The Art of War in an Asymmetric World: Strategy for the Post–Cold War Era 9781501301179, 9781441195555

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Foreword

The collapse of the Soviet Union did not create the utopian world that many hoped it would. Throughout recorded history, conflict has been a constant in the state of world affairs. We were quickly reminded of this by the events that unfolded in such places as the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan, to name just a few. However, what is changing are some of the reasons and mechanisms for waging conflict. Although globalization, the evolving means, outlets and speed of communication, and the rapid pace of technological innovation have changed the global landscape positively (albeit primarily in Western states), it has also become the catalyst for, and the means to promulgate, conflict, and in ways that we have not previously imagined. In order to protect national security interests in our increasingly globalized, interconnected, and interdependent world—particularly against terrorism, states must now contend with the global rebalancing of economic and state power (e.g., the rise of China). They must also deal with globally disconnected states such as: North Korea and Iran; disenfranchised ethnic groups like the Zapatistas in Mexico; non-state actors like al Qaeda and Hezbollah; and what Thomas Friedman has dubbed “super empowered” individuals such as Osama bin Laden—all equipped with a new set of readily accessible means for inflicting harm and generating chaos in order to promote their contentious agendas. As exemplified by events on 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military superiority alone will no longer be enough to address state threats. In the foreseeable future, no state or non-state actor will take on the United States or its allies in a conventional fight. This imposes a most troubling challenge to the United States and other targeted states—the evolving asymmetric and network centric nature of warfare, fuelled by extremism and facilitated by technology, diverse communication means, and financial support—making the world a much more dangerous and unpredictable place. For example, in the past, terrorists used to operate as isolated and independent groups. Today, many are interlinked and mutually supporting. Furthermore, it is quickly becoming all too

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common for affiliated groups to form cells around the world in order to promote and expand their ideology. Born out of necessity, an immediate response to combat these concerning activities was to create the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). The United States has learned many lessons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other post–Cold War engagements about the changing nature of warfare. The US military has transformed into a more adaptive and flexible force, particularly in conducting counterinsurgency operations, employing special operations forces, combating terrorism and cyber attacks, working with US interagencies, as well as embracing the importance of dominating the information domain. Its doctrine has been appropriately evolving to reflect this transformation, including incorporating the concept of operational design in the initial phase of the military planning process to help commanders better understand the complexity of the operational environment in which they operate. Departments within the US government are building deployable pre- and post-conflict capabilities as a direct way of preventing or responding to conflicts, such as establishing the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO), which was designed to coordinate these activities. Restoring order in an increasingly complex and chaotic world is no small task, particularly in a challenging budgetary environment. Among major economies, the United States owns $2.8 trillion of the $7.6 trillion debt that matures in 2012. It also has another $12 trillion of debt lingering over the horizon. The United States will have to leverage its allies and its intellectual might to match the wit and ingenuity of those seeking to undermine our and our allies’ interests around the world. This charge is not just complicated by the diverse mix of non-state actors that one must contend with, but by the makeup of some of the state actors involved. Iran is a well-known sponsor of terrorism, particularly terrorist acts against Israel and the United States. China has established cyber units to not only protect its own diplomatic, economic, and military vital interests, it has also used these same units to penetrate the vital interests of other states. Recently, China even penetrated sensitive information in the US Department of Commerce and on Wall Street. The world is becoming progressively more complex and dangerous as a result of the empowering of state and nontraditional actors with illwill schema. This reality will increasingly confront strategic, operational, and tactical level thinking throughout the US government on how to best ensure national security and US security interests around the world.

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Barry Scott Zellen’s The Art of War in an Asymmetric World: Strategy for the Post–Cold War Era gives us a full appreciation of the security challenge ahead; highlights actions the United States has taken to engage threats and combat its enemies; and, by synthesizing prominent theorists’ ideas, provides a thought-provoking way ahead on how to win the “long war” on terrorism and to cultivate an enduring peace. Dr David A. Anderson Professor of Strategic Studies Odom Chair of Joint, Interagency and Multinational Operations US Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

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Chapter 1

Global Disorder: The Post–Cold War Era

The Bipolar Collapse and the Rise of Global Entropy When the bipolar international order gave way to entropy at the Cold War’s end, it brought a swift and—at least along the Central Front— largely nonviolent conclusion to a generational conflict that had threatened destruction on an Apocalyptic scale to sustain the delicate peace, inducing the proliferation not just of extinction-level weapons of mass destruction, but also a new, and in many ways Orwellian, language. A language that sought to explain how order would come from the threat of mass annihilation and global chaos, with such terms as “balance of terror,” “mutual assured destruction,” “overkill,” and other nomenclature enabling the nuclear-armed Cold War adversaries to communicate to one another and with their allies about the potent yet precarious structures erected to maintain the Cold War’s bipolar international order. But with the swift and total collapse of Soviet power, and soon the Soviet Union itself, came a bumper crop of immediate post–Cold War literature inspired by the then in-vogue and newly minted field of “chaos theory” that posited an underlying order to the chaotic eddies and swirls of the natural world that had until them seemed inimical to order. Distinct from quantum theory, which probed the contradictory and dualistic subatomic realm, and whose language is especially relevant to the study of international relations—where order and chaos engage in a continuing struggle, and from along whose interface most great works of political and strategic theory emerged—this new science of chaos was really an assertion of order, or what we may think of as meta-order in that there were discernible patterns within the chaos, and it suggested that an analysis of its meta-patterns could yield valuable insight and understanding to the emergent order. With international politics entering into a profound transition, one whose outcome was at that time not yet known and thus predictions were

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all over the map (with Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis briefly positing the triumph of democratic order, while Kaplan’s “Coming Anarchy” thesis more convincingly posited the start of a much darker and less democratic era marred by war, violence, and chaos), the widespread attraction of chaos theory can be understood, since it was something of a panacea, a theoretical silver bullet promising that chaos itself was just another name for order mis-termed. Rather than embracing the architects of quantum theory, this new academic fad, really just a shuffling of labels like a magician’s hat trick, with chaos going into the hat and order coming out, sought an artificial solace, one disconnected from the more meaningful and fundamental linkages of cause and effect. So while theorists like Jomini and Clausewitz dueled over interpreting Napoleon and his impact on the international order, each showing a distinct rigor in his analysis, and each searching for hints and suggestions of order amidst the chaos, the post–Cold War chaos theorists jumped the gun, and presumed the triumph of chaos over order, seeking at most to identify meta-patterns in the eddies of chaos, much like how Machiavelli long ago sought to navigate the moral maelstrom of the Prince’s realm and Hobbes himself sought Leviathan to impose order and to protect the populace from the ravages of war. The chaos theorists posited an end to order, but then dangled the keys to the inner sanctum of this new, chaotic realm, offering us hope that through their interpretation, we might learn to navigate the emergent fault lines of this hitherto unmapped realm of asymmetry.

The Myth of Global Chaos A comprehensive survey of the chaos theorists was conducted by Yahya Sadowski in his 1998 Brookings monograph, The Myth of Global Chaos. In his first chapter, “Triumph and Despair,” Sadowski writes that “when the cold war ended in 1989, Americans were like a baby tasting its first mouthful of peanut butter: both delighted and confused,” and that the “first version of life after the cold war to capture the public imagination” was that presented by Francis Fukuyama in his “End of History” thesis; but as time went by “the millennial hopes articulated by Fukuyama dimmed,” especially as the “violent breakup of the USSR, the civil war in Somalia, the shocking genocide in Rwanda, all had a sobering effect.”1 However, it took the explosion of brutality and the advent of ethnic cleansing in the disintegrating Yugoslavia to “reshape the national mood

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in America (and elsewhere) into one of pessimism,”2 and before long “many serious thinkers worried that what happened to Bosnia seemed likely to spread elsewhere—and not just to neighboring states.”3 Indeed, as Sadowski recalled: “The world seemed to be slipping over a precipice into an epoch of ethnic and cultural violence. It seemed less like the end of history and more like the revenge of history. A real danger seemed to exist that the atrocities in Bosnia were a harbinger of worse to come globally.”4 Indeed, “the same process of globalization that Fukuyama thought had destroyed communism might be planting the seeds for an epoch of global chaos,”5 though the many “thinkers who shared those three convictions never adopted a single common moniker, preferring instead to market their own individual epigrams: ‘the coming anarchy,’ ‘the clash of civilizations,’ ‘jihad vs. McWorld,’ and so on. In some newspapers, their ideas were collectively called ‘chaos theory,’ but this was unfortunate, because the same name had already been applied to a movement by physical scientists who applied new techniques of nonlinear mathematics. Yet, because the central thesis of the new foreign policy pessimists was that globalization spawns political chaos, ‘global chaos theory’ may be an accurate label for their ideas.”6 And, Sadowski added, “the architects of global chaos theory include some of the sharpest political strategists working in America today. They have erected a complex school of thought that deals with urbanization, narcoterrorism, immigration, humanitarian disasters, debates over military intervention, rogue states, the profusion of transnational organizations, terror networks, fundamentalism, ethnic conflict, and so on. Their edifice is still growing and evolving and continues to exert influence on American policymakers.”7 However, as Sadowski explains, upon “close inspection, most of the major claims of global chaos theory turn out to be false,” and “the end of the cold war may have changed the world less than either optimists or pessimists imagined.”8 Sadowski attributes the popularity of chaos theory to two of its leading advocates: “In America, the idea that the world was sinking into an epoch of global chaos was popularized by two men, Robert D. Kaplan and Samuel P. Huntington.”9 He describes Kaplan’s examination in Balkan Ghosts of “the way the antagonists appear to be imprisoned by their own pasts,”10 and as a consequence, “modern Balkan battles often degenerate into savagery because they are fought not only to address contemporary problems but also to redress historical wrongs.”11 On Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis, Sadowski considers how the origins of the Cold War are often attributed to the grand historical “clash between

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Occident and Orient,” and “the idea that East and West represent different systems of values that inevitably collide goes back to Herodotus.”12 But not according to Huntington, who “invoked another map, one that showed the world not divided between Occident and Orient but into nine discrete civilizations.”13 As Sadowski explained, “[f]rom these maps, Huntington drew the conclusion that, in the post–cold war world, ‘the fundamental source of conflict’ would ‘not be primarily ideological or primarily economic,’ but instead would be ‘cultural,’ and while ‘nationstates will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs,’ the ‘clash of civilizations will dominate world politics.’”14 Like Kaplan, Sadowski writes, “Huntington thought that the globe would be increasingly afflicted by conflict and violence,” “[b]oth thought that conflicts would be most frequent and explosive where distinct cultures adjoined,” and “both claimed that at its heart the vicious war in Bosnia was a ‘clash of civilizations.’”15 Kaplan shifted his work to “new ideas about ecological chaos,” while Huntington “continued to develop ever more systematic and nuanced ideas about ‘civilizational conflicts,’ viewing globalization as a process of ‘Westernization.’”16 Added Sadowski: “The West, through its overwhelming military power, if nothing else, had made itself the paramount culture and had tried to impose its institutions on the rest of the world. This breeds an understandable reaction, some kind of patriotism or nativism, that reasserts local values.”17 As a consequence, “[t]rends that Westerners blandly dubbed ‘globalization’ were often, Huntington claimed, viewed as highly threatening and partisan actions.”18 Sadowski cites the June 19, 1993, op-ed in the New York Times authored by Huntington, “The Coming Clash of Civilizations: Or, the West against the Rest,” which was followed by a July 1993 article in Foreign Affairs, which “triggered a national debate and generated more sales for Foreign Affairs than any issue since 1947, when it had run ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct,’ by ‘X’, the essay by George Kennan that defined the strategy the United States was to pursue during the cold war.”19 Sadowski observes that Kaplan and Huntington are “powerful writers, skilled at coining epigrams or weaving iconic images. But the popularity of their ideas in the early 1990s was not entirely a reflection of their prose skills. Both men had, in part, managed to articulate ideas or hunches that were already in circulation, that were part of the zeitgeist, the spirit of their times.”20 Sadowski cites Martin Van Creveld, who writes in The Transformation of War, that “[i]n the future, war will not be waged by armies but by groups whom we today call terrorists, guerrillas, bandits, and robbers. . . . Their organizations are likely to be constructed

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on charismatic lines rather than institutional ones, and to be motivated less by ‘professionalism’ than by fanatical, ideologically-based loyalties.”21 Added Sadowski: “In the early 1990s growing numbers of people accepted the claim that the world was going crazy.”22 Indeed, Sadowski applied Emile Durkheim’s concept of “anomie,” which he defined as a cause of mass hysteria, to this juncture,23 and noted how anomie “slowly seeped into foreign policy debates.”24 Sadowski points out that Fukuyama “had been as optimistic as the chaos theorists had been pessimistic,” and that “[g]lobal chaos theorists suspected the same collapse of values that seemed to afflict American society was also plaguing the world at large.”25 Fukuyama was indeed optimistic about globalization’s impact, while the chaos theorists suspected “the primary culprit was globalization”—reflecting a deep fissure in their assessments of cause that is reminiscent of the debate between realists and neorealists over the ultimate locus of causality for disorder in international affairs.26 Sadowski notes that Graham E. Fuller, in his “The Democracy Trap: The Perils of the Post–Cold War World,” was critical of Fukuyama and suggests that he exaggerated the “benign effects of democratization,” and thus linked “anomic violence and democracy.”27 Indeed, as Sadowski predicted, the “collapse of totalitarian rule and new aspirations toward democracy will unleash profound forces of both neo-nationalist and radical religious movements that will destabilize large regions of the world. American values—such as the principle of national self-determination and our insistence on human rights—will serve to exacerbate these forces.”28 The result, Sadowski writes, will be “the heightened expectations that they have a right to share in political power will lead many new groups to impose their demands on the state.”29 One consequence is the rise in neonationalism; as Sadowski notes, “[t]he association of democratization with the rise of neonationalism promises to turn Fukuyama’s dreams into a nightmare.”30 Sadowski cites Carnegie’s Thomas Hughes who saw “growth of irrational violence” as “traced to the decline of the state per se.”31 He also cited Benjamin R. Barber, and his widely read March 1992 Atlantic Monthly article, “Jihad vs. McWorld.” Sadowski suggests the revolution in international communications under way would not lead to universal peace and understanding, but would instead lead to what Barber described as “a retribalization of large swaths of humankind by war and bloodshed: a threatened Lebanonization of national states. . . . a Jihad in the name of a hundred narrowly conceived faiths against every kind of interdependence”— while the rest of the world integrated into “one McWorld tied together

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by technology, ecology, communications, and commerce,” or what Thomas P. M. Barnett would later label the functioning core or more simply, the “Core.”32 As Sadowski observed: “Barber argued that the post–cold war world was being swept by ‘small-scale wars,’ whose aim “is to redraw boundaries, to implode states and resecure parochial identities: to escape McWorld’s dully insistent imperatives. The mood is that of Jihad: war not as an instrument of policy but as an emblem of identity, an expression of community, an end in itself.”33 Sadowski also cited Brzezinski’s “Out of Control,” which offered a critique of the West’s “permissive cornucopia.”34 In his fifth chapter chronicling “The Varieties of Global Chaos Theory,” Sadowski observes that “each global chaos theorist developed his own special perspective. While they all invoked the ideas of globalization, anomie, and chaos, they often developed individual twists or emphases.”35 The sub-school with the most international attention drawn to it was “the clash of Occident and Orient, or the collision of cultures worldwide,” a la Kaplan and Huntington. But two other sub-schools with larger followings included the school concerned about extreme population pressure, disease, and ecological pressure, a school one might think of as neo-Malthusian, and which Sadowski calls the “ecological variant of global chaos,” such as that presented by Thomas Homer-Dixon, Norman Myers, George Moffett, or “super-chaos,” as described by Kaplan in The Ends of the Earth.36 And, it included “ethnonationalism,” as described by Ted Robert Gurr and Donald Horowitz, by Conor Cruise O’Brien in the Atlantic Monthly and in his book On the Eve of the Millennium, by William Pfaff in The Wrath of Nations, by Moynihan in Pandaemonium: Ethnicity in International Politics and by Mark Juergensmeyer in New Cold War, which considered the clash between secularists and revivalists of Christian, Hindu, and Muslim traditions.37 Sadowski added that Huntington’s “West against the Rest” thesis enabled a prescriptive approach to US strategic interests.38 Sadowski also discussed William Pfaff and the strategic consequences of chaos theory, and how US military intervention in the Third World was “too often disastrous for both the United States and for its local interlocutions,” thus crippling the presidencies of Johnson, Carter, and Reagan.39 And, how on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, he had cautioned the United States on “the resentment and sense of powerlessness engendered within Islam by its domination by the West.”40 But unlike Huntington, he viewed the anger in the Islamic world as being focused internally, “channeled between competing local factions, rather than into the clash of civilizations.”41 Sadowski also discussed Kaplan on the bifurcation of the

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world between “Hegel’s and Fukuyama’s Last Man, healthy, well fed, and pampered by technology,” and “[t]he other, larger, part is inhabited by Hobbes’ First Man, condemned to a life that is ‘poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’ Although both parts will be threatened by environmental stress, the Last Man will be able to master it; the First Man will not.”42 And yet, observed Sadowski, “despite the hopes, lobbying, and prominent access enjoyed by its proponents, global chaos theory never came close to being adopted as America’s grand strategy for the post–cold war world. . . . Instead, global chaos theory penetrated Washington discourse not as an integrated system of analysis, as a grand strategy, but as a piecemeal assemblage of epigrams. The metaphors and icons that the chaos theorists invented—such as the slogan ‘the West against the rest’ and the image of nations locked in the fanatic death-grip of jihad gained greatest currency.”43 Nonetheless, while not yet permeating through to highest echelons of grand strategy at the time of Sadowski’s writing in the late 1990s, “[s]ome of the architects of global chaos theory had a real gift for coining colorful images,” such as “the new tribalism” or “virulent nationalism” that “lent themselves to us in sound bites.”44 However, despite the appeal of these catchphrases, Sadowski observed in general the failure of global chaos theorists “to translate their work into the foundation of American strategy for the new epoch”45 Sadowski also noted that Benjamin Schwartz has argued that Polish and Czech post–World War II stability resulted from their deportations of German minorities, the benefit of which was letting one side impose its will on the other, resulting in a lasting stability that stood in marked contrast to the ideas enforced by NATO as Yugoslavia disintegrated, and Serbian leaders sought to create their own ethno-homogeneous state.46 Sadowski examined “ENS” (Ethnic, Nationalist, and Secessionist) conflicts,47 and cited Major Ralph Peters who, in his Summer 1994 Parameters article, “The New Warrior Class,” described the West’s new opponents as “warriors—erratic primitives of shifting allegiance, habituated to violence, with no state in civil order. . . . Do we have the strength of will, as a military and as a nation, to defeat an enemy who has nothing to lose? . . . Are we able to engage in and sustain the level of sheer violence it can take to eradicate this kind of threat?”48 In his seventh chapter, on the “Age of Fratricide,” Sadowski observes that while chaos theory “is an intellectually elegant construct,” “unfortunately, chaos theory is seriously flawed as an understanding of what is going on in the world.”49 He cited Bernard Lewis, the famed Middle East historian, whose September 1990 article, “Roots of Muslim Rage,” in The Atlantic Monthly, attributed Muslim rage to the “reaction to

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the threat Western values posed to the traditional Islamic way of life.”50 He also cited Fouad Ajami, who saw similarities in Bosnia51 that challenged the premise of civilizational collapse, and who views Islam not as one civilization but a conflicted, fragmented array of states, sects, et al., much as we do later on in this book. But it is in his eighth chapter, “Globaloney,” that Sadowski challenges the selective view of chaos theorists toward the world, such as Kaplan’s focus on war zones and not the other, better integrated states.52 He also noted that “chaos theorists tend to rely upon anecdotal evidence.”53 In “Post–Cold War Patterns of Conflict,” his ninth chapter, Sadowski further makes the case that the chaos theorists overstate their claim that globalization breeds a culture of violence,54 and also that “chaos theory overstates the role that anomie plays in causing violence as well as exaggerates its influence on the conduct of warfare.”55 In “The Mythology of Ethnic Conflict,” his tenth chapter, Sadowski argues that “[e]thnic conflicts are not much different from other forms of low-intensity conflict. They are certainly not any more savage or irrational.”56 As he explains: “Most of the ‘culture clashes’ that global chaos theorists worry about, turn out, on close inspection to be varieties of ethnic conflict,” yet, even when it comes to ethnic conflict, “the global chaos theorists mislead more often than they guide,” and “present a one-sided picture of how ethnicity functions. They make inaccurate claims about how ethnic conflicts start. And they present an upside-down picture of the circumstances in which ethnic conflict is most likely to become a serious policy problem—when states collapse.”57 Sadowski discusses Moynihan’s thesis on ethnonationalism causing the collapse of the Soviet Union, which argues that ethnic conflict can thus cause state collapse.58 And he considers primordialism, where ethnic identity is almost an instinct, pre-rational.59 He noted that in the wake of Yugoslavia’s collapse, Serb and Croat nationalism followed the crisis of the state, with its root cause being economic.60 Sadowski challenges primordialism, arguing that “[t]he primordialist image is behind one of the most misleading policy claims of global chaos theory: the notion that the United States cannot deal with ethnic conflicts because they are rooted in ‘ancient tribal rivalries’ that are ultimately irrational and not pliable by conventional political or military techniques. This council of despair is unwarranted. Ethnic rivalries may have some deep, dark foundation, but the bulk of the energies driving them are contemporary.”61 Added Sadowski: “Sometimes the state dies and is not replaced by different states, but by chaos. When state power evaporates in this manner, the results are terrifying for modern societies.”62

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In his prescient eleventh chapter, “From Chaos to Complexity,” Sadowski points out that “[m]ost of the available evidence suggests that global chaos theory is wrong about most of its major claims,”63 and that “[e]thnic conflicts are much less chaotic than they often seem in Western press accounts.”64 Adds Sadowski: “Chaos is not a strategic threat, certainly not in the way that global chaos theorists would have people believe.”65 Nonetheless, Sadowski credits global chaos theorists as being “not stupid or foolish. They were trying hard to see beyond today’s headlines into the trends that would dominate the future. They were attempting to dig beneath the deceptive surfaces of events to unearth the deeper structures of history.”66 Rather than chaos, Sadowski posits that it’s complexity that defines the world’s contours and cracks where conflict takes root. “The international environment is not chaotic . . . but it is certainly complex. Learning to recognize, acknowledge, and deal with complexity may be the hallmark of successful diplomacy in the coming years.”67 Indeed, Sadowski predicted with uncanny prescience, “[m]ost wars in the next decade are likely to be caused . . . by highly complex local factors rather than by easily understood international ideological crusades.”68 But Sadowski cautions that “Americans are not well prepared for this sort of complexity. . . . A new mental map of the world is needed that does a better job of capturing its complexities.”69 He views the old Cold War’s “bilateral vision” of East versus West as “hopelessly simplistic,” and the more modern trilateral division of the world into East, West, and South as “only marginally better.”70 And he credits Huntington for “trying to get [his readers] to embrace a more complex—and, to that degree, more accurate—vision of the world.”71 Sadowski recalls a cartoon from the Philadelphia Daily News in 1994 that illustrates the old versus the new world order, the former being divided between good and evil; the latter being divided between good, okay, not so bad, bad, worse, even worse, wretched, and unspeakable!72 Sadowski believes that “[i]n a world of global complexity, U.S. foreign policy will have to become more flexible. It will have to be tailored more to local particularities rather than relying upon global maxims. It will have to be informed more by knowledge about local cultures and structural conditions than by visions of grand strategy. It will have to abandon the idea of the ‘magic bullet’— the single solution that solves all problems.”73 Sadowski credits Robert Kaplan for recognizing the need to “rely more upon ‘area specialists’”74 and that “better experts are needed,”75 as “America remains desperately short of real experts who speak the languages, have lived in the countries, struggled through rigorous formal

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academic training, and having invested the time to ripen their analyses,” and thus through their study/training, to “recognize dangers before they arise and opportunities before they slip away, to broaden imaginations, to lift the blinders of old metaphors and nostrums so that responses can be confident, yet supple.”76 Sadowski thus concludes, “there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is that most of the conflicts around the world are not rooted in thousands of years of history— they are new and can be concluded as quickly as they started. The bad news is that intense, genocidal hatreds can (with support from political organizations) be generated almost overnight—they do not require centuries of incubation.”77 This would become apparent not only in the fratricidal bloodletting that tore apart the Balkans, but in deepest Africa where, in just a short 100 days, one of humanity’s gravest genocides would unfold in Rwanda. In later years, genocidal hatreds would erupt with a fury, as seen in the chaotic aftermath of Saddam’s fall in Iraq, and in many of the tribal conflicts that now punctuate the complex eddies of the Arab Spring, where tribalism has erupted as the centralized states of the region collapsed, one after another, unlocking tribal hatreds long repressed by the region’s many tyrannies, and which, unleashed, showed little mercy— as witnessed with the brutal treatment of strongman Gaddafi upon his capture, with his treatment including various forms of abuse, including being sodomized, before being summarily executed. Yes, he had shown little mercy when he was in power; but his final moments would leave many supporters of the Libyan revolution uneasy, wondering what forces of hatred would next be unleashed.

Toward a Neo-Medieval Era? Granted, there have been far fewer acts of genocidal retribution than pessimists had predicted for the post–Cold War period. Its complexity was evident nearly everywhere, but the chaos was largely contained, as an underlying order obscured by the Cold War’s bipolarity emerged to fill the power vacuum. Its granular nature, and seeming order-amidst chaos, suggested something almost medieval in nature. In his 1999 paper, “Back to the Future: Neomedievalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy,” Wharton School professor Stephen J. Kobrin considers just such an alternative to chaos theory, looking to neo-medievalism for an answer, and recalling that the 1648 Peace of Westphalia “is taken

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conventionally as marking the end of medieval universalism and the origin of the modern state system,” which yielded the “territorialization of politics, the replacement of overlapping, vertical hierarchies by horizontal, geographically defined sovereign states.”78 He cites E. H. Carr’s 1964 observation, especially poignant in today’s chaotic world, that “it is difficult for contemporaries to even imagine a world in which political power is organized on a basis other than territory” as “[g]eographically rooted, sovereign nation states and the international state system . . . are relatively recent creations which comprise but one of a number of historical modes of organizing political activity.”79 Kobrin suggests that “the current state system may well be unique, a product of a very specific historical context” and that the “territorial state is not a sacred unit beyond historical time” nor is territorial sovereignty “historically privileged. There have been other bases for the organization of political and economic authority in the past. There may well be in the future.”80 He questions our tendency to “view systemic change as evolutionary by making the very modern assumption that time’s arrow is unidirectional and that progress is linear,” and to thereby “assume that each era emerges, in turn, from existing political-economic structures and, in some way, moves beyond what existed previously,” when in fact it may well “be more reasonable to look at modern forms of international political and economic organization as a detour rather than an evolutionary step,” with the distinct possibility that the “modern era may be a window which is about to slam shut.”81 Like the later theorists of netwar, whom we will discuss below, he suggests that the “emergence of an electronically mediated global civil society is both a manifestation of post-modern fragmentation and of postmodern political-economic organization,” and proffers the neomedieval metaphor as “an inter-temporal analog of comparative political analysis” that “allows us to overcome the inertia imposed by our immersion in the present and think about other possible modes of political and economic organization.”82 The neo-medieval metaphor arose long before the collapse of the bipolar Cold War order; Kobrin recalls that Hedley Bull, in 1977, had “suggested that one alternative to the modern state system might be ‘a modern and secular equivalent of the kind of universal political organization that existed in Western Christendom in the Middle Age,’” with many other scholars since looking “back to medieval Europe to try to understand change in the international system.”83 Among these were Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson who, in their 1995 Economy and Society article, “Globalization and the Future of the

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Nation-State,” argued “that the medieval analogy helps us think back to a period before the monopolization of governance functions by sovereign states, to a world which was not constructed on the basis of territorial sovereignty,” and Kobrin adds that “[t]hinking about the Middle Ages, the last pre-modern period, might help us to imagine possibilities for a postmodern future.”84 He adds that several “facets of medieval organization” that bear a similarity to the post–Cold War world can help us to comprehend the “changes in the current international political economy,” including issues such as: space, geography, and borders; the ambiguity of authority; multiple loyalties; transnational elites; distinctions between public and private property; and unifying belief systems and supranational centralization.85 Kobrin proposes that we “are living through the end of one era and the onset of another” and that this transition is marked by the “systemic transformation from a modern to a postmodern political economy,” a transition that he believes is “comparable to that from the medieval to the modern era,” which he notes Ruggies described in 1983 as “the most important contextual change in international politics in this millennium.”86 As Kobrin explains, the “structural changes underlying this transformation, the dramatic increase in the scale and complexity of technology, the digitalization of finance and commerce and the emergence of an electronically networked world economy, are clearly revolutionary rather than evolutionary” and “[i]n many important ways, they represent a clear break from the immediate modern past.”87 While revolutionary, Kobrin does not expect either nation-states or the state system are “about to wither away” but he does posit that there could well be “very significant changes in their meaning, in their structure and in their function.”88 He further suggests that “many aspects of modern political and economic organization may be exceptional and ephemeral—at least when measured on historical time scales,” and this includes the territorial foundation of political sovereignty: “Mutually exclusive territoriality is not a transhistorical, fundamental principle of political organization. Political power and authority were not geographically defined in medieval Europe and may not be in a digitalized world economy organized through overlapping electronic networks. Discrete and meaningful borders and the clear separation of the domestic from the foreign, indeed the very idea of the international, may be a modern anomaly. Conceptions of space may again become symbolic and relational rather than geometric and physical.”89 Further, he suggests that “the corresponding concepts of

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unambiguous authority and loyalty may be harder to sustain in a postmodern world of multiple and overlapping authorities: sovereign and nonsovereign, territorial and non-territorial,” and that “[m]ultiple and overlapping sources of political authority and multiple and ambiguous political loyalties may once again be seen as the norm.”90 But he suggests that “[p]erhaps most importantly, the normative belief in anarchy; in the absence of authority at the center, may be crumbling in the face of problems such as crime, corruption, disease, environmental degradation, financial collapse and the like, all of which are well beyond the scope of national or even international action.”91 The very foundation of the realist world, and its recurring if not inherent chaos, might well disappear, replaced by a transcendent medievalism. He points out that “[a]bsolute territorial sovereignty has always been easier to imagine than to construct,” and suggests that “[i]n a postmodern, digitally integrated world economy, however, the idea itself may no longer be meaningful. Control over territory no longer provides a viable basis for control over an economy or economic actors.”92 But what will rise up to supplant the anarchy that we have come to know so well, and in our own bellicose way, to even thrive amidst? Kobrin writes that the “question of what will replace territorial sovereignty, or perhaps more correctly be layered atop and complement it, is critical. At a minimum, effective economic governance in a digital world economy will require markedly increased efforts at harmonization of national legislation and regulations and much more effective and powerful international institutions.”93 He adds that “[a]lthough a world government does not appear to be immanent, there is increasing pressure for some sort of authority at the center, an authority which transcends the sovereignty-preserving idea of the international organization,” and eventually, “harmonization of policy, the granting of adjudication rights and true enforcement capabilities at the center will result in a real supranational authority” and that “the possibility certainly exists for a universal or unifying ideology” to follow.94 Like Sadowski, Kobrin also discusses Kaplan’s seminal 1994 Atlantic Monthly article, “The Coming Anarchy,” which presented “a future which evokes the dark ages after the barbarian invasions: disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, refugee migrations, the empowerment of private armies and security firms and international drug cartels, among other unpleasant possibilities,” and that Kaplan “clearly foresees the collapse of modernism, the nation state, borders and states’ ability to maintain civil order within them.”95 But Kaplan’s dark pessimism

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permeates his writing as he portrays “political postmodernism bleakly, as an epoch in which ‘the classificatory grid of nation states is going to be replaced by a jagged-glass pattern of city-states, shanty-states, nebulous and anarchic regionalisms’”—a “very dark view of the future which clearly evokes the pre-modern, early medieval past.”96 But Kobrin holds out hope that “such an age” as Kaplan describes “is not part of the neomedieval metaphor,” and “that a new and more terrifying barbarian is not on the horizon,” but he readily concedes that the “challenge is to ensure that transnational and transterritorial solutions be found to the problems posed by the emergence of a postmodern, digital world economy.”97

The Return of Ancient Times One of the post–Cold War era’s greatest war correspondents, Kaplan happens also to be an imaginative theorist of world politics, and a committed realist—one whose writing style conveys more of the passion and clarity of journalism, and less of the arcane and unnecessarily complex methodological quibbling that defines the academic discourse. In Kaplan’s travels through war-torn lands, he has borne witness to the same darkness that inspired the classical realists to yearn for a more pacific order, and in between his many fascinated works of war correspondence and adventure travel, he has penned several influential works that straddle both the world of journalism and the world of theory. He has put pen to paper in both book and article form, developing some compelling ideas about the relevance of realism to the modern world and avoiding some of the pitfalls experienced in the academy, where clarity and elegance often gives way to unnecessary turgidity. In the June 2000 edition of The Atlantic Monthly for whom he has long served as national correspondent and a leading analyst of military affairs, Kaplan sounded a realist tone in his observation that in “an imperfect world, Machiavelli wrote, good men bent on doing good must learn how to be bad. And in this world virtue has much less to do with individual perfection than with political results.”98 As he explained: “There is nothing amoral about Machiavelli’s pagan virtue either. The late Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin observed that Machiavelli’s values may not be Christian but they are moral. Berlin implied that they are the Periclean and Aristotelian values of the ancient polis—values that secure a stable political community.”99 Kaplan explained that “Machiavelli’s emphasis

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on political necessity rather than moral perfection framed his philosophical attack on the Church,” and “[b]y in effect leaving the Church, he left the medieval world and kindled the political Renaissance, renewing links with Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, Seneca, Sallust, and other classical thinkers.”100 Hobbes would later follow suit, and his Leviathan was testimony to his shared passion for putting the flames of medieval divisions behind us. As Kaplan writes: “Explaining Machiavelli brilliantly, the Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield writes in Machiavelli’s Virtue (1966) that primitive necessity is irresistible, because human affairs are always ‘in motion’ . . . The uncomfortable classical truths enunciated in the fifth century B.C. by the historian Thucydides, revived by Machiavelli, and imbibed by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison—truths such as Morality and patriotism can best be obtained through self-interest; Conflict is inherent in the human condition; The law of nature precludes a republic of perfect virtue and demands instead a balance of forces among men and groups—are often forgotten.”101 Kaplan recounts how “[s]uch unsavory truths, all descending ultimately from Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War, are too rarely taught. Our elites are less like Renaissance pragmatists than like medieval churchmen, sanctimoniously dividing the world into good and evil.”102 Kaplan cautions that we “must remember that human progress has often been made in the space between idealism and savagery: idealism, by idealizing, ignores difficult facts, however wellintentioned it is.”103 “Indeed,” Kaplan writes, “in those places that fail to compete technologically, many young men may become ancient warriors, raping and pillaging and wearing tribal insignia rather than uniforms—as we have already seen in the Balkans, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere. We will learn that there is no modern or postmodern anymore. There is only the continuation of the ancient—a world that, however technological and united by global institutions, the Greek and Roman philosophers would recognize and be able to cope with.”104 He observes: “The evils of the twentieth century—Nazism, fascism, communism—were caused by populist mass movements in Europe whose powers were magnified by industrialization,” but that postindustrialization, “with its miniaturization, puts power in the hands of anyone with a laptop and a pocketful of plastic explosives. So we will have new evils and chronic instability. The world will truly be ancient.”105 He thus affirms, the “thinkers who will guide us through these troubling but by no means apocalyptic times will be those who teach us how to discern unpleasant truths in the midst

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of crises and how to act with both caution and cunning”—in short, the realists.106 Kaplan believes the “curriculum should consist of ancient historians and philosophers and those who have carried on their tradition,” and lists 14 examples including Machiavelli and Hobbes noting they “are only examples, and a range of opinions exists within this group.”107 Kaplan introduces the phrase “constructive realism,” a phrase that captures an essential dimension of the realist experience, reflecting the underlying purpose that unites realist thinkers across two millennia of human history, though his meaning of the word is more along the lines of “practical,” “prudent,” “reasonable,” while I embrace a more literal meaning in its conveyance of the act of “constructing,” “creating,” “building.” But his meaning and mine are united in their positivity, and their rejection of any “destructive” tendencies so often associated with the power-political conception of realism. As Kaplan writes: What most of these men have in common is skepticism and a constructive realism. Machiavelli and the eighteenth-century Briton Edmund Burke both thought that conscience was a pretense to cover selfinterest. Hobbes instructed that faith must be excluded from philosophy, because it is not supported by reason; reason concerns cause and effect, and so philosophy ultimately concerns the resolution of forces; and in politics this leads to the balance of power and a search for order. As distasteful as the ideas of Machiavelli and Hobbes may seem to the contemporary mind, those two philosophers invented the modern state. They saw that all men needed security in order to acquire material possessions, and that a bureaucratic organ was required to regulate the struggle for acquisition peacefully and impartially. The aim of such an organ was never to seek the highest good, only the common good.108 Kaplan admits that “[a]ncient wisdom is certainly not a cure for the foreign-policy challenges ahead,” but explains that it is “merely a way of reintroducing a kind of thinking, long pilloried, that will be useful in a world where—for some decades, at least—the sheer number and complexity of crises will test our moralistic certainties. Ancient morality need not undermine Judeo-Christian ethics. Rather, the sophisticated use of the one in foreign policy may help to advance the other.109

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Kaplan further developed his ideas on realism and its relevance to today’s fractious world in book form, resulting in his 2002 Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (Random House). In it he explains that “[p]hilosophy is not necessarily instructive. It can be useless or, in some cases, even dangerous.”110 Indeed, he describes Neville Chamberlain as being “well-read in the classics” and that noted philosopher Martin Heidegger, “whom some consider the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century, became a Nazi after Hitler rose to power. But while great danger exists, one may still try to extract the benefits of philosophy.”111 And that is precisely what the realists have endeavored to do: Kaplan considers the effort by Thomas Hobbes, the architect of the infamous Leviathan, considered by many to be an early blueprint for the modern, totalitarian state: “Thus, like Thucydides and Machiavelli, his philosophy is inseparable from the political turmoil he knew firsthand,” and like both founding fathers of realism, turned to history for guidance, learning from the past that “just as vanity and overconfidence can make men blind, fear can make them see clearly, and act morally. According to Hobbes, virtue is rooted in fear.”112 Kaplan cites Strauss’ The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis, noting: “For Strauss and others, Hobbes may be the ultimate constructive pessimist,” rooted in a view of human nature that is “exceedingly grim.”113 Kaplan describes himself as neither “an optimist or an idealist,” and notes American optimism is itself a product of the pessimism of its Founders: “Americans can afford optimism partly because of their institutions,” which were “conceived by men who thought tragically,” and who “were constructive pessimists to the degree that they worried constantly about what might go wrong in human relations.”114 Kaplan, as witness to some of our era’s worst human tragedies and greatest descents into darkness, believes that “[a]s future crises arrive in steep waves, our leaders will realize that the world is not ‘modern’ or ‘postmodern,’ but only a continuation of the ‘ancient’: a world that, despite its technologies, the best Chinese, Greek, and Roman philosophers might have been able to cope with.”115 In his December 19, 2001, review of Warrior Politics for UPI, “Tragic Realism, History and Foreign Policy,” Lou Marano described Kaplan as being “a voice for informed and humane realism that rises above a hum of moral posturing, wishful thinking and self-congratulatory blather.” Noting Kaplan’s discussion of the ancient realists Sun Tzu and Thucydides, Marano comments: “These men knew war firsthand, hated it, but recognized it as an unfortunate necessity on occasion. ‘The strategic pursuit of self-interest is not a cold

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and amoral pseudo-science, but the moral act of those who know the horrors of battle and seek to avoid them,’ Kaplan writes.”116 It is this underlying morality that brings to realism its humanity, explains its passion, and endows it with a truly constructive mission, one driven by normative values as much as by the cold calculation of necessity itself. And, in his review of Kaplan’s Warrior Politics in The New Statesman, appropriately titled “Tragic Realism,” Parag Khanna notes that Kaplan “has been enchanting and distressing armchair policy wonks and foreign policy makers in about equal measure” since his article “The Coming Anarchy” first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly a quarter century ago, and that Kaplan’s “scholarship makes foreign policy makers squeamish because his intellectual voyages vividly portray a world entering neo-medievalism, where shrinking state authority and spreading technology breed competition with powerful trans-national social groups” such as al Qaeda.117 Khanna describes Kaplan as the “Ayn Rand of international affairs, saying what few dare to say,” adding that Kaplan suggests “in the decades ahead, crises of increasing number and complexity will test our ‘moralistic certainties.’ If this is indeed to be the long-term post–cold war scenario, Robert Kaplan’s voice of caution and reflection must be heeded with anxious foresight.”118 And it is to this unfolding mosaic of crises of increasing number and complexity that we will next turn, in the quest to find an underlying order and a path back from the brink of global chaos.

Notes 1–77

Yahya Sadowski, The Myth of Global Chaos (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 1; 2; 4; 4; 4; 4–5; 5; 5; 6; 10; 11; 13; 15; 17; 17; 17; 18; 18; 20; 23; 25; 26; 30; 31; 32; 32; 34; 34; 34; 35; 38; 39–40; 41; 52; 53; 54–5; 55; 58; 59; 60; 64; 66; 67; 73; 68; 68–9; 70, citing Major Ralph Peters, “The New Warrior Class,” Parameters 24, No. 1 (Summer 1994), 16; 75; 77; 81; 95; 98; 121; 130; 145; 145–6; 148–9; 158; 168; 169; 170; 173; 173; 173; 192; 193; 193; 193; 193; 193; 198; 198; 198; 199; 201. 78–97 Stephen J. Kobrin, “Back to the Future: Neomedivalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy,” The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 1999, www-management.wharton.upenn.edu/kobrin/Research/ hartrev2.pdf, 3; 3–4; 4; 4; 4; 6; 7; 7; 27; 27; 28; 28; 28; 28; 28–9; 29; 29; 29; 30; 30; 31. 98–109 Robert D. Kaplan, “The Return of Ancient Times: Why the Warrior Politics of the Twenty-First Century Will Demand a Pagan Ethos,” The Atlantic Monthly, 285, No. 6 (June 2000), 14–18, www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/ issues/2000/06/kaplan.

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110–115 Robert D. Kaplan, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (New York: Random House, 2002), 80–1; 80–1; 80–1; 81; xxi–xxii; xxii. 116 Lou Marano, “Tragic Realism, History and Foreign Policy,” UPI, December 19, 2001, www.upi.com/Odd_News/2001/12/19/Tragic-realism-history-andforeign-policy/UPI-64871008800970/. 117–118 Parag Khanna, “Tragic Realism,” The New Statesman , February 25, 2002, www.newstatesman.com/200202250050.

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Chapter 2

Asymmetrical Conflict and the Information Age

War against Modernity: The Zapatista Uprising—From Tribal Insurgency to Netwar Only 2 years after the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, with many diplomatic and strategic professionals focusing their attention on the continuing bloodletting in the Balkans, and to a lesser degree, the shocking orgy of genocidal fury in Rwanda, a very different event would unfold in the Americas, where the civil wars fought along ideological lines during the Cold War were largely in remission. There, the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN)—or as it is known in the English-speaking world, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation—burst forth from the Lacandon Jungle and into global consciousness on January 1, 1994, the very day that NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, came into effect. Though they declared war against the Mexican state, a war for which they were quite ill-equipped in terms of military power or even raw demographic potential to win conventionally, their more lasting impact has been their symbolic and highly dramatic defense of indigenous rights the world over, for which they have become a poignant reminder. When they emerged from their jungle sanctuary on their first offensive, the Zapatistas initially hoped to spark a wider armed revolution across Mexico. But while revolutionary change did not follow in the manner they envisioned, a more incremental and adaptive evolutionary transformation did occur, one that mirrored the evolution of the Zapatistas from revolutionary army into a social movement as the winds of political change swept across Mexico, ultimately sweeping the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from power in the process. Along the way, Mexico’s indigenous heritage was reaffirmed by the Zapatistas’ effort, and their bold assertion of indigenous sovereignty became a symbol

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to the world’s indigenous peoples, whom the Zapatista spokesman— Subcomandante Marcos, later also known as Candidate Zero in a civil society movement led by the Zapatistas to transform Mexican politics through soft-power—referred to as the people of the Earth. As the first decidedly indigenous rebellion in the Americas, their revolutionary movement marked an end to the Cold War and its artificial ideologization of the many civil and international struggles in Latin America, and its left–right or East/West fault line of conflict both between and within states. In so doing, it reaffirmed the millennial tribe–state fault line that had been simmering, sometimes festering, occasionally exploding, since the Old World began its conquest of the New World 500 years earlier. The Zapatistas reasserted the enduring sovereignty of the indigenous tribe: the pre-Colombian peoples engulfed by and imperfectly incorporated into the new states that emerged in the New World after “discovery.” These first peoples were never fully integrated into the Westphalian states system but instead their enduring sovereignty was eclipsed as their lands were gradually appropriated by the newcomers and the new states claimed sovereignty over lands never fully surrendered by their first occupants. The process of state formation that defined European history, quite bloodily, when grafted onto the new world left huge, unassimilated indigenous populations unconquered in the forests, mountains, and isolated corners of the new states, a source of protracted conflict into the contemporary period and a reminder that the Westphalian metaphor was an imperfect one, that the state had not fully matured in the Americas, and that a different conception of sovereignty lingered just beneath the surface. A people ignored is not a people defeated, and this is what the Zapatistas boldly demonstrated when they burst forth from the jungle in 1994, as they armed their marginalized populace and demanded that their indigenous rights be respected by the modern states that had sprung up uneasily beside them. The Zapatistas knew their Napoleon, and their Mao, and framed their rebellion in a classic levée en masse, hoping to spark a popular insurgency across Mexico that unified many disparate but equally disenfranchised peoples. They also knew their American history, and how the expansion of the United States came as a consequence of the military defeat, subjugation, and integration of the indigenous survivors into the new polity; knowing they were still here, undefeated, meant that they still had a chance to redefine the contemporary order, and rebalance the current configuration of the trinity of power. And with the Cold War now over, the Zapatistas were free to articulate their

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aspirations in terms of indigenous sovereignty, and did not feel compelled to align their message with either of the two dominant ideologies that defined the Cold War divide; in fact, they effectively portrayed their struggle to preserve indigenous identity in the modern world as a struggle against the very process of economic globalization taking place, pitting their struggle as a struggle against modernity itself, much like the “Unabomber,” Ted Kaczynski had done in his lone terror war against America’s technological dependence. Unlike such antitechnology neo-Luddites as the infamous Kaczynski, the Zapatistas recognized the importance of technology to their struggle, especially the new information networks that had emerged only recently, which provided them with a channel to communicate their message to the world and to foster grassroots alliances beyond their homeland to help restrain the use of force by their opponent, and to convert their struggle from protracted war into a series of protracted negotiations on the very constitutional structure of the Mexican state, performing an act of political jiu-jitsu not unlike Gandhi’s movement against the militarily and economically superior British. When the Zapatistas rose up in 1994 and declared Y basta! (Enough!), they defined a new fault line of world conflict, one that still resonates today in many of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) battlefields where modern states and indigenous tribes are confronting one another across the very chasm of time itself. From the rise of the EZLN in 1994 to the current conflict in Afghanistan and beyond, indigenous tribes and the most modern of states are waging a new and very asymmetrical kind of conflict, one that is redefining the very building blocks of world order and redressing the inherent fiction that Benno Teschke so eloquently called the “myth of 1648”—the historical incompleteness of the Westphalian system. Outnumbered, outgunned, outclassed in so many traditional measures, these indigenous forces are quickly adapting to the new information-landscape that the Zapatistas first recognized in what some observers have called their “netwar” or the “electronic fabric” of their struggle, introducing the world to a tribally based form of information warfare that uses limited degrees of force and violence, primarily as acts of terror to influence the democratic political foundations of their opponents, internationalizing the very foundation of people-power from a domestic source of political power that Gandhi famously wielded into a mechanism of diplomatic influence to alter the balance of world power; in short, like the Zapatistas, many of our opponents in the current GWOT struggles utilize political violence as a lever to influence nonviolent political change, much the

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way the Zapatistas hoped to do in declaring war against the Mexican state (and precipitate a popular uprising across Mexico), but taking aim at the political process in the West, as al Qaeda in Iraq successfully did when attacking Spain directly to precipitate a Spanish withdrawal from the Iraq coalition, and as they tried in their attacks of England, and which can be traced back to the very first attacks against America in al Qaeda’s effort to force an America withdrawal from the Arabian peninsula. Whether the methods are perceived as acts of terror, insurgency, or even nonviolent people-power, the objective across these many asymmetrical struggles is much the same: to foster democratic change (as in representing the spirit of the demos, if not necessarily the formation of truly representative governance) and to compel the military withdrawal of the armed force with which they are engaged in their asymmetrcal struggle. The Zapatista uprising as both an indigenous revolution to restore traditional sovereignty, and as a new-fangled asymmetrical war against modernization and economic imperialism, utilizing new, modern information networks as a primary conduit of their strategic signalling to sustain a protracted dialogue with their opponent’s populace, presents us with a bridge to our contemporary, asymmetrical world of war—applying and adapting many of the experiments conducted on the stage of history by the prominent philosophers of strategic change such as Gandhi, Mao, and the recently slain bin Laden, all architects of national liberation struggles. The EZLN did not declare formal independence, or launch a war of secession; rather, they sought by force of arms to ensure their rights as indigenous peoples, to protect their age-old customs, language, and identity, and to make certain that resources from their homeland were no longer plundered by outsiders. It could be said that the Zapatistas, in their armed uprising, launched the first war defined purely as a struggle to preserve indigenous rights and sovereignty, a movement pursued more traditionally by negotiation, or aggressive litigation, and less often by civil disobedience and political protest, and, after 1994, by war. Their actions, and the response by the Mexican government, not to crush by armed force this armed movement by a restive indigenous minority but to instead engage in protracted if not necessarily wholehearted negotiations (with a degree of military pushback, enough to restore some semblance of Mexican authority to Zapatista-controlled communities), were closely watched by indigenous peoples around the world. In many ways, their uprising marked the resumption of the Indian Wars that had defined armed conflict in the Americas for half a millennium, ever

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since Columbus’s historic voyage—and which, throughout the colonized world, were mimicked by freedom fighters in their efforts to repel militarily more powerful opponents. That’s why, even now, in America’s dispersed GWOT underway around the world, our soldiers more often than not refer to enemy territory outside the wire as “Indian Country,” and when our arch nemesis, Osama bin Laden, was killed, it was announced “Geronimo EKIA.”

From Globalization to Global Rebellion—The Zapatista Effect The Zapatista rebellion, which came to public light with high drama on January 1, 1994, when the EZLN burst forth from the jungle to declare Ya basta! (Enough!) is in many ways a textbook asymmetrical struggle between a state and non-state actor, the former being the modern and increasingly globalized Mexican state and the latter being the marginalized indigenous minority represented by the EZLN in Central America’s newest armed struggle and first post–Cold War insurgency. The armed phase of the struggle was largely symbolic: a global theatre with minimal bloodshed that quickly transitioned to negotiation and later civic action, both of which relied upon an innovative communications strategy that leveraged the new but growing internet to bypass the traditional media gatekeepers controlled by the state and its elites. So while the Zapatista uprising is widely thought to be first and foremost as an indigenous insurgency not unlike the many armed struggles to emerge from the impoverished Central American region in the twentieth century, many experts of strategy and in particular the new discipline of information war view it as one of history’s first true cyberwars of the Information Age, where the struggle would be over who controlled the narrative, both the message and the medium through which it was conveyed to key constituencies, bringing a distant struggle in an isolated, underdeveloped corner of Mexico with limited infrastructure to the attention of the world via the rapidly expanding internet. Indeed, as Thomas A. Marks, Sebastian L.v. Gorka, and Robert Sharp observe, “the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, would have been eliminated had it not been for their ability to engage in what was then called netwar to energize networks or supporters nationally and internationally so that pressure was applied on Mexico, which neutralized the government’s effort to eliminate the insurgents.”1

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One of the most prominent experts on the “Zapatista Effect” is Harry Cleaver, a professor of economics at the University of Texas. Among his many writings is his paper of the same title: “The Zapatista Effect: The Internet and the Rise of an Alternative Political Fabric.”2 Cleaver described the context from which the Zapatistas emerged as one where the power of the state was withering under the dual assault from above and below: “The primacy of the nation state is being challenged from both above and below. From above, after the Second World War, the growth in the power and scope of supranational institutions from multinational corporations to the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund have gradually usurped national sovereignty in both economic and political matters.”3 And even “[m]ore recently, from below, the increasingly active role of regional and city governments in foreign trade, immigration and political issues have challenged national governments’ constitutional monopoly over foreign affairs,” and on top of this, “[s]imultaneously, there has been tremendous growth in crossborder networks among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the hundreds that mobilized against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Not only do such networks outflank national government policymakers; they often work directly against their policies.”4 Cleaver notes that “[i]n the last few years, governmental concern with the ability of NGO networks to mobilize opposition to the policies of national governments and to international agreements has grown—both during the period of policy formation and after those policies have been adopted or agreements signed. In part, this concern is derived from the growing strength that such networks gain from the use of international communications technologies. The rapid spread of the internet around the world has suggested that such networks and their influence will only grow apace.”5 Cleaver describes the way the Zapatista rebellion catalyzed “growth in electronic NGO networks,” and “[c]omputer networks supporting the rebellion have evolved from providing channels for the familiar, traditional work of solidarity—material aid and the defense of human rights against the policies of the Salinas and Zedillo administrations— into an electronic fabric of opposition to much wider policies. Whereas the anti-NAFTA coalition was merely North American in scope, the influence of the pro-Zapatista mobilization has reached across at least five continents. Moreover, it has inspired and stimulated a wide variety of grassroots political efforts in dozens of countries.”6 He notes that “[t]oday these networks provide the nerve system for increasingly

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global organization in opposition to the dominant economic policies of the present period. In the process, these emerging networks are undermining the distinction between domestic and foreign policy and challenging the constitution of the nation state.”7 Cleaver believes that it’s thus “not exaggerated to speak of a ‘Zapatista Effect’ reverberating through social movements around the world; an effect homologous to, but potentially much more threatening to the New World Order of neoliberalism than the ‘Tequila Effect’ that rippled through emerging financial markets in the wake of the 1994 peso crisis. In the latter case, the danger was panic and the ensuing rapid withdrawal of hot money from speculative investments. In the case of social movements and the activism which is their hallmark, the danger lies in the impetus given to previously disparate groups to mobilize around the rejection of current policies, to rethink institutions and governance, and to develop alternatives to the status quo.”8 Cleaver describes the role of the internet as it evolved “from the margins to the center,” noting its role “in the international circulation of information on the indigenous rebellion in Chiapas developed quickly and has continued to evolve.”9 At the beginning, the internet primarily “provided a means for the rapid dissemination of information and organization through preexisting circuits, such as those which had been created as part of the struggle to block the NAFTA, or those concerned with Latin American and indigenous issues. These networks existed primarily at an international level, mostly in computer-rich North American and Western European countries.”10 Traditional broadcast news was “complemented by first-hand reports in cyberspace from a record number of observers who flooded into Chiapas with hitherto unseen alacrity, as well as from more analytical commentators who could voice their opinions and enter into debates more quickly and easily in cyberspace. These few circuits were rapidly complemented by the creation of specialized lists, conferences and web pages devoted specifically to Chiapas and the struggle for democracy in Mexico. The breadth of participation in these discussions and the posting of multiple sources of information have made possible an unprecedented degree of verification in the history of the media.”11 Cleaver points out that the EZLN itself “played no direct role in the proliferation of the use of the Internet” at this point, as “these efforts were initiated by others to weave a network of support for the Zapatista movement. Although there is a myth that Zapatista spokesman Subcommandante Marcos sits in the jungle uploading EZLN

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communiques from his laptop, the reality is that the EZLN and its communities have had a mediated relationship to the Internet. The Zapatista communities are indigenous, poor and often cut-off not only from computer communications but also from the necessary electricity and telephone systems. Under these conditions, EZLN materials were initially prepared as written communiques for the mass media and were handed to reporters or to friends to give to reporters. Such material then had to be typed or scanned into electronic format for distribution on the Internet.”12 He proposed that the “Zapatista effect suggests that the fabric of politics—the public sphere where differences interact and are negotiated—is being rewoven,” and adds that “[t]his is particularly important because these new forms of cooperation go to the heart of the existing political, social and economic order.”13 As he explains: “At the grassroots level, the Internet is being used to promote international discussion and connections that link struggles challenging dominant policy and ideology in ways that often bypass the nation state.”14 How potent this challenge is remains hard to determine, and Cleaver writes that it is “important to note that, while there is no doubt that the grassroots use of the Internet and electronic communications across borders has in some instances constrained the ability of nation states, international organizations and multinational corporations to pursue their own goals, it is not clear how significant these constraints really are and whether they are likely to proliferate.”15 Cleaver recounts the political context from which the Zapatista uprising erupted, noting: “Committed to a radical restructuring of the Mexican economy in order to attract foreign investment and secure the NAFTA, President Salinas abrogated the last meaningful guarantees of community integrity in Chiapas by altering Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution to allow for the privatization of communal land” and it was this breach of constitutional trust that precipitated the rebellion. “In response, the Zapatista communities ordered their citizen army to take action as a last ditch effort to stave off what seemed like imminent annihilation. According to Zapatista spokespersons, preparations proceeded throughout 1993. The day on which NAFTA went into effect, 1 January 1994, was chosen as the moment of action.”16 Cleaver recalls that the “rebellion came to the world’s attention on that day, when the units of the EZLN emerged from the jungle and took over a series of towns in Chiapas. The uprising was designed to make indigenous voices heard at the national level in Mexico and appeared primarily to be a challenge to Mexican domestic policies on land and indigenous affairs.”17 He notes

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that although the “initial official response was to isolate the Zapatistas through a variety of policy levers,” “[m]ilitarily the government sought to crush the rebellion and confine it to Chiapas,” and “[i]deologically, state control of the Mexican mass media was used to limit and distort news about the uprising. Overall, the government attempted to portray the Zapatista movement as a danger to the political integrity of the Mexican nation by conjuring the threat of a pan-Mayan movement embracing both Southern Mexico and much of Central America.”18 As he elaborates: Evoking the horrors of the Balkans, the Mexican government equated indigenous autonomy with political secession and the implosion of the country. Military clashes lasted only a few days, giving way to three years of on-and-off political negotiations that have catalyzed a much wider assault on the power of the ruling party. Grassroots movements have both attacked and withdrawn from the official institutions of the one-party state at the national and local levels. The PRI and the hitherto powerful presidency have come under unprecedented attack for human rights violations, media manipulation, corruption and lack of democracy. Disillusionment with the prospects for meaningful Mexican electoral reform has also led many communities in Chiapas to withdraw entirely from the electoral process. These communities have burned ballot boxes, overthrown fraudulently elected officials and created municipal governing bodies through a variety of means that may or may not have included a popular vote.19 So while in “the narrow terms of traditional military conflict, the Zapatista uprising has been confined to a limited zone in Chiapas,” Cleaver describes how “through their ability to extend their political reach via modern computer networks, the Zapatistas have woven a new electronic fabric of struggle to carry their revolution throughout Mexico and around the world.”20 As he recounts, the “Zapatistas and their supporters have fought to maintain and elaborate their political connections throughout the world” and notes “[t]his has been a war of words, images, imagination and organization in which the Zapatistas have had surprising success.”21 And, he adds: “Vital to this continuing struggle has been the pro-Zapatista use of computer communications. While the state has all too effectively limited mass media coverage and serious discussion of Zapatista ideas, their supporters have been able, to an astonishing degree, to circumvent and offset this blockage through the use of

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electronic networks in conjunction with the more familiar tactics of solidarity movements: teach-ins, articles in the alternative press, demonstrations, the occupation of Mexican government consulates and so on.”22 As he describes: Initially the Mexican state tried to restrict the uprising to the jungles of Chiapas, through both military repression and the limitation of press coverage (most Mexicans get their news from the state controlled TV network, Televisa). Those efforts failed. First through written communiques and personal interviews with independent journalists which were flashed around the world by fax and electronic mail, then through more detailed reports by Mexican and foreign observers circulated in the same manner, the Zapatistas were able to break out of the state’s attempted isolation and reach others with their ideas and their program for economic and political revolution. As vast numbers of Mexicans responded with sympathy and mobilized in support, the Chiapas uprising kindled a more generalized pro-democracy movement against the centralized and corrupt Mexican economic and political system. Inspiring many others outside of Mexico, the Zapatista uprising set in motion a new wave of hope and energy among those engaged in the struggle for freedom all over the world.23 Cleaver describes in detail the Zapatistas’ evolution from low-tech to high-tech communicators, recalling how “[w]hen the Zapatistas suddenly appeared in San Cristobal de las Casas and several other cities of Chiapas in the early hours of January 1, 1994, they brought with them a printed declaration of war against the Mexican state and for the liberation of the people of Chiapas and Mexico. News of that declaration went out through a student’s telephone call to CNN, and then as journalists arrived to investigate, stories went out via the wire services, newspaper reports and radio and television broadcasts all over the world.”24 He continued: For the most part, however, readers and viewers of that reporting saw and heard only excerpts from the Zapatista declaration of war. They never saw the whole declaration, with all of its arguments and explanations for what were obviously dramatically surprising and audacious actions. Except for the rare exception, such as the Mexico City daily newspaper La Jornada, they only got what the editors wanted them to get, according to their own biases.

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As the Mexican state poured 15,000 troops into Chiapas and the fighting escalated, this kind of reporting continued. Even after the ceasefire when the emphasis of the Zapatista offensive shifted from arms to words, the commercial media overwhelmingly refused to reproduce the striking and often eloquent communiques and letters sent out by the EZLN. With the distribution of La Jornada—which did continue to publish Zapatista material in full—sharply limited, especially outside of Mexico City, this refusal of the world’s media was a serious blockage to the ability of the Zapatistas to get their message out. For those in Mexico who read those messages and found them accurate and inspiring, this blockage was an intolerable situation which had to be overcome in order to build support for the Zapatistas and to stop the government’s repression. What they did was very simple: they typed or scanned the communiques and letters into e-text form and sent them out over The Net to potentially receptive audiences around the world.25 Cleaver notes that at the time of the Zapatistas’ emergence, “the cyberspace world of computer communication networks was itself already the terrain of manifold struggles and thus open to appropriation by those whose own forms of organization were pre-disposed to building strength through linkages with others.”26 He notes that “[c]omputer communications constitute only one aspect of a sophisticated use of various forms of electronic technology” and that the “Zapatista solidarity movement has also proved adept at the speedy production and circulation of videos, the genesis and compilation of pro-Zapatista interviews and music on audio tapes and CD Rom and the use of radio (both legal and pirate) and community access TV to outflank scanty and biased coverage by the mainstream media.”27 Cleaver reiterated that “[d]espite all the media hype which came with the discovery of the role of cyberspace in circulating Zapatista words and ideas, Subcommandante Marcos is not sitting in some jungle camp uploading EZLN communiques via mobile telephone modem directly to the Internet. Zapatista messages have to be hand-carried through the lines of military encirclement and uploaded by others to the networks of solidarity,”28 much like the al Qaeda leadership has done from its mountain sanctuary along the Afghanistan–Pakistan (Af–Pak) border, and which, to its regret, the young al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) organization did not do, instead relying upon direction communications vial cellular

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phone, which led to their annihilation by the lethal cyber-counterattack led by the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) under General Stanley A. McChrystal. The Zapatistas were one of the first rebellions that leveraged the rapidly expanding internet as a medium for organizing and strategic communications, creating the template that many others would follow, most notably the global jihadist movement, similarly an indigenous rebellion against the same modern, corrupt states that the Zapatistas found so offensive and oppressive, and which through the integrating international economy became part of the global economic system that America largely created after World War II, and fully dominated after the Cold War’s integration of East and West. As Cleaver explained, the “Net provides new spaces for new political discussions about democracy, revolution and self- determination but it does not provide solutions to the differences that exist; it is merely a means to accelerate the search for such solutions”; he adds that the “most directly relevant struggle in which the power of such international linkages began to become apparent in the period before January 1994 was in the organization of resistance to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Coalitions of dozens of groups of workers, farmers, women, students, environmentalists, and the indigenous concerned with the threats posed by the neo-liberal strategy of ‘free trade’ were able to establish working relationships—periodically through meetings and regularly through The Net. . . . The cyberspacial connections that were forged and strengthened during that struggle were still in place and functioning when the Zapatistas declared NAFTA a ‘death sentence’ for the indigenous and campesinos.”29 Thus what started as an indigenous rebellion by a marginalized, underdeveloped population became the world’s very first cyberwar: “Over time,” Cleaver recounts, “the state and its strategists have become acutely aware of the effectiveness of this new form of struggle and have begun to take steps to counteract it. Both sides are now active in the cyberspacial dimension of a war which has raged out of Chiapas across Mexico and the world. The ways in which these networks have been effectively used within the larger framework of struggle deserve the closest attention by all those fighting for a democratic and freer society.”30 Indeed, “it is clear that the Mexican state is well aware of the way The Net is being used to undermine its credibility and challenge its policies. This became publicly evident when Jose Angel Guru, Mexican Secretary of State, told an April 1995 gathering of businessmen at the World Trade Center that the conflict in Chiapas was a ‘war of ink, of the written word and a war of the

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Internet.’”31 He describes how the network effect was leveraged by the Zapatistas in their struggle: As the dual phenomena of a rapidly growing pro-democracy movement and an increasingly unstable and desperate ruling party have became more and more apparent, peoples’ sense that things could change significantly in Mexico has grown. As the multiplying flows of information, analysis and debate have provided the sense of collective concern and organizing necessary for committed forms of action, increased numbers of caravans and observers have gone to Chiapas, less to “learn what is happening” than to curb state abuses and bring aid and solidarity to those suffering the brutalities of the state’s counterinsurgency strategy of so-called “low intensity warfare,” i.e., a generalized terror campaign against all viewed as sympathetic to the EZLN and radical change. In turn, political innovation in Chiapas, from the CND through the formation of a Rebel Government of Transition to the EZLN’s calls for a broad-based Liberation Movement and a general plebiscite have circulated to the rest of Mexico and beyond.32

Anatomy of a Netwar In their RAND Report, “A Comment on the Zapatista ‘Netwar,’” David Ronfeldt and Armando Martínez described how the Zapatista insurgency became a “netwar,” noting that on “New Year’s Day 1994, some two to four thousand insurgents of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) occupied six towns in Chiapas, declared war on the Mexican government, proclaimed radical demands, and mounted a global media campaign for support and sympathy. Through its star-quality spokesman ‘Subcomandante Marcos,’ the EZLN broadcast its declarations through press releases, conferences, and interviews, and invited foreign observers and monitors to Chiapas.”33 Mexico responded as one might expect any state when faced with the outbreak of an insurgency: “It ordered army and police forces to suppress the insurrection, and downplayed its size, scope, and sources, in keeping with official denials in 1993 that guerrillas existed in Chiapas. The rebels were characterized as ‘just 200 individuals with vague demands,’ and foreign influences from Guatemala and other parts of Central America were blamed. The government tried to project a picture of stability to the world, claiming this was an isolated, local conflict.”34

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But as Ronfeldt and Martínez observed, “during the few days that the EZLN held ground, it upstaged the government,”35 and: It called a press conference and issued communiqués to disavow Marxist or other standard ideological leanings. It denied all ties to Central American revolutionaries. It clarified that its roots were indigenous to Mexico, and its demands were national as well as local in scope. It appealed for nation-wide support for its agenda—which included respect for indigenous peoples; a true political democracy, to be achieved through the resignation of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the installation of a multi-party transition government, and legitimate and fair elections; and the enactment of social and economic reforms, including repeal of revisions in 1992 to Article 27 of the Constitution governing land tenure, and, by implication, the reversal of NAFTA. In addition, the EZLN called on civil society to engage in a nation-wide struggle for social, economic, and political reforms, but not necessarily by taking up arms.36 They noted that the “EZLN’s insurrection and the government’s response aroused dozens if not hundreds of representatives of numerous humanrights, indigenous-rights, and other types of activist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to ‘swarm’—electronically as well as physically— out of the United States, Canada, and elsewhere into Mexico City and Chiapas” where “they linked up with Mexican NGOs to voice sympathy if not solidarity with the EZLN’s demands. They began to press nonviolently for a cease-fire, military withdrawal, government negotiations with the EZLN, democratic reforms, and for access by the NGOs to monitor conditions in the affected zones. This active response by a multitude of NGOs to a distant upheaval—the first major case anywhere—was no anomaly. It built on decades of organizational and technological groundwork, and shows how the global information revolution is affecting the nature of social conflict.”37 While NGO activism is not new, what became apparent during the Zapatista rebellion was how advanced NGO networking and information operations has become, largely as a result of their intensive efforts during the Central America wars of the 1970s and 1980s, during which the “spread of fax machines and e-mail systems enabled the NGOs to move news items out of El Salvador and into the media, to inundate U.S. government in-boxes with protests and petitions, and to challenge what the NGOs regarded as disinformation.”38 Ronfeldt and Martínez

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find no evidence that the Zapatistas anticipated that “activist NGOs could—and would—swarm to support them,” but as they turned their attention to Mexico, the Zapatistas “proved entirely receptive, and the artful Subcomandante Marcos clarified that a new model of conflict and transformation was emerging and being tested”—and rejecting various Marxist models that believed the “army or party must seize power as the vanguard of socialist revolution,” the Zapatistas instead presented an agenda calling for increased autonomy and democracy, which “sounded more reformist than revolutionary.”39 The EZLN thus proclaimed that it did “not want state power. It is civil society that must transform Mexico,” and in “this doctrine, the mobilization of civil society—not the expansion of the insurgents’ army—is the key strategic element.”40 And thus in the months and years since, Marcos and the EZLN “worked ceaselessly to keep foreign journalists, intellectuals, and activists focused on, and present in, the conflict zone. They have used ‘information operations’ to deter and counteract the government’s military operations.”41 Ronfeldt and Martínez believe that this “transnational social netwar has been partially effective,” and “helped impel two Mexican presidents to halt military operations and turn to political dialogue and negotiations,” events in which “transnational netwar was a major contributing factor, including in riling up media attention and alarming foreign investors. And this activism was made possible by networking capabilities that have emerged only recently as a result of the information revolution.”42 The events that unfolded in Chiapas marked but the first case of netwar, and the implications of that struggle, and the global information network that came to define it, extend far beyond the forests of Central America where the Zaptista rebellion began. The Zapatista experience “indicates that social netwar can be waged effectively where a society is open, or slowly beginning to open up” and “where the activists have a welldeveloped communications infrastructure at their disposal for purposes of rapid consultation and mobilization.”43 They thus found that Mexico “provides a much more susceptible environment for social netwar than do more closed societies (e.g., Burma, Cuba, and Iran) that are not yet fully connected to the Internet.”44 But in time, even these more closed societies would enter the internet age, making such hitherto unseen, and unforeseen, phenomena as Iran’s Green Revolution, sometimes called a Twitter Revolution, become possible, or the cell-phone powered insurgency in post-Saddam Iraq, which leveraged the emergent information infrastructure to coordinate its assault on the Coalition Forces that had, ironically, liberated these self-same social forces from Saddam’s

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long tyranny, ending that country’s isolation. As Ronfeldt and Martínez describe, the Zapatistas’ template for netwar, and the “swarm” of NGOs that came to their aid, “hints at the kind of doctrine and strategy that can make social netwar effective for transnational NGOs,” with two distinct components: “1. Make civil society the vanguard—work to build a ‘global civil society’ and link it to local NGOs; 2. make ‘information’ and ‘information operations’ the decisive weapon—demand freedom of access and information, capture media attention, and use all kinds of information and communications technologies. Where this is feasible, netwarriors may be able to put strong pressure on state and market actors, without aspiring to seize power through violence and force of arms.”45

Netwar Comes of Age The state has certainly taken notice of this challenge, and is endeavoring to respond effectively, including “interesting efforts by public policy analysts to reconceptualize the potential political ramifications of grassroots challenges to the nation-state via cyberspace” such as “the work of RAND scholar David Ronfeldt and his co-author John Arquilla of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, who have elaborated the concept of ‘netwar.’ In their view, the Zapatista use of the Internet and similar phenomena represent not only a threat but an organizational innovation to which the nation-state must respond if it is to avoid increasingly frequent defeat.”46 Cleaver adds that “[i]n addition, Ronfeldt and Arquilla call for the recasting of the organization of the nation state from its traditional hierarchical lines to those of networks, thus adopting and adapting to the forces arrayed against it.”47 There is some evidence that “the state, both at the national and supranational level, is responding to the challenges from grassroots networks not merely by resisting their influences, but also by adopting similar forms of organization in two fundamental ways: either by mutating its own structures or by co-opting and annexing those which challenge it.”48 Cleaver further elaborates: While the capacity of such grassroots groups for collective protest action has been clearly demonstrated, their potential for taking over or usurping the functions of the nation state and intergovernmental organizations will depend on their capacity to elaborate and implement alternative modes of decision-making and collective or complementary action to solve common problems. In some instances, such

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as the defense of human rights, environmental protection or the formulation of new constitutional frameworks for the protection of indigenous rights, this potential is being realized. So far, grassroots alternatives have demonstrated that imagination, creativity and insight can generate different approaches and new solutions to solving widespread problems. To the extent that such new solutions continue to proliferate and are perceived as being effective, the possibilities of replacing state functions with non-state collaboration will expand. At the same time, because such an expansion threatens the established interests of states and those who benefit from their support, government-led efforts to repress or co-opt such alternatives will continue. . . . In this drama we are but at the opening act.49 Cleaver discusses a 1993 report by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, then working at RAND, called “Cyberwar Is Coming!” in which “they formulate two related concepts: cyberwar and netwar—in both of which the role of information is central and critical. The former refers to military war making while the latter refers to ‘societal-level ideational conflicts waged in part through internetted modes of communication,’ ‘most often associated with low intensity conflict.’”50 He notes that “[w]ith their writing directed primarily at the U.S. government—with which they clearly identify—they warn that new forms of warfare must be developed appropriate to this new arena of power.”51 He describes their explanation for the etymological root of cyber, “pointing out that the Greek root ‘kybernan’ means to steer or govern. They like this prefix because it ‘bridges the fields of information and governance better than any other available prefix or term.’ Their discourse on threats to institutional power, especially that of states, therefore, fits within an older discourse on the contemporary problems of ‘governability.”52 Cleaver further notes that “[i]n another sector of RAND, even more closely integrated with the U.S. military, analysts have incorporated Arquilla and Ronfeldt’s ‘netwar’ preoccupations into war game modeling. A war game called ‘The Day After . . . in Cyberspace’ includes the activities of a fictional NGO called the Committee for Planetary Peace—‘an Internet-intensive, anti-U.S.-military group with suspected Iranian fundamentalists ties.’ In the game scenario this NGO is portrayed as ‘mobilizing all its chapters to thwart the U.S.’s “mad dash” to war.’ The parallels with pro-Zapatista, anti-war efforts to block the Mexican government’s military actions in Chiapas are striking.”53 In the real world of cyberwarfare, Cleaver observes, “there can be no doubt that the Mexican state has been expanding its overt presence

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in cyberspace both in Mexico and in the rest of the world” and that the “number of government agencies accessible on-line has been growing”; but he adds that the Mexican government’s “public propaganda strategy on the Internet is no different from its more general strategy vis a vis the EZLN: by minimizing public attention it seeks to create the illusion of stability and at the same time maximize the possibilities of either neutralization or suppression,” suggesting that “so far the traditional rigid structures of the PRI-party-state are merely reproducing their old habits in this new sphere. As a result, visiting such state sponsored sites is largely a waste of time if not a total dead-end. If, as a result, official spaces in The Net are bypassed and ignored, their political usefulness will be reduced. Clearly the government has not yet been able to achieve anything like an active counterinsurgency presence in The Net.”54 Indeed, Cleaver observes that: Despite scattered attacks by governments in various countries, the initiative in this area still lies almost entirely on the side of those using The Net for the circulation of struggle. So far, those attacks have been rather crude—police raids and censorship—and caused little disruption to the myriad flows of information and mobilization that continue to criss-cross the globe. The most effective capitalist initiatives in cyberspace have been the commercialization of the Internet and the use of electronic communications for organizing transnational corporate operations. These efforts, however, have not directly impeded the kinds of struggles I have been describing. Indeed, if anything they have provoked greater international organizing to offset the power of multinational capital.55 Cleaver cautions that “it would be dangerous to become complacent in this situation,” noting that “[j]ust because the state has not found effective ways of countering these struggles does not mean that it will not be able to come up with better tactics in the future.”56 Indeed, he notes that “[w]e have seen that our struggles are being observed and studied by the analysts and strategists of the state and of capital more generally. We must continue to monitor their monitoring to see where it leads them. We have seen that Arquilla and Ronfeldt have suggested that the U.S. government ‘may want to design new kinds of military units and capabilities for engaging in network warfare’.”57 Moreover, “such analysts see that ‘netwar’ is quite different from traditional forms of either guerrilla warfare or intelligence and counterintelligence warfare. Arquilla and

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Ronfeldt clearly understand that the broad-based, grassroots struggles being carried on in cyberspace (such as the pro-Zapatista efforts) primarily involve the open circulation and open discussion of political ideas, news about events and detailed reports about on-going situations. Clearly any kind of politically effective state response would have to go beyond covert disruption to sophisticated overt intervention.”58 And, “While this has yet to happen—to all appearances—it would hardly be without precedence. Indeed the epoch of the Cold War provided ample experience of how a sophisticated propaganda apparatus could be formed and wielded against ideological enemies, both real and imagined.”59 In just the first couple of years after the Zapatistas emerged from their jungle hideouts, facing down while hoping to transform their materially superior opponent, Cleaver observes, “as the struggles on The Net have moved from mobilization against military repression to the circulation of Zapatista ideas and the discussion of their political visions and programs, the conflicts in this electronic fabric of connections will increasingly take on all the complexity of the more general political, economic and social crises in Mexico.”60 Looking forward, he writes that the “future elaboration of flexible, interlinked, uncontrollable networks must be worked out at these increasing levels of complexity. While the experience of the circulation of the Zapatista uprising can teach us much about the ways in which rhizomatically organized, autonomous but linked groups can replace ‘the organization’ with its rigidities and hierarchies, we must still grapple with the problem of creating and recreating effective connections along a growing number of dimensions and directions of movement.”61 As Cleaver explains, this “rhizomatic pattern of collaboration has emerged as a partial solution to the failure of old organizational forms” and “has—by definition—no single formula to guide the kinds of elaboration required. The power of The Net in the Zapatista struggle has lain in connection and circulation, in the way widely dispersed nodes of antagonism set themselves in motion in response to the uprising in Chiapas.”62 But the “limits to that power lie both in the limits of the reach of The Net (as we have seen it does not connect everyone) and in the kinds of connections established,” as many web-based movements for social change have discovered as they have sought to migrate from the electronic domain to a more complex reality.63 But even in the widely watched grassroots “insurgency” waged by Democratic hopeful Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont who sought to challenge the Democratic Party establishment for the presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential race, at one point, the online community amongst

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which support is strongest must successfully interface with the broader, offline world. But when the first real vote took place, the Dean campaign was unmasked as a web-based cult that had been preaching to the converted but not converting those to whom their army of volunteers preached. Dean’s campaign quickly collapsed and the candidate briefly fell from grace—though he remains popular with grassroots activists for putting them front and center and served a respectable term as head of the Democratic National Committee before being pushed aside by team Obama. And Dean’s web organizers now command top dollar from insider candidates who learned their lesson, and know now not to leave their flank exposed to a concerted cyber-insurgency by a well-organized movement intent on seizing power through the democratic process— though one might argue that the social-movement president, Barack H. Obama, rose to power in just such a manner, with smoothly operating web operations fueled by veterans of the Dean insurgency augmented by a well-oiled ground game that won the coveted Iowa caucus, an important stepping stone toward the Democratic nomination and the scene of Dean’s collapse (and infamous “scream”). And so, in the American political space, the web has become one more medium candidates aim to manipulate through effective PR, at least until a truly revolutionary movement coalesces. As Cleaver observes, within the Zapatista context: “We have seen how The Net helps to overcome isolation and division. It can dramatically accelerate the circulation of struggle. Yet, because the number of divisions are so great and the points of isolation are so numerous, it is clear that no individual, nor any one group, can competently grasp the whole in its particulars.”64 Referring again to Arquilla and Ronfeldt, Cleaver writes: Those who have sought to govern have long recognized this problem. Arquilla and Ronfeldt think of it in terms of the relationship between hierarchies and networks, “Our preliminary view is that the benefits of decentralization may be enhanced if, to balance the possible loss of centralization, the high command gains topsight . . . the view of the overall conflict.” . . . We must abandon the perspective of command and control in favor of consultation and coordination. The problem then, is not to substitute a better “high command,” but to create a world with no command at all. Such a world would have many different “views” of the whole and be involved in an endless dialogue about its nature, but without the object of control. If the cooperative

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networks of indigenous peoples have demonstrated the possibility of such a world, continuing invention of The Net has shown how the sinew, or communicative nerve-fiber, of such a world might function. Thus the problems in Chiapas and in the internet are similar: how to continue the elaboration of new kinds of cooperation and selfdetermination while preventing the imposition of centralized monopolistic control.65

Technology Strikes Back: Harnessing Disruption—Strategy for the Information Age After the Zapatistas burst forth from their jungle sanctuary on January 1, 1994, to declare war against globalization, modernization, and assimilation into the new economic order, they launched what many observers have described as history’s first netwar—leveraging the proliferation of new, global information networks to foster direct people-to-people alliances to bolster their strength against both the wealthier and more powerful Mexican state, and the US-armed and conventionally superior Mexican armed forces, augmenting the raw people-power contained in their popular rebellion by interconnecting their movement with other peoples and civil society movements around the world, thereby forming a trans-state network of peoples disconnected from their states and from their armed forces, not unlike the wave of civil society movements that rose up and toppled the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, or even the trans-state Jihadist movement that would rise up even more dramatically on 9/11. The Zapatistas followed in the footsteps of the many insurgent groups that rose up to challenge Central America’s military dictatorships during the 1970s and 1980s, aligning with global solidarity movements to reduce their isolation and to counterbalance the strategic partnerships their governments forged with the United States and its armed forces; whether it was NISGUA in solidarity with the largely Mayan rebels in Guatemala’s half-century long civil war, or CISPES that internationalized the struggle of the FMLN guerrillas fighting to overthrow the equally repressive regime in San Salvador, a foundation had been laid in the generation that preceded the EZLN’s emergence from the Lacandon jungle—but one cobbled together with fax machines and letter-writing campaigns, but constrained by the fact that the

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internet had not yet emerged to transform the strategic environment. Once netwar emerged in the 1990s, the many modern states confronting insurgent challenges were compelled to follow suit, recognizing their vulnerability to this exposed information flank and determined to counter the new asymmetrical threat presented by netwar, adapting their strategic concepts to expand the strategic environment from land, sea, air, and space to now include the virtual realm of information networks. Before 9/11, only a handful of strategic thinkers recognized the enormity of this transformation to the strategic environment that was fostered by the newly emergent information networks known collectively as the web, and which Matrix-like increasingly connects us all, whether indigenous freedom-fighters in the jungles of Central America or the Islamist fighters waging jihad along the Af–Pak border. After 9/11, recognition of this strategic transformation became universal. Before we can truly understand the complex digital landscape of the Long War, we must first turn to the ideas of the principal theorists, futurists, and apostles of technology who have guided us into this new asymmetrical age, to gain some perspectives and prognoses on the ultimate impact that technology may have, and some context to the new digital landscape of the ongoing terror war.

