United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests: A Review of the First Decade

United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests A Review of the First Decade

Edited by Karl P. Magyar

United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests

Also by Karl P. Magyar UNITED STATES INTERESTS AND POLICIES IN AFRICA: TRANSITION TO A NEW ERA (Editor, 2000)* PEACEKEEPING IN AFRICA: ECOMOG IN LIBERIA (Co-Editor, 1998)* GLOBAL SECURITY CONCERNS: ANTICIPATING THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (Editor, 1996) CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE: ANTICIPATING US MILITARY SECURITY CONCERNS (Editor, 1994) PROLONGED WARS: A POST-NUCLEAR CHALLENGE (Co-Editor, 1994) CONFLICT, CULTURE, AND HISTORY: REGIONAL DIMENSIONS (Co-Editor, 1993) RESPONDING TO LOW-INTENSITY CONFLICT CHALLENGES (Co-Editor, 1990) THE INDIAN SOUTH AFRICANS: A CONTEMPORARY PROFILE (Co-Editor, 1989) (* Also by Palgrave Macmillan)

Other books by Karl P. Magyar *In, UNITED STATES INTERESTS AND POLICIES IN AFRICA: TRANSITION TO A NEW ERA, Macmillan (editor).

United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests A Review of the First Decade Edited by

Karl P. Magyar, Ph.D. Professor of National Security Affairs, and Research Associate, College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education, United States Air Force

Associate Editors

Lt. Col. Bradley S. Davis Prof. Charles Tustin Kamps Maj. Vicki J. Rast

Editorial Matter and Selection and chapters 1 and 14 © Karl P. Magyar 2004 Chapters 2–13 © Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 2004 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 0–333–77246–6 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data United States post-Cold War defence interests: a review of the first decade / edited by Karl P. Magyar; associate editors, Bradley S. Davis, Charles Tustin Kamps, Vicki J. Rast. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–77246–6 (cloth) 1. United States–Foreign relations–1989– 2. United States–Military policy. 3. United States–Defences. I. Magyar, K. P. (Karl P.) II. Davis, Bradley S. III. Kamps, Charles Tustin. IV. Rast, Vicki J., 1996– E840.U48 2004 327.73’009’049–dc22

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

With fond memories of Elizabeth and Louis Magyar My Parents and Wolfgang Bodenstein, M.D. A True Son of Africa

Contents Notes on the Contributors

ix

Preface

xi

Part I 1

History After the End of History Karl P. Magyar

Part II 2

Introduction

Political Perspectives

The United Nations’ Transition in the Post-Cold War Era: Time for Change? Scott P. Morgan

3

NATO’s Changing Mission Deborah L. Borio

4

The New Regionalism: Mapping Change in the Post Cold War Era Michael James Savana Jr.

35 50

5

Redefining the Former Warsaw Pact Nations Edward B. Westermann

6

Instituting Change in U.S. Foreign Policy Towards the Emerging Pacific Rim Gary Ang

Part III

3

66 79

93

Military-strategic Perspectives

7

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy in Transition William L. Dowdy

8

Transitional Perspectives on Conventional, Chemical and Biological Weapons Production Bradley S. Davis

131

Military Operations other than War: Coming in from the Cold Andrew J. Britschgi

149

9

vii

113

viii Contents

10

Power Projection: Continuity and Change Charles Tustin Kamps

11

Airpower’s Effectiveness in a Changing World Destabilized by Asymmetric Threats Vicki J. Rast

165

181

12

Sizing the Military Force in the Post-Cold War Era John F. Troxell

201

13

Adapting Service Doctrine to a New World Order Michael D. Craig

220

14

The Changing Defense Industrial Base Edward F. Greer

235

Part IV 15

Conclusion

History is Dead. Long Live History! Karl P. Magyar

Index

253 260

Notes on the Contributors Maj. Gary Ang of the Republic of Singapore Air Force graduated from the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College as a visiting officer. He holds a BA (Engineering Science) from Oxford University, a BA (Political Science) from Auburn University at Montgomery, and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lt. Col. Deborah L. Borio is a career Security Police and Security Forces officer. At the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College, she served as Instructor in the War Theory Division. Lt. Col. Andy Britschgi graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy. As a career Fighter Pilot, he has served in every American theater of operations, and currently is Chief of Combat Systems Disclosure for international affairs at the Pentagon. Maj. Mike Craig is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College. He has served as a Weapons System Officer, Instructor Navigator, Air Liaison Officer, and U.S. Space Command staff officer. Lt. Col. Bradley S. Davis served as Chairman of the Command and Strategic Studies Department and War and Theater Level Studies Department at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College. His military career has been in ballistic missile operations and in international nuclear and conventional arms controls policy and negotiations. Dr. William L. Dowdy is a U.S. Air Force Military Defense Analyst and currently Associate Professor of Political Science at Alabama State University. He has served on the faculties of the U.S. Air Force Air War College and the U.S. Army War College. Maj. Edward F. Greer has been a U.S. Air Force Aerospace Engineer and an Instructor at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College. His teaching and research responsibilities include Nature of War, Operational Forces, and Future Force Structure Concepts. Prof. Charles Tustin Kamps is Professor of Wargaming and Simulation in the Joint Warfighting Department of the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College. A former combat arms officer in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army, he specializes in military history and operational warfare. ix

x Notes on the Contributors

Dr. Karl P. Magyar has served as Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College, and as Senior Research Associate at the Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education. As a specialist on international war and conflict studies in the Third World, he has taught and conducted research widely in the U.S., Japan, and South Africa. Lt. Col. Scott P. Morgan taught at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College and also served as Deputy Director for the Distance Learning Division. He holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior, specializing in organizational culture and coalition building. He also served as a United Nations Military Observer in Egypt and Israel. Maj. Vicki J. Rast is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, and deployed in support of Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Southern Watch. She attended as a student, and also served as Assistant Professor of National Security Studies, at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College. Additionally, she obtained a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. Lt. Col. Michael J. Savana (ret.) has held several career assignments as Battle Manager, Systems Acquisition Officer, and was Instructor and Head of the Department of Strategic Structures at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College. Currently he is Program Manager with Boeing Aerospace Operations, and lecturer at the University of San Antonio. Col. John F. Troxell serves as Director of National Security Studies at the U.S. Army War College. His active military career included assignments at the Army War Plans Division, the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, command of the 3rd Engineer Battalion, and he served as Chief, Engineer Plans Division, Combined Forces Command, in South Korea. He holds academic degrees from the U.S. Military Academy and Princeton University. Lt. Col. Edward B. Westermann has served as Instructor at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College, and is a graduate of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies. He also holds a Ph.D. in European History.

Preface Despite the seemingly total failure to predict the rapid and decisive collapse of the Soviet Union, and the uncontested departure of her Eastern European allies with whom she had formed the Warsaw Pact, media and academic experts rapidly championed the history of those events, as well as the termination of the Cold War. This entire development was a prominent example of difficulties encountered in perennial attempts to predict social phenomena, and failing that, to authoritatively explain what happened after the fact. At issue is more than merely redefining revolution, change, and control. Our policy makers, a wide range of professional operations analysts, and academic researchers need to address more than only current historical events and studies stressing quantification-structured methodologies. Regarding the Cold War, analysts had offered little predictive utility to the policy makers. Understanding social matters can profit from a philosophical approach. It must ask the most basic question: “What can we know?” Why did the Soviet Union collapse? For that matter, why did the Soviets fight in Afghanistan? Why did Premier Nikita Khrushchev attempt to place nuclear weapons and missiles in Cuba? To questions of this nature, we are quite used to receiving a long list of conflicting explanations, theories, and often insider accounts – among which there is very little agreement regarding even the basic essentials. History revisionists recognize that there exist clashing views of micro and macro socio-cultural perceptions and assumptions regarding the political relationship between individuals and society. Today, a worldwide public debate asks if there exists a core of beliefs and values common to all societies, or are social and individual values culturespecific? Do all societies accept universal social phenomena (concepts such as “Human Rights”, “Democracy”, and “Freedom”), but differ in their respective interpretations in specific content? (For example, China considers full employment to be a basic human right.) Although analysts of war have counseled the need to know the enemy, and while astute observers since the time of Sun Tzu have also advised the need to know oneself, very few of these analysts have elaborated the concept to identify precisely what it is that we are to know. xi

xii Preface

What can we know? What can be known? Can I know how well the enemy knows me? That I correctly know the enemy? And can the enemy know that indeed, I know myself far more than he knows himself? In war, the uncertainty of the answers to these questions shapes the evolution of the war and determines the course to victory or defeat; survival, or death. Military planners must appreciate that there are severe limits to our knowledge of man’s social condition. Whether the entire army, or only the individual soldier, all must realize that to obtain only quantified intelligence of the enemy, will omit the most vital information about him, that, if uncovered, will ensure a more certain victory on the battlefield. The Japanese had not understood the long-term counter offensive capabilities of their enemy when they mistakenly attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. They fatally mis-assessed America’s industrial strength and social resolve. Culturally closed societies (such as that of the Japanese, Enver Hoxha’s Albania, and Iran under the Ayatollahs) have historically misjudged their relative power position. North Korea is a current example as well. This existential, unpredictable context of war suggests that the current adoration of the concept of “information warfare” addresses precisely this lack of real-time battlefield knowledge. However, computing systems on the battlefield can dispense information only about physical or quantifiable factors, which, alone does not suffice for attaining strategic supremacy. Few troops in the field under an enemy attack would accept a computer-originated, vital decision or recommendation on battlefield tactics. Wars, in fact, are shaped by subjective socio-political forces that diminish computer relevance. Information in war is a force enhancer but not an independent force. All wars throughout history utilized information, and intelligence has always been vital. Technically, we have only improved accumulation and processing of information – but that type of information that is offered by this technology remains inherently limited to mostly physical components of war. Elaborating analytic methodologies, however, can only be briefly acknowledged in the introductory chapter. Three themes are presented as central analytic points. The first theme emphasizes that what we do not know when embarking on, or in the midst of war, is at least as important as that which can be quantified or empirically verified. How passionate or irrational is the enemy? How motivated are his troops? What is their perception of the cause of the war? Their conception of a “Just War”? Do enemy soldiers respect their own war-fighting conflict culture? How well did the U.S. understand its enemy in Vietnam? In

Preface xiii

that war, the U.S. had several thousand verifiable nuclear weapons available (out of theater) but we did not use them. Can the reasons for not using nuclear weapons be definitively explained? By deduction, numbers alone record that over 50,000 U.S. military personnel died in battle – perhaps in part because we did not utilize nuclear weapons for whatever reasons. Wars break out because there are great limits to our knowledge about the opponent’s intentions, perceptions, values and power. Perhaps we are only slightly less ignorant about our own perceptual context. Hypothetically, if all factors of war were expressed only in terms of numerical power tabulations, (such as numbers of tanks, planes, troops, GNP, etc.) then, among adversaries, the comparative measure of power could be objectively determined before the war started and fighting the war would not be necessary. In actuality, only the military termination of a war reveals which side had the greater power at the outset. Similarly, we ought to be reluctant to declare victory in a war at its battlefield termination. Meaningful victory may more precisely be established some 10 or more years after the battles are over, as that qualification will more realistically reveal if the victor attained supremacy, not on the battlefield, but did he gain his original political objectives for change? Battlefield victory only starts the process of change – but the post-war phase introduces the constraints of new historical forces on the consolidation of authority. The wars against Iraq are an excellent example of this. The dialectical response is already in formation. The second theme concerns the importance of elevating the concept of “timeframe”. Victory in war is ephemeral. Objectives pursued by war may dictate one strategy for an immediate, short-term gain, but a longterm desired effect may require a considerably different strategy for acquiring the objective. Precisely when does a war end? This question is especially relevant for wars in the Third World – most of which tend towards prolongation. A representative example is offered of America’s short-term objective to facilitate United Nations programs to feed and inoculate the young children in Somalia starting in 1991. However, in the absence of a massive, long-range international effort to address the underlying causes of Somalia’s political collapse, the short-term action, namely, the disbursement of medicines and food, ensured that in the long-term there will be more surviving, but frustrated youths who will be available to increase the ranks of the active, anarchic agitators. Do we have answers to these dilemmas? The third theme elaborates a theory of “Historical Forces”. Herein it is postulated that widely held popular assumptions identify great

xiv Preface

powers as being particularly aggressive and who order, design and establish the world’s power hierarchy and systemic rules of conduct according to their own opportunistic and self-aggrandizing interests. However, the realities do not support this contention in that the creative opportunities of all societies, weak or strong, encounter the disruptive power of Historical Forces, which greatly restrict initiatives and options among alternative policies, and systemically compromise, in dialectical fashion, policies – once implemented. In war we set out on a well-planned projected linear path, but are soon deflected by exogenous opposing historical forces that often bear consequences worse than the original issues. Did Versailles create Adolf Hitler? Did Hitler give rise to the aggressive Soviet Union? Did an aggressive Soviet Union engender NATO, which in turn fathered the Warsaw Pact? Just what led to the proliferation of nuclear weapons? And what response might the U.S. expect should a pre-mature Star Wars defense system be erected? The current U.S. defense budget comprises about 45 per cent of the world’s total, and no one is in a position to realistically threaten the U.S. in any but a terrorist capacity. Besides the clamor for a Star Wars defensive system, other very advanced weapons systems underway or under consideration including the F-22, JSF (Joint Strike Fighter,) DD-21 (new class destroyer,) F-18 (Super Hornet) the V-22 (Osprey,) and an airborne laser weapon capability. All these initiatives will be challenged by as yet unknown Historical Forces, which cannot be ignored by our strategic planners. This raises a question: have we examined if terrorist tactics is the dialectical response to America’s unsurpassable conventional and nuclear offensive capabilities? Will Star Wars fuel world-wide terrorist strategic escalation? And, who will feel compelled to oppose these strategic advances by these new weapons systems? The contributors to this collection of essays were tasked to investigating several major areas of evident military and public concern regarding the changes in various strategic sectors during the first decade of the post-Cold War era. Who won the Cold War and what has been generated by the victory? Are we now more secure? Just what has changed in the way the military performs its present-day mission? Have technology advances been incorporated meaningfully in our current weapons arsenal? Have we improved our strategic information collection and analytic ability? The first section of the book offers an introduction to the critical dimension of the concept of change. Its objective is to inform the mili-

Preface xv

tary and political planners that our knowledge of the consequences of introducing major policy changes is very greatly restricted. We may be confident in our analytic abilities but we must also respect the enemy’s and our own ignorance. These three themes introduced above comprise the analytic base of the introductory chapter. The second section offers a range of topics that touch on some of the more prominent developments in the realm of international relations. No effort was made to be comprehensive in global coverage as this alone would occupy a huge volume. Some major extant international institutions are briefly examined in order to offer at least an operational context in which the technical changes are taking place. Social currents and changing value systems are more influential on policy formulation than a mere review of only comparative, quantifiable data such as force or weapons numbers. The third section considers the depths of the changes taking place in the maintenance of the national military forces during the transition period. Weapons systems, changes in types of warfare, personnel issues and defense budgets, force structures and doctrines, air power’s evolution, and the state of war industries are reviewed by experts, most of whom have, or have had active, advanced U.S. Air Force military careers as officers. The final section is not a summary but a listing of some of the likely subjects of change to be encountered by U.S. defense forces in the future. It is important to emphasize that the contributors to this book are writing in their own personal capacities and do not represent the official views of any national military or political agencies of the U.S. Government, nor that of any foreign government. This book forms no part of any policy-making effort or of a military facility classroom curriculum. We, in the civilian realm, are fortunate in our opportunities to compare notes with so many highly informed military professionals who are allowed to express their perspectives outside of their official responsibilities. As Editor, I express my gratitude to the Associate Editors Lt. Col. Bradley S. Davis, Professor Charles T. Kamps and Major Vicki Rast (Ph.D.) for their essential responsibilities and division of labor. I also valued my association with my colleagues, the well-informed and able chapter writers. They provided substantial insight and expertise, and distilled much information into readable text from which all may profit. We certainly did not agree on all aspects of “change” as an applied concept, but their own individual conceptions were encouraged, and in the spirit of academic freedom, allowed to prevail. I thank them all.

xvi Preface

The titles of military and civilian analysts are listed mostly as of the day of submission of their final drafts. Several have been promoted or assumed new assignments. My communications with some authors was greatly impeded by the events of “9/11” when the Pentagon became a target and took a direct hit by one of the four unfortunate hijacked airplanes. This was followed by the anthrax affair which further impeded normal communications with those reassigned to the Pentagon. I also wish to thank Major Gary Ang of the Singapore Air Force who offers an interesting perspective of a very sensitive region. He too writes in his own, personal capacity and not that of any government agency of the Republic of Singapore. Finally, the transformation of our ideas into a book was expertly accomplished by the patient folks at Palgrave Macmillan, U.K. Special “Thank Yous” are extended very gratefully to Ms. Alison Howson, Ms. Kerry Coutts and Ms. Shirley Tan, my main editorial contacts. And at this side of the pond, Ms. Yuna Braswell, the friendliest face at A/U–ACSC at Maxwell Air Force Base, was a pleasure to work with. I am grateful to her. Karl P. Magyar

Part I Introduction

1 History After the End of History Karl P. Magyar

“History, like a Stoic God, leads the Wise Man, but drags the Fool”. – Georg Hegel

War as contested change The evaporation of the Cold War has left us with a plethora of analytic literature that examines the emerging but altered international strategic environment, political realignments, ideological rethinking, technological advances, and a new interest by the public in the culture of war. Perhaps the most emphatic alteration of the strategic environment has been the shift in the security paradigm from traditionally conventional wars and nuclear capabilities to the spate of highly visible terrorist activities. Terrorism allegedly threatens the socio-technologically developed states with new conceptions of force application in pursuit of highly ambitious, but also, ambiguous political objectives. War is all about contested change. Traditionally, wars represented closely Carl von Clausewitz’s portrayal of war as a duel – on a larger scale. War had concerned contrasting perspectives of a common political interest of two competitive, officially established, authoritative state entities. Each side enhanced its power by the acquisition of allies and incorporation of the latest technologies in weapons design and procurement. At its apogee, this paradigm culminated in both World Wars, genocide, and the use of two atomic bombs. Thereafter a hierarchy of globe-wide powers competed at building formidable nuclear arsenals that probably were responsible for deterring the outbreak of World War III. 3

4 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests

In the days of the Cold War one of the most prominent security changes had witnessed the erratic development paths of the disparate Third World states, as well as the ideological attractions and limitations of Third World socialism. Whether fighting for independence from the colonial powers, or contesting for domestic ruling authority in their fledgling, newly-liberated states, most wars in the last half century have been Third World civil wars whose outcomes were largely determined by external interventionists. In most of the conflicts neighboring states or distant Great Powers soon aligned themselves with one or the other side. The Third World became surrogate battlefields and supplied the sacrificial political victims for Great Power interests. The 1940s and the 1950s were especially years of guerrilla warfare that drew their inspiration from Maoist China’s Great War. Although the major insurgencies have today been resolved, they have not been completely eliminated in locations such as Colombia, Peru, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. With the numbers of large insurgencies having declined, the next conflict form to emerge as a challenge to international peace and security is the widely reported terrorist offensives.1 In our modern age, terrorism exploits the inherent weaknesses of democracy with its political power dispersal, social segmentation, and the stress on individualism that allows the emergence of active opposition to governmental institutions and to pursue alternative structures. In a sense, terrorists preach revolution, but their agendas approximate anarchism. The term “terrorism” is greatly abused and has recently been portrayed the major aggressive threat to the security of the U.S. and other industrially-developed states. It is a mistake to rank the terrorism we have encountered to date, as an integral entry of a hierarchy of conflict levels. Foremost, terrorism as we know it today is usually perpetrated by non-state actors with competing political agendas. They may form a complex fraternal network of alliances with sympathetic regimes but these are only temporary commitments. Regarding the wars against Iraq, in view of some of the aspiring Islamic fundamentalist agendas for the region, Iraq, Israel and the U.S. by deduction, could have made a common alliance against those Islamic Fundamentalists who seek the ouster of all monarchist and secular republican regimes. Those with secular regimes and remaining monarchies comprise most of our allies in the Middle East. In effect, the U.S. served Al-Qaeda’s needs by eliminating Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. He had posed one of the biggest obstacles to Islamists as well as to the existing terrorist cells and units resident in the region.

Karl P. Magyar 5

Declaring “war on terrorism” is problematic as terrorism may be considered a specific type of warfare itself.2 To date, the division of labor between traditional military special forces missions and counterterrorism measures has not yet been decisively addressed. The 1995 Oklahoma bomb attack by one American perpetrator, (Timothy McVeigh, and a distant accomplice) was dealt with by our local and national security forces, namely, the police and FBI operatives. The 2001 attack on the World Trade Center (“9/11”) likewise was handled by appropriate domestic law enforcement resources and civilian intelligence agencies based domestically and overseas, due to the foreign nationalities of so many of the perpetrators. The military stood by, awaiting instructions. Identifying and neutralizing the terrorist infrastructures was traditionally provided by America’s domestic civilian officials, and not the military, which played only a peripheral role such as providing air-based surveillance, clearing the skies over Washington, and tracking identified chief terrorist leaders and their overseas organizational and training facilities. Except for the intense political factors pertaining to anti-terrorist missions, physically hunting down terrorists is not much different than waging counter-insurgency operations against guerrillas. The major difference is the size of the cadres, and the effective control of land. The military has little independent investigative authority and institutional capacity to establish independently the criteria for identifying terrorists and to shaping and executing America’s political policy response. Formulating that response is a highly political affair, relying especially on intensive diplomatic efforts. The military should prepare a set of strategic options in anticipation of a range of perceived threats. When marching orders are issued, a military campaign will then undertake to physically neutralize the threat in accordance with the country’s perceived national security interests as determined by the civilian administration. When the U.S. military forces invaded Afghanistan in hot pursuit of Osama Bin Laden and ousted the Taliban government that had tolerated terrorist operations being planned and initiated from its soil, the U.S. military carried out mostly standard low intensity conflict operations utilizing regular, existing Army and Navy Special Operations Forces. There were no unique forces that had been tailored specifically for only anti-terrorist operations. Wars are fought by societies – which offer the array of skills and division of labor, not available to individuals. Terrorists form mostly small cells of individuals who dare not open their ranks to large membership numbers as the prospects of

6 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests

enemy infiltration increases exponentially with increases of their numbers. As such when a terrorist unit increases its size, it lapses into an insurgent movement that might expect to encounter opposing domestic military forces, with or without regional allied forces. As may be expected, there are no clear distinguishing lines between terrorism and other forms or levels of low-intensity conflict warfare. This ambiguity is the source of aggressive debates among U.S. policy makers. Especially misleading is the frequent obfuscation when stating that guerrillas engage in terrorist practices. In fact every level of warfare uses elements of terrorist tactics, adapted to the specific war theater. This factor also covers America’s use of atomic bombs in Japan as its government had to make a decision on capitulation because they did not know how many more such bombs could be used by the U.S. In response to the steadily growing terrorist activities aimed at Americans, the U.S. inaugurated a new domestic institution, the Department of Homeland Security in order to broadly coordinate anti-terrorist defense strategy and to track emerging domestic violent sources of instability. Its structure recognizes the associated problems that an enemy might be individuals (such as Carlos, “The Jackal”), cells (World Trade Center attack) or larger institutional units (Taliban and Al-Qaeda.) Their origins and composition, as well as their missions, might be domestic or exogenous. Currently, the highly politicized context of evolving anti-terrorist doctrine still acknowledges that despite the traditional rhetoric of war, terrorism is still dealt with primarily by domestic law enforcement facilities. A more recent instance concerned the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. A few days after the coordinated attacks, two planeloads of American domestic security specialists were sent to the sites and in a few weeks identified and helped incarcerate several of the major perpetrators. Again, the military stood by but did not participate in the resolution directly. Most terrorist attacks are waged by relatively small groups – against whom the use of modern, high-tech military equipment has innate limitations. Countering international level terrorism is a delicate political affair, and will sooner achieve success by innovative diplomatic and economic initiatives than by active military intervention. The response to terrorism will lie in global-wide inter-governmental coordination efforts to deny sanctuary to any terrorist. Without a safe haven from which to develop plans, solicit support, and organize missions, terrorists will be very vulnerable to identification, location and military strikes such as those by the Americans when pursuing Bin Laden in Afghanistan. If a response to terrorist actions relies on primarily military

Karl P. Magyar 7

means, the response will usually be a failure due to the cumbersome logistical infrastructure that must be introduced before the land campaign can be initiated. Permanent solutions can only be realized when contested change is diplomatically compromised. Terrorists occasionally attain legitimate status as non-state actors but more often they are shunned by all because of their exclusivist, fluctuating membership, unpredictable activities, authoritarian leadership, and shifting or nebulous objectives. Among the insurgencies of the last several decades, it has been common to experience fierce rivalries among competing anti-government challengers. Segmentation among terrorist ranks reflect proto-anarchist tendencies, if the rivalries assume uncompromising positions among the factions. Summarized: war had traditionally concerned contests between nation-states and was the province of the states’ rulers. This era of wars was followed by a new period when the League of Nations became a factor in the decolonization of the Third World, inspired by Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh who offered the rationales for liberation struggles. As soon as the last nationalistic war, World War II, was fought, the Third World erupted violently with a spate of guerrilla insurgencies against colonial domination. Terrorism became a strategy, or a tool, that both sides in confrontations utilized in the contest for change. We cannot speak of terrorism as a type of war. More precisely, it is a type of crime perpetrated within a state by its own citizens or by nationals of foreign countries. Where revolutionaries value the destruction of a corrupt or inept regime, they wish to replace that regime with one of their own formulation. The anarchist-tending terrorists, however, espouse only vague plans for the inauguration of a new governing system. Their focus is on political change by denying the legitimacy of targeted regimes, but they are notoriously shy of formulating in operational detail, an alternative public order. More recently the most prominent incidences of armed conflicts are associated with terrorist or terrorist-originated activities, at least as far as the American public is concerned. Cautious analytic measures are advised to track the prospects for the merger of insurgent movements with established terrorist cells in order to exploit their symbiotic potential against their common enemy, the State. Such a development may well become the next antitheses to America’s overwhelming preponderance of globe-wide strategic power and it would elevate terrorism as a de facto form of warfare. Terrorism has previously lacked the numbers in order to comprise a respectably-sized, homogenous, political society. Such mergers have not survived very long. Also, classic insurgency movements and terrorists have on occasion been in

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strategic competition with each other, while separately facing their mutual enemy, the occupants of authoritative institutions in the capital city of their lands. To argue that terrorism is not warfare today, however, is not to deny that it will not be the case in the future. As in the cases of pre-majority rule South Africa, Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Philippines and Colombia, they all experienced internal insurgent movements that were loosely allied with a variety of other dubious dissident factions pursuing usually non-political objectives such as drug profits, sales of illicit diamonds or the export of raw timber and ivory resources. Such unholy alliances between guerrillas and terrorists will pose new challenges to weak governments in the Third World states. Martin Van Creveld anticipated the nature of the emerging strategic environment: “In the future, war will not be waged by armies but by groups whom we call terrorists, guerrillas, bandits, and robbers, but who will undoubtedly hit on more formal titles to describe themselves. Their organizations are likely to be constructed on charismatic lines rather than institutional ones, and to be motivated less by ‘professionalism’ than by fanatical, ideologically-based, loyalties.”3 This prescient warning was offered more than ten years ago and attests to the capabilities of sophisticated analyses. A new chapter has been written with the recent terrorist tactics of the suicide bombers, most notably in Israel. Three thousand years of Western political philosophy was built on the individual’s search for security in a hostile state of nature. This may be accomplished by accepting a social compact, or by Thomas Hobbes’s formulation, the “Leviathan.” Underlying this assumption is that “in unity there is strength” – against the external lurking enemy. Terrorists bring the armed conflict into their opponent’s living space; as they work from within the compact, or, the state. Dying in pursuit of one’s secular Utopia reverses a half millennium of western ideological dogma. A Palestinian state is not being created for the sake of the individual; the suicide bomber serves the needs of the organic state. Such an ideology is anathema to the Western liberal tradition. Orthodox Marxism and Hitlerite ideology share in this common tenet with the Middle East’s current crop of ideological zealots. In such cases the individual subsumes his interests to the state – or to his greater cultural universe. As in guerrilla warfare, insurgents and terrorists would prefer to defeat their enemy with superior forces but their lack of national political authority and territorial sovereignty relegates them to their humble position of relying on unconventional, low-tech tactics in their armed pursuit of preferred change. Not surprising, Israel retains a very capable

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conventional military force but remains stymied by the ongoing and effective terrorist attacks. The terrorist factor in international relations today is largely an unexplored area among analysts as the data bases reflect mostly situational information that cannot yet be generalized. New paradigms must be produced. Analytically, much of our traditional definitions of the war vocabulary needs to be revised.4 With just about every use of a weapon being ruled to be an act of terrorism, and the enemy allegedly having only terrorists in his armed forces, the peaceful resolution of conflict is greatly impeded. There must be a more precise examination made of traditional terms such as war, conflict, legitimacy, democracy, revolution, terrorism, security, vital, threat, police action, victory, and certainly, imperialism. We may accept in part Francis Fukuyama’s contention regarding competitive ideological history having ended – at least among the two great power blocs of the Cold War.5 But armed conflict among other old and new rivalries in pursuit of change remains as active as ever.6 Indeed, we may argue persuasively that the ending of the Cold War has served to unleash the ambitious energies of numerous aggressive regional Third World states. History has not ended; it has only transformed – which is the nature of history.

War: analytic perspectives In their debate concerning the nature of man the ancient Greeks soon introduced the dual notions of bios – physical essence, and logos – man’s spiritual and rational nature. This tidy separation has remained evident in modern times, reflecting the work on historical explanations by philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, George Hegel, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Heinrich Rickert. Germans refer to the studies of knowledge of non-human matters as “Naturwissenschaften,” and of man as a being, “Geisteswissenschaften” – essentially, nature and spirit.7 Reality has to account for both dimensions. Metaphysics, the branch of philosophy charged with the study of reality, debated that which was knowable within the limits of space and time, the necessary context for understanding man’s evolution in history. The focal point of this collective inquiry postulates: What can we know? Maurice Mandelbaum offers that to be a subject matter of history, it must have “societal significance”.8 History was not a matter that concerned an individual, but the interaction of groups of individuals within or among societies, over a period of time. History is about societal change and continuity. Animals and physical objects recognize

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no history. Heraclitus, the early Greek philosopher, had pronounced “one cannot step into the same stream twice.” Man recognizes the constantly changing nature of the stream, but the stream does not. At once this set into motion the by-now, well-known debate concerning the possibility of man’s changing and evolving, versus timeless, or eternal nature, as well as the continuous interplay between man and historical forces. The central motif in this debate concerns man’s impact on history versus history’s impact on man. Which leads or shapes the other? And are the clashing perceptual differences in this debate culture-specific or are we to assume the underlying contention to be universal dogmas concerning human nature? America today reigns supreme among those in the West who optimistically perceive man as the architect of his own historical experience. It offers that individual political freedom and free market economic competition enable man to control the directions of his earthly status, worth, and societal relationships. According to this optimistic view, science, technology, and man’s intellectual and physical energies may be combined for realizing man’s requirements and for producing the objective conditions needed for attaining felicity. Historically evident impediments may be conquered, if not entirely circumvented. Karl Marx is the most renowned, western exponent of an operational rationale for the construction of a secular global utopian society that is to emerge from the beneficent dialectics of history. Especially prominent in America’s public confidence for conquering malevolent forces is our academic management culture that deduces that America’s series of supreme triumphs in the world’s competitive techno-economic production arena as proof that history may be designed and built; problems may be solved, and therefore, man is master of his own secular fate. Only the hesitant are victims of history. In armed conflicts, America’s strategic planners strive to manage the process of wars and to manage the attainment of the war’s desired outcome, or preferred end state. Thereafter they offer to manage the peace. However, critics may question if such managerial abilities exist, why were they not successful at managing the avoidance of the wars in the first place? Over two millennia ago China’s Sun Tzu had counseled, “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”9 It is good advice but not necessarily appropriate in our era of high technology that often makes the response time in a crisis much briefer. Historical forces routinely impose opposition to the best-laid military plans due to the multiplicity of participants involved in making war, fraught

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with a great degree of uncertainty, changing strategies, and ignorance of the enemy – but also of ourselves. In war, core interests are at stake. These must be addressed within the context of time and space despite the lack of knowledge of some of the most crucial factors. Especially noteworthy are “Prolonged Wars” that, as the war evolves, introduce a host of new factors not foreseen by either side at the outset.10 In major wars on the scale of the two World Wars, but also Korea and Vietnam, no one had foreseen how many would die for such nebulous and questionable objectives, as Vietnam illustrated. Hitler audaciously surprised his enemies as well as the German people with his unforeseen aggressive resolve; the Japanese generals who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor grossly mis-estimated America’s recuperative ability. In 1991 Saddam Hussein’s staff must have ignored copiously available information on the power of his adversary; that Iraq’s geography does not allow for Vietnam-like insurgency warfare, and the need for regional stability in light of the high global demand for oil. And to be sure, the U.S. also made fatal mistakes in its assessment of its enemy in Vietnam, and at a lesser level, in Somalia.

Social perspectives At the root of the inadequacies of managerial attempts – whether at military expeditions overseas or domestic “wars” on social problems – is the tendency by many to assess social phenomena in quasi-scientific and quantified terms. In the process, they tend to address primarily those parts of the problem that appear to be physical and quantifiable, diminishing in the process the more important qualitative or subjective elements which are probably the much more relevant and revealing dimensions of the crisis or conflict under review. With qualitative concerns, we are more impatient. We measure the quantity of illicit drugs, compare numbers of unemployed, compare overall test scores, track the GNP, and count the number of airplanes, troops and weapons the enemy possesses. However, by quantification and allegedly objective managerial methodologies, we should have won the war in Vietnam unambiguously but this was not the case. “What can we know?” Social Science methodology may know limited quantifiable aspects of social behavior, but it is precisely the nonquantifiable aspects of social activities that are more important and which resist the acquisition of absolute knowledge, and hence the inability to predict social behavior unlike the physical realm. With respect to understanding war, objective information (how many nuclear weapons did the

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U.S. possess at the height of the Vietnam War?) produces little relevant historical knowledge for policy guidance if compared to questions of a more subjective character (why didn’t the U.S. use nuclear weapons in Vietnam?) The former question produces information of little consequence until it is acted upon by combatants in battle. On both sides in a war, all participants have individual reasons for participating in the common event although their participation is ultimately the consequence of subjective mental constructs. Individuals do not conduct wars, as wars are social activities. This greatly exacerbates the unknown aspects of the operational environment as all participants have different motives, values, and reasons for following orders. However, the interests, motives, values, perceptions and, yes, passions of the warriors, cannot be measured. Only the physical outcome of the battle can be empirically verified. For our purposes this translates into an important caution: We can analyze budgets, allocations, new and established weapons systems, doctrines, training, manpower, proposed missile defense systems, etc. Such empiricallyderived data is, of course, vital, yet victory or loss in war can be very ambiguous, mostly short-term, and analytically disputed. And certainly victory in war is ephemeral. More important lessons from each war concerns deeply rooted cultural values and subjective assessments that reveal war in its true emotional and irrational human context. The major caution so far in this presentation may be summarized: For a productive analysis of wars, we need to focus on the attitudinal impact of the participants, be they active military or civilian personnel, conqueror or victim. And, we must demote as a primary estimate of power, quantifiable physical factors such as weapons systems, or trained manpower, lest the numerically verifiable hardware become the major feature in the planning of war – and not the humans who are to implement that hardware. A soldier may recall his entire life the first opponent he may have killed with a bayonet or a gun, but machines suffer no such ethical qualms. For this reason the non-quantifiable, subjective aspects of war, the passions, culture, perceptions, motives and values, are much more revealing then weaponry. It is these human emotions and fears that cause weapons to be built and soldiers trained in their use and directed at the enemy.

The comparative regional perspective From the ancient Greeks until today, analysts are still grappling with the social phenomenon called war. We, in the West, still wage war and

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we still ask the same questions about war – as a reading of the first fifty pages of Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War will attest. Throughout history the conduct of war has changed, due mostly to the application of major new technologies in the development of the tools of war. Westerners see war in calculable and rational terms; hence we naively assume they can be managed and controlled. If we look beyond only the western world, the huge and expanding Sinic cultural region views conflict and war in a more receptive or culturally deterministic context. Martin Van Creveld recently pronounced that ancient China’s war philosopher Sun Tzu is history’s greatest war theorist.11 Permeating China’s political culture is the broad notion of “Heaven decides.” It implies that man can be less frustrated if he adheres to tradition imbedded in culture that evolves of its own accord, giving it a somewhat predestined dimension. In Confucian terms, it argues for the acceptance of historical events – and not to revise them. Expressed in the oriental Confucian culture, but more explicitly in the extreme Taoist doctrines, is the need for ethical acceptance of the extant secular moral order, legitimized by the traditions established by previous generations of highly-revered ancestors. According to David W. Shenk, Confucius, as do Plato and Marx, “…converge in their conviction that human well-being depends on right political institutions – religion is an irrelevant nuisance.”12 There may be a heaven, but it is a ruler’s personal and secular moral proclivity that exemplifies society’s contemporary character. Good and bad rulers are to be expected; they are manifestations of the eternal Ying-Yang alternations of historical forces. This hierarchical social notion assumed an even more paternalistic, or elitist, veneer by neoConfucian Dong Zhongshu who “identified the ruler with the heavens, and just as we should not think of rebelling against the heavens, so the subject should be absolutely obedient to the ruler.”13 Historical Forces appear to be a universal concept, but subject to cultural specificity. Cultures evolve and don’t change radically, as Mao Zedong experienced when he implemented western Marxist revolutionary ideas but inadvertently ended up by resurrecting Confucius again, making Mao a victim of historical forces. Kevin Platt offers an interesting observation. He notes that although Mao Zedong’s “Cultural Revolution” was charged with wiping out China’s feudal past – an inside revolutionary attack on its own history – the numerous overseas Chinese enclaves had preserved Chinese cultural attributes, and have recently re-introduced them to the Chinese mainland thereby keeping intact the skeleton of China’s ancient civilization.14

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Summarizing the global comparison: China, as well as other regional cultures, may be more amenable to the vicissitudes of historical forces which is commensurate with their acceptance of the notion “heaven decides”. This culture can tolerate ambiguity, uncertainty, and a longterm commitment that may produce a payoff to a future generation.

The West’s culture of competition Perhaps the West errs in its frequently demonstrated assumptions about the alleged universality of fundamental human nature as we comprehend it. Adda B. Bozeman argues that a review of other cultures “leaves one with the strong impression that human dispositions toward stress, violence and death are by no means everywhere the same, and that basic orientations toward war and peace are therefore greatly various also.”15 The Western conflict culture arrogantly dismisses the possibility of innate or inherent ignorance of social phenomena as knowledge may be accumulated and managed and put to pragmatic use. Science and technology are credited as the modern tools for social engineering. What can we in the West know? The agenda is all but limitless. After all, man creates. Our western conflict proclivity and revolutionary tendencies have inspired numerous intellectual delusions of imperial grandeur, but also real revolutions and periodically gruesome, man-made social calamities. Zbigniew Brzezinski distills the casualty numbers that spring from the periodic efforts by western man to create the utopian global empire. Whether in war or in domestic revolutions, during the last century, “no less than 167,000,000 lives … were deliberately extinguished through politically motivated carnage.”16 However, a huge portion of this carnage took place in the Orient and concerned their own internal affairs, but much of it was also fueled by western-generated but regionally interpreted Marxist doctrines that had called for the uniting of the world’s proletariat by violent revolutions. Unfortunately, those in degenerate eastern nations who sought to create new political orders relied on proven western activist political thought in order to supply the rationale for revolution. Classic revolutionaries are not anarchists as they believe in the necessity of society, but they wish to change certain major, extant socio-political practices they judge to be immoral. The classic intellectual source of revolutions are the societal or utopian strivings for justice, expressed in Plato’s Republic, St Augustine’s “City of God,” Sir Thomas Moore’s Utopia, the Christian concept of the “Kingdom of God on Earth,” the socialist-

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tending utopian constructs of Claude Saint Simone, Robert Owen, and Charles Fourier, Hitler’s “Tausend-yaeriges Reich”, the eventual marxist classless society, and America’s world that will be made “safe for democracy”. Except for religious determinists, these western conceptions expressed their disdain for merely accepting a fate dictated by reticent historical evolution as each such utopia is to be created by the deliberate conquest of, or at least the violent “nudging” of history. The current American moralistic thrust is with human rights, tolerance of social diversity, multiculturalism, unrestricted expression, open markets and democratic political structures – that, however, are not valued with equal fervor in all countries, nor even among all peoples of our western community. Samuel Huntington observes, “The central problem in the relations between the West and the rest is, [consequently,] the discordance between the West’s – particularly America’s – efforts to promote a universal Western culture and its declining ability to do so.”17 Aspects of our culture may be of utility to others, but Americans may be mistaken if we confound the diffusion of our technological, institutional and intellectual products with a concomitantly enthusiastic reception of America’s popular societal and cultural values. Iran stands as a relevant example: the U.S. supported extensively the Shah’s modernization efforts – which was vehemently rejected by the conservative religious clergy as unacceptably western, preferring instead, its own fundamentalist paradigm. Emerging as a logical byproduct of the French Revolution, Karl Marx had attempted to diminish the influence of both nationalism and religion as political factors and historical forces which would eventually reveal his naivete in the business of political psychology. Human nature concerned more than mere modes of economic production and the competition for economic predominance. Culture, values, spirituality, and social hierarchies could not be accommodated by rigorous political authoritarianism. However, Marx, along with Lenin and the Neo-Marxists, recognized the latent power represented by organized masses in modern, industrial societies – if led by a vanguard of the proletarian revolution.18 He claimed to have unlocked the mysteries of man’s secular social existence with his discovery, by scientific methodology, of the historical dialectic. Nationalism was not to be the goal of the socialist state as the world’s united proletariat would sublimate such partisan aspirations. Marx had no operational answer for the question of nationalities, which a century later contributed a substantial share of the problems that led to the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Marx’s importance lies in his being the logical,

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but unforeseen product of the French Revolution, who would lead the liberation of the world’s proletariat. However, they would then need politically authoritative institutions (the “dictatorship of the proletariat” until the advent of Communism) as the highest stage of socialism. At the heart of the debate regarding Marx lies the dilemma not understood to this day. Would the proletariat identify with regional, cultural, and civilizational social identity versus internationalism? Had Marx naively formulated a doctrine that would champion the global proletariat, to join the fragments together? But in the next century, Adolf Hitler subsequently emerged as the most extreme representative of modern, secular nationalism, at the heart of which was radical antiinternational segmentation. Like Marx, Hitler was a logical product of the Industrial Revolution, but Hitler represented openly the pinnacle of western social competitiveness: human Darwinism – nationalism gone berserk. Elements of predestination played a role in that being born racially an Aryan ensured one’s natural leadership role in the world. A man’s race was his most important attribute and source of power. East or West, both global regions suffered the operational translations of western ideological thought – and the consequences of ensuing wars. Tallying the scores of the major politically inspired battlefields of the world engendered by the West’s intellectual output, Zbigniew Brzezinski remarked somewhat incredulously, “Hitler… was outdone, … by Stalin and Mao.”19 The West had formulated and shaped numerous ideological systems spanning from populist democracies to the extremist authoritarian despotisms, but the greatest devastation was in the East where western-originated ideologies like that of Mao’s interpretation of Marx, supplemented the well-established warlord culture. Modern western leaders inevitably cloak their numerous interventionary forays in moralistic garb, as otherwise such ventures tend to enjoy little enthusiastic domestic support. High on the current ideological preference ranking, according to a listing by Huntington, are democracy, weapons nonproliferation, free trade, human rights, and protecting oil resources abroad.20 These political values represent a conservative mix of security concerns at the core; a second level of welfare expectations, and a third level of poorly articulated and inconsistently implemented concern with globally peripheral issues: human rights, religion, ideological values, disaster assistance and aid for those suffering from world-wide calamities. These are controversial because

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Americans assume the vocabulary of diplomatic ethics is universally accepted and understood to be objective. When U.S. diplomats in Teheran were captured and subjected to a variety of non-traditional diplomatic practices, the U.S. was incredulous but could not, despite one dubious effort, answer with an effective or authoritative response. Intellectually, history for Americans yields only limited and select lessons. History for Americans is charged with offering insight for future strategic guidance spacing in the form of post-war “lessons learned” but it is not perused for understanding man’s existential condition. Adda B. Bozeman has noted, “…the United States, almost by definition, stands for the denial of cultural differences and the neglect or irrelevancy of the past.”21 Then-Secretary of Defense during a crucial part of the Vietnam War, Robert S. McNamara, recently confided “Our misjudgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area…”22 Henry Kissinger offers a bit more optimism in his reference to America’s tradition of idealism which has spurred “America’s faith that history can be overcome and that if the world truly wants peace, it needs to apply America’s moral prescriptions.”23 But a recent economic-based interpretation of American decision-making theories suggests that history is irrelevant to problems immediately before them.24 American public optimism entertains the notion that history can be created; hence also managed. History is a tool in the service of those who would introduce social change. Besides not benefiting sufficiently from an examination of history, Americans fail to appreciate today’s emerging societies within the context of man’s evolutionary culture. However, our problematic war in Vietnam has been the catalyst for introducing some respect for the Third World. There is an obvious need for doing so as all of our livefire military operations in the last several decades have been in physically and culturally diverse Third World war theaters – where America’s preponderance of military might has not encountered automatic strategic successes.25 We were able to deter nuclear-equipped great power challengers during the Cold War, but ironically, deterring poorly armed, much smaller challengers at the regional level is a more difficult challenge. Our highly visible resolve in the Gulf War (1991) did not deter armed Somali warlords from engaging in armed hostilities against American and allied forces, nor did the U.S. dissuade Iraq from exercising hostile actions that led to the second war in Iraq. Wars in the Third World demand a sophisticated analytic capability more than a mere mastery of applied traditional great power military

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doctrine. All American military casualties since World War II have been in the Third World, yet notions regarding the employment of U.S. forces in Third World arenas are still met with skepticism in political and military circles. The American military establishment has always preferred Von Clausewitz to Mao, yet for more than half of a century, the adversaries we faced in battles resembled the warrior subjects of the latter much more often than those of the former. With long-term hindsight we may ask: What has been the result of America’s costly “military diplomacy?” Haiti remains as poor and unstable as ever; the Serbs have not yielded the lands of Kosovo to the land’s secessionist-tending occupants, and China, Korea, Cyprus, and Ireland still remain divided. Vietnam has been joined together again and is prospering as an eager, but junior, trade partner of the U.S. Defeating Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was the easy part in the Gulf War, but administering and enforcing sanctions and the flight restrictions imposed on Saddam has diminished the victory attained by the allied coalition in the first Gulf War over Kuwait. In Somalia, after enabling the feeding of the starving masses and inoculating children, a totally insufficient attempt was made at “nation building”. Almost a decade later, nothing has been resolved in that anarchic country. And Cuba’s Fidel Castro, despite several not-so-subtle attempts to oust him from Cuba’s leadership, has remained in power throughout the tenure in office of 24 per cent of all America’s presidents. In most cases of U.S. involvement in hostile disputes, the challenges we faced were perceived as requiring mature managerial talent; tough choices would have to be made between few less than ideal options. Globe-wide, police-type operations were often pursued, but not always successfully. Besides the four decades of stymied relations with Cuba, a succession of administrations optimistically addressed the Northern Ireland issue, Israel–Arab land disputes, the China–Taiwan contest, and numerous old conflicts emanating from World War II that today finds American military forces in dozens of distant lands in Europe and the Far East, on various missions. On assuming a great power role after World War II, the U.S. failed to anticipate that the country would soon bear a costly and vulnerable global presence with frequent hostile opposition that took over 50,000 U.S. lives in Korea, another 50,000plus in Vietnam, and casualties in the smaller conflicts in which we are periodically involved. Today, almost every war is an internal affair due to social segmentation and the failure of the respective governments to extend prosperity and security to all members of their societies. Numerous causes of

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conflicts are attributed to specific issues such as race, class, religion, ideology, ethnicity, culture, etc., but a closer examination will still identify the ancient motives of frustrations arising from unanswered economic expectations, and the expansion of lands as causes of globewide strife. The U.S. is perplexed with this situation. There has rarely existed so much peace between industrially developed, democratic nations, yet internal wars are still being fought as much as during the period of the Cold War. At the international level, the U.S. has a valuable product to offer: serious alliance commitment, but at a time when there’s little demand for it as traditionally hostile attitudes have considerably softened. Minimalists point out America’s most serious problems are the tendency for over-commitment and inconsistency in choosing when to become actively engaged in some wars, but not in others (Kosovo, but not Rwanda.) What is highlighted in critical analyses of diverse, culture-based conceptions of the nature of man, society and history is the penchant by Americans to bask in unbounded optimism that the course of history may be changed by the energetic application of highly vaunted management methodologies. Yet westerners too are constrained by an element of pre-determination in the sense that certain human attributes are established at birth (e.g., sex, race, health, class, proclivities, capabilities, etc.) However, these inherited factors lie in man’s bios dimension that are beyond our control but, in the realm of logos, western society sees limitless choices for designing the nature of our earthly existence. Accordingly, America’s limitless faith in its science, industrial technology, and management prowess, greatly enhanced by sophisticated information technology, expects that these advantages will allow us to prevail over all manner of adversity. However, in reality we encounter severe limitations in our attempts to manage the long-term course of history, which leaves us very frustrated – unlike other societies that philosophically accept the ebb and flow of mankind’s evolution. America’s managerial skills were honed in the competitive domestic economic production establishment. However, such skills encounter their limits in the social realm concerning greater questions of civilizational import – society’s core values.

Change and history The task of this collection of essays is to report if the U.S. has indeed responded to the challenge of highly touted military security-related changes in the first decade of the post-Cold War era. Are those changes

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that may be correctly identified attributed to the demise of the Cold War, or due to internal political, perceptual, or technological factors? Were those changes initiated by standard evolutionary and competitive requirements emanating from exogenous pressures, or are they indeed radical departures from established policies – which may portend new policy directions and re-conceptualization of our entire security culture? Is the U.S. the innovator of major, new institutional initiatives, or only routinely responding to events engendered by others? Analytic commentary on the current topic of “change or revolution in military affairs” since the end of the Cold War is readily available. However, skeptics point to only a modestly lowered U.S. defense budget (despite the great reduction in military personnel). “Strong Defense” supporters point to new or likely recurring sources of instability such as the need to counter the proliferation of disruptive “rogue states”, and dealing with the potential regional dangers emerging from non-viable, or “collapsed states”. Although standard, conventional wars among the major democratic states, or between two large adversarial blocs of states, is not visible on the horizon today, the need for regional policing actions by the U.S. and any other country capable and willing to join, promises to be an expanding feature in the new era. Entirely plausible is that in the near future the major mission of U.S. military forces will not be fighting and winning wars, but undertaking specialized regional policing missions and major duties in support of peacekeeping functions, regime stabilization, weapons monitoring, and delivering and effecting humanitarian aid. Armed conflict will be waged in urban centers as in Baghdad, Basra, Mogadishu, Monrovia, Sarajevo, etc, as today insurgency activities in the countryside are declining in the face of the proliferation of weapons technology and military advances. Urban areas are becoming valued battlefields once again. Excepting America’s wars with Iraq, the current global power configuration has been experiencing many regional conflicts, calling for a variety of “MOOTW” (military operations other than war) responses by the U.S. and some of our global allies. Most of our responses have been in the areas of peacekeeping, peacemaking, and related humanitarian missions. Our frequent involvement in them should not be construed to be motivated by mere moral or idealistic reason, but by our selfinterests in security in the form of regional stability and preventing the disruption of the global markets. Tough choices will have to be made regarding involvement in future Rwandas and Kosovos, as not all

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regional conflicts will inflict the same degree of negative impact at the global level. If power shifts from military to economic strategies, the West’s traditional great powers will keep on dominating the new power configurations in relation to the Third World. Strong economies are required in order to sustain armed forces as the ultimate power arbiter. The Soviet Union lost its regional predominance due to its faltering economy. Their political ambitions were simply not matched by available economic resources. With well over 40 per cent of the world’s annual total expenditures on defense, the U.S. is unchallenged and the foremost military power today. If our defense policy may be correctly characterized as predominantly reactive to the adversarial initiatives and agendas of others, must this necessarily be a negative judgement, and should this reactive stance be quickly reversed? The reactive pattern had been evident when we responded to Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbor, Hitler’s initiatives in Europe, the Soviet land blockade of Berlin, Josef Stalin’s extension of control over Eastern Europe, North Korea’s and North Vietnam’s military attempts to unite with their respective southern regions, East Germany’s erection of the Berlin Wall, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s reckless attempt at introducing Soviet nuclear weapons into Cuba in 1962. And after a half century defending Taiwan, we offer no initiative for a resolution of that issue with China. This reactive pattern suggests that the U.S. is slow to get involved; once in, the public rationalization for doing so is poorly articulated; and after the shooting stops, we are very hesitant to physically leave the territory of our defeated enemy. Iraq is a textbook case of this tradition. In the 1991 Gulf War the U.S. dominated the coalition that ousted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, but we did so only after his troops had occupied and looted that country. Thereafter we undertook the control of the skies over Iraq and to enforce economic sanctions – until the full invasion of Iraq in 2003. In Bosnia and Kosovo the U.S. reacted to the fray only after West Europeans failed to answer the widening genocidal instability. And Cuba has offered ample opportunities to the U.S. to learn about the realities of the modern Third World with Castro’s ascendancy to power. Castro’s disruptive inclinations, some of which were substantial extra-regional missions, would have been more successful had he reduced his ambitions as well as his reliance on sponsorship of the waning Soviet Treasury. However, in America’s frustrations that mark our relations with Castro’s Cuba, the U.S. did initiate some operations that were not mere responses to externally induced

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challenges. Still, the U.S. was forced to respond in the face of probably the most dangerous nuclear confrontation of the Cold War. The U.S., well within the western tradition, perceives wars largely in isolation of their greater political origin and regional cultural context. We wrongly believe that the most important objective in war is total military victory; and assume that changes brought about by war are permanent. We see war as evil but celebrate its bounty if victorious. Our experience in Somalia illustrated another characteristic. The efforts of the U.S. and a coalition of United Nations peacekeeping forces focused their immediate energies on inoculating children and feeding the starving population, at a time when no effective government ruled the tumultuous land. In purely logical terms, these two (well-meaning) activities might very well exacerbate the anarchic social conditions as the population growth and survival rates improve. In the absence of effective socio-political advances, the degree of frustration will exasperate the already dire situation. Lasting and productive solutions, however, require long-term, massive socio-political responses, (“Tractors, not Tanks.”) In anticipation of conflicts in the future, the U.S. should expect the Third World will remain the battlefields, and the dangers will not be global, but regional. Economic issues will be the most frequently represented underlying motive. We may anticipate forcible measures in pursuit of physical survival. With proliferating nuclear technology in the Third World, the production of nuclear weapons may soon be cheaper than outfitting and maintaining an army of trained and wellequipped foot-soldiers with a modest logistical and fighting capability. Few Third World armed forces today can efficiently attack a neighboring state and attain their political objectives expeditiously. This, plus the reality of numerous military take-overs of their own weak governments makes Third World militaries high-risk institutions. On the other hand, advanced technologies and availability of highly trained nuclear scientists are becoming cheaper and more easily employed. Under such circumstances, recruiting, training, and maintaining conventional armed forces may soon be more expensive than acquiring a rudimentary nuclear weapons and missile program. Private funding in pursuit of private security objectives should also be a major factor in the near future. Ironically, the future might see nuclear weapons as the poor man’s cheap – and more loyal – defense force. North Korea bears close scrutiny. The West prepares for war by arming our warriors with some of history’s technically most advanced weapons. However, the changing

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nature of future enemies may well escape detection by analysts, civilian and military, more secure with studying wars from the classic war school manuals where war is still widely presented as largely a duel between two nations. Despite virtually all wars in the last decade having been internal affairs, (the most notable exception is the war between Iraq and the U.S.-led allied coalition) military doctrine has not dealt definitively with urban-based insurgencies – that are improperly labeled “terrorism”. We must ask: Can the large, massed land armies of today be efficiently utilized in pursuit of vague political objectives, reflecting concerns of the Third World? If not, new paradigms must be tabled. Certainly Van Creveld’s vision of the future, demonstrated that expert analyses may offer utility.26 Some developments which he anticipated is evident today in the form of disintegration of non-viable states, weakening governments, social segmentation, and the emergence of non-state, private security interests – better known as “terrorists”. Van Creveld’s contention are evident in the declining or collapsed states of Yemen, India’s northern regions, Afghanistan, Haiti, Liberia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, former republics of the Soviet Union, parts of South and south-east Asia, and numerous other states in the Pacific and Caribbean regions. America’s third-largest recipient of foreign aid, Colombia (which is projected soon to take the first position,) was reported in Time to be divided into three parts with right-wing paramilitary units controlling much of the North, a Marxist insurgency running the South, and a weakening government barely holding on to the center.27 Making policy for handling the looming global security issues identifiable today will require mature but flexible analytic abilities and innovative leadership initiatives. These issues include controlling the proliferation of conventional and nuclear weapons; tasking governmental oversight of internal private development of chemical and biological weapons – on a global scale; leading the world in an international effort at deterring terrorism with applied economic means; limiting the territorial ambitions by the new set of Third World expansionists; effectively address the need for diffusing domestic political and economic power from extant concentrations; discourage further fragmentation and secession in the Third World; erect regional economic integrative institutions; track transnational abusive corporate political power; terminate the current onslaught on the delicate state of global ecology and critically examine the true carrying capacity of the world; introduce a realistic redesign of numerous non-viable states to develop into viable and regional-based integrated economic

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communities that can better pursue their bargaining position in the global economy; halt the emerging social anarchy implicit in the widening economic chasm between rich and poor states; advance the capabilities of the economically and administratively weak states by the transfer of jobs, education, capital and appropriate technology to the populous and poor regions of the world – or face an uncontrollable migration of pragmatic masses looking for economic opportunities; respect and acceptance of different cultural traditions – and work towards the moderation of nationalist, ethnic, class, and religious centrifugal forces. These objectives may represent vital changes to those who anticipate their own gain, but these changes will be contested by others who calculate that the result of inaction will be unacceptable. Most of these issues represent potentially explosive challenges at the regional level. Such ideas are identifiable in nascent form today; and await great power initiatives to undertake programs whose costs of addressing these issues can be measured only against the future costs of ignoring them.

Conceptualizing historical forces Articulating the concept of “Historical Forces” is an exercise of immense complexity as, properly addressed, it must delve into some well-known philosophical arguments, as well as analyses of differing civilizational perceptions. The relevant focus of this concept utilized for the framework of this introductory chapter holds that we operate on the assumption that humans, expressed through their power elite, engage in the constant process of making societal choices, mostly without critical examination. We hold that we design our own social history in the form of creatively shaping successive social environments. Yet it is history, in the form of constantly changing, globe-wide social and physical environments, that poses for us a continuous stream of new and unanticipatable situations to which we must respond. The response must often be done with great urgency and with a greatly restricted range of options. History is the product of such choices that represent the synthesis of perceptions by competing sets of decision-makers. We do in fact design, or conceptualize our individually preferred histories, but the actual, collective product that emerges at the society-level is a synthesis that exists objectively in the form of historical forces that greatly impede the attainment of our initial interest. As these forces exist a priori, we cannot know them objectively until they are actually operationalized. In summary form: We set off in

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pursuit of a particular change, but we are soon impeded in the attempt by the inherent opposition of exogenous forces that in the end will determine the degree of success of our initial objective. What emerges is a synthesis that may render the initial objective counterproductive or a bad investment of our resources. As a global superpower, the U.S. shapes as much as it is shaped by dynamic historical forces. The ultimate source of America’s distinct policy style is the relentless onslaught of new military technology, and the perpetuation of the West’s history of global ambitions. In more specific terms, our war culture may be characterized: alternation between frequent intervention and hesitant engagement; domestic attitudinal vicissitudes towards foreign ventures stemming from somewhat xenophobic democratic institutions; excessively frequent leadership changes; involvement in numerous world-wide armed conflicts and wars whose causes are not easily explained; democratic governing structures that at times greatly exaggerate the dangers to our nation and hence the need to engage our military in frequent interventions in protection of our national security interests as well as abetting the security of our allies;28 official justifications of the use of force in numerous minor Third World engagements that strain to be accepted by the public as core security matters; the invocation of moral precepts to buttress such core security interest explanations; difficulty in identifying emerging enemies, location, and reasons for impending conflicts; and the tendency to respond with mostly reactive policies to the initiatives of others – who thereby determine the agenda for our global role. And at the ideological level, our lack of sufficient respect for debating the nature of the philosophical substructure underlying change and history renders our society excessively short-term and pragmatic. To this list, Huntington adds the frequent non-western evaluations regarding gaps between western principles and action. He offers, Hypocrisy, double standards, and “but nots” are the price of universalistic pretensions. Democracy is promoted but not if it brings Islamic fundamentalists to power; nonproliferation is preached for Iran but not for Israel; …human rights are an issue with China but not with Saudi Arabia; aggression against oil-owning Kuwait is massively repulsed but not against non-oil-owning Bosnia.29 It is not argued that the leading world powers in the past had not demonstrated their own peculiarities and seeming contradictions. Most great and imperial powers had offered poorly articulated rationales for

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choosing the military road in their conquests of ever-more distant societies as they fell to European colonialism. Great powers do not in fact dictate the ongoing operational terms of a new era, but, if prudent, they respond correctly and peacefully to continuously emerging systemic challenges by the timely choice from among the most appropriate but limited political, diplomatic, economic and military options. John Macdonald offers his judgment, “Organizations do not operate in an environment of their own making.”30 Therein lies the great power decision-maker’s greatest dilemma. In the case of Third World states, internal civil wars during the period of the consolidative stage of their socio-political development may unfortunately be seen as positive steps towards building stable societies – but at great human cost. Certainly the legitimization of Washington, as the American federation’s authoritative capital, was the major long-term product of America’s bloody Civil War. If this is a valid paradigm, the foremost response by the international community may be to prevent intervention as it may introduce further polarization and prolongation of the war. A more productive role might be the prevention of external forces becoming allied with one or the other side in a civil war in order to keep that war from contaminating the entire region. Liberia’s quarter of a century-long internal war is a textbook case of the problem with external intervention in civil wars. A final question asks: short-, or long-term, what had the U.S. achieved in the Vietnam War? The Soviet Union in Afghanistan? South Africa in Angola? Britain in the Falklands? Iraq in Kuwait? Israel in Palestinian territory? None of the major participants (excepting Britain in the Falklands) gained their long-term objectives. Conceivably, internal wars may on occasion be justified by some of the participants, as they have often provided great utility. Unimpeded by external intervention, civil wars define the de facto dynamic and competitive internal power distribution required for the development of states undergoing political transition. Foreign involvement distorts the attempts to equilibrate their own internal orders. U.S. attempts at supporting Iran’s Shah Reza Pahlavi is a case in point, but other examples proliferate throughout the world. Vietnam, Nicaragua, Battista’s Cuba, Haiti, Rwanda, Somalia, Liberia, etc. are among them. Recent humanitarian involvement by the U.S. and others are well meaning, but they might in fact only prolong unresolved conflicts – or exacerbate them – if the underlying political and welfare problems have not been resolutely addressed during the course of the conflict.

