E-mail This ArticleA New Millennium and a
Strategic Breathing Space
Russell E. Travers;
From the Washington
Quarterly, 1997 Spring. Vol. 20, No. 2; Pg. 95
The World is a dangerous place; so U.S. national security
officials must assume. But how dangerous? What threats will
confront the United States as it enters the twenty-first century?
What does America's future risk equation look like? Few questions
demand as much thoughtful attention from Washington as these;
unless and until they are answered, the basis for a reasoned
debate on the legitimate defense needs of the country -- relative
to a wide array of competing priorities -- will not exist.
Unfortunately, a number of factors have obscured the distinction
between actual threats, potential risks and unadulterated
bogeymen. First, no consensus exists over the U.S. role in the
world, on the scope of U.S. vital national interests, or indeed
on what a security "interest" is in the first place; as
such it is difficult to define threats to those interests.
Second, transitional periods, like this post-Cold War era, are
inherently challenging to strategists; uncertainty levels are
high and no one can say with confidence what the world will look
like in a decade or two. And third, the subject of
"threats" is complicated; the United States has an
abundance of avowed global strategists, but few go beyond
platitudes ("Iran is a threat to the Persian Gulf," for
example) when talking about the military and technical nature of
threats.
By themselves these factors could lead toward "worst
case" threat analysis -- throwing up one's hands and
assuming that all potential threats can and will become real. And
when this tendency joins with a host of domestic political
considerations, the result is that pundits of varying credibility
tout a dizzying array of alleged threats. This excessively robust
threat portrayal leads to an overly conservative risk equation,
which in turn skews U.S. resource decisions. And the U.S. public,
which generally lacks interest in foreign affairs, ends up
confused and deferring to the "experts." In the end,
the country is not well served.
This article will suggest that the United States needs to
reevaluate the threats it faces today and over the next decade.
Yes, the world is dangerous, and Americans will be at risk around
the globe. As a result of terrorist attacks, Americans, at a
personal level, may even feel less safe than they did during the
Cold War. But, generally speaking, a growing gap exists between
many avowed threats and reality of the U.S. security posture. To
support that assertion, this article will begin by briefly
reviewing what amounts to the "sum of all our fears"
view of future threats. It will then detail some of the major
changes affecting worldwide defense planning, evaluate the
regional and technical concerns typically considered to be
threats, and finally, examine some of the actual threats that
will confront the United States and its allies.
The essay concludes that the United States is on the threshold of
a protracted military breathing space. During this period, U.S.
leaders will be confronted with less risk of large-scale conflict
than has been the case since the end of World War I. With the
luxury of a very favorable risk equation, U.S. leaders can
accelerate the pace of adapting to the post-Cold War era. In that
vein, this essay goes on to suggest a package of proposals that
would serve to shape the world as well as prudently guard against
it.
The Sum of All Our Fears
The general parameters of what might be called the "sum of
all our fears" model of defense planning are well known.
Over the next decade, it argues, the United States will face the
possibility of attacks by rogue states, with Iraq and North Korea
generally considered the most likely candidates. In addition, the
United States needs to guard against a resurgent Russia that
could again threaten Europe. Iran will be a major threat in and
around the Persian Gulf. And China's economic potential could be
rapidly channeled into the military and threaten U.S. interests.
Ethnic, religious, and sectarian violence will also provide a
never-ending series of Somalias, Haitis, and Yugoslavias.
Technologically, according to this view, the United States could
lose its superiority in advanced weapon systems. For one thing,
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and delivery
systems will continue and the United States could be threatened
by pariah states with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)
early in the next century. Even more broadly, a wide array of
advanced conventional systems could be fielded and made available
to any countries willing to pay. And in the somewhat more distant
future, U.S. defense planners could confront a "revolution
in military affairs" achieved in the defense establishments
of a few potential adversaries -- a combination of technological
advance and new operational concepts that could render U.S.
systems obsolete and inflict battlefield defeat on U.S. forces.
This rendition of possible future threats is indeed daunting, and
would pose quite a challenge if all or even most of it were to
come to pass. Fortunately, it will not. In actuality, the United
States is on the threshold of a strategic breathing space
that could easily extend a decade or two. During this period,
myriad challenges will continue to claim U.S. attention -- but
operations against an enemy capable of large-scale sustained
combat will not be one of them.
Toward a More Reasoned View of the Future
Despite the significant uncertainty that exists regarding the
nature of future threats to U.S. interests, a number of facts can
provide insights into the future security environment. Together
they suggest that the "sum of all our fears" model of
threat analysis is exaggerated.