Info Warfare in the Age of Asymmetry: The Disruptive Technology Framework Yale management and political science professor Paul Bracken, who teaches a popular undergraduate course on “Strategy, Technology, and War,” presented the first of the Rocco Martino Lectures on Innovation on May 12, 2008, from which his June 2008 article, “Technological Innovation and National Security,” was derived. In it, he notes how of “the United States’ $600 billion defense budget, at least 40–50 percent goes to technology,” and behind these large numbers, that “[t]technology issues are extremely important in national security.”66 He notes that perhaps “the most popular common way of looking at technological innovation and national security in the U.S. is, ‘Are we still ahead?’”67 Noting that “for the first time, China will spend more on R&D than Japan” and that “China is really going into technology in a big way,” Bracken believes that it’s natural to ask this question. So the question “Can we keep the lead?” is appropriate at this juncture.68

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Even in asymmetrical contests between state and substate actors, the technological balance matters—as witnessed between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006: “Hezbollah, a semi-military organization, with a few thousand people, was able to resist the Israeli Defense Forces, the strongest army in the Middle East. Hezbollah used technology to match its tactics, knowing that if it took on Israel in a direct, headto-head war with conventional forces, it would not stand a chance.”69 From this Bracken concludes: “This is all very suggestive of what other countries are going to do when they look at the U.S. Fighting the U.S. with advanced conventional forces is suicide. Fighting in others ways is not.”70 And this is precisely how events have unfolded in the battlespaces of Afghanistan and Iraq, where quick conventional defeats before the netcentric combination of precision and lethality delivered by the United States as described by Cebrowski would later confront the tactical and strategic resiliency of its defeated opponents. Bracken considers the challenge presented by disruptive technologies, which mirrors the transformative role of technology as foreseen by Vice Admiral Cebrowski, and which has dominated much mind-share in the information technology (IT) analytical community in recent years. As Bracken notes, disruptive technology is a term “widely used in the Pentagon, CIA, and industry today to mean a big game-changer,” and is distinct from “sustaining technologies” that keep industry leaders in their positions of dominance.71 “Certain technologies reinforce the power of the industry leader. Others disrupt that position. They favor new upstart companies or countries that are trying to break into the big leagues.”72 He argues that “cheap rockets and simple cruise missiles are disruptive technologies because if other countries such as China and Iran and non-state actors like Hezbollah get them, they’re very simple to operate, do not cost a lot of money, and they make life horrible for the sustaining technology player, the U.S.”73 Bracken’s conceptualization seems to better balance the adaptive and resilient response by America’s opponents that Cebrowski hypothesized would be overwhelmed by the victory America locked-in through its netcentric advantage, and to more accurately imagine the diffusion of technology across the exaggerated gap separating the leviathan from the gap states in Cebrowski’s and his protégé Thomas P. M. Barnett’s vision. To Bracken, these newer, cheaper technologies of war can challenge the sustaining power through their disruption in the technological balance, enabling a weaker, and even a substate, opponent to offset the military advantage of the seemingly all-powerful but in actual fact

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vulnerable superpower. It was much the same during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, where easy-to-use and US and Saudi subsidized shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles counterbalanced the USSR’s overwhelming air superiority, thereby denying Moscow command of the skies and with it the ability to ensure the security of its occupying army. The Mujahideen, allied with the United States, taught future insurgents lessons in the inherent power of disruption that would find eager students amongst the Taliban and the Iraqi insurgents, and no doubt other insurgent groups from Hezbollah and Hamas to as far afield as the Tibetans and Uighurs of western China. The disruptive technology theory recognizes that technology is a double-edged sword, something earlier theorists of war understood in recognizing the offense–defense ambiguity of technological change, as chronicled by Bernard Brodie in his seminal work on sea power, Sea Power in the Machine Age. As Bracken describes, the disruptive technology argument “is interesting because it doesn’t just recognize game changers, it says there’s a dimension to this which advantages some countries over others. We’re putting technology into a larger management framework.”74 Bracken explains that in this struggle between sustainment and disruption, a technologically inferior opponent needs to achieve parity with his technologically superior foe, but rather must only achieve a minimum sufficiency. This could prove vital in the strategic relationship between China and the United States, where America maintains a considerable lead on almost all technological fronts, but where disruptive technology could potentially neutralize these advantages by enabling China to pose a more potent threat despite its technological disadvantages: “China today is developing a very substantial military capability. Is the gap closing? No. When it comes to quantum computing, nanotechnology, dense-wave division multiplexing, we are way ahead of the Chinese. But the Chinese only need to reach some midway level, far short of this. If you take some old technologies like over-the-horizon radar and marry them to cruise missiles, you will in future years, many believe, be able to kill anything on the surface of the ocean. . . . In ten years, the Chinese may be able to kill any target in the western Pacific out to 2,000 miles. This has enormous national security implications. Japan will be asking, what about us? Can the U.S. be a superpower but not operate in the western Pacific?”75 Bracken thus concludes that “it’s not the gap,” but simply that if China has “the ability to do this,” it may still “be way behind in other advanced technologies”—and still be able to effect “large geostrategic changes. That’s the insight of this Disruptive Technology framework.”76

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Bracken next considers what he calls sidewise technologies, which he attributes to Bob Panero whom Bracken worked with “at the Hudson Institute many years ago. He suggested looking at technologies that come out of the developing world compared to those of the U.S.”—noting that there may be a distinctly different mindset there.77 Old technologies considered obsolete in the West may find much utility in the developing world, as evident in the crude atomic bombs developed by Pakistan and North Korea, and under development in Iran: “They’re very primitive. But they go off.”78 So even older technology “dramatically changes military geography.”79 Bracken says it is much the same with over-thehorizon radar, “which China is using today” and “can be used to find big pieces of steel in the western Pacific, such as aircraft carriers,” and which the United States first deployed a half century ago.80 As Bracken put it: “Sidewise Technologies . . . get virtually no attention in the U.S. They don’t advance the state of the art like quantum computing or other more sophisticated innovations. So they are ignored, to our peril.”81 This is evident in the way the Iraq War so profoundly transitioned from decisive victory to potential quagmire or fiasco owing to the proliferation of IEDs, low-tech, low-yield, often primitive munitions deployed to harass an occupying army without really presenting a strategic or existential threat to that army. By attacking its mobility, however, it slows down that army, and in so doing, attacks a vulnerable pillar of netcentric warfare (NCW): speed. Bracken concluded his observations by noting how in his teaching at Yale School of Management, he has witnessed the “transformative effect of technology,” and asks, “Can the blitz speed of strategic advantage, which we know exists in the world of multinational corporate competition, not apply at the nation-state level? My view is that it does apply. There’s a very complex technology game going on among the U.S. and China. As well, the U.S. is trying to play India and Japan against China, using their national innovation systems.”82 And ultimately, because Bracken believes technology disruption is about changing the game and not necessarily trying to beat the dominant player’s hand: “Other countries don’t need to close the gap, they just need to meet their own security needs. If the U.S. Navy and Air Force cannot operate in the western Pacific, this changes world order dramatically. . . . Technology can dramatically and quickly change world order, and it’s happening as we speak.”83 But technology is, and has always been, a double-edged sword, and it can foster disruptive innovations on both sides of conflict. One case is in the increasingly salient realm of special operations, those

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highly mobile, and increasingly precise, applications of force well behind enemy lines, where the strategic environment often favors the defender, but where tactical innovation and the innovative use of technology can, briefly, provide an edge to offensive operations. One special interest is the Theory of Special Operations that was enunciated in 1993 by William H. McRaven, who, in his capacity as vice admiral and commander of the JSOC, oversaw the successful mission—deep inside Pakistani territory, a few hundred yards from one of that nation’s most prestigious military academies in a garrison city populated in large measure by retired military professionals—to kill Osama bin Laden. In March 2011, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recommended McRaven for promotion to four-star admiral and to head the US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida, in part because of the historic significance of his successful raid on bin Laden.

Strategic Disruption: William H. McRaven’s Theory of Special Operations McRaven authored a fascinating and comprehensive 604-page master’s thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School in June 1993—published 2 years later as Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice and described by The Tampa Tribune as a “must-read tome on special operations warfare”—which “develops a theory that explains why special operations succeed.”84 Nearly 18 years later, McRaven would gain international recognition for his command role overseeing the successful special ops mission that killed Osama bin Laden, a mission that met the theoretical criteria he had developed to the tee. In his 1993 thesis, “The Theory of Special Operations,” he explains his task was “important because successful special operations defy conventional wisdom”—in part because they “are usually numerically inferior to the enemy and generally these forces are attacking fortified positions,” which appears to violate Clausewitzian principles of war.85 As McRaven explains: “According to Carl von Clausewitz, both of these factors should spell defeat, and yet, time and again—these missions succeed.” Developing eight historical case studies, McRaven’s thesis “demonstrates how certain principles of special operations can be combined to achieve relative superiority. Relative superiority is the condition that exists when a smaller force gains a decisive advantage over a larger or well defended enemy,” a condition that can be achieved when special

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operations forces “have a simple plan, carefully concealed, realistically rehearsed and executed with surprise, speed, and purpose.”86 McRaven adds that “[t]his advantage is tenuous however, and is subject to the frictions of war,” but these frictions can be reduced if using one of the appropriate mission “profiles” he proposes that are designed to “hasten achievement of relative superiority.”87 McRaven reflected on how “[w]riting this thesis has been a magnificent obsession; a self-consuming struggle to find the truth about special operations” and of how his “pursuit of this goal gave me a chance to meet some of the finest warriors ever,” for whom “being a good warrior was not a part time job; it required the complete commitment of both mind and body. For these men, to approach war fighting with anything less than absolute dedication was unthinkable. It was their dedication to be totally prepared for combat, that led me to believe that there might be an ‘orderly approach’ to the chaos of war, ‘The Theory of Special Operations’ is an attempt to expose that order.”88 Within the broader “realm of military literature,” he notes, “there is much written on the theory of war, ranging from Herman Kahn’s thinking about the unthinkable, on the nuclear end of the spectrum, to Liddel Hart’s indirect warfare on the conventional end,” between which there can be found numerous “theories of war escalation and war termination, theories of revolution and counterrevolution, and theories of insurgency and counterinsurgency. There are general air power and sea power theories, and more specific theories on strategic bombing and amphibious warfare. Nowhere, however, is there a theory of special operations”89—until now. Among the selected works he cites as examples of each of these theories are: on nuclear war, Herman Kahn’s 1960 On Thermonuclear War; on war escalation/termination, Fred Charles Ikle’s 1991 Every War Must End; on revolution and counterrevolution, Chalmers Johnson’s 1982 Revolutionary Change; on insurgency and counterinsurgency, Nathan Leites’ and Charles Wolf, Jr.’s 1970 Rebellion and Authority: An Analytic Essay on Insurgency Conflicts; and Larry Cable’s 1986 Conflicts of Myth: The Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Vietnam War; on air power theory, Guilio Douhet’s classic 1942 The Command of the Air; on sea power theory, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s 1890 The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783; on strategic bombing, Lee Kennett’s 1982 A History of Strategic Bombing; on amphibious warfare, Jeter A.Isely’s and Philip A. Crowl’s 1951 The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War: Its Theory and Practice in the Pacific. The importance of introducing such a theory can be found in the counterintuitive way that a “successful special operation mission defies

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conventional wisdom by using a small force to defeat a much larger or well entrenched opponent.”90 His thesis thus aims to “demonstrate that through the use of certain principles of special operations, a small force can achieve relative superiority over the enemy,”91 adding in a note that relative superiority, “as it applies to the theory of special operations, should not be confused with Clausewitz’s relative superiority, which is defined by the concentration of superior strength at the geographically decisive point in a battle.”92 He further notes that “Relative superiority can be defined as a condition that exists when an attacking force, generally smaller, gains a decisive advantage over a larger or well defended enemy” after which “the attacking force is no longer at a disadvantage and has the initiative to exploit the enemy’s weaknesses and secure victory.”93 And, adds McRaven, “[a]lthough gaining relative superiority doesn’t guarantee success—it is necessary for success.”94 He proposes: “If we can determine, prior to an operation, the best way to achieve relative superiority, then we can tailor special operation’s planning and preparation to improve our chances of victory,” and with “eight case studies” he “will show how the theory can be applied in combat.”95 McRaven presents a “refined definition” for special operations as being “conducted by forces specially trained, equipped, and supported for a specific target whose destruction, elimination, or in the case of hostages, the rescue of, is a political or military imperative,” which he describes as being “not consistent with official Joint Doctrine which broadly defines special operations to include psychological operations, civil affairs and reconnaissance.”96 As defined by the Joint Doctrine, “currently promulgated as TEST PUB JOINT PUB 3–05,” special operations are “conducted by specially organized, trained, and equipped military and paramilitary forces to achieve military, political, economic, or psychological objectives by unconventional military means in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive areas. These operations are conducted during peacetime competition, conflict, and war, independent or in coordination with operations of conventional, nonspecial operations forces. Politico-military considerations frequently shape special operations, requiring clandestine, covert, or low visibility techniques and oversight at the national level. Special operations differ from conventional operations in the degree of physical and political risk, operational techniques, modes of employment, independence from friendly support, and dependence on detailed operational intelligence and indigenous assets.”97 While McRaven’s eight case studies “are closely aligned to what joint Pub 3–05 defines as a direct action mission” in contrast to the latter, they

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“were always on a strategic or operational level and had the advantage of virtually unlimited resources and national level intelligence,”98 further noting “Joint Pub 3–05 states that direct action missions are ‘to achieve specific, well defined, and often time-sensitive results or strategic, operational, or critical tactical significance’” and “involve attacks on critical targets, interdictions or critical Line of Communications, location, capture, of recovery of personnel or material or the seizure, destruction, or neutralization of critical facilities.”99 McRaven’s “refined definition also implies that special operations can be conducted by ‘non-special operations’ personnel, such as those airmen who conducted Dolittle’s raid on Tokyo or the submariners involved in the raid on the German battleship TIRPITZ.”100 McRaven discusses the uniqueness of special operations, noting that they are “conducted against fortified positions, whether that position be a battleship surrounded by antitorpedo net (the British midget submarine raid on the TIRPITZ), a mountain retreat guarded by Italian troops (Skorzeny’s rescue of Mussolini), a POW camp (Ranger raid on Cabanatuan, U.S. Special Forces raid on Son Tay) or a hijacked airliner (German antiterrorist unit (GSES) hostage rescue in Mogadishu),” and “[t]hese fortified positions reflect situations involving defensive warfare on the part of the enemy,” which, as Clausewitz defined, is “intrinsically stronger than the offense” and “contributes resisting power, the ability to preserve and protect oneself,” forcing offensive warfare to therefore “develop enough force to overcome the inherent superiority of the enemy’s defense.”101 McRaven explains that for Clausewitz, “to defeat ‘the stronger form of warfare’ an Army’s best weapon is superior numbers,” and he cites Clausewitz as writing that “superiority of numbers admittedly is the most important factor in the outcome of an engagement, so long as it is great enough to counterbalance all other contributing circumstances. It thus follows that as many troops as possible should be brought into the engagement at the decisive point.”102 While “[n]o soldier would argue the benefit of superior numbers,” McRaven notes that “if it were ‘the most important factor,’ how could 69 German commandos defeat a Belgian force of 750 soldiers protected by the largest, most extensive fortress of its time—the fort at Eben Emael? How can a special operation’s force that has the disadvantage of attacking the stronger form of warfare and has inferior numbers gain relative superiority over the enemy? To understand this paradox, is to understand special operations.”103 Indeed, relative superiority is the concept McRaven presents as being “crucial to the Theory of Special Operations” and whose value “lies in the concept’s

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ability to illustrate what positive forces influence the success of a mission, and equally important, to see how the frictions of war affect the achievement of that goal.”104 McRaven adds that relative superiority is “the pivotal moment in an engagement,”105 which can happen in the early moments of the engagement, or even before it commences. It is also “frequently” the “point of greatest risk” but once it is achieved “the probability of success strongly outweighs the probability of failure.”106 But for victory to come, relative superiority “must be sustained,” and that “frequently requires the intervention of the moral factors (courage, intellect, boldness, and perseverance).”107 Moreover: “ If relative superiority is lost, it is difficult to regain,” and as “[a]n inherent weakness in special forces is their lack of firepower relative to a large conventional force,” once “they lose relative superiority, they lose the initiative, and the stronger form of warfare generally prevails.”108 That is why McRaven believes the “key to a special operations mission is to gain relative superiority early in the engagement. The longer an engagement continues the more likely the will of the enemy and chance and uncertainty, the frictions of war, will affect the outcome.”109 In the eight case studies McRaven presents, relative superiority as a concept is “portrayed through the use of a Relative Superiority Graph” with two axes—the x axis showing time and the y axis showing the probability of mission completion; the graph thus “illustrates how achieving relative superiority is affected by the positive and negative factors of war,” providing “a visual demonstration” of its “three properties”—“the pivotal moment can be seen as a dramatic rise in the Probability of Mission Completion; sustaining relative superiority is a gradual rise from the pivotal moment to Mission Completion; and a decisive drop in the Probability of Mission Completion shows a loss of relative superiority.”110 McRaven explains that in the graph, the intersection of the x and y axes mark “the Point of Vulnerability (PV)” which is “the point in a mission when the attacking force reaches the enemy’s first line of defenses” where “the frictions of war (chance, uncertainty and the will of the enemy) will begin to impinge upon the success of the engagement.”111 But the precise “Point of Vulnerability is somewhat arbitrary, and the exact location can be debated.”112 And, “Although the frictions of ‘war’ can affect a mission even in the planning phase,” McRaven has “elected to define the Point of Vulnerability as an aspect of the engagement phase.”113 The “Area of Vulnerability (AV) is a function of mission completion over time,” and “[t]he longer it takes to reach relative superiority the greater will be the Area of Vulnerability, and hence the greater the impact of the frictions

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of war. The graph also shows the critical events leading up to relative superiority and when the mission was completed.”114 McRaven concedes that there are indeed “factors in war over which we have little control,” but his Theory of Special Operations “shows that there are six principles, which can be ‘controlled,’” and which thus “have an effect on relative superiority.”115 These six principles of special operations, derived from McRaven’s analysis of the eight historical case studies, are simplicity, security, repetition, surprise, speed and purpose; they “dominated every successful mission,” and if any were “overlooked, disregarded or bypassed, there was invariably a failure of some magnitude.”116 Moreover, these six principles “allowed special operations forces to achieve relative superiority.” McRaven originally had considered the eight cases with reference to “the United States Army’s ‘Principles of War’ as defined in the Doctrine for Joint Special Operations,” which include objective, offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise, and simplicity, but that upon “careful examination of these cases some of the ‘Principles of War’ were eliminated or modified to more accurately reflect their relationship to a special operation.”117 Importantly, McRaven explains that large forces cannot “use these principles to gain relative superiority” as it is “strictly the purview of small forces,” though he notes “[t]his is not to imply that large forces cannot gain some element of surprise or use speed to achieve their goals” but rather than “gaining relative superiority requires proper integration of all six principles,” and furthermore, “[b]y virtue of their size, it is difficult for large forces to develop a simple plan, keep their movements concealed, conduct detailed full dress rehearsals (down to the individual soldier’s level), gain tactical surprise and speed on target, and motivate all the soldiers in the unit to a single goal.”118 And, noting “Clausewitz states the obvious when he says, ‘The greater the magnitude of any event, the wider the range of forces and circumstances that effect it,’” McRaven observes that “[l]arge forces are more susceptible to the frictions of war,” whereas the “Principles of Special Operations work, because they seek to reduce warfare to its simplest level, and thereby limit the negative effects of chance and uncertainty.”119 In order to achieve relative superiority, McRaven points out that “the practitioner of special operations must take account of the principles in the three phases of an operation; planning, preparation, and execution,” each of which “is interconnected and relies on the others for support”; thus, “if a plan is not simple, it will be difficult to conceal the operation’s

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intent, and even more difficult to rehearse. And, if the operation is difficult to conceal and rehearse, it will be near impossible to execute with surprise, speed and purpose.”120 McRaven adds that the “correlation between simplicity, security, and repetition is clear; if a plan is complex it will require extraordinary security, and an overabundance of security hinders effective preparation. In the preparation phase, proper security and constant repetition have a direct impact on the attacking force’s ability to gain surprise and speed in the execution phase. Clausewitz in his discussion on surprise says, that ‘Surprise will never be achieved under lax conditions [poor security] and conduct.’ Good security ensures that conditions, in the preparation phase, remain ‘tight’ to prevent the enemy from gaining a disastrous advantage.”121 And, McRaven further writes: “Constant repetition, as manifested in training and premission rehearsals, is the link between the principle of simplicity in the planning phase, and the principles of surprise and speed in the execution phase,” as “[c]onstant, realistic rehearsals will improve the attacking force’s ability to quickly execute the mission, particularly under combat conditions.”122 McRaven’s sixth principle is purpose, and he explains that a “sense of purpose, namely the understanding of the mission’s objectives and a personal commitment to see these objectives achieved, is vital to achieving relative superiority,” and “[a]lthough the principle of purpose is most apparent in the execution phase, all the phases must focus on the purpose of the mission,” since “[k]nowing the purpose of the mission will reduce the extraneous objectives, isolate the intelligence required, tailor OPSEC requirements, focus the rehearsals, and in combat, ensure the efforts of the commander or individual soldier an centered on what is important—the mission.”123 McRaven presents a figure that “graphically represents the idea that Special Operations Forces succeed, in spite of their numerical inferiority, when they are able to gain relative superiority through the use of a simple plan, carefully concealed, repeatedly and realistically rehearsed, and executed with surprise, speed and purpose. Failure results when the frictions of war overcome the moral factors.”124 McRaven next defines the six principles of special operations, noting first that simplicity is “the most crucial, and yet sometimes the most difficult principle, with which to comply,” and “[t]here are three elements of simplicity critical to success: limiting the number of objectives; good intelligence; and innovation.”125 The second principle is security, and McRaven explains that the “purpose of ‘tight’ security is to prevent the enemy from gaining an unfair advantage through foreknowledge of the impending attack,” but since “the nature of special operations is to

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attack a fortified position,” it thus “naturally follows, whether in war time or peace, that the enemy is ‘prepared’ for an attack. Therefore it is not so much the impending mission that must be concealed, but the timing and to a lesser degree the means of insertion.”126 McRaven notes that security, “although frequently pervasive on the part of the special forces personnel,” will not necessarily “prevent the enemy from preparing for an assault” but “[g]ood special operations succeed in spite of defensive preparation on the part of the enemy.”127 Security is nonetheless not a “trivial matter” and “should be as tight as possible, provided it does not unduly impede the preparation or execution of the operation,” since it “prevents the enemy from gaining an unexpected advantage.”128 Plus, a “failed security effort could result in the enemy preparing a surprise of his own and subsequently preempting the attack or reducing the speed on target, both of which would dramatically reduce the possibility of achieving relative superiority.”129 The third principle discussed by McRaven is repetition, which is like routine—of which Clausewitz observed, “apart from its sheer inevitability,” it “also contains one positive advantage. Constant practice leads to brisk, precise, and reliable leadership, reducing natural friction and easing the working of the machine. In short routine will be more frequent and indispensable, the lower the level of action.”130 McRaven adds to this: “In the preparation phase, repetition, like routine, is indispensible in eliminating the barrier to success.”131 He points out that “[c]ertain combat units, such as counterterrorist teams” and “SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams, perform standard mission profiles as a ‘matter of routine.’ This routine hones those tactical skills to such a degree that it allows quick reaction to a threat (provided that threat fits within the standard scenario for which the unit has been practicing)” but adds that “[m]ost special operations, however, vary enough from the standard scenario that new equipment and tactics must be brought to bear on the problem. When this occurs it is essential to conduct at least one, preferably two, full dress rehearsals prior to the mission. The plan that sounded ‘simple’ on paper must now be put to the test.’”132 Indeed, this “need for a full dress rehearsal is borne out time and again by those missions (or aspects of missions) that failed during the rehearsal or were not rehearsed and failed during the actual mission.”133 Fourth is the principle of surprise, which, as defined in the Doctrine for Joint Special Operations, is “the ability to ‘Strike the enemy at a time or place, or in a manner, for which he is unprepared.’ Yet, in all the special operations examined, the enemy was entirely prepared to counter

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an offensive action . . . and yet, surprise was achieved in all instances.”134 McRaven adds that special operations forces “do not generally have the luxury of attacking the enemy when, or where, he is unprepared. Such forces must attack in spite of enemy preparation. Surprise means catching the enemy off guard. This subtle difference is not mere semantics. Like two boxers in a ring, each is prepared to parry the other fighter’s punches, but even with preparation, punches are landed. In a special operation surprise is gained through deception, timing, and taking advantage of the enemy’s vulnerabilities.”135 Adds McRaven: “Deception, when it works, either redirects the enemy’s attention away from the attacking force, or delays the enemy’s response long enough for surprise to be gained at the crucial moment.”136 Further, the time of day of an attack is also “a key factor in gaining surprise,” and while “[m]ost attacking forces prefer to assault a target at night, primarily because darkness provides cover, but also, because at night time the enemy is tired, less vigil and more susceptible to surprise,” McRaven has found that “[s]everal of the most successful special operations were conducted in daytime and achieved a high degree of surprise.”137 Importantly: “In special operations, the enemy will be prepared; the question is, when will he be least, prepared and what time of day most benefits the attacking force. Every defense has a weak point. Gaining surprise means exploiting such weakness.”138 McRaven adds that “[m]any tacticians consider the principle of surprise to be the most important factor in a successful special operation” but believes they “mistakenly believe that it is surprise which gives them the decisive advantage over the enemy, as if to say that by merely catching the enemy unprepared, the attacking force could win. This is not the case. Surprise is useless and indeed unachievable without the other principles.”139 The fifth principle is speed, which simply means: “Get to your objective as fast as possible. Any delay will expand your Area of Vulnerability and decrease your opportunity to achieve relative superiority.”140 Special operations differ from conventional military operations when it comes to speed; he cites Fleet Marine Force Manual (FMFM) 1–3 Tactics, which states: “‘As with all things in war, speed is relative.’ This statement implies that speed is related to the enemy’s ability to react. If the enemy isn’t reacting to your attack, then you have more time to spare. This may be true in conventional or large scale warfare, where the forces on a battlefield maneuver and adjust to certain tactical advances, but in special operations, the enemy is in a defensive position and his only desire is to counter your attack, Therefore, the enemy’s will to resist is a given, and his

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ability to react, a constant. Consequently, over time, the frictions of war, work only against the special operation’s forces and not the enemy. It is essential, therefore, to move as quickly as possible regardless of the enemy’s reaction.”141 McRaven notes that “[m]ost special operations involves [sic] direct, and in most cases, immediate, contact with the enemy, where minutes and seconds spell the difference between success and failure.”142 Of the eight case studies, “only one . . . took longer than thirty minutes to achieve relative superiority from the Point of Vulnerability” while “[i]n most of the other cases, relative superiority was achieved in five minutes and the missions were completed in thirty minutes.”143 Contributing to this accelerated time frame, McRaven writes that “[i]n order to gain surprise and speed, special forces are generally small and lightly armed, and therefore, are unable to sustain action against a conventional enemy for long periods of time.”144 McRaven further explains that speed is “a function of time, not as some imply, a relative factor that is effected [sic] by the enemy’s will to resist,” and relative superiority “can be gained, despite the efforts of the enemy, primarily because the attacking force moves with such speed, that the enemy’s reaction is not an [sic] factor.”145 The sixth and final principle of special operations is purpose, which is defined by McRaven as “understanding and then executing the prime objective of the mission regardless of emerging obstacles or opportunities.”146 He adds that “the purpose must be clearly defined by the mission statement,” and this “should be crafted to ensure that in the heat of battle (the execution phase), no matter what else happens, the individual soldier understands the primary objective.”147 McRaven notes that the “principle of purpose must not be confused with a moral factor,” which “exists outside the controllable boundaries” of the six principles and thus “cannot be planned for or anticipated.”148 He notes that the moral factor is a “Clausewitzian term which refers to soldierly virtues; in particularly [sic], boldness, courage, perseverance, and intellect.”149 McRaven observes how in our “age of high technology and ‘Jedi Knights’ we often overlook the need for personal involvement, but we do so at our own risk. As Clauaewitz warned: ‘Theorists are apt to look on fighting in the abstract as a trial of strength without emotion entering into it. This is one of a thousand errors which they quite consciously commit because they have no idea of the implications.’”150 In concluding his discussion of the six principles of special operations, McRaven comments that they “are not merely a derivative of the Amy’s Principles of War. They represent unique elements of warfare that only small forces possess and can employ effectively.”151 McRaven concludes

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his introduction with a discussion of the case study method that he employs to “develop these principles, and demonstrates that these principles are valid,” noting that his eight cases “span the entire spectrum of special operations from global conventional war to peacetime engagement” and “include missions conducted by United States, British, German, Israeli, and Italian forces, and executed from the sea, air and land.”152 His “approach to multiple mission analysis was fostered by the British military strategist B. H. Liddell Hart, who said ‘The method in recent generations has been to select one or two campaigns, and to study them exhaustively as a means of professional training and as the foundation of military theory. But with such a limited base the continual changes in military means from war to war carry the danger that our outlook will be narrow and the lessons fallacious.’”153 He concedes, “this methodology . . . is certainly not new—even within the field of special operations,” and notes Edward Luttwak, Steven Canby, and David Thomas authored A Systematic Review of ‘Commando’ (Special) Operations 1939–1980, with nine case studies reviewed therein, but which “extracts primarily organizational rules and planning and training methods,” and “addresses the operational aspects of special operations ‘only parenthetically.’”154 McRaven described his use of the case study methodology a “integral,” and he combined “interviews with key participants” with site visits “when possible”—finding this aspect of his research “unquestionably the most rewarding.”155 In seven of his eight cases, he was able to secure interviews with individual participants, who “provided personal insight into the success or failure of the mission and helped me formulate my theory in a clear, concise manner,” and who “also verified facts, corrected documentary errors, provided original documentation and photos, and in many cases, edited my rough drafts” and whenever he “could not confirm a salient fact by interview or official report, I ensured that at least three secondary sources were in agreement on the point,” and it was “from this original research that the Principles of Special Operations, which subsequently led to the understanding of relative superiority and the development of the theory, were derived.”156 The eight case studies presented by McRaven are “divided into six sections which include the following: the background, which provides the military or political justification for the operation; the objective to include a detailed look at the target and the enemy order of battle; the commandos, a biography of the units (when available) and key personnel who led the missions; the training or preliminary events; the mission, including a description of the events during the engagement; and an analysis of the operation.”157

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As presented, his “analysis begins with an essay on the outcome of the mission, which is followed by a series of questions designed to flesh out the merit of the plan and its subsequent execution” that include: “Were the objectives worth the risk . . . not only to lose human lives, but loss of military or political advantage,” and “[i]f the risks are considered valid, was the plan developed to achieve maximum superiority over the enemy and minimize the risk to the assault force?”158 And, “[i]f the plan was sound, was the mission executed in accordance with the plan, and if not what extenuating circumstances dictated the outcome of the operation?”159 And, “[f]inally, what modifications of the plan, and the execution, could have improved the final results?”160 His analysis “also includes a Relative Superiority Graph followed by an examination of the six Principles of Special Operations.”161 McRaven’s analysis of these eight historical cases, he writes, “show that relative superiority, although an abstract concept, does exist and that the Theory of Special Operations is a powerful tool to explain victory and defeat.”162 In the conclusion of his thesis, McRaven turns again to Clausewitz, noting that Peter Paret in his book Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power (1992) “outlines Clausewitz’s thoughts on what constitutes an effective theory of warfare. First and foremost, a theory must have a powerful capacity to explain. It must be able to show the relationship between the past and the present. It must not be constrained by the temporary trends in military philosophy or technology, and it must be ‘sufficiently flexible . . . [with] potential for further development.’ If a theory possesses these characteristics then the student of war, using his experience and knowledge will be able to make judgements about the future of warfare.”163 McRaven believes that his Theory of Special Operations “meets these criteria by using historical case studies to link the past and the present,” noting they “span time and nationality and are not subject to trends in military thought or practice. The theory, particularly as expressed in the Relative Superiority Graph, has ample room for development and provides a framework from which to make judgements about future operations. Most importantly, the theory explains why special operations succeed,” and “postulates that special operations forces are able to achieve relative superiority over the enemy if they prepare a simple plan, which is carefully concealed, repeatedly and realistically rehearsed and executed with surprise, speed and purpose. Once relative superiority is achieved, the attacking force is no longer at a disadvantage and has the initiative to exploit the enemy’s defenses and secure victory.”164 Achieving relative superiority alone “does

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not guarantee success” but “no special operation can succeed without it. Consequently, by demonstrating how special operations forces achieve relative superiority; the theory can explain the success or failure of a mission”; based on his case study analysis, he found that “those missions which adhered to the six Principles of Special Operations achieved relative superiority,” and while the missions profiled enjoyed “varying degrees of success,” McRaven notes “there were aspects of certain missions that failed to adhere to the principles and suffered the consequences.”165 McRaven uses the Relative Superiority Graph to “show the relationship between theory and reality,” and how “[i]n most of the cases, the Area of Vulnerability, which represents the frictions of war/will of the enemy, was minimal and relative superiority was achieved quickly. In those cases where the Area of Vulnerability expanded, we were able to see the tenuous nature of success. . . . If we accept the need for relative superiority and the relationship between relative superiority and the Area of Vulnerability; then we can make some judgements about the viability of future special operations.”166 The Relative Superiority Graph, while “not a quantitative mission analysis, nevertheless . . . illustrates the relationship between certain crucial factors in a special operation” and “[m]ost importantly . . . shows the need to quickly gain relative superiority and the importance of reducing the Area of Vulnerability.”167 Asks McRaven, “How can the Area of Vulnerability be reduced to improve the chance of mission success? The best approach, of course, is to enter the engagement with relative superiority,” which “can be accomplished by stealth,” and the “key is to develop a plan that makes the enemy’s defenses ineffective, and ‘guarantees’ an advantage before one reaches the Point of Vulnerability. Another way to reduce the Area of Vulnerability is to reduce the point at which the attacking force becomes vulnerable,” which “means pushing the Point of Vulnerability closer to Mission Completion. In a practical sense this means developing enhanced insertion platforms that limit the detectability of the attacking force until the last possible minute.”168 As well, “ [i]ntelligence should also be improved to help determine the extent of the enemy’s defenses. By knowing how far the defenses extend from the target and how sophisticated they are, the attacking force can determine its Point of Vulnerability and take steps to reduce it.”169 But “[i]f the Point of Vulnerability cannot be pushed closer to the target, then an alternate approach may be to limit what constitutes Mission Completion,” and “by limiting what constitutes Mission Completion, less effort will be needed to reach relative superiority.”170

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Other lessons derived from the Relative Superiority Graph show “why certain mission types, such as a holding action, are not conducive to special operations,” and in the case of a holding action, the mission “requires special operations forces to maintain relative superiority for a lengthy period of time,” which “obviously increases the Area of Vulnerability and owing to their limited sustainability, it places the special forces in a difficult tactical position.”171 McRaven finds that use of the Relative Superiority Graph “allows the student of warfare to analyze past special operations and make judgements about future operations,” and “also shows, in somewhat more limited detail, the relationship between the Principles of Special Operations and relative superiority. On the graph, the Point of Vulnerability is a function of simplicity (innovation), security and surprise; Time is a function of speed; and Mission Completion is related to limiting the objectives and motivating the soldiers. All of these principles affect the Probability of Mission Completion and the location of relative superiority along that mission completion curve.”172 While McRaven “developed the theory to primarily explain the tactical success of special operations forces,” he has found the theory also sheds light on “special operations forces in general,” noting that: “ Most importantly, the theory validates the need for a standing special operation force that is trained, equipped and supported at the best possible levels. This is not parochialism, but an honest reflection of the facts. What allows special operations forces to succeed is their ability to effectively use the principles in concert with each other. A standing force with an institutionalized support mechanism will be better able to employ the principles. For example, simplifying a plan requires good intelligence and innovation. The harder the target the more detailed the intelligence needed. This means ready access, through an established conduit, to national level intelligence assets. In all but one operation, the special forces received critical intelligence which was available only because of the priority of their mission.”173 Further, “[n]ew and innovative technology requires extensive research and development. . . . The ability of a force to rapidly identify a tactical problem, submit a recommended solution and receive an end product will unquestionably improve the chance of success. Manned torpedoes, modified destroyers, shaped charges, and silenced weapons are all examples of how research and development was used to improve the Probability of Mission Completion.”174 As for security, to “be effective” it “must be tight, but not interfere with the preparation and execution of the mission. This requires a security team that routinely works in conjunction with special operations personnel

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and consequently understands the needs and limitations of Operational Security (OPSEC). By establishing standardized security procedures, based on real world constraints, the operation will have ample ‘room for maneuver’ while still preventing the enemy from gaining an unfair advantage.”175 McRaven found that “[i]n almost every case where there was direct contact with the enemy . . . the special forces personnel were outnumbered by the enemy approximately ten to one,” and with only one exception, “special forces inflicted heavy casualties and sustained very few. This ability to effectively shoot, move and communicate in a chaotic environment is directly related to training. Repetition, as manifested in routine training and realistic rehearsals, requires substantial funding and logistic support. To be proficient the special forces personnel need to train daily and preferably in an environment that replicates combat.”176 As for surprise, this “is achieved as a result of all the factors mentioned above, namely intelligence, innovation, security and training, but it also frequently relies on deception to divert the enemy’s attention or delay their actions.”177 And, “[d]epending on the difficulty of the operation, deception can be a major contributor to success. But, in order for Operational Deception (OPDEC) to be effective it must be completely synchronized with the assault plan.”178 McRaven found that the “rapid execution of the mission (speed) is a function of the training and motivation of the assault force,” and reiterated that training “must be as realistic as possible to replicate the conditions expected on the target. This allows the special forces to refine their plan prior to the engagement and once engaged, move rapidly to achieve their objective. Provided it is properly supported, a standing force has time before the crisis, to perfect its combat skills on mock targets such as aircraft, oil rigs, buildings, ships, etc. All this training will make movement on the target flow ‘smoothly’ in the face of the frictions of war and the will of the enemy.”179 McRaven observes that the “one constant that prevailed throughout the eight case studies was the motivation of the individual soldier,” and he observed that “[e]very operation was conducted by volunteers and every volunteer was screened through a rigorous training selection program. This ‘elite’ training program did not necessarily make the soldiers either morally, ethically, or even physically stronger than the ‘average’ soldier. What it did accomplish, however, was to strengthen the bond between the ‘survivors’ of the selection course. It also developed exceptionally strong unit cohesion and improved the self-esteem and confidence of the graduates. The more physically demanding the course, the

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tighter the unit became; all of which was instrumental in the success of the missions.”180 The training program also “established a baseline of performance which could be used by the planners to judge the limitation of the force” and while “impossible to determine how an individual will react under fire,” he noted that “the strength of a special operation force is not its individuals, but its unit cohesion.”181 He recalled how the “German glidermen, the British commandos, and the Rangers at Cabanatuan were composed almost entirely of troops with no prior combat experience,” and while “[t]he other units had combat veterans” there also was “a large percentage of inexperienced troops” and “all performed with equal bravery and professionalism,” which McRaven attributes to their unit cohesion, with “unit integrity borne not from combat, but from the ‘elite’ training,” and he cites Clausewitz, who “says that ‘a soldier is just as proud of the hardships he has overcome as the dangers he has faced.’”182 Thus the “hardships encountered at basic Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL), Special Forces, Ranger, and Airborne training are absolutely essential if a special operation is going to succeed in the face of a difficult enemy.”183 As McRaven explains: “In order to achieve relative superiority, those men leading the operation must understand what actually makes a special operation succeed. It is not just bravado and boldness. Brave men without good planning, preparation and leadership are cannon fodder in the face of defensive warfare.”184 Based on his historical case studies, McRaven also observed that the “view of special forces personnel as unruly and cavalier with a disdain for the ‘brass,’ was not borne out,” and the “officers and enlisted that I interviewed were professionals who fully appreciated the value of proper planning and preparations, of good order and discipline and of co-opting higher authorities who frequently decided the fate of the operation. They were also exceptionally modest men who felt that ‘there was nothing heroic’ in their actions and often sought to downplay their public image.”185 So while “[b]oldness, courage, perseverance, and intellect unquestionably have their place in combat,” McRaven concludes that “as the theory shows, they must exist in harmony with the Principles of Special Operations in order to achieve success,” as “what allows special operations forces to achieve relative superiority is their ability to effectively utilize the Principles of Special Operations” and the “better the principles are integrated—the greater the relative superiority. Although no amount of planning and preparation can guarantee success, by reducing the Area of Vulnerability an attacking force can achieve relative superiority quickly” and once it is “achieved,

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success favors those with initiative who by virtue of their planning, preparation and rapid execution can exploit the weaknesses of the defense and defeat the enemy. This is how special operations succeed.”186

Doctrinal Disruption: Arthur K. Cebrowski’s Vision of Force Transformation We will next consider America’s apostle of military transformation, the late vice admiral and founding director of the Defense Department’s Office of Force Transformation, Arthur K. Cebrowski, who—like the great nuclear theorists Bernard Brodie and Herman Kahn, and Brodie’s mentor, the multidisciplinary theorist of war, Quincy Wright, a generation earlier—recognized the central importance of technology to military victory, and its catalytic role in sustaining, disrupting, and restoring world order. Cebrowski, like the pioneering theorists of war in the nuclear age, dedicated his career to ensuring America was well prepared to fight a new generation of war, and to position America to achieve domination of the information domain through total awareness of the networked environment of digital-age warfare. Just as Brodie and Kahn dueled to be remembered as the Clausewitz of the atomic era, one could credit Cebrowski with being of comparable stature at the dawn of the Information Age. When Cebrowski died in 2005, his passing was mourned not only by servicemen and women in all of the branches of the US armed forces who knew his central role in modernizing American military power for the new digital era, but also by IT professionals and technologists in all sectors of society who had come to know this visionary of NCW for his prescience and his recognition that the information domain would not only be a vital battlespace of the future but that the innovators and technologists who had engineered America’s digital supremacy would be a fifth column in any future war, and whose ideas and innovations would affect not only the increasingly wired world of war but the increasingly connected civil society as well. On his passing, in the website of Innosight, the consultancy founded by author and pioneering theorist of disruptive innovation, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, analyst Chuck McLaughlin wrote: “All those who care about innovation should mourn” his passing, as Cebrowski was a “bold visionary and a leading defense innovator who will have a lasting influence” on US defense operations.187 And in the pages of Federal Computer Week,

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Cebrowski’s passing was mourned by reporter Bob Brewin, who noted that Cebrowski, who had served as director of the Defense Department’s Office of Force Transformation, had “spent the last six years of his DOD service fighting a cultural climate resistant to change.”188 As he noted: “Although Cebrowski has been hailed as the father of network-centric warfare and operations, his true legacy may be the dogged effort to change DOD’s culture. ‘Transformation is not just about technology and things,’ Cebrowski said at an April 2002 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. ‘Rather, it is more about culture, behavior and the creation and exploitation of promising concepts to provide new sources of military power.’”189 And in his 1999 testimony before the Senate, Cebrowski argued that the “centralized control of information itself is a folly which will subvert the great advantage that America has in information technology and processes. The power of information is derived from access and speed, not from control and management.”190 It was just such advantages that America brought to its fight against radical Islam and the forces of international terror. While the Iraq invasion and its early post-Saddam “fiascos”191 such as the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or even an active WMD program, and the quick and lethal insurgency that erupted in the chaos of Saddam’s fall, siphoned off critical assets and consumed substantial funds, distracting America from its fight against al Qaeda and in many ways inducing a tsunami of rising chaos in the very heart of the Middle East, on the home front, America continued to erect new layers to secure its long, porous, and notably vulnerable frontiers. But as America redoubled its efforts and stubbornly insisted on staying the course, it rescued a victory from the jaws of defeat, and helped install a new democracy in the heart of the Arab world, joining Turkey, Lebanon, and Israel as well as the young democracy in Afghanistan. So while the risks were high and for a while a calamity was expected on a scale of Vietnam, the reversal of fortune and determination of America’s warfighters has helped to rout the forces of darkness, tyranny, and terror. Interestingly, America’s technological edge has proven to be essential in America’s successful turnabout in Iraq, as chronicled in detailed in the pioneering research of James Russell in his Innovation, Transformation, and War: Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005–2007 (2011). Such a battle for not just hearts and minds but information awareness, proved essential to America’s successful Iraqi turnaround, and the restoration not only of order but the successful planting of the seeds of democracy in a region long governed by the dark hand of tyranny.

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In his tribute to the late vice admiral in the Naval War College Review, James Blaker recounts how Cebrowski “joins the pantheon of American military innovators, along with George Patton, Hyman Rickover, and Billy Mitchell,” and emerged as the “prime intellectual architect of U.S. military transformation and network-centric warfare,” recognizing the importance of this moment standing “between two great chapters of human history, in the messy interspaces between the industrial age we are leaving and the information age we are entering. This time, however, the transition is occurring much faster and it is far more global. Military affairs, military competition, and the stakes of military competition are in the balance.’”192 Cebrowski served in many capacities where his insights and ideas would help to define this new era: director of the Office of Force Transformation, president of the Naval War College, N-6 on the Navy Staff, J-6 on the Joint Staff, carrier battle group commander, aircraft carrier commander, and naval aviator. Turning down an invitation by Admiral Hyman Rickover to “interview for the elite nuclear community he was putting together” in 1963, he instead pursued his passion: flying jets, which led to 154 combat missions over Vietnam during his two tours, dodging SAMs and juggling the complex challenges of the wartime environment, where pilots could avoid missile-lock by flowing, but as a consequence increase their exposure to North Vietnamese antiaircraft gunners: “For us aviators, the short-lived quandary was how to balance the need to follow central direction with what we experienced at the tactical level. Ours was a pretty straightforward perspective. As long as the prospect of getting shot down was a function of both missiles and gunfire, we were going to do things that tried to reduce the probability of both. We were after a higher level of truth, if you will, even if it seemed more complicated.”193 From this Cebrowski derived several combat axioms, including “beware the narrow view; try always to look beyond the immediate issue and see it as part of a larger problem. Always start with the assumption that your opponent is not dumb. And always value the perspectives of the individual warriors. No one learns as quickly as someone being shot at, and usually no one in senior headquarters is being shot at.”194 In the early 1970s Cebrowski caught the technology bug, becoming “interested in large-scale integrated circuits—computer chips. I saw the chips as technical marvels, because, unlike the older vacuum tubes, they didn’t generate much heat,” which reduced their risk of failure, which in turn “meant you didn’t have to have as many backups. At the individual aircraft level, for example, that meant more capability and improved

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reliability at less cost, risk, and weight.”195 Blaker explains that Cebrowski believed “large-scale integrated circuits had strategic importance” and “could help deal with military complexity,” something he knew all about from his combat experience over North Vietnam: “My experience had come from flying combat aircraft,” where “it took a lot of effort to fly through air defenses, maneuvering quickly to present as unpredictable a target as possible, watch for the flak patterns and missiles, locate the target, getting the approach right, timing the bomb drop, and then getting out. It was a complex situation, and success depended on manipulating that complexity—making it as complex as I could to the defenders without missing the target. Transistors and the large-scale integrated circuits they built promised to shift some of the complexity to the aircraft and the weapons it carried. The military that could do that on a large scale, I thought, would have an edge. It could lead to a strategic advantage, an ability to shift the terrible burden of warfare complexity and the risks it carried away from you onto your opponent.”196 And thus was born Cebrowski’s core strategic insight, his intuition into the future shape of war and the strategic advantage that would come from a netcentric transformation in the art of war. But getting there would really take a revolution in military affairs. As Blaker recounts, “Cebrowski realized that the military was not coming up with uses for large-scale integrated circuit technology—the civilian sector was. The promises that the technology brought were one thing; converting those promises to military effectiveness was another. Could it be that technology was only an initial step and that the military had within it structural, organizational, and cultural barriers to bringing technical promise to fruition?”197 In his quest to better understand military effectiveness, Cebrowski found that conventional wisdom often proved inaccurate. For instance, when it came to protecting the fleet from enemy air attack, he found that “theory said a central air controller with perfect understanding of the defense scheme, excellent understanding of what was occurring in the airspace a hundred miles around the aircraft carrier, and perfect communications would always be able to mount the most effective defense. Equations demonstrated this, as did supporting simulations. But exercise data indicated that sometimes a squadron of F-14s operating without a central air controller was more effective in intercepting and destroying attackers than what the algorithms said centralized control could provide. The data said several pilots, each with only part of the engagement picture, could do better than a single air controller could with a perfect, full picture. We wanted to see why this happened. It turned out to be my

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introduction to the potential power of self-synchronization.”198 Blaker explained that self-synchronization yielded many benefits unavailable to a central point of control, adding “nuances, depth, and correlations to the information they passed back and forth, in effect building a common appreciation that was, literally, greater than the sum of the bits of information each contributed,” and suggesting “different ways of dealing with the complexity of armed conflict generally,” with the “classic military solution” to “concentrate information in a central point” falling short of a self-synchronized approach “to do the processing in parallel, using the minds of all the defenders with less comprehensive information and letting them self-synchronize to cut through the complexity. I think that was the beginning of my views on the value of pushing information and decision authority down in the military, something I knew went against the traditional view of how militaries are supposed to work.”199 In 1981 Cebrowski was selected as the youngest member of the first class of the new Strategic Studies Group at the Naval War College where he was a classmate of Bill Owens, who was “destined to lead the American ‘revolution in military affairs’ as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the mid-1990s.”200 After his year in Newport, Blaker notes Cebrowski “returned to the fleet in a series of command positions. He commanded a carrier air wing, then a helicopter carrier, and then an aircraft carrier during Operation Desert Storm. After promotion to rear admiral in 1992, he took over a carrier battle group.”201 With his new assignments came experience flying F-18s, with their increased flow of information to the pilot: “To me, the F-18 represented a shift from the physical to the information and the cognitive realms. The limit on what the pilot could do was no longer a matter of physical strength or reflexes. The real limit was the level of awareness and knowledge the pilot had of both the mission and of the environment in which he operated. That awareness turned on the information flowing from parts of the aircraft, what the pilot could see from the aircraft, and—this was the big change—from what other pilots or sensors could see far beyond. That was the revelation. It was no longer the airplane or its pilot that counted the most; it was what the pilot could do as part of a networked environment.”202 It was the advent of this new, unprecedented netcentricity that truly revolutionized warfare, facilitating a more comprehensive and faster integration of information by the warfighter. As Cebrowski recounted to Blaker: “I realized that military competition wasn’t about how fast one could align with reality but how fast one could leap over it and create a new reality. I spent the next ten years trying to figure out how to do that. I was never

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fully successful, because I couldn’t align my own intellectual compass fast enough. The world was changing too rapidly, and the changes were digging down into the foundations of society—into basic assumptions and what we had accepted as rules. Information technology was driving a lot of it. But I increasingly thought the kind of changes we all felt were diastrophic—that we were in the midst of a shift to a new age.”203 Blaker discusses the moral dimensions of Cebrowski’s realism and his effort to better align ends and means so as to reduce the level of violence utilized, noting that it “was his deep interest in the moral nexus with military power that distinguished Cebrowski and his thought. His focus stemmed from a set of personal beliefs in which his reading of Augustine, Aquinas, and the Jesuit John Courtney Murray were prominent. He was firmly in the American pragmatist tradition and had studied just-war theory—because, as he once explained, his profession had brought him in direct contact with the dilemma of how to use violence morally.”204 As Cebrowski told him: “How to draw the line between the moral and immoral use of military force is a constant companion to those in the military profession; we wrestle with it throughout our careers. Most of us are acutely attuned to the moral need to avoid bringing violence to bear on the innocent.”205 Noting that “Cebrowski was convinced that the American military stood on the threshold of an explosion of information, knowledge, and understanding of warfare, as well as, and most importantly, greater precision in waging it,” Blaker cites Cebrowski as explaining that all of this “had great moral seductiveness.”. “It promised to make it easier to protect the innocent in using the great destructive power of the U.S. military.”206 And so: “For most of the 1990s,” Blaker writes, “Cebrowski was at the center of the military’s growing interest in the digital information era, increasingly trying to push the edge of that interest beyond conventional wisdom. In the mid-1990s, as Director of Command, Control, Communications, and Computers on the Joint Staff (J-6), he joined Owens, now the vice chairman, in contending that information technology challenged many of the precepts of American military thinking, suggesting that information could substitute for mass and pushing for radical force-structure changes,” something senior commanders were reluctant to embrace after Desert Storm delivered a conventional victory “from overwhelming force,” and “any suggestion of a trade-off between military mass and information faced strong skepticism, even though ‘smart’ bombs, dramatically improved ground navigation afforded by the Global Positioning System, networked warships, and other emerging technology suggested just such a trade-off.”207

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Reminiscent of today’s doctrinal clashes between population-centric and kinetic warfighters, Blaker cites the opposition to Cebrowski’s vision as presented by US Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper: “Never saw and don’t believe bytes of information kill enemy soldiers. Bytes of information can be very valuable in war, but it’s bullets that kill enemies.”208 But his ideas began to take root, and in the second half of the 1997 strategy document, Joint Vision 2010, Cebrowski’s reconceptualization of warfare was presented under the rubric of “dominant battlefield awareness” that “challenged the linear operational concepts that had conditioned training, doctrine, and equipment since the Civil War” and which argued, quite radically, that “[i]nformation superiority, not military mass, was the key to military success,” an “[o]verwhelming force would be less useful or effective than decisive force applied quickly and precisely.”209 But just as it was gaining some traction, this “revolution in military affairs led by Shalikashvili, Owens, Cebrowski, and a handful of other flag and general officers ran into a counterrevolution in 1998” when both Shalikashvili and Owens retired and “[t]he status quo ante returned,” as Joint Vision 2010 slipped a decade to become Joint Vision 2020, and with a new buzzword rising, “transformation,” to replace the more radical but less warmly embraced concept of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Cebrowski soon became president of the Naval War College, where he “challenged the faculty, staff, and students to innovate, to investigate alternate concepts, to be suspicious of conventional wisdom, and to look beyond history and outside the Navy so as both to understand and influence the future.”210 He continued to lobby for change, proposing “fast logistics ships with nontraditional hull forms” as well as “[h]is ‘Streetfighter,’ a new conceptual class of smaller, faster, stealthier vessels woven together by advanced communications networks” and “[h]is proposed ‘corsairs’—small aircraft carriers carrying relatively few aircraft.” It was in Newport that he found both “the authority and time to work out the details of the theoretical construct he had pursued over the previous decade. ‘It was at the Naval War College, during my last active-duty assignment . . . that network-centric warfare [emerged as], with all apologies to Clausewitz and the legions of military historians, truly a new theory of war.”211 From there, he took the reins as director of the Office of Force Transformation serving Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, just in time to help craft America’s response to 9/11. As cited by Blaker, Cebrowski recalled: “As I walked through the military cordon around the Pentagon, past the destruction, and into the lingering odors

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of the fires and water damage . . . I knew— more than ever before—that the world had changed. And that the U.S. military had to transform. And that it had to do it much faster than it thought.”212 Rumsfeld explained to Cebrowski that his task would be to “serve as a conceptual engine for the effort and help him sift from all the programs claiming to be ‘transformational’ the ones that best fit the path he wanted to blaze into the new century.”213 Blaker writes that Cebrowski was “surprised at the influence his views enjoyed,” and the attention to his ideas by the press, which in turn boosted his currency in Washington: “Senior defense officials—civilian or in uniform—are always interested in what the press is saying, and we all tried to use the press to make our arguments to each other and to the various hierarchies we headed. You send memos and hold meetings. But if you do that in parallel with press coverage and public commentary on the same substance, you get ideas into the audiences who will ultimately determine how far the ideas will go.”214 Blaker recalls that “[n]ear the end of his life, Cebrowski increasingly turned to the question of how to institutionalize constant transformation,” which required “identifying both the major barriers and the levers needed to overcome them,” winnowing the former down to four, which were: failure fear, which “reflected the conservatism of military institutions”; size and uniformity, which “often become a rationale against change, especially relatively rapid change”; the military-congressional-contractor triangle of stasis, which was “Cebrowski’s shorthand for the complex interactions that had grown since President Dwight Eisenhower’s famous warning about the ‘military-industrial complex’”; and the seduction of stasis authentication, which was evident in the “behavior of individuals who have the political authority to bring about transformation but often find it easier not to exercise it.”215 Blaker explains that these were viewed by Cebrowski to be the “four greatest barriers to transformational change inside the Pentagon,” and Cebrowski “was convinced they would not vanish, perhaps not even in the context of a catastrophic attack on the United States. But he was convinced the United States could surmount them, and he offered ‘levers’ for doing so.”216 These included “the language and imagery of change,” which could “interject a healthy counterpoise to stasis”; “using the military training and education system to ‘teach change,’” which is “the single most important channel for embedding a process of change in the institution”; “to expand the concept of ‘spiral development,’” which is “a way of speeding new weapons and systems through the research and development stage and into the hands of operating forces”; “planting dragon’s

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teeth,” by which Cebrowski meant that in order to “cultivate a conscious commitment to transformational change, you have to establish agents and charge them with making transformational change their primary mission”; and lastly, “letting the sun shine in,” through greater openness, which challenges traditional views on secrecy and suggests “national security lies less in trying to restrict information and more in knowing what is occurring.”217 Blaker recalls Cebrowski as being a “profound optimist,” something he shares with many of the great realist thinkers whose conceptions of order looked past their own troubled times; Blaker recounts Cebrowski telling him: “Look, the race will go to the swift, the smart, and the agile. Here, we Americans have an important edge, for the capacity to leave the past behind flows from our culture and political system. We venerate new frontiers and diversity, the expression of ideas, and the freedom to differ. We, as a people, are the swift, the smart, and the agile. As such, we are far more willing and able than any others to seize the opportunities of the new age.”218 In their seminal 1998 Proceedings article “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future” Cebrowski and his coauthor John J. Garstka argued for both the inevitability as well as the necessity of leveraging the technological innovations transforming American business and society with the advent of the internet and a host of IT-related innovations, and its military, which had been slower to adopt the rapidly unfolding capabilities of the digital era. Cebrowski believed that importing the culture of innovation, long a part of America’s business cultures, was crucial for American security in the newly networked era. As Cebrowski and Garstka explained: “Arising from fundamental changes in American society and business, military operations increasingly will capitalize on the advances and advantages of information technology. Here at the end of a millennium we are driven to a new era in warfare. Society has changed. The underlying economics and technologies have changed. American business has changed. We should be surprised and shocked if America’s military did not.”219 Looking back on America’s two centuries of political life, he recalled how “the tools and tactics of how we fight have evolved with military technologies. Now, fundamental changes are affecting the very character of war. Who can make war is changing as a result of weapons proliferation and the fact that the tools of war increasingly are marketplace commodities. By extension, these affect the where, the when, and the how of war.”220 In Cebrowski’s and Garstka’s minds, we were now in “the midst of a revolution in military affairs (RMA) unlike any seen since the Napoleonic Age, when France transformed warfare with

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the concept of levée en masse.”221 Citing their colleague, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson, this was a “a fundamental shift from what we call platform-centric warfare to something we call network-centric warfare,” and Cebrowski and Garstka believed “it will prove to be the most important RMA in the past 200 years.”222 The shift toward NCW, he explained, was “dominated by the co-evolution of economics, information technology, and business processes and organizations, and they are linked by three themes,” including the “shift in focus from the platform to the network,” the “shift from viewing actors as independent to viewing them as part of a continuously adapting ecosystem,” and the “importance of making strategic choices to adapt or even survive in such changing ecosystems.”223 These three themes not only “changed the nature of American business today,” but “also have changed and will continue to change the way we conduct the sometimes violent business of the military.”224 Cebrowski and Garstka added that in 1998 we remained at “some distance from a detailed understanding of the new operations—there is as yet no equivalent to Carl von Clausewitz’s On War for this second revolution,”225 though many theorists of war have sought to emerge to fill Clausewitz’s shoes such as Cebrowski’s former aide, Thomas P. Barnett, the prolific writer and proselytizer of “core” and “gap” states struggling along the abyss that separates the globalized and connected world from the dark, rogue, and failed states that remained disconnected and, by virtue of their exclusion from the fruits of globalization, remained a danger to international peace and stability, a world view that precisely mirrors Cebrowski’s. Cebrowski and Garstka noted that even without a Clausewitz to weave order from the chaotic fabric of the digitally transforming world, “we can gain some insight through the general observation that nations make war the same way they make wealth,” to which he added that the “organizing principle of network-centric warfare has its antecedent in the dynamics of growth and competition that have emerged in the modern economy. The new dynamics of competition are based on increasing returns on investment, competition within and between ecosystems, and competition based on time. Information technology (IT) is central to each of these.”226 They recounted the basics of the digital revolution, noting how the IT sector, just a “small fraction of the economy (3% in 1996)—has been the largest contributor to growth in gross domestic product. In 1996, its contribution was 33%, with an average of 27% over the past three years. Within this sector, competition based on increasing returns has emerged as a new dynamic.”227 They contrasted the old

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and new economies, noting the new, though “much smaller” than the old, was “characterized by extraordinary growth and wealth generation, increasing returns on investment, the absence of market share equilibrium, and the emergence of mechanisms for product lock-in,” and at least up until Cebrowski’s and Garstka’s writing in 1998 had remained “the engine for America’s powerhouse economy.”228 As Cebrowski and Garstka noted, IT was “undergoing a fundamental shift from platformcentric computing to network-centric computing,”229 which marked the end of the personal computers (PC) era and the birth of the internet age when those personal computers became networked into something far more revolutionary, a global network of information, services, and software. As Cebrowski and Garstka recounted: “Platform-centric computing emerged with the widespread proliferation of personal computers in business and in the home,” and the shift toward netcentricity was: “most obvious in the explosive growth of the internet, intranets, and extranets,” and “[t]hese technologies, combined with high-volume, high-speed data access (enabled by the low-cost laser) and technologies for high-speed data networking (hubs and routers) have led to the emergence of network-centric computing. Information ‘content’ now can be created, distributed, and easily exploited across the extremely heterogeneous global computing environment. . . . Under fierce competitive pressure, and sensing a strategic opportunity in this fundamental shift in computing, IBM Chairman Lou Gerstner announced that IBM was moving to network-centric computing. The compelling business logic for this shift in strategy was the opportunity for IBM to link its heterogeneous computing lines more effectively and provide increased value for its customers. This is the same value proposition we seek in warfare.”230 Netcentric operations enabled companies such as Wal-Mart to achieve unprecedented growth, and undergirding their newfound domination are their use of “network-centric operational architectures that consist of a high-powered information backplane (or information grid), a sensor grid, and a transaction grid. These architectures provide the ability to generate and sustain very high levels of competitive space awareness, which is translated into competitive advantage.”231 Cebrowski and Garstka understood that “[n]etwork-centric operations deliver to the U.S. military the same powerful dynamics as they produced in American business,” and thus: “At the strategic level, the critical element for both is a detailed understanding of the appropriate competitive space—all elements of battlespace and battle time. Operationally, the close linkage among actors in business ecosystems is mirrored in the military by the

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linkages and interactions among units and the operating environment. Tactically, speed is critical. At the structural level, network-centric warfare requires an operational architecture with three critical elements: sensor grids and transaction (or engagement) grids hosted by a high-quality information backplane. They are supported by value-adding commandand-control processes, many of which must be automated to get required speed. Network-centric warfare enables a shift from attrition-style warfare to a much faster and more effective warfighting style characterized by the new concepts of speed of command and self-synchronization.”232 Cebrowski and Garstka believed that NCW, “where battle time plays a critical role, is analogous to the new economic model, with potentially increasing returns on investment”233—but one should, with the hindsight afforded by our rearview look, be cautious not to overlook the limitations of the new economy, its narrowness when compared to other dimensions of both business and warfare alike. Consider the tumult that followed the internet peak, including the collapse of the bubble in March 2000, the shakeout that followed, the early stages of market recovery prior to the 9/11 attacks and then the renewed expansion of the American economy for the next 7 years until the systemic collapse of not just the American but the interconnected “Western” economies. The netcentric dimensions of the world economy gave it tremendous strength but at the same time created new vulnerabilities. What rose together fell together, and festering wounds in one part of the world would have catastrophic consequences far across the planet. Toxic real estate debt in America would in 2008 wipe-out unwitting retirement investors in Lehman “mini-bonds” in the city-state of Singapore, and at the time of this writing, the hidden debt-load of Greece threatened to undermine the economic health of the entire European Union, and threatened to spread contagion across the seas. Networks are like anything a double-edged sword, and this would become evident after America’s lightning strike to the heart of Baghdad, when new improvised networks of resilient insurgents armed with bountiful IEDs (improvised explosive devices) capable of only limited tactical damage would manage to derail the agile, information-powered armies of the victorious invading coalition. NCW would help to win wars of maneuver between field armies but could not necessarily ensure the winning of the peace. And this could be a result of the myopic focus on the benefits of netcentricity at the exclusion of its vulnerabilities. Cebrowski and Garstka observed that “[v]ery high and accelerating rates of change have a profound impact on the outcome, ‘locking-out’ alternative enemy strategies and ‘locking-in’ success,” as NCW “allows

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our forces to develop speed of command” and “enables forces to organize from the bottom up—or to self-synchronize—to meet the commander’s intent.”234 They discussed “speed of command” and noted its three parts include achieving “information superiority, having a dramatically better awareness or understanding of the battlespace rather than simply more raw data,” made possible by “excellent sensors, fast and powerful networks, display technology, and sophisticated modeling and simulation capabilities”; “acting with speed, precision, and reach to achieve the massing of effects versus the massing of forces”; and achieving “the rapid foreclosure of enemy courses of action and the shock of closely coupled events. This disrupts the enemy’s strategy and, it is hoped, stops something before it starts.”235 Cebrowksi and Garstka recognized that military operations “are enormously complex, and complexity theory tells us that such enterprises organize best from the bottom–up”—this would prove to be so during the campaign to defeat the insurgency that erupted in the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq. But such a bottom–up approach goes against the traditional top–down hierarchy of the military: “Traditionally, however, military commanders work to obtain top–down command-directed synchronization to achieve the required level of mass and fires at the point of contact with the enemy. Because each element of the force has a unique operating rhythm, and because errors in force movement needlessly consume combat power, combat at the operational level is reduced to a step function, which takes time and provides opportunity to the enemy. After the initial engagement, there is an operational pause, and the cycle repeats.”236 Cebrowski and Garstka find much is offered by “bottom–up organization” that “yields self-synchronization, where the step function becomes a smooth curve, and combat moves to a high-speed continuum. The ‘Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) Loop’ appears to disappear, and the enemy is denied the operational pause. Regaining this time and combat power amplifies the effects of speed of command, accelerating the rate of change and leading to lock-out.”237 Of course, such an approach clashes with traditional doctrine and military structures. However, Cebrowski and Garstka hoped to soften the doctrinal rigidity and top–down predisposition of the US armed forces through his transformation efforts. They cited as a success story the events in the Taiwan Straits crisis of 1995: “Network-centric operations such as those used in the Taiwan Straits example create a higher awareness, and allow it to be maintained. Such awareness will improve our ability to deter conflict, or to prevail if conflict becomes unavoidable. This is not just a matter of

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introducing new technology; this is a matter of the co-evolution of that technology with operational concepts, doctrine, and organization. The enabler, of course, is technology. In the Taiwan case, Admiral Clemins was able to use e-mail, a very graphic-rich environment, and video teleconferencing to achieve the effect he wanted.”238 As Cebrowski and Garstka explained: “Questions decrease because ambiguity decreases, collegiality increases, and timelines shorten.”239 The end result is greater efficiency of military operations, as chronicled in the hard-fought campaigns in post-Saddam Iraq to defeat the insurgencies and various proxy skirmishes that erupted in the power vacuum that emerged. Cebrowski and Garstka noted that the “structural or logical model for network-centric warfare” had already emerged in 1998, with a “highperformance information grid” providing a “backplane for computing and communications” and enabling “operational architectures of sensor grids and engagement grids” to take effect: “Sensor grids rapidly generate high levels of battlespace awareness and synchronize awareness with military operations. Engagement grids exploit this awareness and translate it into increased combat power.”240 Going forward, Cebrowski and Garstka acknowledged that “if we decide to fight on a network-centric rather than platform-centric basis, we must change how we train, how we organize, and how we allocate our resources. A good understanding of our competitive space, therefore, is vital to achieving success.”241 They added: “Change is inevitable. We can choose to lead it, or be victims of it. As B. H. Liddell Hart said, ‘The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is getting an old one out.’”242 A year later, on February 23, 1999, Cebrowski testified before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittees on Research and Development and Procurement Hearing on Network-Centric Warfare and Information Superiority, in which he observed that at “a time when American society is benefiting broadly from its great leadership position in information technology and associated changes in organizations and processes, it is appropriate to ask how the military is benefiting from this position of advantage.”243 He explained that NCW was “the military response to the Information Age. It is based on the principles of information generation, a high degree of access, shared awareness and speed. First and foremost, it is dominated by behavioral components more than technology, just as you see in the marketplace. A well-informed public with access to information and the means to take advantage of that access organizes itself for efficiency and higher performance according to marketplace rules. So, too, Network Centric Warfare involves a well-informed force organized

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around unity of effort and commander’s intent. This is not about more information or more data; rather, it is about how one converts that information and data into actionable knowledge.”244 As Cebrowski explained, NCW “derives its power from the networking of well-informed but geographically dispersed forces. The enabling elements are a high-performance information capability, access to all appropriate information sources, weapons reach and maneuver with speed of response, value-adding command and control processes—to include high-speed automated assignment of resources to need—and integrated sensors closely coupled in time to shooters and command and control processes. Network Centric Warfare is applicable to all levels of warfare and contributes to the coalescence, or high-speed compression, of the strategic, operational and tactical levels of war. It is transparent to mission, force size and composition, and geography. Network Centric Warfare allows us to move from an input-oriented, attrition-based approach to warfare, to output-oriented effects-based warfare.”245 Cebrowski added that in “this construct, forces can organize and synchronize from the bottom up, much as the market does. Combat is changed from a step function to a high-speed continuum. New strategies are enabled and enemy responses are locked out. This is not theory; we see these effects daily in business and in other public institutions, and we have seen the antecedents in warfare for nearly a century. The difference is that now we have the capability to bring it to fruition as the organizing principle for modern warfare. The great strength of technology, which we have in weapons range and precision, is realized only when coupled with a superior information position. A strong caution is that we should never presume that superior technology apart from skilled and trained warriors can lead to victory.”246 As he explained: Information superiority results when information relevance approaches 100 percent, accuracy approaches 100 percent, and timeliness approaches 100 percent at a rate faster than for our adversaries. Of course, 100 percent can never be achieved, but it need not. Information superiority is a relative measure. In the business world, much that is said about knowledge management is of value to the military, but there are distinct differences. For businesses, operational execution is the rapid exploitation of market opportunities. For the military, operational execution is the rapid application of force, both strike and maneuver, and the exploitation of battlefield opportunities. For both, the key is information superiority . . . knowing more things

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which are relevant, knowing them faster and being able to convert that knowledge into execution faster than the adversary. The result is the phenomenon known as “speed of command.” This is the process by which a superior information position is turned into a competitive advantage. It is characterized by the decisive altering of initial conditions, the development of high rates of change and locking in success while locking out alternative enemy strategies. The phenomenon sees all elements of the operating situation as parts of a complex adaptive ecosystem and achieves profound effect through the impact of closely coupled events. The critical metric is the difference between one’s own knowledge and that of the adversary. The difference then between business and the military is that the military must be allowed to attack and destroy their adversary’s knowledge base and knowledge processes. Thus, we in the military have the added requirement for active knowledge destruction and active knowledge protection.247 Cebrowski suggests that the Information Age “can be characterized by two words, access and speed. This is the age where access to information and technologies is highly valued and growing daily. Doctrinal, organizational and architectural decisions which reduce or deny information access to any element of the force deny, in effect, the great power of the American advantage in information technology. Ask any successful businessman. He will tell you that when his competition has access to the same information and the same technologies, the only way to differentiate himself and posture for a sustained leadership position is with speed and agility: organizational agility, doctrinal agility, the ability to assimilate technologies at high speed, and the ability to execute faster than the competition. The military is no different in this regard. Those factors which act against speed must, therefore, be reduced or limited.”248 Cebrowski adds that the “second most fruitful area is the pursuit of new classes of sensors and a highly responsive mode of control of those sensors. A maneuver force consists not just of shooters but also of sensors and sensor platforms as well as a command and control capability. Without any of these three elements we cease to have a maneuver force.”249 And, as Cebrowski pointed out: “While we control the range of our weapons, adversaries can control the range of our sensors. This is called engagement envelope management. War is a fully two-sided game, and potential adversaries will respond. Over time, our focus on long-range precision strike will result in increased expenditures by other nations on cover, deception, stealth, and mobility. This means we must be prepared to

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maneuver sensors close in, and be prepared to respond on very tight timelines. Thus, over time we should expect to have to continually rebalance the force.”250 Cebrowski closed his remarks to the hearing by noting that “perhaps the most important help which this committee could provide is to encourage the Services’ experimentation programs. All of these experiments have a high component of information superiority, and all spawn innovation from the bottom up. New knowledge is not created by the exercise of old doctrine, but through continuous experimentation at all levels.”251 Cebrowski and Garstka had observed that “[o]ne of the strengths of network-centric warfare is its potential, within limits, to offset a disadvantage in numbers, technology, or position”252—a lesson that would later also prove to be a weakness when America’s opponent recognized that they too could leverage this offsetting advantage to their own ends, and the enemy would be forced to improvise and adapt, and to engage in its own variant NCW, which could quickly be adapted to the insurgent or terrorist cause, proving to be ideally suited for the localized, cellular structure of both insurgent organizations and terror cells, whether engaged in sectarian warfare, anti-occupation insurgency, or even tribal insurrection. Just as the apostles of the new economy would soon get a shellacking from many old-economy rivals better suited for the long-haul, the rapid dominance achieved by the advancing digital armies fueled by Cebrowski’s vision would soon face off against resilient opponents who rather than be defeated on the battlefield withdrew into the forests, mountains, and urban alleyways to wage a very different kind of war: on their own turf, where they commanded their own informal and formal networks to ensure a more equal engagement. NCW may well force war off the battlefield into the nooks and crannies of the international system just as nuclear weapons did, fostering the reemergence of proxy wars and other asymmetrical brushfires that can erupt along the periphery of a great state, one with tremendous military assets including nuclear weapons and netcentric military capabilities, and perhaps even neutralize the advantages of great powers owing to the inherent osmosis of information and rapid dissemination of applications and data on the newly networked digital domain. Knowing this, the Taliban and Saddam’s army withdrew from the field of battle, undefeated. And later on, remnants of these once sovereign forces reasserted themselves.

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Indeed, just 4 years after Admiral Cebrowski presented his vision of NCW to the US Congress, and just days after the fall of Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom, technology reporter David Fulghum interviewed Cebrowski in the pages of Aviation Week on the lessons that he derived from the rapid collapse of Saddam’s regime. Cebrowski noted “at least three lessons in the context of grand strategy.”253 The first is that great power politics is over, and today’s world is “divided among those who want to join in globalization and those who remain disconnected. ‘Disconnectedness is emerging as one of the great signals of danger.’”254 Next, Fulghum writes, is that American forces “will adopt a policy of continuous change and the broadening of capabilities and options. ‘Other people study us and they adapt,’” Cebrowski said, adding, “I don’t mind generals planning for the last war so long as they are all on the other side.”255 And third, the “growing implementation of ‘network-centric’ warfare . . . is shifting the sources of power,” and this “will be driven by better sensors, good networked intelligence, high-speed decision-making and the ability to exploit the noncontiguous battlefield, the battlefield without a front”; added Cebrowski: “You see a new interdependency emerging.”256 This emergent interdependency was described by Cebrowski on a special PBS Nova episode on January 15, 2004, in an interview by Scott Willis—producer of “Battle Plan under Fire”—as increased “jointness.”257 Cebrowski explained that this new jointness introduces a “level of teamwork that was far grander and more sophisticated than anything we had seen before,” and fostering this emergent jointness, Cebrowski explained, is the new networked environment of war; “we’re talking about the behavior of humans in the networked environment. We’re not talking about ‘network’ the noun here. We’re talking about ‘to network,’ the verb. How do people behave when they become networked? The fact is, they behave differently. . . . It’s about broad access to information so that you can develop shared awareness and shared understanding at very high speed.”258 Cebrowski described the networked soldier as “superempowered,” and that “what you’d like is to have your super-empowered individual be able to defeat the other side’s super-empowered individual. And the way our individual becomes super-empowered is, we make him smarter. He’s well trained, he’s conditioned. He’s more than trained, he’s educated. He has a sense of awareness of the environment, of context. It’s an advantage that’s absolutely marvelous.”259 But super-empowerment can be a two-way street, and that means: “One must always make assumptions about the ability of the enemy to

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learn. No one learns faster than someone who’s being shot at. Under stress, he will retreat to more complex terrain. If he cannot fight as successfully in the commons of the sea or cyberspace, he’ll retreat to the battlefield on land. Then he’ll retreat to yet more complex terrain— the jungles, urban terrain. Unable to sustain himself there, he’ll retreat to yet more complex terrain, ultimately the political. That’s where the battle ultimately ends up being fought in a certain sense. That’s what you see unfolding in Iraq.”260 America’s technological superiority thus forced its opponent to fight asymmetrically from the shadows of the fractured urban landscape, where American power has traditionally had greater difficulty reaching, as witnessed in Somalia a decade earlier during the experiences chronicled in Black Hawk Down. As Cebrowski described: “I think we are confronted now with a new problem, in a way the kind of problem we always wanted to have, where you can achieve your initial military ends without the wholesale slaughter. . . . Now we’re confronted with the problem which is that, in traditional terms, a person feels less defeated than he was before. We need a new intellectualization for these kinds of events. We don’t want to go back to the other way, the slaughter and destruction. We need to come to grips with this reality.”261

Tactical Disruption: John R. Boyd’s OODA Loop Another pivotal theorist of complex warfare whose ideas are pertinent to our age is the late colonel John R. Boyd of the US Air Force, the airpower theorist who coined the dynamic—and enduring—concept of the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act) that aims to overcome both the inherent limits of knowledge and the seemingly inevitable consequences of increasing entropy. As Boyd explained in his seminal essay “Destruction and Creation” (1976, unpublished): Simply stated, uncertainty and related disorder can be diminished by the direct artifice of creating a higher and broader more general concept to represent reality. However, once again, when we begin to turn inward and use the new concept—within its own pattern of ideas and interactions—to produce a finer grain match with observed reality we note that the new concept and its match-up with observed reality begins to self-destruct just as before. Accordingly, the dialectic cycle of destruction and creation begins to repeat itself once again. In other

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words, as suggested by Goedel’s Proof of Incompleteness, we imply that the process of Structure, Unstructure, Restructure, Unstructure, Restructure is repeated endlessly in moving to higher and broader levels of elaboration. In this unfolding drama, the alternating cycle of entropy increase toward more and more disorder and the entropy decrease toward more and more order appears to be one part of a control mechanism that literally seems to drive and regulate this alternating cycle of destruction and creation toward higher and broader levels of elaboration. As the unstructuring or, as we’ll call it, the destructive deduction unfolds, it shifts toward a creative induction to stop the trend toward disorder and chaos to satisfy a goal-oriented need for increased order. Paradoxically, then, an entropy increase permits both the destruction, or unstructuring, of a closed system and the creation of a new system to nullify the march toward randomness and death. Taken together, the entropy notion associated with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the basic goal of individuals and societies seem to work in dialectic harmony driving and regulating the destructive/creative, or deductive/inductive, action— that we have described herein as a dialectic engine. The result is a changing and expanding universe of mental concepts matched to a changing and expanding universe of observed reality. As indicated earlier, these mental concepts are employed as decision models by individuals and societies for determining and monitoring actions needed to cope with their environment—or to improve their capacity for independent action.”262 Daniel Ford, in his essay “When Sun Tzu Met Clausewitz: John Boyd, the OODA Loop, and the Invasion of Iraq” (2009), recalls that when he began his studies in Strategic Dimensions of Contemporary Warfare, he “agonized over the linear nature of Carl von Clausewitz’s model, stepping so neatly from Strategy to Planning to Tactics. Europe’s greatest military thinker (1780–1831) seemed to leave no possibility that tactics— the outcome of that planning—might in turn influence the military’s strategy. Instead, it was a one-way trip to the Battle of Austerlitz.”263 While this may have “worked for Napoleon, when the strategist and the field commander were one and the same person,” Ford found that “it hardly seems appropriate in a day when the former commandant of the US Marines can write in all seriousness of the ‘strategic corporal.’ Two hundred years on, the actions of a two-stripe noncom can reinforce or undo the intentions of the Secretary of Defense.”264

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Ford recounts his struggle as he “tried to make Clausewitz’s triad circular, by applying a Hegelian dialectic in which the final term in each triad begins another, similar, and more elegant round. Thus, Strategy is the thesis, Planning the antithesis, and Tactics the synthesis, which should become the new thesis and be met in turn by a new antithesis. In the end, however, I punted the effort into the future, hoping that the late John Boyd (1927–1997) and his OODA Loop might provide a way to break out of the closed Clausewitzian triad. So it has proved.”265 Boyd’s unpublished 1976 essay, “Destruction and Creation,” was influential in the thinking of Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and member of the faculty of the Air Force Academy, Barry D. Watts, who was a student of Boyd’s, and is cited as an influence in his monograph The Foundations of U.S. Air Doctrine: The Problem of Friction in War (December 1984), which directly rebuts the theoretical influence of Bernard Brodie as well as the theorists of air power that preceded him. As Ford describes: “In the 1970s, when he began to ‘brief’ his concept and (less frequently) to write about it, Boyd presented the OODA Loop as a simple rule of thumb, albeit one applicable to grand strategy as well as to individual combat: Observation > Orientation > Decision > Action.”266 While it sounds simple, the loops in fact reflect a complex, dynamic, and evolving relationship between the warrior and his environment and presents a compelling metaphor for the dynamism lost by mechanical approaches to the conduct of war, as Watts believes was the case with Brodie’s deterrence theory, as well as the rigid structures of international politics that were erected by neorealist theorists with a mechanistic deterrence at its foundation, my principal critique of neorealism. As Ford continues, “to list the elements of the Loop is already to oversimplify it, because like the Clausewitzian triad of Strategy-PlanningTactics, it implies that the Loop stops after a single revolution. To the contrary, the resulting action leads inevitably to a new observation, so that the cycle runs again and again until one adversary breaks off or is defeated. And what is true of the fighter pilot is true as well of the general staff, and even of the nation or coalition of nations.”267 Ford observes how, to “a remarkable extent, the OODA Loop has become the conventional wisdom for writers about any sort of conflict—on the battlefield, in the marketplace, or in the sports arena,” including Thomas Hammes’ writings on insurgency and “Boyd’s acolytes expanded his theories into the concept of Fourth Generation Warfare.”268 After Boyd retired, Ford writes, he “continued his studies on his own and as a nominally paid consultant to the US Department of Defense” and

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“came to the conclusion that that all stages of the OODA Loop were not created equal. ‘Orientation is the Schwerpunkt,’ he wrote in 1987—that is, the decisive point of the OODA Loop and of human decision-making. Orientation, he wrote, ‘shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, we act.’”269 And in US military operations since, this has proven to be the case. As Ford writes: What was arguably the first real-world application of the OODA Loop came in the 1991 Gulf War. Gen. Norman Swartzkopf’s initial war plan—“high diddle diddle, straight up the middle”—was vetoed by then-Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney in favour of deception and manoeuvre, including a feint by the US Marines. During the run-up to the war, Cheney seems to have been regularly briefed by John Boyd. An army spokesman afterward explained the swift coalition victory in explicitly Boydian language, saying of the Iraqi enemy, “We kind of got inside his decision cycle.” Similarly, in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Gen. Tommy Franks explained the victory in similar terms: “And that is the business of decision cycles, or inside the decision loop, as people say . . . if, in fact, you can deceive him with respect to what you’re going to do, to cause him further confusion and make him keep his force in place one day too long, then, in fact, you may find yourself all the way to Baghdad.” So the OODA Loop has become the conventional shorthand, without the need to credit it beyond an offhand “as people say.” And this was true not only of generals but of intellectuals as well. For example, Edward Luttwak describes Rommel’s advance into Libya in April 1941 in these words: “the Germans could act much faster than the British could, much as a better fighter pilot . . . can turn inside the circle of a more sluggish opponent . . . while his opponent is still trying to react to the first turn.” I don’t think I’m overreacting to think that that sentence ought to have been footnoted to John Boyd.270 Despite his enormous influence, Ford notes with regret that Boyd “is seldom acknowledged even by those who use his ideas” and when he is, he is often unfairly portrayed: “‘Boyd’s corpus is remarkably slight,’ as Lawrence Freedman rather dismissively notes. ‘His most famous idea [the OODA Loop] turns out to have been over-simple. His military history was often suspect.’ Indeed, with one exception, I cannot find that any academic writer on military theory has found it necessary to mention Boyd’s name, though the exception is a notable one.

