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United
they must stand, and fight
By Michael P Noonan
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy Research
Institute)
One year after the tragic events
of September 11, 2001, the United States remains
involved in its first global war of the 21st century.
Notwithstanding the stunning military success in the
Afghan theater of operations, the fact remains that much
war remains. The global war on terrorism without doubt
will be a protracted conflict, much like the world wars
that preceded it in the 20th century. This point,
however, remains difficult to sell to an American public
which has, to a large extent, not been mobilized and are
only afforded a partial view into the darkness that
shades and obfuscates much of the war effort.
The current war against terrorism differs from
past conflicts largely in means rather than ends. It is
not a "big battalion" war pitting large formations
against one another. And although the front is
everywhere, national mobilization as past generations
knew it will not help.
The new strategic
quartet
From an American perspective the First
and Second World Wars were overwhelmingly conventional
and traditional military conflicts. Infantry, armor,
artillery, warships and airplanes of the competing sides
battled one another for victory - and, in the case of
the Axis powers in the latter conflict, world
domination. The war against al-Qaeda, and other groups
of global reach, is an overwhelmingly unconventional and
nontraditional conflict. Commando tactics and
information warfare appear to be the keys to victory
rather than massed industrial resources and a vast
conscripted force. Unfortunately, however, the forces
and capabilities that President George W Bush inherited
a year ago were not best organized for such a conflict.
The aftermath of September 11 has created a new
strategic quartet for US national security writ. This
quartet consists of the military, law enforcement and
emergency response, the intelligence community and the
American public. Each has a different role and there
will always be a degree of overlap between their areas
of responsibility. At present their roles can be
conceived in terms of American football. The military
may be equated with the offense, law enforcement and
emergency response with the defense, the intelligence
community with the special teams, and the American
public as the home field crowd. As in the game itself,
coordination and the ability to rapidly exploit
opportunities are the keys to success on the field. In
the future these arrangements will likely have to be
changed to a system more like soccer or ice hockey,
where there are more fluid and seamless transitions to
offense and defense and then back again.
It
should be remembered that while technology is a key
enabler for the quartet, victory is forged through the
performance of the individuals working together in the
units composing each leg of the military, law
enforcement and emergency response, and intelligence
elements and through the mobilization and maintenance of
the nation's collective will. Excellence in the realm of
personnel is essential. As the author and military
analyst Ralph Peters has said, "Good isn't enough. We
need brilliant because the enemies we will face often
will be the best their countries and cultures have to
offer." Anyone who doubts the truth of this statement
should ask a member of the special operations community
about how difficult it would be to pull off an operation
such as the one that was accomplished by the hijackers a
year ago.
The US military
In the
military realm the current conflict is a double-edged
sword because: (1) A large majority of the military is
not actively engaged in the war, leaving time and
resources to transform and reorganize for future warfare
but (2) Special operations forces (SOF) are so taxed, it
will be difficult to resist watering down their
standards in order to expand capabilities. Below,
several suggestions are made that might contribute
getting the most from the challenges that each of the
above factors provides.
If Gulf War II is fought
against Iraq, then it would not be a stretch to predict
that it will be the last time an adversary attempts to
throw divisional or corps-level assets against
well-trained and well-equipped American troops. While
the military must be prepared to act against all manner
of contingencies - and to defend American interests
unrelated to the war on terrorism such as in Latin
America and northeast Asia - further movement must be
made on fleshing out joint and combined operation
command and control relationships - such as Standing
Joint Task Forces.
These are vital because
seldom, if ever, in the future will US forces operate
solely with elements from a single branch of the armed
forces. Also, much work needs to be done in
incorporating the law enforcement and intelligence
communities (as well as other agency actors) into
current command structures as the Department of Defense
has recently experimented with in the Millennium
Challenge 2002 war game - although this must take place
at levels below the combatant command level.
Furthermore, advanced concepts such as
decentralized operations, developing a culture of air
movement for the army, the naval "Streetfighter" program
(smaller and more numerous surface and semi-submersible
combatants), lighter-than air transport systems,
magnetic rail gun technologies and laser technologies
should be experimented with in order to insure that our
men and women in uniform are best equipped to meet
conditions on the battlefields of the future.
From Tbilisi, Georgia, to Kandahar, Afghanistan,
to Basilan, the Philippines, American special operations
units have been at the sharpest point of the spear in
the war efforts thus far - and these are just the areas
where the Department of Defense has admitted to sending
troops. One can only guess where members of the
ultra-secret special missions units of the Joint Special
Operations Command have been operating and will operate
in the coming years. With this in mind, the decision
makers in the Pentagon and elsewhere should resist the
temptation to markedly expand the number of SOF
personnel.
As members of SOF like to say, their
members cannot be mass- produced. The selection and
training processes of these unique units allow them to
perform at levels above their more conventional
brethren. A rapid expansion in their numbers would thus
water down standards that would in all likelihood have
denigrating effects on respective unit performance. A
better idea, under current circumstances, would be to
train, man and equip units with very high levels of elan
such as the 82nd Airborne Division, 173rd Airborne
Brigade, and the various Marine Expeditionary Units to
even higher standards, to prepare them to perform more
Ranger-style missions.
