|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| February 21, 2002 |
A Fourth Generation Warfare Perspective on the Military Role in Homeland Security
Marcus Corbin, Senior Analyst, mcorbin@cdi.org
The Department of Defense is expanding its already numerous activities related to homeland security. A new special assistant for homeland security has taken office and a new regional combatant command -- the Northern Command -- has been proposed to coordinate military units defending the United States. The proposed increase in military spending for 2003, including funding for new homeland security activities, is larger than the entire budgets of all but two other federal departments, including those with primary responsibility for homeland security, such as the Department of the Justice and its FBI, the Department of the Treasury with its Customs Service, and the Department of Transportation with its Coast Guard. But how suited is the military to providing homeland security against the new forms of threat the country may face in the 21st Century? How much of a role should it play?
A school of strategic thought that focuses on a new, "fourth generation," of warfare provides one perspective on the question. From this perspective, the new 21st century threats are likely to pursue strategies that will make the military less relevant to homeland security and hence limit its desirable role. The most dangerous of these new threats will practice what the school calls "fourth generation" warfare.
First generation warfare was characterized by the line and column tactics of the Napoleonic era. Second generation warfare is an "industrial" war of attrition, best epitomized by the Western Front in World War I. Wearing down the enemy by massive application of materiel was also largely the U.S. operational strategy in World War II, and remains the dominant approach in the U.S. military today. Third generation "maneuver" warfare was practiced by the German forces in World War II using the blitzkrieg to target enemy cohesion, rather than destroy enemy forces per se. To get away from the terrible destruction and casualty cost of second generation warfare, the Germans developed this method of "asymmetric" attacks to bypass enemy strengths. The strategy of creating chaos, anxiety, mistrust, paralysis, and panic was symbolized by the rapid defeat of France in 1940.
Fourth generation warfare features asymmetric attacks similar to third generation warfare, but off the "battlefield" as well as on it. Attackers can be terrorists, guerrillas, and other irregulars rather than regular forces, and targets can be vulnerable infrastructure, institutions, populations, and cultural icons as well as armed forces.
Ultraterrorists -- the new form of terrorists with essentially unlimited goals such as destruction of Western culture, rather than limited political goals such as self-determination -- are likely to use fourth generation warfare to bypass their enemy's strengths. In the case of the United States, that means trying to bypass dominant U.S. regular armed forces, and is exactly what al Qaeda did on Sept. 11. This is what is likely to limit the relevance of U.S. forces in homeland security.
For example, it might be thought that if the military had been conducting air patrols over U.S. cities on Sept. 11 and had orders to shoot down errant commercial aircraft, the al Qaeda attacks could have been prevented. However, attacks using airliners as missiles could have been prevented, but not other attacks. Al Qaeda would have chosen some other target and means of attack that bypassed that military defense. The "homeland security" provided by the air patrols that have continued since Sept. 11 is limited given that fourth generation enemies emphasize surprise, and that element is now missing. Even if attackers could still seize commercial airliners, if they are effective fourth generation warfare practitioners, they would rather choose some other mode of attack in order to keep the initiative and to increase chaos and fear in their target nation.
National missile defense is another example of the limits of a military role in homeland security. If the United States develops a missile defense system that works, clever threats could simply adopt one of the numerous other means to deliver weapons against us, such as smuggling them in by ship, plane, or truck. The new enemies are agile and flexible. National missile defense is static, inflexible, large-scale, and costly. In fact, under the move and counter-move dynamic that characterizes fourth generation warfare, national missile defense might even be counterproductive: if it pushes enemies away from a dubious strategy of building costly, unreliable, inaccurate, low-payload intercontinental missiles that carry a return address, and towards effective strategies of building cheaper weapons that can be smuggled in and delivered accurately, the program would hurt the overall goal of defending against weapons of mass destruction.
In terms of fourth generation strategy, deploying large numbers of military personnel at sites like the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City is, again, a static operation that cedes the initiative to the enemy. There is, however, a use for such operations in the new form of warfare. Winning, in fourth generation thinking, comes from outmaneuvering an enemy mentally. One way to do this is to put the enemy increasingly off balance by a series of varying moves and thrusts -- expected and unexpected, orthodox and unorthodox, distracting and decisive. In this sense, the military does have an important role in homeland security: to distract an enemy, convincing them that the United States is reacting in a predictable and not dangerous manner -- while in fact decisive moves are being prepared and conducted against the enemy.
