(Editor's Note: In a memo dated October 16, 2003 distributed to his senior staff, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld raised a number of questions with respect to military transformation inspired in part by the conduct of the war on terror and the U.S invasion and occupation of Iraq. Much media commentary focused upon the contrast between Rumsfeld's positive public pronouncements on military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and his characterization of a victory in those countries as likely but only as a result of a "long, hard slog." Receiving less focus were his questions with respect to broader U.S. plans for military transformation in the context of the war on terror. FPIF analyst Dan Smith answers these questions, answers that Rumsfeld is unlikely to receive from his subordinates.)
TO: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
CC: Gen. Dick Myers, Paul Wolfowitz, Gen. Pete Pace, Doug Feith
FROM: Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)
Senior Fellow on Military Affairs
Friends Committee on National Legislation
SUBJECT: Your October 16, 2003 Memo Re: Global War on Terrorism
A copy of subject Memo came to my attention even though I am not on the
"To" or "CC" list. Obviously, you or a senior member of
your staff anticipated that I would be able to provide a thoughtful, practical
reply based on independent, unbiased research. My responses follow each of
your queries.
Have we fashioned the right mix of rewards, amnesty, protection, and confidence
in the U.S.?
No. Rewards are insufficient to accomplish one of the most basic requirements
of post-conflict reconstruction: disarming the various factions and even individuals.
The latter may be more significant in Iraq than in countries ravaged by civil
war where large numbers of fighters are arrayed against each other in some
form of military or paramilitary organization. When the leaders of the contending
groups agree to end armed conflict, one of the goals is to disarm the fighters
as part of the general demobilizing and reintegrating effort. But in Iraq,
the conditions for demobilizing factions do not pertain.
This connects to three other problems: a lack of personal security for
Iraqis, both private citizens and high-profile individuals assisting the CPA
(although the latter, particularly members of the Governing Council and state
ministers, do have security details); the large numbers of weapons held by
former Iraqi soldiers who simply melted away to their homes as the coalition
armies advanced toward Baghdad; and the easy availability of weapons and ammunition
in the large numbers of munitions dumps that are still not under coalition
guard.
While the latter deficiency is slowly being remedied through contracts
for securing and destroying excess and old munitions, until better and visible
control is established, confidence in the U.S. will remain low. Incidents
such as the October 26th rocket attack on the Al Rashid hotel, the multiple
car bombings on October 27th, the downing of the Chinook helicopter November
2nd, and even the frequency of daily attacks against western military forces,
civilian contractors, UN, ICRC, and other relief workers, feeds this lack
of confidence.
What would help restore confidence that the U.S. means what it says about
returning sovereignty quickly to Iraq--and at the same time put an "Iraqi
face" on security--would be to recall Iraqi soldiers and officers up
to and including lieutenant-colonel rank and reconstitute their old units
through battalion level. Carefully vetted more senior officers could form
an Iraqi Army Headquarters reporting to an Iraqi civilian authority operating
under the Governing Council. A parallel procedure should be used to recall
police units to operate under councils of elders and other local leaders.
The inescapable reality is that more professionally trained and culturally
sensitive security people are needed quickly if the U.S. has any hope of retaining
the neutrality of, let alone improved cooperation from, the general Iraqi
population. Troops and police advisers from European countries may have the
training, while those from Islamic nations would be more culturally attuned.
But governments are not offering significant help to relieve U.S. forces.
Does DoD need to think through new ways to organize, train, equip, and
focus to deal with the global war on terror?
Definitely. The first step is to declare the end of the global war on terror.
Next, the Pentagon should shift from lead to supporting agency, with State
becoming the new lead. Justice would assume a more prominent supporting role
in keeping with the emphasis that terrorist incidents are criminal acts.
Al Qaeda has been dealt a blow and the regime that was most visible in
its support of global terror, the Afghan Taliban, has been replaced. This
is not to say that those Taliban and al Qaeda loyalists still at-large pose
no residual threat, either to Afghanistan or, through other, loosely affiliated
groups, to other governments. But these groups seem less interested in pressing
a global jihad than in achieving specific goals within the countries in which
they are operating. (This is true even in Iraq, where the U.S. presence acts
as a magnet for jihadists.) They of course will always accept money, equipment,
and training from any source, al Qaeda or not.
At least part of the current U.S. dilemma stems from an inability to see
simultaneously the two levels of terror in the 21st century. The administration's
emphasis on "global war" masks the reality that all terrorist acts
are local. This suggests that the effort to stop or at least control acts
of violence directed against non-combatants should remain at the local--or
no more than a regional--context. Were this done, DoD would be able to re-form
its plans and organization to support the police and justice systems when
these civilian-oriented agencies determine they do not have the resources
to track, apprehend, or where necessary, fight and defeat those committing
acts of terror. Such cases generally will occur in failed or failing states.
