2014-12-17  Ed Timperlake has focused the attention of politicians, analysts and the Second Line of Defense team upon the growing significance of information war.

As we reach the end of 2014, Second Line of Defense would like to highlight this key challenge, one that we intend to focus attention on in the year ahead.

What follows are excerpts from several pieces by Timperlake which highlights the challenge as well as ways to deal with the challenge as well.

The Need for Information War Informed Combat Capability

Too often cyber tactical maneuvers become equated with information war; they are not. It is crucial to counter, and to shape the information terrain of a 21st century battlespace. Information war (IW) means just that present who the enemy is, what they are capable of doing and what the consequences of inaction means to all Americans.

Russia and China have clients, the US has Allies which help tremendously in both combat and IW.

“Find- Fix – Finish” is usually a term used more often in the context of counterterrorism but even though ISIS is also parading conventional weapons in Iraq and declaring they are the army of a state or Caliphate, they are also vicious terrorists.

ISIS flags representing the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or if one prefers ISIL, Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, are beginning to be seen in Gaza, Europe, and now in front of White House.

The threat is so great that the Dutch have brilliantly acted in IW to quickly outlaw the ISIS flag.

Europe, US and Israel have to be very worried about the world-wide terrorism capability of ISIS especially if they get a nuke.

The world cannot let Iran develop a working nuclear bomb because even with a very low probability of ISIS getting one from Iran the horror is beyond comprehension.

Israeli actions against Hamas are part of the overall conflict.

Military Israel, in addition to developing the Iron Dome ultimately for proliferation to the free world, the IDF will be also be attacking ISIL in Gaza and that is a very good thing. ISIS partnering with Hamas will change the entire narrative. This is doubly true as the US military begins to attack ISIS in Iraq.

Free democratic countries willing to fight and engage in direct combat to help stop demonstrated pure evil should be honored not condemned. Eventually in these dark days the US Presidential action against ISIS in Iraq, late as it is, along with Israel taking a stand in Gaza will be seen and applauded by future historians.

The US has had a late start but it is now time to put a stop to ISIS by the President using our 2014 technology and resulting combat capabilities.

It is also way past time for US to engage in IW to help Israel by throwing a significant public “penalty flag” against condemnations of Israel with no consideration for the context, and the use of Gaza citizens by Hamas terrorists as combat fodder.

http://sldinfo.wpstage.net/2014-is-not-2003-information-war-informed-combat-capability/

Information War, North Korea and Hollywood

Whether you love or hate the individuals involved in creating movies, in what is known as the Hollywood Dream Factory, they have been a tremendous global force for good for America.  American-made movies have moved the world in a very positive way. Regardless of the subject, they are the best efforts of the creativity of our society to flourish while taking significant financial risks. Their efforts are totally protected by a vibrant First Amendment.

The fact that a psychopathic leader and unbalanced killer Kim Jong-Un, the Dear Leader of North Korea, has taken offense at a fictional movie called The Interview deserves a USMC “good on-em” for all involved…..

There is an apparent information war against all that is open and decent in the world by a very evil individual, Kim Jung-Un the Dear Leader of North Korea, who is in a psychopathic class by himself.  Make no mistake the Dear Leader has Nuclear Teeth.

However it now it looks like perhaps he is employing softer power  in cyber based information war and he is being  aided and abetted by some of his or allied hackers.

It is yet to be determined if in fact the Dear Leader is responsible, but executives in Hollywood have a huge chit with President Obama they can call on to find out.  I have been extremely critical of Hollywood executives for inappropriately using the First Lady and US Military as props for their own purpose:

“Putting her (First Lady)  up on the stage to award an Oscar is fine. However, putting uniformed military behind her is coming up, maybe perhaps crossing the line where you’re using active duty military in their dress uniform as a prop … for commercial purposes,” Timperlake said.

However against this hack attack, all involved have every right to actually demand real action from our Commander-in-Chief. It is not a First Amendment issue, it is actually Economic Espionage against American interests, and in violation of the 1996 Economic Espionage Act:

(a) In General.— Whoever, intending or knowing that the offense will benefit any foreign government, foreign instrumentality, or foreign agent, knowingly—

(1) steals, or without authorization appropriates, takes, carries away, or conceals, or by fraud, artifice, or deception obtains a trade secret;

(2) without authorization copies, duplicates, sketches, draws, photographs, downloads, uploads, alters, destroys, photocopies, replicates, transmits, delivers, sends, mails, communicates, or conveys a trade secret;

(3) receives, buys, or possesses a trade secret, knowing the same to have been stolen or appropriated, obtained, or converted without authorization;

(4) attempts to commit any offense described in any of paragraphs (1) through (3); or

(5) conspires with one or more other persons to commit any offense described in any of paragraphs (1) through (3), and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy,

shall, except as provided in subsection (b), be fined not more than $5,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both.