This was more or less what happened in the Afghanistan campaign, and points to the real role of the military in "homeland security" -- conducting the counterattack. In Operation Enduring Freedom, the military used an unorthodox approach, not invading Afghanistan but using a few of its own agile special operations ground forces in combination with air power and local allies. This combination created chaos, anxiety, and collapse in the Taliban and al Qaeda. Unfortunately the operation was likely an easier case than may occur in the future because Osama bin Laden had made a fatal error – rather than completely adopt the ultraterrorist model of operating only a hidden international network, he made the mistake of establishing an old-style infrastructure of training camps and links to a specific "government."
The military has a variety of lessons to teach other domestic agencies (for example it has expertise in chemical and biological preparedness and response) and ways to help out, but after a transition period, existing or new civilian law enforcement and emergency response agencies, if properly funded, should be able to take over many of the activities the active duty military has performed in the interim. This would allow the military to focus on its primary role in "homeland security" -- taking the fight back to the enemy.
Gulf Conflict II?
Michael Donovan, Ph.D., Research Analyst, mdonovan@cdi.org
A decade after the end of the Gulf conflict, Washington is once again casting an angry eye at Saddam Hussein. President George W. Bush makes no secret of the fact that he would like to see Saddam depart the scene. Though it is tempting to suggest that the President is pursuing the unfinished business of George Bush Sr., this is not the case. Regime change in Baghdad is a political objective that stands in sharp contrast to the largely military goal of liberating Kuwait. The first Bush administration learned, belatedly, that political objectives tend to be more complex and the attendant military risks are correspondingly greater. The second Bush administration must now revisit these lessons.
The first Bush administration was understandably reluctant to broaden its objectives following the Gulf conflict. The international coalition that defeated Saddam showed little sign of surviving its own success. A host of voices from within the United Nations argued against intervention. Some even argued against sanctions. If violence was indeed a prominent feature of Iraqi political culture, then perhaps a toothless Saddam was better than no Saddam at all. He could be isolated regionally while the Iraqi political elite were induced by sanctions to end his tenure. Thus George Bush Sr. invited the Iraqi people to “take matters into their own hands,” even as the White House pronounced publicly that there was no mandate for regime change. Meanwhile, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell warned of the quagmire the United States could be drawn into if it chose to intervene in a nascent Iraqi civil war. The liberation of Kuwait was an unqualified military success that only “mission creep” could undermine.
A decade later, there remain appealing reasons to overthrow Saddam. He is a brutal dictator and a perennial source of instability in the region. He stands in open defiance to the United Nations and weapons inspections. Moreover, the forward military presence that is designed to ensure regional stability in the face of a revisionist Iraq is itself a source of instability within Arab/Muslim countries. Sorting out Iraq, therefore, is a precondition for minimizing the U.S. presence elsewhere in the region. After Sept. 11, the stakes seem greater. In the view of the second Bush administration, weapons of mass destruction provide a link between recalcitrant states such as Iraq and the like’s of Osama bin Laden. Terrorism, the President argued in the State-of-the-Union address, has a geopolitical context.
The war on terrorism may provide a justification for dealing with Saddam, as the President argues. But it also suggests a multilateral approach, and not even America’s closest allies are convinced of the wisdom of unseating Saddam. The first Bush administration found that allowing Saddam to remain in power was a requirement for sustaining the international consensus against the Iraqi dictator. The second Bush administration now confronts a similar paradox.
There seem to be few attractive strategies for unseating Saddam, short of a full-scale military intervention. Turkey has its own Kurdish problem to cope with and the Saudis are suspicious of a Shiite dominated government, as is the United States. Arming either of these prominent Iraqi factions appears untenable. By all accounts, Saddam’s internal security apparatus remains an efficient tool, and the CIA sees few candidates for a palace coup. There may be disaffected elements within the military, but the evidence suggests that the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard remain effective watchdogs in this regard. Some members of the administration have hung their hopes on the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an unwieldy umbrella group of opposition elements. The INC has found some support on a political level in Washington. But it commands little support at the CIA and the State Department, and is not seen as a capable challenger even with substantial American support.
