|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| March 7, 2002 |
Drawing Lessons from Complex Contingencies
Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.), Chief of Research, dsmith@cdi.org
Five months ago today – October 7 – the United States launched its offensive against the Taliban government of Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda. Now there is a new government in Kabul, a UN sanctioned International Security and Assistance Force in and around the capital, and a council of elders (Loya Jirga) laying the groundwork for a new constitution and a more permanent government.
With significant fighting continuing in the country’s eastern province of Paktia and the potential for combat in other areas a possibility, conditions on the ground are a strange mix of simultaneous war, humanitarian and relief operations, and the start of the rebuilding of government institutions and civil society. The world has little concrete experience with such a mix; historically, wars are fought to an end and only then does rebuilding begin – unless the conquered are killed or enslaved.
The newness of this simultaneous war-relief-rebuilding paradigm suggests that the U.S. military needs to study the interplay of forces and organizations – international, national, and nongovernmental (NGO) – that form the backdrop for nation building. Unfortunately, there is a real possibility that one of the premier organizations that has been studying these issues – the Army War College’s Peacekeeping Institute (PKI) – may be closed in the Army’s drive to shift personnel positions and money into the fighting forces.
A quick look at a few recent publications from this small (10 people) organization illustrates the breadth of its work to help the Army understand some of the intricacies of these complex contingency operations.
What leaps out immediately from the above list is the seemingly never-ending instances in which U.S. forces become involved in complex contingencies, forcing them to interact with official international and regional organizations and NGOs. While each occasion will present unique circumstances, the ability to approach contingencies with a general template in mind and an understanding of other entities that form part of the operational space is critical for avoiding misunderstandings and errors that can prolong the contingency and even cause casualties.
Constant demands of real-world operations limit in-depth reflection on day-to-day interactions by those directly engaged in complex contingencies. This suggests the need for a reputable organization with roots in the military and IGO/NGO communities and access to individuals and reports that can step back and do the comprehensive studies that will produce more efficient and effective future missions when required.
The Army War College’s Peacekeeping Institute is unique in its ability to conduct such studies and mine the best brains, inside and outside government, on issues associated with complex contingencies. To abolish the Institute would be short-sighted and futile, for the 21st century, as new as it is, suggests that many military/civil operations lie ahead. If these are to succeed, somewhere there will have to be an institute devoted to the study of peacekeeping.
Mine Ban Treaty Celebrates Third Year in Action
Victoria Garcia, Research Assistant, vgarcia@cdi.org and Rachel Stohl, Senior Analyst, rstohl@cdi.org
March 1, 2002 marked the third anniversary of the entry into force of the Ottawa Landmine Treaty. The Treaty prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines, requires the eradication of landmine stockpiles within four years, and the clearing of all landmines within ten years. But the United States remains outside the circle of nations committed to eradicating these indiscriminate weapons.
To date, 142 countries have signed the Mine Ban Treaty and 122 governments have ratified it. The United States, however, is not one of the Treaty’s participants. While, all NATO members, with the exception of Turkey and the United States, have signed the treaty, the United States continues to insist that landmines remain an integral part of U.S. military strategy in Korea and elsewhere.
Even without U.S. participation, the Treaty has had many positive results since its entry into force in 1999: reductions in landmine production, sales, deaths, and even complete clearing of landmines in countries that were once heavily infested. However, landmines continue to cause untold suffering around the world. According to the 2001 Land Mine Monitor Report, landmines continue to maim or kill approximately 15,000 to 20,000 people each year. While this figure marks a substantial decrease from the previously estimated 26,000 deaths a year, as many as 16 countries still rely on landmines as a tactical weapon, including the United States, Russia, Uzbekistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. While landmines continue to wreak havoc in countries such as India, Angola, Cambodia and Northern Iraq, where there are no U.S. forces, U.S. troops involved in Operation Enduring Freedom are in danger from landmines. Afghanistan is believed to be one of the most heavily infested countries in the world. The United Nations estimates the number of mines in Afghanistan to be between 5 million and 10 million. The millions of active mines that contaminate 27 of Afghanistan's 29 provinces, some of which were supplied by the United States during the Soviet era, are now threatening U.S. and coalition soldiers in Afghanistan. Three U.S. Marines were injured by a landmine in December and an Army explosives expert was injured by a mine two days later during the U.S. effort in Afghanistan. In February, an Australian Special Operations soldier was killed by a landmine. While demining efforts in Afghanistan in 2000 effectively destroyed 3,542 anti-personnel landmines and 636 anti-tank mines, such programs had their funding cut even before Sept. 11 and now are nowhere near previous levels.