(b) Organizations.— Any organization that commits any offense described in subsection (a) shall be fined not more than the greater of $10,000,000 or 3 times the value of the stolen trade secret to the organization, including expenses for research and design and other costs of reproducing the trade secret that the organization has thereby avoided.

Rather than flail against the First Amendment get President Obama, the AG and US Government Counterintelligence agents actively engaged in determining if the Dear Leader is in a criminal conspiracy in violation of the Economic Espionage Act.

As a political appointee of President Ronald Reagan, who was a previous President of the Screen Actors Guild I suspect he would strongly defend his fellow actors and all others involved, loyalty was his code.

If a violation of the law is determined, prosecute, and if victorious, attach any North Korean assets for damages, especially ships and cargos on the high seas. It would be a real hoot to see Hollywood Executives and Movie Stars take ownership of the Dear Leader’s commercial ships.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/information_war_not_quiet_on_the_hollywood_front.html

ISIS and Information War: Shaping the Battlespace

A neglected aspect of the ISIS assault is in the domain of information warfare.

IW is even more central to US capability than is cybersecurity.

Yet IW remains in the fallow ground, while US and Western competitors hone their skills.

Is ISIS winning or losing?

ISIS is doing everything they can through twitter and other means to project an inevitability about “their” victory; indeed, who is the “they”?

ISIS is projecting themselves as a state actor not a non-state actor. Accepting this assertion is tantamount to accepting them as a legitimate force, which they clearly are not.

The ISIS are playing the game of trying to position themselves as an inevitable force, something akin to a rock rolling down the mountain. We see regular “press” releases from ISIS forces via the social media, but a key element of the ability to dominate the battlespace and to defeat ISIS is in the world of ideas.

ISIS is a brutal force which asserts that only themselves have the right to rule in the Middle East and beyond.

We can call them extremist; but that is not enough. We need to engage in the battle of ideas as well for it is Western secularism and tolerance which is the enemy, not “Jews” or “Christians,” Shiites or Sunni; it is about power dominance via exploiting ideological purity and mobilization of the “faithful” to achieve the purity of rule desired by the ISIS leadership and followers.

http://sldinfo.wpstage.net/isis-and-information-war-shaping-the-battlespace/

Conducting an Information War Against Islamic Extremists

ISIS is a brutal force, which asserts that only they have the right to rule in the Middle East and beyond.

We can call them extremist; but that is not enough.

We need to engage in the battle of ideas as well for it is Western secularism and tolerance which is the enemy, not “Jews” or “Christians,” Shiites or Sunni; it is about power dominance via exploiting ideological purity and mobilization of the “faithful” to achieve the purity of rule desired by the ISIS leadership and followers…..

in IW against ISIS agnostics and atheists have to be taken into account. For some all religion and references to God is pure fairy tale fiction. It is not to say they would see ISIS, a religious force, also being a very real secular threat. It is just a religious message on the bases of a higher moral authority might not resonate.

So the dilemma can be simply put: how to craft a unifying message that can establish common ground for action against Islamic fanatics targeting western secularism and tolerance?

Such a message would need to unify Christians Jews and atheists and even allow Muslims to agree with and that is the crux of the IW battle.

On January 6 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt gave his State-of-the-Union Speech and he brilliantly articulated “The Four Freedom Speech

• Freedom of Speech
• Freedom of Worship
• Freedom from Want
• Freedom from Fear

America was not yet at war, but Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Imperial Japan were all showing their abject hatred personified by the word Freedom. The genius of President Roosevelt’s speech is that it was not a battle cry for war it was a statement of principle for all humanity to rally around.

It is a perfect list to capture the goals of why a Nation and people can and should fight to defend four elegant and essential freedoms that can make the world a better place.

Just identifying and reaching back to The Four Freedoms is not enough.

Instead use it as a simple litmus test.

Every organization and person mentioned above including atheists in understanding the horror and goals of Islamic fundamentalism can embrace the Four Freedoms, it is in their DNA.

The critical test is what do with Islamic Organization who wish to send a message of peace and their agreement with The Four Freedoms.

A very simple test has just been identified by a very powerful and successful world class PR Firm Burson-Marsteller LLC who have arranged to represent for a fee the Ennahda Party of Tunisia:

Just released government filings reveal that the PR agency has been hired to improve the foreign image of Tunisia’s Ennahda Party, the Muslim Brotherhood of Tunisia. They will “arrange meetings betweenEnnahdha representatives and stakeholders” and provide Ennahda “support on media and stakeholder outreach in advance of upcoming elections.”

