Gap between perception and reality in higher leadership Good framework to understand US failure in Syria

1. Gap between perception and reality in higher leadership
Major Agha H Amin (retired)
About the Author
About the Author Agha H. Amin , Retired Tank corps major who served in five tank regiments
and commanded an independent tank squadron and served in various staff , instructional and
research assignments. In his Pakistan Army tenure he wrote three original tactical papers on
Reconnaissance Troops Tactical handling, Reconnaissance support group , and RFS Concept.
His writings were published in Pakistan Armys prime journals , Pakistan Army Journal and
Citadel Journal of Command and Staff College Quetta. His recommendations regarding
bifurcation of officer corps into command and staff cadre advanced in 1998 were later
accepted. In addition his recommendation of grouping various corps into army commands
advanced in an article published in Citadel Journal in 1998 were accepted in 2005 or so. Wrote
The Essential Clausewitz in 1993, Sepoy Rebellion of 1857-59 in 1998 , Pakistan Army till
1965 in 1999 ,Development of Taliban Factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan (2010) ,Taliban
War in Afghanistan (2009). Served as Assistant Editor of Defence Journal ,Executive Editor of
globe and Founder Editor of Journal of Afghanistan Studies . An associate of the think tanks
ORBAT and Alexandrian Defense group. Carried out various oil and gas and power
transmission line surveys in West Asia. Editor in Chief of monthly Intelligence Review and
monthly Military and Security Review. Heads the think tank Centre for study of Intelligence
Operations established in early 2010.

2. If there were no gap between “Theory” and “Practice” or
between “Perception” and reality life would have been a bed
of roses! Soldiers would not have read Clausewitz, Economists
would not have read Keynes, Revolutionaries would not have
read Marx Plekhanov or Mao! There would have been no
great men since no one would have required any direction!
Organisations would have been run on one-man one vote since
no one would have been required to make decisions or
assessments!
Alas this was not so! This is what made a great philosopher
say, “All thinking is indeed Art. Where the logician draws,
where the premises stop which are the result of cognition —
where judgement begins, there Art begins”! Politics and
warfare are two spheres where intangibles override the
tangible! In short Politics and Warfare require superior
intellects in order to operate successfully since both cannot be
mastered by mathematical formulae or theorems!
Decision making in war, politics or business is no mean task as
it is mistakenly assumed to be. Clausewitz was not wrong
when he said “Bonaparte was right when he said that many of
the questions which come before a General for a decision
would make problems for a mathematical calculation not
unworthy of the powers of Newton or Euler.
In this brief article we will discuss the “Perception and Reality
Gap” and those who bridged it! As a matter of fact the real
test of greatness of a man lies in bridging the perception and
reality gap! Every individual does so in life, however the great
men who have made history bridge larger gaps while the vast
multitude live their life by bridging relative much smaller
gaps!

3. “Some Examples of “Misperception” and of “How perceptions
changed”
It is hard to believe that of all people a man called Gandhi
urged resident Indians to “think imperially and was
instrumental in organizing a field ambulance training corps in
London”!1 It is another thing that Gandhi soon had second
thoughts and resigned from the ambulance training corps.
Von Bernhardi a great German thinker, at least so it was
thought before the First World War as early as 1911 wrote
“Germany and the Pan Islamists and the revolutionaries of
Bengal would shake the entire British position”!2 The Pan
Islamists and the Bengalis gave the British a lot of problem in
WW One but the British position was saved by a feigned
composure of nonchalance and by divide and rule despite the
fact that one point in time there were only 15,000 British
troops in India!
Mr Jinnah dismissed the “Pakistan Scheme” as a mad
student’s scheme but later he fought for the Pakistan idea and
became the first Governor General of Pakistan. In 1937 Mr
Jinnah stated that the Punjab was a hopeless place and that he
would never visit it again!3 Mr Jinnah visited Punjab many
times after this statement and the famous Pakistan Resolution
was moved in Punjab in 1940.
A general dismissed the draft plan of another officer stating
“The originator belonged to an insane asylum”!4 The
originator in this case was one who was later known as one of
the greatest military commanders of history i.e. Napoleon
Bonaparte!

