Defence in depth

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For the information assurance strategy for computer security, see Defense in depth (computing).

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Defence in depth (also known as deep or elastic defence) is a military strategy that seeks to
delay rather than prevent the advance of an attacker, buying time and causing
additional casualties by yielding space. Rather than defeating an attacker with a single, strong
defensive line, defence in depth relies on the tendency of an attack to lose momentum over a
period of time or as it covers a larger area. A defender can thus yield lightly defended territory in
an effort to stress an attacker's logistics or spread out a numerically superior attacking force.
Once an attacker has lost momentum or is forced to spread out to pacify a large area,
defensive counter-attacks can be mounted on the attacker's weak points, with the goal being to
cause attrition warfare or drive the attacker back to its original starting position.
The idea of defence in depth is now widely used to describe multi-layered or redundant
protections for non-military situations, both tactical and strategic. However, redundancy
sometimes produces less, instead of more reliability it creates a more complex system which is
prone to various issues, may lead to human negligence of duty, and may lead to higher
production demands that overstress the system, making it less safe.
[1]

Contents
[hide]
1 Military defence in depth
o 1.1 Examples
2 Non-military examples
o 2.1 Fire prevention
o 2.2 Engineering
2.2.1 Nuclear engineering
o 2.3 Information security
3 See also
4 References
Military defence in depth[edit]
A conventional defence strategy would concentrate all military resources at a front line which, if
breached by an attacker, would leave the remaining defenders in danger of beingoutflanked and
surrounded and would leave supply lines, communications, and command vulnerable.
Defence in depth requires that a defender deploy their resources, such as fortifications, field
works and military units at and well behind the front line. Although an attacker may find it easier
to breach the more weakly defended front line, as they advance, they continue to meet
resistance. As they penetrate deeper, the attacker's flanks become vulnerable, and, should the
advance stall, the attacker risks being enveloped.
The defence in depth strategy is particularly effective against an attacker who is able
to concentrate their forces and attack a small number of places on an extended defensive line.
Defenders who can fall back to a succession of prepared positions can extract a high price from
the advancing enemy while themselves avoiding the danger of being overrun or outflanked.
Delaying the enemy advance mitigates the attacker's advantage of surprise and allows time to
move defending units to make a defence and to prepare a counter-attack.
A well-planned defence in depth strategy will deploy forces in mutually supportive positions and
in appropriate roles. For example, poorly trained troops may be deployed in static defences at
the front line, whereas better trained and equipped troops form a mobile reserve. Successive
layers of defence may use different technologies against various targets; for example, dragon's
teeth might present a challenge for tanks but is easily circumvented by infantry, while another
barrier of wire entanglements has the opposite effects on the respective forces. Defence in depth
may allow a defender to maximise the defensive possibilities of natural terrain and other
advantages.
The disadvantages of defence in depth are that it may be unacceptable for a defender to plan to
give ground to an attacker. This may be because vital military or economic resources are close to
the front line or because yielding to an enemy is unacceptable for political or cultural reasons. In
addition, the continuous retreats required by defence in depth require the defender to have a
high degree of mobility in order to retreat successfully and the morale to recover from the retreat.
Examples[edit]
An early example of this
[citation needed]
came at the Battle of Cannae in 216
BC,
[2]
when Hannibal employed this manoeuvre in order to encircle and destroy 10 Roman
legions, resulting in the largest single slaughter of Roman troops in the history of the Roman
Republic.
Edward Luttwak used the term to describe his theory of the defensive strategy employed by
the Late Roman army in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD.
Later examples of defence in depth might be European hill forts and the development
of concentric castles. In these examples, the inner layers of defence can support the outer layers
with projectile fire and an attacker must breach each line of defence in turn with the prospect of
significant losses, whereas the defenders have the option of falling back to fight again. In
the American Revolutionary War's Battle of Cowpens, the American forces were positioned in
three lines which soaked up the shock of the British charge and inflicted heavy casualties before
the Americans were able to overrun the British, who at this point had lost their cohesion.
More recent examples of defence in depth include the multiple lines of trenches of the First World
War and plans for the defence of Britain against a potential German invasion in the Second
World War. During the Battle of Normandy, Wehrmacht forces utilized the bocage of the area to
create successive lines of defences to slow the attacking Allies in hopes that reinforcements
would arrive.
The Pacific Theatre also had many examples of defence in depth, with the Japanese inflicting
heavy casualties on the Americans in the Battles of Tarawa, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima,
and Okinawa.
The best modern example of a successful defence in depth is that of the Battle of Kursk. During
the battle, the Red Army delibrately drew the Germans into an attritional battle in multiple well-
prepared defensive lines, before launching massive counter-attacks on either side of 9th Army in
the north and 4th Panzer Army in the south. The initial Germanoffensive never fully penetrated
the Red Army lines. By contrast, the subsequent Red Army counter-offensive pushed the front
line hundreds of miles westwards.
Colonel Francis J. Kelly discussed the employment of defence in depth in Army Special
Forces camps during the Vietnam War. Kelly, a former U.S. Army Special Forces commander
and author of Vietnam Studies U.S. Army Special Forces 1961-1971, stated in his work that the
austere Special Forces fighting camps were highly functional and easily defended.
While untested, this was also the planned NATO strategy in Europe during the Cold War at
the Fulda Gap.
Non-military examples[edit]