A simple question, which would clarify the situation can be posed and answered:

Would the Ennahada Party accept the Four Freedoms? Would Iran? Hamas? Hezbollah? The Islamic Society of Boston?

Would CARE, The Council on America-Islamic Relations “Making Democracy Work for Everyone” support ALL Four Freedoms?

If CARE would just do that it would be a tremendous IW victory against fanaticism in whatever form it takes.

Let an IW battle begin in support of the Four Freedoms and let a public record be established.

http://sldinfo.wpstage.net/conducting-an-information-war-against-islamic-extremists/

 

 

 

 

2014-12-15 by Robbin Laird

There is a long history and strategic culture associated with nuclear deterrence.

The question is whether the history and the culture are more of hindrance than a help into thinking about second nuclear age deterrence and warfighting?

Paul Bracken has argued persuasively that nuclear weapons have returned clearly as an agent of global influence.

What’s taking place isn’t disarmament; rather it’s nuclear modernization. 

These countries are building nuclear postures, which in their view will be suited to 21st century conditions.  They may be wrong about this, certainly.

But the larger point is that the United States effort to design a world order that was free of nuclear weapons hasn’t worked out….

Put another way, nuclear weapons have returned as a source of influence and power in the international system. 

If we go back to the earlier years of establishing “rules” of deterrence, we might recover a sense of what a new round of nuclear modernization in a multi-polar world might entail.

We can begin by understanding the context within which the US first used nuclear weapons. 

After bloody island campaigns, the voluntary suicides Marpi Point, Saipan and the bloody fight on Okinawa, and the defense of Okinawa in part by the widespread attacks on the US fleet by Kamikaze pilots, President Truman reached the conclusion that a nuclear attack made a great deal of sense.

The alternative was to face massive destruction and death on the Japanese mainland as the Japanese fought to the last man.

In other words, the US used nuclear weapons to meet a strategic purpose not well met by conventional means. 

This clearly can fit someone’s calculus today.

A second example was the French desperate struggle in Indochina where the French government asked President Eisenhower to use tactical nuclear weapons in helping defeat the Vietnamese Communists.

Eisenhower refused, for perfectly good reasons, but clearly made the point that nuclear weapons are a sovereign national solution, not an allied one or international one for that matter.  It is only sovereign national decisions, which raises fundamental questions as Asian allies face a persistent Chinese and Russian nuclear modernization trajectory about whether or not they too need access to nuclear weapons to defend their interests or to trigger U.S. actions in the broader alliance defense.

A third example involved the Korean War and the request by Chou En-Lai to Stalin of whether he was willing to use nuclear weapons in defense of Chinese troops in Korea if the US used tactical nuclear weapons against those troops?

The answer was a clear no and again this pointed out the limits of alliance solidarity when it came to tying war with the potential use of nuclear weapons below the strategic threshold.

These were fundamental realities of the beginnings of the first nuclear age; and after a long transformation through the Cuban Missile Crisis and into the demise of the Soviet Union, the second nuclear age might look more like the beginning of the first.

There are recent developments as well, which are triggering significant rethinks about the nuclear threshold or at least the political utility of possessing nuclear weapons.

Odyssey Dawn

First, there is Odyssey Dawn, a military attack on Gaddafi, which would be unthinkable if he had not given up nuclear weapons.

As Ed Timperlake has argued:

What lessons are other countries that are not currently directly involved learning from observing the situation?

It can also be noted that some countries without troops have the right to also kibitz from the side like Putin is currently doing, because of the Administration is using a UN Security Council imprimatur to justify the attack.

But what do other thuggish countries think and what will they do? And this is literally a life and death question.

The world now knows that when the U.S. decides the leader of a country is an “evil doer” about to stage a massacre  a forceful military attack can be justified and launched. This is the emerging “Obama Doctrine. ” Ironically, it is reinforced by the observed experience of the Bush Doctrine and the Clinton Doctrine. The goal is to stop a negative by pointing out the massacre that does not happen.

Now visualize a meeting after the U.S. Military successfully attacked both the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussain Iraq. At that table of world class thuggish leaders sits Moammar Gadhafi, Kim il Jong, the Dear Leader of North Korea, and Mahmoud Ahmadmejad of Iran. They see a huge problem –what will the Americans do next?

Gadhafi, knowing Saddam had WMD, specifically poison gas that he had used and a nuke R&D effort, decides his best course is to welcome the western nations into his country to deactivate his nuclear research and development program. The Dear Leader of North Korea leaves their meeting and shows the world that he has credible nuclear devices along with trying to build ICBMs. Mahmoud Ahmadejad had a choice when he left that table –he could follow the lead of the Libyan leader or play catch up to the Dear Leader.