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Historical forces are at play during the entire course of all wars as all sides keep changing the relationships between all the relevant variables as the conflicts and wars evolve. The Western way of war has found virtue in maintaining for the duration of the entire war, the original declared causes or reasons for resorting to armed conflicts – especially if a moral veneer has been applied to official pronouncements. Yet we can make a good case that winning should be left for the individual battles that collectively comprise the greater concept of war. For the West, the words winning, victory, war termination, alliance, unconditional surrender, and peace are absolutes. Western man shapes his existential environment; and resists this being done by the nebulous exogenous historical forces. The end of the Cold War has seen the emergence, or re-emergence, of a series of analytic directions regarding new or potential enemies. The listing of the recent post-Cold War actors and issues is well known to the military-attentive public and professional analysts. It includes, “rogue states, Low Intensity Conflict (LIC)”, the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) terrorism, airpower, international crime syndicates, non-official actors (NGOs), asymmetric wars, information warfare, strategic resources, reform in the lands of the former Soviet Empire, ethnic and religion-based conflicts, global environmental destruction, contentious trade practices,31 etc. There is little that cannot be anticipated on this list, but we are also moving into some unchartered waters for which the military may have to entertain the incorporation of some new, radical measures. The determining factor will likely be the doctrinal elaboration regarding the acquisition of a new, large special force whose task will lie more in the analytic than in the operational realm. Weapons must be kept away from hostile hands before they are acquired and used and not after their use. Unless the U.S. military is substantially restructured, modernized, and tasked to also prepare for a variety of politics-intensive, non-conventional combat operations, the military will hardly be the appropriate invading agency and will play a mostly marginal role in dealing with some of these identified threats. This was illustrated in the cases of Oklahoma, New York, Nairobi, and Dar es Salaam in all of which the military played no major role. There exists no peer competitor for the U.S. armed forces which calls into question the huge expenditures on new acquisitions and defense programs. The major threats to the U.S. are from small groups of terrorist who cannot be efficiently countered with our everincreasing, high-tech defense capability. Another prospect concerns

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nuclear blackmail – North Korea-style. Should one such event result in a nuclear device being activated in the U.S., the ensuing retaliation will suffice to deter others from following suit. The impetus for starting war will come from ideas, perceptions, values, resentments, life styles and adverse cultural interactions. However, America’s defense establishment remains largely structured for traditional western, state-on-state conventional wars, whose likelihood of outbreak has greatly diminished. Will each of the armed services be able to justify their costs if the major security concerns will center on terrorism, the danger of regional fractionalization, socio-economic subversion, and the universe of misdeeds of non-official, private interests? We have greatly neglected the full potential political and economic measures that are available in the pursuit of our natural craving for security. Our assumption is that wars will continue to be fought, and the supreme analytic test will be the identification of precisely who the enemy is and what does he really want. This established, the next step will be short- and long-term estimates of the cost of the projected armed conflict should diplomatic or internal mechanisms be inadequate for keeping the peace. Historical Forces will materialize and need to be acknowledged but they will certainly not be “managed” by policy-makers of either side. We must expect that every time we undertake a new mission or erect a new security apparatus, we are giving birth to a future balancing response by others – usually national armies, parallel weapons systems, or by unprecedented tactics. Israel has been a repeat victim of the shifting nature of offensive initiatives by its regional opponents. Sponsored suicide bombing is but the most recent manifestation of innovative offensive strategies. This is not to argue that nuclear weapons need to be balanced numerically against only nuclear weapons. Terrorist acts can be a formidable opponent of nuclear weapons if the point of utilizing weapons is for pursuing change and inflicting death in genocidal numbers, (More lives were lost in New York’s trade towers destruction than were lost in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.) Neither North Korea nor Iran has any chance whatsoever of launching massive missile attacks onto the U.S. and yet we debate the merits of erecting a new missile defense system – against these “rogue” states. For a halfcentury, the U.S. and NATO successfully deterred a military threat from a very well-armed Soviet Union and her Warsaw Pact alliance, but will we be able to deter the Third World’s nuclear aspirants – each with a mixed bag of motives? One nuclear bomb could penetrate the U.S. landmass – most likely from a non-state, terrorist originated

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source. This matter would be dealt with by our internal homeland security and criminal justice facilities. However, if a nuclear threat or implementation were to be made by a hostile government, that would require prior deterrence by a well-structured military. No competitor today can challenge the U.S. in the realm of nuclear war yet we forge ahead in pursuit of evermore high-tech defense measures that will engender responses by external communities. Perhaps our analytic energies are concentrated excessively on historical warfare in its physical, and quantifiable dimensions which has yielded much irrelevant data and inconsequential anecdotes – at the expense of some profound, but vastly ignored, philosophical constructs. What is often ignored is the most important and revealing dimensions of wars: the cultural, psychological, political and the unfathomable, subjective context of wars – that will determine the holistic nature of conflicts. In the physical realm of military studies, the lessons may be best learned by training. But speculating about the human, socio/political dimension of future conflict environments, can only be approached by education. The difference between these two alternative methodological approaches to learning must be distinguished from each other, especially by the military’s leadership corps. Education is no magic wand for predicting the future, but it is the best way to build the analytic tools that will be necessary for making crucial choices in matters pertaining to the enemy, but also to learn about one’s own ignorance of vital information required for matters pertaining to changing social relations. Notes 1. A brief, but extensive review of terrorism is offered by Stephen Sloan, Beating International Terrorism (Maxwell AFB Al., Air University Press 2000): See especially Chapter 1. 2. Much literature on terrorism is available. The current controversies regarding the topic are efficiently summarized by Robert Worley, Waging Ancient War: Limits on Preemptive Force, (Carlisle Barracks, PA Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2003): 1–10. 3. Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, New York, The Free Press (1991): 197–198. 4. A 1997 report observes that 200 of the 311 terrorist victims the previous year were in Sri Lanka – but no U.S. victims were evident that year. Most terrorist actions are domestic affairs; against commercial targets; and kill no one. New York Times. 5. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History”, The National Interest, no. 16 (Summer 1989).

30 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 6. Adda B. Bozeman, “War and the Clash of Ideas”, Orbis, vol. 20, no. 1 (Spring 1976). 7. Rudolph H. Weingartner, “Historical Explanation”, in Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. vol. 4 (New York: Macmillan Pub. Co., 1967): 7–11. 8. Quoted in William H. Dray, Philosophy of History (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964): 4. 9. Samuel B. Griffith, Sun Tzu, The Art of War (London, Oxford University Press, 1963): 77. 10. Karl P. Magyar and Constantine P. Danopoulos, Prolonged Wars: A PostNuclear Challenge, Maxwell AFB, AL, Air University Press. See Chapter 1: Karl P. Magyar, “Introduction: The Protraction and Prolongation of War”. 11. Martin van Creveld, The Art of War: War and Military Thought (London: Casell & co., 2000) Chapter 1. 12. David M. Shenk, Global Gods: Exploring the Role of Religions in Modern Societies (Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1995): 156. 13. Oliver Leaman, Key Concepts in Eastern Philosophy (London, Routledge, 1999), p. 76. 14. Kevin Platt, “Imperial Traditions in Red China”, 7 February 1997, Christian Science Monitor. 1. 15. Adda B. Bozeman, p. 65. 16. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Out of Control, Global Turmoil on the Eve of the twentyfirst Century (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993): 17. 17. Ibid., p. 183. 18. A brief review of Marxism’s evolution is offered by Stephen Eric Bronner, Ideas in Action: Political Tradition in the Twentieth Century (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999) ch. 9. 19. Zbigniew Brzezinski, p. 11. 20. Samuel P. Huntington,“The Clash of Civilization”, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993. 21. Bozeman, p. 79. 22. McNamara, p. 322. 23. Henry Kissinger, “The New World Order”, in Chester A. Crocker, ed., Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute for Peace, 1996) p. 143. 24. David Hackett Fischer, The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 25. William E. Turcotte develops the popular theme of the U.S. having prepared for war at NATO’s central front, but actual combat occurred in other theaters. “Contingencies and Organizational Response”, in Richard J. Norton and James F. Miskell, eds., National Security: Case Studies in Policy Making and Implementation, volume II (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1996): 24. 26. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, pp. 196–199. 27. Tim Pagett, “The Backyard Balkans”, Time, 18 January 1999, p. 44. 28. Robert S. McNamara, writing about his role in the Vietnam War admits that “the West often misperceived, and therefore exaggerated, the power of the East”, McNamara, p. 320. And Knut Royce reported on the Bush administra-

Karl P. Magyar 31 tion’s exaggeration to cast Iraq “as an evil and outlaw state” prior to our invasion. Sunday Montgomery Advertiser, 20 June 1991. 29. Huntington, p. 184. 30. John Macdonald, Calling a Halt to Mindless Change (New York, AMACOM, 1998), p. 14 31. Some of these threats are listed in The White House, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington: 1995), p. 8.

Part II Political Perspectives

2 The United Nations’ Transition in the Post-Cold War Era: Time For Change? Scott P. Morgan

For the third time in a century, the world has entered a period of euphoria and fear brought on simultaneously by the relief of achieving some peace in the world and by the apprehension of future world violence. These feelings first occurred after World War I – “The War to End All Wars,” when the League of Nations was created as a consequence of that war. The second instance came after World War II, when the United Nations (UN) was established. Now, for the third time, at the close of the Cold War, the same feelings of euphoria and fear have been translated into growing calls for major reform in the UN. Each of these periods have created a new set of challenges and hopes for all people. This chapter examines the issues surrounding a world organization devoted to collective security and the chartered as well as unchartered new missions it strives to fulfill. For the last fifty years the United Nations has been the target of much concern. This analysis focuses on the UN and with it the hopes, dreams, and disillusionment of many people. It begins with a review of the history and challenges which the UN faced during the Cold War. Then follows a review of the UN’s activities since the Cold War, and finally, possible changes to the UN to enhance its future relevance are considered.

We the Peoples of the United Nations The United Nations came into existence just over fifty years ago when its charter was signed on June 26, 1945. The UN was established to counter the prospect of another world war. This stance is reflected in the preamble of the UN’s charter: “We the Peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind…have resolved 35

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to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims…..”1 The UN began with much fanfare and hope for the future. The strong feelings surrounding the creation of the UN are best reflected by John Walsh, former ambassador to Kuwait, “The prevalent mood in 1945 was unrealistically euphoric. Although the war in the Pacific was entering its bitterest stage and the emerging reality of atomic and later nuclear weaponry was a very closely held possibility, the commentary of the time visualized extraordinary changes in the historic record of relationships between nation-states.”2 Walsh further exemplified this mood quoting then Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, “There will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, balances of power, or any of the other special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguard their security or to promote their interests.” What has since happened in our world to change perceptions of the United Nations? And, how have these new perceptions impacted the organization? Ibrahim Gossama, citing figures reported in The Economist, points out that “…since the creation of the UN, the world has witnessed more than one hundred major conflicts short of global war. Over forty million people have lost their lives….”3 Others state the figures as being much higher.4 This trend continues even with the end of the Cold War. For example, in Rwanda’s most recent conflict, an estimated 500,000 deaths occurred, mainly under the guise of ethnic animosity.5 We also saw the UN fail to affect lasting, positive change in Somalia through humanitarian relief. Even the celebrated UN victory in Desert Storm, the battle to oust Iraq from Kuwait, is still plagued by the continued embargo of Iraq and other problems that persist in that region. The UN’s intervention in the prolonged fighting in the former Yugoslavia also shows little hope of maintaining a long-term resolution. Should the UN be responsible for all of these conflicts? The American public’s uncertain response to this question has a significant impact on their perceptions of the UN’s effectiveness. If people do believe the UN holds responsibility in these situations, are they saying the United Nations is not capable of doing its chartered mission? Has the organization’s role become larger than what the founders had originally intended? Or, is it just time to reform the UN based upon the exigencies of the “new world order” in the post-Cold War world? Such questions, require elaboration. The founders of the UN envisioned an organization built on collective security with its strength lodged in the Security Council. At the end of World War II, however, a bipolar world along East–West lines

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emerged, making a unified Security Council difficult to achieve. Along with this bipolarization came a rapid and unanticipated decolonization movement, with the UN pioneering the way. In the words of Inis L. Claude, Jr.: “…the United Nations became a prominent instrument of the anti-colonial movement, used to encourage, promote, and confer legitimacy upon decolonization.”6 What did this decolonization mean for the UN and more importantly, the world? First, the UN grew in the size of its membership. With this growth came a change in the complexion of the UN and calls for economic support of developing nations. Second, there arose a new series of conflicts in the world emanating from the decolonization process of weakly constituted states. These factors not only affected the world but also the task of the UN. Over the next 50 years, the UN grew rapidly from its original 51 members in 1945, reaching 159 members by the end of the Cold War and before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. With this increase of membership in the United Nations came the prominence of the developing nations, also referred to as the “Third World of New States,” who gained much political influence in the General Assembly and were able to devise a new agenda. As Claude put it: “…this new majority formulated an agenda featuring the needs, values, and demands of its members so that economic assistance and measures for promoting the economic development of Third World states became increasingly prominent parts of the UN’s activity.”7 Thus, the General Assembly became the “champion” of Article 55 of the UN Charter: “…to promote higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development….”8 Based upon this article, the UN proclaimed three successive United Nations development decades designed to promote the development of poorer nations through strategic planning. The founders of the United Nations visualized that the UN would institutionalize the concept of collective security. Article 43 of the UN Charter established the Security Council comprised of representatives of the five major powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Soviet Socialist Republic, France, and China). Within two years of its establishment the Security Council became a forum for national sovereignty, dividing itself along East–West lines, based upon ideology, and investing its members with veto power. The effects of this veto power have been the center of controversy. For example, this happened in UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali’s report to the Security Council entitled An Agenda for Peace. Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, over 100 major conflicts around the world have left

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some 20 million dead. The United Nations was rendered powerless to deal with many of these crises because of the right of vetoes – 279 of them – cast in the Security Council, which were a vivid expression of the division of that period.9 Was the UN really rendered powerless by this division? As Sir Anthony Parsons points out, “A large number of the conflicts were civil wars or independence struggles which would have fallen outside of the United Nations even if there had been no veto or Cold War.”10 Examining the vetoes yields a better idea of their effects: 51 of the 114 Soviet vetoes between 1946 and 1987 were cast on membership applications. Most of the 69 U.S. vetoes were cast for U.S. political reasons such as averting criticism of Israel, while many of the 32 British vetoes were cast against issues regarding Southern Rhodesia. If the vetoes did not cause a decrease in the UN’s effectiveness, what did? A closer look at the conflicts gives us a better understanding of the UN’s challenge to be effective. A series of conflicts arose stemming from instability introduced by decolonization. These conflicts have been categorized by Sir Anthony Parsons into four forms: 1. Liberation struggles, as in Indo-China, Indonesia, Algeria, Mozambique, Angola, Cyprus, South Africa. 2. Where decolonization has gone wrong, as in Palestine and Cyprus. 3. Post-decolonization power struggles as in the Congo (1960–1964), Mozambique, Angola and Somalia. 4. Post-decolonization conflicts over self-determination, where “peoples” have found themselves trapped in a territory often artificially created by imperial powers and in which sovereign independence has awarded the lion’s share of power to an alien majority. There are many examples of this phenomenon including the Nigerian, Sudanese, Sri Lankan, and Burmese civil wars, the break-up of the Cyprus Republic….11 These conflicts resulted from decolonization and affected collective security. Article 2(7), however, precludes the UN from participating with peacekeeping operations in many such conflicts because they are internal struggles. The UN can only involve itself in cases of human rights abuse, which may have a global effect, or if they are asked for assistance by the conflicting parties. Therefore, the major restraint on UN efficacy was and remains national sovereignty. This concept of sovereignty implies that every nation has responsibility and control over

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their own territory. The question then arises, when can or should the UN get involved in a nation’s internal affairs? Daniel S. Papp explains that national sovereignty “…dictates that the UN can undertake peacekeeping operations almost exclusively when all parties to a conflict as well as most of the rest of the international community support the peacekeeping operation. This occurs infrequently.”12 And thus the perception of UN potency dwindles. Papp mentions other reasons why the UN has not been more successful at peacekeeping. In some instances, all sides in the conflict may not want the peacekeeping operation to succeed, thus condemning the effort from the start. In other cases the UN has not realized troop commitments and funding because of adverse domestic reactions and political positioning. In sum, the changing nature of peacekeeping operations makes it an experiment in trial and error. The resulting absence of reliable commitment and support from UN member nations to the peacekeeping efforts creates an environment conducive to misperceptions of UN effectiveness. The key factor determining UN performance during the Cold War era was the East–West ideological split. This split enabled the creation of, as Parson describes it, “the East–West propaganda forum.” This “forum” can be seen in how the Soviets used their vetoes in the UN to further their agenda. What ensued was a division of UN members into East–West alignments. Rather than direct violent confrontations between the major superpowers, these countries acted as surrogates for East–West ideological clashes. A third group, the non-aligned nations, used both sides to gain favors. Rather than supporting efforts of the UN to prevent war or to slow its escalation, the Soviet Union and the United States used the UN, in the words of Papp, “as an open forum for rivalry.” Rather than working together for collective security, the Security Council may have, in fact, reduced it. Although the world did avert a nuclear war partially through UN measures, this ideological clash affected the UN all the way to the selection and allocation of powers of the Secretary General. At the UN’s inception, the key to the Secretary General’s election was placed in the hands of the Security Council and not the General Assembly. The significance of this seemingly bold statement lies in the election procedure of the Secretary General. Article 27 of the UN Charter requires the recommendation of the Secretary General to “…be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurrent vote of the permanent members.”13 In other words, it requires a unanimous decision on the part of the permanent members of the

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Security Council. For the General Assembly, the election of the Secretary General is not considered an important matter and thus, requires only a simple majority. Therefore, the emphasis the Security Council places on selecting the Secretary General has led to “recommendation” of, or lack of support for, a candidate based on the great power rivalry. A case in point is the first UN Secretary General, Trygve Lie, who was not recommend for re-election by the Soviet Union and Taiwan due to his desire for increased actions in Korea and his support for the People’s Republic of China. This election process led to the Soviet Union’s and the United States’ inability to agree on any candidate for recommendation to the General Assembly. According to Joakim E. Parker, “This deadlock left the United Nations with no way of complying literally with the provisions of the Charter. The General Assembly, acting with no specific authority, voted to ‘continue’ Lie in office for another three years.”14 The East–West split permeated every aspect of the United Nations as seen by the disagreements on the Security Council, in the ideological split in the General Assembly, and in the Secretary General’s frequent inability to take action. The ideological split was expressed in numerous Soviet vetoes cast to prevent losing their power base in the General Assembly. Soviet voting practice forced the United States, as Parsons points out, to regard “… the United Nations as little more than an extension of the Kremlin propaganda machine, a body more likely to complicate problems than to facilitate solutions, a forum either to be avoided for meaningful business or to be publicly castigated for its defects.”15 In essence, the UN experienced more damaging effects not from actual problems the organization faced, but from attitudes toward the UN itself. The positive perspective, however, was that the world entered the post-Cold War era with a solid foundation of UN economic and human rights work. On this foundation, the UN continued to develop peace missions.

The UN in the Post-Cold War era – “Agenda for Peace” The ending of the Cold War began with Perestroika and cooperation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. For some, Perestroika brought a sigh of relief and hope for the future. The promise of trust between our nations and freedom for all people was a global milestone that seemed as if it had finally been achieved. Decades of fear and planning had been focused on one singular, looming enemy, making Perestroika a monumental symbol of peace on earth. These euphoric feelings are

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reminiscent of those experienced at the inception of the UN, where the alliance of nations created a new perspective on world affairs. The euphoria that followed Perestroika was accompanied by three major changes within the UN: 1) a new found ideological emphasis, 2) a call for restructuring based on economics, and, 3) the redefinition of the major effective elements of the UN – humanitarian intervention and peacekeeping. Most of these changes have not yet manifested themselves into results but rather have opened a new attitude or approach to viewing the United Nations and its missions. The first major event of the post-Cold War era which illustrated the change in UN ideological emphasis was the Gulf War. It was touted by former President George Bush as part of the “New World Order” of U.S.–Soviet cooperation.16 The Gulf War marked the first time the UN Security Council cooperated in the name of international collective security. For many though, the Gulf War was seen as a U.S. event under UN guise and hence was approached with cynicism. This perception was understandable because of President Bush’s track record. Since 1981, then Vice-President Bush spent much time convincing Congress to restrict the United States’ payments to the UN. According to Jarrod Weiner, the point President Bush was making with his concept of a “New World Order,” was that this “order” put the U.S. in a world leadership role with the UN and all others as followers.17 Rather than leading at the macro-level to create world order, he implied that U.S. micro-level leadership in organizing action would spur UN forces into upholding collective security. The counter argument poses that the U.S. would not form alliances using the UN as it had done in past conflicts, if it was not interested in developing the UN’s reputation. Either way, whether real or perceived, the cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States marked the beginning of a new era in the Security Council. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the influence it held over Eastern Europe, yielded the second major change – the call to restructure the United Nations. Soviet restructuring brought new sovereign states to the world. Some states were established peacefully, such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia, whereas others like those emerging from the former Yugoslavia continue to fight over land. The creation of these new states increased United Nations membership from 159 to 178, with the Russian Republic taking the former Soviet Union’s place on the Security Council. Since that time, the total membership has risen to 185 with the addition of states such as North and South Korea who previously had been excluded.

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The increased membership alone has impacted UN ideological realignment, but primarily, the dissolution of the Soviet Union created what some have called a new unipolar world. The United States is now identified as the only remaining superpower and has therefore been perceived as controlling the UN or using the UN to do its bidding. However, the U.S. military superpower rating needs to be paralleled with economic superpowers. Only then can a nation’s ability or motive to unduly influence or control the UN be analyzed. In fact, major economic superpowers, as well as others, have called for a restructuring of the Security Council. Many of the advocates for change in the UN have proposed a new Security Council based more on economic than military power. The permanent members of this new Security Council, in the formulation of Keith Suter, of the University of Sydney, would be today’s Big Five – the U.S., Russia, China, Japan, and Germany – or alternatively, the Big Five could become the Big Seven by adding Japan and Germany, or the Big Nine also by adding India and Brazil. 18 Suter also advocates the complete elimination of permanent members. On the other hand, Japan has proposed creating six new permanent seats to include itself as well as Germany, India, Egypt, Nigeria, and Brazil.19 The third change, springing from the emerging East–West cooperation was, according to Joakim Parker, a greater commonality of interests developing between East and West while North–South tensions increase. 20 These shared interests, however, have led many Third World nations to view the UN as an extension of the world economic powers such as the United States, Russia, Germany, and Japan. This is further exacerbated by the fact that more attention has been given to conflicts in the north (former Yugoslavia, etc.) while conflicts in the south (mainly in Southern Asia and Africa) have been paid lip service at best. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali strongly addressed these conflicts in his report to the Security Council entitled Agenda for Peace. This document is a good synopsis of the call for restoring the UN brought on by the paradigm shift of the “New World Order.” In Agenda for Peace, Boutros-Ghali illustrated the appropriateness of redefining the UN Charter statement, “maintain international peace and security,” so it would include a broader approach to peace operations more commensurate with the world’s new geo-political make up. This redefinition calls for a more holistic approach to peace operations in four areas: 1) preventive diplomacy, 2) peace-making, 3) peacekeeping,

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and 4) post-conflict peace building. Of these four areas, only peacekeeping is directly addressed in the UN charter, while the others, according to the Agenda for Peace, are implied. Boutros-Ghali described these four areas as key to the future of international peace. In the agenda, preventive diplomacy includes measures to build confidence, fact-finding, early warning, preventive deployment, and demilitarized zones. Peace-making involves negotiation, arbitration, or other means to resolve a conflict. Peacekeeping efforts seek to maintain peace agreements such as cease-fires and adhering to new borders. Post-conflict peace-building involves actively supporting the warring countries’ reconstruction efforts. These first two areas are essentially new responsibilities for the UN because they require an active UN intervention for international security. The UN has been primarily involved in peacekeeping and post-conflict peace-building, human rights, and humanitarian activities. All four of these areas described in the agenda are logically predicated on there being an existing dispute and are logically employed based upon the level of the conflict. Further elaboration is offered. Preventive diplomacy are actions taken to prevent disputes from escalating into hostilities. Boutros-Ghali states there are five areas of concern in preventive diplomacy: measures to build confidence, fact-finding, early warning, preventive deployment, and demilitarized zones. The first area, measures to build confidence, are those activities such as military exchanges, monitoring of regional arms agreements, etc., which build trust and confidence between nations. Fact-finding, refers to gathering factual information on trends which may result in possible problems. Early warning is designed to alert the Security Council of anticipated threats to the environment that could create situations such as famine. Political indicators are assessed for potential hostilities as part of the early warning process. Preventive deployment appears to be a redefinition of the peace-keeper role. Rather than a traditional military type of action, the military, police, and civilians use humanitarian assistance in an attempt to alleviate hostilities. The final area, demilitarized zones, have been used in peacekeeping operations in the past but here are used prior to hostilities in order to separate possible belligerents. If these preventive actions fail to diffuse hostilities, the UN may move to the next phase – peacemaking. Peacemaking is seen as the task between preventing hostilities and keeping the peace. The primary peacemaking methods the Secretary General advocates for resolving conflicts is the World Court. The second major peacemaking method is amelioration (improvement)

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through assistance. In other words, if there are circumstances such as famine, displaced persons, etc. which may be the cause of or a contributing factor to the conflict, removing the problem or improving existing conditions may be essential to the solution. The converse of this method is the third method – sanctions and special economic measures. Freezing assets during Desert Shield/Storm is the best example this latter type of peace activity. The next method, the use of military force, is new to the UN in the sense that past military forces were neutral but in this circumstance are proactively used to “maintain or restore international security.” Finally, peace-enforcement units would be designed to “respond to outright aggression, imminent or actual.” When peace is established and the belligerents have signed a cease-fire agreement, we then move from peace-making into the peacekeeping stage. The role of peacekeeping has enlarged, as seen in recent conflicts, to include a wider variety of personnel beyond the military. As in the case of Haiti, civilian political officers, human rights monitors, electoral officials, refugee and humanitarian aid specialists, and police played major roles in controlling the conflict. Boutros-Ghali has taken this larger role into consideration, incorporating it into the Agenda for Peace. The agenda stresses the importance of greater support for UN peacekeeping missions, especially in the areas of training and logistics. In order to secure lasting peace, however, the UN’s plan is to emphasize post-conflict peace-building. Post-conflict peace-building is a continuation of many of the aforementioned initiatives stressing such things as monitoring elections, repatriating refugees, advancing efforts to protect human rights, etc. Boutros-Ghali emphasizes cooperation between parties in conflict believing that economic support, cultural exchanges, and other types of interaction will foster mutual understanding and long-term cooperation. On a more practical note, the removal of land mines and the decision to maintain any demilitarized zones should be taken into account. Land mines are a constant threat as well as a reminder of hostilities that involved parties need to put behind them. It could only take one mine explosion to rekindle anger, fear and fighting, undermining everything invested in building peace. Creating a demilitarized zone can give the conflicting parties some distance from each other, making it easier to adjust to peace and let old wounds heal. The demilitarized zone that exists between North and South Korea, for example, has contributed to 40 years of peace between these countries.

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Has the world really changed? The UN in the future If we compare the “New World Order” to the ‘old state of affairs’ in the world, we see that only the location of power has changed due to decolonization. Each time power shifts, whether predicated by war or just restructuring, we experience the same emotions. After World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, we see a cycle marked by euphoria; “now we can work together to make the world a better place;” “followed by a call for change, create the League of Nations, create the UN, and now, reform the UN.” Fear eventually sets in, conflicts erupt, and the world fragments once more. Some contend this is a natural phenomenon. If we refer to Sir Anthony Parsons’ four forms of decolonization, we see the same patterns emerged with the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, the breakup of the great colonial empires of Britain and France after World War II, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union which ended the Cold War. Each one of these events led to instability and conflict resulting from decolonization. We may put these decolonization conflicts into perspective by examining the concept of state evolution as proposed by Dr. Karl P. Magyar. He believes these conflicts are quite natural, because each destabilized country or region falls into a phase of state evolution, with some being in the formative stage (when a new political entity aspires to attain sovereignty) or early consolidative stage (when a newly independent state attempts to incorporate the people and land into a legitimized sovereign unit) of development.21 (This is illustrated in Figure 2.1.) By the very nature of their formation, we would expect conflicts to arise as these countries try to solidify their power base, extend effective control over the entire land, and attain wide legitimacy. Based on interpretations from Magyar’s diagram nothing has fundamentally changed. When studying the UN’s role and responsibilities as they relate to calls for reform we can discern three main directions for change: broaden the UN’s mission, maintain the status quo, or find a balanced compromise. Broadening the UN’s mission Magyar’s and Parson’s work assume that decolonization and instability in the forming states is a natural process that should be expected and needs to be endured. In this light, we’ll look at the UN’s primary missions – maintaining international peace and security and advancing

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State Evolution

Compulsive Global or Imperial Expansive Mature

Forced

Early Consolidative Formative Figure 2.1

human rights issues. The fact that these two missions are broad and vague opens them to a myriad of interpretations. The broadest interpretation of the mission indicates a holistic approach to accomplishing results with emphasis on averting conflicts before they have a chance to escalate. The best method of pursuing the primary missions would be to employ preventive measures concentrating on the areas of economic development, diminish human rights abuses, and emphasizing humanitarian intervention. These methods easily fit the first steps of the Agenda for Peace advocated by Boutros Boutros-Ghali – preventive diplomacy and peace-making. A broadened approach to the UN’s missions would require the restructuring of the Security Council, a body which is increasingly criticized throughout the world. A logical decision could be to add more representation from the south as well as from the larger economic powers, primarily Japan and Germany. Restructuring could also include expanding the duties of the Secretary General to include more decision-making power. A balance of power could also be established among the three UN bodies: the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the Secretary General.

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The expanded UN missions would justify actions taken in situations such as Haiti because they focused on human rights abuses and averted excessive destabilization. This interpretation of the UN’s missions might dissuade criticism that the United States coerces the UN and uses it as an ad hoc organization to further the U.S. agenda. The United Nations would pick and choose in which conflicts to intervene based on the broadest interpretation of the UN Charter. Maintaining the status quo The stricter interpretation of the UN’s missions could not justify many of the peace actions taken, such as in Haiti and Somalia, or even advocated, as in Rwanda. The existing UN charter calls for an agreement by all parties involved before any peacekeeping operations may be established. Maintaining the status quo means following the charter to the letter, without interpretation. This brings us back to Parsons and Magyar who view these conflicts as historically prevalent affairs that will run their course oblivious to external preferences. Their perspective generally supports the status quo. This approach would need to be circumvented for extreme human rights abuses such as genocide, but would basically let inhabitants deal with their own power distribution problems unless they all agreed to external help. However, as we have seen in Rwanda, it is hard to prove when the “mob mentality” is prevalent and peoples’ rational thinking is not heard. Referring to Parsons’ arguments that the UN accomplished its primary function during the Cold War and that most conflicts were outside the UN’s purview, leads to another perspective that supports maintaining the original, stricter interpretation of the UN chartered missions. The argument holds that the UN expanded its mission by involving itself in internal affairs under the guise of human rights, and expanded its roles using the Agenda for Peace as its new charter and justification for its actions. This argument points out that the UN has not changed since the end of the Cold War. It is still being used to push individual nation-state agendas, it is uncertain of its real mission, and it is an ad hoc organization for countries who use it opportunistically. Those who support the status quo, are calling for a return to the original charter as UN doctrine. Balanced approach interpretation The UN’s missions combine broadening the missions with the intent of the original charter. Many international affairs analysts, such as Walsh, Gossama, Claude, Weiner, Papp, and Parsons, have posed that

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some type of UN reform is necessary, but how much reform is enough? It is necessary to remember that the organization does have its limitations. The primary power of the UN today is based in the Security Council. The council decides who can become a UN member, who will be the next secretary general, and whether proposed interventions or activities of any consequence reach the General Assembly. The calls for change in the composition of permanent Security Council members, and thereby the distribution of power, should be taken seriously. A balance should be established to include representatives from the South. Opponents of balanced representation in the security council fear the formation of a new ideological split in the General Assembly which might permeate the Security Council and render it helpless. Another issue is how far to expand peace operations, from a human rights standpoint as well as from a pragmatic approach. The present limitations of the UN charter legally restrict where and when it can intervene. This area needs to be redressed so that clear criteria are established defining when and to what degree the UN can and should get involved in deteriorating situations. These criteria would cover questions such as should the UN intervene in Chechnya or is that strictly an internal Russian problem. Realistically, the UN is not financially or logistically able to support peace operations in every conflict that prevails. Resources will continue to be a limiting factor unless more financial and military support is provided by member nations. Perhaps concentrating more on prevention and less on intervention could overcome this factor. We have examined the view that the “New World Order” is not necessarily new, that the conflicts are essentially the same but with some different players. We have also considered that there exists today more than one super power if a broader perspective on power is considered. It is suggested that a thorough review of the mission of the UN seems to be in order. The call to change the nature of the United Nations emphasizes broadening the UN’s concern with security and humanitarian issues, based on the relationship between humanitarian issues and individual and collective security. This chapter may have raised more questions than it answered. International affairs analysts have struggled with these questions and issues without coming to resolution. This chapter attempted to elaborate the UN’s progressive evolution but in fact, highlighted how far the UN has to go. We posed the question of what, if anything, has really changed in the state of international affairs in this new era.

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However, the reader understands that in the realm of international security and peace, the UN may be the only game in town. Notes 1. Preamble to the United Nations Charter, June 26, 1945. 2. John Walsh, “50 YEARS: United Nations Faces Future Challenges,” Montgomery Advertiser (September 23, 1995), p. 14A. 3. Ibrahim J. Gossama, “World Order in the Post-Cold War Era: The Relevance and Role of the United Nations After Fifty Years,” Brooklyn Journal of International Law, vol. 20, no. 2 (1994), p. 260. 4. Sir Anthony Parsons, “The United Nations in the Post-Cold War Era,” International Relations, vol. 11, no. 3 (December 1, 1992), p. 191. 5. S. H. Alshamsi, T. Karika, D. C. Knopf, K. P. Magyar, R. McCann, & S. P. Morgan, (unpublished research paper), Airpower and the sociocultural environment. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air Command and Staff College, 1995, p. 46. 6. Inis L. Claude, Jr., “The United Nations of the Cold War: Contributions to the Post-Cold War Situation,” Fordham International Law Journal, vol. 18: 789, (1995), pp. 789–790. 7. Claude, p. 790. 8. Basic Facts About the United Nations, United Nations, New York, NY, June 30, 1989, p. 93. 9. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, “Agenda for Peace,” International Relations, vol. 11, no. 3 (December 1, 1992), p. 203. 10. Parsons, p. 195. 11. Ibid., p. 191. 12. Daniel S. Papp, Contemporary International Relations (New York, Macmillan College Publishing, Inc., 1994), p. 80. 13. Article 27, para. 2–3, United Nations Charter, June 26, 1945. 14. Joakim E. Parker, “Electing the UN Secretary General after the Cold War,” Hastings Law Journal, vol. 44, no. 1 (November 1992), p. 173. 15. Parsons, p. 192. 16. George Bush, Espousing the principles of the “New World Order” during a speech given at Andrews Air Force Base, April 1991. 17. Jarrod Weiner, “Leadership, the UN, and the New World Order,” in The United Nations in the New World Order (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), p. 50. 18. Keith D. Suter, “The Future of the United Nations,” Current Affairs Bulletin, vol. 68, no. 8 (1 January 1992), p. 16. 19. Michael Lind, “The United Nations After the Cold War,” The World & I (The Washington Times Corporation, 1990). 20. Parker, p. 163. 21. Karl P. Magyar, “Conflict in the Post-Containment Era,” in War and Conflict coursebook, (Maxwell AFB Air Command and Staff College, 1995), p. 52.

3 NATO’s Changing Mission Deborah L. Borio

The history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is one wrought with change. The changes were brought about not by a refocusing of mission, for that did not deviate, but rather by policies and the methodologies by which those policies were incorporated into strategy decisions. In those changes, however, a consistent pattern was observable. Notably the characterization of policy changes reflected the driving force of the United States (U.S.) in asserting its national policy and strategy concerns in relation to the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), and the U.S. treatment of these concerns through the vehicle of NATO. The birth of the organization itself marked a change in the American policy of economic aid and recovery of post-war Western Europe to that of massive rearmament and direct U.S. leadership in European security concerns. The deterministic intent of the parties to the North Atlantic Treaty as expressed in their desire to “live in peace with all peoples and all governments” and in their determination to “safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law”1 has, however, remained a consistent rallying cry of the organization since its inception. The underlying unity of purpose and the accepted moral probity of this common goal provided NATO a raison d’être and allowed the cry to be heard above the din of the frequently diametrically opposed views held by the U.S. and its allies throughout nearly 50 years of partnership.

The Cold War The flurry of Soviet hegemonic activities following World War II necessitated a release of the firm grip with which the U.S. held onto its isola50

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tionist policy. The 1948 ravishment of Czechoslovakia and blockade of Berlin posed security challenges in Europe that could not be answered by anything less than a coherent and unified reaction. The initiative to answer the challenges was found in the formation of NATO. The organization has throughout the years of the Cold War remained true to the principles upon which it was founded by adopting reactive policies to counter Soviet aggression. The initial idea of containment on a selective level quickly expanded to general or “symmetrical” containment which set the United States, and thus NATO, on a course of action designed to block Soviet advances wherever they might occur. According to Henry Kissinger, the coup in Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade, the Soviets’ atomic bomb testing, the victory of the Communists in China, and the invasion into South Korea were regarded collectively by American leaders as a single global threat.2 In response, the assignment of an American Supreme Allied Commander in Europe along with a heavy commitment of U.S. troops to European soil reflected a change toward rearmament and the adoption of National Security Council Memorandum (NSC)-68 which set forth national security objectives and programs, and sought to change Soviet practices and policies.3 The invasion of South Korea from the North presented the motivation for the U.S. to build up its military capabilities in support of NSC-68, as well as an opportunity for the U.S. to demonstrate its commitment to its allies by quelling fears in the European community that the invasion was merely a diversionary tactic to mask the Soviet intention of invading Europe. The introduction of four U.S. divisions into Europe in 1951 was a severe departure from traditional U.S. foreign policy practice – in that it furnished a military commitment in defense of Europe in peacetime – and set the stage for the conduct of NATO policies. The U.S., in exchange for its burden-sharing and extended commitment to its allies, expected a dominant leadership role. The early 1950s initiated an era of policy fluctuations while U.S. commitments continued to grow under the aggressive counter-Soviet approaches taken by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. However effective, these approaches posed a dilemma for the President who needed a way to honor the country’s global commitments at a reduced cost. Further exacerbating the problem was the Soviet detonation of a hydrogen bomb and the inability of NATO and the U.S. to match the Soviets conventionally or in manpower. President Dwight Eisenhower sought a solution not in balance of power diplomacy, but in technology as the “New Look” of 1954 established a strong reliance on

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nuclear power for its deterrent value; not surprisingly, NATO’s first nuclear strategy – Massive Retaliation – emerged the same year. With almost total dependence on American nuclear superiority, the new strategy added to increasing European reliance on the U.S. for territorial security and to increasing U.S. affinity for ascendancy.4 The changing tide in Europe spurred more developments in NATO as well as in the Soviet reaction. The potentiality of West German rearmament threatened the Soviet Union to the degree its leadership indicated willingness to seek settlement in Europe, yet after West Germany’s inclusion in NATO, the USSR immediately announced the consummation of the Warsaw Pact, which unified military command in Eastern Europe. As Soviet capabilities increased, the credibility of Massive Retaliation was rapidly declining, as was support for it. The last vestige of hope for Massive Retaliation as a successful strategy was removed when the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957; the visible recognition of America’s loss of monopoly and concomitant deterrent policy sparked yet another change in the NATO community. A break away from NATO’s all or nothing nuclear philosophy was evident in a speech by General Lauris Norstad, then Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), in which he proclaimed a new function of NATO ground forces – that of providing “an option more useful than the simple choice between all or nothing.”5 Despite objections from the Europeans whose security fears were mounting, but who were nevertheless not willing or able to take over American fiscal and military commitments, the U.S., under the Kennedy administration, ushered in the strategy of Flexible Response.6 Though Flexible Response was implemented to replace a nuclear strategy that was no longer credible, it presented its own dilemma in trying to meet its main objective – a credible conventional strategy of deterrence. The strategy highlighted the dichotomy of interests, and reactions thereto, that has disquieted relations among the NATO nations since the embryonic stage of the organization. For the U.S., anxious to allay domestic fears of safety, yet desirous of maintaining world leadership, Flexible Response meant a reversion to the symmetrical deterrence of NSC-68, a recall for massive rearmament, additional forces in Europe, and a major upgrade of strategic nuclear forces. The Europeans, however, wanted to prevent all types of war and Flexible Response seemed only to make conventional war an enticing possibility for the Soviets. The build-up dictated by the Kennedy administration also necessitated a build-up of French and British armies to reach proportionality with the conventional Soviet forces – this directly interfered

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with the domestic and global goals of those countries. Reminiscent of earlier years, technology provided an answer to security at a reduced cost, and the debate motivated Britain and France to build their own nuclear forces. Further, France developed its own strategic doctrine that called for a nuclear reaction to the USSR if French national sanctuary came under attack. If Flexible Response was successful in deterring war with the Soviets, it was equally successful in contributing to deteriorating U.S.-French relations. France had been steadily working under its President, Charles de Gaulle, to strengthen the European community and resented what it viewed as American hegemony. France underscored the depth of its resentment by withdrawing from NATO’s integrated military command in 1966, thereby denying automatic use of its territory and air space to NATO forces. Driven by the unchanging desire to maintain collective security but with European integrity and leadership, the French now had the American protectorate on their own terms. The common theme of change running through NATO’s history has been fluctuation between confrontation and détente with respect to its relations with the Soviet Union.7 After the 1967 NATO Ministers’ call for a re-examination of NATO’s role, the theme, reemerged as a move toward détente, presented itself on the European landscape. Détente offered a healing quality to the fresh cut of French withdrawal, which compounded the American problems of the ongoing debacle in Vietnam and consequent U.S. domestic discontent. Better relations with Moscow reflected the desires of all concerned as the “double track” approach was pursued. This “do-it-yourself détente” allowed NATO allies to work their own relations with the Soviets as long as it didn’t weaken or undermine the alliance. Answering the Ministers’ call, the two functions of NATO – defense and détente – were reaffirmed.8 Diplomacy became the watchword ushering in the 1970s as East–West strategic parity was achieved, and economic and domestic conditions prevented the U.S. from rearmament efforts, as well as efforts to regain technological superiority. This, coupled with a 600,000 cut in forces and reserves (occasioned by the replacement of conscription with the all-volunteer force), left little alternative if the U.S. was to maintain its international position of strength. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks were thus borne from this dilemma; however, results were far from the positive scenario anticipated as the U.S., unwilling to surrender its own aspirations, was frustrated by both Soviet and allied desires.9

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The final years of the 1970s witnessed mounting frustrations brought on, in part, by the inability to achieve mutually acceptable détente, which inspired a whirlwind of rearmament activity – alongside both nuclear and conventional avenues. The breakdown in East–West relations was accented by the Soviet build-up of launchers and increase in the number of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) missiles aimed at Western Europe. Soviet actions initiated a political crisis, and provoked Germany, already angered over the U.S.’s unilateral decision to cancel the neutron bomb, to call for a counter-action – specifically the U.S. deployment of INF in Europe. NATO’s attempt to resolve the situation led to the “Two-Track Decision of 1979,” which called for negotiations in conjunction with missile deployments. The switching allowed by the two tracks provided a back-up plan and schedule for deploying missiles should negotiations fail. Though many lauded the decision and hailed it as a demonstration of the resolve and strength of the Alliance, others were critical of the lack of insight into the real shortcoming – a credible conventional deterrent. In an attempt to get West Europeans to share more of the defense burden and strengthen conventional forces, President Jimmy Carter pushed a program designed to increase defense budgetary pledges by at least 3 per cent annually starting in 1977. Although the actual fulfillment of these pledges was inconsistent and short-lived, conventional defense in NATO continued to receive increasing attention. General Bernard Rogers, then SACEUR, was advancing a new operational concept, the AirLand Battle, to strengthen the conventional arm of deterrence.10 Additionally, the Carter Administration was trying to push interoperability and standardization issues to multiply the power of NATO’s deterrent punch. Any advances, however, were overshadowed by other world events necessitating a decisive and coherent response, but which instead, again only highlighted the differences of opinion between the U.S. and its North Atlantic allies. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan fueled American fears over Soviet intentions in the Middle East and prompted the Carter Doctrine, which explicitly pledged U.S. action against any outside power that attempted to control the Gulf. Confident this reaffirmed U.S. commitment by taking responsibility as a protector for its allies around the Persian Gulf, it had the opposite effect on Europeans, who felt U.S. policies endangered the stability of Europe by potentially provoking a major confrontation. This policy gap grew wider with the Solidarity political opposition movement in Poland and resultant European dissatisfaction with America’s defensive posturing with respect to sanctions.11

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The arms control and defense policy decisions made by the Carter Administration came under attack not only from NATO, but from newly elected President Ronald Reagan, who, in addition to rejecting détente, expressed the need to increase the defense budget and to limit further increases in weapons versus merely reducing existing weapons. With the eventual goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons, he introduced the zero option which imposed a moratorium on particular categories of U.S. and Soviet INF. Western Europeans, committed to arms control and desirous of improving relations with the East, were experiencing increased anxiety particularly over INF deployment issues; notwithstanding, the zero option was unanimously embraced by the Alliance nations.12 The blissful union was, however, short-lived as Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the so-called “Star Wars” program, threw the allies into a spin. Though acclaimed by many as the final shove in pushing communism over the edge, from the allied view SDI left Europe vulnerable by dividing NATO territory with a “Maginot Line in space.”13 SDI was equally unpopular with the Soviets as superpower relations deteriorated, INF and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) talks were suspended, and the Two-Track Decision was carried out by the deployment of tactical missiles in Europe. Though many criticized SDI as contradictory to Reagan’s declaration of nuclear deterrence, the President felt it (combined with the Two-Track Decision) provided strong incentive for the USSR to conduct serious arms control negotiations. With the rise of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to power, Reagan’s vision indeed became a reality. After preliminary meetings in Reykjavik in 1986, the following year delivered the U.S.–USSR INF Treaty, an historic agreement which required substantial reductions in nuclear weapons along with the destruction of a number of U.S. and Soviet missiles. The end of the decade also brought the end of an era. With strong indicators of a failing economy, the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Afghanistan and agreed to cut its forces in Europe (as did the U.S.). The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 confirmed the growing belief that communist aggression was rapidly losing its viability as a threat. The transformations that might have evoked a victory chant from NATO instead brought new challenges that confronted the Alliance with a dilemma of a nature far different than any faced in its previous 40 years. The looming question was no longer how to deter communist aggression, but how to cope with the proliferation of new states and emerging democracies.

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NATO’s Post-Cold war developments With the fall of the Berlin Wall, an area of immediate concern was German reunification. The ideological barrier that once separated East from West Germany was dissipating, yet Russia had no intention of abandoning its voice in the matter. Support from Moscow, albeit weak and wavering, for reunification was based upon the caveat that a united Germany must withdraw from NATO. There was also a mixed reaction among European nations, both East and West, and the fear of a Fourth Reich was not uncommon. The changing security order in Europe elicited a reaffirmation of America’s geopolitical interests and strength on the continent. In their endorsements for German unification, both President George Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker pledged continued U.S. support and presence, and made it clear the U.S. expected to maintain a leading role in European affairs. The subsequent Two-plus-Four talks (so named because they involved the two Germanys plus the four Berlin occupation powers) took place in a dynamic atmosphere on the European continent – one in which Soviet power and influence were obviously in rapid decline. Nowhere was this more evident than in Eastern Europe with the movement to dissolve the Warsaw Pact, accompanied by demands from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland for withdrawal of Soviet troops from within their borders. The former Warsaw Pact nations received a boost to their developing democratic ideals in July 1990, when NATO extended an invitation to address the North Atlantic Council at the London Summit, and provided these nations’ governments the opportunity to establish diplomatic liaisons with NATO. The Summit, and resulting London Declaration, established momentous changes. Foremost was the affirmation of nuclear weapons as weapons of last resort and the pronouncement that the USSR was no longer considered an adversary. Military and political policy changes also reflected a strategy move from NATO’s long-standing policy of forward defense to forward presence, and modification of Flexible Response to reflect reduced reliance on nuclear weapons. With the circumstances that evoked the formation of NATO rapidly changing, the first hint of a change in mission was also forthcoming; security in Europe had always been a goal, but NATO was now expanding its mission to promote stability across the continent. The watershed events of 1990 were crowned with the absorption of the former East Germany, as part of a united Germany, into NATO.

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Initially the concept of absorbing East Germany into NATO was renounced by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who supported a unified, but neutral, Germany. His protests were partially accommodated by the London Declaration; however, with the collapse of communism and the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet voice had lost its resonance, and East Germany gained protection and full rights under the articles of the North Atlantic Treaty. Unlike the protocols of association required for the accession of Greece, Turkey, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Spain, the reunification of Germany afforded the Democratic Republic of Germany immediate shelter under the NATO umbrella.14 The following year inspired yet more political and military alterations within NATO. The advent of the Gulf War, together with an attempted coup d’etat in Moscow and civil unrest elsewhere in Russia and in Yugoslavia, convinced Alliance leaders they needed to quickly adapt to the new security order. NATO Ministers responded by sanctioning the formation of military ties to the East. Subsequently, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) was created to extend cooperation to, and establish dialogue with, the former Warsaw Pact nations and successor states of the former Soviet Union. Additionally, the strategy of Flexible Response adopted in 1967 was replaced by the New Strategic Concept. The turn of events from global to regional crises inspired the change which called for a force structure capable of responding to crisis management as well as peace operations. The evolving challenges brought by a changing security environment also brought threats to the very existence of NATO itself. Ironically, the Alliance successful in effecting an end to the Cold War was now being threatened with its own demise. A renewed rally for European integration, free from American influence, together with political-economic dissension and a strengthening European Community (now European Union) were heavy factors behind the potential downfall. The movement, however, failed to pick up momentum as the recognition of stability U.S. presence brought with it grew and internal disputes within the European community intensified. What eventually transpired was a move away from divisive actions to more cooperative efforts between NATO and European organizations. The possibilities of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), (now the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the Western European Union (WEU) in complementing NATO’s role began to reveal great promise as new arrangements were forged to establish synergetic ventures.15

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The Brussels Summit in January 1994 breathed new life into NATO by strengthening the organization’s ties to existing European organizations and implementing landmark decisions to expand the Alliance and promote stability throughout the region. Partnership for Peace (PfP), proposed by President Bill Clinton and approved by the Alliance, provided a framework for expansion and for military cooperation between NATO and non-NATO European states. Although some viewed PfP as a mere stepping stone to NATO membership, leaders were quick to stress that partnership, though a prerequisite, did not mean automatic acceptance into NATO. Secretary of State Warren Christopher summed up the U.S. view on PfP: NATO is and will remain the centerpiece of America’s commitment to European security. But now our challenge is to extend the zone of security and stability that the Alliance has provided – to extend it across the continent to the east. The Alliance is meeting this challenge by reaching out to former adversaries and by developing new tools and new approaches to the threats to European security. NATO’s Partnership for Peace is a key element in our strategy…The United States views a fully functioning and active Partnership for Peace as a key part of the modern European security structure. It is an essential link between the members and non-members of NATO. It is the best path for countries seeking to join NATO.16 Another watershed implementation was the Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF) concept, meant to be more responsive to the roles and missions required by the new security environment. It provided for more flexible force structure packages to better support peacekeeping and contingency operations. The CJTF concept had widespread appeal as it solidified the complementary relationships of the varied organizations and neatly tied stability and burden-sharing together by providing a practical means for availing NATO assets and capabilities to the WEU. Added to a year of firsts was “Cooperative Bridge-94,” military ground exercises conducted in Poland between NATO and former Warsaw Pact – now PfP – countries. Two more combined exercises added to the year’s accomplishments, with 11 more scheduled for the following year. PfP exercises, running the gamut between ground, air, and sea, were designed to promote security and cooperation with an emphasis on peacekeeping, humanitarian operations, and search and rescue.

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The most significant test of NATO’s pledge to security and stability came in the form of a request from the United Nations (UN). The “ethnic cleansing” and internal crisis in Bosnia–Herzegovina was growing worse and fears of the conflict spreading and threatening regional stability called for intervention. NATO’s North Atlantic Council agreed to implement UN Security Council Resolution 958, which authorized the use of air power in Croatia. For the first time in history, aircraft under the auspices of NATO performed in a combat role. Air strikes were carried out to enforce no-fly zones as well as to halt attacks on safe areas established by UN resolutions. The demonstration of NATO air power in response to a crisis was but a foretaste of the organization’s resolve to perform its renewed mission, and that demonstration was enough to convince the international community of the effectiveness of NATO in action. This was strikingly evident by the inclusion of NATO in the negotiations for peace in Bosnia–Herzegovina. Under an elicited UN resolution, NATO was authorized to establish an Implementation Force (IFOR) to be sent to the region “for a period of approximately one year…to assist in implementation of the territorial and other militarily related provisions of the agreement…”17 In an historic moment on December 20, 1995, the IFOR relieved UN forces of military command responsibilities in Bosnia. As testament to its belief in the continuance of NATO, its guarantee to its allies, and earnest desire for stability in the region, the U.S. obligated 20,000 of the overall 60,000 troops committed to the IFOR mission.

Conclusions Bosnia may very well be the proving ground for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the face of an uncertain future. With the Bosnian situation touted as a picture of future conflicts to be encountered, the success or failure of NATO’s largest military operation in history is sure to be the basis for arguments on either side of the NATO issue – can it remain a viable organization or has it outlived its Cold War origins. That remains to be seen, but the reality of late 1995 was in Bosnia, and although the gamut of opinions on whether or not troops should have been sent resounded unreservedly, the deployment garnered positive effects long before the overall results of the deployment were recognized. Heading the distinguished affirmations was France who, despite a nearly 30 year absence from NATO’s integrated military command,

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opted to resume involvement in the Alliance’s military structure by sending over 7,000 troops into Bosnia, and at least suspended its deafening cry for the ousting of American leadership in Europe. Additionally, Russia – NATO’s long-time adversary and the very reason for the organization’s creation – deployed nearly 2,000 troops in support of the mission. With participation of troops from PfP nations and the demonstrated resolve of America’s commitment to its allies, the scenario has the potential to deliver hope in the midst of despair. NATO’s role in the future may well involve more situations like Bosnia; however, as former Secretary General Willy Claes said, “NATO… is more than Bosnia.” In agreement with Secretary of State Christopher, he called this a time for enlarging peace, stability, and security in Europe to include Central and Eastern Europe. From his vantage point NATO is essential to bringing stability to the emerging democracies and in helping them reform their economic systems.18 NATO is, in fact, more than Bosnia, but that statement highlights the major questions haunting NATO’s decision-makers for the immediate, as well as long-range future. Change is not a choice – it is inevitable in light of the new security environment – but if NATO is more than Bosnia, what exactly will its mission, or missions, be? If stability and democratization are now the goals, as they appear to be, then will these goals be better served with the countries now in NATO or will enlargement actually be a more lucrative contributor to meeting those goals? In the absence of a single, commonly recognized threat such as that from which NATO drew its original purpose, its mission need not become irrelevant. Rather, it may continue, assuring action against future threats; however, the recognition and agreement of the significance of such threats increases the tension among member nations and makes it much more difficult to reach consensus in the decision-making process. This only complicates policy decisions for the U.S., for though it emerged from the Cold War as the only superpower, the biting reality is the U.S. doesn’t possess the unchallenged strength and power implied in holding such a title. Nor does it have the economic resources or independence to act in isolation, or merely to support its own interests. Rather, its best chance for promoting democracy and stability throughout the world is through cooperation with other democracies. At present, the best vehicle for this path is NATO, but the reality is this may involve U.S. forces when none of its vital interests is at stake.

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The CJTF concept may be America’s saving grace in this regard. As a part of the Alliance’s efforts to acclimate to a new environment, the successful implementation of CJTF could prove beneficial to both the U.S. and Europe. If NATO assets are made available to the WEU, military operations in support of democratization and stabilization on the continent could proceed, but without necessitating American presence. This strengthens the European defense pillar, while affirming Europe’s integration and autonomy. In supporting the CJTF concept and trying to achieve an often-sought goal of increasing Europe’s share of its own defense burden, however, the U.S. must decide if it’s also willing to surrender a portion of its influence in the region. Even if the quandary over raison d’être is satisfactorily resolved and the pursuit of regional stability becomes the driving purpose behind the organization, the question of enlargement remains at an impasse. Should NATO enlarge its community and sphere of influence by admitting PfP nations? The arguments loom on both sides. Many question whether NATO itself can even survive beyond the Cold War factors that led to its creation; arguments against enlargement range from financial to perceptual. From a purely economic viewpoint, the absorption of Central and Eastern European nations into NATO would place a substantial burden on current members. Even though one of the prerequisites to move from partnership to membership is a free market economy, the economic state of affairs in the former Warsaw Pact nations and successor states of the USSR is far from stable. Expansion could easily mean accepting extensive financial burdens that would overtax NATO nations to the point of diminishing their capabilities rather than enhancing the organization. One of the biggest opponents of enlargement is Russia, who has consistently opposed PfP as a means of expanding NATO’s area of influence. Reminiscent of Cold War sentiments, the perception lingers that the Alliance is anti-Russian and expansion is merely a means of isolating the country. Russian leadership vacillated between a spirit of cooperation and one of mistrust; enacting its mood swing on the enlargement issue, Russia signed PfP in 1994, but to demonstrate its opposition to enlargement, delayed signing up to its own Individual Partnership Program with NATO – all the while insisting that Russia should be afforded special treatment and benefits. Even though Russia is in a state of upheaval and instability, its opinions cannot be dismissed, for its strength still lies in its ability to affect the stability and security environment of others. Issues such as nuclear proliferation,

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ratification of the START II nuclear arms treaty, safeguarding nuclear materials in Russia, and reductions in forces and equipment still remain on the horizon. The manner in which the West handles the concern of enlargement and to what degree Russia is satisfied with that process will have long-term implications on a variety of critical security-related matters. Pro-expansionists, on the other hand, say in order to achieve stability and make democracy possible, there must be a stable security framework in which to operate. This is only achieved by allowing Central and Eastern European nations into NATO.19 The approach from this angle achieves parallelism with the view that democracies do not go to war against each other. This certainly appeared to be President Bill Clinton’s avenue of approach in his statement regarding bringing some PfP nations into the NATO fold – that “…the question is no longer whether NATO will take on new members, but when and how.”20 Another area of occupation which supports pro-expansionists’ ideas is the growing concern with the region’s Southern Tier. The instability of the area has risen since the end of the Cold War with a demonstrable increase in nationalism; ethnic, religious, and cultural clashes; and the spreading influence of Islamic fundamentalism. These situations necessitate a shift in focus; NATO must be proactive and assert its authority in order to prevent spillover of these conflicts and preserve stability on the continent. The changes in NATO’s strategy through the years of the Cold War were significant in meeting the security challenges posed by the USSR and the Warsaw Pact nations. Those changes were successful in NATO fulfilling its mission, yet success has brought more challenges. The situations wrought from the fall of communism offer challenges of a different nature to NATO. The rapidity with which events are unfolding require equally rapid responses. The multipolar reality and lack of a single threat require NATO’s perpetual vigilance in a multiplicity of areas and the ability to quickly mount a coherent response in order to achieve the stability it now seeks. More than ever, sound, timely decisions will be of the essence. Should NATO expand to absorb more nations, the differing cultures, ideologies, and disparity in economic conditions will conceivably make rapid decisions and responses increasingly difficult. Potential new members lack not only a common political culture, but the military and economic resources to contribute meaningfully to active defense. Whereas previously NATO’s success was largely determined by

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the credibility of being response-dedicated and -capable, the potential degradation of NATO’s effectiveness may bring with it a lack of credibility – for in its inability to agree, it renders itself incapable of mounting a credible response to any threat. Expansion, rather than strengthening the Alliance and adding stability to the European continent, may itself be a threat to NATO’s own security. NATO’s future missions and challenges lie in the uncertainty of peaceful coexistence with and between nations and cultures no longer suppressed by a totalitarian regime. The spirit of the future world is eloquently expressed in Samuel P. Huntington’s astute observation, “The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”21 Should the Alliance definitively change from one founded on collective defense against a specific threat to one committed to promoting democracy, stability, and crisis management, the U.S. has demonstrated not only its resolve to meet those needs, but the wherewithal to make the changes necessary to succeed in new missions. It remains committed to the core values of NATO – democracy, liberty, and rule of law. Notes 1. Declaration as set forth in the North Atlantic Treaty signed April 4, 1949, in Washington DC. 2. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994): 624–625. 3. NSC-68 was a policy paper borne from combining two President-directed projects: the first to assess actual as well as potential U.S. military power, and the second to assess the strategic and foreign policy implications of a hydrogen bomb program. The memorandum was formally adopted in 1950, and was fundamental to the formulation of American foreign policy from the military perspective. It advocated increased conventional forces along with a requisite increase in defense spending. The ideas espoused in this document firmly supported aggressive programs to take any initiatives from the USSR and highlighted the determination and ability of the free world to prevent imposition of Soviet will on the world. 4. A notable exception is the French reaction, particularly with respect to inclusion, and subsequent rearmament, of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, and exacerbated by the 1956 Suez Canal crisis with the U.S. veto against Britain and France in the UN Security Council. France held the belief U.S. interests would not always be the same as European interests and took steps to ensure European vice American leadership in Europe. This supported the establishment of the European Economic Community. For further discussion see Don Cook, Forging the Alliance (New York: Quill, 1989): 261–263, and David P. Calleo, Beyond American Hegemony (New York: Basic Books, 1987): 41–43. 5. Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965): 337.

