VOLUME 13 ISSUE 1 | WINTER 2019 inFOCUSQUARTERLY How We Fight Clifford D. May and David Adesnik on a New Counter-Terrorism Strategy | Mackenzie Eaglen on Setting Strategic Priorities | Jonathan Honigman on Israel’s Contributions to U.S. Defense | Stephen D. Bryen on Chinese Cyber Spying | Seth Cropsey on Stopping Russian and Iranian Hegemony | Thomas Taverney on Space Command | James Durso on Alternative Approaches to Afghanistan | Lani Kass on Threats and Strategic Foresight | Yisuo Tzeng on Artificial and Asymmetric Warfare in Asia | Shoshana Bryen reviews Every War Must End Featuring an Interview with Representative DON BACON (R-NE) LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER For history buffs and movie buffs, – Chinese cyber spying and the uses of the 1942-45 Frank Capra series “Why artificial intelligence – are the purview inFOCUS VOLUME 13 | ISSUE 1 We Fight” is a masterpiece. It was part of Stephen Bryen and Yisuo Tseng. There of the American government effort to are familiar issues as well. Seth Cropsey Publisher explain – first to the troops and then to writes on operations of the U.S. Navy Matthew Brooks the public at large – why the generally in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. James Editor isolationist United States was engaging Durso suggests that 17 years in Afghani- Shoshana Bryen Associate Editors in wars in Europe and Asia with allies stan may be enough and proposes a way Michael Johnson that included the communist Soviet out. There is our favorite familiar theme Eric Rozenman Union. Capra took bits as well, as Jonathan Hon- Copy Editors and pieces of informa- igman makes the case for Shari Hillman tion that people under- the financial and national Karen McCormick stood from newsreels and security benefits provided Published by: newspapers (no Facebook to us by our friend and Jewish Policy Center or Twitter) and created a ally, Israel. 50 F Street NW, Suite 100 context for the war. Since Every war must end. Washington, DC 20001. 2001, the United States has found itself JPC Senior Director Shoshana Bryen (202) 638-2411 in a different kind of war while continu- reviews Dr. Fred Iklé’s book of the same Follow us on ing to face traditional threats. This issue name, offering a sobering picture of what JewishPolicyCenter @theJPC of inFOCUS Quarterly examines not happens when countries focus overly on the “why” of American defense, but the the “why” and not enough on the “how” The opinions expressed in inFOCUS do not “how.” And how to do it better. of warfare. necessarily reflect those of the Jewish Policy We interview a retired U.S. Air Force If you appreciate what you’ve read, Center, its board, or its officers. Brigadier General and a Congressman. I encourage you to make a contribution To begin or renew your subscription, please contact us: [email protected] They are the same person. Rep. Don Ba- to the Jewish Policy Center. As always, Cover Image: J.M. Eddins Jr. for the U.S. Air con (R-NE) brings his military insights to you can use our secure site: http://www. Force bear on his role as a member of the House jewishpolicycenter.org/donate. Armed Services Committee. Sincerely, © 2019 Jewish Policy Center The broad strokes of national de- fense strategy, asymmetric threats and the continuing terror war are addressed www.JewishPolicyCenter.org by Mackenzie Eaglin, Lani Kass, Clifford Matthew Brooks, May and David Adesnik. New threats Publisher CLIFFORD D. MAY is president of the Foundation for De- district. He is a retired Brigadier General, USAF. (22) fense of Democracies. DAVID ADESNIK, Ph.D., is Director of Research at FDD. (3) Maj. Gen. THOMAS TAVERNEY USAF, (ret.) is former vice commander of Air Force Space Command. (28) Featuring MACKENZIE EAGLEN is a resident fellow at the Ameri- can Enterprise Institute specializing in defense strategy, JAMES DURSO is Managing Director of Corsair LLC. (31) defense budgets, and military readiness. (6) LANI KASS, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President and Corporate JONATHAN HONIGMAN is an educator in Washington, DC. Strategic Advisor for CACI International Inc. and served as (10) Senior Policy Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of STEPHEN D. BRYEN, Ph.D., is president of SDB Partners, Staff. (35) former Undersecretary of Defense for Trade Security Policy YISUO TZENG, Ph.D., is the acting director of the Institute and head of the Defense Technology Security Agency. (13) for National Defense and Security Research. (38) SETH CROPSEY is the Director of the Center for American Seapower at the Hudson Institute. (17) SHOSHANA BRYEN is Editor of inFOCUS and Senior Direc- tor of the Jewish Policy Center. (41) DON BACON represents Nebraska’s 2nd congressional President Trump’s Counter- Terrorism