Essential reading for understanding the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is the new article published by the Army War College titled
Bounding the Global War on Terrorism (PDF) by Dr Jeffrey Record.
A stinging rebuke of our counter-terror strategies and methods, the author's main target is Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, which he says, "saddled the U.S. armed forces, especially the U.S. Army, with costly and open-ended imperial policing and nation-building responsibilities outside the professional military's traditional mission portfolio."
Overall, this paper is a supremely clear, thoughtful, and cohesive analysis which pinpoints the serious flaws in our counter-terror strategies. It also offers intelligent recommendations necessary to sustain our efforts against the REAL terrorist threats.
The author's basic criticism is that the Administration has no strategic vision for the GWOT. Bush lumps all threats together under the label 'terror' while failing neither to differentiate between types of threats nor the severity each poses.
"The administration has postulated a multiplicity of enemies, including rogue states, weapons of mass destruction (WMD)proliferators, terrorist organizations, and terrorism itself. . . . In so doing, the administration has arguably subordinated strategic clarity to the moral clarity it seeks in foreign policy and may have set the United States on a path of open-ended and unnecessary conflict with states and nonstate entities.
Simply put, we are picking too many fights with too many enemies - many of whom do not constitute true threats (e.g., Iraq). By doing so, we significantly hamper our ability to bring sufficient and appropriate resources to bear against the major enemies hiding among a multitude of minor and even imagined ones.
The problem lies in Bush's insistence on CONFLATING the threats from many state and non-state actors under a single label: Terror.
The administration has thus postulated a broad, international terrorist threat to U.S. national security interests that encompasses (1) three geographic levels of terrorist organizations--national, regional, and global, as well as (2)rogue states--specifically Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Also on the threat list are (3)any individuals or entities that proliferate WMD to terrorist organizations or rogue states, and (4)failed states, like the Taliban's Afghanistan, that may not sponsor terrorism overseas but that willingly or unwillingly provide safe haven and assistance to organizations that do.
This lack of discrimination "obscures critical differences among rogue states, among terrorist organizations, and between rogue states and terrorist groups." The author likens this current thinking to the now discredited notion of a Communist Bloc during the Cold War:
Communism was held to be a centrally directed international conspiracy; a Communist anywhere was a Communist everywhere, and all posed an equal threat to America's security. A result of this inability to discriminate was disastrous U.S. military intervention in Vietnam against an enemy perceived to be little more than an extension of Kremlin designs in Southeast Asia and thus by definition completely lacking an historically comprehensible political agenda of its own.
(This is an important point. In both the Cold War and the GWOT, a convenient, politically motivated term like 'Communism' or 'Terrorism' was used to group disparate, unequal, and uncoordinated threats under the overarching umbrella of a common enemy. The consequence of this thinking during the Cold War was Viet Nam, which had less to do with the spread on International Communism than with a poor nation's revolt against the vestiges of colonialism. Today the same conflated thinking results in Iraq, where a secularist dictator is portrayed as a supporter of Islamist political ambitions despite his long history of SURPRESSING sectarian movements.)
The conflation of threats not only leads to mistaken targets, but also mistaken fighting responses. In the case of Iraq and al-Qaeda, the difference between state and non-state actors should not have been obscured:
[R]ogue states and terrorist organizations are fundamentally different in character and vulnerability to U.S. military power. Terrorist organizations are secretive, elusive, nonstate entities that characteristically possess little in the way of assets that can be held hostage; as The National Security Strategy points out, a terrorist enemys' most potent protection is statelessness. In contrast, rogue states are sovereign entities defined by specific territories, populations, governmental infrastructures, and other assets; as such, they are much more exposed to decisive military attack than terrorist organizations.
'Yet unlike terrorist organizations, rogue states, notwithstanding administration declamations to the contrary, are subject to effective deterrence and therefore do not warrant status as potential objects of preventive war and its associated costs and risks.
