–17).
More recently, many scholars have argued that soldiers’ quality and skill sets condition military power.2
These arguments, typically couched in the language of
military effectiveness, suggest that martial strength may
derive from many sources (Brooks and Stanley 2007).
Regime type is thought to matter, with democracies
believed to be much more likely to field high-quality,
skilled forces than other forms of governance (Reiter and
Stam 1998, 2002). Similar arguments posit that economically developed states will field well-educated, skilled
2 Others also include characteristics like armed forces’
capacities to integrate their strategic, operational, and
tactical activities and responsiveness to changes in the
strategic environment (Brooks 2007, 9–13).
forces capable of using resources effectively (Biddle and
Long 2004; Beckley 2010). Other factors that scholars
suggest facilitate the creation of effective units include
comity in civil-military relations (Biddle and Zirkle 1996;
Brooks 1998; Pilster and Böhmelt 2011; Talmadge
2015), social structures and national cultures promoting
cooperation and collaboration within the armed forces
(Pollack 1996; Rosen 1996; Castillo 2014), and ideational motivation (Shils and Janowitz 1948; Posen 1993;
Reiter 2007). In all such cases, increases in effectiveness
are expected to make battlefield success more likely.
Finally, several scholars argue that clever strategic,
operational, or tactical approaches are likely to increase
military power (Mearsheimer 1983; Posen 1984; Epstein
1985). Some highlight the interaction of belligerents’
strategies, with certain combinations more likely to increase the martial strength of one force or the other (Stam
1996; Arreguın-Toft 2006). Others contend that force
employment at the operational and tactical levels of war
is particularly important (Lyall and Wilson 2009). One
influential statement of this sort holds that, if belligerents
adopt the “modern system” of force employment, they
should be particularly powerful on contemporary battlefields (Biddle 2004). Adoption of strategically, operationally, and tactically ideal manners of force employment
should thus increase military forces’ capabilities to defeat
others in combat.
In Practice
Each of the existing theories of military power explains,
in a useful but limited way, phenomena observed in the
historical record. In other words, all have significant
blind spots that limit their utility in understanding belligerents’ martial strength. Consider first material preponderance claims. In almost one-third of decisive battles
fought between 1917 and 2003, materially weaker
belligerents proved more powerful than and defeated
their better-endowed adversaries.3 Many of these victories were historically and politically consequential—for
3 Unless otherwise noted, figures presented in this section are derived from the dataset introduced in Grauer
and Horowitz (2012). These data provide information on
unit- and organization-level variables relevant to the
generation of military power for 125 belligerents that
fought decisive battles in forty-three conventional,
interstate wars waged between World War I and the
2003 Iraq War. The dataset is available at http://www.
ryangrauer.com/publications.html.
RYAN GRAUER
example, the Kerensky Offensive in World War I that
helped spur the Bolshevik Revolution, the 1941 Soviet
Winter Counteroffensive that prevented Germany from
capturing Moscow, and the 1988 Iran-Iraq fight for the
al-Faw Peninsula that marked the beginning of the end of
a long, costly war and reshaped the balance of power in
the Middle East. Causally specified claims are less reliable
than the simple material preponderance argument: Lanchester’s (1956) expectations are rarely reconcilable with
the historical record; FFR theories only explain approximately 15 percent of decisive twentieth-century battles;
and FSR theories lack sufficient specification to be
tested.4
Weapons technology theories also struggle. Offensedefense theorists typically suggest that prevailing warfighting technology rendered the first quarter of the
twentieth century defense-dominant, the next fifty years
offense-dominant, and the last quarter slightly less
offense-dominant (Quester 1977; Van Evera 1999). The
historical record does not conform well to these expectations. Aggressors won four of seven, or 57 percent, of
the decisive battles during the defense-dominant pre1925 period. The next fifty years accord better with the
scholarly assessment of an offensive-dominant era, with
attackers winning thirty-three of forty-three decisive engagements. However, attackers in the last quarter of the
twentieth century—a period seen as less offense dominant
than the previous era—won fourteen of sixteen, or almost
90 percent, of their fights.5 Although offense-defense balance theorists are correct in their assessment of an
offense-dominant international system between 1926 and
1975, they inaccurately describe the pre-1925 and post1975 periods. In other words, the empirical evidence
shows that the “wrong” side often proved more militarily
powerful at the beginning and end of the twentieth century. Considering the general quality of weaponry, rather
than its offensive or defensive nature, is no better. There
are no systematic data tracking the relative sophistication
of belligerents’ weaponry over time, but scholars have
shown that economically developed states frequently invest in high-quality tools of war (Beckley 2010). Using
economic development as a proxy for weapons sophistication, advantaged twentieth-century militaries gener-
4 Only ten of the sixty-eight victors in decisive battles
fought during the twentieth century achieved an FFR of
3:1 or better. On the empirical insufficiency of Lanchester
(1956) and FSR theories, see Epstein (1985) and Biddle
(2004, 247n24).
5 Biddle (2001) finds similar trends in war outcomes.
21
ated more power than their adversaries only 35 percent
of the time.6
Soldier quality arguments can sometimes explain belligerents’ relative military power quite well. Democracies,
for example, proved more militarily powerful than their
opponents in approximately 75 percent of their twentiethcentury battles.7 These theories are nevertheless circumscribed in their utility. Fifty-five percent of wars waged
between 1816 and 2001 involved only autocracies or
anocracies, rendering existing regime-type claims mute
(Sarkees and Wayman 2010; Marshall and Jaggers 2012).
Only approximately 50 percent of battles fought between
1900 and 1982 involved militaries fielding soldiers with
different cultures (194 of 382) or levels of education (170
of 370), and only 10 percent were fought between belligerents that varied significantly in the quality of their
civil-military relations (44 of 365).8 In 83 percent of those
same engagements, neither side was advantaged in ideational motivation (278 of 335).9 Thus, though soldier
quality theories often account for belligerents’ relative levels of military power when combatants differ along their
specified variables, many cases in the historical record remain inexplicable.
Force employment arguments are similar to soldier
quality claims; they often anticipate relative balances of
military power when belligerents’ warfighting methods
differ, but there are many politically consequential cases
to which such arguments cannot speak. For example,
strategy interaction theories anticipate belligerents’ relative strength in more than 80 percent of decisive battles in
which the sides used their soldiers and materiel differently
(Stam 1996). Approximately 60 percent (97 of 160) of
the belligerents fighting decisive battles during the twentieth century, however, employed the same strategy as their
adversaries. In such cases, the theory offers no analytical
leverage. Similarly, while belligerents employing the
modern system more effectively than their adversaries
proved relatively more powerful approximately 80 percent of the time, in more than 20 percent of decisive
twentieth-century battles, warring sides did not differ in
6 More economically developed belligerents won only nineteen of the fifty-four decisive battles fought during the
twentieth century for which relevant data are available.
7 Thirty-eight of the fifty militaries fielded by democratic
states won their decisive battles between 1917 and 2003.
8 Data are drawn from Biddle and Long (2004).
9 Data are drawn from the Historical Evaluation and
Research Organization (HERO 1984).
22
Uncertain Victory: Information Management and Military Power
their force employment.10 Among the cases that no force
employment theory can explain are the 1941 Soviet Winter Counteroffensive, the US breakthroughs of German
defenses in France and Italy in 1944, and China’s victory
over Vietnam in the 1979 Lang Son Campaign. Like material preponderance, weapons technology, and soldier
quality theories of military power, force employment theories can account for belligerents’ actualized combat
power in some cases, but leave wide and politically consequential swathes of the historical record unexplained.
