What Americans need to remember when they hear all this nonsense about “empire,” and “perpetual war,” and “World War IV” is how far we have come as a military power in the last quarter-century. As we wage this global war against terrorism, which is neither “global” nor a “war” by traditional definition, remember this: our nation is most responsible for guiding the world past the threat of global nuclear war; our government fashioned a global economic and political order in which great-power war has become a thing of the past; and our military’s current mission involves extending security to individuals throughout the Gap. The American way of war defines the moral dimension embedded in the grand strategic goal of shrinking the Gap.
How America chooses to wage war defines the nature of peace in the twenty-first century. Our rule sets are as clear as our actions, although we have not described them sufficiently in the explanations we have offered to date for our wars. Here is how I choose to define them:◈
America stands ready for any type of war, because we know our enemies cannot defeat us in extended conflicts, only damage our will by striking with the advantage of surprise. So we train yearround at levels other militaries can only dream of, covering a universal range of scenarios. We practice contingency planning because our wars are long-distance wars, so we never plan to fight in place. We expect to conduct war on the fly. In fact, we prefer it in network-centric warfare (think soccer, not football).
The United States brings war only in very specific circumstances, but when it does, it employs all elements of our national power. We bring war to any state or nonstate actor that threatens or actually attacks our homeland. This will be a war of destruction so as to deter the like-minded. America brings war to any entity that attacks our forces or other agencies of the U.S. Government, because we know such attacks—even when committed abroad—are designed to attack global stability itself by diminishing our stature as its ultimate guarantor. When all other reasonable measures fail, we bring war preemptively to entities seeking weapons of mass destruction for use against us or our allies. We also bring war preemptively to states that harbor or actively support terrorist groups with a transnational reach. We bring war against any entities that threaten or wage war against our strongest allies. These include NATO, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and any state close to our borders. Finally, we bring war against any entities that threaten global economic stability by threatening or waging war against key pillars of that economy, to include the Persian Gulf economies.
We are prepared to bring war anywhere in the world, but our focus in terms of frequency lies inside the Gap. In the Western Hemisphere, we are prepared to wage war anywhere in the Caribbean Rim and the Andes portion of South America. In Europe, we have no compelling need to prepare for war, and that definition includes the Russian Federation, because security problems located within Core great powers remain their own to solve. America is prepared to wage war in Southwest Asia, defined as Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, because the energy that flows out of these regions is a global connectivity worth protecting. In Asia, we are ready to bring war against North Korea, and to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan. Because of the global war on terrorism, America now stands ready to bring war as required anywhere inside sub-Saharan Africa, although we will seek to limit our exposure there until our efforts to export security to the Persian Gulf bring about lasting change not just for Iraq, but for Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia itself.
America begins war under a variety of circumstances. We retaliate automatically to any direct attack against our homeland, although our timing may be delayed whenever the identity of our attacker is in question. We immediately come to the aid of key allies under attack, no questions asked. Outside of such automatic responses, we prefer extensive domestic political debate regarding any decision to go to war. The American public wishes to see several boxes checked before the decision to go to war is reached by the White House. These include consultation with Congress, making a case to the American people via public speeches, seeking UN approval and support for the resulting operations, and enlisting as many allies as possible. America also conducts covert operations as part of our global war on terrorism. These are not subject to public debate, so long as the numbers of personnel remain small and the goals are both limited and well focused. Because of the strategic focus imposed by this global war on terrorism, the United States is likely to pursue more peace-enforcement operations in regions that rim the Non-Integrating Gap, although we will do so with an eye to enlisting the support of regional security organizations. Deeper inside the Gap (read, Africa), America is more likely to strike preemptively with less concern for what may follow, although, over time, our goal of shrinking the Gap will eventually center on sub-Saharan Africa.
America’s goals in conducting war are broad. Beyond preserving U.S. national security, we seek to bolster global norms against mass violence, so we target only those actors who perpetrate or seek to commit such acts. But in order to effectively “criminalize” such activity, we must encourage the spread of legal rule sets, which, over time, establish the conditions under which economic development and—later—democracy can flourish. We also seek to protect the global economy from disruptions to its functioning, because we know deaths ensue from such disruptions just as surely as they do from war. When we wage war, we place special emphasis on limiting both enemy casualties (military and civilian) and damage to national economies, because we know that later integration of these same societies into the global economy is greatly facilitated when excessive force is avoided. Naturally, we balance these goals with the need to protect the lives of U.S. soldiers, because if our losses seem out of proportion to the enemies we fight and the goals we seek, then the American people will stop supporting such wars overseas.
