Reset Defense Blog

‘Precision warfare’ – A 2,000-lb Scalpel?

By Carl Conetta, 7 Nov 2017; updated 25 Oct 2020

Expanded excerpt from “Disappearing the Dead: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Idea of a ‘New Warfare,’ 18 February 2004 (pdf).

Even given perfect intelligence and accuracy, most guided weapons in the 500- to 2000-lb range are sufficiently powerful to routinely cause some degree of collateral damage. This, because they carry hundreds of pounds of enhanced high-explosives wrapped in hundreds of pounds of steel – an obvious point, but one that has been too often occluded or overlooked.

A 2,000-lb bomb typically contains 945 pounds of tritonal, a TNT derivative that is about 20 percent more powerful than TNT. By comparison, the bomb that destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on 19 April 1995, comprised approximately 5,000 pounds of ammonia nitrate mixed with fuel oil — the equivalent of nearly 4,000 pounds of TNT. The portable devices used by suicide bombers typically weigh between 10 and 35 pounds; these can carry a punch equivalent to 40 pounds of TNT if a plastic explosive (C-4) is used.

Most everything will be severely damaged, injured, destroyed, or killed within 20 meters of a 500-lb bomb blast and 35 meters of a 2000-lb blast. This lethal radius can be partly mitigated by detonation inside a large, compartmentalized building – however, as a Rand study points out: “While structures surely have some shielding effect, building collapse and spalling are secondary yet major causes of injury.” (pdf)

Averaged across different types of surfaces, a 2000-lb bomb will carve a crater 50 feet across and 16 feet deep; a 500-lb bomb will carve one 25 feet across and 8.5 feet deep. The probability of incapacitating injury to unprotected troops within 100 meters of a 2000-lb bomb blast in the open is 83 percent; for those between 100 and 200 meters it is 55 percent. (pdf)

Safe distances for unprotected troops are approximately 1,000 meters for 2000-lb bombs and 500 meters for 500-lb ones. Even protected troops are not entirely safe within 240 meters of a 2,000-lb bomb or 220 meters of a 500-lb bomb. [For sources and more information on blast effects see the note at bottom.]

It is considered bold for a combat controller to bring down a strike within 800 meters of his/her position, and the 2001 Afghan strike that killed eight coalition troops and injured Hamid Karzai and 20 others is attributed to a JDAM hit within 100 meters of their position.  Commenting on the Karzai incident Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem of the Joint Staff rightly described the 2000-lb JDAM as a “devastating weapon”, adding that, “As a pilot, when I would drop a 2,000-lb weapon, I wanted at least 4,000 feet of separation from that weapon when it went off.” This distance would put an aircraft just beyond the reach of shrapnel and flying debris.

The brute destructive power of these weapons is not ancillary to the recent success of so-called precision attack, but central to it. A critical threshold in the development of US capabilities was passed when improvements in accuracy and precision helped insure that 50% or more of the weapons dropped would hit close enough to their targets so that the latter would be encompassed by the weapon’s destructive footprint. Of course, the area of deadly destruction is not small, but large – more than a acre for 2000-lb bomb. And this big footprint is pivotal to the success of “precision weapons.” An appropriate analogy is not a sharpshooter’s rifle shot, but a well-aimed double-barreled scatter gun firing a hail of slugs. In a sense, “precision” depends on which end of the weapon’s trajectory one sits.

Also relevant to the impact of “precision warfare” is the sheer number of bombs used since 2001: more than 70,000 in Afghanistan and more than 150,000 in Iraq and Syria (US munitions only). (See note at bottom for sources of bombing totals.)

It is certainly true that improvements in the accuracy and precision of air-dropped munitions has greatly reduced the numbers of aircraft and weapons required to destroy targets. Compared to bombing efforts during the Vietnam war era, it might take only 1/8 as many aircraft and 2% as many weapons to destroy a target today. A corollary of this is a capacity to significantly reduce the extent of death and destruction collateral to a bombing run. But capacity doesn’t necessarily determine actual outcomes, measured broadly. Several other variables weigh in:

(1) Does improved targeting lower the threshold for going to war and, thus, increase the frequency of wars and aggregate war fatalities?

(2) Does improved targeting encourage attacks on targets that carry a greater inherent or baseline risk of substantial collateral death and destruction? That is, do advanced air forces spend down “improved safety” by attacking less safe targets? And,

(3) Does improved targeting better enable attackers to comprehensively collapse an enemy nation’s government and critical infrastructure, producing fatal chaos on a wide scale.

The answer to all three queries is “yes” – and this upends the mystique of so-called “precision warfare.” America’s post-9/11 wars have not been low casualty events. To address the questions posed above in turn:

(1) Since the end of the Cold War, the USA has conduced air campaigns, some protracted, in a dozen nations – all outside the context of superpower contention, none involving existential threats, and most with only tenuous, remote, or indirect connection (if any) to attacks on US assets. Counter-terrorism efforts, once the province of discrete Special Operations units, have become a major employer of guided bombs in large quantities.

