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Rethinking the Concept of Asymmetric Threats in U.S. Strategy

2004; Routledge; Volume: 23; Issue: 4-5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01495930490898759

1521-0448

Stephen Blank,

International Relations and Foreign Policy

Abstract Threat assessment is a critical element in the formulation of any state's strategy, policy, and defense doctrine. It also should be an inherently critical process that liberates policymakers from incorrect, antiquated, or misconceived perceptions. Therefore the U.S. strategic community engages in a never-ending debate over the nature of the threats confronting America. In recent years the term asymmetric threat has become something of a mantra covering every kind of threat even to the degree of labeling the German offensives of 1918 as asymmetric. This essay is an extended critique of the way in which we think about asymmetric threats and argues for a different way of perceiving and analyzing the threats we face. Even if the kinds of threats we face are serious and real, mislabeling and misconceiving them does a disservice to U.S. strategy and policy. Thus new thinking about the nature of the threat is called for. Notes Federal News Service, Testimony of Andrew Krepinevich to the Senate Committee on the Budget 107 th Congress, February 12, 2001. Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; Admiral Vern Clark (USN), "Sea Power 21: Projecting Decisive Joint Capabilities," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, October, 2002, pp. 36–37. Admiral Clark is the current chief of Naval Operations so this may be taken as representing the official Navy View; see also Captain Sam J. Tangredi, USN, "Rebalancing the Fleet Round 2," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, May, 2003, pp. 37–38; Bryan Bender, "U.S. Response: WMD Threat Frustrates Iraq Invasion Plan," Global Security Newswire (www.nti.org), July 18, 2002. Chris Donnelly, "Defence, Security, and Intelligence in the 21st Century: New Challenges and New Responses," Acque et Terre, no. 2 (2003), p. 57. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Vision 2020, (Henceforth JV 2020), Washington, D.C., 2000, p. 4. Bennett, Bruce W., Christopher P. 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Peter Beaumont, "Allies Fear Iraq Plotting 'Scorched Earth' War; Saddam Plans to Destroy Everything in Path of US and British Assault," The Observer, (February 23, 2003), p. 2; Michael R. Gordon, "Iraq Said to Have Planned Scorched-Earth Moves; Aim Would Be to Slow Drive on Baghdad," International Herald Tribune, (February 17, 2003), p. 3 Steven Metz and Douglas V. Johnson II, Asymmetry and U.S. Military Strategy: Definition, Background, Strategic Concepts (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2001), p. 1. Edward Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, revised and enlarged edition (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2001) Metz, p. 22. Metz and Johnson, pp. 3–12. Ibid., pp. 3–12, 36–42; Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Strategy Review, Thomas J. Williams, "Strategic Leader Readiness and Competencies for Asymmetric Warfare," Parameters (Summer, 2003), pp. 22–23; Earl H. 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Cebrowski and Thomas P. M. Barnett, "The American Way of War," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute (January 2003), pp. 42–43; see also General (USA RET) Montgomery C. Meigs, "Unorthodox Thoughts About Asymmetric Warfare, Parameters, (Summer, 2003), pp. 4–10; LTC Anthony C. Cain, (USAF), "Air and Space Power: Asymmetric Advantage for the United States," Air & Space Power Journal, (Spring, 2003), p. 1. Bellamy, p. 152; Freedman, pp. 67–79. Richard H. Shultz and Andreas Vogt, "It's War! Fighting Post-11 September Global Terrorism through a Doctrine of Preemption," Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 15, no. 1, (Spring, 2003), pp. 1–30; Freedman, pp. 67–79; Anonymous, "11 September: A Failure of Strategic Analysis," Armed Forces Journal International, (November, 2002), pp. 12–16. Senate Intelligence Committee, Hearings; "11 September: A Failure of Strategic Analysis," pp. 12–16; Testimony of Condoleeza Rice to the 9/11 Commission, April 8, 2004, www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/rice.tr4anscript; Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (New York: The Free Press, 2004). 