In other words, the doctrine of pre-emptive war should not have been applied to Iraq since traditional deterrence has been shown effective in preventing attack from rogue nation-states - and at far less cost in lives and treasure. Because Iraq was a state actor, it could be contained, but the confusion about this status led us to war.
The author then analyzes the CURRENT objectives for the GWOT, and evaluates the likelihood of success on most counts.
(1) destroy the perpetrators of 9/11--i.e., al-Qaeda;
Refusing to say whether will achieve this objective, the author instead insists categorically that we MUST, however long it takes. The Iraq war probably makes this task more difficult, despite the assurances of Bush to the contrary.
(2) destroy or defeat other terrorist organizations of global reach, including the nexus of their regional and national analogs;
This goal is more problematic and most likely ill-advised since, 'most terrorist organizations do not threaten the United States.' To try to stamp out ALL terrorist organizations would merely invite attacks from groups that would otherwise not have any interest in doing so.
(3) delegitimize and ultimately eradicate the phenomenon of terrorism;
Here the problem is the goal itself because, "terrorism is not a proper noun. Like guerrilla warfare, it is a method of violence, a way of waging war. How do you defeat a technique, as opposed to a flesh-and-blood enemy?" This type of thinking, moreover, leads to the very conflation of enemies and homogenous responses that is at the core of the author's overall criticism.
(4) transform Iraq into a prosperous, stable democracy;
Difficult primarily because of the lack of security, and a reliance on a faulty WWII analogy.
(5) transform the Middle East into a region of participatory self government and economic opportunity (reliant, of course on the success of goal (4));
The author questions what basis, other than hope, does the neo-conservative, 'democratic domino theory' rest? Moreover, it even a desirable outcome given the antipathies we have engendered in the region and the goals of Isamist movements, however democratic? The author then asks the provocative question, "Are U.S. strategic interests in the Muslim world really better served by hostile democracies than by friendly autocracies?"
(6) halt, by force if necessary, the continued proliferation of WMD and their means of delivery.
The attack on Iraq has been counterproductive since it only convinces states like North Korea (and Iran) that possessing WMD is essential to their survival. In essence, it is North Korea that is deterring the US, rather than the reverse. The focus should be on deterring use, rather than acquisition. Additionally, the effectiveness and wisdom of 'mini-nukes' is questioned.
The author concludes that we have basically bitten of more than we can chew in Iraq, which threatens the political, fiscal, and military sustainability of the entire GWOT.
"There are clearly lurking threats to its (GWOT) fiscal and its military sustainability, which in turn could threaten its political sustainability. The key is the future of the security situation and U.S. policy in Iraq, which the administration has made the centerpiece of the global war on terrorism. Little doubt remains about the sustainability of the relatively inexpensive war of necessity against al-Qaeda. The issue is the sustainability of the war of choice against Iraq and its aftermath.
To place the GWOT on more sustainable footing the paper recommends:
(1) Deconflate the threat. This means, in both thought and policy, treating rogue states separately from terrorist organizations, and separating terrorist organizations at war with the United States from those that are not.
(2) Substitute credible deterrence for preventive war as the primary policy for dealing with rogue states seeking to acquire WMD. This means shifting the focus of U.S. policy from rogue state acquisition of WMD to rogue state use of WMD.
(3) Refocus the GWOT first and foremost on al-Qaeda, its allies, and homeland security.
(4) Seek rogue-state regime change via measures short of war. These include coercive diplomacy, trade/aid concessions, as well as simple patience.
(5) Be prepared to settle for stability rather than democracy in Iraq, and international rather than U.S. responsibility for Iraq.
(6) Reassess U.S. force levels, especially ground force levels (i.e., increase them).
The above synopsis does not do this important policy paper justice. A key feature throughout is the care with which the author addresses historical analogies, applying with precision the one's he sees as relevant, and debunking many of the Bush's Administration's faulty comparisons. Additionally, the paper is chock full of great quotes which would be valuable to any blogger.
Please read for yourself and see.