FIGHTING IN THE GRAY ZONE:

A STRATEGY TO CLOSE THE PREEMPTION GAP

Joanne M. Fish

Samuel J. McCraw

Christopher J. Reddish

September 2004
ii

*****

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily refl ect the offi cial policy or position 

of the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, 

or the U.S. Government. This report is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. 

Army War College, 122 Forbes Ave, Carlisle, PA 17013-5244. Copies of this report may be obtained from the Publications 

Offi ce by calling (717) 245-4133, FAX (717) 245-3820, or by e-mail at SSI _Publishing@carlisle.army.mil

*****

All Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) monographs are available on the SSI Homepage for electronic dissemination. SSI’s 

Homepage address is: http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/

*****

The Strategic Studies Institute publishes a monthly e-mail newsletter to update the national security community on 

the research of our analysts, recent and forthcoming publications, and upcoming conferences sponsored by the Institute. 

Each newsletter also provides a strategic commentary by one of our research analysts. If you are interested in receiving this 

newsletter, please let us know by e-mail at outreach@carlisle.army.mil or by calling (717) 245-3133.

ISBN 1-58487-169-5
iii

PREFACE

In the aftermath of 9/11 the Bush administration published the 2002 National Security Strategy. The 

strategy identifi ed the gravest danger to our Nation as the “crossroads of radicalism and technology.” 

By announcing that “America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed,” the 

strategy brought preemption to the forefront of the national security debate.

Three 2003-2004 Harvard National Security Fellows, Commander Joanne Fish, Lieutenant Colonel 

Samuel McCraw, and Colonel Christopher Reddish, argue that, when the National Security Strategy

introduced the strategy of preemption, it simultaneously and unknowingly created a conceptual “gray 

zone” by failing to clarify the substantive difference between “imminent threats” and the “adapted 

imminent threats” identifi ed by the Bush administration. The resulting strategic confusion is most 

problematic when facing the nexus of rogue states, terrorists, and weapons of mass destruction. 

With the desire to bring better clarity to the debate, this Carlisle Paper proposes a new threat 

threshold, called convergent threat convergent threat, for using force against this nexus. Further, the paper recommends , for using force against this nexus. Further, the paper recommends 

employing a strategy of forcible counterproliferation (FCP) as the most effective way to disrupt 

converged threats. Successful implementation of FCP pivots on four things: 1) changing international 

use of force norms, 2) achieving international consensus for the standard of abrogated sovereignty to 

legitimize force against otherwise sovereign states, 3) adopting three sets of trigger points to ascertain 

when a nation has abrogated its sovereignty, thereby opening up the possibility of applying force 

under an FCP strategy, and 4) the administration’s ability to garner both domestic and international 

support for the strategy. The paper concludes with a comprehensive set of recommendations tied to 

adopting the notion of converged threats and employing a strategy of forcible counterproliferation.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this Carlisle Paper as a contribution to the national 

security debate on the doctrine of preemption.

 ANTULIO J. ECHEVARRIA II

 Director of Research

 Strategic Studies Institute 
iv

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

COMMANDER JOANNE MARIE FISH, USN, is a Naval Fleet Support Offi cer who most recently 

commanded Naval Support Activity, Gaeta, Italy. Qualifi ed as a Surface Warfare Offi cer, her other 

assignments included Naval Station, San Diego, Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity Little Creek, 

Naval Submarine Base New London, and USS Yellowstone (AD-41). She also served as an instructor at 

Surface Warfare Offi cer School in Newport, RI, and as a Strategic Planner on the staff of U.S. Atlantic 

Command. She is currently slated for assignment as the Base Support Offi cer, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, 

Portsmouth, VA. Commander Fish is a graduate of the Naval War College, the Armed Forces Staff 

College, and the Defense Language Institute (Italian). She holds a Bachelor of Science in political 

science from the United States Naval Academy and a master’s degree in national security affairs 

(strategic planning) from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. 

LIEUTENANT COLONEL SAMUEL J. MCCRAW, USAF, recently commanded the 76th Space 

Control Squadron, the Air Force’s fi rst counterspace technology demonstration unit. During previous 

assignments, he helped acquire and test multiple cruise missiles as a structures, systems, and fl ight 

test engineer. After transitioning to the space community, Lieutenant Colonel McCraw wrote space 

doctrine and served on the Air Force Space Command Commander’s Action Group. Lieutenant Colonel 

McCraw is currently slated for assignment to Pentagon in the National Security Space Offi ce, Offi ce 

of the Secretary of the Air Force. He is a graduate of the Air Force’s School for Advanced Airpower 

Studies, Test Pilot School, Air War College by correspondence, Air Command and Staff College, and 

the Defense Systems Management College. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in aeronautical 

engineering and a master’s degree in aerospace studies.

COLONEL CHRISTOPHER J. REDDISH, USA, is an infantry offi cer who most recently trained infantry 

battalions for combat at the Joint Readiness Training Center. Prior to this assignment, he commanded 

an infantry battalion in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). He has served in a variety of infantry 

assignments in the United States, Germany, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Colonel Reddish is also a Southeast 

Asian Foreign Affairs Offi cer and has served in the U.S. Embassy Singapore. He is a graduate of the 

Army Command and General Staff College and holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from 

Wheaton College and a master’s in public administration/Asian studies from Cornell University. 

Colonel Reddish is assigned to Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, GA.
v

ABSTRACT

The 2002 National Security Strategy (NSS) rightly identifi ed the proliferation, privatization, and 

acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by terrorist groups and rogue states as the critical 

nontraditional threat of the 21st century.1 However, the NSS argues that in the 21st century, technology 

has advanced and become so readily available that we “must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the 

capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries.”2 This reconceptualization of preemption defi nes the 

core question―What military strategy is appropriate for using force “to act against such emerging threats 

before they are fully formed”?3 We argue preemption is ill-suited for disrupting the converged threat of 

terrorists and rogue states pursuing WMD. Instead, we propose that a forcible counterproliferation (FCP) 

strategy is most effective for fi ghting in the “gray zone.” 

Using the 2002 NSS and the problems associated with justifying the preemptive use of force in Iraq 

as starting points, we examine three questions: 1) How has the threat environment changed since the end 

of the Cold War? 2) If there is a new threat environment, what is the appropriate military strategy for 

that threat? 3) How can the United States justify a new strategy to domestic critics and gain international 

support?

In this paper we defi ne the convergent threat convergent threat as the threshold where there is substantial evidence as the threshold where there is substantial evidence 

of a link between terrorists and rogue states pursuing WMD. Once the linkages have been made, the 

convergent threat becomes a converged threat. We posit the gray zone as the hazy area on the conceptual 

threat continuum between classically defi ned imminent threat and our convergent threat. Available 

military strategies do not address this zone very well.

To determine the most effective military strategy for using force in the gray zone, we evaluate four 

strategies: self-defense, preemption, prevention and forcible counterproliferation. We conclude that FCP, 

unlike prevention, potentially initiates action against a converged threat early enough to provide an 

acceptable likelihood of success, while allowing other instruments of power suffi cient opportunity to 

defuse the situation. Further, FCP manages risk and uncertainty and is the most effective strategy for 

harmonizing operations in the current international framework. 

In summary, success of FCP pivots on the administration’s ability to affect four critical requirements: 

1) garner international and domestic support for the strategy, 2) change international norms to allow force 

against converged threats, 3) adopt three sets of trigger points to ascertain when a nation has abrogated 

its sovereignty, thereby broaching the possibility of applying force under an FCP strategy, and 4) achieve 

international consensus regarding the criteria for abrogated sovereignty which would then legitimize 

military intervention against uncooperative states.

We conclude by offering a comprehensive set of recommendations. First, the National Security 

Council must update the NSS by including the concept of converged threat and the strategy of FCP. 

Second, the Administration should build international and domestic receptivity to FCP. Finally, the 

Department of Defense should resource the strategy of forcible counterproliferation through a variety 

of programs, explained in detail in the paper, which both support and challenge the assumptions of 

Transformation. 

ENDNOTES - ABSTRACT

1. There are many defi nitions of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). For this paper, we use the NSS characterization 

of WMD as including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United 

States of America, Washington, DC: The White House, September 17, 2002, p. 15, April 4, 2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/

nss.html.

2. NSS 15. 

3. NSS Introduction.

1

FIGHTING IN THE GRAY ZONE: A STRATEGY 

TO CLOSE THE PREEMPTION GAP

I. PREEMPTION AS A MILITARY STRATEGY

The aim of this strategy is to help make the world 

not just safer but better.

The National Security Strategy 

of the United States of America1

The 9/11 Effect―A New Strategy.

The terrorist attacks against the World Trade 

Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, 

were a signifi cant emotional event not only for 

the nation and the families of the victims but also 

for the world. President George W. Bush declared 

the attacks acts of war and shortly thereafter 

announced the “war on terrorism.”2 Compelled 

by 9/11, the President’s advisors had to consider 

this emerging terrorist threat when drafting the 

2002 National Security Strategy (NSS). 

Historically, the American response to 

terrorism has been relatively passive. Between 

1983 and 2001 more than 2,500 acts of terrorism 

were directed at America and her citizens, and 

yet the nation only retaliated with military force 

four times and has never used preemptive force 

against terrorists.3 This should be no surprise. 

Prior to 9/11, the United States treated the 

terrorist threat as a law-enforcement problem 

and rarely contemplated the use of military force 

to respond to an attack. Signifi cantly, the 2002 

NSS moves away from fi ghting terrorism with 

law enforcement in favor of employing military 

force to stop the confl uence of rogue states and 

terrorists pursuing weapons of mass destruction 

(WMD). 

So what changed on 9/11? Clearly the 

essential nature of world terrorism changed. 

The administration identifi ed the proliferation, 

privatization, and acquisition of WMD by 

terrorist groups and rogue states as the critical 

nontraditional threat confronting the nation. 

In response, the 2002 NSS adopted the military 

strategy of preemption and in March 2003 President 

Bush ostensibly used preemptive military force to 

remove the threat of WMD from the hands of the 

unscrupulous dictator Saddam Hussein and his 

rogue state. We argue preemption is ill-suited for 

disrupting the converged threat of terrorists and 

rogue states pursuing WMD. Instead, we propose 

that a forcible counterproliferation strategy is 

most effective for fi ghting in the gray zone.

Preemption―A Fundamental Change.

Not since the Cold War nuclear defense 

strategy has the President had to conceive a grand 

strategy to thwart adversaries threatening the 

nation with WMD. The declaration of preemption 

as a national strategy was considered by some 

as the most fundamental reshaping of American 

grand strategy since George Kennan conceived the 

policy of containment in 1947.4 Prior to the war in 

Iraq, the President and his national security team 

conducted a major communications campaign 

to explain the decision to adopt a preemption 

strategy for fi ghting the war on terrorism. At 

major speeches they attempted to introduce and 

defi ne the war on terrorism and the associated 

concepts of preemption, rogue state, imminent 

threat, anticipatory self-defense, and other ideas 

novel to declared national security strategies.

The primary aim of the NSS is to “help make 

the world not just safer but better.”5 The strategy 

provides a list of measures necessary to achieve 

this goal. The measure most relevant to the military 

and the strategy of preemption is to “prevent our 

enemies from threatening us, our allies, and our 

friends, with weapons of mass destruction.”6 And 

while the United States will act unilaterally if 

necessary, the intention is to “strengthen alliances 

to defeat global terrorism and work to prevent 

attacks against us and our friends.”7

The inclusion of preemption drew a great deal 

of attention to the NSS; however, it is important 

to emphasize that preemption is only one element 

of the overall strategy. Clearly the preemptive 

use of force is not the fi rst choice when dealing 

with terrorists and the states that support them. 

Specifi cally the NSS makes the point that “the 
2

United States will not use force in all cases to 

preempt emerging threats.”8 Detractors of the 

NSS often overlook this point.

The 2002 NSS―The Debate Begins.

Publication of the 2002 NSS initiated an 

on-going discussion on the appropriateness of 

preemption as a military strategy to address the 

threat from rogue states and terrorists acquiring 

WMD. Executing the strategy against Iraq in 

March 2003 intensifi es the debate. Specifi cally, the 

use of force against Iraq raises serious questions 

about the international legal construct for the use 

of force, the notion of state sovereignty, and the 

relevance of the United Nations and NATO. 

Much of the scholarly debate is directed at the 

how the administration tries to redefi ne imminent 

threat and preemption. In 1842, Secretary of State 

Daniel Webster authored the classical standard 

for the legal use of preemptive force. According 

to Webster, the right to attack preemptively 

requires “the necessity of that self-defense is 

instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of 

means and no moment of deliberation [and that] 

such an attack be proportional to the threat.”9 The 

NSS argues that in the 21st century, technology 

has advanced and become so readily available 

that we “must adapt the concept of imminent 

threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s 

adversaries.”10 The President said waiting for 

what was traditionally considered imminent is to 

delay too long.11 Thus the administration asserts 

that the current threat environment has changed 

to such a degree that Webster’s aforementioned 

legal standard is too restrictive and no longer 

relevant. 

The incomplete adaptation of the concept of 

imminent threat is the major weakness in the 2002 

NSS. The President’s use of Webster to justify the 

use of preemption against threats that are not 

technically imminent is done in contradistinction 

to Webster’s justifi cation of classical preemption. 

The resulting confusion over the meaning of the 

terms preemption, prevention, and imminent 

threat obscures the debate and intensifi es the 

controversy. This controversy fuels our search for 

a more appropriate method to conceptualize and 

characterize the threat. 

In addition, the Bush administration clearly 

understood that the use of preemptive force 

could be destabilizing to the international 

system. A National Security Council (NSC) staff 

member recounted how the drafters of the NSS 

acknowledged this reality yet decided to advance 

the strategy of preemption for lack of any better fi t. 

The NSC staff was concerned with downstream 

consequences to include the political ramifi cations 

of what the strategy might encourage other actors 

to do.12 However, the staff determined that the 

world already was unstable, and, as the strategy 

unequivocally states, “the United States cannot 

remain idle while danger gathers.”13 Thus, the NSS 

carefully cautions nations that might misconstrue 

American intentions to not “use preemption as a 

pretext for aggression.”14

Our Assessment of the Geostrategic 

Environment.

The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of a 

time of strategic clarity for the United States and 

the beginning of a period of strategic challenges. 

A decade fi lled with diffi cult humanitarian 

interventions passed while security experts vainly 

attempted to assess the next threat rightly. In the 

waning years of the 20th century, terrorist activity 

intensifi ed globally, and yet no one accurately 

predicted the cataclysmic events of 9/11. 

Afterward, American strategists were thrust into a 

war-like environment without a clear recognition 

of our national interests, threats to those interests, 

and a strategy for defeating those threats. In a 

quixotic manner, war often serves to motivate 

states to fi nd strategic direction. It certainly has for 

the United States, as pundits, scholars, and thinktanks scurry to discover an effective strategy for 

dealing with the new threat.

Since 9/11, the United States has grappled 

with understanding the threat of global terrorism 

and the associated geostrategic environment. 