The Promise of Information Management
Existing theories’ occasional failures to account for belligerents’ military power are to be expected; they, like
all social science theories, are probabilistic by nature.
As noted, however, existing theories often struggle to
explain imbalances in martial strength, particularly in
politically salient historical cases. The scholarly and
policy need for improved understanding of why some
actors are more militarily powerful than others thus remains. This section explains why assessing militaries’
capacities for managing battlefield uncertainty, especially at the operational level of war, should provide
such insight.11
Uncertainty, or a deficit in information relevant to decision making at the time and place required, is omnipresent on the battlefield (Galbraith 1977, 36–39). A primary
source of uncertainty is the adversary; engagements are
fought between thinking, reacting opponents, each bent
on the destruction of the other. Few, if any, battle plans
survive initial clashes (Moltke 1993, 92). Human limitations in war generate additional uncertainty. Officers and
10 Eighty of ninety-four belligerents that employed the
modern system more thoroughly than their adversaries
won their decisive battles. Twenty-four of the 118 belligerents employed the modern system to the same degree as their adversaries.
11 Operations are single large battles, or series of smaller,
interconnected battles originating from a prior plan,
fought for major strategic objectives (Biddle 2004, 6;
Murray and Millett 2000, 585–89). Militaries must also
manage uncertainty at the political, strategic, and tactical levels of war but, because the operational level is
(1) the highest at which the effects of military power
can be reasonably differentiated from those of political
influence, and (2) where many of the most consequential decisions about the proper application of resources
in combat are made, it is the focus of this essay.
soldiers struggle to cope with the unique physical, psychological, and emotional stresses of combat and, in the
process, often fail to achieve their intended objectives,
which throws the battlefield situation into flux (Clausewitz [1832] 1976, 113–16, 138; Holmes 1985; Gabriel
1988). The environment itself creates further uncertainty,
as friction—that is, soft or muddy ground, unexpected or
mislabeled roads, poor weather, broken transports, and
thousands of other unexpected and largely unforeseeable
challenges—slows, deflects, or even halts operations.
Finally, chance makes war uncertain: coincidental meetings of units, lucky captures of valuable information,
unfortunate miscommunications, and ill-fated ordnance
can all have decisive, and inherently unpredictable, effects
on the outcomes of combat (Clausewitz [1832] 1976, 85–
89, 101–4, 119–21).
Because militaries are very large organizations that
must constantly coordinate the actions of thousands of
individuals if they are to achieve their goals, uncertainty
can be disastrous (March and Simon 1958, 4). Students
of organizational behavior have shown that uncertainty
often drives poor performance, especially as organizations grow in size, employ increasingly sophisticated
technologies, and operate in particularly dynamic environments: the less decision-makers know about what their
subordinates are doing in complex settings, the more
likely it is that they will “satisfice” and make choices that
underuse or misuse human and material resources (Simon
1976). While uncertainty-driven underperformance in civilian organizations may lower profits, reduce the quality
of services provided, or even cause industrial accidents,
inefficient and ineffective use of military resources can
lead to unnecessary loss of life and treasure, or even
defeat.
The fact that combat is uncertain, and uncertainty invariably diminishes armed forces’ performance, is not
groundbreaking news to scholars of military power.
Existing studies of martial strength, however, largely
avoid consideration of the role that militaries’ abilities to
acquire, process, and exploit information about battlefield developments—and therefore reduce uncertainty—
play in the generation of combat power. Some do suggest
that effective information management may be the product of unit-level factors and serve as a causal mechanism
linking variables like culture and regime type with military power (Pollack 2002; Reiter and Stam 2002). They
do not, however, demonstrate that the link between specific unit-level variables and the adoption of effective
information management systems is the only such connection. As a result, these analysts cannot rule out the
possibility that organizational efforts to reduce and cope
with uncertainty are the primary drivers of military
RYAN GRAUER
power, and that their highlighted relationships are not
subsets of a larger pattern. Other scholars assume the existence of a well-functioning information management
system as a prerequisite for the operation of other
variables connected with military power (Biddle 2004,
49–50; Boyd 1986; Lyall and Wilson 2009, 75–78).
These studies raise the important question of whether or
not information management, if seen as a prerequisite, is
therefore a primary driver of martial strength. Most
scholars and observers, however, simply decline to incorporate information management capabilities into their
models. As noted in the review of existing literature, to
date, information management capabilities have not been
singled out as an important independent factor in the generation of military power.
Omitting militaries’ information management capabilities from theories of military power is problematic because it can result in the unintentional biasing of such
claims. The potential, and consequences, of such a bias
are made evident through a brief consideration of two
common approaches to combat: attrition and maneuver.
Attrition, or “wearing the defense down until resistance
is no longer possible,” and maneuver, “the use of speed
and mobility to disarm the opponent,” both require combatants to acquire and act upon considerable information
about battlefield developments (Mearsheimer 1983, 29;
Stam 1996, 53). Unless attackers possess overwhelmingly
superior forces (in material or qualitative terms), they
must know how defending forces are arrayed in order to
strike at points of greatest potential for decisive effects
(de Jomini 2007, 52). Successful attackers must also be
attuned to, and act upon, changes in the operational environment as the battle ensues, which includes, for example, the defenders’ use of reserves and counterattacks
(Clausewitz [1832] 1976, 97). Defenders must likewise
know their opponent’s deployments if they are to concentrate friendly units when and where they are most needed
(Moltke 1993, 48). They must also be able to detect
battlefield developments if they are to use reserves and
counterattacks effectively (Clausewitz [1832] 1976, 545,
550; de Jomini 2007, 136, 148). On maneuver battlefields, the same information must be collected and acted
upon, but it must be done much more quickly (Liddell
Hart 1991, 335–36; Luttwak 2001, 128). Absent the capacity to meet the information requirements underpinning
these approaches to warfighting, even very large, wellarmed, and highly skilled forces will struggle to generate
military power and defeat their adversaries. In other
words, without accounting for belligerents’ information
management abilities, existing theories will often misstate
actual balances of military power.
23
There is thus a strong a priori reason to believe that
systematic assessments of belligerents’ institutional
capacities to manage information should improve conventional understandings of military power. Insights
from the organization theory literature, and particularly
that developed by contingency theorists, bolster this notion, indicating that paying attention to how militaries
structure their command and control systems can shed
light on their battlefield performance (Donaldson 2001,
21–30).12 Contingency theorists argue that very large
civilian organizations employing sophisticated technologies and operating in dynamic environments—those most
similar to militaries—are best positioned to cope with
uncertainty when they reduce the volume of information
decision makers must acquire before they choose how to
employ their resources (Donaldson 2001). Organizations
can do this by making two structural adjustments: reducing the number of subordinates managers oversee and
pushing decision-making authority to lower levels in the
organizational hierarchy (Hage and Aiken 1967; Pugh
et al. 1968; Child 1973a).
Shrinking managers’ spans of control and elongating
the organization’s hierarchy improves information management and reduces uncertainty by helping decision
makers better understand the operational situation. This
is especially true for large, diverse organizations operating in complex, dynamic environments. Humans, by nature, possess limited information-processing capabilities.
