Tuesday, 05 August 2003

War and Peace Reloaded, Part Deux: This post probably won't make much sense unless you read the first part. I should note that, in the time it's taking me to rebut one lousy outline of his, Steven has cranked out several more novellas about seemingly random topics; I'm trying to think of this as a quality vs. quantity situation, and not that I'm being hopelessly overwhelmed and danced in circles around.

Anyhoo, here's Part II of my strategic outline:

3. Possible responses to September 11th:
1. Defensive responses: Secure our infrastructure, improve our intelligence capabilities, etc. We have generally failed to take these actions.
1. Airport security is even worse than before.
1. Passenger luggage is more vulnerable to theft.
2. Security hassles and delays are crushing the industry.
3. This horse has already left the barn. Any attempted hijacking in the future will be met with deadly force by all other occupants of the aircraft; the implied bargain between hijacker and victim ("stay calm and nobody gets hurt") is no longer in effect.
2. Other infrastructure is still insecure.
1. "Code orange" alerts are unfunded mandates for states and cities. No federal funds supplied to support increased police coverage, security measures, et cetera.
2. There is too much infrastructure to secure effectively. Putting tight security on every bridge, power plant, skyscraper, landmark, restaurant, and shopping mall in America would destroy our way of life.
3. Intelligence failures have still not been addressed.
1. Structural reforms in the aftermath of 9/11 failed to touch the CIA, FBI, NSA.
2. Now we're jumping at shadows. Code orange! Get the duct tape!
3. Keystone Kops approach on Iraqi WMD intel suggests we have not improved our capabilities for collecting, correlating, and analyzing data.
4. Some signs of improved information sharing between agencies, but see below.
2. Orwellian responses: PATRIOT Act, Total Information Awareness, rounding up immigrants, secret tribunals, etc.
1. Tactical mistake.
1. Sends wrong message: Defenders of liberty abroad, Big Brother at home.
2. Gitmo in particular is being used against us overseas. (No troops for you, say India et al.)
3. Consulting with allies mitigates somewhat, at least in UK and Australia.
2. Political mistake.
1. War on Librarians is triggering a backlash.
2. ACLU membership at all-time high. (Not that that's a bad thing…)
3. Treatment of recent immigrants recalls WWII Japanese internment.
3. Historical mistake.
1. "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." —Benjamin Franklin
2. Rights are much harder to recover once surrendered.
3. Diplomatic responses, non-aggressive: Sharing intelligence, building alliances, imposing sanctions, freezing assets, policy changes, economic aid, etc.
1. Alone, none of these actions would be sufficient to prevent future terrorist attacks. Most of them wouldn't have stopped 9/11 in the first place.
2. Policy changes and economic aid unlikely to sway Al Qaeda, at least in the short term.
1. It might be possible to reduce terrorism through a diplomatic policy that aided or sanctioned nations according to their progress at eliminating terrorism.
2. …but it would take decades for that policy to work, if it worked at all, and meanwhile the current crop of terrorists would remain at large.
3. Intel sharing between Western agencies has improved since 9/11; many terrorist assets have been blocked or frozen.
4. Sanctions utterly ineffective at ending threat of terrorism.
4. Diplomatic responses, aggressive: Military aid, supporting insurrections and coups d'etat, creating civil unrest, etc.
1. America moved away from these tactics about 20 years ago and no longer has the resources in place to apply them (except for the granting of military aid, which is unlikely to wipe out Al Qaeda).
2. These sorts of tactics are what trained and equipped Al Qaeda in the first place, back in the day when they were mujahadeen and were fighting off the Soviet invasion.
5. Military responses, low risk: Retaliatory bombing, capturing terrorists and putting them on trial, etc.
1. Not enough to get the job done by themselves. After 9/11, the American people demanded a more complete response.
6. Military responses, medium risk: Supporting Northern Alliance with American troops, logistics and air cover; toppling Taliban government in Afghanistan.
1. Threat of attack from Al Qaeda diminished.
1. Terrorists killed, training camps destroyed, safe haven eliminated.
2. Direct action against Bin Laden's hideout offered best opportunity of capturing or killing him.
2. Low risk of casualties for American soldiers.
1. "Low risk" is a relative term in combat.
2. Nonetheless, American armed forces could be expected to do well against a ragtag army with light weapons and pickup trucks.
3. Low/no risk of WMD attacks, ecological crisis, or humanitarian disaster.
1. There was already a shooting war in progress.
2. No reason to expect WMDs or ecological crisis there.
4. Strong domestic support, minimal diplomatic fallout.
1. American people more supportive of war than any time since 1941.
2. Many allies supported American military action in Afghanistan.
3. Post-war peacekeeping by U.N.-backed multinational force.
7. Military responses, high risk: Invading and conquering Iraq, transforming Middle East into oasis of democracy, etc.
1. Medium risk of casualties for American soldiers.
1. "Medium risk" is again a relative term; "high risk of light casualties" would be more precise. D-Day makes Iraq look like a picnic.
2. Risk of casualties during street fighting in Baghdad, if Saddam forced us to take the city block by block.
3. Risk of casualties during post-combat "peackeeping" roles, for which U.S. soldiers are not as well-trained and equipped as for combat (and in which Americans are more likely to draw fire than other nationalities).
