cknight

Inspecting Iraq: A Record of the First 40 Days

(HTML version) compiled by the Project on Defense Alternatives, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 04 January 2003. With war and peace hanging in the balance, what evidence of prohibited weapons have UN inspectors found in Iraq? This compendium of press reports provides a thorough review of the UNMOVIC inspections through 4 January 2003.

Wider War on Terrorism — its construction in the first year

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I write this in 2025.  The War on Terrorism is back, big time.  Now the White House targets the American people.  About half the citizens of the US are terrorists in the eyes of Trump administration officials.  Excellent moment to read up on what happened when President G.W. Bush invented the Global War on Terrorism.
In the fall of 2001, I began this Internet log (a blog, before I had heard of that form of Internet journalism) linking readers to key articles, documents, and commentary that chronicled the unfolding of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), as announced by President G. W. Bush. 
By early 2002, it was clear to me that the Bush administration was planning to expand the war from its initial invasion of Afghanistan to an invasion of Iraq.  The blog has the following sections: [Antecedents], [September 2001], [October 2001], [November 2001], [December 2001], [January 2002], [February/March 2002], [April/May 2002], [June/July 2002], and [August/September/October 2002]. 
By the end of October 2002,  it was clear that Washington would invade Iraq the following spring.  I stopped editing the blog at that point and turned my attention to preparing for the impending cataclysmic events. 
From the perspective of the past twenty-three years, I can say with absolutely no doubt that the many critics of the GWOT writing in that first year were far wiser than the leadership of both major political parties in Washington.    ~ Charles Knight

The “New Warfare” and the New American Calculus of War

(HTML version) (PDF version) by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Memo #26, 30 September 2002. US methods of warfare have changed substantially since the Cold War’s end. So have the norms governing the use of force. Since 11 September 2001 there has been an increased impetus to more fully exercise US military primacy and test the promise of the new warfare. Unfortunately, this impetus has not been matched with adequate analysis of either the new methods or the new norms of war.

First Strike Guidelines: the case of Iraq

(HTML version) by Charles Knight, PDA Briefing Memo #25, 16 September 2002 (revised and updated 10 March 2003, postscript added 01 March 2004). Assesses how the case of Iraq measures up within a set of guidelines for preemptive counterproliferation developed by the director of the Air Force Counterproliferation Center. Includes extensive notes with links to material relevant to making an informed decision about war. The original 16 September 2002 edition is available in a PDF version and a HTML version.

Terrorism, World Order, and Cooperative Security: A research and policy development agenda

(HTML version) by Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Memo #24, 9 September 2002. The war on terrorism is transforming US policy and reshaping global politics. But public debate regarding the campaign — its strategy and progress — has been feeble. Likewise, the evaluation of new programs and spending meant to support it has been superficial. This evinces the fact that US policy discourse itself suffered a serious blow on 11 September 2001. The article outlines areas and issues of concern.

Bush Raises the Stakes in Iraq

(HTML version) by Charles Knight, PDA Commentary, 03 July 2002. Argues that President Bush’s declared policy of “regime change” for Iraq destroys the incentives of deterrence and increases the risk of U.S. troops being exposed to Iraq’s defensive use of chemical weapons. Distributed by The Global Beat Syndicate and posted on the Foreign Policy In Focus.

The Pentagon’s New Budget, New Strategy, and New War

(HTML version) by Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Report #12, 25 June 2002. Examines the new US military strategy as codified in the September 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review and practiced in the Afghan war. The report contrasts the new QDR with its 1997 predecessor, paying special attention to the Bush administration’s “new concept of deterrence.” Published in Hegemonie oder Stabilität: Alternativen zur Militarisierung der Politik, edited by Volker Kröning (MdB), Lutz Unterseher, and Günter Verheugen (Hrsg.) Bremen: Edition Temmen, August 2002.

Dislocating Alcyoneus: How to combat al-Qaeda and the new terrorism

(HTML version) (PDF version) by Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Memo #23, 25 June 2002. The memo outlines a “strategy of dislocation” for defeating the new terrorism. Al Qaeda is analyzed as a “distributed transnational network” that uses terrorism in order to catalyze political-cultural polarization and mobilization. Published in Hegemonie oder Stabilität: Alternativen zur Militarisierung der Politik, edited by Volker Kröning (MdB), Lutz Unterseher, and Günter Verheugen (Hrsg.) Bremen: Edition Temmen, August 2002.

Strange Victory: A critical appraisal of Operation Enduring Freedom and the Afghanistan war

(printable PDF version) (HTML version) (summary) by Carl Conetta, PDA Research Monograph #6, 30 January 2002. Why the inadvertent effects of the war are now overtaking the intended ones. Includes appendices addressing: the war’s impact on the humanitarian crisis; the missing political framework for American action; the source of power and the strategy of the Taliban; and the limits of the Bonn agreement and the challenges facing the interim government.

Operation Enduring Freedom: Why a Higher Rate of Civilian Bombing Casualties

(HTML version) by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Report #13, 18 January 2002. Examines the extent and causes of civilian bombing casualties in the Afghanistan war and explores why the civilian casualties were higher than in the Serbia/Kosovo campaign despite fewer bombs dropped. Includes appendices: estimation of civilian bombing casualties: method and sources; resolving discrepancies in casualty accounts.

