Maintaining the US strategic advantage

Since the end of the Cold War, officials and scholars alike have searched for an adversary or problem with foreign origins to serve as an organizing concept for US national security the way the Soviet threat did during the Cold War. Yet every time we think that we have found the "main enemy" (to borrow the Soviets' label for the United States) or the most pressing problem imaginable, we have encountered another threat, competitor, or problem that seems at least as challenging or as dire.

The recent record

Recall the past two decades. In the late 1980s, when it was already clear that the Cold War was beginning to wind down, some thought traditional warfare would be replaced by economic competition. (Recall all those books about the art of Japanese management.)

Then, in 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and we worried about regional thugs - until a few months later when we began to worry even more about the problem of failed states like Somalia, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In the mid-1990s the integration of the former Soviet Union into the world community took center stage, but that concern was supplanted by genocide in Rwanda, ethnic conflict in the Balkans, and the first confrontations with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.

By the end of the decade Iraq returned as a top problem, this time over its non-compliance with UN disarmament requirements. But this was, in turn, displaced by concerns about China's suspected attempts to acquire American rocket and nuclear weapon technology and conflicts over Taiwan.

The early months of the George W Bush administration were focused on missile defense - in part, a reaction to the tension with China and a North Korean long-range missile test in 1999 - until, of course, 9/11 made terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism the most important issue. Then Iraq took center stage again. Now we are concerned about Iran's suspected nuclear program.

Mixed in with all these problems were the BCCI scandals, Aum Shinrikyo strikes in Tokyo, the Cali and Medellin drug cartels, and Y2K - lesser issues in today's context, but very important at the time. And, in addition to all of this there were the never-ending troubles in the Levant, plus simmering problems like the HIV/AIDS pandemic and climate change.

No story line, no end point

In short, the evidence of the past 20 years suggests that there is not going to be a single organizing concept that will dominate our attention and thinking the way containment did and, indeed, by searching for one, we are missing the big picture. The key national security challenge of the current era is staring us in the face: for the foreseeable future, we will have to deal with a continuing series of varied threats. The corollary is that any strategy that optimizes for one could leave us ill prepared for others.

Also, unlike the Soviet threat, these current problems are unlikely to disappear soon. They are resilient. That is another reason we are unlikely to find a grand strategy that resembles containment. Containment had a story line with a logical endpoint: If we contained the Soviets long enough and stressed their economy, eventually the threat would be resolved when the Soviet Union imploded.

The idea of an endpoint was essential to containment. It justified bearing the cost of resisting the Soviet Union today in order to receive a reward tomorrow. It was also the basis of Reagan's strategy: a little more pressure on the part of the West might break the Soviets or, to put it another way, get us to the endpoint sooner. It was probably also where the idea of the "peace dividend" originated: having reached the endpoint of the superpower struggle, many believed we could cash out and enjoy the reward of our past investment.

But the Soviet Union was completely different from the competitors and challengers we face today. Indeed, in retrospect, it is clear that the Soviet Union—superficially a superpower, but brittle underneath—may have been unusual as adversaries go, or even unique.

Most threats and challengers we face today are not brittle, and unlikely to collapse. Countries like China and today's Russia have strong economies. Terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda originate from tidal trends in society, like disaffected youth, traditional theologies, and sectarian rivalries. The ethic divisions breeding conflict in segmented countries like Iraq, Lebanon, Belgium, Ukraine, the Balkans, and many African and Asian countries all have deep roots in history, culture, and demographics.

Similarly, today's weapons proliferation threats stem from technological developments that are beyond anyone's control. The electronics that make IEDs possible come from consumer markets. Biological weapons are more widely available because of broader developments in the private sector, like genetic engineering. Chemical weapons are inseparable from agriculture and pesticides. Many cyber weapons are simply lines of computer code that are easily written and passed to others.

So all these threats will be with us a long time—indeed, indefinitely. There is no logical endpoint. World politics is returning to its traditional form—a continuing stream of problems that defy a conclusive solution, but which must instead be continuously managed.

In this kind of world, the goal of the United States should simply be to keep the strategic advantage, so that we have as much influence over the course of events and can generally guide then in a direction that favors us. This may not seem as inspiring as "making the world safe for democracy," or as decisive as relegating the Soviet Union to "the ash heap of history." But it is, in fact, the task ahead of us, and is essential if we hope to achieve our more idealistic goals of promoting freedom, peace, opportunity, and prosperity.

Requirements for US Policy

To keep the strategic advantage in this environment, the United States requires agility and endurance—the agility to redirect our military and diplomatic efforts to deal with rapidly changing challenges, and the endurance to maintain the underlying capabilities that give us influence.

One reason we failed to deal effectively with Al Qaeda prior to 9/11 was, in addition to all the specific lapses documented by official investigations, a general lack of agility; our attention and resources were focused elsewhere. Many of the difficulties US forces encountered in Iraq were because we were slow to respond to the insurgency as it developed.

Agility requires changing the political and administrative processes of government. The current Congressional budget cycle and the Executive branch interagency process are often too slow and cumbersome. Also, speed and agility often require accepting greater risk—military, political, economic, or some other kind. There is no single formula for balancing the need for speed with the desire to avoid risk, but that is precisely why American leaders need better ways to control the levers that make the government adjust when necessary, and then readjust as conditions return to normal.