This is a key point, for it goes right to the central questions of why
military forces are needed and how they should be employed to achieve the
stated goals.
In the ideal world, disputes and misunderstandings would be resolved without
recourse to the threat of or actual use of armed conflict. In the obvious
absence of this ideal, military organizations exist to provide the same sense
of security from external attack that police forces provide on the national
and local levels. This deterrent/defensive orientation is reinforced by various
international conventions that seek to regulate and minimize war's effects.
More significantly, the UN has as its primary mission "to save succeeding
generations from the scourge of war," a continuing endeavor that involves
first and foremost employing non-military measures.
The UN Charter does acknowledge that some threats to international peace
and security will not be remedied by non-violent interventions. This reality
points to the question of how military force should be used. The UN Charter
calls for Member States "to unite our strength to maintain international
peace and security" so as "to ensure, by the acceptance of principles
and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in
the common interest" as this is determined by the UN Security Council.
Thus, in addition to their deterrent role, which contributes to avoiding the
scourge of war, armed forces acting under UN mandates engage in peacekeeping,
peace monitoring, and peace making, roles that enhance international security
through cooperative actions in support of international law.
Currently in the U.S. military, there is a mismatch between the demands
inherent in these roles and resources and capabilities to implement these
roles. The Pentagon--and the entire U.S. government--seems trapped organizationally
and conceptually in what might be termed the "cold war time warp."
Tanks and armored troop carriers, the mainstays of classic warfare, send all
the wrong signals to populations whose main security concerns are looting,
murders, kidnappings, robberies, and car bombs.
Ironically, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have slowed efforts to transform
the U.S. military into a lighter, more agile, and flexible force that could
effectively participate in UN peace operations, including stabilization of
failed states. Changes that have been made include:
- the Army's shift to the Stryker Brigade Combat Team, a new combat grouping
that relies on speed and agility to perform its mission;
- the Air Force plan to organize wings that mix various aircraft types (as
well as Reserve and active duty component personnel), giving combatant commanders
the full range of capabilities in one well-trained operational package; and
- the Navy's new "sea base" proposal and existing cooperative
engagement capability (CEC) system are prototypes for what could be a shared
joint command and total battlespace awareness system.
The one area that ultimately has to remain globally centralized is intelligence
collection, analysis, and dissemination, with the latter being tailored for
and directed to commanders at all levels from unified combatant commanders
to platoon level. This structure must truly be "all source" both
in terms of collection methods and sources, including open source information.
Moreover, given the power inherent in organizations charged with interpreting
and disseminating information on which national policy is based, continuous
review of intelligence activities and the rationale supporting intelligence
community conclusions is required.
Are the changes we have and are making too modest and incremental? My
impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have
made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?
In two words, "Yes" and "No."
Changes to date have been too slow in reacting to the post-1991 and then
post-September 11th, 2001 security environments. This is not just a DoD problem,
where it is particularly evident in the training and equipping of ground forces.
Primarily, needed changes in overall U.S. national security (foreign and defense)
policy have been too slow, resulting, since 1991, in a general failure to
organize international backing to slow, stop, and eliminate the root causes
for continued violence in the developing world that then generates unilateral
or multilateral interventions. In short, the U.S. has not placed enough weight
behind the fundamental concept of war prevention--unless one believes (illogically)
that making war prevents wars.
The demise of the state in the internecine warfare that engulfed the republics
of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s was a harbinger of the challenges that
were emerging around the world in the post-cold war era. But the assaults
by various factions on human security, human rights, and civil liberties that
drew condemnation and eventually military intervention in Southeast Europe
were not connected (or not publicly connected) to the same plight of millions
on other continents. Only when a particularly significant atrocity such as
the mass killing of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda became known was there
international intervention--and by then the intervention (including military
assets) invariably would be directed toward the need for immediate humanitarian
relief.
Even in the current general context of peaceful competing nation-states,
the vast majority of countries find it prudent to retain national military
establishments. And while the primary purpose of regular military units remains
"to kill people and destroy things," an emerging, equally important
requirement in the post-cold war and post-September 11th, 2001 environments
is the ability to act quickly, under the aegis of the UN (or a regional security
organization and, in extremis, unilaterally until the UN Security Council
acts) to preclude or halt war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.
A further emerging need is for a stand-alone, international civilian police
formation, modeled on the Italian caribineri that can be dispatched under
UN auspices to help provide physical security for a threatened population
and to contribute to reconstituting local police and other traditional security
structures.