Bush Administration Policy Toward Europe: Continuity and Change

(printable PDF version) (HTML version) by Charles Knight, January 2002. The demise of the Oslo peace process in 2001 and a likely renewal of intense war with Iraq in 2002 or 2003 will play very differently on each side of the Atlantic. In certain circumstances the differences might be so great that European powers would feel compelled to reject American leadership and pursue a separatecourse. Published in Hegemonie oder Stabilität: Alternativen zur Militarisierung der Politik, edited by Volker Kröning (MdB), Lutz Unterseher, and Günter Verheugen (Hrsg.) Bremen: Edition Temmen, August 2002. 

German Defense Planning: In a Crucial Phase

(HTML version) October 2001. Update: German Defense Spending: Insufficient Adjustment, February 2002. By Lutz Unterseher, Berlin. These two reports review recent German defense planning with attention to the difficulty of reconciling personnel and force modernization goals within the budget constraints imposed by the process of currency integration in the UE. It also assesses the effect of the Bundeswehr’s new emphasis on power projection on German defense budgeting and planning.

Beyond bin Laden: The Temptations of a Wider War

(HTML version) by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Memo #22, 28 September 2001. Offering a review of US military options in response to 11 September, this article rejects large-scale attacks on Afghanistan due to their likely negative impact on regional stability and international cooperation. As an alternative it proposes smaller-scale military operations against the bin Laden network combined with multinational law enforcement activities worldwide.

What Justifies Military Intervention?

(HTML version) commentary by Charles Knight, 27 September 2001. Examines the problems for international security associated with U.S. military intervention abroad. Includes a Postscript on the “war on terrorism” (revised 01 March 2002) and Selected Readings on the doctrines of Just War, Total War, and Strategic Bombing (revised 01 March 2002).

Disengaged Warfare: Should we make a virtue of the Kosovo way of war?

(HTML version) by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Memo #21, May 2001. Offers a critical perspective on “strategic precision attack” in US warfighting plans and doctrine, tracing this tenet to “risk aversion” and America’s diminished stake in distant conflicts. While the concept of “strategic precision attack” promises to avert battlefield risks, this memo argues that in the end it transplants the risk to the strategic level.

Rotocraft for War: Descending on a Military Dilemma

(HTML version) by Dr. Lutz Unterseher, PDA Briefing Memo #19, May 2001. Offers a critical assessment of the value of combat helicopters in modern war with examination of the technical characteristics and limits of combat helicopters, the doctrine for their use, and issues of cost. Case studies include the Gulf War, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.

Concepts for Army Transformation: A Briefing for the Transformation Task Force

 by Col. Douglas A. Macgregor, 2001.  PDF

Col. Macgregor offers a vision of a modular Army comprising various types of basic combined-arms units that would be much smaller than today’s divisions, but larger and more capable than today’s brigades. This is an Army that is not only rapidly-adaptable and rapidly-deployable but also “joint” and “combined” from the bottom up. 

Can the United States Spend Less on Defense? — Toward a Smaller, More Efficient, and More Relevant US Military

(HTML version) PDA Briefing Memo #17, October 2000. Examines issues of threat assessment, strategy, and force management, identifying options for moving toward a smaller, less expensive US military. It concludes that in several ways current US strategy is unnecessarily ambitious and that the armed forces are poorly adapted to present day needs. It suggests adjustment in several areas, including regional war preparations, military presence abroad, and the diplomatic activity of the US military. The memo also proposes a variety of structural reforms to increase the efficiency of the armed forces.

The Armed Forces: “used too much and supported too little”?

(HTML version) by Charles Knight, PDA Commentary, September 2000. George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency saying the “military suffers from back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, and rapidly declining readiness.” In evaluating this claim it is worth examining each of the four specifics that Governor Bush offered as evidence. This commentary provides a guide to the pertinent evidence as collected, organized, and analyzed by the Project on Defense Alternatives in its 1999 study of readiness issues in the Air Force.

U.S. Military-Strategic Ambitions — Expanding to Fill the post-Soviet Vacuum

(HTML version) by Charles Knight, PDA Commentary, adapted from a panel presentation at the Council on Foreign Relations, N.Y.C, 14 June 2000. When seeking to explain why defense budgets are growing again, it is often said that U.S. policy-makers have not yet moved beyond the Cold War frame and are preparing for the proverbial “last war.” Such a vantage glosses over an important change that has taken place in the last decade. The new national defense policy is not simply a lesser version of the old policy. Rather, its security goals are very much more ambitious than during the Cold War and these ambitions drive budgets higher.

Europe’s Armed Forces at the Millennium: A Case Study of Change in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany

(HTML version) by Dr. Lutz Unterseher, chair, International Study Group on Alternative Security Policy (SAS), PDA Briefing Report #11, December 1999. Many European nations are re-thinking their post-Cold War military requirements in light of NATO’s new strategic concept and the experience of the Kosovo war. This article analyzes the process of defense restructuring and modernization in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In each case, it offers an overview of current military posture and closely examines the plans for change in force structure, equipment procurement, and personnel policies, attending to various constraints on defense planning, including military traditions, economic conditions, and domestic politics.