First, among the world's major defense spenders, national
security concepts are changing; the historic discontinuity
occasioned by the demise of the Soviet Union is having worldwide
repercussions in the military sphere. Worldwide military
expenditures are down some 40 percent from the late 1980s.
Perhaps 50 percent of global defense spending from this period
was attributable to the Cold War, and the Cold War's end is
gradually wringing those resources out of the system; the
implications for future military capabilities are immense.
Moreover, reflecting a decline in threat perceptions and a change
in the security calculus occurring in much of the world, the
share of the world's gross domestic product directed to defense
has dropped precipitously. Although still important, the military
component of national security policy is neither as useful nor as
central in advancing interests as it once was. Simply put, the
defense industrial powers are growing up, focusing more on
economic and cultural avenues to power and less on military ones.
Second, with the change occurring in many countries' risk
equation, long term defense planning is a mess. Countries are
uncertain of their enemies, of how they should shape their
militaries, and even of the missions for which their militaries
should prepare. Most countries have published post-Cold War
doctrines or white papers, but defense cuts often make the
documents outdated even before they are issued; consequently,
they are of little use for helping with force development,
weapons acquisition, or conducting trade-off analysis. The
worldwide trend is to defer hard decisions on weapons systems.
And third, as the world adjusts to the end of the U.S.-Soviet
rivalry, militaries are caught in the middle. Rapid downsizing
has caught defense establishments unprepared. Increasingly,
"two-tiered" militaries have become the norm: Except
for select "upper tier" units, readiness -- judged by
factors such as flying hours, ground forces training, and
equipment availability -- has declined. Although developing
countries are buying some modern equipment, most are having
problems with training and maintenance -- and the gap between
technological potential and demonstrated performance is growing.
Finally, as a result of diminished defense budgets, weapons
development has slowed substantially around the world.
If these trends continue, it may be that no country other than
the United States will ever again demonstrate the capabilities
that we displayed during the Persian Gulf War. Nonetheless,
defense planners legitimately point to a number of concerns: the
"uncertainties" inherent in this period of transition;
the existence of "rogue" states; the availability of
nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons technology and
sophisticated conventional weaponry; and a very messy state of
affairs in the developing world. To examine these factors in more
detail, I will now look closer at the various countries and
technological developments of concern.
Regional Snapshots
Regionally, looking forward 10-15 years, what potentially hostile
countries might be able to execute large-scale conventional
offensive operations that could threaten U.S. interests? In the
current vernacular, what major regional contingencies (MRCs) are
likely to emerge early in the next century? The short answer
could well be none.
Korea
North Korea probably poses the most complex security situation in
the world: the potential for either explosion or implosion, with
neither offering the prospect of much warning. Despite the
problems confronting the North, the United States cannot rule out
the possibility of explosion -- an armed attack on South Korea.
With the bulk of North Korea's million-man military located
within 100 kilometers of the 38th Parallel, careful attention
will be directed at the thousands of tanks and artillery pieces
poised opposite South Korea. Clearly this military has serious
problems in training, logistics, and readiness (including
malnutrition in the ranks); explosion may indeed be occasioned
less by a deliberate attack in hopes of unifying the peninsula,
than by a last-ditch lashing out. This dangerous situation could
continue for several years, and should deterrence fail, an
extraordinarily devastating war could occur.
But assuming deterrence succeeds, how much longer can North Korea
continue as an over-militarized, closed society? Having been
largely cut off from the largess of its Chinese and Russian
benefactors, and finding itself with almost nothing anyone in the
world values to sell (apart from a few missiles), how long can
such a system carry on devoting an inordinate share of its
limited wealth to a nonproductive military sector? Consider how
bad conditions in the North must actually be if Pyongyang is
willing to beg the international community for free food, and
acknowledge in the open press the severity of its energy and
industrial problems.
The North Korean regime is moving toward an inevitable demise;
the only questions are how and when it will fall. Either
explosion, an attack South, or implosion, a civil war or
revolution within the North, would pose significant challenges.
But the window is rapidly closing for any possibility for a
large-scale attack by the North; within a few years and perhaps
sooner, its military and society will simply have decayed beyond
a point at which it can mount large-scale military operations.
Iraq
The other country used most often to illustrate a major regional
contingency is Iraq, potentially threatening the Saudi oil
fields. Coming out of Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein sought to
retain offensive military capabilities, and Iraq will warrant
close scrutiny while he remains in power. On the other hand, U.S.
planners need to keep the size and scope of this threat in
perspective. Even six years after Desert Storm, Iraq's military
remains less than 40 percent the size of the force that invaded
Kuwait. Moreover, the military mirrors an Iraqi civil society
that has been virtually crushed; it is rife with problems.