(2) Hubris, complex environments, and the fog of war have led to numerous, deadly “precision strikes” on wrong targets including attacks in residential neighborhoods, city centers, crowded towns, and government complexes resulting in many hundreds of civilian dead. Also mistakenly hit were mosques, hospital complexes, refugee encampments, farm workers, wedding parties, and even a neutral foreign embassy – this latter with potential strategic consequences. None of these strikes might have been attempted except for undue confidence in the promise of “precision warfare.”

(3) By any measure, US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan relied more on guided-weapons than ever before, quickly disintegrating governments in both places. And yet the product of these rapid victories was humanitarian crisis and chronic chaos. The same is true for operations in Libya, which have fed conflict across the Sahel. Indeed, with the partial exception of the mid-1990s intervention in the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict, none of America’s post-Cold War military operations produced conditions of reliable stability or security. As for the cost in lives of the war and chaos unleashed by “precision” victory: 160,000 dead in Afghanistan and 300,000 dead in Iraq – and still counting. This is the standard by which precision warfare should be judged.

Sources on blast effects and safe distances:

On blast effects also see:

US Bombing Data, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria – 2001-2020:

Transactional diplomacy isn’t working with North Korea – relational diplomacy might

by Charles Knight, 19 February 2019.  A version of this article appeared in The National Interest on 19 February 2019.  This revised version was published on the PDA website on 3 February 2022.

During meetings in late 2017 with nearly two dozen regional security specialists in Northeast Asia, I asked whether North Korea was a de facto nuclear-weapon state. Their answer almost always was, “Of course!” Then, these interlocutors sometimes volunteered the advice that it would be wise for the United States to adapt its regional policy according to the new reality.

dprksoldiers Those conversations came to mind as I read Robert E. Kelly’s recent op-ed that argues maintaining the status quo with North Korea is “better than a bad deal.” Kelly claims that “the world can learn to adjust to a nuclearized North Korea.” I agree while noting that many countries in Northeast Asia have been making that adjustment for years now. It is no longer in the U.S. national interest to pursue policies premised on denying North Korea’s status as a de facto nuclear power.

Kelly writes: “North Korea will almost certainly insist on keeping most of its warheads.” Indeed, the notion is still prevalent in Washington that North Korea will agree to disarm unilaterally. However, North Korea has paid a dear price to obtain nuclear weaponry. Therefore, there is almost no chance it will agree to unilateral disarmament.

U.S. nuclear capability is already enormously superior to North Korea’s minimum deterrent. North Korea surely understands that. Therefore, there is reasonable assurance that the deterrence of North Korea will hold firm for decades to come.

Nevertheless, the United States, citing the threat of North Korean nukes, intends to enhance its northeast Asian nuclear and anti-missile posture. In turn, the North will likely build more bombs and missiles. As a result, the chance to limit their nuclear program in negotiations will eventually be lost.

Kelly concludes the article, saying, “Slow-but-steady, reciprocal, and verifiable concessions is still the best way forward.” I concur, but I propose an edit to his diplomatic guidance, thus: “Slow-but-steady, reciprocal, and verifiable steps toward a mutually-acceptable political future for Korea —  including relevant disarmament.”

What is the essential and significant difference in my re-write? The insertion of the phrase “steps toward a mutually-acceptable political future” is the key. I was introduced to this construction by the paper A Theory of Engagement with North Korea authored by Christopher C. Lawrence when he was a post-doc fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

In his paper, Lawrence seeks to move the discourse from one of transactional diplomacy with its talk of carrots and sticks and concessions to one of relational diplomacy wherein the first task is to discover and establish a mutually-acceptable and shared political goal. From there, the parties negotiate particular steps (especially ones that involve costly physical commitments) by which the parties move slowly and steadily toward the goal. The mutuality of the goal provides the incentive to cooperate. This is a more productive approach to diplomacy, especially in cases where parties must overcome low levels of trust and a long history of conflict.

Robert Kelly’s preferred alternative to war or a bad deal is the status quo which he describes as “containing and deterring, sanctioning and isolating North Korea.” Yes, this might be a better option than starting a counter-proliferation war in which millions are likely to die. However, the status quo is a failed approach to Korean conflict and tension; a failed policy that is at least partially responsible for North Korea becoming a small but real nuclear power.

Rather than continue to isolate North Korea, the new realities require America to bring nuclear North Korea into as close a relationship as possible—so that there are opportunities to influence the North in regards to responsibly and safely managing its nuclear weaponry. It is hard to imagine such trust between North Korea and the United States at this time, but the United States can encourage China to play a role in persuading North Korea.  Chinese and American interests align very closely regarding nuclear safety and restraint.

This is not the place to explore the fifty ways to build a constructive relationship with the North.  I will, instead, mention that one open way that sits in plain view. Our ally, the Republic of Korea, has actively built a better relationship with the North during the last year. The Panmunjeom Declaration of 2018 set out in general terms the aspirations of a shared North-South Korean mutually acceptable political future.

Reverting to the status quo of isolating the North is a remarkably uncreative response to the security dilemmas of the moment. Instead, the United States will strengthen its Korean alliance while opening many paths to an acceptable political future for Korea by fully supporting its ally in building out the aspirations for Korean peace found in the Panmunjom declaration.

