 Winning In FastTime®:
A Game Changing Approach to Execution
by John A. Warden III and Leland A. Russell
What does it take to win in a world where change is not only rapid but accelerating, where ancient “truths” collapse with disconcerting regularity, where fortunes are made and lost in hours and months rather than in decades?
The basic formula for winning in the 21st century is simple: think strategically, focus sharply and move quickly. We've labeled this Winning In FastTime®.
This was the success formula for the first hyper-war — the Desert Storm air campaign. Because it achieved such a rapid, decisive victory that harnessed revolutionary concepts about strategy, it contains valuable lessons for leadership in the fast-changing world of the 21st century.
A Leadership Challenge
When Iraqi forces poured over the border and overran neighboring Kuwait in 1990, General Norman Schwarzkopf faced the same kind of challenge that corporate managers and leaders frequently find themselves facing these days: a drastic, unexpected change has occurred and a new plan of action is needed now.
Normally military plans require months, even years, to develop. Yet the Instant Thunder plan was developed from scratch in just 48 hours, and would be the decisive factor in winning the Gulf War.
How had it been possible to create a winning plan in only two days ... and what benefits does that process hold for business?
In retrospect, it's easy to forget that this victory (and the speed of it) was not expected. There were serious concerns, not only about the potential for political fallout around the world, but also about whether it was possible to defeat Iraq militarily, given the disappointments in Korea and Vietnam.
There was good reason for such concerns. In July of 1990, Saddam Hussein was one of the most powerful men in the world. Washington and Moscow courted him, Riyadh feared him, and the price of oil responded instantly to his veiled threats and feints. What’s more, he had the fourth biggest conventional (non-nuclear) military machine in the world, with a capability that eclipsed that of yesterday’s Great Powers like Britain, Germany, and France. Not only was the raw military power there, but also the experience of using it brutally and effectively—and the willingness to do so again.
On the morning of August 2, 1990, residents of Kuwait City looked out of their windows and were horrified when they saw something they knew could never be—Iraqi tanks in their streets, appearing out of nowhere, without warning. Saddam Hussein had executed a brilliant and logistically challenging coup de main. He now owned Kuwait. The price of oil in the world market began a rapid upward spiral. It would double within 60 days.
At the time of the invasion, Colonel John Warden was on a cruise with his family, taking a long-delayed vacation from his duties as the officer responsible for developing United States Air Force strategy, doctrine, and long range plans.
On shipboard television, John saw Iraqi tanks rolling through Kuwait. For years he had been thinking about how to deal with such a crisis, and now found himself trapped on a cruise liner south of Cuba. John recalls the experience:
There was no way to get off the ship, so I was stuck there for a day and a half while it slowly made its way back to Miami. But during those 36 hours, I realized that the existing war plans assumed we were playing defense. Worse, at least within the planning staffs, I knew there was no real grasp of offensive strategy.
The problem was perspective. All prior planning, literally thousands of hours, had been focused on the defense of Saudi Arabia against a large aggressor force. But the Kuwait situation didn’t fit these plans at all because it was not a defensive problem. It was an offensive problem. The Iraqis owned Kuwait and they were already in position to keep it forever.
With no way to escape what had now become a prison for him, John could only wait during the agonizingly slow return to the port of Miami ... wait, and think about what could be done to reverse the Iraqi attack.
He suspected (rightly, as it turned out) that all the major military and civilian staffs in Washington and in military headquarters around the world would be unlikely to propose an offensive strategy.
On Sunday morning, finally back in Washington, John confirmed his fears about the advice being proffered to the President and the National Security Council. So the following morning he assembled a small team to begin thinking about constructing and "selling" an offensive, game-changing plan.
Fortunately, General Norman Schwarzkopf, the brilliant commander of Central Command—the organization that had responsibility for the Middle East and Persian Gulf areas—did not need to be sold. He had already come to the same conclusion: offensive action was necessary, and would need to start quickly.
Schwarzkopf was not only a brilliant military commander and leader he was also a man who cared little for traditional approaches. Exasperated by the recommendations pouring in from Washington and from his own people, he took the unusual step of calling the Air Force Chief of Staff to see if he had any better ideas.