When decision makers’ subordinates grow in number, the
amount of time and attention that can be spent on each is
reduced. While this tendency is not necessarily problematic in itself, when those subordinates also grow more
specialized in their job functions and employ increasingly
sophisticated technologies, the limited time and attention
that decision makers can spend assessing the situation,
capabilities, and options of each becomes a serious constraint (Woodward 1958; Thompson 1967). In such situations, estimates, assumptions, and heuristics are much
more likely to guide decision makers than are clear understandings of the actual operational environment, and satisficing—with its attendant reduction in the effective use
of manpower and resources—is much more likely to
occur (Perrow 1967; Thompson 1967; Simon 1976).
12 I abstain from consideration of the drivers of high- and
low-quality intelligence collection and focus in this
essay on the extent to which militaries are organized to
move, process, and react to battlefield information once
it is acquired. Future work examining the connection
between intelligence collection and information management, however, is warranted.
24
Uncertain Victory: Information Management and Military Power
Pushing decision-making authority downward, or
decentralizing, improves organizational performance by
enabling managers closer to, and more familiar with,
ground operations to make decisions about how people
and resources can be used to best exploit opportunities
and cope with challenges (Hage and Aiken 1970; Lawrence and Lorsch 1986). In doing so, decentralization
also frees up bandwidth running between levels in the
organizational hierarchy. Accordingly, when matters
requiring high-level oversight arise, it is much easier to
transmit information necessary for decision-making
throughout the communications network. High-level
managers, their intellectual burden having been reduced
by empowering others to make many decisions, can then
provide more timely guidance than they otherwise might
(Pugh et al. 1969; Child 1973b). Decentralizing decision
making should thus permit large, technologically sophisticated organizations to respond to changes in dynamic
operational environments quickly and appropriately.
There is no persuasive reason to believe militaries are
fundamentally different from large, diverse civilian organizations in how they best cope with uncertainty and
maximize performance when operating in dynamic environments (Lang 1965). Accordingly, contingency theory
implies armed forces are likely to perform best—that is,
be most powerful—when they adopt rather tall and thin
command hierarchies and decentralize decision-making
authority. Considered in a relational sense, as balances of
martial strength must be, contingency theory suggests
that, ceteris paribus, a military is most likely to have the
capacity to defeat its adversary in a conventional land
battle when it adopts a smaller ratio of subordinates to
officers and permits lower-level officers to make more
significant tactical decisions than does its opponent.13
This, in short, is the primary claim of command structure
theory.14
13 Extreme numerical, technological, or quality imbalances may sometimes overwhelm the effects of information management on belligerents’ generation of
military power. Determination of the precise thresholds at which the relative influence of the various drivers of military power predominate lies beyond the
scope of this essay, but the matter deserves further
investigation.
14 It is important to note that this is an institutional explanation of military power. It focuses on the way in which
militaries as organizations are structured to facilitate
(or inhibit) the management of combat-relevant information, not the specific capabilities or choices of commanders operating in such systems. While poor
This command structure theory of military power
goes further than other theories implicitly articulated by
scholars and analysts who advocate for decentralizing
decision-making authority. Calls for pushing decisionmaking authority to low-level officers are widespread in
the academic and professional literature on military operations; decentralization is often referred to as a “force
multiplier” or even as essential for the functioning of
today’s modernized armed forces (Moltke 1993; Van
Creveld 1985; Boyd 1987; Moyar 2009; Finkel 2011;
Muth 2011; Talmadge 2015).15 Indeed, such appeals
have been made by so many for so long that decentralization is featured in many militaries’ operational doctrines
(Vassiliou 2010; Shamir 2011). While empowering
lower-level officers does help militaries manage uncertainty in combat, it is individually insufficient in managing information and maximizing martial strength for two
reasons. First, lower-level commanders cannot make
every decision about the use of soldiers and materiel in
battle; some of the most important and consequential
choices about how to react to emergent challenges and
opportunities must be made by top leadership. Second,
even when lower-level officers make the majority of decisions about actions and operations in their area of responsibility, coordinating combined actions across these
areas of responsibility remains the task of upper-level
commanders. In sum, empowering subordinates with
decision making has its limits—that is, commanders have
specific responsibilities that cannot be delegated. If
higher-level commanders oversee a large number of subordinates vested with considerable decision-making
authority, they may still have excessive managerial
responsibilities and thus be unable to allocate the time
needed to fully comprehend and best monitor the situations their subordinates face. In such cases, the probability that relatively inefficient or poor higher-level decisions
will be made—that satisficing will occur—increases significantly. To reduce battlefield uncertainty as much as
possible and maximize combat power, militaries need to
both reduce their officers’ spans of control and decentralize
commanders will likely make bad choices even when
information management is excellent, ceteris paribus,
the better militaries are able to manage the tasks of
transmitting, processing, and responding to information
about challenges and opportunities on the battlefield,
the more likely empowered commanders will use soldiers and materiel in effective ways.
15 There is a similar, less systematically developed claim
implicit in Keegan’s (1987) work on the role of the personal qualities of leaders in shaping military performance in war.
RYAN GRAUER
decision-making authority. To better understand military power, we must consider more than, as existing
work recommends, the extent to which decision-making
authority is decentralized. The command structure argument to be investigated in this essay is thus: Militaries
adopting tall and thin, decentralized command and control systems should generate relatively more combat
power than, and inflict battlefield defeats upon, those
that do not.
Information Management at Liaoyang
To begin assessing this command structure hypothesis, I
examine in this section the fight between, and military
power generated by, Russian and Japanese forces near
the small Manchurian town of Liaoyang in 1904.16 This
case, though only one in a vast universe of potential battles to consider, offers considerable analytical leverage on
the question of command structure theory’s validity.
First, the battle at Liaoyang featured two conventional
armies engaged across a defined front, each seeking to
destroy the other’s capacity to continue to fight—precisely the kind of engagement existing theories of military
power take as their objects of inquiry. Second, it is a case
that should be easy for existing theories to explain. Russia
enjoyed considerable material advantages over Japan,
and was fighting as the numerically preponderant defender on a defense-dominant battlefield. Accordingly,
material preponderance and weapons technologies theories should be able to account for the outcome at
Liaoyang. Third, the battle is one that should be difficult
for command structure theory to explain. Two nonWestern forces waged the fight. One of the primary critiques of the contingency theory, upon which command
structure theory is based, is that it was developed to explain Western organizations’ performance and may not
shed light on organizational capabilities elsewhere (Child
1981; Meyer and Scott 1983). Given these three considerations, if command structure theory can better account
for Russia and Japan’s martial strength at Liaoyang, there
will be strong reason to believe it both captures factors
relevant to the generation of military power missed by
16 The absence of indicators for militaries’ command
structures in existing datasets and military historians’
uneven coverage of the same precludes use of quantitative tests, while the need to explore the causal mechanisms linking militaries’ information management
systems with their battlefield performance makes comparative assessment of multiple cases impossible in
this space (Eckstein 1975, 108–13).
25
other theories and points toward an improved generalizable understanding of armed forces’ capabilities.
Beyond the methodological reasons rendering Liaoyang
an attractive test case for command structure theory, there
are substantive considerations warranting such an investigation. The fight at Liaoyang was the first major modern
conventional engagement between Asian and European
forces, and it was one that virtually all Europeans, whether
at home or deployed as observers to the battlefield, expected the Russians to win quite easily. The Japanese victory thus came as a profound shock. The Russians were
particularly stunned, and continued to be so as the Japanese
successfully marched into Manchuria, defeating or stalemating their adversaries at Shaho, Sandepu, and Mukden,
as well as forcing the surrender of the besieged Port Arthur
garrison and crushing the Tsar’s navy in the Tsushima
Strait (HSGGS 1909, 220–21; Cordonnier 1914, 128; Drea
2009, 97–124). While Russia might have been able to
reverse its losses with time, the international community
stepped in to halt the fighting in the summer of 1905.