Several general observations or realizations tend 

to dominate the research today. First, the current 

international legal framework relies heavily on 

sovereign, rational actors working out disputes 

through consensual supranational organizations 
3

under rules initially posited hundreds of years 

ago. It is clear that terrorists and rogue states 

aggressively exploit seams in these legacy 

statutes, leveraging in their favor the ill-defi ned 

ways responsible states may employ force today. 

Second, the use of force against Iraq in March 

2003 under the justifi cation of preemption 

accelerated the debate as to whether or not the 

UN Charter-sanctioned use of force paradigm 

is outdated for the new war on terrorism. The 

following are just a few of the multifaceted 

questions that challenge the problematic charter, 

specifi cally Article 51:

• If a state is fi ghting a war against terrorism, 

must it declare war on another state?

• Can states declare war on a nonstate actor?

• Can states use preemptive force to deny 

WMD proliferation? If so, is regime change 

a proportional response?

• Can a state violate another state’s 

sovereignty to attack terrorists pursuing 

WMD?

• Has the UN Charter outlived its 

usefulness? 

Third, there seems to be a general consensus 

that a WMD attack is the gravest threat facing 

the United States today. Given the portability of 

certain types of WMD, the possibility of a terrorist 

group infi ltrating the United States and detonating 

a bomb is very real. Moreover, the reaction time 

available to stop such an attack is likely to be 

days or hours instead of months. The destructive 

magnitude of available weapons, the limited 

reaction time, and the porosity of American 

borders combine to make WMD a critical issue 

that must be dealt with now. 

The Way Ahead - Three Questions

We agree with the NSS that the threat 

environment has signifi cantly changed since the 

end of the Cold War. However, as the forgoing 

analysis suggests, preemption is not the best 

strategy for combatting the nontraditional threat 

identifi ed by the administration. Many wonder 

whether or not the Bush Administration is really 

advocating preventive war veiled by preemption. 

We see this as a rhetorical debate that takes the 

focus away from the real strategic issue. Hence 

we developed a methodology to analyze this 

strategic conundrum and a new analytical tool for 

depicting the relationship between the threat and 

use of force. We then use our analytical tool, the 

2002 NSS, and the challenges of using preemption 

in Iraq to answer the following questions:

1. How has the threat environment changed 

since the end of the Cold War?

2. If there is a new threat environment, what 

is the appropriate military strategy for that 

threat environment?

3. How can the United States justify a new 

strategy to domestic critics and gain international support?

II. THE GRAY ZONE 

On the security front, international terrorism is 

not only a threat to peace and stability. It also 

has the potential to exacerbate cultural, religious, 

and ethnic dividing lines. And the war against 

terrorism can sometimes aggravate those tensions, 

as well as raising concerns about the protection of 

human rights and civil liberties. 

—Kofi Annan15

International Law in Today’s Context.

The administration’s preemption strategy 

sparked extensive debate. Unfortunately, 

most deliberations focus on the wrong issues. 

Supporters and detractors alike fail to capture the 

fundamental problem with applying the classical 

notions of preemption and prevention to defeat the 

contemporary threat of terrorists and rogue states 

pursuing WMD. In developing a military strategy 

to defeat this complex threat, the President is 

mired in an outmoded consensual international 

legal structure that lacks enforcement authority, 

suffers from imprecise concepts, and is unable to 

adapt to changing realities. 

In this section we lay out existing international 

principles for use of force and describe and 

justify what we call the gray zone as a way of 
4

characterizing the new threat. We then develop 

a theoretical heuristic diagram to study the 

interaction of threat and use of force. Finally, we 

posit a construct for depicting the use of force in 

today’s international environment.

By proposing to “act against such emerging 

threats before they are fully formed”16 the NSS 

refl ects an apparent administration belief that 

current international law on use of force is unsuited 

for managing the changing threat environment. 

President Bush is particularly concerned with 

disrupting the “crossroads of radicalism and 

technology,”17 to stop WMD proliferation to rogue 

states and terrorists. 

Contemporary international law is built on 

a foundation of writings, customs, and treaties 

dating back more than a millennium. Following 

the horror of World War II and a complete 

disillusionment with the ability of existing 

nation-state rules to control expansionistic state 

behavior, the international community set up 

the United Nations as a supranational body 

to restrain aggressive states. Signatories were 

allowed to apply unilateral military force only 

in self-defense; all other actions required UN 

authorization.18 Coercion of other nations under 

the threat of military action was also declared offlimits.19 Specifi cally, the UN Charter precludes the 

use of preemptive military force.

Most writings reference Daniel Webster’s 

1842 letter to the British government to illustrate 

when use of preemptive military force is allowed. 

Michael Walzer equates this preemptive form 

of self-defense to raising your arm to block an 

oncoming blow, or in other words, an imminent 

threat.20 Douglas Lovelace points out that 

imminent threat is a diffi cult concept to grasp 

because of the variability in defi nitions and 

subjectivity in assessing threat. He proposes using 

the term “imminent attack” since it is “fairly 

straightforward—it is an event that will occur 

absent intervention.”21 His point is well made 

and helps to better illustrate Webster’s vision 

of when preemption is allowed. However, to 

take advantage of accepted terminology, we will 

continue to use the term “imminent threat.” 

Defi ning Terms.

As the preceding discussion demonstrates, 

the lack of commonly understood core terms 

hinders the scholarly debate about preemption 

and imminent threat. Therefore, we advance the 

following standardized defi nitions for use in this 

paper: 

Threat. An expression of an enemy’s intention 

to infl ict evil, injury, or damage with suffi cient 

capability to make those intentions realistic, and 

realistic estimate of reaction time prior to the 

attack (four elements of a threat: actor + intent + 

capability + reaction time). The threat level grows 

with increasing hostility from an enemy, an 

expanding enemy capability, and an approaching 

attack.22

Self-Defense. Use of force in response to a 

hostile act or armed attack.23

Imminent threat. A threat where reaction time 

must be near instantaneous.24

Preemptive use of force (classical 

preemption). Use of force initiated on the basis of 

incontrovertible evidence that an enemy attack is 

imminent.25

Preventive use of force (classical prevention). 

Use of force initiated in the belief that military 

confl ict, while not imminent, is inevitable, and 

that to delay would involve greater risk.26

Adapting Imminent Threat to Expose the “Gray 

Zone.”

Existing classical strategies for the application 

of military force to counter a threat are illustrated 

in Figure 1. The top horizontal line represents a 

continuum of potential threats against a state with 

the threat level ranging from low to high. At the 

far left is the lowest threat threshold, an invented 

threat fabricated by a state to justify aggression 

of choice. Progressing to the right of the invented 

threat is the next threshold of classical imminent 

threat. The highest threat threshold is enemy 

attack in progress at the far right. Below the 

threat thresholds on the next horizontal line are 

the classical use of force responses available to a 

threatened state beginning with naked aggression 
5

at the far left in response to an invented threat. 

Once a threat becomes more inevitable than 

invented, the line is crossed into the wide expanse 

of classical prevention responses until reaching 

the classical imminent threat threshold. At that 

point, a state applies military force as classical 

preemption. The fi nal reaction to an armed attack 

is a self-defense military strategy.27 This simple 

diagram points out how classical use of force 

options emphasize reaction time over the other 

three threat elements to classify offensive military 

action. 

Figure 1 includes a horizontal line across the 

bottom with a new threat threshold created to 

portray the administration’s concept for adapted 

imminent threat. Adapted imminent threat is 

defi ned more broadly than classical imminent 

threat to capture President Bush’s concern 

that if “we wait for threats to fully materialize, 

we will have waited too long.”28 Under this 

construct, preemptive actions may occur sooner 

as threats develop lower on the emerging threat 

continuum. 

By diagramming these concepts, we expose 

what we call the gray zone to portray the expansion 

in the area on the threat continuum suitable for 

preemptive action. While we will continue to 

refi ne the heuristic diagram, we initially defi ne 

the gray zone as the hazy threat expanse between 

classically defi ned imminent threat and adapted 

imminent threat. Signifi cantly, the gray zone 

exists today; it existed prior to publication of the 

NSS. But it was the administration’s incomplete 

defi nition of adapted imminent threat that hinders 

our nation’s ability to quantify threats and justify 

use of force. To comprehend fully the essence of 

the gray zone, it is worthwhile to expound upon 

the threat elements that make it a reality.

Elements of the Threat in the Gray Zone.

Regardless of how they view the strategy 

of preemption, most analysts, supporters, and 

naysayers seem to agree that relationships 

between actors on the international scene have 

changed in recent years, coincident with the 

changing threat. The NSS identifi es a specifi c and 

generally accepted threat further expounded by 

National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice:

We will . . . confront aggressive tyrants holding or 

seeking nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons 

that might be passed to terrorist allies. These are 

different faces of the same evil. Terrorists need a 

place to plot, train, and organize. Tyrants allied 

with terrorists can greatly extend the reach of their 

deadly mischief. Terrorists allied with tyrants can 

acquire technologies allowing them to murder on 

an ever more massive scale. Each threat magnifi es 

the danger of the other. And the only path to 

safety is to effectively confront both terrorists and 

tyrants.29

Figure 1. National Security Strategy Use of Force Responses.

���������

��������

������

����������

�����������

����������

�����������

����� ���� �������

����������

������ ����� ������� ������� ���������� � �������� �����

��� ����

���������� ���� ���� ���������� ���� ���� ���� �������

�������

��������

������

��������

������

�����

������

�����

����������

���� ����

��������

������

�����

������
6

This statement summarizes the administration’s 

description of what we view as a converging 

threat of global terror organizations supported by 

rogue nations and armed with the world’s most 

dangerous weapons.

Many falsely attack the preemption strategy 

because they incorrectly presume its universal 

application to all threat situations. Yet the 

administration in the 2002 NSS imposed a 

restrictive set of guidelines to initiate preemptive 

force. The NSS identifi es two primary actors in 

this terror-focused threat, terrorists and rogue 

states, and provides concise descriptions of both 

to reduce the list of potential targetable states and 

organizations. 

Threat Actor: Terrorists.

The NSS calls terrorism “premeditated, 

politically motivated violence perpetrated against 

innocents.”30 Secretary of State Colin Powell adds 

additional delineation and provides insight to the 

intent of these actors: “The civilized world has 

spent more than a thousand years trying to limit 

the destructiveness of war. Drawing a distinction 

between civilians and combatants has been an 

essential part of this process. But terrorism aims 

to erase that distinction.”31

The international community continues 

to struggle with how to defi ne terrorism and 

terrorists because many believe one man’s terrorist 

is another’s freedom fi ghter.32 This lack of common 

thinking prevents agreement on how to manage 

these threats. However, the Bush administration 

suffers no such ambiguity.33 Deputy Secretary 

of Defense Paul Wolfowitz points out how it is 

fl awed thinking to assume “that terrorism is an 

evil but a manageable evil, one that we can deal 

with by the weak deterrence of legal punishment 

and occasional retaliation.”34

Threat Actor: Rogue States.

In the NSS, the administration identifi ed the 

second primary actor in the terror-focused threat 

with a fi ve-part description of rogue states. These 

are states with governments that:

• brutalize their own people and squander 

their national resources for the personal 

gain of the rulers; 

• display no regard for international law, 

threaten their neighbors, and callously 

violate international treaties to which they 

are party; 

• are determined to acquire WMD, along 

with other advanced military technology, 

to be used as threats or offensively to 

achieve the aggressive designs of these 

regimes; 

• sponsor terrorism around the globe; and, 

• reject basic human values and hate the 

United States and everything for which it 

stands. 35

While this list is fairly comprehensive, it can 

be highly subjective. The NSS is unclear on who 

applies these criteria and how they are evaluated 

and tracked. It is also unclear how the rest of the 

international community is expected to react to a 

set of rogue state attributes that are specifi cally 

defi ned for U.S. interests. However, it is important 

to note that each attribute provides perceptive 

insight to the intent of the rogue state leadership.

Threat Capability: WMD.

The fi nal element of the threat defi ned by 

the NSS is the potential for terrorists and rogue 

states to pursue WMD. In multiple speeches and 

writings, key administration offi cials expound on 

the menace of these “weapons of mass murder”36

falling into the wrong hands. Undersecretary of 

Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith humanized the 

threat: 

When we looked at the 9/11 attack, and we saw 

that the terrorists were able to kill 3,000 people, 

one of the fi rst thoughts that struck us was these 

are people who are willing, the terrorists, to kill as 

many people as they possibly can. And if they had 

access to biological weapons or nuclear weapons 

they would have been happy to kill 10 times, 

100 times, 1,000 times the number of people that 

they killed in New York and Washington and 

Pennsylvania on 9/11.37
7

As this quote reveals, the Administration is 

particularly concerned when these three threat 

components (WMD, terrorists, rogue states) 

converge to become a “dangerous confl uence.”38

Figure 2 diagrams this convergence, what we call 

the converged threat. 

The Missing Threat Elements.

The administration has focused primarily on 

two of the four threat elements; the threat actors 

(rogue states, terrorists) and capabilities (WMD). 

To a point, actor intent can be deduced from a 

fundamental understanding of actor identity. 

Nonetheless, what are the essential characteristics 

Rogue State

Terrorists WMD

Converged Threat

Figure 2. Threat Convergence Diagram.

for the two remaining elements, intent, and, in 

particular, reaction time? Are these elements 

germane to defi ning the gray zone? We’ll 

demonstrate the importance of these remaining 

elements and their relationship to the gray zone 

below. 

The UN Charter relies exclusively on reaction 

time to justify the use of force. Even more, 

as previously shown in Figure 2, the Charter 

relates to only that limited portion of the use 

of force response timeline pertaining to selfdefense and debatably, preemption. The UN 

Charter essentially ignores variability in actor 

types, intent, and capabilities. It was written 

with the tacit assumption that the large number 

of signatories promotes global and regional 

stability. The founders believed the principals of 

sovereignty and non-intervention would diminish 

the need to resort to unilateral force. Theoretically, 

the collective strength of the UN should outweigh 

any power disparities at local levels, enhancing 

the sovereignty of weaker states.

Grievously, however, rogue state and 

terrorist access to WMD, particularly nuclear 

weapons, signifi cantly upsets the stability the 

UN is designed to protect. A rogue state or its 

terrorist parasites can rapidly grow from a limited 

irritant to a regional threat, wielding considerable 

infl uence. For terrorists, acquiring WMD allows 

a dramatic escalation in the ongoing trend of 

infl icting greater non-combatant casualties per 

attack.39

Predicting long-term changes to international 

stability and state relations is highly suspect and 

error-prone given the unchecked proliferation of 

WMD. Hence our conclusion is that attempting to 

characterize intent and reaction time for threats in 

the gray zone is problematic, highly inaccurate, 

and potentially very dangerous.

Threat Reaction Time: Unable to Estimate WMD 

Maturity.

The inability to predict accurately how quickly 

rogue state and nonstate actors can convert 

research into useable weapons makes estimates 

on the effectiveness of managing expansion of 

the threat highly suspect and adds credence 

to the existence of the gray zone. In the past 

18 months, North Korea, Iran, and Libya have 

admitted to nuclear programs extending back 

years, all more mature than the United States 

originally suspected.40 Equally problematic was 

the international community’s incapacity to 

ascertain Iraqi WMD program maturity level 

not only in 1991, but also in 2003 after years of 

inspections and relentless intelligence focus. It 

becomes highly problematic for the international 

community to determine when the classical use 

of force is justifi ed to control such a looming 
8

threat. Unlike many other weapons, an actor’s 

mere ability to produce WMD is destabilizing. 