With the attack on Libya, the Obama Administration has just made Kim il Jong look like a strategic genius. It also totally confirmed a lesson learned to the Iranian Leadership. The lesson is the only thing that can stop the Obama Administration deciding, with no U.S. Congressional notification, to attack a sovereign nation, is credible WMD.  Iranian leaders must now quickly double down on their belief that they need credible deterrence against an attack.

The Russian Seizure of Ukraine

Second, there is the Russian seizure of Crimea, which is a direct violation of agreements signed by the United States and the United Kingdom.

What remains of the non-proliferation treaty and its value when a state gives up its nuclear weapons in return for a promise of the protection of its territorial integrity by so doing?

When one produces the academic reader for the Second Nuclear Age in about 15 years, this action by Russia will have its own chapter as a stepping stone to a new era. With Russian actions in Crimea, the agreement seems to be going the way of Kellogg-Briand Pact signed in 1928 to abolish war.

In fact, the collapse of the agreement in the face of Russian seizure of Crimea is a key lesson learned for states regarding nuclear weapons: if you have go them keep them; if you don’t have them you might want to get them to prevent “aggression” against your interests.

In a clear example of reverse historical logic whereby the “banning” of war by states in in the Kellogg-Briand created the preconditions for a clear marker for the return of war, the Russian seizure of Crimea has ripped apart a key agreement which was designed to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation.

And being denigrated, such an agreement not only appears worthless but makes clear that proliferation will be viewed in a desirable manner by aspiring nuclear states.

Clearly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was facilitated by Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.

The agreement crafted by the United States and the UK to guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons was as worthless as the Munich agreement of 1938.

This will have lasting consequences for the Second Nuclear Age.

At an event celebrating the Non Proliferation Treaty hosted by Kazhkhstan, arms controller Rose Gottemoeller, the current Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security was asked about the impact of not honoring this agreement.

She sidestepped the issue and told the audience that we still have the START agreement and that we needed to work with the Russians.

Nicely avoiding the point is a rather brutal fact: if the Russians who signed the Ukraine agreement honored it as much as did the US and the UK — which is to say not at all — why does the START agreement matter?

Put bluntly, agreements and words do not matter a great deal when you can invade the country you have the agreement with and reset the agenda.

The question really is HOW you work with the Russians which matters.

Iran and the ISIL Crisis

Third, there is the Iranian stake in the acquisition of nuclear weapons, which may well be facilitated and abetted by the preoccupation of the West with regard to the ISIL crisis.

As Dr. Amatzia Baram put it in an interview earlier this year with us:

Question: We have discussed Iran in passing with regard to the GCC states, but obviously Iran has a big stake in the crisis as well.

Baram: They do.

And one of the ironies of the current situation is that American policy against ISIL actually helps Iran.

Baghdad is now mostly an Iranian issue, more so than an American one.

You have to be aware of what America is doing.

America is getting Iran out of trouble by helping the government of Baghdad to push the ISIS back.

You are serving Iranian interests, not just yours.

So I’m not against it, as long as you understand what you are doing.

Iran will allow you to save it from ISIS, and in return they want you to allow them to continue to develop nuclear weapons.

Question: The ISIL crisis and its ongoing consequences will affect the great powers outside of the region as well; how do you see the stance of the major players?

Baram: With regard to Russia, they have little concern about Iran having nuclear weapons.

The Russians see this from the perspective of their conviction that they can unilaterally counter an Iranian nuclear threat effectively.

But what they have not calculated well is what others are going to do.

After Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and very likely also Turkey will acquire nukes.

A multi-player nuclear crisis is extremely difficult to control.

Even a nuclear war between Iran and Israel alone is dangerous for neighboring Russia, and one should bear in mind that unlike the Cuban missile crisis, there is no direct communication between Teheran and Jerusalem to provide key elements for negotiation as a crisis unfolds.

What does deterrence mean to Tehran as opposed to an old nuclear power like the United States or Russia?

How would a crisis management emerge that could manage these two very different poles?

And if Iran were to have access to nuclear weapons, notably with the onslaught of ISIL,or another similar anti-Shi`i movement, the use of nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out, and all this in close proximity to Russia.

 In other words, second nuclear age issues are part and parcel of regional conflicts even if they are not the dominant motif.

There are part of the changing calculus of key players with regard to the role which nuclear weapons can play with regard to protecting or projecting one’s interests.

In the case of Iran, clearly the possession of nuclear weapons is perceived as part of a regional power projection strategy as they would understand it.