Negotiations, hosted by US president Theodore Roosevelt
in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, resulted in a treaty ending
the conflict and awarding Japan most of its territorial demands in the Far East (Nish 1985; Connaughton 1988).
The conflict’s effects were felt well beyond the region.
The Russian defeat helped motivate the 1905 Revolution
that forced the creation of the duma and set the stage for
the later 1917 Revolution in which the Communists took
power. In addition, after its defeat, Russia was widely
seen as a reduced power and that perception played an
important role in fostering the development of the Triple
Entente alliance prior to World War I. Japan’s victory
stoked its expansionist agenda and desire for recognition
on the world stage. Though the Treaty of Portsmouth
granted much of what Japan demanded, the victors were
denied reparations and control over the northern half of
Sakhalin Island. These terms were poorly received by
many in Japan and fed the notion that, if they were to get
their due on the world stage, they would have to take it
by force (Humphreys 1995, 1–59; Kowner 2006). As a
harbinger of events to come, European observers present
on the battlefield sent home reports—regrettably, largely
ignored—detailing the way in which machine guns, modern artillery, barbed wire, and trenches had changed the
appearance and conduct of battle (MacKenzie 1999;
Sheffy 2006). While the battle at Liaoyang is far too slender a reed to bear the weight of the two world wars, had
the Russians marshaled sufficient martial strength to defeat the Japanese forces in Manchuria in 1904, international history likely would have followed a distinctly different path.
26
Uncertain Victory: Information Management and Military Power
Figure 1. Map of the battle at Liaoyang17
The Battle
In August 1904, Japan approached Russian positions
near Liaoyang from two directions. As can be seen in
Figure 1, the 2nd and 4th armies advanced from the south
along the Port Arthur-Harbin Railway while the 1st
Army came from the southeast. Field Marshal Iwao
Oyama, overall commander of Japanese forces, intended
to consolidate his three armies into a continuous offensive
line, conduct a frontal assault, and subsequently envelop
both flanks of the defenders (HSCID 1912, 9–10). Russia
met this attack with eight corps fighting from three successive lines of defense. General Alexei Kuropatkin, the
Russian commander-in-chief, was willing to relinquish
the outermost and least prepared line if Japan managed
17 Russian 1st Army Corps and 2nd Siberian Army Corps
were present but are not depicted because they played
little role in the combat at Liaoyang.
any sort of breach. The main fighting would then be done
at the elaborately constructed Advanced Position, or second defensive line. Retreat to the most extensively prepared Main Position (or third line) would be undertaken
only in the event of disaster (HSCID 1912, 5–9).
Fighting began on August 26 when Japan struck Russia’s outer defensive line (HSCID 1912, 18–177; Hamilton
1906). Kuropatkin’s forces performed well, rebuffing Japanese assaults almost everywhere. On the far eastern portion
of the front, however, a brigade controlled by the 1st Army
achieved a small advance. When he learned of the breakthrough, the Russian commander ordered a withdrawal to
the Advanced Position. Tired from months of marching
and hindered by fog, mist, and rough terrain, the Japanese
did not pursue closely. When battle resumed on August 30,
the Russians again held everywhere along the second line.
The defenders in the east did so, however, against a lighter
assault than their brethren elsewhere. General Tametomo
RYAN GRAUER
Kuroki, commander of 1st Army, received inaccurate intelligence indicating that the Russians were withdrawing
from Liaoyang and, in an effort to block the purported
move, held back two of his three divisions so they could
cross the Tai-tzu River and attack Kuropatkin’s rear and
lines of communication. The Japanese 2nd and 12th divisions crossed the river overnight and, by midafternoon on
August 31, secured a beachhead position.
To counter 1st Army’s move to flank his position,
Kuropatkin ordered another withdrawal, this time to the
Main Position. This final defensive line was to be held by
the smallest force possible while the remainder enveloped
and crushed the Japanese forces that had crossed the
river. To effect the latter, the Russians had to secure control of Manju Yama, a hill east of Liaoyang. Kuroki, recognizing the elevated terrain as essential for any potential
Russian counterattack, sent his forces to capture it on
September 1. The combatants fought a series of bloody
actions at Manju Yama over the next two days, with Kuropatkin’s troops gaining possession of the hill on the
evening of September 2. The Japanese attacked again that
night, however, and took the position. Kuropatkin thus
woke on September 3 to news that his forces had lost
Manju Yama. He also received reports indicating that defenders along the Main Position—who had thus far held
off all Japanese assaults—were running out of ammunition. At that point, Kuropatkin had a decision to make.
He could attempt to retake Manju Yama while risking
collapse on the Main Position, reinforce his troops to the
west and risk Kuroki’s forces attacking his rear and lines
of communication, or cede the field and withdraw toward Mukden. Kuropatkin chose retreat.
After the battle, the Russian commander told his superiors that he had won a significant victory at Liaoyang.
The Japanese suffered more casualties than the Russians—approximately 23,500 killed and wounded Japanese compared to roughly 18,000 Russians (HSCID
1912, 238, 721–23). The Tsar’s troops also avoided encirclement and destruction while retreating in good order.
The Russian War Minister was not convinced, however.
In response, he noted:
According to generally accepted terminology, the side which
attains its object, at whatever cost, has won a victory while
the side which fails to do so has suffered a defeat. At Liaoyang our army fought steadfastly with the obvious purpose of
repelling the enemy on the Liao-yang position. . .which had
been strongly defended for this purpose, and where the whole
army was concentrated. In the event we did not attain the object aimed at—[we] were compelled by force of arms to relinquish it. Consequently we suffered a defeat. (HSCID 1912,
177)
27
Explaining Japan’s Victory
Why was Japan more militarily powerful than Russia at
Liaoyang? Existing theories struggle to account for the attacker’s strength. By contrast, a command structure approach is illuminating: the Japanese, as a consequence of
their superior command and control system, were better
able to detect and respond to battlefield developments,
and thus use their soldiers and materiel more effectively,
than the Russians.
Material preponderance theories cannot account for
Japan’s strength because the defenders significantly outnumbered the attackers. The Russians employed approximately 128,000 infantry and 30,000 cavalry while the
Japanese mustered roughly 110,000 infantry and 15,000
cavalry (HSCID 1912, 7, 9, 16–17, 23–25). Furthermore,
Russia’s initial manpower advantage of almost 1.2:1 in
infantry and 2:1 in cavalry more than doubled during the
fight for Manju Yama.18 Given such imbalances, simple
preponderance, Lanchester, FFR, and FSR theories all
incorrectly anticipate a defensive victory.19 The fact that
the causal mechanisms posited by the three latter claims
as processes leading preponderant actors to win were all
evident at Liaoyang—the Russians both inflicted more
casualties than they suffered and prevented serious Japanese breakthroughs—underscores the theories’ incapacity
to explain the belligerents’ relative martial strength.
Weapons technology theories do no better. Russia, in
addition to fielding more soldiers than Japan, employed a
larger and more sophisticated arsenal than its opponent.