On the military front, we will likely need a wider variety of capabilities, able to deploy and reconfigure themselves more rapidly. Consider the different kinds of military operations the United States has carried out since 1998: conventional military operations; interdiction operations; air strikes attacks isolated targets connected to terrorists or proliferation threats; counterinsurgency; support of friendly insurgencies; training of friendly foreign forces; patrols of no-fly zones; peacekeeping operations; disaster relief; strategic nuclear deterrence; and so on.

Instead of preparing for "two and half wars" or "one and a half wars," we now find ourselves having to prepare for a dozen or so different contingencies, each with different requirements. The current controversy over whether the United States should prepare for "big" conventional wars (like potential conflicts with China or North Korea) or counterinsurgency (such as currently underway in Iraq) misses the point. The issue is not whether we prepare for one or the other, but how we optimally prepare for both—and for other important contingencies—within the spending levels that the American public has been willing to support.

We also need greater agility on the diplomatic front. Cross cutting interests make diplomacy harder today. The choice is not whether the United States should go it alone, rely on the UN, or create a league of democracies. In the current environment, no single formula is likely to work in all situations. The membership of any organization or alliance that is united to achieve one set of goals will almost always have discord and be ineffective in achieve others.

Big, enduring, formal institutions like the UN or NATO will be rare in the future because no fixed membership, guiding principles, or rules of decision-making can sustain the consensus required to address the range of problems that require joint action. Witness the reluctance of many NATO members to deploy forces into combat in Afghanistan. Witness the UN's ineffectiveness in Rwanda, the Balkans, Darfur, and, more recently, Burma. Even the unity of the World Trade Organization is beginning to fray on issues like subsidies to aircraft companies, market protection for farmers, and antitrust penalties for software companies.

In the new environment "a la carte diplomacy" will be the order of the day. US officials will need to be more attuned to the specific interests of individual countries and groups, and more creative in devising agreements to obtain their support. Familiar organizations may occasionally be useful. But instead of today's policy, in which the United States "reserves the right" to act unilaterally, American leaders will usually need to prepare to act unilaterally or with an ad hoc coalition.

In addition to agility, US national security policy will also require endurance. This has two dimensions: pacing, so that, in dealing with one problem, we do not leave ourselves ill-prepared to deal with the others we will inevitably have to deal with; and growth, so that we continue to expand our capabilities, and especially in those areas in which we enjoy special strengths.

Pacing requires US leaders to think more carefully about the factors that constrain US capabilities. These include, for example, the size of our military forces, the size of our economy, the depth of public support for military operations and spending, their willingness to accept the constraints of foreign commitments, and so on.

Pointing out the need for pacing is not an argument that American power is limited; to the contrary, the United States still scores at the top in most dimensions of power—hard, soft, and in between. The point is simply that US power is not limitless, and maintaining our predominance in the future requires close attention to the downside risks of any action.

For example, once committed to a military operation, US forces are unavailable for other operations and, in effect, US military capabilities are diminished. The United States will likely have a clear military edge over its potential challengers for the foreseeable future. But our potential areas of operation are worldwide and other countries will improve their own regional capabilities. These facts make "economy of movement" more important than ever.

Maintaining American influence also requires growth—a strong economy underlies most of our other national capabilities. But, in the new environment, in which competitors like China and India are growing from a larger demographic base, Europe is unified, and several other countries like Brazil and Indonesia are becoming significant players in their regions, this requires a new approach, too.

The United States must concentrate on building capabilities in those dimensions of power in which we enjoys special strengths because of the American culture and our past investments, and which other countries cannot copy easily. They include, for example:

• A society that supports more military spending than our competitors and a culture that supports a professional military service in which many Americans choose to make careers.
  
• A tradition of rule of law, opportunity, and entrepreneurship that creates an environment favorable to business and innovation, encouraging people to invest and develop personal talent—all ingredients necessary for economic growth.
  
• A culture that traditionally accommodates immigration and encourages assimilation. This culture has enabled us to draw on talented, entrepreneurial people from throughout the world and at all income levels with talent and integrate them into the American nation.
  
• The "critical mass" we enjoy in the international institutions of influence—news, entertainment, popular culture, design, the use of the English language, higher education, and the like. These institutions make the world, often in subtle ways, to view things from an American perspective and, implicitly, with American values.

Keeping the United States ahead in these dimensions will be a challenge. Many of them depend on factors that are mainly outside of government (like the American culture). Others (like the American business environment) are the result of laws and regulations developed over many years. Yet others depend on decisions made by officials who are not thinking primarily about national security when they act (such as policies for education, legal immigration, and antitrust).

Changes in the organization and operation of government for national security would improve our odds for success. The current National Security Strategy is really a public relations document. A true strategy would identify the top threats the nation must address, and would link government resources to a plan to achieve them.

To insure departments and agencies work together effectively, the president also needs a better way to direct the departments and agencies within the government. He needs a single person responsible for achieving each of the goals in his strategy, with the means to direct organizations in the government in his behalf.

Such a process would resemble how the Defense Department has operated since the Goldwater-Nichols reforms, in which the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines provide capabilities, and a single combatant commander develops and executes operational plans using these forces within his area of responsibility. In adapting this approach to national-level policies, the departments would provide capabilities, and the president would appoint a White House-level official to act in his behalf to integrate their capabilities and focus them on a problem of national concern.

Currently, cabinet members are too busy running their departments to act as effective advisors to the president, and experience shows that departments are unable to combine efforts on their own. The president requires commanders, and, to be effective, they must be seen as independent of any single department or agency.

Such strategizing and organizational reform will not solve all of our national security problems. But such reforms, combined with a common understanding of the world we face, will better enable us to harness all of the political, military, economic, social, and cultural strengths that we will need to extend our current influence into the future.