Desertions, purges in the officer corps, training shortfalls, and
severe readiness and logistics problems all undercut the
military's capabilities. And although these problems mainly
affect the regular military (roughly three-fourths of the overall
force), even the Republican Guard has had similar problems. Few
militaries in the world have demonstrated the capability to
rapidly prosecute large-scale armor operations across hundreds of
miles; with the Iraqi force in its current state of decay,
disrepair, and continued vulnerability to air strikes, it simply
does not have the capacity to conduct such operations deep into
Saudi Arabia (as opposed to conducting much shallower attacks
against the Kurds or into Kuwait). Moreover, still
psychologically devastated from its disaster in the Gulf war, the
Iraqi military has no stomach to fight the United States.
Under certain assumptions, this situation might eventually
change. But the assumptions are pretty heroic: that Saddam
remains in power; that he controls Iraq's insurgency problems,
the Sunni tribes, and military coup plotting; and that he gets
past international economic sanctions, somehow reconstructing
civil society and channeling oil proceeds to the military. Under
such circumstances, Iraq could perhaps once again pose a
conventional threat to Saudi Arabia, but the combination seems
unlikely. And if the assumptions do not hold, the Iraqi military
will continue a downward spiral toward a protracted inability to
pose a large-scale threat to Gulf oil supplies.
Iran
Beyond North Korea and Iraq, the United States must also contend
with a potential military threat from Iran. Sitting astride the
Strait of Hormuz, participating in state-sponsored terrorism, and
advocating radical Islamic fundamentalism, Iran will continue to
be of concern. But U.S. planners must be sophisticated in
considering the threats posed by Iran. It is primarily Iran's use
of the opposite extremes of the conflict spectrum -- from
terrorism to weapons of mass destruction, including NBC weapons
-- that is now and will remain a concern.
In contrast, Iran's conventional military capabilities do not
constitute a major threat to the region. It is slowly improving
capabilities to execute operations around the Strait in such
areas as mining and cruise missiles, but the last thing Tehran
wants today and in the foreseeable future is a military
confrontation with the United States. Like its Iraqi counterpart,
the Iranian military has serious problems. Iran's effort to
maintain two separate militaries (regular and Revolutionary
Guard) weakens command and control. Cut off from U.S. arms and
spare parts, the Iranians now maintain aircraft from four
countries (Russia, China, France, and the United States); their
logistics system is a nightmare. Similarly, the pilot cadre,
trained by the United States, is aging, and Iran's indigenous
pilot training has been extremely poor. Other training -- such as
the crews of the much-vaunted, Soviet-built Kilo submarines, for
example -- is also suspect. And Iran's air defense system has
long been porous; even with China's help, Iran's future
air defenses may only approximate the limited Iraqi capabilities
shown in the Gulf war.
Moreover, Iran's potential to improve its military capabilities
is limited by a daunting list of social and economic problems.
Iran's population could balloon from 65 million people today to
100 million by the year 2010, and the country's stagnant economy
is ill-equipped to absorb such population growth. A lack of
economic reform, debt restructuring that will require hard
currency to meet future interest payments (thereby limiting arms
purchases), and a decrepit oil and gas infrastructure will
bedevil Iran for decades. Ample reasons exist to be concerned
about Iran -- its use of terrorism, for example, and its pursuit
of NBC weapons -- but its ability to conduct sustained
conventional operations is not one of them.
Russia
Russia's political volatility, coupled with its very large
military, lead some to be concerned that it could reemerge as a
major conventional threat to Europe. Those concerns are
misplaced. Absent some action by the West that serves to
galvanize a Russian population and substantially to increase
threat perceptions, Russian conventional forces will be limited
to small-scale operations for well over a decade. The problems
confronting the Russian military are so deep and so
all-encompassing that it could be decades before it could again
be considered healthy; Chechnya bears witness to the serious
shortcomings of the Russian Army. By virtually every standard
that is used to measure military capabilities, Russia's military
is in deep trouble. The personnel system is in virtual crisis:
the conscript pool is avoiding service; contract service is too
expensive; the better young officers are leaving; and too many
senior officers remain in the ranks. Training is abysmal: Fighter
pilots fly 30 hours a year -- well below most developing-world
standards and only 15 percent as much as U.S. standards; ground
forces rarely train above the company or battalion level; and the
navy is relegated to a few ships and submarines putting to sea.