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Writing of modern strategists worthy to follow in Clausewitz’s footsteps, Colin Gray concludes: ‘The OODA loop may appear too humble to merit categorization as grand theory, but that is what it is. It has an elegant simplicity, an extensive domain of applicability, and contains a high quality of insight about strategic essentials, such that its author merits honourable mention as an outstanding general theorist of strategy.’”271 Ford also notes: “Bruce Berkowitz—like Luttwak, more a ‘public intellectual’ than an academic—gives Boyd a somewhat muted tribute, calling him ‘probably the most important military thinker the public has never heard of.’ ” But he adds: “Outside the academy, however, Boyd is something of a cult figure.”272 Indeed, Ford writes that the “OODA Loop is especially popular among the writers and developers of business seminars, books, and websites, an outcome that would have bemused a man who chose to spend his life close to the poverty line.”273 Ford traces the intellectual influences on Boyd, noting “he borrowed generously from more modern thinkers—Basil Liddell Hart and J. F. C Fuller; Robert E. Lee and T. E. Lawrence” but suggests that his “‘conceptual father’ is the possibly apocryphal ‘Master Sun’ who applied the philosophy of Taoism to The Art of War some 2500 years ago,”274 Sun Tzu. There are strong parallels that link Boyd’s thinking to that of the classical Chinese strategist, as both embraced not only the complexity of but also the inherent uncertainty in war, and it is this that Watts leverages in his critique of mechanistic theories of war and deterrence, including the work of Bernard Brodie. As Ford observes, much like Watts does in his critique of the mechanistic air and deterrence theorists: For most of the modern era, Western thought was grounded in a mechanistic world-view bequeathed to us by Newton and Descartes. Change was more than a century in coming—from Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, through James Joyce and Pablo Picasso, to Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Gödel, Jacques Derida, and, yes, John Boyd, arguably our first “postmodern” military theorist. Unlike the nations that fought the attritional wars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries—those titanic clashes between whole populations organised for war—we cannot fall back on the familiar certainties. Rather, we have our boots firmly planted in flux. The uncertainty principle has permeated philosophy, the arts, science, education, and— perhaps certainty’s last bastion—military strategy. Boyd did as much as anyone to bring this about.275

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As Ford writes, Boyd “conceived of the OODA Loop as a way of describing aerial combat, albeit one expansive enough to apply to the operational and strategic levels of warfare, and finally to the question of human survival in an ever-changing world.”276

War in the Information Age: From Realpolitik to Cyberpolitik And has it been an ever-changing world! A fascinating discussion of the fast-changing and still emergent information battlespace can be found in a Spring 1998 Journal of International Affairs article by David Rothkopf, “Cyberpolitik: The Changing Nature of Power in the Information Age,” written around the time of Cebrowski’s seminal Proceedings article on military transformation.277 Rothkopf is cofounder, chairman, and CEO of The Newmarket Company, a Washington-based international consultancy, and an adjunct professor of International Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service; he was cofounder of Intellibridge, and previously served as managing director at Kissinger Associates and as Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Policy and Development during the Clinton presidency. In his prescient 1998 article, he writes that the “‘realpolitik’ of the new era is ‘cyberpolitik,’ in which the actors are no longer just states and raw power can be countered or fortified by information power.”278 This upends the material dimensions of the world order that was formalized at Westphalia and which crumbled along with the Twin Towers in 2001, three and a half centuries later. As Rothkopf recounts: “For three hundred years, the aspirations of nation states and their leaders have been the principle drivers in international relations,” and mirroring the fundamental trinity of western order made famous by Clausewitz’s Trinity of War, he adds that “[t]hroughout that period, the ability of those nation states to achieve their goals has rested on three pillars: economic power, military power and political power.”279 Of course, the medieval order included an ecclesiastical pillar, and the traditional western trinity of state power was, as Machiavelli and Clausewitz defined it, the people, the state, and the armed forces; but Rothkopf’s trinity does overlap with the traditionalist realist pillars comfortably enough to accept as a substitute, particularly in light of the connections he makes: “Economic power was derived from the resources that lay within the nation’s borders and its ability to trade those resources or their

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by-products on favorable terms with the rest of the world. Military power derived also from available resources of people and materiel. Political power was drawn alternatively or in combination from the strength of leaders and institutions, the will of the people and/or the support the nation state could win from other nation states.”280 Just as Cebrowski observed something fundamentally transforming in 1998, Rothkopf noted at the same time: “Today, those pillars of power are being shaken by tectonic shifts that are transforming the very nature of global society. Nation states are facing new rivals for power and influence on the global stage. Power itself is being redistributed, taking new forms and new characteristics. The rules of the game in international relations are changing and the origins of an extraordinary number of those changes can be traced to the Information Revolution.”281 Moreover, Rothkopf adds: “That revolution has only just begun. Its full extent and implications are unclear. But, for the United States, the ability to remain the world’s leader will depend on its ability to recognize the changes transforming the nature of power in the new world environment and adapt to them.”282 To him, the “Realpolitik of Tomorrow is Cyberpolitik.” As he explains: Today, the world stage is crowded with an ever-growing cast of actors who have the power to damage or otherwise impact each other’s interests. Dozens of states possess weapons of mass destruction, limitless numbers of non-state actors possess the capability to switch a nation’s vital infrastructure on or off, international opinion constrains the actions of national leaders and can transform isolated acts into political or diplomatic watersheds, cadres of young traders determine the price of national currencies, and companies find it increasingly easy to move transactions into the Infosphere and beyond the ambit of any national tax authority. Power itself is being so endlessly redistributed and redefined that its changing nature is one of the principle destabilizing forces in the world today, and a source of strength for those who can adapt to it most quickly. . . . The realpolitik of the new era is cyberpolitik, in which the actors are no longer just states, and raw power can be countered or fortified by information power. The mighty will continue to prevail, but the sources, instruments and measures of that might are dramatically changed.283 Rothkopf recalls how Kissinger in Diplomacy had described Bismarck “as a revolutionary in large part due to his development of the realpolitik

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ideas that have proven so influential during the past century,” and added that “‘revolutionaries almost always start from a position of inferior strength. They prevail because the established order is unable to grasp its own vulnerability.’ It is a cautionary observation worth heeding by today’s foreign policymakers, who base their thinking on traditional policy models that have not been updated to account for the enormous changes brought about as a consequence of the revolution in information technologies.”284 Indeed, the similarity in Kissinger’s observation of the inferior strength of the revolutionary at the start of his struggle to that of the technology disruptor who innovates his way to market dominance is intriguing. Just as Vice Admiral Cebrowski sought to integrate the information revolution into the tool chest of American military power, and Bracken noted America’s rivals have been forced to offset their strategic inferiority through the use of either disruptive or sidewise technologies just as America itself had sought to offset its own numerical disadvantage before the massive Soviet Red Army through adaptive technology innovation of its own, Rothkopf identifies the information domain as a new battlefield of state and non-state power, one that must be factored into strategic calculations, or otherwise court peril. While Cebrowski optimistically charts a path forward for the American military to transform and thereby lock-in its ability to win, and Bracken more cautiously probes the response by America’s opponents through asymmetrical but nonetheless ingenious measures, Rothkopf suggests that the path ahead is obscured with the same sort of fog that confounded great generals across history, as Clausewitz has explained so well. This leads us into a murky and complex realm of “metastatecraft,” where we now face an “ontology of contradictions.”285 As Rothkopf describes: “In attempting to identify the key characteristics of this revolution and their implications for international relations, we must begin with a recognition that revolutions, like wars, produce a fog of actions, distractions and other stimuli that make clear thinking a challenge and meaningful conclusions elusive. The nature of this revolution in particular demands a recognition that change has become one of the few constants and that we must accept that literally and figuratively we live in a metastate, a changing polity and a time of flux.”286 He adds that this “revolution empowers individuals and elites. It breaks down hierarchies and creates new power structures. It amplifies the capacity to analyze, reduces reaction times to allow only for impulse and can be a tool for amplifying emotions or rationality. It offers both more choices and too many choices, better information and more questions about authenticity, greater insight and

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more fog. It can reduce the risk to soldiers in warfare and vastly increase the cost of conflict. It can make the United States so strong militarily that no one dares fight her in ways in which she is prepared to fight, while enabling opponents to take advantage of new options in asymmetrical conflict.”287 Rothkopf cites several recent “examples and observations as to how the nature and exercise of power has been deeply and permanently altered by the advent of new information technologies,” including: the erosion in sovereign control over currency values; the loss of exclusivity of diplomats as “sole interlocutors between countries” in the face of “unmediated dialogue and information exchange between citizens from around the world” on a 24/7 basis; and the global reach of even the “smallest nation, terrorist group or drug cartel,” which now “could hire a computer programmer to plant a Trojan horse virus in software, take down a vital network, or cause a computer to misfire.”288 Further, Rothkopf notes how, “[i]n crisis situations from the Amazon jungle to Bosnia, from Chiapas to Tibet, Internet technologies have enabled virtual communities to unite to counter government efforts, from the use of violence to the closing off of existing media channels. These virtual communities have taken their cases to the international court of public opinion, whose influence over states has grown as its means to reach an ever greater audience has multiplied.”289 Just as technology can be a double-edged sword, the new information networks can yield both poisonous and benevolent fruits. On the one hand: “Globalized crime is a security threat that neither the police nor the military—the state’s traditional responses—can meet.”290 And on the other: “Benign, non-state actors provide policymakers with alternative foreign policy tools.”291 But their very “influence and ubiquity are dissolving the narrow focus of government-to-government diplomacy and creating a worldwide network that will be a key feature of the environment in which diplomats and generals operate.”292 Consequently, the multiple, and at times conflicting, “goals, capabilities and actions of individuals, legitimate NGOs, international organizations, terrorist groups, etc. will become central to U.S. policy and intelligence.”293 Gone forever will be the simple, contemporary trinity of Man, the State, and War, or the three “Waltzian images” of international relations. The information revolution has unraveled the very fabric of world politics, so a multitude of non-state actors compete with nation-states on the complex and Balkanized world stage. As Rothkopf explains: “While this new, more complex world power structure is, as yet, unformed, it

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suggests a model that usefully illustrates it better than the maps with carefully delineated state borders that have done so for three centuries. This new model is that of atomic structure as contemplated in quantum physics. It is a world of many layers of activity and of activity between layers, with power and its use acting like electrical charges among particles at any given layer and between layers. Supranational institutions and actors at one level, regional institutions and actors at another, national institutions and actors at another, state and local institutions and actors at another and individuals and entities with interests at all levels moving among them.”294 In this neo-kaleidoscopic world, the “challenges of formulating foreign policy in this environment are myriad. Our institutions are not suited to it.” Indeed, Rothkopf observes: “Nor is the U.S. Government structured or by institutional character prepared to accept the realities of constant change that this new age imposes.”295 Rothkopf identifies the features of this new globalized world, several of which align with the features of NCW as described in Cebrowski’s vision of force transformation. Rothkopf’s lessons, like Cebrowski’s in his 1998 coauthored Parameters article, draws his lessons from an “[a]nalysis of the changes that transformed the world’s individual financial communities into a global marketplace,” which “reveals a number of characteristics that are seen virtually wherever the Information Revolution has had an impact.” These are increased “interconnection”; “disaggregation/decentralization”; “disintermediation”; “dislocation”; “acceleration”; “amplification”; “virtualness” or what we now call virtualization; and, importantly, “asymmetry.”296 The parallel to the principles that undergird Cebrowski’s vision of transformation is striking. Rothkopf’s thoughts on asymmetry are especially intriguing, particularly since he wrote several years prior to 9/11 but seemed more in tune with the way the increasingly interconnected and globalized world facilitated asymmetrical responses, as the information revolution “allows smaller players to compete as larger ones once did or do. Individuals can reach out and touch the entire fabric of this global community . . . thus allowing them to gain a competitive equality that was once an impossibility.”297 A similar dynamic has played out in the realm of strategic and military affairs. As Rothkopf observes, the “greatest problem that is posed by the advent of an information-dominant United States is that opponents will seek new forms of conflict that are more likely to be successful.”298 As Rothkopf comments: “The fact is that new technologies also empower potential enemies. If the United States can muster information warfare battalions that can enter critical infrastructures and shut them down, so

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can our enemies.”299 And as retired Marine Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper is cited by Rothkopf: “Those who are going to compete against us are going to look for asymmetrical means.”300 Accordingly, as Rothkopf explains, “[t]he Information Age does not only offer ‘information dominance’ as an option. It also introduces what could be called the David Effect, in which a smaller player with access to the right technology can severely damage a much larger foe,” adding that: “Asymmetry in military conflict depends on: dislocation (to strike from a distance); acceleration (to strike swiftly and process complex tasks rapidly); amplification (force multiplication); and perhaps virtualness (the ability to draw together virtual teams whose skills and resources match the mission at hand).”301 As we have learned in the decade since Rothkopf wrote, fighting an asymmetrical threat is not easy, and will require new skills. While states have been challenged by insurrections, revolutions, and insurgent struggles since ancient times, asymmetrical warfare has always been a thorny issue. The Roman Empire, despite its might, was often confounded by its internal and peripheral brushfires and when its millennial order finally collapsed, it was in part from multiple asymmetrical threats erupting within and along the frontiers of its vast empire. Even now, the art of counterinsurgency continues to prove itself to be a Herculean endeavor; in 1998, when he wrote, Rothkopf observed: “While the tools of the modern military can assist in countering the challenges of the masters of asymmetrical strategies and tactics, they are ill-suited to doing so. Their focus is on the battlespace, the defined box in which conflict takes place, or on the actions of known and visible enemies. Detection of new threats and their interdiction on a global scale will require entirely different tools.”302 But as Cebrowski similarly suggested, the rising importance of the information domain to the conduct of war can play to America’s advantage: The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy both now possess information warfare units that have the ability to use computers as offensive weapons in their own right, entering an enemy’s computer-controlled infrastructure via public networks or other means and disrupting critical services by shutting off a power grid, or a phone system or satellite services. Computer-guided, high-powered lasers have been demonstrated to be capable of targeting and hitting satellites in earth orbit. New developments in sensing technologies and imaging technologies are providing much more enhanced imaging capabilities. Yet another of the paradoxes common to the Revolution is revealed by this last fact as

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technology may have lifted what Clausewitz thought of as the “fog” of battle, and replaced it with a new high-technology version. Instead of being overwhelmed by the noise, chaos and horror of a surrounding conflict, today’s information soldier is overwhelmed with data from technologies intended to help him or her cut through that chaos.303 That certainly explains why in spite of all the gains of transformation, the efficiencies unlocked by the new netcentricity of war, the world remains as dangerous and unpredictable today as ever, and why even after effortlessly dislodging the tyrannical grip on power held by Saddam for so many decades in just 21 days, and nearly as quickly toppling the Taliban which had governed Afghanistan for several years with its own repressive and medieval vision of governance, American found it so hard to leverage its battlefield victories with an imposition of enduring postwar orders. Because the victory came so fast and with so little of a fight, the end result was that domination gave way to the new chaos of asymmetry. But even with asymmetry on the rise, Rothkopf confidently noted that the United States remains the only country capable of emerging from the coming chaos as not only the winner, but with its values reinforced by the new interconnected world. Even in the face of asymmetry, the globalizing interconnections serve as conduits for American values to flow outward into the world, where billions of people may find them to be appealing. So even if America remains increasingly vulnerable to asymmetrical threats, it may yet win in the forthcoming battle for hearts and minds, as its values become more familiar with people long isolated from America’s vision. As Rothkopf explained, America “is not only the world’s most powerful nation, but alone among all the nations of the world retains that leadership into this new age. If the world is now a borderless global economy, it is driven by American-made information products and services and funded by capital that is created in greater volume by and for Americans than anywhere else. If states are now giving way to non-state actors, the most powerful among those—corporations, NGOs and other entities—are based in the United States. Americans invented the concept of information dominance and have the greatest global reach to protect against asymmetrical threats.”304 America has thus endeavored to rise up in the aftermath of the strategic shock of 9/11, and, with the hindsight that it possessed after that new day of infamy, to reclaim its position of preeminence in the now self-evidently dangerous world of asymmetry that had emerged with the collapse of the Cold War’s bipolarity. As a new day began on September 12th, America

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pledged to rid the world of the scourge of international terror, and to recognize that what was long considered a tactical nuisance, an irritant to the world body politic, was now a bona fide strategic threat, one empowered by the globalized and interconnected world economy, equalized by the information revolution, at least enough to now enable terror cells and non-state entities to pose an existential threat to the economic and political systems of the West. To restore order, and regain its own footing in this era of ascending chaos, America would not only have to declare war upon the foreign roots of terror half a world a way, it would also have to wade into the fog of asymmetrical warfare on nearly all continents. It would now have to reinforce its own frontiers, for the first time since Japanese bombers lay waste to America’s Pacific Fleet at anchor in the predawn hours of December 6, 1941, or before that, when British troops sacked the White House and burned Buffalo to the ground in the War of 1812. Mostly, America had found solace with protective seas off its shores and weaker states as neighbors on the North American continent. But now, in this smaller, flatter world, it felt exposed and vulnerable for perhaps the first time in a generation.305 Just as it did during the trying days of World War II, America would have to head back to the laboratory, and unlock its renown capacity for ingenuity, to find strength where there was weakness, and to forge a new security from the self-same ingredients that had stirred, just one day before September 12th, such insecurity. And so America embarked upon a new and largely improvised “Manhattan Project” to strengthen its borders, and restore a sense of calm after the smoke and debris of 9/11 began to fade—as a newfound sense of purpose, and with it hope, returned.

Notes 1 Thomas A. Marks, Sebastian L.v. Gorka, and Robert Sharp, “Getting the Next War Right: Beyond Population-Centric Warfare,” Prism 1, No. 3 (June 2010), www.ndu.edu/press/getting-next-war-right.html. 2–19 Harry Cleaver, “The Zapatista Effect: The Internet and the Rise of an Alternative Political Fabric,” http://libcom.org/library/zapatista-effect-cleaver. 20–32 Harry Cleaver, “The Zapatistas and the Electronic Fabric of Struggle,” http://webspace.utexas.edu/hcleaver/www/zaps.html, November 1995. 33–45 David Ronfeldt and Armando Martínez, “A Comment on the Zapatista ‘Netwar,’” RAND Report: In Athena’s Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age , Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1997, www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR880/MR880.ch16.pdf, 369. 46–49 Cleaver, “The Zapatista Effect.”

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Cleaver, “The Zapatistas and the Electronic Fabric of Struggle.” Paul Bracken, “Technological Innovation and National Security,” FPRI E-Notes, June 2008, www.fpri.org/enotes/200806.bracken.innovationnationalsecurity.html. 84–186 William H. McRaven, “The Theory of Special Operations,” Master’s Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, June 17, 1993, iii; the phrase “must-read tome on special operations warfare” in Howard Altman, “Man Who Planned bin Laden Raid in Line to Lead Socom,” The Tampa Tribune , May 11, 2011, www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2011/may/11/man-who-planned-bin-laden-raid-line-lead-socom-ar-206426/; iii; iii; iii; vi; 1; 1; 2; n.2; 2; 2; 2; 2–3; 3, n.3; 3 3, n.4 ; 3–4; 4; 5, citing Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, 194; 5; 5; 6; 6; 7; 8; 8–9; 9; 10; 10; 11; 11; 11; 11–12; 11, n.6; 12; 12; 12–13; 13–14; 14; 15; 17, figure is on page 16; 17; 17; 21; 22; 22; 23; 23, citing Clausewitz, On War (1976), 153; 23; 24; 24; 26; 26–7; 27; 28; 29; 30; 30; 30–1; 32; 33; 34; 34; 34; 36; 36, n.3; 37, citing Clausewitz, On War (1976), 138; 37; 37; 38, citing B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2nd edn, New York: Meridian, 1991, 4; 38; 38; 39; 39; 40; 40; 40; 40; 40; 582, citing Peter Paret, Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992, 103; 582–3; 583; 583; 583; 584–5; 586; 587; 588; 589–90; 590; 590; 590; 591; 592; 593; 593; 593–4; 594; 594, citing Clausewitz, On War (1976), 695; 594–5; 595; 595–6; 596. 187 Chuck McLaughlin, “An Innovator’s Passing,” Innosight , November 21, 2005, www.innosight.com/blog/38-an-innovators-passing.html. 188–189 Bob Brewin, “Arthur K. Cebrowski, 1942–2005: Navy Vice Admiral Was Known as Father of Network-Centric Warfare,” Federal Computer Week , November 21, 2005, http://fcw.com/articles/2005/11/21/arthur-k-cebrowski-19422005. aspx 190 Arthur K. Cebrowski, “Statement Before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Research and Development and Procurement, Hearing on Network-Centric Warfare and Information Superiority,” February 23, 1999, www.fas.org/irp/congress/1999_hr/990223-cebrow0223.htm. 191 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, New York: Penguin Press, 2006. 192–218 James Blaker, “Arthur K. Cebrowski: A Retrospective,” Naval War College Review 59, No. 2 (Spring 2006), www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/d1c5384c-f7fa41b7-a6e6 –490450835809/Arthur-K–Cebrowski–A-Retrospective—Blaker,Jam. 219–242 Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka, “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” Proceedings, January 1998. 243–251 Cebrowski, “Statement Before the House.” 252 Cebrowski and Garstka, “Network-Centric Warfare.” 253–256 David Fulghum, “The Pentagon’s Force-Transformation Director Comments on What Worked and What Didn’t in Iraq,” Aviation Week , May 2, 2003, www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id= news/04283iraq.xml. 257–261 “Battle Plan under Fire,” Scott Willis, producer, and Peter Tyson, editor, NOVA , Public Broadcasting Service, January 15, 2004, www.pbs.org/wgbh/ nova/wartech/transform.html. 66–83

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262 John R. Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” Unpublished Paper, September 3, 1976, 6–7. A copy is available online at: www.goalsys.com/books/documents/ DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf. 263–276 Daniel Ford, “When Sun Tzu Met Clausewitz John Boyd, the OODA Loop, and the Invasion of Iraq,” 2009, ebook (an earlier version of this essay was submitted by Ford in partial fulfilment of the requirements for his Master of Arts in War Studies at King’s College, London), 3; 3; 3; 4; 5; 8; 6, 8; 9–10; 10–11; 11; 11; 12; 13–14; 14. 277–304 David J. Rothkopf, “Cyberpolitik: The Changing Nature of Power in the Information Age,” Journal of International Affairs 51, No. 2 (Spring 1998), www. ciaonet.org/olj/jia/jia_98rothkopf.html. 305 For more on this flatter world, see Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

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Chapter 3

The Global War on Terror

Restoring Order in the Post-9/11 World On some days, it seems like our last global struggle has only just ended. That one, the Cold War, carried us all the way through from the end of World War II to the rapid collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, followed by the complete breakup of the Soviet Union itself 2 years later. The West’s swift and largely unexpected victory left many Cold War planners, who were dug in to sustain a multipronged strategy of containment for generations to come, wondering how they had failed to predict that such a clear and decisive victory was just around the bend. Some critics of our half-century long struggle against Soviet communism believed the Cold War was designed to be self-perpetuating, a war without end, but the democratic transformation that made Europe “whole and free” proved otherwise. Today, we find ourselves more than a decade into the next global struggle, in what was for the first 7 years formally known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Inside the beltway, this global struggle is widely known as the “Long War.” But just how long the Long War will last remains a subject of much debate—and what victory will look like, and when to expect it, remains a mystery. Even with Osama bin Laden dead, his body decaying somewhere at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, and reprisal attacks so far quite moderate (the boldly promised “nuclear hell storm” never having materialized, perhaps because this one effort by al Qaeda at nuclear deterrence was based upon an empty retaliatory threat); even with the Taliban engaged in peace talks; even with the tyrannies of the Arab world cascading like dominos under the unrelenting internal pressures of the Arab Spring; and even with President Obama in the Oval Office, his Nobel Prize for Peace in hand, the underlying conflicts that were known in combination as the GWOT appear to be far from over, and might be just getting their second wind.

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Some critics of the Long War, like their counterparts during the Cold War, question its open-ended nature, and suggest it has been designed by war planners to go on and on without victory. Other critics of the Long War believe that we have already won, long before bin Laden was dead, and only need to declare our victory—making it more of a short war than a long, generational struggle. But the architects of the Long War believe we are still in for a long struggle, a global clash of ideas and arms that is reminiscent of the Cold War. In September 2006, the Bush White House updated its strategic vision for this war in its National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which articulates several broad objectives, and presents a multipronged strategy to achieve these goals reminiscent of the containment strategy that defined our game plan during the Cold War. The updated National Strategy explained that “from the beginning, it has been both a battle of arms and a battle of ideas. Not only do we fight our terrorist enemies on the battlefield, we promote freedom and human dignity as alternatives to the terrorists’ perverse vision of oppression and totalitarian rule.”1 To defeat the “global terrorist movement” America must thus “confront the radical ideology that justifies the use of violence against innocents in the name of religion.”2 The 2006 National Strategy presented the administration’s view that through America’s “‘freedom agenda,’ we also have promoted the best longterm answer to al-Qaeda’s agenda: the freedom and dignity that comes when human liberty is protected by effective democratic institutions,” as “effective democracies honor and uphold basic human rights, including freedom of religion, conscience, speech, assembly, association, and press,” and are thus “the long-term antidote to the ideology of terrorism today.”3 As Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior policy analyst for national security at the Washington, DC-based Heritage Foundation, explained: “Winning the war on terrorism is primarily centered upon winning the struggle of ideas” and “such an effort requires: 1. understanding the enemy, 2. delegitimizing its view of the world, 3. offering a credible alternative, and 4. demonstrating resolve, or the will to prevail.” However, adding complexity to our effort to understand our new enemy, Eaglen noted, “there is no singular enemy in the war on terrorism”—as “various terrorist networks pose different kinds of local, regional, and global threats.”4 She observed that “the distinct threats posed by different terrorist groups require a differentiated U.S. policy custom-made for each group, not a ‘one-size-fitsall’ approach,” as “many different terrorist networks are at work around the world, including terrorist groups in the Indian sub-continent, which have carried out attacks in India and Pakistan, and Hezbollah, which has

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killed hundreds of Americans and struck in Europe and Latin America as well as in the Middle East.” But in America’s favor, Eaglen observed that “many Muslims reject terrorism, even in countries where the official rhetoric comes across as warlike,” and that “many Islamic scholars argue that terrorism—the intentional murder of innocents to achieve political goals—is completely illegitimate.” However, these voices are not always heard: “in some cases, moderate voices receive little notice in Western media,” while “in other instances, individuals are fearful to speak out too loudly because of the threat from terrorists and their supporters.” To help achieve victory in the Long War, Eaglen believes that the United States “should encourage Muslim political, religious, and social leaders to denounce terrorism and cooperate in defeating terrorist groups.” Winning the Long War would require more than ideas: it would also require new structures and institutions designed to confront the new threat. As explained in the 2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, the Cold War benefited from “an array of domestic and international institutions as well as enduring partnerships to defeat the threat of communism,” and “today we require similar structures to win the long war on terror.”5 As a consequence, “we are transforming our domestic and international institutions and enduring partnerships to carry forward the long term fight against terror and to help ensure our ultimate success” through: the establishment of “international standards of accountability”; the strengthening of our “coalitions and partnerships to maintain a united front against terror”; the enhancement of “our counterterrorism architecture and interagency collaboration by setting national priorities and transforming the government to achieve those priorities”; and “fostering intellectual and human capital by creating an expert community of counterterrorism professionals and developing a domestic culture of preparedness.”6 These policies have continued under the Obama administration, with its May 2010 update to the National Security Strategy reiterating these principles. Part I, “Overview of National Security Strategy,” starts out by observing that: “At the dawn of the 21st century, the United States of America faces a broad and complex array of challenges to our national security. Just as America helped to determine the course of the 20th century, we must now build the sources of American strength and influence, and shape an international order capable of overcoming the challenges of the 21st century.”7 Part II, “Strategic Approach,” further elaborates upon these challenges, noting: “the very fluidity within the international system that breeds new challenges must be approached as an

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opportunity to forge new international cooperation. . . . We must seize on the opportunities afforded by the world’s interconnection, while responding effectively and comprehensively to its dangers.”8 The 2010 National Security Strategy adds that: “Successful engagement will depend upon the effective use and integration of different elements of American power. Our diplomacy and development capabilities must help prevent conflict, spur economic growth, strengthen weak and failing states, lift people out of poverty, combat climate change and epidemic disease, and strengthen institutions of democratic governance. Our military will continue strengthening its capacity to partner with foreign counterparts, train and assist security forces, and pursue military-to-military ties with a broad range of governments. We will continue to foster economic and financial transactions to advance our shared prosperity. And our intelligence and law enforcement agencies must cooperate effectively with foreign governments to anticipate events, respond to crises, and provide safety and security.”9 The discussion in Part II on “Strengthening National Capacity—A Whole of Government Aproach” explains: “We are strengthening our military to ensure that it can prevail in today’s wars; to prevent and deter threats against the United States, its interests, and our allies and partners; and prepare to defend the United States in a wide range of contingencies against state and nonstate actors. We will continue to rebalance our military capabilities to excel at counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, stability operations, and meeting increasingly sophisticated security threats, while ensuring our force is ready to address the full range of military operations.”10 Part III of the 2010 National Security Strategy addresses “Advancing Our Interests,” and it starts with a quotation from President Obama’s January 20, 2009, Inaugural Address: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken—you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”11 It reiterates the earlier National Security Strategy statements with its discussions of specific measures to secure the American homeland: “Enhance Security at Home: Security at home relies on our shared efforts to prevent and deter attacks by identifying and interdicting threats, denying hostile actors the ability to operate within our borders, protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure and key resources, and securing cyberspace.”12 And it reiterates America’s pledge to defeat al Qaeda, a pledge dramatically reinforced 2 years later with the slaying of Osama bin Laden: “Disrupt, Dismantle, and Defeat

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Al-Qa’ida and its Violent Extremist Affiliates in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Around the World: The United States is waging a global campaign against al-Qa’ida and its terrorist affiliates. To disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qa’ida and its affiliates, we are pursuing a strategy that protects our homeland, secures the world’s most dangerous weapons and material, denies al-Qa’ida safe haven, and builds positive partnerships with Muslim communities around the world. Success requires a broad, sustained, and integrated campaign that judiciously applies every tool of American power—both military and civilian—as well as the concerted efforts of like-minded states and multilateral institutions.”13 And it pledges to: “Prevent Attacks on and in the Homeland: To prevent acts of terrorism on American soil, we must enlist all of our intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security capabilities.”14 In its discussion of the Use of Force, it observes, perhaps somewhat reluctantly in contrast to the Bush administration’s rhetorical style used in its National Security Strategy statements: “Military force, at times, may be necessary to defend our country and allies or to preserve broader peace and security, including by protecting civilians facing a grave humanitarian crisis. We will draw on diplomacy, development, and international norms and institutions to help resolve disagreements, prevent conflict, and maintain peace, mitigating where possible the need for the use of force. This means credibly underwriting U.S. defense commitments with tailored approaches to deterrence and ensuring the U.S. military continues to have the necessary capabilities across all domains—land, air, sea, space, and cyber. It also includes helping our allies and partners build capacity to fulfill their responsibilities to contribute to regional and global security.”15 And, “[w]hile the use of force is sometimes necessary, we will exhaust other options before war whenever we can, and carefully weigh the costs and risks of action against the costs and risks of inaction. When force is necessary, we will continue to do so in a way that reflects our values and strengthens our legitimacy, and we will seek broad international support, working with such institutions as NATO and the U.N. Security Council.”16 The lengthy, ten-page discussion of International Order, which concludes Part III of the 2010 National Security Strategy, emphasizes multilateral solutions to the problems of international security, but even these show continuity with the earlier statements from the Bush administration, which set as its top priority the transformation of the international order through its determined advocacy of democratic change throughout the Arab world, and its effort to promote coalitions—albeit

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ephemeral, “shifting” coalitions of the willing reminiscent more of the nineteenth-century balance of power system than the more enduring alliance structures of the Cold War era. The primary methods mentioned in the 2010 strategy statement for promoting international order are to: ensure strong alliances; build cooperation with other twenty-first-century centers of influence; strengthen institutions and mechanisms for cooperation; and sustain broad cooperation on key global challenges.17 While the tone may have differed, using a language of justice instead of one of power, the concepts differ far less than the tonal nuance. The world, in 2010, had not significantly changed from 2006 or 2001, and the core struggle between the forces of chaos and those of order was ongoing; consequently, the core precepts driving America’s conceptualization of a more ordered world, and its strategy to reduce international chaos and uncertainty, remained much the same. As Eaglen had explained during the twilight of the Bush presidency: “Winning this kind of war will require vast resources beyond military resources.” She recalled how the United States “has often used its warfighting military structures, which are not really well suited to post-conflict operations, and tried repeatedly to adapt them,” adding that “often times, the U.S. learns the same lesson again that our forces that fought so well in battle are not well equipped, trained, and organized to win the peace or using the military for peace may create as many problems as it solves.” She believes that “victory in the war on terrorism requires a total U.S. government response, from the Department of State to USAID to Treasury to Agriculture.” Or, as the 2006 National Strategy explains, victory in the Long War will only be achieved through the “application of all elements of our national power and influence”—including not just military power, but also “diplomatic, financial, intelligence, and law enforcement activities to protect the homeland and extend our defenses, disrupt terrorist operations, and deprive our enemies of what they need to operate and survive.”18 In contrast to those who view the GWOT as a protracted, generational conflict like the Cold War, there are analysts who take a contrarian view to when we can expect victory. Among these critics of the Long War concept are optimists like James Fallows, the national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. Around the same time that the White House released its 2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, Fallows published an article titled “Declaring Victory” in which he argues that “the time has come to declare the war on terror over, so that an even more effective military and diplomatic campaign can begin.”19 In an interview on National Public

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Radio on August 20, 2006, Fallows told host Liane Hansen that “al-Qaeda central itself . . . has in fact been weakened to a serious degree. And it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to pull off anything like the catastrophic acts of five years ago.”20 Fallows suggested “the real harm terrorism does to a society is not so much the direct damage, even when that is extreme, as it was in 9/11; it’s the reaction that it provokes,” as terrorists aim to “provoke a target society into doing something that is self-destructive in the longer term.”21 Fallows thus believed “the most effective way to deal with them in the long-term might be, in fact, to move out of the open-ended state of war and to pursue other avenues against them.”22 These ideas infused President Obama’s policy of engagement as enunciated during his campaign for the White House, but the unwillingness of America’s opponents to join him at the table quickly cooled his enthusiasm for a constructive dialogue, and, like his predecessor, he found solace in the pinpoint lethality of drone attacks on militants in their sanctuaries, a tool he would continue to rely on even after bin Laden was long dead. Obama’s first postelection interview was granted to al-Arabiya; his first overseas speech, delivered in Cairo and aimed at directly at the Muslim street, seemed at first to fall on deaf ears. So before the end of his first year in office, he directed his own surge in troops to beleaguered Afghanistan, where early gains in the war on terror looked to be in peril, and the once-toppled Taliban was staging an ominous comeback. Things remained quiet in Iraq, suggesting at least one front in this ongoing war had cooled. But any momentum hitherto gained looked now to be in jeopardy. The failed Christmas-day bombing of the incoming Northwest flight to Detroit, with an ignited but unexploded “underwear bomb” made of the same hard-to-detect components that many long feared might find their way onboard a passenger flight, was proof positive that the War on Terror, no matter what we called it, was still ongoing, and would most certainly be America’s longest war. Even with the 2011 slaying of Osama bin Laden, new centers of militancy have arisen, with the Yemen branch of al Qaeda—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)—demonstrating both the ambition and logistical capabilities to strike the American homeland. Some critics believe that the Long War was designed to be selfperpetuating, and thus to be a war without end, and thus by definition without victory. Dr Wade Huntley, former director of the Simons Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Research at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, and now on the faculty of the US Naval Postgraduate School, believes the GWOT is a

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“politically manipulated Orwellian fraud” that “sustains support across the political spectrum (and so also in major media) only because it has spawned a cottage industry of ‘homeland security’ analysts, consultants and think tanks who now prey on public anxiety and suck at the teat of government money.”23 According to Huntley, the question of how to define victory is thus “moot.” It is intriguing that in Orwell’s world, Big Brother sustained his grip on power through his omni-watchful eye, made possible by the very technological foundation of modern dictatorship, a system of surveillance that blanketed the homeland, and monitored the actions of its citizenry. While civil libertarians have worried that in pursuit of victory, America would stray down this path toward digital tyranny, invading and abusing the privacy of its populace, we have seen that these new tools of the information age can contribute to a more secure homeland, and help us to fight and win our foreign wars as well. They need not be pervasive, nor penetrate our most private spaces, to be effective. But as surely as our opponent will utilize these new tools as best he can, adapting to the interconnected networks and devices of this flatter world that has so empowered the United States, we too can rise up to the challenge, and not only secure our own frontiers but broaden them as well, so that more of the world becomes our partner and not our rival. Just as in the digital ecosystems of Silicon Valley ruthless corporate rivals have found common ground on interoperability and standards, so too do modern states, as evident not just in the expanding NATO zone of free Europe, but among our Asian partners with whom, increasingly, we share in our policing of the seas. As we consider how to win this long and asymmetrical conflict, we must never lose sight of how central the information domain has been, and will continue to be to its outcome. It is not that we will win or lose by means of NCW, but rather that we will win by achieving something of a digitally and economically interconnected peace, through command of the information domain, the network counterpart to the traditional command of the sea, land, and sky that has hitherto defined military security. This has already proved to be the case in Iraq, where our land, sea, and air power quickly defeated Saddam’s armies without much of a fight, and toppled his regime almost effortlessly. But in the chaos that followed, a new and ferocious insurgency erupted, one that posed a thornier problem for us to solve militarily, and where the traditional command of the land, sea, and air revealed a vulnerable flank, one in the dispersed, complex web of information networks where our new foe had retreated, to

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fight another day in a shadow war, one he believed we lacked the stomach to fight. Even as Saddam disappeared in flight, he had left evidence that his intent was to bleed the American army of occupation and make peace in the new battlespace, recognizing that America’s conventional might was just too great to oppose frontally. So like Lawrence of Arabia a century before, Saddam and his allies planned a guerrilla war, and their indirect attack showed much early promise, just as the speed of our direct attack left us vulnerable and exposed. This complex, and in the beginning painful, descent into the swamp of counterinsurgency was something of a shock to the very harbinger of shock and awe. But despite the chaos that first shook our confidence, we proved more capable than Saddam himself had expected us to be when countering his insurgent counterstrike. James Russell has explored in great detail the learning process of American forces on the ground—first in his 2009 doctoral thesis for the Department of War Studies at the University of London, and later in his 2011 book, Innovation, Transformation, and War: Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005–2007—as they struggled to respond to this new asymmetrical threat, and to greet insurgents of this new networked world with a new form of counterinsurgency. As Russell has observed in his doctoral thesis: “Instead of being hampered by rigid bureaucratic organizations bound up in red tape, wartime experiences in Iraq show that networked, informal, and cross-functional organizations sprang up over the course of military operations, which fused disparate organizational elements, both military and civilian, into a synergistic whole applied in their COIN operations.”24 As he further explained: “Evidence from these cases suggests that certain American ground units (both Army and Marine Corps) in Iraq evolved into flexible, adaptive organizations taking advantage of 21st century human and technological capacities. The units in my study proved to be technologically advanced, complex organizations with a highly educated and trained workforce that embraced environmental complexity and searched for optimal solutions to operational problems. The organizations covered in my study did not satisfice—or take the path of least resistance—in their search for solutions to the tactical problems posed by the insurgency in Iraq.”25 Russell added that the units “built new innovative core competencies within their organizations, drawing upon such factors as: digitally-based communications and data systems that seamlessly passed information on a continuous basis between units preparing for their deployments; imaginative battlefield leadership that delegated

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authority, welcomed the concept of distributed operations, encouraged the free-flow of information throughout the organizational hierarchy, and freely changed their organizational structures in the field in order to apply their capacities across the spectrum of kinetic and non-kinetic operations; the use of advanced technologies and analytical methods to combat insurgent networks; and, a continuous education process in which units kept seeking information and expertise from many different sources to aid in their tactical decision-making processes.”26 Russell noted how this “emergence of American COIN competencies in the field adds an interesting twist to one of the popular narratives of the period,” and that “prior to the Iraq war, the Bush Administration initiated a process called ‘transformation’ to reform DoD’s sprawling military and civilian bureaucracies. This process overwhelmingly featured top–down direction from DoD’s civilian leadership to executing organizational elements.”27 As Russell described: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s now well-known micromanagement of the Central Command’s war plan reflected an attitude that civilian management could and should wrench hidebound military bureaucracies around to a new way of fighting. Rumsfeld’s new way of war, however, had little to do with counterinsurgency and activities he derisively referred to as “nation-building.” Rumsfeld insisted on fewer troops than initially wanted by military commanders and sought to make the invasion an advertisement for a new American way of war featuring precision guided munitions, speed of movement, and effectsbased operations. The irony of the argument . . . is that the certain units indeed “transformed” themselves during the Iraq war though not in the ways envisioned by Rumsfeld. Prior to December 2006 and the promulgation of the new doctrine, the most important part of the “transformation” process occurred not in the invasion but in the counterinsurgency campaign that followed, and not through top–down direction but through ground-up, organic processes in which tactical units eventually embraced and mastered the very “nation building” skills that Rumsfeld had sought to avoid.28 Central to these new skills was the mastering of information warfare as a critical component of counterinsurgency, as US forces not only won over hearts and minds but reasserted command of the information domain. The cyber dimension of COIN, and of the War on Terror more generally, is but the newest domain where dueling ideas may engage in

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a global battle, one that has become increasingly important throughout the post–Cold War era and may in fact have been the defining battlespace of the Cold War, resulting in the collapse of the Soviet Union and its military, political, and economic power to a people-powered movement coordinated, to a large extent, by the increasingly free and more deeply penetrating information networks that eroded earlier communist monopolies of information and their successful command of the airwaves, print media, and other information sources. Though communism collapsed years before the internet took off, the timing of the emergence of a global information network and the collapse of an oppressive system of government that sought to monopolize the flow of information through state ownership and control of all media networks is indeed curious. The role played by Western television signals, free radio broadcasts, fax machines, and samizdat distribution of banned content precipitated the unified people-power movements that shook the foundations of communist authority simultaneously from one end of the Soviet empire to the other. Moscow’s loss of control over the information domain was perhaps the straw that broke the back of the communist system, and in the wake of communism’s collapse, information networks, and information warfare waged in their cyber-realm, would play an increasingly important role in international conflict. Consider the ideas of the renowned theorist of netwar, John Arquilla, former RAND analyst and now Professor and Chair of the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. As Arquilla observed in his December 12, 2009, article, “How to Lose a Cyberwar,” in Foreign Policy: “President Barack Obama often speaks about his central strategic objective of denying al Qaeda its haven in Waziristan, but he says nary a word about taking away its ‘virtual haven’ in cyberspace. This omission is more than his alone, as none of the key military, intelligence, and law-enforcement arms of the U.S. government have done much to curtail terrorist use of the Net.”29 Arquilla believes: “Instead of thinking of cyberspace principally as a place to gather intelligence, we need to elevate it to the status of ‘battlespace.’ This means that we either want to exploit terrorists’ use of the Web and Net unbeknownst to them, or we want to drive them from it.”30 This is much like what the late Vice Admiral Cebrowski counseled in his advocacy of force transformation. As Arquilla put it: “We need to think of gaining an information edge,” like the one enjoyed by the Allies in World War II. During World War II, “the first high-performance computing capability was created, and broke German and Japanese codes, enabling a series

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of victories to be won—from the Mediterranean to Midway—long before Allied material advantages could be brought to bear. A similar capability fielded today against al Qaeda would do much more than just catch confused young men on their journey to the jihad. It would also intercept the messages that guide the movement of terrorist money, identify existing cells and nodes and enable us to go after them in the physical world, and allow us to preempt new attacks.”31 While the 2010 National Security Strategy did not neglect the cyber domain, it certainly did not emphasize it. Among its several references to it, Part III recognized, as the previous administration’s national security policies had, that the “crime-terror nexus is a serious concern as terrorists use criminal networks for logistical support and funding. Increasingly, these networks are involved in cyber crime, which cost consumers billions of dollars annually, while undermining global confidence in the international financial system.”32 But it prescribed that “[c]ombating transnational criminal and trafficking networks requires a multidimensional strategy that safeguards citizens, breaks the financial strength of criminal and terrorist networks, disrupts illicit trafficking networks, defeats transnational criminal organizations, fights government corruption, strengthens the rule of law, bolsters judicial systems, and improves transparency,” and instead of emphasizing cyberwarfare dominance, it reiterated the new administration’s predilection for multilateralism: “While these are major challenges, the United States will be able to devise and execute a collective strategy with other nations facing the same threats.”33 Thus, it observed: “While cyberspace relies on the digital infrastructure of individual countries, such infrastructure is globally connected, and securing it requires global cooperation. We will push for the recognition of norms of behavior in cyberspace, and otherwise work with global partners to ensure the protection of the free flow of information and our continued access. At all times, we will continue to defend our digital networks from intrusion and harmful disruption.”34 While not necessarily satisfying the apostles of netwar, we certainly have come a long way toward their goal, as illustrated by our many-layered effort to secure our homeland, deploy new generations of technology to help mitigate the risk to our homeland, and to bring new networks, gadgets, and innovations to the foreign battlefield as well. In short, we have identified a new battlespace, and recognized its central importance to the struggle. This is why the United States now has a new Cyber Command: an important effort to foster continued institutional and doctrinal evolution in this new, asymmetrical information age. Whether it is erecting

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a new missile shield to fulfill President Reagan’s old Star Wars dream to secure the American homeland from nuclear attack, so that the horrific images of The Day After are never experienced in real life, or the use of basic internet-age tools like spreadsheets, blogs, and mobile devices to successfully implement a hard-fought counterinsurgency effort in the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq, where the battle for hearts and minds was fought on the many new information networks that took root once Saddam’s monopoly on information collapsed along with his regime. In the spectrum of how we define victory, the United States has been digging in for a long, hard fight. But at the end of its Long War, it fully expects to be victorious. As Juan C. Zuarte, Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism in the Bush administration told an online ‘Ask the Whitehouse’ forum following the 2006 release of the updated National Strategy for Combating Terrorism: “Not only do I believe we can win the war on terror, but I know we will. Just like the Cold War, this will be a long, protracted battle of arms and ideas that will require real commitment from the American public and our friends and allies around the world. I think we will indeed look back some day and see that these were the formative years in the battle, which is why the President has forced important institutional changes, like the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Counter Terrorism Center, to allow us to fight this war for the long term.”35 Of course, Zuarte, like most official spokespersons for the government, exuded confidence in his public comments. But some observers see a long road ahead, fueled in part by America’s myopic view of the struggle, and its tendency to see the world through the lens of past conflicts and to miss all the symptoms of a profound shift in paradigm. Critics of American strategy in Vietnam said similar things, blaming the brass for conventional thinking in an age of insurgency, and fighting a replay of World War II or the Korean conflict without grasping the fundamental transformation in war. Warfighters on the ground of course tell of a different story: one where there was a conventional war raging across the demilitarized zone, and which in the end was resolved by a conventional blitzkrieg across enemy lines, as North Vietnamese tanks flooded into the South and ultimately encircled the National Palace in Saigon. So if the North Vietnamese won their war through a conventional tank assault, one cannot fault the US military for its effort to engage this conventional opponent. It is true there was both a domestic insurgency being waged by the Viet Cong, and efforts by the North Vietnamese Army to infiltrate and undermine the Republic

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South Vietnam, mixing guerrilla-styled warfare behind the front lines with front-line conventional warfare. America fought both wars simultaneously, innovating new methods such as its brilliantly conceived and executed proxy war by the indigenous Hmong army in Laos and the highly effective Montagnard fighters in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. It also refined its use of airpower to a level of precision never before experienced in war. And yet critics of the war condemned its architects for fighting the last war, and for suffering a strategic myopia much like critics of the current war. Case in point, and relevant to our discussion, is netwar theorist John Arquilla, who authored the article, “The New Rules of War,” in Foreign Policy (2010). Arquilla starts off this article by noting: “Every day, the U.S. military spends $1.75 billion, much of it on big ships, big guns, and big battalions that are not only not needed to win the wars of the present, but are sure to be the wrong approach to waging the wars of the future.”36 It is his view that during “the ninth year of the first great conflict between nations and networks, America’s armed forces have failed, as militaries so often do, to adapt sufficiently to changed conditions, finding out the hard way that their enemies often remain a step ahead. The U.S. military floundered for years in Iraq, then proved itself unable to grasp the point, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, that old-school surges of ground troops do not offer enduring solutions to new-style conflicts with networked adversaries. So it has almost always been.”37 Oddly, he describes American forces as having “floundered for years” when the American invasion force was one of the lightest, most agile armies to ever invade a country, with a fraction of the troops called for by those more conventionally-minded. Further, the invasion army was one of the most networked, tech-savvy ever to be deployed on the field of battle. The fall of Baghdad by so small a force was only possible because the US military had embraced the principles of transformation articulated a decade earlier by visionaries like Vice Admiral Cebrowski, and asserted domination not just of the ground, air, and sea but also the information networks deemed so critical by netwar theorists like Arquilla. And, also curious, Arquilla lambasts the conventional thinking behind the “oldschool surges of ground troops,” missing an important irony of the Iraq surge engineered by President Bush as his retort to the cowardly report of the Iraq Study Group, which counseled surrender to forces inimical to US interests and values like Iran and Syria, in the interest of fostering a regional peace in a region that has long been hostile to democracy and governed by dictatorship. Bush had learned his own lessons from

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Vietnam, and recommitted to victory, something the US government did not do a generation earlier under the twin assault from its own populace and its foreign foe that had tactically united to defeat America’s deployed armed forces midway through a war, and quite likely on the cusp of a military victory. Bush embraced a “never-again” philosophy, and simply by not withdrawing, and with a modest, one might argue token boost in manpower, just 30,000 troops—more a dribble than a surge when considered historically—he turned the tide of war and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. This was no old-school surge in ground troops, it was proof-positive of how little staying power America’s opponents actually had, and with so small an incremental increase in manpower, Iraq became a success story, and is now one of the region’s few democracies, boasting high levels of political participation across its ethnic and political spectrum. Further, Arquilla seems to overstate the netcentric nature of America’s foe, and to understate America’s own military netcentricity. After all, it was our own web-savvy, gadget-empowered, network-knowledgeable military force that waded deep into the mud of counterinsurgency, regained command of the battlespace and its information component, and soundly defeated the insurgent forces across Iraq in a brilliant COIN campaign that has also set new records for ingenuity, just as the original invasion plan did for speed and offensive depth. One wonders if Professor Arquilla has been viewing this same war unfold: through conventional lenses predisposed to illuminate obsolescence, filtering out the netcentric innovation that has been in abundance. Consider Arquilla’s observation that “a decade and a half after my colleague David Ronfeldt and I coined the term ‘netwar’ to describe the world’s emerging form of network-based conflict, the United States is still behind the curve. The evidence of the last 10 years shows clearly that massive applications of force have done little more than kill the innocent and enrage their survivors.”38 And yet al Qaeda has been on the run, nearly rolled back, and unable to effectively coordinate its global Jihad as its leadership has been picked off, one by one, its allied Taliban leaders also either dead or in captivity, with only a few of the topmost leaders still on the run. The head of the US Central Intelligence Agency admitted as much in his recent testimony, acknowledging success in the drone-wars in the skies of Afghanistan where an all-time historical minimum of lethal forces has been unleashed with pinpoint precision. This has not been about massive force and never has, and while there have been some civilian casualties as there always are in times of war, even these levels are by any historical

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measure quite nominal. When the Soviets sought to force Afghanistan into the communist world, the end result was an outflow of over five million refugees, and whole villages laid waste. The civilian death toll was in the tens of thousands. In America’s decade of war in the same country, the civilian losses have numbered in the hundreds. There simply is no comparison. America’s engagement has been defined by precision that would make even the most moralistic war theorist proud at the display of jus in bello. When Arquilla writes: “Networked organizations like al Qaeda have proven how easy it is to dodge such heavy punches and persist to land sharp counterblows,” one wonders if perhaps he is standing on his head or watching TV in a mirror; my impression is that the opposite is a truer description, that a networked United States has delivered precision strikes that have kept al Qaeda on the ropes. Arquilla argues that “[w]hen militaries don’t keep up with the pace of change, countries suffer,”39 it is hard to argue. But this is precisely what the late Vice Admiral Cebrowski argued a decade earlier, and endeavored to institutionalize in the US military when he headed the Office of Force Transformation. Ironically, Arquilla is in part affiliated with an institute at NPS that is named after Cebrowski, and yet believes “the United States is spending huge amounts of money in ways that are actually making Americans less secure, not only against irregular insurgents, but also against smart countries building different sorts of militaries. And the problem goes well beyond weapons and other high-tech items. What’s missing most of all from the U.S. military’s arsenal is a deep understanding of networking, the loose but lively interconnection between people that creates and brings a new kind of collective intelligence, power, and purpose to bear—for good and ill.”40 Cebrowski himself wrote the book on NCW, and grasped this most elemental assertion, working to introduce a new digital culture to the US military and even proposing a new fleet architecture to embrace the concept of strategic swarming, the netcentric counterpart to massing force at the decisive point in the old Jominian tradition. Arquilla points out: “Before the Internet and the World Wide Web, a terrorist network operating cohesively in more than 60 countries could not have existed. Today, a world full of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallabs awaits—and not all of them will fail. But the principles of networking don’t have to help only the bad guys. If fully embraced, they can lead to a new kind of military—and even a new kind of war.”41 This is precisely what Cebrowski counseled, and in his capacity as America’s Transformer-in-Chief, he set about remaking the US military for the information age. Whether abroad, or even confronting the

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strategic challenges at home, net-sensitivity has been part and parcel of the new policies, doctrines, and methods. While Arquilla argues otherwise, we have been engaged in netwar with full vigor since September 12, the day after we endured al Qaeda’s second strike against out homeland, after their 1993 truck-bomb attack failed to topple the Twin Towers. Eight years later they struck again, 8 long years during which they were content to attack remote targets, in the harbor at Yemen, or in deepest Africa, on the periphery of our power, far from home. That they struck our homeland twice in 8 years, and seem to have gone another 8 before trying unsuccessfully to down that Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day in 2009, does not seem to substantiate Arquilla’s view of our opponent being so net-savvy. Dispersed, yes, but not by choice—by necessity. This may in fact be a sign of their weakness, their lack of a sanctuary, and a cause of the infrequency of their attacks. Such infrequency might in fact suggest that their use of mass-terror against us is primarily for purposes of recruitment and public relations; that no real strategic benefit accrues from lobbing some sort of VBIED at us every decade or so. And that we seem to have thwarted so many attacks against so many targets in so many countries and on so many continents in the same period seems to me to suggest that we in fact are demonstrating tremendous success at netwar, and achieving command of the information domain and all its interconnected networks with the same steady grit with which we have achieved command of the sea, sky, and land. So yes, an armed force ignorant in the ways of netwar is doomed to defeat; but this does not in the least describe our military or homeland security apparatus one iota. Arquilla recalls the evolving debate with Cebrowski, and the friendship that emerged from the debate between them: Almost 20 years ago, I began a debate about networks that blossomed into an unlikely friendship with Vice Adm. Art Cebrowski, the modern strategic thinker most likely to be as well remembered as Alfred Thayer Mahan, the great American apostle of sea power. He was the first in the Pentagon power structure to warm to my notions of developing fighting networks, embracing the idea of opening lots of lateral communications links between “sensors and shooters.” We disagreed, however, about the potential of networks. Cebrowski thought that NCW could be used to improve the performance of existing tools— including aircraft carriers—for some time to come. I thought that networking implied a wholly new kind of navy, one made up of small, swift vessels, many of them remotely operated. Cebrowski, who passed away

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in late 2005, clearly won this debate, as the US Navy remains heavily invested in being a “few-large” force – if one that is increasingly networked. In an implicit nod to David Ronfeldt’s and my ideas, the Navy even has a Netwar Command now.42 Arquilla’s portrayal of Cebrowski’s position seems to dismiss Cebrowski’s innovative proposal for an alternate fleet design for the increasingly networked world, and the imperative that Cebrowski perceived to embrace full netcentricity in the US Navy, as evident in his last report, coauthored with Stuart E. Johnson, “Alternative Fleet Architecture Design” in 2005, the very year of his passing. Arquilla does note, however, that netwar has gained some advocates in the US armed forces, and that resistance to the new information landscape has not been uniform, even if he perceives Cebrowski as something of a doctrinal opponent, when their distinction is more like that which defines the stylistic and emotional difference between pessimists and optimists, and not one that fundamentally differs over the increasing salience of the information domain, and the need to respond doctrinally and architecturally, to meet emergent cyberthreats. Swarming has also gained some adherents. The most notable has been Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, who famously used swarm tactics in the last great Pentagon war game, “Millennium Challenge 2002,” to sink several aircraft carriers at the outset of the imagined conflict. But rather than accept that something quite radical was going on, the referees were instructed to “refloat” the carriers, and the costly game—its price tag ran in the few hundred millions—continued. Van Riper walked out. Today, some in the U.S. military still pursue the idea of swarming, mostly in hopes of employing large numbers of small unmanned aerial vehicles in combat. But military habits of mind and institutional interests continue to reflect a greater audience for surges than swarms. What if senior military leaders wake up and decide to take networks and swarming absolutely seriously? If they ever do, it is likely that the scourges of terrorism and aggression will become less a part of the world system. Such a military would be smaller but quicker to respond, less costly but more lethal. The world system would become far less prone to many of the kinds of violence that have plagued it. Networking and swarming are the organizational and doctrinal keys, respectively, to the strategic puzzle that has been waiting to be solved in our time.43

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Arquilla writes, presciently, in his capacity as “visionary,” the word used by the editors of Foreign Policy to introduce his article, that: “Every era of technological change has resulted in profound shifts in military and strategic affairs. History tells us that these developments were inevitable, but soldiers and statesmen were almost always too late in embracing them—and tragedies upon tragedies ensued. There is still time to be counted among the exceptions, like the Byzantines who, after the fall of Rome, radically redesigned their military and preserved their empire for another thousand years. The U.S. goal should be to join the ranks of those who, in their eras, caught glimpses of the future and acted in time to shape it, saving the world from darkness.”44 This is all fine and good, but ignores just one minor fact: the United States has now had such a grasp for nearly a decade, and has endeavored, sometimes as part of a coalition with the willing and sometimes on its own, to save the world from this very scourge of darkness. Just ask the women of Afghanistan who not only now enjoy the right to go to school, but to serve in government, and in the national police force, liberated from the veil imposed by the medieval Taliban. Or ask the millions of Iraqis who now proudly vote for their own government, even with former Baathists excluded from the ballot. The violence has all but disappeared, and while there are allegations of stuffed ballots and dead men voting, these are tricks of the democratic trade that America has itself long excelled at, as evident in the machine politics of Chicago, or Boston, or West Virginia, which at various times in history were bought and paid for. Yes, it has been difficult at times, and yes, there has been bloodshed, including the tragic loss of civilian lives. But compare this to the mass graves unearthed in Saddam’s killing fields, or the destruction of the Afghani nation under the full, blunt weight of the Soviet Red Army a generation ago. Despite the troubles of our time, these excesses are in the past. And it is because of America’s embrace of netwar that this has been possible. America has relearned the art of war in realtime, navigating its way along the newly connected networks that define the new, virtual battlefields where information warfare is waged, a new “infoscape” that is at once virtual and real, where command of the land, sea, air, and even near-Earth space itself form a new, complex nexus of critical strategic importance. As it has sought to secure its homeland, and to reduce the threat to its homeland from external foes, America has enunciated new policies, erected new electronic and physical barriers, and broadly reinvigorated its efforts to secure its frontiers, both physically and virtually. It has found success just as it has found new challenges; and it has made mistakes in direction and application of its many tools designed with this new fight

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in mind. Most controversial, of course, was its invasion of Iraq, and the fiasco of its fruitless, and in hindsight pointless, WMD hunt. And yet, at the very same time, America’s fighting men and women turned miscalculation into victory, fiasco into freedom, reasserting in blood and conviction our commitment to stay the course, and this time see it through to the end. We paid a high price in blood and treasure, but in the end, we brought a new democracy to a troubled land, providing yet another nation with the gift of liberty. And in so many ways, Saddam’s fall and the rise of democracy in Iraq marked the beginning of a transformation of the Arab world. With bin Laden now dead, and a grass-roots peoplepowered movement for democracy sweeping the entire Middle East, promising to bring hope to a region long ruled by fear, there is reason to believe our long war will find its end—and that end might be victory, not only for us but for all freedom-loving peoples. What started in Iraq, albeit cloaked in a questionable pretext of WMD-counterproliferation, may perhaps be its most enduring solution in the war on terror, eradicating tyranny and liberating oppressed peoples, so they too may know the joys of human freedom. In such an environment, perhaps, terrorism will wither on the vine, and all but disappear. If this proves to be the case, then perhaps the effort will be judged to be both worth the while and at heart visionary. Boldness can look a lot like recklessness, the differentiation emerging only with success. Ultimately, information warfare is a battle of ideas, with technology providing both the means and the new virtual arena of combat, but not its end. The end quite simply is the enduring, millennial idea of freedom. This might well be the legacy of the Iraq War—particularly if we learn the many lessons of its transformation from fiasco on the tragic brink of historic failure to an unfinished but nonetheless promising success story, and prove capable of applying these lessons to new and very different zones of conflict, where the most enduring lesson of them all may be none other than the ability, under fire, to learn from our mistakes, and to respond creatively, with innovation, to new challenges and threats as they arise, without surrender or retreat.

Two Sides of the COIN: America, Insurgency, and Counterinsurgency America is in many ways a nation forged by the crucible of counterinsurgency warfare. It is ironic in that its birth was achieved through a

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revolutionary war that started out as a guerrilla war but which evolved, like Mao’s struggle, into joint conventional and guerrilla operations as the young United States developed its conventional land and naval warfare capabilities. During its unsuccessful campaign in the southern colonies, Britain confronted the specter of partisan warfare in South Carolina and competent conventional resistance in North Carolina by Nathaniel Greene’s regulars, squeezing Britain in a vise that bore an uncanny resemblance to what the Americans would face two centuries later in Indochina. As Anthony James Joes described: “The Carolina partisans and General Greene’s regulars operated in a powerfully symbiotic relationship,” and citing John Richard Alden’s The South in the Revolution: 1763–1789, “Greene could hardly have kept the field without the aid of Marion, Sumter, Pickens, and the partisans.”45 Joes describes how “guerrilla forces played a little-known but essential role in the drama leading to the surrender at Yorktown and American independence.”46 Later, as America expanded west, it waged more than a century of counterinsurgent and annihilatory campaigns against the preindustrial indigenous tribes that peopled the virgin America before colonization, seizing by force, and ethnically cleansing without remorse, vast territories that were, at the time of America’s declaration of independence, Native lands protected by the Proclamation of 1763, much to the consternation of the colonists who looked west with expansion on their minds after the British victory in the Seven Years War (known in the Americas as the French and Indian War). And so America first turned its sights upon the British, and once independent of the Crown, began its inexorable westward conquest, becoming a world power along the way. And, when its expansion brought it into contact with the colonial territories of Spain, it conquered much of northern Mexico and inherited a global empire from the Caribbean to Asia, finding it had to master the art of anticolonial warfare, becoming what only a few decades earlier it had fought so heroically against. Later in its history, America massed the military power necessary to crush both the Nazi threat to the Euro-Atlantic region, and the imperial Japanese threat to the Asia-Pacific region, along the way becoming a global superpower armed with nuclear weapons. And yet, even with this technology edge, it was militarily humbled by the ingenious (and indigenous) people’s war of Ho Chi Minh, itself modeled in part on Mao’s successful revolutionary and anti-imperial struggles, adapted for his American opponent, and leveraging the indigenous nature of his struggle to unify his country, which had been divided by colonial powers, fueling the

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perception of the justness of his cause even if the state that he imagined would prove as oppressive as any colonial regime he sought to topple. As Joes recalled: “Americans showed that they could play the role of guerrillas effectively during their own Revolutionary War and War of Secession. Their record as counterinsurgents is more ambiguous.”47 In less than a generation, America’s peer adversary, the Soviet Union, would itself be humbled by the ingenious (and indigenous) insurgency of the Afghani Mujahideen, and Moscow’s strategic withdrawal from that field of battle would contribute to its rapid demise as a global power and as a singular sovereign state. As Joes observed: “A skillfully led guerrilla campaign is a mortal challenge for any government. Consider the frustrations and even debacles that so many powerful countries encountered when they entered the marshes of counterinsurgency.”48 Whether the Americans in Indochina or the Soviets in Afghanistan, “governments of every political complexion and economic system have found counter insurgency an exceedingly difficult undertaking.”49 The Global War on Terror was only the latest chapter in America’s long effort to subdue the fires of insurgency, rendering foreign lands more democratic, and transforming their societies to become more compatible with American values. The insurgencies we now face are no more threatening, no more lethal, no more violent than those we have confronted in the past, though some theorists, such as COIN strategist David J. Kilcullen, believe there is something especially menacing in the threat posed by the global Islamist insurgency. Indeed, they seem to be geographically more contained, and strategically more vulnerable, when compared to the ideological threat presented by Mao’s strategic vision, which took root in so many distant nations—from China to Cuba to Peru and which still motivates armed struggle in the highlands of the Andes and the Himalayas, where crushing rural poverty and endemic political corruption make the Maoist vision especially attractive to the longsuffering peasantry. The threat of Islamic extremism is largely defensive, part of a movement to reduce Western influence and to oust its armed forces from the Holy Land, as described by Bin Laden’s 1996 declaration of war, though it has morphed into a more dynamic and destabilizing vision to restore the caliphate, a purely Islamic, and decidedly nonWestern, system of government. While the insurgencies we face in the GWOT may not be struggles over land per se, as the Maoist struggles clearly were, and may not involve a peasantry in arms, they do involve some fundamental issues of land and politics. In Iraq, there is the question of the vast supplies of oil beneath

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the land, and who ultimately controls the riches it creates. America faced similar challenges in its own oil lands, from its oil patch in Texas to the virgin wilderness of Alaska. The battle over the ANWR lands, which pits oil developers against the protectors of the environment, and splits America’s own indigenous minorities (with Inupiat favoring development, and their Gwich’in neighbors opposing it), reveals the ubiquity of this problem, and how oil wealth beneath the land is a potent catalyst for protracted political conflict. In Afghanistan, it’s not oil underneath the land that presents the salient threat but instead the lucrative poppy fields central to the illicit global trade in heroin, which—under the fractured, post-Taliban reality of Afghanistan where the reach of the central government remains limited—has enjoyed bountiful crops in recent years. Ironically, this problem was controlled successfully by the Taliban, whose views on the illicit nature of the international drug trade were oddly consonant with Western policies. So land very much underlies both conflicts, as does the desire of the farmers and impoverished villagers in both lands to enjoy a better life. If oil or poppy is not the solution to their plight, a more compelling alternative is required. So while land ownership may not be a central issue, the broader relationship of the land, its productivity, and the fruits of its bounty to the rural peoples of both countries is central. In their suffering, extremism can take root, as can false or exaggerated promises of a better life to follow. But if we can bring hope, and measurable progress, as we have tried to do so many times before, then we may find that the peasantry joins our side. This has been the case in the successful COIN efforts of coalition forces that have directly engaged the tribal leadership of the villages in the Sunni Heartland, once the center of insurgent resistance to the coalition. With the enticement of funds, job creation programs, and participation in the emerging police and security apparati of the new Iraq, many tribal leaders have recognized the benefits of uniting with the coalition against the false promises and harsh tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). General Petraeus, and the renewed counterinsurgencty doctrine that guided him—informed by the experiences gained in tackling the challenges of the insurgency against the coalition and the new Iraqi government—demonstrated a renewed appreciation of historical knowledge, and of a willingness to learn from recent history, much as Mao himself had counseled. And so once again, American forces were committed to relearning the art of counterinsurgency, and the fruits of America’s crash course on fighting insurgents was reflected in America’s rearticulated doctrine, the US Army/Marine Corps Field Manual on

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Counterinsurgency issued in December 2006, FM (Field Manual) 3–24, or as it is known to the Marine Corps, MCWP 3–33.5. In the foreword to FM 3–24, the coauthors, then US Army Lieutenant General and Commander David Petraeus and US Marine Corps Lieutenant General James and Deputy Commandant James F. Amos explain that the new field manual was “designed to fill a doctrinal gap,” as it had “been 20 years since the Army published a manual devoted to counterinsurgency operations,” and “for the Marine Corps it has been 25 years.”50 With troops involved in combat operations against insurgencies in both Afghanistan and Iraq, they found it “essential that we give them a manual that provides principles and guidelines for counterinsurgency operations” that was both “grounded in historical studies” and also “informed by contemporary experiences”51—as both Mao and Clausewitz have so wisely counseled. With this properly balanced understanding of the relative importance of historical knowledge to the fighting of contemporary battles, the authors explained that FM 3–24 “takes a general approach to counterinsurgency operations” as “every insurgency is contextual and presents its own set of challenges. You cannot fight former Saddamists and Islamic extremists the same way you would have fought the Viet Cong, the Moros, or the Tupamaros; the application of principles and fundamentals to deal with each varies considerably.”52 But regardless of the tactical, cultural, and/or geopolitical uniqueness of each insurgency, “all insurgencies, even today’s highly adaptable strains, remain wars amongst the people. They use variations of standard themes, and adhere to elements of a recognizable revolutionary campaign plan,” so consequently, FM 3–24 “addresses the common characteristics of insurgencies” and “strives to provide those conducting counterinsurgency campaigns with a solid foundation for understanding and addressing specific insurgencies.”53 The authors describe a counterinsurgency campaign as follows: “a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations, conducted along multiple lines of operation. It requires Soldiers and Marines to employ a mix of both familiar combat tasks and skills more often associated with nonmilitary agencies. The balance between them depends on the local situation.”54 And, they add, “[a]chieving this balance is not easy. It requires leaders at all levels to adjust their approach constantly. They must ensure that their Soldiers and Marines are ready each day to be greeted with either a handshake or a hand grenade while taking on missions only infrequently practiced until recently at our combat training centers. Soldiers and Marines are expected to be nation builders as well as warriors. They must be prepared to help

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reestablish institutions and local security forces and assist in rebuilding infrastructure and basic services. They must be able to facilitate establishing local governance and the rule of law.”55 Counterinsurgency thus “involves extensive coordination and cooperation with many intergovernmental, host-nation, and international agencies,” and “[c]onducting a successful counterinsurgency campaign requires a flexible, adaptive force led by agile, well-informed, culturally astute leaders.”56 FM 3–24 “is based on lessons learned from previous counterinsurgencies and contemporary operations” as well as “on existing interim doctrine and doctrine recently developed.” Its preface notes that “[c]ounterinsurgency operations generally have been neglected in broader American military doctrine and national security policies since the end of the Vietnam War over 30 years ago.” Hence, the FM 3–24 manual “is designed to reverse that trend. It is also designed to merge traditional approaches to COIN with the realities of a new international arena shaped by technological advances, globalization, and the spread of extremist ideologies—some of them claiming the authority of a religious faith.”57 Because “[d]octrine by definition is broad in scope and involves principles, tactics, techniques, and procedures applicable worldwide,” FM 3–24 is thus “not focused on any region or country” nor a “standalone reference.”58 Interestingly, in the draft of FM 3–24 issued in June 2006, the preface also noted that “insurgencies have many common characteristics and patterns, while their ideological basis may vary widely,” and that “[f]undamental to all counterinsurgencies is the need to assist local authorities to secure the populace and thereby separate the people from the insurgents while enhancing the legitimacy of the government.”59 However, the draft doctrine had asserted that “[i]nsurgents thrive on terrorizing and intimidating the population to gain control over them,” and thereby “creating chaos to undercut and reduce governmental legitimacy and authority, and fostering overall instability.”60 Yet, a look to both the recent and distant past suggests this is not altogether true, or at least consistent across space and time, since in many insurgencies, from the just rebellions against Roman oppression by Spartacus, who fought to liberate the slaves, to Eleazar who fought to liberate his homeland, and Jesus who fought to transform the political culture of the Roman world, to the ideological insurgencies of the Cold War period, which were framed in a Marxist, Leninist, or Maoist vocabulary of ending exploitation and classism, sometimes in lieu of sowing the seeds of chaos or using terror tactics against the populace, they merely proffered the hope of a more

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just order, and an end to poverty and suffering—putting the onus on the counterinsurgent to redouble its efforts to uplift the peasantry from poverty. In the post–Cold War era, with the dissipation of the old Cold War ideologies, insurgents have sought to contextualize their struggles in more contemporary terminology, finding an idiom appropriate to their time and place, often articulating an epic clash not of class but of tribe, resulting in annihilatory and genocidal collisions as one group vies for absolute control, as seen in conflicts as far apart and unrelated as the Balkan implosion, which resulted in the first violent effort to redraw European borders since World War II, to Rwanda where two tribes defined largely by their economic class as recognized by earlier European colonizers engaged in a lopsided, and in the end genocidal, explosion of intertribal violence, to the Americas, where the Zapatistas rose up in the first indigenous army freed from any ideological labels, in a war to reclaim tribal lands from the modernizing efforts of the Mexican state. None of these struggles of the 1990s sought to induce chaos per se but rather to impose a new, and in the eyes of the insurgents, a just, order, and to reclaim political power and control over sovereign territory in their own name. So while the authors of FM 3–24 have sought to, in the Maoist and Clausewitzian analytical tradition, learn from history and yet not be saddled by historical baggage inappropriate to their counterinsurgent journey, their direct linkage of insurgency to terror in the finalized version of the manual, and the aims of the insurgent to sow chaos and not order, does a disservice to the long and often just traditions, methods, and objectives of insurgency; it was perhaps this point that led to these comments being excised out of the manual prior to its official release in December 2006. Nonetheless, this deleted historical inaccuracy is interesting in itself, and can perhaps be attributed to the belief shared by those tasked with fighting the GWOT that they were waging a war against terror and its roots, and as such, their opponent was on the unjust side of an otherwise just war. But as with all insurgencies, past and present, the relative justness of the two opponents varies according to one’s perspective. Clearly, to the Afghanis resisting a foreign and unbelieving invader, and to Iraqis humiliated and abused at Abu Ghraib while America pursued its erroneous hunt for Saddam’s nonexistent stockpiles of WMD, a valid claim to their own just cause of resistance can be logically and persuasively argued, and tactically and strategically sustained. Only in the Sunni heartland, where tribal identity superseded sect or nation, was a battle for

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hearts and minds between two foreign entities, AQI and the Americanled Coalition, possible, and it is there that the Petraeus plan has been most effective, since that environment in which COIN took place most closely matched that articulated by FM 3–24’s doctrine. More broadly, however, FM 3–24 does recognize the universalities of insurgency as a method of warfare that transcends space and time. As noted in chapter one, “Insurgency and Counterinsurgency”: 1–1. Insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN) are complex subsets of warfare. Globalization, technological advancement, urbanization, and extremists who conduct suicide attacks for their cause have certainly influenced contemporary conflict; however, warfare in the 21st century retains many of the characteristics it has exhibited since ancient times. Warfare remains a violent clash of interests between organized groups characterized by the use of force. Achieving victory still depends on a group’s ability to mobilize support for its political interests (often religiously or ethnically based) and to generate enough violence to achieve political consequences. Means to achieve these goals are not limited to conventional forces employed by nation-states.61 At the top of the first chapter, in a quotation from a Special Forces Officer in Iraq in 2005, is presented this insight: “Counterinsurgency is not just thinking man’s warfare—it is the graduate level of war.”62 Section 1–2 further elaborates that “[i]nsurgency and its tactics are as old as warfare itself. Joint doctrine defines an insurgency as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict (JP 1–02). Stated another way, an insurgency is an organized, protracted politico-military struggle designed to weaken the control and legitimacy of an established government, occupying power, or other political authority while increasing insurgent control.”63 It adds that COIN is defined as “military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency,” and adds that these “definitions are a good starting point, but they do not properly highlight the key paradox: though insurgency and COIN are two sides of a phenomenon that has been called revolutionary war or internal war, they are distinctly different types of operations,” albeit both part of that “broad category of conflict known as irregular warfare.”64 Section 1–3 gets to the definitional heart of insurgency: “Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each

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side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate. Insurgents use all available tools—political (including diplomatic), informational (including appeals to religious, ethnic, or ideological beliefs), military, and economic—to overthrow the existing authority. This authority may be an established government or an interim governing body. Counterinsurgents, in turn, use all instruments of national power to sustain the established or emerging government and reduce the likelihood of another crisis emerging.”65 Section 1–8 notes that the insurgents’ methods, while labeled “unconventional” in contradistinction to conventional methods of waging war, are nonetheless as common to warfare as conventional tactics and strategies: The terrorist and guerrilla tactics common to insurgency have been among the most common approaches to warfare throughout history. Any combatant prefers a quick, cheap, overwhelming victory over a long, bloody, protracted struggle. But to succeed against superior resources and technology, weaker actors have had to adapt. The recent success of U.S. military forces in major combat operations undoubtedly will lead many future opponents to pursue asymmetric approaches. Because the United States retains significant advantages in fires and technical surveillance, a thinking enemy is unlikely to choose to fight U.S. forces in open battle. Some opponents have attempted to do so, such as in Panama in 1989 and Iraq in 1991 and 2003. They were defeated in conflicts measured in hours or days. Conversely, other opponents have offset America’s fires and surveillance advantages by operating close to civilians, as Somali clans did in 1993 and insurgents in Iraq have done since mid-2003; these enemies have been more successful in achieving their aims. This situation does not mean that counterinsurgents do not face open warfare. Although insurgents frequently use nonviolent means like political mobilization and work stoppages (strikes), they do resort to conventional military operations when conditions seem right.66 Section 1–9 finds that the “contest of internal war is not ‘fair,’” as “many of the ‘rules’ favor insurgents,” and explains that this is “why insurgency has been a common approach used by the weak against the strong.”67 Perhaps overstating the strategic environment of the insurgent, FM 3–24 observes that “at the beginning of a conflict, insurgents typically hold the strategic initiative;” and “[t]hough they may resort to violence because of regime changes or government actions, insurgents generally

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initiate the conflict. Clever insurgents strive to disguise their intentions. When these insurgents are successful at such deception, potential counterinsurgents are at a disadvantage. A coordinated reaction requires political and military leaders to recognize that an insurgency exists and to determine its makeup and characteristics. While the government prepares to respond, the insurgents gain strength and foster increasing disruption throughout the state or region.”68 This may certainly have been true in Iraq, with the seemingly insufficient size of the invading army and its obvious incapacity to maintain order after successful major combat operations, giving the insurgents a tremendous firstmover advantage, exacerbated by the reluctance of the administration to admit that a simmering, and soon festering, insurgency had broken out, driven in part by the Coalition’s belief that its campaign of shock and awe had been successful, and its continued denial that its opponent had shifted to an unconventional response. But this is not universally true, as insurgents across the vast breadth of human history have often had to overcome huge strategic disadvantages, as witnessed during the rebellions against Roman authority, and later against the Japanese in China, both brutal occupiers prepared to annihilate its opponent, and to inflict massive casualties upon the civilian populace. Nor is it true that insurgents necessarily disguise their intentions, though in the case of some of the Communist insurgencies during the Cold War, support from the peasantry for the insurgents’ cause was gained with false promises of land title, when the end goal of the insurgents was in fact to collectivize agriculture. But as far as deception is an inherent part of politics, and practiced by insurgents and counterinsurgents alike, it is logical to conclude that clever insurgents, as with clever counterinsurgents, engage in the deception of their intentions. FM 3–24 correctly points out that the “government normally has an initial advantage in resources; however, that edge is counterbalanced by the requirement to maintain order and protect the population and critical resources. Insurgents succeed by sowing chaos and disorder anywhere; the government fails unless it maintains a degree of order everywhere.”69 However, history has shown that as the insurgent gains political control, it is his job to impose order, and successful insurgents throughout history have been tasked with this Herculean challenge, from the FMLN’s “liberated zones” in war-torn El Salvador to FARC-controlled territories in Colombia and in Talibanruled Afghanistan as it marched toward Kabul, imposing order over the fractious and embattled countryside during the 1990s.

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To successfully defeat an insurgency is never easy, as rightfully observed by FM 3–24. In Section 1–10, it explains that “maintaining security in an unstable environment requires vast resources, whether host nation, U.S., or multinational. In contrast, a small number of highly motivated insurgents with simple weapons, good operations security, and even limited mobility can undermine security over a large area. Thus, successful COIN operations often require a high ratio of security forces to the protected population. (See paragraph 1–67.) For that reason, protracted COIN operations are hard to sustain. The effort requires a firm political will and substantial patience by the government, its people, and the countries providing support.”70 And Section 1–11 adds that “[r]evolutionary situations may result from regime changes, external interventions, or grievances carefully nurtured and manipulated by unscrupulous leaders. Sometimes societies are most prone to unrest not when conditions are the worst, but when the situation begins to improve and people’s expectations rise. For example, when major combat operations conclude, people may have unrealistic expectations of the United States’ capability to improve their lives. The resulting discontent can fuel unrest and insurgency. At such times, the influences of globalization and the international media may create a sense of relative deprivation, contributing to increased discontent as well.”71 Further, according to Section 1–13: “Insurgents have an additional advantage in shaping the information environment. Counterinsurgents seeking to preserve legitimacy must stick to the truth and make sure that words are backed up by deeds; insurgents, on the other hand, can make exorbitant promises and point out government shortcomings, many caused or aggravated by the insurgency. Ironically, as insurgents achieve more success and begin to control larger portions of the populace, many of these asymmetries diminish. That may produce new vulnerabilities that adaptive counterinsurgents can exploit.”72 This contention is also challenged by the historical record: governments have for countless ages controlled the information environment through state-controlled media and effective propaganda and counterintelligence operations, putting intense pressure on insurgents, who were often forced to operate in cellular organizations with extremely limited access to information. While the world of the internet has enable a viral approach to information flow that has been hard for states to control, creating a new environment for insurgent propaganda efforts to propagate, it is still a stretch of the imagination to argue that the insurgents control the information environment, or that their advantage decreases as their control expands,

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when the opposite is both more intuitive and historically accurate when consideration is given to “liberated territories” in various war zones from Communist China to North Vietnam to El Salvador to FARC-held territory in rural Colombia, or to the postwar stability experienced in the case of China, Vietnam, and El Salvador, where wartime insurgents provided stable postwar governance. FM 3–24, in this case as in others, seems to exaggerate the insurgent’s capabilities, and his tendency toward deception, perhaps to inflate the successes of (and the ethical position of) the counterinsurgent, when in fact these successes might be attributable to the natural failures of the insurgents operating in a uniquely demanding environment, in opposition to a numerically superior and technologically advanced opponent. Ultimately, the very heart and soul of FM 3–24 is its commitment to the process of relearning the lost art of counterinsurgency, which, as noted in the manual, since Vietnam had atrophied despite America’s long history, after its own revolutionary experience with insurgency in the eighteenthcentury, as a counterinsurgency innovator, first with its three centuries of counterinsurgency activities against the many indigenous Native American tribes that stood in the way of its continental expansion; then when it confronted the forces of secession during its violent Civil War in the nineteenth century, and then as it expanded its military and diplomatic influence across the oceans as it emerged as a great power, then a superpower, and finally a hyperpower. America’s rich historical experience thus provides war planners with something of a counterinsurgency laboratory. As a superpower, its contest against its Soviet rival led it to be at once an insurgent and a counterinsurgent, and despite its humbling strategic setback in Vietnam, it has proved capable at both. But with the dual impact of the Vietnam loss and the end of the Cold War, with its general peace dividend and strategic build-down, America came to depend more and more on its technological edge, as a space-age, netcentric power capable not only of the nuclear obliteration of any opponent, but at a lower level of violence, of defeating any adversary, of any size, in any battlespace, whether land, sea, air, or space. This technological dependency facilitated steep declines in the size of its standing army, weakened the bonds of civil–military relations so much that warfighting came to be seen as an exercise that did not require the full mobilization of national power, and left many Americans viewing war as a push-button exercise not so different from a computer game, as its quick and decisive victory in the 1991 Gulf War reinforced, with its triumph of smart weaponry over the mass of Saddam’s battle-hardened army.