Reactor Unit 3 (right) and Unit 4 (left) of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on 16 March 2011. Three of the reactors overheated,
causing meltdowns which released large amounts of radioactive material into the air.
[3]

The term defence in depth is now used in many non-military contexts.
Fire prevention[edit]
A defence in depth strategy to fire prevention does not focus all the resources only on the
prevention of a fire; instead, it also requires the deployment of fire alarms, extinguishers,
evacuation plans, mobile rescue and fire-fighting equipment and even nation-wide plans for
deploying massive resources to a major blaze.
[citation needed]

Defense-in-depth is incorporated into fire protection regulations for nuclear power plants. It
requires preventing fires, detecting and extinguishing fires that do occur, and ensuring the
capability to safely shutdown.
[4]

Engineering[edit]
Defence in depth may mean engineering which emphasizes redundancy - a system that keeps
working when a component fails - over attempts to design components that will not fail in the first
place. For example, an aircraft with four engines will be less likely to suffer total engine failure
than a single-engined aircraft no matter how much effort goes into making the single engine
reliable.
[citation needed]
However,Charles Perrow, author of Normal accidents, has said that sometimes
redundancies backfire and produce less, not more reliability. This may happen in three ways:
First, redundant safety devices result in a more complex system, more prone to errors and
accidents. Second, redundancy may lead to shirking of responsibility among workers. Third,
redundancy may lead to increased production pressures, resulting in a system that operates at
higher speeds, but less safely.
[1]

Nuclear engineering[edit]
Main article: Defense in depth (nuclear engineering)
In nuclear engineering and nuclear safety, defence in depth denotes the practice of having
multiple, redundant, and independent layers of safety systems for the single, critical point of
failure: the reactor core. The aim is to reduce the risk that a single failure of a critical system
could cause a core meltdown or a catastrophic failure of reactor containment.
[5]
With the 2011
Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster, all of those lines of defence collapsed. The Fukushima
disaster has thrown into question ways of thinking about nuclear safety.
[6]

Information security[edit]
Main article: Defense in Depth (computing)
Likewise, in information security / Information Assurance defence in depth represents the use of
multiple computer security techniques to help mitigate the risk of one component of the defence
being compromised or circumvented. An example could be anti-virus software installed on
individual workstations when there is already virus protection on the firewallsand servers within
the same environment. Different security products from multiple vendors may be deployed to
defend different potential vectors within the network, helping prevent a shortfall in any one
defence leading to a wider failure; also known as a "layered approach".
[citation needed]

See also[edit]
Culminating point
Hedgehog defence
Loss of Strength Gradient
Scorched earth policy
Soviet deep battle
Strategic depth
References[edit]
1. ^ Jump up to:
a

b
Scott D. Sagan (March 2004). "Learning from Normal Accidents". Organization & Environment.
2. Jump up^ http://www.roman-empire.net/army/cannae.html
3. Jump up^ Martin Fackler (1 June 2011). "Report Finds Japan Underestimated Tsunami Danger". New York Times.
4. Jump up^ http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part050/part050-appr.html
5. Jump up^ International Nuclear Energy Agency (1996). "Defence in depth in nuclear safety (INSAG-10)". ISBN 92-
0-103295-1.
6. Jump up^ Declan Butler (11 January 2012). "France 'imagines the unimaginable'". Nature.