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Know Thy Enemy Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures

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Know Thy Enemy Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures Know Thy Enemy Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures Edited by Barry R. Schneider and Jerrold M. Post, eds. US Air Force Counterproliferation Center Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama KNOW THY ENEMY Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures Edited by Barry R. Schneider and Jerrold M. Post USAF Counterproliferation Center 325 Chennault Circle Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6427 July 2003 (Second Edition) Disclaimer The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or the USAF Counterproliferation Center. For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (207) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20401-0001 ISBN 0-9747403-0-6 ii Contents Chapter Page Disclaimer .............................................................................................. ii Acknowledgments...................................................................................v 1 Deterring International Rivals From War and Escalation .......................1 Barry R. Schneider 2 Killing In The Name of God: Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda...........17 Jerrold M. Post 3 The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Radicalism................................41 Gary M. Servold 4 Struggle for the Control of Pakistan: Musharraf Takes On the Islamist Radicals ...........................................85 Stephen F. Burgess 5 Kim Chong-il’s Erratic Decision-Making and North Korea’s Strategic Culture..........................................................109 Merrily Baird 6 The Crucible of Radical Islam: Iran’s Leaders and Strategic Culture...................................................141 Gregory F. Giles 7 “Saddam is Iraq: Iraq is Saddam”.......................................................163 Jerrold M. Post and Amatzia Baram 8 Syria Under Bashar al-Asad: Clinging To His Roots? .......................221 Christopher Hemmer 9 Muammar Qaddafi and Libya’s Strategic Culture...............................247 Craig R. Black 10 The Need for Influence Theory and Actor-Specific Behavioral Models of Adversaries .............................271 Alexander L. George 11 Precise Assessments of Rivals Vital in Asymmetric War Threat Environment...................................311 Jerrold M. Post and Barry R. Schneider Contributors.........................................................................................321 iii iv Acknowledgments We, the editors, wish to thank the authors of the various chapters in this volume for their expert contributions to our understanding of the personalities and strategic cultures of some of our most dangerous international rivals. In addition, we are grateful for the support of the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA/ASCO) for their financial support of the USAF Counterproliferation Center’s (CPC) “Adversary Project” that was essential to the production of this book and the conference that preceded it. Colonel Tim Lampe and Dr. Charles Galloway were instrumental in providing this support and we thank them. Further credit should be given to Mrs. Jo Ann Eddy whose administrative and editorial work supported this project from cradle to grave, from the first grant proposal to the final printing and distribution of this extensive volume. Thanks also is due to the copy editing of Colonel Michael Ritz and the help of others on the CPC staff such as Mrs. Brenda Alexander and MSgt Patrick Ellis. We also wish to thank Dr. Mitchell Reiss and the Wendy and Emery Reves Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary for their support in hosting the International Rivals Conference where most of these papers were first presented in July 2002 in Williamsburg, Virginia. The editors also are indebted to CPC Associate Director, Richard Estes, who so capably organized that International Rivals Conference and provided such capable support to the CPC Adversary Project. The authors also appreciate the partnership and help of Colonel Donald Karle, USAF (Retired), Executive Director of the Air University Foundation, for the financial support he and the Foundation gave in making the conference and book a success. Our appreciation is also extended to Ms. Laurita Denny of Political- Psychological Associates, Bethesda, Maryland, for her assistance in preparing Dr. Post’s chapters in this book and in coordinating extensively with the CPC in the editing and production process. Finally, last but not at all least, the authors thank their spouses, Carolyn Post and Judith Keegan, for their continued love and support and many sacrifices that allowed us the time to do this important work. Barry R. Schneider Jerrold M. Post v CHAPTER 1 Deterring International Rivals From War and Escalation Barry R. Schneider Why do we seek to understand our enemies? If we are already at war with them the answer is we want to anticipate their actions so we are prepared to counter them effectively and minimize our losses. Forewarned is forearmed. The better we understand them, the more likely we are to win against them, the less likely we are to be surprised and defeated by them. The ancient Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu, put it this way: “One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements. One who does not know the enemy but knows himself, will sometimes be victorious. One who knows neither the enemy, nor himself, will invariably be defeated in every engagement.”1 When engaging a modern day adversary armed with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons capable of inflicting mass casualties, one should understand the enemy’s red lines or likely trigger points when he would be most likely to escalate to the use of both conventional force and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). To understand this, one ought to know things like the following: • past cases when the adversary leader and his regime have used military force; • past cases when the adversary has used weapons of mass destruction; 1 Deterring International Rivals From War and Escalation • propensity of the leaders(s) to escalate crises or conflicts when blocked or stressed; • the likely doctrine of the regime in question; • the reliability of the command and control of the rival’s military forces; • things the rival leadership values most and what kinds of retaliatory threats they most fear and believe likely; • personal, bureaucratic, political or cultural factors that might influence a rival to escalate or de-escalate a crisis; • information possessed by a rival and their perception of U.S. retaliatory capability, and willingness to escalate a conflict if provoked. Classic Deterrence Theory Classic “Cold War” theory states that for deterrence to be successful, four elements need to be present. First, the United States must possess the capability to inflict a level of damage on the adversary that they consider to be unacceptable. In other words, the enemy would know the United States forces could mete out so extensive an amount of destructiveness that the adversary leadership would find the price too high to pay were they to attack. Second, the rival leader(s) must believe that the U.S. president is willing to pull the trigger on that devastating response. The enemy must respect the U.S. Commander-in-Chief enough to be afraid of what he might order. In the year prior to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, it appears that Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had underestimated the fortitude of President John F. Kennedy, leading him to place Soviet missiles in Cuba as a means of closing the missile gap then facing the USSR. Once Kennedy showed his willingness to go to war and escalate to nuclear use, Khrushchev backed down. The Soviet leader knew all along the U.S. had superior force at its command. What he did not know until October 1962 was that JFK also had the will to pull the trigger if necessary. This combination of capability and will is termed credibility and this is the coin of real deterrence. 2 Schneider Third, it helps deter the rival if you possess such overwhelming retaliatory capability even if he were to attack first. A robust deterrent cannot be disarmed by a surprise attack. Rather, in the parlance of Cold War nuclear strategy, the United States ensures crisis stability and escalation dominance by possessing a “second strike” force where the retaliation is both devastating and inevitable. Knowing this, an adversary should draw back from war and escalation of war. Fourth, none of this works unless the adversary is both rational and well enough informed to understand the outcome of starting a war or escalating one to high levels with an aroused United States. It helps to spell out the threat precisely to dictators like Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein who are both impetuous by nature and are surrounded by sycophants because of Saddam’s propensity “to shoot the messenger” for delivering bad news or contrary advice. This is why, on January 12, 1991, four days before the coalition air attack began, President George Bush wrote the Iraqi dictator a warning letter spelling out the consequences of escalating the war. His letter emphasized this point: Let me state, too, that the United States will not tolerate the use of chemical or biological weapons . The American people would demand the strongest possible response. You and your country
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