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But with the new reality of the post-9/11 era, America soon found itself reengaged on the ground, in protracted campaigns requiring more than technological prowess, taking place in the mountains, deserts, and urban battlespaces it had long hoped never again to visit. In such places, the full armory of America’s warfighting powers could not be applied, at least not delicately enough for the asymmetrical and highly politicized nature of the GWOT, which was as much political and economic as it was military in its definition. Hence America’s current need to reacquaint itself with its lost art of counterinsurgency, a skill set it had fully developed at numerous times in its history, from its long frontier campaigns known in their collectivity as the Indian Wars to its almost victorious effort in Vietnam. As described in the introduction to FM 3–24: Throughout its history, the U.S. military has had to relearn the principles of counterinsurgency (COIN) while conducting operations against adaptive insurgent enemies. It is time to institutionalize Army and Marine Corps knowledge of this longstanding form of conflict. This publication’s purpose is to help prepare Army and Marine Corps leaders to conduct COIN operations anywhere in the world. It provides a foundation for study before deployment and the basis for operations in theater. Perhaps more importantly, it provides techniques for generating and incorporating lessons learned during those operations—an essential requirement for success against today’s adaptive foes. Using these techniques and processes can keep U.S. forces more agile and adaptive than their irregular enemies. Knowledge of the history and principles of insurgency and COIN provides a solid foundation that informed leaders can use to assess insurgencies. This knowledge can also help them make appropriate decisions on employing all instruments of national power against these threats.73 And so America’s military, midway through two wars half a world away, has hit the books, doing what Mao had counseled not only his commanders but his many foot soldiers: learning, and adapting, applying lessons from the past with the new found knowledge of today’s battlefield environment. As Section 1–144 of FM 3–24, on the topic of “Learn and Adapt,” explains: 1–144. An effective counterinsurgent force is a learning organization. Insurgents constantly shift between military and political phases and tactics. In addition, networked insurgents constantly exchange

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information about their enemy’s vulnerabilities—even with insurgents in distant theaters. However, skillful counterinsurgents can adapt at least as fast as insurgents. Every unit needs to be able to make observations, draw and apply lessons, and assess results. Commanders must develop an effective system to circulate best practices throughout their command. Combatant commanders might also need to seek new laws or policies that authorize or resource necessary changes. Insurgents shift their AOs looking for weak links, so widespread competence is required throughout the counterinsurgent force.74 America is only in the early phase if its learning and adapting, having realized, after toppling Saddam, the old adage, the devil you know is preferable over the devil that you do not. In Saddam’s absence, new and menacing threats quickly rose up, making the imposition of a democratic peace on Iraq much harder than the initial war planners had expected, as new elements like AQI, newly liberated forces such as the Shi’ite Mehdi Army, remnants of the old Saddam regime quite discontented with their loss of power, and the rising diplomatic influence of neighboring Iran on the new, fractured state that was once a singular (and in many ways, secular) whole under Saddam’s strict rule. Facing multiple opponents in this chaotic battlespace, and finally admitting that yes, an insurgency was being waged against the Coalition forces, America’s lightning quick conventional victory came under a new threat by this new and motley constellation of asymmetrical forces, not united, but in agreement that America was its opponent. Kautilya’s dictum that the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” did not prove true, as the enemy of our enemy quickly repositioned itself as our new enemy. Rather, what proved true was that the “friend of my enemy is my enemy,” and the liberated Shi’ites, the friend of our Persian rival, continues to feel ambivalent, not yet sure whose enmity it prefers to bear, ours or Tehran’s. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the Taliban, once quickly routed, has proven resilient, and the will of our NATO allies has been strained as what was once defined as peacekeeping has turned into counterinsurgency warfare, causing a political backlash back home, in Ottawa, London, and Berlin. In February 2008, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates caused a ripple of controversy to propagate through the NATO Alliance after criticizing some members for their noncommittal response to the war, and to his personal request to NATO defense chiefs for additional troops. As reported by the Guardian, Gates said he had appealed in writing to each and every NATO defense minister for more troops and materiel, “but

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had received no replies. Only the Canadians, British, Australians, Dutch and Danes ‘are really out there on the line and fighting,’ he said. Gates expressed concern that NATO could become a ‘two-tiered alliance’ with ‘some allies willing to fight and die to protect people’s security, and others who are not.’”75 In his February 10, 2008, speech to the Munich Conference on Security Policy, Gates observed how “more than five years ago in Prague, in the wake of the September 11th attacks, our nations set out to transform NATO into an expeditionary force capable of dealing with threats of this type—capable of helping other nations help themselves to avoid Afghanistan’s fate. At the time, I imagine many were unsure of what, exactly, this would look like—what new structures, training, funding, mindsets, and manpower would be needed.”76 Fast forward to today, and he noted that “we have applied our vision on the ground in Afghanistan. Today: Nearly 50,000 troops from some 40 allies and partner nations serve under NATO command, thousands of miles from the Alliance’s traditional borders; growing numbers of reconstruction and security training teams are making a real difference in the lives of the Afghan people; and NATO’s offensive and counterinsurgency operations in the South have dislodged the Taliban from their strongholds and reduced their ability to launch large scale or coordinated attacks.”77 With NATO’s efforts, Gates pointed out that “Afghanistan has made substantial progress in health care, education, and the economy—bettering the lives of millions of its citizens.”78 Not only did Afghanistan benefit; but so did the Alliance itself: “Through the Afghan mission,” Gates explained, “we have developed a much more sophisticated understanding of what capabilities we need as an Alliance and what shortcomings must be addressed.”79 He noted the impact of his recent comments on NATO’s bifurcation into two tiers, and said that “since the Riga summit, there has been much focus on whether all allies are meeting their commitments and carrying their share of the burden. I have had a few things to say about that myself. In truth, virtually all allies are fulfilling the individual commitments they have made. The problem is that the Alliance as a whole has not fulfilled its broader commitment from Riga to meet the force requirements of the commander in the field.”80 To help redress this, he suggested “we should look more creatively at other ways to ensure that all allies can contribute more to this mission—and share this burden. But we must not—we cannot—become a two-tiered Alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not. Such a development, with all its implications for collective security,

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would effectively destroy the Alliance. . . . The really hard question the Alliance faces is whether the whole of our effort is adding up to less than the sum of its parts, and, if that is the case, what we should do to reverse that equation.”81 Gates added that after six years of war: For the United States, the lessons we have learned these past six years—and in many cases re-learned—have not been easy ones. We have stumbled along the way, and we are still learning. Now, in Iraq, we are applying a comprehensive strategy that emphasizes the security of the local population—those who will ultimately take control of their own security—and brings to bear in the same place and very often at the same time civilian resources for economic and political development. We have learned that war in the 21st century does not have stark divisions between civilian and military components. It is a continuous scale that slides from combat operations to economic development, governance and reconstruction—frequently all at the same time. The Alliance must put aside any theology that attempts clearly to divide civilian and military operations. It is unrealistic. We must live in the real world. As we noted as far back as 1991, in the real world, security has economic, political, and social dimensions. And vice versa. The E.U. and NATO need to find ways to work together better, to share certain roles—neither excluding NATO from civilian operations nor barring the E.U. from military missions. . . . At the same time, in NATO, some allies ought not to have the luxury of opting only for stability and civilian operations, thus forcing other Allies to bear a disproportionate share of the fighting and the dying.82 And as reported by Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker in the March 15, 2008, edition of the New York Times: “With violence rising in Afghanistan to the highest levels since the American-led invasion in 2001, the administration has been pressing NATO members to contribute more troops,” but “few allies have stepped forward, and those that have continue to impose restrictions on where and how their troops will operate.”83 They cited Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns, who said: “We face a crisis in Afghanistan that is extraordinarily difficult for our country and for the NATO alliance. For NATO, it may be an existential crisis.”84 With two insurgencies to fight, in two very different lands, one, Afghanistan, which infamously withstood the might of the Red Army, famously breaking its will, the other, Iraq, once part of the vast and mighty Persian Empire that proved to be a troubling nemesis to the

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ancient West, and which exacted a high price in blood from the imperial British (as did the Afghans), the night was indeed still very much young. As demonstrated tragically by America’s Vietnam experience, during which America sought to logically and rationally leverage its conventional military superiority, participating in an incremental escalation up a ladder intent on signaling its opponent, not fully cognizant that its opponent was not listening, that its signals fell on deaf ears because America’s ability to escalate did not translate into an ability to either govern imperially, or to effectively persuade its highly motivated opponent to surrender; and more recently, after its similarly misguided “shock and awe” campaign in Iraq, a demonstration once again of overwhelming (or more aptly, overwhelmingly precise) conventional military power, conventional supremacy on the battlefield does not readily translate into an enduring, politically stable victory if the opponent is not defeated, its spirit not broken, its will to fight not extinguished. America’s major combat operations in Iraq were brilliant, the victory swift, and President Bush was accurate in his proclamation of a “Mission Accomplished”—but with the end of one mission, the deposing of Saddam through a swift and relatively easy victory, came a new struggle for power more reminiscent of the complex, post-Communist vortex of chaos in the Balkans, where a frenzy of tribal, sectarian and nationalistic aspirations clashed violently, surprising many. Now, with a new chapter in the fight for Iraq under way, America had to rediscover the fundamental complexities of counterinsurgency warfare, something it had hoped to avoid after Vietnam, when its military superiority had been stymied by an asymmetric threat not fully understood. Indeed, as noted in Section 1–159 of FM 3–24: “COIN is an extremely complex form of warfare,” and at its core it is “a struggle for the population’s support. The protection, welfare, and support of the people are vital to success. Gaining and maintaining that support is a formidable challenge. Achieving these aims requires synchronizing the efforts of many nonmilitary and HN [host-nation] agencies in a comprehensive approach.”85 And as noted in Section 1–61: “Popular support allows counterinsurgents to develop the intelligence necessary to identify and defeat insurgents. Designing and executing a comprehensive campaign to secure the populace and then gain its support requires carefully coordinating actions along several LLOs over time to produce success. One of these LLOs is developing HN security forces that can assume primary responsibility for combating the insurgency. COIN operations also place distinct burdens on leaders and logisticians.”86

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But as in any contest, at the same time as the counterinsurgent is battling for the hearts and minds of the populace, insurgents are also fighting for those very same hearts and minds, and according to FM 3–24, it is the insurgents that enjoy a major tactical advantage: a lack of moral, legal, or ethical restraint, freeing them from the obligations of the law of warfare and from universals norms of “human decency.” As explained in Section 1–160 of FM 3–24: Both insurgents and counterinsurgents are fighting for the support of the populace. However, insurgents are constrained by neither the law of war nor the bounds of human decency as Western nations understand them. In fact, some insurgents are willing to commit suicide and kill innocent civilians in carrying out their operations—and deem this a legitimate option. They also will do anything to preserve their greatest advantage, the ability to hide among the people. These amoral and often barbaric enemies survive by their wits, constantly adapting to the situation. Defeating them requires counterinsurgents to develop the ability to learn and adapt rapidly and continuously. This manual emphasizes this “Learn and Adapt” imperative as it discusses ways to gain and maintain the support of the people.87 On the plus side is the commitment to learning and adaptation that permeates the new counterinsurgency doctrine, something even Mao would admire if he were given the chance to immerse in the study of America’s current counterinsurgency challenge. But in the shadow of the countless humiliations at Abu Ghraib to the use of torture to coercively extract intelligence from prisoners to the toleration of countless civilians deaths under the rules of engagement that visit death upon civilians for trivial non-offenses such as driving too fast near Coalition troops, or not understanding commands barked at them in a foreign tongue by the uninvited troops of an invading army, it is hard to accept the categorization of the insurgents as unbound by human decency, when these very same words could fairly describe America’s own behavior in Iraq. Labeling the insurgents as “amoral and often barbaric enemies” is a recipe for a failed counterinsurgency, since those who take up arms against the Coalition do so for a variety of reasons, some just, some moral, some patriotic, in defense of home, community, or nation, which is anything but barbaric. So while learning and adapting is essential to victory, so is a proper and objective assessment of the insurgent and his motivation. Indeed, Section 1–25 of FM 3–24, on “Insurgent Approaches,” notes: “Counterinsurgents have to

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determine not only their opponents’ motivation but also the approach being used to advance the insurgency. This information is essential to developing effective programs that attack the insurgency’s root causes. Analysis of the insurgents’ approach shapes counterinsurgent military options. Insurgent approaches include, but are not limited to, the following: Conspiratorial; Military-focus; Urban warfare; Protracted popular war; Identify-focused; and composite and coalition.”88 Interestingly, in the June 2006 draft of FM 3–24, these “Insurgent Approaches” were described as “Insurgent Strategies,” a more respectful and historically more accurate description than the published manual, suggesting an effort to delegitimize the insurgents as warfighters.89 Sections 1–26 through 1–39 examine historical examples of each of these approaches, including the Bolshevik’s use of a conspiratorial strategy; Che Guevera’s use of his “dominant military foco strategy”; the use of urban warfare by the IRA, some Latin American revolutionaries, and some Iraqi insurgents; the use of protracted popular war by Mao as well as the North Vietnamese. No specific case studies are presented to illustrate the identity-focused approach—which in the June 2006 draft was called the “traditional approach”—but it is described as an approach that “mobilizes support based on the common identity of religious affiliation, clan, tribe, or ethnic group,” and as “common among contemporary insurgencies” in the manual as it was issued in December 2006,90 while in the draft from June 2006 it was also noted that this approach “typically has entire communities join the effort as a whole, bringing with them their existing social/military hierarchy.”91 It is encouraging, however, to see that Mao’s writings are cited in some detail in FM 3–24, showing that Mao’s insights, and lessons derived from his strategic analysis, have finally been digested and applied to America’s current counterinsurgency efforts. Mao’s model is examined closely, and the protracted popular war as an approach is described in Section 1–30 to be a “complex” approach, and it is noted that “few contemporary insurgent movements apply its full program, although many apply parts of it. It is, therefore, of more than just historical interest. Knowledge of it can be a powerful aid to understanding some insurgent movements.”92 Interestingly—and unfortunately for the imperative of gaining historical insight—in the June 2006 draft of FM 3–24, protracted popular war is described to be more fearsome as a threat, and is said to “favor insurgents,” and was not only “relatively uncommon” but “the most difficult to counter,” but this assessment appears to have been watered down by the time the manual was released in final form in December 2006,

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perhaps to avoid discouraging Coalition forces as well as public opinion on the home front on the long struggle ahead.93 Excised from the finalized report issued in December 2006 but included in its June 2006 draft, Mao’s writings are cited in some detail. Section 1–27 observes that his “model divides structurally into parallel political and military hierarchies, with the political hierarchy dominant. The overall strategic direction of the conflict comes from a centralized command element. The bulk of the effort is political subversion through united fronts and mass movements. Subversion often precedes the introduction of military forces into a region, and elements of the political cadre often remain behind after government forces have driven out the military elements. The guerrilla force expects to eventually wage a conventional war and seeks to form large conventional (what Mao calls ‘main force’) units.”94 However, Section 1–31 of the manual, as it was released in December 2006, did note, as the June 2006 draft had, that “Mao’s ‘Theory of Protracted War’ outlines a three-phased politico-military approach” and Section 1–35 adds: “Effectively applying Maoist strategy does not require a sequential or complete application of all three stages. The aim is seizing political power; if the government’s will and capability collapse early in the process, so much the better. If unsuccessful in a later phase, the insurgency might revert to an earlier one. Later insurgents added new twists to this strategy, to include rejecting the need to eventually switch to large-scale conventional operations.”95 Further, in Section 1–123, “Political Factors Are Primary,” FM 3–24 states: General Chang Ting-chen of Mao Zedong’s central committee once stated that revolutionary war was 80 percent political action and only 20 percent military. Such an assertion is arguable and certainly depends on the insurgency’s stage of development; it does, however, capture the fact that political factors have primacy in COIN. At the beginning of a COIN operation, military actions may appear predominant as security forces conduct operations to secure the populace and kill or capture insurgents; however, political objectives must guide the military’s approach. Commanders must, for example, consider how operations contribute to strengthening the HN government’s legitimacy and achieving U.S. political goals. This means that political and diplomatic leaders must actively participate throughout the conduct (planning, preparation, execution, and assessment) of COIN operations. The political and military aspects of insurgencies are so bound together as to be inseparable. Most insurgent approaches recognize

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that fact. Military actions executed without properly assessing their political effects at best result in reduced effectiveness and at worst are counterproductive. Resolving most insurgencies requires a political solution; it is thus imperative that counterinsurgent actions do not hinder achieving that political solution.96 Some interesting historical detail was removed from the June 2006 draft of the manual, which had noted that at the time of General Chang Tingchen’s statement he “was involved with establishing special schools to train the extensive political cadres that accompanied the victorious communist forces that completed their conquest of mainland China in 1949.”97 It is not clear why this was excluded, since it demonstrated how Mao’s generals wedded political and military action, though one of America’s biggest challenges has been finding a way to consolidate a political victory on the heels of their military triumph; indeed, it looks as if America, in its race to war, did not fully appreciate the need to conjoin the political with the military to ensure victory leads to political stability. In chapter eight, on sustainment, lessons from Mao’s successful approach to logistics are recounted in a case study titled “What Is Different: Insurgent Perceptions of Military Logistics,” which observes: Insurgents have a long history of exploiting their enemies’ lines of communications as sources of supply. During the Revolutionary War, American forces significantly provisioned themselves from the British Army’s overindulgent and carelessly defended logistic tail. In the 1930s, Mao Zedong codified a doctrine for insurgency logistics during the fight against the Japanese occupation of China. Without exaggerating, Mao stated, “We have a claim on the output of the arsenals of [our enemies] . . . and, what is more, it is delivered to us by the enemy’s transport corps. This is the sober truth, it is not a jest.” For Mao’s forces, his enemy’s supply trains provided a valuable source of supply. Mao believed the enemy’s rear was the guerrillas’ front; the guerrillas’ advantage was that they had no discernable logistic rear.98 As for convoy security, a lesson is presented from America’s Vietnam experience, titled “Vietnam: Meeting the Enemy and Convoy Security.” It recounts the following events: The year 1968 proved a turning point for units of the 48th Transportation Group stationed in the Republic of Vietnam. The group was assigned

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to transport supplies to 25th Infantry Division units operating in Vietnam’s Cu Chi province . . . This event forced the 48th Group and 25th Infantry Division to rethink their convoy tactics. The two units started to hold detailed convoy planning meetings and renewed their enforcement of Soldier discipline. They placed security guards on every vehicle, hardened cabs of supply trucks with steel plates, and mounted M-60 machine guns on every vehicle possible. The greatest improvement was the clarification of command and support relationships and responsibilities between the 48th Group and 25th Infantry Division. This included publishing common convoy standing operating procedures. With these new practices in place, convoy ambushes soon had different endings. A change in thinking about a logistic problem converted convoy operations from unglamorous defensive activities into valuable opportunities to engage insurgents offensively.99 Indeed, as noted earlier, the counterinsurgency doctrine presented in FM 3–24 is pledged to iterative learning and adaptation, and shows evidence of historical learning and an effort to extract contextually relevant insight from the past while also structuring counterinsurgency operations in a manner that is adaptive to new tactical insights through an iterative process of assessment and reassessment. However, there appears to be some biases that are projected onto the insurgent, casting a shadow of sorts, rooted in analytical simplification or distortion, suggesting that learning and adaptation, while admirable and essential, are, alas, imperfect as they are filtered by the perceptual limitations inherent in human learning in general, articulated through language, with its own ambiguities, and communicated through existing bureaucratic structures, with their own dynamics. For instance, consider the suggested amorality, barbarism, and lack of human decency of the insurgent, without accepting that the insurgent’s ability to successfully hide among the populace may have been made possible by the free and willing consent of the populace, not through manipulation, deceit, or coercion, but earned with trust and respect. Indeed, even insurgents are bound by the same laws of human behavior, the same limits imposed by societal constraints, religious imperatives, and cultural norms and behaviors, as are all political actors; exceeding such limits would induce an evaporation of this base of popular support, similar to what we witnessed among the Sunni tribal chiefs who joined Iraq’s Tribal Awakening movement, rooting out AQI leaders and other insurgents perceived as outsiders, terrorists, or otherwise operating

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outside the moral limits of local society. What will thus work against what we may properly describe as a “terrorist” whose actions are inimical to the populace may not prove as effective against a genuine insurgent whose resistance is widely perceived to be a just cause; it still remains far from certain that all or even most of the Iraqi insurgents were foreign extremists or even domestic fanatics such as those murderous AQI members operating in the Sunni heartland in their ultimately unsuccessful effort to open up a new front in their holy war. This could mean that American COIN efforts, as successful as they have been, could in the end unravel, especially after America’s military withdrawal concluded. According to journalist Douglas Macgregor, writing in the December 2007 edition of Mother Jones magazine, this potential was recognized long before America’s withdrawal had begun: One of the unspoken assumptions that underpins the “awakening” is that U.S. occupation forces can place untold thousands of Sunni insurgents on the U.S. government’s payroll, allowing them to rearm and recuperate inside Sunni-pure enclaves while U.S. forces open a new front in the war against the Shiite militias. Thus far, Tehran has advised its Shiite friends in Iraq to restrain their fighters in the hope the U.S. occupation will end and allow the Shiites to consolidate their victory. The question now is whether the Shiite militias will continue to lie low or risk the kind of campaign against U.S. forces that the Sunnis waged for nearly four years. No one knows the answer. But it is doubtful Muqtada al-Sadr will do nothing as U.S. forces halt operations against the Shiites’ old enemies and allow these enemies to rebuild. He may well step up attacks on Americans, assisted by the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Security Forces. And if that happens, retaliatory attacks by U.S. forces on the Mehdi Army could mobilize the Shiite population behind Muqtada al-Sadr in the fight against their old Sunni Baathist oppressors who are now openly allied with the Americans. In such a battle—a revived civil war—what the majority Shiite Iraqi army will do is another unknown.100 Although Macgregor expected things would unravel sooner, that it had not yet done so may primarily be a reflection of the patience of our adversary, and not a collapse in either its intention or its capabilities. Like America’s own commitment to battlefield learning expressed in FM 3–24, the insurgents may themselves have recommitted themselves to learning and adaptation, with their most salient lesson being to simply

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wait until America’s withdrawal was concluded at the end of 2011, when the future of Iraq was again up for grabs. Nonetheless, the importance of continued learning and adaptation remains essential, a sine qua non of victory but of itself not a guarantee of victory—as the insurgent is also capable of learning. In many ways, the winner of the contest will be the best learner, the one who proves himself the most adaptive and innovative, and perhaps the most patient. This is very much the heart of the iterative counterinsurgency campaign design as described in chapter four of FM 3–24 but it is a lesson that can be learned on both sides, adding to the complexity of COIN, particularly in the information age where knowledge is especially fungible, and transmits freely across even the most hardened frontiers at the speed of light.101

Learning and Adaption at War: The Heart of FM 3–24 The iterative nature of the optimal design of a counterinsurgency campaign is described in Section 4–16 of FM 3–24, which notes that “[w] hile traditional aspects of campaign design as expressed in joint and Service doctrine remain relevant, they are not adequate for a discussion of the broader design construct for a COIN environment. Inherent in this construct is the tension created by understanding that military capabilities provide only one component of an overall approach to a COIN campaign.”102 While all war, as noted by Clausewitz, among others, is an extension of policy “by other means,” the political (as well as the social and economic) context of counterinsurgency is especially relevant. Therefore, the “[d]esign of a COIN campaign must be viewed holistically” (see Figure 3.1). “Only a comprehensive approach employing all relevant design components, including the other instruments of national power, is likely to reach the desired end state.”103 As further elaborated in Section 4–17 of FM 3–24: Design begins with identification of the end state, as derived from the policy aim. . . . The end state provides context and logic for operational and tactical decision making. Consequently, strategic goals must be communicated clearly to commanders at every level. While strategy drives design, which in turn drives tactical actions, the reverse is also true. The observations of tactical actions result in learning and greater understanding that may generate modifications to the design,

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Understanding the social, political, economic, cultural, and political conditions in the environement

Design Dialog

Diagnose Governance Combat Operation/ Civil Security Operations

Host-Nation Security Forces

Governance Host-Nation Security Forces

Combat Operations/ Civil Security Operations

Purpose Economic Development

Essential Services Information Operations

Economic Development

Essential Services

Information Operations

Redesign

Learn

Figure 3.1 Iterative counterinsurgency campaign design from Section 4–20 of FM 3–24, pp. 4–5 (December 15, 2006).

which in turn may have strategic implications. The COIN imperative to “Learn and Adapt” is essential in making the design process work correctly.104 Learning and adapting is the heart of any dynamic strategy, whether planning and directing an insurgency as Mao did, plotting a conventional response to a disruptive threat to continental security as presented by Napoleon to Clausewitz, inducing his analytical and theoretical odyssey culminating in his masterpiece of strategic theorizing, On War, or learning how to defeat an insurgency as General Petraeus was then doing. All three of these efforts require knowledge of the past as well as an awareness of how the present differs from the past, so that as lessons are applied, new insights and experience hitherto unavailable to analysts and theorists of war can be properly intermixed, with the competent commander balancing lessons from yesterday with those of today. It is a delicate balance, one requiring the very same strategic genius or coup d’oeuil as has been attributed to Napoleon. Indeed, successful COIN operations must demonstrate a continued aptitude for learning.

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As explained from Section 4–21 through 4–46 of FM 3–24 on “Local Relevance”: Before commanders deploy their units, they make every effort to mentally prepare their Soldiers or Marines for the anticipated challenges, with a particular focus on situational awareness of the anticipated AO. . . . Conditions are seldom consistent throughout any AO and continue to change based on actions by friendly, enemy, neutral, and other involved organizations. Rather than being uniform in character, the operational environment is likely to display a complex, shifting mosaic of conditions. To be effective, commanders—and indeed all personnel—continually develop and enhance their understanding of the mosaic peculiar to their AO. Observing tactical actions and the resulting changing conditions deepens understanding of the environment and enables commanders to relearn and refine their design and implementation actions. Initially, situational awareness will probably be relatively low and the design will, by necessity, require a number of assumptions, especially with respect to the populace and the force’s ability to positively influence their perception of events. The design can be viewed as an experiment that tests the operational logic, with the expectation of a less-than-perfect solution. As the experiment unfolds, interaction with the populace and insurgents reveals the validity of those assumptions, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the design. Assessment is the continuous monitoring and evaluation of the current situation and progress of an operation (FMI 5–0.1). Effective assessment is necessary for commanders to recognize changing conditions and determine their meaning. It is crucial to successful adaptation and innovation by commanders within their respective AOs. A continuous dialog among commanders at all echelons provides the feedback the senior commander needs to refine the design. The dialog is supported by formal assessment techniques and red-teaming to ensure commanders are fully cognizant of the causal relationships between their actions and the insurgents’ adaptations. Accordingly, assessment is a learning activity and a critical aspect of design. This learning leads to redesign. Therefore, design can be viewed as a perpetual design-learn-redesign activity, with the commander’s intent, vision of resolution, and end state providing the unifying themes.105 Fundamental to the success of the campaign, and its ability to evolve iteratively, is the process of assessment that defines each of the iterative

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loops of the campaign’s learning and adaptation. In the earlier draft of FM 3–24 from June 2006, this “continuous dialog” was described in more Foucaultian terms as a “continuous discourse,” and the prospect of such a culture of “discourse” arising among military commanders in the field suggests a more properly philosophical, indeed a dialectical, process at work. Indeed, counterinsurgency is defined to be smart warfare, as noted at the start of chapter one where the SFO serving in Iraq is cited: “Counterinsurgency is not just thinking man’s warfare—it is the graduate level of war.” In such a contest, the victor is not necessarily the most technologically advanced or even the combatant that is militarily superior, but rather he is the most innovative, adaptive, and flexible, and in many ways the fastest learner. Even with the absence of the term “discourse,” the sophistication of the iterative design process is captured. As Section 4–26 explains in the final version of the manual released in December 2006: The critical role of assessment necessitates establishing measures of effectiveness during planning. Commanders should choose these carefully so that they align with the design and reflect the emphasis on and interrelationship among the LLOs. Commanders and staffs revise their assessment and measures of effectiveness during the operation in order to facilitate redesign and stay abreast of the current situation. Sound assessment blends qualitative and quantitative analysis with the judgment and intuition of all leaders. Great care must be applied here, as COIN operations often involve complex societal issues that may not lend themselves to quantifiable measures of effectiveness. Moreover, bad assumptions and false data can undermine the validity of both assessments and the conclusions drawn from them. Data and metrics can inform a commander’s assessment. However they must not be allowed to dominate it in uncertain situations. Subjective and intuitive assessment must not be replaced by an exclusive focus on data or metrics. Commanders must exercise their professional judgment in determining the proper balance.106 A case study of the iterative campaign design in Operation Iraqi Freedom II in 2004–5 is presented in chapter four of FM 3–24, describing in detail the iterative process employed, which was based somewhat on that used a generation earlier during the Philippine Insurrection that “began with an assessment of the people that the Marines, Soldiers, and Sailors would encounter within his division’s AO” that “classified provincial

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constituents into three basic groups: the tribes, the former regime elements, and the foreign fighters,” and which included “two major elements encompassed in an overarching ‘bodyguard’ of information operations . . . diminishing support for insurgency,” and “neutralizing the bad actors.”107 The 1st Marine Division found itself confronting “an adaptive enemy,” but “[p]ersistent American presence and interaction with the populace threatened the insurgents and caused them to employ more open violence in selected areas of Al Anbar Province. This response resulted in learning and adaptation within the 1st Marine Division. The design enabled 1st Marine Division to adjust the blend of ‘diminishing support for insurgents’ and ‘neutralizing bad actors’ to meet the local challenges. Throughout the operation, 1st Marine Division continued learning and adapting with the espoused vision of resolution providing a constant guide to direct and unify the effort.”108 In chapter five, on “Executing Counterinsurgency Operations,” an historical case study illustrating “the Importance of Multiple Lines of Operations in COIN” is presented, focusing on China and the failure of Chiang Kai-Shek’s government to adequately secure its legitimacy in the countryside in 1945.109 Chiang “adopted a strategy to secure and defend the coastal financial and industrial centers from the communist insurgency led by Mao Zedong . . . areas [that] had been the Chinese government’s prewar core support areas. Although a logical plan, this strategy suffered in implementation,” owing to a combination of government corruption, as “Republic of China administration and military forces were often corrupt and an insufficient number of troops,” which led the government to rely upon warlords, whose “actions undermined the legitimacy of and popular support for the government within the very core areas vital to government rejuvenation. Likewise, when government forces attempted to re-establish their presence in the Chinese countryside, their undisciplined conduct towards the rural citizenry further de-legitimized the Chinese government.”110 As a consequence, “Chiang’s forces were unable to secure or expand their support base,” and “the government’s inability to enforce ethical adherence to the rule of law by its officials and forces, combined with widespread corruption and economic collapse, served to move millions from being supporters into the undecided middle. When economic chaos eliminated any government ability to fund even proper and justified efforts, an insurgent victory led by the Chinese Communist Party became inevitable.”111 As described in this case study, the “failure of the leaders of the Republic of China to address the requirements of logical lines of operations like

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good governance, economic development, and essential services magnified their military shortcomings and forced their abandonment of the Chinese mainland.”112 Whether the young democracies forged in the crucible of America’s invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq can deliver these same logical, and essential, lines of operations remains to be seen; the cost of both insurgencies has been, in general, the delayed fulfillment of many aspirations triggered by the simple fact of America’s engagement and commitment in these two nations’ destinies. Journalists covering both wars have reported the atmosphere of hope early in the wars, soon after both governments, deeply unpopular with many important groups, were toppled, almost effortlessly, by the world’s sole remaining superpower, now perceived by many to be a “hyperpower” (and not the hyper-extended, declining power that America would later be perceived to have become). Indeed, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author Thomas E. Ricks recalled a time of hope in Iraq prior to, and soon after, the war began, when its populace, long-suffering under the dual duress of Saddam’s long and repressive tyranny and the cumulative economic toll of a decade of sanctions, was exhilarated by the prospect that “the Americans were coming,” as recounted in his November 20, 2007, interview with Terry Gross on the NPR show Fresh Air about his bestselling account of the war, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. He described the situation in Iraq, after the American surge began to take effect, noting that the terrorist threat had been largely contained and that a new salient threat was from the intransigence of the new Shi’ite-dominated government in Baghdad.113 And, as reported in the March 14, 2008, edition of the Washington Post: Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday. Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that “no one” in the U.S. and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation,” or in the provision of basic public services.114 That America was relearning the art of counterinsurgency was indeed a good sign, albeit a necessity to forestall defeat, whose possibility, and probability, had reared its ugly head again in recent months and years.

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But whether American learns the right lessons, implements them effectively, and sustains the political will back home (and the necessary diplomatic support of its NATO allies and its Coalition partners) to see its recent tactical successes translated into strategic victory remains to be seen. As evident in its rearticulated counterinsurgency doctrine, America is prepared to look backward as well as forward, to apply lessons from history to its tactical experiences, and to adapt and learn its way to victory; this is an important step forward. Interestingly, lessons from the past are presented that demonstrate a self-conscious effort by the US military to learn from its own mistakes, even if not explicitly stating this. For instance, chapter seven addresses “Leadership and Ethics for Counterinsurgency” and pledges American forces to the “highest standards of moral and ethical conduct,”115 and to “restrain the amount of force they may apply.”116 With regard to prisoners and detainees, while “the moral and legal status of insurgents is ambiguous and often contested, [w]hat is not ambiguous is the legal obligation of Soldiers and Marines to treat all prisoners and detainees according to the law. All captured or detained personnel, regardless of status, shall be treated humanely” and “no person in the custody or under the control of DOD, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”117 Further, “Mistreatment of noncombatants, including prisoners and detainees is illegal and immoral. It will not be condoned.” And though in “COIN environments, distinguishing an insurgent from a civilian is difficult and often impossible,” the manual observes that “[t]reating a civilian like an insurgent, however, is a sure recipe for failure.”118 A case study from the Algerian war, titled “Lose Moral Legitimacy, Lose the War,” is presented that illustrates the dangers of prisoner and detainee abuse: During the Algerian war of independence between 1954 and 1962, French leaders decided to permit torture against suspected insurgents. Though they were aware that it was against the law and morality of war, they argued that— z z z

This was a new form of war and these rules did not apply. The threat the enemy represented, communism, was a great evil that justified extraordinary means. The application of torture against insurgents was measured and nongratuitous.

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This official condoning of torture on the part of French Army leadership had several negative consequences. It empowered the moral legitimacy of the opposition, undermined the French moral legitimacy, and caused internal fragmentation among serving officers that led to an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1962. In the end, failure to comply with moral and legal restrictions against torture severely undermined French efforts and contributed to their loss despite several significant military victories. Illegal and immoral activities made the counterinsurgents extremely vulnerable to enemy propaganda inside Algeria among the Muslim population, as well as in the United Nations and the French media. These actions also degraded the ethical climate throughout the French Army. France eventually recognized Algerian independence in July 1963.119 Chapter seven closes with a reiteration of “The Learning Imperative,” which states in 7–45 that: “Today’s operational environment requires military organizations at all echelons to prepare for a broader range of missions than ever before,” and as a consequence, the military services “are preparing for stability operations and post-conflict reconstruction tasks with the same degree of professionalism and study given to the conduct of combat operations. Similarly, COIN operations are receiving the attention and study merited by their frequency and potential impact. This broader mission set has significant leader development, education, and training implications, especially for land forces.” Section 7–46 and 7–47 further elaborate: 7–46. Army and Marine Corps leaders need to visualize the operational and informational impact of many tactical actions and relate their operations to larger strategic purposes. Effectively blending traditional military operations with other forms of influence is necessary. Effective leaders place a stronger emphasis on organizational change, develop subordinates, and empower them to execute critical tasks in consonance with broad guidance. Commanders must influence directly and indirectly the behavior of others outside their chain of command. Leaders are increasingly responsible for creating environments in which individuals and organizations learn from their experiences and for establishing climates that tap the full ingenuity of subordinates. Open channels of discussion and debate are needed to encourage growth of a learning environment in which experience is rapidly shared and lessons adapted for new challenges. The speed with

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which leaders adapt the organization must outpace insurgents’ efforts to identify and exploit weaknesses or develop countermeasures. 7–47. Effective individual professional development programs develop and reward initiative and adaptability in junior leaders. Selfdevelopment, life-long learning, and reflection on experience should be encouraged and rewarded. Cultural sensitivity, development of nonauthoritarian interpersonal skills, and foreign language ability must be encouraged. Institutional professional development programs must develop leaders’ judgment to help them recognize when situations change from combat to policing. Effective leaders are as skilled at limiting lethal force as they are in concentrating it. Indeed, they must learn that non-lethal solutions may often be preferable.120

FM 3–24: Drawing the Wrong Lessons from America’s Vietnam Experience This latter point, that “[e]ffective leaders are as skilled at limiting lethal force as they are in concentrating it” as put forth in Section 7–47 of FM 3–24, certainly seems to recognize the inherently political nature of COIN operations, and how in contrast to conventional and annihilatory warfare, which require the successful concentration of lethal force in a more Jominian tradition, COIN requires a more nuanced art of war, one that is more sensitive to the relationship of war and policy, as generally attributed to the Clausewitzian tradition (even though Jomini would not disagree). While FM 3–24 signifies America’s willingness to wade back into the fog of COIN—overcoming its post-Vietnam reluctance to engage literally or figuratively in the very jungle warfare that had once humiliated the world’s sole remaining superpower—it is obvious that apart from the high-level embrace, well after a full-scale insurgency erupted as a result of America’s hastily implemented regime change in Iraq, and months after a highly innovative COIN effort crystallized on the ground at the unit level (as meticulously chronicled in the research of James A. Russell at the US Naval Postgraduate School), forestalling an otherwise imminent and humiliating defeat—it offers little more than sweepingly high-level lessons that are so obvious that very little tactical insight is gained by its actual reading, and no real competitive advantage is provided by the release of this well-meaning if hardly precise document. Its broad commitment to

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learning, operational adaptation and innovation, and a sober and mature acceptance of the reality of insurgency and thus the necessity of COIN operations, however, marks a refreshing end to the denial that initially greeted the eruption of the Iraqi insurgency in 2003. One of the few danger signals emanating from FM 3–24 is this: just as it has often been said that militaries generally tend to prepare to fight the last war, as America reemerges as a willing counterinsurgent, it is bringing to the fight a rather narrow conceptual framework for dealing with its new opponent, one that can be summed up as the “eating soup with a knife” framework named for the widely read (and as widely lauded) work on COIN by John A. Nagl, which prefers calibrated, precision applications of force in lieu of blunt conventional superiority. His book seems to be based upon a somewhat selective reading of military history that manages to ignore an entire chapter of American military innovation in Indochina, where our armed forces were tasked with waging simultaneously a conventional war against a determined external foe resupplied by a neighboring superpower, and a domestic counterinsurgency inside the Republic of South Vietnam. Nagl, like many critics at the time of the Vietnam War, blamed America for a strategic myopia, refighting the Korean War, a conventional war of attrition, while ignoring the more salient threat of insurgency when the strategic situation was a unique amalgam of Korea, where the threat of conventional blitzkrieg from the communist North was omnipresent and in the end delivered Hanoi the very victory that the insurgency failed to nurture, and Malaya, which was geophysically isolated from communist China and thus lacked the heavy pressure of external conventional assault, making the British task that much easier than that faced by the Americans in Saigon. A closer look at the Vietnam War reveals a brilliant and successful American COIN campaign in the South that resulted in the decisive elimination of the Viet Cong as an effective combatant, thus requiring, ironically, the North Vietnamese Army to invade conventionally after violating the terms of Paris Accords in order to achieve its objective of national reunification under communist rule. It was thus America’s success at COIN and not its failure that resulted in the loss of the Vietnam War, forcing Hanoi’s hand to shift, in Maoist fashion, from revolutionary guerrilla warfare to conventional operations, a point noted by David J. Kilcullen in both his 2010 book Counterinsurgency and in his November 30, 2004, paper on countering global insurgency that served as the template for his later work. As Kilcullen recounted, “counterinsurgency in Vietnam was highly effective. Given the ultimate U.S. defeat in Vietnam, one might expect to

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see problems in the application of counterinsurgency in the war—poor coordination, a focus on nodes and links to the exclusion of other attack methods, or failure to prevent enemy adaptation. In fact, the opposite is true: counterinsurgency in Vietnam covered a wide range of methods, was well coordinated, and produced excellent overall results. Ironically, winning the counterinsurgency in South Vietnam the U.S. provoked cross-border invasion from North Vietnam. Thus, the very success of counterinsurgency measures provoked a wider war.”121 Kilcullen cites Jeffrey Record and W. Andrew Tyrell who, in their 2004 Strategic Studies Institute report, Iraq and Vietnam: Differences, Similarities and Insights, “estimate that ‘by the early 1970s the war and U.S. and South Vietnamese military and pacification initiatives had crippled (though not destroyed) the original insurgency in the South.’”122 As Kilcullen writes: “Because of a loss of political will, resulting from casualties sustained in the earlier phases of the war, U.S. forces were unavailable to meet this invasion, because they had been withdrawn.”123 Kilcullen adds that because of their success in the field during the Vietnam War, at “the tactical level measures from Vietnam—Combined Action Platoons, the CORDS program, use of locally-raised irregular forces under U.S. leadership, Accelerated Pacification and the Strategic Hamlet Program—may have potential in Iraq,” even in the face of the many salient differences between the two wars—“provided the conditions of globalised insurgency are factored in.”124 Kilcullen even proposes something akin to a global CORDS program in his 2010 book that elaborated upon his preliminary thinking 6 years earlier. And with our experience in Vietnam in mind, Kilcullen cautions that “the greatest threat to victory in Iraq would be a loss of political will in the US, followed by premature withdrawal leaving Iraq unable to stand alone.”125 Or, consider the conclusion of Col. Harry G. Summers, author of On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, in the foreword of which he observed: “One of the anomalies of the Vietnam War is that until recently most of the literature and almost all the thinking about the war ended with the Tet Offensive of 1968. As a result, the common knowledge was that America had lost a guerrilla war in Asia, a loss caused by failure to appreciate the nuances of counterinsurgency war. But the truth was that the war continued for seven years after the Tet Offensive, and that latter phase had almost nothing to do with counterinsurgency or guerrilla war. The threat came from the North Vietnamese regular forces in the hinterlands. The final North Vietnamese blitzkrieg in April 1975 had more to do with the fall of France in 1940 than it did with guerrilla war.”126 He also

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observed how two decades later, it was “hard to envision the force with which the concept of counterinsurgency struck the Army . . . Some appreciation of the effect can be gained from such publications as the March 1962 issue of Army, the influential publication of the Association of the U.S. Army, which was devoted to (in its own words) ‘spreading the gospel’ of counterinsurgency. Reading it today sounds more like the description of a new liturgy rather than a discussion of strategic doctrine.”127 Indeed, from Summers’ perspective, the Vietnamese insurgents “did not achieve decisive results on their own. Even at the very end there was no popular mass uprising to overthrow the Saigon government . . . they harassed and distracted both the United States and South Vietnam so that North Vietnamese regular forces could reach a decision in conventional battles.”128 Adds Summers, even though a “strategic offensive against North Vietnam may not have been politically feasible, we could have taken the tactical offensive to isolate the battlefield. But instead of orienting on North Vietnam—the source of the war—we turned our attention to the symptom—the guerrilla war in the south. Our new ‘strategy’ of counterinsurgency blinded us to the fact that the guerrilla war was tactical and not strategic,” and enabling “North Vietnam to buy time and to wear down superior U.S. military forces.”129 Summers believes that Saigon was better suited to deal with its internal problems, just as the United States was better suited to confront the North Vietnamese directly and observes: “Our doctrine failed to clearly differentiate between what a beleaguered nation could and should do for itself and the limits of assistance that outside power could provide. Failure to understand and apply these differences led the United States to involve itself in nation building tasks that only the South Vietnamese could ultimately accomplish and diverted our attention from the tasks that were within our capability.”130 Summers cites I Corps commander, Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, who came to believe in that “halting infiltration was the most critical requirement” and that “South Vietnam could have solved its internal problems if the infiltration could have been brought under control. Once that had been stopped, everything else would have been ‘easy.’ General Truong’s comment is telling. As he said, ‘South Vietnam could have solved its internal problem if the infiltration could have been brought under control.’ . . . What the United States could never do was ‘solve the internal problems’ of South Vietnam. Only the Vietnamese themselves could accomplish that task.”131 Consider as well this account of the March 30, 1972, launch of the North Vietnamese “Easter Offensive” as described by historian James

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H. Willbanks, chair of the Military History Department at the US Army’s Command and General Staff College, which chronicles the strategic response by General Truong: The attacking force included 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120,000 troops and about 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The main NVA objectives were Quang Tri in the north, Kontum in the Central Highlands and An Loc farther south in Military Region. The attack began at noon on Good Friday, with heavy artillery strikes on all the firebases in the I Corps area south of the demilitarized zone. The next day, three divisions from the North Vietnamese B-5 Front struck the string of ARVN firebases just south of the DMZ, which were manned by the green ARVN 3rd Division. The South Vietnamese troops, outnumbered 3-to-1, fell back as the North Vietnamese pushed south. . . . On May 1, 1972, Communist troops captured Quang Tri City, the first provincial capital to fall during their offensive. This gave the North Vietnamese control of the surrounding province, and they continued the attack to the south. Realizing the dire circumstances, President Nguyen Van Thieu . . . ordered General Truong to assume command of I Corps. . . . Truong launched a counteroffensive with three divisions to retake lost ground, with the help of U.S. firepower, including strikes by B-52 bombers; close air support by Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps fighterbombers; Army attack helicopters; and naval gunfire provided by the U.S. Seventh Fleet. . . . With the recapture of Quang Tri and the ARVN steadfastness at Kontum and An Loc, the heart went out of the North Vietnamese offensive.132 In his book, which critics suggest is as guilty of “spreading the gospel” of COIN as Summers accuses the Vietnam-era apostles of counterinsurgency of being, Nagl argues passionately but unconvincingly that the American military failed to innovate in the face of a new, unconventional threat, and thus did not adapt doctrinally or operationally to the strategic challenge presented by its insurgent opponent in South Vietnam; its defeat is thus attributed by Nagl to the American military’s doctrinal rigidity as a conventionally thinking military machine and not the adaptive, autoadjusting, innovating military machine the British developed during the Malaya emergency and which fed their successful COIN effort there. Nagl’s concludes that America failed to innovate in Vietnam, at least at a high enough level to facilitate a mid-course doctrinal reassessment as

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we did in Iraq after our successful conventional operations facilitated an unconventional counteroffensive by a new opponent that took root in the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq, and in marked contrast to the adaptive British in Malaya. Nagl starts off his analysis of America’s failure to follow the British example by citing Gordeon Etherington-Smith, the British CommissionerGeneral for South-East Asia, who commented on July 3, 1961: “I fear that as in other respects the Americans are too apt to think that quantity is a substitute for quality and method.”133 As Nagl argues: “With the U.S. Army and its leaders entrenched in an organizational culture that accepted military victory through annihilation as the only way to win a war, it is not surprising that the five British colonial civil servants and senior policemen comprising the British Advisory Mission (BRIAM) from 16 September 1961 through 31 March 1965 were in their turn ignored.”134 Nagl explained that: BRIAM was Britain’s answer to repeated American requests for its assistance in the fight against the Viet Cong. Sir Robert Thompson, who led the mission, had played a large role in the Malayan Emergency, serving as minister of defense in Malaya after independence. Thompson was unable to prevail in his view that the American focus on firepower and military solutions to political problems was counterproductive and that population control strategies such as those that had worked in Malaya would be more effective. His efforts to recreate Malayan New Villages in Vietnam in the form of “Strategic Hamlets” failed, largely because of an overly enthusiastic implementation that created new hamlets before the old ones had been pacified. The intent was to create expanding rings of security in the countryside.135 Nagl noted that Thompson “advocated a focus on small critical areas rather than indiscriminate operations unconnected with a political and strategic plan,” as if this was America’s choice when in fact American military planners were grappling simultaneously with an external conventional threat posed by Hanoi, and a growing domestic insurgency in South Vietnam that was fueled by Hanoi’s military and political support. Nagl sets up a straw man, juxtaposing an adaptive and focused COIN strategy as advocated by the British with the “indiscriminate operations” of the Americans that in Nagl’s view were decoupled from their political objectives and thus in violation of Clausewitz’s first principle.136 Nagl explains that Thompson “thought that a more offensive use of American

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forces than this enclave strategy would be counterproductive: ‘If the American force went above two divisions then I would regard the involvement as unprofitable. It would mean that major American ground forces were committed in Asia and we would end up with a Korean-type war with the fighting being done by the Americans and not the Vietnamese.’ The most serious problem he foresaw with this long-haul strategy was the issue of ‘whether the American people are prepared to support a longdrawn-out struggle which will cost much blood and treasure and earn them little or no applause.’”137 Nagl believes that “BRIAM was almost completely ineffective in influencing U.S. counterinsurgency theory or practice in Vietnam, largely because the American military was not interested in learning from it. This fact was apparent to the highest levels of the Johnson administration.”138 And thus, “[f]inally despairing of the effort, Thompson dissolved the mission at about the same time U.S. ground forces began to be deployed in strength to South Vietnam.”139 In a review of Nagl’s book in the Canadian Military Journal, LieutenantColonel Peter Williams observes: “It may also come as a surprise to many readers to note that the British Advisory Mission (BRIAM) in Vietnam, which was in place from 1961 to 1964, and which could have facilitated the sharing of lessons between the British and US armies, was largely ‘ignored,’ to quote Nagl. I found this quite astounding, and, to double check, I consulted the biography of General William Westmoreland (A Soldier Reports), the US commander in Vietnam, who concluded, with respect to comparisons between Malaya and Vietnam, that ‘. . . so many were the differences between the two situations that we could borrow little outright from the British experience.’”140 Interestingly, one of the more insightful and interesting comparative analyses of Vietnam and Malaya was in fact authored by Thompson, the military expert who fought and trained counterinsurgents in both conflicts and whose views are presented by Nagl as proof positive of America’s strategic myopia. In his book Defeating Communist Insurgency (1966), Thompson admits up front that the strategic environment had transformed considerably by the time of Vietnam, by which time Communist insurgency had been internationalized, blurring the lines between external aggression and a domestic uprising, confounding those tasked with defeating at once a war that was both an insurgency and an interstate conventional war. Hence the challenge faced by General Westmoreland, who came to the conclusion that “so many were the differences between the two situations that we could borrow little outright from the British experience.” What Nagl condemns for doctrinal myopia was in fact the

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doctrinal recognition that in Vietnam, the primary military opponent was a hostile state to the north with whom the US military was engaged in a conventional duel, quite a contrast to the more benign strategic environment faced by the British during the Malaya Emergency. As Thompson explained, during the immediate post–World War II period, “communism was no real threat to the security of the colonial governments or to the well-being of the peoples of south-east Asia,”141 a situation that changed drastically by the time of the Vietnam War. Post–World War II Vietnam proved to be more chaotic than in Malaya, with a poorer peasantry representing a more substantial proportion of its demography than in Malaya as well.142 As Thompson described: “We have then in Malaya in comparison smaller, more prosperous and better administered: all great advantages in counter-insurgency. But perhaps the greatest advantage of all was that Malaya was completely isolated from outside communist support.”143 Moreover, by the time of Vietnam, Thompson recognized the following: “We are witnessing in the 1960s a new development in insurgency of armed interference by neighboring countries in support of next-door subversive and insurgent movements on a scale which would in the past have been termed aggression and have led to war, but which is now classified as ‘seepage,’ ‘infiltration’ or ‘incursion.’ This in turn has led in Vietnam to ‘retaliation’ or the ‘measured response’ by the South Vietnamese and American Air Forces against North Vietnam. No one can yet assess the significance of these developments, or the part which they can play in deciding the final result of an insurgency. They are not yet in any book—not even one by Mao Tse-tung.”144 So while it is easy in hindsight to praise the British for their victory in a less menacing strategic environment, and blaming America for fighting a conventional war against an insurgent opponent, the reality is that America was fighting both a conventional and unconventional war at once, and in the end, South Vietnam was defeated conventionally by Hanoi’s tank battalions and not its nearly wiped-out Viet Cong insurgent proxies. Nagl thus draws a selective lesson from history, having focused on the artificially demarcated domestic conflict in South Vietnam when in fact there was a conventional war between hostile neighbors being waged simultaneously, in the air, on the seas, and on the ground, one that indeed seeped across the borders and directly involved the territory of three sovereign states. America thus was forced by military necessity to wage a conventional war against the conventional opponent while also waging a counterinsurgency against the domestic uprising taking place

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in its allied heartland, turning Vietnam into at least a two-front asymmetrical war as complex as that which raged in Europe during World War II, and where conventional armies were forced to adapt to an insurgent threat that raged behind conventional lines. One could without much effort show that both the British in Malaya, and the Americans in Vietnam, innovated in response to the challenges of their strategic environments; but that the British enjoyed a more favorable environment for victory in contrast to the Americans, who waded into post-French Indochina only to experience a rude but predictable awakening, and thereupon showed a tremendous capacity to innovate under fire, even though it was taking fire on both the international and the domestic fronts. As argued eloquently by President Nixon in his revisionist history of the Vietnam struggle, No More Vietnams, America came within a whisker of victory in Vietnam despite the complexity of that conflict, but quit the fight under intense domestic pressure back home before the populace came to realize how near victory was. As cited in Time, Nixon “argues that ‘we won the war’ but then abandoned South Viet Nam after the Communist North began violating the 1973 Paris accords that supposedly ended the fighting. Though the former President’s selfinterest is obvious, parts of his analysis are supported even by the enemy. U.S. Army Colonel Harry Summers Jr., who considers Viet Nam ‘a tactical success and a strategic failure,’ was in Hanoi on a negotiating mission a few days before Saigon fell. Summers recalls telling a North Vietnamese colonel, ‘You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield.’ The foe’s reply: ‘That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.’ In essence, the U.S. was outlasted by an enemy that proved able and willing to fight longer than America and its South Vietnamese allies.”145 If American had held on, and continued to wage its unpopular war, perhaps for only a few more months, it may have realized by staying the course that not only was victory in sight, but Vietnam itself had been forever transformed and modernized by its exposure to America, Americanism, and American ingenuity. While this lesson would come too late to help sustain America’s will to fight on to victory in Vietnam, the legacy of America’s withdrawal and the abandonment of its ally haunted later administrations, especially that of President George W. Bush, who ignored the advice of many influential statesmen and strategic experts, choosing to stay the course knowing in his heart that the lesson of Vietnam was that the America’s defeat was self-inflicted, and that only through staying the course would a repeat of this tragic and unnecessary setback to American power be avoided.

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Indeed, the Vietnamese communists came to power on a decisive military victory after America had withdrawn, only to find the conquered south unwilling to bend to its ideological orthodoxy, and over the course of just a single decade, capitalism spread north, surrounding and in the end extinguishing the communist fervor in Hanoi, so much so that Vietnam, while remaining a one-party state, quickly abandoned the communist economic model the north had sought to impose on the south in 1975, and Vietnam became a beacon of capitalism in Southeast Asia. The fruits of capitalism—innovation, creativity, and modernization— thus won in the broader war of ideas that had permeated the Vietnam conflict. These were seeds planted by America that took root, and then sprouted, and finally flowered in full bloom in less than a single generation, ideas so powerful they survived America’s military abandonment of its ally in Saigon. The fundamental problem with Nagl’s analysis is that it is historically so selective one could persuasively argue that his thesis on America’s failure to innovate ignores much of America’s own historical experience in Indochina. As he argues: “The United States Army entered the Vietnam War with a doctrine well suited to fighting conventional war in Europe, but worse than useless for the counterinsurgency it was about to combat. The army did not allow learning to occur during the course of the conflict, neither from its own officers, the United States Marine Corps, nor the British Advisory Mission, invited to Saigon for the express purpose of imparting lessons learned from the Emergency in Malaya. The British Advisory Mission attempted to suggest more appropriate counterinsurgency techniques but was ignored.”146 But Thompson’s own very thoughtful analysis, informed by his personal role in Malaya as well as in the British Advisory Mission, suggests it was not that America ignored the advice proffered by the British, but that the strategic environment had itself transformed, presenting a more complex and lethal threat owing to the influx of external aid to the South Vietnamese communists, and exacerbated by the growing chorus of dissent back home in the United States that pressured Washington to negotiate an exit from the war, even if that meant abandoning its ally. Thompson predicted in his 1966 analysis that this cascading strategic challenge would lead to “the moment of decision for the supporting power, to whom it will be quite clear that the alternatives are either an outright victory for the insurgent and the complete submersion of a people who have been fighting valiantly over the past few years for their freedom and independence, or its own major involvement in the fighting.”147 He

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expressed his “doubt whether any supporting power which has both the resources and the resolution could, in such circumstances, fail to choose the second alternative.”148 As things turned out, America surprised him in its withdrawal and abandonment of its comrades in arms. Expecting America to redouble its commitment to the South Vietnamese, he cautioned then that “it must be recognized that much of the military power is irrelevant to the targets which are available” at this early stage, where the goal is reestablishing security of the enclaves where the government remains viable, and to target the subversive forces of its opponents within these very enclaves.149 As he counseled: “This result cannot be achieved merely by the application of absolute force to the situation,” and while it was “just possible that force might achieve a temporary victory,” this “would leave almost every single internal problem unresolved.150 America knew this to be true and directed most of its firepower to holding the line in the North. Across the demilitarized zone (DMZ), a conventional war was fought with great intensity, though strategic airpower was applied only in a limited fashion to prevent escalation, and apart from only a brief consideration of the use of tactical nuclear weapons to break the will of Hanoi, a limited conventional war was waged well below the full capabilities of the United States. The means existed to destroy the North Vietnamese capacity to wage war and thus to commit further aggression against the South, but these means were determined to be disproportionate to the ends and thus not applied. It could thus be argued that it was American restraint, and not a conventional overcommitment, that in the end doomed the South. Or consider the view of Anthony James Joes, who sides with Nagl on America’s over-conventionalization of the fight, while nonetheless crediting America for its successful if overly lethal methods, and noting that in the end Hanoi resorted to a conventional invasion to secure its military objectives, proof-positive that a conventional war was in fact being waged, despite the recent revisionism: In Viet Nam, the United States turned away from the successful Greek and Philippine models, Americanizing the struggle against Hanoi and the Viet Cong to an extreme degree. By the time the Kennedy and Johnson administrations committed the United States to massive interventions in South Viet Nam, the Americans’ concepts of conflict had become almost totally dominated by their experiences in World War II: the successful pursuit of total victory through unprecedentedly massive employment of power. . . . This combination of

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unnecessarily aggressive tactics with unnecessarily passive strategy has few if any precedents in the history of warfare. Yet even while laboring under these grim, self-inflicted adversities, the Americans broke the back of the guerrilla insurgency in South Viet Nam. That is why the final conquest of that country required a full-scale conventional invasion by Hanoi’s army, at the time one of the largest and best-equipped forces on the planet.151 America innovated at a remarkable wartime pace, and it was through its innovation in the field that it nearly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Whether through the formation of strategic hamlets, the training of substate proxy armies in Laos and the highlands of Vietnam, selective strategic bombing of North Vietnam Army (NVA) supply lines into the South, the development of new electronic listening posts that became the “McNamara Line,” there was no dearth of military innovation, and no inflexible doctrinal bias against such innovation. Indeed, according to a 1985 Marine Corps Command and Staff College report, “Defeating Insurgency on the Border,” the idea of applying technology to remote border regions to reduce insurgent infiltration dates back to 1957, when the French constructed the then state-of-the-art “Morice Line” along Algeria’s 200-mile frontier with Tunisia, an elaborate barrier from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sahara Desert, featuring 8-foot high electric fences flanked by 45-meter minefields, barbed wire, and a footpath patrolled day and night by boots on the ground. If the fence was penetrated, it triggered an instant reaction from 105-mm howitzers, and attacks by mobile strike forces combining helicopters, tanks, and airborne infantry. Successfully designed to isolate Tunisianbased guerrilla from the civil strife in Algeria, this sort of electronic barrier was never envisioned as a viable strategic barrier against a mightily armed foe. The US Army’s Field Manual 31–16, Counter Guerrilla Operations, a “bible” for military operations in Vietnam and one that certainly rebuts the argument made by those who overstate America’s “conventional thinking,” mentioned border operations, noting: “While certain definite portions of an international land border or shoreline may be placed under effective surveillance and control led by use of static security posts, reserve forces, ground and aerial observers, electronic listening posts, and patrols, the continuous surveillance and control of an extensive land border or shoreline is extremely difficult.” The “McNamara Line” was thus only partly constructed in Vietnam, primarily an electronic barrier using detection sensors and barbed-wire

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fencing—but it was never extended across the entire Vietnamese DMZ, and guerrillas easily bypassed it by going through Laos, complicating America’s response. In Korea, in contrast, a DMZ-wide electronic barrier has managed to evolve to offset the many problems imposed by geography and topology, and with new pervasive aerial sensors and sensor-to-shooter weapons systems, even the mighty North Korean foe—with its growing armory of ballistic missiles and WMD—seems to be contained on its side of the DMZ. Creating this high-tech barrier took a long time, and required half a century of trial and error. As Dr Peter Hayes, executive director of the Berkeley, California-based Nautilus Institute, explained: “The DMZ in Korea was really the place that the electronic barrier in Vietnam that never happened actually happened.”152 According to Seymour Deitchman, a security consultant who served as director of Overseas Defense Research at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), where he was responsible for planning and executing ARPA’s R&D program on counterinsurgency and related technical matters in support of US military operations in Southeast Asia and some operations in the Middle East, a 1960s effort to adapt seismic sensors designed originally for the Ho Chi Minh Trail for use along the Korean DMZ failed, but the South Koreans found a great workaround. Deitchman knew General “Tick” ’ Bonesteel, “who was US/UN commander in Korea at the time, and in conversation one day, we agreed that I would try to get him some of the seismic sensors we had been using against the Ho Chi Minh trails in the Vietnam War, for trial. This was done, and they were implanted along part of the fence along the DMZ. Unfortunately, the sensors had been obtained hastily for Vietnam, through the ARPA Agile program I was running at the time, and they hadn’t been tested for cold weather— the usual rebellion against ‘MilSpecs,’ they were going to be used in the tropics, why waste the time and money, etc., etc. When the Korean winter set in, the sensors froze in the ground and that was the end of that experiment.”153 As Deitchman recalled, “the problem I was trying to help solve was North Koreans sneaking up at night and trying to cut holes in the fence. I was told, when I received the sad news about our sensors, that the South Korean Army, not having our bent toward advanced technology, had simply tied large numbers of tin cans closely together on parts of the fence that were prone to attempted infiltration, and the acoustic signal was enough to alert the guards and to scare the infiltrators off.”154 Concluding that America’s COIN effort in Vietnam was a failure, a common but inaccurate presumption, gives too much credit to the

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capabilities of the Viet Cong, whose reckless Tet Offensive may have succeeded in eroding America’s political will but decimated them as a fighting force, forcing North Vietnam to commit conventional forces to reintegrate North and South. It also gives too much credit to the outgunned, out-flown, and out-fought North Vietnamese Army, and which only survived because of America’s unilateral self-restraint, Moscow’s bottomless commitment of weapons and ammunition, and, in the end, America’s decision to withdraw from the field of battle, leaving the NVA intact and its ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam) ally cut-off from resupply. And still the ARVN fought on, delaying a North Vietnamese victory for 2 more years, something Hanoi could only achieve with the complicity of the US Congress, which voted to cut off funds to its longtime military ally and partner in the South. America did not lose the Vietnam War because it had failed to innovate; it allowed its ally to lose the war through its own abandonment, under intense domestic political pressure, of the allied cause, and its complete disavowal of the sacrifice in blood of soldiers from its SEATO allies, including the armies of Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, and South Korea in addition to South Vietnam. Nagl acknowledges there was “substantial innovation from below,” but blames America’s loss on the doctrinal rigidity of “the Army concept,” the “Jominian vision of the object of warfare as the destruction of the enemy’s forces.”155 He seems to favor a more nuanced and “Clausewitzian” approach such as that which now permeates FM 3–24, when in fact the “Jominian” tradition was not so very different. And strangely, he does not consider the lessons learned or the tremendous body of COIN doctrine that did evolve in Vietnam, as represented by FM 31–16. Interestingly, Anthony James Joes finds in Jomini’s theory much wisdom for the COIN strategist, thus offering something of a rebuttal to the neo-Clausewitzian approach taken by today’s dominant COIN theorists. As Joes observes: “There is no foolproof formula to be applied by counterinsurgents, or by guerrillas either; each case requires careful and dispassionate analysis of its peculiar causes and circumstances. But unsurprisingly, certain elements, certain patterns, do appear time and again. Antoine Henri Jomini, a Swiss officer who served with the Napoleonic armies in Spain, reflected on the bitter French experiences there and concluded that victory over the substantial guerrilla movement eluded the French because of their insufficient numbers, inappropriate tactics, and destructive conduct toward civilians. His views about fighting guerrillas with both effective military tactics and a sound political program

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eventually found resonance in the counterinsurgency doctrine of the U.S. Marines.”156 Joes outlines a series of elements for a successful COIN strategy that “is to a large degree an elaboration of Jomini’s views.”157 Jomini and Clausewitz were never so far apart on their understanding of war; it’s just the former favored clarity and simplicity, a language favored by men of arms, while the latter, who hid his work from view until after he had died, presented a more complex language that is favored by civilian scholars, but which does not lend itself to precise military action. Nagl ultimately pins the blame for America’s loss on its inability to learn, and thus to innovate a new doctrine, under fire: “With all doctrine and training emanating from the United States, there was little opportunity for doctrinal innovation; the conventionally bred army generals who ran MAAG and MACV were not the sort to encourage new ways of winning wars and in fact often actively discouraged innovation by their subordinates.”158 He thus portrays the American defeat in Vietnam as the inevitable result of a “history of individuals attempting to implement changes in counterinsurgency doctrine but failing to overcome a very strong organizational culture predisposed to a conventional attritionbased doctrine.”159 While Nagl is wise to draw lessons from Britain’s successful COIN effort in Malaya, it could be that he is drawing the wrong lesson. Joes looks to the British experience as well, and concludes that the successful outcome owes more to British organizational clarity than doctrinal evolution: “One of the great lessons of the Malaya conflict is the value of unity of direction. In imitation of the wartime Churchill cabinet, the control of the entire British effort in Malaya—military, police, intelligence, and administration—rested in the hands of one person, assisted by a very small group of advisers. The Americans in Viet Nam did not follow this example, to their cost: for highly debatable political reasons, the American and South Vietnamese efforts were kept separate, but the Americans failed to coordinate effectively even those activities directly under their control.”160 Thus innovation took place—as evident by the efforts of the Marines up north, in the standing up of the indigenous Hmong proxy army in Laos, and in the advanced technology “McNamara Line” erected along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, whose full potential would later come to fruition along the intra-Korean DMZ and has helped sustain over a half-century of peace, and in even more advanced form reemerged in post-Saddam Iraq, where improvised networks enabled the Americans to gain a tremendous intelligence advantage, even in a relatively new and unfamiliar battlespace. How Nagl squares this conclusion with the many circles of tactical and

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strategic innovation that took place during America’s long conflict and near victory remains an enigma: it is as if Nagl remains wedded to the systemic-theories of innovation that emerged during the Cold War and post–Cold War era, when neorealism was a dominant paradigm and postulated a top–down causal direction in international and strategic affairs, when in fact reality was never as top–down as the theorists argued. Ironically, world communism itself would collapse only 13 years after NVA tanks rolled into the courtyard of the Independence Palace in Saigon (since renamed Reunification Palace), a spent force that left its host countries bankrupt, its “liberated” peoples feeling more like those in occupied territories, eager to throw off the imperial yoke through their own bottom–up responses to the systemic forces of their era, knowing too well that its ideology was bankrupt, both morally and strategically, even if the bifurcated system of world politics was still predicated on its permanence. Thus the strategic wisdom that shaped Viet Cong and NVA strategy, and that inspired Che’s voluminous but at heart unimpressive strategic writings, and which also fueled the dogma of the insurgent fighters from the battlefields of Asia to Africa and Latin America, many who would eventually be soundly defeated by a committed opponent who refused to drink the koolaid of their rhetoric, while oft-quoted in FM 3–24, should not be accepted at face value. Much of these insurgents’ blueprints for victory was rooted in Mao’s own classic strategic analyses, but were misapplied and decontextualized when separated from the Maoist interconnection of guerrilla strategy and tactics with a broader movement toward conventional military operations. Guerrillas were guerrillas by default, not by choice; all shared the dream of taking power, and commanding a real army. Preventing this, of course, has always been the goal of COIN, and more often than not has been achieved. Thus there is nothing magical about the guerrilla: he may be stubborn but he is in the end only a guerrilla. Were the NVA not armed and funded by the Soviet Union, just as were not the North Koreans armed and funded by Mao, they would not have amounted to much of a threat at all. The key to their power was an external benefactor with deep pockets (or at least deep reserves of manpower). Once such a benefactor was gone, their movements tend to wither, as we saw in Iraq once the Sunni Awakening turned its back on al Qaeda. So while America chose not to engage the Soviet Union directly in the fight over Vietnam’s future, and limited its conventional operations to the immediate opponent adjacent to South Vietnam, thereby avoiding any escalation to total war, that does not mean it failed to innovate or to welcome innovation, or that it was blinded by a strategic myopia

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of its Jominian strategic doctrine. Indeed, it innovated carefully, trying not to escalate the conflict beyond Indochina, and certainly not beyond the conventional level. It thus accepted certain limits, and within these limits it showed itself to be a highly adaptive and innovative combatant, waging a coalitional war with allies from across the Asia-Pacific region, in what was in many ways a regional conflict involving numerous allied nations but waged in a battlespace limited geographically to just the three states that were once part of French Indochina: Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. A closer look at America’s war effort thus yields a treasure trove of insights into wartime innovation that throws much cold water onto the steaming indictment by Nagl and his cult of populationcentric war theorists who reduce COIN to winning hearts and minds, but who seem to forget that war is a continuation of policy by other means, but not one and the same with politics. And thus to battle for hearts and minds and remain indifferent to the regional balance of power or the geostrategic environment at large—a view that might be popular, in light of the Iraqi turnaround, but one that is nonetheless oversimplified. Current difficulties replicating our Iraqi success on the battlefields of Afghanistan, where the once proud Red Army met its doom, are a sobering reminder that a strategy predicated upon wishful thinking and not an objective assessment of reality on the ground is a recipe for defeat.

The Cult of the COINdinistas: Counterinsurgency’s Journey from Theory to Dogma While a critical view of FM 3–24 is becoming less uncommon, for a time it seemed that criticism of the new gospel was seldom heard. Early on, the new COIN doctrine gained a committed following, quickly gaining traction and in so doing evolving from formal doctrine to a widely embraced dogma, an ideology of victory reminiscent of Jomini’s mathematical reformulation of Napoleon’s strategic maxims into a blueprint that, if followed, was believed by many a commander to all but guarantee strategic success. The danger of any dogma is that it can obscure reality, and in time of war, it is hard enough to pierce through the many layers of fog to glimpse the underlying landscape of reality. When doctrine becomes dogma, strategy may be supplanted by ideology, which in denial of reality could be a primary catalyst of defeat. Such a denial surely blinded Soviet strategists as the world they constructed within an ideological framework

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divorced from historical realities collapsed around them. The early success of FM 3–24, and the turnaround in Iraq, fueled the COIN resurgence, largely because of the perfect storm of fortune that aligned to deliver a victory from the jaws of defeat, securing the fate of the new COIN doctrine and elevating its architects to the strategic equivalent of celebrities. As described in Rolling Stone by Michael Hastings: COIN, as the theory is known, is the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that attempts to square the military’s preference for high-tech violence with the demands of fighting protracted wars in failed states. COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation’s government—a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps. In 2006, after Gen. David Petraeus beta-tested the theory during his “surge” in Iraq, it quickly gained a hardcore following of think-tankers, journalists, military officers and civilian officials. Nicknamed “COINdinistas” for their cultish zeal, this influential cadre believed the doctrine would be the perfect solution for Afghanistan.161 The current trend to recast American military power as a form of global soft power aimed at winning hearts and minds, and wooing one-time adversaries more than winning battles against them, does seem to have become something of a fad, a kinder, gentler way of war that stands in marked contrast to America’s military tradition of fielding overwhelming military power, much the way Alexander or Napoleon did. The popularity of the method, even among a war-weary public, and the celebrity of the architects of America’s COIN renaissance suggests that a new cult of counterinsurgency has arisen. Thomas E. Ricks, in his December 2009 Sidebar article in ForeignPolicy.com, described the COINdinistas as those who know “everthing there is to know and more about counterinsurgency and its current role in U.S. military strategy,” and observes how, “[p]ushed and prodded by a wonky group of Ph.D.s, the U.S. military has in the last year decisively embraced a Big Idea: counterinsurgency.”162 Ricks lists the top-ten “brains behind counterinsurgency’s rise from forgotten doctrine to the centerpiece of the world’s most powerful military”

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as, in order of their relative influence: Gen. David Petraeus, John Nagl, David Kilcullen, Janine Davidson, Dave Dilegge, Andrew Exum, Stephen Biddle, Andrew Krepinevich, Kalev “Gunner” Sepp, and Col. Gian Gentile.” In contrast to the other nine COINdinistas, Gentile—whose refreshingly critical views will be discussed below—is described by Ricks as the “skunk at the COIN party who constantly points out flaws in the groupthink.”163 In her November 2008 American Prospect article “The Cult of Counterinsurgency,” Tara McKelvey notes that John A. Nagl “has so successfully popularized counterinsurgency in the military and the general public that he is known as the doctrine’s Johnny Appleseed,” and that a “Pentagon insider says his achievements can be attributed ‘solely’ to his ability to flirt. But, sitting at an outdoor patio table above Pennsylvania Avenue on a late summer morning, Nagl denies the charge. ‘I am shocked, shocked,’ he says, jokingly explaining that he finds it ‘appalling and demeaning and absolutely untrue.’ Then he leans back in his chair, takes off his glasses, and shakes his head slowly. ‘A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do,’ he says.”164 And “[t]o that end, Nagl has helped rewrite the U.S. Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual” and “believes that a new-and-improved counterinsurgency strategy will lead the United States to victory in Iraq and Afghanistan—and will ensure peace and stability in those countries and elsewhere in the world. In different venues, ranging from television studios to meetings with government officials, he has outlined tactics and reviewed his own battle-tested strategies of counterinsurgency, and he is widely recognized as one of the main reasons that the doctrine holds sway in Baghdad, Ramadi, and, most importantly, in Washington.”165 She recounts that the war in Iraq “didn’t start out as the test case for Nagl’s favored military strategy” but it was only after disaster struck in the early years of the war that “the military began to re-evaluate its conduct and to attempt to implement a doctrine that would address some of these issues.”166 She adds that the wanton violence among some units as well as the dismal state of the war prompted Petraeus (himself a student of Vietnam-era counterinsurgency tactics) and others to devise a program to coordinate counterinsurgency efforts. In February 2006, Petraeus hosted a workshop, co-sponsored by Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to revise the U.S. Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual. During those meetings, Nagl and other experts laid out the strategy for an intellectually challenging kind of

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warfare in which civilian and military activities are integrated, allowing soldiers and Marines to cooperate with humanitarian workers in an effort to win over the local population. It’s a strategy that employs anthropological tools such as graphs that map social networks in local communities.167 McKelvey adds that the “field manual represents a dramatic shift in the way the U.S. sees its military and its role in the Middle East and other places around the globe.”168 She writes that “[p]erhaps the biggest post-Vietnam test of counterinsurgency doctrine has been the deployment of approximately 20,000 additional troops to Iraq in 2007—the effort known as ‘the surge’” and when a “precipitous drop in violence followed,” she notes “proponents of the surge were quick to claim that it had worked. But the reality is much messier and more complex” and “various factors are still the subject of some debate among foreign-policy experts,” though “the conventional wisdom in Washington is that the situation in Iraq has improved largely because of the new approach.”169 McKelvey describes COIN as “a thinking man’s war, and it has attracted some of the country’s best and brightest,” and “the doctrine comes across as refreshingly law-abiding, a product of a post-Abu Ghraib era” complete with a “chapter on morals and values.”170 The new doctrine has become “so appealing and intellectually fascinating that it has its own subculture in Washington” with “rock stars (Nagl and Kilcullen, who were celebrated on a now-defunct military gossip blog for their personalities as much as the doctrine they espouse); a celebrity couple (Kilcullen and Janine Davidson, author of the forthcoming book The Fog of Peace); a guru (Petraeus); a cult-classic film (Battle of Algiers); and a magazine (Small Wars Journal).”171 And, McKelvey notes: “Among all of these major players, Nagl stands out. His detractors call him a show-off. But most everyone, including Nagl’s skeptics, agrees that he has played a key role in establishing counterinsurgency as a dominant military strategy. ‘It took a lot chutzpah and a lot of intellect to do what he did,’ says Lt. Col. Conrad C. Crane, a retired Army officer and the chief author of the counterinsurgency field manual. ‘He’s an important force in the intellectual ferment that produced this.’”172 But more recently, as our renewed COIN efforts in Afghanistan were mounting, and with it that conflict’s body count, the Taliban (once quickly routed with nominal losses) went on the counteroffensive, and

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their insurgency intensified, gaining traction in response to the “Obama surge,” which had not yet enjoyed the same harmonious alignment of fortune that the earlier Bush surge in Iraq enjoyed. Friction and the unpredictability of fortune have instead conspired with its own reality check. While that fight continues and its outcome is far from certain, the open question as to whether or not the doctrine espoused in FM 3–24 finds success in the current struggle has opened up the floodgates for a debate long overdue.

The Soup of War: Knives versus Spoons—A Debate One of the most outspoken critics of FM 3–24, not only its conceptualization of the counterinsurgency struggle but its dramatic impact on American warfighting more generally—and a major proponent of just such a debate—has been Col. Gian P. Gentile, colorfully described above by Tom Ricks as the “skunk at the COIN party.” In the pages of the January 2008 Armed Forces Journal he participated in an exchange with Maj. Chris Rogers, who was critical of Gentile’s September 2007 article, “Eating Soup with a Spoon,” which challenged the prevailing COIN doctrine as espoused in FM 3–24. Then a lieutenant colonel and a professor of history at West Point, Gentile’s commentary in January 2008 was appropriately titled “Our COIN Doctrine Removes the Enemy from the Essence of War,” which reiterated his September 2007 challenge to FM 3–24, and in which he noted the “centerpiece of the Army’s operational doctrine is no longer FM 3–0, ‘Operations,’ it is FM 3–24, ‘Counterinsurgency.’ The full implications of this shift are, as yet, unknown, but the conventional wisdom that the era of battles and wars of decision—as Clausewitz described them in ‘On War’—is a thing of the past seems to have prevailed.”173 At the time of his writing, the “application of counterinsurgency practices embodied in FM 3–24 are being touted as bringing about substantial security progress during the ‘surge,’” but he suggested that “we may be misreading or seeing too much in the events of the past few months in Iraq, and building a counterinsurgency-only Army that puts our ability to address non-COIN contingencies at risk.”174 He recalled how “[f]rom 1976–1982, more than 110 articles written for military magazines and journals fundamentally questioned the emerging operational doctrine that would become known as AirLand Battle” while in contrast, “[t]oday, however, by my count, there have been no more than five or six articles over the past three years that deeply challenge

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FM 3–24 (including its early drafts) and the fact that it has become our Army’s overall operational doctrine.”175 Gentile refers to his earlier critique of FM 3–24, “Eating Soup with a Spoon,” in which he argued that “the theoretical premise of the manual embodied in Chapter One’s various paradoxes, specifically two emblematic ones, removed the essence of war—fighting—from its pages. This was largely an impressionistic view of the manual based on my personal experience in western Baghdad as a tactical battalion commander in 2006.”176 Gentile is concerned that FM 3–24 and its adherents are “focusing narrowly on counterinsurgency to the point where, I fear, it may cloud our ability to see things as they actually are and then devise plans and military policy for a future that may not exist. It is as if our COIN doctrine, with all of its seductive simplicity, operates like a secret recipe: ‘do this, and then this, and at the right moment add this and . . . you win,’ as scholar Michael Vlahos shrewdly noted in a recent issue of Military Review.”177 As Gentile explains: The belief that COIN doctrine and its application in places such as Baghdad has reduced levels of violence since last summer is widespread and, to be sure, it has played a role. Still, a number of other factors in a complex country such as Iraq with a population of 25 million, including the decision to ally with our former enemies (e.g., the non-al-Qaida Sunni insurgents), the pause in activities by Muqtada alSadr’s Jaish al Mahdi, and the separation of rival factions in Baghdad stemming from sectarian cleansing in 2006–2007, have all arguably played an even bigger role. Our leaders and soldiers have seized these opportunities—embracing FM 3–24’s mantra to “learn and adapt”— but, in the absence of these other emerging conditions, levels of violence very likely would have remained high or even higher in the face of additional troops and new counterinsurgency methods. Yet, the predisposition to focus exclusively on ourselves and our doctrine leads us potentially to violate the guidance of one of the oldest philosophers of war, Sun Tzu, to know oneself and the enemy and the environment, too. Our doctrine directs us to believe that in a counterinsurgency war, the people are the center of gravity. In this theory, the enemy is removed from the essence of war and placed at the fringes. Then, within this so-called war devoid of an enemy, applied scientific processes align the people to their government. Because the enemy is removed as the central element in war, the element of friction in war is gone, too. With the recent lowering of violence in Iraq, we assume

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that counterinsurgency doctrine applied by competent military outfits has reduced and almost removed the enemy from the equation in Baghdad. It is very possible, however, that the enemy has removed himself temporarily and is waiting for the opportunity to renew the fight when he feels ready.178 Gentile reaffirms his belief that this interpretation “needs to be considered in a measured way as we look to future policy in Iraq, as well as the Army’s ability to carry out COIN and non-COIN operations elsewhere,” and cautions that “in a conflict such as the one in Iraq, there is no certainty” and as Colin Kahl has written, “overconfidence in ourselves and in the manual’s validity may tempt us, and others, to take us down this road more often in the future. There might be certain roads, however, on which we should not be traveling, even if we have plenty of soup to eat for sustenance and cocksureness.”179 In his September 2007 article, Gentile wrote that the “Army’s new manual on counterinsurgency operations (COIN), in many respects, is a superb piece of doctrinal writing” that he finds to be “comparable in breadth, clarity and importance to the 1986 FM 100–5 version of ‘Operations’ which came to be known as ‘AirLand Battle.’”180 He credits the “new manual’s middle chapters that pertain to the conduct of counterinsurgency operations” as being “especially helpful and relevant to senior commanders in Iraq.”181 But he expressed concern with a “set of nine paradoxes in the first chapter of the manual” that he believes “removes a piece of reality of counterinsurgency warfare that is crucial for those trying to understand how to operate within it.”182 The dichotomy between the simplified universe imagined by FM 3–24 and the more complex realities of warfare echo the theoretical clash between Jomini and Clausewitz, and later Brodie and Kahn, whose approaches to total war diverged on the twin cleavages of certainty versus uncertainty and simplicity versus complexity. Gentile takes aim at not only FM 3–24 but the COIN theorizing of Nagl, a coauthor of the field manual, writing that the title of his “highly regarded book on how to conduct counterinsurgency warfare, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, tries to convey in a sound-bite metaphor the complexity of counterinsurgency operations” and that the “new COIN manual takes this premise further with its ‘paradoxes’ of counterinsurgency warfare in the first chapter,” which Gentile notes “are intended to wrench soldiers and Marines out of their Cold War-conventional-military-operations mind-set and thrust them into the world of complex counterinsurgency operations. The reader can imagine the authors of the manual sending

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them this pensive, subliminal message: ‘Hey you, American soldier or Marine. We know what you are thinking. We know that you want to go out and fight large-scale battles with tanks on tanks and infantry on infantry. But those days are over.’”183 Indeed, as FM 3–24 argues, “if you want to win in a counterinsurgency fight like Iraq, you must start thinking otherwise. So ingest the obvious contradictions in these paradoxes, embrace them, and you will have moved from the dark side into the light and will be ready to execute full-spectrum counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan and thus will be able to eat soup with a knife.”184 Gentile cautions that “the paradoxes actually deceive by making overly simple the reality of counterinsurgency warfare and why it is so hard to conduct it at the ground level for the combat soldier. The eminent scholar and strategic thinker Eliot Cohen noted that counterinsurgency war is still war, and war in its essence is fighting. In trying to teach its readers to eat soup with a knife, the COIN manual discards the essence and reality of counterinsurgency warfare fighting, thereby manifesting its tragic flaw.”185 Gentile adds that the paradoxes presented in chapter 1 “are the theoretical framework that informs the entire manual” and “[i]n this sense, they are crucial to the manual and for how our Army approaches and understands counterinsurgency operations.”186 In particular, Gentile finds, “[t]wo of the paradoxes especially stand out as emblematic of all the paradoxes and the theoretical framework of the COIN manual. They are: ‘Tactical success guarantees nothing,’ and, ‘The more you protect yourself, the less secure you are.’”187 Gentile explains that it is his “sense of the permeating effects of these paradoxes on our Army coupled with my personal reading of the paradoxes when I was still in combat in Iraq that produced a reaction in me. It was not at all a reaction of approval and agreement with the theoretical premises of the paradoxes and the COIN manual. Instead, it was a reaction of anger mixed with bewilderment because the paradoxes just seemed too darn chic, too obviously simplistic in their clever formulation of contradictions. But most imp[ortant],” was that, “I was angry and bewildered because the paradoxes, through their clever contradictions, removed a fundamental aspect of counterinsurgency warfare that I had experienced throughout my year as a tactical battalion commander in Iraq: fighting. And by removing the fundamental reality of fighting from counterinsurgency warfare, the manual removes the problem of maintaining initiative, morale and offensive spirit among combat soldiers who will operate in a place such as Iraq.”188 Even in COIN, Gentile explains, there is a fundamental reality of fighting,

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albeit one that does differ from conventional conflict: “In the Iraq war, like other counterinsurgencies, there is a similar process between the opposing sides that consists of actions, reactions and counteractions. But it is very different from the process in conventional warfare. The components of the process are not the same as in conventional war, and it occurs not in real time but in slow- to no-motion. The effects of the process are not usually seen in minutes, or hours, or even days by the combat soldiers fighting it. In a counterinsurgency war such as Iraq, progress to the combat soldier appears ethereal. At times, stasis seems existential.”189 This reality undercuts the “[t]actical success guarantees nothing” paradox: “To maintain a sense of momentum, of progress, the opposite of the paradox that ‘tactical success guarantees nothing’ is true: Tactical success in COIN guarantees a lot. And because the engine of tactical success, even in counterinsurgency warfare, is fighting, by diminishing the importance of tactical success by stating it guarantees nothing, the paradox removes the essential reality of counterinsurgency warfare—fighting—from the pages of the COIN manual.”190 Indeed, as a consequence, “the lieutenant, the lieutenant colonel, the senior commander who has internalized the idea that in a counterinsurgency ‘tactical success guarantees nothing’ is not prepared for the hatred and passion of his soldiers. He ends up quickly coming to the realization that to maintain the morale of his men, the tactical success involved in the just killing of the bona fide enemy through fighting can and does guarantee a lot.”191 Moreover, Gentile notes that a “supreme irony coming out of the ‘surge’ operation in Iraq is that its success, both in the political and strategic realms, rests squarely on the back of tactical combat soldiers carrying out the tactical method of trying to secure the people through the use of combat outposts in neighborhoods and the countryside. Tactical success now in Iraq can potentially guarantee political resolution of the conflict.”192 Details of the enormous contribution of the tactical combat soldiers were chronicled by James A. Russell in his 2011 Innovation, Transformation, and War: Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005–2007. Gentile is equally critical of the “more you protect yourself, the less secure you are” paradox, noting that a “natural instinct for a combat soldier when attacked is to protect himself and his buddies. Yet the paradox that ‘the more you protect yourself, the less secure you are’ becomes counterintuitive to the soldier. It does not make sense because he experiences the essence of war fighting almost every day. So the paradox creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a combat soldier in Iraq because it essentially tells him to do something that is unnatural to him and his

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environment—to not fight.”193 The danger, Gentile argues, is that the doctrine risks becoming dogma, which he defines as “adhering to a set of principles and tenets and applying them in an overpowering way without considering alternatives. The COIN manual paradox that states ‘the more you protect yourself, the less secure you are’ has helped frame us into this dogmatic box.”194 Gentile suggests that “maybe we should stop, in a metaphorical sense, trying to eat soup with a knife in Iraq and instead go back to the basics and try eating it with a spoon. War is not clean and precise; it is blunt and violent and dirty because, at its essence, it is fighting, and fighting causes misery and death. The authors of the Army’s 1986 AirLand Battle doctrine premised their manual on fighting as the essence of war. Fighting gave the 1986 manual a coherence that reflected the true nature of war. The Army’s new COIN manual’s tragic flaw is that the essence of war fighting is missing from its pages.”195 One critic of Gentile’s argument, Maj. Chris Rogers, comes to the defense of FM 3–24, paradoxes and all. Rogers notes that Gentile “argues that our current doctrine on counterinsurgency lacks the fundamental essence of war: fighting” and that the “foundation of this claim rests on two paradoxes that appear in the first chapter of the manual and that he claims establish the theoretical framework for how the rest of the doctrine should be read.”196 But Rogers believes that “[t]hese two paradoxes do and should frame the thinking of the reader” and disagrees with Gentile’s view “that this framework contains the reader; rather, it provides a framework upon which the tactical commander can and should build.”197 In fact he believes that the “paradoxes that Gentile references—‘tactical successes guarantee nothing’ and ‘the more you protect yourself, the less secure you are’—have both, in my experience serving in a combined arms battalion in Baghdad for the past year, been borne out to be absolutely true.”198 Rogers believes that “[n]arrowing the scope of the application of the paradoxes gives insufficient credit to our tactical commanders and senior leaders in their individual and combined abilities to understand our doctrinal framework and apply it in an ambiguous, complex and lethal environment,” and observes that “[a]fter more than a year in western Baghdad . . . there still exists—despite the paradoxes—plenty of fight left in our doctrine and in our Army.”199 He rebuts Gentile’s interpretation of the paradoxes in chapter 1 of FM 3–24, explaining that the “apparent paradox that ‘tactical success guarantees nothing’ simply means that tactical success may not achieve the outcome our strategic planners and policymakers had envisioned” and that the “salient point

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from this paradox is not that tactics mean nothing—it is that tactics must be employed as part of a larger design aimed at achieving strategic goals.”200 Case in point: during the Vietnam War, the United States may have been better at killing the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, but that didn’t matter—they were not better at employing their forces in a manner that made a difference. Their tactics did not lead to strategic effects—they appeared successful because they were killing the enemy by the bushel—but in truth, they were ineffective because the killing did not lead to achieving strategic aims that resulted in the desired political outcome. The modern-day Army has taught us that at the tactical level, planning horizons were short. They were short because we applied the restrictive definition of tactics. We planned, trained and employed our forces almost exclusively in battles and engagements. We spent months preparing for National Training Center rotations and drilled our staffs on how to plan more quickly— how to shorten the process to be able to employ our forces in the shortest amount of time possible. In the counterinsurgency in Iraq, that world is gone; our planning horizons, in many cases, extend well beyond a battalion’s time in country.201 As for the second paradox, “The more you protect yourself, the less secure you are,” Rogers explains that the “point of security operations in counterinsurgency, however, is not that they should focus inward—at our own soldiers—but outward toward the populace that we are trying to influence. It is not a matter of where we sit, where we stand or even where we sleep at night, but rather it is about how we employ our forces (remember that phrase, our tactics) and on what or whom they focus. Put simply, the emphasis is on a group of people other than ourselves. In a counterinsurgency, the people are, most often, the objective—much like in conventional operations, terrain or the enemy is the objective.”202 Rogers notes that this does not mean American forces always are exposed to danger but that COIN requires a sliding scale between force protection and population security: “While serving in western Baghdad, our battalion has, as have many others, simultaneously operated from both the relatively austere combat outposts and the relatively plush forward operating bases, such as Camp Liberty. We have focused, at the right time and place, on the population, while still providing adequate protection for our soldiers. It has been neither dogmatic nor has it resulted in supreme tactical vulnerability.”203

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Rogers observes that “we have learned from both our successes and our failures how to apply our doctrine according to the circumstances in which we find ourselves,” and that contrary to Gentile’s thesis, that “[f]ighting has not left the ranks of the Army—on the contrary, we have come to realize that fighting encompasses an even greater range of options available to the tactical commander. We have learned that we may fight the enemy not only by killing him, but also by denying him the very comforts of his own protection—the ability to hide amongst the local populace.”204 He adds: “We who grew up in the Army knowing Vietnam only from the history books may long for the good old days of force-on-force battles and an enemy who will stand and fight. But the reality is that we have to fight the war we are in. In some cases, to achieve the strategic objectives and the desired political outcome, our tactics must not be ‘blunt and violent and dirty.’”205 Fortunately, his experience suggests that “[t]he fight has not left our doctrine, it has not left our Army, and it has most certainly not left our soldiers—it has simply grown and adapted to the circumstances of our environment. Our tactical commanders and senior leaders have used our doctrine the way it was intended, as a guide for employing U.S. forces under varying, difficult and often nonviolent circumstances in a vague and complex environment.”206 Gentile’s critical response to FM 3–24 has continued—in the July 2010 edition of Joint Force Quarterly he participated in a new exchange, this time with Nagl himself. It is a fascinating clash of theoretical and doctrinal perspectives, and represents the very same paradigmatic clash that we have seen in other eras, notably the total war era as well as the nuclear age. Gentile and Nagl replicate the very same lingering dispute between certainty/uncertainty and simplicity/complexity that has permeated the long-enduring realist tradition, and the effort by theorists of war and of state to devise a workable blueprint to restore order in a chaotic world—just as Clausewitz cautioned that the omnipresence of fog and friction guaranteed that chance would play a role in the outcome of events, Machiavelli argued the same, recognizing that fortuna was the arbiter of half of our actions and that it required virtu to counterbalance this, as embodied by the Prince, and the nuclear theorists struggled during their half-century of dominance with similar challenges of nuclear uncertainty and the unprecedented danger of absolute warfare. The exchange between Gentile and Nagl is a fascinating glimpse into the self-same dialectic between theory and doctrine, ideas and reality, hope and fear, which defines the realist’s universe.