The United States seeks the aid of all like-minded members of the Core and Gap whenever it needs to wage war. We desire the approval of international organizations such as the United Nations, but if the stakes are high enough, such approval is not crucial. More important to us is the approval and support of our closest military allies (NATO, Japan, Australia), as well as the support of—or at least nonobstruction from—the newest pillars of the Core (China, South Korea, Russia, India, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico). But there are no set rules in terms of the allies we enlist for any war, so “coalitions of the willing” are the norm, with no apology demanded from, or offered to, states declining to participate.
When America wages war, it mobilizes its resources on every possible front. We seek to destroy our enemy’s ability to wage war. We seek to isolate him from all possible allies, denying him both resources and sympathy from others. When we engage in war overseas, we activate all manner of airlift and sealift networks (both military and civilian contractors) to move all required personnel and supplies into position as quickly as possible. Before firing a single shot, the United States mobilizes a global information grid to achieve the maximum possible information advantage over opponents, so that when our firepower is brought to bear, our targeting will be as precise as possible while that of our opponents will be as degraded as possible. Finally, the Pentagon mobilizes the world’s best combat medical system for each war, spending more on the goal of preserving our soldiers’ lives than most nations spend on their entire military.
America can access battlefields around the world as no other military can. We have the world’s only blue-water navy, so the majority of our supplies and forces can transit the world’s oceans in great safety. When strategic speed is required, the United States can tap the world’s largest military airlift fleet, which comes with extensive midair refueling capacity. We can also, if need be, strike anywhere in the world directly from U.S. air bases within our borders. In general, though, the United States has many friends around the world, so we are able to effectively pre-position supplies for rapid use in the vast majority of crisis situations.
When America wages war, it brings everything it has in t
erms of forces. We utilize overseas bases as close to the war zone as possible, and typically are able to reach new agreements for such access in rapid order when the stakes of any conflict are high enough. But we do not need close-in air bases per se, because we have the ability to move carriers within range and can operate Air Force aircraft from great distances, thanks to our extensive fleet of midair refueling tankers. Before the United States starts a war, Special Forces will typically engage in a wide variety of special pre-invasion tasks designed to degrade enemy capabilities and enlist whatever indigenous support is possible. When the war begins in earnest, America typically “prepares the battlefield” through an opening salvo of air strikes that may last for days or even weeks. Once an enemy is damaged in this manner, we use ground forces to conquer territory and roll up enemy ground forces. The U.S. military employs the Navy, Marines, Army, and Air Force in a highly synergistic fashion known as “jointness,” in order to overwhelm opponents quickly while putting the fewest number of ground troops in harm’s way.
In general, the application of overwhelming force is the hallmark of the American way of war, as past experience has taught us that committing forces in a piecemeal fashion puts U.S. personnel unnecessarily at risk. So once the battle is begun, we seek “rapid domination” of the battlefield (both on the ground and in any surrounding littoral waters), staying consistently on the offensive, or as much as reasonable circumstances allow. We seek to avoid static front lines. As Art Cebrowski likes to say, we seek to turn each engagement with the enemy into an ambush across a “noncontiguous battlefield.” In short, our enemy is safe nowhere on the battlefield because there are no rear areas. The same is true for U.S. forces. Since we know our enemies will seek to defeat us asymmetrically, we disperse our personnel as much as possible while taking advantage of all our network capabilities. When we seek to destroy an enemy, we typically target his air defenses first, especially airfields. Then we go after his command-and-control facilities, or his communication networks. Then and only then do we go after his ground forces in a concentrated fashion. In short, we work to degrade our enemy’s ability to see and understand what is going on in the battlefield as early in the process as possible.
America will go to every effort possible to avoid using weapons of mass destruction, but that does not include promising never to use them, otherwise we lose their essential deterrence value. Naturally, when we have evidence that an opponent possesses such resources and has the will to use them, we seek to neutralize its ability to employ WMD as preemptively as possible, either prior to or during the immediate onset of war. Special Forces play a key role here.
Once the enemy is defeated, the United States makes a strong effort to track down and incapacitate all remaining resistance. We also engage in what are known as psychological operations to convince the civilian population that our goals in conducting any war will serve their long-term interests. We focus great attention on tapping all available social and political leaders to reconstruct a functioning government authority that can begin to oversee a return to normal life. U.S. forces are prepared to conduct emergency relief operations on their own, but prefer to yield to international relief organizations as quickly as possible so their focus on providing security throughout the country can be maximized. To facilitate the legal recovery of the country, we will do everything within our power to facilitate the identification, capture, and imprisonment of individuals suspected of war crimes or human rights abuses. Ideally, this effort will be followed up by trials in internationally sanctioned courts.