This then would free up
the three battalions that comprise the 75th Ranger
Regiment to focus on even more complicated direct action
types of missions which in turn could further free up
elements of the special mission units to carry out the
most sensitive operations. Army Special Forces units
would then focus primarily on the unconventional warfare
and foreign internal defense missions which are their
core competencies. This course of action would raise the
standards for the rest of the force without lowering SOF
standards. In other words: quality has a quantity all
its own.
Law enforcement and emergency
response
Civilian law enforcement at the federal
(and perhaps state) level must develop a trained cadre
of personnel that are knowledgeable about foreign
cultures - particularly linguistic skills and cultural
mannerisms - and the standard operating procedures of
terrorist organizations. Only through the formation of
such units will law enforcement be able to root out
terrorist threats rather than react after a catastrophic
event. An individual replacement system in organizations
such as the FBI that makes agents anti-terrorism experts
by transferring them into divisions that handle those
responsibilities is not enough. Any notion of a
Department of Homeland Security should include a law
enforcement unit that has lead federal authority on
terrorism cases - from both domestic and foreign
perpetrators.
State and local law enforcement
and emergency response providers, unlike their federal
progeny, have been among the most praised groups in the
year after September 11. The heroics and sacrifices made
by the men and women of the New York fire and police
departments will not be forgotten. Likewise, the various
state National Guards - Army and Air - have done an
commendable job in protecting valuable pieces of
infrastructure as well as adding to a sense of security
- for most Americans - at airports and other sites.
These institutions have performed admirably to past
emergencies and will continue to be on the front lines
of homeland defense.
The intelligence
community
The intelligence community - as has
been said countless times by individuals with
operational espionage expertise, such as Raul Marc
Gerecht - must break its fetish with an over-dependence
on technological means of collection. The CIA and DIA
must develop stronger ties internationally and develop
agents with more diverse linguistic and cultural skills.
Also, programs such as the National Security Education
Act should be expanded so that a larger segment of
college-age students can be exposed to the possibility
of working in the intelligence or diplomatic fields. The
use of ultra-specific psychological profiles, the
extensive use of polygraph tests and the types of
transgressions that bar individuals from service in the
intelligence community should be reexamined in light of
the new security environment. (As FPRI's founder, the
late-Ambassador Robert Strausz-Hupe, was fond of saying,
"what spy agency can have a future if its agents have
not had a past?")
Internationally, the
intelligence community should increase its use of
non-resident covers (such as businessmen) - after all,
what terrorist group will grant diplomatic or Geneva
Convention rights to captured agents? Helpful overseas
assets should also be given promises of resettlement to
another country, or even US citizenship, if their
assistance proves crucial in subverting attacks against
the United States and its interests or helps in
destroying elements of a terrorist network. Physical
safety will most likely prove a much more attractive
reward to someone who has turned against his neighbor
than will a financial reward that may never be spent due
to the awardees demise.
The American
public
Maintaining the will of the American
public will also be imperative. The nature of the
current conflict, as stated, makes it in many respects
tactically and operationally like past "small war"
conflicts but its stakes at the strategic level of
analysis are just as important as those of World War I,
World War II and the Cold War. The most difficult
dimension is to keep the American will mobilized when
there most likely will not be events like the Normandy
invasion and when some of the greatest victories may not
be publicly known until months later because the means
used to achieve them are highly classified.
The
American public must be kept mobilized for conflict and
be cognizant of the threats that affect their security.
Mobilization will obviously be different from past
conflicts, but serious consideration should be given to
issuing war bonds or imposing a nominal war on terrorism
national sales tax that would at least serve as a daily
reminder that American men and women are serving in
harm's way. As far as cognizance, because there is no
front line in this war, the American people must stay
alert to suspicious behavior while avoiding national
paranoia. Because of this President Bush's prime
responsibility will be to keep up public support for the
protracted conflict. This is the case because as the
prime Western philosopher of war, Carl von Clausewitz
wrote in On War, "As each man's strength gives
out, as it no longer responds to his will, the inertia
of the whole gradually comes to rest on the commander's
will alone. The ardor of his spirit must rekindle the
flame of purpose in all others; his inward fire must
revive their hope."
Ensuring
victory
The shadowy character of the global war
on terrorism requires that the American military and the
other corners of the new strategic quartet be the best
that they can be. Winning the war on terrorism, however,
will not be easy. Over 20,000 individuals reportedly
trained in the al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and other
locations. This number does not count those individuals
aligned with Osama bin Laden for either ideological
reasons or tactical advantage. Further, capturing an
individual such as bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri will
not guarantee the demise of al-Qaeda. Because the police
officer in New York City is just as much on the front
lines as is the Special Forces soldier in the Hindu
Kush, the spears and shields of American democracy must
be honed and ready for action. All of the elements of
the new strategic quartet therefore have to work
together in order to ensure victory.
Michael P Noonan is a research fellow
on US defense policy, and deputy director of the Program
on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research
Institute.
Author's note: While the views
expressed here are the author's alone, he would like to
thank Mark Kohut, Mark R Lewis, and Harvey Sicherman for
their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this
essay.
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy Research
Institute)
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