Although the United States has undertaken landmine alternative research and development, the Pentagon concurrently continues to fund projects that run counter to the Mine-Ban Treaty such as the RADAM mine system, an artillery-fired anti-tank mine that includes anti-personnel landmines. In November 2001, Inside the Army reported that the Army would be cutting all funds for alternative landmine technology between 2003 and 2007, worth an estimated $4 billion. Within weeks of this news, Representatives James McGovern (D-MA), Jack Quinn (R-NY) and Lane Evans (D-IL) circulated a letter signed by 124 lawmakers protesting the Army’s decision. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has ordered the Army to reverse its decision, butat the same time OSD is trying to persuade President Bush to discard all efforts to ban antipersonnel landmines. Bush is expected to make a decision regarding antipersonnel landmines and the Mine Ban Treaty soon. While the United States has not acceded to the Treaty, it does lead the world in funding for demining in other nations, and has thus far destroyed over 3 million landmines. But ridding the world of landmines requires more than demining and destruction. President Bush should sign the Mine Ban Treaty now. U.S. servicemen and women deployed around the world will thank him for it.
When is a Nuke not a Nuke?
Ben Friedman, Research Assistant, bfriedman@cdi.org
In May 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush will be in Moscow. There, he and Russian President Vladimir Putin hope to sign a written document that will codify their November handshake agreement to reduce strategic nuclear arsenals from current levels of 6,000 apiece to 1,700-2,200 by 2012. This may bring heady talk of massive nuclear reductions and greater security for all. However, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Bush-Putin plan will leave the United States with the potential to deploy around 15,000 nuclear weapons.
Moreover, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists just moved the nuclear doomsday clock two minutes closer to midnight -– signifying an increased, not decreased, chance that the world will see a nuclear war. These discrepancies illuminate the esoteric world of nuclear semantics. Nuclear weapons may be made by physical science, but they are counted by fuzzy math.
With nuclear weapons kept in various stages of readiness and dismantlement, there are many ways to measure when a nuclear weapon is no longer a nuclear weapon, and thus many ways to count nuclear weapons. The recent U.S. Nuclear Posture Review reveals that the Bush administration wants to have its cake and eat it too -– reaping the political credit for nuclear reductions while keeping the strategic flexibility a massive nuclear arsenal provides.
When politicians talk about nuclear weapons, they are usually talking about only a small portion of our nuclear warheads -– the strategically or operationally deployed warheads. Those are the weapons Bush and Putin’s agreement refers to and that are restricted under the START treaties. (The Bush-Putin agreement supplants START II, which called for reductions in deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to 3,500 each.) Under the agreement now being negotiated, the strategically deployed bucket will be partially emptied, while other buckets fill up.
According to the NRDC, the United States now has about 10,650 intact warheads in its nuclear arsenal. In addition, there are enough disassembled components for another 5,000 warheads in storage -- our strategic reserve. The intact nuclear stockpile can be divided into two parts, active and inactive weapons. Weapons in the inactive stockpile have had their limited life components, such as tritium, removed. The active stockpile has three subsections: deployed weapons, the responsive capacity or hedge, and spares. Deployed warheads can be either operationally deployed or in overhaul. Operationally deployed warheads are attached to a delivery system, such as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). At any given time, a certain percentage of the deployed warheads are in overhaul, being tested and updated. Warheads in the hedge are separated from their delivery vehicles, be they missiles or planes. Spare warheads can replace warheads in the responsive or operationally deployed categories. Out of all these categories, only the operationally deployed warheads are likely to be restricted by the Bush-Putin agreement.
