Ringing True or Ringing Hollow?
By LTG James M. Dubik
U.S. Army retired
A
l Qaeda declared war against the
United States in 1996, and in response to the attacks of 9/11, the
United States went to war against al
Qaeda. For more than a decade, we
have witnessed an ongoing debate
concerning what kind of war this is
and how best to wage this war. We
have never really ended this debate
with satisfactory answers—not as an
armed force or as a nation. The question now, however, is this: How does
this war end?
On the surface, we have a good
model for how many wars end. “War,”
Clausewitz says, “cannot be considered to have ended so long as the enemy’s will has not been broken: in
other words, so long as the enemy government and its allies have not been
driven to ask for peace, or the population made to submit.” To end a war,
then, requires all or some combination
of the following: defeating the enemy
military force, occupying the enemy’s
territory and capital, or subjugating its
people. These are the ways an enemy’s
will can be broken. The underlying assumptions in the defeat-occupationsubjugation model are simple: There is
an enemy military force that can be defeated; there is a specified geographic
area with a political center that can be
occupied; this geographic area has an
associated citizenry and structure that
can be subjugated; and one or more of
these actions will break the enemy’s
will. When these assumptions are valid
and the requisite action is achievable,
the way seems clear—but is it?
The model begs the question: Then
what? What does the victorious power
do once its enemy’s military force is
defeated, its territory and capital occupied, its people subjugated, and its will
broken? What roles do military forces,
as well as the “other means” to which
Clausewitz refers when he discusses
war as “simply the continuation of political intercourse,” play in the postfighting phase that ends a war? The
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Clausewitzian model, under very specific circumstances, describes how to
end fighting, but it is less helpful in describing how to end war.
Of course, Clausewitz describes offensive and defensive wars with limited aims, but even here, his model for
ending wars is less compelling than
what he says about waging them. The
main assumptions in limited war are
similar to the “total defeat” model.
Limited offensive war can be waged
to destroy a part of an enemy’s military force, seize a part of the enemy’s
territory or subjugate a portion of
an enemy’s people. Limited defensive
war preserves the bulk of military
strength and retains the important
portions of territory and people, while
reducing the strength of the enemy’s
military force and will. In either case,
limited wars are followed by diplomatic negotiations in which each side
tries to retain a position of strength
relative to the other. How these negotiations ultimately result in a state of
peace is a question Clausewitz leaves
unanswered.
He goes on to say that success in either limited war scenario could also
make the transition to the total defeat
model. What may start out as a limited
offensive war could simply continue
because of its success. What begins as a
limited defensive war could ultimately
wear down an enemy force so much
that the defender could make the transition to the offense—and not just eject
the offense to reestablish antebellum
conditions but go on to defeat the initial invader’s military force, occupy its
territory and capital, subjugate its people, and break its will. In either case, we
may come to understand how fighting
could end, but we are no closer to understanding how the war ends.
In The Causes of War, Geoffrey Blainey
provides a glimpse of how wars end by
investigating how they begin. He says,
“The outbreak of war and the outbreak
of peace are essentially decisions to
implement aims by new means. To attempt to explain war is to attempt to
explain why forceful means were selected.” Simply put, war is usually the
outcome of one party concluding it is
unable to achieve what it wants
through nonviolent means and believing—correctly or not—that violent
means will achieve its aims because of
its enemy’s weaknesses. A war ends
when either the party’s conclusion and
belief are proven false, or it achieves
what it wanted to.
There are two assumptions upon
which Blainey’s model rests: that the
parties to war reason and decide using
rational, self-interest calculations, and
that the use of forceful means to
achieve aims is the exception to the
rule. These assumptions do not negate
Clausewitzian analysis, but they do
provide “bookends” to Clausewitz’s
description of the conduct of war. To
prevent war, don’t appear weak to
one’s enemies—real and potential—
and provide nonviolent means for parties to achieve their aims. To end a war,
defeat one’s enemy so as to establish
clear “relative strength” and provide
nonviolent means for parties to achieve
their aims.
Donald Kagan’s conclusion in On the
Origins of War and the Preservation of
Peace seems similar to Blainey’s bookends approach. Kagan writes: “What
seems to work best [with respect to
preventing war] is the possession by
those states who wish to preserve the
peace of the preponderant power and
of the will to accept the burdens and
responsibilities required to [prevent
war].” He goes on to say, “No international situation is permanent.” Change
is the only constant, but change must
occur through “peaceful channels.” If a
party threatens or uses violence to effect change, then states desiring to preserve peace must always be prepared
to resist, with force if necessary.
The main assumptions both Blainey
and Kagan make are: There is a differ-
U.S. Army/PFC Cameron Boyd
“The question now … is this:
How does this war end?”
ence between a state of peace and a state
of war; if war breaks out, a state of
peace can be reestablished; and in waging war, Clausewitz’s analysis is mostly
right—fighting ends whether as a result
of breaking the enemy’s will or establishing clarity of relative strength.
The Clausewitz/Blainey/Kagan approach draws its validity and utility
from a state-based international system.
States are supposed to provide sufficient
security, order and prosperity within
their borders; preserve international
peace; and fight wars. This has been the
system since the Peace of Westphalia in
1648. States are supposed to be sovereign within their borders and state sovereignty the basis for the international
system. We need only look around to see
that this system, and the sovereignty it
requires, is now being challenged. Sir
Michael Howard describes the challenge
to state sovereignty as a kind of corrosion from above (via supranational entities and their power to override state authority), laterally (via globalization), and
from below (states that themselves have
weak or insufficient internal legitimacy).