Dealing with these threats requires a new thought 

process. 

Figure 3 diagrams a very simplistic and 

notional WMD production program. As a 

rogue state begins acquiring components for 

a WMD weapon, another actor, probably a 

terrorist organization, simultaneously builds a 

human network. During the process, the three 

threat components converge at what we call the 

convergent threat threshold, and the gray zone 

becomes reality. A convergent threat threshold is 

crossed even though the forces (terrorists) and the 

weapons (WMD) have not physically linked up 

for transport to the target. Weapon delivery and 

employment can be as simple as a ship carrying a 

suicide bomber with a dirty bomb to a U.S. port. 

Threat Intent: Deterrence is Inadequate.

For threats in the gray zone, the coercive 

power of retaliatory force to deter use of WMD 

is defi cient. Implicit in the self-defense provisions 

of the UN Charter are not only a strong emphasis 

on sovereignty and nonintervention, but a less 

obvious belief that the collective power of UN 

members provide a coercion safety net for those 

facing stronger, more aggressive neighbors. While 

President Bush affi rms the utility of deterrence 

in some current situations, he believes it to be 

inadequate against unbalanced dictators and 

nonstate actors such as terrorists.41

Successful deterrence is based on the coercive 

value of potential pain that militarily strong states 

can infl ict against rational actors. Yet the lack 

of an address, infrastructure, and centralized 

leadership nodes make coercion against terrorist 

organizations diffi cult. Deterrence against rogue 

states is more complicated. The rogue state 

leadership need only make a simple tradeoff 

assessment between the value of employing 

WMD and the potential destruction infl icted by a 

U.S. response. While it is reasonable to assume the 

United States could coerce a dictator from openly 

using WMD, poor enforcement of treaties do little 

to discourage WMD proliferation from rogue 

states to terrorist networks.42

For deterrence to work in the gray zone, 

the United States must change the focus from 

deterring a WMD attack to deterring WMD 

acquisition. Referring to Figure 3, the United 

States needs to shift the focus of deterrence away 

from imminent threat on the right edge of the 

gray zone to convergent threat on the left. Only 

then will the United States effectively deter WMD 

acquisition and proliferation.

Figure 3. Notional WMD Acquisition Program.

����� �� ���������� �������� ��������� �����������

����

�������

���� ����

���������� �������

���������� ������

��������� �������� ������

����� ���

����������

���������

���

������

������ ���� ������

�� ������

�������

������ ��

������

����� ������ �������

������

��� ������ ����� ������� ������� ���������� � �������� ����� ����

����� ���������� ����� ������

���������� ����������� ����������

�����������
9

The Gray Zone Finalized.

Managing the actor and capability-based 

threat of the gray zone by using reaction-time 

military strategies is unsound. To better illustrate 

this conclusion, we revisit our gray zone heuristic 

diagrams. Figure 4 provides a more complete 

portrayal of the converged threat of rogue 

states and terrorists pursuing WMD. The center 

crosshatched area is where the threats converge to 

form the gray zone. Reaction time grows smaller 

the closer the threat moves to the center of the 

diagram. Superimposed on the diagram are the 

classical use of force options to show the relative 

advantages and disadvantages of the various 

military strategies. Note how small an area of the 

converged threat is encompassed by classical use 

of preemptive force and self-defense. Reaction 

time is very limited. Conversely, preventive use of 

force is much more permissive and reaction time 

is basically unconstrained. 

Figure 4 also shows how prevention 

encompasses all potential threat components 

and possibly leads to the conclusion it is the most 

effective strategy. Under prevention, states attack 

rivals to avert a future force disparity resulting in a 

power shift. However, inability to estimate WMD 

maturity and the potential for instantaneous

Rogue State

Terrorists WMD

Gray Zone

(Converged Threat)

Prevention

Preemption

(Imminent Threat) Self 

Defense

Figure 4. Converged Threat Diagram.

power shifts forestall accurate discrimination of 

the converged threat from other threats. It is not 

possible for a state to prevent a future power shift 

that cannot be accurately estimated.

���� ���� �������� ���� ��� ����������� � ������������� ����� ����� � ������������� ������ � ����������� ��������� ������ � ������ ������ ��������� � ���������� �� ��������� �����������

������ ����� ������� ������� ���������� � �������� ����� ��� ����

���� ����

���������� �������

������ �������

� ������ � ����� ���� � ��������� ������ � ���� � ����� ������

���������� ���������� ���� �������

����������

������

��������

������

����� ������

�����

����������

�������� �������� �

���������

��������

������

��������

������

���������� ��������������������� �����������

�����

������

���� ������� �����

����������

������ �����������

� ������

� ����� ����

Figure 5. Converged Threat and the Gray Zone.
10

Figure 5 is an update of the original gray zone 

diagram. It now lists important changes in the 

geostrategic environment that make managing 

the converged threat region more diffi cult and 

identifi es the need for a unique military strategy to 

address the gray zone. It also replaces the adapted 

imminent threat threshold on the left-most 

boundary of the gray zone with a more accurately 

defi ned threshold called the convergent threat.

Convergent Threat Convergent Threat is the threshold where is the threshold where 

substantial evidence of collusion exists between 

terrorists and rogue states in pursuit of WMD. 

Gray Zone is an area on the continuum of 

threats bordered by the thresholds of convergent 

threat and imminent threat where there is 

a convergence of rogue states and terrorist 

organizations pursuing WMD.

Defi ning the gray zone by delineating the 

convergent threat threshold illuminates a 

signifi cant shortfall in the current NSS. The 

administration’s attempt to adapt imminent 

threat and classical preemption to disrupt what 

is actually the converged threat neglects the 

fundamental changes in the threat components. 

Likewise, these changes create considerable risk 

and uncertainty in the geostrategic environment 

as Figure 5 indicates. For instance, as rogue states 

abrogate their rights to protection as nation-states, 

doing so will cause the international community to 

question conventional sovereignty while nonstate 

terrorist organizations gain infl uence in governed 

and ungoverned regions. And problematically, 

the use of force against the converged threat could 

portend unrest from potential regime changes and 

installed democracies. 

International Legal Seam.

The established use of force construct is out of 

date, unintentionally sanctioning an exploitable 

legal seam. In 1945 the United Nations created 

a consensual use of force legal construct to 

preclude interstate war between sovereign states 

to ensure their territorial security. Use of force 

was only legitimate in response to armed attack. 

We now live in a nonconsensual international 

community that includes rogue states willing to 

use terrorism and unconventional weapons both 

intrastate and interstate to infl ict catastrophic evil 

on noncombatants with little or no warning. Only 

by recognizing this seam can the international 

community attempt to close it. 

Conceptual Propositions.43

Trigger Points.

The NSS provides a comprehensive list of 

rogue state attributes but then sidesteps important 

issues such as how to apply the criteria, how to 

identify and track rogue states, and when use of 

force is authorized. To rectify these shortfalls, 

we develop conceptual thresholds, or trigger 

points, for each of the three components of the 

converged threat. Only when all three threat 

trigger points are crossed is the use of force 

sanctioned (represented by the crosshatched 

triangle in Figure 4). It is important to ensure no 

single threshold inadvertently or prematurely 

instigates military force. With the limited utility 

of estimating reaction time for threats in the gray 

zone, there is no proposed trigger point directly 

related to threat timelines. 

Rogue States Trigger Point (Actor and Intent).

The administration’s set of attributes for 

identifying rogue states is overly expansive and 

U.S.-centric. A more internationally relevant set of 

attributes are rogue states that:

• Brutalize their own people and squander 

their national resources for the personal 

gain of the rulers, 

• Display no regard for international law, 

threaten their neighbors, and violate 

international treaties to which they are 

party,

• Are determined to use military force to 

achieve their aggressive designs, and

• Reject basic human values.

States that violate these criteria cross the rogue 

state trigger point.
11

Terrorists Trigger Point (Actor and Intent).

In the aftermath of 9/11, the UN Security 

Council passed Resolution 1373, a strongly 

worded condemnation of terrorism containing 

relevant trigger-point criteria. Recognizing that 

acts of “international terrorism constitute a 

threat to international peace and security,” the 

Council declared “every state has the duty to 

refrain from organizing, instigating, assisting, 

or participating in terrorist acts in another state 

or acquiescing in organized activities within its 

territory directed towards the commission of 

such acts.” The resolution then listed specifi c acts 

states should avoid to include “providing any 

form of support, active or passive, to entities or 

persons involved in terrorist acts, including by 

suppressing recruitment of members of terrorist 

groups and eliminating the supply of weapons to 

terrorists.”44 Resolution 1373 provides consistent 

and comprehensive trigger point criteria to 

determine whether a state is supporting terrorist 

organizations. States that violate these criteria 

cross the terrorist trigger point. 

WMD Acquisition Program Trigger Point 

(Capability).

Developing trigger points for a WMD 

acquisition program is complex. Chemical, 

biological, and nuclear programs require unique 

thresholds. To postulate specifi c trigger criteria 

for each type of WMD weapon is beyond the 

scope of this research. Furthermore, instantaneous 

proliferation gives rogue states and terrorists 

access to WMD without the need for a development 

program.45 Hence, WMD trigger points must rely 

on nontraditional criteria to determine when a 

specifi c weapon type threshold is about to be 

crossed. Most importantly though, capabilitiesbased criteria cannot be used as the sole criteria 

for applying military force; the potential for errorprone action is too high. States that violate these 

criteria cross the WMD trigger point.

Trigger Points—Who Decides?

Evaluating trigger point status and initiating 

action falls to the President of the United States. 

However, as the events in post-war Iraq and 

criticisms of the NSS demonstrate, using force 

without international buy-in imposes costs 

that may negate short-term combat gains. The 

United States will never relinquish its right 

to self-protection. However, accommodating 

international oversight for managing threats in 

the gray zone reinforces cooperation with our 

allies. The United States must continue to lead 

diplomatic efforts to identify states that relinquish 

their right to full sovereignty. 

Abrogated Sovereignty.

To close the previously identifi ed legal seams, 

the UN should classify nations that breach all three 

identifi ed trigger points as abrogated sovereignty 

states. However, the United States must now 

engage UN signatories to fi nalize and approve the 

parameters for abrogated sovereignty and develop 

a process for implementation. Closing these seams 

requires international recognition of the changed 

geopolitical environment and the need to modify 

traditional concepts of sovereignty. 

The trigger points above are suffi cient to 

identify states that have abrogated their sovereign 

responsibilities and thereby are subject to UN 

Security Council-sanctioned military intervention. 

There is no requirement to apply force, only an 

international recognition that force is authorized. 

It is important to stress that abrogated sovereignty 

applies only to those states that have crossed all 

three trigger points. Only when responsible 

states point out such unscrupulous state behavior 

will international support coalesce around this 

proposition.

With existence of the gray zone a reality and 

the potential for maturation of the converged 

threat substantial, developing a military strategy 

to deal with this threat is imperative. The 

remainder of the paper defi nes, compares, and 

contrasts strategies for applying military force in 

the gray zone. 
12

III. DEVELOPING A STRATEGY TO FILL THE 

GAP

We have no diffi culty in principle with focused 

military action being taken against international 

terrorists and those who harbour them. But 

military power should always be exercised in 

a principled way, and the principles of right 

intention, last resort, proportional means and 

reasonable prospects outlined in our report are, on 

the face of it, all applicable to such action. 

International Commission on 

Intervention and State Sovereignty46

Present strategic efforts to prevent terrorists 

and rogue states from obtaining and using 

WMD cross many fronts: diplomatic, economic, 

intelligence, law enforcement, and defense. 

Many of these initiatives have overlapping 

objectives, priorities, and capabilities but lack 

the harmonization needed to make the efforts 

effective. As the preceding analysis of the gray 

zone evinces, the United States needs a properly 

crafted grand strategy to maximize military 

effectiveness against the converged threat. We 

maintain the conceptualization of a modifi ed 

preemptive strategy to fi ght the threat identifi ed 

in the NSS does not go far enough. However, the 

document does set a very important limitation on 

the use of force. Specifi cally it says, “the United 

States will not use force in all cases to preempt 

emerging threats . . . We will always proceed 

deliberately, weighing the consequences of our 

actions.”47 Whatever strategy the United States 

selects must conform to this limitation. 

Strategy Guidance.

Obviously, national goals and aims must 

inform the development of military strategy. 

To divide the two is to dismiss the war-proven 

necessity of subjugating military strategy to 

political objectives. For this research, however, 

we did not have access to the classifi ed National 

Military Strategy. Nonetheless, we were able to 

seek political direction from other strategies 

written for the Global War on Terrorism. From 

these related documents, we were able to deduce 

fairly precisely what the President needs the 

military to do. His guidance is summarized 

below:

• Do not rely solely on a reactive posture as 

we have in the past.48

• Stop terrorist attacks against the United 

States, its citizens, its interests, and our 

friends and allies around the world. Create 

an international environment inhospitable 

to terrorists and all those who support 

them. Act simultaneously on four fronts:

– Defeat terrorists and their organizations.

– Deny sponsorship, support, and 

sanctuary to terrorists.

– Diminish the underlying conditions 

terrorists seek to exploit.

– Defend U.S. citizens and interests at 

home and abroad.49

• Do not permit the world’s most dangerous 

regimes and terrorists to threaten us with 

WMD.50

• Deny terrorists access and use of WMD.51

Clearly any effort to fi nd a best-fi t strategy 

must support these core war aims.

Strategy Options.

What is the best strategy for the converged 

threat? Current threats have changed so that they 

no longer come from great armies whose efforts to 

mass forces provide detectable actions that states 

can preempt. Instead, today’s threat operates in 

the shadows and can emerge instantaneously. 

Self-defense seems incapable of dealing with these 

uncertain risks by acting too late. Yet equally 

problematic, these uncertain threats could lead 

the United States to take action earlier than what 

is legitimately allowed by the classical defi nition 

of preemption. It is prudent, therefore, to compare 

three classical strategies and one hypothesized 

strategy to fi nd the best-fi t option to combat 

converged threats. For analytical purposes, we 

defi ne the four strategies as follows:

Self-Defense. Use of force in response to a 

hostile act or armed attack.52
13

Preemptive use of force. Use of force initiated 

on the basis of incontrovertible evidence that an 

enemy attack is imminent.53

Preventive use of force. Use of force initiated 

in the belief that military confl ict, while not 

imminent, is inevitable, and that to delay would 

involve greater risk.54

Forcible counterproliferation (FCP). Use of 

force in response to a convergent threat where 

there is substantial evidence of collusion between 

terrorists and rogue states in pursuit of WMD. 

While there is not incontrovertible evidence of an 

imminent attack, to delay taking action would be 

irresponsible.

Framework For Strategy Analysis.

Some might conclude that the United States 

cannot logically fi ght a self-defense, preemptive 

or preventive war against a converged threat. 

