[G_O] Fw: Organizing For The War On Terrorism by Michael P. Noonan
EE
erikempson@wanadoo.fr
Thu, 26 Sep 2002 20:59:46 +0100
People might be interested in the article below. It doesn't contain any new
revelations but shows how consciously the management of public opinion is
seen by its perpetrators as a strategy of the war itself:
"The most difficult dimension is to keep the American will mobilized"
THE U.S. MILITARY, THE STRATEGIC QUARTET,
AND THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM
by Michael P. Noonan
One year after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the
United States remains involved in its first global war of
the 21st century. Notwithstanding the stunning military
success in the Afghan theater of operations, the fact
remains that much war remains. The Global War on Terrorism
without doubt will be a protracted conflict much like the
world wars that preceded it in the 20th century. This point,
however, remains difficult to sell to an American public who
have, to a large extent, not been mobilized and are only
afforded a partial view into the darkness that shades and
obfuscates much of the war effort. The current war against
terrorism differs from past conflicts largely in means
rather than ends. It is not a "big battalion" war pitting
large formations against one another. And although the front
is everywhere, national mobilization as past generations
knew it, will not help.
THE NEW STRATEGIC QUARTET
>From an American perspective the First and Second World Wars
were overwhelmingly conventional and traditional military
conflicts. Infantry, armor, artillery, warships, and
airplanes of the competing sides battled one another for
victory -- and, in the case of the Axis powers in the latter
conflict, world domination. The war against al-Qaeda, and
other groups of global reach, is an overwhelmingly
unconventional and nontraditional conflict. Commando tactics
and information warfare appear to be the keys to victory
rather than massed industrial resources and a vast
conscripted force. Unfortunately, however, the forces and
capabilities that President Bush inherited a year ago were
not best organized for such a conflict.
The aftermath of 9/11 has created a new strategic quartet
for U.S. national security writ large. This quartet consists
of the military, law enforcement and emergency response, the
intelligence community, and the American public. Each has a
different role and there will always be a degree of overlap
between their areas of responsibility. At present their
roles can be conceived in football terms. The military may
be equated with the offense, law enforcement and emergency
response with the defense, the intelligence community with
the special teams, and the American public as the home field
crowd. As in football, coordination and the ability to
rapidly exploit opportunities are the keys to success on the
field. In the future these arrangements will likely have to
be changed to a system more like soccer or ice hockey, where
there are more fluid and seamless transitions to offense and
defense and then back again.
It should be remembered that while technology is a key
enabler for the quartet, victory is forged through the
performance of the individuals working together in the units
composing each leg of the military, law enforcement and
emergency response, and intelligence elements and through
the mobilization and maintenance of the nation's collective
will. Excellence in the realm of personnel is essential. As
the author and military analyst Ralph Peters has said, "Good
isn't enough. We need brilliant because the enemies we will
face often will be the best their countries and cultures
have to offer." Anyone who doubts the truth of this
statement should ask a member of the special operations
community about how difficult it would be to pull off an
operation such as the one that was accomplished by the
hijackers a year ago.
THE U.S. MILITARY
In the military realm the current conflict is a double-edged
sword because: (1) a large majority of the military is not
actively engaged in the war leaving time and resources to
transform and reorganize for future warfare but (2) special
operations forces (SOF) are so taxed, it will be difficult
to resist watering down their standards in order to expand
capabilities. Below, several suggestions are made that might
contribute getting the most from the challenges that each of
the above factors provides.
If Gulf War II is fought against Iraq, then it would not be
a stretch to predict that it will be the last time an
adversary attempts to throw divisional- or corps-level
assets against well-trained and well-equipped American
troops. While the military must be prepared to act against
all manner of contingencies -- and to defend American
interests unrelated to the war on terrorism such as in Latin
America and northeast Asia -- further movement must be made
on fleshing out joint and combined operation command and
control relationships -- such as Standing Joint Task Forces.
These are vital because seldom, if ever, in the future will
U.S. forces operate solely with elements from a single
branch of the armed forces. Also, much work needs to be done
in incorporating the law enforcement and intelligence
communities (as well as other agency actors) into current
command structures as the Department of Defense has recently
experimented with in the Millennium Challenge 2002 war game
-- although this must take place at levels below the
combatant command level. Furthermore, advanced concepts such
as decentralized operations, developing a culture of air
movement for the Army, the naval "Streetfighter" program
(smaller and more numerous surface and semi-submersible
combatants), lighter-than air transport systems, magnetic
rail gun technologies, and laser technologies should be
experimented with in order to insure that our men and women
in uniform are best equipped to meet conditions on the
battlefields of the future.
>From Tbilisi, Georgia, to Kandahar, Afghanistan, to Basilan,
the Philippines, American special operations units have been
at the sharpest point of the spear in the war efforts thus
far -- and these are just the areas where the Department of
Defense has admitted to sending troops. One can only guess
where members of the ultra-secret special missions units of
the Joint Special Operations Command have been operating and
will operate in the coming years. With this in mind, the
decision makers in the Pentagon and elsewhere should resist
the temptation to markedly expand the number of SOF
personnel.