64 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 6. Brodie termed it preposterous that ground forces be considered an important component in a war centering around strategic nuclear attacks, as NATO ground forces were barely sufficient to slow a ground attack. (Ibid: 338) Europeans were interested in preventing a war and their objections with respect to Flexible Response were this strategy left the door open to a limited war on their soil. As such, it was seen as a purely American strategy and was not officially accepted as a formal NATO strategy until 1967. (Calleo: 49). 7. Calleo says, “American policy alternates between a hostility that stops short of genuine confrontation and a détente that stops short of genuine accommodation,” and expresses the view of some analysts that oscillating between policies provides a stability of sorts between superpowers. He distinguishes cycles of NATO’s history as representative of cyclic American policy, with each cycle beginning with major rearmament and reapportionment of U.S. leadership, and ending with a decline in defense spending and renewed interest in arms control and détente. (Calleo: 6). 8. The “Harmel Report” grew out of a study called to analyze East–West relations, inter-allied relations, NATO’s defense policy, and relations with other countries. The decision to pursue the dual-track policy, as well as the Ministers’ authorization of Flexible Response strategy was based upon the results of this report. For an in-depth discussion of the process, see Richard L. Kugler, Commitment to Purpose: How Alliance Partnership Won the Cold War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1993): 183–185. 9. Calleo supports this in his assertion that the Soviets desired geopolitical equality with the U.S. – a position America was unwilling to accept, yet the U.S. could not militarily prevent the Soviets from exerting their strength beyond their regional boundaries. American interests again clashed with those of its European Allies who were unwilling to share the economic burden of security without requiring the U.S. to abandon its hegemony within NATO. Instead, they chose to remain under the American protectorate while pursuing a détente with the Soviets that met their own interests. (Calleo: 58–61). 10. AirLand Battle stresses deep battle, as well as the integration of all forces for maximum flexibility and mobility. See Army Field Manual 100–5, Operations, for articulation of this concept. See also The North Atlantic Treaty Organization Facts and Figures (Brussels: NATO Information Service, 1989): 135–6, for an explanation of the concept in relation to NATO’s Follow-on-Forces Attack concept. 11. NATO wanted to present a coordinated response to the movement in Poland to discourage the possibility of Soviet intervention. In an unprecedented move, NATO tried to formulate a coherent strategy to deal with Soviet repression in Eastern Europe by planning a series of specific reactions in the event of action by the USSR; however, agreement on specific sanctions was extremely difficult to achieve. The U.S. finally announced sanctions, but many allies said they hadn’t been consulted on particular measures. 12. For a lengthy discussion on the zero option and the discussion surrounding its acceptance and feasibility, see Fred Chernoff, After Bipolarity (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1995): 122–126.

Deborah L. Borio 65 13. A warning against a “Maginot Line in space” was espoused by British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe. An extensive discussion on SDI is presented by Henry Kissinger in Diplomacy, pp. 774–785. 14. Jeffrey Simon, Central European Civil-Military Relations and NATO Expansion, (Washington DC: National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1995): 3–4. 15. The CSCE was established during the Cold War years with the intent of reducing East–West tensions and promoting dialogue on subjects ranging from security to the environment to human rights. The organization made great strides in recent years to work more closely with NATO and establish a more active role in managing the affairs of Europe. Particularly noteworthy are its goals to assist in conflict resolution, preventive diplomacy, and sanctions compliance oversight. The WEU is an alliance with the dual objective of strengthening the European pillar of NATO and serving as the defense component of the European Union (EU). The EU (formerly European Community) is comprised of the European Economic Community, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Community. See Foreign Policy Bulletin, January/April 1995, 14, for a fact sheet on the CSCE; NATO Review, September 1995, pp. 8–11, for more information on the WEU; and U.S. Department of State Dispatch, June 26 1995, p. 524, for a fact sheet on the EU. 16. Opening remarks by Secretary of State Warren Christopher at a press briefing, November 21, 1994, as recorded in Foreign Policy Bulletin, January/April 1995, p. 2. 17. As stated in the Dayton Bosnia Peace Agreement, General Framework Agreement, Annex 1, Article 1, General Obligations. 18. Opening remarks by Secretary General Willy Claes at a press briefing, November 21, 1994, as recorded in Foreign Policy Bulletin, January/April 1995, pp. 3–4. 19. Ronald D. Asmus, Richard L. Kugler, and F. Stephen Larrabee make this argument and assert that membership in NATO “helped stabilize democracy and stem authoritarian backsliding in Portugal, Spain, Greece and Turkey.” See their article, “Building a New NATO,” in Foreign Affairs, September/October 1993, pp. 30–40. 20. From Douglas Jehl’s article, “Ukrainian Agrees to Dismantle A-Arms,” New York Times, January 13, 1994, as cited by Ted Galen Carpenter in BEYOND NATO: Staying Out of Europe’s Wars (Washington, DC: The Cato Institute, 1994): 3. 21. Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?,” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, p. 22.

4 The New Regionalism: Mapping Change in the Post Cold War Era Michael James Savana Jr.

“Everything has changed, and nothing has changed”. Depending upon one’s perspective in assessing the impact upon global relationships caused by the end of the Cold War, and the tools used to make that assessment, either of the statements above might be correct. Postulating a vision for regionalism in the next century demands a view through a kaleidoscope containing a myriad of constantly changing and apparently indecipherable patterns. If the map of regionalism is being drawn from an economic, military, cultural, or natural resources aspect for example, or from a combination of each, the result will yield quite different cartographic products. This chapter explores various contextual elements which have helped describe regionalism up to the end of the Cold War, and anticipates which direction the new regionalism will take in the present post-Cold War era. Regardless of conclusions one might reach, however, it is critical to comprehend how international relations are changing, the nature of that change, and whether or not the change portends tougher times ahead for the United States in its relations with other nations. There is great debate regarding the cause of the end of the Cold War, more specifically, whether it was caused by various economic and political elements in place today. Advocates for world systems theory would argue for example that the end of the Cold War was simply evidentiary of continuity rather than real change in the world system of international relations.1

Regionalism in the Cold War period If we study the trappings of the Cold War, at least those most identified with the great drama of its ending in 1989, we can conclude 66

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that various elements emerge today from the template which formed relationships between the major powers in the form of East versus West. These elements are, first, the collapse of communism as a global influence, second, the end of the Cold War itself, third, the Gulf War which seems to have articulated new interdependencies for U.S. operations abroad, and finally, the whole issue of nuclear weapons technology and proliferation. None of these elements should be viewed in isolation, rather, in concert and in context, inexorably linked. A key question remains. How have recent events affected the regionalism we see evolving today? Much current literature describes a world replete with rapid and chaotic change. Surprisingly, three times in the last 100 years alone, scholars have had to make serious reassessments of global affairs because of the end of great-power conflicts in 1919, in 1945, and presently.2 However, the perception that the world is in times of great tumult might be tempered by the observations of George J. Demko and William B. Wood: In fact, the world is neither in order or in chaos. It is experiencing the disturbances and short-term disequilibrium of a global geopolitical system that is entering a new stage of dynamic equilibrium. This stage is a balance that is punctuated and will also be maintained by perturbations and contradictions. The new world map now unfolding reflects this dynamic balance.3 We must understand that the Cold War in and of itself was a system. Sometimes described as the “Long Peace”, the Cold War gave birth to specific collective security provisions, and a bipolar economic framework which is still in effect. From an historical perspective, there have been many actors who have influenced events relating to the Cold War and its almost surreptitious demise. What has been the nature of the world order up until now? This is a critical question because without careful and insightful study, any efforts at imposing programs or new institutions in hopes of successfully navigating the new era global village could most certainly be a fiat. Certainly from a political perspective, the Yalta summit in 1945 significantly “shaped the architecture” of post-World War II development through the spheres of influence of the time which established and then “froze” the environment in Europe. During this period the hot wars were relegated to the Third World, while Europe remained mostly peaceful.4 For nearly 40 years, U.S. military defense and economic policy, and grand strategy were also guided by National Security Council decision

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NSC-68 which grew from discussions addressing U.S. post-war relations with the Soviet Union. The U.S. regional view was that the principal post war [national security] problem for the United States, and consequently for everyone else, would be caused by the Soviet Union. Serving as one template for describing regionalism, NSC-68 addressed threats to the United States and the West which subsequently disappeared with the end of the Cold War.5 The economic regional map contours on the other hand, were established in many respects by the creation of a global economic systems devised around 1944 in the form of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, both significant products of the Bretton Woods institutions. Since then, the end of the Cold War has signaled the need to carefully assess the effectiveness of these systems as well as numerous other economic structures.6 Although the World Bank has played a substantial role in stimulating and coordinating research and development of new agricultural technologies for developing countries, the validity of these economic instruments is otherwise under considerable scrutiny today.7 Although artifacts from the post-World War II era, Bretton Woods concepts remain in effect today while there is really no single, encompassing economic system in place with a single source of power imposing dominance upon global affairs.8 The Cold War “system” guided regionalism for almost 50 years. That system can be characterized, using Donald M. Snow’s six attributes to paint the world view in the proper context of the time.9 First, the world was a tight bipolar system in which two major regional powers maintained control over various spheres of influence. For the Soviets this principally meant the attempted domination of vast regions of the globe including Europe. For the United States it meant promoting the rise of its own economic power. Second, the potential for East–West conflict was a dominant theme for international relations. This meant that most difficulties anywhere in the world would be considered in East–West context and contributed to the perspective of a bipolar regionalism. Third, power was measured primarily in military terms, explicitly in the form of nuclear weapons with a global reach. In many respects, this was the only arena in which the Soviets felt they could compete, as they could not do so directly on the economic playing field. Fourth, measuring competition in military terms provided the notion of the salience of military power for solving international issues or crises. Fifth, all competition was reduced to a simple level and viewed in East–West terms. Sixth, budgets on both sides were geared almost exclusively to the needs of the respective military forces. Snow’s six attributes of the Cold

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War era present a reasonable picture of the underlying components which in many respects both formed, and were formed by, the interrelationships which existed until recently. From this model, we gain an appreciation for the almost serendipitous shift in how national power is measured, and how it is applied to achieve national or regional objectives.

Regionalism in transition The theoretical context There is an entire lexicon for describing the concepts and models used to depict how the world is broken into various regions since the fall of the Iron Curtain. The geopolitical world for example, has historically been viewed from the perspective of North and South, or East and West with a geopolitical view that “underpinned” the Cold War.10 In their article, Demko and Wood claim this underpinning was represented by the division of Germany, wars in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, and the Middle East; and the array of military bases throughout the world. Their claims support a view that world regionalism until the end of the Cold War was a “crude form of nationally oriented spatial determinism”.11 Considering that the “geo” in geopolitical means spatial structure, we begin to more fully appreciate that, how we define regionalism depends in large part upon the elements in which we are most interested, i.e., culture, economics, military forces, or topography, and that each of these can be represented areally, with distinct linkages. To understand why “politicians, geographers, and economists” view the world the way they do today, we need to study these spatial categories which are used as frameworks or templates for analysis.12 In Andreas Dorpalen’s book The World of General Haushofer: Geopolitics in Action, Dorpalen discusses how Haushofer borrowed a concept today called pan-regionalism. This idea consisted of dividing the world into three north–south, double continental regions. Although viewed only as a temporary stage towards world domination by Germany, Haushofer’s idea of a balance-of-power system based upon pan-regionalism played a significant role until very recently.13 Realms, regions and shatterbelts A general theory described by Saul B. Cohen, and a basis for discussion in this chapter is that of an hierarchical structure comprised of realms and regions. The top level is comprised of two Geostrategic Realms: the

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Maritime and the Eurasian Continental.14 These are described by their “Continentality” and “Maritimity” because they not only describe land and climates, but also outlooks and attitudes. Realms are areas of strategic “place” and “movement”. Each of the realms differ in their trade orientations, with the maritime open to specialized exchanges while the continental realm with an inner orientation is less dependent upon ocean or sea accessibility. Below the realms are the Geopolitical Regions. Regions are shaped by contiguity, and political, cultural, military and economic linkages. The maritime realm has a global reach within which reside numerous unique geopolitical regions. The Eurasian continental realm on the other hand, consists of only two geopolitical regions: the “Heartland” of the former Soviet Union and East Asia. More isolated with deep ties to the land, it is inwardly-oriented and endowed with more raw materials than its maritime counterparts. The general hierarchical concept is depicted in Table 4.1. South Asia, the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe are significant because they do not fall neatly within any of the Geostrategic Realms. South Asia belongs to neither geostrategic realm as it has separate geopolitical regional status. Dominated by India, this region is rural-based, agriculturally intensive and continental oriented. Table 4.1

Central and Eastern Europe – Gateway Region Geostrategic realms and regions

Geopolitical regions of the maritme realm

Geopolitical regions of the eurasian continental realm

Anglo-America Caribbean Maritime Europe Maghreb Offshore Asia South America Sub-Saharan Africa

Russian Heartland East Asia (China included)

Regions outside of realms South Asia – Independent Region Middle East – Shatterbelt Region Central & Eastern Europe – Gateway Region Based on major global geopolitical realms and regions as described by Saul B. Cohen in Global Geopolitical Change in the Post-Cold War Era. Annals of the Association of the American Geographers, Vol. 81, No. 4, December (1991): pp. 551–580.

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Currently, as for some time, the Middle East is considered to be a Shatterbelt or “crush zone”, because it is highly fragmented internally. A shatterbelt is a large strategically located region that is occupied by a number of states in conflict and is caught between the conflicting interests of adjacent great powers. Another more operationalized definition states that a shatterbelt is a strategically-oriented region which is a politically fragmented area of competition between maritime and continental realms. Until very recently, Southeast Asia was also considered to be a shatterbelt. Interestingly, the concept of shatterbelts was recognized early by Alfred T. Mahan and Richard Hartshorne, although they were not described in these terms. For example, Mahan referred to the instability of a zone between the 30 degree and 40 degree parallels in Asia caught between Britain and Russia.15 Other analysts claim shatterbelts also include Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, the Balkans, Iran, Afghanistan and Korea. Shatterbelts grow and diminish over time. For example, former eastern European shatterbelts which had fallen within the former Soviet strategic sphere of influence, as well as the maritime and continental worlds, saw the emergence of another such zone growing out of the conflict between North and South Korea after World War II.16 The final component in this theoretical hierarchy, is the gateway region or state. Simply, a gateway region or state is a transitional zone which can facilitate contact and exchange between two or more realms that otherwise would not take place.17 A gateway can be either a general geographic area or a specific nation or country. Usually they are politically and culturally distinct, and are considered to be historical cultural hearths with separate languages, religions or national churches, higher levels of education and learning, and favorable access by sea or land to outside areas. Very often gateways have significant military value to their host states. Examples of gateways have existed historically in Sheba, Tyre, and Nabataea; in the Hanseatic League and Lombard city-states; in Venice; in Trieste; and Zanzibar. Monaco, Finland, Bahrain, Lebanon, Cyprus and Malta are modern day versions before they were “dismembered”.18

Post-Cold War tiers of prosperity and power First, Second and Third World countries have for several decades been a part of the international relations jargon. What is changing however, is how we define and map those worlds and their respective political and

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economic and military influence. Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky describe in their book The Real World Order, a two-tiered model which should be considered in context with the realms and regions discussed above. The first tier has at its core the so called Group of Seven (G-7) leading economic powers which include the United States, Germany, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Canada. Already shattering this paradigm are the “Four Tigers” of South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and the “New Tigers” of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. Reflecting current dynamics, these lists are also noteworthy for whom they exclude – almost all of the states of the former Soviet-led Warsaw pact members, the former second world. The first tier today has unique characteristics which serve to describe some aspects of the new regionalism. For example, first tier nations share a commitment to political democracy and market-based economies. The first tier also contains the most important core powers of the modern world. If the measure of that power is shifting from military to economic bases, determining global preeminence mostly likely will result more from market and technological power than fire power. First tier nations also tend not to engage in war among themselves. The many interdependencies most likely limit competition to economic play versus gun play. Second tier countries are more difficult to describe. Generally, they lack the commonality and shared economic and political values of first tier countries. Most second tier countries are, or at least have been in the past, considered peripheral to the international system. These countries are also recognized as a focal point for violence and instability in the international system. Not unlike the shatterbelts mentioned above, second tier countries are limited in their military capabilities, nonetheless, these countries also have an understanding of and a preference for collective defense. Within this context, there have been three major changes in geopolitical regionalism from 1945 to the 1990s. First, when sub-Saharan Africa became a shatterbelt in the 1970s and subsequently reverted to the maritime realm. Subdivided into Southern, Western, Central, and East Africa, these regions individually are particularly explosive in their political, cultural and military interactivity. Second, the Southeast Asian shatterbelt disappeared as a result of its insular and southern peninsular areas becoming economically and politically part of offshore Asia and the maritime world. Singapore also has shown remarkable growth as a part of the maritime realm. Third, Eastern Europe broke away from the heartland to develop into a new region linking

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the Maritime and Heartland realms. Today we see significant changes with the emergence of new major world strategic realms and geopolitical regions, with south Asia independent geopolitically, the Middle East as a Shatterbelt caught between two realms, and Eastern Europe as a new gateway region creating new links. Currently, Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South America south of the Orinoco in Central Venezuela, lie outside the modern economic system. Exceptions would be Brazil, Argentina and Chile as “pockets of modernity”.19

Regionalism in the 21st Century It has been generally believed that the end of the Cold War will bring three great players to the world stage to determine the new regionalism, still in its infancy: North America, Asia, and Europe. Previously the focus was with North America and Europe, and before that, solely Europe. Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory, demonstrates a dominate, Eurocentric view in place until very recently. The overarching theme for the new regionalism concerns economic and technology issues which are especially relevant to the three major power centers in the new regionalism. These bear brief examination. Europe If there is a single icon for the end of the Cold War it is the reunification of Germany. Many believe the superpowers played only an indirect role in the destruction of the Berlin Wall because is was essentially a sudden and in many respects, “private act” on the part of the German people. This event probably most changed how both Europeans and the rest of the world view Eastern Europe.20 If one views the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 however as the sole foundation upon which to predict future regional issues, this greatly oversimplifies how Europe, and Eastern Europe in particular, will compete economically in the next century. This is a vastly diverse region of the world with complex developments which belie the importance of a central issue emerging today, globalization of economic power, and the internationalization in Europe. Because it is not a single entity, Europe, and the rest of the world, must contend with a region which is made up from a series of distinct nationalities with greatly varying histories and cultures.21 The diminishment of the influence of Russia and the longstanding dampening affect of the Cold War, specifically the repression of the Former Soviet Union illustrates that communism really never rooted firmly in Europe, and was an “alien intrusion” which once

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removed, allowed the growth of a new equilibrium for much of eastern Europe. 1989 was most certainly a year of change and a widespread movement towards capitalism and “privatization” by certain emerging global players which will greatly affect the entire international system.22 A particular challenge for the new international order will be to observe and adjust to yet unimagined economic and political mechanisms which will regulate the democratization of eastern Europe. Russia’s emerging role although diminished as a single-entity military super power, nonetheless presents awesome potential as a re-emerging and pivotal piece of the European Continental Realm. The Far East There is a myth regarding Asia as a Pacific community. Robert A. Manning and Paula Stern describe as a cliché, the rise of the Pacific as a single, coherent economic region. Culturally, this is probably true. However, there is little doubt that East Asia in the post-Cold War era is redefining the interrelationships of a region which is a vast cultural and political expanse. Unlike Europe, there are few if any regulating institutions in place which draw together economies which are becoming nonetheless more connected and interdependent. At the beginning of the Cold War, East Asia’s economies including Japan and China, represented only about 4 per cent of the world’s gross product. Now at 25 per cent, that region is projected to account for one third of the world’s gross product by the year 2000. The “new tigers” mentioned earlier, are already helping to shape the future Pacific trade environment, and are monuments to the amazingly rapid growth of exports which contradict a long-standing view that global trade has been dominated by a north–south orientated regional paradigm.23 However, the Pacific is such a vast and fragmented region, that East Asian countries are still not described as a single, coherent economic entity. It is not clear which part of the Pacific will become the next shatterbelt. Japan and China however, will have to work out their differences before the Pacific can unify economically in any form. Also, from the U.S. perspective, Washington will have to reassess its post Cold War Pacific regional security role to some “modestly adjusted presence”. In no way diminished, the role of the U.S. serves today as a security guarantor, and continues to entice local actors into the globalization of economics.24 Three issues must be resolved before redefining the Pacific area in the new regionalism. China’s economic role must fully mature, Sino-Japan

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issues must be settled, and Korean unification must play out to completion. Projected by some optimistic accounts to become the world’s largest economy as early as 2002, China faces an identity crisis in light of the need to abandon its traditional economic trade practices. A growing emphasis on domestic regionalism highlights the differences and disparities between the internal parts of China.25 A problem central to China’s economic and regional identity crisis is its geography. The country’s vastness represents provinces which are members of both maritime and continental realms and regions. Coastal China for example, is growing economically so much more quickly than its interior that there is emerging an internal East–West split, with some coastal regions outpacing interior gross product levels by as much as five times. Additionally, there is a substantial trade disparity within China itself. Some provinces conduct substantially more trade with other nations than with other provinces.26 China is experiencing fragmentationist forces not unlike many other global actors. This internal regionalism carries a risk of increasing economic fragmentation for China as decentralization of manufacturing has resulted in the migration of certain factors of production. China still envisions playing a dominant role in the Pacific but faces risks of serious centrifugal forces domestically. A “deceptive serenity” exists between China and Japan.27 Based upon a U.S.–Japan security alliance, we can only guess about the outcomes of historical tensions and potential volatility of new conflicts which might arise between these two as the U.S. draws down its military presence in the Pacific. French-German relations experience similarities to the Japan–China relationship as the onetime enemies France and reunified Germany, compete today peacefully in a rapidly changing European continental realm. Japan as a significant investor in China, and would benefit from China’s continued and growing dependence on those investments. Beneficial to both nations would be the advancement of institutionalized regionalism which could provide mechanisms for resolving disputes and reinforce inclusive economic regionalism and not exclusive trading blocs.28 The vision of a reunified North and South Korea is interesting because the prospect of the Korean peninsula developing as a gateway region or independent geostrategic region is significant. Reunification would imply two things. First, a reduced U.S. military presence would take on an entirely new meaning for Northeast Asia economically. Second, the future relationship between China and reunified Korea

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would present new and significant dynamics for regional economic cooperation.

Conclusion We may reiterate our opening observation again: Everything has changed, and nothing has changed. It simply depends upon which criteria are used to measure that change. From the military viewpoint, a great deal. Or has it really? Today, troops from European nations who participate in peacekeeping operations are likely to receive a NATO medal specifically created for such action; actions which have been going on since World War II. Nations today compete for a market share to what might be described as a new form of tourism industry generated by military commitments. Towns in the former Yugoslavia and Hungary invite the establishment of U.S. bases for peacekeeping operations in hopes of reviving local economies and cash flows. Unimaginable just five years ago, Russia and the United States have reached agreements whereby former Soviet Union forces will take part in NATO-managed peacekeeping operations. Russia even demanded that it be given a substantial voice in NATO deliberations if its troops were to be integrated within. Russia’s future role in the United Nations operations is also important as UN forces have engaged in more operations in the past 10 years than all those combined since 1945. Changes arising after the end of the Cold War are characterized by three overarching themes: nationalist versus pan nationalist tendencies, economic forces, and modern technology. Open regionalism will continue to be the template through which emerging, former Third World countries will try to affiliate themselves with the world economy and begin to compete in the global market place. How nations compete will still manifest itself in regions defined by maritime, and continental orientations. Growing “nationalism” resulting from the release of the previous grasp by the Cold War superpowers is already unleashing a myriad of new players. Most evident are the new states in the Balkans and the lands of the former Soviet Union. Conflicts arising from long repressed religious or ethnic sources mean that the political status of many of these new countries is yet to be defined. Several regions in the developing world experience some of the greatest growth of nationalist forces in the world today. These regions also contain countries which desire economic power which requires the establishment of new trade linkages internationally. The rise of religious fundamentalism, especially Islamism, is noteworthy

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because religion continues to be a prime political influence and can be easily used and abused to achieve concealed ends.29 Additionally, growing pan-Africanism, pan-Americanism and pan-Asianism also represent a change in how most countries may pursue new solidarity out of economic necessity. All prior attempts at pan-nationalism however, have yielded “vague and ephemeral” results,30 primarily because they did not provide the real security and a sense of sovereignty that was sought. Technology, finally, will drive nations toward, and provide the means for competing economically in a fashion not previously experienced. Technology, specifically electronic virtual commerce, will allow a new regionalism not defined by traditional military, religious, cultural, temporal, or geographic boundaries, rather by economic and trade-interdependent linkages which transcend culture and space and distance. The new regionalism will see the emergence of new inter- and intra-national political and economic institutions as new centers of global influence and interchange – the real measure of power in the 21st century regionalism. Notes 1. Richard N. Lebow and Thomas Rissen-Kappen, International Relations Theory and The End of the Cold War (New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1995): 269. 2. Andrew Bennett and Joseph Lepgold, “Reinventing Collective Security after the Cold War and Gulf Conflict”. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 108, no. 2, Summer (1993): 213. 3. George J. Demko and William B. Wood, Reordering the World, Geopolitical Perspectives on the 21st Century (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1994): 15. 4. D. Banerjee , “A New World Order: Trends for the Future”, Strategic Analysis, vol. XVII, no. 2, May (1994): 144. 5. Paul H. Nitze, “Grand Strategy then and Now: NSC-68 and its Lessons for the Future”, Strategic Review, vol. XXII, no. 1, Winter (1994): 15–17. 6. Banerjee, p. 145. 7. Henry Owen, “The World Bank: Is 50 Years Enough?”, Foreign Affairs, vol. 73 no. 5, September/October (1994): 99. 8. Robert D. Hormats, “Making Regionalism Safe”, Foreign Affairs, vol. 73, no. 2, March/April (1994): 98. 9. Donald M. Snow, The Shape of the Future, The Post-Cold War World, 2nd ed. (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe Inc., 1995): 32. 10. Banerjee, p. 16. 11. Demko and Wood, p. 17. 12. Saul B. Cohen, “Global Geopolitical Change in the Post-Cold War Era”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 81, no. 4, December (1991): 554. 13. Demko and Wood, p. 17. 14. Saul B. Cohen, Geography and Politics in a World Divided, 2nd ed. (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1973): 64.

78 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

Cohen, p. 567. Ibid., p. 567. Demko and Wood, p. 28. Ibid., p. 39. Cohen, p. 566. Snow, p. 136. Ibid., p. 133. Ibid., p. 124. Robert A. Manning and Paula Stern, “The Myth of the Pacific Community”, Foreign Affairs, vol. 73, no. 6, November/December (1994): 79. Ibid., p. 88. Gerald Segal, “The Middle Kingdom, China’s Changing Shape”, Foreign Affairs, vol. 73, no. 3, May/June (1994): 45. Ibid., p. 46. Manning and Stern, p. 90. Ibid., p. 93. Banerjee, p. 150. Louis L. Snyder, Macro-Nationalisms A History of the Pan-Movements, (Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984): 254.

5 Redefining the Former Warsaw Pact Nations Edward B. Westermann

For almost four decades the United States and its NATO allies stared across the central German plain at the opposing armed forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO). The stand-off in Europe between NATO and the WTO served as a microcosm of the global Cold War era confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The political earthquakes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991 shattered this bipolar system. Paradoxically, however, the formal dissolution of the WTO in July 1991 heightened rather than lessened U.S. security concerns in Europe. The U.S. now faced a volatile Eastern Europe, including past WTO members, as well as several newly independent former republics of the Soviet Union. The withdrawal of Soviet military and political leverage from these areas resulted in an outbreak of factionalism, nationalism, territorial, and ethnic strife from the Baltic to Central Asia. Ironically, the cataclysmic and ongoing political and social changes within the countries of the former WTO threaten the region’s stability more today than at anytime during the Cold War. The American perception of the Warsaw Pact during its 36 year existence largely mirrored the state of the Cold War U.S.–Soviet relationship. The 1950s and 1960s witnessed the highest tension between the superpowers and their allies in NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The era of détente in the 1970s signaled a period of cautious optimism. The 1980s proved a schizophrenic decade as U.S. policy under President Ronald Reagan first demonized the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union and ipso facto its Warsaw Pact partners. However, in the late 1980s U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union changed dramatically with Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s adoption of glasnost (openness) and his de facto rejection of the Brezhnev Doctrine. 79

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Gorbachev’s apparent exorcism of the malevolent ghost of past Soviet imperial policy in Eastern Europe laid the foundation for a new “European house.” The peaceful revolutions of 1989, the first Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, the formal dissolution of the WTO, and the failure of the Kremlin coup by Soviet hard-liners in August 1991 combined to eliminate the perceived threat of a Soviet/WTO invasion into Western Europe. In fact, the phased withdrawal of 31 Soviet divisions from Eastern Europe and the downsizing of the other WTO military forces made any Soviet Blitzkrieg a physical impossibility.1 U.S. defense planners clearly recognized the changed nature of the European security equation after 1991. However, U.S. reluctance to provoke a xenophobic response from the embryonic Russian Federation led to a policy of “benign neglect” in dealings with former WTO states. The ultimate irony of American post-Cold War policy in Eastern Europe was its essential continuity from the bipolar period. In fact, U.S. policy after 1991 remained based on essentially two elements: a continued deference to Russian security interests, and a reliance on rhetoric versus concrete action. The ensuing period of the Cold War was a time of intransigence, power competition, mutual accommodation, and the institutionalization of a complex Cold War diplomatic culture. A broadened concept of balance of power emerged, however delicate, with both bloc leaders discouraging their junior partners from aggressive initiatives that might result in an unwanted, direct confrontation between the Soviets and Americans. In this sense there was a measurably greater degree of security as neither major adversary could afford to be led by a smaller alliance partner into a war that would engulf all the Cold War players. However, somewhat to the surprise of both leading states, in the absence of a “Hot War”, a second competitive front opened in the economic realm. The Americans discovered that they had the financial and human resources to simultaneously put a man on the moon and fight a substantial war in Vietnam. The Soviets were beginning to show their inability to keep up in this economic race. As a consequence, the great bulk of Third World states reluctantly accepted that development within a Soviet-centric international order was highly unlikely and that socialism – in all of its plausible variations – could only produce arms which shot up their lands in civil wars, or, while serving as surrogates in great power confrontations. Western venture capital required stability and a long-range outlook for investing in the arduous

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process of development. The Soviets could not produce at the international level, and increasingly so, domestically as well. It was not long before whatever level of confidence certain fans of the Soviets still demonstrated among the WTO members, Eastern Europeans shifted their gaze inwards, and then westwards, for a look at empirically verifiable, working models of extant socio-political relationships. The history of the indicators that foretold the onset of the demise of the “Eastern option” (of the East–West division) will no doubt be debated for generations to come. Of the various dimensions of that history that may be examined for explanatory purposes, the changing nature of the WTO and the general nature of the emerging relationships between the United States, East and West Europe, and the Soviet Union may be productively understood by an examination of the CEF Treaty, the political changes in 1989, the broad scope of the CSCE conferences, and in the Partnership for Peace initiatives.

Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty General Secretary Gorbachev’s announcement of a unilateral reduction in the Soviet armed forces by 500,000 troops during an address to the United Nations General Assembly on December 7, 1988 signaled the beginning of the end of NATO’s European “trip wire” strategy. Furthermore, the announcement of independent force reductions by several East European countries in 1989 demonstrated the changed nature of the European security environment. The favorable reaction by America and her NATO allies to WTO force limitation initiatives led to formal discussions between both sides concerning the further reduction of conventional forces. According to Joshua Epstein, the Soviet and subsequent WTO proposals concerning the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, when analyzed in combination with the political events occurring in Germany and Eastern Europe, offered “the prospect for eventually dismantling the Central European military confrontation.”2 A sense of cautious optimism characterized the initial American reaction to the Soviet and WTO initiatives. This “wait and see” attitude clearly rested on the axiom that “actions would speak louder than words.” Initial optimism reinforced an existing attitude of “wary readiness” established by the negotiation of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement of 1988.3 In many respects, the successful conclusion of the INF treaty with its corresponding agreement on verification procedures provided a model for the later CFE process. In fact, the INF and CFE accords built the foundation for the newly

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evolving European security architecture. Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 11, 1991, Secretary of State James A. Baker offered the following statement: the CFE Treaty marks a fundamental shift away from the Cold War to a Europe whole and free. Not only is it an essential foundation for the new Europe, but it will be a bulwark against a return to Cold War dangers and animosities. CFE does not simply alter the shape of military confrontation in Europe. It locks in more stable and predictable security relations in Europe, fostering a political and military environment that is essential to healing old divisions and safeguarding the new democracies of Europe.4 Baker credited Gorbachev’s December 1988 speech to the United Nations as being the “catalyst” for the CFE treaty, and he praised Gorbachev’s role in “setting a more hopeful environment” within Europe. Baker urged Senate ratification of the treaty based on four factors: (1) the massive preponderance of Soviet forces capable of attacking Western Europe, (2) the danger of a “short-warning Blitzkrieg,” (3) the political weight exerted by Soviet occupation troops in Central and Eastern Europe, and (4) the economic costs incurred by the American defense commitment to Western Europe. Baker ended his statement by likening the events of 1989 to a “political earthquake, … that changed the political map of the continent.”5

The revolutions of 1989 The revolutions of 1989 induced a process of rapid and dramatic alteration in the post-World War II balance of power in Europe. In his work, European Security Policy after the Revolutions of 1989, Jeffrey Simon noted the changed nature of American security interests by stating “Europe has moved from a high-military threat/high-stability environment to low-military threat/low-stability environment… . [in which] both the USSR and the United States will likely experience decline in their influence in Europe.” Simon further explained that the political changes in Eastern Europe “unraveled 30 years of Soviet effort to erect a reliable Warsaw Treaty Organization.”6 The establishment of the East European national command authority (NCA) in 1989 removed the existing WTO “Statute” that allowed non-Soviet WTO forces to be placed under the command of the Soviet Supreme High Command in the event of war. For example, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia

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subordinated their armed forces to their own respective national executive and parliamentary institutions. In addition, initiatives by each of the WTO members to reduce their militaries and institute reforms in the structure and organization of their forces compounded the difficulties for Soviet planners in maintaining an integrated WTO-wide security posture.7 The example of the Polish armed forces clearly illustrates the rapidity and profound effects of the change taking place in the WTO between 1988 and 1990. At the end of 1988, Polish forces totaled 402,000 and constituted a vital element in Soviet military strategy for both ground operations in northern Germany and naval operations in the Baltic. By the end of 1990, however, the Polish armed forces had been reduced by almost twenty-five per cent to 302,000, and these forces were, in turn, now subordinated to their own national command authority. In the wake of troop reduction initiatives, Czechoslovakian force strength plummeted from 198,000 at the end of 1989 to 140,000 by December 1990. A more dramatic example of the changes precipitated by the events of 1989, involved the planned reduction in the Hungarian armed forces from 107,000 in December 1988 to between 75,000–78,000 by the end of 1990. In the case of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the planned withdrawal of 50,000 Soviet troops from Hungary and 73,500 Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia by mid-1991 heightened the effect of both countries’ demobilizations.8 The most dramatic change of 1989 involved the events taking place in the German Democratic Republic, the keystone of Soviet military security and the most critical non-Soviet member in the WTO. The “fall” of the wall on November 9, 1989 initiated a string of events leading to the rejection of the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) and mass calls for unification from both sides of the border. The resulting “Two-plus-Four” agreements between West and East Germany and the former Allied occupation powers in Berlin led to, first, German economic, and, ultimately, political unification on October 3, 1990. The loss of East Germany constituted the death knell of the WTO, and combined with events in the other East European countries resulted in the WTO becoming a “military eunuch”.9 The political earthquakes experienced throughout Eastern Europe in 1989 shook apart the existing foundation of the WTO security edifice. The demands by Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, and East Germans for increased political freedom led to major institutional reforms involving economic restructuring and significant military force reductions as part of a larger effort to stimulate domestic growth. The reunification of

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Germany in 1990 and the subsequent formal dissolution of the WTO in 1991 left the United States and its European allies searching for new security alternatives to the bipolar bloc confrontation of the previous four decades.

Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) The Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) provided a potential solution for integrating the security concerns of the U.S., the Soviet Union, and the countries of East and West Europe. The original CSCE negotiations resulted in the Helsinki Final Act, or Helsinki Accords, of 1975. The Final Act included the general recognition of the post-war borders of the Soviet Union, a “political obligation” between the signees to provide a 21 day notice prior to maneuvers involving more than 25,000 troops, and a provision “encouraging freer movement of people, ideas, and information.”10 The Soviet Union and the countries of West and East Europe greeted these “confidence building measures” as a continuation of the process of détente on a European-wide scale. The U.S. appeared as the odd man out in the Helsinki process based on reluctant American participation in the face of clear Western European and WTO enthusiasm for the conference. In fact, the U.S. believed that the Soviet/WTO human rights commitments were ephemeral and impossible to enforce. Jonathan Dean characterized the U.S. suspicion that the confidence building measures were “a means of misleading Western European opinion and diverting it from what the Soviet Union … [was] doing with its armed forces.”11 In 1989 it was clear that the U.S. had neglected the important psychological aspect of the Soviet commitment concerning human rights, and the importance attached to this element by dissidents from Sofia to Warsaw and Prague to Moscow. Ironically, the events of 1989 demonstrated that the Soviets had equally underestimated the effect of their human rights guarantees in laying the foundation for successful reform movements within Eastern Europe. Ian M. Cuthbertson and Adam S. Albion described the CSCE as “Europe’s conscience,” and as “a more useful stick with which to beat the back of totalitarianism and repression than all the tanks and missiles at NATO’s disposal during the 40 years of the Cold War.”12 Cuthbertson’s and Albion’s claim, although exaggerated, did indicate the latent promise offered by the CSCE for achieving a collective security alternative in Europe after 1991.

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By 1992 the CSCE had expanded to include fifty-two countries. At the July 1992 meeting of CSCE members, Secretary of State Baker described “the CSCE, along with NATO and the European Community, as one of the three pillars of the new Europe.”13 In fact, at the meeting President George Bush proposed a five-point agenda for increasing the effectiveness of the organization. He advocated that the CSCE members (1) commit themselves to making democratic change irreversible, (2) be held accountable to the standards of conduct recorded in the CSCE declarations, (3) attack the root causes of conflict, (4) strengthen the mechanisms for the settlement of disputes, and (5) develop a credible Euro-Atlantic peace-keeping capability.14 Points four and five of President Bush’s plan focused on his desire to see the CSCE take the initiative for solving the ethnic and religious conflict in the former state of Yugoslavia. According to Cuthbertson, it soon became clear, however, that the CSCE was not “the panacea to all of Europe’s ills that it seemed to be to many in the first rush of post-revolutionary enthusiasm.”15 Despite the relative impotence of the CSCE, a second alternative for establishing a European-wide security arrangement arose with the unveiling of the Clinton administration’s “Partnership for Peace” proposal in 1994.

Partnership for Peace (PfP) The rate of political change in Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1992 clearly outpaced the American ability to respond effectively. The apparent lack of alternatives for dealing with the former countries of the Warsaw Pact resulted in part to a lack of strategic vision on the one hand, and a desire not to provoke the humbled but still formidable Russian bear on the other. The enthusiasm and willingness shown by several former WTO members to enter into immediate security relationships with either the U.S. and/or NATO put the Clinton administration in the unenviable position of the man who invites acquaintances met during a vacation to visit him at his home, and then one day, opens the door to find them unannounced on his front porch. The situation proved awkward and embarrassing for both sides until an alternative could be proposed. The Clinton administration attempted to “square the circle” by addressing the security concerns of the former WTO members without provoking a Russian reaction. At the NATO summit conference in January 1994, President Bill Clinton introduced the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. The evolutionary PfP process allowed former

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WTO members and former Soviet republics to associate with NATO states and focused on “individual partnership programs.” The PfP offered the signatories a type of NATO alliance “learner’s permit,” providing them the opportunity to “drive” only with the consent and in the presence of a licensed Atlantic alliance member. In spite of the plan’s vagaries, Czech President Václav Havel optimistically characterized the initiative as “set[ting] in motion a process that leads to the enlargement of NATO.”16 President Havel’s initial enthusiasm would later be tempered by American deference to Russian protests. By the end of 1994, 23 former Warsaw Pact Countries and WTO states had signed the PfP framework including the three “Visegrad” states (so named as a result of a meeting between Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia held at the small town of Visegrad in 1991 to discuss regional cooperation). The Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and the year-old Republic of Slovakia all desired rapid assimilation and direct incorporation into the NATO alliance. However, the lack of specific criteria for assimilating new NATO members via the PfP program mirrored the American Cold War policy of favoring rhetoric and symbolism above concrete action. By 1994 Eastern European countries became increasingly concerned with a perceived excessive American deference with respect to Russian security concerns. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott’s advocacy of a “Russia first” policy appeared, at best, to ignore, or, at worst, to sacrifice Eastern European aspirations for more complete integration into existing West European security structures in favor of placating Russian xenophobia. In fact, the Clinton administration not only heeded Russian warnings concerning the acceptance of former satellite states into the Alliance, but also appeared willing to recognize a de facto Russian sphere of influence in East Europe as embodied in the concept of “near abroad.” According to Vladimir Shustov, the policy sought to ensure “good neighbors” along Russian borders as a guarantee of future stability.17 However, the former WTO members viewed “near abroad” as a thinly disguised restatement of traditional Russian imperial ambitions. In a national strategy policy paper in February 1995 entitled, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, the White House identified three elements intended to shape future U.S. policy in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The first element centers on “security through military strength and cooperation.” The second element is economic and involves the creation of “vibrant and open market economies.” Finally, the third

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element encompasses supporting the “growth of democracy and individual freedoms” within the former WTO states.18 The administration’s policy of “engagement” and “enlargement” offers a framework for achieving a new European security architecture if its pronouncements can be translated into relevant actions. This process of transforming words into deeds is complicated by the inherent fragility of the CIS, Russian domestic instability and fear of western encroachment, and the lack of an effective trans-European security organization. It is now apparent that a number of post-Cold War organizational and security innovations will not stand the test of time. The present situation within the CIS provides a clear example of the “de-evolution” of the CIS from a cooperative confederation to a group of extremely loose-knit and increasingly self-centered political, economic, and military free agents. In fact, Paul Goble characterized the CIS as “the world’s largest fig leaf.”19 The Ukrainian case provides the clearest example of the accelerated movement by several CIS members out of the Russian security sphere towards an independent security identity of their own. An open defection of Ukraine from the CIS could precipitate the collapse of the CIS structure, or at the very least result in the marginalization of the entire CIS structure. Indeed, Ukraine represents the linchpin of the CIS. With a population of 52 million and the second largest European state in terms of territory, Ukraine constitutes a major player in the horizontal integration of Eastern and Western Europe. Ukraine’s considerable agricultural and industrial resources, combined with its large standing army and continued possession of strategic nuclear weapons, make it both a viable economic and a formidable military power. Control of oil and gas deliveries to Ukraine provides Russia with significant leverage, but economic blackmail is not the foundation for a stable relationship. The Russian and Ukrainian disagreement concerning the disposition of the Black Sea fleet and the secessionist movement in the Crimea indicate the tenuous nature of their current relationship. It is still unclear whether the large ethnic Russian population of central and eastern Ukraine will moderate the efforts by Ukrainian nationalists for increased independence. It is, however, apparent that the CIS can little afford to lose Ukraine. A second factor impacting the evolution of the CIS involves the fate of democratic reforms within Russia. The December 1993 election success of the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky sent political shock waves from Moscow across all of Eastern and Western

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Europe, and eventually on to Washington, D.C. Only time will tell whether Zhirinovsky represents the next Adolf Hitler or the next Sir Oswald Mosley. The Zhirinovsky phenomenon is indicative of the larger political battle between ex-communist hard-liners and those favoring continued democratic reforms. The battle between the forces of reform and reaction centers on both domestic economic issues and in large part on the issue of Russian imperial power. Dr. Karl P. Magyar’s model of state evolution explains this struggle as a competition between those who identify Russia as a “consolidating state” and those who seek a return to the expansionist and “global/imperial” stage.20 The policy of “near abroad” clearly epitomized the latter while the suppression of the revolt in Chechnya highlighted the former. The attempted secession of Chechnya illustrated the inherent fragility of a Russian-dominated federation consisting of 21 sovereign republics and 11 autonomous regions. Chechnyen President Dzhokar Dudayev’s armed uprising was symptomatic of the rising force of ethnic identity within the Russian federation. Two factors influenced the subsequent heavy-handed Russian military response. The first and foremost factor concerned the Russian fear that the rebellion in Chechyna might precipitate further separatist initiatives throughout the federation. Secondly, Chechnyen oil reserves provided an added economic incentive for quickly defeating Dudayev’s rebel forces. Deputy Secretary of State Talbott outlined the administration’s position on the crisis before a Senate subcommittee on February 9, 1995. According to Talbott, Chechnya represented a “synonym for a threat to the survival of reform in Russia.” He added that the U.S. opposed attempts to alter international boundaries by armed secession, and, finally, that Chechnya constituted “a matter which the Russian Government and the people will have to resolve together peacefully by political means.”21 Talbott’s statement was reminiscent of President Dwight Eisenhower’s wish in the wake of the Hungarian revolution for “friends who are free.” Talbott’s statement, however, pointed to an even greater danger. The CFE accord threatened to become an additional casualty of the ill-coordinated and halting Russian offensive in Chechnya. Subsequent threats by the Yeltsin administration to unilaterally abrogate the terms of the CFE treaty by strengthening Russian forces west of the Urals alarmed both U.S. policymakers and the NATO allies. The clear Russian determination to ignore CFE limitations resulted in a decision by the U.S. and NATO to permit an increase in both tank and artillery quotas

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for the Caucasus region. On September 15, 1995, a senior American diplomat justified the move by stating: We’re trying to preserve the treaty, to gain Russian compliance and to get the added security that would come even with a modified treaty. Let’s not forget, the Cold War is over and there are changed circumstances. To say that something has to be done 100 per cent the way we thought during the Cold War doesn’t make any sense.22 The pragmatic political decision to readjust Russian CFE force levels did not upset the applecart of European security policy, but it does indicate the utility of a more effective trans-European security arrangement. The OSCE (previously CSCE) constitutes the clearest alternative. It continues, however, to exist in the shadow of NATO and the European Union and lacks the mechanism for translating political resolutions into action. The future importance of the OSCE appears to be linked with the willingness of the member states to devise an integrated military capability. There are a number of advantages to the U.S. involved in increasing the role and capabilities of the OSCE. However, the absence of any agency for the imposition of political decisions relegates the OSCE to the position of cheerleader on the sidelines of Europe. The contemporary European security equation is paradoxically more complex and potentially more volatile though less lethal than its Cold War predecessor – gone are the days of bipolar simplicity. General Secretary Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost created small rips in the fabric of the iron curtain, and, eventually, huge fissures in the Berlin Wall. The Soviet-American “neo-détente” of the late 1980s resulted in the negotiation of agreements on intermediate range nuclear missiles and dramatic reductions in the level of conventional military forces throughout Europe. The peaceful revolutions of 1989 led to the reunification of Germany and precipitated the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Eastern Europe. The demise of the WTO and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 shattered the final pillars supporting the Cold War edifice.

Conclusion The most fundamental change in the post-Cold War relationship between the U.S. and the former states of the WTO involves the demise of the East–West ideological divide and the replacement of a

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Soviet-dominated federal bloc with over a dozen number of independent states. This resulting multi-polar environment has proved a bane for American policymakers intent on arresting initiatives for fundamental change in the former East bloc in the hope of conciliating the Russian bear. Likewise, the shift among Eastern European and Central Asian states towards market economies constitutes a second fundamental change in the post-Cold War structure of Eastern Europe. Here again the American response has been ambivalent. According to William G. Hyland, “a commitment to free trade and the encouragement of market economies seem to be the right policies. But the [Clinton] administration has done very little to support its rhetoric. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have received limited attention.”23 The fall of the Iron Curtain has revealed both opportunity and danger – to ignore either is to court disaster. The creation of a “new architecture of European security” should constitute the paramount issue of contemporary American foreign policy. The rise of divisive nationalism and ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia and in the Caucasus demonstrate the fragility of contemporary security in both East Europe and Central Asia. The potential danger of spill-over into West Europe cannot be discounted. In the existing security environment, two truths appear to be selfevident. First, the requirement for cooperation between the U.S. and Russia is greater and more necessary than at any time in the past five decades. Second, this sense of cooperation must extend to the relations between Western European countries and their Eastern European neighbors. In the words of Secretary of State Warren Christopher, “the security and prosperity of all of Europe is inextricably linked to the stable development of Europe’s emerging democracies in the East.”24 The cataclysmic changes of the past half-decade and the dramatic changes in the political landscape of Europe require more than ever a clear and decisive U.S. commitment to the Euro-Atlantic alliance. The interdependency between the U.S. and Europe requires a continued political, economic, and military relationship. The Clinton administration’s policies of “engagement” and “enlargement” with respect to the countries of the former WTO offer a viable course of action, but these pronouncements must move beyond the realm of mere idealistic visions. In this respect, American rhetoric with regard to Eastern Europe must in the future be matched with actions. It is time to realize that the western flank of Europe rests not on the Atlantic, but, rather, on the Pacific. In the words of Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs Richard Holbrooke “the United States has

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become a European power” – a bittersweet but undeniable legacy of the Cold War.25 Notes 1. Trevor N. Dupuy ed., The Almanac of World Military Power (San Rafael, California: Presidio Press, 1980): 334. 2. Joshua M. Epstein, Conventional Force Reductions. A Dynamic Assessment (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990): 3. 3. Daniel Yankelovic and Richard Smoke, “America’s New Thinking,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 67, no. 1 (Fall 1988): 7. 4. “CFE: Foundation for Enduring European Security,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, no. 28 (July 15, 1991): 504. 5. Ibid. 6. Jeffrey Simon, “NATO, Warsaw Pact, and European Security,” in Jeffrey Simon, ed., European Security Policy after the Revolutions of 1989 (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1991): 2, 32. 7. Ibid., p. 32. 8. Ibid., pp. 32–34. 9. Ibid., p. 34. 10. Jonathan Dean, Watershed in Europe. Dismantling the East–West Military Confrontation (Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath, 1987): 113–114. 11. Ibid., p. 115. 12. Ian M. Cuthbertson, “Introduction,” in Ian M. Cuthbertson and Adam S. Albion, ed., Redefining the CSCE. Challenges and Opportunities in the New Europe (New York: Institute for East–West Studies, 1992): 1. 13. “U.S. Support for CSCE,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch 3, no. 28 (13 July 1992): p. 559. 14. Ibid., p. 558. 15. Cuthbertson, p. 9. 16. George Weigel, “Creeping Talbottism,” Commentary, vol. 97, no. 3 (March 1994): 37. 17. Vladimir Shustov, “Russia’s Security Concerns and Proposals for Regional Cooperation” in Charles L. Barry, ed., The Search for Peace in Europe. Perspectives from NATO and Eastern Europe (Fort McNair, NJ: National Defense University Press, 1993): 111. 18. “A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement,” (The White House, February 1995): 25, 27, 28. 19. Paul A. Goble, “Forget the Soviet Union,” Foreign Policy, vol. 86 (Spring 1992): 56. 20. For a discussion of this model see Karl P. Magyar, “The Emerging PostCold War International Order and Changing Conflict Environment,” in Karl P. Magyar, ed., Challenge and Response: Anticipating U.S. Military Security Concerns (Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1994): 3–40. 21. “Statement by Deputy Secretary of State Talbott, February 9, 1995,” Foreign Policy Bulletin, vol. 5, nos. 4/5 (January/April 1995): 100. 22. Steven Greenhouse, “Arms Treaty Limits Eased in a Concession to Russia,” New York Times, 16 September 1995.

92 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 23. William G. Hyland, “A Mediocre Record,” Foreign Policy, vol. 101 (Winter 1995–96): 72. 24. “Remarks by Secretary Christopher at the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council December 1, 1995,” Foreign Policy Bulletin 5, nos. 4/5 (January/April 1995): 6. 25. Richard Holbrooke, “America, A European Power,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 74, no. 2 (March/April 1995): 38.

6 Instituting Change in U.S. Foreign Policy Towards the Emerging Pacific Rim Gary Ang

Introduction For the half century that the U.S. led the war of containment against the Soviet Union, Asia provided a major part of the battleground, when the two superpowers clashed through their proxies in Korea and Vietnam. These two wars claimed the highest number of American lives in the Cold War, and their effects were profound. The Korean War was a significant early milestone in the Cold War – suddenly, the possibility of a worldwide military confrontation with the Soviet Union loomed.1 This led to massive post-World War II rearmament by the U.S., and sparked the arms race, as the two superpowers relentlessly built up their nuclear arsenals, attaining the capability of annihilating the world many times over. The Vietnam War buried America’s idealism and caused a deep and lasting desire in much of the American public to disengage from the complex and dangerous world of international politics.2 The effects of the Cold War are astounding. Historian Paul Kennedy noted an especially disturbing result of the arms build-up when he traced the rise and inevitable decline of empires over the last five hundred years: “Great Powers in relative decline instinctively respond by spending more on security, thereby diverting potential resources from investment and compounding their long term dilemma.”3 That observation could apply to the relative economic decline of U.S., but especially Soviet economic power in the 1970s and 1980s, which culminated in the sudden collapse of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe; the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union itself; and the U.S. becoming the world’s biggest debtor nation, despite its victory in the Cold War. It may be argued that the U.S. today is 93

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hauntingly reminiscent of Britain at the end of World War I, when the British empire claimed victory despite its massive debts to the U.S. However, unlike Britain, which was replaced by the U.S. as the dominant player in the world after World War I, America’s relative supremacy in the immediate post-Cold War world is undeniable. The U.S. possesses unrivaled military power and the world’s most powerful economy for the foreseeable future.4 However, the growing interdependence of the global community means that the U.S. will have to share its power with its peers or other centers of power – Western Europe, Japan, China, and Russia. Both presidents George Bush and William Clinton have expressed foreign policy statements in terms of a new world order, which ironically has turned out to be an old world order, almost a century old and with its roots dating back to the Wilsonian era. Such a foreign policy cannot be relevant today.5 America’s insistence on creating a new world order, it could be argued, betrays an innate inability to react to changes in the world environment – a flaw which resulted in America’s tragedies during the Cold War. After witnessing the collapse of the Soviet Union under the weight of its own internal structural contradictions and economic failures, one cannot help but ask if the wars in Korea and Vietnam were necessary in defeating communism. Led by an ideological foreign policy which saw world events in terms of Cold War politics and communist expansionism, the U.S. was unable to discern the significance of the Korean and Vietnam Wars as signaling the emergence of the Third World nationalism which would continue to plague American foreign policy to this day. However, it is in the emerging Pacific Rim region, dominated by the largest and most populous Third World country – China, that Third World politics poses the greatest threat to America’s security and prosperity today.

The origins and dilemma of the Cold War in Asia If any single characteristic could be said to have dominated America’s post-World War II legacy in Asia, it would be America’s unexpected and unwanted intervention in Asian conflicts that some might argue even went against America’s own national interest.6 Such a phenomenon can be explained by looking at the policies and values that guided America’s decision makers in their response to Cold War events in Asia. America’s initial postwar containment strategy anticipated only two likely sources of war: a surprise Soviet missile attack on the U.S., and an

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invasion of Western Europe by the Red Army.7 This was because Americans assumed that the conflict with the Soviets would take place in an unambiguous manner as in World War II. Little did they expect that the Soviets would choose the continent of Asia, a region on the distant periphery of American strategic interest, and through surrogates to carry out their aggressive and expansionist designs. Such strategic complexity, compounded by Third World nationalism and the rise in America of an ideological approach to interpreting world events (in terms of democracy against totalitarianism), confounded the Americans, who throughout their history had always fought enemies directly and assumed that ultimately everyone wished to live in American-like societies. However, American actions in Asia would in turn confound the communists because they failed to understand the moral principle in American Cold War policy, with its Wilsonian roots. President Woodrow Wilson, who believed that “the world must be made safe for democracy,” was prepared to use force in pursuit and protection of his vision which was threatened by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. America’s intervention in the Russian civil war of 1917 marked the start of America’s 20th century crusade against its atheistic antithesis – “the evil empire.” The Cold War was fought based on ideology foremost, and security interests second. Compromises of ideological issues were tantamount to the accommodation of evil, and would lead to America’s defeat, as the failures of détentes during the Cold War seemed to show. Because the U.S. had allowed the geopolitically important China to fall, even though the U.S. had tried for years to help prevent it, the Soviets in their power calculations did not find it plausible that the U.S. would defend South Korea, as they failed to grasp the moralism inherent in U.S. foreign policy at the time.8 The U.S., perceiving the challenge in terms of principle, was less concerned with Korea’s geopolitical significance – which American leaders had publicly discounted – than with blocking the spread of communist aggression and ideology. The communist victory in China had reinforced the conviction of American policymakers that no further communist expansion should be tolerated.9 In April 1951, National Security Council document 68 had concluded that the global equilibrium was at stake in Indochina – “any substantial further extension of the area under the domination of the Kremlin would raise the possibility that no coalition adequate to confront the Kremlin with greater strength could be assembled.”10 Earlier, the Truman Doctrine had refined Wilsonianism, proclaiming “the

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policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure.”11 NSC-68, together with the Truman Doctrine, provided the financial and “intellectual” capital justifying America’s actions in Asia during the Cold War. Having committed America’s reputation and honor in defense of a self-confessed “peripheral” area, the principle of containment was instantly extended to that periphery and, in its wake almost all the countries within it.12 The U.S. allowed ideology and ensuing events to drive its definition of national interest in Asia, often without having the time “to think straight,”13 or consider the full impact of its actions both externally and internally. Starting with the successful but taxing American military intervention in Korea, it ended tragically in the loss of South Vietnam. While on the one hand American moralism was used to justify the wars in Asia, it was American realism on the other hand, based on hard power calculations, which agreed to a stalemate in Korea and a withdrawal from Vietnam.

The significance of Korea and Vietnam The backdrop to U.S. foreign policy prior to the Korean War was made up of two events – the conquest of China by communist forces, and the explosion of the first Soviet atomic bomb.14 With these two shocks serving as catalysts, the Korean War marked the militarization and globalization of containment, justifying the rearmament advocated in NSC-68 to the American people, who, however, still preferred to withdraw from the carnage of World War II into a harmonious United Nations-anchored world. American leaders perceived in the Korean War “a Soviet strategy for luring America into distant Asian conflicts to facilitate a Soviet assault on the allied position in Europe. This turned out to be a gross overestimation of both Soviet power and Josef Stalin’s methods.”15 In this way, further justification for America’s war in Korea was found in the need to deter Soviet aggression in Europe. According to Dean Acheson, “the only way to deal with the Soviet Union…is to create situations of strength.”16 Such situations of strength were then created on a global scale. The Korean War introduced the concept of the Cold War as a system of international control, fought actively through wars limited by objectives and means. According to Martin Walker, “Washington and Moscow alike were learning to operate in a new strategic environment in which the need to prevent a crisis from expanding into a full-scale war was more important than any local victory.”17 For the U.S., the

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difficulty of fighting limited wars started with Korea, and reached its full complexity as America lost control in Vietnam while in search of some semblance of victory. The Korean War counterbalanced the superpower drama in Asia, and led to the perceived betrayal of Taiwan by the U.S. in the 1970s. President Jimmy Carter’s decision to unilaterally terminate America’s historic commitment to Taiwan.18 The repercussions from this decision form the chief source of instability in the Pacific Rim today. As the China card was played by the U.S. through the “triangular diplomacy”19 of the Nixon–Kissinger era, Asia became increasingly tripolar. The future of the emerging nations of the Pacific Rim was driven by policies made in the U.S., Soviet Union and China. In the 1950s, America’s perception of Beijing’s alignment with Moscow made Soviet policy appear more formidable and worrisome than it otherwise would have been. In the 1960s, when relations between Beijing and Moscow disintegrated, the Soviet challenge to U.S. interests in Asia lessened as weaker communist surrogates in Asia could turn to two separate sponsors – China and the Soviet Union. The overwhelming military strength displayed by the U.S. during its involvement in Korea might have posed a significant deterrent to the Soviets and the Chinese very early in the Cold War. China, with its superpower aspirations, learned first hand in Korea the overwhelming power of the U.S. military and the crushing defeat the U.S. could impose on any enemy that stood in its way. The Soviets, upon seeing the might of the U.S. military, probably reached the same conclusion. It could help explain why the Soviets pulled out of Cuba and the Chinese stayed in the background in Indochina whenever the chance of a direct confrontation with the U.S. arose. The Korean War might have convinced the Soviets and the Chinese that the strategic way to wage the Cold War was through their proxies who could frustrate and weaken the U.S. through prolonged conflicts all around the world. Their Vietnam strategy against the U.S. was a great success. The Vietnam War occurred mostly after the Cuban missile crisis, when confidence in America and an active presidency had never been higher.20 Ironically, such confidence was brought crashing down by President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, who best epitomized the U.S. at the time as he felt that he could control any person, any situation. However the Vietnam War must be seen as a continuation of the Korean War, albeit with a more confident U.S. All the contextual elements of overextension and complacency were evident in both, president and the public.