4. Guderian in 1940 initially described the Manstein Plan of
taking the main German Panzer Thrust through the Ardennes
as a crime against his tanks! Later Guderian changed his
views. However, this incident has not been mentioned in
Guderian’s autobiography “Panzer Leader”!5
British naval warlords in WW One thought that their ships
could destroy fixed coastal guns with dimensions of few feet
whereas these ships were designed to fight enemy naval ships
at sea whose average width was about 500 feet long! These
gunnery misperceptions cost the British very dearly at
Dardanelles!6 The reason for this imperial blunder was not
difficult to be located! The British Navy was under a man
“whose military experience extended to the responsibilities of
a lieutenant in 4th Hussars” i.e. Winston Churchill!7
A general sitting in the Rawalpindi in the second half of sixties
orders an engineer battalion to be sent to Khunjerab Pass via
China by air and assumes that this battalion would make a
road southwards from Khunjerab while the other people were
making a road northwards in Gilgit-Chilas area. The
assumption being that if there are birds in Khunjerab an
engineer battalion can survive there too. The layman reader
may note that the altitude of Khunjerab Top is 15,000 feet and
snowfalls in June-July are not uncommon. The whole project
failed with fatal casualties, some of the graves of those
indomitable men can be seen near the Khunjerab Top even
today. The unit marched back under the indomitable Colonel
Qidwai to Passu where they made a makeshift airstrip and
were later airlifted by a C-130 and evacuated!
Gul Hassan Khan advances a line of thinking that armour was
mishandled in 1965 war because non-armour officers were
placed in higher armour command. This line does not explain

5. why Lee Meade and Macarthur who were from Engineers
commanded infantry very well. Similarly one of the finest
German tank commanders Rommel was from infantry.
A military Commander orders that all units must dig four feet
wide and four feet deep “Anti-Wild Boar Trenches” around
each troop shelter without realising that the wild boar can
easily jump across even five feet wide trenches. The result
being some injured men because they fell at night in their own
anti-wild boar trenches. Incidentally no one was attacked by
any wild boar in the sister brigade of the formation who did
not dig any wild boar trenches but were located in an area
which had a far large number of wild boars than the
formation which had dug anti-wild boar trenches!
A German army chief in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century insisted that young commandeered
lieutenants participating in the annual General Staff Exercise
known as “Kriegesspiele”. This action aroused “intense
dissatisfaction of many high dignitaries”! Count Von
Schlieffen dismissed this criticism by stating “As long as they
are lieutenants certainly ...fortunately, however, they have the
ambition later on to command an army, or if the aims are
more moderate, at least an army corps, or to assist a corps
commander as his chief of staff”. Thus Schlieffen insisted on
“the necessity of acquainting the future leaders as early as
possible with the future problems of war.8 Schlieffen’s
wisdom was realized much later when many of these
lieutenants led the German Army in WW Two.
A concept is advanced after the 1971 War which states that
tanks can charge through minefields without much problem
simply because one brigadier who Quixotically thought so was
related to a four star general!

6. Till today there is debate in the Pakistan Army why many
officers who won MC in WW Two failed later as senior staff
officers or as corps commanders. Clausewitz asked this
question before 1832 when he said “Almost all the generals
who are represented in history as merely having to attained in
mediocrity, and as wanting in decision when in supreme
command, are men celebrated in their antecedent career for
their boldness and decision”9* or “There are Field Marshals
who would not have shone at the head of a cavalry regiment
and vice versa”.10
Reasons for the “Perception and Reality Gap”
Why this gap? It is so because war and politics are exercises in
the field of unknown made further complicated by presence of
a large number of other factors. The number of participants
in both activities is very large! Thus the difficulty in bridging
the gap! Thus the resultant difficulty in forming correct
assessments, arriving at correct assessments etc! Some of the
reasons which Clausewitz gave may be summarized as
following:-
a. There is no theory which can guide the decision maker
War, politics or business in its higher levels is not regulated
by any fixed theory unlike tactics or lower level business
management! Thus Clausewitz’s saying “The conduct of war
has no definite limits in any direction”.11*
b. Distance between point of action and the participant
A participant at a junior level whether a common soldier,
subaltern or company commander is close to the point of
action. The time frame in which he has to take action is
limited. Thus it is easier to win an MC or be dismissed for