~~

For a detailed description of how relational diplomacy can be employed to achieve a safe and effective conventional forces drawdown on the Korean Peninsula as part of a Korean peace process see Charles Knight, A Path to Reductions of Conventional Forces on the Korean Peninsula.  ➪ PDF.

Noted: What North Korea wants in nuclear arms negotiations

by Charles Knight

Following is a comment to an article by Duyeon Kim, “How to tell if North Korea is serious about denuclearization,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 29 October 2018, midway between the Singapore Summit and the Hanoi Summit.

This comment makes one key point that many American analysts ignore:

North Korea has in the past and will now insist that negotiations about Korean nuclear disarmament include any regional nuclear capabilities which it considers to be threats to its security.  In this comment, I am not taking a position on what the particular outcome of nuclear disarmament negotiations should be.  Rather, I am saying that productive negotiations must take account of North Korea’s de-facto status as a nuclear weapon state and its core security interests.

Kim meets with Trump

Ms. Kim’s analysis of what might constitute serious “denuclearization” steps by North Korea would be quite useful if the issue was unilateral disarmament of the North. Quite clearly though, the context of negotiations is “denuclearization of the peninsula” which includes changes in the military postures of South Korea and the United States.

At this early stage of negotiations North Korea, South Korea, and the U.S. are assiduously avoiding discussing these important complicating factors, yet productive discussions about “peninsular disarmament” will determine whether there will eventually be denuclearization of North Korea.

We can not expect North Korea to give up nuclear weaponry (and certainly not irreversibly) unless it no longer faces a threat of nuclear weapons in and about the Korean Peninsula. The North Koreans appear to be realists in this regard. No paper treaty or written assurances will substitute for changes in hardware available to potential enemies.

It is time for analysts in the U.S. to face the reality of a nuclear-armed North Korea unlikely to disarm itself until there are decades of peace and good relations with its neighbors, including South Korea, China, Russia, Japan, and the US Navy and Air Force.

Here are some things that North Korea logically will ask for along the way to disarmament: equivalent international inspections and fissile material controls in South Korea (and even Japan); no nuclear-capable aircraft or ships visiting South Korea; no nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles deployed on US ships within range of North Korea; no intermediate-range nuclear missiles in the region… These are a few of the things North Korean negotiators are likely to get around to mentioning in terms of their judging whether the U.S. and South Korea are “serious about denuclearization.”

2018 US Defense Strategy: All the World Our Battlefield

By Carl Conetta, 19 Jan 2018

It’s no surprise that, given the dominant role of military professionals in the Trump administration, DOD would craft an overweening “defense” strategy, guaranteed to pour fuel on the fires it perceives (and misperceives). In key respects it harkens back to the conceits of Dick Cheney’s 1992 Defense Guidance document, which have percolated just below the surface of Pentagon strategies ever since.

Some critical comments on the new strategy:

A central innovation is putting military contention with Russia and China at the center of US defense strategy: “The central challenge to US prosperity and security is the re-emergence of long-term, strategic competition by… revisionist powers. It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model…” Actually, neither Russia nor China base their foreign policy on crusades to alter the political-economic vision of other nations worldwide. However, both are more assertive than 10 years ago and their armed forces, more capable. But their military objectives have been limited in scope – partly aiming to push back against US and allied activity and advances over the past 20 years (albeit both of them transgressing intl law along the way).

The renewed centrality of the “rogue state” concept (applied explicitly to North Korea and Iran) is similarly consequential. It’s a framework that helps constrict the resort to normal diplomatic relations and means, while also sanctioning increased emphasis on coercion in dealing with these states who are judged to sit outside the law. And, of course, whether the US names nations as “revisionist powers” or “rogue states,” their central place in US military strategy creates an adversarial relationship as much as it simply recognizes one. US defense strategy is now avowedly about military confrontation with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Also noteworthy is increased focus of US military efforts on challenges in non-military domains: “Revisionist powers and rogue regimes are using corruption, predatory economic practices, propaganda, political subversion, proxies, and the threat or use of military force to change facts on the ground.” The intention to escalate military ripostes to perceived non-military challenges is also evident in the new draft US nuclear posture, which implies possible nuclear responses to strategic cyber-assaults.

The strategy names the erosion of the “post-WWII international order” as a key concern. Of course, it sees the USA (and, specifically, US military power) as key in defending that order (and on a global scale). Naturally, the document elides the ways in which the USA has contributed to the weakening of that order and the abuse of it, through unilateral uses of force, military support for repressive governments, and expansion of exclusive military alliances. Indeed, the strategy downplays what should be the foundation stone of that order – the United Nations – substituting for it America’s network of regional alliances.