Before the United States leaves any battlefield, the capital city must be under firm control by friendly forces, and the countryside must be settled enough so that UN peacekeeping troops or the successor regime can manage the situation with reasonable use of force. We do not leave until all the major players involved in the conflict sign up to the war-termination agreements that have been concluded, or until any resulting humanitarian crisis has been brought under control to the point where international relief organizations can handle the situation on their own.
What the United States often leaves behind following any war are the resources that we hope will prevent future instability. These may include military trainers to help the country restore its military or police functions, or to train existing state forces to combat rebels still fighting; a small “trip wire” force of American troops to signal our commitment to responding to future security situations; military supplies that we can utilize rapidly if we need to return to the country on short notice; and other assets and personnel deemed appropriate to long-term cooperation between our military and that of the country.
Currently, these are the basic rule sets of the American way of war. These rules are constantly evolving as the Pentagon moves progressively toward focusing on disabling, capturing, and killing individual targets as part of the global war on terrorism, and away from planning for major wars with great powers. But there will always be a broad spectrum of capabilities-based planning, meaning the Pentagon will always seek to maintain its ability to do just about anything anywhere, because any holes in our capabilities to wage war invite attack in precisely those functional areas. Having said that, there is a huge distinction between those low-probability scenarios we hedge against and those high-probability scenarios we focus on. The Core defines low probability, the Gap near certainty.
Over time, the American way of war will be comprehensively shaped by the continuing and emerging military tasks involved in eliminating specific security targets within the Gap, not defending against all possibilities of attack from fellow Core members. Otherwise, all America would be doing in taking up the security challenges of shrinking the Gap would be to overburden the U.S. military by refusing to acknowledge, much less exploit, its past and current successes in encouraging collective security throughout the Core. In short, the American way of war must reflect the world as we find it, not past fears of near-peers or future fantasies of American empire.
7 – The Myths We Make (I Will Now Dispel)
THERE ARE A LOT of myths floating around about America’s security role in global affairs. You see them constantly cited in op-eds and on TV talk shows, and they are employed indiscriminately by average citizens and experts alike. People who listen to talk radio on a daily basis can probably recite them in their sleep. These myths survive primarily because no coherent vision has yet emerged about U.S. national security policy since the end of the Cold War, other than this seemingly open-ended global war on terrorism. So these misguided exaggerations become a sort of shorthand for expressing our deepest fears about futures we hope desperately to avoid.
Repeat after me: global chaos . . . perpetual war . . . global policeman . . . empire. . . .
These myths kill honest debates in a heartbeat. You know how it goes: you’re at some gathering or party and the conversation turns to the war on terrorism, and you try to make some point you think makes sense about how all these efforts should—in some better world—come together in some logical fashion. It’s not like you’re apologizing for one political party or the other; you just want to state something hopeful about tomorrow—something not so tragically cynical. You know real people who are dying in this war, and you want their sacrifices to prompt something more meaningful than just a caustic put-down in some campaign debate.
And then some blowhard leans over from the conversation going on next door and simply slaps you down with, “Hell, everyone knows it’s all about running our empire. If you can’t admit we’re playing globocop, then you’re just blind to all the chaos that really exists out there. Better get used to it, because it’s World War IV from here on out!”
Then the blowhard retracts his index finger from your chest and goes back to pontificating on why everything sucks in this world, and you’re left wondering why these high-voltage phrases seem to short-circuit every intelligent conversation you try to pursue on this subject. I mean, are we all supposed to just lie down every time some “realist” t
hrows these buzzwords in our face? Worse still are the über-realists who prattle on about war giving meaning to our lives and how we should all adopt a warrior spirit for the battles ahead. God save us all from the “wisdom” of these national insecurity experts.
This chapter focuses on how to dispel the worst of these myths. Consider it a sort of cocktail party primer on how to body-slam blowhards.
And whatever you do, please try this at home. Teach your children well, because when parents skip that effort, the next generation is left with nothing more than the myths we make.
The Myth Of Global Chaos
I’ve had a Top Secret or higher clearance all of my professional career. It was something I looked forward to getting while I was in college, because it would mean I was “in the club” and that I was privy to the serious, insider dope. The “unclean,” or anyone without a clearance, tend to assume that having one gives you access to some alternative universe where you finally find out how the world really works, what your parents were lying to you about all these years, and why Oliver Stone’s movies are all completely true.
The Pentagon's New Map Page 38