By possessing nuclear weapons, the sanctity of Iranian territory is preserved from which actions within other countries in the region can be encouraged without fear of reprisals against Iranian territory through traditional conventional means.

North Korea and Going After the Dear Leader

A fourth example is clearly the evolution of North Korea and the question of what happens if war comes.

Unfortunately, for many strategists the North Korea of today is perceived as fighting the last war with a wave of conventional forces coming South.

This ignores not only the possession of nuclear weapons and missiles by the North, and the very isolated regime which will have its own calculus on war which will have to be affected by minutes and hours not days of actions by the UN, the South Koreans and the United States.

One way to let the North know that the US recognizes the new realities of the Second Nuclear Age is to change the command structure. 

It makes no sense to have an Army officer in charge of US forces in South Korea; it is time to have an Air Force officer in charge and directly focused on the capability of the US and the allies to strike North rapidly and effectively in the very early moments of the coming of war.

It is not about the US Army defending South Korea in depth; it is about the South Koreans doing that and the US and allied air, naval and army air defense systems integrated in a strike and defense enterprise than can defeat North Korea’s missile and strike force.

Ironically, the ghost of McArthur has returned: in the case of war, there is no substitute for victory, but this time it is against a Second Nuclear Age power.

The current 7^th USAF commander, Lt. General Jouas, put the challenge this way:

Question: You are sitting in a theater which is characterized by what Paul Bracken has referred to as a second nuclear age power facing you directly. This is not 1954, and one cannot assume that if conflict unfolds that the “Dear Leader” will follow a ladder of escalation approach. How does this affect your thinking about and approach to the theater?

Lt. General Jouas: We have a tough problem with North Korea, obviously. You have to understand that this is a different type of adversary with capabilities that concern us, and we need the best tools possible in order to contend with it.

We should not mirror image when we consider the North Korean nuclear strategy.

North Korea has seen what happened in Libya, and with Gaddafi, and that’s reinforced their strategy.

And while this may be a North Korean problem right now, there’s a strong possibility it won’t remain so. And that creates real danger to our allies and our homeland. We have to think about a world in which we have more than one North Korea, in which those capabilities are held by other nations whose interests and strategy are very different from ours.

PRC Nuclear Modernization and Power Projection

A fifth example is clearly the conjunction of the Chinese nuclear buildup with their nuclear modernization.

Because of their nuclear modernization, the Chinese are clearly working to protect their territory against classic conventional strikes and by so doing, then providing bases from which to then project power in the region.

Yet amazingly this conjunction is blown by in analyses that simply assert that the US needs a long range strike force to go after Chinese territory.

Such a strategy is based on an implied belief that the Chinese will accept a conventional phase before any nuclear response if an adversary strikes its territory. 

This is an assumption, but precisely an assumption.

There is no wishing this away, but clearly many precisely do this.

The basic bottom line is that the Chinese are clearly trying to extend reach from a more secure homeland base. 

And they’re doing this in a couple of different ways; one way is building their nuclear deterrent by having a more survivable force hidden in tunnels and deployed via mobile systems.

And at the same time, they are building what is referred to as anti-access, anti-denial capabilities, which at this point in history, is largely is an extension of the homeland.

They are trying to secure the area from which they can operate over time.

This provides them then with a base; the policy is based on the concept that adversaries will accept the sanctuary and demonstrate a lack of interest or capability in intruding into the sanctuary.

It forms the basis for projection power further into the Pacific and the South China Sea up into Japanese waters, up to the Arctic and towards the Malacca Straits and further south.

In short, the work of Dr. Bracken and the essays, which we have written to extend some of his analysis on our Second Line of Defense Forum on the Second Nuclear Age, is designed to think about the challenges; and not wish them away.

As Bracken puts it:

The larger danger for the United States is a narrow framing of the nuclear problem. 

As an example of this, the belief that all that is needed is a second strike capacity against Russia or China is an extremely narrow framing of the strategic problem.

It overlooks crisis management, provocations, escalation and counter escalation, communication and bargaining, and political perceptions of nuclear equality.

For the United States dealing with other country’s nuclear forces may best be done with our non-nuclear forces.

But the specific ways of doing this need to be worked out and linked to our nuclear strategy.

The band of possibilities here is much wider than in the cold war, and that’s why better scenarios are needed.

There are so many countries with nuclear weapons now, and technologies that can be used to attack them.

The approach used in the cold war was to separate conventional and nuclear options, and to strategically link them using a framework of escalation.   The old escalation ladder flagged the major thresholds, and this allowed political and military leaders to strategize in the same framework.  That wasn’t a bad solution.

But things are a lot more complicated now.