Readiness has been adversely affected by a lack of housing, lack
of pay, disease, malnutrition, corruption, and crime. Block
obsolescence of major combat systems like aircraft, ships, and
battle tanks looms unless Russia begins to increase its
procurement of new equipment.
These problems stem from a precipitous decline in defense
expenditures, which are down 80 percent from Soviet levels.
Inadequate funding has led the military leadership to talk about
bankruptcy, brink of collapse, irreversible decline, and a fight
for survival; and trying to retain a force 40 percent the size of
Soviet levels on a budget only 20 percent that of the Soviet era
is a recipe for a hollow military. Although the defense budget is
probably at or near its bottoming-out point, no substantial
increase will accrue to the military over the next decade. The
future for the Russian general-purpose forces will continue to be
bleak well into the next century.
China
Finally, many view China as a country of concern, not because of
what it once was, but because of what it might become. China's
military is benefiting from impressive economic growth, but many
Western observers have an exaggerated view of how rapidly it is
developing because of inadequate appreciation of the very low
starting point of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Overall,
this military is too big and too old to pose a threat to the U.S.
military any time soon; in its training and doctrine, it is
decades behind its Western counterparts. Other than its potential
to play missile diplomacy against its neighbors, the PLA has very
limited ability to project force very far from its shores. Nor is
China improving this force at a breakneck pace: high-profile
purchases of SA-10 surface-to-air missiles, SU-27 fighters, and
Kilo submarines from Russia have given a misleading sense of the
overall modernization rate of the Chinese military. Assuming
China proves able to assimilate technology fully (a 30 percent to
40 percent failure rate in the high-profile space launch vehicle
program is noteworthy), modernization will pick up after the turn
of the century. But consider the quality of this equipment: the
Chinese Air Force will only begin fielding an indigenously-built
fighter-attack aircraft equivalent to the 1970s-vintage U.S. F-16
sometime after the year 2000; its ground forces are striving to
build a battle tank that is the equal of the former Soviet
Union's T-72 of the 1970s; and the Chinese Navy may have a single
aircraft carrier by 2010.
Generally speaking, China will enter the twenty-first century
with small elements of its force having advanced just to the use
of 1980s vintage equipment -- a substantial improvement by
Chinese standards, but modest compared to the world's leading
militaries. And equipment is only part of the challenge; with the
vast majority of its conscript force not having graduated high
school, the PLA will have to prove that it can integrate this
equipment into complex, joint operations. China is undoubtedly an
improving regional military power, but even if it avoids any
political, economic, or social setbacks, it is still decades away
from being able to project sufficient power to constitute a
significant challenge to the U.S. military.
Technical Snapshots
No regional threats will therefore pose a substantial problem for
the U.S. military well into the next century. Either the
countries at issue have substantial political, social, economic,
and military problems, or they are not at a sufficiently advanced
state militarily to be of substantial concern; all of them are
experiencing difficulties simply manning, training, and equipping
their forces.
The issue of future technical threats, on the other hand, is more
complex, because U.S. planners must be concerned about foreign
systems that may not be fielded for a decade or more. Yet here,
too, much of the hype about future foreign weapons systems is
overdone. They generally date to the Cold War and many are either
undergoing reevaluation or running up against budget constraints.
The gap between countries' desires for new weapons and their
ability to pay for them -- the disparity between what has been
sought for in research and development (R&D) and what will
actually be procured -- is growing. As it does so, the menu of
threats to U.S. forces in the coming decades is shrinking.
Russia is the clearest case in point. Moscow's defense
industrialists have acknowledged ongoing R&D on weapons
systems in most war-fighting mission areas -- strategic missiles,
tanks, planes, submarines, helicopters, and tactical missiles.
And because the Russians, like the Soviets before them, were
among the world leaders in technological sophistication of
weapons, these systems, if fielded in meaningful numbers, would
constitute the leading-edge technological threats facing the U.S.
military.
The key, of course, is whether these systems will be
deployed. In fact, a large percentage either will not be -- at
least not without substantial delay -- or will be procured only
in small numbers. Russian defense expenditures have been in
freefall, and in percentage terms procurement has fallen more
than the overall budget. The logical question becomes, if Russia
is so badly off economically, how can it even afford to continue
research on so many systems? Life-cycle cost analysis provides
the answer: R&D may account for 10 percent of the cost of a
fighter aircraft, procurement 30 percent, and operations and
maintenance (O&M) 60 percent. The Russian R&D picture may
be relatively robust, but procurement has been decimated and
O&M is dismal. The Russians are gambling that the budgetary
picture will improve substantially in the future -- but there is
no reason to believe it will do so over the next decade.
