A New World War

War occurs when two or more parties have taken steps that result in one or both of the parties to inflict damage upon the other party. Japan’s attack upon Pearl Harbor is a clear example of how such an event starts with certainty, the attack on Pearl Harbor, a result of years of threats between the parties. In the case of Japan, both sides were identifiable by nationality and extent and the enemy, Japan, was clearly identifiable within the context of its uniformed armed forces and national identity. In contrast Vietnam was much less clear. The precipitating event was diffuse at best and the “enemy’s” forces were diffuse as well, including civilians and hundreds of thousands of non-uniformed adversaries. Korea had a precipitating event, the crossing of the North into the South. The enemy was uniformed and the territory defined. In all three cases the outcomes were different. In WW II there was a clear victory, in Korea an endless stalemate and in Vietnam, a clear loss.

So with September 11, 2001, we have a clear precipitating event. Yet, we have a diffuse adversary. Furthermore, unlike Vietnam, we have a geographically and even ethnically diffuse adversary, non-uniformed and spread across areas where boundaries and territories are ill defined at best. This is not a war for some form of national sovereignty or territorial gain. It is a war for global influence; it is a war for an idea, a religious belief. It is a war of Fundamental Islamic Terrorists, FIT. The adversary is not in a uniform, not confined to a geographical limit, yet whose objective is global conversion or submission to their form of belief. In a sense, this is fundamentally different than many previous wars. There may be a few prior exceptions. For example, starting in the mid seventh century the ancestors of the current adversaries set out in a similar belief set to capture territory. In a somewhat similar vein, one could see the Spanish invaders of South America, in a similar mix of belief and gold, to have been to the indigenous people similar to the FIT.

In WW II, the desire of Germany and Japan was regional dominance and control, by physical and political means. The tactic was expansion and occupation. There was no desire, by either country, to “convert” the captives to their belief. Nor were the attacks driven by a hatred of the “beliefs” of the attacked party; the one clear exception being the anti-Semitism of the Germans. It was purely a territorial grab. In Korea, the issue was the dominance of the North over the South and the same applied for Vietnam. For the current conflict, however, it is clearly and solely the dominance of one belief set over those not believing.

Thus, what does a nation or set of nations need to effectively fight such a diffuse non-nation based religious adversary? How does one fight and overcome, for unless total and complete victory is attained, it will never end.

We believe that there are three simple elements or strategies to achieve success;

1. Intelligence must be at the ground level. As we had imbedded intelligence agents, spies, in the 40s through 60s embedded with the enemy, we need the same here. We need to have dedicated and trusted agents who can inform us of the enemy’s moves, actions, intents, strengths and weaknesses. Instead of the person at the Bar in Istanbul or Lisbon, or Berlin, we need some at the stalls in Cairo, Islamabad, Damascus, Tehran, and yes even Mumbai, to understand the traffic of communications. We also need the same human presence at the camps in the deserts and hinter lands. This takes time and dedication, it takes sophisticated training and competence, and it takes what we had just after WW II when the CIA first started. Namely it requires the very best and a dedicated team of the most competent. It also requires an intelligence capability provided by technical means, such as covert over-flight capabilities. It also requires broad Signal-Intel. Cyber-Intel, broadly speaking, will be at the leading edge as well.

2. Utilize primarily covert Forces and technical means to pre-emptively liquidate threats before they become real. Is this a classic US Military role? I do not think so. In fact, there may not be a role for the US Army as we understand it today anywhere here. There is no uniformed armed national aggressor. The Marines, yes, they are tactical, surgical, do a specific task in coordination with the Navy, and then redeploy to the next task. The Army is just too big, slow and fat to act in this new theatre of war. The Air Force, yes if we mean using their resources for technical means of intelligence gathering, siting and locating, and remote liquidation. Yet in saying all of this, one may envision a totally new “Defense” organization. China has an Army of millions, to protect the country from invasion and to secure domestic tranquility. It works; no one in their right mind would invade China. But that very same army may not be able to protect it against the same enemy we face.

