WAGING ANCIENT WAR:

LIMITS ON PREEMPTIVE FORCE

D. Robert Worley

February 2003
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ii
FOREWORD

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, stimulated

the most far reaching and deep reassessment of American

national security strategy since the late 1940s. All of

America’s objectives, preferences, and methods were open

to evaluation. The outcome of this process will shape U.S.

strategy for years to come.

In this study, conducted under the U.S. Army War

College’s External Research Associates Program, Dr. D.

Robert Worley addresses the ways that the age of terrorism

is affecting American grand strategy. He contends that

terrorism has made many of the basic concepts of

international relations and national security obsolete.

Declaring war on a tactic—terrorism—erodes the clarity

necessary for coherent strategy. Dr. Worley then develops

what he calls a “guerra strategy” more appropriate for

dealing with terrorism and other nonstate threats.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this

monograph as part of the ongoing assessment of the

challenges and opportunities posed by global terrorism.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute

iii
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

D. ROBERT WORLEY currently serves in the Strategic

Operations Group of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s

Research Institute. His national security analysis career

has included positions with the RAND Corporation, the

Institute for Defense Analyses, and the Center for

Emerging Threats and Opportunities at the Potomac

Institute for Policy Studies. His analytic activities have

been concentrated in higher echelon command and control

but include wargaming, training, and experimentation at

the national command, allied command Europe, unified

command, and joint task force levels, as well as at corps and

division level through the Army’s battle command training

program. Prior to becoming a defense analyst, Dr. Worley

managed and directed research and development efforts at

the Hughes Aircraft Company, National Aeronautical and

Space Administration, and University of California at Los

Angeles (UCLA). He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from

1967 to 1971, with one tour in Vietnam. Dr. Worley earned a

PhD in Engineering and an Engineer Degree from UCLA, a

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the

University of Southern California, a Masters in Government from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Arts in

National Security Studies from Georgetown University,

and a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Computer Science

from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a Fellow

at the Johns Hopkins University Washington Center for the

Study of American Government and a member of the faculty

at the George Washington University Elliot School of

International Affairs. He formerly served on the computer

science faculties at UCLA and California State University

at Northridge.

iv
SUMMARY

For decades, the idea of containment held together a

political coalition within the United States that maintained

a large, peacetime military for the only time in American

history. The same strategic conception held together a

multinational military alliance. The strategic debate that

followed the Cold War includes hegemonic primacy, classic

collective security, cooperative security orienting on

preventing the acquisition of power, selective engagement,

and restrictive or neo-isolationist alternatives. But no

political consensus has yet to form around any of these

alternatives, nor does a consensus appear to be forming. The

current debate is conducted in the familiar language of

international relations and the U.S. position within the

system of states.

A major conclusion of this study is that the concepts on

the use of force and the well-established language of

international relations are inadequate to the current “war

on terrorism.” If we cannot ignore our place among the

major powers, and if the conceptions appropriate to stateon-state conflict are not germane to conflict with nonstate

actors, then we must conclude that separate strategies are

necessary. Accordingly, a strategy is proposed for waging

war against nonstate actors lacking legitimate standing

that is separate from and subordinate to the grand strategy

that supports the U.S. role in the system of whatever that

grand strategy may be.

Sir Michael Howard characterizes the declared “war on

terrorism” as more like a hunt than a war. Intelligence and

law enforcement agencies will carry the primary burden

internationally, supported by covert operations. The

primary overt role of military forces is for short-notice and

short-duration raids and strikes against enemy targets as

they appear. The largest part of the enemy capability is

organized as combat forces that U.S. forces should expect to

v
encounter during peace operations in failing or failed states

with significant Muslim populations. U.S. forces must be

prepared for warfare in these asymmetric environments.

Finally, consequence management is an ineluctable role for

U.S. forces to play domestically.

Great Power War and Grand Strategy.

Great powers are viable states that will coexist with

their peers after hostilities subside. This fact tempers their

behavior and imposes rules for initiating, conducting, and

terminating wars. These limitations do not apply to

nonstate actors and certainly not to those that reject the

system of states. In great power war, other elements of

national power have failed, and there is a greater reliance

on an isolated military instrument. Small wars—great

power interventions into the affairs of lesser powers—

require better integration of all elements of national power.

Great power competitors have access to the same

technology, setting the conditions for more symmetric

warfare, while small wars create an inherently asymmetric

environment.

The dominant thinking from the Cold War is about great

power conflict even though insurgencies were common

throughout the era. Deterrence, coercion, and compellence

are the well-understood concepts concerning the use of

power. Underlying these uses of force is the idea that a state

has people and resources that it values and that the state

itself seeks to survive. Active and passive defense,

interdiction, and retaliation also constitute uses of force,

but are more appropriately seen as elements of a deterrence

strategy because they raise the cost and lower the

probability of a successful attack. The aggressor has an

infinite set of targets and defending them all demands

infinite resources. Retaliation and increased defensive

measures cannot be the basis of a sustainable strategy. As

useful as these concepts are to relations between states,

they are largely irrelevant when applied against the current

vi
threat. Many of those that are relevant beyond interstate

conflict are exhaustive of resources.

Preventive war, preemptive war, and preemptive strike

are different concepts. Preemptive and preventive wars are

not types of wars; instead, they describe motives for the

timing of war initiation. A preventive war is undertaken

when a state sees its relative advantage in decline, sees the

inevitability of war, and chooses to initiate the war now

while it still has the advantage. History and international

law frown upon preventive war, seeing it as a disguise for

naked aggression. Preemptive war, on the other hand,

involves the initiation of military action because an

adversary’s attack is believed to be imminent. A preemptive

strike is directed against an adversary’s capability before it

can be used. It is not conducted for purposes of initiating

war.

Conception.

As Carl Von Clausewitz said in On War, “The first, the

grandest, the most decisive act of judgement that statesmen

and generals exercise is to understand the war in which

they engage.” Terrorism is a method, a tactic, not an enemy

and not an objective. Declaring war on a tactic makes little

sense, and our conception of the war is a critical first step.

The proposed conception of the conflict is as an

international guerrilla war waged against the system of

states, particularly against those states with large Muslim

populations. The area of contention is the area that runs

along the north of Africa, through the Middle East and

central Asia, and to the easternmost frontiers of Islam in

Indonesia and the Philippines. With few exceptions, states

along this belt are failing and in the hands of corrupt,

unpopular, or tenuous governments. The enemy commonly

employs classic insurgency methods within failing or failed

Islamic states. It sometimes employs guerrilla tactics

against Western military forces present in the Islamic

world, and it sometimes employs terrorist methods against

vii
non-combatants in Western or westernizing states to inflict

pain and to invoke a disproportionate response against

Islam that will drive adherents to its cause.

Today’s conflict is an ancient form of warfare, while

much of our strategic thinking is the product of a social

construction that slowly evolved during the middle ages and

that coalesced in the age of enlightenment. Its referents

include the Treaty of Westphalia, the just war tradition,

Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace, and David Hume’s On

Balance of Power. Specifically, the secular nation-state is a

modern construct that replaced divine-right monarchy and

coexisted with the independent city-states in Europe as

recently as the early 20th century. It is the European notion

of the secular nation-state that is being rejected and

attacked by Al-Qa’eda.

Prior to the rise of the European system of secular states,

the Romans maintained two distinct forms of warfare,

bellum and guerra. If two states were to coexist peacefully

after a war, then war should be subject to rules. Without

these rules, only a perpetual cycle of retribution was

possible. These pragmatic concerns did not apply to

stateless, lawless tribes invading Europe from the Asian

steppe. Bellum was the form of warfare conducted against

another state. Guerra was the form of warfare waged

against migrating and marauding tribes.

Terrorism involves indiscriminant attacks against

noncombatants and is conducted for a variety of different

objectives. Guerrillas wage war against an occupying force.

Often, guerrilla forces use terrorism. In general, terrorism

was commonly used to drive imperial European powers out

of their colonies. It has proven to be an effective form of

warfare to achieve positive outcomes in much of the Third

World. While westerners perceive terrorism as reprehensible and uncivilized, Third World populations see it as the

only recourse against oppression.

Al-Qa’eda is “a base” for a variety of organizations that

collectively comprise a loose confederation of groups and

viii
individuals lacking sovereignty within the system of states.

There are 30 or so organizations with a coincidence of

interest. This network constitutes the threat. The largest

part of the force, numbering in the tens of thousands, are

organized, trained, and equipped as insurgent combat

forces. Another group, numbering about 10,000, live in

Western states and have received combat training of one

form or another. Alone, or in small groups, they are capable

of discrete, uncoordinated attacks. A third group numbering

in the several thousands is capable of commanding these

forces. A few hundred individuals populate the top control

structure. Terrorism is only a small, albeit dramatic, part of

the enemy’s repertoire.

Seen as a guerrilla war with a history of battles

including attacks on the Marine barracks in Beirut, a Berlin

nightclub, Khobar Towers, the first and second attacks on

the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon, and the USS

Cole, there is nothing preemptive about American strikes or

raids against enemy capability. They are part of an ongoing

counterguerrilla war.

Strategy.

Declaring war on a tactic provides a poor strategic

foundation. We must, instead, declare war on specific

aggressors, those lacking legitimate status within the

international system of states and using destructive force

across state boundaries against the United States. Different

instruments are available for confronting states and, hence,

a different strategy is required.

Four interlocking objectives comprise the guerra

strategy. The first is to reduce the probability of destructive

attacks. A second objective is to reduce the severity of

attacks. The third and most important objective is to

prevent the conflict from spilling over into a wider war with

Islam. Successful actions taken to reduce the probability

and severity of attack must be calculated against the

likelihood of widening the conflict. Because not all attacks

ix
can be prevented, the fourth objective is to mitigate their

effects. Shortsighted policies to reduce the probability and

severity of attacks could easily cause the widening of the

conflict that, in turn, would increase the probability and

severity of attacks.

Guerra must be sustainable indefinitely. The aggressor

hopes to initiate an action-reaction cycle, but to be

sustainable, we must choose the place and time of action to

maximize the effect of the resources expended and to

minimize “blowback.” To be sustainable, the strategy must

enlist all elements of national and international power

rather than imposing the primary burden on the U.S.

military instrument. Strategies based on defending

everything, against all forms of attack, all of the time, are

exhaustive of resources and impossible to implement and

sustain. The recent reallocation of domestic resources may

allay public fear, but it cannot be the basis of a sustainable

strategy.

The guerra strategy must be relevant to the nature of the

conflict. Strategies based on retaliation will fail because

retaliation will not deter martyrs. Terrorist networks have

nothing of value equivalent to the damage they can inflict.