Furthermore, such a conclusion may encourage 

critics to suggest any comparative framework 

we propose is biased in favor of forcible 

counterproliferation. We caution that to do so is 

a premature judgment of the strategy. Bernard 

Brodie in “War and Politics” asserts strategy 

analysis is always signifi cant because “the 

reasoning processes by which conclusions are 

reached are better than intuition. The objectivity 

adopted in such comparisons is more open, 

explicit, can be corrected, and, importantly, helps 

to reduce biases.”55 Brodie suggests, “strategy 

analysis does not always give answers—it will 

sharpen our receptivity to appropriate insights 

about specifi c strategic problems.”56 Such is our 

purpose here. Simply, we are looking for what 

works against the converged threat and how well 

the best strategy is prepared to deal with residual 

uncertainty.57

Evaluating Military Strategies.

The remainder of this section is a theoretical 

analysis of the strategies. First, we identify a 

cross section of criteria needed to cover the full 

spectrum of criticisms of the 2002 NSS while 

adequately accounting for all four of the threat 

elements already discussed. To sharpen our focus, 

we defi ne eight comparative criteria captured in 

Criterion Title Description

1. Stops WMD 

Attacks

(pass/fail criteria)

Does the strategy have a high probability of stopping terroristinitiated WMD attack on the United 

States, its allies and interests? Evaluating against this criterion requires 

consideration of all components of a 

threat including the level of hostile 

intent, status of WMD capabilities 

for each of the adversary actors, and 

estimated timeline to an attack. This 

criterion must be met for a strategy 

to be considered feasible.

2. Maximizes Force 

Flexibility

Does the strategy allow suffi cient 

fl exibility in use of force to utilize 

all appropriate elements of the 

military?

3. Employs substantive 

trigger points

Does the strategy successfully 

utilize trigger points for all three 

components of the converged 

threat? Trigger points are defi ned as 

thresholds for potentially initiating 

military action for each of the three 

threat components of the converged 

threat.

4. Minimizes 

unintended 

consequences

Does the strategy allow accurate 

assessments of the threat components to reduce the likelihood of 

physical, political, economic, and 

political unintended consequences 

when implemented? Success at the 

criterion requires accurate, convincing knowledge of all the threat 

components to reduce potential for 

initiating military action against the 

wrong actors or targets.

5. Sustains 

popular will

Does the strategy have a high probability of gaining popular domestic 

support? Success at the criterion requires accurate, convincing 

knowledge of all components of the 

threat to strengthen justifi cation for 

dealing with an adversary.

6. Respects responsible 

sovereignty

Does the strategy respect the sovereignty of those nations acting as 

responsible sovereign states? Each 

strategy is evaluated against current 

defi nitions and then against recommended abrogated sovereignty 

designations.

7. Maximizes likelihood 

of multilateral support 

and action

Does the strategy encourage coalition building and reduce likelihood 

of having to act unilaterally before, 

during, and after a confl ict? Success 

at the criterion requires accurate, 

convincing knowledge of all the 

threat components to strengthen 

justifi cation for dealing with an 

adversary.

Table 1. Criteria Defi nitions for Strategy 

Evaluations.
14

Table 1 based on our refi nement of anticipated 

strategy requirements, our analysis of the 

criticisms of the 2002 NSS, and the war in Iraq. 

Each starts with a lead-in question to defi ne the 

criteria focus and progresses to a description of 

that focus.58

Next, we evaluate the four strategies against 

the eight criteria enabling us to capture substantive 

analytical conclusions. From these conclusions, we 

deduce numerous conceptual propositions that 

enable us to posit forcible counterproliferation 

as the best strategy for combating the converged 

threat. We then amplify the analysis by subjecting 

the four strategies to a hypothetical case study 

comparison.

We acknowledge forcible counterproliferation 

as a strategic concept is untested by practice, 

and, as such, our ability to deduce meaningful 

conclusions is constrained. Whereas some may 

suggest the war in Iraq is an example of FCP and 

should serve as a case study, we would disagree. 

For proof, they might say the United States was 

only focused on stopping a rogue state with 

WMD from surreptitiously transferring these 

weapons to international terrorists for use against 

America. However, this implication misses the 

point that the convergence of the Iraqi threat 

was never clearly established. Such an a posteriori

contention overlooks the nature of the threat and 

the distinctive qualities that differentiate FCP 

from the other strategies, specifi cally prevention. 

The analysis that follows will make those 

distinguishing characteristics and differences 

clear.

Furthermore, we contend the theoretical 

analysis is benefi cial for four other reasons: 1) 

by isolating strategic requirements we tend to 

prescribe more what FCP should be, not what it 

is; 2) we fl esh out otherwise overlooked necessary 

assumptions; and, 3) we come to understand how 

diplomacy must shape the strategic environment 

to enable FCP. Also, we gain some insight into 

how sensitive each of the four strategies is to 

the eight different decision factors. By following 

this methodology, we will later be able to 

postulate a set of conceptual propositions to 

highlight the differentiating characteristics of 

each strategy, specifi cally FCP. We conclude 

by positing a complete description of forcible 

counterproliferation strategy. 

Decision Criteria Judgments.

1) Most effectively stops WMD attacks (pass/

fail criteria). FCP most effectively stops WMD 

attacks by using force to defeat and disrupt a 

motivated actor, not when an attack becomes 

imminent but when the threat has converged. The 

decision to act is based on an assessment of actor 

status, predetermined capability trigger points, 

risk analysis of reaction time, and determination 

of credible intentions. Prevention mistakenly 

acts too soon and too often and is unacceptable 

as a strategy. Preemption must wait until 

incontrovertible evidence is available, yielding 

too much time to an actor; the risks simply 

outweigh the cost of waiting. It is too late to act 

in self-defense once an actor detonates a surprise 

bomb of catastrophic proportions. We reject for 

two reasons the self-defense argument that says 

by drawing down American activities abroad, we 

reduce anti-American sentiment in the hopes such 

a move may reduce the chance of a WMD attack 

here in the United States.59 First, hope as a means 

of defense is too risky; and second, the destructive 

potential of the threat undermines this notion. 

2) Maximizes force fl exibility. FCP effectively 

uses HUMINT/espionage, linguists, special 

operations forces/special mission units (SOF/

SMU), and additional infantry to identify 

trigger points early to gain additional fl exibility 

against the converged threat.60 By necessity, 

FCP initiates a fundamental review of the 

assumptions underlying Transformation. In 

8. Denies legal seams How successfully does the strategy 

prevent exploitation of seams in the 

international legal system by terrorists and rogue states? The criterion 

requires appraising strategy effectiveness at denying threatening actors the sanctuary of hiding behind 

outmoded UN charter use of force 

restrictions. Each strategy is evaluated in the current environment 

and after the UN charter updated as 

proposed.

Table 1. Criteria Defi nitions for Strategy 

Evaluations (Concluded).
15

doing so, the strategy develops intelligence 

processes optimized for determining variability in 

all elements of a convergent threat. Furthermore, 

such a review seeks to leverage reaction time 

by adapting combat systems and operational 

concepts conceived to counter effectively the 

spectrum of unconventional capabilities earlier 

than conventional strategies. As key components 

of our existing military strategy, both preemption 

and prevention fail to anticipate the dominant 

unconventional methods employed by today’s 

highly unpredictable actors. The overemphasis 

on sensor technology, electronic intelligence, and 

effects-based targeting hinders the agility needed 

for preemption to act earlier against analog threats. 

Self-defense does not employ offensive force, and 

de facto fails to anticipate converged threats. 

3) Employs substantive trigger points. More 

than any other strategy, FCP acknowledges the 

converged threat and reduced reaction time as 

the worst-case scenario for planning. Designed 

to be the most fl exible strategy to preclude the 

worst case from happening, FCP links decision 

points with predetermined thresholds to initiate 

maneuver against converged threats in states 

that have abrogated their sovereignty. Each 

component of the threat is associated with one 

of the trigger points: 1) rogue state (actor + 

intent), 2) terrorists (actors + intent), and 3) WMD 

acquisition program (capability). FCP effectively 

manages risk and uncertainty to avoid acting 

too late by seeking only credible and consistent, 

though not perfect, intelligence to indicate a 

threshold is about to be crossed.61 Preemption as a 

strategy uses the trigger point of imminent threat 

to initiate action but the intelligence standard 

to act is higher. Incontrovertible evidence of an 

imminent attack is rarely attainable.62 Self-defense 

is the strategy least responsive to emerging threats 

but is a more rational approach than prevention. 

Prevention uses no standard for action other than 

presumption of a threat, giving it the unacceptable 

reputation as the shoot-on-suspicion strategy. 

Typically preventive operations, to the chagrin 

of the international community, are undertaken 

unilaterally.

4) Minimizes unintended consequences. Selfdefense results in little to no unintended military, 

economic, or political consequences because the 

strategy reacts only after an armed attack. Given 

the requirement for incontrovertible evidence, 

preemption has a high probability of targeting 

the correct actor or capability. Central to FCP is 

an assessment of potential unintended physical, 

economic and political consequences, and 

subsequent mitigation options. Yet, the potential 

for failure is higher than preemption because the 

wrong actor or capability could be attacked at the 

wrong time when striking without unmistakable 

intelligence. We address this concern with an 

assessment of both strategic and accidental 

risk at the end of the section. Prevention uses 

a blunt instrument for what otherwise should 

be a surgical strike, because the threat is so 

broadly conceived and crafted. This strategy is 

not predicated on minimizing damage, rather it 

applies overwhelming force to destroy any and all 

suspected targets. 

5) Sustains popular will. FCP strategy comes 

clean with the American people, fi rst by creating 

upfront reasonable expectations, and second by 

pursuing an aggressive public relations campaign 

to keep the population informed. Some have 

argued that, after 9/11, any President, regardless of 

party affi liation, would have declared preemption 

against emerging threats as a way to build public 

support and confi dence.63 However, postwar 

domestic support for the use of preemption is 

extremely tenuous, given the administration’s 

perceived inability to demonstrate incontrovertible 

evidence of an imminent Iraqi threat.64 Arguably, 

this public mindset adversely affects the 

President’s ability to strike preemptively in the 

future. On the surface, American support for 

UN Security Council Resolution 1373 might 

provide some justifi cation for preemption, yet the 

strategy nonetheless is inhibited by challenges of 

conventional sovereignty and the need for nearperfect intelligence. Similarly, if Iraq is defi ned as 

a prevention war, then most evidence suggests 

vacillating support for the President primarily 

as a function of the perceived manipulation of 

intelligence to make the case for war.65 With 

prevention, force is not used as a last resort, and 

public support problems come sooner and are 

more complex. With the resources allocated so 
16

far to fi ghting the war on terrorism, any strategy, 

such as self-defense, that advocates absorbing a 

surprise attack of catastrophic proportions will 

have no domestic support. 

6) Respects responsible sovereignty. FCP is the 

best military strategy under both conventional 

sovereignty and abrogated sovereignty. 

When implementing FCP today, American 

decisionmakers are not compelled to abide by 

the outmoded notion of conventional sovereignty 

upheld by the 1945 UN Charter.66 However, 

ignoring the Charter is hugely unpopular, attracts 

unwanted world cynicism of U.S. intentions, 

and eviscerates the effectiveness of FCP. With or 

without international support, FCP is the most 

adaptable strategy for preventing the exploitation 

of legal seams, especially the use of ungoverned 

areas by nonstate actors. 

FCP also is highly adaptable to the current 

geostrategic environment and seeks to capture 

these changes—UNSCR 1373 and rogue state 

status—to advance internationally a new concept 

of abrogated sovereignty. Once the threshold of 

abrogated sovereignty is crossed, a state legally 

is subject to military action. Importantly, FCP 

shifts responsibility for acceptable state behavior 

from the international community to where 

it belongs, on the shoulders of state leaders.67

Once the UN declares a state’s sovereignty 

abrogated, that state de facto has crossed the 

intent threshold for a converged threat. The 

current UN Charter constrains preemptive action 

to uphold sovereignty, even of reluctant and 

unwilling states, though UN support for force 

in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan may signal 

increasing fl exibility. Abrogated sovereignty 

might give preemption some legitimacy with 

traditional noninterventionists, but the standard 

of incontrovertible evidence continues to limit 

effectiveness. The UN Charter mostly upholds 

the tradition of self-defense. Since prevention 

is unconstrained by the classical notions of 

sovereignty and nonintervention, the international 

community generally views it as unlawful. Both 

self-defense and prevention would be unaffected 

by advancing a concept of abrogated sovereignty.

7) Maximizes multilateral support and action. 

Article 51 of the UN Charter grants the right of 

self-defense once attacked. As the United States 

experienced after 9/11, states that absorb the 

fi rst blow initially will likely enjoy magnanimous 

multilateral support. Under existing norms, 

FCP can reasonably expect to continue building 

“coalitions of the willing” outside the purview 

of the UN Security Council.68 To maximize 

multilateral support, FCP drives a fundamental 

redesign of the international use of force system 

to permit selective application of force against 

converged threats in the gray zone. By doing so, 

the United States uses diplomacy to leverage early 

support from the UN, European Union, NATO, 

and other regional organizations. The United 

States thereby garners legitimacy as the world’s 

military superpower that begets multilateral 

participation (monetary, organizational, and 

military) before the need to use force arises. 

Preemption is still viewed with suspicion 

under existing use of force rules, and, therefore, 

multilateral support is not assured until the threat 

is proven to be imminent. While preemption gains 

greater legitimacy for being more conservative 

than FCP, once a new use of force framework 

is accepted internationally, preemption remains 

ill-suited for dealing with the converged threat. 

The very low standard associated with using 

prevention renders it morally unjust and unlawful. 

Hence, multilateral condemnation is the typical 

response to prevention. 

8) Denies legal seams. Given today’s legal 

construct, FCP aggressively engages all states 

diplomatically before using force. Doing so 

establishes political and legal conditions for the 

rapid and proportionate application of force to 

deny actors sanctuary, training, facilities, C2 

nodes, and transfer of WMD technology.69 FCP 

does not wait for perfect intelligence to act. 

Nonetheless, FCP is proactive about working with 

state governments early to identify converging 

threats in order to build international support, 

confi dence, and legitimacy for the use of force. 

As international norms change to incorporate 

the current use of force realities, FCP is ideally 

designed to work earlier within the framework 

to counter a threat when force fi rst can be used.70

Preemption must wait for incontrovertible 

evidence to act and therefore is not acceptable. 
17

And for prevention, the standard to act is too 

loose, too intrusive, and eventually will violate 

civil rights and harm noncombatants in the 

targeted state. Self-defense does nothing to deny 

legal exploitation—as a strategy, it only can react 

once a provocation has occurred. Both preemption 

and self-defense act too late, and even adapting 

international norms has no impact. Prevention is 

illegal in either case. 

Summary of Analysis.

In summary, we assessed the pass/fail criteria 

and effectiveness of each strategy. In order, selfdefense is unacceptable because it is politically 

unsustainable—the American people will not 

tolerate a government that does not take steps 

to disrupt a WMD attack. Clearly, preemption 

is acceptable but fails as a strategy because it 

is inadequate to counter a converged threat by 

failing to disrupt WMD attacks early enough. 

On the contrary, prevention is very adequate but 

is not consistent with the law of war, overtaxes 

the military, and is politically unacceptable. 