A bold move by DoD would be the conversion of one or two current active
duty ground divisions into a "heavy" caribineri force to be used
in situations such as Iraq today where heavy armored divisions lack the proper
equipment and psychological orientation for interacting with and gaining the
trust of key segments of the Iraqi population. These U.S. forces are, to borrow
a phrase, "fit to kill," but for the most part this is not the orientation
that will be effective in either Afghanistan or Iraq. The U.S. should also
press other countries to create similar forces to allow for true multinational
operations under the UN.
Creation of these self-sustaining units is not the only possible move,
but it would provide the president with an option to employ regular military
formations in those situations where the display of raw military power would
send the wrong message to a population that needs the reassurance of physical
security and eventual justice.
Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global
war on terror. Are we capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more
terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting,
training, and deploying against us?
Focusing on the madrassas and other institutions that promote narrowly
focused viewpoints, whether directed against the U.S., the West, their own
government, or international organizations, misses the crux of the problem.
(Were this a problem in auto mechanics, the solution to eliminating harmful
emissions will not be found at the output end--the tailpipe--but at the input--the
engine combustion chamber.) It misses because the real problem is the repression
of human and civil rights and liberties, often in the name of "security,"
in countries whose regimes have been supported or condoned by the U.S. and
other western nations.
The question does pertain to the problem only to the extent that any narrowly
focused system of instruction invariably demands that its interpretation of
life be accepted unequivocally. As a result, those who hold that valid alternative
systems and explanations exist are easily demonized and become marked for
extermination.
Changing this system per se is not within the capability of DoD. Killing
or capturing those who commit terrorist acts cannot be used as a metric of
success, as demonstrated by the "promotion" of mid-level al Qaeda
operatives when senior persons are caught or killed. As the Pentagon learned
in Vietnam, body counts are essentially meaningless when the number comprising
the enemy force cannot be ascertained.
What is within DoD's purview is ensuring that statements or actions by
Pentagon civilians, uniformed persons, or individuals working under contract
to the Pentagon avoid denigrating other cultures and belief systems and respect
the customs and traditions of indigenous peoples with whom there is contact.
Examples of unhelpful incidents include the president's July 3rd, 2003 "Bring
them on" challenge, remarks by LTG Boykin, and the detention of three
elderly Iraqi women in an apparent attempt to force the surrender of one of
the women's son suspected of attacking U.S. forces in Iraq.
In Iraq itself, two provisional metrics might be the level and trend in
the number of terror incidents and the geographic spread (or contraction)
of the attacks. On a wider, regional scale, the number and extent of attacks
that occur or that are thwarted could also be a rough metric. Over the mid-term,
valid metrics of success include: tax collections flowing to the central government,
a steep and sustained drop in assassinations of mayors and Iraqi police, and
the number and geographic spread of government-paid teachers.
Does the U.S. need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next
generation of terrorists? The U.S. is putting relatively little effort into
a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to
stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions
against the terrorists' costs of millions.
See first paragraph in above answer. An integrated U.S. plan would include
a large-scale foreign education effort, including re-opening U.S. cultural
centers throughout the world and using U.S. government-funded foreign broadcast
and other information media to discuss and explain the foundational principles
underlying the U.S. system of governance. Other, complementary programs might
include increased opportunities for foreign students to study in the U.S.
and changes in U.S. trade policies and foreign aid (including debt cancellation)
that would help create conditions for improving the living conditions in developing
countries.
Not to be overlooked is the reciprocal necessity to educate U.S. officials
and ordinary citizens about non-Western cultures. This suggests that any U.S.
effort would be more effective were it part of a broader, multilateral, multicultural
strategy to break down barriers between peoples, which those who practice
terror try to exploit.
The rationale for this admittedly long-range plan is to undercut the narrow
and frequently complete misunderstanding (or purposeful misinterpretation)
of the principles of democracy--its rights, privileges, and responsibilities.
The objective should not be to convince but to sow the seeds of inquisitiveness
and a desire to learn more about what, in a number of countries, is an alternative
to current conditions. This would be a less costly alternative in blood and
treasure to trying to prevent terrorist attacks through military action or
to the need to rebuild societies destroyed by warfare. It would also serve
to close the gap between the rhetoric of U.S. policy "intentions"
and the programs and activities that are actually implemented (e.g., rhetoric
of multilateralism versus unilateral action).
Do we need a new organization?
No, at least not a new superstructure. Recombining existing organizations
to produce truly joint forces that can react to imminent threats in support
of UN principles and creation of a stand-alone caribineri police contingent
may be warranted. But as indicated previously, what would be most useful is
a large increase in "soft power" capabilities the U.S. could bring
to bear.
How do we stop those who are financing the radical madrassa schools?
