Watching the aftermath of the Israeli raid on the Gaza flotilla play out over the past several days, the armchair tactician in me is struck by a couple of key points. First, leaving aside for the moment the question of whether the Gaza blockade is justified, the Israelis are undoubtedly paying a significant public relations price for the raid. Fair or not, anytime commandos fire on civilians — even those armed with clubs, slingshots, stun grenades, etc. — in the court of public opinion, they become the aggressors. Second, the fact that the Israeli game plan to seize the vessels went smoothly and relatively peacefully in five of six instances is now beside the point. The tragic events aboard the Mavi Marmara overshadow what otherwise would have been, at the least, a tactically successful operation. Third, after watching the initial video footage from both the Israeli and the activist sides, the situation aboard the vessel was clearly confusing and far from one-sided. While the full details about the raid will come out in next few months, from the initial evidence, it appears as if the commandos faced a “no-win” scenario.
As badly as the Gaza flotilla raid turned out, the operation could have gone far worse. Imagine for a moment if the activists aboard the Mavi Marmara had smuggled onboard light arms or even a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher or two. It would not be hard to imagine a scenario in which the Israelis could have had a commando taken hostage or even lost a helicopter while the troops were fast-roping onto the ship (think of a maritime version of Black Hawk Down). Alternatively, while any loss of life is tragic, one could also easily imagine a scenario in which the activists suffered a far greater number of casualties than they did in this case. When people shoot live ammunition within the confined, crowded spaces of a ship, casualty rates increase exponentially. Ultimately, once active resistance broke out onboard the Mavi Marmara, there were bound to be few positive outcomes.
What then should be the lessons of the Gaza flotilla raid for American defense policy? One argument simply could be to avoid these scenarios in the first place. While outwardly appealing, this approach is probably shortsighted. One can easily imagine a variety of scenarios involving the likes of Iran or North Korea in which a blockade might be a useful policy tool. In this case, the United States Navy and its allies might find themselves facing a similar challenge of stopping a blockade-runner filled with hostile civilians. Should U.S. forces attempt to board the vessel, they could easily find themselves in a no-win situation similar to that which the Israelis faced with the Gaza flotilla. Perhaps, then, the key take-away point of the recent Israeli experience should be the increasing need for nonlethal maritime weapons — in this case to immobilize vessels at a distance, targeting the propulsion systems of the ship, without needing to board it.
With much of the current commentary on the U.S. defense budget emphasizing the inevitability of constraints and reductions, Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt set out to examine a number of the faulty assumptions apparent in Defense Secretary Bob Gates’ campaign to streamline Pentagon spending in a must-read piece for the Weekly Standard:
Gates’s speech at the Eisenhower Library was off the mark in many respects. The United States never became the “garrison state” many feared at the start of the Cold War, and even in the wake of the attacks of 9/11, the re-balancing of civil liberties and security has been minimal. Nor is the “military-industrial complex” a real problem. Defense companies now amount to less than 2 percent of Standard & Poor’s total market capitalization for the country’s 500 largest companies—hardly the dark and dangerous behemoth many on the left imagine.
But Gates was right in one respect: The nation is at a critical juncture when it comes to defense resources. The problem is the administration’s response. If Obama and his team prevail, they will have created a spending dynamic that puts the United States on the same road as the countries of Europe, where domestic welfare crowds out all but minimal spending for defense. America’s role in the world will decline, not because we have tried to do too much abroad, but because we have chosen to do too much at home. For less than a nickel on the dollar of U.S. GDP, we can maintain our preeminence in the world and, with prudent taxing and spending at home, revive America’s economy as well. This shouldn’t be an either/or choice. It hasn’t been in the past, and America and the world have been the better for it.
In a related article, Dan Blumenthal outlines how our failure to invest in the proper defense capabilities and to take serious steps to strengthen partnerships and alliances will hinder our strategic position in what may be the most vital region of the coming century:
Our strategic requirements necessitate more military investment in the Asia-Pacific on an expedited schedule, as well as creative strategic thinking about building alliances with countries that are already funding their own military modernization programs. Investing properly in air supremacy, undersea warfare, and missile defenses will be costly. But the cost is nowhere near the price we will pay if the region — which has enjoyed a long run of peace, stability, and prosperity — descends into chaos or conflict.