The strategy frets the erosion of America’s military edge, observing that “for decades the USA has enjoyed uncontested or dominant superiority in every operating domain. We could generally deploy our forces when we wanted, assemble them where we wanted, and operate how we wanted. Today, every domain is contested.” The sense of privilege apparent in this aspiration to employ forceful instruments everywhere unencumbered helps explain why others should challenge it. US military practice over the past 27 years has encouraged others to narrow the gap and helped legitimate their similar practices. America’s unusual margin of superiority – a singular consequence of Soviet collapse – was bound to recede as Russia recovered economically and the global balance of economic power shifted. Only a world order based on inclusive cooperation might have produced a different outcome. Today, nothing better represents unrealistic revisionist dreaming than does the Pentagon’s desire to regain uncontested superiority. It’s neither possible, nor necessary for US security.

The strategy reaffirms a set of hegemonic goals that are breathtaking in scope. It advances an imperative to “maintaining favorable regional balances of power in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and the Western Hemisphere” – a goal that implies that US security is contingent on America involving itself as a contestant in all the world’s regional power struggles. Let’s hope that other great powers don’t also see their security as contingent on hegemony. For the USA, the strategy says that this goal requires the Pentagon to (i) Expand Indo-Pacific alliances and partnerships; (ii) Fortify the Trans-Atlantic NATO Alliance; (iii) Form enduring coalitions in the Middle East; (iv) Sustain advantages in the Western Hemisphere; (v) Support relationships to address significant terrorist threats in Africa. Is that all?

It’s not surprising that the strategy should rest on the hoary notion that “the surest way to prevent war is to be prepared to win one.” This is boilerplate for Pentagon strategy docs – but also seriously ill-conceived. The “surest way” is not necessarily a realistic or achievable way; We could weaken or even bankrupt ourselves in the process of “being prepared” if our goals and commitments are unbounded. And is it really the “surest way”? Let’s restate the proposition: “The surest way to prevent war is to engage in open-ended arms races with all the potential competitors we can imagine worldwide.” This, I think, can only guarantee the opposite of what it intends.

How did Rodrigo Duterte win the Philippines presidency?

by Carl Conetta, 1 July 2017

Although Duterte had a reputation as an effective (if crude) mayor of Davos, he began his 2016 campaign with no strong political base outside his home island of Mindanao. He lacked the support of either a major political party or a substantial chunk of the Philippine oligarchy (outside Mindanao, at least). His electoral coalition was a hodge-podge of smaller, mostly conservative-nationalist formations but also religious groups and some leftists.

His own party, the Philippine Democratic Party, had a history of strong anti-Marcos activism and nationalism, having been the platform for Cory Aquino’s election in 1986, but having since dwindled to a small regional formation. Duterte gained some broader left-wing support based on his relationship with the former leader of Philippines Communist Party, his self-description as a socialist (which he is not), his ‘common man’ image, and his pledge to seek peace with communist and Moro insurgents.

So how did he win? Image, issues, and social media were key. Those three ingredients plus a bump from social movements and a Filipino majority disenchanted with recent ruling parties won him the election.

The Duterte campaign relied on social media to build a “coalition of the aggrieved” by hammering at a range of salient issues: crime, drug use, urban congestion, underdeveloped infrastructure, exploitation of contract workers, the dominance of urban over agricultural areas, and the domination of ‘imperial” Manila/Luzon over other cites and islands. This occurred in a context where years of economic growth had delivered nothing to the poor and little to the middle-classes, also a context in which crime was rampant and infrastructure dilapidated despite economic growth.

Against the elite and well-spoken reformism of previous parties, Duterte campaigned as a ‘doer,’ a law and order candidate, a son of the poor, and a nationalist (in a political context where nationalism had a leftist anti-colonial appeal).

Once he won, legislators poured into his party. Some social movements had more-or-less supported him, and he rewarded them by giving four cabinet portfolios to leftists. But his economic program? It’s strictly neo-liberal with social programs added. He aims to create a more friendly business environment for both domestic and foreign capital, while also promising to direct more government spending to urban and rural infrastructure, education, healthcare, social protection, and job training.

Bibliography:
• Mong Palatino, “Is the Philippines’ Duterte Really a Leftist?”, The Diplomat, 02 May 2017.
• Malcolm Cook and Lorraine Salazar1, “The Differences Duterte Relied Upon to Win” (pdf), ISEAS Perspective (Singapore: Yusof Ishak Institute, 22 Jun 2016).
• Julio C. Teehankee, “Duterte’s Resurgent Nationalism in the Philippines: A Discursive Institutionalist Analysis,”  The Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs (1 Dec 2016).
• Pierre Rousset, “The left currents in the Philippines and the Duterte presidency” (Eurioe Solidaire Sans Frontieres, 25 Sep 2016).

Our World Gone Wild?

By Carl Conetta, 21 Dec 2015

The current [2015] war hysterics began years ago, 2011 – soon after Congress turned to cap discretionary spending. Successive Pentagon leaders began warning that rolling back the DoD budget to the level of 2008 or 2009 (inflation adjusted) would have devastating, even catastrophic effects on the US military. It would make America weaker and inhibit our ability to respond to threats (SecDef Hagel), hasten instability in Asia and put “the nation at greater risk of coercion” (JCS Chair Gen. Dempsey), and even invite aggression (SecDef Panetta). Various leaders, democratic and republican, began seeing Hitler reincarnated in the form of Putin, Assad, or both. In ISIS they saw an apocalyptic threat “unlike anything we’ve seen” (Hagel). And many worried aloud about a new American isolationism. (For sources, see A Short Tour of Pentagon Hysterics.)