While the reduction plan has not been finalized, if the agreement follows the Nuclear Posture Review, the majority of the "reduced" weapons in the U.S. arsenal will move from being operationally deployed into either the responsive or inactive categories. Very few warheads will be dismantled or destroyed. By 2012, there will probably be around 600 fewer warheads in the U.S. arsenal, because of the retirement of one type of warhead, the W62. That would represent a 6 percent reduction in intact nuclear warheads.
The nuclear stockpile can also be divided between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons fall into the same categories as strategic nuclear weapons, but they are unlikely to be affected by the Bush-Putin agreement. The critical difference between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons is in how they are intended to be used. Tactical nuclear weapons, smaller and shorter-range, are meant to be used against battlefield military targets. Strategic nuclear weapons are generally attached to long-range delivery vehicles, like ICBMs, and are more powerful. They are aimed at population centers or an enemy’s nuclear weapons -- counter-value and counter-force targets in military vernacular, respectively.
Arms control agreements, including the one currently being negotiated, do not deal with tactical nuclear weapons. During the Cold War, tactical nuclear weapons seemed a less severe threat to the superpowers than strategic weapons, since tactical nuclear weapons could not be launched at targets on other continents. Unfortunately, the exclusion of tactical nuclear weapons from arms control agreements may turn out to be a Cold War oversight. Tactical nuclear weapons, because of their small size, are the weapons most likely to fall into terrorist hands -- here they could be employed "strategically" in an asymmetric mode.
What are the security ramifications of these "reductions?" It is good for collective security to have more weapons moved into the responsive stockpile, because they are essentially deactivated, reducing the chances of an accidental launch. On the other hand, putting all these nuclear weapons in storage will be bad for security if the Russians do likewise. With an under-funded and degenerated command and control system, the Russians lack the resources to properly store and account for nuclear components, even with the U.S. aid provided through the Nunn-Lugar program.
Assuming that the document produced for May does not necessitate the actual destruction of weapons, or even their dismantlement, as seems likely, the key question becomes how the Russians will respond to the American hedge. For financial reasons, they may have to continue destroying weapons (destruction is cheaper than storage for Russia, unlike the United States). On the other hand, they may decide that maintaining their deterrent force requires mimicking the U.S. hedge force.
The primary security threat to the United States is now terrorists, not the Russian and Chinese deployed strategic nuclear arsenals. Alarmingly, our nuclear reduction strategy does not reflect that shift. If the new negotiations now underway lead the Russians to store their inactive warheads, rather than destroy them, we will have marginally reduced one threat only to compound another. The only thing reduced will be our own security.
Sept. 11: A Narrative
Christopher Hellman, Senior Analyst, chellman@cdi.org
By 10am on Sept. 11 I was numb. Like millions of others, I began to try and find the people close to me. It wasn’t easy. Long distance phone lines into Washington, D.C. were jammed, although I was able to get calls out, at least initially. Cell phone service collapsed under the weight of the demand and the Internet ground to a halt.
Eventually, the calls and e-mails began to get through to me. "Are you okay?" "Is anyone you know hurt?" "Where were you?" A lot of my out-of-town friends are former Washingtonians. In response to the question "What’s going on?" I sent out the following e-mail on Sept. 12, entitled "A view from D.C:"
"By 4:00pm Tuesday [Sept. 11], the Federal government, along with most businesses, were closed. The U.S. Capitol complex was sealed off. The commercial lot where I park my car was locked up tight, and the streets were virtually abandoned. Fortunately, CDI owns a van, and I ferried a couple of our interns home to Northern Virginia.
"The drive was eerie, with normally packed streets empty of cars and pedestrians. DC police were in evidence all over, particularly at major intersections and traffic circles. Union Station was closed, and while Metro was running, Union Station, Pentagon and National Airport stops were closed. Traveling down 23rd street towards the Mall the normally buzzing Foggy Bottom Metro station was deserted. [George Washington University] students, who usually crowd the streets, particularly on such a bright, sunny day, were not in sight. The streets around the State Department were cleared and barricaded. On Constitution Avenue, DC police wreckers were towing all parked cars.
