Failed-State Operational Environment Concepts

In the September-October 1996 issue of Military Review, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel John B. Hunt provides many crucial contributions to the debate surrounding failed-state operations known as operations other than war (OOTW) and stability and support operations (SASO). Given Hunt's former position in the Corps and Division Doctrine Directorate, US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he offers an insider's perspective on recent SASO doctrine history and current SASO doctrine status. His synopsis of the April 1996 draft of US Army Field Manual (FM) 100-20, Stability and Support Operatiorus, which for the first time in doctrine addresses peace-enforcement execution, ethnic conflict and failed states, is of particular value. Hunt corrects the factual error in my November-December 1995 Military Review article that describes contingency operations as "an early forerunner of OOTW" and points out serious Army shortcomings in OOTW/SASO concept and doctrine development, which I had not realized existed. Hunt also provides three important insights on which I wish to comment, conceptually expand and, when necessary, repostulate as a means to further promote Army doctrinal development for operations that occur in failed states. Failed-State Operational Environment The first of Hunt's insights concerns the Army's basic conceptual approach to OOTW/SASO or what I term "nonWestern warfare." Hunt states, "Over the years, the Army has entertained many ideas about `not war-not peace' situations." Later he says, "The term's major fault is that it obscures OOTW's warlike aspects, the `not war-not peace' situations that FM 100-5, Operations, refers to as 'conflict'." He also mentions that "We must name `not war-not peace' situations, but what the name should be is unimportant." These sentences' significance is the focus on the "not war-not peace" environmental concept as an organizational premise. The Army continues to view failedstate operations as existing in the "not war-not peace" environment. We have made progress in recognizing that some OOTW missions are forms of warfare and not conflict. However, Hunt's approach to SASO as the warlike aspect of the "not war-not peace" environment is still conceptually flawed. When I described non-Western warfare in my article, I did not mean it was the warlike aspect of the "not war-not peace" concept-only that it was a form of war. Hunt could not know this because I did not propose an alternative conceptual model to the range of military operations in the theater-strategic environment-only that one was needed. Hunt's reliance on the "not war-not peace" concept suggests why Army doctrine writers have not yet been able to properly define OOTW or develop a satisfactory model. In my article, I state that "because current US Army doctrine is so bound to Clausewitzian thought, many doctrinal questions . . must be reexamined." The Army has failed to do so in regard to its conceptual approach to SASO because it is institutionally constrained by Clausewitzian thinking. To help the Army redefine operations in failed states, I propose a new politico-military model. This operational environment model would be composed of a four-cell matrix that would include "war and crime," "war," "crime" and "peace." Three of the cells -war, crime and peace-would pertain to traditional Clausewitzian issues; the fourth-war and crime-would pertain to an emergent neo-Clausewitzian one. To extrapolate the model, we begin with the condition of war. This environment is one of "military issues" that occur between nation-states. It defines the rationale behind US Army operations, as stated in the June 1993 FM 100-5, that after war breaks out, seeks to achieve decisive victory against military forces of belligerent nation-states or their coalitions. Peace is the domain of "diplomatic issues" between nation-states. Treaties and arms control as well as maintaining a strong army are central to this environment because, when integrated into a national security strategy, they help deter war. …