Strategies based on preventing rogue states from acquiring

the means of attack have merit when directed at limiting

the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological

weapons and ballistic missile delivery vehicles; they are

irrelevant, however, when the means employed are

commercial aircraft or other readily available instruments.

The guerra strategy must be rational. Tactical actions

must destroy more enemy capability than they create.

Strikes and raids should be aimed at discrete targets and

then only to decisively destroy meaningful enemy

capability. Some targets of opportunity will be bypassed if

they conflict with the grand strategy objectives or if target

destruction can rationally be expected to create more threat

than it destroys.

x
Nonproliferation treaties, nation-building, and

information campaigns conducted for the hearts and minds

of Islam can offer promise only in the long term. While those

efforts must be undertaken, other courses of action—the

hunt—must be pursued for relief in the present.

International law enforcement and intelligence agencies

enabled by greater information sharing carry the primary

burden. The military is in a supporting, on-call role. Strikes

and raids attacking the threat capability before it can be

employed is the primary use of military force. Consequence

management—coping with the effects after an attack—is an

indispensable domestic role of U.S. forces in a strategy for

guerra.

The military should not develop a national strategy for

the defeat of terrorism any more than a police SWAT team

should develop a strategy to defeat crime in the city. The

appropriate military response is to organize, train, and

equip to strike quickly and forcefully when and where

national authorities so designate, and then return to the

ready. Mobilization and strategic deployment of a strike

force will be observed and the target will disperse.

Maintaining a force permanently forward deployed at the

necessarily high level of readiness is an exhaustive

proposition. Instead, these forces must be on “strip alert”

which, in turn, requires adoption of the rotational readiness

model used by the naval services. Forces for strike and raid

must be within hours of attack when a target presents,

closely linked to intelligence sources and to decision

authority. Execution of the guerra strategy relies on skillful

orchestration of all the elements of national power and,

thus, strong centralized direction is required.

Humanitarian interventions in failed and failing states

require expeditionary forces designed for peace operations

that may evolve into nation-building. These forces will

likely encounter al-Qa’eda-trained forces and must be

prepared for “asymmetric warfare” against forces lacking

legitimate standing. The decision to intervene in a failed or

failing state is one for the President to make. U.S. forces

xi
must be prepared strategically, operationally, and tactically

to wage counterinsurgency, or counterguerrilla, warfare.

Closing.

America is in an interwar period with respect to great

power conflict, but great power conflict will return. Our

grand strategy must remain focused on America’s role

among the great powers in the long term. America’s

influence in the world will erode if, as Francis Fukuyama

suggests, opposing the United States becomes the “chief

passion in global politics.”

The debate about international intervention being the

cause of or solution to threats against American security

has not been resolved, nor has the debate changed

appreciably, but the consequences are more significant than

before. No longer is the ability to attack the United States

only in the hands of a few countries that can be deterred.

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction puts the

means in the hands of many states and even in the hands of

small groups, and the potency of the tools at their disposal

will only increase. When choosing to intervene, administrations must decide on a case-by-case basis whether

foreign policy will favor human rights in foreign lands or

American lives at home.

xii
WAGING ANCIENT WAR:

LIMITS ON PREEMPTIVE FORCE

INTRODUCTION

Declaring war against terrorist methods and those who

employ them fails to provide a sound basis for strategy

formulation. Viewing the conflict as an international

guerrilla war waged against the Western secular system of

states provides a better starting point. Familiar strategic

concepts are found to be irrelevant, either because they are

oriented on interstate conflict or because they are

exhaustive of resources and unsustainable over time.

Preemptive strike emerges as the dominant use of military

force in this conflict.

Assuring a state’s security amid the competing interests

of other legitimate states is fundamentally different than

defending against the use of force by amorphous

international networks lacking any legal standing within

the international system of states. A comprehensive

conception of today’s strategic environment must make the

critical distinction between wars waged by states (bellum)

and wars waged against those lacking legitimate status

(guerra). A national security strategy based primarily on

the terrorist threat would be lacking. A separate strategy

for guerra, subordinate to the grand strategy, is necessary.

While all elements of national power are relevant to both

types of conflict, bellum leads to a predominantly military

response after the other instruments of national power have

failed. Decisive engagement and war termination are

sought. Guerra, on the other hand, argues for a more

balanced and orchestrated application of the instruments of

national power without end. Strong centralized management of all elements of national power, not within the

confines of a single department, is required.

1
The military should not develop a national strategy for

the defeat of terrorism any more than a police special

weapons and tactics (SWAT) team should, by itself, develop

a strategy to defeat crime in the city. The appropriate

military response is to organize, train, and equip to strike

quickly and forcefully when and where national authorities

so designate, and then return to the ready. Quick response

forces provide the military instrument for preemptive

strike.

A “war on terrorism” serves poorly as a basis of strategy.

The first step is to form an appropriate conception of the

conflict by shifting attention away from terrorism to the

specific terrorists that threaten the United States, to their

objectives, and to the type of war they are waging. Next, we

examine modern strategic concepts guiding the use of force

for applicability to the conception and are found lacking.

Finally, a strategy for guerra, subordinate to the grand

strategy, is proposed with preemptive strike as the primary

use of military force.

UNDERSTANDING THE CONFLICT

The proposed conception of the conflict is as an

international guerrilla war waged against the system of

states, particularly against those states with large Muslim

populations. This conception asserts that the states across

the north of Africa, through the Middle East and Central

Asia, and including Indonesia and the Philippines, are at

greatest risk. The United States periodically will be the

preferred battleground. Other states will host the battle

over time, and an international response will be required.

Three schools of thought have emerged on the meaning

of America’s declared war on terrorism:

war against terrorists—those who employ terrorism,

war against the states that enable terrorists, and

2
war against those terrorists who pose a direct threat

to the United States.

Waging a war against terrorists fails to make a variety of

important distinctions and leads to a strategic trap. Waging

a war against states enabling terrorists, assuming that they

are viable states, is best handled by the traditional methods

of international relations. Beginning with the conception

that we are waging war against those who threaten the

United States provides far better focus for strategy formulation, but it falls short by failing to specify the enemy’s

objectives, and the enemy’s objectives are key to

understanding the conflict.

Terrorists and Terrorism.

We must begin with an understanding of the word

terrorism. Typical of modern definitions, United States

Code provides the following.

terrorism: Premeditated, politically motivated violence

perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national

groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an

audience.1

In his classic text on just and unjust wars, Michael

Walzer says that terrorism’s purpose is “to destroy the

morale of a nation or a class, to undercut its solidarity; its

method is the random murder of innocent people.”2 There

are other definitions to pick from, but they generally agree

that terrorism involves:

the use of destructive force by other than conventional

military means,

force used indiscriminately against noncombatants,

and,

force used principally to induce fear rather than to

achieve military victory.

3
Peter Sederberg makes several useful distinctions that

help focus policy thinking.3 The first distinction that must

be made is between the action (terrorism), the actor (the

terrorist), and the effect (terror).4 The effect—inducing

fear—distinguishes terrorism from other uses of coercive

force.

. . . terrorism spreads fear in excess of the concrete damage done

or the probabilities of being a victim. Terrorism often involves

innocuous targets, such as airplanes, railway depots, and

department stores, places that people normally consider safe.

They undermine the confidence people have in the familiar.5

Terrorists’ tactics—their actions—have included

airplane hijacking, kidnapping and extortion, murder, and

the destruction of public property. Their weapons have

included booby traps, pipe bombs, car bombs, truck bombs,

and all forms of readily available small arms.6 Airplane

bombs were recently added to the weapons inventory. It is

projected that they will soon include nuclear, biological, and

chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMD).7

A variety of actors employ terrorist tactics and weapons,

including revolutionaries, disaffected psychopaths, and

oppressed minorities. Their actions and their desired

tactical effects may be the same, but their strategic

objectives vary considerably. The breadth of terrorist

objectives and the acts of aggression meeting the definition

of terrorism are summarized below.

Terrorists Are Distinguished by Their Objectives.

For decades, revolutionaries and anarchists have used

terrorist tactics against “the establishment.” An organized

ideological movement needs to draw attention and support

to its cause. Indiscriminate or catastrophic results would

alienate the population that revolutionaries hope to attract.

Revolutionaries are more likely to be discriminating in their

target selection. Executives or employees of large banks or

multinational corporations might be selected both for their

4
symbolic value relative to the cause and for their potential

ransom value. Or revolutionaries might target heads of

state and their families. But when discrimination and lethal

force are combined, then assassination is a more accurate

description than is terrorism, regardless of whether the

lethal blow is delivered by car bomb, sniper, or precisionguided munitions.

Some terrorists, domestic and international, fit the

psychological profile of the extreme active-maladaptive

personality. Disaffected and unaligned individuals have

practiced terrorism, including Ted Kaczynski, who targeted

specific individuals with small package bombs delivered

through the mail, and Timothy McVey, who attacked a

government building and killed indiscriminately. The

perpetrators of these acts are fundamentally different than

those who hope to undermine the system of states.8

Ralph Peters makes an additional distinction between

what he calls practical and apocalyptic terrorists. Practical

terrorists have a rational goal in mind, to change the world,

not to destroy it, to be seen as a crusader, but certainly not to

die. The apocalyptic terrorist, on the other hand, is

consumed by hate, blaming his own failings on others. Only

his own death can bring peace to the apocalyptic terrorist.9

A terrorist organization like Al-Qa’eda can productively

employ both types. In general, practical terrorists lead the

organizations that employ apocalyptic terrorists as suicidal

weapon systems.

Guerrilla Warfare. Terrorist weapons and tactics are

commonly employed in guerrilla warfare, a term coined in

the Napoleonic era to make the distinction between la

grande guerra and the “small” war waged by the Spaniards

against the occupying French. Civilians conduct guerrilla

warfare against an occupying force. Often, the weapons and

tactics used by guerrilla forces are the same as those used by

terrorists.

The term “guerrilla war” was later applied more

generally to ideological struggle and wars of liberation.

5
Governments, good and bad, commonly have a monopoly on

conventional military force within their borders. Oppressed

civilian populations can choose to acquiesce or to wage a war

of liberation. A small minority can use guerrilla tactics to

wage a war of liberation in an attempt to force a regime

change from within; the Vietcong provide such an

example.10 In wars of liberation, discriminating acts of

violence are committed among the civilian population to

cause an overreaction by the government aimed at the

civilian population. Thus, the action-reaction cycle is

designed to shift increasing support to the guerrilla

movement and away from government. If the action

initiated by the guerrilla is too catastrophic, then the

opposite result will obtain. Civilian support is both a critical

enabler and an objective of a guerrilla movement.