In artillery, it possessed 609 mobile guns, one-third of
which featured a recoil-absorbing mechanism allowing
continuous fire without re-aiming, while Japan employed
480 less powerful guns (Soloviev 1906, 6; HSGGS 1908,
58–59; HSCID 1910, 20, 27–28; HSCID 1912, 7, 9). In
small arms, the defenders fielded the only machine guns
used in the battle and rifles that fired a larger bullet over a
longer distance than those used by the attackers (Soloviev
1906, 9; HSGGS 1908, 21, 28, 48; Kuropatkin 1909a,
307). Given the Russians’ marked edge in firepower in a
defense-dominant era, both offense-defense balance and
weapons sophistication theories incorrectly anticipate the
18 Kuropatkin employed 57,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry
against Kuroki’s 23,500 infantry and 600 cavalry (HSCID
1912, 128; Burne 1936, 107).
19 The Japanese did not achieve the 3:1 advantage
thought necessary to break through Russian defenses
packed with as many as 2,000 men per linear mile at
any point during the fight (Haldane 1906b; Negrier 1906,
58; HSCID 1912, 70).
28
Uncertain Victory: Information Management and Military Power
defenders would have the capacity to defeat the attackers
at Liaoyang.
Claims emphasizing soldier quality are also generally
unpersuasive. While neither Meiji Japan nor Tsarist Russia were democratic, egalitarian, or beset by civil-military
conflict, the former did invest more in national education
than the latter (McGovern 1920; Okamoto 1970; Walder
1973, 34–35, 43–51; Warner and Warner 1974, 56–57;
Geyer 1987, 228–29). Consequently, Japan’s soldiers
were much more likely to be literate—and therefore trainable—and its officers were much more likely to have
received advanced strategic and tactical instruction than
their Russian counterparts (Jardine 1906, 254; Waters
1907, 193; Brown 1955, 103–6; Bushnell 1980; Menning
1992, 100). Additionally, while soldiers on both sides
evinced reasonably strong morale before and during the
fight, the Japanese were much more nationalistic than the
Russians (HSCID 1912, 71, 114, 249; Kuropatkin
1909a, 235, 281; Kuropatkin 1909b, 35–36).
However, it is far from clear that advantages in
human capital and ideational motivation were the source
of Japan’s strength. With such force multipliers, assume
the attacking Japanese soldiers each fought as effectively
as two Russian defenders (i.e., it takes two Russian soldiers to defeat one Japanese soldier). The Japanese would
then function as the “larger side” and, as per preponderance claims, be expected to win. But, contrary to Lanchester, FFR, and FSR expectations, they neither inflicted
more casualties than they suffered nor broke through
Russian lines. What if the Japanese instead simply fought
more tenaciously than the Russians? The historical record
is ambiguous. The Japanese suffered more casualties than
the Russians, which seems to suggest they were more willing to fight and die for their side than were their adversaries. Numerically inferior attackers routinely suffer more
casualties than they inflict, however, so this evidence does
not necessarily mean the Japanese outfought the Russians
(Helmbold 1995, 2.4–2.9, 5.1–5.3). Bolstering doubt on
the point is that almost no unwounded Russian soldiers
surrendered during the battle (HSCID 1912, 249; Mockler and Holman 1906, xiv). The fact that the defenders
chose to fight rather than capitulate suggests the attackers
may not have been compelled to fight harder than their
adversaries.20
Force employment theories differ from the foregoing
theories in that they cannot speak to the relative power of
20 The Japanese treated prisoners well during the RussoJapanese War, so the lack of Russian surrenders were
likely not a function of fears of barbaric treatment like
that meted out during World War II (Reiter 2007, 37).
Oyama’s and Kuropatkin’s troops. Strategic interaction
theories are largely silent because both belligerents employed conventional, attritional approaches (Stam 1996;
Arreguın-Toft 2006). Theories emphasizing reliance on
specific operational and tactical approaches are similarly
circumscribed. The modern system of force employment
is “a tightly interrelated complex of cover, concealment,
dispersion, suppression, small-unit maneuver, and combined arms at the tactical level, and depth, reserves, and
differential concentration at the operational level” (Biddle 2004, 3).21 Neither side approximated this manner of
fighting. Russian forces were crowded into their exposed
entrenchments and, when outside their shelters, did not
use the terrain for cover (Tulloch and Nicholson 1906,
187; Mockler and Holman 1906, 49; Soloviev 1906, 26–
28). They also failed to integrate their three lines of defense
and coordinate infantry, artillery, and cavalry actions
(Negrier 1906, 58; Kuropatkin 1909a, 274–79; HSCID
1912, 92; Menning 1992, 177). The Japanese relied on
mass frontal attacks that largely eschewed the benefits of
cover, concealment, dispersion, and small-unit maneuver
(Haldane 1906b, 256–64; Hamilton and Nicholson 1906,
310; HSCID 1912, 25–27). They also generally failed to
use combined arms, mass their forces to achieve differential
concentration, and retain significant reserves for use during
battle (Kuhn 1906, 15–19; HSCID 1912, 31–37, 192).
While existing theories struggle to explain Japan’s superior level of military power, a command structure approach helps make sense of the fight at Liaoyang. The
attackers employed a command and control system that
theory suggests will facilitate the generation of martial
strength, while the defenders adopted one that exacerbated the effects of battlefield uncertainty. The Japanese
command hierarchy, depicted in Figure 2, permitted
Oyama direct control over only three subordinate army
commanders. Those generals each commanded two or
three divisions, and smaller units were similarly triangular in form. Spans of control were thus formally minimized, and Japanese commanders’ tasks of tracking and
directing their subordinates were greatly simplified. Significantly, Japanese officers adhered to this arrangement
in practice, demurring to issue orders outside the official
chain of command and only rarely proceeding forward to
the frontline where they could be tempted interfere with
the activities of their subordinates (Haldane 1905, 407;
21 The modern system did not fully emerge until 1918. It is
plausible, however, that the belligerents could have
used their forces creatively, employed an incomplete
version of the approach, and increased their martial
strength.
RYAN GRAUER
29
Commander-in-Chief:
Marshal Marquis Oyama
Chief of Staff:
Lt. Gen. Baron Kodama
1st Army
Gen. Baron Kuroki
4th Army
Gen. Count Nozu
2nd Army
Gen. Baron Oku
12th Div.
5th Div.
6th Div.
2nd Div.
10th Div.
4th Div.
Guards Div.
3rd Div.
Figure 2. Japanese command hierarchy at Liaoyang
Judson 1905, 87b; HSGGS 1908, Appendix 2). The Japanese command structure was also reasonably decentralized. Oyama held a pre-battle conference with the army
commanders in which he outlined his expectations for the
fight. His subordinates were then tasked with ascertaining the best way to achieve their objectives. During the
battle, communication between Oyama’s headquarters
and command posts in the field was to be limited; information about progress and problems would be sent up
the chain of command each night while only reports on
events elsewhere that might affect commanders’ plans for
future operations would be sent back down (Judson
1905, 1–2, 87b; Haldane 1906a, 377–78; Connaughton
1988, 17). The Japanese emphasis on decentralization
throughout the chain of command was then strongly
enforced during the battle: three major generals were
court-martialed between August 30 and 31 for failing to
exercise initiative in their sectors (Jardine 1906, 254;
Connaughton 1988, 149).
The Russian command structure, by contrast, was
short, squat, and centralized. Kuropatkin, as depicted in
Figure 3, formally controlled eight major units while his
corps commanders each directed two divisions (HSGGS
1909, Appendix 1). In practice, however, the Russian
commander-in-chief’s span of control was much larger;
he frequently went “forward to where he might survey a
portion of the battle and there personally directed the
movements of small bodies of troops, deflecting them
from their march, and changing the plans of his subordinates without their knowledge” (Judson 1905, 87a).
