Getting the Next War Right Beyond Population-Centric Warfare
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Getting the Next War Right Beyond Population-centric Warfare BY THOMAS A. MARKS, SEBASTIAN L.v. GORKA, AND ROBERT SHARP s the famous Prussian general once warned, the !rst priority is to ascertain what type of con"ict is to be fought. Carl von Clausewitz’s seminal writings laid the foundation A of thinking for modern warfare de!ned 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 post-Napoleonic age. The Cold War that followed would make the separation of policy and war more dif!cult as the advent of nuclear weapons blurred the line between military necessity and political reality. 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 opera- tions 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. Ironically, despite efforts to push forward in our “full spectrum” capabilities, we remain ham- pered by legacy attitudes of compartmentalization and linear thinking. Even more problematic Dr. Thomas A. Marks is Chair of the Irregular Warfare (IW) Department in the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University. Dr. Sebastian L.v. Gorka teaches in the IW Department and is an Associate Fellow with the Joint Special Operations University (U.S. Special Operations Command). Professor Robert Sharp teaches Con"ict Management and Stability Operations in CISA. The authors welcome comments to [email protected]. PRISM 1, no. 3 FEATURES | 79 and disturbing is our willingness to engage in incorrect. There is only war, with the enemy !eld- operations and deploy forces without fully grap- ing different mixes of the elements of war.”2 pling with the implications of the shift to pop- Ironically, Ospina’s understanding of strategy ulation-centric warfare as prominently assessed was developed—as he freely observes—during his by General Sir Rupert Smith in The Utility of year in the National War College at the National Force.1 As a result, our leaders can place the Defense University. It was there, he states, that military in harm’s way without knowing what he learned the critical importance of the ends- it is they should achieve and whether it is in ways-means approach, with all of these contin- fact achievable through military means. This gent on correct assessment of the armed chal- constitutes a denial of strategic thought and lenge. It is this assessment that is missing from results in a subsequent disjunction between the our growing library of new models devoted to operational level of force employment and the irregular warfare (IW). Our “ways” hang alone as national interests of the country. if but one side in a football game, with lip service In Iraq, the vacuum thus created has been paid to the nature of “the other team.” Yet how partially !lled by enterprising of!cers—but in else can we begin to assess necessary “means,” ways that simply reinforce Clausewitz’s warn- much less “ways,” to achieve “ends”—as we have ing. In Afghanistan, exploration into the nature recently been reminded in Afghanistan? In the College of International Security Colombian success came only after the Affairs at the National Defense University, we rejection of the flawed American model propose an analytical approach derived from social movement theorists but incorporating of war and modifying the work of particular scholars who were acting as forces in the !eld long before of the challenge by the political leadership irregular warfare leaped to new prominence. appears driven as much by a desperate search The approach, as will be seen, is universal, in for a “silver bullet” as an actual estimate of the the sense that it identi!es a particular threat as situation, yet it also drives home the rectitude a product of a particular contextual moment. of the Clausewitzian dictum. By contrast, in Strategic choice is the driver for any organization Colombia, correct local assessment served as (social science’s meso level), but bigger picture the basis for a refusal to acquiesce to American context (macro level) and individual particulars efforts to foster strategic distortion during the (micro level) influence threat emergence in a Clinton administration, leading to a turning predictable fashion. It is this reality that our IW point in the con"ict. students/fellows must address, regardless of the More significantly it can be shown that precise label given the IW challenge. Colombian success came only after the rejec- tion of the flawed American model of war. As Search for an IW Approach stated flatly by General Carlos Ospina, a key Use of the term irregular warfare within the !eld commander who rose to become head of the U.S. Government has been driven by the threat Colombian military, “We were using American conceptualization contained in the Department doctrine, where we conceptualized the continuum of Defense 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review as ‘war’ and ‘other than war.’ This was absolutely Report, wherein threats are seen as posed by four 80 | FEATURES PRISM 1, no. 3 “challenges”: irregular, catastrophic, disruptive, return for their assistance, our partners and allies and traditional. Terrorism and insurgency fall draw from us in meeting their own terrorist or within the irregular challenge, as do stability insurgent threats. operations and whole-of-government stabili- This requires commitment to multiple bat- zation and reconstruction.3 In some of!ces of tles using a variety of responses. Foreign inter- government, it has been forgotten that IW must nal defense, including stability operations, may be capable of covering a full range of threats dominate in one theater, full-blown counter- and offer a full range of solution tools (ways and insurgency in another, counterterrorism in still means). Whether to use the “police approach” another, issues of the criminal-terrorist nexus in or the “military approach” is a false choice. As yet another, and stabilization and reconstruc- the premier world power, Washington must be tion in still another. AQAM may well be, as is able to do it all. Within America, for instance, often stated, the primary threat, but this does not we must be able to ferret out al Qaeda operatives mean the others, whether FARC (Revolutionary (police approach). Yet simultaneously, we must Armed Forces of Colombia) or the international be able to “take down” an entire country har- gunrunner Viktor Bout (presently awaiting extra- boring terrorists (for example, Afghanistan)— dition in Bangkok), can be ignored. and then conduct counterinsurgency within it, How to proceed? General Saiyud Kerdphol, with stability operations and stabilization and who led a successful effort against the Communist reconstruction ongoing. Likewise, the United Party of Thailand, correctly observed: “Two States must address both radical left wing and things were obvious: there was nothing worse Islamist challenges. than to !ght the wrong way, and the key is the America is thus !ghting terrorism both as a people. We had to ask ourselves, why do the tactic that is a part of insurgency, and as a more people have a problem, why are they taking up stand-alone entity that was once called “pure arms?”6 It would be hard to !nd a more opera- terrorism.”4 Put another way, these are, respec- tional statement of Clausewitz’s famous dictum. tively, terrorism as a method and terrorism as a Specifically, then, as the legendary Sir logic. They require different approaches, one Robert Thompson put it: “Get in place that meeting terror used as a tool in support of a which is correct. Get in place that which is larger armed political campaign, and the other sustainable. Play for the breaks.”7 Of these, the making terror itself a con"ation of ends, ways, critical element is to assess the essence of the and means. problem so it may be countered. This involves, The current battlespace was conceptualized as Saiyud states, going to the roots of the con- early in the struggle as global insurgency. The "ict so that the symptom, the armed threat, can present effort to adopt new terminology, which be cut off from its life force. is confusing and at times quite dysfunctional, has not altered the essential rectitude of the approach It All Begins with Social Movements because al Qaeda is a neo-Guevarist insurgent Prior to 9/11, studies of terrorism had enterprise, and the various theaters of the globe arrived at a point where it was fairly well under- see us engaging its local allies and manifestations stood how terrorism came about. Insurgency (hence the use of the term AQAM—Al Qaeda was considered in a separate body of work. The and Associated Movements).5 Simultaneously, in former studies on terrorism were applicable to PRISM 1, no. 3 FEATURES | 81 insurgency if taken to their logical end, which oppose.” Grievances can take the form of hopes they seldom were. and aspirations, and so might well be bundled Though there were numerous explanations as “unful!lled needs.”10 Grievances need not be in pre-9/11 terrorism research, ranging from reasonable to be felt; they can be unreasonable psychological to political to economic, the best yet still drive people forward. Grievances do analysis stemmed from the study of social move- not have to be legitimate, either.