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America assumed, as Johnson declared, that the Vietnam War was another round in the Cold War, no different from the other crises that America had faced earlier.21 The “quick fix” policy of making available arms and money to solve a problem, together with America’s preeminent prestige and strength, were to send a clear message to the communists in Asia to back down in South Vietnam. Such a policy failed as there are problems in the world for which “there are no immediate solutions” – a discovery which was shockingly new to the American experience.22 America’s simplistic assessment of the situation clouded the fact that Vietnam was different because of the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. Unlike Kim Il Sung in Korea, Ho Chi Minh was a lesser client of the Chinese and the Soviets. Dependence on his fellow communists was only a temporary means to his goal of national reunification. However, America’s Vietnam adventure was not based solely on idealism. The U.S. also feared that the loss of Vietnam would lead to the collapse of non-communist Asia and to Japan’s accommodation of Asian communism. From that perspective, in defending South Vietnam, the U.S. was initially fighting in its own national strategic interest as part of its containment of the Soviet Union, and whether South Vietnam was or could ever be made democratic was irrelevant. 23 On this count, America’s involvement was rooted in realpolitik calculations, even as the Truman Doctrine provided the idealistic raison d’etre. Later, however, because of her inability to accept defeat, which was so contrary to her national experience, the U.S. rejected the demands of only national interest and became mired deeper in the conflict. The Vietnam War was the longest war in American history, and domestically the most divisive since the Civil War. It generated a deep and lasting desire to disengage not just from Vietnam but from the whole arena of international politics, and is a major influence in American diplomacy today. Henceforth, a crucial question for foreign policy makers has been whether it would become another Vietnam. America’s enemies know now that the best way to defeat the U.S. in a war is to create situations that would strike at America’s domestic society, a permanent and decisive center of gravity in America’s future wars. With the Vietnam debacle closely followed by Watergate, which further demoralized the country, the U.S. had to wait another 20 years to claim victory in the Cold War, and to regain its military confidence through unqualified success in the 1991 Gulf war.

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The emergence of the Pacific Rim Interestingly, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Cold War appears to have been Asia. In the process of containing communism and the Soviet Union’s activities in Asia, the U.S. helped Japan become its greatest economic rival in the world, and boosted the economies of the “little dragons” of the Pacific. Had the U.S. not fought against communist expansionism in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, would the domino effect indeed have taken place and resulted in a “Red Asia?” Although difficult to validate, it is quite plausible that America’s intervention in Korea and Vietnam indirectly helped the rest of Asia, especially the young independent nations in Southeast Asia like Malaysia and Indonesia in combating their own communists during the 1960s and 70s.24 America’s misadventure in Vietnam, the overall failure to attain military objectives, may have been instrumental in preventing the realization of Dwight Eisenhower’s worst fears about the whole of Asia, including Australia and New Zealand, falling into communist hands, as he alluded to in a long letter to Sir Winston Churchill dated April 4, 1954.25 Truman’s “rollback”26 policy against the communists in North Korea did not just provide military protection for the northeast Asian nations of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. The Pentagon’s demand for 1,500 trucks a month from Toyota to support the war in North Korea27 set the Japanese economic machine rolling, and inadvertently resurrected Japan’s “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”28 which the U.S. had ironically fought against just five years before. The logic of the Cold War had made Japan’s prosperity critical to U.S. security in Asia.29 Moreover, John Foster Dulles explained that it was important that those parts of Asia which were not communist, including South Korea, Southeast Asia, and the countries now known as the Pacific Rim states, should remain so and that Japan would need access to their raw materials and markets.30 The anti-communist U.S. military umbrella in the Pacific Rim shielded the several key countries against socialist influence and allowed them to develop strong capitalist economies. Today, U.S. exports to Japan, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and northeast Asian countries combined far exceed those to western Europe.31 As U.S. economic interests are now among Washington’s most important foreign policy concerns, the Cold War might have caused a long term shift of U.S. foreign policy focus from Europe to Asia.32 Hence President Clinton’s sudden foreign policy shift to

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embrace the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) in 1993, and the growing importance of the ASEAN regional forum for the U.S. in resolving its foreign policy issues in Asia. Also in that time frame the ASEAN regional forum saw U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher meeting Qian Qichen, the Chinese Foreign Minister, at a time when relations were extremely cool because of the Taiwan president’s visit to the U.S. and the Harry Wu affair.33 These developments are ironic, as Asia had traditionally been viewed as less important geopolitically than Europe. When China succumbed to communism, the Truman Administration considered it a low priority, because China, and indeed the whole of Asia, was felt to be on the periphery of the “basin of power” of which George Kennan had previously written.34 Then, the Atlantic region remained the focus of the world and America’s national interest. Today, given the rise of China and the growing affluence of the whole East Asian region, few deny that the present century will most likely belong to the Pacific Rim.35 The wars in Asia during the Cold War (more “Hot” than “Cold” in Asia) claimed at least 600,000 Koreans, close to a million Chinese, and around three million Vietnamese.36 In comparison, only 120,000 American lives were lost.37 Therefore, Asia as a whole suffered the highest number of Cold War deaths when compared across the world. This too seems ironic as the Cold War is usually thought of as mainly between the U.S. and the Soviets over Europe. The only consolation appears to be that at least the Cold War benefited Asia and the U.S. economically. After the Cold War, Asia has emerged as the U.S.’ biggest trading partner.

The Pacific Rim – instituting change in U.S. foreign policy In the post-Cold War environment, two options are available to U.S. foreign policy. The 21st century prospect of an Asian superpower populated by well over a billion people could prompt Americans and Europeans to join forces – a vision captured by former Secretary of State James A. Baker’s remark about Europe extending across the Atlantic from Vladivostock to Vancouver.38 The first option for America could be to align itself with Europe to contest the emergence of the Asia Pacific region. The second option could be for the U.S. and Japan to resolve their economic rivalry and elevate their relationship to one of global partnership on international issues.39 This latter option is essential to the stability and security of the Pacific Rim, as the rise of

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China, due to its sheer size and large population, numbers, may potentially destabilize Asia. “The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance in 30 to 40 years,” Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, said in 1993. “It’s not possible to pretend that this is another player. This is the biggest player in the history of man.”40 It is in both, America’s and the world’s interests, that the second option, which calls for intensified U.S.–Japan cooperation, is adopted. By neglecting Asia, the U.S. may push Japan to align itself with China, and consequently the whole of Asia, as the world becomes divided into two ethnic and racial blocs. Japan is a critical pillar of the new world order of geo-economics. However, the multiplicity of problems it has faced with America will almost certainly induce Japan to re-examine its reliance on that single ally. Japan is bound to be more sensitive to the Asian balance of power than America has been, given its history and geographical location. China, Korea and Southeast Asia will acquire quite a different significance for Japan than the U.S., and will spur it to inaugurate a more autonomous and more self-reliant foreign policy.41 It will take all of America’s ingenuity, and careful management of its trade disputes and leverage on security issues, to convince Japan that it is in its interest for the existing terms of the U.S.–Japan partnership to continue. For that, American foreign policy must first focus on the Pacific Rim, address the post-Cold War changes in the region, and shape new policies towards its old Cold War enemies North Korea, Vietnam, and China. To achieve that, America must draw upon the key lesson of the Cold War – that a foreign policy built foremost on ideology (as in America’s present concern with Asia’s human rights), and only secondarily on national economic or security interest, is most likely to result in America paying a higher price than necessary to achieve its regional objectives. Moreover, ideology inhibits new directions in American foreign policy by distracting the U.S. from the profound changes in the world and consequently its own changing national interest. The achievement of national interest can be quantified in terms of stability and security, and the ensuing prosperity it brings to America, but the pursuit of ideology is unquantifiable, knows no end, and confuses those with other cultures and values. One might argue that it was necessary during the Cold War to merge ideology and national interest because of the unique nature of the Cold War, when American values were directly confronted by an expansionist Soviet Union promulgating a directly antithetical set of values.

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However, a key tenet of America’s current foreign policy is still the promotion of democracy.42 Such a strategy, which smacks heavily of ideology, is but a reinvention or repackaging of its Cold War containment policy. It may only lead to the rise of counter ideologies where none currently exists, as “all ideals beget counter ideals.”43 Moreover, applied in the Pacific Rim, it may force the Asian countries, especially China (which alone has the potential to stand up fully against America) to react defensively on the basis of nationalism. This would cause widespread instability in America’s largest trading market and would prevent the achievement of the other tenets of America’s foreign policy – enhancing security and promoting prosperity.44 Worse, as foreign policy is ultimately predicated on the use of force, it may result in unnecessary bloodshed for America and her enemies as in the case of the Vietnam War, without any concrete objectives being achieved, because they were contradictory and incoherent in the first place. Samuel Huntington has noted “serious problems of ambiguity and imprecision” in the definition of democracy.45 A function of politics, economics and culture, democracy and its accompanying human rights are in a constant state of evolution and change.46 America’s own experience with democracy shows that there may be a direct correlation between democratic standards and economic development. In the 19th century when America was already democratic but in the process of industrialization, blacks and women could not vote, child labor was widespread, and working conditions in factories, even by the standards of today’s Third World countries, were appalling. Unfortunately, when America evaluates the government, democracy and human rights standards of a Pacific Rim country, it does not consider the context of that country’s culture, politics and stage of economic development. Hence, the tremendous economic growth that Pacific Rim countries had achieved – the most effective means of eliminating poverty and enhancing the basic human right of having a meaningful standard of living – were overlooked. East Asian countries such as South Korea and Taiwan which followed the Japanese model of economic development (one dominant political party without turnover of government) were considered to be undemocratic until the late 80s because of their dominant one-party system, and thus they bore the brunt of America’s diplomatic discontent. Especially during the Cold War, these countries were heavily dependent on America for their security and trade. But under American diplomatic pressure exerted through its promotion of democracy and human rights, these countries gradually liberalized their political systems to allow for more active opposition.

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This strategy worked in some cases such as South Korea and Japan, but less so in North Korea and Vietnam. The U.S. may realize only too late that it does not have much leverage over China.47 Policies built upon promotion of democracy and human rights can prove to be even disastrous at a time when a new balance of power is emerging in the Pacific Rim.

Changing relations with Vietnam In July 1995, Vietnam joined the regional mainstream and became the seventh member of ASEAN. As a consequence, its leaders have put their communist ideology on the backburner.48 Rational decisions based on national interest will be made in its search for economic requirements for existence. As South Korea and Taiwan did during the Cold War, Vietnam will find that it may have to accommodate America’s human rights demands to some extent in return for access to American capital and markets, an absolute necessity for economic progress according to the East Asian experience. China is Vietnam’s greatest threat and oldest enemy, and Vietnam, like most of its ASEAN counterparts, will also welcome a strong American military presence as a counterweight against China. In recent years, Vietnam and China have clashed militarily over the Spratlys – which can be seen as either a potential flashpoint for further military conflict, or a common resource in pursuit of mutual economic cooperation. In addition to the supposedly abundant oil and mineral deposits in the surrounding sea bed, the Spratlys lie astride a major sea route which delivers oil from the Middle East to Japan. Therefore, the claims of Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations to the Spratlys are also strategically significant. They will attempt to deter China from seeking a military solution to resolve the sovereignty of these islands. Economic cooperation among members of this region becomes the more viable option and reduces the likelihood of the U.S. being drawn into a conflict over the Spratlys through its military obligations in the Far East. Although the U.S. has tremendous leverage on Vietnam, it must be careful not to demand emotional back payment by employing the human rights weapon to deliberately destabilize the regime that defeated her during the war. Such actions will impede economic growth and cause domestic hardship which will almost certainly push Vietnam towards an alignment with China, possibly as its junior partner in future contests for mastery over Asia. Vietnam’s strategic

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location in the middle of the world’s most economically buoyant region, and its alliance in a regional balance against China, especially in a contest over the Spratlys, should be reasons enough for the U.S. to pursue moderate policies towards a former enemy.

The North Korean issue Unlike the current leaders of Vietnam, the regime in North Korea is unable or unwilling to adapt or conform to the demands of the postCold War environment. Fearing the loss of political power and not wanting to admit its own political and economic failures to its people, North Korea resorted to self-imposed isolation, and refuses to open its doors to the external world. The North Koreans in their own perverse but rational calculations know that “international respect” and leverage lies in the development of a viable nuclear capability, and in others’ inability to understand them. A small and poor country, it has been pushed into the forefront of international politics because of its strategic location in the Pacific Rim and the havoc it can create for others. Employing the “nuclear card”, North Korea has devised a strategy of blackmail, threatening the stability of the Pacific Rim in return for concessions from its neighbors and the U.S. It has even threatened to engulf Japan in the next Korean War which could include the employment of nuclear weapons.49 As seen from the 1994 crisis that was resolved by the timely intervention of President Jimmy Carter, the North Korean strategy appears to be working, as the U.S. has chosen to accommodate North Korea in return for its compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The more hawkish among the American foreign policy experts may argue that accommodation is a weak and passive strategy, and does not resolve the crux of the problem. There is no assurance that North Korea does not currently possess nuclear weapons, and if it does, the present regime will certainly not surrender them. Diplomatic accommodation may be the best option as it does not push the North Koreans towards war. It assures stability in the region by accepting the regime in North Korea no matter how irksome or “evil” it may be. The economic option of embargo is ineffective on a closed and stagnant economy, and would be openly hostile in nature. It could backfire, plunging the crisis to a more dangerous level, as further economic hardship destabilizes the current regime which will then seek to externalize its problem by wreaking havoc in the entire region. The military option is too risky as the North Koreans, when cornered, could

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and might resort to the use of nuclear weapons even at the expense of their own destruction, as an act of desperation. In return for regional stability, the U.S. has acknowledged the right of weaker pariah nations to exist, and recognized its own desire for total solutions to all world problems as unrealistic and costly. Thus it has shown the first signs of adaptability to the post-Cold War environment.

The China factor Unfortunately, the U.S. has not shown similar accommodation and adaptability towards China in the post-Cold War era. By continually chastising China for its authoritarian government and human rights abuses, the U.S., despite its claims to having a policy of engagement, has instead pursued in effect a Cold War policy of containment against China.50 Unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, however, China has an expanding market-based economy and a collapsing and self-contradicting communist ideology which even their own leaders cannot properly define. This is evidenced by the “one country, two systems” charade it has conjured up with respect to its scheduled governance of Hong Kong after 1997, and its reunification designs over Taiwan. Today, China appears to be the new enemy with whom the U.S. is waging a new Cold War.51 A myriad of issues ranging from human rights, trade, Taiwan, to the protection of intellectual property rights have precipitated a series of confrontations between China and the U.S.52 The most recent incident concerned Taiwanese President Lee Teng Hui’s visit to the U.S., which from Beijing’s standpoint, according to David Shambaugh, “has breached its greatest sensitivity – Taiwan.”53 The same perception of China’s ferocious reaction to this incident was also provided by former Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, who further warned that China considers any U.S. interference over the issue of Taiwan (as well as Tibet) a hostile act against Chinese national unity. Despite experiencing the greatest economic boom in its entire history, according to Lee, “China will risk war for national unity” and “damn the consequences.”54 Jiang Zemin, the president of China, has reiterated many times two stringent conditions in China’s dealings with Taiwan: that talks between the two governments can be conducted only on the basis of eventual reunification, and that China retains the right to use force should Taiwan declare independence.55 Unwittingly, as with Korea and Vietnam during the Cold War, the U.S. has again stepped on the toes of Third World nationalism in the Pacific

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Rim, and confused ideology with more basic and vital national interests. Taiwan’s remarkable transition towards democratization has clouded the eyes of China specialists in the State Department and Congress,56 who, plagued by a disturbed conscience over the betrayal of Taiwan during détente, are even toying with the idea of pushing for a resolution to give Taiwan a seat in the UN.57 In backing and using Taiwan to confront China, America may well be dragged by its moralist ideology into an escalating armed conflict, or at least a renewed Cold War, centering on the sovereignty of Taiwan. Before the U.S. settles on its present China strategy, it should consider if it is willing to entertain war against China in the defense of Taiwan’s continued sovereignty. From the perspective of America’s national interest and that of the rest of the Pacific Rim, defined in real economic and military security terms, the answer should be an emphatic no. Given the current and even projected state of the Chinese vis-a-vis the U.S. military, there is no doubt that the U.S. can defeat the Chinese militarily, but most likely at a much higher price than in Vietnam. Any foreign policy which will not or cannot be backed up credibly by the use of force is ultimately doomed. Hence, the future stability and security of the Pacific Rim hinges on the evolution of America’s foreign policy towards China. Very likely, the “growing pains” of China will be the most destabilizing event that the Pacific Rim will face at the turn of the next century.58 All countries in the Pacific Rim, especially Japan and ASEAN states, are unanimous in wanting the U.S. to remain engaged in the region to counterbalance the rise of China.59 The most suitable strategy for the U.S. in dealing with the Chinese is one based on realpolitik. It calls for the recognition of China as the center of power in the Pacific Rim, and as an equal in addressing world problems responsibly and rationally. Due to China’s extreme sensitivity, the U.S. should be more subtle and moderate in its dealings with Taiwan. It should also incorporate the other centers of power in the Pacific Rim – Japan and Russia – in its balance of power against China. Japan has tremendous economic leverage over China through its trade of high technology equipment, economic investment, and aid.60 Russian arms are the biggest source of armaments for the Chinese build-up and modernization of its military. According to The Economist, “the growing links between China and Russia seem unmatched in their number and intimacy.”61 Such a proposed balance of power is reminiscent of 19th century European politics and is most suitable for maintaining stability and security in the post-Cold War environment.62

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The most appropriate strategy for the future stability and security of the Pacific Rim, and the preservation of America’s own preeminent position in the world as the only remaining superpower, is the hitherto failed American foreign policy of the Cold War – détente. Built on a concept of balance of power, it was promoted by Kissinger under the Nixon administration as the U.S. reached out to the Soviet Union to resolve problems in world affairs. Applied to the Pacific Rim in the post-Cold War era, it calls for the U.S. to treat other powers in the region as equals, including China. Détente as a foreign policy has always been difficult and short-lived because of America’s moralism which refuses to accommodate what it perceives as ideologically evil. However, given strategic constraints, détente could well be the only viable option.

Conclusion It is not wrong for the U.S. to have its unique traditions and values. There is no denying that American exceptionalism, in seeing itself as a beacon of liberty for the rest of the world, is the source of its strength and even the object of admiration by others. Neither is it wrong for the U.S. to desire that the rest of the world should adopt these traditions and values. What is wrong is the means which the U.S. has chosen to fulfill this desire – an indiscriminate, unilateral, ideological, highly publicized and confrontational approach. It reflects poorly on the ability of American foreign policy to adapt to the new changes evident in the world environment of interdependence. By directly linking trade to human rights, and meddling in the internal politics of the Pacific Rim countries with the aim of ultimately promoting democracy, American foreign policy is openly antagonizing, and is perceived to be threatening the economic development and internal security of these countries. With a non-ideological foreign policy built on realpolitik and driven by regional economic stability, the desired end state of a less aggressive, more cooperative and even democratic China may conceivably be achieved. Such an end state will certainly alleviate the chief current security concerns of the Pacific Rim which are the Spratlys and North Korea and Taiwan. By tying China into the Pacific web of economic interdependence, a solution can be found to the crisis over the Spratlys, with potential gains for American oil companies as well. Further, as possibly North Korea’s only remaining ally in the world, China, assuming its role of a responsible power in the Pacific Rim,

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could hold the key to a permanent solution to the Korean problem. By persuading North Korea’s current regime to give up power and encouraging the leaders to perhaps seek permanent asylum in China, the eventual reunification of Korea, like that of Germany, may therefore not have to be through military means. Although it goes against American moralism in the short term to work with an authoritarian Chinese government, the evolution of East Asian democracies like Taiwan and South Korea has shown that countries closely engaged with the U.S. eventually democratize because of the transfer of political values brought about by economic interdependence and prosperity. By convincing the current Chinese regime that the U.S. has no sinister plan to oust it, China can be encouraged to peacefully follow the East Asian model of economic development, as it no longer has to worry about the U.S. as an ideological and security threat. As in the case of Taiwan and South Korea, both of which were ruled by authoritarian regimes in the recent past, its own internal contradictions would force the democratization of China when a certain level of economic development and affluence is reached. American foreign policy will then have truly shown its adaptability to change. More importantly, through a softer and more subtle approach, and without any bloodshed, American foreign policy will also have achieved America’s desire of sharing its unique socio-economic values with China, the most important country in the Pacific Rim, with wide and long-term implications for stability in this historically volatile region. Notes 1. Walter Lafeber, The American Age, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994): 512. 2. Henry J. Kenny, The American Role in Vietnam and East Asia (New York: Praeger, 1984): 39. 3. Lafeber, p. 711. 4. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994): 809. 5. ibid., p. 810. 6. William T. Tow, Encountering the Dominant Player (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991): 1. 7. Kissinger, p. 474. 8. James A. Nathan & James K. Oliver, United States Foreign Policy and World Order, 4th ed. (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1989): 95. 9. Kissinger, p. 623. 10. ibid., p. 624. 11. ibid., p. 453. 12. Nathan & Oliver, p. 129. 13. Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect – the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995): xvii.

Gary Ang 109 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

Lafeber, p. 502. Kissinger, p. 495. Nathan & Oliver, p. 130. Martin Walker, The Cold War – a history (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1993): 82. John Tierney, Jr., About Face: The China Decision and Its Consequences (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House Publishers, 1979): 11. Nathan & Oliver, p. 322. Lafeber, p. 604. Walker, p. 196. McNamara, p. 323. Kissinger, p. 658. Lafeber, p. 520. Kissinger, p. 632. Lafeber, p. 523. Walker, p. 78. ibid., p. 81. ibid., p. 81. ibid., p. 81. John Bresnan, From Dominoes to Dynamos – the transformation of Southeast Asia (New York: Council of Foreign Relations Press, 1994): 78. ibid. Harry Wu, a one-time resident of China’s labor camps, but now an American citizen and human rights activist, was found guilty of espionage and imprisoned by the Chinese government during his last visit to China. “Southeast Asia’s sweet tooth,” The Economist, 5 August 1995. Nathan & Oliver, p. 75. Nicholas D. Kristof, “The Rise of China,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 72, no. 5 (1993): 59–74. Walker, p. 82. 1995 Information Please Almanac, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994): 387. Jerry F. Hough, “Perilous ties? Economic reform and Russian ‘imperialism’,” Brookings Review, vol. 12, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 4. Harry Harding and Edward Lincoln, “Rivals or Partners?,” Brookings Review, vol. 11, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 7–11. Kristof, p. 78. Kissinger, p. 26. The White House, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995): 7. Graham Fuller, “The Next Ideology,” Foreign Policy, No. 98 (Spring 1995): 145–158. The White House, p. 7. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave – democratization in the late twentieth century (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991): 6. ibid., p. 295. Adrian Karatnycky, “Democracies on the Rise, Democracies at Risk,” Freedom Review, vol. 26, no. 1 (1995): 15–16.

110 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 48. “Vietnam becomes part of ASEAN,” The Singapore Straits Times (Weekly Edition), 5 August 1995. 49. Yossef Bodansky, Crisis in Korea (New York: S.P.I. Books, 1994): 264. 50. “Containing China,” The Economist, 29 July 1995. 51. David Shambaugh, “The United States and China: A New Cold War,” Current History, vol. 94, no. 593 (September 95): 241–247. 52. ibid. 53. ibid. 54. “China will risk war for national unity, says SM Lee,” The Singapore Straits Times (Weekly Edition), 14 October 1995. 55. “Squaring up,” The Economist, 21 October 1995. 56. Shambaugh, 241–242. 57. ibid. 58. Kristof, p. 78. 59. Kissinger, p. 827. 60. Edward Friedman, The Politics of Democratization – Generalizing East Asian Experiences (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995): 83. 61. “Asia’s Arms Race,” The Economist, 20 February 1993. 62. Kissinger, p. 810.

Part III Military-strategic Perspectives

7 U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy in Transition William L. Dowdy

Introduction During the final three decades of the Cold War, U.S. nuclear weapons policy, though nuanced, adjusted for changing circumstances, and regulated to a degree by arms control agreements, was nevertheless consistently based on the fundamental principle of mutual assured destruction (MAD). The then-prevailing condition of vulnerability of each superpower to a devastating nuclear attack or counterattack by the other – and the resulting mutual deterrence – is credited by many analysts for keeping the Cold War “cold” or, at least, non-nuclear. This “balance of terror” was inaugurated in the early 1960s by achievement of nuclear “parity” with the United States by the Soviet Union, and by the development of invulnerable “second strike” capabilities by both superpowers.1 It was underwritten, at least symbolically, a decade later by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty which disallowed comprehensive efforts by either side to achieve (however infeasible) a defensive system against ballistic missile attack, thus perpetuating mutual vulnerability and mutual deterrence. The first 15 years of the Cold War – before MAD was established – were arguably the most dangerous. Even though numbers of nuclear weapons were much smaller (zero on the Soviet side in the beginning), and delivery systems were markedly shorter in range and warhead capacity, neither side was well informed of the capabilities (or intentions) of the other, nor very certain that a preemptory first strike would not be forthcoming. Furthermore, after its extensive demobilization following World War II, the United States came to rely on a strategy of “massive retaliation” to deter communist expansionism. It was only with development of nuclear parity and assured second strike 113

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capabilities on both sides, as well as their consequent mutual vulnerability to catastrophic damage, that the relative stability of MAD was established. The U.S. leadership lacked confidence that Soviet leaders had accepted the underlying assumptions and tacit rules that underlay MAD as a strategic concept. As a consequence, internal debates, doctrine adjustments, and weapons systems deployment issues characterized American nuclear policymaking.2 Nevertheless, it is, in the main, correct to say that American Cold War nuclear strategy was based on deterrence, not defense; on quantitative and qualitative nuclear weapons competition conditioned by arms control agreements; and, especially after the daunting experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis, on confidence building and crisis management measures – all based on the underlying perception and reality of mutual vulnerability to strategic nuclear attack, that is, on MAD. Both the perception and reality began to crumble along with the Berlin Wall in the late 1980s, and with the unraveling of the Soviet Union itself. From the U.S. perspective, the issue of “loose nukes” – the possible breakdown of command and control of nuclear weapons and fissile material – was becoming more worrisome than erosion on the Soviet side of the familiar and somewhat comfortable doctrine of MAD. Another almost contemporaneous series of events – the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the Gulf War of 1991, and the consequent discovery of the advanced Iraqi nuclear weapons development program – was also pivotal to the transition in U.S. nuclear weapons policy theretofore based on MAD. Not only were the basic assumptions of MAD doctrine eroding in the early 1990s, but the realization was also dawning that “horizontal” nuclear proliferation to “rogue states” was emerging as a more serious threat than previously realized. Thus, the end of the Cold War and the revelations of the Gulf War were the watershed events leading directly to reassessments of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and to ongoing transitions in deterrence, arms control, non-proliferation, and counterproliferation doctrines, as we shall see below.

Changes in nuclear deterrence realities The MAD doctrine that prevailed through most of the Cold War and resulted, it is widely believed, in mutual nuclear deterrence was premised on the assumption that each superpower had the will and the assured capability to respond to a nuclear attack (a “first strike”)

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by the other with a counterattack (a “second strike”) that would be so devastating as to eliminate any possible advantage from striking first. This nuclear stand-off – this mutually assured destruction – has variously been described as a mutual suicide pact, as each side holding the other hostage, as “deterrence by (threatened) punishment,” and as analogous to the condition of two scorpions in a bottle. When the Soviet, then Russian, capability to effectively initiate, or respond to, a nuclear attack became highly problematic in the context of chaotic East bloc events of 1989–91, the U.S. and the West were faced with both a danger and an opportunity. The danger was that the Soviets, then the Russians, might lose control of their own nuclear weapons – or that renegade or recalcitrant elements in the military might, through misguided patriotism or hatred of the West, unleash a partial, though still devastating nuclear attack. The possible loss of control of another sort was perhaps less urgent, but ultimately more portentous – the loose nukes problem alluded to above and further examined below. The opportunity was to choreograph a mutual pull-back from the nuclear brinkmanship of MAD – to release the scorpions from the bottle, to tear up the mutual suicide pact. We shall review elements of the choreography first under the rubric of nuclear arms control initiatives, then by reference to nuclear non-proliferation developments, and, finally, in the counterproliferation measures of the last decade or so.

Arms control initiatives By the beginning of the 1990s, there was already a well established track record in the field of nuclear arms control between the superpowers. The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) of 1972, SALT II of 1979, and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) of 1991 were all negotiated with the erstwhile Soviet Union. The two SALT agreements had established caps, respectively, on the numbers of strategic nuclear missiles and on the numbers and types of strategic nuclear forces overall. SALT I had marked the tacit acceptance by both sides of nuclear parity. SALT II established an aggregate limit of 2,250 launch vehicles with several categorical ceilings and subceilings. While SALT II was never ratified by the U.S. Senate, both countries generally adhered to its terms.3

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Serious START talks began in 1985, switching the focus from limiting nuclear weapons to reducing them. START I, signed by Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow in 1991, set into motion the gradual reduction of each side’s strategic nuclear delivery vehicles by about 40 per cent and each side’s nuclear warheads by about 30 per cent. At the time of signing, the number of strategic nuclear warheads on each side exceeded 10,000. The START I objective was to arrive at fewer than 7,000 strategic nuclear warheads in each arsenal.4 The post-Cold War transition in the strategic arms control realm was reflected in the ambitious START II agreement between the first Bush Administration and Russian authorities. Signed in 1993, START II would reduce U.S. and Russian strategic offensive forces to 3,500 deployed warheads each. The Senate approved START II in 1996, and the Russian Duma finally ratified it in April of 2000, although each state had already proceeded with unilateral reductions.5 Meanwhile, in 1992, the U.S. had signed START I with the four Soviet successor republics then retaining nuclear weapons, namely Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakstan. In 1996, Russia became the only START process negotiating partner when Belarus joined Ukraine and Kazakstan in removing the last former Soviet nuclear weapons from their territories and transferring them to Russia.6 The SALT/START process addressed only strategic nuclear weapons systems – defined as such primarily by their range and yield. Special provisions were thus necessary to ameliorate the threat of so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons. In 1991, the U.S. invited the Soviet Union to join it in removing tactical weapons from the field. The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PINs) of that year resulted in the removal of huge numbers of tactical nukes from operational deployment to central storage areas in Russia and the U.S. “At the time, unilateral measures were the only way to achieve a critical goal simply and quickly. No complicated verification was required, nor was any formal legislation sought.”7 Another category of nuclear weapons had earlier been reduced outside of the START process, namely intermediate range nukes. The so-called Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed on 8 December 1987, stipulating dismantlement of a total of 4,000 intermediate range missiles within three years.8 As each side continued to implement the terms of START II, the Clinton Administration in August 1999 entered into discussions with Russia to begin drafting START III with the goal of committing

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the parties to no more than 2,000–2,500 strategic nuclear weapons deployed on each side. The presidential election of 2000 that resulted in a new Bush Administration brought a shift in nuclear weapons arms control policy. Republican administrations have typically been less friendly to arms control measures in general, and to strategic arms control measures specifically, in the belief that unilateral disadvantages to the U.S. might result, or that U.S. security options and prerogatives might be compromised. There has also been an abundance of skepticism among detractors of the arms control process that resulting agreements are almost impossible to verify. Whatever the reasons, the second Bush Administration proved unenthusiastic about methodically pursuing the SALT III negotiating process. Though assiduously cultivating a personal relationship with President Vladimir Putin, President George W. Bush has shown a tendency to proceed unilaterally on strategic arms control and other international security issues. “Bush has said that he intends to reduce the U.S. longrange nuclear arsenal to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads over the coming decade regardless of whether Russia reciprocates. Putin has said Moscow would be willing to reduce to 1,500 warheads but has insisted that the U.S. and Russian reductions be made legally binding so the commitments would remain after he and Bush leave office.”9 As of this writing, Presidents Bush and Putin during a May 2002 Moscow Summit have just signed a three-page agreement to reduce their arsenals to 1,700–2,200 deployed strategic nuclear warheads by the year 2012. No interim timetable for reductions was specified. Nor does the treaty require that any warheads be dismantled or destroyed, meaning they can be placed in storage for possible future reactivation.10 “Russia had made no bones about its wish to have a different sort of arms-control treaty: one that would lock America and Russia into the sort of detailed, step-by-step mutual arms cuts exemplified by the earlier START I and START II agreements and make them, in Putin’s term, ‘irreversible’.”11 U.S. insistence on the right of both parties to store warheads in reserve was said to be particularly worrying to the Russians, who vowed to keep their own reserve if the Pentagon does.12 Whether, as a practical matter, the Russians can afford to do so is another matter. As we shall see below, the U.S. Government intention to retain a strategic nuclear weapons reserve almost certainly has less to do with the central strategic balance with the Russians than with new realities in the international security environment.

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Non-proliferation developments The decade or so since the end of the Cold War has registered, from the U.S. perspective, both positive and negative developments on the nuclear non-proliferation front. As noted above, Ukraine, Kazakstan, and Belarus have given up their nuclear weapons arsenals. So too has South Africa. Two other states, Argentina and Brazil, have mutually agreed to terminate their nuclear weapons research programs.13 Arguably, the most constructive non-proliferation accomplishment of the period was the indefinite extension without conditions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference in New York, to which over 170 governments sent representatives. By 1998, over 180 non-nuclear states were parties to the NPT.14 The original 25-year treaty was signed for the U.S. by the Johnson administration in 1968 and ratified under President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. The NPT had sufficient ratifications to go into effect in 1970, thus extending its initial life until 1995. The NPT is widely viewed as the centerpiece of the global non-proliferation regime. Under its terms, non-nuclear weapons states pledge to refrain from acquiring nuclear arms, in return for access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and to submit to periodic compliance inspections. For their part, nuclear weapons states that are signatories are committed to reducing their own nuclear arsenals. On the negative side of the non-proliferation ledger, India and Pakistan, both non-signatories of the NPT and theretofore suspected of conducting robust nuclear weapons development programs, each conducted a multi-test series of nuclear explosions in May of 1998. Along with the de facto, but undeclared, nuclear weapons state of Israel, India and Pakistan thus became the seventh and eighth members of the “nuclear club.” The South Asian nuclear detonations were a setback to the global non-proliferation regime and to U.S. foreign policy. President Bill Clinton had signed in 1994 a Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act that provided for severe economic sanctions against any previously undeclared nuclear weapons state conducting nuclear tests. Earlier sanctions directed primarily at Pakistan had also conspicuously failed. Other nuclear weapons aspirant states also drew special attention from Washington in the 1990s: aforementioned Iraq, as well as Iran and North Korea. Iraq’s well advanced nuclear weapons program was systematically dismantled and monitored sporadically under United Nations auspices between 1991 and 1998, when U.N. inspectors were

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finally expelled by Baghdad.15 The status of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program is currently a matter of intense debate and concern. Iran has consistently denied any nuclear weapons aspirations – both it and Iraq are NPT signatories – but Tehran’s efforts to develop a nuclear infrastructure have continued unabated, with conspicuous outside assistance from Russia whose position has been that its aid to Iran is for peaceful development of nuclear energy. Meanwhile, North Korean actions brought Pyongyang and Washington to the brink of hostilities in 1994. The crux of the matter was that the U.S. and the international community had strong suspicions that North Korea, a NPT signatory, was diverting fissile material from its research reactor for use in one or more nuclear devices. An “Agreed Framework” was negotiated between the U.S. and North Korea with the objective of freezing North Korea’s potential for progress toward building nuclear weapons, while satisfying Pyongyang’s immediate needs for energy production.16 Non-proliferation successes notwithstanding, Iraqi, Iranian, North Korean, and possibly other state leaderships are likely to persist in their ambitions to acquire nuclear arms by whatever means possible during the very period when requisite materials, technology, and expertise may have become increasingly available due to the erosion of Russian safeguards. Determined aspirant regimes, if they are willing to spend enough money, sacrifice other goals, and stay the course for a number of years, will most likely be able to obtain nuclear weapons. Parallel development of medium and long-range ballistic missile capabilities by the same ambitious regimes is another worrying dimension of the nuclear proliferation problem. The Clinton administration’s national intelligence estimate of 1995 foresaw “no threat from longrange ballistic missiles [except for those of Russia and China] for at least 15 years.”17 Just three years later, however, a congressionally mandated “Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States,” known also as the Rumsfeld Commission after its chairman, offered far different findings. In a unanimously-approved final report, the bipartisan Commission concluded that “concerted efforts by a number of overtly or potentially hostile nations to acquire ballistic missiles with … nuclear payloads pose a growing threat to the United States, its deployed forces, and its friends and allies. [These nations] would be able to inflict major destruction within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability… . During several of those years, the U.S. might be unaware that such a decision had been made.”18 Just six weeks after the report’s release, on 31 August 1998, North Korea

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launched a three-stage Taepo Dong missile over Japan and 1,000 miles out into the Pacific.19 To the positive and negative nuclear non-proliferation developments cited above must be added one of uncertain consequence, but one, in the judgment of this analyst, clearly adverse to interests of the United States. And the damage, if correctly judged so, is self-inflicted. It was the October 1999 Senate party-line vote to reject the Comprehensive [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 1996. The CTBT seeks to prohibit all nuclear test explosions worldwide, and it establishes a global network of monitoring stations. Opponents of the Treaty in the Senate argued that the monitoring mechanism is flawed and that some signatories might continue to test undetected. Furthermore, they averred, it is in the U.S. interest to preserve the option to selectively test the American nuclear stockpile for safety and reliability of warheads. Supporters of the Treaty, on the other hand, cited a Science Based Stockpile Stewardship (SBSS) system capable of conducting adequate computer-simulated tests on the stockpile without conducting actual explosions. Further, proponents argued that the U.S. was ceding the high moral ground of non-proliferation advocacy, as well as any future leverage over non-signatories that might be tempted to further develop their own nuclear capabilities with testing programs. As of this writing, the CTBT rejection by the U.S. Senate may be described as uncertain in consequence because a 1990–96 agreed nuclear test moratorium has been voluntarily extended to date by the U.N. Security Council permanent five powers, including the United States. It is also possible that the Senate may once again take up the Treaty for ratification, arriving ultimately at a different outcome. To conclude this overview, from the U.S. perspective, of nuclear non-proliferation developments during the last decade or so, the good news is that the “nuclear club” remains surprisingly and encouragingly small – much smaller than most analysts predicted 40–50 years ago. The bad news is that two new, mutually hostile nuclear powers confront each other on the Asian subcontinent, and at least three nuclear weapons aspirant regimes have given few credible signs that they have set aside their ambitions to develop nukes and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Another concern, thus far only implicitly alluded to, is proliferation threats of a different sort – namely, the likelihood that non-state actors may be pursuing their own nuclear weapons ambitions. We shall consider this in the context of our discussion of counterproliferation as a post-Cold War imperative for the United States.

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Counterproliferation The Cold War nuclear calculus based on MAD assumed that deterrence would not fail (though there were several doctrinal variations introduced to slow or halt nuclear escalation short of an all-out nuclear exchange in the unlikely event deterrence did fail20). The expectation of “deterrence stability” during the Cold War was in large part based on a belief in the “rationality” of political leaderships controlling the nuclear arsenals. Moreover, during the Cold War, horizontal nuclear proliferation was extremely rare. The nuclear club remained small (though the nuclear have-not critics pointed out early and often that vertical proliferation was running rampant, contrary to the spirit and substance of the NPT). In sum, deterrence stability was rationally managed (with considerable luck); horizontal nuclear proliferation was virtually non-existent; and (mainly) bilateral arms control agreements eventually brought vertical nuclear proliferation under control.21 After the Cold War, there were congratulations all round that the world had survived perilous times. A “new world order” was heralded. Then came the Gulf War of 1991. The origin of U.S. “counterproliferation” policy can be traced directly to the experiences and revelations of that war. What if Saddam Hussein had waited a year or two before invading Kuwait? And what if he had successfully tested nuclear devices before invading? Would the U.S. and its coalition partners have been deterred from intervening to “save” Kuwait? We now know that Saddam was only one to three years away from developing nuclear weapons.22 The US suspected that he had much larger stocks of chemical and biological agents than previously imagined, and some in weaponized form.23 Serious deficiencies in the U.S. capability to deal with nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) threats were noted in the after-action report on the Gulf War to Congress. The impetus for a formal U.S. counterproliferation policy was initiated in the summer of 1992 when a Defense Science Board study was conducted to examine ways to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In response to the findings of that study, and to implement guidance contained in a Presidential Directive, the then-Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, launched on 7 December 1993 the Defense Counterproliferation Initiative (CPI).24 The CPI called for development of capabilities to deter or to defend against the use of WMD should non-proliferation efforts fail. The goal of the CPI is to make sure that U.S. forces are prepared to operate in an NBC environment. Thus, the threat or use of

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WMD against U.S. forces would not be allowed to deter or defeat the application of American military power in defense of U.S. national interests. Counterproliferation is primarily an American doctrinal concept, still little understood or appreciated by Europeans, who tend to equate it with offensive, preemptory strikes and a sort of cowboy mentality.25 In fact, counterproliferation is much subtler and multifaceted and proceeds from the premise that non-proliferation measures, though essential, often do fail. The question then becomes how to deal with the reality that actual or putative opponents have, or may be developing, weapons of mass destruction. The answer includes a range of options from deterrence, to passive and active defense measures, to counterforce offensive military action.26 Ironically, the demonstration of U.S. conventional military superiority during the Gulf War may have increased the possibility of WMD use against U.S. forces in the future. One commentator at the time of the War famously stated that the lesson for weak countries contemplating a war with the U.S. is that they need to have nuclear weapons. Given the demonstrated U.S. conventional superiority, no potential adversary is likely to attempt to take on the American military forceon-force. Rather, such a potential enemy may judge it necessary to obtain and employ WMD to gain an asymmetrical advantage over conventional U.S. forces. In doing so, it will be gambling that the United States would be “self-deterred” from responding in kind. A variation on the scenario that renders WMD capabilities attractive to ambitious governments is their possible assumption that they might go unpunished for intimidating, or conducting a conventional attack on, a U.S. ally believing that Washington would not honor its defense commitment for fear of provoking, for example, a nuclear attack on a U.S. city. Deterring the putative enemy from acting on the basis of such calculations is really the first objective of counterproliferation policy. The threat of overwhelming conventional force punishment for enemy use of WMD should be sufficient against most “rational” opponents.27 But U.S. officials have not, to the knowledge of this analyst, specifically ruled out a nuclear response to a massive unconventional attack. Notso-veiled threats concerning the “strongest possible” retaliation should Iraq use chemical or biological weapons were delivered by Secretary of State James A. Baker to Deputy Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz before commencement of hostilities with Iraq in 1991.28 President Clinton, in a Presidential Decision Directive on nuclear arms policy issued in November 1997, employed language that would permit U.S. nuclear

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strikes after enemy attacks using chemical or biological weapons.29 While many analysts have argued that such a threat is too disproportionate to be credible, the doubt created in the minds of potential opponents may well serve to strengthen the current U.S. deterrence posture. A recent Bush administration “nuclear posture review” leaked extensively to the press in March 2002 may serve the same purpose of boosting American deterrence credibility. According to one report on the contents of the review, the Pentagon “has expanded its official list of potential nuclear targets to include Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Libya alongside China and Russia. And it is also contemplating developing ‘limited’ nuclear weapons for tactical use, such as blowing up underground stores of chemical weapons.”30 The embarrassing presence of China and Russia on the list, in light of Washington’s efforts to improve relations with those important states, is clear evidence that the planning document was not leaked purposefully by the Administration, but it may nevertheless have had a sobering effect on the minds of the leaders of the countries named. Deterrence by threat of punishment (conventional or nuclear) thus is one pole in the counterproliferation tent. A second pole is defense – of U.S. forces, host countries’ territory and populations, other friends and allies, and, ultimately, of the U.S. homeland. The Persian Gulf is a case in point where the U.S. has vital interests, a troop presence, and valued coalition partners. It is also an arena that includes Iraq and Iran, both nuclear weapons aspirants, and both with ballistic missile inventories. They are also known to have chemical and biological weapons programs. Passive defense against such WMD threats includes chem/bio and radiation detectors, inoculations, special protective suits, decontamination systems, specially designed medical equipment, protection of food and water, etc. Active defense consists of all measures taken to defeat/destroy incoming weapons delivery vehicles – e.g., ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft, saboteurs, etc.). Surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles launched from Army missile batteries, Navy ships, and Air Force planes are examples of active defense capabilities. Such active and passive measures are included under the rubric of counterproliferation in dealing with proliferated WMD. And such defense measures can also be expected to re-enforce deterrence by “denial” of enemy objectives, thus rendering an attack less likely in the first place. The third pole in the counterproliferation tent is the only one that comes to the minds of many of its critics – namely, counterforce attack, to include, in certain special circumstances, preemptive attack.

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The use of bombs, cruise missiles, artillery, air-to-surface missiles, etc. to destroy such targets as missile launchers, WMD stockpiles, command and control capabilities, and so on, is counterproliferation in action. As more states develop long-range ballistic missile capabilities, and as NBC weapons continue to proliferate, the essentially regional threats just exemplified have the potential of soon expanding into threats of global reach. Also portentous are the well-known links between some of these states and international terrorist groups leading to the troubling likelihood that WMD, eventually including even nuclear devices, will come into the hands of sworn enemies. “Several nations hostile to the United States are already engaged in covert programs to develop nuclear weapons, and multinational terrorist groups have demonstrated both by word and deed that their goal is to kill Americans and destroy symbols of American power.”31 The proliferation of WMD and of ballistic missiles of increasing range has led to the revival of a subject that has figured prominently in U.S. national security debates in each of the last three decades – namely, ballistic missile defense. The debate in the 1970s was over the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty – a debate temporarily put to rest with the ratification of the Treaty in 1972 in the name of avoiding destabilization of mutual nuclear deterrence. President Reagan revived the argument in favor of defense over retaliation in a surprise 1983 speech proposing an ambitious Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which came to be known as “Star Wars” and had as its objective development of a comprehensive national missile defense shield to protect the U.S. from even massive attacks. Lack of technological feasibility, enormous projected costs, and the profound implications of such a proposal for U.S.–Soviet relations together dimmed the prospects for SDI, but an active research and development program continued to receive funding. It was as a consequence of the consciousness raising of the 1991 Gulf War, and the presidential and congressional politics of national defense, that once again ballistic missile defense (BMD) in its national missile defense (NMD) variation was placed on the national security agenda in the 1990s. Continuing revelations by UN inspectors regarding Iraq’s WMD programs and periodic North Korean and Iranian missile tests provided external stimuli at propitious moments for advocates. Proponents also received a boost for their argument when, in a 1995 incident, a deteriorating Russian nuclear command and control system went to full alert as a consequence of a Norwegian weather

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rocket launch.32 Accidental attacks based on false warnings thus were added to the list of dangers which a national missile defense system could ameliorate. Three of the more telling arguments against a robust national missile system are: i) its enormous opportunity costs of potentially hundreds of billions of dollars; ii) the potential challenge it represents to the efficacy of Russia’s and China’s deterrence-oriented strategic missile systems, thus greatly complicating America’s bilateral relations with those key states; and iii) its almost total irrelevance to terrorist WMD threats. It seems likely that all three factors – especially the potential toll on other high priority defense budget items – will militate in favor of a “thin” national missile defense system. It also seems likely that theater missile defense (TMD) may draw funds away from NMD for the good reasons that it is more urgently needed now and because the TMD technology, already fairly well-developed, may some day be morphed into a national missile defense system.33 Evidence supporting this likely convergence of the two system “architectures” (TMD and NMD) exists in the Bush Administration’s proposal for a new, layered BMD architecture that would combine theater level and national level missile defenses into one integrated network, ultimately to defend during launch, mid-course, and terminal phases of ballistic missile attack. The 2002 budget request included $8.3 billion for both national and theater missile defense research programs; moreover, the Pentagon no longer differentiates between the two, referring to all systems simply as “missile defenses” or “ballistic missile defenses.”34 Finally, removing all doubt regarding its level of commitment to BMD research and development, the Bush Administration in December of 2001 gave the requisite six-month notice of U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty, one of the cornerstones of the MAD doctrine. The full scope of the debate over NMD is well beyond the objectives of this chapter. However, NMD requires mention in the context of any discussion of counterproliferation as the likely strategic-level response to the proliferation of WMD and long-range ballistic missiles.

Conclusion It is apparent from the foregoing discussion of U.S. deterrence, arms control, non-proliferation, and counterproliferation initiatives of the 1990s that the decade after the Cold War has been a transitional period for U.S. nuclear weapons policy. It would be surprising were it not so.

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The international security environment has changed significantly since 1991. The most apparent consequent change in U.S. nuclear weapons policy has been the actual and projected reductions in the size of the American strategic nuclear arsenal. This “build down” has proceeded with a discernible trend away from the Cold War days of protracted, excruciating arms control negotiations, in favor of cooperative, expeditious, and, in many cases, informal agreements with an increasingly tractable Russian government, heir to all of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons and associated costs and challenges. The most significant change in U.S. nuclear weapons policy is the shift away from exclusive reliance on deterrence by (threatened) punishment to deterrence based on both punishment and denial – that is, on both offense and defense. The United States has been committed by successive Administrations during the past decade to develop ballistic missile defenses against both theater (TMD) and intercontinental (NMD) threats. The most portentous prospective change is revival and/or development by the U.S. of so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons for possible use in both deterrent and warfighting roles in regional theaters – as deterrents against opponents’ resorting to weapons of mass destruction, including biological and chemical weapons, and for warfighting in the event deterrence fails, with the objective of incinerating WMD arsenals and delivery systems. Past contingency planning contemplated possible use of “battlefield nukes,” to add time-buying rungs to the escalatory ladder in the erstwhile face-off between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Europe. But current contingency planning apparently contemplates use of “limited” nuclear weapons against both nuclear and non-nuclear states that have attacked U.S. troops and allies with weapons of mass destruction including biological, and even chemical, weapons. One theoretical approach to such a threatened or actual attack would be to deter and respond in kind, but the U.S. has not had a biological weapons program since the Nixon Administration, and it is committed to the destruction of all remaining chemical weapons under terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention, effective in 1997. Another alternative to tactical nukes for deterrence and counterforce uses is the current orthodoxy of reliance on overwhelming conventional capabilities to deter the use of WMD by the enemy, and to punish such use if necessary. Maintaining robust, state of the art conventional forces will become more problematic if a large proportion of

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the defense budget is earmarked to national missile defense.35 The third alternative U.S. response in the face of the threatened or actual use of weapons of mass destruction by regional hegemons is, of course, to depart the theater (or never to arrive at all) – that is, to be deterred from pursuit of national interests in certain neighborhoods because the potential cost is too high. Such a decision ultimately turns on a yet-to-be finalized post-Cold War American national security strategy. That we are still calling contemporary times “the post-Cold War period” is indicative in itself that the transition to a new strategic era remains unfinished. Will the new era be one of “pax Americana” or of U.S. retrenchment? Will it feature a “clash of civilizations” or a clash between civilization itself and global terrorism? Will it be marked more by economic and political integration or by economic and political disintegration? More by U.S. unilateralism or multilateralism? Current U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, observed recently that “our challenge in the new century is a difficult one: to defend our nation against the unknown, the uncertain, the unseen, and the unexpected.” As a consequence, he continued, “we … decided to move away from the old ‘threat-based’ strategy … and adopt a new ‘capabilities-based’ approach – one that focuses less on who might threaten us, or where, and more on how we might be threatened and what is needed to deter and defend against such threats.”36 So far, the prospective nuclear deterrence and defense capabilities seem likely to reside in fewer strategic nuclear weapons; more ballistic missile defense assets; and enhanced power projection forces of high lethality, including some armed with tactical nuclear weapons in the face of regional WMD threats. Notes 1. An early U.S. attempt to obtain a second strike capability was to keep some nuclear weapons-laden bombers aloft at all times. The assured invulnerability of second strike retaliatory capabilities was later achieved by development and deployment of submerged ballistic missile submarines. 2. The Soviets were thought to be interested in developing nuclear “warfighting” capabilities rather than relying solely on nuclear deterrence. As a consequence, the U.S. developed “flexible response,” “countervailing strategy,” and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) stationed in Europe, to give Presidents options other than simply massive nuclear retaliation. 3. SALT II was withdrawn by President Carter from Senate consideration after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. President Reagan breached the treaty’s ceiling on cruise missiles on bombers in the mid-1980s, but adhered to other provisions. See Richard Smoke, “Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties,”

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4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

in The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993): 883–84. Ibid. See also Baker Spring and James H. Anderson, “Missile Defense,” in Issues 2000: The Candidate’s Briefing Book, eds. Stuart M. Butler and Kim R. Holmes (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, 2000): 550–51. Ibid., p. 540. On the Duma’s ratification, see Jack Mendelson, “America, Russia, and the Future of Arms Control,” Current History 100 (October 2000): 327. The U.S. was proactive in helping Russia remove nuclear weapons and fissile materials from Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakstan with Cooperative Threat Reduction Funds (“Nunn-Lugar funds”). According to former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, “by April 1996, 4,000 nuclear weapons had been decommissioned and dismantled under this program. One of Nunn-Lugar’s most dramatic achievements was the secret initiative called ‘Project Sapphire’,” that resulted in the airlift to the United States of “600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, enough for several dozen nuclear weapons … . We moved it to a secure facility … , forever out of the reach of thieves, smugglers, and black marketers.” (See William J. Perry, “US Counterproliferation Efforts: Prevent, Deter, Defend,” in Pulling Back from the Nuclear Brink: Reducing and Countering Nuclear Threats, eds. Barry R. Schneider and William L. Dowdy [London: Frank Cass, 1998]: 271.) Mendelson, “America, Russia, and the Future of Arms Control,” p. 328. Barbara A. Bardes, Mack C, Shelley, and Steffen W. Schmidt, American Government and Politics Today, 2002–2003 ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002): 505. The Center for Defense Information estimated in a 2000 report that the U.S. still had an inventory of 4,700–11,700 “nonstrategic” (tactical) nuclear weapons and Russia had 7,000–15,500. (Data presented in William Nester, International Relations [Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2001]: 257.) Associated Press, “U.S. Officials Try to Finish Accord,” Montgomery (AL) Advertiser, 2 May 2002, p. 5A. As of 2002, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace estimated the number of U.S. “strategic” nuclear warheads at 6,144 and Russian at 5,814. (Warhead data cited in “A Farewell to Arms,” The Economist, 18 May 2002, p. 30.) James Carney, “Our New Best Friend?” Time Magazine, 27 May 2002, p. 44. “A Farewell to Arms,” The Economist, p. 29. Carney, “Our New Best Friend?” p. 44. On the Ukraine case, see William C. Martel, “Why Ukraine Gave Up Nuclear Weapons: Nonproliferation Incentives and Disincentives”; on South Africa, see David Albright, “Nuclear Rollback: Understanding South Africa’s Denuclearization Decision”; and, on Argentina and Brazil, see John R. Redick, “Factors in the Decisions by Argentina and Brazil to Accept the Non-Proliferation Regime,” all in Pulling Back from the Nuclear Brink, eds. Schneider and Dowdy, pp. 88–104, 80–87, and 67–79. William H. Baugh, United States Foreign Policy Making: Process, Problems, and Prospects (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt College Publishers): 597. See David A. Kay, “Detecting Cheating on Nonproliferation Regimes: Lessons from Our Iraqi Experience,” and Robert L. Gallucci, US Nonproliferation Policy: Lessons Learned from Our Experience with Iraq and North Korea,” both in Pulling Back from the Nuclear Brink, eds. Schneider

William L. Dowdy 129 and Dowdy, pp. 16–35 and 3–15. 16. See Gallucci, ibid. 17. Cited in Mark A. Ruse, “Reflections on the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty and National Missile Defense,” Aerospace Power Journal 16 (Spring 2002): 70. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. See note 2, above. 21. As most readers will have inferred, “horizontal proliferation” is the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states (or non-state actors), whereas “vertical proliferation” connotes an increase in the size of the arsenals of existing nuclear weapons states. 22. On this point, see Gallucci, “U.S. Nonproliferation Policy,” 7, and Kay, “Detecting Cheating on Nonproliferation Regimes,” p. 17. 23. See the U.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center web site for extensive information on chemical and biological weapons programs in Iraq and elsewhere: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-cps.htm. 24. This account of the origins of U.S. counterproliferation policy is based on a USAF Air Staff document obtained at the following web site: http://www. au.af.mil/au/awcgate/xon/definition.htm. 25. On this point see, for example, Oliver Thranert’s essay on the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung web site: http://library.fes.de/fulltext/id/00714001.htm. 26. The U.S. Department of Defense document setting out the parameters of the Counterproliferation Initiative is “Proliferation: Threat and Response.” Successive iterations of that document have been signed off by Secretaries of Defense Perry and Cohen, the latter in November 1997. Copies are available from the U.S. Government Printing Office or on the following web site: http//www.defenselink.mil/pubs/prolif97/message.html. 27. Several points may be made regarding assumptions of “rationality.” i) Rationality may be highly ethnocentric. ii) Today’s rational leader or rational government may behave irrationally under great stress tomorrow – or may be overthrown. iii) The leadership of certain states or religiously-motivated terrorist groups may be irrational in their ends/means analysis and cost/benefit calculations. The threat of (even disproportionate) retaliation may not be sufficient to deter such decision makers. That is why counterproliferation also includes denial (defense) strategies and, ultimately, destruction (counterforce) strategies. One interesting proposal for enhancing deterrence and denial strategies is what Paula A. DeSutter calls “deterrence by jeopardy.” This involves identifying highest value targets of a putative enemy, then placing them at grave risk. See her Denial and Jeopardy: Deterring Iranian Use of NBC Weapons (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1997), especially the introductory chapter. 28. On this point, see William L. Dowdy and Barry R. Schneider, “On to Baghdad? Or Stop at Kuwait? A Gulf War Question Revisited,” Defense Analysis 13 (December 1997): 319. 29. See USAF Air Staff document set forth in note 24, above, page 6 of 8. 30. “What’s New?” The Economist, 16 March 2002, p. 35. 31. William J. Perry, “Preparing for the Next Attack,” Foreign Affairs 80 (November/December, 2001): 32.

130 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 32. Peter J. Boyer, “When Missiles Collide,” The New Yorker, 11 September 2000, p. 45. 33. All three U.S. military services have pursued TMD research and development throughout the 1990s. For example, the Army’s Patriot system is now fielded in its third generation (PAC-3), and the Army is working on a theater high-altitude area defense (THAAD) system. The Navy’s area and theater wide (NTW) system has shown promise. And the Air Force is conducting R&D on an airborne laser (ABL). 34. Philip E. Coyle and John B. Rhinelander, “National Missile Defense and the ABM Treaty: No Need to Wreck the Accord,” World Policy Journal 18 (Fall 2001): 17. (Slower moving, smaller, shorter-range cruise missiles are another threat category not addressed in this article or this chapter.) 35. Moreover, since 1985, total U.S. military personnel have been reduced from 2.1 million to 1.4 million. (Bardes, et al., American Government and Politics Today, p. 497.) 36. Donald H. Rumsfeld, “Transforming the American Military,” Foreign Affairs 81 (May/June 2002): 23–4.

8 Transitional Perspectives on Conventional, Chemical and Biological Weapons Production Bradley S. Davis

“The end of the Cold War does not mean the end of political, ideological, diplomatic, economic, technological, or even military rivalry among nations. It does not mean the end of the struggle for power and influence. It very probably does mean increased instability, unpredictability, and violence in international affairs.” Samuel Huntington On 9 November 1989, the world watched in eerie fascination as citizens of both East and West Germany tore the Berlin Wall down, but we failed to appreciate the full ramifications the beginning of this new era would have for us all. The collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany, and the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics set a new political and military landscape the U.S. had worked to accomplish for forty-five years, but upon whose arrival we were singularly unprepared to acknowledge or accept. The focus of the U.S. defense establishment during the Cold War was oriented on the superpower conflict, with only infrequent perturbations caused by regional conflicts. Our strategic and conventional forces and systems were based on deterrence of a conventional “slugfest”, potentially evolving into a thermo-nuclear Armageddon with the Soviet Union. With the threat of the USSR now evaporated, the U.S. is struggling politically, economically, and militarily with the critical decisions of what to maintain, retire and develop in our present arsenal. This chapter will focus on the U.S.’s conventional arms, and its chemical weapons/biological weapons programs in the Cold War period and how, if any, perceptual changes brought on by the post-Cold War 131

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period are affecting these weapons. In addition, the effects of this shift in the world’s political power base on the U.S.’s international conventional weapons exports will be discussed.