From every direction, the warnings came. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: “In almost 50 years in intelligence, I don’t remember when we’ve had a more diverse array of threats and crisis situations around the world to deal with.” Others concurred: The global security environment is “more dangerous than it has ever been” (Gen. Dempsey, Chairman, Joint Chiefs), it’s “the most uncertain I’ve seen in my thirty-six years of service” (Gen. Odierno, Army Chief of Staff), there’s “greater turmoil than at any time in my lifetime” (Sen. John McCain).

No wonder Americans are worried. Well, ISIS is real enough as is the Syrian civil war, Russian actions in Ukraine, and Chinese assertiveness in the South China Seas. But are they exceptional and indicative of a world gone wild? (Here, I argue that what’s exceptional today are domestic partisan political dynamics.)

The crises represented today as unprecedented are anything but. The emergence and spread of ISIS and Boko Haram, for instance, recall the Taliban both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also recalls the Iraqi insurgency and communal slaughter of 2004-2009. And the rise of Hamas and Hezbollah (1985). The foreign fighter phenomenon is not new, nor is the practice of militant groups seeking to affiliate with their more successful analogs. It’s true that ISIS uniquely stages its atrocities for maximum media exposure. But this does not make them qualitatively more threatening then were their Iraqi precursors (both Sunni and Shia) or the Taliban or Al Qaeda (which, after all, struck hard at America several times). The terrorist attacks in Paris were horrific, but they mirror attacks in Europe during the 2000’s: the 2005 London bombing and the 2004 Madrid train bombing (which together claimed 243 lives and injured 2,750).

Perspective is also due in weighing the Syrian civil war, the wars in Sub-Saharan Africa, and recent Russian and Chinese behavior. The Syrian conflict replays Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria (1992-99), Chechnya (1991-2009), Lebanon (1975-90), Somalia (1988-present), Sri Lanka (1983-2009), Sudan (2003-09), Tajikistan (1992-96), the former Yugoslavia (1992-1999), and Yemen (1994-present). Today’s civil wars in East, West, and Central Africa recall the much worse conflicts of the 1990s and 2000s. Overall, conflict deaths are down from the 1965-1998 period. And, although conflict deaths have jagged somewhat upwards in recent years, this is mostly due to conflict in one place: Syria

Recent Russian and Chinese actions of concern also have their near equivalents in the not distant past: Russia in Georgia (2008), China and the 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff, and recurrent Taiwan Straits crises. The rise (or resurgence) of Russia and China are not new. They’ve been underway for 17 years.

Any argument for the especially dire state of the world today must also take into account the cyclical crises involving North Korea, India-Pakistan, and Israel that dot the past 20 years. Of course, none of today’s interstate wars compare with those of the 1980s.

Two concluding points: 1. The 1990-2010 period of US unipolar dominance is now ending, as it was bound to end; it was exceptional. This is hard for official Washington to countenance. 2. While hawks and the defense establishment always argue that US restraint leads to global instability, they are blind to the possibility that US military activism contributes to instability that reverberates for years to come. In fact, we are today living in the backwash of our post-9/11 wars.

The Year of Acting Dangerously

By Carl Conetta, 21 Dec 2015

There’s ample global storm and stress these days, and the cries of alarm will get worse over the next months as we approach the 2016 election. It’s an old story – to paraphrase: “With America in retreat overseas, exceptional threats and crises are looming. Decisive action is needed, but the White House has gone wobbly. And our armed forces – overtaxed and cut to the bone – are unready.”

This trope has gained prominence three times in the past 40 years, always to great effect. Its resurgence depends on the intersection of three conditions: 1. A troubled Democratic presidency, suffering a decline in popularity (initially for domestic reasons); 2. A period of reduced defense spending; and 3. A pending and hotly-contested presidential election. Carter faced it as did Clinton (in 1998-2000). Now Obama faces it. (A fuller analysis of this dynamic can be found in my 2014 report, Something in the Air: ‘Isolationism,’ Defense Spending, and the US Public Mood. A relevant excerpt is here. Both links are PDFs.)

Hawks are always ready to peddle the “America weak and endangered” trope, but it doesn’t gain traction absent the three conditions mentioned above. The dynamic works like this: Given a weakened Presidency, military leaders feel freer to exit the White House narrative and argue their institutional interests unalloyed: “Boost our budget, the nation is at risk!” This feeds the partisan mill and begins moving public debate and opinion rightward. (For a chart covering 50 years of US public opinion on Pentagon spending see Gallup’s Military and National Defense page.)

With an eye on the polls and sensitive to the drop in presidential popularity, some congressional Democrats follow suit, seeking to protect their right flank. The White House, too, tries to get ahead of the curve, adopting a more bellicose stance and pumping up the Pentagon budget. (Indeed, the administration itself many splinter, with some luminaries jumping ship.  Rather than stemming the tide, the hawkish turn among Democrats creates the impression of a new hawkish “consensus.” Many point to firebrands like McCain and Lindsey Graham, but it’s the Democrats in retreat that precipitate the stampede to the Right.