Given the disarray in Russia's defense industrial base,
therefore, one should be leery of Western hand-wringing about
Russian systems that will allegedly constitute a threat to the
U.S. military. Come 2005, many Western analysts might look back
sheepishly at all the systems the Russians did not
procure in militarily significant numbers.
U.S. allies also face a mismatch between military desires and
procurement budgets. They are working on an array of advanced
systems, but procurement budgets have taken large hits over the
last few years; even France is facing procurement cuts that could
reach 35 percent. Virtually all major defense industrial powers
face a "bow wave" over the next decade -- that is, they
have insufficient money programmed for desired procurement. Like
the Russians, America's allies indicate they see exports as a
critical way of supporting their systems, but the arms market is
too soft. Without sufficient domestic or foreign markets, many
systems currently in development are going to die.
In sum, any suggestion that the United States is at risk of
losing technological superiority as friends, allies, and
adversaries alike push ahead rapidly with R&D on new and
exotic weapons does not hold up. Defense analysts generally
mention a few particular kinds of military systems as significant
concerns:
* Rogue countries with ICBMs: As North Korea passes from the
scene, what potential rogue state will develop an ICBM? Clearly,
short-range missiles are a concern, but immense technological
problems stand in the way of turning them into ICBMs. No such
threat from a rogue state will exist until well beyond 2010.
* Fourth- and fifth-generation fighters: Virtually every system
in the world currently in the R&D phase is in some trouble
because of cost -- Rafale, FSX, Eurofighter, and numerous Russian
systems. Buys are being delayed and cut back. Russia's
much-vaunted multirole fighter is at least 15 years from series
production, if it makes it at all.
* New tanks: Most countries of concern can barely afford
1970s-vintage T-72s, much less the millions of dollars that more
modern tanks cost. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the
interest in large-scale land warfare among the major tank
producers is declining, and the wave of the future seems to be
upgrades to older models rather than entirely new systems.
* Nuclear Submarines: Russia still produces state-of-the-art
submarines, but the future of its submarine program is bleak. As
Moscow debates the very nature of its triad, maintenance problems
and falling procurement funds are leading to severe cuts in the
size of its submarine force. Increasingly, Russia will be forced
to rely primarily on current boats with little new production.
* Integrated air defense: Few countries of concern can afford
Russian SA-10 quality systems in any numbers. Barrier air defense
has been relegated to history, with most countries' air defenses
less capable than was Iraq's in 1991. Civilian air traffic
control can help air defense networks, but that implies a very
vulnerable command and control system.
One corollary to this overall slowdown in weapons development
relates to the revolution in military affairs (RMA). Although RMA
proponents tend to avoid precisely defining the concept,
generally speaking, RMA has its roots in the writings of Soviet
Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov. In the early 1980s, he envisioned a
military technical revolution (MTR) that would include a vast
array of high tech weapons; since he wrote, the concept of MTR
has been broadened to an RMA that would also include new
organizational and operational concepts. The entire concept has a
bit of a surreal quality. Yes, technological change is occurring
at a dizzying pace. But given the state of disarray within many
militaries, the rather traditional things they are trying to buy,
the continued budget limitations they face, and the uninspired
nature of foreign military theoretical literature, the RMA may be
just one more casualty of the end of the Cold War.
Threats Remain
Clearly, no military or technical "peer competitor" to
the United States is on the horizon for at least a couple of
decades. Yet, despite reasonably optimistic trends in the nature
of both regional and technical concerns, numerous threats remain
and must be carefully watched. For example, Russia and China will
continue to modernize their strategic arsenals. Numerically,
Russian warheads will come down regardless of START II, and the
Russians may be forced into primary reliance on a vastly
diminished land-based force as the nuclear ballistic missile
submarine force comes under increased maintenance and
obsolescence pressure, and as few new boats are procured.
Similarly, China's numbers will go up, but probably not above
some minimum-deterrent, second-strike level.
Beyond the strategic nuclear threat, theater-level capabilities
in weapons of mass destruction -- NBC weapons -- will also
expand. Proliferation, particularly the potential leakage from
Russia, will challenge the world well into the future. Overall,
increased availability of warhead technology and theater missiles
will be of concern. Nevertheless, U.S. defense planners need to
begin distinguishing between countries pursuing such weapons for
their "war fighting" quality (as was the case in Iraq)
and those countries primarily in search of a deterrent to counter
conventional weakness. Syria, for example, has given up its
search for strategic parity with Israel, cut back its
conventional forces, and focused on Scud missiles and chemical
warheads primarily as a deterrent. Mass destruction weapons
acquired for strategically defensive reasons -- to forestall
attack -- do not pose the same threat as those acquired to make
an attack possible.