This is a development, not a "security," question. DoD's contribution
to this effort, which properly belongs to the State Department and the Treasury,
would be information gleaned through communications intercepts and exploitation
of documents and computer files that come into DoD's possession.
Other than information, DoD's role would seem to be to avoid giving new
cause for individuals to provide funds in reaction to something said or done
by Pentagon representatives.
Is our current situation such that "the harder we work, the behinder
we get"?
In a sense, Yes. The insistence on dominating the security, political,
and economic reconstruction of Iraq leads to unintentional cultural gaffes
and operational mistakes that inhibit the development of trust between U.S.
personnel and the indigenous population. A more prominent role for the State
Department among U.S. agencies and for the UN among international and intergovernmental
agencies would relieve the pressure on DoD to implement programs with which
it has little modern practical experience. Granted, such a reorientation would
entail increased coordination, but it would free DoD to concentrate on what
it does best--developing better security through training indigenous forces
and, where necessary, taking direct action against those committing terrorist
acts. Such a shift would also lead to greater participation by Iraqis in overall
decisionmaking.
It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq
in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog.
Agreed. The question is: will the U.S. prevail "badly"? That
is, will the long-term end state of the Afghan and Iraqi people be better
than it was in the 1990s before the Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes were
ousted? Unfortunately, the early results are mixed, particularly given the
low level of international financial support evinced at recent donor conferences
($4.5 billion for Afghanistan and $13 billion for Iraq).
Perhaps a more important question is: Will the U.S. and the world be safer
as a result of these two (and potentially other) interventions? History will
be the judge, but at the moment, the weight of criticism suggests that these
two interventions have increased U.S. insecurity, endangered global instability,
and increased terrorist recruitment.
Does CIA need a new finding?
Not being privy to classified information about the content of current
findings and Executive Orders, this is difficult to answer. However, from
what has been reported by the media in terms of the reaction to September
11th, 2001 (e.g., the USA PATRIOT Act), the reported activities of CIA operatives
in Afghanistan and CIA presence in Iraq, and information contained in government
documents such as the unclassified National Intelligence Estimate of October
2002, it would appear the CIA has sufficient leeway to carry out its mandate.
In fact, some revisiting of legislative changes may be in order, particularly
if abuses are discovered in the exercise of new authorities.
Should we create a private foundation to entice radical madrassas to a
more moderate course?
No. This idea suggests--and would be seen as confirmation of--an insensitive
mirror-imaging of U.S. consumerism and lust for material riches. While a few
madrassa majority must be regarded as principled believers in what they preach
and teach. Attempts to bribe them would more likely inflame already existing
passions.
A better course is making available through alternative means information
about democracy, human rights, and civil liberties.
What else should we be considering?
Worldwide, the Pentagon should proceed with plans to restructure forces
and re-base units. Specifically, Germany-based ground units should be brought
back to the U.S. A six-month schedule of unit rotation for training with European
allies should be inaugurated, with equal time given to warfighting and peacekeeping
(Chapter VI and Charter VII) operations. Re-basing USAF combat wings should
also be considered. Naval deployments (carrier battle group and amphibious
ready group) should be made on the basis of anticipated or existing conditions
where a U.S. presence would contribute to reducing tensions or for scheduled
training with allied navies rather than by rote schedule.
Plans for reconfiguring U.S. ground forces in East Asia should be further
developed. As diplomatic progress is made in resolving the issue of North
Korean nuclear weapons, plans for re-positioning U.S. forces in Korea (including
eventual withdrawal) and then in Japan can be implemented.
To head off the rise of new anti-U.S. sentiment (or further inflaming existing
sentiment), the Pentagon should curtail economic and military aid to countries
with repressive regimes or countries in which the military effectively controls
the powers of the state.
Transfers of arms, spare parts, and ammunition to repressive regimes should
be stopped. DoD should throw its weight behind an Arms Trade Treaty that would
bind all countries from supplying such regimes with arms and armaments. These
measures, addressing the "supply-side" of the arms trade, would
not solve the problem of spending scarce resources on weapons, but would make
acquiring weapons more difficult.
DoD could continue training, as part of a multilateral, UN sanctioned program,
select units controlled by regional security organizations to perform peacekeeping
missions when authorized by the Security Council. Africa presents a viable
prototype for this activity.
Finally, in addition to forgiving loans for non-military needs in developing
countries, the U.S. should strike a bargain with developing countries that
owe money to the U.S. for past purchases of military equipment: the debt will
be apportioned over a number of years, with a percentage of the debt and interest
forgiven each year, on condition that the sums forgiven are applied to basic
human needs and services benefiting the people of the debtor nation--e.g.,
health clinics, schools, fresh water developments, improved sanitation, etc.
Copy of the October 16th memo
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/dod/rumsfeld-d20031016sdmemo.htm