If you wish to comment on this article, please do so on the Second Line of Defense Forum:

http://www.sldforum.com/2014/12/second-nuclear-age-will-rules-deterrence/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2014-12-16 By Robbin Laird

As the US shapes its next phase of 21^st century military and security policy, it is crucial to assess the capability of the national security system to set goals and objectives appropriate the tools available.

In a world of high demand, and scarce resources, this means that there are always limits, and options, but choice is not without its constraints.

There has been a growing literature based in part on the land wars of the past decade, which focus on the role of the military as part of a process whereby hard power transmutes into soft power and then into something called stability operations.

The notion here is that military engagement is about filling power vacuums, and then rebuilding capabilities in regions or nations to fill those vacuums, and the role of the military in the first is somewhat clear but in the second is not.

In this second area, so-called soft power is seen as the key element as the hard power of deploying force to fill the power vacuum is transformed into the creation of the “new” political, economic, cultural and military force to fill the vacuum.

A hard look at the past decade needs to be made, to determine what makes sense and what does not going forward. 

What are the limits of the possible revealed by the past decade?

How effectively can an outside power remake power vacuums within foreign cultures?

What are the limits to foreign intervention, not simply military intervention, but intervention per se of outside powers?

It is not so much about hard to soft power, it is a question about the inherent limits of what a foreign power can do when invading, occupying and “remaking” a power substitute in a situation where there is a dangerous power vacuum for that outside power.

Looking back at the lessons learned of the past decade, should not simply or even primarily be about the US and allied militaries; it is about the capabilities of national security systems to deploy force and to define objectives for the use of force appropriate to the tasks and then withdrawing force effectively.

There is much literature on the problem of the military fighting the “last war,” but the military has innovated far more than the civilian systems whose main role with regard to the military is not simply deciding to send them, but to set realistic and evolving objectives towards their withdrawal.

It is not about simply sending the military to a crisis area and then hoping the situation resolves itself intuitively; it is about constantly shaping realistic policies which force can be used for, and then withdrawing those forces to preserve their warfighting capabilities, and not dissipating them in policy wind downs with no real strategic or tactical objectives in mind.

In other words, it is about using hard power for insertion to achieve objectives up to a certain point and then withdrawing those forces to preserve their combat capability.

It is about defining objectives, deploying force (and not micro managing the force when deployed) and withdrawing those forces when (almost by definition) those limited objectives are achieved.

It is about determining what are the success criteria short of totally remaking the crisis area to which force is deployed.

One problem has been that the dominance of the US Army and occupation thinking has migrated to what supporters call stability operations and nation building.

Despite the decidedly mixed (at best)results and the impossibility of squandering the national treasure as has been done in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a strong Army-led predisposition to try to transform the last decade into a next decade version of filling power vacuums with so-called ground forces.

I say so-called ground forces, because the U.S .has air-enabled ground forces, not ground forces.

And one clear force for change in the decade ahead is that the USAF will have more important tasks in the decade ahead than being the Fed Ex and United Airlines for the US Army.

A recent RAND report published for the US Army addresses some of these questions.

And as such provides a useful launch point to discuss ways to think about the decade ahead.

The report is entitled Improving Strategic Competence: Lessons from 13 Years of War and was done by the RAND Arroyo Center, the Army equivalent to CNA for the US Navy.

Not surprisingly, the report is pitched to looking at the future of the US Army but from the perspective of what the report considers to be a key failing, namely strategic competence gaps, so to speak.

According to the report’s abstract, the report is described as follows:

This report contributes to the ongoing debate about the lessons from the past 13 years of war and the requirements for addressing future conflicts.

It addresses a particular disconnect in the current debate on the future of national security strategy and the role of landpower caused by an inadequate examination of the national level of strategy made by the U.S. government.

The disconnect exists because there has been no systematic effort to collect and analyze insights from those who have been actively engaged in making policy and strategy from 2001 to 2014.

A RAND Arroyo Center workshop provided a mechanism for eliciting insights from policymakers and academic experts involved in the formation of national-level strategy and its implementation over the past 13 years.

This study analyzes and develops those insights in the context of the debate on future national security strategy.

It applies those insights to the future operating environment, which will include irregular and hybrid threats, and identifies critical requirements for land forces and special operations forces to operate successfully in conjunction with other joint, interagency, and multinational partners

This is a classic statement in Think Tank speak.

But a clearer statement was provided in an article published by Sandra Erwin in National Defense.

The United States does not have a credible strategy to combat enemies like Islamic extremist groups and needs to rethink its entire national security decision-making process, a new military-funded study suggests.

“I don’t think we understand completely the fight we are in,” said Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland, commanding general of U.S. Army Special Operations Command.