The Cold War era Conventional weapons When discussing conventional weapons during the Cold War period (defined in this analysis as those weapon systems not specifically designed to solely deliver a nuclear weapon) there are several factors to be taken into consideration. The focus of our conventional weapons, whether major systems (ships, tanks, planes) or small arms, reflected superpower tensions. The U.S. recognized early the inability to match quantitatively one-for-one in armaments with the Soviets, so the emphasis was put into qualitative superiority to compensate for the numerical mismatch. This also manifested itself into a roller-coaster arms race characterized by both sides always attempting to go one step farther and better in their conventional abilities. Another consideration, due to our alliances (NATO, SEATO, etc.) and an aggressive commercial arms industry, our domestic weapons production was closely tied to exports to other countries (matched just as aggressively by the Soviets to their client states.) The final factor affecting U.S. conventional weapons procurement was the ever increasing pace of technological advancement. Although this chapter does not allow for the detailed analysis of conventional weapons production numbers, we can make inferences based on a review of military budgets over the years. Three times since 1945, military spending has shot up during a war or major crisis. The subsequent fall in expenditures was always modest by comparison. In 1950 the U.S. spent $14.5 billion on its entire military complex, but this increased by 278 per cent to $40.4 billion by 1955, influenced considerably by our participation in the Korean conflict. From this point until 1965 there was only minimal growth to $51.8 billion due in part to inflation. The next five years though, reflected the U.S.’s huge investment in Vietnam, jumping about 150 per cent to $77.9 billion. The next six to seven years saw a leveling off of the outlays, inflation again causing most of the gradual increases, along with the impact of détente with the Soviets. By 1979 the Department of Defense’s (DoD) budget was at $122.3 billion. The budget submission by President Jimmy Carter covering the 1980–1985 period projected an annual

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increase of over 4 per cent, reflecting the growing concern of the Soviets’ relentless pursuit of a clear military superiority over the U.S. This fear was expressed eloquently by President Ronald Reagan and reflected by the defense budgets during his two terms in office. From 1980 to 1986 defense expenditures doubled to almost $283 billion. Unable to economically maintain this growth, coupled with warming U.S.–Soviet relations, budgets contracted slowly until the end of the Cold War, not even maintaining growth for inflationary purposes.1 A related aspect to U.S. conventional arms expenditures is the export value of major weapons to the Third World countries during the period 1950–1989. Very few countries in the Third World during this span of years had the ability to provide for themselves other than the simplest of conventional arms. During the supercharged U.S.–USSR Cold War confrontation, these countries were the benefactors of American and Soviet largesse. This 40-year span saw either the U.S. or Soviet Union as the number one supplier to these countries. The U.S. dominated the number one position from 1950–1969, the Soviets took over in the following 20 years.2 The growing numbers and sophistication of conventional weapons moving around the world began to finally alarm the U.S. government. In May 1977, President Carter declared his intention to pursue a conventional weapons policy with three provisions: one, a unilateral U.S. arms export restraint; two, negotiations with other major suppliers of arms; and three, encouragement of regional restraint in the recipient areas. The U.S. initiated four rounds of Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) talks with the Soviets, hoping the Soviets would be agreeable to a broad framework for arms transfer restraints and the specific measures to implement such restraints by the end of 1978. A deadlock pushed the issue back to the June 1979 Vienna summit between President Carter and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, but CAT unfortunately seems to have played practically no part during this heads of state meeting. Ultimately, these much anticipated talks ended in failure because of the pressures brought to bear by the American arms industry at a time of low procurement budgets, and because of the renewed chilly relations between the superpowers at this time.3 Although the CAT talks failed to secure an agreement, one other conventional agreement to which the U.S. was a major participant was the “Convention on the Prohibition or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects” (CCW). The CCW

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was opened for signature in April 1981 and entered into force in 1983. Three protocols were agreed to in the initial treaty. Protocol I prohibits the use of any weapon where the primary effect is to injure by fragments which escape detection from X-rays in the human body. Protocol II restricts the use of mines, booby traps and “other devices”, and aims at preventing or at least reducing civilian casualties caused by these devices during and after hostilities. Protocol III bans the use of incendiary weapons in direct attacks on civilian populations. It further prohibits the placement of military objectives within a concentration of civilians. Despite the lack of verification procedures, the CCW was considered as a qualified achievement since it referred to specific weapons and it struck a balance between humanitarian imperatives and military necessity. However, it is unfortunate the protocol on mines has proven totally ineffective; witness the blatant use today of millions of mines throughout the former Yugoslavia, itself a signatory of the CCW in 1983.4 Still a viable agreement, the U.S. has championed several proposals at a CCW Review Conference in Vienna to strengthen the treaty’s loopholes. Chemical and biological weapons Since the end of World War II, the U.S.’s CW/BW program has evolved through three distinct phases. The first lasted from the end of the war until the late 1960s, during which an active CW/BW program was pursued. The late 1960s through the late 1970s was a period characterized by efforts towards chemical and biological disarmament, and which military activity in this area declined. Finally, from the late 1970s until the end of the Cold War, the military’s interest in CW/BW revived, somewhat in direct contradiction with its own efforts at chemical disarmament. The Chemical Weapons Convention defines chemical weapons as “those toxic chemicals and their precursors, munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other harm through the toxic properties of those toxic chemicals.” Toxic chemicals are those substances which through chemical action on life processes may bring about death, temporary incapacitation or permanent injury to humans or animals. A precursor is any chemical reactant found at any time during the production, by whatever method, of a toxic chemical.5 Biological warfare agents (such as bacteria, viruses and rickettsia), are uniquely different from CW. The United Nations defines these as living organisms, or infective material derived from them, no matter what their structure, with the express intention to cause disease or death in

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man, animals, or plants, and their effects are derived upon their ability to multiply in the person, animal, or plant attacked.6 Both chemical and biological weapons, however, share the capability of inflicting considerable disruptive and indiscriminate damage on civilians and military forces. Biological warfare agents are more potent on a weight for weight basis than their chemical agent counterparts.7 The UN received testimony from a panel of chemical and biological experts concerning the lethality cost of various weapons. Their findings stated that over a square kilometer, the same relative number of casualties by weapon cost would be about $2,000 for a conventional weapon, for a nuclear weapon the cost is more than halved to $800, chemical weapons are not much cheaper at $600, but that the best buy for casualties are biological weapons with a cost of only one dollar.8 After World War II, American chemical weapons programs were focused primarily on the development and production of new types of CW agents without concurrent development of munitions delivery systems. The agents developed and stockpiled during the war had lost whatever attractiveness they once enjoyed, and by the 1960s the agents of choice were sarin and VX, and to some extent mustard gas. Production of these agents increased American stockpiles into the thousands of tons. While the U.S. had vast amounts of the very latest chemical agents, development of advanced munitions to deliver the agents had not kept pace since the war period. The realization finally dawned on the American military that further development of newer agents was useless if the delivery systems were not capable of maximizing their lethality. So for the next few years the emphasis shifted to developing a new range of CW delivery vehicles; to include missiles, artillery shells, and airborne delivery devices.9 During the Vietnam conflict the U.S. used a variety of defoliants, or herbicides to clear the dense jungle foliage the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers used for concealment. U.S. military forces extensively used the tear gas, CS, to drive the enemy out of their underground tunnels.10 The offensive or “first use” employment of these weapons by the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, and then in the 1980s by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan established a critical precedent in the eyes of the world, especially the Third World. It granted a legitimacy to these weapons, to their ownership and use, by the very same superpowers who were vehemently declaring for their banishment. This “do as I say, not as I do” attitude by the U.S. and USSR did not sit well in the world’s political arena.

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The 1970s and 1980s saw the continued development of advanced CW delivery systems, including multiple rocket launchers and cluster bomblets. As these new munitions were produced attention again shifted back to further research for newer and ever more lethal chemical agents. The late 1980s saw the development and production of deadly binary chemical weapons. While the weapon system to deliver the agents was rather difficult to produce, the binary chemical agents themselves were rather unique and simple. The toxic agent was formed by the combination of two inert chemical precursors, which by themselves were relatively harmless. When the weapon system delivered the two compounds to the target they were combined to form the debilitating agent. By the end of the decade, the U.S. Army had requested additional funding for the continued and increased production of binary weapon systems and the development of two new agents. These would include agents able to circumvent gas masks and other protective clothing, and another called “knock-out gas” which was quick acting, non-lethal, and lasting only a short time. Ironically, at the same time the U.S. was developing CW, their destruction was also underway. In the late 1970s a destruction facility had been built, methods tested, and the long process initiated to destroy older CW at the Army’s Toole storage facility in Utah. Another site was constructed at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas in 1988 to destroy the U.S.’s stock of the agent BZ, completing this process by the end of 1989. Finally, in anticipation of a much larger effort to destroy our chemical stockpiles, a facility was built and tested on the Johnston Atoll in the south Pacific. Despite grave environmental concerns expressed by Greenpeace about toxic leaks, and that the incineration technique used at Johnston Atoll could lead to toxic emissions, the facility was on-line and ready to begin destruction by the end of the 1990s. The entire focus of the U.S.’s BW program after World War II until its demise in 1969 was to deter the use of BW against the U.S. and to retaliate if that deterrence failed (an echo of the U.S. nuclear deterrence policy). The period from 1946 to 1950 saw limited research into protective measures from BW attack. Although small scale outdoor testing was started, no production was carried out. The mid-1950s saw BW production begin at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, as well as experimental vaccine research undertaken using human volunteers. The U.S. Army also experimented on non-volunteers during this period when it dispersed live, non-pathogenic agents in the New York City subway system. This was accomplished in order to test the utility and ease of executing an

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anthrax attack in an urban situation.11 The 1960s saw the continuation and limited expansion of our BW program to include incapacitating agent development. In an unprecedented unilateral action, President Richard M. Nixon in 1969 renounced the U.S.’s offensive biological weapons program, “Mankind already carries in its own hand too many of the seeds of its own destruction. The United States shall renounce the use of biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare.”12 One year later he announced the dismantlement of preparations for their use, and between May 1971 and May 1972, all existing anti-personnel BW stockpiles were destroyed. Despite the U.S.’s renunciation of its BW program, the threat still existed, and the U.S. still maintains to this day a defensive BW program as a deterrent. The two objectives for this defensive effort include developing and fielding adequate levels of protection for U.S. military forces that might face BW. The second objective is create a visible deterrent to potential use through this defensive program, the key reason for the establishment of the Biological Defense Research Program (BDRP). From its beginnings, the openness and transparency of the BDRP effort has been its strength. Activities include annual unclassified reports of its efforts and costs, cooperative medical research with other countries, and civil public health programs. So successful has the BDRP been that the second review conference to the Biological Weapons Convention recommended all other countries develop the same level of transparency and openness as the U.S. program displays. President Nixon’s unilateral decision to terminate the U.S.’s BW program greatly facilitated the long awaited completion in 1972 of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, commonly referred to as the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). This follow-on agreement to the 1925 Geneva Protocol was co-signed by 103 nations. This precedent-setting treaty was the first multilateral arms control agreement crafted to eventually eliminate a complete category of weaponry. The co-signers agreed, never to develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain microbial or other biological agents or toxins, whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes; and weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict.13

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The agreement took effect in March 1975, and has considerably helped lessen global concerns over the development and use of BW. But the BWC is far from perfect and it still has some very serious flaws, the inability to verify compliance with the treaty protocols is its most debilitating flaw.

The Post-Cold War period Conventional weapons When President Bill Clinton took office, then Secretary of Defense Les Aspin initiated a complete examination of U.S. Defense policy in the post-Cold War period, called the “Bottom-Up Review” (BUR). Based on the assumption that world threats should determine the future U.S. conventional military force size and structure, the President was offered four force options and chose the Pentagon’s preferred option calling for force levels sufficient to win nearly two simultaneous “major regional conflicts” (MRC). This force structure includes 10 Army divisions, 12 aircraft-carriers and 20 Air Force fighter wings. President Clinton’s 1995 budget submission is considered to be his first clear statement on these security priorities. This budget, and associated five-year defense planning document, has serious shortfalls though for maintaining a two-MRC force structure. This serious funding challenge has forced the Pentagon to propose the elimination or reductions in weapons development and procurements. In the short term, the budget could stay at these lower levels if the military were to tap the large weapons inventories it stockpiled during the 1980s. But Secretary of Defense William J. Perry has warned these procurement cuts cannot be sustained in the following years’ budgets, and has called for an increase in procurement funding of 20 per cent over the period 1996–1999.14 Two influences in the procurement of new U.S. weapon systems need further discussion. Economic limitations and technology advances have wide-ranging consequences on procurement, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Weapons are now seldom replaced on a one-for-one basis. Lower numbers are ordered not because of reduced demands from the armed services but because of funding limitations. This trend will continue, forcing the increased importance of cost analysis in future weapons design. The U.S. is famous (or infamous) for its overzealous insistence on advanced technology compensating for declines in total weapons acquired. Examples of this trend are the

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recent deployments to operational line units of the B-2 and F-117 stealth aircraft, the C-17 airlifter, the Arleigh Burke class warship, and Abrams M-1A2 main battle tank. In each case technology has advanced the weapons to a point where reduced procurement numbers are allowable. These are technologies that no other country has yet to develop, and creates an even wider gap in the capabilities of the U.S. armed forces and those of the rest of the world. Since 1990 the U.S. has reestablished its dominance as the number one exporter of weapons to the developing world for two reasons. The first concerns the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequently its extensive arms export industry. Second, and coincidental to the Soviet collapse was the extraordinarily successful display of U.S. military hardware during the Gulf War. Analysts predict the continued domination of the world’s weapons exporting business by the U.S. because of the high quality of its weapons, long-standing buyer-seller relationships, competitive prices, and governmental assistance. Although there has been some nominal decline in sales figures since the high in 1992 due to economic downturns and world-wide military downsizing, exports still maintain a certain robustness and the future looks bright as economies revive around the world. Export sales do not always have to be new weapons systems either. The second-hand weapons market is thriving as other developed countries downsize their militaries and replace aging systems with more modern weapons. This is clearly evident in the second-hand ship market. Since new frigates, one of the most sought after naval types by smaller navies, can cost from $80–$150 million apiece, wellmaintained second hand ships can be real bargains. Due to downsizing of the U.S. Navy, it has retired 78 older frigates and destroyers between 1990–1994 and could release 20 more through the end of the decade.15 Because of the high level of quality maintenance and extensive upgrades carried out by the U.S. Navy most of these are in better shape physically than many newer ships costing millions more in service around the world. In a move to solidify the U.S.’s overwhelming lead in arms sales, President Clinton signed a new conventional arms transfer policy, Presidential Decision Document (PDD) 34, formalizing governmental support for high levels of U.S. armaments sales and a commitment to help the U.S. defense industry maintain its predominance in international markets. The policy does include mild efforts to restrain transfers, but also stresses the importance of sales to friends and allies. It specifically requires that the impact on U.S. arms manufacturers must

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be taken into account when considering a sale. The policy also removes the restriction on the Department of Defense’s direct participation and assistance to U.S. companies at international trade shows and air shows. It is now evident the U.S. is prepared to export more sophisticated weapons to more countries than ever before. The White House statement regarding PDD 34 said, “transfers of conventional arms are a legitimate instrument of U.S. foreign policy – deserving U.S. government support – when they enable us to help friends and allies deter aggression, promote regional stability, and increase interoperability of U.S. forces and allied forces.”16 A bright spot in an otherwise bleak world awash in weapons was the signing by 30 nations of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) in late 1990 and subsequently entered into force on 9 November 1992. The treaty established ceilings on five categories of military equipment (battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery pieces, combat aircraft, and attack helicopters) in a geographic area stretching east from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains.17 These categories of equipment are considered essential for launching surprise attacks and initiating large scale offensive operations. The equipment reductions were to be carried out over three one-year periods, ending on 16 November 1995. The first phase was completed successfully by the end of 1994, fully 70 per cent of the required reductions were carried out by the signatories. In early 1994, the U.S. completed all of its CFE-imposed reductions and is now well below its final ceilings. Chemical and biological weapons John Hollum, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency has stated, “The dominant military danger to the American people, forces and interests has shifted from the Soviet Union to rogue states like Iraq or terrorists groups who are increasingly likely to be armed with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.”18 Biotechnology advancements have dramatically changed the prospects for the creation of practical BW. Although new types of BW are going to be very difficult to create, these advancements create the potential for mass production of known biological agents. Herein lies one critical weakness of the BWC. The BWC has been ratified by 135 states to date since it was opened for signature 23 years ago. Yet, despite the broad nature of its prohibitions, the BWC does not include any mechanisms to verify compliance. The need for strengthening the verification and compliance-assurance regime was dramatically underscored by Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s

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admission in January 1992 that the former Soviet Union had an ongoing offensive biological weapons program during the past 20 years. A foreboding statement, considering the Soviets had been an early BWC advocate and had ratified the treaty in 1975. This revelation only confirmed the world’s suspicions when an April 1979 outbreak of human anthrax in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk was linked to a nearby suspected BW facility. This misuse of activities permitted under the BWC can occur because offensive work can be conducted under the guise of defensive preparations since both activities require the same basic knowhow and laboratory techniques at the R&D stage, and intent cannot be inferred directly from capability. The U.S. has been a leading advocate for just such a verification addition to the BWC during the various review conferences held around the world. Chemical weapons were finally addressed by the first truly global disarmament treaty when in Paris on 13 January 1993 the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was opened for signature, and subsequently signed by 160 nations. U.S. officials were pleasantly surprised during the signing ceremony when four Arab states (Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia) signed despite the boycott of the ceremony by the 22-member Arab League. Four other Arab states signed within the next two months: Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.19 The treaty was a product of 24 years negotiation, and it bans, the development, production, use, transfer, retention or stockpiling of chemical weapons, precludes assisting, encouraging or inducing any state to engage in activity prohibited by the treaty, and requires the destruction of production facilities and chemical weapons within a period of ten years (allowing an extension of five years for any country claiming technical difficulties or extenuating circumstances.)20 Negotiations on this agreement began during President Johnson’s administration, but it wasn’t until after the fear of possible Iraqi CW use during the Gulf War in 1991 that the discussions got serious. The final 192-page treaty will enter into force 180 days after 65 countries ratify it, but not earlier than two years after it was opened for signature. By late 1995, only 47 signatories have done so. In marked contrast to the BWC, which has no provisions for compliance monitoring, the CWC has the long-sought after comprehensive verification system; including no-right-of-refusal challenge inspections, potentially

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encompassing thousands of chemical plants around the world. The agreement additionally mandates the destruction of all CW stockpiles by all signatories no later than 10 years after the treaty enters into force. Under those destruction provisions, it will be the responsibility of each country to pay for destroying its own chemical weapons stocks; a cost expected to be at least $7 billion for the U.S. (with over 30,000 tons of agents and weapons).21 A chemical weapons destruction program is currently underway at eight locations, but environmental problems and budgetary constraints could slow the process.22 The Department of Defense (DoD) announced for the first time in January 1996 the size of the U.S. chemical weapons arsenal – 3.6 million weapons, including 3.3 million single-chemical bombs, rockets, artillery shells and cartridges and 315,682 binary weapons, in which chemicals are mixed in flight to produce deadly gases. DoD has stated that since multiple administrations have pledged the U.S. will not use CW, there is no longer a military reason to keep the numbers secret.23 The estimated cost of the destruction program through December 2000 is set at $7–$8 billion. This date is not in conjunction with the 10 year destruction schedule mandate of the CWC and will have to be revised when that agreement enters into force, with an associated reevaluation of the projected destruction costs. The fiscal year 1994 defense bill allocated $379.6 million for the Chemical Demilitarization Program. A free exchange of information and sharing the experiences of testing and operating the state-of-the-art destruction facility at Johnston Atoll has also aided immeasurably with the efforts of other CWC participants, especially Russia. These efforts have filled an important gap by providing ample evidence to the CW community and general public that CW can be destroyed in an environmentally safe way. In March 1995, members of the radical Japanese religious sect Aum Shinrikyo released the nerve gas sarin in a crowded Tokyo subway; terrorist activity had been irreversibly elevated to a new and deadly plateau. This action underscores the extreme vulnerability of urban society against this type of attack, to which neither massive deterrent forces nor military defenses offered any protection. One of the best defenses are domestic laws permitting pre-emptive action when there is sufficient probable cause. If the CWC were in force today, all signatories, including Japan, would be required to have such laws. Article VII of the CWC explicitly requires all parties to enact legislation making it a crime for any persons under their jurisdiction to develop, produce, stockpile or use any chemical weapon agents. The existing BWC also

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contains such a provision, which has led the U.S. to enact implementing legislation. Unfortunately, a lack of interest and low prioritization by both Congress and the current administration has left the CWC ratification process languishing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and thus has excused other CWC signatories from completing their own prompt ratification actions. The Japanese subway attack should prod the government to seek quick congressional and international action on the CWC to discourage replays of the Tokyo terror. The growing awareness throughout the government that the U.S. will eventually be an unwilling recipient of a CW/BW terrorist attack has not gone unnoticed in Congress. A House committee has marked up the 1996 fiscal year Defense bill, nearly doubling the amount of funding the administration requested for counter-terrorism technical support. Committee members specifically directed the added funds go for the Pulsed Fast Neutron Analysis program. This project aims at detecting chemical and biological agents and nuclear material, plus a wide range of other toxic substances, through non-intrusive means. Additionally, the House increased by 33 per cent the administration’s request for other advanced development initiatives related to chemical and biological defense activities conducted by the Pentagon. One of the critical objectives of theses activities by DoD, noted the representatives, is to provide for the potential civilian applications of these technologies. Will man ever learn? Even though Man has raised himself above other animals because of his unique ability to reason and use logic, we unfortunately do not always use it to Man’s advantage. The world undoubtedly has the ability to change its views on the uses of conventional weapons and CW/BW, but it may not have the will power to see it through. If we were to examine the political rhetoric surrounding this issue we could conclude there is change occurring and the U.S. is an active participant of this change. The U.S. was pro-active in arranging the 1925 Geneva Protocol, the CFE, BWC, and CWC. However, the admission by President Boris Yeltsin of the Soviet Union’s blatant violation of the BWC and the revelations that Libya had stepped up its efforts to acquire a BW capability by recruiting scientists associated with South Africa’s 10-year BW program (terminated in 1993 by then-President F. W. de Klerk24) have shaken an already fearful world. The U.S. and major industrialized countries though, have slowly reduced the

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amount of their CW and BW, and continue to do so. It is the rogue states and terrorist organizations which now cause us deep concern. In the post-Cold War era the specter of CW/BW usage has shifted from the exclusive domain of nation-states to include non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The threats from this sector are increasing, evidenced by the subway gas attack in Tokyo. A Congressional report to the House Armed Services Committee stated, The chemical and biological threat has increased in terms of widespread proliferation, technical diversity, and probability of use. The threat is now truly global (rather than bipolar) proliferation; technological developments have broadened the spectrum and increased the diversity of potential chemical and biological weapons; and the volatility of the world political environment has probably lowered the threshold and increased the potential for use of these weapons.25 Because of this, the U.S. and other countries seem unwilling to totally dismantle their CW/BW apparatus. The U.S. recognizes this threat by continuing the BW Defense Research Program. The very nature of CW/BW, their ease of manufacture and use, and especially the nearly parallel commercial versus military production capability, ensures these weapons will be available and will proliferate both at the nationstate and NGO level. The rapid changes in technology have also affected the overall chance of successful change with regard to CW/BW. Technology has simplified the process of production, lowered the cost, increased the lethality while decreasing the ability to detect and treat, and most importantly, greatly increased the legal commercial uses of most lethal type agents. CW/BW agent research and development for use as weapons can easily be hidden under the legitimate commercial enterprises and medical research facilities found almost anywhere in the world today. The level and depth of knowledge required to work with these agents has also decreased to a point where individuals with just an elementary level of understanding can develop and manufacture these types of weapons. The development of advanced superacids, superglues and many other chemical compounds which are now being considered for nonlethal warfare could be incompatible with the goals of the CWC. Another politically charged area concerns work on micro-organisms for use as non-lethal weapons. An extensive study of biological agents

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which could pose threats to fuels and materials was conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The head of the program noted, “There is almost nothing that some microbe won’t eat, so the potential [nonlethal] applications are extensive.”26 It is important to note from an arms control perspective that development of such agents for offensive warfare purposes would be strictly prohibited by the BWC. Is a positive change concerning these weapons likely? No. Admittedly, the U.S. is somewhat safer from use of these weapons by the superpowers or highly industrialized countries, but as that particular threat has decreased, the threat by less inhibited countries and nongovernmental actors has increased, with the inherent inability to definitively identify the culprits. The non-lethal uses of CW/BW encourages a patina of legitimacy by decreasing the apparent catastrophic effects to humans. Man has the ability to dramatically change our relationships with conventional weapons and CW/BW, but has decidedly not shown the inclination to follow through on that potential.

Conclusion President Clinton in a speech before the United Nations in 1993 stated, “…. the end of the Cold War did not bring us to the millennium of peace. Indeed, it simply removed the lid from many cauldrons of ethnic, religious and territorial animosity….As weapons of mass destruction fall into more hands, even small conflicts can threaten to take on murderous proportions.”27 U.S. military and intelligence officials have continuously warned that increasingly sophisticated conventional arms available on the global market, along with CW/BW, are prime threats to our security, both here and abroad. Then-CIA Director James Woolsey testified before Congress on 10 January 1995 that advanced conventional weapons “have the potential to significantly alter military balances, and disrupt U.S. military operations and cause significant U.S. casualties.”28 Despite the trends indicating a decrease in global arms transfers, formal efforts to curb the proliferation of conventional weapons may be more important now than ever before, due to the destabilizing potential inherent in the spread of hightechnology weapons that can suddenly and dramatically change regional power balances. The multitude of U.S. efforts to curb conventional weapons, such as CFE, and the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions are admirable and adequate to a point. It is essential the focus for the U.S.

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be to continue creating a framework to diminish the world’s conventional weapons trade and vigorously work towards a complete, verifiable, and enforceable global ban on CW/BW development, production, stockpiling, and transfer. In the end though, verification will never provide 100 per cent assurance of conventional weapons restraint or a CW/BW ban, as long as any actor believes strongly in these weapons’ utility. The goal: a sharply reduced conventional weapons marketplace and total renunciation of CW and BW by all nations of the world. To further assist the process the U.S. must begin to assist all nations in developing their economic, political and technical capabilities in order to become competitive in their region without resorting to large conventional forces or unconventional weapons. The U.S. now has a rare opportunity to exert its leadership potential in these areas, first by setting our own example of restraint and elimination, and then strongly encouraging other states to follow our lead. Is change likely? No. Is change possible? Yes. Notes 1. Connie Wall, editor, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SPIRI), World Armaments and Disarmament Yearbook 1980 ( London; Taylor & Francis Ltd, 1980): 25. Additionally, Connie Wall, editor, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SPIRI), SPIRI Yearbook 1990 – World Armaments and Disarmament (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1990): 186. 2. Frank Blackaby, editor, SPIRI, SPIRI Yearbook of World Armaments and Disarmament 1969/1970 (Stockholm; Almqvist & Wiksell, 1970): 341. Additionally, Connie Wall, editor, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SPIRI), SPIRI Yearbook 1990 – World Armaments and Disarmament (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1990): 252–253. 3. Connie Wall, editor, SPIRI, SPIRI Yearbook 1990 – World Armaments and Disarmament (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1990): 212–213. 4. Connie Wall, editor, SPIRI, SPIRI Yearbook 1995 – Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1995): 858. 5. Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, Article II (Definitions and Criteria) (Paris; France, January 1993). 6. UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary General on Chemical and Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons and the Effects of their Possible Use, A/7575 (New York; United Nations, 1 July 1969): 6 and 13. 7. G. S. Pearson, “Prospects for Chemical and Biological Arms Control: The Web of Deterrence”, The Washington Quarterly; vol. 16, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 145–162. 8. Neil C. Livingstone and Joseph D. Douglas, Jr., CBW: The Poor Man’s Atomic Bomb (Washington D.C.: Corporation Press, Inc., 1984): 7. 9. Frank Blackaby, editor, SPIRI, SPIRI Yearbook of World Armaments and Disarmament 1968/1969 (Stockholm; Almqvist & Wiksell, 1970): 116. The

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10.

11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Army developed the Bolt multiple rocket launcher system, consisting of a 45 tube launcher firing 155mm rockets charged with sarin or VX. A minimum of 100,000 rockets were stockpiled. Institute for Defense Analyses, Summary Report: Chemical Warfare in the Third World War (Bethesda, MD; IDA, 1987): 2–3. Riot control agents, like CS, were not considered true chemical weapons during this period, but because of America’s use in Vietnam, these agents can no longer be used as methods of warfare. The Biological Weapons Convention, signed by 74 nations on 10 April 1972, was the first disarmament agreement since World War II to involve the actual destruction of weapons. The Convention does not apply to chemical agents, such as the defoliants and anti-personnel gases used by the U.S. in Vietnam. These were subsequently included in the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Kupperman, Robert H. and Smith, David M., “Coping with Biological Terrorism,” Biological Weapons: Weapons of the Future?, Roberts, Brad, editor (Washington, D.C.; Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1993): 39. National Security Decision Memorandum No. 35 (25 November 1969). Jane M. Orient, “Chemical and Biological Warfare: Should Defenses Be Researched and Deployed?” Journal of the American Medical Association (1989): 262:644–648. The Biological Weapons Convention, signed by 74 nations on 10 April 1972, was the first disarmament agreement since World War II to involve the actual destruction of weapons. The Convention does not apply to chemical agents, such as the defoliants and anti-personnel gases used by the U.S. in Vietnam. These were subsequently included in the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Defense News, vol. 9, no. 6 (14–20 Feb 94): 8. Tusa, Frank, “Old but Fit, Bargains Galore in the Secondhand Ship Market,” Armed Forces Journal, November 1994: 30. Lumpe, Laura, “Clinton’s Conventional Arms Export Policy: So Little Change,” Arms Control Today, May 1995: 9. Connie Wall, editor, SPIRI, SPIRI Yearbook 1995 – Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1995): 868. Defense News, 20–26 November 1995: 12. “News Briefs – Chemical Treaty Gains New Signatories,” Arms Control Today (March 1993): 27. Spiers, Chemical and Biological Weapons…,: 130. Lee Feinstein, “Chemical Weapons Convention Signed by 130 Countries in Paris,” Arms Control Today (Jan/Feb 1993): 20. Smithson, A. E., “Chemical destruction: the work begins,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 49, no. 4 (1993): 38–42. Quote from Internet, http://infomanage.com/nonproliferation/chemical/ ustotal.html (March 1996). News Briefs, “Libya Reported Interested in Pretoria’s BW Program,” Arms Control Today (April 1995), p. 23. “Countering the Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat in the PostSoviet World,” Report of the Special Inquiry into the Chemical and Biological Threat of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 102nd

148 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, D.C.; U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993): 69. 26. J. B. Alexander, “Non-lethal weapons and limited force options,” Seminar presented to the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 27 Oct 1993. 27. Graham S. Pearson, “Forging an Effective Biological Weapons Regime,” Arms Control Today (June 1994): 14. 28. Lumpe: 11.

9 Military Operations other than War: Coming in from the Cold Andrew J. Britschgi

The end of the Cold War has prompted many changes in the American military. Substantial reductions in military personnel, infrastructure and budgets are just a few. No areas of change, however, are more dramatic than in Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW). These operations have passed from back-page filler stories to front-page controversies that elicit contentious debate from the halls of Congress to the kitchen table. Has the nature of MOOTW changed fundamentally with the end of the Cold War? If so, in what ways has it changed and what do these changes portend for the United States’ military forces and their civilian leadership? This chapter will provide a study of Cold War and post-Cold War MOOTW, and an analysis of the changes in these operations created by the end of the Cold War.

Military operations other than war Launching into a study of MOOTW, requires defining exactly what the concept is. In the last half century, various terms have referred to what is now called “Military Operations Other Than War”. In the late 1940s through most of the 1950s, no acknowledged, single term existed for the variety of missions now listed under MOOTW. In the 1960s, most of these operations fell under the definition of “Low Intensity Conflicts”, a term popularized by the Kennedy administration. In the 1980s, the term “Operations Other than War” first appeared in military doctrinal statements. The Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1’s ultimate caveat is, “The dividing line between military operations in war and those short of war is not always clear-cut”.1 Joint Publication 3-0 simply defines MOOTW as “…operations that focus on deterring war and promoting peace”, and further separates it into two broad areas: those 149

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operations involving the use or threat of the use of force, and those that do not.2 This chapter will focus on three of the widely recognized joint-defined operation types: humanitarian assistance, nation assistance, and peace operations.

Cold War military operations other than war Contrary to conventional wisdom, military operations other than war are not a new phenomenon, nor were they unknown in the Cold War years. From the onset of the Cold War, MOOTW had been an integral part of American foreign and security policy. A recent Rand study lists over 500 Air Force MOOTW alone from 1947 to 1989. A large portion of those 500-plus operations were humanitarian assistance operations. During the Cold War era, the U.S. averaged over a dozen such operations per year.3 These operations ran the gamut from humanitarian assistance following natural disasters, such as earthquakes (Yugoslavia in 1963, Nicaragua in 1972, Algeria in 1980, and Mexico in 1985), to assistance related to politically induced crises, such as Operation Safe Haven (airlift of Hungarian refugees in 1956) and Operation Wounded Warrior (evacuation of wounded French legionnaires following Dien Bien Phu).4 The most visible Cold War humanitarian assistance operation, and perhaps the most illustrative, was the Berlin Airlift. At the end of WWII, the Allies divided Germany into four occupation zones, with Berlin solidly in the Soviet zone. In a departure from the Yalta agreement’s vision of an eventually reunited Germany, Soviet leader Josef Stalin declared in early 1948, “The West will make Western Germany their own, and we shall turn Eastern Germany into our own state”.5 Subsequently, through a series of harassment actions culminating in a full blockade of all overland and waterway supply routes to Berlin, the Soviets tried to pressure the Western powers into abandoning their portions of Berlin. Seen as a watershed confrontation with the Soviets, the West, particularly the U.S. and Britain, was determined not to back down and face a loss of prestige and influence in Germany and Europe.6 The Western powers knew they were not prepared to militarily confront the Soviet Union’s thirty full-strength divisions deployed in East Germany. Directed by Washington to avoid forcing the blockade on land, General Lucius Clay, the U.S. Military Governor for Germany, turned to airlift as the solution on 24 June 1948.7 Characteristic of most early Cold War MOOTW, the Berlin airlift was an ad hoc operation. Some initial planning had been accomplished in

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January 1948, but planners had only envisioned supplying the occupation forces, not the 2,250,000 citizens of West Berlin.8 Initially, Major General Curtis LeMay, United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE) commander, could barely muster 100 C-47’s and two larger capacity C-54’s for the airlift. During the first few days, the operation was a completely improvised affair with no organization or central leadership. By late July, a U.S. command structure was established under Brigadier General William Tunner, who quickly consolidated the allied effort under a single command.9 The Berlin Airlift was an unqualified success. After nearly a year of operations, the Soviets ended the blockade on May 21, 1949. However, the operation, continued until September to insure adequate stockpiles of food and coal to forestall future Soviet blockades. In the final count, 276,926 sorties were flown, carrying 2,323,067 tons of goods. Truly a coalition and joint effort, the British contingent was reinforced by units from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, while the U.S. Navy supplied two squadrons of R-5D’s (the naval equivalent of the Air Force C-54 cargo aircraft). At its height, the operation consisted of 20 U.S. Air Force squadrons of C-54’s, the two U.S. Navy R-5D squadrons, and 10 Commonwealth equivalent squadrons. Overall, 72 lives were lost, mostly in non-flying accidents,10 and the airlift was estimated to have cost in excess of $252 million.11 The world cheered this non-violent military response to the political confrontation. A second type of MOOTW prevalent during the Cold War era was nation assistance. Covering a wide range of operations, nation assistance was most commonly employed in the form of a Military Advisory and Assistance Group (MAAG). Established throughout the world in countries considered friendly to the U.S., they usually consisted of a small military contingent of highly trained officers and enlisted personnel who would manage military equipment aid, military training, and serve as field advisors. The early U.S. involvement in Vietnam serves as an excellent example of a nation assistance MOOTW. Unfortunately, it is also an excellent example of a MOOTW escalating beyond its original limited military objectives. Two other lesser known U.S. operations, in Greece and Laos, provide insightful views into Cold War nation assistance. In February 1947, the war-strained British Empire finally collapsed. Britain declared India’s right to independence, and the intention to create a Zionist state in the Middle East. The British notified the U.S. Department of State that Britain could no longer militarily support the Greek government in their increasingly violent civil war.12 Concerned

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with communist aggression in Europe’s southern tier, on March 12, President Harry Truman announced the “Truman Doctrine” while proposing to Congress a $400 million economic and military aid package for Greece and Turkey as America assumed Britain’s commitments. The Truman Doctrine formally declared U.S. intentions to preserve democracy in Greece and Turkey. The Truman administration’s concern extended beyond the borders of democratic Greece. Strategically, a communist controlled Greece would jeopardize sea lines of communication vital to Middle East oil shipments. Supporting the administration’s position, the U.S. ambassador in Athens warned, “Should Greece fall, the whole Near East and part of North Africa are certain to pass under Soviet influence.”13 Senate Republicans, led by freshman Claude Pepper of Florida, voiced concerns about unilateral action that may result in direct military involvement and further strain relations with the Soviet Union. Secretary of State George C. Marshall expressed concern that direct deployment of troops so close to the Soviet sphere of influence might start World War III.14 Consequently, President Truman announced on March 13, 1947 that the U.S. would not be involved in direct combat, but would continue to support the British troops already in Greece.15 The U.S. military mission group, commanded by Major General Livesay, arrived in Athens on June 20 and the first military supplies arrived on July 12. Soon the Joint United States Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG) in Athens numbered over 200 officers and enlisted personnel, with a like number operating directly with Greek units down to the company level. Aid increased to $275 million in 1949 to support expansion of the Greek government forces as the British withdrew.16 American military aid then stemmed the tide of the communist insurgency. A contrasting example of a nation assistance program is Laos during the 1950s and 1960s. While logistically supporting, then replacing, French anti-communist efforts in Vietnam beginning in the early 1950s, the U.S. was quietly doing the same task in Laos. Since the Laotian government was officially neutral, the initial U.S. assistance program established in 1956 was a civilian organization called the Program Evaluation Office (PEO). Originally staffed with six military officers, this “civilian” operation grew to more than 20 military personnel by 1957.17 Faced with a growing internal communist influence and incursions from North Vietnamese forces establishing the Ho Chi Minh trail in eastern Laos, the Laotian government abandoned their neutralist stance, becoming openly pro-Western in 1959, with the PEO

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transitioning to a military MAAG. U.S. special forces began deploying to the field in July 1959 and under the secret “White Star” program run by the CIA, 1,000 military personnel trained and advised Laotian Meo tribesmen in irregular warfare.18 Never reaching the level of aid lavished on the Greeks and lacking a unity of effort, the Laotian operation eventually failed. The Laotian government, after a series of military coups, negotiated a surrender to the communist Pathet Lao, ending the U.S. MAAG operation in 1974.19 A rare, but significant, Cold War MOOTW was peacekeeping. The UN charter envisioned contingents of soldiers from the permanent members of the Security Council being deployed to trouble spots throughout the world for peacekeeping duties. This world police force never came to fruition due to the circumstance of the Cold War. Because of East/West distrust, UN peacekeepers ultimately were drawn primarily from non-aligned countries. Still, U.S. soldiers did participate in some peacekeeping operations. Utilized solely in areas and situations which were deemed to threaten American vital interests, U.S. soldiers were sent as peacekeepers to Lebanon in 1958 and 1983, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and in the Sinai starting in 1982.20 Faced with increased instability in the Middle East following the formation of the United Arab Republic (UAR), led by Soviet-leaning Egyptian President Abdul Nasser, a coup in Iraq, and UAR guerrilla incursions into Jordan and Lebanon, President Dwight Eisenhower ordered on 15 July 1958 the deployment of U.S. troops to protect Lebanese independence. This unprecedented deployment of combat troops quickly brought vehement condemnation from the Soviet ambassador to the UN.21 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounced U.S. imperialism, and stated that the Soviets would never accept U.S. troops in the Middle East.22 Diplomatically, the U.S. maneuvered brilliantly. The movement of U.S. forces was at the invitation of Lebanese Prime Minister Camille Chamoun and accomplished concurrently with a deployment, utilizing American airlift of British soldiers to Jordan. The objective of the U.S. deployment was to establish a nonconfrontation line along Lebanon’s border with Syria, separating government forces from UAR supported rebels. By the end of July 1958, U.S. troop strength had increased to 10,000, opposition was negligible, and the action was touted as having “contained communism.”23 The U.S. action was further legitimized by a simultaneous deployment of UN peace observers that eventually replaced the American force in December 1958.24 The operation was undoubtedly a success. No large-scale fighting broke out and the political situation in

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Lebanon eventually stabilized, allowing the country to prosper for the next 15 years. The deployment of U.S. soldiers and marines to the Dominican Republic in 1965 was another successful peacekeeping operation, though more expensive in lives and treasure. In the spring of 1965, after several years of instability, civil war broke out in the Dominican Republic between military forces favoring a right-wing government and opponents favoring a return to a socialist government. As fighting increased, President Lyndon Johnson ordered the Marines to evacuate the approximately 1,200 Americans on the island, and on 28 April, 500 marines of the 4th Expeditionary Brigade landed at Hispanola to accomplish the evacuation.25 With the U.S. ambassador warning of communist involvement in the fighting, the Johnson administration quickly changed the mission objectives, formally establishing the central purpose as prevention of the spread of communism through destabilization, converting an evacuation operation to a peacekeeping one. President Johnson warned the American people, “Castro has his eye on the Dominican Republic.”26 The operation quickly turned deadly as the Marines, now 1,200 strong, engaged in combat with rebel Dominican forces while establishing a nonconfrontation line on the island. Established rules of engagement sought to minimize casualties on all sides, but Marines being Marines, tended to respond robustly when fired upon. The 82nd Airborne Division was deployed for additional firepower on 30 April. This exponential increase in forces soon stabilized the situation.27 Reacting to worldwide charges of U.S. imperialism, the Johnson administration sought to wrap U.S. actions in the “mantle of hemispheric support”; soliciting follow-on peacekeepers from the Organization of American States (OAS), equipping the OAS troops, and placing Brazilian General Hugo Alvim in command of the operation.28 The Soviets criticized the operation, but viewed the action as being within the U.S. sphere of influence. U.S. domestic criticism remained high; reflecting concerns with the level of combat required, the perception that the communist threat was exaggerated, and the excessive size of the deployment which amounted to 24,000 troops by 17 May.29 Clearly the peacekeeping objectives were met, though at a cost of 27 U.S. combat deaths and 172 wounded. By the time the last U.S. troops left the island in September 1966, elections had been held and stability re-established.30 The practice of injecting U.S. troops into a violent civil war was set by now, but in Vietnam it produced a much different result.

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Post-Cold War military operations other than war Characterized by bold sounding names and extensive, real-time video images, MOOTW in the post-Cold War era have virtually become the sole mission for the U.S. military. As with Cold War MOOTW, operations since 1989 cover the full spectrum from humanitarian assistance to peacekeeping. Many of the operations do not fall neatly into one category or the other. Operation Provide Comfort, which has been active since April 1991, is a humanitarian mission, supplying food, medical supplies, fuel, and shelter to the Kurdish people in northern Iraq. Additionally, it entails enforcement of an exclusion zone over the northern third of the country, preventing Iraqi forces from attacking the Kurds. Another mix of operations were Operation Provide Relief, Operation Restore Hope, and the U.S. support for UN Operation Somalia (UNOSOM) II in that African country from August 1992 to March 1993. These three consecutive MOOTW introduced the term “mission creep” into U.S. military jargon. Operation Provide Relief was essentially a humanitarian assistance mission, utilizing U.S. airlift capability to support the UN and the numerous relief organizations attempting to prevent massive starvation in Somalia in the late summer of 1992. Operation Restore Hope replaced Provide Relief in December 1992, when it became apparent to President George Bush and the UN leadership that the humanitarian relief organizations needed security assistance if aid shipments were going to reach the vast numbers of needy Somalis. Restore Hope’s mandate was not merely to provide humanitarian aid, but also to secure Somalia’s major sea and air terminals, secure the aid distribution centers in the interior of the country, and provide security to aid convoys and operations. “Creeping” away from Provide Relief’s objective of delivering humanitarian aid, Restore Hope’s primary objective was now to provide a secure environment for the on-going humanitarian aid efforts. Restore Hope then became more than a humanitarian operation, as it escalated to peacekeeping and approached “nation-building”. The transition in Somalia from Operation Restore Hope to the UNled UNOSOM II resulted in more mission creep. The remaining U.S. contingent, the 4,500 strong U.S. Forces Somalia (USFORSOM), was constituted of mostly logistics support soldiers. However, imbedded in USFORSOM was a 1,500 man combat team. The UN had moved beyond merely saving the people of Somalia by providing humanitarian relief. The objectives of UNOSOM II were expanded to include

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rebuilding the Somali national authority structure. With the incorporation of political objectives, the military objective drifted from merely protecting the aid effort, to actively suppressing opposition to UN nation-building efforts. The original humanitarian mission had further evolved into a “peace enforcement” mission. Operation Sea Angel (OSA) is an excellent example of a post-Cold War humanitarian mission. Begun in April 1991, Operation Sea Angel provided food, shelter, evacuation, and medical relief to the people of Bangladesh following the devastating passage of tropical cyclone Marian.31 Truly a U.S. joint-military effort, it was composed mainly of marine forces, but included army and air force elements and was supported extensively by air force airlift. Interestingly, OSA coincided with the redeployment of American forces back to the U.S. after the completion of Operation Desert Storm, thereby taxing, but not exceeding American airlift capability. Operation Sea Angel was unique in that the mission’s strategic objective was solely a humanitarian one. Without a hidden agenda and no mission expansion, Operation Sea Angel was completed quickly, successfully, and within the context of President George Bush’s “new world order” of peaceful nations cooperating for the common good. Another purely humanitarian mission was Operation Support Hope, the relief mission in support of Rwandan refugees following that country’s genocidal civil war in 1994. A joint effort, Operation Support Hope brought water purification teams, food, shelter, and medical assistance to over 500,000 refugees in neighboring African nations. Coming soon after the highly criticized UNOSOM II in Somalia, the Rwanda mission was limited to only humanitarian assistance from the U.S., with no attempt made at nation building or addressing by military means the issue of genocide within Rwanda. U.S. participation in this relief effort kept to the announced 60-day time schedule and ended with no loss of American lives. A model of limited humanitarian objectives, Operation Support Hope reduced the refugee death toll from 6,000 a day at its inception to less than 200 a day.32 While supporting numerous humanitarian missions in the post-Cold War era, the U.S. military, with one possible exception, has yet to be involved in any large-scale nation assistance operation such as that in Greece after WWII or Southeast Asia during the Cold War. However, nation assistance, though minor in scope, continues to be a primary implementation tool of U.S. national security strategy. In 1994 alone, the U.S. Army supported nation assistance operations in 105 countries around the world.33 Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall was able

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to state before Congress, “Global reach operated in nearly every country”, backed by the fact that during 1993, Air Force security personnel worked in 101 countries to foster stability and provide relief.34 The one exception noted above to these small-scale nation assistance operations was Operation Restore Democracy (ORD)/Support Democracy, the U.S.-led intervention in Haiti. Encompassing many more missions than just nation assistance, ORD’s primary objectives included retraining the national police forces by U.S. special forces and military police.35 Starting in September 1994, ORD is an on-going mission working towards its overarching objective of a stabilized democracy in Haiti. Initially a U.S.-dominated effort, ORD transitioned on 31 March 1995 to a UN-sponsored coalition commanded by a U.S. major general. Originally deploying 18,000 military personnel, including army, navy, air force, reserve, and national guard elements, U.S. troop commitment decreased to 2,400 personnel with the transition to the UN.36 Overall, the operation is estimated to eventually cost two billion dollars, mostly funded by the U.S.37 One unique version of post-Cold War MOOTW can best be described as aerial peacekeeping. Since 1989, the U.S. has participated, primarily by air, in several large peacekeeping operations, including Operation Deny Flight (ODF), a U.S.-led NATO mission supporting UN peacekeepers on the ground in the former Yugoslavian states of Bosnia– Herzegovina and Croatia. ODF’s military objectives were to keep the warring parties from using air power, to threaten and use retaliatory air strikes for cease-fire or safe haven violations, and to provide air support to UN ground forces. From its inception in April 1993, to its official completion on 20 December 1995, the nearly 100 assigned U.S. aircraft flew over half of the total 100,000 ODF sorties. U.S. aircraft participated in numerous retaliatory strikes, shot down four no-fly zone violators, and had one U.S. F-16 shot down with no U.S. casualties in this “aerial peacekeeping” mission.38 More traditional peacekeeping is evidenced in NATO’s Operation Joint Endeavor, which is replacing the UN peacekeepers on the ground in Bosnia–Herzegovina. Announced in President Bill Clinton’s national address in late November 1995, Operation Joint Endeavor is designed to be a textbook MOOTW: “limited, focused and under the command of a U.S. general.”39 The limited objectives are to keep the combatants apart, provide a stable environment, and indirectly demonstrate U.S. leadership. The mission is focused with set boundaries of U.S. action and a time limit of one year. President Clinton further clarified the purpose of the operation: “We cannot stop all war for all time, but we

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can stop some wars. We cannot save all women and all children, but we can save many. We cannot do everything, but we must do what we can do.”40 U.S. troop strength in Operation Joint Endeavor (OJE) would hover around 20,000 soldiers, excluding the large logistical commitment, along with the redirected U.S. Air Force assets of Operation Deny Flight, and the U.S. Navy contingent patrolling in the Adriatic Sea. Included among the 20,000 soldiers are up to 3,800 reservists called up for their particular expertise.41 In keeping with U.S. doctrine, the military objective is to use overwhelming force, in this case an armored division, to enforce the declared cease-fire, maintain integrity of a buffer zone between warring Bosnian factions, and insure the implementation of the Dayton peace accords. In keeping with stated U.S. policy, OJE is a coalition effort with the U.S. supplying a third of the over 60,000 member NATO-led force. In a reflection of post-Cold War realities, 16 non-NATO countries, including nine former Warsaw Pact and Soviet republics, have been invited to contribute forces.42

Changes in military operations other than war Borrowing from Carl von Clausewitz’s, “War is an extension of politics,” it is certainly true that any use of military forces is an extension of politics. In this concept lies the first change in MOOTW with the demise of the Cold War. The objectives driving the use of U.S. military forces are now very different from the objectives that drove operations during the Cold War. Then, containment of communism was the overriding objective of U.S. foreign policy. First articulated in the Truman Doctrine in 1947, containment was reinforced by the Eisenhower Doctrine authorizing military aid and intervention to nations threatened by international communism and further reinforced by every subsequent president of the Cold War era.43 Every major MOOTW, from the humanitarian assistance of the Berlin Airlift to the 1958 peacekeeping operations in Lebanon, had as its primary objective the containment of communism and the stabilization of Latin American.44 In the last few years national security strategy has evolved to a strategy of “engagement and enlargement,” which seeks as its prime objectives world stability and the promotion of democratic institutions. From this political strategy evolved the military objectives of promoting stability and thwarting aggression through peacetime engagement, deterrence and conflict prevention, and fighting and winning wars. Of these three components of strategy, peacetime engagement and

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conflict prevention are primarily accomplished through MOOTW. Peacetime engagement includes nation assistance, humanitarian operations, and peacekeeping, while conflict prevention includes peace enforcement and sanctions enforcement.45 Every post-Cold War MOOTW to date has had as one of its objectives the promotion of stability or the encouragement of democratic institutions. Humanitarian efforts, such as Operation Support Hope in central Africa and Operation Provide Promise in Bosnia–Herzegovina, were designed not only to relieve suffering, but to forestall the destabilizing effect of large refugee flows. Nation assistance missions, such as the Partnership for Peace program, are primarily directed to the areas of the world where instability threatens U.S. interests and the newly established democratic governments.46 World stability has been the driving objective behind the numerous sanction-enforcing operations on the borders of Iraq and in the former Yugoslavia region. With the ending of the Cold War, national security objectives changed, and with them, MOOTW objectives changed. Another significant change in MOOTW is in the area of doctrine and training. A 1993 Rand study summed up the defense establishment’s attitude to MOOTW during the Cold War and immediately following, viewing these operations “as a distraction from their primary mission to train and prepare for combat.”47 This negative attitude was directly reflected in military doctrinal publications and professional writings during the Cold War by the almost complete absence of any mention of operations other than war. Of the 37 most influential documents on Air Force roles and missions listed in a 1987 study, including a listing of 31 joint initiatives with the Army, no document or initiative addressed a single facet of MOOTW.48 A review of military war college research on MOOTW found 17 papers published on the subject since 1991, but none before. Military doctrine simply did not concern itself with MOOTW during the Cold War. The first few years following the end of the Cold War have seen quite a change in the amount of doctrine addressing MOOTW and training in support of the doctrine. Doctrinal publications of every service branch now discuss MOOTW. The Joint Publication 3-07 series is dedicated solely to MOOTW doctrine. Air Force Manual 1-1 defines MOOTW and its related missions. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Center’s (TRADOC) 20th Anniversary Seminar spent considerable time discussing MOOTW issues relating to force structure, operations tempo, and training.49 The Navy in its latest doctrine publication, Forward from the Sea, specifically addresses peacetime operations.

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U.S. forces now train for MOOTW. The U.S. has held numerous coalition and joint peacekeeping exercises since 1993, including three in 1994 with former Warsaw Pact nations.50 Prior to the start of Operation Joint Endeavor, Defense Secretary William J. Perry repeatedly emphasized the MOOTW training U.S. soldiers had received: “Our troops have trained extensively for their mission…They know how to react across the full spectrum of situations they might encounter.”51 Such was not the case during the Cold War when training focused purely on warfighting. Exercises reflected the doctrine of the times, concentrating on conventional and nuclear war scenarios. Teaching peacekeeping skills such as restraint was not in evidence. One soldier wrote during his deployment to the Dominican Republic in 1965, “Most of us were now beginning to experience a new phenomena of modern war… Here again was a condition for which we had not been properly trained.”52 The third significant post-Cold War change in MOOTW is in the types of operations conducted. Specifically, the U.S. has extensively increased the number of peacekeeping operations it is willing to participate in, while there has been a corresponding decrease in large counter-insurgency nation assistance operations. In nearly 45 years of Cold War, the U.S. actively participated in only four peacekeeping operations. There were two primary reasons for this. First, the U.S. sought to avoid distracting commitments that would draw resources away from the NATO commitment. Secondly, the UN did not view the U.S. military as the impartial force required in a peacekeeping mission.53 These two reasons have vanished with the demise of the Soviet superpower and the bipolar world political system. Current U.S. war strategy focuses on having the forces necessary to fight worldwide in two Major Regional Conflicts (MRC). U.S. forces are not exclusively dedicated to any particular theater under the two MRC strategy. The requirement for maintaining sufficient forces to fight two major conflicts is simply the benchmark for setting force levels. In times of relative peace, this strategy allows for commitments to other operations, such as peacekeeping, relying on the ability to terminate these other operations should the need arise.54 Counter-insurgency nation assistance MOOTW, such as the American operations in Greece in 1947 and Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s, appear to have ended with the Cold War. While some major insurgencies continue, notably in Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Algeria, the U.S. has not involved itself in any of these types of conflicts in a significant way. The situation in Bosnia–Herzegovina is

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an example of the U.S. desire to remain distant from active conflicts that have not reached the point of exhaustion. Nation assistance to governments fighting major insurgencies such as in Bosnia is seen as certain to escalate into the involvement of U.S. combat troops in a civil war and, under current national policy, to be avoided.55 The last salient change in MOOTW appears to be in the force structure of post-Cold War operations to include other than active forces. During the Cold War, only one MOOTW significantly stretched the capabilities of the U.S. active military’s standing forces and that was the Berlin Airlift.56 Since the end of the Cold War and its associated drawdown, the U.S. has reduced active-duty forces over a third from their Cold War height. The result has been an increase in the “operations tempo” for remaining active forces. The Air Force lists a 400 per cent increase in deployments of its active forces, with 50 per cent of the fighter forces continuously deployed.57 The Army lists almost the same figures for its active forces. While the sheer numbers of MOOTW have not significantly increased, the size and duration of MOOTW, reflecting the trend towards peacekeeping, have. In order to decrease the operations tempo on the active forces, National Guard and Reserve forces are now part of the force structure for most overseas MOOTW. Operation Joint Endeavor in Bosnia–Herzegovina had been using nearly 4,000 Guard and Reservists. Operations Deny Flight, Provide Comfort, and Southern Watch have all utilized Guard and Reserve squadrons. Air Force Secretary Widnall says higher use of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve is essential. 95 per cent of the Army’s civic action capability, critical to many humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, is in the Reserve.58 Rarely utilized overseas during the Cold War, elements of the Reserve forces now are routinely included in MOOTW planning and execution.

Summary Military Operations Other Than War have changed with the ending of the Cold War. National security objectives have changed, as have the reason why the U.S. uses its forces. With an imminent conflict between superpowers no longer the driving purpose behind military thought, U.S. doctrine and training are beginning to face MOOTW in unprecedented frequency. Peace operations, no longer restrained by Cold War politics or commitments, have increased substantially in number, while involvements in counter-insurgencies have decreased. Presently, maintaining high operations tempo with its remaining active forces, the U.S.

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now must supplement them with specialized National Guard and Reserve forces in nearly every operation. Operation Joint Endeavor succinctly displays American post-Cold War MOOTW trends. Ironically, that operation’s objective in the Balkans is not to contain communism, but to bring stability to the region. This peacekeeping mission is planned and being conducted using specific MOOTW doctrine developed since 1992. The soldiers deployed for the mission have trained for peacekeeping duties, many of them in exercises including coalition partners. Finally, National Guard and Reserve members generally comprise nearly one fourth of the deployed forces; a percentage unheard of during the Cold War. All these facets of Operation Joint Endeavor clearly demonstrate the changes in MOOTW flowing from the end of the Cold War. MOOTW is the primary active mission of the U.S. military in the post-Cold War period. The combination of instability in many global regions and the U.S. military’s capability to respond worldwide to those instabilities almost guarantees it. The changes in MOOTW though are not yet complete. As the world political structure continues to re-define itself, U.S. national security strategy will also change and with it will come changes in MOOTW employment. The rapid progress in military technologies, the developing economic globalization, and changes in U.S. domestic politics will determine the size, frequency, and involvement of American forces in MOOTW in the future. Changes in MOOTW are not finished, they are just beginning. Notes 1. AFM 1-1, 1992 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992): 3. 2. Joint Publication 3-0, 1 February 1995 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995): vii. 3. R. Lempert, D. Lewis, B. Wolf, R. Bitzinger, “Air Force Noncombat Operations: Lessons From the Past, Thoughts for the Future” (Santa Monica: Rand, 1992): 3. 4. Ibid, p. 11. 5. Steven L. Reardon, “History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Volume I: The Formative Years, 1947–1950” (Washington D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1984): 279. 6. Herbert L. Matthews and W. H. Lawrence, New York Times, 1 July 1948, 1. 7. William H. Tunner provides a fascinating personal account of the Berlin airlift, “Over the Hump” (Washington D.C.: Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1985): 158. 8. Reardon, p. 280. 9. Tunner, p. 166. 10. Ibid., pp. 214–222.

Andrew J. Britschgi 163 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33.

34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

Reardon, p. 300. Ibid., p. 148. Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., p. 153. Felix Belair Jr., New York Times, 13 March 1947, pp. 1–2. Reardon, pp. 149–156. Major General Oudone Sananikone, “Indochina Monographs: The Royal Lao Army and U.S. Army Advice and Support” (Washington D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981): 41. Ibid., pp. 74–78. Ibid., p. 179. See James S. Corum’s chapter on peacekeeping for an elaboration of Cold War politics affecting U.S. and Soviet participation in peacekeeping operations. James S. Corum, “Supporting United Nations and Regional Peacekeeping Efforts,” in Karl P. Magyar et al., eds., “Challenge and Response: Anticipating U.S. Military Security Concerns” (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1994). Felix Belair Jr., New York Times, 16 July 1958, 1. State Department Conversation Report: Adlai Stevenson and Khrushchev, 5 September 1958. Unattributed, New York Times, 26 July 1958, 2. “Background Note: United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, December 1994,” The Institute of Public Policy George Mason University Home Page, //ralph.gmu.edu/cfpa/peace/tbc.hmtl, 20 December 1995. Lawrence A. Yates, “Power Pack: U.S. Intervention in the Dominican Republic, 1965–1966” (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1988): 182. Ibid, p. 34. Unattributed, New York Times, 1 May 1965, p. 1. Yates, pp. 146–149. Ibid., pp. 172–173. Ibid., p. 185. P. A. McCarthy, “Operation Sea Angel: A Case Study” (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1994): 1. General George A. Joulwan, Commander in Chief U.S. European Command, Statement to the House National Security Committee, 2 March, 1995. Army Report on the National Performance Review (Draft), National Performance Review Homepage, www.army.mil/dpr-page/home.html, 21 December 95. Sheila Widnall, Secretary of the Air Force: Air Force Posture Statement to the House National Security Committee, February 22, 1995. Robert Oakley and David Bentley, “Peace Operations: A Comparison of Somalia and Haiti,” Strategic Forum 30 (Washington D.C.: National Defense University Strategic Forum, Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1995): 1. Ibid. Unattributed, New York Times, 17 October 1994, p. 13. Air Force South-1995.12.21, Operation Deny Flight Final Fact Sheet, NATO Homepage,www.nato.int/

164 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 39. President Bill Clinton, Address to the Nation on Bosnia, 27 November 1995 (Bosnialink Homepage: dosfan.lib.uic.edu/www/current/bosnia/1995_ bosnia_speeches.html): 1. 40. Ibid. 41. William Perry, Secretary of Defense, Pentagon Press Briefing, 4 December 1995. 42. Air Force South – 1995.12.29, IFOR Fact Sheet, NATO Homepage, www.nato.int/ 43. Thomas J. McCormick, “America’s Half Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War” (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989): 139. 44. Yates, pp. 11–12. 45. Defense Issues, Volume 10, Number 26, “Strategy of Flexible and Selective Engagement” (Washington D.C.: American Forces Information Service, February 1995): 1. 46. Joulwan. 47. Lynn E. Davis, “Peacekeeping and Peacemaking After the Cold War” (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Institute, 1993): 14. 48. Richard I. Wolf, “The United States Air Force Basic Documents on Roles and Missions” (Washington D.C.: Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1987): 1. 49. Looking to the Future: TRADOC’s 20th Anniversary Seminar on Future Warfare (Fort Monroe, VA 1993): 1–5. 50. Joulwan. 51. Statement of Secretary of Defense William J. Perry on the Deployment of U.S. Troops with the Bosnia Peace Implementation Force, Statement to the House Committee on International Relations, 30 November, 1995. 52. Yates, p. 143. 53. Corum, p. 269. 54. Defense Issues, Volume 10, Number 26, p. 1. 55. William Perry, Secretary of Defense, remarks to the Aspen Institute Conference, Defense Issues, Volume 10, Number 80, “Using Military Force When Deterrence Fails” (Washington D.C.: American Forces Information Service, August 1995): 1. 56. Lempert, p. 24. 57. Widnall. 58. Special Operations Forces briefing to Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, AL, 28 November, 1995.

10 Power Projection: Continuity and Change Charles Tustin Kamps

This chapter addresses U.S. power projection capabilities as they developed over the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, and compares these capabilities to future requirements. For lack of an official definition, power projection will be defined here as offered by Mark Alan Gunzinger, “the finite application of military power by the national command authorities to achieve discrete political ends outside the borders of the United States, its territories, and its possessions. Powerprojection contingencies are characterized as wars and operations short of war, but not conflicts that are global or total in nature.”1 Since the founding of the Republic, the insular position of the United States has predetermined that, aside from brief conflicts with Canada (1812–14) and Mexico (1846–48), U.S. power projection has necessarily meant overseas power projection. Thus our discussion will be limited to projection beyond the coastline of North America. Basically inward-looking, the United States had scant interest in overseas affairs for the first century after independence, and therefore little need for “projection” forces. Notable exceptions were issues involving unmolested navigation and trade rights in the Mediterranean (the Barbary Pirates, 1801–05) and Asiatic waters (China, 1844, and Japan, 1853–54). These incidents were settled by modest naval and marine detachments. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, however, imperialism and its supporting maritime doctrine, penned by Alfred Thayer Mahan, aroused American interest in flexing military muscle in both near and distant seas. The subsequent Spanish-American War (1898) saw the first dispatch of large-scale expeditions overseas. The Navy wrested the Philippines from Spain, and transported the Army to its successful campaign in Cuba. 165

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It was not until two decades later, during World War I, that American forces deployed across the oceans in truly great proportions (i.e., dozens of divisions and hundreds of ships). The magnitude of effort in both world wars leaves them outside of the scope of our consideration in this study. However, the aftermath of World War II left the United States with both the means and the motivation to actively project power on a global scale. In 1945, the United States faced what was then perceived as a monolithic communist power bloc which was bent on world domination. The post-war North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, and the Central Treaty Organization, were attempts to contain communist aggression through mutual defense agreements with pro-American regimes. As we shall see, the policy of support for these client states influenced the doctrine and structure of U.S. power projection forces through the Cold War period of 1945–1989. We shall now examine American Cold War power projection assets, followed by the changes in orientation since the collapse of the Soviet empire, and finish by examining the prospects for future success of U.S. power projection in the uncertain future.