"14th Street Bridge and Rte. 395 at the Pentagon were closed. Crossing the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge smoke could still be seen billowing from the Pentagon. At Ft. Myer all gates were closed and barricaded. Armed troops in combat dress (helmets and body armor) were clearly visible and disbursed around the grounds. At the Arlington Training Center civilian vehicles manned by uniformed guards formed makeshift barriers at all the gates, and access roads were closed and guarded by Arlington police.
"Lines to give blood at local Red Cross centers are reported to be as long as three hours. From my home off Rte. 50 (about 5 minutes drive from the Pentagon) a steady stream of helicopters flew over shuttling to and from the Pentagon until well after dark, and continued interspersed throughout the night. While National Airport, like all others, was closed, the periodic sound of jet engines revving could be heard clearly. At that distance they must have been pretty large to be heard at all.
"By Wednesday morning things have already begun to return to normal, like the 2nd or 3rd day after a big snow storm. The Federal Government is open (for symbolic reasons), but the U.S. Capitol complex is still sealed off, and most everything else is "liberal leave." DC schools are closed, but most others are open, although I saw no students outside the middle school in my neighborhood as I left for work. 395 has reopened as has the 14th Street bridge, but Constitution Avenue is closed along the Mall. Union Station has reopened, with regular commuter trains from Baltimore, West Virginia and Southern Virginia operating on limited schedules. National Airport and Pentagon metro stations are still closed.
"At Ft. Myer the parking lots were uncharacteristically full. All the troops are in. The gates remain barricaded, although the guards, still seen in large numbers around gates and buildings, have shed their helmets and body armor. I saw a large number in their black berets sitting, heads down, on the steps of one of the administrative buildings.
"Traffic into the city was light, except on the bridges, where people slowed to try and catch a glimpse of the Pentagon. A brown smudge of smoke in the crisp blue sky, tinted slightly orange by the rising sun, was the only evidence of the small fires that continue to burn twenty-two hours after the attack. In the city pedestrians are back on the streets, but in small numbers. I saw several groups of motorcade vehicles -- the black SUVs with emergency lights that are a common DC sight -- traveling around the city, although they are not escorting anyone. Likewise numbers of uniformed Secret Service vehicles, each with at least three people in them.
"‘Stunned silence’ is the best way I can describe it."
The task of getting word about everyone I knew who might have been in harm’s way took several days. I was lucky. In what became a macabre version of "Six Degrees of Separation," I was no closer to the tragedies than three degrees. At worst, I heard a half dozen "On any other day I might have…" or "my meeting was cancelled at the last minute."
I did not hear the most poignant, and riveting, story until several months later, at the unofficial reunion of my high school pals that happens each Thanksgiving. A boyhood friend of mine who started out as a local cop in our home town, and is now a member of the FBI’s counter-terrorist team, told us about his Sept. 11. Ironically, at the previous year’s reunion he was just back from Yemen, fresh with graphic stories about how his team had sifted through the wreckage of the USS Cole looking for evidence.
"We got to the Pentagon less than ten minutes after the crash," he said. [I’m using quotation marks even though this is not a verbatim transcript.] "At that point it was a rescue mission, not an investigation. We were just trying to help the emergency people search for survivors." (Later my friend’s team would help retrieve the aircraft’s flight data recorder from the wreckage.) He paused at this point, trying to find the right words, the images clearly vivid in his mind. "It was a mess."
As they dug through the rubble, my friend’s team was receiving frequent updates on their radios about another aircraft known to be missing. It was United Airlines flight 93, which later crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attacked the terrorists who had taken control of the plane.
"All we knew at the time was that another aircraft had dropped off the radar. It was assumed that it had been hijacked and possibly headed for Washington, " said my friend. "Based on its last known whereabouts, we were getting updates on its flight time to D.C. ‘It’s nine minutes out…it’s seven minutes out…’"
Finally the rescuers had to pull out for their own protection. "Once we knew that our team was clear, everyone went for cover," my friend remembered. "I went looking for my wife." His wife is also an FBI agent, working counter-narcotics. Like thousands of other FBI agents, members of the Secret Service and uniformed security, she answered the "all units respond" call that went out to federal and local law enforcement that morning.