Strategy by CLIFFORD D. MAY and DAVID ADESNIK e remain a nation at addition to the elimination of bin Laden, Nor do most wars simply grind to a halt. war.” President Trump’s there was the Arab Spring, widely pre- Instead, they are won or lost. “Conflict new National Strategy sumed to herald an anti-authoritarian resolution” is a fine notion but it often “Wfor Counterterrorism, and pro-democracy turning point in the conceals a hiatus during which at least released in early October, begins with Middle East. A patina of stability in Iraq one side prepares for the next round of that simple statement of fact. Despite provided justification for Obama’s deci- conflict (cf. World War I and World War the West’s victories in the several ma- sion to pull the U.S. military out of that II). As for democracy, it demands vigi- jor wars of the 20th century, the 21st troubled land. The Taliban appeared to lance when confronted with anti-demo- century is not an age of peace. It is yet be on the defensive in Afghanistan. cratic forces. Of which there are many. another age of conflict. At that point, the bloodbath in We don’t like that. It’s more com- Syria had barely begun. A year would ❚❚Fighting Radical Islamists forting to believe, as President Obama pass before the murder of a U.S. ambas- In World War II America defeated asserted on numerous occasions, that sador in Benghazi highlighted the cha- racial supremacists. In the Cold War we “the tide of war is receding.” os in Libya. The Islamic State had not defeated class supremacists. In the cur- For the 44th president, that phrase yet risen from the ashes of al-Qaeda in rent war, the Long War, as it makes sense became both a mantra and an idée fixe Iraq, which had been decimated by the to call it, we face religious supremacists following the May 2, 2011 midnight raid “surge” President Bush ordered with whose theology rules out peaceful co- by U.S. Navy SEALs on Osama bin Lad- Gen. David Petraeus in command. existence. The Obama administration en’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. And when the Islamic State did never grasped this stark reality. Obama initially used the phrase on arise, early in 2014, Obama dismissed it The Trump administration ap- June 23, 2011, in his prime-time address as a “JV” team. The following year, just pears to. At a White House briefing, from the East Room of the White House, before IS terrorists carried out a mas- National Security Advisor John Bolton announcing the first phase of U.S. sacre in Paris, he insisted that, “we have told reporters the principal difference troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan. contained them.” between the new strategy and its prede- That summer, he released his Na- In the early days of his second term, cessor is that the former “recognize[s] tional Strategy for Counterterrorism, which strongly suggested that the end of what the George W. Bush administra- ...if history advises anything it’s that wars seldom tion had called the Global War On Ter- ror was imminent. In his introduction to end by fiat...they are won or lost. the main text, he wrote: “Today, we can say with growing confidence – and with certainty about the outcome – that we Obama sought to formalize the end of the that there’s a terrorist ideology that have put al-Qaeda on the path to defeat.” war by seeking to repeal the Authoriza- we’re confronting.” “Without recogniz- In September, he told the U.N. Gen- tion for Use of Military Force (AUMF) ing that we’re in an ideological strug- eral Assembly: “Let there be no doubt, that Congress passed in 2001. “This war, gle,” Bolton added, “we can’t properly the tide of war is receding.” The phrase like all wars, must end,” President Obama address the terrorist threat.” also cropped up in Obama’s next State of told his audience at the National Defense To be fair, the previous administra- the Union address, and on half a dozen University. “That’s what history advises. tion favored a “war of ideas.” Indeed, it as- other occasions. That’s what our democracy demands.” serted that it was prevailing in this theater. The evidence for this optimistic Actually, if history advises any- “The relevance of al-Qaeda and its analysis was less than conclusive. In thing it’s that wars seldom end by fiat. ideology has been further diminished,” How We Fight | inFOCUS 3 President Trump addresses the 2018 session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. (Photo: Joyce N. Boghosian/White House) Obama wrote in his introduction to the to the Balkans to Michigan, Islam is in- – which is not the same as saying they 2011 document. The Arab Spring, he terpreted and practiced in many differ- reject violence. A subset of Islamists, added, had discredited the terrorists’ ent ways.