The Army The precipitous demobilization following World War II left the U.S. Army in poor shape at the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. This, the first “police action” of the Cold War era, was fought with World War II doctrine, tactics, weapons, and, in many cases, veterans as well. With the aid of conscription and mobilization of National Guard and Reserve personnel, the Army was able to maintain a seven-division force in Korea until the truce of 1953. The initial battles, however, had humiliated the Army. The “come as you are” nature of the war had caught the Army unprepared for rapid response, and the ill-trained occupation divisions which deployed from Japan proved an acute embarrassment.2 The Korean experience convinced the Army that Cold War requirements included a high degree of readiness for units which might have to counter communist aggression at a moment’s notice. The “in place” forces included five divisions in West Germany and two in Korea, backed up by the Strategic Army Corps of two airborne divisions for rapid projection from bases in the United States. Nevertheless, Army efforts were ill-timed in an era when strategic and tactical nuclear weapons were coming to the fore as the preferred method of deterring

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aggression. In that climate the Air Force came to dominate defense thinking, and during the Eisenhower years combined spending by the Army and Navy together barely matched the Air Force.3 After a brief flirtation with an organization to maximize the Army’s use of tactical atomic weapons (the 1956 “Pentomic Division”), America’s fascination with nuclear arms soured in the face of communist “wars of national liberation,” which employed guerrilla tactics in Third World settings. Thus the Army, in the early sixties, adopted a new generation of conventional weapons and yet another reform, the ROAD or Reorganization Objective Army Division. The ROAD division was designed to be able to fight under any intensity conditions (not just nuclear). At the same time, two initiatives received priority from the Kennedy/Johnson administrations to enhance the Army’s ability to support Third World clients in “brush fire” wars: the Special Forces and the airmobile division, both of which figured prominently during American involvement in the Vietnam War (1965–1973).4 Vietnam, viewed in Cold War contexts, involved a huge projection effort as it was outside of the traditional “in-place forces” theaters (i.e., Europe and Korea). During the peak years of 1968–69 the Army committed seven division equivalents to Vietnam, with a total in-country strength of 500,000 men. The buildup was slow because the infrastructure of Vietnam needed improvement to receive and sustain such a force. The manpower effort was only maintained by conscription, which, added to flawed strategic direction at the national level, led to erosion of popular support and eventual withdrawal in 1973. The Army looked on Vietnam as the “lost decade” because emphasis on light infantry and counterinsurgency cost the United States in the effort to keep up with Soviet progress in conventional weapons and tactics.5 The end of Vietnam and the end of peacetime conscription saw the Army focus on what it considered its primary projection mission – reinforcement of Europe. As early as 1962, two division sets of equipment had been prepositioned in Germany for the use of reinforcing units which were to arrive by air transport. In 1968, the relocation of one of the five U.S. divisions from Germany to the United States led to the annual testing of rapid reinforcement through the REFORGER series of exercises, during which the division would return and use the equipment which it had left behind in Germany. With the defense buildup of the Reagan administration, the goal became a force of ten divisions in ten days, and this led to the positioning of three additional division sets of equipment during 1980–86. The prepositioning system,

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however, assumed eight to 12 days of strategic warning time, during which units could deploy and fall in on their equipment before the outbreak of hostilities.6 Interest in “out of area” missions, meanwhile, left legacies that would affect power projection after the Cold War. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led the Carter administration to establish a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force headquarters (RDJTF) in March of 1980. Designed to uphold U.S. interests in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region, the RDJTF matured into the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) in 1983.7 Supporting the concept of rapid deployment to the Gulf, and Latin America as well, the Army designated its XVIIIth Airborne Corps as the combat formation for power projection. It contained the 82nd Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) [i.e., helicopter-mounted infantry], and the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized). The last named unit was to move by fast sea-lift. During the Reagan administration, several additional organizations were raised to round out Army projection capabilities. The light infantry divisions, four in number, were optimized to fight in low to mid-intensity conflicts, and were to be transportable to any spot on the globe in four days by 500 C-141 sorties. The first unit to convert to the light format was the 7th Division in 1984. The 9th Division reorganized as an experimental “high technology motorized infantry division” in 1981, with an objective of being strategically deployed in 1,000 C-141 sorties. The idea was to capitalize on light but powerful new vehicles. The technology and operational concepts never quite meshed, and the project terminated by the end of the Cold War.8 Army projection forces proved their effectiveness during Operation Urgent Fury, the intervention in Grenada (October 1983), an action lasting less than a week and costing only 11 soldiers’ lives. The main elements taking part were the 82nd Airborne Division and two Ranger battalions – optimized for assault entry in Third World areas.9 Similarly, Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama (December 1989), demonstrated that the Army could quickly overcome Third World opposition with a minimum of casualties.

The Navy and Marines The Navy has two primary advantages over the other services during peacetime operations: 1) its deployed units essentially do the same things in peace as they do in war, and 2) its presence mission lends itself to positioning for projection. Since the beginning of the Cold

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War, naval presence and projection missions have varied only slightly. Throughout the period, enough aircraft carriers and supporting vessels have normally been on hand to station a battle group in the Mediterranean, the Western Pacific, and the Indian Ocean, in addition to routine training and exercise deployments. Power projection from carrier battle groups is called “strike warfare,” and has traditionally been executed by fighter-bombers. Over the last decade, this capability has been augmented by the addition of Tomahawk cruise missiles, capable of being fired by escort cruisers, destroyers and submarines. Naval at-sea logistics have ensured the sustainability of carrier groups operating in remote projection missions and, during Korea and Vietnam, the Navy was always able to maintain three or four carriers on station simultaneously. Because of the mobility of carrier groups, the Navy has always been quick to remind critics that the necessity for “projection” has probably been avoided on numerous occasions because of the timely “presence” of these floating air bases. The other half of naval power projection involves the movement of ground troops or marines ashore, and their sustainment. Historically, 95 per cent of U.S. war materiel moving to a theater of operations has moved by sea – an equation as valid for Desert Storm as for Vietnam. The constant decline in U.S.-flagged merchant ships over the Cold War period has, fortunately, had no impact on this mission so far. In addition, with the forming of the RDJTF, the Military Sealift Command purchased eight 33-knot SL-7 Roll-on/Roll-off transports to quickly get the 24th Division to the Gulf. On the other hand however, the Cold War goal of being able to amphibiously lift the assault echelons of one Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) plus one Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) was never achieved, as shipbuilding programs could not replace the large number of amphibious vessels which became obsolescent nearly simultaneously.10 The U.S. Marine Corps, with a force structure protected by the National Security Act of 1947, maintained a minimum of three divisions and three air wings throughout the Cold War.11 Historically it has considered itself the projection force of choice, and the repository of amphibious warfare doctrine. The last division-size Marine amphibious operation, however, was Inchon during the Korean War. In Vietnam the Corps took part in “projection” in the form of sustained conventional combat operations by two divisions, largely because it had the capability for “over the beach” logistics in the thinly developed northern part of South Vietnam. Elsewhere, the Marines maintained an “at sea” presence with one Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU)

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embarked in the Mediterranean and one in the Western Pacific. MEUs are essentially reinforced battalions with some attached air assets. Projection priorities of the Cold War led to several initiatives to speed the deployment of brigade-size Marine units. In late 1982 a brigade equipment set was prepositioned in northern Norway for NATO “flank” defense. By 1986, “afloat” brigade sets were loaded on the ships of three maritime prepositioning squadrons for deployment to the Eastern Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and Western Pacific. The concept allows a MEB to fly to an area via 250 C-141 sorties, and link up with the prepositioning ships at a nearby port. Within 10 days of the start of deployment, the MEB is combat ready with its own aviation elements (60 helicopters and 70 fixed-wing aircraft), equaling three times the firepower of an Army light division.12 Navy and Marine participation in projection operations during the Cold War (excluding Korea and Vietnam) must be accorded mixed reviews. The Marine Mayaguez hostage rescue operation of 1975 resulted in the deaths of as many Marines as the number of hostages that were released. The abortive 1980 Iranian hostage rescue mission (Desert One), largely a Navy/Marine show, was an unmitigated disaster, as was the terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks at Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. On the other hand, naval aviation performed well in exercising U.S. power against Libya in the Gulf of Sidra during 1981, and in affecting the capture of the terrorists who hijacked the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985.13 Naval and Marine forces also performed adequately in Grenada and Panama.

The Air Force The beginning of the Cold War saw the Air Force in control of the ultimate in projection–bomber-delivered nuclear weapons. The problem was that, in practical terms, they could not be used short of all-out war. Instead, the Air Force found its introduction to the Cold War in the pedestrian role of delivering supplies during the 1948 Berlin Airlift. Throughout the Cold War, the dominance of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) bomber community would continually be challenged and finally overcome by the Tactical Air Command fighter community, which had more relevance in power projection during Korea and Vietnam. Nevertheless, SAC contributed powerful bomber assets during both wars, and also controlled the all-important aerial refueling tanker aircraft, without which long-range operations were not possible.

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For the most part, the Air Force relied on forward-deployed squadrons at bases in or near U.S. client states in Europe and Asia. During Vietnam this meant considerable investment in air base development in Thailand and South Vietnam because of the lack of nearby U.S. bases. During the Vietnam War nearly eight million tons of bombs were dropped in Southeast Asia, but the effort was largely wasted because of the Johnson administration’s incremental application of air power and restrictive targeting procedures. Only toward the end of the war did the advent of precision guided munitions and other innovations presage the untapped potential of the Air Force in “limited wars”. With the formation of the RDJTF in 1980, the Air Force began to take seriously the notion of long-range conventional power projection. Accordingly the 5th Bombardment Wing was designated the Strategic Projection Force, and some seven B-52 squadrons (with KC-135 tankers in support) were earmarked for conventional ordnance delivery.14 The concept was successfully tested in numerous Bright Star exercises, which featured non-stop bombing runs between bases in the United States and target ranges in Egypt. Dependence on friendly overseas bases had not abated however, and USCENTCOM envisioned four rapid reacting Air Force fighter wings deploying to bases in the Gulf area, with initial squadrons operational in 36 to 48 hours.15 The other part of the Air Force projection equation involves getting other force assets to the area of operations. A major concern is always how to secure a lodgment quickly to allow further reinforcement, and Air Force lift assets have become capable of delivering a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division anywhere within two days.16 A number of initiatives were undertaken to support RDJTF strategic lift, such as increasing C-141 capacity by 30 per cent, strengthening the C-5’s wings, and procurement of the KC-10 tanker.17 A Cold War auxiliary to Air Force lift was found in “CRAF,” the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, commercial aircraft which could be pressed into government service in times of crisis for non-tactical overseas transport duties. Air Force tactical assets were presented few opportunities to perform in a pure projection role during the later stages of the Cold War. However, Libya’s Col. Muammar Khadafi presented the chance in 1986. In return for his support of terrorist acts, the U.S. mounted Operation El Dorado Canyon, a series of precision air strikes which reminded Khadafi of his vulnerability. The joint Air Force and Navy operation featured USAF F-111s flying from Lakenheath Air Base, in Britain, with ten in-flight refuelings – necessitated by French refusal of

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air space transit. The operation demonstrated Air Force capabilities to project power through precision ordnance delivery at very long range.

The changing Army The swan song of the “old” Cold War Army was the 1991 Gulf War. Operation Desert Storm appeared to vindicate the Army’s high-tech weaponry (M-1 tanks, M-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, Patriot Surface-to-Air Missiles and AH-64 attack helicopters), operational doctrine (FM-100-5’s AirLand Battle), and reinforcement capability. In spite of the success of the 100-hour ground campaign however, some uncomfortable facts were revealed: 1) The reinforcement effort had been conducted under benign conditions for an amazing six months; 2) The National Guard combat brigade which was to participate was found unfit to deploy, in spite of additional training; 3) The Patriot Surface-to-Air Missile’s success against SCUD Surface-to-Surface Missiles was found to be highly overrated; and, 4) In spite of the Army’s success stories, its armor destroyed only 400 Iraqi tanks, and its helicopters 600, compared to 2,700 Iraqi tanks destroyed by fixed-wing aircraft.18 Army participation in other post-Cold War efforts has been mixed. The joint and combined effort to stabilize Somalia, Operation Restore Hope, involved parts of a light division as well as non-divisional support troops. The entire effort was eventually abandoned after the poorly executed attempt by Rangers to seize warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed in October 1993. The 1995 intervention in Haiti amounted to a police mission, and was efficiently handled by airborne and light troops. The more recent deployment to Bosnia by elements of 1st Armored Division from Germany is, at the time of writing, an ongoing mission. Standing between hostile factions which have already decided to call it quits has, so far, proved easy enough, save for logistical and engineering efforts required to maintain an armored force in what is basically light infantry country. A “down side” is the obvious loss of training, and the deployed units could well require six months to prepare for a conventional combat role in, say, Kuwait. The post-Cold War drawdown has reach epic proportions and even official Army “Order of Battle” briefing slides bear somber titles such as “Active Forces – 1996 (What’s Left)”19 With the raison d’être of reinforcement of Europe gone, and forward deployed forces cut in half, the Army has embraced power projection. Under the title of “force projec-

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tion” this now holds a center position in Army doctrine in the 1993 edition of FM 100-5 Operations. Army planning calls for rapid response by “tailored” force packages, organized on the fly, to address the full spectrum of security measures from “Military Operations Other Than War” to corps and higher combat operations.20 The problem is that at the higher levels of engagement, the so-called “major regional conflicts” (MRC, also called “major regional contingencies”), the Army may be hard-pressed to meet the challenge with today’s force structure. The Clinton administration’s Bottom-Up Review (BUR) has postulated America dealing with two MRCs nearly simultaneously. The BUR calculates a necessity for four or five divisions to deal with one MRC, while the Army has a grand total of only 10 divisions (1 airborne, 1 air assault, 2 light, 4 mechanized and 2 armored).21 Desert Storm was fought with seven divisions (1 airborne, 1 air assault, 2 mechanized and 3 armored), so the implication is that future MRCs will be handled by smaller forces. The BUR allows for this by insisting that three enhancements must be undertaken in the near future: 1) improved effectiveness (i.e., high tech munitions for earlyarriving troops); 2) improved readiness of Army reserve components; and 3) more prepositioning and lift enhancements.22 Special Operations Forces (SOF) are largely Army in composition although they contain Naval and Air Force special operations organizations as well. Under a separate joint headquarters since 1986 (the United States Special Operations Command), these forces have led a comparatively charmed post-Cold War existence. Envisioned as having the capabilities required for Third World low-level operations, SOF has escaped the worst of the budget cuts. Certainly of great utility in small projection efforts, SOF can only operate in an MRC environment as part of a much larger coordinated effort.

The changing Navy and Marines Like the Army, the post-Cold War Navy finds it extremely difficult to meet requirements with its reduced force structure. The carrier fleet is stabilizing at 11 active ships plus one training and reserve ship. According to the BUR, four or five carrier battle groups are required to support one MRC. Therefore, supporting two MRCs will represent a considerable strain, especially since one-third of the carriers are often unavailable due to overhaul or work up.23 During the Gulf War, six aircraft carriers were employed in active operations. Navy planning factors require 14 carriers to maintain presence simultaneously in the

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Persian Gulf, the Western Pacific, and the Mediterranean. With 11 or 12, coverage must be gapped in some of these areas, sacrificing “onstation” projection assets.24 The Navy must compensate for this shortfall with surface combatants, two of which, for example, executed the 1993 strike against Iraq’s intelligence headquarters with cruise missiles. Aside from the Gulf War, one notable naval intervention operation involved the removal of normal air wing assets from a carrier, and their replacement with Army helicopters for the light infantry deployment to Haiti. Then, in March 1996, the Clinton administration deployed two carriers to the Taiwan vicinity to counter menacing Chinese naval maneuvers, with the clear implication that America is capable of projecting force in the region to support its allies. The Gulf War demonstrated the viability of the maritime prepositioning system, with a Marine brigade standing ready in Saudi Arabia on 20 August 1990, having flown to the area and linked up with the Maritime Prepositioning Ships (MPS) shipping. Similarly, the fast Roll-On/Roll-Off (RO/RO) sealift ships delivered the heavy 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) from the U.S. to the Persian Gulf in only 13 days.25 Similarly, in response to Iraq’s 1994 “maneuvers” on the Kuwait border, 18 MPS ships were able to reach the Gulf in support of Marine and Army units within 17 days.26 A sore point remains the lack of amphibious lift capability, which effectively has fallen to one MEB and one MEU. The Marines have continued afloat deployments of MEU size, and have taken part in operations such as Restore Hope, in Somalia. The end of the Cold War has brought inevitable contractions in force structure, including reducing several infantry battalions to cadres, and lowering the strength of the Okinawa garrison. The Marines have refined their organizational concepts to emphasize the brigade level, and the MEB as a “forward” headquarters for full MEF employment. In this regard, they are pushing the MEF as “joint-force” capable headquarters.27 The Corps’ traditional “Marine Air-Ground Task Force” concept, and resulting reluctance to yield its air assets to a Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) remain points of dispute in the interpretation of joint doctrine however.

The changing Air Force If the Gulf War represented the last conflict fought with the old Army, it represented the first fought with the new Air Force. Stealth technology, precision guided munitions, and the concept of parallel strategic

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attack combined to demonstrate that the Air Force could indeed be an arm with unique war-winning attributes. Although fixed-wing air (all services) destroyed 2,700 of the 3,700 Iraqi tanks that were eliminated by the coalition, an even greater achievement was that the air arm rendered the Iraqi military machine effectively blind, deaf, speechless, and unsupplied. In addition, air mobility assets (including the first time activation of the CRAF) moved 500,000 people and 540,000 tons of cargo to the theater – an unprecedented air transport effort.28 The Gulf War was also the first successful wartime test of the JFACC as a joint organization to control the application of (theoretically) all fixed-wing air assets in a theater. Aside from the Gulf War, the Air Force has continued to support other interventions with air mobility assets in a timely and efficient manner which has come to be expected. In addition, it has undertaken a new mission, the enforcement of “no fly” zones, in Iraq and Bosnia, with general success. The Air Force also participated in joint air operations against selected Bosnian Serb ground targets in conjunction with the UN/NATO efforts of Operations Deny Flight / Deliberate Force. However successful, the Air Force was not immune to force cuts. Between 1988 and 1994 the bomber force decreased from 21 squadrons and 422 aircraft to 12 squadrons and 225 aircraft, while the fighter force declined from 79 squadrons and 3,027 aircraft to 53 squadrons and 1,781 aircraft. Similarly, transport and refueling aircraft decreased from respective totals of 859 and 567 down to 733 and 326.29 Forward based assets have been drastically cut. For example, U.S. Air Forces in Europe went from 17 combat aircraft and missile wings to three combat aircraft wings over the same period. The Cold War command structure was duly scrapped in 1992, with combat aviation assets being concentrated in the new Air Combat Command, and logistical assets being assigned to Air Mobility Command. Air Force power projection options have been limited by the diminishing number of Cold War era bases overseas. Of the 37 major installations on foreign soil operated by the Air Force as late as 1991, only 13 remained by 1996.30 The Air Force answer has been reliance on longrange bombers to project power directly from continental U.S. bases, and the formation of composite wings to act as air expeditionary forces in tailored packages. For example, the 366th Wing is now considered a primary air projection asset, and consists of a mix of KC-135 tankers, F-15C fighters, F-15E strike aircraft, F-16C multi-purpose fighters, and B-1B bombers. The wing can deploy mission-specific elements to overseas U.S. or foreign bases rapidly, and can absorb other air assets as

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they arrive in theater. Much more than in the past, U.S.-based squadrons participate in overseas exercises to gain practice in rapid deployment and to familiarize themselves with possible areas of operations. Each ACC fighter wing is now held to a standard of being able to deploy its first squadron within 24 hours.31

The future In spite of service efforts to adapt to changing post-Cold War conditions, the overall outlook for U.S. power projection capabilities, at least at the high end, is not optimistic. Assuming the continuation of an interventionist national security policy there may be additional Somalias, Haitis, and Bosnias. The force structure to support such operations is currently in place, and might be able to be maintained if adequate funding is provided to allow for system replacements and modernization. This is not a sure proposition by any means, as Special Operations is the only command to consistently maintain or surpass previous year levels in manning and/or funding. Serious problems appear when the assumptions of the Bottom Up Review are applied against future projection capability. If, as the BUR maintains, U.S. forces must be prepared to project power in two nearly simultaneous MRCs, then our capabilities must be called into question. Land force firepower to counter a large well-equipped enemy, as might be found in Korea or the Persian Gulf for instance, will remain slow to deploy. The Army maintains only two brigades (one heavy) in Korea, and one of these will be withdrawn in the future. No Army combat units are routinely stationed in the Gulf. The Army will preposition one heavy brigade set of equipment in Korea and two in Southwest Asia, which will be used for exercises by rotational units. Another brigade set will be prepositioned afloat for use in either theater.32 The only Army division which can rapidly deploy and affect forced entry is the 82nd Airborne. If a secure air base is available, a light infantry division can also arrive with its weapons in hand. Any Army units would be at a decided disadvantage when confronted by an enemy of five to 10 or more heavy divisions. In the short term, especially in the case of “no warning” or “short warning” attacks, the most effective Army contribution would likely be to actually put people on the ground so that an aggressor would have to make a conscious decision to kill Americans. Part of the BUR’s assessment of the adequacy of Army forces is based on the assumption that 15 reserve component brigades will be early-

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deployable as “readiness enhanced” units. A similar process was undertaken in the 1960s, with dismal results. Historically, large reserve component units have never been fielded in less than 11 months. The reality is that, no matter how good such units are on the company (“local armory”) level, there is no way that they can gain adequate battalion and brigade-level training in peacetime. Time and distance factors do not permit it. The state of the Navy’s carrier fleet, no longer large enough to cover peacetime deployment areas, bodes ill for timely projection efforts in the future. Although a nuclear aircraft carrier can sail the equivalent of the distance between Chicago and New York in 24 hours, it still must be in reasonable range of the area of interest to begin with. The traditional presence capability is also wearing thin as carrier groups will no longer be as “visible” as formerly, due to the proliferation of longrange surface attack missiles in the hands of hostile governments. Returning to MRC considerations, a well-placed carrier can be vital in the early days of a crisis, but for a sustained effort of more than three days, its air contribution would be severely limited by the tempo of operations. Additionally, a substantial portion of each carrier air wing is still required to provide protection for the task group and general support for operations. Fixes in the works include supplementing the number of embarked pilots to increase sortie rates, and the possible addition of more F-18s to the air wing to maximize the use of deck space.33 The Navy is still in the process of coming to grips with the change from open water operations against the old Soviet fleet to viable overland projection of power.34 The future use of Navy forces envisions the employment of Naval Expeditionary Task Groups, tailored to meet specific contingencies. Such groups might employ a centerpiece carrier with escorts, a MEB embarked in amphibious shipping, and additional assets such as patrol aircraft and submarines. The timely arrival of Army heavy units is dependent on surge sealift capability. In order to transport two mechanized or armored divisions there is a requirement for a total of eight fast sealift vessels, 11 mediumspeed large RO/ROs, and 29 lesser-capability RO/ROs. This is to ensure that no more than 1/9th of either division could be lost with one ship. Sealift mobility assets will not adequately meet requirements until some time in the first decade of the new century – depending on budget considerations.35 Amphibious shipping is in a period of temporary decline in the number of hulls, while new high-capacity ships are under construction. The goal of having lift to transport 2.5 MEBs

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will not be met until the fruits of the FY 1995–99 shipbuilding program are realized in the next decade.36 As U.S. firepower in a remote theater is liable to be thin on the ground in the initial stages, Air Force emerging doctrine has emphasized the utility of heavy bombers to place steel on target in a timely manner from long range. That being the case, U.S. bomber strength is alarmingly low to perform the mission – especially if bombers are to be considered swing assets to shuttle between separated MRCs. According to the BUR, the force, by 1999, will consist of 48 B-52s, 72 B-1Bs, and 20 B-2s.37 Even with precision ordnance improvements over the next five years (Joint Direct Attack Munition, Joint Standoff Weapon, and Triservice Standoff Attack Missile), only limited effects can be expected from a 140-plane force flying an average of 0.5 sorties per day per aircraft from distant bases. The tactical force, acknowledged to have made great strides in deployability, will still be limited by the availability of U.S.-owned or friendly bases within reasonable flying distance of targets. This, of course, means that such bases would also be within reasonable range of a host of ballistic missiles now available on the world market. In addition, if these bases have not been fully developed prior to hostilities, then any ordnance which was not prepositioned in the vicinity will have to be flown in. In mitigation, the two areas of highest interest, the Gulf and Korea, have well-developed bases available to the United States. Additionally, with the increased employment of precision guided munitions (PGMs) the ammunition shipping requirement decreases. Approximately four days worth of airlift effort during the Gulf War would be sufficient to transport all of the PGMs used during Desert Storm.38 The general decline in airlift and refueling assets, especially block obsolescence of the C-141 fleet, will only slightly be relieved by the fielding of 20 or 40 more C-17s (the 25th example of which was delivered to the Air Force in March of 1996). The implication for projection is that airlift may only be sufficient to support one MRC in the future. However there are already rumblings in Washington of the imminence of a new defense review which will, perhaps very realistically, eliminate the “two MRC” requirement.

Conclusions With the demise of the Soviet empire, the U.S. military was left to face the uncertain future with a reduced force structure. The “continuity” in

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our story is the residual projection capability left over from the Cold War. The “change” is a new set of conditions placed upon the services: world-class firepower with fewer forces, reduced overseas bases, an increasing intervention tempo, and overall smaller budgets. In an effort to cope, the services have adopted a revised global outlook with which their doctrines are trying to catch up. On the hardware front there are some attempts being made to improve strategic mobility, but the next shooting war will see U.S. forces looking much the same as they did in the last one. The Somalias, Haitis and Bosnias will probably be able to be supported in the future, but serious projection of military power in a major confrontation – or two – is much less likely to be supportable under the currently funded structure of America’s armed forces. Notes 1. Mark Alan Gunzinger, Power Projection, Making the Tough Choices (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1993): vii. 2. A. J. Bacevich, The Pentomic Era, The U.S. Army Between Korea and Vietnam (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1986): 59. 3. Ibid., p. 16. 4. David C. Isby and Charles Kamps Jr, Armies of NATO’s Central Front (London: Jane’s, 1985): 361. 5. Ibid., p. 350. 6. Ibid., p. 455. 7. Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (OASD), Public Affairs, Public Affairs Guidance – Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) (Washington, DC: DoD, 10 April 1980): ii. 8. Isby and Kamps, pp. 369–371. 9. Lee E. Russell and M. Albert Mendez, Grenada 1983 (London: Osprey, 1985): 35. 10. Alan P. Heim, “Power Projection, Amphibious Lift, And the Navy/Marine Corps Team”, Marine Corps Gazette (December 1987): 37. 11. Martin Binkin and Jeffrey Record, Where Does the Marine Corps Go from Here? (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1976): 7. 12. Mike Wells, “Maritime Prepositioning – A New Dimension for Rapid Deployment”, Armed Forces (March 1988): 122. 13. James F. Dunnigan and Raymond M. Macedonia, Getting It Right (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993): 205. 14. Isby and Kamps, pp. 465 & 469. 15. OASD, (PA), Public Affairs Guidance – RDJTF, 1. 16. Isby and Kamps, 460. 17. OASD, (PA), Public Affairs Guidance – RDJTF, 2. 18. James F. Dunnigan and Austin Bay, From Shield to Storm (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1992): 284–286. 19. William T. Smith, “Army Doctrine, Organization and Capabilities”, Air War College Associate Programs, vol. III, Book 2 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1995): 172.

180 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 20. Gary E. Luck, “Corps Force-Projection Operations”, Military Review (December 1993): 15. 21. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the President and the Congress, January 1994 (Washington, DC: Superintendent of Documents, 1994): 15. 22. Ibid., p. 16. 23. Ibid., p. 167. 24. Henry H. Mauz, “The Value of Being There”, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (August 1994): 29. 25. Naval Advisory Group, Air University, Employment of Navy and Marine Forces, AU-16 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1994): 80–81. 26. Scott Truver, “The U.S. Navy in Review”, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (May 1995): 254. 27. Headquarters United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps Capabilities Plan, vol. I (Washington, DC: HQ USMC, 1992): IV–4. 28. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report (Washington, DC: Department of the Air Force, 1993): 207. 29. Tamar A. Mehuron, ed., “The Air Force in Facts and Figures”, Air Force Magazine (May 1995): 50–53. 30. Ibid., p. 40. 31. James Canan, “Airpower From Home Base”, Air Force Magazine (June 1994): 151–53. 32. Office of the Secretary of Defense, pp. 157–59. 33. Ibid., p. 18. 34. Price T. Bingham, “Air Power in Desert Storm: And the Need for Doctrinal Change”, Airpower Journal (Winter, 1991): 33. 35. John Roos, “Power Projection Logistics”, Armed Forces Journal (August 1995): 28–30. 36. Office of the Secretary of Defense, p. 171. 37. Ibid., p. 27. 38. Department of the Air Force, Global Reach – Global Power (Washington, DC: Department of the Air Force, 1992): 7.

11 Airpower’s Effectiveness in a Changing World Destabilized by Asymmetric Threats Vicki J. Rast

The post-Cold War’s transformed international context demands U.S. policy makers and war fighters to conceive differently the contributions airpower will make in the post-Cold War era. No longer does a bipolar status quo guarantee Westernized nations that chivalrous desires will shape the conduct of violence in future conflict and war. Rather, the emerging context appears to be one within which the asymmetric threats posed by agents who do not enjoy military parity with these westernized powers – the United States in particular. This post-Cold War paradigm calls into question the efficacy of overwhelming force and airpower’s ability to prove effective in the absence of a peer competitor employing conventional ground troops. The debate regarding airpower’s ability to contribute to victory in war continues to overshadow the real issues related to its ability to achieve desired effects in war. The USAAF (U.S. Army Air Force)/USAF (U.S. Air Force) experience demonstrates that the pursuit of “destruction” dominated almost 80 years of airpower thought, development, and employment. A second period revolves around Operation Desert Storm, the first parallel use of airpower to achieve strategic effects through discriminant targeting. Marked as the last “Cold War” engagement, lessons learned regarding airpower’s range, speed, and mass were set aside in the third, still evolving, era. Characterized by Operations Deliberate Force and Allied Force – and the still transforming Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom – airpower employment in this asymmetric context has centered on efforts to coerce the enemy to capitulate even though it possessed the physical capacity to continue fighting. Together, these three eras capture airpower’s evolutionary development, one demonstrating that the definition of “effectiveness” must adjust to reflect accurately airpower’s contribution to 181

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success in the absence of decisive victory when used against asymmetric threats.1

Airpower’s evolving role in war Airminded proponents have continuously touted airpower as the panacea for the ills humanity experienced during the “war to end all wars,” World War I, wherein millions of deaths resulted from groundbased trench warfare. Since its inception in the early 1900s, airmen – theorists and operators alike – argued that airpower would transform completely the context of modern warfare.2 As the answer to the problem of stalemated positional warfare, airpower promised to achieve strategic objectives quickly and decisively, thereby negating both the potential and the need for protracted land warfare, especially the type experienced at Verdun and the Somme. As one reflects upon U.S. airpower’s application, it becomes apparent that critics have evaluated it as most “effective” (i.e., produced the “desired effects” or desired results) when its operational and tactical application has paralleled accepted doctrine, a phenomenon that calls into question the very process by which airpower’s effectiveness is measured. Yet, in instances wherein the character of the conflict has not paralleled doctrine, airpower has proven less effective and has been critiqued harshly for its inability to produce “closure” in the battlespace.3 This research draws upon U.S. historical examples to demonstrate the validity of this perspective, illustrating that three “eras” provided the foundation for airpower to serve in new capacities as the United States transformed its military to meet emerging capabilities of those hostile to both its people and its interests. It is crucial to acknowledge from the outset that others would choose to argue differently based upon alternative data sets; however, in the interest of time and space, this work concentrates on USAF airpower’s accomplishments compared to established doctrine. With this caveat in mind, the assessment approaches the evaluative challenge by framing effectiveness in terms of “desired effects,” demonstrating that three broad periods correspond to three types of effects: (1) World War I through the 1980s focused on destruction of the enemy’s capacity to fight, an approach that would manifest in nearly 40 years of AirLand Battle doctrine,4 (2) the early 1990s moved beyond “destruction” to include the other “4Ds” – deny, degrade, delay, and deter – thereby serving as a more discriminant tool of policy,5 and (3) 1995 to present as it incorporates coercion as a central tenet of aerial warfare.

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Post-Cold War implications The events of 11 September 2001 have etched a new reality upon our senses: The world becomes less stable daily and no one – not even the world’s remaining superpower – proves immune from the emerging anarchy.6 One must ask if this type of event could have occurred during the Cold War. Clearly, the answer would be a resounding “NO!” lest World War III would commence. Consequently, decision makers at all levels must reassess their approaches to foreign policy, thinking innovatively, early, and often regarding the utility of armed force employment as a means to achieve national objectives. As future senior military leaders, today’s field grade officer must recast his or her approach to thinking about airpower in terms of what it can do to sustain national security beyond mere “national defense” (e.g., fighting and winning the nation’s wars). Airminded people have begun to transform the ways they envisage airpower’s desired effects as political weapons in war. Absent a symmetrically equipped enemy who fights according to U.S. doctrine, thinking must respond to multiple asymmetric challenges, tests for which the U.S. armed forces may possess little experience, theory, or doctrine. The challenge for airmen remains one of moving beyond seeing every problem as one of “targeting for destruction,” a mindset that shackled U.S. airpower development for nearly a century.

Airpower as a destructive weapon: the tradition Throughout airpower’s early development, theorists and operators attempted to balance the tension presented through targeting options. While the Italian theorist Giulio Douhet advocated eviscerating the enemy’s will to fight, American airmen opted for targeting the enemy’s physical capacity to wage war. Both approaches, however, relied almost exclusively upon materiel destruction as the desired effect. Captured by Douhet’s ideas as reflected in The Command of the Air, airpower would be suited best for pre-emptive, strategic strikes against the enemy’s heartland – negating the enemy’s will to fight proved Douhet’s primary focus.7 In fact, his approach argued that a balanced force structure (i.e., bombers and fighters) would not be necessary as air-to-air engagement would not come to fruition. His “Battleplane” would strike the “eggs in the nest” before the enemy’s air force could prepare either its defense or, more importantly, its offense.8 It is from this perspective that airpower is labeled as an “inherently offensive” tool of warfare. Douhet’s

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ideas would influence America’s most outspoken airpower thinker – Billy Mitchell.9 The effects of this influence can most clearly be seen in the development of interwar airpower doctrine employed by the United States during World War II (WWII), an approach that focused on finding and destroying enemy targets.10 To assess airpower’s effectiveness in terms of achieving victory through operational employment, one must acknowledge that such evaluation demands a clear understanding of the context surrounding its employment. Throughout the interwar period leading airpower proponents recognized the value of Douhet’s approach. Nevertheless, U.S. military leaders understood that neither their nation’s government nor its civil populace would accept the “indiscriminant” targeting of noncombatants: “Mass bombing of cities was simply not then acceptable, and the tone and temper of the nation and its military reflection thus necessitated eschewing Douhet’s solution in favor of an argument for precision, even if that was not yet really possible.”11 Negating the enemy’s capacity to wage war emerged, therefore, as their paramount objective. Even though Britain’s leading airpower advocate, Hugh Trenchard, judged that affecting another’s will to fight proved more important by a ratio of 20:1, like Mitchell and the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) he too recognized that political and sociocultural factors constrained his ability to target civilian populations.12 Consequently, drawing upon “the British World War I experience and the views of Mitchell, Trenchard, and possibly Douhet,” U.S. airpower theory and doctrine began to focus predominantly upon what the ACTS labeled the “industrial web theory.”13 In essence, airpower would “leap over the trenches” to attack a nation’s capacity to build and sustain its fighting forces – its “industrial web” (IW). Mirror-imaged to reflect the burgeoning industrialization of the United States, this approach incorporated all aspects of society that contributed to a nation’s ability to wage war. Private industry, transportation, electricity, and so forth, became logically and morally acceptable targets in terms of both military necessity and proportionality. In Britain, Trenchard internalized this approach as well, yet he fundamentally believed that effectively destroying a nation’s capacity to wage war would at the same time produce demoralizing effects on the people’s will to fight since they would no longer willingly enter those areas of society most likely to be targeted.14 Britain’s approach paralleled the thinking of U.S. airmen at the ACTS.15 This model dominated U.S. air doctrine, ultimately manifesting as AWPD-1 (the production plan to generate wartime airpower requirements for a war in Europe;

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also included limited target sets). U.S. airpower employed the IW concept, albeit via a somewhat modified form, through AWPD-42 (the operational employment plan that included target sets), and ultimately, U.S. contributions to the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO). The U.S. experience during the CBO demonstrates the flaws inherent in its approach to airpower employment. Although some operators had argued vigorously that fighter escorts would be required to extend the range and capability of strategic bomber formations (e.g., AWPD-1), the U.S. remained trapped within its own dogmatic loop regarding the efficacy of strategic bombardment and IW theory as the “end-all, beall” doctrine for airpower employment. Consequently, it remained wedded to the idea of high-altitude precision daylight bombardment (HAPDB) at the expense of producing sufficient numbers of “other” role aircraft to protect the bombers. The issue of effectiveness is evaluated best in terms of the desired effects the CBO hoped to achieve – negating Germany’s capacity to wage war (e.g., destroying war materiel and sustaining industrial capacity).16 As the historical record reflects, the capacityCBO did not produce these effects in the ways airpower theorists/operators envisaged.17 In similar fashion, strategic bombardment in the form of the IW approach proved ineffective in the air war in the Pacific. Japan did not rely upon a concentrated industrial web to sustain its war machine to the same degree as that required by Germany. Nonetheless, airmen earnestly applied IW strategic bombardment theory within this altered context. Not until Arnold’s intervention to change from the mirror-imaged IW approach to firebombing Japanese cities did airpower seemingly begin to contribute to bringing the war in the Pacific to a close. Interestingly, however, we see a shift in objectives as the U.S. approach moved away from targeting capacity to fight toward undermining the Japanese populace’s will to fight. While there are those who argue that the atomic bombs terminated the Japanese people’s will to continue the fight, the evidence suggests this is an oversimplification of the circumstances surrounding the war termination effort.18 As a natural extension of its internal validation process, the USAF advanced strategic bombardment capabilities as it poured the “lion’s share” of funding into big bombers.19 Yet, how did the USAF reach these conclusions in 1961 in light of an earlier Pacific air war experience that provided incontrovertible evidence that the dogmatic application of doctrine that ignores the societal context also fails to achieve military and national objectives when focused myopically

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upon destroying the enemy’s capacity to fight as the sole desired effect? The United States did not internalize these lessons as it moved into the post-Cold War period. Consequently, airmen did not advance doctrine or provide for the appropriate force structure in light of these lessons.20 This error ensured airpower again would prove ill-prepared for challenges that did not conform to strategic bombardment theory’s fundamental assumptions, wars fought under the “nuclear umbrella” in ways that demanded controls on escalation to prevent nuclear holocaust. USAF airpower employment in both Korea and Vietnam failed to capitalize upon the lessons “offered” through the Pacific experience, especially in terms of the targeted environment and the enemy’s reliance upon organic logistical support. Instead of stepping back to analyze the practice of airpower employment within a context that differed sharply from IW theory, the United States again applied a “one size fits all” approach. National leaders and experienced airmen classified the Korean and Vietnam experiences as anomalies. Noted Korean historian Robert Futrell contends, “There was much to be learned from the experiences of combat, but nearly every lesson of the Korean conflict had to be qualified by the fact that the Korean War had been a peculiar war, which was unlike wars in the past and was not necessarily typical of the future.”21 The dogmatic application of USAF airpower theory and doctrine throughout this period circumscribed airpower’s ability to prepare for and to meet effectively the challenges posed by enemy forces within their native environments. Because some airmen designated the Korean experience as a type of war that would never again materialize, lessons that could have informed airpower’s employment in Southeast Asia were never made manifest.22 For example, the use of heavy and medium bombers against porters and bullock carts in Korea revealed that there were “pitifully few targets in North Korea large enough to justify attack by bombers in the big formations they were trained and accustomed to fly.”23 This “lesson” should have served as an anchoring point for Vietnam’s air planners, alerting them that the Viet Cong’s similar lack of reliance upon established and predictable logistical lines paralleled the Korean experience; clearly, it did not.24 Only when the nature of the war changed in Vietnam to the degree that the North Vietnamese began to fight a conventional war that paralleled U.S. doctrine did airpower begin to prove “effective” in interdicting logistical lines, thereby negating the North Vietnamese Army’s capacity to fight (viz., LINEBACKER I/II).25 As with the Pacific air war’s transition from IW targeting to firebombing Japanese cities (coupled with the use of

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two atomic bombs), U.S. efforts to destroy the enemy’s capacity to wage war in Vietnam fell far short of airpower’s strategic bombardment promise. In the first instance, airmen divorced themselves from their doctrine to achieve their objective; in the second, the enemy changed the nature of the war to fit the U.S. doctrine, thereby enabling airmen to achieve their objective. In the aftermath of these experiences, the USAF’s narrow-minded focus on the development of strategic bombardment capabilities primarily in terms of nuclear strategy – coupled with the USAF’s contributions to securing a “tie” and a “loss” – enabled the Army’s principle of using airpower to enhance maneuver to dominate nearly 50 years of USAF doctrine and airpower employment.26 Known as AirLand Battle doctrine, the Army’s foundation doctrine, Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, posited that because all “services are ‘equal’ and work together to defeat the enemy, air support must be coordinated with the main effort.”27 This mindset overshadowed all other efforts to think of airpower in terms beyond close air support at the lower end of the conflict spectrum, contrasted with all-out nuclear holocaust at the other. Hence, AirLand dogma contributed to myopic counterforce notions rather than development of the countervalue approaches that a highly interdependent world community would demand when presented with the destruction of modern war “in real time” via a globally networked mass media. Admittedly an abridged recapitulation of U.S. airpower employment from inception to the late 1980s, this review demonstrates that this first – and longest – period’s myopic focus on strategic bombardment theory hindered the development of a more balanced approach, both doctrinally and in terms of force structure, one that could have optimized airpower’s inherent capabilities during the interwar period and beyond. By focusing almost exclusively upon destruction, airmen failed to maximize the flexibility and versatility airpower offered in diverse contexts. The collective results of these experiences – or, at the very least, the continued, polarized debate regarding strategic bombardment’s contributions to “victory” in these cases – call into question the utility of destruction as airpower’s primary desired effect. Building upon his own Vietnam experience and years of study regarding airpower’s role in modern war, Col. John Warden would transform Air Force thinking in the early 1990s. Thus, airpower employment in Desert Storm marks the beginning of the second period, one based upon discriminant strikes designed to achieve a variety of effects beyond the mere destruction of the enemy’s capacity to wage war.

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Airpower as a discriminant weapon: Instant Thunder takes Iraq by storm Years of analysis sharpened by professional experience impelled those who experienced the air war in Vietnam to vow never to repeat its mistakes.28 Foremost among USAF planners, Col. John A. Warden III emerged as one of the most innovative thinkers regarding airpower employment on the eve of the United States’ greatest commitment of military force since WWII. Air Force Historian Richard Hallion concludes that Warden developed “the clearest American expression of air power [sic] thought since the days of Mitchell and Alexander P. de Seversky, though considerably more concise, cogent, and balanced.”29 Affirming the Clausewitzian approach to thinking about the conceptualization and practice of war – particularly the value associated with identifying centers of gravity – Warden developed a “five strategic rings” targeting analysis framework designed to produce parallel cascading strategic effects across the Iraqi system.30 Because airpower had matured technologically and organizationally, it provided the means to “strike across the spectrum of objectives unconstrained by traditional limitations” – other forms of military force could not achieve such results.31 At the turn of the century such capability demonstrates a clear break with traditional conceptions of AirLand Battle – Could airpower’s flexibility and versatility transform modern warfare into a fundamentally different conception of war? Recognizing airpower as an inherently offensive weapon – one capable of inducing strategic effects quickly and decisively – Warden forced airmen to think in terms far broader than the utter destruction of the enemy’s capacity to fight. Such a mindset extended from “two traditional concepts of war – annihilate the enemy through outright destruction, or exhaust an enemy before he exhausts you (attrition).”32 Breaking with tradition, this contemporary airman thought in terms of controlling the enemy state as a living entity rather than using weapons to inflict destruction without exercising control. He recognized that rendering an enemy force useless achieved the same end as eliminating the enemy force in terms of bringing about war termination conditions favorable to the victor.33 Consequently, Warden’s Instant Thunder model that served as the basis of Operation Desert Storm’s air campaign considered the nature of the peace the coalition – indeed, the world community – would desire in the aftermath of war.34 He designed an air campaign to isolate Saddam Hussein from both his forces and his people, taking great care to use airpower’s flexibility and

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versatility to achieve desired effects beyond destruction. Warden and his air campaign architects broadened conceptions of desired effects to include denial, degradation, disruption, and delay.35 Airpower became a discriminant tool of war – its employment enabled war fighters to achieve desired effects beyond the destruction of the enemy’s physical capacity to wage war.36 Using Warden’s concept, airmen produced cascading effects across Saddam’s system of governmental control, thereby “protecting” the populace – to the greatest degree possible in war – from the adverse effects warfare had induced prior to this watershed targeting system. In effect, airpower planners divorced themselves from the traditional mindset that limited them to “servicing a target,” instead thinking in ways that would “impose force against enemy systems so every effort would contribute directly to the military and political objectives of the Coalition.”37 As he separated the “brain” from the “body” of the war machine, Warden simultaneously sought to convince the Iraqi people through a focused psychological operations (PSYOP) campaign that they had done nothing wrong.38 Rather, he intended his approach to communicate that their leader remained an evil rogue and their troubles resulted from his narcissistic control.39 His effort to secure these positive countervalue effects via parallel air attacks proved markedly different from earlier U.S. approaches and the counterforce obligations enforced by General Norman Schwarzkopf. Warden envisaged airpower as a mechanism to “shape” not only the battlespace during war, but also the nature of international relations and sociocultural underpinnings (within Iraq, U.S. partners, and the world community) in war’s aftermath. Perhaps more than any other modern airpower thinker, Warden internalized the absolute necessity of maintaining congruence across all three levels of war, arguing that tactical successes may not translate into strategic victories, especially when one looks beyond the war itself toward the better state of peace.40 Through this vision, Desert Storm capitalized upon the synergies offered via effective application of the Principles of War, while simultaneously amplifying the contributions of the Tenets of Airpower.41 Most importantly, however, Warden’s approach incorporated the ways in which contextual elements influenced operational art – he designed an air campaign to exploit the advantages of improved logistics, advanced technologies, and organizational connectivity, ensuring that targeting science took full advantage of precision and intelligence innovations. Again, one must evaluate effectiveness in terms of strategic objectives: Airpower did serve as the enabler for success – without it, it is safe to

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say that the ground campaign would not have been as “bloodless” or as successful in removing the Iraqis from Kuwait and restoring its legitimate government. With respect to the U.S.-led coalition’s four strategic objectives for Desert Storm, we also begin to see that airpower can contribute to bringing about a nation’s desired effects at the strategic level.42 Yet airpower cannot “produce the desired effect” of removing ground armies absent one’s own ground forces in country. While this should have been an accepted principle in the aftermath of Desert Storm, our experiences in the former Yugoslavia – Kosovo in particular – bear evidence that modern airmen have not internalized this lesson. Nevertheless, these two campaigns mark the beginning of the third period of airpower’s evolutionary development, one seeking to coerce adversaries to comply with extra-national directives while limiting the destruction encompassed in the weapons of modern war. Post-Cold War airminded leaders recognize more consciously the flexibility and versatility airpower brings to the battlespace in the aftermath of Desert Storm. Most importantly, however, during this evolutionary phase of targeting for effect airmen began to adopt a more nuanced approach to analyzing the context(s) within which airpower would most likely be employed. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the “Fulda Gap” scenario as manifested in 50 years of the Army’s AirLand Battle doctrine, as well as the likelihood of full-scale nuclear war, began to fade into the background as the emerging challenges attendant to internal wars based upon ethnic tensions as well as secessionist desires pushed to the forefront of the international stage. Building upon institutional memory, a revolutionized Professional Military Education program, and a data set to analyze airpower’s contributions, AFDD-1 (and associated doctrinal guidance) began to incorporate a more comprehensive spectrum of airpower contributions and capabilities. Importantly, the remainder of this work does not suggest that these new challenges exist within contexts that parallel a well-developed body of doctrine. Rather, these air efforts represent a defining moment in airpower’s theoretical and doctrinal evolution – evidenced by the fact that the USAF, institutionally, is now analyzing its historical and real-time contributions and acknowledging the limitations posed by its overwhelming preoccupation with destruction as the primary effect. A seminal event, Desert Storm expanded the range of desired effects beyond destruction to allow war fighters to discriminate between targets based upon desired effects. Although many argued that airpower doctrine matured through the “Storm,” airpower’s subsequent tests would prove far too politically constrained for a Wardenesque-like

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Instant Thunder air campaign prosecuted within the context of general or total war (save nuclear exchange). Planned by a generation of officers who had internalized joint war fighting according to the Goldwater-Nichols Act, political restraints forced airmen to think in terms of airpower’s ability to coerce the adversary to capitulate within the framework of limited war. Airmen operationalized this new way of thinking during Operations Deliberate Force and Allied Force, and continue to do so through Operation Enduring Freedom.

Airpower as a coercive weapon: deliberate force, Allied force, enduring freedom, and beyond The thought of airpower as a coercive instrument in war does not represent an epiphany on any level as even Carl von Clausewitz argued that war proved an extension of policy to compel the enemy to conform to one’s will.43 However, the conceptualization of airpower as a coercive weapon of war differs fundamentally in that coercion no longer equates to destruction.44 Byman, Waxman, and Larson contend coercion is best defined as “the use of threatened force, including the limited use of actual force to back up the threat, to induce an adversary to behave differently than it otherwise would.”45 Unlike the previous two eras that sought decision by rendering the enemy physically incapable of fighting when evaluated according to a rational physical force costbenefit calculus, coercion proves successful when the adversary chooses to meet imposed demands when the cost-benefit ratio favors continued violence. Hence, “coercion succeeds when the adversary gives in while it still has the power to resist.”46 The crucial question for the two air wars in the Balkans regards the decision calculus of Yugoslavia’s former leader. As Benjamin S. Lambeth points out, we may never know for sure the answer to this question, but it is imperative to discover the “mix of pressures and inducements [that] ultimately led Milosevic to admit defeat … since the answers, insofar as they are knowable, may help illuminate the coercive dynamics that ultimately swung the air war’s outcome.”47 Throughout the crisis analysis phase of policy development and operational war planning, Slobadan Milosevic’s decision calculus remained the principal center of gravity during Operations Deliberate Force and Allied Force. U.S. and coalition/allied efforts focused on coercing this rogue leader by pounding him into submission while at the same time insulating the Serb populace from the ravages of war. On some level this approach could be deemed a mere extension of

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Desert Storm’s discriminant targeting approach. On another, however, the contexts differed so sharply that even discriminant destruction would not achieve NATO’s goals. As a result, airpower-planning schemas clearly reflected the limitations U.S. partners placed upon operational airpower employment, not the flexible doctrinal tenets that framed airpower’s use in Desert Storm. For example, Warden’s planners designed Instant Thunder’s employment schema to exploit airpower’s range, speed, and mass, epitomizing the antithesis of the Vietnam generation’s woeful experience with Rolling Thunder “which called for slow and gradual escalation of air activities to allow the enemy time to rethink his predicament and, hopefully, sue for peace.”48 Yet, less than a decade after Desert Storm’s airpower success (at the operational level of war), internal NATO diplomatic and political factors would resurrect a gradualism altogether reflective of the U.S.’s Vietnam experience as 19-member nations each played a role in the target approval process.49 Hence, even though Lt Gen Michael Short, NATO’s joint force air component commander, did not identify the Serb 3rd Army in Kosovo as a center of gravity, “NATO authorities wanted to hit the 3rd Army because of a belief that the best way to stop ethnic cleansing was to destroy the instruments of ethnic cleansing directly.”50 Constraints of this nature would make a Desert Storm-like approach impossible. Rather than destroy Serbia or discriminately target crucial elements of a “five-ring system” to achieve parallel cascading effects,51 NATO would employ airpower in limited fashion to compel Milosevic to agree to a peace accord, while coercing him to terminate his advances and allow ethnic Albanian Kosovars to return to their homes without fear of retribution or continued genocide. As we reflect upon Deliberate Force, we again must assess airpower’s effectiveness in terms of its ability to contribute to securing strategic objectives (i.e., retribution for past atrocities reminiscent of Srebrenica, termination of the violence, and bringing about the conditions for a secure and stable Bosnia–Herzegovina). These objectives were in fact achieved, but only after significant changes had occurred on the ground. As the Croatian Army advanced against Serb positions, post-hoc analyses interpreted airpower’s achievements as effective. Yet, we must assess again whether the achievement of those strategic objectives could have been secured absent Croat advances. Post-hoc analysis indicates unmistakably that by 1995 the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniacs would have continued fighting since the war had taken on a life of its own before U.S. intervention.52 Consequently, one can make a cogent argument for airpower as an enabler or contributor to overall effectiveness

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(in concert with ongoing diplomatic, economic, informational, and complementary military activities). Beyond this, however, airpower’s employment did not fulfill the original promises promulgated by early airpower theorists and operators: Airmen did not employ strategic bombardment in the classical sense during this effort.53 It did serve as one additional factor in coercing Milosevic (and his cronies) to recalculate their cost-benefit ratios vis-à-vis continuing the war.54 In this sense, airpower proved effective in concert with the other applied Instruments of Power (IOPs) [viz., economic, diplomatic, political]. The case of Allied Force proves even more complex since the United States took “ground troops” off the table before the NATO intervention materialized and the Russians withdrew support for Serb actions. Perhaps for the first time, U.S. airpower unambiguously served as the air arm for another party’s war effort in ways it had never before imagined in terms of the “American way of war”: NATO airpower served as the Kosovar Liberation Army’s (KLA) air arm as they conducted ground operations. U.S. air planners (and others, viz., the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) recognized that the nature of the context surrounding the employment of operational art would prove significantly different from Deliberate Force: Kosovo manifest as a domestic problem within an internationally recognized sovereign nation (as opposed to a federation whose select members decided to separate along “state” lines). Airpower alone could not have terminated the genocidal violence – absent the KLA, ethnic Kosovar Albanians would either be exterminated or relocated. Because of the nature of the insurgency (much like that presented by the Viet Cong during Rolling Thunder), airpower alone could not have produced the desired effects of terminating the violence or deterring it from recurring in the future. Hence, again we see that airpower failed to prove effective when evaluated according to the criteria put forth by its classical promise – that airpower alone could win a nation’s wars. At this point, however, we have to ask whether airpower’s classical promise is relevant in light of the contextual parameters presented by today’s globalized society. Clearly, Douhet, Mitchell, and Trenchard failed to foresee the effects of globalization as their approaches focused on state-based power projection and response methodologies. The ongoing war against terrorism exposes this omission. Enduring Freedom has paralleled, thus far, the Allied Force experience with one possible exception – the resolve and commitment levels far surpass those related to Allied Force as the resonance associated with the public’s mental images is rivaled only by the WWII

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generation’s emotional connection with the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. As the events of 11 September demonstrated, the actions of America’s enemies have sparked innovation; consequently, airpower’s capabilities are being envisaged and employed more innovatively than at any other period in its brief history. The United States’ spring 2002 engagements during Enduring Freedom again validate calls for the use of ground forces in conjunction with airpower (Operation Anaconda). In this particular instance, airpower forced al-Qaeda members into their caves while “smoking” many others out of theirs – permanently. Yet, many terrorists have escaped “justice” by taking advantage of the intricately linked tunnels inside the cave complexes. Airpower cannot trace their movements within these underground tunnels – ground troops must conduct “mop-up” and additional “smoke-out” activities. This joint air-land effort should in no way be characterized, however, as a return to AirLand Battle. Rather, one could argue that “boots on the ground” are creating the conditions wherein airpower will “seal the terrorists’ fate” once ground forces push them into a corner or out of the cave network altogether. Together, these air-ground activities are designed to bring current terrorists to justice while deterring (i.e., coercing) others who might pursue similar strategies to achieve their goals in the future. The nature of the challenge presented by the fight against terrorism demands airpower be used in concert with ground forces. While airpower may be able to “smoke out” Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists, it most certainly cannot “hunt down” these evil persons absent timely and effective human intelligence. Consequently, breaking with modern ideas regarding “airpower alone” and surgical strike capabilities, Enduring Freedom (and the 2003 ongoing efforts in Iraqi Freedom) enjoys broad-based political, international, and economic support – all efforts remain focused toward eviscerating terrorists and eliminating them from the face of the earth.55 Because the perspective has changed regarding airpower’s contribution to this type of warfare (e.g., use of the B-52 for close air support), its effectiveness will be evaluated most assuredly against another set of criteria – not that touted as the panacea for the ills of war in the first period, nor that promulgated by Warden and his five-ring systems approach (via parallel warfare to produce cascading effects) in the second. Instead, the desired effects sought throughout the third period – focusing greater attention toward airpower’s ability to coerce the adversary by complementing the inducements of other IOPs (especially diplomacy) – begins to bring us around full circle, back to Douhet’s ideas. After all, Douhet

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touted the psychological effects airpower promised as the most significant: If one can convince the enemy that fighting is detrimental to its collective well-being, issues regarding the enemy’s skill to fight prove inconsequential. Recall that Sun Tzu likewise recognized the psychological nature of war by saying, “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”56 Hence, if one can coerce an enemy psychologically to fulfill one’s will outright or refrain from fighting, the desired effect has been achieved – the mode proves immaterial. Deliberate Force, Allied Force, and Enduring Freedom present a clear break with Desert Storm’s discriminant approach, one designed to negate the enemy’s physical capacity to wage war. Arguably selective in terms of targeting and therefore “discriminant” according to some, these three airpower operations prove fundamentally different in that the U.S. and its coalition/allied partners employed precision weaponry for the purpose of coercing their enemies.57 While this research makes no attempt to “prove” which elements of U.S./NATO strategy induced Milosevic to capitulate, or at the very least, cooperate, the prevailing open source literature indicates that airpower played a significant role through its ability to demonstrate persistence and U.S./NATO willingness to stay the course. Such determination altered Milosevic’s decision calculus as he could no longer prosecute “his wars” when faced with internal political turmoil.58 The pursuit of coercive effects vice negating the enemy’s physical capacity to fight, therefore, marks a turning point in the development and application of airpower theory. This line of thinking informed the early stages of Enduring Freedom as well, the United States desiring not only to bring Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein to justice, but also to deter others from engaging in similar behaviors through a process of psychological coercion. Whether this form of coercion will prove effective remains to be seen – only time will tell.

Conclusion: airpower as the Weapon of Choice The enigmatic issue that has perplexed airminded thinkers throughout airpower’s first century is simply this: Can airpower, absent other military instruments of warfare, win a nation’s wars? As we stand at the precipice of a new era wherein asymmetrical warfare will likely characterize America’s future, this question proves wholly irrelevant. Rather, policy makers and war fighters must think more innovatively regarding the relative contributions each instrument – including non-violent IOPs – can make to remedy the specific challenge at hand. Remaining

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mired in debates regarding airpower’s (or any other instrument’s) ability to “fight and win” America’s wars in terms promulgated by Cold War era thinking and doctrine will prove increasingly debilitating – the USAF’s inability to move beyond the pursuit of “destruction” throughout the first 80 years of its cumulative existence manifests as a case in point. Yet, thinkers who prove willing to see beyond their own experience can and do transform the nature of war as we know it. Col. Warden emerged as one such thinker, one who revolutionized airpower’s contribution to war during Desert Storm. In the face of such unambiguous operational success, however, Ivo Daalder and Michael O’Hanlon posit appropriately that airpower alone is not likely to determine with great consistency the events on the ground – Deliberate Force, Allied Force, and Enduring Freedom demonstrate the validity of their insight. The seminal question should not focus on the issue of AirLand Battle as “war as usual” or airpower’s prosecution of “a new way of war” that negates the need for ground troops. Such questions represent bureaucratic debates, arguments whose determinations have more to do with institutional equities and personalities than effectiveness in war. As James Mowbray contends, it is time for the USAF to refocus its intellectual efforts on defining its contributions to war, leaving behind its obsessive tendency to continue justifying itself as a separate service.59 Perhaps airpower will prove “more effective” in an era wherein warfare no longer reflects traditional approaches, approaches that tend to use war as a last resort and engage in warfare according to “gentlemen’s rules.” In an era wherein asymmetric warfare will increasingly become the norm, the use of airpower (in concert with other military tools and the broader range of IOPs) to compel and to deter an adversary may present the most effective use of power writ large. Airmen must act cautiously, however, taking great effort to ensure we do not become trapped in a type of dogma that characterized the first period – destruction as “job one.” Simultaneously, airminded professionals must ensure we continue to enhance our ability to secure national objectives through the institutionalized understanding of airpower application, as opposed to depending upon the emergence of the next “Warden” as in the second era. It is in fact this third era – one embracing fully the range of effects airpower can achieve – that represents a turning point in airpower’s history. Recognizing that airpower can prove successful without having to destroy the enemy’s capacity to fight – while leaving that same enemy with sufficient capability to protect itself against other potential aggressors – provides the United

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States (and its partners) with the means to employ force in ways that Douhet, Mitchell, and other early airpower thinkers could have only dreamed. Only through such an approach can we mature an airpower theory and associated doctrine to exploit completely the synergies inherent in airpower’s flexibility and versatility as the technologically developed world’s weapon of choice. Notes 1. Wing Commander Stephen Cockram, the British Royal Air Force, provided sound direction throughout the completion of this work. I remain indebted to him for his dedication and patience: His diligence focused me; his compassion motivated me. This product would never have come to fruition save his willingness to take a chance with me – thank you sir! 2. John Buckley, Air Power in the Age of Total War (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1999). 3. Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York London: Free Press; Collier Macmillan, 1989), Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000). 4. Admittedly, Strategic Air Command intended to use airpower as the single instrument to deter, then to devastate the enemy should deterrence fail. This said, beyond deterrence the overwhelming focus remained on destroying the enemy’s capacity to fight throughout this period. For an exceptional overview of the development of AirLand Battle doctrine in terms of the USAF’s Tactical Air Command’s role in its acceptance, see Richard P. Hallion, Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War (Washington & London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992). 5. It is necessary to acknowledge here that Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manuals (JMEMS) incorporated effects beyond mere “destruction” well before the 1990s, yet only in rudimentary ways. However, not until Operation Desert Storm did airmen internalize the possibilities these effects held for success in warfare. Further, weaponeering still does not anticipate levels of effects over time. For example, if you ask a weaponeer to suggest the proper approach to deny the enemy the use of a facility for a specific range of time, you will probably get an unsatisfactory answer. This occurs because (1) planners are not specific enough, (2) weapons are not discriminant enough, or (3) post-strike measurement is not sophisticated enough. 6. United States Commission on National Security/21st Century, New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century: Major Themes and Implications (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1999). 7. Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History: For sale by the Supt. of Docs. U.S. G.P.O., 1983). 8. Ibid., pp. 53–54. 9. James A. Mowbray, “Air Force Doctrine Problems 1926–Present,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 4 (1995). 10. Daniel Byman, Matthew C. Waxman, and Eric V. Larson, Air Power as a Coercive Instrument (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1999).