At the conventional level, U.S. defense planners will be
concerned with an array of regional threats. Some threatening
countries have a strategic advantage simply because of proximity
to their possible victim, thereby requiring deterrence and U.S.
forward presence. Iran, lying astride the Strait of Hormuz, is
one classic example; North Korean divisions sitting in attack
positions 30 miles from Seoul is another. Concern about such
scenarios is valid, but I have argued that U.S. planners must
also preserve a wider perspective on such imputed threats. Iran,
for example, has limited interdiction capabilities against
regional navies and tanker fleets; it also has, and will continue
to have, severe shortcomings in its general military structure
and certainly could not sustain prolonged operations against the
United States.
On the technology side, some weapons systems currently on the
market are already a threat to U.S. forces. The key questions
become Who has them?, Who can afford them in the future?, How
many can they afford?, and How effectively can they be used? But
the threat is not growing by leaps and bounds: As I have argued,
absent some significant increase in military spending, most
countries will face severe constraints on their ability to field
and maintain more modern systems. Instead of focusing on the
threats posed by entirely new systems, therefore, U.S. planners
will need to pay increased attention to enhanced capabilities
offered by upgrades to existing systems -- for example, the
ability to integrate advanced avionics and newer missiles on
older airframes.
Without modern militaries capable of meeting U.S. forces on the
battlefield, U.S. adversaries will increasingly turn to
asymmetric responses to U.S. operations. This could involve
weapons of mass destruction, as suggested above. It could also
comprise technological "trumps" to U.S. systems --
information warfare used to attack the electronic networks on
which U.S. military operations now depend -- though as far as
deployed U.S. forces are concerned, this will probably prove to
be a minor irritant. Of greater concern will be attempts to
attack U.S. "will," such as taking peacekeepers hostage
or imposing early casualties on U.S. forces; and almost certainly
the asymmetric attack on U.S. will and staying power of greatest
concern will be terrorism. The Japanese subway attack and Chechen
use of radiation weapons in Moscow demonstrate that readily
available technology can be lethal. The single most important
question for U.S. "defense" policy in the years ahead
may be how the United States will maintain capabilities to deter
and, if necessary, attack terrorism sponsored from abroad.
As the 1990s have shown, portions of the lesser-developed world
are coming to resemble virtual "states of nature" in
their level of violence and institutional collapse, and wars such
as those in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia will confront the world
with immense challenges over the next decade. The pressures of
population growth, urbanization, religious extremism, ethnic
hatreds, disease, lack of arable land, and water shortages are
guaranteed sources of conflict. These will prove to be the
mainstay of conflicts that will bedevil the United States; combat
will be neither organized nor high tech, but it will be brutal.
In most cases these conflicts will not immediately affect U.S.
strategic interests, at least not in any traditional sense, thus
proving a potent argument against risking American lives; but at
what future cost does the United States ignore current problems?
Beyond the immediate humanitarian costs of these conflicts, some
will eventually implicate U.S. interests. As they do so, they
will raise a host of vexing questions for defense planners. How
can the United States help to alleviate these pressures and treat
causes rather than symptoms? If those efforts are unsuccessful,
can the U.S. military be used in a preventive diplomacy role? And
if the military is engaged in conflict, what kind of force is
best matched to a mission requiring neither heavy nor high tech
forces? How the United States answers these questions will say a
great deal about whether it plays a constructive role in large
parts of the developing world over the next 10 to 20 years.
A Roadmap for Operating in the Breathing Space
How, then, can the United States avoid a focus on yesterday's
threats and take advantage of its opportunity to shape tomorrow's
reality? As it becomes more apparent that the United States has
the luxury of a strategic breathing space, some
observers are drawing parallels with the interwar period of the
1920s and 1930s. These comparisons have merit, but unfortunately
tend to highlight the reemergence of a significant threat --
almost as if its a given. Perhaps it would be a better use of
history to learn from the mistakes of the past -- in
this case, to learn how to avoid the rise of a new
threat in addition merely to preparing for it. The interwar
period was marked by a combination of economic bad luck and
geopolitical blunders which, together, helped both to create
aggressive militarized societies in Germany and Japan and to
leave them undeterred. If U.S. policymakers can minimize their
mistakes today and work to shape the future while at the same
time prudently hedging against the failure of those efforts, they
could diminish the likelihood of any large-scale threat coming to
the fore well beyond the one- or two-decade breathing space.