In general, the coercive use of force we call terrorism was

commonly used to drive imperial European powers out of

their colonies. It has proven to be an effective form of

warfare to achieve positive outcomes in much of the Third

World. While terrorism is perceived by Westerners as

reprehensible and uncivilized, it is seen by Third World

populations as the only recourse against internally or

externally applied oppression.

According to Sederberg, many guerrilla acts are not

terrorist because they target combatants. The most

well-established limits on the conduct of warfare involve the

targets selected and the means chosen to attack those

targets. Specifically, the targets of attack should be

combatants, and the weapons used against these targets

should be highly discriminating.

He therefore concludes, “discriminating acts of coercion

aimed at combatants are not terrorist.”11 For the same

reason, and consistent with the U.S. legal definition, the

attacks on the USS Cole, Kohbar Towers, and the Marine

barracks in Beirut were not terrorism because they

specifically targeted uniformed military personnel and were

not indiscriminate attacks on civilian noncombatants.12

6
These acts do, however, meet the definition of guerrilla

warfare.

The term “guerrilla warfare” has further eroded to

include raids by uniformed combatants against military

targets to include, for example, Confederate Colonel John

Mosby and his Rangers.

Unrestricted Warfare and Wars of Annihilation. Not all

attacks on noncombatants are terrorist. Governments can

use conventional military force against civilian populations

either directly or indirectly. Aerial bombardment of cities,

for example, is a direct attack against noncombatants.

Sieges, blockades, or embargoes, on the other hand, are

indirect attacks on noncombatants. When one state applies

conventional force against the noncombatants of another to

destroy the enemy state’s ability and will to wage war, then

unrestricted warfare is the correct term. When destruction

of the people, rather than their defeat, is the objective, then

annihilation is the correct term.

Wars of annihilation were the norm in northern Europe,

Asia, and the Levant during significant portions of the first

and second millennia. Later in the second millennium,

European emigrants escaping religious persecution

eventually waged wars of annihilation against indigenous

populations in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and

South Africa.13 Wars of annihilation continue today in

Rwanda, Sudan, and the Balkans, for example, under the

more contemporary rubric of genocide.

Rogue, Failing, and Failed States. To avoid retaliation or

notoriety, rogue states can employ terrorism as a deniable

use of force. The rogue state’s relationship to the terrorist

can range from direct support, to harboring, to merely

turning a blind eye. States that harbor terrorists constitute

an entirely different enemy than the terrorists themselves.

A war against those rogue states that harbor or enable

terrorist threats is properly conducted with the traditional

methods of relations between states—deterrence, coercion,

and compellence. Failing and failed states are incapable of

7
meeting their internal and external responsibilities, and

these same methods do not apply. Failed states make

attractive environments for terrorist bases, and they must

not be allowed to become sanctuaries.

Terrorists are a diverse group sharing little more than

tactics and a tremendous power disadvantage relative to

their opponent.

Implications.

Of the three interpretations of the war on terrorism—

against terrorism and terrorists, against states enabling

terrorism, and against specific terrorist threats to the

United States—conceiving of it as a war against terrorism

and terrorists is the least helpful in formulating a response.

It fails to make the distinction between the differing

objectives of those who practice terrorism and the context

surrounding its use. Failing to make the necessary

distinctions invites a single, homogeneous policy and

strategy.

Thus, at the national level, declaring war on terrorism is

disorienting. We must, instead, declare war on specific

aggressors, those lacking legitimate status within the

international system of states and using destructive force

across state boundaries against the United States. Different

instruments are available for confronting states and, hence,

a different strategy is required.

Identifying the Specific Threat.

Al-Qa’eda is “a base” for a variety of organizations, each

of which is a loose confederation of groups and individuals

lacking sovereignty within the system of states. There are

thirty or so organizations with a coincidence of interest.14

This network constitutes the threat.

Al-Qa’eda’s objective is to replace the secular state

system with a medieval caliphate system based on an

extreme interpretation of Islam.15 The focal point is the belt

8
running along the north of Africa, through the Middle East,

across Central Asia, and to the Islamic frontiers of

Indonesia and the Philippines—what has been called the

“arc of chaos.” With few exceptions, the states along this belt

are failing and in the hands of corrupt, unpopular, or

tenuous governments.

Terrorism is the aggressor’s chosen means. The conflict

will not be determined by decisive engagements between

the military forces of states on the field of battle. This is a

guerrilla war. Not one waged within a state, but one waged

across states. Each guerrilla action is designed to elicit an

overreaction that will, in turn, increase the guerrilla’s

support within Islam.

Although commonly referred to as a network defying

further description, the aggressor has a discernable

organization.16 It has forces organized into combat

formations, dispersed individuals with varying degrees of

training, field commanders, and senior leadership.

Al-Qa’eda produces fighting forces deployed throughout

the Islamic world. The largest part of the force, numbering

in the tens of thousands, is organized, trained, and equipped

as insurgent combat forces. Many fought in Afghanistan

against Soviet occupation, guerrilla forces in the original

Napoleonic meaning. Many came from Saudi Arabia and

Yemen. They fought in Bosnia, and U.S. forces encountered

them in Somalia. While not a direct threat to U.S. national

security, we can confidently expect to encounter these forces

whenever we choose to intervene in peacemaking or

peacekeeping operations in a failing state with a

substantial Muslim population. Their objective will often be

the collapse of the government, while our intervention will

often involve propping up that same government.

Another group, numbering about 10,000, live in Western

states and have received combat training of one form or

another. They are products of failing states with large

Muslim populations—e.g., Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and

Egypt—and often fit the extreme active-maladaptive or

9
apocalyptic terrorist profile mentioned earlier. They are the

fodder of war and the pawns of others. Alone, or in small

groups, they are capable of discrete, uncoordinated attacks.

Planning and synchronization of a 9/11-type attack is

beyond their reach without external command and support.

A third group numbering in the several thousands is

capable of commanding these forces. Most are dormant, and

perhaps a thousand or so have the language and social skills

necessary to move freely throughout the Western world.

The top control structure is populated by a few hundred

individuals that include both heads of known terrorist

organizations and officials operating with or without the

authority of their state governments.

Al-Qa’eda and its cohort constitute the threat to the

United States and the international system, but at greatest

risk are the governments of the failing states in the arc of

chaos which tenuously balance between the pressures of

domestic unrest and international relations. Western states

pursue stable oil prices, and great oil wealth supports

sometimes-repressive governments that fail to provide

services to their poor populations. Sympathetic populations

provide varying degrees of sanctuary for Al-Qa’eda training

and operations. Representative democracy is often offered

as a simplistic cure.17

STRATEGIC REVIEW

Next, we will review existing strategic thought before a

strategy for dealing with this threat is proposed. The review

begins with an examination of the various Cold War

interpretations of containment and is followed by a review

of the post-Cold War strategic debate. Much of the thought

extracted from the strategic review is irrelevant because it

orients on state-on-state conflict or because it is exhaustive

of resources over time and cannot be sustained. However,

useful components can be identified and brought to bear.

The section closes with a short examination of the post-Cold

War administrations’ declaratory and employment policies.

10
Cold War Strategies.

Cold War administrations varied in their interpretations of containment. The pendulum swung between

strategies that were sustainable over the long-term

competition with the Soviet Union to strategies that led

toward overextension and exhaustion. In 1943, Walter

Lippmann said that foreign policy “consists in bringing into

balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the

nation’s commitments and the nation’s power.”18 He spoke

of periods of strategic solvency and insolvency. The balance

of national commitment and power is the dominant

structuring device of the strategic review below.

John Lewis Gaddis provides thorough coverage of

containment strategies from Truman to Carter19 and is

complemented by Raymond Garthoff’s treatment of the

Reagan years.20 A very short review of Cold War containment strategies follows.

Some of the more prominent shifts are between

hegemony and balance of power, differentiation between

vital and peripheral interests, viewing communism as a

monolith versus differentiating on a state-by-state basis,

and a symmetric response to every communist action versus

an asymmetric response picking the place and time of the

competition. Hegemonic pursuits, failure to differentiate

between vital and peripheral interests, and a monolithic

view of communism led toward overextension. Pursuing

balance of power, differentiating between vital and

peripheral interests, and differentiating between the

various motives of communist states led to sustainable

strategies.

Many of these shifts are noticeable in the differing views

of George Kennan and Paul Nitze. George Kennan, who

originally formulated the containment strategy, relied

heavily on the premise that the Soviets would eventually

exhaust themselves in the pursuit of hegemony. Rather

than countering them everywhere, he focused on preventing

11
the great powers of Japan and Germany from falling under

Soviet control. Kennan formulated a strong-point defense

and advocated fighting only when great power issues were

involved and when the terms were favorable to the United

States. He specifically ruled out a presence on the Asian

land mass. Paul Nitze, Kennan’s successor as director of the

Policy Planning Staff,21 abandoned the strong-point defense

in favor of a perimeter defense. Nitze also abandoned threat

differentiation, seeing all communist incursions as threats

to vital interests. Subsequent administrations embraced

the domino theory of undifferentiated threat; any

communist expansion was seen as a threat to the balance of

power.

One of the most notable shifts in the national security

strategy of containment was in the perception of available

means. According to Gaddis, those presidents who believed

their means were limited tended towards asymmetric

responses to Soviet encroachments; that is, to select the

place, time, magnitude, and method of competition.

Presidents who believed the American economy could

produce the necessary means on demand tended towards

symmetric responses, countering Soviet adventurism

wherever and whenever it occurred. The belief that

government could manage economic expansion without

long-term budget deficits, higher taxes, or inflation allowed

those presidents so inclined to consider all interests vital, all

threats dangerous, and all measures available.22

Cold War administrations differed in their views of

communism as a monolithic threat. Under Truman,

Kennan relied on the forces of nationalism to resist Soviet

expansion rather than relying on U.S. military force.

Truman spoke against totalitarian regimes and was willing

to work with communist governments like that in

Yugoslavia. The Nixon administration recognized and

exploited a split between the Soviet Union and China,

putting to rest the myth of communism as monolith.

12
Cold War administrations varied in their preference for

instruments of power. Some heavily favored the military

instrument, while others used the mix with greater facility

and dexterity. The United States employed diplomatic and

economic assistance to anti-communist governments, as in

Latin America, with interventions by U.S. forces, as in

Vietnam, and by diplomatic and economic assistance, as in

Iran.

One of the failings of the Kennedy-Johnson

administrations, for example, was the inability to establish

a truly integrated, interagency response in Vietnam, as the

Overseas Internal Defense Policy prescribed, until

Ambassador Komer arrived to head the Civil Operations

and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS)

program in 1967. The Nixon-Ford administrations,

attempting to disengage from costly commitments in the

Third World, made greater use of other instruments, often

favoring economic over military assistance. The Reagan

administration put on a full-court press employing all

elements of national power but maintained an emphasis on

military force.