Obama has differed from Clinton and Carter in one respect: He’s accommodated the Pentagon from the start, hoping to avoid the dilemma that snared his predecessors. He boosted the DoD budget above Bush levels and kept it there for three years. As sequestration loomed, he argued against it and also allowed DoD and the Chiefs to lash out. Yes, he partially withdrew troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, but slowly – and not before an Afghan surge. As troops came home, drone strikes increased and the administration enacted a “muscular” shift to Asia, an AirSea Battle strategy, and new military initiatives all across Africa.

But the gambit didn’t work. As soon as sequestration bit into the Pentagon and the President stumbled domestically (it was the economy, stupid), the hawks jumped. Now the President is left scampering after his hawkish critics. Whatever he says – bombs, troops, billions – they just say “more.” It’s not a pretty sight, nor one likely to win public confidence.

But aren’t today’s global crises real? ISIS, Russia in Ukraine, Chinese “assertiveness”? Well, yes to a degree, but certainly not exceptional, see: Our World Gone Wild? What *is* special about today are the three conditions mentioned at the top. But these reflect domestic political dynamics, not global strategic ones – and they’re shaping both popular perceptions and attitudes.

A Short Tour of Defense Policy Hysterics, 2011-2015

By Carl Conetta, 21 Dec 2015

 

 

● Washington Free Beacon. Dempsey: The Global Security Environment Is As Uncertain As I’ve Ever Seen It. Jul 2015.

● Defense News. Military Chiefs Warn Anew About Sequester Cuts. Feb 2015.

● Christopher Preble. The Most Dangerous World Ever? Sep/Oct 2014.

● Spencer Ackerman. ‘Apocalyptic’ ISIS beyond anything we’ve seen, say US defense chiefs. Aug 2014.

● Business Insider. 12 Prominent People Who Compared Putin To Hitler. May 2014.

● Business Insider. Chuck Hagel: Isolationism Won’t Protect Us From The World’s Troubles. May 2014.

● Bill Gertz. Dempsey: Threat of Conflict in Asia Increasing; US Military decline hastens global instability. Mar 2014.

● Military.com. Force Cuts Mean Army Can’t Fight Two Land Wars. Mar 2014.

● Media-ite. Harry Reid Likens Assad to Hitler. Sep 2013.

● NY Post. Assad is like Hitler: Kerry. Sep 2013.

● Joseph I. Lieberman and Jon Kyl. The regrets of U.S. isolationism. Apr 2013.

● Breaking Defense. Gen. Amos: Marines Can’t Fight Major War If Sequestered. Apr 2013.

● Michael Cohen. America’s military can handle anything – except a budget cut. Feb 2013.

● Micah Zenko. Most – Dangerous – World – Ever. Feb 2013.

● Foreign Policy Initiative. The Dangers of Deep Defense Cuts: What America’s Civilian and Military Leaders are Saying. May 2012.

● Politico. Panetta paints doomsday scenario. Nov 2011.

US doesn’t need more defense dollars to ease crisis in East China Sea

by Charles Knight, letter to the editor of the Boston Globe, 24 Jan 2014. This post appeared first in PDA’s now archived Defense Strategy Review blog.

Preventing war with China requires diplomatic wisdom, not more US military investment. Nicholas Burns (The trouble with China, Op-ed, Jan. 16) cites a recent mini-crisis in the E.China Sea as a warning sign for “congressional leaders in both parties supporting deep cuts in the State Department and Pentagon budgets.”

However, the modest budget reductions that have been proposed — next year the Pentagon is actually getting a $20 billion raise — would in no way prevent the United States from performing shows of force such as the recent flight of B-52s through China’s newly claimed airspace in the East China Sea. The Pentagon’s budget would have to be cut in half to get close to touching overwhelming US military dominance in the Pacific.

A quick look at a map of the region will reveal that China has critical national interests in unencumbered access to the shipping lanes off its coasts and through the passages to the south. Accommodating these interests is the best path to peace in the long run.

America will be much better served by helping to establish an inclusive cooperative economic and security zone in the region, rather than pursuing an ultimately losing game of indefinitely overmatching China’s military power in its own neighborhood.

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The trouble with China: It’s the responsibility of the US to prevent war over East China Sea islands
by Nicholas Burns, Boston Globe, 16 January 2014.

As the White House struggles to cope with a burning Middle East, another vital challenge is arising on the far horizon — China is flexing its muscles with real consequences for America’s future in Asia.

In the East China Sea, the United States worries about a stand-off between our ally Japan and Beijing over conflicting, historical claims to small, uninhabited islands the Japanese call the Senkakus and the Chinese call the Diaoyu. China opposes Japan’s ownership of the islands and, in November, announced creation of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea that directly challenged the right of Japanese, American, and other aircraft to transit airspace in the area without prior notification to Beijing. China has made equally extravagant legal claims in the South China Sea against Filipino and Vietnamese territorial claims.

