Warden's Five Rings represent a theory of military strategic attack, based on five levels of system attributes. They are named in honor of Col. John A. Warden III, a former

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

officer and theorist of air power. The Five Rings include: *

Leadership Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. "Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the co ...

* Organic/System Essentials/Key Production *

Infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and pri ...

Population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

* Fielded Military Forces Each level of system or "ring" was considered one of the enemy's centers of gravity. The idea behind Warden's five rings was to attack each of the rings to paralyze their forces, an objective also known as ''physical paralysis''. To optimize a strike attack the attacker would engage as many rings as possible with special emphasis on taking out the center ring, which is the enemy's leadership. This would result in total physical

paralysis Paralysis (: paralyses; also known as plegia) is a loss of Motor skill, motor function in one or more Skeletal muscle, muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory d ...

. Warden's theories on the application of air power in modern war have been criticized as little more than a reiteration of earlier strategic bombing concepts discredited by historical analysis of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

, similar to the effect on the writings of

Giulio Douhet Giulio Douhet (30 May 1869 – 15 February 1930) was an Italian general and air power theorist. He was a key proponent of strategic bombing in aerial warfare. He was a contemporary of the air warfare advocates Walther Wever, Billy Mitchell, ...

. Warden differs from Douhet in assigning leadership the highest priority, where Douhet espoused attacking the morale of populations. This made Warden's theory more applicable for attacking developing and weaker regimes, while Douhet's theories were based on stronger nations engaged in large conventional wars as was the concern in interwar Europe. Dismissal of the theories has led some to mistakenly conclude that the theories have no application, thereby missing the application of air power as a modern means of accomplishing the Strategic Indirect of Sir B. H. Liddell Hart.

References

External links

Air Theory for the Twenty-First Century, by Col. John Warden, USAF

Strategic bombing Aerial warfare strategy Military theory {{US-mil-stub

See also

References

External links