Conceptually, forcible counterproliferation is 

designed to disrupt a converged threat. FCP 

provides strategic discrimination and most 

effectively synchronizes diplomatic and military 

power. FCP is acceptable both domestically and 

internationally, is adequate for the strategic aim, 

and demands feasible resources. It is an excellent 

fi t for using force against the nexus of terrorists, 

rogue states, and WMD.71

Risk Assessment.

Without question, a national military strategy 

for stopping the nexus of terrorists and rogue 

states pursuing WMD must do so with acceptable 

risk while embracing uncertainty and surprise. 

FCP embraces uncertainty but provides markers 

for using force earlier in the decision cycle than, 

for instance, preemption. We propose a simple 

model for identifying how FCP is useful for 

mitigating military and political risk. First, we 

defi ne strategic risk as the probability our security 

is threatened because of a lost opportunity to 

act.72 Second, accidental risk is the probability of 

miscalculation in striking the appropriate target at 

the right time, a by-product of acting fi rst (earlier 

in the intelligence cycle). We use S-shaped curves 

to depict the idea that catastrophic threats from 

WMD can emerge much more quickly than in the 

past.

Figure 6 portrays strategic risk as a function 

of reaction time and degree of threat. Imposed 

on top of the strategic risk curve are relative time 

positions when strategies are employed to disrupt 

the threat. In this case, prevention (PV) is employed 

earlier than forcible counterproliferation (FCP), 

which is employed earlier than preemption (PE). 

Self-defense (SD) reacts after an attack, depicted 

by the 9/11 splash—clearly too late. 

High

Threat

Low

Early Crisis

Reaction Time

PV

FCP

PE

SD

9-11

Figure 6. Severity of Threat.

Figure 7 shows the risk relationship between 

reaction time and probability of miscalculation 

in striking the correct target at the right time. 

Again, the strategies are imposed on top of the 

risk curve. Here, prevention reacts soonest, but 

the probability of miscalculation for striking the 

correct target is very high. FCP is lower on the 

curve because the decision to act is made using 

trigger points. Preemption is lower still on the 

curve, but the ability to strike with confi dence is 

offset by the prospect of having to do so in a crisis 

scenario. 

Figure 8 superimposes both risk curves on the 

same chart and illustrates how FCP is extremely 

useful for mitigating both strategic and accidental 

risk. The curves demonstrate the sequential 

relationship between the four strategies in terms 

of reaction time. The location of FCP on the 
18

High

Probability of

Miscalculation

Low

Early Crisis

Reaction Time

PV

FCP

PE

9-11 SD

Figure 7. Probability of Miscalculation.

curves illustrates how it most effectively mitigates 

strategic and accidental risk. Furthermore, 

the curves demonstrate the complementary 

relationship between FCP, preemption, and selfdefense and underscores why we recommend 

FCP not replace preemption and self-defense. 

Instead, FCP should be understood as simply the 

best strategy for mitigating risk. Should it fail, 

however, the nation should employ preemption 

and, failing that, self-defense. 

High

Low

Early Crisis

Reaction Time

PV

FCP

PE

PV SD

SD

9-11

PE

PROBABILITY OF

MISCALCULATION

THREAT

Figure 8. Risk Overlay.

Conceptual Propositions.

The conclusions derived from the analysis 

above compel numerous conceptual propositions 

integral for fi nding a “best fi t” strategy to use force 

against converged threats. We will differentiate 

forcible counterproliferation from prevention 

and elucidate why it constitutes strategic thinking 

“outside of the box.” The conceptual propositions 

also help to identify a comprehensive link between 

the use of diplomacy and the other elements of 

soft power to set conditions for the use of force to 

disrupt the converged threat.73 The presumption 

that strategy must evolve to fi ght the current threat 

is foundational to the following assertions.74

International Implications and Requirements.

• FCP could serve as the catalyst for the 

fundamental redesign of the international 

use of force system recommended earlier. 

FCP effectiveness is solidifi ed after 

modifying traditional sovereignty to include 

the concept of abrogated sovereignty. 

• As experience in Iraq illustrates, global 

legitimacy is value added and stimulates 

the United States to remain internationally 

engaged. While the United States will protect 

its vital national interests regardless of 

international rules and norms, the perceived 

unilateral use of preemption against Iraq 

failed to garner international legitimacy 

for the United States.75 Recognition of 

this reality animates the search for a new 

strategy. After adjusting international 

norms for the use of force, the United 

States could leverage diplomatic support 

from the United Nations, European Union, 

NATO, and other regional organizations to 

disrupt a converged threat. If not employed 

correctly, however, FCP could suffer from 

international lack of legitimacy.

• Initially, FCP monitors converging threats 

to enable decisionmakers time to apply 

soft instruments of power. Using force as 

a last resort after the convergent threat 

threshold is crossed distinguishes FCP 

from prevention. 

• Applying the trigger points linked to FCP 

could have considerable deterrent value. 

Essentially, once a state has crossed all 

three thresholds, the UN Security Council 

(or NATO) imposes abrogated sovereignty 
19

status. Public pronouncements of trigger 

point violations motivate cost-benefi t 

tradeoffs and achieve deterrence with 

violator states.

• FCP expects states to act responsibly and 

be accountable to international standards 

of conduct. As a result, the burden of proof 

for responsible behavior falls to the rogue 

state, not the international community—a 

fundamental shift in traditional use of force 

thinking.76

• FCP is not uniquely designed for affecting 

regime change and imposing democracy. 

However, FCP can be used as a quick in 

and out operation, leaving basic elements 

of state government intact; or it can disrupt 

the converged threat and contend with the 

underlying political causes by forcing a 

regime change. 

• FCP would minimize the possible destabilization of a state’s economy and/or 

political leadership because intervention is 

undertaken with international support.

National Implications and Requirements.

• The aforementioned changes to international norms would set in motion the need 

to review numerous associated American 

policy and legal changes: 1) when FCP is 

employed, the President needs the legal 

authority to treat detainees as POWs—the 

Geneva Convention’s categories of armed 

confl ict and war are not suffi cient for the 

converged threat;77 2) the military tactical 

rules of engagement must be adapted for 

use against converged threats;78 and, 3) the 

United States must review posse comitatus 

to establish new appropriate boundaries for 

using the breadth of military capabilities 

in operations synchronized with law 

enforcement.79

• The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) is a 

current example of functioning cooperation 

between law enforcement and the military.80

Presently PSI is not subordinate to, but 

stands alone, from a military strategy of 

preemption and self-defense. Instead, 

FCP should encompass PSI, allowing it 

to enhance force effectiveness against the 

converged threat by refocusing interagency 

cooperation.

• FCP requires a disciplined public relations 

campaign to build domestic support. The 

President arguably would enjoy strong 

support by explaining the need to act when 

consistent intelligence is available but 

before perfect intelligence is known.81

• Given the shortcomings of preemption, 

FCP mandates a fundamental reorientation 

of intelligence collection systems, force 

structure, equipment acquisition, and 

training designed specifi cally for fi ghting 

the converged threat. Upon completion of 

this review, joint doctrine writers would 

develop associated tactics, techniques, and 

procedures for military operations other 

than war designed to destroy, defeat, or 

disrupt the converged threat. 

FCP is Not Prevention.

Without a consistent notion of the threat and 

predefi ned trigger points, prevention:

• can inspire unmitigated aggressive attacks 

and lacks both moral and legal approval, 

• encourages unilateral use of force to disrupt 

suicide terrorists and rogue states pursuing 

WMD, 

• shoots on suspicion and increases the 

probability of hitting wrong targets, 

collateral damage, and unintended 

consequences, and

• lacks national support and international 

credibility and confi dence.

Figure 9 provides a graphic depiction of the 

difference between FCP and preventive use of 

force.
20

Forcible Counterproliferation: Closing the 

Strategy Gap.

The preceding analysis leads us to 

posit the following description of a forcible 

counterproliferation strategy. 

War Aim. Deny terrorists access and use of 

WMD.82

National Interest. Secure the nation, our 

interests, and our allies from a catastrophic WMD 

attack.

Threat. FCP is specifi cally designed to disrupt 

the converged threat of rogue states and terrorists 

pursuing WMD. 

Decisive Effort. The offensive use of force 

when there is strong and consistent intelligence 

that an adversary has the intent and is attaining 

a credible capability to pose a signifi cant threat of 

WMD attacks. U.S. forces initiate military action 

to specifi cally stop the nexus of rogue states and 

terrorists pursuing WMD, the converged threat 

center of gravity. The assessment to use force 

is made with respect to three predetermined 

trigger points: rogue state designation, support 

for terrorists, and existence of a WMD acquisition 

program.83 Reaction time is critical, and to delay 

taking action would be irresponsible. 

When force is used against uncooperative 

states that have abrogated their sovereignty, FCP 

integrates joint, combined, and law enforcement 

forces to achieve strategic synergy and 

interoperability. By doing so, the strategy most 

effectively denies exploitation of legal seams. 

Strategic strikes scaled appropriately for the 

target are conducted simultaneously to destroy, 

disrupt, or defeat the converged threat by attacking 

camps, C2 nodes, leadership, transportation, 

sanctuaries, and material capabilities.84 These 

strikes will create opportunities for future attacks 

when coupled with an iterative planning process 

and rapid decisive operations. 

FCP can be used as a quick in and out operation, 

leaving basic elements of sovereignty intact; or it 

can disrupt the converged threat and contend 

with the underlying causes by forcing a regime 

change. The decision to affect regime change is a 

function of reaction time, maturity of the WMD 

threat, and state disregard or unresponsiveness to 

international resolutions. 

End State—converged threat is disrupted and 

returned to pre-trigger point status quo. 

Figure 9. WMD Acquisition in the Gray Zone.

����� �� ���������� �������� ��������� �����������

����

�������

���� ����

���������� �������

���������� ������

��������� �������� ������

����� ���

����������

���������

���

������

������

���� ������

�� ������

�������

������ ��

������

����� ������ �������

������

��� ������ ����� ������� ������� ���������� � �������� ����� ����

����� ���������� ����� ������

����������

����������� ����������

����������� �������� ��������������������

Figure 9. WMD Acquisition in the Gray Zone.
21

IV. APPLYING MILITARY STRATEGIES 

TO CURRENT CASES

Applying the Strategies.

To test the validity of the FCP strategy 

against real-world conditions, we analyze four 

hypothetical case studies containing various 

combinations of the three converged threat 

components. Each case study is evaluated against 

the decision criteria developed previously. Our 

analysis employs a macro-level examination of 

the different cases to compare the four strategy 

options. To simplify the analysis, we adopt the 

following self-imposed biases: 

• To increase effectiveness of stopping the 

threat of a WMD attack, if two or more 

strategies can be successful, we select the 

most aggressive strategy.

• We analyze the WMD threat as a single 

entity despite potentially very different 

approaches for biological, chemical, and 

nuclear acquisition programs.85

• We will select an overall Most Effective 

Strategy, using a subjective roll-up of the 

eight criteria with strong emphasis on the 

“stops WMD attack” criterion. 

• We assume recommended changes 

to international norms on abrogated 

sovereignty and the use of military force 

are established U.S. policy at a minimum.

• The fi nal Sanctioned Strategy is determined 

by fi ltering the Most Effective Strategy with 

the abrogated sovereignty designation. 

Table 2 is a summary of the results from our 

strategy analysis of the four case studies. In three 

of the four case studies, FCP is the Most Effective 

Strategy. An affi rmative determination of all 

three trigger points causes responsible nations 

to declare the infringing state’s sovereignty 

abrogated, a requirement for applying FCP. Since 

�������� �� ����� ���� �����

��������

���� ��� ������� ��� �� ��� ��

�������� ����� ����������� ��� ��� ��� ���

������ ������� ������ ��� ��� ��� ���

�������� ���������� ������������ �� �� ��� ��

������� ������� ���� ��� �� ��� ���

������� ����������� ����������� �� ��� ��� ��

�������� ������������ ������� ��� �� �� ��

���� ����� ����� ��� ��� ��� ��

���� ��������� �������� ��� �� ��� ���

������� ������

����� ����� �� ��� ��� ���

��������� ��������� ��� ��� ��� ���

��� ������� ��� ��� ��� ��

�������� ������������ �� ��� ��� ��

���������� �������� ���� �� ��� ����

���� ������� �� ��

��������� ���������� �� ���

� ��������� ����� �� ���������� ��� ������ �����

�� ������ ��� ���������� ����� ��������� �����������

�������� ��� ��� �� �������� ��� ���

Table 2. Summary of Case Study Results. 86
22

Syria and Pakistan do not meet all three trigger 

point criteria, FCP is not a sanctioned option. 

Pakistan.

Pakistan’s leader, President Musharraf, is a 

strong supporter of the United States and the war on 

terrorism. As the recent attempts on his life show, 

he maintains a precarious balance supporting the 

United States, while simultaneously dealing with 

those who oppose his pro-West stance. Despite 

aggressive efforts against terrorists, his domestic 

political support is undercut by publicly denying 

terrorist elements such as al Qaeda the use of 

ungoverned areas around the Afghan border. 

Forcible counterproliferation taps the fl exibility 

of the U.S. military to deal forcefully with 

terrorists in the ungoverned areas of Pakistan. 

However, any strategy more aggressive than selfdefense causes signifi cant internal problems for 

Pakistan and should be subject to the approval 

of Pakistani senior leadership. While President 

Musharraf is no apparent friend of his terrorist 

squatters, he certainly does not fully control the 

regions they inhabit, probably does not fully 

control his military, and has less than complete 

support of his populace. President Musharraf’s 

enigmatic handling of the nuclear scientist, Dr. 

Abdul Qadeer Khan, confi rms the tightrope he 

must walk.

Therefore, while we conclude an FCP strategy 

is most effective for the threat in Pakistan, a selfdefense strategy is the sanctioned strategy that 

respects Pakistani sovereignty while minimizing 

unintended consequences. A self-defense strategy 

allows U.S.-Pakistani combined military operations 

with Musharraf’s approval. These realities do not 

diminish the need to plan a full FCP contingency 

for Pakistan. Should Musharraf lose power, it is 

conceivable the resulting state chaos would result 

in Pakistan abrogating its sovereignty. In this 

eventuality, the converged threat thresholds are 

crossed, and FCP is authorized. 

North Korea.

North Korea’s admission that it cheated on 

the 1994 Agreed Framework threw the entire 

nonproliferation community into a quandary. 

Heralded as a model for the carrot and stick 

diplomacy approach to preventing the expansion 

of nuclear states, North Korean deception showed 

the inherent lack of certainty in dealing with rogue 

states on any level other than regime change. 

The United States could, for example, put the 

North Koreans on notice for noncompliance with 

international standards and threaten the use of 

force. Doing so would marginalize North Korean 

denial, deception, and delay tactics consistently 

used even through the recent 6-Party Talks and 

give credence to the potential deterrence value of 

trigger points. 

Since North Korea has already crossed the 

threshold for abrogated sovereignty status, the 

proactive nature of an FCP strategy is wellsuited to dealing with the current situation. The 

strategy maximizes the considerable U.S. military 

fl exibility provided by precision attack forces and 

special operations units. However, North Korea’s 

dispersion of their nuclear programs since 1994 

makes the success of any surgical strike unlikely. 