(Photo: flickr/U.S. Department of Defense Current Photos)
Maintaining Air Supremacy in Asia
In an article titled “China Won’t Rule the Skies,” the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson argued yesterday that we have little to fear from any future Chinese fifth generation fighter. He writes:
…a Chinese [F-22] Raptor-equivalent would pose less danger to US fifth-generation fighters than might be imagined, because it would lack the sensors and munitions necessary to actually target the US plane. At least initially, engagements would have to be based on the improbable tactic of using visual sightings and on-board guns, because the stealth features of the F-22 design would render heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles largely useless.
Pointing out that China lacks “the necessary experience or expertise” to even build an F-22 equivalent, he concludes that “fielding fifth-generation fighters in any significant numbers is not a feasible proposition for Beijing.”
Thompson is likely correct in arguing that it will be a long time before China can begin to match the F-22’s capabilities. But the implication that naturally follows this argument — that we need not worry about the air balance in the Asia-Pacific — is off-base.
The NSS on Terrorism
I agree with the assessments of a number of my colleagues (see here and here) about the shortfalls of the new National Security Strategy. But for all the concern last month about the strategic implications of the Obama administration’s plan to strike religious references like “Islamic extremism” from the NSS, the document gives relatively fair treatment to the most pressing terrorist threats facing the United States. Its a modest highlight in an otherwise underwhelming product, but it merits a closer look.
By stating plainly that “the United States is waging a global campaign against al-Qa’ida and its affiliates,” the NSS will likely satisfy terrorism experts and analysts with its characterization of the core enemies we face and the scope of the challenge at hand. The document is thorough in outlining the administration’s priorities and objectives for defeating al-Qa’ida and its associated movements in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and denying safe-havens in Yemen, Somalia, the Sahel, and the Maghreb. It also makes clear the United States’ commitment to pursuing long-term strategic partnerships with both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and describes the desired contours of those relationships. Of any portion of the NSS, the sections detailing U.S. efforts and objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan seem to be the most comprehensive and actionable—that is, genuinely strategic.
Of course, it still leaves a lot to be desired.
NSS: Lighter than “Lite”
Having just slogged my way through the Obama National Security Strategy, I’m naturally in a grumpy mood: such “texts” are too often created first and foremost to obfuscate rather than clarify. So to summon the energy to blog about the NSS, I’ll borrow some literary caffeine from Peter Feaver over at Shadow Government.
As you will see if you follow the link, Peter’s take is that there is a good deal of consistency between the Obama and Bush doctrines, and that the media gas over the renunciation of “preventive war” evaporates in the light of day. That’s true, but perhaps Peter misses the forest for the trees — or simply has to defend himself within the precincts of the faculty lounge at Duke.
By contrast, I see a very deep divide between our current president and his predecessor, a fundamental difference of opinion about international politics and even human nature. Simply put, Barack Obama believes progress can be achieved through cooperation among nations through the realm of diplomacy while George Bush believes progress can be achieved despite conflict, which is the realm of armed strength. Both men profess the universality of American political principles, but have divergent views about how to carry American Exceptionalism abroad.
George Bush famously wanted to build “a balance of power that favors freedom.” As a conservative and realist, he understood international politics as a competition for power, as one would expect from creatures fallen from a state of grace. Like Jefferson, he wanted to create an “empire for liberty,” to employ power — paradoxically — to promote freedom.
In the NSS, Barack Obama claims that, “power, in an interconnected world, is no longer a zero-sum game.” Through collective action with other states — not “great powers” but “key centers of influence” — we can achieve “cooperative solutions.” This method appeals in large degree because Obama has a more expansive understanding of “security” — beyond any particular political arrangement, he includes pandemic disease, prosperity and, above all, climate change. Obama wants to build a balance of influence that favors sustainable living.
Mark Mazzetti’s much talked-about piece in the New York Times this week on the clandestine deployment of special operations forces throughout the CENTCOM area of responsibility reminded me of a few points I had noted in DOD’s recently updated Joint Operating Concept (JOC) for Irregular Warfare, released earlier this month.
The new JOC, produced under the direction of SOCOM commander Admiral Eric T. Olson and JFCOM commander General James Mattis, is intended to “articulate how the joint force must operate to counter irregular threats and to guide force development, materiel and non-materiel capability development, and experimentation.” To do so, it outlines in broad terms “how the future joint force will conduct operations, when directed by the President or Secretary of Defense, to prevent, deter, disrupt, and defeat non-state actors, as well as state actors who pose irregular threats.”