7. cowardice than to win a war or to be exposed as an
incompetent C in C!
c. Speed of development of situation
In strategy things move at a far more slower pace than tactics.
The decision maker whether he is an army C in C or a corps
commander does not have to perform a mechanical reaction
like firing or advancing or withdrawing or offering a sale
package. He has to plan days months and sometimes years in
advance. Thus the profound truth in Clausewitz’s saying
“Much more strength of will is required to make an important
decision in strategy than in tactics. In the latter we are hurried
on with the moment; a commander feels himself borne along
in a strong current against which he does not contend without
the most destructive consequences, he suppresses the rising
fears and boldly ventures farther. In Strategy where all goes
on at a slower rate, there is more room allowed for our own
apprehensions and those of others, for objections and
remonstrances, consequently also for unseasonable regrets;
and as we do not see things in strategy as we do at least half of
them in tactics, with the living eye, but everything must be
conjectured and assumed, the convictions thus produced are
less powerful. The consequence is that most generals when
they should act, remain stuck fast in bewildering doubts”.
d. Degree of stress involved
The degree of stress involved in war business and politics is
much higher with war being at the top and business being the
second.
e. The intangible concept of “Friction”

8. The discovery as well as coining of the term “Friction” was
one of the greatest contributions of Clausewitz to military and
political thought. “Friction” as per Clausewitz was an invisible
but ever present factor that reduces speed of activity in war.
Friction being the sum of confusion, fear, indecision,
incompetence faulty execution or misunderstanding of orders,
bad weather, loss of commanders in fighting etc. Friction thus
makes even simple movements like walking, walking in water.
This “friction” leads to events “which it was impossible to
calculate”.
f. Imperfection of Human Perception
Human perception is not perfect. A decision maker has to
make assessments without seeing things. A decision maker is
neither a magician nor a prophet. Thus perceptions can be
wrong.
g. Moral Qualities cannot be measured
Moral qualities cannot be measured. No military commander
can predict whether the enemy in front will resist or bolt
away, Bravery, Boldness, Cowardice, Presence of Mind, etc
can neither be measured nor forecasted. The army has some
systems but these are crude. All who pass out of the military
academy successfully box well, pass the physical tests and
written examinations. The ISSB assesses a candidate in three
or five days while an instructor of cadets assesses cadets in two
years. Even then the human character is so complicated that
many who reach higher positions do it by dodging the system
while in reality they never deserved what they got. Hence the
Mc Clellans, Hookers, Naseers and Niazis.

9. h. Presence of Intelligent Forces which oppose the decision
maker
The opposing forces are equally or unevenly intelligent. There
are Fords opposed by GM and other tycoons. There is the
Security Agency “Alpha” opposed by Security Agency
“Bravo”. A Napoleon opposed by a Blucher. A Jinnah
opposed by a Mountbatten or Nehru!
i.. Incompetence of own decision makers at various levels of
command
Faulty execution at lower levels of command in all three
spheres i.e. war, politics and business can lead to failure or
faulty assessments.
j. Want of Resolution
An important factor whose absence or presence can lead to
failure or success. What would have happened if the Pakistani
1 Corps was led by a man of Eftikhar’s calibre or if the 23
Division in Chamb was led by a man like General Irshad or
the Eastern Command by someone other than A.A.K Niazi. In
Battle of Gazala in 1942 at one point General Westphal writes
in his book “The German Army in the West” all of Rommel’s
major staff officers and subsidiary commanders thought of
surrender. This was the “Cauldron Battle”. Westphal writes
that Rommel dismissed all these suggestions with scorn. In the
end Gazala was a German victory! Replace Rommel by
individual “X” and Gazala rather than Alalamein may have
been the most decisive battle of the North African War in WW
Two.
How to bridge the “Perception and Reality Gap”