Unfortunately, it appears that only invasion and 

regime change can resolve the growing crisis. 

With a high probability of massive military and 

civilian casualties on both sides, the primary 

military strategy remains de facto self-defense. 

The current crisis illustrates the danger of letting 

a rogue nation skulk along the road to nuclear 

weapons for far too long before taking decisive, 

verifi able action. 

Iran.

In many ways Iran poses the worst-case 

scenario envisioned by the NSS. As a rogue state 

with the resources and desire to pursue WMD 

programs and long-standing ties to terrorist 

organizations, the only reprieve is that Iran does 

not yet appear to have nuclear weapons. It remains 

to be seen whether the recent European efforts to 

confront the Iranians on their nuclear weapons 

development program will prove fruitful. 

The dynamics of the Middle East require a 

fl exible and proactive military approach only 

offered by an FCP strategy. FCP will provide a 

level of deterrence not yet realized with current 
23

ill-defi ned strategy options. By leveraging welldefi ned trigger points to identify decision points 

for military action, FCP is bolstered by the strong 

U.S. military presence and proven success record 

in the region. However, recent negotiations 

emasculate the likelihood of gaining multilateral 

support for any military activities beyond a 

classical preemption strategy. To avoid a similar 

situation to North Korea in 1994, the world 

community needs to resolve the situation quickly 

or face increasing uncertainty in controlling the 

Iranian threat.

Syria.

Syria is a U.S. designated terrorist supporter 

and a rogue state that is one of the last autocratic, 

anti-western governments of the Middle 

East. Syria’s consistent support of terrorist 

organizations dates back decades. It is only the 

inability to confi rm Syria’s pursuit of WMD that 

keeps the state from abrogating its sovereignty.87

Importantly though, without such a designation, 

FCP is not an option. 

Therefore, while FCP is the Most Effective 

Strategy for this situation, classical preemption 

is the most aggressive sanctioned option since 

the WMD Acquisition Program trigger point 

has not been met. Preemption is more proactive 

than prevention at minimizing unintended 

consequences. Again, similar to Pakistan, the 

evidence of a Syrian WMD program would 

immediately cause the United States to classify it 

a converged threat, and the state would abrogate 

its sovereignty. We also recommend the United 

States prepare FCP contingency plans for Syria 

in anticipation of fi nding evidence of a WMD 

program. 

Case Study Summary. 

In three of the four cases, an FCP strategy is 

considered most effective. However, in only one 

of the four cases is FCP allowed. Regrettably, the 

threat in North Korea appears too mature for any 

strategy other than self-defense. It is unlikely 

there is suffi ciently accurate intelligence to deny 

the North Koreans from becoming a nuclear 

power other than through preventive attack 

in the very near future. The decision to attack 

must be predicated on the hope they have not 

completed building their weapons. Syria’s WMD 

restraint restricts the use of FCP despite their 

long-standing support of terrorists. It is possible 

the Assad government, currently under pressure 

to help control the terrorist threat in the region, 

might covertly cooperate with the United States to 

support a limited FCP strategy. Without such an 

agreement only classical preemption in the face 

of a certain imminent threat is allowed under the 

constraints we propose. 

Strategy Propositions.

Analyzing use of force against the four case 

studies provides additional insight:

• FCP should not replace the general 

framework for the Global War on 

Terrorism. The strategy’s success is based 

on adherence to the primary objective of 

denying terrorists and rogue states access 

to and use of WMD, a very specifi c threat 

in the larger war on terrorism. Stretching 

FCP to cover all the diverse threats within 

the Global War on Terrorism negates the 

advantages of the strategy and potentially 

destroys the quest for greater multilateral 

support.

• Countering WMD acquisition after the 

fact is diffi cult, especially when the state 

that proliferates is a militarily dangerous 

nation like North Korea. Nuclear weapons 

in particular change the regional balance 

of power and drive down the potential 

success of any other military strategy short 

of full-scale invasion. This identifi es a 

strong need for early, decisive intervention 

justifi ed by well-defi ned trigger points.

• Both the Syria and Pakistan cases validate 

the utility of trigger points. These states 

are well on the road to abrogating their 

sovereignty, exposing how quickly a 

responsible state can go from acceptable 

to unacceptable behavior. To cross the 

fi nal threshold, Syria needs only to initiate 
24

a WMD program, while Pakistan must 

decide to support terrorists. Developing 

and promoting clearly defi ned trigger 

points gives states notice of sovereign 

responsibilities.

• To reintroduce deterrence against the 

converged threat, the Department of 

Defense (DOD) must develop fl exible 

FCP responses grounded in the precept 

of abrogated sovereignty tied to trigger 

points. 

• The concept of abrogated sovereignty 

relieves the responsible nations of the world 

from the unfair burden of constantly having 

to prove bad actors are truly irresponsible. 

Currently, Iran and North Korea may be 

cooperating with international negotiators 

to control their WMD programs, or they 

may just be stalling for time. Holding 

these states accountable to the abrogated 

sovereignty principles moves the burden 

of proof to them and immediately qualifi es 

them for military action. 

V. CONCLUSIONS AND 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Conclusions.

Forcible counterproliferation is the best strategy 

to close the preemption gap against a converged 

threat. A clear understanding of interests, threats, 

and political objectives informs a good military 

strategy.88 The NSS properly articulated the 

nexus of terrorists, WMD, and rogue states as the 

principal national security threat. Subsequently, 

the National Military Strategy, in response to the 

global war on terrorism, correctly determined 

a war aim to “deny terrorists access and use of 

WMD.”89 However, the effort to stretch the classical 

strategy of preemption to deal with the converged 

threat drove the administration to develop the 

concept of “adapted imminent threat.”90 The 

result is a military strategy inadequate to disrupt 

the “crossroads of radicalism and technology” in 

order to stop WMD proliferation to rogue states 

and terrorists.91

To better understand the changing geostrategic 

environment, we postulated the gray zone, a new 

method for conceptualizing the threat. In doing 

so, we argued the anachronistic international use 

of force construct built on a standard of imminent 

threat must be updated. To simply “adapt the 

concept of imminent threat” as the administration 

proposes is insuffi cient for contending with 

today’s adversary. 

Similarly, existing conventional military 

strategic concepts are not suited for either the 

new threat or for using force in the gray zone. 

Hence, we have posited a new military strategy of 

forcible counterproliferation to complement both 

preemption and self-defense. Taken together, 

a theoretical analysis and hypothetical case 

study indicated that FCP is the most acceptable 

strategy, militarily and politically, for disrupting 

a converged threat. FCP also minimizes strategic 

risk the best. Likewise, FCP offers unprecedented 

strategic fl exibility. Upon crossing the three trigger 

points, the President has the discretion to use a 

wide range of military options, or he can attempt 

to diffuse the situation with the soft elements of 

power. Once he chooses force, the President can 

elect either to use a strategic strike with special 

operations forces to destroy a WMD capability, or 

he can order a major mobilization to effect regime 

change. The fl exible military options run along 

this continuum. 

We maintain the administration cannot reverse 

course at this point and remove preemption from 

center stage of the NSS.92 Doing so will lead to 

a huge loss of American credibility. Rather, the 

administration’s best option is to adopt a strategy 

specifi cally crafted for disrupting converged 

threats as distinct from imminent threats. As stated 

above, we assert forcible counterproliferation is 

the best option. 

While FCP is conceived to deal specifi cally 

with the converged threat, it does not replace the 

national strategy for the Global War on Terrorism. 

Instead, FCP is a way or a concept that supports 

this strategy. FCP is an alternative military 

strategy to preemption designed for a specifi c 

threat within the Global War on Terrorism. 

Since publication of the 2002 NSS, there has 

been an upsurge in various supporting national 
25

strategies. A review of these documents indicates 

a lack of vertical and horizontal military strategic 

alignment. Vertically, the threat is not consistently 

described and preemption is not a central 

strategic concept discussed in each. Moreover, 

the documents lack horizontal continuity, that is 

to say, they do not incorporate important related 

elements of each other’s strategies. We maintain 

a coherent, clear, and consistent statement of 

military strategy is an essential fi rst step to 

effective deterrence. FCP is just such a coherent 

statement of military strategy for the converged 

threat, in particular by effectively integrating 

joint, combined, and law enforcement forces 

while shaping the strategic context with the soft 

instruments of power. 

Developing and promoting clearly defi ned 

trigger points and announcing the status 

of nations approaching those trigger point 

thresholds puts a state on notice and reintroduces 

deterrence against converged threats. Use of 

deterrence intentionally focuses on stopping 

rogue states from acquiring WMD, a fundamental 

departure from the Cold War use of deterrence 

to stop a WMD attack. Those rogue states that 

acquire WMD and abrogate their sovereignty 

must weigh carefully the cost-benefi t analysis of 

continued unacceptable actions against possible 

international military intervention. Therefore, FCP 

properly implemented can leverage international 

consensus and condemnation to signal would-bethreats effectively with the risk of overwhelming 

force in response to a converged threat. 

Closely related to the problem of strategy 

alignment is the very evident lack of appropriate 

joint terms for thinking about today’s threat 

and the geostrategic environment. Phrases such 

as adapted imminent threat, and Global War 

on Terrorism tend to obfuscate many strategic 

challenges. Some have suggested, for instance, 

that DoD should resurrect military operations 

other than war as a more useful term for 

describing strikes on the converged threat.93 Our 

research effort has been hindered by the lack of 

common, relevant, and precisely defi ned joint 

terms suitable for developing a military strategy.

Finally, as stated earlier, we acknowledge FCP 

will not preclude the United States from using its 

power when needed to defend national interests 

regardless of whether or not the United States has 

international legitimacy. However, our national 

power prerogatives should not stand in the 

way of advancing new concepts internationally 

that actually provide strategic clarity, build 

legitimacy, and are morally defensible. Doing so 

builds two important bedrocks for U.S. policy. 

First, by pursuing new international norms, 

the United States stands to gain considerable 

credibility and the associated cooperative benefi ts 

when seeking legitimacy for FCP. These benefi ts 

include, for example, intelligence sharing, 

contributions of unique force capability, law 

enforcement cooperation, and regional access. 

Second, American efforts to lead the international 

community in reconsidering legacy use of force 

statutes, and the required strategy needed 

to defeat converged threats should enhance 

international support for the Global War on 

Terrorism. It is with this aim that we propose the 

following recommendations. 

Recommendations.

The recommendations below address the three 

questions posed at the outset of the analysis. The 

National Security Council must update the NSS to 

include the following concepts. 

Redefi ne the Threat.

• Adopt the concept of converged threat in 

the NSS as the new standard for applying 

military force in the gray zone.

Update the NSS for the New Threat.

• Update the NSS with the military strategy 

of FCP to disrupt converged threats. Retain 

the optional use of preemptive force 

to defeat classically defi ned imminent 

attacks.

• Adopt the following trigger points to give 

decisionmakers the ability to ascertain 

when it is appropriate and acceptable for 

the United States to employ FCP. 
26

- Rogue State designation occurs when 

states:

1. Brutalize their own people and 

squander their national resources for 

the personal gain of the rulers,

2. Display no regard for international 

law, threaten their neighbors, and 

callously violate international treaties 

to which they are party,

3. Are determined to use military force 

to threaten or offensively achieve 

their aggressive designs,

4. Reject basic human values.

- Terrorist trigger point is crossed when 

nations are declared supporters of 

terrorism by violating UN Security 

Council Resolution 1373.

• WMD Acquisition Program Trigger 

Point is declared when rogue states and 

terrorists are determined to have WMD 

acquisition programs based on additional 

trigger points developed separately for 

nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons 

programs. 

• Disentangle the administration’s tendency 

to confl ate and treat as equals threats 

from WMD, terrorists, and rogue states.94

Develop unique trigger points for each 

type of WMD.95

• Only use FCP to affect regime change and 

impose democracy as a last resort.96

• Do not dilute FCP by stretching the strategy 

to fi t all threats. It should not replace the 

general framework for the Global War on 

Terrorism. FCP success and multilateral 

support are based on close adherence to 

the primary objective of denying terrorists 

and rogue states access to and use of WMD, 

a very specifi c threat in the larger war on 

terrorism.

International Justifi cation. 

• Lead an effort to update the existing 

international use of force paradigm based 

upon the outmoded Article 51 of the UN 

Charter that permits the use of force only 

following an armed attack.

• Obtain support from the UN for FCP as an 

acceptable military strategy for disrupting 

the converged threat. By engaging the 

UN, the United States is not surrendering 

the decision to use force to the Security 

Council. Instead, the United States is asking 

for international help and cooperation to 

disrupt the converged threat.97

• Use diplomacy to obtain international 

consensus for the notion of abrogated 

sovereignty based upon: 1) attributes 

of rogue states, 2) UNSCR 1373, and 3) 

evidence of a WMD acquisition program. 

The concept of abrogated sovereignty 

relieves the responsible nations of the world 

from the unfair burden of constantly having 

to prove bad actors are truly irresponsible. 

Currently, Iran and North Korea may be 

cooperating with international negotiators 

to control their WMD programs, or they 

may just be stalling for time. Holding 

these states accountable to the abrogated 

sovereignty principles moves the burden 

of proof to them and immediately qualifi es 

them for potential military action. 

• Comprehensively engage nongovernmental 

organizations and seek their cooperation 

to plan, prepare for, and execute stability 

and support operations following the use 

of FCP against rogue states. Doing this 

gives these organizations adequate notice, 

planning time, and UN legitimacy to 

support post-confl ict operations. 

Domestic Justifi cation.

Undeniably, the converged threat invokes an 

unfavorable response from the typical American 

sentiment against using force. To build the 

will of the American people, recommend the 

administration:

• Undertake a rigorous public relations 

campaign to explain the security realities 
27

of the world and the most effective way for 

America to respond. 

• Make clear to the American people the 

integrating function FCP performs between 

military and law enforcement agencies. 

• Provide strategic clarity and synergy to 

Defense, State, Homeland Security, FBI, 

CIA, etc., to achieve effi ciencies within 

bureaucracies to disrupt the converged 

threat.

Capability Enhancements.

DoD must undertake the following: 

• FCP places a tremendous burden on 

national intelligence agencies to see the 

enemy fi rst. Specifi cally, successful use 

of trigger points requires a reinvigorated 

intelligence collection, integration, and 

analysis capability for providing reliable/

accurate assessments. In light of the 

heavily criticized inability of the best three 

intelligence systems in the world (United 

States, Britain, Israel) to produce an 

accurate Iraqi pre-war assessment, we fully 

acknowledge this is diffi cult.98 The United 

States should also consider the option to 

employ intrusive intelligence systems that 

take advantage of abrogated sovereignty 

when the possible use of force is high.99

• Accelerate two battlespace sustaining 

efforts:

 – Continue to negotiate access rights for 

forward basing, thereby reducing the 

need for an expeditionary force logistics 

tail,

 – Continue to develop and refi ne logistics 

technologies and systems to minimize 

the self-sustaining logistical burden 

currently required of expeditionary 

forces. 