198 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 11. Mowbray, “Air Force Doctrine Problems 1926–Present,” p. 3. 12. Phillip S. Meilinger and Air University (U.S.) Air Command and Staff College and School of Advanced Airpower Studies, The Paths of Heaven: The Evolution of Airpower Theory (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 1997). 13. Robert T. Finney, History of the Air Corps Tactical School, 1920–1940, Reprint ed. (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air Force Historical Center, 1992), Mowbray, “Air Force Doctrine Problems 1926–Present,” p. 2. 14. Meilinger and Air University (U.S.) Air Command and Staff College and School of Advanced Airpower Studies, The Paths of Heaven: The Evolution of Airpower Theory. 15. In practice during the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO), the RAF would attempt to affect the enemy’s will to fight, flying nighttime bombing missions to augment the USAAF’s daylight effort. Together, these approaches ensured 24-hour bombing operations could be prosecuted in Germany. 16. Larry A. Weaver and Robert D. Pollock, “Campaign Planning for the 21st Century: An Effect-Based Approach to the Planning Process,” in War Theory, ed. M. Kwolek and G. Story (Montgomery, AL: Air Command and Staff College, 1995). 17. Center for Aerospace Doctrine Research and Education CADRE, The United States Strategic Bombing Surveys (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1945; reprint, October 1987). 18. John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (NY: W. W. Norton, 1999). 19. Max Hastings, The Korean War, New York: Simon and Schuster Adult Publishing Group, 1998. 20. Mowbray, “Air Force Doctrine Problems 1926–Present,” p. 3. 21. Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950–1953 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983), p. 689. 22. Hastings, The Korean War, William W. Momyer, Air Power in Three Wars [WWII, Korea, Vietnam] (Washington: Dept. of Defense Dept. of the Air Force, 1978). 23. Hastings, The Korean War, p. 256. 24. Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. 25. Ibid. 26. For a dissenting view positing that the USAF did begin to change its perspective in 1965 toward a more “balanced” force, see Maj John R. Carter, Airpower and the Cult of the Offensive, The Cadre Papers (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1998). 27. Quoted in Martin L. Van Creveld, Kenneth S. Brower, and Steven L. Canby, Air Power and Maneuver Warfare (Alabama: Air University Press, 1994), p. 228. 28. Richard P. Hallion, Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War (Washington & London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), p. 116. 29. Ibid. 30. Col. John A. Warden, III, “The Enemy as a System,” in Concepts in Airpower for the Campaign Planner, ed. Lt Col. Albert U. Mitchum (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air Command and Staff College, 1993). It is important to note that Warden did not capture this approach in his writings until after the Gulf War. See

Vicki J. Rast 199

31. 32.

33.

34.

35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

also, Col. David A. Deptula, Firing for Effect: Change in the Nature of Warfare (Arlington, VA: Aerospace Education Foundation, 1995). Hallion, Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War, p. 152. Deptula, Firing for Effect: Change in the Nature of Warfare, p. 9. See also, Gordon A. Craig, “Delbruck: The Military Historian,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986). Deptula, Firing for Effect: Change in the Nature of Warfare. Note that Col. Deptula erroneously uses the term “conflict termination” in his discussion. At this point in the campaign’s execution, “war termination” is a more appropriate term since conflict termination extends beyond military activities into the political, social, economic, and psychological realms. Richard T. Reynolds, Heart of the Storm: The Genesis of the Air Campaign against Iraq, vol. 1 [Volume one of a two-volume series (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1995]. At the time of this writing, the author has found no evidence stating that planners actually applied JMEMS criteria in their targeting deliberations. In the final analysis, however, sortie generation rates still favored counterforce objectives driven by AirLand Battle dogma under General Schwarzkopf’s direction. For more information, see Thomas A. Keaney, Eliot A. Cohen, and Gulf War Air Power Survey (Organization : U.S.), Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of the Air Force ; For sale by the U.S G.P.O. Supt. of Docs., 1993). Deptula, Firing for Effect: Change in the Nature of Warfare, p. 13. Warden, “The Enemy as a System.” Hosmer reports that in concert with misgivings regarding their military capabilities vis-à-vis a qualitatively and quantitatively superior U.S.-led force, “Iraqi forces serving in the KTO [Kuwait Theater of Operations] also harbored serious misgivings about the justice and, even more important, the necessity of the cause for which they would be fighting…most Iraqi officers and enlisted personnel considered a war with the Coalition to preserve Iraq’s control of Kuwait to be neither essential nor wise.” Hosmer, Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Operations in Four Wars 1941–1991: Lessons for U.S. Commanders, p. 158. Col. John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat (McLean, VA: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense Publishers, Inc., 1989). USAF, Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 1: Air Force Basic Doctrine (Maxwell AFB, AL: Headquarters Air Force Doctrine Center, 1997). Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense OSD, Conduct of the Gulf War, Final Report to Congress Pursuant to Title V of the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and Personnel Benefits Act of 1991 (Public Law 102–25) (Washington, DC: GPO, 1992). Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, trans. Michael Howard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976). Byman, Waxman, and Larson, Air Power as a Coercive Instrument. Ibid., p. 10.; emphasis in original. Ibid., p. 13. Benjamin S. Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment, Project Air Force Series on Operation Allied Force (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), p. xiv.

200 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 48. Reynolds, Heart of the Storm: The Genesis of the Air Campaign against Iraq. 49. Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment. 50. John A. Tirpak, “Short’s View of the Air Campaign,” Air Force Magazine, September 1999, p. 1. 51. Warden, “The Enemy as a System.” 52. Susan L. Woodward, “Implementing Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Post-Dayton Primer and Memorandum of Warning,” (The Brookings Institution, 1997). 53. Col. Robert C. Owen, Deliberate Force (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2000). 54. Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment. 55. Indeed, there is little “surgical” about a 15,000 bomb in terms of precision in the technological sense. Although its psychological effects vis-à-vis shortterm will to fight trump the requirement for precision in terms of preventing collateral damage, we must recognize that this type of technologically imprecise munition can deliver a psychologically surgical effect in terms of influencing the enemy’s will to fight. 56. S. B. Griffith, ed., The Art of War (by Sun Tzu) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 77. 57. Lambeth offers correctly that discriminate targeting was used in Operations Deliberate Force and Allied Force. However, he does not make the same argument presented in this paper, making a clear distinction between discriminant and coercive effects. See Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment. 58. Ibid. 59. James A. Mowbray, “Air Force Doctrine Problems 1926–Present,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 4 (1995).

12 Sizing the Military in the Post-Cold War Era John F. Troxell

You cannot make decisions simply by asking yourself whether something might be nice to have. You have to make a judgement on how much is enough. Robert S. McNamara April 20, 1963

Introduction Ever since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been struggling to gain consensus on an appropriate force planning methodology concerning the size of its military establishment and answer the question “how much is enough.” The size and posture of the U.S. military was the principal topic of the first Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the National Defense Panel’s (NDP) Alternative Force Structure Assessment, and remains an important task for the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2000, which made quadrennial defense reviews a permanent requirement, includes under its first and principal task to the Secretary of Defense a call for a comprehensive discussion of national defense strategy and the force structure best suited to implement that strategy. Consequently, the new administration, and all subsequent “new administrations” must explicitly show their hand at the complex task of force planning. In designing forces to protect U.S. national interests, military planners must accomplish three tasks: determine how much force is required to protect those interests with a certain degree of assured success or a minimum degree of acceptable risk; determine how to 201

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posture that force; and finally convince Congress and the public that the solutions for the first two tasks are reasonably correct.1 The issue of creating well-reasoned force structure requirements and convincing cost conscious politicians is not an inconsequential matter. Most defense analysts claim that during the Cold War the force planning task was relatively straightforward. The threat posed by the Soviet Union required the fielding of forces capable of conducting a global war, with priority placed on defending Western Europe. This situation served as the agreed scenario around which to design and develop forces and measure risks if specific force goals were not met. Force modernization programs were also directly linked to maintaining a qualitative advantage over projected improvements in Soviet capabilities. The resultant Cold War force was so large that all other military requirements, such as forces for forward presence, smaller scale interventions, and humanitarian operations, could be met as lesser-included requirements. During the post-Cold War period, the sizing function that replaced the global war scenario against the Soviet Union has been the requirement to be able to prosecute Major Theater War (MTW). This requirement evolved during the last years of the Bush administration as the rationale for the Base Force. The first act of the new Clinton administration was to reexamine the issue, resulting in the Bottom Up Review (BUR) Force. The Base Force and the BUR Force were both sized against the requirement to fight two MTWs. This force-sizing requirement was revalidated in the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, but continues to generate a great deal of controversy. Depending on the point of view, the force structure associated with this posture is attacked for being over-stuffed, unaffordable, or totally inadequate.2 During the past 15 months a working group at the National Defense University has been examining issues for the 2001 QDR and recently concluded that a severe strategy-resources gap exists and that the 2001 QDR must confront the “iron triangle” of fundamental choices – spend more, cut costs, or do less.3 The two-MTW force-sizing construct is endemic to all of these choices. The purpose of this essay is to examine force-planning techniques used to determine the appropriate means to successfully execute U.S. defense and military strategy, and to suggest some options and adjustments that force planners can apply in the future.

Post-Cold War force planning “Uncertainty is not a mere nuisance requiring a bit of sensitivity analysis,” Paul Davis points out; “it is a dominant characteristic of serious

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planning.”4 The U.S. military is well aware of this fact, but has had difficulty during the current strategic transition in selling it to Congress and the public. The principal problem is the lack of the allconsuming threat that focused the nation’s attention on the problem of containing the USSR for over four decades. The global war force planning framework has evaporated in the post-Cold War era, leaving little agreement on appropriate threats, contingencies, or required capabilities against which to focus the defense establishment. Force planning methodologies: holdovers from the Cold war Since the advent of the Cold War, military planners have used two very different force-planning methodologies.5 The easiest to conceptualize is threat-based planning. This methodology is pre-eminent when threats to U.S. interests are easily recognized and identified. The task for the planner is to postulate a reasonable scenario, or a specific military contingency, then determine the amount of force needed to prevail in that scenario. This approach lends itself to dynamic and static modeling and provides a quantifiable rationale for the recommended force structure, and answers the question: Can the United States, either unilaterally or as part of an alliance, defeat the opponent or prevail in the postulated contingencies? The logic of this approach is very compelling and greatly facilitates accomplishing the planner’s third task – convincing the public and Congress. The second major methodology is generally referred to as capabilities-based planning. This type of planning is most in vogue when threats to U.S. interests are multifaceted and uncertain, and do not lend themselves to single point scenario-based analysis. Instead of focusing on one or more specific opponents, the planner applies a liberal dose of military judgment to determine the appropriate mix of required military capabilities. Capabilities-based planners claim to focus on objectives rather than scenarios. A major problem planners have with this approach is convincing Congress that military judgment has established the proper linkage between the recommended force and the uncertain geostrategic environment. The general characteristics of these two methodologies are summarized in Figure 12.1.

Force-planning methodologies The Base Force In an effort to demonstrate military responsiveness to changes in the strategic and budgetary environments, the Chairman of the Joint

204 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests Purpose

Threat based Capabilties based: Resource focus

Mission focus

Road to War

Force Determinants

Total Force Requirement

Defeat the enemy

scenarios (point-estimates of likely contingencies)

wargaming (static and dynamic modeling)

Force sized to prevail in desired number of contingencies

Optimize based on cost

multifaceted and uncertain threats

military judgement (focus on inputs)

Adequate and affordable mix of capabilities

Accomplish required military objectives

generic military missions

military judgement (focus on outputs)

Size force to carry out missions

Figure 12.1

Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, developed the Base Force in the early 1990s. This force was considered the minimum force that would still allow the armed forces to meet mission requirements with acceptable risk. The Base Force straddled both the Soviet revolutions of 1988 and 1991, causing the justification and rationale behind the chosen force levels to evolve over time. The initial focus of the Base Force was on a capabilities-based approach to defense planning, driven largely by resource constraints and the lack of a well-defined threat in the wake of the Cold War. “I’m running out of demons,” General Powell commented in April 1991, “ I’m running out of villains … I’m down to Castro and Kim Il Sung.”6 In such an environment, Powell stressed there were some very real limitations to threat-oriented contingency analysis. The resource-constrained force, he concluded, should instead focus on the combat capabilities needed to ensure that a sufficient array of assets would be present to perform the multiple missions demanded on the modern battlefield.7 Unfortunately, the advent of and ensuing focus on Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm precluded the Pentagon’s strategic planners from completing the analytical construct behind the Base Force, a task that Representative Les Aspin was more than willing to undertake. In the first of two national security papers, Aspin attacked capabilitiesbased force planning, charging that decisions concerning what capabilities were required of U.S. forces could not be done in a vacuum. Instead, he concluded, “… it is critical to identify threats to U.S. interests that are sufficiently important that Americans would consider the use of force to secure them.”8 Shortly thereafter, Aspin outlined in a second paper his concept of the “Iraqi equivalent” as the generic threat measure for regional aggressors and the “Desert Storm equivalent” as the most robust building block for U.S. forces. The purpose was to estab-

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lish a clear linkage between the force structure and the sorts of threats the forces could be expected to deal with. Aspin also envisioned his “threat-driven” methodology to be flexible enough to include aspects of a typical capabilities-based approach. The building blocks for the methodology, he pointed out, were generic capabilities. Although each is informed by a careful review of pertinent historical cases, I am not suggesting we acquire forces which would be suited only to a few places and precedents. I’m suggesting instead generic military capabilities which should be effective against the full spectrum of categorical threats in the uncertain future.9 Partly in response to this criticism the rationale for the Base Force evolved into a combined capabilities-based and threat-based approach and became more firmly anchored to the two-MTW requirement. In late 1992, General Powell began promoting the Base Force as both capabilities oriented as well as threat oriented. In a few cases such as Korea and Southwest Asia, he pointed out, it was possible to identify particular threats with some degree of certainty.10 The “Base Force” National Military Strategy of 1992 concluded that U.S. “plans and resources are primarily focused on deterring and fighting regional rather than global wars.”11 Although this document did not specify a two-MTW requirement, the sizing function for this requirement continued to evolve behind the scenes. Both the 1991 and 1992 Joint Military Net Assessments (JMNAs) focused on the warfighting analysis for Major Regional Contingency-East (MRC-East) – Southwest Asia, and MRC-West – Korea. According to Army force planners, the principal focus of U.S. operational planning was “regional crisis response – to include a capability to respond to multiple concurrent major regional contingencies.”12 In his autobiography General Powell clearly states what his National Military Strategy did not: “The Base Force strategy called for armed forces capable of fighting two major regional conflicts ‘nearly simultaneously.’”13 The Bottom Up Review Force With a new administration, the Base Force title was jettisoned; but the underpinnings of U.S. force structure remained largely intact. Upon assuming office, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin initiated a comprehensive review of the nation’s defense strategy and force structure and published the Report of the Bottom Up Review (BUR) in October 1993. The methodology for the BUR combined all threat-based and capabilitiesbased aspects of the force-planning methodologies. To begin with, there

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was the traditional assessment of threats and opportunities, the formulation of a strategy to protect and advance U.S. interests, and the determination of the forces needed to implement the strategy. At the same time, there was an evaluation of military missions that included fighting MTWs, conducting smaller scale operations, maintaining overseas presence, and deterring attacks with weapons of mass destruction. The ultimate force-sizing criterion was to “maintain sufficient military power to be able to win two major regional conflicts that occur nearly simultaneously.” The planning and assessment for these MTWs were based on two illustrative scenarios viewed as representative yardsticks with which to assess in “gross terms the capabilities of U.S. forces.”14 From this perspective, the BUR continued the dual focus on both threat and capabilities that had evolved in the Base Force. “The Clinton defense policy,” defense analyst Richard Kugler points out, “represents continuity rather than a revolutionary departure, for the changes it makes are relatively small. … The chief difference lies in the new policy’s call for a smaller conventional posture, but only 10–15 per cent smaller than the Bush administration’s Base Force.”15 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the National Defense Panel (NDP) Despite a degree of continuity and general agreement within the nation’s defense establishment concerning the overall framework for the size and posture of U.S. military forces, planners continued to have difficulty with their third task of convincing Congress and the public. The greatest problem was persuading Congress that the Pentagon was sufficiently focused on the 21st century and that DoD was preparing the military to execute the most likely conflicts. As a result, in 1996 Congress passed legislation directing the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to conduct a review of the U.S. defense program and provide a report in 1997. Their review was to include “a comprehensive examination of the defense strategy, force structure, force modernization plans, infrastructure, budget plan and other elements of the defense program…”16 Congress also provided for an independent body of defense experts, designated the National Defense Panel, to both review and comment on the QDR, as well as to look slightly further into the future than the 2015 date of the QDR. The QDR was designed to serve as a strategy-driven review and upon its completion to become the overall strategic planning document for the Defense Department. From a force planner’s perspective the key features of the QDR were the newly articulated defense strategy of

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“shape, respond and prepare,” and several refinements to force sizing and planning considerations. Nevertheless, the new document continued to require “that U.S. forces must be capable of fighting and winning two major theater wars nearly simultaneously.”17 The shape-respond-prepare strategy recognizes the requirements for U.S. military forces to operate in support of U.S. interests across the entire spectrum of operations, from peacetime to wartime. Military forces assist in shaping the international environment through overseas presence, rotational deployments, and various military-to-military programs.18 Responding to the full spectrum of crises, to include major theater wars, remains the most stressful requirement. Although the QDR revalidates the centrality of a 2-MTW force structure, it also places increased emphasis on capabilities needed for the most likely challenge of Smaller Scale Contingencies (SSC) and the ability to be able to conduct multiple concurrent operations of this type.19 One of the difficulties in using this approach as a force structure determinant, however, is that while the military is relatively confident that it knows the types and quantity of forces needed to fight a MTW, it is much less certain of what is needed for SSCs that have a wide variety of objectives and occur in diverse regions of the world.20 The QDR’s analysis continues to represent a blend of threat-based and capabilities-based planning. The principal scenarios remain focused on the threat posed by regional aggressors on the scale of Iraq or North Korea with a slightly expanded focus on possible adversarial asymmetric strategies, differences in warning time, U.S. force size, and the degree of commitment to ongoing SSCs. Equally important, the QDR tests projected capabilities against a range of more challenging threats – a postulated major regional power in the 2014 timeframe and a threat force based on the projected capabilities of nations not currently allied with the United States.21

The MTW conundrum The report of the National Defense Panel highlights another dilemma faced by force planners – whether to build forces for the present or focus force structure on future requirements. Concerning the present, the NDP acknowledges that the United States cannot afford to ignore near-term threats. As a consequence, “the two-theater construct has been a useful mechanism for determining what forces to retain as the Cold War came to a close, (and) to some degree, it remains a useful mechanism today.”22 But the panel also argues that today’s threats are

208 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests U.S. Defense Policy Reviews

Forces

Actual Force

1990

Base Force 1991

BUR 1993

QDR 1997

Army 18 10 Divs

12 6 + 2 Divs

10 5+ (582K)

10 (530K)

15 + 1 546

12 450

11 + 1 346

11 / 1 300+

AC FWE RC FWE

24 12

15 11

13

12+ 8 + 4 (Air Def)

Marines

3/1

3/1

3 / 1 MEF(Div) 3 / 1 MEF(Div)

MEF(Div)

MEF(Div) 182K

174K

Active Divs Reserves

Navy Carriers Ships

Air Force

197K

7

Figure 12.2

not necessarily the ones the U.S. will face in the future, expressing concern that the two MTW construct is becoming an inhibitor to achieving the capabilities needed in the 2010–2020 time frame. The panel suggested a fundamental change: “The United States needs a transformation strategy that enables us to meet a range of security challenges in 2010–2020 without taking undue risk in the interim.”23 Two-MTW rationale In examining the rationale for the two-MTW requirement, it is important to remember that the requirement was never construed to be a strategy, but represented the principal determinant of the size and composition of U.S. conventional forces for the Clinton administration’s defense program. Three principal reasons for this sizing function emerged during the post-Cold War period. First, as a nation with global interests, the U.S. needed to field a military capability to credibly deter opportunism – avoiding a situation in which America lacked the forces to deter aggression in one region while fighting in another. “A onetheater war capacity,” the QDR points out, “would risk undermining both deterrence and the credibility of U.S. security commitments in key regions of the world.”24

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A second reason was the belief that a force capable of defeating two regional adversaries should provide the basic wherewithal to support a defense against a larger-than-expected threat or respond to a regional crisis under circumstances more difficult than expected.25 Although a peer-competitor was still not envisioned in the near-term, the possibility of confrontations with a larger than MTW threat had to be considered. This hedge against uncertainty was also required as a practical matter because of the time needed to reconstitute a larger force. “If we were to discard half of this two-MTW capability or allow it to decay,” the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John M. Shalikashvili, concluded, “it would take many years to rebuild a force of comparable excellence. In today’s turbulent international environment, where the future posture of so many powerful nations remains precarious, we could find ourselves with too little, too late.”26 Finally, the proponents of the two-MTW sizing function recognized that the increased operational presence and deployment of American forces across the conflict spectrum required an adequate force to allow the U.S. to deter latent threats from regional adversaries when portions of the force were committed to important smaller-scale contingencies and engagement activities in other theaters.27 U.S. participation in smaller-scale contingency operations was not necessarily viewed in this regard as a given; nevertheless, if the National Command Authorities (NCA) decided to commit U.S. forces to such operations, the strategy and force structure, as sized by the two-MTW requirement, was thought to adequately support that commitment. Components of the two-MTW force-sizing construct Unlike its Cold War predecessors, the current defense program that emerged from the two-MTW rationale provides a great deal of specificity concerning important operational components of the force sizing function. The first component is the two Illustrative Planning Scenarios (IPS) developed to assist planning and assessment. The illustrative planning scenarios depict aggression by a remilitarized Iraq against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and by North Korea against the Republic of Korea. Each scenario examines the performance of projected U.S. forces in relation to critical parameters, including warning time, threat, terrain, regional allies, and duration of hostilities.28 These scenarios are not designed to replicate the operational plans of the warfighting Commander-in-Chiefs (CINCs), but rather to assess forces and support assets for a wide range of possible future operations.29 In addition to the MTW scenarios, the defense program has

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also examined numerous smaller scale operations in order to identify any unique force requirements not specified in the 2-MTW warfight. A second force-sizing component is a notional operational scheme for the execution of an MTW. U.S. planning for fighting and winning this type of war envisions an operational strategy that in general unfolds as follows: • halt the invasion • build up U.S. and allied combat power in theater while reducing the enemy’s • decisively defeat the enemy • provide for post-war stability30 The final component is the MTW building block. According to the 1996 DoD Annual Report, “the following forces will be adequate, under most conditions, to successfully fight and win a single MTW,” assuming continued progress on programmed force enhancements to strategic lift, prepositioning, and other force capabilities and their support assets: • 5 Army divisions • 10 Air Force fighter wing equivalents • 1–2 Marine Expeditionary Forces

• • •

4–5 Navy aircraft carrier battle groups up to 100 bombers Special Operations Forces31

Force planning into the 21st century Without an agreement on the mission or strategy, force planning in the 21st century will continue to disappoint. Unfortunately, at the present juncture there is little agreement concerning the mission of the armed forces. The on-going debate has two dimensions. The first involves activities at the lower end of the conflict spectrum. Numerous politicians, defense analysts and senior military leaders have concluded that the two-MTW requirement should be adjusted to specifically include force-sizing for peace operations – a position based on the experiences of the first decade of the post-Cold War period. During that time the operational commitment of U.S. military forces increased 300 per cent, and the vast majority of those deployments involved shaping activities and smaller scale contingencies at the low end of the spectrum of conflict. The most recent articulation of this position is contained in the Phase II report of the U.S. Commission on National Security/

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21st Century. “The two major theater wars yardstick for sizing U.S. forces,” the Report argues, is not producing the “capabilities needed for the varied and complex contingencies now occurring and likely to increase in the years ahead.” A portion of U.S. force structure, therefore, should be specifically tailored to humanitarian relief and constabulary missions.32 Other defense analysts have joined the bandwagon, urging the replacement of the 2-MTW criteria.33 Even the Defense Department has begun to waver on the issue slightly. The most recent edition of the DoD Annual Report, in addressing the use of military force in support of primarily humanitarian interests, has removed the previous qualifier that “the U.S. military is generally not the best means of addressing a crisis.”34 This shift in emphasis is further supported by the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS’s) focus on peacetime military engagement activities as the “best way” of reducing the sources of conflict and shaping the international environment.35 At the same time, General Henry H. Shelton, has also gone on record to indicate that the U.S. military should not carve out a portion of its force structure exclusively to handle peacekeeping missions because those operations could quickly escalate into situations that only trained warfighters could handle.36 Other voices are equally vociferous on maintaining the 2-MTW yardstick. Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Floyd Spence, for instance, commented that he fundamentally disagreed “with those who advocate shifting the composition of our armed forces toward peacekeeping and humanitarian operations at the expense of warfighting capabilities.”37 Spence and others continue to recognize the need for a versatile and flexible force capable of responding and executing a wide range of missions. Their basic disagreement concerns where risk on the operational spectrum should be assumed – high end (major theater war) or low end (peacekeeping or humanitarian operations) – and how to posture the force to minimize that risk. Force planners will have a hard time developing an acceptable force structure in the absence of consensus on this issue. The second issue is to determine which scenarios to use as planning tools. Scenarios are extremely useful to the force planner as a yardstick against which to measure the capabilities of the force. Because they reflect key aspects of future challenges the U.S. might face, well-chosen scenarios help to ensure that the yardstick used has some relationship to reality. It is also important to keep in mind that no single scenario (or pair of scenarios) will ever be completely adequate to assess force capabilities.

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Does the use of scenarios, as assessment tools constitute “threatbased planning?” That common question can best be answered by posing another: “Is it possible to do serious force planning without reference, either explicitly or implicitly, to some scenarios?” The answer to the second question is clearly no. Any force structure must ultimately be judged against some expected set of operational requirements – those things that the force is expected to be able to do. This is simply another way of saying “scenarios.”38 Nevertheless, just because scenarios are used, the label “scenario-based” or “threat-based” planning should not be accepted. Critics of the 2-MTW framework claim that the use of canonical scenarios (one in Southwest Asia and one in Korea) suppress uncertainty and do not satisfactorily measure the adequacy of U.S. force posture. Proposals include using an expanded scenario set, to include non-standard scenarios, and examining the “scenario-space” within that set of scenarios to determine capability envelopes.39 Scenariospace implies the iteration of numerous scenario characteristics, such as alternative force levels (threat and friendly), build-up rates, military strategies and warning time – thereby generating a range of required capabilities. Nonetheless, the canonical scenarios – Korea and the Persian Gulf – are clearly the most stressful and dangerous near-term contingencies, and have served the U.S. well by creating a requirement for high-mobility forces and a diverse posture.40 Reassessing the scenarios must also include relooking the threats used in the planning scenarios. The Iraq and North Korean scenarios remain the most demanding, but in each case threat capability is declining.41 In addition, the potential for opponents’ adopting asymmetrical strategies could pose different security challenges than those currently contained in the MTW planning scenarios. Iran’s purchase of Kilo-class submarines and its improved anti-ship missiles is one example. Finally, the near-term transformation of China into a “peer competitor” remains a concern that should be assessed in future planning scenarios. The final issue that force planners also must resolve is whether to focus efforts on the current threat or future threats. According to the NDP: …we must anticipate that future adversaries will learn from the past and confront us in very different ways. Thus we must be willing to change as well or risk having forces ill-suited to protect our security twenty years in the future. The United States needs to launch a

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transformation strategy now that will enable it to meet a range of security challenges in 2010 to 2020.42 Proponents of this view contend that the “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA) will have profound effects on the way wars are fought. This model would replace the 2-MTW force with a “silicon-based” superior force that would be smaller and more flexible, emphasizing mobility, speed and agility. Warfighters would benefit from technological achievements in stealth, precision weapons, surveillance, and dominant battlefield awareness. Most RMA proponents also contend that at present the U.S. has a threat deficit and therefore can afford to cut force structure and focus on research and development of new “sunrise systems”, experimentation and innovation.43 Other critics claim that both the QDR and NDP have failed to propose innovative and long-term changes in the defense program. General Shalikashvili’s response to such criticism brings the issue full circle back to risk assessment and how that risk should be allocated over time: My admonition was that we need to do what we need to do to remain capable of defending our country and winning our nation’s wars. I didn’t want to get an award for innovation’s sake. I didn’t want anyone gambling with our nation’s security just so we could be called great innovators.44 Since the last QDR, the gamble that General Shalikashvili wanted to avoid has only increased in intensity. Most of that tension is associated with the strategy-resources gap that, as Eliot Cohen points out is not a new phenomenon: For a decade now the Pentagon has not had enough money to replace aging hardware that it uses around the world. Estimates of the shortfall range from $25 billion a year to three times that figure (the latest assessment from the Congressional Budget Office comes in at $50 billion a year).45 The funding shortfall has translated into serious concerns about the readiness of the force to execute the strategy. In recent Congressional testimony, General Shelton indicated that the risk associated with the most demanding scenario has increased. At the same Congressional hearing, Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki stated that “…the increased frequency of mission requirements has had detrimental

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impacts on the force, especially in terms of operational tempo, personnel tempo, and turbulence.”46 The 2-MTW focus directly contributes to the undue strains on the force by not necessarily generating the capabilities needed for the full range of missions. From this point of view the 2-MTW planning framework is a high-priced insurance policy against regional conflict that makes it difficult to afford other key defense investments with a force structure unsuited to smaller operations, ongoing activities such as no-fly-zone missions and peace operations will continue to overwork U.S. military personnel.47 Force planners and strategists involved in the 2001 QDR must rely on an appropriate mix of threat and capability-based planning and examine a broader set of requirements that will allow the United States to achieve its strategic objectives and provide the U.S. political leadership with the appropriate framework from which to judge, “how much is enough.” Notes 1. Harlan Ullman, In Irons: U.S. Military Might in the New Century (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1995), p. 111, identifies three related “vital” questions for force planners: “What forces are needed strategically and operationally?; What level of capability and what types of force structure are politically and economically sustainable and justifiable…?; and How do we safely, sensibly, and affordably get from today’s force structure and capability to that of tomorrow and properly balance the threat strategy, force structure, budget, and infrastructure relationships?” 2. Certain proponents of the Revolution in Military Affairs argue that the current force is too large and should be cut to afford a greater emphasis on experimentation and modernization. See: Andrew F. Krepinvich, Jr., “Keeping Pace with the Military-Technological Revolution,” Science and Technology, Summer 1994, pp. 23–29; and James R. Blaker, “The American RMA Force: An Alternative to the QDR,” Strategic Review, vol. 25 (Summer 1997), pp. 21–30. For an earlier argument on the unaffordability of the force see: Don M. Snider, “The Coming Defense Train Wreck…,” The Washington Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 1 (Winter 1996). Michael O’Hanlon, in his book How to Be a Cheap Hawk: The 1999 and 2000 Defense Budgets (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), notes an annual shortfall in the defense budget of between $10 and $20 billion in the next decade. Most recently, Daniel Goure and Jeffrey Ranney argue that the defense department faces an annual shortfall of $100 billion; in Averting the Defense Train Wreck in the New Millennium (Washington, D.C.: The CSIS Press, 1999). Finally, see Harry G. Summers, Jr., The New World Strategy: A Military Policy for America’s Future (New York: Touchstone Books, 1995), for the argument that the force is totally inadequate. 3. Michele A. Flournoy, Report of the National Defense University Quadrennial Defense Review 2001 Working Group (Washington, D.C.: Institute for National Security Studies, National Defense University, November 2000), p. 7.

John F. Troxell 215 4. Paul K. Davis, “Institutionalizing Planning for Adaptiveness,” New Challenges for Defense Planning, p. 81. 5. The Rand Corporation happens to be the principal depository for detailed exposition on force planning methodologies. Among the most recent works on this subject, refer to the following: James A. Winnefeld, The Post-Cold War Force-Sizing Debate: Paradigms, Metaphors, and Disconnects (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1992); Richard L. Kugler, U.S. Military Strategy and Force Posture for the 21st Century: Capabilities and Requirements (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1994); and Paul K. Davis, ed., New Challenges for Defense Planning: Rethinking How Much is Enough (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1994). In this last work, refer particularly to “Part Two: Principles for Defense Planning,” pp. 15–132. Finally, Zalmay M. Khalilzad and David A. Ochmanek, ed., Strategy and Defense Planning for the 21st Century (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1997). 6. Quoted in William Kaufmann and John Steinbruner, Prospects for a New World Order: Decisions for Defense (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1991), p. 45. 7. Kugler, U.S. Military Strategy and Force Posture, p. 35. General Powell defined those missions very broadly: “We no longer have the luxury of having a threat to plan for. What we plan for is that we’re a superpower. We are the major player on the world stage with responsibilities [and] interests around the world.” Quoted in Kaufmann, Decisions for Defense, p. 47. 8. Les Aspin, National Security in the 1990s: Defining a New Basis for U.S. Military Forces, before the Atlantic Council of the United States, January 6, 1992, pp. 5–6. 9. Les Aspin, An Approach to Sizing American Conventional Forces For the PostSoviet Era, February 25, 1992. 10. Colin L. Powell, “U.S. Forces: Challenges Ahead,” Foreign Affairs, Winter 1992/93, vol. 71, no. 5, p. 41. See also Colin L. Powell, My American Journey (New York: Ballentine Books, 1995), p. 438. 11. NMS 92, p. 11. 12. “The Army Base Force – Not a Smaller Cold War Army,” Discussion Paper from the Department of the Army’s War Plans Division, dated February 1992. See also Kaufmann and Steinbruner, Decisions for Defense, p. 27. The authors make the following point: “How many contingencies might occur simultaneously, and in how many separate theaters the United States should be prepared to become engaged at any one time, was not made clear. However, the assumption appears to be that the Pentagon should have the capability to deal with at least two major regional contingencies…” 13. Powell, My American Journey, p. 564. Although the supporting analysis behind the Base Force included wargaming the two “canonical-scenarios” – MRC-East and MRC-West, the 1992 National Military Strategy presented the force, as discussed above, as a capabilities-based force. The closest the NMS comes to recognizing a 2-MTW requirement is the following from the Crisis Response section: “Our strategy also recognizes that when the United States is responding to one substantial regional crisis, potential aggressors in other areas may be tempted to take advantage of our preoccupation. Thus,

216 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests

14.

15.

16. 17.

18.

19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

we can not reduce forces to a level which would leave us or our allies vulnerable elsewhere.” NMS 1992, p. 7. Using the same rationale, one year later with the publication of the BUR, the two-MTW requirement was officially unveiled. Les Aspin, Report of the Bottom Up Review (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, October 1993). (Hereafter referred to as the BUR.) BUR: methodology – page 4; missions – page 13; force sizing – page 7. No other administration has provided the degree of transparency in its force planning deliberations as represented by the BUR. The detailed wargaming analysis done by J8 is not presented for obvious reasons in an unclassified publication. Nonetheless, contrast this with the history of the Base Force, found in Lorna S. Jaffe, The Development of the Base Force 1989–1992 (Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office (OCJCS), July 1993), which was not published until at least two years after the fact. Richard Kugler, Toward a Dangerous World (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1995), pp. 212–213. According to General Powell: “It took us nine months to finish the BUR, and we ended up again with a defense based on the need to fight two regional wars, the Bush strategy, but with Clinton campaign cuts.” American Journey, p. 564. George C. Wilson, This War Really Matters: Inside the Fight for Defense Dollars (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000), p. 15. Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, May 1997), p. v. (Hereafter referred to as the QDR.) Although sticking with the same basic force requirement, the QDR did provide a small degree of innovation in redefining this requirement from 2-MRC’s to 2-MTWs. The MRC concept, as first defined in the Bush administration, referred to major regional contingencies. The BUR adjusted the term to major regional conflicts, obviously retaining the same acronym. The QDR accepted the requirement but changed the name to major theater war (MTW). Shaping requirements have normally been viewed as a lesser-included capability provided by a larger war-time focused structure. The QDR, however, specifically indicates that the overseas presence mission plays a significant role in determining the size of U.S. naval forces. Ibid., p. 23. Ibid., p. 12. The Joint Staff sponsored a wargame series known as Dynamic Commitment that attempted to identify and quantify a list of military capabilities for smaller scale contingencies. These capabilities, however, are still viewed as a lesser-included subset of the MTW force. Elaine M. Grossman, “Defense Officials Eye Small-Scale Ops as Organizing Yardstick,” Inside the Pentagon, March 30, 2000, p. 2. QDR, p. 24. Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century, Report of the National Defense Panel, December 1997, p. 23. Ibid., p. 1. Ibid., p. 12. This point is also made in NSS 99, p. 19. The 2000 DOD Annual Report specifically addresses the need to prevent the coercion of allied or friendly governments. William S. Cohen, Annual Report to the President and the Congress (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 2000), p. 7. (Hereafter referred to

John F. Troxell 217 as DOD Annual Report 2000.) 25. QD p. 12. This point is also made in both the NSS 99, p. 22, where it refers to the “two theater” force, and in the DOD Annual Report 2000, pp. 2–3. The 2000 Annual Report also recognizes the need to guard against wild card scenarios by maintaining “military capabilities with sufficient flexibility to deal with such unexpected events.” (p. 3) 26. General John M. Shalikashvili, CJCS Written Statement to Congress, March 1996, p. 18. 27. QDR, p. 12. 28. The “use of plausible, illustrative scenarios against postulated threat forces enables comparisons and analyses to determine the relative values of different forces and capabilities across a range of circumstances.” The National Military Strategy of the United States (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1995), p. 17. Refer to the BUR, pp. 13–15, for a good discussion of the planning scenarios used to develop the BUR force. This discussion addresses most of the common criticisms raised against using these particular scenarios. Robert Haffa, Jr., “A New Look at the Bottom-Up Review: Planning U.S. General Purpose Forces for a New Century,” Strategic Review, vol. 24, no. 1 (Winter 1996): p. 24, argues that the “work contained in the BUR was very much an extension of the scenario-driven methodology that, for the most part, has guided the planning of U.S. conventional forces since the 1960s….” He goes on to state that the “most dangerous near-term contingencies – Korea and the Gulf … are among the more stressful to plan against.” The 1997 NMS specifically cites the challenges faced in the Arabian Gulf region and in Northeast Asia. It goes on to say that “even should these challenges diminish this capability [2 MTW] is critical to maintaining our global leadership role.” The National Military Strategy of the United States,(Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1997), p. 15. 29. GAO, Bottom Up Review: Analysis of Key DoD Assumptions, January 1995, pp. 61–64, argued that the scenarios differed from current warplanning assumptions of the CINCs. The DoD response pointed out the differences between illustrative planning/programming scenarios and CINC warplans. The major difference is that the CINCs are concerned with the present, the illustrative planning scenarios focus on the future. 30. DoD Annual Report 96, p. 5. For a more in depth discussion of the operational phases, refer to BUR, pp. 15–17. The QDR places particular attention on the need to halt an enemy invasion rapidly. QDR, p. 13. 31. It is worth noting that the MTW building block has remained constant over the past several years, with the exception of Army divisions. The original building block specified 4–5 Army divisions. That has since been adjusted to 5 Army divisions. The MTW building block receives mixed coverage in the QDR. On the one hand the report claims that “the forces and capabilities required to uphold this two-theater element of the strategy will differ from the Major Regional Conflict building blocks developed in the 1993 Bottom-Up Review.” Later, however, concerning the requirements for major theater war, the report concludes that a “force of the size and structure close to the current force was necessary.” The QDR goes on to claim that a larger force is needed in response to enemy use of chemical weapons or shorter warning times. Finally, the recommended

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32.

33.

34.

35.

36. 37.

38.

39.

40. 41.

42. 43.

force structure is virtually the same as the BUR force. QDR, Section III, p. 9; Section IV, p. 7; and Section V, p. 3. The United States Commission on National Security/21st Century, Seeking a National Strategy: A Concept for Preserving Security and Promoting Freedom, April 15, 2000, pp. 14–15. For instance Paul K. Davis and Richard L. Kugler have proposed replacing the 2-MTW criteria with three simultaneous sizing criteria: force needs for environment shaping; force needs for one tough MTW plus stability operations in other theaters; and force needs for two “moderately difficult” MTWs. “New Principles for Force Sizing,” in Strategy and Defense Planning for the 21st Century, ed. by Zalmay M. Khalilzad and David A. Ochmanek (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1997), pp. 103–104. William S. Cohen, Annual Report to the President and the Congress, (Washington, DC: GPO, 1999), p. 4; and Annual Report to the President and the Congress (Washington, DC: GPO, 2000), p. 4. The 1999 version contains the qualifier quoted above as well as other potential constraints on the use of force in support of humanitarian operations. The 2000 version has removed most, but not all of those constraints. General Henry H. Shelton, Posture Statement before the 106th Congress, House Armed Services Committee, February 8, 2000. Available from http://www. dtic.mil/jcs/core/Posture00.html, Internet. “Shelton Rejects Idea of Separate Peacekeeping Force,” European Stars and Stripes, April 27, 2000, p. 8. Floyd D. Spence, “Statement of Chairman Spence on the Release of the Commission on National Security/21st Century Phase II Report,” Press Release, April 19, 2000. David Ochmanek, “Planning Under Uncertainty: A User’s Guide to the Post-Cold War World,” Rand – unpublished paper, September 19, 1995, p. 15. Davis, “Institutionalizing Planning for Adaptiveness,” New Challenges for Defense Planning, 81–84. See also: Davis and Finch, Defense Planning for the Post Cold-War Era, pp. 43–52; Kugler, Toward a Dangerous World, p. 270; and Paul K. Davis, David Gompert and Richard Kugler, Adaptiveness in National Defense: The Basis of a New Framework, Issue Paper, National Defense Research Institute, August 1996. Kugler, Toward a Dangerous World, p. 258. Anthony Cordesman, author of a recent study on Iraqi military capabilities, states that, “The Iraqi military is in an accelerating decline that has picked up since 1994.” “Sanctions, Not Missiles, Sap Iraq,” Defense News, vol. 11, no. 36 (September 9–15, 1996): p. 4. Concerning Korea, The Washington Times reports: “North Korea’s military forces have suffered a steady decline in capability that has shifted the balance of power in favor of South Korea.” “North Korea’s Slide Ends Military Edge,” Washington Times, December 13, 1996, p. 18. In addition refer to: “Dim Prospects Seen for N. Korean Regime,” Washington Post, August 10, 1996, p. A24; and “N. Korea Called Top U.S. Threat,” Washington Times, February 6, 1997, p. 6. NDP, p. i. See Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., “Keeping Pace with the Military-Technological Revolution,” Science and Technology, Summer 1994, pp. 23–29.

John F. Troxell 219 44. Quoted in Wilson, p. 72. 45. Eliot A. Cohen, “Defending America in the Twenty-first Century,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 79, Number 6, November/December 2000, p. 43. The NDU QDR 2001 Working Group refers to a $30–$50 billion per year mismatch, Flournoy, p. 7. See also U.S. Congressional Budget Office, Budgeting for Defense: Maintaining Today’s Forces (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, September 2000). 46. Quoted in Anthony H. Cordesman, Trends in U.S. Defense Spending: The Size of Funding, Procurement, and Readiness Problems (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 9, 2000), pp. 12–14. 47. Michael E. O’Hanlon, “Rethinking Two War Strategies,” Joint Forces Quarterly (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, Spring 2000), p. 12. See also, Flournoy, p. 16.

13 Adapting Service Doctrine to a New World Order Michael D. Craig

War and doctrine? Military doctrine can be defined simply as what we believe about the best way to conduct military affairs.1 Doctrine falls somewhere between war theory, at the more abstract end of the spectrum, and tactics at the more precise end. Air Force General Curtis Lemay said, “At the heart of warfare lies doctrine.”2 It is, or should be, foundational to decisions on procurement, roles and missions, operational planning, military training, and deployment of forces. Colonel Harry Summers, U.S. Army (Ret.), compares doctrine to an architect’s blueprints, and states that “like a blueprint, if the doctrine is flawed, the result can be the collapse and destruction of the entire edifice.”3 All of the armed services’ manuals of basic doctrine acknowledge this pivotal role. Doctrine is rooted in history and experience and is, by its very nature, slow to change. It is, however, far from static. For a variety of reasons, doctrine evolves as new experiences add to the body of references upon which doctrine is based; technological advancements drive changes; old assumptions become obsolete; and national strategic directions shift, causing doctrine to change its focus. If military doctrine is to serve its critical function well, it must respond to these changing circumstances and assumptions and never be allowed to grow stagnant. In the latter half of this century, the predominant strategic circumstance that has influenced U.S. military doctrine has been our perception of the Soviet Union as the primary, if not singular, threat to national and world security. The euphoria that surrounded the end of World War II soon gave way to the realization that peace would be less than complete, and far less than secure. Differences over the fate of 220

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occupied territories foreshadowed the Cold War breach that would divide much of the globe into two opposing camps. For four-and-a-half decades, this monolithic world view of Soviet Union-sponsored communism vs. U.S.-supported democracy shaped military doctrinal development in both countries at every level.

U.S. Army doctrine in the Cold War U.S. Army doctrine during the Cold War era went through several evolutionary stages, each reflective of the political, technological, and national security strategy contexts of its respective period. The presentday sophistication and pervasiveness of U.S. Army doctrine is a relatively recent development. Indeed, even the vast warfighting experience gained during World War II yielded little in the way of updated combined arms doctrine or any drive to incorporate lessons learned.4 Instead, Army leadership was preoccupied with a massive postwar drawdown, and a dramatically shifting focus in national military strategy. In the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and especially while the United States remained the sole nuclear power, the U.S. Army suffered something of an identity crisis. The need for doctrine in support of land operations had seemingly vanished as many came to consider the threat of nuclear destruction sufficient to deter would-be aggressors, or so overwhelming as to render ground armies irrelevant. The nuclear “trump card” revolutionized how policy makers and strategists thought about war, and the resulting inadequacy of land combat doctrine would prove costly in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. The military force which had trained and equipped itself, almost exclusively, for a strategic conflict with the Soviet Union found itself mired in limited, regional land wars. War historian Max Hastings, states that “The performance of most elements of the U.S. Army in the first year of fighting in Korea ranged between moderate and deplorable. Five years of fatal neglect between 1945 and 1950 had produced a rundown of men, training, leadership, and equipment that almost, but not quite, enabled the Chinese to inflict a wholesale disaster upon American arms in the winter campaign.”5 The Korean experience did surprisingly little to alleviate doctrinal shortcomings in the Army. In fact, the importance of President Eisenhower’s own former service would suffer further decline as the Air Force became preeminent in his “New Look” defense policy which rested almost entirely upon “massive retaliation.” A published statement

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by Army Major John Cushman (subsequently, promoted to Lieutenant General) is reflective of how Army doctrine languished in the years following the Korean War: “At a time when new weapons and new machines herald a revolution in warfare, we soldiers do not know where the Army is going and how it is going to get there.”6 After years of Army resistance, or perhaps denial, their doctrine began to reflect the perceived realities of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. Dispersion, flexibility, and mobility became the watchwords of Army doctrine in the mid-1950s. These concepts, accompanied by technological advancements, led to radical changes in Army hardware procurement, as tactical nuclear weapons and surface-to-air missiles increased the Army’s capacity to operate in the nuclear realm. The organizational structure of Army units also changed significantly with the advent of the Pentomic Division. Under this scheme, each division had five “battle groups” (battalions), each battle group had five companies, and each company had five platoons. In the Army’s view, these divisions provided for deploying forces in depth and for fighting in all directions on the non-linear, nuclear battlefield of central Europe.7 Unfortunately, when the new doctrine was implemented in training exercises, the reorganized units proved unwieldy, and the concept was soon abandoned. More significantly, the emphasis on trying to establish a nuclear role and heavy investments in the applicable technology (e.g. nuclear artillery rounds) would, once again, prove ill-suited to operations in the jungles of Vietnam. The Army found itself caught in the dilemma of training for, and diverting scarce resources toward, a warfighting doctrine few believed would ever be employed, at the expense of a more realistic, but less politically popular, conventional doctrine. Limited war theory began to influence Army doctrine in the 1960s as the service struggled further to establish a raison d’être, and policy makers began to recognize the nuclear standoff as a debilitating constraint to national power projection. This doctrinal diversion into limited war was, according to some, much to the Army’s detriment as it tended to pervert their true purpose.8 Their statement of purpose, which is contained in each version of the Army’s basic doctrine, became diluted and ambiguous under the limited war concept. Compare the Army’s fundamental purpose as defined in the 1968 version of their basic doctrinal manual (Field Manual 100-5) – “to preserve, restore, or create an environment of order or stability within which … government can function effectively under a code of laws” – with the pre-Vietnam (1954) version which called for “defeat of an

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enemy by application of military power…against the armed forces which support his political purposes.”9 Both the “Massive Retaliation” and “Limited War” influences on doctrine were imposed by forces outside the Army, but in the 1970s, something of a renaissance in military doctrine occurred in all the services. With the formation of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) in 1973, doctrine was developed with a more traditional foundation – military experience, and devised with the specific intent of shaping the force. Under the leadership of General William DePuy, TRADOC set out to “reorient and restructure the whole body of Army doctrine from top to bottom.”10 This reorientation led to the development of three iterations of basic doctrine which focused on defending Central Europe against numerically superior Warsaw Pact forces. The 1976 edition of FM 100-5 advanced the concept of “Active Defense” in response to the growing lethality in modern weaponry and our quantitative disadvantage. In 1982, this linear warfare doctrine gave way to the concept of AirLand Battle which FM 100-5 presented in terms of initiative, momentum, maneuver, and deep attack operations. An updated version of AirLand Battle came to life in the 1986 edition of the Army’s basic doctrine, which deviated, somewhat, from a predominantly Central European focus. This version would be the last FM 100-5 to be heavily influenced by the Cold War. It would supply the rationale behind much of the training, procurement, and operational planning that would prevail in operations Just Cause and Desert Storm.

U.S. Naval doctrine in the Cold War The story of Naval doctrine in the Cold War period is less coherent than that of the Army. Many would even contend that the Navy had no basic written doctrine in evidence for most of this century, although this point could be contested.11 In any case, neglect of doctrine in the Navy was partially corrected in the 1970s as the doctrinal renaissance, mentioned previously, came into being at the Naval War College. The school’s president in 1972, Vice Admiral Stansfield Turner, lamented the “increasing reliance on civilians and think tanks” to do the thinking for the Navy and called for a return to the study and development of strategy and doctrine by military professionals. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, efforts to recapture the Naval War College’s doctrinal development role gave rise to “Seaplan 2000,” which became the basis for a publication called The Maritime

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Strategy.12 This document, while not purely doctrinal, served a comparable purpose and helped the Navy to overcome its previously defensive stature which concentrated heavily on a nuclear war role. However, it remained focused, to a large extent, on a prolonged war with the Soviet Union, especially with regard to securing and maintaining sea-lines-of-communication to enable the strategic reinforcement of Europe.13 The nation’s other Naval service, the Marine Corps, probably suffered fewer doctrinal diversions under the all-encompassing weight of the Cold War than the Navy, or indeed any of the services. This can be attributed to the Marine Corps’ historically well-established role of fighting “low-intensity conflicts,” especially with regard to amphibious operations. The amphibious doctrines developed in the 1920s and 1930s, and tested in numerous engagements in the Pacific War, remained largely intact throughout much of the Cold War. The principle departure from this mission occurred during the Vietnam War when Marines became, essentially, another ground army. In the postVietnam War doctrinal re-evaluations, Marine Corps Commandant, General Robert Cushman, said, “We are pulling our heads out of the jungle and getting back into the amphibious business. We are redirecting our attention seaward and reemphasizing our partnership with the Navy and our shared concern in the maritime aspects of our national strategy.”14 This reasoning has continued to drive Marine Corps doctrine, even through the transition from the Cold War paradigm.

U.S. Air Force doctrine in the Cold War Historical links with the Army had surprisingly little effect on the doctrines which governed the U.S. Air Force throughout the Cold War. In fact, charter members of the late-1940s USAF seemed to use doctrine as a tool to stake out their turf as an independent service and reinforce the wisdom of divorcing themselves from the Army. The 1953 and 1954 versions of Air Force basic doctrine (then designated Air Force Manual 1-2) were extremely brief, broad, and clearly oriented toward air power’s strategic role as demonstrated in World War II. The tactical nature of the Air Force experience in Korea did little to temper this strategic emphasis or stem the rising prestige of Strategic Air Command and its parent service. The deterrence-based theory of massive retaliation, which permeated the post-Korean War national strategy, is readily apparent in the 1955 revision of AFM 1-2 and served to articulate the Air Force’s commitment to this strategic doctrine. Air Force

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leaders were all too eager to support a strategy which made their service pre-eminent. This focus is even more clearly evident in the 1959 edition of AFM 1-2, which is the first to refer to “aerospace forces” and lay claim to ballistic missile systems and space systems as members of the Air Force’s “family of operating systems.”15 It echoes the previous version’s direct reference to the Cold War by stating that one of the Air Force’s purposes “In Cold War,” is “to conduct special operations as directed: to counter or forestall activities considered harmful to the interests of the United States and its allies.”16 The Cold War’s impact continued to bias subsequent editions of Air Force basic doctrine. In the 1964 version (the first to be designated AFM 1-1) and two later editions, the threat of thermonuclear war, and the repercussions of this threat on lesser degrees of war, are addressed directly. In 1964, 1971, and 1975 several paragraphs are devoted to explaining the concept of deterrence and the basic requirements of achieving such a state. The 1971 edition of AFM 1-1 speaks extensively of nuclear warfare, including paragraphs on Low-Intensity Nuclear Operations, Tactical Nuclear Operations, and Nuclear Operations Against Population and Industry, among others. In 1975 AFM 1-1 introduced the concept of “The Strategic Triad” (a combination of ballistic missile, aircraft and submarine-launched nuclear delivery systems) and espoused its “distinct advantages.” In the final two Cold War versions of AFM 1-1, the emphasis on Cold War aspects of doctrine was clearly beginning to wane. The 1979 edition, which more than quadrupled the size of previous versions, makes further references to strategic deterrence and the nuclear triad, although the nuclear emphasis is diminished and somewhat diluted by the vastly expanded breadth of material. The 1984 AFM 1-1 drops virtually all references to nuclear warfare and returns to the more brief and generic format of early versions of Air Force basic doctrine. Perhaps this uncontroversial, non-specific stance explains the long interval (eight years) that would elapse before Air Force basic doctrine would be revised in spite of dramatic changes in technology, force structure, and strategic relationships.

The strategic shift Events of 1989 through 1991 in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries permanently altered the bipolar world order that had colored U.S. service doctrine for over four decades. The full impact of these changes on our nation’s military are yet to be fully realized, but

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certainly, one area that should reflect this tectonic shift in world order and national priorities is the doctrine of our military services. If doctrine is truly the foundational “blueprint” of force structure, training, and planning, then it must be responsive to such changes to remain relevant and fully functional. As the implications of a post-Cold War world structure begin to emerge, evidence suggests that such a response is, indeed, manifest in recent service doctrine publications. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John M. Shalikashvili, summarizes this shifting world environment in his introduction to the 1995 National Military Strategy of the United States: “The dramatic events comprising the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, as well as longer-term economic, demographic, environmental, and technological developments, have profoundly altered the international security environment. The security challenges of a largely bipolar world have been replaced with more ambiguous and, in some cases, equally dangerous problems.”17 It is important to note, as did General Shalikashvili, that strategy and doctrine change as a result of a myriad of factors – economic, technological, demographic, and experiential. It would be inaccurate to portray recent adjustments in service doctrine as the exclusive result of geo-political change, and it is impossible to assign a single factor to any particular change in doctrine. However, certain evident changes do appear attributable, both directly and indirectly, to the Cold War’s conclusion.

U.S. Army doctrine responds to a new strategic environment The U.S. Army has taken positive steps to ensure their doctrine supports this new strategic reality. Their 1993 version of FM 100-5 and other field manuals delineate the broader range of roles and missions that the new world order and national strategy demand of the military. The Army’s self-described “engine of change” states in the introduction, “This doctrine recognizes that the Cold War has ended and the nature of the threat, hence the strategy of the United States as well, has changed.”18 It concedes “removal of the Army’s tactical nuclear weapons from its inventories,” but continues to recognize the service’s primary purpose as deterrence. Evidence of a displacement of Cold War doctrine is distributed throughout the field manual. Almost extinct are references to nuclear warfare. A single paragraph describes the effects of nuclear detonations on the battlefield, where this subject covered several pages in previous

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editions of FM 100-5. The current edition is devoid of the previously dominant focus on total war in Central Europe. In the chapter “Challenges for the U.S. Army” roles such as nation assistance, counterdrug operations, and security assistance are added to the traditional mainstay of sustained land combat operations. It is emphasis on these “Military Operations Other Than War” which best delineates the difference between current Army doctrine and previous versions. Under “Fundamentals of Army Operations” a paragraph on Operations Other Than War adds disaster relief, arms control, treaty verification, support to domestic civil authorities, and peacekeeping to the operations listed previously. Another paragraph on the subject is included in the chapter on logistics. Elsewhere, an entire chapter is devoted to Operations Other Than War which begins “The Army’s primary focus is to fight and win the nation’s wars. However, …” This section further describes each of the roles included in this category and supplemental principles which apply to such operations. Also included in this chapter, are “historical perspectives” which describe operations supporting El Salvador’s military, relief efforts in northern Iraq, medical missions in Cameroon, and disaster relief following Hurricane Andrew in Florida. An increased emphasis on joint and combined operations in the Army’s new doctrine, and that of the other services, could be considered an indirect consequence of the end of the Cold War. Admittedly, the drive toward jointness has been manifest since the Goldwater-Nichols Act, but Cold War realities have served to accelerate the process. Certainly, the dramatic reductions in force which have resulted, in part, from this change have forced all the services to integrate their operations more fully and to develop doctrine which facilitates closer cooperation. The current FM 100-5 includes fairly extensive descriptions of Air Force and Naval missions in addition to chapters on joint operations and combined operations which are greatly expanded over earlier editions.

Naval doctrine in the absence of a Soviet Navy The Naval services, too, have responded to the Cold War’s rather sudden dissolution. It is difficult to make direct comparisons of current doctrine to that of the Cold War due to the sporadic (some would say non-existent) nature of Naval doctrine development in recent decades. Writing in early 1992, H. Denby Starling II describes this shortfall: “Unlike all of the other services, the Navy has no single source, service

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generated doctrine that the (Commander in-chief) CINC can refer to for employment of naval forces.”19 Although he allows that the Naval Warfare Publication 1, Strategic Concepts of the U.S. Navy, might serve some doctrinal purposes, he goes on to critique the document’s lack of force employment guidance and 14-year age. More recently, Naval Doctrine Publications (NDP) 1 through 6 are designed to remedy this deficiency and translate into reality the strategy presented in the 1992 White Paper “…From the Sea.” This strategic outline and a subsequent White Paper, “Forward…From the Sea,” were drafted in response to the shifting Department of Defense focus on aggression by regional powers. In light of the extreme improbability of a major confrontation on the high seas, they are intended to move the Navy and Marine Corps toward doctrine oriented to the littoral environment. Both papers emphasize the flexibility and forward basing advantages of the combined Navy-Marine Corps team. The latter publication addresses the implications of the new strategic environment for naval forces: “Most fundamentally, our naval forces are designed to fight and win wars. Our most recent experiences, however, underscore the premise that the most important role of naval forces in situations short of war is to be engaged in forward areas, with the objectives of preventing conflicts and controlling crises.”20 The new NDP series, spawned by “…From the Sea” were produced by the Naval Doctrine Command (established in 1993) to provide coordinated Navy-Marine doctrinal development at the service, joint, and multinational levels.21 NDP-1 is the cornerstone document of the series and, while it makes brief reference to the Navy’s strategic nuclear role, the emphasis is clearly on conventional warfare. As with current Army doctrine, NDP-1 trumpets the expanding roles in Operations Other Than War, including evacuation of noncombatants, combating terrorism, enforcing United Nations economic sanctions, controlling illegal immigration, and supporting counterdrug operations. The document lists operations in Liberia, Bangladesh, and the former Yugoslavia as examples of such other-than-war efforts.