3. Maintain a highly competent means for rapid deployment and redeployment of the Covert Forces anywhere we would need them to achieve the desired effect. This means a Navy, a flexible and new Navy of mobile platforms for deployment and resources to support the deployment and neutralize threats. But what kind of Navy does this require? Clearly a carrier force is essential, one with multiple carrier groups as platforms for rapid and somewhat secure deployment. Second, it may require a littoral fleet of close in vessels, especially for those areas where such are essential like the South East Asia and African coast areas.

What tactics should we deploy under such circumstances? What do we tell the Covert Forces to do? Clearly there are several key points:

1. Do not make things worse. Since this is a war of belief, we must not take actions that reinforce the belief. Large forces deployed to change “minds and Hearts” or to restructure governments may not work, are costly in dollars and lives, and often result in making things work. Focus on the problem, eradicate it, and let things alone. This is not a war where Nation Building has any role. One may have to return again and again to neutralize threats. There may not be any singular victories, just ongoing cleaning up. This is a chronic threat that can only be made worse if not handled in a delicate and surgical manner.

2. Do not tell anyone what has been done. Let them find out for themselves. This is not a War for a vainglorious politician. It is a War for a cold tactician who does not seek self-pride and self-aggrandizement. That of course is a tough thing to expect in any politician. Yet, take the liquidation of the 911 mastermind, that should have been done without a word, let the adversary yell it out, the failure to self-promote will all too often make the adversary make false moves, often out of frustration. Bottom line, it is always better just to keep your mouth shut, it adds to the intensity.

3. Reward friends and punish enemies. Yes, most likely one hopefully can identify a “friend” and yes it may require some “reward”. After all, heads of investment banks get large rewards for their “value added” and the same for “friends”. Also one punishes enemies, yes that means liquidation. I remember the Church Commission in the 70s which was aghast at the liquidation of enemies. Perhaps all of those actions were not really that a bad, if the targets neutralized were truly threats to our very existence then they should have been liquidated. Augustine and Aquinas were fans of “just war” and this element of a goal and strategy is totally consistent if properly managed.

What is victory in such a War? That is the most critical question, namely how does one know when success is achieved.

 1. There may never be an end, at least in the short term. It may become a process, a chronic and ongoing process. The Cold War only had an end when the other side got old and tired. When young and enthusiastic there could never be an end. The end occurs when the enemy just gives up and goes away. Regrettably, it may take generations.

2. Identify the enemy, who is really a threat in this war? Thus, is North Korea an enemy? That is doubtful, a supplier of weapons perhaps, but just a poor country taking risky actions which may explode in their face. Thus, who is really the enemy? That will be the most critical question that must be asked and answered. It clearly is Fundamental Islamist Terrorists, but of no specific nationality. They can be profiled based upon a belief set, not necessarily demographics, it is a psychographic profile. To some degree we had a complex set of profiling criteria in the Cold War. Demographically in the Cold War we had a well-defined set of Soviet nationals and psychographically we had the fellow travelers and spies. Profiling works if done properly.

Thus what does this brief analysis tell one? Simply:

1. One must identify, understand, and target the enemy. One must understand why they have become and remain an enemy but “solving” the problem of the cause may not be an effective act. There are just some people who hate others, especially for religious reasons. To paraphrase Voltaire, he saw the benefit in England of having many religions and supporting none. At least if they were Protestant; but alas, Voltaire frequently let his ego get in the way of facts. In understanding an enemy, one must not let one’s politically correctness get in the way of the facts, for there are some truly evil people. We have to assure ourselves that we go after enemies because they represent a clear and present danger to out very existence, and that is clear to our current post 911 enemy base.

2. One must reduce the number of enemies rather than create new ones. That is often best done by not advertising victories. Further it is also best done by not making neutral parties into enemies by the actions taken. Enemies, all too often if left to their own accord, tend to take actions which make them clear and present dangers to themselves as well.

3. Liquidating the enemy must be targeted, quick, and effective. Collateral damage is always a concern because it creates new enemies. Thus highly effective human intelligences as well as technical intelligence are both essential.