As my Harvard colleague, Graham Allison, recounts in the National Interest, China’s actions are playing out on a broad historic canvas with Beijing and Washington as the main actors. He reminds us of the “Thucydides Trap”— when, in past centuries, “a rapidly rising power rivals an established ruling power, trouble ensues. In 11 of 15 cases in which this has occurred in the past 500 years, the result was war.”

Conflict between the United States and China is far from inevitable. But the East and South China Seas crises illustrate the American challenge in working with China’s assertive new leadership. The United States and China are partners on a range of issues, from trade to climate change and proliferation. But they are also strategic rivals for power in Asia. That is why the White House should be firm that the United States and its allies won’t be bullied by China’s peremptory and unilateral territorial claims.

The immediate challenge is in the East China Sea. Tokyo defends its long possession of the islands through naval and air patrols while Beijing counters with its own naval vessels and aircraft to contest it. The obvious risk is potential collision by two powerful militaries at sea and in the air. The stakes are very high for the United States as our defense treaty with Japan obligates us to come to its assistance in the event of conflict with China.

The United States has rightly stood by Japan against China’s unilateral claims. Washington is also counseling China to gain better control of the often-willful People’s Liberation Army and submit its territorial claims to international adjudication rather than assert them by fiat and intimidation.

To be fair, however, Washington is also advising Japan’s nationalist Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, to lower the temperature in his rivalry with China. His recent visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals from the Second World War are buried, as well as Japan’s refusal to acknowledge the horrific actions of its military during the Second World War, are unnecessarily provocative to the Chinese, South Korean, and Filipino peoples.

As the United States seeks to keep the peace in the East China Sea, the immediate danger is not so much that Japan or China will decide to launch a war for the islands but that they might stumble into conflict by mistake or miscalculation.

British historian Margaret MacMillan warns of such a risk in a recent Brookings Institution essay. She recounts the improbable and unplanned events that led to the outbreak of war in 1914 in which 16 million combatants and civilians eventually perished. Her essay is a direct warning — we can’t take the current Great Power peace for granted. Human folly, frailty, and hubris could lead the great powers of our time — among them China, Japan, and even the United States — into a conflagration we never believed was possible. “The one-hundredth anniversary of 1914 should make us reflect anew,” she warned, “on our vulnerability to human error, sudden catastrophe, and sheer accident.”

The East China Sea Crisis and the lessons of World War I remind Americans of a final stark reality — global peace and security still depends on us more than any other country. It is thus essential that we remain the world’s strongest diplomatic and military power. Congressional leaders in both parties supporting deep cuts in the State Department and Pentagon budgets should remember that in Asia, the Middle East, and beyond, we are still, as Madeleine Albright once rightly claimed, the world’s “indispensable” nation.

Nicholas Burns is a professor of the practice of diplomacy and international politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Agonizing Issue: is torture ever justified in military interrogations of terror suspects?

an interview with Charles Knight, PDA, and Alfred P. Rubin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Law, The Fletcher School, Tufts University. Edited transcript by Jim Cronin, The Boston Globe Magazine, 30 January 2005.

Accusations of torture and the highly publicized prison abuse in Iraq have cast a shadow over the US military’s treatment of detainees. Harvard Law School is offering a spring semester course, “Torture, Law and Lawyers,” on the ethics and legality of torture. This leads to a question: Can torture in military interrogations of terror suspects ever be justified? We asked Alfred Rubin, professor emeritus of international law at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and Charles Knight, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge, to address it.

 

RUBIN: If you’ve caught someone and you know that person has information, then torture for tactical information is justifiable. But if it cannot produce useful information, it is morally reprehensible. Legally speaking, the UN Convention Against Torture requires every state to forbid torture, and that [enforcement] is really up to the states that practice it. Many states that have signed the convention don’t enforce their national law against torture. The United States is one of the few states that we do have national laws that forbids torture. But torture is believed to be practiced morally correctly [by the United States] when, as with the Bush administration’s explanation for torture in Guantanamo, the information obtained can be used to prevent a more serious moral default.

KNIGHT: It is in our interest to further a practice which we would advocate that all nations have? Is that a world we favor moving forward into?

RUBIN: If you capture the guy who has hidden a bomb that’s going to kill 10 innocent people – say, schoolchildren – and the torturer genuinely feels he can get the information of where the bomb is, torture would be justified. It’s a moral evaluation made by the person who’s doing the torturing. One has to recognize that torture is practiced by many states, including the United States.

KNIGHT: It’s very rare when you have this perfect situation where you know that a particular prisoner has information that’s immediately useful. It’s a misleading scenario. Torture turns out to be routinely unproductive. In domestic laws, we forbid confessions under duress in part because they almost never get to the truth. That same knowledge should be applied to our international conflicts. It demonstrates a huge lack of creativity and imagination in our intelligence agencies that resort to torture. It goes very quickly to the abuse that was seen at Abu Ghraib. The interrogators wanted the prison guards to “soften up” the detainees, whether or not they knew anything. It’s a very dangerous process.