What follows is a package of general policy prescriptions -- many
of which are being implemented individually -- that constitute a
roadmap for the use of a strategic breathing space.
Taken together, this agenda would represent an acceleration in
the U.S. attempt to adjust to post-Cold War realities.
1. Stay engaged. The biggest U.S. mistake of the
interwar period was its return to isolationist tendencies. Today,
the private sector, concerned about trade and globalization, will
try to ensure that economic retrenchment on regional and
global free trade pacts does not occur, but U.S. political
leaders will need to make a forceful case with the American
public, on both deterrent and stability grounds, for overseas
commitment of U.S. forces. Similarly, Washington must do a better
job of articulating the need for and underfunding of its
diplomatic efforts. If the United States does not maintain a
consistent military and diplomatic presence, it will not lead, it
will lose its ability to shape the environment, and, ultimately,
it might inadvertently assist in the reemergence of a major
threat. At the same time, U.S. officials need to take account of
the consequences of their actions; they will need to balance
deterrent presence in a diminished threat environment with the
potential for undermining friendly governments.
2. Be a worthy world leader. Acting in a statesmanlike
manner will be America's best advertisement. The United States
should remain the world's leading advocate of international law
and fight any impulse to set it aside for narrow political or
economic purposes; doing otherwise demeans the United States as a
country. U.S. foreign policy leaders need to begin a national
conversation about "sovereignty"; the authority of the
state is on the wane around the globe, in large part because of
economic integration and advances in communications -- and the
United States is better off for it. U.S. officials need to
explain changing norms of sovereignty and why the process -- with
proper safeguards -- is in our overall interest. And, finally,
Washington must not become giddy with idealism; when the United
States must stand up to a tyrant or use military force, it should
hit hard and leave no possibility that our resolve could be
misunderstood.
3. Minimize future threats. Throughout this period the
United States should address future vulnerabilities. Arms control
can help: Russia, for example, is unlikely to maintain START II
levels of nuclear weapons and will seek to negotiate lower
totals. The United States will be able to pursue a minimum
nuclear deterrent force of our design, saving substantial money
and perhaps eliminating an entire leg of the triad of strategic
forces carried on ICBMs, SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic
missiles), and bombers. And although R&D for a national
missile defense should continue, as much-delayed rogue-state
missile threats pass further into the future, national missile
defense (as opposed to theater defenses) will prove an unwise use
of resources. Beyond military issues, the United States should
also address its long-term vulnerability to oil.
4. Be patient. America's national fetish with instant
gratification will not serve it well during this period. When
dealing with Russia's transition to freedom, U.S. relations with
China, or the Mideast peace process, progress is going to be a
series of two steps forward and one back. Long-term, focused
attention will be required, and setbacks will be many --
particularly in the developing world. Most often, the expensive
peacekeeping operations so much in the news today treat symptoms
rather than causes. Rather, U.S. policy needs to be focused on
things like infrastructure and education -- the kinds of
long-term developmental assistance that may not pay off for
years. Beyond advancing governmental and multilateral assistance,
we should continue promoting (subsidizing, if necessary) direct
private investment overseas.
5. Don't fight the last war. As the United States
prepares its military for the twenty-first century, it needs to
consider whether Desert Storm-like wars are what it needs to be
concerned about. It is neither self evident, nor even likely,
that large-scale, combined-arms-sustained combat is the threat of
the future. This doesn't mean that the United States should cut
force structure; if the United States is going to remain engaged
worldwide, it requires a large military to cover the range of
missions, deployments, rotations, and other tasks associated with
that responsibility. But it may mean that the U.S. military
should alter its force composition in favor of lighter and more
combat-support forces: the demand for heavy forces and
state-of-the-art weapons will diminish as the United States
focuses primarily on the low-end of the conflict spectrum. And if
the American people do not want their troops doing peacekeeping
missions, perhaps U.S. and allied governments ought to rethink
the issue of a UN standby force to perform that mission.
6. Prepare for . . . what? A host of transnational and
low-intensity threats pose a series of unique challenges to U.S.
military planners: international organized crime; trafficking in
nuclear materials; asymmetric warfare, including terrorism,
weapons of mass destruction, and, potentially, information
warfare; and so on. Designed to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities and
avoid U.S. strengths, these challenges will rarely lend
themselves to traditional military solutions. To meet these
threats, the United States will need a robust intelligence
community capable of analyzing the world and giving early warning
of these extraordinarily complex problems. As such fundamental
concepts as war, crime, and terrorism converge, and as
traditionally distinct domestic and international issues blur
together, U.S. planners will need to rethink the national
security structure and interagency process. They are not well
suited for today's world.