Emboldened by America’s speedy victory in Afghanistan, some now call for a comparable approach in Iraq. They argue that, after a decade of sanctions, Saddam Hussein has never been weaker or more despised by his own people. Similar voices were heard following Iraq’s humiliating defeat in 1992. Speaking to the BBC a month after the conclusion of hostilities, then-Secretary of Defense Richard Chaney spoke in a way that still resonates:
The world awaits the answers.
Europeans in Row Over Support for U.S. Counterterrorist Operations -- An unusual public row erupted among top European defense officials over support for a wider U.S. war on terrorism, prompted by President Bush's "axis of evil" remarks. French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine called the statement, made by the U.S. president during the annual State of the Union speech, "simplistic" and "absurd." German magazine Der Spiegel quoted the country's foreign minister Joschka Fischer as warning against the dangers of a U.S.-led global war. "The day could come when the Europeans have to make clear that this is not their policy," the magazine quoted Fischer as saying. Chris Patten, the European Union's commissioner for external affairs and the former chairman of the usually pro-U.S. Conservative Party in Britain, also warned against "unilateralist urge" in Washington, calling it "ultimately ineffective and self-defeating." His remarks prompted an unusual response by former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana (currently the EU's foreign policy chief), who warned his European colleagues to be "a bit more subtle." "The relationship between the United States and the EU is crucial and we should not play with that relationship, and the US should not play with it either," Solana said on Feb. 20.
DoD to Request Additional Funds for Afghanistan Operations –- The Pentagon is in the process of drafting a request for supplemental funding in fiscal year 2002 for military operations in Afghanistan, according to Defense News. According to Pentagon officials, the request is expected to be “in the mid-teens” of billions of dollars. The Defense Department already received $17.5 billion in supplemental funds for fiscal year 2002, much of which is being used to fund operations in Afghanistan, which Pentagon sources estimate are costing $1.8 billion per month.
Bush Administration Studying Development of New Nukes -– While pursuing plans to drastically reduce the number of deployed nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, the Bush Administration is considering the development of new types of nuclear weapons. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, retired Gen. John A. Gordon, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said that a study by the Nuclear Weapons Council is considering two designs of an earth-penetrating warhead intended to destroy underground hardened facilities. According to Gen. Gordon, these studies “would proceed beyond the ‘paper’ stage and include a combination of component and subassembly tests and simulations.”
Italy Moves to Trim EU's Military Duties -- Italy has called a meeting of European Union (EU) defense ministers to discuss reducing the number and types of military missions to be led by the EU. Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino said that the EU has rushed into creating its own military identity without thinking it through. The Union decided in December 1999 to create a force of 50,000 to 60,000 to carry out peacekeeping, peacemaking, and crisis management operations in cases of man-made or natural disasters. Martino said in a Feb. 21 interview with British daily The Telegraph that the number of tasks the EU force might carry out needed to be reduced to "very few" because NATO had proven itself to be the best vehicle for carrying out multi-national operations. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Martino was quoted as saying.
Pentagon Creates New Office to Influence Global Opinion -– The Defense Department this week acknowledged the creation of the new Office of Strategic Influence, which the Pentagon influence foreign public opinion about U.S. military operations. While it is unclear exactly what the office will do, concerns have been raised efforts to manipulate information or even distribute false information, could actually backfire and call in to question official Pentagon statements. Responding to these concerns, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that rather than lie, the office would use “tactical deception” and oversee distribution of DoD propaganda.
Quotation of the Week –- “Despite some of the reports about the Office of Strategic Influence that I’ve read over the last day or two, Defense Department officials don’t lie to the public. We are confident that the truth serves our interests in the broader sense of our national security and specifically in this war [against terrorism],” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, The Washington Times, February 21, 2002.
This Week on America’s Defense Monitor: “Small Arms and Failed States”
In Albania, thousands of guns taken in raids on state-owned arsenals created chaos. In Angola, the proliferation of light weaponry has triggered the collapse of a fragile peace accord. From Kosovo to Somalia, from Sierra Leone to Northern Ireland, the link between small arms and political collapse poses one of the true challenges to peace in the 21st Century. In many regions stopping the flow of small arms is a first step toward peace and stability.
Airs in Washington, DC on Sunday, February 24 at 10:30 a.m, on Channel 32.
Airs in NYC on Saturday, March 2 at 7:00 a.m. on Channel 13.
Visit the ADM web site for transcripts, CDI resources, and related links.
Regular Price: $39 each
INTERNET PRICE: $29
Order at 800-CDI-3334, or on the web.