10. What is the solution to the dilemma! The following may to
some extent compensate:-
The Relative Importance of Theory vis-a-vis Individual talent
of a commander
a. Theory to a relative factor has a limited value. Theory must
educate the leader but it must not provide cut and dried
solutions. We can conveniently fall back to Clausewitz who
gave an answer “given the nature of the subject, we must
remind ourselves that it is simply not possible to construct a
model for the art of war that can serve as a scaffolding on
which the commander can rely for support at any time.
Wherever he has to fall back on his innate talent, he will find
himself outside the model and in conflict with it; no matter
how versatile the code, the situation will always lead to the
consequences we have already alluded to: talent and genius
operate outside the rules, and theory conflicts with
practice”.12 Thus Clausewitz recognises theorie’s importance
but tells us that in the final outcome the real decision requires
talent and theory in itself affords no answer. The best solution
is to “identify talent” and to groom it. Clausewitz thus stated
“to indicate the point at which all lines converge, but never to
construct an algebraic formula for use on the battlefield”.
Clausewitz gave us a precise solution to this highly complex
problem when he said “Even these principles and rules are
intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference
for the movements he has been trained to carry out” and not
“to serve as a guide which at the moment of action lays down
precisely the path he must take”.13 The greatness of the
German General Staff as I wrote in an article in 1994 was not
that it produced a Manstein but that it discovered a Manstein
and groomed him. In the final analysis organizations have to

11. surrender to the judgement of one man. This can lead to both
success or failure. The risk has to be taken.
b. The German General Halder well summed it up when he
said “War is full of imponderables and surprises. Only a
commander who can depend on his own ingenuity and that of
his men will be able to make the improvisations dictated by
the moment and master situations not described in the
manuals”. Halder went further adding “True, in order to do
this, he will have to know exactly what it is he wants to do....”.
Thus Halder concluded “The attempt to find a recipe for
every single situation with which the lower echelons may be
confronted, occasionally results in a cut-and-dried recipee”
far more detailed than is needed”.14 As a matter of fact this is
the difference between the British Way of Warfare which both
Indian, Pakistani and to a great extent the Bangladesh Army
inherited and the German way of warfare. Thus the military
failures in 1965, 1971 and later!
c. Creation of systems which assess the decision making
capabilities of individuals at higher levels. In third World
Countries this is severely limited by powerful interest groups,
parochialism and nepotism. Then there is a kinship of higher
ranks and they feel that anybody who has reached a
particular rank does not require any further testing! In my
thirteen years service I highlighted this anomaly in many
articles published in the Citadel and Pakistan Army Journal. I
don’t think that anyone in the army use to read both of these
publications!
CONCLUSION
Its best to quote Clausewitz once again:-

12. “Searching rather than inventive minds, comprehensive
rather than such as have a special bent, cool rather than fiery
heads are those to which in time of War we should prefer to
trust the welfare of our women and children, the honour and
safety of our fatherland”.15 “Men who are difficult to move
but on that account susceptible of very deep feeling”. Men the
effect of whose feelings is “like the movement of a great body,
slower but more irresistible”.16
End Notes
1Pages 127 & 128 -India and the World War One- Edited by
S.D Pradhan -Article titled Congress Leadership in Transition
by Stanley Wolpert -Columbia University-1978.
2Page-266- Fidelity and Honour-Lieut Gen S.L Menezes-
Viking -New Delhi-1991. Taken from Bernhardi’s book
Germany and the next War.
3Page-311 -Mian Fazal I Hussain-A Political Biography- Azim
Hussain-London 1966.
4Quoted by Great Captains-Napoleon- Theodore Ayrault
Dodge-In Four Volumes-Printed by Mifflin Company-1904-7.
The remark was made by General Kellerman.
6Page-150-The Great War at Sea-1914-1918-Richard Hough-
Oxford University Press-1986.
7Page-85-Ibid.
8Page-271 & 272-The German Army- Herbert Rosinki-
(edited with an introduction by Gordon (Craig)- Pall Mall
Press-London-1966.
9Page-260-On War-Carl Von Clausewitz-Edited By Anatol
Rapoport. Pelican Books 1976. Reprinted by National Book
Foundation on orders of Mr Bhutto and distributed in the
army in 1976.
10 Page-198-Ibid.

13. 11Page-182-Ibid.
12Page-140-On War-Carl Von Clausewitz-Edited and
Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret-Princeton
University Press-Princeton-New Jersey-1976. Reprinted by
NBF under express instructions of Mr Bhutto in 1976 and
distributed in the Armed Forces.
13Page-141-Ibid.
14Pages 8 & 9-Military Effectiveness-Volume Three-Allen and
Unwin-USA-1988.
15Page-158 -On War edited by Rapoport.
16Page-149.Ibid.