• Continue to organize, man, and resource 

the Standing Joint Task Force (SJTF) 

concept. SJTFs are ideally suited for 

conducting operations in support of a 

forcible counterproliferation strategy.100

When intelligence indicates elements of 

a converging threat are approaching a 

trigger point, a SJTF should be tasked with 

planning, preparation, and execution of the 

operation.

• Reassess Transformation-driven force 

levels and mix across the services in light of 

FCP requirements such as nation building 

and security.101

• Joint doctrine must develop what we 

call a fi nd-fi x-fi nish operational concept 

to disrupt converged threats. Strategic 

ISR assets must be able to fi nd the threat 

and assess if a trigger point is crossed. A 

strategic fi xing force consisting primarily 

of special operations resources must be 

able to disrupt the converged threat. 

Finally, a fi nishing force built upon the 

Joint Standing Task Force organization 

must be able to defeat the converged 

threat. Likewise, critically reexamine the 

assumptions underlying transformation 

and realign them with the requirement 

to disrupt tactics and technologies being 

employed by terrorists, other nonstate 

actors, and rogue states pursuing WMD.102

• DoD must consider and develop fl exible 

FCP responses grounded in the precept 

of abrogated sovereignty tied to trigger 

points. This will require the development 

of scaleable force modules appropriate for 

the degree of converged threat. PSI is but 

one of many possible options. For example, 

using coordinated military force/law 

enforcement to stop North Korean use of 

international shipping to transport WMD 

components has already proven effective.103

Second, DOD must develop covert FCP 

options.104

ENDNOTES

1. George W. Bush, The National Security Strategy of the 

United States of America (hereafter NSS), Washington, DC: 

The White House, September 2001, p. 1.

2. In a meeting on September 12, 2001, with his National 

Security Team, President Bush said, “The deliberate and 

deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against 

our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts 
28

of war.” See George W. Bush, “Remarks by the President 

in Photo Opportunity with the National Security Team,” 

September 12, 2001, The Cabinet Room, The White House, 

accessed April 17, 2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov. Also see 

George W. Bush, “President Discusses War on Terrorism, 

Address to the Nation,” November 8, 2001, World Congress 

Center, Atlanta, Georgia, The White House, accessed April 17, 

2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov.

3. The foundation for this data comes from Michele L. 

Malvesti, but her analysis stops at 1998. Additional data has 

been gathered from the U.S. Department of State Report, 

Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002, to estimate numbers up 

to September 2001. See Michele L. Malvesti, “Explaining 

the United States’ Decision to Strike Back at Terrorists,” 

Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2001, pp. 

85-106; also see U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global 

Terrorism 2002, April 30, 2003, accessed December 22, 2003, 

www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2002/html/19997pf.htm.

4. John Lewis Gaddis, “A Grand Strategy of 

Transformation,” Foreign Policy, Issue 133, November/

October 2002, EBSCO, Harvard Library, accessed 

November 2, 2003, http://www.epnet.com; and PBS Frontline, 

“The War Behind Closed Doors: Interview: John Lewis 

Gaddis,” January 16, 2003, accessed September 2, 2003, 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/interview/

gaddis.html.

5. NSS, p. 1.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., p. 15.

9. Letter from Secretary of State Daniel Webster to 

Lord Ashburton dated August 6, 1842, as reprinted in John 

Bassett Moore, A Digest of International Law, Vol. II, 1906, p. 

412; also see Bruce Ackerman, “But What’s the Legal Case 

for Preemption?” The Washington Post, August 18, 2002, 

p. B2, Yale University Law School, accessed April 17, 2004, 

http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/Public_Affairs/282/yls_

article.htm.

10. NSS, p. 15. Also, for a discussion of the subjective 

nature of “imminent” and the problems associated 

with expanding the classical conception for employing 

preemptive force, see Daniel L. Zajac, “The Best Offense 

is a Good Defense: Preemption, Its Ramifi cations for the 

Department of Defense,” National Security Challenges for the 

21st Century, Williamson Murray, ed., Carlisle Barracks, PA: 

Strategic Studies Institute, 2003, p. 60.

11. George W. Bush, Address, 2002 Graduation Exercise 

of the United States Military Academy, June 1, 2003, West 

Point, New York, The White House, accessed October 13, 

2003, http://www.whitehouse.gov.

12. Kori Schake, member of National Security Council 

Staff, personal interview, December 3, 2003.

13. NSS, p. 15.

14. Ibid.

15. Kofi Annan, “Secretary-General’s address to 

the World Economic Forum,” January 23, 2004, Davos, 

Switzerland, The United Nations, accessed February 9, 2004, 

http://www.un.org/apps/sg/printsgstats.asp?nid=747.

16. NSS Introduction.

17. Bush, West Point Graduation Speech.

18. Charter of the United Nations, Article 51, New York: 

United Nations, June 26, 1945, accessed November 4, 2003, 

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html.

19. The UN Charter states “All Members shall refrain in 

their international relations from the threat or use of force 

against the territorial integrity or political independence 

of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the 

Purposes of the United Nations.” See UN Charter, Article 2, 

Principle 4.

20. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral 

Argument with Historical Illustrations, New York: Basic Books 

Inc, 1977, p. 75.

21. Douglas C. Lovelace, Director of USAWC Strategic 

Studies Institute, feedback on draft Executive Summary for 

this paper, December 17, 2003.

22. This defi nition of threat is a combination of Secretary 

of State Webster’s defi nition of threat from Moore 412; 

and from testimony by former National Security Advisor 

Samuel (Sandy) Berger. Berger defi nes threat as “capability 

plus intent plus urgency.” For Berger’s testimony, see U.S. 

House of Representatives, “U.S. Representative Duncan 

Hunter (R-CA) Holds Hearing On National Security 

Strategy, November 19, 2003,” Political Transcripts by 

Federal Document Clearing House, Factiva, Harvard Library, 

December 23, 2003, http://www.factiva.com.

23. This defi nition is loosely based on the defi nition of 

self-defense from Joint Publication 1-02: 

A commander has the authority and obligation to 

use all necessary means available and to take all 

appropriate action to defend that commander’s 

unit and other U.S. forces in the vicinity from a 

hostile act or hostile intent. Force used should 

not exceed that which is necessary to decisively 

counter the hostile act or intent and ensure the 

continued safety of U.S. forces or other persons 

and property they are ordered to protect. U.S. 

forces may employ such force in self-defense only 

so long as the hostile force continues to present an 

imminent threat.

Department of Defense, Joint Publication 1-02, Dictionary of 

Military and Associated Terms, April 12, 2001, As Amended 

Through September 5, 2003, Washington, DC: U.S. 

Government Printing Offi ce, 2003, p. 475.

24. This defi nition is in line with Webster’s letter on 

the Caroline incident as discussed in Moore 412. It does not 

conform to the Bush administration’s proposed adaptation 

of “imminent threat” for reasons discussed in the remainder 

of the paper.

25. Based on Joint Publication 1-02 defi nition of 

preemptive attack: “An attack initiated on the basis of 

incontrovertible evidence that an enemy attack is imminent.” 

See Joint Publication 1-02, p. 415.
29

26. Based on Joint Publication 1-02 defi nition of 

preventive war: “A war initiated in the belief that military 

confl ict, while not imminent, is inevitable, and that to delay 

would involve greater risk.” See Joint Publication 1-02, p. 

419.

27. Michael Glennon pointed out that the reality of 

Webster’s defi nition of preemptive force would drive 

depiction of “classical imminent threat” hard to the right 

against “enemy attack” since the attack leaves no time to 

deliberate. Michael Glennon, Professor of International 

Law, Tufts University, personal interview, December 17, 

2003.

28. Bush, West Point Graduation Speech.

29. Condoleeza Rice, “A Balance of Power That Favors 

Freedom,” October 1, 2002, New York, The Manhattan 

Institute for Policy Research, October 7, 2003, http://

manhattan-institute.org.

30. NSS, p. 5.

31. Alex Keto, “Powell Defends Bush Foreign Policy, 

Says Critics Wrong,” Dow Jones International News, December 

16, 2003, Factiva, Harvard Library, December 23, 2003, http:

//www.factiva.com.

32. Raphael Perl, “Terrorism and National Security: 

Issues and Trends, Congressional Research Service Issue 

Brief IB10119,” September 8, 2003, U.S. Department of State 

Foreign Press Center, October 7, 2003, , October 7, 2003, http://www.fpc.state.gov/

documents/organization/25376.pdf.

33. The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism 

provides considerable insight into the clarity of thought 

on the plague that is terrorism and brooks no quibbling on 

trying to allow some terrorists and not others. “The enemy 

is terrorism—premeditated, politically motivated violence 

perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational 

groups or clandestine agents.” The White House, The 

National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, Washington, DC: 

The White House, February 2003, pp. 1, 11-12, accessed 

April 4, 2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov.

34. Paul Wolfowitz, “Testimony as Delivered to the 

House Armed Services Committee: Fighting to Win,” 

September 25, 2003, September 29, 2003, Defense Link News, 

accessed September 30, 2003, http://www.dod.gov/speeches/

2003/.

35. NSS, pp. 13-14.

36. George W. Bush, “State of the Union Address,” 

Washington, DC: United States Capitol, January 20, 

2004, The White House, accessed February 9, 2004, http:

//www.whitehouse.gov.

37. Douglas J. Feith, “The Global War on Terrorism,” 

Speech at Council on Foreign Relations, November 

13, 2003, Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 

Department of Defense, accessed December 12, 2003, http:

//www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2003. 

38. John R. Bolton, “The Continuing Threat of Weapons 

of Mass Destruction,” Remarks at the American Spectator 

Dinner, November 12, 2003, Washington, DC, Department of 

State, accessed November 13, 2003, http://www.state.gov/t/us/

rm/26129.htm.

39. Audrey Kurth Cronin, “Behind the Curve: 

Globalization and International Terrorism,” International 

Security, Vol. 27, No. 3, Winter 2002/2003, pp. 30–58, 

LexisNexis, Harvard Library, accessed September 29, 2003, 

http://www.lexis-nexis.com.

40. Peter Grier, “From Iraq To Libya, U.S. Knew 

Little On Weapons: Doubts that Hussein had WMD 

raise questions about war’s rationale and intelligence 

reliability,” The Christian Science Monitor, Factiva, Harvard , Factiva, Harvard 

Library, accessed January 27, 2004, http://www.factiva.com; 

John Diamond, “A Desert Mirage: How U.S. Misjudged 

Iraq’s Arsenal: Evidence fi t the allegations even if they 

were wrong,” USATODAY.com, February 4, 2004, 

Factiva, Harvard Library, accessed March 20, 2004, http:

//www.factiva.com; “Flat-pack proliferation,” The Economist, 

February 7, 2004, U.S. Edition, LexisNexis, Harvard Library, 

accessed March 15, 2004, http://www.lexis.com; Kenneth 

Katzman, “Iraq: Weapons Programs, U.N. Requirements, 

and U.S. Policy: Congressional Research Service Issue Brief 

IB92117,” September 2, 2003, U.S. Department of State Foreign 

Press Center Press Center, accessed October 7, 2003, , accessed October 7, 2003, http://fpc.state.gov/

documents/organization/15527.pdf; Sharon A. Squassoni, ; Sharon A. Squassoni, 

“North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons: How Soon an Arsenal? 

Congressional Research Service Report RS21391,” July 29, 

2003, U.S. Department of State Foreign Press Center, accessed , accessed 

October 7, 2003, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/

24042.pdf.

41. Bush, West Point Graduation Speech.

42. Lee Feinstein and Anne-Marie Slaughter provide a 

concise synopsis of the problems with current proliferation 

restrictions:

For many years, a small but determined group 

of regimes has pursued proliferation in spite 

of—and, to a certain extent, without breaking—the 

international rules barring such activity...The 

main international nonproliferation agreements 

stigmatize weapons or certain categories of 

weapons rather than regimes or leaders. Aiming 

at the weapons themselves rather than the states 

or regimes that develop or acquire them has been 

judged to be a more objective basis for international 

action. The problem with this approach is that 

its opening proposition is to treat North Korea 

as if it were Norway. This fl aw has exposed the 

nonproliferation regime to abuse by determined 

and defi ant regimes, especially those headed by 

dictatorial rulers. It is also the weakness that makes 

the NPT and, more broadly, the nonproliferation 

system vulnerable to charges that the only ones 

restrained by nonproliferation agreements are 

those nations that do not need restraining.

See Lee Feinstein and Anne-Marie Slaughter, “A Duty to 

Prevent,” Foreign Affairs, January 1, 2004, Factiva, Harvard 

Library, accessed March 21, 2004, https://www.factiva.com.
30

43. By propositions we mean conclusions, 

recommendations and assumptions offered for the readers’ 

consideration and acceptance.

44. The United Nations, United Nations Security Council 

Resolution 1373, New York: United Nations, September 28, 

2003, pp. 1-2, accessed January 7, 2004, http://www.un.org/

Docs/scres.

45. Brad Roberts discusses the idea of “instant 

proliferation” as a concept that came into the “sharper 

focus in the 1990s . . . this is a process by which states buy 

weapons on the international market, steal them from 

unwitting guardians, or inherit them from predecessor 

states, thus circumventing time-consuming and in highcost development programs.” See Brad Roberts, Weapons 

Proliferation and World Order: After the Cold War, The Hague, , The Hague, 

The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, 1996, p. 52.

46. Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, The 

Responsibility To Protect: Report of the International Commission 

on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Ottawa: International 

Development Research Centre, 2001, p. IX, accessed March 

21, 2004, http://www.idrc.ca.

47. NSS, pp. 15-16.

48. Ibid., p. 15.

49. The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, pp. 11-

28.

50. The National Strategy to Combat Weapons of 

Mass Destruction, Washington, DC: The White House, 

December 2002, pp. 1-2, accessed April 4, 2004, http://

www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/WMDStrategy.pdf.

51. Extracted from an unclassified brief entitled “J5, 

Department of Defense War on Terrorism,” presented by 

Brigadier General Vincent K. Brooks, USA, at the Kennedy 

School of Government, Harvard University, August 19, 

2003.

52. As defi ned in Section II. 

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid.

55. Bernard Brodie, War and Politics, New York: The 

Macmillan Company, 1973, p. 463.

56. Ibid., p. 451.

57. Ibid., p. 462.

58. We evaluated the four military strategies against a 

decision matrix designed to thwart the converged threat. 

The matrix was based on criteria principally originating 

from criticisms of the NSS. 

59. Eugene Gholz, Daryle G. Press, and Harvey M. 

Sapolosky, “Come Home America,” International Security, 

Vol. 21, Issue 4, Spring 1997, EBSCO, Harvard Library, 

accessed March 14, 2004, http://www.ebnet.com.

60. This article quotes a 3rd Infantry Division 

Commander that he had perfect situational awareness on the 

ground but no cultural awareness. He also said he had great 

technical intelligence but for the wrong enemy. See Steven 

Israel and Robert Scales, “Iraq Proves It: Military Needs 

Better Intel,” New York Daily News, January 7, 2004, DOD 

Early Bird, accessed January 8, 2004, http://ebird.afi s.osd.mil.