RUBIN: The enforcement of law is multifaceted, and the violation of law is serious. The 1949 Geneva Conventions don’t actually forbid torture; they require states to forbid it, which we do, and the same with the UN Convention Against Torture. We have enacted the laws that forbid torture, and those laws have been violated in Abu Ghraib, where we were trying to keep it a secret. Those laws should be enforced.

KNIGHT: There’s a huge realm of secrecy that is expanding. The [US] government won’t let me assess their behavior in a practical way. When I don’t know what my government is doing to prisoners in, say, Guantanamo, I have no information on which to exercise my democratic responsibility to make a judgment on my government. It goes against the very principle of democracy.

RUBIN: And yet the majority of Americans have shown by our last election they prefer not to know, and they reelect a government which keeps secrecy. I think a lot of them are prepared to say that power to keep secrecy belongs with the federal government, and they fool themselves into thinking they need not live with the consequences of secrecy and torture. But democracy frequently elects antidemocratic leaders. Certainly in Vietnam, Johnson and Kennedy were prepared to support [President Ngo Dinh] Diem, and the current administration seems to support governments in China, Albania, Russia, and others.

KNIGHT: I’m fearful we will pay for this abuse of foreign prisoners in our own society for generations. The United States is now training hundreds, maybe thousands, of new interrogators. Abusive relationships traumatize both the victim and the abuser. We are training and having our own people experience this abuse, and they will be returning home to our communities. We know from domestic abuse that this abusive pattern can be replicated through generations.

RUBIN: I disagree. A sadist who wants to torture is going to torture. People make up their own minds whether or not to torture.

KNIGHT: Following the revelation about Abu Ghraib, some of the insurgent hostage-takers escalated to severing hostages’ heads. You could feel a direct “we can do you one better” in terms of cruelty. The United States did not have an understanding of the insurgency they were facing. They began to round up people in a very indiscriminate way. If you’re not prepared to handle the complexities of what you’re dealing with, there’s a gravitation toward using violence to solve the problem.

Also see:

Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to ‘Extraordinary Renditions’, The Committee on International Human Rights of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University School of Law (PDF).

Maneuver Warfare Principles and Terms

By Carl Conetta, Project on Defense Alternatives, Briefing Memo, 12 March 1998.

maneuver bridgingIn the words of one strategic analyst, attrition is “war waged by industrial methods.” In the attrition approach, the adversary is defined as a series of targets to be “serviced” (that is, destroyed). Other than the achievement of initial surprise in the attack, there is little art or artifice in the approach. As an ideal type it takes as its prime objective the physical destruction of the adversary’s material strength; it associates success with material superiority; and it adopts as a basic principle the simple imperative; “more.”

In maneuver warfare, by contrast, “the goal is to incapacitate by systemic disruption” and dislocation. The target is the coherence of the adversary’s combat systems, methods, and plans. The hope is that a very selective action can have a cascading effect — an effect disproportionately greater than the degree of effort. An analogy from architecture would be the removal or destruction of the keystone of an arch. Here the arch is conceived as a “system” whose dynamic element is gravity which has been converted to useful purpose by the positioning of the keystone — the removal of which disrupts the stability of the system, resulting in its destruction.

The three basic principles of maneuver warfare are: (1) identify and target enemy centers of gravity, (2) set and maintain favorable terms of battle, and (3) find and exploit “gaps” in enemy strength.

In the example of the arch, the keystone is a “center of gravity” (in the strategic, not literal sense). Notably, it is not a “weakness,” nor a “strength” of the system (arch), but rather a source or enabler of strength. In war, centers of gravity are not absolute, but instead relative to the adversary’s character, methods, objectives, and plans. (In the First and Second World Wars, for instance, one of the Allied powers’ strategic centers of gravity was the secure industrial capacity of the United States, which Germany targeted indirectly by means of submarine warfare.) If centers of gravity have a universal or defining attribute, it is this: attacking them successfully has a cascading or catastrophic effect on enemy morale, organization, and operations. Centers of gravity exist at every level of war, and the epitome of maneuver is for a unit to upset an enemy center at one or more levels higher than its own level of organization, and to do so with minimal combat.

Setting the terms of battle (which among other things may include time, place, pace, intensity, and type of engagement) means ensuring that combat proceeds under conditions favorable to the defense. In general, the aim is to set terms that accentuate friendly strengths and enemy weaknesses while minimizing friendly vulnerabilities and enemy strengths. The challenge for the practitioner of maneuver is to establish and maintain this condition.

Despite its linear connotation, the injunction to “find and exploit gaps” means aligning friendly strength against enemy weakness in the combat process. Success in setting the terms of battle facilitates this effort while restricting enemy opportunities to exploit gaps in friendly strength.

The three aspects of maneuver operate together to achieve disproportionate effects, in the following fashion: centers of gravity define the objective, the imperative to find and exploit “gaps” defines the approach to the objective, and setting the terms of battle facilitates the effort overall while controlling for enemy counter-initiatives. Indeed, the greater the success in setting the overall terms of battle, the easier it is to find gaps and compromise centers of gravity.

Any significant success in the maneuver contest depends on first, achieving and maintaining a relative advantage in the flow of accurate information, and second, possessing greater relative flexibility in the allocation of combat power.