Cold War presidents responding symmetrically to

communist expansion tended to favor the military

instrument over the diplomatic and economic; those

responding asymmetrically favored diplomatic and

economic instruments, reserving military force for those

times when vital interests were at stake and the terms were

favorable. Those presidents responding symmetrically

failed to differentiate between vital and peripheral

interests, viewed communism as a monolithic threat, and

made large demands on military force structure. National

security decisionmaking, centralized in a small circle of

policy elite, was also correlated with asymmetric response,

while decentralized decisionmaking appears correlated

with, perhaps demanded by, symmetric response.

13
Post-Cold War Strategic Alternatives.

The post-Cold War strategic debate—absent

communism and containment—retains the elements of

exhaustion and sustainability that characterized

alternating strategies of the Cold War.23 The post-Cold War

debate is thoroughly captured by Barry Posen and Andrew

Ross24 who identify the major schools of thought, including

primacy,25 cooperative security,26 selective engagement,27

and neo-isolationist schools.28 A short summary is provided

below.

Primacy.

29 Advocates of a primacy strategy see the rise

of a peer competitor as the greatest threat to international

order and, therefore, the greatest risk of war involving the

United States.30 Furthermore, proponents believe that only

a preponderance of U.S. power ensures peace. They argue

that states balance against threat and by using force

selectively, the United States will be seen as a benign

hegemon and, therefore, there will be no need to balance

against it. Primacy advocates are skeptical of international

institutions, but believe that they can be used as an asset in

the pursuit of American interests.

Critics assert that foreign nationalism will brace against

even benign U.S. hegemony and cause the problems the

strategy was designed to prevent. If states balance against

the United States, then it may find itself isolated when

confronting rising powers in the long term. Its detractors

believe the strategy is unsustainable and will likely result

in imperial overreach, destroying what it intended to

protect.

Neo-Isolationist.

31 The proponents of a neo-isolationist

strategy assert that the United States is an economically

powerful nation, with vast protective oceans, and an

overwhelming nuclear arsenal. Its security is, thus, largely

assured. The neo-isolationist belief system includes the

premise that promoting values generates resentment and

that intervention is the cause of trouble for the United

14
States. They argue that the risk of attack by WMD is

proportional to U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts.

Alliances obligate the United States in advance to

unimagined future crises around the world. Therefore, the

United States should withdraw from entangling alliances

and reduce foreign engagement to only those conflicts that

threaten vital interests. The United States should not use

military force to impose world order, spread democracy or

American values, or advance American economic interests

that are better left to the private sector.

In the absence of security provided by the United States

or U.S.-led coalition, however, other countries might expand

their militaries to provide their own security. An expensive

and dangerous spiral of militarization could ensue.

Regional powers will find only local resistance to their

attempts at hegemony. The result could be more war, not

less.

Selective Engagement.

32 There are two major goals of a

selective engagement strategy. The first is preventing war

between the great powers, including Russia, China, Japan,

and the European powers. The second is preventing

proliferation of WMD to hostile, ambitious powers,

including Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.

According to selective engagement advocates, the

United States must be prepared to act unilaterally if great

power peace is threatened. Traditional alliances are viewed

as beneficial to the extent that they allow the United States

to respond to threats to great power peace.

Proponents of selective engagement share the

neo-isolationists’ belief that indiscriminate use of force will

cause countries to balance against the United States.

Engaging selectively means that the United States would

lead only when its vital interests are threatened. Its

detractors, however, suggest that American leadership

would suffer, thus forcing unilateral action when

multinational action would have been preferable.

15
Advocates believe that the public will not support the

global police mission. Moreover, forces engaged in peace

operations may be difficult to disengage and redeploy to

participate in major theater war. Engaging in peace

operations, therefore, should be minimal.

Cooperative Security.

33 “Cooperative security differs

from the traditional idea of collective security as preventive

medicine differs from acute care.” A collective security

strategy is implemented through a multinational coalition

to defeat an aggressor that uses force to violate the

sovereignty of another state.34 The architects of cooperative

security seek to prevent war by preventing any country from

acquiring the means to aggress against others.

Advocates of cooperative security do not perceive great

power conflict and conventional military force as the

dominant security problem. A focus on preventing states

from assembling aggressive means elevates proliferation of

WMD, instead, to the forefront. An important premise is

that peace is indivisible. Because wars spread, the United

States has an overriding interest in preserving global peace.

Pursuing a cooperative security strategy requires

standing international organizations with domestic and

international legitimacy. International institutions would

take military actions against aggressor states, maintain

arms control and confidence-building regimes, and prevent

proliferation of WMD. The new international arrangement

“must begin with the central principle that the only

legitimate purpose of national military forces is the defense

of national territory or the participation in multinational

forces that enforce United Nations (U.N.) sanctions or

maintain peace.”35

Primacy advocates reject the subordination of American

interests and forces to an international body, and realists

argue that there is no historical reason to believe that a

world order based on nations subordinating their own

interests is achievable. Advocates rely heavily on arms

16
control and nonproliferation arrangements even though

they lack a clear history of success.

Force Structure Implications. Across the alternative

strategies, general agreement on the need for a second

strike nuclear capability exists. There is a great deal of

difference, however, in the need for forward presence and

the willingness to intervene in police missions.

The force underwriting the neo-isolationist strategy

would be primarily oriented on defense of the homeland,

including a modest air and missile defense and a second

strike nuclear capability. A small expeditionary force would

be maintained to protect vital interests abroad. The low

force level would offer reduced options to the president. To

the adherents of this strategy, this is more a blessing than a

shortcoming.

Selective engagement’s emphasis on great power war

requires a force capable of winning two major regional

contingencies. One alternative is the maintenance of two

Gulf War forces; another alternative is the maintenance of a

Gulf War force and a holding force for a second theater. The

United States must maintain a strong nuclear deterrent.36

Primacy advocates are unilateralist, thus requiring the

force to be sized and shaped without regard for coalition

contributions. Some argue for a force that is superior to the

combined forces of the next two, three, or four great

powers.37 Primacy requires a large overseas presence.

Stationing military forces in Europe is seen as an effective

means of preventing Germany from forming an independent foreign policy. Forces should remain forward deployed

in the Middle East and Southwest Asia to safeguard oil

reserves and to discourage India from ambitions of regional

hegemony.

Cooperative security also requires a large U.S. overseas

presence.38 Cooperative security assumes that other

countries will maintain forces sufficient for the defense of

their homelands plus a force subordinated to international

17
institutions. The U.S. contribution would be the

reconnaissance strike complex—essentially the DESERT

STORM force and its power projection capability.

Cooperative security is nearly indiscriminant in its

willingness to intervene in ethnic conflict, humanitarian

assistance, and disaster relief, thus creating a significant

demand for additional forces.

Underlying Concepts and the Use of Power.

Even though the alternative strategies of the Cold War

and post-Cold War eras vary on the use of force, they all are

based on a small number of concepts. For example, defense,

retaliation, deterrence, coercion, and compellence are

well-understood concepts concerning the use of power. As

useful as these concepts are to relations between states,

they are largely irrelevant when applied against the current

threat. Many of those that are relevant beyond interstate

conflict are exhaustive of resources in the context of the

current conflict.

Deterrence, compellence, and coercion are the

three principal uses of force between states. Thomas

Schelling’s Arms and Influence well represents the best

modern thinking on these uses of force.39 Each is defined

below.40

deterrence: Deterrence is “to prevent from action through fear

of consequences. . . . Deterrence involves setting the stage—by

announcement, by rigging the trip-wire, by incurring the

obligation—and by waiting. The overt act is up to the opponent.”

compellence: Compellence “usually involves initiating an

action (or an irrevocable commitment to action) that can cease,

or become harmless, only if the opponent responds.”

coercion: “Coercion requires finding a bargain, arranging for

him to be better off doing what we want— worse off not doing

what we want—when he takes the threatened penalty into

account.”

18
Underlying deterrence, compellence, and coercion is the

idea that a state has people and resources that it values and

that the state itself seeks to survive. The aggressor terrorist

network is without place and property. While the terrorist

leadership might wish to survive, it does not so value its

followers as long as there is an ample supply. Moreover,

they invite and hope for a response that appears to be

retaliation against the general Islamic public.

Active and passive defense. A variety of passive and

active defense mechanisms have been employed in the past.

Passive defense measures—like physical security and

hardening—mitigate the effect of an attack. Active defense

measures—like mines, coastal artillery, and interdiction

aircraft—on the other hand, raise the cost of the aggressor’s

attack by attriting the force carrying out the attack.

Denying access to the United States, either along its

perimeter or at its ports of entry, is exhaustive of resources.

Denying access to targets is also exhaustive. Even if it is

possible to secure airports, the aggressor will move to

attacks at sea, on the highways, sports complexes, shopping

malls, or any public place. The aggressor has an infinite set

of targets and defending them all demands infinite

resources. Retaliation may feel good and increased

defensive measures may look good, but they cannot be the

basis of a sustainable strategy.

Acts of retaliation and defensive measures are properly

seen as elements of a deterrence strategy. One retaliates

with brute force to inflict pain for a real or perceived wrong.

It is easy to interpret the use of military force in those terms.

For example, a terrorist act committed in a Berlin nightclub

led to an air attack on Libya.41 But seen in the larger picture

of an ongoing U.S. effort to deter Libya from terrorist

activity, the air attack is viewed as an act of deterrence. We

should not forget, however, the viscerally guided use of

brute force.

Preemptive and preventive wars are not types of

wars. Instead, they describe motives for war. Both derive

19
from the better-now-than-later logic but differ in important

ways.

Whereas prevention involves fighting a winnable war now in

order to avoid the risk of war later under less favorable

circumstances, preemption involves the initiation of military

action because it is perceived that an adversary’s attack is

imminent and that there are advantages in striking first, or at

least in preventing the adversary from doing so.42

Secretary of State Daniel Webster provides an often

quoted, and perhaps the most restrictive, justification for

the preemptive use of force. There must be “a necessity of

self defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of

means, and no moment for deliberation.”43

preemptive war: initiation of war because an adversary’s

attack—using existing capability—is believed to be imminent.

While preemption is a tactical response to an imminent

threat, prevention is a more strategic response to a

long-term, developing threat.44 “The preventive motivation

for war arises from the perception that one’s military power

and potential are declining relative to that of a rising

adversary, and from the fear of the consequences of that

decline.”45 Uneven economic development or technological

development favoring the offense may cause the perception

of shifting balance.46 History and international law have

frowned upon preventive war, and it is seen as a disguise for

naked aggression.47

preventive war: fighting a winnable war now to avoid risk of

war later under less favorable conditions.