Accordingly, while lower-level Russian commanders
were well positioned to understand their subordinates’
positions and requirements, Kuropatkin was not. In addition to overseeing a large number of subordinates, the
Russian commander also concentrated decision-making
authority in his own hands. He centralized control of
forces in two ways. First, during the battle, he dispatched
many long and meticulously spelled-out orders directing
everything from general movements to the positioning of
units as small as half-batteries of artillery (HSCID 1912,
Appendices 4–6; Burne 1936, 96). Second, he often reprimanded and even relieved subordinates who acted on
their own initiative (Mockler and Holman 1906, 5).
Given the belligerents’ command structures, the argument outlined in this essay expects the Japanese, employing a relatively taller, thinner, and more decentralized
system than the Russians, to be the more powerful military at Liaoyang. More specifically, it anticipates that the
30
Uncertain Victory: Information Management and Military Power
Commander of the Army:
General Kuropatkin
Chief of Staff:
Lt. Gen. Sakharov
1st Army
Corps*
Gen. A.d.C.
Meiendorf
17th Army
Corps
Gen. Bilderling
10th Army
Corps
Lt. Gen.
Sluchevski
5th Sib. Army
Corps
Lt. Gen.
Dembovski
4th Sib. Army
Corps
Maj. Gen.
Zarubaiev
2nd Sib. Army
Corps
Lt. Gen.
Zasulich
3rd Sib. Army
Corps
Lt. Gen. Ivanov
1st Sib. Army
Corps
Lt. Gen.
Stackelberg
35th Inf. Div.
31st Inf. Div.
71st Inf. Div.
3rd Sib. Inf. Div.
1st Sib. Inf. Div.
6th E. Sib. Rifle
Div.
9th E. Sib. Rifle
Div.
3rd Inf. Div.
9th Inf. Div.
54th Inf. Div.
2nd Sib. Inf. Div.
5th E. Sib. Rifle
Div.
3rd E. Sib. Rifle
Div.
1st E. Sib. Rifle
Div.
*Cavalry Corps
Figure 3. Russian command hierarchy at Liaoyang
attackers, by virtue of swiftly discerning and reacting to
emergent battlefield developments, would use their men
and material relatively more effectively than and defeat
the defenders. Examination of several key events during
the battle reveals the theory accurately forecasts developments on the ground. The first is Kuroki’s crossing the
Tai-tzu. Japan’s Field Marshal did not order the move.
Oyama did suggest on August 28 that Kuroki look for
opportunities to cross the river and threaten the Russian
rear if possible, but he permitted the 1st Army commander to determine both if the move was possible and,
if so, when it should be attempted. Then, when Kuroki
ordered the crossing on the mistaken assumption that the
Russians were pulling out of Liaoyang, Oyama, despite
having received reports from the southern portion of the
front detailing the defenders’ dogged fighting and apparent determination to hold the field, did not countermand
the move (HSCID 1912, 71–72, 94, 182–84). Oyama’s
faith that Japan’s decentralized, tall, and thin command
structure would enable Kuroki to react to emergent
battlefield circumstances in his sector much faster than he
himself could have directed fundamentally altered the
trajectory of the battle (Burne 1936, 119; HSGGS 1909,
219–20).
The Russians’ incapacity to manage uncertainty severely impeded their response to Kuroki’s move in two
ways. First, a series of breakdowns in Russia’s human
and technological information transmission systems combined with local commanders’ lack of authority to react
to unexpected enemy moves without orders permitted the
Japanese to cross and establish a bridgehead north of the
Tai-tzu unchallenged (HSCID 1912, 97–100; Connaughton 1988, 151). Second, when two of Kuroki’s divisions
crossed the river, the Guards Division (See Figure 1) remaining on the south bank stretched to cover the ground
formerly held by all of 1st Army. Elements of Russia’s
10th Corps detected resultant gaps in the Japanese line
and appealed to their superiors for permission to attack.
When their requests finally reached Kuropatkin, the Russian commander, having not yet learned of 1st Army’s
crossing, denied the appeal and ordered them to join the
general reserve in the rear (HSCID 1912, 104–5; HSGGS
1909, 212; Burne 1936, 104–5). Because the Russian
command structure gave Kuropatkin control over many
more units than he could efficiently track, and denied
lower-level officers the same operational latitude Oyama
permitted, Russia’s opportunity to break through Japanese lines, disrupt their rear, and encircle attacking forces
went unexploited.
The fight for Manju Yama was also strongly influenced by the belligerents’ command structures. After the
hill traded hands several times on September 1, Kuropatkin decided to personally direct Russian forces in the
field. The in-battle expansion of Kuropatkin’s span of
control beyond that which was afforded to him at the
outset of the engagement seems to have helped initially
because the Tsar’s forces had taken Manju Yama by the
evening of September 2 (HSCID 1912, 128, 132, 138–39;
Warner and Warner 1974, 370). However, Kuropatkin’s
tendency to expand his span of control, violate the chain
of command, and issue orders to a vast number of different units was emulated by his subordinates, with unfortunate results, during this portion of the battle. As a consequence of the resultant confusion about which of the
many officers giving instructions was actually in charge,
all defenders, responding to a series of contradictory
orders regarding repositioning, realignment, and replacement, withdrew from Manju Yama after nightfall. When
the Japanese attacked a few hours later, they found the
defensive works unoccupied and recaptured the position
without a fight (HSCID 1912, 144–49).
RYAN GRAUER
The Japanese capacity to cope with battlefield uncertainty and the Russian struggles to do the same had combined to create on September 3 a situation in which the
attackers were well positioned to defeat their adversaries.
The Russian command structure then decided the issue.
As described above, Kuropatkin had a choice about how
to proceed after the Japanese recaptured Manju Yama
and, because he believed the defenders on the southern
portion of the battlefield were running out of ammunition, decided to withdraw from Liaoyang. In fact, a fresh
trainload of food, ammunition, and supplies had arrived
in Liaoyang the previous evening. The Russian commander, busy tracking many other combat and logistics
units, events, and details, had not seen the report (HSCID
1912, 162–63).
Potential Challenges
The basic argument laid out in this essay is straightforward and simple: in many conventional land-based
battlefield contexts, belligerents who adopt command
structures permitting them to perceive and react to emergent combat developments more swiftly than their adversaries should have the capacity to use their soldiers and
materiel effectively and win. They should, in short, be
more militarily powerful. The case of Liaoyang supports
this argument. There are nevertheless a number of ways
in which critics might question the strength and utility of
the claim. Concerns tend to cluster into three groups:
over generalizability, over a potentially important omitted variable, and regarding the causal independence of
command structure. While each suggests more research
into the role and effect of command structures in the creation of military power is necessary, none is convincing
as a counterargument to the essential claim advanced
here.
Turning first to questions about whether the theory
and evidence presented can tell us much about the generation of military power generally, there are two types of
query. The first is that, even if command structure theory
tells us something about Russian and Japanese military
power at Liaoyang, how confident can we be that this
fight was not somehow exceptional? As noted at the outset of the Liaoyang case study, there are methodological
reasons to think the battle examined in this essay is not
only unexceptional, but also broadly representative of the
kinds of cases theories of military power intend to explain. It is only a single case, however, so there are limits
to how confident we can be that belligerents’ actualized
military power conforms to the expectations of command
structure theory in other conventional land-based battles.