2. Risk of delivering WMDs into the hands of terrorists.
1. If Saddam had nothing to lose, would he take vengeance by sending the nearest Al Qaeda cell a gift of weaponized smallpox?
2. Chaos of war would also offer chances for opportunists to dig up Iraq's WMDs and sell them on the black market.
3. Risk of destabilizing the region.
1. Risk that Iraq would dissolve into ethnic conflicts and civil war without a powerful strongman to hold the country together, as Yugoslavia did after the death of Tito.
2. Risk that Iraq's Kurdish regions would declare independence, triggering a war with Turkey and possibly escalating to military conflict between Turkey and the United States.
4. Risks of ecological or humanitarian disaster.
1. Risk that Saddam would burn his oil fields and dump oil into the Gulf, as he did in 1991.
2. Risks that war would trigger refugee or health crises.
5. Risks of blowback.
1. Risk that invasion would create and equip more terrorists.
2. Risk of damaging other diplomatic efforts abroad; vulnerability to accusations of belligerence, war-mongering, seeking to control world's oil supply, disregarding the sovereignty of other nations, etc.
6. Risks justified by evidence that Saddam posed a WMD threat.
1. Numerous declarations that Iraq posed an imminent WMD threat—that he had the weapons in hand, and was prepared to launch them.
2. Indisputable evidence that Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980s and 1990s. All Western intelligence agencies believed that he still had them, and certainly that he retained the ability to make more WMDs.
3. Evidence that Saddam sought to obtain uranium from Africa.
4. Some argued that even a potential WMD threat was sufficient cause for invasion; waiting until after Saddam developed nuclear weapons, for example, was not a desirable strategy.
7. Risks justified by hyping Saddam - Al Qaeda links.
1. No solid evidence that Saddam knew in advance, or was involved in any way, in the planning or execution of the 9/11 attacks.
2. No Iraqis among the hijackers.
3. Nonetheless, the hype machine kicked into high gear. By the time the invasion began, a significant percentage of Americans believed that Iraq was in some way involved in 9/11 on the basis of no evidence to speak of.
8. Risks justified by Saddam's crimes against humanity.
1. Number of Iraqi civilians murdered by Baath regime per week: 200.
2. Mass graves, torture chambers, rapes, mutilations, genocides.
3. In a better world, these reasons alone would have been sufficient to justify military action.
9. Risks mitigated by superiority of United States armed forces.
1. Analysts have consistently underestimated the performance of the American military and miscalculated the downside risk of military action.
2. "Force multiplier" effects of American combat training, equipment, smart weapons, drone aircraft, real-time communication, etc., are hard to calculate—but the evidence suggests they are higher than most realize.
3. Iraqi defenses degraded by twelve years of no-fly patrols. Iraqi troops had low morale, inferior weapons and training, promise of near-certain death against hopelessly powerful opponent.
10. Medium to strong domestic support; medium diplomatic fallout.
1. Diplomatic fallout amplified by Bush administration's in-your-face rhetoric. "Old Europe" crack and similar jabs made it impossible for French, Germans to offer post-war help without losing face.
2. Domestic support amplified by overselling Saddam-Osama connection, playing up imminence of WMD threat, etc.
8. Military responses, insane risk: Carpet-bomb their cities and convert them to Christianity, kill them if they don't reform, etc.
1. High risk of casualties for American soldiers. Could set off a general world war, or return us to Cold War standoffs with China or Russia.
2. High risk of blowback.
1. Disruption to oil-based world economy would be catastrophic.
2. Would create large pool of enraged proto-terrorists with nothing to lose and plenty of targets.
3. Those proposing this generally hold strongly right-wing political positions, and believe that a shadowy group known as "the Liberals" (also known as "the Left," "the Democrats," "the UN," or "Europe") is conspiring to destroy the United States, that the rest of the world thinks America is a weak and cowardly nation, and that we must address this image problem by making friend and foe alike live in fear of us.
   (Okay, one pointed barb for the right-wing nutcases. I'm allowed one.)
4. Low domestic support; maximum diplomatic fallout.
4. Short-term strategy in response to the 9/11 attacks
1. Capture or kill Osama Bin Laden; eliminate or cripple Al Qaeda. Strategies chosen:
1. Orwellian response: PATRIOT Act, round up immigrants, secret tribunals.
1. Of all the responses to 9/11, this one came first.
2. Diplomatic response, non-aggressive: Freeze assets, share intelligence.
1. The "war in the shadows."
2. By all reports, quietly successful—but not flashy enough to satisfy the political demand on our leaders.
3. Military response, medium risk: Topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
1. Our most successful and visible short-term response.
2. Al Qaeda were caught completely off guard. The speed, ferocity, and effectiveness of America's military response did not match what they were expecting.
4. Military response, low risk: Capture terrorists and put them on trial.
1. Ongoing action with some notable successes—but still no Osama.
2. Superficial efforts to restore consumer confidence.
1. Department of Homeland Security formed to tell us our daily panic level.
2. Visible, useless increase in airport security levels.
3. Bush speech calling upon Americans to continue with their lives.

(Continued in Part 3…)

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 7:12 pm. comments.