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The first round in the exchange is delivered by Gentile in his article, “Time for the Deconstruction of Field Manual 3–24,” which reiterates his earlier concerns with FM 3–24: “The principles of population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) have become transcendent in the U.S. Army and other parts of the greater Defense Establishment. Concepts such as population security, nation-building, and living among the people to win their hearts and minds were first injected into the Army with the publication of the vaunted Field Manual (FM) 3–24, Counterinsurgency, in December 2006. Unfortunately, the Army was so busy fighting two wars that the new doctrine was written and implemented and came to dominate how the Army thinks about war without a serious professional and public debate over its efficacy, practicality, and utility.”207 He again takes issue with the “fundamental assumption behind population-centric counterinsurgency and the Army’s ‘new way of war’ is that it has worked in history, was proven to work in Iraq during the surge, and will work in the future in places such as Afghanistan as long as its rules are followed, the experts are listened to, and better generals are put in charge.”208 Gentile observes that: The fundamental assumption behind population-centric counterinsurgency and the Army’s “new way of war” is that it has worked in history, was proven to work in Iraq during the surge, and will work in the future in places such as Afghanistan as long as its rules are followed, the experts are listened to, and better generals are put in charge. Combat commanders currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are judged as successes or failures by COIN precepts. A recent article in the Army Times by veteran reporter Sean Naylor accused a battalion and brigade commander of a Stryker Brigade in Afghanistan in 2009 of not following FM 3–24’s rules and implied that, because of this, it failed at its mission and had many Soldiers killed as a result. An Army report on the Wanat engagement, where nine American Soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in July 2008, also put the battalion and company commanders in the docket and judged them to be failures at population-centric counterinsurgency. That unofficial report (leaked to the press) helped lead to a more formal Army investigation. In a recent book review in Army Magazine, retired Army officer and counterinsurgency expert John Nagl “indicted” the Army for not following proper COIN rules in Iraq from 2003 to 2007. Should they be indicted, as Nagl charged, for failing at population-centric counterinsurgency? This has gone too far.209

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Gentile is concerned in part because of the inquisitional atmosphere created by COIN dogma masquerading as doctrine, noting that it’s “all reminiscent of the preposterous claims made by Vietnam-era Army officer David Hackworth that the commanding general in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, William C. Westmoreland, should be held ‘criminally’ liable for U.S. failure there. Westmoreland was not the single point of failure for the United States in Vietnam—in fact, far from it. That most tragic war was lost because the Army failed at strategy and, more importantly, the other side wanted victory more.”210 Gentile believes that “to use as a measuring stick the COIN principles put forth in FM 3–24 with all of their underlying and unproven theories and assumptions about insurgencies and how to counter them is wrong,” and as a consequence, that it’s “time for the Army to debate FM 3–24 critically, in a wide and open forum”211— adding that the “notion that it was debated sufficiently during the months leading up to its publication is a chimera. Unfortunately, the dialogue within defense circles about counterinsurgency and the Army’s new way of war is stale and reflects thinking that is well over 40 years old. In short, our Army has been steamrollered by a counterinsurgency doctrine that was developed by Western military officers to deal with insurgencies and national wars of independence from the mountains of northern Algeria in the 1950s to the swamps of Indochina in the 1960s. The simple truth is that we have bought into a doctrine for countering insurgencies that did not work in the past, as proven by history, and whose efficacy and utility remain highly problematic today.”212 Gentile takes aim at the “stock mantra” echoed by military analyst and correspondent Tom Ricks in his The Best Defense blog that “regurgitated some pithy catechisms from another COIN expert, the former Australian army officer David Kilcullen, on how to best measure effectiveness in COIN operations in Afghanistan”—that “in any COIN operation, the greater the number of civilians killed, the greater the number of insurgents made, and therefore the less pacified the area. Sadly, Ricks and many other COIN zealots have accepted the matter as fact and have gone on to believe other such things as matters of faith.”213 In fact, it is hard to know the effect of killing civilians in war. During World War II, Airmen believed that bombing industrial centers and killing civilians (although at the time Americans referred to them as industrial “workers” to be de-housed) would weaken morale. But studies after the war based on interviews of German civilians showed that bombing actually stiffened German morale to resist in some cases.

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In Vietnam, some analysts argue that General Creighton Abrams’s (Westmoreland’s replacement in 1968) so-called one-war approach pacified the Vietnamese countryside from 1969 to 1972 through a hearts-and-minds counterinsurgency campaign modeled on the “classic” COIN texts of David Galula and Robert Thompson. This is simply not supported by current scholarship based on Vietnamese sources. To be sure, a significant level of “pacification” occurred between 1969 and 1972, but that was because many rural areas once under Viet Cong control were depopulated by the destruction of war and the forced resettlement of hundreds of thousands of civilians. In a sense, it was superior American and South Vietnamese firepower that “pacified” the rural countryside by “draining the sea” the Viet Cong swam in.214 Thus Gentile concludes that the “theory that underwrites current counterinsurgency practice and thinking is unproven in history and in current practice,” and “[y]et that theory has shaped a new way of war and has seduced analysts such as Ricks and Nagl, senior Army officers, and other influential members of the defense community into believing it to be proven in practice.”215 Dangerously evident in recent months, “[i]t is this very COIN theory that is driving current U.S. operations in Afghanistan.”216 Gentile’s solutions is for FM 3–24 to “be deconstructed and put back together in a similar way as the Army’s Active Defense Doctrine was between 1976 and 1982. That previous operational doctrine was thoroughly debated and discussed in open (not closed bureaucratic) forums, and the result of that debate was a better operational doctrine for the time commonly referred to as AirLand Battle.”217 He believes the “Army needs a better and more complete operational doctrine for counterinsurgency, one that is less ideological, less driven by think tanks and experts, less influenced by a few clever books and doctoral dissertations on COIN, and less shaped by an artificial history of counterinsurgency.”218 Responding to Gentile’s call to deconstruct the FM 3–24, Nagl recounts the origins of the new COIN doctrine in “Constructing the Legacy of Field Manual 3–24.” He credits General Petraeus for recognizing the “opportunity to help revamp the Army’s vision of and approach to the wars that it was struggling with in Iraq and Afghanistan” and the team he assembled, in “just over a year produced Field Manual (FM) 3–24, Counterinsurgency, in conjunction with a U.S. Marine Corps team.”219 As Nagl describes, FM 3–24 “was built around two big ideas: first, that protecting the population was the key to success in any counterinsurgency

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campaign, and second, that to succeed in counterinsurgency, an army has to be able to learn and adapt more rapidly than its enemies. Neither of these ideas was especially new, but both were fundamental changes for an American Army that had traditionally relied on firepower to win its wars.”220 Nagl further recounts: The writing team drew upon the lessons of previous successful and unsuccessful counterinsurgency campaigns, confident that, just as there are principles of conventional war that have endured for hundreds of years, there are lasting principles of “small wars” and insurgencies that are also relevant to the wars of today. It vetted those concepts at a major conference in February 2006 that included experts ranging from veterans of Vietnam and El Salvador to human rights advocates, who deconstructed the draft chapters and made the final product stronger. The conference kick-started a thorough review process that engaged a broad audience of stakeholders and constituencies. FM 3–24 was extensively reviewed inside the Army and Marine Corps, but its authors also wanted to circulate the doctrine among Service members who were not in the chain of command. They published a précis of the intellectual core of the doctrine, “Principles, Imperatives, and Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency,” in the March–April 2006 Military Review; this article was posted on the influential military blog Small Wars Journal at the time of publication to encourage additional comments from the field.221 In addition to this unusually open internal process, FM 3–24 was extensively analyzed by interested parties outside the Armed Forces, including not only the 80 or so participants who attended the Leavenworth review conference but also a much larger audience that commented on a draft version that was leaked online that summer. The writing team carefully reviewed each of the hundreds of comments it received and ultimately published a manual that was much better for the input of so many. No previous doctrinal manual had undergone such a public review process before publication or provided so many opportunities for comment to both those inside and outside the Army/Marine Corps tent.222 Such an inclusive process thus “raised the stakes for a manual that would ordinarily have attracted no attention outside the Army and little inside it” and “[r]ightly or wrongly, FM 3–24 became more than a routine doctrinal publication; it became a symbol of something more expansive.”223

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Nagl believes that “FM 3–24’s role in inspiring a more open doctrinal development process will be as important as its operational prescriptions” and that “[f]uture military doctrine should benefit from FM 3–24’s example of requesting input from the field and from outsiders, making the preparation of doctrine less about traditional practice handed down from past generations and more about constant learning and adaptation based on current experience and collaboration with a broad group of concerned partners. This legacy may be as important for the future of the U.S. military as the manual’s twin pillars of protecting the population and constantly learning so we can adapt to the demands of the wars we are fighting, rather than the wars we would prefer to fight.”224 Nagl defends the field manual against criticisms that it “takes a somewhat anachronistic approach to the problem of insurgency” and that it draws too “heavily from the ‘classical’ counterinsurgency theorists such as David Galula and Sir Robert Thompson and their experiences combating the Maoist insurgencies and anti-colonial conflicts that marked the first two decades of the Cold War”; he argues that the “differences between previous and current insurgencies are overstated” and as a consequence, “it was necessary for a military that had largely deemphasized its understanding of counterinsurgency over the preceding 30 years to regain a grasp of insurgency’s fundamental dynamics and challenges.”225 Nagl also defends the field manual from criticisms that it “does not explain all the nuances of operations and tactics commanders will need in Iraq, Afghanistan, and future battlefields; nor does it prescribe U.S. grand strategy, America’s role in the world, or the future of warfare,” explaining that this “was never intended.”226 Responding in turn to Nagl’s reiteration and defense of FM 3–24’s inclusive process of development and review, and his defense of its many beneficial impacts, including both the very process of reformulating doctrine, and on America’s ongoing COIN efforts in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gentile recalls the day he received the new field manual, noting: In October 2006, while in command of a cavalry squadron in northwest Baghdad, I received an email with an attached document from my division commander, then-Major General James D. Thurman . . . asking for input on the important document attached, which was a draft of Field Manual (FM) 3–24, Counterinsurgency. Over the next couple of weeks, I tried to read the draft manual closely and provide comments to the commanding general. Alas, though, like probably most of the

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other commanders, I was so busy carrying out a population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign on the ground in west Baghdad that I never found time to get to it. While anecdotal, my experience suggests a microcosm of the U.S. Army. The Army has been so busy since FM 3–24 came out 4 years ago that it has been unable to have a Service-wide dialogue on the manual.227 Now, Gentile adds, it’s “time to have that debate.”228 Taking aim at Nagl’s rose-colored recollection of the field manual’s origins, Gentile observes how “COIN ‘experts,’ some of whom were the writers of FM 3–24, often talk about how thoroughly the manual was debated and vetted. This may be true in the more narrow sense of a small cluster of senior officers, civilian academics, civilian pundits, and media personnel. But it was in no way debated and discussed and challenged, then taken apart and put back together.”229 Since FM 3–24 was released, Gentile adds, both “the field and the institutional Army have gained much experience over these past 4 years in actually fighting two major COIN campaigns. Should we not consider that experience and integrate it into a revised doctrine for counterinsurgency?”230 Gentile finds it “troubling that the Army today, after nearly 4 years of experience in conducting major COIN campaigns, cannot see fit to revise the doctrine it has now,” and that “some of the leading COIN experts and Army officers seem unwilling to accept the need for serious debate and the possibility of a fundamental revision of current doctrine. It is as if they have become so convinced of the efficacy and rightness of current Army COIN doctrine that they cannot imagine alternatives and revisions based on recent hard experience. In essence, and sadly, the Army seems to have lost the ability to think creatively.”231 He reiterates his belief that the field manual has become dogma, a sacred mantra not to be questioned nor tested by the crucible of reality; indeed, “after listening to COIN experts, one comes away with the impression that the principles of COIN as laid out in FM 3–24 are irrefutable and that they must stay in place, without challenge. The experts often hold as an incontrovertible rule that they believe these principles must be followed in any counterinsurgency: the people are the ‘prize,’ or the center of gravity, and they must be protected.”232 Gentile turns to Clausewitz for a more useful, less simplistic, and more dynamic conception of the center of gravity: Carl von Clausewitz said that a center of gravity is something to be discovered, and it could vary depending on the aims of the war being fought. Yet the COIN experts essentially tell us that there is no need

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to discover a center of gravity or even an operational method because the rules of our current COIN doctrine have already done the discovering and planning for us. For instance, if there is one hard and fast prescription in our doctrine that must always be followed as a rule, it is that the people must always be protected because they are the “prize.” This concrete prescription therefore demands a specific operational method of large numbers of boots on the ground—doing “clear, hold, and build”—thereby winning hearts and minds. So, for example, when the President of the United States tells the Army to stop the pirates from coming out of Somalia, or to allow no more underwear bombers from Yemen, the only operational method that the Army has in its doctrinal toolkit is an expeditionary campaign of multiple combat brigades dispersed into the local population to protect them and win their hearts and their minds. This is how being doctrinaire with counterinsurgency can lead to dogmatism—in other words, an inability to move beyond, when needed and called for, prescribed principles, methods, and rules. Unfortunately, the dogmatism of counterinsurgency has eclipsed strategy and, even more troublingly, shapes policy.233 Gentile believes that the new “straitjacket of counterinsurgency . . . has produced within some circles in the Army and the greater defense establishment a rather curious way of thinking about firepower. It has come to be viewed as something dirty, bad, and to be avoided. This negative treatment combined with the COIN notion of learning and adapting toward better practices has replaced what should be the core principle of combined arms competencies. As a result, the Army’s warfighting skills have atrophied.”234 Gentile notes the irony that “this never-ending drumbeat by COIN experts of learning and adapting only toward better methods has taken our eyes off the ball of combined arms competencies through the coordinated use of maneuver, intelligence, and firepower” and that “[i]n a twist of circumstances, one might even conclude that COIN experts have no intention or possibility of really learning or adapting because they seem to presume to know what the wars of the future will be, and they have determined the best way to fight them.”235 He revisits the lessons of Vietnam, which many COIN strategists believe validates their approach to population-centric warfare, noting: “Ironically, the historical case study that COIN experts focus on most to prove that better COIN methods can work—General Creighton Abrams and the Vietnam War—actually proves how essential firepower was to whatever

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success was enjoyed against the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese communists.”236 And so while the “Army must be proficient at counterinsurgency and nation-building,” Gentile believes, even “more importantly, it must maintain intellectual rigor. Seriously debating and challenging current operational doctrine is hard while fighting a war at the same time, but it is not impossible—and it is an absolute necessity.”237 Nagl responds to Gentile in the final round of this exchange, citing JCS Chief, Admiral Michael G. Mullen: “There is no single defining American way of war. It changes over time, and it should change over time, adapting appropriately to the most relevant threats to our national security, and the means by which that security is best preserved. As the godfather of theory himself, Carl von Clausewitz, once observed, war is but an instrument of policy, beholden to it. And because policies change, the conduct of war must also change,” explaining that Mullen “highlights Clausewitz’s dictum that war is not essentially ‘about death and destruction’ but is fundamentally an instrument of policy designed to achieve political aims” and that it’s “this understanding of war that must drive how military strategy and doctrine are developed, and the metric against which they must be judged.”238 When “evaluated against its record in assisting in the accomplishment of national objectives,” Nagl, a coauthor of the field manual, believes that “[i]t meets this test,” noting since its implementation in Iraq there has been “a dramatic reduction in violence and a strengthening of the institutions necessary for selfgovernment.”239 He acknowledges that “[t]here were multiple causes for this chain of events, including the Awakening movement, sectarian separation in Baghdad, and ‘ceasefire’ initiatives by some insurgent groups, as well as the U.S. troop surge and new operational and tactical approaches enacted by Generals David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno. But these variables interacted with one another: the Awakening gained momentum after the surge was announced, and surge forces, once in place, reinforced sectarian separation and dissuaded insurgent groups from escalating hostilities.”240 Rejecting the view expressed by critics that “the implementation of a counterinsurgency campaign had nothing to do with what transpired in Iraq over the past 3 years,” he argues that it’s “no accident that the rediscovery of counterinsurgency principles culminating in the writing of Field Manual (FM) 3–24 coincided with this fairly dramatic reversal of fortune.”241 He further acknowledged that FM 3–24 is “no Bible; it is slated to be revisited and rewritten within the next year or so, since learning organizations must continuously adapt to the demands of ongoing

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conflict” and that the “lead author of the previous effort, Conrad Crane,” who “will also be involved in the next one . . . has been carefully following the many lively discussions about FM 3–24 that have raged since its publication just over 3 years ago, after the most extensive doctrinal review process in Army history to that point.”242 Indeed, Nagl notes that “[i]f this is not the first time in history when commanders literally under fire were given the opportunity to comment on pending doctrine, it is certainly proof that the net was spread very wide indeed while the manual was under revision.”243 And while “coming revision of FM 3–24 is unlikely to satisfy the criticisms of those who decry the doctrine’s focus on the population,” Nagl points out that “the debate over FM 3–24 has largely consisted of critics without an alternative course of action of their own complaining that no alternatives to population-centric counterinsurgency were considered” and who “have ignored the rich body of history written by many practitioners of population-centric counterinsurgency who have learned from their own experience in this kind of war.”244 Nagl observes that “[m]any critiques of the counterinsurgency manual have also fostered misconceptions about what it really says,” focusing like Gentile on the first chapter and its paradoxes, when the “core of the manual is its middle chapters, which cover sociocultural intelligence, campaign design using that information to determine problem sets, and then execution along logical lines of operation to achieve solutions.”245 Adds Nagl: “Perhaps the most important influence of FM 3–24 on American doctrine has been through that concept of design, a contribution from the Marines that has become a part of all subsequent doctrine. Campaign design compels commanders to apply different combinations of information activities and combat operations, along with efforts aimed at improving governance and the economy, all in pursuit of a locally defined legitimacy that will sustain popular support. This complex and iterative plan must be conducted in concert with many partners.”246 Moreover, the “process of campaign design allows U.S. forces to continually adapt to the demands of the neighborhood they are fighting in, determining the appropriate balance between killing the enemy and protecting the population on each block and at each moment.”247 Nagl lauds the new US doctrine, “from FM 3–24 through FM 3–0 to Joint Publication 3–24,” for being “flexible, adaptable, and well suited to the broad spectrum of threats America faces today. It frees the military from a misguided belief that there is a single U.S. way of war that is essentially ‘about death and destruction’” and “teaches that the Army, and the Nation, must be able to fight and win along the entire

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spectrum of conflict.”248 Firing off a final shot at Gentile, Nagl concludes that the “process of freeing ourselves from a limited understanding of the nature of war will be uncomfortable for some, but this discomfort is a necessary sacrifice if America’s Armed Forces are to uphold their solemn obligation to preserve the security of the American people.”249

Netcentric versus Population-Centric War: Debate or Dialectic? Another debate raged across the blogosphere in 2007 after an intriguing though controversial article appeared in the pages of Wired magazine authored by Noah Shachtman, looking critically at the legacy of Vice Admiral Cebrowski’s conceptualization of NCW, and how the postwar challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan (and the accompanying rise in population-centric COIN theory) appeared to present a vociferous reality check, thereby questioning the very premise of NCW. The controversy that swirled pitted advocates of COIN, including leading population-centric warfare theorist Nagl, against the principal architects of America’s “Shock and Awe” campaign and its underlying strategic framework of NCW as developed by Cebrowski, including his former deputy and widely read theorist of war (famous for his conceptualization of nonintegrated Gap and integrated Core states), Thomas P. M. Barnett. But when the dust settled from this blog fight between net-centricity and population-centricity, it became clear that Shachtman’s critical analysis presented less of a knockout blow aimed at NCW and more of a synthesis of two doctrines that more often than not are pitted against one another in the long tradition of doctrinal polarization of the sort witnessed between Clausewitzian disciples and their Jominian counterparts. In fact the new complexity of war manifests a frustrating but seemingly permanent blurring of these two approaches to war, with population-centric nationbuilding activities taking place in one region and kinetic operations taking place in another, not unlike the concept of the “Three Block War” first enunciated by US Marine Corps General and former Commandant Charles Chandler Krulak and which has formally undergirded Canadian defense policy since 9/11, informed by Ottawa’s often lonely deployment to the Kandahar region of Afghanistan during the years when American forces were preoccupied with the chaotic war in Iraq. Ottawa found itself simultaneously engaged in kinetic and population-centric warfare activities, and recognized this inherent

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contradiction in its mission, one that the recent debate that has raged between NCW and COIN advocates suggests has not yet been fully synthesized by American defense intellectuals, who are still staking one corner or the other in this polarized doctrinal fight. An even broader doctrinal debate has raged in the pages of military journals, magazines, and websites between the proponents of kinetic operations more generally (and not just the lighter-footprinted, higher-tech, NCW variant), and the population-centric COIN theorists, as we have seen in several military publications, particularly the point–counterpoint debate between Nagl and Gentile that appeared in JFQ. We will take a brief look at how the 2007 debate between NCW and COIN played out, first examining Shachtman’s article, then Thomas P. M. Barnett’s critical response and defense of his mentor Cebrowski, after which we will contextualize the debate and its effort to describe a complex and often chaotic reality, and find a map from chaos to order (not unlike the map made famous by Barnett in his seminal work, The Pentagon’s New Map, which elaborated upon his shorter article-length discussion in Esquire in 2003). His conceptualization of the integrated Core confronted by an array of persistent threats from the nonintegrated Gap eloquently captured the broader notion of the “West against the Rest,” noting the core similarities that defined what I later will describe as the “Top” (the developed world of mature, stable states) and the “Bottom” (the underdeveloped world of weaker states that populate the world where the Westphalian model came late and was less organically and rationally applied to the underlying ethnocultural topology) or which Philip Bobbitt in his sweeping Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History described as the emergent “market-state,” which defines the Core and which similarly reflects the end-state of Barnett’s grand strategic vision to shrink the Gap. As Bobbitt described in his monumental work: “The market-state is a constitutional adaptation . . . to the revolutions in computation, communications, and weapons of mass destruction that brought about the end” of the long period of epochal warfare that stretched from 1914 to 1990, which Bobbitt has dubbed the “Long War” (a label that has been more widely associated with the GWOT).250 In his Wired article, Shachtman discusses the intellectual relationship that emerged between Arthur Cebrowski and his fellow coauthor John Garstka after they met in 1991, and how they “traded ideas and compared experiences” and “visited businesses embracing the information revolution, ultimately becoming convinced that the changes sweeping the corporate world had applications for the military as well”—a view

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they famously articulated in their seminal January 1998 Proceedings article: “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” which “not only named the philosophy but laid out a new direction for how the US would think about war.”251 As Shachtman recounts: “Their model was Wal-Mart. Here was a sprawling, bureaucratic monster of an organization—sound familiar?—that still managed to automatically order a new light bulb every time it sold one. Warehouses were networked, but so were individual cash registers. So were the guys who sold Wal-Mart the bulbs. If that company could wire everyone together and become more efficient, then U.S. forces could, too.”252 Cebrowski’s ideas took root with defense policy advisors in the 2000 Bush campaign, and after the election, he was “installed as the head of the newly created Office of Force Transformation,” and a year later, “ [w]hen the US went to war in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq, its forces achieved apparent victory with lightning speed. Analysts inside and outside the Pentagon credited the network-centric approach for that success.”253 Shachtman cites General Tommy Franks, who commanded both the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, who speculated in his memoir, American Soldier, that the new technology of war “promised ‘today’s commanders the kind of Olympian perspective that Homer had given his gods.’”254 But Shachtman contrasts this promise with today’s grittier reality: “And yet, here we are. The American military is still mired in Iraq. It’s still stuck in Afghanistan, battling a resurgent Taliban. . . . In the past six years, the world’s most technologically sophisticated militaries have gone up against three seemingly primitive foes—and haven’t won once.”255 Adds Shachtman: “How could this be? The network-centric approach had worked pretty much as advertised. Even the theory’s many critics admit net-centric combat helped make an already imposing American military even more effective at locating and killing its foes. The regimes of Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar were broken almost instantly.”256 The problem, Shachtman explains, is that “network-centric warfare, with its emphasis on fewer, faster-moving troops, turned out to be just about the last thing the U.S. military needed when it came time to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. A small, wired force leaves generals with too few nodes on the military network to secure the peace. There aren’t enough troops to go out and find informants, build barricades, rebuild a sewage treatment plant, and patrol a marketplace.”257 This criticism, similar to that made by the advocates of COIN who believe a population-centric approach to war is required, one with a much heavier footprint, rings somewhat hollow since NCW was designed

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to win wars, not police the peace. It redresses the tragic irony of Vietnam, where a successful and troop-intensive COIN effort destroyed the Viet Cong as a fighting force, which in turn forced Hanoi to unify Vietnam through a direct, and not an indirect, approach—resulting in the conventional blitzkrieg after American forces withdrew that led to a speedy reunification. America won the COIN campaign but let its ally lose the conventional war; in today’s wars, America has quickly trounced its opponent conventionally, using the light and modern footprint of a NCWdesigned invasion force. Had it launched a “Shock and Awe” campaign directly against Hanoi with the same pinpoint precision of its war against the Taliban or Saddam, the communists may well have been routed without a substantial risk of provoking its northern neighbor, communist China—which may well have enjoyed watching its traditional adversary take a beating by American forces, so long as their attack was precisely executed and China’s borders remained unthreatened, in contrast to the debacle that unfolded in the Korean War when UN Forces under American command chased retreating North Korean communists all the way to the Yalu, precipitating a Chinese counterattack. NCW in short made a conventional assault of an opponent in a hostile neighborhood such as Afghanistan—which is surrounded by China, Iran, and Pakistan—or Iraq, with Iran and Syria as neighbors, relatively low risk. That the post-conflict environment has required a heavier troop presence to maintain order does not invalidate the brilliant successes of either campaign; it just reveals the complexity of the post-conflict environment, and the need for better post-invasion planning. Shachtman writes that “Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon were the first conflicts planned, launched, and executed with networked technologies and a networked ideology. They were supposed to be the wars of the future. And the future lost.”258 But that is not entirely true; all that really happened is that the opponent fought back asymmetrically, as Cebrowski himself admitted was the likely eventuality, taking advantage of the light footprint of the invading forces and recognizing this vulnerability. The future may have won, but it was only the first round; one could argue that the past struck back. The primary opponent to Western interests, the motley mix of insurgent groups in Iraq, the resurgent Taliban of Afghanistan, or Hizbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, like many conventionally defeated opponents across history, adapted to the future’s methods, using cell phones, courting the media, and engaging in various networked activities, as best they could. Indeed, as Shachtman observes: “Inside the Pentagon,

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the term network-centric warfare is out of fashion” owing to the slog of population-centric warfare that followed; and “yet countless generals and admirals still adhere to its core principles,” while on the ground, “troops are learning to grapple with the guerrilla threat. And that means fighting in a way that couldn’t be more different from the one Donald Rumsfeld embraced. The failures of wired combat are forcing troops to improvise a new, socially networked kind of war.”259 Shachtman equates the insurgency in Iraq with a failure of netcentric operations, but the fact that an army which once that threatened the entire region and the West’s very lifeblood, Saudi and Kuwaiti oil, was decisively and speedily routed suggests that the resulting asymmetrical backlash in the form of the post-conflict insurgencies are evidence of its very success, forcing a once potent foe into the shadows. Throughout his article, Shachtman references Garstka’s and Cebrowski’s seminal 1998 article. For instance, he writes: “‘A wellinformed but geographically dispersed force,’ Garstka and Cebrowski wrote in 1998, should be able to triumph over any foe, regardless of ‘mission, force size and composition, and geography.’ But neither Cebrowski nor Garstka was thinking about the kind of combat where foes blend into the populace and seed any stretch of road with bombs. Lawless towns like this can be pacified only by flooding them with troops—collecting tips and knocking heads.”260 In a meeting with Garstka, the cocreator of NCW conceded: “Maybe network-centric combat isn’t perfectly suited to the wars we’re fighting now. And it certainly requires a different skill set than counterinsurgency or nation-building.”261 By the end of their conversation, Shachtman notes: “Garstka suggests that the model he helped create will have to change again. ‘You have to think differently about people,’ he says. ‘You have your social networks and technological networks. You need to have both.’”262 The evolution of NCW from technological networks to more social networks has been recognized by America’s war planners, and as Shachtman observes, “Warfare will continue to center around networks. But some networks will be social, linking not computers and drones and Humvees but tribes, sects, political parties, even entire cultures.”263 Shachtman’s Wired article kicked up a firestorm of controversy, mostly for its emphatic juxtapositioning of Cebrowski’s elegant theoretical and doctrinal insights with the far messier post-conflict environment in Iraq, and his attribution of our frustrating post-conflict challenges to both an operational shortsightedness and strategic oversimplification inherent in the NCW vision. But as we will see below, the population-centric

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antithesis to NCW thesis was equally as guilty of oversimplifying the complexity of the strategic environment, and if we look back to Vietnam for guidance we can see that overemphasizing population-centricity can prove just as dangerous, as the irony of America’s COIN success coupled with the ultimate collapse of a sovereign South Vietnam under the direct frontal pressure of a conventional invasion by the North illustrates. The controversy generated by Shachtman’s article was discussed in a blog entry on the Zenpundit.com website, authored by Mark Safranski, titled “Admiral Cebrowski’s Legacy Is not Iraq.”264 As Safranski observes: “By now many of you have probably read the exchanges between Thomas P. M. Barnett and Noah Shachtman of WIRED’s Danger Room over Shachtman’s recent article “How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social—Not Electronic.”265 He presents web links to the points and counterpoints, almost all of which have since been deactivated, but their titles are telling: “Wired’s Subpar Iraq Analysis” by Barnett; “My ‘Weird’ Article, ‘Well Worth the Read’” by Shachtman; “Tom’s Reply to Noah” by Barnett; “Blog Fight? Zzzzzzzzzz” by Shachtman, which responds point by point to Barnett and that remains, as of this writing, posted online; and “File It Under Whatever You Want” by Barnett.266 Safranski describes the way NCW has evolved since the concept’s inception by Cebrowski and Garstka, noting that it has become “a larger concept than the original theoretical ideas” first presented in 1998, and noting how “whenever a theory is accepted by a large and powerful bureaucratic organization—like, say, the Pentagon—it collides with reality. Some ideas get tested, tinkered with, discarded or adapted to existing factional agendas by people with more enthusiasm than understanding.”267 From the time of NCW’s inception in 1998 through the lightning-fast overthrow of both the Taliban and Saddam regimes, Safranski notes that NCW “had more ‘legs’ inside the DoD bureaucracy than did it’s main rival, the 4GW School” as complex and asymmetrical warfare is sometimes known, “because it suited the intellectual needs of armed services planning to fight a future ‘near peer competitor.’ . . . And as with any bureaucratic paradigm shift, factional partisans who had career and mission objectives became personally invested in deriding or advancing NCW’s ‘transformation.’ That’s a far cry from the complexity of the NCW ideas, as presented by Cebrowski and Garstka.”268 Safranski finds that the “crux of the problem with Shachtman’s article is that his opener gives the impression that the botching of the occupation in Iraq should be laid at the door of two men who articulated strategic ideas with impressive intellectual

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celerity and subtlety, one of whom is no longer able to defend himself. It’s a preposterous implication.”269 Safranski adds that Barnett, “who was very close to Admiral Cebrowski, was justly irritated by this cartoonish libel of his friend and mentor,” but concedes that in “fairness to Shachtman, as the WIRED article proceeds, he offered a more nuanced picture of the role of Network-centric Warfare in the larger scheme of things and backtracked somewhat during his exchanges with Tom,” but that on the whole, Cebrowski and Garstka are “left tarnished by Shachtman in a way that’s sort of akin to blaming William Lind and 4GW theory for Pakistan and India brandishing nuclear weapons at each other.”270 In the one component of the Barnett–Shachtman exchange that remains posted online, “Blog Fight? Zzzzzzzzzz” that appeared in a November 30, 2007, entry on Wired’s Danger Room blog, Shachtman rebuts what he describes as Barnett’s “fairly easy-to-disprove characterizations about my writing, and our interactions” and challenges Barnett’s recollections of their conversations, presenting email records rebutting Barnett’s claim that he had told Shachtman his “thesis was sophomoric” or that he had clarified his views on the “false dichotomy between network-centric warfare and the socially networked operations we’re seeing now”—including this illuminating passage from Barnett: “What you need to make clear is that we were wired for Big War, meaning mostly platforms but not much below Div levels for ground troops. Big Peace, as in c-insurgency, means we need to do for soldier what we’ve done for platforms up to now. COIN is manpower intensive. Calling it all the war, or calling the war just the initial invasion, confuses more than it clarifies. We won the war, and the connectivity was great. We’re losing the peace, and the connectivity is way too low for the strategic corporeals.”271 Shachtman shifts gears to the substantive issues, noting: “When he’s not calling me or my writing ‘melodramatic,’ oh-so-‘macho,’ simpleminded, ‘weird,’” and the like, “Barnett does have a substantive critique. I ‘forc[e] an either-or dichotomy (net-centric versus COIN) that’s simply unhelpful and most clearly untrue (like we have to choose),’ he writes,” to which Shachtman concedes that “we both agree there is tension between NCW (which was originally designed for a big war) and today’s counterinsurgency operations. The question is: did I turn up the dichotomy dial too much? I don’t believe so. Sure, the title turned up the contrast. But I think a closer read of the article reveals a more subtle analysis.”272 Shactman recalls when researching his article, “some extremely bright COIN thinkers . . . said that NCW was poorly configured for stabilizing a society—too much faith in perfect information, too few nodes on the

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network, too little bandwidth, too inward facing, too disconnected from the larger society. I think the article’s examination of the tools of NCW . . . bear that critique out.”273 Shachtman observes that even General Petraeus saw things in a less black-and-white manner, even as he found himself in the midst of the COIN fight and as architect of the very manpower surge credited with bringing the insurgency under control: “But in his talk with me—a talk which really a cornerstone of my thinking for the story—Petraeus argued differently. He said NCW mattered, because counterinsurgency is really a mix.”274 Shachtman largely agrees with Petraeus’ synthesis: “I think we all agree that NCW proved itself in major combat operations. But if those big fights are actually an element of counterinsurgency . . . well then, you’ve got both of them existing at the same time, side by side. Ideally, you can use network-centric tools when they’re most appropriate (passing off data on which building to target for destruction, say). And you can use the social networking approach when it applies.”275 Thus Shachtman, like Barnett, the protégé of Admiral Cebrowski, came to share such a more balanced view like that put forth by Petraeus that challenges the false dichotomy between population-centric COIN theory and NCW. It’s not one or the other but a more nuanced and dynamic balancing of one and the other as epitomized in the contradictory nature of the three-block war. The trick, as we will shortly see, is recognizing this inherent complexity and managing it fluidly, in as close to realtime as possible, much the way Clausewitz long ago prescribed. Adapting to the strategic environment and its realities is thus the sine qua non for victory, not the Jominian application of either a net-centric or population-centric doctrine. This subtlety is apparent in an article by Barnett originally published in the March 2006 edition of Esquire and reposted on June 23, 2010 as “The Monks of War,” in which he profiles several commanders of the Iraq war, including Marine Lieutenant General James Mattis, who replaced Petraeus as CENTCOM commander when General McChrystal was sacked in June 2010. Under the leadership of Army chief of staff, General Pete Schoomaker, it was decided that rather than process “lessons learned from combat experience at an excessively leisurely pace” as in the past, “‘Lessons learned’ commands would become a top priority, and three generals, one Marine and two Army, would be brought back from Iraq to teach soldiers what they need to know to fight wars of the future. In the past, such lessons would prove valuable only to soldiers of the next war; this time, in this Long War, casualties could be great, so it would be the goal of these generals to learn these lessons and have them reflected in

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the training almost on a daily basis.”276 As Barnett observed: “Each had already learned his own hard lessons in Iraq. William Wallace conquered Baghdad but likewise oversaw its disastrous looting. David Petraeus worked the sheikhs well enough but let a horrifically efficient insurgency build on his watch. James Mattis didn’t lose a sailor or marine during his nation-building stint in the south, only to send a host of marines to their death in Falluja.”277 And so he profiles these three commanders, the “Teacher,” “Nation-Builder,” and “Quick Thinker,” whose collaboration planted the seed that grew into FM 3–24, America’s updated COIN policy; as he recounts: “Mattis served with Wallace, and he’s had multiple career overlaps with Dave Petraeus, both in the Pentagon and in Iraq. These guys trade best practices and new technologies like nextdoor neighbors who’ve known one another for years, setting in motion a level of Army–Marine cooperation that is unprecedented, such as the upcoming publication of the Counterinsurgency Operations field manual that Leavenworth and Quantico will ‘dual-designate’ as official for both services. The document draws the battle lines for the Long War, which it describes as ‘a protracted politico-military struggle’ in which ‘political power is the central issue,’ not territorial conquest. . . . The Counterinsurgency field manual is a Wallace–Mattis–Petraeus special that bonds the Army and Marines with Tampa’s Special Operations Command in what General Pete Schoomaker calls America’s twenty-firstcentury strategic triad.”278 Barnett adds: “This level of close cooperation is cats-and-dogs-living-together weird. And it’s only going to get weirder, because the soldiers and marines serving from here on out will have grown up entirely in a Webbased world, where no stone goes un-Googled. You provide them opensource environments to network their thinking or they’ll create their own chat rooms, something plenty of young marines and Army officers did in Iraq, Companycommand.com and s3-xonet.army.mil being the most famous.”279 Barnett cites Col. Monte Dunard, director of the MCCLL, who explained: “We don’t want to be making changes fifteen years down the road. We got guys dying today. We want them to be trained better— how do we get this information faster, quicker, more relevant?”280 And so, Barnett writes, the “Marines are doing this on a daily basis: deciding on which semiautomatic sniper rifle works best, figuring out better ways to attach fuel hoses during dust storms, the latest tricks for dealing with IEDs and convoy attacks—an issue of greatest priority. When the Marines went into Iraq, no one foresaw that years into an occupation, so many ground troops would still be dying in insurgency attacks against convoys

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in what troops call ‘Injun Country.’ So convoy personnel are now trained in how to call in air support while on the move, how to shoot back while on the move, how to do a medical evacuation on the move, and how to handle a roadside bomb on the move. The MCCLL’s software tracks all of this, zeroing in on the phrases ‘we need’ and ‘the Marine Corps should’ whenever and wherever they’re uttered.”281 Moreover, Barnett argues, the “Army and Marines can’t be in the business right now of deducing from distant, abstract, future war scenarios what their troops need today in terms of equipment, training, or doctrine,” but “need to calculate those requirements from today’s complex operating environment, and the flash-to-bang time needs to be as short as possible.”282 All this compresses the net-centricity required to process information speedily in a complex wartime environment, with the population-centricity that is required ultimately to build an enduring peace. It’s not one or the other, or even one then the other, it’s still one and the other, as determined not by doctrine so much as by strategic necessity. Barnett concluded as much in his sequel to the book version of his The Pentagon’s New Map, noting in his Blueprint for Action that reality appears to splice its way between 4GW or population-centric insurgent warfare and NCW: “My problem with 4GW is that it revels a bit too much in its gore-without end. If [NCW] tends to be too optimistic in its capacity to ‘lift the fog of war,’ then [4GW] too often seems to advocate that America settle in for perpetual war with savages who are both unredeemable and inexhaustible in supply,” much like the dark age of anarchy predicted by Robert Kaplan and which is cited by Barnett.283 “In the end,” Barnett concludes, “there is no need to choose between these two visions of future conflict. If we’re going to shrink the Gap, one country at a time, we’ll need both visions and the forces they logically generate, the Leviathan and the SysAdmin, to deal with rogue regimes and insurgencies. We’ll need both to be able to wage war and peace.”284

Notes 1–3 2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism , posted at: www.globalsecurity. org/security/library/policy/national/nsct_sep2006.htm 4 Barry Zellen, “Whither Victory in the War on Terror? Predicting How Long America’s ‘Long War’ Will Last Depends on How You Define ‘Victory’ for the GWOT,” SecurityInnovator.com , March 5, 2007, http://securityinnovator.com/ index.php?articleID=10698§ionID=27. Subsequent quotations from Eaglen are from this article.

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5–6

2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. 2010 National Security Strategy, May 2010, Part I: Overview of National Security Strategy, 1; Part II: Strategic Approach, 9; Part II: Strategic Approach, 11; Part II: Strategic Approach, 14; Part III: Advancing Our Interests, 17; Part III: Advancing Our Interests, 18; Part III: Advancing Our Interests, 19; Part III: Advancing Our Interests, 20; Part III: Advancing Our Interests, 22; Part III: Advancing Our Interests, 22; “International Order,” Part III: Advancing Our Interests, 40–50. 18 2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism . 19 James Fallows, “Declaring Victory,” The Atlantic Monthly, September 2006, www. theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/09/declaring-victory/5124/. 20–22 Liane Hansen, Transcript of Interview with James Fallows, “How to Deal with Al-Qaida? Declare Victory,” NPR.org, August 20, 2006, www.npr.org/ templates/story/story.php?storyId=5678454. 23 Zellen, “Whither Victory in the War on Terror? Subsequent quotations from Huntley are from this article. 24–28 James A. Russell, “Innovation in the Crucible of War” Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005–2007,” Doctoral Thesis, War Studies Department, King’s College, University of London, 2009. 29–31 John Arquilla, “How to Lose a Cyberwar: Why Is America Still Letting Online Jihadists Run Amok?” Foreign Policy, December 12, 2009, www. foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/11/how_to_lose_a_cyberwar. In note 31, Arquilla noted the arrest of five American men in Pakistan, who had traveled there to join the global jihad, who “like a whole new generation of jihadis— appear to have made considerable use of the Internet in their alleged approach to al Qaeda. Their story points out that, more than eight years after 9/11, terrorist networks are still not only able to stay in touch via cyberspace, but that they are even extending their reach thanks to our giving them a free ride in the virtual domain.” As Arquilla explains: “Those who do try to keep an eye on terrorism in cyberspace often argue that they learn a lot about enemy networks by monitoring their narratives on jihadi websites,” to which he counters: “But if this made a real difference, we would have already won the war on terror.” 32–34 2010 National Security Strategy, “International Order,” Part III: Advancing Our Interests, May 2010, 49; 49; 50. 35 Juan Zarate, Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism, “Ask the White House,” September 5, 2006, http://georgewbush-whitehouse. archives.gov/ask/20060905.html. 36–44 John Arquilla, “The New Rules of War,” Foreign Policy, March/April 2010, www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/22/the_new_rules_of_war. 45–49 Anthony James Joes, Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical, Biographical, and Bibliographical Sourcebook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 15–16; 9; 186; 189; 189. 50–56 FM 3–24 (MCWP 3–33.5): Counterinsurgency, Headquarters, Department of the Army, December 2006, www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3–24.pdf, Foreword, 2; 2; 2; 2; 2; 2; 2; Preface, vii; vii. 57–58 Final Draft of FM 3–24, Department of the Army, June 16, 2006, Preface, vi; vi. 7–17

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59–74 FM 3–24 (MCWP 3–33.5): Counterinsurgency, Section 1–1, “Overview,” chapter 1, “Insurgency and Counterinsurgency,” Section 1–2; 1–2; 1–2; 1–2; 1–2; 1–2; 1–2; 1–2; 1–2; 1–2; 1–3; 1–3; “Introduction,” ix; Section 1–44, p. 1–26. 75 Fred Attewill, Hélène Mulholland, and agencies, “Gates Demands More Troops Willing to ‘Fight and Die’ in Afghanistan,” Guardian , February 7, 2008. 76–82 Robert M. Gates, “Speech to Munich Conference on Security Policy,” Munich, Germany, Sunday, February 10, 2008, www.defense.gov/speeches/ speech.aspx?speechid=1214. 83–84 Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker, “NATO Expansion, and a Bush Legacy, Are in Doubt,” New York Times, March 15, 2008, A1. 85–88 FM 3–24 (MCWP 3–33.5): Counterinsurgency, Section 1–159, p. 1–28; Section 1–161, p. 1–29; Section 1–160, pp. 1–28 to 1–29; Section 1–25, p. 1–5. 89 Final Draft of FM 3–24, June 2006, Section 1–23, p. 1–5. 90 FM 3–24 (MCWP 3–33.5): Counterinsurgency, Section 1–28, p. 1–8. 91 Final Draft of FM 3–24, June 2006, Section 1–31, p. 1–7. 92 FM 3–24 (MCWP 3–33.5): Counterinsurgency, Section 1–30, p. 1–6. 93–94 Final Draft of FM 3–24, June 2006, Section 1–27, p. 1–6; Section 1–27, p. 1–6. 95–96 FM 3–24 (MCWP 3–33.5): Counterinsurgency, Section 1–35, p. 1–7; Section 1–123, p. 1–22. 97–98 Final Draft of FM 3–24, June 2006, Section 1–100, p. 1–18. 99 FM 3–24 (MCWP 3–33.5): Counterinsurgency, p. 8–3; “Vietnam: Meeting the Enemy and Convoy Security,” p. 8–6. 100 Douglas Macgregor, “Will Iraq’s Great Awakening Lead to a Nightmare?” Mother Jones , December 11, 2007. Online at: www.motherjones. com/commentary/columns/2007/12/iraq-surge-great-awakening-anbar. html. 101–112 FM 3–24 (MCWP 3–33.5): Counterinsurgency, p. 4–5; Section 4–16, p. 4–4; Section 4–16, p. 4–4; Section 4–17, p. 4–4; Section 4–21 to 4–25, pp. 4–5 to 4–6; Section 4–26, p. 4–6; pp. 4–7 to 4–8; pp. 4–7 to 4–8; “The Importance of Multiple Lines of Operations in COIN,” p. 5–7; “The Importance of Multiple Lines of Operations in COIN,” p. 5–7; “The Importance of Multiple Lines of Operations in COIN,” p. 5–7; “The Importance of Multiple Lines of Operations in COIN,” p. 5–7. 113 “Interview with Thomas Ricks on Key Threats in Today’s Iraq,” Fresh Air, November 20, 2007, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php? storyId=16464885. 114 Cameron W. Barr, “Petraeus: Iraqi Leaders Not Making ‘Sufficient Progress,’” Washington Post , March 14, 2008, A10. 115–120 FM 3–24 (MCWP 3–33.5): Counterinsurgency, Section 7–21, p. 7–5; Section 7–22, p. 7–5; Section 7–38, p. 7–7; Section 7–40, p. 7–8; FM 3–24, p. 7–9; “The Learning Imperative,” Sections 7–45, 7–46, and 7–47, p. 7–9. 121–125 David J. Kilcullen, “Countering Global Insurgency: A Strategy for the War on Terrorism,” November 30, 2004, www.smallwars.quantico.usmc. mil/search/articles/counteringglobalinsurgency.pdf, 34; 34, citing Jeffrey Record and W. Andrew Tyrell, Iraq and Vietnam: Differences, Similarities and Insights (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), 6, 8 ff.; 34; 34; 35.

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126–131 Harry G. Summers, On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War (New York: Presidio Press, 1995), xiii; 73; 76; 88; 174; 170. 132 James H. Willbanks, “‘The Most Brilliant Commander’: Ngo Quang Truong,” www.historyn et.com/the- most-brilliant- commander- ngo-quangtruong.htm. 133–139 John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 130; 130; 130; 130; 131; 131; 131. 140 Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Williams, “A Review of Eating Soup with a Knife,” Canadian Military Journal 9, No. 3, http://74.125.113.132/ search?q=cache:qr55NsXBgdMJ:www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo9/no3/18-book4livre4-eng.asp+Nagl+Eating+Soup+with+a+Knife&cd=15&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us. Williams is citing General William Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1976), 82. Williams was at the time an artillery officer serving as J5 Plans-Afghanistan, Headquarters Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command (HQ CEFCOM) in Ottawa. 141–144 Sir Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), 14; 15–16; 19; 10. 145 George J. Church, “Lessons from a Lost War,” Time , June 24, 2001, www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101850415–141574,00.html. 146–150 Nagl, Learning To Eat Soup with a Knife , 115; 167; 167; 167; 167. 151 Joes, Guerrilla Warfare , 187. 152–154 Barry S. Zellen, “Technology Tames the ‘Scariest Place on Earth,’” June 7, 2003, SecurityInnovator.com , http://securityinnovator.com/index.php?articleI D=1812§ionID=29. 155 Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife , 116. 156–157 Joes, Guerrilla Warfare , 189–90; 190. 158–159 Nagl, Learning To Eat Soup with a Knife , 116; 116. 160 Joes, Guerrilla Warfare , 191–2. 161 Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, June 22, 2010, www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236?RS_show_page=0. 162–163 Thomas E. Ricks, “Sidebar: The COINdinistas,” ForeignPolicy. com , December 2009, www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_ coindinistas?page=full. 164–167 Tara McKelvey, “The Cult of Counterinsurgency,” The American Prospect, November 20, 2008, www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_cult_of_counterinsurgency. 168–172 Tara McKelvey, “The cult of counterinsurgency: a quiet revolution in the U.S. military has resurrected Vietnam-era strategies to fight the war on terrorism. Retired Lt. Col. John Nagl makes counterinsurgency seem so appealing that it’s easy to forget its dark side,” AllBusiness.com , www.allbusiness.com/trends-events/historical-events-vietnam-war/14598451–1.html. 173–179 Lt. Col. Gian P. Gentile, “Our COIN Doctrine Removes the Enemy from the Essence of War,” Armed Forces Journal , January 2008, www.armedforcesjournal.com/2008/01/3207722. 180–195 Lt. Col. Gian P. Gentile, “Eating Soup with a Spoon: Missing from the New COIN Manual’s Pages Is the Imperative to Fight,” Armed Forces Journal , September 2007, www.afji.com/2007/09/2786780.

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196–206 Maj. Chris Rogers, “More Soup, Please: COIN Manual Provides Guidance for Modern-Day Tactical Commanders,” Armed Forces Journal , January 2008, www.armedforcesjournal.com/2008/01/3144507. 207–218 Gian P. Gentile, “Time for the Deconstruction of Field Manual 3–24,” JFQ Dialogue, Joint Forces Quarterly, No. 58, July 2010, www.ndu.edu/press/ deconstruction-3–24.html. 219–226 John A. Nagl, “Constructing the Legacy of Field Manual 3–24,” JFQ Dialogue, Joint Forces Quarterly, No. 58, July 2010, www.ndu.edu/press/constructing-3–24.html. 227–237 Gian P. Gentile, “Freeing the Army from the Counterinsurgency Straightjacket,” JFQ Dialogue, Joint Forces Quarterly, No. 58, July 2010, www.ndu. edu/press/counterinsurgency-straightjacket.html. 238–249 John A. Nagl, “Learning and Adapting to Win,” JFQ Dialogue, Joint Forces Quarterly, No. 58, July 2010, www.ndu.edu/press/adapting-to-win.html. 250 Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 228. 251–263 Noah Shachtman, “How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social—Not Electronic,” Wired 15, No. 12 (November 27, 2007), www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15–12/ff_futurewar?currentPage=all. 264–270 Mark Safranski, “Admiral Cebrowski’s Legacy Is Not Iraq,” Zenpundit. com , December 2, 2007, http://zenpundit.com/?cat=518. 271–275 Noah Shachtman, “Blog Fight? Zzzzzzzzzz,” Danger Room Blog, Wired , November 30, 2007, www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/11/more-barnett/. 276–282 Thomas P. M. Barnett, “The Monks of War,” Esquire , June 23, 2010, reposted from the March 2006 edition, www.esquire.com/features/ ESQ0306MONKS_214. 283–284 Thomas P. M. Barnett, Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating (New York: Berkley Books, 2005), 21; 22. In note 294, Barnett recalls defining in The Pentagon’s New Map his two proposed separate parts of the future US military, a “Leviathan-like force that focused on waging war and a System Administrator force that focused on everything else , meaning all the military operations other than war” including peacekeeping operations, crisis response, humanitarian and disaster relief, the training of foreign troops, post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, as well as COIN. See Blueprint for Action , 23–4. Having both capabilities is vital for winning the Long War, Barnett contends, since having only a Leviathan-like force will produce more Mission Accomplished fiascoes; not only might you create “even worse guys” than the bad guys taken out by the regime change: “You may enter with surgical precision, but all you leave is an open wound in your wake—unless you make good on the peace,” otherwise, “You’ve stormed into the inner-city ghetto, shot the place up, maybe snatched the most wanted criminals if you’re lucky, and left the situation more beat-up than you found it. To the innocent locals, you can’t help but come off like a man-made disaster in the end, despite your good intentions.”

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It is intriguing to note that Thomas P. M. Barnett first gained fame for describing the inherently networked nature of the most stable parts of the world, and the unnetworked dimensions of the least stable; the former he labelled the “Core” or the “Functioning Core” in contrast to the “Gap,” where an absence of connectivity perpetuated conditions of tyranny, corruption, and state failure. His Core versus Gap framework merges the internet Age’s “digital divide” with the old North/ South fault line of world politics long on the radar maps of scholars of international development and theorists of interdependence. That it corresponds with Huntington’s map of civilizational clashes and also corresponds largely with earlier maps of the colonial era (with the Gap states being largely the newly independent states of the old colonial order) raises some interesting issues, notably the failure of the Westphalian state system to evenly distribute wealth and opportunity between sovereign units, suggesting a long shadow is still cast from the colonial era.1

Gap versus Core: Digital Divide as New Boundary Line between Order and Chaos As Barnett explained in his influential 2003 article, “The Pentagon’s New Map” (later elaborated into his book with the same title): “Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and I will show you regions featuring stable governments, rising standards of living, and more deaths by suicide than murder.”2 This is what Barnett calls the “Functioning Core” or “Core.” Adds Barnett, “show me where globalization is thinning or just plain absent, and I will show you regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine

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mass murder, and—most important—the chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global terrorists. These parts of the world I call the Non-Integrating Gap, or Gap.”3 The Core includes all of North America, substantial portions of Latin America, Europe (including post–Soviet Russia), Japan, East Asia’s rising “tiger” economies, India, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, which Barnett observes is home to twothirds of the total human population. As for the Gap, he suggests that “[i]f we map out U. S. military responses since the end of the cold war, we find an overwhelming concentration of activity in the regions of the world that are excluded from globalization’s growing Core—namely the Caribbean Rim, virtually all of Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and much of Southeast Asia. That is roughly the remaining two billion of the world’s population. . . . Obviously, there are outliers excluded geographically by this simple approach . . . But looking at the data, it is hard to deny the essential logic of the picture.”4 Barnett observes that while “Globalization’s ‘ozone hole’ may have been out of sight and out of mind prior to September 11, 2001”—though the dramatic insurrection by the Zapatistas on January 1, 1994, timed for Mexico’s ascension to NAFTA certainly was noted by many theorists of war and in particular the new theorists of netwar and cyber warfare, but even for those who remained oblivious to the tectonic shift taking place in the marginalized hinterland of indigenous Mexico—it “has been hard to miss ever since. And measuring the reach of globalization is not an academic exercise to an eighteen-year-old marine sinking tent poles on its far side. So where do we schedule the U.S. military’s next round of away games? The pattern that has emerged since the end of the cold war suggests a simple answer: in the Gap.”5 This is why he welcomed the toppling of Saddam’s regime as “not only necessary and inevitable, but good,” explaining that the war against Saddam “will mark a historical tipping point—the moment when Washington takes real ownership of strategic security in the age of globalization.”6 Barnett considers American military interventions during the post– Cold War era, noting a look at the maps showing “all United States military responses to global crises from 1990 to 2002” have been in places “relatively disconnected from the world, where globalization hasn’t taken root because of a repressive regime, abject poverty, or the lack of a robust legal system. It’s these places that incubate global terrorism. Draw a line around these military engagements and you’ve got what I

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call the Non-Integrating Gap. Everything else is the Functioning Core. The goal of this new strategy is simple: Shrink the Gap. Don’t contain it, shrink it.”7 And thus America’s invasion of Iraq, Barnett explains, shifts from containment, which had been American strategy during the 1990s, to a more proactive effort to shrink the gap—a move he lauds. The war in Iraq, and the vociferous debate that preceded it, forced “Americans to come to terms with what I believe is the new security paradigm that shapes this age, namely, Disconnectedness defines danger. Saddam Hussein’s outlaw regime is dangerously disconnected from the globalizing world, from its rule sets, its norms, and all the ties that bind countries together in mutually assured dependence.”8 Ironically, it was the new networks created in the post-conflict environment after Saddam fell—and the proliferation of new cell phone networks, internet cafes, and the emergence of a new, modern, connected society—that fueled the intensifying insurgency that greeted Iraq’s liberators with a destructive symphony of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), allowing a ferocious eruption of “netwar” of the sort that had been observed during the Zapatista uprising that erupted in 1994, on the eve of Mexico’s entry into NAFTA—the very globalized core described by Barnett as the recipe for increased world order. *** While the significance of John A. Nagl’s contribution to America’s reformulation of COIN doctrine has been widely noted, by his proponents as well as by his critics, it can be argued that his efforts have not really contributed to his own goal of “freeing ourselves from a limited understanding of the nature of war.” Nagl may grasp the nuance of populationcentric warfare, and can be credited for having successfully distilled the core tenets of people’s war as illustrated in both the thoughts and actions of Mao. But just as Gian P. Gentile argued that Nagl sanitizes modern war, and liberates it both unnecessarily and unwisely from the fighting that defines it, and Nagl counterargues that Gentile overemphasizes the blunter dimensions of state-on-state warfare and thereby neglects the more subtle, nuanced art of counterinsurgency warfare, neither seems to have come to realization that each are feuding over a pillar of the enduring Clausewitzian (and equally Machiavellist) order, the well-known “Trinity of War” that has centered the realist tradition for over two millennia, and whose balance (and the necessity for occasional rebalancing) has defined not only the specific tradition of constructive realism, but has

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united both realist and idealist as it has both insurgent and counterinsurgent. Their argument can thus be viewed as a fraternal one, with Gentile thinking in more Westphalian terms about the fundamentals of stateon-state warfare and Nagl thinking more about the asymmetrical art of people’s war. But both of their conceptions of war fit within the broader Westphalian framework that defined Clausewitz’s error, and which also cast its shadow into the twentieth century when the leading theorists of revolutionary and guerrilla warfare as well as Gandhian people-powered movements of strategic nonviolence aimed not to destroy the system of states but to reclaim their homeland and independence within it. Both sides of this debate shared at heart a commitment to preserving the very system in which they fought, hoping in their own way to achieve state control and to impose sovereign order across their homeland. But as evident in the theories of terror that aim not just to topple a regime but to collapse the state upon itself, and in the chaos that emerges to impose a new vision of order, whether Jihadist as espoused by al Qaeda, or primitivist as espoused by America’s Unabomber, or neotribal as aspired to by the indigenous Zapatistas, their visions transcended the very limits of the modern state, and their conceptions of sovereignty were altogether distinct from the Westphalian vision of secular, modern, and sometimes nation-, states. But the exchange between Gentile and Nagl is illustrative nonetheless; by facing off across a state-centric versus population-centric divide, they only serve to remind us of the unity that underlies their competing doctrinal visions, much as the doctrinal debates during the nuclear age between deterrence theorists and warfighters only underscored the dangers of the system they each supported. In the end, the nuclear order collapsed asymmetrically, as people power rose up and met state power unopposed. Now, as we quibble over how to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda and the many other components of our asymmetrical threat environment, we again reveal a myopia of sorts. To fully understand the dynamics at play, it is necessarily to step up to Nagl’s challenge, and to really, truly, fully commit ourselves to the “process of freeing ourselves from a limited understanding of the nature of war.” Sebastian L.v. Gorka makes just such an effort, revisiting both theoretical and doctrinal foundations of what he calls the “Age of Irregular Warfare” in the very same edition of JFQ in which Nagl and Gentile debate the merits of FM 3–24. A professor of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University and a member of the group that assisted in the formulation of the new Joint Operating Concept for

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Irregular Warfare, he writes that the “new Joint Operating Concept for Irregular Warfare hits combatant commands and doctrine shops across the U.S. military, we find ourselves searching for new intellectual aids and policy tools that can provide certainty in an age that seems increasingly unpredictable and ‘irregular.’”9 The complexity of this new era of asymmetry makes the past, with all its dangers, seem more ordered, and as a consequence, “[w]e look back longingly to an age in which the battlefield was understandable, in which we thought we knew the enemy and the methods and means at his disposal.”10 Even though we are fast approaching a decade since the Twin Towers collapsed and with them our sense of calm in the world, Gorka finds that “fundamental questions remain unanswered” about our opponent, including what is its nature, objectives, and center of gravity.11 Not knowing the answers to these questions, we are forced to fight blind. Gorka aims to shed some light on the nature of our adversary, and on how we can adapt our theoretical and doctrinal framework to better meet our strategic and tactical needs. To start down the path toward illumination, Gorka suggests that we “start with ourselves” and endeavor to “understand who we are and what we represent before we can hope to identify what threatens us and our value system,” and this means understanding our strategic culture, its origins, and its trends.12 As he explains: “While we have invented new capabilities, such as offensive unmanned aircraft system platforms and stealth technology, and while we have written new doctrine for current missions (for example, Field Manual 3–24, the latest counterinsurgency manual), neither of these facts proves that we have fundamentally reworked the entrenched culture and architecture of a U.S. national security establishment predicated on neutralizing nation-state threats.”13 Once we better understand ourselves, Gorka writes that we must next “ask similar fundamental questions about the context in which the rest of the world finds itself at the beginning of the third millennium” and come to understand such concepts as “relative power, the role of ideology, and the influence of demographics on actors who in the past were not of concern to us, or who simply did not exist in an age of bipolar conventional standoff.”14 According to Gorka: “Lastly, and perhaps most difficult of all, it is the duty of all senior officials involved in providing for national security to seriously and most candidly reassess core assumptions upon which our existing systems of analysis and planning are based,” and this means, “should the ‘Wondrous Trinity’ of Clausewitz be found wanting in an age of globally dispersed nonstate actors and cyberwarriors, it must be discarded—or at least significantly reworked if it is to have utility in an age of proliferating

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nonstate actors, the likes of which the Prussian theorist could never have imagined.”15 Gorka takes seriously the challenge to reassess the relevance of Clausewitzian thinking in this new era, noting that “[w]hen Clausewitz gave us his immortal dictum on war as the continuation of politics, he was writing in a specific historical and socioeconomic context. No matter how useful his analysis may seem, it cannot be divorced from the age in which it was born, an age when conventional war dominated strategic thought.”16 Accordingly, “Clausewitz’s On War must be understood as one man’s forceful attempt to impose meaning on the clash of national arms. More specifically, it must be appreciated as an act of intellectual pilgrimage by an officer seeking to explain the destruction of his military culture by an upstart foe successfully using the radical approach of levée en masse to decimate its professional enemy. That is why in his Wondrous Trinity, Clausewitz makes rational government ends the driver behind the actions of his skillful commander, who harnesses the passion and hatred of his troops (the population).”17 But ultimately dooming Clausewitz and his enduring trinitarian conception of order is that “the (Westphalian) nationstate construct informs everything Clausewitz wishes to achieve. We are therefore fully justified in reassessing his model in an age that sees violence applied most often in non-Westphalian ways—by nonstate actors.”18 Gorka cites Martin van Creveld, who in a speech before the National Defense University explained: “What [Clausewitz] never imagined was a world in which many, perhaps even most, belligerents consist of nonsovereign, nonterritorial organizations.” As a consequence Gorka explains, we must now “ask some obvious but new questions and ascertain whether the old models apply,” such as “how Clausewitzian is the enemy’s understanding of the purpose of war?”19 Gorka believes that Clausewitz’s “Westphalian context drove his understanding of the role of raison d’état and the trinity of forces that the state both embodied and leveraged. Those forces still exist, but the new actors we face—whether they be the Taliban in Afghanistan or al Qaeda in Yemen—have mixed these ingredients in new ratios and combinations.”20 As a consequence, one of the most enduring principles of realism that stretches across the ages, this notion of a trinitarian balance with order sustained by three core pillars, may no longer be relevant, much as its relevance evaporated during the medieval period that followed Rome’s fall. As Gorka explains: “The triangle of Government, People, and Army (or Commander), which respectively represent reason (or policy), passion, and skill, is less than useful for many of the irregular threat groups we are fighting today because they are not nation-states.”21 As he continues:

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Take, for example, al Qaeda. Since the loss of its Afghan base of operations, there is no specific government or nation that is associated primarily with this foe. The violence of al Qaeda is not instrumental to an endstate akin to the policy goals of a “normal” government. Its ends are driven by the religiously fueled visions of ideologues, some alive today, but many, such as Sayyed Q’utb and Abdullah Azzam, deceased. None of these ideologues or irregular elites politically represented a nation in the Westphalian sense, making the triangle/trinity out of date. Simultaneously, the role of the military commander is not filled by a professional warrior subordinated to a political elite in the case of the irregular enemy. Osama bin Laden is a self-taught warrior, a mujahideen who never spent time at a war college or wore the uniform of a national army. Furthermore, his skill is not measured solely in the way that concerned Clausewitz, prowess on the battlefield. Rather, he must be understood in nonmilitary terms as an ideologue in his own right, an information warrior who inspires by personal example. The commander of the Clausewitzian Trinity was judged by his ability to prevail despite the friction and fog of war. Bin Laden is measured less by his success on the battlefield—which has been minimal since 9/11—than by his authenticity as a “true believer.” He is an example of a holy warrior, prepared to die not for a political endstate but for a transcendental truth, judged by his capacity to inspire other violent nonstate actors.22 And while he concedes that “reports of the death of the nation-state may have been greatly exaggerated,” Gorka believes that “a definition of war that pertains only to nations indeed is dead” and that Clausewitz’s famous Trinity must be updated to reflect the new, post-Westphalian world, and thereby “supplemented with another trinity that can depict the types of actors our troops are already fighting.”23 Gorka proposes such a contemporary “Trinity of War Expanded for the Current Irregular Warfare Age”24 (see Figure 4.1). In his discussion of this “wondrous Trinity for today,” Gorka recalls how “Clausewitz’s Trinity divided the world into three parts: the government, the governed, and the defenders of the state,” with each reflecting a “different characteristic: rationale, passion, or skill,” but while this triangle of order is often presumed to be equilateral, in fact it was not, as it is made “clear from On War that the party Clausewitz privileges is the military, or more specifically, the artful commander who harnesses the population’s passion and might so the nation may realize its goals.”25

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Ideologues Truth

Government Reason

TODAY’S WAR

CLASSIC WAR Citizens Passion

Commander Skill

The Clausewitzian Trinity of War in the Conventional Context

Global Sympathesis Passion

Nonstate Treat Group Passion, Charisma, and Skill

The Trinity of War Expanded for the Current Irregular Warfare Age

Figure 4.1 The Trinity of War expanded. Source: Sebastian L.v. Gorka, “The Age of Irregular Warfare: So What?” JFQ Forum, JFQ 58 (July 2010), 36, www.ndu.edu/press/lib/images/jfq-58/JFQ58_32–38_Gorka.pdf.

In contrast, Gorka believes that “[t]oday’s irregular enemy should be understood in a more egalitarian fashion. Just as the information and media worlds have been democratized, with Web sites and blogs turning consumers into producers and vice versa, the trinity of the irregular enemy affords and invites an interchangeability of roles and functions. Leaders can be fighters, followers can become leaders, and both can interpret and feed into the enemy’s understanding of why force is necessary and what ultimate purpose it serves. In other words, the components of the Clausewitzian Trinity have become utterly fluid and interchangeable.”26 In addition to this new, dynamic fluidity and interchangeability of the three core pillars that defined the Western political order, there is an additional danger that emerges from today’s new asymmetrical Trinity—the national interest “no longer defines the enemy’s use of force. Rather, it is truth as defined not by the elite of a government, but by ancient religious texts or their interpretations by politically and transcendentally motivated ideologues. Clausewitzian raison d’état, the objective of violence, is no longer bound by cold or technical definitions of national interest.”27 This revolutionizes war in a manner that transcends the expansion of people’s war by Mao, and which shook the very foundation of the Cold War order as weak states found ways to undermine the traditional levers of power wielded by the great powers. Indeed, as Gorka observes, the “third actor of the Clausewitzian Trinity—the

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commander and his forces—is radically redefined” in the asymmetrical era, in contrast to “the early 20th century, and then the Cold War,” when “irregular warfare’s [IW] practitioners could be easily understood as all having one very Westphalian goal for their violence. Although they were not representatives of nation-states, they sought to seize state power.”28 As Gorka explains: “This is how the master of this kind of warfare, Mao Tse-tung, revolutionized our understanding of the utility of force. No longer was it strategically used to serve an established government. Instead, by skillfully employing multifaceted campaigns on diverse lines of effort, unfolding in both tangible and intangible space, the insurgent could systematically build a counterstate that, when powerful enough, could challenge the incumbent in a conventional campaign, destroy it, and then fill the void by becoming the new state. With People’s War, Mao broadened our understanding of warfare, taking it beyond that which served the status quo elites. But he also reinforced the Westphalian context, since the goal of the insurgent was always to become the nation-state.”29 But “in today’s irregular context,” Gorka argues, “we can replace the rationale of the trinity with the transcendental end that the true believers see themselves as serving.”30 We thus “face a foe who rejects the (Western) Westphalian model, an enemy who is not interested in a war of selfdetermination in the classic sense of postcolonial independence” and who instead “fights for worldwide religious supremacy” and whose “idea of self-determination is not tied to the nation-state, but to a global theocracy, the Caliphate, within which all shall be subject to the will of Allah, and not the will of the people.”31 Even when confronted by such an opponent, Gorka finds that “Clausewitz is still valuable. His understanding of what war between states should look like has not changed with the arrival of a globally motivated and capable nonstate actor using irregular tactics and strategies.”32 Clausewitz’s classic trinity of war “cannot be applied directly to such enemies” as the underlying “context has changed,” and our new, asymmetrical world “can no longer be described as consisting of solely the governed, the governing, and the regular militaries that serve them. It has become more complex.”33 But this only reinforces the continuing relevance of Clausewitz’s other core concepts, especially his most famous dictum that war is a continuation of policy by other means. “If we have the audacity to update the Prussian master’s trinity,” Gorka writes, “we should perhaps renew our faith in his famous dictum, even while recognizing how much we have misinterpreted it as of late.

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War may in fact serve politics as its extension in the Westphalian way of doing business, but we should also understand that war is politics, and politics is war. For too many years it is the violence—the kinetic effect—that has been our focus. Today, we face a foe who knows that war starts with ideas and depends on them, far more than it depends on weapons.”34 Gorka, cowriting with Thomas A. Marks, chair of the Irregular Warfare Department in the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University, and Robert Sharp, who teaches Conflict Management and Stability Operations at CISA, further reflected on Clausewitz’s contribution to understanding war in the Westphalian world, noting that “Clausewitz’s seminal writings laid the foundation of thinking for modern warfare defined around the needs of the nascent Westphalian nation-state. His prioritization, his ‘wonderful trinity,’ and his recognition that war is but ‘politics by other means’ have served both strategist and statesman well during the conventional wars of the postNapoleonic age.”35 While the excessive bloodletting of World War I led to an anti-Clausewitzian backlash, most vocally presented by British general B. H. Liddell Hart (who turned to the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu for a more flexible approach to war that favored indirect over direct clashes of arms), the Clausewitzian framework and its underlying trinitarian structure endured until the era of total war was supplanted by the more dangerous era of absolute war: “The Cold War that followed would make the separation of policy and war more difficult as the advent of nuclear weapons blurred the line between military necessity and political reality.”36 The nuclear order pushed the destructive potential of war well past what was perceived to be “total” war in the Napoleonic period (the total mobilization of national resources to maximize military power, including the mass mobilization of the populace through the levée en masse), bringing it closer to the theoretical construct of unlimited war presented by Clausewitz, but in so doing undermining the very credibility of Clausewitz’s argument, including his most famous dictum interlinking war and its political context. So while Clausewitz’s theoretical language seemed compatible with the nuclear age, doubts emerged as to whether war could continue to remain a continuation of politics by other means; for the deterrence theorists, avoiding absolute war at all costs became the new dictum (and this resulted in the complex balancing of first- and survivable second-strike weapons systems, the formation of bipolar blocs, the creation of new ground-, air-, and space-based continental and global

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surveillance systems, the tunneling of deep underground bunkers for shadow governments that could survive decapitation strikes, and even the first steps toward a survivable information network that would maintain connectivity after total nuclear destruction—the ARPANET, which became the internet, and which would itself come to define a differentiating feature of the new asymmetrical world of terror in the post–Cold War period). And so what started with Napoleon (and first imagined by Machiavelli as the world emerged from medievaldom’s shadows, dreamed of by Hobbes during the bloodletting of the English Civil War, tinkered with by Frederick the Great as he began to build a modern Germany, and personified by Napoleon, the “God of War”) and ended with the advent of nuclear weapons was the ordered world of the constructive realist, who reconciled war, the state, and the security of the populace, forging in thought and in action the “wonderful trinity” of the Western order. Order would again yield to chaos after the collapse of the Cold War’s bipolar era, though the degree of chaos, much feared early on as an orgy of tribal violence erupted along the periphery of the old East/West divide, appeared to be overstated by the first generation of post–Cold War “chaos theorists” as Sadowski has described. But chaos kicked into higher gear as the age of mass terror began: “With the end of the Cold War—and especially since 9/11—we have been faced with a still more complex world. From Afghanistan to Mexico, irregular threats have replaced the classic nation-on-nation or bloc-on-bloc confrontations we had grown comfortable with. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Colombia catapulted the United States and its allies back to irregular efforts spanning the gamut from the high tempo operations inherent to counterinsurgency and counterterrorism to the seemingly more sedate but often no less intense commitments required for whole-of-government stability operations and nationbuilding.”37 But Gorka and his coauthors believe our strategic thinking remains tied to the more ordered, symmetrical (but nonetheless dangerous) world that spanned the period from Napoleon to Hiroshima. “Ironically, despite efforts to push forward in our ‘full spectrum’ capabilities, we remain hampered by legacy attitudes of compartmentalization and linear thinking. Even more problematic and disturbing is our willingness to engage in operations and deploy forces without fully grappling with the implications of the shift to population-centric warfare” as conceptualized by Rupert Smith in The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World

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(2006).38 “As a result, our leaders can place the military in harm’s way without knowing what it is they should achieve and whether it is in fact achievable through military means. This constitutes a denial of strategic thought and results in a subsequent disjunction between the operational level of force employment and the national interests of the country.”39 Gorka and his coauthors observe that in Iraq, “the vacuum thus created has been partially filled by enterprising officers—but in ways that simply reinforce Clausewitz’s warning,” whereas in “Afghanistan, exploration into the nature of the challenge by the political leadership appears driven as much by a desperate search for a ‘silver bullet’ as an actual estimate of the situation, yet it also drives home the rectitude of the Clausewitzian dictum.”40 They point out how in contrast, in Colombia, a “correct local assessment served as the basis for a refusal to acquiesce to American efforts to foster strategic distortion during the Clinton administration, leading to a turning point in the conflict,” and they cite Colombian General Carlos Ospina, “a key field commander who rose to become head of the Colombian military, ‘We were using American doctrine, where we conceptualized the continuum as ‘war’ and ‘other than war.’ This was absolutely incorrect. There is only war, with the enemy fielding different mixes of the elements of war.”41 Insight into waging war in the age of asymmetry can be derived from the strategic thinking Mao, who planted several of seeds that have found fertile soil in the post– Cold War world: “Mao is to internal war what Jomini, Clausewitz, and Napoleon are to interstate war. His approach says something simple: to seize power, proceed on five lines of effort. To mobilize people politically into the insurgent organization, find the issues to which they will rally. Simultaneously, win over allies who do not want to be part of the insurgent organization but will support it on lesser issues. Use violence as appropriate to the situation to enable these two fundamentally political activities. Use nonviolence, such as offers of negotiations, to make violence more effective. And internationalize the struggle . . . What Mao has provided in these lines of effort, then, is the inspiration for five questions that must be asked of any irregular challenge: What is its political content? Who are its allies outside the movement? How does it use violence? How does it use nonviolence? What is it doing internationally?”42 Adds Gorka and his coauthors: “Analytically, the five questions reflect that the IW challenge will begin the contest by advancing in this manner. It will simultaneously do so by mobilizing population and resources through political action, winning domestic allies, using violence as appropriate to circumstances, using nonviolence to make violence more effective,

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and exploiting the opportunities available in the international arena. It will do so tangibly on the ground, and intangibly in the mind (that is, in terms of influence, and absence of any line is as important as its presence).”43 To counter the threat presented by irregular warfare, one “must consider how to assess and display the threat group’s advance . . . both as it emerges and, once it exists as an organization, as it uses its strategy and operational art.”44 As they elaborate: Discerning a threat group’s “advances”—its lines of effort—is central to crafting the counter. It must also inform all facets of planning to “get in front of the curve.” In this, irregular warfare is no different from warfare. The use of lines of operations to implement a strategy is a product of the Napoleonic age, when Jomini and Clausewitz, particularly the former, sought to explain what the master, Napoleon, was about in his thinking about military advance. What they discerned was that battles were links in a chain, with each battle moving Napoleon closer to his ultimate goal, with the entire linked effort having direction and magnitude—a vector or line of operation. However, it is necessary to repeat that despite the language used to describe what is happening, the concept is not a linear one. If for Napoleon lines of operations consisted of battles strung together to reach an end, for Mao these were struggles. Since, from our analytical vantage point, a struggle is actually an ongoing series of discrete efforts, or battles, we have substituted the term campaign. This can be confusing because it applies regular war terminology to irregular war according to the actual meaning of terms rather than according to their common use in “major combat” planning courses. Campaigns, then, comprise the lines of effort.45 These “lines can be visualized as strings of pearls, with each pearl a dynamic entity changing size, shape, and color,”46 illustrated again by Mao’s conceptualization of violence in four distinct forms: Terror is a form of violence. Small unit hit-and-run warfare (that is, guerrilla warfare) is a form of violence. Using big units, as the Vietnamese did and the Taliban is starting to do, is a form of violence—maneuver warfare, mobile warfare, and main force warfare are all terms that have been applied. Holding territory (that is, “liberated areas”)—war of position—is a form of violence. As they occur as numerous battles or struggles, these forms of warfare happen as campaigns. Thus, we may speak of a campaign of terror, or a campaign of guerrilla warfare.