Both cooperative security and primacy advocates talk of

preventing the spread of WMD. The former relies on

treaties and the latter relies on the use of force. President

Clinton’s employment strategy included both preemptive

and retaliatory strikes but not preventive war.

20
Those advocating a cooperative security strategy ascribe

special meaning to the word prevention. “The central

purpose of cooperative security arrangements is to prevent

war and to do so primarily by preventing the means for

successful aggression from being assembled, thus also

obviating the need for states so threatened to make their

own counterpreparations.”48

prevention: Preventing war by preventing states from

assembling the means to aggress against others.

The definition easily generalizes from states to

nonstates. Treaties and arms control agreements of the

past, however, do not give cause for optimism. To date, the

nonstate aggressor has shown a preference for readily

available weapons rather than in extensive research and

development or capital investment in sophisticated

weapons.

The efficacy of prevention by diplomatic means is weak

as evidenced by failed efforts against Iraq and North Korea.

Preemptive strike, as conducted in 1981 by Israel against

Iraq’s Osiraq nuclear facility49 and by the Clinton

administration in 1998 against Iraqi WMD development

facilities,50 has unarguably taken away capability and set

back its development. The successful overthrow of Saddam

Hussein and subsequent destruction of capability would

also remove threat capability. The strategic difference

between preemptive strike to destroy capability and a

preventive war to overthrow the Iraqi government is the

level of U.S. and international commitment required

afterward.

Existing arms sanctions against Iraq and North Korea

may retard but not prevent the acquisition of WMD.

Preemptive strike against the capability is a complement to

diplomatic and economic efforts. The overthrow of a

government must be a last resort.

21
Post-Cold War Administrations.

Given this brief strategic review, it is now possible to

better characterize and understand the approaches taken

by post-Cold War administrations.

George H. W. Bush (1989-1993). With little time to

prepare after the end of the Cold War, the first Bush

administration started down the path toward a primacy

strategy at the same time that force structure was in rapid

decline. The classified Defense Planning Guidance spoke of

preventing the rise of a competitor, preventing European

allies from developing their own foreign policy, and

providing global security so that no potential competitor

need to aspire to greater power—maintaining hegemony.

Some in the Pentagon found the language so disagreeable

that they leaked it to the New York Times.

51 The

administration found that talking primacy was as

politically incorrect as talking isolationism.

While the administration’s declaratory policy took on

the more acceptable language of collective security,52 its

employment policy was ambivalent. The Gulf War is a

classic example of collective security: one state violated the

territorial sovereignty of another, and an international

coalition returned the situation to the status quo ante. It

was a war of limited objectives. The invasion of Panama to

remove a head of state, in contrast, is an example of primacy

and unilateralism. It was a war of unlimited objectives.

William J. Clinton (1993-2001).

53 The campaign leading

to the 1992 election paid scant attention to foreign policy

and national security issues; domestic issues prevailed.

Following his election, the president gave speeches

apologizing for the Cold War and American preoccupation

with power.54 The administration explicitly rejected

balance of power in favor of Wilsonian internationalism.

The administration’s eventual grand strategy has been

called selective (but cooperative) primacy.55 Each of the

administration’s four security strategy documents56 was

22
decidedly oriented on cooperative security, assuring world

peace and nonproliferation through arms control regimes.

An international community that proved far less supportive

than hoped for forced the administration to later adopt some

of primacy’s unilateralism. A desire to intervene internationally and an unwillingness to risk American casualties

and popular support for those interventions led to cruise

missile diplomacy, the modern equivalent of gunboat

diplomacy.57 The administration’s rhetoric began to stress

the need to be selective in its engagement; simultaneously,

it expanded its military presence overseas in Southeast

Asia, Northeast Asia, and Central America.

In the end, the administration lacked a strategy to guide

the use of force. Its employment policy, instead of following a

strategy, followed a constructivist path of ad hoc responses.

This should not be surprising given that national security

advisor Sandy Berger was on record saying “grand

strategies were after-the-fact rationales developed to

explain successful ad hoc decisions.”58

George W. Bush (2001-). The Bush administration’s

national security rhetoric has evolved since the campaign

and the 9/11 attacks. A security focus on the rogue states of

Iraq, Iran, and North Korea—the axis of evil—however,

remains a constant. A comparison of Condoleezza Rice’s

campaign policy statement in Foreign Affairs59 and the first

Bush administration national security strategy is in order.

Rice articulated a lack of urgency with respect to these

rogue states by saying that “they were living on borrowed

time” and “there need be no sense of panic about them.”60

She further communicated a veiled threat of nuclear

retaliation if any of them employed (not acquired) WMD.

Rice spoke in the language of selective engagement,

favoring the use of the military to deter and fight major

conflicts. America’s military is the only one capable of this

deterrence function, and it must not be stretched or diverted

into areas that weaken these broader responsibilities.61 She

23
went on to say U.S. intervention in “. . . ‘humanitarian’

crises should be, at best, exceedingly rare.”62

Rice invoked the principle of nonintervention by saying

that frequent involvement in humanitarian crises through

the U.N. will communicate to great powers that the United

States “has decided to enforce the notion of ‘limited

sovereignty’ worldwide in the name of humanitarianism.”

She further hinted at the unilateralism of primacy and

selective engagement by suggesting that, by showing too

great a reliance on the U.N., we are “implying that we will do

so even when our vital interests are involved.”63 An “overly

broad definition of America’s national interest is bound to

backfire . . . .”64

The 2002 national security strategy65 contains a great

deal of language reminiscent of Wilsonian internationalism

and the Carter administration’s human rights agenda.

“American values are universal.”66

The U.S. national security strategy will be based on a

distinctly American internationalism that reflects the

union of our values and our national interests. The aim of

this strategy is to help make the world not just safer but

better.

The strategy also contains the language of cooperative

security. Overall, however, the Bush strategy is dominated

by the language of primacy.

The strategy takes an undifferentiated view of

terrorism. “The enemy is terrorism—premeditated,

politically motivated violence perpetrated against

innocents.” “We make no distinction between terrorists and

those who knowingly harbor or provide aid to them.”

“Terrorism will be viewed in the same light as slavery,

piracy, or genocide.”67

Nowhere is the failure to differentiate more clear than in

the Arab-Israeli conflict. Both Arab and Jew employed

terrorism against British forces occupying the Palestinian

Mandate—a classic guerrilla war. Israel later acquired the

24
conventional forces of statehood and has subsequently used

them against indigenous Palestinians. The Palestinian

view is that a war of annihilation is being waged against

them in their homeland and that they are waging a guerrilla

war against an occupying force of European immigrants.68

After the September attacks, American declaratory policy

called for a strong and unambiguous international

response—a war against terrorism. But when Israel seized

the opportunity for the next campaign in a war of

annihilation against the Palestinians, American support

was weak and ambiguous. President Bush has, according to

some, waffled in his demands on the Palestinians and

Israelis.69

Another case in point is the changed American attitude

towards the separatist Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang

province. The Chinese government makes “little distinction

between separatists, terrorists, and civil rights activists.”70

The U.N. identified as human rights abuses Chinese

attempts to quell Uighur separatists.71 Now, the United

States and China identify these same separatists as

terrorists. The separatist movement does not threaten the

United States and does not attack the international system.

It seeks self-determination and territorial sovereignty for a

Muslim community oppressed by the Chinese.72

The strategy focuses on capability rather than on the

intention to attack the United States when it speaks of

attacking “leadership of organizations with global reach.”73

It employs the language of the system of states to deal with

the nonstate threat by speaking of campaigns “to localize

the threat to a particular state” and to then “ensure the

state has the military, law enforcement, political, and

financial tools necessary to finish the task.”74

A brisk public debate has taken place primarily

concerning the invasion of Iraq. Participants tend to focus

on a handful of issues: the arguable imminence of the

threat; the direct cost of going it alone; the effect on the

region, on international order, and on the war on terrorism;

25
and the wisdom of making preemption a prominent part of

declaratory policy.

Iraq has used chemical weapons since the 1980s and

there is evidence of a biological weapons program beginning

after the Gulf War.75 Nuclear weapons are estimated to be 2

to 5 years away.76 Thus, the case has not been made for the

imminent threat against the United States, and it fails to

meet the criteria for preemptive war. The American public

shares a distaste for Saddam Hussein, but they do not share

the president’s sense of imminent threat.77

The invasion of Iraq better qualifies as a preventive

war—a war initiated before the aggressor can amass WMD

on a scale sufficient to shift the balance to the aggressor.

Such an act is consistent with declarations made long before

9/11 that the rogue states of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea

posed the greatest threat to security,78 but inconsistent with

the assessment that there was no rush to act against them.79

It is only peripherally related to the guerrilla war waged

against the system of states. In fact, overthrowing the

secular Iraqi government is consistent with the guerrilla’s

objectives. The axis of evil and the arc of chaos constitute

quite different problems and beg different solutions.

The objective of the war is far more important than the

motive for waging the war sooner than later. A war to

overthrow a government is a war of unlimited objectives.

Some suggest that definitions are being deliberately twisted

to justify the invasion of Iraq.80

James Fallows argues that the direct cost of the invasion

may be small but that the cost of what follows—occupation,

policing, and rebuilding—will be high.81 Even if the

president could create the sense of urgency, Americans

wonder why going it alone is the first option. Building a

progressive Arab state after toppling the current regime

will take time and international support. Why not contain

now and attack when an alliance is more agreeable?82

26
The cost of the peace that follows war is too high to bear

alone. Will overthrow of the other members of the axis of evil

follow? One can optimistically imagine an invasion force

used serially in a campaign to overthrow one rogue or failing

state after another. But because the occupation and

nation-building that follows will take years or decades,

these activities will impose simultaneous, not serial,

demands on resources. How many rogue, failed, or failing

states can the international community build? How many

can America build alone?

Another focal point is the effect an invasion would have

on the region. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt predicts

that an overthrow of the Iraqi government will destabilize

the region.83 Fears of rising Kurdish nationalism have

spawned anti-war sentiment in Turkey.84 More generally,

the invasion would likely increase anti-Americanism within

Arabic and Islamic states whose governments maintain

only a tenuous hold on power. Those governments

maintaining relations with the United States may come

under increased domestic pressure, and local support for

terrorist activities could increase.

An invasion of Iraq may in fact increase the probability

of more general terrorist attacks while simultaneously

reducing the probability of the most severe type of attack

with WMD. Former Vice President Al Gore asserts that talk

of an attack on Iraq weakens the war on terrorism.85 If the

hunt for bin Laden depends on cooperation between law

enforcement and intelligence agencies, then unilaterally

waging war on Iraq will weaken the effort against terrorists.