7. Think longer-term, but don't get locked in. The
fiscal tension between maintaining force structure and
modernization is real. Throughout the period of this breathing
space, advanced weapons platforms will have limited utility in
dealing with low-intensity problems; they will be
manpower-intensive, but not high-tech weapons intensive. Clearly,
the United States needs to continue R&D on a host of advanced
military systems in the face of future uncertainty. Yet, U.S.
defense planners should push irrevocable decisions into the
future; if current trends continue, many of the foreign systems
in development are going to die from lack of procurement funds.
The United States should stretch out programs and be prepared to
cut back future buys; although it must maintain technological
superiority, the military may increasingly modernize along the
F-117 model: a few versions of the most advanced technologies
that serve as force-multipliers for a military whose equipment
mostly consists of upgraded older models. Small force packages of
the highest-end U.S. technology, backed up by 1980s- and
1990s-vintage weapons, will easily counter all developing
threats.
8. Be bold. Whether through a new strategic relationship
with Russia, arms export restraints, new confidence-building
measures, elimination of entire classes of weapons systems, or
some other action, the United States has a historic opportunity
to shape the environment. One example of the kind of bold
thinking demanded today emerges from the simple fact that the
world is eventually going to have to deal with the phenomenon of
failed states. Despite the obvious reluctance of all advanced
industrial nations to become involved in "nation
building," sooner or later governments, international
institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and the affected
local populations must face up to the protracted process of
"state building." Convincing Americans of the need for
the United States to assist in such long-term commitments will be
no small task, but the argument is simple: The United States
should pursue neo-Wilsonian ideals, not simply because they are
good for the conscience, but because it is in the U.S. national
interest to help build such a world. If the United States can
lead the advanced democracies to treat the causes now, it will
not be forced to respond to the symptoms later.
9. Attend to the home front. As the United States goes
about trying both to mold the outside world and to guard against
it, the greatest threats to future U.S. national security may
well prove to be internal. As the American public's lack of
interest in foreign affairs demonstrates, the body politic
intuitively senses the existence of a strategic breathing
space abroad. Nevertheless, a wide range of domestic
problems are eating away at the U.S. national will and psyche. If
the United States is in the process of creating a permanent
underclass increasingly disaffected from civil society, and it is
seeing the rise of other groups that essentially reject the
authority of its federal structures, then it may be confronted
with significantly greater domestic threats than any foreign
tyrant with a few tank divisions.
Finally, recall that this article proposes the existence of a
"breathing space," not "peace in our time."
In other words, the United States must keep shaping the security
environment to prevent a sudden reversal of the trends toward
declining threats summarized above. As noted, that will require a
full range of peacetime engagements. Moreover, it is conceivable
that a large-scale threat could reappear on the more distant
horizon; the United States should therefore retain sufficient
flexibility that it could recalibrate, should U.S. planners
detect evidence that a substantial military challenge is
emerging. The degree of flexibility can and should be debated
because it will come with a price tag; but clearly at some level
that price represents a major power's cost of doing business.
But that debate -- about the proper scope and character of the
hedge in U.S. defense policy against future threats -- cannot be
conducted without an accurate and comprehensive view of the
nature of future threats confronting U.S. interests.
This article has attempted to provide a starting point for
developing such an understanding. Its basic conclusion is that
the United States will almost certainly enter the new millennium
in an extraordinarily favorable strategic position. Militarily,
the United States is on the verge of a breathing space that could
easily extend one to two decades. Of course, the country must
hedge against long-term uncertainty, and threats and risks
clearly do remain; but scope and scale are critical. It is
entirely possible that no regional power will prove capable of
conducting large-scale conventional operations against U.S.
forces or allies for more than a decade; and the pace of foreign
weapons development has slowed substantially. The United States
has not seen such a favorable strategic position since the end of
World War I; it will possess a very favorable risk equation and
the luxury of a tremendous degree of flexibility to shape the
world, as well as to guard against it. The key is to avoid the
danger of wasting such a historic opportunity shadow boxing with
an array of nonexistent threats.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Defense
Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.
Government.
Russell E. Travers is an analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Reproduced by permission of The MIT Press.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/WASH
http://www.twq.com
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