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These, in turn, play themselves out not only in the traditional, tangible fashion, but also in a nontraditional, intangible fashion—on the ground and in the mind.47 Their explanatory efforts help to explain the confusing legacy of America’s Vietnam experience, which according to critics of the war effort like Nagl reflect a failure to innovate, in contrast to more favorable interpretations by theorists like Gentile who understood the conventional realities of that complex conflict where population-centric warfare was but one component and at times not even the dominant one. As Gorka and his coauthors explain: “There can be confusion when armed action occurring within an irregular effort unfolds in regular fashion requiring conventional use of terminology within an unconventional effort. The three major enemy offensives in South Vietnam (Tet in 1968, the Easter Offensive of 1972, and the Spring Offensive of 1975) were huge undertakings, with the latter two featuring division-sized units advancing in the same manner as the blitzkrieg across France in 1940. Battles were fought along Napoleonic lines of operations to achieve objectives. Considered within the irregular war framework, however, these were but constituent efforts of a campaign along a particular line of effort.”48 They explain that “the point of conceptualizing threat in terms of strategy and its implementing lines of effort is to inform and drive the counter. Terrorism as a method, when used as a campaign by an insurgency, for example, is rarely mindless commission of violence. Rather, targets are picked for a reason. Furthermore, two types of targets normally emerge, local civilian points of resistance and the structure of the state. The efforts may each be represented as subcampaigns within the terrorism campaign.”49 They add that there’s “no model or template involved here, only a way of thinking.”50 But “[i]n the end, the essence of what we do in counterterrorism (now combating terrorism), counterinsurgency, stability operations, or reconstruction and stabilization is to enable effective, representative governance. That is what the present conflict is all about—the ‘art of war in the modern world.’”51

Complexity Theory: Fortuna’s Return Just as many theorists have looked to Clausewitz to define their age, such as Brodie’s determined effort to revisit the fundamental Clausewitzian aphorism linking war to politics during the Cold War, Beyerchen was among the first to recognize in Clausewitz a framework for understanding

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war in our new, and still-evolving, information age. He did not so much apply Clausewitz to the newly emergent information age as he applied concepts and paradigms from the information age to Clausewitz’s classic study of war, finding it compatible on many levels with the new strategic challenges of the information age, and in particular the complex interplay of chaos, uncertainty, unpredictability, chance, and human emotions of fear. All the elements that have long been central to the realist canon found a new expression, one that for the post–Cold War world would foster the emergence of a post-structural realism, one that was finally able to penetrate into the long-obscured quantum cloud of uncertainty and thereby accept all the ambiguities inherent in the reality of war. The new focus on complexity swept aside all the systemic-level presumptions of neorealism that fueled a generation of critical reaction and a sub-systemic yearning for the unit level to be restored, and all the Apocalyptic dangers of its nuclear-strategic underpinnings, which in hindsight appear to be both crude and disproportionately risky—threatening the extinction of mankind so as to preserve a political order, a complete rupturing of most conceptions of ends–means balance, and a violation of the very promise of security that the state was first imagined to provide, delivering man from the dangers of life outside of Eden. Nonlinearity and the embrace of complexity, helped to introduce a new balance, one that favored precision, and which saw the level of physical destruction dialed down from megatons to pinpoint levels of nominal lethality and collateral damage counted in the dozens, not the millions. Indeed, in the GWOT battles, new cries of disproportionality erupt when a single innocent family is struck down during the chaos of battle, as if mocking the once bold pronouncements of the nuclear theorists like Herman Kahn who made their peace with megadeaths. The new world of chaos would prove to be a new world of restraint, where even the nefarious mass terrorists seemed to be fighting only with one hand. The total war that has defined so many of the last century’s conflicts no longer seems to be waged, even in today’s global struggles. The emergence of nonlinear theory as a new metaphorical and theoretical framework for strategic studies has mirrored the emergence of the chaotic and messy post–Cold War world, applying as neatly to the early fears of post-Soviet chaos and the eruption of tribalistic and nationalistic violence along the periphery of the old Soviet empire as elegantly as it did to the protracted years of asymmetrical conflict that defined the Long War or the GWOT. In his foreword to Coping with the Bounds: Speculations on

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Nonlinearity in Military Affairs (1998), Lt. Gen. Richard A. Chilcoat noted that he was “convinced that the ability to thrive in nonlinear environments will have to be among the core competencies of the warrior and statesman of the 21st century if the United States is to maintain its position.”52 And in his introduction to the work, Thomas J. Czerwinski noted that nonlinearity “reflects the science of the Information Age, rather than its technology” and as such was able to reach beyond the RMA [Revolution in Military Affairs], and that this new science “has its own jargon: phase states, bifurcations, strange attractors, emergence, criticality and path-dependence, to name a few.”53 And one defining characteristic of nonlinearity is that “its message is post-Newtonian,” with Newtonian understood to mean that “the arrangement of nature—life and its complications” was “a linear phenomenon. Inputs in a linear phenomenon are proportional to outputs, facilitating prediction by careful planning; success is by detailed monitoring and control; and a premium is placed upon linear reductionism, rewarding those who excel in such reductionist processes.”54 Czerwinski adds that it “may be that the strength and staying power of nonlinearity will turn out to be that, like Clausewitz’s On War, it operates in a deeply historical, organic context, as opposed to ‘cutting-edge’ faddism.”55 In their preface to Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security (1997), David S. Alberts and Tom Czerwinski write that the “emergence of Complexity theory on the national security scene should come as no surprise.”56 They contrast linear and nonlinear systems, similarly defining the former as an “arrangement of nature—life and its complications . . . where outputs are proportional to inputs; where the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, and where cause and effect are observable. It is an environment where prediction is facilitated by careful planning; success is pursued by detailed monitoring and control; and a premium is placed upon reductionism, rewarding those who excel in reductionist processes. Reductionist analysis consists of taking large, complex problems and reducing them to manageable chunks.57 In contrast, they explain that by “nonlinear systems, we mean the arrangement of nature—life and its complications, such as warfare—in which inputs and outputs are not proportional; where the whole is not quantitatively equal to its parts, or even, qualitatively, recognizable in its constituent components; and here cause and effect are not evident. It is an environment where phenomena are unpredictable, but within bounds, self-organizing; where unpredictability frustrates conventional planning, where solution as selforganization defeats control; and where the ‘bounds’ are the actionable variable, requiring new ways of thinking and acting.”58

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They recount that chaos theory was already “well advanced by 1987, with the publication of James Gleick’s bestselling popularization Chaos: Making a New Science,” and note that “[i]n the mid-1980s, the Santa Fe Institute was organized to further the inquiry into complex adaptive systems. By 1992, Complexity theory also qualified for publication in the popular press with Mitchell Waldrop’s Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos, and Steven Lewin’s Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos. Nonlinearity was now in the public domain and universally accessible.”59 Out of this context emerged Beyerchen’s seminal “Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,” and Steven Mann’s “Chaos Theory and Strategic Thought” in 1992, which “were followed by important advances” by theorists that included Pat A. Pentland in 1993, David Nicholls et al. in 1994, and Glenn E. James and Steven M. Rinaldi in 1995, and “[a]s a result, the confidence factor rose appreciably, as the body of defense-related literature began to assume the qualitative and quantitative dimensions for a discipline, or a contending body of thought. Primarily at the operational and tactical levels of war, nonlinear concepts were moving beyond the notional, to formulation and application.”60 They note a “major breakthrough came in 1994, when the U.S. Marine Corps adopted nonlinear dynamics, and the ideas of Complexity theory, realizing that they provided an underlying basis for the Marine doctrine of maneuver warfare embodied in the capstone manual Warfighting. In a sense, science came to abet the school of hard-knocks and experience. This has triggered a host of ongoing exciting innovations and initiatives, notably the 1996 publication of MCDP 6—Command and Control, which explicitly rests on Complexity theory concepts.”61 James N. Rosenau looks more critically at the confluence of complexity theory and war, noting in his chapter in Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security that “at the core of complexity theory is the complex adaptive system—not a cluster of unrelated activities, but a system; not a simple system, but a complex one; and not a static, unchanging set of arrangements, but a complex adaptive system,” and that “[s]uch a system is distinguished by a set of interrelated parts, each one of which is potentially capable of being an autonomous agent that, through acting autonomously, can impact on the others, and all of which either engage in patterned behavior as they sustain day-to-day routines or break with the routines when new challenges require new responses and new patterns.”62 He noted that the “interrelationships of the agents is what makes them a system”; that the “capacity of the agents to break with routines and thus

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initiate unfamiliar feedback processes is what makes the system complex (since in a simple system all the agents consistently act in prescribed ways)”; and that the “capacity of the agents to cope collectively with the new challenges is what makes them adaptive systems.”63 Unveiling his very own trinity, Rosenau writes: “Such, then, is the modern urban community, the nation state, and the international system”64—or, in short, the new era’s essential levels of analysis, with the substate urban landscape emerging as a bona fide component of the new world order. This new substate level would of course come to take many forms, from the sect, clan, and tribe of the many weak and failing states of the GWOT’s frontier battlespaces, to the many movements, terror groups, and militant collectives of the more crowded, and at times lethally violent urban battlespaces of the Long War, from the early bloodletting in Mogadishu of Black Hawk Dawn fame, to the determined effort to cleanse the Iraqi cities of Ramadi and Fallujah of al Qaeda elements, much like more recent efforts in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. While the new granularity of the post–Cold War world is readily apparent, the challenge of pacifying it is not necessarily a simple undertaking. Rosenau notes that the “variables comprising human systems at all levels of organizations are so multitudinous, and so susceptible to wide variations when their values shift, that anticipating the movement of planets through space is easy compared to charting the evolution of human systems through time.”65 He concludes that there are thus “strict limits within which theorizing based on the premises of complexity theory must be confined,” and that it “cannot presently—and is unlikely ever to—provide a method for predicting particular events and specifying the exact shape and nature of developments in the future.”66 Citing James H. Holland’s Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity, he writes that as “one observer notes, it is a theory ‘meant for thought experiments rather than for emulation of real systems.’”67 Rosenau further cautions: Consequently, it is when our panacean impulses turn us toward complexity theory for guidance in the framing of exact predictions that the policy payoffs are least likely to occur and our disillusionment is most likely to intensify. For the strides that complexity theorists have made with their mathematical models and computer simulations are still a long way from amounting to a science that can be relied upon for precision in charting the course of human affairs that lies ahead. Although their work has demonstrated the existence of an underlying order, it has also called attention to a variety of ways in which the

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complexity of that order can collapse into pervasive disorder. Put differently, while human affairs have both linear and nonlinear dimensions, and while there is a range of conditions in which the latter dimensions are inoperative or “well behaved,” it is not known when or where the nonlinear dimensions will appear and trigger inexplicable feedback mechanisms. Such unknowns lead complexity theorists to be as interested in patterns of disorder as those of order, an orientation that is quite contrary to the concerns of policy makers.68 At least, that is, until 9/11 shattered the calm of the immediate post– Cold War period, when all the bloodletting had remained consigned to the perimeter of the old communist order, and as democracy’s spread seemed to expand a zone of Western immunity to chaos. After 9/11, all bets were off, and the predisposition of policymakers toward order evaporated as a new, war-attuned generation of leaders stepped up to more assertively work to reimpose order on a world where chaos had leapt across the oceans, and in so doing closing a long chapter of American invulnerability. But even then, Rosenau’s words of caution with regard to the applicability of complexity theory to the world of policy, even during wartime, merit continued reflection. However, the focus by complexity theorists on disorder became less of a liability when disorder reared up so abruptly on 9/11, and when comprehending the roots of disorder would become a necessary step toward the restoration of order in the new age. In the fifth chapter of Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security on “Complexity, Chaos, and National Security Policy: Metaphors or Tools?” Alvin M. Saperstein extends Rosenau’s discussion of the limits of complexity theory to the underlying questions of theoretical structure and purpose that have concerned philosophers of science and knowledge for generations. As Saperstein observes: “That the paradigm of chaos was intimately associated with battle was certainly well known to von Clausewitz and the earlier Greek military historians. Many of the people at this conference, whose writings I have read with pleasure and profit . . . have made amply clear the usefulness of the complexity concept in describing international security strategy. But do we gain anything from the visits of the soldier and statesman to the academy of the mathematician and physicist, besides some new, exotic descriptive metaphors (e.g., ‘strange attractor,’ ‘self-organizing criticality’)?”69 He rightly asks: “Has anything been gained by the transfer of the growing popularity of these paradigms from ‘hard’ to ‘soft’ scientists or the recognition of the

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growing prevalence of these ‘fads’ by the military and political elites?”— and cautions that a “new set of metaphors to describe a world does not imply new or different behaviors of that world—we must be very careful not to confuse changes in an intellectual outlook with changes in world events or patterns which we hope to understand and master.”70 Following Rosenau’s line of logic, he points out that the “role of the policy maker, whether in a domestic or an international system, is to master the system: to be able to take actions now which will lead to desirable events, or avoid undesirable events, in the future. Thus he/she must be able to predict the outcome of current activities: if I do A, A’ will result; if I do B, B’ will result, etc. Prediction is the transfer of knowledge of a system from its present to its future. The ability to make such transfers is usually based upon an understanding of the system—unless recourse is made to auguries or direct communications from a transcendental power. Excluding the roles of divination or divinity, we must help the rational policy maker to understand in order to master.”71 Of course, during the better part of human history, politics had to contend with the forces and pressures of a system that was still evolving, where disruption proved to be at least as much the rule as the exception, and as a consequence, political theorists struggled with all the elements of complexity that have come to define complexity theory; Thucydides struggle to find order amidst such chaos, as did Machiavelli more than a millennium later when he recognized that fortuna governed at least half our actions, requiring great virtue to counteract and thereby restore some semblance of order as enjoyed during Rome’s enduring reign. Thus for much of our history since Pericles so proudly celebrated the democratic spirit, policy makers have had to grapple with fog and friction as thick and dissipative as that which Clausewitz described for us; realism provided a lens for them to act amidst such uncertainty, since certainty would remain elusive then, even in a simpler age, before the complexity of the information age brought global networks into the equation. Saperstein considers the machinations of theory as a bridge between thought and action, the most fundamental aspiration of the realist theorist across the ages. As he described: “It is clear that the set of metaphors which underline our thoughts and discussions about the political world determine our responses to matters of war and peace. Action often follows theory. . . . Moreover, we also recognize that our metaphors may also shape that political world. The ‘field of endeavor,’ within which we are trying to find appropriate responses, is not itself fixed a priori; its contours may be molded by our metaphors; the topographic maps relied upon by the competing forces

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may be altered by the plans and actions of these forces. Hence policy and response are easier and more effective, the more appropriate the available metaphors.”72 Saperstein does recognize that the “new metaphors will be helpful in educating that majority of citizens, soldiers, and statesmen which have not experienced chaos and complexity due to the apparent simplicity of the bi-polar world view of the last half-century,” and suggests that it may well “be easier to have university freshman and military cadets read modern works on complexity and chaos (e.g., Gleick 1987, Waldrop 1992) than have them study Thucydides or von Clausewitz.”73 He adds that “[m]etaphors also determine the social acceptability of presenting ideas publicly, thus subjecting them to criticism and possible action,” and in light of the largely unexpected collapse of the communist order and many of its states, these “new intellectual paradigms should focus attention on the underlying world political realities—chaos and complexities which have always been there, sometimes obscured to many, but always recognized by some.”74 Reflecting on the Soviet collapse, and with it the collapse of the bipolar system that defined the neorealist worldview, he notes that it is “important to recognize that our metaphors, just as our goals, the ‘fields of competition and endeavor,’ and the events themselves, are constantly changing as a result of our formulating ideas, exploring our world, and attempting to control events and reach goals. We must be careful not to imbed our ideas and ‘world-pictures’ in stone since the stone of the world is often brittle and ruptures catastrophically, or flows and deforms like lava.”75 He thus cites Francis Bacon, who wrote in the seventeenth century that “[h]e that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator.”76 Saperstein imagines a new metaphor to replace the “Newtonian world view” cherished by the neorealists and others who believed the constituent components of the world system were fixed and eternal, noting that in the Newtonian scheme, its “fixed set of elements . . . interact, linearly or non-linearly, in a fixed universe” and “[d]epending upon the issue under discussion, these elements (and their interactions) may be: nations interacting with each other (via war, negotiation, trade, cultural or terrorist exchange . . .) in a world system; economic, bureaucratic, class . . . groups ‘pressuring’ each other within a given nation; military divisions, regiments, battalions . . . engaged with each other in battle or along a front; etc. The strengths of the individual elements and of their interactions may wax or wane, their ‘location’ in the ‘field of endeavor’ may change with time, but their continued existence, as well as that of the system of which they are elements, is taken for granted.”77 He adds

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that this “Newtonian paradigm of sovereign nations has been the usual framework for discussions of international security during much of the past few centuries.”78 Saperstein posits that adherents of complexity theory require a more dynamic paradigm than that afforded by Newton’s unchanging universe, much the way Clausewitz himself posited that the linearity of Jominian thought was theoretically ill-equipped for the postNapoleonic world (and more so for the post-Hiroshima world, as Brodie would later argue). As Saperstein writes: In the currently fashionable Prigoginean (Prigogene and Stenger 1984) paradigm (“selforganizing criticality” = SOC), elements and their interactions come into and go out of existence as part of the ongoing process; the field of endeavor may change in size, structure, and constituents with time. Thus states, armies, military and civilian units, may be born, grow, thrive, decay, die and disappear, as part of the process which also creates, distorts, and dissolves, the structures of which they are—if perhaps only temporarily—parts and foundations. States may be created out of, or dispersed back into, smaller groups of people as a result of war or other interactions between other states or people groupings. “Official” or “unofficial” military units form or dissolve as a result of anticipated or actual conflict between existing, nascent, or hopeful nations. Economic, political, or other classes, come and go through turmoil engendered by other groupings in the system of nation or nations. In sum, the system determines its apparent elements rather than conversely. The changing of the elements, their interactions, and the overall structure may occur at vastly different time scales. Consequently, there may be intervals of time in which the system seems to consist of fixed elements interacting with each other under fixed rules, i.e., a Newtonian description may provide a good approximation for some epochs. Conversely, a Newtonian system of small enough elements may provide the conceptual foundation for a Prigoginean system of larger elements: the shifting elements of the latter may “actually” consist of varying combinations of the fixed elements of the former. For example, guerrilla bands, regiments, tribes, nations, states, are all different time-varying combinations of people; the underlying Newtonian system would be the multi-billion member set of the world’s population.79 In his prescient discussion of “National Security in an ‘SOC’ World,” Saperstein notes the “goals of the national Security policy maker are

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not so obvious in a Prigoginean (‘Self Organizing Criticality’) world,” and asks: “Should policy be aimed at encouraging or discouraging the creation of new nations, the breakup of the old? Should new alliances, new armies, new bones of contention be anticipated?”80 He notes that “[a] ll of these are the possible system elements and interactions (between the elements) which may arise and evolve via the life of the system. It is now clear that all of these SOC possibilities must be anticipated as well as the vagaries of dealing with the usual interactions between the Newtonian elements of long-lived nation’s and alliances. . . . Are we better off competing with oppressive but strong oligarchies or dealing with fragmented— even worse, fractal—democracies?”81 He rightly recalls that “[o]ne of the prime reasons for our failure to successfully deal with Iraq—a ‘sovereign’ element in the Newtonian system—is that we fear to deal with its possible break-up,”82 a fear that briefly faded after 9/11 but which would come to haunt the architects of the war to oust Saddam when a chaos more menacing than anything his tyranny had presented to the West erupted upon his fall. As Saperstein explained, “[i]n the Newtonian scheme-of-things, nations are sovereign states and deal only with each others’ sovereigns. ‘Infringing upon sovereignty’ is severely frowned upon. It is clear that we still speak to such a world, though we no longer live it.”83 Echoing Rosenau, however, he accedes that it’s “not evident to me that a single metaphor/tool—like chaos—is available or useful to us in dealing with a world system characterized by ‘complexity.’”84 But that does not mean that complexity theory is without purpose, or value: “Instead of specific new tools, these metaphors can contribute to the development of the new attitudes required for the more complex modern world. They can help sharpen minds dulled by a Newtonian world view so as to be alert to all new possibilities.”85 Just as Clausewitz saw in Napoleon the ability to read the strategic landscape in a blink of an eye, and as the Romans saw in Alexander’s marvelous march across Asia much the same, and Machiavelli turned to the virtuous Lorenzo for salvation of his divided Italy knowing that task would require both his heavy hand as much as his well-honed instinct for survival, Saperstein observes that it’s “clear that successful military and political policy makers have always entertained the potentiality of chaos and have sought the tools of redundancy and flexibility of resources to deal with that possibility.”86 He thus concludes that the “present world seems to require a Prigoginean outlook: don’t accept the battlefield or the world system as a fixed given. The complexity, or adaptive self-organizing, metaphor should be very useful for the necessary education, recruitment, planning, and thinking required to

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deal with and survive our future”—even if “no obvious specific tool— like predicting crisis instability—comes to mind.”87 In the end, “[w]hen all is said and done,” Saperstein believes that “on a strategic level, the most useful aspect of the chaos and complexity metaphors is to remind us and help us to avoid falling into chaos”88—much the way realism has long reminded us. Or as Steven M. Rinaldi described in “Chapter 10: Complexity Theory and Airpower: A New Paradigm for Airpower in the 21st Century,” complexity theory “provides a powerful framework for analyzing military art and science. Indeed, warfare is a nonlinear, complex, adaptive phenomenon with two or more coevolving competitors.”89 He notes the “actions of every agent in the conflict, from individual pilots and infantrymen to numbered air forces and corps, influence and shape the environment. Environmental changes in turn cause adaptations in all hierarchical levels of the warring parties. As both allied and enemy actions influence the environment, warfare involves the coevolution of all involved parties.”90 Thus: “When viewed from this vantage point, it is clear that the Newtonian paradigm is too limited to adequately cover the many aspects of armed conflict. Warfare is more appropriately analyzed under the complex framework than the Newtonian. It is time to shift paradigms.”91 Indeed, the paradigm has been shifting ever since the Cold War’s end, and complexity theory, which first provided metaphorical relief for the chaos theorists who stepped up to fill the gap left vacant by the dual and in some ways ironic convergence of the Cold War’s end and neorealism’s rise as complexity presented many challenges in form and substance to the simplicity and elegance of neorealism’s parsimony. Complexity theorists found growing traction after 9/11 provided realism with a second wind. Strategic thinkers became reacquainted with the world of complexity, which was, at heart, the world that gave realism its raison d’etre dating back to Thucydides. It is no coincidence that the perils of complexity permeate much contemporary strategic thought. This is evident in the 2006 paper by Harry R. Yarger—professor of National Security Policy in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College who teaches classes in strategy and the theory of war—titled “Strategic Theory for the 21st Century: The Little Book on Big Strategy,” and which is imbued with filaments of complexity theory.92 In his paper, Yarger describes the strategic environment as consisting “of the internal and external context, conditions, relationships, trends, issues, threats, opportunities, interactions, and effects that influence the success of the state in relation to the physical world, other states and actors, chance,

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and the possible futures,” and that it “functions as a self-organizing complex system” that “seeks to maintain its current relative equilibrium, or to find a new acceptable balance. In this environment, some things are known (predictable), some are probable, some are plausible, some are possible, and some remain simply unknown. It is a dynamic environment that reacts to input but not necessarily in a direct cause-and-effect manner.”93 This presents the strategist with all the challenges observed by Clausewitz on back to Thucydides. As Yarger describes: “The strategist ultimately seeks to protect and advance the interests of the state within the strategic environment through creation of multiordered effects. Conceptually, a model of strategy is simple—ends, ways, and means— but the nature of the strategic environment makes it difficult to apply. To be successful, the strategist must comprehend the nature of the strategic environment and construct strategy that is consistent with it, neither denying its nature nor capitulating to other actors or to chance.”94 Yarger’s application of complexity theory to the strategic environment is consistent throughout his monograph. As he explains: Strategy is made difficult by the chaotic and complex nature of the strategic environment. It represents a daunting challenge for the military profession, but it is this very nature that justifies a discipline of strategy—otherwise, planning would suffice. If chaos and complexity theory apply, the radical alteration of the strategic environment that resulted from the end of the Cold War offers even greater opportunities and risks (or threats) as the strategic environment reorders itself toward a new and as-yet undefined equilibrium in the 21st century. The role of the strategist is even more critical in this period as policymakers seek help in ensuring that the reshaping of the strategic environment occurs in terms favorable to the state. The strategist’s role increases in importance as the instability and difficulty increase. Yet the fundamental tasks remain the same: understand the nature of the strategic environment and its various subsystems and construct a strategy that focuses the state on its long-term well-being.95 The nature of the complex strategic environment is described as “systems within systems interacting in both linear and nonlinear ways,” with numerous dimensions to consider; Yarger notes Colin Gray has identified at last seventeen such dimensions—people, society, culture, politics, ethics, economics and logistics, organization, administration, information and intelligence, strategic theory and doctrine, technology,

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operations, command, geography, friction/chance/uncertainty, adversary, and time—and that “[t]hese must be considered holistically,” and as “a complex system of systems, the strategic environment may evolve into new dimensions that must also be considered. Many strategists think too little about interaction, the dimensions in which it occurs, and the relationships among the dimensions.”96 Yarger contends that strategic thinking must keep pace with the complexity of the environment and the exponential complexity of the many interdimensional interactions, much the way Clausewitz, through Beyerchen’s lens, articulated a complex, triple-pendular metaphor of nonlinearity with remarkable complexity emanating from the foundational trinity. And so Yarger argues that strategic thinking “is not about reductionism, although the strategy eventually will be simplified and stated clearly as ends, ways, and means,” but rather “about thoroughness and holistic thinking” as “[i]t seeks to understand how the parts interact to form the whole by looking at parts and relationships among them—the effects they have on one another in the past, present, and anticipated future. It shares this perspective with chaos and complexity theories.”97 And, adds Yarger: “When the strategic equilibrium is disrupted in a major way, in chaos theory termed a potential bifurcation, the more numerous, rapid, and complex changes require a much more responsive strategy. Again, paradoxically, periods of major instability are the best time to advocate bold, broad strategies but provide the least time for consideration, thus magnifying the risk.”98 Echoing both Machiavelli’s thoughts on the Prince’s expert balancing of fortune and virtue, and Clausewitz’s nuanced understanding of the commander’s ingenius capacity to navigate fog and friction and the myriad interactions that burst forth from the trinity of war, Yarger adds: “The strategist who fully comprehends the nature of the environment and its continuities and manifestations during periods of stability can leverage this mastery during such periods. This leverage could be particularly useful if the instability cannot be preempted favorably through proactive strategies. Such mastery also allows the clarification of what constitutes well-being and anticipates objectives, while fostering familiarity with potential courses of action and resource requirements. In the unstable environment, the strategist gives great consideration to the multiordered effects of the rate and significance of change, and the fact that predictability decreases as change increases in rate and scope. This means that change itself is magnified in the process and must be managed carefully.”99

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Insurgency in an Age of Complexity Mao’s writings long ago reflected an intimate awareness of the inherent complexity of warfare, with revolutionary and guerrilla warfare no less complex than the total war experienced, and theoretically probed, by Clausewitz over a century before Mao’s pen met paper to update the philosophy of war for his new age of assault upon the very foundations of the modern state, and to a large measure, modernity itself. Once complexity theory and the study of the nonlinear dimensions of war took off during the 1990s in response to the collapse of the bipolar world order and with it the rise of the temporally coincident “Revolution in Military Affairs” that fused new digital technologies and information networks with the traditional strategic environment, and in short order, various insurgencies, terror campaigns, and revolutionary movements extended their strategic activities into the new information domain using methods described by some as netwar, with the Zapatista uprising in 1994 recognized by many theorists as the first such endeavor, it would be only a matter of time before theorists of counterinsurgency began to speak the new language of complexity and embed their theories into the new metaphorical framework of nonlinearity. And as the newly reinvigorated “cult of counterinsurgency,” as described by Tara McKelvey in the American Prospect, came to dominate American strategic thinking and the success of the Iraq turnaround led to a redoubling of America’s commitment to conduct the Long War as a series of protracted COIN campaigns, the new complex and asymmetrical approach to COIN began to broaden into a new and broader concept of “complex warfighting” where war itself had become an exercise in nonlinearity, not in its entirety, but in its conceptual essence. One of the most eloquent articulations of complex warfighting was presented by COIN theorist David J. Kilcullen, who has become a dominant fixture in the “cult of counterinsurgency, and whose style of theorizing presents a welcome contrast to Nagl’s more linear approach to population-centric warfare. If Nagl, whose precepts permeate America’s updated COIN doctrine, FM 3–24, has become something of the Jomini of counterinsurgency (which his critics, who see in his influence a dangerous myopia that overlooks the real risks of conventional and strategic threats to American security and the important role of kinetic operations in winning wars, would find a reasonable comparison), then Kilcullen stands apart as today’s Clausewitz of counterinsurgency, recognizing the ubiquity of complexity in our new asymmetrical wars. Kilcullen is a prolific

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writer and speaker, having shared his thoughts with a wide audience, and among his analyses are the April 7, 2004, “Future Land Operating Concept for the Australian Defence Forces on Complex Warfighting,” which he authored and which influenced the Australian military’s 2006 report, “Adaptive Campaigning: The Land Force Response to Complex Warfighting,” which in turn laid the foundation for “Adaptive Campaigning 09—Army’s Future Land Operating Concept.” Kilcullen describes the operating concept as “the Australian Army’s best estimate of the likely future operating environment, and a possible response,” and consistent with the evolutionary nature of war itself; he explained at the outset that the concept “articulated is not the only possible response, and is not authoritative doctrine. Rather, this is a detailed hypothesis for testing, field trials and further development. This concept is a start point for further analysis, experimentation and force design, leading to capability development—it does not represent an endstate in itself.”100 Just as the Zapatistas framed their uprising as a war against modernity and the process of economic modernization and globalization that threatened their subsistence land base, and just as al Qaeda launched a global, virtual assault upon the foundations of Western order hoping to replace the highly corrupted modern states of the Islamic world with a more medieval model of governance that eschewed most Western values (religious toleration, separation of church and state, principles of free market economics), Kilcullen frames the emergence of complex warfighting in his examination of the new environment of warfighting as the consequence of globalization itself, noting that the “key driver is Globalisation,” and as such the “key influence on contemporary conflict is Globalisation” and its “process of increasing connectivity, where ideas, capital, goods, services, information and people are transferred in nearreal time across national borders.’”101 As he explains: “Globalisation, during the last decades of the twentieth century, has created winners and losers. A global economy and an embryonic global culture are developing, but this has not been universally beneficial. Poverty, disease and inequality remain major problems for much of the world, and the global economy has been seen as favouring the West while failing developing nations. The developing global culture is perceived as a form of Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism: corroding religious beliefs, eroding the fabric of traditional societies, and leading to social, spiritual and cultural dislocation. This has created a class of actors—often nonstate actors—who oppose Globalisation, its beneficiaries (the developed nations of the ‘West’) and, particularly, the US.”102 Moreover, he notes

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that globalization “has created enemies of the West, and given them unprecedented tools to further their cause. Globalised media, satellite communications, international travel and commerce, and the Internet facilitate the coordination of diffuse movements that oppose Western dominance,” and the very “free flow of capital, people and ideas allows the spread of movements inimical to Globalisation, and provides them the means to further develop.”103 Further challenging the security of the West, he notes that globalization “is not fully controllable by governments” as “[m]ulti-national corporations, trans-national organisations, and non-government actors are key players in Globalisation” and “this is one reason why inequalities and problems have developed: in many cases, forces other than conscious national policy drive the process of Globalisation” and “hampers an effective response to the opposition provoked by Globalisation.” At the same time, the very forces of globalization that have spawned a new ecosystem of non-state actors has led to a globalization of national security, a result of which “a nation’s security interests no longer equate to its territory” and today’s “economic, political, technological, and industrial interdependence with the rest of the world means that our interests and sovereignty can be seriously threatened without an attack upon our territory.”104 But just as a complex array of new threats has arisen, this does not mean that a new peer adversary has yet emerged to challenge the sole remaining superpower whose military preeminence remains unrivalled. As Kilcullen writes: “Due to its economic and technological superiority, partly resulting from Globalisation, the US has unprecedented dominance in conventional military power” and “[a]ll actors—state or nonstate—whether they wish the US well or ill, must take account of this military power, which renders the US essentially invincible in a conventional, force-on-force military confrontation. Conventional wars therefore tend to be brief, intense, and one-sided, resulting in rapid victory for the US, its allies, or the side in a conflict which best approximates US capabilities.”105 Kilcullen explains that America’s strategic predominance in conventional and strategic nuclear power “has meant that conventional war has ceased to be the primary arena for military confrontation” and that “US dominance has led to asymmetric ‘avoidance behaviour’ by its opponents.”106 Because “opponents cannot defeat the US in conventional war” and “direct military confrontation against US Forces is essentially un-winnable,” Kilcullen explains that “actors such as Al Qa’eda have adopted an asymmetric grand strategy in which they seek arenas other than conventional military operations in which to

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confront the US” and “have also adopted an asymmetric theatre strategy, which seeks to draw the West into increasing, protracted and exhausting confrontation with the rest of the world, particularly the Islamic world. At the operational and tactical level this strategy is executed through unconventional means—terrorism, insurgency, subversion and information operations—making decisive military responses problematic.”107 Adds Kilcullen: “Hence, victory in conventional battle may no longer be decisive. If the opponent seeks to confront us in an arena other than conventional military conflict, then a strategic decision may remain elusive regardless of how effectively our forces perform in actual combat. In these circumstances, military success is essential to set the conditions for success. But it is not decisive: other elements of national power must be applied—on a Whole-of-Government basis—to resolve the conflict.”108 The asymmetrical nature of the strategic environment and the indirect approach taken by America’s adversaries has led to the emergence of a new complex strategic environment where complexity itself has become the enemy of order. Kilcullen observes that “forces today must deal with many adversaries beyond their traditional opponents, the regular armed forces of nation states,” which “include insurgents, terrorists, organised criminals and many other elements,” and “[t]his creates a multilateral and ambiguous environment.”109 Kilcullen adds that “military forces operate within complex groupings of friendly elements” that “include allies, coalition partners, law enforcement, intelligence services, other government agencies and the national population,” and as a consequence, “[p]olitical will, public opinion and Whole-ofGovernment national power are thus central features of military operations” and “interact with military forces in different ways and to different degrees, which complicates planning, decision-making and execution, making warfighting extremely complex.”110 And while “[t]his has always been so,” Kilcullen notes that “advances in communications technology mean that this interaction occurs in near-real time, with immediate complicating effects on current operations. Moreover, globalised communications generate numerous onlookers, neutral elements, commentators and critics. International news media are the most prominent, but business interests, international organisations such as the UN, environmental groups, legal agencies, neutral forces and populations, and the adversary’s populace itself are also key players.”111 Adding to war’s complexity is that the “terrain where forces operate is highly complex,” and “includes complex physical terrain, complex human terrain and complex informational terrain.”112

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Kilcullen discusses the approaches taken by strategists to war’s complexity, noting that while the “trend toward complexity is long-standing,” that “in the 20th century, a series of wars that threatened to destroy entire states and cultures (the World Wars and the Cold War) dominated perceptions, obscuring the more enduring reality of limited conflicts or ‘Small Wars,’” and that the “industrial technology available to 20th century nation-states, combined with the severe consequences of defeat and even of warfare itself, led many states to adopt an industrial approach to the application of force. They focused on combat operations against the armed forces of enemy nation-states, and left the rest of the conflict environment alone. This approach regarded war primarily as an engineering problem rather than a human one.”113 While such a view tends to understate the complexity of warfare during the past century, and the complex thinking about warfare during this period (consider the complex thought of Bernard Brodie and likeminded deterrence theorists who never lost sight of the human dimensions of war in contrast to the simpler strategic approach of Herman Kahn and the “warfighters” who came to view nuclear weapons as just a bigger and more efficient bomb), it is true that theorists of small, unconventional wars endured a long and lonely exile after Vietnam as new concepts like the RMA and the advent of high-tech, NCW filled the thoughts of war planners. In his article “Counterinsurgency Redux,” Kilcullen observed: “Counterinsurgency is fashionable again: more has been written on it in the last four years than in the last four decades,” and citing RAND scholar William Rosenau, who wrote that the “professional military literature is awash with articles on how the armed services should prepare for what the US Department of Defense (DoD) refers to as ‘irregular warfare,’ and scholars, after a long hiatus, have sought to deepen our understanding of the roles that insurgency, terrorism, and related forms of political violence play in the international security environment.” To which Kilcullen added: “This is heartening for those who were in the wilderness during the years when Western governments regarded counterinsurgency as a distraction, of interest only to historians.”114 In his Future Land Operating Concept on Complex Warfighting, he noted the “more recent approach is known as ‘Three Block War’” that had been “advanced by US Marine General Charles Krulak in 1998 and since refined by the US Marine Corps,” which “acknowledges the need to conduct many tasks simultaneously, and seeks to manage the complexity by doing these tasks at different times, with different forces or in different places in an overall Area of Operations (AO).”115 Kilcullen

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believes that the “industrial-age approach is inadequate for the current environment” and that “[i]nstead, in an extension of ‘three-block war,’ forces must conduct diverse tasks with the same elements, at the same time, in the same place.”116 Complexity of war thus means that warfighters must confront a new diversity of threats: “The conflict environment has always included terrorists, rural guerrillas, bandits, tribal fighters and mercenaries. But today it also includes drug traffickers, multinational corporations, private military companies, unarmed protesters, environmental groups, computer hackers, rioters, militias, people smugglers, pirates, religious sects, urban guerrillas, media and diplomatic alliances. Many of these groups are not ‘threats’ in the sense of armed opposition, and applying military force against many of them would be problematic in legal, moral and technical terms.”117 And thus: “Along with the asymmetric ‘avoidance behaviour’ described earlier, diversity is a major cause of ‘Asymmetric Warfare.’”118 And, a “key element in dealing with diversity, and the resulting defeat threshold mismatch, is mastering diffusion.”119 As he explains: “The globalised environment has seen a diffusion of conflict, so that it no longer fits traditional conceptual boundaries,” and he presents three examples of this. The first involves the “Levels of War,” as “[c]ombat has diffused across the strategic, operational and tactical levels of war so that actions at one level have a direct effect at another. This has always been possible, but is now the norm.”120 The second involves the rise of non-state actors, and though they “have always been part of warfare,” Kilcullen notes that “the characteristics of state and non-state actors are becoming increasingly similar” and “[n]on-state actors now operate sophisticated weapons systems, may control territories and populations, and possess lethality and technological sophistication that was once the preserve of states and their regular armed forces.”121 While this tends to overstate the reach of state sovereignty in much of the world, such as Afghanistan where British colonial control was never fully asserted, and much of Africa and Asia where European colonial regimes were stood up that enjoyed a technological and economic superiority but which, deep into the “heart of darkness” of their colonial possessions, were always vulnerable to indigenous resistance. After all, when Mao launched his assault against his Nationalist opponents, and later the Japanese invaders, his revolutionary forces were at heart a nonstate threat, as was Gandhi’s movement of people-powered satyagraha or the more recent tribal rebellion of the Zapatistas. As such the nonstate threat posed by al Qaeda is not necessarily new, though its global reach perhaps marks a new threshold, enabling it to conduct operations

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worldwide, albeit on a small scale. Kilcullen sees a new degree of convergence in the characteristics of state and non-state actors, though a study of Mao’s methods reveals that even his guerrilla army, over time and as its capabilities grew, planned to evolve into a conventional fighting force and thus converge in form and structure with the very state that it opposed. Thirdly, Kilcullen notes the diffusive role of conventional and Special Operations forces (SOF), writing that the “[c]apabilities that once resided exclusively in Special Operations forces are proliferating to the combat force,” and that “[e]very soldier in contemporary conflict requires capabilities such as individual initiative, cultural sensitivity, linguistic competence, mastery of sophisticated weapons and sensors, and a capacity for small group independent operations—characteristics traditionally associated with Special Forces. . . . all soldiers require flexibility, physical and mental toughness, self-reliance and technical skills that allow them to be highly effective across a wider array of missions.”122 Other elements of the diffusion of conflict include the diffusion of the virtual and the geophysical theatre of operations, the diffusion of the home front with the battlefront, and the diffusion of combatants and noncombatants (though again, guerrilla conflict across the ages experienced such a diffusion, with guerrilla war often being a people’s war enabling the guerrilla fighter to melt into the population, without uniform, becoming indistinguishable to his opponent from the civilians amongst which he was hiding). Kilcullen also sees a diffusion of war and peace time, and a diffusion in the elements of national power as nonmilitary sources of power come to play an equal role in the complex wars of today, where “all elements of national power are being coordinated and integrated by government into a single national ‘Whole of Government’ or ‘Whole of Nation’ effort. Military forces no longer ‘own’ war, rather they are one component in a national response.”123 As well, Kilcullen notes the emergence of an increasingly diffused, “Disaggregated Battlespace,” and explains that “[i]n complex terrain, in the face of multiple adaptive threats, the traditional notion of ‘battlespace’ needs refinement. It is more accurate to describe a force’s ‘mission space’ within which ‘battle spaces’ will irrupt with little warning.”124 In addition, Kilcullen observes that there has been a diffusion of the strategic and tactical topography of war, noting that “[s]trategic geography, in contemporary conflict, has become less important than tactical topography. This has arisen partly because of the phenomenon of ‘virtual theatres.’”125 In addition to the complexity, diversity, and diffusion of today’s battlespace, there is the increasing lethality of the asymmetrical

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opponent: “Today, a vast array of new, highly lethal weapons is proliferating. These include eye damage lasers, chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear and radiological weapons, thermobarics, electronic and computer network attack, directed energy weapons, and many more. . . . This means unprecedented levels of lethality are now available to individuals rather than larger organisations.”126 In response to these new complexities of war, Kilcullen proposes an operating concept for forces to “conduct close combat in complex (probably littoral and urbanised) terrain, in small but capable teams with high lethality, mobility, protection and situational awareness. They must be able to perform an extremely wide range of operations and transition between them in an agile manner. Success does not depend upon the destruction (even the precision destruction) of platforms and targets. Such destruction may still occur, but it is always a means to the end of controlling populations and perceptions. Military forces provide one element in a coordinated campaign applying all elements of national power. . . . Military forces must be able reliably to deliver success in battle, but combat success alone will not result in victory unless combined with effective actions in the decisive arenas of confrontation—political, economic, ideological or social.”127 Kilcullen adds: “Complex Warfighting operations will be conducted by Combined Joint Interagency Task Forces (JIATFs)” that “incorporate all elements of national power in an integrated framework, tailored and scaled to the requirements of a specific mission,” and which will “execute integrated campaigns specifically tailored to the operational environment. Such integrated campaigns interlock military actions with a national effects-based approach (NEBA) in order to control the perceptions and behaviours of specific population groups.”128 He adds that close combat “remains key” and that “[c]ombined arms teams are essential in generating the orchestration of effects, task versatility and mission agility that are necessary for effective Complex Warfighting,” but notes that “the nature of 21st century combined arms teams will be significantly different from the industrial-age combined arms teams familiar to 20th century soldiers,” and which must now reflect a “case-by-case mix of combat, combat support and logistics elements, scaled and tailored to perform a specific mission in a given environment. The combined arms philosophy institutionalises versatility, agility and orchestration: it accustoms individuals and teams to tailored, task-specific, agile mission groups that can be rapidly reorganised, regrouped and re-tasked as a situation develops. The principles of combined arms are complementarity, where the strengths of each arm cover

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the vulnerabilities of the others; and dilemma, wherein avoiding one arm, the enemy is exposed to another.”129 He adds that “[b]ecause of the need to conduct ‘mini-battles’ in a disaggregated battlespace, combined arms teams in complex warfighting are smaller than the traditional ‘battlegroups’ or ‘combat teams’ of 20th century warfare. This is because they must be capable of agile manoeuvre in restricted terrain, and because enhanced situational awareness allows a small team to perform missions previously that required larger units. Such teams regroup rapidly as the situation develops, and are networked with other ‘miniature battlegroups’ operating in the same area or on the same task. Although the infantry-armour team will remain the core of the combined arms team, non-traditional elements (including assets from other agencies) may frequently form part of the team.”130 Kilcullen describes the characteristics of combined arms teams that are required for “conducting close combat under Complex Warfighting conditions,” noting they’re “[s]mall, semi-autonomous teams,” their “unit organisations must be modular and flexible,” and “[u]nlike larger, more traditional combined arms teams optimised for open warfare, these teams do not require the blanket suppression of wide areas of terrain in order to manoeuvre.”131 In addition, they enjoy a “separation of command from control,” and adopt a “method of operating [that] is familiar to emergency services, paramedical and police forces that habitually operate in complex environments, as well as Special Forces.”132 As well, “commanders in a force optimised for Complex Warfighting can access a range of kinetic and non-kinetic effects,” and “[t]hese integrated effects are applied in a precise and discriminating manner, based on flexible but robust rules of engagement.”133 As well: “Forces optimised for Complex Warfighting have the ability to devolve situational awareness down to the necessary level,” and “[t]ailored sensor feeds, locally integrated information flows, a common operating picture that provides visibility for all commanders of their own forces and other friendly forces, precision navigation, combat identification and good communications are essential in achieving devolved situational awareness.”134 Adds Kilcullen: “Devolved situational awareness generates decision superiority in close combat. Some methods emphasise higher-level situational awareness and hence favour ‘information superiority’ in which a force knows more than the enemy and acts on the basis of superior knowledge about a situation. By contrast, the ‘decision superiority’ approach emphasises a general understanding of the environment, a pattern-recognition capability allowing local commanders to detect sensitive changes in the environment, and

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a decision-making culture that encourages commanders to act quickly but correctly on the basis of incomplete information plus recognition of situational patterns.”135 And lastly: “All the above characteristics generate an extremely demanding environment in which small-team leadership, cohesion, physical and intellectual performance, and the application of precision effects are critical. This means that, in order to be effective in this environment, forces must be inured to hardship, exertion, ambiguity and stress. The more austere a force is—the more it is able to rely upon its own resources without recourse to large or sophisticated support systems—the better its robustness and hence its combat performance.”136 Much like Mao reflected in his writings on guerrilla strategy decades earlier, and Sun Tzu centuries before that, Kilcullen observes that land forces for complex warfighting “must be optimised for versatility, agility and orchestration as key enablers in their own right, independent of specific scenarios, allowing the force to generate a wider range of capabilities and transition between them more readily.”137 He describes these three elements as force multipliers, noting that in “implementing this approach of optimising the force for balance and adaptability in their own right, three key ‘force multipliers’ apply, the same factors previously identified . . . as deductions from the environment—Versatility, Agility and Orchestration.”138 As he describes: “Versatility is the ability to execute a broader range of tasks to a higher standard. This maximises land forces’ utility across the full conflict spectrum, and allows rapid adaptation to change or to unexpected operational circumstances. Versatility is a key element of balance.” “Agility is the ability to transition between tasks quickly, smoothly, with greater stealth and better protection. This is essential in Complex Warfighting with its requirement to perform multiple tasks at the same time, in the same place, with the same forces. It also allows the force to control operational tempo, a critical advantage in complex environments.” “Orchestration is the ability to synchronise and coordinate effects to achieve precise, discriminating application of force. Orchestration occurs within Army through battle grouping into combined arms teams.”139 In Annex A to Kilcullen’s Future Land Operating Concept (FLOC), he describes the three “Operating Concepts” under the FLOC to be Manoeuvre Operations in the Littoral Environment (MOLE), Protective Security Operations on Australian Territory (PSAT), and Contribution to Coalition Operations Worldwide (CCOW), noting “[t]hese concepts describe the features that distinguish, or are specific to, the different environments, tasks and capability requirements for specific land force operations.”140 In Annex C to Kilcullen’s FLOC, he notes that the JIATFs

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“execute integrated campaigns specifically tailored to the operational environment” and which “inter-lock military actions with a national effects-based approach (NEBA)” that “may include some or all of the following generic elements, which may occur sequentially or concurrently, representing lines of operation in the traditional campaigning sense.” These are the following: Information Operations (IO) that are “focussed on identifying and exploiting influence and pressure points in the informational environment.” Manoeuvre Operations that are “targeted against the main military adversary—for example, the enemy’s regular armed forces, if present.” Protective Security Framework Operations that provide “protection, allowing the force to influence the behaviour and perceptions of neutral and non-combatant groups,” which are “[s]econd only to manoeuvre operations” and which “absorb the bulk of deployed military forces in Complex Warfighting,” and which “are also the main focus of nonmilitary agencies within the JIATF and external to it. These operations also incorporate a large proportion of human intelligence (HUMINT) and Civil Military Cooperation (CIMIC) efforts. The ability to develop and employ local indigenous allies and auxiliary forces, including indigenous judicial and law enforcement agencies, is critical in achieving an effective security framework”; Mobile Security Operations “targetting threats other than an adversary’s regular armed forces” including “[g]uerrilla groups, bandits, rioters, armed factions and urban insurgents”; and lastly, Unconventional and Asymmetric Operations “against specific threats such as terrorists, hostile intelligence services, organised crime or other small and elusive adversary elements.”141 Kilcullen concludes by reiterating that “[g]lobalisation and US dominance of conventional warfare has led its enemies to seek alternate, asymmetric means and arenas for confrontation,” which has in turn “generated a complex, diverse, diffuse and lethal environment,” and thus to “succeed, military forces must apply discriminating force to support whole of government efforts, in order to control populations and perceptions. This requires versatility, agility and orchestration, which in turn requires a human-centric philosophy of warfare, an ability to conduct integrated whole-of-government campaigns using JIATFs, and an ability to conduct integrated campaigns in complex environments. In turn, controlling populations and perceptions demands that land forces operate in close proximity to potentially hostile elements, in complex physical, human and informational terrain. This means that close combat remains the key to Complex Warfighting—in itself, it is not enough to guarantee victory, but it provides the means to control and influence

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populations and perceptions, by enabling proximity, precision and discrimination in the application of force.”142

Complexity and COIN: An Organic Systems Model of Insurgency In “Countering Global Insurgency,” Kilcullen “re-appraises counterinsurgency through the emerging science of Complexity,” bringing to his study of asymmetrical warfare what earlier scholars applied to Clausewitz and the essence of war more generally. As their experience demonstrated during the 1990s, the first between war theory and complexity theory was natural, as each grappled with phenomena that were at heart nonlinear, and punctuated by humanity, for all its faults, which always confounds logic and introduces chaos to what otherwise might be ordered. Kilcullen extends a theoretical and methodological bridge to the systems theorists, who came to dominate the nuclear era as the generation of the “best and the brightest” and sought to apply linear logic to the art of war. In the nuclear field, this architected a new bipolar, global structure of international politics that contributed to a period of global calm, punctuated by limited and lethal regional wars but which escaped the likely Apocalypse of total war in the nuclear age, a notable success. But when applied to limited warfare as experienced in Vietnam under the exceeding linearity of Defense Secretary McNamara, who came to regret his rigid application of escalation theory to a passionate, asymmetrical, and complex war in Indochina. Curiously, McNamara earned his wings as an advisor to General Curtis LeMay during his fire-bombing campaign against Japan’s cities during World War II, sanitizing the horrific activity of burning to death hundreds of thousands of civilians regardless of age or gender, preparing the world for the atomic incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and for the phenomenon of megadeath that undergirded the nuclear peace. He later admitted that had America lost the war, he and his colleagues could well have been tried as war criminals for what they had done. Unfortunately, his moral awakening did not take place until long after he had exited from his position at the top of the American defense establishment, too late to salvage the war effort in Vietnam or to recognize the potential for an American victory even in its final hours. Systems thinking, while lauded for modernizing strategic planning by its early adherents like Herman Kahn and his colleagues at RAND and later Hudson, thus has a dark side, one that Kilcullen recognizes clearly in the hindsight afforded by the passage of time since the Vietnam defeat.

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He recalls in his discussion of systems thinking that the “modern understanding of war is underpinned by systems thinking” which “has been increasingly influential since the 1920s, when the Soviet theorist Mikhail Tukhachevskii proposed the theory of ‘deep operations’ (glubokaia operatsiia), which viewed friendly and enemy forces as competing systems, and sought to dislocate the enemy at the systemic level. Indeed, familiar concepts like Blitzkrieg, strategic bombing, air-land battle, manoeuvre warfare and effects-based operations are all systems approaches to warfare.”143 Kilcullen notes that counterinsurgency, as developed during the 1960s and applied to Vietnam and other conflict zones, was “also based upon a systems approach,” and that “[i]t seeks to identify key processes in an insurgent system, and coordinate countermeasures at the systemic level,” adding that the “most sophisticated example of classical counterinsurgency, under US Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara during Vietnam, used highly developed quantitative statistical analysis” under the auspices of the “Office of Systems Analysis,” which “broke down the insurgent system into component processes, analysed each component, and reassembled the components into a net assessment of progress.”144 The problem, he suggests, is that this was a “highly Cartesian approach to systems analysis, and proved incapable of handling the complexity of the insurgency,” falling into the trap of a Newtonian worldview that did not match reality on the ground.145 Kilcullen finds salvation in a “parallel development—the emerging science of Complexity,” which “has created a new understanding of systems and a new language for describing systems behaviour” that embraces the world’s uncertainties and inherent nonlinearity. He thus finds solace in his realization that “[c]ounterinsurgency is a field in which Complexity theory offers fresh possibilities,” providing a framework well-suited to a “complex, problematic form of conflict that straddles the boundaries between warfare, government, social stability and moral acceptability,” which “has tended to defy the Cartesian, reductionist analysis traditionally applied to conventional warfare.”146 Kilcullen similarly applied complexity theory in his compelling FLOC for the Australian military, extending his thinking broadly to the contemporary challenge of complex warfare and not just insurgent warfare. He now takes a closer look at how complexity theory might help to reshape our approaches to countering insurgencies, with the expectation that the “new understanding of complex systems might be the tool we need to overcome this problem.”147 He explains that his principal insight is that the War on Terror, “as a global counterinsurgency, demands reappraisal of classical counterinsurgency theory, which was based on Cartesian systems analysis of insurgency in a single state.

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Because complexity theory provides new tools for systems analysis, it may provide a new approach to countering globalised insurgency.”148 He notes that insurgencies have long been understood to be social systems, even in what he describes as classical counterinsurgency theory as conceptualized during the 1960s; but he argues that complexity theory “takes this understanding further by showing that social systems (and hence, insurgencies) are organic systems” that “share characteristics with living systems like cells, organisms or ecosystems” and “comprise interdependent parts, inputs, processes and outputs, which exist in a pattern of relationships that define the extent of the system and work together for the whole.”149 Borrowing from the science of “living systems,” Kilcullen explains that “[o]rganic systems (including social systems like insurgencies) are ‘complex and adaptive’” and that their “behaviour results from the interactions and relationships between the entities that make up the system in focus and the environment.”150 This contrasts with the classical approach to counterinsurgency, and its “cartesian” mindset that “approaches complex problems by reducing them to their component parts, seeking to understand each part, then reassembling the parts to produce an overall analytical result” in the belief that “the characteristics of the whole can be inferred from the characteristics of the parts, and valid deductions can be drawn about the whole by examining the parts.”151 Confounding reductionist efforts are the complexities of the interactions of the parts, which may not logically flow from a study of the parts alone. Like organic systems, Kilcullen writes that insurgencies are “social systems” and “form in a society, when pre-existing elements (grievances, individuals, weapons, and infrastructure) organise themselves in new patterns of interaction involving rebellion, terrorism, and other insurgent activity. The elements in an insurgency are pre-existing, but the pattern is new.”152 He adds that insurgencies are “energetically open but organisationally closed” and that “matter and energy flow into the system as inputs like recruits, sympathisers, weapons, grievances, and doctrine,” and “are transformed within the insurgent movement (through processes like indoctrination, intelligence collection, operations, and logistics) and emerge as outputs: casualties, social dislocation, destruction, further grievances and media coverage.”153 And “[l]ike other organic systems, insurgencies maintain a distinct organisational boundary with their environment. Insurgent movements are networks composed of nodes (individuals, units, locations) and links (communications channels, causal linkages, demographic and spatial connections)” and that there are “detectable boundaries between the movement and its

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environment.”154 Moreover, Kilcullen finds insurgencies to be “selforganising systems” that become interdependentally interconnected, and that the “circular causal relationships—‘feedback loops’ or ‘vicious circles’—generated by this interdependence provide the driving force that maintains the insurgency.”155 He further describes insurgencies as “non-equilibrium, dissipative structures . . . that exist on the ‘edge of chaos,’”156 and in this he finds a key toward their eventual defeat, as “they depend on inputs of energy and matter from the external environment. Deny these inputs, and the feedback loops driving the insurgency lose energy, until the overall insurgency breaks down.”157 One reason for the failure of classical counterinsurgency theory to adequately explain complex insurgency is that insurgencies are “greater than the sum of their parts,” and that “[l]ike other organic systems, insurgencies exhibit emergence—characteristics and behaviours that emerge at a given level of analysis, which could not be predicted by analysing the component parts,” and this thus “explains why Cartesian approaches to insurgency (like McNamara’s approach in Vietnam) often fail—analysing the parts gives an incomplete understanding of the whole.”158 Kilcullen embeds counterinsurgency in an ecosystem framework, noting that a “theatre of irregular warfare is an ecosystem in which many groups and entities interact (like organisms in a biological ecosystem); outputs from one become inputs for another and contribute to emergent systems behaviour.”159 And like organic organisms, insurgencies “have an adaptational, evolutionary dynamic,” and one consequence of this neoevolutionary dynamics is that “the most dangerous insurgents in a theatre may not be the strongest, but rather the most adaptable, the best able to leverage an asymmetric advantage—hence the most survivable.”160 Kilcullen proceeds to outline the elements that define insurgencies as organic systems, noting that they have nodes or “physical components and structures” as well as links that “define patterns of interaction in the insurgency.”161 The nodes “include individual fighters, units, cells, sympathisers and intelligence assets; social groups like tribes or clans, or infrastructure,” which “may or may not be open to counterinsurgency measures.”162 The links include “communication channels (Internet, satellite, radio, couriers), causal links (where actions by one element cause actions by others) demographic or geographic links (spatial or ethnic patterns within an insurgency). Some links are internal; others connect the insurgency to external support. Because insurgencies are networks, links are critical. Interdict the links, and the insurgency’s energy, structure and resilience dissipate. Again, some links are vulnerable; others are

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not.”163 Kilcullen adds that “[b]ecause the insurgency depends on energy and matter from the environment, attacking the boundary may deny energy to the insurgency and ultimately cause it to collapse.”164 In addition to nodes and links, insurgencies have a “boundary” that “defines the limit between the insurgent movement and its environment,” and that “may be permeable, but it is distinct—there is a definite ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ to an insurgent movement.”165 Further, an insurgent system may also include “sub-systems,” and these may include “logistics, intelligence, propaganda, recruitment, planning and operational subsystems, among others. These are ‘systems within systems,’ and the thousands upon thousands of nested interactions of subsystems with the parent insurgency are key elements in its strength.”166 Kilcullen also notes the existence of day-to-day “boundary interactions” that “include incidents, attacks, popular support, territorial control, intelligence collection, information and media dominance, economic dominance, freedom of movement, and loss exchange ratios in combat,” and he observes that as “these are the physical manifestations of the insurgent system, they tend to receive the greatest attention from security forces—hence, most traditional means of attacking insurgencies focus on denying or disrupting boundary interactions.”167 But Kilcullen explains that this is “akin to treating the symptoms of an illness and, just as microbes develop drug resistance, so insurgents evolve and adapt to deal with these forms of attack.”168 The behavior of the system can be measured in terms of both its inputs and its outputs, the former being “the energy and matter the insurgency takes up from its environment” including “people (recruits, leaders, supporters, specialists) and materiel (ammunition, weapons, money, medical supplies)”; moral factors such as “[g]rievances, ideology, religious belief, doctrine and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) are also inputs. Denying inputs is a method of reducing energy in the system, making it easier to suppress.”169 As for the outputs of the system, these are the “waste products or results that emerge from insurgent action” and “include casualties, physical destruction, social and economic dislocation, new grievances, propaganda or media coverage, and techniques that emerge as insurgents learn by experience.”170 Kilcullen explains that “[c]hoking off the outputs of an insurgent group may or may not affect that group, but may deny those outputs to other groups that would otherwise feed off them. Hence, at the ‘ecosystem’ level, choking outputs can weaken an insurgency.”171

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OUTPUTS • • • • •

Casualities, physical/ecomomic damage Climate of fear and insecurity Propaganda/media coverage Further grievances/Social dislocation Doctrine/developing techniques

Incidents/Attacks

BOUNDARY INTERACTIONS

Popular support Territorial control

Intelligence and situation awareness Information Dominance & Media Economic dominance Freedom of Movement Loss Exchange Ratio in contacts

• • • • • •

People (recruits, supporters, specialists, leaders) Materiel Ideology/Culture Grievances Money Doctrine / techniques

INPUTS

LEGEND Node (unit, cell, individual) Link (pattern of interaction) Organisational boundary with envronment Boundary interaction

Figure 4.2 Kilcullen’s Biological Model of Insurgency. Source: Shanece L. Kendall, “A Unified General Framework of Insurgency Using a Living Systems Approach,” Naval Postgraduate School Thesis, June 2008.

Kilcullen’s organic model of insurgency as a biological system (see Figure 4.2) fits comfortably with the complexity of contemporary conflict, and the War on Terror, which he defines to be a global insurgency, “appears to comprise an intricate, ramified web of dependency between loosely allied groups” and “[t]his web—the network of links between individuals and cells in the jihad—is the most significant element in the insurgency: the actions they carry out are what the network does (its boundary interactions) not the network itself. Therefore (as the organic systems model of insurgency demonstrates) attacking the links, inputs and outputs of the network may provide a substantial payoff.”172 In his analysis of the GWOT, Kilcullen observes that “[m]any patterns within the jihad are repeated, on different scales, at several levels

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of analysis—giving the jihad fractal-like characteristics,” and that “[a]t each level of analysis—local, district, national, regional, global—there is emergence, as new characteristics and behaviours appear,” and to further complicate things, “[a]daptation and evolution occur across and within all levels and regions.”173

Counterinsurgency Redux: The Flip Side of the COIN Two years later, in his article, “Counterinsurgency Redux” (2006), Kilcullen takes note of the tremendous renewal of interest in COIN over the last few years, including something of a revival of the classical COIN literature, some of which is referenced in FM 3–24. But he cautions that “some of this enthusiasm may be misplaced” as “today’s insurgencies differ significantly—at the level of policy, strategy, operational art and tactical technique—from those of earlier eras.”174 And while “an enormous amount of classical counterinsurgency remains relevant,” he notes “there is still much that is new in counterinsurgency redux, possibly requiring fundamental re-appraisals of conventional wisdom.”175 The risk is that classical counterinsurgency “constitutes a dominant paradigm through which practitioners approach today’s conflicts—often via the prescriptive application of ‘received wisdom’ derived by exegesis from the classics,” and as a consequence, the “1960s theorists cast a long shadow.”176 According to the classical paradigm, he explains, COIN theory “posits an insurgent challenge to a functioning (though often fragile) state,” and as the “insurgent challenges the status quo; the counterinsurgent seeks to reinforce the state and so defeat the internal challenge,” a situation that “applies to some modern insurgencies—Thailand, Sri Lanka and Colombia are examples,” but that “in other cases, insurgency today follows state failure, and is not directed at taking over a functioning body politic, but at dismembering or scavenging its carcass, or contesting an ‘ungoverned space.’”177 But Kilcullen gets bogged down in a literal reading of these “classical theorists” of COIN, which leads him to overemphasize some of the differences between today’s struggles and the cases discussed by the classical COIN theorists that he feels operate fundamentally differently. For instance, he notes that in the case of Afghanistan, “the insurgent movement pre-dates the government,”178 but as important, the broader struggle between the Taliban today and the new government and its NATO supporters has roots in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal, as well as in the American-sponsored jihad against

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the Soviet occupation, where the broader fault lines between modernity and tradition, a core fault line that has defined many insurgencies throughout history, even those against Roman authority in the classical era, as well as the long campaigns of American Indian resistance to the expanding United States as its new world of commercial markets and private property collided head-on with the indigenous susbsistence cultures that had been there for millennia, a dynamic that was repeated in the 1994 uprising by the Zapatistas against the economically modernizing Mexican state on the eve of its ascension to NAFTA. So while such dynamics may not have been front and central to the 1960s COIN theorists, the underlying dynamics nonetheless showed much continuity with these earlier struggles. Overemphasizing the difference between today’s insurgencies and those of the past may thus do something of a disservice; for instance, Kilcullen notes how “in classical theory, the insurgent initiates,” as Galula has written, and similarly, other classical COIN theorists like Thompson “emphasize the problem of recognizing insurgency early.”179 “But,” Kilcullen notes, “in several modern campaigns—Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Chechnya, for example—the government or invading coalition forces initiated the campaign, whereas insurgents are strategically reactive,” presenting “patterns [that] are readily recognizable in historical examples of resistance warfare, but less so in classical counterinsurgency theory.”180 Indeed, in many of today’s conflicts, he finds that “the counterinsurgent represents revolutionary change, while the insurgent fights to preserve the status quo of ungoverned spaces, or to repel an occupier—a political relationship opposite to that envisaged in classical counterinsurgency.”181 But while the details of the political relationship may appear to be inverted, the underlying dynamic is quite the same, particularly since in the case of the counterinsurgent’s agenda, the endstate is political modernization and economic integration. Even the efforts by the communist revolutionaries of the 1960s was to thwart the integration of their homeland into a world economy governed by Western values, and thereby protect a lesser-developed economy from neocolonial exploitation. Whether it was Castro’s decision in 1959 to tilt toward Moscow and not trust American intentions, or the Zapatistas’ fear that NAFTA would initiate a fatal attack upon the traditional indigenous economy, which depended upon subsistence farming, the broad strokes of the classical 1960s insurgencies as in the more modern conflicts has been to resist the expansion of the West’s economic footprint, and such a sentiment can even be seen in al Qaeda’s vision to replace the apostate regimes with a

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new caliphate. The continuities, with the distant and near past, are thus worth noting, even if the nuances differ. As Kilcullen notes on Pakistan’s campaign in Waziristan, the “enemy includes al-Qa’ida (AQ) linked extremists and Taliban, but also local tribesmen fighting to preserve their traditional culture against 21st century encroachment,” and the “problem of weaning these fighters away from extremist sponsors, while simultaneously supporting modernization, does somewhat resemble pacification in traditional counterinsurgency.” He believes that “it also echoes colonial campaigns, and includes entirely new elements arising from the effects of globalization.”182 Yet even these new anti-globalization elements share much in common with earlier revolutionary efforts to prevent neocolonial and neoimperial exploitation by the wealthier Western states. Kilcullen also defines as distinct from past insurgencies the advent of global networks like the internet that provide the insurgents with “near-instantaneous means to publicize their cause,” and to generate increased “moral, financial and personnel support, creating a strategic hinterland or ‘virtual sanctuary’ for insurgents.”183 He notes in contrast that “[c]lassical theory deals with ‘active’ and ‘passive’ sanctuaries, methods to quarantine such sanctuaries and their effects on insurgent performance. But it treats sanctuary as primarily a geographical space in which insurgents regroup or receive external support. However, today’s internet-based virtual sanctuary is beyond the reach of counterinsurgent forces or neighboring governments, and its effects are difficult to quarantine. . . . Classical counterinsurgency theory has little to say about such electronic sanctuary.”184 But that’s only because the internet did not exist in the 1960s, and so could not be included in the classical COIN theorists’ analysis; but insurgent communications and propaganda systems were analyzed, and again there are continuities worth noting. Kilcullen notes with interest that, as “Oxford’s Audrey Cronin convincingly argues, cyber-mobilization or ‘electronic levée en masse’ is a major new factor” and that “[c]yber-mobilization already has changed the character of war, making it much harder for the United States to win in Iraq, and it has the potential to culminate in further interstate war in the 21st century.”185 And yet it was the very same tools of electronic networks like the internet and new mobile phone networks that enabled General Stanley A. McChrystal to set up his highly effective JSOC “killing machine,” as noted in the now infamous Rolling Stone article that led to his dismissal, in which reporter Michael Hastings noted how he “mapped out terrorist networks, targeting specific insurgents and hunting them down—often with the help of cyberfreaks traditionally shunned by the military.”186

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Kilcullen even suggests that the “trans-national character of modern insurgency is also new,” and notes that while “[c]lassical-era insurgents copied each other (for example, the Algerian FLN copied the Viet Minh, and EOKA copied the Jewish Irgun Zvai Leumi.,” that “each movement operated in its own country,” and that the “emulation typically happened after the event, and direct cooperation between movements was rare.”187 But the legacy of Che Guevara and his effort to export revolution across the Americas, and the evidence from Indochina where the borders were quite porous and the cross-border influences thus quite strong, run contrary to this. World communism was a global force with a global vision long before the advent of global information networks; all that has changed is the speed facilitated by the internet. Al Qaeda long sought to inspire a global jihad, well before the internet made the task that much easier. And so the differences between contemporary insurgencies and those studied by the classical theorists of COIN seem to differ mostly in degree but not really in substance, and the underlying dynamics of power, and the political vision of those who take up arms, bears a striking continuity with near and even distant past. Or consider Kilcullen’s assessment of insurgent operational art, which today he likens to a “self-synchronizing warm”; while he concedes that at “the operational level, there are many similarities between today’s insurgents and those of the classical era” and that today’s insurgencies “remain popular uprisings that grow from, and are conducted through pre-existing social networks (village, tribe, family, neighborhood, political or religious party)” whose “operational art remains fundamentally a matter of aggregating dispersed tactical actions by small groups and individuals, and orchestrating their effects into a strategically significant campaign sequence,” and whose opponents likewise remain “fundamentally concerned with displacing enemy influence from social networks, supplanting insurgent support within the population, and maneuvering to marginalize the enemy and deny them a popular base,” so that even today, “at the operational level counterinsurgency remains a competition between several sides, each seeking to mobilize the population in its cause. The people remain the prize.”188 But Kilcullen again sees distinctions separating today’s conflicts from those that absorbed the attention of the classical COIN theorists: “But today’s environment ensures that this operational art develops differently than in the past. Modern insurgents operate more like a self-synchronizing swarm of independent, but cooperating cells, than like a formal organization. Even the fashionable cybernetic discourse of ‘networks’ and ‘nodes’ often implies more

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structure than exists.”189 And so while the “[c]lassical theorists considered the aggregated effect of many small incidents—the “war of the flea”—as the key driver even while recognizing the impact of well-publicized incidents,” in today’s insurgencies, “modern communications compress the operational level of war, so that almost any tactical action can have immediate strategic impact. This makes counterinsurgency more unpredictable and even less linear, rendering statistical trends less important as an operational driver than the “single narrative” of public perception. Again, this factor was accounted for in classical theory but “globalization effects” have dramatically increased its influence.”190 But as with his other contrasts, while Kilcullen emphasizes the distinctions, it remains the commonalities between past and present insurgencies that strike me as most compelling and illuminating. And so Kilcullen’s conclusion strikes me as unpersuasive; he believes that “today’s insurgencies differ significantly from those of the 1960s,” and cites many reasons for this conclusion: “Insurgents may not be seeking to overthrow the state, may have no coherent strategy or may pursue a faith-based approach difficult to counter with traditional methods. There may be numerous competing insurgencies in one theater, meaning that the counterinsurgent must control the overall environment rather than defeat a specific enemy. The actions of individuals and the propaganda effect of a subjective ‘single narrative’ may far outweigh practical progress, rendering counterinsurgency even more non-linear and unpredictable than before. The counterinsurgent, not the insurgent, may initiate the conflict and represent the forces of revolutionary change. The economic relationship between insurgent and population may be diametrically opposed to classical theory. And insurgent tactics, based on exploiting the propaganda effects of urban bombing, may invalidate some classical tactics and render others, like patrolling, counterproductive under some circumstances. Thus, field evidence suggests, classical theory is necessary but not sufficient for success against contemporary insurgencies.”191 But because there are as many continuities as discontinuities, and because insurgency has erupted across history’s landscape for millennia, presenting conventionally superior states with crises that have at times become existential, as the Romans learned to their dismay as their empire collapsed in the face of a far less civilized opponent. The war of the flea, even if not waged in a globalized, netcentric, complex warfighting environment like today’s asymmetrical struggles, is nonetheless relevant, and I might add, essential for our understanding of what drives the insurgent, whether a jihadist, maoist, or tribal militia.

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A Trinity of Counterinsurgency Warfare While Kilcullen tended to overstate the difference between today’s and yesterday’s insurgencies in his “Counterinsurgency Redux,” his exposition of today’s complex warfighting environment stands apart for its analytical cohesion as presented in his 2004 FLOC for the ADF [Australian Defence Forces] and his later articulation of a new model of insurgency as a complex, organic system. While Nagl’s populationcentricity tends toward a Jominian approach to war theory, Kilcullen embraces the true spirit of Clausewitzian theory, in all its complexity, and even adapts Clausewitz’s famed “Trinity of War” to the realm of COIN in his “Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency,” as presented to a US government COIN conference in Washington on September 28, 2006. In his speech he extended his thoughts on complexity and the dynamic challenges of achieving dominance of the new complex battlespace to the particular challenges of COIN. As he noted at the start of his talk: “We meet today in the shadow of continuing counterinsurgencies that have cost thousands of lives and a fortune in financial, moral and political capital. And we meet under the threat of similar insurgencies to come. Any smart future enemy will likely sidestep our unprecedented superiority in traditional, force-on-force, state-on-state warfare. And so insurgency, including terrorism, will be our enemies’ weapon of choice until we prove we can master it. Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, we are going to live this day over, and over, and over again—until we get it right.”192 Recognizing that “you cannot command what you do not control,” Kilcullen explained that “we need to create ‘unity of effort’ at best, and collaboration or deconfliction at least. This depends less on a shared command and control hierarchy, and more on a shared diagnosis of the problem, platforms for collaboration, information sharing and deconfliction. Each player must understand the others’ strengths, weaknesses, capabilities and objectives, and inter-agency teams must be structured for versatility (the ability to perform a wide variety of tasks) and agility (the ability to transition rapidly and smoothly between tasks).”193 One proposed framework for such “inter-agency counterinsurgency operations, as a means to creating such a shared diagnosis, is the ‘three pillars’ model,”194 as depicted in Figure 4.3. As Kilcullen describes, his proposed trinitarian framework “helps people see where their efforts fit into a campaign, rather than telling them what to do in a given situation”; “provides a basis for measuring progress and is

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Establish, Consolidate, Transfer

CONTROL Tempo

Violence

Stability

SECURITY

POLITICAL

ECONOMIC

Military

Mobilization

Police

Governance Extension Effectiveness Legitimacy

Humanitarian Assistance

Human Security Public Safety

Institutional Capacity

Population Security

Societal Reintegration

Intelligence Information Ops Media Ops

INFORMATION

Development Assistance Resource & Infrastructure Management Growth Capacity Counter-ideology Counter-sanctuary Counter-motivation

Global, Regional, Local

Figure 4.3 David J. Kilcullen’s three pillars of counterinsurgency. Source: www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/uscoin/3pillars_of_counterinsurgency. pdf.

an aid to collaboration rather than an operational plan”; and “applies not only to counterinsurgency but also to peace operations, Stabilization and Reconstruction, and complex humanitarian emergencies.”195 His model is thus “structured as a base (Information), three pillars (Security, Political and Economic) and a roof (control),” building upon “classical” COIN theory while also incorporating the “best practices that have emerged through experience in peacekeeping, development, fragile states and complex emergencies in the past several decades.”196 Kilcullen notes that “[w]ithin this ‘three pillars’ model, information is the basis for all other activities,” explaining this is “because perception is crucial in developing control and influence over population groups. Substantive security, political and economic measures are critical but to be effective they must rest upon, and integrate with a broader information strategy. Every action in counterinsurgency sends a message; the purpose of the information campaign is to consolidate and unify this message.”197 As he elaborated, this information foundation “includes intelligence collection, analysis and distribution, information operations, media operations (including public diplomacy) and measures to counter insurgent motivation, sanctuary and ideology. It also includes efforts to understand the environment through census data, public

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opinion polling, collection of cultural and ‘human terrain’ information in denied areas. And it involves understanding the effects of our operations on the population, adversaries and the environment.”198 He adds that “until an information base is developed, the other pillars of counterinsurgency cannot be effective. Importantly, the information campaign has to be conducted at a global, regional and local level—because modern insurgents draw upon global networks of sympathy, support, funding and recruitment.”199 Kilcullen had probed the complex strategic environment of asymmetric warfare in his 2004 FLOC for the ADF, and in his September 2006 talk he presented a graphical representation of the conflict ecosystem of complex warfare, featured in Figure 4.4. This was but one of many efforts to present the dizzying complexity of contemporary warfare in a graphical form. An even more infamous representation (see Figure 4.5) made its way around the internet and the conventional media in April 2010, and came to embody not only the complexity of war but the distracting complexity of PowerPoint as a medium for conveying strategic information. The image was so complex that the New York Times reported that the Defense Department had “declared war on PowerPoint,” and that Theater of Operations

Coalition Agencies

National Army

Foreign Recruits

Open/Porous System boundaries

National government

Coalition Forces

International Media

Armed Private Contractors

Propaganda

Terrorist Local Cells media National Ethnic Police International militia Organizations Trained/radicalized Smugglers Businesses fighters NGOs

Equipment Weapons & ammo

Funds

Insurgent Group A

Ethnic group Sympathy & support

Tribe Tribe

Refugees

Insurgent Group B

Clan

Mafia Tribal fighters

Frontier infiltrators Refugees/DPs

Figure 4.4 The conflict ecosystem as visualized by Kilcullen. Source: www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/uscoin/3pillars_of_counterinsurgency. pdf.

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Coalition Execution Capacity & Priorities

Coalition Appropriate Balance of Effort & Force

US Domestic Perceived Cost/Benefit & Support

Central Gov’t Institutional & Execution Capacity

Coalition Dev. OpsInfrasturcture Services Econ. Advisory& Aid

Gov’t Contractor Corruption & Tribal Favoritism

Corruption Tribal Favoritism

Structures & Beliefs

Gov’t Integration of Local Tribal Structures

Relative Message Impact Gov’t vs Ins

Relative Message Quality Gov’t vs Ins.

Provide Humanitarian Relief

message Amplification Gov’t vs, Ins

Perceived Damages/Use of Force by Gov’t & Coalition

Expectations for Security, Services, & Employment

Population Sympathizing wl Gov’t

Civilian Services (SWET, Healthcare, Education)

Illegit Agric Production, Trade & Employment

Population Basic Needs Service Levels & Employment Legit vs. illegit Relative Economic Opportunity

Fraction of Workforce And Agric, Legitvs illegit

Population Actively Supporting Insurgency

Narcotics & Criminal Activity Levels

WORKING DRAFT – V3

Duration of Operation

NARCOTICS

Economic activity, Trade & Employment

INFRASTRUCTURE, SERVICES & ECONOMY

Legit Other Production & Services Non-Agric

Insurgent Terrain Advantage Criminal/ Trafficking Capability & Coercion

Likelihood of Crime/Violence /Ins. Support for Payment

Legit Agric Production

Terrain Harshness & Breadth

Population Sympathizing w’ Insurgents

Funding & Material Support to Insurgents

Private Sector Workforce Skill & Avail

Potential Attractiveness of Gov’t vs. Insurgent Path

Neutral/On the Fence

Relative Popular Support/ Tolerance Govt vs Insurgents

Narcotics & Other Criminal Funding

Insurgent Recruiting, Retention, Manpower & ISR

Counter-Narcotics/ Crime Ops

Population/Popular Support Infrastructure, Economy, & Services Government Afghanistan Security Forces Insurgents Crime and Narcotics Coalition Forces & Actions Physical Environment

INSURGENTS Files to

Infrastructure Dev. Adequacy & Sustainment

POPULAR SUPPORT

Visible Gains In Security, Services & Employment

Outside Support/ Enablement of Ins.

Ins. Leadership, Training, Skill & Experience

Havens/Ability to Operate

Insurgent Capacity, Priorities & Effectiveness

Coordination Among Ins, Factions

Population Actively Supporting Gov’t & SF

Satisfaction wf Gains in Security, Services & Employment

Perception of Gov’t Strength & Intent

Infr, Services, Econ. Policy & Execution /Perceived Fairness

Ability to Reconcile Religious Ideology, Tribal Structures w Gov’t Average Path Connectedness Perceived of Population Security

Perception of Coalition Intent & Commitment

Fear of Ins. Attack/ Repercussions

Significant Delay

OUTSIDE SUPPORT TO INSURGENT FACTIONS

Ins. Targeted Attacks on Progress/ Support for Gov’t

Ins. Provision Of Gov’T & Services

Perception of Insurgent Strength &

Perceived Damages & Use of Force by Ins.

Ins. Offensives & Presence (Clear & Hold)

Fear of Gov’t /ANSF/ Coalition Repercussions

Territory Not Under Gov’t Control (Afghan & Pakistan)

Ins. Damages & Casualties

POPULATION CONDITIONS & BELIEFS

Ins. Strategic CommuitO & Affiliation wl Population

Cultural Erosion/ Displacement

Ethnic/Tribal Rivalry

Strenght of Religious Ideology & Tribal Structures

Western Affiliation Backlash

OVERALL GOVERNMENT CAPACITY

R.O.L. Policy Execution & Perceived Fairness

TRIBAL GOVERNANCE

Tax Revenues

ANSF Appropriate Use of Force

Targeted Strikes Sweep Ops (Clear) Policing & Security Ops (Hold)

ANSF INSTITUTIONAL

Gov’t Security Policy Quality & Investment

ANSF Training & Mentoring

Total Security Force Capacity & Focus

Priorities & Effectiveness

ANSF Capacity,

ISR/Open Source Ops

ANSF Avg Professionalism Skill, Discipline, & Morale

ANSF Unit Leadership & Tactical Capacity

Gov’t Training Mentoring, Gov’t Vetting, and workforce Hiring Skill & Avail Transparency Gov’t Overall Gov’t of Gov’t Professionalism Reach, Processes & Policy Quality Execution Investments & Fairness Capacity & Investment

Adequacy

CENTRAL GOV’T Funding

COALITION DOMESTIC SUPPORT

US Domestic/ Int’l Stategic Commun & Di

Breadth of Coalition & Support

US Gov’t Support for Operation

Coalition/Homeland Acceptance of Afghan Methods

ANSF Coalition Funding Visibility to Adequacy Population

ANSF Advisory & Aid

ANSF Manpower Recruiting & Coalition Retention Adjustment of Approach to Fit Afghan ANSF Institutional & Coalition Execution Dev. Ops- Capacity

Coalition Dev. OpsGov’t Advisory & Aid

Coalition COIN Support Strategy & Unity

COALITION CAPACITY & PRIORITIES

Coalition Avg COIN Experience & Skill

Coalition Knowledge & Underst of Social Structures Duration of Operation

ANSF TACTICAL

ANSF& Coalition Damages/ Casualties

=

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Figure 4.5 Afghanistan stability/COIN dynamics.200

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former Afghan war chief, US Army Gen. (ret.) Stanley A. McChrystal was quoted as saying: “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war.”201 US Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, Joint Forces commander, put it more bluntly: “PowerPoint makes us stupid.”202 And as Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster put it: “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”203 Kilcullen not only embeds COIN into a wider framework of information- and netcentric warfare central to the new era of complex warfighting, but molds this new strategic landscape onto a classical trinitarian structure that resembles not only Clausewitz’s famous “Trinity of War” with its complex interactions, but the broader realist conception of political order articulated so well by Machiavelli but which also traces back to classical times. Kilcullen thus fosters a synthesis of realism and complexity theory, pulling key elements of each into his strategic theory of COIN in the information age. Like Clausewitz’s classic trinity, balance is essential for strategic victory: “Resting on this base are three pillars of equal importance,” and “unless they are developed in parallel, the campaign becomes unbalanced: too much economic assistance with inadequate security, for example, simply creates an array of soft targets for the insurgents. Similarly, too much security assistance without political consensus or governance simply creates more capable armed groups. In developing each pillar, we measure progress by gauging effectiveness (capability and capacity) and legitimacy (the degree to which the population accepts that government actions are in its interest).”204 Kilcullen defines each of the pillars. The security pillar “comprises military security (securing the population from attack or intimidation by guerrillas, bandits, terrorists or other armed groups) and police security (community policing, police intelligence or “Special Branch” activities, and paramilitary police field forces)” and “also incorporates human security, building a framework of human rights, civil institutions and individual protections, public safety (fire, ambulance, sanitation, civil defense) and population security.”205 The political pillar “focuses on mobilizing support,” and as with “the other pillars, legitimacy and effectiveness are the principal dimensions in which it is developed. It comprises efforts to mobilize stakeholders in support of the government, marginalize insurgents and other groups, extend governance and further the rule of law. A key element is the building of institutional capacity in all agencies of

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government and non-government civil institutions, and social reintegration efforts such as the disarming, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of combatants.”206 And the economic pillar includes a near-term component of immediate humanitarian relief, as well as longer-term programs for development assistance across a range of agricultural, industrial, and commercial activities. Assistance in effective resource and infrastructure management, including construction of key infrastructure systems, is critically important. And tailoring efforts to the society’s capacity to absorb spending, as well as efforts to increase absorptive capacity, underpin other development activities.207 Kilcullen explains that the three pillars “support the overarching objective of control, which—as we have seen—is the counterinsurgent’s fundamental aim,” and not “simply to create stability” without a proper and enduring balance, much as President Bush told the United Nations in a speech cited by Kilcullen, “when he observed that ‘on 9/11, we realized that years of pursuing stability to promote peace left us with neither. Instead, the lack of freedom made the Middle East an incubator for terrorism. The pre-9/11 status quo was dangerous and unacceptable.’”208 And, adds Kilcullen, “even if we do seek stability, we seek it as a means to an end, a step on the way to regaining control over an out-of-control environment, rather than as an end in itself.”209 Before there can be a restoration of order, regaining control is essential, so that chaos can be tamed: “In achieving control, we typically seek to manage the tempo of activity, the level of violence, and the degree of stability in the environment. The intent is not to reduce violence to zero or to kill every insurgent, but rather to return the overall system to normality—noting that ‘normality’ in one society may look different from normality in another. In each case, we seek not only to establish control, but also to consolidate that control and then transfer it to permanent, effective and legitimate institutions.”210 Kilcullen is modest in his claims for his “three pillars,” noting that all models “are systematic oversimplifications of reality,” but he holds out hope that “this, or something like it, might be a basis for further development.”211 The ingredients for order mesh nicely with the enduring realist vision; his modification is to update the elemental trinity of order for the information age, and for the operational challenges inherent in asymmetrical warfare in our age of complex warfare.

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Twenty-Eight Articles: From Theory to Practice; Reducing Complexity to Actionable Maxims In a move that further demonstrates his theoretical vigor, Kilcullen boiled down the principles of COIN in an era of complex warfare into his widely read “Twenty-Eight Articles,” a 6,500 word compendium for junior officers engaged in the COIN fight that was written on March 29, 2006, initially circulated by email amongst American soldiers, and then published in the Military Review Marine Corps Gazette, and IoSphere before being added to FM 3–24 as Annex A. This work is reminiscent of many of history’s famous short handbooks meant to guide strategic action, such as Clausewitz’s early treatise Principles of War, which he authored for his young Crown Prince, or Sun Tzu’s classic Art of War, or even Machiavelli’s infamous handbook of power-politics, The Prince, which included his famous exhortation to Prince Lorenzo de Medici, “Chapter XXVI: An Exhortation to Free Italy from the Hands of the Barbarians,” and thus to unify his fractured Italy. And though lost, one can imagine Aristotle’s rumored book on kingship for the young Alexander was similarly conceived: brief, to the point, and designed to be effective under fire. As Kilcullen noted at the end of his brief treatise, it was “[w]ritten from field notes compiled in Baghdad, Tajji and Kuwait City, 2006.”212 Kilcullen introduces his “Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency” by noting: “Your company has just been warned for deployment on counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. You have read David Galula, T. E. Lawrence and Robert Thompson. You have studied FM 3–24 and now understand the history, philosophy and theory of counterinsurgency. You watched Black Hawk Down and The Battle of Algiers, and you know this will be the most difficult challenge of your life. But what does all the theory mean, at the company level? How do the principles translate into action—at night, with the GPS down, the media criticizing you, the locals complaining in a language you don’t understand, and an unseen enemy killing your people by ones and twos? How does counterinsurgency actually happen?”213 He admits that “[t]here are no universal answers, and insurgents are among the most adaptive opponents you will ever face. Countering them will demand every ounce of your intellect. But be comforted: you are not the first to feel this way. There are tactical fundamentals you can apply, to link the theory with the techniques and procedures you already know.”214 He defines COIN succinctly as “a competition with the insurgent for the

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right and the ability to win the hearts, minds and acquiescence of the population. You are being sent in because the insurgents, at their strongest, can defeat anything weaker than you. But you have more combat power than you can or should use in most situations. Injudicious use of firepower creates blood feuds, homeless people and societal disruption that fuels and perpetuates the insurgency. The most beneficial actions are often local politics, civic action, and beat-cop behaviors. For your side to win, the people do not have to like you but they must respect you, accept that your actions benefit them, and trust your integrity and ability to deliver on promises, particularly regarding their security. In this battlefield popular perceptions and rumor are more influential than the facts and more powerful than a hundred tanks.”215 He adds: “Within this context, what follows are observations from collective experience: the distilled essence of what those who went before you learned. They are expressed as commandments, for clarity—but are really more like folklore. Apply them judiciously and skeptically.”216 He noted that “[t]ime is short during pre-deployment, but you will never have more time to think than you have now. Now is your chance to prepare yourself and your command,” and started off with his first maxim: “1. Know your turf. Know the people, the topography, economy, history, religion and culture. Know every village, road, field, population group, tribal leader and ancient grievance. Your task is to become the world expert on your district. If you don’t know precisely where you will be operating, study the general area. Read the map like a book: study it every night before sleep, and re-draw it from memory every morning, until you understand its patterns intuitively.”217 Kilcullen adds: “Neglect this knowledge, and it will kill you.”218 Like Sun Tzu’s ancient wisdom: “It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle” and Mao’s more modern reformulation for revolutionary guerrilla warfare, Kilcullen emphasizes the strategic importance of knowing, embedding successful COIN in a philosophy of knowledge that echoes a faint Foucaldian notion of “pouvoir-savoir,” or “power-knowledge,” his conception on the strategic dimensions of knowledge that is every bit as dynamic and interactive as Clausewitz’s aphorism tying war and politics together in a duality as complex as Einstein’s mass–energy equivalency or Heisenberg’s wave– particle duality.