Others argue that we can currently deter Hussein, but by

making his overthrow imminent, he is most likely to employ

WMD against Israel or the Gulf states who support the

invasion.

The strongest thread in the debate is about the

long-term effect on international order. In particular, some

are concerned about the effect on transatlantic relations.

Absent the common threat posed by the Warsaw Pact,

27
American and European interests are more divergent

today. The United States spends twice what its 18 NATO

allies spend on defense, creating an imbalance in power and

influence, while Europeans believe that the United States

places too much emphasis on the use of military force and

not enough on root causes.86 Francis Fukuyama warns

against “U.S. versus the world” becoming the chief passion

in global politics.87

An apparent minority argues that the United States

could establish a first strike precedent.88 Other states could

be prompted to bypass the U.N. and strike unilaterally.

Other states, as the argument continues, could be prompted

to acquire greater deterrent weapons. In any case, a

preemptive strike implies a quick fix rather than a

sustained solution.

Finally, the wisdom of making preemption such a

prominent part of declaratory policy is questioned. A

preemptive strike is accompanied by some secrecy lest the

enemy be allowed to make defensive preparations or to

launch a preemptive attack of its own. Members of the

former Clinton administration argue that preemptive

strike has always been an option on the menu, but declaring

it as U.S. policy or doctrine89 conveys a cowboy image that

invites backlash.90 Secretary of State Colin Powell,

apparently downplaying the significance of a preemptive

declaratory policy, stated that preemption has always been

available to the president, and that it has only “risen in the

hierarchy of options” as a response to stateless terrorists

seeking WMD.91 Powell further clarifies the use of

preemption by limiting it to decisive strikes.92

Regardless of the decision to invade Iraq, the United

States needs a strategy for the use of force beyond the next

crisis.

28
STRATEGY FOR GUERRA

The single most critical question following the end of the

bipolar superpower competition is what role the United

States should play in the world. The collapse of the Soviet

Union and its alliance left the United States by default as

the uncontested superpower. Since then, we have seen

extreme swings in strategic declaratory policy—from

collective security, to cooperative security, and to primacy.

Yet throughout these swings, all three post-Cold War

presidents have made prominent use of unilateral force in

their declaratory or employment policies. The first Bush

administration led a coalition of the willing in the Gulf War,

but pursued unilateral action in Panama. Absent the

common threat of the Warsaw Pact, subsequent presidents

have found it increasingly difficult to form broad-based

international coalitions, earlier in Kosovo and more

recently against Iraq. Unilateral preemptive strike has

been followed by talk of preventive war. U.S. leadership of

the Atlantic alliance increasingly resembles U.S. hegemony

with America leading an alliance under duress.

Thinking characteristic of great power conflict is not

helpful. The war against terrorism will not terminate.

There will be no armistice day. The correct conception of the

conflict lies at the nexus of military operations and law

enforcement. Rather than a war with clear objectives,

decisive engagement on the field of battle, and exit strategy,

the current conflict is more profitably viewed as sustained

international guerrilla war.

This report does not propose a grand strategy. Rather, it

proposes a strategy for guerra—war waged against those

without legitimate standing—subordinated to the grand

strategy. The strategy must be sustainable indefinitely. To

be sustainable, it must enlist all possible resources,

domestic and international, and differentiation of all forms

must be made.

29
In the paragraphs that follow, we first state the

objectives (ends) of the guerra strategy followed by the

methods (ways) of achieving those objectives. Then we

evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability of each

method and offer criteria for their employment. Finally, we

summarize the force structure implications (means).

Objectives.

There are four interlocking objectives of the guerra

strategy. The first is to reduce the probability of destructive

or disruptive attacks. A second, and perhaps more

important, objective is to reduce the severity of attacks. The

third, and most important, objective is to prevent the

conflict from spilling over into a wider war with Islam.

Successful actions taken to reduce the probability and

severity of attack must be calculated against the likelihood

of widening the conflict. Because not all attacks can be

prevented, the fourth objective is to mitigate the effect of

attacks.

The probability of attack is the product of intent and

capacity. In dealing with states, aggressive capacity is

easier to measure than is intent, and intent is the more

important of the two. Intent can be modulated; all measures

of international relations are available to deter, coerce, or

compel states against their use of force. But that is a matter

of grand strategy. The guerrilla, however, is a hostile

nonstate aggressor and is the subject of the guerra strategy.

The enemy has made his intent clear by declaring war.

Deterrence, coercion, and compellence do not apply. Under

these conditions, the mere possession of destructive

capacity is criterion for the destructive use of force.

The potential for increasing severity of attack is a matter

of WMD proliferation. Acquisition by states, rogue or

otherwise, is a matter of international relations and the

U.S. grand strategy. The acquisition or possession by hostile

nonstate actors is the subject of the guerra strategy.

30
Efforts to prevent spillover are directed at Islam and are

oriented on reducing the root causes. All other counterguerrilla acts must be measured in terms of their effects on

this objective.

To Reduce Offensive Capability.

Sir Michael Howard, Britain’s most prominent

contemporary strategist, characterizes the conflict as being

“more like a hunt” than a war.93 There is increasing

consensus that “the hunt” will require greater concert of the

many elements of national power, including intelligence

agencies, Justice’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),

Treasury’s Financial Center (FINCEN), and Defense’s

strike capability.94

Rather than a uniform policy of employing the many

elements of power, separate criteria must be developed that

differentiate between those states that are meeting their

internal and external responsibilities and those that are

failing.

Viable states are capable of meeting their internal and

external responsibilities, should they choose to do so. It is in

the interests of viable states to employ their own law

enforcement methods and capabilities to maintain peace

within their own territory and to prevent their territory

from being used as a base for international guerrilla

operations. For the American strategy to be sustainable, the

resources of viable states should be marshaled.

The main effort is conducted through international law

enforcement and intelligence cooperation. Large numbers

of those who would attack the United States and the system

of states are widely distributed and have shown a

preference for residency in liberal democracies where they

can move and congregate freely. The number of these

individuals is small when compared to a mass army, but

they do not mass and they must be pursued individually.

31
In failed and failing states, law enforcement will

likely be insufficient. The military will play a more

prominent role in the hunt in failed and failing states. The

dominant use of military force in guerra must be ruthless

preemption—destroying the capability to do harm before it

can be employed. To do so requires covert direct action, to

kill or capture targeted individuals, undertaken by military

or other agents. Covert direct action may also be required to

destroy manufacturing or other infrastructure. The scale of

some targets will require overt action, to include air- or

sea-based long-range precision strike and short duration

raids by small air-ground units employing a variety of

ingress and egress methods. These raids are not punitive,

expeditionary raids, nor are they conducted to seize, hold,

and occupy terrain. They are not to topple governments.

Failing states are those whose governments have

tenuous control over the state. Yemen offers an example; its

government has virtually no control over two-thirds of the

country. Failing states cannot meet their internal and

external responsibilities, even if they choose to do so. These

governments have the most to lose. The government’s desire

to survive and its resources should be marshaled against

those waging international guerrilla war. For those

governments with the will, but not the ability, to meet their

responsibilities, various forms of aid are the appropriate

American response. Difficult choices will have to be made.

Supporting oppressive governments may provide the best

near-term protection of American interests and lives while

increasing the oppressed populations’ animosity towards

America. Until these states become viable, the United

States cannot rule out covert and overt actions against

threats to American security.

Failed states are those whose governments cannot

maintain internal order or meet their external responsibilities to the system of states. Afghanistan is such a case.

No amount of force application will compel or coerce these

governments to squash terrorist activities, nor can the

terrorists be deterred. One alternative is to unilaterally

32
invade, occupy, and undertake long-term nation-building.

Another is to do the same but as a multilateral exercise

through international institutions. A third alternative is to

destroy threatening capability through strikes and raids.

Because of the secrecy required, these military actions will

be conducted unilaterally.

Because there are many failing states (perhaps 30),95

unilateral invasion, occupation, and nation-building

constitute an exhaustive strategy than cannot possibly be

sustained. Nation-building through international

institutions is more sustainable, but the international

community may not agree as to when and where to

intervene. Unilateral strikes and raids into failed, and

failing states are more sustainable and controllable.

To Reduce the Severity of Attack.

The attacks of 9/11 show that considerable destruction

can be inflicted without resort to sophisticated military

weapons. The proliferation of nuclear, radiological,

chemical, and biological weapons, however, increases the

severity potential of attacks. Treaties and agreements for

regulating the proliferation of nuclear weapons and

delivery systems are relevant counters. These diplomatic

efforts may retard but not prevent the acquisition of WMD

by our declared enemies. Because we cannot prevent the

aggressor from amassing these weapons, and we cannot

deter him, then we must use preemptive force. The mere

possession of WMD by hostile nonstate actors is cause for

direct action.

Destroying this class of offensive capability presents

unique problems. The 1981 Israeli strike against the Iraqi

nuclear reactor at Osiraq generated widespread criticism

and even condemnation. Some of the criticism was directed

at the use of offensive force without international sanction.

An even greater criticism was due to the nature of the target

and the potential for catastrophic effects well beyond target

destruction.96

33
To Manage the Consequences of Attack.

Through the methods described earlier, the probability

and severity of attack can be reduced, but not eliminated.

Defending all domestic targets against all forms of attack all

of the time is impossible. Law enforcement and consequence

management are the leading requirements in homeland

defense. Unlike war, this conflict will not likely come to a

definitive end in the foreseeable future. More like law

enforcement and emergency services, the United States will

have to cope with the effects of future attacks. Consequence

management will remain a necessary ingredient of any

national capability.

As New York City and Arlington, Virginia showed

during the 9/11 attacks, local municipalities will be the first

to respond, will stay the course, and will carry the heaviest

burden. A national response can only be supportive of the

local responders’ efforts. Combat service support forces will

be the principal military contribution.

To Reduce Offensive Intent.

The source of animosity and of recruits will persist for

the foreseeable future. Economic disparity, lack of jobs and

opportunities, and high birth rates will continue as

conditions of failed and failing states. Impoverished or

oppressed Islamic populations will continue to perceive the

West supporting their unresponsive governments in

pursuit of stable oil prices. Efforts to reduce the intention to

attack the United States are primarily diplomatic,

economic, and informational, not military. Furthermore,

each use of military force, benign or otherwise, has the

potential to increase animosity and shift more adherents to

the guerrilla movement.