From the Vice Chief, General “Mike” Loh, General Schwarzkopf learned there was a group looking at exactly that idea. Schwarzkopf was delighted to hear this, but more than mildly skeptical at Loh’s promise that this team would be able to give him a comprehensive plan on Friday morning, less than 48 hours away.
When the conversation with Schwarzkopf ended, Loh immediately called John Warden.
Planning To Win in FastTime®
Just two hours after meeting with General Loh and receiving Schwarzkopf's request, John assembled in the basement of the Pentagon a large group drawn from across the staff and began a FastTime® planning process. He fashioned for the group a high-level goal: to develop an executable plan focused on creating a better post-war situation for the United States and her friends in the Middle East.
At the heart of the plan would be an all-out offensive air campaign against Iraq. The plan was code-named “Instant Thunder,” a deliberate contrast to the disastrous, graduated response of the “Rolling Thunder” plan that had been unsuccessful in Vietnam. This time around, there would be nothing gradual.
The planning group faced a daunting task: war plans typically take years to develop, but there were less than two days to come up with something which would work in the real world where political considerations frequently override military logic. It was clear that neither the plan nor the planning process could be traditional in any way.
By Thursday, the group had grown to over two hundred people and had taken over the large briefing room of one of the Air Staff planning divisions, known as "Checkmate. This room, which was undivided by any doors or even cubicle walls, was the ideal environment for what we call “Open Planning.”
On August 10, 1990—less than forty-eight hours after receiving the mandate— John presented a strategic, offensive air plan to General Schwarzkopf and his two key generals. Schwarzkopf listened carefully to the thirty-minute presentation, then responded enthusiastically. "You are the first guys that have been leaning forward,” he said. “This is exactly what I want.”
The general was ready to move, promising to place an immediate call to General Colin Powell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I’ll tell him I like this plan, that I want him to hear your presentation as soon as you get back to Washington, and that I want his support.”
Sixteen hours later John was briefing General Powell. At the end of the presentation Powell pushed his chair back from the table and said, "Good plan. Very fine piece of work."
Just three days had elapsed since General Schwarzkopf’s call to General Loh—but in that time, John and his planning group had developed, presented, and won approval for an air campaign to reverse Saddam Hussein’s fortunes.
Within a week of the initial approval, General Schwarzkopf had an expanded, more detailed version of Instant Thunder, and John was on his way to Riyadh to deliver the plan to Lieutenant General Chuck Horner, the officer who would be responsible for its execution.
By mid-January, all elements were in place. On January 16th, 1991, at 7 P.M. Washington time the world watched live on CNN, as the first hyper-war began.
High-Velocity Approach
At the core of the Desert Storm air campaign was a smartly conceived, high-velocity approach to planning and implementation designed to maximize results and minimize risk. Because of the speed and precision with which these operations were unleashed, the impact on Iraq was instantaneous and catastrophic.
During the first 24 hours alone, the air campaign attacked almost 150 Iraqi “Center of Gravity” targets carefully selected to create a devastating system-wide impact on Iraq. This was a 1000-fold time compression of the aerial bombardment the Germans had survived in 1943. Within minutes, Iraq's high command was left virtually blind, deaf and dumb. It couldn’t see what was coming at them, it could not assess the damage, and it had no way to marshal resources to effect repairs or responses.
Attacked with unprecedented precision, leadership facilities, command centers, national communications, electrical systems, air defense headquarters, and crucial biological and nuclear warfare centers ceased to function at a useful level.
These fast, precise, parallel attacks paralyzed Iraq and drove Saddam Hussein to sue for peace. Forty-one days after the initiation of hostilities, Iraq withdrew from Kuwait and accepted peace terms that stripped it of the regional super-power status it had previously enjoyed.
Instant Replay
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In the first Gulf War, a sudden, unexpected challenge was successfully addressed rapidly and decisively.
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Desert Storm air campaign was a smartly conceived, high-velocity approach to planning and implementation designed to maximize results and minimize risk.
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The basic formula for winning in the 21st century is simple: think strategically, focus sharply and move quickly. We've labeled this Winning In FastTime®.
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