Confidence of this sort demands further research. I have
31
begun the process of assessing command structure theory’s utility in other cases, showing elsewhere that such
an approach better accounts for belligerents’ actualized
martial strength than do existing theories in battles
fought during the Mongol conquests, the Chinese Civil
War, the Korean War, World War II, and the 2003 Iraq
War. Characteristics of the specific battles considered—
including substantial variation on relevant dependent and
independent variables, variation across belligerents in
terms of adopted command structures, and individual engagements’ status as relatively easy or difficult cases for
the competing hypotheses—suggest the theory is likely
useful (Grauer 2016). More work should be done, however, to ascertain the scope and breadth of command
structure theory’s generalizability.
The second question concerning generalizability is
what, if anything, can this argument tell us about the creation and application of military power in conflicts other
than conventional land-based wars? To permit testing of
existing hypotheses regarding the sources of military
power alongside the new argument, the command structure approach described in this essay was self-consciously
designed to apply to conventional land-based warfare.
Accordingly, as articulated, command structure theory
may not shed much light on the generation of military
power in irregular, air, and naval fights. However, the
theory laid out could, and should, serve as the basis for inquiry into the utility of a command structure approach to
understanding military power in other types of conflicts.
The likely utility of command structure theory in alternate forms of warfare, including irregular, air, and naval
wars, stems from the fact that each type of conflict involves groups of individuals working collectively to use
organized violence in the pursuit of political ends. As
such, an approach emphasizing drivers of organizational
performance should provide insight into the capabilities
and achievements of all forces. The specific features of
command structure theories of military power in irregular, air, and naval wars might appear somewhat different
from those outlined in this essay. For example, while
there is good reason to believe modern commanders in air
and naval warfighting are subject to the same difficulties
of managing subordinates as their land-based colleagues,
and the pressures for and effects of shrinking commanders’ spans of control are likely to be similar to those
described above, such combat demands high baseline levels of decentralization. The nature of the platforms and
systems employed does not permit centralized control
over the actions of individual pilots and captains (see, for
example, Hone, Mandeles, and Terry 1996; Hughes
2000).What it means to be centralized and decentralized
in such wars is thus likely to look different than in land-
32
Uncertain Victory: Information Management and Military Power
based wars. Similarly, while counterinsurgent, guerrilla,
and other irregular commanders are likely to struggle to
oversee the operations of large numbers of subordinates
employing a wide range of technologies, and thus would
also likely profit from shrinking subordinate-to-officer
ratios as forces and conflicts grow in size and complexity,
prevailing notions of the proper form of warfighting by
both state and non-state forces insist on decentralized
execution (see, for example, Kilcullen 2009; Moyar
2009). Again, the definition and appearance of decentralization in such conflicts is likely to be different than in
conventional land-based battles, but a command structure approach should offer considerable insight.
The second major critique that could be leveraged
against command structure theory highlights the potential importance of an omitted variable: communications
technologies. Specifically, some might suggest that, with
effective communications technologies, even commanders overseeing short, squat, and centralized command structures will be able to effectively direct their
forces on the battlefield. Considering first the critique as
it relates to the case examined in this essay, there is little
reason to think Russian and Japanese communications
capabilities account for the belligerents’ relative strength
at Liaoyang. Both sides employed rather primitive communications networks, relying on wired telegraph capabilities and messengers. Russian problems with their
communications networks are discussed above, but Japanese forces also confronted technological shortcomings;
Kuroki’s telegraphic connection to Oyama was severed
during 1st Army’s crossing of the Tai-tzu and remained
out of commission for nearly 24 hours (HSCID 1912,
132–36, 207). These kinds of incidents occurred throughout the battle, and it is difficult to argue that either side’s
communications network was decisive in conditioning its
information management capacity, and therefore combat
power, at Liaoyang.
Considering the potential power of such technologies
in the current era, however, some might argue that nearinstantaneous information transfers could permit effective
use of wider spans of control and increased centralization, thereby undermining the premise and strength of
the command structure argument advanced here. While
more research is needed, there are at least two very
strong reasons to doubt the validity of such claims. First,
friction and chance are omnipresent in war and, as such,
are likely to impact and impede the operation of even
very sophisticated communications technologies during
combat. The United States learned this, to its chagrin,
during the 2003 Iraq War, when battery shortages, heat
and dust, bandwidth limitations, and radio incompatibility slowed or blocked communications, retarded oper-
ational progress, and, in at least one case, caused a
deadly friendly fire incident (Pritchard 2005, 122–27,
148–67). Second, even if sophisticated communications
technologies work perfectly, their operation does not
change the fact that command and control is ultimately a
human activity. Perception and reaction to emergent
challenges and opportunities is reliant on commanders
discerning the appropriate signal among a vast quantity
of noise on the battlefield. Human capabilities to perform these functions have not increased at the same rate
communications technologies have improved (Rosen
2004). Indeed, there is some evidence that the impressive
data transmission capabilities such tools afford can make
human decision making, and commanders’ capacities to
respond effectively to emergent challenges, worse (Landauer 1995; Gleick 2011, 373–97). Combined, these factors suggest that systems of organization are more important in facilitating information management than are
communications technologies, and even those forces
endowed with quite sophisticated data transmission and
processing networks should adopt tall, thin, and decentralized command and control systems. Further work on
these issues, however, could help establish more clearly
the connection and interaction between organizational
structures and communications technologies in the management of information and generation of combat
power.
The final kind of challenge that could be leveraged
against a command structure argument is that it identifies
factors that do not have an independent causal effect on
the generation of military power. Specifically, command
structures might be a causal mechanism through which
other variables influence the creation of martial strength
(Brooks and Stanley 2007). For example, as noted, some
scholars suggest unit-level factors may condition the extent to which militaries can cope with uncertainty; in particular, paternalistic Arab cultures are expected to
discourage, and democratic governance is expected to encourage, adoption of effective information management
systems (Pollack 2002, 5–7, 557–63; Reiter and Stam
2002, 64–65). Others have suggested poor civil-military
relations might compel civilian elites to engage in coupproofing and systematically concentrate decision-making
authority at high levels while tangling chains of command
(Biddle and Zirkle 1996; Beckley 2010; Pilster and Böhmelt 2011; Talmadge 2015). Alternatively, it is possible
that, in militaries with high levels of human capital, commanders may be systematically more likely to trust their
subordinates’ discretion and tend to adopt decentralized
systems.
There are theoretical and empirical reasons to be suspicious of these kinds of claims. The theoretical reason is
RYAN GRAUER
that, even if such claims are correct, there is no logical
reason to believe such factors are the only drivers of belligerents’ choices of information management arrangements. Many factors likely influence militaries’ decisions
regarding the organization of their command structures;
unit-level variables like culture, regime type, civilmilitary relations, and relative levels of human capital
may only be a few. This expectation is confirmed in the
Liaoyang case. The belligerents were clearly not Arab or
democratic, and did not suffer from poor civil military relations. Yet, Russia adopted a poor command structure
and Japan employed an appropriate system.22
The empirical reasons to be suspicious of such claims
are twofold. The first is that factors like democratic regime type and high levels of human capital appear to be
neither necessary nor sufficient for the adoption of theoretically appropriate command structures. The Communists, for example, employed a tall and thin, decentralized
command structure during the Chinese Civil War despite
governing in a highly autocratic manner, and fielding a
force comprised largely of illiterate peasants (Grauer
2016, 99–133). The United States employed a quite centralized and undifferentiated command structure early in
the Korean War. Finally, both the United States and Israel
have recently centralized decision-making authority to a
significant degree during combat actions in Iraq and
Lebanon, even though both are democracies and their officers and soldiers are very highly educated (Muth 2011;
Shamir 2011). The second empirical reason to be suspicious is that belligerents often change their command
structures as wars play out. During the Korean War, for
example, the United States shifted from reliance on a
quite poor command structure in the Third Phase Offensive to one that was much more theoretically appropriate
a few months later during the Fifth Phase Offensive. Similarly, both the Soviet Red Army and German Wehrmacht
altered their command structures during fighting on the
Eastern Front in World War II, making them more and
less theoretically appropriate over time (Grauer 2016).