Eventually he found her, safe and sound, taking cover with hundreds of others under one of the many highway overpasses that are part of the maze of roads surrounding the Pentagon. One can only imagine the relief they felt at that moment, but as he tells it, his feelings came out slightly different. "’Where the Hell have you been,’" he recalls saying.
Her answer was simple. "Looking for you."
Europe Steps Up Role, Takes Casualties in Afghanistan -- Three Danish peacekeepers and two German soldiers died on Wednesday in Kabul when ordnance they were trying to defuse exploded prematurely. The five were a part of the 4,500 strong peacekeeping contingent in Afghanistan led by Great Britain and composed almost entirely of British, German, French and Italian troops. Besides assuming control of the peacekeeping units, European allies also sent nearly 200 troops, mostly Special Forces, to take part in Operation Anaconda, the U.S.-led battle again the remnants ofal Qaedain the eastern part of Afghanistan. The Australian, Canadian, Danish, German, French and Norwegian troops are fighting alongside 900 Afghans and 1,200 U.S. soldiers.
GAO: Reduce F-22 FY’03 Request, Slow Program –- Citing continued development delays and potential cost overruns, the General Accounting Office (GAO) has recommended that the Air Force’s fiscal year 2003 request for F-22 "Raptor" fighter of 23 aircraft be reduced to 13, and that the service should re-evaluate the program’s timeline and budget. Further testing delays are likely, says the GAO, and as a result "there are strong indications the F-22 development program is unlikely to be completed within the current cost estimate of $21 billion." This is already above last year’s revised cost cap of $20.4 billion, which itself was an increase over Congress’s 1998 cap of $18.7 billion.
China to Increase Military Budget –- The Chinese government plans to increase its military spending this year by roughly $3 billion, or 17.6 percent, bringing the official defense budget to $20 billion. This follows an almost 18 percent increase last year. The publicly disclosed figures are known to be well below actual military spending, which some experts place at five times as high. The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London estimates that actual Chinese military spending is roughly $42 billion.
GAO Reports Problems With Antimissile Sensor Test -- An 18-month inquiry by the General Accounting Office (GAO) has found irregularities in an early flight test of the ground-based midcourse kill vehicle. Requested by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) in response to allegations of fraud by former TRW scientist Dr. Nira Schwartz, the GAO report questions Ballistic Missile Defense Organization officials' statements that the sensors' performance and warhead discrimination were "excellent" during IFT-1A. Instead, GAO scientists found that the overheating of the Boeing-built infrared sensor severely limited the kill vehicle's discrimination abilities. The GAO report also claims that contractors were not initially forthright when reporting about the gravity of these problems to government officials.
Quotation of the Week -- "We went [to Afghanistan] to hunt down the terrorists. We don't know where Osama bin Laden is, whether he's alive or dead, or where Mullah Omar is hiding. We've bombed the caves of Afghanistan back into the Dark Ages, which lasted a thousand years, and we've killed Afghans who are not our enemies. We killed 16 just a few days ago because we apparently didn't have the correct intelligence. There have been a lot of bodies, I'm sure, brought out of those caves, but we don't have Osama bin Laden. And if we expect to kill every terrorist in the world, that's going to keep us going beyond doomsday. How long can we afford this?" Senator Robert Byrd, (D-WV), hearing of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, February 27, 2002.
This Week on America’s Defense Monitor: "Casualty Phobia"
From Vietnam to Somalia, television images of U.S. casualties have convinced Pentagon war planners to pursue a vision of "bloodless war." Expensive aircraft and "stand-off" weapons used in the Yugoslav conflict are designed to keep U.S. troops far from harm's way. But how far can technology go toward limiting U.S. war casualties? Will Americans tolerate casualties if they are convinced the cause is just? An eye-opening investigation into where technology, media, and the reality of conflict collide.
Airs in Washington, DC on Sunday, March 10 at 10:30 a.m, on Channel 32.
Airs in NYC on Saturday, March 16 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 800CDI3334, or on the web.