Implementation of Magruder’s Principle into the Tactical Planningfor Land Forces

Abstract

Magruder’s principle states the simplicity of exploiting the opportunity to confuse the adver-sary by exploiting his misconception of the actions of his own troops. On the basis of this and the hitherto known features of confusion, disinformation and surprise, a process has been prepared to integrate the principle in question into action planning at the tactical level. The aim of the attempt made is: to present the assumptions for the integration of a procedure for deliberately inspiring (or amplifying a known threat assessment) the adversary as to how own troops are operating and using this knowledge to mislead him with tactical action planning. The research procedure created consists of theoretical and heuristic methods, and consists of: abstraction, classification, direct analogy as well as definition techniques. The publication is structured as follows: introduction, Magruder’s principle, methodological considerations, literature re-view, deception as part of operational camouflage versus correspondence with surprise, benefits of sur-prise, Persian Gulf War I – an example from the history of the art of war, general characteristics of the deception procedure at the tactical level, characteristics of the stages of the deception procedure at the tactical level, reinforcement of the deception process, relation of the action planning process to the decep-tion procedure, an example of the application of Magruder’s principle in outline, conclusions, develop-ments, conclusion, bibliography.