After the battle at Liaoyang, Russia changed its command
structure to a certain extent, increasing differentiation
22 Japanese soldiers and officers were generally better
educated than their Russian counterparts, but it is unclear whether the kind of human-capital argument
described posits that certain thresholds of educational
attainment must be met to facilitate decentralization, or
whether tendencies to decentralize track relative levels
of education on a continuum. More research on the
question is needed to facilitate a clearer assessment of
Japan’s advantage in this regard.
33
and, to a small degree, permitting some subordinate commanders greater latitude in battlefield decision making
(HSCID 1912, 246–48). That essential unit-level characteristics like culture, quality of civil-military relations, regime type, and national educational standards did not
shift in any serious way during the same time suggests
there are unlikely to be consistent causal relationships between such factors and the adoption of specific types of
command structure. Further work on the question of
command structure’s causal independence is warranted,
but, at present, there is little reason to believe there are
consistent, universal drivers of belligerents’ choices of information management systems. Accordingly, there is
good reason to believe that command structure is an independent cause of variation in belligerents’ military power.
Conclusion
Combat’s uncertain nature complicates assessments of
belligerents’ military power. Theoretically, by systematically scrutinizing and accounting for militaries’ capabilities to manage information—and potentially reduce
uncertainty—in battle, we should improve our understanding of belligerents’ relative power in combat. Evidence from Liaoyang suggests doing so can be as useful in
practice as theory expects.
This finding, while necessarily more suggestive than
conclusive given the space constraints of this venue, is significant in the study of military power. It establishes that
there are very likely powerful connections between the
way militaries organize themselves to facilitate cooperative action in combat and the strength they generate on
the battlefield. This insight raises important questions
about the tendency of both scholars and policymakers to
think about militaries as largely rational black boxes
through which inputs—material or non-material—are
smoothly converted into an output referred to as military
power. There are also a number of implications for each
group of analysts.
For scholars, this command structure framework has
at least three important implications. The first concerns
further exploration of the role command structures play
in the creation and use of military power in the international system. The argument advanced here offers no
claim regarding the likely frequency with which armed
forces adopt theoretically appropriate command structures or whether belligerents have grown more or less
likely to adopt such ideal systems over time. Research
into such matters could provide new insight into the validity of arguments about the socializing effects of the
international system—that states will, over time, adopt
manners of behavior that prove effective (Waltz 1979;
34
Uncertain Victory: Information Management and Military Power
Resende-Santos 2007). Such work could also shed light
on the myriad factors that, while not causing, may influence selection of different kinds of command structures.
The second major implication is for those who study
the sources of military power. While the main argument
laid out in this essay is that, ceteris paribus, command
structure can, and often does, serve as an independent,
consequential driver of military power, complex phenomena like martial strength are frequently the product of
more than one factor. As noted, existing arguments about
the utility of specific strategies like blitzkrieg and forms
of operational-and tactical-level modes of force employment like the modern system presuppose an effective
command and control system. The integration of command structure theory insights with those offered by
other theories of military effectiveness and military power
is thus likely to offer a more complete, nuanced view of
belligerents’ martial strength than any approach can
achieve on its own. To that end, scholars should investigate more thoroughly the connections between different
factors thought to influence the generation of combat
strength with the intent of weaving together the disparate
threads of argumentation present in the existing literature
and creating a new, more comprehensive framework for
understanding military power.
The final set of scholarly implications stemming from
the command structure argument is for those who study
international relations more generally. Scholars who use
military power as an independent variable in their theories of broader political phenomena may need to revisit
their findings. Most existing theories of international relations use stockpiles of human and material resources or
metrics like energy consumption or iron and steel production to proxy for military power. If, as command structure theory suggests, such indicators are often flawed
because they do not take into account belligerents’ abilities to manage uncertainty during combat, then theories
purporting to explain phenomena like balancing, the
causes of war, deterrence, alliance politics, and foreign
policy decision-making may misstate the actual influence
of military power. Scholars of phenomena and processes
not related to the creation and use of military power may
also be able to better understand their objects of inquiry
through the application of a command structure approach.
International
organizations
and
nongovernmental organizations vary considerably in their
performance, sometimes achieving their objectives but
often failing to do so. It may be that examining the way in
which such actors are structured to manage and exploit
information flows could help explain why some are more
effective than others or why individual organizations
vary in their performance over time.
For policymakers, this argument implies that more attention and funding should be allocated to understanding
friendly and enemy capabilities to manage uncertainty in
combat. Specifically, education for mid- and senior-level
officers who will be in command of forces in future wars
should be bolstered to increase their capacity to manage
subordinates effectively in a decentralized system. As evidenced in the 2003 Iraq War, US officers, despite operating under doctrinal principles calling for decentralization
and the devolution of decision-making authority, still
tend to constrain and micromanage their subordinates
during combat operations (Aylwin-Foster 2005; Muth
2011; Shamir 2011). Recent budgetary decisions suggest
this is unlikely to change in the near future. The Fiscal
Year (FY) 2016 Department of Defense budget request
restores some cuts made to senior-level professional military education institutions in FY 2015, but educational
programs remain perennially favorite targets for reductions (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense [Comptroller)] 2015, 135–39). Ensuring existing levels of funding for further education are not cut—and, ideally, are
supplemented—should help improve combat performance and the creation of American military power. The
new theory also suggests war planners should closely
examine doctrinal publications produced and recent uses
of force by potential adversaries to discern their likely information management systems. Doing so will not only
provide clues regarding the likely strength of those forces,
but also shed light on the potential effectiveness of various strategies. For example, a military—or perhaps a terrorist group—affording its top commanders wide spans
of control and expansive decision-making authority is
particularly vulnerable to effective decapitation-style
strikes while one employing a tall, thin, and decentralized
system is unlikely to be paralyzed by even the most effective such attack.
The notion that warfighting is an inherently uncertain
endeavor is not novel. To date, however, the idea has not
been systematically incorporated into theories of military
power. The theory and evidence presented in this essay
suggest that doing so and considering variation in belligerents’ abilities to cope with it is likely to be quite useful,
and should in fact help scholars and policymakers become more certain about the drivers of both military and
political outcomes in the international arena.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks, among several others, Rosella
Cappella Zielinski, Jonathan Caverley, Luke Condra,
Barbara Elias, Allison Evans, Charles Gochman, Avery
Goldstein, Lauren Henry, Michael Horowitz, Michael
RYAN GRAUER
Kenney, Edward Mansfield, John Mearsheimer, Kaija
Schilde, Taylor Seybolt, Rudra Sil, Allan Stam, Matthew
Tubin, Phil Williams, and Keren Yarhi-Milo, as well as the
editors of this journal and two anonymous reviewers for
their constructive and helpful comments on earlier versions
of this argument. The author also thanks Maria Liliana
Devia and Alexander Halman for their research assistance.
Finally, the author thanks Cambridge University Press for
permission to draw on material from his work previously
published in Commanding Military Power (2016).
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