As members of SOF like to say, their members cannot be mass-
produced. The selection and training processes of these
unique units allow them to perform at levels above their
more conventional brethren. A rapid expansion in their
numbers would thus water down standards that would in all
likelihood have denigrating effects on respective unit
performance. A better idea, under current circumstances,
would be to train, man, and equip units with very high
levels of elan such as the 82nd Airborne Division, 173rd
Airborne Brigade, and the various Marine Expeditionary Units
to even higher standards, to prepare them to perform more
Ranger-style missions. This then would free up the three
battalions that comprise the 75th Ranger Regiment to focus
on even more complicated direct action types of missions
which in turn could further free-up elements of the special
mission units to carry out the most sensitive operations.
Army Special Forces units would then focus primarily on the
unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense missions
which are their core competencies. This course of action
would raise the standards for the rest of the force without
lowering SOF standards. In other words: quality has a
quantity all its own.
LAW ENFORCEMENT AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE
Civilian law enforcement at the federal (and perhaps state)
level must develop a trained cadre of personnel that are
knowledgeable about foreign cultures -- particularly
linguistic skills and cultural mannerisms -- and the
standard operating procedures of terrorist organizations.
Only through the formation of such units will law
enforcement be able to root out terrorist threats rather
than react after a catastrophic event. An individual
replacement system in organizations such as the FBI that
makes agents anti-terrorism experts by transferring them
into divisions that handle those responsibilities is not
enough. Any notion of a Department of Homeland Security
should include a law enforcement unit that has lead federal
authority on terrorism cases -- from both domestic and
foreign perpetrators.
State and local law enforcement and emergency response
providers, unlike their federal progeny, have been among the
most praised groups in the year after 9/11. The heroics and
sacrifices made by the men and women of the New York fire
and police departments will not be forgotten. Likewise, the
various state National Guards -- Army and Air -- have done
an commendable job in protecting valuable pieces of
infrastructure as well as adding to a sense of security --
for most Americans -- at airports and other sites. These
institutions have performed admirably to past emergencies
and will continue to be on the front lines of homeland
defense.
THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
The intelligence community -- as has been said countless
times by individuals with operational espionage expertise,
such as Raul Marc Gerecht -- must break its fetish with an
over-dependence on technological means of collection. CIA
and DIA must develop stronger ties internationally and
develop agents with more diverse linguistic and cultural
skills. Also, programs such as the National Security
Education Act should be expanded so that a larger segment of
college-age students can be exposed to the possibility of
working in the intelligence or diplomatic fields. The use of
ultra-specific psychological profiles, the extensive use of
polygraph tests, and the types of transgressions that bar
individuals from service in the intelligence community
should be reexamined in light of the new security
environment. (As FPRI's founder, the late-Ambassador Robert
Strausz-Hupe, was fond of saying, "what spy agency can have
a future if its agents have not had a past?")
Internationally, the intelligence community should increase
its use of non-resident covers (such as businessmen) --
after all, what terrorist group will grant diplomatic or
Geneva Convention rights to captured agents? Helpful
overseas assets should also be given promises of
resettlement to another country, or even U.S. citizenship,
if their assistance proves crucial in subverting attacks
against the United States and its interests or helps in
destroying elements of a terrorist network. Physical safety
will most likely prove a much more attractive reward to
someone who has turned against his neighbor than will a
financial reward that may never be spent due to the awardees
demise.
THE AMERICAN PUBLIC
Maintaining the will of the American public will also be
imperative. The nature of the current conflict, as stated,
makes it in many respects tactically and operationally like
past "small war" conflicts but its stakes at the strategic
level of analysis are just as important as those of WWI,
WWII, and the Cold War. The most difficult dimension is to
keep the American will mobilized when there most likely will
not be events like the Normandy invasion and when some of
the greatest victories may not be publicly known until
months later because the means used to achieve them are
highly classified.
The American public must be kept mobilized for conflict and
be cognizant of the threats that affect their security.
Mobilization will obviously be different from past
conflicts, but serious consideration should be given to
issuing war bonds or imposing a nominal war on terrorism
national sales tax that would at least serve as a daily
reminder that American men and women are serving in harm's
way. As far as cognizance, because there is no front line in
this war, the American people must stay alert to suspicious
behavior while avoiding national paranoia. Because of this
President Bush's prime responsibility will be to keep up
public support for the protracted conflict. This is the case
because as the prime Western philosopher of war, Carl von
Clausewitz wrote in On War, "As each man's strength gives
out, as it no longer responds to his will, the inertia of
the whole gradually comes to rest on the commander's will
alone. The ardor of his spirit must rekindle the flame of
purpose in all others; his inward fire must revive their
hope."
ENSURING VICTORY
The shadowy character of the Global War on Terrorism
requires that the American military and the other corners of
the new strategic quartet be the best that they can be.
Winning the war on terrorism, however, will not be easy.
Over 20,000 individuals reportedly trained in the al-Qaeda
camps in Afghanistan and other locations. This number does
not count those individuals aligned with bin Laden for
either ideological reasons or tactical advantage. Further,
capturing an individual such as bin Laden or Ayman al-
Zawahiri will not guarantee the demise of al-Qaeda. Because
the police officer in New York City is just as much on the
front lines as is the Special Forces soldier in the Hindu
Kush, the spears and shields of American democracy must be
honed and ready for action. All of the elements of the new
strategic quartet therefore have to work together in order
to ensure victory.
-
Author's note: While the views expressed here are the
author's alone, he would like to thank Mark Kohut, Mark R.
Lewis, and Harvey Sicherman for their valuable comments on
an earlier draft of this essay.
Michael P. Noonan is some fuckhead sycophant of U.S. defense
policy, and deputy director of the Program on National
Security, at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
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