U.S. Air Force doctrine in the post-Cold War era Air Force basic doctrine, as presented in AFM 1-1, shows some signs of a post-Cold War transition as well, although it was being written and coordinated when the end of the Cold War was still in some doubt. Regardless of the post-Cold War implications, the 1992 version is a radical departure, both in format and substance, from previous

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manuals and probably represents the first explicit attempt at Air Force doctrine written primarily to educate airmen.22 It is also unique in that it was published in two volumes – the first to provide an outline of basic doctrine, and the second to provide “evidence and supporting rationale” in the form of 25 essays, which lend credence to assertions made in the former volume.23 The single reference to nuclear war contained in AFM 1-1 volume I includes only three sentences, concluding with the statement “…(nuclear) deterrence has been and will continue to be a cornerstone of American security policy.”24 Although volume II contains several paragraphs of discussion on nuclear deterrence, specific references to the Soviet Union acknowledge its breakup and the “relaxation of strategic tensions.”25 The chapter on deterrence explains the inherently troublesome post-Cold War quandary of attempting to deter aggression from unpredictable sources. Also, this chapter pays tribute to the destruction wrought in Desert Storm and the potential of new technologies, such as low-observables and precision-guided munitions, to provide a more viable means of deterrence than nuclear weapons. Elsewhere in the current version of AFM 1-1, evidence of the Cold War’s end exists in the form of a chapter on “Military Activities Short of War,” which contains a list of 34 such activities, ranging from unconventional warfare to aircraft visits.26 The newly-founded Air Force Doctrine Center, located at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, released a completely revised version of Air Force basic doctrine in the summer of 1996. At this writing, the new publication, designated Air Force Doctrine Document 1 (AFDD-1), is out in draft form for review by various agencies. The draft and the anticipated final version will be published in the traditional brief, single-volume format and consist of only four chapters. Unlike its predecessor, it is based upon post-Cold War national military strategy. This fact is clearly evident in that nuclear war is scarcely mentioned and Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) are mentioned throughout the document. The MOOTW section in the draft document begins as follows: The challenges our Armed Forces face today are more ambiguous and regionally focused than during the Cold War. These challenges can no longer be described as a single threat (the Soviet Union), but rather can be viewed in terms of risks (one superpower, in concert with our friends and allies, reacting to global events marked by uncertainty). The military instrument of national power, either

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unilaterally or in combination with any of the other instruments of national power, meets these challenges. As such, military operations other than war deter war, promote peace, and resolve conflict.27 AFDD-1 describes three different categories of MOOTW – combat, noncombat, and the overlap between the two – and groups the 16 types of MOOTW under these headings, in similar fashion to the current FM 100-5 and some joint publications. The role of air and space forces in the realm of information warfare makes its debut in AFDD-1 and features heavily in the new draft document. Along with AFDD-1, the Air Force Doctrine Center will produce four other “keystone” documents which cover theater air warfare, MOOTW, space operations, and information warfare.

Implications and cautions of changing doctrine Doctrine, in some respects, is timeless. The latest version of FM 100-5 and the draft of AFDD-1 center around precepts introduced and developed by Carl von Clausewitz in the last century. Flexibility and centralized control are still the main themes of air doctrine they were in 1953, and the principles of war published by the Army in 1921 are little changed in the current publication. The closer integration between the services, which began two decades ago with AirLand Battle, have been invigorated further by current service and joint doctrine efforts. Even in some of the seemingly major revisions of basic doctrine, most significant aspects remained intact from one version to the next. The latest round of changes present an expansion of doctrine to encompass a wider variety of military roles, rather than new ways of accomplishing historical roles. In spite of this inherent doctrinal stability, each of the services’ doctrine publications have demonstrated, to varying degrees, a departure from the Cold War bias. It is ironic that portions of these doctrines developed during the Cold War, in support of untested theories of deterrence and nuclear war, and in preparation for an enemy we never really faced on the battlefield, have been abandoned just as victory has been declared. It is well that the military should do so in order to avoid what Dennis Drew and Donald Snow consider “perhaps the most ubiquitous doctrinal problem,” – that being the tendency to let doctrine stagnate.28 Russia’s current state of political uncertainty and their continued possession of vast military resources, which include nuclear weapons, prescribe a U.S. military stance able to counter those capabil-

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ities. While it remains prudent to maintain such capable forces, doctrine must evolve to respond to conditions as they exist and strive to anticipate the future. All the services appear to be growing more aware of the importance of such relevant doctrine. While the Army and Marine Corps have recognized the tremendous significance of doctrine for some time, the Navy and Air Force have historically been less than enthusiastic in developing sound doctrine, educating their personnel on doctrinal concepts, and infusing their operations with it. With the advent of Naval Doctrine Command and the Air Force Doctrine Center, the trend toward a systematic approach to developing doctrine and educating the force may have already begun. This maturation process holds increasing importance as doctrine becomes, in some ways, more difficult to develop and more critical to get right due to the accelerating pace of change in international relations, technological development, and fiscal constraints.

The challenge for future doctrine Doctrinal development is becoming more difficult for a variety of reasons. First, in addition to a new and evolving strategic environment, the world is experiencing an accelerating pace of technological development, with far-reaching implications for the nature of warfare. Also, information warfare is becoming a major theme in discussions of military doctrine and promises to dramatically affect the way war is conducted. The current version of FM 100-5 and the draft version of AFDD-1 address some of the implications of information warfare, but developments are progressing rapidly, and it will be extremely challenging to cope with this pace. Further influencing current doctrinal debates, are America’s growing intolerance for casualties and the increasing pressure to resolve conflicts quickly. In these respects, the military may be victims of their own success in the Gulf War. The ability of the coalition forces to achieve their objectives with such minimal friendly casualties has raised expectations of similar performances.29 The increasing involvement of media in operations and their ability to broadcast in real-time, may have implications for doctrinal development. Lastly, the growing diversity of missions which military forces are being called upon to perform, require doctrine which is flexible and broad in scope. At the same time, the need to get doctrine right becomes more critical in an era of tightening budgets and smaller forces. Our military

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services are in competition for decreasing dollars, and as a result, are struggling to establish roles and missions which serve to justify the money they need to operate and build forces. Consequently, in addition to having doctrine which guides victory on the battlefield, it becomes increasingly important to have doctrine which correctly reflects those roles and missions the services claim to support.

How we will get there With the Cold War now clearly behind us, the services and joint community must continue to develop doctrine which corresponds to our current environment and anticipates the features of future combat and other operations. The post-Cold War era is not entirely unique, and at some time it will become pointless to define the present in relation to what has passed. Current changes simply reflect the adjustment period that often follows the conclusion of major wars, in which nations and their militaries reflect upon their performance and alter those areas which failed or no longer apply. The fact that the Cold War wasn’t really a war makes this self-evaluation more difficult, but no less important as the new strategic environment continues to take shape. Greater changes than those which we have recently witnessed may yet lie ahead, and for military doctrine to remain relevant, we must strive to develop evolving doctrine and educate the forces which employ it. TRADOC’s doctrine chief, Brigadier General Lon E. Maggart, sees information-age technology as not only something to which doctrine must respond, but also something by which doctrinal development can benefit. He describes a process whereby new “experiences” are analyzed and evaluated using computer-integrated simulations as a test bed. New capabilities in computer imagery and virtual reality provide tools to observe and even teach doctrine in action. Digital links among the Army’s learning centers, major commands, and TRADOC provide the means to share experiences and concepts and electronically “staff” proposed changes rapidly. And, finally, changes to doctrine can be updated digitally and distributed to the entire force immediately.30 In addition to technological enhancements, doctrine development would benefit by establishing a cohesive framework and process. Professor Dennis Drew, Associate Dean of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, advocates such a scheme in his paper “Inventing a Doctrine Process.” He characterizes past efforts at doctrine development as bureaucratic, inconsistent, and ill-suited to the intellectual task. He describes a circular process, modeled similarly to a research

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project, which begins with the fundamental question, “What is the best way to use airpower?”31 He proceeds to illustrate this circular process which includes experience, analysis, concept development, test and evaluation, synthesis, writing and publishing, educating, and applying. Once the doctrine is applied, the process repeats itself as new experiences are evaluated with respect to the revised doctrine.

Conclusion It appears the services have at least begun to take the implications of the Cold War’s conclusion to heart and have adapted, and are continuing to adapt, their doctrine to the evolving strategic realities. New and unpredictable changes and challenges lie ahead. By employing such technology as described above and taking a systematic approach to doctrinal development the services and joint community will produce doctrine that avoids stagnation and provides our nation’s military forces with the means for success in combat or any other role deemed worthy of their efforts. By so doing, we will avoid catastrophes similar to the costly critique of French doctrine suffered at the hands of the German Blitzkrieg. Notes 1. Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, Making Strategy: An Introduction to National Security Processes and Problems (Maxwell AFB, AL.: Air University Press, 1988): 163. 2. AFM 1-1: Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force (Washington D.C.: U.S. Air Force, 1984): Introduction. 3. Harry G. Summers, Jr., USA (Ret), “Military Doctrine: Blueprint for Force Planning,” Strategic Review 20, no. 2 (1992): 9. 4. Morris J. Boyd, “Army Doctrine From Cantigny to the Future,” Army History: The Professional Bulletin of Army History PB-20-95-3, no. 35 (Fall 1995): 2. 5. Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1987): 333. 6. A. J. Bacevich, The Pentomic Era: The U.S. Army Between Korea and Vietnam (Washington D.C.: NDU Press, 1986): 21. 7. Ibid. 8. Summers: 11. 9. Army Field Manual 100-5, 1968 and 1954 versions, respectively. 10. Summers: 17. 11. Commander James J. Tritton, USN (Ret) argues that the Navy has had several documents which may constitute basic doctrine in “Lessons From the History of Naval Doctrinal Development,” Marine Corps Gazette, October 1994. 12. Summers: 12. 13. Ibid., 12, 13. 14. Ibid., 13.

234 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 15. AFM 1-2: United States Air Force Basic Doctrine (Washington D.C.: U.S. Air Force, 1959): 6. 16. Ibid., 9. 17. National Military Strategy of the United States, 1995 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office): Introductory letter. 18. FM 100-5: Operations (Washington D.C.: Department of the Army, 1993): vi. 19. H. Denby Starling II, “Carriers in the Gulf: A Doctrine Based Assessment,” (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College, 1992): 7. 20. “Forward…From the Sea,” (Washington D.C.: Department of the Navy, 1994). 21. NDP 1: Naval Warfare (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office): 77. 22. Dennis M. Drew, Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, considers previous versions to have been written in support of budget and roles and missions battles within the Pentagon. “Inventing a Doctrine Process,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 4 (Winter 1995). 23. AFM 1-1: Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, vol. 1 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Air Force, 1992): Foreword. 24. Ibid., 2. 25. AFM 1-1: Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, vol. 2 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Air Force, 1992): 178. 26. Ibid., 56. 27. Air Force Doctrine Document: Air Force Basic Doctrine, 15 August, 1995, First Draft (Washington D.C.: U.S. Air Force, 1995): 6. 28. Drew and Snow: 166. 29. For a discussion of this issue, see “Casualty Limitation and Military Doctrine,” Army 44, no. 2 (February, 1994). 30. Lon E. Maggart, TRADOC Deputy Chief of Staff for Doctrine, “The Future of Doctrine,” Looking to the Future: TRADOC’s 20th Anniversary Seminar on Future Warfare, Fort Monroe, Virginia: Headquarters TRADOC (July, 1993). 31. Dennis M. Drew, “Inventing a Doctrine Process,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 4 (Winter 1995): 3.

14 The Changing Defense Industrial Base Edward F. Greer

Introduction The vast decreases in United States defense budgets over the past 10 years have necessitated a fundamental change in the defense industrial base. The Cold War defense industrial base had cyclical peaks and valleys, most acutely sensitive to the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, but these fluctuations should not be compared to the current valley of drastic downsizing due to the fall of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War. In 1994, C. Michael Armstrong, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Hughes Aircraft Company, noted After World War II, we saw a demobilization of the military every bit as rapid as the defense industry surge that propelled the allies to victory. From 1946 on, national defense spending went into a nosedive, a plunge that did not stop until the Korean War. A generation later, after Vietnam, we again allowed our investment in national defense to lag, this time, even lower than the pre-Korean level. Today, we are below that pre-Korean level – below the post-Vietnam level – and by 1999, defense spending as a percentage of gross domestic product will be lower than at any point since Pearl Harbor.1

The defense industry since World War II President Dwight Eisenhower, when labeling the defense business as the military-industrial complex, characterized the entire industry as a network of corporations doing defense work and only defense work. The focus of their work was technology-driven. The enemy, the Soviet 235

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Union, was known, almost tangible, and with the horrors of World War II still fresh on the American mind, money was spent on perceived technological needs to meet that enemy. The emphasis was on performance and meeting the acquisition schedule. With large capital investments by the government generating substantial industrial profits, many prime defense contractors used these profits for long range research and development (R&D). The services wanted weapon systems performance, and R&D was a proven path to this performance. Nonetheless, Congress and the Pentagon did not want a free-for-all occurring with little guidance, so strict rules and regulations were enacted. Over the years of the Cold War, these regulations grew into strict military specifications and standards that substantially increased the cost of the weapon systems. To profit in the seemingly dense jungle of oversight, cost-plus contracts (contractors were paid for all work) became the norm. Ultimately, most of these companies were handsomely rewarded for pushing the technological edge. There are major differences between the early post-World War II defense industries and the present ones. Thousands of commercial factories had been converted to produce massive amounts of relatively simple military hardware during World War II. In the four years of American involvement in World War II, U.S. firms produced more than 295,000 aircraft, 86,000 tanks, more than 1200 naval vessels, and well over 40 billion rounds of ammunition.2 People sacrificed daily amenities and luxuries, and underwent severe restrictions and rationing for the good of the nation. At the end of World War II factories easily transitioned back to commercial production. A huge demand for products by a growing population looking for employment, goods, and security was prevalent. John Brinkerhoff, a defense analyst, noted, “During World War II and also the Cold War we simply overwhelmed the enemy with materiel.”3 But, no sacrifices by the American populace such as gas rationing or mothers manning the factories as occurred in WWII were asked for or needed to fight the Cold War. No great demand for consumer goods followed the Cold War’s demise. In addition, the precipitous fall of the post-Cold War defense budget could not and cannot support the same number of Cold War contractors, the same anti-marketplace business practices, and the same share-of-thepie-for-everyone attitude prevalent during the Cold War. Between 1986 and 1997, defense spending after inflation, in real dollar terms, will have declined over 50 per cent. Brinkerhoff stated that “compared to the traditional kind of industrial preparedness that

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characterized World War II and the Cold War, the new kind of industrial preparedness will be smaller, quicker, and more sophisticated.”4 Quality and timeliness will be emphasized instead of quantity. It has been predicted there will be little or no warning of a major regional conflict, so the defense industry must respond with up front planning and preparation for rapid mobilization. Also, this carefully planned mobilization must not interfere with the civilian economy. “Crippling our economy for a regional triumph could be a new kind of Pyrrhic victory.”5 Desert Storm, even though it occurred in the post-Cold War era, was anomalous in its resource support. The huge industrial mobilization during the Reagan build-up left the logistic depots of all of the military services full of parts, supplies, ammunition, and consumables to sustain U.S. forces in the initial phase of a potential Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union. In effect, it was as if we had premobilized. The short duration of the Gulf War did not come near depleting most Cold War stockpiles, except for a few types of the extremely successful high-technology weaponry.

Maintenance of defense industrial base in the post-Cold War era What must be done in the new post-Cold War era? A new dawn of consolidations and mergers, lifting of many governmental limitations, reduction of defense related business within corporations, and other actions have already ensured that a viable and vital defense industrial base will emerge despite this current, yet unparalleled reduction in the defense budget. Most experts agree that stabilization of the defense budget should occur within the next five years. Nevertheless, Bob Paulson, head of defense work for management consultant McKinsey & Co. in Los Angeles, said the current pace of mergers and acquisitions should remain constant for at least two to three years as companies seek to counter the pressures from the declining defense market.6 Prime defense contractor numbers are dwindling along with a huge reduction in subcontractors. As long as at least two competitors remain in a defense related sector of the market, the government antitrust regulators have adopted a hands-off policy. With the governmental leniency and marketplace actions dictating needed change, John Harbison, a vice president of Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc., a defense consulting firm, argues “the number of firms involved in helicopter production must decline from four to two, and

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the approximately six companies involved in military satellite production must shrink to two.” In addition, he said “the number of military aircraft producers also needs to decline.”7 Many defense firms disagree with this projection. The Pentagon released a report on 4 August 1995, “Industrial Assessment for Helicopters,” that noted the industry will remain viable, but consolidation is needed due to overcapacity, overhead costs, and declining helicopter buys. One of the four remaining helicopter manufacturers claimed that as long as the market is $3 to $4 billion annually, predicted by the Pentagon, all of the firms could be sustained.8 But the current five helicopter models in production in 1995 will drop to only one after 2000. Even with upgrades to existing systems, the helicopter industry outlook for four presently viable firms seems dim. Similar problems may be anticipated in other defense industries.

Reengineering Can the health of the defense industrial base bet on a stabilization of the defense budget and downsizing to meet the new normalized spending levels? This approach seems too ingenuous. Many professional analyses have concluded that reengineering must take place. Reengineering is not a euphemism for reorganizing or downsizing. It infers starting business process changes over from scratch. General Ronald W. Yates, former commander of Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), defined reengineering as “process innovation and core process redesign…the search for and implementation of radical changes in business procedures to achieve breakthrough results.”9 As can be seen, reengineering should not be taken lightly. Just as Total Quality Management (TQM) was painful to incorporate into everyday business processes, reengineering looks to question every process to determine whether that process is efficient and whether or not that process is necessary. Many companies stumbled while instituting TQM practices, and the suffering in searching for “breakthrough results” can be overbearing. As Thomas Stewart wrote in Fortune magazine, “It [reengineering] ain’t easy and it ain’t cheap. It’s almost always accompanied by pain and the most important lesson [from businesses that have reengineered] is don’t do it if you don’t have to.”10 But, the defense industrial base has no choice. With the drastically changed competitive background from one in which everyone profited rather easily to the current one in which defense firms’ very survival is at stake, reengineering must be worth the pain.

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One approach for reengineering an aerospace business is to abandon the traditional focus “on tasks, jobs, people or structures”, and re-focus “on processes.” Lawrence Bossidy of Allied Signal said, “We used to manage by means of hierarchical, vertical layers. Now, we are solving problems and revamping processes through horizontal, crossfunctional teams composed of employees from different disciplines and reporting relationships.”11 Allied Signal will be a survivor. The fundamental way of doing business in AFMC is called Integrated Weapon Systems Management (IWSM). IWSM principles follow Bossidy’s statement in that Integrated Product Teams (IPTs) are formed in every program office. The IPTs form along tasks with cross-functional members such as contracting, budgeting, engineering, and operations, all of who are on one team working toward accomplishment of the goals and tasks assigned. A program manager follows the weapon system for its entire life cycle (in principle) to allow for continuity of the program. One person can then speak for the entire weapon system. IWSM has been used from the beginning of the F-22 program, and the success of the program is primarily responsible for IWSM’s implementation throughout AFMC.

Cost-driven industry One of the key changes in defense has been from a technology-driven industry during the Cold War to the present cost-driven industry. General Yates stated, “During the Cold War, we almost always wanted to deliver performance and schedule. Now the single most driving factor is efficiency.”12 Warfighters still want the leading edge technology in their weapon systems, but it must be at dramatically lower costs. The United States can no longer throw money at a perceived technological need to meet capabilities of a known enemy. The extravagance of countering one rational enemy has been replaced with the uncertainty of who are our enemies, and even whether or not an enemy will act rationally. Coupled with the uncertainty of who our weapons must counter is the very limited budget for military research and development (R&D) to develop new systems. Military R&D is projected to level off at $30 billion annually by 2000.13 Why don’t the defense firms pick up the slack and increase their R&D funding? During the Cold War longterm research and development could be funded by corporations with the justified expectation that many large defense contracts would soon follow. Norm Augustine, CEO of Lockheed Martin, observed that the

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defense industry is at “crunch time” now. The bottomline is king, and the pressure for profits now is paramount. He added that the shareholders turn over every two years, meaning new people looking for instant profits, with long range R&D not meeting those expectations.14 Commercial investment in research and development has leapfrogged government investment to where today’s private corporations spend twice as much on R&D than the government, according to Paul Kaminski, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for acquisition and technology.15 This statistic implies that commercial industries dominate certain sectors, pushing the leading technologic edge. Most people acknowledge information systems, telecommunications and microelectronics are three arenas where private industry leads the way. This is also apparent to our adversaries, Kaminski emphasized. “The country that has the better process for capturing, understanding the strengths and limitations, and integrating [those technologies] into its systems is going to be the country that comes out ahead.”16 We cannot afford to allow any country but the United States to be the one to forge ahead. The government is not losing sight of the importance of R&D in keeping our technological edge. New programs funding industrial and academic research pursuits follow that philosophy. The U.S. Air Force Financial Year (FY) 1994 $2.4 billion budget for science and technology R&D provides 75 per cent of that budget to industry and academic institutions. Congress passed the Defense Conversion Act of 1992, and the Technology Reinvestment Project was born. This project was appropriated $472M in FY93 and authorized $624M in FY94, with its purpose to promote dual-use technologies with focus on technology application.17 Dual-use technologies, those applicable to both the defense and commercial markets, show much promise. But dual-use should not be limited to only products but also include personnel and production lines. However, C. Michael Armstrong, CEO of Hughes Aircraft Company, flatly stated, “I know of no way today, even with all the rhetoric, to have a dual-use production line.”18 It appears that many firms doing both defense and commercial work did not agree with Armstrong’s statement. For example, Maryellen R. Kelley and Todd A. Watkins reported in Technology Review, “The Lord Corp., a leading supplier of rubber-to-metal adhesives and computerized vibration-control equipment, uses a single division and the same engineering group to work on the Boeing 737, 757, and 767 aircraft, as well as the Black Hawk helicopter and the Osprey tilt-wing transport.”19 Seven other examples were highlighted in the Kelley and Watkins article

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showing that Armstrong has most likely not pursued a dual-use production line with sufficient vigor.

Survival of subcontractors General Yates insists that a radically different relationship must be developed between prime contractors and subcontractors. He stated, “We need to establish long-term relationships that will encourage the stability necessary for low-rate production.”20 The situation for defense subcontractors has been desperate in the 1990s. The chairman and president of Tracor, James Skagg, noted any defense firm with less than $1 billion in annual sales does not have a long-term place in the industry.21 To support that seemingly outrageous statement, Michael Goldberg, a partner at Deliotte & Touche’s aerospace and defense consulting division in Los Angeles, stated that an increasing number of companies with $100 million to $500 million in annual sales will be pushed to sell out or make acquisitions.22 Yet, the subcontractors are still surviving. How are they doing it? With an extremely limited defense budget and 71 per cent fewer procurements now than in 1985,23 these sub-tier companies are carving specialized niches within the shrunken defense marketplace. There can no longer be a plethora of firms doing one thing well. These firms find a niche and then try to dominate that market. For instance, Hughes Electronics Corp.’s $370 million purchase of Magnavox Electronic Systems Co. in September 1995 is “indicative of the growing interest by large defense companies in making smaller acquisitions that strengthen their capabilities in particular defense niches,” according to John Harbison.24 The marketplace phenomena of merging, consolidating, and right-sizing have been and are shaping both the commercial and defense industries.

Economic shift In 1992, for the first time, more Americans worked in government jobs than in manufacturing. America’s service-oriented economy should keep the question of the health of the defense industrial base paramount in military and congressional minds. The United States cannot win a major global war without a manufacturing capability. Where do we go for military equipment if manufacturing defense goods no longer exists? Another equally alarming shift shows a greater percentage of our weapon systems being foreign built. Can the U.S. afford to

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become reliant on foreign manufacturing to build our defense systems? Reliant, no, but work as partners, yes. Naysayers raise the issue that we cannot count on these foreign suppliers when we enter a conflict. Their argument falls apart for two reasons. First, future conflicts are expected to be of short duration. Many prognosticators envision a come-as-you-are war where manufacturing of replacement weapon systems will not be a factor. The second fault in the argument is that typically these suppliers are friendly or allies of the United States. Lieutenant Stephen P. Ferris, a naval reservist, wrote, “The failure of a trading partner to cooperate with the United States in a crisis is likely to result in a boycott of their exports and a consequent major devaluation in the worth of their U.S. investments.” Ferris quotes James Miskel, a defense analyst, describing Japan’s probable actions, “A nation that spends $600 million each year to prevent marginal slippage in its share of the American market position is not likely to jeopardize its entire market share as well as the value of its real and intangible assets by withholding military products from the United States during a crisis.”25 With these world trade pressures making all partners invaluable, who would want to challenge the world’s largest economic power and threaten one’s own economic stability? How should the partnerships work to help ensure a robust U.S. defense industrial base? Norman Augustine believes that international practices favor co-production between companies, that is, production between two or more companies each headquartered in different countries. “[But] co-development of systems between [the different] countries is a mistake.”26 Each country has sovereign rights that can hamper progress when those rights are implemented. For example, the space station project is multinational, not multicorporal, and has been reft with problems. The primary conflict concerns American fluctuations on funding and support. But, international practices hold each company in a co-production scheme to do their best to succeed. Therefore, government policy should limit co-development between countries and encourage co-production between companies. The co-production versus co-development issue manifests itself in light of the loss of 37 per cent of defense sales to developing world markets since 1993, the lowest sales level to such markets in eight years.27 But the same benefits of partnering with foreign firms are also sought by partnering between domestic firms. John Weaver, president of Hughes Aircraft Co., in confirming this point noted, “Partnering can provide use of marketing or distribution systems we do not have, give us the geographic reach we need to take advantage of regional business

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cycles or bring us extra expertise for meeting contract requirements to finance offsets.”28 Partnering is now a standard way of conducting business in a majority of prime defense corporations.

Acquisition process changes Another problem for American defense firms is the acquisition process and its antiquated rules and regulations. A U.S. Air Force industrial base pilot program confirms that government procurement practices were the principle reasons purely commercial companies shied away from seeking defense work.29 Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch have been revolutionaries for changes in the acquisition process. They’ve not only dictated the removal of all unnecessary regulations, but instituted measures to tear down the obstacles that limited progress and marketplace influences for the more efficient acquisition of better, less expensive weapon systems. In June 1994, Secretary Perry made the bold move to replace military product specifications with commercial and performance specifications. The Pentagon debated with industry over who should realize the savings due to Perry’s initiative. With the general consensus reached on 3 November 1995 according to Eleanor Spector, Pentagon director of defense procurement, that any tangible savings will be returned to the government, contractors are implementing the block changes and retooling their production lines and rewriting manuals.30 These changes will allow the contractors to manufacture weapons and vehicles for different customers in and out of uniform on the same production lines. President Bill Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore, and Congress have also been actively involved in breaking down barriers. Collectively they’ve sought to reduce the size of government bureaucracies along with fostering an environment to seek efficiencies within government acquisition practices. Michael Heberling and Tracy Houpt in Defense News observed, “Various acquisition reform initiatives – the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 (FASA), the Federal Acquisition Reform Act of 1995, the Defense Acquisition Management Reform Act of 1995 and the Federal Acquisition Improvement Act of 1995 – seek to streamline the acquisition process and minimize government-unique reporting and compliance requirements.”31 Through FASA, companies were encouraged to use the most efficient practices to deliver defense products and services. However, many of the prime defense contractors have a backlog of governmental contracts awarded prior to FASA

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enactment that impose military specifications and standards.32 These firms must either continue with the old stringent military specifications or adopt dual processes, one for military specifications and one for alternate methods. This new maxim of “simpler is better and cheaper” is already paying big dividends for the U.S. Air Force. Arthur Money, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, told Congress at a hearing on March 22, 1996, the Air Force should realize $13 billion savings in weapon contract costs between 1996 and 2001. Air Force Secretary Sheila E. Widnall reinforces the idea noting that acquisition system reformation “is perhaps the most important topic to the future of the Air Force.”33 Nevertheless, the government must stop its stringent oversight employing tight controls and constant contact. Trust will have to be earned to convince DoD and Congress to lift the tight quality controls thought necessary for receipt of top quality and top performing products. Darlene Druyon, the Air Force’s number two acquisition official, is aggressively pursuing elimination of 70 per cent of acquisition regulations by 2000.34 But, is elimination of rules and regulations the panacea to fix defense acquisition problems? Many analysts and industry officials argue that other measures must be implemented in combination with the “deregulation” of the acquisition process. A spokesman for General Dynamics, Pete Keating, believes that multiyear procurements would not only save large amounts of overhead costs and allow General Dynamics (and other prime contractors) to maximize production efficiency, but would help sustain smaller companies that otherwise would leave the defense business.35 In early 1996, DoD pushed Congress to allow multi-year procurement of the C-17 aircraft with estimated savings to the taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars. It is hard to argue against the benefits of multi-year procurements. However, the current climate and culture within Congress is to appropriate and allocate funds only on an annual basis. Even though DoD presents a six-year plan and a two-year budget each year, it takes Congress all year to pass a one-year budget.

National defense industrial strategy “The nation owes nothing to the defense industry with reference to future work,” Stephen K. Conver, President, Defense Systems, Lockheed Martin Corporation, emphasized at the 28 June 1995 Acquisition Research Symposium.36 At this same symposium, Colleen

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Preston, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, said “Reform will come from the bottom up, and change will be a constant.”37 Even though change is prevalent and persistent and nothing is owed the industry, corporation leaders and defense analysts are calling for a formal national defense industry policy. John Brinkerhoff claims, “the outlook for industrial preparedness is grim…It has been tacitly accepted by many government officials and defense intellectuals that there will never be a need to mobilize again; the argument now is over how fast to eliminate the function from the government.”38 He further states that “industrial preparedness…will not occur to the degree required without a national program promulgated by the President…The United States cannot fight long or well without the high-tech equivalents of beans, bullets, and black oil; if we haven’t enough in our stocks to outlast the enemy, we had better have plans to get more in a hurry when we need it.”39 He obviously does not agree on a required national program with government officials and defense analysts, but seems to base his need for the presidential program for industrial preparedness on not enough supplies to outlast the enemy. Very few analysts would agree with Brinkerhoff’s opinion that outlasting the enemy will be required in near future conflicts in which the U.S. will be involved. Their view is that global war possibilities should not muddy the campaign planners’ thinking for at least a decade. Therefore, low intensity conflicts and our most serious concern, major regional conflicts, should be expected and plans drawn, such as the development of Time-Phased Force and Deployment Data by all joint staffs to support potential regional conflicts to provide the necessary “beans, bullets, and black oil.” Four conjectured characteristics of defense firms used to support most arguments for a national defense industrial base program were used in a scientific study of the defense industrial base by Maryellen R. Kelley from MIT, and Todd A. Watkins of Lehigh University. These structural and behavioral characteristics are: 1. Defense contractors tend to operate facilities that are largely dedicated to military contract work. 2. Compared with commercial enterprises, defense contractors and their managers and workers face less competition and are more highly dependent on a few customers (DoD and a few large prime contractors). 3. Defense contractors do less subcontracting of production operations than do commercial enterprises.

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4. Defense contractors tend to invest far less than commercial enterprises in productivity-enhancing technologies that are relevant to non-military production.40 The findings in the study refute each of these premises. The final conclusion of this first major in-depth study of the post-Cold War defense industrial base was that “contrary to conventional wisdom, commercial-military integration is not only feasible but is largely the normal practice at the end of the Cold War.”41 This commercial-military integration of not just production practices, but administrative and overall business practices will lead the U.S. defense industrial base to properly align itself to support America’s military forces. Secretary of Defense Perry has adopted the stance to let marketplace influences determine what is the proper defense industrial base to support America’s wars and conflicts in the future. He wants marketplace forces to unite the commercial and defense bases into a national industrial base. Secretary Perry’s policy takes advantage of the benefits from these marketplace forces. Statistics show the private sector can do comparable defense work at costs one-fifth that of the government.42 Profit margins on government contracts are less than one half that of commercial contracts. Bid protests tie up government contracts for months, not to mention delays by congressional interference. It is common sense and survival instincts that steer defense firms to commercial business practices. Besides, William J. Long in an article entitled “A Defense Industrial Strategy? No, It’s Unnecessary?” sums it up, “The United States has no tradition of successful government involvement in economic decision making, and no evidence suggests that the U.S. government as a whole, let alone the [DoD], knows how to improve national welfare and security by developing sectors of the economy that will produce higher rates of return on investment or extraordinary technological benefits.”43 But what military doctrine and/or military strategy should that industry support? Who are America’s enemies? How should we fight those enemies? How much and what kind of weapon systems are minimally necessary and affordable? John Brinkerhoff wrote for the Army War College’s publication Parameters, “there are three basic kinds of military operations for which Industrial preparedness is required in the post-Cold War era: low-intensity conflict, Major Regional conflicts (MRCs), and global war.”44 Each of these scenarios requires a different industrial capability. In a low-intensity conflict, existing stocks of weaponry and supplies would sustain military activities, with possibly

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small, specialized surge demands. But, many of our advanced weapon systems that were designed for the high intensity European theater conflict are not compatible with the deserts, jungles and swamps that will characterize low intensity battlegrounds. One example cited by Jacques S. Gansler, senior vice president of The Analytic Sciences Corporation in Washington, D.C., is the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank had little utility during the Panama operation because the local bridges could not support their weight.45 Major regional conflicts are the United States’ most serious potential threat. It would demand industrial mobilization to serve three purposes: • fill equipment shortages caused by peacetime underfunding • provide munitions, consumables, and supplies to augment stocks on hand • produce additional or new versions of major weapons, munitions, and equipment to modernize and replace losses46 America’s defense industry showed its capabilities in Desert Storm; proper right-sizing of forces must be maintained for future MRCs. (Global war requirements for the defense industrial base will not be discussed due to its greatly reduced likelihood at this time.)

Future perspective The world’s contemporary military situation and economic interdependencies have compelled the U.S. defense industrial base to change fundamentally. Eighty to ninety thousand sub-tier defense contractors have either been absorbed by larger firms or have shut down since 1985. Former rival prime contractors have merged and consolidated facilities and personnel. One and one-half million defense workers have been laid off. Post-Cold War changes in the defense industry are plentiful and continuing. The U.S. defense industrial base has changed more rapidly than ever before. Defense budget fluctuations are comparable to other post-war periods, but the current fundamental changes in the defense industrial base are unprecedented. These changes reach to the very foundations of how defense business is conducted. The present analysis postulates that these U.S. defense industrial base changes will continue and become “permanent.” There will be no turning back to Cold War defense business practices and structures. Defense budget cuts have

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forced defense firms to lower their reliance on DoD to ensure profits, and global economic pressures have forced the large defense firms to acquire and merge with other strong defense firms to ensure their defense market shares remain constant. DoD cannot and will not return to past business practices that encouraged firms to become dependent on the government for sustenance. Basic changes in warfare and commercial industries have instigated these permanent changes. Conceivably, global warfare may never occur again in our lifetimes or for many generations. The interdependencies economically and politically among leading world powers will keep the prospect of global war low. Therefore, warfare for America will consist of military operations other than war, low intensity conflicts, or at most, major regional conflicts. These armed conflicts will be of short duration, come-as-you-are situations where surge production by the defense industrial base will not be likely. Commercial integration into defense systems production is no longer an unwanted practice, but a necessary part of restructuring to promote innovation and profitable manufacturing. It must and will continue. Commercial industries are pushing the technological edge determined by commissioned government panels in the majority of the critical technologies needed by DoD in the next 25 years. No longer is DoD sponsored R&D pushing the technological envelopes. With shareholders seeking immediate returns, former exclusively defensive firms are diversifying into profitable commercial markets. Solely doing business with DoD will ultimately doom small- and intermediate-sized companies. Large companies will acquire the niche markets and subcontractors needed to profit on the smaller defense buys prophesied in the future. President Clinton’s decision to keep the General Dynamics nuclear submarine shipyard in Groton, Connecticut open to build one unwanted Seawolf submarine at a cost of over $3 billion will be the last decision of that kind to be tolerated by DoD and Congress for many years to come. With one smart weapon replacing thousands of Cold War dumb munitions, a mass production line for aircraft, munitions, and support equipment is excessive and unprofitable. Profiting on small, relatively inexpensive lot buys, as commercial companies do presently, must become the norm in the U.S. defense industry. The quality of aerospace products has never been better. Why? Fundamental reengineering of business practices; less dependence on defense contracts; federal promotion of dual-use technologies; federal acquisition reform’s elimination of barriers; partnering between com-

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panies, foreign and domestic; profitable production on small lot orders; and many other factors. These changes have occurred, and are continuing to occur. Survival instincts, along with marketplace pressures, have created and are still shaping a U.S. defense industrial base that will sustain our fighting forces for decades to come. Notes 1. C. Michael Armstrong, “The Dangers of De-Engineering the Defense Industrial Base,” Air Force Association Symposium on Reengineering the Industrial Base report, Aerospace Education Foundation, Dayton, Ohio, 10–11 May 1994. pp. 13–14. 2. Marvin Leibstone, “The U.S. Defence Industrial Base: Can It Survive?” Military Technology, December 1991, p. 16. 3. John R. Brinkerhoff, “The Strategic Implications of Industrial Preparedness,” Parameters, Summer 1994, p. 41. 4. Ibid., p. 41. 5. Ibid., p. 43. A Pyrrhic victory is one with staggering losses, such as that suffered by Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, over the Romans at Asculum in 279 B.C. 6. Philip Finnegan, “Analysts Foresee More Industry Consolidation,” Defense News, 11–17 December 1995, p. 12. 7. Ibid. 8. Jason Glashow, “Industry Officials Deny Helicopter Consolidation Need,” Defense News, 14–20 August 1995, p. 23. 9. General Ronald W. Yates, “Reengineering the Defense Industrial Base,” Air Force Association Symposium on Reengineering the Industrial Base report, Aerospace Education Foundation, Dayton, OH, 10–11 May 1995, p. 4. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., 6. 12. Ibid., 5. 13. Jeff Erlich, “Merger Creates Research Giant,” Defense News, 3–9 July 1995, p. 11. 14. Norman Augustine, “Future Issues in Acquisition,” speech given to Air Command and Staff College students and faculty, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama, 23 May 1995. 15. John D. Morrocco and David Hughes, “Tight Budgets Force Innovative Strategies,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, 13 March 1995, p. 55. 16. Ibid., p. 56. 17. Brig. Gen. Richard R, Paul, “Dual Use Technology,” Air Force Association Symposium on Reengineering the Industrial Base report, Aerospace Education Foundation, Dayton, OH, 10–11 May 1994, pp. 22, 24. 18. Armstrong, p. 18. 19. Maryellen R. Kelley and Todd A. Watkins, “The Myth of the Specialized Military Contractor,” Technology Review, April 1995, p. 55. 20. Yates, p. 5. 21. Philip Finnegan, “Tracor Sets Sights on Acquisition, “ Defense News, 28 August–3 September 1995, p. 19.

250 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests 22. Philip Finnegan, “Analysts Foresee More Industry Consolidation,” Defense News, 11–17 December 1995, p. 12. 23. Morrocco and Hughes, p. 55. 24. Philip Finnegan, “Hughes’ Magnavox Buy Pushes Firms To Merge,” Defense News, 18–24 September 1995, p. 42. 25. Ferris, p. 45. 26. Augustine. 27. Dan Howard, “Guarantee Loans, Industry,” Defense News, 11–17 September 1995, p. 32. 28. John Weaver, “Business Teams for Success,” Defense News, 23–29 October 1995, p. 27. 29. Michael Heberling and Tracy Houpt, “DoD Skirts Commercial Path,” Defense News, 20–26 November 1995, p. 26. 30. Jeff Erlich, “DoD to Strip Contracts of Strict Specs,” Defense News, 6–12 November 1995, pp. 1, 28. 31. Heberling and Houpt, p. 26. 32. Michael Goldberg and William Lappin, “Topple Acquisition Barriers,” Defense News, 7–13 August 1995, p. 19. 33. Steven Watkins, “Simplified rules are cutting costs,” Air Force Times, 22 April 1996, p. 27. 34. Steven Watkins, “Acquisition is Getting ‘Faster, Cheaper’,” Air Force Times, 29 January 1996, p. 22. 35. Jason Glashow, “Army Officials Warn Contractors…,” Defense News, 10–16 July 1995, p. 29. 36. Beryl A. Harman, “A Report on the 1995 Acquisition Research Symposium,” Program Manager, November–December 1995, p. 45. 37. Ibid. 38. Brinkerhoff, p. 39. 39. Ibid., pp. 45, 47. 40. Maryellen R. Kelley and Todd A. Watkins, “In from the Cold: Prospects for Conversion of the Defense Industrial Base,” Science, 28 April 1995, p. 526. 41. Ibid., pp. 529–531. 42. Jeff Erlich, “Science Board: Find Incentives for Privatization,” Defense News, 11–17 December 1995, p. 32. 43. William J. Long was quoted in the article by Lieutenant Stephen P. Ferris, “A Shortage of Seed Corn?,” Military Review, June 1994, p. 44. 44. Brinkerhoff, p. 43. 45. Jacques S. Gansler, “Transforming the U.S. Defence Industrial Base,” Survival 35, no. 4, Winter 1993, p. 130. 46. Brinkerhoff, p. 44.

Part IV Conclusion

15 History is Dead. Long Live History! Karl P. Magyar

Americans conceptually love change, war, and revolution. These terms permeate daily social discourse. “War” is proudly declared on domestic social problem areas such as illiteracy, drugs, poverty, discrimination, crime, diseases, etc. and recently, terrorism. The rhetoric (if not the reality) of change and revolution, permeates the public ideology despite the thorough lack of contextual explication of these terms. Change is sought, and is promised by political candidates, with very little regard to the long-term perceptions of consequences. A society that does not respect its past cannot expect to cherish its future. This is not meant to be a criticism, as America may well represent the highest operational form of democracy in history. More worrisome is the ignorance displayed by the public at large of the historical infrastructure of contemporary American foreign policy behavior. Current policies, especially with regard to Afghanistan and Iraq, are poorly articulated by the Bush administration, leaving a puzzled public about who is analyzing, advising, making policy, and directing the wars against Iraq that were not standard, conventional wars. (Units of Iraq’s forces surrendered even before the start of hostilities.) This is not to diminish the capabilities of America’s defense forces, but the asymmetric military power gap between the allied coalition forces and those of Iraq was, and remains, very evident. On the eve of the first war with Iraq, some analysts rated Iraq’s war machine as the third or fourth largest in the world. Today’s comparative military strength of Iraq is estimated to be but one-twentieth that of the U.S. In today’s world-wide debates on wars, victory has many dimensions. One discernible trend during the mature years of the Cold War was the shift from an almost exclusive focus on only battlefield performance, thereby determining the victor in a war, to a more lengthy 253

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timeframe that allowed the post-war years to judge victory by the consequences of the changes that ensued. Tabulating only post-war bodycounts will hardly determine the victor. Such quantitative measures is decidedly a western practice and reflect the familiar Clausewitzian paradigm that defined the relationship between the military, society and its rulers that still prevails among top Pentagon and White House leadership cadres. Fidel Castro and Che Guevarra had introduced on our doorsteps the new era of fighting insurgent political wars, whose ideological pedigree had been honed by Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh among others – decidedly non-western strategic thinkers. The U.S. had been excessively tied to its familiar western “rules” of conduct in western-type wars, which regrettably came at a very high price. Certainly this is a legacy of the Vietnam War that had taught us the difference between wars in support of global communism and wars in pursuit of national liberation. The relative moderation displayed by the Cold War’s two superpowers had been transformed into a peaceful economic contest, won undisputedly by the U.S. Without a quick resolution to wars, “mission creep” tends to appear which, after its full prolongation erodes the proclamation of victory. Sun Tzu had admonished over two millennia ago that no one wins a prolonged war. The termination of wars and plans for the post-war reconstitution of the loser is beginning to be expected before committing actively to war. Wars today are not so much about imperialism and land expansion, incorporation and trans-regional hegemony, but wars have become primarily about clashing political perceptions associated with legitimism, consolidation, nuances associated with sovereignty, and strategic security perceptions. The Pentagon pays lip-service to the dangers of prolonged armed conflict but, except for the enlargement of special operations forces, the military is today still configured along traditional lines, although in lesser numbers. Despite the very well-developed infusion of technology to assure battlefield supremacy, soldiers are still dying attempting to fulfill their traditional, ground-based, duties. Moreover, military doctrine development has not advanced beyond ultimately fighting the enemy on the ground in pursuit of the human and physical symbols of victory in war.1 The Gulf War of 1991 is an excellent example of judging who the victor was. After the allied coalition was proclaimed victor, the U.S. undertook monitoring airspace and policing the economic sanctions for the next decade, before plunging into another large scale, armed confrontation with the same enemy a decade later. “Winning a war” ought to mean more than prevailing at only today’s battle, but judging victory needs to respect the per-

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manent alteration of the prior relationship among the combatant sides. This, the first Gulf War against Iraq did not do. Change is the most important precept for the analysis of evolving social matters. Other societies illustrate that concept with different attributes that are mostly culture specific. Change is the center of gravity in politics; it is the manna of the revolutionary as well as the humble reformer. We may expect the analysis of change to encounter great controversy. What can we know about the subjective factors behind the change being contested? Can we correctly anticipate the distant consequences if we accede to our opponent’s demands for change? Is a conservative’s instinctual reluctance to change predicated on a hesitant attitude that reflects his greater historical culture? And does change always entail the willingness to accept the consequences of whatever change may be introduced as the result of a policy outcome? Simple logic might argue that because we accept the innate subjectivity of values, and we are cognizant of the power of Historical Forces that might exacerbate a dispute, it may be advisable to avoid deliberate change as much as possible. Those who respect the power of Historical Forces will moderate their strategic posture by pursuing stability in place of hegemony. And the public will do well to debate if a change, pursued peacefully or by war, necessarily accrues benefits to one side, but at the expense of the other. The attractions of change have wide audiences in the U.S. However, some skeptics explore the dangers of change. Ali Mazrui cautions us, “Political scientists were so preoccupied with studying political change that they virtually forgot how to study political continuity.”2 Adda Bozeman portrays the relationship between change and culture when she observes, “culture is all that is fundamental and enduring about the ways of a group.” Culture, for Bozeman, “comprises those norms, values, institutions and modes of thinking in a given society that survive change and remain meaningful to successive generations.”3 The Institute for National Strategic Studies’ Strategic Assessment 1996, devoted that year’s edition to an examination of “the changing international context within which the instruments [of U.S. power] are applied”.4 The editors perceive “The essential characteristics of the present strategic environment” to be: uncertainty and change. And in the policy field, then-U.S. Secretary of State, James A. Baker relates that on one official mission, he had left the U.S. for a trip to Asia and the Soviet Union, and notes, “by the time I returned home, the world as I had known it for my entire adult life would no longer exist….our new world was laden with hope and opportunity, as well as peril and

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uncertainty, for American diplomacy.”5 Change can be rapid and powerful, and is necessarily fraught with uncertainty. This uncertainty is the genesis of secular human civilization. Expressed in these comments is a conceptual validation of Historical Forces that alter the dynamic operational environment in which societies compete in pursuit of their valued security and welfare interests. Our human choices, from a narrow range of available options, influences the direction and acceleration of social evolution, but powerful Historical Forces control the existential terrain – the competitive battleground for strategic advantage. More to the point, wielding a broad brush in his challenge to modern management training which is besotted with change, John Macdonald, starts his book, Calling a Halt to Mindless Change: “The last decade has been characterized by a mounting clamor for change… In religion, politics, society, and business, the past is derided… A high priesthood of gurus and change masters offer-tempting panaceas for managing the revolution of change…. The change masters are causing havoc. It is time to call a halt to this mindless change.”6 Macdonald implies that change is a major historical factor, and “halting” it is an available option for policy decisions. I would contend that Macdonald’s conception of change assumes the traditional western attitude that we have the power to enact change as we wish to design it, while I would argue that the conditions that confront the policy maker with retaining the status quo, or change, are largely exogenous forces to which we must react. Change is a complex term when examined in a philosophical context as it refines the tenuous nature of many starting assumptions as well as definitions, while also demonstrating the subjectivity of the concept, especially as interpreted by diverse societies. I have argued that military restructuring policies must elaborate the anticipated socio-political environment, foreign and domestic, in which the military may have to operate. It is, of course, not in our abilities to predict with certainty the distant reactions to our policies and actions today. Yet despite the great limitations of social prognostication, some developments may be reasonably expected – if expressed in terms of probability and not certainty. Some alternative futures may be elucidated in terms of ranking probable options. By way of examples, current trends may show the elevation of the importance of airpower as offering new methods of tactical employment; the shift in wars from the wealthy states who fought them since colonial expansion in the latter part of the 19th century to the poorest sectors of the Third World; the great reduction of transnational and conventional wars; the pro-

Karl P. Magyar 257

longation of wars in the Third World; the analytic broadening of the terms: war, victory, threat, allies and enemies; and the expansion of the nature of active participants who may in the near future become the new initiators of armed disputes. As Martin van Creveld has convincingly warned us, we may increasingly expect the future of war will experience a variety of transnational, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from which institutional terrorism might emerge on a par with counterinsurgent national forces.7 As the political nation-state declines in its historic structures, the role of sub-national warlords, mercenaries, criminal gangs and opportunists will rise inversely as they become prominent global political players. Should these anticipated trends actually transpire, we might in the future discover that our evolving force structures could have been determined by inappropriate weapons acquisitions processes and inadequate combat training – with which to face new enemies. The high technology driving the war machine may be too sophisticated for the realities of the tumultuous Third World in whose streets small arms and ground combatants will be more appropriate weapons than those advanced systems designed for super power clashes. Taken to an extreme, we may encounter the prospect that war will lose its importance and utility altogether. Since the mid-17th century the conduct of wars among nation-states was a rational endeavor in that one could gain a reasonable return on his investment. This is not the case today at a time when, due to high costs, almost all attempts at gaining political objectives by military means diminish the value of the object being pursued. In “failed states” such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Haiti, etc., ongoing wars have simply not been politically and economically productive for their societies and their ruling elite. It is notable that wars are a prominent feature of the failed states and, in their dire condition, they are highly vulnerable to external intervention. The Third World’s future, especially in military affairs, will continue to be determined by the economically-developed states. And as long as external states tamper in wars and internal politics, they are only delaying the internal consolidation which can be achieved only by internal power equilibration processes. We had the good fortune of hosting Major Gary Ang while he was away on assignment from his normal duties. Our provocative conversations revealed his interesting exogenous perceptions of the Pacific Rim region in an analytic context. (The views expressed in his examination are his private views as a scholar and are not representative of any official governmental views or policy position.) The most interesting

258 United States Post-Cold War Defence Interests

contribution he makes to our publishing effort is his externallyperceived commentary on America’s Cold War introduction into Asia, most notably in Korea and Vietnam – in neither of which the U.S. prevailed unambiguously. Ang does not clearly spell out the reasons for America’s frustrations in Asia. What does emerge is America’s postWorld War II globalist presence while retaining a standard Western ideological framework that focused more on the better-known Western Big Power contest, while those in South and North Asia produced the strategic reversals. Ang asserts that such a parochial (if not xenophobic) perception was ill prepared to engage in political and diplomatic great power-style power equilibration on terms that respected Asia’s historically-evolved conflict culture. Historical Forces demonstrated yet again the dangers of the West’s universalistic assumptions; its excessive infatuation with social development by technological means; and the inability to transcend impatience required of whoever assumes the role of policing the globe. The U.S. spends close to half of the world’s collective defense budget. We have unparalleled battlefield experience, battle-tested leaders, and high-tech weaponry that any would-be rival cannot even dream of matching. America is by far the most intervention-prone power in the world yet we do not aspire to expand our land or to collect colonies. Driving the defense establishment is our security-related apprehension. We have been well equipped to face a nuclear or conventional challenge. From a technical military perspective, the country is invincible. Our weak spot is not the lack of anything on the material side of warmaking but the analytic dimension poses our greater challenge. And at the center of this inquiry is “What can we know?” Well known to analysts is the curious phenomenon that there exists little agreement on why specific wars are fought. The lack of agreement on the rationale for World War I is well known to historians. Was the U.S. Civil War fought to end slavery or for advancing states’ rights? How can Vietnam be understood in today’s post-Cold War perspective? Why did the Soviet Union make war in Afghanistan? And more recently, what can we make of the confounding barrage of inconsistent explanations for our military interests and actions in Afghanistan and Iraq? In general, the greater the scope of the war, the more difficult it is to elicit a definitive motive on the part of the initiator. Rationales aside, how is information uncovered, selected, evaluated and implemented especially in crises situations when the least amount of time for deliberation is available. We may rightly expect that many strategic decisions have been made under greatly constrained circumstances.

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America’s (allied) 2003 invasion of Iraq with the objective of clearing the country of all “weapons of mass destruction” as well as their production facilities offers an excellent example of needing to know the enemy prior to engagement. Our initial intentions were to physically destroy known terrorist breeding nests and relieve Iraq of the alleged offensive weapons and leader. It appears from the apparent evidence that the planning of those campaigns did not delve into the question, “What can we know?” Ignorance is often a more important factor in determining the course of wars than the high-tech weapons held by one or the other side. Wars are enabled because we are not aware of certain vital information regarding the enemy’s interests and capabilities. If we accept that the unambiguous identification of motives for wars in which we have been or are currently engaged is precluded a priori, acting on the assumption that we are fully confident in our own superior abilities only advertises our own ignorance to the enemy. A commander does well if he knows his opponent but he will do better if he grasps his own true degree of ignorance as well. The future of warfare lies not in the lethality of weapons but in the quality of the commanders’ perceptive abilities and self comprehension. Notes 1. Stephen Sloan, Beating International Terrorism, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Air University Press, 2000, p. xix. 2. Ali A. Mazrui, The Warrior Tradition in Modern Africa, Quoted in Karl P. Magyar, “Culture and Conflict in Africa’s History”, in S. J. Blank, et al., Culture, Conflict and History, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Air University Press, p. 239. 3. Adda B. Bozeman, “War and the Clash of Ideas”, Orbis, 20, no. 1, Spring 1976. 4. Institute for Strategic Studies, “Context”, Strategic Assessment, 1996, Washington D.C.: National Defense University, 1996, p. 1. 5. James A. Baker, III, with Thomas M. Defrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989–1992, New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1995, p. 2. 6. John Macdonald, Calling a Halt to Mindless Change, New York: American Management Association International, 1998, p. 3. 7. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War, New York, The Free Press, 1991, ch. 7.

Index 11 September 2001 183 1991 Gulf War 21, 172 ABM Treaty 125 acquisition process 243 aerial peacekeeping 157 Afghanistan 5 AFM 1-1 228 Air Force 171, 175 Doctrine Center 231 Air Force Doctrine Document 1 (AFDD-1) 229 AirLand Battle 223 doctrine 182, 187, 223 airpower 181, 190, 193, 195, 196 doctrine 184 al-Qaeda 4, 195 American foreign policy 253 America’s service-oriented economy 241 arms export industry 139 race 132 sales 139 Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) 223 Asia 94, 99, 100 Aspin, Les 204, 205 asymmetrical wars asymmetrical threats 27, 181 warfare 195 atomic bombs 185 Aum Shinrikyo 142 Baker, James A. 82, 100, 122 Base Force 203, 204, 205 Berlin 150 Wall 55, 150 Bin Laden, Osama 5–6, 195 Biological Defense Research Program (BDRP) 137 Bosnia–Herzegovina 21, 59 Bottom Up Review (BUR) 138, 202 Boutros Boutros-Ghali 42, 44

Bozeman, Adda B. 14, 17 Bush, George 116, 117 capabilities-based planning 203, 207 Carter, Jimmy 54, 55, 104 Castro, Fidel 18, 154, 254 change 9, 50, 60, 66, 108, 143, 145, 149, 159, 161, 220, 232, 248, 226, 245, 255 doctrine 230 national interest 101 Chechnya 48, 88 Chemical and biological weapons 134, 142 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) 141 China 13, 14, 74, 75, 94, 95, 97, 100, 101, 103, 105, 106, 212 CIA 153 CIS see Commonwealth of Independent States Civil Reserve Air Fleet 171 CJTF see Combined Joint Task Forces Clinton, Bill 94, 139, 145, 206 administration 85, 90, 116, 138 coercion 191 Cold War 3, 19, 20, 47, 50, 67, 68, 73, 79, 80, 93, 96, 97, 101, 113, 131, 149, 160, 166, 201 deaths 100 defense industrial base 235 era 132, 221 collapse of communism 67 collective security 37, 38, 41 Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF) 58, 61 commercial integration 248 commercial investment 240 commercial–military integration 246 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 86, 87 260

Index 261 communism 154, 158, 221 communist aggression 166 Comprehensive [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 120 concepts of war 188 Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) 84–5 containment 51, 93, 98, 105 Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) 133 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty 81 conventional power projection 171 conventional weapons 132 core interests 11 counter-insurgency nation assistance 160 counterproliferation 121, 122, 123 Cuba 21 Cultures 13, 15, 19 declining defense market 237 defense budget 237 industrial base changes 247 defensive system 113 demobilization 166, 235 democracy 102 democratization 106 of China 108 Desert Shield/Storm 44 deterrence 114, 123, 126 discriminant targeting 192 doctrinal development 231 downsizing 139 Drew, Dennis 232 dual-use technologies 240 East/West distrust 153 Eastern Europe 83, 89 economic communities 24 power 93 end of the Cold War 66 engagement and enlargement engine of change 226 evil empire, the 95 Europe 51, 73, 82, 167

failed states 257 Far East 74 five strategic rings 188 Flexible Response 52 force planning 201 force-sizing criterion 206 fundamentalist paradigm 15 Generals Colin Powell 204 Curtis LeMay 151 Norman Schwarzkopf 189 General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev 133 geopolitical regions 70 geopolitical world 69 geostrategic realms and regions 70 German Democratic Republic 83 German reunification 56 Germany 56 Gorbachev, Mikhail 57, 79, 82, 89, 116 Great Powers 18, 26, 93 Gulf War 17, 21, 41, 174 of 1991 114, 121 Haiti 47 Helsinki Accords of 1975 84 hstorical forces 10, 13, 24, 25, 27, 28, 255, 256 historical infrastructure 253 History 9, 15, 17, 19, 24 Hitler, Adolf 16 Ho Chi Minh 98 human intelligence 194 humanitarian 159 assistance 150 missions 20, 156 human rights 44, 46, 47, 84 Huntington, Samuel P. 15, 16, 25, 63, 102

158

ideology 8 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) 81 internal power 257 interventionistic national security policy 176

262 Index invasion of Panama Iraq 36, 118, 253

168

Japan 99, 100 Johnson, Lyndon B. 17, 154 administration 171 joint and combined operations

227

Korea/Korean 221 conflict 186 Kosovo 21 Khrushchev, Nikita 153 Kissinger, Henry A. 17, 51 Lee Kuan Yew 101, 105 lethality cost 135 limited wars 97 concept 222 loose nukes 114 Low Intensity Conflicts (LIC) 149, 224, 245

5,

Major Theater War (MTW) 202 management culture 10, 19 Mao Tse-Tung 16 Marine Corps 224 Marx, Karl 10, 13, 15, 16 Marxism/Marxist 8, 14 Massive Retaliation 52, 113, 221, 224 military 5 budgets 132 doctrine 159, 220 -industrial complex 235 missions 206 Military Advisory and Assistance Group (MAAG) 151 Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) 20, 149, 159, 162, 227 training 160 trends 162 moral principle 95 Moscow 97 Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) 20, 113, 114, 121 mutual nuclear deterrence 114 nation assistance 151 nationalism 15, 102

National Defense Panel 206 National Guard and Air Force Reserve 161, 162 national missile defense system 125 National Security Council decision NSC-68 67, 68 Document ‘NSC-68’ 67, 68, 95 nation-building efforts 156 NATO 53, 54, 57, 60, 81, 193 -led force 158 naval doctrine 223 marine detachments 165 Naval Doctrine Command 231 naval power projection 169 near abroad 86, 88 New World Order 41, 42, 94 Nixon, Richard M. 137 Nixon–Kissinger era 97 non-proliferation 119 non-state actors 120 non-viable states 20 North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) 57 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 50 North Korea 22, 28, 104, 119 nuclear capability 104 club 120 threat 29 war and warfare 226, 229 weapons 22, 28, 113 weapons research programs 118 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 118 operational strategy 210 Operations Joint Endeavor 157 Provide Comfort 155 Provide Relief 155 Restore Democracy (ORD) Restore Hope 172 Other Than War 228

157

Pacific Rim 107 pan-regionalism 69 parallel use of airpower 181 Partnership for Peace (PfP) 58, 85 peace operations 42, 48, 76, 210

Index 263 peacekeeping 20, 39, 43, 44, 153, 211 peacetime engagement 159 Pentomic Division 222 police action 166 policy 23 Polish armed forces 83 political perceptions 254 post-Cold War era defense budget 236 drawdown 172 era 19, 40, 107, 181, 232 MOOTW policy 80, 159 preemptive 123 prepositioning squadrons 170 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PINs) 116 preventive diplomacy 43 Professional Military Education program 190 Putin, Vladimir 117 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 201, 206 Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force headquarters (RDJTF) 168 Reagan, Ronald 55, 79, 133 administration 167, 168 build-up 237 reduced force structure 178 reengineering 238 regional conflicts 245 regionalism 66, 68, 75, 76 regions 69 religion 77 Report of the Bottom Up Review (BUR) 205 research and development 236 funding 239 resource-constrained force 204 Revolution in Military Affairs 213 revolutions of 1989 82 rogue states 140, 144 Rumsfeld, Donald H. 127 Russia/Russian 48, 60, 61, 76, 87, 116 Rwanda 47 mission 156

Saddam Hussein 4, 11, 18 SALT/START process 116 shatterbelt 71 social phenomena 11 societal context 185 socio-political environment 256 Somalia 36, 47, 155 Soviet Union 41, 51, 54, 80, 84, 132, 135, 141, 150, 220, 225 strategy for 96 Spanish-American War (1898) 165 Special Operations Forces 173 Spratlys 107 stability 159 Star Wars 55, 124 states 20 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) 115 strategic bombardment 185 Strategic Triad 225 Sun Tzu 10, 13, 195 super powers 42, 48, 76, 79, 93 surrogates 39, 80 tactical force 178 nuclear weapons 222 Taiwan 106 Taliban 5 terrorism/terrorists 4, 6, 7, 27, 127, 194 acts 171 tactics 8 Third World 4, 7, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 37, 67, 80, 94, 133, 167, 257 threat-based planning 203 Tomahawk cruise missiles 169 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) 140 Truman Doctrine 152 Truman rollback policy 99 two-MTW rationale 209 two-theater construct 207 United Nations 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41 charter 153 United States Air Force 224 airpower 185

264 Index United States – continued deterrence 125 doctrine 161, 183 forces 160 Marine Corps 169 nuclear deterrence policy 79, 136 power projection capabilities 165 troops 154 Van Creveld, Martin 8, 13, 23, 257 victory 93, 98, 12, 22, 254 Vietnam War 53, 93, 94, 96, 98, 99, 103, 132, 135, 167, 254 von Clausewitz, Carl 3 Wars 3, 7, 9, 12, 13, 18, 20, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29 against terrorism 193 vocabulary 9

Warden, John, Col. (Ret.) 188, 189 196 Instant Thunder model 188 Warsaw Pact 52 nations 56 Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) 79, 89 Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 27, 122, 125, 126 threats 123 weapon system 136 West/Western 14, 16, 22, 68 society 19 Western Europe 50, 90, 202 What can we know? 258 Wilson, Woodrow 95 winning 27 Yugoslavia

41