With respect to counterterrorism operations, the JOC anticipates the following:
The focus of joint force operations will be to first identify and understand the terrorist networks’ leadership, affiliate groups, local organizations, radicalized individuals, and supporters and enablers, and then undertake continuous action as part of a global counterterrorist network that utilizes a broad set of interagency and multinational partner capabilities. Counterterrorism activities may be undertaken either before, or concurrently with, [foreign internal defense] and COIN activities, and long-term success will normally require sustained follow-on efforts to build partner-nation capacity to address residual threats and prevent their resurgence.
All in all, this tracks pretty closely with Mazzetti’s description of the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force (JUWTF) Execute Order, reportedly signed by Gen. David Petraeus last September, which authorizes the deployment of U.S. special forces in friendly and unfriendly countries throughout the CENTCOM AOR to “build networks that could ‘penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy’ Al Qaeda and other militant groups, as well as to ‘prepare the environment’ for future attacks by American or local military forces.” American soldiers are, of course, already engaged in this sort of activity in Yemen and elsewhere; some of the apparent controversy surrounding the classified order stems from the fact that Iran could become a target of clandestine military surveillance teams.
Given that the principles of the September directive are articulated elsewhere in unclassified doctrine, though, it would be difficult to interpret the JUWTF order as a new and alarming manifestation of senior commanders’ “expansive interpretation of the military’s role around the world.”
China Shoots Itself in the Foot
Though China has benefitted from the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific as much as anybody else in the region, it has always been anxious about the network of American allies on its periphery. Indeed, in recent years China has actively sought to drive wedges between the U.S. and its Asian allies — especially Japan and South Korea — and gradually tempt those countries away from America’s embrace. Beijing surely watched with great satisfaction the negative turn in U.S.-Japan relations following the Japanese election last year, not to mention the earlier U.S. disagreements with Seoul and Tokyo over how to best handle the Six Party Talks.
Fortunately for us, some of China’s most troubling activities are driving America and her allies closer together. China’s maritime conduct in the Sea of Japan and East China Sea, especially recent naval exercises near Okinawa, brought renewed concern in Tokyo about the intentions underlying China’s naval buildup. Moreover, China’s response, at least to date, to the sinking of the Cheonan has reassured no one — its refusal to even accept the results of the investigation’s findings, let alone censure Pyongyang, is heightening wariness among China’s neighbors.
Still, some good may come of all this. There have been several positive developments in the aftermath of the Cheonan’s sinking: the U.S. and Japan have resolved their basing dispute; the U.S. and South Korea are deepening their already close military ties; and South Korea and Japan, who often find it so difficult to get along, are cooperating in responding to a common threat.
On March 26, 2010, a North Korean mini-sub slipped past the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto western sea border separating the two Koreas, and fired what has now been identified as a CHT-02D, indigenously produced, wake-homing torpedo at the Cheonan South Korean Navy ship. The torpedo exploded just below the hull of the Cheonan, producing a “shockwave bubble effect” that literally split the South Korean ship in half. The results of the attack were both compelling and tragic for South Korea. Forty-six sailors (out of a crew of 104 aboard) perished as the ship sank, and more people were killed in the salvage and rescue efforts that followed.
Since 1999, the NLL has been a growing source of contention between the two Koreas, and the Cheonan attack is easily the most deadly manifestation of the competition over the disputed border. But it was certainly not the first provocation initiated by the North Koreans, and it is unlikely to be the last. Most of the previous incidents in the vicinity of the NLL, described in detail below, have had four things in common: 1) they are intentionally initiated at moments when they have the likelihood of garnering the greatest attention on the regional and perhaps even the world stage; 2) they initially appear to be incidents that are relatively small, easily contained, and quickly “resolved;” 3) they involve continuously changing tactics and techniques; and 4) North Korea denies responsibility for the event. Certainly, this most recent violent provocation fulfills all four of the key factors listed above.
What’s Next For the Iraqi Police?
Last Friday, Defense News reported that as of October 2011, the State Department will resume responsibility for managing U.S. police training and advising efforts in Iraq, a task overseen by the Department of Defense since 2004. The shift, a function of the broader changes underway in the United States’ role and presence in Iraq, could have some serious implications for the prospects of the long-term U.S-Iraqi strategic partnership.
In recent years, U.S. forces have played a critical role in shaping Iraq’s security sector, expanding capacity and providing strategic guidance within the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, and partnering U.S. military police units with elements of the Iraqi police. The State Department contribution has been minimal by comparison, and dominated by contractors.
The new State-run effort will reportedly focus exclusively on professionalization, leader development, and special skills training. In terms of personnel, “the program will involve a mix of up to 2,000 State Department and other government employees and contractors, including private security providers who will operate from three main bases and make trips to about 50 police offices and training academies.”