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Similarly, Kilcullen next advises analyzing this new knowledge: “2. Diagnose the problem. Once you know your area and its people, you can begin to diagnose the problem. Who are the insurgents? What drives them? What makes local leaders tick? . . . You need to know why and how the insurgents are getting followers. This means you need to know your real enemy, not a cardboard cut-out. The enemy is adaptive, resourceful and probably grew up in the region where you will operate. The locals have known him since he was a boy—how long have they known you? Your worst opponent is not the psychopathic terrorist of Hollywood, it is the charismatic follow-me warrior who would make your best platoon leader. His followers are not misled or naïve: much of his success is due to bad government policies or security forces that alienate the population. Work this problem collectively with your platoon and squad leaders. Discuss ideas, explore the problem, understand what you are facing, and seek a consensus. If this sounds un-military, get over it. Once you are in theater, situations will arise too quickly for orders, or even commander’s intent. Corporals and privates will have to make snap judgments with strategic impact. The only way to help them is to give them a shared understanding, then trust them to think for themselves on the day.”219 Next, Kilcullen writes, probe more deeply, pushing your knowledge even further: “3. Organize for intelligence,” since “[i]n counterinsurgency, killing the enemy is easy. Finding him is often nearly impossible. Intelligence and operations are complementary. Your operations will be intelligence driven, but intelligence will come mostly from your own operations, not as a ‘product’ prepared and served up by higher headquarters. So you must organize for intelligence. You will need a company S2 and intelligence section—including analysts. You may need platoon S2s and S3s, and you will need a reconnaissance and surveillance element. You will not have enough linguists, you never do—but consider carefully where best to employ them. Linguists are a battle-winning asset: but like any other scarce resource you must have a prioritized ‘bump plan’ in case you lose them. Often during pre-deployment the best use of linguists is to train your command in basic language. You will probably not get augmentation for all this: but you must still do it. Put the smartest soldiers in the S2 section and the R&S squad. You will have one less rifle squad: but the intelligence section will pay for itself in lives and effort saved.”220 After counselling on effective use of knowledge, Kilcullen turns to complexity, and the necessity for interagency operations as he had espoused in his 2004 FLOC: “4. Organize for interagency operations,” as

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“Almost everything in counterinsurgency is interagency. And everything important—from policing to intelligence to civil–military operations to trash collection—will involve your company working with civilian actors and local indigenous partners you cannot control, but whose success is essential for yours.”221 His advice moves on to tactical insights, including “5. Travel light and harden your CSS,” since “in lightening your load, make sure you can always ‘reach back’ to call for firepower or heavy support if needed. Also, remember to harden your CSS. The enemy will attack your weakest points. Most attacks on coalition forces in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, outside pre-planned combat actions like the two battles of Fallujah or Operation Iron Horse, were against CSS installations and convoys. You do the math. Ensure your CSS assets are hardened, have communications, and are trained in combat operations. They may do more fighting than your rifle squads.”222 As well, “6. Find a political/cultural adviser. In a force optimized for counterinsurgency, you might receive a political/cultural adviser at company level: a diplomat or military foreign area officer, able to speak the language and navigate the intricacies of local politics. Back on planet Earth, the Corps and Division commander will get a POLAD: you will not, so you must improvise. Find a political/cultural adviser from among your people—perhaps an officer, perhaps not (see article 8). Someone with people skills and a ‘feel’ for the environment will do better than a political science graduate. . . . Also, don’t give one of your intelligence people this role. They can help, but their task is to understand the environment—the political adviser’s job is to help shape it.”223 Next, “7. Train the squad leaders—then trust them. Counterinsurgency is a squad and platoon leader’s war, and often a private soldier’s war. Battles are won or lost in moments: whoever can bring combat power to bear in seconds, on a street corner, will win. The commander on the spot controls the fight.”224 And “8. Rank is nothing: talent is everything. Not everyone is good at counterinsurgency. Many people don’t understand the concept, and some who do can’t execute it. It is difficult, and in a conventional force only a few people will master it. Anyone can learn the basics, but a few ‘naturals’ do exist. Learn how to spot these people and put them into positions where they can make a difference.”225 And last among his pre-deployment maxims, “9. Have a game plan. The final preparation task is to develop a game plan: a mental picture of how you see the operation developing. You will be tempted to try and do this too early. But wait: as your knowledge improves, you will get a better idea of what needs to be done, and of your own limitations. Like any plan, this

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plan will change once you hit the ground, and may need to be scrapped if there is a major shift in the environment. But you still need a plan, and the process of planning will give you a simple robust idea of what to achieve, even if the methods change.”226 Kilcullen next discusses post-deployment, or “The Golden Hour,” noting, “You have deployed, completed reception and staging, and (if you are lucky) attended the in-country counterinsurgency school. Now it is time to enter your sector and start your tour. This is the golden hour. Mistakes made now will haunt you for the rest of the tour, while early successes will set the tone for victory. You will look back on your early actions and cringe at your clumsiness. So be it: but you must act.”227 He starts off by counseling, “10. Be there. The first rule of deployment in counterinsurgency is to be there. You can almost never outrun the enemy. If you are not present when an incident happens, there is usually little you can do about it. So your first order of business is to establish presence. If you cannot do this throughout your sector, then do it wherever you can. This demands a residential approach— living in your sector, in close proximity to the population, rather than raiding into the area from remote, secure bases. Movement on foot, sleeping in local villages, night patrolling: all these seem more dangerous than they are. They establish links with the locals, who see you as real people they can trust and do business with, not as aliens who descend from an armored box. Driving around in an armored convoy—day-tripping like a tourist in hell—degrades situational awareness, makes you a target and is ultimately more dangerous.”228 He further advises, “11. Avoid knee jerk responses to first impressions”; “12. Prepare for handover from Day One”; “13. Build trusted networks”; “14. Start easy”; “15. Seek early victories”; “16. Practise deterrent patrolling”; “17. Be prepared for setbacks”; and “18. Remember the global audience,” as: “One of the biggest differences between the counterinsurgencies our fathers fought and those we face today is the omnipresence of globalized media. Most houses in Iraq have one or more satellite dishes. Web bloggers, print, radio and television reporters and others are monitoring and commenting on your every move. When the insurgents ambush your patrols or set off a car bomb, they do so not to destroy one more track, but because they want graphic images of a burning vehicle and dead bodies for the evening news. Beware the ‘scripted enemy,’ who plays to a global audience and seeks to defeat you in the court of global public opinion. You counter this by training people to always bear in mind the global audience, assume that everything they say or do will be publicized, and befriend the media. Get the press on-side: help them get their story, and trade information with them.”229

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He further counsels: “19. Engage the women, beware the children,” noting: “Most insurgent fighters are men. But in traditional societies, women are hugely influential in forming the social networks that insurgents use for support. Co-opting neutral or friendly women, through targeted social and economic programs, builds networks of enlightened self-interest that eventually undermine the insurgents. You need your own female counterinsurgents, including interagency people, to do this effectively. Win the women, and you own the family unit. Own the family, and you take a big step forward in mobilizing the population. Conversely, though, stop your people fraternizing with local children. Your troops are homesick; they want to drop their guard with the kids. But children are sharp-eyed, lacking in empathy, and willing to commit atrocities their elders would shrink from. The insurgents are watching: they will notice a growing friendship between one of your people and a local child, and either harm the child as punishment, or use them against you.”230 Further, he advises: “20. Take stock regularly. You probably already know that a ‘body count’ tells you little, because you usually cannot know how many insurgents there were to start with, how many moved into the area, transferred from supporter to combatant status or how many new fighters the conflict has created. But you still need to develop metrics early in the tour and refine them as the operation progresses. They should cover a range of social, informational, military and economic issues. Use metrics intelligently to form an overall impression of progress—not in a mechanistic ‘traffic light’ fashion. Typical metrics include: percentage of engagements initiated by our forces versus those initiated by insurgents; longevity of friendly local leaders in positions of authority; number and quality of tip-offs on insurgent activity that originate spontaneously from the population; economic activity at markets and shops. These mean virtually nothing as a snapshot—trends over time are the true indicators of progress in your sector.”231 Next Kilcullen discusses the mid-deployment phase, or “Groundhog Day,” noting: “Now you are in ‘steady state.’ You are established in your sector, and people are settling into that ‘groundhog day’ mentality that hits every unit at some stage during every tour. It will probably take people at least the first third of the tour to become effective in the environment, if not longer. Then in the last period you will struggle against the shorttimer mentality. So this middle part of the tour is the most productive— but keeping the flame alive, and bringing the local population along with you, takes immense leadership.”232 During this phase, he advises, “21. Exploit a ‘single narrative,” noting that “[s]ince counterinsurgency is a

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competition to mobilize popular support, it pays to know how people are mobilized. In most societies there are opinion-makers: local leaders, pillars of the community, religious figures, media personalities, and others who set trends and influence public perceptions. This influence— including the pernicious influence of the insurgents—often takes the form of a ‘single narrative’: a simple, unifying, easily-expressed story or explanation that organizes people’s experience and provides a framework for understanding events. Nationalist and ethnic historical myths, or sectarian creeds, provide such a narrative. The Iraqi insurgents have one, as do al-Qa’ida and the Taliban. To undercut their influence you must exploit an alternative narrative: or better yet, tap into an existing narrative that excludes the insurgents.”233 And while “[t]his narrative is often worked out for you by higher headquarters,” Kilcullen notes that “only you have the detailed knowledge to tailor the narrative to local conditions and generate leverage from it. For example, you might use a nationalist narrative to marginalize foreign fighters in your area, or a narrative of national redemption to undermine former regime elements that have been terrorizing the population. At the company level, you do this in baby steps, by getting to know local opinion-makers, winning their trust, learning what motivates them and building on this to find a single narrative that emphasizes the inevitability and rightness of your ultimate success. This is art, not science.”234 Next, he counsels, “22. Local forces should mirror the enemy, not ourselves,” noting that “[b]y this stage, you will be working closely with local forces, training or supporting them, and building indigenous capability. The natural tendency is to build forces in our own image, with the aim of eventually handing our role over to them. This is a mistake. Instead, local indigenous forces need to mirror the enemy’s capabilities, and seek to supplant the insurgent’s role. This does not mean they should be ‘irregular’ in the sense of being brutal, or outside proper control. Rather, they should move, equip and organize like the insurgents—but have access to your support and be under the firm control of their parent societies.”235 Further, Kilcullen advises, “23. Practise armed civil affairs,” noting that COIN is “armed social work; an attempt to redress basic social and political problems while being shot at. This makes civil affairs a central counterinsurgency activity, not an afterthought. It is how you restructure the environment to displace the enemy from it.”236 When implementing civil affairs programs, he counsels, “24. Small is beautiful,” noting: “Another natural tendency is to go for largescale, mass programs. In particular, we have a tendency to template ideas that succeed in one area and transplant them into another, and we tend

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to take small programs that work and try to replicate them on a larger scale. Again, this is usually a mistake—often programs succeed because of specific local conditions of which we are unaware, or because their very smallness kept them below the enemy’s radar and helped them flourish unmolested. At the company level, programs that succeed in one district often also succeed in another (because the overall company sector is small), but small-scale projects rarely proceed smoothly into large programs. Keep programs small: this makes them cheap, sustainable, low-key and (importantly) recoverable if they fail.”237 Kilcullen advises, “25. Fight the enemy’s strategy, not his forces,” since “provoking major combat usually plays into the enemy’s hands by undermining the population’s confidence. Instead, attack the enemy’s strategy: if he is seeking to recapture the allegiance of a segment of the local population, then co-opt them against him. If he is trying to provoke a sectarian conflict, go over to ‘peace enforcement mode.’ The permutations are endless but the principle is the same—fight the enemy’s strategy, not his forces.”238 Further, Kilcullen advises, “26. Build your own solution—only attack the enemy when he gets in the way,” and thus “[t]ry not to be distracted, or forced into a series of reactive moves, by a desire to kill or capture the insurgents. Your aim should be to implement your own solution—the ‘game plan’ you developed early in the campaign, and then refined through interaction with local partners. Your approach must be environment-centric (based on dominating the whole district and implementing a solution to its systemic problems) rather than enemy-centric. This means that, particularly late in the campaign, you may need to learn to negotiate with the enemy. . . . This helps you wind down the insurgency without alienating potential local allies who have relatives or friends in the insurgent movement. At this stage, a defection is better than a surrender, a surrender is better than a capture, and a capture is better than a kill.”239 Lastly, as the tour approaches its end, and time is “Getting Short,” Kilcullen notes: “Time is short, and the tour is drawing to a close. The key problem now is keeping your people focused, preventing them from dropping their guard and maintaining the rage on all the multifarious programs, projects and operations that you have started. In this final phase, the previous articles still stand, but there is an important new one: “27. Keep your extraction plan secret. The temptation to talk about home becomes almost unbearable toward the end of a tour. The locals know you are leaving, and probably have a better idea than you of the generic extraction plan—remember, they have seen units come and go. But you must protect the specific details of the extraction plan, or the

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enemy will use this as an opportunity to score a high-profile hit, re-capture the population’s allegiance by scare tactics that convince them they will not be protected once you leave, or persuade them that your successor unit will be oppressive or incompetent.”240 He adds some advice on when things go wrong—as they invariably will at some point during the tour: “What do you do? Here is where having a flexible, adaptive game plan comes in. Just as the insurgents drop down to a lower posture when things go wrong, now is the time to drop back a stage, consolidate, regain your balance and prepare to expand again when the situation allows.”241 Kilcullen closes his brief treatise on COIN in action with these final words: “This, then, is the tribal wisdom, the folklore which those who went before you have learned. Like any folklore it needs interpretation, and contains seemingly contradictory advice. Over time, as you apply unremitting intellectual effort to study your sector, you will learn to apply these ideas in your own way, and will add to this store of wisdom from your own observations and experience. So only one article remains; and if you remember nothing else, remember this: ‘28. Whatever else you do, keep the initiative. In counterinsurgency, the initiative is everything. If the enemy is reacting to you, you control the environment. Provided you mobilize the population, you will win. If you are reacting to the enemy— even if you are killing or capturing him in large numbers—then he is controlling the environment and you will eventually lose. In counterinsurgency, the enemy initiates most attacks, targets you unexpectedly and withdraws too fast for you to react. Do not be drawn into purely reactive operations: focus on the population, build your own solution, further your game plan and fight the enemy only when he gets in the way. This gains and keeps the initiative.’ ”242

Notes 1

See the now iconic visual depiction of Barnett’s conception of the Pentagon’s “New Map” at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pentagons_new_map. jpg. 2–8 Thomas P. M. Barnett, “The Pentagon’s New Map,” Esquire , March 1, 2003, www.esquire.com/ESQ0303-MAR_WARPRIMER?click=main_sr. 9–34 Sebastian L.v. Gorka, “The Age of Irregular Warfare: So What?” Joint Force Quarterly, No. 58 (July 2010), www.ndu.edu/press/irregular-warfare.html. 35–51 Thomas A. Marks, Sebastian L.v. Gorka, and Robert Sharp, “Getting the Next War Right: Beyond Population-centric Warfare,” Prism 1, No. 3 (June 2010), www.ndu.edu/press/getting-next-war-right.html

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52 Lt. Gen. Richard A. Chilcoat, Foreword, Thomas J. Czerwinski, ed., Coping with the Bounds: Speculations on Nonlinearity in Military Affairs (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1998), iv 53–55 Thomas J. Czerwinski, Introduction, Coping with the Bounds: Speculations on Nonlinearity in Military Affairs (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1998), 1–2; 2; 3. 56–61 David S. Alberts and Thomas J. Czerwinski, Preface, Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1997), www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc. pdf&AD=ADA460550, iii; iii; iii; iii; iv; iv. 62–68 James N. Rosenau, “Chapter 4: Many Damn Things Simultaneously: Complexity Theory and World Affairs,” in David S. Alberts and Thomas J. Czerwinski, eds, Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1997), www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRD oc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA460550, 36; 36; 36; 39; 39; 39, citing James H. Holland, Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 98; 39, citing R. David Smith, “The Inapplicability Principle: What Chaos Means for Social Science,” Behavioral Science 40 (1995), 30. 69–88 Alvin M. Saperstein, “Complexity, Chaos, and National Security Policy: Metaphors or Tools?”, David S. Alberts and Thomas J. Czerwinski, eds, Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1997), www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location= U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA460550, 44; 44; 44–45; 45; 45; 45; 45; 45; 45–46; 46; 46; 55; 55; 55; 55; 55; 55; 57; 57; 58. 89–91 Steven M. Rinaldi, “Chapter 10: Complexity Theory and Airpower: A New Paradigm for Airpower in the 21st Century,” David S. Alberts and Thomas J. Czerwinski, eds., Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1997), www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc ?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA460550, 116; 116–17; 117. 92 Harry R. Yarger, “Strategic Theory for the 21st Century: The Little Book on Big Strategy,” Strategic Studies Institute, February 2006, www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/download.cfm?q=641. 93–99 Yarger, “Strategic Theory for the 21st Century,” 17; 17; 28–9; 35; 36; 38; 38–9. 100–113 David J. Kilcullen, Future Land Operating Concept: Complex Warfighting, April 7, 2004, www.quantico.usmc.mil/download.aspx? . . . complex_warfighting, 1; 2; 2–3; 3; 3; 3; 3; 3; 3; 4; 4; 5; 5; 6–7. 114 David J. Kilcullen, “Counterinsurgency Redux,” Survival 48 (Winter 2006–7), 111, www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/kilcullen1.pdf. 115–142 David J. Kilcullen, “Complex Warfighting,” Future Land Operating Concept , 7; 7; 7; 7; 8; 8; 8; 8; 9–10; 10; 10; 10; 14; 14; 15; 15; 15–16; 17; 17; 17–18; 18; 18; 18; 18; 19; Annex A, 25; Annex C, 1–4; 24. 143–173 David J. Kilcullen, “Countering Global Insurgency: A Strategy for the War on Terrorism,” November 30, 2004, www.smallwars.quantico.usmc.mil/ search/articles/counteringglobalinsurgency.pdf, 21; 21; 21; 21–22; 22; 22; 22; 22; 22; 23; 23; 23; 23;23; 23; 24; 24; 24; 24–25; 24; 25; 25; 25; 25; 25; 25; 25; 25; 25; 26; 26.

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Kilcullen, “Counterinsurgency Redux.” Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone , June 22, 2010, www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236?RS_show_page=3. 187–191 Kilcullen, “Counterinsurgency Redux.” 192–199 David J. Kilcullen, “Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency,” Remarks presented to the U.S. Government Conference on Counterinsurgency, Washington, DC, September 28, 2006. 200 This controversial slide presented to former Afghan war chief Stanley McChrystal just a few weeks before he was recalled quickly went viral—gaining worldwide media attention and fostering much discussion on the complexity of war and the limitations inherent in PowerPoint slides to capture this complexity, as discussed on the US military’s Combined Arms Center (CAC) blog. 201–203 Elisabeth Bumiller, “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint,” New York Times, April 26, 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint. html?_r=1. 204–211 David J. Kilcullen, “Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency,” Remarks presented to the US Government Conference on Counterinsurgency, Washington, DC, September 28, 2006. 212–242 David J, Kilcullen, “Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of CompanyLevel Counterinsurgency,” March 1, 2006, usacac.army.mil/cac2/coin/. . ./28_ Articles_of_COIN-Kilcullen(Mar06).pdf. 186

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Chapter 5

The Tribal Foundations of Order

Restoring World Order, One Tribe at a Time Tribal wisdom of another sort has emerged from the complexity of the Long War and in particular the experience of counterinsurgency on the ground in what more than one observer has ominously called the “graveyard of empires,” Afghanistan. And that wisdom is a more literal knowledge of tribalism, and its endurance into the contemporary world. On the long and often violent road to Westphalia, realists long yearned for a more durable order anchored by the sovereign state, whose rise— they theorized—brought an end to civil chaos and domestic strife. But the actual experience of evolving beyond the polis unfolded in a decidedly nonlinear fashion, with Alexander’s bold but unsuccessful bid for universal empire coming quickly on the heels of the fratricidal interpolis bloodletting of the Peloponnesian War and only a generation after Plato enunciated his vision of the just and ordered city in The Republic that defined the world of the city-state but not much more. From city to empire and then back to a new era of chaos as Alexander’s empire fractured into components not much larger than the eventual nationstates that emerged at Westphalia as the fundamental building block of the modern world; in between, the size of the constituent parts of the world order evolved haphazardly, with the medieval period introducing nonlinear conceptions of sovereignty that were not geographically contiguous, in what may be thought of as a precursor to today’s aspirational “virtual states,” those neomedieval entities that theorists like Kilcullen postulate to be the objective of a victorious al Qaeda—a modern, complex, global Caliphate not unlike the medieval realm of Christendom with its complex, far-reaching, and cross-cutting identities and loyalties connecting a patchwork of polities of various stripes. The journey from the polis to the contemporary polity was, to be sure, a bumpy ride, and the rise of the modern state, while the culminating

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point for many realists as the ultimate, triumphant building block for a stable world order, was not everywhere uniform, so much so that in many countries today—especially those that are considered failed, rogue, or weak states and are thus primary conflict zones of the Long War— the state is still largely the figment of an overactive imagination, even if endowed with diplomatic recognition and a UN seat. In such places, where we perceive chaos and complexity, and presume a sovereign emptiness embodied by such phrases as “ungoverned spaces,” there may in fact be something quite contrary—something so simple that it took being there, and interacting with the peoples of these less modern and less developed lands, to recognize it for what it really is: the remnants of a tribal world, a pre-state world, not of sovereign cities at war with one another, but something pre-polis, and thus to a large measure pre-political and potentially pacific enough to reassert an Eden-like tranquility, much like the pre-Colombian Americas, a true paradise lost, not without war but without the destructive machinery of modern war, and thus innocent of the catastrophic destruction that accompanies total war. That is partly why the collision of the post-Westphalian world and the preColombian worlds was such a tragedy, a true Holocaust, more so than the European Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis in that it led to the obliteration of countless races and their now silenced traditions and forgotten memories; and it introduced two incompatible realities, as two hitherto isolated universes crossed paths, one consuming the other. In the mountains, and the forests, and the deserts of the world, where the Westphalian construct has yet to fully reach, the remnants of this prior, pristine, primordial world still exist, and still endeavor to impose order upon their world—not in terms of state sovereignty, but something antecedent: tribal sovereignty. This was recognized by Special Operations Forces (SOF) Major Jim Gant in his widely circulated paper “One Tribe at a Time: A Strategy for Success in Afghanistan,” which proposes the “tactical employment of small, well-trained units” of SOF “that, when combined with a larger effort, will have positive strategic implications.”1 Where Nagl saw hearts and minds needing to be won over, and Kilcullen saw the seeds of complexity requiring a delicate touch and an adaptive mind, Gant sees something much simpler. He thus proposes that small SOF units (and not netcentric, adaptive complex warriors well-versed in nonlinearity) leverage the underlying tribal topology of the war zone, finding in the enduring structure of tribal order all the ingredients required for rebuilding wartorn societies and restoring order of an enduring nature.

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He thus proposes several concepts including TETs (“Tribal Engagement Teams”), TTE (“Tactical Tribal Engagement”), TES (“Tribal Engagement Strategy”), and TSF (“Tribal Security Force”). He also introduces the Pashto word “Arbakai,” which he explains is “the Afghan term most used to describe the type of tribal element our TETs would advise, assist, train and lead.”2 The essence of Gant’s proposal is to partner with Afghan’s tribes, fostering an alliance network that recognizes the center of gravity that remains in the villages and not in Kabul, which like many Third World capital cities is populated by elites largely out of touch with village realities, not unlike the situation in Thailand where the Bangkok elite, largely royalists, found itself under siege by the village-based “Red Shirt” movement in early 2010. Aligning with Kabul and not the countryside will only mean aligning with a fictional aspiration of order and not the real center of gravity in Afghanistan, much as has happened in our effort to stand-up the Karzai government these past years. Gant instead proposes that America’s COIN effort be infused with the notion of “fight tactically—think strategically.”3 Gant fought with ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) 316 in Afghanistan as part of the 3rd Special Forces Group, which “fought together for several years in Afghanistan. We fought in the Konar and Helmand Provinces in early 2003 and again 2004.”4 After deployment to Iraq as “the first American combat advisor for an Iraqi National Police Quick Reaction Force (QRF) battalion,” he served as an “unconventional warfare (UW) instructor in the final phase of Special Forces training” for two years.5 His experiences in Afghanistan with ODA 316, and the experience of “tribal engagement between myself and Malik Noorafzhal, my team and the rest of his tribe,” served as the incubator for his analysis in “One Tribe at a Time.”6 As he explains: “We must work first and forever with the tribes, for they are the most important military, political and cultural unit in that country. The tribes are self-contained fighting units who will fight to the death for their tribal family’s honor and respect. Their intelligence and battlefield assessments are infallible. Their loyalty to family and friends is beyond question.”7 He adds that he and his unit “became family members with Malik Noorafzhal’s tribe,” and it was all they “accomplished as a family in mutual respect and purpose” that he presents as a “blueprint for success.”8 Indeed, as Gant recalls: “We demonstrated month in and month out that a small effective fighting force could unite with an Afghan tribe, become trusted and respected brothers-in-arms with their leaders and families, and make a difference in

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the U.S. effort in Afghanistan. In doing so, we discovered what I believe to be the seed of enduring success in that country.”9 In more than 8 years of war in Afghanistan, Gant notes the situation is not unlike that experienced by the United States in Vietnam, where we enjoyed tactical superiority but nonetheless faced a humbling strategic defeat. As Gant describes, in Afghanistan, American forces “have fought hard and accomplished some good. Tactically, we have not lost a battle. Despite the lethal sophistication of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threat, we defeat the Taliban in every engagement. But are we closer to our goals than we were eight years ago? Are the Afghan people closer to a stable way of life? Are we closer to our national strategic objectives there?”10 Gant concludes: “based on my time in Afghanistan—and my study of the region, tribes, counter-insurgency (COIN) and unconventional warfare (UW)—positive momentum in Afghanistan depends on the U.S. force’s support for the tribal systems already in place. Take it a step further and ‘advise, assist, train and lead’ tribal security forces (‘Arbakais’) much like we have been doing with the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) and Afghanistan National Police (ANP).”11 He further elaborates that “what must happen is a tribal movement supported by the U.S. which allows the tribal leaders and the tribes they represent to have access to the local, district, provincial, and national leadership. This process has to be a ‘bottom–up’ approach.”12 Because of the pervasive corruption in the Afghani government, the tribes require protection from the very central government that Americans have stood up; otherwise, the tribes will be compelled to turn to the Taliban as the only other viable authority to provide security: “If the national government cannot protect ‘us,’ if U.S. forces cannot protect us,’ if we cannot protect ourselves . . . the only answer is to side with the Taliban.”13 Gant believes that any “strategy in which the central government is the centerpiece of our counterinsurgency plan is destined to fail” since that “disenfranchises the very fabric of Afghan society. The tribal system in Afghanistan has taken a brutal beating for several decades by supporting and giving some power back to the tribes, we can make positive progress in the region once again.”14 Working instead with the tribal leadership offers a more realistic approach considering the tribal political realities of Afghanistan; Gant thus articulates what we might think of as a tribal realism that applies to both the pre-Westphalian world, and the many frontier regions where the modern state has yet to fully emerge and which by virtue of geographical extremes might never find firm footing. Gant notes that recognition of Afghanistan’s

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tribal center of gravity has become more widespread by analysts, such as RAND’s Seth Jones and David Ronfeldt. (The Program for Culture and Conflict Studies at the U.S. Naval School, also cited by Gant, is a research center dedicated to analyzing the tribal foundations of conflict, as is the Tribal Analysis Center.) Gant reiterates the importance of the tribal foundation of Afghan society: “Every single Afghan is a part of a tribe and understands how the tribe operates and why. This is key for us to understand. Understanding and operating within the tribal world is the only way we can ever know who our friends and enemies are, how the Afghan people think and what is important to them, because, above all, they are tribesmen first.”15 This is thus “a matter of national security that the U.S. government and specifically the military grasp the importance of the tribes, and learn to operate comfortably in a tribal setting.”16 Gant compares the war in Afghanistan with the dynamics of a boxing match (an apt metaphor, not unlike Clausewitz’s comparison of war to a wrestling match) that has no set number of rounds: “The U.S. has won every round but has not been able to knock them (Taliban) out. The fight has no limit on the number of rounds that can be fought. We will continue to punish them, but never win the fight. It will go on indefinitely, or until we (the U.S.) grow tired and quit.”17 Gant sees only one viable path toward victory: “The only existing structure that offers governance and security for the Afghan people is at the tribal level. We should leverage this and use it to our advantage—before it is too late.”18 In a land where the concept of state or national security makes little sense, tribal security becomes the most viable concept for restoring order; as he explains, “tribes understand protection” and are “organized and run to ensure the security of the tribe.”19 And it’s “[n]ot only physical security, but revenue and land protection” and, “most important of all is preservation of the tribal name and reputation. Honor is everything in a tribal society. Tribes will fight and die over honor alone . . . This concept is not understood by a vast majority of strategists who are trying to find solutions to challenges we are facing in Afghanistan.”20 In addition to security, Gant observes that tribes also “understand power,” and their ability to project power, albeit within a micro-context often defined valley to valley. Tribes thus “have no ‘strategic goals’ in the Western sense,” as “[t]heir diplomatic, informational, military, and economic (DIME) priorities are almost without exception in reference to other tribes.”21 As Gant describes: “Tribes offer their members security, safety, structure and significance. What other institutions do that right now in Afghanistan?”22 Tribal society, moreover, is what Gant describes

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as a “natural democracy” that is governed by “shuras and jirgas (tribal councils)” where “every man’s voice has a chance to be heard.”23 As such, Gant believes that “[w]e must support the tribal system because it is the single, unchanging political, social and cultural reality in Afghan society and the one system that all Afghans understand.”24 Gant observes that while “[t]hrough its councils, jirgas and shuras, tribal members have been dispensing justice and providing the means of conflict resolution for centuries,” that “such traditional tribal mechanisms have been weakened by brutal and deliberate campaigns of assassination, intimidation and co-optation—first by the Soviets, then the warlords, now by the Taliban,” and this provides the West with an important, and viable mission; Gant believes that by standing up Tribal Security Forces (TSFs), we “could do this through the tribal jirga system, beneath the authority of a tribal council and backed up by a Tribal Engagement Team to bring U.S. resources, leadership and training to bear. Together with the tribal elders, they can act as peacemakers and brokers, bringing the important actors to negotiate.”25 Gant adds that the TSFs “should be used to assist—not replace—the national and local police,” as the “vast majority of the tribes just want to be left alone; years and years of broken promises have severely damaged our ability to deal with the tribes.”26 He explains that the “bond here between the tribal leaders and councils and their U.S. counterparts on the Tribal Engagement Teams is crucial,” as the TETs “would show a commitment to the tribes and the tribal leadership that we will be unable to replicate in any other way. Putting U.S. soldiers (TETs) on the ground with the tribes will say more about our commitment than anything else we can do. It will be a great ‘honor’ and show them trust and respect by truly joining forces with them.”27 Similar methods were employed by the British in their efforts to extend imperial control to Afghanistan for over half a century, relying “heavily on a small number of highly trained . . . frontier officers [who] were highly educated, committed, conscientious, and hard working. Many had studied law and the history of the area and spoke some of the local languages,” with “a deep sense of duty and a strong national identity” and “were particularly valuable in navigating the intricacies of tribal politics.”28 Gant derives from the British experience and its noted success that the “key to a successful tribal engagement strategy is the ability to identify men (Tribal Engagement Team members) who have a special gift for cross-cultural competency and building rapport—that is, they must become educated in the ways of the tribes and build strong relationships with them based on mutual trust and

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objectives.”29 Gant concedes that his “plan requires a small group of men who can comprehend the extensive networks, influences and idiosyncrasies of the mission and the environment,” and that “[t]his is warfare at the Ph.D. level. It is constantly changing and requires continual assessment. Only a few dedicated men can execute this plan properly.”30 At its core, Gant’s plan asks us to “work with tribalism, not against it.”31 Or, as Steven Pressfield puts it in the title of his five-part video series on tribal warfare in Afghanistan that Gant cites: “It’s the Tribes, Stupid!”32 Ironically, this was the realization that the Soviet Union came to a generation earlier in its efforts to pacify the same country, and to impose its own variant of a modern, Western (or within the Cold War context, “Eastern”) vision of order, finding its decade-long effort met with the same persistent resistance from a society that was at heart still tribal, as noted above. America’s Vietnam experience, perceived by many as a military failure, turns out to have been full of tactical and strategic innovations that proved successful in the field of battle, including our creative COIN effort in South Vietnam, noted by Kilcullen among others, as well as our concerted conventional effort to hold the line at the DMZ. Even after America withdrew from the fight, our abandoned ally, the ARVN, fought on, holding its own for nearly two more years in an existential struggle against an opponent that was being continually resupplied and trained by its superpower patron, even as Saigon’s own military resources were quickly depleted, without resupply from its former American benefactor. And when the inevitable collapse of the Republic of South Vietnam came in April 1975, the invading communists found themselves unable to fully impose a collectivized communist system of land tenure upon the farmers of the south, and as a result agriculture remain uncollectivized in the former republic even after the communists established their political authority. And in the mountainous north, the former tribal allies of the United States, while collectively punished by Hanoi through a continued lack of infrastructure development in their villages for decades to follow, continued to live as they always had, indifferent to Hanoi but never truly conquered. Enduring patterns of political order that were nurtured by the United States thus survived, even after military defeat, evidence that with a recommitment of political will, America may well have won a resounding and enduring victory in Indochina. To some revisionist historians, the trend in Vietnam was pointing toward a probable victory at the time of America’s withdrawal, and the salient lesson learned, just as President

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Bush bravely acknowledged when facing up to the difficult challenges that emerged to confront us in post-Saddam Iraq, was that the war was lost only by our own default. As the Iraq “surge” has demonstrated, even just a modest increase in military power (in the case of Iraq, a mere 30,000 men of arms proved enough to defeat an insurgency festering across a nation of 28 million) when smartly applied, in conjunction with increasing cultural knowledge of the human terrain, might be enough to turn the tide of war from all but certain defeat to a decisive and enduring victory (in contrast to the Obama surge in Afghanistan, which so far appears to have only succeeded in boosting our opponent’s will to fight, in part because of Obama’s pre-announcement of a fixed withdrawal date, rather than an open-ended commitment to victory that would likely have been more persuasive to our opponent). The smartness of the application of force during the surge was tied inextricably to its recognition of the enduring tribal contours of Iraq’s political environment, and the persistence of myriad substate fault lines defined by clan and sect. Once Saddam’s power was smashed and his pillars of order crushed, the underlying fractiousness of Iraq became evident—at high cost to combatants on all sides as well as the civilian populace caught in a complex maelstrom of crossfire reminiscent of the ubiquitous gang warfare in Prohibition-era Chicago. David Kilcullen reflected upon this on August 29, 2007, in passages cited by Bob Woodward in his 2008 tome, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006–2008. Kilcullen observed how America had “spent the last four years carefully building up and supporting an Iraqi political system based on non-tribal institutions,” to which Woodward added that Kilcullen “noted that the Coalitional Provisional Authority, under L. Paul Bremer, had sidelined the tribes in 2003 in order to focus on building a ‘modern’ democratic state in Iraq.”33 Now, Kilcullen observed, we are “seeing the most significant political and security progress in years, via a structure outside the one we have been working so hard to create. Does that invalidate the last four years’ effort? Probably not, as long as we recognize that the vision of a Jeffersonian, ‘modern’ (in the Western industrial sense) democracy in Iraq, based around entirely secular non-tribal institutions, was always somewhat unrealistic. In the Iraqi polity, tribes’ rights may end up playing a similar role to states’ rights in some other democracies.”34 While “somewhat counter to what we expected in the ‘surge,’” Kilcullen noted a “major improvement in security at the local level” fostered by an “Iraqi-led, bottom–up” approach to national reconciliation “based on civil society rather than national politics,” and which “oddly enough . . . seems to be working so far.”35

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One important tool applied in our long war in Indochina and reapplied after major combat operations concluded in Iraq and Afghanistan is currently known as Human Terrain Mapping (HTM), and was reconceptualized as a method to map the cultural topography of these new battlespaces, and to help guide warfighters in the violent Sunni heartland of Iraq, a land where our opponent blended in with a populace that seemed inherently inimical to American power, and where determining friend from foe could be challenging in the best of times. As learned in America’s successful COIN effort in the Sunni heartland of Iraq, coalition warfare with substate tribal entities can turn the tide of war, helping to achieve a military victory in a struggle considered by many to have been a lost cause, and which, through innovation and determination, as well as a crash course on cultural knowledge, could pacify a region universally viewed as hostile territory. HTM, as one component of an approach to coalition warfare at the tribal level, helped to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat, proving that President Bush’s intuition as commander was correct, and that the salient lesson of Vietnam was not that the cause was lost, but that a smarter and more committed application of military power, and a quicker process of integrating successful battlefield innovations into evolving doctrine, could change the outcome of the conflict and thus reverse the very flow of history. This tribal dimension of America’s Indochina war effort was notably successful, and can provide later generations with insights on how to effectively wage substate proxy warfare or tribe–state coalition warfare. Indeed, in later generations, methods cultivated during the war in Indochina would prove successful, first in protecting the Kurdish and Shi’ite enclaves of Iraq from Saddam’s vengeance in 1991, carving out secure republics within the body politic of a decreasingly sovereign Iraq; then helping to secure a Bosniak enclave from the remnants of wartorn Yugoslavia, and later an increasingly sovereign Kosovar–Albanian enclave within the boundaries of Serbia-proper; and now in pacifying the fractious zones of conflict that define the Long War, from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan and beyond. HTM has become an increasingly recognized tool for achieving victory in the Long War, enhancing security in regions deemed to be largely ungoverned or where state failure and regime collapse have left a political and security vacuum. Using HTM, warfighters as well as stabilization and reconstruction (S&R) teams are able to develop detailed, highly granular cultural knowledge to help focus the application of force, and to help customize S&R efforts in many parts of the world.

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Order in the Vacuum of “Ungoverned” Spaces Interestingly, the most sparsely inhabited regions, whether barren desert, arctic tundra, high alpine, or tropical forest zones, are seldom truly ungoverned, and are in fact governed by substate structures that often lack formal sovereignty but which exert tremendous authority at the local and regional levels. Recent works like Rabasa et al.’s 2007 RAND report, Ungoverned Territories: Understanding and Reducing Terrorism Risks have probed the interior composition of “ungoverned territories.” And Rabasa’s 2007 article, “New World Disorder: Different Types of Ungoverned Territories Warrant Different Responses,” notes that “ungoverned territories have become more common since the end of the Cold War, ranging from the Pakistani–Afghan border to the Sulawesi– Mindanao arc, from East Africa to the North Caucasus to Central America,” and that they “pose challenges to U.S. national security as breeding grounds for terrorism and criminal activities and as launching pads for attacks against the United States and Western interests.”36 Rabasa defines an “ungoverned territory” as “an area in which a state faces significant challenges in establishing control,” whether “failed or failing states, poorly controlled land or maritime borders, or areas within otherwise viable states where the central government’s authority does not extend.”37 It has identified eight “presently ungoverned territories” that include: the Pakistani–Afghan border region, parts of the Arabian Peninsula, the Sulawesi–Mindanao arc straddling Indonesia and the Philippines in Southeast Asia, the East African corridor from Sudan and the Horn of Africa to Mozambique and Zimbabwe, West Africa from Nigeria westward, the North Caucasus region of Russia, the Colombian– Venezuelan border, and the Guatemala–Chiapas (Mexico) border.”38 We could add to these regions the ethnoculturally complex frontier region of southwestern China, including the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) as well as the ethnically complex provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, which abuts Southeast Asia; the high Himalayan states, with their complex ethnocultural mix and volatile tribal fault lines; Burma, which is equally complex and ethnically divided, and whose ruling junta has devolved considerable autonomy to the indigenous minority groups in order to end to numerous insurgencies and to restore order; Laos and Vietnam, whose mountainous frontier regions are home to diverse minority populations; the Andean highlands including Bolivia and Peru, in addition the Colombia–Venezuela frontier; and the circumpolar Arctic region, where inter-tribal and tribe–state conflicts as well as

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continuing movements for tribal sovereignty form strong currents. As Rabasa observed, “these territories are not devoid of governance, but the structures of authority that do exist are unrelated to the formal institutions of the state”39—and present a vast, complex, institutionally rich environment of substate, tribal governing structures that possess many elements of formal sovereignty, in the absence of full state penetration. Post-Saddam Iraq and post-Taliban Afghanistan present us with salient case studies in the tribal topology of these so-called ungoverned spaces. Rabasa considers several factors with regard to the risk of terror emanating from an ungoverned territory: adequacy of infrastructure and operational access, availability of income sources, favorable demographics, and the ability of terrorists to blend into the population, and thereby escape detection. But the challenge—and the opportunity—goes beyond the issue of terrorism. The underlying tribal topology of these so-called ungoverned territories or tribal zones as I prefer to think of them presents numerous strategic opportunities for containing and/or rolling back communism (in China, Laos, and Vietnam), combating dictatorship and oligarchy (in Burma, Guatemala, and southern Mexico; and the Andean highlands), and securing access to newly emergent natural resources (in the Arctic regions, Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, and much of South and Central Asia). The tribal front, while geographically dispersed and highly localized, may prove to be a salient frontline in a global struggle against China once the GWOT comes to an end, and the risks of Islamist terrorism, extremism, and insurgency are effectively contained. Indeed, twice during the past year, unarmed Buddhist monks spontaneously rose up in opposition to their heavily armed authoritarian governments in both Burma and Tibetan China, suggesting the efficacy of a substate mapping of ethnic, tribal, and sectarian identity for understanding potential fault-lines for resistance to even the most brutal of regimes. In their November 2005 statement to the House Armed Services Committee, “Force Planning for Ungoverned Regions and Failed States,” Hans Binnendijk and Stuart Johnson of the NDU’s Center for Technology and National Security Policy identified several elements of S&R operations that they believe “require greater emphasis,” and these include: the ability to interact with nonmilitary partners and build consensus; negotiating skills; and the understanding of historical/cultural contexts, all of which can be enhanced through HTM.40 Max Boot in his December 2005 LA Times article “Navigating the ‘Human Terrain’” noted how at Quantico, “all incoming second lieutenants are instructed

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that, in the words of one PowerPoint slide, ‘Navigating Cultural and Human Terrain is just as important as navigating geographic terrain,’” and that “‘culture can be like a minefield’ if Marines are ignorant of the languages and customs of the places where they operate.”41 He argued that “if they understand ‘the human terrain,’ they will have ‘opportunities to leverage and exploit operational success.’” And while “no one is under the illusion that the average gunnery sergeant will become as proficient at Pashtu as at disassembling an M-16,” Boot believes that “even a little knowledge can make life easier in the next hot spot.”42 As Alan C. Tidwell, the Director of the Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University explains, “rather than think about culture as being blocs of history, ideology and practice, on some grand civilization scale, culture should be thought of as a local response or adaptation by people to local conditions and local histories.” He cited recent work by David Kilculen, one of the theorists who has contributed to America’s successful COIN strategy in Iraq, whose work in Afghanistan “points to a near global rejection of Talibanization of Afghanistan, but an acceptance of Sharia’s usefulness in civil, land and family matters.”43 He added: “Commonly in the West we look at Sharia’ law and we think of robbers’ hands being chopped off. Amongst Afghanis many don’t care for the extreme ends of Sharia, but they warmly embrace the effectiveness of Sharia courts in non-criminal matters. This is local adaptation of practices to address local needs.”44 Thus, “[r]ather than focus on what elements of culture are objectionable, the focus becomes to what extent does the practice stabilize the situation. From this point of view policy becomes contingent upon the degree to which culture satisfies local humanitarian, population and stabilization needs.”45 Tidwell noted that “the challenge, of course, is to learn from those areas where this clash is being dealt with effectively and apply those lessons appropriately to other contexts.”46 For example, in Australia and New Zealand, where Tidwell has much experience, indigenous people and the modern state are “creating ways of working through land conflicts. This is not to say that they have resolved their problems absolutely, but they have established the grounds for dialogue on how to best address those conflicts. In each case the legal system has been used to address the question of land title, and legislation has been passed providing a way forward for addressing this question. Compare this to the situation in the Philippines. There, conflict exists on the question of indigenous land title, and legislation has been enacted to address this question. The

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promulgation of that legislation, however, has been quite problematic. The key matter of political will remains unresolved in the Philippines whereas the matter of public will has very much been resolved in both Australia and New Zealand.”47 One reason why success can be so uneven across one region, Tidwell explained, is that “in both Australia and New Zealand systems of good governance exist both amongst the indigenous people as well as on the part of the state. Whereas, comparatively speaking, good governance does not feature strongly in the Philippines.”48 Whether a proper understanding of the underlying tribal governing structures can provide us with a platform for stability, Tidwell observed, “depends very much upon the extent to which both sides to a given conflict are open and willing to engage in dialogue. Enhancing tribal structures through training in modern accounting, management, communication and so on contribute to the strength of tribal governing structures. Equally, however, states and their bureaucrats must be willing to provide for the expression of tribal interests and concerns within the state system. For example, in the context of land management it should be recognized that both tribal people and the state have an interest in environmental sustainability. Recognizing the interdependent interests is a vital step towards establishing the basis for peace and stability.” The lessons from the work of Kilcullen, Tidwell noted, “simply put is: ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.’ Recognize where people prosper through tribal governance, where the indigenous culture effectively manages conflicts and embrace those. The critical element is to understand the root causes and underlying conditions that foster conflict. The only way to really understand those underlying roots is to collect data at the local level and the best way to do that is to go amongst the local people and talk with them.” As Tidwell observed: “Technocratic solutions, created by policymakers who are far removed from the situation, do little to actually contribute understanding. Collecting data at the local level and processing that data in ways that can be comprehended up the policy chain is critical in order that policymakers can make good decisions. Another lesson to be relearned, unfortunately, is that people are not made more secure by killing, but rather become more secure when their needs are met and they are in control of their own destinies.”49 Tidwell’s recommendation, to “go amongst the local people and talk with them,”50 has been embraced by Harold L. Ingram, a Senior Analyst in the US State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Office of Strategic, Proliferation and Military Analysis (INR/SPM) who is currently serving as senior intelligence advisor to the Afghanistan

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Interagency Operations Group (AIOG), and who is a founding member of the Intelligence Community’s Afghanistan Analyst Exchange Panel. He has literally gone amongst the local people for many years. From October 2001 to January 2003, he flew over 100 ISR missions over Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF); after completing his OEF activation, he returned to the State Department and volunteered to return to Afghanistan, where he helped establish the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and served as political liaison and foreign policy advisor to the 82nd Airborne Division’s Task Force Devil and 10th Mountain Division’s Task Force Warrior in Kandahar. He returned from a second PRT tour in 2005, serving as primary political officer at both the Asadabad and Jalalabad PRTs in Afghanistan’s Regional Command East AOR. As Ingram has observed: “Based on my experiences in Afghanistan, we do see a continuation of tribal systems and governance. Village elders still come together in tribal shuras/councils to gossip, discuss local politics and other topics of interest, to hear and attempt to resolve disputes—ranging from allegations of theft, property rights disputes, and even capital crimes of murder or adultery.”51 Ingram noted that “tribal dynamics and communal factors have always played the dominant role in rural Afghan society. The current effort to establish a strong central government has largely failed because historically there has never been a strong central government, and the natural local resistance to such an entity has coalesced.”52 He believes tribal governing structures and processes can provide a platform for stability and peace, so long as “we are willing to identify those pre-existing tribal mechanisms and help the central governments adopt those (or at least recognize those) tribal structures”—such as “tribal shuras, jirgas, Arbakai (police), and tribal Lashkars (militias).”53 Ingram added that “the advantages of incorporating pre-existing tribal structures and processes is that they are typically already largely accepted and proven in areas where the central government does not have (and has not had) an effective presence.”54 In Afghanistan, “we have faced opposition from local tribes who saw us as uninformed interlopers attempting to come into their rural valleys and villages to tell the locals that their centuries old tribal structures and processes for security and dispute resolution are bad and must be replaced—but then we have attempted to replace the pre-existing tribal structures with corrupt local judges or police that only serve their own interests and end up driving a wedge between the local population and the central government rather

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than endearing the people to their government.”55 He has found that “in most of these rural tribal areas, the people might be willing to tolerate a central government presence so long as it does not attempt to disturb, disrupt or overthrow their pre-existing structures and processes.”56 Ingram thus believes that “recognizing this aversion to central government ‘interference’ can help the central government gain more acceptance locally by focusing its limited resources only on areas, activities, and/or structures that the local people are not able to handle themselves”—such as “establishing a national army outpost, helping to build a school, clinic, dig a well, etc.”57 He has identified several methods and processes developed in Afghanistan that could be applied to other battle zones of the GWOT. Among these are demonstrating the government’s ability to provide tangible goods, and to deepen its ties to important local actors, building informal and formal mechanisms of consultation among officials and local communities, which are all critical to contesting the insurgents’/opposition’s claim that government institutions serve nothing more than the best armed or well connected. Additionally, he recommends that we focus our efforts on supporting effective local provincial- or district-level government governance; promoting and supporting domestic NGOs; correcting tribal and ethnic imbalances—thereby “formalizing and empowering existing tribal governance, security and mediation structures,” which is “likely easier and more effective than attempting to remove, combat, and/or dissolve existing tribal organizations”; engaging local religious leaders and formalizing clerical linkages, friendliness to, and/or relationships with, the government and government officials; and expanding the reconciliation or reintegration process of “former” insurgents, enemy combatants, and/or enemies of the state like the Taliban.58 One anonymous source knowledgeable about tribal warfare raised some concerns with the recent reconceptualization of the GWOT and its rhetorical shift from a unified conflict to a series of disconnected contingency operations. “Unfortunately, this new approach to what is basically modern warfare is misguided and will undoubtedly lead to additional ‘overseas contingency operations’ in the future. Tribal cultures are not like the ‘West.’”59 He noted that “there is one aspect of tribal cultures that is worrisome when the ‘new approach’ is considered. Tribes frequently, if not consistently, mistake kindness for weakness and this less aggressive sounding vocabulary will definitely be viewed as a sign of weakness. At a minimum, the insurgent’s propaganda will work overtime to convince their target audiences that ‘American resolve’ is waning and point to the

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new terminology, the closing of the greatly feared Guantanamo prison, and the halting of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ as a clear indication of American faltering. In modern warfare, words count and these are the wrong words to demonstrate our resolve. The current insurgents know they will win or lose their war in the American Congress and they will use this propaganda opportunity to rally their supporters to continue the war.”60 As he explained, “the current conflict can easily be described as a civil war between advocates of powerful central governments and those supporting a weak central core and a more powerful periphery composed of autonomous tribes. ‘Centralizers’ view governance as a ‘top down’ process while the tribal cultures see the top down form of government as being oppressive and dictatorial while viewing their most acceptable, and tribal form of government being ‘bottom up’ in a representative form of government not unlike what was originally envisioned for the newly independent United States. Most of the conflict areas today are mixed ethnic and tribal groups where any central authority would have to be imposed by force of arms in order for it to be a workable government, as was seen in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and many other areas where central authority meant dictatorship.”61 And while “being a status quo power that fears change, the United States supported—and supports— ‘centralizing’ governments led by dictatorial regimes at the expense of the ‘revolutionary’ tribes,” it nonetheless remains possible that “stable governments might be created through following the Swiss model with its weak national government and autonomous cantons. Afghanistan governed itself fairly well with a similar system until ‘centralizers’ overthrew the weak monarchy and attempted to impose a strong central government. These ‘interim’ federal states may be more stable than having to support weak governments with large military forces.”62 He believes that “if there is a single lesson to be learned from past conflict, it must be the fact that large numbers of soldiers don’t win insurgencies, whether indigenous or American. Modern warfare is now a conflict in which opposition armies faced with overwhelming force quickly disintegrate and become insurgents as few military forces can withstand America military power. Insurgents can be cleared, but holding and building a way out of an insurgency requires more troops than most nations can afford to deploy. Simultaneously, there is a powerful bias against organizing local surrogate forces to perform tasks conventional military forces are unable to complete. Fear of ‘warlord creation’ and embarrassment over local forces accomplishing missions that larger,

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regular forces cannot manage are factors and military uniforms and discipline are provided to make indigenous forces appear to be copies of American forces. In the end, the time and expense involved become prohibitive and the initiatives begin to fail.” Ultimately, he observed, “tribal allies ally themselves with the side that provides the greatest incentives, such as protection and autonomy from corrupt and oppressive central governments. Policy choices lead to support for central governments while military necessity requires provision of incentives for tribes. So American counterinsurgencies persist until Congress and the media decide to stop them.”63 For the moment, he noted, “unfortunately, we find ourselves involved in two simultaneous—and interconnected—insurgencies that are being fought as if they were large scale terrorist operations. As such, there are far too many ‘black’ teams when ‘white’ SOF is needed. Enormous efforts are made to find and eliminate two extremist leaders rather than create large number of indigenous forces who are trained and led by Special Forces teams.”64 He recalled the successful Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) program devised in 1961 to counter expanding Viet Cong influence in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands—which effectively organized tribal minorities known as the Montagnards—and noted an operation based on the CIDG model “that involved nearly connected areas of responsibility that could have closed much of the Afghanistan border with Pakistan where Taliban safe-havens exist.”65 But, he added, “few lessons were learned from the last insurgency.”66 Indeed, there is a wealth of knowledge, and a wealth of experience, found in America’s wartime experience fighting alongside tribal allies, from the jungles of Vietnam and Laos a generation earlier to the mountains of Afghanistan today. Insights garnered from these experiences could thus provide America’s fighting men and women an important strategic advantage in the current fight, and in tomorrow’s wars as well.

The Art of War in the Tribal Zone Coalition warfare with substate tribal allies has become an increasingly important method to ensure victory in the Long War, especially in the numerous complex border regions where the assertion of state sovereignty remains most muted, and where the roots of protracted conflict remain most firmly planted. Here we encounter a boundary zone between state and tribe that is akin to a highly porous membrane in

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whose myriad nooks and crannies, tribal sovereignty remains unextinguished well into the third century since Westphalia. These enduring tribal zones define the new front lines in the Long War, formerly known as the Global War on Terror and currently described as a series of interconnected Overseas Contingency Operations by Obama administration policymakers eager to distance themselves from their predecssors, but whose aspiration to disaggregate marks a sharp contrast to the virtual state al Qaeda operates at a global level, as described by Kilcullen, that suggests our opponents are united by a grand strategy that is as real as their state or neo-Caliphate is virtual. Viewed from the Obama White House, these conflicts seem to have little in common with one another, and can be wound down according to a fixed timetable determined by the domestic US election calendar. Viewed from the mountain strongholds of al Qaeda central, however, the struggle remains a very Long War waged for a clear goal: the formation of a new form of sovereignty, one that is trans-state, theocratic, and whose purpose is to govern the reemergent Caliphate, in short a medieval restoration of the Islamic world. When viewed from a high level, the scattered conflict zones of this long struggle present numerous commonalities, and even while dispersed geographically they could be effectively viewed as a single theater of operations, which we could describe as global operations in tribal territories where sovereignty is still defined by ethnic identity, often at a substate level, but which are very real in terms of political identity and thus essential to understanding our opponent and what he fights for. Our look back to the ideas that undergird the great theorists of popular insurgency, the revolutionists against modernity, whether Gandhi’s nonviolent people-powered movement against British rule; Mao’s now classical approach to guerrilla strategy placing it along a progressive, tactical/strategic/grand strategic continuum; Bin Laden’s more theocratic/ecclesiastical approach to insurgency as a “Holy War” against the colonial and secular West and thus modeled on the successful Christian movement that helped to not only topple but to transform Rome into a new, medieval order, with terrorism as but one tactic used to provoke its opponent. Even Ted Kaczynski’s unsuccessful terror war against modernity, with its selective targeting for assassination, mirrors our own methods of decapitating our opponent in Iraq and Af–Pak, viewing the enemy’s commanders as self-contained command and control units and thus both legitimate and effective targets. And lest we forget the movement for tribal sovereignty by the indigenous Zapatista movement, the first post–Cold War philosophical rebellion against the modern state,

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and what many describe as the first “netwar,” presenting a blueprint for tribal rebellion that helps to inform our current efforts operating in an indigenous, substate environment. Many of the GWOT’s battlespaces are indeed rugged alpine war zones, most along porous borders where sub- and trans-state indigenous minorities continue to live a largely traditional lifestyle, and where state sovereignty is at best an aspiration but which in fact is largely a figment of the imaginations of mapmakers. In these tribal zones, governance remains a tribal affair with age-old systems and structures in place to ensure a social and political order. While sometimes described as “ungoverned,” this is a misnomer: in the absence of an overarching assertion of national sovereignty, there remains a continued tribal sovereignty as there has been for eons. It is this continued tribal sovereignty, if properly understood, that can lay the foundation of an enduring world order, and which can ensure an enduring peace if properly understood, effectively nurtured, and properly engaged.

Tribe–State Conflict and the War on Terror: A Persistent Fault Line of Conflict During the last few years, we have relearned the art of tribal warfare, and more important, coalition warfare with tribal allies, a military and diplomatic art we have long excelled at, from our prerevolutionary engagements in King Philip’s War, to our decisive conquest of the western plains during the three long centuries of the Indian Wars. While seldom celebrated, these strategic experiences have defined our nation’s approach to military power, adapting European strategic concepts to our new frontier nation emerging from the virgin wilderness of the New World. When America went out into the world in the twentieth century as a world power, its approach to war was intimately shaped by these engagements, and the lessons learned along a chaotic and expanding frontier where state sovereignty collided with the remnants of tribal sovereignty. America’s colonial experiences in the Philippines and in the Americas were marked by its offensive application of methods cultivated during its Indian Wars, and used against foreign opponents on distant battlefields. While the Long War has been perceived largely as a civilizational clash between Islamist forces and the West, it is more accurately a continuation of the same millennial conflict that began when European states and pre-Colombian indigenous tribes collided in the Americas, and on other

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continents as well from Africa to Asia, and even throughout Europe’s own fractious medieval history. The perpetuation of these intense, asymmetrical, and often annihilatory clashes between modern states and preexisting tribes has been a recurring axis of conflict for centuries, but has less often been perceived to be the salient fault-line of conflict—perhaps in part because the historical legacy of America’s own military expansion tends to be underemphasized in favor of the preferred narrative of its founding myth: the triumphant victory of democracy over tyranny. Properly understanding the underlying tribal dynamic, however, is nonetheless essential—and can spell the difference between military defeat and decisive and enduring victory. During the Cold War period, numerous battles were fought between East and West, but more often than not these conflicts were waged in weaker states, many only just emerging from the colonial experience. In several of these Cold War hot spots, substate indigenous minorities controlled substantial swaths of territory, and were engaged in protracted conflicts with newcomers to their homelands. The ideological lens that defined these conflicts was but a mask to an underlying clash of tribe and state; not in all conflicts, to be sure, but in many, from the bitter civil war in Guatemala that raged for half a century, pitting the descendants of Spanish colonists against the remnants of the Mayan nation that once ruled over the highlands of Central America, to the decade-long anti-Soviet Jihad in Afghanistan, where the United States entered into a unique wartime alliance with Afghanistan’s tribal peoples. Today’s Long War again features many of these same substate entities in the notoriously fractious state of Afghanistan, which is more an amalgamation of tribal enclaves, some of whom are allied with us, and others such as the Taliban, a post-Soviet movement that pacified much of postwar Afghanistan in the 1990s, and the al Qaeda movement, which also emerged from the anti-Soviet struggle and whose founders were once part of America’s wartime coalition against the Red Army. During the long anti-Soviet Jihad, it was Afghanistan’s many tribes, never truly united apart from their common occupying foe, that rose up, under American arms, against the militarily superior Soviet armed forces, holding their own, and later turning the tide of that war, until Moscow’s military commitment evaporated amidst the sweeping and frenetic pace of domestic reforms and revolution that resulted in the Soviet collapse. This unique coalition of tribal allies helped to rout the mighty Soviet Red Army, proper payback for Moscow’s own proxy victory over America and its allies in Indochina a half-generation earlier.

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Then, America’s military alliance with the Montagnards and other indigenous allies nearly achieved victory against the hated, centralized Vietnamese Communist forces; but in that long engagement, it was America’s will that evaporated first, resulting in a strategic withdrawal even after a decade of tactical victories, and our nearly successful creation of a democratic republic in the south modeled on the South Korean and Taiwanese example. Even in defeat, much was learned of long-term strategic and tactical application. But because that knowledge was not properly internalized or codified into doctrine, it was soon lost—with painful consequences in the early years of the Long War. While much of post–World War II international relations theory has been influenced by Waltz’s famously elegant “three images,” with the individual, state, and system defining the salient levels of analysis of the international environment, many of our postwar challenges have taken place in the nooks and crannies of the international arena where a “fourth image” seems to be at work, a tribal image. This is a realm that is in many ways “pre-state,” and where modern state sovereignty remains only still emergent. These places are neither ungoverned nor truly failed states but are rather “prestates,” and are thus governed in a manner that is more reminiscent of the medieval order, where sect and tribe often asserted a more salient ordering principle than the still developing state. The tools required to bring order to these regions are thus uniquely tailored to the pre-state realm, and will require a specific expertise. Traditional tools of statecraft, refined by the centuries of post-Westphalia diplomatic and military history, will be of only limited utility here. That is why in the mountains of Afghanistan and deserts of Iraq, anthropologists work side-by-side with our warfighters mapping the human terrain, and helping to identify the complex substate nuances of political power, be they organized by clan, sect, or tribe. As we saw in the post-Vietnam period, where the stain of defeat led to an unfathomable loss of so much strategic and tactical knowledge that had been acquired during that long conflict, and led to a shift toward a higher-tech form of conventional warfare better suited to the Central Front—one that avoided the frustrating complexities of COIN but which also fostered a consequential erosion of institutional memory of our many COIN experiences—America’s long-term strategic interests are not served by compartmentalizing information borne of one military experience, and preventing that knowledge from enriching America’s repository of doctrinal knowledge for posterity. Strategic forgetting can be as destructive a force as any strategic blunder, since knowledge—as Sun Tzu noted centuries ago, and as echoed

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by later theorists from Machiavelli to Clausewitz and now to Petraeus—is power, and must be wielded effectively for victory to be possible. As learned in America’s successful COIN effort in the Sunni heartland of Iraq, coalition warfare with substate tribal entities can turn the tide of war, helping to achieve a military victory in a struggle considered by many to have been a lost cause. As chronicled by James Russell in his 2011 study of the Iraq War, the bottom–up innovation process took place in real-time, pacifying a conflict zone where blunt conventional military power proved to be a double-edged sword, and where more precise and calibrated force was required in conjunction with a diplomatic offensive at the clan, village, and tribal levels. This helped to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, proving that President Bush’s intuition as commander-in-chief was correct and that the salient lesson of Vietnam was not that the cause was lost, just our will—and that a smarter, more committed application of military power, and a quicker process of integrating successful battlefield innovations into evolving doctrine, could change the outcome of a conflict, and thus redefine the very flow of history. Indeed, in Vietnam the Tet Offensive was a tremendous tactical failure for the Viet Cong, resulting in their near-annihilation; but strategically, it was a victory for Hanoi, which not only watched its rival for political power in the South get wiped out by American and ARVN forces, but at the same time saw America’s will for continued war sapped by the surprise Viet Cong offensive, never to recover. Hanoi smartly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat that time; but America had learned much in the course of fighting that long war, and had its will not been so eroded back home, it may well have achieved a lasting victory—securing its ally in the south, and rolling back its opponent in the north through coalition warfare with the hill tribes of Vietnam, Laos, and perhaps even southwest China. The map of postwar Indochina would have looked much different; instead of oppression and genocide, we’d have instead witnessed liberty taking root in the region’s fertile soils. In tribal zones, where formal state sovereignty never fully reached, borders tend to be porous, and substate and trans-state tribes, stateless nations, and minority cultures tend to predominate at the local and regional levels. Politics in these zones can be complex, with inter-clan and inter-tribe rivalries and strong anticolonial sentiment toward their central governments—providing ingredients for micro-level alliances in the Long War. When engaged in military operations in these tribal zones, it is imperative to understand the detailed nuance of tribal identity, culture, and politics in order to comprehend these foundational building

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blocks of a new political order, and to nurture allies and strategic partners around the world, whether as part of the Long War or in future conflicts—such as against a rising China, whose southwestern frontier is one of the world’s most complex ethnocultural regions. Indeed, with minority populations like the Miao (Hmong) and Yi numbering in the millions (there are some eight million Yi, and nine million Miao in China today), as well as numerous other minorities like the Naxi numbering in the hundreds of thousands, many could stand alone as nation-states, much as the Hmong of Laos long dreamed, transforming the political geography of the region. As the US–Montagnard wartime coalition demonstrated during the Vietnam War, and as our more recent efforts forging new bonds with tribal minorities in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate, these efforts can not only spell the difference between victory and defeat, but also lay a foundation for a new and enduring order.

The Tribe: Both a New and an Old Foundation of World Order President Bush infamously declared “Mission Accomplished” after piloting his S-3B Viking jet onto the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, formally announcing an end to major combat operations— only to discover that the war in Iraq was anything but over, and would soon enter into a chaotic phase as conventional operations transitioned to asymmetrical warfare, and a complex insurgency burst forth in a frenzy of violence. On that day, the war between two states ended, and a new war—between the armed forces of the victorious state and the newly emancipated substate components of the defeated state—began. President Obama campaigned hard against the tactical and strategic errors of his predecessor, and pledged to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq. But even as the president implements his disengagement plan from Iraq, he has already increased America’s troop commitment to Afghanistan—announcing a 17,000-troop surge of his own on February 17, 2009, and will consider the addition of further troops in the months ahead should the fight require it. After five long years of war, the substate struggle inside Iraq was now largely won, enough so that the White House could shift its attention to the even more complex and dangerous substate struggle inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. While engaging in an Afghan surge reminiscent of the very strategy he campaigned so hard against in Iraq, President Obama has nonetheless

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declared the “War on Terror” to be over. Not finished, nor won—but in rhetorical terms, the term “Global War on Terror” has been retired. The retirement of the GWOT terminology came to national attention on March 30, 2009, when Secretary of State Clinton told the press that the new administration had “stopped using the phrase, and I think that speaks for itself,” noting she had not “gotten any directive about using it or not using it. It’s just not being used.”67 At around the same time, the media reported that Pentagon staff had received a memo from the Office of Security Review, which explained that the White House “prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ (GWOT). Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’”68 This new, less catchy phrase has been used publicly by several top Obama administration officials, from the DoD to the OMB. But frustration with the GWOT’s terminology is not new. Even President Bush came to regret the one-size-fits-all simplicity of the term he made famous. As he said in 2004: “We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.”69 President Obama’s rhetorical redefinition of the GWOT as a series of nameless “Overseas Contingency Operations”70 seem to have as much to do with the GWOT’s controversial verbiage as it does with his desire to redefine the conflict along a more logical axis of conflict. Indeed, despite the change in terminology, President Obama remained engaged militarily, and the architect of our successful Iraq counterinsurgency, General David Petraeus, after serving as Commander of CENTCOM, a post he assumed on October 31, 2008, went on to replace General Stanley A. McChrystal as the next Afghan war chief before retiring to assume the post of CIA director in September 2011. Early on, at least, it appeared that Obama’s doctrine was largely a mirror image of his predecessor—applying America’s COIN doctrine largely as developed during the previous administration, and along the way, precipitating an intensifying insurgent response against coalition forces in Afghanistan. But with America’s draw-down of forces from Iraq accelerating as the 2011 withdrawal deadline approached, and a similar withdrawal planned for Afghanistan three years later, it is less clear now how strong America’s commitment will be to finish the job in the years ahead, and to consolidate a lasting victory from its hard-fought gains. To succeed in Afghanistan and across the border in neighboring Pakistan will require detailed cultural knowledge of this expanding war

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zone, much as was painfully but effectively acquired in Iraq, in order to identify who among today’s opponents might become, with proper incentives, new friends and allies, and fostering order from the complex mix of clans, tribes, sects, and movements that define the region’s fractious political geography. And to ensure the lessons learned from these conflicts are preserved in American doctrine, to benefit our warfighters as they engage new opponents in different parts of the world, will require a commitment to the preservation of these important strategic and tactical innovations. The poet and philosopher George Santayana once said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But as the even more popularly known poet and philosopher Yogi Berra explained, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” That is why it remains imperative that America look beyond the rhetoric to the underlying roots of conflict, and to counter its opponent with more than de-escalatory rhetoric, and instead to offer up field-tested ideas that have proven their worth under fire, as we did in Indochina, and later Central America and the Balkans, and now in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a wealth of knowledge from America’s tribal warfare experiences that could inform a new COIN doctrine, not one that overly emphasizes hearts and minds, nor one that overstates the complexity of the new environment of war, but one that more properly recognizes the inherent and enduring duality of war, not so much its nonlinearity as its contradictory and internally conflicting dimensions, such as the dual sovereignties of tribe and state and the wide variation in scale of political vision, from the local village to the valley to the tribal enclave to the virtual superstate and neomedieval empire imagined by al Qaeda’s architects, who are fighting a global war. Building on Gant’s “one tribe at a time” thesis, and embracing the detailed ecosystem approach of Kilcullen, this new doctrine could replace complexity with duality. This would give America’s fighting men and women an important strategic advantage in the current battle and in tomorrow’s wars as well, knowing that the ground truth is really quite simple once the clutter of outdated concepts is swept aside (something Moscow eventually did when it realized Marxism was largely imcompatible with a rural, Islamic society, and which Mao earlier had done in adapting Marxism–Leninism to rural China). As the critics of John A. Nagl like Gian P. Gentile argue, conventional military power is still essential for victory, a prerequisite for populationcentric tactics, as we learned tragically in Vietnam, and nearly so in Iraq. In the former, our conventional withdrawal sealed the fate for our

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abandoned ally in the south; in the latter, our conventional victory came so quickly, we were unprepared to pacify the postwar environment as an insurgency erupted, forcing us to relearn the art of COIN that we had mastered in Indochina. Twice we forgot the essential, dualistic interconnection of conventional and counterinsurgent warfare; one without the other would by definition neglect one of the key pillars of order, one of the three legs of Clausewitz’s trinity of war. In Vietnam we won hearts and minds and defeated the festering insurgency that had plagued the south for a generation, only to neglect the conventional military power of our opponent, which, unchecked, quickly achieved a decisive victory. In Iraq, we quickly overwhelmed our opponent conventionally in our historic drive to Baghdad in a mere three weeks (largely because our opponent stood down). But our neglect of the hearts and minds, and our strategic myopia that favored “transformation” and thus technology over boots on the ground, left the human terrain unchecked, and among which our opponent regrouped for its lethal counterstrike in the form of insurgent warfare. Our experience in Afghanistan was similarly myopic: we quickly achieved conventional battlefield dominance, but did not successfully leverage our decisive military victory, enabling the Taliban to similarly regroup, and to regain its footing. The trick is to properly conceive of strategy as the masters of the art of war have done, as a dynamic process requiring constant balancing and rebalancing. The balance of power concept that dominated modern European diplomatic and military history, as a metaphor for the unsteady equilibrium of peace in a world of anarchy, serves us well when we consider our experiences in war in both Indochina and in the War on Terror; each time, we neglected to sustain a proper balance, though in Vietnam we tried for the better part of a decade before throwing in the towel. By recognizing the underlying, often tribal, political structures of the new conflict zones, and remembering our own frontier warfare experiences as our state expanded, integrating former tribal territories into its sovereign framework, we can better equip ourselves going forward, and remember that the trinity of war, across the ages, required recognition of, and accommodation with, all three core pillars of political order: the government, the military, and the people. The methods identified, operationalized, and systematized on the front lines of the Long War, such as Kilkullen’s 28 articles, or Gant’s maxims on tribal coalition warfare, could serve as a cornerstone for a new doctrine to guide military operations in the tribal zone, one tailormade to restore political order to the chaotic tribal zones that define

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the many fronts where the Long War is being fought, and which no doubt will define the front lines of future conflicts where the modern state and pre-state tribal entities continue to collide. Indeed, once the Long War concludes, these tribal zones will remain strategically important for the coming peace and could serve as vital beachheads and internal fronts from which American power can be nimbly projected in the event of new conflicts arising. Abandoning our hard-won gains in these tribal zones would only result in future setbacks to American power, as we witnessed after our Mujahideen allies routed the Soviet Red Army in 1989, only to see our commitment to their cause wane upon the Soviet collapse, as our attention turned elsewhere. Just as our continued, multigenerational military presence has helped ensure the peace in Europe, Japan, and Korea, a similar long-term commitment to the security of these tribal zones where the current war is being fought will be essential to ensure our hard-won victories in the Long War do not become tomorrow’s missed opportunities. It is no coincidence that our past strategic withdrawal from chaotic tribal zones have come back to haunt us, as evidenced by events unfolding in Afghanistan and Somalia in recent times.

Arab Spring: Glimmer of an Emergent Order? Indeed, our lessons from the complex conflicts that have defined the GWOT thus far offer insights that will be of increasing salience as the revolts of the current Arab Spring continue to play out, as tribal politics and cultural organization remain important across the region, whether in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia or Yemen. The Christian Science Monitor has reported that with “more than 140 tribes and clans, Libya is considered one of the most tribal nations in the Arab world, a crucial factor in determining Muammar Qaddafi’s political future.”71 The Monitor’s Kurczy and Hinshaw cite Alia Brahimi, the head of LSE’s North Africa program, who told Abu Dhabi’s The National that in Libya, “it will be the tribal system that will hold the balance of power rather than the military.”72 As Al Jazeera has reported: “Libya’s complex tribal structure plays a crucial role in its politics and now in the pro-democracy opposition movement. Muammar Gaddafi has, for four decades, been at the helm of a country that is described as one of the most intricate tribal nations in the Middle East. Analysts say most of the major tribes are represented in the military, but Gaddafi has long relied on his own tribe,

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the Qathafa, to staff elite security brigades.”73 BBC’s Mohamed Hussein reported that Gaddafi had “relied increasingly on tribalism and tribal rivalry in order to consolidate his grip on power,” and that “[t]his has been most pronounced in the armed forces where each of the main tribes is represented. Fostering rivalries among the various tribes in the army through selective patronage has not only strengthened his control over the military, but has also worked to draw attention away from Col Gaddafi and his regime.”74 While Libya’s complex tribal cultural environment generated much media attention once civil war erupted there in the winter of 2011, the entire region in so many ways reflects this very same underlying tribalism, and contributes to the persistence of ancient conflicts into the contemporary period and a weakness of the architecture of the modern state, much as Kilcullen had observed in 2007 when recognizing that it was ancient tribalism and not modern secularism that would define the new Iraqi order. The enduring tribalism of the Middle East has thus presented to the West continuing challenges, as the Arab Spring revolt continues to weaken state power, creating a power vacuum for a region-wide tribal resurgence. Daniel Pipes considered this in his January 2008 Jerusalem Post article “The Middle East’s Tribal Affliction,” in which he very favorably reviewed McGill anthropology professor Philip Carl Salzman’s Culture and Conflict in the Middle East, which Pipes believes “offers a bold and original interpretation of Middle Eastern problems,” one that seems especially prescient now that the entire region has exploded into chaos.75 Pipes notes that Salzman sketches out “the two patterns of rule that historically have dominated the Middle East: tribal autonomy and tyrannical centralism,” arguing that the former “is distinctive to the region and key to understanding it,” and that tribal rule is “based on what Salzman calls balanced opposition, a mechanism whereby those Middle Easterners living in deserts, mountains, and steppes protect life and limb by relying on their extended families.”76 Pipes adds: “On the positive side, affiliation solidarity allows for a dignified independence from repressive states. Negatively, it implies unending conflict; each group has multiple sworn enemies and feuds often carry on for generations.”77 In an update, Pipes noted that Gary S. Gregg, in The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology (2005), “makes Salzman’s point about the distinctiveness of the Middle East in a complementary way: ‘centuries of mixing three ways of life—nomadism, peasant agriculture, and urban commerce—in arid and semiarid lands, combined with the widespread adoption of Arab culture and Islam, have formed a ‘cultural area’ with distinctive patters of development from

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infancy to old age.”78 As Pipes explains: “This immensely intricate and subtle system boils down to (1) each person counting on paternal relatives (called agnates) for protection and (2) equal-sized units of agnates confronting each other. Thus, a nuclear family faces off against another nuclear family, a clan faces a clan, and so on, up to the meta-tribal level. As the well-known Middle Eastern adage sums up these confrontations, ‘I against my brother, I and my brothers against my cousins, I and my brothers and my cousins against the world.’”79

Rethinking the Subcomponents of World Order A new conception of the fundamental building blocks of world order is thus required, with a greater focus on the tribal and other substate components, what we may think of as the underlying subcomponents of world order. These subcomponents are familiar to the student of classical realism, as it was the polis of the ancient world and its tribal approach to war that kept the centralized and materially superior Persian Empire at bay, and which despite its diminutive size was both ferocious and unyielding. As a result, atrocities like those at Melos were not uncommon, and tragedy, heroism, and hubris formed their own dangerous trinity. While Philip of Macedon, and later his son Alexander the Great, sought to impose a broader, indeed a universal order upon the fractious world of the city-state, the effort was precocious and premature, entirely too dependent upon the military and political skills of its lone PhilosopherKing to endure; but it planted the seed that would become Rome, a more enduring, and mature system that emerged in the Hellenized footprint of Alexander’s march. After Rome’s fall and the darkness the followed, a new, more modern aspiration for sovereignty would arise, in smaller units that corresponded to the emergent nation-state that after Westphalia had supplanted the tribe as a fundamental building block of world order. Now, in the post–Cold War era our primary post-9/11 military challenge is presented by what Kilcullen calls a virtual state, a globalized insurgency by a non-state entity that aspires to overthrow the Westphalian order altogether and replace it with a neomedieval system in the footprint of the old Caliphate that once stood on the territories of the eastern Roman Empire, the portion governed from Byzantium that endured long after the western Roman Empire had collapsed under the dual

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pressures of external assault and internal decay. Our opponent aspires to overthrow the very order composed of nation-states, and in our effort to meet this challenge we are finding the key battlegrounds are weak and failed states where the Westphalian order never truly established firm roots. In these frontier regions, we are finding that clans, sects, and tribes remain the most enduring units of political order and the most viable subcomponents for us to weave together into a coalition of the willing, not an alliance of free states like that which fought against Saddam in the desert war of 1991 or which stood side by side against the Soviet threat throughout the Cold War, or which bravely rolled back the invading forces of both the Nazi and Imperial Japanese empires, but of determined tribal entities that equally oppose the neomedieval vision of the fanatical Islamist insurgents under al Qaeda’s banner of theological liberation. Like the tribes of the Americas that were eventually conquered by force but which now find sovereign expression as part of the more tolerant modern states that have emerged to govern the New World, these new partners are diminutive, but nonetheless essential, and despite their small size their endurance across the ages is testimony to their strength. Like the quantum power unleashed when the atom was split, and a tidal wave of energy was released from the tiniest specks of matter, these rugged tribal units are often stronger than the larger states that have long asserted sovereignty over their homelands. And it is to them that we now turn in partnership as we try to imagine a new order that looks beyond the artifice of the state, to a more durable edifice of world order. International relations, and in particular its realist tradition, has for much of the post-Westphalia period been state-centric, since in modernizing Europe, the nation-state became the dominant unit in the European, and soon global, international order. As a consequence, modern international relations theory has followed from the European experience, positing the state as the foundational unit of world order. But this has not always been the case for Europe, and in much of the world, this has never truly been the case. In fact, the current asymmetry, while a break from the Westphalian tradition as understood through a Western lens, is not as discontinuous with history as seen from other vantage points, whether from the tribal perspective along the modern state’s fringes, or from the southern hemisphere where the modern states was itself imposed from the north, with traditional boundaries between languages and peoples often ignored, sometimes intentionally as a result of divideand-conquer colonial policies.