Despite 13 years of grueling wars, he noted, the national security apparatus has not adapted to changing threats and has not learned to cope with complex challenges.

“We are in a competition where it looks like football to us, but it’s really a game of soccer with elements of rugby and lacrosse,” he said Dec. 12 during a gathering of think tank experts and military officials hosted by RAND Corp. senior analyst Linda Robinson. She is one of the authors of a new study sponsored by Army Special Operations Command, titled, “Improving Strategic Competence: Lessons from 13 Years of War.”

RAND analysts wade into the debate about the lessons from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and whether the United States is applying those lessons to address future conflicts.

Cleveland said the study exposes uncomfortable truths that not everyone in official Washington will want to hear, but need to be recognized. One of those realities is that the military continues to fight the last war even though enemies such as the Islamic State present entirely new challenges. “We have to be honest about how much legacy we are bringing into a fight that is not suited for the legacy we bring forward,” he said. “This is unlike anything we’ve confronted, I think, in our past.”

The counterterrorism machine the United States stood up after the 9/11 attacks has become a bureaucratic juggernaut that struggles to adapt, Cleveland said. “We built a great apparatus for terrorism. It has huge advocacy. If someone questions it, you run the risk of taking on an entrenched infrastructure.”

The United States needs fresh ideas on how to make the nation safe, he said, and they can’t just involve military actions. “We keep adapting the existing tools the best we can but at some point we have to develop new tools, new ways to look at this problem.”

In the case of the Islamic State, the Obama administration was caught unprepared to deal with a terrorist group that turned into a “no-kidding insurgency” that conducts maneuver warfare, information campaigns and is taking on the characteristics of a nation state. It is still not clear how to respond,

This all sounds promising, so with the Erwin piece in mind, I dove into the study.

But what I found was less fulfilling than I hoped to find for what quickly became evident was that the report more or less updated the last decade for the next. 

And we learned such insights as the importance of “whole of government” approaches rather than relying on the traditional military.

At the heart of the problem is the failure of political authorities and crisis managers to define clear objectives within the limits of the possible and withdrawing force when those limits are reached.

It is about defining success; not decisive victory.

Interestingly, the report is built around a core contradiction on this point.

On the one hand, the report argues for victory as the definer for intervention; and on the other, for a more nuanced success indicator.

Military campaigns take place in the social, cultural, and political contexts of the states in which they are fought, and any successful operation will be cognizant of those contexts and have a plan for how to operate within, exploit, influence, and achieve victory in them.

The lack of a political strategy, the failure to recognize its centrality, and its inadequate integration and sustained application may be the most important insights to arise from this inquiry. (pp.52-53).

Yet later the report comes closer to the reality of political use of combat forces, namely the need to declare what is success rather than a final notion of victory.

The theory is based on a broader conception of war to include the political dimension.

That broader conception in turn necessitates a theory of success that addresses the full dimensions of war.

The ways of achieving success encompass a much wider range of actions.

The desired political outcome may be obtained via containment or mitigation, formally negotiated settlements, informal power sharing, or elections and constitutional charters that establish the basis for a new political order.

These outcomes may be sought, of course, without waging war; but the point is that the goals of war must also encompass some such outcomes.

Otherwise the United States runs the risk of winning battles but failing to achieve strategic (or even operational) success.

This broader view does not make attaining success necessarily more difficult, but rather opens up a broader definition of what success may look like and a wider range of ways to attain it (p.99).

The report focuses on shortfalls of the military and its thinking about success; and the need for a broader concept of achieving objectives than simply using force.

 

The report makes a clear argument that the skill sets developed over the past decade need to be maintained going forward as the “political” context of military engagement requires them.

This study suggests that recognizing the likely continuities between the recent past and the possible future will provide a hedge against unwise abandonment of hard-won innovations in practice and thought.

While budget decisions necessarily force reductions in capacity, many of the capabilities developed over the past 13 years merit retention at smaller scale.

Some of those capabilities warrant further investment of time or resources to ensure they are refined to perform better in the future.

And some ongoing gaps, if not addressed, represent a risk to future mission success. (p.123).

Even if one accepts that some skill sets of the sort advocated by the report are important, and I certainly would agree with that, the question is within which budgetary and force structure context?

Having visited the Pacific earlier this year, while the Army was making their bid for a Pacific Pathways strategy, whereby the USAF would essentially take the Army around the region, the reality is that the other services plus the allies valued the US Army contribution in missile defense more than human terrain mapping.

Yet in the report, the only mention of missile defense is scarce references to the Manpads threat!

The most fundamental problem facing the US Army as an occupation force can be put simply:

When an outside power intervenes and stays as an occupying power it is always a “them to the us” of the local culture or state. 