Domestic pressures within the United States may

precipitate humanitarian interventions into the Islamic

world to deal with manmade or natural disasters. These

types of interventions commonly put military forces into

34
failed states where they must be prepared for asymmetric

warfare against hostile civilians and Al-Qa’eda-trained

insurgency forces. These forces may be organized, trained,

and equipped to wage guerrilla warfare in the classic sense.

They are not the forces of a legitimate state and are neither

combatant nor noncombatant.

U.S. forces should be used for such interventions on an

exceptionally rare basis, to put down insurrections that

threaten significant U.S. interests, for example. But

presidents will intervene where and when they may.

American forces must be prepared to deal with these

illegitimate forces. The force must be trained to rules of

engagement appropriate to counter this form of illegitimate

warfare rather than to the rules that apply to warfare

between states. Congress may need to prepare relevant

legislation and guidance. International treaties may

require revision to define the “rights” of so-called illegal

combatants.

Humanitarian interventions may lead to nationbuilding, as might the intentional overthrow of a corrupt

government. Nation-building—addressing the root

causes—provides no hope for near-term relief against

terrorist attack. Past American attempts at nation-building

offer little optimism even in the long term,97 and there are

too many states for one country to build.

Nation-building attempts under colonialism are not fond

memories of the colonial powers or of the colonized

populations. It is difficult to imagine the United States or a

Western-led coalition of states “building” an Islamic state in

anything other than its own image. International

organizations are better equipped for nation-building

operations, and wealthy Islamic states, through

organizations like the Organization of the Islamic

Conference,98 should be encouraged to provide resources to

their support. Tenuous states may gain domestic and

international credibility through these efforts. A strategy

that relies on rebuilding Islamic states in the arc of chaos

35
into modern Western states is truly exhaustive of resources

and the height of hubris.

Certain conditions must precede attempts at nationbuilding or post-conflict reconstruction. International

bodies must have the ability and the willingness to align the

boundaries of states and nations. Many state boundaries

derive from convenient administrative districts of the

colonial period. The misalignment created still contributes

to internal strife and prevents development of viable states

that can accept their responsibilities within the system of

states. Boundary adjustments must be considered to

provide nations the opportunity to develop into states where

their own mores can govern the allocation of resources and

guide development. Boundary adjustments in the past have

been difficult, and establishing autonomous regions may be

more practical.

In this context, post-Taliban Afghanistan represents a

lost opportunity. Long a land of warring factions divided

along ethnic lines, borders with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,

Pakistan, and Iran could have been adjusted to better align

nations and states. Instead, a failed government was

reinstalled over the existing factions, a return to the

conditions that preceded the Taliban takeover.

The aggressor needs an environment in which to operate

and survive. A supportive or tolerant population is an

enabling condition. The guerrilla’s objective is to expand

that support environment. Ours must be to reduce that

support, making it harder to recruit, survive, acquire, plan,

train, and execute. Only Muslim clerics, perhaps, have the

moral authority to pursue this information campaign and to

assert their leadership over those who have hijacked their

religion. Even the most effective campaign to reduce

recruiting efforts will take decades or generations and will

not likely affect those already committed.

Short-sighted declaratory and employment policies to

reduce the probability and severity of attacks could easily

cause the widening of the conflict that, in turn, would

36
increase the probability and severity of attack. Nonproliferation treaties, nation-building, and information

campaigns conducted for the hearts and minds of Islam offer

no promise in the near term. Other courses of action—the

hunt—must be followed to provide relief in the present.

Directing and Sustaining the Effort.

The main and supporting efforts are not independent

activities; they require strong centralized direction. No one

agency—not the State Department, Defense Department,

or Office of Homeland Defense—can lead. The National

Security Council, relying on an integrated operations and

intelligence center, might provide the appropriate locus of

control. Subordinated to the grand strategy, the NSC could

orchestrate all elements of national power, including

sanctioning direct actions.

Summary of Demands on Military Force Structure.

A counterguerrilla strategy requires tightly integrated

intelligence and law enforcement forces for “the hunt,”

military strike forces on call for preemption, and military

combat service support forces in support to domestic

authorities for consequence management.

Humanitarian interventions in failed and failing states

require expeditionary forces designed for peacemaking and

peacekeeping missions that may evolve into nationbuilding. These forces will likely encounter al-Qa’edatrained forces and must be prepared for “asymmetric

warfare” against forces lacking legitimate standing.

Forces for preemptive strike and raids must be within

hours of attack when a target presents. Mobilization and

strategic deployment of a strike force will be observed and

the target will disperse. Maintaining a force permanently

forward deployed at the necessarily high level of readiness

is an exhaustive proposition. Instead, forces relevant to

preemptive strike must be on “strip alert” which, in turn,

37
requires adoption of the rotational readiness model long

used by the naval services.

Preventive war and the overthrow of governments

require invasion forces on the order of the reconnaissance

strike complex. In addition, occupation and civil affairs

forces are required for a lengthy period to follow. There will

likely be a great deal of commonality between the forces

required for occupation and nation-building following

regime change and those forces required for consequence

management at home. Occupation and nation-building

forces that satisfy these requirements are not forces

designed for great power conflict. Expeditionary forces

engaged in peace operations are not available for great

power conflict.

The guerra strategy makes sparing use of the

reconnaissance strike complex in the counterguerrilla war,

preserving it for great power issues of grand strategy. The

primacy strategy makes far greater demands on occupation

and nation-building forces than does the guerra strategy,

and it makes greater demands on the reconnaissance strike

complex in the war on terrorism. The unilateralism of the

primacy strategy is more likely to alienate allies than is the

guerra strategy. The primacy strategy is more likely to

create blowback within Islam than is the guerra strategy.

The primacy strategy has a greater potential for strategic

exhaustion.

SUMMARY AND CLOSING

The United States is in an interwar period with respect

to great power conflict, but great power conflict will return.

The country’s grand strategy must remain focused on

America’s role among the great powers in the long term.

America’s influence in the world will erode if, as Francis

Fukuyama suggests, opposing the United States becomes

the “chief passion in global politics.”

38
The guerra strategy must be embedded in and

subordinated to the grand strategy. Agencies should not

develop their own strategies. There should be no national

military strategy to counter terrorism or to counter the

international guerrilla war waged against the system of

states. Execution of the guerra strategy relies on skillful

orchestration of all the elements of national power and,

thus, strong centralized direction is required. To be

effective, the guerra strategy must be sustainable

indefinitely, relevant to the nonstate actor, and rational.

To be sustainable, the guerra strategy must be

asymmetric. A symmetric response, characterized by the

action-reaction cycle that the aggressor hopes to initiate,

allows the attacker to select the time and place of the

competition. We must choose the place and time of action to

maximize the effect of the resources expended and to

minimize “blowback.” To be sustainable, the strategy must

enlist all elements of national and international power

rather than imposing the primary burden on the U.S.

military instrument. Strategies based on defending

everything, against all forms of attack, all of the time, are

exhaustive of resources and impossible to implement and

sustain. Strategies based on interdicting all forms of attack

as they are in progress are exhaustive for the same reasons.

The recent reallocation of resources domestically may allay

public fear, but it cannot be the basis of a sustainable

strategy.

The guerra strategy must be relevant to the nature of the

conflict. Strategies based on retaliation will fail; retaliation

may feel good, but it will not deter martyrs. Terrorist

networks have nothing of value equivalent to the damage

they can inflict. Strategies based on preventing rogue states

from acquiring the means of attack have merit when

directed at limiting the proliferation of nuclear, chemical,

and biological weapons and ballistic missile delivery

vehicles; they are irrelevant, however, when the means

employed are commercial aircraft or other readily available

means.

39
The guerra strategy must be rational. Tactical actions

must destroy more enemy capability than they create.

Strikes and raids should be aimed at discrete targets and

then only to destroy meaningful enemy capability

decisively. Some targets of opportunity will be bypassed if

they conflict with the grand strategy objectives or if target

destruction can rationally be expected to produce a response

out of proportion to the damage done.

International law enforcement and intelligence agencies

enabled by greater information sharing carry the primary

burden. The military is in a supporting, on call, role.

Preemptive strike—attacking the threat capability before it

is used—is the primary use of military force. Consequence

management—coping with the effects after an attack—is an

indispensable component of a national strategy for guerra.

The debate about internationalism being the cause of or

solution to threats against American security has not been

resolved, nor has it changed appreciably, but the

consequences are more significant than before. No longer is

the ability to attack the United States only in the hands of a

few countries that can be deterred. The proliferation of

WMD puts the means in the hands of many states and even

in the hands of small groups, and the potency of the tools at

their disposal will only increase. Administrations must

decide on a case-by-case basis whether foreign policy will

favor human rights in foreign lands or American lives at

home.

ENDNOTES

1. Title 22, U.S. Code, Section 2656f(d).

2. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with

Historical Illustrations, second edition, New York, NY: Basic Books,

1992, p. 197.

3. Peter C. Sederberg, “Conciliation as Counter-Terrorist Strategy,”

Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 32, No. 3, August 1995, pp. 295-312.

Sederberg’s work predates “catastrophic terrorism,” and he argues

cogently for conciliation as an important strategy, especially when the

40
base of support for the challenger is large. He does, however, state that

“sincerely held, totalistic and exclusionist ideologies preclude using

conciliation to encourage the transformation” to nonterrorist means.

His message, therefore, has far more relevance to failing Islamic states

than to Western states.

4. Ibid., pp. 296-297.

5. Ibid., p. 297.

6. Yonah Alexander and Michael S. Swetnam, Usama bin Laden’s

al-Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network, Ardsley, NY: Transnational

Publishers, 2001, p. 32.

7. Richard A. Falkenrath, Robert D. Newman, and Bradley A.

Thayer, America’s Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical

Terrorism and Covert Attack, Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press,

1998. See also Statement by Director of Central Intelligence George J.

Tenet before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “World Wide

Threat—Converging Dangers in a Post 9/11 World,” February 6, 2002.

8. Rex A. Hudson and staff of the Federal Research Division of the

Library of Congress, Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why: The 1999

Government Report on Profiling Terrorists, Guilford, CT: The Lyons

Press, 2002. Available at http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/terrorism.htm,

accessed on October 20, 2002.

9. Ralph Peters, Beyond Terror, Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole

Books, 2002.

10. Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam, New York, NY: Oxford

University Press, 1978, p. 271.

11. Sederberg, p. 297.

12. “Civilian” and “noncombatant” are not synonyms. For example,

uniformed chaplains and medical personnel are considered

noncombatants.

13. Sir Michael Howard, The Invention Of Peace, New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press, 2000, p. 73.

14. Alexander and Swetnam, p. 30.

15. Ibid., p. 2.

41
16. Criton M. Zoakos, “The War on Terrorism,” Leto Research, LLC,

September 27, 2001; see also Alexendar and Swetnam.