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While the world today is divided into some 200-plus sovereign states, many—including the linguistically coherent and culturally distinct European states—are bona fide nation-states. But not all are. Others have been, and are today, multiethnic empires, remnants from an earlier period when states were states and nations and tribes and various sects and clans were captives to the forces of superior organization, military predominance, and economic clout. The composition of these empires varied greatly, but their defining characteristics were rule by a minority group over a fractious ethnic mix held together by superior force. Over time, many of these empires fractured into their constituent components, as we saw in the 1990s in Yugoslavia, an artificial conglomeration of Slavic peoples who were otherwise divided by faith and by language. Yet other members of the international community are barely states at all, from the diminutive city-states and island micro-states from the South Pacific to the North Atlantic that still possess sovereign status even without the means to defend that sovereignty from external foe, to the more ominous “failed” or “rogue” states more recently maligned as the world’s bogeyman. The elevation of these failed and rogue states in the 1990s to the leading role as arch-villain of international order was more a result of the absence of a proper peer adversary to pose a truly existential threat to that group of states we have long known as the “West.” With the collapse of communism under its own weight, and the emergence from its debris of numerous Western (or West-aspiring) states that now warmly practiced democracy and constructed new Western economies that celebrated the very capitalism they once harshly rebuked, however, there were few antagonists left to pose a threat to the Western world, few dumb enough to actually declare war against the victorious states who triumphed, virtually bloodlessly, in the bitter Cold War. But enter Osama bin Laden, who could not be content to be a playboy carousing opulent city-states like Monaco like so many other scions of privilege born to the Saudi oil-igarchs, but who instead turned to his faith to find himself, and in the crucible of the anti-Soviet Jihad learned some fundamentals about political and military power that the West, which had funded that war, seemed to overlook: that power was most durable when emanating from a structure that was organic, not synthetic (as the ideologically defined Soviet Union was, and which collapsed like a house of cards). Finding the organic boundaries around which a viable political order may be established and sustained is crucial to the success of any insurgency as well as any counterinsurgent effort. Gandhi knew the unlocked potential of India’s peasantry, some six hundred million strong, reflected a cohesive

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mass of potential economic and politico-military power, and if united in their quest for independence, could not be beaten by the British colonial administration, so greatly outnumbered and potentially outgunned should a war of secession commence. Gandhi’s genius was wielding this mass and leveraging its inherent power without having to resort to an armed struggle, with benefits both to India’s economy, civil society, and relationship with its soon to be former colonial masters. Mao was not so lucky, and had to confront both the ruthless Japanese Imperial army and his domestic opponent, the Chinese Nationalists, and his movement came to fruition during wartime, necessitating the raising of an army: first, a guerrilla army, but later a conventional one as well. His genius was in recognizing the same latent power of the massive Chinese peasantry, also some six hundred million strong, against which the outnumbered Nationalists, primarily city folk, would inevitably be overrun. Bin Laden came to a similar realization when he looked to the Islamic world, governed mostly by autocrats and oligarchs with little popular legitimacy, and recognized it too would yield a potential army of some six hundred million disenfranchised holy warriors, and were it not for American military and economic power, those autocrats and oligarchs would tumble as readily as China’s encircled cities against the inexorable red tide of the rurally based communist insurgency. These three strategic geniuses worked from the same palette, and their strategic theories bear an uncanny resemblance. Their tactics differ, adapting to their distinct strategic and political cultures: Gandhi’s Hindu army of satyagrahi wielded the weapon of strategic nonviolence; Mao’s communist Red Army wielded primarily guerrilla tactics and strategies before morphing into a full-scale conventional army once it controlled sufficient territory and industrial resources; and Bin Laden’s Jihadists blend their Islamic faith with a mix of strategic terrorism and traditional guerrilla methods. Their unifying commonality is their recognition of an underlying, organic political identity around which political, economic, and military power could logically adhere. Gandhi looked to the tools of British imperial power and saw an ephemeral and synthetic order that could not be sustained, just as Mao did when he saw his Westernized Nationalist opponents. Bin Laden looked to the states of the Islamic world and saw illegitimate regimes which owed their endurance to their monopoly on coercive tools, primarily American military technology bought with their petro-dollars. Cut off either one and those regimes would inevitably fall. He offered the Islamic masses a unifying vision of a restored caliphate to fuel his multistate

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insurrection and gained a tremendous following in his courage taking the war to the “far enemy” of America and the West. Even better, Bin Laden, more like Gandhi than Mao, realized that an ethereal power, neither “hard” nor “soft” nor “smart,” but in fact rooted in the spirit and in the purity and depth of faith, could defeat all the tools of hard power so long as the opponent, as well endowed in hard power as was the Soviet Red Army, lacked the same level of ethereal strength. His Jihadists thus resemble Gandhi’s nonviolent warriors in their fearlessness. During its doomed war in Afghanistan, Moscow grappled with the limited utility of its military muscle, contemplated using nuclear weapons to destroy the nerve center of the anti-Soviet Jihad in Peshawar, but in the end concluded that the reason its hard power was having no effect (and would likely continue to have no effect even if magnified through a nuclear lens) was because Soviet faith, not in God since it was by decree a godless realm, but in the supremacy of Communism, had eroded, and without this faith, it could not resist the fearless resistance of the diminutive Mujahideen fighters so willing to die for their cause. More frightful to the war planners in Moscow was the realization that much of the southern USSR was built upon historically Muslim lands, and the stirrings of Jihad, if they crossed the frontier, could result in a domestic uprising against the pillars of Soviet power. And so they withdrew, only to face as ferocious a rebellion in its western territories, as the captive European nations realized, perhaps inspired by the Afghani victory, that their faith, not in God but in their right to be free, and to rejoin the West, was stronger than Moscow’s faith that the Soviet vision was still the inevitable victor in history’s epic struggle. While Bin Laden was at best a bit player at this stage, he seems to have best learned the lessons of this turning point in history, using all he learned to continue his long struggle to liberate the remaining Muslim lands from infidel influence and domination, while along the way, Europe became “whole and free” and his original superpower nemesis, the Soviet Union, ceased to exist. As the artificial boundary between “East” and “West” came down, almost as swiftly and dramatically as those first dissembled concrete barriers that had once defined the Berlin Wall, it became apparent that neither “East” nor “West” would serve to define the resulting zone of democracy. But because the West had won and the East had surrendered, the West for a moment was in vogue. But the Euro-Atlantic community, with the addition of sprawling Russia to connect the newly industrialized states of Northeast Asia with its European and American allies and trading partners, was now something much bigger, one we could more

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properly call the “Top,” since for the moment it is this sector of the Earth that commands the greatest influence, and possesses the most active military power. Thus, the victorious West, combined with the defeated East, has the potential to remain the world’s Top, especially if it wins the current struggle emanating largely from the “South,” which, aggrieved at northern domination, could fairly be called the “Bottom.” Thus, instead of the old East/West clash, or even a geographically defined North/ South one, we may instead witness a collision of Top and Bottom, the former with advanced military technology and notable economic might, the latter with massive and rapidly growing populations, capable of sustaining steep and continuing losses by standing up pure, massed people power against the more modern tools of statecraft wielded by the Top. This could point to a future of continued asymmetrical conflict, one that does not necessarily threaten the Top but which could distract it on a protracted basis. This is a lot like what Thomas P. M. Barnett famously described in his intriguing formulation of “Leviathan” and “Gap” states—the militarily and economically powerful, sovereign states of West and East and the newly industrialized South that dominate both the international security environment as well as the international political-economy, and those Gap states, which include the many weak, failed, and rogue states, that have lots of poor citizens, little health care, few jobs, and less hope, and which are vulnerable to the manipulations of charismatic revolutionary figures, whether it was Che in the prior generation, or Bin Laden in the current one. But it’s not just a struggle between states that are “have” states and “have-not” states as he envisioned but also a struggle within states, from the persistent ghetto communities of the West that provide an internal front for al Qaeda among the immigrant populations—as seen in London and Spain during their mass terror attacks in recent years or even in the post-9/11 efforts to strike again at America—to the more precipitously collapsing societies around the world, which can disrupt international trade (as we see now in Somalia or Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan) or even threaten strategic petroleum supplies (as al Qaeda has long recognized but only sporadically attempted). And so while there are indeed many Gap states to worry about, whether at risk of state failure and collapse, persistent weakness, or a defiant rogue status, the gulf between the two is not necessarily a salient fault line of conflict. Poor, weak states do not often rise up to slay their wealthier and more powerful neighbors. That’s why the colonial era lasted so long, and even when ending, caused so little harm to the colonial powers

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back home; as their colonies rebelled, they did so in an effort to regain their lost sovereignty and reclaim their surrendered economic, political, and military independence. They wanted to be like their colonial masters, indeed many hoped to remain partners with them, having tasted the fruits of what Barnett might call Leviathan-dom, and liking what they tasted and wanting more. There are rare exceptions, such as North Korea, and perhaps less ominously, the pirate gangs of Somalia, who are waging a very unusual sea war against the shipping companies of the wealthier states. But neither the North Koreans nor the Somali pirates want to destroy their opponents: they want to be enriched by them in their effort to survive, and are using their largely symbolic displays of force to extract wealth coercively from their wealthy adversaries, who have so much to lose from the disruption caused by these international shake-downs that until recently it seemed easier to pay than to fight. These weak states along the Bottom, even the failed ones, do not by definition become an enduring threat to what Barnett described as the Leviathan superstate. They simply want to become part of the Leviathan, and in time, with proper planning and investment, and good leadership, this is entirely possible, as we’ve seen with the emergence of the newly industrialized states of Northeast Asia, the powerful city-states of Southeast Asia (Hong Kong and Singapore), and the rising giant, China. But not all will make it, and among those that fail, or that still remain quite a long way from achieving entry into the Top, there are many reasons for concern, especially among those weak and failed states with anarchic domestic environments that look from the outside to be more chaotic than ordered, and in those fractious substates where clans and tribes assert a medieval sovereignty and where centralized state power has yet to take root, fester malevolent forces such as terrorism; piracy; illicit trading networks in WMDs, narcotics, slaves and sex workers; and apocalyptic visions of violent and transformative social and spiritual upheaval. The challenge to the Top—the expanding coalition of Western, Eastern, and industrialized Southern states that form a global trading bloc, and which confront the same set of irritants from the Bottom—is to understand where real danger lies, and where both the true risks to world order, and new opportunities to reshape the world order into something more durable, can be found. To help guide the Top in this process, I’ve outlined a new taxonomy of international order. It grows from my earlier work on tribalism in world politics, and the many clashes between tribes and states that underlie many of the world’s inter- and

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intra-state conflicts, past and present, from the Cold War–era civil war in Guatemala, to the Vietnam War–era US-armed and trained Hmong army in Laos, to the many post–Cold War struggles such as in Rwanda and the Balkans; to the numerous GWOT-era battle zones, where tribe–state conflict, and inter-tribe conflict, define the fault lines of conflict. Exploring the dynamic of tribe–state conflict in particular, the endurance of tribal identity and political organization, and the viability of tribal boundaries as emergent sovereign entities suggests that a more granular understanding of the roots of conflict could help point the way to new solutions to resolve such conflicts, whether through efforts at tribe–state reconciliation, or through the fracturing of oppressive states into new, more tribally or culturally coherent sovereign entities, as we sought to do in Laos in the 1970s, and which we eventually succeeded at in the Balkans in the 1990s, where in the wake of the collapse of a centralized communist state, we found the creation of several new stable, ethnically more coherent statelets would better serve our interests (though the United States was among the last members of the “West” to endorse the breakup of Yugoslavia, fearing that the captive nations of the USSR might follow suit and that the end result might be world war). Later on, when we smashed the pillars of Saddam’s power, we accidentally put into motion the collapse of the Iraqi state and grappled with the same riddle: whether a more stable collection of ministates, or the continued existence of a centralized multiethnic state, was in our interest (the jury is still out on which model is in fact the most durable, and friendly to the Top, though we have again followed the less disruptive path like we did when Yugoslavia teetered at the edge of existence, favoring a whole and united Iraq). It is this debate, on the future of Iraq, that points us past tribalism to a more important discussion, and one that will resonate long past the final battles of the GWOT: what are the fundamental pillars of world order, and how, in this world where states are neither consistent in their structure nor equally stable members of the world community, do we determine the most durable combination of substate components, especially among the more fractious (and hence least successful) experiences in sovereign stability. The American experience has been framed largely as the historic triumph of democracy over tyranny, and in its evolution as a state, from agrarian society to modern industrial superpower, it has wedded capitalism with democracy into its favored ideology. So in the long Cold War, the democratic-capitalistic West clashed with the communist East, and

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nearly brought the world to the doomsday of Apocalypse in what was framed, inaccurately, as a millennial struggle between Good and Evil. In fact there were some major similarities among the two opponents. Both sides favored economic modernization, had a love for new technology, liberated women from the historical oppression of gender inequality, and their military traditions were both rooted in the same blend of Jominian and Clausewitzian theory. They bickered on issues of religion (one favoring separation of church and state, the other favoring the abolition of the church by the state); the preferred system of economic management (one favoring free market capitalism, the other central planning by the state), and the role of political parties (one welcoming all but in the end having really just two, the other welcoming one but upon collapse having many). In the end, too, they faced the same enemies: an increasingly powerful China, and the Islamist threat. But a less often told tale is that of the conquest by the emergent American state of the many fractious indigenous tribes whose homelands became American territory through war, conquest, and unequal (and highly coercive) diplomacy. Much of the American experience was determined along its frontiers where it warred against the tribes that came before it, and which refused to submit to its superior power. Occasionally those tribes would form coalitions in an effort to block the American expansion, but they always failed. American power was thus forged in a crucible of state–tribe conflict, and America is thus better positioned, through its own experience and warfighting doctrine, to understand this persistent fault line of world conflict. And off and on throughout its military history as a world power, it has dipped into its experience with an Indian-fighting army, whether in fomenting rebellion against its opponents, or defeating rebellions by its opponents. The tribe–state fault line is but one fault line in the complex substate topology of world politics. The real challenge is understanding how to assemble the substate components into states, and what sorts of sovereign units will make for a more durable world order. As with the debate over Iraq’s future (and indeed, its existence), the answer is far from clear. Indeed, it requires an understanding of the quantum level of world order, knowledge of the very foundational fabric of world politics. While most modern international relations theory posited the state as the foundation of world order, with an international “system” or at least an “environment” in which they operated, during the Cold War, the system came to surpass the subsystemic components to some, known as the “neorealists” but who were really “structural realists.” As this played

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out, even smaller units and subunits such as the foundational individual, the “man” at the starting point of Waltz’s “Man, the State, and War, and small aggregations of men below the threshold of the state, such as the clan, sect, or tribe, were all but ignored. But it was these subsystemic components that came to define the conflicts of both the immediate post–Cold War period, and the Long War (or GWOT) period. It is my contention that they will continue to be enormously influential, especially as new information networks like the internet, the proliferation of social networking sites, self-publishing tools like blogs, and other platforms around which smaller groups can coalesce (either new neotribes, or traditional substate groups), fostering their unity. Waltz is famous for his three images, around which the three distinct levels of analysis coalesce, defining the architecture of world order and consigning all substate forces to the second or first image. But the substate dimensions of the world order are in fact more durable, and while not always sovereign or independent, they are sometimes nearly so, enough so that in times of conflict they emerge as driving causal levels. When this is tribal, causality can be said to be rooted in what I have described as the “fourth image.”80 But it is not always tribal. There is the smaller clan, the extended family network so powerful in pre-state indigenous societies, and the ethereal sect, as we saw during Christianity’s fractious origins, and like we see today in the many Islamist and Jihadist movements and groups organized along sectarian lines. Tribe, sect, and clan may be all thought of as members of the fourth image, substate but causally distinct and politically and militarily efficacious. But they are also different, especially the sect, since this is a spiritual or theological distinction, albeit one that can be mapped to tribal or clan identity in many cases. One could split these substate levels into a “fourth” and “fifth” image, with tribe and clan as units of the fourth, and sect and faith as units in the fifth. This might be more helpful, since the ethereal is distinct from the physical, as the Romans would ultimately learn (and the Soviets as well). When deconstructing world order into its micro-components, I have come up with a new taxonomy that is distinct from but ontologically linked to the perennial levels of analysis concept (famously described in 1961 by Singer as the “levels of analysis problem in international relations”81), whether Singer’s two-level framework proposed therein, or Waltz’s more famous three images as presented in his Man, the State, and War, and which Singer himself found to be illuminating but unnecessarily restricted to a discussion of causality of war. As Singer noted: “An important pioneering

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attempt to deal with some of the implications of one’s level of analysis, however, is Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War, New York, 1959. But Waltz restricts himself to a consideration of these implications as they impinge on the question of the causes of war.”82 Singer also noted that “during the debate between ‘realism’ and ‘idealism’ the analytical implications of the various levels of analysis received only the scantiest attention; rather the emphasis seems to have been at the two extremes of pragmatic policy and speculative metaphysics.”83 Just as Singer and Waltz found some order of methodological clarity in their discussions of the levels of analysis, I will next turn to them to help organize our thinking on this quantum level of world politics operating in the subsystemic, and often in the substate, realm. Singer ties the levels of analysis problem back to the fundamental issue of ambiguity in assessing causality in international politics, returning to the riddle addressed by the quantum theorists who probed the seemingly chaotic and at times baffling world within the atom, where uncertainty reigned and where there were limits to not only human knowledge and perception but to causal certainty itself, which seemed to be resolved so neatly in the Newtonian world far above, but which at the micro-level was at heart unresolved and full of ambiguities. The problem is not so much the boundary between order and chaos as argued by the complexity and chaos theorists but rather between what is knowable (and thus predictable) and what is inherently not (and thus forever uncertain but not necessarily chaotic) This riddle of inherent ambiguity, with every bit as much saliency as found in quantum theory, is what ultimately confronts the theorist of international politics, and perhaps was best understood by the classical realists and their idealist counterparts who took a leap of faith and tied their theory to a fundamental view of human nature, rooting international causality, ultimately, in the human heart, the ultimate substate level of analysis, and endeavoring to nurture forth a more ordered world nonetheless. Singer reminds us that, importantly, “the problem is really not one of deciding which level is most valuable to the discipline as a whole and then demanding that it be adhered to from now unto eternity. Rather, it is one of realizing that there is this preliminary conceptual issue and that it must be temporarily resolved prior to any given research undertaking. And it must also be stressed that we have dealt here only with two of the more common orientations, and that many others are available and perhaps even more fruitful potentially than either of those selected here.”84 He thus opens the door to a further granularity in the levels of analysis, suggesting potential for

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analytical levels below the national state, a hint that looking inward, and not outward to the broader international system as Waltz and the neorealists did, may prove fruitful in time. Singer thus writes: “Moreover, the international system gives many indications of prospective change, and it may well be that existing institutional forms will take on new characteristics or that new ones will appear to take their place. As a matter of fact, if incapacity to perform its functions leads to the transformation or decay of an institution, we may expect a steady deterioration and even ultimate disappearance of the national state as a significant actor in the world political system. However, even if the case for one or another of the possible levels of analysis cannot be made with any certainty, one must nevertheless maintain a continuing awareness as to their use.”85 The substate realm is not new to theorists of international relations, though the intensity of focus since 9/11 on non-state actors suggests an entirely new level of analysis, but it is only the realization of this substate level’s importance that is newly rediscovered; since 1959, it has been known by many as Waltz’s first image, or part of Singer’s subsystemic but imperfectly named (“national state”) level of analysis. In his comparison of his two primary levels of analysis, the international system and the national state, Singer writes, reminiscent of Waltz’s concluding thoughts in Man, the State, and War and of his later elaboration in Theory of International Politics: “In terms of description, we find that the systemic level produces a more comprehensive and total picture of international relations than does the national or sub-systemic level. On the other hand, the atomized and less coherent image produced by the lower level of analysis is somewhat balanced by its richer detail, greater depth, and more intensive portrayal.”86 Intriguingly, Waltz’s later work, which laid the foundation for neorealism and which embraced the third image for its causal primacy, and which postulated an ordering effect induced systemically by the ubiquity of international anarchy, mirrored the dual-image presented by Singer nearly two decades earlier, and which similarly saluted the comprehensiveness and the totality of the picture provided by the systemic level, while noting the granularity of the subsystemic level (which was not without importance, even in its lack of comprehensiveness). If we step back to the foundational “trinity of war” so many attribute to Clausewitz (and which as a theoretical structure permeated his work, punctuating it with numerous manifestations of trinititarianism), or further back to the three pillars of order enunciated by Machiavelli in his separate works aimed at separate readers, or even further back to the three pillars of order that brought stability to Plato’s just

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city in his Republic, we can see elements of the levels of analysis problem, especially so in Clausewitz whose trinity of war interconnected the subsystemic (i.e., domestic political as well as human emotional) dynamics with the systemic (the surface boundary of the battlespace, in which two nations, two armies, and two commanders come face to face, with eddies of chaos, an infusion of friction and fog, to disrupt any expectation of linear outcome, as Beyerchen noted eloquently in his work). Clausewitz thus grasped not only the ambiguity of the levels of analysis but the supreme importance of charting their boundaries and knowing their limits, something Machiavelli likely comprehended as well, even if his theoretical presentation was, owing to its early-modern emergence, less sophisticated (and therefore, less nonlinear). But the endurance of the levels of analysis problem, and its connection to the famous trinity of war, or as I call here, the trinity of order that defined the Western polity and which has endured the passage of two millennia and the evolution from the polis to the modern state (and its fragmentation in some quarters) is notable. If we look to Waltz’s famous three images, we can see in them a familiarity, an echo of Clausewitz’s trinitarian structure. Indeed, Waltz’s three images may be understood as a reformulation of the Clausewitzian trinity, and conveys their interactive complexity (as noted by Beyerchen in his discussion of the complex, nonlinear movement of the pendulum caught between the magnetic fields of three magnets). The key connecting thread is the inherent ambiguity of causality, which the commander had to contend with in a life-or-death manner, not unlike the strategic theorists of the nuclear age, who also experienced a similar ambiguity (as seen in the doctrinal debates between the pure deterence theorists and the “warfighters” who came to believe their threats were more credible and thus less likely to be challenged). The enduring ambiguity, as elucidated by Waltz in his early articulation of the three images in his dissertation and his classic Man, the State, and War more so than in his later articulation of neorealism in Theory of International Politics, and also reflected in Singer’s thoughtful (and in many ways prescient) discussion in his seminal 1961 World Politics article, which in a very eloquent nutshell contains the essence of the neorealist argument, must not be overlooked. Even as neorealism sought to scale back the reach of ambiguity, identifying a greater causal probability if not outright causal certainty in the third image, it never slayed this Jabberwock, leaving us with the unresolved riddle of ambiguity that faced Clausewitz as well as the quantum theorists who, through their perseverance and open minds, helped give birth to the

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nuclear age. As Waltz tried to narrow the reach of ambiguity, emphasizing one level of analysis above the others (in contrast to Singer’s more balanced approach or Waltz’s own earlier approach), he imagined a system that was, at heart, unbalanced, and which proved unstable. This instability becomes evident if we imagine the Waltzian images as counterparts to Clausewitz’s trinity of war. Waltz eloquently articulated a trinitarian balance inherent in the three images, with man, state, and war largely corresponding to levels of analysis (the individual level, national level, and systemic level), much the way Clausewitz described the trinity of war, with the people (the aggregation of the many individuals who define the first image and who in their collectivity become the demos or popular will, the embodiment of the nation but separate from the institutional structures of the state), the government (the structures of governance that defined the state or the sovereign), and the armed forces (the agent of war that operated at the boundary between competing states, sometimes marching across these borders, where they might interact with the raw popular will and, which when armed for insurgent resistance as Napoleon learned in Portugal and Spain and again in Russia, can prove to be as lethal as a regular army). The interaction of these three pillars takes place both within the domestic political space, as well as in the more anarchic international arena, and sometimes in the enemy’s domestic political space; the result can produce a complex series of outcomes, from the disciplined clash of conventional battle to the passion of popular insurgency, with much variation. The core pillars of order, the balanced relationship defined by the people, the state, and the armed forces, are found in all manner of states and in even many substate polities, from the sectarian and tribal militia–dominated neighborhoods of insurgent-plagued Iraq, to the tribal militia–dominated valleys of Afghanistan, not to mention other ethnically complex weak states such as Burma, where tribal militias limit the reach of the national government, and thus help define a sovereign order that is far more complex than the traditional Westphalian nationstate. Clausewitz’s trinity, in essence, defines the limits of sovereignty: where people, state (or substate entity whether a tribal homeland or a UN-protected trusteeship), and armed forces find a balance, an organic equilibrium is achieved that defines a stable sovereign boundary inside of which there is domestic order of some sort. Where any one of these pillars fails to achieve balance with the others, we find instability; for instance, the ideological fanaticism of the Nazi Party induced a dangerous expansion of German military power, well beyond the traditional confines of the nation-state and in marked contrast to the more limited ambitions of

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Frederick the Great, who sought largely to unify Prussia into a cohesive and geographically contiguous polity. Similarly, the revolutionary fervor unleashed by Napoleon and the magnification of military power by his levée en masse similarly led to an overextension, with his military power expanding well past the point where a natural equilibrium of people, state, and armed forces could be sustained (hence the rapidity of the collapse of his European empire, with the same speed and tragic scale of destruction as experienced with the Nazi collapse). Interestingly, closer to our own time, the Soviet collapse, which unfolded with a similar rapidity, occurred without the destruction, in part because its collapse was brought on by the reunification of people and armed forces, two core pillars of Clausewitz’s trinity, leaving the Soviet state in a condition of fatal frailty. It was well-armed, perhaps too well-armed, for the price it paid to maintain strategic parity with the West deprived the East Bloc’s populace of the same quality of life experienced on the other side of the Iron Curtain, resulting in the mass defection of popular support during Gorbachev’s loosening of state controls, when dissent was tolerated for the first time in a generation—and with it went the support of the armed forces, which sided with the people against the state and led to a Gandhian-styled restoration of independence without violence or force. Just as the Soviet system overemphasized strategic military power and in so doing became vulnerable to a popular insurgency, the world imagined by the international relations theorists and in particular the neorealists proved equally overcommitted to strategic military structures, leaving the fundamental trinity of power unbalanced and at risk of rapid destabilization. Waltzian neorealism saw order in anarchy, but misread the central importance of uncertainty in anarchy, and the dangers therein. As Clausewitz observed in the wake of Napoleon, the trinity of war was remarkably complex but at the same time essential to the maintenance of order; imbalances in any one of the three core pillars could prove catastrophic, and thus the apparent order enjoyed at such high cost (and grave risk to our very survival) during the Cold War evaporated with a suddenness that few theorists of our time had predicted, but which Clausewitz may well have understood intuitively, knowing that a grand convergence of interconnected causal factors at various levels of analysis had taken place—just as it did in his own time. The order that the neorealists imagined was, in many ways, a period of profound disorder, and the chaos many saw at the Cold War’s end may in fact be a grand restoration of order as sovereignty itself finds a more organic and hence sustainable equilibrium. Indeed, as we will shortly see, the Cold War order was in

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large measure a synthetic construct, and was thus ephemeral. The world that is now reemerging and has been since the Soviet collapse has the potential to be more organically sound, structurally balanced, and, if fortune smiles upon our generation, durable. Our task at hand is to develop the analytical and theoretical tools to help shape this new world, and to rethink some of the Westphalian assumptions (and post-Soviet lessons) that did not graft on so well to the more distant corners of the world where we now find ourselves engaged militarily. Our task ahead will thus be to extend the levels of analysis further into the subsystemic realm, beyond the national state to the underlying substate realm, world politics’ equivalent of the quantum realm; we will also expand our application of the levels of analysis to the pre-Westphalian realm, which defines much of the world beyond Europe and East Asia, where the national state was never more than an aspiration and which on the ground remained ordered by other principles—such as tribal kinship, clan networks, or sectarian belief. In this more diverse world, we have many different kinds of states, not all of which are what Singer described as national states. Some, of course, are bona fide nation-states but there are others that are multiethnic states. We also have tribes, sects, and clans: some that reside within states, some between and across state boundaries (thereby creating fault lines for future inter- and intra-state conflicts). And with the increased digitality of communications and proliferation of networks, we have neotribal entities that could, in time, evolve into bona fide actors in world politics, much like clans, sects, and tribes. The world communist movement could be viewed as the last century’s manifestation of a neotribal force that came to dominate world politics. Perhaps the spirited commitment to democracy by the Athenians two millennia ago, which in time evolved into America’s primary ideological export, could be viewed as a similar neotribal force. As can, one may argue, the Christian movement and Islamic movement, which evolved into world religions. Thus various social movements could, if they endure, form new substate causal foundations of world politics.

Foundations of a New Trinity: The Organic, Synthetic, and Ethereal The new taxonomy that I propose for understanding the sub- and transstate micro-dimensions of world politics are simple: all subsystemic components of world politics may be defined as organic, synthetic, and

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ethereal. Among the organic components are of course the nation-states, which have evolved over centuries into stable, culturally and linguistically distinct, militarily defensible, politically independent, sovereign units. But at the substate level, there are many more organic subcomponents, including the tribes that have survived the rise of the modern state and either live within or between states. Not all states are organic. And, to be fair, today’s organic states have not always been organic. Indeed, it took centuries of war, expansion, tribal conflict and annihilatory warfare, and political modernization for them to emerge. During the Medieval period, there were indeed few if any organic states and instead various trans-state and substate forces were the organic components, whether at the level of tribe, clan, or sect. This differentiation between organic and synthetic echoes a hint of French sociologist Émile Durkheim’s conception of mechanical versus organic solidarity, though to Durkheim it was organic solidarity that emerged in the more modern states where a division of labor introduced a more complex interdependence, while mechanical solidarity was evident in more traditional communities like tribal or clanbased societies—an inversion of his German rival, the famed sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies’ conception of premodern Gemeinschaft and modern Gesellschaft. Tönnies, incidentally, contributed to a renewal of interest in Thomas Hobbes by modern theorists through his republication of Hobbes’ works, and his 1896 tome, Hobbes, Leben und Lehre in which he pays tribute to Hobbes for his theoretical inspiration. And even more interesting is the fact that Waltz, the “father of neorealism” and the great simplifier of world politics who placed parsimony before all else, looked to Durkheim, who distinguished between mechanical and organic solidarity, for theoretical inspiration and justification of his binary approach to world politics as in essence a two-party system (the system and its constituent units, which he boiled down from his original three images). As noted in his 1995 APSR article, “Waltz, Durkheim, and International Relations: The International System as an Abnormal Form,” John Barkdull observed that “Waltz distinguishes domestic and international structures in terms of Durkheim’s typology of mechanical and organic solidarity and the corresponding segmentary and organized orders,” and “places the international system in the mechanical, segmentary class and asserts that the international system, as a segmentary order, lacks a division of labor, or differences between the units.”87 Barkdull notes that in contrast to Waltz’s characterization of the international system by its mechanical solidarity, “the differentiation of units characterizes hierarchical, organic,

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domestic society. States are segments, Waltz argues, in that they are alike and are related to one another by juxtaposition, rather than displaying the organic ties of differentiation and mutual dependence found within a society. ‘The parts of a polity,’ writes Waltz, ‘bind themselves together by their differences’”—as he put it in his Theory of International Politics (1979), citing Durkheim’s classic Division of Labor in Society.88 Furthermore, Waltz posits that “states, inasmuch as they are alike, are not members of the same polity and are merely loosely linked in the international system by their sameness. Thus Waltz equates mechanical solidarity society with anarchy, organic society with hierarchy, and relies on Durkheim’s authority for the reasonability of reducing all societies to these two polar types” in Theory of International Politics.89 Even more interesting, Barkdull describes how “Waltz’s use of Durkheim’s conceptual framework is in error in several respects,” and notes while “Waltz describes the basis for organic solidarity admirably” in his “Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to My Critics” in Neorealism and Its Critics (1986), he nonetheless “ignores the significance of the fact that the main social types that Durkheim posits—mechanical and organic society differ in terms of their moral basis, preferring to emphasize the consequence that the units in each type are similar or differentiated. He mistakenly equates anarchy with the segmentary form and hierarchy with the organic form, when segmentary and organic society can be either hierarchical or anarchic”— and “compounds the error by conflating mutualism and mechanical society. Ultimately, the problem with Waltz’s formulation is that his purpose is directly contrary to Durkheim’s. While Waltz wishes to establish the invariance and continuity of the main features of international life, Durkheim attempts to explain and evaluate fundamental transformations in social relations.”90 Barkdull further notes that “Durkheim’s analysis points toward change and transformation in the international system, not to continuity and persistent structural limits on the development of international institutions. In short, contrary to Waltz’s assertions, Durkheim does not provide any greater support for his theory than to liberal internationalism—probably the reverse.”91 My conceptualization embraces both the natural transformation of social relations inherent in Durkheim as well as the original, and dynamic, trinitarian structure contained in Waltz’s three images presented in his classic Man, the State, and War—which has left students with a richer set of ingredients to comprehend the complexities of world politics, more so than his later theoretical and admittedly more elegant work

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as presented 20 years later in his Theory of International Politics. Waltz’s original three levels of world politics continued a proud and enduring tradition dating back to Clausewitz, who stands as a principal (and perhaps the preeminent) gatekeeper to the contemporary world of total war; Machiavelli, who similarly stood as a principal (and perhaps the preeminent) gatekeeper to the modern world; and even further back to Plato, who emerged from Socrates’ shadow to become the principal (and perhaps, with the exception of Aristotle, preeminent) gatekeeper to the classical world, giving form to the otherwise formless classical world and who initiated the rapid empowerment of the young field of philosophy as an art of social, political, and strategic construction with his sweeping vision of what Foucault might think of as classical pouvoir-savoir in the form of the Philosopher-King, and I, too, surrender to the elegance and endurance of this powerful trinity. In my re-conceptualization of the subcomponents of world order, the states that are not organic are by default synthetic states: they are artifices that have yet to achieve full sovereignty over all of their territory and among all of their peoples. As we saw when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was a synthetic state and a powerful one at that but it failed to extinguish the aspirations of its organic captive nations—which after a series of singular uprisings stretching from Berlin in 1953 to Gdansk in 1980 finally rebelled all at once during the tectonic upheaval of 1989/1990, winning their freedom while dooming the experiment to reengineer the very heart of mankind into a new Soviet man (novy sovetsky chelovek). But had Gorbachev not come along to meekly surrender to the democratic forces he unwittingly unleashed in his bid to restructure and reform the Soviet Union, and instead a ruthless tyrant had grabbed the reins of Soviet power and crushed these movements violently and without wavering, the Soviet experiment may well have continued. It boasted many gains: its potent thermonuclear armory; its wide social umbrella offering universal health care, housing, and education to hundreds of millions of its citizens; its tremendous advances in science and engineering. Until the late 1980s, it appeared to be ascending much like (indeed, more so than) China today, and as described by Philip Bobbitt in his masterful Shield of Achilles, prior to the Soviet collapse the Soviet Union itself seemed to be quite viable as a state, indeed a superpower, and certainly not preordained to fail. If the Soviet experiment had succeeded, perhaps a century or a millennium hence, the Soviet Union (and its coalition with other Communist States) might have evolved from synthetic to organic status and become an enduring feature of the international system, with the principles of

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socialism potentially eclipsing those of market democracy, which became enshrined, if little noticed, by the 1990 Peace of Paris. But it did collapse and with the Soviet collapse came the concomitant rise of the values embraced by the victor, a fusion of the ancient principle of democracy that infused Periclean Athens and the modern economics of capitalism. America, too, was once a synthetic state. Borne of the British colonial experiment, shaped by the crucible of war—against Britain, Spain, Barbary pirates, the many Native American tribes, protonations, and empires that governed what would ultimately become American territory—and later its own rebellious southern states, perhaps the decisive conflict that transformed “these united states” as a plural entity and amalgamation of sovereign components into “the United States,” a singular sovereign entity, otherwise known as the “Union,” and perceived to be “indivisible.” It is ironic that the Soviet Union perceived itself this way as well, but in the end failed to make the transition from synthetic to organic. Germany, in its long and painful history, started out as a collection of organic substate tribes, city-states and other micro-states on the periphery of the Holy Roman Empire; but under Bismark and Frederick, it carved out its own contiguous geographical space in Europe to assert state sovereignty, overreaching in the twentieth century, but pushed back by the world community, divided and occupied for a generation, and finally settling in as an organic member of the world of nation-states, though in the mid-twentieth century, the militarily expanding empire envisioned by Hitler was clearly a synthetic state, one that quickly collapsed under tremendous external pressure as its eastern neighbor, the synthetic Soviet state, would later do. The British Empire was also a synthetic state, and when it collapsed, it released from captivity many organic states; indeed, it was the organic nature of a self-governing India that enabled Gandhi’s nonviolent revolution to succeed; he merely persuaded the British to recognize reality for what it was, facilitating a relatively benign handover to independence. But not all of the constituents that comprised the British Empire became properly organic state-level components. What was once a united India, when forcibly divided into a sovereign India and Pakistan, became an imperfect, indeed distorted, reflection of the multiethnicity that had achieved some sense of organic equilibrium as a united whole, even with its ethnocultural complexities. In division, it precipitated painful and dislocative forced mass-relocations of minority peoples on both sides of the new sovereign boundaries, and a series of traumatic upheavals including riots and later wars that caused a further fissioning of the body politic of

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Pakistan and the emergence of an independent Bangladesh—and which for many years in our time has threatened to unleash the first bilateral nuclear war between two nuclear-armed opponents that still seethe with rage over the trauma of their birth, an ironic epitaph for two states which came to freedom through the elegant beauty of Gandhi’s satyagraha; the state of great and unresolved uncertainty over the status of Kashmir, claimed by both Pakistan and India and an apt metaphor for the failure of post-British India to achieve organic stability, illustrates how offspring states forged during the crucible of civil war and independence struggles can create new synthetic states like Pakistan, which never truly seem to succeed enough to evolve into stable organic entities and appear to always be at risk of further fragmentation into more stable orders. Might a united India have been more organic, as Gandhi himself believed and which the British, always thinking ahead (and tending to divide when conquering proved unviable), sought to forestall? Or must Pakistan and India undergo a future series of fracturings into smaller sovereign entities for a true organic equilibrium to emerge? And with both states armed with substantial nuclear arsenals, would such a fracturing unfold without nuclear war, just as the Soviet collapse managed to do? China is widely perceived to be an organic state, and with five millennia of sovereign independence, its own distinct language (albeit with dialects that share a common orthography but which remain mutually unintelligible), its sophisticated and multitiered system of governance, and its recent economic might and increasing military prowess there is no reason to doubt this. But, China’s present borders do not necessarily reflect an organic wholeness. Indeed, its 1950–1 conquest of Tibet forcibly incorporated a captive nation into its body politic, one with its own distinct history, culture, and language and its own rightful claim to organic status. Tibet lacked China’s military and demographic power and was less economically advanced, so it did not stand a chance, but this conquest does not disqualify it from its unmistakable organic status and its ongoing struggle, marked by occasional rebellions from Beijing’s rule, reinforces the merit of its organic designation. For the moment, Tibet is thus an organic substate component of a synthetic China. But were China to recognize that its long-term stability could be enhanced by allowing a friendly and independent Tibet to emerge from its shadow much like Britain recognized with India—perhaps as a demilitarized buffer-state separating it from its true long-term strategic adversary, India, then Beijing would take a big step closer toward organic wholeness, and would in the process not only increase its own prognosis for a durable

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stability, but would at the same time strengthen its relationship with the democratic West, and in so doing, help to further broaden the geographic expanse of the “Top” to include nearly all of East Asia in addition to North America and Europe. All northern hemispheric states, this would enable the West to be retired once and for all and Top to replace it as the designation for this sector of the world. There are other captive nations and some substantial sub- and transstate tribes inside China’s current boundaries including the populous Miao and Yi peoples, and dozens of smaller non-Han minorities. Some reside in ethnically homogenous swaths of territory that could, at the right time and place, become sovereign states, not unlike the smaller sovereign entities like the city-states of Europe and the newly independent remnants of Yugoslavia, especially the Bosniak enclave as well as the Kosovar enclave, both protected by Western power and thus nurtured forth into sovereign or semi-sovereign existence. Such tribal and protonational entities are to some degree organic. The Bosniaks, for sure, since they have resided in the same homeland for half a millennium, have their own distinct culture, and to a large degree control a substantial swath of territory. The Kosovars are organic but less obviously so: tied to Albania by language and culture, but residing within Serbia by a quirk of history, they may not stand as an organic sovereign state but as a substate “statelet,” whose existence can only be assured by external military power. One could argue that Serbia’s claim to more properly and legitimately assert sovereignty over Kosovo is the better argument, but again by quirk of history and owing to their poor treatment of their own ethnic minority, the Serbs have not been allowed to exercise what is in fact a reasonable and just claim. The exodus of Albanian Muslims that Serbia sought to encourage through ethnic cleansing may well have led to a more stable and organic outcome, with the Kosovars returning to Albania and the Serbs reclaiming their lost lands in Kosovo. Not a gentle solution but in the long term, perhaps a more stable one. The Middle East, especially with the half-century conflict between Israel and the Arab states (and quasi-sovereign entities like the Palestinian National Authority), looks on the surface to be a clash between organic states. But during the long Diaspora of Jewish national existence, when the Jewish tribes found refuge and later faced annihilation in Europe, a millennium passed and during this long stretch of history a largely Arab Middle East became organic. The restoration of Jewish sovereignty within what had become an Arab Middle East left a gaping wound that has not healed, even after several generations. The Arab states have not

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made it easier, preventing most Palestinians the opportunity to integrate with their societies, resulting in decades of refugees living in camps and deprived of hope. The Israelis have not made it easy either, expanding their sovereign footprint to the captured territories from the Six Day War, relocating its capital to Jerusalem and declaring it to be indivisible, and engaging in fitful peace talks while building new settlements on land claimed rightfully by the Palestinians, developing its own nuclear deterrent so it could find solace behind its own “Samson Option,” and dominating its neighbors militarily. It has made peace, but along the way it has left the wound created by its very existence festering, a source of ongoing conflict. Israel is thus an ambiguous case. It has many dimensions that suggest it is an organic state. But to its neighbors and opponents, it can be said to be a synthetic state. An amalgamation of tribes united by their faith, they won their independence and have defended it ably, earning the respect and admiration if not the friendship of most of its neighbors. So it appears to be in transition, in the eyes of its neighbors, from synthetic to organic status and once it achieves peace with Syria and the Palestinians, it may well be clearly advanced into the organic category. But the fact that Israel is by definition a Jewish state suggests another dimension to the conflict: between the broader regional Islamic faith and the minority Jewish faith. Inside Israel, with an Israeli-Arab population growing faster than the Jewish population, there is a simmering conflict that could explode into civil war along theological and cultural lines. When Iran’s leaders suggest “wiping Israel off the map,” they are more likely imagining the sovereign boundaries of the state they view to be a synthetic intrusion by the West into the Islamic world, but not necessarily the physical or spiritual existence of the Jewish people, who share an overlapping heritage with all Muslims, who trace their lineage back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish people born in the Babylonian city of Ur. They likely imagine a continued Jewish existence in the traditional Jewish homeland, and not the extinction of Jewish identity as many Israelis fear—but as a minority religion within the larger Islamic superstate. This clash of faiths introduces us to the third subcomponent of world order: the ethereal. The ethereal dimension of the world order is one that exists in the mind and heart, such as the world’s religions, and one might argue its cults and more messianic and millennial ideologies. As Europe modernized, many of the wars fought were sectarian in nature, and from the sectarian strife, an over-arching sovereignty was called for to suppress the fires of religious warfare. Thomas Hobbes famously called upon

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Leviathan to extinguish the fires of the English civil war, and to break the backbone of the combatants in the long sectarian war that shed so much blood on English soil. The rise of Leviathan, as metaphor for the rise of modern, secular state sovereignty, reflected the historical triumph of the state over the Church and its many sectarian factions. In what became the West, the struggle between Church and State was settled decisively, with the state asserting a unifying religious culture but over time becoming more and more tolerant of minority religions. In America, where many religious minorities fled Europe’s religious wars and ubiquitous religious persecutions, a new and distinct ethereal society emerged long before America became independent, and even longer before it came to be sovereign across the continent. At the time of the first Indian wars, it was a clash between tribes and sects, the former indigenous to the Americas and the latter largely religious refugees from Europe. This was the environment in which King Philip’s War was fought, a struggle largely between tribe and church: the former an organic indigenous entity and the latter synthetic. But the latter achieved a military victory owing to an alliance with the Mohawks, defeating King Philip’s army and breaking the will as well as the capacity of his coalition to resist the emergent American sovereign. And thus the victorious synthetic would in time evolve to become an organic member of the world community, and ultimately ascend to economic and military predominance. Often, ethereal entities plant a seed from which future states emerge, and enable their transition from synthetic to organic member of the world community. In Europe, it was sect and faith that enabled fractious tribes to unite as one nation, thus providing the binding spirit that forged a nation out of warring tribes. Had ethereality survived in Europe past the Middle Ages it might have prevented the emergence of the nationstates as the organic units post-Westphalia. History may have been very different, with spiritual empires and not smaller nation-states dominating the European political landscape. And underlying the fault lines between nations, as seen during the Cold War, there was indeed an underlying ethereal fault line where a Christian West and an Orthodox East collided. And it was upon such ethereal fault lines that the former Yugoslavia fractured. Throughout the Islamic world, an ethereal identity often supersedes that of national identity, and this explains the endurance and resilience of some of the Islamist and Jihadist movements. When the anti-Soviet Jihad withstood the hard power of the Red Army, it did so in part because of the tremendous faith and spiritual dedication of the Jihadists. They

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were not fighting for their nation, and though organized largely into substate tribal groupings, it was an ethereal axis of conflict that largely defined their struggle. To them they were waging war against not just occupiers, but Godless Infidels, nonbelievers who rejected their faith and thus committed an act of apostasy, very similar to the blasphemy that drove the intra-Christian feuds of the Middle Ages. They could thus withdraw to Peshawar, regroup, and then reengage in Afghanistan, and when necessary, withdraw again. Their power came not from territorial possession but from the steadfastness of their spiritual vision and faith. The Red Army could occupy Afghanistan for a decade but it could never successfully turn most Afghanis into Communists. Their faith was too strong, and their identity perhaps more keenly ethereal than tribal. The Taliban movement, and its resilience, can be attributed at least in part to its ethereal nature. While its ability to govern Afghanistan quickly collapsed under American fire in 2001, its comeback should not come as a surprise given the deep spiritual roots that legitimizes its rule, enhanced by the organic nature of its demographic base amongst the Pushtuns. That its ethnic roots are firmly planted in the trans-state Pushtun tribe, which straddles the Af–Pak border, affords an enduring base of popular support in both states, providing sanctuary to withstand a decline in fortunes on either side—much like that enjoyed by the antiSoviet resistance during the 1980s. The Taliban’s strength is thus fusion of an ethereal bond with a durable organic trans-state base, tying its fate to both Afghanistan, where American power has been predominant, and Pakistan, which fostered the emergence of the Taliban movement a decade earlier. Similarly, the endurance of Bin Laden’s al Qaeda movement, even as its leadership maintains a stateless existence, and as its ability to assert sovereign control anywhere in the world continues to wither and can be attributed to its unique ethereality, but in this case without the same unity of an organic ethnographic foundation. The idea that binds al Qaeda as a global movement, and sustains its endurance across both space and time, reflects a rare global ethereal movement, not unique but exceedingly uncommon. The conception of the West, in its early years, was perhaps as ethereal: Athens lost its own long and bloody civil war with Sparta, and democracy in the end came nearly last to Greece in modern Europe, not first. But far away, in America, the ideals of the Athenians found new and fertile soil, but only after the indigenous peoples of the continent were genocidally annihilated or ethnically cleansed from their homelands. In the wake of their destruction a new organic form could arise, bound by its

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founding ethereal vision. Though by crude means, an ethereal conception of order took sovereign form as a state, and then underwent the transition from a synthetic to organic component of world politics over time and under the duress of war and conflict. As the West, and perhaps one day, a united Top, engages in its struggle with al Qaeda, it should recall its own ethereal origins and not dismiss its opponent for its current stateless status. The early Christians when they challenged the authority of the militarily and economically superior Rome were similarly outnumbered, but their ethereal conception of order planted the seed for not only a new world religion but also the foundation for national identity in Europe centuries later that arose from its ashes. The ethereal movement imagined by Christ and executed brilliantly by his followers upon his death, ultimately reclaimed Rome as its capital, where it still rules today in the micro-state of Vatican City. These are just some preliminary thoughts, but a necessary theoretical starting point for a reconceptualization of world politics along constituent subcomponents that have proven their durability outside the framework of the Westphalian tradition. Europe has embraced nation-states, by and large, though its military history reflects a continuing aspiration for something more, a universal empire along the lines of what Napoleon briefly erected, or the more sweeping East/West synthesis aspired by Alexander in ancient times. Along the periphery of Europe, however, an enduring tribal reality has challenged the viability of the state as the foundation of order, as seen in the many fractious border regions from the Balkans to the Caucasus. In the postcolonial world, the alignment of state boundaries to the underlying ethnocultural topography is even less snug, resulting in genocidal explosions of ethnic rage as seen in Rwanda in its 100 days of bloodletting in 1994, and near total war conditions as experienced in the Congo these past few years with as many victims as the whole of Europe experienced during World War I. The states system that so many modern realists have embraced may thus be viewed in hindsight as a naïve and idealistic fantasy rooted in a gross oversimplification of the very European history that undergirds their worldview; and its fixation on the state as the fundamental building block increasingly deviates from the inherent and underlying reality of world politics the further one looks beyond Europe. Realism must thus be weaned from its persistent dependence upon the Westphalian model, much as Benno Teschke brilliantly does in his 2003 The Myth of 1648. By setting realism free from its state-centricity, it can do what it has always done well: reflect reality, and in so doing, help mankind navigate

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its dangerous eddies and achieve some measure of solace. By returning to its origins, a world of city-states trapped in a violent and anarchical world, and seeing how it evolved beyond the polis to world politics, we can rediscover its essence. Realism was not a rubber stamp of the Treaty of Westphalia, it was a hard-fought, passionate struggle against chaos, a dream of enduring order that responded to the complexities of history, and dealt with these complexities as best it could. It sought to mitigate through understanding the greatest dangers, and to restore equilibrium where it could. But the state as a fixed and permanent solution to the problem of chaos was never the sole end sought by realism. While Leviathan emerged in Hobbes’ imagination to pacify the festering chaos of his era, this all-powerful sovereign was not the terminus of the realist journey; it marked the high water mark of state sovereignty, but on the global stage this only led to a new round of chaos and a new quest for order, as evident in the theoretical efforts of the total war theorists, as anti-colonial and anti-imperial realists who have sought to dismantle this all-powerful, perhaps too-powerful, construct. It is obvious in our time that some subcomponents of world order are organic, and from these derive stability as well as legitimacy. It is also obvious that some components are synthetic, though synthetic need not mean a lack of legitimacy or even be a source of current instability. But a synthetic entity will have artificial boundaries that could under pressure become fault lines of conflict and even fracture into new sovereign entities. One can intuit that a state, as it evolves from tribal or sectarian origins into a durable member of the world community, would likely aspire to migrate from synthetic to organic. With the Soviet Union, this came about during its collapse as its organic components were emancipated, regaining their lost sovereignty, rather than through its own evolution into an organic whole. America, itself once a synthetic entity, now can claim veritable organic status, its sovereignty unquestioned across its vast domain. China, largely organic, still holds by force captive nations that are unto themselves organic entities and would, in the absence of Chinese power, readily reclaim their own sovereign independence. This is so for the Tibetan nation, occupied by China and no longer recognized by the community of nations, but still recognized by millions of people around the world. Tiny Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania were once similarly occupied by the Soviet state, though the West never fully turned its back on their just claims, rooted in their distinctly organic nature. In the case of China, wars of unification and the stunning demographic dominance of the Han, once a single tribe but now numbering some

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1.2 billion, the world’s largest single ethnic group, have brought their state toward organic status without fracturing like Moscow’s empire. In the brief life of the Soviet Union, its people did not fully evolve into a singular Soviet man as dreamed by Lenin and his disciples, but retained their linguistic and cultural uniqueness, and their traditional ethnic identities were never truly replaced by a new Soviet identity. In China, while the Han are clearly Chinese by identity, and exercise most levers of power, more than one hundred million non-Han minorities endure, particularly along the southwestern periphery of China, most well known in the West being the Tibetans whose homeland was conquered by China during the last century—but there are also many other distinct minority peoples scattered across its vast southern and western territories, many who still struggle to preserve their distinctive cultural traditions and identity— whether tribal, sectarian, or even national. This presents potential fault lines along which the Chinese state may yet fracture, and suggests that so long as China lays claim to its current borders, it could yet meet the same humbling fate that Moscow’s younger empire did. After all, the forced integration of Tibet into the Chinese body politic is a relatively recent phenomenon and not an ancient one, even though China roots its claim to Tibet, in part, in its earlier historical domination of the Tibetan plateau. China may well be prudent to revisit its boundaries, and instead of asserting sovereignty over such a vast synthetic realm, to restrain its assertion to a more defensible and properly organic realm. China’s leadership is, no doubt, particularly sensitive to such a suggestion; as Associated Press reporter Gillian Wong reported on January 2, 2012, Chinese President Hu Jintao told Communist party leaders in an October 2011 speech: “We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration.”92 China might counter that the United States is one vast imperial domain, a continental synthetic that has no just claim to sovereignty, at least of an organic nature. But ask the over 310 million residents of the United States, even the descendants of its conquered indigenous tribes or the once proudly Mexican southwestern states, and most will tell you that they are first and foremost Americans now, and that America is by virtue of their consent an organic member of the international community. Even in the young states of Alaska and Hawaii, both of which experienced Japanese assaults during World War II, and which have not long been part of the American polity, have quickly become deeply embedded components of the American state, its people firmly committed to their

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Americanness. Perhaps the crucible of the Pacific War hastened this process, tightly binding the newest of America’s states to their nation. But if you ask the indigenous people of Tibet this same question, who have been part of China for about as many decades as Hawaii and Alaska have been states, they will tell you something different: that they remain first and foremost Tibetans, and that their loyalty is not to Beijing but to the Dalai Lama, their spiritual and formerly national political leader. As their March 2008 uprising and continuing protest movement have demonstrated, they do not accept the legitimacy of Beijing’s claim to govern them—and this strongly suggests that a China that includes Tibet is a synthetic entity, and a potentially fragile one at that, while a China without Tibet becomes more organic and thus more enduring as a sovereign entity. China instead aims to make Tibet Chinese by overrunning it with Han migrants by the bus, plane, and train load, and could in time transform Tibet, much as the Israelis have sought to do to their more populous West Bank settlements on occupied Palestinian lands, and which the Americans did state-by-state, territory-by-territory, in their relentless westward expansion—though in the way of both of these expanding states were numerous tribes and stateless peoples, not unlike the occupied Tibetan nation of today. Moscow’s own efforts to Russify the Baltics and its many other constituent Soviet Republics left much of Eurasia with lingering fault lines and potential points of fracture, not just along which the USSR ultimately collapsed, but along which the surviving Russian Federation could continue to fracture. And who can forget the unsuccessful effort of the Serbs to transform the demographics of the former-Yugoslavia, which they long dominated, and thus carve out of its remains an organic, sovereign, greater-Serbian state? The risks to Beijing thus remain salient, and could imperil the endurance of its current territorial breadth. The ethereal dimension is also of interest here, as Tibet is a Buddhist nation, its leader not just a leader of the faith but until quite recently the political leader of a nation. China, with a long Buddhist tradition of its own, as a communist state has held an official view of religion that until recently did not accept the legitimacy of Tibet’s Buddhist government-in-exile, while more recently seeking a more balanced way to reconcile China’s increasing nostalgia for its spiritual traditions under the rubric of revitalizing its traditional culture—and thereby strengthening the unifying bond of Chinese nationalism. While China maintains its occupation of Tibet, it clearly has not won over the hearts and minds of most indigenous Tibetans, who view Beijing’s legitimacy with

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the same critical perspective that Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians once viewed Moscow’s. Once again, a largely godless government in the communist world may underestimate the enduring ethereal identity of those it has conquered, and because Beijing has not yet fully recognized the spiritual foundations of power and instead emphasizes the material dimensions, both economic and military, it may underestimate the potential for resistance by those it occupies. Moscow certainly did, first in Afghanistan, then fatally in Central Europe, where its empire collapsed. China is encircled as much by democratic states as by Buddhist nations, and it may well be that the ethereal dimension could prove to be the most salient in a future marked by an unraveling of Chinese sovereignty and power. In this chapter, I have considered the tribal dimensions of the many conflicts that have defined the GWOT. And the tribe, like the clan or sect, remains a foundational, organic subcomponent of the world community, an essential substate and even pre-state building block. To successfully restore and maintain order in today’s complex world will require a sustained recognition of the endurance of tribalism in the modern world, and its tendency, in times of upheaval and collapse of centralized orders, to reassert itself as a key pillar of political order. This will require becoming what Bing West eloquently described as the “strongest tribe,” as we did successfully in Iraq. In West’s The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq (2008), he recalled his first meeting with Captain Doug Zembiec in 2004 during the battle for Fallujah, writing: “He flashed a wicked grin and said, ‘Welcome to chaos’”93 It was amidst this “fierce battle” that West noted “an Iraqi colonel pointed at a Marine patrol and said, ‘Americans are the strongest tribe.’”94 West added: “It is clear why the Iraqi colonel called our warriors the strongest tribe. They were unified in battle and took care of one another,” even in the face of “many frustrating situations that mocked the strategic mission,” but which in the end they overcame.95 While West found it “easy to decry the Bush administration with all its faults,” it was “less easy to question whether our society retains sufficient unity to be the world’s strongest tribe,” and while “[w]e can dodge the question by protesting that the notion of tribe is archaic,” inevitably “America will again be tested by force of arms under circumstances as ambiguous”—and one might add, complex—“as those in Iraq.”96 And, as West concluded in an appendix summarizing “Bing West’s Counterinsurgency Lessons,” his tenth and final lesson stated that “A Divisive Society Will Not Remain the Strongest Tribe.”97

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Becoming, and remaining, the strongest tribe is thus essential for achieving victory in our continuing war on terror, by whatever name it goes by. But strength must be defined by more than the material; it is also moral, as long recognized by theorists of war. Thus the ethereal dimension is every bit as important, forming the spiritual seed around which tribal, sectarian, and later national identity coalesces, and if overlooked could enable synthetic states to fail, while if embraced could enable organic states to endure. Recognizing these important interconnections of organic, synthetic, and ethereal subsystemic dynamics in world politics is thus of great value, and helps move us toward a reconceptualization of international relations and a more nuanced appreciation of the microlevel or quantum dimension of world politics, which is the ultimate foundation of world order. Thus thinking about organic versus synthetic and the underlying ethereal dimensions of international relations can help provide new insights into world politics, especially along the ethnoculturally complex border regions between states. Understanding which parts of the world possess an organic, and inherently durable, foundation, and which are more aptly synthetic and potentially vulnerable to a fracturing could help guide the evolution of American military and diplomatic policy, and help foster important instincts for where our military power could be applied effectively. After all, a synthetic state can be broken into smaller components, while an organic one cannot—though with enough force, even an organic entity can ultimately be annihilated, through total war or genocide. As the collapse of the Soviet Union and before that the breakup of Yugoslavia demonstrated at the Cold War’s conclusion, modern states are neither eternal nor unchanging. They are dynamic and evolving. And it may well be the internal, subsystemic dynamics described above that drive these changes and not just balances or imbalances of state power in the international system. Indeed, across much of the world, there may truly be no state system at all, despite its prominence in the minds of theorists dating back so many centuries—but instead, in its lofty place, is an ethereal but nonetheless lasting interconnection that varies greatly by region, shadows cast upon the wall of mind deep down inside Plato’s cave—mere glimpses of an overarching order, amidst a kaleidoscopic amalgam of organic and synthetic parts, each doing what they do best: surviving in a maddeningly complex world—for as long as they can.

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Notes 1–31 Maj. Jim Gant, “One Tribe at a Time: A Strategy for Success in Afghanistan,” Los Angeles: Nine Sisters Imports, 2009, online at: rohrabacher.house.gov/ UploadedFiles/one_tribe_at_a_time.pdf. Note 28 is citing Andrew M. Roe, “To Create a Stable Afghanistan: Provisional Reconstruction Teams, Good Governance and a Splash of History,” Military Review (November–December 2005), 20. 32 Steven Pressfield, “A Message from Steve,” introducing “It’s the Tribes, Stupid!” at http://agora.stevenpressfield.com/vblog/. Pressfield explains that his five-part video series “is about war in Afghanistan, ancient and modern. Each video is five minutes long. I’m not doing this for money. I have no political axe to grind. I’m a Marine and I don’t want young Marines and soldiers going into harm’s way without the full mental arsenal of history and cultural context.” He adds that “understanding tribes and tribalism is critical for the U.S. in Afghanistan. The tribal mind-set (warrior pride, hostility to all outsiders, perpetual warfare, the obligation of revenge, suppression of women, a code of honor rather than a system of laws, extreme conservatism, unity with the land, patience and capacity for hatred) permeates everything in Afghanistan and its neighboring Islamic republics. For war-making or peace-making, it cannot be ignored.” 33–35 Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006–2008 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 385; 385; 385–6. 36–42 Barry Zellen, “Tribalism and the Future of Conflict,” The Culture and Conflict Review, June 12, 2008, www.nps.edu/Programs/CCS/WebJournal/ Article.aspx?ArticleID=17. 43–70 Barry Zellen, “The GWOT Reconsidered,” The Culture and Conflict Review, July 1, 2009, www.nps.edu/Programs/CCS/WebJournal/Article. aspx?ArticleID=29. 71–72 Stephen Kurczy and Drew Hinshaw, “Libya Tribes: Who’s Who?” Christian Science Monitor, February 24, 2011, www.csmonitor.com/World/ Backchannels/2011/0224/Libya-tribes-Who-s-who. For a more recent discussion of tribal and regional dynamics in post-Gaddafi Libya, in which tribal leaders and militia commanders have unilaterally declared a semi-autonomous state in that country’s oil-rich east, see: Abigail Hauslohner, “Benghazi Breakaway Highlights Libya’s Uncertain Future,” Time, March 7, 2012, http://www.time. com/time/world/article/0,8599,2108425,00.html. 73 Al Jazeera, “Navigating Libya’s Tribal Maze,” Al Jazeera , February 23, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2011/02/201122352025494387.html. 74 Mohamed Hussein, “Libya Crisis: What Role Do Tribal Loyalties Play?” BBC Monitoring, February 21, 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east12528996. 75–79 Daniel Pipes, “The Middle East’s Tribal Affliction,” Jerusalem Post , January 24, 2008, www.danielpipes.org/5412/the-middle-easts-tribal-affliction, reposted at www.danielpipes.org/5412/the-middle-easts-tribal-affliction.

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80 See Barry S. Zellen, On Thin Ice: The Inuit, the State and the Challenge of Arctic Sovereignty (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009). 81–86 J. David Singer, “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations,” World Politics 14, No. 1 (October 1961), 77–92; 78, n.3; 78, n.4; 90; 90; 89. 87–91 John Barkdull, “Waltz, Durkheim, and International Relations: The International System as an Abnormal Form,” American Political Science Review 89, No. 3 (September 1995), 672; 672; 672; 676; 678—noting that “Durkheim posits mechanical and organic forms of social solidarity,” Barkdull explains on the same page that he must “question the relevance of these normal forms to the conflict-ridden world in which we live, where social solidarity is woefully lacking,” and thus puts forth his own thesis that “to categorize the contemporary international system, we need to turn to another aspect of Durkheim’s work, his analysis of abnormal forms of society,” which include the anomic, forced , and uncoordinated division of labor. 92 Gillian Wong, “Hu: Hostile Forces Seek to Westernize, Split China,” Associated Press, January 2, 2012; Associated Press, “China’s Leader Slams ‘Plot’ to Split Nation,” January 3, 2012, www.moneynews.com/Economy/Hu-WestSplit-China/2012/01/03/id/422838. 93–97 Bing West, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq (New York: Random House, 2008), xvii; 361; 376; 376; 400.

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Index

adaptation 125, 130, 134–6, 138–40, 145, 176, 211–12, 218, 222, 249, 271, 278 adversaries 1, 75–6, 107, 124, 135, 161, 199, 220, 224, 231, 245, 309 Afghanistan 108–9, 112, 115–17, 126–8, 160–1, 172, 183–4, 200–1, 205–6, 262–6, 270–6, 279–80, 282–3, 312, 319n. 32 agility 76, 228, 230–1, 243 AirLand Battle 164, 166, 169, 174 Air power 107, 154, 218 Al Qaeda 18, 23, 30, 62, 94–5, 97–8, 100, 104–5, 108–10, 159, 198, 200–1, 240, 255, 277, 293, 312–13 Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) 23, 30, 116, 120, 126 Alberts, David S. 210 allies 1, 97–8, 102, 106, 127–8, 152–3, 157, 160, 165, 184, 205–6, 223–4, 256, 266, 276, 278–9, 281–2, 284–6 ambiguity 12, 74, 134, 209, 230, 298, 300–1 American forces 66, 78, 86, 102, 107, 116, 133, 141–2, 148, 150, 170, 181, 183–4, 263, 276, 291, 318 American military doctrine 61, 63, 66, 86, 118, 145, 149, 161, 196, 291 American power 79, 97–8, 152, 268, 286, 296, 311–12 anarchy 13–14, 190, 285, 299, 302, 305, 314 ancient world 15–17, 129, 202, 288, 315 anomie 5–6, 8

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AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) see Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) Arab Spring 10, 94, 286–7 Arab world 62, 94, 98, 113, 286, 310 Arquilla, John 35–7, 39, 104, 107–12 asymmetric warfare 89, 91, 226, 232, 245, 248, 282 Baghdad 72, 78, 82, 107, 141, 162, 165–6, 169–70, 176–7, 179, 249, 285 balance 15, 22, 39, 42, 63, 117, 139, 160, 180, 197, 209, 219, 230, 285, 301 Balkans 10, 15, 20, 28, 129, 196, 284, 295, 313 Barber, Benjamin R. 5–6 Barkdull, John 305 Barnett, Thomas P. 6, 42, 70, 181–2, 186–90, 194–7, 293–4 Beijing 309, 316–17 Beyerchen, Alan D. 208, 300 Bin Laden, Osama 23–4, 45, 94–5, 97, 100, 113, 115, 201, 277, 290–3, 312 Blaker, James R. 64–9 Bobbitt, Philip C. 182 borders 12–13, 27, 30, 88, 91, 97, 151, 155, 241, 269, 281, 283, 301, 308 Bosnia 3–4, 8 Boyd, John R. 79–84 Bracken, Paul 41–4, 86 BRIAM (British Advisory Mission) see British Advisory Mission (BRIAM) Britain 55, 82, 91, 114, 127, 129, 133, 148–9, 151–3, 158, 204, 265, 307–9

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British Advisory Mission (BRIAM) 149–50, 153 British Empire 91, 150, 158, 226, 265, 291, 307–8 Brodie, Bernard 43, 61, 81, 83, 166, 208, 216, 225 Burma 34, 269–70, 301 Cebrowski, Arthur K. 42, 61–79, 84, 86, 88–9, 104, 109–11, 181–8 Central America 28, 32–4, 40–1, 279, 284 chaos 1–4, 6, 8–11, 59, 62, 90–1, 99, 101–2, 118–9, 122, 126, 140, 151, 171, 205, 209, 211, 213–5, 217–20, 260–1, 278, 285–6, 294, 298, 300, 314 chaos theory 1–3, 5–10, 205, 211, 218, 220, 298 Chiapas 24, 26–32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 87, 327 China 41–4, 115, 122, 124, 133, 140–1, 184, 269–70, 281–2, 284, 291, 294, 296, 307–9, 315–17 city-states 14, 72, 260, 288, 290, 294, 307, 309, 314 civil-military relations 124, 137, 231 civil society 21, 33–5, 40, 267, 291 Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) 276 clans 131, 212, 235, 245, 267, 280–1, 284, 286, 288–90, 294, 297, 303–4, 317 clash of civilizations 4, 6, 293 Clausewitz, Carl von 47–8, 51–2, 56, 60–1, 70, 80, 83–4, 199–201, 203–4, 206–11, 213–17, 219–21, 299–302 Clausewitzian 45, 50, 54, 81, 119, 144, 157, 181, 197, 200, 202, 204, 206, 243, 296 Clausewitzian Trinity 81, 84, 201–2, 285, 300–2 Cleaver, Harry 25–31, 35–9 coalition 25, 31, 72, 81, 96, 98–9, 112, 116, 130–1, 245–6, 279, 289, 294, 307, 311

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coalition forces 34, 116, 122, 126, 130, 132, 142, 224, 239, 246, 252, 267, 283 coalition warfare 268, 276, 278, 281, 285 COIN 120, 123, 136–7, 144–5, 157–61, 163–4, 166–70, 172–4, 176–8, 181–4, 186–8, 238, 246–7, 249–50, 283–5 COIN theory 149, 157, 172, 174, 181, 238–9, 244 COINdinistas 160–2, 164, 173 Cold War 1–4, 10, 20–2, 31, 38, 90, 94–6, 99, 118–19, 196, 202–5, 218–19, 279, 295–6, 302 collaboration 36, 38, 176, 189, 243–4 combat 46–7, 51, 60, 73–4, 75, 111, 113, 121–3, 129, 144, 153, 167–8, 172, 185, 227–9, 250, 252 combat power 73–4, 250, 252 command 39, 46, 50, 66, 72–3, 75–6, 101, 110, 112, 126, 134, 148, 176, 188, 250–1 commanders 45, 51, 63, 66, 73, 125–7, 136–9, 165–9, 171–2, 180, 188–9, 200–3, 229–30, 251–2, 300 communism 15, 94, 96, 104, 109, 142, 151, 266, 270, 290, 292, 295, 307, 317 communist China 124, 145, 184 communist insurgencies 122, 140, 291 company level 249, 252, 255–6 complexity 9–10, 18, 38, 64–5, 71, 79, 123, 160, 166, 171, 186, 198, 205, 209–15, 217–22, 224–34, 242–3, 245–9, 260–1, 285, 287, 317, 319 complexity theory 73, 208, 210–14, 216–21, 232–4, 247 conflict 1, 4, 7–10, 21–2, 36, 38–9, 73–4, 87–9, 97–9, 116, 119–22, 152–4, 159, 256, 269, 271–2, 276–9, 280–4, 287, 295–6, 303–4, 310, 312–14 conflict ecosystem 225–6, 245 conflict spectrum 181, 230 conflict zones 34, 113, 233, 261, 277, 281, 285

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Index connections 27, 38, 84, 300 connectivity 70, 187, 195, 205 conquest 21, 114, 133, 296, 308–9 constructive realism 16 conventional warfare 107, 132, 145, 150–1, 153–4, 168, 175, 184, 200, 204, 223, 231, 233, 280 conventional wisdom 45, 47, 64, 66–7, 81, 163–4, 238 cooperation 27, 40, 97, 99, 105, 118, 189, 241 corruption 13, 28–9, 140, 195, 246 counterinsurgency 62, 102–3, 106, 115–18, 120, 124–6, 127, 129–30, 132, 134, 136, 139, 143–8, 161–70, 172–80, 221, 232–5, 238–45, 249, 251–3 counterinsurgency doctrine 130, 134, 142, 157–8, 163–6, 173, 197 counterinsurgency field manual 163, 167–8, 172, 180, 189, 199 counterinsurgents 115, 119, 121–6, 129–30, 143, 145, 150, 157, 238–40, 242, 248, 254, 290 counterterrorism 96–7, 205, 208 cultural knowledge 267–8, 283 culture 4, 6, 8, 62, 69, 139, 185, 219, 225, 250, 264, 271, 274–5, 281, 308–9 Cyberpolitik 84–5, 93 cyberspace 26, 30, 35–8, 79, 97, 104–5 cyberwarfare 36 Czerwinski, Thomas J. 210 dangers 10, 26, 28, 55, 60, 70, 78, 97, 142, 160, 169–70, 197–9, 202, 209, 302 debate 4–5, 32, 94, 110–11, 143, 163–4, 172–4, 177, 180–2, 197–8, 295–6, 298 deception 53, 59, 77, 82, 122, 124 declaring victory 99 defeat 47–8, 61–2, 73–4, 95–8, 108, 123–4, 129–30, 144–5, 150, 155, 160–1, 225–6, 263, 267–8, 280–2 demilitarized zone 148, 154, 156, 266

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337

democracy 5, 26, 28, 31, 34, 62, 107–8, 113, 213, 217, 267, 279, 292, 295, 303 design 37, 136–40, 170, 180, 222 destruction 1, 47–8, 68, 76, 79–80, 112, 157, 174, 188, 200, 228, 234, 302, 313 Destruction and Creation 79, 81 deterrence theorists 83, 198, 204, 225 dialogue 39, 137–9, 173, 271–2 digital divide 195 digital landscape 41 diplomacy 85, 87, 97–8, 252, 296 disorder 5, 79–80, 122, 213, 302 disruption 37, 42–3, 105, 214, 294 DMZ see demilitarized zone doctrine 34–5, 50, 73–4, 118, 147, 158, 160–5, 169, 171–3, 175–81, 190, 199, 236–7, 280–1, 284–5 dogma 159–60, 169, 177–8 domination 6, 61, 71, 90, 105, 107, 236–7, 285, 292–3, 315 double-edged sword 43–4, 72, 87, 281 Durkheim, Émile 304–6 economy 13, 31, 50, 70, 90, 127, 180, 222, 246, 250 ecosystems 70, 76, 101, 223, 234–5 Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) 20, 22–4, 26–7, 30, 32–4, 37 El Salvador 33, 124, 175 electronic fabric of struggle 22, 25, 28, 38 End of History 2 endurance 21, 96, 113, 200, 260, 278, 289, 291, 295, 300, 306, 312–13, 316–17 entropy 1, 80 ethereal states 168, 297, 303–4, 311–13, 317–19 ethnic conflict 3, 6, 8, 255 expansion 21, 34, 36, 114, 202, 239, 304, 316 EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) see Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN)

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failed states 161, 270, 280, 289, 294 faith 16, 173, 187, 203, 290, 292, 297–8, 310–12, 317 Fallows, James 99–100 fiasco 44, 62, 113, 141 firepower 49, 148–9, 154, 175, 178, 250, 252 flatter world 91, 101 FLOC (Future Land Operating Concept) see Future Land Operating Concept (FLOC) Fog of Peace 163 folklore 250, 257 4GW 186–7, 190 fractious world 17, 284, 288, 294, 296 fracturing 143, 295, 308, 315–16, 318 friction 46, 49–51, 54, 59 frontiers 89, 91, 101, 112, 292, 296 Fukuyama, Francis 2, 5, 7 Functioning Core 195, 197 Future Land Operating Concept (FLOC) 222, 225, 230, 233, 243, 245, 251 Gandhi, Mohandas 22–3, 277, 290–2, 308 Gant, Jim 261–6, 284 Gap, Nonintegrated 42–4, 70, 181–2, 190, 195–7, 218, 293 Garstka, John 69–74, 77, 185–7 Gates, Robert 126–8 genocidal hatred 10 Gentile, Gian 162, 164–9, 171–4, 176–82, 197–8, 208, 284 global chaos 1–3, 5–9, 11, 13, 15, 17–19 Global War on Terror (GWOT) 22, 94–5, 97, 99–101, 103, 115, 119, 125, 181–3, 189–91, 209, 274, 277–8, 283, 295 globalization 3–6, 8, 11, 22, 24, 40, 70, 78, 88, 91, 118, 120, 123, 195–7, 222–3, 240 Gorka, Sebastian L.v 24, 198–206, 208 governance 26, 36, 90, 121, 128, 137, 222, 246–7, 264, 270, 272–5, 278, 301, 308 gravity 165, 177–8, 199, 262, 264

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ground troops 107–8, 150, 161, 187, 189 guerrilla warfare 37, 102, 114, 146–7, 198, 207, 221, 227 guerrillas 4, 32, 115, 132–3, 156–7, 159, 247 GWOT (Global War on Terror) see Global War on Terror (GWOT) Hammes, Thomas X. 81 Hanoi 145, 149, 152–5, 157, 184, 266, 281 Hezbollah 42–3, 95 hierarchical 38–9, 68, 131, 305 Hobbes, Thomas 2, 15–17, 205, 304, 314 Holy Land 115 human terrain 245, 267, 270–1, 280, 285 Huntington, Samuel P. 3–4, 6 hyperpower 124, 141 idealism 15, 298 ideology 27, 95, 159–60, 184, 199, 201–2, 236, 244, 246, 271 IEDs (improvised explosive devices) see improvised explosive devices (IEDs) imagination 2, 28, 36, 123, 261, 278, 314 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) 44, 72, 189, 197, 263 improvised networks 72, 158 India 44, 95, 196, 308–9 Indian Wars 23, 114, 125, 278, 296 indigenous 21–3, 26–7, 31, 33, 40–1, 114–15, 231, 271–2, 275–6, 278, 280, 311, 313, 316 indigenous rights 20–3, 36, 114, 198, 277–8, 316 Indochina 114–15, 152–3, 160, 173, 232, 241, 266, 268, 279, 281, 284–5 information networks 22, 34, 40–1, 71, 74, 87, 101, 104, 106–7, 221, 241, 297

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Index information operations (IO) 22, 33–5, 41, 61–2, 73–7, 84–91, 101, 103–4, 108, 110–11, 123, 137, 224, 231, 244–5 information technology 42, 62, 66, 69–70, 74, 76, 86–7 information warfare 22, 24, 90, 103–4, 112–13, 201 innovation 32, 35, 41, 44, 51, 58–9, 61–2, 69, 77, 86, 102, 105, 155, 157–9 strategic 41, 45, 108, 158–60, 266, 268, 281, 284 instability 118, 219–20, 301 insurgencies 23–4, 46, 73–4, 115–26, 128–9, 131–2, 137, 140–1, 145–6, 150–1, 173, 175–6, 232–43, 275–7, 285 insurgents 43, 77, 118–19, 121–6, 130–6, 138, 140, 142, 151–3, 233–4, 236, 238–42, 245–51, 254–7, 274–5 intelligence 37, 51, 58–9, 87, 97–9, 104, 129, 158, 178, 219, 236–7, 251–2, 262, 272 international order 1–2, 96, 98–9, 289–90, 294 international politics 1, 6, 12, 81, 232, 298–300, 305–6 international relations 1, 84–7, 289, 297, 299, 305, 318 international security 98, 216, 225, 293 international system 11, 77, 96, 212, 214, 299, 305–7, 318 invasion of Iraq 62, 80, 82, 113, 183, 197 IO (Information Operations) see Information Operations (IO) Iraq War 23, 44, 82, 103, 113, 141, 168, 188, 281 Iraqi insurgents 43, 131, 135, 145, 255 irregular warfare 120, 199, 202–3, 207, 225, 235 Islamic world 6, 222, 224, 277, 291, 310–12

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Israel 42, 62, 310 Japan 41, 43–4, 196, 286 JIATFs (Joint Interagency Task Forces) see Joint Interagency Task Forces (JITFs) jihad 5–7, 105, 237–8, 292 Joes, Anthony James 114–15, 157–8 Joint Interagency Task Forces (JIATFs) 228, 230–1 Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) 31, 45, 50, 52 Jomini, Antoine-Henri 2, 144, 158, 166, 206–7 JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) see Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) jungle 21, 24, 27, 29, 41, 79, 276 Kabul 122, 262 Kahn, Herman 46, 61, 166, 209, 225, 232 Kaplan, Morton A. 304 Kaplan, Robert D. 2–4, 6, 8, 13–18, 190 Kilcullen, David J. 115, 145–6, 162–3, 221–45, 247–51, 253–61, 266–7, 271–2, 277, 284–5, 287–8 King Philip’s War 278, 311 knowledge 9, 56, 65–6, 75–7, 79, 116–17, 125, 131, 136–7, 146, 213–14, 229, 246, 250–2, 280 Kobrin, Stephen J. 10–14 Korean conflict 106, 145, 150, 156, 286 Kosovo 309–10 Kurds 145, 184, 268 Lacandon Jungle 20, 40 Laos 107, 155–6, 158, 160, 269–70, 276, 281, 295 Latin America 21, 26, 131, 196 learning 9, 17, 32, 125–6, 128, 130, 134–40, 143–5, 150, 153, 165, 176, 178–9, 185 legitimacy 98, 118, 120, 123, 140, 143, 180, 244, 247, 291, 314, 316–17

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levels of analysis 26–8, 47–8, 50, 63, 71–3, 77–8, 88, 107–8, 189, 209, 233, 235–8, 266–9, 280–1, 296–303 leverage 40, 69, 77, 90, 114, 129, 220, 235, 255, 261, 264, 271, 285, 291 Leviathan 2, 15, 17, 42, 190, 293–4, 311, 314 Libya 10, 82, 286–7 Liddell Hart, B. H. 46, 55, 74, 204 linearity 80, 205, 216, 232, 300 Long War 41, 94–6, 99–100, 106, 113, 182, 188–90, 209, 212, 221, 260–1, 268, 276–83, 285–6 Machiavelli, Niccolo 2, 14–17, 84, 171, 205, 214, 217, 220, 247, 281, 299–300, 304, 306 McNamara Line 155, 158 McRaven, William H. 45–60 McWorld 3, 5 Malaya 145, 149–53, 158 maneuver 50, 72, 75–6, 178, 230–1 Mao Zedong 21, 23, 114–17, 125, 131–3, 137, 140, 159, 197, 202–3, 206–7, 221, 226, 230, 291–2 marines 117, 125, 138–40, 142, 158, 163, 166–7, 174, 180, 188–90, 211, 271 market-state 182 mass terror 110, 205, 293 media networks 30, 34–5, 104, 123, 202, 244–5, 287 medieval 10, 12, 15, 260 Mexico 20–4, 26–34, 36–8, 119, 205, 239, 269, 324 micro-states 290, 307, 313 Middle Ages 11–12, 311–12 Middle East 42, 62, 96, 113, 156, 163, 196, 248, 286–7, 310 military defeat 21, 266, 279 military forces 121, 132, 140, 147, 224, 227–8, 231, 275 military history 82, 145, 280, 285, 296, 313 military necessity 151, 204, 276

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military operations 34, 53, 69, 73–4, 97, 102, 121, 128, 143, 155, 159, 223–4, 281 military power 4, 20, 56, 62, 66, 84–5, 99, 114, 129, 223, 267–8, 284–5, 290–1, 302 modern states 11, 16, 22, 41, 101, 198, 221–2, 260, 263, 271, 277, 279–80, 286–7, 289, 304 modernity 20, 22, 221–2, 239, 277 Moscow 115, 239, 279, 284, 292, 316–17 NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) see North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Nagl, John A. 145, 148–51, 154, 157–60, 162–3, 166, 171–2, 174, 176–7, 179–82, 197–8, 208, 221, 261 Napoleon 21, 80, 137, 160–1, 205–7, 217, 301–2, 313 nation-states 4, 12–14, 25–7, 35, 84–5, 87, 120, 198, 200–1, 203–4, 212, 224, 288–9, 301, 311–13 national identity 312–13 national interest 202, 206 national power 99, 121, 124–5, 136, 224, 227–8 national security 41, 69, 95–6, 105, 118, 179, 210–11, 213, 218, 264, 269–70 National Security Strategy 95–8, 105–6 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism 95–6, 99 NATO 7, 98, 127–8 NCW (network-centric warfare) see network-centric warfare (NCW) neo-kaleidoscopic world 88 neorealism 5, 81, 159, 209, 215, 218, 296, 299–300, 302, 305 neotribal 198, 303 netwar 11, 20, 22, 24, 32, 34–7, 40–1, 104–5, 107–8, 110–12, 196–7, 221, 278

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Index network-centric warfare (NCW) 42, 44, 61–3, 66–7, 69–75, 77–8, 88, 101, 109–11, 181–8, 187, 190, 225 networks 24–6, 28–31, 33–5, 38–40, 70–3, 77–8, 87, 95, 101–3, 105, 109–12, 184–5, 188–9, 237, 240–1 Newtonian system 215–17, 233, 298 Ngo Quang Truong 147–8 NGOs (non-governmental organizations) 25, 33, 35–6, 90, 245 nodes 105, 146, 183, 187, 234–7, 241 non-state actors 24, 42, 85, 87, 90, 97, 199–200, 203, 222–3, 226–7, 299 nonlinearity 209–11, 220–1, 233, 261, 284 nonviolence 1, 121, 171, 198, 206, 291 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 20, 25–7, 31, 33, 196–7, 239 North Vietnam 63–4, 106, 131, 146–8, 151–2, 154–5, 157, 159, 179 North Vietnamese Army 106, 145, 148, 157, 170 nuclear era 61, 171, 198, 204, 216, 232, 300–1 nuclear weapons 77, 114, 187, 204–5, 209, 225 Obama surge 267, 283 Office of Force Transformation 61–3, 67, 109, 183 OODA Loop 79–84 Operation Desert Storm 65 Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) 273 Operation Iraqi Freedom 23, 44, 78, 82, 103, 113, 139, 141, 168, 188, 281 operational art 47, 67, 74, 178, 207, 238, 241, 248, 271 operational doctrine 164–5, 174, 179 ordered world 99, 205, 298 organic states 304, 307–10, 312–17 Ottawa 126, 181 overthrow 40, 120–1, 147, 242, 274, 288–9

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Pakistan 95, 98, 184, 239–40, 246, 269, 276, 282, 293, 308, 312 Palestinians 310 paradoxes 48, 89, 165–70, 175, 180 Paret, Peter 56 passion 14, 18, 63, 168, 200–2 Peace of Paris 307 Peace of Westphalia 10 Pearl Harbor 91 peasantry 115–16, 119, 122, 151 Pentagon 42, 68, 110, 182–4, 186, 189–90 Pentagon’s new map 182, 190, 195 people power 22–3, 40, 198, 226, 293 people’s war 114, 131, 197–8, 202–3, 227 perceptions 115, 138, 228, 231–2, 244, 246, 298 Petraeus, David 141, 161–3, 188–9, 281 philosophers 16, 23, 165, 213 philosophy 16–17, 83, 183, 221, 249–50, 306 Point of Vulnerability (PV) 49, 54, 57–8 police 32, 37, 87, 101, 112, 116, 144, 158, 184, 229, 244–7, 252, 265, 273 polis 260, 300, 314 populace 2, 23, 101, 108, 118, 123, 129–30, 132, 134–5, 138, 140–1, 152, 170, 185, 204–5 population-centric warfare 170, 172, 178, 185, 197, 205, 208, 221, 244, 247, 285 post-Cold War era 1, 3–15, 17, 104, 119, 159, 205–6, 209, 212, 288, 297 post-conflict environment 184–5, 197 post-modern world 10–15, 17–18 post-Napoleonic world 216 post-Saddam Iraq 34, 73–4, 106, 149, 158, 267, 270 poverty 97, 119, 195, 222 power 5, 10–2, 15, 17, 20–2, 25, 34–9, 42–3, 84–5, 87–8, 109–10,

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119–20, 132, 153–4, 159–60, 189, 280–1, 290–1, 317 power vacuum 10, 74, 287 PowerPoint 245–7, 271 principles of special operations 50, 55–8, 60 principles of war 50, 54 propaganda 236, 240, 242, 274 Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) 273 Quang Tri Province 148 quantum computing 43–4 quantum theory 1–2, 298 Rabasa, Angel 269–70 realism 13–14, 16–18, 59, 171, 197, 200, 209, 214, 218, 247, 298, 304, 314 realists 5, 16–17, 198, 260–1, 296 realpolitik 84–5 rebellion 21, 25, 27–8, 46, 118, 122, 156, 234, 277, 292, 296, 309 Red Army 86, 128, 160, 279, 312 Red Shirts 262 regimes 40, 101, 106, 183, 195–8, 239, 268, 270, 287, 291 region 10, 24, 62, 107–8, 113, 118, 122, 132, 155, 181, 185, 195–6, 238, 251, 263, 268–9, 276, 286–7, 313, 318 relative superiority 45–58, 60 relearning 116, 124, 141 resilience 42, 235, 312 revolution 5, 28, 31, 46, 64, 67, 69–70, 85–6, 89, 114, 182, 210, 279, 307 Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) 64–5, 67, 69, 210, 221, 225 revolutionary 12, 20, 34, 71, 85–6, 114, 120, 132–3, 145, 198, 221, 250, 275 Ricks, Thomas E. 161–2, 173–4 RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs) see Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) Rogers, Chris 169–71

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Rome 112, 118, 288 Ronfeldt, David 33–9 Rosenau, James N. 212–14, 217 Rothkopf, David J. 84–90 Rumsfeld, Donald H. 68, 103 Russell, James A. 102–3 Saddam 10, 34, 62, 77, 90, 102, 113, 124, 126, 129, 141, 184, 196–7, 267, 289 Sadowski, Yahya 2–10, 13, 18, 205 Safranski, Mark 186–7 Saigon 145, 147, 152–3, 266 Saperstein, Alvin M. 213–18 Schoomaker, Peter 188–9 sea power 43, 46, 110 SEATO allies 157 security 16, 43–4, 50–2, 58–9, 97–8, 123, 128, 149, 151, 179, 181, 244, 246, 263–4, 273–4 sensors 65, 76, 156, 227 Shachtman, Noah 181–8 Singer, J. David 297–301, 303 situational awareness 138, 228–9, 253 SOF (Special Operations Forces) 47, 50–1, 53–4, 56–8, 60, 189, 227, 261 soldiers 24, 48, 50–1, 54, 58–60, 78, 87, 112, 117, 125, 138–9, 142, 168, 170–2, 187–9 solidarity 25, 30, 32–3, 40 mechanical 304–5 organic 304–5 Somalia 2, 79, 178, 286, 293–4 soup 166–7, 169 South Vietnam 107, 146–55, 157, 159, 208, 266, 276 sovereign 13, 87, 216–17, 295, 297, 301, 309, 311–12, 314, 316 sovereign states 11–12, 115, 151, 217, 260, 290, 293, 308–9, 316 sovereignty 11–13, 21, 23, 198, 223, 226, 260–1, 269–70, 276–8, 281, 288, 290, 301–2, 306–7, 309, 314–16 Soviet Union 1, 8, 20, 43, 94, 104, 115, 159, 265–6, 286, 289–90, 292, 302–3, 306–8, 314–15

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Index special forces 48–9, 52, 54, 58–60, 120, 227, 229, 276 special operations 44–58, 60–1, 189, 227, 261 stability 7, 32, 37, 70, 124, 128, 133, 162, 220, 233, 248, 272–3, 299, 308–9, 314 stability operations 97, 117, 143, 187, 204–5, 208, 244, 268, 271 statecraft 280, 293 stateless peoples 313, 316 statelet 309 states city 14, 72, 260, 288, 290, 294, 307, 309, 314 ethereal 168, 297, 303–4, 311–13, 317–19 failed 195, 238, 268, 293 nation 4, 12–14, 25–7, 35, 84–5, 87, 120, 198, 200–1, 203–4, 212, 224, 288–9, 301, 311–13 organic 304, 307–8, 310, 318 rogue 3, 290, 293 synthetic 306–8, 310, 318 virtual 260, 277, 288 strategic bombing 46, 155, 233 strategic environment 41, 45, 121, 150–3, 186, 188, 218–21, 224, 245 Strategic Hamlet Program 146 strategists 3, 31, 37, 80, 83, 160, 204, 219–20, 225, 264 strategy 4, 24, 32, 40–1, 80–1, 98–9, 140, 146–7, 160, 162–3, 207–8, 218–20, 256 grand 7, 9, 78, 81, 176, 277 strength 7, 40, 54, 60, 72, 77, 85–6, 91, 122, 138, 150, 210, 215, 228, 246 strongest tribe 317–18 structures 1, 9, 11–2, 22, 35, 37, 77, 80–1, 87–8, 96, 103, 127, 134, 208, 216, 227, 235, 246, 261, 264, 270, 272–4, 285–6, 301, 305 struggle 1, 16, 21–4, 26, 28–9, 31–2, 37–8, 94–5, 99, 105–6, 114–15, 119–21, 189, 206–7, 209, 238,

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242, 266, 270, 279, 291, 293, 295–6, 311–13 subcomponents of world order 269, 279, 282, 288, 301, 310 substate 42, 212, 268, 270, 276–8, 281–2, 288, 295–9, 301, 303–4, 309, 312, 317 subsystemic 219, 236, 298, 300, 303, 318 Summers, Harry G. 147, 152, 165, 175, 331 Sun Tzu 80, 83, 165, 204, 249–50, 280 Sunni Heartland 116, 119, 134–5, 165, 268, 281 superpower 43, 124, 141, 144–5, 223, 266, 292, 295, 307 surge 100, 108, 111, 161, 163–4, 168, 172, 179, 188, 267, 282 surprise 46, 50–4, 56, 58–9, 150, 210, 312 surrender 113–14, 129, 256, 306 swarm 33–5, 109, 111 sympathy 29, 32, 245–6 synthetic states 306–8, 310, 318 systemic 11, 72, 159, 209, 300 tactical nuisance 91 tactics 29, 42, 52–3, 69, 80–1, 89, 118, 120, 125, 157, 159, 170–1, 176, 236, 277 Taliban 43, 77, 90, 94, 116, 122, 126–7, 163, 183–4, 198, 200, 207, 238, 263–5, 312 technology 6–7, 12, 17–18, 22, 33, 41–5, 54, 56, 58, 61–2, 64, 67, 74–7, 86–8, 90, 103, 112–14, 120–1, 156, 158, 183–4, 189, 225, 296 terrain 30, 79, 170, 224, 227–9, 246 territory 11, 13, 114, 124, 151, 207, 223, 236–7, 246, 270, 279, 288, 291–2, 306, 309 terrorism 3, 22–3, 41, 62, 77, 91, 95–6, 98–100, 103, 106, 111, 113, 118–9, 196, 198, 205, 207–8, 212, 221, 224–5, 233–4, 243, 245, 248, 255, 269–70, 283

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terrorists 4, 87, 95–6, 100, 121, 134–5, 196, 209, 224, 226, 231, 247, 251, 270 Tet Offensive 146, 281 TETs (Tribal Engagement Teams) see Tribal Engagement Teams (TETs) theorists 2, 14, 41, 54, 61, 79, 81, 83, 104, 115, 159–60, 171, 176, 181, 195, 198, 208–9, 211, 214, 221, 232, 238, 241, 298, 300, 304 theory 14, 45–7, 55–8, 60, 64, 75, 81, 83, 160–1, 165, 171, 173–4, 186–7, 209, 214, 218–9, 239, 242, 247, 249, 291 Theory of International Politics 299–300, 305–6 Theory of Special Operations 45, 48, 50, 56 thinkers 3, 15, 41, 167, 187, 218 thinking enemy 121 Third World 6, 262 Thompson, Robert 149–51, 153, 174, 176, 239 threats 1, 7–9, 28, 31, 35–6, 43–4, 52, 91, 94–7, 105, 112–13, 115, 129, 137, 141, 145–6, 148–9, 151, 179–80, 182, 185, 205, 218–19, 226–7, 290 Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency 243 Thucydides 15, 17, 214–15, 218–19 Tibet 43, 87, 269, 308–9, 315–17 total war 159, 166, 204, 209, 221, 232, 261, 306, 314, 318 tragic realism 17–18 training 51, 55, 59, 127, 155, 158, 189–90, 246, 255, 265, 272 trans-state 277–8, 303–4 transformation 12, 34, 41, 62, 67–9, 85, 88, 90, 96, 98, 102–4, 107, 113, 115, 168 Treaty of Westphalia 314 Tribal Engagement Strategy 262 Tribal Engagement Teams (TETs) 262, 265

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Tribal Security Forces (TSFs) 262–3, 265 tribal zones 265, 270, 276–8, 281, 285–6 tribalism 10, 260–1, 264, 266, 272–3, 287, 294–5, 317, 319n. 32 tribes 119, 124, 131, 245, 260–7, 273–6, 279–82, 284, 286–90, 294, 296–7, 303–4, 309–12, 315–19 Trinity of War 21, 84, 197, 200–5, 212, 220, 243, 247, 285, 299–302, 306 troops 30, 48, 60, 100, 103, 107–8, 117, 126–8, 130, 140, 148, 163, 165, 183–5, 200–1 Truong, Ngo Quang 147–8 trust 134, 239, 250–3, 255, 265 TSFs (Tribal Security Forces) see Tribal Security Forces (TSFs) Twenty-Eight Articles 249 ungoverned spaces 238–9, 261, 269–70 unpredictability 164, 209–11 uprising 23, 27–9, 38, 150–1, 222, 239, 292, 316 urban landscape 79, 212 US Marines 67, 80, 82, 117, 181, 225, 247 US military 6, 31, 82, 106–7, 109, 142, 151, 156, 246 versatility 230–1, 243 victory 44, 47, 49, 56, 66, 82, 94–6, 99–101, 105–6, 108, 113, 120–1, 124–6, 129–30, 133, 135–6, 142, 151–3, 155, 159–62, 223, 247, 253, 260, 266–8, 279–86, 293, 311 Viet Cong 106, 117, 145, 149, 154, 157, 159, 170, 174, 184, 281 Vietnam War 46, 62–3, 108, 118, 124, 129, 134, 145–53, 156–7, 159–60, 162, 170, 173–5, 178, 184, 207, 232–3, 269–70, 281–2, 284–5 violence 2–5, 7–8, 22, 35, 66, 70, 87, 98, 111–12, 115, 119–21, 124, 140–1, 161–3, 165, 169, 200–9, 212, 248, 260, 268, 294, 314

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Index vulnerabilities 41, 49, 53, 57–8, 60, 72, 86, 123, 126, 170, 184, 229, 304 Wal-Mart 71, 183 Waltz, Kenneth N. 87, 280, 297–302, 304–6 War of 1812 91 War on Terror 100, 103, 233, 237, 278, 283, 285 war theory 46, 70, 137, 171, 196, 218, 232, 243, 318 warfare 8, 36, 48–50, 54, 56, 66–7, 71–2, 75, 120–1, 129–30, 203, 207, 218, 225–6, 233 warfighters 65, 67, 106, 131, 198, 225–6, 268, 280, 284, 300 warfighting 99, 124, 222, 224 Warrior politics 17–18 Watts, Barry D. 81, 83 weak states 202, 261, 293–4, 301 weakness 47, 49, 53, 61, 77, 91, 110, 138, 243, 274, 287 weapons 64, 75–6, 109, 156–7, 204, 226–7, 234, 236, 243, 283, 291

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West, Bing 317–18 West against the rest 6–7, 182 Westmoreland, William C. 150, 173–4 Westphalian 10, 21–2, 84, 182, 195, 198, 200–1, 203–4, 260–1, 277, 288–9, 311, 313–14 Whole-of-Government 224, 227 world economy 12–14, 72, 91, 239 world politics 4, 14, 87, 159, 195, 294, 296, 298, 303–4, 306, 311, 313–14, 318 world system 111, 215, 217 World Trade Center 31 World War II 31, 91, 94, 104, 106, 119, 152, 154, 173, 232, 316 Yarger, Harry R. 218–20 Yugoslavia 7–8, 275, 290, 295, 309, 312 Zapatistas 20–35, 38–40, 119, 196–7, 221–2, 226, 239 Zen Pundit 186–7

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