61. See discussion of trigger points in Section II.

62. Michael Glennon provides clarifi cation as to why 

the UN Charter adapted the standard of armed attack as the 

predicate for the use of force. He says, “[I]f profl igate use 

of force was ever to be reined in, narrower limits had to be 

imposed. And those limits had to set out with a bright line; 

qualifying defensive rights with words like ‘reasonable,’ 

‘imminent,’ or even ‘necessary’ would leave states too much 

discretion and too much room for abuse.” By extension, 

the U.S. standard of incontrovertible evidence grows out 

of this standard and suggests the highly subjective nature 

of “imminent” and that “imminent” is really a question of 

degree, not time. Hence, as Douglas Lovelace says, imminent 

attack conveys a much stronger sense of time when qualifying 

threats. Furthermore, the notion of imminent threat has no 

value when evaluating threats from non-state actors and/or 

rogue states that can “instantaneously” acquire WMD. See 

Michael J. Glennon, “Preempting Terrorism; The case of 

anticipatory self-defense,” The Weekly Standard, Vol. 7, No. 

19, January 28, 2002, LexisNexis, Harvard Library, accessed 

November 3, 2003, http://www.lexis-nexis.com.

63. James J. Wirtz and James A. Russell, “U.S. Policy 

on Preventive War and Preemption,” The Nonproliferation 

Review, Spring 2003, p. 119. 

64. Graham Allison, “How to Stop Nuclear Terror,” 

Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 1, January/February 2004, p. 68.

65. Jeff Record tracks the poll numbers refl ecting the 

diminishing public support for the war in Iraq. See Jeff 

Record, Bounding the Global War on Terrorism, Carlisle 

Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2003, pp. 34-38.

66. President Bush stated in the 2004 State of the Union 

Address: “We don’t need a permission slip from anybody to 

defend ourselves.” See Bush, “State of Union Address.”

67. Evans and Sahnoun, p. IX.

68. The White House says there were 48 countries in the 

Coalition of the Willing. See “White House Press Release,” 

March 2003, The White House, accessed April 17, 2004, http:

//www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030321-4.html.

69. The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism 

identifi es four types of states: 1) Willing and Able States―

states that have the will and resources to combat terrorism 

with us at the state, regional, and even global level; 2) Weak 

States―States that are committed to fi ghting terrorism but 

lack the capacity to fulfi ll their sovereign responsibilities; 

3) Reluctant States―States that are capable of fi ghting 

terrorism but prove reluctant for a variety of reasons; and, 

4) Unwilling States―States that sponsor or actively provide 

sanctuary to terrorists. See National Strategy for Combating 

Terrorism, pp. 20-21.

70. David Frum and Richard Perle, An End to Evil: How 

to Win the War on Terror to Win the War on Terror, New York: Random House, 2003, p. , New York: Random House, 2003, p. 

35.

71. Acceptability—Operation plan review criterion. 

The determination as to whether there is consistency 

with the law of war; and is militarily and politically 

supportable. Adequacy—Operation plan review criterion. 

The determination as to whether the scope and concept of 
31

a planned operation are suffi cient to accomplish the task 

assigned. Feasibility—Operation plan review criterion. 

The determination as to whether the assigned tasks could 

be accomplished by using available resources. See Joint 

Publication 1-02, pp. 1, 6, 194.

72. NSS, p. 15.

73. For a discussion of soft power, see Joseph S. Nye, 

Jr., The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only 

Superpower Can’t Go It Alone, New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2002, pp. 8-12.

74. Carl von Clausewitz tells us: “The most far-reaching 

act of judgment that the statesman and the commander have 

to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which 

they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, not trying to 

turn it into, something that is alien to its nature.” Carl von 

Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. , Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. 

and trans., New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, p. 68. 

75. Glennon Interview.

76. For example, most of the world agrees it was sound 

policy to remove Saddam Hussein. Regrettably, the success 

of the policy has been largely overshadowed by questions 

regarding the justifi cation for the war and the apparent lack 

of intelligence. Our emphasis on trigger points places the 

focus back on the rogue state pursuing WMD. See Wirtz and 

Russell, p. 121.

77. The Administration is facing a legal quandary with 

both U.S. citizens detained for terrorism and the detainees 

at Guantanimo Bay. If U.S. citizens detained for terrorism 

are not classifi ed as combatants than they must be given 

due process rights and cannot be incarcerated until the 

“war” is over. Likewise, when the detainees at Guantanimo 

are classifi ed as POWs, the United States technically is not 

allowed to interrogate them as stipulated by the Geneva 

Convention. As Kenneth Roth points out, as a signer of 

the Geneva Convention, the United States is constrained 

by outmoded notions of “armed confl ict” and “war” 

that, in turn, determine detainee status as combatant or 

noncombatant. See Kenneth Roth, “The Law of War in the 

War on Terror, ” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 1, January/

February 2004, pp. 2-7.

78. Zajac, p. 87.

79. William Arkin suggests the United States needs to 

reevaluate the traditional line between military action and 

surveillance to ensure the military is not overstepping the 

boundaries laid out in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. See 

William M. Arkin, “Mission Creep Hits Home: American 

Armed Forces are Assuming Major New Domestic Policing 

and Surveillance Roles,” Los Angeles Times, November 23, 

2003, LexisNexis, Harvard Library, accessed November 24, 

2003, http://www.lexis-nexis.com.

80. Allison, p. 67.

81. John Lewis Gaddis says Bush has yet to make the 

connection between grand strategy and domestic politics, 

what he refers to as the “biggest failure of so far.” See 

Gaddis, “Grand Strategy.”

82. Some of the strategic concepts are taken from the 

briefi ng by Brigader General Brooks cited earlier.

83. See Section III for discussion of trigger points.

84. Quadrennial Defense Review Report, Washington, DC: 

Department of Defense, September 30, 2001, p. 12 (text and 

footnote), accessed April 4, 2004, http://www.defenselink.mil/

pubs/qdr2001.pdf.

85. Owen Cote points out very clearly how any 

security strategy that fails to acknowledge those 

differences (among such weapons) and their 

consequences . . . is doomed to failure. We recognize 

the need for differentiation, specifi cally in the 

development of separate capability trigger points 

but also believe there is utility in developing an 

overall strategy for WMD that lays the framework 

for dealing with the specifi c differences.

Owen R. Cote, “Weapons of Mass Confusion: A Security 

Strategy Doomed to Failure,” Boston Review, April/May 

2003, accessed March 8, 2004, http://www.bostonreview.net/

BR28.2/cote.html.

86. For the purposes of this paper, each of these trigger 

points is assessed using our qualitative analysis of the open 

press. Citations are provided to give overall insight on 

the unclassifi ed information recognizing there is probably 

classifi ed information that allows more accurate analysis 

for real-world application of our suggested strategy. Unless 

specifi cally noted, all articles were accessed via LexisNexis, 

Harvard Library, http://www.lexis-nexis.com/.

• Pakistan: “Still Standing,” The Economist, December 

20, 2003, U.S. Edition, accessed March 15, 2004; 

“Payback Time,” The Economist, June 28, 2003, 

U.S. Edition, accessed March 15, 2004; Seymour 

M. Hersh, “The Deal: Why is Washington Going 

Easy on Pakistan’s Nuclear Black Marketers?,” The 

New Yorker New Yorker, March 8, 2004, accessed March 15, 2004; , March 8, 2004, accessed March 15, 2004; 

Adam Piore, Zahid Hussain, Sami Yousafzai, and 

Ron Moreau, “Enemies in High Places? It seems 

Musharraf’s Attackers had Good Intelligence,” 

Newsweek, January 12, 2004, U.S. Edition, accessed 

March 8, 2004; Department of State, Bureau of 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Pakistan, 

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices-2003, 

Washington, DC: Department of State, February 25, 

2004, accessed March 15, 2004, http://www.state.gov/

g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27950.htm.

• North Korea: John R. Bolton, Under Secretary for 

Arms Control and International Security Affairs, 

“A Dictatorship at the Crossroads,” Speech to East 

Asia Institute, July 31, 2003, Seoul, South Korea, 

Department of State, accessed March 15, 2004, http://

www.state.gov/t/us/rm/23028.htm; “Diplomacy’s Last 

Chance,” The Economist, September 6, 2003, U.S. 

Edition, accessed March 15, 2004; James A. Kelly, 

“Regional Implications of the Changing Nuclear 

Equation on the Korean Peninsula,” Testimony 

before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 
32

Washington, DC, March 12, 2003, Department of State,

accessed March 15, 2004, http://www.state.gov/p/eap/

rls/rm/2003/18661.htm; George Wehrfritz, Hideko 

Takayama, and B. J. Lee, “Driving a Hard Bargain,” 

Newsweek, April 21, 2003, Atlantic Edition, accessed 

March 15, 2004; Department of State, “Background 

Note: North Korea: Profi le,” accessed March 15, 

2004, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2792.htm.

• Iran: “Ebb tide; Iran, Libya and nukes,” The 

Economist, March 13, 2004, U.S. Edition, accessed 

March 15, 2004; International Atomic Energy 

Agency, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards 

Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Resolution 

adopted by the Board on 13 March 2004, GOV/2004/21, 

New York: International Atomic Energy Agency, 

2004, accessed March 15, 2004, http://www.iaea.org/

Publications/Documents/Board/2004/gov2004-21.pdf. 

• “IAEA Board Won’t Refer Country to Security 

Council,” Nuclear News, January, 2004, accessed 

March 15, 2004; Department of State, “Background 

Note: Iran: Profi le,” accessed March 15, 2004, 

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5314.htm; “U.N. 

agency remains deadlocked on censuring Iran,” 

USATODAY.com, March 12, 2004, March 15, 2004, 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-03-12-uniran_x.htm. 

• Syria: Howard LaFranchi, “U.S. Eyes Second-tier 

Threats in Terror War,” Christian Science Monitor, 

October 14, 2003, accessed March 15, 2004; “Bush 

Advisers Oppose Syria Action,” The Houston 

Chronicle, January 10, 2004, accessed March 15, 

2004; Amberin Zaman, “Syria Hands Over Terror 

Suspects to Turkey: The 22 Detainees are said to 

Have Fled Over the Border After attacks that Killed 

Scores in Istanbul,” Los Angeles Times, December 

1, 2003, accessed March 15, 2004; Mark Hosenball, 

Stefan Theil and Rachel Thurneysen-Lukow, “The 

Syrian Connection,” Newsweek, January 26, 2004, 

U.S. Edition, accessed March 15, 2004; Department 

of State, “Background Note: North Korea: Profi le,” 

accessed March 15, 2004, http://www.state.gov/r/

pa/ei/bgn/3580.htm; The House of Representatives, 

House Resolution 1828 (Public Law 108-175): Syria 

Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration 

Act of 2003, Washington, DC: Government 

Printing Offi ce, December 12, 2003, accessed 

March 21, 2004, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgibin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_bills&docid=f:

h1828enr.txt.pdf.

87. Syria’s lack of WMD program is questionable. For 

the purposes of this analysis, the Syrians are given the 

benefi t of the doubt.

88. James A. Mowbray, “A Primer on Strategy 

Analysis,” Air War College Gateway, accessed January 22, 

2004, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/readings/mowbray/

mowbmodl.htm. 

89. Brooks.

90. NSS, p. 15.

91. Bush, West Point Graduation Speech.

92. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says 

the U.S. has always reserved the right to use preemptive 

force and that it was a mistake for the Bush Administration 

to move the strategy to center stage of U.S. national 

security. See Madeleine K. Albright, “United Nations,” 

Foreign Policy, September 1, 2003, Factiva, Harvard Library, 

accessed December 16, 2003, https://www.factiva.com. Also 

see Madeleine K. Albright, “Bridges, Bombs, or Bluster?” 

Foreign Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 5, September/October 2003, pp. 

2-19. 

93. Record, Bounding the War on Global Terrorism, p. 3.

94. Record and the authors of a Carnegie report on Iraq 

pre-war intelligence make this point. Record says, 

The administration has postulated a multiplicity of 

enemies, including rogue states; weapons of mass 

destruction proliferators; terrorist organizations of 

global, regional, and national scope; and terrorism 

itself. It also seems to have confl ated them into a 

monolithic threat, and in so doing has subordinated 

strategic clarity to the moral clarity it strives for in 

foreign policy and may have set the United States 

on a course of open-ended and gratuitous confl ict 

with states and non-state entities that post no 

serious threat to the United States.

Record, Bounding the War on Global Terrorism, p. V. The 

National Security Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass 

Destruction does a decent job of breaking out the threats as 

unique, just not to the extent required for strategic analysis. 

Hence, while we think Record overstates his point to make 

the case, there is value in looking for ways to “bound” the 

Global War on Terrorism. Also see Joseph Cirincione, Jessica 

Mathews, and George Perkovic, WMD in Iraq: Evidence and 

Implications, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace, January 2004, accessed January 14, 2004, 

http://www.ceip.org/intel/.

95. Roberts, pp. 47-62.

96. On this point, we agree with Jeffrey Records’ 

recommendation when he says: “Forcible regime change 

of the kind undertaken in Iraq is an enterprise fraught with 

unexpected costs and unintended consequences . . . the U.S. 

has in any event considerable experience in engineering 

regime change by measures short war.” Record, Bounding 

the War on Terrorism, p. 43.

97. Frum and Perle, An End to Evil, p. 236.

98. Carnegie Study, p. 61; and Anthony H. Cordesman, 

“The Iraq War and Lessons Relating to Intelligence and 

Weapons of Mass Destruction―Working Draft,” Center 

for Strategic and International Studies, December 2003, 

accessed March 5, 2004, http://csis.org/. 

99. Cordesman, p. 39.

100. Joint Task Force Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) seems 

to be a good model for this idea. See Department of Defense, 
33

United States Central Command Website, accessed April 12, 

2004, http://www.cjtfhoa.centcom.mil/mission.asp.

101. Record, Bounding the War on Global Terrorism, p. 

44.

102. We agree with many of the conclusions and 

recommendations presented by John Gordon IV, David E. 

Johnson, and Peter A. Wilson: 1) While the United States is 

focusing the objective force on combat operations against 

conventional opponents, this is a low probability event, 2) 

the homogeneous objective force is not appropriate for the 

vast majority of lesser operations the Army will be called 

upon to execute in the coming decade, 3) the strategic reality 

of access problems and coalition building undermines the 

notion that a large portion of the Army must be designed for 

very rapid response and deployment, and 4) lightly armed 

future combat systems will need high levels of situational 

awareness in precisely those scenarios where achieving that 

goal will be most diffi cult are just a few examples of their 

prescient analysis. See John Gordon IV, David E. Johnson, 

and Peter A. Wilson, “An Alternative Future Force: Building 

a Better Army,” Parameters, Vol. XXXIII, Issue 4, Winter 

2003-2004, pp. 19-39.

103. George W. Bush, “President Announces New 

Measures to Counter the Threat of WMD,” February 11, 

2004, Fort Lesley J. McNair, VA: The White House, accessed 

February 11, 2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/

2004/02/print/20040211-4.html.

104. Daniel Zajac develops two concepts—what he calls 

unannounced preemption and clandestine preemption. We 

suspect similar operational concepts are applicable to FCP 

and are worthy of consideration. Zajac, pp. 83-85.