17. Jessica T. Mathews, “September 11, One Year Later: A World of

Change,” Policy Brief, special edition, No. 18, Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, August 2002.

18. Walter Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic,

Boston: Little, Brown, 1943. For an update on the “solvency” of foreign

power, see Samuel P. Huntington, “Coping With the Lippmann Gap,”

Foreign Affairs, Vol. 66, No. 3, America and the World 1987/88, pp.

453-477.

19. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical

Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy, New York,

NY: Oxford University Press, 1982.

20. Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet

Relations and the End of the Cold War, Washington, DC: The Brookings

Institution, 1994.

21. Gaddis, p. 84

22. Ibid., p. 346.

23. America’s Strategic Choices, Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote,

Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Cambridge, MA:

The MIT Press, 1998; and the revised edition, Cambridge, MA: The MIT

Press, 2000, provide excellent surveys of the post-Cold War debate and

include articles from each strategy’s more prominent champions.

24. Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S.

Grand Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3, Winter

1996/1997, p. 5-53, reprinted in Brown, et al., 1998, pp. 1-49; and Brown,

et al., 2000, pp. 3-51.

25. William E. Odom, America’s Military Revolution: Strategy and

Structure after the Cold War, Washington, DC: American University

Press, 1993.

26. Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A

New Security Strategy for America, Washington, DC: Brookings

Institution Press, 1999; and Ashton B. Carter, William J. Perry, and

John D. Steinbruner, A New Concept of Cooperative Security,

Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1992.

42
27. Jonathan Clarke and James Clad, After the Crusade: American

Foreign Policy for the Post-Superpower Age, Lanham, MD: Madison

Books, 1995.

28. Patrick J. Buchanan, A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming

America’s Destiny, Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1999.

29. Posen and Ross, pp. 32-43.

30. Robert Jervis, “International Primacy: Is the Game Worth the

Candle?” in The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace, Sean M.

Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller, eds., Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,

1993, p. 292.

31. Posen and Ross, pp. 9-16.

32. Ibid., pp. 17-23.

33. Ibid., pp. 23-32.

34. Carter, et al., p. 7.

35. Ibid., p. 11.

36. Posen and Ross, p. 18.

37. Ibid., p. 41.

38. Ibid., p. 29.

39. Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence, New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 1966, is the seminal work in this area complemented

by Robert Art, “To What Ends Military Power?” International Security,

Vol. 4, Spring 1980, pp. 4-35. John Mearsheimer, Conventional

Deterrence, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983, elaborates on

deterrence theory; and Stephen Cimbala, Coercive Military Strategy,

College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1998, does the same

for the coercive use of military force.

40. Schelling, pp. 71, 72, 74.

41. Russell Watson, “Reagan’s Raiders,” Newsweek, April 28, 1986,

United States edition, p. 26. For the policy implications of the raid on

Libya, see Michael Rubner, “Antiterrorism and the Withering of the

1973 War Powers Resolution,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 102, No.

2, Summer 1987, pp. 193-215.

43
42. Levy, 1987, p. 90.

43. Quoted in Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral

Argument with Historical Illustrations, second edition, New York, NY:

Basic Books, 1992, p. 74. See also, Bruce Akerman, “But What’s The

Legal Case for Preemption?” Washington Post, August 18, 2002, final

edition, sec. Outlook, p. B2.

44. Levy, 1987, p. 87.

45. Jack S. Levy, “Declining Power and the Preventive Motivation

for War,” World Politics, Vol. 40, No. 1, October 1987, pp. 82-107, 91.

46. Jack S. Levy, “Misperceptions and the Causes of War:

Theoretical Linkages and Analytical Problems,” World Politics, Vol. 36,

No. 1, October 1983, pp. 76-99. See also Levy, 1987.

47. Thomas L. Friedman, “You Gotta Have Friends,” New York

Times, September 29, 2002, late edition—final, sec. 4, p. 13, col. 1.

48. Carter, et al., p. 7. See also Carter and Perry.

49. Ghassan Bishara, “The Political Repercussions of the Israeli

Raid on the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.

11, No. 3, Spring 1982, pp. 58-76. Bennett Ramberg, “Attacks on

Nuclear Reactors; The Implications of Israel’s Strike on Osiraq,”

Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 97, No. 4, Winter 1982-1983, pp.

653-669.

50. Jules Lobel and Michel Ratner, “Bypassing the Security Council:

Ambiguous Authorizations to Use Force, Cease-Fires and the Iraqi

Inspection Regime,” American Journal of International Law, Vol. 93,

No. 1, January 1999, pp. 124-154.

51. Special to the New York Times, “Excerpts From Pentagon’s Plan:

‘Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival’,” New York Times, March 7,

2002, sec. 1, part 1, p. 14.

52. George W. H. Bush, National Security Strategy of the United

States, Washington, DC: The White House, August 1991.

53. Posen and Ross, pp. 44-51.

54. Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, New

York, NY: Touchstone, 2002, pp. 29, 41-42.

55. Posen and Ross, p. 44.

44
56. William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy of Engagement

and Enlargement, Washington, DC: The White House, 1995; William J.

Clinton, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement,

Washington, DC: The White House, 1996; William J. Clinton, A

National Security Strategy for a New Century, Washington, DC: The

White House, 1997; and William J. Clinton, A National Security

Strategy for a New Century, Washington, DC: The White House, 1998.

57. Tim Weiner and Jane Perlez, New York Times, April 4, 1999, late

edition—final, sec. 1, p. 1, col. 4.

58. R. W. Apple Jr., “A Domestic Sort With Global Worries,” New

York Times, August 25, 1999, late edition—final, sec. A, p. 1, col. 2.

59. Condoleezza Rice, “Campaign 2000: Promoting the National

Interest,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 1, January/February 2000, pp.

45-62.

60. Ibid., p. 61.

61. Ibid., p. 52.

62. Ibid., p. 53.

63. Ibid., p. 54.

64. Ibid., p. 53.

65. George W. Bush, The National Security Strategy of the United

States of America, Washington, DC: The White House, September 2002.

66. Rice, p. 49.

67. Bush, 2002, pp. 5-6.

68. See, for example, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1,

Autumn 1981, Anniversary Issue: “Palestinians Under Occupation.”

69. Michael Hirsh, “Bush and the World,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81,

No. 5, September/October, pp. 18-43, 24-25.

70. Dru Gladney, “Xinjiang: China’s Future West Bank?” Current

History, Vol. 101, No. 656, September 2002, p. 268.

71. Gladney, p. 267.

45
72. Chien-peng Chung, “China’s ‘War on Terror’: September 11 and

Uighur Separatists,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 4, July/August 2002,

pp. 8-12.

73. Bush, 2002, p. 5.

74. Bush, 2002, p. 6.

75. “Six Degrees of Preemption,” Washington Post, September 29,

2002, final edition, p. B2. The statement was made by Amy Smithson in

a 2-hour roundtable debate at the Post and documented in this article.

Ken Adelman, Bruce Jentleson, Robert Killebrew, Ruth Wedgewood,

and Wesley Clark also participated in the debate.

76. David E. Sanger, “Beating Them To the Prewar,” New York

Times, September 28, 2002, late edition—final, sec. B, p. 7, col. 1.

77. Thomas L. Friedman, “You Gotta Have Friends,” New York

Times, September 29, 2002, late edition—final, sec. 4, p. 13, col. 1.

78. Rice, pp. 45-62.

79. Ibid., p. 61.

80. Sanger, “Beating Them To the Prewar.”

81. James Fallows, “The Fifty-First State,” The Atlantic Monthly,

November 2002, pp. 53-64.

82. Friedman.

83. Editorial, Seattle Times, October 3, 2002, fourth edition, p. B7.

84. Seva Ulman, “Anti-war sentiment rises in Turkey,” United Press

International, Ankara, Turkey, October 14, 2002.

85. Dan Balz, “Gore challenges Bush on Iraq military action,”

Seattle Times, September 24, 2002, fourth edition, p. A2. The speech’s

transcript, given at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, is

available at http://algore2004.com/Transcript_09.23.2002.doc,

accessed on October 15, 2002.

86. Glenn Frankel, “Bush Administration Bruises Europe’s Ego,”

Seattle Times, September 30, 2002, fourth edition, p. A10.

46
87. Francis Fukuyama, “U.S. vs. Them: Opposition to American

policies must not become the chief passion in global politics,”

Washington Post, September 11, 2002, final edition, p. A17.

88. “Analysts: New Strategy Courts Unseen Dangers; First Strike

Could Be Precedent for Other Nations,” Washington Post, September

22, 2002, final edition, p. A01.

89. Todd S. Purdum, “The World; Could Striking First Mean

Striking Out?” New York Times, September 15, 2002, late edition—

final, sec. 4, p. 5, col. 1.

90. Michele Flournoy and Vinca LaFleur, “Quick-Stick Doctrine,”

Washington Post, June 18, 2002, final edition, p. A19.

91. James Dao, “Threats and Responses: Perspectives, Powell

Defends A First Strike as Iraq Option,” New York Times, September 8,

2002, late edition—final, sec. 1, p. 1, col. 5.

92. Glenn Kessler and Peter Slevin, “Preemptive Strikes Must Be

Decisive, Powell Says; Secretary Says Force Isn’t Only Option in New

Policy,” Washington Post, June 15, 2002, final edition, p. A16. Powell

defends the Israelis’ preemptive strike against Iraqi nuclear capability.

93. Michael Howard, “It’s not so much a war, it’s more like a hunt,”

London Times, October 2, 2001, edition 4M, p. 16.

94. Robert D. Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams

of the Post Cold War, New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2000, calls for

greater integration of intelligence and military capabilities. William M.

Arkin, “The Secret War; Frustrated by Intelligence Failures, the

Defense Department is Dramatically Expanding Its ‘Black World’ of

Covert Operations,” Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2002, home edition,

p. M1, alleges that military and intelligence consolidation is already

taking place entirely within the Defense Department.

95. John J. Hamre and Gordon R. Sullivan, “Toward Postconflict

Reconstruction,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4, Autumn

2002, pp. 85-96.

96. Shai Feldman, “The Bombing of Osiraq-Revisited,”

International Security, Vol. 7, No. 2, autumn 1982, pp. 114-142.

97. Marina Ottaway, “Nation-building,” Foreign Policy,

September/October 2002, pp. 16-24.

47
98. Ted Robert Gurr, “Peoples against States: Ethnopolitical

Conflict and the Changing World System,” International Studies

Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3, September 1994, pp. 347-377.

48
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Robert R. Ivany

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Steven Metz

Author

Dr. D. Robert Worley

Director of Publications

Ms. Marianne P. Cowling

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Ms. Kimberly A. Rockwell