Howard’s tripartite challenge is at
the center of our war against al Qaeda
and its associates. The war they declared, began and—from the looks of
things—seek to continue for some time
is fueled and sustained by lateral and
from-below corrosion. Lateral corrosion provides al Qaeda and its affiliates
with the funds to arm, equip, recruit,
train and sustain themselves. Corrosion from below provides the enmity al
Qaeda and its affiliates need to stoke
their narrative. Though not a state
themselves, they have used—and are
using—the violent means of force to
behave like a state. This is the behavior
that the international community cannot—and should not—tolerate. It
seems, however, that no single nation
or collection of nations has been able to
agree on how to change this behavior
in a way that increases the stability of
the international system.
Until now, the approach to counter
al Qaeda and its affiliates has been one
based upon a war model. This is understandable. Defending the nation
against terrorist aggression after 9/11
required adopting a war model. It was
not only reasonable and justified, but
also politically necessary. Nevertheless,
the war model creates a conundrum
because using it treats al Qaeda like a
state, thereby increasing its legitimacy
and contributing to the corrosion of the
sovereignty-based international sys-
tem. On the other hand, the alternative—a crime-based model—seems inapplicable, for what al Qaeda did was
far more than a mere crime.
Gen. Rupert Smith offers a possible
way out. In The Utility of Force: The Art
of War in the Modern World, he says that
some situations fit the “peace-crisiswar-resolution” sequence, but not all.
He proposes a confrontation-conflict
model—”whilst peace is not necessarily
either the starting or the end point” and
goes on to say, “If a confrontation has
crossed over into a conflict, the military
is in the lead and it is up to the other
agencies to support it until the objective
is attained—but at the same time they
[other agencies] may continue working
to resolve the confrontation.” Smith
continues, “Whilst confrontations are
essentially of the political and conflicts
of the military, a confrontation is not
just a political act just as a conflict is not
merely a military activity.” Smith’s
framework changes the question concerning al Qaeda and its affiliates from
“How does this war end?” to “What
can be done to move from the realm of
conflict to that of confrontation?”
Applying Smith’s mode requires
two steps. First, push down the level of
violence al Qaeda is capable of doing
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within what is tolerable, what will not
impede normal civic and economic life,
and what can be handled by nonmilitary security forces. Second, while
pushing down the level of violence, set
in place the conditions for enforcement
and adjudication of the remaining violent behavior.
Our confrontation with al Qaeda and
its affiliates won’t end, but Smith suggests that it could become one of multiple confrontations that exist during
“peacetime.” Confrontations are part of
normal interstate discourse and of routine interactions between transnational
entities. They are guided by a set of formal treaties, agreements and conventions as well as informal norms and expectations. Sometimes these formal and
informal guides are enforced through a
variety of sanctions, other times by
courts and police work, and in still other
cases enforcement requires military
means—as, for example, when nations
deal with piracy.
U
nfortunately, reality currently frustrates using Smith’s suggestions.
While the United Nations has some 14
legal instruments that address a variety
of terrorist actions, scores of resolutions
and several potential venues for court
action, none of these is sufficiently rigorous or reliable. In their present form,
no government—certainly not the
United States as one of al Qaeda’s primary targets—could use them in any
practical way. The United Nations is
working on a draft comprehensive convention that criminalizes terrorism and
calls for prosecution and extradition of
perpetrators, but no such convention or
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consistent set of enforcement mechanisms actually exists.
Are we then left only with the war
model? Perhaps, but not necessarily.
Smith might argue that since enforcement in the international community is
often left to individual states or sets of
states, an opportunity exists. This opportunity is for a set of nations, as they
use military means in fighting al Qaeda
and its affiliates, to establish a convention and consistent enforcement mechanisms they will follow together in the
confrontation phase. Should the confrontation flare once again to conflict,
the nations could simply return to using military means.
This short—and admittedly incomplete—summary of war-ending models
does remind us how hard ending a war
really is. Ending the fighting is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Fred Iklé’s
Every War Must End says as much:
“Governments tend to lose sight of the
ending of wars and the nation’s interests that lie beyond it, precisely because
fighting a war is an effort of such vast
magnitude [but] it is the outcome of the
war, not the outcome of the campaigns
within it, that determines how well
their plans serve the nation’s interests.”
In addition, simply declaring a war is
over doesn’t serve America’s interests.
Recent events in Iraq clearly demonstrated that the simple declaration-andwithdrawal approach didn’t work. Our
nation’s interests are not served by an
Iraq that is overly influenced by Iran,
supporting Assad in Syria, and returning to pre-Surge sectarian violence levels, with resurging al Qaeda in Iraq and
Shia militias. Applying a declarative
model to ending the war will not produce any better results in Afghanistan
or against al Qaeda.
Regardless of which war-ending
model is employed, the enemy always
retains a “vote.” The only way one side
can end a war is by surrendering or
some de facto equivalent. Just as the
enemy’s decisions and actions play an
important role in the beginning and
conduct of a war, their statements, conclusions and actions play a vital role in
a war’s ending. Al Qaeda’s behavior
and that of its affiliates in no way indicate that they are ready for their fight
to end. In fact, an argument can be
made that they believe they have
forced us out of Iraq and are on the
verge of doing the same in Afghanistan. This makes applying the Clausewitz/Blainey/Kagan approach or the
declarative approach very problematic:
Neither is relative strength clearly established, nor are nonviolent means for
parties to achieve their aims provided.
The behavior of al Qaeda and its affiliates also suggests that more work is
necessary if Smith’s confrontation-conflict model is going to work.
The war against al Qaeda and its affiliates is not over. The war in Iraq was
not over when we withdrew, and the
war in Afghanistan will continue after
2014. Hollow victories are no more useful to the nation than hollow forces. ■
LTG James M. Dubik, USA Ret., is a former commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq and a senior fellow of AUSA’s Institute of Land
Warfare.