This “them-us” dichotomy is built into occupation.

It is inherent in the use of force itself, for the state is using force for specific punishment purposes, not to set up a new nation or welfare state.

An outside power intervening ALWAYS upsets the local power structure, and locals leverage the presence of the outside power to augment their own power within their society, either by working with or suberverting the occupation power ‘s agenda.

Since the RAND authors want to talk about political context, let us talk about the political context of occupation and its impacts.

This takes the discussion then out of the lingo of think-tankese.

The report spends a great deal of time focusing on the transformation of the military to enable it to do political interventions and, in effect, occupations without grasping the single most important question – where and why?

And who is writing the check for all of this?

A colleague commenting on an earlier version of this article added this insight into the challenges of moving forward to deal with the threats of the next decade and not being trapped by the “stability occupations” argument.

At the heart of the traditional land power argument is a concept that goes something like this:

“In the end, land forces will secure the objective to allow Phase IV follow on operations.

No other force can achieve what a present, persistent land force can do.

All other forces in their respective mediums should support the land force

in their efforts to secure this objective.”

The Petraeus corollary to this idea is that to do so will take 25 years and in the end the locals must own the problem.

I would argue the locals already owned the problem from the start and all a great power can do is set conditions to allow one side of the local power equation to rule.

My models are Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya not Iraq or Afghanistan.

The problem is the lingering notion that a massive, armored land army will be required to deal with a peer competitor.

Problem: if A2/AD is a problem for air and sea forces then it’s a complete bar to land power employment in the same theater at least the current US Army formations of armored BCTs.

In my mind a tank is the 21st century equivalent of a battleship of the 1920s. If your opponent has access to his airspace and possesses late 20th century precision attack (ISR plus sensing weapons), tanks will be defeated like Saddam’s were in 1991.

This is the lesson PRC and DPRK as well as others except the US Army have noted.

My Army friends also acknowledge the value of airpower but only as a prelude to their operations.

I am not personally interested in a strategy that repeats pastglories (note today is the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge).

Our adversaries have seized on nukes as an answer to our way of war.

So precision attack from long range on a very specific set of targets that limit causalities on both sides, allow the power elites of the adversary to live to see their mistake and choose a path to peace is what we should figure out how to do.

The military has over adapted to land occupation and nation-building. 

The challenge is not to modernization the approach but to jettison it.

And with it, the core obligation of civilians to manage crises needs to be highlighted. 

It is about using the military instrument to intervene to a level where success is attained and then to withdraw.

One reads in vain in the report for a real treatment of the fundamental gap in the national security system, namely civilian crisis managers who can put in place reasonable exit strategies when forces inserted have achieved the limits of success appropriate and possible to a situation.

In effect, the report blurs the lines between what a coherent military operation can accomplish and what the national leadership might wish to accomplish in a particular state, region or crisis.

We learn such things as “technology cannot substitute for expertise in history, culture and languages because of the inherently human and uncertain nature of war” or that “interventions should not be conducted without a plan to conduct stability operations, capacity building, transition and, if necessary counterinsurgency.”

Why?

If we look back at Afghanistan we accomplished the most that we really needed to achieve with the initial destruction of the Taliban government in the early Afghan war period.

The insertion was well organized and well designed; and we did not need to go down the path of nation builder and occupier of Afghanistan.

No amount of language training is going to make the US Army Afghani.  Full stop.

What we need from RAND and from the Washington think tanks is a serious look at the missing capabilities of the civilian side of the equation – what are the objectives of an intervention and as we intervene how do we plan for withdrawal?

And with that what are the limited but important objectives we can achieve by using the military?

This is what missing; not turning the US military into the Red Cross.

There is no doubt that the US military needs to progress in terms of its ability to work within coalitions, to better understand how to operate in various global settings, but clearly this is ongoing for the US military.

In fact, one could argue that the US military as a whole understands the broader world considerably better than its political masters.

As Dr. Kenneth Maxwell, the noted American and English historian of Brazil has observed: “One problem for the U.S. has clearly been that the US military is engaged globally in way that neither the Congress nor Administration officials have been. This means that foreign leaders often look to the US military for advice in ways that the domestic bound politicians can simply not provide.”

And it is hard to argue that AID or the State Department are stunning performers or the CIA or NSA for that matter with regard to working global foreign policy challenges, problems or anticipating threats.

So it is not clear that pushing the U.S. military further into the swamp of “interagency and intergovernmental coordination” will make for more effective interventions; it could give us endless Iraq’s or Afghanistan’s, something that surely will end with the US military bankrupt and ineffectual.

 Insertion Forces Front Line Defence