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Cori Dauber, "The Practice of Argument: Reading the Condition of Civil-Military Relations," Armed Forces and Society, vol. 24, no. 3, (Spring, 1998), pp. 435–446; Steven Metz, "Racing Toward the Future: the Revolution in Military Affairs," Current History, (April, 1997), p. 185; Eliot A. Cohen, "Constraints on America's Conduct of Small Wars," International Security, vol. 9, no. 2, (Fall, 1984), pp. 151–181. As stated by Ambassador Charles Freeman Jr. and Anthony Cordesman at a conference on U.S. basing strategies, Arlington, VA. August 10–11, 2003 Col. Antulio Echevarria (USA), toward an American Way of War (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War college, 2004) p. 7 National Military Strategy of the United States, 1997 located at www.dtic.mil/jcs/nms/executiv.htm (Henceforth NMS), p. 2 of the section The Strategy–Shape, Respond, Prepare Now (Bold in original). Testimony of Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense on U.S. Military Presence in Iraq: Implications for Global Defense Posture, Prepared for Delivery to the House Armed Services Committee, 108th Congress, Washington, D.C. June 18, 2003, www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2003/sp20030618-depsecdef0302 Sources on U.S. intelligence in Iraq. Senate Intelligence Committee, Hearings; "11 September: A Failure of Strategic Analysis," pp. 12–16; Testimony of Condoleeza Rice to the 9/11 Commission, April 8, 2004; Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. Captain Sam J. Tangredi (USN), "Regaining the Trust," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, (May 2001), p. 39. Barry D. Watts, Clausewitzian Friction and Future War, Washington, D.C.: Institute for National Security Studies, National Defense University, McNair Papers, No. 52, (1996), p. 8; Echevarria, "Rapid Decisive Operations" p. 131. President George W. Bush, The National Security Strategy of the United States, Washington, D.C.: The White House, 2002, www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.htm (Henceforth NSS). "Strategic Assessment, 1998," Washington, D.C.: Fort Lesley J. McNair, Institute for National Security Studies, National Defense University 1998, p. 169. Federal News Service, Prepared Testimony by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to the Senate Armed Services Committee, 107 th Congress, September 19, 2002, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis. Thomas E. Ricks and Vernon Loeb, "Afghan War Faltering, Military Leader Says," Washington Post, November 8, 2002, p. 1; Tom Canahuate, "U.S. Commander Identifies Early Lessons Learned From Afghan War," DefenseNews.com, February 7, 2002; Rowan Scarborough, "Al Qaida Adapts to Pursuit Tactics," Washington Times, January 15, 2003, p. 10; Tim McGuire and Michael Ware, "Losing control?", Time, November 18, 2002, www.ebird.dtic.mil/Nov2002/320021111control. Anthony Davis, "Afghan Security Deteriorates as Taliban Regroup," Jane's Intelligence Review, May, 1, 2003, www4.janes.com/search97/cgis97; Scott Ballade and Owais Tohid, "Taliban Appears to Be Regrouped and Well-Founded," Christian Science Monitor, May 8, 2003, www.csmonitor.com/2003/0508p01s02-wosc, "Musharraf: Bin Laden May Be in Pakistan," May 1, 2001; Kathy Gannon, "Al-Qaida's NO. 3 Says He Met Bin Laden, Who is Alive and in the Region," Associated Press Worldstream, March 6, 2003, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis. JV 2020, pp. 5–7; Canahuate, Scarborough, p. 10. Ibidem.; Ricks and Loeb, p. 1; McGirk and Ware. To give a telling example of the confusion we have dealing with the concept of asymmetry, Thomas Williams observes that its purpose is to "disrupt and undermine a strategic leader's ability to direct and control rational and deliberate actions," only to say a few pages later that asymmetric approaches might entail the 'use of irrational means to achieve the desired ends." Williams, pp. 23–30. Roger Barnett, Asymmetrical Warfare" Today's Challenge to U.S. Military Power (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, Inc., 2003), p. 15. Ibid., p. 16; see also, Roger W. Barnett, "Naval Power for a New American Century," Naval War College Review, vol. 55, no. 1, (Winter, 2002), p. 52. Conrad C. Crane, Avoiding Vietnam: The U.S Army's Response to Defeat in Southeast Asia (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute U.S. Army War College, 2002). Rajiv Chandrasekaram, "Iraq Threatens to Widen Conflict if U.S. Attacks," Washington Post, September 11, 2002, p. 10; David Isby, "Asymmetric Warfare and Iraq," Washington Times, November 4, 2002, p. 21; Jimmy Burns and John Murray Brown, "Dissident Republicans 'Sought Arms from Iraq'," Financial Times, May 3, 2002, p. 4; Bill Gertz, "Saddam Seen Using Proxy Groups to Attack the U.S.," Washington Times, February 25, 2003, p. 3; Michael R. Gordon, "Reading Saddam's Mind," New York Times on the Web, March 