4. Liquidating the enemy must be done in quiet. Both the public recognition of the enemy as well as taking credit for the liquidation of the enemy has significant negative effects. Silence is a keyword of the process. Silence about achievements also has the added effect of terrifying the enemy and making the non-combatants recognize the power of the opposing force. 

There is the question of; how well we have progressed thus far? The Afghanistan invasion was a sledge hammer approach rather than that of a scalpel. It was politically motivated to show that the Government was responding but in many ways it may just has made things worse by establishing corrupt entities which will ultimately be unstable. Iraq was just an unnecessary exercise. It eliminated a nuisance but distracted many from the true enemy as well as massively undermining the economy of the United States. However, it did provide fine tuning to the military, yet it was fine tuning for perhaps the wrong war.

5. Nation building is all too often a fruitless process. Cultures clash and those involved in effecting the process of Nation Building are all too often incompetent to do so. Secondly, there may just not be a basis for any Nation to be built around the efforts. The best thing to do is not to Nation Build. Focus on the specific and limited goal which is total neutralization and elimination of the adversary. Nation Building presents the opportunity for significant collateral damage. It further presents the opportunity to install local leaders who may, in the minds of the local residents, be worse than what was there before.

The current actions against the FIT, Fundamentalist Islamic Terrorists, is somewhat mixed. On the one hand we seem to be deploying many more “black ops” which is essential, and we may very well be slowly expanding our human intelligence, but not at the rate we truly should be doing so. We are, however, taking public adulation for accomplishments, which all too often have negative effects. The negative effects are that we telegraph much too much intelligence to the adversary. In fact, if we were not to take any public adulation we would create uncertainty, confusion, and potential paranoia in the adversary. Those weapons of psychological uncertainty in an adversary are often more powerful than a million troops deployed in the open.

Thus we know we are at war, we understand the enemy in the most broad of terms, and we know that winning is essential, costly, and of long duration. It may be even longer than the Cold War. It also is a war like no other we have been involved in in the course of our brief history as a nation. Yet historically it is a war we have seen before. In the mid-7^th century and for a few centuries thereafter a similar war of ideas took place, and with many of the same cast of characters. The movement of the Arab followers made its way across North Africa and up halfway through Spain as we know it today.

It was not truly reversed until 1492, after almost 800 years of give and take. That period was also a war of ideas, of ideas much more than territory. But it was also a war of large armies, one against the other. Yet in today’s world, much smaller forces can affect the same or possible greater damage using weapons not available 1400 years or so ago.

Another question in this construct of a new battlefront is; who else is involved and what side are they on? Clearly the Russians have had their concerns with the FIT for a couple of decades now, with the same class of adversaries. How well they have managed this is still an open question but it is clear that they have had their losses as well. The next country facing the threat is India, and the raid on the Mumbai hotels was just one of many acts that have dragged them as well into this global engagement as in a great degree an engagement that they have been in for decades.

Then there is China, one wonders just how they will progress in this threat environment, some mild strains have been observed but, as of yet, no significant front appears there. Thus we have a global front of concern. There are pockets of response, from the shotgun start and stop response of the US, namely the blatant denial by the US Administration that the Ft Hood attack was not just another battle in this conflict but some form of “work place violence”, to the immediate and aggressive response of the French to the attempted overthrow of Mali.

The current Administration tried to classify Ft Hood as anything but what it was. They called it another internal “work place violence” incident. The failure of the U.S. to recognize what the existential nature of this conflict truly is must change. The sine qua non step in addressing its solution is recognition that it is existential, global, and enduring. The FIT have not been suppressed. To the contrary, the FIT is spreading and metastasizing into a globally disperse movement threatening those parts of civilization which surrounds all of us.

The French seem to have finally and aggressively awakened to the threat. Algeria and Mali were their backdoor. The English are more than highly cognizant having suffered several assaults. At what point does a single and united force deal with the adversary? How do they define the adversary, those a direct threat to them, a true global mesh of loosely connected enemies to their very existence.