3, 2003, www.ebird.dtric.mil/Mar2003/s20030304158739. Ibid. "RDO White Paper," quoted in Echevarria, "Rapid Decisive Operations" p. 128; Thomas Hughes, "The Cult of the Quick," Aerospace Power Journal, Winter, 2001, pp. 57–68 and the sources cited there. Ibidem. Thus a recent study defending the argument that air power was what convinced Milosevich to accede to NATO's demands admits that the "details of his decision calculus remain a matter of speculation" and that Russia's refusal to intervene on his side was "a serious blow." Andrew L. Stigler, "A Clear Victory for Air Power: NATO's Empty Threat to Invade Kosovo," International Security, vol. 27 (Winter, 2002–2003), pp. 141–142. The use of the term "cakewalk" with regard to prospective operations in Iraq was apparently first used by Kenneth Adelman of www.defensecentral.org and a former Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administration official, CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports, December 21, 2001, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis. Bellamy, p. 152. Bennett, Twomey, and Treverton, p. 3. Evan Thomas and Martha Brant, "The Education of Tommy Franks," Newsweek, May 19, 2003; Echevarria, p. 128. Hughes, pp. 64–65. Jacob Kipp and Lt. Col. Lester W. Grau (USA RET), "The Fog and Friction of Technology," Military Review, (September–October, 2001), p. 94. Robert Allan Doughty, The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919–1939: Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1980; Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between the Wars, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997, pp. 15–16, 40, 76. Metz, p. 33 observes that in the Army's war games through 2000, "Invariably the "blue" forces emerge victorious leaving the Army unprepared to think about the consequences of or responses to defeat." The same observation could also apply to unexpected enemy defensive tactics as well. This certainly raised a controversy in the 2002 Millennium Challenge war game, "Generals Take Stock of U.S. Vulnerability to Common Technologies," Inside the Pentagon, September 19, 2002, p. 1; Nicholas Kristof "How We Won the War," New York Times, September 6, 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/opinion/06KRIS.html. General Richard B. Myers, (USAF) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "A Word from the Chairman," Joint Forces Quarterly, (Spring, 2002), pp. 1–7. Admiral Bill Owens (USN RET), with Ed Offley, Lifting the Fog of War, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2000, pp. 14–16; Roger Barnett, passim. Owens, pp. 14–16. Kipp and Grau, p. 94. Metz, p. 33; "Generals Take Stock of U.S. Vulnerability to Common Technologies," p. 1; Kristof "How We Won the War." General Ronald R. Fogelman, USAF, "The Air Force and Joint Vision 2010," Joint Force Quarterly, no. 14, (Winter, 1996–1997), p. 25; Major General Charles Wald, USAF, "Air Force Next: The High Tech Force," Briefing to the Defense Science Board, February 4, 1998, p. 2. For one such example see Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons of Afghanistan: War Fighting, Intelligence, and Force Transformation (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2002), pp. 64–72. One need only examine the transcripts of the open hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in September–October, 2002 listed on the committee's website.www.intelligence.senate.gov. (Henceforth Senate Intelligence Committee Hearings); "11 September: A Failure of Strategic Analysis," pp. 12–16. Thus it would not hurt many of our military academies to read Graham Greene's "The quiet American or Joseph Conrad's Nostromo, to cite only two of a large number of classics on revolution and war in the Third World. 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Federal News Service, Prepared Testimony by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to the Senate Armed Services Committee, 107 th Congress, September 19, 2002. Federal News Service, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Holds Town Hall Meeting With Troops, Howze Theater, Fort Hood, TX, August 21, 2002, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis. This has been the point of Russian military doctrine at least since 1993. "Osnovnye Polozhenii Voennoi Doktriny Rossiiskoi Federatsii," Rossiyskie Vesti, in Russian, November 19, 1993, Foreign Broadcast Information Service Central Eurasia (Henceforth FBIS-SOV)-93-222-S, November 19, 1993, pp. 1–11; Mary Fitzgerald, "The Russian Shift Toward Nuclear War-Waging," Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C., 1993. Ibidem. 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